Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Chikuli fills development gaps with unity":
We visited Chikuli in July '09 and our heart goes out to these people. Not many white people pass through; some children chased after the car we were in, calling out:"Masungu!" (white people) as if we were ghosts! It was lovely to see them play simple games on the side of the road. We saw a treadle pump used for irrigation, and a dam being built by the women - 'Rachel' requested that we help with making a fish farm. We were greeted there with such warmth, and the memory lingers...
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Saturday, October 29, 2011
Print conversation Print Open conversation in new window New window Bulletin of Christian Persecution October 2 - October 28, 2011
October 2 - October 28, 2011
October 2, 2011
Java, Indonesia
The village chief in Mekargalih, along with members of the Islamic Defender Front, expeled Christians from their place of worship for allegedly engaging in "proselytizing" in a predominantly Muslim area. A Christian woman complains, "Police have no guts against this radical group."
October 6, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Last night, Safdar Masih was shot to death; others, including children, were injured. The local Church had bought some land to build an orphanage, but the local land mafia laid claim to it. Police refuses to open an investigation into the affair.
October 7, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A Christian Pakistani politician accused security forces on Friday, October 7, of refusing to detain Muslim fighters who allegedly shot dead one Christian and injured over 20 others in Pakistan's Punjab province.
The murdered Christian, identified as Sabir Masih, was gunned down and "two dozen Christians including children, men and women were seriously injured" when Muslims attacked Christians "to grab a piece of land bought for a social project."
Maldives
Shijo Kokkattu, an Indian Catholic from Kerala, has been languishing in a Maldives prison for more than a week because he had a Bible and a rosary at his home. Both items are banned on the archipelago.
Islam is state religion in the Maldives. There is no freedom of worship. In 2008, a constitutional amendment denied non-Muslims the right to obtain Maldivian citizenship.
Shijo, 30, has taught at Raafainu School on Raa Atoll for the past two years. Recently, whilst transferring some data from his pen drive to the school laptop, he accidentally copied Marian songs and a picture of Mother Mary into the system. Some teachers reported the matter to the police who raided his home and found a Bible and a rosary in his possession.
October 8, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Christians fear pressure from Muslims to obey Islamic law. On her first day to school, 15-year-old Christian student Ferial Habib was stopped at the doorstep of her new high school with clear instructions: either put on a headscarf or no school this year. Habib refused. While most Muslim women in Egypt wear the headscarf, Christians do not, and the move by administrators to force a Christian student to don it was unprecedented.
Recent attacks on churches in southern Egypt also illustrate the heat Christians are under. Under Mubarak-era rules, the building of a church or repairs for an existing one required permission from local authorities and the state security agency - a rule not applied to mosques. The rules sought to avoid outbursts of violence from Muslim hard-liners. Since permission was rarely given, Christians at times resorted to building churches in secret, often in parish guesthouses.
October 9, 2011
Egypt
Massive clashes that drew in Christians angry over a recent church attack, Muslims, and Egyptian security forces raged over a large section of downtown Cairo Sunday night, leaving at least 19 people dead and more than 150 injured. It was the worst violence since the 18-day uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in February.
The ongoing clashes lasted late into the night, bringing out a deployment of more than 1,000 security forces and armored vehicles to defend the state television building along the Nile, where the trouble began. The clashes spread to nearby Tahrir Square and the area around it, drawing in thousands of people. They battled each other with rocks and firebombs, some tearing up pavement for ammunition and others collecting stones in boxes.
Christians blame Egypt's ruling military council for being too lenient on those behind a spate of anti-Christian attacks since the ouster of Mubarak. The Coptic Christian minority makes up about 10 percent of the country of more than 80 million people. As Egypt undergoes a chaotic power transition and security vacuum in the wake of this year's uprising, Christians are particularly worried about the increasing show of force by the ultraconservative Islamists. More HERE. Video HERE.
October 10, 2011
Java, Indonesia
Beni Asri, one of the country's best-known Islamic extremists, arrested after the attack on the Christian church of Solo (Java) last September, has admitted strong links with the leading Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Baasyr. (09/25/2011 At least three killed in a suicide attack on church in Indonesia).
Beni Asri has been accused of planning several suicide bombings in Indonesia, and in particular of being the organizer of the attack against the Solo church. Beni Asri was arrested Sept. 30 in his parents' house in Solok, West Sumatra province.
Malaysia (hat tip to the ReligionofPeace)
Islamic authorities will provide counselling to a dozen Malaysian Muslims to "restore their belief and faith" after they attended a community dinner at a church hall, a royal sultan said on Monday.
The case has triggered worries among officials in Muslim-majority Malaysia that some non-Muslims were trying to convert Muslims. Proselytising of Muslims is punishable by prison terms of various lengths in most Malaysian states.
Church officials had repeatedly denied any proselytisation occurred at the dinner, which they described as a multiethnic gathering to celebrate the work of a community organization that worked with women, children and HIV patients. Update HERE.
USA/Egypt
From Raymond Ibrahim: Egypt, destroying churches one at a time. What clearer sign that Egypt is turning rabidly Islamist than the fact that hardly a few weeks go by without a church being destroyed, or without protesting Christians being attacked and slaughtered by the military?
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Egypt's state television announced on Monday that there are no deaths among the military forces after previously reporting there were during the bloody Sunday clashes between the military and Coptic protesters, saying that it was the fault of the news presenter.
State TV, also known as Maspero, is under fire from rights activists for falsely reporting that the Coptic protesters attacked the military forces with weapons, which resulted in the death of at least three soldiers and the called on the Egyptian people to take to the street to help protect the armed forces.
The news, when reported on Sunday evening, agitated many Muslims, who took up arms and went to the streets of downtown, clashing with protesters, both Muslims and Coptic Christians, injuring dozens in the worst sectarian violence since the fall of ousted President Hosni Muabrak's regime. State TV also reported that the protesters were armed and initiated the violence that killed the soldiers, which escalated the bloodshed late on Sunday.
October 12, 2011
Sudan
Local authorities have threatened to demolish three church buildings in Omdurman as part of a long-standing bid to rid Sudan of Christianity, Christian sources told Compass.
Officials from the Ministry of Physical Planning and Public Utilities-Khartoum State appeared at the three church sites in Omdurman, on the Nile River opposite Khartoum, the afternoon of Sept. 11, threatening to demolish the structures if the churches continued to conduct worship services, church leaders said.
Church leaders from the three churches in the Madinat al Fath area of Omdurman - the Sudanese Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church of Sudan and the Roman Catholic Church - said they were surprised to see government officials come to their church premises and accuse them of operating churches on government land without permission. The church leaders told Compass the buildings were not located on government land and required no permission.
Afghanistan
There aren't any public churchs left standing in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. State Department. So much for religious freedom one decade after the United States first invaded and then overthrew its Taliban regime, costing taxpayers $440 billion and incurring more than 1,700 U.S. military deaths to date.
The last public Christian church in Afghanistan was razed back in March 2010, according to the State Department's International Religious Freedom Report, which also states that there are no Christian schools left in the country.
October 13, 2011
Pakistan
A 12-year-old Christian girl was kidnapped and repeatedly raped for eight months in Pakistan by a man who then falsified marriage documents with her, it was claimed today.
The girl was lured on a shopping trip in Lahore by a friend, before she was driven 120 miles to Tandianwalla and raped by the friend's uncle in January this year.Two days later, she was forced to sign papers consenting to marriage with the man and beaten for refusing to convert from Christianity to Islam. She was then held against her will for eight months, before managing to escape and contact her family.
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has said the rapists have not been arrested because of their affiliation with a militant Muslim organisation - the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. It claims the police have refused to order a medical check-up on the girl, and have warned her parents that it would be better for them to hand over the girl to her 'legal' husband or a criminal case would be filed against them. An investigation into the kidnapping found the girl's father reported her disappearance in January and made complaints against her abductors, but police took no action for eight months.
October 15, 2011
Egypt
An army crackdown on a protest that killed more than 20 Christians has not only stunned Egyptians, it has left them with deeply torn feelings toward the force seen as the protector of the nation. Even supporters of the ruling military are grappling with the question of how the bloodshed could have happened.
Many Egyptians view the military as the last bastion of stability - a force "made up of our own sons," as many often say - and tend to trust it to handle the transition toward a democratic system. So images of army troops wildly running over protesters with armored vehicles have jolted them. Some try to find excuses for the ruling junta or nervously defend it. Intertwined in the reaction are the religious tensions between Egypt's Muslim majority and Christian minority. The fact that victims were Christians has made some less sympathetic or more willing to forgive the army's actions.
The violence was the deadliest since the military took over Egypt following the Feb. 11 fall of President Hosni Mubarak - and was a stark contrast to the idealistic sense of Muslim-Christian unity that flourished during the anti-Mubarak uprising.
It began Sunday night when thousands of Christians demonstrated outside the state television building, protesting an attack on a church in southern Egypt. Army troops waded in, and armored personnel carriers barreled through the crowds. The violence killed 26 people, including at least 21 Christians, some crushed by vehicles or shot to death. State media said three soldiers were among the dead.
In the first official press conference after the violence, the military tried to exonerate itself, blaming the Christians and "hidden hands" for starting the violence, denying its troops shot any protesters or intentionally ran them over. Witnesses said soldiers started the melee. Videos showing soldiers beating and shooting into crowds and armored vehicles seeming to chase protesters cast doubt on the military's account.
October 17, 2011
Egypt (hat tip to JihadWatch)
A week after a Maspero protest turned deadly when the army crushed a Coptic demonstration, local papers are taking a tone that suggests the nation's military rulers are not to blame.
Most of Monday's papers accuse various actors for the bloodshed that left at least 27 civilians dead and hundreds injured on 9 October. Surprisingly, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf's cabinet doesn't get the biggest share for blame although he was a primary target for criticism following the events. State-sponsored media was also heavily criticized, but now local media is finding another scapegoat. Coptic religious leaders, clergy and intellectuals are responsible not only for the Maspero violence but also for threatening national unity, according to several papers.
Nigeria
Violence-weary Christians in Borno state have been further upset to learn of the murder of a Nigerian evangelist by Boko Haram less than three months after the Islamic extremist group killed a Maiduguri pastor.
Already shell-shocked from attacks by Boko Haram, which was originally based in Borno state, Christians again took cover after the Aug. 27 shooting of Mark Ojunta, a 36-year-old evangelist from southern Nigeria who was ministering amid the Kotoko people of Nigeria's northeastern state with Calvary Ministries (CAPRO). He was killed in Maiduguri.
October 19, 2011
Somalia
Militants from the Islamic extremist al Shabaab beheaded a 17-year-old Somali Christian near Mogadishu last month, a journalist in the Somali capital told Compass.
The militants, who have vowed to rid Somalia of Christianity, killed Guled Jama Muktar on Sept. 25 in his home near Deynile, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Mogadishu. The Islamic extremist group had been monitoring his family since the Christians arrived in Somalia from Kenya in 2008, said the source in Mogadishu, who requested anonymity.
The Islamic militants, who are fighting the transitional government for control of the country, knew from their observations of the family that they were Christians, the source said.
Pakistan
Update on Asia Bibi. . . A female prison officer assigned to provide security for a Christian mother of five who was sentenced to death on "blasphemy" charges beat her earlier this month, sources said.
Sources in Pakistan's Sheikhupura District Jail said Asia Noreen, also known as Asia Bibi, was beaten on Oct. 5 by a prison officer identified only as Khadeeja, allegedly because of the Muslim officer's anti-Christian bias, while other staff members deployed for her security looked on in silence.
Noreen, mother of two children and stepmother to three others, was sentenced to death last November after her conviction for blaspheming Islam's prophet, Muhammad, after a verbal disagreement with some women in the village of Ittanwali, near Lahore.
October 23, 2011
Malaysia (hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Right-wing Malaysian activists on Saturday staged a rally against Christians who 'challenge the sovereignty of Islam', amid fears of growing Islamisation in the multicultural nation.
The gathering of about 2,000 people in Selangor state follows allegations of Christian proselytisation in the Muslim-majority country after religious police raided a Methodist church event in August fearing Muslims were being converted.
Newspapers linked to the ruling coalition have also alleged that Christian groups are secretly trying to convert poor Muslims by using welfare such as housing, food and cash.
'Apostasy violates the wishes of Allah, there is no bigger sin,' Yusri Mohamad, the event's chief organiser, told the crowd in Shah Alam, the state capital.
October 24, 2011
Nigeria
Nigerian soldiers summoned to stop inter-religious fighting between Muslim and Christian youths last week shot and killed a Christian mother of five in the Yelwa area of Bauchi city, according to family and church sources.
Soldiers were called in to restore calm following fighting that broke out at a high school soccer match on Thursday (Oct. 20), and later three Muslim soldiers shot and killed Charity Augustine Agbo and a Christian boy. The circumstances leading to the shooting of the boy, who is unrelated to Agbo, were not immediately known, and his name was not disclosed.
Sudan
Emboldened by government calls for a Sudan based on Islamic law since the secession of South Sudan, Muslims long opposed to a church near Khartoum have attacked Christians trying to finish constructing their building, sources said.
The Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) congregation in Omdurman West, across the Nile River from Khartoum, has continued to meet for Sunday worship in a building without a roof in spite of opposition from area Muslims and local authorities, the sources told Compass. Claiming that Christianity was no longer an accepted religion in the country, Muslims in the Hay al Sawra, Block 29 area of Omdurman West on Aug. 5 attacked SCOC members who were constructing the church building, the sources said.
October 25, 2011
Sudan
Sudanese leader Omer Hassan Al-Bashir is rewriting his country's constitution in order to implement shar'ia (Islamic) law.
"This new law is going to affect a significant number of Christians who live in places like Khartoum," said Jonathan Rach, International Christian Concern's North Africa specialist. "There are still a significant number of Christians in Sudan … If Al-Bashir introduces this shar'ia law and if he's going to go ahead and adopt an entirely Islamic constitution, Christians and other non-Muslims who live in Sudan will be treated like second-class citizens; they will be dhimmis and they will not have full rights in the freedom of religion."
West Java, Indonesia
Members of a church in Bogor, West Java, are determined to continue meeting outside their sealed building each Sunday until they are granted freedom to worship inside it, despite a ban on street meetings issued by the local mayor.
Egypt
An Egyptian Military Court ordered that an imprisoned Christian activist be admitted to a mental health hospital to determine whether he's responsible for his actions.
Michael Nabil Sanad was sent to Abbasiya Hospital in Cairo, a facility that specializes in treating seriously ill psychiatric patients.
Writer William Weesa said this was very dangerous because "there are many people who were admitted to these hospitals by the security services, who were quite healthy when they went in, but came out as a devastated human beings." Weesa asked that this "farce perpetrated against a prisoner of conscience" be stopped.
October 26, 2011
Egypt
The Egyptian military's intent to investigate its own use of force against unarmed Coptic Christians demonstrating on Oct. 9, 2011, raises concerns of a cover-up, according to Human Rights Watch.
