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lastsonlost · 3 years ago

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Monica Young always dreamed of being a teacher despite grim school years

She claims she was bullied, sexually assaulted and ostracised as a teenager

And yet, she went on to sexually assault a 14-year-old three months into teaching

She claims boyfriend at the time was abusive and his family didn't accept her

But he says the allegations are false - and even vows to still 'be there for her'

Monica Young always dreamed of becoming a teacher despite years of classroom bullying, sexual abuse in the playground and struggling with her grades.

And yet, within three months of landing her dream role at an all-boys school in Sydney's southwest, she started to groom and sexually abuse a 'vulnerable' 14-year-old boy.

The 24-year-old was sentenced in the New South Wales District Court on Wednesday after pleading guilty to three counts of aggravated sexual intercourse with a minor.

Throughout the proceedings, the court heard details of her lonely six years of high school, beginning in grade seven when she was sexually assaulted by a peer.

There was little sympathy for the convicted child abuser as she was led to her cell on Wednesday to begin her four year and nine month sentence, but Judge Kate Traill told the court she was given an insight into the root cause of the offending.

Young struck up a relationship with the boy at the school where she was employed as his teacher, groomed him online and eventually encouraged him to have sex with her - on and off campus - on several occasions.

He was too young to give consent and has since told the court the offending ruined his life.

The boy was forced to drop out of school after his peers found out, and his relationship with his brother, parents and extended family has been strained by the proceedings.

The court heard that Young admitted to knowing the feeling. When she was aged 12 and in grade seven, a boy of a similar age sexually assaulted her by pulling her by the ponytail to his crotch area, and holding her face there.

She reported the assault and the boy was subsequently expelled from school.

But her peers, she claims, bullied her incessantly for 'being a snitch' after the assault and the court heard Young struggled to make any friends at school in the years to follow.

One of her only friends came when she was in year 12 and studying for her HSC with dreams of becoming a school teacher.

The friend was a boy two grades younger than her who repeated year 10 because he struggled academically. He sought her out and what begun as a tutoring dynamic developed into a close friendship.

Eventually the duo became involved romantically, but his traditional Lebanese, Muslim family never approved.

Young agreed to a bureaucratic conversion to Islam in an attempt to gain their trust and with that came concessions for the relationship. She was able to begin sleeping in the same room as her partner and travelling away on holidays together.

They later got engaged and Young was again on the outer with his family, the court heard.

A traditional Islamic ceremony took place, but the court heard the union is not recognised in Australian law.

Young's lawyer claims the relationship soured when her partner began cheating on her, took control of her finances, isolated her from friends and family and 'became abusive'.

He denies the allegations, telling Daily Mail Australia he has 'the utmost respect for women' and only ever treated Young the same way he would want his mother or sister to be treated in a relationship.

Despite the serious claims levelled against him, Young's ex maintains he will continue to offer her support even while behind bars - and despite the fact that she is now single.

But he won't be paying her a visit any time soon, acknowledging inmates get little time to accept visitors and that her immediate family deserve priority access to her.

The court previously heard that Young was not particularly bright, exemplified by her Higher School Certificate ATAR score of just 44.

That mark is just 14 points shy of a 'mystery mark' - a black dot which is generally issued on the testamurs of students who score 30 or below.

Most teaching degrees in Australia have a minimum ATAR acceptance ranking of about 65, but schools have been known to accept lower scores in recent years.

Young's lawyer, Margaret Cunneen SC, previously told the court she would not be considered a 'mature person' for somebody her age and struggled to develop both academically and socially.

Read the raunchy texts Young sent her victim begging for sordid hook-ups before having sex with the boy in the school's stairwell - and even a classroom while the rest of the year nine class watched DISNEY

Young initiated contact with the boy on Snapchat, sending him a message which asked him to 'send pics' in exchange for provocative photos of herself, the NSW District Court's agreed set of facts reveal.

She would also FaceTime the year nine student as she performed sex acts on herself.

