Saudi-US Aggression Commits Fresh Massacre in Saada, Kills 50

/in /by

The Saudi-US aggression continued its aerial attacks on Yemen on Tuesday, launching brutal air strikes in several provinces of the country which left score of innocent people killed.

The Saudi-led coalition fighter jets launched six air raids in the morning over the region of Maran in Hidan province.

Moreover, the Saudi-US war planes killed Tuesday night around 50 Yemenis by launching a number of air strikes over Al-Mahwit, Saada, Hajja and Thamar provinces, most of them women and children.

Saudi Arabia has been striking Yemen for 174 days now to restore power to fugitive president Abed-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh. The Saudi-led aggression has so far killed at least 5,862 Yemenis, including hundreds of women and children.

Despite Riyadh’s claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters, Saudi warplanes are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.

/149

32 Nations Slam Bahrain’s Human Rights Record

/in /by

In a letter read out to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday, the 32 governments said, “…the human rights situation in Bahrain remains an issue of serious concern” to them.

The letter, which was read out by Swiss Ambassador to the UN Alexandre Fasel, regretted the fact that the Bahraini government had failed to provide enough guarantees for a fair trial of prisoners, while it slammed the detention of minors who took part in demonstrations.

“We are concerned there is insufficient accountability for human rights violations,” said the letter, which was also signed by the United States, a close ally of Manama.

Bahrain has been gripped by an uprising since 2011 when people began to take to the streets to demand more freedom and more of a say in the closed ruling system. The demonstrators later demanded the ouster of the ruling Al Khalifa regime. Nearly a hundred have died in protests or under custody while hundreds more are also behind bars for taking part in peaceful demonstrations. 

The Monday letter criticized the government for its intolerance of people’s peaceful rallies, saying such gatherings should not be met with harassment.

“We are concerned about reports of harassment and imprisonment of persons exercising their rights to freedom of opinion and expression and of peaceful assembly and association, including human rights defenders,” the letter said, urging the government “to appropriately address all reports of torture and ill-treatment of detainees and ensure full investigation and prosecution of these cases.”

The statement also called on Manama to agree to a visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture for a probe into repeated cases of mistreatment in the regime’s prisons. The UN investigator was denied one such visit in 2013.

Bahraini officials reacted to the letter, saying the smaller number of signatories compared to last year’s 47 proves a recognition of the kingdom’s efforts in improving the human rights situation.

Rights advocacy groups, including the Human Rights Watch, slammed some governments, including Italy and Spain, for their lack of support to the statement, saying they “put politics before rights.”

/149

American Family Gifts Rare Quran Manuscripts to Iran’s Astan Quds Museum

/in /by

Hojat-ol-Islam Mohammad Hassan Nourinia, an official with the Astan, said the manuscripts date back to the 11th, 12th, and 13th Hijri centuries (17th, 18th and 19th centuries A.D.).

He said they are also precious in terms of their artistic value.

The Muslim family from New York has also gifted a manuscript copy of the Sahifeh Sajjadiyeh to the museum.

Calligraphed by an artist named Hassan Ali bin Abbas Qoli Sultan in the year 1232 Hijri, the copy is embellished with gold and colors.

With some 20,000 Quran manuscripts and Quranic works, as well as 95000 rare Islamic books, the museum of Astan Quds Razavi is the greatest treasury of rare written works in the Muslim world.

Astan Quds Razavi and its subsidiary cultural institutes comprise 38 libraries with an overall collection of 2.5 million books, including manuscripts and lithograph-printed books.

/149

Around 25mn birds killed in Mediterranean annually

/in , /by

finchEach year around 25 million birds are illegally killed in the Mediterranean Sea region, a report by a global partnership of conservation organisations says.

On Thursday, Birdlife International published a report that found many birds are shot, captured in nets or trapped after being lured with recordings of birdsong.

Different techniques to catch the birds included the use of lime sticks that glue birds to branches and cause “considerable suffering before resulting in the bird’s death,” Birdlife International said.

