India's largest selling Urdu weekly, now also in English
Mecca live stream on social media app garners over a millions tweets, and unprecedented view of Muslim holy city.
![More than a million tweets were made using the hashtag 'Mecca_live' according to analytic site, Topsy [AP]](https://i0.wp.com/nasheman.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Mecca_live.jpg)
More than a million tweets were made using the hashtag ‘Mecca_live’ according to analytic site, Topsy [AP]
by Shafik Mandhai, Al Jazeera
Authorities vow to implement ban on veil a day after Boko Haram bomber disguised as woman attacked market in capital.
by Al Jazeera
Chadian police have said anyone wearing a full-face veil will be arrested, a day after a Boko Haram suicide bombing – carried out by an attacker disguised as a women wearing one – left 15 dead.
Saturday’s attack at a market in the capital, N’Djamena, also injured 80 others and spread panic across the city. The assailant detonated an explosives belt when he was stopped for security checks at the entrance to the city’s main market.
“This attack just confirms that a ban on the full-face veil was justified,” national police spokesman Paul Manga said, adding that “it now must be respected more than ever by the entire population”.
“Anyone who does not obey the law will be automatically arrested and brought to justice,” he warned.
Muslim-majority Chad banned the full-face veil, ramped up security measures and bombed Boko Haram positions in Nigeria last month after the first ever attack by the armed group in its capital.
Security was tightened across the capital on Sunday with police and soldiers deployed in all areas, including intersections, markets and mosques.
Nine of the dead were women traders, and fear still permeated the market on Sunday.
“What was happening elsewhere and what we heard about from media reports is now happening here,” said Zenaba, a woman trader in her forties.
“I’m really scared for me and my children,” she said.
Boko Haram claimed responsibility on Twitter for the suicide bombing, signing off as “Islamic State, West Africa province” – the fighters’ self-styled moniker since pledging allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group in March.
The conflict has killed at least 15,000 people since 2009 and left more than 1.5 million homeless.
A four-nation coalition of Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon has reportedly pushed the armed group from captured towns and villages in an operation that began in February.
Thousands of mourners descend on town where more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered during Bosnian war.
![The bodies of the recently identified victims will be transported to the memorial centre in Potocari where they will be buried on Saturday [Reuters]](https://i0.wp.com/nasheman.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Srebrenica.jpg)
The bodies of the recently identified victims will be transported to the memorial centre in Potocari where they will be buried on Saturday [Reuters]
Tens of thousands of people poured into Srebrenica 20 years after more than 8,000 people were killed in the worst atrocity on European soil since World War II.
The remains of 136 newly-identified victims will be laid to rest on Saturday along with thousands of others already buried at a memorial centre just outside the Bosnian town.
Thousands of Muslim men and boys were slaughtered by Bosnian Serb forces after they captured Srebrenica in July 1995 near the end of Bosnia’s inter-ethnic war,
Dozens of dignitaries from across Bosnia and abroad, were also expected to be present at the ceremony and a day of mourning will be observed throughout the Balkan country.
Former US President Bill Clinton, whose administration brokered the Dayton peace deal that ended Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war only a few months after the Srebrenica killings, travelled to Srebrenica for the memorial.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Britain’s Princess Anne and Jordan’s Queen Noor were also due to attend.
The bones of newly identified victims will be interred beneath marble gravestones in the Potocari memorial cemetery, in what has become annual ritual as more graves are discovered.
“One cannot describe with words how I feel today,” said Zijada Hajdarevic as she escorted the remains of her brother on Thursday from the morgue to the cemetery, where her grandfather and other close relatives are all buried.
“We knew he was gone, but it will be easier now we know where we can visit his grave,” said Hajdarevic, who is still searching for her father.
Disputed term
A UN court has ruled that the killings in Srebrenica was genocide.
Many Serbs dispute the term, the death toll and the official account of what went on – reflecting conflicting narratives of the Yugoslav wars that still feed political divisions and stifle progress toward integration with Western Europe.
Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik last month described Srebrenica as “the greatest deception of the 20th century”.
Russia this week vetoed a UN resolution last week that would have condemned the denial of Srebrenica as genocide. Moscow called for all people responsible for the massacre to be brought to justice.
