Regarding “More Comedy from the West Midlands Police” the following is an extract from an article by Michele Hanson in The Guardian today (3rd June):
“Two American Christian preachers have been told off by a community police officer for preaching in a Muslim area of Birmingham. Good. If only preachers were banned everywhere. The Jews don’t try to convert anyone. They are not at all keen on converts, so perhaps preachers should take a leaf out of their book, because no one likes to be told that their beliefs are rubbish and someone else’s are better. Is there anything more annoying than people coming to your street or your house uninvited and pushing their ideas down your throat? I was trained from an early age to detest it. My father would open the door and my mother would throw tennis balls at them from behind him – an unconventional but effective response.
The two rejected Birmingham preachers have been moaning about human rights and their freedom of expression, but preaching and American missionary-style “spreading God’s word” is more about bossing than expressing. They’re convinced they’re right. But does anyone dare tell them off? Off they go, all over the world, come across a culture that’s minding its own business, with its own perfectly adequate belief system, and insist on imposing their own ideas. What a cheek. Who am I to criticize? I must practice what I preach. So believe what you like, everyone, but leave the rest of us alone. We can make our own minds up.”
Well at least the Muslim policeman who harassed the preachers was acting in accordance with his beliefs. Michele Hanson is just rationaling her cowardice. (Her article is closer to Doublethink than to Hypocrisy).
When push comes to shove who is likely to fight against the imposition of an Islamic brand of fascism – Guardian journalists or American Evangelicals?
You believe WTC 1,2 and 7 were destroyed in a controlled demolition. You probably believe a lot more than that. No plane at the Pentagon? Flight 93 shot down? Passengers’ phone calls faked?
Blah blah blah.
It’s all CRAP, and articles about the CIA strategically using Islamists against other Islamists does nothing to support your pseudo-scientific cultic beliefs about 9/11.
Firstly I would like to complement Robert Nola on a clear and provocative treatment of the relation between religion and the notion of respect (2003). Secondly, I wonder whether he would agree that of his six types of respect only the first three can legitimately be demanded of others in a liberal society and hence that demands for any of the last three are illegitimate.
I forgot to mention that Jundullah,the Iranian/Pakistani terrorist group who, according to the Pakistani police have “close ties with Al Qaeda”, was once headed by the “mastermind” of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
So Mr Standing, let me get this straight, if I were to give money and weapons to this group with who are connected with Al Qaeda, an organisation which my country is fighting against, our security services would view this as helping the war effort and an act of patriotism would they ?
McLEAN, Va. (AP) — Textbooks at a private Islamic school in northern Virginia teach students that it is permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam, according to a federal investigation released Wednesday.
Other passages in the school’s textbooks state that “the Jews conspired against Islam and its people” and that Muslims are permitted to take the lives and property of those deemed “polytheists.”
tantum religio potuit suadere malorum. – Lucretius
This man endangered his childs life and caused severe brain damage, lifelong disability to it. AND HE IS STILL NOT IN JAIL? This man is instead free running around trying to make money out of the suffering of his child that he caused himself out of his psychopatic fanaticism?
The Jundallah came into existence after the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, so I don’t see how he ‘headed’ it. The only sources I found claiming he did were 9/11 troof sites, which based their stories on Alex Jones’ junk news sites.
The al-Qa’eda links are highly disputed, and one of the key sources relied upon for making this connection (Alexis Debat) has since been exposed for a number of instances of fabricating interviews. Hardly a knock down case.
On the question of the wisdom of using extremists as a proxy army against other extremists, that’s a legitimate debate. However, I know exactly what you’re doing here, i.e. attempting to create spurious links between the CIA and al-Qa’eda so you can then go on to make your idiotic claims about ‘false flag terror’ and ‘inside jobs’.
Stop trying to be clever. It isn’t working, because we know the ignorance and lies you subscribe to regarding 9/11, and the conspiracy kook that you really are.
“Many of those involved in the recent terrorist attacks in the city received training in camps in Waziristan,” says Tariq Jamil, chief of the Karachi police. “Jundullah has close ties with Al-Qaeda.”
