Upper Egypt (AINA) -- On Monday November 23, 2009 Muslim rioters looted and burned Coptic Christian businesses in the village of Abou Shousha, which lies 25 KM from Farshoot. The terrorized Coptic inhabitants of Abou Shusha have stayed indoors, their shops are closed and their children are being kept away from school. They fear a repeat in their village of the Muslim violence which engulfed the town of Farshoot less than 36 hours earlier (AINA 11-22-2009).The Middle East Christian Association (MECA) reported that at least three large Coptic stores and a pharmacy were looted and burnt in Abou Shusha and that the fire brigade arrived one hour late, although their headquarters is only 8 KM away from the village. "They gave the pretext of being busy in Farshoot, which is untrue, as Farshoot had a quiet night," said Wagih Yacoub of MECA. "Coptic and Muslim neighbors tried to put the fire out." A video posted by Free Copts shows the Abou Shusha fires.
Bishop Kirrillos of Nag Hamady Diocese said that a mob from the neighboring village of Abu Tesht torched the businesses in Abou Shusha. MECA reported that three girls were assaulted in the street by having bricks hurled at them. No serious injuries were reported.
On November 22, in a joint communiqué from fourteen Egyptian human rights organizations and lawyers called on President Mubarak to immediately intervene to save the Copts from the wrath of the mob and the subversive leaders behind them, who are seeking to sow discord and divisions among the Egyptians in the name of religion and "to hold accountable all involved in the incitement or attacks on the peaceful Copts in Farshoot."
The signatories to the statement asked President Mubarak to take the necessary measures to hold accountable the security force officials, who played the "role of spectator in the looting, arson and attacks on Coptic property in Farshoot."
The communiqué strongly condemned the deportation and evacuation of the Copts in Farshoot from their homes and villages by the security forces, in violation of the provisions of the Egyptian Constitution which stipulates in Article 50 and 51 of the Code "No citizen may be prohibited from residing or be forced to reside in a specific area except in the circumstances set out in the law.
The NGOs' statement stressed the right of the Coptic victims for compensation for the material losses and psychological damage, and strongly condemned the burning and insulting of the symbols of Christianity by the Muslims fanatics, and demanded everyone involved to be charged with the crime of "contempt of a heavenly religion."
It is estimated that over 80% of Coptic businesses have been destroyed in the 48 hours of violence in Farshoot. A video prepared by Free Copts advocacy shows Muslim mobs chanting Allah Akbar (God is Great) while looting and burning Coptic businesses and shops
The Egyptian Union for Human Rights (EUHRO) advised that it is preparing a file with all the financial losses and damages to Coptic-owned businesses and property in Farshoot in preparation for filing a civil and a criminal case against the Egyptian Prime Minister, the Governor of Qena and the perpetrators.
"They want the Copts to be poor and are therefore destroying the Coptic economy in these areas," explains Wagih Yacoub.
Bishop Kirollos again condemned the grave violations against Christians and their property, affirming his belief that the attacks were preplanned. "Students of Al-Azhar Institute in Farshoot, were incited by their Dean who sent them out on a rampage against the Copts. They were joined by a great number of locals," he said.
Muslim Anti-Christian Riots Spread in Upper Egypt
From the Assyrian International News Agency:
Imam Preaches to "Kill Gays" at City University in the UK
From Harry's Place:
“The Vice Chancellor of City University London, Julius Weinberg, should resign. He is refusing to take any action after the Islamic Society hosted a fundamentalist preacher, Abu Usamah, who advocates the murder of gay people and of Muslims who give up their faith,” said human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell.Abu Usamah was recorded on Channel Four’s television documentary, Undercover Mosque, as saying: “Do you practice homosexuality with men? Take that homosexual man and throw him off the mountain.” On Muslims who leave the faith he said: “If the Imam wants to crucify him, he should crucify him. The person is put up on the wood and he’s left there to bleed to death for three days.”
Abu Usamah was also filmed deriding women as “deficient”, inferior to men and intellectually “incomplete.”
Another speaker given a platform at the same City University event on 4 November, Murthadah Khan, was also caught on the Undercover Mosque documentary calling Jews and Christians “enemies” and “filthy”.
“It is utterly disgraceful that the student’s union has defended the hosting of these two hate preachers, and that the Vice Chancellor has not responded to complaints from students. These responses violate the equal opportunities policies of the university and the student’s union,” added Mr Tatchell.
“They would never tolerate a white surpemacist who used racist abuse and advocated the murder of black people. Why the double standards?
“The Vice Chancellor seems unwilling to uphold the university’s equal opportunities policy. He has failed to defend Muslim, Jewish, Christian, gay and women students and staff against this vile hatred. Having neglected to ensure that the university is a safe, welcoming place to work and study, Julius Weinberg should stand down,” said Mr Tatchell
Islamic Extremists Execute Young Convert in Somalia
From Compass Direct News:
Christian accused of trying to convert Muslim teenager found shot on Mogadishu street.NAIROBI, Kenya, November 23 (CDN) — Islamic extremists controlling part of the Somali capital of Mogadishu this month executed a young Christian they accused of trying to convert a 15-year-old Muslim to Christianity.