Samantha Power, Washington’s ambassador to the United Nations who was a 24-year-old journalist in Bosnia at the time, said: “You cannot build reconciliation on the denial of genocide.”
Ever since the massacre, the West has faced questions over how it allowed the fall of Srebrenica, a designated UN “safe haven” for Muslims Bosniaks displaced by the war.
Months later, NATO air strikes forced the Serbs to the negotiating table. A US-brokered peace treaty ended the fighting and enshrined in Bosnia a complicated and unwieldy system of ethnic power-sharing that survives today.
The accused chief architects of the massacre – Bosnian Serb wartime political leader Radovan Karadzic and military commander Ratko Mladic – remain on trial at a UN court in The Hague, protesting their innocence.
Meanwhile, dueling rallies are taking place in Athens on Thursday and Friday
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras reportedly told the Greek Parliament on Thursday to brace for ‘compromise’. (Photo: Martin Schulz/flickr/cc)
by Deirdre Fulton, Common Dreams
The Greek government on Thursday evening approved a package of specific reform measures it will present to foreign creditors in an effort to break an impasse that has raised questions about austerity and democracy across the European continent.
While details were not immediately made public, early news reports suggested the reform plan could include “punitive” measures such as at least €12 billion of cuts and tax increases—all in exchange for debt relief.
According to the Guardian:
Parliament is expected to endorse the package after a frantic few days of negotiation that followed a landmark referendum last Sunday in which Greek voters backed the radical leftist Syriza government’s call for debt relief.
Syriza, which is in coalition with the rightwing populist Independent party, is expected to meet huge opposition from within its own ranks and from trade unions and youth groups that viewed the referendum as a vote against any austerity.
Panagiotis Lafazanis, the energy minister and influential hard-leftist, who on Wednesday welcomed a deal for a new €2bn gas pipeline from Russia, has ruled out a new tough austerity package.
Lafazanis represents around 70 Syriza MPs who have previously taken a hard line against further austerity measures and could yet wreck any top-level agreement.
As the Guardian‘s Helena Smith argued: “The irony has not been lost on anyone… that after the Greeks’ resounding rejection of further biting austerity at the weekend, prime minister Alexis Tsipras has with lightning speed now agreed to put his name to the most punitive austerity package any government has been asked to implement during the five years of economic crisis in Greece.”
Indeed, the UK’s Telegraph adds that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras “has now reportedly told his parliament to brace themselves for ‘compromise’.”
Still, “[t]he concession would allow Mr. Tsipras to sell the deal as a face-saving measure after the Greek people delivered a ‘No’ to the previous bail-out terms, which provided no explicit promise to debt relief,” Telegraph journalist Mehreen Khan wrote on Thursday.
Tsipras and his Syriza government have long said that easing the country’s debt would restore “dignity” to impoverished Greeks.
The new proposal will be studied on a technical level by the so-called Troika—the European Central Bank, the European Union, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF)—on Friday, followed by further discussions among Eurozone finance ministers on Saturday and a full EU summit on Sunday.
It is not yet clear how these stakeholders will respond to Greece’s pitch. European Council president Donald Tusk said Thursday that any “realistic proposal from Athens needs to be matched by realistic proposal from creditors on debt sustainability to create [a] win-win situation”—suggesting he, like the IMF, supports the idea of debt relief.
But German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was in Bosnia on Thursday, continues to rule out slashing the face value of Greece’s government debt, saying a so-called “haircut” on Greek loans was out of the question.
The BBC‘s Hugh Schofield argues that “at this dramatic juncture Greece looks to France as its last remaining hope.”
Schofield continues:
As one by one other EU governments have accepted the likelihood of an impending Greek departure, France cleaves to the imperative of compromise.
On Wednesday, even as Mr Tsipras addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Prime Minister Manuel Valls was telling a debate in the French National Assembly that keeping Greece in the EU was of “utmost geostrategic and geopolitical importance” and that a deal was “within grasp”.
Reporting from Athens, the Guardian‘s Smith adds: “Officials here are saying that all hope now rests with the French connection. Paris has dispatched a team of technocrats to help finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos draft the new proposal in an effort to ensure it is as convincing as can possibly be.”
