Danish far-right activists stage Koran-burning stunt in Muslim-populated neighborhood (VIDEO)
3 Oct, 2020 22:53
Danish far-right activists stage Koran-burning stunt in Muslim-populated neighborhood (VIDEO)
Danish Stram Kurs (“Hard Line”) party has staged a Koran-burning protests in an area of the town of Fredericia mostly populated by Turkish and Muslim immigrants. The stunt attracted a group of angry locals, one man was detained.
The activists, led by the party’s head Rasmus Paludan appeared in Fredericia on late Friday afternoon. While the protest was originally expected to take place at a local park, the group instead stood on a cordoned-off lawn by a local supermarket under watch of multiple police officers.
The Stram Kurs members tossed around and burned several copies of the Koran, insisting the stunt was needed to send a political message.
‘What we are doing today is, we are telling the truth about Islam, because many people in Denmark don't know what Islam is about, so we want to explain what Islam is about, and that the values and judgments of Islam are very, very in contradiction to Danish western European values,” Paludan stated.
The stunt has attracted a group of angry locals, who condemned the Stram Kurs’ activities. Footage from the scene shows one man detained by the police after he breached the cordoned-off lawn reserved for the provocative stunt.
The far-right party, founded back in 2017, has repeatedly engaged in similar stunts in Denmark, as well as in neighboring Nordic countries. The latest – and arguably one of the most ‘efficient’ – protests of the kind was held by the party late in August in Sweden’s Malmo.
Violent riots erupt in Malmo, Sweden after Koran-torching stunt, police say they have ‘no control’ over situation (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)
Paludan himself was pre-emotively banned from entering Sweden for two years after he announced the Koran-burning event, yet his supporters proceeded with the stunt without their leader. The stunt prompted a very angry reaction among Malmo’s Muslim population, resulting in protests that promptly tumbled into outright rioting with blazing barricades in the streets and clashes.
While the Stram Kurs party is well known for its anti-Islam activism and Koran-burning events, its political achievements remain quite modest. The party did not manage to get any seats during any elections it took part in, failing to get past the 2 percent threshold during the latest general election in 2019.
https://www.rt.com/news/502472-koran-bu ... far-right/
Atrocities Against Muslims And Islam
Australian soldier pictured drinking beer out of dead Taliban fighter's prosthetic leg
Giovanni Torre
The Telegraph Tue, December 1, 2020, 11:07 AM CST
The Australian and Afghan National Army search a village in Uruzgan Province (file photo) - Angela Wylie/The AGE/Fairfax Media via Getty Images via Getty Images
The Australian and Afghan National Army search a village in Uruzgan Province (file photo) - Angela Wylie/The AGE/Fairfax Media via Getty Images via Getty Images
A photo of an Australian soldier drinking beer from the prosthetic leg of a dead Taliban fighter emerged on Tuesday, as the Chinese and Australian governments continued to trade blows over alleged Australian war crimes in Afghanistan.
The photograph of the soldier drinking from an apparent “war trophy” in an unauthorized bar in Afghanistan in 2009 was one of several obtained by Guardian Australia.
Another shows two soldiers dancing with the leg. The bar, known as the Fat Lady’s Arms, was set up inside Australia’s special forces base in Tarin Kowt, the capital of Uruzgan province.
Some soldiers claimed in the Guardian that the practice was widely tolerated by officers at high levels, and even involved some of them.
Taking property without the consent of the owner may be classified as pillaging, a war crime which carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
The revelations came as China hit back at the Australian government, which had criticized a social media post by senior official Zhao Lijian featuring a doctored image of an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an Afghan child.
The post was a reference to the findings of the Brereton inquiry which implicated Australian forces in the alleged murder of prisoners or civilians in Afghanistan.
In a statement, the Chinese Embassy in Canberra said the Australian Government was attempting to deflect attention from war crimes committed by Australian forces, to stoke the fires of “domestic nationalism”, and to pin the blame for the deteriorating relationship between the countries on China.
While the Brereton inquiry largely absolved the Australian military’s top brass of responsibility for the alleged crimes, the report noted that a “warrior culture” had developed in the special forces which contributed to offences, a culture of which senior officers could not have been unaware.
Australian historian and lecturer on asymmetrical warfare and counter-insurgency, Dr Philip Chilton, told The Telegraph that Australia’s special forces “are bred to have a warrior culture”, and that it is “problematic” that the report appeared to “exonerate the higher command for responsibility for any of this”.
While the Department of Defense has not confirmed the authenticity of the photographs, in June 2018 Fairfax Media reported that Australian troops had been using the prosthetic leg taken from an Afghan man as a drinking vessel.
The Department of Defense said in a statement that all credible allegations of wrongdoing will be investigated.
“The report has been redacted to remove names and details that could identify individuals against whom the Inquiry has found credible information to support allegations of criminal wrongdoing or other misconduct... Where there is information provided to Defense not addressed as part of the Afghanistan Inquiry [headed by Justice Brereton], these matters will be investigated thoroughly and acted on,” a spokesperson said.
“It is critical that all matters are considered carefully, and any actions are undertaken according to the ADF’s longstanding and well-established processes, ensuring the rights of individuals to due process and fair hearing are protected.”
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/au ... 49019.html
Giovanni Torre
The Telegraph Tue, December 1, 2020, 11:07 AM CST
The Australian and Afghan National Army search a village in Uruzgan Province (file photo) - Angela Wylie/The AGE/Fairfax Media via Getty Images via Getty Images
The Australian and Afghan National Army search a village in Uruzgan Province (file photo) - Angela Wylie/The AGE/Fairfax Media via Getty Images via Getty Images
A photo of an Australian soldier drinking beer from the prosthetic leg of a dead Taliban fighter emerged on Tuesday, as the Chinese and Australian governments continued to trade blows over alleged Australian war crimes in Afghanistan.
The photograph of the soldier drinking from an apparent “war trophy” in an unauthorized bar in Afghanistan in 2009 was one of several obtained by Guardian Australia.
Another shows two soldiers dancing with the leg. The bar, known as the Fat Lady’s Arms, was set up inside Australia’s special forces base in Tarin Kowt, the capital of Uruzgan province.
Some soldiers claimed in the Guardian that the practice was widely tolerated by officers at high levels, and even involved some of them.
Taking property without the consent of the owner may be classified as pillaging, a war crime which carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
The revelations came as China hit back at the Australian government, which had criticized a social media post by senior official Zhao Lijian featuring a doctored image of an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an Afghan child.
The post was a reference to the findings of the Brereton inquiry which implicated Australian forces in the alleged murder of prisoners or civilians in Afghanistan.
In a statement, the Chinese Embassy in Canberra said the Australian Government was attempting to deflect attention from war crimes committed by Australian forces, to stoke the fires of “domestic nationalism”, and to pin the blame for the deteriorating relationship between the countries on China.
While the Brereton inquiry largely absolved the Australian military’s top brass of responsibility for the alleged crimes, the report noted that a “warrior culture” had developed in the special forces which contributed to offences, a culture of which senior officers could not have been unaware.
Australian historian and lecturer on asymmetrical warfare and counter-insurgency, Dr Philip Chilton, told The Telegraph that Australia’s special forces “are bred to have a warrior culture”, and that it is “problematic” that the report appeared to “exonerate the higher command for responsibility for any of this”.
While the Department of Defense has not confirmed the authenticity of the photographs, in June 2018 Fairfax Media reported that Australian troops had been using the prosthetic leg taken from an Afghan man as a drinking vessel.
The Department of Defense said in a statement that all credible allegations of wrongdoing will be investigated.
“The report has been redacted to remove names and details that could identify individuals against whom the Inquiry has found credible information to support allegations of criminal wrongdoing or other misconduct... Where there is information provided to Defense not addressed as part of the Afghanistan Inquiry [headed by Justice Brereton], these matters will be investigated thoroughly and acted on,” a spokesperson said.
“It is critical that all matters are considered carefully, and any actions are undertaken according to the ADF’s longstanding and well-established processes, ensuring the rights of individuals to due process and fair hearing are protected.”
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/au ... 49019.html
Forced marriages and polygamy among targets of French law tackling radical Islamism
Henry Samuel
The Telegraph Wed, December 9, 2020, 9:57 AM CST
Emmanuel Macron's cabinet has approved a draft bill targeting radical Islam that would clamp down on polygamy and forced marriage.
The draft bill “bolstering the principles of the Republic” introduces a raft of new measures as part of President Emmanuel Macron’s drive to get tough on those who foster “separatism” from French society. Foreigners will be denied residency in France if found to be polygamous and future spouses see marriages cancelled if authorities conclude they are forced, under the proposed legislation.
Prime Minister Jean Castex on Wednesday defined separatism as “the manifestation of a conscious, theorized, political-religious project with an ambition to make religious norms predominate over the law”.
The text, which was completed after an Islamist beheaded teacher Samuel Paty outside Paris in October, also makes it a crime to intimidate public servants on religious grounds.
Under the law, school will be obligatory from the age of three with home schooling for special cases only. The measure is aimed at preventing parents enrolling children in underground Islamic facilities.
Another clause cracks down on online hate speech by enabling judges to hold fast track trials of terror suspects. Mr Paty was the target of a vicious online smear campaign for showing his students cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a class on free speech.
As for forced marriages - a fate that befalls an estimated 200,000 women or so in France, according to NGOs - under the new legislation, if state officials are informed that a potential forced marriage is about to occur, “the agent can proceed with an individual interview of the two potential future spouses to ensure there is consent,” according to Marlène Schiappa, the citizenship minister.
If the agent deems there is any obligation, a prosecutor will be alerted and could block the marriage.
Regarding polygamy, which is illegal in France, she said: “We will not give residency status to people who are polygamous.” Anyone already living in France with more than one wife will see his residency status “removed”.
The draft bill also introduces jail terms and fines for doctors who provide controversial so-called "virginity certificates" for traditional religious marriages. Those caught handing them out face a year in jail and fine of €15,000.
“Nobody in the French Republic should have to justify their virginity,” said Ms Schiappa.
Under the law, NGOs and charities suspected of being infiltrated by radical Islamists will have to return any public funds if found to have failed to “respect the principles and values of the republic”.
Another article encourages France's 2,600 mosques to register as places of worship, so as to better identify them and check they are not espousing extremism. Foreign funding for mosques, while not forbidden, would have to be declared if more than 10,000 euros.
The draft legislation follows a torrent of criticism from Muslim countries over comments by Mr Macron, who said the right to blaspheme would always be guaranteed in France and that Islam was "in crisis". Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed them as "open provocation", while Egyptian scholars called Mr Macron's views racist. Protests called for the boycott of French goods.
However, Mr Castex insisted: "This bill is not a text aimed against religions or against the Muslim religion in particular.”
"It is the reverse - it is a law of freedom, it is a law of protection, it is a law of emancipation against religious fundamentalism,” he insisted after the cabinet approved a text to present to parliament.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/fo ... 15718.html
Henry Samuel
The Telegraph Wed, December 9, 2020, 9:57 AM CST
Emmanuel Macron's cabinet has approved a draft bill targeting radical Islam that would clamp down on polygamy and forced marriage.
The draft bill “bolstering the principles of the Republic” introduces a raft of new measures as part of President Emmanuel Macron’s drive to get tough on those who foster “separatism” from French society. Foreigners will be denied residency in France if found to be polygamous and future spouses see marriages cancelled if authorities conclude they are forced, under the proposed legislation.
Prime Minister Jean Castex on Wednesday defined separatism as “the manifestation of a conscious, theorized, political-religious project with an ambition to make religious norms predominate over the law”.
The text, which was completed after an Islamist beheaded teacher Samuel Paty outside Paris in October, also makes it a crime to intimidate public servants on religious grounds.
Under the law, school will be obligatory from the age of three with home schooling for special cases only. The measure is aimed at preventing parents enrolling children in underground Islamic facilities.
Another clause cracks down on online hate speech by enabling judges to hold fast track trials of terror suspects. Mr Paty was the target of a vicious online smear campaign for showing his students cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in a class on free speech.
As for forced marriages - a fate that befalls an estimated 200,000 women or so in France, according to NGOs - under the new legislation, if state officials are informed that a potential forced marriage is about to occur, “the agent can proceed with an individual interview of the two potential future spouses to ensure there is consent,” according to Marlène Schiappa, the citizenship minister.
If the agent deems there is any obligation, a prosecutor will be alerted and could block the marriage.
Regarding polygamy, which is illegal in France, she said: “We will not give residency status to people who are polygamous.” Anyone already living in France with more than one wife will see his residency status “removed”.
The draft bill also introduces jail terms and fines for doctors who provide controversial so-called "virginity certificates" for traditional religious marriages. Those caught handing them out face a year in jail and fine of €15,000.
“Nobody in the French Republic should have to justify their virginity,” said Ms Schiappa.
Under the law, NGOs and charities suspected of being infiltrated by radical Islamists will have to return any public funds if found to have failed to “respect the principles and values of the republic”.
Another article encourages France's 2,600 mosques to register as places of worship, so as to better identify them and check they are not espousing extremism. Foreign funding for mosques, while not forbidden, would have to be declared if more than 10,000 euros.
The draft legislation follows a torrent of criticism from Muslim countries over comments by Mr Macron, who said the right to blaspheme would always be guaranteed in France and that Islam was "in crisis". Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed them as "open provocation", while Egyptian scholars called Mr Macron's views racist. Protests called for the boycott of French goods.
However, Mr Castex insisted: "This bill is not a text aimed against religions or against the Muslim religion in particular.”
"It is the reverse - it is a law of freedom, it is a law of protection, it is a law of emancipation against religious fundamentalism,” he insisted after the cabinet approved a text to present to parliament.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/fo ... 15718.html
Schools teach about Islam – and are accused of indoctrination
Deena Mousa
Christian Science Monitor Fri, February 19, 2021, 8:24 AM
When she immigrated to the United States from Iran as a child, Elika Dadsetan-Foley says she was taunted “at school … for being a terrorist and heard terms … that have to do with having a lot of sand where I came from. I asked my parents, ‘Is there even sand in Iran? What does this mean? Do they know something about my heritage that I don’t know?’”
Eventually, Ms. Dadsetan-Foley converted to Catholicism. “I wanted to shed one more layer of difference,” she says. “I thought to myself, I can try to assimilate this way.”
Currently CEO/executive director of VISIONS Inc., a nonprofit training and consulting organization specializing in diversity and inclusion, Ms. Dadsetan-Foley taught civics at High Tech High School in San Diego in the late 2000s. She says she seriously considered how she taught about other cultures and values. “When I think about values, I think, Are we teaching them through a white, monocultural lens?”
“Our public school system’s historic role was to provide a common set of values,” says Michael Kirst, professor emeritus of education at Stanford University and former president of the California State Board of Education. “[Public schools] exist in particular to socialize and provide a values perspective for immigrants.”
But that begs the question of what values should be taught and how. Whenever teachers stand at the head of a classroom, they convey foundational principles – often through the simple ways they relate to their students. “It’s not a question of whether we should teach values; it’s happening [regardless],” Ms. Dadsetan-Foley says.
Introduction or indoctrination?
Debates about values education have gone on for decades – often with considerable tension. Recently, much of the conflict has centered around how educators teach their students about Islam and Islamic values.
Students in Chatham Middle School in New Jersey undertake a World Cultures and Geography class in the seventh grade, including a unit on the Islamic faith in the context of the Middle East and North Africa. In January 2017, Libby Hilsenrath was reviewing her son’s schoolwork when she learned about the Islam-related unit.
Ms. Hilsenrath complained to the school district and appeared on Fox News to discuss her concerns. Following her television appearance, viewers threatened school officials and Board members. “The threats were serious enough to have police at the middle school and the district administration building,” says Melissa Cavallo, whose children attend Chatham Middle School.
A year after her initial complaint, Ms. Hilsenrath filed a law suit against several Chatham school officials, the board of education, and the school district. The Thomas More Law Center represented her pro bono, as part of their mission to defend and promote “America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and moral values.” One of their key goals is “confronting the threat of radical Islam,” which, they say, has already “infiltrated” many sectors of society, including the schools.
The suit alleged that the school was promoting the Islamic faith. At the center of the complaint was a five-minute video introduction to Islam that included statements like “Allah is the one God,” The Quran is a “Perfect guide for Humanity,” and “May God help us all find the true faith, Islam.”
Ms. Hilsenrath argued that the school proselytized on behalf of Islam by exposing middle school students to a video that “seeks to convert viewers to Islam and is filled with the religious teachings of Islam.” The suit also complained about a worksheet with a link to a webpage that explains “the ease with which they could convert to become Muslim.”
In November 2020, Ms. Hilsenrath’s case was dismissed with prejudice. “There is, to be sure, a line to be drawn between teaching about religion and teaching religion,” Judge Kevin McNulty wrote in the decision. “On this record, I must conclude that the school did not cross that line.”
Who loses in these clashes?
Conflict over teaching about Islam is not limited to Chatham. Similar complaints have arisen from coast to coast. These conflicts are not victimless.
On the one hand, when education about different belief systems is stunted, students lack an adequate understanding of other cultures. For those living in homogenous areas, this may be their only opportunity for a different perspective.
“I remember there not being any religious diversity in the town to speak of,” says Guy Citron, an alumnus of Chatham Middle School. “I was one of only a few Jewish kids.” In this case, he says, “The school district was legitimately trying to raise awareness about what other people in other countries have as far as religious tradition goes ... because they weren’t going to learn about Islam from their fellow students.”
Mr. Kirst also notes that there is “some evidence that ethnic studies help students understand others of different ethnic backgrounds or heritage” – and that this understanding may help students “do better in other subjects.”
On the other hand, if teachers hold that “belief in Judeo-Christian principles is foundational to being an American” – as Richard Thompson, chief counsel and president of the Thomas More Law Center, advocates – Muslim children could find it difficult to feel a sense of belonging in the classroom.
“I think the conflict itself, may have reaffirmed several things to … Muslim students in the school system,” Mr. Citron says, “certainly that Chatham has closemindedness issues.”
Those affirmations can have impacts on children, Mr. Kirst says. “This is also about student self-esteem.”
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/sc ... 00403.html
Deena Mousa
Christian Science Monitor Fri, February 19, 2021, 8:24 AM
When she immigrated to the United States from Iran as a child, Elika Dadsetan-Foley says she was taunted “at school … for being a terrorist and heard terms … that have to do with having a lot of sand where I came from. I asked my parents, ‘Is there even sand in Iran? What does this mean? Do they know something about my heritage that I don’t know?’”
Eventually, Ms. Dadsetan-Foley converted to Catholicism. “I wanted to shed one more layer of difference,” she says. “I thought to myself, I can try to assimilate this way.”
Currently CEO/executive director of VISIONS Inc., a nonprofit training and consulting organization specializing in diversity and inclusion, Ms. Dadsetan-Foley taught civics at High Tech High School in San Diego in the late 2000s. She says she seriously considered how she taught about other cultures and values. “When I think about values, I think, Are we teaching them through a white, monocultural lens?”
“Our public school system’s historic role was to provide a common set of values,” says Michael Kirst, professor emeritus of education at Stanford University and former president of the California State Board of Education. “[Public schools] exist in particular to socialize and provide a values perspective for immigrants.”
But that begs the question of what values should be taught and how. Whenever teachers stand at the head of a classroom, they convey foundational principles – often through the simple ways they relate to their students. “It’s not a question of whether we should teach values; it’s happening [regardless],” Ms. Dadsetan-Foley says.
Introduction or indoctrination?
Debates about values education have gone on for decades – often with considerable tension. Recently, much of the conflict has centered around how educators teach their students about Islam and Islamic values.
Students in Chatham Middle School in New Jersey undertake a World Cultures and Geography class in the seventh grade, including a unit on the Islamic faith in the context of the Middle East and North Africa. In January 2017, Libby Hilsenrath was reviewing her son’s schoolwork when she learned about the Islam-related unit.
Ms. Hilsenrath complained to the school district and appeared on Fox News to discuss her concerns. Following her television appearance, viewers threatened school officials and Board members. “The threats were serious enough to have police at the middle school and the district administration building,” says Melissa Cavallo, whose children attend Chatham Middle School.
A year after her initial complaint, Ms. Hilsenrath filed a law suit against several Chatham school officials, the board of education, and the school district. The Thomas More Law Center represented her pro bono, as part of their mission to defend and promote “America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and moral values.” One of their key goals is “confronting the threat of radical Islam,” which, they say, has already “infiltrated” many sectors of society, including the schools.
The suit alleged that the school was promoting the Islamic faith. At the center of the complaint was a five-minute video introduction to Islam that included statements like “Allah is the one God,” The Quran is a “Perfect guide for Humanity,” and “May God help us all find the true faith, Islam.”
Ms. Hilsenrath argued that the school proselytized on behalf of Islam by exposing middle school students to a video that “seeks to convert viewers to Islam and is filled with the religious teachings of Islam.” The suit also complained about a worksheet with a link to a webpage that explains “the ease with which they could convert to become Muslim.”
In November 2020, Ms. Hilsenrath’s case was dismissed with prejudice. “There is, to be sure, a line to be drawn between teaching about religion and teaching religion,” Judge Kevin McNulty wrote in the decision. “On this record, I must conclude that the school did not cross that line.”
Who loses in these clashes?
Conflict over teaching about Islam is not limited to Chatham. Similar complaints have arisen from coast to coast. These conflicts are not victimless.
On the one hand, when education about different belief systems is stunted, students lack an adequate understanding of other cultures. For those living in homogenous areas, this may be their only opportunity for a different perspective.
“I remember there not being any religious diversity in the town to speak of,” says Guy Citron, an alumnus of Chatham Middle School. “I was one of only a few Jewish kids.” In this case, he says, “The school district was legitimately trying to raise awareness about what other people in other countries have as far as religious tradition goes ... because they weren’t going to learn about Islam from their fellow students.”
Mr. Kirst also notes that there is “some evidence that ethnic studies help students understand others of different ethnic backgrounds or heritage” – and that this understanding may help students “do better in other subjects.”
On the other hand, if teachers hold that “belief in Judeo-Christian principles is foundational to being an American” – as Richard Thompson, chief counsel and president of the Thomas More Law Center, advocates – Muslim children could find it difficult to feel a sense of belonging in the classroom.
“I think the conflict itself, may have reaffirmed several things to … Muslim students in the school system,” Mr. Citron says, “certainly that Chatham has closemindedness issues.”
Those affirmations can have impacts on children, Mr. Kirst says. “This is also about student self-esteem.”
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/sc ... 00403.html
Gang raped, shackled and broken students: Inside China’s ‘horrific’ Uighur detention camps
Sam Hancock
The IndependentFri, February 19, 2021, 11:15 AM
This file photo shows a facility believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities, like Uighurs, are detained in Xinjiang (AFP via Getty Images)
This file photo shows a facility believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities, like Uighurs, are detained in Xinjiang (AFP via Getty Images)
A woman who claims to have been forced to teach Mandarin to classes of “loudly crying” men and women inside China’s Uighur detention camps has given a rare glimpse into what goes on behind their closed, locked and guarded doors.
Qelbinur Sidik, a teacher, said she was summoned to a meeting at the Saybagh District Bureau of Education in 2016 and told she would soon be working with “illiterates”. By 2017, she was routinely teaching Madarin to classes of “shackled” students inside two government-run camps.
Ms Sidik, an Uzbek, grew up in Xinjiang and spent 28 years teaching school children aged from six to 13.
In an interview with CNN on Friday, Ms Sidik said detainees arrived at the centres “fit, robust and bright-eyed” but quickly became sick and weak. She recalled regularly hearing screams from above her basement-level classroom which, when she asked, a male policeman confirmed to be the cries of tortured detainees.
“I witnessed horrific tragedy,” she said.
Ms Sidik also alleged that, inside one of the camps she worked at, a female police officer told her she was investigating reports of guards raping inmates. That same policewoman, according to Ms Sidik, said her male colleagues would get drunk and “tell each other how they raped and tortured girls”.
While none of these claims could be verified, due to China’s insistence no such abuse takes place in these so-called “vocational centres”, Ms Sidik’s version of events is similar to survivors who have spoken out about their experiences.
Tursunay Ziyawudun, speaking in the same CNN report earlier, said she had not committed any crime when she was seized in March 2018 and placed in a centre just outside the city of Ghulja, Xinjiang, where she remained for nine months.
Providing details of “multiple gang rapes” that took place, she said: “I heard a girl crying and screaming in another room. I saw about five or six men going into the room and I thought they were torturing her.
“But then I was gang raped. After that I realised what they also did to her.”
Ms Ziyawudun spoke to the broadcaster from inside the US, after she was rushed there for medical treatment in 2020. She returned to Kazahkstan in September 2019 under strict orders, by the Chinese authorities, not to talk about about her time at the camp, she said.
Doctors removed her uterus, with medical records seen by CNN showing she was diagnosed with a pelvic abscess and vaginal bleeding, as well as tuberculosis. Ms Ziyawudun said she blamed her treatment in the camp for her surgeries.
The Chinese government has continuously rejected allegations of genocide against Uighurs; in a statement to CNN it said “there is no so-called ‘systematic sexual assault and abuse against women’ in Xinjiang”.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ga ... 31546.html
Sam Hancock
The IndependentFri, February 19, 2021, 11:15 AM
This file photo shows a facility believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities, like Uighurs, are detained in Xinjiang (AFP via Getty Images)
This file photo shows a facility believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities, like Uighurs, are detained in Xinjiang (AFP via Getty Images)
A woman who claims to have been forced to teach Mandarin to classes of “loudly crying” men and women inside China’s Uighur detention camps has given a rare glimpse into what goes on behind their closed, locked and guarded doors.
Qelbinur Sidik, a teacher, said she was summoned to a meeting at the Saybagh District Bureau of Education in 2016 and told she would soon be working with “illiterates”. By 2017, she was routinely teaching Madarin to classes of “shackled” students inside two government-run camps.
Ms Sidik, an Uzbek, grew up in Xinjiang and spent 28 years teaching school children aged from six to 13.
In an interview with CNN on Friday, Ms Sidik said detainees arrived at the centres “fit, robust and bright-eyed” but quickly became sick and weak. She recalled regularly hearing screams from above her basement-level classroom which, when she asked, a male policeman confirmed to be the cries of tortured detainees.
“I witnessed horrific tragedy,” she said.
Ms Sidik also alleged that, inside one of the camps she worked at, a female police officer told her she was investigating reports of guards raping inmates. That same policewoman, according to Ms Sidik, said her male colleagues would get drunk and “tell each other how they raped and tortured girls”.
While none of these claims could be verified, due to China’s insistence no such abuse takes place in these so-called “vocational centres”, Ms Sidik’s version of events is similar to survivors who have spoken out about their experiences.
Tursunay Ziyawudun, speaking in the same CNN report earlier, said she had not committed any crime when she was seized in March 2018 and placed in a centre just outside the city of Ghulja, Xinjiang, where she remained for nine months.
Providing details of “multiple gang rapes” that took place, she said: “I heard a girl crying and screaming in another room. I saw about five or six men going into the room and I thought they were torturing her.
“But then I was gang raped. After that I realised what they also did to her.”
Ms Ziyawudun spoke to the broadcaster from inside the US, after she was rushed there for medical treatment in 2020. She returned to Kazahkstan in September 2019 under strict orders, by the Chinese authorities, not to talk about about her time at the camp, she said.
Doctors removed her uterus, with medical records seen by CNN showing she was diagnosed with a pelvic abscess and vaginal bleeding, as well as tuberculosis. Ms Ziyawudun said she blamed her treatment in the camp for her surgeries.
The Chinese government has continuously rejected allegations of genocide against Uighurs; in a statement to CNN it said “there is no so-called ‘systematic sexual assault and abuse against women’ in Xinjiang”.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ga ... 31546.html
By Alessandra Cappelletti
Associate Professor, Department of International Studies, Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University
March 12, 2021
The labyrinth of alleys and lanes in the old city of Suzhou hides a secret: historical fragments of the long history of Islam in China. Regular stories in the international press highlighting the treatment of Muslims in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region tend to obscure the fact that Islam was once highly regarded by Chinese emperors.
From written records and imperial edicts engraved on steles (standing stone slabs monuments) it is clear that these Islamic communities enjoyed the favor of the emperors—especially during the Tang (618-907 AD), Yuan (1271-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) dynasties. Islam was looked on favorably by the imperial court because of its ethics, which—as far as the emperors were concerned—promoted harmonious and peaceful relations between the diverse peoples in the imperial territories.
