Posts for Nov 1st: Jihadist arrested in Sweden, girls killed by Al-Shabab, Packages' plot, Italian Muslims on niqab, Suharto "national hero"?, former Dutch Jihadist denounces Jihad, Abu Bakar Bashir update

1. Sweden: police arrest suspects in terrorist bomb threat: Although the police refused to give more details, because it's an ongoing investigation, "local media reports suggested that the target had likely been a large shopping mall in the centre of the city".
2. Somalia: Al-Shabab executes two girls, town horrified. The two accused "spies" died amid a fusillade of bullets from a firing squad organized by a hardline Islamist militia. The condemned pair were only girls, aged 15 and 18, and their grieving relatives say they were uneducated, usually stayed at home and could not have spied for anyone.
3. Yemen: suspect held in connection with packages' plot, released: It seems the responsible is a Saudi national. Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, who tops a Saudi Arabian terrorism list, is the brother of a suicide bomber killed in an attempt to kill Saudi counter-terrorism chief Prince Mohammed bin Nayef last year.
4. Italy: Muslims and niqab: "Italian women go around naked. Muslim women should be covered to be pure".
5. Indonesia: Dictator Suharto to be named "national hero"? In a move that has caused consternation to human rights activists and heated debate in the country’s media, the Indonesian government is now proposing that the former dictator be formally declared a “national hero”.
6. Netherlands: prominent Jihadist recants and renounces terrorism. Jason Walters, a member of Hofstadgroep, the group whose leader was Mohammed Bouyeri, Theo van Gogh's killer, has written a letter in which he denounces the Jihadist world. "The image that the world only exists of believers and infidels, in which the latter are motivated only to destroy the former, is a childish and coarse simplification of reality,” Walters said. “It ignores the complexity and many nuances of which reality is rich”. He called on Islamists “to put down their weapons and employ other, productive methods” in order to bring about reforms instead of blaming the United States and the West. Anyone having more information on this guy?
7. Indonesia: Preacher funded terrorism in Aceh province. Radical Islamist preacher Abu Bakar Bashir allegedly raised tens of thousands of dollars to set up a training camp for militants in Indonesia’s Aceh province, a court heard on Thursday.

Lastly, a funny video:

Posts for Oct 20th: Evo Morales, Iranian universities, Taliban in South Korea, Saudi schoolgirls, Bomb in Pakistan, Hector Aleem, Indonesian Churches Attacked, Egyptian fundamentalism, Islam & Catalonia, Gadaffi in Europe

Latest posts on T&P:

1. Iran: Bolivian President Evo Morales on trade visit to "boost trade ties". Morales, who arrived on Sunday night, is to discuss an earlier agreement on projects worth 1.1 billion dollars over the next five years, and another 287-million-dollar investment by Iran in Bolivia.
   Morales’ second visit to Iran in two years was scheduled to last three days, the news network Press TV reported.
2. Iran: Govt forbids Universities from offering "Western subjects".“Expansion of 12 disciplines in the social sciences like law, women’s studies, human rights, management, sociology, philosophy….psychology and political sciences will be reviewed,” said Abolfazl Hassani, from the education ministry. These sciences’ contents are based on Western culture. The review will be the intention of making them compatible with Islamic teachings.”
3. South Korea: Govt fears Taliban are gaining foothold in the country. A man who was arrested when entering the country, said, during an interrogation that he was there to bomb US bases. But the problem is that the man had been entering 17 times during 5 years with a fake passport! They ask some pertinent questions, like if North Korea helped him in any stage of his endeavours.
4. Saudi Arabia: Schoolgirls warned against wearing "tight clothes". "”The schoolgirl’s dress must be in line with Islamic tenets…it must not be transparent or sticking to the body in a way that will highlight her organs…there should not be any resemblance to the boy’s dress as our prophet (peace be upon him) had cursed men who imitate women and women who imitate men.”
5. Spain: Conference on "Islamic feminism". "There are currents within Islamic feminism. Moderate and radical, but they all flatly refused to talk about the veil, hijab-(and banning) because, they say, “is an excuse to distract from other substantive issues.” Some carry it always, some never, some “sometimes, because it is a symbol of submission,” argues Marie Laure. But most Muslims believe that Islamic feminism is “a threat” to their traditions and religion. Women as Masuma Assad (Union of Muslim Argentinian Women) for whom Islamic feminism “is aimed at the destruction of Islam to uphold the principles of secularism in Islamic societies".”
6. Pakistan: Bomb blast at Sufi shrine killls four. The actual death toll is 8. "Sufi worshippers, who follow a mystical strain of Islam, have increasingly been the target of bloody attacks by Islamist militants in Pakistan".
7. Hector Aleem's trial for blasphemy: Mullahs gather outside the court. Hector Aleem is being tried in Pakistan for blasphemy against Mohammed, Islam’s prophet. On October 21st and 25th, the days of the hearings, some Mullahs were assembled in the main entrance of the court at Rawalpindi to chant slogans calling for his death and against Christianity and to shout “Allah Akbar“. His family has made some videos from a mobile phone.
8. Indonesia: 700 churches attacked in past decade. "The violence also increases the indifference of the civil authorities and police, who shrug off the violence".
9. Egypt: Islamic fundamentalism rising, govt suspends 12 TV channels. They were promoting religious hatred, violence and quack medicine.
10. Spain: pro-independency Catalonian entity wants to show the "bonds that historically have existed between Islam and Catalonia". "Muslims should vote for pro-independency parties, as they rely on us to get votes. But what they do not know is that, when they let us vote, we’ll all vote for Islamic parties because we do not believe in left and right. This will make us win local councils and from there with the great powers of Catalan autonomy, Islam will begin to be implemented" (Abdelwahab Houzi, Salafist Imam, Lérida, Catalonia).
11. Europe should convert to Islam, Gadaffi says.MUAMMAR Gaddafi sparked a backlash yesterday after calling on Europeans to convert to Islam, and demanding billions of euros to stop migration leading to a “black Europe”.

