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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.

Press release

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New Age report on al-Qaeda’s “SA links”

A report in the ‘New Age’ with a screaming headline “SA’s al-Qaeda links revealed” (May 3, 2011) is not only misleading, its also entirely speculative.

Quoting faceless South African and American intelligence sources, it makes utterly outrageous and unsubstantiated allegations such as this country being used as a springboard to infiltrate al-Qaeda-linked operatives into Europe, the UK and the US. It goes on to claim that the infiltration is run by a network of Pakistani citizens who bring in illegal aliens by air via OR Tambo airport or overland through Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho.

The report is mischievous, misleading and malicious for the rest of its content deals with a deliberate attempt to conflate criminal conduct with a movement widely viewed as an “Islamic terror group”.

Money laundering and forgery of documents along with human trafficking is criminal!  Whilst we applaud the Hawks for busting many of these crime syndicates, we deplore New Age journalist De Wet Potgieter’s unprofessional and wholly unethical attempt to mix fact with fiction!

We also applaud the intense operations conducted by members of specialised undercover police units and the SA Revenue Services (SARS) for their efforts to uncover and prosecute criminal gangs. We do however believe that to conflate the illegal activities of thugs with the legitimate political aspirations of people opposed to US-backed dictators is a travesty.

Such trial-by-media as is evident by this devious report does a great deal of disservice to Muslims in SA, many of whom are equally appalled by the death and destruction caused by US meddling in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and its unconditional support for Israel’s repressive oppression of Palestinians.

We therefore challenge Potgieter to disclose whether any of these criminals have been charged and prosecuted in SA as terrorists under the existing anti-terror laws.

Issued by:

Iqbal Jassat

Chairperson: Media Review Network

Cell: 083 594 3749

Email: mrn_ij@telkomsa.net

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Osamas killing shows up the us

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By Firoz Osman – Media Review Network

(source: Sowetan Newspaper – Friday, 6/05/2011, Pg12)

Assassinations and extrajudicial killings are banned under both US and International Law, and until all the facts are established the sinister motives of the murky raid leading to the brutal murder of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan will have dire consequences.

As more information comes to light, facts such as Osama bin Laden was unarmed, the premises was not guarded and that his wife was not used as a human shield and was shot in the leg trying to protect herself- shows just how revolting and arrogant America is, a far cry from being the champion of human rights.

The Americans never showed any evidence of bin Laden’s alleged crimes. Let us recall that when the Taliban refused to extradite bin Laden to the USA, the US representatives told the Taliban,’ either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs.’ The Taliban refused.

In the wake of the 9/11 atrocity, the neocons under Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney, in league with Israel, was provided with the opportunity to launch illegitimate military invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, men, women and children, have been murdered by the Western coalition.

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7 deceptions about bin ladens killing pushed by the Obama administration

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By Joshua Holland

(source: www.alternet.org)

The Obama administration deftly shaped the media coverage of its prized kill by detailing a picture-perfect, morally unambiguous special forces operation, which culminated in the death of Osama bin Laden. Most of the details of that narrative have now unravelled, but the conventional wisdom that the tale established remains. As Glenn Greenwald put it, that’s par for the course: “the narrative is set forever by first-day government falsehoods uncritically amplified by establishment media outlets, which endure no matter how definitively they are disproven in subsequent days.”

In his address to the American people, and in subsequent media briefings by senior officials, we were told that a small force of as many as 25 Navy Seals stormed the compound with orders to take bin Laden alive, if possible. White House spokesman Jay Carney said that once inside the compound, they came under heavy fire and “were engaged in a firefight throughout the operation.” The SEALs killed Osama bin Laden’s son when he lunged for them on a staircase, and finally encountered their quarry in a bedroom, where, after taking a woman believed to be his wife as a human shield, bin Laden died in a vicious fire-fight. The operation, Obama said, was carried out “with extraordinary courage and capability.”

As the week wore on, all of these details were “revised,” and the administration claims that the initial, improbably clean account of what happened was merely a product of the “fog of war.” And, as Salon’s Justin Elliott notes, “despite the major misstatements by the administration on perhaps the biggest story of the year, the media has largely taken a deferential stance” to that position.

Let’s look at what has changed since that first draft of history was written by the administration.

1. No Firefight

John Brennan, White House security adviser, initially told reporters that bin Laden “was engaged in a firefight with those that entered the area of the house he was in.” But on Wednesday, unnamed “administration officials” told NBC that only one person fired on U.S. troops from an adjacent guest house, and once they entered the main residence the “resistance” we were told they faced “never materialized.”

The compound was cleared quickly, said the officials, and rather than a 40-minute firefight, the commandoes spent most of their time there gathering computer hard drives and other potential sources of intelligence.

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Osama bin ladens second death

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By Paul Craig Roberts

(source: Centre for Global Research)

If today were April 1 and not May 2, we could dismiss as an April fool’s joke this morning’s headline that Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight in Pakistan and quickly buried at sea.  As it is, we must take it as more evidence that the US government has unlimited belief in the gullibility of Americans.

Think about it.  What are the chances that a person allegedly suffering from kidney disease and requiring dialysis and, in addition, afflicted with diabetes and low blood pressure, survived in mountain hideaways for a decade?  If bin Laden was able to acquire dialysis equipment and medical care that his condition required, would not the shipment of dialysis equipment point to his location? Why did it take ten years to find him?

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