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2005 NewsDecember 27, 2005COPTIC VISA-NIX SCANDALNY Post
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| Earthquake survivors wait for humanitarian aid near the devastated town of Balakot, Pakistan, Dec. 1. A Pakistani bishop has reported that Christian families in Pakistan are being kicked out of their homes to make way for Muslim earthquake victims. (CNS photo from Reuters) |
ONDON (CNS) – Hundreds of Christian families in Pakistan are being kicked out of their homes to make way for Muslims left destitute by the Kashmir earthquake, a Pakistani Catholic bishop told a Catholic charity here.
Earthquake survivors wait for humanitarian aid near the devastated town of Balakot,
Pakistan, Dec. 1. A Pakistani bishop has reported that Christian families in Pakistan
are being kicked out of their homes to make way for Muslim earthquake victims.
(CNS photo from Reuters)
Bishop Anthony Lobo of Islamabad-Rawalpindi, Pakistan, said the Pakistani government
has evicted Christians to solve the problem of how to house some 3 million people
left homeless by the disaster.
The Oct. 8 earthquake killed more than 73,000 people, but those left homeless
continue to be threatened with death from exposure to single-digit winter temperatures.
Bishop Lobo told the British branch of Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic charity,
Nov. 29 that Christians in the neighboring Sind province, which was unaffected
by the earthquake, might now also perish because they were being turned onto the
streets without alternative accommodation provided for them.
He said that he knew of at least 40 families, or about 200 people, who had been
evicted around Joharabad, near Karachi.
"All the people are being thrown out, all of them are Christians," he
said. "There is a lot of land which the government has at its disposal, but
they (government officials) prefer to select a place that is already developed.
"Their mentality is like this: Why plant a sapling and wait for it to bear
fruit when you can select another tree that is already bearing fruit?"
The bishop added: "We are the most vulnerable people, we are very poor and
we are easy targets."
Bishop Lobo said he feared that across the region the number of Christians evicted
under the policy would run into thousands. He said he aimed to challenge the policy
in the courts before the government started targeting other Christian communities.
"If we need to, we will try to get hold of a senior minister," he added.
The forced evictions came amid claims that the 5 million-strong Christian minority
in Pakistan is being persecuted.
In mid-November three churches in Sangla Hill, near Lahore, were destroyed by
a mob of 3,000 people who also attacked two schools, a hostel and a convent after
it was alleged that a Christian had burned pages of the Quran, the sacred book
of Islam.
The incident prompted the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion who was touring
Pakistan in late November, Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, England, to
call for the repeal of the country's blasphemy laws on the grounds that they were
being misused against minorities.
The laws sanction the death penalty for defiling the Quran or insulting Mohammed,
but Christians say they are being used against them in disputes over property.
More than $5 billion has been pledged by international donors to the relief operation
in the aftermath of the magnitude 7.6 earthquake.
Much of the aid has come from Christians in the West, but Christians in Pakistan
also joined the relief effort, channeling thousands of dollars into providing
food, blankets, tents and medicine.
Pakistani bishops sent teams of volunteers to search for survivors and have paid
for the construction of an orphanage.
Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Police in Belgium and France arrested 15 people on Wednesday in a roundup of suspected Islamist militants believed to be linked to a Belgian woman who carried out a suicide bombing in Iraq this month.
The 38-year-old convert to Islam blew herself up on November 9 on the outskirts
of Baghdad in what security sources believe was the first suicide attack in Iraq
involving a European woman.
Belgian police arrested 14 people and seized documents in raids centered on Brussels
and Antwerp. They arrested two Tunisians, three Moroccans and the rest were Belgian
nationals, Lieve Pellens, spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor, told Reuters.
The fifteenth suspect was arrested close to Paris.
The group had been under surveillance for four months after Belgium received intelligence about a suspected terrorist cell operating on its soil, but the suicide bomber had slipped out of the country unnoticed.
"It was through this organization that the lady went to Iraq with her husband, but we only knew about her presence ... once she was already there," said Glenn Audernaert, a senior law enforcement official.
Police brought forward the raids by a couple of weeks after leaks in the French media about the investigation, but Audernaert said the raids had netted all the suspects.
They were detained under Belgium's new anti-terrorist law, which defined terrorism as a crime for the first time.
The woman's identity was not disclosed, but officials said she was born in Belgium of European origin and converted to Islam after marrying a Muslim.
REAR BASE
One of the chief suspects arrested on Wednesday was a male Belgian convert to Islam, a police spokesman said.
"We know these groups are always planning attacks ... What we can say is there were no attacks planned in Europe," he said.
No explosives or weapons were found in the raids but police found evidence linking the suspects to what he called a terrorist organization focused on Iraq.
He would not name the group but said it was not the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM) which is held responsible for the 2004 Madrid attacks on commuter trains that killed 191 people.
De Standaard newspaper earlier quoted a U.S. official in Iraq as saying the November 9 attack targeted a U.S. military convoy south of Baghdad. No one was killed apart from the woman herself, it reported.
It added a Belgian passport was found on her body, with papers which showed she had entered Iraq via Turkey.
Belgium, home to European Union institutions and NATO, has suffered no attacks but is thought to have been used as a rear base for Islamic militants active elsewhere.
Earlier this month, 13 men accused of belonging to the GICM, which is also blamed for bombings in Casablanca where 45 people were killed, went on trial in Brussels.
They face charges of providing false papers, safe houses and logistical help to members of the GICM in the Madrid attacks.
German federal police chief Joerg Ziercke referred earlier this month to estimates that "perhaps 200 young people are fighting in Iraq from European countries."
A French intelligence chief said in May that five young men from a Paris suburb had died in Iraq, one in a suicide attack.
Spain arrested 16 suspected Islamist militants in June including 11 alleged followers of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda's leader in Iraq. It said many of the Zarqawi supporters had expressed the will to become "martyrs for Islam" there.
By Jean-Marc Mojon – CAIRO
Egypt's Christian Coptic minority voiced concern over the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood Monday, after the still illegal Islamist opposition group made impressive gains in parliamentary elections.
"I am sounding the bell to warn Egyptians that if the Muslim Brothers come to power, Egypt will be an Islamic state, like Iran or Sudan," said prominent Coptic thinker Milad Hanna.
The Brotherhood claimed it had won another 13 seats in the second phase of the three-stage elections, adding to the record 34 seats they won in the first, and stood to win more seats in the 454-member legislature in second-round run-offs in constituencies where no candidate won outright.
In the outgoing People's Assembly, the movement commanded the support of just 15 MPs, all of them elected as independents.
"Had these elections been fair and transparent, maybe the Muslim Brothers would have won a majority," Hanna said, in reference to reports of widespread fraud, voter intimidation and violence from ruling party thugs.
The domination by President Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party is not at risk but it will for the first time have to face a substantial challenge in the People's Assembly if the Muslim Brothers make further gains.
"I was always friendly with the Muslim Brothers," said Hanna, 81.
"My aim was to prevent conflicts, notably in small villages, so that Coptic minorities are not wiped out. Now I sense that the political map is changing.
"The day the Muslim Brothers win more than 50 percent, the rich Copts will leave the country and the poorer Copts will stay, maybe some of them will be converted... I hope I will die before this happens."
So far only one Copt, NDP heavyweight and finance minister Yusef Butros-Ghali, has won a seat. No candidate from the Christian minority appeared in a favourable position to win a seat in the remaining rounds of polling.
The Copts claim to account for around 10 percent of Egypt's population of 73 million and have consistently complained of under-representation and marginalisation.
The Muslim Brothers, founded in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna, campaigned under the slogan "Islam is the solution" but their political agenda remains vague.
Munir Fakhri Abdel Nur, a leading businessman and one of the country's most prominent MPs, lost his seat in the first phase earlier this month and urged the Islamist movement to spell out its political programme.
