Muslim World – Page 79

Israeli driver hits, kills Palestinian as "price tag" attacks intensify

November 27, 2014 by Nasheman

Israeli Occupation Forces use pressurized water to disperse Palestinians protesting against illegal Israeli settlement plans in Nablus, West Bank on November 21, 2014. Anadolu / Nedal Eshtayah

by Al-Akhbar

An Israeli bus driver ran over two Palestinians in the northern West Bank, killing one and injuring the other, Palestinian security sources said Tuesday, as Israeli forces detain tens in overnight raids in the occupied West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem.

Nour Hassan Naim Salim, 22, was killed and Alaa Kayid Salim, 20, was injured after being ran over by an Israeli settler driving a bus at the al-Jalama checkpoint in Jenin.

Israeli police and ambulances arrived at the scene and the bus driver was arrested.

Similarly on Monday, an Israeli settler ran over and injured a Palestinian teenager in the Romena neighborhood of West Jerusalem, and on Friday Palestinian woman Suzanne al-Kurd, 29, was also run over by an Israeli settler near the annexed East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shufat.

The Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) monthly report stated that one Palestinian child was killed and six others Palestinians injured, four of them children, after being deliberately hit by Israeli settler vehicles in October.

Besides the hit-and-runs, Israeli settlers have also physically assaulted Palestinians across annexed Jerusalem, in the occupied West Bank, and in Occupied Palestine.

On Monday, five Israeli settlers assaulted 19-year-old Mahmoud Ubeid near the illegal Israeli settlement of French Hill, a day after a Palestinian taxi driver from Kafr Qasim in central Occupied Palestine said he was attacked by 17 Israelis in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Bnei Brak after two of them claimed he tried to run them over.

Hate crimes by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property, referred to as “price tag” attacks, are endemic and Israeli authorities rarely intervene in the violent attacks or prosecute the perpetrators.

A report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that there were at least 399 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in 2013.

Unrest has gripped annexed East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank on an almost daily basis for the past four months, flaring up after a group of Zionist settlers kidnapped and brutally killed 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir because of his ethnicity.

Israeli authorities have also allowed Zionist settlers to take over homes in Palestinian neighborhoods both in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and announced plans to build thousands of settlements strictly for Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem while ignoring Palestinian residents.

Last month, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah slammed Israel for failing to hold Zionist settlers accountable for a recent wave of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

“The Israeli government has never brought settlers to account for the terrorism and intimidation they commit [against Palestinians],” Hamdallah said.

More than 600,000 Israeli settlers, soaring from 189,000 in 1989, live in settlements across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law.

Israeli forces injure Palestinians with “sponge rounds”

Meanwhile, a young Palestinian was hospitalized late Tuesday after an Israeli soldier shot him in the head with a sponge bullet in the al-Tur neighborhood of annexed East Jerusalem, witnesses said.

Medics told Ma’an news agency that the unidentified young man sustained a skull fracture, and was in moderate-to-serious condition.

In a separate incident, Jasir Abu al-Hawa, 55, and his 18-year-old son Ahmed were hit by sponge bullets after Israeli troops fired tear gas and sponge bullets at Palestinian mourners during a funeral in Tur.

According to Majdi al-Abbasi of the Silwan-based Wadi Hilweh Information Center, clashes broke out in al-Luzah and the Bir Ayyub areas of the Silwan neighborhood after Israeli soldiers fired tear gas canisters and sponge bullets at the residents.

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) repeatedly use excessive force against peaceful protests in the occupied West Bank and annexed Jerusalem.

Tens of Palestinians, including children, have been wounded in protests or during Israeli incursions in Jerusalem and West Bank so far this month.

Saleh Samer Attiyeh Mahmoud, 11, was shot in the face at close range by Israeli forces firing sponge bullets during an Israeli incursion into al-Eisawiya village, north of East Jerusalem. He was hit directly between the eyes, causing severe bleeding to his nose and the loss of sight in his left eye. The vision in his right eye is also severely damaged.

A day later, 10-year-old Mayar Amran Twafic al-Natsheh was left with a fractured skull after a sponge bullet, fired by Israeli forces near the Shufat refugee camp checkpoint, smashed through her grandfather’s car window and hit her in the face.

