Leeds-Based Imam Qari Asim, Chairman of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, Urges For Places Of Worship To Be Used As Vaccine Hubs To Inspire 'Confidence' In Communities
24
January 2021
The Al Abbas Mosque,
Birmingham, which is being used as a covid vaccination centre (photo: PA Wire/
Jacob King)
-----
• Leeds-Based Imam Qari Asim, Chairman of the Mosques
and Imams National Advisory Board, Urges
For Places Of Worship To Be Used As Vaccine Hubs To Inspire 'Confidence' In
Communities
• Pakistan Govt To Launch Islamic-Denominated Ijara
Sukuk Bond For Building Up Reserves And Providing Budgetary Support
• Taliban Indoctrinating ‘Minors’ To Commit Violent
Acts: First Vice President
• Justice For All Wants Prez Biden To Close Guantanamo
Bay Prison
• Cutting Through Knee-Deep Snow, Muslim Neighbours
Carry Deceased Kashmiri Pandit's Remains For Last Rites
• Bruneian Way Of Life: Greeneries, Iconic Bridge And
Mosques Draw Diplomats’ Attention
• Muslim World League Welcomes UN Draft Resolution on
Promoting Culture of Peace, Tolerance
• Turkish Mosque In Denmark Attacked
Europe
• Leeds-Based Imam Qari Asim, Chairman of the Mosques
and Imams National Advisory Board, • Urges
For Places Of Worship To Be Used As Vaccine Hubs To Inspire 'Confidence' In
Communities
• Special Commission In French National Assembly
Approved The ‘Charter Of Republican Values’ Bill Targeting Muslims
• Five Years Jail For 49-Year-Old Tulkun Astanov for Defending
Muslims’ Freedom Of Religion And Belief in
Uzbekistan
• Mosque Dating Back To Levant Conquest Unearthed In Israel
• UK imams work to dispel vaccine worries among
Muslims
• World Interfaith Conference to be held in Russia
----------
Pakistan
• Pakistan Govt To Launch Islamic-Denominated Ijara
Sukuk Bond For Building Up Reserves And Providing Budgetary Support
• Taking Pakistan Off FATF Grey List: US Muslim Group
Announces Public Campaign
• Pakistan to prepare Covid vaccine locally: Qureshi
• ECP explains its stance on secrecy in foreign
funding case
• Militant leader killed in North Waziristan operation
--------
South Asia
• Taliban Indoctrinating ‘Minors’ To Commit Violent
Acts: First Vice President
• Rohingya Crisis: Dhaka Seeks Active Global Support
• Targeted IED Blast Wounds Three in Kabul
• Everyone will have a home, a standard life
• Chattogram City Polls: Internal strife has AL
worried
---------
North America
• Justice For All Wants Prez Biden To Close Guantanamo
Bay Prison
• Israel, Saudi Arabia Lobbying To Prevent US From
Rejoining JCPOA
• Muslim families hope to reunite following Biden's
travel ban repeal
• Detroit’s legal pot reticence spills over to
Muslim-majority neighbour
• US to review designation of Ansarullah as terrorist
organization: Spokesperson
• American Muslims welcome the end of Trump’s travel
ban
----------
India
• Cutting Through Knee-Deep Snow, Muslim Neighbours
Carry Deceased Kashmiri Pandit's Remains For Last Rites
• Times of India Apologises for 2007 Article on
Aligarh Muslim University
• 'My Boy Is Mentally Unstable Minor': Mother of
Muslim Teen Accused of Love Jihad in UP
---------
Southeast Asia
• Bruneian Way Of Life: Greeneries, Iconic Bridge And
Mosques Draw Diplomats’ Attention
• Putrajaya mulls total economic shutdown after Feb 4
if Covid numbers don't improve,
• Warisan’s Shafie appeals to the King to withdraw
Emergency
• Anwar claims at least 114 MPs against state of
Emergency
• Dr Mahathir ‘is healthy and at home’, news claiming
otherwise is fake, says aide
----------
Arab World
• Muslim World League Welcomes UN Draft Resolution on
Promoting Culture of Peace, Tolerance
• Clampdown Launched On Intellectual Rights Violations
In Saudi Arabia
• Egypt’s Security Services Bust Muslim Brotherhood
Network In Capital
• Non-Muslim Communities In UAE Lauded For Helping
National Fight Against COVID-19
• 27 inmates accept Islam in UAE prison in 2020
• Foreign Ministry Complains Companies Operating In
The Settlements To Arab, Islamic And UN Rights Organization
• Madinah joins world’s healthiest cities
• Saudi volunteers join 3,165 community initiatives in
2020
• Saudi air defences thwart new Houthi attack on
Riyadh
---------
Mideast
• Turkish Mosque In Denmark Attacked
• UN: Syrians Alone Can't Stop War, Needed
International Cooperation
• Ancient Marketplace In Tiberias May Have Been One Of
Islam's First Mosques
• Islamic Jihad Says Late Iranian General Soleimani Gave
‘Direct Orders’ In Gaza
---------
Africa
• No Power Can Remove Us From Ondo Forests – Bodejo, Miyetti
Allah Leader
• Miyetti Allah Cautions Oyo Youths, Says Banditry,
Kidnapping Are National Problems
----------
Australia
• Driver Rams Mercedes Through The Gates Of An Islamic
School In Sydney As Cops Scramble To The Scene
Compiled by New
Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://www.newageislam.com/islamic-world-news/leeds-based-imam-qari-asim/d/124139
------
Leeds-Based Imam Qari Asim, Chairman of the Mosques
and Imams National Advisory Board, Urges
For Places Of Worship To Be Used As Vaccine Hubs To Inspire 'Confidence' In
Communities
By Immy Share
23rd January 2021
The Al Abbas Mosque,
Birmingham, which is being used as a covid vaccination centre (photo: PA Wire/
Jacob King)
-----
Leeds-based Imam Qari Asim, chairman of the Mosques
and Imams National Advisory Board, said some people who were initially hesitant
about getting a vaccine have decided to get one since the first vaccination
site in a Mosque opened at Al-Abbas Islamic Centre in Birmingham.
Mr Asim, who is leading the initiative to get imams
and mosques to address challenges posed by so-called anti-vaxxers, said: “We
are urging places of worship and community hubs to be used as vaccination
centres to inspire confidence in communities.
“Taking the vaccine is currently the only available
solution to defeating coronavirus, to save thousands of precious lives and be
with our loved ones again.”
Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick met with the imam
at Al-Abbas Islamic Centre in Balsall Heath, Birmingham, as well as the
pharmacists and staff who run the vaccination centre and people who received
their first dose of the vaccine on Saturday.
Mr Jenrick said: “It is absolutely brilliant to see
faith communities like this stepping up and playing their part in the vaccine
programme.
“We have to build trust, ensure that we counter
misinformation and ensure that everyone, regardless of their faith, regardless
of what community they’re from, gets access to the programme.”
The mosque is one of dozens of new sites across the UK
offering coronavirus vaccinations, with others to open at Stoneleigh Park near
Kenilworth in Warwickshire, Salisbury City Hall in Wiltshire and Bath
Racecourse in Somerset next week.
Earlier this week, Blackburn Cathedral in Lancashire
was fashioned into a vaccination centre which faith leaders said offered “a
sign of hope” to the community.
Meanwhile, Lichfield Cathedral – Britain’s oldest
three-spired cathedral – in Staffordshire, was dubbed “the most glamorous
vaccine centre in Britain” by the city’s MP.
A total of 5,526,071 Covid-19 vaccinations had taken
place in England between December 8 and January 22, according to NHS England.
https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/health/coronavirus/leeds-based-imam-urges-places-worship-be-used-vaccine-hubs-inspire-confidence-communities-3110645
---------
Pakistan Govt To Launch Islamic-Denominated Ijara
Sukuk Bond For Building Up Reserves And Providing Budgetary Support
Mehtab Haider
January 24, 2021
ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to place 750
acres of the F-9 Park Islamabad as a guarantee for launching the
Islamic-denominated Ijara Sukuk bond at domestic and international markets to
fetch $500 million to $1 billion for building up reserves and providing
budgetary support.
A summary to this effect will be placed before the
federal cabinet scheduled to be held under the chairmanship of Prime Minister
Imran Khan on January 26. It will be the first time under the PTI rule when the
government is going to launch an international Sukuk bond.
The PTI government used to oppose issuance of
international bonds when it was on opposition benches. The summary of the
Finance Division has been forwarded to the Cabinet Division for seeking formal
approval. The government had placed the Jinnah
International Airport Karachi and power distribution
companies as guarantees for launching domestic Sukuk bonds last year. The
government had also kick-started the process for launching Eurobond to fetch
another $1 billion. Now the hired advisors recommended the government to launch
an international Sukuk bond as well.
There were 10 banks that participated in the bidding
for the selection of a financial adviser for launching the Eurobond including
JP Morgan, Citibank, Bank of America, Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank, Credit
Suisse, Bank of China, Dubai Islamic Bank, Emirates NBD and Meezan Bank.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/779109-govt-to-launch-islamic-denominated-ijara-sukuk-bond
--------
Taliban Indoctrinating ‘Minors’ To Commit Violent
Acts: First Vice President
By Mohammad Haroon Alim
23 Jan 2021
First Vice President Amrullah Saleh
------
First Vice President Amrullah Saleh urges all Afghan
families not to hand over their children to anyone or any group under the guise
of religious education.
He called on the public on a Facebook post, saying “I
urge all families in the country not to give their children to anyone under the
guise of religious education”.
People who pick your children are later brainwashing
and preparing them for committing crimes, such as suicide attacks, Saleh added.
Saleh indicated, that in regions or areas controlled
by the Taliban, there is no value to life in total, and the use of minors as
suicide bombers are common.
He claims that the Taliban does not care about the
lives of the people and continues minor indoctrination to deadly activities, as
they want to please their master (Pakistan).
Amrullah Saleh, previously also had said that the
Taliban gathers and uses young people and minors, who cannot distinguish
between good and bad, to carry out major attacks and be involved in insurgency
manoeuvres.
https://www.khaama.com/taliban-indoctrinating-minors-to-commit-violent-acts-saleh-223311/
----------
Justice For All wants Prez Biden to close Guantanamo
Bay prison
The Milli Gazette Online
23 Jan 2021
Thanking President Biden for shutting down the Muslim
Ban, Justice For All says this is a perfect beginning. They are hoping for a
new era of hope for all Americans, end of discrimination against all people and
standing up for the human rights at home and abroad.
"Justice For All" has been a part of
lawsuits against the Trump administration and for a couple of years have been
communicating directly with presidential candidates and their policy staffers,
including President Biden. Many of their requests were granted on the first day
including restoring DREAMers, and joining the Paris Accord on Climate. They
only wish there was a major step regarding criminal justice reform on the first
day.
Yesterday, the US government recognized the Uyghur
Genocide as a genocide. Dr. Khursheed Mallick, chair of the board of Justice
For All, says "I am extremely proud of our Save Uighur team for their
commitment and hard work on this issue."
"We have a promise from the New Secretary of
State Antony Blinken of the Biden Administration that he will launch an
interagency review to determine whether Burma’s persecution of its Rohingyas
amounts to genocide", he said further
Dr. Mallick says, "The Biden administration
should order an audit to discover and rescind within 30 days all the
administrative processes and directives initiated by Stephen Miller, the Trump
architect of Muslim Ban who has undermined the great American tradition of
immigration."
Justice For All hopes that closing the Guantanamo Bay
prison within the first 30 days would signal a new era in the US foreign
policy.
Justice For All seeks support for their strategic work
and all its campaigns. You can click to donate:
https://give.justiceforall.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=2
Justice For All has a diverse board which includes two
Indian Americans, two African Americans, a West African-American, a Palestinian
American, and a Burmese American. Justice For All team also is equally diverse,
reflecting the Ummah with nine different ethnic heritage.
https://www.milligazette.com/news/8-international/33790-justice-all-wants-prez-biden-close-guantanamo-bay-prison/
----------
Cutting through knee-deep snow, Muslim neighbours
carry deceased Kashmiri pandit's remains for last rites
Shuja-ul-Haq
January 24, 2021
With Jammu and Kashmir witnessing heavy snowfall, a
heart-warming incident has come to light from the UT's Shopian region.
Cutting through thick snow, Muslim neighbours of a
Kashmiri Pandit family in J&K's Shopian were seen carrying a deceased
neighbour on their shoulders on Saturday.
The deceased, 60-year-old Bhaskar Nath passed away at
Srinagar hospital on Saturday. The ambulance carrying Nath's remains could not
reach his native village owing to the snow-covered route.
When the ambulance meant to get his body back home to
his family had to stop 5 km short, Bhaskar Nath's neighbours decided to help
the family. Despite a thick layer of snow in their way, the locals did not
deter and managed to carry Nath's remains back to his home in Shopian. They
even participated in Bhaskar Nath's final rites.
Locals said that there are only a few Kashmiri pandit
families living in the neighbourhood but everyone has been living like a
family. They have been an equal part of this society and the news of passing
away of Bhaskar has been a shock, they added.
On Saturday, a Yellow Alert avalanche warning was
issued by authorities for upper reaches of Poonch, Rajouri, Ramban, Doda,
Kishtwar, Anantnag, Kulgam, Baramulla, Kupwara, Bandipora, Ganderbal and Kargil
districts.
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/cutting-through-knee-deep-snow-muslim-neighbours-carry-deceased-kashmiri-pandit-s-remains-for-last-rites-1762127-2021-01-24
--------
Bruneian Way Of Life: Greeneries, Iconic Bridge And
Mosques Draw Diplomats’ Attention
Lyna Mohamad
January 24, 2021
The amazing and unique sights, especially the
diversity of Bruneian way of life, have attracted the attention of Ambassador
of the Republic of Korea to Brunei Darussalam Yoon Hyun-bong and her spouse.