Meanwhile, dueling rallies are slated to take place in Athens on Thursday and Friday, amidst ongoing negotiations between Greek officials and foreign creditors over debt relief and austerity, and ahead of the weekend meetings that could decide Greece’s future in the Eurozone.
Declaring “We’re staying in Europe,” Greeks who favor a harsh, Troika-proposed bailout deal—albeit at the cost of more cuts and austerity—will converge outside Parliament at 7:30 pm local time on Thursday.
The following day—same time, same place—”No” supporters, who won a landslide victory in Sunday’s referendum, will hold an anti-austerity rally under the slogan “Hands off democracy.”
A Guardian analysis published Thursday offers an indication of who might be in attendance at each demonstration. The Guardian‘s interactive map shows that while last week’s vote indeed reflected divisions between the old and young, it also split along class lines, with the nation’s poor voting overwhelmingly against the austerity package, and rich people voting “Yes.”
At least eight predominantly black churches have burned since Charleston shooting; Ramadan fundraiser aims to help
Photo: AFP
by Al Jazeera
A coalition of Muslim groups has launched an online fundraiser to help rebuild predominantly African-American churches damaged in a recent spate of fires across the South.
At least eight churches have suffered fire damage since a shooting on June 17 at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, left nine black parishioners dead.
The church burnings took place within just 10 days of one another, and three are being investigated as possible arson cases.
“To many, it is clear that these are attacks on black culture, black religion and black lives,” the coalition wrote on the campaign’s LaunchGood page.
“It’s Ramadan, and we are experiencing firsthand the beauty and sanctity of our mosques during this holy month. All houses of worship are sanctuaries, a place where all should feel safe,” it added.
The coalition — which consists of U.S. organizations Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative and the Arab American Association of New York as well as digital startup Ummah Wide — has so far raised over $23,000 in five days. After the campaign ends on July 18, the money will be given to pastors of the burned churches that need it most, the groups said.
Like black communities in the United States, the coalition wrote, American Muslims are also vulnerable to intimidation, though not to the same extent as African-Americans.
“The American Muslim community cannot claim to have experienced anything close to the systematic and institutionalized racism and racist violence that has been visited upon African-Americans,” organizer Imam Zaid Shakir wrote on the campaign’s website.
However, Muslims can understand the “climate of racially inspired hate and bigotry that is being reignited in this country,” he wrote, saying the American Muslim community should stand in solidarity with African-Americans.
Just 65 miles north of the church where professed white supremacist Dylann Roof allegedly killed nine people, investigators took samples from the charred rubble of Mount Zion AME Church. Authorities said last week they were assessing whether accelerant was used to fuel the blaze at the church, which the Ku Klux Klan burned to the ground two decades ago.
Two other church burnings — God’s Power Church of Christ in Macon, Georgia, and College Hill Seventh Day Adventist in Knoxville, Tennessee — were also suspected arson attacks and are being investigated.
Authorities have not classified any of the fires as hate crimes.
With wire services
New spy revelations ‘likely to reinvigorate tensions,’ says The Intercept, which co-published list of targets
Photo published Tuesday under the ABC News headline, “2 Years After Spying Flap, US, Brazil Seek to Turn the Page.” (Photo: AP)
by Deirdre Fulton, Common Dreams
Just days after Brazil President Dilma Rousseff’s official working visit to the United States, during which she and President Barack Obama issued a joint communique affirming their “mutual respect and trust,” WikiLeaks and The Intercept on Saturday, July 4 published a “top secret U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) target list of 29 key Brazilian government phone numbers that were selected for intensive interception,” or phone-tapping.
Noting that last week’s visit to the U.S. was one “she had delayed for almost two years in anger over prior revelations of NSA spying on Brazil,” The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald and David Miranda argue that “these new revelations extend far beyond the prior ones and are likely to reinvigorate tensions.”
As WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange said in a press statement accompanying the leak: “Our publication today shows the U.S. has a long way to go to prove its dragnet surveillance on ‘friendly’ governments is over.”
The list of priority targets includes not only Rousseff but also her assistant, her secretary, her chief of staff, her Palace office, and the phone in her Presidential jet. According to WikiLeaks, the NSA targeted “not only those closest to the President, but waged an economic espionage campaign against Brazil, spying on those responsible for managing Brazil’s economy, including the head of its Central Bank.”
