Saturday, June 25, 2011
Dans la communauté gay de New York, l'ambiance était à la fête vendredi soir. Le Sénat de l'Etat venait en effet d'approuver de justesse la loi reconnaissant le droit au mariage homosexuel, par 33 voix contre 29. Quatres sénateurs républicains se sont prononcés en faveur du texte. Le document avait besoin de 32 voix sur 62 pour être adopté. Cela faisait des années que cette chambre haute rejetait un projet de loi qui avait reçu quatre fois le feu vert de l'Assemblée.
Le Sénat était réuni depuis mardi en session extraordinaire pour peaufiner le texte. La loi, fortement amendée par les sénateurs républicains ces derniers jours, prévoit un certain nombre d'exceptions de nature religieuse. Le gouverneur Andrew Cuomo, fervent défenseur des droits des homosexuels et à l'origine du projet, est arrivé dans la salle après le vote et a été accueilli par des applaudissements. » | Par lefigaro.fr | Samedi 25 Juin 2011
THE NEW YORK TIMES: New York Allows Same-Sex Marriage, Becoming Largest State to Pass Law » | Nicholas Confessore and Michael Barbaro | Friday, June 24, 2011
Der Senat des US-Bundesstaates New York hat am späten Freitagabend (Ortszeit) der Einführung der sogenannten Homo-Ehe zugestimmt.
Wie die „New York Times“ berichtete, stimmten 33 Senatoren für die Zulassung gleichgeschlechtlicher Ehen, 29 dagegen. Zuvor hatte bereits das Unterhaus die Gesetzesvorlage gebilligt.
Die Unterzeichnung durch Gouverneur Andrew Cuomo, einem Befürworter der Initiative, galt als Formsache. Nach Inkrafttreten des Gesetztes, 30 Tage nach Unterschrift, wäre New York der sechste und bei weitem größte US-Bundesstaat, der Schwulen und Lesben die Heirat erlaubt. » | dpa/fbr | Samstag 25. Juni 2011
Prison guards in Iran are giving condoms to criminals and encouraging them to systematically rape young opposition activists locked up with them, according to accounts from inside the country's jail system.
A series of dramatic letters written by prisoners and families of imprisoned activists allege that authorities are intentionally facilitating mass rape and using it as a form of punishment.
Mehdi Mahmoudian, an outspoken member of Iran's Participation Front, a reformist political party, is among those prisoners who have succeeded in smuggling out letters revealing the extent of rape inside some of the most notorious prisons. » | Saeed Kamali Dehghan | Friday, June 24, 2011
THE INDEPENDENT: Security forces opened fire yesterday as thousands of anti-government protesters took to Syria's streets in a weekly ritual of defiance as they push for the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad, activists said.
At least seven people, including a child, were reported killed. Four were shot dead in Barzeh, a Damascus district, said human rights activist Mustafa Osso.
State television said unidentified "gunmen" had opened fire, killing three civilians and wounding several security force members. » | AP | Saturday, June 25, 2011
Rennie Gibbs is accused of murder, but the crime she is alleged to have committed does not sound like an ordinary killing. Yet she faces life in prison in Mississippi over the death of her unborn child.
Gibbs became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006 in a stillbirth when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy. When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit – though there is no evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby's death – they charged her with the "depraved-heart murder" of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence.
Gibbs is the first woman in Mississippi to be charged with murder relating to the loss of her unborn baby. But her case is by no means isolated. Across the US more and more prosecutions are being brought that seek to turn pregnant women into criminals.
"Women are being stripped of their constitutional personhood and subjected to truly cruel laws," said Lynn Paltrow of the campaign National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW). "It's turning pregnant women into a different class of person and removing them of their rights." » | Ed Pilkington in New York | Friday, June 24, 2011
My comment:
Americans are losing the plot! This development is totally ridiculous, and will lead to women refusing to have babies for fear of being incarcerated. The West is already short of babies. This sinister development will exacerbate the problem.