The military arrested at least 28 people, mostly Copts, and brought them all before military prosecutors who ordered their detention for 15 days pending an investigation.
However, Human Rights Watch interviewed 20 demonstrators who all testified that at least two armored personnel carriers drove recklessly through crowds of Christians; autopsies showed that the massive, metal APCs killed at least 10 demonstrators.
"The military cannot investigate itself with any credibility," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "This had been an essentially peaceful protest until the military used excessive force and military vehicles ran over protesters. The only hope for justice for the victims is an independent civilian-led investigation that the army fully cooperates with and cannot control and that leads to the prosecution of those responsible."
October 27, 2011
Pakistan
A petition circling around Canada is calling for Pakistan to drop its blasphemy laws. The Islamic republic's law has grave consequences for the nation's Christians, including some who are facing death for their beliefs.
October 28, 2011
Iran
A Muslim convert to Christianity has gone missing since his arrest last week by plain clothes security officer
According to Mohabat News, on October 17, 2011, a group of four officers engaged in a commando-style raid on the house of Mr. Arazm, arresting him, then transferring him to an unknown location. The raid took place around 7:30 in the morning local time, just before he left for work.
The officers apparently searched the house upside-down and left a mess in their wake. The plainclothes officers confiscated Mr. Arazm's computer hard disk, CDs, pictures, and a number of Bibles. His family was also threatened to remain silent and not to talk about this incident to anyone.
October 2, 2011
Java, Indonesia
The village chief in Mekargalih, along with members of the Islamic Defender Front, expeled Christians from their place of worship for allegedly engaging in "proselytizing" in a predominantly Muslim area. A Christian woman complains, "Police have no guts against this radical group."
October 6, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Last night, Safdar Masih was shot to death; others, including children, were injured. The local Church had bought some land to build an orphanage, but the local land mafia laid claim to it. Police refuses to open an investigation into the affair.
October 7, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A Christian Pakistani politician accused security forces on Friday, October 7, of refusing to detain Muslim fighters who allegedly shot dead one Christian and injured over 20 others in Pakistan's Punjab province.
The murdered Christian, identified as Sabir Masih, was gunned down and "two dozen Christians including children, men and women were seriously injured" when Muslims attacked Christians "to grab a piece of land bought for a social project."
Maldives
Shijo Kokkattu, an Indian Catholic from Kerala, has been languishing in a Maldives prison for more than a week because he had a Bible and a rosary at his home. Both items are banned on the archipelago.
Islam is state religion in the Maldives. There is no freedom of worship. In 2008, a constitutional amendment denied non-Muslims the right to obtain Maldivian citizenship.
Shijo, 30, has taught at Raafainu School on Raa Atoll for the past two years. Recently, whilst transferring some data from his pen drive to the school laptop, he accidentally copied Marian songs and a picture of Mother Mary into the system. Some teachers reported the matter to the police who raided his home and found a Bible and a rosary in his possession.
October 8, 2011
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Christians fear pressure from Muslims to obey Islamic law. On her first day to school, 15-year-old Christian student Ferial Habib was stopped at the doorstep of her new high school with clear instructions: either put on a headscarf or no school this year. Habib refused. While most Muslim women in Egypt wear the headscarf, Christians do not, and the move by administrators to force a Christian student to don it was unprecedented.
Recent attacks on churches in southern Egypt also illustrate the heat Christians are under. Under Mubarak-era rules, the building of a church or repairs for an existing one required permission from local authorities and the state security agency - a rule not applied to mosques. The rules sought to avoid outbursts of violence from Muslim hard-liners. Since permission was rarely given, Christians at times resorted to building churches in secret, often in parish guesthouses.
October 9, 2011
Egypt
Massive clashes that drew in Christians angry over a recent church attack, Muslims, and Egyptian security forces raged over a large section of downtown Cairo Sunday night, leaving at least 19 people dead and more than 150 injured. It was the worst violence since the 18-day uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in February.
The ongoing clashes lasted late into the night, bringing out a deployment of more than 1,000 security forces and armored vehicles to defend the state television building along the Nile, where the trouble began. The clashes spread to nearby Tahrir Square and the area around it, drawing in thousands of people. They battled each other with rocks and firebombs, some tearing up pavement for ammunition and others collecting stones in boxes.
Christians blame Egypt's ruling military council for being too lenient on those behind a spate of anti-Christian attacks since the ouster of Mubarak. The Coptic Christian minority makes up about 10 percent of the country of more than 80 million people. As Egypt undergoes a chaotic power transition and security vacuum in the wake of this year's uprising, Christians are particularly worried about the increasing show of force by the ultraconservative Islamists. More HERE. Video HERE.
October 10, 2011
Java, Indonesia
Beni Asri, one of the country's best-known Islamic extremists, arrested after the attack on the Christian church of Solo (Java) last September, has admitted strong links with the leading Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Baasyr. (09/25/2011 At least three killed in a suicide attack on church in Indonesia).
Beni Asri has been accused of planning several suicide bombings in Indonesia, and in particular of being the organizer of the attack against the Solo church. Beni Asri was arrested Sept. 30 in his parents' house in Solok, West Sumatra province.
Malaysia (hat tip to the ReligionofPeace)
Islamic authorities will provide counselling to a dozen Malaysian Muslims to "restore their belief and faith" after they attended a community dinner at a church hall, a royal sultan said on Monday.
The case has triggered worries among officials in Muslim-majority Malaysia that some non-Muslims were trying to convert Muslims. Proselytising of Muslims is punishable by prison terms of various lengths in most Malaysian states.
Church officials had repeatedly denied any proselytisation occurred at the dinner, which they described as a multiethnic gathering to celebrate the work of a community organization that worked with women, children and HIV patients. Update HERE.
USA/Egypt
From Raymond Ibrahim: Egypt, destroying churches one at a time. What clearer sign that Egypt is turning rabidly Islamist than the fact that hardly a few weeks go by without a church being destroyed, or without protesting Christians being attacked and slaughtered by the military?
Egypt (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Egypt's state television announced on Monday that there are no deaths among the military forces after previously reporting there were during the bloody Sunday clashes between the military and Coptic protesters, saying that it was the fault of the news presenter.
State TV, also known as Maspero, is under fire from rights activists for falsely reporting that the Coptic protesters attacked the military forces with weapons, which resulted in the death of at least three soldiers and the called on the Egyptian people to take to the street to help protect the armed forces.
The news, when reported on Sunday evening, agitated many Muslims, who took up arms and went to the streets of downtown, clashing with protesters, both Muslims and Coptic Christians, injuring dozens in the worst sectarian violence since the fall of ousted President Hosni Muabrak's regime. State TV also reported that the protesters were armed and initiated the violence that killed the soldiers, which escalated the bloodshed late on Sunday.
October 12, 2011
Sudan
Local authorities have threatened to demolish three church buildings in Omdurman as part of a long-standing bid to rid Sudan of Christianity, Christian sources told Compass.
Officials from the Ministry of Physical Planning and Public Utilities-Khartoum State appeared at the three church sites in Omdurman, on the Nile River opposite Khartoum, the afternoon of Sept. 11, threatening to demolish the structures if the churches continued to conduct worship services, church leaders said.
Church leaders from the three churches in the Madinat al Fath area of Omdurman - the Sudanese Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church of Sudan and the Roman Catholic Church - said they were surprised to see government officials come to their church premises and accuse them of operating churches on government land without permission. The church leaders told Compass the buildings were not located on government land and required no permission.
Afghanistan
There aren't any public churchs left standing in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. State Department. So much for religious freedom one decade after the United States first invaded and then overthrew its Taliban regime, costing taxpayers $440 billion and incurring more than 1,700 U.S. military deaths to date.
The last public Christian church in Afghanistan was razed back in March 2010, according to the State Department's International Religious Freedom Report, which also states that there are no Christian schools left in the country.
October 13, 2011
Pakistan
A 12-year-old Christian girl was kidnapped and repeatedly raped for eight months in Pakistan by a man who then falsified marriage documents with her, it was claimed today.
The girl was lured on a shopping trip in Lahore by a friend, before she was driven 120 miles to Tandianwalla and raped by the friend's uncle in January this year.Two days later, she was forced to sign papers consenting to marriage with the man and beaten for refusing to convert from Christianity to Islam. She was then held against her will for eight months, before managing to escape and contact her family.
The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has said the rapists have not been arrested because of their affiliation with a militant Muslim organisation - the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. It claims the police have refused to order a medical check-up on the girl, and have warned her parents that it would be better for them to hand over the girl to her 'legal' husband or a criminal case would be filed against them. An investigation into the kidnapping found the girl's father reported her disappearance in January and made complaints against her abductors, but police took no action for eight months.
October 15, 2011
Egypt
An army crackdown on a protest that killed more than 20 Christians has not only stunned Egyptians, it has left them with deeply torn feelings toward the force seen as the protector of the nation. Even supporters of the ruling military are grappling with the question of how the bloodshed could have happened.
Many Egyptians view the military as the last bastion of stability - a force "made up of our own sons," as many often say - and tend to trust it to handle the transition toward a democratic system. So images of army troops wildly running over protesters with armored vehicles have jolted them. Some try to find excuses for the ruling junta or nervously defend it. Intertwined in the reaction are the religious tensions between Egypt's Muslim majority and Christian minority. The fact that victims were Christians has made some less sympathetic or more willing to forgive the army's actions.
The violence was the deadliest since the military took over Egypt following the Feb. 11 fall of President Hosni Mubarak - and was a stark contrast to the idealistic sense of Muslim-Christian unity that flourished during the anti-Mubarak uprising.
It began Sunday night when thousands of Christians demonstrated outside the state television building, protesting an attack on a church in southern Egypt. Army troops waded in, and armored personnel carriers barreled through the crowds. The violence killed 26 people, including at least 21 Christians, some crushed by vehicles or shot to death. State media said three soldiers were among the dead.
In the first official press conference after the violence, the military tried to exonerate itself, blaming the Christians and "hidden hands" for starting the violence, denying its troops shot any protesters or intentionally ran them over. Witnesses said soldiers started the melee. Videos showing soldiers beating and shooting into crowds and armored vehicles seeming to chase protesters cast doubt on the military's account.
October 17, 2011
Egypt (hat tip to JihadWatch)
A week after a Maspero protest turned deadly when the army crushed a Coptic demonstration, local papers are taking a tone that suggests the nation's military rulers are not to blame.
Most of Monday's papers accuse various actors for the bloodshed that left at least 27 civilians dead and hundreds injured on 9 October. Surprisingly, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf's cabinet doesn't get the biggest share for blame although he was a primary target for criticism following the events. State-sponsored media was also heavily criticized, but now local media is finding another scapegoat. Coptic religious leaders, clergy and intellectuals are responsible not only for the Maspero violence but also for threatening national unity, according to several papers.
Nigeria
Violence-weary Christians in Borno state have been further upset to learn of the murder of a Nigerian evangelist by Boko Haram less than three months after the Islamic extremist group killed a Maiduguri pastor.
Already shell-shocked from attacks by Boko Haram, which was originally based in Borno state, Christians again took cover after the Aug. 27 shooting of Mark Ojunta, a 36-year-old evangelist from southern Nigeria who was ministering amid the Kotoko people of Nigeria's northeastern state with Calvary Ministries (CAPRO). He was killed in Maiduguri.
October 19, 2011
Somalia
Militants from the Islamic extremist al Shabaab beheaded a 17-year-old Somali Christian near Mogadishu last month, a journalist in the Somali capital told Compass.
The militants, who have vowed to rid Somalia of Christianity, killed Guled Jama Muktar on Sept. 25 in his home near Deynile, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Mogadishu. The Islamic extremist group had been monitoring his family since the Christians arrived in Somalia from Kenya in 2008, said the source in Mogadishu, who requested anonymity.
The Islamic militants, who are fighting the transitional government for control of the country, knew from their observations of the family that they were Christians, the source said.
Pakistan
Update on Asia Bibi. . . A female prison officer assigned to provide security for a Christian mother of five who was sentenced to death on "blasphemy" charges beat her earlier this month, sources said.
Sources in Pakistan's Sheikhupura District Jail said Asia Noreen, also known as Asia Bibi, was beaten on Oct. 5 by a prison officer identified only as Khadeeja, allegedly because of the Muslim officer's anti-Christian bias, while other staff members deployed for her security looked on in silence.
Noreen, mother of two children and stepmother to three others, was sentenced to death last November after her conviction for blaspheming Islam's prophet, Muhammad, after a verbal disagreement with some women in the village of Ittanwali, near Lahore.
October 23, 2011
Malaysia (hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Right-wing Malaysian activists on Saturday staged a rally against Christians who 'challenge the sovereignty of Islam', amid fears of growing Islamisation in the multicultural nation.
The gathering of about 2,000 people in Selangor state follows allegations of Christian proselytisation in the Muslim-majority country after religious police raided a Methodist church event in August fearing Muslims were being converted.
Newspapers linked to the ruling coalition have also alleged that Christian groups are secretly trying to convert poor Muslims by using welfare such as housing, food and cash.
'Apostasy violates the wishes of Allah, there is no bigger sin,' Yusri Mohamad, the event's chief organiser, told the crowd in Shah Alam, the state capital.
October 24, 2011
Nigeria
Nigerian soldiers summoned to stop inter-religious fighting between Muslim and Christian youths last week shot and killed a Christian mother of five in the Yelwa area of Bauchi city, according to family and church sources.
Soldiers were called in to restore calm following fighting that broke out at a high school soccer match on Thursday (Oct. 20), and later three Muslim soldiers shot and killed Charity Augustine Agbo and a Christian boy. The circumstances leading to the shooting of the boy, who is unrelated to Agbo, were not immediately known, and his name was not disclosed.
Sudan
Emboldened by government calls for a Sudan based on Islamic law since the secession of South Sudan, Muslims long opposed to a church near Khartoum have attacked Christians trying to finish constructing their building, sources said.
The Sudanese Church of Christ (SCOC) congregation in Omdurman West, across the Nile River from Khartoum, has continued to meet for Sunday worship in a building without a roof in spite of opposition from area Muslims and local authorities, the sources told Compass. Claiming that Christianity was no longer an accepted religion in the country, Muslims in the Hay al Sawra, Block 29 area of Omdurman West on Aug. 5 attacked SCOC members who were constructing the church building, the sources said.
October 25, 2011
Sudan
Sudanese leader Omer Hassan Al-Bashir is rewriting his country's constitution in order to implement shar'ia (Islamic) law.
"This new law is going to affect a significant number of Christians who live in places like Khartoum," said Jonathan Rach, International Christian Concern's North Africa specialist. "There are still a significant number of Christians in Sudan … If Al-Bashir introduces this shar'ia law and if he's going to go ahead and adopt an entirely Islamic constitution, Christians and other non-Muslims who live in Sudan will be treated like second-class citizens; they will be dhimmis and they will not have full rights in the freedom of religion."
West Java, Indonesia
Members of a church in Bogor, West Java, are determined to continue meeting outside their sealed building each Sunday until they are granted freedom to worship inside it, despite a ban on street meetings issued by the local mayor.
