A significant news story this evening: after a year, the murder of those teenage girls in Texas has officially been termed an “honor killing” by the FBI. Needless to say, the Muslim lobby is not happy about this.Also, a Swiss government minister says her country needs to import more foreign workers.
Thanks to Abu Elvis, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, MCO, Steen, TB, turn, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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First Time FBI Calls Case an ‘Honor Killing’
Almost a year after two teenage girls were found dead — allegedly executed by their father — in the back seat of a taxicab in Texas, the FBI is saying for the first time that the case may have been an “honor killing.”
Sarah Said, 17, and her sister Amina, 18, were killed on New Year’s Day, but for nine months authorities deflected questions about whether their father — the prime suspect and the subject of a nationwide manhunt — may have targeted them because of a perceived slight upon his honor.
The girls’ great-aunt, Gail Gartrell, says the girls’ Egyptian-born father killed them both because he felt they disgraced the family by dating non-Muslims and acting too Western, and she called the girls’ murders an honor killing from the start.
But the FBI held off on calling it an honor killing until just recently, when it made Yaser Abdel Said the “featured fugitive” on its Web site.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell everybody all along,” Gartrell told FOXNews.com. “I would say that’s a victory.”
But some Muslims say that calling the case an honor killing goes too far.
Amina and Sarah Said “As far as we’re concerned, until the motive is proven in a court of law, this is [just] a homicide,” Mustafaa Carroll, the executive director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations in Dallas, told FOXNews.com.
He said he worries that terms like “honor killing” may stigmatize the Islamic community. “We (Muslims) don’t have the market on jealous husbands … or domestic violence,” Carroll said…
| — Hat tip: MCO | [Return to headlines] |
Illegal Immigrant Suspected of Attacking Pregnant Woman
MURFREESBORO — An illegal immigrant was arrested Sunday morning at Holiday Inn Express after she attacked a pregnant woman who she believed was having an affair with her husband, Murfreesboro Police reported.
Authorities arrested Patricia Cortez and charged her with the aggravated assault of Miriam Madina-Moreno, who was believed to be two months pregnant, just after 10 a.m., according to reporting officer Brandon Brown.
According to his report, Cortez cut the pregnant woman with scissors and kicked her repeatedly in the stomach after she found out the woman was having an affair with her husband.
Madina-Moreno, 21, who is a legal resident of Murfreesboro, was transported to Middle Tennessee Medical Center immediately following the attack.
Cortez was booked into the Rutherford County jail, where booking officers later discovered she was not a legal resident of the United States. Immigration was notified, according to the report, and a hold was placed on Cortez…
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Obama Funded Extremist Afrocentrists Who Shared Rev. Wright’s Anti-Americanism
By Stanley Kurtz
It looks like Jeremiah Wright was just the tip of the iceberg. Not only did Barack Obama savor Wright’s sermons, Obama gave legitimacy — and a whole lot of money — to education programs built around the same extremist anti-American ideology preached by Reverend Wright. And guess what? Bill Ayers is still palling around with the same bitterly anti-American Afrocentric ideologues that he and Obama were promoting a decade ago. All this is revealed by a bit of digging, combined with a careful study of documents from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the education foundation Obama and Ayers jointly led in the late 1990s.
John McCain, take note. Obama’s tie to Wright is no longer a purely personal question (if it ever was one) about one man’s choice of his pastor. The fact that Obama funded extremist Afrocentrists who shared Wright’s anti-Americanism means that this is now a matter of public policy, and therefore an entirely legitimate issue in this campaign.
African Village
In the winter of 1996, the Coalition for Improved Education in [Chicago’s] South Shore (CIESS) announced that it had received a $200,000 grant from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. That made CIESS an “external partner,” i.e. a community organization linked to a network of schools within the Chicago public system. This network, named the “South Shore African Village Collaborative” was thoroughly “Afrocentric” in orientation. CIESS’s job was to use a combination of teacher-training, curriculum advice, and community involvement to improve academic performance in the schools it worked with. CIESS would continue to receive large Annenberg grants throughout the 1990s.
The South Shore African Village Collaborative (SSAVC) was very much a part of the Afrocentric “rites of passage movement,” a fringe education crusade of the 1990s. SSAVC schools featured “African-Centered” curricula built around “rites of passage” ceremonies inspired by the puberty rites found in many African societies. In and of themselves, these ceremonies were harmless. Yet the philosophy that accompanied them was not. On the contrary, it was a carbon-copy of Jeremiah Wright’s worldview.
Rites of Passage
To learn what the rites of passage movement was all about, we can turn to a sympathetic 1992 study published in the Journal of Negro Education by Nsenga Warfield-Coppock. In that article, Warfield-Coppock bemoans the fact that public education in the United States is shaped by “capitalism, competitiveness, racism, sexism and oppression.” According to Warfield-Coppock, these American values “have confused African American people and oriented them toward American definitions of achievement and success and away from traditional African values.” American socialization has “proven to be dysfuntional and genocidal to the African American community,” Warfield-Coppock tells us. The answer is the adolescent rites of passage movement, designed “to provide African American youth with the cultural information and values they would need to counter the potentially detrimental effects of a Eurocentrically oriented society.”
The adolescent rites of passage movement that flowered in the 1990s grew out of the “cultural nationalist” or “Pan-African” thinking popular in radical black circles of the 1960s and 1970s. The attempt to create a virtually separate and intensely anti-American black social world began to take hold in the mid-1980s in small private schools, which carefully guarded the contents of their controversial curricula. Gradually, through external partners like CIESS, the movement spread to a few public schools. Supporters view these programs as “a social and cultural ‘inoculation’ process that facilitates healthy, African-centered development among African American youth and protects them against the ravages of a racist, sexist, capitalist, and oppressive society.”
We know that SSAVC was part of this movement, not only because their Annenberg proposals were filled with Afrocentric themes and references to “rites of passage,” but also because SSAVC’s faculty set up its African-centered curriculum in consultation with some of the most prominent leaders of the “rites of passage movement.” For example, a CIESS teacher conference sponsored a presentation on African-centered curricula by Jacob Carruthers, a particularly controversial Afrocentrist.
| — Hat tip: turn | [Return to headlines] |
Spreading the Virus
By Stanley Kurtz
TO discover the roots of to day’s economic crisis, consider a tale from 1995.
That March, House Speaker Newt Gingrich was scheduled to address a meeting of county commissioners at the Washington Hilton. But, first, some 500 protesters from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) poured into the ballroom from both the kitchen and the main entrance.
Hotel staffers who tried to block them were quickly overwhelmed by demonstrators chanting, “Nuke Newt!” and “We want Newt!” Jamming the aisles, carrying bullhorns and taunting the assembled county commissioners, demonstrators swiftly took over the head table and commandeered the microphone, sending two members of Congress scurrying.
The demonstrators’ target, Gingrich, hadn’t yet arrived — and his speech was cancelled. When the cancellation was announced, ACORN’s foot soldiers cheered.
Editorial writers from Little Rock to Buffalo condemned ACORN’s action as an affront to both civility and freedom of speech. Editorialists also pointed out that the “spending cuts” the protesters railed against were imaginary — Gingrich proposed merely to slow the growth in some welfare programs and turn control back to the states.
Yet ACORN had only just begun. Two days later, 50 to 100 of the same protesters hit their main target — a House Banking subcommittee considering changes to the Community Reinvestment Act, a law that allows groups like ACORN to force banks into making high-risk loans to low-credit customers.
The CRA’s ostensible purpose is to prevent banks from discriminating against minorities. But Rep. Marge Roukema (R-NJ), who chaired the subcommittee, was worried that charges of discrimination had become an excuse for lowering credit standards. She warned that new, Democrat-proposed CRA regulations could amount to an illegal quota system.
FOR years, ACORN had combined manipulation of the CRA with intimidation-protest tactics to force banks to lower credit standards. Its crusade, with help from Democrats in Congress, to push these high-risk “subprime” loans on banks is at the root of today’s economic meltdown…
| — Hat tip: turn | [Return to headlines] |
35% of Annual New HIV Infections in Spain Occur Among Immigrants, Researcher Says at Conference
Thirty-five percent of the 2,000 to 2,500 new HIV infections in Spain last year occurred among immigrants, Daniel Zulaika, president of the AIDS Interdisciplinary Society of Spain, said Wednesday at the XI National Congress on AIDS in Cordoba, Spain’s El Pais reports. A focus of the conference, which will continue through Friday, is the increasing number of HIV/AIDS cases among the country’s immigrant population (El Pais, 10/9).