Young struck up a relationship with a boy who she taught six times a fortnight in geography, PDHPE and science when they began communicating closely because of the Covid lockdown which shut the school.

On one occasion, she messaged him asking him to hug her at school the next day, and when he didn't, she sent a follow up accusing him of 'not having the balls'.

The dare became a frequent tactic Young used to convince the boy to lure the boy into sexual liaisons.

On another occasion, she sent a message which read: 'It's dangerous if we get caught, but if you do it it'll be worth it'.

The duo exchanged messages about the sex acts they wanted to perform on each other, with Young initiated the 'sexting' on several occasions.

The most brazen of her offending occurred inside the school's classrooms, once where she messaged her victim to meet him in an English room to perform a sex act on him, and a second time where she groped the boy at the back of the classroom while the rest of the year nine class watched Disney movie, WALL-E.

During the movie, a friend of the boy even sat on the other side of him as the sex act took place.

The victim was also encouraged to lie about his whereabouts, telling his mother on one occasion he stayed back late at school to get help on an assignment, and even skipped afternoon classes to spend time with Young.

On the last day of school, the duo met on the staircase at 3.20pm to kiss goodbye, and Young performed oral sex on the 14-year-old.

She then returned to the staff room, the statement of facts read.

When she finally landed her first job at an all boys high school in Sydney's southwest, she was a new graduate specialising in PDHPE, a coveted role among teachers.

Instead, she was assigned 23 geography classes, with a smattering of science and PDHPE classes.

When she took to the stand during her sentencing hearing two weeks ago, she admitted to being overwhelmed by the workload.

Young didn't want to admit she was struggling and ask for help, so she did her best to stay one page ahead of her students by studying the textbooks and teachers' notes each night before class.

Within three weeks, the Covid pandemic closed the schools and Young, along with all of her students, was forced online.

It was during this time that the line between student and teacher was 'criminally blurred', and after years of struggling to bond with people her own age, Young claims she befriended her victim.

But there was no 'friendship'. The boy admitted in a victim impact statement supplied to the court that he never expected Young could hurt him and that he learned to trust her.

To him, she was the 'cool' teacher.

She sought him out on Snapchat and the relationship progressed from there. At one point, there was a group chat between Young, the victim and his friend, the court heard.

They had sex on multiple occasions between June 24 and July 6 2020, including at least twice on the school's grounds and once in her car at a local park.

On one occasion, she messaged him asking him to hug her at school the next day, and when he didn't, she sent a follow up accusing him of 'not having the balls'.

The dare became a frequent tactic Young used to convince the boy to lure the boy into sexual liaisons.

Teenage sexual abuse victim reveals how his life was 'ruined'

In a victim impact statement read to the court, the boy described how his relationship with his brother, parents, only friend and cousin deteriorated when they found out about his relationship with Young.

The boy said he 'feels like a failure who let his entire family down' and has only recently realised the extent of the abuse.

'He says the offender has ruined his dreams… ruined his school and his relationship with his family and friends and trust in others and ruined his life,' Judge Traill said.

The court heard the boy constantly hears his parents bicker and blame each other for not noticing the abuse sooner.

His brother 'hates him for embarrassing him in front of his friends at school' and the victim says he can no longer go on family holidays due to a strained relationship with extended family.

The victim never returned to the school he once loved because all of his peers were aware of the court case, and he is now enrolled at TAFE, despite once having aspirations of becoming a physiotherapist.

'He struggles to smile about anything anymore,' the court heard.

On another occasion, she sent a message which read: 'It's dangerous if we get caught, but if you do it it'll be worth it'.

The duo exchanged messages about the sex acts they wanted to perform on each other, with Young initiated the 'sexting' on several occasions.

During the movie, a friend of the boy even sat on the other side of him as the sex act took place.

On the last day of school, the duo met on the staircase at 3.20pm to kiss goodbye, and Young performed oral sex on the 14-year-old.

