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2010 NewsAugust 30, 2010Libyan Leader Urges People to Convert to Islam During Trip to Rome
Aug. 29: Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi gestures as he arrives at Ciampino airport, near Rome. ROME -- Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi gave a lesson on Islam and copies of the Koran to a few hundred young Italian women as he arrived in Rome for his fourth visit in a year. Some participants identifying themselves as Roman Catholics in this overwhelmingly Catholic country, said Qaddafi had urged others to convert to Islam and had dismissed Christianity as unimportant. Michela, who asked that her last name not be used, told Associated Press Television News that three of the participants converted to Islam on the spot Sunday. "It was a really beautiful meeting and went very well," she said. "He is very easygoing and he gave us a copy of the Quran. Three girls converted themselves to Islam during the ceremony. It was a beautiful event."
It was the second time the Libyan leader -- who travels with female bodyguards and fancies himself a self-styled feminist -- had staged such an event for Italian women, who were recruited by a modeling agency and paid an undisclosed sum to attend. Between 200 and 500 young women attended, arriving 10 buses at the Libyan ambassador's residence just as Gadhafi's plane was landing at Rome's Ciampino airport at the start of a two-day visit. The visit, amid steadily improving business ties between Libya and its former colonial ruler, also marks the second anniversary of a friendship treaty in which Italy agreed to pay Libya $5 billion as compensation for its 30-year occupation, which ended in 1943. When Qaddafi was in Italy in November for a U.N. food summit, he hosted 200 young Italian women who had been recruited and paid about $75 by the same modeling agency to attend. Then, too, he gave a lecture on Islam and handed out copies of the Koran. This time around, the women wouldn't say how much they had been paid, only that they had received a small "reimbursement." During his first visit to Italy in June, 2009, Gadhafi invited 700 prominent Italian businesswomen and female politicians to listen to a lecture in which he criticized Islam's treatment of women but also suggested male relatives should decide if a woman can drive. As part of the friendship treaty anniversary celebrations, some 30 Libyan horses were arriving in Rome to take part in a joint demonstration with Italy's carabinieri equestrian forces on Monday, news reports said. Qaddafi made his first visit to Italy in June, proclaiming a new era in relations following the friendship treaty. But that first visit also was marked by a symbolic demonstration that the wounds of colonialism still ran deep: He arrived wearing a black-and-white photo pinned to his military uniform of a Libyan national hero killed by Italian colonial authorities. Qaddafi sported no such photo upon arrival Sunday at Ciampino, where he was greeted by Foreign Minister Franco Frattini. Despite the colonial past, Italy and Libya have long had good ties, and major Italian corporations such as oil giant Eni have invested heavily in the oil-and-gas rich country. Libya's central bank, meanwhile, has a 4 percent share in Italy's largest bank UniCredit, which earlier this month won the first international license to operate in the North African country.
July 16, 2010Pastor killed by gunman
Artur Suleimanov (49), himself a convert from Islam, was murdered by a gunman who approached and opened fire as the pastor got into a car outside Hosanna House of Prayer in the capital, Makhachkala, on Thursday July 15. He died from his wounds in hospital around an hour later. Nobody else was injured in the attack. Pastor Suleimanov leaves behind a wife, Zina, and five children, the youngest of whom is twelve years old. Mr Suleimanov’s church is one of the largest Protestant churches in Dagestan. In a context where Christians face regular harassment and intimidation, his life had been threatened on several previous occasions. Barnabas Aid has supported Christians in Dagestan, and our co-ordinator for the Former Soviet Union met Pastor Suleimanov a number of times. He said, “Pastor Suleimanov was a wonderful Christian brother and his shocking death is a devastating loss for the Dagestan church. He and the Hosanna House of Prayer church were very active in ministry and outreach in particular. We see his murder as an attempt to put further pressure on Christian converts in Dagestan.” Please pray
May 21, 2010After minarets, will Switzerland ban burqas too?Full Muslim face veils could become the next divisive religious issue to take centre stage in Switzerland, where voters last November approved a measure banning the construction of new minarets. The Swiss federal government said in February it saw no need for a “burqa ban.” Politicians at the national level say there’s no “burqa problem” in Switzerland. But few thought there was a “minaret problem” either, until the question was put to a national referendum and the minaret ban campaigners won. Like the minarets, of which there are only four in Switzerland, there are very few veiled women in Switzerland. The most likely place to see them is Geneva, where many rich Middle Easterners do their banking. Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey recently told the newspaper Blick that she’sd once seen fully veiled women there and was “furious, because the burqa is a symbol of the enslavement of women.” But she insisted to her interviewers: “I’m against burqas. And I’m against a burqa ban … we don’t have a burqa problem in Switzerland. Very few women wear a burqa here. Have you even seen one?” Similarly, Economy Minister Doris Leuthard, who is also serving this year as the country’s president, has said “we’ve got much tougher, more important problems.” Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf has said “we don’t really have a burqa problem in Switzerland now.” She did add, though, that she was watching to see whether a “parallel society” was developing. “We are not ready to let our legal system and our values be compromised,” she said. Down at the cantonal level, though, things may be moving. The legislature in the canton of Aargau has voted overwhelmingly to propose a national bill to outlaw full face veils. Two more canton legislatures, in Bern and Solothurn, are reported to be ready to do the same. Will these initiatives lead to a national ban? It’ss too early to say. But the minaret ban idea started at the regional level, too, in Zurich canton, and turned into a national referendum that ended in a surprise. It will be worth watching to see if Switzerland looks likely to follow the example of Belgium and France. April 29, 2010Franklin Graham Retained as Speaker at National Day of Prayer Event
April 29, 2010EXCLUSIVE: U.N. Elects Iran to Commission on Women's RightsWithout fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest."