Having a baby should be the joyous result of the expression of love between a couple. The threat of a protracted jail term looming over a pregnant woman will destroy the love and turn it into fear. Another ridiculous idea from America! – © Mark
Friday, June 24, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Hundreds of thousands of older people are being put at increased risk of death or developing dementia by taking combinations of common medicines to treat routine illnesses, according to a new study.
Well-known brands of hay fever tablets, painkillers and sleeping pills pose a previously unknown threat to people’s health when taken together, British scientists claim.
Many are available over the counter at pharmacies as well as being prescribed by GPs, nurses and chemists.
Today the scientists behind the study call for doctors to recognise how dangerous these drug combinations can be and to prescribe harmless alternatives instead.
Researchers from the University of East Anglia and the University of Kent identified 80 widely used medications that, when used in combination, were found to increase the risk of serious health problems.
The drugs, including common allergy treatments Piriton and Zantac, as well as Seroxat, an anti-depressant, are thought to be used by half of the 10 million over-65s in Britain. Many of the drugs, when taken in combination, were found to more than treble an elderly patient’s chance of dying within two years. » | Nick Collins, Science Correspondent | Friday, June 24, 2011
His supporters have hailed Geert Wilders' acquittal as a victory for free speech, while his many detractors have slammed the decision not to punish a man who described Islam as "fascist." The Dutch right-wing populist politician was cleared of inciting hatred against Muslims by a court in Amsterdam Thursday after the judge ruled that his comments -- which also included comparing the Koran to Hitler's "Mein Kampf" -- were "acceptable within the context of public debate."
In his verdict, leading judge Marcel van Oosten said that while Wilders' statements were indeed offensive to Muslims, they were also part of a legitimate political discussion. Wilders' claim that Islam is a violent religion and his demands for a ban on Muslim immigrants should be viewed in the context of the larger societal debate over immigration policies, the judge argued.
The verdict has sparked a re-examination of free speech in a multicultural Europe, with some asking just how far the basic democratic right to speak one's mind actually extends.
German commentators were deeply divided over the issue on Friday. While some argued Wilders should have been punished, others suggested that free speech trumps any discomfort with extreme opinions. » | David Knight | Friday, June 24, 2011
Dutch politician Geert Wilders has been cleared of "hate speech" charges.
A court in Amsterdam said that Wilders' statements were "rude and condescending" but not a criminal offence according to Dutch law.
The case has reopened discussions over freedom of speech in the Netherlands.
Al Jazeera's Tania Page reports from Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
My comment:
This video is a perfect example of biassed reporting. That Geert Wilders was acquitted yesterday is cause for celebration, not criticism: it marks the triumph of freedom over enslavement, the triumph of freedom of speech over oppression, the triumph of the enlightenment of the West over the darkness of the East.
Millions died during World War II for the freedoms we enjoy today. Let not Islam take those freedoms away! The growth of Islam in the West is indeed a serious threat to our Western way of life. Western politicians need to awaken from their slumbers. They have been lulled into a false sense security by the myths that the liberal media has peddled about the peaceful nature of Islam.
Islam is what it has always been: a belligerent, conquering ideology clothed in a deity. The West needs to be mindful of this at all times. There are many peaceful, delightful Muslims. This is very true. But what happens to societies in which Islam gains the upper hand is there around us for all to observe. And never forget this: Where there is no separation of politics and religion, there is no hope of democracy. Without democracy, there is no hope of freedom.
Geert Wilders has won a significant victory in The Netherlands. It is to be hoped that this victory will be a seminal moment for the West. It is to be hoped that this will mark a turning point in the West’s fortunes. Long live freedom of speech! Long live democracy! – © Mark
Sayeeda Warsi rolls back in her chair and bursts out laughing. "I don't read her, actually. I call her Mad Mel," Lady Warsi says of Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips, who has denounced her as "stupid".
Warsi, a proud Yorkshirewoman, rarely pulls her punches. As the first Muslim to sit as a full member of the British cabinet, she fell foul of Phillips in January after she declared in the Sternberg lecture that Islamophobia had "crossed the threshold of middle-class respectability".
