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Thursday 05th April 2012
A joint statement of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Freedom and Justice party, delivered by Dr. Mahmoud Hussein, Secretary General of the Brotherhood, on Saturday evening, endorsed Khairat Al-Shater to run for the presidency. It asserted that while the Brotherhood does not seek power, it does seek to achieve the purpose for which it was founded and for which it worked for many years. It, therefore, undertakes to bear the historical responsibility of achieving the objectives of the Egyptian revolution, which impressed the whole world. The Brotherhood is confident of success, with God’s help and the support of the people and their cooperation with the organization in maintaining the gains of the revolution....
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Saturday 07th April 2012
Together with Yaqoob, Faris and other women worked out how best to use the two weeks left before polling day to get out the female vote. As Faris says herself, "it wasn't rocket science." First they got their hands on a list of the 10,700 or so constituents registered for postal votes. Then they assigned pairs of women to knock on each door and introduce their "sisters" to the politics of Galloway, choosing to call during the day when the man of the house was likely to be at work
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Tuesday 10th April 2012
Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker:“We did train them [MEK] here [Nevada National Security Site] and washed them through the Energy Department because the D.O.E. owns all this land in southern Nevada,” a former senior American intelligence official told me. “We were deploying them over long distances in the desert and mountains, and building their capacity in communications—coördinating commo is a big deal.”...They got “the standard training,” he said, “in commo, crypto [cryptography], small-unit tactics, and weaponry—that went on for six months,”...Five Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated since 2007. M.E.K. spokesmen have denied any involvement in the killings, but early last month NBC News quoted two senior Obama Administration officials as confirming that the attacks were carried out by M.E.K. units that were financed and trained by Mossad, the Israeli secret service
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Thursday 12th April 2012
We are very disappointed with the decision of the European Court of Human Rights. While the decision deals with the issue of prison conditions in the US, the fundamental question remains as to why this matter has even got to Strasbourg and why Babar even needs to be extradited to the US. “There has been a serious abuse of process with the police completely mishandling the evidence seized from Babar’s home by sending it to the US before the CPS could take a view on it. “Babar is a British citizen accused of a crime said to have been committed in the UK and all the evidence against him was gathered in this country. Nevertheless, British justice appears to have been subcontracted to the US. This should be immediately rectified by putting Babar on trial in the UK and ordering a full public inquiry into the matter. “Our Member of Parliament Mr Sadiq Khan has now written to the Attorney General to ask why his predecessor Lord Goldsmith and the CPS misled us all by stating in 2006 that there was “insufficient evidence” to prosecute him in this country when they had not even seen all the evidence. “Babar has already been imprisoned without a trial for almost 8 years, something he described in his recent interview to BBC as 'the most unimaginable type of psychological torture'."
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Friday 13th April 2012
Timothy Garton Ash in the Guardian: ...If some weary pasha had gone to sleep in 1912 and only woken up today there would of course be much to surprise him, from post-colonial states to Facebook, democracy and mobile phones. But after a few weeks of adjustment, he might feel quite at home. Ah yes, he would say, here are great powers pursuing their very different values and interests, openly and by stealth, in the familiar great game. In fact, many of them are reduced, partially modernised versions of the same old powers: Turkey now under sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russia yoked to tsar Vladimir Putin, China in the last months of emperor Hu Jintao, Britain with Her Majesty's pink-cheeked first minister, and so on.
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Monday 16th April 2012
Simon Jenkins in the Guardian: ...MI6's Mark Allen, offering Koussa congratulations on the "safe arrival" of the "air cargo [Belhaj]. This was the least we could do for you and for Libya to demonstrate the remarkable relationship we have built over the years." Within two weeks Gaddafi was welcoming a fawning Blair in his famous desert tent, and announcing that he would abjure terrorism and set aside his "planned" weapons of mass destruction. The plans were spurious, but the deal allowed Blair to walk tall in Washington at a time when the Iraq invasion was turning sour...In Allen's defence, it can be said that he was doing exactly what his masters so badly wanted. Blair in 2004 was craven to Washington, desperate to win a spur in George Bush's crusade against militant Islamism. At the time, CIA rendition flights were criss-crossing the world with Muslims bolted to the floor.
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Thursday 19th April 2012
Vikram Dodd in the Guardian: ...In his letter to the home secretary, Theresa May, Khan last week wrote: "You may be aware that the Metropolitan police and CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] only viewed a small portion of the evidence against my constituents – and sent the vast majority to the United States authorities without first reviewing it to see if British authorities could bring charges against Babar Ahmad and Syed Talha Ahsan. I would ask that you satisfy yourself that proper procedures were followed at all times in these two cases" ...In another letter to the attorney general, Khan wrote:It is clear that the bulk of the evidence gathered by the Metropolitan police was provided directly to the US authorities without the CPS reviewing it."...."
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Monday 23rd April 2012
Al Jazeera: What advice do you have for young people starting out and looking at art as a way to contribute to civilisation?
Yusuf Islam: It is a high wall to climb. It was probably shorter in my day. It's not an easy world right now for any profession. But if you can, then try. As I once wrote - 'if you want to sing out, sing out; if you want to be free, be free; if you want to be me, be me'. Well (laughing) - you can’t really do that last one.
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Wednesday 25th April 2012
Jason Lewis in theTelegraph: ...Last week it was disclosed that Jack Straw, the then foreign secretary, is facing legal action over claims he signed off the rendition to Tripoli in March 2004 of an alleged Libyan terrorist leader accused of links to Osama bin Laden, claims that had been previously denied in Parliament...But now it can be disclosed that secret anti-terrorist operations in Europe involving MI6 and Libyan intelligence began four months earlier with a series of meetings in the UK. ...In December 2003, “Joseph” and a Libyan intelligence officer were flown to meetings at British hotels to discuss setting up a mosque to attract North African Islamic extremists.
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Friday 27th April 2012
George Monbiot in the Guardian: Last week's revelations, that the British government systematically destroyed the documents detailing mistreatment of its colonial subjects, and that the Foreign Office then lied about a secret cache of files containing lesser revelations, is by any standards a big story. But it was either ignored or consigned to a footnote by most of the British press. I was unable to find any mention of the secret archive on the Telegraph's website. The Mail's only coverage, as far as I can determine, was an opinion piece by a historian called Lawrence James, who used the occasion to insist that any deficiencies in the management of the colonies were the work of "a sprinkling of misfits, incompetents and bullies", while everyone else was "dedicated, loyal and disciplined"...Elkins provides a wealth of evidence to show that the horrors of the camps were endorsed at the highest levels. The governor of Kenya, Sir Evelyn Baring, regularly intervened to prevent the perpetrators from being brought to justice...
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Tuesday 01st May 2012
"I think all this is because of the use by the Americans of phosphorous in the two big battles," he says. "I have heard of so many cases of congenital birth defects in children. There has to be a reason. When my child first went to the hospital, I saw families there with exactly the same problems.".Studies since the 2004 Fallujah battles have recorded profound increases in infant mortality and cancer in Fallujah; the latest report, whose authors include a doctor at Fallujah General Hospital, says that congenital malformations account for 15 per cent of all births in Fallujah....The first battle of Fallujah, in April 2004, was a month-long siege, during which US forces failed to take the city, said to be an insurgent stronghold. The second battle, in November, flattened the city. Controversy raged over claims US troops had deployed white phosphorus shells. A 2010 study said increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in Fallujah exceeded those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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Friday 04th May 2012
Along with most of its Gulf neighbours, Qatar wants to be a knowledge economy, and there are regiments of tweedy types in campuses across Doha happy to tell the Qataris how to do it...But the problem with attempting this in a country with the world's richest people is not teaching the knowledge, it's finding anyone who wants to learn it. Other Gulf states face the same difficulty. How do you convince such affluent school leavers to sacrifice a safe and well-paid government job for a tough science or maths-based degree?