Many Copts fear that the Brotherhood, which has displayed great political acumen and flexibility during the campaign, will revert to hardline Islamist policies if they seize power.
"It is high time they outlined their position on economic and social issues... especially their views on the role and place of women and Copts in society," said Coptic writer Samir Morqos.
There was no immediate reaction from the leader of the Coptic community, Pope Shenuda III, who has traditionally enjoyed good relations with the country's secular government.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. forces sealed off a house in the northern city of Mosul where eight suspected al-Qaida members died in a gunfight — some by their own hand to avoid capture. A U.S. official said Sunday that efforts were under way to determine if terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.
Insurgents, meanwhile, killed an American soldier and a Marine in separate
attacks over the weekend, while a British soldier was killed by a roadside bomb
in the south.
In Washington, a U.S. official said the identities of the terror suspects killed
in the Saturday raid was unknown. Asked if they could include al-Zarqawi, the
official replied: "There are efforts under way to determine if he was killed."
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
On Saturday, police Brig. Gen. Said Ahmed al-Jubouri said the raid was launched after a tip that top al-Qaida operatives, possibly including al-Zarqawi, were in the house in the northeastern part of the city.
During the intense gunbattle that followed, three insurgents detonated explosives and killed themselves to avoid capture, Iraqi officials said. Eleven Americans were wounded, the U.S. military said. Such intense resistance often suggests an attempt to defend a high-value target.
American soldiers controlled the site Sunday, and residents said helicopters
flew over the area throughout the day. Some residents said the tight security
was reminiscent of the July 2003 operation in which
Saddam Hussein's sons, Odai and Qusai, were killed in Mosul.
The elusive al-Zarqawi has narrowly escaped capture in the past. U.S. forces said they nearly caught him in a February 2005 raid that recovered his computer.
In May, the group said he was wounded in fighting and was taken out of the country for treatment. Within days, it reported he had returned — though there was never any independent confirmation that he was wounded.
The U.S. soldier killed Sunday near the capital was assigned to the Army's Task Force Baghdad and was hit by small arms fire, the military said. The Marine, assigned to Regimental Combat Team 8, 2nd Marine Division, died of wounds suffered the day before in Karmah, a village outside Fallujah to the west of the capital.
In the southern city of Basra, a roadside bomb killed a British soldier and wounded four others, the British Ministry of Defense said. The ministry said 98 British soldiers have died in the Iraq conflict.
The U.S. military also said Sunday that 24 people — including another Marine and 15 civilians — were killed the day before in an ambush on a joint U.S. Iraqi patrol in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad in the volatile Euphrates River valley.
According to the U.S. statement, the attack began Saturday with a roadside bomb detonating next to the Marine's vehicle, followed by a heavy volley of fire from insurgents.
"Iraqi army soldiers and Marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another," the statement said.
The three American deaths brought to at least 2,093 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Meanwhile, four women were killed Sunday night when gunmen stormed their home in a Christian district of eastern Baghdad, police said, adding that valuables were stolen and the motive for the attack appeared to have been robbery.
The latest deaths occurred at the end of a violent three-day period in which at least 140 Iraqi civilians died in a series of bombings and suicide attacks — most targeting Shiite Muslims.
The victims included 76 people who died Friday in near-simultaneous suicide bombings at two Shiite mosques in Khanaqin and 36 more killed the next day by a suicide car bomber who detonated his vehicle amid mourners at a Shiite funeral north of the capital.
In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that commanders' assessments will determine the pace of any military drawdown. About 160,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq as the country approaches parliamentary elections Dec. 15.
The Pentagon has said it plans to scale back troop strength to its pre-election baseline of 138,000, depending on conditions. Rumsfeld said the U.S.-led coalition continues to make progress in training Iraqi security forces, which he placed at 212,000.
Rumsfeld also said talk in the United States of a quick withdrawal from Iraq plays into the hands of the insurgents.
"The enemy hears a big debate in the United States, and they have to wonder maybe all we have to do is wait and we'll win. We can't win militarily. They know that. The battle is here in the United States," he told "Fox News Sunday."
In Cairo, Egypt, Iraq's president said Sunday he was ready for talks with anti-government opposition figures and members of Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath Party, and he called on the Sunni-led insurgency to lay down its arms and join the political process.
But President Jalal Talabani, attending an Arab League-sponsored reconciliation conference, insisted that the Iraqi government would not meet with Baath Party members who are participating in the Sunni-led insurgency and attacking Iraqi and U.S.-led forces in the country.
"I am the president of Iraq and I am responsible for all Iraqis. If those who describe themselves as Iraqi resistance want to contact me, they are welcome," Talabani told reporters. "I want to listen to all Iraqis. I am committed to listen to them, even those who are criminals and are on trial."
Talabani made clear in his remarks, however, that he would talk with insurgents and "criminals" only if they put down their weapons.
In Baghdad, hundreds of Sunnis demanded an end to the torture of detainees and called for the international community to pressure Iraqi and U.S. authorities to ensure that such abuse does not occur.
Anger over detainee abuse has increased sharply since U.S. troops found 173 detainees at an Interior Ministry prison in Baghdad's Jadriyah neighborhood. The detainees, mainly Sunnis, were found malnourished and some had torture marks on their bodies. Sunni Arabs dominate the insurgent ranks.
The 400 protesters carried posters of tortured detainees, disfigured dead bodies and U.S. troops detaining Iraqis as they marched for a few hundred meters (yards) through western Baghdad.
Iraq's Shiite-led government has promised an investigation and punishment for anyone guilty of torture. Attacks against Shiite civilians by Sunni religious extremists have occurred throughout the Iraq conflict but spiked since the detainees were found last weekend.
___
Associated Press reporters Katherine Shrader in Washington, Sinbad Ahmed in Mosul and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.
AMMAN, Jordan - A police official said it was believed that suicide bombers carried out the attacks on three hotels in the Jordanian capital late Wednesday, which killed at least 57 people and injured more than 120.
"There were three terrorist attacks on the Grand Hyatt, Radisson SAS and Days Inn hotels and it is believed that the blasts were suicide bombings," police spokesman Maj. Bashir al-Da'aja told The Associated Press.
Updated: 8:25 p.m. ET Nov. 7, 2005
TAMPA, Fla. - A fired college professor acted as a “crime boss” for
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a murderous gang that operated like the Mafia, a federal
prosecutor told a jury Monday.
Although Sami Al-Arian and three co-defendants are not charged with killing anyone, they conspired to bring about attacks and are just as guilty under the law as the suicide bombers who carried them out, prosecutor Cherie Krigsman said in closing arguments.
“The men of the PIJ you got to know in this case, they didn’t strap bombs to their body,” she said. “They leave that to somebody else.”
Al-Arian, 47, and his co-defendants are accused of using Palestinian charities
and educational entities as fundraising fronts for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad
to help bombings that killed hundreds.
The men deny they supported violence and say they are being persecuted for views
that are unpopular in the United States.
Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida computer engineering teacher who was fired after he was indicted, “was a professor by day and a terrorist by night,” Krigsman said.
Phone calls and faxes
Prosecutors built their case around hundreds of pages of transcripts of wiretapped
phone calls and faxes intercepted by the FBI from the mid-1990s to about 2003,
including discussions about the direction and financing of the PIJ. The participants
at times appear to celebrate suicide attacks that killed Israelis and speak glowingly
of the Palestinian “martyrs” who carried them out.
Prosecutors said Al-Arian and co-defendants Sameeh Hammoudeh, Ghassan Zayed Ballut and Hatem Naji Fariz used a think tank and a Palestinian charity in Tampa as fundraising fronts. The men claim the money they raised went to Palestinian charities.
If convicted, they could each face up to life in prison.