According to Zulaika, the percentage of new HIV/AIDS infections among immigrants — who make up 10% of Spain’s 45 million inhabitants — is much higher than it was in 2002 when immigrants accounted for 5% of new HIV/AIDS infections. The group is vulnerable to the disease because they often have low incomes and come from different cultures, which create barriers to obtaining medical care, Zulaika said.
In terms of transmission modes, Zulaika said that there is no difference between how immigrants and Spaniards contract HIV, adding that the increase in new cases among immigrants paralleled the growth in the country’s foreign-born population. According to Zulaika, 50% of new HIV/AIDS cases in 2007 were transmitted through heterosexual relations, while 25% were transmitted through male-to-male sexual relations and 12% were the result of injection drug use…
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Britain: European Watchdog Praises Vote Against 42-Day Terror Detention
Strasbourg, 14 Oct. (AKI) — Europe’s top human-rights watchdog, The Council of Europe, called ‘sensible’, Britain’s decision to drop a proposal to detain terrorism suspects for up to 42 days without charge.
The rights group, headed by Secretary General Terry Davis, said the proposal’s rejection on Monday by the House of Lords — Britain’s Upper House of Parliament — would allow the British authorities to fight terrorism without undermining the freedoms protected by the European Convention on Human Rights.
“Any successful anti-terrorist policy must include mechanisms for close international cooperation,” said Davis in a media release on Tuesday.
Britain’s House of Lords rejected the plan by 309-118 votes on Monday, after which the government said it would remove the clause from its anti-terrorism bill.
However, Davis also reminded the British government that it has not signed two anti-terrorism conventions that deal with incitement to terrorism and funding for terrorism.
“These are two vital areas of the campaign to stop terrorists before they are in position to do any actual harm. We have been waiting for more than three years for the UK to ratify these Conventions, and I urge the Government to ratify them without any further delay,” concluded Davis.
In the past few days, dozens of top British writers protested against the move to detain terror suspects for 42 days with out trial by publishing a collection of satirical essays and poetry. Human rights group Liberty, coordinated the effort.
The counter-terrorism measure is one of many since the London terror bombings killed 56 people and injured many hundreds in July 2005.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Religion: Catholic Spain Repository for Evangelicals
by Paola Del Vecchio
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, OCTOBER 13 — Spain, the ancient spiritual reserve of the Catholic church in the west is a repository for the faithful of the Protestant doctrine, according to data supplied by the Federation on Religious Evangelical Bodies of Spain (Ferede), quoted today in El Pais. A century ago there were only 4,000 Protestants on the Iberian peninsula; the number reached 22,000 during the Republican era, in 1932; it fell to 7,000 during the Franco regime and is now at 400,000. There are 800,000 other communities in addition to the Spanish, according to Ferede, and an unidentified number of immigrants, totalling more than one and a half million people living in Spain. According to the General Directorship for coordination and promotion of religious freedom in the Justice Ministry, the number of Evangelicals resident in Spain is around 1.3 million. What is the reason for this increase? According to José Pisa, a young pastor from Seville, grandson of the first Evangelical pastor in Spain, the main cause is democracy: “Under Franco it was difficult. With freedom of expression and religion we have managed to grow and improve”. Another reason, according to Manuela Cantone, a lecturer in anthropology at the University of Seville, who has been studying the Evangelical movement in Spain and Latin America for twenty years, is “Catholicism is very much behind the evangelical church, which is much more flexible. It is more participatory and has smaller centres which help with friendships and mutual help amongst believers”. The expert says that the social structure of the Evangelicals has also changed, who initially belonged to the upper, educated classes, and today are now spread more amongst the middle classes and in many cases the marginalised sectors of society. The ever-more intense presence of Evangelical priests in poor areas of Spanish cities is a sign of this change. “The Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Philadelphia Evangelists go out to win people over” explained Catholic priest Gabriel Delgado Jimenez, director of the Secretariat for Migrants in the Archdiocese of Cadiz “We do not have this strategy of hunting for the faithful. We are more present and concerned with the ground”. In total, gypsies represent around 10% of the faithful. For the Federation of Christian Associations in Andalusia, gypsy Evangelicals have developed several social programmes, like the recovery programmes for drug addicts. “Many gypsy families become religious just to escape drugs” says Canton. According to the Register of Religious bodies at the Ministry for Justice, a total of 1,437 Evangelist churches were registered last June. Federe registered 2,600 centres of worship, more than 500 of them independent. Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and some cities in Andalusa count a large number of faithful. In 1992 the State signed cooperation agreements with three religions with well-known social roots: Evangelical, Muslim and Jewish. The state pays for the teaching of these religions in official centres: Protestantism is taught in 130 schools, and Islam in 41. The Foundation for Pluralism and Living together, a body set up by the Ministry of Justice in 2005, distributed 14 million euro in 3 years between the three religions. The help received by the Evangelicals up to last May reached more than 6,149,886 euro; 5,887,925 were received by Muslim religious bodies; 2,130,873 by Jewish ones. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Crisis, Public Bodies Ready to Build 625,000 Houses
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, OCTOBER 10 — In order to reactivate the Spanish economy, which has been hit by the worldwide financial crisis and by the real estate sector crisis, the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) has proposed a public housing scheme to build 225,000 houses on land belonging to councils and autonomous communities, to which another 400,000 could be added by 2012. In a report delivered by the FEMP to the home minister, reported by the media today, the body assured that councils and regions have available land, with enough building licences to build 150,000 and 75,000 social houses immediately, to cope with a total demand of more than 700,000 families. Another 400,000 social houses, according to the report, may be built between 2009 and 2012 on land earmarked for this purpose by urban plans. FEMP is convinced that the new boost to construction would help to cover the existing demand, reactivate the economy and create jobs. However, many economic analysts think that, to become competitive and sustainable, the Spanish economy should abandon its property growth model, followed since the nineties, which culminated in July last year with the bursting of the property ‘bubble’. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Travolta Film Victim of Violence in French Project
Officials said that a John Travolta movie has suspended filming in one of the Paris area’s toughest housing projects after 10 cars to be used in the movie were burned.
Filming of the action movie “From Paris With Love” was supposed to start this week but local officials and the production company say it was put on hold because the cars were burned by unknown suspects early Monday.
Cars are regularly burned in French housing projects, most famously during rioting that raged for three weeks in 2005 in poor neighborhoods across the country.
The mayor’s office of Montfermeil, where the housing project is located, says 90 residents were to serve as extras. The Europacorp production company says only that filming of the housing project scenes is suspended pending a review.
| — Hat tip: Abu Elvis | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo: Resisting the United Nations
There is no love for the United Nations in Kosovo.
Kosovo is the fourth country I’ve visited where the UN has or has had a key role, and in only one of them — Lebanon — is the UN not despised by just about everyone. In Lebanon the UN has so little power to make a difference one way or the other that any anger at the institution would largely be pointless. In Bosnia, though, UN “peacekeepers” stood by impotently while genocide and ethnic-cleansing campaigns were carried out right in front of them. The UN’s Oil for Food program was thoroughly corrupted by Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq at the expense of just about everybody who lives there. Kosovo, meanwhile, declared independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008, but the elected government is still subordinate to the almost universally despised UN bureaucrats who are the real power. Many Kosovars insist the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is actually a dictatorship.
Vetevendosje — “self-determination” in Albanian — was formed as a non-violent civil resistance movement against UN rule in a country that is supposed to be sovereign. Recently the European Union, which announced its own mission in Kosovo without being invited, was added to the list of opponents, but the UN remains the primary target. I attended one of Vetevendosje’s rallies as an observer which began as a long march through the streets of Kosovo’s capital Prishtina and ended at the United Nations headquarters where activists dumped a truckload of garbage inside the gate and hosed down the walls of the compound with sewage.
I spoke to Vetevendosje leader Albin Kurti and activist Alex Channer in their office the day before the rally in Prishtina’s bohemian Pejton neighborhood.
“So basically you are opposing the UN rule here, and the EU,” I said.
“Yes,” Kurti said, “because they are going to be installed here from above without having the previous consent of the people.”…
| — Hat tip: Abu Elvis | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands, Saudi Arabia in Tax Treaty
THE HAGUE, 14/10/08 — The Netherlands and Saudi Arabia concluded a tax treaty in Riyadh yesterday. The treaty is intended to ensure that companies doing business in both countries do not face double taxation by tax services.
The Netherlands has traditionally had an open economy and tries to conclude tax treaties with all countries within it maintains economic relations, according to Economic Affairs Minister Maria van der Hoeven. She signed the treaty yesterday in Riyadh. Earlier, Saudi Arabia signed a tax treaty with France. Other European countries have not however done so.