The envoy’s husband, Park Shin-ho, had always
expressed his fondness for Brunei’s sceneries, the ambassador said, during the
presentation of a photo of a house by her spouse.
“We cannot see many colours, except green, in Brunei.
But this home owner seems to enjoy the colourful life. He maintains the house
as a hobby and shares the joy with tourists and neighbours. It is a good way to
share the joy of life. It shows how Bruneians share their happiness which is unique,”
she explained during an interview at the launch of ‘Brunei Darussalam from the
Eyes of Foreign Diplomats and their Families’ exhibition in the Tutong District
yesterday.
The couple has been enjoying the beautiful sunset
while playing golf at the RBRC Golf Course although the photograph did not
capture the perfect beauty of the sunset, it was enough to make them remember
how beautiful the moment was.
At Jame’ ‘Asr Hassanil Bolkiah, the ambassador’s
husband focussed on the angle from an architectural structure at the mosque’s
compound as a frame overlooking the mosque while at the Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien
Mosque, it was a clean and crisp night with no breeze, and the water held a
reflection of the mosque.
Meanwhile, Ambassador of the Republic of France to Brunei
Darussalam Christian Ramage said one of his photographs depicts the progress of
the construction of the Temburong Bridge.
The envoy said the most unique aspect was the lighting
up of the bridge at night in various colours, representing the event of the
month.
“It is similar to what is done on the New York Empire
State Building or the Eiffel Tower in France where the structure of the tower
or the bridge is lit in different colours at night to symbolise an event,”
Ramage said.
“The beauty of Brunei is the jungle and I have a
passion for hiking. So I visited remote places such as Bukit Patoi in Temburong
and was rewarded with breathtaking views. In many countries, you are unable to
hike in a real jungle,” he said.
https://borneobulletin.com.bn/greeneries-iconic-bridge-and-mosques-draw-diplomats-attention/
---------
Muslim World League Welcomes UN Draft Resolution on
Promoting Culture of Peace, Tolerance
2021/01/22
Makkah, Jan 22, 2021, SPA -- The Muslim World League
(MWL) welcomed the pioneering international project promoting a culture of
peace and tolerance, which was called for by a number of Arab and Islamic
countries of which the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (with its Arab, Islamic and
international weight) was at the forefront.
The Arab, Islamic Countries' draft resolution was
supported and approved at the United Nations General Assembly which unanimously
adopted it to promote a culture of peace and tolerance to protect religious
sites.
The League affirmed in a statement issued by its
Secretary-General and Chairman of the Association of Muslim Scholars Sheikh Dr.
Muhammad bin Abdul Karim Al-Issa its permanent stance in condemning all forms
of extremism, violence and terrorism targeting religious and other sites, with
its complete rejection and continuous confrontation of hate speech and racism
with all its pretexts in addition to its standing in support of the culture of
(Peace and Harmony) and (Dialogue and Tolerance), describing the civilized
communication with its "effective" dialogues and initiatives as the
most important pillar in consolidating awareness to overcome the threats of
clash and the religious, cultural and ethnic conflict.
It reaffirmed its declared stance regarding all
international efforts calling for spreading and strengthening the culture of
peace and tolerance among followers of religions and cultures.
The MWL Secretary-General also indicated that more
than 1,200 muftis and scholars from among the scholars of the Islamic nation
and more than 4,500 Islamic thinkers unanimously agreed on the contents of that
international vision in their historical document: (Makkah Al-Mukarramah
Document) of which its International Conference was organized by the League
under the auspices of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin
Abdulaziz Al Saud"
https://www.spa.gov.sa/viewfullstory.php?lang=en&newsid=2182941
--------
Turkish mosque in Denmark attacked
Davut Colak
24.01.2021
A Turkish mosque near the Denmark-Germany border
suffered an Islamophobic attack when someone wrote insulting articles on its
walls, an official at the facility said Saturday.
Hursit Tokay, the president of the mosque association,
told Anadolu Agency that he left the Aabenraa Mosque on Friday at 6 p.m.
When he arrived around 11 a.m. Saturday, he noticed
insulting writings about the holy book of Islam on the wall.
The mosque, which operates under the umbrella of the
Danish Turkish Islamic Foundation, was partially closed due to the coronavirus
pandemic.
He said mosque officials reported the incident to
police and authorities opened an investigation and would examine surveillance
cameras in the area.
Tokay condemned the attack and said the writings were
erased and no other damage was detected to the mosque.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/turkish-mosque-in-denmark-attacked/2120816
---------
Europe
Special Commission In French National Assembly
Approved The ‘Charter Of Republican Values’ Bill Targeting Muslims
January 24, 2021
News Service
A special commission in the French National Assembly approved
the “charter of republican values” which was announced earlier by the nation’s
president as the fight against Islamist separatism.
The bill was introduced Oct. 2 by Emmanuel Macron to
fight so-called "Islamist separatism.”
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on Twitter that
the draft law, which advocates consolidating principles of the republic, was
widely accepted by the special commission.
Darmanin said that France is making a law for the
future, not only to resist today's difficulties but to defend the values of the
republic.
Three organizations of the French Council of Muslim
Worship (CFCM) unilaterally denounced the "charter of principles" of
Islam on Thursday that reaffirms the compatibility of the faith with France.
The bill is expected to be submitted to the National
Assembly in February. The draft law is being criticized because it targets the
Muslim community and imposes restrictions on almost every aspect of their
lives.
It provides for intervening in mosques and the
associations responsible for the administration of mosques, as well as
controlling the finances of associations and non-governmental organizations
belonging to Muslims.
A 2004 law prohibits the wearing or open display of
religious symbols in French schools, but it does not apply to universities.
It also restricts education choices of the Muslim
community by preventing families from giving children home education.
The bill, which prohibits patients from choosing
doctors based on gender for religious or other reasons, paves the way for the
evaluation and suppression of dissenting views under the name of "posts
that incite hatred" with a new mechanism. The bill also requires
"secularism education" for all public officials.
https://www.yenisafak.com/en/news/french-commission-approves-bill-targeting-muslims-3559329
--------
Five Years Jail For 49-Year-Old Tulkun Astanov for
Defending Muslims’ Freedom Of Religion And Belief in Uzbekistan
January 22, 2021
By Mushfig Bayram
After repeatedly defending the freedom of religion and
belief of Muslims, including demonstrating outside President Shavkat
Mirziyoyev’s residence in the capital Tashkent, a city court has jailed
49-year-old Tulkun Astanov for five years. Tashkent City Criminal Court
rejected his appeal on 5 January.
The jail sentence followed an October 2019 five-year
suspended prison term for visiting the state-controlled Muslim Board to discuss
restrictions on Muslims’ freedom of religion and belief. Deputy Chief Mufti Mansur
accused Astanov of being a “hooligan”, and being disrespectful to the
Muftiate’s “spiritual leadership”. Astanov was then jailed for 15 days but
continued defending Muslims’ freedom of religion and belief (see below).
In November 2020 Astanov left the boundaries of the
city of Tashkent, against the terms of his suspended sentence, to visit Muslims
in Yangikurgan in Namangan Region and Chinaz in Tashkent Region “who asked him
to represent them as a public defender before the authorities”, his lawyer Umid
Davvlatov told Forum 18. “He did not agree with his punishment given to him for
defending the freedom of religion and belief of Muslims” (see below).
The Agency of Information and Mass Communications
under the Presidential Administration (AIMC) on 26 November 2020 produced a
report based on social media activity claiming that prisoner of conscience
Astanov follows “sources of biased news such as Radio Free Europe”, and
published “unsubstantiated and exaggerated” information. No official was
prepared to discuss the claims with Forum 18 (see below).
Judge Karimov on 21 January 2021 refused to tell Forum
18 why he imposed a jail term instead of a lesser punishment such as a warning.
He was at first hesitant, and then told Forum 18: “Please, understand me correctly,
I am not authorised to give you comments on the case. You need to write an
official letter to us through the Supreme Court” (see below).
On 1 December prisoner of conscience Astanov was
transferred to General Regime Prison No. 1, even though this legally can only
follow an appeal hearing. “My client was taken to prison in violation of the
law without waiting for the result of the appeal,” lawyer Davlatov told Forum
18 (see below).
Judge Karimov told Forum 18 that “based on the Law
they should have waited for the appeal decision, but I do not know all the
regulations for the Interior Ministry’s Chief Directorate for the Enforcement
of Punishments” (see below).
Prisoner of conscience Astanov is not being allowed to
read the Koran or pray the namaz (daily prayers). Such violations of a
prisoner’s human rights are not permitted under the United Nations Standard
Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (known as the Mandela Rules),
which the regime routinely ignores (see below).
Prison officials refused on 22 January to Forum 18 why
they are violating prisoner of conscience Astanov’s freedom of religion and
belief, and told Forum 18 that the head of the prison Farrukh Ismatov “does not
want to talk to you” (see below).
Prisoner of conscience Astanov’s wife Mukhayyo
Astanova told Forum 18 that “we have several minors in the family with some
teenagers. I work as a doctor and take night shifts sometimes in the hospital
because of the coronavirus pandemic. It is very difficult for me to deal with
all the family problems alone.” She added that “this is so unfair to punish us
for only trying to be good Muslims” (see below).
In another case, Doctor Alimardon Sultonov has
unsuccessfully challenged a 14-month restricted freedom sentence. On 7 January
judges refused his appeal, despite the prosecutor being described as “more
emotional, yelling and behaving unprofessionally in a disrespectful manner to
the Court and defendant” (see below).
During his restricted freedom sentence, Sultonov will
live under restrictions, having to report regularly to Ellikala District Police
and having to be at home from 10 pm to 6 am every day. He cannot leave the
District without police permission. He will also be banned from using “means of
communication”, including the internet. He also cannot participate in public
events or festivities (see below).
Probation Officer Khujanazar told Sultonov on 12
January that among other places he cannot attend mosque. Khujanazar told
Sultonov that mosque prayers are a public event, and he cannot attend public
events. Dr Sultonov can work on night shifts, as the Supreme Court of
Karakalpakstan on 7 January provided him with a special written permit allowing
him to do this (see below).
Probation Officer Khujanazar told Forum 18 on 22
January that he had not told Dr Sultonov that he cannot go to a mosque. “I have
not said that to him. I told him that he can attend a mosque, but not a mass
event on the street” (see below).
https://www.eurasiareview.com/22012021-uzbekistan-five-years-jail-for-defending-muslims-freedom-of-religion-and-belief/
---------
Mosque dating back to Levant conquest unearthed in
Israel
ARAB NEWS
January 23, 2021
LONDON: One of the world’s oldest mosques has been
uncovered by a team of archaeologists on the shores of Israel’s Sea of Galilee.
The remains of the mosque were found beneath the ruins
of a building originally identified as from the Byzantine period. It might have
been constructed as early as A.D. 635 by a companion of the Prophet Muhammad
who was a commander of the Muslim armies that conquered the Levant in the
seventh century.
The mosque is located on the outskirts of the city of
Tiberias in Israel’s north, which overlooks the western shore of the Sea of
Galilee. The discovery was announced last week in an academic conference after
11 years of excavation by a team led by Katia Cytryn-Silverman of The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem.
The site was previously excavated in the 1950s when a
colonnaded structure was found and identified as a marketplace from the late
Byzantine period. However, later excavations revealed pottery shards and coins
from the early Islamic period. Together with the multilevel structure of the
building’s foundations, archaeologists have pointed to the site having Islamic
origins.
Archaeologists had earlier identified the remains of
an eighth-century mosque, but further digs revealed that the structure was in
fact a century older.
Historians already know the location of older mosques,
but they lie hidden beneath existing mosques where archaeologists cannot access
them. The oldest known remains of a mosque were uncovered east of Baghdad in
the ancient city of Wasit, and have been dated to A.D. 703.
However, the Israeli archaeologist team believes that
the mosque uncovered in Tiberias was built decades earlier, and perhaps founded
by Shurahbil ibn Hasana, a commander of the army that conquered the area.
“We can’t say for certain that this was Shurahbil’s,”
said Dr. Cytryn-Silverman.
“But we do have historic sources that say he established
a mosque in Tiberias when he conquered it in 635.”
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1797196/middle-east
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UK imams work to dispel vaccine worries among Muslims
The Arab Weekly
23/01/2021
LONDON - Imams across Britain are helping a drive to dispel
coronavirus disinformation, using Friday sermons and their influential standing
within Muslim communities to argue that COVID-19 vaccines are safe.
Qari Asim, chairman of the Mosques and Imams National
Advisory Board (MINAB) which is leading a campaign to reassure its faithful, is
among those publically advocating that the inoculations are compatible with
Islamic practices.
“We are confident that the two vaccines that have been
used in the UK, Oxford AstraZeneca and Pfizer, are permissible from an Islamic
perspective,” he said.
Britain, the hardest-hit country in Europe by the
virus after registering nearly 95,000 deaths, is relying on its biggest-ever
vaccination effort to end repeated cycles of lockdowns and restrictions.
However, a report from the scientific committee
advising the government showed stronger mistrust of vaccines among ethnic
minorities than the rest of the UK population.
Imams are pushing back in particular at fears among
Britain’s estimated 2.8 million Muslims that the vaccines contain pork gelatin
or alcohol, which are banned by Islam.
Asim said it was “legitimate” to question whether
things were permissible under Islam but without paying attention to unfounded
claims.
