Media Review Network – Page 1195 – Providing Context and Substance

Modis communal agenda continus in gujarat

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

Modi’s communal agenda continus in Gujarat

By Abdul Hafiz Lakhani-Ahmedabad

Expressing concern over this increasing polarization, a recent report by a high level committee from the Indian Prime Minister’s office, to be tabled in the Indian Parliament in October, states that Gujarat still hasn’t recuperated from the riots in which over 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed. The committee noted that several Gujarati cities and towns are sharply divided into Hindu and Muslim ghettoes. Muslims, a minority in the state, face social and economic boycott from society at large. The committee also observed that dropout rates of Muslim girls have risen. And there’s a dismal representation of Muslims in public-sector jobs.

"There’s a state of fear and insecurity among Muslims," says a member of the committee. "The state government has done little to end the state of alienation."

Ultra orthodox jews visit hamas

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

Ultra-orthodox Jews visit Hamas

Anti Zionists
Anti-zionist ultra-orthodox Jews in front of a picture of Dome of the Rock mosque, during Gaza visit
The Neturei Karta believe Israel can only be established by the Messiah

Four members of a group of ultra-orthodox Jews opposed to the existence of Israel have visited Hamas in Gaza.

The men, clad in the traditional ultra-orthodox garb of black hats and coats and with long side-curls in their hair, met Hamas leader Ismail Haniya.

The Neturei Karta believe that a Jewish state can only be established by the Messiah and thus denounce Israel as heretic and embrace its enemies.

Mr Haniya welcomed them, saying Hamas rejects Zionist ideology, not Jews.

"We feel your suffering, we cry your cry," the Associated Press quoted Rabbi Yisroel Weiss as saying.

"It is your land, it is occupied, illegitimately and unjustly by people who stole it, kidnapped the name of Judaism and our identity."

The representatives entered Gaza, which is under a strict Israeli embargo, with a convoy of activists who travelled through Egypt.

‘Heroes’

Neturei Karta, Aramaic for "Guardians of the City" was founded some 70 years ago in Jerusalem.

Estimates of the group’s size range from a few hundred to a few thousand – some in Israel, others in the UK and US.

Members have praised Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for saying Israel should be erased from the pages of history – sometimes translated as "wiped off the map".

They have also attended a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran and held a prayer vigil for the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat as he lay on his death bed.

Crackdown threatens uighurs oasis

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

Crackdown Threatens Uighurs Oasis

IslamOnline.net & Newspapers

Kashgar
People in Kashgar are living in a climate of fear created by the authorities. (NY Times)

CAIRO — China’s clampdown on its Uighur Muslim minority after the recent ethnic riots has spread to reach Kashgar, an ancient Silk Road oasis known as the heart of the Uighur culture, where a climate of fear has taken hold.
"The situation may look calm now, but it could change at any second," a local government official told the New York Times on Thursday, July 23, while taking a group of foreign journalists ordered to leave Kashgar to the airport.

The ancient city of Kashgar has come under a massive security blanket that grips Urumqi, the capital of the Muslim-majority Xinjiang province.

At least 190 people were killed and over 1,700 other injured in Urumqi riots and the ensuing security crackdown.

Thousands of Uighurs took to the streets of Urumqi on July 5 to protest repression and discrimination.

Hundreds of Uighur Muslims have since been rounded up in Urumqi on claims of being involved in the unrest.

Though being some 700 miles away, the authorities are mounting a similar crackdown on in Kashgar, a city of 3.4 million people more than 90 percent of them Uighur.

Fatahs leadership crisis deepens

by MRN
January 1, 2013July 25, 2013

Fatah’s Leadership Crisis Deepens

by Helena Cobban

Fifty years ago, a small group of Palestinian teachers and engineers living in Kuwait founded a secretive movement aimed at liberating those portions of previously British-ruled Palestine that became the State of Israel in 1948.

The group they founded, Fatah, went on to dominate the entire Palestinian political scene. In 1969 it took over the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), which had been founded by the Arab states — as a counter to Fatah — a few years earlier.

In 1993, it was Fatah/PLO head Yasser Arafat who signed the "Oslo Accord" with Israel; and the following year Arafat became president of the Palestinian Authority (PA) established in occupied Ramallah.

But for several years, Fatah has been in crisis, and now that crisis is coming to a sharp head. Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, is planning to convene a meeting of Fatah’s policymaking General Conference Aug. 4. By insisting on holding it in occupied Bethlehem — which will enable Israel’s security forces to completely control who attends and who does not — he has helped split the group’s historic leadership down the middle.

In mid-July, Farouq al-Qaddumi, a longtime Fatah leader who is senior to Abbas within the movement, lashed out at Abbas, accusing him of having conspired with Israel and the U.S. to poison Arafat, who died of unknown causes in late 2004.