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creepingsharia · 4 years

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“32,000 Christians Butchered to Death”: Muslim Persecution of Christians, May 2020

by Raymond Ibrahim

The following are among the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of May 2020:

The Slaughter of Christians

Nigeria: From January 2020 to mid-May 2020, Muslim terrorists massacred at least 620 Christians (470 by Fulani herdsmen and 150 by Boko Haram). According to a May 14 report:

Militant Fulani Herdsmen and Boko Haram … have intensified their anti-Christian violence … with hacking to death in the past four months and half of 2020 of no fewer than 620 defenseless Christians, and wanton burning or destruction of their centers of worship and learning. The atrocities against Christians have gone unchecked and risen to alarming apogee with the country’s security forces and concerned political actors looking the other way or colluding with the Jihadists. Houses burnt or destroyed during the period are in their hundreds; likewise dozens of Christian worship and learning centers.

The report further states that, since 2009, “not less than 32,000 Christians have been butchered to death by the country’s main Jihadists.”

Earlier this year, Christian Solidarity International issued a “Genocide Warning for Christians in Nigeria,” in response to the “rising tide of violence directed against Nigerian Christians and others classified as ‘infidels’ by Islamist militants…” More recently, in a May statement, the Christian Rights Agenda, another human rights group, expressed concern for “the seeming silence of Nigeria’s President, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, who as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces has not only failed to protect the Christian communities but has remained silent over these killings. To date, no Fulani herdsmen have been arrested and prosecuted over the killings, a development that has helped to embolden them.” It is worth noting that Buhari himself is a Fulani Muslim.

Separately, the Muslim man who murdered Michael Nnadi, an 18-year-old seminarian at the Good Shepherd Seminary, confessed from his jail cell that he did so because the youth “continued preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ” to his captors. According to the May 3 report, “the first day Nnadi was kidnapped … he did not allow [Mustapha Mohammed, his murderer] to have peace” due to his relentless preaching of the Gospel. Mohammed “did not like the confidence displayed by the young man and decided to send him to an early grave.”

Democratic Republic of Congo: Muslim fighters from the Allied Democratic Forces, which earlier pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS), murdered at least 17 people, possibly many more, in the Christian-majority (95%) African nation. “They fired several shots in the air,” a local said. “When the population was fleeing, they captured some people and cut them up with machetes.” In late 2019, the same group murdered a pastor after he refused to stop preaching and convert to Islam.

Attacks on Christian Churches, Cemeteries, and Crosses

Greece: Muslim migrants ransacked and transformed a church into their personal toilet. This public restroom was once the St. Catherine Church in Moria, a small town on the island of Lesvos, which has been flooded with migrants who arrived via Turkey. “The smell inside is unbearable,” said a local. “[T]he metropolitan of Mytilene is aware of the situation in the area, nevertheless, he does not wish to deal with it for his own reasons.” According to the report:

This is only the latest incident … [I]t has become extremely common for Greek Orthodox Churches to be vandalised and attacked by illegal immigrants on Lesvos….

As a deeply religious society, these attacks on churches are shocking to the Greek people and calls to question whether these illegal immigrants seeking a new life in Europe are willing to integrate and conform to the norms and values of their new countries.

These continued attacks have ultimately seen the people of Lesvos, who were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016, become increasingly frustrated by the unresolved situation that has restricted and changed their lives as they no longer feel safe on their once near crime-free island.

Other incidents on Lesvos include “African immigrants ridiculing and coughing on police in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, and thousands of olives trees being destroyed.”

St. Catherine’s in Lesvos, now a Muslim toilet.

Turkey: On May 8, a man tried to torch a church in Istanbul; the church had been attacked in the previous years, sometimes with hate-filled graffiti. When police detained the arsonist, he said “I burned it because they [Christians] brought the coronavirus [onto Turkey].” Discussing this incident, another report said that “Minorities in Turkey, such as Armenians, Rums and Syriacs [all Christians], as well as their places of worship, are occasionally targeted in hate attacks.”

Two weeks later, on May 22, in broad daylight, a man climbed the fence of a historic Armenian church in Istanbul and proceeded to yank off its metal cross and hurl it to the ground, as captured on surveillance footage. The man, who looks more like a Westernized “hipster” than an ardent Islamist, walks up to and stares at the cross for a while — he even looks at and strikes a pose for the security camera — before attacking the crucifix.

Pakistan: After Friday prayers on May 8, an armed Muslim mob shouting “anti-Christian slogans” attacked and tried to set fire to the Trinity Pentecostal Church in Hakeem Pura. Built 22 years ago, the church was desecrated, and a large cross and part of a wall broken. The Muslim man behind the attack had sold land to the growing church a year earlier, and now wanted it back. A Christian eyewitness said that the mob, “after attacking the walls and the cross, challenging anyone who dare oppose them, fled… Not only was the cross broken, but our hearts were crushed too.”

Separately, Muslim “land grabbers” seized, desecrated, and ploughed over the graves of a century-old Christian cemetery with a tractor. According to the May 22 report:

The Christian community there reportedly protested against the violation and tried to stop the vandalism. However, they were allegedly threatened with guns… [A]ll graves that were destroyed had crosses fixed on the top… [S]ome of the houses occupied by the Christians were demolished and people were forced to flee from their homes. Amid widespread discrimination against the Christian community in Pakistan, the properties owned by the minorities are often subjected to injustice including land grabbing and being the target of criminals. Moreover, the economic disparities and religious bias in Pakistan’s judiciary have increased the struggles Christians face to recover the lost land.

Serbia: On Sunday, May 31, two Muslim migrants entered the St. Alexander Nevsky Church in Belgrade during service and robbed several of the mostly elderly congregants. “There were two of them. They broke into the church during the liturgy, which was in progress, and they stole two purses along with three mobile phones,” a church leader said, adding:

Upon entering the temple, they split up on two sides, and after the people saw what was happening, they managed to catch one of them and take away his mobile phones and the money he stole. The other managed to escape. He took two purses, in one there were 3,500 dinars, while in the other there were 18,000, which was the entire pension of one woman. We handed that young man over to the police, while the other managed to escape. This is an insult. Isn’t anything sacred to people, such as the liturgy? Terrible.

Egypt: On May 30, 2020 — two days before President Trump recognized Global Coptic Day — Egyptian authorities demolished the only Coptic church in village of Koum al-Farag, even though it had stood for 15 years and served 3,000 Christians. According to the report:

The destruction of the church was a punishment for the ‘crime’ of building rooms for Sunday school…. When the work began, some extremist Muslims began to attack Christians.

A separate report on this incident relates:

According to an ancient Islamic tradition, or common law, churches are prevented from being formally recognised or displaying any Christian symbols if a mosque is built next to them.

The authorities decided to solve this issue by demolishing the church, which took a tractor “six long hours,” a Copt recalled:

The decision was not welcomed by the Christians in the village, so they protested by appearing at the site in possession of the documents. However, the police and some radicals began to insult and assault Christians, including women and children. The church leader received so many punches in the face and chest that he passed out.

In a separate attack in the early hours of May 16, “an air conditioning technician threw a Molotov cocktail inside the Virgin Mary Church in Alexandria.” According to the report:

Security camera footage led to his apprehension. Fortunately, no one was injured in this attack. Predictably, however, the prosecutors appear to be [pursuing] an acquittal on the claim that the perpetrator of the religious hate crime is also mentally ill. Based on precedent, it is extremely unlikely that this perpetrator will face any consequences for his attempt to torch a church.

Mozambique: Islamic terrorists attacked a monastery. The four monks residing in it managed to hide and emerge unscathed. However, the hospital they were building for a nearby village was destroyed by the armed Muslims. According to the May 18 report:

Little is known about the insurgents, and until recently there were doubts they were actually islamists, but they have claimed to be fighting for the imposition of Sharia law in the North of Mozambique…. The attack on the monastery, which included the destruction of a hospital that the monks were building in the village, is the second most serious attack against a Christian target since the troubles began. Last month a Catholic mission was also attacked, although, as here, nobody was killed. Other communities have not been so lucky, as the insurgents have left a trail of death and destruction behind them in the towns and villages they attack.

Nigeria: On May 7, a helicopter bombed and destroyed a church. The building was empty at the time; no casualties were reported. According to a local leader,

The helicopter used to hover around the area, dropping some things. We don’t know what they have been dropping but yesterday in the afternoon, the helicopter came and dropped a bomb … [The] Assembly of God church was destroyed including a nearby building…. Hours after the incident, a group of people numbering about 100 pass through the village carrying guns. Some were trekking while others rode on motorcycles. One of them was carrying a flag which is not a Nigerian flag; one other person was making some incantations in Arabic… People have fled the village… The question is who was in the helicopter dropping bomb?… We are very concerned … If it was a mistake by security agencies, they should come out and explain so as to allay the fears of the community.

Algeria: Four Muslim guards responsible for protecting a church vandalized and overturned its statue of the Virgin Mary. According to the report,

[T]he chapel of Santa Cruz built in stones extracted from the mountain of Murdjadjo where it is perched, was the object of an attempted theft… Four looters allegedly destroyed the statue of the Virgin Mary by attempting to steal it. They have even destroyed other holy monuments in their path….

It was later found, however, that the chapel’s four hired guards were themselves the “looters” responsible for the desecration. The report continues:

In addition, the Christian community in Algeria denounces… the intimidation which the faithful are subject to. Many Christians have denounced the series of closings of churches in the national territory. Several evangelical associations and organizations have called for an end to “the increasing pressure and intimidation from the Algerian government.”

Iran: On Sunday, May 17, a Christian cemetery was set ablaze, just two days after the tomb of the biblical Esther and Mordecai was also set on fire on the 72nd anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel. Damage at the tomb — a holy site shared by Jews and Christians — was reportedly minimal. Few other details concerning the burned Christian cemetery aside from video footage showing smoke billowing over its walls are available. A Hindu temple was also reportedly set on fire in May.

France: Unknown vandals cut down an iconic iron cross that had stood on the summit of Pic Saint-Loup since 1911 and was visible for miles around. According to the May 14 report,

While Europe has experienced a growing number of acts of vandalism and profanation of Christian sites, the greatest number of such acts have occurred in France, where churches, schools, cemeteries, and monuments “are being vandalized, desecrated, and burned at an average rate of three per day,” according to reports drawing from government statistics.

Although the identity of the vandals responsible for this latest outrage is unknown, it appears that Western European nations that have large Muslim migrant populations are seeing a disproportionate rise in attacks on churches and Christian symbols. According to a 2017 study on France — which has the largest Muslim population in Europe — “Islamist extremist attacks on Christians” rose by 38%, going from 273 attacks in 2015 to 376 in 2016; the majority occurred during Christmas season and “many of the attacks took place in churches and other places of worship.” Similarly, around Christmas 2016, in a German region where more than a million Muslims reside, some 50 public Christian statues (including those of Jesus) were beheaded and crucifixes broken.

Abduction, Rape, and Forced Conversion of Christian Women

Nigeria: Between March 23 and April 30, six young Christian girls and one older married woman were kidnapped. “We are saddened to report to you the battles we have been fighting even amidst the lockdown,” the Hausa Christians Foundation reported on May 4, adding that it “has been working on the following tragic incidences of abduction and forceful Islamization, despite the fact that the lockdown has limited our efforts.” The statement continues:

The usual practice is that these girls will be forced into marriage and perpetually be abused sexually, physical and emotionally. We are doing our best to rescue these precious lives but our efforts have been truncated by the current government imposed lockdown that has put everything on hold…. The simple reason for the injustice and the persecution we have been subjected to… is because of our faith in Christ Jesus.

Two of the young girls have since been rescued.

Pakistan: Another young Christian girl was kidnapped. According to a May 2 report,

On Sunday, April 26, a 14-year-old Christian girl … was abducted by a group of armed Muslim men… [T]he Christian girl’s family has filed a police report and is begging police to recover their relative…. Myra Shehbaz was abducted by a group of Muslim men led by Muhammad Naqash. Eye witnesses claim that Myra was attacked while she was traveling to her workplace as a domestic worker on Sunday afternoon…. Myra’s abductors forced her into a car and Myra tried to resist…. [The] abductors were armed and fired several shots into the air…. [The girl’s mother] fears her daughter will be raped, forcefully converted is [sic] Islam, or even killed…. [A]n estimated 1,000 women and girls from Pakistan’s Hindu and Christian community are assaulted, abducted, forcefully married to their captor, and forcibly converted to Islam every year.

Egypt: In a May 22 report, Coptic Solidarity, a human rights organization focused on the plight of Egypt’s Christians, made the following remarks:

The indigenous Coptic Christians of Egypt continue to experience increasing persecution, by the government and society…. To illustrate, at least five Coptic women, including some minors, have reportedly been kidnapped or disappeared in just the last few weeks, and Egyptian state security has made no concerted effort to recover them…. Ranya Abd al-Masih, a Coptic wife and mother of three from a town just north of the capital, Cairo… remains hidden despite protests, including from the region’s church, which laments “the total lack of reaction by the authorities.”

Hate for and Abuse of Christians

Austria: A local newspaper reported:

A graffiti that rightly causes a lot of agitation. The lettering “Christians must die” can be seen at the Traisen-Markt train station. Above it, in the same style, the words “Allach Akkbar” [sic]. The removal of the graffiti has already begun and will cost about 500 Euros.

Uganda: A Muslim father burned his daughter for converting to Christianity. While traveling with her father, a sheikh (respected elder) of the Muslim community, Rehema Kyomuhendo, 24, heard the gospel and secretly converted. On the night of May 4, while she and her father were staying at her aunt’s home, she called a Christian associate: “As she was sharing Christ with me, I was so overjoyed,” Rehema later explained, “and my father heard my joy and woke up, came from his bedroom furiously and started beating me up with blows, slaps and kicks.” He also shouted that he was “going to kill her.” He broke a gas container, lit the pieces with the unspilt fuel, and began to burn his daughter. Her cries awakened her aunt, who protected her from the sheikh. Last reported, Rehema was expected to need more than a month of hospitalization due to “serious burns on her leg, stomach, rib area, near her neck and on part of her back.” No one has “reported the assault to police for fear that her father might try kill her.”

Pakistan: In another example of abuse of Christians in connection to COVID-19, “an Islamic cleric claims his organization is using COVID-19 food aid to convert non-Muslims to Islam,” according to a May 8 report. Speaking on Pakistani television, the cleric boasted of how when a destitute Christian man came for aid, the “staff of the organization offered him conversion against food which he accepted.” The man was subsequently renamed Muhammad Ramadan, signifying his conversion had occurred during the Muslim holy month. The cleric had added that Muhammad was then fasting (which is ironic considering hunger is what prompted him to convert in the first place).

About this Series

The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic. Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed in 2011 to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that occur or are reported each month. It serves two purposes:

1) To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, persecution of Christians.

2) To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Islamic Sharia.

Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; apostasy, blasphemy, and proselytism laws that criminalize and sometimes punish with death those who “offend” Islam; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed dhimmis, or second-class, “tolerated” citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination thereof.

Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to Indonesia in the East—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.

Previous Reports:

#Islam #Muslim #Sharia #Jihad #Immigration #Legal #News #Persecution #Religion #Terror #Politics #Travel #Media #Mosque

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chiseler · 4 years

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A Palestinian Guide to Surviving a Quarantine: On Faith, Humor and ‘Dutch Candy’

Call it a ‘quarantine’, a ‘shelter-in-place’, a ‘lockdown’ or a ‘curfew’, we Palestinians have experienced them all, though not at all voluntarily.

Personally, the first 23 years of my life were lived in virtual ‘lockdown’. My father’s ‘quarantine’ was experienced much earlier, as did his father’s ‘shelter-in-place’ before him. They both died and were buried in Gaza’s cemeteries without ever experiencing true freedom outside of their refugee camp in Gaza.

Currently in Gaza, the quarantine has a different name. We call it ‘siege’, also known as ‘blockade’.

In fact, all of Palestine has been in a state of ‘lockdown’ since the late 1940s when Israel became a state and the Palestinian homeland was erased by Zionist colonialists with the support of their Western benefactors.

That lockdown intensified in 1967 when Israel, now a powerful state with a large army and strong allies, occupied the remaining parts of Palestine - East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Under this lockdown, the Palestinian freedom of movement was curtailed

to the extent that Palestinians required permits from the Israeli military to leave the Occupied Territories or to return home, to move about from one town to the other, and, at times, to cross a single Israeli military checkpoint or a fortified wall.

In Palestine, we don’t call our imprisonment a lockdown, but a ‘military occupation’ and ‘apartheid’.

As for ‘shelter-in-place’, in Palestine, we have a different name for it. We call it a ‘military curfew’.

Since I was a child, I learned to listen intently to orders barked out by Israeli military officers as they swept through our refugee camp in Gaza declaring or easing military curfews. This ritual often happened late at night.

“People of Nuseirat, per orders of the Israeli military you are now under curfew. Anyone who violates orders will be shot immediately,” the terrifying words, always communicated through a loudspeaker in broken Arabic, were a staple during the First Palestinian Uprising (Intifada) of 1987.

The period between 1987 to 1993 was a virtual ‘lockdown’. Thousands of people, mostly children, were killed for failing to respect the rules of their collective imprisonment.

In Gaza, even when a full military curfew was not in place, we rarely left our small and crowded neighborhoods, let alone our refugee camps. We were all haunted by the fear that we may not be able to make it home by 8p.m., the time designated by the Israeli military for all of us to return home.

Every day, ten or fifteen minutes after the nightly curfew set in, we would hear the crackling and hissing of bullets as they whistled through the air from various distances. Automatically, we would conclude that some poor soul - a worker, a teacher, or a rowdy teenager - missed his chance by a few minutes, and paid a price for it.

Now that nearly half of the population of planet Earth are experiencing some form of ‘curfew’ or another, I would like to share a few suggestions on how to survive the prolonged confinement, the Palestinian way.

Think Ahead

Since we knew that a complete lockdown, or a military curfew, was always pending, we tried to anticipate the intensity and duration of it and prepare accordingly.

For example, when the Israeli army killed one or more refugees, we knew in advance that mass protests would follow, thus more killings. In these situations, a curfew was imminent.

Number one priority was to ensure that all family members congregated at home or stayed within close proximity so that they could rush in as fast as possible when the caravan of Israeli military jeeps and tanks came thundering, opening fire at anyone or anything within sight.

Lesson number one: Always think ahead and prepare for a longer lockdown than the initial one declared by your city or state.

Stay Calm

My father had a bad temper, although a very kind heart. When curfews were about to start, he would enter into a near-panic state. A chain smoker with obsessive, although rational fear that one of his five boys would eventually be killed, he would walk around the house in a useless rush, not knowing what to do next.

Typically, my mother would come in, rational and calculating. She would storm the kitchen to assess what basic supplies were missing, starting with the flour, sugar and olive oil.

Knowing that the first crackdown by the Israelis would be on water supplies and electricity, she would fill several plastic containers of water, designating some for tea, coffee and cooking, and others for dishes and washing clothes.

Per her orders, we would rush to the nearby stores to make small but necessary purchases - batteries for the flashlight and the transistor radio, cigarettes for my dad, and a few VHS videotapes which we would watch over and again, whether the curfew lasted for a few days or a few weeks.

Lesson number two: Take control of the situation - do not panic - and assign specific responsibilities to every family member. This strengthens the family unit and sets the stage for collective solidarity desperately required under these circumstances.

Preserve Your Water

I cannot emphasize this enough. Even if you think that a water crisis is not impending, do not take chances.

It is easy to feel invincible and fully prepared on the first day of quarantine - or military curfew. Many times, we lived to regret that false sense of readiness, as we drank too much tea or squandered our dishwashing water supplies too quickly.

In this case, you have a serious problem, especially during the summer months when you cannot count on rainwater to make up for the deficit.

