Al Jazeera provides a graphic account of the Srebrenica genocide.

On July 11, 1995 at 16:15 General Ratko Mladic (now a convicted war criminal) entered Srebrenica with Serb forces, including paramilitary units from Serbia, claiming the town for Serbs. Strolling through the streets with the TV cameras rolling, Mladic announced that there will be “revenge against the Turks”.

Panicked residents in the enclave fled to the UN Dutch Battalion base only to find that the 400 lightly-armed peacekeepers were unable to defend them. Serb forces had inherited much larger resources of the former Yugoslav army, the fourth largest in the world at the time.

On that day, thousands of Bosniak men start to make their escape through the woods, forming a column and hiking some 100km in an attempt to reach free territory controlled by the Bosnian army.

The journey was known as the death march, as they were ambushed, shot at and attacked by Serb forces. Less than a quarter of them survived.

Over the course of six days, more than 8,000 Bosniaks were killed. Women and small children were deported.

In an attempt to conceal the killings, Serb forces transported the dead bodies with bulldozers and trucks and buried them in numerous locations, leaving the victims’ remains fragmented and crushed.

Human bones can be found as far as 20km apart, making it difficult for families to give their loved ones a proper burial.

What led to the massacre?
Genocide is not committed by a small group of individuals, rather a large number of people and the state all contribute to genocide.

The idea of a Greater  Serbia (including the territories of Bosnia, Kosovo, Croatia, Montenegro and other neighboring countries) dates back to the 19th century, and was revived following the death of Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito in 1980.

With the decline of the Communist bloc, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Serbian nationalists saw a chance to mobilise the masses in support of establishing a homogenous Serbian state.

In Milosevic’s famous address to a crowd in Belgrade in 1989, he presented himself as the savior of Serbdom and Europe. It enforced the notion of “us [Serbs] vs them”.

Bosniaks were typically called Turks, Balije (a slur for a Bosnian Muslim) and branded as terrorists and Islamic “extremists”.

A plan to destroy Bosnia and “completely exterminate its Muslim people” was drawn up as early as the 1980s by the General Staff of the Yugoslav People’s Army, according to Vladimir Srebrov, a politician who cofounded the SDS party with convicted Bosnian Serb war criminal Radovan Karadzic.

One document, written by the army’s special services including experts in psychological warfare, stated that the most effective way to create terror and panic among the Bosniak population would be by raping women, minors, and even children.

How genocide was organized?
Organized from Belgrade, Serbia, weapons were distributed to the Serb population by the truckload throughout 1990 and 1991 in Bosnia, according to Al Jazeera.

“Weapons and military equipment were even flown in by military helicopters to Serbian military officers. It is said that by the end, almost no Serbian house was without an automatic gun,” according to a UN report from 1994.

“The pretext for the arms deliveries and the rearmament was that this was necessary for the defence against ‘the enemies of the people’ – the Muslim extremists.”

As Serb troops arrived in each town, they killed non-Serbs, often after torturing them. Bosniak properties were confiscated.

As many as 50,000 Bosniak and Croat women, girls and young children were raped in Bosnia from 1992- 1995.

In Prijedor, a city in western Bosnia, Bosniaks were forced to wear white armbands to be clearly identified and tie white flags to their doors.

Across the country 200,000 people were deported to concentration  camps where they were tortured, starved and killed.

Others living under siege, such as in Sarajevo and Mostar, starved while being targeted by snipers and heavy shelling.

Srebrenica, which was known as the world’s biggest detention camp, was under siege for three years, before it fell to Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995.

Serb troops separated boys and men aged between 12 and 77 from the rest of the population and took them to fields, schools and warehouses to be executed.

International Court of Justice
The systematic murder of over 8,000 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) in Srebrenica by Serb forces in July 1995 was ruled as an act of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice.

Theodor Meron, the presiding judge at the ICTY, stated in 2004 that “by seeking to eliminate a part of the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Serb forces committed a genocide.”

“They targeted for extinction of the 40,000 Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, a group which was emblematic of Bosnian Muslims in general,” he said.

Serbian General Vladimir Lazarevic, Bosnian Croat Dario Kordic and Bosnian Serb Momcilo Krajisnik were convicted for “horrific crimes against humanity”, yet they were given a hero’s welcome upon release from prison with government officials in attendance, the report noted. Fourteen Serb war criminals were convicted of genocide and other crimes at the ICTY including former Military Commander Radislav Krstic, former President of Republika Srpska Radovan Karadzic, and Bosnian Serb Military Leader Ratko Mladic.

“All three, as  senior officials and commanders, participated in ethnic cleansing and campaigns harming millions and devastating communities. The mentality that can regard those men as heroes is difficult to understand,” Meron wrote.

The systematic murder of over 8,000 Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) in Srebrenica by Serb forces in July 1995 was ruled as an act of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice.Denial of facts established in the Tribunal’s judgments are widespread in the education system throughout former Yugoslavia, the report noted, where students are taught “widely different and irreconcilable versions of the recent past”.

International Court of Justice
Theodor Meron, the presiding judge at the ICTY, stated in 2004 that “by seeking to eliminate a part of the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Serb forces committed a genocide.”

“They targeted for extinction of the 40,000 Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, a group which was emblematic of Bosnian Muslims in general,” he said.

Serbian General Vladimir Lazarevic, Bosnian Croat Dario Kordic and Bosnian Serb Momcilo Krajisnik were convicted for “horrific crimes against humanity”, yet they were given a hero’s welcome upon release from prison with government officials in attendance, the report noted. Fourteen Serb war criminals were convicted of genocide and other crimes at the ICTY including former Military Commander Radislav Krstic, former President of Republika Srpska Radovan Karadzic, and Bosnian Serb Military Leader Ratko Mladic.

“All three, as  senior officials and commanders, participated in ethnic cleansing and campaigns harming millions and devastating communities. The mentality that can regard those men as heroes is difficult to understand,” Meron wrote.

Canadians launch petition to ban Srebrenica genocide denial
Denial of facts established in the Tribunal’s judgments are widespread in the education system throughout former Yugoslavia, the report noted, where students are taught “widely different and irreconcilable versions of the recent past”.

An online petition has been launched in Canada by the Institute for Research of Genocide (IRGC), requesting the Canadian government to enact a law making Srebrenica genocide denial a punishable offence.

If the petition is adopted, Canada would join nine other countries in Europe including Switzerland, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and Macedonia in prohibiting genocide denial.

Canada has already adopted two resolutions recognizing the Srebrenica genocide, launched by the IRGC.

However, its Director Emir Ramic noted that the process of adopting the first resolution took five years as the Conservative Party – under the influence of the Serbian and Russian lobby – had rejected the resolution.

He told Al Jazeera that the threats intensified as discourse changed from denial to glorification and triumphalism.Ramic’s work with the institute has made him a target of death threats and verbal abuse for years by genocide deniers.

However, he says it has made him all the more determined to make sure a law is enacted banning the denial of Srebrenica genocide. If adopted, Canada would make a major contribution in the fight against genocide denial worldwide, Ramic told Al Jazeera.

“Denying the genocide in Srebrenica is very dangerous. We need to learn from history, recognise [what happened in Srebrenica] and call it by its real name,” he said.

