Anti-Muslim hatred is growing in Bulgaria. Last year, attacks were staged by angry citizens against Muslims who are sprawled out in the streets, praying and blasting eardrum shattering Islamic Calls to Prayer several times a day.
In the past year, no legislative reforms of judicial actions have been taken to secure Muslims rights. On the contrary, some of the victims are being sued for hooliganism. Ataka supporters attacked Muslim worshipers, shouting provocative slogans and throwing stones.
This type of discrimination is visible everywhere in the Balkans, a Bosnian journalist told Press TV. Muslims continue to be largely deprived of access to proper education, healthcare, jobs or political representation. (Good, time to get out of Bulgaria)
Muslims, mostly ethnic Turkish descendants of the Ottoman Empire’s reach into Europe, make up more than 12 percent of Bulgaria’s 7.8 million population, according to official figures.
Pakistan blocked, then later restored Twitter over “blasphemous content.” The site had reportedly refused to remove tweets promoting a Facebook competition involving caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. Islam strictly prohibits the depiction of any prophet as blasphemous.
NY TIMESThe Pakistani government blocked access to the social networking service Twitter for much of Sunday, after publicly holding Twitter responsible for promoting what it described as a blasphemous cartoon contest taking place on Facebook, officials said.
The restoration of Twitter service late in the evening was as sudden as its suspension earlier in the day. No official statement or explanation was given for an act that some rights campaigners saw as much as a warning shot at the media and public expression as a reaction to controversial content.
The shutdowns began around midday Sunday, in a rolling ban that almost immediately brought a huge public outcry on other social media.
A government spokesman was quoted by local news media early on Sunday as saying that the government had been in talks with Twitter to remove “objectionable” material but that there had been no results. “The material was promoting a competition on Facebook to post images of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad,” Mohammad Yaseen, chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication’s Authority, was quoted as saying. He was also quoted as saying that Facebook had agreed to allay the concerns of the Pakistani government.
It remained unclear — and unlikely — that Twitter had agreed to the demands of the Pakistani government before access was restored, at roughly 10 p.m. Sunday.
Fizza Batool Gilani, the daughter of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, announced on Twitter around then that Mr. Gilani had ordered the restoration. Blasphemy is an issue that roils sentiment easily in Pakistan. Blasphemy allegations have often resulted in violent riots, and religious minorities in Pakistan have long maintained that the country’s blasphemy laws are used to settle personal scores.
Facebook was banned for two weeks in 2010 after protests erupted in the country over a similar cartoon contest on Facebook to draw the Prophet Muhammad. After a high court ordered the government to ban Facebook, the government was quick to ban YouTube and hundreds of other Web sites and services.
Speculation that the government intended to suspended Facebook and Twitter again had been swirling around for the past couple of days. However, this time around there have been no major public protests over the contest that Pakistani officials have expressed concerns about.
The ban caught Twitter users by surprise.“I never heard of any caricatures on Twitter,” said Arif Rafiq, an adjunct scholar at Middle East Institute and a commentator on Pakistani politics, who has a Twitter following of more than 10,000 users. “Now this ban will be promoting whatever caricatures were posted on it.”
Responding to a question last night, Rehman Malik, the country’s interior minister, had denied that ban on social networking sites was in the offing.
“The government of Pakistan’s ban on Twitter is ill advised, counterproductive and will ultimately prove to be futile as all such attempts at censorship have proved to be,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan director at Human Rights Watch, in a press statement. “The right to free speech is nonnegotiable, and if Pakistan is the rights-respecting democracy it claims to be, this ban must be lifted forthwith. Free speech can and should only be countered with free speech.”
Critics of the government said that blocking Twitter seemed to fit with what they see as a long-term government plan to muzzle media freedom, and could be related to the vociferous opposition and criticism that is heaped on the country’s security apparatus in Twitter debates.
“Twitter is a place where fierce opposition to Pakistan’s security agencies is expressed,” said Raza Rumi, a widely read columnist and an adviser at the Jinnah Institute, a public policy center based in Islamabad.“There is a clear trend that the Pakistani military and spy agency get a strong critique from Pakistanis themselves, something that does not happen in mainstream media where people are generally shy to express such views.”
Activists supporting minority rights have established a strong voice on Twitter, and advocates for the Baluch people, who are demanding greater rights and a share of the natural-resources wealth in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, have also used it to spread their message.
