Mushawarat condemns the Andhra Pradesh Goverment’s vendetta politics | Mushawarat chief writes to the Union Home Minister on saffron terror

Mushawarat, AIMMM, Delhi	5:16 PM (1 hour ago)

ALL INDIA MUSLIM MAJLIS-E-MUSHAWARAT

[Umbrella body of the Indian Muslim organisations]

D-250, Abul Fazal Enclave, Jamia Nagar

New Delhi-110025  India

Tel.: 011-26946780 Fax: 011-26947346

Email: mushawarat@mushawarat.com  Web: www.mushawarat.com

Mushawarat condemns the Andhra Pradesh Goverment’s vendetta politics

New Delhi, 22 January 2013: Dr. Zafarul-Islam Khan, President of All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat (AIMMM), the umbrella body of Indian Muslim organizations, said here today in a press statement that the revival of an old case and arrest of the Majlis Ittehadul Muslimin leader and Member of Parliament Mr Asaduddin Owaisi is a clear case of vendetta politics resorted to by the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh only because the MIM opted out of the ruling coalition in the state two months ago. Action should be taken against those police and judicial officials who failed their duty in a case pending since 2005 which, prima facie, seems frivolous and driven by the anti-Muslim  bias which has become the hallmark of the Andhra Police which could not restrain itself from firing even at the protesters who came out against the Makkah Masjid blast in May 2007 and later arbitrarily arrested dozens of blameless Muslim youths who were later declared totally innocent by courts. This is the same police force which failed to take any action against VHP leader Togadia  despite a number of FIRs filed against him. He freely spit venom in Hyderabad last month and went away under airport-to-airport security provided by this very force.

AIMMM demands that the A.P. government must stop this petty vendetta politics, release Mr Asaduddin Owaisi and his brother Mr Akbaruddin Owaisi, MLA, on bail and let the courts judge if they are really guilty. As of now, it is the administration which is drastically misusing its powers to silence political dissent.

 [end]

Mushawarat chief writes to the Union Home Minister on saffron terror

New Delhi, 22 January 2013: Dr. Zafarul-Islam Khan, President of All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat (AIMMM), wrote a letter today to Shri Sushil Kumar Shinde, Hon’ble Union Home Minister, congratulating him for his candid statement on the saffron terror. Dr Khan asked Shri Shinde to expedite the probe and judicial proceedings in the saffron terror case. He said that what has been exposed so far is only the tip of the iceberg.  Dr Khan also asked the Home Minister to order a judicial probe into all the terror incidents which took place since the BJP came to power in certain states and later at the Central level in the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992. Only such a high-lelvel unbiased probe will uncover the reality of terrorism in India, he said.

  

Dr Khan further said in his letter, “Those who have been nabbed so far are the expendable lower rung workers who actually plant bombs. It is particularly worrying that persons like Indresh Kumar and Praveen Togadia, whose names appear in the Malegaon and Ajmer blasts chargesheets, have not been even interrogated till date. Outfits like Abhinav Bharat, Sanatan Sanstha, Bajrang Dal, Arya Sena, Sri Ram Sene etc have not been touched. Places like Bhonsla Military School of Nasik and Pune and the Akanksha Resort of Pune have not been probed and the thousands of Hindutva terrorists who received arms and explosives training in these and other camps over many years have not been traced so far, which means that they remain free to undertake their terrorist activities with impunity. It is also strange that BJP-ruled states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka where these terrorists find safe haven, have not been taken to task.”

  

Dr Khan asked the Union Home Minister to seriously detoxify the Police and Intelligence personnel who have been infiltrated by saffron elements who, in turn, facilitate and cover up saffron terror activities.

[end]

Text of the AIMMM President to the Hon’ble Union Home Minister

22 January 2013

Shri Sushil Kumar Shinde

Hon’ble Union Home Minister

Governmt of India

New Delhi

Dear Sir,

Please accept my sincere congratulations for your courage to say publicly what is well-known to those concerned with the security and safety of our country, especially since Martyr Hemant Karkare, the then chief of Maharashtra ATS, exposed the vast secret network of Hindutva terrorists in 2008 while investigating the Malegaon blast of that year.

We hope and urge you that the investigations and court proceedings should be expedited and the real culprits who plan, finance and direct Hindutva terror, are exposed, nabbed and sentenced. Those who have been nabbed so far are the expendable lower rung workers who actually plant bombs. It is particularly worrying that persons like Indresh Kumar and Praveen Togadia, whose names appear in the Malegaon and Ajmer blasts chargesheets, have not been even interrogated till date. Outfits like Abhinav Bharat, Sanatan Sanstha, Bajrang Dal, Arya Sena, Sri Ram Sene etc have not been touched. Places like  Bhonsla Military School of Nasik and Pune and the Akanksha Resort of Pune have not been probed and the thousands of Hindutva terrorists who received arms and explosives training in these and other camps over many years have not been traced so far, which means that they remain free to undertake their terrorist activities with impunity. It is also strange that BJP-ruled states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka where these terrorists find safe haven, have not been taken to task.