Among the falsehoods spread about the vaccine are that
it can modify DNA, make recipients sterile, or even involve inserting a
microchip in the body.
Misinformation around the coronavirus is all the more
dangerous given several studies have shown that it can impact minorities
disproportionately.
“These are precisely the communities we should be
trying to target,” said Nighat Arif, a general practitioner based in Chesham,
near London.
When she received her vaccination, she posted a video
in Urdu on social media aimed at the language’s speakers living in Britain.
“I’m hoping that because they see someone who looks
like them, who is a practising Muslim, wears a hijab, someone who is Asian who
speaks their language, that’s more relatable than something that’s coming
through from the government,” she added.
Arif is still surprised by the refusal of certain
patients to be inoculated, noting they will often get vaccinated to undertake
the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, or to visit Pakistan or India.
Samara Afzal, 34, a general practitioner at Netherton
Health Centre in Dudley in the West Midlands, also shared a video in Urdu with
her 35,000 Twitter followers to “debunk some myths”.
She said some people had asked her to send the video
directly to them so they could forward it to sceptical loved ones via social
tools like WhatsApp.
At her medical centre, Afzal estimates that around 40
to 50 people out of 1,000 have refused to be vaccinated when she had expected
only one or two.
“It’s still a fair amount of people that are saying no
and obviously we haven’t even addressed the younger ones, so this is just the
elderly,” she added.
Around five million people, almost entirely the
elderly and caregivers, have already received a first dose of the vaccine in
the UK, the highest rate in Europe.
In a sign of officials’ concerns about minority
take-up of the jabs, the state-run health service is mobilising “influencers”
in communities to convince the sceptics.
“There’s a big piece of work happening where we’re
translating information, we’re making sure the look and feel of it reaches the
populations that matter,” Harpreet Sood, a doctor who is leading the
anti-disinformation campaign, told the BBC.
A vaccination centre has even been set up in a mosque
in Birmingham, Britain’s second biggest city, which has a large south Asian
population.
“If there was a lower take-up of vaccines in Muslim
communities in comparison to all other communities, then potentially, it could
fan the flames of Islamophobia,” he noted.
https://thearabweekly.com/uk-imams-work-dispel-vaccine-worries-among-muslims
---------
World Interfaith Conference to be held in Russia
Source : Islam in Russia
January 23, 2021
Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matvienko expects
the World Conference on Interreligious and Interethnic Dialogue to be held in
Russia next year with the participation of heads of state and religious
leaders, RIA Novosti reports.
“In the near future, we are to choose the place for
holding the conference (in Russia), as well as to discuss its format and the
participants. In many ways, the results of the conference will depend on its
participants. We initially assumed that the conference would be attended by
heads of state, leaders of world religions and parliamentarians. We hope that
the Interparliamentary Union, in cooperation with the UN and its structures,
will be able to hold it at a high level”, Matvienko said at a meeting with
Miguel Angel Moratinos, High Representative of the UN Secretary General for the
Alliance of Civilizations.
The speaker recalled that the idea and venue of the
conference were approved by the UN resolution.
“We consider it advisable to host it in Russia on May
21, 2022, timed to coincide with the World Day for Cultural Diversity for
Dialogue and Development established by the UN General Assembly and at the end
of the decade for the rapprochement of cultures proclaimed by UNESCO”, she
said.
https://en.abna24.com/news//world-interfaith-conference-to-be-held-in-russia_1108261.html
--------
Pakistan
Taking Pakistan off FATF grey list: US Muslim group
announces public campaign
Our Correspondent
January 23, 2021
LAHORE: A Muslim organisation based in America has
announced a public campaign to take Pakistan off the FATF grey list.
The members of the Muslim Council of America (MCA),
which lobbies for Muslim countries in the United States and is currently on a
visit to Pakistan, said they are set to launch "Get Pakistan out of FATF
Grey List" campaign on their return. MCA Chairman Rana Zaman Saeed, while
talking to the media in Lahore on Friday, paid tributes to Pakistan’s armed forces
for their sacrifices in the war against terrorism in their bid to rid the
country of terrorism threats. He wondered why Pakistan was in FATF grey list
despite the great sacrifices of its armed forces and civilians, terming it
completely unfair. He said it is the reason that the MCA is pushed to raise
voices in the US and European countries.
He said that on the contrary, the policies of India in
the past left no doubt that India should be blacklisted by the FATF. “We will
raise our voice at every forum to expose India's policies against peace and
minorities and its conspiracies against other countries,” he said and added the
MCA would lobby for Pakistan’s cause by holding meetings with MPs from the
United States and the European Parliament, raising the call for removing
Pakistan from the FATF grey list. “We will also run a campaign to let the world
know that Pakistan supported the cause of peace whereas India was the biggest
facilitator of terrorists. The time is not far when Pakistan will be removed from
the grey list,” he said.
Zaman thanked US President Joe Biden for lifting
travel ban on some Muslim countries. He said he hoped that Biden would also
take notice of atrocities against Muslims in Kashmir and Palestine, and support
their right to freedom.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/778588-taking-pakistan-off-fatf-grey-list-us-muslim-group-announces-public-campaign
---------
Pakistan to prepare Covid vaccine locally: Qureshi
Staff Correspondent
January 24, 2021
MULTAN: Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said
the trials of Chinese Covid-19 vaccine —CanSino — are successfully underway in
Pakistan, after which the country intends to prepare the vaccine at the local
level with the help of China.
Addressing various ceremonies in his constituency here
on Saturday, Mr Qureshi said the government was making efforts for the
provision of vaccine to every citizen.
“Till Jan 31, China will donate 500,000 doses of the
vaccine to Pakistan, while we have requested the Chinese government that we
need 1.1 million doses in near future,” he said, adding China had assured
Pakistan of the provision of the required quantity of the vaccine till the end
of February for which we are grateful.
“For what we did to strengthen the economy, the
international community is praising us. Now our next challenge is to arrange
vaccine for the doctors, paramedics and elderly citizens on priority,” he said.
He said Pakistan was facing multiple challenges at the
diplomatic level, adding the country’s position was “weakened” because the previous
(PML-N) government did not appoint a full-time foreign minister.
“Now we are fighting the case of Pakistan at every
diplomatic forum and will not compromise on the Pakistan’s interest,” he said.
He said Pakistan was hopeful for a “breakthrough” in its
relationship with the newly elected Joe Biden administration in the US.
“We intend close ties with the Joe Biden
administration. Pakistan made all-out efforts to bring peace in Afghanistan and
faced difficult challenges to create favourable environment for peace there. We
are also willing to work with the new US administration in this regard, as we
believe that we should avail the chance that we got in Afghanistan. The new US
administration should also continue the peace process in Afghanistan,” he said.
He said for the PTI government it was time to deliver
and record development schemes were underway in his constituency.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1603247/pakistan-to-prepare-covid-vaccine-locally-qureshi
---------
ECP explains its stance on secrecy in foreign funding
case
Iftikhar A. Khan
January 24, 2021
ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP)
has once again explained its position over the extent of secrecy in the
foreign funding case against the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.
“There seems (to be) confusion about open/closed
hearing of the case. It is again clarified that there will be open hearing of
the case before the commission once the scrutiny committee submits its
report,” ECP spokesman Nadeem Qasim said in a statement issued here on
Saturday.
He said in-camera proceedings would be conducted
before the scrutiny committee though it was being carried out in the presence
of both parties.
Reacting to the latest ECP statement that the scrutiny
would be conducted in camera while the trial would be open, the petitioner and
PTI founding member Akbar S. Babar stated that keeping the scrutiny secret was
in violation of ECP’s own order of May 30, 2018 that rejected PTI’s application
to keep scrutiny and record secret.
“So why 23 PTI bank statements acquired on SBP
instructions and other PTI financial documents not only were kept secret from
the public but also from the petitioner against the law and all norms justice
and transparency,” he asked.
The petitioner said the first point of the scrutiny
committee’s terms of reference (TOR) stated that the inquiry would be conducted
in the presence of the two parties.
“This is unacceptable and will never be acquiesced,”
he remarked before reiterating his concerns about the committee that had been
validated by the ECP in its order dated August 27, 2020 when it rejected the
committee’s report of August 17, 2020 by stating “the committee neither
scrutinised the record nor evaluated the evidence from the documents”.
The petitioner said Prime Minister Imran Khan offered
an open trial of PTI foreign funding case and reposed full confidence in the
ECP, while his writ petition questioning the ECP jurisdiction had been pending
before the Supreme Court since January last year. He asked as to what had changed
since January 2017 when Mr Khan accused the same constitutional body of
‘bias’..in favour of the petitioner (Akbar S. Babar). He said if PM Khan was
serious in his offer, he should have withdrawn his writ petition pending before
SC and unfetter the scrutiny committee from keeping PTI records secret from the
petitioner and public.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1603275/ecp-explains-its-stance-on-secrecy-in-foreign-funding-case
---------
Militant leader killed in North Waziristan operation
The Newspaper's Correspondent
January 24, 2021
NORTH WAZIRISTAN: A militant leader was killed during
an intelligence-based operation in Mirali subdivision of North Waziristan
tribal district on Saturday.
Sources said that the security forces launched an
operation after receiving information about the presence of a militant
commander in Mossaki village. As the militant saw the security forces, he
opened fire on them.
The security personnel responded to the attack and
killed the militant leader. He was identified as Said Rahim alias Abid.
The sources said that the militant was involved in
attacks on security forces in the area, including a recent attack on a Frontier
Corps convoy.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1603277/militant-leader-killed-in-north-waziristan-operation
--------
South Asia
Rohingya Crisis: Dhaka seeks active global support
January 24, 2021
Unb, Dhaka
Bangladesh has sought effective and proactive support
from the international community to find a solution to the Rohingya crisis
apart from management of the huge displacement.
"We need effective and proactive support from the
international community to manage this huge displacement," said Foreign
Minister AK Abdul Momen.
He said the Global Forum on Migration and Development
(GFMD) provides a voluntary, non-binding and government-led process to discuss
all possible solutions.
The minister also said they had the firsthand
experience as Bangladesh is hosting 1.1 million Rohingyas who were forcibly
displaced from their ancestral home and a good number of Bangladesh population
was regularly displaced due to erratic climate change every year.
Momen made the remarks during his intervention at the
ongoing 13th GFMD Summit -- Future of Human Mobility: Innovative Partnerships
for Sustainable Development -- being held virtually from January 18-26.
He thanked the current chair the UAE for its excellent
leadership in organising the first-ever virtual GFMD Summit amid the Covid-19
pandemic successfully.
Momen said migration is now a defining issue of their
time, a natural global demographic phenomenon and no country can deal with it
alone.
"Shared responsibility, cooperation and
inclusiveness are critical in addressing challenges to effective migration
governance."
The minister said they should take all measures
keeping the ultimate interest of the migrants at the centre of all of their
activities.
"Of late, we see that migration and displacements
are increasingly taking place for reasons beyond the capacity of the migrants
like climate change, sudden natural disasters and forced displacement," he
observed.
Momen said the responsibility to decide the future of
GFMD lies with them, the participating member states.
https://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/news/rohingya-crisis-dhaka-seeks-active-global-support-2032669
--------
Targeted IED Blast Wounds Three in Kabul
By Mohammad Haroon Alim
24 Jan 2021
At least three people were wounded in an explosion in
the Shah Shaheed area of PD8 of Kabul city on Sunday.
According to police, an armored vehicle was targeted
by an IED, the incident occurred at around 8:30 am local time.
In another incident in Nangarhar province, three
civilians were wounded when a mine was detonated.
According to local officials, the incident is being
investigated.
No group or individual has accepted the responsibility
for both of the incidents.
https://www.khaama.com/ied-blast-in-kabul-wounds-three-445566/
--------
Everyone will have a home, a standard life
January 24, 2021
Bss, Dhaka
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday said her
government would manage shelters for all marking the "Mujib Borsho"
to enable them to lead a standard life.
"We have set a target in the Mujib Borsho that
not a single person will remain without address or home. I will somehow manage
an address for everyone,'' she said.
The PM was addressing a programme marking the
distribution of homes among 66,189 families alongside rehabilitating 3,715
others in the barracks under the Ashrayan-2 project.
Joining the event virtually from the Gono Bhaban,
Hasina asked all concerned, particularly the local administrations, to hand the
ownerships of the houses to the beneficiaries.
She said 320,000 families were earlier given homes
while work on building one lakh more houses for the landless and homeless would
start soon.
The premier said she was very happy yesterday as she
managed to give such a large number of houses to landless and homeless people.
Describing the ceremony marking the distribution of a
large number of homes as the largest festival, Hasina said, "Today, it is
the largest festival. There is no such big festival like giving homes to
landless and homeless people on such a large scale."
She, however, thanked all concerned, including the
local administrations and public representatives, for managing building such a
huge number of houses maintaining due standard in a short period.
The PM said the souls of her father Bangabandhu Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman and her mother and lakhs of martyrs who made supreme sacrifice
for the country's Liberation War would rest in peace as such a huge number of
people have got their own homes.
Referring to giving homes to the backward people such
as dalits, horijons, transgender, tea workers and others, the PM said her
government was working tirelessly to ensure improved live for cross-section of
people in the society.
Hasina said the government has also rehabilitated the
climate refugees with giving them homes at Khuruskul of Cox's Bazar and 100
more buildings are being built for them.
She criticised the previous BNP-Jamaat government for
stopping the housing projects taken by the then Awami League government in 1997
to rehabilitate the landless and homeless people.
The PM said the AL after forming the government in
2009 had again initiated the Ashrayan project to rehabilitate the landless and
homeless people.