Sponge rounds are made from high-density plastic with a foam-rubber head, and are fired from grenade launchers. Israeli police have been using them in Occupied Palestine and annexed East Jerusalem since the use of rubber-coated metal bullets was prohibited there, but protocol explicitly prohibits firing them at the upper body.

Israeli forces also fired live ammunition at protesters.

Two seventeen-year-old boys were shot while throwing stones, one in the thigh and one in both the hand and foot, and 38-year-old Nariman Tamimi was shot in the thigh at close range in front of her children and family in the village of Nabi Saleh.

Moreover, two Palestinians, 17 and 19, were shot, one in the shoulder and waist and another in the lower jaw, during an Israeli incursion into Beitin village northeast of Ramallah.

Israeli forces detain physically disabled Palestinian woman

Israeli forces on Wednesday took a physically disabled Palestinian woman from the al-Tur neighborhood into custody during a court hearing for her daughter, family members told Ma’an.

Nadia al-Mughrabi, 54, was detained while attending a hearing at an Israeli magistrate court in Jerusalem for her daughter Amani, who was arrested for defending her mother during an Israeli raid on their home the day before.

According to Mohammed Mahmoud, a lawyer for the prisoner rights group Addamir, Nadia was accused of assaulting a police officer and was hence taken to the Russian Compound interrogation center in Jerusalem for questioning.

Meanwhile, the IOF arrested 13 Palestinians in overnight West Bank raids, sources told Ma’an Wednesday, a day after they arrested 11, including 10-year-old Rachid Abu Sarah, in overnight raids in both East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said 13 Palestinians were arrested in the West Bank overnight, one south of Nablus, five south of Ramallah, five near Bethlehem, and two south of Hebron.

Moreover, a former Palestinian prisoner in Hebron and two Palestinian women in annexed East Jerusalem were detained during the day Tuesday.

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) said in a statement that Israeli forces in Hebron detained former prisoner Akram al-Fseisi, who served two years without trial under the administrative detention policy and was released from Israeli custody two months ago after a 70-day hunger strike.

In Jerusalem, 20-year-old Amani Abed al-Mughrabi was detained at her al-Tur home while Latifa Abdul Latif was arrested while leaving the al-Aqsa mosque compound.

The arrests add to the estimated 6,500 Palestinians, including 300 minors, currently being held in Israeli prisons.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian human rights groups reported that a detained Palestinian child was seriously injured during interrogation on November 19 at an Israeli interrogation center in annexed Jerusalem.

The WAFA News Agency said 16-year-old Khader al-Ajlouni was pushed down a flight of stairs at the police station and suffered serious injuries to his neck, arms and back.

At least 600 Palestinian children have been arrested in annexed Jerusalem alone since last June.

According to a report published Friday by the Palestinian Prisoners Club (PPC), nearly 40 percent of these children have been subjected to sexual abuse during arrest or investigation by the Israeli authorities.

The PPC, an independent Palestinian organization set up in 1993, said the “daily arrest campaigns” inflicted on young Palestinians living in Jerusalem are a “collective punishment against Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.”

PPC attorney Mufeed al-Haj said that other violations were reported during the apprehension of children, including but not limited to night and predawn raids on family homes, physical and sexual abuse.

Around 95 percent of detained children were subject to beatings and torture by Israeli security personnel while in detention, while many were forced to make confessions under duress and undergo unfair trials, said Issa Qaraqe, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) committee on detainees.

A report by Defense for Children International (DCI) published in May 2014 revealed that Israel jails 20 percent of Palestinian children it detains in solitary confinement.

DCI said that minors held in solitary confinement spent an average of 10 days in isolation. The longest period of confinement documented in a single case was 29 days in 2012, and 28 days in 2013.

A report by The Euro-Mid Observer for Human Rights, Israeli forces arrested nearly 3,000 Palestinian children from the beginning of 2010 to mid-2014, the majority of them between the ages of 12 and 15 years old.

The report also documented dozens of video recorded testimonies of children arrested during the first months of 2014, pointing out that 75 percent of the detained children are subjected to physical torture and 25 percent faced military trials.