Egypt
An Egyptian Military Court ordered that an imprisoned Christian activist be admitted to a mental health hospital to determine whether he's responsible for his actions.
Michael Nabil Sanad was sent to Abbasiya Hospital in Cairo, a facility that specializes in treating seriously ill psychiatric patients.
Writer William Weesa said this was very dangerous because "there are many people who were admitted to these hospitals by the security services, who were quite healthy when they went in, but came out as a devastated human beings." Weesa asked that this "farce perpetrated against a prisoner of conscience" be stopped.
October 26, 2011
Egypt
The Egyptian military's intent to investigate its own use of force against unarmed Coptic Christians demonstrating on Oct. 9, 2011, raises concerns of a cover-up, according to Human Rights Watch.
The military arrested at least 28 people, mostly Copts, and brought them all before military prosecutors who ordered their detention for 15 days pending an investigation.
However, Human Rights Watch interviewed 20 demonstrators who all testified that at least two armored personnel carriers drove recklessly through crowds of Christians; autopsies showed that the massive, metal APCs killed at least 10 demonstrators.
"The military cannot investigate itself with any credibility," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "This had been an essentially peaceful protest until the military used excessive force and military vehicles ran over protesters. The only hope for justice for the victims is an independent civilian-led investigation that the army fully cooperates with and cannot control and that leads to the prosecution of those responsible."
October 27, 2011
Pakistan
A petition circling around Canada is calling for Pakistan to drop its blasphemy laws. The Islamic republic's law has grave consequences for the nation's Christians, including some who are facing death for their beliefs.
October 28, 2011
Iran
A Muslim convert to Christianity has gone missing since his arrest last week by plain clothes security officer
According to Mohabat News, on October 17, 2011, a group of four officers engaged in a commando-style raid on the house of Mr. Arazm, arresting him, then transferring him to an unknown location. The raid took place around 7:30 in the morning local time, just before he left for work.
The officers apparently searched the house upside-down and left a mess in their wake. The plainclothes officers confiscated Mr. Arazm's computer hard disk, CDs, pictures, and a number of Bibles. His family was also threatened to remain silent and not to talk about this incident to anyone.
Bulletin of the Oppression of Women October 10 - October 28, 2011
October 10 - October 28, 2011
October 10, 2011
Pakistan (hat tip to the ReligionofPeace)
A 12 year-old Christian is gang raped for eight months, forcibly converted and then 'married' to her Muslim attacker. ?The irony of the matter is that the police never thought to ask the rapists and their religious groups as to how a girl of 12 could be married when according to the law marriage under the age of 16 is illegal.
This is yet another example of how the Punjab provincial government is allegedly patronizing banned militant organizations.
Iran
An Iranian actress who helped make a movie with Australian film producers has been sentenced to 90 lashes and a year in jail. Update and movie trailer HERE.
October 11, 2011
Iraq
The World Health Organization has estimated that one in five Iraqi women has reported being a victim of domestic violence, and experts say the rate is much higher. Government officials say for the time being there's little hope that laws giving men wide rights to "discipline" their wives will be changed.
"There are abusive laws against women ... but we believe that in this era, this project will be rejected," said the Human Rights Ministry's spokesman Kamil Amin. "Politicians have no will to change these abusive laws."
State Minister for Women's Affairs Ibtihal al-Zaidi agreed. "The new reforms might raise issues against Islamic laws as well as tribal and traditional norms," she said. "It is a very sensitive issue."
Pakistan (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
A man gave his one year old daughter in marriage to a 24 year old to atone for an alleged affair with a neighbor. His wife approached the police after her husband and in-laws refused to listen to her.
Saudi Arabia (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
A Saudi family of 36 have been through an intolerable ordeal of torture and beating by the father.
October 12, 2011
Pakistan (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
When 15-year-old Poonam Wasu - a Hindu girl from birth - left her house with friends on the afternoon of October 6, she could never have in her wildest dreams imagined that she would be drugged, only to wake up hours later as a married Muslim woman named Razia.
India (hat tip to the Religionof Peace)
An Indian woman, married to a Jordanian national, has been given the custody of their 15-year-old son by a Delhi court after she alleged that her husband was a tyrant, even forcing their child to lick his shoes whenever the teenager stepped on them.
Pakistan (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
One would think that Aasia Bibi, the young Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy in a Nankana Sahib village in late 2010, had suffered quite enough. As if all this was not enough, we now hear Aasia has been subjected to 'torture' within jail, by a female warden who claims she found 'illicit' items in her cell.
Malaysia
Obedient wives club publishes an explicit book about sex.
October 13, 2011
Saudi Arabia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
In 2005 the Ministry of Labor ordered lingerie shops to start replacing foreign male sales clerks with women. It has been more than five years now and only the Nayomi lingerie chain and Centrepoint have successfully hired women clerks in their shops all over the Kingdom
"If by January these shops are still employing salesmen, they will be barred from all the ministry's services including, among others, issuance of work visas to recruit manpower from abroad," said ministry spokesman Hattab bin Saleh Al-Anzi.
Pakistan (hat tip to the ReligionofPeace)
A primary school teacher tortured a first grade student because she forgot to bring her slate to class on Wednesday.
Tunsia (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
A Tunsian political party placed advertisements on Al-Jazeera cable network to circumvent the ban on political ads by the country's television stations. The Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) says the ban has effectively muted proponents of liberal democracy in Tunisia while giving an edge to al-Nahda, the leading Islamist party, which polls show is now likely to capture the largest bloc of votes.
The ad series, dubbed "The Day After," features a dramatic portrayals of ordinary Tunisians struggling to adjust to life in a future Islamist-led Tunisia where political rights are curbed and businesses suffer from declining tourism. One of the actors portrays a professional woman who laments her diminished status and loss of her job. "After they took power, they changed the laws. They decided that in the workplace, men would be favored over women," the actress says. "I am a prisoner in my house."
October 15, 2011
UK (hat tip to Jihad Watch)
A 'despicable' pedophile, who abused three girls when he was an Imam at a town centre mosque, has been convicted by a jury.
Pakistan
Police have recovered bodies of three disabled sisters who had been dumped in a pond.
October 16, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
A woman was burned by her husband and in-laws for refusing to give him her money. According to police officials, Chak 1P resident Lateefan Bibi died after her husband and in-laws gagged her and sprinkled petrol on her.
Pakistan (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
The Ghotki police has yet to take action against the people who allegedly held a jirga in Gulzar Mahar village three days ago. It had ordered the eloping groom to marry his four-year-old sister to the eight-year-old brother of his wife and pay a fine of Rs300,000.
October 17, 2011
Pakistan (hat tip to the ReligionofPeace)
According to police officials, Khurarianwala resident Allah Wasaya said that his 14-year-old daughter Khatoon was repeatedly raped by a local pir on the pretext of curing her head aches.
UK (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
A devout Muslim who was a pillar of his religious and social community in Oldham, has been jailed for six years after attempting to rape a young boy.
October 18, 2011
Saudi Arabia (hat tip to the ReligionofPeace)
An Islamic preacher has denied telling an online publication that Islam does not prohibit unsupervised phone calls between young women and men before they get engaged.
Somalia (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
When Al-Shabaab militants called the Somali national women's basketball team captain, Suweys Ali Jama, and told her she had two options: to be killed or to stop playing basketball, she decided that neither was really an option at all.
October 19, 2011
Pakistan (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
A government school teacher was severely injured when her husband attacked her with an axe on the school premises on Tuesday.
Pakistan (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
A woman and her daughter were killed by her sons in the name of 'honour'.
October 20, 2011
Canada (hat tip to Jihad Watch)
A Montreal family couldn't bear the "treachery" of their three teenaged daughters having boyfriends, so they drowned them and the father's first wife, pushing a car into a canal and staging the scene to look like an implausible accident, court heard Thursday.
Days after the bodies were found the father was recorded saying, "There is nothing more valuable than our honour."
Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 41, her husband Mohammad Shafia, 58, and their son, Hamed Mohammad Shafia, 20, are each charged with four counts of first-degree murder.
Three teenage Shafia sisters, Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, along with Shafia's first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, 50, were found dead inside a submerged black Nissan Sentra discovered June 30, 2009 in the Rideau Canal. The family had stopped in Kingston on their way home from a trip to Niagara Falls.
More HERE.
Plastic shards from a smashed headlight discovered near a Kingston lock where four bodies were found in a submerged Nissan Sentra matched pieces later taken from a Montreal home, a murder trial has heard. And still another fragment was located at a parking barrier in the same city.
Put together - literally - by Kingston police, the court exhibits were placed before a jury on Thursday and go to the heart of the prosecution's case against two men and a woman accused of committing four "honour killings" allegedly rooted in a perverse interpretation of Afghan tradition.
The four victims were three teenaged sisters and the first wife of the wealthy businessman charged with orchestrating the deaths with his son and second wife and disposing of the bodies by faking an accident at the Kingston Mills lock in June, 2009. And HERE.
UK (hat tip to the ReligionofPeace)
Four men from Brierfield are due to appear in court charged in connection with the sexual exploitation of two 14-year-old girls.
October 21, 2011
Canada/UK (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
An Islamic group whose presence in Montreal sparked controversy insisted Friday night that its message has been misunderstood. The Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA) is a UK-based group that describes itself on its website as an "international dawah organization committed to educating and informing humanity about the truth and noble message of Islam."
However, a speech by the group's chairman Abdurraheem Green, where he suggested it is alright for a husband to use physical force on his wife, drew a lot of negative attention to the group.
UK (hat tip to the Religionof Peace)
Faisal Arabian, of Beldon Lane, Buttershaw, Bradford, was before Huddersfield magistrates yesterday.He is accused of causing or inciting a 14-year-old girl to engage in the sexual activity.
Pakistan (hat tip to the ReligionofPeace)
A Muslim worker in a garment factory in Korangi Industrial Area of Karachi East slaughtered a Christian woman on her resistance to rape when she was cleaning bathrooms.
October 23, 2011
Afghanistan
A 22 year old girl was allegedly hanged by her in-laws.
October 24, 2011
Pakistan (hat tip to Infidels are Cool)
Though shaken by the killing of a local female student by her fiancé over refusal to abandon education, schoolgirls in the provincial capital are committed to continue their studies.
US (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
An angry father chases a Muslim teen who groped his daughter.
Pakistan (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
While they insist that the victims' father is the murderer, police have not come any closer to making an arrest in the case where three sisters were found dead in a water trough in their home.
October 25, 2011
UAE (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
An Arab man in Ajman returned home from a booze night, jolted his wife out of bed and let his friend rape her for two hours while he sat smoking and enjoying the scene. The husband was jailed for life but his wife is pleading for his death.
Pakistan (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
Police officials have arrested an accused who cut off his wife's nose, lips and cheeks after she refused to dance on stage on Monday afternoon.
October 26, 2011
South Africa (hat tip to the ReligionofPeace)
Igshaan "Gaddafi" Isaacs made his wife dig her own grave, saying he would bury her in it if she ever left him. Eight years later, Isaacs put a gun to pretty Fazlin Arendse's head and pulled the trigger because he thought she was having an affair with a young Muslim holy man.
October 28, 2011
Norway
Bruce Bawer comments on Norway's epidemic of rapes.
October 10, 2011
Pakistan (hat tip to the ReligionofPeace)
A 12 year-old Christian is gang raped for eight months, forcibly converted and then 'married' to her Muslim attacker. ?The irony of the matter is that the police never thought to ask the rapists and their religious groups as to how a girl of 12 could be married when according to the law marriage under the age of 16 is illegal.
This is yet another example of how the Punjab provincial government is allegedly patronizing banned militant organizations.
Iran
An Iranian actress who helped make a movie with Australian film producers has been sentenced to 90 lashes and a year in jail. Update and movie trailer HERE.
October 11, 2011
Iraq
The World Health Organization has estimated that one in five Iraqi women has reported being a victim of domestic violence, and experts say the rate is much higher. Government officials say for the time being there's little hope that laws giving men wide rights to "discipline" their wives will be changed.
"There are abusive laws against women ... but we believe that in this era, this project will be rejected," said the Human Rights Ministry's spokesman Kamil Amin. "Politicians have no will to change these abusive laws."
State Minister for Women's Affairs Ibtihal al-Zaidi agreed. "The new reforms might raise issues against Islamic laws as well as tribal and traditional norms," she said. "It is a very sensitive issue."
Pakistan (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
A man gave his one year old daughter in marriage to a 24 year old to atone for an alleged affair with a neighbor. His wife approached the police after her husband and in-laws refused to listen to her.
Saudi Arabia (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
A Saudi family of 36 have been through an intolerable ordeal of torture and beating by the father.
October 12, 2011
Pakistan (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
When 15-year-old Poonam Wasu - a Hindu girl from birth - left her house with friends on the afternoon of October 6, she could never have in her wildest dreams imagined that she would be drugged, only to wake up hours later as a married Muslim woman named Razia.
India (hat tip to the Religionof Peace)
An Indian woman, married to a Jordanian national, has been given the custody of their 15-year-old son by a Delhi court after she alleged that her husband was a tyrant, even forcing their child to lick his shoes whenever the teenager stepped on them.
Pakistan (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
One would think that Aasia Bibi, the young Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy in a Nankana Sahib village in late 2010, had suffered quite enough. As if all this was not enough, we now hear Aasia has been subjected to 'torture' within jail, by a female warden who claims she found 'illicit' items in her cell.
Malaysia
Obedient wives club publishes an explicit book about sex.
October 13, 2011
Saudi Arabia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
In 2005 the Ministry of Labor ordered lingerie shops to start replacing foreign male sales clerks with women. It has been more than five years now and only the Nayomi lingerie chain and Centrepoint have successfully hired women clerks in their shops all over the Kingdom
"If by January these shops are still employing salesmen, they will be barred from all the ministry's services including, among others, issuance of work visas to recruit manpower from abroad," said ministry spokesman Hattab bin Saleh Al-Anzi.
Pakistan (hat tip to the ReligionofPeace)
A primary school teacher tortured a first grade student because she forgot to bring her slate to class on Wednesday.
Tunsia (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
A Tunsian political party placed advertisements on Al-Jazeera cable network to circumvent the ban on political ads by the country's television stations. The Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) says the ban has effectively muted proponents of liberal democracy in Tunisia while giving an edge to al-Nahda, the leading Islamist party, which polls show is now likely to capture the largest bloc of votes.
The ad series, dubbed "The Day After," features a dramatic portrayals of ordinary Tunisians struggling to adjust to life in a future Islamist-led Tunisia where political rights are curbed and businesses suffer from declining tourism. One of the actors portrays a professional woman who laments her diminished status and loss of her job. "After they took power, they changed the laws. They decided that in the workplace, men would be favored over women," the actress says. "I am a prisoner in my house."
October 15, 2011
UK (hat tip to Jihad Watch)
A 'despicable' pedophile, who abused three girls when he was an Imam at a town centre mosque, has been convicted by a jury.
Pakistan
Police have recovered bodies of three disabled sisters who had been dumped in a pond.