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Monday 07th May 2012
George Galloway's electoral winning streak has continued in Bradford with five rookie politicians from his Respect party winning city council seats – including one swiped from the Labour leader of the administration....The only woman to win a seat for Respect was Ruqayyah Collector, already a veteran campaigner at 28, having led the successful campaign to have the controversial Leeds University lecturer, Professor Frank Ellis, suspended as the university investigated whether he was in breach of the Race Relations Act. She won the student-heavy City Ward, beating Labour by around 700 votes.
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Tuesday 08th May 2012
Gary Younge in the Guardian: "...Now that Brooks has agreed to hand over her text messages to Cameron, we are about to learn whether rumours that they exchanged as many as 12 texts a day are true. Brooks was arrested both on suspicion of phone hacking and corruption last year. She was arrested again this year with her husband, Charlie Brooks, on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. Charlie went to Eton with Cameron – as did the Tory mayor of London, Boris Johnson. Such is the incestuous nature of the British ruling class and the gene puddle from which it draws its stock..."
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Wednesday 09th May 2012
Lord Feldman - "an influential supporter of the CFI" according to the 'Pro-Israeli lobby' report by Oborne & James - has "cut ties to the Conservative Arab Network" - one wonders why?
Richard Eden of the Daily Telegraph reports: "..the ennobled co-chairman of the Conservative Party has provoked a row that threatens to jeopardise the Prime Minister's relations with the Muslim commnity....Lord Feldman of Elstree has cut ties to the Conservatie Arab Network, an organisation set up to improve the Tories' relations with the estimated 700,000 people of Arab descent in Britain and with Arab countries overseas. The peer wrote to the group's chairman, Dr Wafik Moustafa, ordering the mild-mannered GP from Ealing, west London, to stop using the Conservative logo on its website and letterhead..."
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Monday 14th May 2012
Ewan MacAskill & Richard Norton-Taylor in the Guardian: MSNBC, which also reported that the agent was a British passport holder, said that British intelligence was "heavily involved". Other US media outlets gave the Saudi intelligence service most of the credit for the successful running of the operation. The Guardian independently confirmed British involvement....Such is the sensitivity that America's National Public Radio reported that the British government asked the Obama administration not to reveal the role of British intelligence in the mission...."
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Thursday 17th May 2012
AlJazeera reports: "....Former Bangladeshi opposition leader, Ghulam Azam, has been indicted by a special court for alleged atrocities including genocide and murder during the nation's 1971 liberation struggle against Pakistan....Both Jamaat and the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party have dismissed the court as a "show trial", while Human Rights Watch has said procedures used by the tribunal fall short of international standards.
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Tuesday 20th March 2012
Dr Dhina Mourad writes: Today I remain devoted to my struggle, within the Rachad movement and with all my fellow citizens, for the rule of law and good governance using nonviolent means.
It is in this spirit that I shall appear at the hearing, on 21 March 2012, after which the French judges will give their verdict on the extradition request made by the Algerian regime. I have always acted within the law and this gives me a clear conscience. The Algerian regime – through its most hawkish wing – has sought to demonise and subdue me for the last two decades. This power has been persecuting me with the assistance of its links abroad and I owe my salvation to this day only to divine providence.
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Monday 19th March 2012
PA: A lot of people will think that the worst crisis for you was the row over your remarks in early 2008 on Sharia law. I wondered if you still stand by what you said, and if you regret anything about that episode.
Rowan Williams:I reread quite recently the text of the lecture on Sharia law, and I still stand by the argument of it. It could have been clearer, I am sure. That can always be said, especially of things I write! But I noticed that within a few months, Lord Phillips, President of the Supreme Court, was saying something very similar, and at least raising a question which needed discussion. I was a bit taken aback by the violence of the reaction; it became a feeding frenzy for a few days. But I didn’t feel any lasting damage was done. I feel that an important point was raised, a point about how the single law of the land works with and legitimates other kinds of jurisdiction within it, which already happens. The word ‘sharia’ is, of course, very emotive for people and in spite of attempts to explain that it doesn’t mean what a judge in Saudi Arabia might think it means, people still have that image in their minds. That’s where I could have been clearer, I’m sure.
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Sunday 05th February 2012
Professor Ghulam Azam’s wife Mrs Syeda Afifa Azam expressed concern about the life of her husband in a statement. She went to see Prof Azam in the BSMMU hospital prison on Friday along with her son and a granddaughter where she found her husband in a very frail condition..."We are shocked at the behaviour of the hospital and prison authorities in spite of advice from the specialists...After seeing him today, I am worried about my husband’s life..."
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Sunday 25th March 2012
Rustam Qobil, BBC: More than two million Muslims now live and work in Moscow. It has become one of the biggest cities for Muslims in Europe and its few houses of worship can no longer cope. During Friday prayers the historic building is overflowing and thousands of faithful are praying outside in the snow.Cars honk their horns and local people struggle to get past on the pavements. It is a scene repeated at all of Moscow's four mosques, as tens of thousands of Muslims gather for prayers every Friday. The new Muslims are mainly young migrants from the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus.
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Wednesday 04th April 2012
Tariq Ali in the Guardian: George Galloway's stunning electoral triumph in the Bradford by-election has shaken the petrified world of English politics....Thousands of young people infected with apathy, contempt, despair and a disgust with mainstream politics were dynamised by the Respect campaign. Galloway is tireless on these occasions. Nobody else in the political field comes even close to competing with him – not simply because he is an effective orator, though this skill should not be underestimated. It comes almost as a shock these days to a generation used to the bland untruths that are mouthed every day by government and opposition politicians...
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Friday 30th March 2012
Anne Karpf in the Guardian: Almost all European far-right parties have come up with the same toxic cocktail. The Dutch MP Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigrant Freedom party, has compared the Qur'an to Mein Kampf. In Tel Aviv in 2010, he declared that "Islam threatens not only Israel, Islam threatens the whole world. If Jerusalem falls today, Athens and Rome, Amsterdam and Paris will fall tomorrow."...Most Jews, apart from the Israeli right wing, aren't fooled. They see the whole iconography of Nazism – vermin and foreign bodies, infectious diseases and alien values – pressed into service once again, but this time directed at Muslims.
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Saturday 31st March 2012
Trayvon Martin was just 17 when he was shot dead while walking back home from a local shop, having bought a soft drink and a packet of skittles on 26 February 2012. His killer, George Zimmermann, a self appointed neighbourhood watchman admitted to having killed Trayvon, claiming that he had felt 'threatened' by the teenager. Since the murder, police recordings of calls both Zimmermann and witnesses to the murder have been made public, causing outrage across the world at what is an apparent racist murder....Following the racist murder of Shaima Alawadi in the US, a 'hoodies and hijab' rally was called to embody the alliance necessary against all forms of racist hatred. ..Protest outside US embassy in London Saturday 31st March 1.30 - 4pm : 24 Grosvenor Square W1A 2LQ nearest tube Bond Street...Speakers include Myriam Myriam Francois-Cerrah (photo)
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Sunday 18th December 2011
Reprieve website: "Lawyers for the son of a victim of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan have written to the British Foreign Secretary, asking him to clarify what the UK’s policy is on providing intelligence used by the US in its ‘targeted killing’ campaign. Leigh Day & Co, acting on behalf of Noor Khan, whose father was killed earlier this year in a drone strike on a jirga – or council of elders – in North West Pakistan, have asked William Hague to provide answers to key questions on how far the UK assists the US in its drone strike programme. Several reports have stated that British intelligence agencies have provided information on the whereabouts of alleged ‘militants’ targeted by the CIA’s illegal campaign, which has resulted in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians...Clive Stafford Smith, Director of legal action charity Reprieve, said:'CIA drone strikes are killing huge numbers of civilians and destabilising Pakistan. The British people have a right to know what their country’s policy is regarding our involvement in this illegal and disastrous campaign'.”"