Phillips' barbed response was to describe Warsi, the Tory co-chair, on her Spectator blog as "at best a stupid mouthpiece of those who are bamboozling Britain into Islamisation, and at worst a supporter of that process".
Warsi had a mini falling-out with Downing Street after No 10 became alarmed that her lecture appeared to place her at odds with David Cameron on the highly sensitive subject of British Muslims and extremism.
A few weeks after Warsi's speech, Cameron laid the ground for a review of funding for Muslim groups when he asked whether it was right to support groups which "present themselves as a gateway to the Muslim community" while doing little to combat extremism.
Cameron's speech to the Munich security conference in February was interpreted as an endorsement of Michael Gove, the education secretary, who called on the west to wake up to the threat posed by Islamist extremists in his book Celsius 7/7. » | Nicholas Watt | Thursday, June 23, 2011
Pakistan is failing to live up to one of the tenets of Islam which guarantees rights to all women, according to Sayeeda Warsi, the Conservative party co-chairman and minister without portfolio, who is the first Muslim to sit as a full member of the cabinet.
In a sign of Britain's impatience with Pakistan, Lady Warsi said the world's first Islamic republic is denying rights granted 1,400 years ago in the Qur'an.
As she prepares to become the first British minister to address the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) next week, Warsi said in a Guardian interview that, in a "nutshell", Pakistan is not living up to the ideals of its founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
Warsi says she is able to deliver a tough message to Pakistan because she is unencumbered by "colonial baggage". She said she had raised the issue of women's rights last July in Rawalpindi, in a speech in Urdu at the Fatima Jinnah University, named after the younger sister of the founder of Pakistan. "Why is it that today you're being denied the rights that your faith gave to you 1,400 years ago?" Warsi asked, recalling her central message to her female audience. » | Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent | Thursday, July 23, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, suffered a further blow on Thursday after one of his closest aides was arrested, in an escalation of a feud with the Islamic state's Supreme Leader.
Mohammad Sharif Malekzadeh who was forced to resign as deputy foreign minister on Tuesday just days after his appointment after a backlash from mainstream conservatives loyal to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was arrested on Thursday on corruption charges.
Mr Malekzadeh was a senior official in the high council of Iranian foreign affairs, run by Mr Ahmadinejad's chief of staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, whom conservatives accuse of disloyalty.
Western officials based in Tehran said Mr Ahmadinejad was under pressure after an unsuccessful power grab in which he had tried to install loyalists in the powerful intelligence and oil ministries. » | Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent | Thursday, June 23, 2011
Judges ruled that although Mr Wilders, whose anti-Islam Freedom Party came third in Dutch national elections last year, had made "hurtful and shocking", his comments were legitimate in terms of a lively Dutch public debate on multiculturalism.
Mr Wilders, 47, was put on trial after complaints of incitement to racial hatred were levelled against him by Muslims after he released a film which presented Islam as the biggest threat to world peace.
Fitna, meaning "strife" in Arabic, juxtaposed pages of the Koran with images of September 11 2001 terrorist attacks and fundamentalist burka clad Muslims with placards warning Europe to "be prepared for the real holocaust".
The flamboyant, peroxide blond Dutch MP, who now holds the balance of power in the Netherlands by lending parliamentary support to the minority government, also described the Koran as "fascist", comparing it to Hitler's book Mein Kampf, a text that is banned in the Netherlands.
In one opinion piece cited during the trial, he wrote: "I've had enough of Islam in the Netherlands; let not one more Muslim immigrate." » | Bruno Waterfield | Thursday, June 23, 2011
One popular haunt is the Treviso Hotel on Place Stephanie in the expensive and trendy Ixelles municipality of Brussels where many of the EU's well-heeled Eurocrats live.
The "love box" hotel bills itself as a venue for couples "with room service and discretion assured" in glamorous rooms rented out at £66 an hour.