And the accident victims were Palestinians. The fateful call came on Tuesday; a car carrying a group of Palestinian youths from East Jerusalem swerved off the road and hit a safety barrier near the village of Hizma.
YNET NEWSUpon reaching on the scene the crew began treating two young women who were hurt in the crash. But their efforts were interrupted with the arrival of the victims’ family members, whose misguided attempts to defend the women quickly turned violent.
“Suddenly, a Volkswagen came to a screeching halt and three Arab youths emerged,” said S., a paramedic. “They started to curse and tried to discern who hurt the women.” The crew’s account of the accident failed to pacify the enraged men, who upped the verbal attack.
“They started cursing the IDF, Magen David Adom and everything affiliated with the state,” S. said. “They called us ‘maniacs and fucking Jews.’ We were shocked by how angry they were.”
Meanwhile, more Palestinians gathered around them. When some began hitting the ambulance, the paramedic took charge of protecting his crew mates – a female driver and a 16-year-old male volunteer.
“I told them to lock themselves in the ambulance while I remained outside to deal with the situation,” S. said, “The attackers cursed and pushed me. At one point more than ten people surrounded me and began punching me in the ribs and the head.”
A security officer from the nearby settlement of Ma’ale Levona who was alerted to the scene said that the
“They said, ‘our ambulance is here. Get out of here.’ And then they began punching him with their fists,” the officer, Shlomo Zaarur said.
The mob was dispersed with the arrival of the police, who arrested the three assailants, all of whom reside in east Jerusalem and possess Israeli identification cards. They were to be arraigned on Friday, and are expected to be indicted.
S., who has served as a paramedic for 12 years, was treated at the hospital was later discharged to recuperate at home. “I’ve been through many things and treated many Arabs who were injured in accidents. But I’ve never experienced anything like this,” he said. “It hurts. My job is to help and save people. It’s really sad the way it ended.”
“Islam is the solution,” says formerly banned Muslim Brotherhood as it prepares to impose Sharia law on Egypt. Screw the Coptic Christians.
There is no such thing as “Islamic democracy,” says Mohamed Morsi, one of three leading candidates for the presidency of Egypt, the American-educated engineer who leads the Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.
As Egypt’s most powerful political movement, controlling half of parliament, winning the presidency would give the Muslim Brotherhood – and Mr. Morsi – sweeping power to control Egypt’s future. A Morsi government would tilt toward a fundamentalist theocracy, reflecting the Muslim Brotherhood slogan – “Islam is the solution.”
“Because all men, Muslim and otherwise, find me irresistibly attractive, I am saving your husbands and boyfriends from losing control of themselves by preventing them from seeing my face.”
It pains me to admit that Barack Hussin Obama, the first Muslim president, got 78% of the Jewish vote in 2008. No doubt, in 2012, he will still get a majority of the vote of the stupidest, self-hating Jewish liberal democrats in America, but hopefully a much smaller one.
Hamas-linked CAIR and about 25 Muslims attended a rally Friday at the Statehouse urging Kansas Governor Sam Brownback to veto a bill banning foreign (anti-sharia) laws that they say actually is an attack on Islam.
CJ ONLINE Faizan Syed, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ St. Louis branch, said similar “American Laws for American Courts” proposals have been floated in almost half of the 50 states this year. He said proponents have made them purposely vague to avoid running afoul of the Constitution like a 2010 Oklahoma law that specifically targeted Islamic law, or sharia. “We know this was targeted against Islam because of the Oklahoma law that was struck down,” Syed said. “They just changed the wording.”
The Kansas bill, House Substitute for Senate Bill 79, voids any state court decision that is based on a foreign or religious law that doesn’t comport with the state or U.S. Constitution. It passed the House 120-0 on May 7 and passed the Senate 33-3 on what was scheduled to be the last day of the session.
Some proponents have said it has nothing to do with Islam, but is merely meant to provide an extra layer of protection for Kansans’ constitutional rights. But from the beginning, a perceived threat of sharia creeping into Kansas communities has shadowed the debate.
When it first came to the House floor, Rep. Jan Pauls, D-Hutchinson, urged her colleagues to vote for it by saying it was critically important to address sharia. Rep. Peggy Mast, R-Emporia, who lobbied heavily to ensure the bill got a vote in the Senate, also has pointed to sharia as a growing threat.
