Day: November 17, 2009

Egypt: 15 Year Old Egyptian Convert to Christianity Sends Plea to Obama — Dina el-Gowhary

AINA reports:

—  15 Year Old Egyptian Convert to Christianity Sends Plea to Obama

15-year-old Egyptian girl Dina el-Gowhary, who converted from Islam to Christianity, has sent a plea to President Obama, complaining of mistreatment by the Egyptian Government and asking for his mediation. “Mr President Obama,” she writes, “we are a minority in Egypt. We are treated very badly. You said that the Muslim minority in America are treated very well, so why are we not treated here likewise? We are imprisoned in our own home because Muslim clerics called for the murder of my father, and now the Government has set for us a new prison, we are imprisoned in our own country.”

The handwritten Arabic letter, posted on Coptic websites, also says “I am 15 years old but I still have hope that my message will reach President Obama.”

The el-Gowhary family was barred from leaving Egypt on September 17, 2009 without any legal reason. They were told, however, that the order came from a higher authority (AINA 9-26-200).

Dina, is the daughter of 57-year-old Maher el-Gowhary, also known by his Christian name Peter Athanasius, who embraced Christianity secretly 35 years ago. In August, 2008 he filed the second ever lawsuit of a Muslim-born Egyptian against the Egyptian Government to officially alter his identification documents to reflect his new Christian identity. He lost the case in June 2009. According to the Court ruling, the religious conversion of a Muslim is against Islamic Sharia law and poses a threat to the “Public Order” in Egypt. (AINA 6-16-2009). He appealed the ruling.

Maher and Dina have been living in hiding ever since he filed his lawsuit because Muslim clerics have called him an apostate and several Fatwas (religious edicts), for ‘spilling his blood’ have been issued. He frequently changes where he lives to evade being killed, and friends supply him with food. “We cannot sleep, eat or go out in the street,” he said. He believes that the authorities are putting pressure on them (he and Dina) to re-convert back to Islam, “but this will never happen, even if we have to live on the streets. We love our Lord Jesus, and we have left Islam for good.”

Peter Athanasius and 15 year old Daughter Dina
Peter Athanasius (aka Maher el-Gowhary) and 15 year old Daughter Dina el-Gowhary

Missouri: KKK Shows at Kennett March for Heather Ellis

Missouri: KKK Shows at Kennett March for Heather Ellis
— FOX13 reports: “The 1.5 mile march began at the Wal-Mart parking lot where Heather Ellis is accused of assaulting officers after a verbal altercation with a store cashier when Ellis cut line in January 2007. The march will end in front of the courthouse.”
— “According to FOX13’s Les Smith, the march has proceeded peacefully. Approximately 20 supposed members of the KKK are among those lining the streets, holding signs with KKK slogans and swastikas. One arrest of an alleged skinhead was made prior to the march.”

Texas: Alleged KKK leaflets surface in Abilene

Texas: Alleged KKK leaflets surface in Abilene
— Lubbock County Register reports: “Members of the West Texas United White Knights appear to have distributed fliers across Abilene sometime between Saturday evening and Sunday morning. This is the second time the KKK has circulated literature in the last few months”

— August 17, 2009: KKK Contacts Abilene Citizens

— August 17, 2009: Webcast: Abilenians Angry Over KKK Flyers

Communist China: President Obama Visit Has “Low-Key Approach on Human Rights,” Free Speech Mentioned, Women’s Rights Ignored

— New York Times: “Obama skirts Chinese political sensitivities”
— “NYT: President’s low-key approach on human rights means no meetings with Chinese liberals, free press advocates”
— New York Times: “Whether by White House design or Chinese insistence, President Obama has steered clear of public meetings with Chinese liberals, free press advocates and even ordinary Chinese during his first visit to China, showing deference to the Chinese leadership’s aversions to such interactions that is unusual for a visiting American president.”

Daily Telegraph reports: “Human rights were also the subject of discussion, with President Obama again espousing his view that freedoms of speech and assembly were ‘universal rights’ that should be enjoyed by all peoples, including ethnic minorities.”

Other Reports:

R.E.A.L. Reports on Totalitarianism

Communist China: President Obama took questions from fake Chinese students at town hall meeting

Communist China: China protesters plead for help from Obama

China Support Network publishes letter to Obama re: China trip upcoming this month

Communist China: Women’s Rights Without Frontiers Testifies as to How Communist China “Prevented” 400 Million Births – Including Forced Abortion

Communist China: Obama condemned for indifference to China church persecution

free-china-now

Communist China: Women’s Rights Without Frontiers Testifies as to How Communist China “Prevented” 400 Million Births – Including Forced Abortion

R.E.A.L. attended testimony of human rights activists and of persecuted Chinese women who faced oppression and forced abortion due to the PRC Communist Party of China (CCP) regime’s “One Child Policy.”  R.E.A.L. heard women in tears and pleading for the lives of their babies from the cruel and anti-human rights, anti-human life policy of the Communist China regime. To those who use distance, politics, and silence to keep the voice of these women and their very real suffering and human rights abuses from being heard, today in Washington D.C., on Capitol Hill, their voice was given a public hearing, so that world would hear, remember, and call for end to such a genocide against children, and violence against women.