In 2013, the UN children’s fund (UNICEF) reported that Israel was the only country in the world where children were “systematically tried” in military courts and gave evidence of practices it said were “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.”

The Israeli cabinet approved early November a new legislation which will be added to the Israeli penal code and would allow the imposition of a prison sentence up to 20 years for those convicted of throwing stones or other objects at Israeli vehicles.

The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-famous Balfour Declaration, called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.

(Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)

Egyptian dictator president says his regime is ready to protect Israel

November 26, 2014 by Nasheman

by Middle East Monitor

Egyptian President Abdul-Fattah Al-Sisi told an Italian newspaper that his country is ready to send troops to Palestine in order to guarantee Israel’s security and work jointly against terrorism.

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Al-Sisi said: “We are prepared to send military forces inside a Palestinian state. They would help the local police and reassure Israelis in their role as guarantors.”

The former military general stressed that any such troop deployment would only be for the time needed to restore trust between the two sides.

According to Reuters, Al-Sisi added that he has spoken about this idea ‘at length’ with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

“I told [Netanyahu] a courageous step was needed otherwise nothing would be resolved,” he said.

Al-Sisi led the July 2013 military coup that ousted Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi. Since then, the Egyptian government has criminalised the Muslim Brotherhood organisation, which Morsi was a member of, and deepened the Israeli siege of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by closing the Rafah Border crossing in order to raise pressure against the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, which is an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Post by Middle East Monitor.

Rights groups urge Gulf states to protect migrant workers from abuse

November 24, 2014 by Nasheman

A construction worker on site at the Dubai Mall in the United Arab Emirates. Migrant workers are extremely vulnerable to abuse in the Gulf States, say rights groups.

by Al-Akhbar

International rights and labor groups called Sunday for urgent action to protect migrant workers from abuse in Gulf countries.

Ahead of a meeting this week of Gulf and Asian labor ministers, 90 groups issued a statement saying millions of Asian and African workers are facing abuses including unpaid wages, confiscation of passports, physical violence and forced labor.

“Whether it’s the scale of abuse of domestic workers hidden from public view or the shocking death toll among construction workers, the plight of migrants in the Gulf demands urgent and profound reform,” said Rothna Begum, Middle East women’s rights researcher at New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Ministers from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Asian countries are meeting on November 26-27 for the third round of the so-called Abu Dhabi Dialogue on labor migration.

About 23 million foreigners, including at least 2.4 million domestic servants, live in the six-nation GCC that brings together Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

GCC countries have come under fire for the kafala system of sponsorship for migrant workers, which is used to varying extents across the Gulf.

It restricts most workers from moving to a new job before their contracts end unless they obtain their employer’s consent, trapping many workers in abusive situations, the statement said.

It called for comprehensive laws to protect migrant laborers and reforming the kafala system to allow workers to change employers without permission from their sponsors.

HRW was one of the signatories of the statement along with other groups including Amnesty International, the International Trade Union Confederation and the International Domestic Workers Federation.

On Tuesday, Amnesty accused the UAE, which is hosting a Formula One race this weekend, of repression it said is the “ugly reality” behind the glitz and glamor of the event.

In a report titled “There is no freedom here: silencing dissent in the UAE,” the human rights watchdog speaks of a “climate of fear” and the “extreme lengths” the authorities go to in order to stamp out opposition or calls for reform.

“Millions of spectators from across the world are expected to tune in to watch the Abu Dhabi Formula One Grand Prix this weekend – yet most of them will have little clue about the ugly reality of life for activists in the UAE,” said Amnesty’s deputy director for the region, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

“Beneath the facade of glitz and glamor, a far more sinister side to the UAE has emerged showing the UAE as a deeply repressive state where activists critical of the government can be tossed in jail merely for posting a tweet,” she said.

Amnesty’s UAE report came a day after a report by Australian-based human rights group The Walk Free Foundation ranked Qatar in fourth place in a global ranking of countries where slavery is most prevalent.

The tiny Gulf state has come under scrutiny by rights groups over its treatment of migrant workers, most from Asia, who come to toil on construction sites, oil projects, or work as domestic help.

Early November, Amnesty International published a report titled, “No extra time: How Qatar is still failing on workers’ rights ahead of the World Cup.”

