Showing posts with label islam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label islam. Show all posts

25 Nov 2015

Cultural figures and rights groups call for release of poet facing execution

Leading international cultural figures have joined human rights campaigners in calling for the release of Ashraf Fayadh, the Palestinian poet and artist facing execution in Saudi Arabia.

ashraf-fayadh

Chris Dercon, the director of Tate Modern, British poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, historian Simon Schama, playwright David Hare, and Egyptian novelist and commentator Ahdaf Soueif are among the those calling for the death sentence imposed on Fayadh by a Saudi court last week to be overturned.

More than a dozen organisations for artists, writers, musicians and freedom of expression from the UK, North America and Africa – including Index on Censorship, literary association PEN International and the International Association of Art Critics – have also signed a joint statement condemning Fayadh’s conviction for renouncing Islam, a charge which he denies. The statement, which will be delivered to the Saudi embassy in London by English PEN on Friday, says: “We believe that all charges against him should have been dropped entirely, and are appalled that Fayadh has instead been sentenced to death for apostasy, simply for exercising his rights to freedom of expression and freedom of belief.”

More at The Guardian

24 Nov 2015

Glenn Greenwald on "Submissive" Media's Drumbeat for War and Anti-Muslim Scapegoating

In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, media coverage has seen familiar patterns: uncritically repeat government claims, defend expansive state power, and blame the Muslim community for the acts of a few. We discuss media fearmongering, anti-Muslim scapegoating, ISIL’s roots, and war profiteering with Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and co-founder of The Intercept. "Every time there’s a terrorist attack, Western leaders exploit that attack to do more wars," Greenwald says. "Which in turn means they transfer huge amounts of taxpayer money to these corporations that sell arms. And so investors are fully aware that the main people who are going to benefit from this escalation as a result of Paris are not the American people or the people of the West —-— and certainly not the people of Syria — it is essentially the military-industrial complex."

Democracy Now! 

16 Nov 2015

John Oliver Paris Attacks

A life is a life

Jeremy Corbyn has suggested the British media under-played terrorist attacks in Beirut and Ankara compared to its coverage of the atrocities in Paris this weekend. The Labour leader claimed the events “got hardly any publicity” and the media should “report things that happen outside of Europe as well as inside”.

Paris media coverage

On Thursday evening, over 40 people died in Beirut in an IS terror attack a day before the Paris strikes. The extremists are also believed to have been responsible for the October suicide bombings in Ankara, Turkey, which killed over 100 people. Mr Corbyn told ITV’s Lorraine Kelly this morning: “I think first of all what happened in Paris was appalling, this is a vibrant, multicultural city, young people of all faiths, and older people as well, all there together, and cultures, and this terrible thing happened.

“Likewise, which didn’t unfortunately get hardly any publicity, was the bombing in Beirut last week or the killing in Turkey. I think our media needs be able to report things that happen outside of Europe as well as inside. A life is a life.”

More at Huff. Post UK – Also see The Conversation.

31 Oct 2015

Publisher And Two Secular Writers Hacked To Death In Bangladesh

A publisher of a slain online critic of religious militancy was hacked to death on Saturday in the Bangladesh capital, police said, hours after similar attacks on two secular writers and another publisher in the majority-Muslim country. Faysal Arefin published books by Avijit Roy, a U.S. citizen of Bangladeshi origin who was killed by Islamists militants in the same way in February.

Faysal Arefin

Militants have targeted secularist writers in Bangladesh in recent years, as the government has cracked down on Islamist groups seeking to turn the South Asian nation of 160 million people into a sharia-based state. The country has also been rocked by attacks in which two foreigners were shot dead and a Shi'ite shrine in Dhaka was bombed. In the earlier attacks on Saturday, two secular writers and another publisher of Roy were stabbed and shot in Dhaka.