October 16, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
A woman was burned by her husband and in-laws for refusing to give him her money. According to police officials, Chak 1P resident Lateefan Bibi died after her husband and in-laws gagged her and sprinkled petrol on her.
Pakistan (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
The Ghotki police has yet to take action against the people who allegedly held a jirga in Gulzar Mahar village three days ago. It had ordered the eloping groom to marry his four-year-old sister to the eight-year-old brother of his wife and pay a fine of Rs300,000.
October 17, 2011
Pakistan (hat tip to the ReligionofPeace)
According to police officials, Khurarianwala resident Allah Wasaya said that his 14-year-old daughter Khatoon was repeatedly raped by a local pir on the pretext of curing her head aches.
UK (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
A devout Muslim who was a pillar of his religious and social community in Oldham, has been jailed for six years after attempting to rape a young boy.
October 18, 2011
Saudi Arabia (hat tip to the ReligionofPeace)
An Islamic preacher has denied telling an online publication that Islam does not prohibit unsupervised phone calls between young women and men before they get engaged.
Somalia (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
When Al-Shabaab militants called the Somali national women's basketball team captain, Suweys Ali Jama, and told her she had two options: to be killed or to stop playing basketball, she decided that neither was really an option at all.
October 19, 2011
Pakistan (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
A government school teacher was severely injured when her husband attacked her with an axe on the school premises on Tuesday.
Pakistan (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
A woman and her daughter were killed by her sons in the name of 'honour'.
October 20, 2011
Canada (hat tip to Jihad Watch)
A Montreal family couldn't bear the "treachery" of their three teenaged daughters having boyfriends, so they drowned them and the father's first wife, pushing a car into a canal and staging the scene to look like an implausible accident, court heard Thursday.
Days after the bodies were found the father was recorded saying, "There is nothing more valuable than our honour."
Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 41, her husband Mohammad Shafia, 58, and their son, Hamed Mohammad Shafia, 20, are each charged with four counts of first-degree murder.
Three teenage Shafia sisters, Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, along with Shafia's first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, 50, were found dead inside a submerged black Nissan Sentra discovered June 30, 2009 in the Rideau Canal. The family had stopped in Kingston on their way home from a trip to Niagara Falls.
More HERE.
Plastic shards from a smashed headlight discovered near a Kingston lock where four bodies were found in a submerged Nissan Sentra matched pieces later taken from a Montreal home, a murder trial has heard. And still another fragment was located at a parking barrier in the same city.
Put together - literally - by Kingston police, the court exhibits were placed before a jury on Thursday and go to the heart of the prosecution's case against two men and a woman accused of committing four "honour killings" allegedly rooted in a perverse interpretation of Afghan tradition.
The four victims were three teenaged sisters and the first wife of the wealthy businessman charged with orchestrating the deaths with his son and second wife and disposing of the bodies by faking an accident at the Kingston Mills lock in June, 2009. And HERE.
UK (hat tip to the ReligionofPeace)
Four men from Brierfield are due to appear in court charged in connection with the sexual exploitation of two 14-year-old girls.
October 21, 2011
Canada/UK (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
An Islamic group whose presence in Montreal sparked controversy insisted Friday night that its message has been misunderstood. The Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA) is a UK-based group that describes itself on its website as an "international dawah organization committed to educating and informing humanity about the truth and noble message of Islam."
However, a speech by the group's chairman Abdurraheem Green, where he suggested it is alright for a husband to use physical force on his wife, drew a lot of negative attention to the group.
UK (hat tip to the Religionof Peace)
Faisal Arabian, of Beldon Lane, Buttershaw, Bradford, was before Huddersfield magistrates yesterday.He is accused of causing or inciting a 14-year-old girl to engage in the sexual activity.
Pakistan (hat tip to the ReligionofPeace)
A Muslim worker in a garment factory in Korangi Industrial Area of Karachi East slaughtered a Christian woman on her resistance to rape when she was cleaning bathrooms.
October 23, 2011
Afghanistan
A 22 year old girl was allegedly hanged by her in-laws.
October 24, 2011
Pakistan (hat tip to Infidels are Cool)
Though shaken by the killing of a local female student by her fiancé over refusal to abandon education, schoolgirls in the provincial capital are committed to continue their studies.
US (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
An angry father chases a Muslim teen who groped his daughter.
Pakistan (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
While they insist that the victims' father is the murderer, police have not come any closer to making an arrest in the case where three sisters were found dead in a water trough in their home.
October 25, 2011
UAE (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
An Arab man in Ajman returned home from a booze night, jolted his wife out of bed and let his friend rape her for two hours while he sat smoking and enjoying the scene. The husband was jailed for life but his wife is pleading for his death.
Pakistan (hat tip to the Religion of Peace)
Police officials have arrested an accused who cut off his wife's nose, lips and cheeks after she refused to dance on stage on Monday afternoon.
October 26, 2011
South Africa (hat tip to the ReligionofPeace)
Igshaan "Gaddafi" Isaacs made his wife dig her own grave, saying he would bury her in it if she ever left him. Eight years later, Isaacs put a gun to pretty Fazlin Arendse's head and pulled the trigger because he thought she was having an affair with a young Muslim holy man.
October 28, 2011
Norway
Bruce Bawer comments on Norway's epidemic of rapes.
Fuel-wise
Friday 28th October 2011
Lilongwe and the centre
Petrol
Petrol is not available at any of our service stations in the centre
Petrol Deliveries
Petrol deliveries will be made as follows
* Area 18- Mid day
* Cross roads- Mid day
* Lumbadzi- Mid day
Diesel
Diesel is not available at any of our service stations in the centre
Deliveries
There are no planned diesel deliveries at the moment
Blantyre and the south
Petrol
Petrol is not available at any of our service stations in the south at the moment
Petrol deliveries
Petrol deliveries will be made as follows
* Liwonde – Mid day
* Lakeroad(Mangochi)- afternoon
Diesel
Diesel is not available at any of our service stations in the south
Diesel Deliveries
There are no planned diesel deliveries at the moment
Mzuzu and the north
Petrol
Petrol is not available at any of our service stations in the North
Petrol Deliveries
There are no planned petrol deliveries at the moment
Diesel
Diesel is not available at any of our service stations in the north
Diesel deliveries
There are no planned diesel deliveries at the moment
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Airtel Malaw
Lilongwe and the centre
Petrol
Petrol is not available at any of our service stations in the centre
Petrol Deliveries
Petrol deliveries will be made as follows
* Area 18- Mid day
* Cross roads- Mid day
* Lumbadzi- Mid day
Diesel
Diesel is not available at any of our service stations in the centre
Deliveries
There are no planned diesel deliveries at the moment
Blantyre and the south
Petrol
Petrol is not available at any of our service stations in the south at the moment
Petrol deliveries
Petrol deliveries will be made as follows
* Liwonde – Mid day
* Lakeroad(Mangochi)- afternoon
Diesel
Diesel is not available at any of our service stations in the south
Diesel Deliveries
There are no planned diesel deliveries at the moment
Mzuzu and the north
Petrol
Petrol is not available at any of our service stations in the North
Petrol Deliveries
There are no planned petrol deliveries at the moment
Diesel
Diesel is not available at any of our service stations in the north
Diesel deliveries
There are no planned diesel deliveries at the moment
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Airtel Malaw
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Lest I Forget: The Photos I took in South Africa in 2011
Oh, beautiful South Africa. Just unfortunate that, when I went to Mozambique in January 2011, I did not take good pictures of the things I saw.
MISA MALAWI CHAIRPERSON ADDRESSES UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE IN GENEVA,
25th October, 2011
For immediate release
The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Malawi Chapter chairperson
Anthony Kasunda is among the Malawi delegation of Civil Society leaders who on
Monday,October 24, addressed the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva,Switzerland.
Kasunda seized the opportunity to inform the UN on the serious threats that
Section 46 of the Penal Code as amended poses to Freedom of Expression and
the press as guaranteed in sections 35 and 36 of the Republic of Malawi
Constitution, respectively.
The MISA Malawi Chairperson told the committee that Section 46 of the Penal
Code is open to abuse and denies people their right to information as it instils fear in publishers thereby promoting self censorship. He said MISA Malawi Chapter considers the amendment as a deliberate attempt to weaken the role of the media as the fourth estate.
The UN committee was also briefed of the efforts by MISA Malawi and other
partners to have the section repealed. The chairperson indicated that
government has repeatedly said the amendment is an improvement of the old law and that it was good for the media. He, however, explained that MISA Malawi already listed the section as one of the archaic laws in Malawi’s statutes inconsistent with the country’s democratic dispensation.
Kasunda also capitalised on the meeting to inform the UN that at least 22
journalists were beaten and assaulted in the line of duty during the July
20-21 anti government demonstrations. He explained that since 2005, at least 10 journalists have been arrested based on archaic pieces of legislation
adding that other journalists have been arrested on flimsy charges or without
charge.
“Journalists continue to receive death threats from government
sympathisers...Media practitioners from private media are targeted for
their critical news articles on the President and his government. MISA Malawi
feels this is an attempt to muzzle the press,” Kasunda said.
He pleaded with the Committee to intervene in Malawi by engaging government
to allow the media to operate freely without fear or intimidation and for
government to repeal Section 46 of the Penal Code.
He also asked the committee to engage Malawi’s leadership to openly condemn
the threats issued to journalists.
MISA MALAWI CHAPTER
For immediate release
The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Malawi Chapter chairperson
Anthony Kasunda is among the Malawi delegation of Civil Society leaders who on
Monday,October 24, addressed the United Nations Human Rights Committee in Geneva,Switzerland.
Kasunda seized the opportunity to inform the UN on the serious threats that
Section 46 of the Penal Code as amended poses to Freedom of Expression and
the press as guaranteed in sections 35 and 36 of the Republic of Malawi
Constitution, respectively.
The MISA Malawi Chairperson told the committee that Section 46 of the Penal
Code is open to abuse and denies people their right to information as it instils fear in publishers thereby promoting self censorship. He said MISA Malawi Chapter considers the amendment as a deliberate attempt to weaken the role of the media as the fourth estate.
The UN committee was also briefed of the efforts by MISA Malawi and other
partners to have the section repealed. The chairperson indicated that
government has repeatedly said the amendment is an improvement of the old law and that it was good for the media. He, however, explained that MISA Malawi already listed the section as one of the archaic laws in Malawi’s statutes inconsistent with the country’s democratic dispensation.
Kasunda also capitalised on the meeting to inform the UN that at least 22
journalists were beaten and assaulted in the line of duty during the July
20-21 anti government demonstrations. He explained that since 2005, at least 10 journalists have been arrested based on archaic pieces of legislation
adding that other journalists have been arrested on flimsy charges or without
charge.
“Journalists continue to receive death threats from government
sympathisers...Media practitioners from private media are targeted for
their critical news articles on the President and his government. MISA Malawi
feels this is an attempt to muzzle the press,” Kasunda said.
He pleaded with the Committee to intervene in Malawi by engaging government
to allow the media to operate freely without fear or intimidation and for
government to repeal Section 46 of the Penal Code.
He also asked the committee to engage Malawi’s leadership to openly condemn
the threats issued to journalists.
MISA MALAWI CHAPTER
Oh, the Days Long Gone!
Timve and Tsala were common characters in Malawi's old Primary School English Grammar books.
Today, the best part is gone. The books leave a lot to be desired.
Oh, oh, those days- the days of Ngwazi Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda- were great!
Monday, October 24, 2011
MISA MALAWI STATEMENT ON CONTINUED DEATH THREATS TO JOURNALISTS
October 24th, 2011
For Immediate Release
The Malawi Chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) is
disturbed
with increasing reports of death threats on reporters deemed critical of
top
government officials.
Since September this year, three journalists have received death threat
text
messages for doing stories that mention top government officials or focus
on
issues critical of the State.
Recent reports indicate that Radio Maria Journalist Branzio Chingwalu and
Capital Radio Talk Show Host Brian Banda have been receiving death threats
for
doing stories critical of the State.
Reports state that Chingwalu received a death threat message on his cell
phone
for doing a follow up story on remarks First Lady Callista Mutharika made
on
scarcity of fuel when she opened a health centre in Mzimba recently.
Mutharika
is reported to have indicated that rural people need not worry about fuel.
The text to Chingwalu reads:
Sankha chimodzi, imfa kapena moyo. Unalemba nkhani yonyoza First Lady
chifukwa
chakusowa mafuta. Ntchito yako ikuphesa mphwanga, (Choose life or death.
You
wrote a story that castigated the First Lady because of the fuel shortage.
You
will die because of your job, we are monitoring you and our network is
stronger
than you think.’
The text to Banda partly reads:
‘Brian ukonde moyo osati ntchito. Ndikumva chisoni ukhala next victim...you
are
close to find Chasowa. Boma ndi Boma, (Brian love life not work. I feel
sorry
for you. You will be the next victim and you are close to be with Chasowa).
Government is government.’ Robert Chasowa was murdered after allegedly
threatening to reveal government secrets and Nation Publications Limited
(NPL)
Journalist Phillip Pemba received death threats over an article that
revealed
that Chasowa had dealings with the police before he was murdered.
MISA Malawi considers these threats as very serious attempts to muzzle the
media
and curtail meaningful dialogue. We are forced to believe that these
threats
have the blessings of top government officials who have opted to stay
silent
despite the fact that these threats are being made in their names.
Recent threats on journalist Phillip Pemba were made because Inspector
General
Peter Mukhito and Southern Region Police Commissioner Rodney Jose were
mentioned
in the article. Former Malawi Institute of Journalism (MIJ) Editor Joseph
Mwale
also received death threats after allegedly publicising a recording of a
private
conversation between Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mutharika and former
Deputy
Minister of Sports and Culture, Charles Mchacha.
Radio Maria journalist Chingwalu is receiving threats for pursuing a story
on
First Lady Callista Mutharika’s remarks and Brian Banda is receiving death
threats for coming up with content critical of the State.
None of the top government officials mentioned has openly commented or
denounced
these threats.
However, as always stated in our statements, these acts are barbaric,
retrogressive and unnecessary in an open and democratic Malawi and require
collective condemnation.
These developments instil fear and curtail meaningful dialogue and debate
on
pertinent issues that affect our country, scarcity of fuel and its impact
on
rural lives or the murder of Robert Chasowa for example.
We therefore call upon the authorities, specifically government officials
and
personalities involved, to openly condemn and call for thorough
investigations
into such threats. We also call upon the police to update Malawians on
progress
being made in investigating these threats.
IG Peter Mukhito, Southern Region Police Commissioner Rodney Jose, and
other top
government officials associated with these threats should come out clean
and
disassociate themselves from these barbaric acts for fear of tarnishing the
image of government and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Finally, we appeal to journalists to be professional and thorough in
pursuing
their stories and above all to be alert and to openly report threats of any
nature to relevant authorities.
Signed
Anthony Kasunda
MISA Malawi Chairperson
The Soaring Cost of Centre for Social Concern: Living might be undesirable Reality in Months to Come.