Years after the end of the Intifada, my father revealed to us that many a time, him and mom used the rainwater they collected in buckets throughout the house, including the leaked roofs for our drinking supplies, even when there was no electricity or gas to boil the water beforehand.

In retrospect, this explains the many bouts of diarrhea we experienced, despite his assurances that they had painstakingly removed all bird droppings from the salvaged water.

Lesson number three: Cautiously use your water supplies during a quarantine, and never, under any circumstance, drink rainwater or, at least, keep diarrhea pills handy.

Ration Your Food

The same logic that applies to water applies to food. It goes without saying that any acquired food would have to cover the basics first. For example, flour, which we used to make bread, comes before bananas, and sugar, which we consumed abundantly with tea, comes before Dutch candy.

I made that mistake more than once, not because of my love for the imported Dutch candy which we purchased from Abu Sa’dad’s store, located in the center of the camp. The truth is, my brothers and I played a strange form of candy poker which kept us entertained for many hours. I dreaded running out of my precious supplies before the curfew was over, thus subjugating myself to potential humiliation of having to auction everything else I owned - including my small radio - to stay in the game.

My poor mother was devastated numerous times by the horrible choices we made when we rushed to buy ‘essentials’.

Lesson number four: Agree in advance on what classifies as ‘essential food’, and consume your food in a rational way. Also, if you are lucky enough to locate Dutch candy in whatever version of the Abu Sa’dad’s store, in your town, do not gamble it all in one day.

Find Sources of Entertainment

If electricity is still available, then you still have the option of watching television. For us, Indian movies, especially those starring Amitabh Bachchan, were the number one option. Imagine my disappointment when our beloved movie star, who helped us through numerous military curfews in Gaza, was photographed grinning with right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the latter’s visit to India in 2018.

If electricity is cut off, be ready with alternative options: books, free wrestling, living-room soccer (with the ball preferably made from stuffed-up socks contributed by all family members), and, of course, candy poker.

Lesson number five: The key is to have more than one form of entertainment and to be prepared for every eventuality, including power outages as a form of collective punishment.

Find the Humor in Grim Situations

Don’t focus on the negatives; there is no point or wisdom in that. Emphasizing the grimness of a situation can only contribute to the feeling of defeat and powerlessness that are already generated by the lockdown. There will be plenty of time in which you can look back, reflect, and even bemoan your unfortunate circumstance.

But, during the curfew itself is when you actually need your sense of humor most. Take things lightly - laugh at your miserable situation, if you must. Forgive yourself for not being perfect, for panicking when you should have been composed, or for forcing your younger brother to gamble his underwear when he runs out of Dutch candy.

Difficult situations can offer the kind of scenarios that can be interpreted in two extreme ways: either extremely tragic or extremely funny; opt for the latter whenever you can, because as long as you laugh, as long as your spirit remains unbroken, your humanity remains intact.

Lesson number six: Be funny, don’t take life too seriously, share a laugh with others, and let humor inject hope in every hour and every day of your quarantine.

Hold Tighter to Your Faith

Whether you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or any other faith; whether you are an atheist, agnostic, or practice any form of spirituality, philosophy or belief system, find comfort in your faith and beliefs.

Since all mosques in our refugee camp were shut down, if not raided during a military curfew, the call for prayer, which we heard five times during each day, was permanently silenced.

To keep the call for prayer going, we would sneak to the roof of our houses, carefully scan the area for any Israeli soldiers, and collectively make the call for prayer whenever it was required. Volunteers included my English teacher, who was communist and claimed that he did not believe in God, myself, and Nabil, the neighbor boy with the massive head and the most unpleasant voice.

In curfews, we developed a different relationship with God: He became a personal and more intimate companion, as we often prayed in total darkness, whispered our verses so very cautiously as not to be heard by pesky soldiers. And, even those who hardly prayed before the curfew kept up with all five prayers during the lockdown.

Lesson number seven: Let your values guide you during your hours of loneliness. And if you volunteer to make a call for prayer (or recite your religious hymns) please be honest with yourself: if you have no sense of rhythm or if your voice has the pitch of an angry alley cat, for God’s sake, leave the job to someone else.

In Conclusion ..

I hope that under no circumstances you will ever hear these ominous words: “You are now under curfew. Anyone who violates orders will be shot immediately.” I also hope that this COVID-19 quarantine will make us kinder to each other and will make us emerge from our homes better people, ready to take on global challenges while united in our common faith, collective pain and a renewed sense of love for our environment.

And when it’s all over, think of Palestine, for her people have been ‘quarantined’ for 71 years and counting.

by Ramzy Baroud

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bezrat-ha-shem · 5 years

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A gunman armed with a semiautomatic rifle walked into a suburban San Diego County synagogue and opened fire on the congregation Saturday, killing one person and injuring three in an attack that authorities believe was motivated by hate.

A 19-year-old was arrested in connection with the shooting, authorities said. The gunman entered Chabad of Poway on Chabad Way about 11:20 a.m. and started firing.

He was identified as John T. Earnest, a Rancho Penasquitos resident. He is being questioned by homicide detectives.

Earnest appears to have written a letter posted on the Internet filled with anti-Semitic screeds. In the letter, he also talked about planning the attack.

“How long did it take you to plan the attack? Four weeks. Four weeks ago, I decided I was doing this. Four weeks later, I did it.”

Earnest, who is white, wrote that he was willing to sacrifice his future “for the sake of my people.”

In the manifesto, he took credit for an arson fire that blackened the walls of the Islamic Center in Escondido on March 24. There were seven people inside the building at the time the fire erupted about 3:15 a.m. but no one was injured.

The arsonist left a note referring to a shooting rampage at two New Zealand mosques on March 15 that left 50 people dead.

“I scorched a mosque in Escondido with gasoline a week after” the New Zealand shootings, Earnest wrote in his letter. But the people inside “woke up and put out the fire pretty much immediately after I drove away which was unfortunate.”

The suspect also championed Robert Bowers — who killed 11 people and wounded six others in the Tree of Life synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh six months ago — and Adolf Hitler.

Poway Mayor Steve Vaus called the shooting there a “hate crime,” based on statements the shooter was heard making as he entered the synagogue.

A large group of congregants had gathered behind the temple after the shooting, sheriff’s Sgt. Aaron Meleen said. About 100 people were inside the synagogue at the time celebrating Passover.

“As you can imagine, it was an extremely chaotic scene with people running everywhere when we got here,” he said.

An adult woman was killed in the attack and three others — a young female and two adult males — were wounded, authorities said. The injured were taken to Palomar Medical Center in Escondido, the Sheriff’s Department said.

As the attacker was fleeing the scene, an off-duty Border Patrol agent who was at the synagogue shot at the suspect’s vehicle, but he got away, authorities said. He was captured a short time later.

Adam Pringle, 32, said he was sitting at a 76 gas station parking lot when a swarm of San Diego police, county sheriff and California Highway Patrol cars descended on the scene less than 50 feet away.

Pringle watched as police officers pulled over the man he believed to be the shooting suspect.

“Hands up or I’ll shoot you!” Pringle heard the officer yell.

The driver quickly put his hands up, and the officer walked over with his gun drawn, Pringle said. The officer quickly arrested the man, Pringle said.

Witnesses said Rabbi Yisroel Godstein was among the injured, reportedly shot in the hand. He apparently kept trying to calm the congregation after being wounded, telling people to stay strong.

“The rabbi and two other people were injured,” said synagogue member Minoo Anvari, whose husband was inside when the shooting broke out. “One guy was shooting at everybody and cursing.”

“One message from all of us in our congregation is that we are standing together. We are getting stronger,” Anvari said. “Never again. You can’t break us. We are strong.

“Why? The question is, why? People are praying.”

President Trump offered condolences from the White House lawn Saturday.

“At this moment it looks like a hate crime,” he said. “My deepest sympathies to all of those affected. And we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

Authorities have cordoned off the area near Rancho Bernardo Road and West Bernardo Drive, about two miles from Chabad of Poway, he said.

Several neighbors reported hearing the gunshots, and some were evacuated from nearby homes to the school temporarily as a precaution.

Cantor Caitlin Bromberg of Ner Tamid Synagogue, which is down the street from Chabad of Poway, said her congregation learned of the shooting at the end of their Passover services. Saturday marked the final day of Passover, a holiday that marks the Jewish people’s exodus from Egypt and freedom from slavery.

Bromberg said her congregants were en route to Chabad of Poway to show support and help in any way they can.

“We are horrified and upset, and we want them to know we are thinking of them,” she told The Times. “The message of the final day of Passover is to be looking forward to … the time when all the world will be at peace.”

Bromberg said someone from the congregation had received a text that there was a shooting at a synagogue in Poway. The person who sent the text did not know which temple was targeted and wanted to make sure the congregant was OK.

The cantor said she has not heard from Chabad of Poway leadership because they would not normally use the phone during the Sabbath.

“They would only do that on emergency basis, if they do it at all,” she said.

Across the street from the synagogue Saturday evening, people left bouquets of flowers on the sidewalk to honor the victims.

Tanya Werby, a member of the Chabad of Poway congregation, said she was planning to take her four-year-old son to the Saturday morning service but ended up staying home.

She has told her son, who attends preschool at the synagogue, that Rabbi Goldstein was was among those wounded in the shooting. But the boy is too young to understand much more.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Werby, 42, who works at a nonprofit on the synagogue’s campus. “I never expected it to happen at our house of worship.”

Werby said Goldstein was well-known in the area because he often works with leaders of other congregations.

She said she was not surprised by reports that he did his best to defend his congregation after the shooter entered.

“I’m sure he kept his cool. He’s very strong,” Werby said. “He built this community since the 1980s. Everybody knows him. He’s a big part of this community.”

Werby described the woman who was killed as a “very generous person” who was a constant presence at the synagogue.

As the owner of a print shop, the woman donated shirts for a friendship walk and gave money as well, Werby said.

Werby’s friend, Jackie Zucker, drove from Carlsbad to join her after hearing the news.

“People came here in the morning just wanting a lovely Saturday to finish the holiday,” said Zucker, 78. “Instead, this happened. We need to stop this.”

Nami Rajaei, a high school senior who lives nearby, brought a large peach-colored flower for the impromptu memorial.

Two of Rajaei’s classmates at Rancho Bernardo High School placed candles amid the flowers at the memorial.

The three teenagers said their quiet suburban neighborhood, where children are taught to value diversity at school and at their houses of worship, was the last place they expected this to happen.

“It’s shocking to think that this type of thing would happen here,” said Rajaei, 18. “I would like to think that our community is very tolerant.”

In a statement, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum said it was “shocked and alarmed” at the second armed attack on a synagogue in the United States in six months, this time on the on the last day of Passover.

“Now our thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones,” Museum Director Sara J. Bloomfield said. “But moving forward this must serve as yet another wake-up call that antisemitism is a growing and deadly menace.

“The Holocaust is a reminder of the dangers of unchecked antisemitism and the way hate can infect a society. All Americans must unequivocally condemn it and confront it in wherever it appears.”

San Diego police were keeping watch on other local synagogues as a precaution. “No known threats,” Chief David Nisleit said on Twitter, “however in an abundance of caution, we will be providing extra patrol at places of worship.”

In Los Angeles, police said they were closely monitoring the synagogue shooting in Poway and “communicating with our local, state and federal partners.”

“At this time, there’s no nexus to Los Angeles, but in an abundance of caution, we will conduct high visibility patrols around synagogues and other houses of worship,” the department tweeted.

Passover is one of the most sacred holidays in the Jewish faith. The eight-day festival is typically observed with a number of rituals, including Seder meals, the removal of leavened products from the home and the sharing of the exodus story.

The attack comes six months after a man with a history of posting anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant social media messages opened fire at a temple in Pittsburgh, killing 11 people and wounding six more.

The Anti-Defamation League called that incident “the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the United States” and it underscored growing hate against Jews.

The leaders of many national Jewish groups heard about the attack hours after it happened because they were observing the Sabbath and last day of Passover.

“This shooting is a reminder of the enduring virulence of anti-Semitism,” Jonathan Greenblatt, president and CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement. “It must serve as a call to action for us as a society to deal once and for all with this hate. People of all faiths should not have to live in fear of going to their house of worship. From Charleston to Pittsburgh to Oak Creek and from Christchurch to Sri Lanka, and now Poway, we need to say ‘enough is enough.’ Our leaders need to stand united against hate and address it both on social media and in our communities.”

Michael Masters, CEO of the Secure Community Network, an group that offers training and resources to synagogues on security, said his group was working with local and federal officials to help the Poway community.

“We remind synagogues and Jewish facilities everywhere that we must take steps to prevent and protect against attacks,” he said in a statement. “Today’s shooting is a sad reminder that the need has not gone away.”

#jumblr #judaism #antisemitism #chabad #san diego shooting #synagogue shooting #mosque arson #hate crime #white nationalism #gun violence #pesach

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weremarkable · 5 years

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Armie's tune on the cmbyn sequel has changed but nothing really changed? It's all still up in the air like it has always been!

Armie Hammer has done sun-soaked gay romance ("Call Me By Your Name"), offbeat social satire ("Sorry to Bother You") and feminist legal drama ("On the Basis of Sex"). But with "Hotel Mumbai" (in theaters Friday in New York and Los Angeles, expands nationwide March 29), the actor takes on one of his most grueling roles yet, playing an American tourist in India who tries to protect his family when their hotel comes under siege by Pakistani terrorists.

The real-life attacks that inspired the film lasted four days in 2008, killing 174 people. The thriller's release is sadly timely: 50 people died last week in a gunman's massacre at two mosques in New Zealand, where the movie has been pulled from theaters by its distributor.

Hammer, 32, chats about "Mumbai," his hesitation around a planned "Call Me" sequel, and whether he's the next Batman.

Armie Hammer: I'd 'jump' at Batman, but 'you can only say yes to projects you're offered'

Patrick Ryan USA TODAY

Published 10:01 AM EDT Mar 20, 2019

Hammer, 32, chats about "Mumbai," his hesitation around a planned "Call Me" sequel, and whether he's the next Batman.

Armie Hammer stars as “David” in director Anthony Maras’ HOTEL MUMBAI, a Bleecker Street release. Credit: Kerry Monteen / Bleecker Street

KERRY MONTEEN/BLEECKER STREET

Question: This film arrives in theaters a week after the Christchurch mosque attacks in New Zealand. Does it resonate any differently with you in light of that event?

Armie Hammer: The film always felt pertinent and now, unfortunately, it's even more prescient. It's the unfortunate reality of the world we live in, that this kind of thing happens. Whether it be a Pakistani group that’s against India or a radical white supremacist who’s against Muslims, it’s all emblematic of the same problem we have of (miseducation) and bad ideas. It’s about damn time that we as a society and as people just stop all this (expletive). We should just stop (expletive) shooting each other.

Q: Despite the challenging subject matter, why should people see this movie?

Hammer: The thing that should encourage people to see this is exactly what's going on now with Christchurch. We hear there's a shooting in New Zealand and everyone goes, "Oh, man, that really sucks," and then the next headline that pops up on their phone is something dumb Donald Trump said or the amount of money Beto O'Rourke was able to raise, and we move past it really quickly. But if you watch this movie, which gives a first-person perspective on exactly how atrocious an attack like this is, it forces you to emotionally sit inside an event like this.

Q: You had an opportunity to speak to survivors of the Mumbai attacks but chose not to. Why was that?

Hammer: Out of respect for these people, there was no need to pull them back into what they went through. This is one of the first terror attacks that actually played out in real time (on TV). So we had news coverage, clippings, first-person memoirs, all that stuff. The director (Anthony Maras) really approached it with a documentarian dedication, and had thousands of pages of research material for us.

Q: Did you get to do any sightseeing while you were shooting in Australia and India?

Hammer: Shooting in Adelaide was great, because it's the wine capital of Australia. At the end of shooting these really difficult days, we'd get to have amazing wine. And then when we shot in India, several of us went and explored Mumbai, and had multiple adventure days. We made sure to decompress as much as we could, because the days were long and tough. But at the end of the day, we were shooting a movie and the director would call “cut," so it was very different from the experience of people who actually went through it.

Armie Hammer: I'd 'jump' at Batman, but 'you can only say yes to projects you're offered'

Patrick Ryan USA TODAY

Published 10:01 AM EDT Mar 20, 2019

Hammer, 32, chats about "Mumbai," his hesitation around a planned "Call Me" sequel, and whether he's the next Batman.

Armie Hammer stars as “David” in director Anthony Maras’ HOTEL MUMBAI, a Bleecker Street release. Credit: Kerry Monteen / Bleecker Street

KERRY MONTEEN/BLEECKER STREET

Question: This film arrives in theaters a week after the Christchurch mosque attacks in New Zealand. Does it resonate any differently with you in light of that event?

Q: Despite the challenging subject matter, why should people see this movie?

Armie Hammer walks the "Hotel Mumbai" red carpet in New York on Sunday.

CHARLES SYKES/INVISION/AP

Q: You had an opportunity to speak to survivors of the Mumbai attacks but chose not to. Why was that?

Q: Did you get to do any sightseeing while you were shooting in Australia and India?

Q: You've said that Luca Guadagnino's "Call Me By Your Name" sequel is still years away. Ideally, would you like to revisit the characters Elio (Timothee Chalamet) and Oliver (Hammer) every decade or so, kind of like Richard Linklater's "Before" movie trilogy?

Hammer: I'd love to revisit working with Luca and Timmy and everyone else that was involved more than I would necessarily love to revisit the material. The reaction to that movie and the emotional connection that people felt to it is really strong, and that's a beautiful thing. That being said, the first one really struck a chord, so maybe it’s best not to revisit it, I don't know. Then again, "The Godfather 2" is better than "The Godfather." But that's also the only example I can think of a sequel being on par with the first one.

Q: Do fans still give you peaches (a fruit that figures into the film's infamous sex scene)?

Hammer: (Laughs.) Yeah, every now and then I’ll get a peach and it’s still very funny.

Q: You also shot down rumors that you were offered the lead in Matt Reeves' upcoming "The Batman." Would you like to play the character, if given the chance?

Q: Of all the great actors to don the Batman cowl, do you have a favorite take on the character?

Hammer: Yeah, that’s the problem: I’ve never been approached, but if I was, I would jump at the opportunity. You can only say “no” or “yes” to projects you’re offered.

Hammer: They're all such different animals, which is great. Michael Keaton was obviously my first Batman, but the Christian Bale version was also absolutely incredible. But no one will top the Batman nipples that George Clooney had. (See above lol)

USA today ▶

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basshouse · 5 years

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Of Politics and Road Trips

Welp, it seems like the time has come to address one of the gnarliest and most frequently asked questions of all time. To be clear, that's gnarly for me and to me, respectively. I’d also like to memorialize a recent road trip. Before I start, though, let’s get grounded in the current context: it’s late summer IN MARCH; We are headed intro autumn, and there has been enough early snow that Mount Hutt was open for skiing (what?!?!). I started my new job at Jade Software; the kids started a new school year in January, with Anily headed off to her first year of high school (5 years of high school here); both kids have changed to a new soccer club, which is much closer to the house (thank god); Anily made the A team; James is playing soccer and basketball and ridiculous amounts of Fortnite. It’ll soon be a year that we’ve been here. We are right in the middle of a full 12 weeks of visitors and trips from/to the US. And in case you were wondering, the cat has managed to escape through open windows and doors a few times, but he’s always come back so I guess he’s ours for real :-)

I still haven't submitted my dreadfully complicated tax return. I am seriously procrastinating, and having visitors and reasons to road trip is helping/hurting.

So! BFGFAQ (big fat gnarly...you get it): It’s the political one. From the Kiwis this usually comes in the form of “are you a Trump refugee?” or “what do you make of what’s going on over there?” And even if it’s not an explicit question, how can I possibly answer the most frequent Q of all time -- “why did you move to New Zealand?” without considering how the political landscape of the US factored in? I mean, you don't just up and move across the globe and leave a great place and a fabulous life without at least a mental checklist of pros and cons. At least, most of us wouldn't. And if you’re a grown-up (which we sadly have established that I am) and a contributing, aware, member of society (which I would argue that I am), your list must include considerations of the way your taxes are spent and people are treated in the place you live and how the outcomes of those things impact your lifestyle, your life, and the lives of other human beings. Right? Right!

