Employers discriminate against Muslims in EU and US

hello_10

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Bangladeshi man sentenced to 30 years for New York Fed bomb plot


Bangladeshi Quazi Ahsanullah displays a photograph of his son Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis as he weeps in his home in the Jatrabari neighborhood in north Dhaka, Bangladesh, in October 2012.

A judge sentenced a Bangladeshi man to 30 years in prison on Friday after he admitted that he intended to use a bomb in what U.S. authorities called a plot to blow up the New York Federal Reserve Bank.

Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, 22, who had pleaded guilty to the government's charge of "attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction" and faced life in prison, told the judge he now rejects radical Islam and apologized to the people of New York and the United States. Prosecutors had said Nafis had claimed on social media sites to have contacts with al Qaeda.

"I'm ashamed, I'm lost, I tried to do a terrible thing," said Nafis, who was arrested in October 2012 while trying to detonate what he believed to be a 1,000-pound bomb hidden in a van.

Instead, the van carried inert materials planted by an undercover FBI agent as part of a sting operation. Prosecutors said Nafis attempted to use a mobile phone to detonate the bogus device.

Before handing down the sentence, Judge Carol Amon in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn said it was clear Nafis intended to go through with the plot in lower Manhattan.

"He continually dialed the cell phone number that he thought would explode the device," the judge said. Still, she said she was "prepared to accept that the remorse he had expressed is genuine."

Had Nafis been able to accomplish what he had set out to do, prosecutor James Loonam said, it would have been "a Boston Marathon style terrorist attack." In April, home-made bombs killed three people and injured 264 others near the marathon finish line.

Loonam asked the judge to punish Nafis within the federal sentencing guidelines of 30 years to life in prison.

The defense asked for a more lenient sentence of 20 years for Nafis, who wore khaki prison overalls and handcuffs.

He had a strict, isolated upbringing and his upper middle class parents sometimes beat him for failing to focus enough on his studies, once so severely he temporarily went mute when he was 6 years old, said his court-appointed defense lawyer Heidi Cesare. As a university student in Dhaka, Bangladesh, he got his first taste of freedom and became radicalized by other students, she said.

According to a criminal complaint unsealed in October, Nafis entered the United States in 2012 with a student visa, and eventually traveled to the New York City borough of Queens.

It said he scouted targets for a potential attack, including the New York Stock Exchange and President Barack Obama, settling eventually on the Federal Reserve Bank in Manhattan.

Nafis attempted to recruit others to his plot, and discussed his plans over social media sites such as Facebook, the complaint said. He claimed he was in contact with al Qaeda operatives overseas and actively sought out new al Qaeda connections in the United States, the complaint said. :tsk:

One of the individuals he brought on board was an undercover agent working for the FBI, who monitored Nafis' activities and helped arm him with the inoperable explosives, federal authorities said.

Bangladeshi man sentenced to 30 years for New York Fed bomb plot - U.S. News

25,000 Muslim rioters torch Buddhist temples, homes in Bangladesh
September 30, 2012


A statue of Lord Buddha is left standing amidst the torched ruins of the Lal Ching Buddhist temple at Ramu, some 350 kilometres (216 miles) from the capital Dhaka on September 30, 2012 (AFP Photo)

Tens of thousands of rioters left a trail of destruction in southeastern Bangladesh as they torched Buddhist temples and homes near the town of Ramu. The violence was sparked by a photo posted on Facebook that allegedly insulted Islam. :toilet:

A 25,000-strong mob set fire to at least five temples and dozens of homes throughout the town and surrounding villages after seeing the picture, which they claimed was posted by Uttam Barua, a local Buddhist man, AFP reported.

The group chanted "God is Great" while setting fire to the centuries-old temples.

"I have seen 11 wooden temples, two of them 300 years old, torched by the mob. They looted precious items and Buddha statues from the temples. Shops owned by Buddhists were also looted," local journalist Sunil Barua said.

Security forces were deployed to contain the uprising: "At least 100 houses were damaged. We called in army and border guards to quell the violence," district administrator Joinul Bari said.

No casualties were reported, and authorities did not confirm whether police arrested any of the rioters.

Buddhist monks protested against the attacks on Sunday, forming a human chain in the country's capital of Dhaka.

Bangladeshi Home Minister Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir said the attacks were pre-planned, and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice.

"The attack was conducted in a coordinated manner. Temples and houses were set on fire using patrol and gun powder. It would have been impossible if the attacks were not planned," he told Bangladesh's Bdnews24.

The government will provide financial assistance for reconstruction of the damaged houses and temple, Alamgir said.

Before launching their attacks, Muslims publicly rallied against the picture and called for Barua's arrest. However, several Facebook users said that Barua did not post the photo, and that he was linked to the photo after group called 'Insult Allah' tagged his name on the image.


Statues are pictured at the burnt Buddhist temple of Shima Bihar at Ramu, some 350 kilometres (216 miles) southeast of the capital Dhaka on September 30, 2012 (AFP Photo)


Religious tensions on the rise

Buddhists make up less than one percent of Bangladesh's population, and sectarian clashes between they and the country's Muslim majority are rare. Tensions between the communities have risen since June, when deadly clashes erupted between Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya in nearby Myanmar.

Thousands of Muslims also took to the streets across Bangladesh over the past few weeks in protest against a US-made video and French cartoons that mock the Prophet Muhammad.

On Saturday, tens of thousands of activists from the Islamist group Jamiyat-e-Hizbullah protested the video and cartoons near the national mosque in Dhaka.


A Bangladeshi man stands amidst the torched ruins of the Buddhist temple called Ramu Moitree Bihar (Ramu Friendship Temple) at Ramu, some 350 kilometres (216 miles) southeast of the capital Dhaka on September 30, 2012 (AFP Photo)


A temple burnt by Muslims is seen in Cox's Bazar September 30, 2012 (Reuters / Stringer)


Bangladeshi Buddhist monks form a human chain during a protest against attacks on Buddhist temples and homes, in front of national press club in Dhaka September 30, 2012 (Reuters / Andrew Biraj)

25,000 Muslim rioters torch Buddhist temples, homes in Bangladesh (PHOTOS) — RT News

25,000 Muslim rioters torch Buddhist temples, homes in Bangladesh (PHOTOS) — RT News
 
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hello_10

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First let muslims stop discriminating minorities in their country oh sorry there is no minority alive in muslim majority country
So playing on the numbers... apply in 100,000's and yet 10,000's can get visa.

Go there in the name of "study" and do Jihadi Studies and live in a typical Islamic ghetto and off course find a British chick.Also whenever get a chance do riots, spit on British soldiers or even behead. :lol:

just have a look on even Pakistan and Bangladesh, which were part of India before 1947. Pakistan is the country where no minority is left with any credibility, proper conversion has been made to date, and now they have clashes with Shia Muslims there. while about Bangladesh, for example of my last post#61 regarding Bangladesh, 10s of thousands easily get united to clean up the minorities based there :tsk: :facepalm:
 
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natarajan

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minorities want secular only till they are minority once they attain majority their slang will change just like politician before getting votes
 

hello_10

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Rising China's Muslim Problem

China Confiscates Muslims Passports

HONG KONG—Authorities in northwestern China have begun confiscating the passports of Muslims, mostly ethnic Uyghurs, in an apparent bid to prevent them from making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, local residents and officials say. :ranger:

An officer who answered the phone at the Tengritagh district public security bureau [police department] of the Xinjiang regional capital, Urumqi, said local residents were required to "register" their passports with local neighborhood committees, the basic building blocks of social control in China.

"The authorities of local residential offices are collecting the passports," he told RFA's Uyghur service.

"Local residential offices are collecting the passports in order to register them...The authorities will keep the passports for the public. If they want to go to other countries, they can come to fetch their passports. The authorities will give the passports back to them accordingly."

I think the word is that it is to prevent some problems, like preventing people from going on the Hajj pilgrimage. So, that is why they are collecting,

Officials working together

"The [passports] will become invalid if they do not hand them in." :ranger:

An official at a neighborhood committee in a town near the city of Kashgar confirmed the move, adding that passports were being collected only from Muslims, especially the Uyghur people.

"Today is the 18th," the official said. "We were told to collect them within five days, and we've just started this afternoon ... the Muslims' and the Uyghur people's passports."

"I think the word is that it is to prevent some problems, like preventing people from going on the Hajj pilgrimage. So, that is why they are collecting [them]," the official said.

He said local governments, provincial government, and the police were cooperating to accomplish the task.

Here what's happened. They've ordered us to collect all the passports within five days and the authorities will finish investigating and registering the passports within 20-odd days. The authorities are not only collecting a few people's passports...They are collecting all the passports. We do not really know what is happening in other parts of Xinjiang," he added.

"Every Muslim who owns a passport must hand it to the authorities." :ranger:

On June 19, the Tengritagh News Web site printed an article titled "Tightening the Pilgrimage Policy and Protecting the Public," which carried a report on a speech by Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Party chief Wang Lequan the previous day to religious leaders from the Bureau of Religious Administration.

Wang called on the government to tighten its pilgrimage policy and to harshly punish "illegal" pilgrimage organizers. He said the government should halt underground pilgrimage activities and either restructure the current pilgrimage policy or make new pilgrimage policy.

The Xinjiang authorities began to confiscate passports immediately following the speech.

All able-bodied Muslims are expected to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, birthplace and holy city of Islam, once in a lifetime if they can afford it. Additional pilgrimages are recommended.

With around 2 million Muslims making the pilgrimage annually, airlines and operators offer specialized Hajj packages. This year's Hajj will begin Dec. 18, so the passport registration drive comes just as people would start to think about booking tickets.

RFA's Uyghur service was contacted initially by Uyghurs overseas who said their parents' passports had been taken, making them unable to join them on the pilgrimage.

The Hajj is traditionally undertaken with family, or with fellow pilgrims from a local mosque, and would constitute a deep show of unity for any group making the pilgrimage together.

Uyghurs, who number more than 16 million, constitute a distinct, Turkic-speaking, Muslim minority in northwestern China and Central Asia. They declared a short-lived East Turkestan Republic in Xinjiang in the late 1930s and 40s but have remained under Beijing's control since 1949.

*********************************************

Tough on the Muslim one must concede.

Fortunately, such is not the case in many other countries.

http://defenceforumindia.com/forum/china/55939-rising-china-s-muslim-problem.html#post814429

http://defenceforumindia.com/forum/china/55939-rising-china-s-muslim-problem.html#post814429

China curbs Ramadan fasting in Xinjiang

Authorities forbid Communist Party cadres, civil officials and students from marking Ramadan in mainly Muslim province.

Chinese authorities in the northwestern province of Xinjiang have banned Muslim officials and students from fasting during the month of Ramadan, prompting an exiled rights group to warn of new violence.

Guidance posted on numerous government websites called on Communist Party leaders to restrict Muslim religious activities during the holy month, including fasting and visiting mosques.

Xinjiang is home to about nine million Uighurs, largely a Muslim ethnic minority, many of whom accuse China's leaders of religious and political persecution.

The region has been rocked by repeated outbreaks of ethnic violence, but China denies claims of repression and relies on tens of thousands of Uighur officials to help it govern the province.

A statement from Zonglang township in Xinjiang's Kashgar district said that "the county committee has issued comprehensive policies on maintaining social stability during the Ramadan period.

"It is forbidden for Communist Party cadres, civil officials (including those who have retired) and students to participate in Ramadan religious activities."

The statement, posted on the Xinjiang government website, urged party leaders to bring "gifts" of food to local village leaders to ensure that they were eating during Ramadan.

Similar orders on curbing Ramadan activities were posted on local government websites, with the educational bureau of Wensu county urging schools to ensure that students do not enter mosques during Ramadan. :ranger:

'Administrative methods' :ranger:

During Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn to dusk and strive to be more closer to God, pious and charitable.

An exiled rights group, the World Uyghur Congress, warned the policy would force "the Uighur people to resist [Chinese rule] even further."

"By banning fasting during Ramadan, China is using administrative methods to force the Uighur people to eat in an effort to break the fasting," said group spokesman Dilshat Rexit in a statement.

Xinjiang saw its worst ethnic violence in recent times in July, 2009, when Uighurs attacked members of the nation's dominant Han ethnic group in the city of Urumqi, sparking clashes in which 200 people from both sides died, according to the government.

China curbs Ramadan fasting in Xinjiang - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English
 
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hello_10

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just have a look on even Pakistan and Bangladesh, which were part of India before 1947. Pakistan is the country where no minority is left with any credibility, proper conversion has been made to date, and now they have clashes with Shia Muslims there. while about Bangladesh, for example of my last post#61 regarding Bangladesh, 10s of thousands easily get united to clean up the minorities based there :tsk: :facepalm:
its really hard to find a country like India, a non-religious country even if Hindus accounts for 80% population, which share Equal Rights with all the communities, regardless any religion/ race/ language etc, with providing more opportunities to the weak part of the society like women/ dalits etc in different competitive exams. India may proudly say that it had many minority Presidents/ PMs/ CMs/ Governors/ Chief Justice/ Bollywood superstar/ General etc as its the country where the most deserving people go high, regardless their religious/ racial/ language etc background :india:
you did get a country like India, which is hard to find anywhere else
:truestory:

Pakistan's Shia genocide
26 Nov 2012

In the days leading up to the religious holiday of Ashura, leading members of the Pakistani Shia community in Pakistan received anonymous text messages warning of violence to come: "Kill, Kill, Shia".

In recent years, Ashura - which not long ago throughout the country was an occasion which Sunnis, Shias and others among Pakistan's ethno-religious milieu would commemorate together in harmony - has become an annual flashpoint in Pakistan's increasingly sectarian and violent religious culture.

