There is to be a demonstration for calling for protection of the Pahari people and peace in Chittagong Hill Tracts on Sunday 28 February.
On Saturday 20th February, an outbreak of violence against the Jumma people of Khagrachari in Rangamati caused the deaths of 4 people, hundreds of homes torched, destruction of a temple and a church, and many dozens still missing.The random violence against the Pahari people has continued unabated.
The oppression of the Chakma and Pahari peoples has been going on for decades and incidents of this kind form part of a long-standing conflict.
We urge the end to the attacks and violence against the Paharis in Bangladesh.
Please come and show your support and solidarity for the Jumma people in Bangladesh.
Islam4UK have been road trippin’ for a ‘dawah’ (proselytising) mission around the UK. Latest destination: Tooting Broadway, London. Date: 20 June 2009.
Islam4UK is an odious organisation headed by Anjem Choudary, the new head of the-should-be-banned-extremist-outfit al-Muhajiroun. Islam4UK’s followers – who have been dubiously re-named as the Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jama’aah (ASWJ), lit. meaning ‘Adherents to the Sunnah and Community’ (a vague term) – propagated ‘the Deen [religion] of al-Islam to the local community’ in Tooting, and provided an ‘illuminating foretaste of how Britain would transform under the Shari’ah [Law].’
Don’t be fooled. These aren’t just a bunch of guys literally trying to follow in the footsteps of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed’s example (Sunnah), but manipulate the term to create front organisations and generally act as thugs while doing their so-called ‘dawah’ (more like distorting the Prophet’s example) work.
Hizb ut-Tahrir, the global Islamist revolutionary group founded by an Islamo-Stalinist and famed for its incessant calls for Khilafah (Caliphate), appears to have gone public in the United States. Whereas HT had previously operated in America only from behind aliases and front groups, now it is operating openly and in its own name. As Shikwa has explained here before, this is a development which should concern all Americans.
It will be held on Sunday, 19th July at Aqsa School, a private co-educational Islamic school in Bridgeview, Illinois which has only 301 students; HT America is clearly not expecting the kind of attendance HT Indonesia managed to gather in 2007. Indeed, it looks like they’re expecting an exraordinarily pitiful number of attendees. That said, the fact that HT America feels confident enough to move into the open, rather than cowering in the shadows, is a depressing development.
Map of election results and return data *IranTracker
This via IranTracker: Official results certainly seem to show an Ahmadinejad victory. The vote rigging accusation seems incidental despite the pleas of Ayatollah Khamenie. It is just one of a catalogue of recriminations and anger binding hundreds of thousands of Iranians into a mass passive insurgency against a brutal totalitarian theocratic government led by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Rafia Zakaria makes a profoundly necessary point about Obama’s “muslim speech” in Cairo. Not the content of it – that’s been done to death – but how muslim reactions to it throws particular Arab perceptions of Southasian issues into stark relief. In particular, this is a comment on how Arab muslims interpreted the parts of the speech that was directed at the Arab World to be of far greater import than the sections the President dedicted to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Given the reaction of some Arab commenters, you could well think Islam is all about the importance of being an Arab muslim. Unfortunately Arabs and Southasians are both guilty of promulgating this racist quackery.
While the speech itself was careful to include Pakistanis in the “Muslim” world, it was interesting to see the responses of several Middle Eastern anchors and commentators. Not only did many insist on focusing on the “Arab” portions of the American president’s speech but several insisted that the speech was in fact targeted exclusively to Middle Eastern Arabs.
I am sad to say that, from today, I will no longer be posting at the Spittoon. I’ve enjoyed being involved with the Spittoon from the beginning (all of five minutes ago) and I wish the blog and everyone involved with it the very best for the future.
Well, you may have noticed that the Friday Caption Competition has been running about as smoothly as the Iranian elections. Last week I simply forgot to run it, D’oh! The week before I left it in the seemingly capable hands of George who, er, ran the Friday competition on a Thursday. Double, D’oh!
I almost forgot today too. But, better late than never.
Ps, this week’s winner has already been predetermined: me.
The City Circle, a “moderate” Muslim group headed by Rabia Malik, sent out an email yesterday announcing that in July it will hold an event to celebrate the group’s 10 year anniversary. It says that:
The City Circle has been a unique experiment in creating an indigenous, independent and inclusive space for Muslim and non-Muslim communities to critically debate issues that concern them and to harness professionals’ skills back into helping local communities.
Independent? Really?
For the last two years, many of City Circle’s events have been quietly organised by and co-hosted with the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a Saudi-backed, US-based Islamist organisation that also has a branch in London. City Circle has not openly advertised this collaboration and the details of the eleven joint events held between the two organisations to date are only available on the website of the IIIT.
CST wholly denies the entirely unfounded allegations made by IHRC. The IHRC briefing is full of basic errors, distortions and misrepresentations that completely alter the meaning of the articles that it claims to analyse. It contains supposed quotes and arguments in CST articles that do not exist; and omits relevant context from the quotes and articles that it claims to analyse. Worst of all, however, the IHRC makes these claims in order to accuse CST and its staff of propagating Islamophobia, when nothing could be further from the truth.
A member of Muhajiroun trying to enforce segregation earlier today
Well, the debate between Douglas Murray and Anjem “Andy” Choudary was scheduled to take place tonight in Conway Hall, Holborn.
The whole thing was a set up. A press release from the Centre for Social Cohesion explains:
Al-Muhajiroun hijacked the debate, ‘Sharia law vs British law’, which was organised by a student society. Members of the radical organisation responsible for the Luton protests took over the debate: the SIA – licensed security guards were al-Muhajiroun and members of the group attempted to intimidate and segregate the audience…The security guards were members of al-Muhajiroun. The student society had neglected to mention that the event would be segregated. The society’s “independent chair” was involved in the assault. It soon became clear that the student society was, if not a front group for al-Muhajiroun, then at least Islamist-sympathisers hijacked by the extremist group.
