ISLAMABAD: The Taliban has vowed a nationwide campaign of terrorism targeting candidates and voters in Saturday’s general election in Pakistan. Continue reading
Category Archives: Protestors
Pakistan: We don’t need no stinking democracy!
Bangladesh: Islamists demand the right to intolerance
AT least 22 people were killed as Bangladeshi police fought pitch battles with tens of thousands of hardline Islamists in the capital Dhaka. Continue reading
US: Irony alert: when a young woman warns her church that it’s driving young people away…
…the church drives her away. Continue reading
Israel: Women with gall in shawl Wall brawl
A long-running battle over worship at the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest shrine, has been rejoined as Israeli police arrested five Jewish women who wore prayer shawls at a morning service, contrary to Orthodox practice enforced at the site. Continue reading
UK: Those who can’t do, teach…
Those who can’t teach write the manuals.
Those who can’t write do performance art. Continue reading
Bulgaria: Green energy costs bring down government
Protests against high electricity bills and poverty toppled the government of Boyko Borissov on Feb. 20. Now Bulgaria may suspend as much as 40 percent of wind and solar power capacity as part of its effort to stem oversupply and stabilize electricity generation. Continue reading
UK: It’s a win-win situation!
For greenies; a lose-lose situation for everyone else, when environmentalists litigate against the results of the government doing what the environmentalists told them to do in the first place. Continue reading
Indonesia: Government condones rising religious mania
Indonesia has experienced a “sharp uptick” in religiously motivated violence, with Islamic gangs regularly attacking Christian churches as well as “deviant sects” of their own faith, a strongly worded new report has warned. Continue reading
UK: Ooo-er! Actions have consequences!
Who would have thought it?
Climate change protesters who staged a seven day sit-in at a Nottinghamshire power station claim they are being sued for about £5m by the facility’s owners.
The 21 campaigners from No Dash for Gas admitted aggravated trespass at the West Burton plant at Mansfield Magistrates’ Court, on Wednesday.
EDF Energy confirmed the action and said damages and costs were “in the region” of the figure that is claimed.
Nice to see the rent-a-crowd mob finally being held responsible for their behaviour.
Mali: Life under fundamentalist Islam
It’s no bed of roses.
The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, which seized Gao in the chaotic aftermath of a March 22 military coup, ruled it for months with a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law… Continue reading
US: Environmentalists go rogue!
Does that mean we can shoot them now?
After 120 years of advocating on behalf of nature, one of the the nation’s largest and oldest environmental organizations—The Sierra Club—has at last decided to end its refusal to participate in acts of civil disobedience.
In a letter to the group’s membership, which numbers over one million, executive director of Sierra Club, Michael Brune, announced: “For 120 years, we have remained committed to using every ‘lawful means’ to achieve our objectives. Now, for the first time in our history, we are prepared to go further.”
What spawned the decision? As Brune explained—and recognizing that many will comment “what took you so long?”—the change in direction was spurred by recognizing “the possibility that the United States might surrender any hope of stabilizing our planet’s climate”.
Translation: Just quietly expecting the impossible doesn’t get us enough attention. We need to demand it.
Solomon Islands: Hand over the cash, or the dolphins get it!
No, really.
…Ulrich Eichelmann who was an active member of WWF for 17 years and worked in conservation for decades, now documents that it is rather the reverse: he shows how many ecosystems, species, habitats and the cultural heritage too are threatened – but, as he sums up, “not by climate change, but by climate protection and the things done in its name.”…
Villagers in the Solomon Islands have slaughtered up to 900 dolphins in the course of a dispute with a conservation group, Earth Island Institute…
The islanders’ account, which was aired by Australian broadcasting, accused the conservation group of failing to live up to a deal to pay up to $400,000 to people in the village of Fanalei, to stop the dolphin hunt. The villagers said they received barely a third of the promised funds before the money dried up.