Tragically, and despite high-profile efforts by the government to clamp down on the ability to militants to target worshippers such as the limitating cellphone service and banning of motorcycles from public roads during the holiday, this year's Ashura in Pakistan signified a continuation of the country's spiral into self-destructive communal violence.

A suicide bomber in the city of Rawalpindi hurled a grenade into the midst of a Shia procession before detonating his vest and killing 23 people, while other attacks throughout the country from Karachi to Dera Ismail Khan claimed the lives of dozens more.

The attacks were claimed by Pakistani Taliban (TTP) militants who denounced the victims as "blasphemers" and stated they were engaged in a "war of belief" with Shias - stating further that attacks against them would continue until they, in their millions, were wiped out of the country.

That the fanatical nihilism of terrorist attacks against public religious ceremonies - ceremonies which have been observed since the country's founding - has become normalised and routine is a sign of the depths to which Pakistan has sunk in terms of sectarianism and social fragmentation over the past decade.

Once a respected and well-integrated minority in a country where they comprise roughly 20 per cent of the population and count the nation's founder as one of their own, Shia Muslims within Pakistan have become a community under siege in recent years and are facing a situation which is increasingly being described by many Pakistanis as a slow-motion genocide.

Several hundred Pakistani Shias have been killed this year alone in increasingly high-profile attacks by extremist militants, including one incident caught on video in August in which passengers were forced off a bus in the Gilgit region and executed by armed militants who checked their victims' ID cards before killing whomsoever they could identify as being Shia.

It is believed that since the early 1990s, nearly 4,000 Pakistani Shias have been murdered in sectarian attacks, and at a pace which has rapidly accelerated in recent years. The tragic irony of this increasingly violent sectarianism is that Muhammad Ali Jinnah, widely known and revered as the "Father of the Nation" of Pakistan was himself a Shia Muslim though he maintained a secular public religious identity and preached the same for the country which he created. :facepalm:

His famous speech to Pakistanis in which he said: "You are free; you are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed"¦", signifies how far modern-Pakistan has departed from its founding ideals and become a place where the country's founder himself would likely be threatened and unwelcome.

Ahmadis, Barelvis, Christians and Hindus have all become subject to persecution within an increasingly religiously-chauvinistic Pakistani society, but it is Shias who have suffered the highest toll of bloodshed and whose fate is most tied to external forces intent on using Pakistan as a battleground for broader regional conflicts. :ranger:


Pakistan as sectarian battleground

In an interview given to Reuters, Malik Ishaq, the leader of one of Pakistan's most notorious anti-Shia extremist groups Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) declared Shia Muslims "the greatest infidels on earth" and demanded that the Pakistani state "declare Shia non-Muslims on the basis of their beliefs".

Ishaq's demagoguery is not idle talk, LeJ death squads are believed to have been responsible for the killings of thousands of Shias throughout the country, including a campaign of targeted murders in 2011 which killed dozens of Shia doctors, lawyers and politicians residing in the major port-city of Karachi.

One lower-level LeJ operative now in police custody, Mahmoud Baber, reportedly choked with pride and emotion while describing to reporters his "great satisfaction" at being involved in 14 murders over his militant career, saying of the organisations purpose: "Get rid of Shias. That is our goal. May God help us".

Despite his unrepentant advocacy and propagation of violence, Ishaq himself has been acquitted over 30 times on homicide and terrorism charges - an incredible run of judicial fortune which many have attributed to covert support from elements within Pakistan's national security establishment which have long cultivated such groups as potential weapons against regional rival such as India.

Indeed, while organisations like the LeJ, Pakistani Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and offshoots such as the Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP) focus their violence on Pakistani Shias, they are representative of a broader regional narrative to which the Shia community is largely a victim of geopolitical circumstance and manipulation by external parties.

Pakistan has long been a front in the battle for regional influence between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and the patronage of violent extremist groups primarily by the latter has been utilised as a tool to counter potential Iranian influence within the country.

The Pakistani Shia population, as well as the Pakistan's social cohesion as a whole, have been the collateral damage in this battle as wealthy Gulf donors have armed and funded sectarian death squads to wreak havoc against Pakistani Shias and other religious minorities within the country.

WikiLeaks cables released in 2009 described the extent of which this support has been facilitated: "Donors in Saudi Arabia as the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide"¦ for groups aligned with Al-Qaida and focused on undermining stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan".

The leaked report describes in detail the extent to which wealthy, conservative Gulf donors have sought to use Pakistan as a battlefront for their war against Iran - a war in which they see all Shias across the world as being legitimate targets for violence.

An estimated $100m per year has flowed from donors from the Gulf to fund extremist groups in Pakistan and spread sectarian ideology - a massive sum especially for a developing country such as Pakistan and one which has been increasingly successful in subverting the heterodox and tolerant Islamic tradition which has historically been prevalent in the subcontinent.

Children in particular, often pliable candidates for suicide bombings, have been specifically recruited for indoctrination with those "between the ages of 8 to 12" and whose families are "suffering extreme financial difficulties" being the most favoured targets of recruitment by sectarian extremist groups.

Extremist religious sentiments

While Shia militant groups such as Sipah-e-Muhammad also do exist, these are widely considered by analysts to be marginal and largely reactionary - the Shia community has overwhelmingly been the recipient of violence as opposed to its purveyor and has become the target of external parties using Pakistan as a field upon which to settle regional scores, as well as seeking to give violent expression to their own extremist religious sentiments.

As described in an editorial by the Karachi-based Express Tribune: "A fact recognised by all in Pakistan is that the people of the country are not sectarian-minded. Before jihad took hold of Pakistan and extremist clerics became threatening, there was considerable harmony between the sects. Muharram was not the season of sectarian violence and mayhem. Today, the world understands that the intensification of the sectarian feeling among the clerics is actually a result of a war relocated from Pakistan's neighbourhood in the Gulf."

Tragically, it has become Pakistani Shias, a community which has little if anything to do with the increasingly heated conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, that has today become among its biggest victims of that escalating conflict.

There is growing realisation within Pakistan that the cynical manipulation of the country by regional actors is leading to a potential existential crisis for the state. Shias make up a large percentage of the country's population of 180 million and account for a significant proportion of the professional class which is vital to the nation's continued viability.

In recent months, high-profile religious leaders from across the country convened in the capital of Islamabad for a conference intended to promote intra-communal unity and "put the genie of sectarianism back in the bottle", while secular political leaders have also made forceful denunciations of the increasingly violent sectarian chauvinism within the country.

Despite these encouraging pronouncements, the horrifying scenes of murder which played out on Pakistani streets during this year's Ashura commemorations are a stark reminder of how deeply embedded violently extremist religious attitudes have become within segments of Pakistani society in recent years.

Many analysts have warned that Pakistani Shias increasingly face "sectarian cleansing" from the country if violence against them continues to accelerate, a fate which would be a tragic end to a community which for most of the Pakistan's history has lived in communal harmony with majority Sunnis and others within Pakistan's once-inclusive ethnic and religious tapestry.

If the measure of a society is how it treats its minorities, the slow-motion genocide being perpetrated against the Shia community in Pakistan is indicative of a country which has acquiesced to being devoured from the inside-out and which has sacrificed for itself any vision of a tolerant and progressive future.

Opportunistic Gulf ideologues have turned Pakistan into a charnel-house in pursuit of their own sectarian and political agendas; until Pakistanis forcefully reject the purpose towards which their country is being cynically utilised, the downward spiral of communal violence will proceed and the fate of Pakistan's Shia community will continue to be marked by increasingly wanton massacres and bloodshed.

Where Sunnis and Shias within Pakistan once commemorated their holidays together in relative harmony, there has grown an increasingly stark divide - unless it is bridged and unless imported extremist ideologies are stifled, the future of Pakistan as a unified and cohesive state will continue to be threatened.

Pakistan's Shia genocide - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
 
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hello_10

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Pak minorities have no faith in democracy
May 8, 2013
In majority Muslim Pakistan, religious minorities say democracy is killing them. :toilet:

Intolerance has been on the rise for the past five years under Pakistan's democratically elected government because of the growing violence of Islamic radicals, who are then courted by political parties, say many in the country's communities of Shia Muslims, Christians, Hindus and other minorities.

On Saturday, the country will elect a new parliament, marking the first time one elected government is replaced by another in the history of Pakistan, which over its 66-year existence has repeatedly seen military rule. But minorities are not celebrating. Some of the fiercest Islamic extremists are candidates in the vote, and minorities say even the mainstream political parties pander to radicals to get votes, often campaigning side-by-side with well-known militants.

More than a dozen representatives of Pakistan's minorities interviewed by The Associated Press expressed fears the vote will only hand more influence to extremists. Since the 2008 elections, under the outgoing government led by the left-leaning Pakistan People's Party, sectarian attacks have been relentless and minorities have found themselves increasingly targeted by radical Islamic militants. Minorities have little faith the new election will change that.

"We are always opposed to martial law (but) during all the military regimes, the law and order was better and there was good security for minorities," said Amar Lal, a lawyer and human rights activist for Pakistan's Hindu community.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom in a report last month berated the Pakistani government for its poor record of protecting both its minorities and its majority Sunni Muslims and recommended that Pakistan be put on a list of worst offenders, which could jeopardize billions of dollars in US assistance.

Pakistan's Hindu minority complains that scores of Hindu girls have been kidnapped, forced to marry their abductor and convert to Islam. They say some 11,000 Hindus living in Baluchistan province have migrated to India because they were worried about security. :ranger:

Pakistan's Christian communities have complaints as well. They are often charged with blasphemy with trifles with majority muslims.

They also accuse political parties of aligning with radical Islamic groups to get votes. Minority religious groups fear extremists will piggyback on the backs of mainstream political parties to a position of political power. They most often point to Nawaz Sharif, the head of the Pakistan Muslim League.
Sharif's spokesman Siddiq-ul-Farooqi flatly rejected any links to extremist groups.

The non-believer epitaph is also widely used in reference to Ahmedis, who consider themselves Muslims but have been explicitly declared non-Muslims in Pakistan's constitution.

So virulent is the abhorrence of Ahmedis by Pakistan's religious right-wing parties that many candidates in Saturday's elections have found it necessary to openly declare their view that Ahmedis are non-Muslims.

Pak minorities have no faith in democracy
 
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hello_10

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USCIRF Annual Report 2013 - Countries of Particular Concern: Pakistan
30 April 2013

United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, USCIRF Annual Report 2013 - Countries of Particular Concern: Pakistan, 30 April 2013, available at: Refworld | USCIRF Annual Report 2013 - Countries of Particular Concern: Pakistan [accessed 28 November 2013]

Religious freedom violations in Pakistan rose to unprecedented levels due to chronic sectarian violence particularly targeting Shi'i Muslims. The government continues to fail to protect Christians, Ahmadis, and Hindus. Pakistan's repressive blasphemy laws and anti-Ahmadi laws are widely used to violate religious freedoms and foster a climate of impunity.


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

FINDINGS: The government of Pakistan continues to engage in and tolerate systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of freedom of religion or belief. Sectarian and religiously-motivated violence is chronic, especially against Shi'i Muslims, and the government has failed to protect members of religious minority communities, as well as the majority faith. Pakistan's repressive blasphemy laws and other religiously discriminatory legislation, such as the anti-Ahmadi laws, have fostered an atmosphere of violent extremism and vigilantism. Pakistani authorities have not consistently brought perpetrators to justice or taken action against societal actors who incite violence. Growing religious extremism threatens Pakistan's security and stability, as well as the freedoms of religion and expression, and other human rights, for everyone in Pakistan.

In light of these particularly severe violations, USCIRF recommends in 2013 that Pakistan be designated a "country of particular concern," or CPC. Since 2002, USCIRF has recommended Pakistan be named a CPC, but the State Department has not followed that recommendation. Pakistan represents the worst situation in the world for religious freedom for countries not currently designated as "countries of particular concern" by the U.S. government.

The exceedingly poor religious freedom environment in Pakistan worsened during the reporting period. The Pakistani government failed to effectively intervene against a spike in targeted violence against the Shi'i Muslim minority community, as well as violence against other minorities. With elections scheduled for May 2013, additional attacks against religious minorities and candidates deemed "un-Islamic" will likely occur. Chronic conditions remain, including the poor social and legal status of non-Muslim religious minorities and the severe obstacles to free discussion of sensitive religious and social issues faced by the majority Muslim community. The country's blasphemy law, used predominantly in Punjab province but also nationwide, targets members of religious minority communities and dissenting Muslims and frequently results in imprisonment. USCIRF is aware of at least 16 individuals on death row and 20 more serving life sentences. The blasphemy law, along with anti-Ahmadi laws that effectively criminalize various practices of their faith, has created a climate of vigilante violence. Hindus have suffered from the climate of violence and hundreds have fled Pakistan for India. Human rights and religious freedom are increasingly under assault, particularly for women, members of religious minority communities, and those in the majority Muslim community whose views are deemed "un-Islamic." The government has proven unwilling or unable to confront militants perpetrating acts of violence against other Muslims and religious minorities.


PRIORITY RECOMMENDATIONS: Promoting respect for freedom of religion or belief must be an integral part of U.S. policy towards Pakistan, and designating Pakistan as a CPC would enable the United States to press Islamabad to undertake needed reforms. The forces that threaten Pakistani and U.S. security interests largely are motivated by a violent extremist ideology that rejects international human rights standards, including freedom of religion or belief. To make religious freedom a key element in the bilateral relationship, the U.S. government should include discussions on religious freedom and religious tolerance in U.S.-Pakistan strategic dialogues and summits. It should urge Pakistan to protect religious minorities from violence and actively prosecute those committing acts of violence against Shi'a, Ahmadis, Christians, Hindus, and others; unconditionally release individuals currently jailed for blasphemy; repeal or reform the blasphemy law and repeal anti-Ahmadi laws; and ensure that the Federal Ministry for National Harmony continues in the new government. Additional recommendations for U.S. policy towards Pakistan can be found at the end of this chapter.


RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONDITIONS

GENERAL OVERVIEW

The situation in Pakistan for religious freedom declined during the reporting period. Pakistan's civilian government has been led by President Asif Ali Zardari since 2008, and is scheduled to complete its full term after the close of the reporting period, which will be a first in the history of Pakistan. President Zardari is the widower of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007, reportedly by militants linked to al-Qaeda. The Bhutto and Zardari families are Shi'i Muslims from the province of Sindh and have assumed leadership roles in a country traditionally dominated by Sunnis from Punjab. Despite a civilian government, the Pakistani military and intelligence services continue to be influential and independent of civilian oversight and are believed to maintain close contacts with terrorist organizations and other militant groups.

Discriminatory laws promulgated in previous decades and persistently enforced have fostered an atmosphere of religious intolerance and eroded the social and legal status of members of religious minorities, including Shi'a, Christians, Ahmadis, and Hindus. While the constitution provides for religious freedom, the right is undercut by other provisions and basic laws. Government authorities do not adequately protect members of religious minority communities from societal violence, and rarely bring perpetrators of attacks on minorities to justice. This impunity is partly due to the fact that Pakistan's democratic institutions, particularly the judiciary and the police, have been weakened by endemic corruption, ineffectiveness, and a general lack of accountability. Also important are the suspected links between Pakistan's army and intelligence service with militants who target religious minorities.

In December 2012, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (the TTP, also known as the Pakistani Taliban) offered, in exchange for a cessation of TTP violence, that Pakistan amend its constitution to bring it into conformity with their version of Islamic law and break all ties with the United States. While a senior Pakistani government official reportedly called the offer "preposterous," there are concerns Pakistan would agree to such an offer, as similar demands were met in 2009 after the TTP took the Swat valley. In that situation, both the local and federal government agreed to implement the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation 2009, which imposed the TTP's interpretation of Shari'ah (Islamic law) in that area. According to the International Crisis Group, these regulations remain in place and there has been no effort to repeal them.

Pakistan is a religiously diverse country. U.S. government figures estimate that 85-90 percent of the population is Sunni Muslim, with 10-15 percent belonging to the Shi'i Muslim community. The Sunni community is divided into Barelvi, Sufi, Deobandi, Whahabbi, and other sects. Approximately 4 percent comprise other minority religious communities, such as Christian, Hindus, and Sikhs. Ahmadis are estimated to comprise 3-4 million Pakistanis, and the community considers themselves part of the Muslim majority.


SECTARIAN OR RELIGIOUSLY-MOTIVATED VIOLENCE AND DISCRIMINATION

Violent attacks continued during the reporting period against members of minority faith communities and members of the majority faith whose views contradicted those of extremists. During the reporting period, militants and terrorist organizations consistently attacked schools. In October 2012, the Pakistani Taliban attempted to execute Malala Yousafzai, a 15-year-old advocate for girl's education from the Swat District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, because of her outspokenness. She survived the attack and was taken to the United Kingdom to receive medical care.

Sunni Muslim leaders and other members of the majority faith also were attacked. In June, a bomber targeted a Sunni mosque in Quetta, killing 14 and wounding 40. In the same city the following month, a Sunni religious leader, Maulvi Abdul Qasim, was killed in a drive-by shooting. Also in June, a bomb exploded near the Panj Pir Sufi shrine, killing three individuals and wounding 34 others. In May, a Sunni cleric described as "anti-Taliban" was targeted for assassination; Maulana Syed Moshsin Shah and his son were killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province when militants attacked his madrassa.

Overall, the U.S. Department of State has noted a five-fold increase in extremist violence since 2006. In this environment, armed extremists, some with ties to banned militant groups, continued their attacks on religious minorities, including bombings, against Shi'a, Ahmadis, Christians, Hindus and others. The following examples of sectarian or religiously-motivated violence are illustrative of the numerous and often fatal attacks against innocent Pakistanis by militants who use religion to justify their crimes.

Attacks against Shi'i Muslims

Militants and terrorist organizations targeted Shi'i processions and mosques with impunity during the reporting period. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch put the number of Shi'a killed over the past year at over 400. Attacks occurred across Pakistan, but particularly large bombings occurred in the province of Balochistan. Information collected by USCIRF during the reporting period, which is not exhaustive, documented approximately 50 incidents of violent attacks causing death, as well as 10 different attacks with explosive devises or suicide bombers. Shi'i activists have referred to the level and severity of attacks as constituting genocide.

The response by the Pakistani government has been grossly inadequate. While at times police were present when attacks occurred, they were unable to stop attackers before people were killed. Recognizing this inadequacy, in September 2012, a panel of three Supreme Court judges, led by Pakistan's Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, issued a highly critical statement of government efforts to bring security in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan. Federal rule was imposed in Balochistan after a large bombing in January 2013. This move came in part as a result of families of the deceased refusing to bury the dead until there was an adequate governmental response. However, the government has proven unwilling or unable to crack down on groups that repeatedly plan, conduct, and claim credit for attacks, or prevent future violence.

Following are select examples of violence against Shi'a that occurred during the reporting period:

On January 10, 2013, 81 people died in twin bombings on a pool hall in a Shiite area of Quetta. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) claimed responsibility. The day before, Dr. Syed Riaz Hussain was shot outside his Karachi medical clinic in a drive by shooting and later died of his wounds. He was a leader in the Karachi Shiite community and had received death threats from LeJ and other militant groups for his advocacy against violence.

In November 2012, a suicide bomber struck a Shi'i processional during Muharram in Rawalpindi, killing 23 people, including 8 women and children. Police reportedly tried to search for the attacker, but he evaded capture and detonated his explosives in a crowd. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility. In Hyderabad, members of the Dawoodi Bohra community, which is considered a subset of Ismaili Shiism, were targeted in shootings in November, with 11 individuals killed.

On September 10, a car bomb killed 12 Shi'a in the Kurram tribal region, the only tribal area where Shi'a are a majority. On September 19, the Dawoodi Bohra community in Karachi was targeted in two bombings, killing at least seven people, including a three-month-old baby and a 12-year-old girl, and injuring at least 22. There was also separate drive by shootings targeting Shi'i Muslims in Quetta that month.

At least 25 Shi'a were killed on August 16, when armed men intercepted four buses en route to Gilgit Baltistan. The attackers lined the people up and opened fire on passengers whose identity documents listed them as being Shi'a.

On July 11, two brothers were reportedly beheaded for converting to the Shi'i faith in Punjab province. That same month, 14 Hazara Shi'a were killed in Balochistan after LeJ gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying 50 pilgrims to Iran.

On June 28, attackers bombed a bus carrying pilgrims to Iran near Quetta. At least 13 people died and 20 were injured. The bus had a police escort and two policemen were also killed.

On April 3, a group described as a Sunni mob forcibly removed 9 nine Shi'a from buses and killed them. The incident occurred about 60 miles south of Gilgit.

In February, 18 Shi'i pilgrims were murdered while returning from a religious pilgrimage. They were taken off the buses on which they were traveling from Rawalpindi to Gilgit Baltistan. Also in February, 29 Shi'a died in a bomb blast targeting a Shi'i market near Peshawar.

On January 16, a remote controlled bomb detonated near a Shi'i religious processional in Khanpur. 18 people were killed, and at least 30 wounded. On January 25, four Shi'i attorneys were targeted in a drive-by shooting near a courthouse in Karachi. Three of the four died of their wounds.

Many of the attacks were perpetrated either by LeJ or TTP. LeJ, which originated from Punjab province but has developed a nationwide network, has proclaimed its goal of "cleansing" Pakistan of Shi'a, who it believes are not true Muslims. The Pakistani Taliban has stated they are in a "war or beliefs" against Shi'a and will "continue attacking them." Both organizations have been designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the U.S. State Department. While the Pakistani government has banned them both, some observers conclude that the Pakistani intelligence maintains contacts with the groups and fosters relationships.

The Pakistani government and court system have been unable to keep LeJ's leader Malik Ishaq in jail. In July 2011, Pakistan's Supreme Court released Ishaq from prison after 14 years, deciding prosecutors failed to present evidence of his involvement in the murders of Shi'i Muslims. Ishaq was implicated in 44 cases involving 70 murders, but courts acquitted him in 34 of the cases and granted bail in 10. Soon after his July release, he was rearrested under public order laws after giving speeches that could incite violence against Shi'a. However, in January 2012 a Punjab provincial review board turned down a government request to extend the arrest and ended his detention. Ishaq was again arrested for inciting violence against Shi'a in August 2012 in Lahore, after his return from a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, but was released on bail the next month. He was rearrested after the close of the reporting period, after LeJ claimed responsibility for a major bombing targeting Shi'a.

Assassinations of Blasphemy Law Opponents

Two prominent Pakistani officials – Punjab Governor Salman Taseer and Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti – were assassinated in early 2011 because of their opposition to Pakistan's flawed blasphemy law. On January 2, 2011, Salman Taseer was assassinated by one of his police bodyguards, Mumtaz Qadri, who later confessed that he had killed the governor because of his views on blasphemy. Sentenced to death by an anti-terrorism court on October 1, his case is on appeal and he is being represented by a former chief justice of the Lahore High Court, Khawaja Muhammad Sharif. The judge who sentenced Qadri to death and his family have fled to Saudi Arabia due to death threats. Taseer's son also was abducted in August 2011 by militants and remains missing.

On March 2, 2011, Shahbaz Bhatti, a longtime Christian activist for religious freedom and the only Christian in Pakistan's federal cabinet, was assassinated outside his mother's home in Islamabad by the Pakistani Taliban. Bhatti had received multiple death threats because of his advocacy against the blasphemy law. The investigation into his murder has seemingly ended and no one is currently in jail.

Attacks and Discrimination against Ahmadis

In recent years, scores of Ahmadis have been murdered in attacks which appear to be religiously motivated. During the reporting period, USCIRF received reports of 44 different attacks targeting Ahmadis, with 22 incidents resulting in the death of 23 individuals. Attacks occurred across the country, including major cities such as Lahore, Quetta, and Karachi. For instance, the president of the local Ahmadi community in the Orangi Town section of Karachi, Mr. Naeem Ahmad Gondal, was killed in July in a drive-by shooting as he left his home for work. Many of the targeted Ahmadis were professionals, such as doctors or businesspersons, with drive-by shootings a common tactic. In addition, an Ahmadi schoolteacher, Mr. Abudl Qudoos Ahmad, died while in police custody in Punjab province, with his body showing signs of torture. The poor legal standing of Ahmadis under Pakistan's constitution and criminal code (discussed below) fosters a climate of impunity, where perpetrators feel empowered to attack them with little or no fear of arrest or prosecution.

In addition to attacks on individual Ahmadis, local police repeatedly forced Ahmadis to remove Qu'ranic scripture from mosques and minarets. USCIRF is aware of nine such incidents over the past year, including the following examples. On January 18, 2013, local Punjab police ordered scripture to be removed from an Ahmadi owned property. When the president of the local community refused, police destroyed the tiles with chisels. In September 2012, local police, at the insistence of imams from the town, removed Islamic scripture from an Ahmadi mosque in Punjab province. In March, local police removed Islamic scripture from within an Ahmadi mosque in Lahore.

There were also at least seven instances of Ahmadi graves being desecrated, some by local police. Graves often have inscribed passages from the Qu'ran. On September 4, 2012 in Faisalabad, police demolished 23 Ahmadi gravestones to remove Islamic inscriptions at the request of local Islamic leaders. A similar event occurred in Hafizabad in Punjab in August, with police removing religious text from Ahmadi graves.

Attacks and Discrimination against Christians

Violence against Christians continued, usually perpetrated by banned militant groups or other societal actors, but also at times at the hands of government officials. USCIRF received reports of 16 different incidents of violent attacks against Christians during the reporting period, with 11 individuals killed. While the murders could not always be definitely linked to religious animus, five churches were attacked by mobs during the reporting period, as were one Catholic hospital and one Christian village. These attacks were on: St. Francis Xavier's Catholic Cathedral in Hyderabad; St. Francis Catholic Church in Karachi; Bawa Chak Presbyterian Church in Faisalabad; Philadelphia Pentecostal Church in Karachi; St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Mardan; St. Elizabeth Hospital in Hyderabad; and the Christian colony in Lahore. The vulnerable position of Christians in Pakistani society makes them susceptible to such violence.

Punjab province is the locus for the majority of violence, blasphemy cases, and discrimination against Christians, as it is home to the largest Christian community. (See the section below for more about blasphemy cases.) Observers note a trend of Christian cemeteries being seized without compensation. In addition, some Christian schools that were nationalized by past governments have yet to be de-nationalized. In January 2012, a Catholic facility used to provide community assistance in Lahore was bulldozed to the ground on orders of the provincial government, which claimed the church did not have proper title to the property. During the demolition copies of the Bible were destroyed. The Christian community is requesting the return of the property and restitution for the destroyed facilities. Local authorities have reportedly made a verbal commitment to do so, but it had not been fulfilled by the end of the reporting period.

Marginalization and poverty make the Christian community in Pakistan vulnerable, and sexual assaults against underage Christian girls by Muslim men continue to be reported. Catholic NGOs estimate at least 700 Christian girls are kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam every year. During the reporting period, two reports surfaced of Christian women being forcibly converted to Islam, married, and then raped, with law enforcement either hesitant to act or societal actors pressuring victims to recant their allegations. Three cases of kidnapping of Christians were also reported.