Al-Arian’s attorney, William Moffitt, rested Oct. 27 without calling a single witness. He said that prosecutors failed to prove Al-Arian did “anything but speak.”
Krigsman was to complete her closing arguments Tuesday and be followed by Moffitt.
By Joanne Collins
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian authorities believe they have foiled a major terrorist attack, arresting 15 people on Tuesday during raids in the country's two biggest cities of Sydney and Melbourne.
The arrests come less than a week after Prime Minster John Howard said Australia
received intelligence about a "terrorist threat."
"We believe ... we've disrupted a large-scale operation which, had it been
allowed to go through to fruition, we certainly believe would have been catastrophic,"
New South Wales Police Commissioner Ken Moroney told Australian television.
The Australian Federal Police said 23 house searches were carried out under warrants in suburbs in Sydney and Melbourne early on Tuesday as part of a joint counter-terrorism operation with New South Wales and Victoria state police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organization.
Several searches were still under way, a Federal Police spokesman told Reuters.
"Nine men have been arrested and charged in Melbourne with terrorism related offences, some of which include intentionally being a member of a terrorist organization ... and intentionally directing the activities of a terrorist organization," he said.
Six men had been arrested in Sydney, but had not yet been charged, the spokesman said.
Australia's parliament rushed through urgent amendments to anti-terrorism laws last Thursday to allow police to charge people in the early stages of planning an attack.
Australia, a staunch U.S. ally with troops in Pakistan, has never suffered a major peacetime attack on home soil. The country has been on medium security alert since shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
By A Correspondent
London Times
A UNIVERSITY student was murdered to “vindicate a family’s honour”
after he fell in love with their daughter and made her pregnant, a court was told
yesterday.
Chomir Ali, a Bangladeshi Muslim living in Oxford, ordered his son, Mohammed Mujibar Rahman, to kill Arash Ghorbani-Zarin for the “shame and dishonour” brought on their family by Mr Ghorbani-Zarin’s relationship with his daughter, Manna Begum, it was alleged at Oxford Crown Court.
Julian Baughan, QC, for the prosecution, said that Mr Ali, a 44-year-old waiter, became “angry” in summer 2003 when his 19-year-old daughter began going out with Mr Ghorbani-Zarin, 19, who was from a Muslim Iranian family living in Oxford. Mr Baughan told the trial that Miss Begum already had a marriage to someone else arranged for her; but despite her family’s disapproval, the lovers continued to see each other, the court was told.
Mr Ali banned his daughter from contacting her boyfriend, taking her mobile phone from her and prohibiting her from leaving the family home.
This led her to attempt suicide and run away from home to stay with a friend’s aunt, the court was told. In August last year the couple got engaged after Miss Begum discovered that she was pregnant with Mr Ghorbani-Zarin’s child. Miss Begum returned home in October, and again her boyfriend was told by Mr Ali that he was not welcome.
On November 20 Mr Ghorbani-Zarin was found dead in his car, a green Renault, in Spencer Crescent, Oxford, which is close to his home. He had been on his way to watch a DVD at a friend’s house. His friend began looking for him when Mr Ghorbani-Zarin did not turn up.
He was found with 46 stab wounds, mainly to the chest, the trial was told. His head had been tied to the headrest of the car following his death, Mr Baughan said, and he was found by passers-by. Mr Baughan alleged that Mr Ali’s son, known as Muji, had committed the murder. Muji, 19, was arrested the next day.
Three days later a man, alleged to be Mr Ali, was spotted stopping his red Toyota car at nearby allotments and throwing a bag over a hedge. The supermarket carrier bag was found to contain a knife covered in Mr Ghorbani-Zarin’s blood and clothes which DNA tests showed were worn by Mr Ali’s son.
The father and son are standing trial for murder. Also on trial for murder is a 16-year-old, who cannot be named. Mr Ali also faces an alternative charge of assisting an offender. He is not said to have been present at the killing. Mr Baughan told the jury that the “family’s dislike of the relationship was the motive” for the murder.
Mr Baughan said: “The relationship brought shame and dishonour on the family that drove the accused to murder Mr Ghorbani-Zarin to vindicate the family’s honour.”
He added that in November 2003 the treatment to which Miss Begum’s family subjected her led to her slitting her wrists. Ambulance staff were contacted and Mr Ali and his wife refused to let them in, pushing Miss Begum out of the house and causing her head to hit the pavement, the court was told.
In the week before his murder Mr Ghorbani-Zarin had shown friends a scan of his unborn child, inviting them to his forthcoming wedding. Mr Ghorbani-Zarin, an electronic engineering student at Oxford Brookes University, was described by Mr Baughan as “fun-loving” with a great sense of humour and “without an enemy in the world”.
On realising Miss Begum was expecting his baby, he quit his course and got a job at a toy store, intending to provide for his family, the court was told.
To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor
Contact: James E. Geoffrey, II, of the Helsinki Commission, 202-225-1901
News Advisory:
Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), Chairman of the United States Helsinki Commission, announced that the Commission will hold a press conference to discuss recent attacks on the Coptic Christian community in Egypt. The press conference will be held on:
Wednesday, Nov. 9, 11 a.m. to Noon
WHERE: 430 Dirksen Building
Media interested in participating should contact James Geoffrey, director of Communications, at 202-225-2054, or by e-mail at James.Geoffrey@mail.house.gov. Please indicate PRESS CONFERENCE on the subject line of the e-mail response.
---
The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, is a U.S. Government agency that monitors progress in the implementation of the provisions of the 1975 Helsinki Accords. The Commission consists of nine members from the United States Senate, nine from the House of Representatives, and one member each from the Departments of State, Defense and Commerce
Chirac promises firm hand as violence highlights criminality in poor areas
Police clash with
angry youths in Aulnay-sous-Bois, near Paris, on Tuesday night.
Travers / EPA via Sipa Press
Updated: 9:32 a.m. ET Nov. 2, 2005
PARIS - French President Jacques Chirac, intervening after six nights of rioting
in suburban Paris, called Wednesday for calm and said authorities will use a firm
hand to curtail what may become a “dangerous situation.”
The violence, sparked initially by the deaths of two teenagers, has exposed the despair, anger and deep-rooted criminality in the poor suburbs, where police hesitate to venture and which have proved fertile terrain for Islamic extremists.
“The law must be applied firmly and in a spirit of dialogue and respect,” Chirac said at a Cabinet meeting. “The absence of dialogue and an escalation of a lack of respect will lead to a dangerous situation.” Chirac’s remarks were passed on to reporters by government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope.
The rioting, which spread Tuesday night to at least nine Paris-region towns, has exposed rifts in Chirac’s government, with Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy — a potential 2007 presidential candidate — being criticized for his tough talk and police tactics.
It also has renewed debate about France’s failure to fully integrate its millions of immigrants, many of whom are trapped in poverty and grinding unemployment, living in low-cost, sometimes decrepit, suburban housing estates where gangs dealing drugs and stolen goods sometimes are in control.
'Profound frustrations'
That Chirac intervened personally was a measure of the crisis. He acknowledged
the “profound frustrations” of troubled neighborhoods but said violence
was not the answer and that efforts must be stepped up to combat it.
“Zones without law cannot exist in the republic,” the French leader said.
In Tuesday night’s clashes, riot police fired rubber bullets at advancing gangs of youths in Aulnay-sous-Bois, where 15 cars were burned, officials said. Youths lobbed Molotov cocktails at an annex to the town hall and threw stones at the firehouse. It was not immediately clear whether there were any injuries.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told Europe-1 radio that police detained 34 people overnight.
Sarkozy — blamed by many for fanning the violence with his “zero-tolerance” approach to suburban crime — defended his approach and vowed to restore calm. He recently called rioters “scum” and vowed to “clean out” troubled suburbs.
