Monday, January 30, 2012

INDIAN JUSTICE FOR AN INDIAN MUSLIM - " Court acquits 4. So who killed Adnan Patrawala? - Rebecca Samervel - The Times of India, Mumbai, India

INDIAN JUSTICE FOR AN INDIAN MUSLIM

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Court-acquits-4-So-who-killed-Adnan-Patrawala/articleshow/11691815.cms

The Times of India
Mumbai

Court acquits 4. So who killed Adnan Patrawala?

Rebecca Samervel, TNN | Jan 31, 2012, 12.34AM IST
MUMBAI: Four-and-a-half years after the sensational murder of Lokhandwala teenager Adnan Patrawala, a sessions court on Monday freed four men accused of the brutal strangulation. Pronouncing the verdict at 1.30pm, judge S A Deshmukh acquitted Sujit Nair, now 33 years of age, Ayush Bhat, 23, Rajiv Dhariya, 28, and Amit Kaushal, 29.

The judgment was pronounced in-camera without the media present. The entire judgment was not read out. Even the families of the accused were not allowed in court when the judgment was pronounced.

Nair's defence lawyer Ashish Chavan, who was present in court during the pronouncement, said, "The court has rubbished the conspiracy theories by the prosecution. With the chain of circumstances not being proved in court, the case has gone in favour of the defence."

The prosecution had alleged that on the night of August 18 and on August 19, Nair, Bhat, Dhariya, Kaushal and a minor had kidnapped Adnan, the son of a Lokhandwala businessman. They drove off with him from Malad's Inorbit mall and allegedly strangled the teenager in Navi Mumbai after a plan to extort Rs 2 crore from his family as ransom went awry and the police got wind of the kidnapping. Patrawala's body was found near his car in the marsh by Palm Beach Road, Nerul, Navi Mumbai.

The entire judgement, along with the reasons for the acquittals, will be available only after the judge releases the document. Special public prosecutor Ujwal Nikam was not present in court on Monday.

Though Patrawala's parents were not in court on Monday, they were keenly involved in all aspects of the case. Patrawala's father Aslam said, "We are in deep shock after hearing the judgment. Justice has been denied to us. It was a clear case for conviction, but I don't know what went wrong. After discussing the details with the special public prosecutor, we will decide our further course of action."

Bhat, when asked for his reaction outside the court after his acquittal, told TOI, "I am very relieved. It hasn't sunk in yet."

During the trial, the prosecution examined about 25 witnesses, of whom one turned hostile. The case was largely based on circumstantial evidence, which the prosecution dubbed as "strong". According to the prosecution, two key witnesses were a man who had seen the victim in a drowsy condition in the company of the accused on the night of the kidnapping and another man who heard the conspiracy being hatched.

The defence had argued that there were several lapses in the investigation. Chavan told TOI, "The court rejected the witness's claim that he had heard the accused hatching the plan to kidnap Adnan in a shopping mall. The entire chain of circumstance is required to establish that the evidence is of believable and cogent nature, and this is lacking. The prosecution has failed to prove the case beyond a shadow of reasonable doubt." Chavan further stated that the court raised questions on the prosecution's claims about the recovery of the body.

A fifth accused, who is a minor, is still to stand trial in a juvenile court for the murder that unfolded during a weekend in August 2007. The observations of the sessions court will be taken into consideration then.

----------http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/11693246.cms

3 cops were moved out for 'botch-up'

TNN | Jan 31, 2012, 03.44AM IST
Days after Adnan Patrawala was murdered, three policemen were transferred from the Oshiwara police station, where the teen's parents had filed a case, to the low-profile Local Arms division. It was claimed that the officers were reassigned because of the mishandling of the Patrawala case, though the police officially denied it then.

Adnan's parents were first contacted on phone by their son's kidnappers on the morning of August 19, 2007, immediately after which they approached the Oshiwara police. The police advised the Patrawalas to negotiate with the abductors. In the meanwhile, though, the news of the kidnapping was leaked-reportedly by some policemen-to TV news channels, which promptly put it on air. The abductors, it is believed, panicked at watching the news and killed Adnan in a bid to get rid of the evidence. His body was recovered from a marsh near Palm Beach Road, Nerul, on August 20.

Less than a week later, assistant police inspector Ashok Ratnaparikh, and sub inspectors Vilas More and Jameel Shaikh were transferred out of Oshiwara police station. Ratnaparikh and More were handling the Patrawala case. Yet, then deputy commissioner of police (Zone 9), Vinay Chaube, had insisted that the transfers were carried out on administrative grounds. Simultaneously, then Mumbai police commissioner D N Jadhav had promised that a probe he had set up would find out "if any police officer had irresponsibly leaked information which resulted in Patrawala's killing".
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Friday, January 27, 2012

Write, wrong - By Shahid Siddiqui - The Indian Express, Mumbai

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/write-wrong/904697/0

Sat, 28 Jan 2012

Write, wrong

By Shahid Siddiqui : Sat Jan 28 2012, 03:29 hrs

Here is a fundamental question to friends and supporters of Salman Rushdie: Is the right to speech and expression absolute, without any restrictions, in any democratic society? The right to freedom of expression is recognised as a human right under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 goes on to say that the exercise of this right carries “special duties and responsibilities” and may “therefore be subject to certain restrictions” when necessary “for respect of the rights or reputation of others, or for the protection of national security or public order, or of public health or morals”. Under democratic constitutions, this right is commonly subject to limitations, such as libel, slander, obscenity, incitement to commit violence or a crime. Hate speech against any group, community, race, religion or colour is a crime in any free and democratic society of the world.
Those who supported Rushdie said that the book, The Satanic Verses, was banned but not the writer. The writer has committed the crime of hate and abusive speech but his freedom of movement cannot be restricted. Did Rushdie and his friends who are questioning Indian democracy, raise their voice when the Indian Islamic preacher Zakir Naik was banned from entering Britain in June 2010 and later banned by the US? The British home secretary then said “coming to the UK is a privilege not a right, and I am not willing to allow those who might not be conducive to the public good to enter the UK”. This is not an isolated case, hundreds of people with valid documents are stopped from entering these great democracies, and their right to free speech and movement are curtailed without any reason, based on the whims and fancies of some bigoted bureaucrats. Islamophobia has become so prevalent in these Western democracies that sometimes mere name is reason enough to stop individuals from entering these countries .