The consumers are feeling the pinch of the devalued Kwacha as increases in the prices of goods and services are increasingly and negatively contributing to the reduced purchasing power of the Kwacha. An increase in the general level of prices in September implies that reality of the devalued kwacha is biting hard on the consumers, revealing the decrease in the purchasing power of the currency. Entailing that when the general level of prices rises, each monetary unit buys fewer goods and services.
The problem might be that while the Kwacha was devalued by 10% in early August, the salary survey made in mid-August showed that income levels remained stagnant. If consumers were to remain with the same purchasing power as before August, one should have been able to receive increased income at more or less the same magnitude as the 10% devaluation. While this is not the case, it means that hard-working people will keep watching as the costs of goods and services skyrocket while their incomes remain the same or, even worse, they would see a significant drop in household income. The average cost of living in the four cities stood at MK56, 032.00 in September, compared with MK46, 334.75 during the comparable period last year, representing a 17% percent increase.
Based on an analysis of the price rises in the types of food (e.g. maize- see chart 2) and domestic fuel, there is a revelation that the gains made from cheaper prices of some commodities such as tomato (see chart 1) are being lost by other budgets which have registered the steep price rises in September (e.g. charcoal – see chart 3). Comparing current and historical data has revealed that low-income households are more vulnerable than four months ago to falling below a minimum acceptable standard of living. Without action to combat effects such as fuel shortages, social and economic exclusion are likely to rise. Equally the CFSC is inclined to concur with Nico Asset Managers Limited, Economic Intelligence Unit and NSO forecasts that the populace needs to steel itself for an arduous ride in the months to come; hard choices will have to be made with regard to what essentials one will go without.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
All Winds Pass Away: Philosophical Lessons
Man's time always passes away, no matter how long it takes.
It has happened before,when some beings so infallibly human wanted to stand one frame higher than the horde of all these unofficial citizens- citizens who wonder about, to and fro, in search of the basics they have never found.
It is sad that the world has come to take the 'basic necessities' for food, shelter, clothing, and the other one many have come to chalk to heart, and recall at the sense- is it fear?- of their rights being infringed upon.
But the world, in its all-knowing rush- this rush that takes us nowhere- forgets so many simple things.
The world, in this big run for a tomorrow that never be be known, forgets about the real basic necessity, and the second real basic necessity. But the truth remains that the world's 'mother' basic necessity is justice.
Then, there is oxygen- taken in droves, but still unaccounted for on the long list of man's everyday wants and needs.
It is so simple to get to the bottom of man's infallible heart: He counts on what he sees, and feels, and hears. What he touches, too- but never what he doesn't 'oil' with his blood, and sweat, and puss, and the burning tissues that, every 'here' craws into the unknown.
Never to be, again; and never to be called and known by name. These tissues that dissipate.
This happens even in mountains grandeur. Mountains that 'house' the lucky ones- people who were born fortunate enough to have been pin-pointed, hand-picked, and position-bounded long ago- before the strong sun that beholds the tail of this peaceful darkness that comes at the end of the day- to become to 'whippers' of the common man, binders of these common goals in this carton of- you call it what? Oh, I remember, this memory that passes away- Malawi Growth and Development Strategy.
The world, without one such supreme and all-mountain vanquishing being in this common basket of humanity- still has its own bundled aspirations , the unintentional Millennium Development Goals.
It is all vapour, so light to take this giant madness off station. Off course, of course. When the giant mountain-dweller calls you, even though so matter he is, you either go and come back, or go and go back!'
This means what it says: going to 'come' back, and going to 'go' back!
That's what the mountain-dweller does to people. Dressed in his steel clothes of stubbornness, his head covered by the treeless skies above, his feet anchored by the mountains from which he derives this 'artificial' sense of being, this unmeasured sense of safety and security, (what he does to people is) he calls those he so wishes- throwing them from metres on-high.
When they tumble into eternity, (it means) they have gone to the mountain, and gone back. That is, going, and going back!
But sometimes, when the high winds on the low mountain are warm enough to captivate others infallible souls, he calls and the unofficial ones come, breathing high, and he whispers food and sweet water into their bowels and they come back.
Thus, those whose heads touches the bosom of the mountain dweller can be all-highs in this world hope of being let to go, and come back.
They, then, meet their loved ones- people they have come to know, and not deny.
All this happens on the mountain top, or the extensive flat land- 500 sleeps-strong.
Oh, this truth reminds us of the magnitude of their hopes, hopes ridden at the expense of the unofficial citizen's contribution towards the basics.
All sensible mortals, those mortals who walk within their white staff, or grey matter, and come back without losing touch with the winds, know that their salt is not free. That their sugar, too, this white and brown artificiality, has never been as free as the winds climbing through these, our veins. These veins of vanity.
The mountain man, or flatland inhabitant with 500 sleeps (500 of which sleeps can be found in Lilongwe, at the New Soul hut)eats free things, dreams free dreams, and hopes free hopes. All his air, as it were, being forced on the overburdened citizens below.
He eats, the mountain dweller, mountains. Mountains of food. He dreams mountains, for his dreams, being staged on the frame of infallibility, are vast and limitless. The unofficial citizen will pay for his airs and hairs and headaches, after all.
But, him being so 'insured' by the souls all-around, he gets his mountain an inch high with these artificial bricks and rocks.
These rocks and bricks that surround him, and blind his sight.These advisers!
The rocks tell him he is okay. That he will climb on that horse with 2014 legs! A horse that, during the four trips it has paid to the desert, has the tendency to come in May.
Not that this horse brings so many changes! The mountain man and his people put it in their opaque cartons. The white boxes, those ballots they fix throughout all this desert land- fooling our hopes of power; that, at least, this time our hands will work and take another untested infallible being to the mountain (if not the mountain; at least, put 500 souls into his feeble heart, and centre him in Lilongwe!)
Of course, the new infallible being will also change. And turn this hope into madness. Darkness, too.
But that is two, six years to come- years untested and tried. Years that, when their course finally comes, may take this common 'infallibleness' an inch higher, but not higher enough to touch base with the mountain top.
Then, when the winds pass away and reality catches up with the mountain man.
Man! Why is it always man?
Why is it that it is always men; why is it that when women try- even when already so close to the mountain top, they are chased away. Women who, having not bumped into the mountain man, are through out into the 'orange' world, far and far away from the blueless skies.
Some say the skies are blue!
But they all pass away into bluelessness- when the winds pass away.
This wind, this strange wind. At first, it was a cock. This wind.
Then, it inherited the form of light. That yellow light. This yellow light that never ceases to pass away.
Before the new housekeepers decorated it with blue!
Nobody knows which colour it will wear- meaning, this wind- when Twenty-thousand and fourteen horse bring the boxes that contain people's hopes, aspirations, and goals.
And whose boxes are 'stolen' away by the infallible human beings fighting for possession of the 500 'sleeps', or that bushful mountain without game.
But the winds always pass away.
It has happened before,when some beings so infallibly human wanted to stand one frame higher than the horde of all these unofficial citizens- citizens who wonder about, to and fro, in search of the basics they have never found.
It is sad that the world has come to take the 'basic necessities' for food, shelter, clothing, and the other one many have come to chalk to heart, and recall at the sense- is it fear?- of their rights being infringed upon.
But the world, in its all-knowing rush- this rush that takes us nowhere- forgets so many simple things.
The world, in this big run for a tomorrow that never be be known, forgets about the real basic necessity, and the second real basic necessity. But the truth remains that the world's 'mother' basic necessity is justice.
Then, there is oxygen- taken in droves, but still unaccounted for on the long list of man's everyday wants and needs.
It is so simple to get to the bottom of man's infallible heart: He counts on what he sees, and feels, and hears. What he touches, too- but never what he doesn't 'oil' with his blood, and sweat, and puss, and the burning tissues that, every 'here' craws into the unknown.
Never to be, again; and never to be called and known by name. These tissues that dissipate.
This happens even in mountains grandeur. Mountains that 'house' the lucky ones- people who were born fortunate enough to have been pin-pointed, hand-picked, and position-bounded long ago- before the strong sun that beholds the tail of this peaceful darkness that comes at the end of the day- to become to 'whippers' of the common man, binders of these common goals in this carton of- you call it what? Oh, I remember, this memory that passes away- Malawi Growth and Development Strategy.
The world, without one such supreme and all-mountain vanquishing being in this common basket of humanity- still has its own bundled aspirations , the unintentional Millennium Development Goals.
It is all vapour, so light to take this giant madness off station. Off course, of course. When the giant mountain-dweller calls you, even though so matter he is, you either go and come back, or go and go back!'
This means what it says: going to 'come' back, and going to 'go' back!
That's what the mountain-dweller does to people. Dressed in his steel clothes of stubbornness, his head covered by the treeless skies above, his feet anchored by the mountains from which he derives this 'artificial' sense of being, this unmeasured sense of safety and security, (what he does to people is) he calls those he so wishes- throwing them from metres on-high.
When they tumble into eternity, (it means) they have gone to the mountain, and gone back. That is, going, and going back!
But sometimes, when the high winds on the low mountain are warm enough to captivate others infallible souls, he calls and the unofficial ones come, breathing high, and he whispers food and sweet water into their bowels and they come back.
Thus, those whose heads touches the bosom of the mountain dweller can be all-highs in this world hope of being let to go, and come back.
They, then, meet their loved ones- people they have come to know, and not deny.
All this happens on the mountain top, or the extensive flat land- 500 sleeps-strong.
Oh, this truth reminds us of the magnitude of their hopes, hopes ridden at the expense of the unofficial citizen's contribution towards the basics.
All sensible mortals, those mortals who walk within their white staff, or grey matter, and come back without losing touch with the winds, know that their salt is not free. That their sugar, too, this white and brown artificiality, has never been as free as the winds climbing through these, our veins. These veins of vanity.
The mountain man, or flatland inhabitant with 500 sleeps (500 of which sleeps can be found in Lilongwe, at the New Soul hut)eats free things, dreams free dreams, and hopes free hopes. All his air, as it were, being forced on the overburdened citizens below.
He eats, the mountain dweller, mountains. Mountains of food. He dreams mountains, for his dreams, being staged on the frame of infallibility, are vast and limitless. The unofficial citizen will pay for his airs and hairs and headaches, after all.
But, him being so 'insured' by the souls all-around, he gets his mountain an inch high with these artificial bricks and rocks.
These rocks and bricks that surround him, and blind his sight.These advisers!
The rocks tell him he is okay. That he will climb on that horse with 2014 legs! A horse that, during the four trips it has paid to the desert, has the tendency to come in May.
Not that this horse brings so many changes! The mountain man and his people put it in their opaque cartons. The white boxes, those ballots they fix throughout all this desert land- fooling our hopes of power; that, at least, this time our hands will work and take another untested infallible being to the mountain (if not the mountain; at least, put 500 souls into his feeble heart, and centre him in Lilongwe!)
Of course, the new infallible being will also change. And turn this hope into madness. Darkness, too.
But that is two, six years to come- years untested and tried. Years that, when their course finally comes, may take this common 'infallibleness' an inch higher, but not higher enough to touch base with the mountain top.
Then, when the winds pass away and reality catches up with the mountain man.
Man! Why is it always man?
Why is it that it is always men; why is it that when women try- even when already so close to the mountain top, they are chased away. Women who, having not bumped into the mountain man, are through out into the 'orange' world, far and far away from the blueless skies.
Some say the skies are blue!
But they all pass away into bluelessness- when the winds pass away.
This wind, this strange wind. At first, it was a cock. This wind.
Then, it inherited the form of light. That yellow light. This yellow light that never ceases to pass away.
Before the new housekeepers decorated it with blue!
Nobody knows which colour it will wear- meaning, this wind- when Twenty-thousand and fourteen horse bring the boxes that contain people's hopes, aspirations, and goals.
And whose boxes are 'stolen' away by the infallible human beings fighting for possession of the 500 'sleeps', or that bushful mountain without game.
But the winds always pass away.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Wishing All Alhomwes All the Best
After all, we are one people.
Allow me, therefore, on behalf of all the Ngonis in Malawi, to wish the Alhomwes well.
Not that we have forgotten how you, Lomwes, killed our ancestors with Kalongonda.
You, Lomwes, you! How dare you Kalongonda us?
Allow me, therefore, on behalf of all the Ngonis in Malawi, to wish the Alhomwes well.
Not that we have forgotten how you, Lomwes, killed our ancestors with Kalongonda.
You, Lomwes, you! How dare you Kalongonda us?
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
FCO STATEMENT ON PRESIDENT BASHIR'S VISIT TO MALAWI
The United Kingdom's Minister for Africa, Henry Bellingham, MP, has issued the following statement following the visit to Malawi by President al-Bashir of Sudan on 14 October.
"I am disappointed that Malawi hosted President Bashir of Sudan today (14th October) in defiance of International Criminal Court arrest warrants for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
The British government expects the Government of Malawi to stand by its obligations under the Rome Statute, and as a UN member state. The Government of Malawi has committed itself to full cooperation with the ICC, and I reiterate the importance that the British government places on such commitments.
We support the work of the ICC as an independent judicial body. All countries should cooperate with the ICC investigations in accordance with UN Security Council Resolutions, and the particular legal obligations of States Party to the ICC."
British High Commission Lilongwe
14 October 2011
"I am disappointed that Malawi hosted President Bashir of Sudan today (14th October) in defiance of International Criminal Court arrest warrants for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
The British government expects the Government of Malawi to stand by its obligations under the Rome Statute, and as a UN member state. The Government of Malawi has committed itself to full cooperation with the ICC, and I reiterate the importance that the British government places on such commitments.
We support the work of the ICC as an independent judicial body. All countries should cooperate with the ICC investigations in accordance with UN Security Council Resolutions, and the particular legal obligations of States Party to the ICC."
British High Commission Lilongwe
14 October 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
TALKS BETWEEN UK AND MALAWI GOVERNMENT
Discussions took place this afternoon (12 October) between the Foreign Secretary, the Rt Hon. William Hague MP, and a high-level delegation from the Malawian Government led by Foreign Minister Professor Peter Mutharika. Minister for Africa at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Henry Bellingham MP and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for International Development Stephen O’Brien MP also participated.
The Ministers discussed the normalisation of diplomatic relations between the UK and Malawi, and the deteriorating political and economic situation in Malawi.
The Foreign Secretary made it clear that the current strain in diplomatic relations between the UK and Malawi was a direct consequence of the unwarranted and unjustified decision by the Malawian Government to expel the British High Commissioner, Mr Fergus Cochrane-Dyet, in April. He rejected the recent suggestion by the President of Malawi that Mr Cochrane-Dyet had not been expelled. He emphasised to the Malawian delegation that any further discussions on normalising the bilateral relationship would be fruitless if the Malawian Government did not accept responsibility for their decision to expel Mr Cochrane-Dyet.
