Latest Updates: violence RSS
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thabet
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thabet
‘500′ are reported to have been killed dead in the latest violence in Jos, Nigeria:
A resident in Plateau State, where the tragedy happened, said he had seen armored vehicles and military trucks arrive in the village along with patrolling troops.
The latest military move came after a Nigerian government official confirmed on Monday that at least 500 had been killed in a communal clash in Jos, which followed the crisis on Jan. 17 in the same region when some youths attacked worshippers at St. Michael’s Anglican Church in Nasawara Gwom.
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johnpi
There aren’t enough good targets in Somalia…
A senior leader of al Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia has declared jihad against neighboring Kenya for supporting the weak Somali Transitional Federal Government.
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johnpi
Islamic academics and administrators have blamed Christians for provoking Muslim anger by challenging the ban on their use of the word “Allah”.
Translation: How dare you use your legal rights under the law and attempt to resolve a dispute in the national courts (which are supposed to serve society as the proper forum in which to resolve disputes…)
“Extremism can be found in any religion and this challenge is definitely one of them,” he said and stressed that references in Islam that “Allah” was exclusive to the Muslims are pervasive.
That last bit is factually incorrect, a misrepresentation of what the Quran says (see Aziz’ recent article on the ‘Allah’ controversy). And there was this:
Deputy chief of Syariah Research Department of the Attorney-General’s office, Mahamad Nasir Disa, who spoke on the issue from a legal perspective, agreed with his fellow panellists that the issue was an act of provocation by Christians.
Read that sentence again: How is calling something “an act of provocation” a “legal perspective”?
The meeting reads as an attempt to whip the crowd into a frenzy of victimhood, that most violent and dangerous state of mob mentality (see the Serbians, Gujarat Hindus and of course the Israelis)…
But Zamihan went as far as suggesting that a repeat of the May 13 racial riots was possible if the Christians, which to him practised extremism in the matter, did not back down. “Who knows, there might be a Feb 13?” said Zamihan.
The article ends on a low note with a report that four pigs heads were found in front of two mosques the day before.
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johnpi
Bulls***, calculated to inflame: Hijabis are attacking free-spirited blond girls in Berlin schools, according to this article appearing in some European media outlets.
Speculation, mind reading and fantasy about the motives of the alleged attackers made it into print:
The victims are blond Polish girls since they’re Catholic and yet very liberal, and therefore embody everything that the headscarf-girls reject. Steffens says the reason for the conflict is often envy. The girls are banned from many things in their own strict religious upbringing at home, but in school they see other girls who are allowed more. They get jealous and want to beat up the children from more liberal families.
Or as George Bush said, “They hate us for our freedoms.”
I don’t doubt that there may be tension and occasional violent incidents arising from any number of reasons, and that needs to be condemned and put to a stop. But the rest of this sounds like somebody overlaid a script to get some political mileage out of it.
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johnpi
Taqwacore writer Michael Muhammad Knight filed a complaint with the FBI about Umar Lee making threats against him. I blogged about the threat here.
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johnpi
Another Indian has been attacked by a mob in Australia, this time in Sydney.
The latest victim is a 28-year-old man who was at Coogee beach in Sydney when he was reportedly attacked by a group of Australian-born boys and girls. Other people at the beach allegedly did not help him. The victim said he believed it was racial attack.
He called the police, who took 40 minutes to reach him.
In India, the Hindu extremist group Shiv Sena threatened Australia’s cricket team over the year-long surge of violence against Indians in Australia.
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johnpi
In Malaysia, three churches have now been firebombed in the row over using the word ‘Allah’ to refer to God.
At Friday prayers at two main mosques in downtown Kuala Lumpur, young worshippers carried banners and gave fiery speeches, vowing to defend Islam.
“We will not allow the word Allah to be inscribed in your churches,” one speaker shouted into a loudspeaker at the Kampung Bahru mosque. About 50 other people carried posters reading “Heresy arises from words wrongly used” and “Allah is only for us.”
“Islam is above all. Every citizen must respect that,” said Ahmad Johari, who attended prayers at the National Mosque. “I hope the court will understand the feeling of the majority Muslims of Malaysia. We can fight to the death over this issue.”
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johnpi
Malaysian church fire-bombed ahead of Muslim protests.
A church in Malaysia has been fire-bombed in an attack that gutted its ground floor, church officials said Friday, escalating a dispute over the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims.
A fire department official said all stations were on alert for more blazes at religious buildings, ahead of planned nationwide protests Friday by Muslim groups angry over the use of the word as a translation for “God” by Christians.
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johnpi
The Real Men (Who Are Straight Up Killers) Watch returns with some adab-less, out-of-the-middle-way fantasies from Umar Lee, the person who coined the phrase:
I am calling your kafir yuppie ass to a fight with no rules and we can do this at any number of masjids. Of course my prefernce is to do this in yemen, somalia or pakistan where instead of fighting i could cut your neck with the sword of islam and watch you squeal like a bitch like daniel pearl.