Anne De Schepper, the hotel's manager, told The Daily Telegraph that the long lunch break was the preferred time of day for her clientele of EU officials to commit adultery. » | Bruno Waterfield, Brussels | Thursday, June 23, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Turkish and Syrian forces engaged in a tense cross-border standoff on Thursday as a fresh military operation against Syrian dissidents threatened to spark a major regional crisis.
An elite Syrian army unit advanced to within quarter of a mile of the Turkish border, expanding an onslaught against opponents of President Bashar al-Assad.
Escalating an already acute refugee crisis, hundreds of Syrian civilians cut their way through a border fence into Turkey as they fled an advance into the frontier village of Khirbet al-Joz by the army's Fourth Division and Presidential Guard, led by Mr Assad's feared brother Maher.
The offensive brought Syrian and Turkish troops into eye-contact for the first time, significantly worsening the increasingly noxious relationship between the two neighbours.
Turkey has watched Mr Assad's brutal operation to quell opposition in Syria's restive northwest with growing alarm and has resorted to increasingly muscular diplomacy to demand an end to military operations close to the border. Most significantly, Turkish officials last week raised the possibility of a limited military incursion into northern Syria to protect civilians.
The offensive has already seen more than 10,000 refugees flee into Turkey.
With thousands more hiding out on the Syrian side of the border, the crisis is only liken to worsen as the army pushes northwards. » | Adrian Blomfield | Thursday, June 23, 2011
Comment on Always On Watch’s website »
The UN is to release a report on the fight against illegal drugs like cocaine, hallucinogens and heroin on Thursday.
In the US, government surveys have found that hospital admissions for drug abuse have trippled in the past decade.
However, it is the abuse of prescription medication that has begun to cause more worry in the US.
Al Jazeera's Tom Ackerman reports from Virginia, USA.
Scarlet fever has killed a second child in Hong Kong - the first people to die from the disease in the city in a decade.
The strain currently doing the rounds is said to be twice as resistant to antibiotics as the last.
Al Jazeera speaks to doctor Lo Wing Lok, an infectious diseases specialist in Hong Kong.
Libyan rebels have been fighting Gaddafi's forces for weeks in the Nafusa mountain range in western Libya.
The rebels are slowly making gains, though, and as Gaddafi's forces flee, they leave behind much of their equipment.
Most of that equipment is quite old: There is a box of ammunition from Gaddafi's stockpiles, for example, dating back to 1978.
Among the supplies at three different bases, Al Jazeera discovered military rations which - according to their labels - were manufactured in Turkey. Bread packets some of inside the rations were produced in March, according to their labels - meaning they were shipped to Libya after the fighting began.
The rations are produced by UNIFO, a Turkish company which specialises in portable rations and meals ready-to-eat, according to its web site.
Al Jazeera's James Bays reports from Libya.
Migrant worker Ruyati binti Sapubi, 54, was executed after she was convicted of murdering her Saudi employer, Khairiya bint Hamid Mijlid, with a meat cleaver.
The maid carried out the killing after she was denied permission to leave the kingdom and return to her family in Indonesia, according to officials in Jakarta.
"The Indonesian government has decided to impose a moratorium on sending workers to Saudi Arabia," labour minister Muhaimin Iskandar was quoted by state news agency Antara as saying.
The report did not provide further details but local media indicated the move was aimed at domestic workers, who make up about 70 per cent of the 1.2 million Indonesian workers in the Gulf state.
The suspension will take effect on August 1 and will remain until the Saudi government agrees to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to protect Indonesian workers' rights, Iskandar said.
Saudi Arabia apologised for failing to inform Indonesia of the beheading, while Jakarta formally protested to Riyadh over the execution.
"The ambassador apologised and regretted the situation and said that such a thing wouldn't happen again in future," foreign ministry spokesman Michael Tene said.
Indonesia recalled its ambassador to Riyadh earlier this week for consultations. » | Thursday, June 23, 2011
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Syrian troops massed on the Turkish border overnight, witnesses said on Thursday, escalating tensions with Ankara as President Bashar al-Assad uses increasing military force against a popular revolt.
