US – Breaking News

By Iqbal Jassat – Chairman, Media Review Network

Saturday, April 9 marks the day South African Muslims shared their grief as the country’s foremost humanitarian activist was laid to rest at Avalon cemetery, south of Johannesburg.

Mohamed Farid Choonara, a doyen of relief aid work across Africa and pioneer of Islamic Da’wah (outreach) breathed his last following a short spell of illness.

Known to many as MF, his contribution to the development of Islam embraced a multifaceted approach. Having emerged as a youth leader in the early ’70s when he played a crucial part in the formation of the Muslim Youth Movement (MYM), the young lad enthusiastically consolidated MYM branches in most parts of the old Transvaal.  

This period and later years when MF was elected as the Movement’s national director was characterised by frequent clashes with the apartheid state’s security thugs. His position as the voice of Muslim youth included the responsibility of ensuring that state organs of repression didn’t succeed in shutting down MYM’s monthly paper ‘al Qalam’ which was frequently raided and banned.

It was during this period – in the prime of his youth – when MF relocated to Durban with his family and directed a host of national MYM initiatives that snowballed into hugely successful projects. Some of these dot the national landscape of Muslim life such as South African National Zakaah Fund (SANZAF), Islamic Movement Press (Impress), Islamic Dawah Movement (IDM) and the landmark of education & training in Braemar, KZN known universally as As-Salaam.

Read More »Obituary mf choonara 3 11 1949 to 9 04 2011

 British MPs granted Gaza access
 
BBC 

A cross-party delegation of British MPs has been allowed into Gaza to assess the effects of the recent Israeli military offensive.
 
Members of the Britain-Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group were granted entry by the Israeli military.
 
They hope to spend the afternoon being taken around sites damaged during Israeli military action. 
 

Read More »British mps granted Gaza access

MISGUIDED VIEWS ON IRAN AIM TO DEFLECT ATTENTION FROM ISRAEL

By: Iqbal Jassat

The attempt by Rolene Marks to divert attention away from Israel in her response to Ronnie Kasrils, "What about Iran?" [Cape Times, July 7] is futile and entirely misguided.

Its seems to be informed more by desperation than any genuine desire to understand36in the Islamic Republic of Iran.Her comments on Iran reveal a great deal of prejudice and given that she seeks to silence Kasrils’ bold and courageous critique of the Zionist regime, one can assume that she is yet another victim of anti-Iran propaganda emanating from Israel.

Those that are calling for an end to tyranny, fear and oppression are the besieged Palestinians. They have also called for an end to detention without trial – more than 11,000 Palestinians have been incarcerated in Israeli jails, subject to horrendous torture as documented by respectable human rights ngos. The victims of ethnic cleansing, Palestinian refugees numbering 5million or more are demanding right of return to their original homes and farms, looted by Jewish immigrants from Europe, America, Russia and South Africa over the last six decades.
 
Perhaps Rolene Marks and her colleagues from the pro-Israeli lobby in SA will dare to venture into probing the reasons why Israel refuses to allow inspections at a secret prison dubbed as "Israel’s Guantanamo Bay". In a report published in May 2009, the Committee Against Torture requested that Israel indentify the location of the camp officially referred to as "Facility 1391" and allow the International Red Cross access to it.

While I am pleased though that she had the courage, unlike David Saks, to concede that Kasrils’ role in fighting apartheid injustice has been exemplary, perhaps she will also agree that the struggle to end Palestinian suffering is long overdue.

Read More »Deflecting attention from Isarael

By Iqbal Jassat – Chairman, Media Review Network

(source: Voice of the Cape Online)

It’s certainly turning out to be a farce. And one wonders whether a highly experienced jurist such as Judge Richard Goldstone underestimated the potential of his Washington Post op-ed turning into an embarrassing saga, not only for himself, but also for his beloved Israel?

Since the publication of his controversial op-ed wherein he expressed misgivings about the central finding of the UN Human Rights Council probe on the Gaza massacre of 2008-9 named after him as “The Goldstone Report”, media has been awash with new – and not so new – accounts of Operation Cast Lead.

And as the saga unfolds there is a rush to claim credit for Goldstone’s apparent about turn. From South Africa groups that operate as pro-Israeli fronts have staked their claim too. Avrom Krengel of the SA Zionist Federation is quoted as saying that the “Jewish lobby” in South Africa be credited for Goldstone’s reversal.

On the other hand, Israeli leaders such as the extreme right winger Lieberman who heads the apartheid regime’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs claims that it was due to pressure exerted by him and his colleagues especially from Military Intelligence that got Goldstone to crack.

In the midst of these claimants seeking accolades for subjecting the internationally renowned war crimes prosecutor to having “suffered greatly, especially in the city he comes from” and that “made him…regret his remarks” as Krengel is quoted, Goldstone is now caught in a new spat with Israel.

Read More »The goldstone saga