2010 News

March 11, 2010

6 killed, 8 injured in Pakistan firing

Islamabad, 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.

A group of 12 to 13 gunmen stormed the offices of World Vision in Oghi, put all employees in one room and started shooting, Hazara Commissioner Waqar Ayub told Dawn.

"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.
Locals said that police watched as the attackers escaped into nearby mountains. They said the World Vision staff were not involved in any unethical activities.

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.

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March 09, 2010

Women, kids among 300 killed in Nigeria on Sunday

Published on Tue, Mar 09, 2010 at 15:43, Updated on Tue, Mar 09, 2010 at 16:54 in World section

As many as 300 people, many of them young children, were killed in Nigeria on Sunday. The latest communal bloodletting between Muslim and Christian villagers erupted near the central Nigerian city of Jos. Ongoing tensions over farmable land is thought to be at the root of the violence.

The majority of those slaughtered in the attacks were women and children who had tried to flee their homes after hearing gun shots outside.

They were hacked to death with machetes as they fled. Survivors blame the neighboring Fulani tribesmen for the massacre.

On Monday, Nigeria buried hundreds of victims of Sunday's sectarian clashes in mass graves in the country's central region. The latest communal bloodletting between Islamic pastoralists and Christian villagers erupted near the central Nigerian city of Jos, where sectarian violence killed hundreds in January.

The majority of those slaughtered in the early morning attacks were women and children who had tried to flee their homes after hearing gun shots outside, but were hacked to death with machetes as they came out. Survivors blamed the neighboring Fulani tribesmen for the massacre.

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In January, four days of sectarian clashes between mobs armed with guns, knives and machetes killed hundreds of people in Jos, the capital of Plateau state, which lies at the crossroads of Nigeria's Muslim north and predominantly Christian south.
The latest unrest in the volatile region comes at a difficult time for Nigeria, with Acting President Goodluck Jonathan trying to assert his authority while the country's ailing leader Umaru Yar'Adua remains too sick to govern.

Jonathan deployed hundreds of troops and police to quell January's unrest, in which community leaders put the death toll at more than 400 while official police figures estimated the death toll at 326.

The instability underscores the fragility of Africa's most populous nation as it approaches the campaign period for 2011 elections with uncertainty over who is in charge. The bloody aftermath of deadly clashes in Jos state in Nigeria. As many as 300 people, many of them young children, were killed in the attacks early on Sunday. Witnesses say Hausa-Faulani herders from surrounding hill areas attacked three villages around 3:00 am.

As the slain bodies were collected in the village of Dogo Nahawa, those who survived, like Moses Tarrok, described their ordeal. Aid workers say some bodies were charred, and some had been shot. It was not immediately clear what triggered the latest attacks, which left many in serious condition in hospital, though ongoing tensions between Muslim herders and Christians over farmable land is thought to be at the root of the violence.

Attacks between the two groups in January left at least 326 people dead in Jos province.
Never will the division inside minds of people will stop.

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February 24, 2010

The Center for Democracy and Human rights in Saudi Arabia, CDHR, Washington, DC.

www.cdhr.info

An Influential Saudi Cleric Calls for Beheading of Apostates

For Immediate Release

Contact: Dr. Ali alyami
Phone: 202-413-0084
ali@cdhr.info

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

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February 03, 2010

Muslim Chaplain Arrested for Allegedly Trying to Smuggle Razor Blades Into NYC Jail

Authorities say a New York jails chaplain has been charged with trying to smuggle three razor blades and a pair of scissors into a facility.

The Department of Investigation says 58-year-old Imam Zul-Qarnain Shahid was arrested at the Manhattan Detention Complex on Wednesday.

The department says Shahid was arrested on several charges, including four counts of promoting prison contraband in the first degree, a felony.

Officials say Shahid was arrested while entering the jailhouse when a bag he had brought with him triggered an alarm from the X-ray machine. Authorities discovered razor blades and scissors inside the bag.

No phone number was listed for Shahid at his Staten Island residence. It wasn't known whether he had an attorney.

A spokesman for the city Department of Correction had no comment.

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January 7, 2010

Muslims kill at least 7 Christians in Southern Egypt

By 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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2009 News