Bahrainis vote in parliamentary election BBC

Bahrainis vote in parliamentary election

BBC

23 October 2010 Last updated at 20:32 GMTcourtesy: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11611743


Bahrain's lower house of parliament only holds restricted powers

An election has been held in Bahrain for the lower house of parliament, the third such vote since it became a constitutional monarchy.

Correspondents say the main contest is between Islamists and those with a more secular vision for the Gulf state.

The election comes amid rising tension between the dominant Sunni Muslim community and majority Shia Muslims.

The government has also been criticised for arresting dissidents and curtailing media and internet freedom.

Observers will also be watching to see if Bahrain's only woman in parliament is joined by other female MPs.

Although women got the right to vote in 2001, strong discrimination against their participation in Bahraini politics still exists. The main Islamist parties are unwilling to back women candidates.

Polls closed at 2000 (1700GMT) with an estimated turnout of at least 67%, according to Justice Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ali al-Khalifa, who heads the electoral commission.

Results are expected on Sunday.


The BBC's Middle East correspondent, Jon Leyne, says the Kingdom of Bahrain is one of the more democratic countries in the Arab world.

Outgoing parliament
Al-Wifaq (Shia): 17
Al-Asalah (Sunni - Salafi): 6
Al-Minbar (Sunni - Muslim Brotherhood): 7
Waad (Opposition independent): 1
Pro-government independents: 9

'Second-class' Shia


But it is a limited democracy, he adds, with the elected members of the lower house, the Council of Representatives, only holding restricted powers.

The upper house, the Shura Council - all of whose members are appointed by the royal family - can and does over-rule the lower house, and is a major source of complaints by democracy campaigners and opposition politicians. In addition, King Hamad appoints all ministers without parliamentary scrutiny.

Our correspondent says the main election contest will be between Islamists, and those politicians with a more secular outlook.

The Islamists want measures such as limits on the sale of alcohol. Others say that would damage Bahrain's aim to be a global financial centre.

The long-running conflict between the Shia majority and the ruling Sunni minority has also once more come to the fore, with a series of protests by Shia complaining about their "second-class" status.

Shia politicians have called for an end to the Sunni minority's monopoly on power

On Wednesday, the leader of the main Shia opposition al-Wifaq al-Watani (National Accord) Islamic Society called for an end to the monopoly on power the Sunni ruling family has had since independence in 1971.

"It is unacceptable that power be monopolised by a single family, even one to which we owe respect and consideration," Sheikh Ali Salman told a rally in a suburb of the capital, Manama.

"We look forward to the day when any child of the people, be they Sunni or Shia, can become prime minister," he added.

King Hamad's uncle, Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, has served as prime minister ever since Bahrain's independence from the UK in 1971.

Sheikh Salman's comments came after the detention of 250 Shia opposition activists in recent months, some on terrorism charges, according to the human rights group, Amnesty International.

Sufi Saint Chisti!!! Hazrat Shaikh Khwaja Syed Muhammad Mu’īnuddīn Chishtī

This is the story behind your so called Sufi Saint Chisti!!! Hazrat Shaikh Khwaja Syed Muhammad Mu’īnuddīn Chishtī

Hazrat Shaikh Khwaja Syed Muhammad Mu’īnuddīn Chishtī of Ajmer is a hallowed name amongst Sufi saints of India. He is generally known as Gharib Nawaz (the friend of the poor beseechers). Mughal Emperor Akbar is said to have made several visits to his shrine many times starting and ending his journey on foot.

He is projected as an example of “Sufi saintliness” and “secularism”, tending to all needy persons irrespective of their faith. However, little is known (or told?) about the major role that he played in Islamization of India.

The following is excerpt from “Siya-al-aqtab” compiled in the mid-seventeenth century as quoted in P M Curie’s book “The shrine and cult of Mu’īnuddīn Chishtī of Ajmer”: ‘’It is told that once when he went to perform the pilgrimage to the holy tomb of the Prophet Muhammad, one day from the inside of the pure and blessed tomb a cry came: ‘’Send for Muinuddin.’’ When Muinuddin came to the door he stood there and he saw that presence speak to him. ‘’Muinuddin, you are the essence of my faith; but must go to Hindustan. There is a place called Ajmer, to which one of my sons (descendants) went for a holy war, and now he has become a martyr, and the place has passed again into the hands of infidels. By the grace of your footsteps there, once more shall Islam be made manifest, and the Kafirs be punished by God’s wrath.’’