Attacks and Discrimination against Hindus

Due to their minority status, Pakistan's Hindus are vulnerable to kidnapping, rapes, and forced conversions of Hindu women, including minors. Hindus predominately live in Sindh province, as well as Balochistan. Persistent reports of such abuses continued to arise during the reporting period. Fifteen to 20 Hindu kidnapping cases are reported each month to the Hindu Council in Karachi, and the Human Rights Council of Pakistan has reported that cases of forced conversion are increasing.

Allegations of kidnapping of Hindu women, followed by the forced conversion to Islam and force marriage to Muslim men, consistently arose throughout the reporting period. In early 2012, 16 year-old Rachna Kumari was reportedly kidnapped by a police officer guarding a Hindu temple in Sindh province. A court affirmed the conversion and marriage, despite Kumari's family alleging she was forced into the marriage. In August, the family of Manisha Kumari, a 14 year-old Hindu, claimed she was forcibly converted and married to a Muslim. Press reports stated she claimed her conversion and marriage were voluntary. :ranger:

The highest profile case involved a Hindu girl named Rinkle Kumari, who was reportedly kidnapped, forced to convert to Islam, and married to a Muslim man in the Ghotki district of Sindh province in February 2012. Her case, along with that of two others, Lata Kumari and Asha Kumari, was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. In August 2012 the court gave the three women the right to decide their future and they chose to go with their Muslim husbands. However, as is common in these cases, there is concern that the women's decisions were a result of societal pressure and fear of repercussions from the local community, and not a genuine act of free will.

A parliamentary panel has been established to investigate the issue of forced conversions and, at the direction of President Zardari, prepare amendments to the constitution. The president also directed the Sindh parliament to take action. At the end of the reporting period, USCIRF was unaware of any action taken by either body.

According to local organizations, at least 80 Hindus were kidnapped in Balochistan province between 2011 and the first months of 2012. In July 2012, armed men kidnapped three prominent Hindu businessmen traveling in Sindh province. One of the abducted men was Ramesh Lal, president of a Hindu local council. Their whereabouts are still unknown, and no ransom was demanded. The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) reported in December 2012 that a six year-old Hindu girl named Vijanti Meghwar was raped and tortured in Sindh province, but the police took no action against the perpetrator.

Hindu religious sites have also been targeted for violence. In December 2012, a private developer, assisted by Karachi police and Pakistani Army Rangers, destroyed the Shri Rama Pir Mandir, a century-old Hindu temple, along with several nearby Hindu homes. The event occurred while the Sindh High Court was hearing a petition seeking a stay order. Authorities removed religious statues, but claimed there was no temple, but only unauthorized encroachments. In September 2012, a Hindu temple outside Karachi was attacked by violent mobs protesting the YouTube film about the Prophet Mohammed. Religious statues were broken, a copy of the Bhagavad Gita destroyed, and the temple's priest assaulted.

USCIRF received reports of 250 Hindu families having left Balochistan and Sindh provinces for India during the reporting period, due to concerns of violence and impunity. The Pakistan Hindu Council (PHC), a non-governmental body representing Hindus in Pakistan, estimates that more than 50 Hindu families are migrating to India from Pakistan every month due to the climate of impunity and fear of violence.

Hindus are also the largest religious minority in Pakistan whose marriages are not registered officially by the government. Without a way to register marriages, Hindu women are left vulnerable to forcible marriage as they cannot prove their marital status. In addition, Hindu wives cannot claim inheritance from deceased husbands and have difficulty obtaining divorces or remarrying. In 2011, the Hindu Marriage Registration Bill was introduced in the National Assembly to correct this serious problem. However, passage has been delayed, due to a lack of cross-party support and reports that some Hindu religious leaders object to provisions in the bill. Notably, in 2011 the federal government directed the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to register Sikh marriages and it has done so.


BLASPHEMY LAW

Legal System

Severe penalties for blasphemy and other activities deemed insulting to Islam were added to the penal code during the regime of General Zia-ul-Haq. Article 295, Section B, makes defiling the Qur'an punishable by life imprisonment. Under Section C of the same article, remarks found to be "derogatory" against the Prophet Mohammed carry the death penalty. Blasphemy allegations, which are often false, have resulted in the lengthy detention of, and occasional violence against, Christians, Ahmadis, Hindus, other religious minorities, and members of the Muslim majority community. Reportedly, more cases are brought under these provisions against Muslims than any other faith group, although the law has a greater impact per capita on minority religious faiths. While no one has been executed under the blasphemy law, the law has created a climate of vigilantism that has resulted in societal actors killing accused individuals. :ranger:

Despite the law's national application, two-thirds of all blasphemy cases reportedly are filed in Punjab province. Because the law requires neither proof of intent nor evidence to be presented after allegations are made, and includes no penalties for false allegations, blasphemy charges are commonly used to intimidate members of religious minorities or others with whom the accusers disagree or have business or other conflicts. The provisions also provide no clear guidance on what constitutes a violation, empowering the accuser and local officials to rely on their personal interpretations of Islam. In addition, blasphemy offenses are considered cognizable, so that the police file charges and can arrest without a warrant. And blasphemy is a non-compoundable crime, a category that does not allow for out-of-court settlements. Consequently, once a charge is filed, it is difficult for the case to be quashed, and the accuser cannot simply drop the charges.

Once a case is registered and a court hearing is scheduled, militants often pack courtrooms and publicly threaten violence if there is an acquittal. Lawyers who have refused to prosecute cases of alleged blasphemy or who defend those accused, as well as judges who issue acquittals, have been harassed, threatened, and even subjected to violence. The lack of procedural safeguards empowers accusers to use the laws to abuse religious freedom, carry out vendettas, or gain an advantage over others in land or business disputes or in other matters completely unrelated to blasphemy.

Pakistani law does contain legal provisions that could limit blasphemy abuses, but they are not commonly applied to do so. When allegations of blasphemy arise against members of religious minorities, mobs often form to pressure police to file a First Information Report and to intimidate the broader minority community. In some cases, loudspeakers from mosque minarets are used to broadcast news about an alleged case, which quickly escalates the situation and fosters the growth of a mob. The use of these loudspeakers in this way violates Pakistani law: Section 3 of the Misuse of Loudspeakers Act limits the use of mosque loudspeakers to the call to prayer and the Friday sermon. In addition, under Article 153 of the Pakistani Penal Code, an individual can be sentenced to prison and fined for "wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot." These two legal provisions offer a potential foundation from which to deter communal violence against minority groups.

Individual Cases

During the reporting period, a high-profile blasphemy case caught international attention. Rimsha Masih, believed to be between 10 and 13 years old, was accused of burning pages with Qu'ranic passages. Rimsha comes from an impoverished Christian family living near Islamabad, and reportedly suffers from Down Syndrome. Police took her into custody for her own protection on August 17 after she was reportedly assaulted. Threats against the Christian community forced almost 400 families to flee to other parts of the capital and drove Rimsha's family into hiding.

In response, police filed more than 150 First Information Reports against protesters who damaged property and threatened violence. In an unexpected turn of events, witnesses testified against Rimsha's accuser, a local imam, saying that the imam had falsified evidence by placing pages of the Qu'ran in the trash. Since this was considered blasphemous, he was charged with blasphemy and arrested by Pakistani police. Rimsha was held in jail for several weeks, before being released on bail in October. Dr. Paul Bhatti, the Prime Minister's Adviser for National Harmony, and others worked to have her and her family moved to a safe house, due to death threats (including a veiled one from the accuser's attorney). Her case was eventually dismissed by the Islamabad High Court on November 20. The case against the accuser was also dismissed, after three of the four witnesses recanted their statements that he falsified evidence.

Before the Rimsha case, the highest-profile blasphemy case in recent years involved Aasia Bibi, a Christian farm worker and mother of five, who was sentenced to death under Article 295C in November 2010. She remains in jail while her case is on appeal. NGOs report that Ms. Bibi's health has been affected from being kept separate from the prison population. Her family is in hiding.

Two individuals were sentenced to death during the reporting period: Sufi Ishaque and Hazrat Ali Shah (the latter was also sentenced to 10 years in prison). These individuals join 14 others USCIRF is aware of on death row for alleged blasphemy. In addition, USCIRF received reports of an additional 20 individuals serving life sentences. Manzarul Haq Shah Jahan was sentenced to life in prison and a fine of 200,000 rupees during the reporting period. In addition, USCIRF has received reports of more than 40 individuals currently in jail for violating the blasphemy law; a detailed list of these individuals is included in the appendix to this Annual Report.

The accusation of blasphemy can lead to acts of violence perpetrated by societal actors. In April, an elderly man was shot dead in Punjab, after being acquitted by a court from blasphemy charges and released from prison. Also shocking was the mob attack in June on Ghulam Abbas, a Sunni Muslim accused of blasphemy. He was pulled from a police station in Punjab province, beaten to death, and his body burned.

On January 17, 2013, the Pakistani Supreme Court accepted a petition filed against the Pakistani ambassador to the United States, Sherry Rehman, over allegedly blasphemous comments made two years ago while speaking on television about Aasia Bibi's sentencing under the country's blasphemy laws. Police were instructed by the two judge panel to collect evidence.


THE AHMADI MINORITY AND ANTI-AHMADI LEGISLATION

Pakistan's Ahmadi community is subjected to the most severe legal restrictions and officially-sanctioned discrimination. As described above, egregious acts of violence have been perpetrated against Ahmadis and anti-Ahmadi laws have helped create a permissive climate for vigilante violence against members of this community. Ahmadis are prevented by law from engaging in the full practice of their faith and may face criminal charges for a range of religious practices, including the use of religious terminology. In 1974, the government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto amended Pakistan's constitution to declare members of the Ahmadi religious community to be "non-Muslims," despite their insistence to the contrary.

Basic acts of worship and interaction also have been made criminal offenses. In 1984, during General Zia-ul-Haq's dictatorship, sections B and C of Article 298 were added to the penal code, criminalizing Ahmadis "posing" as Muslims, calling their places of worship "mosques," worshipping in non-Ahmadi mosques or public prayer rooms, performing the Muslim call to prayer, using the traditional Islamic greeting in public, publicly quoting from the Qur'an, or displaying the basic affirmation of the Muslim faith. It is also a crime for Ahmadis to preach in public, seek converts, or produce, publish, or disseminate their religious materials. Ahmadis are restricted in building new houses of worship, holding public conferences or other gatherings, and traveling to Saudi Arabia for religious purposes, including the hajj. :toilet:

During the reporting period, USCIRF received reports of 10 Ahmadis being charged under Article 298. In many of these cases, police were pressured to act by local religious leaders who are opposed to the Ahmadi faith. Many of the individuals arrested were released on bail, but will likely spend years in the backlogged Pakistani court system as their cases are tried and possibly appealed.

In 2002, then President Musharraf issued an executive order that abolished Pakistan's separate electorate system. However, he soon thereafter issued Chief Executive's Order No. 15 mandating that Ahmadis register in a separate voter registry, therefore keeping a separate electoral system for this religious community alone. In addition, obtaining a Pakistani national identity card or passport requires the applicant to sign a religious affirmation denouncing the founder of the Ahmadi faith as a false prophet. Because Ahmadis are required to register to vote as non-Muslims and national identity cards identify Ahmadis as non-Muslims, those who refuse to disavow their claim to being Muslims are effectively disenfranchised from participating in elections at any level.

Since Ahmadis were declared non-Muslim in 1974, no Pakistani government has attempted to reform the anti-Ahmadi laws and regulations, with the sole exception of an abortive attempt in late 2004 to remove the religious identification column in Pakistani passports, which would have enabled Ahmadis to participate in the hajj. This initiative was reversed in 2005 when the government restored the column, reportedly in response to pressure from Islamist political parties. In recent years, individuals have refused to sign the religious affirmation clause for a passport and still received the document. In 2012, the government blocked the international website for the Ahmadi community.

HUDOOD ORDINANCES

Under the Hudood Ordinances, which criminalize extramarital sex, rape victims risk being charged with adultery, for which death by stoning remains a possible sentence. The Hudood laws apply to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Although these extreme corporal punishments generally have not been carried out in practice, lesser punishments such as jail terms or fines have been imposed. In 2006, the Protection of Women Act removed the crime of rape from the sphere of the Hudood Ordinances and put it under the penal code, thereby eliminating the requirement that a rape victim produce four male witnesses to prove the crime. Under the law, convictions for rape must be based on forensic and circumstantial evidence. The Act also prohibited a case of rape from being converted into a case of fornication or adultery, which had been possible under the Hudood laws. Marital rape once again was made a criminal offense, as it had been prior to the 1979 implementation of the Hudood laws. However, an offense of fornication was included in the penal code, punishable by imprisonment for up to five years. In 2010, the Federal Shariat Court ruled that key sections of the 2006 law were unconstitutional and un-Islamic, which threatened to undermine these reforms entirely. The federal government has taken no action to implement the ruling.


RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CONCERNS IN PAKISTANI EDUCATION

A significant minority of Pakistan's thousands of religious schools, or madrassas, reportedly continue to provide ongoing ideological training and motivation to those who take part in religiously-motivated violence in Pakistan and abroad. In mid-2005, the Pakistani central government required all madrassas to register with the government and expel all foreign students. While most registered, this reportedly has had little if any effect on the curricula, which in many of these schools includes materials that promote intolerance and violence. The government also still lacks full knowledge of the madrassas' sources of funding. In 2010, the Ministry of Interior, which oversees the madrassa system, and the five main madrassa boards signed a memorandum of understanding in another attempt to reform their curriculum and regulate their financing.

