MRN

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.

Hurriyet leaders urge fair report on ihk by un rapporteur

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

(source: Kashmir Media Service)

Srinagar, January 21 (KMS): In occupied Kashmir, Hurriyet leaders, while welcoming the two-day visit of the UN Special Rapporteur, Margaret Sekaggya to Kashmir, have urged a fair report by her on the human rights situation in the territory.

The Chairman of All Parties Hurriyet Conference (APHC), Mirwaiz Umar Farooq in a statement issued in Srinagar expressed the hope that the UN would urge India to stop human rights abuses in the occupied territory.

“We have been demanding a special rapporteur on Kashmir but still, this limited move is also a step in right direction. I hope the UN would ensure that the reportage on Kashmir remains fair and helps in improving the situation,” he added.

Welcoming the visit of the UN Special Rapporteur to Kashmir, where she held many sessions with human rights defenders and victims, veteran Kashmiri Hurriyet leader, Syed Ali Gilani said that after a long time the UN had realised to send somebody to enquire about Kashmiris and the situation they live in.

He said, “Though her mandate has been limited but it is to be seen what she writes in her report. That whether she has been able to understand and feel the pain and sufferings of Kashmiris, will be known when her report is out.”

It is to be seen whether she can reproduce, in a fair and impartial manner, whatever she encountered and observed here, he maintained.

Sa government faces challenges to arrest war criminals

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

By Firoz Osman

Has South Africa joined the United States of America and European countries in providing Israel geopolitical insulation?

This question arises against the backdrop of an intense week during which international media attention was focused on whether a senior Israeli politician faced the prospect of being arrested upon her travel to SA.

It also arises because of a perception that the Tzipi Livni trip had been planned months ago and would only proceed without hitch if the SA government had given it a green light.

The (now cancelled) visit by Israel’s leader of the opposition and former foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, led to charges for war crimes and crimes against humanity, being laid before the National Director of Public Prosecutions. This is unprecedented in South African history and presents numerous challenges to the judiciary of our country.

The palestinian people betrayed

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

The leaked papers published by Al Jazeera show how craven Palestinian leaders are and how willing they were to sell out their people’s rights. Yet all they had to offer wasn’t enough for Israel.

By Saree Makdisi

(source: LA Times)

A massive archive of documents leaked to Al Jazeera and Britain’s Guardian newspaper offers irrefutable proof that years of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians have been an empty sham. The papers make clear that the time has come for Palestinians and anyone interested in the cause of justice to abandon the charade of official diplomacy and pursue other, more creative and non-violent paths toward the realisation of a genuine, just peace. The leaked documents, assuming they are genuine — and both Al Jazeera and the Guardian say they have authenticated them — are behind-the-scenes notes from a decade of negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel. On issue after issue, they show Palestinian negotiators eager to concede ground, offering to give up much of Jerusalem, to accept Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank, to collaborate with Israeli occupation forces in suppressing dissent in the occupied territories — including killing fellow Palestinians — and even to forgo the right of return for most Palestinians driven from their homes by Israel in 1948.

The papers give the lie to Israel’s claim that it yearns for peace but lacks a Palestinian “partner.” And they reinforce the sense that Israel has gone along with these negotiations only to buy time to expropriate more Palestinian land, demolish more Palestinian homes, expel more Palestinian families and build more colonies for the exclusive use of Jewish settlers in militarily occupied territory, thereby cementing new realities on the ground that would make a Palestinian state a geophysical impossibility.

Anyone who doubts this has only to skim through the leaked papers, which show Israel spurning one gaping Palestinian concession after another. And this was Israel, not under Benjamin Netanyahu but under the supposedly more liberal Ehud Olmert and his foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, who claimed they were committed to the peace process. In shameless abjection, the Palestinian negotiators prostrated themselves and surrendered essentially every major objective for which their people have struggled and sacrificed for 60 years, only for the imperious Israelis to say again and again, no, no, no. Clearly, all that the Palestinians have to offer is not enough for Israel.

The tale of two tutu petitions

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

Dan Roodt, Advocate Gcina Malindi (SC) and Dot Cleminshaw

By Zackie Achmat

(source: WritingRights.org)

The Board of the Cape Town Holocaust Centre met with Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu this week to discuss the calls by people who support the Israeli Occupation of Palestinians.

On 24 January 2011, Open Shuhada Street activists Dan Kamen and Lungisa Mndende handed over the 5815 signatures that were collected in support of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu’s role as a patron of the Holocaust Centre to centre director Richard Freedman. The petition also defends Archbishop Tutu’s right to criticise the state of Israel. (See the letter below and the text of the petition here)

Archbishop Tutu has always united people against injustice. The response to the attack by leading supporters of the South African Zionist Federation against him is a striking illustration of his capacity to bring together the most diverse array of people both online and offline. This note focuses on the people in South Africa who signed this petition.

Noluvuyo Peter lives in Nkanini informal settlement in Khayelitsha, Cati Vawda lives in Westville Durban, Alice Krige lives in Hollywood California, Theodora Steele hails from Braamfontein in Johannesburg — they are women with a sense of justice — they signed the petition supporting Archbishop Tutu.