At the beginning of her sentencing hearing, she tearfully told the court: 'I just never imagined I'd be one of those people… I've never been in trouble with the law. I hope he and his family can forgive me.

'I was foolish.'

She wrote an apologetic letter to the victim and his family in which she said she regrets letting the relationship progress and understands that both her victim and his family will carry the trauma of the offence 'for the rest of their lives'.

'I knew it was wrong, I knew my actions were inappropriate but I couldn't let myself believe it,' she said. 'He trusted me and I abused that trust.'

On Wednesday, the court agreed.

Judge Kate Traill described her offending as a 'violation of trust' before delivering her sentence. Young will be eligible for parole on October 31st, 2023.

'[You] exploited his vulnerability and manipulated him,' Judge Traill said.

Young was ultimately sentenced to four years and nine months' custody, but with time served she will be eligible for parole in a little more than two years.

She will never be employed as a teacher again, and Judge Traill acknowledged she would need to be reintegrated into the community and her life post-sentence.

'But for these very serious offences she is a very impressive young lady… she was in a very bad relationship and made very bad decisions,' Judge Traill said.

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calciopics · 3 years ago

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Afghan female youth soccer players reach Pakistan, will seek asylum

Players from Afghanistan's female youth soccer teams have arrived in Pakistan and will seek political asylum in third countries amid concern over the status of female athletes under the new Taliban government in Kabul.

Some 81 people, including female players of several youth teams, their coaches and family members reached Pakistan through the Torkham border crossing, Umar Zia, a senior Pakistan Football Federation official, said on Wednesday. A further 34 will arrive on Thursday, he said.

It was not clear when they actually crossed the border. Officials gave them garlands of red flowers as they stepped off a bus at the Federation's office in Lahore on Wednesday.

They will stay there under tight security before applying for asylum in third countries, Zia told Reuters.

"They will go to some other country after 30 days as several international organizations are working towards settling them in any other country, including the UK, US and Australia," he said.

The Football for Peace international organisation helped to arrange their departure from Afghanistan and arrival in Pakistan.

Their flight is part of a broader exodus of Afghan intellectuals and public figures, especially women, since the Taliban took over the country a month ago.

When the Islamist group last ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, girls were not allowed to attend school and women were banned from work and education. Women were barred from sports and that is likely to continue in this government as well.

A Taliban representative told Australian broadcaster SBS on Sept.8 that he did not think women would be allowed to play cricket because it was "not necessary" and would be against Islam.

"Islam and the Islamic Emirate do not allow women to play cricket or play the kind of sports where they get exposed," SBS quoted the deputy head of the Taliban's cultural commission, Ahmadullah Wasiq, as saying.

Several former and current women football players fled the country following the Taliban takeover, while a former captain of the team urged players still in Afghanistan to burn their sports gear and delete their social media accounts to avoid reprisals.

The sport's governing body FIFA said last month it was working to evacuate those remaining in the country. (Reuters)

#Afghanistan Women football team #Taliban #Pakistan football federation #female footballers #football #fussball #fußball #foot #fodbold #futbol #futebol #soccer #calcio

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southeastasianists · 5 years ago

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Immediately to the north-west of Australia, occupying an area somewhat larger than our island-continent, are the heartlands of the pre-modern world’s most accomplished and farthest-ranging oceanic explorers, migrant settlers and traders. Today they occupy much of Southeast Asia, while their outlying settlements stretch from Madagascar to Easter Island and Hawai’i. Active and afloat across the Asian and Indian Ocean region for millennia, their maritime mercantile ventures reached northern Australia in pre-colonial centuries.

They are the diverse but culturally and linguistically related people who are collectively called Austronesians.

Both the term ‘Austronesian’ and these people’s identity as a distinct grouping are, it’s safe to say, very little recognised by most Australians or the wider world, except among specialist historians, archaeologists, ethnographers and linguists. Author Philip Bowring wants to change that with this book that is a detailed, multidisciplinary account of these quintessential seafaring and trading societies, from their prehistoric origins until now.