“Jundullah was allegedly headed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al-Qaeda operational commander of the September 11 terrorist attack in the US. He was arrested in Pakistan early last year.”
It is dis-heartnening to see a piece of tranparent propaganda (“Cowboys and Palestindians: what the Kaiser thought about Israel”) appear on the Butterflies and Wheels website. The trouble begins when the the author forgets to mention the decades long campaign in which land was bought from Arabs before the creation of the State of Israel; he forgets the anti-Jewish riots; he forgets the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the east Jerusalem, where they had lived for centuries. The popular but odd claim that Jerusalem is the “third holiest city” for Islam (something like saying “the third most important political party in the US Senate”) morphs into the truly bizzare claim that the Dome of the Rock is Islam’s “third holiest site”. I wonder which of the top contenders has been knocked off the list – Mecca or Medinah? Enough “mere” errors and ommisions of facts. Forgetting for a moment “Gardiner”s anti-israel polemic (and there is much more to say about it), just consider the grand historical thesis he borrows from the good Kaiser. If you are well acquainted with the history of any part of the inhabitted world, just ask yourself – is the thesis actually true? Oops – it is exactly the kind of unsupportable clap-trap that the tough-minded and skeptical “Butterlies and Wheels” is supposed to be exposing. As for “Gardiner”s policy suggetion for Israel, it seems to amount to this: “Put down your guns and let good-old-fashioned mideastern hospitality set in.” I have invented an expression to describe such suggestions: “catastrophically utopian” “Gardiner”s remarkable naivite may sound ethically high-minded, but if any Israeli leader were ever took it seriously, the erosion of Israeli deterrence would quickly invite a level of conflict and bloodshed that would make the intifada Al Aqsa look like child’s play.
“In the news recently, a bus driver who was a convert stopped his bus and ordered the passengers off so that he could lay his mat out and pray. Passengers saw his rucksack and refused to get back on – and who could blame them? He should have been sacked.”
The story has , like so many others, proven to a fabrication. But who cares about facts if they can be used to demonise Muslims?
Urban legends are not necessary fabrications and the one about the bus driver is so popular because it could be true. Nobody needs to “demonise” Muslims, their religious leaders, “moderate” (like Ishanoglu of the OIC or T.Ramadan) or more radical do the best to paint a picture of Islam as beeing a club of intolerant fanatic enemies of democracy and freedom.
Btw. what do you know about “urban myths” in the Middle East? Turns out many people there believe earnestly that the Jews put the blood of Muslim babies in their Matzos. The priorities you set (bemoaning so called “islamophobia” in the most liberal and tolerant societies of the world) reveal your real agenda: shielding Islamic oppressive cultural practices from criticism, however modest that may be.
Iranian women’s rights activist sentenced to five years in prison
The lawyer of an Iranian women’s rights activist says his client was convicted on security-related charges and sentenced to five years in prison.
Mohammad Sharif described the verdict for his client, 22-year-old women’s rights activist Hana Abdi, as harsh. He told The Associated Press Saturday that her prison was also very remote.
Abdi has been in detention since November for advocating for greater freedoms for Iran’s women. In Iran women need a male guardian’s permission to work or travel. However they can drive, vote and run for office.
In the past three years, Iranian authorities have detained many women who fought for equal rights with men on similar charges.
hi my name is sarah vincent, i am the daughter of teresa vincent. my mum was at golden bridge and had told me everything that went on in there, my mum has had a terrible life because of what happened in there, she is 6 stone in weight and is a very nervous lady, please could you give me any more information on this as you may know my mum. her name then was teresa shannon. please email me or phone me on 07969103470 i live in england.
