Greece: Prosecutor charges six over guerrilla attacks

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Greece has charged six suspected members of its most militant guerrilla group, the leftist Revolutionary Struggle, over a series of bomb attacks, court officials said on Monday.

The five men and one woman, aged between 30 and 40, were arrested on Sunday in what appeared to be a major strike against those believed to be behind a number of attacks on police, the government and businesses since 2003.

“The prosecutor has charged them with participating in bomb attacks, participating in a terrorist group and attempted murder, illegal possession of explosives and guns, among other things,” said a court official who declined to be named.

The six suspects have all denied any wrongdoing.

Yeah, of course, what are they going to say? That they have done it?

… Revolutionary Struggle is best known for firing a grenade at the U.S. embassy in Athens in 2007. The group is also believed to have shot and seriously injured a policeman guarding the culture ministry after riots in December 2008.

The court official said all the charges related to crimes committed since September 2003, when Revolutionary Struggle first appeared, about a year after the capture of the guerrilla group November 17, which killed more than 20 people in 27 years.

Police said the suspects included Nikos Maziotis, 39, who had been jailed for three and a half years for planting a bomb outside a ministry in 1997.

via Greece charges six over guerrilla attacks | Reuters.

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Somalia: radio broadcasting ended after Islamists’ threats

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Tha author of the threats is the Islamist group “Hizbul Islam”.

Rock, rap and love songs once filled the airwaves in Somalia’s war-torn capital, one of the few pleasures residents had. But Islamist militants ordered music off the air Tuesday, labeling it un-Islamic in a hardline edict reminiscent of the Taliban.
Stations immediately complied, fearful that disc jockeys would face the harsh punishment militants mete out here: amputations and stonings. The edict is the latest unpopular order from the Islamists, who also have banned bras, musical ringtones and movies.
More than a dozen radio stations complied with the order by the militant group Hizbul Islam, the National Union of Somali Journalists said.
“Journalists working in these stations have in the past witnessed broad daylight assassination of their colleagues and have now been signaled that they would follow the same fate if they do not obey these oppressive orders,” said the union’s secretary-general, Omar Faruk Osman.

The radio stations broadcasted sounds of animals, waves and gunfire instead of music.

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Afghanistan: Taliban threaten to kill kidnapped journalists

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Taliban militants in Afghanistan are threatening to kill two kidnapped French journalists unless their demands are met, including the release of some detainees held by France.

In a video posted online, the journalists – kidnapped in December – are shown in separate clips.

Speaking in English and French, one reads a lengthy statement saying that if the full video is not aired on French TV, the journalists will be killed, along with their translator and driver.

“The French president, Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy, must understand that we are now in danger of death. I repeat: the French president much negotiate very quickly – otherwise we will be executed soon,” he says.

via Taliban militants threaten to kill kidnapped journalists – Afghanistan Crossroads – CNN.com Blogs.

Do what we want or else. But CNN continues to name them “militants”, not terrorists.

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A call for help

I have written before about Hector Aleem, a Christian Human Rights activist imprisoned in Pakistan after some Islamist group accused him of blaspheming in some SMS messages.

Christian human rights activist and director of NGO Peace Worldwide, Hector Aleem, was taken into custody in January 2009 because a militant Islamic group accused him of sending a ‘blasphemous’ text message from his cell phone. If convicted, he faces the death penalty under Pakistani law.
Prior to the 55-year-old’s arrest, Aleem was threatened by Islamic groups with assassination attempts and lawsuits because he objected to the illegal destruction of a church by Islamabad’s capital development authority (CDA). Muslim leaders threatened to kill him and his sons, and to forcibly convert his daughters to Islam.
Although a heart patient, Aleem has not been allowed to consume his medication and he has been denied visitation in prison. He was denied bail because Islamic mobs filled his trial courtroom and threatened to kill the judge, Aleem, and Aleem’s lawyer.
Aleem is the recipient of a peace award by Pakistan’s Prime Minister.