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Monday 09th January 2012
John M Owen, NYT: "Political Islam, especially the strict version practiced by Salafists in Egypt, is thriving largely because it is tapping into ideological roots that were laid down long before the revolts began...Liberalism in 19th-century Europe, and Islamism in the Arab world today, are like channels dug by one generation of activists and kept open, sometimes quietly, by future ones. When the storms of revolution arrive, whether in Europe or the Middle East, the waters will find those channels. Islamism is winning out because it is the deepest and widest channel into which today’s Arab discontent can flow.
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Thursday 23rd February 2012
AlJazeera reports: A Palestinian detained by Israel, Khader Adnan, has agreed to end his 66-day hunger strike as part of a deal under which he will be released without charge, sources tell Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera's Nisreen El-Shamayleh, reporting from Adnan's hometown of Jenin in the West Bank, quoted officials as saying on Tuesday that "Adnan has informed his lawyers that he has suspended his hunger strike and agreed to the offer to serve his sentence until April 17". A spokesperson for the Israeli Supreme Court earlier told Al Jazeera that based on the deal reached between Adnan's lawyers and the Israeli justice ministry, he would end his fast in return for the court's decision to "erase" his file and release him on April 17, ending his "administrative detention"...Adnan has become a potent symbol of protest against Israel's practice of holding suspects without trial.
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Thursday 13th October 2011
Liam Fox's unofficial adviser Adam Werritty was warned by MI6 that his interventions in Iranian politics risked jeopardising British diplomacy in the Middle East....The Foreign Office confirmed for the first time that Mr Gould had spoken to the two men while Dr Fox was a Shadow Defence spokesman and before Mr Gould was appointed to Tel Aviv last year. Dr Fox has already been censured for inviting Mr Werritty to a meeting with Mr Gould when he was Defence Secretary.
Mr Werritty is a self-proclaimed expert on Iran and has made several visits. He has also met senior Israeli officials, leading to accusations that he was close to the country's secret service, Mossad.
Related Links
Liam Fox scandal & BICOM
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Sunday 16th October 2011
Pepe Escobar in Asia Times Online: "To believe that a Mexican drug cartel would invest in a troublesome political hit in the US capital expecting to collect a bundle of opium (from "liberated" Afghanistan) is also a non-starter. But the picture changes if one considers the benefits for the Mujahideen-e-Kalq - the fundamentalist, terrorist organization that wants to bring down the Islamic Republic. Or the possible benefits for a ghostly al-Qaeda in terms of creating a three-way-war involving Washington, Tehran and Riyadh. There's also the Israeli false flag option. Apart from the fact that the plot does look like an American Israel Public Affairs Committee wet dream delivered to Holder on a silver plate, the Israel lobby in Washington as well as assorted Zionists would love nothing better than to rally alongside a causus belli established in Washington itself, leading perhaps to a US strike of some sort against Iran without direct Israeli involvement...." ..."
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Monday 31st October 2011
Basheer Al-Baker: "It seems that King Abdullah must now quickly support a series of important changes. His first order of business is to appoint a new defense minister to replace Sultan, who held the position since 1962. This is difficult for several reasons. The first is that the ministry has virtually been the fiefdom of the prince for 50 years. He is the only decision maker in a ministry whose budget is half the annual budget of the country. Most of the defense budget is spent on foreign arms deals, of which the US always has the lion’s share....He has to put an end to the endemic corruption, particularly evident in its commissions policies. Some of these commissions have become international scandals, such as the Yamama arms deal in 1985, which cost Saudi Arabia US$86 billion. The British press revealed in 2007 that the commission on the deal reached US$2 billion and that the main negotiator for the Saudi side was Prince Bandar, son of Prince Sultan. Worse yet, the Saudis speak of billions of dollars which go to Prince Sultan and his sons from the purchase of weapons...Even if the king succeeds in all of this, there is widespread concern among Saudis today that Prince Nayef may soon become king. A Saudi source says that the general atmosphere in the country now is fraught with anxiety...Some predict that Nayef’s reign will be such that the brewing discontent in the kingdom will come to the surface, thus opening a new period of unrest".
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Tuesday 15th November 2011
AP reports: "German police arrested a new suspect Sunday following the discovery of an extremist group believed to have killed 10 people in what the country's top security official called 'a new form of far right terrorism'...Prosecutors suspect the group, which was discovered only last week, of having murdered eight people of Turkish origin, one Greek national and a German policewoman over the past decade. .German news weekly Der Spiegel reported the group in the DVDs also claimed responsibility for a 2004 attack in Cologne with a small bomb filled with nails that left 22 people injured, mostly Turks. "
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Sunday 27th November 2011
Richard Norton-Taylor in the Guardian: "The army's former chief legal adviser in Iraq has accused the Ministry of Defence of moral ambivalence and a cultural resistance to human rights that allowed British troops to abuse detainees and beat the Basra hotel worker Baha Mousa to death...Mercer's advice on how British soldiers should treat prisoners was repeatedly ignored. Instead, he was effectively suspended – "sent into the wilderness," as he puts it. After the abuse of many Iraqi detainees, the deaths of others in the custody of British troops, and millions of pounds spent on compensation to Iraqi families – all of which, he says, could have been avoided – he was vindicated in 2009 by the supreme court, which upheld the advice Mercer had given six years earlier: that British troops occupying a foreign country were bound by the Human Rights Act..."
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Friday 09th December 2011
Quds Press, Cairo: "Egypt's Foreign Ministry has confirmed that the UN General Assembly has adopted two new resolutions submitted by Egypt regarding nuclear disarmament and the danger of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East...The second resolution put forward by Egypt on behalf of the Arab bloc and adopted by an overwhelming majority of the General Assembly, warns of the dangers of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and stresses the need for Israel to sign up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."
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Sunday 25th December 2011
Joseph Dana in the National: "Palestinians across the West Bank and Gaza celebrated the return of their loved ones last Sunday as the final wave of prisoners were released in an exchange between Hamas and Israel. However, one prisoner was notably absent. Marwan Barghouti, the jailed Fatah leader known by many Palestinians as the "prince of resistance", remains behind bars in Israel despite promises from the Palestinian leadership that his freedom would be secured through the exchange of captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. On the eve of the prisoner swap, Barghouti released a 255-page book, written secretly behind bars and smuggled out via lawyers and family members, detailing his experience in Israeli jails....Despite his vocal support for the two-state solution and attempts at reconciliation with Israeli civil society, Barghouti has remained a puzzling and aggressive figure for Israel"
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Thursday 05th January 2012
Jean Herskovits, NYT: "... the news media and American policy makers are chasing an elusive and ill-defined threat; there is no proof that a well-organized, ideologically coherent terrorist group called Boko Haram even exists today. Evidence suggests instead that, while the original core of the group remains active, criminal gangs have adopted the name Boko Haram to claim responsibility for attacks when it suits them. The United States must not be drawn into a Nigerian “war on terror” — rhetorical or real — that would make us appear biased toward a Christian president. Getting involved in an escalating sectarian conflict that threatens the country’s unity could turn Nigerian Muslims against America without addressing any of the underlying problems that are fueling instability and sectarian strife in Nigeria."
