Posts for Nov 3rd: Iranians in Isle of Man, Imam condemned in Spain, Sakineh update, Malaysian blogger Kamaruddin, Iraqi massacre update, Women and the Taliban, Algeria ambush, Obama adviser on "anti-Muslim sentiment"

1. Investigation: Why did Iran register ships in the Isle of Man? File on 4 investigation has discovered questions over whether the Iranians have already sidestepped the international arms embargo, on the UK’s own doorstep by setting up companies in the Isle of Man to register ships for its fleet.
2. Spain: Cunit's imam, Benbraim Mhamed, sentenced to a year in prison for coercing a woman to wear the Hijab:The president of Cunit’s Islamic cultural association, Abderrahman el Osri, was convicted of the same crime and sentenced to nine months in prison and the imam’s daughter, Hafssa Ben Brahim, to pay a fine of 730 euros. They may not approach the victim or communicate with her for two years and must pay 1,500 euros in moral damages. If it would have been me, I would have expelled them all. They have given sufficient evidence (with death threats and intimidation to her family) that they are not succesfully integrated in Spanish society.
3. Apparently Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was going to be executed today, but in the end she has not. But her family is also fearing for the lifes of both his son and lawyer, both arrested with two German journalists when they were trying to speak about her. When attempting to secure lawyers for the two, authorities have said that the two men did not need legal representation.
4. Malaysia: exiled Muslim blogger accused of "insulting Islam" is free to return. He has refused: “This order has lapsed but it does not stop the authorities from seeking my client’s detention on other grounds should he return,” said lawyer Jadadish Chandra. He lives in the UK now.
5. Iraq: Pope sends mesage to Syriac Archbishop of Baghdad. Meanwhile, the Vatican envoy to the UN, Archbishop Chullikatt, said that although the Holy See favors efforts to protect religion from “hate speech and incitement to violence,” his delegation was uneasy with the approach that targets “defamation of religion.” In practice, he said, measures promoted to stop “defamation of religion” have actually “served as a means for State-sponsored oppression of religious believers.” Let's see if someone really begins protesting about the abominable UN Resolution on the Defamation of Religions.
6. Afghanistan: negotiating with Taliban will crush women. "The evidence that girls will be able to go to school under the Taliban is slim. While girls might go to schools in some areas, in my experience, this is highly exceptional and by no means a uniform practice. The Taliban have been quite consistent in their beliefs that girls should not be educated and women who work outside the home deserve to die, a belief enacted in the Taliban’s murder of numerous female politicians, elections workers, policewomen and other prominent professional women. They are hardly interested in the protection or welfare of children given they regularly use children as suicide bombers and spotters and have hung boys they accuse of “spying for the Americans“".
7. Algeria: Islamic terrorists ambush soldiers: 2 killed, 3 wounded: On Oct 3rd, another 5 soldiers were killed on the same spot, a stronghold of AQIM.
8. US: Obama adviser decries "anti-Muslim sentiments".Hussain said he’s concerned about the increasing vitriol directed at Muslims, which he said may be due to their increasing visibility in the U.S. It’s a “reaction to a lot of progress made by Muslim communities,” he said.

Lastly, from Townhall.com:

Gaza: Christians issue a call for protection amid burned Bibles and violence

Father Manuel Musallem, head of Gaza's Latin church, told the AP that Muslims have ransacked, burned and looted a school and convent that are part of the Gaza Strip's small Romany Catholic community. He told the AP that crosses were broken, damage was done to a statue of Jesus (*), and at the Rosary Sister School and nearby convent, prayer books were burned.

Gunmen used the roof of the school during the fighting, and the convent was "desecrated," Mussalem told the AP.

"Nothing happens by mistake these days," he said. 

Father Musalam additionally told The Jerusalem Post that the Muslim gunmen used rocket-propeled grenades (RPGs) to blow through the doors of the church and school, before burning Bibles and destroying every cross they could get their hands on.

Well, I haven't seen anyone condemning this actual violence like everyone -it seems- (including the Catholic Church, more here) has condemned the announcement of the "Day of Koran burning" (or whatever), have you? From my point of view, the "Day of the Koran burning" is nothing more than a way for Rev. Jones to have some publicity,. The Koran has passages which are most regrettable but burning the book is not going to make them dissappear. If he wants to be effective in these grounds, he should study it and denounce those regrettable parts.

But that doesn't make the double-standards of most journalists and most politicians vanish. On the contrary, they appear much more real. It looks like a book (whatever its contents) is more important than a human being. And that someone threatening to burn a book is much more dangerous that someone who is actually using violent methods (with rocket-propeled grenades included).

(*) Note their deep respect for other people's faith but specially for Jesus, who Muslims say, is also a prophet of Islam. What would happen if in Europe some guys would enter a mosque and burn some Korans?

Cross-posted from T&P.

