De Ramadan is begonnen en moslims hebben het zwaar dit jaar. De zon komt om kwart over vier al op en gaat pas rond tien uur ‘s avonds weer onder. Of achttien uur per dag zonder eten ongezond is? Hangt er helemaal vanaf hoe je het invult.
Filed under: Islam Dutch | Tagged: Islam Dutch | Leave a Comment »
Sheikh Ali Salman, whose society is the biggest opposition group in Bahrain, noted that the Peninsula Shield Force uses Bahraini police uniform when cracking down on anti-government protesters.
The cleric emphasized that his group will never resort to arms and will continue peaceful protests.
Al-Wefaq has organized many anti-government demonstrations in Bahrain since the beginning of the revolution in February 2011. The Manama regime forces have been cracking down on the protests ever since.
Last Month, Sheikh Ali Salman was hit in the chest and shoulder by a rubber bullet and a tear gas canister on Friday, the movement said in a statement.
In mid-March 2011, Saudi Arabia deployed forces in Bahrain to help the regime in Manama crush anti-government demonstrations.
Protests have intensified in the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom, with demonstrators demanding the downfall of the Al Khalifa regime.
According to human rights organization Amnesty International, scores of people have been killed during the protests.
Bahrainis hold King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa responsible for the death and arrest of protesters.
Filed under: Revolution Bahrein | Tagged: Bahrein, Revolution | Leave a Comment »
The campaign will be under the supervision of Interior Minister Prince Ahmed bin Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud
The three-day telethon on Saudi TV channels to raise funds began at 11:00 P.M. Monday and was scheduled to continue till 3:00 A.M.
In a statement issued Saturday, the Ministry of Interior urged all citizens to contribute to this campaign and offer their donations.
The ministry also announced that the campaign will cover all parts of the kingdom so that all Saudi citizens will get the chance to offer the people of Syria what they can to help them in their time of need.
The donation campaign is set to continue for the next five days.
Those who wish to help, are able to make donations via designated banks across the kingdom.
The Saudi cabinet, presided by King Abdullah, has more than once expressed its outrage towards the escalation of violence in Syria, particularly on the part of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad which has been demonstrated over the course of the past 16 months. The Syrian regime, said the cabinet, is violating all Arab and international commitments.
(english.alarabiya.net / 23.07.2012)
Filed under: Revolution Syria | Tagged: Help, Revolution, Saudi, Syria | Leave a Comment »
Salem Salameh from the Palestinian Muslim Clerics’ Foundation
The demonstration was organized by the Gaza Ministry of Endowment and the Palestinian Muslim Clerics’ Foundation.
Protesters condemned, what they described as, the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims.
They also called on the international community to break its silence and stop the ethnic cleansing of the Muslims.
“This is not a new thing for the world to remain silent, while Muslims are slaughtered. When there are minor violations somewhere else in the world, Western countries arise in the name of democracy,” Salem Salameh from the Palestinian Muslim Clerics’ Foundation told Press TV.
“We call on all Muslims around the world to wake up and to step forward to stop the massacres against the Rohingya Muslims,” he added.
According to recent reports, Muslims in Myanmar are in a tragic human plight.
Reports say 650 of the nearly-one-million Rohingya Muslims have been killed since June 28 during clashes in the western region of Rakhine. This is while 1,200 others are missing and 90,000 more have been displaced.
The UN has described the Muslim community as the Palestine of Asia and one of the most-persecuted minorities in the world.
The Myanmarese government refuses to recognize Rohingyas, whom, it claims, are not natives and classifies them as illegal migrants, although, they have lived in the country for generations.
Filed under: Revolution Palestine | Tagged: Myanmar, Palestine, Revolution | Leave a Comment »
Residents of targeted villages will be moved to the West Bank town of Yatta and its environs; state claims that most of those evacuated have permanent homes in the area.
The residents of the targeted villages will be moved to the town of Yatta and its environs; the state claims, based on information it obtained from local informers, that most of these people have permanent homes in that area.
The state will allow the residents to work their lands and graze their flocks there when the IDF is not training — on weekends and Jewish holidays – and during two other periods of one month each during the year. Barak agreed to leave four villages that are in the northernmost part of the area, even though this would reduce the dimensions of training area and prevent the use of live fire.
The villages slated for demolition are the larger villages in the region: Majaz, Tabban, Sfai, Fakheit, Halaweh, Mirkez, Jinba, and Kharuba, which have a total of 1,500 residents. The villages to be spared are Tuba, Mufaqara, Sarura and Megheir al-Abeid, which have a total of 300 residents.