The tax treaty is intended to give a new impetus to doing business with Saudi Arabia. The county is the world’s biggest oil exporter, but does not want to be solely dependent economically on the ‘black gold’, according to Van der Hoeven.
The minister is in Saudi Arabia and Qatar through Thursday to strengthen economic and political ties. “Both countries are important for the import of oil and gas now and in the future, and therefore also for the security of supplies of fossil fuels in the Netherlands and Europe,” said Van der Hoeven, who is accompanied on the trip by 40 Dutch companies.
As well as talks with various ministers, Van der Hoeven will have a meeting with the CEO of Saudi company SABIC and with Saudi Aramco. She is to open a Holland Seminar organised by the Dutch embassy. In Qatar, she will visit a Shell office and open another Holland Seminar.
Imports from Saudi Arabia totalled nearly 3.2 billion euros in 2007, and Dutch exports to this country, nearly 1.5 billion euros. The value of exports to Qatar surged over 37 percent in 2007 from a year earlier to 301.5 million euros. Imports from Qatar totalled just 21.3 million euros, the minister stated.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Sarkozy: Arabic — Language of the Future
The French government is strongly advocating the teaching of Arabic language and civilization in French schools. Not surprising, considering the number of Arabs and Muslims in France, and the unctuous deference with which they are treated by officials, beginning notably with Nicolas Sarkozy, who cannot praise enough the splendor of Arabic contributions to the world.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Middle East: Palestinian Group Vows to Murder Israeli MP
Jerusalem, 14 Oct. (AKI) — Palestinian militants on Tuesday have vowed to kill hard-line Israeli Knesset member Avigdor Lieberman following the four-day riots in the northern Israeli city of Acre.
The Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said that Lieberman’s fate would be similar to that of slain former Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi, shot dead in 2001 at his hotel by a PFLP militant in response to the assassination of the group’s leader Abu Ali Mustafa.
“The Brigades will not stand by idly and the truce will not prevent them from responding to the occupation’s ongoing crimes… the plan to eliminate the enemy’s ministers has yet to end,” said the statement, issued through the militant group’s radio station on Tuesday.
“The Brigades’ bullets and rifles are still directed at those ministers and the fingers are still on the trigger.”
Lieberman (photo) has allegedly called for the expulsion of Arabs from Israel to towns with Palestinian jurisdiction and has expressed his wish to annex large Jewish settlements in the West Bank to Israel.
He also called the riots that broke out last week a ‘pogrom’ against Jews and the start of a new Intifada or ‘uprising’ inside Israel.
Last Thursday, riots broke out between Jews and Arabs in northern Israel after an Arab man was allegedly assaulted by a group of young Jews.
The Arab man, Jamal Tawfik was allegedly beaten by the mob at midnight local time on Wednesday after he drove into the eastern part of the northern city of Acre during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.
The Arab man claimed that he was on his way home in the east of the city. The Jewish youth said the man was deliberately making too much noise
Riots broke out and spread to surrounding Arab neighbourhoods, while hundreds of people took to the streets. The riots were finally quelled on Monday.
The PFLP is a Marxist-Leninist, secular nationalist organisation founded in 1967. After the ruling Fatah movement, it is the second largest in what constitutes the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
Lieberman is the head of the Yisrael Beiteinu party and was deputy prime minister under the leadership of acting prime minister Ehud Olmert.
Lieberman left the coalition in January 2008.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Arab Media “Discover” the Persecution of Christians in Mosul as Another Christian is Killed
Another store owner is killed. Pope’s words are echoed in Arab newspapers as the city’s archbishop, Mgr Louis Sako, slams the attacks. Some claim that Iraqi Christians are no more in danger than the average Iraqis. Others insist that all Iraqis have a duty to protect Christians.
Beirut (AsiaNews) — Mosul’s Christian community experienced another attack yesterday. A store owner in this northern Iraqi city was targeted in what seems to be a strategy to drive out the entire community. Oarkis Alton, a records seller, was killed at work. His cousin was also wounded in the attack which took place despite an increased police presence around churches and in Christian neighbourhoods. A corollary of all this is the increasing attention paid by Arab media both within and without Iraq to the problem.
Today Arab media have in fact zeroed in on what is happening to Christians in Mosul. Many newspapers have also reported the “alarm and great suffering” expressed yesterday by Benedict XVI for the persecution endured by Christians in the country.
“Attacks in the Iraqi city of Mosul have forced hundreds of Christian families from their homes in just the past week,” al-Jazeera reported, quoting Duraid Mohammed Kashmoula, governor of the northern Ninawa province.
The flight, the TV network noted, comes as Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako said Iraq’s Christians were facing a campaign of “liquidation” like that in Baghdad, with its lot of abductions and murders.
A wave of religiously targeted killings has left at least 12 Christians dead over the past two weeks.
Many other media outlets like the Middle East Times focused on the commitment by Iraqi Prime Minister, who ordered an additional thousand agents to the city, to “take immediate action to resolve the problems and difficulties faced by Christians in Mosul.”
“Maliki beefs up security in Mosul to protect Christians,” was TheDaily Star’s title, whereas al-Bawaba referred to “an upswing in attacks against Christians in Mosul [that] has forced 500 families to flee in the last week and seek shelter at churches, monasteries and relatives’ homes.”
Lebanese French-language daily L’Orient Le Jour reported that some 5,000 Christians have been forced to abandon their homes, noting that an estimated 250,000 (out of 800,000) have already fled Iraq altogether.
Under the pen of its chief editorial writer Tariq Alhomayed, pan-Arab daily Asharq Alawsatt told its readers that “We Must Protect Iraq’s Christians.” For him “there seems to be an organized campaign targeting the Christian population of Iraq”. What is more, whilst “al-Qaeda continues to torture Christians it is important to note that a Shiite collation of MPs has already rejected a draft law which protects the Christian minority,” i.e. Article 50 which deals with minority representation in provincial councils. “The new law,” he wrote, “was incomplete and disruptive giving only the minimum of political rights to the Iraqi minorities, like the Chaldean Christians.”
Ultimately he said that it “is the duty of all Iraqis and not just its government, to protect Iraqi Christians from murder and displacement, and all forms of oppression, particularly when taking into account that they have always been patriots and have never been apart of any alliance against their nation; moreover they have suffered more then any other Christian group in the Middle East.”
After citing Archbishop Sako , the Middle East Online tries to contradict him saying that a “report by Iraq’s Ministry of Human Rights that sets out the number of deaths in different ethnic communities caused by direct or indirect attacks in Iraq between 2003 and the end of 2007 showed that only 172 fatalities were from Iraq’s Christians: 107 Chaldeans, 33 Orthodox, 24 Catholics, four Assyrians, three Anglicans and one Armenian,” adding that for some observers “Christians are no more threatened than average Iraqis.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Follow-Up on Iran Bazaar Strikes
Following the October 9 strike in bazaars in cities across Iran (see “Bazaar Strikes Spread Throughout Iran,” http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=IA46808) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced a two-month postponement in the implementation of the Value Added Tax law.
Nevertheless, on October 11 and 12, the strike expanded to Tehran and other commercial sectors, such as clothing and carpets.
Mohammad Azad, head of the national guilds association, said that in Tehran unknown persons had threatened to set on fire shops daring to open during the strike, and added that they had attacked a bank in Tehran, but according to information received by MEMRI the attack on the bank never took place.
Mohammad Shaoriyeh, deputy to Mohammad Azad, said today, October 13, that at a meeting held today with the Iranian national tax administration, the last message was that the implementation of the VAT law was postponed until further notice.
According to the Iranian news agency ISNA, today the Tehran bazaar was open for business as usual.
| — Hat tip: Abu Elvis | [Return to headlines] |
Iranian Merchants Resist New Tax, Accounting Measures
As Iran’s economy suffers from inflation and falling oil prices, the government’s effort to increase revenue with a value-added tax on many items and more transparent bookkeeping meets resistance.
TEHRAN — Economic anxieties caused in part by the West’s financial crisis have escalated tensions between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government and Iran’s merchants as the country’s economic lifeblood, oil, headed below $80 a barrel for the first time in more than a year.
On Sunday, rug and fabric dealers in at least two cities joined an unprecedented week-long strike led by jewelers in most major business centers to protest the imposition of a 3% value-added tax and demands for more transparent accounting practices by retailers.
Merchants in the traditional marketplaces of Tehran and Tabriz shuttered their businesses Sunday even though the government has agreed to delay imposition of the tax on many retail and wholesale transactions for two months.