This is notable because, as Greenwald and Miranda write, “Brazilians are particularly sensitive to economic espionage by the U.S., both for historical reasons (as a hallmark of American imperialism and domination on the continent) and due to current economic concerns (for that reason, the story of NSA’s targeting of Petrobras was arguably the most consequential of all prior surveillance stories).”
The phones of Brazil’s foreign minister as well as its ambassadors to Germany, France, the EU, the U.S., and Geneva were also on the list.
In an interview with The Intercept, Gilberto Carvalho, a top aide to Rousseff, described his reaction to the spying revelations as “maximum indignation.”
Greenwald and Miranda continue:
For his part, the Central Bank’s Pereira da Silva said his reaction is to fully embrace the stinging denunciation of NSA’s electronic surveillance contained inDilma’s September, 2013 United Nations speech, delivered while Obama waited in the hallway to speak. That blistering speech was widely regarded in Brazil as a high point of Dilma’s leadership on the world stage.
Speaking from the General Assembly podium, she declared that “tampering in such a manner in the affairs of other countries is a breach of international law and is an affront of the principles that must guide the relations among them, especially among friendly nations.” She condemned U.S. mass surveillance as a “grave violation of human rights and of civil liberties” and, in a rare invocation of her own personal history as a rebel against the country’s oppressive military dictatorship, said: “As many other Latin Americans, I fought against authoritarianism and censorship, and I cannot but defend, in an uncompromising fashion, the right to privacy of individuals and the sovereignty of my country. In the absence of the right to privacy, there can be no true freedom of expression and opinion, and therefore no effective democracy.”
Saturday’s leak comes on the heels of previous publications by WikiLeaks that show systematic U.S. targeting of the highest officials including three French presidents and the current chancellor of Germany. On Friday, CNN and The Intercept reported that the U.S. government spied on German journalists as well.
Minister makes announcement on personal blog as European creditors scramble to respond to “No” vote in debt referendum.
by Al Jazeera
Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has resigned after Greek voters delivered an overwhelming “No” vote in a referendum on whether to accept more austerity measures in return for new bailout cash.
In a statement published on his personal blog on Monday, Varoufakis said he was stepping down to allow Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to reach a new deal with European creditors.
“Soon after the announcement of the referendum results, I was made aware of a certain preference by some Eurogroup participants, and assorted ‘partners’, for my … ‘absence’ from its meetings; an idea that the Prime Minister judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement,” Varoufakis wrote on his blog.
“For this reason I am leaving the Ministry of Finance today.
“I consider it my duty to help Alexis Tsipras exploit, as he sees fit, the capital that the Greek people granted us through yesterday’s referendum. And I shall wear the creditors’ loathing with pride.”
Al Jazeera’s John Psaropoulos, reporting from Athens, said the decision to step down was expected and not a surprise.
“Many times since he took office in January he’s said that he’s not in it for the long haul, he said that he’s not a politician, he’s a technocrat, an academic,” Psaropoulos said.
EU leaders to meet
The announcement came as European Union leaders scrambled for a response on Monday, following the overwhelming “No” vote in Sunday’s referendum.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande were expected to meet in Paris on Monday, after calling for an emergency eurozone summit in a phone conversation after the result of the vote became apparent on Sunday.
EU President Donald Tusk said that the summit would be held on Tuesday, according to the AFP news agency.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker – who had said a Greek “No” would be “no to Europe” was expected to speak to the European Central Bank (ECB) and eurozone finance ministers on Monday.
Martin Schulz, the president of the European parliament, told Al Jazeera that the “No” vote had created a difficult situation, but the will of the Greek people must be respected.
“Ordinary citizens, pensioners, sick people and children in kindergarten should not pay a price for the dramatic situation … therefore, a humanitarian programme is needed immediately,” Schulz said.
“I hope that the Greek government will, in the next few hours, make meaningful and constructive proposals, allowing that they are meaningful and possible to renegotiate. If not, we are entering into a very difficult and even dramatic time.”
Greek voters overwhelmingly rejected international creditors’ tough bailout terms, sparking fears that the cash-strapped nation was on its way out of the euro.