It said that “Qatar is still failing on workers’ rights ahead of the World Cup” and “has made only minimal progress on a number of plans it announced in May 2014” to tackle the reported exploitations.

The report highlighted the situation of migrant workers in the Gulf state, namely “delays in payments of migrants’ wages, harsh and dangerous working conditions, poor living conditions and shocking details of forced labor.”

The oil-rich Arab monarchies of the Gulf, especially Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, have long cracked down on dissent and calls for democratic reform, drawing criticism from human rights groups.

(AFP, Al-Akhbar)

Settlers torch Palestinian home as HRW slams Israel's demolition policy

November 24, 2014 by Nasheman

A relative of Abdulrahman Shaludi displays his portrait inside his family home after it was demolished by Israeli Occupation Forces in annexed East Jerusalem Silwan neighborhood on November 19, 2014. AFP / Ahmad Gharabli

by Al-Akhbar

Israeli settlers set fire to a Palestinian home northeast of Ramallah early Sunday, an official told Ma’an news agency, as Human Rights Watch (HRW) slams Israel’s demolition policy as “collective punishment.”

Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official who monitors settler activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an that a group of extremist settlers raided the village of Khirbet Abu Falah and torched the home of Abdul Karim Hussein Hamayil.

The settlers threw a fire bomb into the house through a window before fleeing the scene, Daghlas said, adding that Hamayil’s widow and her three daughters were inside the house at the time.

The settlers also spray-painted “death to Arabs” and “vengeance” on the house.

Daghlas added that the settlers first attacked the house with tear gas and stun grenades before attempting to break in, without providing further details.

Also in Ramallah, a group of settlers attempted Friday to burn down a house in the village of al-Mughayyir, but Palestinians were able to prevent them.

The arsons come about a week after a group of settlers attacked the village and torched a mosque as well as 12 copies of the Qur’an, Islam’s holy book, in an incident that sparked widespread Palestinian fury.

In mid-October, settlers torched a mosque in the village of Aqraba in the Nablus district and vandalized the interior with racist slogans.

According to Palestinian Religious Endowments Minister Yousef Adeis, in October alone Israeli settlers carried out 110 separate attacks on religious sites across the Palestinian territories.

Hate crimes by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property, referred to as “price tag” attacks, are systematic and Israeli authorities rarely intervene in the violent attacks or prosecute the perpetrators.

A report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that there were at least 399 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in 2013.

Unrest has gripped annexed Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank on an almost daily basis for the past four months, flaring up after a group of Zionist settlers kidnapped and killed 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir because of his ethnicity.

Last month, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah slammed Israel for failing to hold Zionist settlers accountable for a recent wave of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

“The Israeli government has never brought settlers to account for the terrorism and intimidation they commit [against Palestinians],” Hamdallah said.

More than 600,000 Israeli settlers, soaring from 189,000 in 1989, live in settlements across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law.

HRW: Israel’s demolition of houses is a “war crime”

While Israeli settlers burn down Palestinian properties, Israeli forces demolish thousands of Palestinian houses and livelihood structures.

HRW called on Israel Saturday to stop razing the homes of Palestinians accused of attacking Israelis, saying the practice can constitute a “war crime.”

“Israel should impose an immediate moratorium on its policy of demolishing the family homes of Palestinians suspected of carrying out attacks on Israelis,” the New York-based group said, as the fate of three houses slated for demolition awaits a court ruling.

“The policy, which Israeli officials claim is a deterrent, deliberately and unlawfully punishes people not accused of any wrongdoing. When carried out in occupied territory, including East Jerusalem, it amounts to collective punishment, a war crime.”

The East Jerusalem families of Mutaz Hijazi, Ibrahim al-Akkari, and of cousins Uday and Ghassan Abu Jamal, killed by police after two separate attacks, have been served demolition orders on their homes but have appealed.

Al-Akkari, 47, was shot dead by Israeli forces after he ran over a group of Israeli settlers in occupied East Jerusalem on November 5, killing one and injuring 13.

Hijazi was accused of shooting and critically wounding a far-right Zionist rabbi on October 29. Police shot him dead during a raid on his home in Abu Tur the following morning.