Housing projects to the north and northeast of Paris are heavily populated by North African Muslim immigrants.
Because of the unrest, Sarkozy canceled a visit to Pakistan and Afghanistan planned to begin Sunday, his office announced Wednesday.
Investigation planned
The rioting began Thursday in the northeastern suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois after
the electrocutions of two teenagers hiding in a power substation because they
believed police were chasing them.
Officials have said police were not pursuing the boys, aged 17 and 15.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin met Tuesday evening with the parents of the three families, promising a full investigation of the deaths and insisting on “the need to restore calm.”
In the northeastern suburb of Bondy, 14 cars were burned and four people arrested for throwing stones at police, authorities said.
The Vatican called the beheading of three Indonesian girls from a Christian high school a barbaric act and said that the Pope was praying for peace among the people of the region.
Unidentified assailants attacked a group of girls from a private Christian school in the tense province of Central Sulawesi, beheading three and seriously wounding another. Police said that one of the heads was left in front of a new Christian church and the others near a police station.
Joaquín Navarro-Valls, the Vatican spokesman, said: “The Holy Father charged Monsignor Joseph Theodorus Suwatan, the Bishop of Manado, to offer his heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and the diocesan community.”
Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation, but Central Sulawesi has a roughly equal number of Muslims and Christians. A sectarian war in the region in 2001 and 2002 killed about 1,000 people from both communities. Beheadings, burnings and other atrocities were common. The Government mediated a truce, but the killing of Christians resumed. (AP)
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - An obscure Kashmiri militant group claimed responsibility on Sunday for bomb blasts in India's capital which killed at least 59 people, but analysts said it was probably a front for a larger Pakistan-based group.
New Delhi has so far refused to speculate on who was behind Saturday's trio
of blasts, but security experts see the hand of Lashkar-e-Taiba (Force of the
Pure) behind the attacks, in an attempt to derail the peace process between India
and Pakistan.
The explosions took place within half an hour in markets packed with shoppers
just days before major Hindu and Muslim festivals. Many of the victims were women
and children.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blamed terrorists, but said it was too early to say who was behind the attacks.
On Sunday, the Islami Inqilabi Mahaz (Islamic Revolutionary Group), telephoned
local newspapers in Indian
Kashmir to claim responsibility for the blasts and warn of more to come.
Delhi Police said they were verifying the claim.
"This is a very old organization, it was formed in 1996 and has not been very active recently. They are linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba," Joint Commissioner of Police Karnal Singh told a news conference.
Singh denied local media reports that police had detained 20 people. "We have only questioned some people during investigations. We will crack this soon," he said, adding that the death toll stood at 59 while 210 were wounded.
Rohan Gunaratna, a Singapore-based expert on terrorism, said the blasts were almost certainly carried out by groups from the subcontinent but inspired by the methods of al Qaeda.
"It is very likely the attacks were meant to affect the peace process between Pakistan and India," he said.
"SENSE OF FEAR"
More than 110 people were still in hospital, many of them critically injured, some with severe burns.
Delhi's chief minister appealed for people to stay away from public areas for the next few days ahead of the major Hindu celebration of Diwali, or the festival of lights, on Tuesday and the Islamic Eid al-Fitr a few days later.
The markets where the blasts occurred opened on Sunday but were almost empty.
There were also scares at two fairs in the capital on Sunday after an unattended bag was found at one and information received about a bomb at another. The schools where the fairs were being held were searched, but no bombs found.
Elsewhere, extra armed police manned new barricades on the streets and the turnout at some temples and mosques was lower than normal on a cool, clear autumn day.
"There is some sense of fear, obviously," said 40-year-old resident Mohammad Salim.
LIFE GOES ON
But the scene at India Gate, a monument in the heart of New Delhi, was like any other holiday. Dozens of teenagers played cricket on the lawns, and domestic and foreign tourists were walking around and taking photographs.
Hawkers and ice cream sellers were doing brisk business.
"It is a sad event but life has to go on," said Meenakshi Dutta, a tourist from Kolkata.
The attacks were also not seen hurting stock markets.
"The blasts are negative but I don't see a major fall in stocks ... as the market has already been through a tailspin in the past few sessions," said Arun Kejriwal, strategist at Mumbai research firm KRIS.
The blasts came as Indian and Pakistani officials meeting in Islamabad agreed to open their Kashmir frontier to help victims of this month's devastating earthquake, the latest step in a peace process opposed by Kashmiri separatists.
Pakistan, the United Nations, the United States and other countries condemned the attacks.
India has blamed previous attacks on Pakistan-based militants. But the country is also racked by scores of revolts and in May two blasts blamed on Sikh separatists killed one person and wounded dozens in Delhi.
The blasts struck two markets and near a bus at another as dusk fell across the capital of 14 million people, a time when bazaars were packed with people shopping for special sweets and last minute presents for the coming festivals.
In Alexandria, Egyptians stand Saturday where thousands of Muslims rioted.
ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AP) -- Thousands of police manned barricades around Christian
places of worship in this Mediterranean coastal city Saturday after seething sectarian
tension spilled into the streets.
Egypt's top Muslim and Christian leaders called for calm Saturday, a day after
5,000 Muslim rioters rampaged through two predominantly Christian neighborhoods
in Alexandria. The attack on churches and shops constituted Egypt's worst Muslim-Christian
violence in five years.
The violence sparked clashes with rubber bullet-firing police in which two rioters and two policemen were killed, police and hospital officials said Saturday on condition of anonymity. At least 90 people were injured.
The violence followed a week of protests over a stage play deemed offensive to Muslims and performed two years earlier in the St. George's Coptic Church, which was one of seven churches attacked. Although unnoticed at the time, the play was recorded by someone and distributed on DVD recently, angering a large section of Alexandria's predominantly Muslim community.
Local political leaders and security officials claim local hard-line Islamists were behind the release of the DVD to coincide with next month's parliamentary elections. The Islamists are being accused of trying to tarnish a Coptic Christian candidate on the ruling National Democratic Party's ticket in Alexandria's impoverished constituency of Ghorbal.
But Maher Khalah, one of two Copts running as NDP candidates throughout this mainly Sunni Muslim country, announced later Saturday that he was withdrawing from the election race because of the violence and to prevent any reccurrence.
"This violence is not about the DVD, it is all about the elections," Khalah told The Associated Press.
A senior security official also blamed Islamic extremists for spreading rumors of Copts handing out DVDs showing the play, which is entitled "I Was Blind But Now I Can See." The play tells the story of a young Christian who converts to Islam and becomes disillusioned.
Worries of violence spreading
Coptic Christians account for about 10 percent of Egypt's 72 million population
and generally live in harmony with the Muslim majority. But violence flares occasionally,
particularly in small southern communities. Many Copts also complain of discrimination.
Friday's violence was the bloodiest since January 2000, when 23 mainly Christians were killed after an argument between a Coptic shopkeeper and a Muslim customer degenerated into street battles in el-Kusheh, south of Cairo.
In a joint-statement, Coptic Orthodox Church head Pope Shenouda III and Egypt's highest Islamic authority, Grand Sheik of al-Azhar Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, urged Christians and Muslims to resort to dialogue instead of violence.
"We call on everyone to be calm so we can spread the grace of peace, security and affection among us," the statement said. "If something happened and was misunderstood, then it is our duty to deal with it in the spirit of dialogue and understanding."
Shenouda was scheduled to visit Alexandria on Saturday for his annual Ramadan fast-breaking meal with Muslim officials, but canceled because of the violence, church leaders said.
The protests over the DVD started October 14, and Islamic leaders accused Copts of distributing DVD copies of the play. The church denied having any role in the production or distribution of the DVDs and refused Islamist demands to apologize.
Coptic community leader Kamil Sediq warned that the repercussions of Friday's violence could spread to Cairo and other provinces and stressed that Copts would not be apologizing over the DVD.
