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The aspiration of the Media Review Network is to dispel the myths and stereotypes about Islam and Muslims and to foster bridges of understanding among the diverse people of our country. The Media Review Network believes that Muslim perspectives on issues impacting on South Africans are a prerequisite to a better appreciation of Islam.

Civil society counter terror

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By Joanne Mariner

(source: CounterPunch)

Last week I participated in the launch conference of the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague (ICCT-The Hague), a newly-established think tank that will be carrying out research and analysis relating to counterterrorism.

The conference, which took place in the Hague, brought together more than 150 participants from a range of countries to review legal and policy developments in the field of counterterrorism since September 11, 2001. On the assumption that the year 2011 will mark a natural moment for assessing the past decade’s intensified efforts to combat terrorism — analyzing what has worked and what hasn’t — the conference was meant to set these debates in motion by posing some fundamental questions.

After a plenary session in the morning, four workshops were held in the afternoon, addressing such issues as the international law framework for countering terrorism and the role of civil society in preventing terrorism.

I chaired the latter workshop, whose goal was to examine the ways in which non-governmental organizations, community groups, faith-based institutions, and other civil society actors might play a useful role in countering terrorism. While participants raised a couple of examples that were directly related to the fight against terrorism — for example, efforts in the UK to dissuade alienated Muslim youth from joining violent groups — the main focus of the workshop was on work that would not naturally be labeled counterterrorism, but that might nonetheless support the goal of preventing terrorism.

Among the examples raised were civil society efforts to resolve potentially violent conflicts, remedy underdevelopment, calm religious tensions, or address other conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism.

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Americas self serving politicized double standard of justice

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By Yvonne Ridley

(source: www.ghulammuhammed.blogspot.com)

I wonder if Hillary Clinton really believes in the pompous invective that shoots from her lips with the rapidity of machine gun fire. We had a classic example of it just the other day when she let rip in her grating, robotic monotones over a Moscow court’s decision to jail an oil tycoon. To be fair to Clinton, she was not alone. There was a whole gaggle of disapproving foreign ministers who poured forth their ridiculous brand of Western arrogance which has poisoned the international atmosphere for far too long. The US Secretary of State said Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s conviction raised “serious questions about selective prosecution and about the rule of law being overshadowed by political considerations”.

Although Khodorkovsky, 47, and his business partner, Platon Lebedev, 54, were found guilty of theft and money laundering by a Moscow court, critics like Clinton say the trial constitutes revenge for the tycoon’s questioning of a state monopoly on oil pipelines and propping up political parties that oppose the Kremlin.

Clinton’s censure was echoed by politicians in Britain and Germany, and Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, urged Moscow to “respect its international commitments in the field of human rights and the rule of law”.

Now while it may appear to be quite touching to see all these Western leaders express their outrage over a trial involving the one-time richest and most powerful man in Russia’s oil and gas industry, you have to ask where were these moral guardians when other unjust legal decisions were being made in US courts, for example?

So why have the Americans and Europeans rushed to make very public and official statements so quickly on a matter of oil and gas, in another country? Okay, so it is a rhetorical question!

But shouldn’t Clinton put a sock in it? The USA is still squatting in Cuba overseeing the continuing festering mess caused by one of the biggest boil’s on the face of human rights – yes, Guantanamo is approaching a decade of incarcerating men without charge or trial. At least Khodorkovsky had his day in an open court and can appeal.

 Instead of sticking her nose in to other country’s courts, perhaps the US Secretary of State would care to look into her own backyard and tell us why one of her soldiers was given a mere nine month sentence earlier this month after shooting unarmed civilians in Afghanistan?

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Press statement no al qaeda link in robbery

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The Media Review Network (MRN) welcomes the result of the probe by the Crime Intelligence Unit and the Organised Crime Unit of the South African Police Services (S.A.P.S) in which they deny any link between Al Qaeda and the robbery that took place at Velmore Hotel outside Erasmia, near Pretoria.

The MRN challenged the speculative nature of the article by Graeme Hosken and wrote to the Pretoria News about our concerns. We now feel vindicated that the S.A.P.S Crime Intelligence Unit as well as the Organised Crime Unit, after thorough investigation have refuted the contents of Graeme Hosken’s report.

National Police spokeswoman, Brigadier Sally De Beer said: “The S.A.P.S is satisfied that, contrary to certain media reports, a suspect involved in a shoot-out with police members during which a sergeant was wounded on 20 December 2010 near the Velmore Hotel, has no links with the group known as Al Qaeda.”

She further went on to say that: “Although the journalist could have picked up speculation on the scene of the crime, the S.A.P.S is of the opinion that it was irresponsible to make such wide-ranging claims, which has already attracted international attention, without any confirmation whatsoever.”

In view of the above, the Media Review Network demands an unequivocal apology from the Pretoria News and the reporter, Graeme Hosken, for the such reckless and negligent reporting which has also aroused negative international attention toward South Africa, by linking Al Qaeda to armed robberies here.

Ibrahim Vawda

Senior Researcher,

Media Review Network

Tell: 012 374 6987

E-mail: webmaster@mediareviewnet.com

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The drums of war are heard again in Isarael

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By Ilan Pappe

(source: Mondoweiss.net)

The drums of war are heard again in Israel and they are sounded because once more Israel’s invincibility is in question. Despite the triumphant rhetoric in the various media commemorative reports, two years after ‘Cast Lead’, the sense is that that campaign was as much of a failure as was the second Lebanon war of 2006. Unfortunately, leaders, generals and the public at large in the Jewish State know only one way of dealing with military debacles and fiascos. They can be redeemed only by another successful operation or war but one which has to be carried out with more force and be more ruthless than the previous one with the hope for better results in the next round.

Force and might, so explained leading commentators in the local media (parroting what they hear from the generals in the army), is needed in order to ‘deter’, to ‘teach a lesson’ and to ‘weaken’ the enemy. There is no new plan for Gaza – there is no real desire to occupy it and put in under direct Israeli rule. What is suggested is to pound the Strip and its people once more, but with more brutality and for a shorter time. One might ask, why would this bear different fruits than the ‘Cast Lead Operation’? But this is the wrong question. The right question is what else can the present political and military elite of Israel (which includes the government and the main opposition parties) do?

They have known now for years what to do in the West Bank – colonize, ethnically cleanse and bisect the area to death, while remaining publicly loyal to the futile discourse of peace or rather the ‘peace process’. The end result is expected to be a docile Palestinian Authority within a heavily Judaized West Bank. But they are at a total loss about how to manage the situation in the Gaza Strip, ever since Ariel Sharon ‘disengaged’ from it. The unwillingness of the people of Gaza to be disengaged from the West Bank, and the World, seems to be more difficult to defeat, even after the horrible human toll the Gazans paid in December 2008 for their resistance and defiance.

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