Hasina later exchanged views with the beneficiaries,
local AL leaders and public representatives who got connected to the programme
from Khulna, Nilphamari, Habiganj and Chapainawabganj.
The government has built 66,189 houses at a cost of Tk
1,168 crore. Built on two decimals of land, each of the houses has two rooms,
one corridor and one latrine alongside electricity and water connections.
https://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/news/everyone-will-have-home-standard-life-2032681
--------
Chattogram City Polls: Internal strife has AL worried
January 24, 2021
Rashidul Hasan
The ruling Awami League is likely to face a stiff test
in Wednesday's Chattogram city polls due to a division in the local party unit
and presence of a good number of rebel councillor candidates.
Party insiders said councillor elections in many wards
may turn out to be AL vs AL contests. With rebel candidates in the electoral
race, the party's votes may be split which would ultimately benefit the BNP
supported contestants.
The long-standing dispute between two AL factions, led
by immediate past Chattogram mayor AJM Nasir Uddin and Deputy Minister for
Education Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury Nowfel, is getting worse as the election is
only two days away. The party high command is yet to bring the rebels under
control.
Failing to make the rebels withdraw their nominations,
the AL on January 18 published an advertisement in a leading local Bangla daily
with names of party-supported councillor hopefuls.
Two supporters of as many councillior hopefuls have
been killed and several others injured in campaign violence in the city so far.
The candidates are involved in AL politics.
BNP leaders said they were working together to ensure
victories for its mayoral candidate Shahadat Hossain and the party supported
councillor hopefuls.
Central AL leaders, including Joint General Secretary
Mahbubul Alam Hanif, had said they would take stern actions against the rebels.
But the party is yet to take such actions fearing further division ahead of the
city polls, insiders said.
According to the party's charter, the AL can expel the
rebels from the party without issuing any show cause notice, but the party high
command was still not taking any such action as it was unsure about the outcome
of such a harsh move.
Talking to The Daily Star on condition of anonymity, a
top central AL leader admitted that the division in the port city AL has become
a headache for them as they fear the party's votes would split in Wednesday's
polls which would be of advantage to BNP supported candidates.
He said they were waiting for directives from Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina, also the AL chief, on dealing with the rebel
candidates.
Jahirul Alam Jashim, AL's rebel councillor candidate
in ward-9, yesterday said he would not quit the electoral race as "voters
were rallying behind him".
Enquired whether he faced any pressure from the AL
high-ups to quit the race, he told The Daily Star that none from his party
asked him to do so.
AL sources said supporters of former mayor Nasir were
frustrated that he was not nominated for the mayoral post. They believe that
Mohibul is responsible for this.
AL presidium member Engr Mosharraf Hossain, also the
party's chief coordinator for the CCC polls, said it was totally unacceptable
that rebels would take part in the elections going against their commitment to
the party.
"Those who are still in the electoral race
defying the party's directive are no longer part of our party. The party will
not shoulder the responsibility of their activities," he added.
The BNP is desperately trying to use the AL's
intra-party feud as an opportunity to win the city polls. Although several
cases were lodged against over 150 activists of the BNP and its associated
bodies recently, the party men are active in campaigning for the polls.
BNP sources said standing committee member Amir Khasru
Mahmud Chowdhury was coordinating the party's polls campaign. However, senior
local leaders, including Mir Nasir and Abdullah Al Noman, were yet to join the
polls campaigning.
Speaking to this paper yesterday, Amir Khashru said
all BNP leaders and activists were working together to ensure victories for the
party's mayoral candidate and the councillor hopefuls.
"But like the common voters, we are also worried
whether the city polls will be free and fair as the police have already taken
over the electoral process and working in favour of the ruling party's mayoral
candidate," he added.
He alleged that police were conducting raids on the
BNP men's houses every night to create panic among the party leaders and
activists.
https://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/news/chattogram-city-polls-internal-strife-has-alworried-2032673
--------
North America
Israel, Saudi Arabia lobbying to prevent US from
rejoining JCPOA
Source : IRNA
January 24, 2021
Tel Aviv and Riyadh are lobbying to prevent the United
States from rejoining the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and will
do whatever they can to hamper any effort in this regard, Professor of
University of Hawaii Farideh Farahi said.
Farahi made the remarks in an exclusive interview with
IRNA Political correspondent on Saturday.
The new US president is scheduled to announce his
plans with regard to international relations and national security, she said,
adding that whether Biden announces plans for rejoining JCPOA or no depends on
the chances Iran and the United States will reach an agreement.
It has to be noted that the US return to international
treaties, such as the Paris Agreement, does not rely on reciprocal measures of
other countries, while US rejoining the JCPOA will also require Iran to adhere
its nuclear commitments under the deal once again, the academic said.
Farahi, however, said that a stronger agreement is
unlikely to happen in the short term.
Asked whether it is possible that the new US
administration will continue with the Trump’s policy of maximum pressure
against Iran, she said that it would be much better for Biden to take Obama’s
path and try to prevent Iran from reaching Atomic weapons thorough JCPOA.
It is clear that the return of the United States is
not possible without dialogue and finally an agreement with Iran, the academic
said.
https://en.abna24.com/news//israel-saudi-arabia-lobbying-to-prevent-us-from-rejoining-jcpoa_1108523.html
---------
Muslim Families Hope To Reunite Following Biden's
Travel Ban Repeal
Oriana Gonzalez
24-01-2021
Muslim Americans across the U.S. are celebrating
President Biden's day-1 reversal of former President Trump's travel ban that
targeted several Muslim-majority countries.
The big picture: The repeal of what many critics
called the "Muslim ban" renews hope for thousands of families
separated by Trump's order.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, Mina Mahdavi, a
Campbell-based cybersecurity engineer, has renewed hopes that her mother, who
lives in Iran, could spend time with her grandson, who was born months after
Trump signed the ban, ABC7 reports.
In New York, Nashwan Mozeb, a bodega worker from
Queens, hopes to see his wife, who is in war-torn Yemen. He's been trying to
bring her to the U.S. since 2016, according to The City.
"Every day I pray to God to get together because
it’s too hard," Mozeb told The City, saying he hopes his wife’s visa
application will be approved quickly.
In Chicago, Jihad Al-Nabi, a Syrian refugee who works
as a pastry chef, is hopeful he will be able to reunite with his family, he
told ABC7 Chicago.
In Los Angeles, Mania Darbani called her mother, who
is in Iran, on the night of Biden's inauguration as they remembered his promise
to repeal the ban, Reuters writes.
But, but, but: The coronavirus pandemic may prevent
some families from gathering as travel and visa restrictions are in place.
There is also an enormous volume of visa and waiver
cases that must be resolved.
https://www.axios.com/muslim-ban-repeal-family-reunion-0f8a83f4-d049-4c0b-8138-6f0afb4b18fa.html
--------
Detroit’s legal pot reticence spills over to
Muslim-majority neighbor
By PAUL DEMKO
01/23/202
Detroit’s slow walking of legal marijuana sales is
driving the area’s pot market to an unlikely place: a Muslim-majority city best
known for its hulking General Motors assembly plant.
At first glance, Hamtramck, Mich., is like thousands
of other cities across the country debating with whether to allow marijuana
businesses to operate within its borders.
“It’s a microcosm of the sort of debate that you see
happening across the country with cannabis,” said Benjamin Sobczak, chief legal
officer for Pleasantrees, which opened Hamtramck’s first weed shop in November.
But in other ways, there’s no marijuana debate in the
country quite like the one taking place in the densely populated city of 20,000-plus
residents, and that’s expected to come to a head at Tuesday’s meeting of the
Hamtramck City Council.
For starters, Hamtramck is almost entirely surrounded
by Detroit — Michigan’s largest city, which doesn’t yet have any marijuana
shops where anyone at least 21 can buy weed.
But perhaps more significantly, over half of the
residents of Hamtramck — historically a Polish-American enclave — are Muslim,
primarily people of Yemeni and Bangladeshi descent. That Muslim majority
extends to the members of the Hamtramck City Council.
Even in the most liberal parts of the country where
there’s widespread support for marijuana legalization, many cities still ban
marijuana shops from doing business. While most Americans now think marijuana
should be legal, that doesn’t mean they want weed shops or farms operating in
their neighborhoods.
Most of the horror was expressed by members of the
Muslim community, but their concerns will sound familiar to residents of any
municipality that’s debated how to handle marijuana businesses. In particular,
they cited fears that crime will increase and that kids will have easier access
to the drug.
“At the end of the day, we know who the majority of
the city is — it’s Yemenis and Bengalis,” said City Council Member Fadel
Al-Marsoumi, during a five-plus-hour meeting in December largely devoted to the
marijuana debate. “They don’t want it here. We have to respect them.”
But the overwhelming majority of white residents who
spoke at the meeting voiced support for allowing marijuana businesses to
operate, often citing the city’s financial struggles as a reason to welcome
them.
Ultimately the City Council voted 4-3 to ban marijuana
businesses from operating in Hamtramck, with the vote split along Muslim and
non-Muslim lines.
But the City Council’s action came too late. Quality
Roots obtained a license to operate a dispensary prior to the ban taking effect
and opened its doors earlier this month. A third shop is expected to open soon.
The blowback, particularly from the Muslim community,
was intense. Ultimately, in response to that pressure, the City Council dropped
the ordinance.
“They wanted no part of medical marijuana, period,
based on the pressure they were getting from people in the local community,”
said Hamtramck City Attorney James Allen.
Shortly thereafter, Michigan voters overwhelmingly
passed a recreational legalization referendum. However, the measure was
narrowly rejected by Hamtramck voters.
Under Michigan’s law, cities must proactively ban
marijuana businesses from operating within their borders. Hundreds of
municipalities have taken that step. Many other cities have drafted ordinances
to limit how many businesses can obtain licenses and where they can operate,
often sparking costly legal fights.
In Hamtramck, an ordinance to ban marijuana businesses
came up for a vote in October 2019. However, it ultimately failed, largely
because two Muslim council members who were expected to back the ban didn’t
attend the meeting.
Instead, Hamtramck did nothing. That left the door
wide open for Pleasantrees and other businesses to obtain the requisite
licenses and open for business.
“They kind of looked at Hamtramck as an ideal place to
put their businesses and they started to invest accordingly,” Allen said,
noting the close proximity to Detroit.
But the blowback once the first pot shop opened was
immense. That led the City Council to quickly ban additional businesses from
obtaining licenses. Allen cautioned, however, that the outcry from angry
residents and the ensuing action by the city council was no different from
what’s played out all across the country.
The mayor also insists that the issue isn’t simply a
divide between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities. She points to a recent
debate that was held on the issue and the wide range of comments that surfaced
from people of various ethnicities.
“It's not a simple matter of saying Muslims are
against it, Christians are for it, and that this demonstrates a larger cultural
divide in the city,” Majewski said. “When you talk to people privately, it's
probably a lot more complicated than that.”
During the City Council meeting where the ordinance
banning pot shops was adopted, a proposal to establish regulations for the
existing businesses was offered. However, that measure was rejected by the Council.
Hamtramck resident Linda Ward said she thinks
rejecting that ordinance was a big mistake. She worries that the city is
opening itself up to litigation by failing to apply a uniform set of rules for
potential marijuana businesses.
“I'm a homeowner here in Hamtramck,” Ward said. “I
don't want to see my property taxes go up for something so silly, when they
just could have put in an ordinance to regulate them instead.”
Ward is now leading a citizen revolt against the
marijuana business ban. Under Hamtramck’s city charter, an ordinance must be
reconsidered by the City Council if a petition requesting that action receives
signatures equivalent to 15 percent of the votes in the last mayoral election.
Ward and her allies say they have secured enough
signatures to meet that threshold. That means the City Council will be required
to reconsider the ordinance. If it fails to do so, then a referendum will be
held in which voters would decide whether to back the ordinance banning
marijuana businesses.
The soonest that could happen under state law,
however, would be May, according to Allen, the city attorney. In the meantime,
the ordinance would be on hold, meaning an unlimited number of marijuana
businesses could continue to get licensed and open for business in Hamtramck.
What the City Council will do is difficult to discern.
None of the four members who backed the ban in December responded to requests
for comment from POLITICO.
But most observers expect the Council to punt when the
issue comes up, which is likely to happen at the next council meeting on Jan.
26. That would mean the ordinance is invalidated until voters weigh in.
Pleasantrees’ Sobczak said the dispensary is in favor
of the effort to override the ban on additional marijuana businesses, even
though it would almost undoubtedly result in greater competition for the
fledgling pot shop. He said it would be hypocritical to try and keep other
businesses out after arguing that Pleasantrees will be a positive influence on
the city of Hamtramck.
“That's talking out of both sides of your mouth,”
Sobczak said. “We try to stay consistent with our messaging here as a company
that believes in what we're doing.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/23/hamtramck-detriot-marijuana-licensing-461442
---------
US to review designation of Ansarullah as terrorist
organization: Spokesperson
Source : Mehr
January 23, 2021
The US Department of State has initiated a review of
the designation of the Houthi movement as a terrorist organization, said the
department's spokesperson.
"As noted by Secretary-Designate Blinken, the
State Department has initiated a review of Ansarallah's [Houthi] terrorist
designations," the spokesperson said on Friday. "We will not publicly
discuss or comment on internal deliberations regarding that review; however,
with the humanitarian crisis in Yemen we are working as fast as we can to
conduct the review and make a determination."
Repeating accusations against the movement, the
spokesperson claimed Ansarullah should change behavior without pointing to the
major role of the US-backed Saudi-led coalition in the creation and
continuation of the Yemeni crisis.
Last week, the US State Department added the Houthi
movement to its list of terrorist organizations. The leader of the movement,
Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, his brother and military commander Abd al-Khaliq
al-Houthi and another Ansar Allah commander Abdullah Yahya al-Hakim were listed
as global terrorists.
