Shirin Ebadi Threatened with Death
Photo of Shirin Ebadi courtesy of the BBC
BBC: Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi has described receiving an increasing number of death threats.

They included notes pinned to the door of her office building in Tehran, warning her to "watch your tongue".

Ms Ebadi, an outspoken critic of Iran's leadership, said she had forwarded the threats to the chief of Iranian police.

She said last month: "When you believe in the correctness of your work, there is no reason to be afraid of anything."

In an interview, she told Reuters news agency that Iran's human rights record had regressed in the past two years, saying more dissidents were being jailed and more people were being executed.

Ms Ebadi, 60, won the Nobel prize in 2003 for her work in defending human rights.

She has received death threats before, but in a statement on Monday, she said: "Threats against my life and security and those of my family, which began some time ago, have intensified."

One of the anonymous, handwritten threats said: "Shirin Ebadi, your death is near."

They warned her against making speeches abroad, and defending Iran's minority Bahai community.

The Bahai faith is an offshoot of Islam, regarded as heretical by Iran's Shia establishment. [Source: Top Iranian Dissident Threatened] | April 14, 2008

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

”Abject Surrender to a Blatant Threat” from Saudi Arabia
"This investigation was blocked supposedly to protect our security, but it looks increasingly like it was done to protect BAE sales by appeasing the Saudi government. - Mr Clegg
THE TELEGRAPH: A bribery investigation into the biggest arms contract in British history could be reopened after the High Court condemned the Government's "abject surrender" to pressure from Saudi Arabia in blocking the inquiry.

Gordon Brown must decide whether he will uphold the decision of his predecessor, Tony Blair, and block a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) inquiry into BAE's £43 billion contract to sell warplanes and weapons systems to the Saudis.

Under pressure from Mr Blair and Lord Goldsmith, his attorney general, the SFO decided in December 2006 to end its investigation into allegations that BAE illegally paid as much as £1 billion in kickbacks to a senior Saudi prince during the 1980s and 1990s as part of the al-Yamamah deal.

The Government intervened after the Saudi government threatened to stop sharing intelligence on Islamic terrorist groups.
Mr Blair said that would have put British national security at risk. The Saudis are also said to have threatened to cancel a contract to buy 72 Eurofighter jets from BAE, but Mr Blair has always denied basing his decision on commercial grounds.

Britain is a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, whose founding treaty forbids halting criminal investigations for commercial reasons.

Lord Justice Moses and Mr Justice Sullivan have ruled that the SFO was wrong to drop the inquiry.

They condemned the Government's "abject surrender" to a "blatant threat" from a foreign country and ruled that Robert Wardle, the SFO director, had failed to satisfy the court that "all that could reasonably be done had been done to resist the threat". Brown Under Pressure to Re-Open Saudi Arms Inquiry >>> By Christopher Hope and James Kirkup | April 11, 2008

THE TELEGRAPH:
Extravagance Uncovered During Saudi Arms Probe: The Saudi princes and princesses were treated to every extravagance available when they were flown to the Hawaiian paradise island of Oahu in 1998 to enjoy the run of one of the world’s best hotels. The hotel had its own dolphins in a private blue lagoon, spas and “beach butlers” to provide face sprays, cooling drinks and sunshades By Christopher Hope and James Kirkup | April 11, 2008

THE GUARDIAN:
Listen to Guardian Audio - 'Brown Needs to Get the Locks Changed at Number 10': Simon Hill from the Campaign Against the Arms Trade wants the SFO to resume its investigation | April 11, 2008

THE GUARDIAN:
Cash, Contracts and Crown Princes By David Leigh | April 11, 2008

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

Wafa Sultan Threatened by Top Sheikh
WORLD NET DAILY: Wafa Sultan – the Syria-born psychiatrist whose Al Jazeera interview two years ago sent shockwaves throughout the Islamic world – reportedly is the target of a serious tacit death threat from an influential Muslim scholar in the wake of a second interview with the Arab satellite television network.

Al Jazeera issued an apology after Sultan's interview earlier this month, pointing to "offensive remarks" but never specifying anything she said. Since then, however, the prominent Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi of Egypt "has directed his rage against Sultan," writes author and Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer in FrontPage Magazine

Qaradawi said Sultan, a former Muslim, uttered "unbearable, ghastly things that made my hair stand on end." Specifically, "she had the audacity to publicly curse Allah, his prophet, the Quran, the history of Islam and the Islamic nation."