NEW YORK — Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest." Just days after Iran abandoned a high-profile bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, it began a covert campaign to claim a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women, which is "dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women," according to its website. Buried 2,000 words deep in a U.N. press release distributed Wednesday on the filling of "vacancies in subsidiary bodies," was the stark announcement: Iran, along with representatives from 10 other nations, was "elected by acclamation," meaning that no open vote was requested or required by any member states — including the United States. The U.S. currently holds one of the 45 seats on the body, a position set to expire in 2012. The U.S. Mission to the U.N. did not return requests for comment on whether it actively opposed elevating Iran to the women's commission. Iran's election comes just a week after one of its senior clerics declared that women who wear revealing clothing are to blame for earthquakes, a statement that created an international uproar — but little affected their bid to become an international arbiter of women's rights. "Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes," said the respected cleric, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi. As word of Iran's intention to join the women's commission came out, a group of Iranian activists circulated a petition to the U.N. asking that member states oppose its election. "Iran's discriminatory laws demonstrate that the Islamic Republic does not believe in gender equality," reads the letter, signed by 214 activists and endorsed by over a dozen human rights bodies. The letter draws a dark picture of the status of women in Iran: "women lack the ability to choose their husbands, have no independent right to education after marriage, no right to divorce, no right to child custody, have no protection from violent treatment in public spaces, are restricted by quotas for women's admission at universities, and are arrested, beaten, and imprisoned for peacefully seeking change of such laws." The Commission on the Status of Women is supposed to conduct review of nations that violate women's rights, issue reports detailing their failings, and monitor their success in improving women's equality. Yet critics of Iran's human rights record say the country has taken "every conceivable step" to deter women's equality. "In the past year, it has arrested and jailed mothers of peaceful civil rights protesters," wrote three prominent democracy and human rights activists in an op-ed published online Tuesday by Foreign Policy Magazine. "It has charged women who were seeking equality in the social sphere — as wives, daughters and mothers — with threatening national security, subjecting many to hours of harrowing interrogation. Its prison guards have beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted and raped female and male civil rights protesters." Iran's elevation to the commission comes as a black eye just days after the U.S. helped lead a successful effort to keep Iran off the Human Rights Council, which is already dominated by nations that are judged by human rights advocates as chronic violators of essential freedoms. The current membership of the women's commission is little different. Though it touts itself as "the principal global policy-making body" on women's rights, the makeup of the commission is mostly determined by geography and its membership is a hodge-podge of some human rights advocates (including the U.S., Japan, and Germany) and other nations with stark histories of rights violations. The number of seats on the commission is based on the number of countries in a region, no matter how small their populations or how scant their respect for rights. The commission is currently made up of 13 members from Africa, 11 from Asia, nine from Latin America and the Caribbean, eight from Western Europe and North America, and four from Eastern Europe. During this round of "elections," which were not competitive and in which no real votes were cast, two seats opened up for the Asian bloc for the 2011-2015 period. Only two nations put forward candidates to fill empty spots — Iran and Thailand. As at most such commissions in the U.N., backroom deals determined who would gain new seats at the women's rights body. The activists' letter sent to the U.N. Tuesday argued that it would be better if the Asian countries proffered only one candidate, instead of elevating Iran to the commission. "We, a group of gender-equality activists, believe that for the sake of women's rights globally, an empty seat for the Asia group on (the commission) is much preferable to Iran's membership. We are writing to alert you to the highly negative ramifications of Iran’ss membership in this international body." A spokeswoman for the U.N.'s Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which oversees the commission, did not return phone calls or e-mails seeking comment. When its term begins in 2011, Iran will be joined by 10 other countries: Belgium, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Estonia, Georgia, Jamaica, Iran, Liberia, the Netherlands, Spain, Thailand and Zimbabwe. April 22, 2010Army withdraws Franklin Graham Pentagon prayer day invitationBy Jeff Schogol, Stars and Stripes ARLINGTON, Va. — The Army has disinvited Franklin Graham to speak at the Pentagon on National Prayer Day after a military advocacy group objected because Graham has reportedly described Islam as “evil” and “wicked.” “I regret that the Army felt it was necessary to rescind their invitation to the National Day of Prayer Task Force to participate in the Pentagon’ss special prayer service,” Graham said in a statement on Thursday. I want to express my strong support for the United States military and all