Following the designation, President-elect Joe Biden’s
nominee for Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said the new US administration
would seek to reevaluate the step.
The Yemeni crisis is now considered one of the world's
biggest humanitarian crises. According to the UN, over 24 million Yemenis,
about 80% of the country's population, are in need of humanitarian aid in the
midst of the conflict and pandemic, as the number of people forced to leave
their homes exceeds 3 million.
https://en.abna24.com/news//us-to-review-designation-of-ansarullah-as-terrorist-organization-spokesperson_1108281.html
---------
American Muslims welcome the end of Trump’s travel ban
By Aysha Khan
Jan. 23, 2021
Muslim, African and Arab Americans and civil rights
advocates are breathing a sigh of relief after President Biden’s
long-anticipated reversal of the travel ban, which has separated thousands of
families since it was issued in President Donald Trump’s first week in office.
Biden’s fulfillment of his Day 1 promise to Muslim
supporters, which he first announced at a Muslim conference in July, signals “a
new direction on immigration law and policy, moving away from the Trump
Administration’s draconian policies,” the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee said in a statement.
For Ramez Alghazzouli, a Syrian immigrant who had been
separated from his wife for a year due to the travel ban, the reversal felt
like someone had finally removed the boulder sitting on his chest for years.
But he said Biden’s executive action cannot undo the
damage done by the ban, which critics decried as racist, senseless and
inhumane.
“The ban itself will be reversed, but no one can
reverse our feelings and emotions and the time we lost while being separated
from each other,” said Alghazzouli, who hopes his parents will soon be able to
come to the United States and meet his baby. He said his mother’s immigrant
visa is being held up due to the ban.
“It’ll still be part of our life and history,” he
said. “The Muslim ban is the nuke that we survived, but we are still suffering
from its collateral damage.”
Over the past four years, more than 41,000 visa
requests have been denied due to the ban. The policy also prevented lifesaving
surgeries for individuals from banned countries while also limiting America’s
own health-care workforce during a pandemic.
Still, the rollback marks “an unprecedented victory
for Muslims and allies, who flocked to airports to protest this ban and never
stopped fighting and organizing to bring it to an end,” Farhana Khera,
executive director of Muslim Advocates, said.
The order also instructs the State Department to
restart visa processing for these countries and calls for a review of the Trump
administration’s “extreme vetting” practices and a plan to “restore fairness
and remedy the harms caused by the ban.”
The policy, the culmination of Trump’s 2015 campaign
call for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims’ entry, initially banned
travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.
But amid legal challenges, the order went through several iterations before a
narrower version was upheld by the Supreme Court. The court’s 2018 ruling
required applicants to apply for waivers in a process some lawmakers and
immigration rights advocates later described as a “sham.”
Zahra Billoo, executive director of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations office in the San Francisco Bay area, said Biden’s
move would “correct the course” of disrupted lives.
“Tens of thousands of impacted individuals will now
have the chance to be with their families during cherished and challenging
times,” she said. “While we know our work is far from over, today we celebrate
the heroic efforts undertaken by so many over the last several years in our
effort to repeal the Muslim and African bans.”
Biden also announced he will send the U.S. Citizenship
Act to Congress. The legislation includes the No Ban Act, which passed in the
House last July and would prevent future presidents from enacting
discriminatory travel bans in the future.
The No Muslim Ban Ever coalition has urged the Biden
administration to expand refugee numbers from the countries impacted by the
ban, ordering expedited consideration of visas for those who have been denied
under the ban and ensuring they have recourse in reversing previous decisions.
“People harmed by the ban will still need to navigate
a bureaucratic minefield made even more treacherous by the Trump
administration,” Khera said. “The Biden administration must take sweeping
administrative action to clear away these hurdles and reunite families as soon
as humanly possible.”
Advocates are urging the government to immediately
review all denied cases and allow the requests to proceed under the new order,
without any additional fees or interviews for individuals who have already
provided them; clear the backlog of cases caught up in administrative systems;
process Diversity Visa Lottery winners who were not granted visas due to the
ban; and publish all data related to the ban’s impact.
But they are also calling for this move to be the
beginning of a widespread immigration revision platform that includes raising
the refugee resettlement cap and expanding the Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals program.
“While we welcome this critical move, we know it’s not
enough,” said Linda Sarsour, who heads MPower Change, a member of the
coalition. “We don’t want to just go back to four years ago — we want to ensure
true transformative change for all immigrant communities through immediate
actions like a deportation moratorium and freeing our people from ICE prisons.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/muslim-travel-ban-end-trump-biden/2021/01/22/d09b42de-5c10-11eb-b8bd-ee36b1cd18bf_story.html
---------
India
Times of India Apologises for 2007 Article on Aligarh
Muslim University
The Wire Staff
New Delhi: Prominent English daily Times of India
(TOI) tendered an apology for publishing a ‘defamatory’ article on Aligarh
Muslim University (AMU) in a civil court of Delhi on January 14 – 14 years
after the article was published. The case was filed by a former law student of
the university, Farrukh Khan, who is now a practicing advocate. Khan was also
the general secretary of the students’ union in 2005.
The 2007 news story titled ‘AMU: Where the Degrees are
Sold like Toffees’ was written by Akhilesh Kumar Singh. Khan graduated from the
university the same year and filed a defamation suit against the publisher, the
editor and the reporter of the newspaper. The case was settled on January 14
when the newspaper submitted an apology.
The news story has not been retracted and is still
available on the Times of India website. The story introduction says, “The
traditional topi-sherwani is passe, so are words like aadaab and huzoor.
Hostels have become shelters for goons and education is secondary to politicking
and gangsterism. Welcome to AMU, one of India’s oldest universities which has
been in the news for all the wrong reasons.”
“A senior faculty member, preferring anonymity, says,
“Thesis and synopsis can be purchased from Shamshad Market, adjacent to AMU
campus, and are awarded to passouts. None bothers to crosscheck their
authenticity. Degrees are distributed like toffees,” claimed the story. Khan
says that he was immensely hurt by the story and felt that a case must be
filed, he told The Wire. He also said that there is a difference between
freedom of expression and a license to insult an institution.
However, he is relieved now that an apology has been
tendered. “Justice has been delayed, but has not denied. As a practicing
advocate myself, I know that there are huge backlogs in the court. But one must
always take a legal recourse for such redressals. And anyway, what ends well,
all is well,” he said.
He says that it is a myth that only the ruling
Bharatiya Janata Party government is responsible for demonising the university.
“There has been a malicious campaign against the university, and only the
fascists are not responsible for it. AMU has been under attack not just by
fascists but also people who claim to be liberal,” he added.
When asked whether he wanted a public apology, he said
that since he was the aggrieved party, the apology was sent to him and not
publicly. “As far as the apology letter is concerned, I am bound by my
statement made to court that I won’t circulate the apology letter,” he said.
Khan has been religiously following mainstream media
and has sent notices to several news channels in the past.
https://thewire.in/media/times-of-india-apologises-for-2007-article-on-aligarh-muslim-university
----------
'My Boy Is Mentally Unstable Minor': Mother of Muslim
Teen Accused of Love Jihad in UP
Ismat Ara
24-01-2021
Mohammad Sohaib* has been in a district jail in Uttar
Pradesh’s Bijnor for over a month for allegedly going to a birthday party with
a Hindu girl.
On 22 January, more than a month after he was arrested
on 14 December, Sohaib’s bail plea was rejected. “Na din ka chain hai, na raat
ka sukoon,” his mother told The Wire over the phone.
The boy was booked under Sections 363 (kidnapping),
366 (kidnapping, abducting or inducing a woman to compel her for marriage) of
the Indian Penal Code (IPC); Section 18 (punishment for attempt to commit an
offence) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO);
Section 3(2)(v) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of
Atrocities) Act, 1989 (any offence punishable under the IPC with imprisonment
of 10 years or more against a person on the ground that he is a member of a
scheduled caste or a scheduled tribe) and under Sections 3 and 5 of the newly
passed law prohibiting ‘unlawful conversions’ through inter-faith marriage.
The first information report (FIR) states that the boy
had “befriended” the Hindu girl under the false pretence of being a Hindu,
introducing himself as Sonu. On 14 December, he allegedly tried to elope with
the girl, the FIR adds.
The complainant, the Hindu girl’s father, Anil, told
The Wire that his daughter had managed to “run away before anything happened to
her”. He adds, “Now the matter is in court. He will be punished for his crime.”
However, Sohaib’s mother says that the girl’s father
had previously said that he did not want to pursue a case in this matter. In
fact, he had told earlier, according to a report in Indian Express, “Is it
unlawful for a boy and a girl to walk together now?”
His mother, Samiya* (name changed to protect the
identity of the minor), aged 55, says that her son is only 17-year-old and
mentally unstable. She does not know that a minor is dealt with differently in
the eyes of the law. “He never went to school, so we anyway don’t have his
papers to prove his age,” she says.
When asked if she showed him to a doctor for his
mental condition, she said that they took him to a local government hospital
when he was a child but didn’t have the money to continue his treatment.
“It has been a long time, how will I have documents? I
don’t think the hospital even made papers. This is how it works in villages,”
she informs when asked about the details.
Sohaib belongs to a poor family in a small village in
Bijnor, Kiran Khedi, and has never gone to school. “He went to a madrassa
(religious school) for a year as a child, but then he was not very religious so
he left,” says Nafis, Sohaib’s cousin, who is now overlooking matters relating
to the case. He adds, “We are now struggling to raise money to pay for his
legal fees.”
His mother adds that they did not have enough money to
continue his education. “And then some 5 years back, his father also died. We
spent a lot of money on his treatment and didn’t have anything left after
that,” she says. Since then, it has become necessary for the young boy to focus
on learning to weld, so he could earn money and sustain his family.
The teen boy has two elder brothers and two elder
sisters, who are married. Being the youngest at home, he is his mother’s
favourite. His eldest brother, Arif, who is a daily wage worker, is married
with four kids and cannot take the responsibility of his mother or younger
brothers anymore, Samiya told The Wire. Arif now lives separately with his wife
and kids in another village nearby.
“I just wished that my boy [Sohaib] would learn
welding, so he could earn enough money to sustain the house,” she adds. Asif,
Sohaib’s other brother is a tailor and earns very little.
Sohaib had returned to Kirar Khedi only on 9 December,
five days before his arrest. He had been in Dehradun for about two months,
where he had gone to learn welding. Her mother questions the possibility of him
returning home and hatching a plan to elope with a Hindu girl, completely
strange within such a short span.
Before going to Dehradun, the boy had been working
with a welder in Punjab. When the nationwide lockdown in the wake of
Coronavirus was imposed, he had to walk nearly half of the 400 km from
Jalandhar to Bijnor, his mother tells The Wire.
He is now facing charges under the newly passed Uttar
Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, popularly
known as “love jihad,” which assumes that Muslim men have formed a nexus to
convert Hindu girls to Islam through love or marriage.
Offences under the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP
government’s new law are non-bailable, so Sohaib can only be released from
custody by a court.
In the first hearing of his bail application on 8
January in the Bijnor district court, the investigating police team said that
they could not produce the case diary, Mashroof Kamaluddin, the boy’s lawyer
tells The Wire. The hearing was then rescheduled for 15 January, which meant
that the boy would remain in jail for exactly a month.
According to his family, the boy is only 17 years old,
though they have no document to support their claim. The first information
report (FIR) does not mention his age. Investigating officers have refused to
comment about the procedural lapse that has delayed the youth’s bail hearing.
According to the complainant, father of 16-year-old
Hindu girl, the boy intended to “convert” the girl to Islam and elope with her.
But family members of the accused say that he was not too concerned with
religion and that he did not know the girl from before.
“He had gone to a birthday party and didn’t return at
night. We thought he would reach home the next morning. But then there was a
knock on our door. The village head had come to tell me that my son had been
arrested for trying to convert a Hindu girl to Islam. I couldn’t believe it,”
Sohaib’s mother recalls.
Nafis says that the case is not that of love-jihad and
it has been blown out of proportion. “The girl in question had first given a
statement to the press that he had not done anything. Under the pressure of her
family and the police, she changed her statement,” he adds.
But at the hearing of his bail application on 8
January in the Bijnor district court, the investigating police team claimed
they could not produce the case diary, according to Mashroof Kamaluddin, one of
the teen’s lawyers. The case diary is a record of day-to-day updates in the
investigation.
“If the accused is minor, they [accused family] will
have to produce documents to show that. We have invoked appropriate sections in
this case after questioning the girl and on the basis of her father’s
complaint,” Arun Kumar, station house officer, Dhampur tells The Wire. He has
not commented on boy’s unstable mental condition as alleged by the boy’s
mother.
https://thewire.in/communalism/my-boy-is-mentally-unstable-minor-mother-of-muslim-teen-accused-of-love-jihad-in-up
----------
Southeast Asia
Putrajaya mulls total economic shutdown after Feb 4 if
Covid numbers don't improve, Eurocham Malaysia tells its members
BY YISWAREE PALANSAMY
24 Jan 2021
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 24 — Putrajaya is set to announce a
total economic shutdown after February 4, should the number of Covid-19 cases
in the nation continue to not show any improvement, the EU-Malaysia Chamber of
Commerce and Industry (Eurocham Malaysia) said in a letter issued to its
members.
A source linked to the organisation confirmed the
authenticity of the letter with Malay Mail.
The letter detailed a summary of Eurocham Malaysia
chief executive Sven Schneider's meeting with the International Trade and
Industry Ministry (Miti), which mentioned that the Ministry of Health (MOH)
“has made a clear stand on the matter of a complete shutdown of the economy”.
