Malaysians turn to strict Islam

Women in Malaysia are under no legal compulsion to wear the headscarf - though many feel pressured to cover up.

Muslim women without headscarves are a common sight on the streets of the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. But engaging them in a discussion about the hijab is difficult.

Norhayati Kaprawi is a Malaysian activist whose recent documentary Aku Siapa (Who Am I) deals with the issue of how women in Malaysia should dress. She found some women unwilling to show their faces in her film - not on religious grounds, but because they feared reprisals.

This is a damning reflection on Malaysia's Muslim society, says Ms Norhayati.

"It's full of fear. If you don't follow the mainstream you will be lynched."

According to the activist, the pressure to wear the hijab grew after the Iranian revolution in 1979, and it is now the most visible sign of Malaysia's rising Islamic fundamentalism.

Muslims account for over half the population of 28 million people and are mainly ethnic Malays. Malaysia often prides itself on being a moderate Muslim nation, which allows other religions freedom of worship.

And while there are no laws forcing women to wear the hijab, Ms Norhayati says many Muslims feel compelled.

 

Crime and punishment

Increasingly, there is a greater emphasis on Islamic codes of conduct.

For the first time last year, Malaysian authorities caned women under Sharia law. The three women sentenced were found guilty of having sex outside of marriage.

And a part-time Muslim model was sentenced to the same punishment in 2009 for drinking beer in public. Islamic authorities eventually reduced Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno's sentence to community service last year after the story made international headlines.

Analysts say this emphasis on Islamic practice is superficial. They blame it on the competition for Malay-Muslim voters between the ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), and the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), both of which are trying to position themselves as defenders of Islam.

The youth wing of the PAS has often lobbied the government to ban Western pop artists from performing in Malaysia, deeming them to be un-Islamic.

Since 2008, when elections delivered a record number of seats to the opposition Pakatan Rakyat coalition, of which the PAS is a member, the party has tried to moderate its stance.

Although the PAS has not abandoned the goal of making Malaysia into an Islamic state, PAS Member of Parliament Khalid Samad says non-Muslims have nothing to fear.

"We do not think Islam is all about cutting off hands and stoning adulterers," he says.

"That's a very minute aspect of the Islamic law. What's more important is the question of good governance."

In a move to show it can work with non-Muslims, the PAS is planning to open up membership to them.

"Nobody can say if we come to power, [that] we cannot govern a multi-religious and multi-racial nation," says Mr Khalid.

Cause for concern?

But a resurgence in Islam has many non-Muslims concerned.

Islamic officials in Selangor state entered a Methodist church without a warrant in early August, breaking up a fundraising dinner. They recorded the details of several Muslims who attended the function.

The Islamic authorities have said they acted on a tip-off, but have refused to reveal the nature of the complaint.

Religious officials are wary about Muslims attending church-organised events. There are fears these are attempts to convert Muslims to Christianity - something that is illegal in Malaysia.

"This action sets a dangerous precedent and makes a mockery of the sanctity and inviolability of all religious places in our beloved country," said the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hindusim, Sikhism and Taoism in a statement.

 

Ongoing row

The fear of conversion has already strained relations between Muslims and the Christian minority, who make up around nine per cent of the country's population and are typically ethnic Chinese and Indians.

Over the last two years, churches have been firebombed and Bibles have been seized in an ongoing row between Christians and Muslims over the use of the word 'Allah'.

The religious minority insists that they have been using the term for centuries in the Malay language to refer to the Christian god.

But in 1986, the government banned non-Muslim from using the word 'Allah' in publications. This ban was not usually enforced until recently when the government began to act upon it at the behest of some Muslim groups.

In a move seen as a bid to win Malay-Muslim votes, the government argued that for non-Muslims, calling their gods 'Allah' would be confusing to the Muslim-majority and threaten national security.

As a result, Malay-language Bibles have been impounded by customs officials. Some Muslim activists fear that Christians are using the Bibles to convert Muslims.

Attacks on places of worship came after the High Court in Kuala Lumpur ruled in December 2009 that the word 'Allah' is not exclusive to Islam. The government has appealed against the decision but no hearing date has been set yet.

In the meantime the prime minister's department has made some concessions in recent months and released some 35,000 seized Bibles. The cabinet has also set up a committee for religious leaders from all faiths to resolve the "Allah" issue.