Islamic Tolerance in the New Afghanistan: Journalist who wrote an interpretation of the Koran
Karachi, 23 June (AKI) — An Afghan journalist accused of distributing an unacceptable translation of the Koran should be put to death, says former Prime Minister Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai. Former journalist Ghows Zalmay, who was also the spokesman for Afghanistan’s Attorney-General, was arrested in November last year for distributing a translation of the Koran into Dari, one of Afghanistan’s two official languages. Ahmadzai, who ran in the 2004 presidential election against current President Hamid Karzai, told Adnkronos International (AKI) he supported the death penalty for Zalmay. “Today Afghanistan is full of vices. Several Afghan restaurants serve liquor, despite it being illegal and on top of it, such material is distributed,” Ahmadzai told AKI. “I am in favour of his death.”
Ghows, 50, is reportedy in jail after being accused of blasphemy and his lawyers say he risks the death penalty. He is expected to face charges in an Afghan court within the next week. “This is all an American conspiracy to deviate Afghans from their faith,” said Al-Hajj Farooq Hussaini, […]
Hussaini also referred to the case of Abdul Rahman, an Afghan Christian convert who was granted asylum in Italy in 2006. Rahman escaped a possible death sentence in Afghanistan for becoming a Christian. “Earlier they protected Abdul Rahman who left Islam and converted to Christianity and now they are encouraging the distribution of the fake translations of Koran,” said Hussaini who is also the leader of a group led by Ismail Khan, Afghanistan’s Energy Minister.
>Iranian women’s rights activist sentenced to five years in prison<
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in Persian, Arabic, English, French or your own language:
– expressing concern that Hana Abdi has been sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, and urging the authorities to release her and Ronak Safarzadeh immediately and unconditionally, as they are prisoners of conscience, detained solely for their peaceful activities in support of equal rights for women in Iran;
– calling on the authorities to order an investigation into reports that Ronak Safarzadeh and Hana Abdi were tortured or otherwise ill-treated, and bring those responsible to justice.
APPEALS TO:
Head of the Judiciary
His Excellency Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi
Howzeh Riyasat-e Qoveh Qazaiyeh / Office of the Head of the Judiciary
Pasteur St., Vali Asr Ave., south of Serah-e Jomhouri, Tehran 1316814737, Islamic Republic of Iran
Sarah, thank you very much for your comment on this site. I am so inordinately sorry to hear that your mother (who was presumably by the court system, incarcerated in Goldenbridge) is not in the best of health. It is albeit
so unreservedly explicable, given the past life she, invariably, would have endured at the hands of the Sisters of (no) Mercy, in that (horrendous, god –forsaken, unspeakable industrial school in Inchicore, Dublin, Ireland. Alas, a gargantuan amount of ex-inmates lives either has by ill health/mental affliction other innumerable unnecessary factors been shortened or has been irreparably damaged because of the cruel system that prevailed in that child labour camp (and other gulags of its ilk.) I shall presently contact you at the e-mail address you have given. There is a centre in London, called SOCA, which deals distinctively with victims/survivors of past institutional child abuse in Ireland. Aislinn Cente, Jervis St, Dublin also entertains many people who were in St Vincent’s, Goldenbridge. There could be some attendees who go there = who may know of your mother, Teresa. All the best!
Regarding “More Comedy from the West Midlands Police” the following is an extract from an article by Michele Hanson in The Guardian today (3rd June):
“Two American Christian preachers have been told off by a community police officer for preaching in a Muslim area of Birmingham. Good. If only preachers were banned everywhere. The Jews don’t try to convert anyone. They are not at all keen on converts, so perhaps preachers should take a leaf out of their book, because no one likes to be told that their beliefs are rubbish and someone else’s are better. Is there anything more annoying than people coming to your street or your house uninvited and pushing their ideas down your throat? I was trained from an early age to detest it. My father would open the door and my mother would throw tennis balls at them from behind him – an unconventional but effective response.
The two rejected Birmingham preachers have been moaning about human rights and their freedom of expression, but preaching and American missionary-style “spreading God’s word” is more about bossing than expressing. They’re convinced they’re right. But does anyone dare tell them off? Off they go, all over the world, come across a culture that’s minding its own business, with its own perfectly adequate belief system, and insist on imposing their own ideas. What a cheek. Who am I to criticize? I must practice what I preach. So believe what you like, everyone, but leave the rest of us alone. We can make our own minds up.”
