Category: Other

September 24 – NYC – UN Protest for Iran Freedom

September 24 – NYC – UN Protest for Iran Freedom
— on Thursday, September 24, the group entitled “Stand for Freedom in Iran” will be holding a protest at 12 Noon U.S. Eastern Time in NYC at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, 47th Street and 2nd Avenue
— See more details on flier (PDF) file

— Additional Reports on Iran and Democracy

iran-child-for-freedom

Christian Supremacism – NYC: “Westboro Baptist” Hate Group to Protest New York Area Synagogues

“Westboro Baptist” Hate Group to Protest New York Area Synagogues
— The Jewish Star reports:
— “Fringe Baptist group to bring hate to Great Neck”
— “Protests planned next week in Long Island, Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan”

— “A fundamentalist church from Topeka, Kansas plans protests at Jewish locations in Great Neck, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan for three days beginning Thursday, September 24th. The Westboro Baptist Church, led by Rev. Fred Phelps and composed largely of his family members, has been in the news with its protests at funerals of AIDS victims and American soldiers killed in action… While the church has mainly protested what it perceives as homosexual targets and colleges around the country, since April 2009 it has also picketed Jewish sites, according to the Anti-Defamation League.”
— “The church is an ‘extreme group that spews hate wherever it goes,’ said Ron Meier, director of the New York region of ADL. ‘Their strategy is to attract attention and draw a response and by doing so get publicity for their church, and that’s why the ADL has advised all groups not to engage them. Because without a response they don’t gain attention and any further spreading of their view,’ he said.”
— “Westboro Baptist Church is considered to be a fringe organization; it is not associated with any major Christian group or denomination. A documentary about the Phelps family that aired on the BBC was titled, The Most Hated Family in America.”
— “At Chabad of Great Neck, which according to the church website will be picketed at noon on Friday, Sept. 25, Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky said he was aware of the protest and planned to pay no attention to it.”
— “Protest are also planned outside the Great Neck Synagogue, North Shore Hebrew Academy High School and at Temple Beth Israel. The group also plans to picket outside the East Midwood Jewish Center on Ocean Avenue in Brooklyn, and in Manhattan at the 92nd Street Y, the Jewish Theological Seminary and at the United Nations. The group’s past targets include appliance stores that sell Swedish vacuum cleaners.”
— “The group’s website states that Jews killed Christ and that, ‘God hates these dark-hearted, rebellious, disobedient Jews.” The fifty-member church claims to have staged over 40,000 protests across the country.”
— “The automated telephone greeting at the Westboro Baptist Church features a pleasant, Southern-accented female voice who advises if you are a ‘Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, or Christ-rejecting Jew,’ that ‘God hates you all,’ and recommends visiting the church’s website where more information is available.

— Additional Reports:

— Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reports on “Westboro Baptist Church”

— Southern Poverty Law Center listing of “Westboro Baptist Church” as a hate group

NYC: UANI Calls on The Essex House to Refuse to Host President Ahmadinejad

For Immediate Release
September 21, 2009
Contact: Kimmie Lipscomb, press@unitedagainstnucleariran.com
Phone: (212) 554-3296

UANI Calls on The Essex House to Refuse to Host President Ahmadinejad

New York, NY – United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) today called on The Essex House hotel to refuse to host President Ahmadinejad and offered the Essex House an opportunity to clarify its role as the host of a banquet for the Iranian delegation and as host for a speech by President Ahmadinejad on September 25, 2009 during his stay in New York for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

In a letter to Scott Dawson, General Manager of the Essex House, UANI President, Ambassador Mark D. Wallace wrote “UANI calls on the Essex House to clarify and reconsider its decision to host the banquet and address and instead decline to provide such a venue for President Ahmadinejad.  By doing business with the Iranian government the Essex House is accepting blood money from a regime that brutally suppresses its own people and that is a danger to global security.  Given that other area venues including the New York Helmsley Hotel and Gotham Hall have rejected hosting President Ahmadinejad and the Iranian delegation, the Essex House’s provision of a forum for Ahmadinejad’s propaganda is even more egregious.”

To the extent that the Essex House persists in its plans to host President Ahmadinejad, UANI will call on members of the public to boycott Jumeirah properties.

Following UANI’s campaigns last week, The Helmsley Hotel and Gotham Hall have both cancelled events in which President Ahmadinejad was scheduled to speak.