Before the Panthay and Tungan rebellions in the second half of the 19th century in western China, when millions of Muslims were killed or relocated, Islam was considered by Christian missionaries in the country—and particularly by Russian scholars—as a growing threat. Islam was considered by many in the west to have the potential to become the national religion in China—which would have made China the biggest Islamic country in the world.
Islam and China: a special connection
Today, Suzhou is a vibrant, wealthy city of 12 million people only 20 minutes by high speed train from Shanghai. What remains of “Islamic Suzhou” lies just outside the city wall to the north-west. There is only one active mosque: Taipingfang, in the northern commercial and entertainment district of Shilu.
Taipingfang was restored in 2018 and is where local and visiting Muslims go to pray. It’s in a busy part of the neighborhood, squeezed in a tiny alley, surrounded by small restaurants and hotels, canteens, food stalls, and butchers catering to Uighur and Hui Muslims. The butchers of Taipingfang—like those in Beijing’s Niujie area where the majority of the city’s Muslim minority lives—are popularly thought to sell the best meat.
Before 1949, Suzhou had at least 10 mosques of various sizes and social importance. Many of them were vast buildings with precious furniture and sophisticated decorations, while others were smaller intimate prayer rooms. One of them was a women’s mosque presided over by a female imam.
The women’s mosque, Baolinqian, was one of a cluster of four mosques was built during the Qing Dynasty, all connected to the wealthy Yang family inside the city walls in the north-western part of the city. Built in 1923, it was established by initiative of three married women from the Yang family who donated the building and raised funding from other Muslim families to turn it into a women’s mosque. During the Cultural Revolution (1966 to 1976), the mosque’s library, containing holy scriptures, was damaged and the building was turned into private houses. Nothing remains today to show it was a mosque.
Another Yang family mosque, Tiejunong, was built over three years during the reign of the Qing emperor Guagxu, from 1879 to 1881. It was the biggest in Suzhou with an area of more than 3,000 square meters, featuring seven courtyards. The main hall for Friday prayers had 10 rooms and could hold more than 300 people. The courtyard included a minaret and a pavilion in which was housed an imperial stele.
Now a middle school, Tiejunong is recognizable from the external architecture and an ancient wooden engraved side door. Beyond a monumental entrance, there is still the idea of the main courtyard surrounded by trees. Now there is a huge football field, and the trees on the sides of the walkway are still visible from their chopped trunks. The ablution area covered by blue tiles clearly shows the past presence of a mosque.
Tiankuqian Mosque was built in 1906 and is now inhabited by poor city residents—most likely as a result of the practice during the Cultural Revolution of reallocating large, aristocratic or religious buildings as living accommodation for indigent families. The mosque used to cover an area of almost 2,000 square meters, with a main hall, a guest hall, and ablution room.
The structure of the main hall was like a large lecture place, containing—as the local historical records report—a ginkgo wood horizontal plaque written in calligraphy by master Yu Yue. Because many Muslim jade workers had businesses in the same district, donations made the mosque the most prosperous in the whole of China. And, in the 1920s, a school teaching Islamic and Confucian texts was opened there.
Many of the mosques had affiliated schools teaching the Arabic language and Islamic writings to the children of the Muslim communities. Suzhou is one of the first cultural centers where Islamic scriptures were published in the Chinese language. Translations from Persian into Chinese were made by the 16th-century Suzhou scholars, Zhang Zhong and Zhou Shiqi, making the city an early hub of Islamic intellectual culture.
But it was an Islamic hub hybridized in its Chinese context, a process described in Jonathan Lipman’s book, Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China. Islamic texts were taught alongside Confucian ones, giving birth to an eclectic corpus of Islamic writings.
The oldest Suzhou mosque, Xiguan, takes its name from the adjacent Xiguan bridge in the center of the old city. It was built in the 13th century during the Yuan dynasty, probably financed by the prominent Muslim Sayyid family, and its influential Yunnan’s provincial governor, Sayyid Ajall Shams al-Din Omar al-Bukhari (1211-1279).
The mosque was later incorporated into a government building during the Ming dynasty, so only written accounts remain of its existence in local Chinese records. This suggests—and it is already a well-known historical assessment—that the Yuan dynasty favored Muslims from Central Asia in its administration and government service. This significant population group was much later, in the 1950s, classified within China as the Hui minority and constitute about half of China’s Muslims today.
Traces of the past
The Cultural Revolution effectively banned Islam in China, as religions of any kind were considered tools to oppress and silence the peoples’ needs.
As a result, little remains of these religious buildings today. But the traces that do still exist—a door, a stone, the structure of the façade, or simply a known address, written in an archive—are symbolic representations of a past life. These are clues to the diverse social context and spiritual geography that these places inspired and were part of.
As the American sinologist, Frederick Mote—a professor of history at Princeton University—argued, Suzhou’s past is embodied in words, not stones, and the fragments of Suzhou Islamic communities can be pieced together with the help of historical written records. These records of a diverse past are equally important to the future in a country where religions—every religion—are strictly controlled by the state due to what the authorities consider as their potential destabilizing political powers.
The recent reports of efforts of ideological re-education performed by local authorities towards the Uighur population in north-western China make the situation even more complex and worth further observation and research.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
https://qz.com/1982825/when-did-islam-c ... source=YPL
Associate Professor, Department of International Studies, Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University
March 12, 2021
The labyrinth of alleys and lanes in the old city of Suzhou hides a secret: historical fragments of the long history of Islam in China. Regular stories in the international press highlighting the treatment of Muslims in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region tend to obscure the fact that Islam was once highly regarded by Chinese emperors.
From written records and imperial edicts engraved on steles (standing stone slabs monuments) it is clear that these Islamic communities enjoyed the favor of the emperors—especially during the Tang (618-907 AD), Yuan (1271-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) dynasties. Islam was looked on favorably by the imperial court because of its ethics, which—as far as the emperors were concerned—promoted harmonious and peaceful relations between the diverse peoples in the imperial territories.
Before the Panthay and Tungan rebellions in the second half of the 19th century in western China, when millions of Muslims were killed or relocated, Islam was considered by Christian missionaries in the country—and particularly by Russian scholars—as a growing threat. Islam was considered by many in the west to have the potential to become the national religion in China—which would have made China the biggest Islamic country in the world.
Islam and China: a special connection
Today, Suzhou is a vibrant, wealthy city of 12 million people only 20 minutes by high speed train from Shanghai. What remains of “Islamic Suzhou” lies just outside the city wall to the north-west. There is only one active mosque: Taipingfang, in the northern commercial and entertainment district of Shilu.
Taipingfang was restored in 2018 and is where local and visiting Muslims go to pray. It’s in a busy part of the neighborhood, squeezed in a tiny alley, surrounded by small restaurants and hotels, canteens, food stalls, and butchers catering to Uighur and Hui Muslims. The butchers of Taipingfang—like those in Beijing’s Niujie area where the majority of the city’s Muslim minority lives—are popularly thought to sell the best meat.
Before 1949, Suzhou had at least 10 mosques of various sizes and social importance. Many of them were vast buildings with precious furniture and sophisticated decorations, while others were smaller intimate prayer rooms. One of them was a women’s mosque presided over by a female imam.
The women’s mosque, Baolinqian, was one of a cluster of four mosques was built during the Qing Dynasty, all connected to the wealthy Yang family inside the city walls in the north-western part of the city. Built in 1923, it was established by initiative of three married women from the Yang family who donated the building and raised funding from other Muslim families to turn it into a women’s mosque. During the Cultural Revolution (1966 to 1976), the mosque’s library, containing holy scriptures, was damaged and the building was turned into private houses. Nothing remains today to show it was a mosque.
Another Yang family mosque, Tiejunong, was built over three years during the reign of the Qing emperor Guagxu, from 1879 to 1881. It was the biggest in Suzhou with an area of more than 3,000 square meters, featuring seven courtyards. The main hall for Friday prayers had 10 rooms and could hold more than 300 people. The courtyard included a minaret and a pavilion in which was housed an imperial stele.
Now a middle school, Tiejunong is recognizable from the external architecture and an ancient wooden engraved side door. Beyond a monumental entrance, there is still the idea of the main courtyard surrounded by trees. Now there is a huge football field, and the trees on the sides of the walkway are still visible from their chopped trunks. The ablution area covered by blue tiles clearly shows the past presence of a mosque.
Tiankuqian Mosque was built in 1906 and is now inhabited by poor city residents—most likely as a result of the practice during the Cultural Revolution of reallocating large, aristocratic or religious buildings as living accommodation for indigent families. The mosque used to cover an area of almost 2,000 square meters, with a main hall, a guest hall, and ablution room.
The structure of the main hall was like a large lecture place, containing—as the local historical records report—a ginkgo wood horizontal plaque written in calligraphy by master Yu Yue. Because many Muslim jade workers had businesses in the same district, donations made the mosque the most prosperous in the whole of China. And, in the 1920s, a school teaching Islamic and Confucian texts was opened there.
Many of the mosques had affiliated schools teaching the Arabic language and Islamic writings to the children of the Muslim communities. Suzhou is one of the first cultural centers where Islamic scriptures were published in the Chinese language. Translations from Persian into Chinese were made by the 16th-century Suzhou scholars, Zhang Zhong and Zhou Shiqi, making the city an early hub of Islamic intellectual culture.
But it was an Islamic hub hybridized in its Chinese context, a process described in Jonathan Lipman’s book, Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China. Islamic texts were taught alongside Confucian ones, giving birth to an eclectic corpus of Islamic writings.
The oldest Suzhou mosque, Xiguan, takes its name from the adjacent Xiguan bridge in the center of the old city. It was built in the 13th century during the Yuan dynasty, probably financed by the prominent Muslim Sayyid family, and its influential Yunnan’s provincial governor, Sayyid Ajall Shams al-Din Omar al-Bukhari (1211-1279).
The mosque was later incorporated into a government building during the Ming dynasty, so only written accounts remain of its existence in local Chinese records. This suggests—and it is already a well-known historical assessment—that the Yuan dynasty favored Muslims from Central Asia in its administration and government service. This significant population group was much later, in the 1950s, classified within China as the Hui minority and constitute about half of China’s Muslims today.
Traces of the past
The Cultural Revolution effectively banned Islam in China, as religions of any kind were considered tools to oppress and silence the peoples’ needs.
As a result, little remains of these religious buildings today. But the traces that do still exist—a door, a stone, the structure of the façade, or simply a known address, written in an archive—are symbolic representations of a past life. These are clues to the diverse social context and spiritual geography that these places inspired and were part of.
As the American sinologist, Frederick Mote—a professor of history at Princeton University—argued, Suzhou’s past is embodied in words, not stones, and the fragments of Suzhou Islamic communities can be pieced together with the help of historical written records. These records of a diverse past are equally important to the future in a country where religions—every religion—are strictly controlled by the state due to what the authorities consider as their potential destabilizing political powers.
The recent reports of efforts of ideological re-education performed by local authorities towards the Uighur population in north-western China make the situation even more complex and worth further observation and research.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
https://qz.com/1982825/when-did-islam-c ... source=YPL
Cyprus mosque defaced on bicentennial of Greek uprising from Ottoman rule
Reuters Thu, March 25, 2021, 5:57 PM
NICOSIA (Reuters) - Vandals defaced the facade of a mosque in ethnically split Cyprus on Thursday, daubing it with Greek flags and slogans and drawing a harsh condemnation from authorities.
The mosque, located west of the city of Limassol close to Cyprus's southern coast, was spray-painted blue with stencils of the Greek flag on its stone exterior. Christian crucifixes, also in blue, were painted on its two wooden doors.
Thursday marked the bicentennial of an 1821 Greek uprising which ended Ottoman rule in Greece. Cyprus, which was also part of the Ottoman Empire, became a British protectorate in 1878, later became a colony and then gained independence in 1960.
Cypriot authorities condemned the incident, calling it "an unacceptable and senseless act of so-called patriotism which desecrated places of religious worship."
The Religious Track of the Cyprus Peace Process, an interfaith religious group, called it "shameful."
Cyprus was split between its Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot population after a Turkish invasion in 1974 prompted by a brief Greek inspired coup. Countless mediation attempts have failed to heal the divide, with the United Nations poised to launch a new effort in Geneva in April.
"Malicious acts such as these do not contribute in any way to the creation of the right climate to solve the Cyprus issue and reunify our country," Cypriot government spokesman Kyriakos Koushos said in a written statement.
"Idiots of the day" wrote one user on Twitter under a picture of the mosque.
(Reporting By Michele Kambas; editing by Richard Pullin)
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/cy ... 14552.html
Reuters Thu, March 25, 2021, 5:57 PM
NICOSIA (Reuters) - Vandals defaced the facade of a mosque in ethnically split Cyprus on Thursday, daubing it with Greek flags and slogans and drawing a harsh condemnation from authorities.
The mosque, located west of the city of Limassol close to Cyprus's southern coast, was spray-painted blue with stencils of the Greek flag on its stone exterior. Christian crucifixes, also in blue, were painted on its two wooden doors.
Thursday marked the bicentennial of an 1821 Greek uprising which ended Ottoman rule in Greece. Cyprus, which was also part of the Ottoman Empire, became a British protectorate in 1878, later became a colony and then gained independence in 1960.
Cypriot authorities condemned the incident, calling it "an unacceptable and senseless act of so-called patriotism which desecrated places of religious worship."
The Religious Track of the Cyprus Peace Process, an interfaith religious group, called it "shameful."
Cyprus was split between its Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot population after a Turkish invasion in 1974 prompted by a brief Greek inspired coup. Countless mediation attempts have failed to heal the divide, with the United Nations poised to launch a new effort in Geneva in April.
"Malicious acts such as these do not contribute in any way to the creation of the right climate to solve the Cyprus issue and reunify our country," Cypriot government spokesman Kyriakos Koushos said in a written statement.
"Idiots of the day" wrote one user on Twitter under a picture of the mosque.
(Reporting By Michele Kambas; editing by Richard Pullin)
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/cy ... 14552.html
Mosque leaders ask protesters to step back after school takes action in Prophet Mohammed row
Sophie Barnes
The Telegraph Sun, March 28, 2021, 12:48 PM
Last week Batley Grammar School suspended a teacher who showed pupils the image, which parents said had been taken from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, as part of a Religious Studies class.
Mosque leaders in Batley have encouraged would-be protesters to back down from continued demonstrations outside a school at the centre of a row over the showing of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.
Last week Batley Grammar School suspended a teacher who showed pupils the image, which parents said had been taken from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, as part of a Religious Studies class.
The teacher has apologized after showing students the cartoon, and head teacher Gary Kibble said the image was “totally inappropriate”. The teacher has been suspended pending an independent formal investigation.
Some protesters had vowed to keep gathering outside the school until the teacher was sacked. But some local mosque leaders told the Telegraph that following conversations between parents, the teacher and the school they were encouraging would-be protesters to stay away.
The school’s half term holiday begins tomorrow which has dissuaded some protesters. Some local mosque leaders said they have been sending messages to the local Muslim community discouraging them from taking part in the protests following the school’s announcement that it would launch a formal investigation into the incident.
Akooji Badat, chairman of Snowdon Mosque, said: “We’re working together with the parents and the teacher, and the school have been kind to all the sectors by suspending the teacher so there’s no real cause for a peaceful protest outside the school. The school has done its job and cooperated well with us.”
A petition set up by a student at the school in support of the teacher has attracted more than 50,000 signatures.
Around 50 protesters gathered outside the school last week and more than 20,000 people have signed a rival petition calling for the teacher to be sacked.
A protester read out a statement outside of the school on Friday, in which he said: "The teachers have breached the position of trust and failed their duty of safeguarding, and this issue must be addressed as a matter of urgency.
"We do not accept that the school has taken this issue seriously, given that it's taken them four days to merely suspend only one of the teachers involved."
In a statement issued on Thursday, the school said: "The school unequivocally apologizes for using a totally inappropriate resource in a recent religious studies lesson. The member of staff has also given their most sincere apologies.
"We have immediately withdrawn teaching on this part of the course and we are reviewing how we go forward with the support of all the communities represented in our school.
"It is important for children to learn about faith and beliefs, but this must be done in a sensitive way. "The member of staff has been suspended pending an independent formal investigation.
"The school is working closely with the governing board and community leaders to help resolve the situation."
Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said: "I was disturbed to see scenes of people protesting outside the school - that is not right.
"We shouldn't have teachers, members of staff of schools feeling intimidated, and the reports that a teacher may even be in hiding is very disturbing.
"That is not a road we want to go down in this country, so I would strongly urge people who are concerned about this issue not to do that."
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/mo ... 14299.html
Sophie Barnes
The Telegraph Sun, March 28, 2021, 12:48 PM
Last week Batley Grammar School suspended a teacher who showed pupils the image, which parents said had been taken from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, as part of a Religious Studies class.
Mosque leaders in Batley have encouraged would-be protesters to back down from continued demonstrations outside a school at the centre of a row over the showing of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.
Last week Batley Grammar School suspended a teacher who showed pupils the image, which parents said had been taken from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, as part of a Religious Studies class.
The teacher has apologized after showing students the cartoon, and head teacher Gary Kibble said the image was “totally inappropriate”. The teacher has been suspended pending an independent formal investigation.
Some protesters had vowed to keep gathering outside the school until the teacher was sacked. But some local mosque leaders told the Telegraph that following conversations between parents, the teacher and the school they were encouraging would-be protesters to stay away.
The school’s half term holiday begins tomorrow which has dissuaded some protesters. Some local mosque leaders said they have been sending messages to the local Muslim community discouraging them from taking part in the protests following the school’s announcement that it would launch a formal investigation into the incident.
Akooji Badat, chairman of Snowdon Mosque, said: “We’re working together with the parents and the teacher, and the school have been kind to all the sectors by suspending the teacher so there’s no real cause for a peaceful protest outside the school. The school has done its job and cooperated well with us.”
A petition set up by a student at the school in support of the teacher has attracted more than 50,000 signatures.
Around 50 protesters gathered outside the school last week and more than 20,000 people have signed a rival petition calling for the teacher to be sacked.
A protester read out a statement outside of the school on Friday, in which he said: "The teachers have breached the position of trust and failed their duty of safeguarding, and this issue must be addressed as a matter of urgency.
"We do not accept that the school has taken this issue seriously, given that it's taken them four days to merely suspend only one of the teachers involved."
In a statement issued on Thursday, the school said: "The school unequivocally apologizes for using a totally inappropriate resource in a recent religious studies lesson. The member of staff has also given their most sincere apologies.
"We have immediately withdrawn teaching on this part of the course and we are reviewing how we go forward with the support of all the communities represented in our school.
"It is important for children to learn about faith and beliefs, but this must be done in a sensitive way. "The member of staff has been suspended pending an independent formal investigation.
"The school is working closely with the governing board and community leaders to help resolve the situation."
Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said: "I was disturbed to see scenes of people protesting outside the school - that is not right.
"We shouldn't have teachers, members of staff of schools feeling intimidated, and the reports that a teacher may even be in hiding is very disturbing.
"That is not a road we want to go down in this country, so I would strongly urge people who are concerned about this issue not to do that."
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/mo ... 14299.html
French government disgusted by attack on Muslim centre
ReutersSun, April 11, 2021, 1:47 PM
PARIS (Reuters) - The French government on Sunday condemned the defacing of an Islamic cultural centre in western France with Islamaphobic slogans, and said an attack on Muslims was an attack on the Republic.
The tags, daubed on the side a building used as a prayer room in the city of Rennes, were found shortly before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins in France on Tuesday.
Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin said it was a disgusting attack against the fundamental freedom to believe in a religion and that Muslims deserved the same protection as any other religious group in France.
"Attacks against Muslims are attacks against the Republic," Darmanin said after he visited the site.
Among the slogans scrawled on the building were "Catholicism - religion of the state" and "No to Islamification".
The French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), one of the main groups representing Muslims in France, called the incident an "unbearable aggression".
"As Ramadan approaches and in the face of a surge in anti-Muslim acts, the CFCM calls on Muslims in France to be vigilant," the association said on Twitter.
France follows a strict form of secularism, known as "laicité", which is designed to separate religion and public life.
Darmanin, a conservative in President Emmanuel Macron's government, is the main sponsor of legislation passing through parliament which the government says is designed to tackle what it describes as encroaching fundamentalism that is subverting French values.
Senior representatives of all religions were consulted during the drafting and the CFCM supports the bill.
While the legislation does not single out Islam, some critics say it points the finger at Muslims.
(Reporting by Richard Lough; editing by David Evans)
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/fr ... 46103.html
ReutersSun, April 11, 2021, 1:47 PM
PARIS (Reuters) - The French government on Sunday condemned the defacing of an Islamic cultural centre in western France with Islamaphobic slogans, and said an attack on Muslims was an attack on the Republic.
The tags, daubed on the side a building used as a prayer room in the city of Rennes, were found shortly before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins in France on Tuesday.
Interior Minister Gerard Darmanin said it was a disgusting attack against the fundamental freedom to believe in a religion and that Muslims deserved the same protection as any other religious group in France.
"Attacks against Muslims are attacks against the Republic," Darmanin said after he visited the site.
Among the slogans scrawled on the building were "Catholicism - religion of the state" and "No to Islamification".
The French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), one of the main groups representing Muslims in France, called the incident an "unbearable aggression".
"As Ramadan approaches and in the face of a surge in anti-Muslim acts, the CFCM calls on Muslims in France to be vigilant," the association said on Twitter.
France follows a strict form of secularism, known as "laicité", which is designed to separate religion and public life.
Darmanin, a conservative in President Emmanuel Macron's government, is the main sponsor of legislation passing through parliament which the government says is designed to tackle what it describes as encroaching fundamentalism that is subverting French values.
Senior representatives of all religions were consulted during the drafting and the CFCM supports the bill.
While the legislation does not single out Islam, some critics say it points the finger at Muslims.
(Reporting by Richard Lough; editing by David Evans)
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/fr ... 46103.html
A Muslim advocacy group just sued Facebook for failing to remove hate-speech, and it's the latest example of the tech's patchwork polices that fail to crack down on Islamophobia
Allana Akhtar
Business Insider Sat, April 10, 2021, 8:44 AM
Mark Zuckerberg sheryl sandberg
Muslim Advocates sued Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg for allegedly misleading Congress on how adequately they remove hate speech.
An advocacy group sued Facebook for allegedly misleading Congress regarding hate speech moderation.
The suit claims Facebook failed to remove most anti-Muslim groups presented to them in 2017.
The Muslim Advocates suit underscores how tech platforms fail to moderate anti-Muslim content.
A Muslim advocacy group this week sued Facebook for failing to curtail hate speech, part of tech's broader problem stopping Islamophobic speech.
Civil rights group Muslim Advocates filed a suit against Facebook and four company executives in the District of Columbia Superior Court for lying to Congress about moderating hate speech.
Facebook executives have told Congress of their commitment to removing content that violate policies, including COO Sheryl Sandberg's assertion to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Facebook and Foreign Influence that "when content violates our policies, we will take it down."
Yet Muslim Advocates said the organization presented Facebook with a list of 26 groups that spread anti-Muslim hate in 2017, yet 19 of them are still active.
The suit claims Facebook allowed a man threatening to kill Congresswoman Ilhan Omar to post "violent and racist content for years," and that the company failed to remove a group called "Death to Murdering Islamic Muslim Cult Members" even after Elon University Professor Megan Squire brought it to Facebook's attention.
"We do not allow hate speech on Facebook and regularly work with experts, non-profits, and stakeholders to help make sure Facebook is a safe place for everyone, recognizing anti-Muslim rhetoric can take different forms," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement to Insider. "We have invested in AI technologies to take down hate speech, and we proactively detect 97 percent of what we remove."
In 2018, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified to Congress that the platform's can fail to police hate speech due to its artificial intelligence. Hate speech has nuance that can be tricky for AI to identify and remove, especially in different languages, Zuckerberg said.
Zuckerberg once again addressed questions about moderation and automation at a March 2021 congressional hearing about misinformation. His testimony about how content moderation needs to take into consideration "nuances," like when advocates make counterarguments against hateful hashtags, seemed at odds with Facebook's admitted reliance on AI to do the job of moderating hate speech.
Peter Romer-Friedman, a principal at Gupta Wessler PLLC who helped file the suit and the former counsel to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, said Congress cannot adequately oversee corporations that misrepresent facts to lawmakers.
Romer-Friedman said Facebook's failure to remove a group that claimed "Islam is a disease" - which directly violates the company's hate speech policies that prohibits "dehumanizing speech including...reference or comparison to filth, bacteria, disease, or feces" - is an example where the firm did not follow through on its promise to Congress to quell hate speech.
"It's become all too common for corporate execs to come to Washington and not tell the truth, and that harms the ability of Congress to understand the problem and fairly regulate businesses that are inherently unsafe," Romer-Friedman told Insider.
How Facebook and other tech firms are failing to address anti-Muslim hate speech
The suit highlight's tech firms' ongoing problem responding to anti-Muslim content online.
Rep. Omar, the first congressperson to wear a hijab or Muslim headscarf, called on Twitter to address the death threats she receives. "Yo @Twitter this is unacceptable!" she said in 2019.
An analysis by the Social Science Research Council analyzed more than 100,000 tweets directed at Muslim candidates running for office in 2018, and found Twitter was responsible "for the spread of images and words from a small number of influential voices to a national and international audience," per The Washington Post.
The spread of anti-Muslim content extends far beyond Facebook and Twitter:
TikTok apologized to a 17-year-old user for suspending her account condemning China's mass crackdown on Uighur Muslims.
VICE has reported Muslim prayer apps like Muslim Pro had been selling location data on users to the US military.
Instagram banned Laura Loomer, a "proud Islamophobe," years after Uber and Lyft banned her for a series of anti-Muslim tweets following a terror attack in New York.
Sanaa Ansari, a staff attorney with Muslim Advocates, said there's been "clear evidence" of incitement to violence against Muslims potentially due to unchecked hate speech on social media. In 2019, 16-minute livestream of a gunman attacking two mosques and killing 51 people in New Zealand was uploaded to Facebook and spread quickly to Youtube, Instagram, and Twitter.
"There have been multiple calls to arms to Muslims, there have been organized events by anti-Muslim supremacists and militias who have organized marches, protests at mosques in this country," Ansari told Insider in an interview. "And that's just the tip of the iceberg."
Read the original article on Business Insider
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/mu ... 00585.html
Allana Akhtar
Business Insider Sat, April 10, 2021, 8:44 AM
Mark Zuckerberg sheryl sandberg
Muslim Advocates sued Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg for allegedly misleading Congress on how adequately they remove hate speech.
An advocacy group sued Facebook for allegedly misleading Congress regarding hate speech moderation.
The suit claims Facebook failed to remove most anti-Muslim groups presented to them in 2017.
The Muslim Advocates suit underscores how tech platforms fail to moderate anti-Muslim content.
A Muslim advocacy group this week sued Facebook for failing to curtail hate speech, part of tech's broader problem stopping Islamophobic speech.
Civil rights group Muslim Advocates filed a suit against Facebook and four company executives in the District of Columbia Superior Court for lying to Congress about moderating hate speech.
Facebook executives have told Congress of their commitment to removing content that violate policies, including COO Sheryl Sandberg's assertion to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Facebook and Foreign Influence that "when content violates our policies, we will take it down."
Yet Muslim Advocates said the organization presented Facebook with a list of 26 groups that spread anti-Muslim hate in 2017, yet 19 of them are still active.
The suit claims Facebook allowed a man threatening to kill Congresswoman Ilhan Omar to post "violent and racist content for years," and that the company failed to remove a group called "Death to Murdering Islamic Muslim Cult Members" even after Elon University Professor Megan Squire brought it to Facebook's attention.
"We do not allow hate speech on Facebook and regularly work with experts, non-profits, and stakeholders to help make sure Facebook is a safe place for everyone, recognizing anti-Muslim rhetoric can take different forms," a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement to Insider. "We have invested in AI technologies to take down hate speech, and we proactively detect 97 percent of what we remove."
In 2018, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified to Congress that the platform's can fail to police hate speech due to its artificial intelligence. Hate speech has nuance that can be tricky for AI to identify and remove, especially in different languages, Zuckerberg said.
Zuckerberg once again addressed questions about moderation and automation at a March 2021 congressional hearing about misinformation. His testimony about how content moderation needs to take into consideration "nuances," like when advocates make counterarguments against hateful hashtags, seemed at odds with Facebook's admitted reliance on AI to do the job of moderating hate speech.