MAJOR UPDATE: A handful of days after I posted this, someone (likely an asshole white supremacist) shot and killed people in a CHCH mosque. The city is still in lock down as I write this. It is terrible and sad that things like this happen anywhere, ever. And I just want to say that as you read the ideas below, I’ll be watching closely the response of the NZ government.

If there’s one thing that moving around the world to a place you’ve never been before, with a small family and no friends, and taking up a real life with a paycheck and a rent and a job does really well, it’s create an opportunity to reflect on the differences between where you were and where you are. It also is extremely useful for considering, in a very real way, how the values you hold are (or are not) reflected in both a political system and a local way of living. You really notice how political decisions, socioeconomic forces and cultural norms trickle into investments, infrastructure, bureaucracy, language, aesthetics, and interactions that impact you as you move through your day-to-day and learn how to get things done. And because you’re an observer who is trying to become an insider, you may operate with less bias and pre- disposition to judge, more of a natural curiosity and interest in gathering information and then assimilating it and deciding over time. Chalk one up for perspective! Happy to say this was the kind of experience and growth I hoped we’d all get through this adventure.

Now, from the Americans this question usually comes in the form of something like “OMG, are you so glad you’re not here for this?” or “are public healthcare and lack of gun violence really as amazing as they seem from here?”. Because, like me, most people I talk with on a regular basis feel something like this:

t least you do now, thanks to Willie Wonka’s and friend above, and this:

So while I am not here in NZ without political bias or personal ideas of what’s right, wrong and important, I am more open minded to considering what’s good for this country and this context, and I have a stronger appreciation for the complexities of things all across the board since I’ve now gathered more data and had more experience.

So, my American friends, in the interest of helping you draw some of your own conclusions, here is a segment I like to call Fact, Figures and Feelings:

America is amazing. You have SO much of everything. Including great food, tons of money, vast political power, and a really noticeable amount of homeless people. I mean! When I was in San Jose I felt so conflicted by both where to go for every meal and the fact that to get where I wanted to go I was uncomfortable with my own feelings and anxiety about possible conflict with the homeless and mentally ill folks I passed constantly. And it was often while I was walking into a convention center full of people trying to give away millions of dollars, listening to speakers who had made millions through technology. And while the dog adoption station on site and the furry friends in it made me feel a little better in the moment, could there be anything more cliche? Embarrassing. And yet is it fundamentally bad to have cute dogs making rich people feel good and maybe getting adopted? No. But it maybe uniquely American.

Know what else you have a lot of, USA? DRAMA. Seriously. The NZ morning news is usually about 25-50% reporting on the shitshow that is US and Brexit, and it turns out that when people say “if you get homesick, just listen to the news” they are correct.

So what about NZ? Well, when you live in a country with SO MANY FEWER (like so many!) people and a much smaller GDP, your reality is very different. Not so loud. Not so busy. Not so many options. Much much simpler and frankly, it feels more sane. But we know the Mexican food sucks. So... six of one/half dozen of the other? This is what I am saying: I cannot tell you if Enchiladas and Aveda products make up for dealing with the opioid crisis if you’re seeing it every day, or if leaving Tito’s vodka and a much higher salary on the table is balanced out by the fact that police here in CHCH carried guns last week and this is how people think about it:

FUN FACT: During the “summer holidays” (December-Jan), the morning news show on public radio literally went off air. They replaced it with special summer programming, mostly dedicated to personal profiles and reviews of music and activities. The only headlines they read each day were almost entirely about the US (shut downs) and UK (Brexit). Apparently it’s possible for time off to extend to politics and news. WOW. Just notice how you feel about that.

Now, NZ is certainly not the rainbows and unicorns utopia we liberals like to think a place with a public healthcare system and affordable education and far fewer guns will be -- there’s a growing imbalance in the distribution of wealth, the abortion laws are archaic, affordable housing is a big issue, nurses and teachers strike because they don’t get paid enough.

Politics was not the only motivator for our move, but we considered it -- sure seemed like a nice time to be out of the US, and it is. It’s certainly not a clear #NZFTW-100% -they -nailed-it situation, though. Every place and every system has its bad sides, and I have a lot to learn to really decide how the pros and cons balance out. All I know is that it’s really, really nice to be in a place where the political conversation is much simpler and more focused on politics and their outcomes on people than on hateful rhetoric. I am disappointed when I think of the lost opportunity due to the amount of resources you are wasting on unproductive, unkind conversations in the USA, when you have so much. I feel bad for not being there to help stand up for the rights of people I believe in, but when you don't wake up angry every day at the headlines and the people you share space with, when the dialog is a little more open and productive, when the headlines are not so likely to be violent and sad, you start with a much better mental health baseline. You just can’t eat a great caesar salad whenever you feel like it, and it’s expensive as hell to leave the island and you don’t get paid enough to be able to do it often, which may really stress you out. For now, I’m really ok with it. But over time will the flaws in the NZ system (every system has them) outweigh the positive? Do the opportunities in the US outweigh the negative?

In the interest of letting you form some your own opinions: Take a look at the the top headlines of 2018 in New Zealand. They include a pregnant PM; visits from Ed Sheeran, the Royals, and Obama; a handful of natural disasters; a bunch of news about other countries and sports; and the BIG BIG Drama which “unfolded over several deeply uncomfortable days” and ended in a minister being briefly admitted to a mental health facility and broad discussions about mental health. Consider if the US was as concerned about its politicians’ mental health when they did crazy shit :-).

Oh also, this is my CEO at work on Friday (hee hee):

So far this year Lime Scooters (people get hurt on them, and people break the rules and double ride with no helmets -- gasp!) and the potential of a capital gains tax have been in the news pretty much daily. And that’s about it. Boring? Yes! Nice? Also yes! Did you know NZ is the only country in the OECD to not have a CGT? Are you impressed with my knowledge of initialisms? Worldly is the word you’re looking for to describe me.

I know, it looks like I am pooping on a trail, but I am actually doing squats mid-hike IN A SKIRT. Probably gives me enough credibility to become a world leader, or at least present these numbers for your consideration:

Now that you have something to think about -- because you weren't already thinking about politics enough (sorry!) -- let’s turn to a less political, but more important spiritual and philosophical topic: The Art of the Road Trip.

Pro tip: It’s easier to be a Road Trip Rembrandt with the right tools -- like these:

Mountains + Vans = Roadtrip Masterpiece

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that one of the things we’ve been doing a lot of is road tripping. Not so different from Seattle, eh? True. But since we can surf so close to the house and we have such a beautiful country to explore and a slightly less active social life, the road trips are more frequent and more varied. As we are all happiest when we’re in the flow and hitting the right balance between challenge and success, I guess it makes sense. Because if I do say so myself, we are damn good at the road trip, but there’s no way to have 2 to 6 people in a small space with a lot of stuff and a windy road ahead and podcasts and music to choose without challenge.

#vanlifeisthebestlife.

Here’s a map of where we’ve been on our travels thorough the country so far:

So what’s the art of the road trip? Composition:

And the science? One part great music, one part planning, and at least two parts having a sense of humor and joy about all the chaos.

Like when there’s no where for you to sit:

My most recent road trips were extra awesome due to the fact that Leslie Lapham (AKA Alex, AKA LL) was here and we took off on a few fun adventures. Now, Leslie is great for a lot of reasons and it was super fun to have her here for 5 weeks...and one of her best qualities, she takes great pictures!

Here’s what I like to say about our first trip: it started with a bang and ended with a bee sting.

Here’s the bang -- this is what happens when some dickhead decides to pass you on the right at high speed on a highway while you are TURNING RIGHT into a campground:

So, that sucked. Especially because aforementioned dickhead did not stop to see if we were ok, just left us there in the dark on our own. Luckily the Taupe Donkey was still drivable and packing enough duct tape to make it work. So, off we headed from Kaikoura to make ourselves feel better in the vineyards and wineries of Marlborough.

The Cloudy Bay Winery was not a bad place to spend an afternoon!

Watson’s Way (not pictured) was a really weird place to spend a night though -- we were basically parked in a gravel parking lot in someone’s yard. But man, did we have some good food!

Although oops, I accidentally tried to take a grapevine as a souvenir. And I swear this was before I even did a tasting!

After wine tasting and an amazing dinner at Arbor, we headed to the Marlborough Sounds, starting at Havelock, the mussel capital of the world!

We did a cool tour on the mailboat, which literally delivers mail, packages, animals, groceries, and god knows what else (possibly the odd tourist by accident?) to the residents of the remote 300 or so bays in the region, which can only be reached by boat.

We ate a lot, of course. But we ordered more than we could eat.

After that we headed south on the inland route and camped overnight at the Tasman Lakes National Park.

There were eels, pretty views, and random dock yoga.

And last but definitely not least, we topped off the trip by meeting Jason at the always fabulous Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools. What a drive to get there, too! I did get stung by a bee while I was soaking, which was a total and pretty painful shock, despite the signs warning people to watch out for bees. Little fuckers!

After that, back to co-working and a couple weekends in CHCH:

Then...Lois!!!

Now this blog is not about all the visitors and it’s already so long I dare not start going on about having Leslie and Lois here together. Suffice it to say we had some fun times, some great food, and after 8 hours in the emergency room we did a quick road trip to Oamaru. There were PENGUINS!!!!

There were penguins!!! We saw them waddle onto the beach at dusk after swimming 50K through the ocean all day. Alas, you cannot take pictures of them, so you’ll have to settle for 3 Generations of Wachsmuth Women in the Wild until next time. XO.

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newstfionline · 3 years

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Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Sparked by pandemic fallout, homeschooling surges across US (AP) Although the pandemic disrupted family life across the U.S. since taking hold in spring 2020, some parents are grateful for one consequence: They’re now opting to homeschool their children, even as schools plan to resume in-person classes. The specific reasons vary widely. Some families who spoke with The Associated Press have children with special educational needs; others seek a faith-based curriculum or say their local schools are flawed. The common denominator: They tried homeschooling on what they thought was a temporary basis and found it beneficial to their children. “That’s one of the silver linings of the pandemic—I don’t think we would have chosen to homeschool otherwise,” said Danielle King of Randolph, Vermont, whose 7-year-old daughter Zoë thrived with the flexible, one-on-one instruction. The surge has been confirmed by the U.S. Census Bureau, which reported in March that the rate of households homeschooling their children rose to 11% by September 2020, more than doubling from 5.4% just six months earlier.

Facebook Wants You to Connect With God. On Facebook. (NYT) Months before the megachurch Hillsong opened its new outpost in Atlanta, its pastor sought advice on how to build a church in a pandemic. From Facebook. The social media giant had a proposition, Sam Collier, the pastor, recalled in an interview: to use the church as a case study to explore how churches can “go further farther on Facebook.” For months Facebook developers met weekly with Hillsong and explored what the church would look like on Facebook and what apps they might create for financial giving, video capability or livestreaming. Facebook, which recently passed $1 trillion in market capitalization, may seem like an unusual partner for a church whose primary goal is to share the message of Jesus. But the company has been cultivating partnerships with a wide range of faith communities over the past few years, from individual congregations to large denominations, like the Assemblies of God and the Church of God in Christ. Now, after the coronavirus pandemic pushed religious groups to explore new ways to operate, Facebook sees even greater strategic opportunity to draw highly engaged users onto its platform. The company aims to become the virtual home for religious community and wants churches, mosques, synagogues and others to embed their religious life into its platform, from hosting worship services and socializing more casually to soliciting money. It is developing new products, including audio and prayer sharing, aimed at faith groups.

A Mexican state suffers bloody fallout of cartel rivalry (AP) When they heard gunfire in the valley, residents locked their doors and cowered inside their homes. Some 200 armed men had just looted a gas station, according to a witness, and the shooting would continue for hours as an equal number from an opposing group confronted them. The authorities didn’t arrive until the next day. When they did, they found 18 bodies in San Juan Capistrano, a small community in Valparaíso, Zacatecas. The north-central Mexican state holds strategic importance for drugs being shipped to the United States. Mexico’s two strongest cartels—Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation—are locked in a battle for control. One month after the June 24 killings, there have been no arrests. The military has sent reinforcements, but killings continue across Zacatecas: a doctor here, a police officer there, a family killed, eight killed at a party, two girls shot along with their parents. In a country that has suffered more than a decade of violence at the hands of powerful drug cartels, the situation in Zacatecas, as well as violence-plagued states like Michoacán and Tamaulipas, shows that neither the head-on drug war launched by former President Felipe Calderón in 2006, nor the softer “hugs not bullets” approach of current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador have managed to break Mexico’s cycle of violence.

Cars, pavements washed away as Belgian town hit by worst floods in decade (Reuters) The southern Belgian town of Dinant was hit by the heaviest floods in decades on Saturday after a two-hour thunderstorm turned streets into torrential streams that washed away cars and pavements but did not kill anyone. Dinant was spared the deadly floods 10 days ago that killed 37 people in southeast Belgium and many more in Germany, but the violence of Saturday’s storm surprised many. “I have been living in Dinant for 57 years, and I’ve never seen anything like that,” Richard Fournaux, the former mayor of the town on the Meuse river and birthplace of the 19th century inventor of the saxophone, Adolphe Sax, said on social media.

London cleans up after flash flooding drenches homes, subway (Washington Post) Londoners were cleaning up Monday after torrential rain left homes, roads and several subway stations flooded, the second unseasonal inundation in as many weeks. Whipps Cross Hospital in the northeast of the city canceled all planned surgery and outpatient appointments on Monday after basement flooding damaged its electrical systems. Eight subway and train stations were closed Sunday because of flooding, including Pudding Mill Lane, an above-ground station where video footage showed water surging through a concourse and up stairs. Residents used buckets, brooms and wooden boards to create makeshift flood defenses for their homes as storm drains were overloaded in parts of the city. The rain followed a spell of hot, sunny weather that sent Britons to lakes and the sea in search of relief.

French parliament OKs restaurant COVID pass, vaccine rules (AP) France’s parliament approved a law early Monday requiring special virus passes for all restaurants and domestic travel and mandating vaccinations for all health workers. The law requires all workers in the health care sector to start getting vaccinated by Sept. 15, or risk suspension. It also requires a “health pass” to enter all restaurants, trains, planes and some other public venues. It initially applies to all adults, but will apply to everyone 12 and older starting Sept. 30. To get the pass, people must have proof they are fully vaccinated, recently tested negative or recently recovered from the virus. Paper or digital documents will be accepted. The law says a government decree will outline how to handle vaccination documents from other countries.

Europe’s hotels and restaurants are eager to welcome tourists—if they can find enough staff (Washington Post) As Europeans embark on their annual summer vacations, they are finding that some restaurants and hotels are still shuttered or operating at reduced hours, with many citing staff shortages. American hospitality businesses report similar problems, which put pressure on employers to raise wages and offer better benefits. Europe, though, wasn’t expecting this. Expansive wage subsidy and furlough programs were supposed to help workers get through the pandemic and ensure they would still be in place when businesses were able to reopen. Those programs appear to have worked for the people they covered. A study in the International Journal of Hospitality Management found businesses that put employees on paid furlough instead of laying them off were more likely to retain them beyond lockdowns. But seasonal workers, of the sort that staff resort hotels, had to apply for normal unemployment benefits instead. And, after 16 months of on-and-off lockdowns, it is increasingly clear that many of them sought out new, and, in some cases, more stable jobs in the retail industry and other sectors. Many may not return to hotel reception desks and restaurant kitchens anytime soon, if ever. France’s hospitality sector estimates that 150,000 workers have left the industry. In Germany, union experts estimate that every sixth worker—almost 300,000 people—left the sector last year. There are about 200,000 vacancies in the sector in Britain, where the effects of the pandemic have been compounded by Brexit.

Flooding in India (Foreign Policy) At least 135 people have died in India following a weekend of catastrophic flooding and landslides after heavy monsoon rains. More than 130,000 people have been rescued from villages across Maharashtra state, while at least 100 are still missing. India’s Central Water Commission has warned of “isolated very heavy rainfall” across the state, home to Mumbai, in the coming days. The rains follow similar downpours in Germany and China, as scientists warn that climate change could make India’s monsoons stronger.

Pandemic leaves Indians mired in massive medical debts (AP) As coronavirus cases ravaged India this spring, Anil Sharma visited his 24-year-old son Saurav at a private hospital in northwest New Delhi every day for more than two months. In May, as India’s new COVID-19 cases broke global records to reach 400,000 a day, Saurav was put on a ventilator. Saurav is home now, still weak and recovering. But the family’s joy is tempered by a mountain of debt that piled up while he was sick. Life has been tentatively returning to normal in India as new coronavirus cases have fallen. But millions are embroiled in a nightmare of huge piles of medical bills. Most Indians don’t have health insurance and costs for COVID-19 treatment have them drowning in debt. The pandemic has devastated India’s economy, bringing financial calamity to millions at the mercy of its chronically underfunded and fragmented healthcare system.

Pandemic Olympics endured heat, and now a typhoon's en route (AP) First, the sun. Now: the wind and the rain. The Tokyo Olympics, delayed by the pandemic and opened under oppressive heat, are due for another hit of nature’s power: a typhoon arriving Tuesday morning that is forecast to disrupt at least some parts of the Games. Don’t worry, Japanese hosts say: In U.S. terms, the incoming weather is just a mid-grade tropical storm. And the surfers at Tsurigasaki beach say Tropical Storm Nepartak could actually improve the competition so long as it doesn’t hit the beach directly. Any sort of rain—typhoon, tropical storm, or even light sprinkling—will be a wild swing from the first three days of the Games. Svetlana Gomboeva collapsed from heatstroke on the first day of archery but recovered to win a silver medal. Top-seeded Novak Djokovic and Medvedev, who complained his first round match was “some of the worst” heat he’d ever played in, successfully leaned on the International Tennis Federation to give Olympics players extra time during breaks to offset the high temperatures.

Tunisian democracy in crisis after president ousts government (Reuters) Tunisia faced its biggest crisis in a decade of democracy on Monday after President Kais Saied ousted the government and froze parliament. It follows months of deadlock and disputes between Saied, a political independent, Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and a fragmented parliament as Tunisia has descended deeper into an economic crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Supporters of the rival sides threw stones at each other outside parliament on Monday morning. The move poses the greatest risk to Tunisia’s stability since the 2011 revolution that triggered the “Arab spring” and ousted an autocracy in favour of democratic rule, but which failed to deliver sound governance or prosperity.

#headlines #news

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batblogcff12-blog · 5 years

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Racism in Canadian Law Enforcement

Christian Saad -214163208

Dr. Ethel Tungohan

POLS 4103

Racism in Canadian Law Enforcement

Okay, well after reading my last two blog posts, you may be convinced that Canada is a terrible place. That’s not necessarily true, and just as that isn’t true, it isn’t necessarily a perfect or great place either. Now the point of these blog posts isn’t to focus on Canada’s status as being a good place or not, the point is rather to make the public aware of problems that will inevitably affect us all. In doing so, awareness and addressing such issues bring us knowledge about the problems we face. And what comes with knowledge? Power. The power we need to face these problems head on and fix them, so we can build a better Canada, because building a better Canada, cannot be completed with a single task, it is rather requires a constant and communal effort to fix our problems together.

Now where should we begin. Racism in law enforcement. Who wants to hear about that right??

I know, I know. It’s not important right? Duck hunting, a buck for beer is what many Canadians care about these days right? Well, this is important. You might want to listen, because for millions of Canadians, racism in law enforcement can mean Life or Death.

(Photo obtained from CBC of Abdirahman Abdi, 37).