Whole sections of downtown Tehran’s massive and labyrinthine Grand Bazaar were closed Sunday, the second day of the Iranian workweek, people said. Though the most powerful wholesalers were believed to be leading the strikes, smaller shopkeepers also took part. Protesters angry over the tax smashed a branch of the state-owned Bank Saderat, according to the Borna news agency, which is close to the government.
The central bank also demanded Sunday that Iranian merchants and other businessmen with outstanding loans catch up on their payments. The move appeared to be a sign that the government is hoping to make up for the sudden drop in oil prices and the anticipation of prolonged worldwide economic malaise.
“All bad debtors to the banks are warned to pay back their installments in arrears,” Mahmoud Bahmani, the newly appointed central bank governor, said in an interview broadcast on state radio. “If there’s more delay, they will be fined and will have to pay the fine in addition to their debts.”
This month, Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati called the meltdown of capital markets in the West “divine punishment.”
But economists predicted Iran also would suffer badly from any slowdown because of its dependence on oil sales. In recent days, the price of oil has fallen below $100 a barrel, a threshold Iranian officials had called unacceptable…
| — Hat tip: Abu Elvis | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: Christian Store Owner Shot Dead
Mosul, 13 Oct. (AKI) — An Iraqi Christian music store owner was shot to death in the northern city of Mosul.
Police sources said on Monday gunmen entered the store late on Sunday and shot dead the store owner and his nephew, who was wounded.
The shooting is the latest in a wave of attacks against the Christian community in Iraq that caused hundreds of families to flee the city last week.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has ordered an immediate investigation into the murders of Christians in Mosul and pledged to take all steps necessary to protect the community.
Mosul is home to the second-largest community of Christians in Iraq after Baghdad.
The Chaldean Catholic Church is one of the oldest Christian churches in the world, but hundreds of thousands of Christians have been forced to flee Iraq to escape the violence and the economic crisis caused by the war.
There are now around 800,000 Christians in Iraq, compared with over a million before the US invasion in 2003, according to censuses carried out by the country’s dioceses.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: Al-Qaeda Denies Christian Murders in North
Baghdad, 13 Oct. (AKI) — Al-Qaeda in Iraq has denied responsibility for the recent killings of Christians in the northern city of Mosul, which have driven hundreds of families from their homes.
“We honour the agreement signed in Mosul by Abu Hamza al-Muhajir and prominent Christian tribal chiefs in 2007,” said the Islamic State of Iraq’s spokesman in Mosul, Abu Uthman al-Ansari.
The Islamic State of Iraq is made up of a number of insurgent groups, including its predecessor, the Mujahideen Shura Council and Al-Qaeda in Iraq, whose leader is said to be al-Muhajir.
The Islamic State of Iraq has undertaken not to attack those who signed the accord with al-Muhajir, who have paid the Jizia (a tax payable by non-Muslims) in the area we control,” said al-Ansari.
Peshmerga militias in Iraqi Kurdistan have rejected charges by Sunnis that they were responsible for the recent murders of Christians in Mosul, which is located in neighbouring Nineveh province.
Sunni groups have accused Kurdish militias of seeking to alter the ethnic composition of northern Iraq.
The Iraqi Interior Ministry on Sunday sent two troop battalions to protect Christians in Mosul and secure their churches. The troops are also tasked with stemming any attempts at ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the area.
At least 12 Christians have been murdered in Mosul over the past two weeks and a number of Christian homes destroyed.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: Killings of Christians in North Baffles Church
Baghdad, 14 Oct. (AKI) — The recent killings of Christians in the northern city of Mosul has stunned the Church in Iraq and left it wondering who is responsible, one of its leaders, Shlemon Warduni has told Adnkronos International (AKI).
At least 12 Christians have been murdered in Mosul over the past two weeks, a number of Christian homes have been destroyed, and hundreds of families have fled.
“What has happened in Mosul has amazed us and left many unanswered questions about who is behind the violence,” said Warduni, who is the auxiliary bishop of the Chaldean Patriarchate.
“The recent acts of violence against Christians are borne of pain and sadness, but they also arise from feelings of alienation,” Warduni added.
“We Christians have always lived with and continue to coexist with our Muslim brothers, in the same country in a climate of peace and fraternity and a spirit of affection and cooperation.”
The targeted killings of Christians in Mosul have forced around 1,000 Christian families to leave their homes and seek sanctuary in safer areas, Warduni (photo) noted.
“This has pushed us to raise our voice and ask the Government to save us, because it is responsible for the lives and welfare of its citizens,” he said.
Warduni hoped the dispatch on Sunday of two troop battalions to protect Christians in Mosul and secure their churches would “restore normality” in the city.
Mosul is home to the second-largest community of Christians in Iraq after capital Baghdad.
Warduni said he hoped that the killings in Mosul were not connected to protests organised by Iraqi Christians urging a key provision safeguarding minorities be reinstated in the country’s new provincial election law
The electoral law, passed by Iraq’s parliament on 24 September after months of in-fighting, will allow most of the country to hold provincial elections early next year.
“When Christians organised rallies and protests against the removal from the provincial election law of Article 50 which gave guarantees to minorities, they were appealing for rights to be upheld that are enshrined in Iraq’s constitution,” Warduni noted.
“We are Iraqis too and are original inhabitants of this country. Our history goes back thousands of years,” he stressed.
“The rights of Christians have long been ignored in the Middle East and we have been the victims of oppression and persecution. We suffer without knowing why.”
“There may be a grand plot in the region to rid it of Christians, but we hope this is not true,” Warduni said.
Sunni groups have accused Kurdish militias of seeking to alter the ethnic composition of northern Iraq and of responsibility for the recent murders of Christians in Mosul.
“Most Muslims, from all social classes believe in coexistence,” Warduni concluded.
The Chaldean Catholic Church is one of the oldest Christian churches in the world, but hundreds of thousands of Christians have been forced to flee Iraq to escape the violence and the economic crisis caused by the war.
There are now around 800,000 Christians in Iraq, compared with over a million before the US invasion in 2003, according to censuses carried out by the country’s dioceses.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Iraqi Archbishop: Christians Face ‘Liquidation’
The most senior Catholic cleric in Iraq warned that Christians in his country face “liquidation” if the Iraqi government and the U.S. military do not step-up protection for religious minorities in Iraq.
“We are the target of a campaign of liquidation, a campaign of violence,” said Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako, reported Agence France-Presse on Friday. “The objective is political.”
Sako’s comment comes after police reported earlier this week that seven Christians have been killed in separate attacks this month. Police found bullet-riddled bodies of seven Christians in October, with the latest body of a Christian day laborer found on Wednesday.
Since the U.S.-led Iraq war in 2003, more than 200 Christians have been killed, dozens of churches bombed, and more than half the Iraqi Christian population have left the country, according to the archbishop.
He called on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite Muslim-led government to act on repeated promises to protect Iraq’s minorities.
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Lebanon: Michel Aoun in Tehran, Iran Friendly Country
(ANSAmed) — TEHRAN, OCTOBER 13 — Iran is “a close and friendly country”: this was said by Michel Aoun, Christian leader of the Lebanese minority and Hezbollah ally, speaking in Tehran in a press conference with the Iranian Foreign Minster, Manuchehr Mottaki, during which he responded to those in his country who criticized him for his visit to the Islamic republic. “Coming to Tehran is not strange, a decision to not come would be”, asserted Aoun, cited by Irna news agency, underlining the strategic importance of the Islamic republic in the region. According to Mottaki, he said that Iran intended only “to aid in dialogue between the various Lebanese factions” and added that Tehran also invited Lebanese President Michel Suleiman for a visit. After 20 years of staunch opposition of Iran and Syriàs regional issues, the Christian former general is now joined in an alliance with Lebanese Shiite militias supported by both countries. Before departing from Tehran, Aoun will have a meeting with Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Hanged for Being a Christian in Iran
Eighteen years ago, Rashin Soodmand’s father was hanged in Iran for converting to Christianity. Now her brother is in a Mashad jail, and expects to be executed under new religious laws brought in this summer. Alasdair Palmer reports.
A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted in favour of a draft bill, entitled “Islamic Penal Code”, which would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment. The majority in favour of the new law was overwhelming: 196 votes for, with just seven against.
Imposing the death penalty for changing religion blatantly violates one of the most fundamental of all human rights. The right to freedom of religion is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in the European Convention of Human Rights. It is even enshrined as Article 23 of Iran’s own constitution, which states that no one may be molested simply for his beliefs.
And yet few politicians or clerics in Iran see any contradiction between a law mandating the death penalty for changing religion and Iran’s constitution. There has been no public protest in Iran against it.