Peter Romer-Friedman, a principal at Gupta Wessler PLLC who helped file the suit and the former counsel to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, said Congress cannot adequately oversee corporations that misrepresent facts to lawmakers.
Romer-Friedman said Facebook's failure to remove a group that claimed "Islam is a disease" - which directly violates the company's hate speech policies that prohibits "dehumanizing speech including...reference or comparison to filth, bacteria, disease, or feces" - is an example where the firm did not follow through on its promise to Congress to quell hate speech.
"It's become all too common for corporate execs to come to Washington and not tell the truth, and that harms the ability of Congress to understand the problem and fairly regulate businesses that are inherently unsafe," Romer-Friedman told Insider.
How Facebook and other tech firms are failing to address anti-Muslim hate speech
The suit highlight's tech firms' ongoing problem responding to anti-Muslim content online.
Rep. Omar, the first congressperson to wear a hijab or Muslim headscarf, called on Twitter to address the death threats she receives. "Yo @Twitter this is unacceptable!" she said in 2019.
An analysis by the Social Science Research Council analyzed more than 100,000 tweets directed at Muslim candidates running for office in 2018, and found Twitter was responsible "for the spread of images and words from a small number of influential voices to a national and international audience," per The Washington Post.
The spread of anti-Muslim content extends far beyond Facebook and Twitter:
TikTok apologized to a 17-year-old user for suspending her account condemning China's mass crackdown on Uighur Muslims.
VICE has reported Muslim prayer apps like Muslim Pro had been selling location data on users to the US military.
Instagram banned Laura Loomer, a "proud Islamophobe," years after Uber and Lyft banned her for a series of anti-Muslim tweets following a terror attack in New York.
Sanaa Ansari, a staff attorney with Muslim Advocates, said there's been "clear evidence" of incitement to violence against Muslims potentially due to unchecked hate speech on social media. In 2019, 16-minute livestream of a gunman attacking two mosques and killing 51 people in New Zealand was uploaded to Facebook and spread quickly to Youtube, Instagram, and Twitter.
"There have been multiple calls to arms to Muslims, there have been organized events by anti-Muslim supremacists and militias who have organized marches, protests at mosques in this country," Ansari told Insider in an interview. "And that's just the tip of the iceberg."
Read the original article on Business Insider
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/mu ... 00585.html
Shooting revives criticism of Israel's use of deadly force
JOSEPH KRAUSS
Associated Press Fri, April 23, 2021, 1:25 AM
Somaya, the wife of Palestinian Osama Mansour, who was shot to death by Israeli soldiers at a temporary checkpoint in the occupied West Bank earlier this month, speaks to journalists at her family house, in the West Bank village of Biddu, west of Ramallah, Tuesday, April 20, 2021. Somaya, who was in the car with her husband and was wounded by the gunfire, says they followed the soldiers' instructions and posed no threat. The shooting death has revived criticism of the Israeli military's use of deadly force.
Jamila, the mother of Palestinian Osama Mansour, who was shot to death by Israeli soldiers at a temporary checkpoint in the occupied West Bank earlier this month, speaks to journalists at the family house, in the West Bank village of Biddu, west of Ramallah, Tuesday, April 20, 2021. Somaya, Mansour's wife, who was in the car with her husband and was wounded by the gunfire, said they followed the soldiers' instructions and posed no threat. The shooting death has revived criticism of the Israeli military's use of deadly force.
Somaya, the wife of Palestinian Osama Mansour, who was shot to death by Israeli soldiers at a temporary checkpoint in the occupied West Bank earlier this month, holds their 10 year-old twins Nissan, left and Bissan, right, at their family house, in the West Bank village of Biddu, west of Ramallah, Tuesday, April 20, 2021. Somaya, who was in the car with her husband and was wounded by the gunfire, says they followed the soldiers' instructions and posed no threat. The shooting death has revived criticism of the Israeli military's use of deadly force.
FILE - In this April 6, 2021 file photo, Palestinians carry the body of Osama Mansour who was killed by Israel soldiers at a temporary vehicle checkpoint in the occupied West Bank near Jerusalem, during his funeral, in the village of Biddu near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Somaya, Mansour's wife, who was in the car with her husband and was wounded by the gunfire, said they followed the soldiers' instructions and posed no threat. The shooting death has revived criticism of the Israeli military's use of deadly force.
Family members of Palestinian Osama Mansour, who was shot to death by Israeli soldiers at a temporary checkpoint in the occupied West Bank earlier this month, pose for a photo, at their family house, in the West Bank village of Biddu, west of Ramallah, Tuesday, April 20, 2021. Somaya, who was in the car with her husband and was wounded by the gunfire, says they followed the soldiers' instructions and posed no threat. The shooting death has revived criticism of the Israeli military's use of deadly force.
Israel Deadly Force
Somaya, the wife of Palestinian Osama Mansour, who was shot to death by Israeli soldiers at a temporary checkpoint in the occupied West Bank earlier this month, speaks to journalists at her family house, in the West Bank village of Biddu, west of Ramallah, Tuesday, April 20, 2021. Somaya, who was in the car with her husband and was wounded by the gunfire, says they followed the soldiers' instructions and posed no threat. The shooting death has revived criticism of the Israeli military's use of deadly force.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Hours after Israeli soldiers shot and killed Osama Mansour at a temporary checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, the military announced that it had thwarted a car-ramming attack — but the facts didn't seem to add up.
By all accounts, Mansour had initially stopped his car when ordered to do so. His wife, the mother of his five children, was sitting in the passenger seat. And after the soldiers sprayed the vehicle with gunfire, killing him and wounding her, they declined to arrest her as an accomplice.
Witnesses say the soldiers killed Mansour for no apparent reason, part of what rights groups say is a pattern of fatal shootings of Palestinians by Israeli forces under questionable circumstances. The debate over the soldiers' conduct echoes that over the high-profile police killings of Black Americans in the United States.
In its initial statement, the Israeli military said the vehicle had accelerated “in a way that endangered the lives of the soldiers” and that forces opened fire to “thwart the threat.” But shortly afterwards, the military said the shooting was under investigation, without elaborating.
A military spokeswoman declined to answer detailed questions about the incident submitted by The Associated Press, including whether the army still believes it thwarted an attack.
Somaya, the widow of the deceased, says her husband took her to see a doctor in the early hours of April 6. On the drive back to their home village of Biddu they passed through the village of Bir Nabala, just outside Jerusalem.
They saw Israeli troops and armored jeeps up ahead, a common sight in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces often carry out overnight arrest raids.
“I said ‘There’s a checkpoint, Osama, stop,'" she told the AP. "He said ‘I see it,’ and he stopped like the other cars.”
She said two soldiers came over to the car with their rifles pointed at them. One of them ordered Osama to shut off the ignition, and he complied. The soldier asked where they were from and what they were doing, and they told him, she said.
“He said 'Fine, OK, go.' So we started the car, we moved forward, and a second later they opened fire," she said. “I froze out of fear, with broken glass falling over my head and the sound of bullets. It was very scary."
She said the car veered back and forth. She called out to her husband to go faster, then saw that he was slumped between the seats and took the wheel until they reached some people who helped them get to a hospital.
“There was blood all over the floor, so much blood,” she said. “I was asking about Osama, I was crying out for him. They said he was in the operating room, for four hours he was in the operating room, and finally they said he had died.”
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem says it interviewed two witnesses who largely corroborated her account. Roy Yellin, a spokesman for the group, said the fact that Somaya was not arrested strongly indicates that the military did not think it was an attack. She has been summoned for questioning next week, but there's no indication Israel views her as a suspect.
“The army is not very conservative about detaining Palestinians who are suspected of anything," Yellin said, pointing to the routine arrests of protesters and stone-throwers.
B'Tselem has documented several similar incidents in recent years, in which Israeli forces said they opened fire to prevent car-ramming attacks, killing or wounding Palestinians, only to later back away from the claims without making arrests or pressing charges.
"There’s a very trigger-happy approach in the West Bank in which Palestinians are guilty until proven otherwise,” Yellin said
International law and the Israeli military's rules of engagement say lethal force can be used in life-threatening situations. But rights groups say Israel often falls short of that standard and rarely punishes wrongdoing by its security forces. B'Tselem says it stopped referring such cases to military authorities in 2016 after concluding that doing so was ineffective.
Yellin says Israel only prosecutes wrongdoing in rare cases in which there is overwhelming evidence. Even then, soldiers often get light sentences.
The military said it investigates every incident in the West Bank in which a person is killed. “In cases where a deviation from the rules is found, steps are taken according to the circumstances of the case,” it said.
The military pointed to an incident in March 2019 in which a soldier shot and killed a Palestinian after mistaking him for another individual suspected of throwing stones at passing Israeli vehicles. Under a plea bargain, the soldier was sentenced to three months in prison and demoted, it said.
The International Criminal Court will likely scrutinize Israel's handling of such cases as part of a probe it launched earlier this year into possible war crimes. Israel has condemned the investigation, which was requested by the Palestinians, and says the court is biased against it.
Earlier this month, Israel said it would send a formal letter to the ICC rejecting its mandate. Israel denied committing any such crimes and said it was able to investigate and prosecute any violations by its forces. That was two days after Mansour was shot dead.
Israel is not a party to the ICC, but Israelis could be subject to arrest in other countries if the court hands down warrants.
In the meantime, with little hope for accountability, Somaya is left to raise her five children alone.
“After Osama, what am I supposed to do with my life?" she said. "It’s over.”
___
Associated Press reporter Jelal Hassan in Biddu, West Bank, contributed.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/sh ... 29583.html
JOSEPH KRAUSS
Associated Press Fri, April 23, 2021, 1:25 AM
Somaya, the wife of Palestinian Osama Mansour, who was shot to death by Israeli soldiers at a temporary checkpoint in the occupied West Bank earlier this month, speaks to journalists at her family house, in the West Bank village of Biddu, west of Ramallah, Tuesday, April 20, 2021. Somaya, who was in the car with her husband and was wounded by the gunfire, says they followed the soldiers' instructions and posed no threat. The shooting death has revived criticism of the Israeli military's use of deadly force.
Jamila, the mother of Palestinian Osama Mansour, who was shot to death by Israeli soldiers at a temporary checkpoint in the occupied West Bank earlier this month, speaks to journalists at the family house, in the West Bank village of Biddu, west of Ramallah, Tuesday, April 20, 2021. Somaya, Mansour's wife, who was in the car with her husband and was wounded by the gunfire, said they followed the soldiers' instructions and posed no threat. The shooting death has revived criticism of the Israeli military's use of deadly force.
Somaya, the wife of Palestinian Osama Mansour, who was shot to death by Israeli soldiers at a temporary checkpoint in the occupied West Bank earlier this month, holds their 10 year-old twins Nissan, left and Bissan, right, at their family house, in the West Bank village of Biddu, west of Ramallah, Tuesday, April 20, 2021. Somaya, who was in the car with her husband and was wounded by the gunfire, says they followed the soldiers' instructions and posed no threat. The shooting death has revived criticism of the Israeli military's use of deadly force.
FILE - In this April 6, 2021 file photo, Palestinians carry the body of Osama Mansour who was killed by Israel soldiers at a temporary vehicle checkpoint in the occupied West Bank near Jerusalem, during his funeral, in the village of Biddu near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Somaya, Mansour's wife, who was in the car with her husband and was wounded by the gunfire, said they followed the soldiers' instructions and posed no threat. The shooting death has revived criticism of the Israeli military's use of deadly force.
Family members of Palestinian Osama Mansour, who was shot to death by Israeli soldiers at a temporary checkpoint in the occupied West Bank earlier this month, pose for a photo, at their family house, in the West Bank village of Biddu, west of Ramallah, Tuesday, April 20, 2021. Somaya, who was in the car with her husband and was wounded by the gunfire, says they followed the soldiers' instructions and posed no threat. The shooting death has revived criticism of the Israeli military's use of deadly force.
Israel Deadly Force
Somaya, the wife of Palestinian Osama Mansour, who was shot to death by Israeli soldiers at a temporary checkpoint in the occupied West Bank earlier this month, speaks to journalists at her family house, in the West Bank village of Biddu, west of Ramallah, Tuesday, April 20, 2021. Somaya, who was in the car with her husband and was wounded by the gunfire, says they followed the soldiers' instructions and posed no threat. The shooting death has revived criticism of the Israeli military's use of deadly force.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Hours after Israeli soldiers shot and killed Osama Mansour at a temporary checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, the military announced that it had thwarted a car-ramming attack — but the facts didn't seem to add up.
By all accounts, Mansour had initially stopped his car when ordered to do so. His wife, the mother of his five children, was sitting in the passenger seat. And after the soldiers sprayed the vehicle with gunfire, killing him and wounding her, they declined to arrest her as an accomplice.
Witnesses say the soldiers killed Mansour for no apparent reason, part of what rights groups say is a pattern of fatal shootings of Palestinians by Israeli forces under questionable circumstances. The debate over the soldiers' conduct echoes that over the high-profile police killings of Black Americans in the United States.
In its initial statement, the Israeli military said the vehicle had accelerated “in a way that endangered the lives of the soldiers” and that forces opened fire to “thwart the threat.” But shortly afterwards, the military said the shooting was under investigation, without elaborating.
A military spokeswoman declined to answer detailed questions about the incident submitted by The Associated Press, including whether the army still believes it thwarted an attack.
Somaya, the widow of the deceased, says her husband took her to see a doctor in the early hours of April 6. On the drive back to their home village of Biddu they passed through the village of Bir Nabala, just outside Jerusalem.
They saw Israeli troops and armored jeeps up ahead, a common sight in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces often carry out overnight arrest raids.
“I said ‘There’s a checkpoint, Osama, stop,'" she told the AP. "He said ‘I see it,’ and he stopped like the other cars.”
She said two soldiers came over to the car with their rifles pointed at them. One of them ordered Osama to shut off the ignition, and he complied. The soldier asked where they were from and what they were doing, and they told him, she said.
“He said 'Fine, OK, go.' So we started the car, we moved forward, and a second later they opened fire," she said. “I froze out of fear, with broken glass falling over my head and the sound of bullets. It was very scary."
She said the car veered back and forth. She called out to her husband to go faster, then saw that he was slumped between the seats and took the wheel until they reached some people who helped them get to a hospital.
“There was blood all over the floor, so much blood,” she said. “I was asking about Osama, I was crying out for him. They said he was in the operating room, for four hours he was in the operating room, and finally they said he had died.”
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem says it interviewed two witnesses who largely corroborated her account. Roy Yellin, a spokesman for the group, said the fact that Somaya was not arrested strongly indicates that the military did not think it was an attack. She has been summoned for questioning next week, but there's no indication Israel views her as a suspect.
“The army is not very conservative about detaining Palestinians who are suspected of anything," Yellin said, pointing to the routine arrests of protesters and stone-throwers.
B'Tselem has documented several similar incidents in recent years, in which Israeli forces said they opened fire to prevent car-ramming attacks, killing or wounding Palestinians, only to later back away from the claims without making arrests or pressing charges.
"There’s a very trigger-happy approach in the West Bank in which Palestinians are guilty until proven otherwise,” Yellin said
International law and the Israeli military's rules of engagement say lethal force can be used in life-threatening situations. But rights groups say Israel often falls short of that standard and rarely punishes wrongdoing by its security forces. B'Tselem says it stopped referring such cases to military authorities in 2016 after concluding that doing so was ineffective.
Yellin says Israel only prosecutes wrongdoing in rare cases in which there is overwhelming evidence. Even then, soldiers often get light sentences.
The military said it investigates every incident in the West Bank in which a person is killed. “In cases where a deviation from the rules is found, steps are taken according to the circumstances of the case,” it said.
The military pointed to an incident in March 2019 in which a soldier shot and killed a Palestinian after mistaking him for another individual suspected of throwing stones at passing Israeli vehicles. Under a plea bargain, the soldier was sentenced to three months in prison and demoted, it said.
The International Criminal Court will likely scrutinize Israel's handling of such cases as part of a probe it launched earlier this year into possible war crimes. Israel has condemned the investigation, which was requested by the Palestinians, and says the court is biased against it.
Earlier this month, Israel said it would send a formal letter to the ICC rejecting its mandate. Israel denied committing any such crimes and said it was able to investigate and prosecute any violations by its forces. That was two days after Mansour was shot dead.
Israel is not a party to the ICC, but Israelis could be subject to arrest in other countries if the court hands down warrants.
In the meantime, with little hope for accountability, Somaya is left to raise her five children alone.
“After Osama, what am I supposed to do with my life?" she said. "It’s over.”
___
Associated Press reporter Jelal Hassan in Biddu, West Bank, contributed.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/sh ... 29583.html
Noise concerns or ‘anti-Muslim’ bias? Mississippi city mosque rejection raises eyebrows
Tanasia Kenney
Raleigh News and Observer Fri, April 23, 2021, 11:23 AM
Elected leaders in one Mississippi city squashed plans for what would have been the area’s first mosque, raising questions about bias and religious freedom.
The city’s planning commission had previously voted “no” on proposals for the site of a new mosque in Horn Lake, nestled just 20 minutes south of Memphis. On Tuesday, the Horn Lake board of aldermen upheld that decision, citing potential fire hazards, increased traffic and concerns over possible noise ordinance violations, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported.
Ray Elk, the man behind the proposed Abraham House of God, disagreed with the board’s decision, however, and suggested anti-Muslim bias was to blame.
“I’ve been a resident of DeSoto County for over 20 years,” Elk told the newspaper. “I raised all my six children in DeSoto County, they all go to school there and they have a right to go to their mosque and pray and practice their faith like every Christian.”
Under Elk’s plan, the 10,000 square-foot house of worship would occupy a vacant lot along a stretch of road that’s home to at least three churches, according to WREG.
The mosque itself would sit on about three acres of the 80-acre plot with room to accommodate around 156 worshipers, The DeSoto Times-Tribune reported. A 44-space parking lot is also included in the design plan, according to the newspaper.
City Alderman John Jones said there were several reasons for why the board denied Elk’s proposal, including concerns over external loud speakers that would put out a daily call for worshipers to pray.
“The noise is going to be created and there is going to be traffic and the water pressure and the pipe size can’t give the people adequate pressure to keep people safe,” Jones told WHBQ.
The loud speakers, which were also a concern voiced by residents at Tuesday’s meeting, aren’t a feature of the building’s design, however. Still, Jones and fellow alderman shot down Elk’s request.
“They said they are not going to do that, but there are lawsuits all over the U.S. where they have built them and they continue to do the noise,” Jones said, according to WHBQ.
Elk blasted the board’s rejection as “racist” and is threatening to take the city to court, The DeSoto Times-Tribune reported.
“This is what this country was built on, freedom of religion,” he told the Commercial Appeal. “I am just practicing my right. This is my right to have any faith I want.”
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/no ... 20335.html
Tanasia Kenney
Raleigh News and Observer Fri, April 23, 2021, 11:23 AM
Elected leaders in one Mississippi city squashed plans for what would have been the area’s first mosque, raising questions about bias and religious freedom.
The city’s planning commission had previously voted “no” on proposals for the site of a new mosque in Horn Lake, nestled just 20 minutes south of Memphis. On Tuesday, the Horn Lake board of aldermen upheld that decision, citing potential fire hazards, increased traffic and concerns over possible noise ordinance violations, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported.
Ray Elk, the man behind the proposed Abraham House of God, disagreed with the board’s decision, however, and suggested anti-Muslim bias was to blame.
“I’ve been a resident of DeSoto County for over 20 years,” Elk told the newspaper. “I raised all my six children in DeSoto County, they all go to school there and they have a right to go to their mosque and pray and practice their faith like every Christian.”
Under Elk’s plan, the 10,000 square-foot house of worship would occupy a vacant lot along a stretch of road that’s home to at least three churches, according to WREG.
The mosque itself would sit on about three acres of the 80-acre plot with room to accommodate around 156 worshipers, The DeSoto Times-Tribune reported. A 44-space parking lot is also included in the design plan, according to the newspaper.
City Alderman John Jones said there were several reasons for why the board denied Elk’s proposal, including concerns over external loud speakers that would put out a daily call for worshipers to pray.
“The noise is going to be created and there is going to be traffic and the water pressure and the pipe size can’t give the people adequate pressure to keep people safe,” Jones told WHBQ.
The loud speakers, which were also a concern voiced by residents at Tuesday’s meeting, aren’t a feature of the building’s design, however. Still, Jones and fellow alderman shot down Elk’s request.
“They said they are not going to do that, but there are lawsuits all over the U.S. where they have built them and they continue to do the noise,” Jones said, according to WHBQ.
Elk blasted the board’s rejection as “racist” and is threatening to take the city to court, The DeSoto Times-Tribune reported.
“This is what this country was built on, freedom of religion,” he told the Commercial Appeal. “I am just practicing my right. This is my right to have any faith I want.”
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/no ... 20335.html
China Targets Muslim Women in Push to Suppress Births in Xinjiang
In most of China, women are being urged to have more babies to shore up a falling birthrate. But in Xinjiang, they are being forced to have fewer.
When China’s government ordered women in her mostly Muslim community in the region of Xinjiang to be fitted with contraceptive devices, Qelbinur Sedik pleaded for an exemption. She was nearly 50 years old, she told officials. She had obeyed the government’s birth limits and had only one child.
It was no use. The workers threatened to take her to the police if she continued resisting, she said. She gave in and went to a government clinic where a doctor, using a metal speculum, inserted an intrauterine device to prevent pregnancy. She wept through the procedure.
“I felt like I was no longer a normal woman,” Ms. Sedik said, choking up as she described the 2017 ordeal. “Like I was missing something.”
Across much of China, the authorities are encouraging women to have more children, as they try to stave off a demographic crisis from a declining birthrate. But in the Xinjiang region, China is forcing them to have fewer, tightening its grip on Muslim ethnic minorities and trying to orchestrate a demographic shift that will diminish their population growth.
Birthrates in the region have already plunged in recent years as the use of invasive birth control procedures has risen, according to reports by a noted researcher, Adrian Zenz, along with The Associated Press.
It is part of a vast and repressive social re-engineering campaign by a Communist Party determined to eliminate any perceived challenge to its rule, in this case, ethnic separatism. Over the past few years, the party, under its top leader, Xi Jinping, has moved aggressively to subdue Uyghurs and other Central Asian minorities in Xinjiang, putting hundreds of thousands into internment camps and prisons. The authorities have placed the region under tight surveillance, sent residents to work in factories and placed children in boarding schools.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/10/worl ... 778d3e6de3
In most of China, women are being urged to have more babies to shore up a falling birthrate. But in Xinjiang, they are being forced to have fewer.
When China’s government ordered women in her mostly Muslim community in the region of Xinjiang to be fitted with contraceptive devices, Qelbinur Sedik pleaded for an exemption. She was nearly 50 years old, she told officials. She had obeyed the government’s birth limits and had only one child.
It was no use. The workers threatened to take her to the police if she continued resisting, she said. She gave in and went to a government clinic where a doctor, using a metal speculum, inserted an intrauterine device to prevent pregnancy. She wept through the procedure.
“I felt like I was no longer a normal woman,” Ms. Sedik said, choking up as she described the 2017 ordeal. “Like I was missing something.”
Across much of China, the authorities are encouraging women to have more children, as they try to stave off a demographic crisis from a declining birthrate. But in the Xinjiang region, China is forcing them to have fewer, tightening its grip on Muslim ethnic minorities and trying to orchestrate a demographic shift that will diminish their population growth.
Birthrates in the region have already plunged in recent years as the use of invasive birth control procedures has risen, according to reports by a noted researcher, Adrian Zenz, along with The Associated Press.
It is part of a vast and repressive social re-engineering campaign by a Communist Party determined to eliminate any perceived challenge to its rule, in this case, ethnic separatism. Over the past few years, the party, under its top leader, Xi Jinping, has moved aggressively to subdue Uyghurs and other Central Asian minorities in Xinjiang, putting hundreds of thousands into internment camps and prisons. The authorities have placed the region under tight surveillance, sent residents to work in factories and placed children in boarding schools.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/10/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Turkey calls on Muslims to take clear stance over Gaza
Reuters Thu, May 13, 2021, 12:22 AM
Israeli-Palestinian violence flares up
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Muslim countries must show a united and clear stance over Israel's conflict with the Islamist Hamas movement in Gaza, Turkey's vice president, Fuat Oktay, said on Thursday, criticizing world powers for condemning violence without acting.
"What we desire is that active measures are taken," Oktay told reporters after morning prayers marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
"There are decisions taken repeatedly at the United Nations, there are condemnations. But unfortunately no result has been obtained, because a clear stance is not displayed."
In several days of conflict, Hamas has fired volleys of rockets towards Israeli cities and Israel has launched air strikes against the Islamist faction in the Gaza Strip.
At least 67 people have been killed in Gaza since violence escalated on Monday, according to the enclave's health ministry. Seven people have been killed in Israel, medical officials said.
With the conflict beginning to resemble the Gaza war of 2014, world powers have demanded de-escalation and the United States said it planned to send an envoy for talks with Israel and Palestinians.
Turkey's president, Tayyip Erdogan, who has repeatedly condemned Israel's occupation of the West Bank and its treatment of Palestinians, said on Saturday Israel was a "terror state" after Israeli police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at Palestinian protesters at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque.
Oktay said Muslims had a responsibility to act.
"Everyone who does not display a clear stance against this are a party to this torment," Oktay said. "Unfortunately, when we look at the Muslim countries that do not display this unity and togetherness, everyone there who do not display a clear stance is a party to this."
(Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen; Editing by Robert Birsel)
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/tu ... 18133.html
Note: Untill and unless Muslim countries are not united, Muslims settled in non Muslim countries will be beaten, displaced and killed. On Palestine problem mentioned above, still 56 heads (puppets) of Muslim countries are just issuing statements and practically doing nothing. Arab league failed to take serious steps. They refer the problem to (POOR) OIC. They called the meeting on 16th of this month to discuss the issue, mean while thousands will be massacred. These 56 puppets will sit around table and say, O I SEE (OIC) and made request to super powers to solve the problem. These puppets do not have guts to take action on their own.
Reuters Thu, May 13, 2021, 12:22 AM
Israeli-Palestinian violence flares up
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Muslim countries must show a united and clear stance over Israel's conflict with the Islamist Hamas movement in Gaza, Turkey's vice president, Fuat Oktay, said on Thursday, criticizing world powers for condemning violence without acting.
"What we desire is that active measures are taken," Oktay told reporters after morning prayers marking the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
"There are decisions taken repeatedly at the United Nations, there are condemnations. But unfortunately no result has been obtained, because a clear stance is not displayed."
In several days of conflict, Hamas has fired volleys of rockets towards Israeli cities and Israel has launched air strikes against the Islamist faction in the Gaza Strip.
At least 67 people have been killed in Gaza since violence escalated on Monday, according to the enclave's health ministry. Seven people have been killed in Israel, medical officials said.
With the conflict beginning to resemble the Gaza war of 2014, world powers have demanded de-escalation and the United States said it planned to send an envoy for talks with Israel and Palestinians.
Turkey's president, Tayyip Erdogan, who has repeatedly condemned Israel's occupation of the West Bank and its treatment of Palestinians, said on Saturday Israel was a "terror state" after Israeli police fired rubber bullets and stun grenades at Palestinian protesters at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque.
Oktay said Muslims had a responsibility to act.
"Everyone who does not display a clear stance against this are a party to this torment," Oktay said. "Unfortunately, when we look at the Muslim countries that do not display this unity and togetherness, everyone there who do not display a clear stance is a party to this."
(Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen; Editing by Robert Birsel)
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/tu ... 18133.html
Note: Untill and unless Muslim countries are not united, Muslims settled in non Muslim countries will be beaten, displaced and killed. On Palestine problem mentioned above, still 56 heads (puppets) of Muslim countries are just issuing statements and practically doing nothing. Arab league failed to take serious steps. They refer the problem to (POOR) OIC. They called the meeting on 16th of this month to discuss the issue, mean while thousands will be massacred. These 56 puppets will sit around table and say, O I SEE (OIC) and made request to super powers to solve the problem. These puppets do not have guts to take action on their own.
Yahoo News
'People in Gaza hate nights': Living amid rubble, Palestinians face long road to recovery
Ameera Harouda
Ameera Harouda·Contributor
Fri, May 28, 2021, 1:42 PM·3 min read
GAZA — Alaa Abu Hatab had gone out to buy bread for dinner and sweets and toys for the Eid holiday when his house in a Gaza refugee camp was struck by the Israel Defense Forces on May 15, killing almost his entire family, including his wife and four sons.
