Tajikistan: BBC reporter accused of supporting Jihad, being a member of HuT

Image via Wikipedia

‘We are concerned by reports that Urunbay Usmonov, a BBC journalist based in Khujand in northern Tajikistan, was detained and maltreated by security authorities on 14 June as an alleged member of Hizb ut-Tahrir,’ the British embassy in Tajikistan said in a statement.

Faizinisso Vokhidova, Urunbay’s lawyer, told the Interfax news agency her client was likely to be charged with membership in a terrorist group, advocating inter-ethnic violence and calling for the overthrow of the Tajik government.

The government case against Urunbay was not fully clear to her, she said, because prosecutors had not given her access to evidence against him.

Found here.

Related articles

• BBC journalist detained in Tajikistan (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• BBC Journalist Urunboi Usmonov Detained In Tajikistan On Suspected Terrorism Connections (huffingtonpost.com)
• BBC reporter detained for membership of ‘extreme Islamic group’ (telegraph.co.uk)
• US concerned by reporter’s arrest in Tajikistan (foxnews.com)
• US concerned by reporter’s arrest in Tajikistan (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Morocco: director of main newspaper jailed

King Mohammed VI. Morocco. Image via Wikipedia

One month and twelve days after his arrest, the journalist Rachid Nini has been sentenced to one year imprisonment and a fine of about 89 euros for “contempt of justice“.

In the pages of ‘Al Massae‘, the most widely read daily newspaper of all Morocco, he used 9 items to denounce “terrorist practices” of state security forces and “unfair trials” in matters Islamists.

“Our team continues to work as before, we will not stop”, he told ElMundo.es Jajili Yussef, a spokesman for “Al Massae” who also considered that “they have put behind bars the best reporter of all Morocco, his imprisonment gives us strength to continue and protect our editorial line, based on the reporting of corrupt our system“.

More here.

Egypt: another journalist sexually molested

Found here.

Venezuela: Chávez Seeks to Censor Internet

Hugo Chávez is tired of your pokes, tweets and comments. If he has his way, a bill making its way through Parliament that includes restrictions on social media giants, will become law.

…The wording of the bill that would censor social networks calls for protecting citizens “moral and ethical honor”. As such, it would also control adult programming. It proposes applying limits on content in “electronic media” according to the time of day and would call on internet service providers to establish mechanisms to restrict nefarious adult content.

The bill comes at a time of turmoil for Venezuelan legislators as Chávez is once again seeking decree powers that would grant him special powers to enact laws as he sees fit.

via No More Pokes? Chávez Seeks to Censor Facebook, Twitter – Fox News Latino.

Some Venezuelans have protested outside the National Assembly.

Chávez has said the powers could extend up to 18 months. “The text of the law allows him to issue decrees across a wide range of areas including housing, land, finances and security“.

Background.

Stupid quote of the month

Media mogul Ted Turner has encouraged world leaders to adopt an international norm restricting families to just one child. He claims this step is necessary to global survival.

Of course, he is not giving up using his jet, his limousine, his huge mansions, etc., etc. But the rest , we have even to be forbidden to have children or at the most to have one. Wow!

Stupid quote of the month

Fox News has religiously assassinated my long-time friend President Obama.

There would be no tea party if Obama was white.

Jim Wallis, Obama’s spiritual advisor 😯 Obama has an spiritual advisor? Mr. Wallis says that he advises Obama on religion and on religious groups. The so pro-leftist stance of the BBC interviewer is remarkable.

Found.

Libya: pro-reform newspaper suspended

MuamarEl Gadaffi

The Libyan government has suspended printing of a newspaper controlled by a reformist son of leader Muammar Gaddafi, local media reported, in what could be the latest phase in a power struggle inside the oil exporting state.

The print version of the Oea newspaper, controlled by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, was suspended soon after it published an article calling for a “final assault” on the government which it alleged had failed to tackle corruption, local media said.