Reverend Dr Thomas Philips is one of the committee members. He says the meetings have been sporadic but he is optimistic they can reach an understanding.

"I'm convinced Malaysia is a moderate Muslim country," he says.

Norhayati Kaprawi agrees, but fears that the mainstream opinion has been silenced.

"People who hold more progressive or alternative views," she says, "don't dare to speak up in public."

Source : BBC News

Syrian Regime Breaks the Hands of Political Cartoonist

A political cartoonist whose drawings expressed Syrians' frustrated hopes for change was grabbed after he left his studio and beaten by masked gunmen who broke his hands.

 

Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat, lies wounded at a hospital in Damascus

 

One of Syria's most famous artists, Ali Ferzat, 60, earned international recognition and the respect of many Arabs with stinging caricatures that infuriated dictators including Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and, particularly in recent months, Syria's autocratic Assad family.

He lay badly bruised in a hospital bed Thursday evening with his hands swathed in bandages, a stark reminder that no Syrian remains immune to a brutal crackdown on a 5-month anti-government uprising.

Mr Ferzat remembers the gunmen telling him that "this is just a warning," as they beat him, a relative said.

"We will break your hands so that you'll stop drawing," the masked men said, according to the relative, who spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation.

Before inheriting Syria's presidency from his father in 2000, Bashar Assad, a British-trained eye doctor, used to visit Ferzat's exhibitions and offer encouraging words, the artist has said.

When the new president opened Syria to reforms, Mr Ferzat was allowed to publish the country's first private newspaper in decades, a satirical weekly called The Lamplighter.

The paper was an instant hit, with copies of each issue selling out a few hours after hitting the stands. It was soon shut down, however, as Assad began cracking down on dissent and jailing critics after the brief, heady period known as the Damascus Spring quickly lost steam.

Mr Ferzat became a vehement critic of the regime, particularly after the military launched a brutal crackdown on the country's protest movement.

Human rights groups said Assad's forces have killed more than 2,000 people since the uprising against his autocratic rule erupted in mid-March, touched off by the wave of revolutions sweeping the Arab world.

An endearing figure with a bushy grey beard, Ferzat drew cartoons about the uprising and posted the illustrations on his private website, providing comic relief to many Syrians who were unable to follow his work in local newspapers because of a ban on his work.

His illustrations grew bolder in recent months, with some of his cartoons directly criticising Assad, even through caricatures of the president are forbidden in Syria.

This week, he published a cartoon showing Assad with a packed suitcase, frantically hitching a ride with a fleeing Gadhafi. Another drawing showed dictators walking a long red carpet that leads them, in the end, to a dustbin.

The response was swift.

Mr Ferzat, who usually works late into the night, left his studio at 4am Thursday, but a jeep with tinted windows quickly cut him off, according to the relative. Four masked gunmen then dragged him out of his car, bundled him into the jeep and drove him to the airport road just outside Damascus, beating him and making threats all the while.

The men then singed the artist's beard, put a bag over his head and dumped him on the side of the road.

The Facebook page of the US Embassy in Damascus described it as a "government-sponsored, targeted, brutal attack" and said it was deplorable.

Source : The Telegraph UK

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Declares War on the Bikini

More zealous Muslims demand cover-up of pharaonic monuments, too

Sunbathing in Alexandria may soon be a thing of the past, at least if some Egyptian Islamist politicians have their way.

 

 

Egypt's tourism industry has suffered a severe blow since the outburst of anti-regime demonstrations in January. But that did not stop the Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, from demanding stricter regulations over what tourists can do and wear while visiting the country. The party is urging officials to ban skimpy swimwear and the consumption of alcohol on Egyptian streets.

"Beach tourism must take the values and norms of our society into account," Muhammad Saad Al-Katatny, secretary-general of Freedom and Justice, told Egyptian tourism officials on Monday. "We must place regulations on tourists wishing to visit Egypt, which we will announce in advance."

The call for new strictures on tourists comes as Egypt debates the role of Islam in the post-Mubarak era. Freedom and Justice is competing in elections scheduled for this autumn for parliament and opinion polls show a majority of Egyptians favor a greater use of Islamic law and mores. But a vocal minority worries that Egypt risks becoming an Islamic republic.