Hundreds of terrified refugees crossed into Turkey on Thursday to escape an army assault on the border regions, witnesses said.
Protests have grown in northern areas bordering Turkey, following military assaults on towns and villages in the Jisr al-Shughour region of Idlib province to the west of Aleppo that had sent more than 10,000 fleeing to Turkey.
Troops were advancing on a main road leading from Aleppo, the commercial hub, to Turkey, residents said.
On the 100th day of an uprising that has posed the gravest challenge to Assad's rule, soldiers and secret police backed by armoured vehicles set up road blocks on Wednesday along the main road, a major route for container traffic from Europe to the Middle East. They arrested tens of people in the Heitan area north of Aleppo, residents said.
"The regime is trying to pre-empt unrest in Aleppo by cutting off logistics with Turkey. A lot of people here use Turkish mobile phone networks to escape Syrian spying on their calls and have family links with Turkey. There are also many old smuggling routes that people could use to flee," one of the residents, a physician, told Reuters by telephone. » | Thursday, June 23, 2011
Danielle Spencer, 31, who worked in real estate in the Gulf emirate, was given a month's sentence after a court rejected her claim she never slept with Toby Carroll, a New Zealander.
Mr Carroll, 33, was jailed for two months – one month each for sex with Miss Spencer and with Priscilla Ferreira Gomez, 25, his ex-girlfriend.
All three were arrested when Miss Ferreira burst into Mr Carroll's flat inDubai Marina early one morning in December and found him in bed with Miss Spencer.
She grabbed a knife and began slashing the furniture and curtains, while Miss Spencer fled into the bathroom and locked herself in. Mr Carroll called the police, who arrested all three and took them to Bur Dubai police station, where they spent a month in cells before being bailed. » | Richard Spencer, Dubai | Thursday, June 23, 2011
The eight politicians and human rights activists were among 21 people, most but not all Shia, accused of plotting against the monarchy and having contacts with foreign terrorist groups.
All 21 received jail terms, seven in absentia, with nine receiving 15 years and four shorter terms. Protesters set up barricades in Shia villages across the island last night, amid anger from human rights groups.
Among those jailed for life was Abduljalil Abdullah Al-Singace, head of the human rights section of Al-Haq, a radical Shia party, who was arrested in August on his return to Bahrain from London after addressing a House of Lords committee.
The leader of Al-Haq, Hassan Ali Mushaima, received the same sentence. He returned from self-imposed exile in London earlier this year.
The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, raised Mr al-Singace's case with his opposite number in Bahrain, Sheikh Khaled al-Khalifa, but Britain has been noticeably less outspoken about the Gulf state's crackdown on dissents than with other countries facing "Arab Spring" uprisings. » | Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent | Wednesday, June 22, 2011
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ABC – AM: ASHLEY HALL: With Australia's live cattle exports to Indonesia still in limbo the RSPCA is now turning the focus to the issue of ritual killing in Australia.
It's known as Halal or Kosher slaughter in the Muslim and Jewish communities and it's carried out according to religious laws.
In Australia, the national Halal standard requires abattoirs to stun animals before their throat is cut.
But a number of Australian abattoirs have been given government approval to kill animals without stunning.
The RSPCA says it's a brutal practice and should be banned. » | Jason Om | Saturday, June 18, 2011
ETERNITY: Against the background of a poster war between Muslims ("Jesus, prophet of Islam") and Christians ("Glad you want to talk about Jesus"), Christians are being urged to pray for their Muslim Neighbours.
“Muslim Prayer Focus Australia” is part of an international movement encouraging Christians to pray for Muslims during the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan.
The movement began in 1992, when a group of international Christian leaders meeting in Israel prayed about the lack of mission expression in the Islamic world. They came up with the idea of praying every year during Ramadan, since it would be an on-going, annual focus. » | Monday, June 20, 2011
Greg Moriaty, the Australian ambassador made the comments in a statement released to mark the arrival of three Muslim leaders from Indonesia to Australia earlier this week.