Somalia: Schoolboy speaks about how Al-Shabab "cross amputated" him

More barbarity from Somalia: Somali schoolboy tells of how Islamists cut off his leg and hand:

“He has learned to button his shirt using only his left hand, to roll his sleeve with his teeth, to balance on his right foot in the shower. He cannot forgive, though he is desperate to forget. But at night his dreams betray him. 

This is how it happened, Abdulle told the Guardian. He was a prisoner in an insurgents’ house in Mogadishu, lying on his side, one hand chained to his ankles. He was 17, with fluff on his cheeks and unspeakable fear in his heart. Three other young men were with him – Jalylani, Ali, Abduqadir.

A guard, from the Islamist group al-Shabaab, which is trying to overthrow the Somali government, gripped his shoulder. ‘Ismael Khalif Abdulle, come with me.’

A convoy of rebel battlewagons cleared the way through the battered streets. Reaching Masalah, an old military barracks, he saw his mother through the car window and shouted to her. The guard slapped his face. ‘Today is not the day to call your mother,’ he said.

Ordered to witness the punishment of the “spies and bandits” or face lashes themselves, the entire neighbourhood had assembled. Also watching were some of the Shabaab’s top leaders – Sheikh Mukhtar Robow, the Somali-Swede Fuad Shangole, and Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki, the American who recruits and finances foreign fighters.

In the middle of the stony parade ground were about 20 militiamen in green fatigues. Their faces were masked. They were wearing surgical gloves. On the ground was a single plastic mattress.

Abdulle says he was made to lie down. His left hand was tied to his right ankle with a thick rope, leaving the other limbs free for what was to come. Rubber surgical tubing bit into his right biceps – a tourniquet. One rebel grabbed his hand, another his forearm. They pulled in opposite directions as a piece of plastic was laid over his wrist.

“Please make it quick,” he pleaded.

A heavily built man drew a large wooden-handled knife normally used to slaughter camels. The knife descended.

Though their horror was far from over, Abdulle and the three other young men “cross amputated” – a process of cutting off a hand and foot from opposite sides of the body – by the Shabaab on 26 June 2009, eventually escaped from their Islamist captors, and managed to cross to the government-controlled side of the city. Abdulle recently managed to flee Somalia, and reach a safehouse in Nairobi, Kenya, where he gave this interview.

His story offers a rare insight into how the Shabaab is using its extreme interpretation of Islam to establish order through fear – and to find recruits.

Abdulle was born in 1992, a year after the last effective government fell, and warlords took over the country. As far as it is possible to have a normal upbringing amid the anarchy, he did. Once Shabaab forces took full control of the Bakara market area where he lived, in early 2009, security immediately improved – but at a huge cost to personal and social freedoms.

Photo: Ismael Khalif Abdulle who was cross amputated by the Somali Islamist group al-Shabaab. Photograph Sven Torfinn for the Guardian.

Cross-posted from T&P.