"This is how things began in Iran," Hani Henry, a psychology professor at the American University in Cairo, told The Media Line. "The moderate youth wanted to implement changes, but the Mullah's hijacked the revolution. The same thing is now happening here in Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood. It makes me sick to my stomach."

Along with Suez Canal tolls and energy exports, tourism is a major source of foreign exchange for Egypt. But with protests, strikes, and continued violence in the cities and Sinai Peninsula months after President Husni Mubarak was forced to step down, foreigners have hesitated to visit the country, which offers some of the world’s most spectacular antiquities as well as beaches and scuba diving.

Finance Minister Hazem Al-Beblawi told the Reuters news agency earlier this month that revenue from tourism would likely total $10 billion in the financial year that started on July 1, compared with $11.6 billion in 2009/10.

Al-Katatny told Al-Masry Al-Youm daily that his party had already set up a subcommittee to investigate the issue of incoming tourism to Egypt and planned to amend legislation following the upcoming parliamentary elections.

"Some slight changes will be made in public beaches, to make the situation better than it was before," Ali Khafagy, youth director of Freedom and Justice in Giza, told The Media Line. "Bathing suits and mixing on the beach are things that go against our tradition. It's not just a matter of religion. When I go to the beach I don't want to see nudity."

He said modest bathing gear or separate beaches for men and women are possible alternatives to the current situation.

Khafagy stressed that tourists would be free to do as they please in specially designated areas, adding that his party supported incoming tourism to the country. But that did not satisfy the heads of Egypt's tourism industry, who met with the party’s secretary-general Al-Katatny for a heated debate on Monday.

"Without alcohol and bathing suits, no tourists will come and we will loose $13 billion a year," Hussam A-Shaer, head of the tourist company association, told Al-Masry al-Youm.

But bathing suits are not the only worry of Egypt’s Islamists. Abd Al-Munim A-Shahhat, a spokesman for the Salafi group Dawa, has said that Egypt's world-renowned pharaonic archeology – its pyramids, Sphinx and other monuments covered with un-Islamic imagery – should also be hidden from the public eye.

"The pharaonic culture is a rotten culture," A-Shahhat told the London-based Arab daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat on Wednesday, saying the faces of ancient statues "should be covered with wax, since they are religiously forbidden." He likened the Egyptian relics to the idols which circled the walls of Mecca in pre-Islamic times.

The Islamist challenges to the tourism industry in post-revolutionary Egypt have led to the establishment of the Coalition to Support Tourism, whose members also met with Al-Katatny on Monday. The coalition, which includes a broad array of travel industry organizations and figures, argued that the real problem isn’t modesty but the absence of any strategy on the part of Egypt's new parties to protect the country's faltering tourism industry.

"Some parties want to ban tourism, or allow it while banning alcohol, certain foods and certain clothes. [A couple] renting a room will require documents proving they are married," wrote the coalition administrator on the group's Facebook page. "These proposals don’t bode well, as many of you know."

Henry of the American University said two classes of beaches already exist in Egypt, with modestly dressed, generally poor Egyptians occupying some and foreign tourists occupying others, mostly in the resorts of the Sinai Peninsula. He said he considered imposition of sharia law in Egypt "an act of aggression" that he would not tolerate.

Islamists have never been enamored of foreign tourism and before they were crushed by the Mubarak regime foreign visitors were often targeted for killings. Close to 60 Western tourists were killed by Islamist terrorists in the southern city of Luxor in 1997. Tourists were also attacked in bombings in the Sinai resorts of Taba, Sharm Al-Sheikh and Dahab in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

But Al-Kantatny said that the Muslim Brotherhood regards Egypt's archeology as belonging to all of humanity, and should therefore be safeguarded. "This heritage belongs to everyone, and one can't simply remove something he doesn't like," he told Al-Ahram daily. 

 

Source : The Media Line

US State Dept: 11,500 Terror Attacks in 2010

On Thursday, the U.S. Department of State released its annual, U.S. Congress-mandated Country Reports on Terrorism 2010, an assessment of incidents and trends in international terrorism that occurred between January 1 and December 31, 2010.

The statistics revealed that more than 11,500 terrorist attacks occurred in 72 nations during 2010, and there were more than 13,200 deaths attributed to terrorist attacks.