The photo above is of a Somali-Canadian man. His name was, Abdirahman Abdi. He was suffering from a wide variety of mental health issues throughout his life (Nease, 2017, pp. 2). Abdi was allegedly in an Ottawa store, when reports where made to police, of a man of his description, “causing a disturbance” (Nease, 2017, pp. 7).

Okay, so what happened? Apparently, Mr. Abdi was “harassing a customer”, “more than one”, with customers attempting to pull him out of the store (Nease, 2017, pp. 9). When an officer emerged from the Police vehicle, he did so “very rapidly pulled up right in front of the building ... immediately jumped into the altercation and administered a number of very heavy blows to the head and face and neck of Mr. Abdi” (Nease, 2017, pp. 17).

What happened next? Abdi was “subdued and handcuffed”, with cellphone videos showing Abdi “laying on his stomach” (Nease, 2017, pp. 18). An ambulance was called for Abdi, taking “15 minutes to arrive and perform chest compressions”, but when Abdi was rushed to the hospital, doctors reported that he had “been dead for 45 minutes” (Nease, 2017, pp. 19-20). Who was responsible for it? Let’s display their pictures, and their names.

(In a photo obtained from CBC, Const. Dave Weir, left, and Const. Daniel Montsion, right, are seen kneeling by Abdirahman Abdi).

Wow. Where do I begin? Okay he was mentally ill, and out of control, right? He was dangerous, I mean this is what needed to happen right? Well, what about Alexandre Bisonette? Remember him? Here he is below.

(Quebec City Terror Attack Perpetrator, Alexandre Bisonette, wearing MAGA hat)

When Quebec City Terror Attack perpetrator Alexandre Bisonette terrorized and killed worshipers at a Quebec City Mosque in 2017, he was arrested, without incident or bodily harm (Lum, 2017, pp. 19-20). Okay, so police responses are not based on levels of violence, they are not measured by perceived danger, so what determines the way police handle people in different situations?

Well, 30-year-old Gregory Ritchie wasn’t as lucky as terror perpetrator Bisonette was. Ritchie, an Indigenous man, of Ojibwe heritage, was on his way to a pharmacy in Ottawa, this February to pick up medication. When police were called to an Ottawa Strip Mall over a “suspicious incident”, a man, believed to be Ritchie was “seen entering the building with a knife in his hand” (Police, 2019, pp. 3). When police arrived, an altercation ensued, during which Ritchie was “reportedly shot multiple times” (Police, 2019, pp. 4). It was known locally that Ritchie was “living with mental illness and struggled to cope in public and crowded spaces” (Police, 2019, pp. 4).

Okay, wait a minute, let me get this right. Two mentally ill men were killed by police, within almost instantaneous contact, but a terrorist who called 911 and reported to operators that he had a gun, and just killed several people, was apprehended peacefully? This is weird. This cannot be. Something is going on here. There appears to be some sort of trend.

Oh, I get it. It appears time after time again persons of minority backgrounds tend to be targeted and end up dead or injured after interactions with police and law enforcement. Okay so I did some research just to make sure I wasn’t overthinking things. It turns out, my theory may be right. An Ontario Human Rights Commission, who conducted an inquiry into ongoing racial profiling and discrimination, found and concluded that minorities, but especially, Indigenous and Black Canadians, are “grossly over-represented” in “violent interactions with police” and law enforcement (How, 2018, pp. 1-2).

Is this not what our Indigenous and Black friends have been telling us all along. My neighbour, Jonathan, who I was living with a few years ago in the York University area, was practically an older brother to me. He had come to Canada, very young from the Ivory Coast. We lived in two adjacent rooms together, and he would give me advice on everything from school, to employment, to life and relationship advice. I noticed Police around the area one day driving, and I mentioned to Jonathan that I found something about their presence to be a little odd. He then told me he had been carded (back when they still had carding) over 19 times in that year alone. I was absolutely disgusted. It was then, I knew not only on an academic level, but on a personal one too, that this has become all to normal. I had seen this on television all the time, but living in a predominantly black community, I came to see it first hand.

Law enforcement’s duty is to serve and protect, not to target. We need to make it clear to Law enforcement, and firstly and foremost, our politicians that this type of behaviour and conduct is intolerable, deplorable, and highly unacceptable. We need to come out strong as a public, as this represents a danger to us all. At this instance, I am reminded of the poem First They Came, by a German Pastor. They poem describes the actions of the Nazi army and Gestapo Police. It describes the cowardice of the German public for not standing up to the Nazi army and Gestapo, and when the same evil that singled out minorities in Germany finished their purge, they begun the same purge on elements of the German population, deaf, blind, then political opposition.

It is our duty to rise up, and fight for what is right. When we hear stories like this targeting our Indigenous and Black Canadian friends, we must be reminded that this can and will happen to all of us. This is why we must come together, and fight for our rights, for all Canadians. If law enforcement is going to commit murder on our streets, we must find a politician that stands against that behaviour and opposes it. Although there are many, if we cannot find a politician that will reform the current rotten state of our law enforcement and police agencies, then perhaps it’s time to try something new. Perhaps it is time to run for office, and institute the change we want to see, ourselves.

Works Cited

1. N.a. (2018). How can we tackle racism in Canadian policing? CBC Radio. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/radio/checkup/how-can-we-tackle-racism-in-canadian-policing-1.4945685

2. N.a. (2019). Police shoot and kill Ojibwe man in Ottawa. APTN News. Retrieved from https://aptnnews.ca/2019/02/02/police-shoot-and-kill-ojibwe-man-in-ottawa/

3. Lum, Z.A. (2017). Alexandre Bissonnette Identified As Quebec Mosque Shooting Suspect. Huffington Post. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/01/30/alexandre-bissonnette-mohamed-khadir_n_14495374.html

4. Nease, K. (2017). Ottawa police officer charged with manslaughter in man's 2016 death. CBC News. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/abdirahman-abdi-ottawa-police-siu-findings-1.4008142

Boisvert, N. (2018).

Human Rights Commission releases 'unprecedented' report on racial profiling by Toronto police.

CBC News. Retrieved from

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ohrc-police-profiling-report-1.4936547

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creepingsharia · 5 years

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They Are ‘Infidels and No Good!’: Muslim Persecution of Christians, March 2019

“a Christian living in a majority Muslim country is 143 times more likely to be killed by a Muslim for being a Christian than a Muslim is likely to be killed by a non-Muslim in a Western country for being what he is.”

by Raymond Ibrahim

When it comes to violence between Muslims and non-Muslims, March news was dominated by the Christchurch, New Zealand massacres, where an Australian man killed 51 Muslims in two mosques on March 15. However, to place matters in perspective, a statistical report did some number crunching and found that “a Christian living in a majority Muslim country is 143 times more likely to be killed by a Muslim for being a Christian than a Muslim is likely to be killed by a non-Muslim in a Western country for being what he is.” Although the report refers to the persecution of Christians by Muslims as “the most egregious example of human right violations in today’s world”—citing the fact that “at least 4,305 Christians … were murdered by Muslims because of their faith in 2018” and that “300 million Christians, overwhelmingly in the majority-Muslim countries, were subjected to violence”—it found other, similar disparities. For example, based on precedent and in one country alone, France, “Frenchmen are exactly ten times more likely to be murdered by a Muslim than a Muslim being killed by a non-Muslim terrorist anywhere in the Western world.”

The following report, which documents the widespread persecution of Christians in the month of March alone, further confirms these disparities:

The Massacre of Christians

Nigeria: As in previous months, dozens of Christians were massacred and churches destroyed at the hands of Muslims in the West Africa nation. A partial list follows:

On March 4, Muslims slaughtered 23 Christian villagers. “It was bad,” said a local in reference to the incident. “Some were killed by gunshots and some by machete hacks!… The displaced persons are scattered all over…”

Three days later, the Muslim terrorists launched another raid in the same area; three people were killed. Commenting on that attack, a local pastor said, “Even today, they attacked. One of my members came to report that his father was killed, and another member said his son-in-law was also killed.”

On March 11 Muslim tribesmen slaughtered over 70 Christians and injured 28 in another region in Kaduna State. According to eyewitnesses, the terrorists were “torching houses, shooting and hacking down anything that moved.” About 100 houses were destroyed in the attack. Another report notes that “[t]he victims included women and children. According to survivors, their assailants divided into three groups; one group was shooting, another set fire to homes as people ran away, and the third waited in the bush to intercept fleeing villagers.”

On March 16, Muslim herdsmen killed another 10 Christians in southern Kaduna state, “bringing the lives lost in the past five weeks to 140 with 160 houses destroyed” said the report. “We were all asleep in our various homes when at about 4 a.m., we heard gunshots everywhere in my village,” explained a local Christian. “Everyone ran out of their homes to escape from the Fulani herdsmen. Three hours after the herdsmen left, those of us who survived the attack returned to the village to find that [30 of] our houses were destroyed and 10 of our villagers killed.”

On March 14, Boko Harem jihadis attacked another predominantly Christian village; although most people managed to flee into the bush, they killed one person, kidnapped two sisters, and burned down a church and six homes. A church leader said the local pastor had called him soon after the raid: “I could hear desperation in his voice, just coming out of the bush. His voice sounded completely demoralized as he was saying only God… We don’t know what else to do! There’s no security presence here.” The church leader further “regrets that these attacks are rarely reported on by the local media anymore. As a result, their people continue to suffer in silence, with minimal help from others.”

On March 23, right after “beating, raping and killing a 19-year-old Christian woman,” Muslims attacked two predominantly Christian villages, and burned down 28 Christian homes and two churches. Joy Danlami and her younger sister and brother, 16 and 14 respectively, were ambushed while walking home from a Christian community feast; the two younger siblings survived with machete and gunshot wounds. According to their father, “The armed herdsmen chased them with dangerous weapons. Joy’s nose and face was battered, and then she was sexually assaulted by the herdsmen before being killed. She was shot.”

After finding the slaughtered body of a kidnapped Catholic priest who had been abducted two weeks earlier, two other church leaders were also kidnapped on March 25. One of the men, the Rev. Emmanuel Haruna of the Evangelical Church Winning All, was seized at gunpoint outside his church. Earlier, in 2016 he had spoken out against Muslim tribesmen raids on Christian communities: “Fulani herdsmen take their cattle to farms of our church members and destroy their crops, and security agents have not been able to take measures to stop them.” The report adds that “It is estimated by the United Nations Centre for Peace and Disarmament that of the 500 million illegal weapons that flooded into West Africa after the Libyan crisis in 2011, 350 million (70%) ended up in Nigeria, supplying the predominantly Muslim herders with added teeth in their campaign against Christian farmers.”

On Sunday, March 10, “Boko Haram Suicide bombers tried to enter a Catholic Church service,” says a report:

The two bombers, who were women, tried to enter the church through a clinic before being stopped, and then detonating the bombs a short distance outside the church. Despite the two bombs going off, only one person other than the bombers was reportedly injured….. It is very likely that the two bombers were captives of Boko Haram who were forced to commit this attack. Boko Haram is known for kidnapping women and children and forcing them to act as suicide bombers for their attacks. In 2017, between January and August, UNICEF reported on at least 83 children having been used by the group as suicide bombers.

Democratic Republic of Congo: “Islamic militants,” notes a report, “attacked the dominantly Christian village of Kalau in the North Kivu province.” Six Christians, including three women and a 9-year-old child, were slaughtered. The rest of the villagers, “an estimated 470 families evacuated their homes following the incident.” The terrorists are part of the Allied Democratic Forces, “a group that was designed to overthrow the Ugandan government in the 90’s and replace it with an Islamic regime. The group has been known for associating with other terrorist groups such as al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda. They are responsible for thousands of deaths…”

Attacks on Churches

Ethiopia: In a rampage that lasted five hours, large Muslim mobs shouting “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is greater) attacked ten churches, “destroying one and burning the property inside all the structures,” says a report. The attacks, which were apparently sparked by a false rumor that a local mosque had been attacked, occurred in “a predominantly Muslim town with nearly all Christians there having moved from surrounding villages for work reasons, creating an underlying tension.” Several Christians were injured and required hospital treatment. One of the desecrated churches has since been vandalized again, and its Christians threatened and harassed. Although only one church was destroyed during the rampage, “the other nine church buildings were not set ablaze only because of the risk to neighboring Muslim-owned properties,” says the report. Instead, “[t]he contents of all the churches were removed from the buildings and set on fire on the street…. Huge amounts of property were destroyed, including Bibles, song books, instruments, benches and chairs.”

The report incorrectly refers to these attacks as “unprecedented.” For example, last year, 19 churches were torched—and 15 Christian priests killed, four burned alive—during Muslim uprisings in the east, where most of Ethiopia’s 33 percent Muslim population is centered. Similarly, in 2011, after a Christian was accused of desecrating a Koran, “Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes.”

Sudan: A report by the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART), a UK based NGO, found that 72 churches were either torched or demolished in the Nuba Mountains region in 2018. Elaborating on these developments, a separate report notes that the “Nuba Mountains is home to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North,” which is “fighting the oppression of the Sudanese National government.”

Due to this, the Sudanese government has been committing genocide against the people living in the Nuba Mountains for years. They indiscriminately bomb the region, trying to clear it of the rebel army. However, they often just kill and maim the local civilian population who has nothing to do with the fight. They also destroy homes and churches in the attacks. The people living in the Nuba Mountains are primarily traditional believers or Christians. This also contributes to the attacks, as Bashir, the countries president, believes that the country is only for Muslims ever since South Sudan gained its independence.

Sudan is considered the sixth worst nation in the world to be Christian in.

Germany: Four separate churches were vandalized and/or torched in March. “In this country,” the report explained, “there is a creeping war against everything that symbolizes Christianity…. Crosses are broken, altars smashed, Bibles set on fire, baptismal fonts overturned, and the church doors smeared with Islamic expressions like ‘Allahu Akbar.’” In the Alps and Bavaria alone, around 200 churches were attacked and many crosses broken: “Police are currently dealing with church desecrations again and again. The perpetrators are often youthful rioters with a migration background.”

France: On Sunday, March 17, arsonists torched the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris soon after midday mass. Such incidences have become endemic in France, where two churches are desecrated every day on average. In the previous month, February, vandals plundered and used human excrement to draw a cross on the Notre-Dame des Enfants Church in Nimes and desecrated and smashed crosses and statues at Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur . In 2018 alone, 1,063 attacks on Christian churches or symbols (crucifixes, icons, statues) were registered in France.

Algeria: Throughout March, Algerians protested against a fifth term for President Bouteflika. In an attempt to exploit the unrest, al-Qaeda publicized new content calling for Sharia governance in the North African nation and referred to those protesting against Bouteflika as the “sons of Islam,” while presenting Bouteflika as “loyal to the Jews and Christians.” According to the report, “Terrorist groups have a long history of attempting to take advantage of political unrest to capitalize upon and increase hardline Islamic sentiment. Christians are often used in their propaganda as part of their efforts.” In reality, however, “Algerian Christians have faced heavy persecution at the hands of the government.”

In fact, on March 3, the French Parliament “officially opened an inquiry into the persecution of Christians in Algeria,” notes a separate report:

The inquiry specifically points to Algeria’s closure of churches and legal proceedings held against Christian leaders, including those who imported Christian books. Algeria uses building safety committees to shutter churches indefinitely. The authorities also create substantial obstacles for the opening of new churches, making it impossible and leaving Christians to worship in buildings intended for other uses. Algeria has cracked down against churches since 2017, increasingly forcing Christians out of the public sphere. The authorities have not only closed churches, but have also targeted Christian leaders. Algeria’s constitution provides for the freedom of worship but declares Islam to be the state religion. Insulting or offending Islam is considered a criminal offense. In addition to imprisonment, convicted Christians can also face hefty fines if convicted of blasphemy.

Kazakhstan: Police raided two unregistered churches on two consecutive Sundays. Several members were fined; one had to pay the rough equivalent of two months wages. Discussing these developments, a separate report says,

Since 2011, when the government introduced a new religion law, Christians have faced heightened restrictions on meetings and ‘missionary activity.’ To obtain registration, churches are required to provide the names and addresses of at least 50 members, an impossibility for smaller congregations. Kazakhstan is officially a secular state; around 70% of the population are Muslim, with Christians comprising about 26%. Many Christians are from a Russian background and some are ethnic Kazakhs who have converted from Islam. Protestant Christians, and especially those from a Muslim background, are viewed with great distrust.

Attacks on Apostates, Blasphemers, and Preachers

Netherlands: As evidence that “Christian refugees in the country are being threatened or bullied on a regular basis, especially when they used to be Muslim,” a March 14 report recounted the experiences of three such Christian refugees.

“Directly after my conversion to Christianity” in 1999, after reaching the Netherlands, Faradoun Fouad from Iraq “received the first threats. People who I thought were my friends, became my enemies…. Even Muslims who are not very conservative told my wife that they would kill me…. I’m still getting threats every single day.”

“After my conversion” to Christianity, “the threats started,” said Esther Mulder, whose Muslim family fled Somalia. “Most of the time they’re coming from other Somalis. They write to me in Somali, so no one else is able to understand what they’re saying. We once posted [on Facebook] a picture of a Somali conference where everyone was standing in front of a cross. People didn’t like it and we received several threats. I was really sorry about that.” When she visits her family, “my father leaves the house. The last thing he ever said to me, is that I’m no longer his daughter.”

“In 2015 I became a Christian,” said Jassim, from Morocco. “My mother taught me to respect everyone and to be kind. That was in stark contrast to what Islam was teaching me. I had to hate and curse Jews and Christians. Muhammed was my big role model, but his life was bad. He killed Jews and married a girl of six. How could he be my role model?” Due to the large volume of threats he was getting, “I went to the police with eight pages full of threats…. The police advised me to delete my picture from my website…. It’s strange isn’t it: I’m not doing anything wrong, why would I need to hide? I live in a free country.”

Afghanistan: A former Islamic child soldier who converted to Christianity—despite “threats to his life”—shared his experiences. Jahan, 24, said he was taught to kill people who were Christian because they were “infidels and no good.” However, Jahan eventually began “reading the Bible for himself,” an experience he described as “eye opening.” He discovered that “what he had been taught about Christians and Christianity was wrong” and eventually converted—only “to flee from his family who threatened to kill him when they heard about his new faith.” According to the report, “Persecution in Afghanistan is extreme for the country’s tiny Christian community. Most Afghani Christians are converts from Islam and face very real and very deadly threats because of their conversion. In some cases, Christian converts are attacked by their own family who are ashamed that one of their own has become a Christian.” Afghanistan is considered the second worst persecutor of Christians in the world.

Kenya: Muslims beat a Christian pastor of an underground church with wooden clubs on Friday, March 6; among other injuries, he suffered a broken thigh bone. According to the report, “Pastor Abdul (surname withheld for security reasons), a 30-year-old father of three, had finished leading a prayer gathering at 9 p.m. on the outskirts of Garissa and was on his way back to his house when several ethnic Somali Muslims attacked.” As the Muslims approached, one of them said, “We have been following your movements and your evil plans of changing Muslims to Christianity.” “Immediately,” continues Pastor Abdul, “several assailants began hitting me with wooden clubs, and I became unconscious. I woke up and found myself surrounded by neighbors. I was rescued by the neighbors who found me in a pool of blood.” They rushed him to a hospital: “Apart from the thigh pain, I now feel pain all over my body, especially the waist, the back and my left leg near the ankle. I’m almost unable to bear the pain. My family is in great fear, and Christians have located us to another place. Our prayer for now is to get a safe place for my family. My life and that of my family,” a wife and three children, 8, 5, and 3, “is at stake.”