“I lost all my family, but my daughter, Maria, survived,” said 34-year-old Abu Hatab, whose house was located in Shati, or Beach Camp, just north of Gaza City. His sister and her four children were also killed in the airstrike.
“She is unable to talk anymore,” he said of Maria. “She is in shock.”
For 11 days, the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated places on earth, was repeatedly struck by the Israel Defense Forces, which says it was targeting military and intelligence infrastructure belonging to Hamas in retaliation for rockets that the militant group launched against Israel.
During Israel’s offensive, 254 people were killed in the Gaza Strip, including 66 children, and more than 1,900 were wounded, according to the ministry of health there. Israel says 12 of its civilians, including two children, and one soldier were killed.
Neighbors walk through a severely damaged home after a neighboring building was destroyed by an airstrike in Magazzi, the Gaza Strip. (John Minchillo/AP)
Neighbors walk through a severely damaged home after a neighboring building was destroyed by an airstrike in Magazzi, the Gaza Strip. (John Minchillo/AP)
The two sides declared a ceasefire over the weekend, and President Biden followed up with a pledge to help rebuild Gaza.
The reconstruction effort that lies ahead will likely be massive: Gaza’s ministry of building and housing says more than 107,000 Palestinians have been displaced from their homes due to the airstrikes. It’s estimated that more than 1,800 houses were demolished or severely damaged, and another 13,000 were moderately or partially damaged. Three tower blocks were completely destroyed.
The World Health Organization says Gaza is also now facing a public health crisis as a result of the airstrikes, which damaged two dozen health facilities. Three water plants are out of service, and hospitals are facing fuel and power shortages.
Even beyond the physical damage, families say the airstrikes have taken a severe psychological toll on the population, particularly on children.
Israa Hatem, 26, said she feels lucky to be alive, but still suffers the effects of 11 sleepless nights. “I live in a four-story house in Gaza City with my mom and my brothers, and the airstrikes [were] everywhere, so unfortunately there [wasn’t] any safe place in Gaza,” she said.
“People in Gaza hate nights,” she said. “When the sun rises, we thank God that we survived.”
Israa Hatem and her daughter. (Courtesy of Israa Hatem)
Israa Hatem and her daughter. (Courtesy of Israa Hatem)
During the airstrikes, her family — 11 people — crowded onto the ground floor for safety. “I spent whole days holding my 3-year-old daughter, Meral, in my arms, reassuring her, telling her some fairy tales,” Hatem recalled. “She started asking me about death and how people die.”
For Abu Hatab, whose house was destroyed and much of his family killed, the road to recovery will be a long one. Some international aid in the form of food and medicine has arrived, but there is no clear timeline for rebuilding assistance.
Maria, his surviving daughter, is currently living with an aunt. He visits her in the morning, before he goes to his job selling vegetables.
“I don't know where to go each day,” he said. “I move from house to house, because I don't have any other home.”
www.yahoo.com/news/people-in-gaza-hate- ... 06868.html
'People in Gaza hate nights': Living amid rubble, Palestinians face long road to recovery
Ameera Harouda
Ameera Harouda·Contributor
Fri, May 28, 2021, 1:42 PM·3 min read
GAZA — Alaa Abu Hatab had gone out to buy bread for dinner and sweets and toys for the Eid holiday when his house in a Gaza refugee camp was struck by the Israel Defense Forces on May 15, killing almost his entire family, including his wife and four sons.
“I lost all my family, but my daughter, Maria, survived,” said 34-year-old Abu Hatab, whose house was located in Shati, or Beach Camp, just north of Gaza City. His sister and her four children were also killed in the airstrike.
“She is unable to talk anymore,” he said of Maria. “She is in shock.”
For 11 days, the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated places on earth, was repeatedly struck by the Israel Defense Forces, which says it was targeting military and intelligence infrastructure belonging to Hamas in retaliation for rockets that the militant group launched against Israel.
During Israel’s offensive, 254 people were killed in the Gaza Strip, including 66 children, and more than 1,900 were wounded, according to the ministry of health there. Israel says 12 of its civilians, including two children, and one soldier were killed.
Neighbors walk through a severely damaged home after a neighboring building was destroyed by an airstrike in Magazzi, the Gaza Strip. (John Minchillo/AP)
Neighbors walk through a severely damaged home after a neighboring building was destroyed by an airstrike in Magazzi, the Gaza Strip. (John Minchillo/AP)
The two sides declared a ceasefire over the weekend, and President Biden followed up with a pledge to help rebuild Gaza.
The reconstruction effort that lies ahead will likely be massive: Gaza’s ministry of building and housing says more than 107,000 Palestinians have been displaced from their homes due to the airstrikes. It’s estimated that more than 1,800 houses were demolished or severely damaged, and another 13,000 were moderately or partially damaged. Three tower blocks were completely destroyed.
The World Health Organization says Gaza is also now facing a public health crisis as a result of the airstrikes, which damaged two dozen health facilities. Three water plants are out of service, and hospitals are facing fuel and power shortages.
Even beyond the physical damage, families say the airstrikes have taken a severe psychological toll on the population, particularly on children.
Israa Hatem, 26, said she feels lucky to be alive, but still suffers the effects of 11 sleepless nights. “I live in a four-story house in Gaza City with my mom and my brothers, and the airstrikes [were] everywhere, so unfortunately there [wasn’t] any safe place in Gaza,” she said.
“People in Gaza hate nights,” she said. “When the sun rises, we thank God that we survived.”
Israa Hatem and her daughter. (Courtesy of Israa Hatem)
Israa Hatem and her daughter. (Courtesy of Israa Hatem)
During the airstrikes, her family — 11 people — crowded onto the ground floor for safety. “I spent whole days holding my 3-year-old daughter, Meral, in my arms, reassuring her, telling her some fairy tales,” Hatem recalled. “She started asking me about death and how people die.”
For Abu Hatab, whose house was destroyed and much of his family killed, the road to recovery will be a long one. Some international aid in the form of food and medicine has arrived, but there is no clear timeline for rebuilding assistance.
Maria, his surviving daughter, is currently living with an aunt. He visits her in the morning, before he goes to his job selling vegetables.
“I don't know where to go each day,” he said. “I move from house to house, because I don't have any other home.”
www.yahoo.com/news/people-in-gaza-hate- ... 06868.html
‘Hundreds’ of photos show Aussie troops chugging beer from dead Afghan’s prosthetic leg, court is told
2 Jun, 2021 15:15
Get short URL
‘Hundreds’ of photos show Aussie troops chugging beer from dead Afghan’s prosthetic leg, court is told
An Australian soldier drinks beer from a prosthetic leg that belonged to a Taliban fighter
Lawyers for a soldier suing several media outlets for defamation have claimed that hundreds of photographs exist showing Australian troops drinking from a prosthetic leg allegedly taken from a dead Afghan.
Several photographs of Aussie soldiers guzzling alcohol from the artificial limb were published in December, and became graphic displays of alleged gross misconduct by Australian troops stationed in Afghanistan. However, it now appears that the macabre drinking ritual, which purportedly took place at an underground bar located at an Australian military base in Afghanistan, was far more widespread than previously known.
One of the soldiers connected to the story, Ben Roberts-Smith, is suing three Australian outlets – the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times – for defamation over reports from 2018 which detail alleged war crimes that he took part in. According to the disputed reports, the leg was “souvenired” from an Afghan civilian who had been shot and killed by Ben Roberts-Smith in 2009.
Raise a glass to war crimes: Global campaign to buy Aussie wine in China trade battle is shockingly ill-timed
The soldier’s lawyers have claimed that the limb belonged to a Taliban fighter and that Roberts-Smith did not shoot him. Furthermore, Roberts-Smith never drank from the prosthetic leg and found the idea of taking the fake body part as a souvenir “disgusting,” his complaint states.
But with the case set to begin next week, Roberts-Smith’s lawyers have told the federal court that they are struggling to meet the deadline to itemize all the photographs included as evidence.
“We cannot do that for hundreds of images of soldiers drinking from the leg – it’s too onerous, it’s too long,” Matthew Richardson, one of the lawyers, told the court in a pre-trial hearing, as cited by the media.
According to reports, the artificial limb became a coveted trophy of the Australian soldiers. It was allegedly mounted on a wooden plaque, alongside an Iron Cross – a military decoration used in imperial and Nazi Germany. The display was allegedly captioned with “Das Boot.”
Australia must do all it can to ensure rogue SAS troops who allegedly murdered civilians in Afghanistan face justice.
The publication of several of the potentially incriminating photographs in December followed the conclusion of a four-year probe which found “credible evidence” of war crimes committed by elite Australian troops in Afghanistan. The Australian military has since apologized to Kabul “for any wrongdoing by Australian soldiers.”
https://www.rt.com/news/525474-australi ... eg-photos/
2 Jun, 2021 15:15
Get short URL
‘Hundreds’ of photos show Aussie troops chugging beer from dead Afghan’s prosthetic leg, court is told
An Australian soldier drinks beer from a prosthetic leg that belonged to a Taliban fighter
Lawyers for a soldier suing several media outlets for defamation have claimed that hundreds of photographs exist showing Australian troops drinking from a prosthetic leg allegedly taken from a dead Afghan.
Several photographs of Aussie soldiers guzzling alcohol from the artificial limb were published in December, and became graphic displays of alleged gross misconduct by Australian troops stationed in Afghanistan. However, it now appears that the macabre drinking ritual, which purportedly took place at an underground bar located at an Australian military base in Afghanistan, was far more widespread than previously known.
One of the soldiers connected to the story, Ben Roberts-Smith, is suing three Australian outlets – the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times – for defamation over reports from 2018 which detail alleged war crimes that he took part in. According to the disputed reports, the leg was “souvenired” from an Afghan civilian who had been shot and killed by Ben Roberts-Smith in 2009.
Raise a glass to war crimes: Global campaign to buy Aussie wine in China trade battle is shockingly ill-timed
The soldier’s lawyers have claimed that the limb belonged to a Taliban fighter and that Roberts-Smith did not shoot him. Furthermore, Roberts-Smith never drank from the prosthetic leg and found the idea of taking the fake body part as a souvenir “disgusting,” his complaint states.
But with the case set to begin next week, Roberts-Smith’s lawyers have told the federal court that they are struggling to meet the deadline to itemize all the photographs included as evidence.
“We cannot do that for hundreds of images of soldiers drinking from the leg – it’s too onerous, it’s too long,” Matthew Richardson, one of the lawyers, told the court in a pre-trial hearing, as cited by the media.
According to reports, the artificial limb became a coveted trophy of the Australian soldiers. It was allegedly mounted on a wooden plaque, alongside an Iron Cross – a military decoration used in imperial and Nazi Germany. The display was allegedly captioned with “Das Boot.”
Australia must do all it can to ensure rogue SAS troops who allegedly murdered civilians in Afghanistan face justice.
The publication of several of the potentially incriminating photographs in December followed the conclusion of a four-year probe which found “credible evidence” of war crimes committed by elite Australian troops in Afghanistan. The Australian military has since apologized to Kabul “for any wrongdoing by Australian soldiers.”
https://www.rt.com/news/525474-australi ... eg-photos/
The Daily Beast
Muslims Are Being Murdered Across the West Thanks to Conservatives Raving About ‘Invaders’
Wajahat Ali
Wed, June 9, 2021, 6:18 AM
That’s the headline, and that’s the inevitable result of right-wing politicians and commentators spending years deliberately manufacturing hate, Islamophobia, and conspiracy theories to rile up their base and villainize Muslims as supposed “invaders” threatening this thing called “Western” (as in white) civilization. It is an empowered ecosystem that is global, growing and willing to sacrifice our kids to make its hate become “great” again.
This time the headlines are about a Muslim family of five waiting at the curb of an intersection in London, Canada, minding their own business, when they were fatally rammed by a black pickup truck driven by Nathaniel Veltman, 20, who was later found by the police wearing full body armor. The sole survivor, 9-year-old Canadian boy Fayez Afzaal, woke up in the hospital to be told that his father, mother, grandmother, and teenage sister were killed in this alleged hate crime. He has to now live with the fact that his family, beloved and respected by the local community, was brutally murdered simply for being Muslim.
Where will it happen next time? I’m asking this question thousands of miles away in Virginia, in a WhatsApp group with fellow Muslim American friends raising their families in suburbs and asking if this could happen here. The same conversation is happening across Muslim communities in America and Europe, where Muslims have lived for decades and centuries but are still seen as visitors and foreigners.
In case you’re rolling your eyes right now and dismissing my concerns as exaggerated or reactionary, please remember we just removed a president who won that office promising “a Muslim Ban,” said that “Islam hates us” on live television, and whose party now actively promotes the antisemitic “replacement theory” suggesting that in between building Lego sets for my kids and writing this article I’m being used by powerful Jews to undermine and eventually take down white, Christian conservatives. (Only on weekends and after midnight.)
Only the details change with each new tragedy, each new remake. Anti-Muslim hate and xenophobic conspiracy theories inspire a young man to view innocent Muslims as invaders who are threatening to destroy Western civilization and freedoms due to our rising numbers, hostile religious values, and economic success. The government, media, civil society, and corporations are corrupt vessels of the “Deep State” who are aiding the country’s inevitable decline by advocating for diversity, feminism, critical race theory, and multiculturalism.
That’s what Anders Breivik believed. In 2011, the Norwegian terrorist who killed 77 people left behind a 1,500-page manifesto meant to inspire copycats. Breivik wrote that he wanted to punish Europe for promoting multiculturalism and immigration and that Muslims should be deported because they were engaging in “demographic Jihad” and thus threatening “Western” and Christian values. His manifesto cited nearly every single individual mentioned in an investigative report I co-wrote a decade ago, “Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America,” that identified and categorized the incestuous network of conservative funders, ideologues, media outlets, grassroots groups, religious organizations, and political players that created and promoted fringe anti-Muslim talking points about Sharia, Obama, and political Islam that are now part and parcel of the mainstream conservative vocabulary in America.
“This rhetoric is not cost-free,” according to counter-terrorism expert Marc Sageman, who reviewed Breivik’s manifesto and said American Islamophobes and their writings “are the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.” In recent years, this homegrown U.S. infrastructure of hate has funded and elevated right-wing white nationalist warriors across Europe, like Tommy Robinson in England and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, because they are “trying to sustain their civilization, trying to keep Europe Europe, trying to keep the West the West,” which is a nice way of saying keep Europe “White” and “Judeo-Christian.”
This ecosystem is also seeking to unite right-wing populist movements and mainstream hateful talking points that have pushed weakened centrists and liberals to treat Muslims and immigrants as politically convenient scapegoats to try and maintain their political support and power.
For example, in France, a beleaguered President Macron has decided to go all-in with anti-Muslim bigotry and fear-mongering as the best strategy to defeat an ascending Marine Le Pen and her xenophobic National Front, now National Rally, the party whose founder, her father, was an antisemite and Holocaust denier. Earlier this year, France introduced an “anti-separatism” bill supposedly intended to bolster secularism but clearly designed to target the Muslim minority population. Macron is also trying to pressure French imams to sign a “charter of Republican values,” which many have accurately described as a discriminatory “loyalty test” that targets only Muslim preachers and is an affront to religious freedoms. To make sure he wasn’t tainted by this kryptonite known as Islam, Macron’s party even barred a Muslim woman from running as a candidate from their party because she wore a hijab on a campaign poster.
Macron is rationalizing these actions as protecting the country against “political Islam,” but French legal expert Rim-Sarah Alouane says French Muslims can't help but feel that all Muslims are made to be a problem. “French Muslims make up around 7 percent of the population and yet make 99 percent of the political debate. There is not a single day without a new debate around Muslims… It feels like you are on a constant trial where you are de facto guilty until proven innocent,” she told me.
I can relate. Although European Muslims have unique challenges and experiences compared to American Muslims, we nonetheless can unite in feeling like perpetual suspects in our own country with our loyalty and patriotism forever questioned by a government that spends more time and resources surveilling our communities than combating white supremacy, the number one domestic terror threat here. Leading up to the 2016 election, Republican candidate Ben Carson said he’ll only have Muslims in his cabinet if they denounce Sharia and pledge loyalty to the Constitution. The GOP’s base rewarded him with a spike in donations. Trump rode that wave and said he’d go further and propose a “complete and total ban on Muslims,” which was the first order of business for Steve Bannon, his chief strategist, after Trump’s inauguration. Meanwhile, armed militias and violent extremist groups are befriended and praised by the GOP, and Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” which they did until the Jan. 6 insurrection that left five people dead.
In 2018, after being kicked out by Trump, Bannon continued his white nationalist crusade across Europe. He was invited by Le Pen to rally the crowd of right-wing, National Front politicians in France to wear the label of racist, xenophobe, and nativist as a “badge of honor.” It makes sense considering one of Bannon’s favorite books is the French novel Camp of the Saints, a staple of white nationalists and racists around the world, that imagines a horde of brown-skinned immigrants invading and overtaking France. On that trip, Bannon also met fellow right-wing nationalists in Italy, Switzerland, and Hungary, where he told the crowd that Prime Minister Orban, a racist authoritarian, was “Trump before Trump” and that what matters most is the “survival of the Judeo-Christian West.”
The Dark Legacy of John Tanton, the Anti-Immigration White Nationalist Who Set the Stage for Trump
Back when he was an editor for Breitbart, Bannon invited anti-Muslim extremists Frank Gaffney, Robert Spencer, and Pamela Gellar, who once claimed Obama was working to “appease his Islamic overlords,” to an event after they were banned from the 2013 annual CPAC conference in D.C. for being, well, too Islamophobic. On the panel, Gellar described the United States as being in a “battle” against Islam, one which it was currently losing. Bannon nodded his head in agreement.
When Trump won in 2016, Islamophobes finally had a foot in the White House, directly connected to Trump’s inner circle, including Bannon, Stephen Miller, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Jeff Sessions. Nearly every single one of the hate mongers, bigots, kooks, and conspiracy theorists we mentioned in our 2011 report now had influence over and often a direct line to the most powerful people shaping America’s domestic and foreign policy.
Bannon and the GOP’s worst fears were succinctly captured in the opening scene of his unproduced movie, Destroying the Great Satan, which opens with the U.S. Capitol being adorned with a star-and-crescent flag and blaring the adhan, the Islamic call to prayer. This is what the downfall of the “Judeo-Christian West” (white people) looks like at the hands of “Jihadist Islamic Fascism” (Muslims).
That nightmare was shared by Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 Muslims in 2018’s Christchurch massacre, in which he also planned to burn down mosques and to “inflict as many fatalities as possible” against the “invaders,” the term he used for Muslims in his 74-page manifesto subtly titled “The Great Replacement.” Only 1.3 percent of New Zealanders are Muslims but that number was enough to trigger his murderous anxiety. He was inspired by Breivik’s massacre and his 2011 manifesto.
A few months later, Tarrant inspired the El Paso shooter who killed 23 people in a Walmart. He left behind a manifesto saying he wanted to punish the Hispanic invaders. “Invasion” was the term Trump and others in this party used to describe Mexican and Middle Eastern immigrants who were allegedly coming to America through the Southern Border in a caravan before the 2018 midterm election. Robert Bowers, who murdered 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue around the same time, blamed Jews for helping the “invaders” in the caravans.
Tarrant, a terrorist who indiscriminately murdered Muslim men, women, and children, praised Trump in his manifesto as a "symbol of renewed white identity.” I wonder what it was about Trump’s presidency and rhetoric that inspired a white supremacist terrorist? Trump was also an inspirational figure for Alexandre Bissonnette, who killed six people and injured 19 others when he opened fire at a Quebec mosque in 2017. He obsessively followed and visited the social media accounts of Trump and right-personalities, such as Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Richard Spencer, and Ben Shapiro, including in the hours leading up to the shooting.
In 2021, the long-festering conspiracy theories and hate promoted by these individuals and their allies have been used to demonize Rep. Ilhan Omar, who represents the walking nightmare for the GOP and has become an avatar of evil for white nationalists everywhere: a black Muslim woman in a hijab who was once a refugee and has now ascended to power. She has been told to “go back” to her country by Trump, accused of promoting Sharia by Jeanine Pirro for simply wearing a hijab, and vilified with discredited conspiracy theories that have resulted in numerous death threats. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene campaigned by releasing a poster in which she stands next to a photo of Omar and “The Squad” holding a gun.
The GOP and right-wing movements across Europe are openly telling us that Muslims are the villains and the targets. It’s time to finally pay attention. Although they are not directly responsible for terrorism and violence, the hateful rhetoric and ideologies churned out by the GOP and the conservative ecosystem do not exist in a vacuum. They spread, infect, poison, and brainwash millions, inevitably influencing a few who are unhinged and homicidal.
It’s the same story with a different cast. This time it features a 9-year-old boy in Canada who woke up in a hospital without a family. We have to do everything to ensure that this tragedy doesn’t have yet another remake.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/mu ... 48093.html
Muslims Are Being Murdered Across the West Thanks to Conservatives Raving About ‘Invaders’
Wajahat Ali
Wed, June 9, 2021, 6:18 AM
That’s the headline, and that’s the inevitable result of right-wing politicians and commentators spending years deliberately manufacturing hate, Islamophobia, and conspiracy theories to rile up their base and villainize Muslims as supposed “invaders” threatening this thing called “Western” (as in white) civilization. It is an empowered ecosystem that is global, growing and willing to sacrifice our kids to make its hate become “great” again.
This time the headlines are about a Muslim family of five waiting at the curb of an intersection in London, Canada, minding their own business, when they were fatally rammed by a black pickup truck driven by Nathaniel Veltman, 20, who was later found by the police wearing full body armor. The sole survivor, 9-year-old Canadian boy Fayez Afzaal, woke up in the hospital to be told that his father, mother, grandmother, and teenage sister were killed in this alleged hate crime. He has to now live with the fact that his family, beloved and respected by the local community, was brutally murdered simply for being Muslim.
Where will it happen next time? I’m asking this question thousands of miles away in Virginia, in a WhatsApp group with fellow Muslim American friends raising their families in suburbs and asking if this could happen here. The same conversation is happening across Muslim communities in America and Europe, where Muslims have lived for decades and centuries but are still seen as visitors and foreigners.
In case you’re rolling your eyes right now and dismissing my concerns as exaggerated or reactionary, please remember we just removed a president who won that office promising “a Muslim Ban,” said that “Islam hates us” on live television, and whose party now actively promotes the antisemitic “replacement theory” suggesting that in between building Lego sets for my kids and writing this article I’m being used by powerful Jews to undermine and eventually take down white, Christian conservatives. (Only on weekends and after midnight.)
Only the details change with each new tragedy, each new remake. Anti-Muslim hate and xenophobic conspiracy theories inspire a young man to view innocent Muslims as invaders who are threatening to destroy Western civilization and freedoms due to our rising numbers, hostile religious values, and economic success. The government, media, civil society, and corporations are corrupt vessels of the “Deep State” who are aiding the country’s inevitable decline by advocating for diversity, feminism, critical race theory, and multiculturalism.
That’s what Anders Breivik believed. In 2011, the Norwegian terrorist who killed 77 people left behind a 1,500-page manifesto meant to inspire copycats. Breivik wrote that he wanted to punish Europe for promoting multiculturalism and immigration and that Muslims should be deported because they were engaging in “demographic Jihad” and thus threatening “Western” and Christian values. His manifesto cited nearly every single individual mentioned in an investigative report I co-wrote a decade ago, “Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America,” that identified and categorized the incestuous network of conservative funders, ideologues, media outlets, grassroots groups, religious organizations, and political players that created and promoted fringe anti-Muslim talking points about Sharia, Obama, and political Islam that are now part and parcel of the mainstream conservative vocabulary in America.
“This rhetoric is not cost-free,” according to counter-terrorism expert Marc Sageman, who reviewed Breivik’s manifesto and said American Islamophobes and their writings “are the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.” In recent years, this homegrown U.S. infrastructure of hate has funded and elevated right-wing white nationalist warriors across Europe, like Tommy Robinson in England and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, because they are “trying to sustain their civilization, trying to keep Europe Europe, trying to keep the West the West,” which is a nice way of saying keep Europe “White” and “Judeo-Christian.”
This ecosystem is also seeking to unite right-wing populist movements and mainstream hateful talking points that have pushed weakened centrists and liberals to treat Muslims and immigrants as politically convenient scapegoats to try and maintain their political support and power.
For example, in France, a beleaguered President Macron has decided to go all-in with anti-Muslim bigotry and fear-mongering as the best strategy to defeat an ascending Marine Le Pen and her xenophobic National Front, now National Rally, the party whose founder, her father, was an antisemite and Holocaust denier. Earlier this year, France introduced an “anti-separatism” bill supposedly intended to bolster secularism but clearly designed to target the Muslim minority population. Macron is also trying to pressure French imams to sign a “charter of Republican values,” which many have accurately described as a discriminatory “loyalty test” that targets only Muslim preachers and is an affront to religious freedoms. To make sure he wasn’t tainted by this kryptonite known as Islam, Macron’s party even barred a Muslim woman from running as a candidate from their party because she wore a hijab on a campaign poster.
Macron is rationalizing these actions as protecting the country against “political Islam,” but French legal expert Rim-Sarah Alouane says French Muslims can't help but feel that all Muslims are made to be a problem. “French Muslims make up around 7 percent of the population and yet make 99 percent of the political debate. There is not a single day without a new debate around Muslims… It feels like you are on a constant trial where you are de facto guilty until proven innocent,” she told me.
I can relate. Although European Muslims have unique challenges and experiences compared to American Muslims, we nonetheless can unite in feeling like perpetual suspects in our own country with our loyalty and patriotism forever questioned by a government that spends more time and resources surveilling our communities than combating white supremacy, the number one domestic terror threat here. Leading up to the 2016 election, Republican candidate Ben Carson said he’ll only have Muslims in his cabinet if they denounce Sharia and pledge loyalty to the Constitution. The GOP’s base rewarded him with a spike in donations. Trump rode that wave and said he’d go further and propose a “complete and total ban on Muslims,” which was the first order of business for Steve Bannon, his chief strategist, after Trump’s inauguration. Meanwhile, armed militias and violent extremist groups are befriended and praised by the GOP, and Trump told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” which they did until the Jan. 6 insurrection that left five people dead.
In 2018, after being kicked out by Trump, Bannon continued his white nationalist crusade across Europe. He was invited by Le Pen to rally the crowd of right-wing, National Front politicians in France to wear the label of racist, xenophobe, and nativist as a “badge of honor.” It makes sense considering one of Bannon’s favorite books is the French novel Camp of the Saints, a staple of white nationalists and racists around the world, that imagines a horde of brown-skinned immigrants invading and overtaking France. On that trip, Bannon also met fellow right-wing nationalists in Italy, Switzerland, and Hungary, where he told the crowd that Prime Minister Orban, a racist authoritarian, was “Trump before Trump” and that what matters most is the “survival of the Judeo-Christian West.”
The Dark Legacy of John Tanton, the Anti-Immigration White Nationalist Who Set the Stage for Trump
Back when he was an editor for Breitbart, Bannon invited anti-Muslim extremists Frank Gaffney, Robert Spencer, and Pamela Gellar, who once claimed Obama was working to “appease his Islamic overlords,” to an event after they were banned from the 2013 annual CPAC conference in D.C. for being, well, too Islamophobic. On the panel, Gellar described the United States as being in a “battle” against Islam, one which it was currently losing. Bannon nodded his head in agreement.
When Trump won in 2016, Islamophobes finally had a foot in the White House, directly connected to Trump’s inner circle, including Bannon, Stephen Miller, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Jeff Sessions. Nearly every single one of the hate mongers, bigots, kooks, and conspiracy theorists we mentioned in our 2011 report now had influence over and often a direct line to the most powerful people shaping America’s domestic and foreign policy.
Bannon and the GOP’s worst fears were succinctly captured in the opening scene of his unproduced movie, Destroying the Great Satan, which opens with the U.S. Capitol being adorned with a star-and-crescent flag and blaring the adhan, the Islamic call to prayer. This is what the downfall of the “Judeo-Christian West” (white people) looks like at the hands of “Jihadist Islamic Fascism” (Muslims).
