Egyptian Christians Fear More Muslim Violence
— AINA reports: “Egyptian security forces have intensified their presence in the Upper Egyptian town of Dairout, in anticipation of a recurrence of Muslim violence against Christians. Copts expressed their fear over leaflets entitled ‘These have to Die!’ which are being distributed to all Muslims in Dairout and neighborhoods, enticing them to ‘burn, vandalize and clean the country of these evil immoral infidels.'”
Category: Bin Ladenism
reports and articles on those with extremist views that mirror those of Osama Bin Laden
Egypt: Coptic Blogger in Egypt Pressured to Convert in Prison
Christian critical of Islamization of society, Orthodox church jailed without charges.
ISTANBUL, October 31 (CDN) — A Coptic Christian blogger in Egypt entering his second year of prison without charge is being pressured to convert to Islam in exchange for his freedom, his attorneys said.
On Oct. 3, 2008, Hani Nazeer, a 28-year-old high school social worker from Qena, Egypt and author of the blog “Karz El Hob” (“Love Cherries”), was arrested by Egypt’s State Security Investigations (SSI) and sent to Burj Al-Arab prison. Although police never charged him with any crime, Nazeer has been detained for more than a year under Egypt’s administrative imprisonment law.
Gamel Eid, executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), the group representing Nazeer, said Nazeer was arrested unfairly and now is being coerced to abandon his faith.
“Hani complains about that, it happened, and it’s true,” said Eid. “But the police do it in a subtle way. They do it by inspiring the inmates to suggest to Nazeer that if he converts to Islam, police will work to get him out of prison.”
Nazeer is confined in what is commonly known as the “general population” area of the prison, meaning he is housed with both violent and non-violent felons. Nazeer told his attorneys he is often treated harshly. Despite this, Eid said Nazeer is constant in his faith.
A few days before his arrest, on Oct. 1, 2008, a group of young Muslims in Nag Hammadi saw his website and clicked on a link to an online copy of “Azazil’s Goat in Mecca,” a novel written under the pseudonym “Father Utah.” The book is a response to “Azazil,” a novel critical of Christianity by Yusuf Zidane that is famous in Egypt.
While Zidane’s critique of Christianity garnered him awards throughout the Arab world, locals protested the link to Utah’s site.
Insulting religion is considered a crime in Egypt, although typically the law is only enforced when Islam is criticized. Police have not publicly produced any evidence linking Nazeer to Utah’s work. After Nazeer was arrested, posts continued on Utah’s website. It is unclear if the teenagers who saw Nazeer’s website and were offended were students at his school.
Eid said the deeper issue was that Nazeer upset Islamic authorities by criticizing the increasing Islamization of Egyptian civil society and irked church leaders by lamenting political involvement of the Coptic Orthodox Church. In one post, Nazeer wrote said that a gathering of activists at a Coptic church was inappropriate because churches were meant to be venues for prayer, not for politics.
Police had detained Nazeer’s relatives at a police station and threatened to hold them until he came out of hiding, Eid said, and Nazeer turned himself into a police station in October 2008 – on the advice of Bishop Kirollos of Nag Hammadi, Nazeer reported to his attorneys.
Kirollos assured Nazeer he would be detained no more than four days and then be released. According to Nazeer and the ANHRI, the bishop colluded with authorities to get rid of Nazeer, whose online criticism had become bothersome.
“[Kirollos] is the one who turned me in after he denounced me to security,” Nazeer told his attorneys. “He bluffed [that] we were going for a short investigation and it will be all over. Then I found out it was a charade to turn me in to state security.”
Eid claimed the arrest achieved two complementary goals for police and Kirollos – calming those protesting “Azazil’s Goat in Mecca,” and silencing a blogger who had been critical of Islamic hardliners and the Coptic Orthodox Church.
All attempts to reach Kirollos were unsuccessful. Several attempts to reach Bishop Anba Yoannes, authorized to speak about the case on behalf of the Coptic Orthodox Church’s Pope Shenouda III, were also unsuccessful. Egypt’s SSI, a political police force run by the Interior minister, routinely declines to comment on cases.
Release Orders Invalidated
Nazeer’s attorneys are set to appeal his imprisonment on Sunday (Nov. 1), but it is unclear how or even if the appeal will affect his case. Courts have ordered Nazeer’s release several times before. The SSI has rendered the orders for release invalid by invoking the country’s longstanding emergency law, which supersedes court authority.
When local police execute a court order to release prisoners held under the emergency law, security police commonly re-arrest them minutes later. The law, enacted after the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat, allows authorities to hold people without charge. Eid estimated that there are approximately 14,000 people imprisoned under this law.