Yemen: supporting the child bride laws

This is an update on this story:

Sheik Mohammed Hamzi, an official of the Islamist Yemeni opposition party Islaah and the imam of the Al-Rahman mosque in the Yemeni capital of Sana, is one of those who staunchly opposes a legal ban on child marriage.
Although he emphasizes that a woman should not get married before she is physically and mentally ready and that she herself needs to accept the marriage, he believes a law that prohibits child marriage constitutes a rights violation.  
“I am against the child marriage law because it restrains the freedom of others. When a certain age [for marriage] is set, it violates the rights of others. For example, imagine a young man of 13 or 14 years of age who wants to have sex. … This is a violation of his rights,” Sheik Hamzi told The Times in an interview at his Sana home last week.

The fact that girls are abused, raped (see Nojoud’s case - 1, 2, 3-) and even killed is not important. The important thing is that some kind of teenager with pimples could have his “rights” to having sex diminished. Let’s get this right: none of these girls are married to a 15 year-old boy. They are married to full-grown adults (even old guys) who want to have a very obedient girl at home.

Hazmi dismisses claims by rights groups that there is a problem with child marriages in his country. He said the child-bride cases that have been reported in the media were merely isolated incidents.
“Just ask my mother and sisters how many times they’ve found a little girl getting married at the marriages they’ve attended,"  he said. "Not many.”
The country's Ministry of Social Affairs, on the contrary, says child marriages are common in Yemen. According to a 2009 report by the ministry, a quarter of all females in Yemen marry before the age of 15. (Of course, this means that they are so few, doesn’t it).
To Hazmi, however,  women's- and children's-rights activists are putting a few isolated cases of  child marriage in the spotlight to rally support for the law.
"There is no problem here with child marriage," he said. "These cases of young girls getting married are exceptions. These organizations that are promoting for this law couldn’t find any examples except for those of Nujoud and Elham."  (NOTE.- Some days ago another 11-year-old girl was also hospitalised after suffering from genital injuries. If I, that have no ground or deep knowledge of the problem but just what I read, have found another case, which happened very few days ago, imagine someone who has access to the data base of the Interior Ministry. In fact, around 50% of Yemeni girls are married before 18).
Hazmi said the groups that are campaigning for the law were harmful to the country, trying to promote a "Western agenda" in Yemen.
“It’s all a Western agenda they are following," he said. "They get paid from the West to make us to believe in Western culture. This is very bad because our culture is different here."
The best that could happen, in his opinion, is that the government shuts them down.
“No one wants to marry these women's-rights activists anyway," he said. "They’re just depressed that they are not married and jealous.”

Oh, please, this is soooo old an argument. Every woman who wants basic rights is because is ugly and doesn’t have any gorgeous guy this one to marry. But it’s interesting that chauvinist male pigs always use the same type of reason to deny women’s rights. “There are no males to marry these women, that’s why we marry prepubescent girls, in fact 1 out of four”. Doesn’t it sound ridiculous?

Anyway, for me it’s worse to see women demonstrating against child brides ban, than seen this bearded lazy imam speaking against them.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Another Dead Child-Bride (kristof.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Brides of Death: Yemen Child Dies from Rupture of Sex Organs after Marriage (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)
• Dead Yemeni child bride tied up, raped, says mom (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• 13-year-old Yemeni bride dies of bleeding (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Bride, 11, Hospitalized with Genital Injuries (abcnews.go.com)

Cross-posted from T&P.

Teach your children well

From De Dagelijkse Standaard (NL) this delightful item: In the upcoming local elections (March 3) a party calling itself Islam Democrats will compete for city council seats in The Hague. Heading the list of candidates (NL) for ID The Hague is one Dilaver Delikaya.

This character of course has his own social network page. On Hyves as it happens. On his page he has placed some pictures of family life in the Delikaya household. Particularly striking is the picture of ‘Muhamed Gangsta’, reproduced on the right. But there are other, equally quaint pictures here and here.

How old are these little ones? Seven, eight maybe? And how did they come up with the idea of striking these particular poses for the camera of Mr. Delikaya? And what is the message that Delikaya is trying to convey with these pictures?

Why should we allow a character like Mr. Delikaya to foul the political scene in The Hague with his presence? And lastly: Why isn't Mrs. Els Lucas pressing charges for 'incitement to hatred and violence'?

Questions... question...

[UPDATE001] Unfortunately, the pictures were already removed by the time I saw the DDS item. Links to the pictures are from a mirror provided by DDS. MSM reporting by the Algemeen Dagblad here (NL).

[UPDATE002] More on this on the NewsReal.

(cross posted from Klein Verzet)

Afghanistan's child prisoners

There are 226 young children in Afghanistan's prisons, many of them born there. The mother of the young girl on the left, is serving seven years for adultry.



Photo courtesy of Captured a Denver Post News photo blog, where you'll find a lot of great pictures of our men in action.