The Abu Jamal cousins, from Jabal al-Mukabbir, were shot dead Tuesday after they attacked a synagogue with meat cleavers and a pistol, killing four Zionist rabbis and an Israeli policeman.

Mohammed Mahmoud, the lawyer of the Hijazi and Abu Jamal families, said in a statement that an Israeli military court would hear their petition on Sunday morning.

On Wednesday, Israeli forces razed the East Jerusalem home of a Palestinian who killed two Israelis after running them over with his car last month.

Home demolitions have long been used as a deterrent punishment in the occupied West Bank, but this is the first time they have been adopted as a matter of policy in occupied East Jerusalem.

The practice has been condemned by human rights watchdogs and the international community as collective punishment that targets the families of perpetrators rather than the assailants themselves.

Last Sunday, Israeli rights group B’Tselem said that punitive house demolitions are “fundamentally wrong” and contravene “basic moral standards by punishing people for the misdeeds of others.”

The PLO said that Israeli forces demolished at least 32 Palestinian structures, including houses, barracks, shops and stores in Jerusalem and the West Bank during the month of October.

They also gave demolition notices for five water wells and a barrack near Hebron, as well as eviction notices to 27 houses.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in 2013, Israel demolished more than 500 Palestinian homes in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.

Moreover, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions estimates that Israeli authorities have demolished about 27,000 Palestinian structures in the West Bank since 1967.

The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-famous “Balfour Declaration,” called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

(Ma’an, AFP, Al-Akhbar)

U.S.-led strikes have killed 910 people in Syria: monitor

November 24, 2014 by Nasheman

Thick black smoke rises over an eastern Kobani neighborhood following an air strike on November 8, 2014. CREDIT: REUTERS/YANNIS BEHRAKIS

by Reuters

Beirut: Air strikes by U.S.-led forces in Syria have killed 910 people, including 52 civilians, since the start of the campaign against Islamic State and other fighters two months ago, a group monitoring the conflict said on Saturday.

The majority of the deaths, 785, were Islamic State fighters according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Islamic State, a hard-line offshoot of al Qaeda, has seized land in Syria and neighboring Iraq, where it has also been targeted by U.S.-led strikes since July.

Eight of the civilians killed were children and five were women, the Observatory said. The United States has said it takes reports of civilian casualties seriously and says it has a process to investigate any reports of such deaths.

The Observatory, which gathers its information from a network of contacts on the ground, said 72 members of al Qaeda’s Syria wing Nusra Front were also killed in the air strikes, which started on Sept. 23.

The United States has said it has targeted the “Khorasan Group” in Syria, which it describes as a grouping of al Qaeda veterans under the protection of Nusra Front. Most analysts and activists do not differentiate between the groups in this way.

According to the United Nations, around 200,000 people have been killed in Syria’s conflict, which is in its fourth year.

(Reporting by Sylvia Westall; editing by Susan Thomas)

Israel bombed 161 mosques in Gaza

November 22, 2014 by Nasheman

by Middle East Monitor

Israel has so far destroyed 161 mosques in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian Awqaf Minister Yousef Dois said yesterday.

He said 41 mosques were completely destroyed and 120 were partially destroyed during the war adding that a number of religious institutions have also been attacked.

Dois continued by saying Israel is taking advantage of the fact that the world’s attention is on Gaza and using this to stop Muslim worshippers from gaining access to Al-Aqsa Mosque. He said rabbis are delivering provocative speeches.

“These acts are clear proofs on the continued religious persecution practiced against Muslims and their places of worship,” he said.

He called upon the Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to take serious steps to deter Israel for its “crimes and violations”, which are increasing daily in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Sexual abuse of Palestinian Child prisoners in Israel

November 22, 2014 by Nasheman

by IMEMC News & Agencies

At least 600 Palestinian children were arrested in Jerusalem since last June. Of these chlidren, nearly 40% were reportedly exposed to sexual abuse during arrest or investigation by the Israeli authorities, according to a report by the Palestinian Prisoners Club (PPC).

The PCC says that the daily arrest campaigns constitute a collective punishment against Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.

Attorney with the PCC, Mufeed al-Haj, said that other violations were reported during the apprehension of children, including but not limited to night and predawn raids on family homes, physical and sexual abuse.