David Miliband, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, stands out as one of the few politicians from any Western country who has put on record his opposition to making apostasy a crime punishable by death. The protest from the EU has been distinctly muted; meanwhile, Germany, Iran’s largest foreign trading partner, has just increased its business deals with Iran by more than half. Characteristically, the United Nations has said nothing.
It is a sign of how little interest there is in Iran’s intention to launch a campaign of religious persecution that its parliamentary vote has still not been reported in the mainstream media…
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Indonesia: Radical Islamic Group Must Respect the Law, Say Experts
Bangkok, 3 June (AKI) — Alleged attacks by a radical Indonesian Islamic group on a recent rally that supported religious freedom, should be seen as a lack of respect for the law and not a religious issue.
That is the view of a number of analysts contacted by Adnkronos International (AKI).
Images of members of the hardline Islamic Defenders’ Front, or FPI, were shown on international television channels.
They were allegedly hitting those who took part in the rally organised by the National Alliance for Freedom of Religion and Faith in Jakarta on Sunday.
There have been calls for Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to ban the FPI, but Indra Samego, an expert with the Indonesian Institute of Science says that a ban would not resolve the problem.
“The FPI is not a formal entity and cannot be dissolved,” Samego told AKI.
“The way in which to fight the group is to make them respect the law and arrest those who are guilty.”
Samego added that moderate Islamic leaders have a duty to approach the FPI and convince the group that violence is not the right way to promote their own religion.
“We have to convince them to choose peaceful methods,” he said.
The FPI, which many believe enjoys the protection of some elements inside the Indonesian military, is mainly active in the capital, Jakarta.
Formed in 1998 by Habib Rizieq Shihab, the FPI initially gained notoriety for violent raids that its members carried out in bars and discotheques during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The group also participated in a campaign against the United States after the war in Afghanistan and claimed it recruited mujahadeen to send to Lebanon and Iraq to fight against Israel and the US troops.
The FPI recently assumed a wider political and religious profile by protesting against pornography or pressing the government to ban the Ahmadiyah, an Islamic sect that some Indonesians consider “deviant”.
Fachry Ali, a professor at the Universitas Indonesia, told AKI that “the FPI has the right to object against the Ahmadiyah, but they should learn to do so in a peaceful way”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Nepalese Muslims “Happy” to Celebrate Feast Together With Hindus
The festival of Dashain, one of the most important moments for Hindu tradition, has become an occasion of “social harmony” and interreligious dialogue. Positive assessments from Hindu and Muslim leaders, who promote the “sharing of moments of celebration.”
Nepalgunj (AsiaNews) — In the spirit of “communal harmony” and interreligious dialogue, hundreds of Muslims have joined Hindu believers to celebrate the feast of Dashain. The feast is underway now in Nepal, and is one of the most important observances for local Hindu tradition, connected to the worship of the goddess Durga. In Nepalgunj, a town in the western part of the country, the occasion has special significance thanks to the presence of Muslim leaders and faithful who have exchanged gifts, embraces, and good wishes with the Hindus.
The event has gained wide media coverage, and has been pointed to as an example of the possibility of “harmonic and peaceful” coexistence among faithful of different religions. “We are in minority in Nepal,” says 18-year-old Sabnam Halwai, a Muslim young woman, “So any kind of persecution just as we are in minority is our problem. Therefore, if we celebrate each others< festival then we will have not only good communal harmony but also the persecution will be reduced.” Ali Miya, a local Islamic leader, emphasizes that “although we have faith in different gods, festivals are meant to have happy time with good communal harmony. Just as Hindu people and their leaders participated in our Eid celebration, we are also celebrating the Hindu festival called Dashain.”
Appreciation for the presence of Muslim faithful has been expressed by Indian leaders, as highlighted by Damodar Gautam, president of the Nepalese section of the World Hindu Federation: “We are never against communal harmony. If celebration of festival together with other religious people prevails in communal harmony, then we are ready to celebrate Isamic or Christian or any other religious festival.”
This sentiment is echoed by the president of the Nepalese Muslim Federation, Nazrul Hasan, who says that he is “happy” at the sharing of the feast, and reveals that he has received “a special blessing from Hindu leaders,” just as he had done previously on the occasion of the celebration of the Eid, the feast that concludes the sacred month of Ramadan.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Dozens of Militants Reportedly Killed in Northwest
Swat, Bajaur and Orakzai, 13 Oct. (AKI) -Dozens of Taliban militants are reported to have been killed in clashes with Pakistan’s security forces in the northwest over the past 24 hours.
Pakistan’s Geo News said on Monday that security forces had killed 10 militants overnight in Tehsil Khwazakhela in the volatile Swat district of North West Frontier Province.
On Sunday, Pakistani security forces killed at least 27 Taliban militants including two key commanders in the Orakzai tribal area near the Afghan border.
Pakistan claimed its security forces had killed 35 militants in the helicopter gunship attack in Orakzai and said 12 would-be suicide bombers were among the dead.
An offensive is also reported to be continuing in the nearby tribal area of Bajaur. Up to 1,000 militants have been killed in the offensive, which began in August, according to the military.
The attack against alleged militant hideouts in three villages in Orakzai on Sunday followed a suicide car bomb attack blamed on the Taliban that killed over 60 people at an ati-militant tribal meeting there last Friday.
Pro-Taliban militants on the Pakistan side of the border have been blamed for a rise in attacks on US and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
The Taliban has killed dozens of tribal elders they accuse of backing the government in recent years. Most of the Taliban attacks have however targeted Pakistani security forces.
The United States has become increasingly concerned at Pakistan’s failure to tackle Taliban militancy in the tribal regions and adjadcent NWFP.
The US has stepped up its cross-border attacks inside Pakistan’s tribal areas, angering many Pakistanis and straining relations between the two countries.
In the latest suspected US drone strike, two missiles on Saturday reportedly struck a compound outside Miranshah, one of the main towns in NWFP, which is seen as a safe haven for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Four people died in the strike, according to officials.
Pakistan’s tribal regions have been wracked by violence since hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels fled there after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 and the toppling of the Taliban regime.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: A Christian Man and His Daughter Arrested, Almost Lynched for Blasphemy
Rumours spread in a village near Faisalabad that a Christian girl ripped some pages from the Qur’an. But more than one version of the facts is making the rounds of the village. Anti-Christian intolerance is growing in the country and a Pakistani lawmaker says the “accusations are a fabrication” to persecute Christians.
Chak Jhumra (AsiaNews) — A Christian man, Gulsher Masih, and his daughter Sandal have been charged with blasphemy under Article 295 B of the Pakistan Penal Code for allegedly tearing some pages from the Qur’an last Thursday in the village of Tehsil Chak Jhumra, in Faisalabad district. Without police intervention they could have been lynched by an angry mob.
Some Muslims who walked by the Gulsher home said they saw Sandal Gulsher and her father Masih tear some pages from the Qur’an and throw them into the street. The story eventually made to the village mosques so that by Thursday evening an enraged mob, including people from neighbouring villages, marched through the village calling for the death of the blasphemers.
Deputy Inspector Faryad told AsiaNews that once the mob was at the Gulsher home they began stoning the building, striking doors and windows with sticks (see photo). They also stoned a nearby Protestant church.
Police took the entire Gulsher family into custody for their “own protection,” he added. “Vans full of Muslims were driving to the village but were stopped by police.”
A local Christian resident, Ayub Khawar, told AsiaNews that at one point the mob seemed poised to attack other Christian homes. Frightened beyond belief he ran home where he turned off the lights; in total darkness he told his family to keep absolute quiet.
Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian lawmaker and chairman of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA), told AsiaNews that the charge is a total fabrication. For him “there is no direct evidence and the police has not investigated the case.”
Blasphemy charges are made against Christians just to strike at them. Only a few days ego the Gulshers had a public row with some Muslims.
The APMA was able to get the family members not directly involved in the case out of prison and into a safe house where they are hiding.
Bhatti said that his organisation “will take care of legal and financial matters for the family. Our lawyers will soon submit a bail application.”
AsiaNews went to the village to investigate the affair a day after the incident and spoke to various Muslims about it, finding that people have different versions of the alleged blasphemy.
One Ghulam Ghaus said that three Christian kids from 10 to 12 years of age, including a son of the Gulshers, stole a Qur’an from a local mosque. They tore off some pages to play with and then left them on the ground where they were found. Eventually someone accused Sandal and the rumour spread.
Master Kamal, a teacher at a Christian elementary school, said that Sandal found the pages among rubbish in the street. After picking them up she gave them to a Muslim woman who then accused her of blasphemy.
Also on Thursday a similar accusation was made in Faisalabad against a Muslim named Rehmat Ali.
A passer-by said he saw Rehmat, who is mentally ill, throw pages of the Qur’an into a drain. He called out to other passers-by and together they began beating him until the arrival of the police which then arrested him.