“Accordingly Muinuddin reached Ajmer in Hindustan. There he said: ‘Praise be to God, May he be exalted, for I have gained possession of the property of my brother. Although, at that time there were many temples of idols around the lake, when the Khwaja saw them, he said: ‘If God and His Prophet so will, it will not be long before I raze to the ground these idol-temples.’”

This is followed by tales of Khwaja coming over those Hindu deities and teachers who were strongly opposed to his settling down there. Amongst such people was a disgruntled employee of Rai Pithaura (as Prithvi Raj Chauhan was also known).

It appears that shorn of miracles the story simply suggests that Khwaja came to India determined to eradicated idolatry and paganism and establish Islam in its place. He met with a lot of resistance from the local governor of Rai Pithaura besides resistance from Rai Pithaura himself. With the help of the immense treasure at his disposal and having converted many gullible Hindus to his faith, he became strong enough to invite Rai Pithaura to convert to Islam. Having failed to persuade him, Khwaja sent a message inviting Sultan Shihabuddin Ghori to attack India. Shihabuddin made unsuccessful invasions. Rai Pithaura always allowed him to go back unmolested after his defeat. Ultimately, however, he defeated Prithvi Raj Chauhan and killed him.

I urge you to get your facts correct instead of jumping on conclusion based on your OWN assumptions.

courtesy: http://agniveer.com/2668/born-losers/#comment-9754

Islamic Values Negate the Emergence of New Muslim Middleclass, September 18, 2009 By moorthy Mutuswamy

Islamic Values Negate the Emergence of New Muslim Middleclass, September 18, 2009 By     moorthy Mutuswamy 

courtesy: http://www.amazon.com/review/RM117YG5ZI23H

This review is from: Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What It Will Mean for Our World

 

Vali Nasr has proposed that "it is the rise of capitalism and trade that ultimately made for the success of modernity and democracy and market-based economies in the West. We should trust the same forces that transformed the modern West to transform the Muslim world."

However, for the success of capitalism or trade, a society or nation must be willing to embrace modern education. But Nasr has failed to note that in country after country in the Islamic world, the Islamic value system comes in the way of the successful embrace of modern education in order to create a middleclass that would be the driving force behind the transformation.

This failure makes Nasr's work not particularly credible or meaningful.

India and Pakistan evolved in divergent directions observes Nasr, but fails to adequately explain why. India and Pakistan were created from the same landmass in 1947, and share language, religion, ethnicity and culinary habits. Nasr has overlooked the reality that Pakistan's identification with Islam and the consequent emphasis on the Islamic doctrines acting as the "guiding force" is the only thing that could explain why Pakistan has become a Sharia-shrine and a fountainhead of jihad and terror. In other words, Pakistan invested in Islam, not in modern education.

India has an educated and thriving middleclass, thanks to investing in modern education.

Nasr is hardly convincing in his efforts to showcase the emerging Turkey as a successful marriage of Islam and Capitalism. He has failed to note that the secularists who ruled Turkey for the better part of the last century worked to deliberately downplay its Islamic character and likely made the nurturing and embrace of modern education by millions of Turks possible. Without this education, the emergence of the middleclass-based economic force in Turkey is simply not feasible - a critical point missed by Nasr.

It is true that the ruling secularists in Turkey were not capitalists, but the new rulers in the form of the Islamic Party are. Since this regime came to power in 2002, the nation has averaged 6.5 percent economic growth, compared to the average growth of 2.5 percent in the previous six years under a secular regime.

However, secularists are capable of embracing capitalism. For instance, in India, economic reforms or capitalism was embraced for the first time by secularists.

But the question is whether the Islamic conservatives in Turkey are capable of embracing secular values in the long-term, as opposed to the outdated Islamic values -- which discourage the embrace of modern education and development. For instance, in Britain, the second-generation Muslims there have fallen behind in every measure of development (including education) due to the increasing exposure to the "Islamic values" funded by the Middle Eastern petrodollars.