The visit by the Muslim delegation is part of an exchange program between the two countries aiming to build relations between the two countries.
According to ABNA, Moriaty said in the statement that he hoped to show the delegation the cultural diversity of Muslims in Australia, which consists of 70 different ethnic backgrounds, including from Indonesia.
The delegation will visit Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra to meet with various community leaders and religious representatives, and hopes to show Australia as a diverse accepting society. » | IINA | Saturday, June 18, 2011 / 15 Rajab
"We will resist and the battle will continue to the beyond, until you're wiped out. But we will not be finished," Gaddafi said in the message broadcast late on Wednesday on Libyan television in homage to his comrade, Khuwildi Hemidi, several members of whose family were killed on Monday in NATO raids on his residence. » | AFP | Thursday, June 23, 2011
Judge Marcel van Oosten told Mr Wilders, 47, who has been on trial in the Amsterdam regional court since last October, ruled that his statements were "acceptable within the context of the public debate".
The Dutch MP faced five counts of hate speech and discrimination for his anti-Islamic remarks on websites, internet forums and in Dutch newspapers between October 2006 and March 2008, and in his controversial 17-minute movie "Fitna" ("Discord" in Arabic).
The leader of the right-wing Party for Freedom's (PVV) acquittal comes on the backdrop of a prosecution unwilling to take up the case against the platinum-haired parliamentarian, who claimed before court he was "defending freedom in the Netherlands" against Islam. » | Thursday, June 23, 2011
The European Commission plans to use human rights laws to break down border controls.
David Cameron will today go into battle to face down plans to scrap the existing rule that means illegal immigrants and asylum seekers are supposed to be sent back to the country where they first enter the EU.
Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso will use a summit in Brussels today to press for the changes.
He wants the rule suspended indefinitely, opening the door to thousands of immigrants heading for Britain to claim more generous benefits than they could get elsewhere.
British officials fear that suspending the rule will mean that countries on the edge of Europe make far less effort to police their borders, since they will not have to face the consequences themselves of letting in too many migrants.
The situation has been made more acute by the fighting in Libya, which has seen thousands of refugees fleeing Colonel Gaddafi’s regime to take shelter in the EU.
More than one million people have fled Libya since the conflict began. » | Tim Shipman | Thursday, June 23, 2011
Zum Teil in Schwyzertüütsch (Schweizerdeutsch).
Turkey is deeply affected by Syria's crisis, with more than 10,000 refugees having fled across the border.
But Turkish officials have been cautious in their reactions to the ongoing crackdown by President Bashar al-Assad and his reform pledges.
Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught reports from Boynuyogun refugee camp, on the Turkey-Syria border.
Police and protesters have clashed in Bahrain after eight Shia Muslim activists accused of plotting a coup to overthrow the Gulf Arab state's Sunni monarchy were sentenced to life in prison.
The court also sentenced on Wednesday other defendants - from among the 21 suspects on trial - to between two and 15 years in jail.
Al Jazeera's Charles Stratford reports.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Mercredi, la priorité était d'apaiser les esprits. Les représentants des deux communautés, ainsi que des religieux, se sont réunis afin de tenter de ramener le calme. Depuis deux jours, en effet, Belfast revit une ambiance de « Troubles », ces affrontements interconfessionnels qui, en une trentaine d'années, avaient fait 3 500 morts jusqu'à ce que la paix soit signée en 1998, entre catholiques et protestants. D'où l'inquiétude du Premier ministre protestant, Peter Robinson : « Voir ce niveau de violences revenir dans nos rues est à la fois désolant et très inquiétant ». Quant au vice-Premier ministre, Martin McGuinness, un catholique, il a assuré qu'il « ne sera pas permis à la petite communauté d'individus déterminés à déstabiliser nos communautés de nous faire replonger dans le passé ». » | Par Alain Vincenot | Mercredi 22 Juin 2011
Angesichts der Ausweitung der EU-Sanktionen gegen Syrien hat die syrische Führung nun Europa als neuen Feind ausgemacht. «Wir werden künftig so tun, als gebe es Europa auf der Weltkarte gar nicht», sagte Aussenminister Walid al-Muallim am Mittwoch in Damaskus.