I think I saw somewhere awhile ago on Umar’s blog that he had been invited to some non-Muslim school to speak about Islam. Recording this here to ensure that anybody who does a basic Google search on the guy will be able to quickly discover how deviant and abhorrent he really is…
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johnpi
Womb weapon in hand, Umar sez Brother Nidal Hasan had good intentions but made a bad choice.
If only we could find it in our hearts to extend such gentle, loving reprimands and murmurs of disapproval to our American government for its bad choices.
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thabet
So what Mufti Taqi Usmani is saying is that the Tehrik-e-Taliban are Blackwater agents?
Addressing a news conference along with Mufti Muhamamd Taqi, Mufti Muhammad Naeem, Maulana Tanvir ul Haq Thanvi and traders here on Wednesday, Mufti Rafi Usmani said that Blackwater is involved in the killing of innocent people at the Muharram procession.
(cf. “Taliban claim Karachi suicide attack”, a story which broke earlier in the day.)
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johnpi
Israel kills six Palestinians in West Bank & Gaza.
Family members said the troops entered without warning and killed the men in cold blood, insisting that none had resisted arrest or fired any shots.
The Israelis don’t even bother to make up stories about being shot at any more. They do claim that one of the men was armed.
The shootings were likely retaliatory violence for the shooting of an Israeli settler on Thursday by Palestinian gunmen.
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johnpi
A suspect detained as part of the authorities’ investigation into an explosion inside an Orthodox church in Vladimir is believed to be a member of a pagan group that is in conflict with traditional faiths, a spokesman for the Russian Interior Ministry’s department for the fight against extremism told Interfax on Friday.
An explosion occurred at the Sts Cyril and Methodius Church on the premises of the Vladimir State University on December 6, the spokesman said.
A pamphlet that was written on behalf of the White Storm group and contained remarks “aimed at inciting ethnic and religious hatred” was found inside the church, he said.
“A 28-year-old resident of Vladimir was detained for his suspected role in the crime. The information available to us suggests that he is an active member of a pagan group that is in conflict with traditional faiths,” the spokesman said.
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plimfix
They used to be called the SPG (Special Patrol Group). They became a byword for thuggish, racist policing, and were implicated in the death of anti-racist demonstrator Blair Peach. The SPG were disbanded in 1986. In 1987, the TSG (Territorial Support Group) were established to fulfill a similar role. They have become a byword for brutal, Islamophobic policing, and have been implicated in the death of Ian Tomlinson, an innocent bystander walking past the 2009 London G20 demonstrations.
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johnpi
Due to the frequency of street violence against those identified as South Asians and Muslims in Italy, we need to create a new tag here at Talk Islam to categorize them since there are so many attacks. I haven’t been blogging them all, but I think it’s time to start. Any suggestions on a good short tag that describes the problem and/or might resemble the Google search of anyone trying to do research or reporting?
Anyway, here’s the latest:
Italy: Bangladeshi immigrant severely beaten on the outskirts of Rome, 30 arrested.
The attackers were reportedly aged between 15 and 20 years of age. They were at a cafe across the street from the park when they spotted the migrants.
A witness quoted by the Italian daily Il Messaggero heard them say “We must make these niggers disappear. We can’t allow these niggers to roam around Acilia any longer.”
At that point the young men approached four Bangladeshi migrants who were sitting at a park bench.
“You are a bunch of dirty people, we do not want you here in Acilia, you must all leave,” one of the young men reportedly shouted. “You dirty niggers we will show you that you have to do what we say,” said another one.
Three of the immigrants reportedly ran away after being kicked and punched. One of the Bangladeshi migrants, Mohammed P. however, did not escape and was brutally beaten by the youths who surrounded him while shouting “Leave here you dirty nigger.”
A witness called the police and the victim was quickly taken to hospital where doctors treated him for head trauma and a nose fracture.
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johnpi
A video game called Modern Warfare 2 will be released next week that includes a scenario putting the player in the role of a terrorist carrying out an attack on unarmed civilians at an airport. The player joins a team of four terrorists who use automatic weapons and explosives to massacre civilians as they move through the terminal. Unusually, it’s receiving as much criticism and rejection from with the gaming community as from without. One reviewer speculated that it was partially based on the Mumbai terror attacks last year.
i just saw the video. there’s “a line”, and i think that line has been crossed with this inclusion. morally, there is an enormous difference between trained combatant vs. combatant and combatant vs. innocent civilians. so this is not just like D-Day or Pearl Harbor scenes. i realize this is reality, and yes, it happens in the world every day, but it’s cruel, gutless and sickening, and i think putting players behind the gun in this situation is going too far.
Activism games has been very aggressive about forcing websites to remove the leaked clip of the attack, though I did find a link that I’ll put below the fold, along with still shots of some of the carnage represented in the game (warning, very explicit).
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johnpi
Minister hails Bristol’s Muslim community for stopping bomb plot.
A Government minister has praised Bristol’s Muslim community for informing the police about would-be Broadmead suicide bomber Andrew Ibrahim.
On a visit to the city, Shahid Malik, minister for communities and local government, said that Muslims across the world should take great comfort from what happened in Bristol.