Religious freedom concerns also are evident in Pakistan's public schools. Pakistani primary and secondary schools continue to use textbooks that foster prejudice and intolerance of religious minorities, especially Hindus and Christians. Hindu beliefs and practices are contrasted negatively with those of Islam. Bangladesh's struggle for independence from Pakistan is blamed in part on the influence of Hindus in the education sector of the former East Pakistan. Such references are not only in Islamic studies textbooks, but also in both early elementary and more advanced social studies texts used by all public school students, including non-Muslims. Moreover, the textbooks contain stories, biographies, and poems regarding exclusively Muslim characters.

In 2011, USCIRF commissioned a study that analyzed more than 100 social studies, Islamic studies, and Urdu textbooks used in grades 1 through 10 by schools in Pakistan's four provinces. The study also examined pedagogical methods and asked teachers and students their views on Pakistan's religious minority communities. Researchers visited 37 middle schools and high schools and 19 madrassas and interviewed over 500 students and teachers.

The study found that an alarming number of Pakistan's public schools and privately-run madrassas devalue religious minority groups. While there are some positive exceptions, many foster a climate conducive to acts of discrimination and even violence against members of these groups. For instance, in public schools, all children, regardless of their faith, had to use textbooks that often had a strong Islamic orientation and frequently omitted mention of religious minorities or made derogatory references to them. Hindus were depicted in especially negative ways, and descriptions of Christians often were erroneous and offensive. Also, both public school and madrassa teachers lacked an understanding of religious minorities and a large portion of their pupils could not identify these minorities as citizens of Pakistan.

GOVERNMENTAL EFFORTS TO IMPROVE INTERFAITH UNDERSTANDING AND MINORITY RIGHTS

The government has taken some steps to promote interfaith understanding. After the March 2011 assassination of Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, Prime Minister Gilani appointed his brother, Dr. Paul Bhatti, as the Minister In Charge for the Ministry of National Harmony and Advisor to Prime Minister on inter-faith harmony. While Dr. Bhatti cannot serve in the cabinet since he is not an elected official, he enjoys all the powers, responsibilities, resources, and protections of a federal minister, including responsibility over the Federal Ministry of National Harmony. President Zardari and then-Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani issued statements in March 2012 commemorating the one year anniversary of the murder of Shahbaz Bhatti.

Dr. Paul Bhatti played an important role in the release of Rimsha Masih from blasphemy charges (discussed above). During the reporting period, Dr. Bhatti and others in the government worked to expand the number of reserved seats for non-Muslim minorities in the National Assembly and provincial assemblies. The federal cabinet unanimously approved an expansion in early fall 2012, and the government moved a bill in December to amend the constitution. Under what would be the 23rd amendment, the National Assembly would gain four seats for non-Muslim minorities, bringing the total to 14. In provincial assemblies, the number of reserved seats in each would increase at different rates; the Punjab provincial assembly would see an increase of 10 for a total of 18, Sindh increase by 12 for a total of 21, and Khbyer Pakhtunkwa and Balochistan would both have their current 3 seats increased by an additional 4 for a total of 7 each. These increases address concerns that previous increases in reserved seats under the 18th amendment in 2010 did not reflect the size of the non-Muslim community. At the end of the reporting period, the National Assembly had yet to approve the amendment.

Dr. Bhatti also scheduled an international conference on interfaith harmony to be held in Islamabad in January 2013, but it was postponed due to security threats. USCIRF Commissioners and staff were invited to participate and planned to attend. Dr. Bhatti convened a domestic conference after the end of the reporting period that was attended by Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and Muslim and non-Muslim religious leaders.

It has been difficult to gauge the success of previous efforts taken by the Pakistani government under the late Minister Bhatti. In May 2009, the government announced a five-percent minimum quota in federal employment for members of religious minority communities. However, it appears that the quota has not been met, and if applied at all, it has been done so unevenly across the country. The government also designated August 11 as an annual federal holiday, called "Minorities' Day," which President Zardari celebrated in 2012 for the second time, giving a statement about the importance of religious minorities to Pakistan. Minister Bhatti also established District Interfaith Harmony Committees to promote religious tolerance through understanding in every district of Pakistan. The Pakistani embassy reported that in 2011, 124 interfaith committees have been established at the district level.

Also under the 18th amendment, the Ministry of Minorities Affairs was removed from the federal cabinet and devolved to the provinces. It is unclear whether all provinces have established a Minority Affairs Ministry, and if so, what level of funding and support they receive from the provincial government. Sindh has reportedly done so and Punjab province already had a ministry that focused on minority concerns and human rights.

According to information received from the Pakistani embassy, the government is planning to create a National Commission for Minorities, which will consist of two representatives each from the Christian and Hindu communities, a Sikh, a Parsi and two Muslims. These individuals have yet to be named. This Commission will review laws and policies brought to its attention for discrimination, investigate allegations of abuse, recommend actions to fully include minority religious communities into the life of Pakistan, and ensure that places of worship are protected. It is unclear how this Commission will interact with the Ministry for National Harmony or the provincial Ministries for Minorities Affairs.


U.S. POLICY

Pakistan is central to the United States' global campaign against al-Qaeda and to the support of U.S. and multinational forces fighting in Afghanistan. The 2014 scheduled departure of combat troops from Afghanistan will change the relationship with Pakistan, potentially dramatically, as U.S. government reliance on Pakistan for transport of supplies and ground lines of communication to Afghanistan will decrease. However, the United States will remain engaged with Pakistan, due to concerns about Pakistani links to terrorists and other militants opposed to the Afghan government, the country's nuclear arsenal, its contentious relationship with neighboring India, and other issues.

U.S.-Pakistan relations have long been marked by strain, disappointment, and mistrust. The government-to-government relationship improved somewhat during the reporting period, after reaching a nadir following the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden and a November 2011 incident near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in which U.S. and NATO forces fired on Pakistani soldiers, killing two dozen Pakistanis. In retaliation for the shooting incident, Pakistan closed all ground lines of communication and supply used by NATO forces into Afghanistan. These were not reopened until Secretary Clinton apologized in July 2012. In what the Congressional Research Service calls "an apparent quid pro quo for the reopening," on July 6, 2012, the U.S. government released $1.18 billion in Coalition Support Fund military reimbursements to Pakistan. In addition, the bilateral Strategic Dialogue was later restarted, albeit with a more modest agenda.

Human rights and religious freedom have not been visible priorities in the bilateral relationship, although U.S. Embassy Islamabad has been active in tracking cases and U.S. officials have raised concerns with Pakistani officials. One example of the lack of visibility is the Strategic Dialogue, established between the United States and Pakistan in 2010 that includes the topics of "economy and trade; energy; security; strategic stability and non-proliferation; law enforcement and counter-terrorism; science and technology, education; agriculture; water; health; and communications and public diplomacy." The Dialogue was dormant for some time, due to the aforementioned challenges in the bilateral relationship. However, by the end of the reporting period, select bilateral working groups were reportedly restarted: defense, finance, law enforcement and counter-terrorism, strategic stability and non-proliferation, and energy. Human rights remained absent from the list of bilateral concerns incorporated into the dialogue.

The aid relationship with Pakistan is complex and changing. During the reporting period, Congress continued to question the U.S. partnership with Pakistan and levels of funding, while also understanding the need to balance Pakistan's strategic importance. Several laws condition aid or have certification requirements and new bills were introduced to encourage greater accountability. For instance, both the Economic Support Funds and the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Fund place conditions on U.S. assistance. Other laws, before U.S. aid can be disbursed, require the Executive branch to certify that Pakistan meets specific criteria, such as on human rights or in combating terrorism. On September 13, 2012, the State Department notified Congress that the Obama administration would waive two certification requirements that placed conditions on U.S. assistance. According to the Congressional Research Service, the State Department certified that Pakistan was "cooperating with the United States on a range of counterterrorism, nonproliferation, democracy, and other issue-areas."

Non-military U.S. aid dramatically increased in recent years, while military aid has ebbed and flowed over the decades of engagement. In October 2009, President Obama signed the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act (also known as the Kerry-Lugar Bill) authorizing an additional $7.5 billion ($1.5 billion annually over five years) in mostly non-military assistance to Pakistan. However, the $1.5 billion amount was only met in the first year, and the appropriated amount has been approximately one-third of that each year since.

The Obama administration's FY2013 request for aid to Pakistan totaled $2.2 billion. The Congressional Research Service reported that Pakistan was the third highest recipient in aid in FY2012. Since 2009, over $2 billion in civilian assistance has been disbursed, of which $500 million was for emergency humanitarian relief. That same year Congress also established the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Fund (PCF) within the Defense Department appropriations and the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund (PCCF) within the State-Foreign Operations Appropriations.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Promoting respect for freedom of religion or belief must be an integral part of U.S. policy in Pakistan, and designating Pakistan as a CPC would enable the United States to more effectively press Islamabad to undertake needed reforms. USCIRF has concluded that the conflict with violent religious extremists now taking place in Pakistan requires the United States actively to bolster the position of elements in Pakistani society that respect democratic values, the rule of law, and international standards of human rights, including freedom of religion or belief.

To this end, USCIRF recommends a number of measures to advance religious freedom through specific U.S. programs and policies, end violations of religious freedom, and improve education in Pakistan.

I. ENDING VIOLATIONS OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN PAKISTAN

As part of designating Pakistan as a CPC, the U.S. government should urge the government of Pakistan to:

initiate a nationwide effort to end the activities of banned militant groups, such as LeJ and TTP, and arrest and prosecute their leaders and any members perpetrating acts of violence against religious minorities or others deemed "un-Islamic;"

provide visible security protection for vulnerable minority religious communities, such as Shi'a, Ahmadis, Christians, and Hindus, their routes used for religious processionals, and their leaders;

place a moratorium on the use of the blasphemy law until it is reformed or repealed, immediately release those detained on blasphemy charges, and unconditionally pardon all individuals convicted of blasphemy;

ensure that those accused of blasphemy, their defenders, witnesses, and trial judges are given adequate protection, including by investigating and prosecuting death threats and other statements inciting violence issued by political leaders, religious officials, or other members of society;

address incitement to imminent violence by prosecuting government-funded clerics, government officials, or individuals who incite violence against disfavored Muslims and non-Muslims, disciplining or dismissing government-funded clerics who espouse intolerance, and enforcing the Misuse of Loudspeakers Act and Article 153 of the Penal Code regarding starting a riot;

increase efforts to find, arrest, and prosecute all those involved in the murder of Shahbaz Bhatti, and prioritize the prevention of religiously-motivated and sectarian violence and the punishment of its perpetrators;

amend the constitution and rescind criminal laws targeting Ahmadis and repeal Chief Executive's Order No. 15 to permit Ahmadis to vote alongside all other Pakistanis as part of a joint electorate;

ensure that the Federal Ministry for National Harmony continues in the new government, is adequately funded and staffed, and that minority affairs ministries are established in all four provinces;

enforce government-mandated employment quotas for minorities and work to see that religious minorities are proactively recruited into government jobs, consistent with current policies, and that the representation of non-Muslims in the parliament is increased; and

call on the Pakistani government to comply with and fully implement recommendations from the UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review of Pakistan, including those related to freedom of religion or belief.

II. ADVANCING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM THROUGH U.S. PROGRAMS AND POLICIES

To clearly articulate that upholding religious freedom and related human rights is an essential element of the U.S. policy toward Pakistan, the U.S. government should:

include discussions on religious freedom and religious tolerance in U.S.-Pakistan strategic dialogues and summits;

instruct the Secretary of Defense and the commander of U.S. Central Command to raise with Pakistan's military leadership the importance of addressing violent extremism by combating militant groups with paramilitary and law enforcement bodies, rule of law, law enforcement, and policing, and stress the need to reform Pakistan's blasphemy law;

ensure U.S. assistance supports Pakistani government and civil-society institutions that work to uphold and guarantee religious freedom and increase religious tolerance and understanding, including by directing U.S. officials and recipients of U.S. grants to prioritize projects promoting multi-religious engagement and developing the political ability of ethnic and religious minorities to organize themselves and convey their concerns to the government effectively;

increase the funding for strategic communications programs to counter violent extremism, and incorporate messaging on the importance of religious tolerance and religious freedom to oppose rhetoric used to promote and justify violent acts;

ensure that U.S. assistance for capacity development going to the Pakistani executive, legislative, and judicial branches addresses religious freedom and related human rights by, for example, assisting the programs developed by the Federal Ministry of National Harmony that promote pluralism and religious tolerance;

emphasize the training of Pakistani police officers and leadership to enhance their capacity to fight violent religious extremism by providing technical assistance, equipment, and training on best practices for law enforcement outreach to and protection of vulnerable minority religious communities, such as Shi'a, Ahmadis, Christians, and Hindus;

fund teacher-training programs that promote positive concepts of tolerance and respect for the rights of others and exclude material promoting intolerance, hatred, or violence against any group of persons based on religious or other differences;

engage the political leadership of Punjab province about reducing the large number of blasphemy cases in that province and preventing violence against religious minorities; and

expand the Fulbright Program, the International Visitor Program, Hubert Humphrey Fellowship Program, and other exchanges for professionals, journalists, students, women, and religious and civil society leaders from all of Pakistan's diverse religious and ethnic communities, in order to promote a vibrant civil society in Pakistan.

