Iran: Spanish journalist expelled

Iranian officials have canceled today the residence of the correspondent of El País in Tehran, Angeles Espinosa, who has been given two weeks to leave the Islamic Republic. The move is further evidence of the nervousness of the regime against any criticism. Espinosa, who was credited to work in Iran for five years, was arrested in Qom last July when he went to interview Ahmad Montazeri, the son of the dissident Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, who died last year, and since then authorities had withdrawn the journalist card.

“Journalists have no freedom to travel outside Tehran. We must apply for permission and I never would have obtained for that interview,” admits Espinosa. However, after a severe reprimand those responsible for the Office of Foreign Press gave it that recover your card when she return from vacation.

Back in Teheran the journalist tried to regain her accreditation, but instead, she was deprived of her passport for three weeks. All foreigners residing in Iran need an exit visa to leave the country and Espinosa was unable to be stamped with the seal, which kept it in a troubling limbo. Until yesterday, when they finally surrendered her passport with the residence permit canceled and an order to leave Iran before Oct. 24th.

“Nobody has given me any explanation. Since returning from my vacation, the General Director for Foreign Press has refused to see me and the new head of the office made me understand that he could not help me, that the orders came from the other side” Espinosa said. “Through others, I have been informed that the interview with Montazeri, in which he criticized the Supreme Leader, has been the drop that overflowed the glass, but they were already very upset with my work since the last elections and El País campaign in defense of Sakineh Ashtiani.

The sentence by stoning imposed on that woman has mobilized the international community. Iran, one of the few countries that still maintains the stoning in its criminal code, has tried unsuccessfully to neutralize this new blow to its already tarnished image.

“The level of tolerance of criticism has been greatly reduced since the arrival to the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,” said Espinosa. Last year, following protests that the Iranians were his controversial re-election, Iran also expelled the BBC correspondent and urged the departure of the envoys who had come to cover the elections. Since then the Govt has given visas sparingly and censorship has grown exponentially internal.

There are no reformist newspapers in the streets and at least fifty Iranian journalists in prison, which according to Reporters Without Borders makes Iran the biggest prison for reporters. Although initially many independent journalists took refuge in the blogs, the regime has also increased control of the internet and imprisoned numerous bloggers. A few days ago, Hossein Derakhshan, known as the father of blogging, was sentenced to 19 years and six months in jail. Another well-known blogger, Hengame Shahidi, has been denied necessary medical care in prison.

Source.

Ethiopia: Christian accused of desecrating the Qu’ran

Well, in reality no one knows where he wrote “Jesus is God”. His partner apparently accused him of writing it on the Qu’ran. Others say that he wrote it in different places, such as a piece of wood or a minibus.

A Christian in Ethiopia’s southern town of Moyale has been languishing in jail for two months after his Muslim business partner accused him of writing “Jesus is Lord” in a copy of the Quran, local church leaders said.

Compass Direct News (CDN) reports that Tamirat Woldegorgis, a member of the Full Gospel Church in his early 30s, was arrested in early August after the Muslim co-worker in the clothes-making business the two operated out of a rented home discovered Woldegorgis had inscribed “Jesus is Lord” on some cloth, area Christians said.

Compass says the Muslim associate, whose name has not been established, went to a nearby mosque with the accusation that Woldegorgis had written “Jesus is Lord” in the Quran itself, sources said.

Compass reports that angry sheikhs at the mosque subsequently had Woldegorgis arrested for desecrating the book sacred to Islam, they said. Other sources said, however, that Muslims accused Woldegorgis of writing “Jesus is Lord” on a piece of wood, on a minibus and then on the wall of a house.

A church leader who requested anonymity told Compass that two days after Woldegorgis was arrested, two friends inquired about him at the Moyale police station; authorities responded by jailing them for two weeks.

Compass explained that in Ethiopia’s federal state system, each state is autonomous in its administration, and most of those holding government positions in Somali Region Zone Five are Muslims.

Source.