Activist Reggie Littlejohn of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers described the horrors in China that persecutes those caught pregnant with a second child. “Women being literally dragged out of their homes in the middle of the night, or even in the middle of the day, strapped down to tables, pleading and crying, and then being forced to abort their babies.” According to human rights activist Reggie Littlejohn, the PRC CCP regime has boasted on of preventing 400 million births with its policy that allows a woman only one child. Littlejohn stated, “It doesn’t matter whether you’re pro-choice or pro-life on this issue. No one supports forced abortion because it’s not a choice. ”  According to Littlejohn, the actual number of the millions of forced abortions is a tightly-held state secret.

In addition, chairman of the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Leonard Leo stated, “Speaking softly to China about human rights is a fool’s errand. History has shown it simply does not work.”

— Women’s Rights Without Frontiers

— R.E.A.L. was at news conference where Reggie Littlejohn described this as it “causes more violence against women and girls than any other official policy on Earth”
–— November 10, 2009 – DC: Experts on China’s One Child Policy to Testify in Congressional Hearing

November 10, 2009 Congressional Testimony on Communist China
— Seriously Raise Forced Abortion With Chinese Leaders in Beijing — The Worst Violation of Women’s Rights in History,  Rep. Chris Smith, Chairing the Hearing of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission

— Reggie Littlejohn – Oral Testimony; President, Women’s Rights Without Frontiers; One Child Policy Expert, ChinaAid: China’s One Child Policy 

— Testimony of Wujian, citizen of the People’s Republic of China
— “My ‘Little Foot,’ My Lifelong Pain”
— Wujian_Testimony (Adobe Acrobat)

— Jiang Tianyong, Beijing Global Law Firm: Testimonies on Violent Implementations of the One Child Policy in Linyi City, Shandong Province, China – Specific cases of Fang Zhongxia, Hu Bingmei, Li Juan, family of Song Huahou, and reports from investigators Jiang Tianyong, Cheng Guangcheng, Yuan Weijing, Li Chunfu, Li Jian, Li Heping, Teng Biao, Guo Yushan, and the imprisonment of blind human rights activist Cheng Guangcheng for seeking to protect women for forced abortion.

— The Case of Liu Dan: Woman Dies of Forced Abortion at Nine Months – Jingang Town, Liuyang City, Hunan Province

— Case of Wang Liping Forcibly Aborted at Seven Months, Then Required to Pay – Diaoyutai Village Guying Town Huiji District Zhenzhou City, Henan Province.

— Infanticide “What if the Infant Is Still Alive after Induced Labor?” – Call by Medical Team Personnel to Puncture Fetus’ Skull and Other Atrocities

— Annie Jing Zhang, President, Women’s Rights in China:The Three Examinations: Enforcing China’s One Child Policy in Rural Villages

— Annie Jing Zhang, President, Women’s Rights in China: Powerpoint of Photos Related to China’s One Child Policy

— Reggie Littlejohn: New Evidence Regarding China’s One Child Policy Forced Abortion, Involuntary Sterilization, Infanticide and Coercive Family Planning

— The Consequences of Coercion: China’s One Child Policy and Violence Against Women and Girls; Reggie Littlejohn President, Women’s Rights Without Frontiers

— Harry Wu, Director, Laogai Research Foundation; Prepared Statement on China’s One Child Policy

— Rebiya Kadeer, President, Uyghur American Association: An Evaluation of 30 Years of the One Child Policy in China