Besides filling a Congressional requirement, this analysis is aimed at enhancing Americans' understanding of the international terrorist threat.

The report focuses on policy-related assessments, country-by-country breakdowns of foreign government counterterrorism cooperation, and contains information on WMD terrorism, State Sponsors of Terrorism, Terrorist Safe Havens, and Foreign Terrorist Organizations.The report also includes a statistical annex prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center.

Although the number of attacks rose by almost 5 percent from the previous year, the number of deaths declined for a third consecutive year, dropping 12 percent from 2009. For the second consecutive year, the largest number of reported attacks occurred in South Asia and the Near East, with more than 75 percent of the world’s attacks and deaths occurring in these regions.

According to the State Department analysts, Al-Qaeda (AQ) remained the preeminent terrorist threat to the United States in 2010. Though the AQ core in Pakistan has become weaker, it retained the capability to conduct regional and transnational attacks. Cooperation between AQ and Afghanistan- and Pakistan-based militants was critical to the threat the group posed.

In addition, the danger posed by Lashkar-e Tayyiba (LeT) and increased resource-sharing between AQ and its Pakistan-based allies and associates such as Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Haqqani Network meant the threat in South Asia remained high.

In addition, the affiliates have grown stronger. While AQ senior leadership continued to call for strikes on the U.S. homeland and to arrange plots targeted at Europe, the diversity of these efforts demonstrated the fusion of interests and the sharing of capabilities among AQ groups with different geographical focuses, the analysts found.

U.S. law enforcement saw the Pakistani Taliban provide support to American citizen Faisal Shahzad, who sought to carry out a car bombing in Times Square in May 2010. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) continued to demonstrate its growing ambitions and a strong desire to carry out attacks outside of its region. The group followed up its December 25, 2009 attempt to destroy an airliner bound for Detroit with an October 2010 effort to blow up several U.S.-bound airplanes by shipping bombs that were intended to detonate while in the planes’ cargo holds.

Information about potential AQ plots in Europe prompted several European countries to raise their terror alerts toward the end of the year. On December 11, a car bomb device was detonated minutes before Sweden’s first ever suicide bomber carried out an attack in a crowded pedestrian area in Stockholm, according to the State Department analysts.

Similarly, al-Shabaab in East Africa, some of whose senior leaders have declared adherence to the AQ brand of violent extremism, gained strength in 2010 and conducted its first major attack outside of Somalia in July when it claimed responsibility for twin suicide bombings that killed 76 people in Kampala, Uganda, during the World Cup. Al-Shabaab’s widening scope of operations, safe haven in Somalia, and ability to attract Western militants, made it a continuing threat to U.S. interests in the region.

In addition to operations, AQ affiliates have taken on a greater share of the propaganda work. AQAP created AQ’s first English-language magazine, Inspire. Although the magazine failed to arouse sustained interest from Western media, it proved a platform for dual U.S.-Yemeni citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, who emerged as an operational and ideological leader in AQAP.

In a troubling trend, English-speaking militants increasingly connected to each other through online venues like militant discussion forums and video-sharing platforms, which encouraged both violent behavior and individual action. Many participants in online communities have real-world relationships with extremists who bolster their radicalism and mobilize them toward violent action.

For example, five Pakistani Americans contacted by a Taliban recruiter through YouTube encouraged one another to travel to Pakistan to train for warfare against the United States; they remained in Pakistani custody at year’s end. Several Somali Americans decided to go overseas to fight with al-Shabaab -- a decision that was likely shaped by a combination of online propaganda, face-to-face recruitment, and supportive real-world peer networks.

Not all of AQ’s formal affiliates and informal allies presented as grave a threat to U.S. interests in 2010. No group has made a bigger name for itself in the kidnapping for ransom business than al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which relies on ransom payments to sustain and develop itself in the harsh Saharan environment. AQIM carried out several attacks and continued kidnapping foreigners for ransom but is not an serious threat to governments in the region.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) continued to be politically marginalized as its constituency dwindled further in 2010. Though AQI remained capable of carrying out occasional sizable attacks, its violent tactics failed to ignite the sectarian violence the group sought. Instead, we saw two successful elections in Iraq and a decision by Sunni leaders in the country to participate in the political process.