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Saturday 07th January 2012
Gili Cohen, Haaretz: "Israel’s military rabbinate released an educational document ahead of the holiday of Hanukkah last month, featuring a photo of Jerusalem’s Temple Mount without the Dome of the Rock, Haaretz...The photo was featured in a packet prepared by the Military Rabbinate issued to Israel Defense Forces bases ahead of Hanukkah, under the section titled 'The Festival of Jewish Heroism,' which included an article and a quiz on the Jewish struggle against Hellenistic rule."
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Tuesday 10th January 2012
David Trilling: "When people read a news website, they don't usually imagine that it is being run by a major producer of fighter jets and smart bombs. But when the Pentagon has its own vision of America's foreign policy, and the funds to promote it, it can put a $23 billion defense contractor in a unique position to report on the war on terror. Over the past three years, a subdivision of Virginia-based General Dynamics has set up and run a network of eight 'influence websites' funded by the Defense Department with more than $120 million in taxpayer money. The sites, collectively known as the Trans Regional Web Initiative (TRWI) and operated by General Dynamics Information Technology, focus on geographic areas under the purview of various U.S. combatant commands, including U.S. Central Command.
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Wednesday 18th January 2012
Ravi Somaiya & John F Burns in the New York Times: "The European Court of Human Rights ruled Tuesday that Abu Qatada, a radical Islamic preacher regarded as one of Al Qaeda’s main inspirational leaders in Europe, cannot be deported from Britain to his native Jordan because his trial there would be tainted by evidence obtained by torture....Aides to Mr. Cameron said that when the prime minister travels to Strasbourg next week to address the Council of Europe, which oversees the court, he will map out British proposals for limiting the court’s powers to overrule the findings of the domestic courts of European Union states. One idea that has gained support among British critics of the European court is a 'democratic override' to allow national parliaments to annul court rulings on some issues, including those that affect national security".
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Thursday 22nd March 2012
Fiachra Gibbons in The Guardian: ...The French airwaves have been full of such ugly equivocation these past few weeks as Nicolas Sarkozy has lurched his party wildly to the right in an attempt to save his skin, claiming there were "too many immigrants in France" and stoking Islamophobia with a ridiculous claim that the French were being secretly forced to eat halal; his prime minister François Fillon even said Jews and Muslims should put their dietary laws behind them and embrace modernity....Claude Guéant, the interior minister who took personal control of the investigation, has been the most consistently xenophobic, championing the superiority of European Christian civilisation over lesser cultures who force their women to cover up – yes, observant Jews and Muslims,... ....A black man or a Muslim, particularly one of Algerian origin, in a paratrooper's uniform touches a raw nerve among the old guard of the far right. It was the paratroopers who did the bulk of the dirty work to keep Algeria French, and who also tried to oust De Gaulle when he went against them.
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Tuesday 11th October 2011
Anna Davis in the Evening Standard: "Education Secretary Michael Gove stopped eight schools sending pupils to a Palestinian literature festival. Mr Gove challenged headteachers in Islington and Haringey to justify why they planned to participate in the event, run by a branch of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. As a result none of the schools attended the Tottenham Palestine Literary Festival over the weekend. Former children's laureate Michael Rosen was among those who took part....Vivian Wineman, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, told the Jewish Chronicle: "I can think of few organisations which would be less appropriate to run a workshop in a school than the PSC."
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Monday 24th October 2011
Daud Abdullah writes in The Guardian: "The "exposure" of the former special branch officer Bob Lambert comes at a convenient time: it can serve as a distraction from the scandals that have engulfed the neocon tendency in the government. Lambert has been a staunch critic of the government's Islamophobic rhetoric and exclusivist policies. This, to a large extent, explains the excitement that has greeted disclosure of information about Lambert's past career among certain people....Recently, the home secretary detained and issued a deportation order against Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the Islamic movement in Israel. Lambert was one of the expert academics who testified against the order in court and spoke about his work in countering anarchy and terror on our streets. In his characteristically balanced statement he acknowledged the work of the Community Security Trust, the group that lobbied the home secretary, in combating fascism. But, he pointed out that their analyses on Israel lacked balance and objectivity."
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Monday 24th October 2011
InstitCivitas has called for a national day of protest against a blasphemous theatre production on Jesus
Réjouissons-nous de constater que dès la première représentation de ces spectacles obscènes et blasphématoires à Paris, l’indignation des chrétiens se manifeste avec dignité et fermeté et néanmoins sans excès, malgré tout ce que peut écrire une certaine presse spécialisée dans la désinformation. Jeudi comme vendredi, des jeunes gens issus de mouvements divers ont démontré qu’une belle jeunesse pouvait se coaliser pour défendre l’honneur du Christ à travers une grande réaction spontanée qui s’étendra, je l’espère, de jour en jour.
Que cet élan encourage le plus grand nombre à participer à la manifestation nationale contre la christianophobie, ce samedi 29 octobre à Paris.
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Wednesday 26th October 2011
Anas Al-Takriti: "...Not only has the West misunderstood and misread the Arab region, its people, cultures and religions over the past 90 years since the end of World War I, it continues to largely misunderstand, misread and grossly underestimate the Arab world and its people even at its most spectacular hour...A Eurocentric view emerged over the years regarding the potentially terrifying prospect of an Islamic state; The Sharia-based political structure has often been described as male-dominated, authoritarian, dogmatic, and hostile to its neighbours and the West. Yet, the discourse of Islamic movements during the revolutionary phase and in the run up to elections has been anything but."
Related Links
Peter Oborne in the Telegraph: ...We must not repeat the mistakes of the past.
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Tuesday 01st November 2011
Ed Vulaimi, CommonDreams.org: The former chief prosecutor for the US government at Guantánamo Bay has accused the administration he served of operating a "law-free zone" there, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the order to establish the detention camp on Cuba. Retired air force colonel Morris Davis resigned in October 2007 in protest against interrogation methods at Guantánamo, and has made his remarks in the lead-up to 13 November, the anniversary of President George W Bush's executive order setting up military commissions to try terror suspects. Davis said that the methods of interrogation used on Guantánamo detainees – which he described as "torture" – were in breach of the US's own statutes on torture, and added: "If torture is a crime, it should be prosecuted."
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Thursday 03rd November 2011
The BBC reports, "French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo has named the Prophet Muhammad as "editor-in-chief" for its next issue to mark the electoral victory of Islamist party Ennahda in Tunisia...The cover of the next issue, which comes out on Wednesday, shows Muhammad saying '100 lashes if you are not dying of laughter'...In 2007, the French magazine's then editor was acquitted of insulting Muslims by reprinting cartoons of Muhammad which had originally appeared in a Danish newspaper two years previously.
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Tuesday 08th November 2011
Richard Peppiat in the Independent on Sunday: "Record numbers of young, white British women are converting to Islam, yet many are reporting a lack of help as they get used to their new religion, according to several surveys....While other major religions have established programmes for guiding new believers through the rigours of their faith, Islam still lacks any such network, especially outside the Muslim hubs of major cities....Another finding revealed by the Leicester study was that despite Western portraits of Islam casting it as oppressive to women, a quarter of female converts were attracted to the religion precisely because of thestatus it affords them."
