“The bodies of hundreds of pro-democracy protesters in Uzbekistan are scarcely cold, and already the White House is looking for ways to dismiss them. The White House spokesman Scott McClellan said those shot dead in the city of Andijan included ‘Islamic terrorists’ offering armed resistance.”
Strategic interests ensure that the US backs Uzbek dictator Karimov to the hilt, argues Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan.
See also Islam Online, 15 May 2005
“Newsweek magazine may have apologized, but to many in the Muslim world, it’s too late and much too little…. Critics called it a strategic move in the face of the overwhelming and violent reaction. The report sparked protests in Afghanistan, where at least 15 were killed and more than 100 injured. Many Muslims believe Newsweek succumbed to pressure from the U.S. government to backtrack.”
You know, they could just have a point. Furthermore, as already noted, Newsweek‘s backtracking was ambiguous to say the least.
“The Left’s journalistic jihad against the War on Terror inspired the deaths of 16 Muslims, the injury of at least 100 more, the destruction of numerous Western buildings, and untold hatred for U.S. troops stationed in the Arab world – with a lie.”
Ben Johnson attacks Newsweek for reporting that torture of Guantánamo Bay detainees included the desecration of the Qur’an.
Front Page Magazine, 16 May 2005
However, in its forthcoming issue, Newsweek points out that it was “not the first to report allegations of desecrating the Qur’an. As early as last spring and summer, similar reports from released detainees started surfacing in British and Russian news reports, and in the Arab news agency Al-Jazeera; claims by other released detainees have been covered in other media since then.”
(See, for example, Al-Jazeera, 7 July 2004 or BBC News, 4 August 2004)
Reporter Evan Thomas also states that Newsweek has since contacted Marc Falkoff, a New York defence lawyer representing 13 Yemeni detainees at Guantánamo. “According to Falkoff’s declassified notes, a mass-suicide attempt – when 23 detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves in August 2003 – was triggered by a guard’s dropping a Qur’an and stomping on it. One of Falkoff’s clients told him, ‘Another detainee tried to kill himself after the guard took his Qur’an and threw it in the toilet’. A U.S. military spokesman, Army Col. Brad Blackner, dismissed the claims as unbelievable. ‘If you read the Al Qaeda training manual, they are trained to make allegations against the infidels,’ he said.”
So that’s alright, then. Along with other allegations of torture at Guantánamo, it’s all an Al Qaeda plot, aided and abetted by the “Left”.
For Juan Cole’s take on the Newsweek report, see Informed Comment, 16 May 2005
Austrian Muslims have expressed concerns at a modified immigration law, fearing Muslims would take the brunt of the new restrictions as they make up the majority of immigrants in the south-central European country.
“Many Muslims still don’t hold Austrian citizenship, which makes them vulnerable to the new bill,” Omar Al-Rawi, the Islamic Religious Authority (IRA)’s official in charge of the integration file, told IslamOnline.net. He said that the amendments, for example, regard humanitarian work and assistance for refugees as illegal and punishable by law.
“The amendments stipulate that illegal and unregistered residents could face deportation and subject those who provide them with shelter to prison terms,” added Rawi, who is also a Member of Parliament for the opposition Socialist party.
“The Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) condemns the latest attack on Islam and all that is sacred to the Muslims. The reported flushing of the Holy Quran down the toilet by US soldiers at Guantánamo Bay detention centre represents the extreme contempt held for Islam and Muslims by the perpetrators of this shameful act which regrettably has been nurtured by the policies of the US Administration at all levels.”
MAB press release, 14 May 2005
See also “Muslim outrage at desecration of Qur’an – President Bush must take responsibility”, Muslim Council of Britain press release, 15 May 2005
Louay Safi takes on Daniel Pipes and other Muslim bashers.
See also Insight weblog, 3 May 2005
“A Nottingham school has failed in its bid to become only the fourth Muslim state primary in the country. The independent Islamia School in Hyson Green had applied to become a voluntary-aided state school, which would entitle it to Government funding. But the school’s application has now been turned down by Nottingham’s School Organisation Committee, which is made up of city councillors, governors and church leaders.
“The decision has angered the school’s staff and members of the Muslim community…. Anas Altikriti, of the Muslim Association of Britain, which has supported similar applications, said: ‘The Muslim community in Nottingham have been dealt with unjustly. There will be huge disappointment, not just in the city’.”
Nottingham Evening Post, 13 May 2005
Still, Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch will be pleased. So will Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society who said: “We are relieved.”
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.
“Historian Bat Ye’or fears that it may already be too late to save Europe from Islam, and that the continent will be transformed into Eurabia. Should this come to pass, Eurabia will either slowly decline into just another overpopulated Islamic failure, or it will be used as a staging ground for Islamic aggression against the rest of the infidel world.”
But there is still hope, Wolfgang Bruno argues:
“The only way we can avoid this is by separation, by ending and reversing Muslim immigration. Muslim immigration is equivalent to playing Russian roulette with your own children. The worst case scenario is that the current trends continue unabated, triggering civil wars in several nations as the Muslim population reaches critical mass for an armed Jihad. A Balkanization of the continent would ensue. It may already be too late for the worst hit areas of Europe, but still not for the continent as whole.”
As I’ve pointed out before, an essay on Islam and women by Maryam Namazie of the Worker Communist Party of Iran is also available on this site. See here.