Well at least the Muslim policeman who harassed the preachers was acting in accordance with his beliefs. Michele Hanson is just rationaling her cowardice. (Her article is closer to Doublethink than to Hypocrisy).
When push comes to shove who is likely to fight against the imposition of an Islamic brand of fascism – Guardian journalists or American Evangelicals?
Fraser,
You believe WTC 1,2 and 7 were destroyed in a controlled demolition. You probably believe a lot more than that. No plane at the Pentagon? Flight 93 shot down? Passengers’ phone calls faked?
Blah blah blah.
It’s all CRAP, and articles about the CIA strategically using Islamists against other Islamists does nothing to support your pseudo-scientific cultic beliefs about 9/11.
Firstly I would like to complement Robert Nola on a clear and provocative treatment of the relation between religion and the notion of respect (2003). Secondly, I wonder whether he would agree that of his six types of respect only the first three can legitimately be demanded of others in a liberal society and hence that demands for any of the last three are illegitimate.
I forgot to mention that Jundullah,the Iranian/Pakistani terrorist group who, according to the Pakistani police have “close ties with Al Qaeda”, was once headed by the “mastermind” of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
So Mr Standing, let me get this straight, if I were to give money and weapons to this group with who are connected with Al Qaeda, an organisation which my country is fighting against, our security services would view this as helping the war effort and an act of patriotism would they ?
US&education
McLEAN, Va. (AP) — Textbooks at a private Islamic school in northern Virginia teach students that it is permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam, according to a federal investigation released Wednesday.
Other passages in the school’s textbooks state that “the Jews conspired against Islam and its people” and that Muslims are permitted to take the lives and property of those deemed “polytheists.”
at :
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5igZiBbZdKa9Gvx8uwXlsIOxoBQ5wD91859CG0
->Religious Scruple Causes Neurological Damage
tantum religio potuit suadere malorum. – Lucretius
This man endangered his childs life and caused severe brain damage, lifelong disability to it. AND HE IS STILL NOT IN JAIL? This man is instead free running around trying to make money out of the suffering of his child that he caused himself out of his psychopatic fanaticism?
Fraser,
The Jundallah came into existence after the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, so I don’t see how he ‘headed’ it. The only sources I found claiming he did were 9/11 troof sites, which based their stories on Alex Jones’ junk news sites.
The al-Qa’eda links are highly disputed, and one of the key sources relied upon for making this connection (Alexis Debat) has since been exposed for a number of instances of fabricating interviews. Hardly a knock down case.
On the question of the wisdom of using extremists as a proxy army against other extremists, that’s a legitimate debate. However, I know exactly what you’re doing here, i.e. attempting to create spurious links between the CIA and al-Qa’eda so you can then go on to make your idiotic claims about ‘false flag terror’ and ‘inside jobs’.
Stop trying to be clever. It isn’t working, because we know the ignorance and lies you subscribe to regarding 9/11, and the conspiracy kook that you really are.
“The al-Qa’eda links are highly disputed…”
Really? So are the Pakistani Police just lying ?
“Many of those involved in the recent terrorist attacks in the city received training in camps in Waziristan,” says Tariq Jamil, chief of the Karachi police. “Jundullah has close ties with Al-Qaeda.”
(Newsline)
http://www.newsline.com.pk/NewsAug2004/cover1Aug2004.htm
Al-Qaeda’s New Face
“Jundullah was allegedly headed by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the al-Qaeda operational commander of the September 11 terrorist attack in the US. He was arrested in Pakistan early last year.”