Please allow me to say that apart from nabbing these terrorists, your ministry also has the task of detoxifying the Police and Intelligence personnel who have been infiltrated by saffron elements who, in turn, facilitate and cover up saffron terror activities.

It is our studied opinion that what has been exposed of the vast saffron terror network so far is just the tip of the iceberg. We request you to order a judicial probe into all the terror incidents which took place since the BJP came to power in certain states and later at the Central level in the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992. Only such a high-level unbiased probe will uncover the reality of terrorism in India.

I take this opportunity to send you a copy of Godse’s Children – Hindutva terror in India by Subhash Gatade. It is about the saffron terror. I hope you will find time to read it.

Yours sincerely

Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan

President

Will the Dead Vote and Voting Machines be Hacked? - By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy

This is an article written by celebrated thinker and political activist, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, in the wake of 2012 US elections. The issue raised are very relevant to India as India prepares for new Parliamentary General Election, sometime before 2014. As per media reports, the recent landslide/hat-trick  'victory' of Narendra Modi in Gujarat, is being questioned, especially with regard to the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM). There are talks of even cartelization of political power in India, directly sidelining the very democracy that makes India supposedly 'the largest democracy in the world'.

Voting Rights for Indian voters is the most effective though very ephemeral link to the Government that they elect. Any shadow of compromise in the process and procedure in these troubled times, may result in public disorder of unmanageable proportions. The following article, therefore is a reminder to people, what can go wrong and what the authorities should be forewarned to avoid any such miscarriage of Indian democracy.

Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai
<ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com>
---------------------
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2012/11/03/u-s-elections-will-dead-vote-voting-machines-hacked/

Paul Craig Roberts

Institute for Political Economy

U.S. Elections: Will the Dead Vote and Voting Machines be Hacked?

November 3, 2012 | 

“He who casts a vote decides nothing. He who counts the vote decides everything.”

-Joseph Stalin

Whether or not he said it, Stalin’s quote has entered into folklore. For a vote to mean anything, those counting the ballots must have a greater respect for the integrity of democracy than they have lust for power.

Since Stalin’s time, the technology has changed. With electronic voting machines, which leave no paper trail and are programmed with proprietary software, the count can be decided before the vote. Those who control the electronics can simply program voting machines to elect the candidate they want to win. Electronic voting is not transparent. When you vote electronically, you do not know for whom you are voting. Only the machine knows.

According to most polls, the race for the White House is too-close-to-call. History has shown that when an election is close and there’s no expectation for a clear winner, these are the easiest ones to steal. Even more important, the divergence between exit polls, perhaps indicating the real winner, and the stolen result, if not overdone, can be very small. Those who stole the election can easily put on TV enough experts to explain that the divergence between the exit polls and the vote count is not statistically significant or is because women or racial minorities or members of one party were disproportionately questioned in exit polls.

There have been recent reports that, because of costs, exit polls in the 2012 presidential election will no longer be conducted on the usual comprehensive basis in order to save money. If the reports are correct, no check remains on election theft.

Digital Votes

In a fascinating article in Harper’s Magazine (October 26, 2012) Victoria Collier notes that in the old technology, election theft depended on the power of machine politicians, such as Louisiana Senator Huey Long, to prevent exposure.

With the advent of modern technology, Collier writes that “a brave new world of election rigging emerged.” The brave new world of election theft was created by “the mass adoption of computerized voting technology and the outsourcing of our elections to a handful of corporations that operate in the shadows, with little oversight or accountability. This privatization of our elections has occurred without public knowledge or consent, leading to one of the most dangerous and least understood crisis in the history of American democracy. We have actually lost the ability to verify election results.”

The old ballot-box fraud was localized and limited in its reach. Electronic voting allows elections to be rigged on a statewide and national scale. Moreover, with electronic voting there are no missing ballot boxes to recover from the Louisiana bayous. Using proprietary corporate software, the vote count is what the software specifies.

The first two presidential elections in the 21st century are infamous. George W. Bush’s win over Al Gore was decided by the Republicans on the US Supreme Court who stopped the Florida vote recount.

In 2004, George W. Bush won the vote count although exit polls indicated that he had been defeated by John Kerry. Collier reports:

“Late on Election Day, John Kerry showed an insurmountable lead in exit polling, and many considered his victory all but certified. Yet the final vote tallies in thirty states deviated widely from exit polls, with discrepancies favoring George W. Bush in all but nine. The greatest disparities were concentrated in battleground states – particularly Ohio. In one Ohio precinct, exit polls indicated that Kerry should have received 67 percent of the vote, but the certified tally gave him only 38 percent. The odds of such an unexpected outcome occurring only as a result of sampling error are 1 in 867,205,553. To quote Lou Harris, who has long been regarded as the father of modern political polling: ‘Ohio was as dirty an election as America has ever seen.’”

The electronic vote theft era, Collier reports, “was inaugurated by Chuck Hagel, an unknown millionaire who ran for one of Nebraska’s U.S. Senate seats in 1996. Initially Hagel trailed the popular Democratic governor, Ben Nelson, who had been elected in a landslide two years earlier. Three days before the election, however, a poll conducted by the Omaha World-Herald showed a dead heat, with 47 percent of respondents favoring each candidate. David Moore, who was then managing editor of the Gallup Poll, told the paper, ‘We can’t predict the outcome.’”