“Should the infection rate not decrease, the Malaysian
government will announce a shutdown/strict lockdown immediately after February
4, 2021. This is the current situation we are facing and Miti is appealing to
all companies, foreign and local, to join the effort of reducing infections,
breaking the chain, to keep the economy open for business,” the letter further
read.
The letter stated that Schneider was invited to attend
the “very important and urgent meeting” at Miti, on the evening of January 22,
and that the meeting was chaired by the ministry’s secretary-general, Datuk
Lokman Hakim Ali.
It also stated that the MOH believed it is the
manufacturing sector, with 99 Covid-19 clusters, which is the main source of
infection.
“Since in particular, dormitories and related
activities (transportation, social activities) were identified as problems,
while manufacturing sites itself usually demonstrate sufficient compliance,
Miti brainstormed together with the present chambers of commerce a few
potential measures.
“While we are awaiting more information from the
Ministry and since time is of the essence, we share the preliminary outcomes
here with you,” the letter read, listing several points.
Eurocham Malaysia requested companies to assign at
least one human resource supervisor to manage and coordinate foreign workers or
workers staying in dormitories, adding that the main goal for this is to
minimise community movement, social activities and thereby compliance with the
standard operating procedures (SOPs) of the movement control order (MCO).
It said that this was because often, workers in
dormitories were found not to practise SOP compliance and engage unnecessarily
in extensive social activities in or outside the dormitories.
“Companies are requested to also take responsibility
in cases where foreign workers’ management or housing have been outsourced to
employment agencies. There have been cases where poor housing conditions or
transportation compliance by the agent has led to rising infections. Companies
sometimes are not aware, but the government encourages to strengthen
communication and coordination with employment agencies and outsourcing
partners for the benefit of all.
“Companies are requested to establish basic quarantine
spaces at their dormitories to ensure that suspected cases, close contacts and
confirmed Covid-19 cases can be isolated/quarantined immediately and reduce
risk of further spread. Any immediate and short-term measures are welcomed to
reduce infections,” the organisation said.
It added that workers staying at home with family, may
also be offered to stay at company quarantine facilities, should they and close
contacts be suspected or tested positive.
“In the context of transportation, companies have to
ensure social distancing and thereby reduction to 50 per cent of capacity of
each vehicle is suggested. This will also be reflected in official SOPs, since
we discovered yesterday an inconsistency in the current SOPs,” it said, adding
that companies will also have to check with their respective supply chain
partners for SOP compliance.
“There was also a discussion regarding testing
capacity and contact tracing. There may be updates on this matter during the
next few days as well.
“We understand that this must seem as another major
challenge and potentially costly changes may have to be made. Nonetheless,
Eurocham encourages its members to do whatever you can to reduce infections,
break the chain and keep the economy open,” it said.
The record for daily new cases of Covid-19 in Malaysia
was broken once again, with 4,275 cases reported yesterday.
However, daily recoveries from the disease also
reached a new high, with 4,313 people reported to have been given a clean bill
of health.
The MOH on its website for Covid-19 updates said
active cases of Covid-19 in the country currently number 42,769; while the
total number of confirmed cases in Malaysia has hit 180,455.
https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2021/01/24/putrajaya-mulls-total-economic-shutdown-after-feb-4-if-covid-numbers-dont-i/1943475
----------
Warisan’s Shafie appeals to the King to withdraw
Emergency
By JULIA CHAN
23 Jan 2021
KOTA KINABALU, Jan 23 — Eight MPs from Parti Warisan
Sabah have appealed to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah
Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah to lift the state of emergency.
Party president Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal said that they
acknowledged the provisions in the Constitution which allows for a state of
emergency to be called but said it was “not the time” for such a measure to
tackle the Covid 19 pandemic.
“Our concern is not from the legal aspect of the
Constitution - an emergency is allowed
for the security of the nation, and there is no doubt there is serious concern
over public health with the pandemic.
“It’s not that we cannot but the current provisions
under the Movement Control Order(MCO) is
sufficient to battle the pandemic,” Shafie said during a press conference here
today.
“The pandemic is not uncontrollable at the moment;
some areas are still manageable but it’s just not time for an emergency yet,”
he said.
Shafie said that many countries around the world use a
form of MCO to tackle the pandemic, and that Malaysia could benefit from
stricter guidelines.
Shafie, who has previously made his disagreement to a
state of the emergency known, was asked whether Warisan was also considering
taking legal action following a statement by Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar
Ibrahim.
“Our letter is only an appeal, we are not pressuring.
We agree with Agong’s decision, we are just giving our views on the legal
issues pertaining to the laws,” he said.
Shafie had earlier distributed assistance to water
villagers at Tanjung Aru here whose were severely affected by bad weather this
week.
Shafie said that despite the billions of ringgit in
allocation that was being tabled by the
government, people on the ground had not seen any assistance during this
time.
His party had handed food supplies, mattresses,
pillows also building materials including zinc pieces for roofing, wooden
planks and beams for those whose houses were damaged.
https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2021/01/23/warisans-shafie-appeals-to-the-king-to-withdraw-emergency/1943316
---------
Anwar claims at least 114 MPs against state of
Emergency
23 Jan 2021
BY RADZI RAZAK
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 23 — Parliamentary Opposition chief Datuk
Seri Anwar Ibrahim said at least 114 MPs oppose the nationwide Emergency
declaration that is currently in effect until August 1.
He said this exceeded the majority of Dewan Rakyat
members and is enough to request that the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan
Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah reconvene Parliament and nullify
the Emergency.
“There are now 114, 115 MPs who reject the Perikatan
Nasional (PN) or (Tan Sri) Muhyiddin (Yassin) government’s proposal. This
cannot be denied. Is that number enough? It is more than enough.
“The most important thing is that the majority of MPs
reject the PN government’s views on the Emergency,” he said during a dialogue
session with the National Professors Council (NPC) today.
The session was moderated by NPC’s chief executive
officer Prof Datuk Raduan Che Rose and NPC’s research officer Muhammad Asri
Mohd Ali.
Anwar added that there may be only a maximum of 90 MPs
who support the Emergency as Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) reportedly opposes
the proclamation.
During the dialogue session, Anwar also defended the
need to reconvene Parliament and his bid to form a government on the grounds
that the PN government has failed to step up during the pandemic.
“Why do we dispute the Emergency? Because this is not
a pandemic solution. Why do we dispute the Budget? Because it is not a pandemic
Budget.
On January 20, Anwar claimed a majority of MPs had
submitted a letter urging the Agong to reconsider the recently declared state
of Emergency.
Without stating the number of MPs involved, he said
the letter was to seek the kindness and wisdom of the Agong to review the
reasons presented by the prime minister to justify the need to proclaim a state
of Emergency.
Anwar also said the move was not “treasonous”, as
claimed by some, because the letter to the Agong did not question the
proclamation of Emergency, but rather merely requested that a parliamentary
sitting be allowed.
“People are asking why Parliament is banned when
kindergartens remain open. Why can’t Parliament sit concurrently with the
Emergency? It will be more balanced this way.
“When we ask the Agong for a parliamentary sitting,
you say it is ‘derhaka’ (treason). The number of MPs who have written to the
Agong are more than the majority that the prime minister says he enjoys.
“We are merely appealing to the Agong to order a
parliamentary session. We will accept any decision made in the Agong’s wisdom,”
he said during a press conference.
https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2021/01/23/anwar-claims-at-least-114-mps-against-state-of-emergency/1943362
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Dr Mahathir ‘is healthy and at home’, news claiming
otherwise is fake, says aide
BY KEERTAN AYAMANY
23 Jan 2021
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 23 — Former prime minister Tun Dr
Mahathir Mohamad is in good health and news of him being ill is fake, said his
aide today, amid a message to the contrary that is spreading on social media.
“Rumors that Tun Dr Mahathir is in Prince Court are
untrue. Tun Dr Mahathir is still healthy and at home today. Alhamdulillah,”
said Adam Mukhriz Muhayeddin on Twitter today.
News portal Malaysiakini also reported that Dr
Mahathir’s daughter, Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir, confirmed that he is in good
health.
He went on to criticise the current Health Ministry
protocol that issues home quarantine orders to those who are infected but do
not display symptoms of the coronavirus.
Dr Mahathir said his family member had infected others
in his household, as he was kept at home instead of being hospitalised.
https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2021/01/23/dr-mahathir-is-healthy-and-at-home-news-claiming-otherwise-is-fake-says-aid/1943352
--------
Arab World
Clampdown launched on intellectual rights violations
in Saudi Arabia
HEBSHI ALSHAMMARI
January 24, 2021
RIYADH: The Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property
(SAIP) has launched a campaign aimed at inspecting websites to verify their
compliance with intellectual property systems and ensure they do not violate
intellectual rights.
The SAIP’s inspection campaigns have been on two
fronts, visiting websites that broadcast movies, sports matches and TV series
and sell books, and conducting field inspections of stores in the cities of
Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam. The main goal of inspection visits is to increase
public awareness about the breach of intellectual properties.
More than 355 websites were visited, of which 77 were
proven to violate intellectual property rights, and were later blocked
accordingly.
The websites that breach intellectual property rights
are located outside the Kingdom, according to Yasser Al-Debassi, the executive
director of Intellectual Property Respect and Enforcement at the SAIP.
The SAIP’s inspection campaigns have been on two
fronts, visiting websites that broadcast movies, sports matches and TV series
and sell books, and conducting field inspections of stores in the cities of
Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam. The main goal of inspection visits is to increase
public awareness about the breach of intellectual properties.
“These websites not only breach the rights of authors
but also pose a great risk on the data and privacy of the devices of receivers
as they compromise the data,” he noted. “The general public should avoid these
suspicious websites and download movies, TV series and matches from reliable
websites.”
More than 11,620 items violating creative rights were
seized in the campaign in January, including electronic goods, computer
programs, sound recordings, and printed works.
“We have applied the mystery shopper approach, where
our inspectors act as if they are shoppers. We try to gather as much
information as possible from markets and identify the types of breaches and the
methods used for pirating. Then we design plans and training programs to curb
these practices,” Al-Debassi explained.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1796936/saudi-arabia
-------
Egypt’s security services bust Muslim Brotherhood
network in capital
MOHAMED TAWFEEK
January 23, 2021
CAIRO: Egypt’s security services have announced the
capture of a Muslim Brotherhood network in downtown Cairo.
The network was led by a Turkish man and prepared
negative reports that contained “false and fabricated information about the
political, economic, security and human rights situations in Egypt,” according
to security forces.
The information was aimed at tarnishing the country’s
image inside and outside the country, with the reports sent to the group’s
handlers in Turkey.
An official statement said the National Security
Sector monitored an apartment in the Bab Al-Luq area that was being used by a
Muslim Brotherhood group to prepare negative reports with Turkey’s support. The
house was being used as a center for their activity, under the cover of SITA
Studies Company.
The premises were raided and Helmy Moamen Mustafa
Bilji, the Turkish financial director of the group, and three other members
were arrested. Legal steps are being taken against them.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1797246/middle-east
--------
Non-Muslim communities in UAE lauded for helping
national fight against COVID-19
January 23, 2021
Staff Report
Abu Dhabi: The Department of Community Development in
Abu Dhabi (DCD) recently hosted a virtual meeting with the leaders of
non-Muslim places of worship and the representatives of social communities and
groups in the emirate.
The online gathering highlighted their key role in
supporting the ongoing national recovery campaign associated with the COVID-19
pandemic. The meeting came following the DCD’s visits to non-Muslim places of
worship to encourage people to take the COVID-19 vaccine under its ‘Choose to
Vaccinate’ campaign, which is being held in cooperation with Abu Dhabi health
authorities in accordance with the country’s precautionary measures to combat
the virus and protect the health and safety of the local communities.
During the online event, DCD chairman Dr Mugheer
Khamis Al Khaili thanked the religious leaders and representatives as he
pointed out the importance of social integration and cohesion in Abu Dhabi to
strengthen its readiness to overcome any challenges. He also said
representatives have effectively contributed to making the UAE one of the
countries in the world with the best COVID-19 response by complying with the
precautionary measures issued by DCD and its government partners since the
beginning of the global health crisis.
Al Khaili added: “You are an essential part of our
society. As such, we will work with you side by side, collaborate and listen to
your needs. The department is committed to helping you and your families have a
decent life. We are also happy by the positive response of religious leaders in
Abu Dhabi. You have set an example to your parishioners by being among the
first to take the vaccine and, afterwards, encouraging them to do the same for
their protection. This demonstrates the spirit of unity, cohesion and full
confidence in the UAE’s efforts to fight COVID-19. It also reflects the
willingness of all concerned parties to cooperate and take the advanced steps
necessary to efficiently help address the crisis to bring life back to normal.”
The DCD chairman said: “Through an integrated recovery
plan, the UAE has been tireless in its efforts to be among the first countries
to obtain the vaccine. The country’s senior officials were also the first to
get vaccinated, sending a message to everyone about the vaccine’s safety and
efficacy.”
Since the start of the crisis, the places of worship
and social communities have been instrumental in conveying messages of hope and
communicating government instructions and guidelines to their members. They
have also formed teams of medical volunteers to aid the country’s first line of
defence.
The DCD has implemented a legal framework regulating
the establishment of places of worship, public associations, clubs and sports
institutions in Abu Dhabi. It has also set the criteria for licensing,
inspection and auditing of the entities to ensure their compliance with the
existing regulations, standards and legislations.
https://gulfnews.com/uae/non-muslim-communities-in-uae-lauded-for-helping-national-fight-against-covid-19-1.76690795
----------
27 inmates accept Islam in UAE prison in 2020
Ras Al Khaimah
January 23, 2021
Touched by the teachings of Islam and by the kind and
humanitarian treatment they received, 27 inmates of different nationalities,
accepted Islam at the Ras Al Khaimah prison in 2020.