There are hundreds of books critical of Islam, the Holy Prophet or the Quran. Some of these writings are offensive and full of misleading or distorted facts. But there has never been any global public outcry against these books. One can always reply to criticism by writing another book to counter such propaganda, but how do you reply to pure abusive and vulgar writing and imagery? 

According to Islamic studies scholar Anthony McRoy, what Muslims find blasphemous is the name “Mahound”, a derogatory term for Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) used during the Crusades and which means the lowest creature from the depth of hell. In fact, the most offensive parts of the book are the abusive words in Hindi (gaali), freely used against Mahound by Gabriel Farishta, who is a Bollywood film star turned into an angel. A brothel is staffed by prostitutes who take the names of the Prophet’s wives, with Hazrat Omar, the close companion, as the brothel keeper. Saladin, the great Egyptian ruler, who defeated the Crusaders, is depicted as a devil or shaitan. Even the crusaders had nothing but praise for Saladin. Rushdie’s writings are so offensive that they cannot be quoted in any responsible and respectable magazine or newspaper. The result is that not only those who oppose him, but even those who support him, have either not read or understood the context in which Rushdie is creating his magic realism and its not-so-fictitious characters.

I was one of those few persons who was offered the manuscript of The Satanic Verses before its publication by Penguin India to offer my comments, as the publishers themselves were doubtful of the impact the book would create in India. I recommended to the publishers that the book should not come to India as the communal situation at that point (1988) was not conducive to such writings due to the Babri Masjid controversy. Emotions were already inflamed and the book could be used by communalists on both sides of the divide to exploit passions and sentiments. The book was banned quietly by the government, avoiding much controversy or protests from Indian Muslims. It is the fatwa by the Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini which led to global protest and the larger controversy. Even then, the majority of Muslims opposed the fatwa. Indian Muslims at no point supported it.

However the Western world, which was desperately looking for a convenient target after the decline of Soviet Union, picked up the chant to protect Rushdie and demonise Islam, Muslims and their governments. They spent millions of dollars not only for the sake of “right to freedom of expression” but to use this issue to garner political support to isolate Iran and justify their Islamophobia. Is it a coincidence that The Satanic Verses unleashed the anti-Islam propaganda, which has led to many unjustified wars, killing of millions of innocent people and demonising a whole religion and its 1,500 million believers around the world.

Salman Rushdie and his publishers took no time in apologising to Indira Gandhi and editing the offensive portions from Midnight’s Children. At that point he and his publishers did not take the moral high ground of absolute, unrestricted right to creative freedom. Is it because her lawyers had filed a libel case in British courts and they might have had to pay a huge amount for this offence? The same people made huge amount of money from the Satanic Verses controversy and turned the abusive writer into a hero, celebrity and millionaire. Many British writers and a section of the media at that time alleged that the publishers stoked the fires of anguish and anger to exploit the controversy.

If Rushdie had written against Jesus Christ what he wrote against the Prophet he would have been prosecuted under the British blasphemy law, which was partisan in nature and under it the maximum punishment was the death sentence. The law was abandoned by the British parliament in May 2008. However, at the time of the controversy in 1988, Rushdie took refuge in England to save himself from prosecution by arguing that he had not offended Jesus Christ, Bible or the basic tenets of Christianity and therefore blasphemy law was not applicable to him.

Denying or questioning the Holocaust is a crime in most European democracies. Many countries have broader laws that criminalise genocide denial. Michael Whine argues that Holocaust denial can inspire violence. Many writers such as Raul Hilberg, Richard J. Evans, Noam Chomsky, Peter Singer and Christopher Hitchens have regarded these laws as limiting the freedom to investigate, research and write.

I don’t deny the right of people to eulogies Rushdie and regard his writings as the litmus test for the protection of right to speech. In India, believers of all faiths have lived together for thousands of years. In the thousand years of Muslims presence in India we do not come across any writing abusive of Hindu gods and religious figures by any prominent writer or poet. We do read the poems of Ras Khan in Brijbhasha eulogising Lord Krishna, or Abdul Rahim Khankhana translating Ramayana and Mahabharata into Persian. A book can well be written on the contribution of Muslim scholars and poets in propagating and appreciating Hindu gods, goddesses and religious books. In India there is hardly any example of writings by Hindu or Sikh writers critical of the Prophet or the tenets of Islam.

I would, therefore, request the supporters of Rushdie not to impose their idea of freedom on Indian society. If they are for absolute freedom of expression, let them first fight for it in Western democracies. Indian intelligentsia will do well to ponder over these issues dispassionately and not be swayed by Rushdie-ism and votaries of unfettered freedom of expression.