Pakistan: A mentally ill Christian man was apprehended for blasphemy. Stephen Masih was arrested after Muhammad Rafiq and Muhammad Imran told Muhammad Mudassar—a renowned hafiz, one who has memorized the entire Koran—that the Christian “had made derogatory remarks against the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH),” says the report. Stephen, 38, is unmarried and lives with his mother and sister. After contracting typhoid fever as a child, and receiving little medical attention due to his family’s impoverishment, the family noticed changes in his behavior; he was eventually taken to a “doctor [who] declared him mentally disabled.” On March 10, Stephen got into a loud quarrel with his mother and sister. Female Muslim neighbors soon got involved and before long “a few Muslim men … pulled Stephen out of his house and started beating him brutally, gradually joined by others.” Police eventually arrived and arrested the mentally unstable Christian on the testimony of the local cleric. Afterwards, his sister Alia “went to the police station. She says her brother only shouted and used abusive language against the local ladies but did not utter any derogatory remarks against the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), but the police didn’t believe her.” If convicted, Stephen could face the death penalty. According to Section 295-C of Pakistan’s penal code, “Whoever by words, either spoken or written or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.”

General Abuse and Rape of Christians

Pakistan: A Muslim man abducted, tortured and forced a married Christian mother of three to convert to Islam and marry him. When her original husband, Naveed Iqbal, reported the matter to police, the only action they took was “to alert the suspect, Muhammad Khalid Satti, that he [Naveed, the Christian husband] had filed a report against him for abducting his wife, Saima,” says the report. Then, “[o]n March 5, police informed me, said Naveed, that Saima had been found … but that she had converted to Islam and married Satti,” and that “a local Muslim cleric had solemnized” their marriage. Local police further counseled him “to forget about his wife and stop pursuing the case,” even though they had been married and raising children for 15 years. “Satti is a hardened criminal, and this is not the first time he has targeted Christians,” the 40-year-old Catholic husband elaborated. “Some 300-400 Christian families live in the area, and almost everyone has been bullied or tortured by Satti and his accomplices over the years.” It was only after Naveed threatened to set himself on fire before senior officers, that police arrested Muhammad. However, before the hearing, “the accused and the IO [Information Officer] both threatened Saima to say that she had converted to Islam and married Satti of her free will, otherwise her family would suffer severe consequences. Fearing for our lives, Saima said what she had been forced to say, resulting in grant of bail to Satti.” The wife later told her husband how she was kidnapped, raped, tortured and then forced to sign a marriage certificate. “She also showed me the torture marks on her body, and how she had been coerced into submitting to the demands of her tormentor.” Naveed decided to do all he could to get her justice, including uploading a widely watched video of his wife tearfully explaining her ordeal and appealing to Prime Minister Imran Khan for justice. “The video was a desperate attempt to get the attention of senior government officials, because the police were openly siding with the accused.” It worked, and Muhammad was arrested again. Although reunited with her husband and three children, aged 4, 8 and 13, Naveed said his wife is suffering from post-traumatic stress: “She is not the same person now, but I have faith that the Lord will heal her spirit with time.”

In a separate but similar incident, three Muslim men kidnapped a 13-year-old Christian girl, forced her to convert to Islam and marry one of her abductors. When the girl’s distraught family finally discovered her whereabouts, her new Muslim family insisted that she had willingly become Muslim and produced a forged marriage certificate falsely indicating that she was 18, the legal age of marriage.

Discussing the regular abuses Christian and other minorities suffer in Pakistan, a separate March 28 report says,

Across Pakistan, women and girls from religious minority communities are targeted by extremists for abduction and forced conversion. According to the Movement for Solidarity and Peace Pakistan, an estimated 1,000 girls and women, ranging in age between 12 and 25, are victimized by their cruel practice every year. Pakistan’s Hindu and Christian communities are most effected…. Forced conversions to Islam remains one of the cruelest abuses suffered by Pakistan’s minority communities. Practitioners of this abuse often use rape and forced marriage as a means to cover up their crime. To compound the matter, the majority of victims claim that Pakistan’s police force is often unhelpful and regularly sides with the kidnappers because of their shared religious identity.

Egypt: On Sunday, March 17, the ruling court in Minya surprised the Coptic Christian community by recusing itself and stepped down from two ongoing cases concerning the victimization and killing of Christians. Due to this unexpected move, both cases—which had already been at court three and six years—must now be retried anew, a process that will likely take several more years before any hope of justice is met.

The first case concerns Soa‘d Thabet, a 70-year-old Coptic Christian grandmother. On May 20, 2016, a mob of 300 Muslim men descended on her home, stripped her completely naked, beat, spit on, and paraded her in the streets to jeers, whistles, and triumphant shouts of “Allahu Akbar.” They were angry because her son was allegedly involved with a Muslim woman.

The second case goes back to July 2013, when General Sisi ousted then President Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, following massive popular demonstrations against Morsi. Then, Brotherhood sympathizers all around Egypt rioted, mostly by targeting Coptic Christian people, homes, and especially churches, of which almost one hundred were set ablaze or destroyed. During these rampages, rioters randomly killed an elderly Coptic man, Iskander (Alexander) and dragged his body on the ground to jeers and more cries of “Allahu Akbar” (graphic video here). His corpse was then hurled into a garbage bin. For three days, his children were prevented from retrieving it for burial. An unknown person eventually buried Alexander in an unmarked grave. His relentless murderers found the grave, exhumed the mangled body, propped it up, and used it for target practice.

In both the case of the stripped Christian woman and the case of the slaughtered Christian man, the names and faces of the culprits and murderers are well known. Commenting on the recusal, Adel Guindy, of Coptic Solidarity told Gatestone, “The judiciary system in Egypt, as well as the rest of the pillars of the state (often referred to as the ‘deep state’) have become impregnated with fundamentalist Islamic ideology, and are thus decidedly biased against Copts. The political leadership of the country takes no concrete corrective measures and, worse still, lets this ideology shape and dominate the society, through education and media.”

United Kingdom: In two unrelated cases, the United Kingdom denied asylum to persecuted Christians by bizarrely citing the Bible and Islam. Both Christians, a man and a woman, are former Muslims who were separately seeking asylum from the Islamic Republic of Iran, the ninth worst persecutor of Christians, particularly those who were formerly Muslims, as in these two cases.

In his rejection letter from the UK’s Home Office, the Iranian man was told that biblical passages were “inconsistent” with his claim to have converted to Christianity after discovering it was a “peaceful” faith. The letter cited several biblical excerpts, including from Exodus, Leviticus, and Matthew, as supposed proof that the Bible is violent; it said Revelation was “filled with imagery of revenge, destruction, death and violence.” The rejection letter then concluded: “These examples are inconsistent with your claim that you converted to Christianity after discovering it is a ‘peaceful’ religion, as opposed to Islam which contains violence, rage and revenge.”

In the second case, an Iranian female asylum seeker was sarcastically informed in her rejection letter that “You affirmed in your AIR [Asylum Interview Record] that Jesus is your saviour, but then claimed that He would not be able to save you from the Iranian regime. It is therefore considered that you have no conviction in your faith and your belief in Jesus is half-hearted.” Discussing her experiences, the rejected woman said: “When I was in Iran I converted to Christianity and the situation changed and the government were [sic] looking for me and I had to flee from Iran…. In my country if someone converts to Christianity their punishment is death or execution.” Concerning the asylum process, she said that whenever she responded to her Home Office interviewer, “he was either chuckling or maybe just kind of mocking when he was talking to me…. [H]e asked me why Jesus didn’t help you from the Iranian regime or Iranian authorities.”

These two recently exposed cases appear to be symptomatic of the Home Office’s bias against Christians (as more fully documented here).

Raymond Ibrahim, author of the new book, Sword and Scimitar, Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

About this Series

The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic. Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month.

#Sharia #Jihad #Persecution #Islam #Legal #News #Politics

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thetruthseekerway · 4 years

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Quarantine: A Palestinian Guide to Survival

New Post has been published on https://www.truth-seeker.info/quran-science-2/quarantine-a-palestinian-guide-to-survival/

Quarantine: A Palestinian Guide to Survival

By Ramzy Baroud

Quarantine: A Palestinian Guide to Survival

Call it a ‘quarantine’, a ‘shelter-in-place’, a ‘lockdown’ or a ‘curfew’, we Palestinians have experienced them all, though not at all voluntarily.

Currently in Gaza, the quarantine has a different name. We call it ‘siege’, also known as ‘blockade’.

That lockdown intensified in 1967 when Israel, now a powerful state with a large army and strong allies, occupied the remaining parts of Palestine – East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Under this lockdown, the Palestinian freedom of movement was curtailed to the extent that Palestinians required permits from the Israeli military to leave the Occupied Territories or to return home, to move about from one town to the other, and, at times, to cross a single Israeli military checkpoint or a fortified wall.

In Palestine, we don’t call our imprisonment a lockdown, but a ‘military occupation’ and ‘apartheid’.

As for ‘shelter-in-place’, in Palestine, we have a different name for it. We call it a ‘military curfew’.

The period between 1987 to 1993 was a virtual ‘lockdown’. Thousands of people, mostly children, were killed for failing to respect the rules of their collective imprisonment.

Every day, ten or fifteen minutes after the nightly curfew set in, we would hear the crackling and hissing of bullets as they whistled through the air from various distances. Automatically, we would conclude that some poor soul – a worker, a teacher, or a rowdy teenager – missed his chance by a few minutes, and paid a price for it.

Think Ahead

Since we knew that a complete lockdown, or a military curfew, was always pending, we tried to anticipate the intensity and duration of it and prepare accordingly.

For example, when the Israeli army killed one or more refugees, we knew in advance that mass protests would follow, thus more killings. In these situations, a curfew was imminent.

Lesson number one: Always think ahead and prepare for a longer lockdown than the initial one declared by your city or state.

Stay Calm

Typically, my mother would come in, rational and calculating. She would storm the kitchen to assess what basic supplies were missing, starting with the flour, sugar and olive oil.

Per her orders, we would rush to the nearby stores to make small but necessary purchases – batteries for the flashlight and the transistor radio, cigarettes for my dad, and a few VHS videotapes which we would watch over and again, whether the curfew lasted for a few days or a few weeks.

Lesson number two: Take control of the situation – do not panic – and assign specific responsibilities to every family member. This strengthens the family unit and sets the stage for collective solidarity desperately required under these circumstances.

Preserve Your Water

I cannot emphasize this enough. Even if you think that a water crisis is not impending, do not take chances.

It is easy to feel invincible and fully prepared on the first day of quarantine – or military curfew. Many times, we lived to regret that false sense of readiness, as we drank too much tea or squandered our dishwashing water supplies too quickly.

In this case, you have a serious problem, especially during the summer months when you cannot count on rainwater to make up for the deficit.

In retrospect, this explains the many bouts of diarrhea we experienced, despite his assurances that they had painstakingly removed all bird droppings from the salvaged water.

Lesson number three: Cautiously use your water supplies during a quarantine, and never, under any circumstance, drink rainwater or, at least, keep diarrhea pills handy.

Ration Your Food

My poor mother was devastated numerous times by the horrible choices we made when we rushed to buy ‘essentials’.

Find Sources of Entertainment

Lesson number five: The key is to have more than one form of entertainment and to be prepared for every eventuality, including power outages as a form of collective punishment.

Find the Humor in Grim Situations

But, during the curfew itself is when you actually need your sense of humor most. Take things lightly – laugh at your miserable situation, if you must. Forgive yourself for not being perfect, for panicking when you should have been composed, or for forcing your younger brother to gamble his underwear when he runs out of Dutch candy.

Lesson number six: Be funny, don’t take life too seriously, share a laugh with others, and let humor inject hope in every hour and every day of your quarantine.

Hold Tighter to Your Faith

Since all mosques in our refugee camp were shut down, if not raided during a military curfew, the call for prayer, which we heard five times during each day, was permanently silenced.

In Conclusion

And when it’s all over, think of Palestine, for her people have been ‘quarantined’ for 71 years and counting.

———-

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU).

His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.

#coronavirus #covid19 #Featured #Palestine #pandemic #Quarantine: A Palestinian Guide to Survival

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weopenviews · 5 years

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Sandy Huffaker/AFP/GettyPOWAY, California—Nineteen-year-old nursing student John T. Earnest, who was charged with murder Sunday as the lone gunman in the deadly Poway Synagogue shooting, played piano for hours a day and earned a 4.31 grade point average. His father was a church elder whom neighbors called “the sweetest man.”But somewhere on his path, Earnest took a terrible turn, claiming Adolf Hitler as an idol and writing what appears to be his own rambling manifesto that Jews “deserved nothing but hell.” He wanted to be the one to, as he put it, “Send. Them. There.”Police say someone purporting to be him posted the anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, white supremacist “manifesto”—which eerily mirrored the Q&A; style that Christchurch terrorist Brenton Tarrant used in his own pre-massacre diatribe—about 20 minutes before he walked into the Poway synagogue with an AR-15 style assault rifle and started shooting—killing one woman and injuring three others—before the gun malfunctioned and he was chased out by an armed security guard.Earnest was arrested by police a few minutes after the shooting as he fled, called 911, and told them where to find him off an exit on a California highway, authorities said. As an officer approached, he exited his vehicle, raised his hands, and surrendered. A rifle was recovered from the car. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Wednesday on one count of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted first-degree murder, according to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.In his online posting, Earnest championed the likes of Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue shootings in Pittsburgh six months ago, Tarrant, who killed 50 people in a New Zealand mosque in March; and Hitler.He used mainstream social media like Twitter and the fringe message boards 8Chan in what has become a proven way for terrorist groups and lone wolves alike to ensure that propaganda is disseminated to both those looking for it and those who are not. He posted the original screed on Pastebin.com and Mediafire.com, and linked to them on 8Chan. Like Tarrant, he promised to live-stream his killing spree, which he evidently failed to pull off. Facebook immediately removed the profile link he intended to use, but had somehow not seen the warning signs when he created the page.Sheriff William Gore of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department said during a press conference late Sunday that authorities were carrying out searches in the suspect’s home and “looking into digital evidence and checking the authenticity of an online manifesto.” If it is validated as authentic, the student, who was previously unknown to police, found footing in the usual tenets of hate and the now all-too-familiar desire for infamy. Zach Keele, pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, where Earnest’s father was an elder, or officer of the church, confirmed that he was part of the parish. “So John T. Earnest is a member here,” he told The Daily Beast. “We completely deplore what he did. That is not part of our practices, our teachings in any way. Our hearts, our prayers, our tears go out to the victims, to all those wonderful neighbors at the synagogue.”Keele said Earnest had never appeared to be the sort of person who would carry out this sort of an attack. “This is a complete surprise,” he said.In a service at the church on Sunday, Keele delivered a sermon on betrayal and forgiveness, offering condolences to the victims–but also to Earnest’s family. “We pray, Lord, for those who are hurting, and we pray for the victims of that synagogue,” Keele told the crowd of 50 or so parishioners. “We deeply mourn that this evil came out from us. We do not understand it, oh Lord, and we pray that you would forgive us for any such shortcoming, for any good deeds we left undone. We pray, Lord, that you will be with the Earnest family.”Speaking to his congregation after the service, Keele said he had spoken with Earnest’s parents the night before. They had spent the night huddled in their other son’s apartment close to the beach while their own house was searched by SWAT teams, he said. Earnest’s father plans to release a statement Monday morning through an attorney. “It’s a good statement,” Keele said. “They have good family support.”The minister added that Earnest must “suffer the full punishment of the law.” Still, he hopes he will “recant his hatred.” Keele plans to visit the young man in prison, if convicted, he said. After the service, Gerrit Groenewold, a board member at the Orthodox Presbyterian Church who happens to be the father of the girlfriend of one of Earnest’s brothers, told The Daily Beast that he had noticed Earnest had seemed quiet, and often tried to reach out to the young man, but with little luck. “I have tried to talk to John several times, but he is very silent and very reclusive. I noticed that he was quiet and just wanted to have contact... The other [members of his family] are not nearly as quiet,” he said. “It’s not good if someone is that quiet. He needs to be part of the community, to let them know what is going on.”Earnest also claimed responsibility for an attempted arson attack last month on Dar-ul-Arqam Mosque in Escondido, about nine miles from Poway, Security cameras at the mosque caught a suspect breaking a lock and pouring liquid on a side door but had failed to identify the person. Gore said investigators are now looking his “possible involvement in the arson and vandalism of mosque.”In a comment that was left after the synagogue shooting, someone asks, “How does a child of such privilege go so horribly wrong? Where does this hatred come from?”Late Saturday afternoon, California State University San Marcos president Karen S. Haynes confirmed that Earnest had been enrolled at the its nursing school.“We are dismayed and disheartened that the alleged shooter—now in custody—is a CSUSM student. CSUSM is working collaboratively with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department to assist and gain more information,” Haynes said in a statement. “We are heartbroken by this tragedy, which was motivated by hate and anti-Semitism.”A man who identified himself as Earnest’s grandfather expressed shock at his grandson’s role in the deadly shooting on Saturday.“He did what?” the man told The Daily Beast when reached by phone. “That is out of whack. My heart is sinking into my chest. I’m going to hang up now.” By Saturday evening, police had barricaded the streets leading to the cul-de-sac in Rancho Peñasquitos, a hilly, middle-class suburb of San Diego about seven miles from the synagogue where Earnest lives with his family. More than three dozen law enforcement officers, including FBI agents, ATF agents, and cops, were at the scene. Eyewitnesses told The Daily Beast that the family left their home under police escort hours earlier. Around 9 p.m. local time, law enforcement had secured a search warrant to enter Earnest’s house, which may well confirm the authenticity of his hate-filled screed and could possibly uncover how far he was willing to act on his hate. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://yhoo.it/2UJuzKB

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gyrlversion · 5 years

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Australian man faces court charged over Christchurch terror attack

Accused Christchurch massacre gunman Brenton Harrison Tarrant has made a white power gesture from behind a glass window during a brief appearance in court.

Tarrant, 28, originally from Grafton, New South Wales but more recently a resident of Dunedin on New Zealand’s South Island, was dressed in a white custody outfit with a black sash around his waist.

Flanked by two much taller armed security officers, Tarrant smiled faintly as he stood behind a small glass barrier which came up just above his eyes.

Police allege that after opening fire inside the Al Noor Mosque Tarrant drove to the Linwood Masjid Mosque across town and continued his rampage.

A second man Daniel John Burrough, 18, has also been charged with ‘exciting hostility or ill-will’ in relation to the mosque attacks but he did not appear in court.

Members of the public were banned from entering the court during the proceedings, but one man outside tried to break-in during the hearing.

He said he wanted to ‘knife’ the accused attacker and showed reporters a weapon he was carrying.

So far 49 people have been confirmed dead – including at least one child – while dozens more remain missing.

Scroll down for video

Accused Christchurch massacre gunman Brenton Harrison Tarrant (pictured) has made a white power gesture from behind a glass window, during a brief appearance in court

Flanked by two much taller armed security officers, Tarrant smiled faintly as he stood behind a small glass barrier which came up just above his eyes.

Tarrant, 28, originally from Grafton, New South Wales but more recently a resident of Dunedin on New Zealand’s South Island, was dressed in a white custody outfit with a black sash around his waist

Chilling photos show blood soaked survivors emerging from the Linwood Mosque just minutes after Brenton Harrison Tarrant allegedly opened fire

Shocked survivors embrace one another just metres away from where dozens lay dead after the horrific shooting

Police allege that Tarrant began his shooting rampage at the Al Noor Masjidal Mosque in the city’s east, before driving across town to the Linwood Masjid Mosque and again opening fire

Short of stature with a stocky build, with thinning hair and beady brown eyes, Tarrant stood squarely in place throughout the entire hearing.

He swivelled his torso around to repeatedly glance at the media, at District Court Judge Paul Kaller and out the windows of the Christchurch District Court.

At the beginning of the hearing he appeared to have a faint smile on his face, but it faded into a neutral expression as the hearing continued.

Security was tight, with about six security guards and police in total, the guards wearing black protective vests.

No members of the public were allowed to attend except for media ‘in the interest’s of public safety’, the judge said.

Tarrant was remanded in custody. His duty lawyer did not apply for bail.