Egypt ranks as the number one country where the most number of birds are killed every year, followed by Italy where an estimated 5.6 million birds are killed annually.

Other countries around the Mediterranean, especially those hit hard by violence such as Syria and Libya, also have a high number of bird killings.

The birds are often killed for sport or food, the report noted.

The most targeted bird was chaffinch followed by the blackcap, the common quail and song thrush, the report added.

According to Patricia Zurita, the head of Birdlife International, some bird populations are now in decline or even disappearing.

“This review shows the gruesome extent to which birds are being killed illegally in the Mediterranean,” she added.

The organization called for greater protection for bird species, concluding that the European Union’s rules on bird protection should be better implemented.

Facebook apologised to the nationalist Britain First group after removing an Anti-ISIS roll of toilet paper post

/in , /by

c51e83597bfff39cf341fd2fbb89972cSocial networking website Facebook has apologised to the nationalist Britain First group after removing a critical post about ISIS involving a roll of toilet paper made up of the black flag used by the terrorist group.

Earlier this week, Britain First – which has been criticised by Britain’s mainstream media for its direct action tactics in opposing radical Islam – reported that one of its Facebook posts had been removed by Facebook due to a ‘Community Standards’ violation.

The group reported that its leader, Paul Golding, was “logged out of his Facebook account and given a slap on the wrist by Facebook moderators” for posting a picture of an ISIS flag-themed toilet roll with the accompanying comment, “Soon to be stocked in the Britain First shop!”

Britain First then contacted Facebook demanding an explanation. A Facebook chat support employee said: “obviously it was not complying with Facebook community standards” and followed up with “I understand where you’re coming from but posts like this will be taken down without doubt”.

The moderator goes on, “I understand that you want to express your opinion but please do understand that Facebook is trying to treat everyone the same… I know it doesn’t make sense when it comes to ISIL but those are the Policy standards of the company”.

Golding asked, “So no more anti-ISIL posts?” to which the moderator replied, “I believe you can share posts about ISIL, just try to tone down the sarcasm :)”.

But Facebook has since climbed down, claiming that the removal of the post, and subsequent messages, were in error.

Breitbart London contacted Facebook for comment at 3pm yesterday, and by 4pm, the company had issued an apology to Britain First.

A Facebook spokesman told Breitbart London: “We made a mistake by incorrectly identifying this post as supporting ISIS. After review, we realised that the post was mocking the terrorist group, and it has therefore been restored. We apologies for any confusion or inconvenience caused.”

The social networking site is said to employ hundreds of people across offices in Dublin, Hyderabad, Austin and Menlo Park, California to help deal with high numbers of reports of offensive content.

But Britain First highlighted the hypocrisy of the website’s rules, as they allow multiple pages entitled “Death to Israel”, some of which contain highly inflammatory, anti-Semitic content.

Canadian Jewish businessman campaigns to free Iraqi women captives

/in , /by

eeSteve Maman, Jewish businessman from Canadian Montreal, started last year a campaign to free Iraqi women held captives in the hands of Da’ish (ISIS) organization.

Da’ish gunmen stormed into Iraqi Sinjar Mountain, where mostly inhabited by the Izidi sect, and held hundreds of women and children, forcing them to slavery.

Today, Maman is organizing an international campaign to release 128 Izidi and Christian women and “free them from sex slavery” practiced by Da’ish against its victims.

Western press named Maman as “the Jewish Schindler”, in reference to Oscar Schindler, who was one of the prominent businessmen during the Nazi rule.

Schindler was successful in saving hundreds of Jews working in his factories for the Holocaust and Nazi chasing in Poland.

The story of Schindler was a subject for a film in 1993 and got 7 Oscar prizes.

Media reports said that Maman, 42, managed to collect 200.000 dollars in two days to be paid to the kidnappers for freeing the Izidi and Christian women in Iraq.

It is expected that Da’ish organization will release 10 women in the coming few days, the reports added.

In August, 2014, Da’ish gunmen killed more than 5000 Izidis, mostly in collective killing operations, according to UN reports.