"We're not going to apologize because we don't want it to become a precedent," said Sediq of the Coptic Community Council, a secular body of prominent Copts established in 1874 to oversee affairs of the community. "We did nothing to apologize for."
P.O. Box 661336, Los Angeles, CA 90066
calcopts@sbcglobal.net
October 19, 2005
Press Release
Coptic Christians in Alexandria, Egypt, attacked by Muslim Mob.
A nun was stabbed on the chest and the back. One of her fingers was severed. A
Coptic man was injured.
It all started on last Friday, October 14, 2005, when a crowd of about 500
angry Muslims demonstrated in front of St. George Coptic Orthodox church in Moharam
Bey, Alexandria. The demonstrators came from the near by mosque after the Friday
prayers and as a result of being inflamed by the mosques Imam. They were chanting
anti Christian slogans and hurling rocks at the church.
Yesterday, Tuesday October 18, 2005, the situation intensified. Another crowd
of angry Muslims demonstrated in front of Virgin Mary Coptic Orthodox church in
the same area. They attacked a nun several times by a knife from the back and
one piercing stab on her chest. Also they severed one of her fingers. She was
rushed to the hospital where she underwent an emergency surgery. Her condition
is serious. Another man was also stabbed, but his condition is stable.
The new wave of sectarian strife was caused by a CD that was being distributed
of a play that was shown in the church about 2 years ago. The play discusses the
subject of polygamy in Islam. Muslims charge that the play smeared the Islamic
faith, and demanded a public apology from Pope Shenouda, the head of the Coptic
church. Those who conducted the play maintain that the play was meant to be educational
and that it didn't include any wrong information about Islam.
The situation in Alexandria, Egypt is escalating with threats of burning the church,
verbal abuses and physical attacks.
We ask religious, human rights organizations and all freedom loving people to
intervene on behalf of the helpless Coptic Christian minority of Egypt.
Please call the White House and members of the Congress to demand President
Mubarak protection of the Christians of Egypt.
French judges rule against Algerian cleric, women's groups rejoice
REUTERS
Updated: 10:59 a.m. ET Oct. 14, 2005
LYON, France - A Muslim prayer leader expelled from France to his native Algeria
for defending wife-beating received a suspended prison sentence and a fine in
absentia on Friday for approving attacks on women.
A local feminist group hailed the decision by the Lyon appeals court to sentence Abdelkader Bouziane to a suspended six-month jail term and a fine of 2,000 euros ($2,398) for inciting an attack that was not carried out.
“This ruling says the law protects women no matter what religion their husbands have,” said Michele Vianes, head of the group. “It is very important for all self-proclaimed imams who say the Koran is above French law.”
Bouziane, who has two wives and 16 children, became a symbol of Islamic fundamentalism in France last year when the magazine Lyon Mag quoted him as saying the Koran allowed husbands to beat unfaithful wives.
Twice expelled
Amid a public outcry over his comments, he was summarily expelled to Algeria,
where he had not lived since 1979. When an appeals court ruled his expulsion illegal,
he returned to France, only to be expelled again for disturbing public order.
Another Lyon court had originally found him innocent of incitement to battery, saying he had only recounted what was contained in the Koran, the sacred scripture of Islam.
However, the prosecutor’s office and two Lyon feminist groups sued him on appeal and won. Bouziane’s lawyer said he would now seek an appeal in a higher court.
Bouziane, a prayer leader in the Lyon suburb of Venissieux, said after the uproar broke out that he was only stating what was actually in the Koran and not giving his opinion.
Law makes expulsion easier
However, the French parliament moved quickly to approve a law making it easier
to expel foreign imams suspected of preaching radical views such as second-class
status for women or hatred of Jews.
France, whose five-million-strong Muslim community is Europe’s largest Islamic minority, has about 1,200 imams. Most are poorly trained and many speak little or no French.
Paris has been trying to set up university courses to train imams, hoping that would promote a moderate Islam among them, but this effort has been stymied by the official separation of church and state and no such training has been arranged.
 |
| Coptic Christians form about 10% of the Egyptian population |
Saturday 15 October 2005, 3:35 Makka Time, 0:35 GMT
Coptic Christians form about 10% of the Egyptian population
About 3000 Muslims have protested angrily outside a Coptic Christian church in the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria, charging that a drama that was presented in the church was offensive to Islam.
City authorities dispatched about 200 police to St Gergis church in the Muharram Bec neighbourhood in Alexandria on Friday to keep the demonstrators from entering and disrupting the play.
The production features a poor Christian university student who converts to Islam when a group of Muslim men promise him much-needed money.
When he becomes disenchanted with his decision, the men threaten him with physical violence to prevent him from returning to his original faith.
DVDs of the performance, entitled I Was Blind But Now I Can See, were being distributed by Coptic Christians, who make up about 10% of Egypt's population of 70 million.
Abdel Moneim Mahmoud, a Muslim in Alexandria, said that he had watched a recording of the play and found it "offending".
The protesters have given the church a week to apologise and dismiss its priest, Aljazeera's correspondent in Egypt said.
Negative portrayal
"It tells you how Muslims are all terrorist and how they deceive Christians to convert to Islam either by force or money," Mahmoud said.
Church officials could not be reached for comment.
Accusations of forced conversions are routine in Egypt.
In December, angry Copts protested in Cairo for four days and clashed with police when the wife of a priest fled her home in the south to convert to Islam.
She later returned home and resumed practising Christianity.
Aljazeera + Agencies
(CNN) -- Terrorists brought death to Indonesia's Bali paradise for the second time in three years, as blasts killed at least 26 people at two resort spots packed with tourists.
The blasts struck the seaside area of Jimbaran Bay and the bar and shopping hub of Kuta, 30 kilometers (19 miles) away at about 8 p.m. Saturday night (8 a.m. ET).
In addition to the 26 fatalities, hospital officials said 102 people were wounded. One of those who died was a 16-year-old Australian boy, officials said, while South Koreans, Americans, Japanese and Britons were among those wounded.
Earlier, officials said 36 people had died, but on Sunday morning, Sanglah Hospital in Bali -- charged with overseeing the emergency response -- reduced the number of dead to 26.
A hospital emergency room where victims were treated resembled a war zone, journalist Sean Mulcahy told CNN. "The ground is just covered in blood, people walking around with arms missing," said Mulcahy, who, at the time of the blasts, happened to be next door to a restaurant that was hit in the town of Kuta.
The attack came almost exactly three years after terrorists bombed Kuta nightclubs on October 12, 2002 -- killing 202 people.
"People were just starting to build up confidence again, and to have this happen was devastating for the locals. But I think it's the nail in the coffin for people coming to this place," Mulcahy said.
Video of the scene in Kuta showed windows of several upscale stores shattered, glass littering the street, and the awning of Raja's noodle house blown askew.
Maria Bakkalapulo, a journalist who arrived at Kuta about an hour after the
blasts, said it appeared a bomb detonated inside Raja's, which "was pretty
much gutted."
Hallmarks of terror group
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono condemned Saturday's bombings as an act of terrorism. There were no claims of responsibility.
But terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna told CNN that the attacks had the hallmarks of Jemaah Islamiyah -- a Southeast Asian terrorist group with ties to al Qaeda.
"There is no other group with this level of capability," he said.
The 2002 bombings were blamed on Jemaah Islamiyah.
Four key militants involved in the 2002 attack have been sentenced -- three to death -- while dozens of others have also been convicted.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan joined Yudhoyono in condemning the latest attacks in Bali, as did other world leaders.
The White House issued a statement Saturday offering sympathy to victims, "their families and the people of Bali who have suffered meaningless violence before. We also express our solidarity with the government of Indonesia and convey our readiness to assist in any way."