And now the dolphins are sleeping with the fishes. Another tragedy, brought to you by Green lies and hypocrisy.
Kuwait: Theocracy sentences two to jail for insulting emir
A Kuwaiti court sentenced a man to two years in prison on Monday for insulting the country’s ruler on Twitter, his lawyer said, the second person to be jailed for the offence in as many days.
The Gulf state has clamped down in recent months on political activists who have been using social media websites to criticise the government and the ruling family.
Qatar: If your government is like Qatar’s…
…Don’t look for a change in the stars,
And suggest that a Spring
Is a beautiful thing;
Or you may spend your life behind bars.
A Qatari poet has been sentenced to life in prison for an Arab Spring-inspired verse that officials claim insulted Qatar’s emir and encouraged the overthrow of the country’s ruling system, his defence lawyer said.
It was the latest blow from a widening clampdown on perceived dissent across the Persian Gulf Arab states.
The verdict in a state security court is certain to bring a fresh outpouring of denunciations by rights groups, that have repeatedly called for the release of poet, Muhammad ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami.
Australia: Police detain two after threat against mosque
Two suspected Islamic extremists have been arrested after threatening a mosque in Sydney’s south, witnesses say.
Police said two men are in custody after they conducted an operation in Arncliffe in Sydney’s south on Sunday.
They were unable to immediately provide more details or confirm reports on Twitter of a bomb threat.
Jamal Daoud, of the Social Justice Network, said he was contacted by a member of the Muslim community who said two Wahibi extremists had threatened Shia Muslims gathered to observe the day of Ashura at the Masjid Fatima Al Zahrah mosque.
“And the red ones hate the green ones,
And the green ones hate the yellow ones,
And they all live in little boxes,
Little boxes in their minds…”
Iran: Blogger tortured to death for Facebook comments
Iran has been accused of torturing to death a blogger who was arrested last week for criticising the Islamic republic on Facebook.
Iran’s cyber-police, known as Fata, picked up Sattar Beheshti from his home in Robat-Karim last week on suspicion of “acting against the national security” because of his online activities on social networking sites. He was then taken to Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.
Beheshti’s family heard no news of him until Wednesday, when they were phoned by prison officials asking them to collect his dead body from the Kahrizak coroner’s office. The opposition has accused Iranian officials of torturing the 35-year-old blogger to death.
How many times does it have to be said? ’Militant’ atheists are rude about the Pope: militant theists kill people.
Syria: Factions agree — a ‘holy day’ is a great time to kill somebody
A car bomb, shelling and gun battles marred a tenuous truce that went into effect in Syria on Friday, calling into question whether a four-day holiday ceasefire brokered by the United Nations can endure.
The day started out more calmly than usual, suggesting that both the government and the rebels were making at least some effort to keep their promises to give Syrians a respite from the relentless violence engulfing the country for the duration of the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday….
…by nightfall, the reports of violence began piling up, casting doubt on whether either side was serious about observing a ceasefire that might have heralded hope for a political solution.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 70 deaths, a figure lower than the typical daily average of 150 but nonetheless far from encouraging.
Update: Iraqis concur, with 13 dead.
UK: What are YOUR ‘limits to freedom’?
How about MY carefully-nurtured sense of outrage?
A protest by 10,000 Muslims outside the offices of Google in London today is just the first in an orchestrated attempt to force the company to remove an anti-Islamic film from website YouTube in Britain.
Thousands had travelled from as far afield as Glasgow to take part in the demonstration, ahead of a planned million-strong march in Hyde Park in coming weeks….
Organiser Masoud Alam said: “Our next protest will be at the offices of Google and YouTube across the world. We are looking to ban this film….
“This is not freedom of expression, there is a limit for that. This insult of the Prophet will not be allowed.”
‘Will not be allowed.’ No room for moral relativity there, then.