According to WAFA, Al-Haj added that, under the applicable laws, minors undergoing investigation should be accompanied by their parents, yet Israeli authorities pay no respect to these laws in many cases.

Forces often ignore laws and arrest Palestinians without even having warrants.

Since last June, Israel has arrested hundreds of Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank, most during predawn and night raids on their family houses.

Tunisian wins Muslim beauty pageant, calls for free Palestine

November 22, 2014 by Nasheman

Computer scientist Fatma Ben Guefrache was announced the winner and received a prize which includes a gold watch, a gold dinar, and mini pilgrimage to Mecca.

$Winner of the 2014 World Muslimah Awards Fatma Ben Guefrache (C) of Tunisia walks with children during the grand final in Yogyakarta. (Photo: AFP/Adek Berry)$

Winner of the 2014 World Muslimah Awards Fatma Ben Guefrache (C) of Tunisia walks with children during the grand final in Yogyakarta. (Photo: AFP/Adek Berry)

by Channel News Asia

Prambanan: A Tunisian woman called for a free Palestine as she won a pageant exclusively for Muslims in Indonesia on Friday (Nov 21), seen as a riposte to Western beauty contests.

Eighteen finalists, who include a doctor and a computer scientist, paraded in glittering dresses against the backdrop of world-renowned ancient temples for the contest in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country.

Computer scientist Fatma Ben Guefrache was announced the winner and received a prize which includes a gold watch, a gold dinar, and mini pilgrimage to Mecca. “May almighty Allah help me in this mission, and free Palestine, please, please, free Palestine and the Syrian people,” the tearful 25-year-old woman said.

The 18 finalists were required to wear the Muslim headscarf and judged not only on their appearance, but also on how well they recite verses from the Koran and their views on Islam in the modern world. “We want to see that they understand everything about the Islamic way of life – from what they eat, what they wear, how they live their lives,” said Jameyah Sheriff, one of the organisers.

The World Muslimah Award first drew global attention in 2013 when organisers presented it as a peaceful protest to Miss World, which was taking place around the same time on the resort island of Bali.

While it remains popular in some countries, British-run Miss World has faced frequent accusations that it is degrading to women, and a round in which contestants pose in bikinis has been a lightning rod for criticism.

In an effort to appease hardliners, Miss World organisers axed the bikini round for the Bali edition, but the event still sparked demonstrations from Islamic radicals who dubbed it a “whore contest”.

Headscarves not scary

British contestant Dina Torkia said she hoped this year’s World Muslimah Award would not only provide a contrast to Western beauty pageants, but would also dispel prejudices against Islam. “I think the most important thing is to show that we are really normal girls, we are not married to terrorists. This scarf on my head isn’t scary,” she told AFP.

However the 2014 pageant has faced challenges, with seven finalists dropping out and others struggling with Indonesia’s complex bureaucracy to obtain visas. Most who pulled out did so because their families did not want them to travel alone, Sheriff said.

The Indian contestant missed her initial flight as she was being questioned by officials who were suspicious of a woman travelling alone and wearing a headscarf, although she managed to get on a plane later.

Others have gone to great lengths to take part in the fourth edition of the event, with Masturah Jamil quitting her teaching job in Singapore after her employer would not give her time off to participate.

Organisers hope to present positive role models for Islamic women around the world and the contestants, who are aged between 18 and 27, include a newly qualified doctor from Bangladesh.

But not everyone was enjoying the final rounds, with Britain’s Torkia saying her initial optimism had turned into disappointment. “I came into this competition hoping that I would leave with my faith increased, but so far it’s been a lot about promotion and media and looking nice,” she said.

Friday’s finale caps a lengthy process, which included an online audition followed by two weeks of events in Indonesia. During their time in Indonesia, contestants have visited orphanages and nursing homes, and had their pictures taken at Borobudur, a famous Buddhist temple close to Yogyakarta, Java’s cultural heartland.

The finale takes place on a stage against the backdrop of Prambanan, a ninth-century complex of Hindu temples on the island of Java that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Hosting the event at a Hindu site was a conscious decision to show that Muslims are accepting of other religions, organisers said.