The defeats suffered by AQ in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010 had no significant effect on other terrorist groups with deep roots in the Middle East, as both Hamas and Hezbollah continued to play destabilizing roles in the region. Hezbollah’s persistence as a well-armed terrorist group in Lebanon with an entrenched hold, if not veto, on the political process in Lebanon, as well as its robust relationships with Iran and Syria, and acquisition of increasingly sophisticated missiles and rockets threatened the interests of Lebanon and other U.S. partners in the region, especially Israel.

Hezbollah’s aggressive stance and threatening statements about the Special Tribunal on Lebanon, which is investigating the 2005 murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, increased the danger of Lebanon moving even closer toward sectarian violence. Hamas retained its grip on Gaza, where it continued to stockpile weapons -- supplied in large part by Iran -- that posed a serious threat to regional stability.

Source : Examiner

Is Anders Behring Breivik a Christian?

Who gets to define the word "Christian"? The three main sources would be: (1) Christian scriptures, (2) the Christian community, or (3) non-Christians. If we go with (1), Breivik fails miserably. If we go with (2), Breivik will be utterly rejected. Hence, the only way Breivik could be considered a Christian is if certain non-Christians (e.g. Muslims and the media) decide to define the term "Christian" as "anyone who calls himself a Christian, regardless of whether his beliefs line up with Christianity." Is this the route we want to go?

Since our Muslim friends really, really, really want to classify Breivik as a Christian, I have to ask a few questions. (i) Do non-Muslims get to define who is and who isn't a Muslim? (ii) Since the Lesbian author Irshad Manji calls herself a Muslim, is she a Muslim? (iii) How can Muslims reject Ahmadis as Muslims, but call Breivik a Christian, when Breivik obviously strays much further from orthodoxy than Ahmadis do?

Source : Answering Muslims

Iran Seizes, Burns Bibles to 'Protect Youth'

According to an article posted by Rob Kerby, Senior Editor of Beliefnet" Iranian authorities have seized 6,500 copies of the Bible in northwest of Iran. In another incident, officials burned 300 Bibles."

it was also said that "A spokesman said the Bibles were confiscated to block missionaries who “are trying to deviate our youth.”

 

 

Deviate their youth? what the heck is that ? Well that may be a good thing as I do not see many christian youth taking up arms or getting on planes to carry out terrorist acts against others. I do not see or know of many christian youth who strap bombs on themselves to kill others in the name of religion/suicide bombings etc.

So perhaps if they deviate , all that sort of thinking would perhaps end and there in I say lies the fear.So what is the world or the west at war to create ? Yes I remember democracy, I say democracy my eye tooth when the bible or any other religious books may not be allowed.

The report also said that a Dr. Majid Abhari, who is an adviser to the social issues committee of the parliament in Iran, told the official Iranian news agency, Mehr,that “With regard to the activities of these Christian missionaries to deceive people specially youngsters, they have begun a huge campaign by spending huge sums and false propaganda for deviating the public. These books were made with the best paper in the world in pocket size.”

This statement sounds like paranoia to me. It is okay for Islamic countries to dictate what gets in and out relating to what is deemed "propaganda" but the United States of America which was founded on Christian principles can have no say. This seems odd to me.

it seems the freedom allowed by the constitution which was written by the christians have allowed freedom to others which they wont extend to the christians. What's the fear? Just saying, I love to question things especially when they reek of "coddling others who do not have one's interest at heart and those who want to enjoy the freedoms of a free world but get enraged when one questions their ideology.

So I say, where is the outrage from Christians, if we recall when that Pastor Jones in Florida planned on burning the Koran it was almost world war three in the Islamic world pretty much and even so in the western world especially in America where some said he should not as that was not "constitutionally correct' to coin a phrase.

So why are the Iranians allowed to do confiscate and burn bibles without much noise from the anyone? Maybe Christians are just awesome and understood what Christ meant re loving thy neighbor as thy self and forgiving seventy times seven, turn the other cheek. How wonderful is that. Peaceful coexistence!

Others can spread their word but Christian bibles are burnt and confiscated at the government level. I wonder why those are so afraid of the bible in their country?
 

I think I know why - Jesus speaks of love and others speak of - you decide.

 

Source : All Voices

Obama admits "He is a Muslim"