Eid said Nazeer’s case is extremely difficult.
“Hani is in between the hate of the Islamists and the hate of the Christians,” he said. “The Islamists of course are against him, and the church [leadership] is against him, so he’s being badly squeezed between the two.”
Kalldas Fakhry Girgis, Nazeer’s cousin, saw him 15 days ago. Girgis said that despite Nazeer’s confinement, he is in good spirits. He remains strong in his faith and his convictions.
“He wants to know why he’s been arrested,” Girgis said about his cousin. “He’s hopeful. His morale is high. But he is feeling stressed.”
Arizona – Noor Almaleki Case: Arizona Jails Father in ‘Honor Killing’ Try
— Dad held in ‘honor killing’ try
Canada: ‘Landmark case’ of Pakistani woman facing honor killing — Roohi Tabassum
A Brampton woman who claims she’ll be a victim of an honour killing if deported to Pakistan will open the door for other women to seek refuge if she’s allowed to stay here, her lawyer says.
Roohi Tabassum, 44, claims she will be killed by her ex-husband because she left him and came to Canada and works as a hairsytlist touching men’s hair. He is also outraged that she may have a boyfriend, which she denies.
“This is a landmark case and a lot of people are awaiting the outcome,” her Toronto lawyer Max Berger said recently.
“There are many cases of domestic abuse being heard by the immigration and refugee board.”
Berger said there other people in similar situations who may file refugee claims.
He appeared before a Federal Court of Canada judge last Wednesday seeking a judicial review to kill the deportation order issued against Tabassum. The judge will issue a written decision in weeks.
“Honour killings are well known in Pakistan,” Berger said.
Citing U.S. statistics, Berger told an immigration board that as many as 1,500 women were killed in 2007 in honour killings in Pakistan.
Tabassum was smuggled into Canada from the U.S. in 2001 and filed a failed refugee claim. She faces deportation to the U.S., then to Pakistan.
She has said she faced criticism for going public with her plight. She has also received much support.
NDP MP Irene Mathyssen this month called on immigration minister Jason Kenney to keep Tabassum in Canada.
“I am saddened that this woman’s life remains in limbo and that the minister seems uninterested in protecting her,” she said on her website.
Tabassum’s cousin was the victim of an honour killing after she refused an arranged wedding to an older man.
Officials of the Canada Border Services Agency said Tabassum has had her hearings and must leave Canada.
Gaza: Tens of Thousands of Islamic Jihad Supporters Call for Destruction of Israel
Gaza: Thousands of Islamic Violent Extemism supporters gather at Gaza rally
— Jerusalem Post reports:
— “Tens of thousands of Islamic Violent Extemism loyalists held a rally in Gaza on Friday to commemorate the group’s slain founder.”
— “Holding plastic models of rockets and wearing masks and mock suicide bomber’s vests, the members chanted ‘death to Israel’ and ‘Muhammad’s army will be back to wipe off the Hebrew state.'”
Malaysia: Bibles Seized by Extremists
Bibles seized as Malaysia minorities fear fundamentalism
Authorities in Malaysia have seized more than 20,000 Bibles in recent months because they refer to God as “Allah,” Christian leaders said Thursday.
The seizures have fed fears among minority groups, which see signs of encroaching Islamic fundamentalism in the predominantly Muslim but multi-racial country.
“There is a growing sense of Islamic assertion, yes,” said the Rev. Hermen Shastri, general-secretary of the Council of Churches of Malaysia. “There is some concern.”
The Bibles were written in the country’s official language, Malay — in which the word for God is “Allah,” as it is in Arabic.
However, Malaysia’s government says the word is exclusive to Islam.
Its use in Christian publications is likely to confuse Muslims and draw them to Christianity, the government says. So it has banned use of the word in Christian literature.
“Malay has borrowed from Arabic, just as it has from Sanskrit and Portuguese,” Shastri said. “We have maintained the community has the right to use the word.
“But I think this has ignited a cause in the Muslim communities, who are interpreting it as a siege on Islamic beliefs.”
A Home Ministry official directed requests for comment to the ministry’s Publications and Quran Text Control Department, which enforces the ban. An employee there redirected calls to a spokeswoman, who in turn asked CNN to call the Home Ministry back. Calls to other departments were similarly redirected.
A Roman Catholic weekly newspaper, The Herald, is challenging the ban in court after the government threatened to revoke its license for using the word in its Malay edition. Hearings on the case have gone on for two years.
“We quote it as it is. We cannot change the text of the Scripture,” Herald editor Father Lawrence Andrew told CNN last year. “I cannot be the editor of the Bible.”