The writer is editor, ‘Nai Duniya’ (Urdu), and a former MP [Member of Indian Parliament],
 





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Thursday, January 26, 2012

Letter to India's Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh from Ghulam Muhammed (Mumbai)

Dear Prime Minister,

Please watch Vandana Shiva's lecture on Hegemony as a favour to the nation:

http://vimeo.com/channels/tvmultiversity#14641370

Best regards

Ghulam Muhammed, (Mumbai). 		  

from: Ghulam Muhammed ghulammuhammed3@gmail.com
to: manmohan sigh
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Please watch Vandana Shiva's lecture on Hegemony as a favour to the nation:

http://vimeo.com/channels/tvmultiversity#14641370

Best regards

Ghulam Muhammed, (Mumbai).
 Dear Prime Minister,

Please watch Vandana Shiva's lecture on Hegemony as a favour to the nation:

http://vimeo.com/channels/tvmultiversity#14641370

Best regards

Ghulam Muhammed, (Mumbai).
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Rushdie and the Demonization of Islam By Shad Shahid, The Milli Gazette

http://www.milligazette.com/news/3111-rushdie-and-the-demonization-of-islam-jaipur-literature-fest-indian-muslims

THE MILLI GAZETTE
Issues

Rushdie and the Demonization of Islam

By Shad Shahid, The Milli Gazette

Published Online: Jan 26, 2012

Print Issue: 1-15 February 2012
When the mainstream media went to town depicting the absence of Rushdie as a loss for India’s liberal traditions and democratic ethos, it was indeed a naive analysis. To properly take cognizance of this matter and deliberate on its repercussions, a dialectical inquiry is necessary to contextualize the larger historical and literary issues touching the Rushdie affair. Not only does this issue impact freedom of speech, it is also part of the overarching narrative constructed by the Western intelligentsia regarding progress and civilization. The imperative is that, despite the overwhelming noise generated by liberal activists of all hues, there was simply no alternative for Indian Muslims but to oppose the visit of an individual who indulges in reinforcing a demonization and denunciation of everything that they visualize as sacred.

First and foremost, it goes without saying that there is nothing like absolute freedom of speech. Anyone who says so is at risk of fooling himself as well as others. To illustrate, no country worth its salt can tolerate disrespect to its national symbols – even in India, despite all the talk of ancient liberal ethos embedded in Indic culture, you cannot stand up and abuse the national flag or the national anthem or the Father of the Nation. Nationalism has become sacrosanct in the modern narrative, which is often used to further jingoistic tendencies in the masses by  right-wing politicians.

Next, in order to specify Rushdie’s literary genre, we have to look back at the European tradition perfected in the Middle Ages which was bent on vilifying Islam as the Dark Other — Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was often painted in this literary tradition as the Anti-Christ and a paedophile and war-monger (may God forbid!) — Dante’s Divine Comedy is a perfect example of this kind of demonization. Historians and orientalists like Margoliuth and Bernard Lewis look upon Islam as a major problem to be tackled on the intellectual level by denouncing all its traditions as pagan in origin. A concerted effort was made to prove scientifically that the (Arab) Muslims are not descendants of Abraham, that Abraham never went to the Hejaz and that the Black Stone at Makka is a pagan relic rather than established by Ibrahim and Ismail (pbut). It is another matter that sometimes these overzealous pseudo-rationalists ended up making fools of themselves like in the case of Margoliuth who denied that Jahiliya poetry even existed — when this was picked up by one of his students in Egypt, the scholars of Arabic there cried foul and the fake history of Islamic scholarship by Westerners was exposed. Malik Bennabi has done a great exposé of the same in his works where he severely critiques those depicting the Prophet as either an epileptic or while being most generous, as having copied from the Jewish scriptures. It was Edward Said, the Palestinian professor who for the first time, revealed the subtle nature of Orientalism which has its hallmark in depicting the Orient as the land to be rightfully conquered and liberated (aka civilized) by the West. For one who is well-conversant with the same tradition, it is easy to locate wherefrom Rushdie has picked up his moorings – Ziauddin Sardar makes the same point in one of his writings while critiquing Rushdie.

Culture of Muslim-bashing

It should be borne in mind here that the demonization of Islam started by first of all cutting it off from its Abrahamic source — by illustrating against all textual evidence, that the son of sacrifice is Isaac and not Ismail (pbut). This was important because only once a conclusive de-linkage of Islam with the Judaeo-Christian tradition had been established, it could become easy to wage war against the heathens who threatened to overrun Europe. This paved the way for demeaning everything Islamic ranging from the alleged promise of 72 houris in Paradise to the number of the Prophet’s own wives – sexual deviancy was the next step in depicting Muslim culture, and one can see the manifestations of the same even in current western writings about Islam. The reverse impact this had on Muslim minds cut off from the richness of their own tradition, was in thinking of Islam itself as a monolithic culture, and not appreciating how to interact with the modern world. For instance, the Quran has already told that metaphorical verses are argued and deliberated upon only by those in whose hearts is a disease, and it is these very same verses which are often used by Orientalists to emphasize their point about Islam’s incompatibility with science or reason, a fact which can never sink in one’s consciousness unless one approaches text with biased mindset.

While Muslim armies only settled down to rule wherever they went from India to Spain, the European colonizer devalued history of the land and left the natives in an empty shell. In the words of Macaulay, the aim of European education in India was “to create Western-minded individuals who would be dark in skin but European in taste”.

As if the repudiation and intellectual draining of the Muslim mind was not enough,  entire disciplines were constructed around the paradigm of Western supremacy — Anthropology is a perfect example of this kind of craftsmanship — the basic premise of an anthropologist rests in the assumption that Western civilization is the apex of human culture and refinement and all other cultural traditions are studied as poor imitations of the former. Thus Arab and by extension, Muslim (including South Asian) culture was at an underdeveloped tribal stage still to shed off its primitive ethos! It is only in recent times that an effort has been made by some scholars to study anthropology from a Muslim perspective.