The IDF and the Civil Administration regard all of them as squatters in Firing Zone 918, even though the villages have existed since at least the 1830s.
Evacuation orders were issued against the 12 villages in 1999, but were frozen by an injunction issued by the High Court of Justice in response to two petitions that were united: One by attorney Shlomo Lecker and the second by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, who together represented some 200 families. An effort to reach an agreement on the status of the residents in the area by a mediation process failed in 2005.
At that point, the Civil Administration started to issue demolition orders against cisterns and restrooms that several families had added, claiming that these additions violated the status quo as set by the court. This past April, after 12 years of various proceedings and delays, the High Court held a preliminary hearing on the petitions, with the state submitting its final position on Sunday.
Attorney Hila Gurani, a senior deputy state prosecutor, wrote in the response to the petitions that the IDF has been forced to limit its military exercises in the area because of the people living there and the illegal construction that has taken place there. For the same reason, no live-fire training is conducted there.
In addition, wrote Gurani, during the second intifada, operational activity came at the expense of training, but the Second Lebanon War exposed weak spots that substantially increase the need for training and firing zones. Gurani also noted that there was a risk that residents of the firing zone would collect intelligence on IDF methods, or take weapons or equipment that the forces might leave behind, and use them for terror purposes.
The village residents, ACRI and the B’Tselem human rights group present the issues differently. According to them, all 12 villages were natural outgrowths of cave-dwelling communities that are widely found in that area. In some of the villages, homes of unchiseled stone were built even before 1967.
The connection to Yatta is natural – and characteristic of many satellite communities that developed over the centuries in historic Palestine. For generations the cave-dwellers were farmers and shepherds, producing milk and cheese, and they have preserved their way of life to this day, while integrating into Yatta as a result of contemporary demands, such as the need to send their children to school.
The IDF had declared some 30,000 dunams (7,500 acres) in the area a closed military zone back in the 1970s. Under military law, only permanent residents are allowed to remain in a closed military zone.
Until 1997, the cave-dwellers continued to live in their communities undisturbed – which the petitioners say is clear evidence that they were regarded at the time as permanent residents. However, as happened in much of the West Bank that under the Oslo Accords was deemed Area C – under complete Israeli control – the Israeli authorities did not allow the residents to build more structures, including schools or clinics, to accommodate their natural growth. These communities were not included the master plans that were prepared for the building of the area settlements, and thus to this day these villages are not connected to the road system, the water system or to the electrical grid.
In August and November 1999, most of the area’s residents received eviction orders due to “illegal residence in a firing zone.” On November 16, 1999, the security forces forcibly evicted more than 700 residents, and the IDF demolished buildings and wells and confiscated property, leaving the residents with no homes and no livelihood.
As noted, the High Court, in response to the petitions, issued an interim injunction, allowing the villagers to temporarily return to their homes. However, because the army had destroyed many of the buildings, many residents had nothing to return to. Moreover, the security forces interpreted the interim injunction as narrowly as possible, allowing reentry only to the named petitioners and denying access to their relatives.
As a result, the examination conducted by the Civil Administration that is quoted in the state’s response to the court on Sunday found that in 2000 “there were no permanent residents in the area,” and that anyone living there was there only on a seasonal basis. On the other hand, the Civil Administration identified most of the petitioners as living in and around Yatta, as reported in the affidavit of Raziel Goldstein, who was the Civil Administration’s inspection coordinator in the region.
Goldstein also wrote in his affidavit that, “This examination was conducted with the help of three local residents, who were presented with the names of the petitioners and aerial photographs of Yatta.”
The state also claims that in recent years residents have been repeatedly violating the status quo by expanding structures illegally, adding that the number of people entering the area under the interim injunctions is far greater than the number of petitioners.
“The petitioners cannot build on the development of these illegal phenomena and now claim to be talking about permanent residency,” the state wrote.
(www.haaretz.com / 23.07.2012)
Filed under: Terrorism | Tagged: Terrorism | Leave a Comment »
Israel is in an “open war” with Iran, President Shimon Peres said Monday in an interview with CNN, as he blamed Iran and Hezbollah for last week’s bombing in Bulgaria that killed five Israelis.
In the interview, Peres said Israel had “enough” hard intelligence to link the Bulgaria attack to Iran and its proxy in Lebanon Hezbollah and believes more attacks are being planned as part of what he called an “open war against Israel.”
He added that Israel would act to prevent further attacks.
