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Rabi' al-Thani 7, 1426/May 16, 2005 #36
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May 23 in Washington, DC
6 to 8 PM.
Mass. Ave, at 7th st. NW
Protest Sharon,
Israeli
Generals and AIPAC: They are Preparing Grounds for Aggression Against
Iran.
http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=15166341&url_num=1&url=http://www.rescuemideastpolicy.com
The Council for the National Interest hopes that hundreds of people
will join us in protesting outside the Washington, DC, Convention
Center on Monday, May 23rd, from 6 to 8 pm. All the main actors in
the Middle East peace process will be here from Israel and be
joined by a phalanx of important Americans to greet Ariel Sharon,
who is scheduled to speak on Tuesday morning after Sen. Hillary Clinton
(D-NY), and Natan Sharansky, who is now out of government and
working against the disengagement. In effect, he is undermining
the Road Map of his great friend, George W.
Bush.
(Click
here
for the full conference schedule.)
The drumbeat against Iran will be a main theme at the AIPAC
policy conference. They claim Iran is only months away from a
nuclear weapon, an amazingly similar charge to that made by
Israeli strategic thinkers before the current Iraq war.
(Click
here
to see an animation hyping their multimedia presentation on Iran,
which will be a cornerstone of the conference.)
Join in protesting the very presence of numerous Israeli
defense specialists, generals, and defense analysts who are
featured at the AIPAC conference. AIPAC should be renamed the
Israel Political Action Committee (IPAC) and be forced to register
as the agent of a foreign government. As one activist with a major
Jewish
group admitted in a report in the
Forward
today, "It is routine for us to say: This is our policy on a
certain issue, but we must check what the Israelis think. We as
a community do it all the time."
Come join the rally and take back
America's
foreign policy
aipacprotest@earthlink.net
The following call was initiated by the DC Anti-War Network (DAWN)
and finalized by representatives of several groups, six of whom
already have signed on. We hope you will join us in endorsing
this very important event. We will keep you updated on further
developments. Email us to endorse, to attend a Sunday May 15
evening planning meeting on Capitol Hill or if you have questions
or comments. Please feel free to circulate this call.
CALL FOR MAY 23RD PROTEST OF AIPAC ANNUAL CONFERENCE
A coalition of organizations is calling for a peaceful
demonstration on Monday, May 23 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm at the
2005 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual
conference being held May 22 to 24th at the DC Convention Center.
We will gather on Massachusetts Avenue at 7th Street NW.
We do so to protest Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank,
Gaza and East Jerusalem, its building of a separation wall through
the West Bank and its current expansion of settlements, which will
cut off an additional 250,000
Palestinians
in East Jerusalem from the rest of Palestine and implement a system
of de facto apartheid in the occupied territories. We protest any
appearance by Israeli leader Ariel Sharon, who for over 50 years
has been involved in a series of war crimes, including the
massacres at Sabra and Shatilla.
We also protest AIPAC's role in supporting Ariel Sharon and other
Israeli officials' threats to take military actions against
Iran's nuclear energy facilities and their efforts to involve
the United States in such attacks. Two AIPAC officials, recently
fired after months of vigorous public support by AIPAC, have been
implicated in press reports as having received "highly classified"
information on Iran from Defense Department analyst Larry Franklin,
who has been arrested in the case, and possibly passing the
information on to the state of Israel.
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War News: [Compiled with brief analysis by
New Trend's
Media Monitor]
Uzbekistan
Blood Bath.
USA's Communist Ally Slaughters 500 Muslims, Wounds 2000.
Bodies Laid out in School: No Bush or U.S.
Media
Comment.
May 15, 2005. MSNBC TV gave first coverage of the unfolding wave
of Communist repression in Uzbekistan. In the city of Andistan,
masses of people had taken over and freed Muslim businessmen being
held by the Communists. The Stalinist regime of "Islam" Karimov sent
in his armed forces which surrounded the protesting crowd and
opened machine gun and light artillery fire on the people. In the
ensuing slaughter which went on for an hour, more than 500
unarmed civilians were killed and more than 2,000 wounded.
The upsurge of the people began on May 12 when Uzbek Muslims
started protesting the arrest of 23
Islamic
people who own small businesses. The Stalinist regime claimed that
the 23 were linked to Akramiya, allegedly an offshoot of Hizbut
Tahrir. The regime [and the U.S.] claims that Hizbut Tahrir is a
"terrorist" group though there is no record of any terrorist
activity by it. The 23 said that they had absolutely no connection
with Akramiya and had never heard of it. Some citizens then took
over a police station, seized weapons and broke the prisoners open.
The Stalinist police fought the Muslim protestors killing several.
The armed people fired back killing several policemen.
Karimov then rushed his armed forces to Andistan. In the meantime the
news of the Islamic revolution spread and jubilant crowds gathered
in Andistan to protect the freed prisoners and celebrate freedom
from decades of Communist rule.