Maman, father of six children, started his campaign to get 500.000 dollars, but now he is planning to get 5 million dollars for this end, the reports added.

Some sources expected that Da’ish will release some of the captives for financial ransoms reaching 1000-3000 dollars each.

About 2700 Christian and Izidi women are still in the hands of Da’ish organization, as some sources expected.

American Muslim youth community organizes annual halal food festival

/in , /by

97bcb1d1a634a98005a646a08dd7be9fFor four years, the American Muslim youth community center has organized an annual halal food festival to draw Muslim families and also to enhance friendship ties with non-Muslims.

This year’s festival, held Saturday at Rowland Park, drew vendors from Central Jersey, New York City and even as far away as Ohio. Thousands of people attended and they included many local and immigrant Muslims as well as non-Muslims.

Crescent Foods, a company that sells halal meats, had an information booth at the festival. The company sells meat to select Walmart stores in several Mid-Atlantic states, as well as Central Jersey. East Brunswick Flemington, Freehold and Phillipsburg Walmarts carry the firm’s foods. The company’s products have no added antibiotics, no animal by-products, and no added hormones. The animals eat all vegetarian diets, are raised cage-free and are treated well, the company literature states.

Food has a way of bringing people together, even across bitterly drawn lines. “Want to appeal to all communities,” said Sami Shaban, one of the organizers of the event. “For instance, we want all Muslims to come together over delicious food. But we want more people to come. We want all of South Brunswick to come and taste our delicious food.”

Vendors at the fair were selling food from many countries, from Turkey and the Middle East to traditional American items such as burgers and fried chicken. Much of the food was grilled, including corn, and several vendors were selling meat and rice dishes. Shaban was particularly proud that the Halal Guys, a New York company with 42,000 Facebook followers, was selling food at the festival. Shaban expected 4,000 attendees by the end of Saturday.

From New Brunswick, 25 Burgers were there, serving an all-Halal menu. In fact, that vendor was handing out menus with 35 burgers on it.

“It’s great food,” Salman Tarar said. “It’s Halal, it’s good. We will definitely come again next year.”

The strong Muslim tradition of charity also was present at the festival. Shaban’s mother, Najwa Alsadi, who owns a school bus company in Totowa, and her grandson were selling snacks and toys for the second year to raise money for Syrian refugees. Last year, they sold $2,000 worth of toys and snacks, and Alsadi matched that dollar for dollar. Then they found another company that would match their $4,000, enabling them to donate $8,000 for Syrian relief to Islamic Relief, which works with UNICEF to get aid to Syrian refugee and Palestinians in Gaza. They hoped to do at least as well this year.

Two international relief organizations also had booths at the festival: Islamic Relief and Helping Hand. Both have operations around the world, engaged in micro-financing, disaster relief, orphan sponsorship, health care and education.

Nottingham Muslim Women’s Organization holds annual family fun day

/in , /by

269f9b041e7d0b1f6974404b62771b9aPromoting cohesion in the British society, a group of Muslim women in England’s Nottingham organized its annual family fun day on Saturday, inviting locals to come together, according to news agencies.

The event was organized by the Radford-based Muslim Women’s Organization at Radford recreation ground.
The family event featured face-painting, eyebrow-threading, Mehndi, which is henna tattoos, Asian food including biryani, kebabs, pakora and samosas.

It also included a visit from members of Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust and a bouncy castle.

The fun event has been praised by the city’s officials.

“It’s good for the family coming out and enjoy themselves,” Naseem Khosar, administrator of the Muslim Women’s Organization, told Nottingham post.

“It’s a good idea that brings the community together.”

Besides serving Asian food, tea and coffee were offered. A sports day with activities including a tug-of-war and three-legged-race were on the program too.

Called “Good Deeds Notts”, the campaign aims to get 1,000 individuals doing random acts of kindness over the next 12 months.

“We need that sort of campaign,” Sultana Syed, chair of the organization, said.

“It’s an annual event now and this is our fourth one,” she added.

Held for the fourth time, the annual event had gone “from strength-to-strength” each year, said Sakina Yusufali, development worker with the organization.