….Ibrahim was caught thanks to a tip-off from the Muslim community. At his trial earlier this year, Winchester Crown court heard he wanted to blow up the Galleries shopping centre – potentially inflicting massive casualties – and CCTV footage showed him making a reconnaissance.
But after boasting to friends at the Al-Baseera mosque in Wade Street, St Jude’s, that he had injured himself testing the explosive and making radical remarks about the 9/11 attacks being justified, someone in the Muslim community called the police.
The jury convicted him, by a majority, of making an explosive with intent to endanger life or cause serious injury. He was later sentenced to at least 10 years in prison.
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thabet
Theocratic Imperialists say a food aid distribution programme is “not in the interests of Muslims”.
So they blew it up.
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thabet
Ingushetia’s president sacks his entire cabinet:
Yunus-Bek Yevkurov sacked the cabinet “for its unsatisfactory work in resolving the republic’s social and economic problems”, a spokesman said.
There have been a series of attacks in the troubled southern Russian republic, including one on Yevkurov himself, in recent months.
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thabet
Bomb blast at UN office in Islamabad:
The UN swiftly announced the temporary closure of its offices in Pakistan following the blast. Amond the dead were two Pakistani women and one Iraqi. All worked for the World Food Programme (WFP).
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thabet
The “Moral” IDF:
The Only Democracy In The Middle East:
Partner for peace:
Terror not on your telly:
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thabet
I found this 2007 blog post which argues, quite forcefully and with good evidence, that the claims the Taliban, while brutal, brought peace and security to Afghanistan is unfounded and the result of lazy journalism, lack of knowledge, and Pakistani propaganda.
In particular, the blogger (an academic specialising in Afghanistan) cites the mass killings of Hazaras (something conveniently forgotten by stupid idiots from Birmingham or London), and the way they treated the women of the ‘conquered’ rivals (also something conveniently forgotten by stupid idiots from Birmingham or London).
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thabet
Mass brawls in Swansea:
Around 60 people were understood to have been involved in the two connected incidents outside Swansea City Mosque on St Helen’s Road and Sin City nightclub on Friday night.
Police, who arrested two men, said they did not believe it was a racially-orientated crime.
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thabet
The three men convicted of the ‘liquid bomb plot’ have been handed jailed for life and will serve a minimum of 40 years.
Three of other defendants will face a retrial.
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thabet
Osama’s epic fail:
Support for bin Laden is said to be in decline in Muslim countries* (but it’s still quite high**), at the same time as ‘al-Qaida’*** is said to be ‘weakening’, having difficulty in finding new recruits, and finding former ideologues and sympathisers speaking out against their methods and views. As reported by The Guardian, 60-70% of information about al-Qaida suspects now comes from friends and family, not security agencies or surveillance.
The right method should be to treat such groups and individuals as violent criminals, and fugitives on the run from the law. They don’t represent an existential threat to societies, other than, perhaps, the very ones they claim to be ‘liberating’. While people may question the invasion of Afghanistan (and certainly the follies of continued occupation must be questioned), it shouldn’t be forgotten that dozens of Kenyans and Tanzanians paid the price for the bin Laden’s fascination with resurrecting an ‘Islamic empire’ and being rid of Americans, foreigners, and non-Muslims. Then again the lives of black-skinned disbelievers and pseudo-Muslims probably rank low on the priority list for certain Muslim ‘activists’.
*Good spin for Barack Obama fans: support for violent Muslims was on the rise or otherwise high in the Bush years; it declined when Obama came to power.
**How much of this is the two-fingered response?
***This became a catch-all term for any violent Muslim fanatic. At one point al-Qaida franchises were opening faster than Subway ones. At least the use of this label has been scaled back. -
thabet
‘Islamic’ rules of warfare on show in Afghanistan:
Afghan officials said on Monday that a rocket had hit a house in the city’s Spin Kalay neighbourhood on Monday morning, killing a father, mother and young girl as they slept.
…and in Somalia:
Islamic insurgents fired mortar shells Friday night toward Mogadishu’s port, but the explosives landed in residential areas, including a home for former army officers paralyzed or missing limbs from the country’s 1977 war with Ethiopia, according to a government spokesman, Sheik Abdirisaq Qeylow.
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thabet
“Allegedly”:
According to reports reaching here, 15-year-old Hina was going home after attending a Quran class in a mosque in her Jaithikey village when five people, identified as Fanish Maseeh, Saleem Maseeh, Qaisar Maseeh, Danish Maseeh and Nadeem Maseeh, allegedly snatched the holy book from her and threw it into a drain.
A large number of villagers armed with bricks, stones and sticks attacked the church and set it on fire.
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thabet
An inter-ethnic brawl which doesn’t seem to have received much attention…
Large groups of rivals had been meeting regularly to fight and had been seen with weapons including machetes and hand guns.
This, rather than religious fanaticism, is the bigger, far more real, problem for young boys of Muslim origin in the UK.
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thabet
Ten people have been arrested after the shooting of a Pakistani minister of religious affairs who was known for his anti-Taliban views.