Spain: Platform for Catalonia’s leader is not Wilders

Whatever Mr. Anglada says about it:

One thing is that we agree with some statements from the anti-Islamic leader of Platform for Catalonia, Josep Anglada, and quite another that we have to swallow the rest of his anti-libertarian message. In case anyone does not know what the fuss is about, here I copy a few excerpts from PXC’s political program, which is available on its website:

“The market’s despotism consists in the exploitation of everything without limits and in considering the meaning of life the accumulaton by consumers of goods of all kinds. It is also clear that this project is doomed due to its materialistm because the planet’s resources are limited and life as we know it will have to change, whether we like it or not.

Traditional politicians, bound hand and foot to the economic powers, can not stop this train of consumption that advances unstoppingly towards nothingness. The ecological problem demonstrates the radical difference between consumerism and the welfare state. Or  we stop uncontrolled consumption or we end up welfare, which is a complex concept that also encompasses the spiritual life of man as inseparable from nature.

The liberal rule of the labor market, with unstable and precarious contracts, prevents the access to housing for many young people who aspire only to raise a family and educate their children. (…)

Therefore, it is the economic liberalism which promotes the inability of founding families and the consequent decrease in the birth rate, which is then offset by importing immigrants. “

This is obviously a Falangist ie fascist (the organic ingredient is very characteristic) speech, which shows that, in fact, Anglada has not budged from when he was the man of Blas Pinar (a Franco staunch supporter) in Catalonia.

And incidentally, it also shows that, definitely, Enrique de Diego has lost its way, to join him.

Let us leave aside for now the treatment of the news that lends El Mundo, always wanting to be more politically correct than El País. The truth is that, for once, the prevailing political correctness is right when he branded as Josep Anglada of far-right extremer, but as usual, they do so strictly for wrong reasons. The pseudoprogresism rejects what it calls Islamophobia, which is precisely the only part of speech PXC space, with relevant qualifications. But is unable to recognize the anti-libertarian core of its ideology, because the right-wing socialism is a mirror too uncomfortable for left-wing socialism, whether or not it is implicit.

Geert Wilders, which condemns the expansion of Islam in the Netherlands since the beginning clearly from a libertarian perspective, is the very opposite, to our knowledge, of Josep Anglada, who denounces immigration from the most shameless populism, resorting to the fallacy that foreigners steal jobs to the locals, but incidentally he also spell out some truths. When from certain discourses (both left and right collectivist) people put them in the same bag, they make the same gross pseudoprogresism maneuver, which ranks within the extreme right people like Esperanza Aguirre (President of Autonomous Community of Madrid) and José María Aznar. And this confusion only benefits, as always, the illibertarian of all parties.

Source.

These guys are basically Franco supporters who have found a “market segment” in attacking Muslims, more than Islam. This is another difference with Wilders. The latter has been a very hard critic of the Qu’ran and Islam but has always said that he doesn’t have anything against Muslims. But PxC leaders are asking for the expulsion of all Muslims in Spain, whether they are actually extremists or not. In fact, De Diego, a journalist with a curious way of always being in the wrong place at the wrong time, has actually given a speech (it is now an “only invited” readers’ blog) which ends “For a Christian Spain“, something which doesn’t seem very accurate to me.

Some readers will tell me that I’m naive and that all Muslims are a sort of covered traitors. Well, we have here several extremist imams, who have been investigated by the police for years. They are supporting jihad, punish little girls if they don’t get covered, have Islamic police to prevent Muslims from selling alcohol in their shops, hate non-Muslims, etc. It would be actually very accurate to ask for the immediate expulsion of these guys and supporters, who are most of them “Maghrebies” (Moroccan or Algerian) and some of them had gone to Saudi Arabia to “study”.

But there are Spanish “original” people who have converted to Islam. They can’t be expelled even in the case that they are actually preaching all those things (they are none of the main Islamist  imams who are doing this to my knowledge). And the same that in other famous cases (Abu Hamza, to name one), there are others who are living under threat from those “imams” because they dared to tell the police what was going on in their mosques.

The problem, from my point of view (and I can be wrong, of course), is that Western countries should be very firm in applying the law, but can’t leave the laws aside. Stopping Muslim immigration could be a solution but actually the only solution is to show extremists (whatever their number or their basis), that the law is going to be applied fully and without hesitation, something that now is not done (i.e.: polygamy, for example, had been accepted by Govts despite it is a crime in European legislations).