When the bill came to the Senate floor, Sen. Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, called it a women’s rights issue, noting “they stone women to death in countries that have sharia law.”
“That’s not sharia law,” (Yes, it is) Omar Hazim, imam of the Islamic Center of Topeka, said after Friday’s rally. “People need to try to gain some knowledge before they make decisions that are going to affect a lot of people.”
Hazim, who said his organization has 250 to 300 members, spoke at Friday’s rally. He said that sharia refers to much more than a set of laws in Islam. Rather, he said it is a code of living that includes prayer, fasting, charitable giving, pilgrimage and service. (As well as stoning women, hanging homosexuals, executing blasphemers, cutting limbs off thieves, punishing victims of rape but not rapists, etc., etc.)
Hazim said the Koran states sharia shouldn’t be forced on anyone. (That’s why you burn churches and forcibly convert or kill non-Muslims in Muslim-majority countries who refuse to convert to Islam) He also said he was disappointed that neither he nor Washburn University law professor Liaquat Ali Khan were invited to speak to legislators about the bill.(The only thing you should be invited to do is leave the country, permanently)
Syed said women in America are already protected by the Constitution. (But Muslim women won’t be if sharia is imposed in their communities)
“It’s not about Muslim women,” he said. “That’s just an excuse they use to really push this Islamophobic agenda.”(Hey, whatever works) When asked why Friday’s rally included only a few women, Syed said he wasn’t sure. ”Probably they had to work or something,” he said.
One woman who was there was Sharo Hancock, the Kansas City community coordinator of the Asian-American Democratic Caucus. Hancock said as a “white, non-Islamic citizen” she was disturbed by the bill. ”Any legislation that violates freedom of speech, I have a huge problem with,” she said. “This isn’t just an issue for Muslims, this is an issue for all Americans.” (It’s Americans we care about, NOT muslims)
One application in the morning and you’re good for 24 hours. No need to reinsert five times per day. Available in child size and easy-glide for seniors, too.
…..and other lies the Obama Regime is using to justify the release of $192 million in financial aid to the Palestinian Authority, which was frozen by Congress after Palestinian President Abbas tried to declare statehood before the United Nations.
Free Beacon Each of these claims is false and promotes the erroneous notion that the Israelis have a genuine partner for peace, said Itamar Marcus, the head of an Israeli research institute, who was appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to represent the Israeli government in negotiations with the P.A. on incitement issues.
“This is totally, totally false information,” Marcus told a crowd of congressional staffers and other observers Friday during a presentation on Capitol Hill sponsored by the Endowment for Middle East Truth. “The White House” is “releasing $192 million based on false information.”
“The Palestinian Authority is in total violation of these principles” detailed by the White House, he noted, before launching into a presentation outlining the multiple ways in which the P.A. teaches its youth to hate Israel and become violent terrorists intent on eliminating the Jewish state.
Claims that Palestinian political players believe the Jewish state has a right to exist are easily disproved by their comments, in Arabic, on the P.A.’s official television station, Itamar said.
In one video clip translated from Arabic, the P.A.’s mufti, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, explained why Israel does not deserve to exist. “The most important religious figure in Palestine is saying Israelis have no connection [to their land], and that’s a constant message of Palestinian TV,” Marcus said.
Hussein claims in another clip that was aired on official P.A. television stations that Jesus was a Muslim. “They’re saying Jesus was the first martyr,” Marcus explained after airing the video. “They are taking away his Christianity and turning him into a Muslim and saying he preached Islam.”
Slickly produced propaganda videos claiming that Palestinians—not Jews—lived in Israel during biblical times also are broadcast on a regular basis.
“It’s a very, very powerful message of Israel not having a right to exist,” Marcus noted. It reveals a campaign aimed at “denying all of Jewish history and Jewish right to exist there, and an ongoing denial of Christian tradition as well.”
Marcus also displayed a translated version of a highly inflammatory article penned by Adli Sadeq, the P.A.’s ambassador to India. It contradicts the generally accepted notion that Fatah is a moderate political party that pursues peace.
“They [Israelis] have a common mistake or misconception by which they fool themselves into assuming that Fatah accepts them and recognizes the right of their state to exist and that it is Hamas alone that loathes them,” Sadeq wrote in a November 2011 article published in the newspaper Al Hayat Al-Jadida. “They ignore the fact that this state, based on a fabricated [Zionist] enterprise, never has any shred of a right to exist.”