(Asia Times)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FG20Df05.html
Asia Times Online – The best news coverage from South Asia
It is dis-heartnening to see a piece of tranparent propaganda (“Cowboys and Palestindians: what the Kaiser thought about Israel”) appear on the Butterflies and Wheels website. The trouble begins when the the author forgets to mention the decades long campaign in which land was bought from Arabs before the creation of the State of Israel; he forgets the anti-Jewish riots; he forgets the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the east Jerusalem, where they had lived for centuries. The popular but odd claim that Jerusalem is the “third holiest city” for Islam (something like saying “the third most important political party in the US Senate”) morphs into the truly bizzare claim that the Dome of the Rock is Islam’s “third holiest site”. I wonder which of the top contenders has been knocked off the list – Mecca or Medinah? Enough “mere” errors and ommisions of facts. Forgetting for a moment “Gardiner”s anti-israel polemic (and there is much more to say about it), just consider the grand historical thesis he borrows from the good Kaiser. If you are well acquainted with the history of any part of the inhabitted world, just ask yourself – is the thesis actually true? Oops – it is exactly the kind of unsupportable clap-trap that the tough-minded and skeptical “Butterlies and Wheels” is supposed to be exposing. As for “Gardiner”s policy suggetion for Israel, it seems to amount to this: “Put down your guns and let good-old-fashioned mideastern hospitality set in.” I have invented an expression to describe such suggestions: “catastrophically utopian” “Gardiner”s remarkable naivite may sound ethically high-minded, but if any Israeli leader were ever took it seriously, the erosion of Israeli deterrence would quickly invite a level of conflict and bloodshed that would make the intifada Al Aqsa look like child’s play.
>the Dome of the Rock is Islam’s “third >holiest site”
and the Great mosque (mezquita) of Cordoba is the 4th.
Anyone else who thinks that 500 years of occupation of Constantinople by the Muslims Turks is more than enough ?
The Sancta Sophia (desecrated and made mosque after the Muslim conquest) is 2nd holiest site of Christianity.
Gina Khan
“In the news recently, a bus driver who was a convert stopped his bus and ordered the passengers off so that he could lay his mat out and pray. Passengers saw his rucksack and refused to get back on – and who could blame them? He should have been sacked.”
The story has , like so many others, proven to a fabrication. But who cares about facts if they can be used to demonise Muslims?
http://5cc.blogspot.com/2008/04/urban-myths-and-muslim-bus-drivers.html
http://www.thisisslough.com/live/stories/story.php?story_id=3297
Urban legends are not necessary fabrications and the one about the bus driver is so popular because it could be true. Nobody needs to “demonise” Muslims, their religious leaders, “moderate” (like Ishanoglu of the OIC or T.Ramadan) or more radical do the best to paint a picture of Islam as beeing a club of intolerant fanatic enemies of democracy and freedom.
Btw. what do you know about “urban myths” in the Middle East? Turns out many people there believe earnestly that the Jews put the blood of Muslim babies in their Matzos. The priorities you set (bemoaning so called “islamophobia” in the most liberal and tolerant societies of the world) reveal your real agenda: shielding Islamic oppressive cultural practices from criticism, however modest that may be.
Iranian women’s rights activist sentenced to five years in prison
The lawyer of an Iranian women’s rights activist says his client was convicted on security-related charges and sentenced to five years in prison.
Mohammad Sharif described the verdict for his client, 22-year-old women’s rights activist Hana Abdi, as harsh. He told The Associated Press Saturday that her prison was also very remote.
Abdi has been in detention since November for advocating for greater freedoms for Iran’s women. In Iran women need a male guardian’s permission to work or travel. However they can drive, vote and run for office.
In the past three years, Iranian authorities have detained many women who fought for equal rights with men on similar charges.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1213794294935&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
hi my name is sarah vincent, i am the daughter of teresa vincent. my mum was at golden bridge and had told me everything that went on in there, my mum has had a terrible life because of what happened in there, she is 6 stone in weight and is a very nervous lady, please could you give me any more information on this as you may know my mum. her name then was teresa shannon. please email me or phone me on 07969103470 i live in england.
Islamic Tolerance in the New Afghanistan: Journalist who wrote an interpretation of the Koran
Karachi, 23 June (AKI) — An Afghan journalist accused of distributing an unacceptable translation of the Koran should be put to death, says former Prime Minister Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai. Former journalist Ghows Zalmay, who was also the spokesman for Afghanistan’s Attorney-General, was arrested in November last year for distributing a translation of the Koran into Dari, one of Afghanistan’s two official languages. Ahmadzai, who ran in the 2004 presidential election against current President Hamid Karzai, told Adnkronos International (AKI) he supported the death penalty for Zalmay. “Today Afghanistan is full of vices. Several Afghan restaurants serve liquor, despite it being illegal and on top of it, such material is distributed,” Ahmadzai told AKI. “I am in favour of his death.”