That nightmare was shared by Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 Muslims in 2018’s Christchurch massacre, in which he also planned to burn down mosques and to “inflict as many fatalities as possible” against the “invaders,” the term he used for Muslims in his 74-page manifesto subtly titled “The Great Replacement.” Only 1.3 percent of New Zealanders are Muslims but that number was enough to trigger his murderous anxiety. He was inspired by Breivik’s massacre and his 2011 manifesto.
A few months later, Tarrant inspired the El Paso shooter who killed 23 people in a Walmart. He left behind a manifesto saying he wanted to punish the Hispanic invaders. “Invasion” was the term Trump and others in this party used to describe Mexican and Middle Eastern immigrants who were allegedly coming to America through the Southern Border in a caravan before the 2018 midterm election. Robert Bowers, who murdered 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue around the same time, blamed Jews for helping the “invaders” in the caravans.
Tarrant, a terrorist who indiscriminately murdered Muslim men, women, and children, praised Trump in his manifesto as a "symbol of renewed white identity.” I wonder what it was about Trump’s presidency and rhetoric that inspired a white supremacist terrorist? Trump was also an inspirational figure for Alexandre Bissonnette, who killed six people and injured 19 others when he opened fire at a Quebec mosque in 2017. He obsessively followed and visited the social media accounts of Trump and right-personalities, such as Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Richard Spencer, and Ben Shapiro, including in the hours leading up to the shooting.
In 2021, the long-festering conspiracy theories and hate promoted by these individuals and their allies have been used to demonize Rep. Ilhan Omar, who represents the walking nightmare for the GOP and has become an avatar of evil for white nationalists everywhere: a black Muslim woman in a hijab who was once a refugee and has now ascended to power. She has been told to “go back” to her country by Trump, accused of promoting Sharia by Jeanine Pirro for simply wearing a hijab, and vilified with discredited conspiracy theories that have resulted in numerous death threats. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene campaigned by releasing a poster in which she stands next to a photo of Omar and “The Squad” holding a gun.
The GOP and right-wing movements across Europe are openly telling us that Muslims are the villains and the targets. It’s time to finally pay attention. Although they are not directly responsible for terrorism and violence, the hateful rhetoric and ideologies churned out by the GOP and the conservative ecosystem do not exist in a vacuum. They spread, infect, poison, and brainwash millions, inevitably influencing a few who are unhinged and homicidal.
It’s the same story with a different cast. This time it features a 9-year-old boy in Canada who woke up in a hospital without a family. We have to do everything to ensure that this tragedy doesn’t have yet another remake.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/mu ... 48093.html
One Woman’s Journey Through Chinese Atrocities
In 2021 the United States and other countries have declared that China is committing genocide against ethnic Uyghurs — yet nothing much changes.
That passivity discounts the horror of genocide, the ultimate crime. So that we don’t grow numb to what’s unfolding, let me introduce a Uyghur woman: “Nancy,” as she asks to be called, is now safe in the United States but terrified that speaking out will doom her parents.
China’s repression of the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority in the far west region of Xinjiang, has received attention mostly for locking about one million people in modern concentration camps. A less noted element has been a systematic attempt to suppress births of Uyghurs.
Nancy described one relative, a gynecologist, who was sent to a concentration camp for two years and then sentenced to six years in prison for removing IUDs from two women for health reasons.
Another relative was sent to a concentration camp for two years because she was overseeing family planning work in a Uyghur village where a woman became pregnant without permission. Nancy heard that the pregnant woman’s husband was sentenced to 11 years in prison, but she’s not sure what happened to the mother or baby.
It’s impossible to verify Nancy’s accounts, but they fit into what journalists, diplomats and human rights groups have uncovered about repression in Xinjiang.
So what’s going on? Alarmed by a separatist movement in Xinjiang that in the past has occasionally been violent, China appears to be trying to stifle Uyghur births so as to dilute the Uyghur population in a sea of Han Chinese. Officials have spoken of the need to “change southern Xinjiang’s population structure” and “end the dominance of the Uyghur.”
The result has been a campaign of forced sterilization and IUD insertion. Some 80 percent of China’s IUD insertions have been in Xinjiang, home to less than 2 percent of the country’s population, and population growth rates in the two largest Uyghur prefectures fell 84 percent, according to Adrian Zenz, a scholar who has documented a brazen Chinese government plan to suppress millions of Uyghur births in the coming years.
This is part of a systematic dehumanization of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. Muslims are forced to betray their faith by eating pork or drinking alcohol, prayer is banned in public places, kids are sent to boarding schools to be indoctrinated, and when Uyghur men are jailed the government has sent Han Chinese men to live in their homes and share beds with their wives.
China is not massacring Uyghurs, so this is not a genocide in the commonly accepted sense. But under the legal definition in the 1948 Genocide Convention, China’s practices appear to qualify as genocide by suppressing births of a particular ethnic group.
Nancy’s own personal journey reflects how China’s government has gone from wooing Uyghurs to crushing them. Her family was not religious, her mother was a Communist Party member entrusted with a senior government job, and the family was ready to work within the system. Indeed, when Nancy was in high school, the Chinese government dispatched her to live in eastern China so as to assimilate her and mold her into a Uyghur agent of influence.
But tensions between Han Chinese and Uyghurs grew. Eventually Nancy, frustrated by the lack of good jobs even for educated Uyghurs in China, took a position in Turkey. That didn’t raise eyebrows at the time, but after China began its crackdown in 2016, any foreign travel by Uyghurs became suspicious.
Nancy’s parents had visited her in Turkey, so they were detained in concentration camps for re-education. After the parents were released from the camps, they left her a voice message urging her to return to China.
“Your country loves you,” her mom told her. “Your country needs you here.” Nancy immediately grew suspicious, doubly so when her mother then said that Nancy’s pregnancy might make it difficult to return. In fact, Nancy was not pregnant, and she assumes that someone was forcing her mother to lure her home but that her mother was trying desperately to signal that she should stay away.
Nancy says that an uncle became paralyzed while in the camps, apparently from a beating, and another relative died while inside. Four of her cousins are currently locked up in forced labor camps, she said, and guards are demanding bribes in exchange for not starving one of them.
What can the world do in the face of these atrocities — not to mention the destruction of Hong Kong, the kidnapping and mistreatment of two Canadian hostages and other rogue behavior by President Xi Jinping?
One sensible response: a partial boycott of next year’s “Genocide Olympics” in Beijing, with athletes allowed to participate, but officials and business executives staying away.
A second: companies eliminate Xinjiang products, such as cotton and solar panels, from their supply chains, despite the risk of a nationalist backlash within China.
All of this is unsatisfying and inadequate, and it may not move Xi. But when we declare a genocide, we can’t simply shrug and do nothing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/12/opin ... 778d3e6de3
In 2021 the United States and other countries have declared that China is committing genocide against ethnic Uyghurs — yet nothing much changes.
That passivity discounts the horror of genocide, the ultimate crime. So that we don’t grow numb to what’s unfolding, let me introduce a Uyghur woman: “Nancy,” as she asks to be called, is now safe in the United States but terrified that speaking out will doom her parents.
China’s repression of the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority in the far west region of Xinjiang, has received attention mostly for locking about one million people in modern concentration camps. A less noted element has been a systematic attempt to suppress births of Uyghurs.
Nancy described one relative, a gynecologist, who was sent to a concentration camp for two years and then sentenced to six years in prison for removing IUDs from two women for health reasons.
Another relative was sent to a concentration camp for two years because she was overseeing family planning work in a Uyghur village where a woman became pregnant without permission. Nancy heard that the pregnant woman’s husband was sentenced to 11 years in prison, but she’s not sure what happened to the mother or baby.
It’s impossible to verify Nancy’s accounts, but they fit into what journalists, diplomats and human rights groups have uncovered about repression in Xinjiang.
So what’s going on? Alarmed by a separatist movement in Xinjiang that in the past has occasionally been violent, China appears to be trying to stifle Uyghur births so as to dilute the Uyghur population in a sea of Han Chinese. Officials have spoken of the need to “change southern Xinjiang’s population structure” and “end the dominance of the Uyghur.”
The result has been a campaign of forced sterilization and IUD insertion. Some 80 percent of China’s IUD insertions have been in Xinjiang, home to less than 2 percent of the country’s population, and population growth rates in the two largest Uyghur prefectures fell 84 percent, according to Adrian Zenz, a scholar who has documented a brazen Chinese government plan to suppress millions of Uyghur births in the coming years.
This is part of a systematic dehumanization of Muslim minorities in Xinjiang. Muslims are forced to betray their faith by eating pork or drinking alcohol, prayer is banned in public places, kids are sent to boarding schools to be indoctrinated, and when Uyghur men are jailed the government has sent Han Chinese men to live in their homes and share beds with their wives.
China is not massacring Uyghurs, so this is not a genocide in the commonly accepted sense. But under the legal definition in the 1948 Genocide Convention, China’s practices appear to qualify as genocide by suppressing births of a particular ethnic group.
Nancy’s own personal journey reflects how China’s government has gone from wooing Uyghurs to crushing them. Her family was not religious, her mother was a Communist Party member entrusted with a senior government job, and the family was ready to work within the system. Indeed, when Nancy was in high school, the Chinese government dispatched her to live in eastern China so as to assimilate her and mold her into a Uyghur agent of influence.
But tensions between Han Chinese and Uyghurs grew. Eventually Nancy, frustrated by the lack of good jobs even for educated Uyghurs in China, took a position in Turkey. That didn’t raise eyebrows at the time, but after China began its crackdown in 2016, any foreign travel by Uyghurs became suspicious.
Nancy’s parents had visited her in Turkey, so they were detained in concentration camps for re-education. After the parents were released from the camps, they left her a voice message urging her to return to China.
“Your country loves you,” her mom told her. “Your country needs you here.” Nancy immediately grew suspicious, doubly so when her mother then said that Nancy’s pregnancy might make it difficult to return. In fact, Nancy was not pregnant, and she assumes that someone was forcing her mother to lure her home but that her mother was trying desperately to signal that she should stay away.
Nancy says that an uncle became paralyzed while in the camps, apparently from a beating, and another relative died while inside. Four of her cousins are currently locked up in forced labor camps, she said, and guards are demanding bribes in exchange for not starving one of them.
What can the world do in the face of these atrocities — not to mention the destruction of Hong Kong, the kidnapping and mistreatment of two Canadian hostages and other rogue behavior by President Xi Jinping?
One sensible response: a partial boycott of next year’s “Genocide Olympics” in Beijing, with athletes allowed to participate, but officials and business executives staying away.
A second: companies eliminate Xinjiang products, such as cotton and solar panels, from their supply chains, despite the risk of a nationalist backlash within China.
All of this is unsatisfying and inadequate, and it may not move Xi. But when we declare a genocide, we can’t simply shrug and do nothing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/12/opin ... 778d3e6de3
Pakistan’s PM won’t condemn China’s Uyghur treatment after decrying Islamophobia elsewhere
Zachary Basu
Sun, June 20, 2021, 5:33 PM
Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan repeatedly refused to acknowledge China's repression of Uyghur Muslims during an interview with "Axios on HBO," deflecting to other global human rights issues and citing China's denial of the crackdown in Xinjiang.
Why it matters: As one of the most prominent leaders in the Muslim world, Khan has otherwise been leading a public campaign against Islamophobia in the West — especially in Europe. His demurral hints at China's sway over his country.
Khan is silent for a simple reason: cash-strapped Pakistan has become increasingly financially dependent on China, for billions in loans and investment.
These loans come at a price: the developing countries receiving them better not say anything publicly to incur China’s wrath.
Between the lines: Khan delivered a powerful speech against Islamophobia at the United Nations and published an open letter urging other Muslim leaders to join his fight.
But Khan has been totally silent about China's detention of more than 1 million Muslim minorities just across his border.
It's part of a sweeping campaign by China of forced assimilation, forced labor and sterilization that the U.S. and several Western parliaments have deemed a genocide.
What they're saying: Pressed by Axios' Jonathan Swan about why he has been silent, Khan pointed to Beijing's repeated denials of the crackdown in Xinjiang — denials that fly in the face of mountains of witness testimonials, satellite images of detention camps and other evidence.
"Whatever issues we have with the Chinese, we speak to them behind closed doors. China has been one of the greatest friends to us in our most difficult times. When we were really struggling, our economy was struggling, China came to our rescue. So we respect the way they are," Khan said.
Asked if it makes him feel "sick" that he must be silent because of the money China has poured into Pakistan, Khan responded: "I look around the world what's happening in Palestine, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan. Am I going to start talking about everything? I concentrate on what is happening on my border, in my country."
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/pa ... 31289.html
Zachary Basu
Sun, June 20, 2021, 5:33 PM
Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan repeatedly refused to acknowledge China's repression of Uyghur Muslims during an interview with "Axios on HBO," deflecting to other global human rights issues and citing China's denial of the crackdown in Xinjiang.
Why it matters: As one of the most prominent leaders in the Muslim world, Khan has otherwise been leading a public campaign against Islamophobia in the West — especially in Europe. His demurral hints at China's sway over his country.
Khan is silent for a simple reason: cash-strapped Pakistan has become increasingly financially dependent on China, for billions in loans and investment.
These loans come at a price: the developing countries receiving them better not say anything publicly to incur China’s wrath.
Between the lines: Khan delivered a powerful speech against Islamophobia at the United Nations and published an open letter urging other Muslim leaders to join his fight.
But Khan has been totally silent about China's detention of more than 1 million Muslim minorities just across his border.
It's part of a sweeping campaign by China of forced assimilation, forced labor and sterilization that the U.S. and several Western parliaments have deemed a genocide.
What they're saying: Pressed by Axios' Jonathan Swan about why he has been silent, Khan pointed to Beijing's repeated denials of the crackdown in Xinjiang — denials that fly in the face of mountains of witness testimonials, satellite images of detention camps and other evidence.
"Whatever issues we have with the Chinese, we speak to them behind closed doors. China has been one of the greatest friends to us in our most difficult times. When we were really struggling, our economy was struggling, China came to our rescue. So we respect the way they are," Khan said.
Asked if it makes him feel "sick" that he must be silent because of the money China has poured into Pakistan, Khan responded: "I look around the world what's happening in Palestine, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan. Am I going to start talking about everything? I concentrate on what is happening on my border, in my country."
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/pa ... 31289.html
The Daily Beast
Donald Rumsfeld, Killer of 400,000 People, Dies Peacefully
Spencer Ackerman
Wed, June 30, 2021, 5:40 PM
Karin Cooper/Getty
The only thing tragic about the death of Donald Rumsfeld is that it didn’t occur in an Iraqi prison. Yet that was foreordained, considering how throughout his life inside the precincts of American national security, Rumsfeld escaped the consequences of decisions he made that ensured a violent, frightening end for hundreds of thousands of people.
An actuarial table of the deaths for which Donald Rumsfeld is responsible is difficult to assemble. In part, that’s a consequence of his policy, as defense secretary from 2001 to 2006, not to compile or release body counts, a PR strategy learned after disclosing the tolls eroded support for the Vietnam War. As a final obliteration, we cannot know, let alone name, all the dead.
But in 2018, Brown University’s Costs of War Project put together something that serves as the basis for an estimate. According to Neda C. Crawford, Brown’s political-science department chair, the Afghanistan war to that point claimed about 147,000 lives, to include 38,480 civilians; 58,596 Afghan soldiers and police (about as many American troops as died in Vietnam); and 2,401 U.S. servicemembers.
Rumsfeld was hardly the only person in the Bush administration responsible for the Afghanistan war. But in December 2001, under attack in Kandahar, where it had retreated from the advance of U.S. and Northern Alliance forces, the Taliban sought to broker a surrender—one acceptable to the U.S.-installed Afghan leader Hamid Karzai. At the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld refused. “I do not think there will be a negotiated end to the situation, that's unacceptable to the United States,” he said. That statement reaped a 20-year war, making it fair to say that the subsequent deaths are on his head, even while acknowledging that Rumsfeld was hardly the only architect of the conflict.
Crawford in 2018 also tallied between 267,792 and 295,170 deaths to that point in Iraq. That is almost certainly a severe undercount, and it includes between a very conservatively estimated 182,000 to 204,000 civilians; over 41,000 Iraqi soldiers and police; and 4,550 U.S. servicemembers. As one of the driving forces behind the invasion and the driving force behind the occupation, Rumsfeld is in an elite category of responsibility for these deaths, alongside his protege Dick Cheney and the president they served, George W. Bush.
Rumsfeld’s depredations short of the wars of choice he oversaw—and yes, responding to 9/11 with war in Afghanistan was no less a choice than the unprovoked war of aggression in Iraq – were no less severe. His indifference to the suffering of others was hardly unique among American policymakers after 9/11, but his blitheness about it underscored the cruel essence of the enterprise. When passed a sheet of paper that, in bureaucratic language, pitched a torture technique of forcing men held captive at Guantanamo Bay to stand for hours on end, Rumsfeld scribbled a shrug on it: “I stand for 8-10 hours a day.” Months earlier, when Rumsfeld was banking on using the U.S. military to invade Iraq, a reporter asked about using U.S. forces to provide security for rebuilding Afghanistan at a moment before Taliban resistance coalesced. “Ah, peacekeeping,” he sneered in return, explaining that such tasks were beneath U.S. forces.
But to those forces, for whom he was responsible, he was no less indifferent. In Kuwait in December 2004, National Guardsmen preparing for deployment confronted Rumsfeld in the hope of enlisting his help with a dire circumstance. They were scrounging through scrap heaps for metal to weld onto their insufficiently armored vehicles so the RPGs they were sure to encounter wouldn’t kill them. Rumsfeld let it be known that the war mattered, not the warfighter. “You go to war with the Army you’ve got, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time,” he replied.
Wikileaks Shows Rumsfeld and Casey Lied about the Iraq War
If Rumsfeld was indignant at the Guardsmen’s questions, it reflected the unreality he inhabited and the lies he told as easily as he breathed. He wrapped himself in a superficial understanding of epistemology (“there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns…”) that a compliant press treated as sagacity. He wore a mask of assuredness, a con man’s trick, as he said things that bore no resemblance to the truth, such as his September 2002 insistence that he possessed “bulletproof” evidence of a nonexistent alliance between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. As resistance in Iraq coalesced in summer 2003, Rumsfeld said it couldn’t be “anything like a guerrilla war or an organized resistance,” even as a reporter quoted U.S. military doctrine explaining why it was. He insisted, “I don’t do quagmires” when quagmires were all he did.
He had reason to suspect he would get away with it. Manipulating the media was, to Rumsfeld, a known known, since reporters loved Rumsfeld before they hated him. U.S. News & World Report put a grinning Rumsfeld on the cover above the headline “Rum Punch.” (“A Secretary of War Unlike Any Other… You Got A Problem With That?”) Vanity Fair dispatched Annie Liebovitz to photograph him amongst Bush’s war cabinet. People magazine called him the “sexiest cabinet member” in 2002. A typical thumbsucker piece, this one in the Los Angeles Times of August 17, 2003, began with the falsity that “Donald H. Rumsfeld has won two wars and won them his way...” The conservative press reflected the subtext. “The Stud” was what National Review called the septuagenarian Rumsfeld as it depicted him in a come-hither pose.
The scale of death Rumsfeld—and Bush, and Cheney, and so on—is responsible for does not even make him the bloodiest American of his era. That would be Henry Kissinger, whom the historian Greg Grandin estimates is responsible for between three and four million dead. But American elites embrace Kissinger – and more recently Bush – in a way they never would embrace the post-Iraq Rumsfeld. Kissinger, after all, never raised sufficient ire amongst general officers to make his continued tenure impossible, as Rumsfeld experienced in the spring 2006 “Generals’ Revolt” that presaged his November 2006 downfall.
But getting rid of Rumsfeld only compounded the tragedy of his works, rather than alleviating them. For the generals who came for Rumsfeld did not come for his wars. They came to save the wars from Rumsfeld, prolonging their agony and futility with the convenient alibi that they could be won, if only a change atop the Pentagon came. With U.S. troops still in Iraq and President Biden adding caveat after caveat to his Afghanistan withdrawal, removing Donald Rumsfeld from the wars only permitted them to continue to this day. Rumsfeld never faced any accountability for what he did, only political eclipse, and wrote an inevitable memoir about why he was right and what he did was good.
Starting around two years after Bush accepted Rumsfeld’s resignation, I would walk up Connecticut Avenue, NW each morning to my newsroom near the so-called Hinckley Hilton. Frequently, I would see a wizened figure walking south from his Kalorama mansion down Connecticut as I headed north. He carried a metal cane, but he didn’t lean on it: he held it in each hand, parallel to the ground, as if he were walking a tightrope. His teeth would be bared as he drew back his lips in the facsimile of a grin so familiar from his post-9/11 press conferences. It was all weird, but I never approached him, as he was accompanied by a bodyguard who would flash me the keep-walking-pal expression.
For the potency and vigor Rumsfeld wanted to project, he moved delicately. An elderly man, he walked starting with his hips, swaying one foot outward before sweeping the other one forward, slow half-moons of motion as he carefully descended the hill north of Dupont Circle. How frail was this man who can lay claim to the deaths of at least 415,000 people, and how bitter it is that unlike them, his name will be remembered, even in infamy.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/do ... 08965.html
Note: It is reported "Dies Peacefully". Killer of half million Muslims, What a shame!! Where is God's justice?
Donald Rumsfeld, Killer of 400,000 People, Dies Peacefully
Spencer Ackerman
Wed, June 30, 2021, 5:40 PM
Karin Cooper/Getty
The only thing tragic about the death of Donald Rumsfeld is that it didn’t occur in an Iraqi prison. Yet that was foreordained, considering how throughout his life inside the precincts of American national security, Rumsfeld escaped the consequences of decisions he made that ensured a violent, frightening end for hundreds of thousands of people.
An actuarial table of the deaths for which Donald Rumsfeld is responsible is difficult to assemble. In part, that’s a consequence of his policy, as defense secretary from 2001 to 2006, not to compile or release body counts, a PR strategy learned after disclosing the tolls eroded support for the Vietnam War. As a final obliteration, we cannot know, let alone name, all the dead.
But in 2018, Brown University’s Costs of War Project put together something that serves as the basis for an estimate. According to Neda C. Crawford, Brown’s political-science department chair, the Afghanistan war to that point claimed about 147,000 lives, to include 38,480 civilians; 58,596 Afghan soldiers and police (about as many American troops as died in Vietnam); and 2,401 U.S. servicemembers.
Rumsfeld was hardly the only person in the Bush administration responsible for the Afghanistan war. But in December 2001, under attack in Kandahar, where it had retreated from the advance of U.S. and Northern Alliance forces, the Taliban sought to broker a surrender—one acceptable to the U.S.-installed Afghan leader Hamid Karzai. At the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld refused. “I do not think there will be a negotiated end to the situation, that's unacceptable to the United States,” he said. That statement reaped a 20-year war, making it fair to say that the subsequent deaths are on his head, even while acknowledging that Rumsfeld was hardly the only architect of the conflict.
Crawford in 2018 also tallied between 267,792 and 295,170 deaths to that point in Iraq. That is almost certainly a severe undercount, and it includes between a very conservatively estimated 182,000 to 204,000 civilians; over 41,000 Iraqi soldiers and police; and 4,550 U.S. servicemembers. As one of the driving forces behind the invasion and the driving force behind the occupation, Rumsfeld is in an elite category of responsibility for these deaths, alongside his protege Dick Cheney and the president they served, George W. Bush.
Rumsfeld’s depredations short of the wars of choice he oversaw—and yes, responding to 9/11 with war in Afghanistan was no less a choice than the unprovoked war of aggression in Iraq – were no less severe. His indifference to the suffering of others was hardly unique among American policymakers after 9/11, but his blitheness about it underscored the cruel essence of the enterprise. When passed a sheet of paper that, in bureaucratic language, pitched a torture technique of forcing men held captive at Guantanamo Bay to stand for hours on end, Rumsfeld scribbled a shrug on it: “I stand for 8-10 hours a day.” Months earlier, when Rumsfeld was banking on using the U.S. military to invade Iraq, a reporter asked about using U.S. forces to provide security for rebuilding Afghanistan at a moment before Taliban resistance coalesced. “Ah, peacekeeping,” he sneered in return, explaining that such tasks were beneath U.S. forces.
But to those forces, for whom he was responsible, he was no less indifferent. In Kuwait in December 2004, National Guardsmen preparing for deployment confronted Rumsfeld in the hope of enlisting his help with a dire circumstance. They were scrounging through scrap heaps for metal to weld onto their insufficiently armored vehicles so the RPGs they were sure to encounter wouldn’t kill them. Rumsfeld let it be known that the war mattered, not the warfighter. “You go to war with the Army you’ve got, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time,” he replied.
Wikileaks Shows Rumsfeld and Casey Lied about the Iraq War
If Rumsfeld was indignant at the Guardsmen’s questions, it reflected the unreality he inhabited and the lies he told as easily as he breathed. He wrapped himself in a superficial understanding of epistemology (“there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns…”) that a compliant press treated as sagacity. He wore a mask of assuredness, a con man’s trick, as he said things that bore no resemblance to the truth, such as his September 2002 insistence that he possessed “bulletproof” evidence of a nonexistent alliance between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. As resistance in Iraq coalesced in summer 2003, Rumsfeld said it couldn’t be “anything like a guerrilla war or an organized resistance,” even as a reporter quoted U.S. military doctrine explaining why it was. He insisted, “I don’t do quagmires” when quagmires were all he did.
He had reason to suspect he would get away with it. Manipulating the media was, to Rumsfeld, a known known, since reporters loved Rumsfeld before they hated him. U.S. News & World Report put a grinning Rumsfeld on the cover above the headline “Rum Punch.” (“A Secretary of War Unlike Any Other… You Got A Problem With That?”) Vanity Fair dispatched Annie Liebovitz to photograph him amongst Bush’s war cabinet. People magazine called him the “sexiest cabinet member” in 2002. A typical thumbsucker piece, this one in the Los Angeles Times of August 17, 2003, began with the falsity that “Donald H. Rumsfeld has won two wars and won them his way...” The conservative press reflected the subtext. “The Stud” was what National Review called the septuagenarian Rumsfeld as it depicted him in a come-hither pose.
The scale of death Rumsfeld—and Bush, and Cheney, and so on—is responsible for does not even make him the bloodiest American of his era. That would be Henry Kissinger, whom the historian Greg Grandin estimates is responsible for between three and four million dead. But American elites embrace Kissinger – and more recently Bush – in a way they never would embrace the post-Iraq Rumsfeld. Kissinger, after all, never raised sufficient ire amongst general officers to make his continued tenure impossible, as Rumsfeld experienced in the spring 2006 “Generals’ Revolt” that presaged his November 2006 downfall.
But getting rid of Rumsfeld only compounded the tragedy of his works, rather than alleviating them. For the generals who came for Rumsfeld did not come for his wars. They came to save the wars from Rumsfeld, prolonging their agony and futility with the convenient alibi that they could be won, if only a change atop the Pentagon came. With U.S. troops still in Iraq and President Biden adding caveat after caveat to his Afghanistan withdrawal, removing Donald Rumsfeld from the wars only permitted them to continue to this day. Rumsfeld never faced any accountability for what he did, only political eclipse, and wrote an inevitable memoir about why he was right and what he did was good.
Starting around two years after Bush accepted Rumsfeld’s resignation, I would walk up Connecticut Avenue, NW each morning to my newsroom near the so-called Hinckley Hilton. Frequently, I would see a wizened figure walking south from his Kalorama mansion down Connecticut as I headed north. He carried a metal cane, but he didn’t lean on it: he held it in each hand, parallel to the ground, as if he were walking a tightrope. His teeth would be bared as he drew back his lips in the facsimile of a grin so familiar from his post-9/11 press conferences. It was all weird, but I never approached him, as he was accompanied by a bodyguard who would flash me the keep-walking-pal expression.
For the potency and vigor Rumsfeld wanted to project, he moved delicately. An elderly man, he walked starting with his hips, swaying one foot outward before sweeping the other one forward, slow half-moons of motion as he carefully descended the hill north of Dupont Circle. How frail was this man who can lay claim to the deaths of at least 415,000 people, and how bitter it is that unlike them, his name will be remembered, even in infamy.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/do ... 08965.html
Note: It is reported "Dies Peacefully". Killer of half million Muslims, What a shame!! Where is God's justice?
Associated Press
Israel bars jailed Palestinian from daughter's funeral
Palestinian mourners carry the body of Suha Jarrar, 30-year-old, daughter of Khalida Jarrar who is a prisoner in an Israeli jail, during her funeral, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Tuesday, July 13, 2021. Khalida Jarrar, 58, a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has been in and out of Israeli prison in recent years. Palestinian activists and human rights groups urged Israel to allow Jarrar to attend her daughter’s funeral.