our troops. I will continue to pray that God will give them guidance, wisdom
and protection as they serve this great country.” The group had been prepared to seek a temporary restraining order against National Prayer Day if it were “polluted by someone as hideously Islamophobic as Franklin Graham,” said Mikey Weinstein, head of the group. In a 2001 op-ed piece, Graham wrote that he does not believe Muslims are evil, but he objects to the treatment of women in Muslim countries and Islam’ss historic “persecution or elimination” of other religions. On Thursday, Graham told Fox News that while he loves Muslims, “I speak out for people that live under Islam, that are enslaved by Islam and I want them to know they can be free through faith in Jesus Christ and Christ alone.”Council on American Islamic Relations spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said it is “completely inappropriate” for Graham to speak in front of a military audience. “These are individuals who are potentially going to be stationed in Muslim majority nations, and they don’st need to hear from someone spreading hatred of Islam and Muslims,” Hooper said. “What does that say to those who are going to be asked to serve in these regions and how is that going to affect their interaction with the local population?” Graham is honorary chairman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, a group that organizes Christian events that was invited to participate in National Day of Prayer by the Pentagon chaplain’ss office. An Army spokesman told the Associated Press the Pentagon’ss relationship with the Christian group does not violate Defense Department rules. We are an all-inclusive military,” said Col. Tim Collins. “We hold observances throughout the year. This one happens to be a Christian-themed event.” But his comments were criticized by the Secular Coalition for America, an advocacy for non-religious Americans. “For the Pentagon to hold an explicitly ‘Christian-themed event’s around the day of prayer is brazenly out of all reasonable bounds, and explicitly exclusionary to U.S. servicemembers of all non-Christian faiths and of no faith,” group Executive Director Sean Faircloth said in a release. March 29, 2010Double suicide bombings kill 38 on Moscow subway
Reuters – A woman cries as Interior Ministry officers block her way in front of the exit of Lubyanka metro station … By DAVID NOWAK, Associated Press Writer March 11, 20106 killed, 8 injured in Pakistan firingIslamabad, Mar 11: Unidentified attackers killed six aid workers of US-based
charity organisation World Vision and injured eight others in Mansehra, a remote
village in Pakistan, on Wednesday, Dawn reported on Thursday. Two women were
among those killed According to the report, a government official said the
attack appeared to be the work of militants, added that an inquiry had been
ordered into the incident. "The assailants were from different ethnic groups. They spoke Urdu, Hindko
and Pashto. They rounded up the aid workers while shouting at them that they
had been warned to stop spreading obscenity," an official quoted an injured
worker as saying. The attackers lobbed grenades while leaving that destroyed the building. The charity organisation has been working in the area since the October 2005 earthquake, helping women and children. March 09, 2010Women, kids among 300 killed in Nigeria on SundayPublished on Tue, Mar 09, 2010 at 15:43, Updated on Tue, Mar 09, 2010 at 16:54 in World section
February 24, 2010The Center for Democracy and Human rights in Saudi Arabia, CDHR, Washington, DC.An Influential Saudi Cleric Calls for Beheading of Apostates For Immediate Release Contact: Dr. Ali alyami Washington, DC (February 24, 2010). The Washington-based Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia unequivocally denounces Shaikh Abdulrahman Al-Barrak call for the beheading of those who initiate or accept gender mingling in schools or in the work place. “They should be given one chance to repent, but if they do not, they should be considered apostate and beheaded,” Al-Barrak said. Al-Barrak published his Fatwa, a religious edict, on his website, which is read by Muslims all over the world. The Saudi clerics (the religious branch of the government) participate fully in ruling Saudi Arabia. They are in total control of the country's sectarian and arbitrary judicial system as well as its educational institutions, including approval of schoolbooks. Despite King Abdullah's cosmetic judicial and educational reforms, he and his large and diverse family (tribe) are keenly aware that the only base of legitimacy and source of power, which ensure their control of the country and its disenfranchised people, is the strength and ruthlessness of the theocratic establishment, which Shaikh Al-Barrak represents. Even if King Abdullah is serious about reforms, and