Voters had been asked on Sunday whether to accept or reject the country’s multibillion euro bailout deal with the EU that called for more austerity in exchange for rescue loans.
Figures released by the interior ministry showed the final tally at 61.31 percent voting “No” and 38.69 percent voting “Yes”. Participation stood at 62.5 percent.
Thousands of pro-government supporters cheered and hugged each other in central Athens in celebration, although some other Greeks expressed pessimism that Tsipras would be able to deliver on his promises.
In a televised address after the referendum, Tsipras said the creditors – the ECB, the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund – would now finally have to talk about restructuring the massive, 240-billion-euro ($267bn) debt Greece owes them.
“This time, the debt will be on the negotiating table,” he said, insisting that an IMF report seen this week “confirms Greek views that restructuring the debt is necessary”.
Tsipras said that the referendum results did not mean Athens was headed for a so-called Grexit.
“This is not a mandate of rupture with Europe, but a mandate that bolsters our negotiating strength to achieve a viable deal,” he said.
Even in the most difficult circumstances, #democracy can’t be blackmailed—it is a dominant value and the way forward. #Greece #Greferendum
— Alexis Tsipras (@tsipras_eu) July 5, 2015
The ruling Syriza government closed the country’s banks and imposed capital controls until July 6 to stem the flood of withdrawals after the bailout deal failed.
The cash-strapped nation eventually defaulted on an IMF payment of $1.8bn on June 30. The same day, the last bailout for Greece ran out, despite Tsipras’ appeals for it to be extended until the referendum was over.
Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Phillips, reporting from Athens, said the result shows a “much better” outcome for Tsipras and could embolden the prime minister to go back to Europe and demand a better deal for Greece.
One Briton’s attempt at crowdfunding the Greek bailout might not work, but it sends an important message.
![Thom Feeney launched a crowdfunding IndieGoGo project 'Greek Bailout Fund' with the final target of 1.6 billion euros [$1.8bn] needed to make the payment [Niklas Hallen/AFP/Getty Images]](https://i0.wp.com/nasheman.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Thom-Feeney.jpg)
Thom Feeney launched a crowdfunding IndieGoGo project ‘Greek Bailout Fund’ with the final target of 1.6 billion euros [$1.8bn] needed to make the payment [Niklas Hallen/AFP/Getty Images]
As Greeks prepare to vote on whether the country should accept the terms of a new government, a 29-year-old from the UK has devised his own solution to Greece’s national debt.
Thom Feeney’s crowdfunding page to raise the 1.6bn euros ($1.8bn) the Greek government owes in arrears promises Greek-themed gifts of varying value to anyone who contributes.
The initiative gained such popularity that host site IndieGoGo temporarily crashed as it struggled to cope with the numbers of people trying to donate.
Donations are still coming in, even though Greece already officially defaulted on the repayment of the loan.
So far the fund has raised 1,740,959 euros ($1,934,901), with most people opting for the 3 euro ($3.3) donation that gains a postcard of Greek Prime Minister Alex Tsipras in return, sent from Greece.
At the time of publication, five people had donated 5,000 euros ($5,557), for which they got a holiday in Greece.
Despite the donations, it seems unlikely the campaign will succeed, economists agreed.
A strong signal
When asked whether the bailout fund would emerge victorious, economist Robert Kahn, a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations gave Al Jazeera a resounding “No”.
“He’s doing okay, but no, it couldn’t work,” Khan said.
“It’s not going to raise enough money, that’s the real reason. I was thinking about this though, there’s some history where in crises some countries have benefited from the support of private citizens abroad,” Khan went on.
“For example in 1997/98 in Korea, money flowed out from Korea to support children and families, but when the crisis hit, that reversed – it was a patriotic return. That was a material part of their adjustment,” explained the economist.
“It’s not quite the same thing we are talking about here, but there are instances when you have this willingness to put money up for a country in distress and it can make a material difference, I am not averse to it as a principal,” Kahn said.
Kahn told Al Jazeera that even though the campaign was unlikely to be successful in its ultimate goal – it was sending a strong message.
“It is a signal of support and that there is help there,” he said.
