In Jos, Nigeria, a massacre took place during the night of March 7, 2010 with 500 Christians murdered in the night by a gang with machetes – killing women and children. A summary from London Times Africa reporter and other media reports are listed below.
The London Times reports “500 butchered in Nigeria killing fields”: — London Times summary: “Officials estimate that 500 people were massacred in night-time raids by rampaging Muslim gangs near the city of Jos. Survivors told The Times that entire families were killed, some to the chants of Allahu Akbar – God is Greatest”
— London Times report: — “Dozens of bodies lined the dusty streets of three Christian villages in northern Nigeria yesterday. Other victims of Sunday morning’s Muslim rampage were jammed into a local morgue, the limbs of slaughtered children tangled in a grotesque mess.”
— “One toddler appeared fixed in the protective but hopeless embrace of an older child, possibly his brother. Another had been scalped. Most had severed hands and feet.”
— “Officials estimate that 500 people were massacred in night-time raids by Muslim gangs near Jos, the city that bestrides Nigeria’s Christian-Muslim fault line.”
— “Local journalists and civil rights organisations who toured the area yesterday told The Times they had counted at least 200 victims shot and hacked to death in apparent revenge for sectarian violence in January that claimed about 300 lives from the two communities. Mark Lipdo, a co-ordinator for the Stefanos Foundation, a Christian aid group, confirmed at least 93 dead in one village. ‘But there are corpses charred beyond recognition,’ he said.”
— “Survivors claimed that Muslim inhabitants of the targeted villages of Zot, Dogo Nahawa and Rastat had received telephone calls two days before the attack telling them to leave the area.”
— “Witnesses said gangs waited at main entry points to the villages while others went from house to house, setting the homes on fire.”
— “Those who fled were killed at the exit points. Others were slaughtered after being caught in animal traps and nets as they ran in the dark.”
— “Ben Kwashi, Anglican Archbishop of Jos, said he visited one of three villages engulfed by the violence. ‘I could see kids from age zero to teenagers, all butchered from the back, macheted in their necks, their heads. Deep cuts in the mouths of babies. The stench. People wailing and crying,’ he said.”
— “Nigeria’s Acting President Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner, ordered troops into the riot-affected area ‘to confront and defeat these roving bands of killers’, he said in a statement. Last night he sacked Sarki Mukhtar, the national security adviser, a powerful figure in the inner circle of the ailing President, Umaru Yar’Adua.”
— “Villagers said army assistance came too late. Christian youths accused the military of complicity in the killings.”
Aftermath of March 7, 2010 Jos Attack (Photo: Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters)Aftermath of March 7, 2010 Jos Attack (Photo: Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters)Image of March 7, 2010 Attack Aftermath as Bodies were Gathered (Photo: Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters)
— London Times: “Nigerian Christian villagers flee threats of fresh attacks by Muslims” — The London Times reports:
— “Frightened Christians streamed out of villages in central Nigeria yesterday after threats of new attacks from Muslims responsible for a weekend massacre in which at least 500 people were killed.”
— “Under the gaze of troops rushed into the area, burials for the victims of the violence — believed to be in revenge for Christian killings of Muslims in late January — took place near the city of Jos, the provincial capital of Plateau State. Thousands have been killed in similar religious clashes in recent years.”
London Times: "Witnesses said that gangs waited at main entry points to the villages while others went from house to house, setting the homes on fire" (Photo: London Times)
— LA Times: Nigerian massacre victims buried in mass grave
— The LA Times reports:
— “Reporting from Ratsat, Dogo Nahawa, Nigeria, and Lagos, Nigeria — The victims of Sunday’s sectarian massacres were buried in mass graves in central Nigeria on Monday as survivors told horrific stories of Christian villagers being trapped in nets and hacked to death by Muslim herdsmen.”
— “Reports on the death toll differed wildly, with some placing it at about 200 and others reporting 528 killed and thousands injured. Casualty figures in the recurrent Muslim-Christian violence in Nigeria’s volatile Plateau state are often difficult to ascertain, as each side inflates its losses.”
— “However, attacks in January and on Sunday have left at least 500 dead, making it the worst violence here for some years.”
Mass Grave in Jos After Attack (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)
The anti-democracy group Hizb ut-Tahrir has used the opportunity of International Women’s Day (March 8, 2010) to make renewed calls for its caliphate. As R.E.A.L. reported in July 2009 and December 2009, the Hizb ut-Tahrir America organization requires that women sit separately at the back of the room in their functions, as you can see from these photos of Chicago Hizb ut-Tahrir America event:s
Anti-Democracy Hizb ut-Tahrir America December 20, 2009 Meeting at Govt-Managed Facility in Lombard, Illinois -- Women Segregated and Only Permitted to Sit in the Back of the RoomHizb ut-Tahrir Instructs Women to Sit in Back of Conference Room - at July 2009 Event in Chicago
Hizb ut-Tahrir states at khilafah.com that:
“Regardless of the introduction of laws and global women’s organisations, women remain disadvantaged. Some argue that the Gender Equality movement has further entrenched the problems that women suffer since they are now expect to be equal to a man, work as hard as a man, and commit as much as a man. This notion is contradictory since ‘gender’ points to the biological differences between men and women, ‘gender equality’ eliminates gender from the discussion entirely.”