He has been charged with one count of murder but police say many more charges are expected to be laid.

The hearing was all over in just a few minutes, with Tarrant taking one final look at those gathered and marched away.

He is due to reappear in the High Court on April 5.

Tarrant was photographed and filmed in court by New Zealand cameras but they have been ordered to pixellate his face in images from inside court.

Burrough has also been charged with intent to excite hostility or ill will against any group of persons in New Zealand and publishing written matter which is insulting, court documents said.

Another man remains in custody, and police are still trying to ‘build a picture of any of the individuals involved and all of their activities prior to this horrific event’.

Police Commissioner Mike Bush confirmed the death toll stands at 49, with 42 injured.

He said that after receiving the initial emergency call at 1.42pm local time, police took 36 minutes to track down and detain Tarrant.

‘That is an incredibly fast response time. You had a mobile offender across large metropolitan city. I am very happy with the response of our staff,’ Bush said.

Police arrested three men – including Tarrant and Burrough – and a woman following Friday’s attacks.

Commissioner Bush said that the third man was spotted carrying a gun by a police officer, but after questioning it was revealed the man was on his way to collect his children from school and took the weapon to protect himself.

‘In terms of people who have been charged, we have – as you know, we apprehended four people on the day,’ Mr Bush said.

‘One was released quite early – a member of the public who just wanted to get their kids home, but decided to take a firearm.’

With hundreds of people gathering at Christchurch District Court, a heavy police presence was required – including armoured vehicles

Heavily armed police and sniffer dogs were also called in, but police commissioner Mike Bush said there was ‘no intelligence about current imminent threats’

There are fears for three-year-old Mucad Ibrahim (pictured) who was last seen at the Deans Avenue mosque with his father and brother Abdi

Naeem Rashid (pictured), from Abbottabad in Pakistan, was hailed a hero after he tried to wrestle the gun from the Christchuch shooter on Friday

Omar (pictured) said his father was one of the first Muslims in New Zealand, opening the Tuam Street mosque in Christchurch, after discovering the country was a ‘slice of paradise’

A man wearing military fatigues (pictured) was arrested outside Papanui High School. Police confirmed on Saturday that they had released the man who had taken a gun as protection when he went to pick up his kids from school

The first victims of the terror attack have been confirmed as Haji Daud Nabi, 71, Naeem Rashid and his son Talha, 21.

Mr Rashid could be seen in the chilling live-stream of the attack at Al Noor Mosque attempting to prise the gun from the grip of Tarrant.

Two of Mr Nabi’s sons Omar, 43, and Yama, 45, appeared outside Christchurch District Court on Saturday morning where they shared photos and stories of their father.

Omar said his dad was one of the first Muslims in New Zealand, moving to Christchurch in 1977 and opening the Tuam Street mosque after discovering the country was a ‘slice of paradise’.

There are fears that several children who had accompanied their father’s to Friday prayers were killed when the gunman opened fire.

Among them is three-year-old Mucad Ibrahim who was last seen at the Deans Avenue mosque with his father and brother Abdi.

The accused gunman Brenton Harrison Tarrant grew up in the rural New South Wales town of Grafton, but left the area in his early 20s following the death of his father Rodney to cancer.

He spent up to seven years travelling the world from 2011 onwards, and one woman who knew him before he left Grafton speculated to Daily Mail Australia that ‘something happened to him’ during this time. She also recognised him as being the man in the massacre video.

Tarrant claimed in a so-called ‘manifesto’ to have made money trading Bitcoin, enabling him to travel the world. He also spoke of visiting a wide range of countries including Pakistan, and a photograph showed him on a tourist trip to North Korea.

A picture posted on social media by a Pakistani hotel manager in 2018 appears to show him in the country during his time abroad.

But at some point he seems to have become obsessed with terrorist attacks that happened in Europe between 2016 and 2017. His ranting manifesto is filled with Neo-Nazi ideology and hatred for Muslim people.

Brenton Tarrant is pictured as a child being held by his keen athlete father who died of cancer in 2010 at the age of 49. He grew up in Grafton in the Northern River region of Australia’s New South Wales and worked as a personal trainer before leaving to travel the world

Tarrant grew up in a picture-perfect house (shown above) in Grafton in the Northern River region of Australia’s New South Wales

Witnesses reported hearing dozens of shots at Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch on the country’s South Island. Pictured is a still from a live-stream of the shooting

The shooter’s rampage began when he got into his car wearing military-style body armour and a helmet saying ‘let’s get this party started’

Timeline of terror: How the Christchurch shootings unfolded

Friday March 15, 1.30pm local time (12.30am GMT): Gunman identifying himself as Brenton Tarrant live-streams mass shooting inside the Al Noor Mosque as Friday prayers are underway. The Bangladesh cricket team were on their way to the mosque at the time.

1.40pm: Police respond to reports of shots fired in central Christchurch. People are urged to stay indoors and report any suspicious behaviour. Shortly afterwards, all schools in the city are placed into lockdown.

1.47pm: Gunman believed to have travelled to Linwood Masjid Mosque, where he shot dead seven people.

2.10pm: Police confirm they are attending an ‘evolving situation’ involving an ‘active shooter’

2.16pm: Hero cops detain gunman in dramatic roadside arrest, captured on camera by passing motorist.

3.30pm: Two explosive devices attached to a car are found and disarmed by a bomb squad at Strickland Street, not far from the Al Noor Mosque.

4pm: One person confirmed to be in custody. New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush says there have been ‘multiple fatalities’ at two locations – both mosques. Mosques across New Zealand urged to shut their doors.

4.10pm: Prime minister Jacinda Ardern calls it ‘one of New Zealand’s darkest days’.

5.30pm: Mr Bush says three men and one woman are in custody. Australian prime minister Scott Morrison confirms one of those arrested is Australian.

7.30pm: Ms Ardern says 40 are dead and more than 20 are seriously injured but confirms the offender is in custody

National security threat level is lifted from low to high.

7.45pm: Britomart train station in central Auckland is evacuated after bags are found unattended. The bags were deemed not suspicious.

9pm: Death toll rises to 49 and Police Commissioner Bush reveals a man in his late 20s has been charged with murder.

Police are not looking for any named or identified suspects, he says, but adds that it would be ‘wrong to assume that there is no-one else’.

11.50pm: Investigation extends 240 miles to the south where homes are evacuated around a ‘location of interest’ in Dunedin.

Prosecutors in Bulgaria have launched a probe into Tarrant’s recent visit to the country.

He visited Bulgaria from November 9-15 last year claiming he wanted ‘to visit historical sites and study the history of the Balkan country’, according to Bulgaria’s public prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov.

Tsatsarov said he hoped the inquiry would establish if this was ‘correct or if he had other objectives’.

One woman who knew Tarrant before he left Grafton said he worked as a personal trainer who was obsessed with fitness but seemed like a well-adjusted young man.

In a twisted manifesto that he posted online before the massacre, Tarrant described himself as an ‘ordinary, white man’, who was born into a working class, low income family of Scottish, Irish and English decent.

The gunman wrote that he had ‘little interest in education’ growing up, and did not attend university as he had no great interest in anything offered at the schools.

He claimed he made some money investing in Bitconnect – a type of digital currency – before he then used the money to travel overseas.

Tarrant, who would later go on to become a personal trainer, inherited a love of physical fitness from his father, who reportedly died of an asbestos-related illness.

A woman who claims to have previously known Tarrant through the gym, alleged it was him in the live stream.

She told Daily Mail Australia that he followed a strict dietary and exercise regime and worked at the gym after he finished school.

The woman, who did not wish to be named, said Tarrant always ‘threw himself into his own personal training’ before he later became a qualified a trainer and started training others.

After retrieving one of at least six assault rifles stored in his car, he walked up to the front door and began firing at the first person he saw

In addition to the dead, health officials said 48 people were being treated at Christchurch Hospital for gunshot wounds. Injuries ranged from minor to critical

A man breaks down in tears as he speaks on a mobile phone near a mosque in central Christchurch, New Zealand

He was very dedicated to his own training and to training others, she said.

‘He was in the gym for long periods of time, lifting heaving weights. He pretty much transformed his body,’ she said.

The woman also said she had not spoken to him or heard him talk about his political or religious beliefs.

‘From the conversations we had about life he didn’t strike me as someone who had any interest in that or extremist views,’ she said.

‘But I know he’s been travelling since he left Grafton. He has been travelling overseas, anywhere and everywhere.

‘I would say it’s something in the nature of his travels, something he’s been around.

‘I know he’s been to lots of different countries trying to experience lots of different things in life and I would say something’s happened in that time in his travels,’ she said.

In a previous Facebook message about a trip to Pakistan on Facebook, he wrote: ‘an incredible place filled with the most earnest, kindhearted and hospitable people in the world,’ The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

‘The beauty of hunza and nagar valley in autumn cannot be beat,’ he stated.

Tarrant allegedly entered the Al Noor Mosque on Friday during afternoon prayers and opened fire, capturing the attack on a camera strapped to his helmet.

The distressing video streamed to his Facebook profile shows a man firing more than 100 shots at those inside.

The guns were scrawled with the names of past mass killers and cities where the shootings occurred.

Local residents leave floral tributes at Deans Avenue near the Al Noor Mosque on March 16, 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand. At least 49 people are confirmed dead

Floral tributes are left before dawn at Deans Avenue near the Al Noor Mosque on March 16, 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand

People taking part in a vigil at the New Zealand War Memorial on Hyde Park Corner following the mosque attacks in Christchurch

Pictured: Bloodied bandages on the road after the shooting at the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch

At least one gunman opened fire at a mosque in New Zealand , shooting at worshippers and killing dozens of people. Pictured: A wounded man is helped from the scene

Police said the investigation had extended 240 miles to the south, where homes in Dunedin were evacuated around a ‘location of interest.’ They gave no details. Police are pictured in the city on Friday night

The alleged gunman’s rampage began when he got into his car wearing military-style body armour and a helmet saying ‘let’s get this party started’.

He then drove to the mosque listening to a Serbian folk song glorifying war criminal Radovan Karadzic and military tunes before parking in an alley around the corner.

After retrieving one of at least six guns stored in his car, he walked up to the front door and began firing indiscriminately at worshippers inside.

The gunman stormed inside and fired quick bursts at anyone he saw. One wounded man tried to crawl away but was shot again after he calmly reloaded.

He fired into crowds of huddled worshippers, sometimes not even looking where he was shooting and reloading numerous times.

When the sound of his gun stopped between magazines, the moaning of wounded people could be heard until the shots began again.

Several times he stood over wounded men, reloaded his gun, and shot them multiple times to make sure they were dead.

Tarrant then walked outside and appeared to fire on at least two targets, returned to his car and swapped his shotgun for a rifle.

The gunmen live-streamed the mass shooting inside the Al Noor Mosque, which happened at 1.30pm as Friday prayers were underway. Police are pictured outside the mosque on Friday

Survivors gather near the Al Noor Mosque on Deans Road hours after the place of worship was attacked

How killer’s rifles bore white-supremacist references

The self-proclaimed racist who attacked a New Zealand mosque during Friday prayers in an assault that killed 49 people used rifles covered in white-supremacist graffiti and listened to a song glorifying a Bosnian Serb war criminal.

These details highlight the toxic beliefs behind an unprecedented, live-streamed massacre, which Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called ‘one of New Zealand’s darkest days.’

Some of the material posted by the killer resembles the meme-heavy hate speech prominent in dark corners of the internet. Beneath the online tropes lies a man who matter-of-factly wrote that he was preparing to conduct a horrific attack.

MUSIC

The shooter’s soundtrack as he drove to the mosque included an upbeat-sounding tune that belies its roots in a destructive European nationalist and religious conflict.

The nationalist Serb song from the 1992-95 war that tore apart Yugoslavia glorifies Serbian fighters and Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic, who is jailed at the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague for genocide and other war crimes against Bosnian Muslims.

A YouTube video for the song shows emaciated Muslim prisoners in Serb-run camps during the war. ‘Beware Ustashas and Turks,’ says the song, using wartime, derogatory terms for Bosnian Croats and Muslims.

When the gunman returned to his car after the shooting, the song ‘Fire’ by English rock band ‘The Crazy World of Arthur Brown’ can be heard blasting from the speakers. The singer bellows, ‘I am the god of hellfire!’ as the man, a 28-year-old Australian, drives away.

SYMBOLS

At least two rifles used in the shooting bore references to Ebba Akerlund, an 11-year-old girl killed in an April 2017 truck-ramming attack in Stockholm by Rakhmat Akilov, a 39-year-old Uzbek man.

The self-proclaimed racist believed to have killed 49 people at a New Zealand mosque during Friday prayers apparently opened fire with rifles covered in white-supremacist graffiti and listened to a song glorifying a Bosnian Serb war criminal

Akerlund’s death is memorialized in the gunman’s apparent manifesto, published online, as an event that led to his decision to wage war against what he perceives as the enemies of Western civilization.

The number 14 is also seen on the gunman’s rifles. It may refer to ’14 Words,’ which according to the Southern Poverty Law Center is a white supremacist slogan linked to Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf.’

He also used the symbol of the Schwarze Sonne, or black sun, which ‘has become synonymous with myriad far-right groups,’ according to the center, which monitors hate groups.

In photographs from a now deleted Twitter account associated with the suspect that match the weaponry seen in his live-streamed video, there is a reference to ‘Vienna 1683,’ the year the Ottoman Empire suffered a defeat in its siege of the city at the Battle of Kahlenberg. ‘Acre 1189,’ a reference to the Crusades, is also written on the guns.

Four names of legendary Serbs who fought against the 500-year-rule of the Ottomans in the Balkans, written in the Cyrillic alphabet, are also seen on the gunman’s rifles.

The name Charles Martel, who the Southern Poverty Law Center says white supremacists credit ‘with saving Europe by defeating an invading Muslim force at the Battle of Tours in 734,’ was also on the weapons. They also bore the inscription ‘Malta 1565,’ a reference to the Great Siege of Malta, when the Maltese and the Knights of Malta defeated the Turks.

By Associated Press

Returning to the mosque he walked over to a pile of dead or wounded men in the room and began shooting them in the head to ensure they were dead.

He then ran outside and shot another person he saw on the mosque’s front lawn.

The woman stumbled on to the street and was lying face down in the gutter yelling ‘help me, help me’ as the shooter walked up to her. Tarrant calmly leaned over her and shot her twice in the head.

Seconds later he returned to his car and drove over her body to make his escape, stopping to shoot at least one other person through his car window.

As he drove he expressed regret for not staying longer and ‘burning the mosque to the ground’. Two jerry cans of petrol were earlier seen the the back his car.

‘But, s**t happens,’ he said. ‘I left one full magazine back there, I know for sure. I had to run along in the middle of the firefight and pick it up.

‘There wasn’t even time to aim there were so many targets. There were so many people, the car park was full, so there’s no real chance of improvement.’

Footage from within the Masjid mosque later showed survivors tending to the wounded.

In a manifesto seemingly written by Tarrant and shared to Twitter, he mentions being inspired by other shooters including Anders Breivik who killed 77 people in Oslo, Norway in 2011.

Police escort distraught witnesses away from a mosque in central Christchurch following the massacre. A 28-year-old man has been charged with murder

Armed police could be seen pushing back members of the public trying to reach the Masjid Al Noor mosque to check on fellow worshippers

Armed police maintain a presence outside the Masijd Ayesha Mosque in Manurewa in Auckland after the attack in Christchurch

He said he ‘disliked’ Muslims and hated those who had converted to the religion, calling them ‘blood traitors’.

Tarrant said he originally wanted to target a mosque in Dunedin, south of Christchurch, after watching a video on Facebook.

‘But after visiting the mosques in Christchurch and Linwood and seeing the desecration of the church that had been converted to a mosque in Ashburton, my plans changed,’ he wrote.

‘The Christchurch and Linwood mosques had far more invaders.’

He said he had been planning an attack for up to two years and decided on Christchurch three months ago.

The shooter said he was motivated to carry out the attack by the death of Swedish schoolgirl Ebba Akerlund, a girl who was killed in a terrorist attack in Stockholm in April 2017.

Tarrant said he was a supporter of Donald Trump as a ‘symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose’.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (pictured on Friday) said the shootings were an ‘unprecedented act of violence’

Worshippers in Bangledesh march through the streets of Dhaka to condemn the Christchurch mosque attacks

A world united in grief: Leaders around the globe express their horror at New Zealand mosque shootings

Leaders from around the would have condemned the deadly attack at two New Zealand mosques that left 49 people dead.

United States President Donald Trump took to Twitter to express his condolences and pledge that the US would do ‘anything we can’ to help New Zealand.

President Trump tweeted his ‘warmest sympathy and best wishes’ to the people of New Zealand after ‘the horrible massacre in the Mosques’. He added that ‘innocent people have so senselessly died. ‘The U.S. stands by New Zealand for anything we can do. God bless all!’

In the UK, the Queen said she was ‘deeply saddened’ by the attack while Prince Charles said he and his wife were ‘utterly horrified’ to hear about the ‘barbaric’ attacks.

In a message to the Governor-General of New Zealand, the Queen said: ‘I have been deeply saddened by the appalling events in Christchurch today. Prince Philip and I send our condolences to the families and friends of those who have lost their lives.

‘I also pay tribute to the emergency services and volunteers who are providing support to those who have been injured.

‘At this tragic time, my thoughts and prayers are with all New Zealanders.’

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex also shared their horror at the news.

Pope Francis denounced the ‘senseless acts of violence’ in the shootings and said that he is praying for the Muslim community and all New Zealanders.

Erna Solberg, the prime minister of Norway which saw 77 people killed in a far-right attack eight years ago, has expressed solidarity with New Zealand.

He described himself as ‘just a regular white man’.

He said he was born to ‘working class, low-income family… who decided to take a stand to ensure a future for my people’.

‘My parents are of Scottish, Irish and English stock. I had a regular childhood, without any great issues,’ he wrote.

The gunman said he carried out the massacre to ‘directly reduce immigration rates to European lands’.

He said New Zealand was not his ‘original choice’ for the attack but said the location would show ‘that nowhere in the world was safe’.

‘We must ensure the existence of our people, and a future for white children,’ he wrote.

He wrote that the shooting was an ‘act of revenge on the invaders for the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by foreign invaders in European lands throughout history’.

‘For the enslavement of millions of Europeans taken from their lands by the Islamic slavers… for the thousands of European lives lost to terror attacks throughout European lands,’ the gunman wrote.

He shared photos to his now-removed Twitter account ahead of the attacks, showing weapons and military-style equipment.

In posts online before the attack Tarrant wrote about ‘taking the fight to the invaders myself’.

Ms Ardern condemned the attacker, saying: ‘You may have chosen us, but we utterly condemn and reject you.’

‘My thoughts, and I’m sure the thoughts of all New Zealanders, are with those who have been affected, and also with their families.’

Early reports indicated a shooting at Christchurch Hospital. However, Ms Ardern said the mosques were the lone targets on ‘one of New Zealand’s darkest days’.

Dozens of families spent the night crowding the front doors of Christchurch Hospital, unsure whether their loved ones had survived. One woman took to social media to ask whether anyone had seen her husband.

‘Assalamualaikum [peace be with you] currently we still don’t have any news on my husband. Please keep him on your prayer.’

The nation’s terror threat level was elevated to ‘high alert’ following the terror attacks, the second highest possible.

However, police have confirmed there are no further suspects.

New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush confirmed the death toll had risen to 49 as of 9pm local time.

‘This is absolutely tragic. So many people are affected. We don’t know the identities of those who have died yet because those places are in lockdown,’ he said in a statement at about 6pm.

Speaking of the victims, Commissioner Bush said: ‘Our love and thoughts go out to them and all of their family, all of their friends and all of their loved ones.’

He also praised local police officers who responded to the attacks.