Asked whether the Bulgaria bombing and the other attempted attacks were revenge for the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, which Iran blames on Israel, the Israeli president said that the Jewish state has never claimed responsibility for the killings. But he noted that Israel has a right to prevent killing of its citizens.
“We don’t have an initiative of terror,” Peres said. “We don’t do it. But self-defense is the right and the must of every people.”
He said Israel’s policy was one of “prevention,” rather than “retaliation.”
“If you have enough information about a certain person which is a ticking clock that can explode a bomb that can endanger civilian life, clearly you have to prevent him from doing so,” Peres said, citing reports that the United States has killed as many as 3,000 people in drone strikes aimed at eliminating terrorists.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Iran for the deadly attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, warning that his country would “respond forcefully” to strikes by Tehran.
“All the signs lead to Iran,” he said in a statement on the blast which Bulgarian officials said killed three people. “Israel will respond forcefully to Iranian terror.”
Tehran responded by saying it strongly condemns “all terrorist acts.”
Meanwhile with neighboring Syria in the midst of civil war, Peres reiterated Israeli statements that it will be forced to seize Syria’s chemical weapons if there is a risk President Bashar al-Assad would use them against Israel or that the arsenal could fall into the wrong hands.
Defense official Amos Gilad has previously said that Israel is afraid Syria’s large chemical stocks could be seized by Lebanese militants, al-Qaeda-affiliated radicals or other unspecified “irresponsible elements” operating in Syria.
Israel’s top defense officials convened for emergency meetings on Wednesday to discuss the deteriorating security situation in Syria, reflecting growing concerns that violence sweeping Israel’s northern neighbor could spill across the border.
Later Defense Minister Ehud Barak said he ordered the military to prepare contingency plans to attack Syria’s chemical weapons arsenals, should it become necessary.
“The use of chemical weapons is internationally forbidden… and what do you do when somebody violates the law? You fight against it,” Peres said.
“You stop them. We shall not remain indifferent and tell them, ‘Do what you want.’“
When asked how far Israel would go to secure Syria’s chemical arsenal, Peres said: “Until it will stop being a danger.”
With Israel facing a potential incursion of refugees, Peres said although no Syrians have tried to enter the country, Israel would not help any refugees who want to cross the border and would use force against any armed individuals.
“If they will come by force, we shall stop them by force,” Peres said. “If they shall come in without force, we shall stop them the way any country defended her border with civilian means.”
(english.alarabiya.net / 23.07.2012)
Filed under: Terrorism | Tagged: Terrorism | Leave a Comment »
REUTERS: Thousands of people have fled their homes in Assam after fighting between Bodos and Muslim settlers killed at least 19 people, wounded many more, and left villages in flames, police said on Monday.
Police were forced to fire warning shots to disperse armed groups that were moving between jungle hamlets on Monday, setting fire to bamboo houses, police and aid workers in the area told Reuters. Soldiers and federal paramilitary forces were patrolling remote districts.
“We saw miscreants burning down village after village on Monday,” said a senior police officer who asked not to be identified. “It’s total madness going on here. People have lost their senses.”
SN Singh, Assam’s inspector general of police, told Reuters he had ordered his men to shoot at gangs on the streets on sight after a dawn-to-dusk curfew was imposed to stop the violence spreading.
Ringed by China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan, the northeast is home to more than 200 ethnic and tribal groups and has been racked by separatist revolts since Independence from Britain in 1947.
In recent years, Hindu and Christian tribes have begun to give vent to strong anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment against Bangladeshi settlers.
Violence triggered by killings
The latest wave of violence was sparked on Friday night when unidentified men killed four youths in the state’s Bodo tribe-dominated Kokrajhar district near the borders of Bangladesh and Bhutan, police and district officials said.
In retaliation, armed Bodos attacked Muslims, suspecting them to be behind the killings.
About 50,000 villagers have fled their homes and taken shelter in relief camps out of fear since then, said Donald Gilfellon, a senior civil servant in the Kokrajhar district, adding that 37 camps had been set up to help the refugees and that more would be opened if needed.
“Schools and government buildings are getting over-crowded. More and more people are coming, we have given up counting,” said another district civil servant, who requested not to be named.
Police said unidentified groups had fired indiscriminately from automatic weapons in populated areas over the weekend. On Sunday, the body of a six-month-old child was found by villagers on a river bank along with the body of a woman, police said.
On Monday afternoon, hundreds of people carrying spears squatted on the railway line linking Assam’s capital Guwahati to New Delhi. Singh said they had stopped an express train for several hours, demanding that the authorities release several men detained in connection with the killings of the four youths.