Palestinian mourners pray near the body of Suha Jarrar, 30-year-old, daughter of Khalida Jarrar who is a prisoner in an Israeli jail, during her funeral, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Tuesday, July 13, 2021. Khalida Jarrar, 58, a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has been in and out of Israeli prison in recent years. Palestinian activists and human rights groups urged Israel to allow Jarrar to attend her daughter’s funeral. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Tue, July 13, 2021, 3:39 AM
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Israel refused to let a prominent jailed Palestinian lawmaker attend her daughter's funeral on Tuesday, despite a campaign by activists and human rights groups for her to be released on humanitarian grounds.
Khalida Jarrar, 58, a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has been in and out of Israeli prison in recent years. A military court sentenced her to two years in March for being a member of an outlawed group. With time served, she is set to be released in October.
The PFLP has an armed wing and is considered a terrorist group by Israel and Western countries, but Jarrar has not been implicated in attacks. The Israeli military acknowledged in March that she "did not deal with organizational or military aspects of the organization.”
Jarrar was sentenced to 15 months in 2015 on charges of incitement and membership in the PFLP. She has also been held for months at a time in what's known as administrative detention, under which Israel detains Palestinian suspects for lengthy periods without charge.
Her 30-year-old daughter Suha, who worked on issues related to gender and climate change for the Al-Haq human rights group, was found dead on Sunday in her home in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, the group said. It did not give a cause of death.
Al-Haq launched a campaign calling for Jarrar's “immediate and unconditional release on humanitarian grounds,” and said it had appealed to other countries as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Entreaties poured in from other activists and rights groups in an online campaign under the hashtag #freekhalidajarrar. An online petition drew more than 11,500 signatures.
Natan Dublin, a spokesman for Israel's public security minister, said the request could not be approved by the prison service because Jarrar is considered a security prisoner. The daughter's funeral was held without her.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said Jarrar's repeated arrests are part of Israel's wider crackdown on non-violent political opposition to its half-century military occupation of lands the Palestinians want for a future state.
“Detaining Khalida over her political activism violates her freedom of association,” said Omar Shakir, the group's director for Israel and the Palestinian territories. “Having repeatedly detained Khalida in violation of her rights, Israeli authorities should at minimum allow her to say goodbye to her daughter.”
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/is ... 21966.html
Israel bars jailed Palestinian from daughter's funeral
Palestinian mourners carry the body of Suha Jarrar, 30-year-old, daughter of Khalida Jarrar who is a prisoner in an Israeli jail, during her funeral, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Tuesday, July 13, 2021. Khalida Jarrar, 58, a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has been in and out of Israeli prison in recent years. Palestinian activists and human rights groups urged Israel to allow Jarrar to attend her daughter’s funeral.
Palestinian mourners pray near the body of Suha Jarrar, 30-year-old, daughter of Khalida Jarrar who is a prisoner in an Israeli jail, during her funeral, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Tuesday, July 13, 2021. Khalida Jarrar, 58, a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has been in and out of Israeli prison in recent years. Palestinian activists and human rights groups urged Israel to allow Jarrar to attend her daughter’s funeral. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Tue, July 13, 2021, 3:39 AM
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Israel refused to let a prominent jailed Palestinian lawmaker attend her daughter's funeral on Tuesday, despite a campaign by activists and human rights groups for her to be released on humanitarian grounds.
Khalida Jarrar, 58, a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has been in and out of Israeli prison in recent years. A military court sentenced her to two years in March for being a member of an outlawed group. With time served, she is set to be released in October.
The PFLP has an armed wing and is considered a terrorist group by Israel and Western countries, but Jarrar has not been implicated in attacks. The Israeli military acknowledged in March that she "did not deal with organizational or military aspects of the organization.”
Jarrar was sentenced to 15 months in 2015 on charges of incitement and membership in the PFLP. She has also been held for months at a time in what's known as administrative detention, under which Israel detains Palestinian suspects for lengthy periods without charge.
Her 30-year-old daughter Suha, who worked on issues related to gender and climate change for the Al-Haq human rights group, was found dead on Sunday in her home in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, the group said. It did not give a cause of death.
Al-Haq launched a campaign calling for Jarrar's “immediate and unconditional release on humanitarian grounds,” and said it had appealed to other countries as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Entreaties poured in from other activists and rights groups in an online campaign under the hashtag #freekhalidajarrar. An online petition drew more than 11,500 signatures.
Natan Dublin, a spokesman for Israel's public security minister, said the request could not be approved by the prison service because Jarrar is considered a security prisoner. The daughter's funeral was held without her.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said Jarrar's repeated arrests are part of Israel's wider crackdown on non-violent political opposition to its half-century military occupation of lands the Palestinians want for a future state.
“Detaining Khalida over her political activism violates her freedom of association,” said Omar Shakir, the group's director for Israel and the Palestinian territories. “Having repeatedly detained Khalida in violation of her rights, Israeli authorities should at minimum allow her to say goodbye to her daughter.”
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/is ... 21966.html
CHINA CAN LOCK UP A MILLION MUSLIMS IN XINJIANG AT ONCE
Here is the most complete picture yet of the staggering scale of China’s prisons and detention camps for Muslims in Xinjiang.
This is Part 5 of a BuzzFeed News investigation. For Part 1, click here https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/me ... rs-muslims. For Part 2, click here https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/al ... ps-uighurs. For Part 3, click here https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/me ... ntion-camp. For Part 4, click here https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/al ... rced-labor.
For the first time, BuzzFeed News can reveal the full capacity of China's previously secret network of prisons and detention camps in Xinjiang: enough space to detain more than 1 million people.
BuzzFeed News calculated the floor areas of 347 compounds bearing the hallmarks of prisons and internment camps in the region and compared them to China’s own prison and detention construction standards, which lay out how much space is needed for each person detained or imprisoned.
Earlier estimates, including one extrapolated from three-year-old leaked government data, have suggested that a total of more than a million Muslims have been detained or imprisoned over the last five years, with an unknown number released during that time. Our unprecedented analysis goes further, showing that China has built space to lock up at least 1.01 million people in Xinjiang at the same time.
That’s enough space to detain or incarcerate more than 1 in every 25 residents of Xinjiang simultaneously — a figure seven times higher than the criminal detention capacity of the United States, the country with the highest official incarceration rate in the world.
More photos and images at:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/me ... ning-email
Here is the most complete picture yet of the staggering scale of China’s prisons and detention camps for Muslims in Xinjiang.
This is Part 5 of a BuzzFeed News investigation. For Part 1, click here https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/me ... rs-muslims. For Part 2, click here https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/al ... ps-uighurs. For Part 3, click here https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/me ... ntion-camp. For Part 4, click here https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/al ... rced-labor.
For the first time, BuzzFeed News can reveal the full capacity of China's previously secret network of prisons and detention camps in Xinjiang: enough space to detain more than 1 million people.
BuzzFeed News calculated the floor areas of 347 compounds bearing the hallmarks of prisons and internment camps in the region and compared them to China’s own prison and detention construction standards, which lay out how much space is needed for each person detained or imprisoned.
Earlier estimates, including one extrapolated from three-year-old leaked government data, have suggested that a total of more than a million Muslims have been detained or imprisoned over the last five years, with an unknown number released during that time. Our unprecedented analysis goes further, showing that China has built space to lock up at least 1.01 million people in Xinjiang at the same time.
That’s enough space to detain or incarcerate more than 1 in every 25 residents of Xinjiang simultaneously — a figure seven times higher than the criminal detention capacity of the United States, the country with the highest official incarceration rate in the world.
More photos and images at:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/me ... ning-email
Anti-Muslim hate crimes on the rise, advocacy group finds
Yacob Reyes
Sun, July 25, 2021, 1:06 PM
Cases of discrimination and harassment against Muslim Americans spiked in May and June, according to a report published by the Council of American-Islamic Relations.
Why it matters: CAIR, the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, typically publishes an annual report documenting anti-Muslim bias incidents but elected to release a mid-year report given the recent spike.
Stay on top of the latest market trends and economic insights with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free
The report, which was released on Wednesday, concentrates on 38 of the hundreds of cases CAIR has documented, the organization said in a news release.
According to the group, the report aims to provide "a glimpse of the day-to-day lives of Muslims in America who continue to face the deadly threat of Islamophobia."
Details: The mid-year report documented a surge in anti-Muslim hate crimes following the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in May. The group also noted a rise in anti-mosque incidents involving vandalism and physical assaults.
The report found that bullying against Muslim students continues to rise at a rapid rate, highlighting an instance where a Muslim child was allegedly called a terrorist by his teacher.
What they're saying: "Islamophobia should not be normal. I can tell you that many Muslims around this country and around the world, those who live as minorities, they started to feel that Islamophobia is part of normal life. It should not be, and we should not accept it," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, per the news release.
"Islamophobia is a danger and threat not only to Muslims but to all our societies and the peace of our communities," he added.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/an ... 18650.html
Yacob Reyes
Sun, July 25, 2021, 1:06 PM
Cases of discrimination and harassment against Muslim Americans spiked in May and June, according to a report published by the Council of American-Islamic Relations.
Why it matters: CAIR, the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, typically publishes an annual report documenting anti-Muslim bias incidents but elected to release a mid-year report given the recent spike.
Stay on top of the latest market trends and economic insights with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free
The report, which was released on Wednesday, concentrates on 38 of the hundreds of cases CAIR has documented, the organization said in a news release.
According to the group, the report aims to provide "a glimpse of the day-to-day lives of Muslims in America who continue to face the deadly threat of Islamophobia."
Details: The mid-year report documented a surge in anti-Muslim hate crimes following the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in May. The group also noted a rise in anti-mosque incidents involving vandalism and physical assaults.
The report found that bullying against Muslim students continues to rise at a rapid rate, highlighting an instance where a Muslim child was allegedly called a terrorist by his teacher.
What they're saying: "Islamophobia should not be normal. I can tell you that many Muslims around this country and around the world, those who live as minorities, they started to feel that Islamophobia is part of normal life. It should not be, and we should not accept it," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, per the news release.
"Islamophobia is a danger and threat not only to Muslims but to all our societies and the peace of our communities," he added.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/an ... 18650.html
The US was accused of valuing the lives of its military dogs more than those of Afghan civilians, after soldiers were seen evacuating their animals while those desperate to escape the Taliban clung on to departing planes.
Videos and photos published on Monday – which showed dogs being walked to Kabul Airport, where they were evacuated along with US military personnel – angered many across the world, who viewed the apparent prioritization of animals over humans as an insult to the many Afghans attempting to flee the Taliban as the US pulls out of the country.
“There was room for the dogs, and all the luggage, but the people that allied themselves to the US had to latch onto the outside of a plane,” tweeted geopolitical analyst and RT contributor Maram Susli.
Others noted that “the optics” of dogs “being evacuated in an orderly fashion and Afghan citizens clinging to plane wheels and falling to their deaths” did not reflect well on the US, and that it served as the “perfect depiction of betrayal.”
Some social media users did defend the US evacuation of dogs over people, however, arguing that the animals were expensive, highly trained, and considered active military personnel.
“A dog weighs less than a human. Dogs are family. The plane cannot carry everyone, it has a weight limit. More planes are coming. Life’s rough, sorry. Much love,” one person wrote, while another claimed that sometimes dogs “are more important than anything else.”
Germany was also criticized on Monday for its own evacuation of Afghanistan.
Deutsche Welle reporter James Jackson called out the German military for shipping 22,500 litres of beer, wine, and champagne back home from Afghanistan in June, “meanwhile people were only given permission [to evacuate] if they worked directly for the Bundeswehr in the last two years” – leaving many subcontractors and translators at the mercy of the Taliban.
https://www.rt.com/usa/532197-us-saved- ... er-afghan/
Videos and photos published on Monday – which showed dogs being walked to Kabul Airport, where they were evacuated along with US military personnel – angered many across the world, who viewed the apparent prioritization of animals over humans as an insult to the many Afghans attempting to flee the Taliban as the US pulls out of the country.
“There was room for the dogs, and all the luggage, but the people that allied themselves to the US had to latch onto the outside of a plane,” tweeted geopolitical analyst and RT contributor Maram Susli.
Others noted that “the optics” of dogs “being evacuated in an orderly fashion and Afghan citizens clinging to plane wheels and falling to their deaths” did not reflect well on the US, and that it served as the “perfect depiction of betrayal.”
Some social media users did defend the US evacuation of dogs over people, however, arguing that the animals were expensive, highly trained, and considered active military personnel.
“A dog weighs less than a human. Dogs are family. The plane cannot carry everyone, it has a weight limit. More planes are coming. Life’s rough, sorry. Much love,” one person wrote, while another claimed that sometimes dogs “are more important than anything else.”
Germany was also criticized on Monday for its own evacuation of Afghanistan.
Deutsche Welle reporter James Jackson called out the German military for shipping 22,500 litres of beer, wine, and champagne back home from Afghanistan in June, “meanwhile people were only given permission [to evacuate] if they worked directly for the Bundeswehr in the last two years” – leaving many subcontractors and translators at the mercy of the Taliban.
https://www.rt.com/usa/532197-us-saved- ... er-afghan/
Associated Press
In Kashmir, closed mosque belies India’s religious freedom
Kashmir's Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque is seen through its gate that remains locked on Fridays in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 26, 2021. Authorities allow the mosque to remain open the other six days, but only a few hundred worshippers assemble there on those occasions. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
An Indian paramilitary soldier guards outside the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 26, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Stray dogs walk past the entrance of the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque that remains locked on Fridays in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 12, 2021. Authorities allow the mosque to remain open the other six days, but only a few hundred worshippers assemble there on those occasions. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Kashmiris walk through a market outside the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 12, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Indian tourists visit the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 13, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Indian tourists visit the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 13, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
A care taker cleans the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 13, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
A Kashmiri man performs ablution before prayers outside the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 13, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
A Kashmiri man offers prayer inside the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 13, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
A Kashmiri woman looks inside the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 13, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Kashmiri men offer prayer inside the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 13, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Altaf Ahmed Bhat, one of the mosque officials talks to the Associated Press inside the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 13, 2021. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. In this fierce contestation, the grand mosque, has largely remained closed for the last two years. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Kashmiri poet Zareef Ahmed Zareef talks to the Associated Press about Jamia Masjid, the grand mosque of Srinagar, at his residence in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 12, 2021. “Jamia Masjid represents the soul of Kashmiri Muslims’ faith and has remained at the center of demands for social and political rights since its foundation some six centuries back,” he said. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Authorities allow the mosque to remain open the other six days. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
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India Kashmir Grand Mosque
Kashmir's Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque is seen through its gate that remains locked on Fridays in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 26, 2021. Authorities allow the mosque to remain open the other six days, but only a few hundred worshippers assemble there on those occasions. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
AIJAZ HUSSAIN
Thu, December 16, 2021, 12:21 AM
SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Jamia Masjid, the grand mosque of Srinagar, dominates its neighborhood with an imposing main gate and massive turrets. It can hold 33,000 worshippers, and on special occasions over the years hundreds of thousands of Muslims have filled nearby lanes and roads to offer prayers led from the mosque.
But Indian authorities see the mosque as a trouble spot — a nerve center for protests and clashes that challenge India's sovereignty over the disputed Kashmir region.
For Kashmiri Muslims it is a sacred venue for Friday prayers and a place they can raise their voices for political rights.
In this bitter dispute, the mosque in Kashmir’s main city has largely remained closed for the past two years. The mosque’s chief priest has been detained in his home almost nonstop throughout that time, and the mosque’s main gate is padlocked and blocked with corrugated tin sheets on Fridays.
The closure of the mosque, which is revered by Kashmir’s mostly Muslim population, has deepened their anger.
“There is a constant feeling that something is missing in my life,” said Bashir Ahmed, 65, a retired government employee who has offered prayers at the mosque over five decades.
Indian authorities refused to comment on the mosque restrictions despite repeated queries from The Associated Press. In the past, officials have said the government was forced to close the mosque because its management committee was unable to stop anti-India protests on the premises.
The shutting of the 600-year-old mosque came amid a clampdown that began in 2019 after the government stripped Kashmir of its long-held semiautonomous status.
In the past two years, some of the region’s other mosques and shrines — also closed for months due to the security crackdown and the subsequent pandemic — have been allowed to offer religious services.
Jamia Masjid has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of congregational worship in Islam. Authorities allow the mosque to remain open the other six days, but only a few hundred worshippers assemble there on those occasions, compared to the tens of thousands that often gathered on Fridays.
“This is the central mosque where our ancestors, scholars and spiritual masters have prayed and meditated for centuries,” said Altaf Ahmad Bhat, one of the officials at the grand mosque.
He dismissed the law-and-order reasons cited by the authorities as “absurd,” adding that discussions about social, economic and political issues affecting Muslims were a core religious function of any grand mosque.
The grand mosque is mainly reserved for mandatory Friday congregational prayers and special services. Obligatory daily prayers are usually held in smaller neighborhood mosques.
For the region’s Muslims, the mosque’s closure brings painful memories of the past. In 1819, Sikh rulers closed it for 21 years. Over the past 15 years, it has been subject to periodic bans and lockdowns by successive Indian governments.
But the current restrictions are the most severe since the region was divided between India and Pakistan after the two nations gained independence from British colonialism in 1947. Both claim the Himalayan territory in its entirety.
The Indian government initially grappled with largely peaceful public protests seeking a united Kashmir, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent entity. But a crackdown on dissent led to Kashmir’s eruption into an armed rebellion against India in 1989. India has depicted the insurgency as Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, a charge Pakistan has denied.
Indian forces largely crushed the rebellion about 10 years ago, though popular demands for “Azadi,” or freedom, remained ingrained in the Kashmiri psyche.
The region made a transition from the armed struggle to unarmed uprisings, with tens of thousands of civilians repeatedly taking to the streets to protest Indian rule, often leading to deadly clashes between stone-throwing residents and Indian troops. The grand mosque and its surrounding areas in Srinagar’s heart emerged as central to these protests.
Sermons at the Jamia Masjid would often address the long-simmering conflict, with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the chief priest and one of the region’s top separatist leaders, giving fiery speeches highlighting Kashmir’s political struggle.
Authorities often clamped down, banning prayers at the mosque for extended periods. According to official data, the mosque was closed for at least 250 days in 2008, 2010 and 2016 combined.
The armed conflict again intensified after Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 and won a landslide re-election in 2019. Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party-led government toughened its stance both against Pakistan and Kashmiri separatists amid rising attacks by Hindu hard-liners against minorities in India, further deepening frustrations among Kashmir’s Muslims.
Soon a new wave of rebels revived Kashmir’s militancy and challenged India’s rule with guns and effective use of social media. India responded with sometimes deadly counterinsurgency operations.
Freedom of religion is enshrined in India’s constitution, allowing citizens to follow and freely practice religion. The constitution also says the state will not “discriminate, patronize or meddle in the profession of any religion.”
But even before the current security operation in Kashmir, experts say conditions for India’s Muslims under Modi have worsened.
In Kashmir, the clampdown on the most revered mosque has aggravated these fears.
“Jamia Masjid represents the soul of Kashmiri Muslims’ faith and has remained at the center of demands for social and political rights since its foundation some six centuries back,” said Zareef Ahmed Zareef, a poet and an oral historian. “Its closure is an attack on our faith.”
On special occasions like the last Friday in the fasting month of Ramadan, hundreds of thousands of faithful pray in the mosque, filling its neighborhood's winding lanes and roads.
For the last two years, such scenes have remained missing. Muslims say the gag is undermining their constitutional right to religious freedom.
Ahmed, the worshipper, on a recent Saturday afternoon sat inside the mosque, a wood and brick architectural marvel with 378 wooden pillars. He said he has never seen the mosque shut and desolate for such an extended period.
“I feel deprived and violated,” Ahmed said as he raised his hands in supplication. “We have been subjected to extreme spiritual suffering.”
Many Kashmiri Muslims have long said New Delhi curbs their religious freedom on the pretext of law and order while promoting and patronizing the annual Hindu pilgrimage to an icy Himalayan cave visited by hundreds of thousands of Hindus from across India.
The Amarnath pilgrimage lasts for nearly two months, although it was canceled for the last two years due to the pandemic.
On a recent Friday, as the mosque remained closed, its sprawling marketplace, an otherwise vibrant and bustling neighborhood, wore a deserted look.
Babull, a mentally challenged man in his 40s who inhabits the place in and around the grand mosque, whirled around the neighborhood. He cautioned shopkeepers of imminent danger from police raiding the place, as they have done in the past.
Nearby, a gaggle of Indian tourists went about clicking selfies in the backdrop of the mosque’s barricaded and locked main gate.
Kashmiri onlookers watched them in silence.
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In Kashmir, closed mosque belies India’s religious freedom
Kashmir's Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque is seen through its gate that remains locked on Fridays in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 26, 2021. Authorities allow the mosque to remain open the other six days, but only a few hundred worshippers assemble there on those occasions. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
An Indian paramilitary soldier guards outside the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 26, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Stray dogs walk past the entrance of the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque that remains locked on Fridays in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 12, 2021. Authorities allow the mosque to remain open the other six days, but only a few hundred worshippers assemble there on those occasions. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Kashmiris walk through a market outside the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 12, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Indian tourists visit the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 13, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Indian tourists visit the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 13, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
A care taker cleans the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 13, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
A Kashmiri man performs ablution before prayers outside the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 13, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
A Kashmiri man offers prayer inside the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 13, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
A Kashmiri woman looks inside the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 13, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Kashmiri men offer prayer inside the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 13, 2021. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Altaf Ahmed Bhat, one of the mosque officials talks to the Associated Press inside the Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 13, 2021. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. In this fierce contestation, the grand mosque, has largely remained closed for the last two years. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
Kashmiri poet Zareef Ahmed Zareef talks to the Associated Press about Jamia Masjid, the grand mosque of Srinagar, at his residence in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 12, 2021. “Jamia Masjid represents the soul of Kashmiri Muslims’ faith and has remained at the center of demands for social and political rights since its foundation some six centuries back,” he said. The mosque has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of worship in Islam. Authorities allow the mosque to remain open the other six days. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
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India Kashmir Grand Mosque
Kashmir's Jamia Masjid, or the grand mosque is seen through its gate that remains locked on Fridays in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Nov. 26, 2021. Authorities allow the mosque to remain open the other six days, but only a few hundred worshippers assemble there on those occasions. Indian authorities see it as a trouble spot, a nerve center for anti-India protests and clashes that challenge New Delhi’s sovereignty over disputed Kashmir. For Kashmiri Muslims it is a symbol of faith, a sacred place where they offer not just mandatory Friday prayers but also raise their voice for political rights. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)
AIJAZ HUSSAIN
Thu, December 16, 2021, 12:21 AM
SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Jamia Masjid, the grand mosque of Srinagar, dominates its neighborhood with an imposing main gate and massive turrets. It can hold 33,000 worshippers, and on special occasions over the years hundreds of thousands of Muslims have filled nearby lanes and roads to offer prayers led from the mosque.
But Indian authorities see the mosque as a trouble spot — a nerve center for protests and clashes that challenge India's sovereignty over the disputed Kashmir region.
For Kashmiri Muslims it is a sacred venue for Friday prayers and a place they can raise their voices for political rights.
In this bitter dispute, the mosque in Kashmir’s main city has largely remained closed for the past two years. The mosque’s chief priest has been detained in his home almost nonstop throughout that time, and the mosque’s main gate is padlocked and blocked with corrugated tin sheets on Fridays.
The closure of the mosque, which is revered by Kashmir’s mostly Muslim population, has deepened their anger.
“There is a constant feeling that something is missing in my life,” said Bashir Ahmed, 65, a retired government employee who has offered prayers at the mosque over five decades.
Indian authorities refused to comment on the mosque restrictions despite repeated queries from The Associated Press. In the past, officials have said the government was forced to close the mosque because its management committee was unable to stop anti-India protests on the premises.
The shutting of the 600-year-old mosque came amid a clampdown that began in 2019 after the government stripped Kashmir of its long-held semiautonomous status.
In the past two years, some of the region’s other mosques and shrines — also closed for months due to the security crackdown and the subsequent pandemic — have been allowed to offer religious services.
Jamia Masjid has remained out of bounds to worshippers for prayers on Friday – the main day of congregational worship in Islam. Authorities allow the mosque to remain open the other six days, but only a few hundred worshippers assemble there on those occasions, compared to the tens of thousands that often gathered on Fridays.
“This is the central mosque where our ancestors, scholars and spiritual masters have prayed and meditated for centuries,” said Altaf Ahmad Bhat, one of the officials at the grand mosque.
He dismissed the law-and-order reasons cited by the authorities as “absurd,” adding that discussions about social, economic and political issues affecting Muslims were a core religious function of any grand mosque.
The grand mosque is mainly reserved for mandatory Friday congregational prayers and special services. Obligatory daily prayers are usually held in smaller neighborhood mosques.
For the region’s Muslims, the mosque’s closure brings painful memories of the past. In 1819, Sikh rulers closed it for 21 years. Over the past 15 years, it has been subject to periodic bans and lockdowns by successive Indian governments.
But the current restrictions are the most severe since the region was divided between India and Pakistan after the two nations gained independence from British colonialism in 1947. Both claim the Himalayan territory in its entirety.
The Indian government initially grappled with largely peaceful public protests seeking a united Kashmir, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent entity. But a crackdown on dissent led to Kashmir’s eruption into an armed rebellion against India in 1989. India has depicted the insurgency as Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, a charge Pakistan has denied.
Indian forces largely crushed the rebellion about 10 years ago, though popular demands for “Azadi,” or freedom, remained ingrained in the Kashmiri psyche.
The region made a transition from the armed struggle to unarmed uprisings, with tens of thousands of civilians repeatedly taking to the streets to protest Indian rule, often leading to deadly clashes between stone-throwing residents and Indian troops. The grand mosque and its surrounding areas in Srinagar’s heart emerged as central to these protests.
Sermons at the Jamia Masjid would often address the long-simmering conflict, with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the chief priest and one of the region’s top separatist leaders, giving fiery speeches highlighting Kashmir’s political struggle.
Authorities often clamped down, banning prayers at the mosque for extended periods. According to official data, the mosque was closed for at least 250 days in 2008, 2010 and 2016 combined.
The armed conflict again intensified after Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 and won a landslide re-election in 2019. Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party-led government toughened its stance both against Pakistan and Kashmiri separatists amid rising attacks by Hindu hard-liners against minorities in India, further deepening frustrations among Kashmir’s Muslims.
Soon a new wave of rebels revived Kashmir’s militancy and challenged India’s rule with guns and effective use of social media. India responded with sometimes deadly counterinsurgency operations.
Freedom of religion is enshrined in India’s constitution, allowing citizens to follow and freely practice religion. The constitution also says the state will not “discriminate, patronize or meddle in the profession of any religion.”
But even before the current security operation in Kashmir, experts say conditions for India’s Muslims under Modi have worsened.
In Kashmir, the clampdown on the most revered mosque has aggravated these fears.
“Jamia Masjid represents the soul of Kashmiri Muslims’ faith and has remained at the center of demands for social and political rights since its foundation some six centuries back,” said Zareef Ahmed Zareef, a poet and an oral historian. “Its closure is an attack on our faith.”
On special occasions like the last Friday in the fasting month of Ramadan, hundreds of thousands of faithful pray in the mosque, filling its neighborhood's winding lanes and roads.
For the last two years, such scenes have remained missing. Muslims say the gag is undermining their constitutional right to religious freedom.
Ahmed, the worshipper, on a recent Saturday afternoon sat inside the mosque, a wood and brick architectural marvel with 378 wooden pillars. He said he has never seen the mosque shut and desolate for such an extended period.
“I feel deprived and violated,” Ahmed said as he raised his hands in supplication. “We have been subjected to extreme spiritual suffering.”
Many Kashmiri Muslims have long said New Delhi curbs their religious freedom on the pretext of law and order while promoting and patronizing the annual Hindu pilgrimage to an icy Himalayan cave visited by hundreds of thousands of Hindus from across India.
The Amarnath pilgrimage lasts for nearly two months, although it was canceled for the last two years due to the pandemic.
On a recent Friday, as the mosque remained closed, its sprawling marketplace, an otherwise vibrant and bustling neighborhood, wore a deserted look.