“The aggression and genocide in Bosnia have shown that … there aren’t adequate mechanisms in place to protect freedom and human rights.””Human rights are under attack worldwide,” Ramic added. “Bosniaks, as the only people in Europe who survived aggression and genocide [since the Holocaust], are exposed to unacceptable discrimination not just in the motherland, but in the Diaspora as well.”

“We’ve seen this with Holocaust denial, we’ve seen this with denial for Rwanda and of course with Srebrenica,” said Parliamentarian Brian Masse on the necessity of a law.

“It’s very hurtful for the victims and families of the survivors to continue to wrestle with something based on facts, so the initiative will help in preventing denial and create awareness that we will never forget.”

On April 24, 2015,  the House of Commons passed a motion to include the Srebrenica genocide, and Srebrenica Remembrance Day as part of “Genocide Remembrance, Condemnation and Awareness Month” every April. Earlier on October 19, 2010, the House of Commons passed a motion to recognize July 11 annually as Srebrenica Remembrance Day in Canada.

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net) email: asghazali2011 (@) gamil.com

Courtesy: Counter Current

The post 24th anniversary: Srebrenica genocide remembered appeared first on SabrangIndia.

This first of its kind report on the status of Islamophobia in India is meant to provide a groundbreaking collection of evidence and provide a reference point for all future work on the subject.

“Within the past decade, the level of targeted violence against Muslim, Christian, Sikh and ‘lower castes’ has intensified in India and with the arrival of the BJP into national office facilitating its deployment through all structures of the state against demonized and vulnerable groups,” the report said adding:

“This strategy is familiar to observers of the political dynamics in the U.S. and Europe against the backdrop of the rising tide of Islamophobia that has been stoked and deployed by extreme right-wing groups to gain legitimacy and it has been monetized into votes at the ballot box.”
According to Dr. Hatem Bazian, a co-author of the report with Paula Thompson and Rhonda Itaoui,

till now there has been no reliable evidence, academic engagements or scholarly reports that documents this rising tide of Islamophobia in the Indian context. “This lack of documentation both complicates and hinders the ability of those advocating against and countering Islamophobia.”
Dr. Hatem Bazian, was keynote speaker at the Annual Iftar dinner 2019, on Saturday (May 12, 2019) where he spoke about the salient features of the study.

The report, titled Islamophobia in India: Stoking Bigotry, was published through the Center for Race and Gender’s Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project at the University of California, Berkeley.

Here are Key Findings of the study:

Leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been implicated in “communal violence” and hate. Further, the BJP has the greatest number of lawmakers in the country with declared cases of hate speech against them. The provision of tickets to those charged with hate speech has been associated with driving the conditions that lead to Islamophobia and politically-stoked violence.

Polarizing politics are lucrative at the ballot box where individuals affiliated with stoking ‘communal’ hate and violence are actually four times more likely to win than others. This report has documented several Islamophobic statements from leading BJP members from across the political spectrum beginning with Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself who says:  “Congress leaders are speaking in a language that is not acceptable in a democracy…This is insulting. This is nothing but a mindset of the Mughals.”

BJP Legislator Subramanian Swamy says: “Muslims should take an oath declaring that their ancestors were Hindu if they want to prove their citizenship.”

BJP Baiiria MLA Surendra Singh says: “There are a very few Muslims who are patriotic. Once India becomes a Hindu rashtra, Muslims who assimilate into our culture will stay in India. Those who will not are free to take asylum in any other country.”

BJP Union Minister Giriraj Singh says: “The growing population of the country, especially Muslims, is a threat to the social fabric, social harmony, and development of the country.”

BJP Lawmaker Sanjay Patil says: “This election is not about roads, water or other issues. This election is about Hindus vs. Muslims, Ram Mandir vs. Babri Masjid.”

BJP leader, Yogi Adityanath, has praised U.S. President Donald Trump’s ‘Muslim Ban’ and stated that “similar action is needed to contain terror activities in this country (India).”

These statements by officials demonstrate in part, systematic otherization and Islamophobia. The statements clear the way for discriminatory legislation, policies and actions toward this vulnerable population. As a result, people may face discrimination, harassment, acts of physical violence, criminalization, imprisonment, deportation, and death.

It has been reported that India is experiencing and aggressive form of McCarthyism to silent dissent against the BJP. Media personnel and reporters are being tracked by BJP headed ‘war rooms’ that gather data on both traditional and new media, rating and categorizing it in relation to its position on the ruling BJP government, which has caused concern for many.

The Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index has revealed that mainstream media and journalists are “increasingly the targets of online smear campaigns by the most radical nationalists, who vilify them and even threaten physical reprisals.” The co-founder of India’s first private news channel NDTV Prannoy Roy claimed that “India is going through an aggressive variant of McCarthyism against the media.” The company is presently under investigation by the federal police for fraud, which the company considers “a witch-hunt.” The Wire’s Siddharth Varadarajan said that government ministers created the word “presstitute” in order to “describe journalists who are unfriendly to them or who don’t do their bidding.”

Some journalists have claimed that they face intimidation if they are critical of Modi or his administration. It was reported that “three senior editors have left their jobs at various influential media outlets in the past six months after publishing reports that angered the government or supporters of Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).” Reporters and others also face the threat of prosecution for ‘sedition’ which is punishable by life imprisonment if they are “overly critical.”

Female journalists report being threatened with gangrape against themselves and family members. Recently, the United Nations intervened and called upon the government of India to protect Muslim journalist Rana Ayyub, whose life they deemed “is at serious risk.” In 2016, Ayyub published a book entitled the ‘Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover-Up’ which uncovers “government complicity in anti- Muslim violence during the 2002 riots when Modi was chief minister of Gujarat.” Since then, she has faced harassment and threats both online and offline by Hindu nationalists. In an Al Jazeera article entitled “The Perils of Being a Journalist in Modi’s India,” Ayyub claimed that because she is a Muslim reporting on the Hindu nationalist government, this has brought on abuse related to her Muslim identity.

Media under ruthless pressure

In 2017 four reporters were murdered and in 2018, four journalists were murdered at the time of report compilation.

A recent India Today article stated that the 2017 murder of female reporter Gauri Lankesh was planned a year in advance. Her murderer Parashuram Waghmare was affiliated with members of a “nameless underground organization that has members from Sanathan Sanstha, Hindu Janjagruthi Samithi, and many other right-wing organisations, according to the Special Investigation Team (SIT).” The article also reports that Waghmore was ordered to execute her “for the sake of saving Hindu dharam.” Additionally, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), report that three journalists were murdered in India in 2017 and four in 2018. Since 2014, when Modi took office 12 reporters have been killed.

In an effort to promote a Hindutva agenda and “polarize voters in the run-up to the 2019 election,” a recent media exposé entitled Operation 136 (named after the ranking India received from the World Press Freedom Index of 2017) was undertaken by Cobrapost.” The exposé revealed that payments were offered to over two dozen various media companies to promote a Hindutva agenda in order to “polarize voters in the run-up to the 2019 election.” All but two media outlets reportedly accepted, including major media houses. A series of undercover exposes revealed that “news organizations were willing to not only cause communal disharmony among the citizens but also tilt the electoral outcome in favour of a particular party.” This included “newspapers, radio stations, TV channels and websites” as well as “advertorials and events.”