“Hagel’s victory in the general election, invariably referred to as an ‘upset,’ handed the seat to the G.O.P. for the first time in eighteen years. Hagel trounced Nelson by fifteen points. Even for those who had factored in the governor’s deteriorating numbers and a last-minute barrage of negative ads, this divergence from pre-election polling was enough to raise eyebrows across the nation.”

“Few Americans knew that until shortly before the election, Hagel had been chairman of the company whose computerized voting machines would soon count his own votes: Election Systems & Software (then called American Information Systems). Hagel stepped down from his post just two weeks before announcing his candidacy. Yet he retained millions of dollars in stock in the McCarthy Group, which owned ES&S. And Michael McCarthy, the parent company’s founder, was Hagel’s campaign treasurer.”

Vote theft might also explain the defeat of Max Cleland, a Democratic Senator from Georgia. As Collier documents:

“In Georgia, for example, Diebold’s voting machines reported the defeat of Democratic senator Max Cleland. Early polls had given the highly popular Cleland a solid lead over his Republican opponent, Saxby Chambliss, a favorite of the Christian right, the NRA, and George W. Bush (who made several campaign appearances on his behalf). As Election Day drew near, the contest narrowed. Chambliss, who had avoided military service, ran attack ads denouncing Cleland – a Silver Star recipient who lost three limbs in Vietnam – as a traitor for voting against the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Two days before the election, a Zogby poll gave Chambliss a one-point lead among likely voters, while the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Cleland maintained a three-point advantage with the same group.”

Rigged Game

“Cleland lost by seven points. In his 2009 autobiography, he accused computerized voting machines of being ‘ripe for fraud.’ Patched for fraud might have been more apt. In the month leading up to the election, Diebold employees, led by Bob Urosevich, applied a mysterious, uncertified software patch to 5,000 voting machines that Georgia had purchased in May.”

“We were told that it was intended to fix the clock in the system, which it didn’t do,” Diebold consultant and whistle-blower Chris Hood recounted in a 2006 Rolling Stone article. “The curious thing is the very swift, covert way this was done. . . . It was an unauthorized patch, and they were trying to keep it secret from the state. . . . We were told not to talk to county personnel about it. I received instructions directly from [Bob] Urosevich. It was very unusual that a president of the company would give an order like that and be involved at that level.”

When the Republican Supreme Court prevented the Florida recount in the deciding state between George W. Bush and Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, the Democrats’ response was to acquiesce in order not to shake the confidence of Americans in democracy. Similarly, John Kerry acquiesced in 2004 despite the large disparity between exit polls and vote counts. But how can Americans have confidence in democracy when voting is not transparent?

For now Republicans seem to have the technological advantage with their ownership of companies that produce electronic voting machines programmed by proprietary software, but in the future the advantage could shift to Democrats. Early voting aids electronic election theft. Successful and noncontroversial theft depends on knowing how to program the machines. The victory needs to be within the range of plausibility. Too big a victory raises eyebrows, but if the guess is wrong in the other direction theft fails. Early voting helps the voting machine programmers decide how to set the machines.

Voting 2.0

The absence of transparency is a threat to whatever remains of American democracy. In the Summer 2011 issue of The Trends Journal, Gerald Celente made the point that “if we can bank online, we can vote online.”

Think about it! Across the globe, trillions of dollars of bank transactions are made each day, and rarely are they compromised. If we can accurately count money online, we can certainly count votes accurately online. The only obstacles blocking online voting are entrenched political interests intent upon controlling the ballot box.

The lack of transparency has given rise to election litigation. On October 29, The Washington Post reported that “thousands of attorneys, representing the two major presidential candidates, their parties, unions, civil rights groups and voter-fraud watchdogs, are in place across the country, poised to challenge election results that may be called into question by machine failures, voter suppression or other allegations of illegal activity.”

Voting online, if properly arranged, can provide the transparency that the current system lacks. While the GOP might remain active in voter suppression, the Democrats could no longer vote graveyards, and the count of those who do manage to vote would not be subject to secret proprietary software.

In 2005 the nonpartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform concluded that the integrity of elections was compromised by those who controlled the programming. Proprietary private ownership of voting technology is simply incompatible with transparent elections. A country without a transparent vote is a country without democracy.

About Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following.

M


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When did India Become Part of Israel’s Stable? - By Dr. Paul Larudee

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Yasir damda <yasir.damda@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 7:56 PM
Subject: [NRIndians] When did India Become Part of Israel’s Stable?
To: nrindians@googlegroups.com

When did India Become Part of Israel’s Stable?

 

by DR. PAUL LARUDEE

Amazing stuff, India ink.  A few drops spread vigorously with a roller for several minutes on an iron plate are enough for eight sets of fingerprints and two sets of handprints on four ancient double-sided and folded Indian police fingerprint forms.  By contrast, the mug shot was taken with a digital camera.  After that, I was issued an official deportation order, for which I signed to acknowledge receipt.  My passport remained in police custody until I got to the security check at the airport, when it was returned to me.