Businesses, offices and schools remained closed on Monday, and streets were deserted in Kokrajhar town as heavily armed security men patrolled on foot and in mine-proof vehicles.
“We can’t think of going back home. Our village is vulnerable to attacks and the government failed to give us protection,” resident Hiranya Musaharay said by phone from Kokrajhar town where he was staying with relatives.
(timesofindia.indiatimes.com / 23.07.2012)
Filed under: Terrorism | Tagged: Terrorism | Leave a Comment »
Israeli prison services spokeswoman Sivan Weizman told Ma’an that al-Rekhawi ended the strike on Sunday.
Mona Nadaf, a lawyer for prisoner rights group Addameer, visited al-Rekhawi on Monday in Ramle prison clinic. She confirmed he ended the strike after Israel’s Prison Service agreed to release him on Jan. 25, 2013, six months earlier than his original release date, Addameer said in a statement.
Al-Rekhawi, a father of eight, will be released to his home in the Gaza Strip, Addameer said.
The 39-year-old suffers diabetes, asthma and osteoporosis and went on hunger strike to demand his immediate release on medical grounds. He is in a critical condition after over three months on hunger strike, the rights group said.
Rekhawi was detained in June 2004 at an Israeli military checkpoint on the main road as he headed from Gaza City to his home in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
He has been held in a clinic in Ramle prison since he was detained by Israeli forces, having served eight years of a nine-year sentence.
Filed under: Revolution Palestine | Tagged: Palestine, Revolution | Leave a Comment »
Toen vorig jaar in Tunesië en Egypte volksopstanden uitbraken, sprak men in de media van de ‘Arabische lente’. Kan men alle opstanden die volgden daar ook toe rekenen? Wat zijn de motieven van de grootmachten om al dan niet in te grijpen? Wat betekenen deze opstanden voor de regio en de wereld?
Groot debat: Het Midden-Oosten in beweging: Agressie en verzet
Samir Amin (Egypte)
Jean Bricmont (België)
Norman Finkelstein (VS)
Sinds 2011 gaat de Arabische wereld gebukt onder verschillende veranderingen en onrust: volksopstanden, sociale manifestaties, het opduiken van nieuwe machten. Kunnen we al deze opstanden in de Arabische wereld in het vakje “Arabische lente” steken? Vanaf het begin zijn de NAVO-landen op gewelddadige wijze tussengekomen in een aantal landen, in het bijzonder in Libië. Vandaag bedreigen ze Syrië en Iran… Wat zijn de motieven van de grootmachten om al dan niet te interveniëren? Welke belangen verdedigen Europa en de VS? Wie zijn hun bondgenoten? Wat is de invloed van deze ingrijpende veranderingen op het Israëlisch-Palestijns conflict? Wat zou het progressieve en consequent linkse standpunt moeten zijn?
(www.intal.be /23.07.2012)
Filed under: Agenda | Tagged: Agenda, Revolution | Leave a Comment »
Gazans will now be able to leave the coastal enclave freely. The decision also applies to Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Officials at Cairo’s airport said they have received instructions to allow Palestinians of all ages to enter Egypt without any procedural impediments.
Deportation rulings for Gazans in Egypt were also canceled, sources told AP.
Security sources told Ma’an that Egyptian authorities were worried about opening the Rafah crossing for Palestinians due to the unstable security situation in the Sinai peninsula.
A Palestinian border official at Rafah told Ma’an that the Egyptian side has not informed them of any new arrangements or regulations.
Ayyoub Abu Shaar told Ma’an that 800-1000 passengers leave Gaza via Rafah everyday. According to regulations, which he says are still in place, men aged between 18-40 require a visa to cross into Egypt.
No formal announcement was made by Egypt’s government.
In March, a spokesman for the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood said that opening the border with Gaza was a priority for the group.
“I want the crossing to open completely, so that whoever wants to travel from Gaza can come to Egypt,” said Mahmoud Ghozlan.
“We support opening the crossing for import and export.”
Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s Gaza government said recently that he was confident Egypt’s new president Muhammad Mursi would shield the coastal enclave from Israeli attack and fully open its borders to end a trade blockade.
The Gazan Islamists long complained that his predecessor Hosni Mubarak, ousted from power last year in a popular revolt, sided not just with Israel, but also with their political rival — President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement.
Israel tightened a land and sea blockade on Gaza in 2007 after Hamas took control of the coastal strip, restricting the movement of goods and the 1.7 million residents out of the 360 square kilometer territory.
Filed under: Revolution Palestine | Tagged: Egypt, Palestine, Revolution | Leave a Comment »