— Associated: NDTV video on this Testimony at U.S. Congress

=========================

Related Article from Washington Post on this Testimony at U.S. Congress

When abortion isn’t a choice

By Kathleen Parker
Washington Post
Wednesday, November 11, 2009

— “One of the few incontrovertible assertions one can reasonably make is that no one supports forced abortion.”
— “Yet, coerced abortions, as well as involuntary sterilizations, are commonplace in China, Beijing’s protestations notwithstanding. While the Chinese Communist Party insists that abortions are voluntary under the nation’s one-child policy, electronic documentation recently smuggled out of the country tells a different story.”
— “Congressional members of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission heard some of that story Tuesday, two days before President Obama was slated to leave for Asia, including China, to discuss economic issues. Among evidence provided by two human rights organizations, ChinaAid and Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, were tales of pregnant women essentially being hunted down and forced to submit to surgery or induced labor.”
— “Reggie Littlejohn, founder and president of the Frontiers group, told the commission that China’s one-child policy ’causes more violence against women and girls than any other official policy on Earth.’ ”
— “I met Littlejohn for breakfast the day before the hearing. A petite wife and mother — as well as a Yale-educated lawyer — Littlejohn gave up her intellectual property practice in San Francisco after a life-altering illness to become a full-time activist for Chinese women. She is remarkably buoyant, considering the knowledge she has absorbed. Action, she says, is her way of coping with the unconscionable.”
— “Here’s the question Littlejohn insists we consider: What really happens to a woman who doesn’t have a “birth permit” and has an ‘out of plan’ pregnancy?”
— “The answer is simple and brutal: A woman pregnant without permission has to surrender her unborn child to government enforcers, no matter what the stage of fetal development.”
— “Late-term abortions are problematic, but the Chinese are nothing if not efficient. On one Web site for Chinese obstetricians and gynecologists, doctors recently traded tips in a dispassionate discussion titled: “What if the infant is still alive after induced labor?” ChinaAid provided a translation of a thread regarding an eight-month-old fetus that survived the procedure.”
— ” ‘Xuexia’ wrote: ‘Actually, you should have punctured the fetus’ skull.’ Another poster, ‘Damohuyang,’ wrote that most late-term infants died during induced labor, some lived and ‘would be left in trash cans. Some of them could still live for one to two days.’ ”
— “To be clear, some of the doctors online expressed concern for the rights of the child. Others, however, worried only about potential legal ramifications. Technically, it is illegal in China to kill a baby, one is relieved to learn, but family-planning imperatives sometimes prevail. According to a 2009 State Department report, monetary incentives and penalties are attached to population targets, creating what amounts to bounties on the unborn.”
— “As recently as July, officials of China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission said that the one-child policy ‘will be strictly enforced as a means of controlling births for decades to come,’ according to Xinhua, the state-run news agency.”
— “The violence of these procedures doesn’t only kill the child in some instances. In two of the cases described in a document leaked this past August, the mothers died, too. Those who dissent, meanwhile, are persecuted.”
— “Such has been the fate of activist Chen Guangcheng, who is serving a four-year sentence after exposing 130,000 forced abortions and sterilizations in Linyi County, Shandong province, in 2005. Named by Time magazine as one of 2006’s top 100 people ‘who shape our world,’ Guangcheng, who is blind, was severely beaten and denied medical care the following year, according to an Amnesty International report.”
— “The one-child policy has created other problems that threaten women and girls. The traditional preference for boys has meant sex-selected abortions resulting in a gender imbalance. Today, men in China outnumber women by 37 million, a disparity that has become a driving force behind sex slavery in Asia. Exacerbating the imbalance, about 500 women a day commit suicide in China — the highest rate in the world, which Littlejohn attributes in part to coercive family planning.”
— “Obviously, the United States is in an awkward position with China, our second-largest trading partner and the largest holder of our government debt. But Littlejohn hopes Obama will “truly represent American values, including our strong commitment to human rights.” She is also calling on Planned Parenthood and NARAL to speak up for reproductive choice in China.”
— “On this much, both sides of the abortion issue can agree: Forced abortion is not a choice. Averting our gaze from China’s horrific abuse of women is.”

Pakistan a leading player in imposing blasphemy law on globe through UNHRC: Nazir Bhatti

Pakistan a leading player in imposing blasphemy law on globe through UNHRC: Nazir Bhatti
— Pakistan Christian Post reports: “Dr. Nazir S Bhatti, President of Pakistan Christian Congress PCC expressed reservations on UNHRC Resolution A/HRC/12/L.14/Rev.1 subject to “Religion Defamation” presented by Zamir Akram, a Pakistani representative of Organization of Islamic Conference OIC on behalf of Egypt and USA, the cosponsors of resolution because it will promote blasphemy law around globe.”