My crime?  I had spoken to an audience of 22,000 youth at a Student Islamic Organization conference in Kerala State without having a visa that authorized public speaking or conference participation.  India is perhaps the only “democracy” where free speech for foreigners depends upon the visa they are carrying.  In fact, it is probably the only such country that has no visit visa category at all, and which has one of the most convoluted, bureaucratic and invasive visa application procedures this side of North Korea.

Not that the visa restrictions are always enforced.  However, the myriad regulations and procedures (“for public protection”) permit the security apparatus to control individuals and events at their discretion without having to cite the true reasons for their enforcement.  Every effective police state knows the drill.

In my case, I used a tourist visa, because the conference visa is a truly onerous procedure unless it is a state-sponsored event.  In fact, that is the only type of conference participation permitted, because even private groups must seek state sponsorship in order to bring speakers from outside.  In today’s India, however, state sponsorship is hardly a routine bureaucratic procedure.

It shouldn’t have been this way.  India was supposed to have been the model for tolerant multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, multi-confessional societies.  And when India was a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, carefully balancing its relationships among great and small powers and supporting those who might otherwise be a mere pawn in world affairs, this promise seemed plausible.

Regrettably, India has now become a home-grown Raj, choosing sides and fomenting discord between competing interests as a means of governing and controlling, in the best traditions of its colonial past.  Thus, for example, conservative Salafist clerics are welcome when they attend conferences on tourist visas, while human rights speakers like David Barsamian, John Esposito, Yvonne Ridley, Wilhelm Langthaler and myself are unwelcome, and are denied visas or expelled, and/or their hosts are prosecuted.

The Salafist treatment is part of a Machiavellian formula hatched by India with its newest partner, Israel.  Salafists deserve free speech as much as anyone, but the reason India accords more of it to them is on the advice of Israel.  Israel promotes Islamophobia as part of its strategy of demonizing Palestinians and Arabs, a majority of whom are Muslims, and the Salafist brand of Islam fits Israel’s agenda of portraying Islam as an extremist ideology.  This stokes the flames of the more extreme nationalist Hindu groups in India and plays on the fears of many other non-Muslim groups, as well.  Since Pakistan is an external Muslim enemy, such demonization helps to unify non-Muslim India and permit popular tolerance of greater government control as well as encroachment of security forces on civil rights and privacy.

In fact, India has its own version of the U.S. Patriot Act, curbing the rights of its people.  It is called the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), and while the title is more honest than “Patriot”, it is also a bit scary.  It implies that people can be snatched from the edge of a sidewalk on the pretext that they were intent on jaywalking.  No need for the infraction to happen first.[i]  UAPA is an illustration of the degree to which human rights have been marginalized in the land of M.K. Gandhi and Abdulghaffar Khan.

Not that India doesn’t have real security concerns.  Communal strife is as old as India itself and has sometimes risen to the level of genocide, which drove the 1947 Pakistan secession.  However, it is one thing to use law enforcement to prevent fighting and quite another to use it to drive a wedge between communities with a view towards playing them off against each other.

A case in point is the role that Israel is playing.  The self-proclaimed Jewish state is selling itself to India as a worthwhile ally on the basis that it is a) an experienced and effective leader in the fight against Islamist extremism and terrorism, b) a supplier of high-tech weapons and intelligence, and c) a means of access to U.S. support and cooperation.  In effect, Israel is saying that both states have common friends and enemies and that Israel is in a position to provide what India needs.

India appears to be buying, and is currently the largest customer for Israeli military arms systems and services.  Never mind that the expensive Iron Dome systems are effective less than 50% of the time against rockets from Gaza that use 16^th century technology.  Like most governments, India has been seduced by the promise of omniscient surveillance systems and the prospect of winning battles rather than preventing them.

This is obviously a devil’s bargain.  True to the nature of such contracts, however, are the surprises that await the unwary.  It is instructive to remember that Israeli agents once planted bombs in Baghdad synagogues to encourage Iraq’s Jews to emigrate to Israel.  (It worked, and encouraged Iraqi thugs toward violence, as well.)

Since then, Israel has stolen nuclear weapon technology and weapons grade fissionable material from the U.S., conducted the most massive spying operation in U.S. history against its “ally”, and staged numerous assassinations and “black ops” actions outside its borders, including friendly countries.  Questions currently surround the killing of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria and the putative assassination attempt on Israeli diplomats in India.  Israel blamed both of these on Iran on the basis of flimsy evidence, possibly fabricated in collaboration with its allies, the violent Mujahedin-e-Khalq Iranian exile group.

India would do well to be more circumspect toward friends like this.  Vilifying Iran is high on Israel’s current agenda, and Israel reportedly provided “evidence” and pushed the Indian government to prosecute the case.  The result was the arrest of journalist Syed Mohammed Ahmed Kazmi, who anchors a news program on West Asia providing alternative views of events in the region.  His open advocacy of better relations with Iran and his Iranian contacts were enough make him an Israeli target and an Indian suspect.  After seven months of incarceration, however, the Indian government had to release him for lack of evidence.

