Pictured: The Man Who Had His Nose and Ears Cut Off by the Taliban for Daring to Vote
MAIL ONLINE: Lal Mohammad was determined to stand against Taliban threats and exercise his right to vote in Afghanistan's presidential election.

But he now regrets his defiance.

These horrifying pictures show a fearful Mohammad recovering after he was ambushed by Taliban fighters as he walked to a polling station last week.

The 40-year-old farmer was beaten and mutilated. The Taliban cut off his ears and part of his nose in the shocking attack.

The Taliban vowed to disrupt the August 20 vote, threatening reprisals against voters and staging scores of rocket attacks and several bombings across the country on election day.


The threats and violence failed to stop the election from taking place, but they do seem to have hurt turnout in some areas, especially the Taliban heartland in the south.

Mohammad was in pain and in tears as he gave the gruesome account of his ordeal. >>> | Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Model Who Drank Beer to Be First Woman Caned in Malaysia
THE TELEGRAPH: Muslim model Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno has become the first woman in Malaysia to be sentenced to a caning after being caught drinking beer in a beach resort.

The 32-year-old will receive six lashes at a woman's prison next week in what is being viewed as an example of the growing influence of Islamic hardliners on the country.

The mother-of-two who lives in Singapore with her husband, paid a fine of £860, but declined to lodge an appeal so she could get the punishment over with and put the episode behind her.

The harsh sentence has provoked anger among women's rights groups who fear it is another sign of the creeping influence of conservative Islam on Malaysian society.

In the northern backwater state of Kalentan ruled by the hardline Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, authorities have decreed that supermarkets must have separate checkout queues for men and women and beaches be segregated.

Young couples caught sitting too close together on park benches in the state capital, Kota Baru, are hunted down by the city's moral enforcers and fined up to £285 in Sharia courts.

The Islamic alcohol prohibition laws in Malaysia's eastern Pahang state date back more than two decades. But Malaysian-born Kartika, who now has Singaporean citizenship, is the first woman to fall foul of them.

She was arrested in July last year in a hotel nightclub in the beach resort of Cherating during a raid by the state's religious department and admitted drinking beer.

An Islamic court fined her and ordered her to be caned at Kajang women's prison next week, but spared her a jail term of up to three years.

She received word of the sentence from her father and said she would be returning to Malaysia from Singapore.

"I accept the punishment," she said. "I am not afraid because I was ready to be punished from day one. [The authorities] hope to use my case as a way to educate Muslims. So go ahead. I want to move on with my life." >>> Ian MacKinnon in Bangkok | Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Barack Obama Tells Africa to Stop Blaming the West for Its Woes on Historic Ghana Visit
THE TELEGRAPH: Barack Obama has delivered the most challenging speech by a US leader in Africa for decades by castigating the continent's leadership for creating a culture of "brutality and bribery".

Adopting a tone his white predecessors never dared employ, the US President told Africa it could no longer blame the West for all its woes.

"Yes, a colonial map that made little sense bred conflict, and the West has often approached Africa as a patron, rather than a partner," he told the Ghanaian parliament. "But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants."

Seeking to jolt Africa's politicians out of a complacent belief that his shared ancestry with them would soften his rhetoric, Mr Obama spoke with withering directness.

Condemning tyrannical African leaders who "enrich themselves" amid the continent's chronic poverty, he promised fresh "partnerships" only with states that were well-governed.

For the kleptocrats and autocrats who still sprinkle the continent, he had a simple message: enough is enough.

"No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery," he said. "That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end."

Traditional "strong man" rulers must give way to "strong institutions" if they are to benefit from future Western assistance, he said.

"We have a responsibility to support those who act responsibly and to isolate those who don't," he told the country's parliament from a podium draped in traditional yellow and green kente cloth.

"Development depends on good governance, and that is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many countries. That's the change which can unlock African potential, but that is a responsibility which must be met by Africans.

"Africa's future is up to Africans." >>> Mike Pflanz in Accra | Saturday, July 11, 2009

Iran 'Has Arrested 2,000’ in Violent Crackdown on Dissent
TIMES ONLINE: More than 2,000 Iranians have been arrested and hundreds more have disappeared since the regime decided to crush dissent after the disputed presidential election, a leading human rights organisation said yesterday.

“A climate of terror and of fear reigns in Iran today,” the International Federation for Human Rights, an umbrella body for 155 human rights organisations, said as it released the startling figures.

Last night 3,000 protesters tried to gather outside a mosque in Tehran where they believed that Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated presidential candidate, was going to speak. The police rapidly dispersed them and Mr Mousavi never appeared.

Having largely suppressed such protests, the security forces are engaged in a purge of dissidents in an apparent effort to decapitate Mr Mousavi’s so-called green movement.

Prominent Iranian actors, actresses, writers and singers are believed to have been seized at the weekend for supporting the demonstrators. Several opposition bloggers have fallen silent, probably because they have been detained. Almost anyone who dares to challenge President Ahmadinejad’s re-election is now considered an enemy of the state.