“The reality is though, that really the only path forward for Greece in the eurozone, if indeed they should be in the eurozone, involves some pretty tough policy moves and a lot of financing and debt relief. I am not convinced it is going to make much of a difference. It is more of a political statement,” concluded Kahn.
‘Momentary setback’
That political statement comes at a volatile time for the people of Greece, who on Sunday are voting on what many see to be the country’s future in the EU.
If the “No” vote wins and Greece rejects the terms of the bailout outlined by the IMF and the European Central Bank, many will see it as a move towards the infamous “Grexit”.
A “Yes” vote will effectively spell the end of Greece’s Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who on Thursday told Bloomberg: “I prefer to cut my arm off rather than sign an agreement without debt restructuring.”
For Athens-based Nikos Moumoris, the crowdfunding campaign set up by a man from York has an importance beyond its financial efforts.
“It is always nice to see this kind of support from people … you will never meet in the physical world, but it is the people on the ground who suffer the most and this will be always the case,” he said.
“I doubt the crowdfunding effort will yield the stated results, but I think it serves most for the awareness of people abroad and the support of people in my country who, apparently, advocate a ‘No’ vote.”
Giannis Arkoudos, a web designer from Athens thinks the message is positive regardless of whether the country votes “Yes” or “No”.
“To be honest, I personally don’t consider the movement as equivalent to a wish against a Grexit, but more as a reflection that people understand our country’s situation over the last five years, and as a pledge of support for any tough days still to come – whether we remain in, or leave, the EU, the wounds are deep, and this help is more than welcome,” Arkoudos said.
“I don’t see the solidarity of the movement as a yes or no factor. My reaction is more that ‘these are the friends we want’,” Arkoudos added.
“Greece of course needs to stand on her own two feet. Crowdfunding is never the best way to solve problems, though it is perhaps one way of surmounting a momentary setback. But if we do not solve Greece’s deep structural problems the problem will recur, and the money will never be sufficient,” Arkoudos said.
People band together
Campaign founder Feeney has said his idea was born out of frustration with the politics surrounding the bailout, and that he wanted the gifts people receive for donating to be all sourced in Greece to help stimulate the economy.
“I was fed up of the Greek crisis going around in circles, while politicians are dithering. This is affecting real people. While all the posturing is going on, it’s easy for the politicians to forget that. I just thought, sod it, I’ll have a crack,” Feeney said in a statement to journalists.
“This isn’t just about Greece, but about the Greek people, the working classes and trying to help other ordinary people across the world. If governments, corporations or banks won’t help, what can we do but band together,” the statement said.
“If we don’t reach that target, what a wonderful message it sends out. It shows that whether you’re a working class lad in Yorkshire, Scotland or Athens, other people around the world care about you, even if your government has forgotten. You can make a difference.”
Feeney also said that if the campaign is not successful, the money will be returned to the donors.
Charity or solidarity?
Not everyone in Greece, however, sees the campaign as a show of solidarity.
Sotiris Koukios from Alexandroupolis said that the terms “solidarity” and “charity” were too often confused.
“Charming initiatives are always charming,” he said. “As a concept, it is not something negative, on the contrary [the campaign] could help Greek product marketing, but I doubt that 10 euros [$11] for a bottle of ouzo is what the country needs as support.
Actually I don’t see it as a form of solidarity. Sometimes we mix charity with solidarity.”
Koukios does not think the political fallout from the campaign will be enough to change the minds of politicians or the public.
“Civil society in Europe has the power and should put pressure on the EU through parliament and through campaigns to change the attitude of European public towards the country.”
“Greeks have been accused of many things in the last five years. It’s not a donation that would solve the problem nor marketing. Political pressure is needed urgently!”
Feeney’s efforts, though, have certainly struck a chord across Europe, with the majority of contributors so far being from the UK, Germany, and France.
“It shows that so many people care about giving to people when they need it most, not kicking them while they’re down. To help an economy recover we need investment and stimulus, not cuts and austerity,” wrote Feeney.
More than 80,000 people have contributed to the campaign since it launched on June 28, and by Feeney’s reckoning, if each of the EU’s 503 million citizens did the same, the target would be reached.
Whether or not that happens seems to many to be less important than the spirit behind the idea.
“It is more important in showing there are people out there who want their governments to show more flexibility,” Kahn told Al Jazeera.