In particular Bowring wants the ‘general reader and public’, at whom this book is aimed, to appreciate their dynamic role in the networks of oceanic trading that stretched from Asia across the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean for thousands of years… networks that led directly to the last half millennium of European expansion, and that were the forerunners of today’s globalised economy.

Austronesians comprise most of the populations of modern Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, speaking hundreds of different but related languages. There are also minority Austronesian populations in Indochina, Burma, Thailand and Taiwan. Ethnic Thais, Cambodians, Laos, Vietnamese and Burmese of mainland South-East Asia are not Austronesians, nor were they primarily seafaring societies – the thing that most defines deep Austronesian heritage.

So to avoid confusion Bowring has coined a new term, Nusantaria, to describe Austronesian homelands on the islands and coasts of South-East Asia, from where they sailed and traded much more widely. The term comes from the Sanskrit-derived, Malay-Indonesian nusantara (‘the islands between’), referring to the archipelagos that stretch from China and South-East Asia towards Australasia. (In English this was sometimes ‘the Malay archipelago’, the title of Alfred Russell Wallace’s magnificent magnum opus published precisely 150 years ago.)

The Nusantaria concept keeps the focus on this vital maritime mercantile heartland, whereas some of the Austronesian family sailed so far away – to Micronesia, Polynesia and Madagascar – that they eventually lost contact with the ancestral sail-trading network.

The major defining feature of Nusantarian societies was their mastery of navigation with ingenious vessel technologies, which included outriggers, unique fore-and-aft sailing rigs and hull-construction techniques that distinguished them from the Arab, Persian, Indian, Chinese and (much later) European ships that also plied these seas. This was the key to their expansion and settlement of maritime Southeast Asia over the last four or five millennia, displacing or absorbing earlier migrants. Other original features of Nusantarian societies included ancestral cults and shamanism, headhunting, and the independence and high standing of their women.

Bowring takes an even-handed approach to the fascinating question of Nusantarian origins. He acknowledges the well-accepted ‘out of China via Taiwan’, north-to-south thesis of Peter Bellwood et.al., but seemingly gives equal credence to alternative, south-to-north theories of migrations that were forced by the last inter-glacial flooding of the Sundaland basin (Stephen Oppenheimer, William Sondheim).

From ancient times the islands of Nusantaria supplied key trade commodities including the rarest and most costly spices – cloves, nutmeg and mace – exported in its own ocean-going ships. But more crucially, these home waters were the cross-roads of all the extensive sea trade between East Asia and the Indian Ocean.

Controlling these sea lanes led to the rise of diverse Nusantarian trading centres and entrepôts, kingdoms and empires in Sumatra, Java, Malaya and elsewhere in their region. Bowring vividly depicts a cosmopolitan trading world exchanging ceramics, metals, gems, silks and other textiles, spices, forest products, slaves – the vast majority shipped by sea.

‘A Persian writing in Arabic in the tenth century,’ he tells us, ‘noted that parrots in Palembang [the Sumatran centre of the Srivijaya empire] could speak many languages including Arabic, Persian and Greek.’ Those polylingual parrots would certainly also have spoken Malay, the Austronesian language native to both shores of the Straits of Malacca – the narrow funnel through which most of this trade passed. It became the lingua-franca of the region’s sailors and traders well over a thousand years ago, and is the basis of the modern Indonesian national language.

The major religions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam entered the region from the Indian Ocean, spread peaceably by maritime trade and adopted through influence and prestige. Nusantarian societies transformed these religions, as much as they transformed Nusantaria. Rare seaborne invasions such as that of the Tamil-Indian Cholas in 1025, and later Mongol and Ming interventions, made no lasting impacts due to the dispersal of the islands and the skills of its sailors and traders.