The Foreign Secretary and his colleagues also outlined the British Government’s grave concern as to the economic and political situation in Malawi. They emphasised the need for the Government of Malawi to engage fully with the IMF and other donors in order to tackle the serious economic crisis. While the UK did not take a partisan position in Malawian politics, the Ministers underlined the need for the Government of Malawi to respect the rights of citizens and civil society organisations to assemble and speak freely. They condemned unreservedly the recent attacks on prominent opposition leaders and civil society activists, and urged the authorities to investigate these incidents and particularly the death of Robert Chasowa thoroughly, and bring those responsible to justice.
The UK has indefinitely suspended the provision of General Budget Support to Malawi. This programme will remain suspended until the Government of Malawi addresses our concerns over economic management, governance and human rights.
It was a constructive meeting. But the UK will now be looking for concrete progress in the coming weeks on the issues Ministers discussed.
British High Commission Lilongwe
12 October 2011
The Ministers discussed the normalisation of diplomatic relations between the UK and Malawi, and the deteriorating political and economic situation in Malawi.
The Foreign Secretary made it clear that the current strain in diplomatic relations between the UK and Malawi was a direct consequence of the unwarranted and unjustified decision by the Malawian Government to expel the British High Commissioner, Mr Fergus Cochrane-Dyet, in April. He rejected the recent suggestion by the President of Malawi that Mr Cochrane-Dyet had not been expelled. He emphasised to the Malawian delegation that any further discussions on normalising the bilateral relationship would be fruitless if the Malawian Government did not accept responsibility for their decision to expel Mr Cochrane-Dyet.
The Foreign Secretary and his colleagues also outlined the British Government’s grave concern as to the economic and political situation in Malawi. They emphasised the need for the Government of Malawi to engage fully with the IMF and other donors in order to tackle the serious economic crisis. While the UK did not take a partisan position in Malawian politics, the Ministers underlined the need for the Government of Malawi to respect the rights of citizens and civil society organisations to assemble and speak freely. They condemned unreservedly the recent attacks on prominent opposition leaders and civil society activists, and urged the authorities to investigate these incidents and particularly the death of Robert Chasowa thoroughly, and bring those responsible to justice.
The UK has indefinitely suspended the provision of General Budget Support to Malawi. This programme will remain suspended until the Government of Malawi addresses our concerns over economic management, governance and human rights.
It was a constructive meeting. But the UK will now be looking for concrete progress in the coming weeks on the issues Ministers discussed.
British High Commission Lilongwe
12 October 2011
MISA MALAWI STATEMENT ON DEATH THREATS OVER CHASOWA STORY
13th October, 2011
For Immediate Release
The Malawi Chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) is
disturbed with reports that Nation Publications Limited (NPL) Journalist
Phillip Pemba is receiving death threats over an article that revealed
that Robert Chasowa had dealings with the police before he was murdered.
We are also disturbed with reports that the police summoned Weekend Nation
Editor George Kasakula and Malawi News Deputy Editor Innocent Chitosi of
Blantyre Newspapers Limited - papers that carried detailed insights into
Chasowa’s death and dealings with the police - for questioning over
recordings of the articles.
Pemba’s article, published in Weekend Nation of October 8, gave an insight
into what could have led to Chasowa’s death and exposed his dealings with
police to help stop the planned August 17 protests against government.
‘One of the callers said they know where I stay and another one asked why
I mentioned the name of Inspector General of Police (IG Peter Mukhito) in
my story. He said I will die over the story. They said i would have been
safe if I left out the names of the police officers involved.’ Pemba is
quoted as saying in The Nation of Wednesday, October 12.
MISA Malawi considers these threats as well as the summoning of editors
Kasakula and Chitosi as deliberate attempts to muzzle journalists and
instil fear in the media sorority. As always stated in our statements,
these acts instil fear and curtail meaningful dialogue and debate on
pertinent issues that affect our country, the murder of student Robert
Chasowa for example.
These developments are barbaric, retrogressive and superfluous in an open
and democratic Malawi and require collective condemnation.
We therefore call upon the authorities to openly condemn and call for
thorough investigations into such threats. We also call upon the police to
support and work with media in uncovering the truth about Chasowa’s death
and not to intimidate and gag journalists. The media helps the country
expose various ills that affect our country and summoning and intimidating
them over the Chasowa article will only raise suspicions than answers.
We applaud the police for launching an investigation into Chasowa’s death.
MISA Malawi is, however, calling on IG Peter Mukhito to openly denounce
such barbaric acts and for the law enforcers to protect journalists and
indeed members of the public who are constantly receiving threats from
unknown persons.
IG Peter Mukhito and Southern Region Police Commissioner Rodney Jose, who
were both mentioned in the article by Pemba and subjects of the death
threats, have chosen not to comment on the threats levelled against Pemba.
The article by Pemba indicated that Commissioner Jose took late Chasowa
and his colleague to Lilongwe on August 7 to meet Mukhito over the deal to
foul the August 17 demonstrations. The story revealed that the IG gave
them Chivas Whisky and MK50, 000 each. Jose confirmed taking the group to
Lilongwe to meet Mukhito.
MISA Malawi is thus appealing to the IG and Commissioner Jose to openly
denounce the death threats on Pemba and summoning of editors whose papers
published the insightful articles. Malawi Police is supposed to protect
and ensure peace and security and should therefore condemn and distance
itself from these death threats which are most likely tarnishing the image
of the service and its top brass.
Finally, we appeal to journalists to be professional, alert and to openly
report threats of any nature to relevant authorities.
Signed
Anthony Kasunda
MISA MALAWI CHAIRPERSON
For Immediate Release
The Malawi Chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) is
disturbed with reports that Nation Publications Limited (NPL) Journalist
Phillip Pemba is receiving death threats over an article that revealed
that Robert Chasowa had dealings with the police before he was murdered.
We are also disturbed with reports that the police summoned Weekend Nation
Editor George Kasakula and Malawi News Deputy Editor Innocent Chitosi of
Blantyre Newspapers Limited - papers that carried detailed insights into
Chasowa’s death and dealings with the police - for questioning over
recordings of the articles.
Pemba’s article, published in Weekend Nation of October 8, gave an insight
into what could have led to Chasowa’s death and exposed his dealings with
police to help stop the planned August 17 protests against government.
‘One of the callers said they know where I stay and another one asked why
I mentioned the name of Inspector General of Police (IG Peter Mukhito) in
my story. He said I will die over the story. They said i would have been
safe if I left out the names of the police officers involved.’ Pemba is
quoted as saying in The Nation of Wednesday, October 12.
MISA Malawi considers these threats as well as the summoning of editors
Kasakula and Chitosi as deliberate attempts to muzzle journalists and
instil fear in the media sorority. As always stated in our statements,
these acts instil fear and curtail meaningful dialogue and debate on
pertinent issues that affect our country, the murder of student Robert
Chasowa for example.
These developments are barbaric, retrogressive and superfluous in an open
and democratic Malawi and require collective condemnation.
We therefore call upon the authorities to openly condemn and call for
thorough investigations into such threats. We also call upon the police to
support and work with media in uncovering the truth about Chasowa’s death
and not to intimidate and gag journalists. The media helps the country
expose various ills that affect our country and summoning and intimidating
them over the Chasowa article will only raise suspicions than answers.
We applaud the police for launching an investigation into Chasowa’s death.
MISA Malawi is, however, calling on IG Peter Mukhito to openly denounce
such barbaric acts and for the law enforcers to protect journalists and
indeed members of the public who are constantly receiving threats from
unknown persons.
IG Peter Mukhito and Southern Region Police Commissioner Rodney Jose, who
were both mentioned in the article by Pemba and subjects of the death
threats, have chosen not to comment on the threats levelled against Pemba.
The article by Pemba indicated that Commissioner Jose took late Chasowa
and his colleague to Lilongwe on August 7 to meet Mukhito over the deal to
foul the August 17 demonstrations. The story revealed that the IG gave
them Chivas Whisky and MK50, 000 each. Jose confirmed taking the group to
Lilongwe to meet Mukhito.
MISA Malawi is thus appealing to the IG and Commissioner Jose to openly
denounce the death threats on Pemba and summoning of editors whose papers
published the insightful articles. Malawi Police is supposed to protect
and ensure peace and security and should therefore condemn and distance
itself from these death threats which are most likely tarnishing the image
of the service and its top brass.
Finally, we appeal to journalists to be professional, alert and to openly
report threats of any nature to relevant authorities.
Signed
Anthony Kasunda
MISA MALAWI CHAIRPERSON
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Kinnah Phiri Has Over-stayed His Flames' Welcome
Yes, it is true.
It seems like Malawi National Football Team coach, Kinnah 'Power-Outage' Phiri, has run out of ideas.
How, on this bumpy orgy, dare he suggest that match officials were 'bought' to spoil Malawi's premature party?
If the truth be told, it is Kinnah himself who was 'bought' by bad luck to spoil Malawi's qualification for Gabon!
Two things have emerged clearly from Malawi's daring attempt to 'kiss' bad luck: One. The team is in the habit of disappointing citizens who dwell in the land by the lake. Two. Kinnah 'Power-Outage' Phiri has run out of ideas and should put a hand in farming.
At least he can make quick cash through fish farming without disappointing people's hearts!
But, let us face it, Malawians are to blame, too.
They raise their expectations so high. Almost to a fault!
And when the team 'tastes' part of Kinnah Phiri's dating with bad luck, they fall so hard against their own expectations, blaming every one they meet along the Masauko- Chipembere Highway willy nilly.
It is my view that Malawians should not fly too high over reality. Of course, a little hope is necessary in life.
But such hope should not be fused with over-expectations, especially when the man to deliver the goods is Kinnah 'Power-Outage' Phiri!
Come to think about it. The Malawi National Lottery, which will roll out its services this coming December, is just a new kid on the sand-blocks of the land by the lake. But, already, the company has shown good will twice.
First, it gave Malawians a poke at what is to come after December by pledging K500, 000 to the team- in case it emerged victor over those North Africans form Tunisia.
On paper, the Tunisians were coming here to lose. Especially when we come to think that, just some five months ago, everyone thought theirs was a nation gaping for democratic breath. A nation under the fumes of revolution.
Look at what happened at the giant Kamuzu Stadium. The game ended in stalemate, a positive point for the then hopeless Tunisia.
On the face of it, the Malawi National Lottery was disappointed. Here is a team that fails to live up to expectations failing to lay its hands on this bounty.
But, the other truth must come out also, the Malawi National Lottery was happy also. Naturally.
Happy because their K500, 000 had survived the open pockets of the Malawi National Football Team, a.k.a. ashes!
Happy that the money would be used to complete painting works at its offices along Sanjika Road.
The company, however, tried to play another chancy game. Pledging, this time, K1 million to the tactless Flames. Sorry, ashes!
Well, the team botched it again. The botchful act was performed in prime time (05:00 P.M. Malawian time) when the kids and their mother and father are at home.
Or, if the father be not home, at least somewhere close to either home or tv screen.
That is how things go these days.
What? Technology? What do you know about technology!
Yes, they say- I don't know who- that we live in a technologically advanced world. But, if a question be raised, how can we (all) be said to be 'living' in a technologically-advanced world when there are millions among us who are not 'living' but 'surviving'?. Those people who find everyday a pain as they search for the basics.
Why is the world full, of nonsense!
Yes, back to that issue of close to home or screens.
So, as Malawians ( at least, some Malawians. Less than 8.5 per cent of the Malawi population) sat close to tv sets and wives, children and radio sets, the Kinnah 'Power-Outage' Phiri-led foot-orchestra decided to botch it up.
And, as has become the case, Kinnah 'Power-Outage' Phiri expects to hand on to the tattered thread that is the National team.
His apologetic card is that of allegations that the match officials were bought in Chad.
But this should not hold our senses.
It's time for Kinnah 'Power-Outage' Phiri to go.
After all, what happens when the 'electricity' goes out? They disappear in the darkness that follows, never to come back, perhaps.
Of course, the faces resurface, when the light comes back.
But this is not the case for us. The outage has stuck in our hearts. The blackness is so full it swallows all the hope around.
It is time, it seems, that Kinnah got swallowed by the darkness of our misery.
There are lots of things Kinnah 'Power-Outage' Phiri can do.
Join the struggling Big Bullets, perhaps.
Or fish farming.
Perhaps!
It seems like Malawi National Football Team coach, Kinnah 'Power-Outage' Phiri, has run out of ideas.
How, on this bumpy orgy, dare he suggest that match officials were 'bought' to spoil Malawi's premature party?
If the truth be told, it is Kinnah himself who was 'bought' by bad luck to spoil Malawi's qualification for Gabon!
Two things have emerged clearly from Malawi's daring attempt to 'kiss' bad luck: One. The team is in the habit of disappointing citizens who dwell in the land by the lake. Two. Kinnah 'Power-Outage' Phiri has run out of ideas and should put a hand in farming.
At least he can make quick cash through fish farming without disappointing people's hearts!
But, let us face it, Malawians are to blame, too.
They raise their expectations so high. Almost to a fault!
And when the team 'tastes' part of Kinnah Phiri's dating with bad luck, they fall so hard against their own expectations, blaming every one they meet along the Masauko- Chipembere Highway willy nilly.
It is my view that Malawians should not fly too high over reality. Of course, a little hope is necessary in life.
But such hope should not be fused with over-expectations, especially when the man to deliver the goods is Kinnah 'Power-Outage' Phiri!
Come to think about it. The Malawi National Lottery, which will roll out its services this coming December, is just a new kid on the sand-blocks of the land by the lake. But, already, the company has shown good will twice.
First, it gave Malawians a poke at what is to come after December by pledging K500, 000 to the team- in case it emerged victor over those North Africans form Tunisia.
On paper, the Tunisians were coming here to lose. Especially when we come to think that, just some five months ago, everyone thought theirs was a nation gaping for democratic breath. A nation under the fumes of revolution.
Look at what happened at the giant Kamuzu Stadium. The game ended in stalemate, a positive point for the then hopeless Tunisia.
On the face of it, the Malawi National Lottery was disappointed. Here is a team that fails to live up to expectations failing to lay its hands on this bounty.
But, the other truth must come out also, the Malawi National Lottery was happy also. Naturally.
Happy because their K500, 000 had survived the open pockets of the Malawi National Football Team, a.k.a. ashes!
Happy that the money would be used to complete painting works at its offices along Sanjika Road.
The company, however, tried to play another chancy game. Pledging, this time, K1 million to the tactless Flames. Sorry, ashes!
Well, the team botched it again. The botchful act was performed in prime time (05:00 P.M. Malawian time) when the kids and their mother and father are at home.
Or, if the father be not home, at least somewhere close to either home or tv screen.
That is how things go these days.
What? Technology? What do you know about technology!
Yes, they say- I don't know who- that we live in a technologically advanced world. But, if a question be raised, how can we (all) be said to be 'living' in a technologically-advanced world when there are millions among us who are not 'living' but 'surviving'?. Those people who find everyday a pain as they search for the basics.
Why is the world full, of nonsense!
Yes, back to that issue of close to home or screens.
So, as Malawians ( at least, some Malawians. Less than 8.5 per cent of the Malawi population) sat close to tv sets and wives, children and radio sets, the Kinnah 'Power-Outage' Phiri-led foot-orchestra decided to botch it up.