India’s powerful corporate media houses were set to “mobilise the electorate on communal lines” by promoting the hate speech of Hindu extremists such as “Vinay Katiyar, Uma Bharti and Mohan Bhagwat,” while targeting certain opposition leaders. The exposé also revealed that “the arrangement included running the campaign on all platforms – print, electronic, radio or digital including, e-news portals, websites and social media such as Facebook and Twitter.”237 Operation 136 uncovered that several media houses are actually owned or patronized by politicians, especially regional media, and that “it was natural for them to become their master’s voice.”238 RSS and Hindutva ideology have become embedded within the “newsrooms and boardrooms of Indian media houses.”

Politically-stoked communal Violence

This report contextualizes and documents politically-stoked violence against Muslim communities in India. In doing so, the negative impact of such attacks on the general security of Muslims in every day, as well as Muslim spaces is exposed. Documenting various cases of spatialized Islamophobia in 2017 onwards exposes the impacts of politically-stoked mass violence on Muslim residential patterns, internal displacement, and subsequent patterns of ghettoization and segregation. Such negative spatial outcomes are situated as a byproduct of experiences of Islamophobia, which are and sustained through discriminatory policies that further restrict the social and spatial mobility of Muslims in India.

Islamophobia is spatialized through ‘communal violence,’ attacks and contestations over the right for Muslim neighborhoods and places of worship to exist in the Indian national space. Historically, India has suffered various outbreaks of large-scale politically-stoked violence against religious minorities, particularly against Muslims that remain unresolved years later.

There is a pronounced geographic pattern where politically-stoked violence occurs, which can be traced in ten states. These states with the highest incidence of communal violence included Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Telangana and Assam. Collectively these ten states accounted for 1,972 cases of politically- stoked violence during the period of 2015-2017.

Statistics reveal that Muslims suffer disproportionately from communal violence given the outcomes in comparison to the population overall and in each area, further diminishing the likelihood that Muslims are enacting violence against Hindus, as some have claimed

Islamophobia was spatialized from 2017 onwards in a variety of ways. These included incidents of politically-stoked communal violence, the vandalism of Muslim sites, disputes and contentions over land, and the symbolic infiltration of Muslim sites, such as spying on Muslim communities, or the distributing anti-Muslim propaganda in Muslim spaces or neighborhoods to invoke fear and exclusion.

In documenting cases from 2017 onwards, it is exemplified that the BJP victory and subsequent implementation of ultra-right-wing nationalist discourse and policies have intensified  such attacks against Muslim sites, neighborhoods and places of worship.

Most concerning is the direct impact of such violence on patterns of segregation and the ghettoization of Muslims. This decreased social and spatial mobility further limits the ability for Muslims to access the socio-economic opportunities required to participate in national economic growth. This also causes increased housing insecurity and an intensified geographical division of Muslims from the Hindu majority in an increasingly Islamophobic national space.

The spatial impacts of Islamophobia inflicted against Muslim sites, spaces and communities has restricted the residential options, choices and preferences of Muslims in India. The actual and perceived threat of violence has resulted in the exclusion of Muslim communities from the national space. This has resulted in the increased ghettoization of Muslims to limited places of security and belonging that enables the survival of these communities an increasingly hostile socio-political environment of Islamophobia.

Politically-stoked violence has negative impacts on the spatial and social mobility of Muslims in India. Such reduced mobility results in limited socio-economic opportunities to participate in national economic growth, housing insecurity, and an intensified geographical division of Muslims from the Hindu majority in an increasingly Islamophobic national space.

Rohingya refugees

Rohingya refugees that have fled genocide in nearby Myanmar and sought refuge in India are an important group when assessing Islamophobia, spatialization, and mobility of Muslims in India.

Rohingya refugees in India encounter hate and discrimination and are vulnerable, living in makeshifts camps on the periphery of society. They are victims of surveillance, violence, razing of their camps and face threats of expulsion which will potentially be deadly.

Rohingya Muslims have been created as security threats by Hindu nationalists and media narrative. Descriptions of the Rohingya as “foreigners” who enter the country ‘illegally” rather than as “refugees” are political and strategic. BJP leader Yogi Adityanath’s vocal support of the ‘Muslim ban,” which acts as a barrier and virtual border wall, barring  people entering the U.S. from seven Muslim predominant nations under the Trump Administration, followed by Adityanath’s own election rally statement that similar action is needed to contain terror activities in India, perpetuates the nationalist narrative of Muslims as invaders of India and a threat to Hindu culture, as well as the nation.

Polarizing discourse attempts to solidify the link between Rohingya refugees and criminality, militancy and terrorism, potentially removing certain guaranteed protections, clearing the way for discriminatory legislation, policies, and actions toward this vulnerable population. It also makes it a possibility that 40,000 plus people may be imprisoned, deported and possibly ethnically cleansed, under the guise of security threats.

India’s beef legislation

The report demonstrates an annual increase in beef-related attacks since Prime Minister Modi took office in 2014.

The passage of restrictive beef legislation in various states are associated with driving the attacks upon Muslims and Dalits by emboldening people to take the law into their own hands enacting violence and death extra-judiciously upon innocent Muslims.

Often the beef-related attacks upon Muslims are premeditated and led by ultra- national Hindu groups wielding weapons such as knives, sticks and belts who act as judge and jury.

Amnesty International India has drawn a link between increasing cow legislation that predominantly targets Muslims and the growing trend of Islamophobia that must be stopped.

Reports and narratives indicate that many Muslims live in fear due to the increasing, volatile and unpredictable nature of beef lynching across various regions in India.

Officials and police are often implicated in beef related attacks, and impunity around attacks lends a sense of permissibility to an ‘open hunting season’ upon Muslims. Not only do attackers including those who murder, go uncharged for their crimes, in some cases they have been honored and rewarded for their crime by politicians from the BJP.

Gau rakshaks seize wealth in the form of cows from Muslims and give them to gaushalas (cow shelters) that have been found to pass them on to Hindus, thus redistributing the wealth of Muslims to Hindus in some cases.

More than half of beef related attacks were reportedly spread by rumors.

Ghar Vāpasī or forcing Muslims to become Hindu

Hindu nationalist groups have been able to operate such assertive Ghar Vāpasī campaigns targeting minorities for conversion with apparent impunity. These so-called ‘homecomings’ are justified by the RSS as ‘reconversions’ on the basis that their predecessors were themselves supposedly converted from Hinduism through proselytization or force by other ‘foreign’ religions, including Islam.

“Ghar vāpasī has been touted as the return to authentic origins, the starting point, the abode of birth. It produces and enforces notions of a primordial religious identity, whereby all and everyone are declared Hindus. Thus states Praveen Togadia of the VHP: “At one point of time, the entire world was Hindu. There were seven billion Hindus, and now there are just one billion.” The shift from the whole world to the Hindu nation is swift, as ghar vāpasī denationalizes Islam and Christianity, facilitating their “othering.”

There have been ongoing reports of Ghar Vāpasī ceremonies in 2017, although their number and nature were impossible to confirm. In 2014, following the BJP national victory, the RSS announced plans to “reconvert” thousands of Christian and Muslims families to Hinduism as part of a so-called Ghar Vāpasī (returning home) program, and began raising money to do so.

The Dharm Jagran Samiti (Religious Awakening Council) is an RSS-VHP affiliate dedicated to converting Muslims and Christians to Hinduism. According to a report by India Today, this organization said it would expedite its Ghar Vāpasī campaign: “Muslims and Christians don’t have any right to stay here [in India],” one of its leaders said in December 2014. “Our target is to make India a Hindu nation by 2021… Muslims and Christians must convert to Hinduism “if they want to stay in this country”.