See also:

UNHRC: Egypt-U.S. Resolution Concerns Rights Activists Supporting Freedom to Challenge Religious Views

U.S. Religious Freedom Commission Testimony that U.N. “Religious Defamation” Resolutions Leading to “Global Blasphemy Law”

repeal_blasphemy_laws

Germany: Former ‘Nazi’ faces murder charges

Germany: Former ‘Nazi’ faces murder charges
AKI reports:
— “German prosecutors have charged an alleged former member of the Nazi SS with the killing of 58 Jewish labourers. The 90-year-old man is suspected of killing his victims near the village of Deutsch Schutzen in eastern Austria in 1945, a statement from a German state court said.”
— “The court has identified the suspect only as a ‘retiree from Duisburg’ ”
— ” ‘On 29 March 1945, the accused and his accomplices brought at least 57 Jewish forced labourers in several groups to a nearby forest area, where they had to give up their valuables and kneel by a grave,’ the statement said.”
— ” ‘The accused and other SS members then cruelly shot the Jewish forced labourers from behind.’ ”
— “While the accused has not been officially identified, German media reports have named him as Adolf Storms, a former member of the 5th SS Panzer Division, known as Wiking.”

— Undergrad research nabs SS suspect

neveragain

National Post Describes Anti-Jewish Hizb ut-Tahrir’s Growth on College Campuses

National Post: “Jew Hatred on Campus”

“Anti-Jewish political groups like Hizb-ut-Tahrir seek to have a formal presence on campuses. This is how Ed Hussain, recalling his time as a college student in London, describes what he calls the ‘Islamist control of Muslim student population… At many universities the tactics of confrontation and consolidation of Muslim feeling under the leadership of Hizb activists were being adopted. The Hizb confronted the Jewish…lecturers…. What dumbfounded us was the fact that the authorities on campuses never stopped us.’ Hussain had been attracted to Islamism as a school-boy. A poster in his bed room quoted the famous appeal of Hassan al-Banna, the grandfather of Tariq Ramadan and founder of the Muslim Brotherhood:”

“Allah is our Lord.”

“Mohammed is our Leader. The Koran is Our Constitution. Violent Extemism is Our Way.”

“Martydom is Our Desire.”

“All over the world students at school or university put up posters of ‘revolutionary’ heroes like Che, or Mao, today Hugo Chavez or Sheik Nazrullah, without thinking through what they really stand for or have done. But how many have gone to sleep having done their homework under a poster urging jihad and expressing a desire for martyrdom?”

“At his college, Hussain helped cover the college walls as well as those in the street outside with a poster reading ‘Islam: The Final Solution’ because ‘deep down, we never really objected to the Holocaust… Without question we despised Jews and perceived a Jewish conspiraracy.’ Like a con-man who changes his name as he moves from town, Hizb is also adept at adopting new guises as it seeks to win over students to its anti-Semitic core beliefs. Islamist spokesmen have denounced Hussain’s expose of Hizb anti-Jewish work on campuses as being a lone example of what happened in the 1990s. Yet the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Anti-Semitism reported that in December 2005, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK organized a debate under the title ‘Zionism: The Greatest Enemy of the Jews.’ Some of the listed speakers were known to have expressed anti-Semitic opinions on previous occasions and the university cancelled the event. MPACUK riposted on its website saying ‘Jewish Societies’ were the same as ‘Zionist Socities.’ It accused Jewish students of working for Mossad and put up a picture of Spiderman using the classicial anti-Semitic motif of Jews spinning a web of control. In 2002, the University of Manchester Students’ Union discussed a motion that anti-Zionism was not anti-Semitism. The General Union of Palestinian Students distributed a leaflet before the vote which repeated classic anti-Semitic propaganda including the Benjamin Franklin forgery circulated by the Nazis, which claimed the American statesman had written an anti-Jewish tract in the 18th century which called Jews ‘vampires.’ The motion was defeated. The response of the Jew-haters was to throw a brick through the window of a Jewish student residence and a poster with the words ‘Slaughter the Jews’ was stuck on the front door.”

“So Ed Hussain’s description of Islamist anti-Semitism on the campus is far from an isolated example from the 1990s; the Jew-hatred in British universities has intensified this century. In 2005, the Glasgow-based national Scottish paper, The Herald, reported that Hizb, and other Islamist groups with different names but sharing the same political gene pool and anti-Jewish obsessions, were seeking to infiltrate Scottish universities. A Hizb spokesman admitted that the extremist organization was seeking to work ‘in Glasgow, Dundee and Edinburgh universities.’ Al Muhajiroun, the breakaway group from Hizb and arguably even more violent in its anti-Semitism, was also active in Dundee and other universities. According to The Herald, Dundee University ‘said it had no knowledge of radical Islamic groups being active on its campus’ while ‘Edinburgh University said it… did not object to religious groups holding meetings on campus as long as they operated within the law and did not deploy inappropriate tactics.’ But both Hizb and Al Muharjiroun exist to snuff out free speech and replace democracy. They are not religious groups in the same sense as Quakers, or Buddhists, or Mormons, or Orthodox Christians who wish to share their views on faith with others. Hizb and its off-shoots are deeply political and refuse to join in campaigns to condemn attacks on Jews worldwide.”