Saif al-Islam — who played a key role in ending sanctions on Libya and is seen as a possible successor to his father — has been waging a turf war with a conservative old guard and has been openly critical of the government.

“(Prime Minister) Al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi has suspended the publication of the weekly Oea,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement that was printed by three Libyan newspaper websites. It did not give a reason for the suspension.

via Libya suspends pro-reform newspaper | Reuters.

Egypt: Islamic fundamentalism rising, government suspends 12 TV channels

Egypt’s state-owned Nilesat has temporarily suspended 12 television channels for promoting religion hatred, violence and quack medicine, the information minister said on Tuesday. “This decision was taken after extensive study that indicated a near doubling of these channels over the past year and a recent spike of extremist religious discourse,” Anas Al-Feki said in a statement.

“Among the most egregious of these violations are repeated broadcast calls by extremist presenters for the excommunication, banishment and murder of Shiites and the promotion of so-called ‘herbal cures’ for cancer and hepatitis B and C,” he said.

An additional 20 channels were given citations. The move comes after Nilesat dropped five channels it said promoted religious intolerance.

Upcoming elections in November are contributing to a tense situation in terms of inter-faith relations.

US-based Coptic Solidarity noted an “alarming upsurge of significant anti-Coptic activities over the recent weeks”.

The Coptic rights group is concerned that daring incitements might turn into a wave of generalised violence.

via ISLAM – EGYPT Islamic fundamentalism rising in Egypt, government suspends 12 TV channels – Asia News.

Background:
Egypt: our friend Mubarak.
Al-Azhar’s “Statement to the Nation” reduces Copts to Dhimmi status.

Russia: Moscow Has a Mosque Controversy Too

Moscow Has a Mosque Controversy Too – World News – ABC News Radio:

“The Moscow media have already christened this patch of green ‘the Russian Ground Zero’ in a reflection of strife over the mosque being built near Ground Zero, the site where the twin towers of the World Trade Center stood in New York City before the terror attack of 9/11.

The country’s largest online newspaper, Gazeta.ru, drew parallels with other European controversies surrounding Islam: The burqa ban in France and the immigration debate now raging in Germany. Europeans are frightened of Islam because the religion’s values are utterly foreign to them, the article said. ‘Now we are experiencing something similar in Moscow and St. Petersburg.'”

Another moron. No one is afraid of Islam. Every Western human being with common sense is angry at politicians saying they support separation from State and Religion. But there come several barbaric “Islamic clerics” who are supporting seggregation of women and men and Muslims and non-Muslims, Jihad, the Caliphate, stoning of “dirty women” and several other pre-historic ideas and, as they threat with “riots“, “violence” and several other “peaceful” and “loving” things, and end “convincing” those same politicians that they should implement their religious law. If those same politicians would be somewhat coherent would fight whatever attempt to hack that separation. Of course, they aren’t.

According to estimates by the Moscow council of muftis (equivalent to a council of deacons in the Christian faith), up to 20 million Muslims live in Russia today. Muslims have dominated some parts of the country for centuries. While the predominantly Muslim Republic of Tatarstan in the Volga region is regarded as moderate, guerrillas are fighting to set up an Islamic state in the northern Caucasus. Islamic extremists were behind the suicide bomb attacks that shook the Russian capital this March and killed 40 people.

The planned mosque would only be the fifth in Moscow, even though this metropolis of 10.5 million has more than 1.5 million Muslim residents. In comparison, Berlin, which has a proportion of Muslims amounting to less than a sixth of Moscow’s, has at least six large mosques. That is why the Moscow council of muftis wants more mosques to be built and says Moscow should have up to 40.

The Moscow mufti council, which is responsible for building the mosque, is convinced that nationalists are behind the protests against their house of worship. They say that the mosque will be built at the edge of the park anyway, leaving plenty of room for recreation and dog walkers. “The problem lies elsewhere,” says Ildar Aljautdinov, the imam at Moscow’s largest mosque. He warns that some Muslims may become radicalized if they don’t have mosques to worship in. “We must build more mosques,” he says. “Otherwise something bad will replace the religion.”