III. IMPROVING EDUCATION

The U.S. government should urge the government of Pakistan, and provincial authorities, as appropriate, to:

set national textbook and curricula standards that actively promote tolerance toward all persons, establish appropriate review and enforcement mechanisms to guarantee that such standards are being met in public schools, and take concrete steps to fully implement the 2006 curricular reforms;

introduce into the curriculum for all students the "Ethics for Non-Muslims" course in order to promote interfaith understanding;

sign into law and implement the madrassa reform agreement made with the National Madrassa Oversight Board; until that can be accomplished, ensure that a temporary madrassa oversight board is empowered to develop, implement, and train teachers in human rights standards and provide oversight of madrassa curricula and teaching standards; and

implement guidelines for textbooks used in public schools and replace current public school textbooks with ones that exclude messages of intolerance, hatred, or violence against any group of persons based on religious or other differences.

Refworld | USCIRF Annual Report 2013 - Countries of Particular Concern: Pakistan

Refworld | USCIRF Annual Report 2013 - Countries of Particular Concern: Pakistan
 
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Plan to Build Mosque Near Ground Zero Riles Families of 9/11 Victims

Outraged family members and community groups are accusing a Muslim group of trying to rewrite history with its plans to build a 13-story mosque and cultural center just two blocks from Ground Zero, where Islamic extremists flew two planes into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

"This is a place which is 600 feet from where almost 3,000 people were torn to pieces by Islamic extremists," said Debra Burlingame, whose brother died in the attack on the Pentagon that day.

"I think that it is incredibly insensitive and audacious really for them to build a mosque, not only on that site, but to do it specifically so that they could be in proximity to where that atrocity happened," said Burlingame, who is co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America.

The 13-story mosque and cultural center will be built on the site of a four-story building that was a Burlington Coat Factory retail store until 9/11, when part of a plane's landing gear crashed through the roof. The building, which will be razed, currently houses a mosque.

The New York City Mayor's office says "It's private property, and the area is zoned for uses that include this one."
Pamela Gellar, executive director of Stop Islamization of America, blasted the organization behind the plans, Cordoba Initiative, and its leader, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, saying the project is "an insulting flag of conquest of Islamic supremacism."

"How can you build a shrine to the very ideology that brought down the World Trade Center?" asked Geller, whose group is planning a June 6 rally to protest the project.

"We have to do everything we can to stop this ... a huge Muslim monument, a stone's throw from Ground Zero, with a mosque pointing toward Mecca." :ranger:


She called it an act of deception that the group has been able to get the green light from the Lower Manhattan Community Board, whose finance committee gave it a thumbs-up last week.

Though the Cordoba Initiative's website calls part of the $100 million-plus project a mosque, its founder, Imam Rauf, says the project is not a mosque but a community center for all faiths that will include recreational facilities, a prayer space and a 500-seat theater that can be a part of the neighborhood's trendy Tribeca Film Festival.

Rauf insists the effort is meant to help heal the wounds of 9/11, "We've approached the community because we want this to be an example of how we are cooperating with the members of the community, not only to provide services but also to build a new discourse on how Muslims and non-Muslims can cooperate together to push back against the voices of extremism."

But Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, says there are more productive ways to fight Islamic extremism.

"Even when they have the resources, they are using it for a place of worship, a cultural center for organizations," he said. They are not using it for a counterterrorism research center.

"They are not using it to lead the war like Americans need to see us do and they are wasting our resources, not to mention that being close to the hallowed ground that is so sensitive in the souls of the families of 9/11. I think it is extremely poor judgment."

Jasser also has questions about the financing.

According to reports, the building that occupies the site was purchased last year for $4.85 million in cash by Soho Properties, a real estate company run by Muslims. Imam Rauf, who's also the founder of American Society for Muslim Advancement, ASMA, was an investor in that transaction.

The balance of the $100-150 million total cost still needs to be raised, but Rauf says he's confident it will be.
Jasser says that with such a financial commitment, there needs to be full disclosure about where the money is coming from.
:ranger:

"There should be transparency about who those investors are," he said, "whether that money is coming from domestic interest or not, and if it's coming from foreign interests we need to know, because I think that's a liability, and it shows that there is another agenda rather than domestic security and tranquility."

Madeline Brooks, a member of the New York chapter of Act! for America, a non-profit organization that "is opposed to the authoritarian values of Islam fascism," believes the Cordoba Initiative's agenda is to co-opt the 9/11 narrative and transform it into a Muslim conquest.

"Is it a victory for Islam over non-Muslims?" she asks. "Is this a feather in his (Rauf's) cap?"

Brooks says she's received hundreds of angry e-mails from people who say they can't believe the audacity of this project. "Why here?" she asks. "Why are you offending and outraging people... stirring up a huge hornet's nest?"

Rauf says the intent is to do exactly the opposite. "[T]his is where we can amplify the voice of the moderates," he says. "We have been condemning terrorism since 9/11; our voices have not been heard." :ranger:

"If they wanted peace and harmony," counters Brooks, "do you really think they'll get that?"

Burlingame says, "The idea that you would establish a religious institution that embraces the very Shariah Law that terrorists point to as their justification for what they did ... to build that where almost 3,000 people died, that is an obscenity to me."

Burlingame said she plans to attend a meeting next week of the full Community Board One. She and other groups are ramping up their opposition to the project and promise to wage a long fight to defeat it.

Lauren Green currently serves as Fox News Channel's (FNC) chief religion correspondent based in the New York bureau. She joined FNC in 1996.

Plan to Build Mosque Near Ground Zero Riles Families of 9/11 Victims | Fox News


We always knew that the landing gear from the 911 planes that flew into the towers had crashed through the roof of the Ground Zero Mosque building (Park 51). It was why we urged Congress to designate a 911 War Memorial. Because it is a War Memorial.

Now they are finding more of the plane at the Ground Zero Mosque? Why now? Why wasn't it turned over earlier? Did Gamal intend for it to be part of the mega-mosque he has once again resurrected? It is too gruesome to consider.

The news just broke yesterday that Gamal has purchsed both buildings adjacent to the proposed mosque. What are we looking at now? A triumphal mosque three times the size of the original plan? Where is he getting the funds? He hasn't paid the rent on the GZM building and has lost ongoing litigation against landlord Con-Ed. He unsuccessfully attempted to get Ground Zero development funds from a 911 fund, which fell through after millions of Americans responded with calls, letters, emails etc. Over 70% of the American people opposed that mosquestrosity. :ranger:

Gamal not only beats people up and threatens Muslims who spoke out against the mosque, but he is also a tax cheat, owing a quarter of a million in taxes while defaulting on not one but two bank loans. All this while being evicted from his Soho offices for non-payment of rent. Oh, and this deadbeat applied for $5.5 million from the taxpayer 911 fund to rebuild lower Manhattan.

Be warned, Gamal, we will be back with tens of thousands to protest. We knew he'd be back, well, so will we.

More Landing gear from 9/11 plane found near site of planned Ground Zero Mosque - Atlas Shrugs

Mosque near 9/11 site likely to go ahead despite rightwing fury

A plan to build a mosque and a Muslim community centre within two blocks of Ground Zero cleared a major hurdle today amid an intensifying groundswell of opposition from rightwing pundits and politicians.

The $100m project would see a 13-storey centre, with prayer space, swimming pool and restaurant, rise in Park Place, just north of the World Trade Centre where al-Qaida terrorists struck on 11 September 2001.

Opponents turned to the Landmarks Commission of New York City, which has power to order the preservation of historic buildings, in the hope that it would put a stop to the plans by blocking the demolition of the existing building on the site.

Today the commission unanimously declined to preserve the building, an 1850s Italianate structure that was damaged on 9/11 and has been disused ever since. It said there was nothing sufficiently distinguished about its design that earned it landmark status.

The decision removes an important possible barrier to the plans going ahead, though critics have vowed to continue their fight. A group of protesters were present at the commission vote, including one man carrying a banner that said: "No 9/11 victory mosque". :ranger:

The plan for a Muslim centre is the brainchild of the Cordoba Initiative, a group set up after 9/11 to build bridges between moderate Islam and the West. Its name alludes to the Spanish city that was famous for its religious toleration under the Moors.

In recent weeks a slew of conservative figures have accused its organisers of insensitivity towards the families of the almost 3,000 people who died in the twin towers.

Last month Sarah Palin posted tweets in which she called the proposed centre an unnecessary provocation that "stabs hearts "¦ twin towers site is too raw, too real". Newt Gingrich, a leading Republican congressman in the 1990s, has characterised the project as an "assertion of Islamist triumphalism which we should not tolerate". He said it was "designed to undermine and destroy our civilisation".

Sally Regenhard, whose son Christian died in the twin towers, said the proposal showed an "extreme insensitivity to the feelings of 9/11 families. If you want to grow understanding between faiths you do not hurt people who were victimised on that site".

In an important intervention that caught several New York commentators by surprise, the Anti-Defamation League, a group that counters anti-Semitism and is dedicated to the fight against bigotry, also this week opposed the mosque as "counterproductive to the healing process".

New York's authorities have so far stood firm. The mayor, Michael Bloomberg, gave an impassioned speech defending the mosque following the landmark vote. He said: "The attack was an act of war, and our first responders defended not only our city, but our country and our constitution. We do not honour their lives by denying the very constitutional rights they died protecting."

Proponents point out that there has been an active mosque on a separate site within six blocks of Ground Zero for the past 30 years. The Cordoba Initiative has also promised that the mosque – which it prefers to call an inter-faith prayer space – will be welcoming to non-Muslim religions.

Scott Stringer, Manhattan's borough president, welcomed the Landmark Commission's ruling.

"A few individuals and groups are seeking to create a kind of hatred for their own political gain. The process has been manipulated by those trying to get headlines and score points," he said.

Elizabeth Berger, President of the Alliance for Downtown New York, said that "New Yorkers live the commitment to freedom and tolerance that makes America great every day. That's why the Statue of Liberty stands in our harbour. The idea of a new Muslim community centre and mosque in Lower Manhattan should be no exception."

Mosque near 9/11 site likely to go ahead despite rightwing fury | World news | The Guardian
 
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Radical Islam: The New Cold War
September 19, 2013

WASHINGTON, September 19, 2013 — The United States of America is now actively engaged in supporting the Syrian Opposition forces in their effort to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. After waiving a federal statute making the "material support" of terrorist organizations legal, President Obama has somewhat muddied the waters of American foreign policy, considering that some of the Opposition fighters the US now supports are designated by the U.S. as terrorist groups.

The current American defense doctrine identifies militant radical Muslim groups as one of the greatest threats to US interests at home and abroad.

According to the National Security Strategy released by the White House, "The United States is waging a global campaign against al-Qa'ida and its terrorist affiliates. To disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qa'ida and its affiliates, we are pursuing a strategy that protects our homeland, secures the world's most dangerous weapons and material, denies al-Qa'ida safe haven, and builds positive partnerships with Muslim communities around the world."

Now the United States is now in direct contradiction of our own National Security Strategy. In supplying Al-Qaeda linked groups with weapons, the Obama Administration has shown the country and the World that the United States is unable to act decisively. Furthermore, it shows that the United States is unable to recognize that radical Islam is the largest threat to American interest since Communism.

Thus far, our policy has been to ignore the events in Africa because there really is no policy in place to deal with such situations to begin with. The US arms al-Qaeda in one area of the World and fights them in other areas of the World. Despite the fact that al-Qaeda is particularly called out in the most recent publication of the National Security Strategy as being the organization most dangerous to American interests, the Obama Administration has failed to adequately realize that it is not just al-Qaeda, but all radical Muslim groups which pose a threat to the United States. :ranger:

While the Obama Administration has seen fit to arm our enemies, radical Islamic groups have been quietly building support and strength in North and Western Africa. Much like the Communist expansion in Southeast Asia and South America during the 20th Century, the expansion efforts of radical Muslim groups target weak governments in an attempt to replace or overthrow the existing leadership with their own ideology. They do this by targeting vulnerable leaders, governments at war abroad, or governments in a state of civil war. Africa is home to over a dozen ongoing conflicts, as well as countless natural resources managed by corrupt officials. c:ranger:

During the Cold War, the United States practiced the strategy of Containment, which was a concerted effort to stop the spread of Communism by means of financial and military assistance, and in some cases direct military intervention. Southeast Asia in particular was a favored target of the Communist because of the general disconnect of the governments towards the people, the squalid conditions of much of the population, as well as a population of restless military age men ready to fight. These aspects were exploited by the Soviet Union and China who funneled money into revolutionary groups who sought to replace existing governments with Communist or Socialist regimes. Much like the Communist Domino Effect in Southeast Asia, North and West Africa are also in danger of falling victim to revolutionary groups funded by outside sources. :ranger:

While Russia and China were responsible for spreading Communism through Asia and Europe in the 20th Century, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among those responsible for funding and propelling the spread of radical Islam in the 21st Century. And just like Russia and China, direct war in response of such support would lead to global disaster. And as such, the United States cannot counter the result of such support at the source, but must do so, as it did with Communism, where the results of that support emerges. :ranger:

The United States made a mistake in its handling of the Arab Spring. Under President George W. Bush, the dictators in the Middle East and North Africa, though tyrants, still managed to keep the radical Muslim groups in check. The United States was able to counter groups such as al-Qaeda and al-Shaabab where they sprung up, or where they were attempting to infiltrate the governments of weaker nations such as Afghanistan through their support of the Taliban.

However with the Arab Spring the United States went from holding dictators in check to supporting destabilization and the rise of radical Islamic regimes in Egypt and Libya, which led to a series of civil wars and revolutions further undermining the ability of these nations to govern themselves. Under President Obama and his National Security Strategy, the US has allowed the Middle East and North Africa to become increasingly unstable, a haven for radical Islamic groups.