This statement is connected to the organizations’ claims that they converted 57 Muslim families to Hinduism in Uttar Pradesh. Such conversion ceremonies have led to panic among Muslims and the displacement of Muslim communities from their homes. However, after domestic and international outcry, the RSS postponed its plans. Nevertheless, in its annual report presented of 2015, the VHP claimed to have converted nearly 34,000 people to Hinduism over a year and “prevented” nearly 49,000 Hindus from converting to other religions.

These conversions and “preventions” were carried out in the states of Odisha, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Assam. The Dharm Jagran Samiti also distributed pamphlets for its fundraising drive where the cost of converting a Muslim was fixed at Rs. 500,000 ($7,500) and of converting a Christian at Rs. 200,000 ($3,000). BJP MP Satish Gautam welcomed the announcement. Smaller-scale forced conversions of religious minorities were also reported in 2016. In addition, in February 2016 the RSS reportedly placed signs in train stations throughout India that said Christians had to leave India or convert to Hinduism or they will be killed by 2021.

Four  Sample Cases relating to Conversion in India
 

1. In September 2014, in Shivpuri, Mad- hya Pradesh,   Members of the Bajrang Dal and VHP put pressure on district officials to reject nine Hindu Dalits’ petitions to convert to Islam.
2. In December 2014, in  Madhunagar, Uttar Pradesh, RSS-related groups, the Dharma Jagran Samanvay Vibhag and Bajrang Dal, converted 200 Muslim persons to Hinduism. The new converts later stated they had been misled, told that they were receiving help to get ID cards.
3. In February 2016, Across India the RSS allegedly put up threatening signs across India in train stations stating Christians need to convert to Hinduism or leave the country by 2021, or risk death.
4. In April 2017, in Maharajganj, Uttar Pradesh, members of the group Hindu Yuva Vahini called police to a Christian church by alleging forced conversions, causing disruption to a prayer service involving Ukrainian and U.S tourists. While Hindu Yuva Vahini members surrounded the church during the disruption, the police visit found no evidence of forced conversions.

Junaid Khan: Muslim teen lynched by mob in Ramadan 2017 on train ride home:

One significant case in 2017 was that of sixteen-year-old Junaid Khan. Khan was a young student home from school for the Muslim religious holiday Eid. On June 23, Khan and his brother left their Khandawali village, district of Palwal, Haryana headed for Delhi by train to shop for the Eid holiday. As he was returning home with his brother and two friends, he was lynched to death by a mob of young men on a public train.

The police arrested six men shortly after the lynching who admitted to participating in the beating, but not the stabbing of Junaid. Yet the end of March 2018, less than a year after Junaid’s murder all of the accused have been released from prison except for the main person Naresh Kumar. The Indian Express reports that Junaid’s father has claimed that Haryana police helped Rameshwar Dass one of the two key perpetrators accused in the murder of Junaid, obtain bail by subverting the investigation.

Junaid’s murder resonated beyond spectacular or isolated incidents, it solidified a sense of ongoing vulnerability for Muslims engaging in everyday activities. The Quint collected tweets by young Muslims in India that reflect the fears and anxieties that they experience in the increasing climate of Islamophobia, and the tweets were read off one by one in a video.

Places of public transport such as the train in Junaid’s case and the highway in Pehlu Khan’s case indicate serious mobility issues for Muslims as they attempt to move from one space to another and engage in everyday activities such as school and work.

The attack and murder of Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer

In April 2017 Pehlu Khan, a 55-year-old, impoverished, Muslim dairy farmer who cared for his blind mother, wife and sons, was lynched in Alwar by a group of gau rakshaks (ultra-nationalist cow protectors) as he transported some cattle in the back of his truck. Alwar is located in the state of Rajasthan and has a predominantly Hindu population at 82.72 percent and is 14.90 percent Muslim, according to India’s 2011 census data. The attack was recorded via cell phone video and it captured the confiscation of his cows. They were seized and taken to a Hindu run gaushala (cow shelter). While in the hospital Khan was able to name his attackers in an FIR before succumbing to his injuries two days later.

Criminalization of the victims of cow vigilantism through labels such as ‘beef eaters’ and ‘cow smugglers’ is common in the otherization utilized by police, officials and vigilantes in such cases. Criminal charges are often filed against victims of lynchings either exclusively or in tandem with their attackers. Cow legislation that targets Muslims facilitates this injustice. The Indian Express reported in a recent article that criminalization of the victims of cow lynching occurred in states across the country. Commenting on the Alwar lynching, BJP leader and Islamophobe Vinay Katiyar seemed to criminalize Muslims in general and placed responsibility for lynching at their feet when he said, “The incident of mob lynching in Alwar is highly condemnable but people from the Muslim community should abstain from touching cows and provoke aggressive Hindus. There are lot of Muslims who are sheltering cows but are also killing them. Cow meat is also being consumed by them.” This statement encourages perpetrators and can be understood as government support for lynching.

A year after Pehlu Khan’s violent lynching by Hindutva vigilantes, the community reportedly remains under siege and justice has not been served. The six men identified by Khan before he succumbed to his injuries “all been absolved by the police of any guilt.” In fact their names have reportedly been removed from the case entirely. Khan’s case is a textbook example of the culture of impunity that exists regarding lynchings under the guise of cow protection.

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net) email: asghazali2011 (@) gmail.com

Courtesy: Counter Current

The post Berkeley University study of Islamophobia in India highlights plight of Muslims appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The xenophobic rhetoric and anti-Muslim fear-mongering enjoys unprecedented influence with Donald Trump’s most vitriolic anti-Muslim rhetoric as typified by his election campaign declaration: “I think Islam hates us.”

Tellingly, on Oct 29, attorneys for a President Donald Trump supporter, Patrick Stein, who was convicted in a domestic terrorism plot aimed at slaughtering Muslim refugees asked a federal judge to factor in the “backdrop” of Trump’s campaign rhetoric when deciding their client’s sentence. Patrick Stein was one of three right-wing militiamen found guilty in April of a conspiracy to kill Muslim refugees living in rural Kansas.

Stein’s attorneys argued in a sentencing memo that sending Stein to prison for life was unwarranted and that a sentence of 15 years would be appropriate. They said the judge should factor in the “backdrop to this case” when crafting an appropriate sentence.

“2016 was ‘lit.’ The court cannot ignore the circumstances of one of the most rhetorically mold-breaking, violent, awful, hateful and contentious presidential elections in modern history, driven in large measure by the rhetorical China shop bull who is now our president,” they wrote and added: “Trump’s brand of rough-and-tumble verbal pummeling heightened the rhetorical stakes for people of all political persuasions.”

The accumulated impact of anti-Islam and anti-Muslim rhetoric  is that a large proportion of non-Muslim Americans think Islam is incompatible with American values, according to a research by the New America Foundation and the American Muslim Initiative. The research found that 56 percent of Americans believed Islam was compatible with American values and 42 percent said it was not. About 60 percent believed US Muslims were as patriotic as others, while 38 percent they were not.

Researchers found that Republicans were more likely to hold negative perceptions of Muslims and Islam, with 71 percent saying Islam was incompatible with American values. About 56 percent of Republicans also admitted they would be concerned if a mosque was built in their neighborhood.

