Day: August 11, 2009

Virginia: Experts Believe Islamic Saudi Academy Continues to Teach Extremism

(U.S.) Hide and Seek — NPR article on Virginia’s Islamic Saudi Academy
— “A Virginia school scrubbed jihad from its textbooks, but may still preach violence”
— Nina Shea and Ali al-Ahmed report on Virginia’s Islamic Saudi Academy
— “For nearly 25 years, the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA), the Virginia school founded by royal decree of Saudi King Fahd in 1984, immersed students of its Islamic-studies curriculum in the same Wahhabi interpretation of Islam that is taught in Saudi Arabia and in Saudi-funded madrassas around the world. That curriculum includes praise for militant jihad to ‘spread the faith” and permission for the killing of various categories of “unbelievers,’ as well as other endorsements of religious intolerance.”
— “Now, as it seeks permission from Fairfax County to expand its operations, ISA claims that, over the last school year, it replaced the Saudi religious curriculum with a more moderate one.”
— “Through private channels, we were able to acquire ISA’s Islamic-studies textbooks, all marked for use in the first semester of the 2008-09 school year. Compared to the original Saudi Education Ministry versions, these new Arabic-language textbooks — one slim, single volume for each grade — are indeed redacted and condensed.”
— “We wish we could celebrate the deletions we helped catalyze, but we are not persuaded that the problem is solved. The books contain no significant discussion of jihad and make few references to the religious ‘other.’ The silence is deafening. It raises the question — a question ISA has yet to answer– of what supplemental material the academy is using.”
— “The question is not whether ISA supplements these new textbooks with other material, but what these other materials contain. There is evidence that the school, over the past school year, did in fact continue to use some extremist supplemental resources.”
— “ISA’s website for 2008-09 stated that the school ‘follows the Islamic Studies curriculum which has been set forth by the Kingdom.’ As the first resource on its ‘Useful Links’ webpage, ISA linked to the Saudi Education Ministry site, where the noxious curriculum is posted in full. Those books, according to the Ministry, are electronically formatted to facilitate copying, cutting, and pasting. This underscores the problem of a piecemeal approach to Saudi educational reform.”
— “Even the new texts themselves reference several extreme Islamic authorities. For example, the new twelfth-grade book directs students to Ibn Taymiyyah for resolving moral questions. A 14th-century author, Ibn Taymiyyah extolled the militant jihad we call ‘terror.’ His fatwas were found in a recent study by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center to be ‘by far the most popular texts for modern Violent Extemismis.’ Renowned religion scholar Philip Jenkins wrote that Osama bin Laden cites Ibn Taymiyyah as a ‘special hero.'”
— “In addition, it’s important to note that on matters besides jihad, the books still largely reflect Wahhabi orthodoxy. For example, ISA’s new texts endorse marriages between adults and pre-pubescent children, teach that women should not be judges or exercise ‘greater governorship,’ and starkly divide the world into believers and unbelievers.”
— “Nina Shea is director of the Center for Religious Freedom of the Hudson Institute and serves on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Ali al-Ahmed is a Saudi expert and directs the Gulf Institute, a Washington-based policy research center.”

— See also:
— Researchers Dubious that Islamic Saudi Academy Curriculum Problems Solved
— July 31, 2009: R.E.A.L. Statement to Fairfax County Board of Supervisors
— July 13, 2009: Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) Statement to Virginia’s Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on the Islamic Saudi Academy
— March 18, 2009 R.E.A.L. Statement to the Fairfax County Planning Commission

Mali: Threats of violence greet new family code offering rights for women

Mali: Threats of violence greet new family code
— “While rights groups are celebrating a newly-adopted family code in Mali that changes marriage laws and expands girls’ rights, Muslim leaders and youths have vowed, even threatening violence, to block the code from becoming law.”
— “The code – under discussion for 10 years before its adoption on 3 August – includes more than 1,100 new articles, including setting the legal minimum age for marriage at 18, abolishing the death penalty, recognizing only secular marriages and expanding inheritance rights to girls. The code must be approved by the president to become law.”

Egypt: Report on Increasing Extremist Intolerance to Women, Christians

— NYT report: On Beaches, Intolerance Wears a Veil
— also addresses increasing violence against Christians
— “there are sharper signs of intolerance: increasing Christian-Muslim clashes, unfamiliar to old Alexandrine eyes”
— “On April 4, a Muslim man was allegedly stabbed by his Coptic Christian landlords in a dispute over garbage collection, according to a July 30 report by the Cairo-based Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a human rights watchdog. When the man died the next day, Muslims praying at a mosque in the city’s Karmouz district chanted ‘they will die’ and then trashed Christian-owned stores, the report said.”