Karimov's wrath knew no bounds when he saw the triumpant people
rising in the name of Islam. The massacre he carried out is comparable
only to the horrors
Russia
has perpetrated in
Chechnya
and the Americans in Falluja, except that the Uzbek civilians were
not fighting back. These were unarmed people, easy to kill.
The U.S. military and intelligence work very closely with the
Uzbek Stalinist regime. Air attacks on
Afghanistan
were launched from Uzbekistan. America's Uzbek ally in Afghanistan,
General Dostum, carried out similar massacres [of prisoners] when
the U.S. "liberated" Afghanistan in 2001.
[New Trend analysts say that Karimov, already involved in
systematic torture and murder of innocent Muslims, has now
committed an impressive genocidal war crime. President Bush's
regime, owing to its close
CIA,
military and financial ties with Karimov. is accessory to torture
and mass murder in Uzbekistan and is liable to be tried under
Islamic and International law.]
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Widespread Protests Against U.S. Desecration of the Qur'an.
New Trend was FIRST Islamic paper to report Atrocity.
As New Trend reported in its last issue, Afghanistan took the lead
in protesting the atrocities being committed in Guantanamo Bay.
Starting in Jalalabad, the protests spread to all major Afghan
cities, including Kabul itself, in spite of control by the
"Northern Alliance" and Karzai. The Karzai police opened fire on
unarmed protestors in a number of cities, killing 14 people and
wounding 40.
In
Pakistan,
Imran Khan of the Insaf [Justice} Party was the first to note
that Newsweek magazine had referred to the
Qur'an
being thrown into the toilet in Guantanamo Bay by U.S. experts
in torture of prisoners. Thereafter protests spread through Pakistan
on May 13 on the call of the MMA Islamic coalition.
In Occupied Palestine, the biggest protest was in Gaza. There have
also been large rallies against the desecration in
INDONESIA,
MALAYSIA, BANGLADESH,
SUDAN
and
NIGERIA.
The U.S. now claims that it is not against the Qur'an and will
investigate the incident. Newsweek is also back pedalling. Most
Muslims however are very skeptical about this damage control by
the U.S. administration. Observers note that NUMEROUS MOSQUES have
been attacked by the U.S. in Iraq. There are DOCUMENTED CASES
of desecration of the Qur'an by U.S. troops in
Iraqi
mosques. Ms. Condileeza Rice's quaint attempt to claim that she
respects the "Koran" [even the spelling is incorrect], and that
the war on "terrorism" is not a war on Islam, is amusing at best
for Muslim observers of the war.
[It's quite funny that the media are claiming that Newsweek reported the "Koran" thrown into the toilet. The news came out of Guantanamo Bay last year when some British Muslims were released and British papers reported it. New Trend was the FIRST Islamic publication to report it and headline it. Tens of thousands read our report in Pakistan but did not have the courage to do anything till Imran Khan read it in Newsweek.]
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MUSHARRAF COULD HAVE BEEN DUMPED: Pakistan's MMA Islamic coalition
Lost Its Chances TWICE.
[by New Trend's Pakistan Observer.]
The Qur'an has been desecrated. A wave of anger against America and
its ally Musharraf is running through Pakistan. In the last few months,
Pakistanis responded in VERY LARGE NUMBERS to the call by Jamaate
Islami and the Islamic Coalition [MMA] to come out in the streets
against Musharraf.
This ugly episode of the desecration of the Qur'an in Guantanamo Bay
was the PERFECT CHANCE to topple America's main man in Pakistan, CIA
agent General Musharraf.
However, the MMA could not give the call. In fact it was Imran Khan,
not an MMA leader, who uncovered the desecration report published
in Newsweek.
Of course, if the MMA were to move against Musharraf, it would have
to confront the armed forces, funded and weaponized by the U.S. There
has never been a revolution without bloodshed, as
Malcolm X
pointed out.
A couple of years back, the people of Frontier and parts of
Baluchistan voted for the MMA. Jamaate Islami leader Qazi Hussain
Ahmad and others who used to get only one or two per cent of the
vote, won by HUGE MARGINS, while well established secularist
leaders aligned to Wali Khan and PPP were defeated so badly that some
of them lost their election deposits.
The people were voting for the Islamists to show their opposition
to America and their support for the Taliban. They did not know that
MMA leaders despise the Taliban and think that they know more than
the Taliban about Islam.
Musharraf moved militarily to help America in South Waziristan.
Nearly 75,000 Pakistani troops, armed and funded by the U.S.
invaded Islamic territory which the Founder of Pakistan, Jinnah,
had pledged would never be entered by Pakistani armed forces.
The Islamic government expressed protests and reservations but took
no drastic steps to stop the military operations. None of the MMA
leaders went to prison in this time. Musharraf knew that they were
just talkers and would do nothing.