I received two days ago this from his son:

greetings my dear friends
as i asked you before to help us in collecting funds for my dad Hector Aleem but no body has replied me yet. Guys i am not asking very big amount just any amount you can afford just skip one burger from your daily life and send that amount to our pay pal that will help us alot. and also tell your fiends and other relatives, Actually we need funds before 20th April. Just imagine you are walking in our shoes and your dad waiting for justice and if you do not pay for his lawyer he could be killed any time in jail…. just imagine. this is our situation, contribute a little. please today you give us tomorrow God will give you more you have today. I am waiting for your response. please help us.

Here’s the link http://tinyurl.com/hectoraleem 

You can also get to the same webpage clicking here, in case the other link is not working.

Free Hector Aleem.

Morocco: "Christian proselitism is terrorism", ulemas say

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Read at El País:

7,000 Moroccan ulemas (Islamic scholars) rejected in a common message the Christian proselitism in their country and considered it even like a “moral rape” and “religious terrorism” that “tries to divert Moroccan children from their faith”.

The collective text released this weekend is the last episode of the campaign by the authorities in Rabat against foreign Christians who settled in Morocco accusing them of proselytizing and trying to shake the faith of Muslims, a crime in the Moroccan criminal code.

Throughout the month of March about 70 Christians have been forced to flee the country, as calculated by the different churches, but the Moroccan Interior Ministry acknowledged only the expulsion of 16 who ran a small orphanage in Leuh Ain, in the Atlas Mountains .

The Christian victims of the decision of the Interior are all Protestants except a Franciscan who lived in Larache. It is the first Catholic ever expelled from northern Morocco, as the Archbishop of Tanger has said. He also denies that they had been proselytising, while attending the small community of foreign Catholics in that city.

The message of the ulemas expressed “full support and great pride” of those who subscribe to “the relevant historic decisions taken by the government to abort the hypocritical  part by a Christian group of proselitizing” in the country. Their performance with the children, the message continues, is “a moral violation, a form of religious terrorism and is equivalent to the abduction of innocent children.”

“These tough decisions,” the statement concluded, “reassure us about the future of the national faith protected by Divine Providence that watches and by His Majesty Mohammed VI, Commander of the Faithful, as defender of the faith (…)” . The text of the scholars of Islam was spread by its highest hierarchical body, the Supreme Ulema Council chaired by the monarch (NOTE: speaking about division of State and Religion).

The Archbishops of Rabat and Tangiers, the apostolic nuncio in Rabat and the official representative of Protestant churches in Morocco have demanded an explanation to the authorities on the wave of expulsions, but so far they have obtained none. Some Moroccan converts to Christianity have been the victims in March apparently of police harassment.

At least two governments, the U.S. and the Netherlands, have criticized the measures taken by the Moroccan authorities, but not the Spanish that is currently chairing the European Union. The bulk of the expulsions were carried, however, during the first weekend of March. At that time it was held in Granada the first summit between Morocco and the EU supported by Spain.

So, ehhm, our dear President stopped from critisizing Morocco because they were negotiating the “united economic space”. Hasn’t he sooo marvellous a relationship with Moroccan King? Weren’t this Govt staunch defenders of Human Rights?

Oh, wait, the expelled ones were Christians…

http://www.youtube.com/v/I72sNX-Bg5M&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_GB&feature=player_embedded&fs=1

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Afghanistan: Taliban threaten to kill 2 French journalists and their Afghan translator

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Afghan Taliban militants, holding two French journalists since December, have said in a video they’d kill the captives if France doesn’t meet their demands.

The Taliban demands include the release some detainees in France, CNN reported.

The two journalists were shown separately in video clips posted online, the report said.

A statement said the journalists, their translator and driver would be killed if the video is not shown on French television, the report said. Only the voices of the journalists are heard on the video.

The Taliban in a written statement said it has submitted a list of the “most ordinary detainees to the government of France for release as an exchange for the two Frenchmen and their Algerian colleague,” the CNN report said. “There is no other option for the release of the said detainees except the option of detainees exchange.”

So it’s once again the same: do what we’re telling you or else… CNN has reported that the French Government has said nothing about the matter. 

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PS: The blog at blogetery has been inactive all morning. It is a very good free platform when it’s active, but I can’t really rely on it any more. 

I will upload the posts I had written in blogetery in the wordpress.com blog to have them all in one place. 