Members of the Islamic extremist group al Shabaab had taken 23-year-old Mumin Abdikarim Yusuf into custody on Oct. 28 after the 15-year-old boy reported him to the militants, an area source told Compass. Yusuf’s body was found on Nov. 14 on an empty residential street in Mogadishu, with sources saying the convert from Islam was shot to death, probably some hours before dawn.
“Our brother Yusuf has been murdered,” the source told Compass. “His body was dumped in Yaqshid district of Mogadishu, and his body is said to be on an empty residential street.”
Al Shabaab, said to have links with al Qaeda terrorists, controls parts of Mogadishu and much of southern parts of Somalia, as well as other areas of the nation.
Their accusations against Yusuf had led the extremist group to raid Yusuf’s home in Holwadag district, Mogadishu, sources said. After searching his home, militia didn’t find anything relating to Christianity but still took him into custody.
Before Yusuf was executed by two shots to the head, reports filtered in to the Compass source that he had been badly beaten and his fingers broken as the Islamists tried to extract incriminating evidence against him and information about other Christians. The source later learned that Yusuf’s body showed signs of torture; all of his front teeth were gone, and some of his fingers were broken, he said.
“We don’t know the time he was murdered, but his freshly killed body was dumped in Yaqshid district at around 4:30 in the morning of Nov. 14, and due to the will of the family we have buried the body at around 3 p.m. on Nov. 14,” the source said.
The clandestine Christians could not safely identify themselves to Yusuf’s Muslim family, but they were able to indirectly assist the parents in burying him with dignity, the source said.
It is not known whether under torture Yusuf revealed information about area members of the hidden church, but underground church leaders have been relocating local Christians who knew him, the source said.
“We still don’t know if the Shabaab did find any new evidence from Yusuf,” he said.
Yusuf’s Muslim parents did not know that their son was a Christian, and they had insisted to the al Shabaab militants that he was still a Muslim, the source said. The extremists accused the family of not reporting that their son had converted to Christianity, and they ordered his mother and father to appear before an al Shabaab court.
Although the Compass source could not confirm whether the parents heeded the command, he said they most likely did as it is not uncommon for the militants to behead those who defy their orders.
“I cannot confirm if they appeared before the Islamist court, but that is highly possible,” he said. “Who can dare defy them?”
The extremists have demonstrated they have no qualms about killing those they perceive to be sympathetic to any “foreign” religion, the source said. He added that the Islamic extremists did not execute Yusuf quickly only because they had no evidence against him except the testimony of the teenage boy.
“In Islam, to execute someone you need to have evidence of three witnesses, and they didn’t have it,” he said. “Al Shabaab is known to do whatever they like, and they don’t even follow the rules of their religion they claim adherence to.”
The discovery of Yusuf’s body brought an end to a strenuous attempt by his family to secure his release, but they are now living in fear since al Shabaab has accused them of concealing their son’s new faith.
The source said Yusuf’s death was typical of the Islamic extremist group, which often pumps bullets into their victims before dumping their bodies in public places to serve as a warning to those who dare to resist its orders.
Since the ouster of dictator Siad Barre in 1991, Somalia has been without a strong central government and has been at the mercy of vicious clan-based militants. Some, such as al Shabaab, are seeking to establish a strict version of sharia (Islamic law) as they fight to oust the Transitional Federal Government of President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed that is backed by the Africa Union and Western nations.
FBI Releases 2008 Hate Crime Statistics
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States has released their annual hate-crime statistics. As in previous years, a bulk of hate-crimes in the U.S. have targeted Blacks, Jews (who are smaller in number than other religious groups in the U.S.) and homosexuals. 105 incidents targeted Muslims, which is significantly less in number than attacks on Whites (716 incidents), Hispanics (516 incidents), Homosexual (1237 incidents in total), Jewish (1,013 incidents) and Black (2,876 incidents) groups.Here are some details, courtesy of REAL Courage:
– “An analysis of the 7,780 single-bias incidents revealed that 51.3 percent were motivated by a racial bias”From the FBI:
– Anti-Black Racial Hate 2,876, Anti-Jewish Hate 1,013, Anti-Homosexual 1,200, Anti-Hispanic 561
– Anti-Islam Incidents – 105
Bias motivation Incidents Offenses Victims1 Known offenders2 Total 7,783 9,168 9,691 6,927 Single-Bias Incidents 7,780 9,160 9,683 6,921 Race: 3,992 4,704 4,934 3,723 Anti-White 716 812 829 811 Anti-Black 2,876 3,413 3,596 2,596 Anti-American Indian/Alaskan Native 54 59 63 61 Anti-Asian/Pacific Islander 137 162 170 140 Anti-Multiple Races, Group 209 258 276 115 Religion: 1,519 1,606 1,732 632 Anti-Jewish 1,013 1,055 1,145 353 Anti-Catholic 75 75 89 35 Anti-Protestant 56 60 62 34 Anti-Islamic 105 123 130 85 Anti-Other Religion 191 212 222 90 Anti-Multiple Religions, Group 65 67 70 33 Anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc. 14 14 14 2 Sexual Orientation: 1,297 1,617 1,706 1,460 Anti-Male Homosexual 776 948 981 921 Anti-Female Homosexual 154 194 198 156 Anti-Homosexual 307 415 466 336 Anti-Heterosexual 33 33 34 25 Anti-Bisexual 27 27 27 22 Ethnicity/National Origin: 894 1,148 1,226 1,034 Anti-Hispanic 561 735 792 711 Anti-Other Ethnicity/National Origin 333 413 434 323 Disability: 78 85 85 72 Anti-Physical 22 28 28 26 Anti-Mental 56 57 57 46 Multiple-Bias Incidents3 3 8 8 6
- 1 The term victim may refer to a person, business, institution, or society as a whole.