Kazmi and I shared the podium at the SIO conference in Kerala and I was able to chat with him privately just prior to the event.  He is a courageous man, willing to accept the risk of speaking in public so soon after his release, but appears to hold no bitterness.  Peaceful dissent of this kind needs to be encouraged in India, which is well advised to heed John F. Kennedy’s warning that, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

Sadly, Israel sees violent revolution in foreign countries to be in its national interest, under the “divide and conquer” principle.  However, one would think that India’s principle would be the opposite if it wants to remain a successful unified nation with a highly diverse population seeking assurance that all their voices are heard in a national consensus.  Furthermore, there is no need for India to acquire the same enemies as Israel.  It may be in Israel’s perceived interests, but is it in India’s?

My few days in Kerala were an inspiring glimpse of what is possible.  I saw thousands of young Indian Muslims whose religious and social mission is to benefit all mankind, to alleviate the social ills of Muslims and non-Muslims alike, to promote interfaith cooperation and to create an umbrella that is inclusive of everyone.

Although this was a Muslim event, many who attended were not Muslim and were invited directly by their Muslim neighbors.  I was invited to be the keynote speaker even though I am not Muslim and spoke more generally about human rights and about Palestinian issues, which are not specifically Muslim or Indian.  Roughly 40% of the attendees were young women, in a society not always known for its success in promoting women’s rights.

These young people were politically aware, committed, well organized and motivated.  Society is supposed to create models for young people, but in this case it was the young that created a model for their society.

Dr. Paul Larudee is a human rights advocate and one of the co-founders of the movement to break the siege of Gaza by sea.  He was deported from India on 31^st December, 2012.

Jazakallah

Mohamed Yasir

Dhule Police Rampage - People from Gujarat may have crossed over, says panel chief - The Indian Express, Mumbai, India

Citizen Journalists at Dhule Smartphones bring in paradigm change in parameter of justice for communal riot victims in India. For the first time, a video clip is circulating on Facebook, where stark brutality of Police in Dhule communal riots, is recorded by a 'citizen journalist' and State Government is at a loss as how to deal with such graphic proof of police brutality against Muslims who had to bury 6 Muslims dead in police firing. The footage of the police rampage is shocking. Maharashtra's Sonia Congress Chief Minister Prathviraj Chavan and Sharad Pawar's NCP member, Home Minister RR Patel have tough time trying to save the pampered Police mafia that has held them hostage. In 65 years of independent India, thousands of communal riots against Muslims did not stand judicial scrutiny for lack of evidence. It was only in 2002 Gujarat Riot that due to political compulsions of Congress opposing its rival BJP, that first effort were witnessed bringing perpetrators of atrocities to justice. Though a spate of covering crime scene areas with CCTV is bringing another change in the security parameters of urban India, the CCTV being the property of the ruling government, is widely believed to be subject to manipluation. Now with millions of cell phones with camera and video facilities in the hands of common people has completely changed the prospect of bring in criminals in the grip of justice. Still political compulsions die hard. The way Maharashtra government is pussyfooting the entire outrageous one sided violence unleashed by criminals, both from public and police force appearing to be hand in glove with each other, it is perforce trying to maintain peace. However, if the trend of 'citizen journalists' using latest gadgets to capture and instantly upload live coverage of such genocidal attacks to world media continues, that should hopeflly will put a cautionary stop to future events planned by communal elements that has given no respite to India to follow a peaceful route to human development. Ghulam Muhammed, Mumbai <ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com> PS. Times of India, which can spare even two full pages on minor events daily, has been conspicuously silent on any detailed coverage of the Dhule communal riots; giving rise to public perception in Muslim community that as always, Times of India is heavily prejudiced against Muslims. ------------------- http://www.indianexpress.com/news/people-from-gujarat-may-have-crossed-over-says-panel-chief/1060524/0 People from Gujarat may have crossed over, says panel chief Express news service : Mumbai, Thu Jan 17 2013, 02:29 State Minorities Commission chairman Munaf Hakeem on Wednesday said there was a possibility that people from Gujarat crossed over the border and instigated violence on January 6 in Dhule. Dhule borders Gujarat and the riots in the district 10 days ago claimed six lives, all local Muslims. Interacting with The Indian Express editorial staff, Hakeem said, “Our investigations have found out that there has been no involvement of any local organisation in the riots. There is possibility that people crossed over from the border from Gujarat to instigate violence and this angle needs to be probed.” Hakeem said during his interaction with the riot affected people many had claimed that people from outside their region had led the violence. “In many cases, people wearing police uniforms were seen destroying property. The judicial commission investigating the Dhule riots needs to inquire whether they were genuine policemen,” he said. Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan ordered a judicial commission after his Dhule visit on Tuesday. The Minorities Commission that surveyed the localities and houses targeted in Dhule found the use of freshly-baked red bricks. “There are no brick-making units in the nearby vicinity,” Hakeem said. Houses of both Hindus and Muslims along the fish market were damaged, he said, adding that the objects used for attacking these houses were the same. “Broken glass collected from the areas were of the same kind and indicate the same group indulged in the attack,” he pointed out. The commission chairman dismissed that acid was used to fuel the riots. Hakeem said, “I personally visited the hospitals and could not find a single case of acid burns.” The final report would shed light on all these issues, he added. Besides claiming six lives, the Dhule riots left 200 injured after members of two communities clashed over a Rs 30 bill for a lunch at a roadside vendor. -------------------

Rape Victim - “I Fought For My Life…And Won” – Sohaila Abdulali

http://kractivist.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/i-fought-for-my-life-and-won-sohaila-abdulal-mustread-vaw-rape/

“I Fought For My Life…And Won” – Sohaila Abdulali

#mustread #Vaw #Rape

 

 

 

 

 

 

277 Votes

I was gang raped three years ago, when I was 17 years old.  My name and my photograph appear with this article.  in  1983, in Manushi.