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Wednesday 09th November 2011
The Guardian: "..., this month, the "Put Babar Ahmad on trial in the UK" e-petition, secured its 100,000th signature, thereby crossing the mark required to trigger a parliamentary debate. Backed by a handful of celebrities, including comedian Mark Thomas and boxer Amir Khan, and a few dozen British mosques, the Ahmad e-petition is one of only five so far to have attracted more than 100,000 signatures (but little press coverage)...So will MPs, especially those Conservatives who have been so exercised by our perceived loss of sovereignty to the European Union, now use this opportunity to denounce the very real loss of sovereignty to the US on the issue of extradition and champion the cause of a British citizen on the floor of the Commons?"
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Friday 11th November 2011
Al Jazeera : A court in India has found 31 people guilty of killing 33 Muslims in a single house during severe religious and communal riots in the state of Gujarat in 2002..A court in India has found 31 people guilty of killing 33 Muslims in a single house during severe religious and communal riots in the state of Gujarat in 2002. Modi, who is seen by many in the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party as a future candidate for prime minister, denies all accusations about his handling of the riots and has never apologised for the violence.
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Saturday 19th November 2011
Helen Pidd & Luke Harding in the Guardian: "Police investigating a German neo-Nazi terrorist group have discovered a hitlist of 88 possible targets, including two prominent members of the Bundestag and representatives of Turkish and Islamic groups...According to Spiegel Online, investigators discovered the list during inquiries into the activities of the so-called National Socialist Underground (NSU), which is suspected in a string of terror attacks in Cologne and Düsseldorf from 2000-2004. The number 88 is significant, corresponding in the alphabet to HH, or Heil Hitler...On Tuesday, the Hessen branch of the domestic intelligence service, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, or BfV, admitted one of its agents had been present in April 2006 when two members of the NSU shot dead a 21-year-old Turk in an internet cafe...Following the discovery of the terror cell's base in the quiet town of Zwickau, near the Czech border, the German government is under pressure to explain how the group managed to murder undetected for so long."
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Wednesday 23rd November 2011
Paul Goodman in ConservativeHome: "Eric Pickles and Sayeeda Warsi are battling to win control of the first-ever Government initiative to tackle anti-Muslim hatred - which is due to be launched this week as part of a new Coalition integration policy....The tussle between Pickles and Warsi raises questions about which Ministers have charge of the initiative, the nature of the new council, and who represents British Muslims - if anyone....The Foreign Office has overhauled Labour's Engaging with the Islamic World programme. The Education Department has a new counter-extremism unit. And above the whole structure sits Downing Street.."
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Wednesday 23rd November 2011
George Bush and Tony Blair have been found guilty at the symbolic Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal of committing "crimes against peace" during the Iraq war. An initiative by Malaysia's former premier Mahathir Mohamad, the ruling came after a two-year investigation and four-day hearing. The tribunal is also expected to later hear torture and war crimes charges against seven others, including Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney...
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Friday 25th November 2011
"More than any other country, Israel, must adapt to the new political climate in the region. Israel's well-being will depend on an honorable peace with the Arabs. Such a fair and honorable peace cannot be achieved by merely imposing Israel's own terms on the others. In the past, Israel was able to deal with the Arab leaders. But, history has repeatedly taught us that a true, fair and lasting peace can only be made between peoples, not ruling elites...Sooner or later, the Middle East will become democratic, and by definition a democratic government should reflect the true wishes of its people. These democratic governments cannot afford to pursue foreign policies..
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Thursday 01st December 2011
Report from Middle East Monitor (MEMO): "On 25 June 2011, the celebrated Palestinian social, political and civil rights leader, Sheikh Raed. arrived at London's Heathrow airport at the invitation of the independent media research MEMO. The purpose of his visit was to take part in a widely publicised ten-day programme of speaking engagements across the UK. During his visit, Sheikh Raed was scheduled to address the British public and parliamentarians on issues related to the Middle East and the plight of Palestinians living in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Three days into his trip, Sheikh Raed was arrested and detained by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) and then told that he would face deportation."
An investigation into what happened, the role of lobby groups and the legal challenge
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Saturday 03rd December 2011
Mark Malloch-Brown in the Guardian: "...I always noticed that Iran was an issue on which the US and others tended to defer to British views because, unlike Washington, we had our embassy, our own listening post. We were better informed. But that privileged position also carried the seeds of its own undoing as it fed a real suspicion of Britain in Iran. We were seen as the Americans' proxy, doing their business – and in the eyes of many Iranians, particularly in the regime, no doubt spying for them...More troublingly, you do not have to be an Iranian with a persecution complex to concede that Britain has not used its privileged knowledge of Iran to particularly good effect. It has been a loyal camp follower of a narrow American diplomacy..."
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Sunday 04th December 2011
Victoria Brittain in the Guardian: "Eighteen years after the Lawence murder, the case of Babar Ahmad may be poised to trigger another, equally explosive outcry into the institutional racism and Islamophobia that have allowed him to remain in a high security prison in Britain for more than seven years fighting extradition to the US. The Crown Prosecution Service has refused to prosecute him for the crimes that the US alleges he has committed here....Only last week it was revealed that the police, with extraordinary laxity, in 2003 sent material gathered from his house to the US, without showing it to the Crown Prosecution Service. Along the way, the Home Office, and regrettably some MPs, have failed to see the huge resonance of this case for Britain."
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Wednesday 07th December 2011
Matthew Cassel in CommonDreams: "...The thousands of police dressed in full riot gear and armed with teargas, rubber bullets, batons, electric tasers – all of which were used against protesters and journalists – were everywhere around Miami.The 'model', as Miami public officials called it at the time, was the brainchild of police chief John Timoney....Now the Miami model is coming to Bahrain. The Associated Press reported on Thursday that Timoney has been hired by the kingdom's interior ministr,"as part of reforms, following the release of a report last week by a government-sponsored fact-finding commission".
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Thursday 08th December 2011
M K Bhadrakumar in atimes.com:"The easy thing to do is to blame the Taliban. But Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid quickly condemned the "wild and inhuman attack by our enemies, who are trying to blame us and are trying to divide Afghans by making such attacks on Muslims". The Taliban blamed the "invading army" for the attacks, referring to the foreign troops in the country....Pakistan would be a great loser if Afghanistan descended into sectarian strife and the weakening of the Pakistani position in the Afghan endgame would help the US. In sum, US interests are, paradoxically, very well served in the current scenario if sectarian tensions escalate in Afghanistan and Western troops become the only really credible provider of security. That is to say, any number of forces could be interested in indirectly buttressing the US's regional strategies. "
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Sunday 11th December 2011
David Kirkpatrick, NYT: "The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group whose political party is leading in parliamentary elections here, on Thursday accused Egypt’s interim military rulers of attempting to undermine the legislature’s authority and interfering in the writing of a new constitution. The Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party said it was withdrawing from an advisory council being formed by the military leaders, saying that the military was trying to give the new council a major role in writing the constitution....The military council’s new plan and the Brotherhood’s response mark the beginning of a new round in an escalating conflict between the two sides — the military, Egypt’s most powerful institution, and the Brotherhood, its strongest political force — over the drafting of the Constitution and the military’s future role."