Ghows, 50, is reportedy in jail after being accused of blasphemy and his lawyers say he risks the death penalty. He is expected to face charges in an Afghan court within the next week. “This is all an American conspiracy to deviate Afghans from their faith,” said Al-Hajj Farooq Hussaini, […]
Hussaini also referred to the case of Abdul Rahman, an Afghan Christian convert who was granted asylum in Italy in 2006. Rahman escaped a possible death sentence in Afghanistan for becoming a Christian. “Earlier they protected Abdul Rahman who left Islam and converted to Christianity and now they are encouraging the distribution of the fake translations of Koran,” said Hussaini who is also the leader of a group led by Ismail Khan, Afghanistan’s Energy Minister.
see http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/
>Iranian women’s rights activist sentenced to five years in prison< RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible, in Persian, Arabic, English, French or your own language:
– expressing concern that Hana Abdi has been sentenced to five years’ imprisonment, and urging the authorities to release her and Ronak Safarzadeh immediately and unconditionally, as they are prisoners of conscience, detained solely for their peaceful activities in support of equal rights for women in Iran;
– calling on the authorities to order an investigation into reports that Ronak Safarzadeh and Hana Abdi were tortured or otherwise ill-treated, and bring those responsible to justice.
APPEALS TO:
Head of the Judiciary
His Excellency Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi
Howzeh Riyasat-e Qoveh Qazaiyeh / Office of the Head of the Judiciary
Pasteur St., Vali Asr Ave., south of Serah-e Jomhouri, Tehran 1316814737, Islamic Republic of Iran
Email: info@dadgostary-tehran.ir (In the subject line write: FAO Ayatollah Shahroudi)
Salutation: Your Excellency
Governor of Kordestan Province
Esmail Najjar
Email: In Persian and Kurdish, send via feedback form on the website:
http://www.ostan-kd.ir/Default.aspx?tabId=150&cv=4@0_1
In English, French or other languages, use the feedback form on the website:
http://en.ostan-kd.ir/Default.aspx?TabID=59
Salutation: Dear Governor
COPIES TO:
President
His Excellency Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The Presidency
Palestine Avenue, Azerbaijan Intersection
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: + 98 21 6 649 5880
Email: dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir
via website: http://www.president.ir/email/
Director, Human Rights Headquarters of Iran
His Excellency Mohammad Javad Larijani
C/o Office of the Deputy for International Affairs
Ministry of Justice,
Ministry of Justice Building, Panzdah-Khordad (Ark) Square,
Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
and to diplomatic representatives of Iran accredited to your country.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY. Check with the International Secretariat, or your section office, if sending appeals after 1 August 2008.
Re: Goldenbridge Industrial School
Sarah, thank you very much for your comment on this site. I am so inordinately sorry to hear that your mother (who was presumably by the court system, incarcerated in Goldenbridge) is not in the best of health. It is albeit
so unreservedly explicable, given the past life she, invariably, would have endured at the hands of the Sisters of (no) Mercy, in that (horrendous, god –forsaken, unspeakable industrial school in Inchicore, Dublin, Ireland. Alas, a gargantuan amount of ex-inmates lives either has by ill health/mental affliction other innumerable unnecessary factors been shortened or has been irreparably damaged because of the cruel system that prevailed in that child labour camp (and other gulags of its ilk.) I shall presently contact you at the e-mail address you have given. There is a centre in London, called SOCA, which deals distinctively with victims/survivors of past institutional child abuse in Ireland. Aislinn Cente, Jervis St, Dublin also entertains many people who were in St Vincent’s, Goldenbridge. There could be some attendees who go there = who may know of your mother, Teresa. All the best!