Another manifestation of the same historical criticism, in which many Muslims themselves got entangled, was the denunciation of all Hadith literature as Chinese whispers. Thus, with utter disregard to the scientific tradition developed by the Hadith scholars, the entire corpus was sought to be rejected as mere aphorisms. This despite the fact that the modern-day Biblical criticism has itself learnt a lot from Hadith criticism. The objective, of course, was to rework Muslim tradition to make it malleable to new notions of European sensibilities. The frank discussions of marital and even sexual issues in Muslim tradition are interpreted as being a proof of Eastern promiscuity which reflects a tribal sensuality — forgetting that Islam or religion as a way of life, has no need to brush away any sensitive issue under the carpet. Thus Rushdie and his ilk feel no shame at giving fictional prostitutes the names of the Prophet’s wives, while critiquing Muslims for indulging in harems in the tradition of their Prophet!

Faith versus Nihilism

The larger issue in this maze of liberal emancipation is that one cannot delink Rusdhie and look at him as an actor in isolation — there already exists an established tradition of degrading Islam with all its nuances and cultural manifestations. It is amazing that India’s image can be affected by catering to the sentiments of some 18% of its population, but Switzerland becomes an ideal democracy while banning minarets on the basis of a majority vote. Yes, to prevent a democracy from degenerating into a mobocracy, one has to define certain red lines which cannot be impacted by group behaviour — however, the issue here is not one of freedom of expression as was falsely portrayed by the miniscule of over-the-top shouting television anchors — the issue here was an abuse and attack on the religious identity of a very large population.

It goes without saying that irrespective of the post-modern notion of the liberated individual, large sections of populations in both the East as well as the West, think of religion as the only way of life they know. The traditions of India, whether it is in the mutts in Karnataka or the Deras in Punjab or the ziyarats in Kashmir have always been a source of strength to its citizens. Even in Europe, the holiness of the Vatican and the Church has remained undisturbed. Local pastors cater to the religious needs of their localities in the US, which is the supposed liberal paradise. The liberal minority is itself most restrictive of freedom of expression by indulging in much clamour and little understanding of what shapes and defines the lives of large sections of peoples. It would not be too far to say that the majority finds religion liberating rather than restrictive, for man is at heart a spiritual and moral being whose thirst for the same can only be satiated by faith.

The contextualization of Rushdie helps us understand why precisely he is lapped up by the West as a symbol of expressive emotion while denying the same right to Muslims in their midst – for the uninitiated, Satanic Verses as a term is not invented by Rushdie, this term was propagated by the Orientalists as proof of the Prophet (pbuh) being overtaken by Satan while reciting the Quran and thus compromising and admitting of a multitude of gods. In stark contrast to this, the Quran has already said several centuries ago that no one can interfere with Divine revelation: “When you read the Quran, seek God's protection from Satan, the rejected one” (16:98). The nature of Revelation is such that it comes from on high, which the Quran describes as being “guarded against all rebellious devils” (37:7). At other places, the Quran affirms that everything in this universe is guarded by God, whatever we do is within His grasp — it is fine if one does not believe in God himself, yet to suggest that a Prophet receiving Revelation is getting inspired by Satan is the zenith of lunacy and blasphemy. Thus, while Revelation places a great importance on guardianship both by God as well as humans, those with a Satanic bent of mind are wont to degrade everything holy and break off the sanctity which appears to them as a yoke.
The war of words witnessed here is not between Islam and any other faith, but between the God-centered view of the universe with the theory of nihilism which ends up denying one’s own existence — Rushdie belongs to the same genre which insults the Virginity of Mary, whom the Quran describes as one “who guarded her chastity”. It is another matter that today by and large it is only a section of Muslims who hold these values dear and are eager to articulate their point of view. The tragedy here is that due to the ridicule heaped on Islam, it becomes difficult for ordinary Muslims to make sense of striking the balance between tradition and modernity and they either become desacralized or withdraw into their shell.

Where is the Loony Fringe?

Finally, it would be a safe assertion to make that most of those clamouring for the side of Rushdie have either not read the book, or not understood the tradition of which he is definitely a part. To compare him with MF Hussain is not really germane, because the latter is not part of any tradition of vilification of Hindu goddesses by Muslims. In fact, MF Hussain while not any paragon of virtue, has not strayed too far from what is already part of Hindu tradition in the artisan engravings at Khajuraho. Rushdie on his part has not only willingly become part of a well-established western tradition of abuse but is also guilty of treachery to the culture of the nation he was born into — it is no wonder that he had to run away to lead a lascivious life with unending affairs in the West. This is symptomatic of a number of ex-Muslims or born Muslims who make it their hobby to bash Islam and everything it holds sacred — whether it is Ayan Hirsi Ali or Irshad Manji or Ali Sina or Taslima Nasrin — Islam-bashing is the fastest way to get a Western passport and all the temporary luxuries of this life!

It is immaterial why Rushdie was not opposed on earlier visits or why he was opposed at the eve of elections. Irrespective of these sidetracks, the non-admission of Rushdie on Indian soil is a blessing in disguise, for people of all faiths can still hope to come to an understanding with each other about the purported secularization of tradition and demonization of Muslims, in particular. And yes, it is not just the loony fringe which demonizes Rushdie rather any believer with his entire soul would denounce the loony tradition of Islam-bashing.
 
 
The author is a management graduate. He may be reached at shad.shahid@gmail.com
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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Salman Rushdie is poor, substandard writer: Juctice Katju -THE TIMES OF INDIA

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Salman-Rushdie-is-poor-substandard-writer-Juctice-Katju/articleshow/11629236.cms

The Times of India
India

Salman Rushdie is poor, substandard writer: Juctice Katju

PTI | Jan 25, 2012, 04.48PM IST

NEW DELHI:

Salman Rushdie is a "poor" and "substandard writer" who would have remained largely unknown but for his controversial book 'Satanic Verses', according to Markandey Katju, till recently a judge of the Supreme Court.

Katju, who is now the Chairman of Press Council of India, criticised the admirers of India-born author based in Britain, saying they suffered from "colonial inferiority complex" that a writer living abroad has to be great.