See? Let us build the mosque or else! Imagine what these Muslims would tell if Christians in Saudi Arabia would do the same. Laugh at them and then call the Police against Vice to arrest them. Even if they are foreigners.

UK: Saudi terror-linked fund sponsors the BBC

The Islamic Development Bank was set up in the 1973 by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, a major special-interest group composed of 57 Muslim-majority countries (it is in fact the second-largest international organisation in the world after the UN), which, despite its stated aim of ‘promoting Islamic values’ seems to do little other than make repeated attempts to ban criticism of Islam via its placemen on the UN Human Rights Council. (My Note: perhaps that’s their way of promoting Islamic values…).

The bank itself helps spread hardline Saudi Wahabbism, funding worldwide mosque-building and Da’wah, the proselytism of Islam. For a more detailed explanation of this work, see the testimony submitted in 2003 to a US Senate Committee here (this reveals evidence relevant to the United States, but the bank funds the promotion of hardline Islam worldwide).

Among many other activities, the bank controls two funds set up at an Arab summit in Cairo, in October 2000 – the Al-Quds Fund and the Al-Aqsa Fund. Between them worth hundreds of millions of dollars, these funds openly finance the ‘Palestinian Intifada’. It is also linked with the channeling of UN funds to Hamas.

Stated aims of the fund include the provision of assistance to the widows and families left behind by ‘martyrs’; and the furtherance of the ‘reststance’ against Israel.

Source (more information and commentary).

(Tip to Un:Dhimmi)

Related: The Intifada Fund and the BBC.

Italy: Muslim dances on the High Altar at Firenze’s Duomo

http://www.youtube.com/v/Iled39tspHU&rel=0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3

Basically, it says that this morning a Somali national, who is living in Italy as a political refugee, danced ON the High Altar from Firenze’s Doumo, that is the Catholic Cathedral of Firenze. Imagine if this would have happened in a mosque with a Catholic: every Western country would have been made to apologize about the “insult” to Muslims.

More comments in IBA, The Anchoress and Patrick Madrid.

MSM: Spanish journalist goes undercover inside Jihadist groups… in Venezuela

…Salas decided to go undercover with his hidden cameras after the bombings that killed 191 people on Madrid commuter trains on 11 March 2004. He had been as stunned as other Spaniards by the blasts, despite the country’s experience of Basque terrorist group Eta. “I wanted to know what goes through the mind of a person who is capable of killing for an ideology.”

Salas’s previous undercover investigations – as a skinhead supporter of Real Madrid football club, and in the world of prostitute-trafficking – had taken him to the heart of some of the most violent groups in Spain. “My aim was to understand terrorism in the same way that I came to understand skinheads or prostitute-traffickers.”

…Salas picked the Venezuela of President Hugo Chávez as his base. “I had been told Venezuela was a mecca of international terrorism,” he says. “The Farc group from Colombia was there, as were people from Eta.” Numerous other small revolutionary groups had also set up under Chávez’s benevolent gaze. There, in what the New Yorker journalist Jon Lee Anderson calls “the parallel reality that is the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela today”, Salas established himself as yet another niche radical – flying the flag for Palestine and running a local branch of Hezbollah. More importantly, he got close to the family of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez – Carlos the Jackal.

…By tracking the Arabic news channel al-Jazeera, Venezuelan TV and the internet for mentions of The Jackal, Salas discovered that Chávez himself was one of his biggest fans. “For him, Carlos is not a terrorist but a revolutionary – a model internationalist, like Che Guevara. Just as Che went to fight for other peoples, so Ilich went to fight for the Palestinians. Whenever Chávez mentioned The Jackal, I would record it and send it to him, which he loved.”

Not that Salas agrees with Chávez’s view of The Jackal. “He is considered responsible for 82 killings; I don’t call that being a revolutionary. I call him a terrorist.” – though he would probably not, he admits, use the term to his face. “It helps that he is in jail.”