Egypt: THIS is why Islam can’t have nice things
A mob of about 30 men has turned “crazy” and groped and robbed a French television journalist near Tahrir Square in Cairo, in the latest case of violence against women at the epicentre of Egypt’s protests.
France 24 news station said in a statement that Sonia Dridi was attacked about 10:30pm on Friday after a live broadcast on a protest at the square and was later rescued by a colleague and other witnesses.
The station said its employees were safe and sound, though “extremely shocked”.
Singapore: Hey, it’s a festival! Let’s kill some sheep!
God actually prefers it this way, but the US banned live coyote exports in 1973
MORE than 2000 Australian sheep will be ritually slaughtered in Singaporean mosques in the coming weeks, enraging animal-rights activists who say the ritual killing inevitably leads to animal cruelty.
The animals are being shipped to Singapore for the annual Korban, this year on October 26, when sheep are ritually killed with a portion given to the poor.
Eighteen “temporary facilities” have been approved at mosques by the Australian government following the introduction of strict animal-welfare rules, known as ESCAS, for all live exports. The rules, which require the exporter to guarantee animal welfare standards from farm to slaughter, were established after Australian cattle were slaughtered inhumanely in Indonesia last year.
Animals Australia lead campaigner Lyn White said she was shocked to learn slaughter in mosques had been granted.
“If cutting the throat of a fully conscious, terrified sheep in a mosque meets ESCAS standards, then clearly these standards in no way provide a level of care that the Australian community would deem to be acceptable,” Ms White told The Age.
What kind of God gets off on watching people kill sheep, anyway?
Pakistan: How to win friends and influence people
An attempt by the Taliban to kill a 14-year old girl, famous for speaking out against the Islamic militants and their attacks on girls’ education, has triggered a wave of national revulsion in Pakistan.
Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck while she sat with classmates on a school bus as it prepared to drive students home after morning classes in Mingora, a city in the Swat Valley where major operations were conducted in 2009 to crush a Taliban insurgency. She was taken to hospital before being whisked by military helicopter to an intensive care ward in the city of Peshawar.
Police said a bearded man approached the bus and asked which of the girls was Malala. When one of the other girls pointed at her she denied who she was. The gunman then shot both girls, although police say a total of three people were wounded….
Murtaza Salangi, the director of Pakistan Radio, said people were “standing up to be counted as if this was their own daughter … I think it is a watershed moment because the outpouring of sympathy and support for this young girl is just unprecedented. She could be a rallying poster for people who think that extremism and terrorism is the biggest challenge, even an existential challenge, for this country.”
Killing people, throwing acid, setting off bombs in public places, that was just high spirits. Shooting a fourteen-year-old girl in the head, however…
Tunisia: Arab Spring or winter of discontent?
Hundreds of women staged an angry protest outside the main courthouse in Tunis as a hearing began into whether a young couple who have lodged a rape claim against police should face charges of ”immorality” in a public place.
About 400 people demonstrated, furious that a charge had been introduced against the 27-year-old woman and her boyfriend. Two police officers are accused of raping the woman over a period of more than an hour on September 3 after surprising the couple in a parked car in a suburb of the capital.
The woman has recounted in media interviews how she had been in the driving seat, her boyfriend beside her, when three police officers approached. After threatening the couple with possible long prison terms if charged with ”immorality”, one of the police officers handcuffed the boyfriend and took him off to an ATM to extract 300 dinars ($190) from him. The two others allegedly took the woman into the back of their car and took turns to rape her.
A rape investigation was launched and the police officers allegedly involved are under arrest. But to the disgust of many Tunisians, the pre-trial magistrate looking at the case was given the go-ahead to launch a parallel investigation into whether the couple should face an ”immorality” charge – punishable by up to six months in prison.
via SMH
Achmed and Fatima, sitting in a tree…
Lock them up and throw away the key!
Bangladesh: Muslim protesters burn Buddhist temples
A reason? Who needs a reason? Oh, that’s right — they were ‘offended’.