Philippines: Bishop fears for Christians' lifes after Basilan's attacks

Image via Wikipedia

This is an update on this story:

Following an April 13 Islamist terrorist attack that destroyed 70% of his cathedral, a Philippine bishop says that he and the other Christians of the city fear for their lives.
“It is the first time we are attacked so directly and with such force,” said Bishop Martin Jumoad of the Territorial Prelature of Isabella. “In the past, I received several threatening letters and intimidation. There have been other smaller attacks, but now it is very different. This could be a tragedy. I seriously fear for my life and the lives of the faithful.”
“I have prepared a pastoral letter calling on Catholics to stay in Basilan, which is our home, and asking them to remain calm, not to react to violence, and to pray for peace,” he added. “Today, a procession of people carrying candles as a sign of peace lit the city. Our hope must not die.”
81% of the Philippines’ 88.7 million people are Catholic. However, the territory in which Bishop Jumoad ministers is predominantly Muslim, with only 27% of residents being Catholic.

CNA has more on the Bishop's statements:

Sta. Isabel Cathedral via.

The 53-year-old prelate said he does not know how to rebuild the cathedral (left), constructed in 1970 with a capacity for 1,400 worshipers.
...The blasts shattered the cathedral’s stained glass windows and damaged the priests’ rectory. Several priests’ service vehicles were also destroyed.
Regional military chief Lieutenant General Ben Dolorfino said military intelligence had received reports of an impending attack, but not its details, AFP says.
"They were planning something big. This was well planned and apparently they were well funded."
Authorities suspect that politicians who hired mercenaries may have been behind the attacks. 

LWJ reports on other aspects of the attacks:

Five civilians, five Philippine Marines, a policeman, and four Abu Sayyaf Group fighters were reported killed in the ensuing clashes, and five Abu Sayyaf fighters were captured. Police and Philippine troops are currently pursuing the remaining Abu Sayyaf fighters.
Today’s attacks in Isabela are reminiscent of recent terror assaults by the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and other al Qaeda-associated groups in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, and Yemen.

Archbishop Jumoad (right) issued last year an statement in which he rejected any talks with Abu Sayyaf:

He said the government must unleash more troops with a mission to finish off the militant group in the southern provinces of Basilan and Sulu. “They don’t have ideology. They are plain terrorist and I think there should be no dialogue with them,” Bishop Jumoad said over Church-run Radyo Veritas Friday.
“I am a bishop saying but I'm saying things like this because I know when it comes to terrorists, there are no negotiations,” he said.

A reasonable cause to attack his Cathedral, isn't it?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Nine killed by Philippines rebels (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Get Basilan attackers (mb.com) 

Cross-posted from T&P.

About Brainwashing and Conveniently Sticking Libel

At a time where Christians are killed by Muslims, copiously in the Third World and, yet and just, separately elsewhere and both without much interest from public and media, where the world got its collective knickers in a knot that the pope is Catholic, the following from the information site "Katholisches – Magazin für Kirche und Kultur" is of particular importance. "Katholisches" (which means something like "Catholic matters") introduces a book "Toleranz und Gewalt ("Tolerance and Violence") and forwards some details about the dreaded Inquisition, evil incarnate and second only to the 20th century Holocaust of the Jews (if that), in a historical context: Informationen und Zahlen über die Heilige Inquisition aus dem Buch "Toleranz und Gewalt".

According to that book, the Spanish Inquisition has, within the 160 years between 1540 and 1700, passed 44,674 sentences. Of those sentenced, 826 were executed. The book compares this to the Spanish Civil war, where Communists murdered within a time span of six years more than 7,000 priests and monastics. The Roman Inquisition had, between 1542 and 1761, exactly 97 people executed. Another example: Secular jurisdiction executed within the same time span 939 people in the city of Nürnberg alone.

Burning of witches was almost unknown and strictly rejected by the popes. In the 17th century, when all over the Protestant regions north of the Alps the stakes were burning (there is an estimation of 25,000 victims), not a single witch trial was performed. In Spain, about 300 "witches" were burnt at the stakes, in strongly Catholic Ireland 2.

The frequently traded number of 9 million victims can, interestingly, be traced back to Heinrich Himmler, the second most powerful man in the "Third Reich", who intended to fuel thus anti-Catholic resentments. In fact, even his "research team" couldn't fabricate more than 30,000 victims.

Geneva, home of Calvin, was infamous for its witch trials as well.

The article ends with a quote by Martin Luther, including a litany of supernatural evil powers witches possess and the calling to kill them.

Now my intention is not to offend all those brave Protestant Christians, my intention is to deflate official, open or implicit, Protestant smugness. A smugness, that suggests that the followers of that denomination are somehow in possession of a more advanced truth and that Catholics have to bear the brunt (better: make that "all") of Christian misdoings, real or perceived, in the past. If anything, the above ought to make clear that Luther's motives for breaking away from the Catholic Church did certainly not include the defence of freedom of individual thought of which only too many Protestants are only too proud.