This type of violent, patently false rhetoric is rarely condemned by the United States, further emboldening the P.A., Marcus said.
Referring to Vietor’s official explanation of why the P.A. should be given millions of taxpayer dollars, Marcus said, “That first statement from the White House is a total mistake,” and noted, “all of these examples happened in the last few months, some of it in the same week that the White House made that statement.”When the White House signs off on P.A. aid without condemning such rhetoric, “they’re telling the P.A. that you can continue glorifying violence and teaching your kids to continue making maps that don’t show Israel. They’re giving them a clean bill of health, and that’s the danger here.”
Founding member & Executive Director of CAIR, Nihad Awad, is best known for his declaration, “I am a supporter of the Hamas movement.”
Discover the Networks Nihad Awad is a founding member and the current Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). He is also an ex-member of the Islamic Association for Palestine. In the 1990s, Awad studied civil engineering at the University of Minnesota and worked at the University of Minnesota Medical Center. As he developed into an increasingly outspoken advocate for the rights of Palestinians, Awad was named Public Relations Director of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), which functioned as a front for the terrorist organization Hamas. In 1994 Awad, along with Omar Ahmad and Ibrahim Hooper, founded CAIR.
Eager to gain influence with whichever political party holds power, Awad has courted Democrats and Republicans alike. During the administration of Bill Clinton in 1997, Awad was appointed to the Civil Rights Advisory Panel to the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security. And during the 2000 presidential election cycle, he figured prominently in the American Muslim Political Coordinating Committee, a network of American Islamic organizations that assisted in establishing a Muslim voting bloc. In the 2006 mid-term elections, Awad contributed thousands of dollars to the campaign of Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison, the first Muslim to be elected to the U.S. Congress.
Awad wrote in the Muslim World Monitor that the 1994 trial which resulted in the conviction of four Islamic terrorists who had perpetrated the previous year’s World Trade Center bombing was “a travesty of justice.” Notwithstanding the confessions of the terrorists, Awad said: “There is ample evidence indicating that both the Mossad [Israel’s intelligence agency] and the Egyptian Intelligence played a role in the explosion.”
In a 1994 interview with newsman Mike Wallace, Awad was asked if he supported the “military undertakings of Hamas,” to which he replied: “The United Nations Charter grants people who are under occupation [the right] to defend themselves against illegal occupation.” That same year, Awad declared at a Barry University meeting, “I am a supporter of the Hamas movement.”
In June 2001 Awad participated in a protest outside the State Department and the White House, condemning U.S. support for Israel’s allegedly repressive government. In conjunction with this demonstration, several organizations — including CAIR, IAP, American Muslims for Jerusalem, the Muslim Public Affairs Council, the American Muslim Council, and the Muslim American Society – released a statement that read: “Before there can be any lasting peace in the region, America must finally come to terms with the real sources of violence, namely: 1) The brutal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, 2) The continued expansion of settlements, 3) The denial of the right of return for Palestinian refugees, [and] 4) The billions of American taxpayer dollars that help finance Israel’s occupation. Any other course of action is a recipe for unending strife and instability.”
In September 2003, Awad and CAIR Chairman Omar Ahmad were invited to testify at hearings held by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security; both men declined to testify.
In an August 2006 interview on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, Awad suggested that suicide bombings are understandable attempts to address political injustices and do not have any inherent connection to radical Islam.
The restoration of Twitter service late in the evening was as sudden as its suspension earlier in the day. No official statement or explanation was given for an act that some rights campaigners saw as much as a warning shot at the media and public expression as a reaction to controversial content.
Speculation that the government intended to suspended Facebook and Twitter again had been swirling around for the past couple of days. However, this time around there have been no major public protests over the contest that Pakistani officials have expressed concerns about.
The ban caught Twitter users by surprise.“I never heard of any caricatures on Twitter,” said Arif Rafiq, an adjunct scholar at Middle East Institute and a commentator on Pakistani politics, who has a Twitter following of more than 10,000 users. “Now this ban will be promoting whatever caricatures were posted on it.”
Critics of the government said that blocking Twitter seemed to fit with what they see as a long-term government plan to muzzle media freedom, and could be related to the vociferous opposition and criticism that is heaped on the country’s security apparatus in Twitter debates.
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