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Wednesday 14th December 2011
Agora website: "One of Paris’s most prestigious theatres was being protected by riot police and guard-dog patrols on Thursday after it became the latest target in a wave of Catholic protests across France against so-called “blasphemous” plays....The head of the Théâtre du Rond-Point on the Champs-Elysées complained of death threats in the runup to Thursday’s premiere of the play Golgota Picnic by the Madrid-based, Argentinian writer Rodrigo García. Two men reported to have links to fundamentalist Catholic groups were arrested at the weekend while attempting to disable the theatre’s security system...Civitas, a lobby group that says it aims to re-Christianise France, has called for a large, peaceful street demonstration 'against Christianophobia' this weekend."
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Friday 23rd December 2011
Rana Khazbak: "Sheikh Emad Effat, who was killed at the age of 52 on Friday by military police with a gunshot to his heart, was a revolutionary Islamic scholar who affected the lives of hundreds of students he tutored and taught at Al-Azhar Mosque and Dar al-Iftaa, the Muslim world’s premier institution for legal research. Effat was killed in Tahrir Square when military police violently cracked down on a sit-in by the cabinet building. His family and students suspect that he may have been targeted because of his criticism of the ruling military council and, most importantly, due to his last fatwa, which forbade voting for parliamentary candidates associated with the Mubarak regime and former members of the dissolved National Democratic Party."
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Tuesday 27th December 2011
Guardian, quoting APP: "More than 100,000 people have rallied in support of the Pakistani cricket legend and opposition politician Imran Khan in the country's biggest city, Karachi, further cementing his status as a rising force in politics...Khan's rising popularity could be a concern for the US, given his harsh criticism of the Pakistani government's co-operation with Washington in the fight against Islamist militants. He has been especially critical of US drone strikes targeting militants in Pakistan and has argued that the country's alliance with Washington is the main reason Pakistan is facing a homegrown Taliban insurgency."
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Wednesday 28th December 2011
An Israeli weekend television program told the story of how Naama had become terrified of walking to her elementary school here after ultra-Orthodox men spit on her, insulted her and called her a prostitute because her modest dress did not adhere exactly to their more rigorous dress code...Orthodox male soldiers walked out of a ceremony where female soldiers were singing, adhering to what they consider to be a religious prohibition against hearing a woman’s voice; women have been challenging the seating arrangements on strictly “kosher” buses serving ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods and some inter-city routes, where female passengers are expected to sit at the back.
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Friday 30th December 2011
Simon Jenkins, The Guardian: We can suppress a yawn at David Cameron's sermon on Christian values and Ed Miliband claiming the Helmand army is making Britain "secure, peaceful and happy". More troubling is the foreign secretary, William Hague's, declaration on Facebook of a Christmas ambition to increase "international pressure on Syria, push Burma in the right direction, improve the situation in Somalia, and protect women's rights in the Middle East" among other uplifting goals...None of the areas of Hague's concern had anything to do with Britain, let alone being within Britain's sovereign domain, nor have they been for over half a century. The power has gone. The legitimacy has departed. Only the language of implied command echoes through the Foreign Office's post-imperial dusk.
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Tuesday 17th January 2012
"My dear brothers, please remember that the Prophet (peace be upon him) himself had to endure a lot of suffering. This is nothing compared to what he faced during the siege at Shib-e Abu Talib. As we have decided to follow in his path, we have to face difficulties. Please don’t worry about us – think about the country, about the people of the country, about the Islamic way of life..."
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Thursday 19th January 2012
Mark Perry in FP:"A series of CIA memos describes how Israeli Mossad agents posed as American spies to recruit members of the terrorist organization Jundallah to fight their covert war against Iran....Buried deep in the archives of America's intelligence services are a series of memos, written during the last years of President George W. Bush's administration, that describe how Israeli Mossad officers recruited operatives belonging to the terrorist group Jundallah by passing themselves off as American agents. According to two U.S. intelligence officials, the Israelis, flush with American dollars and toting U.S. passports, posed as CIA officers in recruiting Jundallah operatives -- what is commonly referred to as a 'false flag'operation...".
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Friday 20th January 2012
The Guardian reports: "The judge-led inquiry into the UK's alleged role in the torture and rendition of detainees after the 9/11 attacks, already boycotted by most human rights groups, has been scrapped by the government...Abdel Hakim Belhadj, a commander of anti-Gaddafi forces, and Sami al-Saadi saidthey were tortured after being returned to Libya in a joint US/UK operation. These new investigations would have further delayed the start of the Gibson inquiry."
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Friday 20th January 2012
John Pilger in the New Statesman: "Since the Second World War, the United States has:
1) Attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, most of them democratically elected.
2) Attempted to suppress a populist or national movement in 20 countries.
3) Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.
4) Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries.
5) Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.
In total, the United States has carried out one or more of these actions in 69 countries. In almost all cases, Britain has been a collaborator. The 'enemy' changes in name - from communism to Islamism - but mostly it is the rise of democracy independent of western power, or a society occupying strategically useful territory and deemed expendable, like the Chagos Islands..."
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Monday 23rd January 2012
Haaretz: "The owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, Andrew Adler, has suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu consider ordering a Mossad hit team to assassinate U.S. President Barack Obama so that his successor will defend Israel against Iran. Adler, who has since apologized for his article, listed three options for Israel to counter Iran’s nuclear weapons in an article published in his newspaper last Friday...."
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Tuesday 24th January 2012
Sameer Rahim in the Telegraph: "Last Friday the novelist Salman Rushdie pulled out of a planned appearance at the Jaipur literary festival in Rajasthan, India citing specific death threats made against him...The case grew murkier on Saturday when the director-general of the Mahrashta police (in charge of dealing with the Mumbai underworld) denied any knowledge of a plot: "When we had no information that gangsters or paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld had planned to eliminate Mr Rushdie,” he told The Hindu, 'how could we have shared it with anybody?' ”
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Thursday 26th January 2012
Jonathan Laurence in the NYT: "...Over the next 20 years, Europe’s Muslim population is projected to grow to nearly 30 million — 7 to 8 percent of all Europeans — from around 17 million. Granting Muslims full religious freedom wouldn’t remove obstacles to political participation or create jobs. But it would at least allow tensions over Muslims’ religious practices to fade. This would avoid needless sectarian strife and clear the way for politicians to address the more vexing and urgent challenges of socioeconomic integration"..
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Tuesday 31st January 2012
Jonathan Jones in The Guardian:"This is one of the most brilliant exhibitions the British Museum has put on – and certainly the most confrontational, in its enthusiasm for a religion regularly represented in the British media as violent and extreme. Its power lies in the way it brings together history and archaeology with contemporary images and stories (even plane tickets are included) to give an immediate, graspable sense of religious experience. Liberal-minded non-Muslims, who are more than happy to admire Islamic art, may be challenged by what is a forthright celebration of Islamic belief itself, an argument for the beauty of Islam as a religion. Following the exhibition's reconstructions of the great pilgrim routes, you are led to your destination – an attempt to recreate the intense experience awaiting pilgrims at Mecca, where no one can say they have performed the Hajj until they have completed a series of exhausting and arduous ceremonial activities."
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Tuesday 31st January 2012
I toured it with a non-Muslim friend. He was as fascinated as I was to see how pilgrimages undertaken hundreds of years ago compare to those of today, where modernity and tradition meet, and the beauty of Islamic art, found in everything from milestones to water bottles.
This exhibition gives us a new window not just on to Islam, but on to modern London too.
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Tuesday 31st January 2012
Peter Aspden in the Financial Times:"The show has demanded new presentation skills of the museum. Whereas the objects from its collections normally tell the story with sufficient eloquence, there is more to say here. 'We have tried to evoke the feeling of being there,' says Venetia Porter, the exhibition’s curator. As you enter the corridor to go into the show, you are 'accompanied' by photographs of pilgrims and recordings of incantations. 'They are saying, ‘I am here,’ ' says Porter. The aim is to create, or at least hint at, the ecstatic relief of a spiritual journey ended".