…In Venezuela’s fringe community of political extremists, he bumped into people from Eta, the Túpac Amaru (a group of armed Venezuelan radicals who support Chávez), and other groups. Repeated requests for hands-on training eventually saw him invited to a camp in Venezuela, where he learned to handle pistols, rifles and machine guns, including a Kalashnikov AK-103, an Uzi sub-machine gun, the American M4 carbine and a Belgian-designed FN FAL. He also practised with a sniper’s telescopic sight and received explosives training. “I learned all that a jihadist might need to take his message of terror to a city in Europe or the United States,” Salas says. “There was nothing glamorous about it. It was just a question of learning to kill better.”

His instructors included a Venezuelan army colonel, though Salas insists the camp was not run by the Chávez regime. “It just so happened that my instructors, as well as being supporters of revolutionary causes, were Venezuelan army officers.”

…So what conclusions does Salas draw from rubbing shoulders with international terror? His answer is coloured by the fact that half a dozen people he met during his investigation have since died – often violently. “I don’t justify violence, but I can understand it. I never found any glamour or sophistication in that world, nor anyone especially intelligent – except for The Jackal. Terrorists really have only two ends – they either die or go to jail. You have to be a bit stupid to do that.”

Read it all.

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.

MSM idiocy: Newsweek blames terrorist alert on "Anti-Islamist politicians"

You know, it’s better not to criticize Islamism, or else… some moron from the MSM is going to blame you from the disappearance of the dinosaurs: Newsweek Blames the Victim: Magazine Sees Anti-Islamist Politicians in Europe to Blame for Heightened Threats | NewsBusters.org:

“The State Department has issued a “travel alert” for Europe—underscoring the effect Muslim-bashing politicians have had on the terror threat on the continent,” reads the subheadline to an October 4 Newsweek story by Christopher Dickey and Sami Yousafzai.

They also add that Wilders wanted to provoke riots with Fitna and that French burqa ban is “gratuitous“.

Background:
US: Europe can be attacked Mumbai style.
Credible threat to Europe.
Sweden raises terrorism threat level.
Concern about terror cells’ being ready to strike in Europe.
Italy: Police arrests French national on terorrism charges – US issues travel warning.
8 German killed while receiving terrorist training.
France: 9 arrested in terror probe.

Syria: Press freedom threatened by fear and intimidation

NYT:

“We have a little bit of freedom,” said Khaled al-Ekhetyar, a 29-year-old journalist for a Web site whose business card shows a face with hands covering up the eyes and mouth. “We can say things that can’t be said in print.”

But that slim margin is threatened by an ever present fog of fear and intimidation, and some journalists fear that it could soon be snuffed out. A draft law regulating online media would clamp down on Syrian bloggers and other journalists, forcing them to register as syndicate members and submit their writing for review. Other Arab countries regularly jail journalists who express dissident views, but Syria may be the most restrictive of all.

Most of the Syrian media is still owned by the state. Privately owned media outlets became legal in 2001, as the socialist economy slowly began to liberalize following the accession of President Bashar al-Assad. But much of the sector is owned by members of the Syrian “oligarchy” — relatives of Mr. Assad and other top government officials. All of it is subject to intimidation and heavy-handed control.

“The first level is censorship,” said Ayman Abdel Nour, the founder of All4Syria.info, the independent Web site where Mr. Ekhetyar works. “The second level is when they send you statements and force you to publish them.” Like many other journalists and dissidents, Mr. Abdel Nour has left the country and now lives abroad.

Nothing surprising here, if we consider that Syria is a dictatorship (in which the power is inherited) and one of Iran’s best freinds.

Bosnia: Al-Jazeera purchases station, will begin broadcasting in Jan 2011

DW:

The Qatar-based media giant Al Jazeera has purchased a broadcasting station in the Bosnian capital. The operation is slated to begin January 2011 in Sarajevo and later be extended to the entire region. News of the Arab broadcaster’s Bosnian expansion has produced diverse reactions.