The gunman behind at least one of the mosque shootings in New Zealand that left 49 people dead on Friday tried to make a few things clear in the manifesto he left behind: He is a 28-year-old Australian white nationalist who hates immigrants. He was set off by attacks in Europe that were perpetrated by Muslims. He wanted revenge, and he wanted to create fear. Members of a family react outside the mosque following the shooting in Christchurch

Pictured: Grieving members of the public after the shootings at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand

‘We have staff around the country making sure everyone is safe, including armed offenders at all mosques. Police staff have gone above and beyond to protect people today.’

Armed police were seen patrolling the Masijd Ayesha Mosque in Auckland after the attack in Christchurch.

Bush earlier urged Muslims in New Zealand not to go to mosques on Friday.

Commissioner Bush said four people were taken in to custody with one later released. He also confirmed there were bombs attached to a car near the scene of the shootings, which were disarmed before they could detonate.

Ms Ardern condemned the attacks, saying they were ‘an unprecedented act of violence, an act that has no place in New Zealand.

‘This is not who we are. The people who were the subject of this attack today, New Zealand is their home. They should be safe here. The person who has perpetuated this violent act against them, they have no place in New Zealand society.’

She confirmed that police believe the attacks were ‘meticulously’ planned out.

Ms Ardern flew to Wellington from Christchurch to hold a crisis meeting at parliament.

A floral tribute to the victims of the Christchurch massacres is seen on the same avenue as the second mosque

The 73-page document, which he called ‘The Great Replacement’, was published on the morning before Brenton Tarrant opened fire inside the Al Noor Mostque in Christchurch

Police rushed to an Auckland train station after reports of abandoned backpacks. The bomb disposal robot (pictured) detonated a bomb in a ‘controlled explosion’ while commuters were cordoned off

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he was ‘horrified’ by the ‘callous, right wing extremist attack’.

‘The situation is still unfolding but our thoughts and prayers are with our Kiwi cousins,’ he said.

He and Ms Ardern discussed the repercussions of the attack later on Friday evening. Australia’s terror threat level did not change as a result of the attacks.

Witnesses described horrific scenes as the gunman went on the rampage just after 1.30pm on Friday.

A man inside the mosque at the time of the shooting said there ‘bodies all over me’. A man who escaped during the shooting said he saw his wife lying dead on the footpath.

‘My wife is dead,’ he said while wailing.

Witness Ahmad Al-Mahmoud described a white man wearing a helmet and bulletproof vest.

‘The guy was wearing like an army [suit]. He had a big gun and lots of bullets. He came through and started shooting everyone in the mosque, everywhere,’ Ahmad Al-Mahmoud told Stuff.

‘They had to smash the door – the glass from the window and the door – to get everyone out.

‘We were trying to get everyone to run away from this area. I ran away from the car park, jumping through the back [yard] of houses.’

Police escort people away from outside one of the mosques targeted in the shooting. The massacre in Christchurch left 49 dead

A police officer photographs witnesses near the scene of one of the shootings on Friday. The massacre happened during Fridayt

The country’s police commissioner, Mike Bush, said 49 people were confirmed dead and that a man in his late 20s has been charged with murder. Pictured: A tearful woman waits outside the mosque on Friday

A man who escaped the mosque during the shooting said he saw his wife lying dead on the footpath. Heavily armed police are pictured escorting people from the area

Witness Ahmad Al-Mahmoud described one of the shooters as being white, with blond hair and wearing a helmet and bulletproof vest

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern earlier said at least 20 other people had been seriously injured, and described it as ‘one of New Zealand’s darkest days’, adding: ‘What has happened here is an extraordinary and unprecedented act of violence’

Another witness said he ran behind the mosque to call the police after hearing the gun go off.

‘I heard the sound of the gun. And the second one I heard, I ran. Lots of people were sitting on the floor. I ran behind the mosque, rang the police.

‘I saw one gun on the floor. Lots of people died and injured.’

Meanwhile, dramatic footage has emerged of a person suspected of being involved in the attack being arrested on Friday afternoon.

The video filmed by a passing motorist shows the suspect’s grey station wagon wedged between the gutter and another police car, with its front wheels in the air spinning.

The suspect appeared to still be inside as officers approached the vehicle with their weapons drawn.

One officer reached inside the vehicle and dragged a person out, as a second stood guard with their weapon drawn.

The suspect was seen wearing dark clothing, and in the footage an officer appeared to have hit the person.

The Bangladesh cricket team (pictured) were on their way to Al Noor Mosque when shooting broke out inside

Witnesses reported hearing as many as 50 gunshots at the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch on the country’s South Island

Police Commissioner Mike Bush said there were ‘some absolute acts of bravery’ during the arrests of four people.

Bangladesh players and support staff have been preparing for the third test of a series against New Zealand, set to begin on Saturday, and were walking through Hagley Park when shooting broke out at the Al Noor mosque.

Tweets from sports reporters and team members say the group ‘just escaped’ the shooting, which saw a man enter the mosque and fire multiple shots at dozens of people as they tried to flee.

The team’s opening batsman, Tamim Iqbal said on Twitter the ‘entire team got saved from active shooters’.

He said it was a ‘frightening experience’ and asked supporters to keep the team in their prayers.

Test captain Mushfiqur Rahim said Allah had saved the team.

‘We r [sic] extremely lucky,’ he wrote. ‘Never want to see this things [sic] happen again… pray for us.’

Shrinivas Chandrasekaran, the team’s performance and strategic analyst said they had ‘just escaped active shooters’. He said their hearts were pounding and there was ‘panic everywhere’.

ESPN cricinfo correspondent Mohammad Isam told the New Zealand Herald the team were ‘not in a mental state to play cricket at all,’ following the horrific attack.

‘I think they want to go back home as soon as possible. I’m speaking from experience, I’m speaking from what I’ve heard,’ he said.

‘Everyone is at the Hagley Park dressing room … two players are back at the hotel. They didn’t come out for the prayers so they are back at the hotel and the entire coaching staff are safe.’

The scheduled test between New Zealand and Bangladesh has been cancelled.

A man was seen with bloodstains on his trousers near the mosque after the shooting, as 48 people are left with gun wounds

A police officer gestures to a person outside the mosque after the shooting in Christchurch

Members of the public react in front of the Al Noor Mosque as they fear for their relatives

Parents refuse to leave without their children as their school, Te Waka Unua School, was in lockdown for hours on Friday

Later in the day, two abandoned backpacks sparked another bomb scare at Auckland’s largest train station. A bomb disposal robot was used to investigate the backpacks while pedestrians were cordoned off.

While there was no reason to believe there were any more suspects, the prime minister said the national threat level was raised from low to high.

Air New Zealand cancelled several flights in and out of Christchurch, saying it couldn’t properly screen customers and baggage.

Police said the investigation had extended 240 miles to the south, where homes in Dunedin were evacuated around a ‘location of interest.’ They gave no details.

Among the victims was a Jordanian man, the country’s foreign ministry said, the first and only victim identified so far.

People from around the world were in the mosque at the time of the assault.

Among them were were six Indonesians – three of whom were reported safe, the country’s foreign minister Retno Marsudi said, adding they were searching for the others.

A Saudi Arabian man, two Malaysians, two Turks and at least five Jordanians were among those wounded.

India’s high commissioner to New Zealand said nine people of Indian nationality or origin were missing.

Young children were among 48 people being treated at Christchurch Hospital.

A shirtless man speaks on the phone as an armed police officer patrols the area outside a mosque in Christchurch

Police urged people near the area to stay indoors and report suspicious behaviour, describing the incident as ‘critical’

Shocked family members are seen standing out the front of the mosque, unsure whether their loved ones have survived

The gunman entered and opened fire while hundreds of people were inside the packed mosque for Friday prayers

A man who escaped the mosque during the shooting said he saw his wife lying dead on the footpath

Armed police officers were seen outside Christchurch Hospital after the shooting, remaining there through the night

The shooting happened near Cathedral Square where thousands of children were protesting for climate change action. The protesting children were told to go home to ensure their safety.

Christchurch Boys’ and Girls’ high schools were both placed into lockdown. The restrictions were lifted hours later.

Parents of students at Christchurch Girls’ High School were sent a text message telling them the lockdown was ‘not an exercise’.

The Canterbury District Health Board activated its mass casualty plan and the city council placed its central city buildings into lockdown.

Rugby star Sonny Bill Williams shared an emotional tribute to those killed in Friday’s mosque shooting.

In a video posted to Twitter, a tearful Williams, who is a proud Muslim, said he ‘couldn’t put into words how I feel right now’.

The 33-year-old told followers he was sending prayers to the loved ones of those killed, and praying himself the victims would end up in paradise.

‘Just sending my duas (prayers) and Mashallah (god willing) – everyone that’s been killed today in Christchurch… your families … [I’m] just sending my duas to your loved ones and Mashallah you guys are all in paradise,’ he said.

‘I’m just deeply, deeply saddened that this would happen in New Zealand.’

Worst peacetime gun massacres

New Zealand’s worst ever gun massacre ranks among some of the world’s most horrible mass murders.

The death toll has surpassed Australia’s April 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania, which saw 35 people gunned down at an historic tourist attraction. New Prime Minister John Howard spearheaded national gun laws in the wake of this tragedy.

It occurred just seven weeks after Scotland’s Dunblane massacre, which saw 16 children and one teacher shot dead near the town of Stirling.

Port Arthur was the world’s worst peaceful massacre until June 2016, when a 29-year-old security guard killed 49 people at the American Pulse gay nightclub at Orlando, Florida. Friday’s Auckland attack has now matched that total.

Just over a year later, in October 2017, a gunman opened fire killing 58 people at the Route 91 music festival in Las Vegas.

The United States has been home to a spate of gun massacres, defined as the death of four or more people.

In April 2007, 32 people were killed at Virginia Tech when a student opened fire at Blacksburg.

In December 2012, a gunman shot and killed 20 children aged between six and seven years old at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

In November 2017, a gunman opened fire at the First Baptist Church at Sutherland Springs in Texas, killing 27 people, including the 14-year-old daughter of the church pastor.

Until now, New Zealand had not had a mass shooting since June 1994, when David Bain, 22, killed his father Robin, mother Margaret, his sisters Arawa and Laniet , and his brother Stephen.

New Zealand tightened gun laws after the Aramoana massacre of November 1990, which saw 13 people shot dead in a small township near Dunedin , following a neighbourhood dispute.

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investmart007 · 6 years

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SANTA FE, Texas | Texas lieutenant governor calls for 'hardening' of schools

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/5kPAkh

SANTA FE, Texas | Texas lieutenant governor calls for 'hardening' of schools

SANTA FE, Texas (AP) — Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called Sunday for a “hardening” of the nation’s school buildings in the wake of the attack by a 17-year-old student who killed 10 people at a high school near Houston.

Patrick, a Republican, blamed a “culture of violence” and said more needs to be done to keep shooters away from students, such as restricting school entrances and arming teachers.

“When you’re facing someone who’s an active shooter, the best way to take that shooter down is with a gun. But even better than that is four to five guns to one,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

On ABC’s “The Week,” Patrick said he supports background checks for gun purchasers but stressed that “gun regulation starts at home.”

Elsewhere, the first funeral for a shooting victim was set for later Sunday. Services for 17-year-old Pakistani exchange student Sabika Sheikh were to take place at a mosque in suburban Houston.

Her father, Abdul Aziz Sheikh, described his daughter as a hard-working and accomplished student who aspired to work in civil service and hoped one day to join Pakistan’s foreign office. Her body is to be returned to her family in Karachi.

The suspect in Friday’s attack began by firing a shotgun through an art classroom door, shattering a glass pane and sending panicked students to the entryway to block him from getting inside, witnesses said.

Dmitrios Pagourtzis fired again through the wooden part of the door and fatally hit a student in the chest. He then lingered for about 30 minutes in a warren of four rooms, killing seven more students and two teachers before exchanging gunfire with police and surrendering, officials said.

Freshman Abel San Miguel saw his friend Chris Stone killed at the door. San Miguel was grazed on his left shoulder by another volley of shots. He and others survived by playing dead.

“We were on the ground, all piled up in random positions,” he said. Galveston County Judge Mark Henry, the county’s chief administrator, said he did not think Friday’s attack was 30 minutes of constant shooting, and that assessment was consistent with other officials who said law enforcement contained the shooter quickly.

But authorities did not release a detailed timeline to explain precisely how events unfolded.

Junior Breanna Quintanilla was in art class when she heard the shots and someone say, “If you all move, I’m going to shoot you all.” Pagourtzis walked in, pointed at one person and declared, “I’m going to kill you.” Then he fired.

“He then said that if the rest of us moved, he was going to shoot us,” Quintanilla said.

When Quintanilla tried to run out a back door, she realized Pagourtzis was aiming at her. He fired in her direction.

“He missed me,” she said. “But it went ahead and ricocheted and hit me in my right leg.” She was treated at a hospital and spoke with a brown bandage wrapped around her wound.

“It was a very scary thing,” Quintanilla said. “I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to make it back to my family.”

In their first statement since the massacre, Pagourtzis’ family said Saturday that the bloodshed “seems incompatible with the boy we love.”

“We are as shocked and confused as anyone else by these events,” said the statement, which offered prayers and condolences to the victims.

Relatives said they remained “mostly in the dark about the specifics” of the attack and shared “the public’s hunger for answers.”

Pagourtzis’ attorney, Nicholas Poehl, said he was investigating whether the suspect endured any “teacher-on-student” bullying after reading reports of his client being mistreated by football coaches.

In an online statement, the school district said it investigated the accusations and “confirmed that these reports were untrue.”

Poehl said that there was no history of mental health issues with his client, though there may be “some indications of family history.” He said it was too early to elaborate.

The mother of one slain student said her daughter may have been targeted because she rejected advances from Pagourtzi, who was an ex-boyfriend of her daughter’s best friend.

Sadie Rodriguez said her 16-year-old daughter, Shana Fisher, repeatedly told him no, and he “continued to get more aggressive.” The week before the shooting, Fisher “stood up to him” by embarrassing him in class, Rodriguez said.

In addition to a shotgun and a handgun, Pagourtzis also had several kinds of homemade explosive devices, but they were not capable of detonating, Henry said.

Investigators found a cluster of carbon dioxide canisters taped together, and a pressure cooker with an alarm clock and nails inside. But the canisters had no detonation device, and the pressure cooker had no explosive material, Henry said.

“They were intended to look like IEDs, but they were totally non-functional,” Henry said, referring to the improvised explosive devices common in the early years of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Authorities have offered no motive, but they said in a probable-cause affidavit that the suspect had admitted to carrying out the shooting.

The gunman told police that when he opened fire, he avoided shooting students he liked “so he could have his story told,” the affidavit said.

From first word of the shooting, at 7:32 a.m. Friday, until confirmation that the suspect was in custody, the attack lasted about half an hour.

Dispatch records indicate that law enforcement first entered the building about seven minutes after learning of the assault. The suspect was said to be in custody by shortly after 8 a.m.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the assailant got the guns from his father, who owned them legally. But it was not clear whether the father knew his son had taken them or if the father could face prosecution.

By PAUL J. WEBER and JUAN A. LOZANO ,By Associated Press – published on STL.News by St. Louis Media, LLC(R.A) ___

#blamed #Republican #Santa Fe #State of the Union. Abdul Aziz Sheikh #Texas #Texas Gov. Greg Abbott #Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick #TodayNews

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terriclare576-blog · 7 years

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The Rising Menace Of Cultism

Despite the campaigns against cultism, cult related killings and other crimes have continued on the rise in many Nigerian institutions.

Youths are daily lured and initiated into various cult group a development that often lead to the truncation of their educational pursuit or even death.

For instance, the article below, first published by Edotrailers in February 2008, shows that despite the campaigns against cultism, killings by members of cult groups are rising daily in Edo State.

Igbinosa Jude, was a member of NBM (Black Axe), until he was arrested by the police in Benin City, Edo State recently. That was after a bloody confrontation with another cultist.

When Edotrailers trailed him to the State Criminal Investigation Department, SCID in Benin City, the state capital, he expressed his regret for having anything to do with the secret cult, which had brought him much pain and sorrow than he ever imagined.

"I joined the NBM (Black Axe) in 2007 and three weeks after, I had a police case which brought me to State CID," Jude told Edotrailers.

But that experience did not teach Jude the desired lesson. He remained a cult member afterwards. Last month he was arrested again after he allegedly shot Mrs. Veronica Omosefe, mother of Kelly Omosefe, a fellow cultist of the NBM (Black Axe) who had earlier renounced his membership of the cult during a forum organised by the management of University of Benin, Edo State. He was alleged to have shot her on the leg because Kelly Omosefe refused to come back to the cult group and was nowhere to be found when they stormed his house. Consequently, vigilante group operating around Murtala Mohammed Way, where the incident occurred rounded Jude up and handed him over to the police.

Edotrailer learnt that Kelly Omosefe who joined NBM (Black Axe) in 2004 in the University of Benin, Edo State, Nigeria was even lucky to be alive as he was not at home when they stormed his house because once initiated in cult, there is no going back. To default means death. For Jude, whoever nurses the plan to join the cult should kill it because cultism is a bad thing which one can only regret.

Kelly Omosefe whose mother was shot in the leg is still at large as his fellow cult members of the NBM (Black Axe) vows to hunt for him until he is killed for renouncing membership of NBM (Black Axe).

It remains to be seen if these regrets being expressed by them are genuine. Because cultism, despite the campaign against it and the clampdown on it, is still thriving. In the last three months, Edo State, particularly Benin City, has witnessed an orgy of cult violence leaving its in trail sorrow, tears and blood. More than 25 people were said to have been killed within this period. Independent radio, a private radio station in Benin was said to have reported that about 12 people were killed around the University of Benin environs. The gory manner some of the killings were carried out give it a reputation of merciless villainy.

A man who could not be identified, was killed at Obaruyi Street, around Okhoro by cultists suspected to be members of the NBM (Black Axe Confraternity). They pumped bullets into his chest and inflicted machete cuts all over his body in broad daylight.

Another person had all his limbs cut off on top of his bed in his room. He was said to have reported a cultist who had threatened him to the police. When the police arrested the cultist, his friends went and cut off his limbs for allowing the police to arrest their friend. He later died.

At the Textile Mill road, one youth was shot dead. The assailant came on an okada (Motorcycle), which sped off after several shots were fired at the victim. The killings forced many cultists to go into hiding as no one was sure who was going to be the next victim.

No one has yet identified what caused the spate of cult killings. However, there are insinuations that it was a fallout from the last general elections. Politicians allegedly used the services of the cult groups particularly Black Axe and Eiye Fraternity for the election. The disaffection that emanated in the course of the elections allegedly resulted in the serial killings that have kept Edo people on the edge.

The police were overwhelmed by the commando-like operation of the cultists but were able to arrest a number of suspected cultists. They have charged some of them to court already

Edotrailer met a few of them at the SCID yet to be charged to court. Among them are Nosa Obanor, a high school graduate, Zubairu Abdullahi, final year Business Administation student of University of Benin, Lucky Isuman, a high school graduate and Osaze Okungbowa who operates a video coverage outfit. They all confessed to being members of the cult although a few claimed to had withdrawn their membership.

Membership of the known secret cults on campus is no longer the exclusive preserve of students in higher institutions. For long, it has been entrenched in both primary and secondary schools. It has become pervasive and intractable.

Security agents have established that at least 35 cult groups exist in institutions of higher learning across the country. Some of the identified ones are Pyrates, Black Axe, Buccaneers, Eiye, Vikings, Black Berrets, Red Devils, KKK, Maifites and Black Heart. An educationist who does not want to be identified pointed out that the spate of cult activities is anathema to academic pursuits. With an atmosphere of fear and insecurity, the ivory tower can no longer live up to its name as the citadel of learning and knowledge.

Shortly after former President Olusegun Obasanjo assumed office in 1999, he gave authorities of higher institutions across the country a directive against cultism. Following that directive, a large number of cultists renounced their members at colourful ceremonies organised in different institutions.