In fact, in many ways, the ruling Islamic party (the Justice and Development Party) in Turkey at the present time has been systematically promoting Islamism through various means, and undermining the social and the accompanying educational progress achieved for decades. For instance, this party's support for the establishment of religious schools has meant that political Islam is increasingly taught to Turkey's children. This should result in the gradual Islamization of the country and undermining of capitalism and the middleclass.

Dubai's has been an historical trading center in the Middle East. It also benefited from being surrounded by nations which have seen an extraordinary boom in oil revenues (a form of unearned wealth). A good part of the $1.6 trillion earned by the surrounding nations between the years 2001-2007, including by Saudi Arabia, got invested in Dubai. Manufacturing, which has been behind the rise of successful capitalism and wealth creation in all nations, is almost non-existent there. For all of the above reasons, the spectacular rise of Dubai is unlikely to be reproduced in most nations.

More Islamic values in the form of implementing various degrees of the outdated Sharia, which reflects the custom of the Arab tribes of the bygone era, shifts the focus away from development and the embrace of modern education. When 61 percent of the Koran either speaks ill of unbelievers or calls for their violent conquest and subjugation, but only 2.6 percent of the Koran speaks about the overall good of humanity (published by Bill Warner of the Center for the Study of Political Islam), increasing its exposure is certain not to create conditions for trade with unbelievers or to learn from them. Indeed, the modern Islam-based terrorism itself could be seen as a consequence of the spread of Islamic doctrines, thanks to the backing of billions of petrodollars.

Statistics do not back Nasr when he claims that "fundamentalist strain of Islam is not practiced [in the Middle East] by the vast majority of the population." These are at best convenient opinions not backed by data. As noted before, fundamentalist strain, not the moderate strain constitutes the main body of the Islamic doctrines themselves. The same holds for his claim that "the vast majority of Muslims are moderate and pragmatic when it comes to religion."

Careful study would have shown that Islamic values come in the way of embracing modern education. This, in the end, limits the Islamic world's embrace of capitalism.

Ninth year into the dastardly 9/11 attacks, and after spending about a trillion dollars and losing our precious lives we can hardly afford the kind of deeply flawed analysis Nasr has produced. Unfortunately, this book is poised to deflect the much-needed attention on where our focus should be: the hateful thrust of the Islamic doctrines that are spawning terror and repressing the Muslim societies.

Sweden narrowly re-elects centre-right alliance

Sweden narrowly re-elects centre-right alliance

 

20 September 2010 Last updated at 00:11 GMT

courtesy: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11360495

PM Fredrik Reinfeldt says he will not make a deal with the far-right Sweden Democrats

Sweden's governing centre-right alliance has been re-elected, but is short of an overall majority, official preliminary results show.

They show PM Fredrik Reinfeldt's four-party coalition won 173 seats out of 349 in parliament.

The far-right Sweden Democrats are said to have gained more than 4% of the vote, enabling them to enter parliament for the first time.

Mr Reinfeldt declared victory and said he would seek support from the Greens.


The Greens are currently allied with the centre-left Social-Democrats. Green Party spokeswoman Maria Wetterstrand said the opposition bloc remained united.

Social Democratic leader Mona Sahlin has conceded defeat.

"We were not able to win back confidence," she told supporters. "The Alliance is the largest majority. It is now up to Fredrick Reinfeldt how he plans to rule Sweden without letting the Sweden Democrats get political influence."

Mr Reinfeldt reiterated that he would not form a coalition with the far-right.

"I have been clear on how we will handle this uncertain situation," he said. "We will not co-operate, or become dependent on, the Sweden Democrats".

'Media boycott'

Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson said his party would use the opportunity to make itself heard.

Supporters and members of the Sweden Democrats party were celebrating the results

"We have been subjected to censorship - a media boycott - as we have not been invited to any of the official debates," he said.

"We have in many ways been treated as anything but a political party in this election. But even so, today we stand here with a fantastic result. The situation is a bit uncertain just now, but we have four years ahead of us to speak out on the issues that matter to us and influence Swedish politics."

BBC regional reporter Damien McGuinness says the Sweden Democrats appear to have tapped into voter dissatisfaction over immigration.

Immigrants make up 14% of the country's population of 9.4 million.