- 2 The term known offender does not imply that the identity of the suspect is known, but only that an attribute of the suspect has been identified, which distinguishes him/her from an unknown offender.
- 3 In a multiple-bias incident, two conditions must be met: (a) more than one offense type must occur in the incident and (b) at least two offense types must be motivated by different biases.
Terrorism That's Personal
The following is painful and sad to see. However, it must be seen. This is from All Eyes (Tampa Bay):
All Eyes notes the following:Saira Liaqat, 26, poses for the camera as she holds a portrait of herself before being burned, at her home in Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 9, 2008. When she was fifteen, Saira was married to a relative who would later attack her with acid after insistently demanding her to live with him, although the families had agreed she wouldn't join him until she finished school. Saira has undergone plastic surgery 9 times to try to recover from her scars.
We typically think of terrorism as a political act.Read it all and see the rest of the images here. Viewer discretion is advised.
But sometimes it’s very personal. It wasn’t a government or a guerrilla insurgency that threw acid on this woman’s face in Pakistan. It was a young man whom she had rejected for marriage. As the United States ponders what to do in Afghanistan — and for that matter, in Pakistan — it is wise to understand both the political and the personal, that the very ignorance and illiteracy and misogyny that create the climate for these acid attacks can and does bleed over into the political realm. Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times op-ed columnist who traveled to Pakistan last year to write about acid attacks, put it this way in an essay at the time: “I’ve been investigating such acid attacks, which are commonly used to terrorize and subjugate women and girls in a swath of Asia from Afghanistan through Cambodia (men are almost never attacked with acid). Because women usually don’t matter in this part of the world, their attackers are rarely prosecuted and acid sales are usually not controlled. It’s a kind of terrorism that becomes accepted as part of the background noise in the region....
Freedom for Imprisoned Christian 'Apostates'
Two women who were imprisoned in Iran's Evin Prison because they are Christians have finally been released. The women were jailed for a total of 259 days.
From World Net Daily:
From World Net Daily:
Read it all here.After millions of prayers and numerous petitions from around the world, two Iranian women jailed for no other reason than being Christian were released from a Tehran prison today.
Maryam Rustampoor, 27, and Marzieh Amirizadeh, 30, were imprisoned for 259 days – since March 5. They were repeatedly told to recant their faith and that they would be executed as "apostates," solely because they are Christians.
But now Open Doors USA has confirmed the women have been released from the notorious Evin prison with no bail, a rarity for Christians released from prison in Iran.
"I am glad to let you know that Maryam and Marzieh are now set free without bail and they are currently at home," an Open Doors field worker announced.
Suspicious Note and Package at Fort Benning
From WRBL News 3 (Georgia, USA):
Fort Benning investigators are launching an investigation into a suspicious note and package found last week on post.
News 3 spoke to a post representative Sunday night, they say the note and box were found Thursday morning outside a motor pool belonging to the 197th.
Officials could not release any more information, but the Army Times is reporting the box was full of twenty hollow point shells and the note threatened a re-enactment of the massacre at Fort Hood. Fort Benning Public Affairs Officer Elsie Jackson says the safety of soldiers and their families is always a priority and the appropriate safety measures are already in place.
Jackson could not say if investigators have any suspects, or detail what the note said....
Alavi Foundation Financed Radical Professors, May Have Funneled Money to Iranian Spies
From JTA:
(JTA) -- A Manhattan-based Islamic charity is funding anti-Israel, pro-Iran professors at Columbia and Rutgers universities, the New York Post reported.Read more about the recent scandal involving the Alavi Foundation here.
The Alavi Foundation has aggressively given away hundreds of thousands of dollars to Columbia and Rutgers for Middle Eastern and Persian studies programs that employ professors sympathetic to the Iranian dictatorship, the newspaper reported Monday.
"We found evidence that the government of Iran really controlled everything about the foundation," Adam Kaufmann, investigations chief at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, told the Post.
Federal agents also believe the foundation funnels money to Iran-supported Islamic schools in the United States and to a syndicate of Iranian spies based in Europe, according to the newspaper. U.S. agents have begun seizing as much as $650 million in assets from the foundation, according to the report.
The foundation donated $100,000 to Columbia after the school agreed to host Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Post reported, based on 2007 tax filings.
The foundation would not comment on the Post's report.
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