It will not be too much to say that Islamophobia has entered the government. It is incorporated into the law, and becomes increasingly acceptable in America. Apparently, Muslims in America are more vulnerable to bigotry and Islamophobia as a result of President Donald Trump’s behavior and actions than they were after the 9/11 attacks.

The level of anxiety and apprehension was such a high level that many Muslims were fearful to public display signs of their faith. A number of Muslim women, for instance, were deciding not to appear in public wearing the scarf. Alarmingly, a Hijab-clad Muslim woman stabbed in Texas by two white males.

As Sophia McClennen of Salon pointed out, the month of June 2018 was an especially bad month for the seven-million Muslims in America. First, a new study of U.S. perceptions of Muslim Americans conducted by Dalia Mogahed and John Sides for the Voter Study Group showed that many Americans view Muslims in the United States as insufficiently “American,” and almost 20 percent would deny Muslim citizens the right to vote.

The Muslim Ban 3.0
Then in June, the Supreme Court upheld President Donald Trump’s decision to institute a ban on immigrants, refugees and visa holders from five majority-Muslim countries in a 5-4 decision. This is known as Muslim Ban 3.0 since it was the third iteration of the Muslim Ban.

The synergy of these two pieces of information is critical because it reveals a common attitude that Muslims pose a threat to U.S. security whether they are U.S. citizens or not, McClennen said adding: while these attitudes do break down heavily across party lines, it is noteworthy that the study indicated that even 12 percent of Democrats would consider denying Muslim citizens the right to vote. Their study also showed that 32 percent of Democrats favor targeting Muslims at U.S. airport screenings to ensure the safety of flights. That figure compares with 75 percent of Republicans.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority of the Supreme Court opinion upholding the travel ban. He emphasized that, despite ample evidence of President Donald Trump’s animus towards the Muslim community, the ban was a security issue and not an example of discrimination, “Because there is persuasive evidence that the entry suspension has a legitimate grounding in national security concerns, quite apart from any religious hostility, we must accept that independent justification.

As made clear by Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent, where she referenced the court’s 1944 decision to uphold the internment of Japanese Americans, the practice of claiming national security needs in order to implement discriminatory policy is nothing new in this country. She argued that the court’s decision “leaves undisturbed a policy first advertised openly and unequivocally as a ‘total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States’ because the policy now masquerades behind a façade of national-security concerns.”

Taken together the Supreme Court decision and the voter study reveal a mainstreaming of Islamophobia. Whether aimed at Syrian refugees or U.S. citizens, these attitudes, policies and practices underscore the reality that America really has a Muslim problem — a problem seeing Muslims as human beings deserving of dignity, human rights and respect, McClennen concluded.

A chilling example of President Trump’s Muslim Ban 3.0 was prevention of Shaima Swileh, a Yemeni mother to see her dying son who came to the U.S. to be treated for a genetic brain condition. Ultimately Swileh was given a visa waiver. She arrived in San Francisco on December 19 while her son Abdullah expired on December 28 only nine days after her arrival.

Anti-Muslim Bias Incidents, Hate Crimes Spike
Not surprisingly, the divisive rhetoric of US President Donald Trump has fomented hate crimes against the Muslims.  Anti-Muslim bias incidents and hate crimes are up 83 and 21 percent respectively, as compared to the first quarter of 2018, according to a report released in July by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.

Incidents involving government agencies, including the FBI and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, have also risen by 60 percent in this time period. For the second quarter of 2018, CAIR received 1006 reports of potential bias incidents, with 431 of these reports determined to contain an identifiable element of anti-Muslim bias.

The 2018 second quarter report records denial of religious accommodation as the number one type of bias incident. Many of these cases have occurred at an incarceration or detention facility, making this the number one location of anti-Muslim bias incidents in the second quarter of the year. This is the first time that detention facilities have been among the top five locations of bias incidents since CAIR has kept records of anti-Muslim discrimination.

The most prevalent trigger of anti-Muslim bias incidents in 2018 remains the victim’s ethnicity or national origin, accounting for 33 percent of the total. For the 341 cases in which a victim’s ethnicity or national origin was identified, the most frequent was “Middle Eastern/North African” at 39 percent.

The second most common was “Black/African-American” at 17 percent. At 14 percent, “South Asian” was the third most commonly targeted ethnicity. Seventeen percent of incidents occurred because of an individual being perceived as Muslim.

A Muslim woman’s head scarf (hijab) was a trigger in 16 percent of incidents. The report dataset is drawn primarily from the intakes CAIR conducts each year. With each case, civil rights and legal staff seek to ensure the highest possible level of accuracy. CAIR has reported an unprecedented spike in bigotry targeting American Muslims and members of other minority groups since the election of Donald Trump as president.

Civil Rights Report shows increase in anti-Muslim bias incidents in California
In August, the California Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CA) released its annual civil rights report which revealed an 82 percent increase in reported incidents of religious-based discrimination, anti-Muslim bias incidents, and immigration matters to all four CAIR offices throughout the state from the previous year.

The report, titled CAIR-California’s “Civil Rights Report 2018,” summarizes and analyzes all civil rights and immigration matters reported to CAIR-California’s offices in the San Francisco Bay Area, (CAIR-SFBA), San Diego (CAIR-SD), the Greater Los Angeles Area (CAIR-LA), and the Sacramento Valley (CAIR-SV) in 2017.

According to the report, CAIR-CA staff received a total of 2,259 incident reports in 2017. Key highlights of CAIR-California’s report include a 503 percent increase in reported discriminatory treatment during travel from 2016 to 2017, driven primarily by the intentional discrimination encapsulated by the Muslim Ban. The number of immigration matters handled also increased significantly by 113 percent from 2016.  In 2017, CAIR-CA received the most incident reports in the following categories:  immigration (44.9%), travel matters (17.1%), hate incidents or hate crime (8.7%), law enforcement interactions (8.3%), and employment discrimination (6.2%).

On the positive note
On the positive note, three Muslims elected to House of Representatives in November 6 election. Ilhan Omar won in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District and Rashida Tlaib won in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District. They are the first Muslim women elected to the Congress. In Indiana, Rep. André Carson (D) won his re-election bid for the 7th District.

More than 90 American Muslims ran for office this year at the local, state and national level according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and Jetpac, a group that seeks to build a strong American Muslim political infrastructure and increase American Muslims’ influence and engagement.

The CAIR exit poll survey indicated that 95 percent of eligible Muslim voters turned out at the polls. Seventy-eight percent of Muslim voters cast ballots for Democratic Party candidates and only 17 percent for Republican Party candidates.

CNN reported winning of two Muslim Women to the House of Representative with the headline: What happens when Muslims and Islamophobes both win. Writing under the above heading, Juan Cole, chief editor of Informed Comment and Professor of History at the University of Michigan, comments about Tuesday’s election: “Perhaps the most remarkable stories are the two Muslim women elected to the House, one from Minneapolis (Ilhan Omar of Somalia) and the other from Detroit (Rashida Tlaib of Detroit, but ultimately Palestine). They aren’t only women, and Muslims, but also refugees. They are Donald J. Trump’s worst nightmare and the antithesis of what he thinks America is or should be, if you listen to his rhetoric. But actually he has some commonalities with them.”