Among the Bibles confiscated were Malay-language ones that the Bible Society of Malaysia said it had imported from Indonesia. About 10,000 others also were confiscated from Gideons International, which places free copies in hotel rooms and other places.
The Malaysian constitution provides for freedom of religion. The country has a dual-track justice system, in which Islamic courts operate alongside civil ones.
Rulings by the Islamic, or sharia, courts are directed toward the country’s Muslim, who make up 60 percent of the population. But they worry non-Muslims who see them as Islamism seeping into the moderate nation’s fabric.
In November, the National Fatwa Council — the country’s top Islamic body — banned Muslims from practicing yoga. It said elements of Hinduism in yoga can corrupt Muslims.
The council also bans short hair and boyish behavior for girls, saying they encourage homosexuality.
In northern Malaysia’s Kelantan state, authorities have forbidden bright lipstick and high-heeled shoes, saying the bans will safeguard Muslim women’s morals and dignity, as well as thwart rape.
And last month, an Islamic court judge in the eastern state of Pahang upheld a verdict to cane a Muslim woman for drinking beer in public.
The country has been mired in inter-faith disputes as well in recent months. In those cases, many non-Muslims complain that the civil courts generally cede control to Islamic courts.
Muslims cannot convert to other religions without the permission of the Islamic courts, which rarely approve such requests.
In relationships in which a Muslim parent has converted children to Islam over the objection of a non-Muslim parent, the sharia courts usually have upheld the conversions.
And earlier this year, a Sikh family lost a court battle to cremate a relative after officials said the man had converted to Islam years before his death, though the family said he hadn’t.
Arizona: Noor Almaleki Case – Father in “Honor Killing” Attempt Captured in UK – Extradited Back to US
Dad accused in hit-run fled to Mexico, England before capture
An Iraqi immigrant accused of running over his daughter for being too “Westernized” fled across three countries before he was extradited to the United States and arrested Thursday, authorities said Friday.
Faleh Almaleki, 48, of Glendale, drove to Mexico the day of the attack and later boarded a plane for London, said David Gonzales, U.S. marshal for Arizona. Almaleki was detained by British authorities for entering the country illegally and escorted by U.S. officials on a flight to Atlanta.
U.S. marshals and Peoria detectives arrested Almaleki on Thursday afternoon after his plane landed in Atlanta, Gonzales said. The suspect had evaded investigators for more than a week.
Almaleki waived his extradition rights in front of a Georgia judge and should be transported back to Arizona within a few days, Gonzales said.
Police believe Almaleki ran over his daughter, Noor Almaleki, 20, and Amal Edan Khalaf, 43, in a Peoria parking lot Oct. 20 because he felt his daughter had disrespected the family.
Khalaf is reportedly the mother of Noor’s boyfriend.
The two women were still in the hospital, with Noor Almaleki in “life-threatening” condition and Khalaf’s condition improving, when police updated their status earlier this week.
Peoria police said interviews with friends and family revealed that Faleh, a Glendale resident, was angry at his daughter for not following traditional Iraqi values.
Noor’s brother, Peter-Ali Almaleki, told a local news station that his sister went “out of her way to disrespect” her traditional Muslim father.
Noor had married a man in Iraq but returned to the United States and moved in with her boyfriend and Khalaf in Surprise. The father was furious about the arrangement, according to the brother.
Peter-Ali Almaleki said their father called home late last week to check on his daughter’s condition but his wife hung up on him.
UK – Tulay Goren Trial: Sister gives evidence to “honor killing” trial from beyond the grave
Sister gives evidence to ‘honour killing’ trial from beyond the grave
The younger sister of Tulay Goren, a schoolgirl alleged to have been murdered in an ‘honour killing’ for falling in love, gave evidence from beyond the grave about the final time she saw her sibling.
Hatice Goren died in a car crash seven years after 15-year-old Tulay went missing in January 1999.
But in two video interviews recorded in the months after Tulay’s disappearance Hatice told the Old Bailey about the last time she had seen her.
She said her father Mehmet told eight-year-old brother Tuncay to kiss Tulay goodbye as it would be the last time he saw her.
“My dad said to my brother, go and kiss your sister, Tulay, because this is the last time that you are going to see her,” Hatice said. ”He went and kissed her and my dad was crying as well.”
The girl, then 13, wept as she described her sometimes troubled relationship with Tulay, saying: “Before I used to hate her, but now I like her because I miss her.”
Her father Mehmet Goren is alleged to have murdered Tulay after consulting with his brothers Ali and Cuma.
Mehmet, 49, of Navestock Crescent, Woodford Green, north east London, together with Cuma Goren, 42, of Evesham Avenue, Walthamstow, east London, and Ali Goren, 56, of Brettenham Road, Walthamstow, deny murdering Tulay on January 7 1999.