The largest immigrant group is from neighbouring Finland, followed by people from Iraq, the former Yugoslavia and Poland.

The centre-left Social Democrats had ruled Sweden for 65 of the past 78 years, and are credited with setting up the country's generous welfare state.

It is the first time a conservative government has won re-election in Sweden for about a century.

Moorthy Muthuswamy, the physicist-author designed this book in order to help America, the leading nation of “civilization,” comprehensively neutralize the radical Islamic threat.

Moorthy Muthuswamy, the physicist-author designed this book in order to help America, the leading nation of “civilization,” comprehensively neutralize the radical Islamic threat. 
 

Moorthy Muthuswamy was born and brought up in India where he was exposed to political Islam and jihad. His journey as a scientist began in 1979 when he enrolled in Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (India) to pursue a graduate degree in physics.

Even well before the massive flow of funds from the likes of Saudi Arabia, Islam, the author noticed growing up, was driving fellow Indian Muslims into backwardness and violent radicalism. Fiery and hateful political speeches as part of the Friday mosque “sermons” were instigating rioting by Muslim mobs and consequently, countless property damages and the loss of lives.

He came to America in 1984 and went on to receive a doctorate in nuclear physics at Stony Brook University, New York. The author has published well over twenty peer-reviewed papers in nuclear and radiation physics and has held faculty positions in leading American academic institutions.

Increasingly concerned about the escalating Islamic threat to his native India, in the 1990s, Dr. Muthuswamy started to research this topic. Since 1998, he has extensively published on various aspects of political Islam. Notably, the author’s freelance scholarship has been unencumbered by political correctness that has much retarded mainstream academic thought process on the topics of Islam and Muslims.

Like most Americans the author too was taken aback by the audacity of the dastardly 9/11 attacks, although not surprised by the intent.

The intellectual challenge of “solving” what is clearly an existential “problem,” too, has continued to drive his research – and led to this book. Specifically, the physicist-author designed this book in order to help America, the leading nation of “civilization,” comprehensively neutralize the radical Islamic threat. 

The author resides in America.

Abuse of maids in Kuwait rising—Human Rights Watch - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

Abuse of maids in Kuwait rising—Human Rights Watch - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

Abuse of maids in Kuwait rising—Human Rights Watch
By Omar Hasan
Agence France-Presse

First Posted 08:19:00 10/07/2010
Filed Under: Overseas Employment, Human Rights, Crime and Law and Justice, Crime, Women

courtesy: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/breakingnews/view/20101007-296439/Abuse-of-maids-in-Kuwait-risingHuman-Rights-Watch

KUWAIT CITY—Abuse of domestic workers in Kuwait is rising, and maids in the Gulf emirate face prosecution when they try to escape, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.

The New York-based rights group said migrant domestic workers have minimal protection from employers who withhold salaries, force them to work long hours with no days off, deprive them of adequate food or abuse them physically or sexually.

"The number of abuses has been rising," Priyanka Motaparthy, HRW research fellow in Middle East and North Africa, told a press conference announcing a report, which details specific cases.

"In 2009, domestic workers from Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Philippines and Ethiopia filed over 10,000 complaints of abuse with their embassies," she said.

The HRW data does not include Indian maids, who represent almost half of the 660,000 domestic workers in the oil-rich emirate. Domestic workers, almost entirely Asian, form one-third of the 1.81 million foreign employees in Kuwait.

The 97-page report, "Walls at Every Turn: Exploitation of Migrant Domestic Workers Through Kuwait's Sponsorship System," describes how workers become trapped in exploitative or abusive employment.

"Employers hold all the cards in Kuwait," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at HRW.

The report was based on interviews of dozens of runaway maids at either their embassies or at small government-run shelter.

Domestic workers in Kuwait are not covered by any law to limit working hours or a rest day or even basic rights, the report said.

"They are forced to work for unlimited hours, 10, 12 or 18 hours with no breaks, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year," Motaparthy said.

Manik J., a Sri Lankan, said she had worked for more than 18 hours a day for 10 months, but did not receive her salary for most of the period although she worked for two families. She was at the government shelter.