There's no such thing as Voluntary Hijab!

Here is a great article I stumbled on, and I think warrants to appear in full.

There's no such thing as Voluntary Hijab!

By Soraya Shahabi

For all women, hijab (the veil) universally and unquestionably signifies subjugation and servitude. It is so everywhere and in every case. It is argued that there are some adult women in Europe who 'choose' to wear the hijab. This is a seemingly sound 'legal' argument. In real life, however, few veiled adult women ever get to taste any degree of freedom of choice in any respect of family, married and social life, be it in clothing, social life, behaviour, or even a simple thing like food. Few adult hijab-wearing women have not experienced the fear and terror of Islamic environments hanging over their lives. They are not citizens with freedom of choice but human beings fearful of jack knives, deprived of social rights, subjugated, and alienated by the atmosphere of terror existing in Islamic patriarchal environments. Under such conditions, speaking of 'volition' or 'free choice' in dress is a travesty of these concepts. Choosing the hijab as a mode of dress by adult women is no more 'voluntary' than, for instance, the 'choice' to stay in family relations that abound in terror and torture. In fact, in today's world, the concepts of volition and choice have clear, comprehensible meanings. They can hardly be interpreted arbitrarily. However, these clear concepts are easily made obscure when it comes to the rights of women living in Islamic environments due to concessions made to religion and racism towards those born into Islamic environments.

It is not hard to understand the reason why women living in Islamic environments surrender. In Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Somalia where honour killings are daily threats to women's lives, speaking of choice in dress is an offensive joke. In Islamic environments where even women's breathing is measured, there are some adult hijab-wearing women who stop attempting to bring about change. 'Choice', or, more precisely, surrender, can be understood by reviewing the deprived childhood and adolescence of these women. They have simply surrendered in order to 'survive'. We know surrendered human beings want dignity to survive. They need to make themselves and others believe that they have some control over some corner of their lives. They 'deceive' themselves in order to be able to cope with the limitations. 'Voluntary hijab' of adult women is supposed to provide a sense of control over something in their life, as well as give a little self-confidence.

In fact, the surrendered justify their captivity and slavery and portray it as logical and tolerable in order to gain some respect in their lives. It is here that some racists take snap shots of the 'high' status of these victims, share in the victims' self-deception, justify their servitude and theorize this justification through cultural relativism. They say that the hijab is the 'free choice' of these women. This choice is made as 'freely' as the choice made by a European woman to remain in an abusive relationship! Legally, this choice is as legitimate as the choice and freedom to remain in a sadistic relationship!

Child Hijab

The veiling of children is another matter all together. It is where discrimination and force are imposed on children. It is where society, the family, and adults attack children. The veiling of children must be declared illegal all over the world as a form of violence against children. Children do not have any type of 'voluntary' or 'compulsory' hijab. The deprivation of under-age girls from freedom of comfortable, prevalent, nice- looking clothing, despite any justification to the contrary, must be forbidden just as it is prohibited to cover their mouths, cuff their hands or blindfold their eyes. The former should be prohibited with the clarity of the latter. If one's conscience, public opinion or a 'contemporary' state categorically rejects the idea of allowing a group of young girls being paraded around one part of town with their eyes blindfolded, their hands cuffed, and their mouths duct-taped, then they should categorically not tolerate child veiling either. However, we have seen, and continue to see, that this is not the case. We have seen, and continue to see, how Western states like Sweden, Canada, Britain, and Germany have for years watched such parades without moving an eyelid. For such 'modern' states, the girls being paraded under the shroud of hijab, prior to being human beings and citizens, are 'immigrants', 'foreigners', 'outsiders'. They measure the rights of these 'immigrants', even if they are residents and citizens, with the yardsticks of nationality, religion, and ethnicity. Their rights are not covered by international conventions pertaining to human rights, women's rights, children's rights, elderly rights, criminals' rights and civil rights. Their basic rights are conditional to the religion, ethnicity, and traditions of their family and place of birth. And they call this sickening hypocrisy 'respect for all cultures'. Cultural relativism is thus a practical platform for discriminating against girls and women. It leaves the life, education, and health of girls at the mercy of religious families, religious schools, and the ethnocentric values of the father. They have no belief in the universality of the rights of children or human beings. They are racist!

