Moazzam Begg on AbdulMuttalab, al-Awlaki, and allegations against CagePrisoners.
Latest Updates: sudan RSS
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abunoor
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johnpi
Sudan’s leader says south may to choose to secede.
Southern Sudan may secede from the Muslim-dominated north of the country in an upcoming referendum because unity has become “unattractive,” the south’s leader said Monday.
Salva Kiir accused the Khartoum government of never making “unity an attractive option” for the mostly Christian and animist southerners.
Sudan’s savage two-decade civil war ended in a 2005 peace agreement that included a provision for a 2011 referendum for the southerners to choose if they wanted to remain in the country.
A southern decision to secede could well reignite one of Africa’s worst conflicts, claiming 2 million lives. -
johnpi
The Sudanese woman who was facing flogging for wearing trousers had her case dismissed with a fine. She says she will refuse to pay the fine and could be put in jail for a month.
She has also said she wants to get rid of Article 152 of the Sudanese penal code, which decrees up to 40 lashes for anyone “who commits an indecent act which violates public morality or wears indecent clothing”.
She says the article “is both against the constitution and sharia [Islamic law]” and that nothing in the Quran says that women should be flogged over what they wear.
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aziz
is the war in Darfur over?
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thabet
The UN says the conflict in Darfur is over… ‘for now’ at least.
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thabet
Conor Foley writes about the ‘humanitarian aid industry’, using the Save Darfur coalition as an example:
I am currently reading Mahmood Mamdani’s Saviors and Survivors which also addresses this topic; might post a brief review when I am finished.
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thabet
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johnpi
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thabet
More on foreign fighters in Somalia:
Presidential information officer Abdulkhadir Wehliye said the foreign fighter is believed to be Bangladeshi because of identity documents found on the body.
Reuters has some more, with claims of Yemenis, Afghans and Pakistanis fighting in Somalia.
Contrast the coverage of the above with a story which emerged a few months ago that British and Irish citizens of Sudanese origin were fighting for the Justice and Equality Movement in southern Sudan.
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johnpi
Climate change is currently killing 300,000 people a year around the world, while seriously impacting the lives of hundreds of millions more, mostly in Muslim majority countries, according to a new report.
The report, from the Global Humanitarian Forum in Geneva, is titled, “Human Impact Report: Climate Change — The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis,” and predicts that by 2030, approximately 500,000 people will lose their lives to global warming annually.
Critics denounced the estimates as fraudulent. Economist Jeffrey Sachs responded:
I don’t think headline numbers that give a sense of precision we don’t have are either necessary or helpful. The facts with all the uncertainties are dramatic enough. We’re just going to face a growing crisis. From Chad to Sudan, the Ogaden, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, this long stretch of drylands is being pummeled by this combination of environmental degradation, including climate instability, together with massive population growth.
OK, so where are the Muslim leaders on this?
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thabet
An interview with Mahmood Mamdani at Guernica about his new book.
Mamdani’s book is also the subject of numerous reviews at the SSRC’s Making Sense of Darfur blog, and he appears in the latest post to respond to his critics.
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Kawthar
Mohammed Taha, former editor of Al-Wifaq newspaper in Sudan, was kidnapped and brutally murdered in 2006. Naturally, most people at the time suspected that the Sudanese government was involved, but it was also feared that Islamist groups in Sudan were responsible for his murder.
In 2005, Al-Wifaq had published an article that doubted the ancestral lineage of Prophet Muhammad. I cannot recall the exact details of the article at the moment, but what I do remember was that Mohammed Taha later stated that although he disagreed with the article’s content, he republished it in the spirit of discourse.
Of course, Taha was the star of the Friday khutbas during that week, and demonstrations soon erupted calling for him to be put to death. He was tried for blasphemy, but was eventually cleared.
The Sudanese government eventually charged 9 men from Darfur with his murder, and they were apparently executed yesterday.
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thabet
Two generally positive reviews of Mahmood Mamdani’s Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror.
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johnpi
ABC News is reporting that Israel has bombed Sudan three times since January “in an effort to prevent what were believed to be Iranian weapons shipments from reaching Hamas in the Gaza Strip.”
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thabet
For the Sudanese this looks like an old story.
While it is true that the Darfur conflict is a political football for some on the global stage, comparing an anti-colonial struggle with mass killing is dangerously stupid if not a mask for bigtory and hatred.
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thabet
The Luton doctor fighting in the south of Sudan against the ruling powers.
Not a terrorist…?
Note, I do not criticise the doctor for fighting for his people against a brutal suppression. But one can easily imagine a scenario in which if a character like Omar al-Bashir was a British ally, those in Downing Street would be silent or actively suppoting the suppression of rebel forces; and rounding up people like the doctor from Luton.
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johnpi
The US is uneasy about the warrant that has been issued against Sudan’s Al-Bashir because it has never recognized the ICC over sovereignty fears. Al-Jazeera has the story here, and here’s a bit more on Al-Bashir’s latest act of despotism.
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abunoor
Anne Marie Slaughter and Stephen Walt (of “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” fame) talk about foreign policy in Obama’s first year on Bloggingheads.tv Major topics include Darfur/Sudan, Iran, Palestine/Israel, and Afghanistan.
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thabet
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thabet
A couple of Darfur stories:
- Christian Science Monitor, “Sudanese: ‘What Arab-African rift?’”: In Sudan’s Arab north, Arabs marry, go to school, and work side by side with Africans from Darfur. The divide portrayed in the West means little to people here.
- The Economist, “Lifting the veil”: A witness and victim of the conflict in Darfur finds a voice
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thabet
Sudan’s president has been accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
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thabet
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor is expected to indict Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Sudan’s president, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The African Union has warned against such a move, and some aid agencies expect a serious backlash against their staff.
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thabet
UN estimates 300,000 may have died in Darfur conflict.
Right-wing American blogs remain silent over statistical methodology.