Spencer concludes, "These are serious charges, and Qaradawi states them in terms that his jihadist minions will understand as meaning that she must be killed. Bold ex-Muslim Threatened by Top Sheik >>>

Mark Alexander

Franco Frattini, the EU’s Justice and Interior Affairs Commissioner, Proposes EU-Wide Protection for Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Other Officials Threatened with Death
PR-INSIDE.COM: BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - The European Union's top justice official on Thursday proposed offering EU-wide protection to former Dutch lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali and other officials similarly threatened with death.


Franco Frattini, the EU's justice and interior affairs commissioner, said EU nations should draw up special measures to ensure Hirsi Ali and others in similar situations can move freely across the 27-nation bloc without fearing for their safety.

He said his plan won «unanimous» backing from EU justice and interior ministers, who agreed to draft rules to exchange and offer mutual recognition for people under national security protection.

Frattini said EU-wide regulation on the issue is important «to guarantee one of the most important rights: the rights of free movement.

«If you are not free, you are not safe,» Frattini said.

Hirsi Ali, the target of death threats over her criticism of radical Islam, has called on the EU for help with protection.

The Dutch government stopped paying for her security last October after she moved to the U.S., but Dutch authorities are keen to have the EU set up rules for cases like Hirsi Ali.

It was not clear whether Frattini's proposal would involve EU money or voluntary national funds used to pay for the security of people under special protection.

The Somali-born Hirsi Ali became the target of threats after writing the screenplay for the film «Submission,» a fictional study of abused Muslim women that includes scenes of near-naked women with Quranic texts engraved on their skin. EU justice chief proposes Europe-wide protection for ex-Dutch lawmaker Hirsi Ali ©AP >>>

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Al-Hesbah Forum Subscriber Posts Death Threats Against Dutch MP Geert Wilders
MEMRI: In response to reports of the imminent release of a film on the Koran by Dutch MP Geert Wilders, a subscriber on the Islamist Al-Hesbah forum (hosted by NOC4 Hosts Inc. in Florida, USA) posted a message containing death threats against Wilders, and urged the other forum members to copy it and circulate it on the Internet. Al-Hesbah Forum Subscriber Posts Death Threats Against Dutch MP Geert Wilders >>>

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

The Deafening Silence that Betrays Our Values
THE TELEGRAPH: Four weeks ago, the Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, expressed on these pages his concern at the lack of integration into British society of some Muslim communities living here. He has since received an enormous amount of support from private individuals for his remarks - as well as death threats from fanatics who said they would kill him unless he stopped criticising the religion of Islam (something which he insisted he was not doing).

The most striking aspect of the response to his article, however, has not been that bigoted and offensive reaction from a small number: it has been the almost complete silence from the Government on the issues he raised. Despite recent claims by ministers that they want to revise the policy of multiculturalism, and that they wish for a vigorous national debate on what should replace it, their reaction to this - and indeed to all other attempts to generate debate - has been deafening silence. You could be forgiven for thinking there is a conspiracy to prevent discussion of the issues that the bishop, and millions of other Britons, are so concerned about.

The official reluctance to confront those issues acts far more effectively than death threats to suppress their discussion. Yet questions of immigration and integration are amongst the most critically important faced by Britain. As we report today, thousands of women in Britain are being beaten, bullied, intimidated and indeed sometimes murdered by members of their own families - and it is being done in the name of their religion and of "traditional values". An investigation by the Centre for Social Cohesion has established that whole communities have been involved in suppressing their female members' wholly legitimate desire to marry whom they choose, to follow careers of their own, and to dress and live according to their own will, rather than at the command of a male relative. A deafening silence that betrays our values >>>

Hat tip: Jim Ball

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Muslim Extremists Call for Death Threats Against Geert Wilders’ Girlfriend and His Associates
MEMRI: On January 29, 2008, participants in the Islamist forum Al-Ikhlas, hosted by CrystalTech Web Hosting Inc., Phoenix, AZ, USA, posted an announcement calling, in the event that Geert Wilders releases his film, for death threats against his girlfriend and against anyone else associated with him.

The announcement also proposed sending letters to the media explaining that the threats are motivated by Wilders' attacks on the Koran, and urges forum members to recruit Muslim youth in Europe and to train them to make bombs to attack the Netherlands, which they called "an apostate country occupying Afghanistan." [Source: Islamists Call for Death Threats Against Geert Wilders' Girlfriend, Associates]

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Muslim Converts to Christianity in the UK under Threat of Death for Apostasy
With thanks to AlwaysOnWatch for drawing my attention to this documentary. This video is a ‘must watch’:

Watch the video ‘Unholy War’
Mark Alexander