At least one senior Mousavi aide and other unidentified Iranians have appeared on state television to “confess” that the demonstrations were part of a foreign conspiracy against the Islamic Republic.

Human Rights Watch says that the Basiji — volunteer Islamic militiamen — are raiding houses, beating civilians and destroying their cars and other property in an effort to silence the nightly rooftop chanting that has become the opposition’s last means of peaceful protest. “The Basiji entered our neighbourhood and started firing live rounds into the air, in the direction of the buildings from which they believe the shouting of ‘Allahu akbar’ [God is greatest] is coming from,” a middle-aged Tehran resident said. >>> Martin Fletcher | Monday, June 29, 2009

Iran: The Brutal Side of Theocracy
Photo: The Boston Globe

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 'Takes Back Tehran' with Hardliners, as Police Resort to Beatings
THE SUNDAY TIMES: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brought tens of thousands of supporters into the heart of Tehran tonight in a bid to take back the capital after a weekend of vicious running battles between state security forces and large crowds of Iranians who insist that Mr Ahmadinejad stole last Friday’s presidential election.

Chanting ’Allah o’Akbar” (God is great) and “Ahmadi we love you”, the army of zealous hardliners poured into the central square in a massive show of strength designed to intimidate the furious supporters of Mr Ahmadinejad’s relatively moderate opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi.

They came from far beyond Tehran. “The protestors are lying. There was no cheating,” declared Farang Kamalwand, 39, a chador-clad woman who had travelled 700 kilometres by bus from Lorestan. “We came to prove to people outside this country that we love and support our president,” said Karamollah Rahimi, a builder who had journeyed nine hours from Lordegan.

Mr Mousavi, 67, a former prime minister, has been in hiding since Friday night, but has issued a stream of internet statements urging his supporters to continue their nationwide protests against an election he called a “charade”: some results were announced before the ballot boxes had even been opened. Tonight, he appealed to the Guardian Council, a powerful body of senior clerics, to declare the election void.

Zahra Rahnavard, Mr Mousavi’s wife, accused Mr Ahmadinejad of “dictatorship”, saying: “The Iranian people voted to change Ahmadinejad, but this vote became a vote to solidify Ahmadinejad.” Mousavi aides accused the regime of mounting a “coup d’etat”.

Britain, the United States and other western governments expressed serious concern. Several leading reformists have been arrested including, briefly, the brother of Mohammed Khatami, the former president.

As the regime used overwhelming physical force, electronic jamming and censorship to suppress protests raging barely a mile from his presidential office, Mr Amadinejad gave a surreal, Orwellian press conference at which he called his victory an “epic achievement” that made Iran’s brand of religious democracy, with its emphasis on ethics, a model for the world. >>> Martin Fletcher in Tehran | Sunday, June 14, 2009

Police Accused of Alleged Brutality at Cologne Anti-Islam Rally
DEUTSCHE WELLE: Allegations of police brutality and human rights abuses by law enforcement officers in the German city of Cologne have surfaced in a news report.

The alleged abuses, including putting children and adolescents in cages, are supposed to have taken place during a demonstration against a far-right "Stop Islam" conference in Cologne last weekend.

The police were confronted before, during and after the event -- eventually abandoned on public safety grounds -- by extreme leftists who attempted to reach the square during the planned rally by anti-immigrant group Pro Cologne.

Der Spiegel magazine alleged on its Web site that hundreds of protestors, including 72 teenagers and three children, were taken to a detention center in the nearby town of Bruehl, and some had to stay in open air cages despite the cold temperatures.

The protestors said about 30 of them were kept in a 36 square-meter (388-square-foott [sic]) cage, and some of the teenagers were not allowed to call their parents or use the toilets, Der Spiegel Online said, adding that a lot of them were not released until the early hours of Sunday morning. Police Accused of Alleged Brutality at Cologne Anti-Islam Rally >>> | September 24, 2008

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The Brutality of Islam Has Britain in Its Grip
FRONTPAGEMAGAZINE.COM: A spate of grisly murders across Britain serves as a reminder of yet another of Islam’s dark traditions: "honor" killing.

By way of definition, an honor killing – a time-honored Muslim custom – is the murder of a female by members of her own family for sexually-related misconduct. This "misconduct" could involve anything ranging from adultery or being accused of adultery to wearing "inappropriate" clothes or wanting to marry someone other than who is chosen for you.

One recent act of "misconduct" was perpetrated by twenty-five year old Samaira Nazir of London. Spurning the offer of a pre-arranged marriage to a man chosen for her in Pakistan, she instead fell in love with an Afghan refuge, a Muslim also. For years she tried to keep the relationship secret, but in the end she could hide the truth no longer. The affair incensed her family and she was told to break things off. When she refused, it was decided that she should die. The Brutal Face of Islam (more) By Vasko Kohlmayer

Mark Alexander