The mob did not stop though and kept protesting in the streets, calling for the miscreant’s death, going so far as to storm the Batala Colony Station where Rehmat was detained. Only after using sticks and tear gas was the police able to beat back the assault.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Philippines, Member of Abu Sayyaf Arrested for Killing of Fr. Roda
Manila (AsiaNews) — After ten months of investigations, security forces in Tabawan, in the southern province of Tawi-Tawi, have arrested a member of the commando group that, last January 15, killed Fr. Reynaldo Roda (in the photo) during a kidnapping attempt.
The arrest of Anni Sali, 46, originally from Siasi, a town on the island of Sulu, took place on Saturday, October 11, at two o’clock in the afternoon, during an operation conducted by a special unit of the navy.
According to some eyewitnesses, Sali was a member of the group that in the middle of January broke into the residence of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in Tabawan; the gang, connected to the fundamentalist group of Abu Sayyaf, was supposed to kidnap Fr. Roda, the director of Notre Dame high school, but the kidnapping attempt concluded tragically with the death of the religious.
Fr. Reynaldo Roda, a missionary and for more than 20 years the pastor of Tabawan, was praying inside the convent when the group broke in, forcing him to follow them; the religious resisted, provoking the reaction of the criminals, who killed him with multiple gunshot wounds to the head and body.
The missionary was very active in promoting interreligious dialogue, and had founded a cooperative to support Muslim fishermen; he was greatly loved by the local community, so much so that some had tried to stop him from being kidnapped. Fr. Roda had received death threats from the terrorists in the past, but had always ignored them, preferring to remain close to his people. Over the years, he had promoted programs on behalf of the environment and social collaboration, and in the areas of education and interreligious dialogue.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Che Guevara’s Rendezvous With Justice
By Humberto Fontova
41 years ago this week (Oct.9, 1967) in Boliva, Ernesto “Che” Guevara got a major dose of his own medicine. Without trial, he was declared a murderer, stood against a wall and shot.
Historically speaking, justice has rarely been better served. The number of men Che’s “revolutionary tribunals” condemned to death in the identical manner range anywhere from 400 to 1,892. The number of defenseless men (and boys) Che personally murdered with his own pistol runs to the dozens.
“Executions?” Che Guevara exclaimed while addressing the hallowed halls of the UN General Assembly on Dec. 9, 1964. “Certainly, we execute!” he declared to the claps and cheers of that august body. “And we will continue executing as long as it is necessary! This is a war to the DEATH against the Revolution’s enemies!”
According to “The Black Book of Communism,” those firing-squad executions had reached around 10,000 by that time. “I don’t need proof to execute a man,” snapped Che to a judicial underling in 1959. “I only need proof that it’s necessary to execute him!”
Not that you’d surmise any of the above from the mainstream media or academia-much less Hollywood. From the high priests of the Fourth Estate, Che Guevara gets only accolades. Time magazine, for instance, honors Che Guevara among “The 100 Most Important People of the Century.”
The man who declared, “a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate” (and set a spirited example), who boasted that he executed from “revolutionary conviction” rather than from any “archaic bourgeois details” like judicial evidence, and who urged “atomic extermination” as the final solution for those American “hyenas” (and came hearth-thumpingly close with Nuclear missiles in October 1962), is hailed by Time-not just among the “most important” people of the century-but in the “Heroes and Icons” section, alongside Anne Frank, Andrei Sakharov and Rosa Parks…
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Venezuela: Oil Falls Below $80, “Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes.”
As I write this article, oil is currently trading at $79.02 according to CNBC.
Oil Declines on Demand Fears
Crude oil futures dropped Tuesday as the market anticipated months of weak demand even if the U.S. government succeeds in preventing the economic downturn from deepening.
The Mideast worries and talks about reducing output, but the one with the most reason to worry is Hugo Chavez. No one, and I mean not one single petty tyrant in any of all the oil-financed tyrannies in the world is as dependent on oil revenues to maintain himself in power. Venezuela relies on oil income for more than 40 percent of its budget and Chavez squanders every day millions of dollars of oil revenues while oil production has fallen by a quarter since he won power…
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Almost 60 Million Inhabitants, Thanks Only to Immigrants
(ANSAmed) — ROME, OCTOBER 9 — There is a true boom of foreign citizens who are residents in Italy; in the beginning of January, there were 3,432,651, with an increase compared to the year before of 493,729 (+16.8%). This is a snapshot of the foreign population who are residents in Italy from Istat (National Statistical Bureau) which revealed that the increase was “the highest ever registered during the history of immigration to Italy”. A “strong increase” whose effects were felt in particular by the heavy arrival of Romanian immigrants who grew 283,078 (+82.7%) in number and whose community became the most numerous in the country. Foreigners represent 5.8% (last year 5%) of the total population. A state of affairs that is in line with the large European countries like France and Great Britain. The increase registered in Italy is analogous to Spain, even if in Spain, foreigners number 11.3% of the population. Almost half of the foreigners (47.1%) come from eastern European countries. 5.6% of Italian families (1,366,835) have a foreign head of family. — ALMOST 60 MILLION THANKS TO FOREIGNERS: This is a change that is starting to have a greater specific weight: the increase of the Italian population, which is close to 60 million (from 59.131.287 to 59.619.290) is due to foreigners. The natural balance of the foreign population (+60,379) compensates almost entirely for the negative balance in the Italian population (-67,247). Those born of foreign parents were 64,049 in 2007 (+10.9pct), equal 11.4% of the total births. -MORE PRESENT IN THE NORTH: Immigrants are more present in the north; in this region, 62.5% (8 foreigners of every 100 residents) reside, in the centre 25%, and 12.5% in the south. At a regional level, Emilia Romagna stands out (8.6% of inhabitants), Lombardy (8.5%), the Veneto (8.4%). In some provinces of 100 residents at least 10 are foreigners; this occurs in Prato and Brescia (over 11%), in Reggio Emilia, Mantova, Treviso, and Piacenza. — NEW CITIZENSHIPS INCREASING: In 2007, the number of foreigners who became Italian citizens through the acquisition of citizenship increased. It has been estimated (data from the Interior Minster) that there were 261 thousand (most through marriage). An important number since, for example, in France between 2005 and 2006, 303 thousand citizenships were granted. — ROMANIANS MOST NUMEROUS: With a record increase, the Romanian community became the most numerous in the country. In only one year (2006-2007), Romanians in Italy passed from 342,200 to 625,278 (+82.7%), passing Albania (from 375,947 to 401,949) who at the moment are placed in second. In third place, is Morocco with 365,908 (previously 343,228). The first five countries on the scale — Romania, Albania, Morocco, China, and the Ukraine — represent about half of all immigrant residents, 1,682,000 in number, equal to 49% of the total. — NEW EU COUNTRIES THE NEW FRONTIER: A slight decrease was registered for entrances of citizens coming from northern Africa and central-eastern Europe, from Albania. On the contrary, an increase was registered from “new EU countries” (from January 1st 2004 to January 1st 2007): from 63 thousand in 2005 to 124 thousand in 2006 and 319 thousand in 2007. 23.2% of immigrants come from an African country while 16.1% come from Asian countries. — INFLUX NO LONGE DUE TO REGULARIZATION: Istat pointed out that the trend of migratory influx in the three year period of 2005-2007, is not effected any longer by perturbations caused by the records at the registry office after steps that were taken for regularization in 2002. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Immigration: Urso, Let’s Favour Flows From Balkans
(ANSAmed) — ROME, OCTOBER 13 — “To favour the flow of immigration from the Eastern Mediterranean even if they are Muslims: as they are coming from a more European context than those from the Southern Mediterranean who are less willing to integrate into our country”. This is what Adolfo Urso, secretary general of the Fondazione Farefuturo and undersecretary for Economic Development thinks, said this morning at a convention of the integration of women in the Mediterranean area. Among the elements highlighted by the undersecretary for Economic Development as starting-points for a draft proposal in the political-legislative area were favouring the reuniting of families with wives and children and the promotion of religious education. “It is better to introduce the teaching of the Koran in public schools than to found Koran schools. It is necessary to not give in to the veil or other cultural elements which keep immigrants from integrating.” (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Immigration: 30 Illegals in Boat on Gargano Sea
(ANSAmed) — MANFREDONIA (FOGGIA), OCTOBER 13 — Thirty Kosovar and Albanian illegal immigrants who were travelling to Italy on board a sailing boat 13 metres long have been stopped by the Finance Police in the Gargano sea at Pugnochiuso. It is understood that the boat was flying the Croatian flag and was rented. On board were three adults, a woman three months pregnant, and more than twenty young men. The boat was escorted to the port of Manfredonia. The woman was taken to hospital for checks and the other immigrants are being identified. One of the three adults was arrested under suspicion of human smuggling. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Immigration: Muslim Intellectuals, ‘Yes’ to Islam in Schools