Huff. Post - .StraitsTimes.com – AlJazeera

24 Oct 2015

The vanished: the Filipino domestic workers who disappear behind closed doors

According to the United Nation’s International Labour Organisation, domestic workers are some of the most likely to face abuse and exploitation in their place of work. A number of cases in the past few weeks have made international headlines: an Indian domestic worker who had her arm chopped off, allegedly by her employer when she asked for her wages; a Saudi diplomat who reportedly tortured and raped his Nepalese domestic workers; another Saudi man videoed apparently molesting his foreign maid as she worked in the family kitchen. But these are just the stories we hear about; there are many more cases, documented by human rights groups, in which women have been gang-raped, burned with oil, starved, mutilated with acid or literally worked to death.

indonesian workers

In the Gulf, the International Trade Union Confederation says that 2.4 million domestic workers are facing conditions of slavery. Yet moving abroad to find work as a domestic worker is a calculated risk that millions of women such as Marilyn take every year. For a largely invisible workforce, domestic workers wield serious economic clout. Collectively, they account for 4% of total global employment and nearly 8% of total female employment. There are 1.5 million domestic workers in Saudi Arabia alone, and recruitment agencies fly in 40,000 women a month to keep up with demand. Muslim women from the Philippines are considered the highest calibre of workers in many richer households.

More at The Guardian

29 Sept 2015

Supernatural Foreskin

Stupid Muslim Comments #12 by TheVeganAtheist

16 Sept 2015

Sensitive Site: Clashes at Holy site enter third day in Israel

The al-Aqsa mosque complex in the heart of Jerusalem, has witnessed a third day of clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians. Police tried to clear the protesters, some of whom barricaded themselves inside the holy site.

jerusalem

From the site: The Temple Mount Faithful | Working to Rebuild the Temple on the Temple Mount

Do not fear any human power, trust only the G‑d of our forefathers. Remove the foreign Arab Islamic occupation of the Holy Temple Mount of the G‑d of Israel, purify the Holy Hill of G‑d Almighty like our forefathers did in times past and rebuild the end-time Holy Third Temple of G‑d. Stop immediately the pagan abomination and the shameful situation on the Holy Hill of G‑d. Remove immediately the flags of ISIS, Hamas, and other foreign flags from the location of the Holy Temple of G‑d. Stop immediately the incitement against the G‑d and people of Israel perpetrated by the Arab Islamic Mufti and other Islamic speakers from the most Holy Hill of G‑d in Jerusalem, the location of the Shekina of G‑d, which is now in captivity by the agents of the Satan of ISIS and other cruel terrorists.

Never ever in the history of Israel have the people of G‑d allowed such a terrible and satanic anti-godly event to happen on the holiest place of G‑d in the entire universe and it should immediately be stopped. It breaks the heart of the people of Israel and many righteous friends of Israel throughout the world. More of this here..

8 Aug 2015

Fourth secular Bangladesh blogger hacked to death

A gang armed with machetes has hacked a secular blogger to death at his home in Dhaka in the fourth such murder in Bangladesh since the start of the year, an activist group and police have said. Niloy Chatterjee, who used the pen-name Niloy Neel, was murdered on Friday after the men broke into his flat in the capital's Goran neighbourhood, according to the Bangladesh Blogger and Activist Network, which was alerted to the attack by a witness.

blogger-Niloy-Chowdhury-dead-body

"They entered his room in the fifth floor and shoved his friend aside and then hacked him to death. He was a listed target of the Islamist militants," the network's head Imran H Sarker, told the AFP news agency.
Later on Friday, Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star, reported that Ansar al-Islam, a local chapter of al-Qaeda had claimed responsibility for the killing. The newspaper said the group had sent an email to media houses in Bangladesh, adding that the authenticity of the email issued by Mufti Abdullah Ashraf, who claimed himself to be the spokesman of Ansar-Al-Islam, could not be verified independently. Chatterjee, 40, was a critic of religious extremism that led to bombings in mosques and the killing of numerous civilians, Sarker said.

Attacks on Bangladesh bloggers in 2015
August 6 - Niloy Chatterjee, blogger, hacked to death at his home in Dhaka.
May 12 - Ananta Bijoy Das, blogger for Mukto-Mona website, killed while on his way to work in the city of Sylhet.
March 30 - Washiqur Rahman Babu, blogger, hacked to death by three men in Dhaka.
February 26 - Avijit Roy, a prominent Bangladeshi-American blogger, killed while walking with his wife outside Dhaka University.