European and Christian incursions began more forcibly five centuries ago, lured by the fabulous wealth of the ‘Spice Islands’ and advantaged by the superior gunnery of these aggressive newcomers. The shock is well expressed in the famous words of 17th-century Makassan Sultan Alauddin, refusing monopolist Dutch demands to exclude their rivals: ‘God made the land and the sea. The land he divided among men and the sea he gave in common. It has never been heard that anyone should be forbidden to sail the seas.’

This new era would lead eventually to a severe downturn of Nusantarian fortunes and a loss of common identity as they were fragmented into the post-colonial states we know today. Bowring makes the valuable point, however, that it’s easy to exaggerate the effect of the first few centuries of European activity, as disruptive as it was. It was not until ‘a final land-grabbing spasm around the turn of the 20th century that European imperialism reached its final apogee’, drawing Nusantaria’s modern borders.

Journalist, author and yachtsman Philip Bowring has lived in Asia for decades as a correspondent for leading financial and international newspapers, and was editor of the prestigious Far Eastern Economic Review. His earlier history book was about a distant ancestor, Sir John Bowring, who as Plenipotentiary in China in 1856 precipitated the Second Opium War, and who negotiated a key trade treaty between Britain and King Mongkut of Anna and the King of Siam fame.

Having read history at Cambridge and, during his working life, absorbed himself in the history and economy of maritime Asia, Philip Bowring is well placed to attempt this ambitious synthesis of vast amounts of scholarship and primary sources for a non-specialist readership. Its magnitude is attested by a nine-page bibliography. Given the breadth and depth of material consulted, errors (in this reviewer’s fields, at least) were few and minor.

At times the work suffers from the formidable weight of historical detail that it encompasses. There are occasions where condensing complex events and multiple players creates sentences that are rather too opaque, unless you’re already well-versed in that history. Places, people or processes can sometimes flash by, for the first and last time, unexplained.

This is less criticism than acknowledgement of the dilemma of treating an intricate subject encompassing so very many cultures, eras and episodes in a single volume – as best I know, for the first time. You could push the book out by an extra hundred or two pages – but then, good luck finding a publisher. Or do you simplify the story by sacrificing some of the richness and texture of complex events and processes? Any reader finding themselves a bit lost in the detail might return to the contents list, which has been well constructed with snappy chapter titles and a clever 30-word synopsis for each. This can usefully be returned to as a summary or a road map.

The attractive illustrations in both colour and mono have been very well selected for variety and quality, with many outstanding works of art, artefacts or historical sources. It might have been helpful to reference them more in the text, however, to make their relevance clearer to readers unfamiliar with the subject.

This hardcover book is handsomely produced with a beautiful dust jacket showing fine Nusantarian galleys in the Moluccas, recorded during the Louis de Freycinet expedition of 1817–20. It’s a volume that offers readers a deeper understanding of the vibrant maritime peoples and events that unfolded literally on Australia’s tropical northern doorstep, to better appreciate the complex development of the human, political and economic region that we inhabit.

#Southeast Asia #Austronesia #History #Resources #Empire of the Winds

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creepingsharia · 5 years ago

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They Are ‘Infidels and No Good!’: Muslim Persecution of Christians, March 2019

“a Christian living in a majority Muslim country is 143 times more likely to be killed by a Muslim for being a Christian than a Muslim is likely to be killed by a non-Muslim in a Western country for being what he is.”

by Raymond Ibrahim

When it comes to violence between Muslims and non-Muslims, March news was dominated by the Christchurch, New Zealand massacres, where an Australian man killed 51 Muslims in two mosques on March 15. However, to place matters in perspective, a statistical report did some number crunching and found that “a Christian living in a majority Muslim country is 143 times more likely to be killed by a Muslim for being a Christian than a Muslim is likely to be killed by a non-Muslim in a Western country for being what he is.” Although the report refers to the persecution of Christians by Muslims as “the most egregious example of human right violations in today’s world”—citing the fact that “at least 4,305 Christians … were murdered by Muslims because of their faith in 2018” and that “300 million Christians, overwhelmingly in the majority-Muslim countries, were subjected to violence”—it found other, similar disparities. For example, based on precedent and in one country alone, France, “Frenchmen are exactly ten times more likely to be murdered by a Muslim than a Muslim being killed by a non-Muslim terrorist anywhere in the Western world.”