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Wednesday 01st February 2012
Inayat Bunglawala, New Statesman: "Back in June 2011, the Daily Mail published a column by Melanie Phillips in which she described ENGAGE as an "extremist Islamist group" and claimed that they were funded by the government. As I pointed out to the Leveson Inquiry, Mel P has a very particular worldview. She is on record for repeatedly suggesting that the "litmus test" for deciding whether someone is a "moderate Muslim" is whether they "'understand that fundamentally Israel is the victim in the Middle East." I suspect most sane people would happily fail her 'litmus test'."
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Thursday 02nd February 2012
George Monbiot, The Guardian: "These power-damaged people have been granted the chance to fulfil one of humankind's abiding fantasies: to vaporise their enemies, as if with a curse or a prayer, effortlessly and from a safe distance. That these powers are already being abused is suggested by the mendacity of those who are deploying them. The CIA, which is running the undeclared and unacknowledged drone war in Pakistan, insists that there have been no recent civilian casualties. So does Obama's chief counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan. It is a blatant whitewash. As a report last year by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism showed, of some 2,300 people killed by US drone strikes in Pakistan from 2004 until August 2011, between 392 and 781 appear to have been civilians; 175 were children. In the period about which the CIA and Brennan made their claims, at least 45 civilians have been killed. As soon as an agency claims "we never make mistakes", you know that it has lost its moorings..."
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Thursday 09th February 2012
On 5th Feb 2012 Ian Gallagher of the Daily Mail reported on the case of a BA pilot Samir Jamaluddin: "...The 39-year-old is suing the airline for racial and religious discrimination after losing his job. He was judged a security risk after his arrest by Scotland Yard counter-terrorism detectives in 2007, and the airline decided it was in the national interest to ensure he never flew again...employment tribunal reporting restrictions were lifted on Friday after 12 days of highly charged evidence, allowing the case’s extraordinary circumstances to be revealed for the first time...the tribunal heard that at a briefing attended by MI5, MI6 and senior police officers in October 2007, BA was warned that two businessmen wanted to fly a ‘747 by Christmas 2007’ and had paid for lessons upfront in cash....The two men were arrested along with Mr Jamaluddin later the same month, after his close links to them were uncovered by police... None of the arrests resulted in convictions, but after conducting two inquiries the airline concluded Mr Jamaluddin was in a ‘position to cause considerable harm’ and should not fly again...The pilot, a practising Muslim of Indian descent, believes the decision to end his ten-year career was unfair and taken against a background of post-September 11 paranoia and prejudice... Mr Mohamed and Mr Shoubaki were accused of a range of terror offences, including conspiring to possess money for terrorist purposes. All charges against Mr Mohamed were dropped, and in September 2008 a jury cleared Mr Shoubaki, an IT specialist, of possessing items of use to a terrorist...When the trial ended, BA began an internal investigation which eventually found that Mr Jamaluddin had no case to answer. However, he was still deemed a security risk and unsuitable to fly a jumbo jet”.
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Friday 10th February 2012
Source Harakhadaily.net: "[Malaysian PM] Najib ended a meeting with US president Barack Obama by agreeing with Washington's campaign to isolate Iran, and expressed Malaysia's readiness to cooperate with the US in Afghanistan through the training of police and military personnel. The remarks drew a sharp response from Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim, who criticised Najib's stance on Iran while being silent on Israel which has the Middle East's largest nuclear arsenal. 'It is acceptable to state that Iran should not use nuclear arms, but having said that, what about Israel? Why Najib did not have the courage to criticise Israel and went on bended knees by speaking out against Iran in the White House?' Anwar had asked. Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had also warned against any move by Najib's administration to join the US's anti-Iran campaign."
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Sunday 12th February 2012
Peter Oborne in the Daily Telegraph: "...We have preferred not to press charges, instead holding him [Abu Qatada] under the various forms of house arrest made possible by recent anti-terrorism legislation. More recently, we have attempted to deport Qatada to Jordan, but this strategy has rightly fallen foul of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg – which refuses to countenance the idea that any individual should be deported to a country that practices torture. Mysteriously, however, this decision has been condemned as an outrageous assault on British sovereignty, while the Strasbourg Court is under attack as an alien construction, hostile to British history, law, freedom and our national identity. It is time that the case was heard for the defence. Certainly, it should be conceded that those who claim protection from the European Court are often suspicious or unattractive men and women, and many of them foreigners. Abu Qatada is a near perfect example of this kind of phenomenon. But the brutal truth is that obnoxious and unpopular figures are exactly those who most desperately need the protection of the law....And there is no institution – not even the MCC or the Lawn Tennis Association – more British than the European Court of Human Rights...."
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Saturday 18th February 2012
Dr Mourad Dhina - Algerian exile facing torture
A coalition of eleven international and national NGOs today addressed French Prime Minister Francois Fillon in a public letter calling for Alkarama's executive director Dr Mourad Dhina not be extradited to Algeria, where he risks torture. The Prime Minister is responsible for signing off on extradition requests. ACAT-France, Algeria-Watch, Alkarama, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, the Centre Libanais pour les Droits de l'Homme, EUROMED, International Federation for Human Rights, Front Line Defenders, the International Commission of Jurists, the French Ligue des droits de l'Homme and the World Organisation Against Torture expressed their concern that the extradition of Dr Dhina to Algeria would be contrary to France's human rights obligations, and that his arrest might have been requested by the Algerian authorities with a view to muzzle him because of his activities as a human rights defender with Alkarama and his political activities with Rachad, a peaceful political association, legally registered in France, that is seeking democratic change in Algeria.
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Tuesday 21st February 2012
Tony Barber in the FT: "...Still a prolific author at the age of 90, Laqueur, a former Georgetown University professor, has spent a lifetime thinking about Europe...Laqueur is interested in the big themes of Europe’s decline: the looming demographic crunch, the surge in non-European immigration and the feeble growth that, even if there were no eurozone crisis, would threaten the affordability of Europe’s state-funded welfare systems. He writes with insight about Europe’s diverse Muslim communities and convincingly dismisses the alarmist notion, popularised by Oriana Fallaci, the late Italian author, that Muslim immigration will turn the continent into some dystopian 'Eurabia'.”
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Sunday 26th February 2012
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, The Independent: : To cover stories of brutality, criminality, dangerous social customs and values is a sacred duty of journalism and no group can be spared. My concern here is with unjust journalism which allows its victims no reply. In the months of evidence gathering at the Leveson Inquiry there's been no mention of race and ethnic bias or the demonisation of asylum seekers, migrants and blameless Muslims. They are marginalised and invisible. Others too, whose actual exclusion is deepened by the failure of powerful people to notice it. ...For non-white Britons, coverage has been bad for so long that a fatalism has set in. Back in 1997 in Untold, a style magazine now folded, Lenny Henry, Ozwald Boateng, Linford Christie and Jazzy B talked candidly about the press badmouthing black people and its effect. Studies at Glasgow and Leeds Universities show how scare stories about immigrants seep through and eventually create unshakeably negative views. In Pointing the Finger, a book on the reporting of Muslims by Julian Petley and Robin Richardson, examples are given of published prejudices and fabricated stories, including the Daily Express article on piggy banks banned by banks because they offended Muslims. Most of the "threat to Christmas" stories are fictional; innocent "terrorists" are named and shown, and when released the news is not covered. Mr Kavanagh's high and mighty Sun told its readers that the horrific killings in Norway last year happened because the country stood up to Muslims, implying the killer was a Muslim. It was, in fact, a hard-right white fanatic.
