Revelations about the use of torture techniques used by US military forces that include the desecration of the Qur’an have sparked unrest across the Muslim world.
At least nine people were killed yesterday as a wave of anti-American demonstrations swept the Islamic world from the Gaza Strip to the Java Sea, the Times reports.
Arab American prosecutions symbolize the new American Gulag
By Ray Hanania
Arab Media Watch, May 13, 2005
If anyone in the Arab World has any doubts about the bankruptcy of the American pledge to bring Democracy and freedom to their country, all they need do is examine the case of Sami Al-Arian.
Al-Arian is one of four political prisoners being prosecuted for criticizing Israel, supporting the liberation of Palestine and opposing the Soviet war against Muslims, issues shared by nearly every citizen of the Arab World.
Next week, American prosecutors will pick a jury to hear charges that Al-Arian, 47, a former University at South Florida professor, raised money to support Palestinian and Islamic causes, and gave speeches denouncing Israel at rallies and conferences.
His co-defendants include: Sameeh Hammoudeh, 44, a former instructor and student at USF and an administrator at the Islamic Academy of Florida; Ghassan Zayed Ballut, 43, a small business owner who lived in Tinley Park, Ill.; and Hatem Naji Fariz, 32, who was manager of a medical clinic in Spring Hill, Florida.
Both Ballut and Fariz are also Arab American journalists who I know. While they are devout Muslims with strong political views critical of Israel, they have never engaged in anti-American activities or promoted violence.
None of the four defendants danced around handing out cookies on Sept. 11 after Al-Qaeda terrorists and followers of Osama Bin Laden crashed planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon or try to hit the White House.
Yet that is exactly why they can’t get a fair trial in America. They have been targeted unfairly as a part of the emotional wave of post-Sept. 11 anti-Arab hate that is sweeping this nation.
The United States and other countries have forcibly sent dozens of terror suspects to Egypt, according to a report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch. The rights group and the State Department have both said Egypt regularly uses extreme interrogation methods on detainees. The group said it had documented 63 cases since 1994 in which suspected Islamic militants were sent to Egypt for detention and interrogation. The figures do not include people seized after the attacks of September 2001 who were sent mainly by Middle East countries and American intelligence authorities. The report said the total number sent to Egypt since the Sept. 11 attacks could be as high as 200 people.
For the HRW report, see here.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on the Bush administration to launch a public probe of allegations that interrogators at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay flushed a Quran, Islam’s revealed text, down a toilet. At least four people were killed today in Afghanistan during protests over the alleged desecration.
A former US soldier who worked on interrogations at Guantanamo Bay has written a damning expose of the brutal, degrading treatment he says was meted out to prisoners there. Sgt Erik Saar’s book, Inside the Wire, comes with the US military’s treatment of prisoners in the spotlight due to court hearings over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. In an interview with the BBC, Sgt Saar says that bizarre, sexual abuses at the prison camp set dangerous precedents that paved the way for mistreatment of US detainees in Iraq.
“An informant who revealed an al-Qaeda plot to make and use deadly ricin poison in Britain is claiming that he was tortured before admitting his role in the conspiracy.”
Which might lead anyone other than the Times to conclude that it is highly questionable whether any plot or conspiracy took place at all.
It began with two 16-year-old immigrant girls arrested at dawn, detained far from home, and, in a chilling government assertion, called would-be suicide bombers who posed “an imminent threat to the security of the United States.” But now, after holding the girls for six weeks in a Pennsylvania detention center, the government has quietly released one of the girls and is allowing the other to leave the country with her family.
Hundreds of Muslims have taken part in marches through London and Blackburn to protest anti-terror legislation.
Saturday’s protests were organised by more than 50 Islamic organisations including Stop Political Terror and the Islamic Human Rights Commission.
Dr Adnan Siddiqui, an organiser of the London march, said: “This demonstration sends a clear message against the climate of fear that has been created.”
The Blackburn protest was aimed at the local MP, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
See also IHRC press release, 30 April 2005 and Islam Online, 30 April 2005
The spiraling rate of cyber-racism against Dutch Muslims is the direct result of policies adopted by the government and politicians against the Muslim minority in the country, said a Muslim activist.
“What else would you expect in a country whose rulers ignite hatred and discrimination both directly and indirectly?” asked Abdel-Rahim Kajouane, the director of the multicultural forum center in The Hague. “The policies sponsored by the Dutch government and politicians against Dutch Muslims, especially over the past few years, largely contributed to mounting discrimination,” he told IslamOnline.net.
The recent report by the Dutch monitoring center on racism and xenophobia indicated that incidents of cyber racism against ethnic minorities in the Netherlands went up to 1800 in 2004 from only 1300 in 2003. The report, released on Monday, April 25, said that Dutch Muslim bore the brunt of cyber racism, which spiraled to 409 incidents last year from 231 in 2003.
It maintained that the killing of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, blamed on a Muslim extremist, contributed to fueling racist attacks against the Muslim minority in the country. Van Gogh was widely known for his criticism of Islam and caused an uproar with his short film “Submission” about Islam and women. Dutch Muslims, who expressed disgust and outrage at the hatred-inciting 11-minute clip, swiftly condemned the killing of the filmmaker.
Kajouane, of Moroccan origin, accused several ministers and leading politicians of propagating discrimination through the media. “They are practicing discrimination by giving racist remarks and mobilizing citizens against certain “ethnic” groups,” he added.
This, said the activist, is being done as part of the government’s campaign against “radicalism and extremism,” for which the state allocated 900 million euros. Last January, Dutch authorities adopted new security measures to prevent Muslims from joining courses of diving, aviation, throwing and shooting under claims of “terror-combat”.
Kajouane warned that such government policies would undermine tolerance in the country. He further urged the Dutch politicians to avoid racist remarks against ethnic minorities in the country.
An alleged terror suspect yesterday launched his bid to become an MP from within the walls of Belmarsh high security prison. Babar Ahmad is fighting an attempt by the US government to extradite him to face charges that he raised money over the internet to support terrorism in Chechnya and Afghanistan.
The former IT worker, 30, is standing in the London seat of Brent North for Peace and Progress, the human rights party founded by the actors Corin and Vanessa Redgrave. His election literature calls for a tightening of extradition rules and an end to “police brutality and torture”.
At a press conference to launch Mr Ahmad’s campaign, Mr Redgrave said: “Electing Babar would be the most powerful message on human rights and justice that could be given. Just let the Americans try to say that an elected MP should be extradited.”
For the Free Babar Ahmad website, see here.