Gegen jede Einmischung
Al-Muallim bezeichnete die Strafmassnahmen der Europäer im [sic] dem vom Staatsfernsehen übertragenen Medienauftritt als «Kriegserklärung». Die Sanktionen stellten «die Lebensgrundlage des syrischen Volkes in frage», sagte Muallim. Er wies jede ausländische Einmischung zurück. «Niemand im Ausland darf uns seine Sichtweise aufzwingen.»
Seit Beginn der Proteste habe sich kein europäischer Vertreter nach Syrien begeben, um über die Ereignisse zu diskutieren, beklagte der Aussenminister. Insbesondere der früheren Kolonialmacht Frankreich warf er vor, sich «wie Kolonialherren» zu benehmen. » | sda/dpa/afp | Mittwoch 22. Juni 2011
On 29 June, PSC is due to host an event titled “Building Peace and Justice in Jerusalem” in the House of Commons. I very much like that sentiment. The problem is, some of PSC’s scheduled speakers don’t.
One of them is Sheikh Raed Salah, the head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, a group ideologically affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. The notorious Islamist website Middle East Monitor Online (MEMO) has dubbed Salah ‘The Gandhi of Palestine’ (see above).
Yet his Mahatma-like qualities are not immediately apparent when assessing some of his rhetoric or his actions. In February, 2007, Salah told a 1,000-strong crowd in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Wadi Joz:
We have never allowed ourselves to knead [the dough for] the bread that breaks the fast in the holy month of Ramadan with children’s blood. Whoever wants a more thorough explanation, let him ask what used to happen to some children in Europe, whose blood was mixed in with the dough of the [Jewish] holy bread.According to the Left-leaning Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, Salah accused Israel of attempting to “rebuild the Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount while drenched in Arab blood”. » | Michael Weiss | Wednesday, June 22, 2011
RADIO NETHERLANDS WORLDWIDE: The trial of Geert Wilders is nearly over. On Thursday, the three Amsterdam district court judges conducting the trial will announce their verdict. It is widely expected that Mr Wilders will be acquitted on all the charges facing him.
If that is the case, the 29-month legal struggle which saw one of the country’s most popular and influential politicians accused of hate-mongering will come to an end.
It started back in January 2009 when justices of the Amsterdam court ordered the public prosecutor to bring charges against Mr Wilders of inciting hatred and discrimination, based on a number of his anti-Islamic statements published in the national media, as well as Mr Wilders’ film, Fitna.
The trial was supposed to be about
One moment during the dozens of courtroom sessions encapsulated what, for many, the trial was supposed to be about. Twenty-four-year-old law student Naoual Abaida, daughter of a Moroccan immigrant, stood in the courtroom not two metres from Mr Wilders. She was allowed to speak as one of the ‘injured parties’; one of the people who had initially petitioned the Justice Ministry to prosecute him.
Looking into his eyes she said his “insulting, polarising and provocative language has set the tone for a country becoming increasingly intolerant.”
The trial was really about
But for Mr Wilders and his high-profile defence lawyer, Bram Moszkowicz, the trial has been about free speech. To them, Mr Wilders is being persecuted for expressing his opinion. They have persuaded much of the Dutch public that this is what the trial is really about.
The courtroom trial got underway in January 2010. Cameras were allowed to film without restrictions during court sessions, a first in the Netherlands. The country has since followed the trial closely.
Islam on trial
The initial defence strategy was to put Islam on trial. Mr Moszkowicz asked the court to hear 18 witnesses, including various academics known for being highly critical of Islam, but also Mohammed Bouyeri, the convicted murderer of Theo van Gogh. The defence wanted to prove that the statements Mr Wilders had made about Islam were true, and therefore could not be considered as incitement.
The court allowed just three of those witnesses to testify in closed hearings. » | Wednesday, June 22, 2011
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