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Friday 02nd March 2012
An outspoken Liberal Democrat peer who declared that Israel would not last for ever has resigned the party whip after rejecting a call from Nick Clegg to apologise. Lady Tonge told the leadership in a phone call that she could not accept the ultimatum from the deputy prime minister because she stood by her remarks. Her move, which came as the Board of Deputies of British Jews condemned Tonge's remarks as "sinister and abhorrent", means she no longer takes the Lib Dem whip in the Lords. Tonge said: "The comments I made have been taken completely out of context. They followed a very ill-tempered meeting in which Zionist campaigners attempted continually to disrupt proceedings. They mouthed obscenities at the panelists, to the extent that university security attempted to remove them from the premises.
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Monday 05th March 2012
The Economist [Bagehot blog]: After failing to win the 2010 general election, Conservative leaders came to a sobering conclusion. To win majorities in future, the party needs more MPs like Paul Uppal—a state-educated Sikh entrepreneur who cut across class and ethnic lines to snatch the seat of Wolverhampton South West from Labour...Yet many occupy safe, largely white seats. Nationally, perhaps half a dozen Conservative MPs represent seats with sizeable ethnic-minority votes. Mr Uppal stands out as a non-white Tory MP with lots of non-white voters...In Downing Street, that causes alarm. Aides have lists of urban or semi-urban seats that they think must be won to secure a majority. In many, the ethnic-minority vote is increasing. Yet “the number-one driver of not voting Conservative is not being white,” says a senior figure. It is an “existential” problem.... If Tories want to win elections, they will adapt. They have no choice.
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Friday 09th March 2012
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in the FT: He [Netanyahu] knows the combination of US support for Israel and Israel's treatment of the Palestinians fuels anti-Americanism throughout the Arab and Islamic world, and contributes to the global terrorism problem.
In fact, the Palestinian issue is the real existential threat to israel. More than 500,000 Israeli Jews now live in the occupied territories, and continued settlement building will lead to a single state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Given demographic trends, this 'Geater Israel' could not be both a Jewish state and a full democracy. Instead, it would be an apartheid state, threatening Isreal's legitimacy and long-term survival. As Ehud Olmert, former prime minister, said in 2007, if the two-state solution fails, Israel 'will face a South African-like struggle for equal voting rights'. And if that happens, he warned, 'the State of Israel is finished'.
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Sunday 11th March 2012
Matthew Taylor in The Guardian: A hardcore of far-right supporters in the UK appears to believe violent conflict between different ethnic, racial and religious groups is inevitable, and that it is legitimate to prepare even for armed conflict, according to a new report. The study, From Voting to Violence? Rightwing Extremists in Modern Britain (pdf), by Matthew Goodwin, of the University of Nottingham, and Jocelyn Evans, of Salford University, was launched at Chatham House on Thursday . The report questioned more than 2,000 supporters of "radical-right" and "far-right" groups and found that many endorsed violence, with a "hostile inner core" apparently willing to plan for and prepare for attacks.
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Tuesday 13th March 2012
Mark Townsend in the Guardian: Civilian staff at GCHQ risk being prosecuted for war crimes as a result of a legal action being launched tomorrow over the alleged use of British intelligence in the CIA's "targeted killing" programme. Human rights lawyers will issue proceedings saying that employees at the UK intelligence agency who assist the US in directing drone attacks in Pakistan could be liable as "secondary parties to murder" and that any UK guidance allowing the passing of information to the CIA for use in the strikes is unlawful.Pakistan has previously condemned the attacks as a violation of its sovereignty, amid concern that the use of US drones contravenes international humanitarian law. Hundreds of innocent civilians are thought to have been killed as a result of drone attacks.The legal action, brought by the law firm Leigh Day & Co and the legal action charity Reprieve, is directed against Hague on behalf of Noor Khan, whose father was killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan last year.
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Wednesday 14th March 2012
Middle East Monitor reports: In a press release, Dr. [Hanan] Ashrawi [Member, PLO Executive Committee] condemned Israel's ongoing aggression against the Palestinian people in Gaza, which has resulted in dozens of people being killed and wounded, including children. She said that this is a flagrant violation of international law and resolutions: "What is happening in Gaza is a blatant attempt to interfere in Palestinian domestic affairs to prevent national reconciliation and to boost the popularity of Netanyahu in the upcoming elections, as he escapes from his legal and political responsibilities at the cost of Palestinian blood." The failure of Israel to provoke a military confrontation with Iran has pushed it to create a vicious cycle of violence in Palestine before the eyes and ears of the world, she added.
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Saturday 17th March 2012
Pankaj Mishra in The Guardian: In February 2002 the western Indian state of Gujarat, governed by the Hindu nationalist chief minister Narendra Modi, witnessed one of the country's biggest pogroms. Responding to reports that Muslims had set fire to a train carriage, killing 58 Hindu pilgrims inside, mobs rampaged across the state. The riots flared up again on 15 March – 10 years ago on Wednesday – and killing, raping and looting continued until mid-June. More than 2,000 Muslims were murdered, and tens of thousands rendered homeless in carefully planned and coordinated attacks of unprecedented savagery...No matter: Modi walks out of hostile interviews and ignores rulings from the country's courts: last month his government was issued a contempt notice for failing to compensate 56 people whose shops were destroyed in the riots. He can describe the relief camps that house thousands of dispossessed Muslims as "child-breeding centres". The impunity derives from the fact that Modi, though still denied a visa to the US, remains the unchallenged leader of a big-business-friendly state which his American PR firm, Apco – that also represents brutal dictators such as Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev – has successfully rebranded as "Vibrant Gujarat".
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Tuesday 27th March 2012
Paul Harris in the Guardian: "Monteilh was involved in one of the most controversial tactics: the use of "confidential informants" in so-called entrapment cases. This is when suspects carry out or plot fake terrorist "attacks" at the request or under the close supervision of an FBI undercover operation using secret informants. Often those informants have serious criminal records or are supplied with a financial motivation to net suspects. ..Such actions have led Muslim civil rights groups to wonder if their communities are being unfairly targeted in a spying game that is rigged against them. Monteilh says that is exactly what happens. "The way the FBI conducts their operations, It is all about entrapment … I know the game, I know the dynamics of it. It's such a joke, a real joke. There is no real hunt. It's fixed," he said.
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Thursday 29th March 2012
Sarah Colborne in the Guardian: Jerusalem, the traditional centre of Palestinian social, religious and economic life, is increasingly being isolated and restricted by Israeli policies. As the Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem points out, ever since Israel illegally occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, in violation of international law, "the government of Israel's primary goal in Jerusalem has been to create a demographic and geographic situation that will thwart any future attempt to challenge Israeli sovereignty over the city". Some 200,000 settlers now live in illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem....Palestinians who have lived for generations in East Jerusalem can lose their residency rights if they leave the city because of a Kafkaesque notion that the centre of their life is no longer in Jerusalem, while Israeli citizens retain guaranteed citizenship. Since Israel's occupation of East Jerusalem, more than 14,000 Palestinians have had their residency rights revoked. The 270,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem can find themselves ordered to demolish their homes or businesses, or being forced to watch whilst settlers take over their homes. It is estimated that 20,000 Palestinian homes in Jerusalem have been issued with demolition orders.
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