The following report, which documents the widespread persecution of Christians in the month of March alone, further confirms these disparities:

The Massacre of Christians

Nigeria: As in previous months, dozens of Christians were massacred and churches destroyed at the hands of Muslims in the West Africa nation. A partial list follows:

On March 4, Muslims slaughtered 23 Christian villagers. “It was bad,” said a local in reference to the incident. “Some were killed by gunshots and some by machete hacks!… The displaced persons are scattered all over…”

Three days later, the Muslim terrorists launched another raid in the same area; three people were killed. Commenting on that attack, a local pastor said, “Even today, they attacked. One of my members came to report that his father was killed, and another member said his son-in-law was also killed.”

On March 11 Muslim tribesmen slaughtered over 70 Christians and injured 28 in another region in Kaduna State. According to eyewitnesses, the terrorists were “torching houses, shooting and hacking down anything that moved.” About 100 houses were destroyed in the attack. Another report notes that “[t]he victims included women and children. According to survivors, their assailants divided into three groups; one group was shooting, another set fire to homes as people ran away, and the third waited in the bush to intercept fleeing villagers.”

On March 16, Muslim herdsmen killed another 10 Christians in southern Kaduna state, “bringing the lives lost in the past five weeks to 140 with 160 houses destroyed” said the report. “We were all asleep in our various homes when at about 4 a.m., we heard gunshots everywhere in my village,” explained a local Christian. “Everyone ran out of their homes to escape from the Fulani herdsmen. Three hours after the herdsmen left, those of us who survived the attack returned to the village to find that [30 of] our houses were destroyed and 10 of our villagers killed.”

On March 14, Boko Harem jihadis attacked another predominantly Christian village; although most people managed to flee into the bush, they killed one person, kidnapped two sisters, and burned down a church and six homes. A church leader said the local pastor had called him soon after the raid: “I could hear desperation in his voice, just coming out of the bush. His voice sounded completely demoralized as he was saying only God… We don’t know what else to do! There’s no security presence here.” The church leader further “regrets that these attacks are rarely reported on by the local media anymore. As a result, their people continue to suffer in silence, with minimal help from others.”

On March 23, right after “beating, raping and killing a 19-year-old Christian woman,” Muslims attacked two predominantly Christian villages, and burned down 28 Christian homes and two churches. Joy Danlami and her younger sister and brother, 16 and 14 respectively, were ambushed while walking home from a Christian community feast; the two younger siblings survived with machete and gunshot wounds. According to their father, “The armed herdsmen chased them with dangerous weapons. Joy’s nose and face was battered, and then she was sexually assaulted by the herdsmen before being killed. She was shot.”

After finding the slaughtered body of a kidnapped Catholic priest who had been abducted two weeks earlier, two other church leaders were also kidnapped on March 25. One of the men, the Rev. Emmanuel Haruna of the Evangelical Church Winning All, was seized at gunpoint outside his church. Earlier, in 2016 he had spoken out against Muslim tribesmen raids on Christian communities: “Fulani herdsmen take their cattle to farms of our church members and destroy their crops, and security agents have not been able to take measures to stop them.” The report adds that “It is estimated by the United Nations Centre for Peace and Disarmament that of the 500 million illegal weapons that flooded into West Africa after the Libyan crisis in 2011, 350 million (70%) ended up in Nigeria, supplying the predominantly Muslim herders with added teeth in their campaign against Christian farmers.”

On Sunday, March 10, “Boko Haram Suicide bombers tried to enter a Catholic Church service,” says a report:

The two bombers, who were women, tried to enter the church through a clinic before being stopped, and then detonating the bombs a short distance outside the church. Despite the two bombs going off, only one person other than the bombers was reportedly injured….. It is very likely that the two bombers were captives of Boko Haram who were forced to commit this attack. Boko Haram is known for kidnapping women and children and forcing them to act as suicide bombers for their attacks. In 2017, between January and August, UNICEF reported on at least 83 children having been used by the group as suicide bombers.