Pakistan: Arrested Christian Rights activist Hector Aleem needs money

I received yesterday this message from his son:

greetings my dear friends
as i asked you before to help us in collecting funds for my dad Hector Aleem but no body has replied me yet. Guys i am not asking very big amount just any amount you can afford just skip one burger from your daily life and send that amount to our pay pal that will help us alot. and also tell your fiends and other relatives, Actually we need funds before 20th April. Just imagine you are walking in our shoes and your dad waiting for justice and if you do not pay for his lawyer he could be killed any time in jail…. just imagine. this is our situation, contribute a little. please today you give us tomorrow God will give you more you have today. I am waiting for your response. please help us.

You can send him money by PayPal clicking here.

I wrote about him here.

Christian human rights activist and director of NGO Peace Worldwide, Hector Aleem, was taken into custody in January 2009 because a militant Islamic group accused him of sending a ‘blasphemous’ text message from his cell phone. If convicted, he faces the death penalty under Pakistani law.
Prior to the 55-year-old’s arrest, Aleem was threatened by Islamic groups with assassination attempts and lawsuits because he objected to the illegal destruction of a church by Islamabad’s capital development authority (CDA). Muslim leaders threatened to kill him and his sons, and to forcibly convert his daughters to Islam.
Although a heart patient, Aleem has not been allowed to consume his medication and he has been denied visitation in prison. He was denied bail because Islamic mobs filled his trial courtroom and threatened to kill the judge, Aleem, and Aleem’s lawyer.
Aleem is the recipient of a peace award by Pakistan’s Prime Minister.

His Facebook page is here.

History: liberation of Bergen Belsen concentration camp

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Horrible. Just plainly horrible.

it is the place where Anne Frank died of typhus on 1945. It is estimated that more than 50,000 Russian POWs and other 50,000 inmates died there, up to 35,000 dying of typhus on the first months of 1945.

Bergen-Belsen Memorial official webpage.

Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on Wikipedia.

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Morocco: "Christian Proselitism is Terrorism", 7000 ulemas say

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Read at El País:

7000 Moroccan ulemas (Qu’ram scholars) reject in a message, Christian proselitism in their country and consider it even as “a moral rape” and as “religious terrorism”, when it tries to “divert Moroccan children from their faith”.

The message published this week-end is the last phase in a campaign undertaken by the Moroccan authorities against foreign Christians living in Morocco. The latter are accused of proselitism and of attempting to break Muslims’ faith a crime punished by the Moroccan Criminal Code.

Last March 70 Christians were forced to exit the country, according to the numbers published by several churches, but the Moroccan Home Ministry only acknowledged the expulsion of 16 who run a little orphanage in Ain Leuh, in the Atlas’ range.

The Christian victims of the Home Ministry’s decision are all protestans, except for a Franciscan friar who lived in Larache. He is the first Catholic ever expelled from North Morocco, according to the Tangier’s Archbishopric whose speaker has denied that he did proselitism. Instead he was looking after a very tiny community of Christians in that city.

The ulemas express their “total support and great pried” of those who sign it in front of the “historic decisions taken by the public powers to abort the hypocrite plan of a group of proselytizing Christians”.  Their behaviour towards children, it continues, “is a moral rape, a form of religious terrorism and is similar to the kidnapping of little innocent children”.

“These firm decisions”, it ends, “soothe (us) about the confesional future of the nation protected by the Divine Providence and which is ensured by His Majesty Mohammed VI, the Believers’ Commander, as the defender of the faith (…)”. The text of the Islam scholars was published by its higher hierarchical body, the Ulema’s Superior Coumcil, whose president is the King.

Rabat and Tangier’s Archbishoprics, Rabat’s nuncio and the official representative of the Protestant churches in Morocco have asked for explanations to the authorities about the expulsions. But till now, they have obtained non. Some Moroccans who have converted to Christianism have been victims in March of police harrasment.

At least two Government, US and the Netherlands, have critizised the measures taken by Moroccan authorities. But the Spanish one, who is the EU President now, hasn’t. The more numerous expulsions were carried out during the first week.end of March when the first summit between the EU and Morocco, supported by Spain, was being held in Granada.

Yep, because EU and Morocco were negotiating the “united economic space“. Then Rodríguez Zapatero will claim they defend Human Rights. Hah!

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