More at  Al Jazeera English

4 Aug 2015

Raqqa: An Inside Story

A firsthand account of how Islamic State militants took over the city of Raqqa in northern Syria, declaring it their capital.
Part of a larger multimedia story on Mashable.com

13 Jul 2015

ISIS sex slaves subjected to rape freed by secret resistance network

Women and young girls held as sex slaves by depraved Islamic State militants are fleeing their captors with the help of a heroic underground network of resistance fighters. Risking certain death and torture in a bid to flee their brutal oppressors, many spend several days making their way through Syria and Iraq to the safety of government-controlled territory. Many of them have been subjected to appalling violence, rape and sexual abuse at the hands of ISIS fighters and commanders.

A resistance fighter in Syria carries a girl once held captive as a sex slave to safety across the Sinjar Mountain in northern Iraq

ISIS has carried out 'systematic sexual crimes' against girls from the Yazidi community since kidnapping more than 3,000 girls from their homes in northern Iraq last August. Unjustly regarded as ‘devil worshippers’ on account of their unusual beliefs, the Yazidi have for centuries been one of the most persecuted minorities of the Middle East. Islamic extremists regard them as infidels, worthy only of being killed. Those considered the 'most beautiful' by ISIS leaders are sent to horrendous auction houses where they are stripped naked and sold to the highest bidder.

More at Daily Mail Online

26 Jun 2015

Terror attacks on 3 continents, including 37 in Tunisia

Gunmen killed at least 37 people at a beachfront Tunisian hotel on Friday, the same day terrorists lashed out brutally in France and bombed a mosque in Kuwait.

tunisia-attack

Tunisia's health ministry reported those deaths as well as 36 injuries in and around the Hotel Riu Imperial Marhaba in the coastal Tunisian city of Sousse, according to the state-run TAP news agency. There were three attackers -- one of whom was killed, one arrested and one escaped -- Interior Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Aroui told reporters.

Tunisia's nightmare came on the same day as at least two deadly terrorist attack in other countries.

france_factory_attack

One person was beheaded and two injured at a gas factory near Lyon in south-eastern France, according to French President Francois Hollande. And ISIS has claimed responsibility for an apparent bomb blast at the Shiite-affiliated Al-Sadiq mosque in Kuwait's capital during Friday prayers, leaving at least 25 dead and more than 200 injured.

More at CNN.com

16 May 2015

If You Are A Muslim….

Dusty Smith explains in the simplest possible terms why you would have to be completely fucking retarded to believe in Islam.

CultOfDusty

20 Feb 2015

Saudi Cleric Reveals The Sun Rotates Around The Earth

A Saudi Arabian cleric has made a groundbreaking discovery that could redefine science in the 21st century –- the Earth does not rotate. What’s more, the sun is orbiting the static body, not the other way around. The breakthrough was made by Sheikh Bandar al-Khaibari, who delivered his thesis during a recent lecture in the United Arab Emirates, having been asked by a student about the movement of the planet.

Huff. Post

17 Jan 2015

EU response to free speech killings? More internet censorship

In the wake of this week’s terrorist attacks in Paris, which began with the killing of 12 people at the offices of satirical publication Charlie Hebdo, the interior ministers of 12 EU countries have called for a limited increase in internet censorship.

charlie-hebdo-paris-shooting

The interior ministers of France, Germany, Latvia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the U.K. said in a statement (PDF) that, while the internet must remain “in scrupulous observance of fundamental freedoms, a forum for free expression, in full respect of the law,” ISPs need to help “create the conditions of a swift reporting of material that aims to incite hatred and terror and the condition of its removing, where appropriate/possible.”

France-police-state

This sounds similar to recent agreements in the U.K. whereby ISPs use filters to stop citizens seeing “extremist” online content, though it’s hard to tell without more details. There seems to be no coordinated push for more internet surveillance just yet, although there is a drive for better intelligence sharing between EU countries.

It seems, to say the least, an awkward reaction to what was in part a free-speech-related attack — the left-wing Charlie Hebdo has itself frequently been accused of hate speech for its portrayal of Muslims and others. On that front, a German newspaper that reprinted blasphemous Charlie Hebdo cartoons of Mohammed in the wake of the attack was firebombed in the early hours of Sunday morning, with no injuries. Others that did the same remain under police guard.

Gigaom.com - Tech News and Analysis

11 Jan 2015

Muslim Leaders Declare Aim Of World Domination

Various Islamic leaders, preachers and citizens state their end goal of world domination, through the means of infiltration, immigration and violent jihadist terrorism, in order to subjugate unbelievers and consolidate their power.