(ANSAmed) — ROME, OCTOBER 13 — “It isn’t so much about teaching the Koran in a strict sense, as much as the civilization of Islam and the history of religions in a more general sense, through courses that are facultative, but also open to everyone, even students from other faiths”. This was underlined by Karim Mezran, secretary general of Muslim Intellectuals, about the proposal advanced today by Adolfo Urso for the Farefuturo foundation, to introduce the teaching of the Koran into schools. “It has to do with — he added — promoting a culture of integration and reciprocal respect, opposing ourselves to the development of a racist shift that unfortunately is diffusing in some Italian and European environments”. “It could be — added the president of the association, Ahmad Giampiero Vicenzo — one of the arguments to discuss in the Marzano commission of Roma Capitale which will take place today. Its inter-religious composition, in fact, could make it an ideal place for experimentation in that sense”. (ANSAmed)-
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Immigration: Roccella, No Racist Alarm in Italy
(ANSAmed) — ROME, OCTOBER 13 — “There is no racist alarm in Italian but a request for security” said Labour, Health and Social Policy Undersecretary Eugenia Roccella, during this morning’s meeting of the Farefuturo foundation on the presentation of a research project on the condition of women in the Mediterranean area. “Reception and integration are not opposing concepts” said Roccella, pointing out that immigrants and Italian citizens should feel secure. “Italy must create a policy of integration, taking account of the economic difficulties of the present moment in history” she said, underlining how there are no positive models in Europe which have really worked. Among the problems faced by Italy in terms of immigration, are not the outskirts, as in France, but the historic city centres, she said. “Creating mono-ethnic districts has a series of negative impacts on various levels, including the economic plane regarding the investment necessary to improve run-down areas.”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Immigration: Jones, Let’s Not Exclude Flows From South Med
(ANSAmed) — COSENZA, OCTOBER 14 — Favouring the flow of Muslim immigration from the Balkans instead of that from the Southern Mediterranean, because the former are native to a more European context and therefore more inclined to integration in Italy? “Who can be certain? Certainly this would exclude Southern Islam that is in reality ready to integrate”. This is how the Albanian writer Elvira Jones responds to the proposal put forward yesterday by Adolfo Urso, undersecretary to the Minister of the Economy. “Italy has many problems — adds the author of ‘Vergine Giurata’ (or ‘Sworn Virgin’) from Cosenza where she received the award from the Carical Grinzane Cavour Foundation for Euro-Mediterranean Culture — and this leads to fear of the other and racism. Just ten years ago, we Albanians were the ‘coloureds’, then the Rumanians took our place. And history repeats itself every time that a new group of people from the ‘South’ comes forward”. In recent years however, she continues, Albanians have moved up a step by “working hard”, but also because the “disorienting phase of the early years” after the fall of the dictatorship has finished. “Back then we still didn’t know the world — she remembers — even the intellectual elite were unprepared for the West. But know, she concludes, this too has changed. (ANSAmed).
2008-10-14 16:16
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Thirteen Illegal Immigrants Thrown to Sea for Bringing ‘Bad Luck’
Palermo, 13 Oct. (AKI) — Thirteen illegal immigrants aboard a people-smuggler’s boat were thrown overboard off Sicily’s coast for ‘bringing bad luck’.
Five Nigerians have been detained over the incident and accused of multiple aggravated homicide.
Twelve of the immigrants were Nigerian and one was of Ghanaian nationality. They were all males and are presumed dead.
Media reports quoted the people-smugglers as claiming the men were ‘interfering’ with the navigation of the boat as it sailed towards Italy.
“It is a horrendous incident. The 13 people were thrown to the water while they were still alive only because of superstition,” said Syracuse’s public prosecutor Ugo Rossi.
The incident took place on 11 September near Portopalo di Capo Passero on the Sicilian coast, where the boat landed with 59 people on board, among them women and children.
Media reports say the illegal immigrants aboard the boat told the Italian authorities the people smugglers had thrown the 13 passengers overboard while still alive.
Meanwhile on Monday, a sailboat carrying 30 illegal immigrants was intercepted by Italy’s Finance Police.
According to authorities, the boat was sailing under a Croatian flag. It was intercepted as the immigrants were trying to reach the southern Italian region of Puglia and escorted to the port of Manfredonia.
It is uncommon for immigrants to use sailboats to smuggle immigrants into Italy. Usually motorised rubber dinghies and small wooden boats with outboard motors are used by immigrants who make the perilous crossing from Africa.
Italy, one of the closest European countries to North Africa, has as the longest coastline in the European Union — 4,500 kilometres. This makes it difficult to police and thus a preferred destination for migrants.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Minister Says Swiss Economy Needs Foreign Labour
The integration of foreigners is an opportunity for the Swiss economy, says Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf.
In an interview with swissinfo, she stresses how important the foreign workforce is and speaks about the government’s asylum policy.
Widmer-Schlumpf who is also acting finance minister, delivered Thursday’s opening address to a two-day meeting in Lucerne on the theme of Diversity and Integration.
swissinfo: As you mentioned in your speech to the conference in Lucerne, foreign workers make an important contribution to the prosperity of our country. Is integration a matter of our own self-interest?
Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf: One fifth of the resident population of Switzerland are foreigners. It is in the interest of the economy — also in view of demographic trends — that we should be able to draw on this labour pool.
It is also important that we should make use of the diversity in our country. We need to recognise that people with different backgrounds can make an important contribution to the development of society.
swissinfo: The government’s integration policy gives particular weight to mastering a national language. Is that enough?
E.W-S.: Language is not the means of integration, but it is the key to it. When you can communicate, when you can be understood, then you have a chance of feeling at ease in society — whether at work or in a sports association. Whether we like it or not, you need language for that.
swissinfo: What about foreign managers in the area of business, who often only speak English?
E.W-S.: That’s a question of integration too. A section of the population who cannot make themselves understood to the people around them thereby exclude themselves from the mainstream.
People generally talk about integration in connection with poorly qualified workers from third countries or from the Balkans, but in actual fact the integration of all groups of foreigners in Switzerland is an issue…
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Hidden Agenda of the Party of Preachers
By Amir Mir
Lahore,Pakistan— The Tableeghi Jamaat (TJ) or the Party of Preachers, a non-militant organization of practicing Muslims that claims to have never indulged in any militant or political activities as a matter of principle, is an Islamic missionary and revival movement founded in British India, as a response to Christian evangelists working among poor and poorly educated Muslims in British India. However, in recent years, concerns have risen about how much the organization has been infiltrated by jehadi elements belonging to banned militant and sectarian organizations which might be involved in using the TJ platform as a cover to promote their extremist agenda.
The Tableeghi Jamaat that can also be translated as the Society for Spreading Faith, came into existence to spread the message of the Holy Quran with two main objectives: to ensure that Muslims strengthen their faith and to carry out humanitarian work. It was founded in the British India in the late 1920s by a Deobandi cleric Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhalawi (1885-1944) in Mewat province of India. ‘Tableegh’ in Arabic means ‘to deliver (the message)’ and the Tableeghi Jamaat (or the Proselytizing Group) claims to revive this duty, which they consider as a primary responsibility of Muslims. Maulana Mohammad Ilyas Kandhalawi put forward the slogan, Aye Musalmano! Musalman bano (O Muslims! Be Muslims) to spread the message of the Holy Quran to ensure that Muslims strengthen their faith.
The Tableeghi Jamaat grew out the Deobandi School of Islamic thought which emerged under British rule in the Delhi region of northern India. In pre-colonial India, Islamic scholars learned informally, by traveling with their teachers. But in the 19th century, inspired by European educational practices, Muslim clerics in India established geographically fixed institutions, known as madrassas, with sequential curriculum, organized classes, and paid faculty. The madrassas were actually founded by specialists in the “hadith”— the narratives that constitute the Prophet Mohammad’s sayings and practices, which guide all aspects of moral behavior in Islam. These specialists or Ulemas issued advisory opinions to guide followers on how to adhere to the hadith. The Deobandi Muslims emerged from the madrassas as a movement centered on the Ulema.