"Salman Rushdie dominated the Jaipur Literature Festival. I do not wish to get into the controversy whether banning him was correct or not. I am raising a much more fundamental issue," he said in a statement here.

"I have read some of Rushdie's works and am of the opinion that he is a poor writer, and but for 'Satanic Verses' would have remained largely unknown. Even 'Midnight's Children' is hardly great literature," Katju contended.

He went on to add that the "whole problem with the so-called educated Indians of today is that they still suffer from the colonial inferiority complex. So whoever lives in London and New York must be a great writer, while writers living in India are inferior."

On the controversy surrounding Rushdie during the festival which ended yesterday, he said, "I am not in favour of religious obscurantism. But neither do I wish to elevate a sub-standard writer into a hero."

Referring to the Jaipur festival, Katju said one would have expected "serious discussion on literature, particularly indigenous literature" of the likes of Kabir, Premchand, Sharat Chandra, Manto, Ghalib, Faiz, Kazi Nazrul Islam and Subramania Bharti.

"Kabir and Tulsidas are no good because they lived on the ghats of Benaras, whereas Rushdie is great because he lives on the ghats of the Thames! This is the mental level of our 'intellectuals and 'literati'," the former SC judge said.

Katju maintained that the whole history of the great Indian literature, rich in its variety, from Valmiki and Vyas to modern times should have been discussed.

There could also have been a discussion on foreign writers like Dickens, Shaw, Victor Hugo, Balzac, Flaubert, Upton Sinclair, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gorki and Pablo Neruda, he said.

"Instead the total focus at Jaipur appeared to be Rushdie. Two personalities linked with films were projected as 'the finest poets' in India, though to my mind their work is of a very inferior order. This is the low level to which the Jaipur Festival sank," Katju contended.

He said India is facing massive socio-economic problems today and literature should address these. "The struggle which Kabir waged against narrow sectarianism, which Sharat Chandra waged against the caste system and women's oppression, which Faiz waged against despotism, which Subramania Bharti waged for nationalism and women's emancipation, which Dickens and Gorki waged against exploitation and social injustice - these are the matters which should have been discussed at Jaipur. Instead, Rushdie dominated most of the show," he said.
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BSF 'brutality'

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Tuesday, January 24, 2012

In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims - The New York Times

In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims - The New York Times

THE THIRD JIHAD - <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GrwRDZhObI>
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/nyregion/in-police-training-a-dark-film-on-us-muslims.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2&pagewanted=all#commentsContainer

New York Times

In Police Training, a Dark Film on U.S. Muslims

YouTube
An Islamic flag atop the White House in “The Third Jihad.”
By MICHAEL POWELL
Published: January 23, 2012
Ominous music plays as images appear on the screen: Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying over the White House.


YouTube
"The Third Jihad" says a covert jihad is under way in the West.

YouTube
Footage of an interview with the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, is used in the movie.


YouTube
The film also includes scenes of violence by Muslims.

Readers’ Comments

“This is the true agenda of much of Islam in America,” a narrator intones. “A strategy to infiltrate and dominate America. ... This is the war you don’t know about.”

This is the feature-length film titled “The Third Jihad,” paid for by a nonprofit group, which was shown to more than a thousand officers as part of training in the New York Police Department.

In January 2011, when news broke that the department had used the film in training, a top police official denied it, then said it had been mistakenly screened “a couple of times” for a few officers.

A year later, police documents obtained under the state’s Freedom of Information Law reveal a different reality: “The Third Jihad,” which includes an interview with Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, was shown, according to internal police reports, “on a continuous loop” for between three months and one year of training.

During that time, at least 1,489 police officers, from lieutenants to detectives to patrol officers, saw the film.

News that police trainers showed this film so extensively comes as the department wrestles with its relationship with the city’s large Muslim community. The Police Department offers no apology for aggressively spying on Muslim groups and says it has ferreted out terror plots.

But members of the City Council, civil rights advocates and Muslim leaders say the department, in its zeal, has trampled on civil rights, blurred lines between foreign and domestic spying and sown fear among Muslims.

“The department’s response was to deny it and to fight our request for information,” said Faiza Patel, a director at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, which obtained the release of the documents through a Freedom of Information request. “The police have shown an explosive documentary to its officers and simply stonewalled us.”

Tom Robbins, a former columnist with The Village Voice, first revealed that the police had screened the film. The Brennan Center then filed its request.

The 72-minute film was financed by the Clarion Fund, a nonprofit group whose board includes a former Central Intelligence Agency official and a deputy defense secretary for President Ronald Reagan. Its previous documentary attacking Muslims’ “war on the West” attracted support from the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a major supporter of Israel who has helped reshape the Republican presidential primary by pouring millions of dollars into a so-called super PAC that backs Newt Gingrich.

Commissioner Kelly is listed on the “Third Jihad” Web site as a “featured interviewee.” Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, wrote in an e-mail that filmmakers had lifted the clip from an old interview. The commissioner, Mr. Browne said, has not asked the filmmakers to remove him from its Web site, or to clarify that he had not cooperated with them.

None of the documents turned over to the Brennan Center make clear which police officials approved the showing of this film during training. Department lawyers blacked out large swaths of these internal memorandums.

Repeated calls over the past several days to the Clarion Fund, which is based in New York, were not answered. The nonprofit group shares officials with Aish HaTorah, an Israeli organization that opposes any territorial concessions on the West Bank. The producer of “The Third Jihad,” Raphael Shore, also works with Aish HaTorah.
Clarion’s financing is a puzzle. Its federal income tax forms show contributions, grants and revenues typically hover around $1 million annually — except in 2008, when it booked contributions of $18.3 million. That same year, Clarion produced “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.” The Clarion Fund used its surge in contributions to pay to distribute tens of millions of copies of this DVD in swing electoral states across the country in September 2008.
“The Third Jihad” is quite similar, in style and content, to that earlier film. Narrated by Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim doctor and former American military officer in Arizona, “The Third Jihad” casts a broad shadow over American Muslims. Few Muslim leaders, it states, can be trusted.