I grew up in Bombay, and am at present studying in the USA. I am writing a thesis on rape and came home to do research a couple of weeks ago. Ever since that day three years ago, I have been intensely aware of the misconceptions people have about rape, about those who rape and those who survive rape. I have also been aware of the stigma that attaches to survivors. Time and again, people have hinted that perhaps death would have been better than the loss of that precious“virginity.” I refuse to accept this. My lifeis worth too much to me.

I feel that many women keep silent to avoid this stigma, but suffer tremendous agony because of their silence. Men blame the victim for many reasons, and,shockingly, women too blame the victim, perhaps because of internalized patriarchal values, perhaps as a way of making themselves invulnerable to a horrifying possibility.

It happened on a warm July evening.That was the year women’s groups were beginning to demand improved legislation on rape. I was with my friend Rashid. We had gone for a walk and were sitting on a mountainside about a mile and a half from my home in Chembur which is a suburb of Bombay. We were attacked by four men,who were armed with a sickle. They beat us, forced us to go up the mountain, and kept us there for two hours. We were physically and psychologically abused, and, as darkness fell, we were separated, screaming, and they raped me, keeping Rashid hostage. If either of us resisted, the other would get hurt. 

This was an effective tactic.

They could not decide whether or not to kill us. We did everything in our power to stay alive. My goal was to live and that was more important than anything else. I fought the attackers physically at first, and with words after I was pinned down. Anger and shouting had no effect, so I began to babble rather crazily about love and compassion,I spoke of humanity and the fact that I was a human being, and so were they, deep inside. They were gentler after this, at least those who were not raping me at the moment. I told one of them that if he ensured neither Rashid nor I was killed, I would come back to meet him, the rapist, the next day. Those words cost me more than Ican say, but two lives were in the balance. The only way I would ever have gone back there was with a very, very sharp instrument that would ensure that he never raped again.

After what seemed like years of torture (I think I was raped 10 times but I was in so much pain that I lost track of what was going on after a while), we were let go,with a final long lecture on what an immoral whore I was to be alone with a boy. That infuriated them more than anything. They acted the whole time as if they were doing me a favour, teaching me a lesson. Theirs was the most fanatical kind of self righteousness.

They took us down the mountain and we stumbled on to the dark road, clinging to each other and walking unsteadily. They followed us for a while, brandishing the sickle, and that was perhaps the worst part of all—escape was so near yet death hung over us. Finally we got home, broken, bruised, shattered. It was such an incredible feeling to let go, to stop bargaining for our lives and weighing every word because we knew the price of angering them was a sickle in the stomach. Relief flooded into our bones and out of our eyes and we literally collapsed into hysterical howling.

I had earnestly promised the rapists that I would never tell any one but the minute I got home, told my father to call the police.

He was as anxious as I was to get them apprehended. I was willing to do anything to prevent someone else having to go through what I had been through. The police were insensitive, contemptuous, and somehow managed to make me the guilty party. When they asked me what had happened,I told them quite directly, and they were scandalized that I was not a shy, blushing victim. When they said there would be publicity, I said that was all right. It had honestly never occurred to me that Rashid or I could be blamed. When they said Iwould have to go into a home for juvenile delinquents for my “protection.” I was willing to live with pimps and rapists, in order to be able to bring my attackers to justice.

Soon I realized that justice for women simply does not exist in the legal system. When they asked us what we had been doing on the mountain, I began to get indignant. When they asked Rashid why he had been “passive”, I screamed. Didn’t they understand that his resistance meant further torture for me? When they asked questions about what kind of clothes I had been wearing, and why there were no visible marks on Rashid’s body (he had internal bleeding from being repeatedly hit in the stomach with the handle of the sickle), I broke down in complete misery and terror, and my father threw them out of the house after telling them exactly what he thought of them. That was the extent of the support the police gave me. No charges were brought. The police recorded a statement that we had gone for a walk and had been “delayed” on our return.

It has been almost three years now, but there has not been even one day, when I have not been haunted by what happened. Insecurity, vulnerability, fear, anger, helplessness—I fight these constantly. 

Sometimes when I am walking on the road and hear footsteps behind I start to sweat and have to bite my lip to keep from screaming. I flinch at friendly touches, I can’t bear tight scarves that feel like hands round my throat, I flinch at a certain look that comes into men’s eyes—that look is there so often.

Yet in many ways I feel that I am a stronger person now. I appreciate my life more than ever. Every day is a gift. I fought for my life, and won. No negative reaction can make me stop feeling that this is positive.