Background:
Far-right Platform per Catalonia announces they will take part in local elections in Catalonia.
(Far-right, ultranationalist) Platform for Catalonia presents its candidacy for Catalan Government.

Morocco: top magazine closes due to censorship

Morocco’s topselling Arabic language weekly ‘Nichane’, which had taken up in the past taboo subjects like monarchy and Islam, closed shop last week blaming “the highest circles of power” for organising a boycott of advertisers.

The trouble for the magazine began last year after Nichane, its French-language sister publication TelQuel and France’s Le Monde newspaper conducted an opinion poll on the monarchy. The poll, which found that King Mohammed VI had done a good overall job in the first decade of his reign but needed to do more to reduce poverty, was swiftly censored. About 100,000 copies of the magazine were destroyed, and the particular edition of Le Monde was banned from selling in Morocco. The reason given was that the monarchy “cannot be the object of debate even through a poll”.

The royal holding company Omnium Nord-Africain Group was the first to boycott Nichane (which means “straighforward” or “direct”), followed by state-owned and quasi-state businesses close to the government. The boycott was brazen. After the revenues dipped to 80 percent, the shareholders decided it was time to take a call. They met last week and decided to close down the magazine, the TelQuel group said in a statement later.

TelQuel, meanwhile, will continue to publish. Since most of its French-language advertisers are based outside of Morocco, it does not face any immediate danger.

Source,

Background:
Restrictions to press freedom still exist.
Two prominent magazines are blocked.

"Blasphemy UN Resolution": US NGO "Open Doors" campain on Freedom of Believe

You can read about it here. And you can sign it here.

The basics:

Who is Behind the Resolution?

The countries supporting this resolution are, ironically, the very Islamic-majority countries of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) that persecute Christians and other minority faiths. Members of minority faiths such as Christians or Jews who make truth claims or even evangelize can be accused of “defamation” and can be punished under national blasphemy laws.

History of the Resolution

While Defamation of Religions Resolutions have been introduced and passed previously, it is up again this year for a vote. The resolution lost support in the UN General Assembly vote during the last couple of years and we think this year may be the tipping point.

Your voice makes a difference

We need to encourage key countries to change their vote on this resolution. These countries are not easily influenced by American citizens. But they are more receptive to pressure from our federal legislators. So ask your legislator to pressure key countries to change their vote on the Defamation of Religions Resolution today!

If there is any other NGO from other place, maintaining or opening a campaign to fight against this Resolution, please leave a message. I will post it too.

Germany: CDU politician calls to stop Muslim immigration

YNet News:

A German official on Saturday called to stop Muslim immigration into the country, stirring public controversy.

Horst Seehofer, leader of the Christian Democratic Union Party (CSU), which is a member of the coalition government in Germany, said in an interview to Focus magazine, “It is obvious that immigrants from Turkey and Arab countries face more difficulty integrating into German society than other immigrants.”

“In any case,” Seehofer added,” the conclusion is that we don’t need additional immigrants from ‘foreign cultures’.” 

…During the interview, Seehofer also argued that unemployment benefits should be revoked from immigrants who do not seek employment, arguing that immigrants should be forced to share the basic values of Germany, and have command of the language. 

According to the conservative politician, tolerance and openness to other religions, as cemented in the German constitution, do not grant these religions direct influence over the country’s core values.
Seehofer’s remarks angered politicians from across Germany’s political spectrum, leading some politicians to dub him a “radical-rightist populist.”

I don’t see how this could be made. In most Islamic countries, people cannot change their religion from their own national identity papers. So, if someone is indeed like a Kuwaiti who converted to Christianism, but he is indeed considered as a Muslim in his country, what would they do?
I agree that, given some data, there is an important percentage of Muslims who are not easily integrated. Couldn’t their permits being revoked when it’s seen that they are not? Because it’s clear that there are people who after preaching Jihad, etc. are not sent back their home countries immediately. (*)

What the German Govt (and politicians in general) have to consider is if agreeing to give Turks visas easily is actually the best way to solve the integration problem.

(*) I don’t understand either why imams are not obliged to use the language of the place they are preaching. There are some of them who, after living 3, 10 even 15 years, don’t know how to speak in the tongue used where they live.