“People are showing they have empathy for the Greek tragedy.”
UK-based anti-Sharia campaign group will host an exhibition featuring cartoons of the prophet of Islam in September.
by Azad Essa, Al Jazeera
Muslim organisations in the UK have condemned a move by an anti-Sharia campaign group to host an exhibition featuring cartoons of Prophet Muhammad in London in September.
Azad Ali, chair of the Muslim Safety Forum based in London, told Al Jazeera on Friday the proposed “Muhammad Cartoon Exhibit” by UK-based Sharia Watch was an attempt to taunt the tolerance levels of British Muslims, and described the move as a cheap attempt to create disharmony in the UK.
“They keep on pushing the boundary, testing the levels and always upping the ante … this is what this is about: getting a reaction from Muslims and looking for a justification to demonise us,” Ali said.
“We are looking to find ways for a positive discussion to come out of this, but no one thinks the planned event is anything but racist,” he said.
The exhibit is set to feature controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders as a speaker. Wilders is known to be vehemently anti-Islam.
Talking to Al Jazeera, Miqdaad Versi, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said the proposed event illustrated that Islamophobia had now become socially acceptable in Britain.
“It [Islamophobia] has become mainstream, and acceptable, and this has provided a platform for more extreme views to surface,” Versi said.
Depictions of Prophet Muhammad are banned in Islam and many Muslims say they are being continuously provoked and taunted with demeaning depictions of the prophet that are often seen as “vile and racist”.
In 2006, violent protests erupted in parts of the Arab world and South Asia as Muslims took to the streets to demonstrate against the publication of cartoons of Prophet Muhammad by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper in Denmark.
The same cartoons were published by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, prompting an arson attack on the newspaper in 2011.
Climate of fear’
Charlie Hebdo was brutally attacked in January by two gunmen, resulting in the murder of 12 people.
In May, two gunmen attacked an art exhibition in Garland, Texas where caricatures of Prophet Muhammad were being exhibited.
UK-based Sharia Watch said on Tuesday the event had been organised to honour those who “risk their lives in defence of free expression, and of those who have been murdered in this cause”.
Anne Marie Waters, director of Sharia Watch, said in the statement that the event was about freedom of expression.
“The outlook for our democracy depends on the actions we take today. We owe it to future generations to pass on the freedom we have enjoyed,” Waters said.
But many commentators say the cartoons of Prophet Muhammad have little to do with free speech.
In June, Jordan Denari, a research fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, said that sharing cartoons of the prophet contributed “to an existing climate of fear in which Muslims are seen as a threat – a climate that endangers Muslims in the West”.
“These cartoons play into the worst stereotypes about Muslims. Almost all of the cartoons displayed at the Garland contest portrayed Muhammad in a negative light, showing the prophet as violent, backward, sexually perverted, and intolerant of non-Muslims,” Denari wrote.
Earlier in June, Geert Wilders said he wanted to showcase cartoons of Prophet Muhammad on Dutch television on airtime usually reserved for political parties. This was in response to a decision by the Dutch parliament not to display the toons.
President’s office says WikiLeaks founder did not face “immediate danger”, in response to Assange’s request for asylum.
![Julian Assange faces allegations by two women of rape and sexual assault, which he denies [AP]](https://i0.wp.com/nasheman.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Assange.jpg)
Julian Assange faces allegations by two women of rape and sexual assault, which he denies [AP]
The French government has rejected an asylum request from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, saying he did not face “immediate danger”.
In a letter to the French President, Assange described himself as a “journalist pursued and threatened with death by the United States’ authorities as a result of my professional activities”.
He asked in the letter, published on Friday in Le Monde newspaper, to be granted asylum by France.
Hours later, the office of President Francois Hollande responded in a statement that read: “France cannot act on his request”.
“The situation of Mr Assange does not present an immediate danger. Furthermore, he is subject to a European arrest warrant,” Hollande’s office said.
Assange, who turned 44 on Friday, has spent over three years holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he faces allegations by two women, one of rape and one of sexual assault, which he denies.
The former computer hacker fears extradition to Sweden could lead to him being transferred to the US to face trial over WikiLeaks’ publication of classified US military and diplomatic documents.