“Americans are being told that many of the mainstream Muslim groups are also moderate,” Mr. Jasser states. “When in fact if you look a little closer, you’ll see a very different reality. One of their primary tactics is deception.”
The film posits that there were three jihads: One at the time of Muhammad, a second in the Middle Ages and a third that is under way covertly throughout the West today.
This is, the film claims, “the 1,400-year war.”
How the film came to be used in police training, and even for how long, was not clear. An undated memorandum from the department’s commanding officer for specialized training noted that an employee of the federal Department of Homeland Security handed the DVD to the New York police in January 2010. Since then, this officer said, the video was shown continuously “during the sign-in, medical and administrative orientation process.” A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said it was never used in its curriculum, and might have come from a contractor.
As it turned out, it was police officers who blew the whistle after watching the film. Late in 2010, Mr. Robbins contacted an officer who spoke of his unease with the film; another officer, said Zead Ramadan, the New York president of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, talked of seeing it during a training session the previous summer. “The officer was completely offended by it as a Muslim,” Mr. Ramadan said. “It defiled our faith and misrepresented everything we stood for.”
When the news broke about the movie last year, Mr. Browne called it a “wacky film” that had been shown “only a couple of times when officers were filling out paperwork before the actual course work began.”
He made no more public comments. Privately, two days later, he asked the Police Academy to determine whether a terrorism awareness training program had used the video, according to the documents.
The academy’s commander reported back on March 23, 2011, that the film had been viewed by 68 lieutenants, 159 sergeants, 31 detectives and 1,231 patrol officers. The department never made those findings public.
And just one week later, the Brennan Center officially requested the same information, starting what turned out to be a nine-month legal battle to obtain it.
“It suggests a broader problem that they refuse to divulge this information much less to discuss it,” Ms. Patel of the Brennan Center said. “The training of the world’s largest city police force is an important question.”
Mr. Browne said he had been unaware of the higher viewership of the film until asked about it by The New York Times last week.
There is the question of the officers who viewed the movie during training. Mr. Browne said the Police Department had no plans to correct any false impressions the movie might have left behind.
“There’s no plan to contact officers who saw it,” he said, or to “add other programming as a result.”
---------------
NYT Readers' Comments:
    • some guy
    • Brooklyn
    NYT Pick
    "One of their primary tactics is deception."

    Huh. Seems like you could say that about Ray Kelley, Paul Browne, and the NYPD. When are we going to get a department that isn't constantly making up stories to cover its actions?
  2. NYT Pick
    This is nothing new. Ray Kelly only cares about his political career. He wants to be mayor and has been since day one in the police academy some 50 years ago. He will step on anyone- Muslims, blacks, catholics, Irish, Latinos, Wall Street- ANYONE- even his own officers in order to gain this goal. End of story. OF COURSE he approved this video. It was shown at unit training sessions throughout the city at roll calls. Paul Browne releases a press statement to the Times and it's all good- a few officers disciplined, a new Operations or Interim Order and it's on with the show, business as usual: illegal summons quotas, illegal stop and frisks, fudging of crime stats- yep, this is Ray Kelly's NYPD. A joke. If the people in this City had a collective iota of intelligence he should be arrested and thrown into jail, instead he's throwing parties at Harvard Club on the Police Foundation's dime and hanging out with Ron Lauder and Jay Z.....
    • ZoetMB
    • New York
    NYT Pick
    That's absurd. Most Muslims living in the U.S. are peace loving people who came here to escape the intolerance of their homeland. I have personally worked with Muslims and all the people who I worked with were sweet and loving people who I would trust with my grandchildren.

    That's not to say that there aren't any Muslims in the U.S. who hate this country and wish us harm, but there are Christians and Jews here who also hate this country or at the very least, hate the ideal of what it represents. There are a lot of Timothy McVeigh's out there.

    At a company I recently worked at for five years, Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Jews and maybe a Buddhist or two (as well as some Atheists) all worked together. It's not that everyone loved each other, but if they didn't, it had NOTHING to do with their religion. That's the America that I love. Not the paranoid America that thinks every Muslim is a terrorist. We were wrong when we ostracized the Japanese during WWII and we're wrong now.

    Having said that, we still have to defend ourselves against terrorists. But raising paranoid fantasies about terrorists taking over our government is ridiculous. It reminds me of that TV movie from decades ago which I think was called Amerika in which we lose a war to Russia. The purpose of that show was to make us paranoid about the Soviets and hate them. All we've done now is changed the team that we've decided we're supposed to hate.
    • princeknyc
    • New York
    NYT Pick
    the country has been gripped by xenophobia! if this is what is being shown to police officers of New York, the most liberal of all cities in this country, wonder what's being shown to the rest of the police forces? It's no longer the land of the free...its the land of the persecuted.
  5. NYT Pick
    Why is not the leadership of the police department held accountable for the showing of this piece of propaganda? Likewise, why were not officers who used violence against non-violent demonstrators in the Occupy movement prosecuted for assault? When police behavior is unacceptable, there needs to be serious negative consequences, not some mere reprimand.
  1. I'm the son of a Holocaust survivor.

    All you need to do is substitute Jew for Muslim in that film and you have the same Nazi garbage propaganda which whipped up the murderous behavior that cost my father his entire family, including his pregnant wife.