At a time where a pope who dares to do away with revisionist history by suggesting that it is perhaps not necessary to "apologise" for the crusades, is branded a reactionary instead of being hailed as a truth seeker, such information is important.

At a time where a pope, who lifts the excommunication of a priest who happens to be a Holocaust denier, is branded a Holocaust denier, such information is important.

At a time where a pope who represents all Catholics worldwide, including the many victims of Nazi barbarism, doesn't, really or perceived, grovel to an extent that is expected of him -- a German -- during a visit to Israel, such information is important.

In a century, where another pope was denounced as a supporter of the Holocaust, Nazi-accomplice and antisemite by a KGB-agent, a libel that was enthusiastically taken up by the masses and their media, in a century where evidence that reveals all that is doggedly ingnored by the same masses and the same media, such information is important.

And finally: Why, I am asking myself (somebody whose egalitarian instincts are not all that pronounced), is nobody, at a time where egalitarianism is the only accepted world view, praising the Catholic church as the only powerful institution in the world on the strength of its radical egalitarianism. Where else would the son of a piss-poor policeman from the deepest Bavarian backwaters called Ratzinger be allowed to walk in the shoes of Colonnas, Medicis, Borgheses, Orsinis, Odescalchis and Pignatellis? But it isn't really about what the Catholic church actually IS, or is it? Apart from matters of family -- and thus GOD -- the Catholic church is egalitarian and leftist, and as long as they won't give up those core matters, give up itself, it will be hated by the world and any (but ANY!) libel will stick.

Cross-posted at Roncesvalles.

Jewish-Catholic Hermeneutics

A papal visit to Israel would be a mistake, was my first thought when it was announced. But then, the pope is first and foremost head of the Catholic Church and not a former Hitler youth. If it only were that easy! Now he is there and everything goes as expected. Benedict's remarks did not go far enough, there was no apology expressed, something was missing, there had been no mention of the Germans or the Nazis and he uttered not a word of regret. He didn't mention the number six, he used the word "killed" instead of "murdered" and as he had chosen to speak English, not the perpetrator's language, even his German accent was worth a comment. SO bad the son of a piss-poor village policemen didn't learn his English at Eton, Harrow or at least Ampleforth.

And as if that hadn't been enough, yesterday, at an "interfaith meeting" at the Notre Dame church in Jerusalem, a Palestinian cleric/judge/activist grabbed the microphone to deliver a hate-filled barrage against Israel. After hearing the translation of the -- Arabic -- words, the pope walked out. Muslims state that Benedict failed to adequately apologize for using a quote offensive to Islam in his 2006 Regensburg speech and it seems that the pope has a lot of apologizing to do.

Maybe it is inevitable that Benedict XVI is seen as German first and neither as one of the greatest theologians of our time nor as the representative of the global Catholic Church who has to understand, and deal with, the interests of all Catholics everywhere. He can not and must not speak first and foremost from a standpont of German guilt. He is speaking, too, for Catholics who have been victims of the Nazis. As the Polish pope with his koran-kissing and shameless shoulder rubbing with Muslim interests was seen as a friend of the Jews because his and the Jewish people were both targets of German eliminatory goals, Benedict is seen as German and German only. People love simple solutions.

---

There is an interesting discussion here (in German), from which I have paraphrased.

More on Pope Benedict for example here, here and here.

Cross posted at Roncesvalles.

The seven Islamists imprisoned at A Lama prison accused of March 11th bombings ask for help to the prison Catholic chaplain

The islamists who are imprisoned in the Galician prison of A Lama after being condemned because of the March 11th bombings, which killed 191 and hurt 1824 people, have asked the Catholic Church for help.

The seven imprisoned -sentenced from 12 to 23 years in jail- have interviewed themselves with the prison's chaplain to try to reach their goals. Their target is to make the priest intercede in their behalf to benefit from pensions, company and ill people's attention which can only be reached by the Penitentiary Catholic Service, whose boss is the priest. Volunteers of the Catholic Pastoral Service have confirmed the contacts.

(...) The Islamists' strategy to resort to the Catholic priests to improve their situation in prison, is not only used in A Lama. They already stated in their conversation with the priest that in the prisons they were before that moment, they had the assistance of Catholic priests. They were interested in the possibility that the priest interceded for them to get benefits through the Penitentiary Pastoral to have the opportunity of receiving personal mail.
In Spain the packages for the inmates, even if they are duly inspected, before reaching them, cannot be sent by mail and should be given by hand. A job which is done generously by the team of laic volunteers to whom it's solicited for not having any relatives or because they live far away.

(...) Even if the risk exists of recurring to one of their main enemies, the Catholic Church, to clean their image, the help petitions to Penitentiary Pastoral are something very regular among the elevated number of Muslim inmates (around 200, nearly 80% of all the foreign inmates in A Lama).