What can we do? Well, for one we have to realize that the groups operating in North and West Africa, called the Maghreb, are threats to the interests of the United States. By arming al-Qaeda linked Syrian rebel groups the US has made it clear that it does not have a workable foreign policy, so we need to adopt one. We need to recognize that, like Communism in Southeast Asia before it, Africa has become the Dominos and radical Islam has become the Effect. And just like Communism in Southeast Asia, radical Islam in Africa must be recognized as a threat to US international interests and directly addressed through diplomatic and military action. These actions include propping up weak regimes, expanding the training of host nation security forces, as well as expanding the capabilities of our military to assist at risk nations in military operations with minimal manpower but maximum effectiveness.

As a model, the United States should look to the Vietnam Mission under JFK. Through the implementation of small scale, local efforts to assist the South Vietnamese government and people, and the deployment of no more than 20,000 advisers and special operators, the US was able to make leaps and bounds in opposing Communist forces in their respective areas. This model could be repeated with success, if applied to Africa and radical Islam.

The United States must counter the spread of radical Islam on the Maghreb with the same tenacity and strength that it met the threat of Communism during the Cold War. That means that the US must recognize that this is a credible threat. Arming radical Muslim organizations in Syria not only sends the wrong message but is counterproductive to American interests. The United States cannot arbitrarily bomb every nation that supports radical Islam; however they can make the act of supporting such groups enormously expensive and ultimately futile. :ranger:

Radical Islam: The New Cold War | Washington Times Communities
 
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US interference in Egypt's internal affairs
29 August 2013

Egypt is exposed to continuous attacks by US political leaders and by America's Christian-Zionist controlled media. US and foreign media are intensifying their attacks in an attempt to influence Egyptian decision making. This can only be described as blatant interference in the internal affairs of Egypt.

Since the June 30 revolution, foreign media have intensified their attacks on Egypt ignoring the will of the free Egyptian people. In the midst of these attacks against Egypt, I read a New York Times article which attacked an Egyptian law dealing with non-governmental organizations.:ranger: The article described the law as a step backward in a country with little democracy.

The newspaper demanded that the law be canceled immediately and that Egyptian citizens be protected from it and its impact.

When Benjamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister of Israel in 1996, Egyptian-Israeli relations worsened.

There were many disagreements after Israel accused Egypt of hindering the Israeli-Palestinian peace process by pressing the Palestinian side not to make further concessions during peace negotiations. Egypt also supported the Syrian side with its land for peace proposal. Israel also accused Egypt of urging Arab countries to stop normalizing relations with Israel.

Furthermore, Israel added pressure on America's Christian-Zionist lobby, which influences the decision making of the US government, encouraging it to attack Egypt.

The second Egyptian revolution put an end to the "Big Middle East" project which Washington was preparing for many years to weaken Arab countries and defame the true meaning of Islam.

As a result, media attacks against Egypt began the day after the Muslim Brotherhood government, which was assigned to carry out the American project, fell.

The US Senate and House Foreign Affairs committees during a special hearing to discuss the development of peace in the Middle East attacked the Egyptian law governing non-governmental organizations and demanded that the US Secretary of State take a stand against it. :ranger:

They also demanded that a report be prepared on the development of democracy in Egypt and the rights of Egyptian Christians.

Is the American Congress the supervisor of governments around the world? On what basis are US Congressmen interfering in the internal affairs of independent countries?

This is totally unacceptable to Egypt and to all independent countries around the world. Does the US government permit any other country in the world to interfere in its internal affairs?

American society is one in which racism is still practiced. Black people in the US still suffer racism in a country that claims that it is a democracy, and American society still considers Mexicans and Latinos to be second class citizens.

The Egyptian law regarding non-governmental organizations concerns only the Egyptian people. The general understanding of non-governmental organizations, not only in Egypt but around the world, is that they only work as service organizations. Political work is within the domain of political parties. Therefore, there are distinct differences between non-governmental organizations and political parties. :ranger:

There are many non-governmental organizations around the world which act as a front for hostile activities against the country in which they operate.

It is also known that foreign intelligence services indirectly fund these non-governmental organizations in order to control their activities. :usa: :uk:

It is clearly necessary that governments protect their national security and people from foreign intervention. The attacks against Egypt are an attempt to pressure the country to limit its role in the Middle East, to isolate it from the peace process, to enable Israel to force its conditions on the Palestinian people and to ensure that American projects in the region will be successful. It is impossible for any of these objectives to be realized as long as Egypt is strong.

– Hassan Tahsin is an Egyptian writer and political analyst. He can be reached at [email protected]

Saudi Gazette - US interference in Egypt's internal affairs
 

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Christians persecuted throughout the world
29 Oct 2012

The latest bombing in Nigeria shows how Christians are increasingly suffering for their faith :ranger:


(Only two days ago, a suicide bomber crashed a jeep laden with explosives into a packed Catholic church in Kaduna, northern Nigeria, killing at least eight people and injuring more than 100 Photo: AFP/Getty Images.)

Imagine the unspeakable fury that would erupt across the Islamic world if a Christian-led government in Khartoum had been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Sudanese Muslims over the past 30 years. Or if Christian gunmen were firebombing mosques in Iraq during Friday prayers. Or if Muslim girls in Indonesia had been abducted and beheaded on their way to school, because of their faith.

Such horrors are barely thinkable, of course. But they have all occurred in reverse, with Christians falling victim to Islamist aggression. Only two days ago, a suicide bomber crashed a jeep laden with explosives into a packed Catholic church in Kaduna, northern Nigeria, killing at least eight people and injuring more than 100. The tragedy bore the imprint of numerous similar attacks by Boko Haram (which roughly translates as "Western education is sinful"), an exceptionally bloodthirsty militant group.

Other notable trouble spots include Egypt, where 600,000 Copts – more than the entire population of Manchester – have emigrated since the 1980s in the face of harassment or outright oppression.
:facepalm:

Why is such a huge scourge chronically under-reported in the West? One result of this oversight is that the often inflated sense of victimhood felt by many Muslims has festered unchallenged. Take the fallout of last month's protests around the world against the American film about the Prophet Mohammed. While most of the debate centred on the rule of law and the limits of free speech, almost nothing was said about how much more routinely Islamists insult Christians, almost always getting away with their provocations scot-free.

Innocence of Muslims, the production that spurred all the outrage, has been rightly dismissed as contemptible trash. What, though, of a website such as "Guardians of the Faith", run by Salafist extremists in Cairo? Among many posts, it has carried an article entitled "Why Muslims are superior to Copts". "Being a Muslim girl whose role models are the wives of the Prophet, who were required to wear the hijab, is better than being a Christian girl, whose role models are whores," it declares. "Being a Muslim who fights to defend his honour and his faith is better than being a Christian who steals, rapes, and kills children." Hateful messages breed hateful acts. Is it any surprise that mobs have set fire to one church after another across Egypt in recent years?

=> Nigeria: 15 Christians 'have throats slit' by suspected extremists - Telegraph

The deeper truth masked by all the ranting – and, it should be added, by the blinkers of many Western secularists – is that Christians are targeted in greater numbers than any other faith group on earth. About 200 million church members (10 per cent of the global total) face discrimination or persecution: it just isn't fashionable to say so. In 2010, I set out to write a chronicle of anti-Christian persecution on several continents. Published in my book, Christianophobia, the results of my research are even more disquieting than I expected.

Abu Hamza, the 7/7 ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan and other totemic figures were allowed to practise their religion openly in Britain, yet there is scarcely a single country from Morocco to Pakistan in which Christians are fully free to worship without restriction. Muslims who convert to Christianity or other faiths in most of these societies face harsh penalties. There is now a high risk that the Churches will all but vanish from their biblical heartlands in the Middle East.

The suffering is no less acute elsewhere. Before East Timor gained independence from Indonesia, 100,000 Catholic non-combatants were killed by agents of the Suharto government between the 1970s and the 1990s. And a few months ago, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, officially announced that "it is necessary to destroy all the churches" on the Arabian Peninsula. :ranger:

the reason why Western audiences hear so little about faith-based victimisation in the Muslim world is straightforward: young Christians in Europe and America do not become "radicalised", and persecuted Christians tend not to respond with terrorist violence. This forbearance should of course be a source of pride in many respects, and would be an unqualified good if properly acknowledged. But it counts for much less in a climate where most of what is considered newsworthy has to involve tub-thumping or outright violence.

The problems faced by Christians are not by any means restricted to the Muslim world. Take India, where minorities – Muslims included – are menaced by Hindu extremists who consider the monotheistic traditions to be unwelcome imports, and resent Christian opposition to the caste system.

Elsewhere, the culprits include not only Communists, but also Buddhist nationalists in countries such as Burma and Sri Lanka. The scale of Communist intolerance is a matter of record. Curbs on freedom of worship in countries including China, Vietnam and Cuba are draconian and sometimes exceptionally sadistic. :facepalm:

Why does all this matter? One obvious answer is that faith isn't going to go away. Whatever one's view of the coherence of religious belief, it has become clear that secularisation has gone into reverse, partly through the spread of democracy. Three quarters of humanity now profess a religious creed; this figure is predicted to reach 80 per cent by mid-century.

The prospect should not surprise us. Atheism feeds off bad religion, especially fundamentalism, whose easily disposable, dogmatic certainties now form one of atheism's main assets. On the other hand, it is much harder for non-belief to replace the imaginative richness of a mature religious commitment, and the corresponding assurance that life is worth living responsibly, because it has ultimate meaning.

But faith is like fire, to cite an analogy used by the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks. It warms; but it can also burn. Along or near the 10th parallel north of the equator, between Nigeria and Indonesia and the Philippines, religious fervour and political unrest are reinforcing each other. This point should be granted even if one accepts religion's status as an immense – perhaps the preeminent – source of social capital in existence.

On the positive side, faith-based conviction has mobilised millions to oppose authoritarian regimes, inaugurate democratic transitions, support human rights and relieve human suffering. In the 20th century, religious movements helped end colonial rule and usher in democracy in Latin America, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

The challenge, then, at once simple and substantial, is to promote the peaceful messages at the heart of the world's major faiths, while neutralising perversions of the core teachings.

Nothing I have said should be interpreted as encouraging a holier-than-thou attitude among Christians. Large parts of the Christian world were saturated with unsurpassed violence 70 or 100 years ago; and a British man, Thomas Aikenhead, was executed for blasphemy as recently as the turn of the 18th century. Innocence of Muslims was produced by a convicted criminal with a Coptic background.

Exceptions aside, however, Christians generally have become more tolerant and self-critical over the past half-century, reminting crucial aspects of Jesus's message in the process. (For instance, it is worth noting that Pope John Paul II and the leaders of almost all other major Churches were vehemently opposed to the Iraq war.)
Given Christianity's evolution, there are grounds for thinking that Islam may change, too. Points of contact between the two traditions are at least as significant as the differences. When they are true to their guiding principles, both faiths insist on the sanctity of the person as a seeker of God. From this should follow a recognition of religious liberty as the first of human rights. Self-interest need not be erased from an apparently high-minded equation. Freedom of belief is the canary in the coalmine for liberty in general, and thus for the flourishing of a society.

It is vital to pursue these medium- and longer-term ambitions. They are critical to world peace. But promoting inter-faith ties should not displace attempts to tell the truth about the current plight of Christians – and to take action against a major injustice.

Christians persecuted throughout the world - Telegraph
 
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hello_10

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British Pakistani Christians to protest after Peshawar church bombing
24 September 2013

British Pakistani Christians were due to protest in London on Tuesday to express their frustration over the Pakistani government's failure to protect minority Christians.

It comes after Sunday's deadly twin suicide bombing outside All Saints' church in Peshawar in which at least 80 people were killed as they exited from Sunday Mass.:facepalm:

British Pakistani Christians to protest after Peshawar church bombing | Christian News on Christian Today

The Radical Lure of Pakistan's Jihad Tourism
May 06, 2010

The ease with which Times Square bomb-plot accused Faisal Shahzad was allegedly able to undergo bombmaking instruction during a visit to Pakistan has once again highlighted the country's enduring reputation as the destination of choice for jihadist tourism.:ranger: The claim by Pakistani government sources that Shahzad trained at a camp in North Waziristan will ratchet up pressure on Islamabad to crack down on militant groups that operate in zones of lawlessness on its soil, and to dismantle the infrastructure that continues to attract aspiring terrorists seeking to attack the West.


Authorities have accused Faisal Shahzad, 30, of parking a Nissan Pathfinder filled with explosive materials in New York City's Times Square on a busy Saturday night. A naturalized American citizen, Shahzad was born in Pakistan, entered the United States on a student visa and later married an American woman.

Although details of Shahzad's ideological journey remain murky, Pakistanis who knew him say Shahzad came from a quietly religious family, and may only have become radicalized recently. "Last time when I met him," retired schoolteacher Nazirullah Khan told Reuters, "he didn't have a beard. I attended his wedding." Shahzad's possible links to Pakistani militant groups are under investigation, but some officials suspect that he may have had ties to Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), a banned terror group that began its life as a proxy of Pakistan's intelligence services deployed to fight India in Kashmir. Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai massacre, is also being investigated as a possibility, a senior Pakistani government source told TIME.

If suspicions of such links prove true, Shahzad's case would hardly be the first time a Western walk-in has turned up in the midst of Pakistani jihadist groups. Last October, David Headley, another U.S. citizen of Pakistani origin, was arrested and later charged with helping plan the November 2008 Mumbai massacre. According to a plea agreement issued by the Justice Department in March, Headley made contact with al-Qaeda operatives during two trips to North Waziristan — the tribal area under limited central government authority, where Shahzad is also said to have received his training. North Waziristan is the only tribal area untouched thus far by Pakistan's military offensives against its domestic Taliban insurgency, and the region is home to an assortment of jihadist groups that have working relationships with one another (including al-Qaeda). The Pakistani Army has deferred any offensive in the area, claiming limits on its capacity to take on such a mission right now, but the Times Square plot is likely to revive U.S. pressure for an offensive there.