According to Arab-Anti-Discrimination Committee, five Arab Americans were elected today to the House of Representatives: Donna Shalala (FL) winning Florida’s 27th district,  Ralph Abraham (LA) US Congress 5th District, Darin LaHood (IL) US Congress 18th District, Garret Graves (LA) US Congress 5th District, and Justin Amish (MI) US Congress 6th District. Chris Sununu was re-elected as New Hampshire’s Governor. Michael Saba was elected to the Ninth District seat in the South Dakota House of Representatives. There were over 60 Arab American candidates running for office in local, state and federal elections.

Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to the House of Representative in 2006, was elected Attorney General of Minnesota today. In a victory message Ellison said: “No matter what color you are, what your gender identity is, what your religion is, how much money you make, how old you may be, how healthy you are, who you love, where you live, or how you pray, know that as Minnesota Attorney General, I’ll be on your side fighting for your rights every day. Because we believe everybody counts, and everybody matters.” Keith Ellison received national attention for his decision to use an English translation of the Qur’an, translated by British scholar George Sale in 1734, that once belonged to President Thomas Jefferson for his reenacted swearing-in ceremony, which generated praise and criticisms from political pundits. Ilhan Omar is one of the first Muslim-American woman took up the seat vacated by Keith Ellison.

Five American Muslim candidates were elected to local offices in San Francisco: Sabina Zafar, Aisha Wahab, Maimona Afzal Berta, Cheryl Sudduth, and Javed Ellahie. A total of 12 Bay Area Muslims ran for elected office in the November 6 election. In New Jersey at least 11 Muslims were elected to various offices which include: Assad Akhtar, Passaic County Freeholder; Mohamed T. Khairullah, Mayor Prospect Park; Alaa Abdelaziz, Councilman, Paterson; Hazim Yassin, Councilman, Red Bank; Sadaf Jaffer, Councilwoman, Montgomery; Salim Patel, Councilman, City of Passaic; Mussab Ali, Jersey City Board of Education; Mariam F. Khan, Dennis Township Board of Education; Mohammad M. Ramadan, Passaic County Board of Education; Alaa Matari, Councilman, Prospect Park; and Adam Chaabane, Woodland Park Board of Education.

In December, The city of South Portland has elected Deqa Dhalac the first Muslim African-American woman city councilor in the city’s history. Dhalac who is a U.S. citizen with Somalian roots, is a social worker with two masters degree and mother of three children. Dhalac won the elections against her opponent Donald Cook with more than two-thirds of the vote. “My campaign was all about love,” she said. “Everybody was excited to see a different person, different representation, different faces in the city council. A lot of people were like, ‘It’s time.’”

The Muslim Awareness and Appreciation Month
The County of Santa Clara California declared the month of August as the Muslim Awareness and Appreciation Month. The Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Clara, California issued a proclamation saying that Muslims have been part of U.S. history from the beginning, have contributed to the production of wealth and construction of the nation, and have served in our Armed Forces and they are also part of the rich history of the civil rights movement. The proclamation went on to say Muslim Americans within California and throughout the nation strive to promote peace and understanding between all faiths, identities, and nationalities and extend to them the respect and camaraderie every American deserves. Recognizing the Muslim Americans’ contribution the Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Clara declared the month of August as the Muslim Awareness and Appreciation Month.

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org/

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net) email: asghazali2011 (@) gmail.com
 

The post Another challenging & tough year for American Muslims appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The son of senior Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Taha Wahdan was among those condemned to death.

There have been no credible claims of responsibility for the deadly bombing that killed the state prosecutor just outside his house. However, the authorities point the finger at members of Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood movement.

Barakat was responsible for thousands of controversial prosecutions, including several widely deemed as politically-motivated resulting in death sentences, for hundreds of members of the movement.

The Egyptian government has been cracking down on opposition since the country’s first democratically-elected president, Mohamed Morsi, was ousted in a military coup led by General and current President Field Marshal Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in July 2013.

Hundreds of Morsi supporters have been sentenced to death, while the former president and top Brotherhood figures have also faced trial.

Human Rights groups say the army’s clampdown on the supporters of Morsi has led to the deaths of over 1,400 people and the arrest of 22,000 others, including some 200 people who have been sentenced to death in mass trials.

Following the coup, Cairo also labeled the Muslim Brotherhood as a “terrorist organization” in December 2013 and Egyptian courts have sentenced hundreds of Brotherhood members to death, including Morsi himself.

Egyptian military junta led by US-client Field Marshall Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has executed 32 people since al-Sisi overthrew the first democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

According to the New Khaleej, Egyptian authorities have executed 32 people in nine cases since the coup d’e’tat while 64 people are awaiting the death penalty in 13 other cases.

There is no precise count of the number of death sentences pending appeals in Egypt, however human rights organizations say they amount to hundreds.

Since 2013, Egyptian courts have sentenced hundreds to death, with most of the sentences appealed, while few were carried out.

Egypt upholds death sentence against 80-year-old Quran tutor
The Egyptian government has upheld a death sentence against Sheikh Abdel Halim Gabreel, an 80-year-old Quran tutor, with Amnesty International campaigning for him to receive a presidential pardon.

On 24 September, Egypt’s Court of Cassation upheld the death sentences of 20 Egyptians, including Gabreel, who had been convicted of killing 13 policemen during a 2013 attack on a police station in the Giza suburb of Kerdasa in 2013.

Gabreel was arrested while he was in the mosque and was put on trial after six months of investigations, all whilst he was denied a lawyer. Despite not having any political affiliation and stating that he was not involved in the Kerdasa attack, with two witnesses for the prosecution affirming his story, he was sentenced to death.

Some 156 defendants were also either sentenced to death or to lengthy imprisonment in the first trial, for their alleged involvement in the “Kerdasa Massacre” in which 13 police officers were killed.

The 80-year-old grandfather’s health has deteriorated in prison since his detention; he has received inadequate treatment for his psoriasis and cannot walk long distances. Wadi Al-Natrun prison authorities have also prevented his family from bringing him medication.

The latest ruling by the Court of Cassation cannot be appealed. Amnesty has consequently called on the international community to write letters to Egyptian President Field Marshal Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and the country’s public prosecutor, urging for Gabreel to be granted a presidential pardon and that he is given regular and adequate access to qualified medical professionals.

They also urge Egyptian authorities “to halt any planned executions, to commute all existing death sentences and immediately establish an official moratorium on executions, with a view to abolishing the death penalty”.

According to Amnesty, since the ousting of democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, Egyptian civil and military courts issued more than 1,400 death sentences, mostly related to incidents of political violence, following grossly unfair trials, with testimonies often obtained through torture.

The global human rights watchdog has described the situation in Egypt as the worst human rights crisis in the country in decades, with the state systematically using arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances to silence any criticism of the government. Hundreds of journalists and human rights activists have also been arrested and held without trial.

Egypt has justified its crackdown on opponents as necessary to protect national security. Last year, President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi told US officials in New York that human rights should not be judged from a Western perspective, arguing that Egypt had taken numerous measures to ensure the economic and social wellbeing of its citizens.

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net) email: asghazali2011 (@) gmail.com

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org/
 

The post Egyptian Kangaroo Courts on death sentences spree appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Robert Bowers, a white supremacist stormed into the synagogue during Sabbath and fired upon innocent men, women, and children attending religious services, killing 11 and wounding 5. The shooting took place during a bris, a baby naming ceremony.