They also deny conspiracy to murder her boyfriend Halil Unal between May 1998 and February 1999.
The court heard that during an interview on March 23 1999, Hatice said her sister was “fun” although they sometimes argued over “clothes and things”.
She became upset when talking about Tulay and said: “I don’t want to talk about her at all, I just wanted to cry.”
In another interview on June 11, Hatice was asked about the night of January 6 after Tulay had been brought back home by her parents, having run away to be with her boyfriend.
Hatice said Tulay was going to jump out of the window and her father then “got her around the neck”.
She said the next morning her sister told the family that she wanted to go back with her boyfriend.
Hatice said: “She was upset and she was crying.”
There was a phone call from Ali, in which Mehmet was told to go out and call him from a phone box, she said.
Hatice said her father later told Tuncay to say goodbye to Tulay, before they went to stay with uncle Cuma.
When they returned home, she noticed Tulay’s jumper and two pairs of her shoes were left, which her father told her to throw away.
Hatice was asked about how her mother was, and said: “She is upset … she thinks that my sister is dead.”
Asked about her father, she said: “He is okay … he’s not upset really.”
The trial was adjourned until Monday.
Somali women beaten for violating Islamic law, officials say”
CNN reports “Somali women beaten for violating Islamic law, officials say”
Militants who control parts of Somalia’s capital city are beating women in broad daylight for violating their radical brand of Islamic law, according to local officials and witnesses in Mogadishu.
“Just today, Al-Shabaab dispatched men with whips to the streets around Bakara market and they are flogging any woman who is found not wearing socks,” according to a female maize trader at the Mogadishu market, who spoke Thursday.
She did not want to be named for security reasons.
In the past two days, more than 130 people, including women who were not wearing headscarves and men chewing dried khat leaves, have been detained for violating Al-Shabaab’s interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law, according to witnesses and officials.
Hooded Al-Shabaab gunmen rounded up 50 women on Wednesday from Mogadishu’s Bakara market for not wearing the veil that is required for women under some interpretations of Islamic law, according to the maize trader.
“Most of these women were vegetable traders, so they are poor and can’t afford to buy veils for 600,000 shillings [about $23 U.S.],” she said.
She said she saw more women being detained Thursday.
Another 80 Somali civilians were detained in the southwestern town of Luuq, near the Kenyan and Ethiopian border, “because they turned deaf ear to orders we imposed on the town,” said the local Al-Shabaab commander Sheikh Hussien al-Iraqi.
Al-Shabaab is considered a terrorist organization by the United States because of its ties to Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network.
It has been imposing stricter rules on Somali civilians living in the areas it controls.
Earlier this month, Al-Shabaab militants whipped women for wearing bras in an area of northern Mogadishu that they control, shocking residents who have been besieged by the ongoing insurgency. The militants believe the female undergarments are a deception to men.
Buffalo Beheading “Honor Killing” Trial: Muzzammil S. “Mo” Hassan “gets more time to pay for psychiatric expert”
— Buffalo News: “Accused wife killer gets more time to pay for psychiatric expert”
— The Buffalo News reports:
— “Over the objections of the prosecutor, Muzzammil S. “Mo” Hassan today was given additional time to secure the money needed to pay for the mental health experts he hopes will help him prove he was emotionally out of control when he decapitated his estranged wife last February.”
— “Erie County Judge Thomas P. Franczyk decried the “glacial pace” of the defense effort, but gave defense attorney James P. Harrington until Dec. 7 to report on the progress of the defense tactics.”
— “The judge warned Harrington that he can still preclude this line of defense if further delays are unacceptable.
— “Prosecutor Colleen Curtin Gable complained of deliberate foot-dragging by the defense.”
— “But Harrington insisted that, until an Oct. 13 settlement was reached in the Hassan family estate case, there was a problem with ensuring enough money to pay for the criminal defense.”
— “Though the estate case is several weeks away from a formal settlement, Harrington told the judge that Hassan is now assured he will have enough money to finance his defense, including pay for his psychiatric experts.”
— “The bulk of the estate will go to his four children. Hassan, 44, did not speak during the brief court session that ended about 10:15 a.m. Hassan, who has been jailed since he surrendered to police about an hour after the Feb. 12 killing, did not speak at court. Harrington declined comment as he left court.”
Related Reports:
— August 8, 2009: Man accused of killing wife to get mental examination – Lawyers may seek insanity defense
— March 7, 2009: NY NOW President Stands by Statement on Extremist Killings
— February 17, 2009: Buffalo: Possibility of ‘honor killing’ mulled in Orchard Park slaying