I do not hate men. It is too easy a thing to do, and many men are victims of different kinds of oppression. It is patriarchy I hate, and that incredible tissue of lies that say men are superior to women, men have rights which women should not have, men are our rightful conquerors.

My feminist friends all assume that I am concerned about women’s issues because I was raped. This is not so. The rape was one expression of all the reasons why Iam a feminist. Why compartmentalize rape ? Why assume rape is only an unwanted act of intercourse ? Are we not raped every day when we walk down the street and are leered at ? Are we not raped when we are treated as sex objects, denied our rights, oppressed in so many ways ? The oppression of women cannot be analysed unidimensionally. For example, a class analysis is very important, but it does not explain why most rapes occur within one’s own class.

As long as women are oppressed in various ways, all women will continue to be vulnerable to rape. We must stop mystifying rape. We must acknowledge its existence all round us, and the various forms it takes. We must stop shrouding it in secrecy, and must see it for what it is — a crime of violence in which the rapist is the criminal.

I am exultant at being alive. Being raped was terrible beyond words, but I think being alive is more important. When a woman is denied the right to feel this, there is something very wrong in our value system. When someone is mugged and allows herself to be beaten in order to survive, no one thinks she is guilty of willing consent to be beaten. In the case of rape, a woman is asked why she let them do it, why she did not resist, whether she enjoyed it.
Rape is not specific to any group of women, nor are rapists a particular group of men. A rapist could be a brutal madman or the boy next door or the too friendly uncle. Let us stop treating rape as the problem of other women. Let us acknowledge its universality and come to a better understanding of it.

Until the basis of power relationships in this world changes, until women cease to be regarded as the property of men, we will have to live in constant fear of being violated with impunity.

I am a survivor. I did not ask to be raped and I did not enjoy it. 

It was the worst torture I have ever known. Rape is not the woman’s fault, ever. This article is one contribution towards exploding the silence and the comfortable myths which we build up to convince ourselves we are not potential victims, thus consigning actual victims to the most agonizing isolation a human being can know.

( This article has been reproduced from archives of Manushi, and was written in 1983)

Today, Sohaila writes, reads and walks. She has published two novels, The Madwoman of Jogare and Year of the Tiger; three children’s books; and numerous short stories, essays, news reports, blogs, columns, manuals, and just about every form of written material, which is in direct contradiction to her devotion to trees. www.sohailaink.com

Mali and the Scramble for Africa - Ben Schreiner - www.globalresearch.ca

A new wave of 'Barbarism' inviting a new wave of 'Colonialism' !


http://www.globalresearch.ca/mali-and-the-scramble-for-africa/5318867

Mali and the Scramble for Africa

A New Wave of Barbarism

By Ben Schreiner

Global Research, January 14, 2013

 

Region: sub-Saharan Africa

Theme: US NATO War Agenda

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The French military intervention into Mali on Friday — France’s second in as many years into a former African colony — was reportedly “seconded” by the United States. This ought to come as no great surprise, given the Pentagon’s deepening penetration into Africa.

According to the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), the Pentagon plans on deploying soldiers to 35 different African countries in 2013. As NPR reports, upwards of 4,000 U.S. soldiers will “take part in military exercises and train African troops on everything from logistics and marksmanship to medical care.” (The Malian army officer responsible for the country’s March coup just so happened to have received U.S. military training.)

Of course, the U.S. military already has a significant on-the-ground presence in Africa. For instance, the “busiest Predator drone base outside of the Afghan war zone” — with 16 drone flights a day — is located at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti.

But as the Army Times notes, “the region in many ways remains the Army’s last frontier.” And in order to satiate the U.S. appetite for global “power projection,” no frontiers are to be left unconquered.

Thus, as a June report in the Washington Post revealed, the preliminary tentacles of the U.S. military already extend across Africa. As the paper reported, U.S. surveillance planes are currently operating out of clandestine bases in Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya, with plans afoot to open a new base in South Sudan.

The Post reported further that, “the Pentagon is spending $8.1 million to upgrade a forward operating base and airstrip in Mauritania, on the western edge of the Sahara. The base is near the border with strife-torn Mali.”

And with such assets already in place, the Pentagon was in position to not only “second” France’s intervention into Mali, but, as the New York Times reported, to weigh a “broad range of options to support the French effort, including enhanced intelligence-sharing and logistics support.”

Illuminating what such U.S. support may come to eventually look like in Mali, J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center in Washington and a senior strategy advisor to AFRICOM, commented: “Drone strikes or airstrikes will not restore Mali’s territorial integrity or defeat the Islamists, but they may be the least bad option.” A rather ominous sign, given that employing such a “least bad option” has already led to the slaying of hundreds of innocents in the U.S. drone campaign.

Of course, much the same as with the drone campaign, the Pentagon’s push into Africa has come neatly packaged as an extension of “war on terror.” As a June Army Times report notes, “Africa, in particular, has emerged as a greater priority for the U.S. government because terrorist groups there have become an increasing threat to U.S. and regional security.”