Deobanidis considered themselves reformists, proscribing adherence to a pristine text (the Quran) as a solution to worldly powerlessness. They opposed various contemporary Islamic practices, including excessive rituals at tombs, elaborate lifestyle celebrations and Shia-influenced practices. Following British repression of North Indian Muslims during the Mutiny of 1857, the Deobandi leadership adopted an avowedly apolitical stance. But as the Indian nationalist movement rose after World War I, the movement grew political, supporting the Indian National Congress against the British. Deobandi scholar Maulana Muhammad Ilyas Kandhalawi formed Tableeghi Jamaat in Mewat, India in 1927. He intended the group to be an antidote to the Hindu conversion efforts that targeted Muslim peasants. The Tableeghis took the dissemination of Islamic teachings out of the madrassa, deemphasizing the importance of clerics and encouraging lay Muslims to undertake proselytizing missions. Maulana Ilyas believed this practice would enhance the faith of both the proselytizers and those they approached. Tableeghis also clung to the original Deobandi rejection of any explicit political program and to remaining apolitical.
After Maulana Mohammad Ilyas died in 1944, his son, Maulana Muhammad Yusuf (1917-1995) took over the TJ and expanded its reach. The movement grew after the partition of India, gaining importance when during the 11 year military rule of Pakistan’s fourth dictator President General Ziaul Haq. Maulana Yusuf and his successor Maulana Inamul Hassan began the movement’s targeting of non-Muslims, rather than just lapsed believers. In the 1970s, the Tableeghi Jamaat missions moved into non-Muslim regions, coinciding with the establishment of a synergistic relationship between Saudi Wahabis and South Asian Deobandis, which eventually led to the Saudi financing of the Jamaat.” The TJ’s lack of formal bureaucratic structure makes its growth hard to quantify, but in recent years, millions of adherents have congregated annually at three-day TJ congregations in Raiwind in Pakistan.
Every year, over a million Muslims from around the world descend on the small town of Raiwind near Lahore, the capital of the Punjab province for a three-day celebration of faith, comprising perhaps the second largest gathering of Muslims anywhere in the world after the Hajj in Saudi Arabia. Similar gatherings also take place annually outside Dhaka in Bangladesh and Bhopal in India. The Tableeghi pilgrims are trained missionaries who have dedicated much of their lives to spread Islam across the globe. The largest group of religious proselytizers of any faith, they are part of the reason for the explosive growth of Islamic religious fervor and conversion. Despite its huge size and tremendous value, the Tableeghi Jamaat remains largely unknown outside the Muslim community, even to many scholars of Islam. This is no coincidence. The TJ officials work to remain outside of both media and governmental notice. They usually limit its activities to within the Muslim community itself, since its main aim is to bring spiritual awakening to the world’s Muslims.
However, it does not solicit or receive donations; rather it is self funded by its members and operates on a very efficient model where administrative expenses are almost absent or taken care of by donations from senior members. The TJ movement, which has spread to 150 countries, has over a million members worldwide and its headquarters for South Asia are located in India. They were originally set up for humanitarian work and have not thus far evidenced any extremist views. In sharp contrast, however, TJ’s Pakistan branch has now for quite some time been found to be involved in making clandestine efforts to aid jehadi elements and to promote their agenda. And the ISI connection of the Pakistan branch of Tableeghi Jamaat is already an open secret now. The 2007 three day annual congregation of the so-called party of preachers was attended by at least four former heads of the all powerful Inter Services Intelligence including Lt. Gen. (retd) Hameed Gul, Lt. Gen. (retd) Javed Nasir, Lt. Gen. (retd) Naseem Rana and Lt Gen Mahmood Ahmed.
As the media highlighted their presence at the Raiwind annual congregation, the organisers of maintained that the participation of four ex ISI chiefs was an integral part of the ijtema for years now, adding that all of them had been attending the event since the days they were in uniform. “Their presence in the ijtema and their speeches especially that of Lt Gen Hameed Gul, helped motivate and inspire others to attend the congregation”, a spokesman of the TJ had observed. However, there are those who maintain that the presence of ex ISI chiefs in the TJ congregation simply showed the exact picture of a well-designed, well-controlled and well-managed strategy to organize combatants who are ready to wage jehad in the name of Allah against infidels, who are painted at the ijtema as enemies of Islam.
Since the Pakistani law treats the Tableeghi Jamaat as a humanitarian group and not as a religio-political party, there is no ban on the government servants, members of the armed forces and the nuclear and missile scientific community joining the party [even as members] to work for the same during the off-duty hours. Therefore, many Pakistani government servants, military officers and scientists devote at least part of their annual leave to do voluntary work for the Tableeghi Jamaat. Interestingly, after his appointment as the DG ISI by Prime Minister Sharif, Lt. Gen. Nasir continued to function simultaneously as adviser to the TJ and, after his removal from the ISI under US pressure in 1993, he took over as the full-time leader of the TJ.
It was during Lt. Gen. Javed Nasir’s tenure as the DG ISI that the Mumbai serial blasts of 1993 were carried out and plans were chalked out for the revival of Islam in the Central Asian States, Chechnya and Dagestan in Russia and Xinjiang in China with the help of the TJ workers and funds from Saudi Arabia. Similarly, Lt Gen Hameed Gul and Lt Gen Mahmood Ahmed, who had served under the commands of two military dictators General Zia and General Musharraf, had been vocal supporters of the Afghan Mujahideen who later formed the Taliban militia in Afghanistan. Both the Hameed and Mahmood were removed from their slots prematurely and sent home because of their extremist views and unblemished support for the jehadi elements.
Reputed to be the richest religious organization in Pakistan, it recruits hundreds of students in other countries and brings them to Pakistan at its own expense for studies in the religious seminaries. Growing out of the Deobandi school of Islam, the Tableeghi Jamaat stresses traditional Islamic practices linked to worship, dress and behavior as a path to personal improvement. Thus, it easily attracts troubled, impressionable young men and instills them with extreme religious conviction. While the Tableeghi Jamaat is nonviolent, the zealotry of its recruits might be proving easy for violent jehadi organizations to manipulate. Its missionary work, moreover, demands the TJ members to travel throughout the world, including between Pakistan and Western countries. Therefore, there is every possibility of some militant groups using it as a cover to travel.
According to western media reports based on the findings of their agencies, the Tableeghi Jamaat advocates an extreme interpretation of the Deobandi Islam, just like the Taliban and that many militant groups have infiltrated the Jamaat to gain a cover for obtaining visas and traveling abroad. Because of its being a relatively relaxed organisation, it is not difficult for militant organisations to infiltrate the TJ. Therefore, the western agencies believe it has radicalized to the point where it has emerged as a driving force of Islamic extremism and a major recruiting agency for the jehadi causes world wide. Following the 9/11 attacks, the Jamaat has increasingly attracted the interest of the US intelligence agencies which even describe it as the mother of all the major Pakistan-based jehadi organisations active not only in Central Asian Republics, Chechnya and Dagestan, but also in other parts of the world.
According to the findings of the US agencies, as reported in the Western media, among the foreign nationals who fought in Afghanistan against the Northern Alliance troops and US-led forces as members of the Pakistan-based jehadi outfits were American Muslims (mostly Afro-Americans), nationals of the West European countries, Thai’s, Malaysians, Singaporeans who projected themselves as Malays from Malaysia, and Indonesians. These reports claim that Harkatul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Toiba and Harkatul Jehadul Islami teams that used to visit these countries as preachers had recruited them all. Before the 9/11 attacks, these jehadi groups used to bring hundreds of Muslim youth to Pakistan who were then educated at the religious seminaries before being eventually taken to Afghanistan for jehadi indoctrination and training.
According to intelligence findings, HuM, LeT and HUJI enjoy close links with the Tableeghi Jamaat and recruit their cadres in Pakistan as well as abroad through the TJ. Often, to avoid attracting the adverse notice of foreign intelligence agencies, recruiting teams of HuM, LeT and HJI go abroad under the guise of TJ preachers. According to American intelligence findings, reported in the international media, Osama too had used HuM, LeT and HJI teams going abroad under the garb of TJ preachers to communicate instructions to his network of non-Arab organizations in different countries. Tableeghi Jamaat has further been accused of recruiting in the United States through Jamaat-ul-Fuqra, a violent, isolationist organization led by Pakistani Sheikh Mubarik Ali Gilani, with whom American journalist Daniel Pearl had fixed a meeting in Karachi the day he was abducted and eventually beheaded in January 2002. Daniel was on his way to interview Sheikh Gilani when he was abducted. Pearl wanted to interview him regarding a suspected connection between Gilani and the American Shoe Bomber Richard Reid. The Gilani-Pearl meeting was fixed by Sheikh Ahmed Omar Saeed, already convicted by a Pakistani court for the abduction and the subsequent murder of the American journalist. Gilani was questioned by the Pakistani authorities after the murder but subsequently released.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
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