There were close to 100 people inside of the synagogue at the time of the attack. Robert Bowers, a 46-year-old resident of Pittsburgh, was arrested at the scene. Bowers yelled “all Jews must die” as he entered the Tree of Life Congregation Synagogue in Pittsburgh.
U.S. Attorney Scott Brady filed federal hate crimes charges against Bowers on Saturday evening. Those charges include:

Eleven counts each of Obstruction of Exercise of Religious Beliefs Resulting in Death and Use of a Firearm to Commit Murder During and in Relation to a Crime of Violence, four counts of Obstruction of Exercise of Religious Beliefs Resulting in Bodily Injury to a Public Safety Officer and three counts of Use and Discharge of a Firearm During and in Relation to a Crime of Violence.

An hour before the shooting, Bowers reportedly wrote on a social media site, Gab, “HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics. I’m going in.” HIAS is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, a group that helps refugees.

Muslim groups raise about $ 200,000.00 for Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting victims
Celebrate Mercy and MPower Change have banded together to raise money for their Jewish brothers and sisters at Tree of Life Or L’Simcha Congregation, which was the target of Saturday’s attack. They started a campaign on the Muslim-focused crowdfunding site LaunchGood in the hopes of raising $25,000 for the synagogue victims and their families. They are now close to $200,000.

Once their goal has been hit, the groups say, the funds will be immediately transferred to the local Islamic Center of Pittsburgh, so they can be disbursed to the families to pay for medical and funeral expenses.

“We wish to respond to evil with good, as our faith instructs us, and send a powerful message of compassion through action,” the groups said in describing the campaign on its crowdfunding page. “The Muslim-American community extends its hands to help the shooting victims, whether it is the injured victims or the Jewish families who have lost loved ones.”

“Through this campaign, we hope to send a united message from the Jewish and Muslim communities that there is no place for this type of hate and violence in America. We pray that this restores a sense of security and peace to the Jewish-American community who has undoubtedly been shaken by this event,” the groups said.

The American Muslim Voice (AMV) has strongly condemned the tragic massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg, PA, on Saturday Oct. 27.

In a statement, the AMV National President Khalid Saeed said the AMV denounces hate in all its forms, and will continue working with all communities, including the Jewish community, to combat the hate and discrimination that affects us all.

“What happened Saturday is the worst nightmare for any religious community. We stand in solidarity and pray for our Jewish brothers and sisters. We denounce hate in all its forms and condemns the anti-Semitism that motivated this horrific incident.”

The Muslim Advocates strongly condemned the killing of worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh PA.

In a statement Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, said:
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families and the Jewish community of Pittsburgh. Places of worship should be safe havens and sanctuaries. Rising anti-Semitism is a scourge in our nation and must end.”

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) offered its sincerest condolences to the families of the victims of the tragic massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg, PA, this past Saturday, and strongly condemns the hatefully-motivated attack.

The murder of the innocent worshippers during morning services shocks the conscience and is a reminder that if left unchecked, white nationalism will continue to spread deadly violence across America, the ADC said in a statement on Sunday.

The ADC calls on the Trump administration to immediately disavow white nationalism/supremacy, and to stop the assault and targeting of immigrants and refugees. The administration of Donald Trump has provided an opportunity for the ideology of hate to fester into the open, and as a result we have seen a wave of violence targeting minority communities. White nationalism and supremacy threatens the safety of minority communities across the country. It is the duty of our elected officials, including the President, to stand up against this ideology and demonstrate that such hate crimes will not be forgotten.

The ADC stands against all hate crimes and pledges to continue fighting them. ADC denounces hate in all its forms, and will continue working with all communities, including the Jewish community, to combat the hate and discrimination that affects us all, the ADC statement concluded.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also denounced the attack on Synagogue.

CAIR-Pittsburgh Program Director Zohra Lasania said:
“We condemn this heinous and cowardly attack on a house of worship, offer heartfelt condolences to the loved ones of all those who were killed or injured and express our solidarity with the Jewish community during this time of shock and grief.”

The Florida Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Florida) expressed solidarity with the Jewish community in Pittsburgh and nationwide following a deadly attack on a synagogue in that city.
In a statement, CAIR-Florida Executive Director Hassan Shibly said on Saturday:
“An attack on one synagogue is an attack on every mosque, church, temple and place of peace and worship in this country. We feel utterly sickened to learn that 11 of our Jewish brothers and sisters were killed in cold blood as they worshiped today by a man driven by hate.”

The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) strongly condemned the terrible carnage Saturday at the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA.

In a statement the organization said that ICNA stands in solidarity with the victims and the Jewish community struck by this terrorist act of anti-semitism.

The synagogue is a partner of the Jewish group HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which was supporting efforts to bring and resettle refugees, including Muslim immigrants, in the United States, ICNA statement said adding: ICNA resolves to confront the scourge of antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism, bigotry, and xenophobia in all of its ugly forms.

The US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), the largest coalition of leading national and local Muslim-American organizations, vehemently condemned the heinous crime committed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA, during Saturday morning services when a gunman uttered anti-semitic slurs, opened fire on the congregants, and killed 11 people and injured few others.

The USCMO, in a statement said, it “denounces hate in all its forms and condemns the anti-Semitism that motivated this harrowing incident. We offer our deepest condolences to the families of the victims. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who were hurt by this violence, and to all those in our Jewish communities who are reeling from this staggering news.”

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the chief editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net) email: asghazali2011 (@) gmail.com

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org/
 

The post In the wake of deadly attack on synagogue in Pittsburg PA: American Muslim groups express solidarity with the Jewish community appeared first on SabrangIndia.

According to Reuters report, an Egyptian kangaroo court sentenced 75 people to death on Saturday (Sept 8) including prominent opposition leaders Essam al-Erian and Mohamed Beltagi over a 2013 sit-in which ended with killing hundreds of protesters by the Egyptian security force.
The sentencing, which included jail terms for more than 600 others, concluded a mass trial of people accused of murder and inciting violence during the pro-Muslim Brotherhood protest at Rabaa Adawiya square in Cairo in 2013.

Rights groups say more than 800 protesters died in the single most deadly incident during the unrest that followed Egypt’s 2011 popular uprising against longtime President Hosni Mubarak.

Death sentences have been handed down to hundreds of Al-Sisi’s political opponents on charges such as belonging to an illegal organization or planning to carry out an attack.

The protest occurred weeks after General Abdul Fattah Al-Sisi (who later assumed the title of Field Marshal) ousted Egypt’s first freely elected head of state, president Mohamed Mursi.

“We condemn today’s verdict in the strongest terms,” Amnesty International said in a statement. “The fact that not a single police officer has been brought to account.. shows what a mockery of justice this trial was.”

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have both described the situation in Egypt as the worst human rights crisis in the country in decades, with the state systematically using torture, arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances to silence political dissent.

Last year, the Egyptian government pledged to take action against Human Rights Watch after it released a damning report on state torture.

Two parliamentary groups in Algeria have called for official national and international action to halt mass executions against activists, human rights workers and political figures in Egypt.

Movement of Society for Peace; the largest political party in Algeria and Union for Development, Justice and Building said in a joint statement that lawmakers “are following with great concern the developments of the human rights situation in the Arab world; the most recent of which was the issuance of mass death sentences against political, human rights and community symbols”.

The signatories described the executions as “a flagrant attack on the right to life”, which is politically motivated “amounting to genocide or mass murder according to international law”.