AFP/ec

UN resolution on Iran mockery of justice

November 21, 2014 by Nasheman

by Ismail Salami

The not-very-independent UN body has made a mockery of justice by soldering a resolution on the so-called human rights violations in Iran.

The farce becomes more markedly absurd when you consider the plethora of human rights abuses going unpunished in the world with the UN laying a lid of ignorance on these blatant violations.

Late Tuesday, the United Nations voted to slam “Iranian human rights abuses”, singling it out for “executing upwards of 1,000 political opponents and prisoners in the past year”.

Iran has strongly lambasted the UN resolution, saying that “the UN’s legal mechanisms have turned into a tool in the hands of the West.”

The irony of the resolution is that the measure was initially drafted by Canada which has itself a disgracing history of human rights abuse against the aborigines in the country. Further to that, Ottawa has constantly and vehemently thrown its full-throated support behind Tel Aviv in its inconceivably ruthless crimes against the people of Palestine.

In July 2014, when Gaza was being pounded by Israeli bombs and the Palestinian women and children were consequently incinerated and brutally slaughtered, when human rights were being trampled in its most pernicious forms, Canadian government brazenly backed the Israeli regime and instead rubbed salt in Palestinian wounds. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a statement and said, “The indiscriminate rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel are terrorist acts, for which there is no justification…. Failure by the international community to condemn these reprehensible actions would encourage these terrorists to continue their appalling actions. Canada calls on its allies and partners to recognize that these terrorist acts are unacceptable and that solidarity with Israel is the best way of stopping the conflict. Canada is unequivocally behind Israel.”

Yes, Canada is unequivocally and cravenly behind Israel. These are strange times. Those who are harbingers of terror and atrocity become the emblems of innocence and the downtrodden people of Gaza become terrorists. These remarks by Mr. Harper only relegate him to a very lowly level of humanity and leave no room for his exoneration from complicity in the crimes perpetrated at the hands of the Israeli regime against the Gazans.

Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran has even voiced his praise for Canada’s determining role in conducing to this mockery of justice about Iran, saying, “Canada’s leadership in this regard is highly appreciated.”

In May 2014, Canadian Liberal MP Irwin Cotler who served as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada from 2003 until 2006 embarked on a series of programs known as Iran Accountability Weeks in which they heard “testimonies highlighting Iranian political prisoners and other victims of Iranian human rights abuses.” Among those who testified was the notorious terrorist MKO leader Maryam Rajavi accompanied by a UN rights official and pundits from a hawkish American think tank.

Interestingly, Mr. Shaheed was a participant in the event. Although he says he asked his name to be withdrawn from the panel, there is barely an iota of truth in it as in his report on Iran. The sheer presence of Maryam Rajavi in the anti-Iran mudslinging campaign sheds light on the very nature of the UN-released resolution against Iran.

Besides, it is not a closed book to anyone that Irwin Cotler is a fervent advocate of Tel Aviv and his insistence on having Rajavi on the anti-Iran panel reveals the dirty hands behind the report. So, the pieces of the puzzle come together to make a meaningful whole in this regard.

Over the past three decades, the MKO has initiated a series of deadly attacks on Iran and the Iranian population and has so far assassinated 12000 Iranians including the nuclear scientists. It is interesting to note that the assassinations of prominent Iranian characters including the politicians and scientists are basically conducted in cahoots with Israeli Kidon, the assassination unit within Mossad.

In 1986, the MKO headquarters were transferred to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and Saddam took them under his wings and funded them financially and militarily to fight against Iran. Long listed as a terrorist organization by the international community, the cult was delisted on September 28, 2012 by the US Secretary of State as an extension of their adage that a terrorist in need is a friend indeed.