most Saudis do not think he is but cannot say so, he is primarily accountable to his powerful and competing senior brothers who can easily override his decisions and/or render him powerless altogether. Saudi Arabia's domestic policies affect most Muslims across the world. This is due to Saudi Arabia's centrality to Islam, control of its holy sites in Mecca and Medina, and influx of petrodollars. The Saudi autocratic and theocratic regime uses these powerful assets to exert its disproportionate influence and impose its will on Muslim communities worldwide. The Saudi government does this by exporting its stringent Wahhabi ideology, bribing heads of states, building religious schools and mosques wherever it wishes including in the US. This is the reason Muslim countries, represented by the Organization for Islamic Conference, OIC, sign up for whatever the Saudi ruling family wishes them to do. Because of Saudi Arabia's powerful religious and financial influence in the Muslim World, transforming Saudi educational and religious institutions should be President Obama and Secretary Clinton's first foreign policy order of business in the Muslim World. Appointing an American Muslim envoy to the OIC by the Administration strengthens and legitimizes the Saudi extremist religious ideology, Wahhabism, at home and throughout the world. http://www.alwatan.com.sa/news/newsdetail.asp?issueno=3435&id=137688&groupID=0
February 03, 2010Muslim Chaplain Arrested for Allegedly Trying to Smuggle Razor Blades Into NYC JailAuthorities say a New York jails chaplain has been charged with trying to
smuggle three razor blades and a pair of scissors into a facility. January 7, 2010Muslims kill at least 7 Christians in Southern EgyptBy SARAH El DEEB, Associated Press Writer Sarah El Deeb, Associated Press Writer CAIRO – Three men in a car sprayed automatic gunfire into a crowd of churchgoers in southern Egyptian as they left a midnight Mass for Coptic Christmas, killing at least seven people in a drive-by shooting, the church bishop and security officials said. Egypt's Interior Ministry said the attack Wednesday just before midnight was suspected as retaliation for the November rape of a Muslim girl by a Christian man in the same town. The statement said witnesses have identified the lead attacker. The attack took place in the town of Nag Hamadi in Qena province, about 40 miles from the famous ancient ruins of Luxor. A local security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed that seven were dead and three seriously wounded. Bishop Kirollos of the Nag Hamadi Diocese told The Associated Press six male churchgoers and one security guard were killed. He said he had left St. John's church just minutes before the attack. "A driving car swerved near me, so I took the back door. By the time I shook hands with someone at the gate, I heard the mayhem, lots of machine gun shots," he said in a telephone interview. He said he saw five bodies lying on the ground when he first looked at the site of the shooting, about 600 yards where he was. The bishop said he was concerned about violence on the eve of Coptic Christmas, which falls on Thursday, because of previous threats following the rape of the 12-year-old girl in November. He got a message on his mobile phone saying: "It is your turn." "I did nothing with it. My faithful were also receiving threats in the streets, some shouting at them: 'We will not let you have festivities,'" he said. Because of the threats, he said he ended his Christmas Mass one hour early. He said Muslim residents of Nag Hamadi and neighboring villages rioted for five days in November and torched and damaged Christian properties in the area after the rape. "For days, I had expected something to happen on Christmas day," he said. The bishop said police have now asked him to stay at home for fear of further violence. Qena is one of Egypt's poorest and most conservative areas. Christians, mostly Coptic, account for about 10 percent of Egypt's predominantly Muslim population. As Islamic conservatism gains ground, Christians have increasingly complained about discrimination by the Muslim majority. Clashes between Muslims and Christians are not uncommon in southern Egypt and in recent years have begun seeping into the capital. An Amnesty International report said sectarian attacks on the Coptic Christian community, comprising between 6 million and 8 million people in Egypt, increased in the year 2008. Sporadic clashes between Coptic Christians and Muslims left eight people dead. Vendetta killing is also common among southern Egyptians, and is usually over land or family disputes. The bishop said he had an idea of who the attackers were, calling them "Muslim radicals." "It is all religious now. This is a religious war about how they can finish off the Christians in Egypt," he said.
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A
dynamic Christian pastor has died after being shot in the head as he was
leaving church, in what is being seen as a bid to intimidate converts from
Islam in the strongly Islamic republic of Dagestan.
Fort Lauderdale, FL (April 29, 2010) — Coral Ridge Ministries today applauded
the decision of U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt and other members of Congress to
retain Rev. Franklin Graham as a speaker at a Capitol Hill National Day of
Prayer event, May 6.