    Shame on that Jewish billionaire from Vegas - the Newt sugar daddy.
    This real Jew with real Jewish values and a sense of the injustice heaped on us would take arms to defend Muslims against fascists like him.
    I'd be proud to do it!
    • NU
    • New Jersey
    Truly saddens me as a Muslim and concerns me for the future of my children. Most people believe these days that they have evolved to a higher social consciousness yet, it is my belief that the human instincts that led to holocaust and in more recent times the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia or the mass killings in Rwanda are not far from the surface of our modern day sophistication. What's more shocking is that these inflammatory demagoguery is funded by pro-Israel groups who are of the Jewish faith, honestly I ask, How can you be so irresponsible with your millions and your conscience? How can you look at yourself when that day might come when the fruits of the seeds you sow come in the form of a major atrocity against innocent humans who are happen to be Muslims. I for one am only left with a heavy heart to see what this country is coming to, and I dread what the future holds for myself and my coreligionists.
    • MJT
    • San Diego,Ca
    So sad, there are forces dedicated to destroying our freedoms and i am not talking about Muslims.
    • Nassir Hussein
    • NJ
    How outrageous and vile.

    And to see Sheldon Adelson the Las Vegas Sands casino magnate (benefactor of Gingrich) funding the Clarion Fund which is in turn made up of supporters of the most militant Jewish settler movement in Israel is certainly food for thought.

    Which begs the question why these people are so bent on dehumanizing Muslims?

    Imagine the outrage if a Muslim group created a well-funded movie about Jewish Americans with the threat of Judaism taking over US gov't? And then that movie being shown to the very people entrusted with the job to protecting that minority in the NYPD. If anyone can show any hate film to "educate" the Police Dept., then where are the safe-guards?

    Someone should be fired over this, starting with Commissioner Kelly. Incident after incident, from spying on peaceful Muslim neighborhoods, to infiltraing Muslim owned shops and religious place of worship... shows him to be ignorant and aloof about tolerating such anti-Muslim hate in his Dept. at best or deliberately and actively participating in its propagation at worse.

    Its time to show some leadership Mr. Bloomberg, and if you're unable then its time for a new leadership and a new mayor who won't condone such affront to the Constitutional rights of an unpopular religious minority.
  5. The level of ignorance and xenophobia in this country is astounding. The best thing the next mayoral administration can do is remove Raymond Kelly he's a disgraceful undisciplined cowboy that uses the police force to trample our rights rather than protect them.
    • Martha Shelley
    • Portland, Ore.
    I am Jewish and I am outraged (though alas, not shocked) by this "training film." It is just as vile as anything put out by the Klan or the Nazis. We need some kind of educational program to counter the evil effects of this propaganda, it should be made available to every police officer who was forced to view that film.
  7. So a hard-core supporter of the Israel lobby is behind propaganda films demonizing Muslims?

    Shocking, isn't it?
    • workerbee
    • Florida
    It's pretty obvious that a 9-11 reactionary anti-Muslim inquisition has been in progress since the Bush-Cheney era. Most terrorist attacks in this country are committed by Christians, such as Timothy McVeigh and the anti-abortionists, but there is never any intention of organizing an anti-Christian reaction.
    • Eric
    • New York
    Kelly ought to be forced to resign over this. It's disgusting and made more so by the fact they NYPD tried to cover it up and has made no statements to recant the content of the film.
  10. The problem is not Islam, but rather some religious zealots. (The Pennsylvania Dutch are certainly religious zealots, but if they demonize the outside world they do not try to defeat these demons but rather just live among them while preserving their faith.) Believing Christians can be every bit as nasty as believing Muslims, although fortunately they do not at present control any nations (except perhaps Serbia, although the Serbian sickness is not primarily religious), while the Muslims have Saudi Arabia.

    There is certainly a Christian plot to take over the United States, and it is quite strong in some states and in parts of our government (including the infamous Congressional frat house) and military (including the US Air Force Academy). Its members often hide their real views to get elected to such venues as school boards (when you are fighting for God, the end justifies the means), and are then bewildered when they are not reelected after coming out of their closets. They are a much greater threat to our way of life than Islamic jihadists.

    The job of containing or fixing religious extremists should be done mainly by non-extremists of the same religion. But these non-extremists routinely shirk their duty.

    C
  11. Not only has Mr Browne lied to the public but both Commissioner Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg have continued to maintain the film was shown "once" or a few times.

    The Third Jihad is not just un-PC; it is incendiary, adding fuel to fire at a time of anti Muslim hysteria. Of course some officers are too smart for this but not all. The failure of NYPD to take responsiblity is repeated in their lack of willingness to retrain or indeed submit to any meaningful oversight.

    It is not just about the film but who has been allowed to serve as consultants. That lack of proper standards are an issue in homeland security related trainings across the nation. There is a market for this paranoid but all too often sloppy and inaccurate message; but lack of professinalism does not make us safer.

    Mr Bloomberg should stop enabling the Commissioner. His legacy is at stake. Even more important, this sort of high handed approach to policing tears at our social bonds while seting a bad example for PDs in the rest of the country. This is the right wing ideology that has nested in our midst like a viper.

    And as we know, many of the presidential and congressional candidates are hosting this same poisonous serpent.
    • some guy
    • Brooklyn
    NYT Pick
    "One of their primary tactics is deception."