Click here to send a letter to The Essex House New York

Click here to learn how UANI has partnered with GE against doing business in Iran
# # #

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.

The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran should concern every American and be unacceptable to the community of nations. Since 1979 the Iranian regime, most recently under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s leadership, has demonstrated increasingly threatening behavior and rhetoric toward the US and the West. Iran continues to defy the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the United Nations in their attempts to monitor its nuclear activities. A number of Arab states have warned that Iran’s development of nuclear weapons poses a threat to Middle East stability and could provoke a regional nuclear arms race. In short, the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran is a danger to world peace.

United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.

The Objectives of United Against a Nuclear Iran

1. Inform the public about the nature of the Iranian regime, including its desire and intent to possess nuclear weapons, as well as Iran’s role as a state sponsor of global terrorism, and a major violator of human rights at home and abroad;
2. Heighten awareness nationally and internationally about the danger that a nuclear armed Iran poses to the region and the world;
3. Mobilize public support, utilize media outreach, and persuade our elected leaders to voice a robust and united American opposition to a nuclear Iran;
4. Lay the groundwork for effective US policies in coordination with European and other allies;
5. Persuade the regime in Tehran to desist from its quest for nuclear weapons, while striving not to punish the Iranian people, and;
6. Promote efforts that focus on vigorous national and international, social, economic, political and diplomatic measures.

Iran: “‘Torture, murder and rape’ – Iran’s way of breaking the opposition”

Iran: “‘Torture, murder and rape’ – Iran’s way of breaking the opposition”
— London Times reports:
— “Javadifar is just one among scores of alleged cases of murder, torture and rape unearthed by opposition investigators – cases that a regime claiming to champion Islamic values is doing its utmost to suppress by denouncing the charges as lies, arresting the investigators and seizing their files. The Times has been given access to 500 pages of documents – a small fraction of the total – that include handwritten testimony by victims, medical reports and interviews.”
— “They suggest that security forces have engaged in systematic killing and torture to try to break the opposition.”
— “‘The use of rape and torture was similar across prisons in Tehran and the provinces. It is difficult not to conclude that the highest authorities planned and ordered these actions. Local authorities would not dare take such actions without word from above,’ wrote one investigator, in a coded reference to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader.”

Iran security forces clash with protesters-witness

Iran security forces clash with protesters-witness
— Reuters: “Iran security forces clashed with supporters of opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi and arrested at least 10 of them during annual anti-Israel rallies in Tehran on Friday, a witness said.”
— “Reformist former president Mohammad Khatami took part in the rally, but was attacked by hardliners and had to leave after his robe was ripped and his turban fell to the ground, an ally of Khatami who accompanied him told Reuters.”

— London Times reports: “First anti-government protest since July at annual pro-Palestinian rally as rival demonstrators fight on streets of capital”

Hindu American Foundation Human Rights Reports and Issues

Hindu American Foundation Human Rights Reports and Issues

Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora: A Survey of Human Rights 2008
— “The Foundation’s 2008 Hindu Human Rights Report details violations against Hindus in areas where they are minority – namely in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Fiji, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and Trinidad and Tobago, in addition to Pakistan and the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir. The report provides detailed accounts of human rights violations are in the areas of violence against women, murder, ethnic cleansing, temple destruction, socio-political ostracization, disenfranchisement, discrimination and forced conversions.”
— Download report
— Press Release
— “Bangladesh and Pakistan saw the most egregious human rights abuses according to the report and garner specific censure. In Bangladesh, nearly 300 acts of murder, rape, kidnappings, temple destruction and land grabs targeting Hindus were recorded over the nine months of reporting available to the Foundation. The practice of enslaving children as bonded laborers continues unabated in Pakistan, and forced conversions and systematic persecution of Hindus has caused the continued decline of their population from 30% to around 1% over fifty years.”