Last June, University of Benin again organised a renunciation exercise were more than 35 cultists publicly renounced membership of secret cults. Most people expected that the exercise would go a long way to eradicate the menace. "Cultism can be eradicated," said a former registrar at the University of Benin. She told Edotrailer that the latest renunciation exercise was a council decision. She added that the council had given approval for the exercise to hold regularly to expose the evils of cultism. According to her, both the religious and traditional institution attended the occasion. Those who renounced are being rehabilitated.

While the Muslim community rehabilitates those who are Muslims, the Christian community particularly the Anglican Church handles those that are Christians.

Apart from the renunciation exercise, the school devised other means to curb the cult menace. She noted that the management now require both staff and students to fill in an anti-cult form and swear an affidavit "that you are not a member of any secret cult and we place it in everybody’s file." She added that if investigation later reveals the contrary, such a person will face the music.

Edo State House of Assembly, said it is worrisome to see such killings of people by secret cult members. The parliament said it strongly frowns at the trend. "We would probably be considering a law to prohibit such killing. There is no law that legitimises killing. It is murder whether it is done by cult or non-cult members," a member of the Assembly who did not want his name in print for fear of being attacked by cultists, told Edotrailer. He noted that the Federal law in existence was very effective, adding that the House would be more interested in how to enforce that law. "Secret cults have to do with men and women who have accepted defeat and are mentally lazy, people who cannot use legitimate means to earn legitimate results.", said Peter Ogbebor, a security officer in Edo State.

Ogbebor told Edotrailer in Benin City that Edo State Police Command has a cardinal objective to deal with cultism in the state decisively. He added that they would not give cultists a breathing space. According to him, the police have arrested more than 100 cultists in the last three months. They were arrested either in the process of initiation or in the process of committing crime.

Members of a group of cultists used by a particular union during their struggle for power were also arrested. Many had been taken to court.

The politicians used the cultists to fight election, they (cultists) had arms that were procured to fight election and after election, it was diverted into cultism and thuggery. He urged churches, mosques and families to join in the effort to curb the menace.

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newstfionline · 7 years

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Barcelona Attack Suspects Had Ties to Imam Linked to ISIS

By Alissa J. Rubin, Patrick Kingsley and Palko Karasz, NY Times, Aug. 20, 2017

BARCELONA, Spain--Until Thursday, just hours before the Barcelona attack, many of the young men seemed to be living completely normal lives. One had slept late, his mother said. Another had worked as a waiter serving wine in a mountaintop restaurant days before. Several were eating kebabs, looking relaxed.

By Friday morning, seven were dead, an eighth was critically wounded, and one was on the run. Three others were detained by the police. They had grown up together, and among them were four sets of brothers. Most of them were not even 25 years old.

All 12 are now suspected by investigators of having played a part in the attacks that killed 14 and wounded more than 80. Most of the victims died after being run over on Las Ramblas, the main pedestrian boulevard in Barcelona, blighting Spain’s recent image as a place relatively untouched by terrorism and rattling nerves across Europe.

“These guys were normal, they said ‘hello, goodbye,’ they all worked, they had cars, they had parents,” said Habiba al Loquiat, a resident of Ripoll, the small town where many of them lived, and where Ms. Loquiat attended a gathering on Saturday of Moroccans in solidarity with the victims. “They didn’t live in misery. Everything was normal in the last months and one day I see on TV, it’s over.”

“The community doesn’t have problems,” she said. “Why did they do these things?”

There is much that investigators have yet to learn, but based on interviews with the men’s friends, neighbors, religious figures and the police, the answer appears to lie at least in part with a shadowy figure linked to the Islamic State, Abdelbaki Essati, who is believed to have been killed on Wednesday, a day before the attack, when explosives that the group was manufacturing accidentally detonated.

Mr. Essati, who was in his 40s and who is reported to have had links to Islamist extremists going back at least a decade, somehow brought the young men under his influence after establishing himself as an imam in their mountain town of Ripoll, even though few of the young men had a history of regularly attending mosque.

In an eerie resemblance to recent attacks in Paris and Brussels, Mr. Essati appears to have targeted groups of brothers, perhaps because family ties make it harder for individuals to leave the group, even if they want to go to the police.

Of the four sets of brothers involved in the attacks in Catalonia, one family may even have had three brothers active in the cell, investigators believe. In the Paris and Brussels attacks, there were at least two sets of brothers involved.

Unlike in those cases, however, there has been little discussion so far of internet radicalization in this attack. Instead, there appears to have been a concerted effort through personal contact--although internet resources seem to also have been used eventually--to radicalize the young men.

Investigators and terrorism experts believe that the planning for the plot may have begun not long after Mr. Essati’s arrival a year ago at the second of two mosques where he worked in Ripoll. They now say that at least some of the suspected participants traveled abroad before the attack either to Morocco or elsewhere in Europe, as did Mr. Essati.

The young men all knew one another--to varying degrees--and most had attended the same middle school and high school.

As was the case in previous attacks linked to the Islamic State, the conspirators in this plot covered their tracks by meeting in different places and using a low-profile location as a bomb-making center.

Setting up as squatters in a vacant house in Alcanar, a working-class holiday town about 186 miles away, they created a makeshift explosives factory. In plain sight of neighbors who suspected no wrongdoing, they gradually collected more than 100 cylinders of butane gas, the police said, in an effort to intensify the damage that would be done by the car bomb they were making.

It was to be detonated using triacetone triperoxide--a volatile and unstable substance, known as TATP, that was also used in the Paris and Brussels attacks. The accidental explosion on Wednesday suggests that assembling the bomb was beyond their skills.

After the group’s safe house blew up--killing its leader and two others--those who were still alive appear to have had no clear backup plan.

First they carried out the plot to run a vehicle into crowds on Las Ramblas, but after that they seemed adrift. Five of them piled into one car and late on the night of the Barcelona attack tangled with the police in Cambrils, a seaside town, as they tried to run over more people. All were killed by the police in a shootout.

Unlike the attackers in Paris and Brussels or in Nice or London, these young men were from well integrated Spanish-Moroccan families. None had previous links to terrorism or were on watch lists, the police said, and most either had jobs or were still in school. Only a couple of them appeared to have had minor brushes with the law--for marijuana use.

“When there is an attack like this, we then always focus on certain districts or banlieues,” Carles Puigdemont, the leader of Catalonia, told a news conference on Sunday. That was pointless here, he protested.

“We have about 200,000 Moroccans in Catalonia who contribute to the normality of this country, who pray, work and take part in our collective life, and as such it is very unfair to try to present a community that has an important proportion of Muslims as a hot spot of radicalization.”

Few of the young men appear to have been drawn to religion. Several partied and readily smoked joints, according to friends. The one set of brothers whom friends describe as more involved religiously were the Abouyaaqoubs.

A close childhood friend of Houssaine Abouyaaqoub, 19, described him as becoming more religious in the last year, but he also went to the gym regularly, taught rock climbing and, like a couple of the others, spoke fluent Catalan.

“Younes, his brother, was always more religious,” said the friend, who asked not to be identified because he was afraid to have his name published in the current climate. “Houssaine would go often to that mosque, but not every day or every week. But in the last months he went more often than before.”

Another friend described Houssaine as changing abruptly, and suddenly starting to talk only about “religion, religion, religion.”

The change, he said, came after Houssaine went on a trip with the imam to Tarragona, for about two weeks, a month ago.

“It happened very fast,” he said.

Another suspect, Mohammed Aalla, 27, worked as a waiter in a mountaintop restaurant in the hamlet of Ventola, where he served wine and alcohol along with the other waiters, his employer said.

The police believe he was involved along with his brothers, Said, 18, and Youssef, 22.

The youngest participant was Moussa Oukabir, 17, who went to the mosque only a couple of times, said the head of the association that runs the local mosque where Mr. Essati most recently served as imam. A slender boy with shy expressions in photographs, Moussa impressed others with what one neighbor said was “perfect Catalan.”

Friends and neighbors said that Moussa liked to swim, ride his bike and hang out near the river that runs through the town.

His sisters boasted to their employer at Les Graelles, a local restaurant, that he had received high marks in school. “The little brother was a 10 kid, a great kid,” said Rosa, the restaurant’s manager.

Yet about two months before the attack, friends said, Moussa Oukabir bought a plane ticket to Morocco from a local phone and internet store that also sells cheap flights. It is not clear when he went or how long he stayed.

His brother, Driss, 27 or 28, had some scrapes with the law for selling marijuana.

He walked into the police station in Ripoll after his identity documents were used to rent the white Fiat van that ran over people on Las Ramblas and the papers were discovered inside. Driss Oukabir said that the documents had been stolen and that he had come in to report the theft.

He remains in detention. There is no suggestion that he was the driver of the vehicle, but questions remain about whether he knew that his documents would be used in a terrorist attack.

Upstairs from the Oukabir family lived the Hychami family, including Mohammed, 24, and Omar, 21. Mohammed worked in the nearby Conforsa factory, which manufactures machine parts. He told his mother, Halima Hychami, that he had vacation from July 20 until Aug. 27.

The last time she spoke to her elder son was early last week, when she was visiting her family in Morocco.

“Mohammed called me--I was coming back on Wednesday--and he said, ‘Mom, everything is ready. Who do you want to have pick you up at the airport, me or Omar?’

“I said, ‘If Omar comes, when will I see you?’ And he said, ‘Saturday or Sunday.’

“That was the last time we talked,” said Ms. Hychami, who wore a long black abaya, a silent statement of mourning as she spoke to a few reporters in the main square in front of Ripoll’s town hall.

It turned out to be Omar who came to pick her up at the airport.

About 12 hours later, both of her sons were shot dead by the police in Cambrils after the Audi they were driving, which belonged to a suspect who is now detained, tried to break through a police checkpoint and drove into tourists, killing one person and wounding a half dozen others.

The emotional scars on the young men’s families and communities are not counted in the toll of victims, but have nonetheless left their mark.

“I wish this had never happened and that our only memory of our children was the innocence in their eyes,” said Hafa Mars, an educator who worked with many of the young men when they were children and who attended the demonstration in Ripoll in support of the victims on Saturday.

“I wish we didn’t have to remember them the way we do,” she said. “We don’t know whether to cry for them or what to do, because they have killed 14 people.”

#Spain #Ripoll #barcelona attack #Las Ramblas attacks

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newageislam-blog · 7 years

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Indian Muslims: Let us come out of denial

The disconnect is almost total. The police and the national media say one thing. The Muslim Press something entirely different. The national media is rejoicing that the culprits of terror bombings in Delhi, Rajasthan and Bombay have been caught and some killed in an encounter at Batla House in Delhi. Naturally if this is so it is a moment of joy; tinged with sorrow, of course, for the innocent victims of senseless terrorist attacks. But a moment of joy nevertheless, as there will be no more terrorist bombings and blasts taking lives and limbs of innocent people any more.

But the Muslim intelligentsia and Press don’t share this joy. Those caught and killed were Muslim. It is simply impossible for Muslims, practitioners of this great religion of peace, to have been involved in such dastardly acts. The police and the government are out to get our educated youth who are on an upward trajectory, seeking to make something of their lives. This reasoning is being proffered again and again throughout the Muslim Press, in different words and different idioms and different styles, but the story line is the same. The encounter was fake. The celebrated police officer killed was shot from behind, hence by other policemen themselves and not in a genuine encounter. The police story is entirely concocted, the media too is fabricating new stories everyday and they are all out to get us.

Now the police versions have proved wrong and fabricated on many occasions. The national media too, in its race for TRP ratings or circulation, doesn’t care too much for finding out the truth before putting it out. Alleged terrorists and killers are just terrorists and killers, even if they be fathers of murdered daughters, in the new milieu in which our media functions. So treating police-version-based media stories with a bucketful of salt is in order. No one is a terrorist or murderer until proven guilty in a court of law or indeed courts of law as there are superior courts too which sometimes overturn judgments of lower courts. Even in advanced countries of the West with better judicial and investigative systems, people have been found to be innocent, not only after convictions, but also after death sentences have already been carried out. So scepticism is in order and healthy.

But in the case of Indian Muslim intelligentsia and Press, one detects something more than simple, healthy scepticism. It is a state of total denial. One would have thought that with the world media in the last several years saturated with stories of Muslim brutality, of how Muslims are at each others’ and everybody else’s throats nearly everywhere in the world, particularly in the Muslim world, we would have become inured to the idea of Muslims being capable to extreme and senseless violence. But no, we are just victims; the world is out to get us.

We have even forgotten out history. We killed even the best of our Khalifas (successors to Prophet Mohammad PBUH), called Khulafa-e-Rashedeen. Then not long after the Prophet’s death, we killed his grand children and every member of their families, while torturing them with hunger and thirst first, and of course we continued to call ourselves Muslim and great believers in the religion that had been revealed by God to Prophet Mohammad (PBUH). Indeed half the world called the killers of Prophet Mohammad’s (PBUH) children Mohammedans until recently. Are we all killers of Prophet Mohammad’s family members? Yes, indeed, as long as we revere their killers, who were scions of the biggest enemies of Islam and the Prophet, and continue to accept their children and grand children as legitimate Khalifas. Indeed we not only killed prophet’s family but also allowed his system of complete equality of all human beings to be subverted. We accepted not only his killer to become his khalifa but also allowed him to set up a dynasty in compete violation of Islam’s basic rule of complete equality of all human beings and a rule by consultation (in short and in modern terminology, democracy). We also allowed the monarchy thus created to create a new institution of clergy, Mullahs and Maulanas, who then fabricated a lot of so-called Ahadees (plural of Hadees, Sayings of the Prophet), as they were unable to bring about changes in the Holy Quran to justify their un-Islamic rule over a so-called Muslim people.

Why is the narration of all this history relevant today? Well, it shows we are capable of total self-delusion. Most of us genuinely believe we are Muslims, while following the religious system created by the inveterate enemies of Islam. All the enemies of Islam joined Islam after Muslim victory over Mecca, following the age-old theory, ‘if you can’t beat them join them’. For once, the Prophet’s insight and intuition failed him. Unable to foresee what was going to be the consequence for Islam and for his own family, he forgave them and let them join the fold of Islam and become equal members of the Muslim society. As a prophet charged with the spreading of Islam he could have hardly refused to take them in his fold. But he could have easily got rid of them by punishing them as war criminals. These people had committed horrendous war crimes, something that is just not acceptable to Islam. They had even mutilated dead bodies of people very close and dear to the Prophet himself. What prophet did was perhaps the greatest act of generosity and forgiveness that history has seen. But the result has been disastrous for Islam. We Muslims have been following a religious system created by inveterate enemies of Islam, in the name of Islam.

This has made us capable of the greatest self-delusion. This attitude permeates all that we do or think. We just won’t accept facts. In the present case it is a fact that a section of Indian Muslims has for quite some time been radicalised enough to want to create an Islamic Khilafat in India and the world. This started, of course, with Maulana Abul Ala Maudoodi, the founder-ideologue of Jamaat-e-Islami. So this madness has been going on for over half a century. It first infected mostly elderly people but has now travelled down to the young, largely following the fashion in the West and financed by Wahhabi money coming from Saudi Arabia in unlimited quantities since the mid 1970s. Any particular young Muslim has been engaged in terrorism or not we cannot say until evidence against him is presented in the courts of law and a verdict is delivered. But the fact that a section of our youth, particularly the educated ones, have been thinking and expressing radical thoughts cannot be denied.

Is it a crime to think radical thoughts, one young man I was arguing with along these lines asked me the other day. No, I told him, it’s not a crime at all. But if you are known to be thinking and expressing those radical and indeed crazy thoughts, someone may be justified in suspecting you of radical acts and investigating your possible involvement. How does the society know that you have not started walking your talk? The peace and security of the society cannot be jeopardised for the interests of the individual. Some innocents also do and will suffer in the process. That is something the larger society cannot help. It would be best, of course, that we minimize what is known with that horrible term ‘collateral damage’. But the society’s primary interest lies in safeguarding the interests of the entire society.

Let us Muslims come out of our stupor and accept that there is a possibility that some of our youths may have been radicalised, partly out of Islamic fundamentalist propaganda and partly because we elders in the Muslim society, the intelligentsia and the leadership, have not apprised them of the facts of life. We have not given them the bigger picture. We have allowed them to become obsessed with victimhood. We turned the demolition of a disused mosque in 1992 as an issue of our identity. We reacted as if our very religious freedom was at stake. We failed to see and recognise and tell our youth that tens of thousands of mosques, madrasas and dargahs are functioning perfectly well and indeed we are opening new madrasas and building new mosques everyday. We behaved as if we were worshippers of the bricks the Babri mosque was built of and not namaziz who could pray in the wilderness, in the sea, in air, in moving trains, everywhere, for the God we worship is a universal energy, a universal intelligence, supreme wisdom, an abstract, not confined to space and time.

Similarly now we are behaving as if all Muslim youngsters going in for higher education have been rounded up and ‘encountered’. For all we know now, the national media and the police may be wrong and the Muslim Press right in this particular case. If we feel strongly about the innocence of these youths, let us fight their cases in courts of law and also courts of public opinion with all the vigour required. But let us not forget the blessings this country bestows on us. Let us not forget that millions of our youth are going about their business with perfect ease. Millions of us are engaged in the business of our choice. Scores of us have reached the top in the professions of their choice. Even in businesses like film-making and acting that depend for their success on the goodwill of millions of people, Muslims have reached the top. This country guarantees us constitutional equality and protection of the law. The implementation may be faulty, even occasionally prejudiced. Some guardians of law may not understand their constitutional duties and allow their personal prejudices to cloud their judgement. But let us not forget that the system we have is right. We only need to make sure that it performs well.

Think of the Muslim countries in our neighbourhood and beyond. What kind of constitutional rights do they give to their religious minorities? Can a Hindu become the President of Pakistan or Bangladesh? Can a Hindu even build a single temple in Saudi Arabia? Are Muslims, the majority community, fighting for their rights in these countries, as the Hindus, the majority community, fight for our rights here in India? Who brought the horrendous crimes perpetrated in Gujarat to the national and even international consciousness? Surely not the Muslim Press. It was the national and, if you like, the Hindu media that did it. Some Hindus, even at the cost of their patriotism being questioned, seek to fight our case.

And we, what do we do? It is our religious duty to fight for the rights of the oppressed, in a constitutional manner, of course, and within the ambit of the law. We could have at least articulated the grievances of these oppressed people in so-called Islamic lands. But not only we do nothing ourselves, we even condemn and excoriate the one lady who staked her life to highlight the plight of religious minorities in Bangladesh. She should have been our heroine. We should have garlanded her when she sought protection in our land. She has been doing what we should have been doing, fighting for the rights of religious minorities in Bangladesh. But we throw rotten eggs and chappals at her. In fact our elected representatives do that, shamelessly enough, and take pride in that affront.

The so-called Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid — a relic of the Mughal rule surviving on account of a strange fascination of our Hindu leaders with beards — has called for an all-Muslim parties meet on October 14 to discuss the situation arising out of the Batla House encounter. All the bearded fuddy-duddies have accepted and will be deliberating their next course of action. I hope they will remember that the security and future prosperity of the Muslim community depends not so much on the shape of the next government but on the amount of goodwill we have in the hearts of our neighbours from the majority community. It is this that we have been putting at stake by refusing to accept the very possibility of a few hotheads among us taking to the route of evil. We can continue to say that this particular individual is not guilty in our estimation or that this particular police or media theory does not seem right, but if we discount the very possibility of any Muslims being involved in acts of terrorism as we are doing now, we stand to lose the goodwill of our neighbours. That is a much worse situation than that of a seemingly friendly or not so friendly government coming to power or losing power. Governments will come and go. Political parties will gain and lose power. But we have to live with our neighbours; let us not lose their goodwill through stupidity and worse.

Click here: Moderate Islam

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