A bad news morning in the media. Rather than crud up the front page with it, I’ll do a round-up post.
• A New York Times article focuses on the hypocrisy of outrage in the Muslim world about the Swiss mineret ban when most of those same countries are repressing their own religious minorities.
“The decision of the Swiss people stood to be interpreted as xenophobic, prejudiced, discriminative and against the universal human rights values,” said the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which represents 57 Muslim-majority nations.
Members include Saudi Arabia, where non-Muslims are arrested for worshiping privately; Maldives, the Indian Ocean atoll where citizenship is reserved for Muslims; Libya, which limits churches to one per denomination in cities; and Iran, where conversion from Islam is punished by death, according to a 2009 U.S. State Department report on religious freedom.
• A conference on sexual harassment in the Arab world concluded in Cairo with a message that “the sexual harassment of women in the streets, schools and work places of the Arab world is driving them to cover up and confine themselves to their homes.”
• A federal judge sentenced a Pakistani-American and a Bangladeshi-American to long prison terms in Georgia on terrorism-related charges. The defendants were defiant in court and said the laws of the US don’t apply to them. They refused to stand at sentencing. “Mankind rises for God. We cannot stand before men.”
• Pakistani cricketers were mocked with racist comments and jeers at a New Zealand match. Spectators in a corporate box shouted “Pakistani terrorists!” at the team and made other comments.
• Another bomb blast in Pakistan has killed another slew of people.
• India claims the two Kashmiri women whose deaths prompted riots drowned in an ankle-deep stream. “The agency filed charges against 13 people, including 6 doctors, 5 local lawyers, an activist and the brother of one of the dead women. The charges included fabricating evidence and intimidating witnesses after the recovery of the two bodies.”