And, as has become the case, Kinnah 'Power-Outage' Phiri expects to hand on to the tattered thread that is the National team.
His apologetic card is that of allegations that the match officials were bought in Chad.
But this should not hold our senses.
It's time for Kinnah 'Power-Outage' Phiri to go.
After all, what happens when the 'electricity' goes out? They disappear in the darkness that follows, never to come back, perhaps.
Of course, the faces resurface, when the light comes back.
But this is not the case for us. The outage has stuck in our hearts. The blackness is so full it swallows all the hope around.
It is time, it seems, that Kinnah got swallowed by the darkness of our misery.
There are lots of things Kinnah 'Power-Outage' Phiri can do.
Join the struggling Big Bullets, perhaps.
Or fish farming.
Perhaps!
Fuel Supply update
Tuesday 11th October 2011
Lilongwe and the centre
Petrol
Petrol is not available in the centre
Petrol Deliveries
There are no planned petrol deliveries for the day
Diesel
None of our sites has diesel at the moment
Deliveries
Diesel will be delivered as follows
Kanengo- Mid morning
Kaunda road- Mid morning
Blantyre and the south
Petrol
Petrol is available at the following service stations
Shopping Mall- to finish anytime
Chileka- enough for the day
Haile Saillesie- To finish by the afternoon
Luchenza- Enough for the day
Mwanza- To finish by the afternoon
Zomba- Enough for the day
Petrol deliveries
Deliveries will be made as follows:
Mulanje Limbuli- Mid day
Balaka- Afternoon
Diesel
None of our sites has diesel at the moment.
Diesel Deliveries
Deliveries will made as follows
Mulanje – Mid day
Ntcheu- Afternoon
Mzuzu and the north
Petrol
None of our sites has petrol at the moment
Petrol Deliveries
There are no planned petrol deliveries for the day
Diesel
None of our sites has diesel at the moment
Diesel deliveries
Deliveries will made as follows
Karonga- Afternoon
Lilongwe and the centre
Petrol
Petrol is not available in the centre
Petrol Deliveries
There are no planned petrol deliveries for the day
Diesel
None of our sites has diesel at the moment
Deliveries
Diesel will be delivered as follows
Kanengo- Mid morning
Kaunda road- Mid morning
Blantyre and the south
Petrol
Petrol is available at the following service stations
Shopping Mall- to finish anytime
Chileka- enough for the day
Haile Saillesie- To finish by the afternoon
Luchenza- Enough for the day
Mwanza- To finish by the afternoon
Zomba- Enough for the day
Petrol deliveries
Deliveries will be made as follows:
Mulanje Limbuli- Mid day
Balaka- Afternoon
Diesel
None of our sites has diesel at the moment.
Diesel Deliveries
Deliveries will made as follows
Mulanje – Mid day
Ntcheu- Afternoon
Mzuzu and the north
Petrol
None of our sites has petrol at the moment
Petrol Deliveries
There are no planned petrol deliveries for the day
Diesel
None of our sites has diesel at the moment
Diesel deliveries
Deliveries will made as follows
Karonga- Afternoon
Bulletin of the Oppression of Women September 14-October 9, 2011
September 14, 2011 - October 9, 2011
September 14, 2011
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabian women are protesting against plans by the Gulf nation to replace Indonesian domestic workers with Moroccan maids.
September 15, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A 15-year-old girl was allegedly strangled to death by her uncle in the name of honour in Shera Kot Police limits on Wednesday.
The deceased was identified as Anam, daughter of Ramzan, resident of Ghousia Park. Police said that the deceased's uncle, Talib Hussain, who was residing at his brother-in-law's house, suspected that Anam had illicit relations with a Christian youth of the same area.
UK (Hat tip to VladTepes)
A 17-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker who had only been in Britain for four months took part in a gang rape and laughed as he humiliated the victim. Ahmed and an accomplice, who police are still trying to track down, repeatedly raped the 23-year-old victim, after snaring her while on a night out.
September 16, 2011
Nepal/Mid-East (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
According to a study by the Foreign Nepali Workers Rescue Center (FNWRC), about 90 per cent of all Nepali migrant women are victims of sexual violence and exploitation. The worst cases are in Arab countries where female migrant workers are routinely raped, beaten and not paid. For this reason, the Nepali government limited emigration to the Middle East between 1998 and 2010.
Still, every year, 83,000 Nepal migrant women leave the country in search for work. Most go to the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, where job opportunities are better.
September 18, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A total of seven women suffered acid attacks in the past two days in Faisalabad in separate incidents.
September 21, 2011
Pakistan
A Christian mother of five was allegedly raped by two Muslim men last week, and area Islamists are threatening to harm her family if charges against the suspects are not dropped, the woman and her husband told Compass.
On Thursday (Sept. 15), the 32-year-old woman said, she was returning home to Mustafabad, in Punjab Province's Kasur district, from a garment factory where she works. Two Muslims, identified only as 23-year-old Bhallu and 27-year-old Shera, along with an unidentified accomplice, allegedly abducted her at gunpoint, took her to an abandoned house in the area and raped her, she said.
September 24, 2011
UK (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
The truth about polygamy and Muslims who exploit the governmental system.
September 26, 2011
Norway (Hat tip to and translation by IslamInEurope)
Four men have been charged with forcibly marrying a 16 year old girl to a 23 year old man. The marriage was carried out March 2009 in the Oslo suburb of Skedsmo. The girl's family gave their blessings to the marriage.
September 27, 2011
Saudi Arabia
For Saudi women: one step forward and two steps backward. Update HERE. A Saudi woman has been sentenced to 10 lashes for challenging a ban on women driving. More HERE.
September 28, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A Pakistani girl who says she was kidnapped and gang-raped faces a new threat: honor killings, a tradition here, but one that her family refuses to carry out.
Egypt (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
A Christian girl was prevented for over a week from entering her school in Beni Mazar, Minya province, because she refused to wear a veil. "The school management described her as 'flaunt' for not covering her hair," said Coptic activist Nader Shoukry, who uncovered the story. "Coptic students were forced to obey for fear of the school management's threats," said Mr. Wagdy Halfa, the attorney for the girl, "except for 14-year-old Ferial Sorial Habib, whose family refused this decision because it is inconsistent with religious freedom and a blatant Islamization of education."
Ferial was prevented from entering her school by the social worker, Ms. Ola Abdel Fattah, for eight consecutive days. Her father went to school on September 17 to protest this decision, but the school filed a police complaint against him on charges of libel and defamation.
Mr. Wagdy Halfa, the student's attorney, said the school administration of Shaikh Fadl Secondary School, a public school in Bani Mazar, had sent a warning to Christian students compelling them to wear a head dress, similar to the Hijab, and not to reveal their hair, otherwise they would be refused entry to school.
September 30, 2011
Russia (hat tip to Infidels Are Cool)
Radicals in Russia have been bombing bikini-clad women to enforce Islamic dress codes.
Pakistan
In a woman's complaint cell, barefooted, but decked up like a bride, 11-year-old Nadia told The Express Tribune of how her father had bartered her off in 'marriage' to a boy almost twice her age.
UK
A failed asylum seeker strangled and drowned a bakery worker who refused to marry him so he could stay in the UK.
October 1, 2011
Pakistan
A 12 year old girl is given in marriage to an 85 year old man.
October 2, 2011
Saudi Arabia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan, one of Saudi Arabia's most senior clerics, said he was not consulted about King Abdullah's decision to grant women more political rights, one of the first signs of discontent from powerful conservatives since the reform was announced.
In a speech last week the Saudi monarch announced that women would vote and run in future municipal council elections and serve in the appointed Shura Council which advises the king on policy.
October 4, 2011
Aceh, Indonesia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
In 1999, Indonesia first allowed the conservative province to partially implement Sharia law, and now Aceh is under enforcement of some of the strictest morality regulations in the country.
Evi Zain, with the human rights coalition HAM Aceh, says that, for women, the intimidating nature of enforced Sharia law enforcement institutes a culture of oppression.
October 5, 2011
Kenya (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Muslim clerics differed on the move taken by the Kenyan Chief Justice(CJ) Willy Mutunga.Mutunga wants to introduce post of female magistrate in the Khathis court which majority of the Muslim leaders term as disrespect to their faith. "This is a religious institution not a secular one and therefore it must be treated with respect."said Sheikh Abdullahi Abdi the chairman of National Muslim Leaders Forum.
October 6, 2011
Afghanistan (hat tip to GatesofVienna)
Ten years after British forces entered the war-ravaged country, the Standard has uncovered shocking evidence of an eight-year-old girl who was married off to a policeman for cash. She was sold to the officer, in his twenties, in clear breach of laws introduced two years ago to protect women.
October 8, 2011
Pakistan (hat tip to JihadWatch via thereligionofpeace)
A man shot and killed his sister, niece and another relative and began dancing around the dead bodies in the limits of Police Station Langrana on Thursday evening.
According to eyewitnesses, the accused, Aqil dragged the three bodies outside to the street where he and his three accomplices began dancing around them and hurling abused at the deceased. "They were spitting at the bodies and congratulating themselves over having killed the women because they had rejected their demands," said an eyewitness Mazhar.
October 9, 2011
Pakistan (hat tip to JihadWatch)
In a first for the garrison city, sixty masked men carrying iron rods barged into a girls' school in Rawalpindi and thrashed students and female teachers on Friday.
The gang of miscreants also warned the inmates at the MC Model Girls High School in Satellite Town to "dress modestly and wear hijabs" or face the music, eyewitnesses said.
Iran
Actress Marzieh Vafamehr has been sentenced to a year in jail and 90 lashes for her role in a film about the limits imposed on artists in the Islamic republic, an Iranian opposition website reported Sunday.
"A verdict has been issued for Marzieh Vafamehr, sentencing her to a year in jail and 90 lashes," Kalameh.com reported. "Her lawyer has appealed the sentence, which was handed down yesterday," the report added, without giving further details.
Vafamehr was arrested in July after appearing in "My Tehran for Sale," which came under harsh criticism in conservative circles. The film, produced in collaboration with Australia, tells the story of a young actress in Tehran whose theatre work is banned by the authorities. She is then forced to lead a secret life in order to express herself artistically.
India
A victim marries her Muslim rapist. The victim faced sexual harassment for over four months and it was when she became pregnant that the girl's family came to know about her ordeal. The family approached the police but the fear of spending life behind bars forced the man to marry Sana.
"The girl became pregnant after she was raped by the boy, who kept in touch with her on a regular basis. On being questioned by her family, the girl broke down and narrated her ordeal, following which she was brought to the police station," Sector-20 police chief R. K. Shishodia said. More HERE.
Nigeria
An Islamic cleric tricks women into having sex with him.
September 14, 2011
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabian women are protesting against plans by the Gulf nation to replace Indonesian domestic workers with Moroccan maids.
September 15, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A 15-year-old girl was allegedly strangled to death by her uncle in the name of honour in Shera Kot Police limits on Wednesday.
The deceased was identified as Anam, daughter of Ramzan, resident of Ghousia Park. Police said that the deceased's uncle, Talib Hussain, who was residing at his brother-in-law's house, suspected that Anam had illicit relations with a Christian youth of the same area.
UK (Hat tip to VladTepes)
A 17-year-old Iraqi asylum seeker who had only been in Britain for four months took part in a gang rape and laughed as he humiliated the victim. Ahmed and an accomplice, who police are still trying to track down, repeatedly raped the 23-year-old victim, after snaring her while on a night out.
September 16, 2011
Nepal/Mid-East (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
According to a study by the Foreign Nepali Workers Rescue Center (FNWRC), about 90 per cent of all Nepali migrant women are victims of sexual violence and exploitation. The worst cases are in Arab countries where female migrant workers are routinely raped, beaten and not paid. For this reason, the Nepali government limited emigration to the Middle East between 1998 and 2010.
Still, every year, 83,000 Nepal migrant women leave the country in search for work. Most go to the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, where job opportunities are better.
September 18, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A total of seven women suffered acid attacks in the past two days in Faisalabad in separate incidents.
September 21, 2011
Pakistan
A Christian mother of five was allegedly raped by two Muslim men last week, and area Islamists are threatening to harm her family if charges against the suspects are not dropped, the woman and her husband told Compass.
On Thursday (Sept. 15), the 32-year-old woman said, she was returning home to Mustafabad, in Punjab Province's Kasur district, from a garment factory where she works. Two Muslims, identified only as 23-year-old Bhallu and 27-year-old Shera, along with an unidentified accomplice, allegedly abducted her at gunpoint, took her to an abandoned house in the area and raped her, she said.
September 24, 2011
UK (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
The truth about polygamy and Muslims who exploit the governmental system.
September 26, 2011
Norway (Hat tip to and translation by IslamInEurope)
Four men have been charged with forcibly marrying a 16 year old girl to a 23 year old man. The marriage was carried out March 2009 in the Oslo suburb of Skedsmo. The girl's family gave their blessings to the marriage.
September 27, 2011
Saudi Arabia
For Saudi women: one step forward and two steps backward. Update HERE. A Saudi woman has been sentenced to 10 lashes for challenging a ban on women driving. More HERE.
September 28, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
A Pakistani girl who says she was kidnapped and gang-raped faces a new threat: honor killings, a tradition here, but one that her family refuses to carry out.
Egypt (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
A Christian girl was prevented for over a week from entering her school in Beni Mazar, Minya province, because she refused to wear a veil. "The school management described her as 'flaunt' for not covering her hair," said Coptic activist Nader Shoukry, who uncovered the story. "Coptic students were forced to obey for fear of the school management's threats," said Mr. Wagdy Halfa, the attorney for the girl, "except for 14-year-old Ferial Sorial Habib, whose family refused this decision because it is inconsistent with religious freedom and a blatant Islamization of education."
Ferial was prevented from entering her school by the social worker, Ms. Ola Abdel Fattah, for eight consecutive days. Her father went to school on September 17 to protest this decision, but the school filed a police complaint against him on charges of libel and defamation.
Mr. Wagdy Halfa, the student's attorney, said the school administration of Shaikh Fadl Secondary School, a public school in Bani Mazar, had sent a warning to Christian students compelling them to wear a head dress, similar to the Hijab, and not to reveal their hair, otherwise they would be refused entry to school.
September 30, 2011
Russia (hat tip to Infidels Are Cool)
Radicals in Russia have been bombing bikini-clad women to enforce Islamic dress codes.
Pakistan
In a woman's complaint cell, barefooted, but decked up like a bride, 11-year-old Nadia told The Express Tribune of how her father had bartered her off in 'marriage' to a boy almost twice her age.
UK
A failed asylum seeker strangled and drowned a bakery worker who refused to marry him so he could stay in the UK.
October 1, 2011
Pakistan
A 12 year old girl is given in marriage to an 85 year old man.
October 2, 2011
Saudi Arabia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan, one of Saudi Arabia's most senior clerics, said he was not consulted about King Abdullah's decision to grant women more political rights, one of the first signs of discontent from powerful conservatives since the reform was announced.