Some of their sabotaging activities are as follows:

The series of mortar attacks and hit-and-run raids during 2000 and 2001 against Iranian government buildings; one of these killed Iran’s chief of staff
The 2000 mortar attack on President Mohammad Khatami’s palace in Tehran
The February 2000 “Operation Great Bahman,” during which MEK launched 12 attacks against Iran
The 1999 assassination of the deputy chief of Iran’s armed forces general staff, Ali Sayyad Shirazi
The 1998 assassination of the director of Iran’s prison system, Asadollah Lajevardi
The 1992 near-simultaneous attacks on Iranian embassies and institutions in 13 countries
Assistance to Saddam Hussein’s suppression of the 1991 Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish uprisings
The 1981 bombing of the offices of the Islamic Republic Party and of Premier Mohammad-Javad Bahonar, which killed some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials, including President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei and Bahonar Support for the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries
The 1970s killings of U.S. military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran

Viewed from an entirely different angle, the measure very bizarrely coincides with the nuclear talks between Iran and the world six world powers and the November 24 deadline. So, the move may be seen as a last-ditch effort by pro-Israeli lobbies to proceed with their scenario of Iranophobia on the one hand and to sabotage the nuclear talks and bring them to standstill on the other hand.

The UN consciously or unconsciously plays in the hands of the pro-Israeli pressure groups in Canada and only puts on an ugly show of duplicity in imposing a ruling against the Islamic Republic.

Dr. Ismail Salami is an Iranian writer, Middle East expert, Iranologist and lexicographer. He writes extensively on the US and Middle East issues and his articles have been translated into a number of languages.

Israeli settlers step up violent attacks against Palestinians

November 20, 2014 by Nasheman

A Palestinian is seen during a protest against Israeli raids in al-Ram district in annexed Jerusalem on November 18, 2014. Anadolu / Issam Rimawi

by Al-Akhbar

An Israeli settler shot and seriously injured a 16-year-old Palestinian teenager on the outskirts of the West Bank village of Beitin village, Ma’an news agency reported, hours after settlers stabbed a Palestinian in north Jerusalem and attacked a Palestinian school in the village of Urif in the occupied West Bank.

Ibrahim Mahmoud, 16, was shot with a live bullet following a settler demonstration on the outskirts of Beitin, east of Ramallah. Medical sources at the Palestine Medical Complex said his injuries were serious but his condition was stable.

Tuesday’s hate crimes against Palestinians came two days after a Palestinian bus driver was found hanged inside his vehicle in Jerusalem.

Israeli Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch announced on Tuesday that Israeli authorities are to ease regulations on Israelis carrying weapons for “self-defense,” raising fears that the number of attacks on Palestinians will increase.

“In the coming hours, I will ease restrictions on carrying weapons,” he said in remarks broadcast on public radio, indicating it would apply to any Israeli with a license to carry a gun, such as private security guards and off-duty army officers.

Aharonovitch’s announcement followed news of an attack on a synagogue by two Palestinians that left four Israelis dead in Jerusalem on Tuesday. Soon after the synagogue attack, dozens of Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian school in the village of Urif in the occupied West Bank, prompting Palestinian villagers to clash with the attackers and stop them from storming the school.

Six Palestinians were injured by “sponge rounds” after the Israeli Occupation Forces interfered.

Sponge-tipped bullets are made from high-density plastic with a foam-rubber head, and are fired from grenade launchers. Even though protocol explicitly prohibits firing them at the upper body, last week an 11-year-old Palestinian was left blind in one eye after being shot in the face with a sponge-tipped bullet.

Palestinian security sources said that several Israeli settlers smashed Palestinian vehicles as they passed the al-Lubban al-Sharqiya road and threw rocks at Palestinians late on Tuesday.

Earlier that day, Fadi Jalal Radwan, 22, was attacked and stabbed three times in the leg and once in the back by four Israelis while walking in the town of Kafr Aqab. The victim was found bleeding in the street and was rushed to Hadassah hospital for treatment. Doctors said he was in a critical condition.

Hate crimes by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property, referred to as “price tag” attacks, are systematic and often abetted by Israeli authorities, who rarely intervene in the violent attacks or prosecute the perpetrators.

Unrest has gripped Jerusalem and the West Bank on an almost daily basis for the past four months, flaring up after a group of Zionist settlers kidnapped and killed a young Palestinian because of his ethnicity.

Last month, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah slammed Israel for failing to hold Zionist settlers accountable for a recent wave of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

“The Israeli government has never brought settlers to account for the terrorism and intimidation they commit [against Palestinians],” Hamdallah said.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there were at least 399 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in 2013.

More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live in settlements across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law.

(Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)

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