Babull, a mentally challenged man in his 40s who inhabits the place in and around the grand mosque, whirled around the neighborhood. He cautioned shopkeepers of imminent danger from police raiding the place, as they have done in the past.
Nearby, a gaggle of Indian tourists went about clicking selfies in the backdrop of the mosque’s barricaded and locked main gate.
Kashmiri onlookers watched them in silence.
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ka ... 40433.html
The New York Times
What to Know About the Civilian Casualty Files
Michael Levenson
Sun, December 19, 2021, 10:23 AM·6 min read
Children play where the school sheltering Qusay Saad's family stood before a Jan. 13, 2017, U.S. airstrike hit it, in East Mosul, Iraq. (Ali Al-Baroodi/The New York Times)
Children play where the school sheltering Qusay Saad's family stood before a Jan. 13, 2017, U.S. airstrike hit it, in East Mosul, Iraq. (Ali Al-Baroodi/The New York Times)
In the years since American boots on the ground gave way to a war of airstrikes in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has made a central promise: that precision bombs and drones would kill enemies while minimizing the risks to civilians.
Recent investigations by The New York Times have undercut that promise. In September, The Times reported that a drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, which U.S. officials said had destroyed a vehicle laden with bombs, had instead killed 10 members of a family. Last month, The Times reported that dozens of civilians had been killed in a 2019 bombing in Syria that the military had hidden from public view.
Now, a Times investigation has found that these were not outliers but rather the regular casualties of a transformed way of war gone wrong.
Drawing on more than 1,300 documents from a hidden Pentagon archive, the investigation reveals that, since 2014, the American air war has been plagued by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed and imprecise targeting and the deaths of thousands of civilians, many of them children.
In addition to reviewing the military’s assessments of reports of civilian casualties — obtained through Freedom of Information requests and lawsuits against the Defense Department and U.S. Central Command — The Times visited nearly 100 casualty sites in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and interviewed scores of surviving residents and current and former U.S. officials.
Civilian Deaths Have Been Drastically Undercounted
According to the military’s count, 1,417 civilians have died in airstrikes in the campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria; since 2018 in Afghanistan, U.S. air operations have killed at least 188 civilians. But The Times found that the civilian death toll was significantly higher. Discrepancies arose in case after case — none more stark than a 2016 bombing in the Syrian hamlet of Tokhar.
U.S. Special Operations forces hit what they believed were three ISIS “staging areas,” confident they were killing scores of ISIS fighters. A military investigation concluded that seven to 24 civilians “intermixed with the fighters” might have died. But, The Times found, the targeted buildings were houses where families had sought refuge. More than 120 civilians were killed.
In 1,311 Reports, One ‘Possible Violation’
The Pentagon has also failed to uphold pledges of transparency and accountability.
Until now, only a handful of the assessments have been made public. None included a finding of wrongdoing or disciplinary action. Only one cited a “possible violation” of the rules of engagement — a breach in the procedure for identifying a target. Fewer than a dozen condolence payments were made, even though injured survivors often required costly medical care. The records show little effort by the military to identify patterns of failure or lessons learned.
In many instances, the command that had approved a strike was responsible for examining it, often using incorrect or incomplete evidence. In only one case did investigators visit the site of a strike. In only two did they interview survivors or witnesses.
Taken together, the 5,400 pages of records point to an institutional acceptance of civilian casualties. In the logic of the military, a strike was justifiable as long as the expected risk to civilians had been properly weighed against the military gain, and it had been approved up the chain of command.
Over 50,000 Airstrikes, Most Not Planned in Advance
America’s new way of war took shape after the 2009 surge of U.S. forces into Afghanistan. By the end of 2014, President Barack Obama declared America’s ground war essentially done, shifting the military’s mission to mostly air support and advice for Afghan forces battling the Taliban. At roughly the same time, he authorized a campaign of airstrikes against ISIS targets and in support of allied forces in Iraq and Syria.
At an ever-quickening pace over the next five years, and as the administration of Obama gave way to that of Donald Trump, U.S. forces executed more than 50,000 airstrikes in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
When the wars intensified, the authority to approve strikes was pushed further down the chain of command, even as an overwhelming majority of strikes were carried out in the heat of war, and not planned far in advance.
Biases and Blind Spots Created Danger
The records suggest that civilian deaths were often the result of “confirmation bias,” or the tendency to find and interpret information in a way that confirms preexisting beliefs. People rushing to a bombing site were assumed to be ISIS fighters, not civilian rescuers. Men on motorcycles, thought to be moving “in formation,” displaying the “signature” of an imminent attack, were just men on motorcycles.
Cultural blind spots also left innocent civilians vulnerable to attack. The military judged, for example, that there was “no civilian presence” in a house where families were napping during the days of the Ramadan fast or sheltering from the heat or intense fighting.
Breakdowns in Technology and Surveillance
For all their promise of pinpoint accuracy, at times U.S. weapons simply missed. In 2016, the military reported that it had killed Neil Prakash, a notorious Australian ISIS recruiter, in a strike on a house in East Mosul. Four civilians died in the strike, according to the Pentagon. Months later, Prakash was arrested crossing from Syria into Turkey.
Poor or insufficient surveillance footage often contributed to deadly targeting failures. Afterward, it also hamstrung efforts to examine strikes. Of the 1,311 reports examined by The Times, the military had deemed 216 allegations “credible.” Reports of civilian casualties were often dismissed because video showed no bodies in the rubble, yet the footage was often too brief to make a reliable determination.
Sometimes, only seconds’ worth of footage was taken before a strike, hardly enough for investigators to assess civilians’ presence. In some other cases, there was no footage at all for review, which became the basis for rejecting the allegation. That was often because of “equipment error,” because no aircraft had “observed or recorded the strike,” or because the unit could not or would not find the footage or had not preserved it as required.
Failure to Account for Secondary Explosions
A target such as a weapons cache or power station came with the potential for secondary explosions, which often reached far beyond the expected blast radius. These accounted for nearly one-third of all civilian casualties acknowledged by the military and half of all civilian deaths and injuries at the sites visited by The Times.
A June 2015 strike on a car-bomb factory in Hawija, Iraq, is among the deadliest examples. In plans for the nighttime attack, the nearest “collateral concern” was assessed to be a “shed.” But apartment buildings ringed the site, and dozens of displaced families, unable to afford rent, had also been squatting in abandoned buildings close by. According to the military investigation, as many as 70 civilians were killed that night.
In response to questions from The Times, Capt. Bill Urban, the spokesperson for the U.S. Central Command, said that “even with the best technology in the world, mistakes do happen, whether based on incomplete information or misinterpretation of the information available. And we try to learn from those mistakes.” He added, “We work diligently to avoid such harm. We investigate each credible instance. And we regret each loss of innocent life.”
© 2021 The New York Times Company
https://news.yahoo.com/know-civilian-ca ... 17088.html
What to Know About the Civilian Casualty Files
Michael Levenson
Sun, December 19, 2021, 10:23 AM·6 min read
Children play where the school sheltering Qusay Saad's family stood before a Jan. 13, 2017, U.S. airstrike hit it, in East Mosul, Iraq. (Ali Al-Baroodi/The New York Times)
Children play where the school sheltering Qusay Saad's family stood before a Jan. 13, 2017, U.S. airstrike hit it, in East Mosul, Iraq. (Ali Al-Baroodi/The New York Times)
In the years since American boots on the ground gave way to a war of airstrikes in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has made a central promise: that precision bombs and drones would kill enemies while minimizing the risks to civilians.
Recent investigations by The New York Times have undercut that promise. In September, The Times reported that a drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, which U.S. officials said had destroyed a vehicle laden with bombs, had instead killed 10 members of a family. Last month, The Times reported that dozens of civilians had been killed in a 2019 bombing in Syria that the military had hidden from public view.
Now, a Times investigation has found that these were not outliers but rather the regular casualties of a transformed way of war gone wrong.
Drawing on more than 1,300 documents from a hidden Pentagon archive, the investigation reveals that, since 2014, the American air war has been plagued by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed and imprecise targeting and the deaths of thousands of civilians, many of them children.
In addition to reviewing the military’s assessments of reports of civilian casualties — obtained through Freedom of Information requests and lawsuits against the Defense Department and U.S. Central Command — The Times visited nearly 100 casualty sites in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and interviewed scores of surviving residents and current and former U.S. officials.
Civilian Deaths Have Been Drastically Undercounted
According to the military’s count, 1,417 civilians have died in airstrikes in the campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria; since 2018 in Afghanistan, U.S. air operations have killed at least 188 civilians. But The Times found that the civilian death toll was significantly higher. Discrepancies arose in case after case — none more stark than a 2016 bombing in the Syrian hamlet of Tokhar.
U.S. Special Operations forces hit what they believed were three ISIS “staging areas,” confident they were killing scores of ISIS fighters. A military investigation concluded that seven to 24 civilians “intermixed with the fighters” might have died. But, The Times found, the targeted buildings were houses where families had sought refuge. More than 120 civilians were killed.
In 1,311 Reports, One ‘Possible Violation’
The Pentagon has also failed to uphold pledges of transparency and accountability.
Until now, only a handful of the assessments have been made public. None included a finding of wrongdoing or disciplinary action. Only one cited a “possible violation” of the rules of engagement — a breach in the procedure for identifying a target. Fewer than a dozen condolence payments were made, even though injured survivors often required costly medical care. The records show little effort by the military to identify patterns of failure or lessons learned.
In many instances, the command that had approved a strike was responsible for examining it, often using incorrect or incomplete evidence. In only one case did investigators visit the site of a strike. In only two did they interview survivors or witnesses.
Taken together, the 5,400 pages of records point to an institutional acceptance of civilian casualties. In the logic of the military, a strike was justifiable as long as the expected risk to civilians had been properly weighed against the military gain, and it had been approved up the chain of command.
Over 50,000 Airstrikes, Most Not Planned in Advance
America’s new way of war took shape after the 2009 surge of U.S. forces into Afghanistan. By the end of 2014, President Barack Obama declared America’s ground war essentially done, shifting the military’s mission to mostly air support and advice for Afghan forces battling the Taliban. At roughly the same time, he authorized a campaign of airstrikes against ISIS targets and in support of allied forces in Iraq and Syria.
At an ever-quickening pace over the next five years, and as the administration of Obama gave way to that of Donald Trump, U.S. forces executed more than 50,000 airstrikes in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.
When the wars intensified, the authority to approve strikes was pushed further down the chain of command, even as an overwhelming majority of strikes were carried out in the heat of war, and not planned far in advance.
Biases and Blind Spots Created Danger
The records suggest that civilian deaths were often the result of “confirmation bias,” or the tendency to find and interpret information in a way that confirms preexisting beliefs. People rushing to a bombing site were assumed to be ISIS fighters, not civilian rescuers. Men on motorcycles, thought to be moving “in formation,” displaying the “signature” of an imminent attack, were just men on motorcycles.
Cultural blind spots also left innocent civilians vulnerable to attack. The military judged, for example, that there was “no civilian presence” in a house where families were napping during the days of the Ramadan fast or sheltering from the heat or intense fighting.
Breakdowns in Technology and Surveillance
For all their promise of pinpoint accuracy, at times U.S. weapons simply missed. In 2016, the military reported that it had killed Neil Prakash, a notorious Australian ISIS recruiter, in a strike on a house in East Mosul. Four civilians died in the strike, according to the Pentagon. Months later, Prakash was arrested crossing from Syria into Turkey.
Poor or insufficient surveillance footage often contributed to deadly targeting failures. Afterward, it also hamstrung efforts to examine strikes. Of the 1,311 reports examined by The Times, the military had deemed 216 allegations “credible.” Reports of civilian casualties were often dismissed because video showed no bodies in the rubble, yet the footage was often too brief to make a reliable determination.
Sometimes, only seconds’ worth of footage was taken before a strike, hardly enough for investigators to assess civilians’ presence. In some other cases, there was no footage at all for review, which became the basis for rejecting the allegation. That was often because of “equipment error,” because no aircraft had “observed or recorded the strike,” or because the unit could not or would not find the footage or had not preserved it as required.
Failure to Account for Secondary Explosions
A target such as a weapons cache or power station came with the potential for secondary explosions, which often reached far beyond the expected blast radius. These accounted for nearly one-third of all civilian casualties acknowledged by the military and half of all civilian deaths and injuries at the sites visited by The Times.
A June 2015 strike on a car-bomb factory in Hawija, Iraq, is among the deadliest examples. In plans for the nighttime attack, the nearest “collateral concern” was assessed to be a “shed.” But apartment buildings ringed the site, and dozens of displaced families, unable to afford rent, had also been squatting in abandoned buildings close by. According to the military investigation, as many as 70 civilians were killed that night.
In response to questions from The Times, Capt. Bill Urban, the spokesperson for the U.S. Central Command, said that “even with the best technology in the world, mistakes do happen, whether based on incomplete information or misinterpretation of the information available. And we try to learn from those mistakes.” He added, “We work diligently to avoid such harm. We investigate each credible instance. And we regret each loss of innocent life.”
© 2021 The New York Times Company
https://news.yahoo.com/know-civilian-ca ... 17088.html
Yahoo News Canada
'Excluded, humiliated and degraded’: Case of Quebec teacher removed for wearing hijab is ‘disturbing’ for all Canadians.
Bill 21 records on their phone during a rally against that law, after a teacher was removed from her position because she wears a hijab, in Chelsea, Que., on Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021. Bill 21 bans public sector workers who are considered to be in positions of authority, including teachers, from wearing religious symbols while working. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Sakeina Syed·Contributor
Fri, December 24, 2021, 2:02 PM
After a teacher in Chelsea, Quebec was told she had to be removed from her role for wearing a hijab, Canadians are expressing concern and outrage.
Fatemeh Anvari was told she had to move to a position outside the elementary school classroom she had been working in due to Bill 21, a Quebec secularism law that bars some civil servants from wearing religious symbols — like Anvari’s hijab.
Since her removal, there has been increased outcry from citizens and politicians. Hundreds gathered in protest on Tuesday in Chelsea, expressing support for Anvari. Meanwhile, Members of Parliament, Senators, and city councillors have been expressing their condemnation of the law.
While members of the Canadian Muslim community are frustrated by the news, they are less surprised.
It’s shocking that Canadians are looking at this incident and are surprised by it. This is exactly what we’ve been saying since Bill 21 had been passed. We’ve been saying what the drastic effects of it could be, and sadly now we’re seeing them.
Fatema Abdalla, Communications Coordinator for the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM)
“Throughout the nation, Muslims across Canada are frustrated and disturbed by this bill, and are wanting to do more and take more action,” she said.
The NCCM is calling for the federal government to intervene in the legal challenge against Bill 21. Abdalla says they have yet to hear of this intervention.
In a recent press conference, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that despite his opposition to the law, the government would not be stepping in. Trudeau said that he wished to avoid a fight over jurisdiction between Ottawa and Quebec, and would leave the matter of making the case to “Quebeckers themselves.”
Liberal MP Salma Zahid released a statement this week saying it was time for the federal government to step in: “To date, the challenge has come from civil society. But as the party that brought the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to Canada, as a government that champions human rights around the world, we cannot allow the weight of this fight to be carried by civil society alone.”
What does the law mean for Muslims and other religious groups?
The law, known as Bill 21, is officially titled “An Act respecting the laicity of the State,” and it bars certain civil servants, including teachers, from wearing religious symbols in an effort to impose state secularism.
Abdalla said the NCCM has been fighting Bill 21 “since the day it was passed,” and has been engaged in an ongoing legal challenge of the bill since 2019. In collaboration with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), they have been challenging the constitutionality of the bill.
Alongside this, the groups were pushing for a temporary suspension of the law until it was reviewed by the courts. However, this request was denied, and the appeals process is ongoing.
Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, Director of the Equality program at the CCLA, spoke to Yahoo News Canada about the organization’s ongoing objection to the law.
“The harms that are happening are both to fundamental rights — the right to equality is being limited, the right to dignity, and of course to freedom of religion,” said Aviv. She added that the law violates “arguably a whole slew of other rights” on top of these: “People’s livelihoods and professions and career aspirations have been interfered with because of who they are and how they practice.”
Aviv said that when Bill 21 was “rushed through the National Assembly” in 2019, the CCLA filed their challenge within 24 hours.
“When we filed, it it was already clear to us that if people who wore religious symbols could not be hired into their professions or make a move within their professions, even those who were grandfathered in, that this was going to have a huge impact on Muslim women, and potentially also on some others, like religious Jewish men and women, Sikh men and women,” she said.
“Excluded and humiliated and degraded”
During the hearings late last year, Aviv says many people testified about the ways the law had already impacted their lives. These included financial impacts, jeopardized family stability, and emotional repercussions.
“One person talked about wanting to actually be a person who wears hijab — wanting to be her social, kind, caring self — and work with people who would understand that it could break down barriers. That people could see her and know her and understand.
Some of the moving testimony that was heard at the hearing was from women who talked about feeling like a second class citizen, about feeling excluded and humiliated and degraded.”
Masla Tahir is an activist in her final year of university, set to enter law school next year. She founded the organization My Hijab My Right as a response to laws restricting Muslim women’s clothing around the world, including in Belgium, France, and Canada.
Tahir told Yahoo News that hearing about Anvari’s removal from her position elicited a feeling of “helplessness.”
“Despite our activism work or our community engagement work, the bill is still in place. The power really lies within the federal government’s ability to intervene and make this stop, or it’s going to be dragged on in court,” she said.
Tahir said that while the ongoing legal challenges are occurring, it could take years: “In the meantime, it’s Muslim women who are going to be impacted negatively.” She cited the economic impacts that set the women, their families, and their livelihoods at a disadvantage.
She says that the recent events in Quebec, and the existence of the law, are particularly demoralizing in light of her own family’s perspective on coming to Canada.
My mom specifically chose Canada for us to move to because she wanted to raise her daughters in a country where there were equal rights for men and women, where women were given equal opportunity to flourish and follow their dreams.
Masla Tahir, founder of My Hijab My Right
“Knowing that Bill 21 exists, and is stealing Muslim women’s dreams,” leaves her wordless.
Like Abdalla, Tahir is unsurprised that Bill 21 has impacted Anvari’s life and the lives of other Quebec women, an outcome she has been speaking out about. But seeing the concerns she’s been voicing be confirmed is no consolation.
“We knew that something like this would happen, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.”
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/qu ... 35379.html
'Excluded, humiliated and degraded’: Case of Quebec teacher removed for wearing hijab is ‘disturbing’ for all Canadians.
Bill 21 records on their phone during a rally against that law, after a teacher was removed from her position because she wears a hijab, in Chelsea, Que., on Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021. Bill 21 bans public sector workers who are considered to be in positions of authority, including teachers, from wearing religious symbols while working. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
Sakeina Syed·Contributor
Fri, December 24, 2021, 2:02 PM
After a teacher in Chelsea, Quebec was told she had to be removed from her role for wearing a hijab, Canadians are expressing concern and outrage.
Fatemeh Anvari was told she had to move to a position outside the elementary school classroom she had been working in due to Bill 21, a Quebec secularism law that bars some civil servants from wearing religious symbols — like Anvari’s hijab.
Since her removal, there has been increased outcry from citizens and politicians. Hundreds gathered in protest on Tuesday in Chelsea, expressing support for Anvari. Meanwhile, Members of Parliament, Senators, and city councillors have been expressing their condemnation of the law.
While members of the Canadian Muslim community are frustrated by the news, they are less surprised.
It’s shocking that Canadians are looking at this incident and are surprised by it. This is exactly what we’ve been saying since Bill 21 had been passed. We’ve been saying what the drastic effects of it could be, and sadly now we’re seeing them.
Fatema Abdalla, Communications Coordinator for the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM)
“Throughout the nation, Muslims across Canada are frustrated and disturbed by this bill, and are wanting to do more and take more action,” she said.
The NCCM is calling for the federal government to intervene in the legal challenge against Bill 21. Abdalla says they have yet to hear of this intervention.
In a recent press conference, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that despite his opposition to the law, the government would not be stepping in. Trudeau said that he wished to avoid a fight over jurisdiction between Ottawa and Quebec, and would leave the matter of making the case to “Quebeckers themselves.”
Liberal MP Salma Zahid released a statement this week saying it was time for the federal government to step in: “To date, the challenge has come from civil society. But as the party that brought the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to Canada, as a government that champions human rights around the world, we cannot allow the weight of this fight to be carried by civil society alone.”
What does the law mean for Muslims and other religious groups?
The law, known as Bill 21, is officially titled “An Act respecting the laicity of the State,” and it bars certain civil servants, including teachers, from wearing religious symbols in an effort to impose state secularism.
Abdalla said the NCCM has been fighting Bill 21 “since the day it was passed,” and has been engaged in an ongoing legal challenge of the bill since 2019. In collaboration with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), they have been challenging the constitutionality of the bill.
Alongside this, the groups were pushing for a temporary suspension of the law until it was reviewed by the courts. However, this request was denied, and the appeals process is ongoing.
Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, Director of the Equality program at the CCLA, spoke to Yahoo News Canada about the organization’s ongoing objection to the law.
“The harms that are happening are both to fundamental rights — the right to equality is being limited, the right to dignity, and of course to freedom of religion,” said Aviv. She added that the law violates “arguably a whole slew of other rights” on top of these: “People’s livelihoods and professions and career aspirations have been interfered with because of who they are and how they practice.”
Aviv said that when Bill 21 was “rushed through the National Assembly” in 2019, the CCLA filed their challenge within 24 hours.
“When we filed, it it was already clear to us that if people who wore religious symbols could not be hired into their professions or make a move within their professions, even those who were grandfathered in, that this was going to have a huge impact on Muslim women, and potentially also on some others, like religious Jewish men and women, Sikh men and women,” she said.
“Excluded and humiliated and degraded”
During the hearings late last year, Aviv says many people testified about the ways the law had already impacted their lives. These included financial impacts, jeopardized family stability, and emotional repercussions.
“One person talked about wanting to actually be a person who wears hijab — wanting to be her social, kind, caring self — and work with people who would understand that it could break down barriers. That people could see her and know her and understand.
Some of the moving testimony that was heard at the hearing was from women who talked about feeling like a second class citizen, about feeling excluded and humiliated and degraded.”
Masla Tahir is an activist in her final year of university, set to enter law school next year. She founded the organization My Hijab My Right as a response to laws restricting Muslim women’s clothing around the world, including in Belgium, France, and Canada.
Tahir told Yahoo News that hearing about Anvari’s removal from her position elicited a feeling of “helplessness.”
“Despite our activism work or our community engagement work, the bill is still in place. The power really lies within the federal government’s ability to intervene and make this stop, or it’s going to be dragged on in court,” she said.
Tahir said that while the ongoing legal challenges are occurring, it could take years: “In the meantime, it’s Muslim women who are going to be impacted negatively.” She cited the economic impacts that set the women, their families, and their livelihoods at a disadvantage.
She says that the recent events in Quebec, and the existence of the law, are particularly demoralizing in light of her own family’s perspective on coming to Canada.
My mom specifically chose Canada for us to move to because she wanted to raise her daughters in a country where there were equal rights for men and women, where women were given equal opportunity to flourish and follow their dreams.
Masla Tahir, founder of My Hijab My Right
“Knowing that Bill 21 exists, and is stealing Muslim women’s dreams,” leaves her wordless.
Like Abdalla, Tahir is unsurprised that Bill 21 has impacted Anvari’s life and the lives of other Quebec women, an outcome she has been speaking out about. But seeing the concerns she’s been voicing be confirmed is no consolation.
“We knew that something like this would happen, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.”
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/qu ... 35379.html
Re: Atrocities Against Muslims And Islam
Pakistan 'strongly condemns' Islamophobic incidents in Sweden and Netherlands
AFP | Naveed SiddiquiPublished April 18, 2022
Smoke billows from a burning car during a riot ahead of a demonstration planned by Danish anti-Muslim politician Rasmus Paludan and his Stram Kurs party, which was to include a desecration of the Holy Quran, in Navestad, Norrkoping, Sweden, April 17. — Reuters
Pakistan on Monday condemned a Swedish far-right group's desecration of the Holy Quran and offensive remarks passed by a Dutch politician, according to a statement issued from the Foreign Office (FO).
"Pakistan strongly condemns the recent abhorrent act of desecration of the Holy Quran during rallies in Sweden. Pakistan also strongly condemns the offensive remarks made by a Dutch politician, attacking Islam and the Muslim holy month of Ramazan.
"Pakistan’s concerns have been conveyed to the authorities in Sweden and the Netherlands. They have been urged to take cognisance of the sentiments of the people of Pakistan and the Muslims worldwide and take steps to prevent Islamophobic incidents," the FO statement said.
Swedish police said on Monday that several days of unrest, sparked by a far-right group's plans to desecrate the Quran, have injured several dozen people and called for more resources to deal with the violence. Protests turned violent in several cities since Thursday, leaving 26 police officers and 14 civilians injured, police said at a press conference on Monday.
Pakistan said such "provocative Islamophobic incidents" served no purpose other than hurting the sensitivities of the global Muslim community.
"Such actions are not covered under legitimate expressions of the right to freedom of expression or opinion, which carry responsibilities under international human rights law such as the obligation not to carry out hate speech and incite people to violence," the statement said.
It added that Muslims everywhere unequivocally condemned the practice of insulting Islam, Christianity and Judaism and stood against all acts of violence on the basis of religion or belief. "These principles must be equally respected and supported by all," the statement pointed out.
Pakistan said the international community needed to show a common resolve against xenophobia, intolerance and incitement to violence on the basis of religion or belief, and work together for promoting inter-faith harmony and peaceful co-existence.
"We call on the international community to demonstrate solidarity and commitment to the ideals of building peaceful and harmonious societies for the betterment of humanity," the FO urged.
Swedish unrest
The unrest in Sweden was sparked by the leader of an anti-immigration and anti-Islam group, Rasmus Paludan, who is aiming to drum up support ahead of the September elections.
Paludan — who intends to stand in the September poll but does not yet have the necessary signatures to secure his candidacy — has gone on a declared “tour” of Sweden, visiting cities and towns with large Muslim populations with the intent of desecrating copies of the Holy Quran as Muslims mark the holy month of Ramazan.
Clashes with police have erupted during protests against the group since Thursday evening, starting in the cities Linkoping and Norrkoping.
They spread to the city of Malmo, where a school was set alight during the second night of unrest on Saturday-Sunday.
“Criminals have profited from the situation to show violence toward society, without any link to the demonstrations,” national police chief Anders Thornberg said at a press conference on Monday.
“There are too few of us. We have grown, but we have not grown at the same pace as the problems at the heart of society,” he said, asking for more resources for the police.
As protesters burned cars and lobbed rocks at the police in Sunday clashes, officers responded, head of police special forces Jonas Hysing said.
“Some 200 participants were violent and the police had to respond with arms in legitimate self-defence,” he said.
Police had earlier said officers wounded three people after firing warning shots during Sunday's “riot”.
Eight people were arrested in the city of Norrkoping and 18 people were detained in the neighbouring city of Linkoping, because of the violence.
On Sunday, clashes erupted in both cities for the second time in four days.
In the wake of the string of violent incidents, Iraq's foreign ministry said on Sunday it had summoned the Swedish charge d'affaires in Baghdad.
It warned the affair could have “serious repercussions” on “relations between Sweden and Muslims in general, both Muslim and Arab countries and Muslim communities in Europe”.
Saudi Arabia's official news agency said the kingdom has “condemned the agitations of certain extremists in Sweden and their provocations against Muslims”.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1685619/pakis ... etherlands
AFP | Naveed SiddiquiPublished April 18, 2022
Smoke billows from a burning car during a riot ahead of a demonstration planned by Danish anti-Muslim politician Rasmus Paludan and his Stram Kurs party, which was to include a desecration of the Holy Quran, in Navestad, Norrkoping, Sweden, April 17. — Reuters
Pakistan on Monday condemned a Swedish far-right group's desecration of the Holy Quran and offensive remarks passed by a Dutch politician, according to a statement issued from the Foreign Office (FO).
"Pakistan strongly condemns the recent abhorrent act of desecration of the Holy Quran during rallies in Sweden. Pakistan also strongly condemns the offensive remarks made by a Dutch politician, attacking Islam and the Muslim holy month of Ramazan.
"Pakistan’s concerns have been conveyed to the authorities in Sweden and the Netherlands. They have been urged to take cognisance of the sentiments of the people of Pakistan and the Muslims worldwide and take steps to prevent Islamophobic incidents," the FO statement said.