UN Human Rights chief urges Egypt to overturn mass death sentences
United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has urged Egypt’s appeals court to overturn mass death sentences handed down by a lower court after what she said was an “unfair trial”.

The former Chilean president, who took office as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights earlier this month, criticised a law giving immunity from future prosecution to senior military officers.

An Egyptian court on Saturday delivered death sentences to 75 people, including prominent Islamist leaders Essam al-Erian and Mohamed Beltagi, over a 2013 sit-in that ended with security forces killing hundreds of protesters.If carried out, the sentences “would represent a gross and irreversible miscarriage of justice”, Bachelet said in a statement.

Defendants were denied the right to individual lawyers and to present evidence, while “the prosecution did not provide sufficient evidence to prove individual guilt”, she said.

“I hope that the Egyptian Court of Appeal will review this verdict and ensure that international standards of justice are respected by setting it aside,” Bachelet said.

Bachelet decried the “lethal military crackdown” saying it had led to the killing of “up to 900 mostly unarmed protesters by members of the Egyptian security forces”. The government later claimed that many protesters had been armed and that a number of police were killed, she added.
“Despite the huge death toll, no State security personnel have ever been charged in relation to the so-called ‘Rabaa massacre’,” Bachelet said.

Tellingly, a law was passed in July gives Field Marshal al-Sisi the right to name officers who are eligible for immunity from investigation of offences alleged to have been committed while Egypt’s constitution was suspended between President Mursi’s overthrow on July 3, 2013, and the reconvening of parliament on January 10, 2016.

Not surprisingly, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has authorised the release of $1.2 billion in military aid to Egypt, overriding previous human rights concerns that had held up funding.

“Strengthened security cooperation with Egypt is important to US national security. Secretary Pompeo determined that continuing with the obligation and expenditure of these foreign military financing (FMF), funds is important to strengthening our security cooperation with Egypt,” the State Department said in a statement.

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the chief editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net) email: asghazali2011 (@) gmail.com
 

The post Egyptian Junta continues mass executions spree appeared first on SabrangIndia.

According to Indian Ministry of Home Affairs, between 2014 and March, 2018, 45 people were killed in mob lynchings across nine states in India. In the latest example, a group of villagers  beat to death 28-year-old Akbar Khan in Rajasthan’s Alwar district, an incident that came to light just five days after the Supreme Court urged the Center to frame a law to curb lynchings.

In response to Akbar Khan’s lynching by a mob, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor tweeted Sunday (July 22): “It seems safer in many places to be a cow than a Muslim.”

The First Post recently carried a three-part series “Anatomy of lynching” to highlight the reasons that fuel this mobocracy across the country.The First Post writer Saurabh Sharma says: they came for Mohammad Akhlaq in Uttar Pradesh’s Dadri, then Zahid Rasool Bhatt in Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, Mazlum Ansari and Imteyaz Khan in Jharkhand’s Latehar district, the Dalits in Gujarat, Pehlu Khan in Rajasthan, Junaid Khan in Ballabhgarh, Qasim and Samiuddin in Hapur, and several others in between.

All in the name of the holy cow, this is a list of lynchings — not a new trend in India, but one that has seen a spike in the four years since the Narendra Modi government came to power, he said.
“Most such hate crimes have been concentrated in states governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party, and anaccused has been convicted in only one case, so far. In several of these incidents, FIRs were lodged against the victims, many of whom were cattle traders or dairy farmers from the minority community, and the perpetrators let off. A central minister recently made news forgetting photographs clicked with eight men, who were convicted for killing a Muslim meat trader in Jharkhand, and welcoming them at his house,” Sharma concluded.

Modi’s Minister garlands six accused of lynching
At a time when policymakers should be up in arms against those spreading fake news or participating in mob lynching incidents, some lawmakers are indulging in the opposite—going even to the extent of felicitating them. Recently, Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha garlanded the six accused in the Alimuddin Ansari lynching case, causing quite a furore on social media. The minister ultimately had to offer a carefully-worded apology.

This is not the first incident when a member of the ruling party has promoted or supported those involved in such cases. Union minister Giriraj Singh came out in support of the VHP and Bajrang Dal activists arrested in connection with communal violence during last year’s Ramnavami. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Many politicians have fallen prey to fake news circulating on social media and repeatedly endorse accounts spewing venom in the cyberspace, according to the First Post.

While responding to a question in Lok Sabha in  March, the home ministry told Parliament that the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) does not maintain data on the cases of “mob lynching’ and policing is a state subject. However, it said that since 2014, 40 lynching-related cases were filed in the country and 45 people had died in such incidents. It also mentioned that 217 arrests were made in such cases so far. Most of the cases were reported from Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya.

Shashi Tharoor
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor tweeted Sunday (July 22): “It seems safer in many places to be a cow than a Muslim.” His comments came in response to the latest Alwar case where a Muslim youth, Akbar Khan, was lynched by a mob.

Writing in The Print under the same title, Indian parliament member, Shashi Tharoor, said: Since the ascent of the BJP to power, the forces unleashed by the dominance of Hindutva have resulted in many incidents of violence.

In one grim reckoning, more than 389 individuals have been killed in anti-minority acts of violence since mid-2014, and hundreds of others injured, stripped, beaten and humiliated.

Particularly haunting is the story of 15-year-old Junaid Khan, returning home on a crowded train after buying new clothes for Eid, who was stabbed repeatedly because he was Muslim and thrown off the train to bleed to death on the tracks.

Seventy cases of cow-related violence have been reported in the last eight years, of which 97 per cent (68 out of 70) have occurred during the four years of BJP rule and a majority of these have occurred in BJP-ruled states.

Lynch Mobs Now a Full Fledged Extortion Industry
The lynch mobs accorded impunity by the Rajasthan State government are now running an extortion racket, killing those who are unable to pay, according to the Citizen.

On Friday (July 20) night Akbar Khan, accompanied by another villager Aslam Khan, was brutally beaten to death by a mob for doing little more than purchasing two cows and two calves from a cattle market. He was taking them home to Haryana through the forests when he was set upon by the mob that appeared to be lying in wait.

Akbar Khan was brutally killed when he was unable to pay the money demanded by the mob that waylaid him in the forests, the Citizen said adding: “The silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the state government’s refusal to act has led to control of entire territories by cow mob gangs who are now using their power for extortion.”

Rajasthan’s Peoples Union for Civil Liberties President, Kavita Srivastava, issued a statement that lists the numbers of such lynchings in recent times while recording the impunity under which these gangs operate. The Srivastava statement reads:

After having studied collectively with others activists, the lynchings in Mewat area of Rajasthan, it has become clear to the PUCL that Akbar Khan was killed due to extortion. It is well known that extortionists under the garb of Gaurakshaks are roaming the streets looking for a prey. If those carrying cows are able to pay the sum demanded, then they are allowed to go or else fired at and killed.

Sitaram Yechury, Rajya Sabha member and general secretary of the Communist Party of India (M), in his impassioned speech in the house on the brutal lynchings, said it is not enough for the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi to ask the states to act but crucial for the Central and State Governments to ban the private armies that have been emboldened into taking law into their own hands. He quoted, also from the New York Times and the Financial Times to show how the reputation of this government is at an all time low.

Abdus Sattar Ghazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net) email: asghazali2011 (@) gmail.com

Courtesy: https://countercurrents.org
 

The post Cows are safer in Modi’s India than Muslims appeared first on SabrangIndia.