December 2016
The Rohingya genocide - no longer a myth By Habib Siddiqui: A genocide is taking place against the Rohingyas of Myanmar. It has been an on-going ethnic cleansing national program in this Buddhist-majority country to erase Muslim presence soon after Burma emerged as an independent state. After General Ne Win took power in 1962 in a military coup, the status of Rohingya further deteriorated. His military junta adopted a policy of "Myanmarisation", which was an ultra-nationalist ideology based on the racial purity of the Myanma (or more properly Bama) ethnicity and its Buddhist faith. By 1977, the Rohingyas had witnessed at least 13 pogroms. Their condition turned worse in1978 when the Naga Min or King Dragon Operation started on February 6 from the biggest Muslim village of Sakkipara in Akyab (now called Sittwe). The purpose of this operation was to scrutinize each individual within the state as either a citizen or alleged "illegal immigrant". It sent shock waves over the whole region within a short time. The news of mass arrest of Muslims, male and female, young and old, torture, rape and killing in Akyab panicked Muslims greatly in other towns of North Arakan (now called the Rakhine state). Read More
November 2016
Fidel Castro,el Comandante, is dead By Habib Siddiqui: Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader who led anti-imperialist revolutioncasting off U.S. hegemony and taking the liberated country to the path of communism, died on Friday at the age of 90. While Havana and the rest of Cuba mourns for the death of their belovedrevolutionary leader, the Cuban exiles in Miami’s Little Havana celebrates his death. For too long, the exiles in Miami had hoped for Fidel Castro’s death. They had chanted, “Free Cuba! Down with Castro. Down with tyranny!” They had seen him as a brutal dictator, a tyrant who banned free speech, freedom of assembly and a free press, abolished Christmas as an official holiday for nearly 30 years, and executed or jailed thousands of political opponents. Read More
Muslim Turkey abandoning hopes to join Christian EU By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: An upcoming vote by the European Parliament on whether to end EU membership talks with Ankara has “no value in our eyes,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Wednesday (Nov 23), accusing Europe of siding with terrorists. The European parliament is scheduled to hold a non-binding vote on Thursday (Nov 24) on whether Turkey’s accession talks should be suspended over the Turkish government’s crackdown following the failed military coup in July last. Read More
Dark forces winning the game! By Habib Siddiqui: With the latest presidential election results in the USA, 2016 is proving to be a bonanza year for the right-wing extremists everywhere, or so it seems these days. The next year, 2017, may even look better for them. Amid a migrant crisis, sluggish economic growth and growing disillusionment with the European Union, far-right partieshave been achieving electoral success in a number of European nations, e.g., Hungary, Austria, Poland, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Slovakia, Romania and Switzerland. Even Germany, Greece, Italy and Cyprus are not far behind in seeing the resurgence of anti-immigrant, far right, populist parties. What’s uniting the parties is an “imagined Muslim enemy in Europe,” according to Farid Hafez, a sociology and political science professor at Austria’s Salzburg University. Read More
Extra-judicial killings continue in Karachi behind smoke screen amid army's efforts to break-up MQM the fourth largest political party of Pakistan By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: A brutal anti-Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) military operation continues behind the smoke screen as electronic and print media has been barred from reporting the extra-judicial killings by the paramilitary forces in Karachi and elsewhere in the volatile Sindh province. Tellingly on Wednesday (11/9), the Chief of Army Staff, General Raheel Sharif, presided over a "security meeting" of military officials to discuss the security situation in Karachi and elsewhere in the Sindh province. However, the popularly elected Chief Minister of Sindh, Murad Ali Shah, was not allowed to attend the crucial meeting because Karachi is firmly in the control of army. However, the "security meeting" was attended by the corps commander, Director General Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Director General Military Intelligence, Director General Military Operations and Director General Rangers. Read More
Donald Trump’s Win – an analysis By Dr. Habib Siddiqui:Against all the predictions of the pundits, pollsters and polling groups, Donald Trump was elected the California, Los Angeles. Trump’s win tells volumes about where America is heading. And it is not pleasant! There is no denying that from Barack Obama, the first African-American president, the pendulum has worryingly swung to the KKK’s choice, Donald Trump. On election night 2012, Trump tweeted, “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.” Ironically, it is that ‘disastrous’ system (not the popular vote), which is sending him to the White House come January! Read More