Australian Prime Minister John Howard told the Nine television network on Sunday morning that he was horrified and deeply saddened by the attacks, which he characterized as an attempt to undermine democracy in Indonesia.
He said Australia was offering medical evacuation facilities to Indonesia for anybody wounded in the blasts. In a statement, Qantas Airways said it would send a special flight Sunday to bring Australians home.
Kuta and Jimbaran -- the other resort spot targeted -- were "chock-a-block" with tourists celebrating a holiday weekend, Mulcahy said.
It was a school holiday for Australians, and many had traveled to Bali for
the weekend, he added.
'Tried to save myself'
In the Jimbaran attack, two explosions tore through a long row of outdoor tables at a beachfront cafe where tourists often gather to watch the sun set, Mulcahy said. The blast sites were about 40 meters apart, he said.
Ketut Suartana, 33, told Reuters he was eating when the first Jimbaran bomb exploded.
"We were eating and suddenly it just went dark," Suartana said from a hospital bed, where he was treated for scratches on his face and chest.
"I tried to run but I kept falling over. Then the second blast happened. People were in panic. I just tried to save myself."
Mulcahy -- who felt the blast while inside a restaurant next to Raja's -- had plans to dine with friends at Jimbaran, but the streets were backed up with heavy traffic so they headed to Kuta, instead.
"Had we gone to Jimbaran, we would more than likely be dead," Mulcahy said.
The attack left tourists filled with "fear and terror," and they are fleeing their hotels in Bali with suitcases in hand, Mulcahy said.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told Australia's ABC radio that a 16-year-old Australian boy was among those killed, and there were "grave fears" for two other Australians.
Downer said it appeared most of those killed were Indonesian. He said 17 Australians were among the injured. Local media reports also said several foreigners are among those wounded.
So far 15 bodies had been identified, according to Reuters news agency, quoting hospital officials. It said among the dead were 12 Indonesians, including a six-year-old boy, two Australians and a Japanese national.
The wounded included 17 Australians, six South Koreans, three Americans, three Japanese and one Briton.
Downer said Australia was sending a response team to Bali, and Australian Federal
Police were ready to work with their Indonesian colleagues in investigating the
attacks.
Warnings of terrorism
Shortly after Saturday's blast, Yudhoyono addressed the nation on state television, expressing his concern and condemning what he called a terrorist attack.
"These were clearly acts of terrorism because the victims were indiscriminately chosen and the targets were public areas. As president and on behalf of the Republic of Indonesia, I strongly condemn these inhuman acts," the leader said.
Yudhoyono said he had received intelligence information in July about terrorist elements in Malaysia and Philippines planning to target Indonesia, and had increased security in Jakarta and Bali as a precaution.
Recently, Yudhoyono issued a warning that terrorist cells inside the country were still active, despite hundreds of arrests.
Several other governments, including the United States, had warned about a high terrorist threat to foreigners in Indonesia ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins next week.
A report issued in early September warned that Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, may be planning a series of attacks in October, dubbed "The Great Ramadan Offensive."
On Friday the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta reiterated its warning of last May that the threat of terrorism is high and Americans there should be vigilant.
"Attacks could occur at any time and could be directed against any location, including those frequented by foreigners and identifiably American or other western facilities or businesses in Indonesia," the message said.
The island of Bali -- a popular spot for international tourists -- is a Hindu enclave in Indonesia, which has the highest Muslim population of any nation in the world.
The Australian government warned immediately after the Saturday night blasts that the possibility of further explosions could not be ruled out. It urged Australians in Bali to remain in their hotels.
Aside from the 2002 Bali attack, there have been a number of other terrorist incidents in Indonesia in recent years.
The Australian embassy in Jakarta was bombed in September 2004 in an attack that left 10 people dead, while in August 2003, 12 people were killed after a suicide bomber struck the J.W. Marriott hotel in Jakarta. Both attacks were blamed on JI.
Australia and the United States consider Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir to be the spiritual head of JI.
In March this year, Ba'asyir was sentenced to 30 months in jail for involvement in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings, but was cleared of all other terror-related charges, including those related to the Marriott Hotel bombing.
CNN's Elaine Quijano and Geoff Hiscock, and journalists John Aglionby and Maria Ressa contributed to this report.
NORFOLK, Neb. (AP) -- Muslim employees at the Tyson Fresh Meats plant in Norfolk have agreed not to strike pending negotiations of alleged religious discrimination by management.
The meeting between both sides on Friday was productive, said Fardusa Council, a negotiator for the Muslim employees. All Muslim employees had planed to strike if a resolution was not reached, but that is being put on hold as the two sides work together, she said.
The employees are alleging that they are being denied the right to pray --
something that they say was previously approved by Tyson officials, said Ahmed
Hashi, a spokesman for the Muslim population in Norfolk.
Council said Tyson officials were open-minded and committed to reaching an agreement.
"I've got a good feeling that we'll reach an amicable agreement," Council said.
Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson said the company was likewise encouraged by the meeting.
"It was an opportunity for us to listen to their concerns and an opportunity for us to share our position," said Mickelson, a spokesman at the company's headquarters in Dakota Dunes, S.D.
The situation began to come to a head last Friday when 10 Muslim employees walked off of the job. Subsequently, the 10 individuals were counseled for violation of Tyson's policies and the union's labor agreement with the company.
Mickelson said the same 10 deliberately walked off the job the following day and were fired as a result.
The Muslim faith requires five prayers, or "salats," during the day, one each at dawn, midday, mid-afternoon, sunset and nightfall. If the prayer is not completed within a specified amount of time, the prayer is then considered void.
Mickelson said the Tyson plant provides a prayer room for Muslims and that plant officials consistently are trying to work with the religious leaders to accommodate prayer time.
"However, because we're a manufacturing operation, we're not able to let everyone leave the production line at the same time without shutting down entire sections of our operations," Mickelson said. "Since we have more than 200 Muslims working our second shift, this has sometimes been a point of contention and misunderstanding."
Plant manager Randy Sexton agreed to take action immediately if there are reports of discrimination.
Shamso Ahmed, one of the Tyson employees to walk out, said she's hopeful a decision will be reached that will benefit both sides. Said Yousuf, a member of Tyson's union, agreed.
"We'd like to keep our job and keep our religion," Yousuf said.
 |
| ISLAMABAD, Pakistan |
Osama bin Laden is hiding out with a small core of mainly Arab supporters, and the al-Qaida leader now only sends messages by courier because his communications network has been destroyed, senior Pakistani military and intelligence officials said Sunday.
There have been no fresh clues to bin Laden's whereabouts, but he generally
is believed to be in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"In our opinion, the reports on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden are more
speculative stories rather than based on accurate intelligence," said Maj.
Gen. Shaukat Sultan, chief spokesman for Pakistan's army.
Pakistan has deployed some 80,000 troops to its rugged border regions running along Afghanistan, fighting intense battles with al-Qaida-linked militants.
CBS' "60 Minutes" will report Sunday that Pakistani officials believe bin Laden may be hiding in Afghanistan, where he is protected by a very small number of people to keep a low profile.
A Pakistani intelligence official in the northwestern city of Peshawar, near the Afghan border, said bin Laden probably is accompanied by "dozens" of mainly Arab supporters. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the secretive nature of his job.
Security officials in Pakistan — Washington's front-line Muslim ally in the war on terrorism — also believe bin Laden's communications network has been destroyed.
"For a very long time there are no intercepts about Osama bin Laden giving instructions to his regional commanders, either through radio, telephone, satellite phone or the Internet," a senior security official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject.
"If he is unable to give orders physically or otherwise, it clearly indicates that his communication has been severed."
In the past, bin Laden would be surrounded by up to 500 people, the Peshawar-based intelligence official said, adding that his communications network has been reduced to human couriers, where a message "changes several hands" between its point of origin and final destination.