    Huh. Seems like you could say that about Ray Kelley, Paul Browne, and the NYPD. When are we going to get a department that isn't constantly making up stories to cover its actions?
    • ordinary person
    • America
    Now be honest. Run an article about the profound anti-Semitic and anti-Christian bigotry that pervades the Islamic world. Presenting Muslims as constant victims when Islamic societies are deeply emeshed in hatred against non-Muslims is neither convincing nor accurate.
    • princeknyc
    • New York
    Ray Kelly should resign!
  15. NYT Pick
    This is nothing new. Ray Kelly only cares about his political career. He wants to be mayor and has been since day one in the police academy some 50 years ago. He will step on anyone- Muslims, blacks, catholics, Irish, Latinos, Wall Street- ANYONE- even his own officers in order to gain this goal. End of story. OF COURSE he approved this video. It was shown at unit training sessions throughout the city at roll calls. Paul Browne releases a press statement to the Times and it's all good- a few officers disciplined, a new Operations or Interim Order and it's on with the show, business as usual: illegal summons quotas, illegal stop and frisks, fudging of crime stats- yep, this is Ray Kelly's NYPD. A joke. If the people in this City had a collective iota of intelligence he should be arrested and thrown into jail, instead he's throwing parties at Harvard Club on the Police Foundation's dime and hanging out with Ron Lauder and Jay Z.....
    • abravo
    • NY
    Once a country becomes muslim, ALL other religion believers become second and third class citizens, in Saudi Arabia even the building of churches is not allowed, so tell me you want to live in that world.
  17. Excellent. Let the moral preening of self-righteous Progressives begin...

    For the record, this stuff happens every day in the world...

    "Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets"

    And, although you may want to ignore it, islam is an expansionist and totalitarian ideology that seeks to dominate the world, making this warning singularly un-exceptional:

    "and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying over the White House".

    You folks need to wake up to reality. No one saying every muslim is a terrorist and wants to impose sharia on the world. But a lot of them are and ignoring that is going to get more people killed.

    Thank goodness someone in NYPD has the good sense to transmit this knowledge to the excellent rank and file that have kept NYC safe since 9/11/01 and foiled countless terrorist attacks.

    We need more frank and honest discussion such as this.

    Right now we are still living in the bubble of security produced by the extraordinary measures put in place after 9/11/01. But those advantages are ebbing over time, as radical Progressives seek to dismantle all the progress we've made attempting to stay ahead of people who want to kill us. So, when more people die in the next mega attack, the blood will be on your hands Progressives.
    • princeknyc
    • New York
    NYT Pick
    the country has been gripped by xenophobia! if this is what is being shown to police officers of New York, the most liberal of all cities in this country, wonder what's being shown to the rest of the police forces? It's no longer the land of the free...its the land of the persecuted.
    • Chris
    • New York
    I am no Islamophobic, but there are lot of truth in the video, Islam is a total way of life. It knows no separation of church and state, of sacred and secular.
    • Steve
    • Chicago
    So the NYPD in effect delegated a piece of its training to an outfit that "shares an office" with a hard-line Israeli outfit? NY has a police department whose leaders did not recognize the massive unprofessionalism of what they have allowed to happen. If they are incapable of recognizing that, they are too stupid to be in their jobs. Ask for their resignations.

    If I were a lawyer, I'd be quite curious to know more, whether my Muslim client was facing a criminal charge or suing the City and a cop for having helped him to trip and lose a few teeth while he was unluckily breaking his nose on the hood of a car. I hope someone figures out a way to make this cost the city millions. Try sending the bill to the Clarion Fund!
    • Citixen
    • NYC
    Sad. Typical knee-jerk response by security know-nothings who think Muslims have a lock on religious fanaticism. You want to see Christian on Christian, or Christian on Muslim atrocities? Talk to anyone from the former Yugoslav republics. It was happening on our TV's for 10 years (if you cared to pay attention) before 9-11. They all have their fanatics. To scapegoat an entire religion and/or ethnic group because some fanatics happen to come from the same faith would be (and is) denounced as 'intolerable' and 'unfair' when the fanatic(s) are Christian. But when they're Muslim, well then that's just fine and dandy. But to show such a biased and unbalanced to our police force? That's just asking for trouble. And that kind of trouble the NYPD doesn't need. They are already under-paid, over-stressed, and prone to over-reacting because of our nation's insane patchwork of gun laws. Now we're using propaganda videos to target a city minority, and then we put guns in the hands of the viewers? Are we expecting good things from this? Wouldn't cooperation from the vast majority of peaceful Muslims be a better source of information than from hoping for the best by having to dig it out from a threatened and fearful community? When are we going to be smarter than our enemies on this stuff? Geez.
    • pdurk
    • Chicago
    Sounds like a truthful video. Christians are slaughtered. That's the truth. It could happen here. That's the truth. Actually they already have slaughtered Americans haven't they??? Not every Muslim is a terrorist. But a lot of them are. Deal with it.
    • Salam
    • Texas
    really? did you research all 1.4 billions of them? what about Tim Mcveigh, a christian, who slaughtered innocents including women and children, or the by Norwegian self-described christian crusader, driven by his xenophobia to massacre in cold blood dozens of his own countrymen, or the zealous violent Christian anti-abortionists who kill doctors and bomb clinics, or the christian Nazis who exterminated jews, or the crusaders who in the middle-ages slaughtered in the name of Jesus tens of thousands of Muslim and Jews, or imperial colonialism practiced by Christian Europeans to pillage and occupy Arab & muslim lands in the 20th century? shouldn't we by your own logic then condemn Christianity and label Christians as terrorists?
  24. NYT Pick
    Why is not the leadership of the police department held accountable for the showing of this piece of propaganda? Likewise, why were not officers who used violence against non-violent demonstrators in the Occupy movement prosecuted for assault? When police behavior is unacceptable, there needs to be serious negative consequences, not some mere reprimand.
    • KingCranky
    • El Paso, TX
    Unfortunately, fear sells very well for The Clarion Fund, especially if it can paint most Muslims as "the enemy".

    So, to play devil's advocate, what assurances can anyone from the Clarion Fund give that the narrator for "The Third Jihad", Zuhdi Jasser a Muslim himself, isn't part of that "Jihad", and isn't playing the organization for the bunch of xenophobic fools they are?

    The Clarion Fund owes an apology to the family and friends of the Muslim first responders killed on 9-11, and those Muslims killed while serving in our armed forces over in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    If those running the Clarion Fund had any integrity, it would release its donor list and sources of funding, ASAP.
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