Twenty-one domestic workers interviewed by HRW said they had worked 18 hours or more per day on repeated occasions. A 2004 International Labour Organization study found that maids in Kuwait worked for 101 hours weekly, HRW said.

The main abuses include physical and sexual abuse, non-payment or delay in payment of salary, long working hours, no weekly rest day and others, the report said.

HRW said it interviewed 22 maids who said their employers or agents had physically abused them, and seven spoke of sexual abuse.

An ambassador in Kuwait for a labor-exporting country told HRW that, during 2009, the embassy received 950 rape and sexual harassment claims.

Mary P., a Filipina, told HRW her employer beat and insulted her every day, using degrading language.

"Sometimes my sir would spit in my face. My employer always called me dog, donkey ... There was no day the employer didn't say these bad words ... I have accepted this because I am the breadwinner of my family," she said.

Motaparthy said that based on HRW data, "each week, at least two domestic workers fall from high places," in apparent attempts to commit suicide to escape abuse.

The report placed the blame squarely on the so-called sponsorship system, which bonds laborers to their employers and put them under their mercy. It called for the Kuwaiti government to abolish the system.

The Kuwaiti government said it plans to abolish the system in February.

China media slam Nobel Peace Prize for dissident - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

China media slam Nobel Peace Prize for dissident - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

China media slam Nobel Peace Prize for dissident
Agence France-Presse
 

First Posted 12:38:00 10/09/2010
Filed Under: rebellion, International peace processes, Awards and Prizes, Human Rights

courtesy: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/breakingnews/view/20101009-296815/China-media-slam-Nobel-Peace-Prize-for-dissident

BEIJING— Chinese state media on Saturday slammed the Nobel committee's decision to award the prestigious peace prize to jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, as human- rights defenders celebrated the new laureate.

As the activist community hailed the decision as giving some hope for other Chinese dissidents, police detained dozens of Liu’s supporters as they gathered to toast his award on Friday night, a Hong Kong-based rights network said.

“While some have gathered in small groups to celebrate the momentous occasion, approximately several dozen of Liu’s supporters, primarily activists and dissidents, have been ... taken into detention,” Chinese Human Rights Defenders said in an email.

The award was condemned by state media, with the Global Times saying the Nobel committee had “disgraced itself” and suggesting the peace prize had been “degraded to a political tool that serves an anti-China purpose.”

“The Nobel committee once again displayed its arrogance and prejudice against a country that has made the most remarkable economic and social progress in the past three decades,” an editorial said, referring to the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader who won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize.

“Neither of the two are among those who made contributions to China’s peace and growth in recent decades,” the English-language daily said.

News that Liu – who Beijing has repeatedly branded a criminal following his December 2009 jailing for 11 years on subversion charges – had been awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize was reported in Chinese-language state media, but only through the government’s angry reaction to the decision.

Internet searches using the key words “Nobel Peace Prize” and “Liu Xiaobo” brought up no results on Chinese web portals Sina and Sohu while similar searches on Weibo, a Twitter-like service, also drew a blank.

Some web users, however, got around the army of censors by not mentioning Liu's name in their postings on Weibo.

“A Chinese netizen won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize,” one web user said.

Another web user described the award as the “October 8 dynamite prize” and posted a photo of Liu and details about his detention.

A search on Chinese search engine Baidu produced the government’s reaction to the peace prize and previous reports on the 54-year-old writer’s sentencing.

Friday’s evening news on China Central Television made no mention of Liu, opening instead with a story about flooding on the southern island of Hainan while broadcasts on Liu by international television networks CNN and French TV5 were blocked by government censors.

Text messages sent containing the full name of Liu Xiaobo appeared to be blocked, according to several tests carried out by AFP correspondents.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said the award was a “gesture of historic significance for China’s free speech movement.”

‘We see it as a message of hope for the laureate, who is serving an 11-year jail sentence, for detained dissidents all over the world, and for the Chinese people,” the press freedom group said in a statement.

But the Global Times editorial sounded a defiant note, saying China would resist attempts to “impose Western values” on the country.

“Obviously, the Nobel Peace Prize this year is meant to irritate China, but it will not succeed. On the contrary, the committee disgraced itself. The Nobel committee made an unwise choice, but it and the political force it represents cannot dictate China's future growth."