"This is a very slow and exposed way of communicating," the official said.
Security forces seized a letter from bin Laden during a raid in Rawalpindi in 2003 in which al-Qaida's then-No. 3 leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed — a suspected planner of the Sept. 11 attacks — was captured. Mohammed is believed to have received the letter via the courier network, the official said.
Pakistani officials say more than 700 al-Qaida suspects, including senior figures like Mohammed, have been arrested.
Officials also say that information gleaned from al-Qaida has led to the arrests of militants outside Pakistan and helped prevent terrorist attacks abroad.
"The arrest of Naeem Noor Khan led to the arrest of a big gang ... ahead of the British elections," Sultan said, claiming that the people arrested in Britain planned to attack Heathrow Airport.
Last year, intelligence agents arrested Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, 25, an alleged Pakistani computer expert for al-Qaida. A reported tip-off from Khan led to the arrest of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian on the FBI's most-wanted list for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed more than 200 people.
There were media reports that Mohammed Sidique Khan — one of the suspected bombers in the deadly July 7 explosions in London — may have had ties with members of an alleged terrorist cell that matched information from Noor Khan's computer.
Iran is ready to share its nuclear technology, considered to be a front for bomb-making by Washington, with other Islamic countries, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying on Thursday.
The comments were likely to heighten Western concerns about Tehran's nuclear
program just ahead of a key meeting of the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog this month
which could decide to refer Iran to the
"The Islamic Republic never seeks weapons of mass destruction and with respect
to the needs of Islamic countries, we are ready to transfer nuclear know-how to
these countries," the official IRNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
The remarks were made during a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan
on the sidelines of the
United Nations General Assembly in New York, IRNA said.
Washington and its allies say Iran has failed to provide full and timely information about its nuclear program and are alarmed that Tehran last month broke U.N. seals at a uranium processing facility.
A vote on sending Iran's nuclear case to the U.N. Security Council may be taken
at a meeting of the
International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) board on September 19. However, Western
diplomats acknowledge that many non-aligned countries and the IAEA itself oppose
referring Iran at this stage.
Seeking to avert referral to the Security Council, which could impose sanctions, Iran is engaged in intense lobbying for support from non-aligned countries at the U.N. summit.
'NOT THE PRESSING QUESTION'
Iran state media reported that Ahmadinejad, who took office last month, had also held meetings with the leaders of Kuwait, Lebanon, Jordan and Chile in New York.
A British Foreign Office spokesman said it was not clear what Ahamdinejad's offer to Islamic countries involved.
"In any case, this is not the pressing question," he said. "The issue is the lack of confidence in Iran's nuclear program as a result of two decades of non-disclosures and concealment."
Iran insists it has every right as a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to develop a full atomic program to generate electricity.
"We have firmly decided to use this technology for peaceful purposes within the framework of the NPT, international regulations and cooperation with the IAEA," IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
Turkey has said it plans to generate about five percent of its energy demand by 2012 from nuclear power through the construction of reactors with 4,500 megawatt (MW) capacity.
Like Iran, Egypt has been accused of carrying out undeclared nuclear work which Cairo says was linked solely to peaceful applications such as power generation and desalinization.
Saudi Arabia has said it is open to IAEA inspections but is not interested in developing either a nuclear weapons or power program.
Iran, which received much of its own nuclear know-how from Islamic neighbor and nuclear weapons power Pakistan, says it wants to produce at least 6,000 MW from nuclear power by 2021 with eventual plans to generate 20,000 MW from atomic reactors.
CWNews.com –In the Philippines, militant Muslims are warning church leaders that, quote, "blood will flow" if they continue to minister to Muslims. But, I met some Muslim converts who are standing firm in their Christian faith.
Yusef is now dependent on a wheelchair to move him around. We’ve protected his identity. Last year, an assassin shot him twice for evangelizing Muslims. One bullet is still lodged in his spine causing paralysis from his chest to his feet.
Yusef was born a Muslim, but 5 years ago, he converted to Christianity when an uncle introduced him to Christ. Yusef says he immediately began to experience miracles in his life.
One of those miracles, Yusef said, "I was a heavy smoker, but after I
received Christ, I stopped smoking instantly." He experienced another miracle
when God enabled him to read despite the fact that all his life, he never went
to school.
.
Yusef quoted Matthew 21:22 which says: "If you believe you will receive whatever
you ask for in prayer.” He said, “I really asked God to enable me
to read, so He can use my life."
Yusef has really put his new ability to work for ministry. He reads and memorizes Bible verses and boldly shares the good news of salvation to his family and his neighbors.
To some Muslims, he disgraced Islam. So his own family tried to kill him. But Yusef remained strong, defending the Christian faith.
Yusef's story is one among a growing number of Filipino Muslims who have converted to Christianity.
Pastor Rudy is a former Muslim himself; he is also receiving death threats. He says persecution against Muslim converts has intensified in the past three years because radical Wahabi Muslims have arrived in the Philippines from the Middle East.
Pastor Rudy told us, "They are threatening the members of the church to stop being Christians and go back to being Muslims. They threaten to kill them, to kidnap them, to harass their family."
The Pastor says radical Muslims are trying to entice new Christians to return to Islam by offering them a house and property, free education for their children and $6,000 in cash.
“Some members,” the Pastor commented, "were doubting if they should go on with Christianity. So, in our commitment as leaders, we tell them we are willing to die for Jesus. A lot of them are willing to stand for their faith in Jesus Christ because we leaders have been setting a good example."
A fishing community locally is a predominantly Muslim area. But in a home, 28 Muslims who have converted to Christianity come here every Wednesday to meet and attend literacy classes. On Sundays, they come here to have worship services.
Although their lives have been threatened, they continue living out their new found faith.
Just recently, Filipino Christian leaders received this nationwide email threat from radical Muslims:
It orders them to "pull out your workers before anything happens to them." It gave a warning to "stop holding seminars on how to convert our people"…if not, "war will be inevitable...blood will flow."
Members of one congregation all belong to the same Muslim tribe. Some have been beaten and abused by family members and friends.
Despite ongoing threats, many of the new Christian converts say no amount of persecution can shake their faith.
And what has become of Yusef? His parents and his siblings accepted Christ because of his determined faith.
In addition, Yusef has been offered help to have the bullet in his spine removed. But his desire to continue serving God keeps him from proceeding with the surgery.
Yusef explained why. "If I am unable to speak, as a result of the operation, I would rather stay like this. What is important to me is that I can still witness. That makes me happy. I believe that this is only temporary. One day God will make me walk again."
Late on Saturday evening 3 September, a riotous, murderous Muslim
mob from the West Bank village of Deir Jarir attacked the
neighbouring Christian village of Taiba, northeast of Ramallah. They
came armed with clubs, kerosene and Molotov cocktails, chanting,
"Let's burn the infidels, let's burn the Crusaders." Residents were
beaten, houses were looted and cars were burned. At least 13 homes
were torched. The attack lasted until the early hours of Sunday
morning when Palestinian Authority (PA) security police finally made
it through the Israeli checkpoints.
DAMMAM, Saudi Arabia - Saudi security forces stormed a villa where Islamic militants were holed up Tuesday, ending three days of fierce fighting that killed four policemen and a number of militants, a security official said.
Gunfire and explosions rocked the district in the eastern Saudi city of Dammam
for hours Tuesday morning as special forces dropped off by helicopter besieged
the villa. At one point, an explosion blasted debris and sent smoke out of a neighboring
building.
After noon, the fighting fell silent, and special forces buses were seen leaving
the area. A security official confirmed that the fighting had ended and police
were clearing the scene.
Some charred bodies were found inside the building, the official said, adding that four security troops were killed and 10 wounded during three days of fighting.