Pakistanis need to realize that the MMA has failed to deliver. It
cannot possibly get more public support than it did. Musharraf did
not budge. He knows that MMA will never get out of line. He knows they
are talkers. For him, it does not matter if they take out processions
every day. He has America's support. He couldn't "care less" what
Pakistanis think.
New Trend's observers say that if MMA's peaceful pressure continues,
the U.S. will bring in its 'B team,' Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan
People's Party, and the game of politics will continue, leaving
95% of Pakistan's people out of all that matters in Pakistan.
In spite of large, peaceful, demonstrations, the doors of peaceful
change in Pakistan are slowly but surely closing.
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Israel's 'Peace' Move Conceals Consolidation of Occupation + Note
on Dershowitz & 'anti-semitism'
[Ms. Rausch, a loyal New Trend reader, wrote this to the Baltimore Sun
paper.]
Dear Sun Letters Editor:
I believe that Alan Dershowitz ("Anti-Semitic boycott hurts
peace process" Sun, 5/1/05) presents an entirely too glowing
view of Israel's intentions regarding ".. taking steps toward
peace and ending the occupcation."
So far, Israel has done nothing but TALK about getting the settlers
out of Gaza, which talk has apparently been an effective cover for
the ACTUALITY of establishing and expanding settlements in the rest
of the Occupied Territories.
I can see no "... courageous steps toward ending the occupation" at
all. Quite the contrary.
As for "From the Palestinian perspective, the political and social
climate is objectively improved over what it was two years ago,"
this simply is not true. The apartheid wall which Israel is erecting
(not on their own land but on Palestinian land) is separating
Palestinians from their farmland, their schools, their businesses,
and even splitting some houses in two. This can hardly be a good
thing, as far as Palestinians are concerned.
Mr. Dershowitz apparently equates any criticism of Israel with
anti-Semitism. This also is simply not true.
Doris Rausch
Maryland
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
About the Veiled
Woman
Whose Children were Taken Away
Women need to stop wearing face veils; it is a pagan practice and
is NOT a part of Islamic culture!
Suraiya Mosely
----------------------------------
[Ed. Note: The sister whose children were taken away is an
American Muslim
in Atlanta. She follows an interpretation of the Qur'an according
to which she wears the face veil. We must respect her belief system
and not sit in judgement. We don't need fatwas. The issue is: Help
her to get her children back, not what she wears.
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Q & A
Why are Muslim Women Oppressed in Bangladesh,
India
etc?
A Question about Taslima Nasrin's Attack on Islam.
[On April 30, Muslims in Midnapore, India protested a program to
be addressed by Taslima Nasrin and closed it down.]
[On May 9, an American woman read Taslima Nasrin's web site and
asked why Bangladeshi
"human rights"
activist Nasrin is accusing Islam of the oppression of women.
Here is explanation of the Taslima Nasrin phenomenon by
Sis. Nadrat Siddique in Maryland.]
I'd read some of Taslima Nasrin's work, and have a couple of her
books, but wasn't aware of the website. Thanks for sending the link.
I would tend to agree with much of what she writes about the
oppressed state of women in Third World and Islamic countries.
However, I think she is overzealous in correlating Islam with
tradition: in many of the cases she describes, women are being
treated very badly, but it is due to various cultural practices,
and not anything that Islam sanctions. It is very sad, but I think
that she had some horrible personal experiences in her homeland of
Bangladesh, with people who claimed to be Muslim, and that
probably turned her off from the faith altogether.
For example, in one of the poems in her work "The Game in Reverse,"
she describes beatings and sexual abuse by a husband who de-humanizes
her.
Islam actually condemns such behavior, and states unequivocally that
men and women are equal, that husband and wife are protectors of
each other, that wife battery is forbidden under any
circumstances, and that the wife has as much right to sexual
fulfillment as the husband.
But violence against women is at epidemic proportions in this
country [USA], too. It is carried out by people calling
themselves Christians, Jews, Atheists, and others. One cannot
condemn an entire religion, which is from a Supreme Being, for
the wrongs committed by humans, and that is Nasrin's monumental error.
To me, Taslima Nasrin just seems to be a terribly tragic and
negative figure, being used by the Islam haters, some of
whom actually equate Islam with terrorism. They are only too happy
to add their own spin on the work of this poor depressed woman
to portray Islam as a misogynistic religion.
-Nadrat Siddique
email: siddiqu1@umbc.edu
I believe in life.
And i have seen the death parade
march through the torso of the earth,
sculpting mud bodies in its path.
I have seen the destruction of the daylight,
and seen bloodthirsty maggots
prayed to and saluted.
I have been locked by the lawless.
Handcuffed by the haters.
Gagged by the greedy.
And, if i know any thing at all,
it's that a wall is just a wall
and nothing more at all.
It can be broken down.
(from "Affirmation," by Assata Shakur)
--------------------------------
[Assata Shakur is a Black woman leader in exile in Cuba being
pursued by the U.S.' head hunters - Ed.]
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2005-05-18 Wed 20:53ct
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