Swedish police said on Monday that several days of unrest, sparked by a far-right group's plans to desecrate the Quran, have injured several dozen people and called for more resources to deal with the violence. Protests turned violent in several cities since Thursday, leaving 26 police officers and 14 civilians injured, police said at a press conference on Monday.
Pakistan said such "provocative Islamophobic incidents" served no purpose other than hurting the sensitivities of the global Muslim community.
"Such actions are not covered under legitimate expressions of the right to freedom of expression or opinion, which carry responsibilities under international human rights law such as the obligation not to carry out hate speech and incite people to violence," the statement said.
It added that Muslims everywhere unequivocally condemned the practice of insulting Islam, Christianity and Judaism and stood against all acts of violence on the basis of religion or belief. "These principles must be equally respected and supported by all," the statement pointed out.
Pakistan said the international community needed to show a common resolve against xenophobia, intolerance and incitement to violence on the basis of religion or belief, and work together for promoting inter-faith harmony and peaceful co-existence.
"We call on the international community to demonstrate solidarity and commitment to the ideals of building peaceful and harmonious societies for the betterment of humanity," the FO urged.
Swedish unrest
The unrest in Sweden was sparked by the leader of an anti-immigration and anti-Islam group, Rasmus Paludan, who is aiming to drum up support ahead of the September elections.
Paludan — who intends to stand in the September poll but does not yet have the necessary signatures to secure his candidacy — has gone on a declared “tour” of Sweden, visiting cities and towns with large Muslim populations with the intent of desecrating copies of the Holy Quran as Muslims mark the holy month of Ramazan.
Clashes with police have erupted during protests against the group since Thursday evening, starting in the cities Linkoping and Norrkoping.
They spread to the city of Malmo, where a school was set alight during the second night of unrest on Saturday-Sunday.
“Criminals have profited from the situation to show violence toward society, without any link to the demonstrations,” national police chief Anders Thornberg said at a press conference on Monday.
“There are too few of us. We have grown, but we have not grown at the same pace as the problems at the heart of society,” he said, asking for more resources for the police.
As protesters burned cars and lobbed rocks at the police in Sunday clashes, officers responded, head of police special forces Jonas Hysing said.
“Some 200 participants were violent and the police had to respond with arms in legitimate self-defence,” he said.
Police had earlier said officers wounded three people after firing warning shots during Sunday's “riot”.
Eight people were arrested in the city of Norrkoping and 18 people were detained in the neighbouring city of Linkoping, because of the violence.
On Sunday, clashes erupted in both cities for the second time in four days.
In the wake of the string of violent incidents, Iraq's foreign ministry said on Sunday it had summoned the Swedish charge d'affaires in Baghdad.
It warned the affair could have “serious repercussions” on “relations between Sweden and Muslims in general, both Muslim and Arab countries and Muslim communities in Europe”.
Saudi Arabia's official news agency said the kingdom has “condemned the agitations of certain extremists in Sweden and their provocations against Muslims”.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1685619/pakis ... etherlands
Re: Atrocities Against Muslims And Islam
BuzzFeed News
China Destroyed Muslim Culture In This Ancient City — Then Turned It Into Disneyland
Alison Killing
Thu, June 30, 2022, 9:53 AM
For centuries, the arched entrances and ornate patterned brickwork of Kashgar’s mosques signaled Uyghur culture’s essential place in the ancient city.
Then the mosques fell into the crosshairs of China’s campaign targeting Muslims, including Uyghurs and Kazakhs, in the province of Xinjiang. The government removed minarets and painted over Arabic calligraphy, according to video obtained by BuzzFeed News. Police officers and metal detectors greeted worshippers as they entered. Inside Id Kah, Kashgar’s largest and most revered mosque, cameras spaced 6 meters apart kept watch over the carpet lining the prayer hall. A photograph of Chinese President Xi Jinping hung over one of the doors, even though Islam forbids most figurative images.
Now the government is using the mosques that remain as part of another campaign: to draw tourists to Xinjiang. Travelers pose in the mosques’ doorways for Instagram photos to which they append hashtags such as #travel, #streetphotography, #travelblogger, #chill, and #holiday. The city has been optimized for social media, and the mosques fit right into this image. A tree outside one is filled with hanging ornaments, and beneath it sits one of many new rustic-style benches found in the city’s public squares — a perfect view for a holiday snap.
In the span of a few years, China assembled a vast and sophisticated infrastructure to lock up Muslims in Xinjiang and to force them to labor in factories. The government built enough space to detain 1 million people at any given time.
The camps and detention centers form the fulcrum of a campaign that the US and other governments have labeled a genocide. But China has also been systematically hollowing out Uyghur culture in Xinjiang’s towns and cities, degrading Muslim landmarks, and inviting non-Uyghurs to move in — or visit for a vacation.
Journalists and independent observers have been largely unable to see the shape and scale of these changes, because it is nearly impossible for them to travel within the region without police harassment. Earlier reporting has described a lot of the surveillance infrastructure and some of the ways that the city has been transformed for the benefit of tourists, but extensive visual documentation has been lacking, with journalists frequently forced to delete any photographs they take.
But BuzzFeed News has compiled and analyzed a large trove of videos and photos that provide an intimate portrait of recent life in Kashgar, which is Xinjiang’s second most populous city. Much of this documentary evidence was captured by tourists, who are able to move around Xinjiang much more freely.
A series of videos taken by a Russian-speaking tourist who walked around Kashgar in October 2017 shows how, at the same time it was rounding up Muslims by the thousands, the government was suffocating the practice of Uyghur culture in the city. Cameras and police checkpoints are everywhere. Chinese flags are hanging from every market stall and shop front; in one video, a group of police officers stops to check that the flags are hanging correctly.
We analyzed the videos, recording the presence of CCTV cameras as well as police checkpoints, stations, and patrols, then geolocated them from the footage to build a detailed map of the city and its surveillance infrastructure at the height of the crackdown. We then compared later videos and photographs to document how the city changed from 2017 through to the present day.
In mid-2019, after locking up 1 million people in the region according to UN estimates, the government declared victory, saying it had stamped out terrorism — and was turning its focus to tourism. “As the infiltration of religious extremism has been curbed, public order and security have returned to society, where equality, solidarity and harmony among ethnic groups and religions have prevailed,” the government wrote in a white paper. In the same paper, the government touted Xinjiang’s tourism industry.
Around that time, the government began to draw back some of its most menacing surveillance features in Kashgar, according to an analysis of contemporary photos and videos. In the three years since, a very different type of visual began to stand out: visor-wearing tour groups, Uyghurs dressed up in 100-year-old costumes to entertain visitors, and a fleet of Disneyland-like golf buggies to ferry people around.
Many of Xinjiang’s cities now resemble Potemkin villages with carefully manicured facades obscuring massive human trauma, experts said. But nowhere is that more apparent than in Kashgar.
“The city is completely changed,” said Rian Thum, a historian of Islam in China at the University of Manchester. “It’s absolutely Disneyfication. It’s an alien place — a theme park.”
Kashgar sits on the ancient Silk Road and has featured prominently in Uyghur literature for hundreds of years. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, well before the Communist Party came to power in China, Kashgar served as the capital for two states controlled by Turkic cultures. Densely packed with busy markets and home to many sacred tombs and monuments, it was long regarded as the best-preserved example of a central Asian city, Thum said.
But in 2009, as part of a modernization campaign, the Chinese government began demolishing Kashgar’s old city, moving families who had lived there for generations to newly built apartment blocks on the outskirts. The older mud-brick buildings and winding alleyways were replaced by new concrete buildings, albeit in an ornate style. By mid-2015, an enormous city gate was under construction to the southeast of the old city, in addition to city walls, all styled to look as though they had been in place for hundreds of years.
Abduweli Ayup grew up in Kashgar. When the demolitions began, he started seeing bulldozers everywhere. When he ate in street stalls, every mouthful tasted like dust.
Ayup said he was first locked up in 2013 after opening a chain of schools that taught Uyghur children in their own language, instead of Mandarin Chinese. He was detained for 15 months in a suffocatingly crowded prison where there was no flush toilet, he said. For the first six months, he was interrogated every day, he said. After his release, Ayup fled to Turkey.
In late 2016, the government dramatically escalated its repression of Uyghurs and other Muslims, embarking on the campaign that the US and other countries now refer to as a genocide. China has pointed to maintaining social stability as a reason for its policies in Xinjiang. The government began detaining people for infractions that included wearing a beard or downloading a banned app.
Stuck thousands of miles away, Ayup was unable to watch as his hometown descended into a police state. But the Russian-speaking tourist who visited Kashgar in October 2017 and took video of his experiences provides a rare window into a terrifying time for Uyghurs in Kashgar and Xinjiang.
The tourist narrates what he sees as he films it, over what appears to be the course of one single day. The camera often lingers on surveillance cameras, checkpoints, and policing infrastructure in between shots of craftspeople at work or the food on display at market stalls. Some of his observations stand out. “I noticed some people, just this morning I saw a few of them, who walk around and knock at the doors, and check something according to the information in their lists," he says at one point.
The videos are often filmed as a single shot. This enabled BuzzFeed News to record and geolocate the surveillance tools across a wide swath of the old city — and build a detailed picture of Kashgar at the height of the crackdown.
Checkpoints were typically a couple of hundred meters apart — roughly a three-minute walk — but some were as close as 50 meters. Key intersections had heavier controls, with metal detectors, heavy metal barriers across the road, and gazebos to protect the police stationed there. Even at minor junctions, string tied between traffic cones often blocked the road — and police seated at a nearby table checked documents of locals who wished to pass. The entrance to one small street was blocked by barriers similar to ticket gates at the entrance to a subway.
The changes at the mosques were equally dramatic. More than a dozen smaller neighborhood mosques identified by BuzzFeed News were affected. So too was Id Kah. With its grand entrance and exterior walls clad in lemon yellow tiles, it dominates the large square in Kashgar’s old city center and holds special meaning for Muslims. In less tense times, people would gather in the square outside the mosque to celebrate festivals like Eid. Before he fled, Ayup came to Id Kah less for prayer and more to meet up with friends, whom he’d smile at from across the room.
a before and after photo showing people praying inside the Id Kah mosque in 2006 versus an empty mosque with many security cameras installed
The prayer hall at Id Kah mosque
Guang Niu / Getty Images; Igor Putilov via YouTube
In the tourist’s video of Id Kah, two police officers in helmets and flak jackets sit at a table outside the entrance, and a CCTV camera points back at the doorway to capture everyone coming in. Visitors pass through metal detectors to enter. Inside, the grounds are peppered with cameras, mounted on walls around the compound, as well as on scaffolding-like arches built over pathways.
The entrance to the Id Kah mosque
Police officers guard the entrance to Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar in 2017.
Igor Putilov via YouTube / Via youtube.com
Along the length of the prayer hall’s back wall is a row of CCTV cameras at 6-meter intervals, watching people kneel to pray. The photograph of Xi Jinping, which shows him meeting Muslim religious leaders, sits above a door to an enclosed part of the prayer hall. At several other mosques, propaganda signs above or beside the entrance urge people to “love the party, love the country” or remind them of the importance of ethnic unity. Large posters on the walls lay out what constitutes illegal religious activities.
A before and after photo of an intersection in Kashgar in 2017, and the same intersection in 2021, where large sculptures related to the region's history are placed in a plaza
Two views of an intersection in Kashgar
Starting in 2019, a shift began to happen in Kashgar that has carried through to the present day, according to a BuzzFeed News analysis comparing newer videos, photos, and satellite imagery to the 2017 videos. The heavy metal barriers and fencing topped by barbed wire that had been built at the entrances to schools and police stations were gone by mid-2019. Some of the cameras that had proliferated throughout the city went away, too — and so did several checkpoints.
The police also scaled back their presence. The officers that remained were less obviously obtrusive and had traded their riot helmets for soft caps.
But the surveillance of Uyghurs hasn’t disappeared. Many people released from camps were being monitored through their cellphones and prevented from leaving their towns without a permit.
“The authorities scrutinize and surveil former detainees to check if ‘re-education’ helped them to be transformed into ‘normal human beings,’” said Nury Turkel, chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, who interviewed former detainees for a recent book.
Recent photos and videos show that there are still checkpoints at key access points, often partly hidden from view and in places where they might fit more naturally — such as at the main gate to the old city or as part of the imposing new gate at the end of the street where the night market is held.
Cameras are now distributed along roads in a more regular pattern as well as at key access points to the old city, providing more comprehensive coverage of the area and giving authorities a clear overview of who is there. New cameras have often been installed at locations where police were stationed earlier.
The surveillance remains. It’s just less obvious — and less intrusive for holidaymakers.
Abduweli Ayup has not been back to Kashgar since 2015, and his chances of doing so anytime soon seem slim. The Chinese government has canceled his passport, he said.
Sometimes he watches videos on YouTube of his hometown. They do not make him feel better. It feels compulsive, he said, “like eating bad food.”
“You know, you want to keep eating it, but afterward your stomach feels upset,” he added. As he watched one video while speaking with a BuzzFeed News reporter, Ayup pointed to a giant sculpture of a traditional stringed instrument by the gates of the city. “See that, that’s just for tourists,” he said.
The city is now full of these sorts of photogenic additions. There are giant teapots at the main junction near the city gate. Elsewhere, murals show maps of Xinjiang or carry slogans such as “Xinjiang Impressions” where visitors stop to take holiday snaps. A new entrance has been added to the metalwork market, with a large sign featuring silhouetted figures hammering iron. The anvil statue at the corner now comes with projection-mapped fire, as well as sparks and a piped soundtrack of metal being struck. Camel rides are available too.
In the videos he has seen, Ayup has also noticed footage of people dancing while wearing traditional Uyghur dress — costumes that they might have worn more than a century ago. Figures like these can be seen on Chinese state television and at the country’s annual rubber-stamp parliamentary session. “Nobody would wear that clothing anymore unless it was for show,” Ayup said.
Tourism is now booming in Xinjiang. Last year, even as global numbers fell as a consequence of the pandemic, 190 million tourists visited the region — more than a 20% increase from the previous year. Revenue increased by 43%. As part of its “Xinjiang is a wonderful land” campaign, the Chinese government has produced English-language videos and held events to promote a vision of the region as peaceful, newly prosperous, and full of dramatic landscapes and rich culture.
Chinese state media has portrayed this as an economic growth engine for Xinjiang natives, too. One article described how a former camp detainee named Aliye Ablimit had, upon her release, received hospitality training. “After graduation, I became a tour guide for Kashgar Ancient City,” Ablimit said, according to the article. “And later, I turned my home into a Bed and Breakfast. Tourists love my house very much because of its Uygur style. All the rooms are fully booked these days. Now I have a monthly income of about 50,000 yuan," or about $7,475.
The facade holds up less well with Kashgar’s mosques. Many of the smaller neighborhood mosques appear to be out of use, their wooden doors damaged and padlocked shut — and others have been demolished completely or converted to other uses, including cafés and public toilets.
Inside the Id Kah mosque, many of the cameras, including inside the prayer halls, have disappeared. But as might be expected given the past five years, many of the worshippers have disappeared too, down from 4,000–5,000 at Friday prayers in 2011 to just 800 or so today.
The mosque’s imam, Mamat Juma, acknowledged as much in an interview with a vlogger who often produces videos that support Chinese government narratives, posted in April 2021. Speaking through a translator, he is at pains to point out that not all Uyghurs are Muslims and to diminish the role of the religion in Uyghur culture. “I really worry that the number of believers will decrease,” he said, “but that shouldn't be a reason to force them to pray here.” ●
Additional reporting by Irene Benedicto
https://currently.att.yahoo.com/news/ch ... 01448.html
China Destroyed Muslim Culture In This Ancient City — Then Turned It Into Disneyland
Alison Killing
Thu, June 30, 2022, 9:53 AM
For centuries, the arched entrances and ornate patterned brickwork of Kashgar’s mosques signaled Uyghur culture’s essential place in the ancient city.
Then the mosques fell into the crosshairs of China’s campaign targeting Muslims, including Uyghurs and Kazakhs, in the province of Xinjiang. The government removed minarets and painted over Arabic calligraphy, according to video obtained by BuzzFeed News. Police officers and metal detectors greeted worshippers as they entered. Inside Id Kah, Kashgar’s largest and most revered mosque, cameras spaced 6 meters apart kept watch over the carpet lining the prayer hall. A photograph of Chinese President Xi Jinping hung over one of the doors, even though Islam forbids most figurative images.
Now the government is using the mosques that remain as part of another campaign: to draw tourists to Xinjiang. Travelers pose in the mosques’ doorways for Instagram photos to which they append hashtags such as #travel, #streetphotography, #travelblogger, #chill, and #holiday. The city has been optimized for social media, and the mosques fit right into this image. A tree outside one is filled with hanging ornaments, and beneath it sits one of many new rustic-style benches found in the city’s public squares — a perfect view for a holiday snap.
In the span of a few years, China assembled a vast and sophisticated infrastructure to lock up Muslims in Xinjiang and to force them to labor in factories. The government built enough space to detain 1 million people at any given time.
The camps and detention centers form the fulcrum of a campaign that the US and other governments have labeled a genocide. But China has also been systematically hollowing out Uyghur culture in Xinjiang’s towns and cities, degrading Muslim landmarks, and inviting non-Uyghurs to move in — or visit for a vacation.
Journalists and independent observers have been largely unable to see the shape and scale of these changes, because it is nearly impossible for them to travel within the region without police harassment. Earlier reporting has described a lot of the surveillance infrastructure and some of the ways that the city has been transformed for the benefit of tourists, but extensive visual documentation has been lacking, with journalists frequently forced to delete any photographs they take.
But BuzzFeed News has compiled and analyzed a large trove of videos and photos that provide an intimate portrait of recent life in Kashgar, which is Xinjiang’s second most populous city. Much of this documentary evidence was captured by tourists, who are able to move around Xinjiang much more freely.
A series of videos taken by a Russian-speaking tourist who walked around Kashgar in October 2017 shows how, at the same time it was rounding up Muslims by the thousands, the government was suffocating the practice of Uyghur culture in the city. Cameras and police checkpoints are everywhere. Chinese flags are hanging from every market stall and shop front; in one video, a group of police officers stops to check that the flags are hanging correctly.
We analyzed the videos, recording the presence of CCTV cameras as well as police checkpoints, stations, and patrols, then geolocated them from the footage to build a detailed map of the city and its surveillance infrastructure at the height of the crackdown. We then compared later videos and photographs to document how the city changed from 2017 through to the present day.
In mid-2019, after locking up 1 million people in the region according to UN estimates, the government declared victory, saying it had stamped out terrorism — and was turning its focus to tourism. “As the infiltration of religious extremism has been curbed, public order and security have returned to society, where equality, solidarity and harmony among ethnic groups and religions have prevailed,” the government wrote in a white paper. In the same paper, the government touted Xinjiang’s tourism industry.
Around that time, the government began to draw back some of its most menacing surveillance features in Kashgar, according to an analysis of contemporary photos and videos. In the three years since, a very different type of visual began to stand out: visor-wearing tour groups, Uyghurs dressed up in 100-year-old costumes to entertain visitors, and a fleet of Disneyland-like golf buggies to ferry people around.
Many of Xinjiang’s cities now resemble Potemkin villages with carefully manicured facades obscuring massive human trauma, experts said. But nowhere is that more apparent than in Kashgar.
“The city is completely changed,” said Rian Thum, a historian of Islam in China at the University of Manchester. “It’s absolutely Disneyfication. It’s an alien place — a theme park.”
Kashgar sits on the ancient Silk Road and has featured prominently in Uyghur literature for hundreds of years. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, well before the Communist Party came to power in China, Kashgar served as the capital for two states controlled by Turkic cultures. Densely packed with busy markets and home to many sacred tombs and monuments, it was long regarded as the best-preserved example of a central Asian city, Thum said.
But in 2009, as part of a modernization campaign, the Chinese government began demolishing Kashgar’s old city, moving families who had lived there for generations to newly built apartment blocks on the outskirts. The older mud-brick buildings and winding alleyways were replaced by new concrete buildings, albeit in an ornate style. By mid-2015, an enormous city gate was under construction to the southeast of the old city, in addition to city walls, all styled to look as though they had been in place for hundreds of years.
Abduweli Ayup grew up in Kashgar. When the demolitions began, he started seeing bulldozers everywhere. When he ate in street stalls, every mouthful tasted like dust.
Ayup said he was first locked up in 2013 after opening a chain of schools that taught Uyghur children in their own language, instead of Mandarin Chinese. He was detained for 15 months in a suffocatingly crowded prison where there was no flush toilet, he said. For the first six months, he was interrogated every day, he said. After his release, Ayup fled to Turkey.
In late 2016, the government dramatically escalated its repression of Uyghurs and other Muslims, embarking on the campaign that the US and other countries now refer to as a genocide. China has pointed to maintaining social stability as a reason for its policies in Xinjiang. The government began detaining people for infractions that included wearing a beard or downloading a banned app.
Stuck thousands of miles away, Ayup was unable to watch as his hometown descended into a police state. But the Russian-speaking tourist who visited Kashgar in October 2017 and took video of his experiences provides a rare window into a terrifying time for Uyghurs in Kashgar and Xinjiang.
The tourist narrates what he sees as he films it, over what appears to be the course of one single day. The camera often lingers on surveillance cameras, checkpoints, and policing infrastructure in between shots of craftspeople at work or the food on display at market stalls. Some of his observations stand out. “I noticed some people, just this morning I saw a few of them, who walk around and knock at the doors, and check something according to the information in their lists," he says at one point.
The videos are often filmed as a single shot. This enabled BuzzFeed News to record and geolocate the surveillance tools across a wide swath of the old city — and build a detailed picture of Kashgar at the height of the crackdown.
Checkpoints were typically a couple of hundred meters apart — roughly a three-minute walk — but some were as close as 50 meters. Key intersections had heavier controls, with metal detectors, heavy metal barriers across the road, and gazebos to protect the police stationed there. Even at minor junctions, string tied between traffic cones often blocked the road — and police seated at a nearby table checked documents of locals who wished to pass. The entrance to one small street was blocked by barriers similar to ticket gates at the entrance to a subway.
The changes at the mosques were equally dramatic. More than a dozen smaller neighborhood mosques identified by BuzzFeed News were affected. So too was Id Kah. With its grand entrance and exterior walls clad in lemon yellow tiles, it dominates the large square in Kashgar’s old city center and holds special meaning for Muslims. In less tense times, people would gather in the square outside the mosque to celebrate festivals like Eid. Before he fled, Ayup came to Id Kah less for prayer and more to meet up with friends, whom he’d smile at from across the room.
a before and after photo showing people praying inside the Id Kah mosque in 2006 versus an empty mosque with many security cameras installed
The prayer hall at Id Kah mosque
Guang Niu / Getty Images; Igor Putilov via YouTube
In the tourist’s video of Id Kah, two police officers in helmets and flak jackets sit at a table outside the entrance, and a CCTV camera points back at the doorway to capture everyone coming in. Visitors pass through metal detectors to enter. Inside, the grounds are peppered with cameras, mounted on walls around the compound, as well as on scaffolding-like arches built over pathways.
The entrance to the Id Kah mosque
Police officers guard the entrance to Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar in 2017.
Igor Putilov via YouTube / Via youtube.com
Along the length of the prayer hall’s back wall is a row of CCTV cameras at 6-meter intervals, watching people kneel to pray. The photograph of Xi Jinping, which shows him meeting Muslim religious leaders, sits above a door to an enclosed part of the prayer hall. At several other mosques, propaganda signs above or beside the entrance urge people to “love the party, love the country” or remind them of the importance of ethnic unity. Large posters on the walls lay out what constitutes illegal religious activities.
A before and after photo of an intersection in Kashgar in 2017, and the same intersection in 2021, where large sculptures related to the region's history are placed in a plaza
Two views of an intersection in Kashgar
Starting in 2019, a shift began to happen in Kashgar that has carried through to the present day, according to a BuzzFeed News analysis comparing newer videos, photos, and satellite imagery to the 2017 videos. The heavy metal barriers and fencing topped by barbed wire that had been built at the entrances to schools and police stations were gone by mid-2019. Some of the cameras that had proliferated throughout the city went away, too — and so did several checkpoints.
The police also scaled back their presence. The officers that remained were less obviously obtrusive and had traded their riot helmets for soft caps.
But the surveillance of Uyghurs hasn’t disappeared. Many people released from camps were being monitored through their cellphones and prevented from leaving their towns without a permit.
“The authorities scrutinize and surveil former detainees to check if ‘re-education’ helped them to be transformed into ‘normal human beings,’” said Nury Turkel, chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, who interviewed former detainees for a recent book.
Recent photos and videos show that there are still checkpoints at key access points, often partly hidden from view and in places where they might fit more naturally — such as at the main gate to the old city or as part of the imposing new gate at the end of the street where the night market is held.
Cameras are now distributed along roads in a more regular pattern as well as at key access points to the old city, providing more comprehensive coverage of the area and giving authorities a clear overview of who is there. New cameras have often been installed at locations where police were stationed earlier.
The surveillance remains. It’s just less obvious — and less intrusive for holidaymakers.
Abduweli Ayup has not been back to Kashgar since 2015, and his chances of doing so anytime soon seem slim. The Chinese government has canceled his passport, he said.
Sometimes he watches videos on YouTube of his hometown. They do not make him feel better. It feels compulsive, he said, “like eating bad food.”
“You know, you want to keep eating it, but afterward your stomach feels upset,” he added. As he watched one video while speaking with a BuzzFeed News reporter, Ayup pointed to a giant sculpture of a traditional stringed instrument by the gates of the city. “See that, that’s just for tourists,” he said.
The city is now full of these sorts of photogenic additions. There are giant teapots at the main junction near the city gate. Elsewhere, murals show maps of Xinjiang or carry slogans such as “Xinjiang Impressions” where visitors stop to take holiday snaps. A new entrance has been added to the metalwork market, with a large sign featuring silhouetted figures hammering iron. The anvil statue at the corner now comes with projection-mapped fire, as well as sparks and a piped soundtrack of metal being struck. Camel rides are available too.
In the videos he has seen, Ayup has also noticed footage of people dancing while wearing traditional Uyghur dress — costumes that they might have worn more than a century ago. Figures like these can be seen on Chinese state television and at the country’s annual rubber-stamp parliamentary session. “Nobody would wear that clothing anymore unless it was for show,” Ayup said.
Tourism is now booming in Xinjiang. Last year, even as global numbers fell as a consequence of the pandemic, 190 million tourists visited the region — more than a 20% increase from the previous year. Revenue increased by 43%. As part of its “Xinjiang is a wonderful land” campaign, the Chinese government has produced English-language videos and held events to promote a vision of the region as peaceful, newly prosperous, and full of dramatic landscapes and rich culture.
Chinese state media has portrayed this as an economic growth engine for Xinjiang natives, too. One article described how a former camp detainee named Aliye Ablimit had, upon her release, received hospitality training. “After graduation, I became a tour guide for Kashgar Ancient City,” Ablimit said, according to the article. “And later, I turned my home into a Bed and Breakfast. Tourists love my house very much because of its Uygur style. All the rooms are fully booked these days. Now I have a monthly income of about 50,000 yuan," or about $7,475.
The facade holds up less well with Kashgar’s mosques. Many of the smaller neighborhood mosques appear to be out of use, their wooden doors damaged and padlocked shut — and others have been demolished completely or converted to other uses, including cafés and public toilets.
Inside the Id Kah mosque, many of the cameras, including inside the prayer halls, have disappeared. But as might be expected given the past five years, many of the worshippers have disappeared too, down from 4,000–5,000 at Friday prayers in 2011 to just 800 or so today.
The mosque’s imam, Mamat Juma, acknowledged as much in an interview with a vlogger who often produces videos that support Chinese government narratives, posted in April 2021. Speaking through a translator, he is at pains to point out that not all Uyghurs are Muslims and to diminish the role of the religion in Uyghur culture. “I really worry that the number of believers will decrease,” he said, “but that shouldn't be a reason to force them to pray here.” ●
Additional reporting by Irene Benedicto
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Re: Atrocities Against Muslims And Islam
Photos of the above articleswamidada wrote: ↑Fri Jul 01, 2022 10:20 pm BuzzFeed News
China Destroyed Muslim Culture In This Ancient City — Then Turned It Into Disneyland
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The prayer hall at Id Kah mosque
Police officers guard the entrance to Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar in 2017.
Two views of an intersection in Kashgar