The official spoke condition of anonymity because of Interior Ministry rules. State-run television quoted unnamed security officials giving the same information.
Police cordoned off the entire Mubarakiah district in Dammam, 250 miles northeast of the capital, Riyadh.
The Interior Ministry has said the gunmen were affiliated with a "deviant group" — a term Saudis usually use for the local branch of al-Qaida. The terrorist network wants to topple the Saudi royal family because of its close ties with the West, particularly the United States.
The fighting began Sunday when running battles between police and militants erupted in a seafront district of Dammam, killing two militants before other fighters fled to the apartment building, where they holed up.
Residents were kept awake on Monday by sporadic gunfire and the deafening explosions of rocket-propelled grenades fired by the special forces at the villa.
A convoy of security vehicles brought in fresh troops and ammunition Tuesday morning. A line of ambulances was parked at the perimeter of the battle zone.
Late Monday night, officials at Dammam Central Hospital said about 30 Saudi police officers had been admitted, and some were critically wounded.
Security officials declined to give overall figures for the dead and wounded.
But late Monday, a security official said one of the two militants killed Sunday was No. 3 on the country's most-wanted list. He was identified as Zaid Saad Zaid al-Samari, 31, a Saudi sought in connection with the numerous terror attacks launched in the kingdom since May 2003.
The shootout caused the U.S. Embassy to close the American consulate in Dhahran, 15 miles southwest of Dammam, on Monday.
Since May 2003, Islamic militants have carried out numerous attacks, suicide bombings and kidnappings in the kingdom, tending to target Westerners in a bid to cripple the economy. Westerners occupy important positions in the oil industry.
The violence in Dammam flared as U.S. Homeland Security adviser Frances Townsend met King Abdullah and other top Saudi officials Monday in Riyadh. The deputy commander of the U.S. Central Command, Air Force Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, also met the Saudi deputy defense minister, Prince Khalid Bin Sultan.
Sunday, September 4th, 2005 (The Brandon Sun) http://www.brandonsun.com/pfstory.php?story_id=2643
OTTAWA (CP) - Protesters will take to the streets this week in cities from Amsterdam to Victoria, all because of a bureaucratic proposal that would allow Islamic law to be used in Ontario family arbitration cases.
The long-delayed decision on whether to formally include - and regulate - Shariah religious arbitration in the province has raised alarms among Canadian and European women's groups, dissidents from hardline Islamic states such as Iran, human-rights activists, writers and humanist advocates.
Almost 100 organizations have banded together under the banner of the International Campaign against Shariah Court in Canada. On Thursday, they'll march in six European cities and at least five in Canada.
Ottawa, Toronto and Waterloo, Ont., Montreal and Victoria all have protests planned, along with Amsterdam, Dusseldorf, Gutenberg, Stockholm, London and Paris.
Sohaila Sharifi, an Iranian emigrant who is organizing the protest in front of the Canadian High Commission in London, said the Ontario situation is emblematic of a global battle between secular societies and "political Islam."
"If they win this fight in Canada, there is always the possibility that they would see it as a victory that could bring them one step forward," Sharifi said in an e-mail exchange.
"They would use the same argument to establish the same religious system here in Europe and elsewhere."
The "they" in question represent an odd, informal coalition of hardline Islamic fundamentalists, mainstream Muslim groups and a former NDP attorney general from Ontario who studied the issue at length and came up with the current proposal.
But Marion Boyd's vision of provincially regulated religious arbitration - an existing 15-year-old system that would be further tightened under the mantle of Ontario family law and Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms - bears little resemblance to the Shariah law being debated by warring camps.
The Boyd report was prompted by a retired Muslim lawyer, who in 2003 announced he was setting up the Islamic Institute for Civil Justice to train arbitrators to use Ontario's existing arbitration act. But Syed Mumtaz Ali's view of Shariah was unabashedly fundamentalist and political.
The Ontario government ducked for cover by asking Boyd to examine the issue. It has sat on her report since last December.
In the meantime, opponents have dug in.
"The volatility of the debate has a lot to do with what people have experienced . . . in countries like Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, where there is no doubt that Islamic law - particularly these medieval rules of law - are being enforced in various ways and have the effect of discriminating against women," said Anver Emon, an American scholar in Islamic law recently hired by the University of Toronto.
But Emon said both extremes in the debate are choosing to define Islamic law as a medieval model that simply will not fit in the modern Canadian context.
"What's interesting is both of these (warring) groups have the same conception of Shariah: it's these medieval rules," he said.
"Both of them adopt the same definition and both adopt the kind of fundamentalism about the law that you find in the Wahhabi circles: that Islamic law is nothing more than this strict, really rigorous, fundamentalist, literal reading of the Qur'an, the traditions of the prophet and these medieval rules.
"My retort is, certainly the process of Shariah is a very different conception than simply the rules of Shariah."
Emon said there's an entire medieval legal theory in Islamic law "that no one seems to be talking about."
That theory, said Emon, explains Islamic law as an interpretive process in which the norms and cultures of society are constantly engaged to construct a legal system.
But try telling that to advocates such as Michele Vianes, president of the Paris-based group Regards de femmes.
In France, proponents of Shariah courts have served to isolate young Muslim girls, for instance, by insisting they must not consort with males, even in school classrooms.
Political Islam doesn't recognize secular law, Vienes said in an interview.
"For all Europeans, women particularly, we think Canada is a country where women's rights are very strong. For us, it is unbelievable that Shariah institutes are possible in Canada."
Their protests this week, she said, are aimed both at sending a clear message to their own governments and to the current attorney general of Ontario.
"We hope that all together we can make a difference, change the law in Ontario and (make) Mr. Michael Bryant change his mind."
(RNS) The Vatican was on high alert Aug. 26 after two written threats, but a spokesman for the Holy See said it had no reason to think the threats -- which mentioned Pope Benedict XVI by name -- were especially credible.
The threats, which were faxed to a Spanish television station and newspaper earlier in the week, carried the heading "The Pope of the Vatican Goes to War," and were signed by an unknown person named D. Abdouh. The document said that after years of neutrality, the Vatican has come out against the Islamic world since Benedict became pope in April.
"The Vatican ... has moved to support the Christian side of the countries in the world, and if possible, the Catholic side," the document said. "The tendency of the Vatican (in the past) was to not take part in numerous wars."
The document went on to say: "Many children of Islam signed themselves up to the ranks of those who fight Western terrorism, with sincerity, following what ... intellectuals say through the media and motivated by the speeches of (U.S. President) George Bush, (Italian Premier) Silvio Berlusconi, and (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair. The new head of the Catholics, Benedict XVI, has launched a powerful message against these fighters."
Berlusconi and Blair head the two European governments most closely allied with the U.S.-led war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Vatican is located within Berlusconi's Italy.
The document said the pontiff's remarks to Muslim leaders during the recent World Youth Day activities in Cologne, Germany, proved that the Holy See was an integral part of the Western coalition that has pitted itself against Islam.
In Cologne, Benedict met with Muslim leaders and said they had "a great responsibility" to educate young Muslims about the evils of extremism, telling the Muslim leadership, "I am certain that I echo your thoughts when I bring up the concern of the spread of terrorism."
Some media reports pointed out that Benedict was subtly redefining Vatican relations with Islam, departing from the more conciliatory overtures of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, to forge an approach that presses for reform.
A Vatican press office official said the charges in the threats were groundless, pointing out that the Vatican has not taken a stand against Islam, but against Islamic extremists. The Vatican also opposes non-Islamic extremists, he said.
"The statements are not based on fact, but the threat could still be very real," the spokesman said.
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24 top former officials in Saddam Hussein's regime, including
a biological weapons expert known as "Dr. Germ," have been released
from jail, while a militant group released a video Monday of the purported killing
of an American hostage.
