Bangladesh Islamist Leader Sentenced to Death

AL JAZEERA ENGLISH: Jamaat-e-Islami's Assistant Secretary-General ordered to be hanged after prosecution challenged his life sentence.

Bangladesh's top court has sentenced a senior Islamist opposition leader to death for mass murder during the country's 1971 liberation war against Pakistan.

Abdul Quader Molla, 65, the fourth-highest-ranked leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, is the first politician to be found guilty by the country's Supreme Court after it overturned an appeal to acquit him of all charges.

"The court enhanced his life sentence to the death penalty," prosecutor Mohammad Ali said on Tuesday. » | Source: Al Jazeera and agencies | Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Fitna Still Causing Outrage in Pakistan
AFP: KARACHI — Thousands of Pakistani women rallied here Saturday to protest against Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed and a Dutch film said to insult Islam, witnesses said.

The women shouted "death to Denmark and death to Netherlands," as they marched about a kilometre (less than a mile) on a busy street.

Police said up to 4,000 women, mostly from an Islamic party, took part in the noisy demonstration, venting anger against the Internet release of a 15-minute film last month by far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders and publication of the Prophet caricatures.

In a resolution the rally urged the government to cease diplomatic ties with Denmark and the Netherlands and expel their envoys.

"We will defend the honour of our prophet and our religion at the cost of our lives," the fundamentalist Jamaat-i-Islami party said.

The Pakistan foreign ministry last month summoned the Dutch ambassador and lodged a "strong protest" over Wilders's film, which it said "deeply offended the sentiments of Muslims all over the world."

The cartoons originally appeared in a Danish newspaper in September 2005, sparking anger and protests across the Muslim world. Five people died in Pakistan in February 2006 during violent protests against the drawings.

At least 17 Danish dailies reprinted one of the cartoons in February, vowing to defend freedom of expression a day after police in Denmark foiled a plot to murder the cartoonist. [Source: Pakistani Islamic Women Protest 'Anti-Islam' Film, Cartoons]

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
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