Hundreds of Muslims in Bangladesh burned at least four Buddhist temples and 15 homes of Buddhists on Sunday after complaining that a Buddhist man had insulted Islam, police and residents said.
Members of the Buddhist minority in the Cox’s Bazar area in the southeast of the country said unidentified people were bent on upsetting peaceful relations between Muslims and Buddhists.
Muslims took to the streets in the area late on Saturday to protest against what they said was a photograph posted on Facebook that insulted Islam.
The protesters said the picture had been posted by a Buddhist and they marched to Buddhist villages and set fire to temples and houses.
US: Fractured logic from environmentalists — or should that be ‘fracked’?
In their desperation to block Gov. Cuomo from giving the okay for fracking in New York, die-hard opponents of the natural gas drilling technology are floating laugh-out-loud-funny health and environmental threats.
Most hilariously, the enviro-activists have demanded that state officials explore an alleged link between fracking and — we kid you not — syphilis.
They argue that a drilling boom would draw an influx of male workers from other states who would engage in activities of a kind that would spread sexually transmitted diseases.
They also contend that a boom would trigger a housing crunch, adding to homelessness and the health ailments that go along with it.
And that increased truck traffic would not only lead to more road fatalities, but would also — again, no kidding — discourage people from getting the outdoor exercise they need to stay fit.
“It makes the milk go sour! And newborn calves have two heads!”
If this kind of nonsense came from a right-wing source it would appear in all the papers as proof of how selfish and out-of-touch those wicked conservatives are: coming from environmentalists, alas, it’s merely business as usual.
Afghanistan: Suicide bomber kills 14
A suicide bomber killed 14 people on Tuesday, including 10 foreigners, most of whom worked as flight crew members under contract with the United States government, officials said. The attack brought to at least 28 the number of deaths attributed to unrest sweeping the Muslim world as a result of a video parodying the Prophet Muhammad.
Australia: What’s it all about, Aly?
Are moderate Muslims finally starting to repudiate the lunatic fringe?
…This is the behaviour of a drunkenly humiliated people: swinging wildly with the hope of landing a blow, any blow, somewhere, anywhere. There’s nothing strategic or calculated about this. It doesn’t matter that they are the film’s most effective publicists. It doesn’t matter that they protest using offensive slogans and signs, while protesting against people’s right to offend. It doesn’t matter that they object to insulting people on the basis of their religion, while declaring that Christians have no morals. This is baffling only until you realise these protesters are not truly protesting to make a point. The protest is the point.
Read the whole thing — it’s excellent.
Australia: Comment is superfluous, surely
“And what did YOU do on the weekend, Fatima?”
Tunisia: Intolerance, thy name is Islam
Muslim hardliners known as Salafists have attacked a hotel in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid because its bar still served alcohol, reports say.
Dozens of activists smashed bottles and chased away customers at the Horchani hotel, news agencies reported.
There’s your opinions, and then there’s God’s opinions… and somehow they always coincide.
Pakistan: Christians flee after mentally disabled girl charged with blasphemy
As many as 600 Christians have fled their colony bordering the capital, fearing for their lives, officials said, after a mob last week called for [a Christian] child to be burned to death as a blasphemer.
The girl, who authorities have described as mentally challenged, sits in jail in Rawalpindi, charged by police with blasphemy, while her family has been put in federal protective custody. The evidence against her is muddled at best, but police said they arrested her in part to assuage the mob and also because they knew she would be safer in jail.
“The one who burned the Koran should be burned,” said Shaukhat Ali, an assistant at the local mosque, expressing a sentiment shared by many Muslims in the community.
Sorry, who is it that ought to be in jail again?
Update 2012/09/02: One of the girl’s accusers has been arrested for fabricating evidence. What a lovely lot of people these believers are!
Update 2012/09/05: Some good news — an Islamic cleric has come out in support of the accused girl.
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