Georgia: Swastika painted outside Black Congressman’s office

Georgia: Swastika painted outside Black Congressman’s office

— Swastika painted at Georgia congressman’s office
— AP: “Scott, who is black, said he also has received mail in recent days that used N-word references to him, and that characterized President Barack Obama as a Marxist.”

— Congressman David Scott’s Office Vandalized With Spray-Painted Swastika
— FBI Makes Federal Case of Swastika

Burma: Myanmar sentences Aung San Suu Kyi to more house arrest

(Burma) Myanmar sentences Suu Kyi to more house arrest

— AP reports:
— “Myanmar’s generals have again succeeded in isolating democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, but her fleeting emergence during a grueling trial showed that her steely resolve and charisma remain intact.”
— “A Myanmar court on Tuesday convicted the 64-year-old Nobel Peace laureate of violating her house arrest by allowing an uninvited American to stay at her home. Her sentence of three years in prison with hard labor was quickly commuted to 18 months house arrest after an order from the head of the military-ruled country, Senior Gen. Than Shwe.”
— “Suu Kyi has been in detention for 14 of the last 20 years, and the extension will remove her from the political scene next year when the junta holds its first election since 1990. Her party won in the polls then but was never allowed to take power.”
— “Her conviction and continued detention were condemned by world leaders and sparked demonstrations in cities from London to Japan. The European Union began preparing new sanctions against the country’s military regime and a group of 14 Nobel Laureates, including the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, called on the U.N. Security Council to take strong action against the country.”
— “President Barack Obama termed Suu Kyi’s conviction a violation of ‘the universal principle of human rights’ and said she should be released immediately.”

Congo: “Rape in Congo: What got me was the laughter”

(Congo) Rape in Congo: What got me was the laughter

According to V-Day reports on the Congo war, “[a]n estimated 5 million people have died here since 1996, with over 250,000 victims of rape.”  U.S. Department of State Secretary Hillary Clinton recently reported from a trip to the Congo: “Women and girls in particular have been victimized on an unimaginable scale, as sexual and gender-based violence has become a tactic of war and has reached epidemic proportions. Some 1,100 rapes are reported each month, with an average of 36 women and girls raped every day.”  This misogyny against women in Africa includes the use of rape as acts of war by military and terrorist organizations.  Regarding the ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the United Nations reports that “the Congolese army, security sector personnel, and several armed groups still use sexual violence as a weapon of war in the DRC. Further, international actors, including UN personnel, have been implicated in perpetrating sexual violence in the DRC.”  While the United States is providing funding for medical care and support for rape victims in the Congo, it must also set expectations for President Kabila to prosecute Congo military involved in such sexual violence, and U.N. Secretary Ban to ensure action against any UN personnel involved in such sexual violence.  The violence in the Congo is linked to violence in Sudan (where a human genocide continues to rage) and Uganda on its borders.  In addition, these rapes are also performed by the Uganda rebel terrorist organization, the “Lords Resistance Army” (LRA).  The LRA terrorist organization claims to seek to create theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments, while murdering and raping other Christians and destroying their churches.  In addition to setting expectations for the Congo and U.N. leaders, we must have a continued commitment against the LRA Ugandan terrorist organization, and Christian organizations must publicly and aggressively reject the actions of the LRA.  The continuing conflicts in the Congo, Uganda, and Sudan must be a priority for Africans, Christians, Muslims and human beings around the world.

Al-Arabiya TV Deputy Secretary-General on Palestinian Human Rights

MEMRI: “Al-Arabiya TV Deputy Secretary-General Calls for Resettlement of Palestinian Refugees”
— “Objecting to Refugee Resettlement Is Objecting to Peace”
— “Stop Treating the Palestinians Like A Plague”
— “The Arabs Have Turned the Palestinians Into a People Defeated Both Morally and Materially”
— Daoud Al-Shiryan, Al-Hayat columnist and deputy secretary-general of Al-Arabiya TV reported as stating regarding Arab countries:
— “These countries must stop treating the Palestinians like a plague, using slogans which, as we all know, have become nothing but empty utterances in a loathsome struggle. We must break the isolation of the Palestinians in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. A Palestinian should be made to feel like a welcome and dear guest – before some external intervention comes along and grants him the right to live in dignity, to everyone’s consternation.”