Hyperlink to Hinduphobia: Online Hatred, Extremism and Bigotry Against Hindus
— “Extremist websites with hate against Hindus and Hinduism are the focus of this document in the conviction that if left unchallenged, these websites will perpetuate hatred at best, and breed violence at worst. This report provides an overview of the methods used to demean Hinduism and the individuals and organizations responsible for the content. Whether by maligning Hinduism as ‘devil-worship’ to promote a fear of Hindus and their beliefs, demeaning Hindu scriptures and deities, or falsifying Hinduism’s teachings and principles in order to claim the religious superiority of other traditions, these individuals and organizations seek to undermine tolerance and pluralism. This is the first report to systematically document hate against Hindus on the Internet, an issue of serious concern to Hindu-Americans and Hindus globally.”
— Download report
— “Attacks on Hindus and their institutions are a daily reality in countries such as Bangladesh. Last year, even within the United States, a newly completed Hindu temple in Minnesota was desecrated by vandals that went on to destroy deities within the inner sanctum.  The hate sites reflected in this report inspire and justify such violence.”
— “Documenting ongoing human rights problems, the Hindu American Foundation recently released its second annual report on the status of Hindu human rights titled, ‘Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora: A Survey of Human Rights 2005.'”
— “Atrocities committed against Hindus in various parts of the world are documented in the report. In each of the regions covered, an environment of hostility and hatred towards Hindus was created in order to enable persecution and violence to take place”

Hindus in South Asia and the Diaspora: A Survey of Human Rights 2005 Executive Summary

Pakistan: Suicide Bombing Apparent Attack on Minority Shiite Community – Hotel, Shops Destroyed, Many Killed

AP: “Official: Suicide bomb kills 25 in NW Pakistan”
— AP reports: “A suicide car bomb destroyed a two-story hotel and several shops in a northwestern Pakistani town on Friday, killing 25 people in an apparent attack on the country’s Shiite community, police and a government official said.”
— “The blast took place in the Shiite-dominated village of Usterzai. The Hikmat Ali Hotel –  owned by a Shiite – was among several buildings destroyed or badly damaged, police official Asmat Ullah said. At least eight cars were mangled by the force of the explosion, witnesses said.”
— “Sunni extremist groups like those believe Shiites are infidels, and their presence has fueled sectarian attacks that have long plagued “

Ethiopia: Convert Languishing in Jail in Ethiopia for Handing Out Bibles

Ethiopia: Convert Languishing in Jail in Ethiopia for Handing Out Bibles
— COMPASS reports: “A convert from Islam who has led a push for Muslim-Christian understanding in Ethiopia has been in jail for nearly four months since his arrest for ‘malicious’ distribution of Bibles.”
— “Christian sources in Ethiopia said that, contrary to Ethiopian law, 39-year-old Bashir Musa Ahmed has not been formally charged since his arrest on May 23 in Jijiga, capital of Somali Region Zone Five, a predominantly Muslim area in eastern Ethiopia. Zonal police arrested him after he was accused of providing Muslims with Somali-language Bibles bearing covers that resemble the Quran, the sources said.”
— “An Ethiopian national, Ahmed is known as a bold preacher of Christianity and is credited with opening discussion of the two faiths between Christian and Muslim leaders. He is well-known in the area as a scholar of Islam, but his case has gone largely unreported in Ethiopia.”
— “A source who requested anonymity said authorities likely are secretly planning to transfer Ahmed from his Jijiga cell to Ghagahbur jail some 200 kilometers away near the Somali border, in part to prevent other Christians from visiting him and in part because he has not been charged.”
— “‘The Ethiopian constitution allows for religious tolerance,’ said the source, ‘but to date Ahmed has not been taken to court. He is still in the cell now, going on the fourth month, which is quite unusual for an Ethiopian nationality and the constitutional requirements.'”
— “For providing Bibles with cover pages resembling the Quran, Ahmed is accused of “maliciously” distributing Bibles and trying to convert Muslims to Christianity, although conversion and manifesting one’s faith are not illegal in Ethiopia. At issue is whether the Bibles with covers resembling the Quran violate copyright issues and disrespect Islam.”

Michigan Report: “Muslim Teen Violently Attacked in Michigan”

“Muslim Teen Violently Attacked in Michigan”
— New American Media news reports:
— “A 16-year-old Iraqi-American girl was violently attacked last week resulting in numerous injuries that required six stitches on her face, reports The Arab American News.”
— “According to the news report, the girl, who has requested anonymity, was returning from her first day of high school when she was grabbed and had her hijab pulled off as she was getting off the school bus. The news report says that an argument had erupted on the bus prior to the attack, but the bus driver believed it had been settled. The five-to-seven student attackers, allegedly made expletive remarks about Arabs and told her “Arabs are dirty” as they attacked her, finally dragging her near the front of her home.”