But what intervention hasn’t come to be justified by employing some variant of the ever handy “war on terror” refrain? As French President François Hollande declared on Friday, “The terrorists should know that France will always be there when the rights of a people, those of Mali who want to live freely and in a democracy, are at issue.”

“The ideology of our times, at least when it comes to legitimizing war” Jean Bricmont writes in his book Humanitarian Imperialism, “is a certain discourse on human rights and democracy.” And, we might add, a certain cynical discourse on combating terror.

Naturally, then, the notion that the West’s renewed interest in Africa is derived from an altruistic desire to help African states combat terrorism and establish democracy is rather absurd. It was the NATO alliance, lest one forgets, that so eagerly aligned with Salifi fighters to topple Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Moreover, it is this very same military alliance that is now simultaneously cheering Salifists in Syria, while bombing them in the AfPak region, Somalia, Yemen, and now Mali.

Clearly, only those practicing doublethink stand a chance of comprehending the ever shifting terrain of the Western “war on terror.”

Indeed, for once the veils of protecting “democracy” and combating “terror” are lifted, the imperial face is revealed.

Thus, the imperative driving the renewed Western interest in Africa, as Conn Hallinan helps explain, is the race to secure the continent’s vast wealth.

“The U.S. currently receives about 18 percent of its energy supplies from Africa, a figure that is slated to rise to 25 percent by 2015,” Hallinan writes. “Africa also provides about one-third of China’s energy needs, plus copper, platinum, timber and iron ore.”

What’s more, as Maximilian Forte contends in Slouching Towards Sirte, “Chinese interest are seen as competing with the West for access to resources and political influences. AFRICOM and a range of other U.S. government initiatives are meant to count this phenomenon.”

And this explains NATO’s 2011 foray into Libya, which removed a stubborn pan-Africanist leader threatening to frustrate AFRICOM’s expansion into the Army’s “last frontier.” And this explains the French-led, U.S. supported intervention into Mali, which serves to forcibly assert Western interests further into Africa.

Intervention, we see, breeds intervention. And as Nick Turse warned back in July, “Mali may only be the beginning and there’s no telling how any of it will end.”

All that appears certain is a renewed wave of barbarism, as the scramble for Africa accelerates.

Ben Schreiner is a freelance writer based in Wisconsin. He may be reached at bnschreiner@gmail.com or via his website.

Jamaat spreads its wings to film production - By Shaju Philip - The Indian Express, Mumbai, India

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/jamaat-spreads-its-wings-to-film-production/1059475/0 Jamaat spreads its wings to film production Shaju Philip : Thiruvananthapuram, Tue Jan 15 2013, The Kerala unit of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind is getting into production of commercial films and serials, which will be telecast on its new venture, Mediaone TV. The Malayalam-language news and entertainment satellite channel is to go on air next month. This is the first time a state unit of the Jamaat-e-Islami is venturing into visual media. Incidentally, Jamaat mouthpiece Madhayamam itself does not publish film advertisements, a policy it has followed since its launch 25 years ago. The channel would be floated by the Kozhikode-based Madhyamam Broadcasting Corporation. A tie-up has already been worked out with Al Jazeera. Jamaat’s ‘assistant amir (Kerala)’ Sheikh Mohammed Karakunnu, an Islamic scholar, said Mediaone would follow the same principles practised by Madhyamam. “Like the daily, the TV channel will give due space to issues of minorities, Dalits and the marginalised. The TV channel will also have regulations on accepting advertisements, (and on) content of the programmes,” he said. Karakunnu confirmed that Mediaone would also produce its own films apart from sourcing films from outside. “Work on a film has begun,” he said. Mediaone group editor O Abdurahiman said their aim was to give voice to the voiceless.  “We want to develop an alternative media culture as our daily has done. Mediaone TV has entered into a tie-up with Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera, mainly for sharing content on world affairs. The channel would be hived into news and entertainment after six months.” Noting that the bar on film advertisement in Madhyamam had no link with Mediaone airing films, Abdurahiman pointed out that the Jamaat mouthpiece didn’t skirt film news either. “Our daily gives film reviews and covers film festivals exhaustively,” he said. Among the film proposals the channel is considering, Abdurahiman said, was one based on the life of Kunhali Marakkar, a local king’s naval chief who had fought against Portuguese invaders after Vasco da Gama’s arrival on the Malabar Coast in the 15th century. The story falls neatly in line with Jamaat’s pet campaign: anti-imperialism. Writer and social critic Prof N M Karassery said that as it strives for more space in the mainstream, it was but natural for the Jamaat-e-Islami to turn to new media.  Films, which could be used for ideological campaigning, were an obvious choice. “The Jamaat is not a mere religious outfit, but a political one in disguise,” he noted. Karassery, however, added that the move could also backfire on the Jamaat. “I do not think that the channel would make that organisation more liberal, but may expose their anti-women approach and their capitalistic intentions,’’ he said. Prof Hameed Chendamangaloor, who studies Muslim organisations, too isn’t surprised by the Jamaat’s foray into TV media as it wants to wield more political clout and foster Islamic politics. “No Muslim organisation can stick on to the days when watching TV or enjoying music was taboo. Even if the ideology is for conservatism, political motives would spur the Jamaat and other organisations to embrace changes, he said.