Shahzad and similar volunteers who arrive from the West are believed by Pakistani analysts to have begun their radicalization before making contact with local militant groups. "Somehow, in Canada, Britain and the U.S., people get self-radicalized, then they try and get in touch with radical organizations, depending on their background," says Amir Rana, director of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies. "If they are Pakistanis, they come here." And the Internet has proved to be a powerful tool for both radicalization and recruitment. "There's so much available in cyberspace, it would scare you to death," says Ayesha Siddiqa, an independent security analyst in Islamabad. :ranger:

Any aspiring jihadist arriving in Pakistan is spoiled for choice when it comes to finding a militant group with which to sign up. Banned organizations such as LeT operate openly under different names, and it's not very difficult for the determined volunteer militant to find his way to such groups. "It's like a drug addict arriving in a new town," adds Siddiqa. "They always figure out where to get their fix." :facepalm:

Recruits bearing Western citizenship are prized by terror groups, because their passports, education, facility with language and relative comfort with life in Western cities are largely absent among the young, impressionable madrasah students often chosen to carry out vicious bombings in Pakistan, Afghanistan or even India. The potential of these more cosmopolitan recruits to strike in the heart of the West further fuels jihadist fantasies. As Michael Chertoff, the former head of Homeland Security, told MSNBC on Wednesday, "Unfortunately this is the kind of perfect mole for the terrorists. And this is why they're recruiting people who ... have clean records, are American citizens, have lived in America, because they want to take advantage of that cleanliness as a way of evading our defenses." :facepalm:

Britain has had to deal with this problem since the July 2005 bombings of the London commuter system. Given the vast number of Britons of Pakistani origin who move back and forth between the two countries, policing the traffic has severely tested authorities. :ranger: The U.S. is not immune: Headley was able to move undetected between America, India and Pakistan for nearly seven years. Clearly, a problem also exists with respect to the extent of coordination between Western intelligence agencies and their Pakistani counterparts.

Shahzad, had he been seeking to join up with militants in Pakistan, would have had two distinct advantages over other Western-based volunteers. Having spent the first 18 years of his life in Pakistan, he was at ease in the country. His family's background in the northwest meant that he likely spoke Pashto, a rare asset. And the status of his father, retired senior air-force officer Bahar ul-Haq, is the sort of connection known to avert a suspicious gaze from law-enforcement agencies in Pakistan. Siddiqa goes further: "If you are traveling in Waziristan, and you are stopped, the fact that you are an air-force vice marshal's son can offer you protection," she says.

But whatever training Shahzad may have received in Waziristan must have been mercifully poor, judging by the multiple mistakes in the botched bombing attempt to which U.S. officials say he has confessed. Yet he's unlikely to have been the only Western wannabe to have passed through these camps and then returned to the West to put his militant education to work.

Faisal Shahzad Bomb Inquiry Looks at Pakistan Training - TIME
 

sunny_10

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Uighurs at Xinjiang mosque have to face China flag when praying :rofl:
September 18, 2013

Activists say local officials' move aims to 'dilute the religious environment' in the restive region:coffee:



Authorities have placed a Chinese flag at the head of a mosque in western China, forcing ethnic Uighurs to bow to it when they worship, Uighur activists said Wednesday. :ranger:

The local government in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region's Aksu area placed the flag over the mihrab -- the traditional prayer niche that points the direction to Mecca -- prominent Uighur rights advocate Ilham Tohti told Al Jazeera. He called it an effort to "dilute the religious environment" in the area, where minority Uighurs often complain of ethnic and religious repression.

Al Jazeera was not able to independently verify the report at time of publication, and Aksu officials did not respond to multiple calls for comment.

Reports from Uighurs in the area said the placement of the flag has upset residents amid a series of fresh religious restrictions, which analysts say Beijing hopes will integrate Uighurs into Chinese society and pacify the strategically important region. Xinjiang is perennially rocked by clashes between Muslim Uighurs and China's majority ethnic Han Chinese. :coffee:

"They placed the flag at a very sensitive place in the mosque," Tohti said, explaining that he has seen Chinese flags prominently positioned in mosques in China before -- but never in such a sensitive spot.

Tohti noted that Muslims pray facing Mecca in Saudi Arabia, but Chinese law and authorities demand unwavering allegiance to Beijing. :rofl: :tsk:

"They are essentially saying the flag is higher than religion," he said. :facepalm:

Authorities in Xinjiang have recently imposed new restrictions on religious behavior. These including posting signs across the region barring women from wearing headscarves in public venues. :coffee:

Tohti said the religious restrictions -- in a Chinese region bordered by Kyrgzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan -- are part of Beijing's attempts to secure its business inroads in Central Asia, which analysts say is set to become a leading source of China's natural energy imports.

"China is opening up its foreign affairs to the West. They hope not to have any problems as they expand their influence, especially not in Xinjiang. They are worried about this danger," Tohti said.

China's efforts to promote calm in a region that is key to its economic endeavors appear to be two-pronged. New religious restrictions compound decades-old bans on minors entering mosques to receive religious instruction and attempt to curb traditional fasting during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The government has also engaged in a protracted crackdown on what Beijing calls violent Uighur separatists.

Radio Free Asia reported Tuesday that local officials said 12 more Uighurs had been killed in a raid in western Xinjiang last month, bringing the total reported dead in crackdowns that month to 34.

Beijing attributed the ethnic clashes that killed at least 21 in April and another 27 in July -- after similar riots that killed hundreds in 2008 and 2009 -- to what it calls "terrorist" and "separatist" groups. Uighurs say the assailants are upset with social repression and a lack of opportunities to partake in the Han Chinese-dominated local economy. :coffee:

"In (his recent visit to) Central Asian states, President Xi [Jinping] was really pointing out a Uighur terrorist threat," said Sean Roberts, a George Washington University professor specializing on Chinese and Central Asian affairs.

"In context of U.S. military pull-out of Afghanistan, China is concerned about ruffling feathers of Muslim populations to the West, as they have large plans of expansion of influence into Pakistan and Central Asian Muslim majority countries," he said.

But Roberts said it appears that Beijing's current methods are less than effective.

"Putting myself in the position of Chinese bureaucrats, their strategy is not working, so they are pushing it harder and harder. And their strategy is only exacerbating the problem."

Tohti offered his own suggestions for a new strategy.

"If China really believes Uighurs are part of the country, then meet your responsibility to them. Uighurs are impoverished and have no rights. China needs to improve their living standards," Tohti said. :thumb:

Uighurs at Xinjiang mosque have to face China flag when praying | Al Jazeera America
 
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sunny_10

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.
China Confiscates Muslims Passports

HONG KONG—Authorities in northwestern China have begun confiscating the passports of Muslims, mostly ethnic Uyghurs, in an apparent bid to prevent them from making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, local residents and officials say. :ranger:

An officer who answered the phone at the Tengritagh district public security bureau [police department] of the Xinjiang regional capital, Urumqi, said local residents were required to "register" their passports with local neighborhood committees, the basic building blocks of social control in China.

"The authorities of local residential offices are collecting the passports," he told RFA's Uyghur service.

"Local residential offices are collecting the passports in order to register them...The authorities will keep the passports for the public. If they want to go to other countries, they can come to fetch their passports. The authorities will give the passports back to them accordingly."

I think the word is that it is to prevent some problems, like preventing people from going on the Hajj pilgrimage. So, that is why they are collecting,

Officials working together

"The [passports] will become invalid if they do not hand them in." :ranger:

An official at a neighborhood committee in a town near the city of Kashgar confirmed the move, adding that passports were being collected only from Muslims, especially the Uyghur people.

"Today is the 18th," the official said. "We were told to collect them within five days, and we've just started this afternoon ... the Muslims' and the Uyghur people's passports."

"I think the word is that it is to prevent some problems, like preventing people from going on the Hajj pilgrimage. So, that is why they are collecting [them]," the official said.

He said local governments, provincial government, and the police were cooperating to accomplish the task.

Here what's happened. They've ordered us to collect all the passports within five days and the authorities will finish investigating and registering the passports within 20-odd days. The authorities are not only collecting a few people's passports...They are collecting all the passports. We do not really know what is happening in other parts of Xinjiang," he added.

"Every Muslim who owns a passport must hand it to the authorities." :ranger:

On June 19, the Tengritagh News Web site printed an article titled "Tightening the Pilgrimage Policy and Protecting the Public," which carried a report on a speech by Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Party chief Wang Lequan the previous day to religious leaders from the Bureau of Religious Administration.

Wang called on the government to tighten its pilgrimage policy and to harshly punish "illegal" pilgrimage organizers. He said the government should halt underground pilgrimage activities and either restructure the current pilgrimage policy or make new pilgrimage policy.

The Xinjiang authorities began to confiscate passports immediately following the speech.

All able-bodied Muslims are expected to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, birthplace and holy city of Islam, once in a lifetime if they can afford it. Additional pilgrimages are recommended.

With around 2 million Muslims making the pilgrimage annually, airlines and operators offer specialized Hajj packages. This year's Hajj will begin Dec. 18, so the passport registration drive comes just as people would start to think about booking tickets.

RFA's Uyghur service was contacted initially by Uyghurs overseas who said their parents' passports had been taken, making them unable to join them on the pilgrimage.

The Hajj is traditionally undertaken with family, or with fellow pilgrims from a local mosque, and would constitute a deep show of unity for any group making the pilgrimage together.

Uyghurs, who number more than 16 million, constitute a distinct, Turkic-speaking, Muslim minority in northwestern China and Central Asia. They declared a short-lived East Turkestan Republic in Xinjiang in the late 1930s and 40s but have remained under Beijing's control since 1949.

China Confiscates Muslims Passports

China Confiscates Muslims Passports
 

sunny_10

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Uighurs and China's Xinjiang Region

XUAR (Xinxiang Uighur Autonomous Region), or East Turkistan, is a territory in western China that accounts for one-sixth of China's land and is home to about twenty million people from thirteen major ethnic groups, the largest of which (more than eight million) is the Uighurs [PRON: WEE-gurs], a predominantly Muslim community with ties to Central Asia. The Uyghur American Association (UAA) says that East Turkistan is a part of Central Asia, not of China. Some Uighurs call China's presence in Xinjiang a form of imperialism, and there have been movements for independence since the1990s through separatist groups like the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), inflamed in part by large migrations of Han Chinese to the region.

In February 2012, at least a dozen people died after being attacked on the street by Muslims armed with knives near Kashgar, the western part of Xinxiang located near China's border with Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. After the Chinese government said the men involved had links to terrorists in Pakistan, a Chinese woman was also killed in Pakistan in what was considered a retaliatory attack. China claims the rioters were trained in Pakistan and has asked Pakistan to take "credible measures" to safeguard its citizens. XUAR shares borders with five Muslim countries--Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan--which seems to be a Chinese concern. The China-Pakistan relationship in particular has been strained by the recent killings, and questions about China's traditional friendship with Pakistan are rising. :ranger:


Terrorism and Counterterrorism

During the 1990s, Uighur separatist groups in Xinjiang began frequent attacks against the Chinese government. The most famous of these groups was the ETIM, labeled as a terrorist organization by China, the United States, and the UN Security Council. China claims the group has links to al-Qaeda and says that they were trained in jihadi terror camps in Pakistan to launch attacks in Urumqi. Reports say Pakistani officials have also admitted that the militants in western China have ties to the Pakistani Taliban and other militants in northwestern Pakistani regions along the Afghan border. Pakistan, a close ally, has assured China of full support to contain terrorism in China. Concern about Uighur terrorism flared in August 2008--just days before the Beijing Olympics--when two men attacked a military police unit (NYT) in Xinjiang, killing sixteen. :ranger:

The Chinese government has taken steps to combat both separatists and terrorists in its western province and monitors religious activity in the region to keep religious leaders from spreading separatist views. Since September 11, 2001, China has raised international awareness of Uighur-related terrorism and linked its actions to the Bush administration's so-called war on terror.

But many experts say China exaggerates the danger posed by Uighur terrorists. While China has accused the Uighurs of plotting thousands of attacks, Andrew J. Nathan, a China expert at Columbia University, says, "You have to be very suspicious of those numbers."

Some experts, including Bequelin, say China's anti-separatist campaign provokes resentment, which can lead to more terrorism. But others say China's counterterrorism measures have been somewhat successful. A review of U.S. State Department documents shows a decrease in Uighur-related terrorism since the end of the 1990s. ETIM, classified as a terrorist organization during the Bush administration, is not listed as Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) anymore in the list updated in January 2012.

A 2010 report from the Congressional Research Service examines U.S.-China cooperation on counterterrorism, noting that tensions remain over handling Uighurs. The United States refused to hand over five Uighurs who had been captured by U.S. forces in Pakistan in 2001, despite Chinese calls to do so. :coffee: After their release from Guantanamo Bay in May 2006, the Uighurs were instead transferred to Albania. In June 2009, four Uighurs who had been detained at Guantanamo were resettled in Bermuda.

Thirteen other Uighur detainees, said to be resettled in Palau, have not yet been resettled or returned to China. Though a U.S. district court ordered their release, the ruling was overturned by a U.S. Court of Appeals, which ruled that the district court "did not have the power to override immigration laws and force the executive branch to release foreigners into the United States." The issue is further complicated as the Congress passed legislation to prevent the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo to the United States. :ranger:

Uighurs and China's Xinjiang Region - Council on Foreign Relations
 

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