Hizb ut-Tahrir also states at khilafah.com that:
“Upon understanding the real protection and nurturing that a Khilafah state would bring men and women alike, is it any wonder that there is an overwhelming call for its return. The vast majority of those polled in a Gallup survey in 2005 said that they would want to see Shari’ah as the sole source of legislation. It is only the Khilafah that will ensure the rights of all citizens, men and women, Muslim and non- Muslim”
In Chicago at Hizb ut-Tahrir America’s July 2009 event, the pamphlet distributed by Hizb ut-Tahrir condemned efforts at “reforming Islam,” which Hizb ut-Tahrir also stated included “liberalising women” (page 5). Hizb ut-Tahrir also condemns efforts to promote “women’s rights and tolerance” as part of a “US plan” and a “struggle to reform Islam itself” (pages 10,11). Hizb ut-Tahrir condemned a U.S. “Freedom Agenda” giving priority to “Women’s groups engaged in gender equality campaigns.” Hizb ut-Tahrir rejects equality and instead seeks to promote “equivalence” of men and women based on having “equivalent” obligations under its interpretation of Islam. In Hizb ut-Tahrir’s pamphlet distributed at the Chicago July 2009 event, it states that “Equality is not the basis of Islam and never has been in the history of Islamic jurisprudence. This is a term alien to Islam.” (page 64).
The Blog Indonesia Matters also reports that “Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) champions polygamy and rails against gender equality and domestic violence laws.”
On March 8, we will recognize the efforts and lives of women worldwide – both their triumphs and the issues they continue to face.
As part of Women for Women International’s “Join Me on the Bridge” project, which strives to unite societies and people in peace across the world, the RAISE Hope for Congo Campaign will be hosting a midday march for peace across the Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington, DC.
We will march in solidarity with women from around the world, and in particular, with women from Rwanda and Congo who will also join together in peace on a bridge between their countries to demand an end to war and to demonstrate that women can build the bridges to peace and development.
The walk will be followed by short presentations by leading Congo experts and women’s empowerment advocates.
Speakers:
Sylvie Maunga Mbanga, Congolese human rights lawyer
Jimmie Briggs, Executive Director, Man Up Campaign: Stop Violence Against Women
Candice Knezevic, RAISE Hope for Congo Campaign Manager, ENOUGH Project
Andrée Simon, President and COO, Women for Women International
Seema Jalan, Director of Global Development Policy, Women Thrive Worldwide
Where: We will begin the march at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at the end of Memorial Drive on the Arlington, Virginia side of the bridge (CLICK HERE for a map). The closest metro stop is Arlington Cemetery on the blue line. From there we will walk down Memorial Drive, across the Memorial Bridge, and to the Watergate Steps at the base of the Lincoln Memorial on the Washington, DC side. Map
When: Meet at the Women in Service Memorial at 12:00pm on March 8, 2010. We will begin the march by 12:30pm. The march and the speakers program should finish by 1:30pm.
March 8, 2010 - International Women's Day - Enough Project and R.E.A.L. on Oppression and Rape of Women in Congo
Gaza women denied inheritance rights
— The Media Line: “Palestinian inheritance law follows Islamic law, which stipulates that women are only entitled to half the inheritance amount given to men.”
— Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development (PWWSD) says “You can say it’s a matter of culture more than religion”
UK’s Daily Express reports on death threats against British Muslim politician Shiria Khatun from members of the Muslim and Bangladesh community that have been harassing her, and threatening her children, if Shiria Khatun does not adopt a more “conservative” dress.
British politician and Muslim woman Shiria Khatun threatened by other Muslims for her dress (Photo: Daily Express / Picture: Mark Kehoe)
A SECULAR Muslim woman councillor has been forced to dress more conservatively after receiving death threats and sexually harassing phone calls from members of her own community.
Shiria Khatun, 38, has called in the police over the sinister calls in which threats were made not only against her, but also her four young children.
In one they warned they would dig up parents’ graves and bury her there instead.
The Labour councillor in the controversial borough of Tower Hamlets — named in a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary last week as a centre of Islamic fundamentalism — is considered one of the area’s most progressive politicians.
She was elected in 2006, worked for Ken Livingstone as a transport adviser at London’s City Hall and frequently campaigns for more Muslim women to enter politics.
However, over the past year she has been the victim of a “sick” harassment campaign.
She has been bombarded with anonymous calls and even followed home.
At first she was “too embarrassed” to call the police, but when the threats, mostly made in the Bangladeshi dialect Sylheti, targeted her family she decided to act.
She said: “As a councillor I’m meant to be a strong woman and I didn’t want to show that I was bothered, but it’s gone too far.
“They’re really disgusting. They would talk about my Western clothes, my tight jeans and my body parts.
One man said — and it sounds much nastier in Sylheti –‘I know where you live and I’m going to come and show you and your kids’. I just hung up.
“I really thought it was a pervert, but then it started to get more intense. My parents died when I was young and the callers must know that because they said they would dig up their graves and bury me inside. I think they’re sick.”
Following the calls, she started wearing more loose-fitting traditional Asian clothes and glasses instead of contact lenses to be “taken more seriously”.
She said: “I didn’t even realise that I was giving into them, but my skirts started getting longer and the whole thing left me demoralised.
“Other Muslim women have advised me to dress down because of rumours within the Bengali community, mostly men, criticising me for being too Western looking.
“I don’t like people exploiting religion to tell me I’m not a proper Muslim. We live in a democratic society and I have the right to dress how I like.”
She has so far refused to wear the Muslim hijab headscarf, something she said is a more common sight on the streets of Tower Hamlets—a densely Bangladeshi-populated borough—than in Bangladesh itself.
Many put that down to the growing influence of the strict Saudi Arabian Wahhabi doctrine of Islam in the East End of London.
Cllr Khatun added: “I returned from a visit to Bangladesh not long ago and it’s definitely more conservative here than it is there.
“I used to look at the photos of Bangladeshi women who came here in the Sixties and go ‘Wow!’ and think how amazingly fashionable and liberal they were with their short-sleeved blouses and bouffant hairdos.
“It’s all changed so much now for younger women.”
Police confirmed they were investigating the councillor’s complaint.