“The Muslims’ good conduct and introductory courses
about Islam made us ponder about Islam, eventually helping us in taking the
decision to becoming Muslim.”
Sources with the Ras Al Khaimah Police said they spare
no effort in rehabilitating all inmates, regardless of their religion, language
or ethnic background.
“We give the inmates self-confidence and help them in
becoming good members of the society, in line with the vision of the Ministry
of Interior, which aims to achieve justice, integrity and positive
citizenship.”
The Punitive and Correction Institution at the RAK
Police said hundreds of inmates have benefited from the rehabilitation and
training programmes.
"These programmes include Quran memorisation courses,
teaching them about the labour market and equipping them with entrepreneurial
and vocational skills, attending schools and libraries among other
activities," they elaborated.
“We provide education and vocational training to
inmates, including carpentry, sewing, painting and handicrafts, aimed at
developing the inmates' skills - in turn helping them to gain the confidence to
integrate into society after serving their terms.”
“The products and handicraft made by the inmates have
been displayed and sold to consumers at various outlets and events.”
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/news/27-inmates-accept-islam-in-uae-prison-in-2020
--------
Foreign Ministry complains companies operating in the
settlements to Arab, Islamic and UN rights organization
January 23, 2021
RAMALLAH (WAFA)
- The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates sent letters to the High
Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, the Secretary-General of the
League of Arab States, Ahmed Abu Al-Gheit, and the Secretary-General of the
Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Yusef Al-Othaimin, complaining about
companies operating directly or indirectly with the illegal Israeli settlements
in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem.
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement today that
the letters talked about the negative and hostile impact of that on the
inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, on top of which is the right to
self-determination, and other economic, social and cultural rights.
It said that companies and businessmen from member
states have concluded trade agreements aimed at importing products from Israeli
colonial settlements located on the land of the occupied State of Palestine in
violation of international law. The first shipments of olive oil and honey
products from the settlement company Torra Winery, located in the illegal
settlement of Rehelim built on stolen lands belonging to the Palestinian
village of al-Sawiya, and from Paradise Honey Factory in the settlement of
Harmash, have arrived at their destinations.
The Foreign Ministry stressed that the settlements
violate international law, United Nations resolutions, including Security
Council Resolution 2334, contribute to a war crime, and a violation of the
resolutions of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, all
of which affirmed the illegality of settlements and their products.
It called on the High Commissioner and other parties
to address all institutions and individuals to clarify these legal violations,
which affect the Palestinian rights, considered an assault on them, and are
consistent with colonial projects, and to call on them to go back on these
violations, and also to call on states to take all necessary measures,
including legal follow-up, and enact local laws to deter any individual,
institution, or company that is proven to be directly or indirectly complicit
in any commercial or other business with the colonial settlements, and to hold
them accountable as they contribute to a war crime against the Palestinian people,
their rights and resources.
The Foreign Ministry explained that it did not submit
any complaint against any specific country, but rather called on all parties to
follow up with companies and individuals, given that the mission and mandate of
the High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding the database of companies
cooperating with the settlements are specific to companies, individuals,
entities and commercial dealings only.
It called on the High Commissioner to add companies
that deal with the settlements to the database issued by the Human Rights
Council, as part of its annual update of this list, leading to holding
accountable all businessmen who insist on violating human rights and the basic
rights of the Palestinian people.
https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/122969
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Madinah joins world’s healthiest cities
ARAB NEWS
January 24, 2021
JEDDAH: The Saudi city of Madinah has been
acknowledged by the World Health Organization (WHO) as among the world’s
healthiest cities.
The holy city gained the accreditation after a
visiting WHO team said that it met all the global standards required to be a
healthy city.
Madinah is believed to be the first city with a
population of more than 2 million to be recognized under the organization’s
healthy cities program.
The city’s integrated program included a strategic
partnership with Taibah University to record government requirements on an
electronic platform for the organization’s review.
The WHO also recommended that the university provide
training to other national city agencies interested in taking part in the
healthy cities program.
A committee chaired by the university’s president, Dr.
Abdul Aziz Assarani, supervised 100 members representing the 22 government,
civil, charity and volunteer agencies.
According to WHO, “a healthy city is one that is
continually creating and improving those physical and social environments and
expanding those community resources which enable people to mutually support
each other in performing all the functions of life and developing to their
maximum potential.”
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1797346/saudi-arabia
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Saudi volunteers join 3,165 community initiatives in
2020
SPA
January 24, 2021
RIYADH: Volunteer teams of the Saudi Red Crescent
Authority (SRCA) participated in 3,165 initiatives during 2020. This was
despite the challenges that the Kingdom and the world faced during the
coronavirus pandemic
More than 28,000 volunteers participated, with a total
of 32,000 hours volunteered.
Volunteer opportunities ranged between providing
emergency services and participating in community awareness programs.
This included providing emergency services to
worshippers in the Two Holy Mosques, and participating in the prayer sorting
points in mosques on Fridays throughout the Kingdom.
The teams stepped up their efforts during national
festivals and events, international days and awareness weeks.
Initiatives included providing administrative,
technical and logistical support to emergency centers, central operating rooms
and SRCA departments in all regions of the Kingdom. Visual screening points
were established in many headquarters and SRCA buildings to increase awareness
of the importance of adhering to precautionary measures during the pandemic.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1797356/saudi-arabia
--------
Saudi air defenses thwart new Houthi attack on Riyadh
ARAB NEWS
January 23, 2021
JEDDAH: Saudi air defenses thwarted an attack on
Riyadh on Saturday by Iran-backed Houthi militias in Yemen.
The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said it had “intercepted
and destroyed a hostile air target going toward Riyadh.”
Residents in the capital reported an explosion
overhead at about 11 a.m. “I heard a loud sound and thought that something had
fallen from the sky,” said one resident of Al-Sulaimaniyah. “The whole house
was shaking.”
The Houthis denied launching the strike, but the
militants have repeatedly targeted Saudi Arabia with drones and missiles since
the Kingdom intervened on behalf of Yemen’s internationally recognized
government in 2015, and analysts had no doubt that they were responsible for
the latest attack.
It came amid suggestions in Washington that the new
Biden administration may revoke its predecessor’s designation of the Houthis as
a terrorist organization. That may not be simple, the Saudi political analyst
Hamdan Al-Shehri told Arab News.
“The Houthis will not meet the criteria,” he said.
“Their actions throughout the years have worked against them and the new
administration will not have a sound reason to revoke it.
“Multiple hurdles will face the Biden administration
if they go down that path. The Houthis are a terrorist group with backing from
Iran, a country that will continue to shuffle its cards to gain momentum and
continue to destabilize the region.”
Western experts, Saudi Arabia and the US say Iran has
supplied arms, including ballistic missiles to the Houthis. Iran denies that,
though devices in the weapons link back to Tehran.
Meanwhile the Kingdom expects to have “excellent
relations” with the Biden administration, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal
bin Farhan said on Saturday.
“I am optimistic. Saudi Arabia has built solid,
historical relations where it worked with different administrations. We will
continue to do that as well with President Biden,” Prince Faisal said.
He said Riyadh would continue to consult with
Washington over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 deal to curb
Iran’s nuclear program in return for an easing of sanctions.
Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies are concerned about
Iran’s ballistic missiles and regional meddling through militias it controls in
Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. They supported Donald Trump’s maximum pressure
campaign on Tehran and welcomed his decision to quit the JCPOA in 2018 and reimpose sanctions. Biden has
said that if Tehran resumed compliance with the agreement, Washington would
reciprocate.
The Gulf states say they should be included in any
negotiations on a new deal to ensure it addresses Iran’s missile capabilities
and malign activity.
“I believe basically the consultations will be around
reaching a solid and strong agreement that takes into account Iran’s failure to
comply … with strong monitoring factors to ensure the implementation of the
agreement,” Prince Faisal said.
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1797096/saudi-arabia
-------
Mideast
UN: Syrians alone can't stop war, needed international
cooperation
Source : Anadolu
January 24, 2021
The UN Special Envoy on Syria said Friday that issues
to be discussed in a new round of political talks could not be sorted out by Syrians
alone and that they also needed international cooperation.
At a hybrid Geneva press conference, Geir Pedersen
said that the fifth round of talks of the Syrian Constitutional Committee aimed
at a final peaceful solution in the war-torn country would start in Geneva on
Monday.
The UN envoy noted: "We have seen, of course, a
relative calm since March, when we had the agreement between Russia and Turkey
for the Northwest [Idlib]. But as I've emphasized, this is a fragile calm.
"All of these issues cannot be sorted out by the
Syrians alone. It needs international cooperation," said Pedersen.
He said he had briefed the UN Security Council in New
York on Wednesday, describing the coming meetings that start Monday as
"very important."
The world had seen violations of Syrian sovereignty
and territorial integrity going on for years, said the UN envoy, adding:
"We have seen economic hardship as a consequence of 10 years of conflict,
and internal factors, but also external factors."
"Although grappling with extreme economic
challenges and on top of it, the challenge of COVID-19 for many Syrians, the
daily struggle just to survive crowds of most other issues," said the UN
envoy.
He said the political process so far has not yet
delivered any real changes in Syrians' lives, nor a real vision for the future.
"As I emphasized many times, it is now clear that
no one actor or group of actors can impose their will on Syria or settle the
conflict alone. They must work together."
Pedersen said he had not yet come in touch with the
new US administration sworn in on Wednesday.
The UN envoy said those taking part in Monday's talks
would begin arriving in Geneva on Saturday.
Hadi al-Bahra is heading the opposition and Ahmad
Kuzbari is representing the Syrian government.
https://en.abna24.com/news//un-syrians-alone-cant-stop-war-needed-international-cooperation_1108533.html
--------
Ancient marketplace in Tiberias may have been one of
Islam's first mosques
By SARAH BEN-NUN
JANUARY 24, 2021
An 11-year excavation has potentially branded Tiberias
a holy pilgrimage site for Islam. The outer layer of a mosque, dating to the
seventh century, has been found.
The structure on the outskirts of Tiberias, on the
shores of the Sea of Galilee, was initially dated to the Roman-Byzantine era. Arab
News, reporting on Saturday, explained that the building was initially marked
as a marketplace back in the 1950s.
Leading the excavations is Dr. Katia Cytryn-Silverman,
a senior lecturer of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She specializes in
Islamic archaeology, and in an academic conference last week with the Hebrew
University and the Ben-Zvi institute, presented her findings. The conference
was organized in commemoration of the city of Tiberias' 2,000th anniversary,
Haaretz noted.
Further excavations stacked evidence that the
structure actually dated earlier than previously thought, to the early Islamic
period. Cytryn-Silverman's findings last week presented this new pin on the map
of early Middle East mosques.
The excavations estimate that what was unearthed
underneath the structure — the outer layer of a mosque — might actually date
back to 635 AD, constructed by a friend of the Prophet Muhammad — Shurahbil ibn
Hasana — when the Levant was conquered by his forces in the seventh century,
noted Arab News.
Cytryn-Silverman said that they cannot be sure that
ibn Hasana built the structure. "But," she added, "we do have
historic sources that say he established a mosque in Tiberias when he conquered
it in 635," Arab News reported.
Cytryn-Silverman explained that after the Arab
conquest, Tiberias became a center of economic and political growth for the
Arab world, Haaretz reported.
Arab News noted further that historians do currently
know where a lot of the earliest mosques are, but cannot access them due to
current mosques that have been built over them.
For example, Haaretz noted, one of the oldest mosques
in the world is in Fustat, Egypt. Fustat was Egypt's first Muslim capital,
established in the seventh century. The mosque, Mosque of Amr, was the first to
be built in Egypt.
Jewish presence in Fustat is dated to the late seventh
century, as they joined the various other groups in the developing city.
Maimonidies moved there in 1166, where he gained the title Ra'is al-Umma or
al-Millah (Head of the Nation or of the Faith) for writing his Guide for the
Perplexed, and was an acclaimed physician.
https://www.jpost.com/archaeology/ancient-marketplace-turned-mosque-uncovered-near-tiberias-656502
--------
Islamic Jihad says late Iranian general Soleimani gave
‘direct orders’ in Gaza
By TOI STAFF
23 January 2021
A senior figure in the terror group Palestinian
Islamic Jihad said the organization received “direct orders” from the late
Iranian Quds force commander Qassem Soleimani up until his assassination in a US
airstrike last year, and that rockets supplied by the Iranians were used to
attack Israel.
Speaking during a December interview with the Iranian
al-Alam TV, the secretary-general of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ziyad
al-Nakhaleh, said “nothing happened [in Gaza] without his direct orders and
supervision,” according to a translation this week by the Middle East Media
Research Institute.
This came in addition to Soleimani’s efforts to supply
the PIJ with modern missiles, and weapons, including those used to attack
Israel’s economic and technological hub, Tel Aviv.
“It was almost miraculous. It was very expensive in
terms of technology, security, and capabilities” al-Nakhaleh said, adding “I
can say that the missiles that [Soleimani] delivered to the Gaza Strip were the
ones used to attack Tel Aviv. I can say that Hajj Qassem played a pivotal role
in the fact that the Palestinians ventured to attack the capital of the Zionist
entity.”
The PIJ chief explained that Soleimani personally
supervised and managed the transport of missiles in “complex operations” from
Syria, to Sudan, to the Gaza Strip, adding that he personally visited Sudan to
ensure the shipments were a success.