“People aren’t afraid of a new war, exactly, but rather political upheaval,” said Boro Kontic, head of the journalist training institution Media Center Sarajevo.

Kontic likens the arrival of the Arab media conglomerate to the atmosphere before the start of the Bosnian war, when it was announced that Sarajevo was to become regional headquarters for the European TV channel Euronews.

The reactions are basically two: first, those who support Al-Jazeera because it can be “an independent and objective source of information” and, secondly, those others who see a desire of political influence on the Balkans’ sphere.

Denmark: Suspect in bombing masks his ID, Danish police sees Jylands-Posten as target

Washington Times:

A bombing suspect who is accused of blowing up a hotel toilet in Copenhagen, along with himself, is a one-legged amateur boxer who was born in insurgency-racked Chechnya and has shown what one scholar calls “highly professional” tradecraft in concealing his identity and purpose from Danish authorities.

The would-be bomber’s target, Danish police said, was likely the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world in 2006 by publishing 12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad and has been the object of at least one foiled terrorist attack since.

“We are reasonably sure that was the target,” Chief Superintendent Svend Foldager of the Copenhagen police, the lead investigator in the case, said at a briefing Friday.

“We’re dealing with a letter bomb,” said Mr. Foldager, adding that the parcel contained small steel pellets designed to maximize casualties and would have exploded with a force of a small hand grenade. “It was capable of injuring a lot of people, depending on where it exploded.“

Mr. Foldager also said the device used triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, a volatile acetone-based explosive used by al Qaeda in the July 2005 London subway bombings and other attacks.

Found at Grendel Report.

For more information check Islam in Europe.

Afghanistan: Two reporters arrested for making Taliban propaganda

The Guardian is extremely critical … with ISAF for having arrested them. Why? Because these “apparently objective and impartial” cameramen were, supposedly, filming and saying what the Taliban “suggested” them to … Al-Jazeera, on the other hand, calls that “comprehensive coverage“.

PS: Afghanisation. How about checking your writing, Mr. Greenslade?

Somalia: Al-Shabab confiscates two main TVs and radio stations in Mogadishu

NewsBlaze:

Somali insurgent groups opposing the transitional federal government (TFG) of Somalia have confiscated two main radio stations and TVs: Horn Afrik and GBC editors and eye witnesses confirmed Sunday.

Heavily armed militants from the Al-Qaeda-proxy in Somalia, Al-shabab who have been surrounding Horn Afrik for the past three days have stormed the station on Saturday evening and looted it.

“As soon as they entered the station, they directly went to the archive and destroyed it and they then started to loot all equipments including the FM transmitter” one of the radio editors who demanded anonymity because of security reasons told Somali Sports Press association (SSPA) which also lobbies for rights of journalists and the spread of democracy throughout Somalia.

Not only Al-Shabaab has closed TV and radio stations. The other terrorist Al-Qaeda-linked group in Somalia, Hizbul Islam, has also threatened radio stations in the past if they didn’t close at its request.

Indonesia: "No remorse", six years after Australian embassy terrorist attack terrorists say

Image via Wikipedia. Flowers outside Australian embassy in Jakarta, days after the 2004 bombings.

Jakarta Post:

Six years after the Australian Embassy bombing in Jakarta, the two militants on death row for the attack say they have no remorse and they are ready to die as “mujahideens.”

Iwan “Rois” Dharmawan Muntho and Achmad Hasan were among six people jailed for helping to plan the Sept. 9, 2004, bombing that killed nine people and wounded 150.

In an exclusive interview with the Jakarta Globe at their prison on Nusakambangan Island in Central Java, Rois and Hasan said that the Koran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad legitimized the attack.

“Why should we apologize if we believe that we did right in waging jihad [holy war] against the infidels?” Rois said. “Why must we show any remorse?”

He said it was “legitimate to attack Australian interests worldwide” because of Canberra’s close ties to Washington and its “targeting of Muslims.”

They are clear enought, aren’t they?

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