Post-election spate of hate crimes against Muslims worse than post-9/11 By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: "What may seem like a dramatic rise in the number of hate harassment and hate incidents happening across the country in the wake of Tuesday's general election is not in anyone's imagination," the USA today quoted experts as saying. Melanie Eversley of USA Today wrote on Saturday (11/12) there indeed has been a spike in the number of reports of such incidents, according to representatives for two organizations that track such occurrences. A representative for one group, in fact, said the rise appears to be even worse that what was took place immediately after the terror attacks in 2001. Read More
Muslim groups call on President-Elect Trump to respect the rights of all Americans By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Like millions of voters and minorities, the upset victory of Donald Trump on Tuesday night was not a pleasant situation for the seven-million-strong American Muslim Community that was at the receiving end during the 2016 controversial presidential election campaign. Hence, an urgent question for the American Muslims is how they will be treated by the forthcoming administration of Donald Trump. With this in mind, nine Muslim and Arab civil advocacy groups held a joint press conference in Washington DC on Wednesday to offer reaction to the election of Donald Trump as the nation's 45th president. They were joined by the National Council of Churches of Virginia. Read More
Myanmar Government’s Fascist tactics are deplorable By Habib Siddiqui: Last week the Myanmar Police Force announced a plan to recruit and arm ethnic Rakhine and other non-Muslim civilians in restive Maungdaw Township, a predominantly Muslim township in Buddhist-majority Rakhine State. The township has recently witnessed widespread abuse of human rights against the minority Rohingya and other Muslims by the police and military forces. Weeks earlier, military moved into the territory to flush out the attackers – reportedly Rohingyas - who had raided three police posts. Read More
India: The politics of fake police encounters killing Muslims By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: There is an uproar in Indian on a new murky police encounter killing 8 "escaped" Muslim prisoners in Bhopal. The incident has kicked up a raging controversy with the government and the opposition parties locked in a war of words over the issue. Raising doubts, Congress and Left parties have sought a judicial probe into the incident. Read More
Saudi bid to limit damage caused by bombing of funeral gathering in Yemen killing 140 mourners, injuring 610 By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: In an apparent bid to limit damage caused by its bombing of a funeral gathering in Sanaa, Yemen, killing 140 mourners and injuring hundreds, Saudi Arabia has claimed that the Houthis have targeted the holy city of Mecca with a ballistic missile that was "intercepted and destroyed" 65 kilometers from Mecca which is the home of Kaaba, also known as the Grand Mosque, to which all Muslims in the world turn their faces for their daily prayers. The Yemeni Houthi army's spokesman Brigadier General Sharaf Luqman denied Saudi claim of targeting the holy city of Mecca. He slammed the allegation as "a media war and misleading of public opinion," affirming that his army fighters are "very careful to spare civilian areas, particularly the Islamic holy sites, from any attack." Brigadier Luqman said that Thursday's ballistic missile attack was targeted at the Red Sea city of Jeddah. Read More
Human Rights group alarmed at extra-judicial killings of MQM workers' by para-military force in Pakistan By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: Human right groups are alarmed at the spate of deaths of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) workers in the custody of para-military force in Karachi. The para-military force has been implicated in serious human rights abuses, including torture and other ill-treatment of criminal suspects, extrajudicial killings, and enforced disappearances, the New York-based Human Rights Watch says. In May, Director General (DG) Rangers, Major General Bilal Akber, accepted that a deceased MQM worker, Aftab Ahmed, was tortured by Rangers in custody for 90 days. General's statement came after pictures and videos were seen doing rounds on the social media, showing the corpse of the deceased MQM worker having major torture marks across his body. Read More
CAIR-SFBA 22nd annual dinner draws 1200 people By Abdus Sattar Ghazali: The Council on Arab-Islamic Relations, San Francisco Bay Area (CAIR-SFBA), held its 22nd annual dinner at the Convention Center, Santa Clara. The dinner, on October 29, was attended by 1,200 people from far and near. The event was held under the theme "Advancing Justice, Challenging Hate" which reflected CAIR's work in combating high level of Islamophobia during the presidential election campaign. Read More
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