In 2009, three airstrikes destroyed a convoy of trucks
in western Sudan reportedly carrying long-range Iranian missiles to the Gaza
Strip. A mysterious explosion in a weapons plant in Khartoum in 2012, which
killed four people, was believed to be the result of an Israeli airstrike
targeting arms destined for terror groups in Gaza. In 2014 a large explosion
occurred in a Sudanese ammunition warehouse, in an alleged Israeli attack
targeting weapons intended for Gaza.
The local manufacturing of rockets in the Gaza Strip
is also attributed to Soleimani’s guidance, according to al-Nakhaleh. “This is
a great and important issue, and without a doubt played a role in strengthening
the Palestinian resistance.” adding that, “[Soleimani] did not train [the
Palestinians] himself, obviously, but he gave instructions to the experts who
supervised these matters.”
The Quds Force, headed by Soleimani until his
assassination in January 2020, is one of five branches in Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps, designated a terrorist organization by the US.
A Palestinian man carries a poster of Qassem
Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Quds Force who was killed in a US drone
strike early Friday, in front of a mourning tent set up by Palestinian factions
for Soleimani in Gaza City, January 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)
Hamas, the PIJ and several smaller terror factions
held a joint military drill in December, during which several rockets were
fired toward the sea, in an effort to send a “clear message to the Zionist
enemy.”
Tuesday saw Palestinian terrorists in Gaza fire a
rocket at Israel. The Israeli military did not specify where the projectile
landed, but Hebrew media reports indicated it struck an open field near Kibbutz
Nahal Oz on the Gaza border.
The incident came a day after two rockets were fired
from the Strip toward the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, both landing in the
sea just off the coast of the city. In response, IDF jets bombed sites where
the Hamas terror group was digging underground tunnels in southern Gaza, the
IDF said.
Though it was not immediately clear which terror group
fired Monday’s or Tuesday’s rockets, the IDF said Hamas was ultimately
responsible as it is the de facto ruler of the Palestinian enclave.
Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007, when it
expelled its rival Fatah following a bloody struggle for control of the coastal
enclave. Israel has fought three wars against terror groups in the Strip since
Hamas took control of the area, along with dozens of smaller exchanges of fire.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/islamic-jihad-says-late-iranian-general-soleimani-gave-direct-orders-in-gaza/
--------
Africa
No power can remove us from Ondo forests – Bodejo,
Miyetti Allah leader
23rd January 2021
As the seven-day ultimatum Governor Rotimi Akeredolu,
SAN, issued herdsmen occupying Ondo state forests expires tomorrow, the
National President of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Bello Abdullahi Bodejo has
declared that no power remove Fulani herdsmen from the state’s forests.In an
interview with VINCENT KALU, the Miyetti Allah leader stressed that their
people have settled there for over 250 years and so they are not going to obey
anybody to leave the place.
He claims the Fulani ethnic group owns all the land in
Nigeria. “All the lands in this country belong to the Fulani, but we don’t have
any business to do with land if it doesn’t have areas for grazing; if the land
doesn’t have cow food, we won’t have any business with it. We don’t sell land,
we don’t farm. What we consider is the areas that have cow food. If the place
is good for grazing, we don’t need anybody’s permission to go there”, he stated.
Following allegations of kidnapping and robbery
carried out by Fulani herdsmen, Ondo State government has given them seven-day
ultimatum to leave the forests in the state, what is your reaction?
The Ondo State governor, Rotimi Akeredolu doesn’t have
any right to give such ultimatum to our people. People, including Fulani voted
for him to be the governor; so he should be the governor of everybody in the
state.
Fulani have been in the forests he is talking about
even before he was born; they have been there for over 250 years. No matter how
dangerous a forest may be, Fulani would go and settle there. After staying
there for a long time and their cow dung turns the place fertile, people would
begin to come there to farm and to settle and from then, they begin to make
claims that our cattle were destroying their farms.
We are suing the governor and seeking injunction
restraining him and others from carrying out his threat. But even at that,
nobody, no power can send the herdsmen out of Ondo State.
We are making consultations with our legal team. But
before then, the governor and his people should stop embarrassing our people in
the forests and all their businesses.
No any herdsman will obey the governor; the herdsmen
will not step an inch out of Ondo forests; they are going nowhere. We won’t
obey the governor; it is only the constitution of Nigeria that we obey. We have
been in that area before he was born, how can he just grow up and ask us to
leave; no Fulani will leave that place. What are his reasons for the quit
notice?
We are not in support of any form of criminality-
armed robbery, kidnapping, gun running etc. These crimes are the reasons we
have the Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Army, DSS, even Civil Defence to nab
perpetrators and there are courts everywhere to try them and if found guilty,
appropriate punishment meted out to them. The governor is the chief security
officer of the state, there is no reason he should single out one ethnic group
for the crimes committed in the state. He is supposed to accommodate more
Fulani in the state and not to drive them out. Driving them out is not the
solution.
I have just concluded a meeting with my fellow Fulani
and we have found out that some people will adorn Fulani attire to carry out
various crimes. How can Fulani man living in the forest kidnap and ask people
to pay ransom ranging from N5 million to N10 million. What would he be doing
with that kind of money inside forest; if you pay herdsmen N20 million, N10
million, N5 million in the forest, where would he carry the money to and what
will he be doing with such money? Check the leaders of those criminals; let the
governors identify who the criminals are. They are not Fulani. He just wants to
use that as an excuse to drive our people away from his state. It is just
giving a dog a bad name to hang it; the herdsmen are not the kidnappers, let
him carry out proper investigations. Let him know this, no any person in this
country can push us out of the forests.
The first thing is that nothing will make us take such
decision. If you apply force and out of hundred Fulani, you kill 95 of them,
the remaining five will go back there and continue with their grazing. They
have been there for up to 250 years. They have been there before the state was
even created.
All the lands in this country belong to the Fulani,
but we don’t have any business to do with land if it doesn’t have areas for
grazing; if the land doesn’t have cow food, we won’t have any business with it.
We don’t sell land, we don’t farm. What we consider is the areas that have cow
food. If the place is good for grazing, we don’t need anybody’s permission to
go there.
Nigerians should know that our association, Miyetti
Allah Kautal Hore is not backing anybody who is a kidnapper, armed robber, and
we are calling for law enforcement agents to go after all these criminals and
deal decisively with them.
The criminality all over the country is the more
reason we want to fully implement our vigilante system; we want to enter all
the forests in this country to check these bandits in the forests that are
causing these problems and denting the good image of Fulani ethnic group. We
can’t wait any longer; we are sending our vigilantes into the forests to fish
out these criminals – those intimidating the herdsmen and stealing their cows
and secondly, these bandits causing problems in this country. It is only the
Fulani that can enter any forest and chase out these bandits.
We don’t need cities or towns. If you dash us FCT
Abuja or the city of Lagos, we won’t have anything to do with it. We want a
place where we continue to practice our age long culture of cattle rearing. We
inherited it from our forefathers and it will continue till the end of the world.
People are using propaganda to spoil Fulani name, and desperate politicians are
in the forefront. Any governor that is drumming up on the Fulani herdsmen
issue, watch well, he has issue or problem whether political or otherwise in
his state. It is possible that Akeredolu is fighting a political battle, it may
be 2023 election and that is why he is playing up this Fulani herdsmen issue.
It is the same with Benue State governor, Ortom, when he was not performing; he
started to play up Fulani herdsmen and farmers issue to draw support from his
people. For almost six years, he hasn’t done any work in his state; he is
talking about herdsmen and his people.
Fulani can settle in any bush or forest they want the
moment they have cows. We agreed that our children will pursue education and
other activities other people are doing in town, but even me, I’m not
comfortable staying in the city, up till now my house is inside village.
Which forest, who has the forest? Any person who
thinks he owns any forest should be taken to psychiatric hospital. Nobody owns
any forest; forests are for Nigerians. Fulani herdsmen have the right to move
into any forest and settle there for their business. Why do farmers go and
cultivate thousands of hectare of land and fence it, who gave them that land?
Nobody is born with a land in this country; people were just moving from one
place to another for settlement. Fulani are settling in every community, but we
are not claiming land, we are only interested on how our cows will have food to
eat.
Fulani can’t value 100 people’s lives like he can
value his one cow because since he was born, he doesn’t have any business
except that cow. The cow is like his own brothers and sisters. If anything
happens to his cow, do you think he can leave you? You have two or three storey
buildings and you park your cars , do you fold your hands and watch somebody
come to that house carry your cars, your clothes, your wife, destroy the
buildings? You must fight. The Fulani man values his cow just as you value your
brother and sister and you go all out to protect them.
They love their cows beyond description, you can’t
separate them from their cows to go and stay inside town or city. The cows have
names. The way you give your children names when they were born is the same way
they name their cows. Even a person who has one thousand cows, those cows have
individual names and he knows them by name; the cows have fathers, grandfathers
and grandchildren. What you have in human beings – the ways names are given to
people, the same way Fulani give names to their cows. We are cow lovers , that
is why sometimes if you kill their cows somewhere they go there to look for
justice, because they see like somebody has killed their brothers; they must go
to see who did that and they won’t leave that person.
You said that only the Fulani will drive out the
bandits in the forests, why is it that they have not done so in the forests of
Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto and Niger?
Those bandits are not Fulani, but they are damaging
the name of Fulani and that is why this our vigilantes will go into all the
forests in this country to chase out all the bandits. Whatever atrocity that
the bandits commit is hanged on Fulani neck. These bandits are equally killing
herdsmen in their numbers in various forests, but many people don’t understand
this, and the moment they see herdsmen in the bush, they will tag them bandits
or see them as kidnappers. This is disturbing us as it is eroding on our
credibility; more so, useless people, desperate politicians and social media
warriors have latched on this to poison everybody’s mind against Fulani ethnic
group.
Why not your vigilante clear Sambisa Forest, which is
so vast so that your people will settle and halt these conflicts in many
states?
Borno State governor Zulum said he will give Fulani
people Sambisa forest, we are waiting for him and when the approval is given I
will be the first person to go and live there. We are also waiting for the
federal government to put infrastructures there, and then we move in.
Herdsmen in this country are suffering too much; as
they move their cattle from one place to the other, some people who want to
steal their cows will organise and even kill them, especially these people they
are giving uniform in the name of vigilantes. These people are causing
confusion, you just pack some people, give them uniforms to go and drive out
Fulani people in the forests.
Yes, the Amotekun; I’m calling on the federal
government to ban it. Since the federal government has left Amotekun, that is
the reason we want to implement our own vigilante, whose operation will be all
over the country, not only one state; we will operate everywhere you find
Fulani people in this country, we can go there, enter the forests and chase the
bandits away. We can help the Nigeria Army, the Nigeria Police Force, the
federal government and relevant security agencies to end this banditry in the
country. The Ondo State governor has a secret agenda for asking our people to
leave his state, not the reasons he stated.
https://www.sunnewsonline.com/no-power-can-remove-us-from-ondo-forests-bodejo-miyetti-allah-leader/
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Miyetti Allah Cautions Oyo Youths, Says Banditry,
Kidnapping Are National Problems
BY SAHARAREPORTERS
JAN 23, 2021
The Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of
Nigeria has said that banditry and kidnapping are national problems, adding
that the security agencies must be allowed to deal with them, and not people
taking laws into their own hands.
The Miyetti Allah National Secretary, Baba Usman,
stated this in an interview with SaharaReporters on Saturday while reacting to
the violence against the Fulani community in Igangan, Ibarapa area of Oyo State
on Friday evening when the Seriki Fulani’s house and property were destroyed.
Usman described the action as “condemnable” saying the
regional security outfits should work in tandem with the existing security
agencies.
Violence had erupted in Igangan, Ibarapa, on Friday.
The Seriki Fulani told SaharaReporters in an interview that he, his wives and
children were sent out of the settlement. He added that 11 vehicles and houses
were burnt in the process.
A popular Yoruba activist, Chief Sunday Adeyemo,
otherwise known as Sunday Igboho, who was widely rumoured to be behind the
attack, had dissociated himself and his supporters from the incident, saying
some aggrieved indigenes carried out the violence.
Usman said, “We just heard what happened and we are
trying to find out what are the causes of all these things. his is an act of
taking the law into one’s hands. This is what should be allowed for security
personnel to handle appropriately.
“Whenever there is an establishment of security
outfits, whether in the north or south, we always advise that these outfits
work together with the security agencies. The issue of this banditry and
kidnaping is everywhere in the country. Didn’t you see what is happening in
Kaduna, Zamfara and Katsina? We believe the security (forces) are doing their
best in trying to stop this.
“What is taking place in Oyo is condemnable. We always
say that the law should take its course.”
http://saharareporters.com/2021/01/23/miyetti-allah-cautions-oyo-youths-says-banditry-kidnapping-are-national-problems
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Australia
Driver rams Mercedes through the gates of an Islamic
school in Sydney as cops scramble to the scene
By KYLIE STEVENS
24 January 2021
A Mercedes driver has allegedly rammed through the
front gates of a Islamic school in Sydney's south-west.
Police raced to Salamah College in Chester Hill
shortly after 4pm on Sunday after reports from security staff that a car
allegedly drove through the boom gate at the school's front entrance.
Officers attended the scene and spoke to the male
driver, who allegedly became aggressive and resisted arrest when told he was
trespassing on the school grounds.
Salamah College is an independent Islamic
co-educational primary and secondary school for students from kindergarten
right through to year 12.
Thousands of students across New South Wales will
return to classrooms later this week for the start of the 2021 school year.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9181013/Driver-races-car-gates-Islamic-school-Sydney-cops-scramble-scene.html
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