The veil is not just another kind of clothing; opposing it is not just defending the right to freedom of clothing even though it is put forward as such. It is not something that a woman decides to put on for a change one day and to take it off the next. It is not a costume put on a young girl who is going to a costume party! Veiling young girls teaches them that they belong to an inferior sex and should be ashamed, and that they are sex objects and must limit their physical movements. By the same token, young boys are taught they belong to the 'superior' sex, and that girls are inferior and sex objects. An unbridgeable gap is thus created and institutionalized between the two sexes at the expense of young girls' deprivation and young boys' 'empowerment'. That is when the license for violence against women is issued. This marks the beginning of 'sexual apartheid', the official subjugation of women during childhood and the nipping in the bud their potentialities to enjoy a happy, creative life. It marks the beginning of the process of making two unequal sexes out of two born-equal ones. This is the beginning of human alienation. The goal is to produce two 'deformed' sexes, i.e. superior and inferior, master and slave, bread-winner and dependent, strong and weak. Much more than an item of clothing, the hijab is a decree of prohibition enforced on young girls; it is a series of laws, threats and tools designed to subjugate and enslave them.

Child hijab is an extreme form of violence against children: * Children are deprived of sports and movement. * Girls are transformed into sex objects from the age of nine. Their 'coming of age' is celebrated and they are virtually prepared for all sorts of sexual abuse. * They are robbed of their self-respect, self-esteem, ambitions, aspirations, and sexuality. * They begin to see boys as inherently 'dangerous', rapists and cruel. * They are deprived of the right to freely socialise with boys and are perceived by boys as sex objects, weak, ignorant, wrongdoers who must be put under men's guardianship. * They are denied music, dancing, and skipping around, of practically all sports, and of certain fields. * Their freedom of personal taste is denied and divided into sacred and profane.

In a nutshell, child veiling is a system of brainwashing girls and boys; it is a tool to marginalise half of society's children. It aims to alienate the two sexes. It must be eliminated. The Hijab and Honour Killings in the 'West'

Western governments have paid so much 'respect' to the violations of girls' and women's rights in Islamic environments in their countries, that their contemporary and progressive societies have become 'unsafe' and slaughterhouses for a large number of girls and caused alarm among people. We know that they would continue to portray their society as 'safe' were there not progressive activists from protest campaigns opposing these atrocities.

The honour killings of young girls are not accidental. They are the natural product of the imposition of the hijab over the lives of young girls and boys in Islamic environments. One cannot be outraged by honour killings and at the same time ignore the roots and cause of these atrocities. Every decent person who reads about the tragic lives of Fadime, Sarah, Pela, and tens of other young girls will undoubtedly search for the cause. Islamic violence occurring in the centre of the 'civilised' West is no accident. These atrocities are not the result of desperation, poverty or addiction. These murders are official Islamic sentences for 'disobedient' women. If a father, brother and husband do not kill their 'wanton' daughter, wife, and sister, they will be stripped of their 'honour'. These are what they put in the heads of young innocent girls in Islamic schools and with the veil.

There is only one way to stop these atrocities. By giving them real protection, the killing of children and young girls in Islamic environments can be opposed. It is only by rescuing their lives, freedom, and education from the influences of Islamic environments that these tragedies can be efficiently prevented. This protection should undoubtedly begin with prohibiting child veiling. Children's rights as human rights are universal and must be applied to Islamic environments as well.

It is five years now that the communists from Iran and Iraq have been saying that something must be done! Children and girls in Islamic environments must be helped. They must be able to enjoy the same rights as other children and women. We have said that the veiling of children and under-age girls must be prohibited. Religious schools, which are the centres for teaching inequality between sexes, misogyny, discrimination, violence, and so on, must be closed. Mansoor Hekmat wrote extensively about the prohibition of child veiling five years ago (Islam, Children's Rights and Hejab-gate, June 1997). If it is not right to deprive 'Mike' and 'Helen' from a life in which the two sexes freely mingle and socialise, and if it is not right to send them to religious schools, then it is not right to do so with 'Mohammad' and 'Nahid' who are born in an Islamic environment! If it is wrong to cover 'Rosa' or 'Julia' from head to toe in a shroud-like, dark piece of cloth called the hijab, then it is equally wrong to do so with 'Shahin' or 'Maliha'. If it is prohibited to teach children violence, inequality, and patriarchal ideas in schools, then Islamic schools must be eliminated. Understanding these objective truths about the equality of human beings irrespective of sex, race, religion and nationality in the 'centre of civilisation' is being reached at the expense of the rights tens of girls in Britain, Sweden, Germany, Denmark and Canada.

'Immigrant' children and young girls are daily struggling for their rights as equal citizens. These rights, including the right to the freedom of clothing and socialising with members of the opposite sex, must be taken for granted like the right to breathing is. These rights cannot be taken away from a Swedish, German or British girl; it must be made impossible to do so in the case of those born children and girls born into Islamic environments.