In a speech last week the Saudi monarch announced that women would vote and run in future municipal council elections and serve in the appointed Shura Council which advises the king on policy.
October 4, 2011
Aceh, Indonesia (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
In 1999, Indonesia first allowed the conservative province to partially implement Sharia law, and now Aceh is under enforcement of some of the strictest morality regulations in the country.
Evi Zain, with the human rights coalition HAM Aceh, says that, for women, the intimidating nature of enforced Sharia law enforcement institutes a culture of oppression.
October 5, 2011
Kenya (Hat tip to JihadWatch)
Muslim clerics differed on the move taken by the Kenyan Chief Justice(CJ) Willy Mutunga.Mutunga wants to introduce post of female magistrate in the Khathis court which majority of the Muslim leaders term as disrespect to their faith. "This is a religious institution not a secular one and therefore it must be treated with respect."said Sheikh Abdullahi Abdi the chairman of National Muslim Leaders Forum.
October 6, 2011
Afghanistan (hat tip to GatesofVienna)
Ten years after British forces entered the war-ravaged country, the Standard has uncovered shocking evidence of an eight-year-old girl who was married off to a policeman for cash. She was sold to the officer, in his twenties, in clear breach of laws introduced two years ago to protect women.
October 8, 2011
Pakistan (hat tip to JihadWatch via thereligionofpeace)
A man shot and killed his sister, niece and another relative and began dancing around the dead bodies in the limits of Police Station Langrana on Thursday evening.
According to eyewitnesses, the accused, Aqil dragged the three bodies outside to the street where he and his three accomplices began dancing around them and hurling abused at the deceased. "They were spitting at the bodies and congratulating themselves over having killed the women because they had rejected their demands," said an eyewitness Mazhar.
October 9, 2011
Pakistan (hat tip to JihadWatch)
In a first for the garrison city, sixty masked men carrying iron rods barged into a girls' school in Rawalpindi and thrashed students and female teachers on Friday.
The gang of miscreants also warned the inmates at the MC Model Girls High School in Satellite Town to "dress modestly and wear hijabs" or face the music, eyewitnesses said.
Iran
Actress Marzieh Vafamehr has been sentenced to a year in jail and 90 lashes for her role in a film about the limits imposed on artists in the Islamic republic, an Iranian opposition website reported Sunday.
"A verdict has been issued for Marzieh Vafamehr, sentencing her to a year in jail and 90 lashes," Kalameh.com reported. "Her lawyer has appealed the sentence, which was handed down yesterday," the report added, without giving further details.
Vafamehr was arrested in July after appearing in "My Tehran for Sale," which came under harsh criticism in conservative circles. The film, produced in collaboration with Australia, tells the story of a young actress in Tehran whose theatre work is banned by the authorities. She is then forced to lead a secret life in order to express herself artistically.
India
A victim marries her Muslim rapist. The victim faced sexual harassment for over four months and it was when she became pregnant that the girl's family came to know about her ordeal. The family approached the police but the fear of spending life behind bars forced the man to marry Sana.
"The girl became pregnant after she was raped by the boy, who kept in touch with her on a regular basis. On being questioned by her family, the girl broke down and narrated her ordeal, following which she was brought to the police station," Sector-20 police chief R. K. Shishodia said. More HERE.
Nigeria
An Islamic cleric tricks women into having sex with him.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Arsenal for life!
And, I love the Big Man Arsene Wenger himself.
We need Wenger at Arsenal.
That team is great.
Hey, Arsenal haters, go eat lizard manure!
We need Wenger at Arsenal.
That team is great.
Hey, Arsenal haters, go eat lizard manure!
Bulletin of Christian Persecution August 29-October 3, 2011
August 29 - October 3, 2011
August 29, 2011
The World
Seventy five percent of religious persecution in the world is against Christians, reports a British watchdog group, which says 100 million Christians are facing official oppression.
China, Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia are the worst places for Christians to practice their faith, reports Aid to the Church in Need. Also making the list are Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
September 1, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Two Christian men were seriously injured by young Muslim men this month in Karachi when they refused to convert to Islam. see Compass News
September 5, 2011
Zanzibar (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
On Tanzania's semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar, Christians live in a climate of fear. It's a place where a young man flees the island to escape death threats from his Muslim family, and a Christian who accidentally burned pages of the Quran opts for jail by entering a guilty plea rather than face certain death from a furious mob.
September 6, 2011
Iran
On Dec. 26, 2010, authorities had arrested Mehdi Forootan in a wave of persecution against Iran's underground church movement. It is estimated that Iranian authorities arrested over 120 Christians in a two-month period. Most of them were released within days, but Forootan was among a small group who were not. Without explanation, authorities freed him on April 9.
Farshid Fathi was arrested on the same day as Forootan and is still in prison. There has been no news on Noorollah Ghabitizadeh, who was arrested Dec. 24, 2010 in Khuzestan. Abrahim Firouzi, arrested Jan. 8 in in Robat Karim, and Masoud Delijani, arrested March 17 in Kermanshah, were released in recent months. The condition and whereabouts of Mostafa Zangooyee, a university student who was arrested on June 30, are not known.
September 7, 2011
Nigeria
Plateau State chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria(CAN) yesterday joined issues with the Ulama and Elder Council over the recurring violence in the state which has claimed hundreds of lives even as it accused the leadership of the Special Task Force(STF) of complicity in the massacre of Christians.
The body described as blantant lies claims by the Ulamas that 200 vehicles belonging to Muslims were burnt during the Sallah day clash between Christians and Muslims . It insisted that Christians have suffered mores losses both in terms of death casualties and property destroyed since the crises started. It specifically said that over 122 churches have been burnt from 1999 to date, contending that the plot of Moslems in the state was islamise Jos North.
September 8, 2011
Pakistan
A Christian nurse here filed a police report on Saturday (Sept. 3) alleging she was raped by a Muslim colleague who filmed the act in an attempt to blackmail her into renouncing her faith and marrying him.
Shaista Samuel, a 27-year-old nurse at the Services Institute of Medical Sciences (SIMS), filed a First Information Report (FIR) at Shadman police station accusing Ali Adnan, an assistant accounts officer at the hospital, and an armed accomplice of abducting her at gunpoint from the government hospital on Aug. 21 and taking her to a house in Lahore where Adnan's accomplice filmed the rape.
September 9, 2011
August 29, 2011
The World
Seventy five percent of religious persecution in the world is against Christians, reports a British watchdog group, which says 100 million Christians are facing official oppression.
China, Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia are the worst places for Christians to practice their faith, reports Aid to the Church in Need. Also making the list are Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
September 1, 2011
Pakistan (Hat tip to AtlasShrugs)
Two Christian men were seriously injured by young Muslim men this month in Karachi when they refused to convert to Islam. see Compass News
September 5, 2011
Zanzibar (Hat tip to InfidelsAreCool)
On Tanzania's semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar, Christians live in a climate of fear. It's a place where a young man flees the island to escape death threats from his Muslim family, and a Christian who accidentally burned pages of the Quran opts for jail by entering a guilty plea rather than face certain death from a furious mob.
September 6, 2011
Iran
On Dec. 26, 2010, authorities had arrested Mehdi Forootan in a wave of persecution against Iran's underground church movement. It is estimated that Iranian authorities arrested over 120 Christians in a two-month period. Most of them were released within days, but Forootan was among a small group who were not. Without explanation, authorities freed him on April 9.
Farshid Fathi was arrested on the same day as Forootan and is still in prison. There has been no news on Noorollah Ghabitizadeh, who was arrested Dec. 24, 2010 in Khuzestan. Abrahim Firouzi, arrested Jan. 8 in in Robat Karim, and Masoud Delijani, arrested March 17 in Kermanshah, were released in recent months. The condition and whereabouts of Mostafa Zangooyee, a university student who was arrested on June 30, are not known.
September 7, 2011
Nigeria
Plateau State chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria(CAN) yesterday joined issues with the Ulama and Elder Council over the recurring violence in the state which has claimed hundreds of lives even as it accused the leadership of the Special Task Force(STF) of complicity in the massacre of Christians.
The body described as blantant lies claims by the Ulamas that 200 vehicles belonging to Muslims were burnt during the Sallah day clash between Christians and Muslims . It insisted that Christians have suffered mores losses both in terms of death casualties and property destroyed since the crises started. It specifically said that over 122 churches have been burnt from 1999 to date, contending that the plot of Moslems in the state was islamise Jos North.
September 8, 2011
Pakistan
A Christian nurse here filed a police report on Saturday (Sept. 3) alleging she was raped by a Muslim colleague who filmed the act in an attempt to blackmail her into renouncing her faith and marrying him.
Shaista Samuel, a 27-year-old nurse at the Services Institute of Medical Sciences (SIMS), filed a First Information Report (FIR) at Shadman police station accusing Ali Adnan, an assistant accounts officer at the hospital, and an armed accomplice of abducting her at gunpoint from the government hospital on Aug. 21 and taking her to a house in Lahore where Adnan's accomplice filmed the rape.
September 9, 2011
Saturday, October 1, 2011
TEN MALAWIAN YOUTHS OFF TO BENIN
A group of ten (10) Malawian youths has left today for a nine (9)-month training program at the Songhai Center in Benin. The youths will be trained as entrepreneurs and socio-economic leaders, focussing on technical issues in various primary, secondary and tertiary production units of the Songhai Centre and emphasizing zero waste and sustainable agricultural production, including pre- and post-harvesting techniques. The training of the youth is one of the main activities under the Integrated Youth Development Programme (IYDP) whose overall aim is to promote access of youth, men, and women to appropriate agri-entrepreneurial, leadership and management skills required for their effective participation in the creation of and investment in commercially viable agro-enterprises in Malawi. The Programme is jointly funded by the Government of Malawi (GoM) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The training of the socio-economic leaders, which will take place from October 3rd, 2011 to July 3rd, 2012 offers an entry point for consolidating the establishment of training and production units for Malawian youth at the Neno Youth Development Centre. The youth will assist in setting up the various training/production units and act as trainers at the Centre in Malawi when they return.
Three (3) members of staff from the Neno Youth Development Centre have accompanied the group of youths for a four (4)-month training program at the Songhai Center in Benin. The training of Center staff, which will be in two sessions from October 3rd to December 3rd, 2011 and then from May 3rd to July 3rd, 2012, will combine management and technical functions of the Songhai Centre for replication at the Neno Center in Malawi. They will also specialize in broader technical departments of crops, animals, value addition and integrated systems. The Centre staff are also expected to assist in further consolidation of the establishment of the Malawi centre in Neno when they return. The Government`s vision for the Malawi Centre is to turn Neno Youth Development Centre into a regional and national Centre of Excellence based on the Songhai Integrated Development Model. The vision is based on the recommendations of the Malawi study mission to Songhai Centre in Benin in conducted in 2009.
Songhai Centre is a Private Voluntary Organisation (PVO) – established in1985 as an enterprise, development and research/extension institution, whose core business is formation (training) and production. With its focus on agriculture, the Centre trains local and foreign individuals who aspire to open their own farms; provides micro-finance credit to graduates; and produces a variety of goods and services, including crops, livestock, processed products and provides machines and internet, cafeteria and tele-centre services. It therefore promotes use of local resources in an integrated manner for socio-economic entrepreneurship by linking agriculture with industry and commerce (industry/sector integration); presenting the link and opportunity to add value and generate growth at three levels of production -- primary, secondary and tertiary; recognizing that primary production needs to be supported by processing and storage facilities to add value and avoid post-harvest wastage and ensuring that commodities and wastage in one activity/sector is used in another activity/sector to add value (Zero-waste)
Speaking when he saw off the ten socio-economic leaders and three Center staff at Kamuzu International Airport, the Minister of Youth Development and Welfare, Hon. Symon Vuwa Kaunda emphasized the importance of the training programme in contribution job creation and development of the country. He said, as young people, the youth are important and active participants to the development of this country since they should be drivers of transformation in line with the vision of His Excellency the President, Ngwazi Prof. Bingu Wa Mutharika of transforming this country from an importing and consuming country to a producing and exporting one. He said that Government recognizes the importance of investing in the youth if they are to play a role in development. Hon. Vuwa Kaunda therefore called upon the youths to be committed to the programme so as to acquire the skills as socio-economic leaders who are to champion socio-economic development when they return to Malawi. He urged them to be disciplined, hard-working and responsible while in Benin.
The training of the socio-economic leaders, which will take place from October 3rd, 2011 to July 3rd, 2012 offers an entry point for consolidating the establishment of training and production units for Malawian youth at the Neno Youth Development Centre. The youth will assist in setting up the various training/production units and act as trainers at the Centre in Malawi when they return.
Three (3) members of staff from the Neno Youth Development Centre have accompanied the group of youths for a four (4)-month training program at the Songhai Center in Benin. The training of Center staff, which will be in two sessions from October 3rd to December 3rd, 2011 and then from May 3rd to July 3rd, 2012, will combine management and technical functions of the Songhai Centre for replication at the Neno Center in Malawi. They will also specialize in broader technical departments of crops, animals, value addition and integrated systems. The Centre staff are also expected to assist in further consolidation of the establishment of the Malawi centre in Neno when they return. The Government`s vision for the Malawi Centre is to turn Neno Youth Development Centre into a regional and national Centre of Excellence based on the Songhai Integrated Development Model. The vision is based on the recommendations of the Malawi study mission to Songhai Centre in Benin in conducted in 2009.
Songhai Centre is a Private Voluntary Organisation (PVO) – established in1985 as an enterprise, development and research/extension institution, whose core business is formation (training) and production. With its focus on agriculture, the Centre trains local and foreign individuals who aspire to open their own farms; provides micro-finance credit to graduates; and produces a variety of goods and services, including crops, livestock, processed products and provides machines and internet, cafeteria and tele-centre services. It therefore promotes use of local resources in an integrated manner for socio-economic entrepreneurship by linking agriculture with industry and commerce (industry/sector integration); presenting the link and opportunity to add value and generate growth at three levels of production -- primary, secondary and tertiary; recognizing that primary production needs to be supported by processing and storage facilities to add value and avoid post-harvest wastage and ensuring that commodities and wastage in one activity/sector is used in another activity/sector to add value (Zero-waste)
Speaking when he saw off the ten socio-economic leaders and three Center staff at Kamuzu International Airport, the Minister of Youth Development and Welfare, Hon. Symon Vuwa Kaunda emphasized the importance of the training programme in contribution job creation and development of the country. He said, as young people, the youth are important and active participants to the development of this country since they should be drivers of transformation in line with the vision of His Excellency the President, Ngwazi Prof. Bingu Wa Mutharika of transforming this country from an importing and consuming country to a producing and exporting one. He said that Government recognizes the importance of investing in the youth if they are to play a role in development. Hon. Vuwa Kaunda therefore called upon the youths to be committed to the programme so as to acquire the skills as socio-economic leaders who are to champion socio-economic development when they return to Malawi. He urged them to be disciplined, hard-working and responsible while in Benin.
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