Democratic Republic of Congo: “Islamic militants,” notes a report, “attacked the dominantly Christian village of Kalau in the North Kivu province.” Six Christians, including three women and a 9-year-old child, were slaughtered. The rest of the villagers, “an estimated 470 families evacuated their homes following the incident.” The terrorists are part of the Allied Democratic Forces, “a group that was designed to overthrow the Ugandan government in the 90’s and replace it with an Islamic regime. The group has been known for associating with other terrorist groups such as al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda. They are responsible for thousands of deaths…”

Attacks on Churches

Ethiopia: In a rampage that lasted five hours, large Muslim mobs shouting “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is greater) attacked ten churches, “destroying one and burning the property inside all the structures,” says a report. The attacks, which were apparently sparked by a false rumor that a local mosque had been attacked, occurred in “a predominantly Muslim town with nearly all Christians there having moved from surrounding villages for work reasons, creating an underlying tension.” Several Christians were injured and required hospital treatment. One of the desecrated churches has since been vandalized again, and its Christians threatened and harassed. Although only one church was destroyed during the rampage, “the other nine church buildings were not set ablaze only because of the risk to neighboring Muslim-owned properties,” says the report. Instead, “[t]he contents of all the churches were removed from the buildings and set on fire on the street…. Huge amounts of property were destroyed, including Bibles, song books, instruments, benches and chairs.”

The report incorrectly refers to these attacks as “unprecedented.” For example, last year, 19 churches were torched—and 15 Christian priests killed, four burned alive—during Muslim uprisings in the east, where most of Ethiopia’s 33 percent Muslim population is centered. Similarly, in 2011, after a Christian was accused of desecrating a Koran, “Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes.”

Sudan: A report by the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART), a UK based NGO, found that 72 churches were either torched or demolished in the Nuba Mountains region in 2018. Elaborating on these developments, a separate report notes that the “Nuba Mountains is home to the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North,” which is “fighting the oppression of the Sudanese National government.”

Due to this, the Sudanese government has been committing genocide against the people living in the Nuba Mountains for years. They indiscriminately bomb the region, trying to clear it of the rebel army. However, they often just kill and maim the local civilian population who has nothing to do with the fight. They also destroy homes and churches in the attacks. The people living in the Nuba Mountains are primarily traditional believers or Christians. This also contributes to the attacks, as Bashir, the countries president, believes that the country is only for Muslims ever since South Sudan gained its independence.

Sudan is considered the sixth worst nation in the world to be Christian in.

Germany: Four separate churches were vandalized and/or torched in March. “In this country,” the report explained, “there is a creeping war against everything that symbolizes Christianity…. Crosses are broken, altars smashed, Bibles set on fire, baptismal fonts overturned, and the church doors smeared with Islamic expressions like ‘Allahu Akbar.’” In the Alps and Bavaria alone, around 200 churches were attacked and many crosses broken: “Police are currently dealing with church desecrations again and again. The perpetrators are often youthful rioters with a migration background.”

France: On Sunday, March 17, arsonists torched the Church of St. Sulpice in Paris soon after midday mass. Such incidences have become endemic in France, where two churches are desecrated every day on average. In the previous month, February, vandals plundered and used human excrement to draw a cross on the Notre-Dame des Enfants Church in Nimes and desecrated and smashed crosses and statues at Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur . In 2018 alone, 1,063 attacks on Christian churches or symbols (crucifixes, icons, statues) were registered in France.

Algeria: Throughout March, Algerians protested against a fifth term for President Bouteflika. In an attempt to exploit the unrest, al-Qaeda publicized new content calling for Sharia governance in the North African nation and referred to those protesting against Bouteflika as the “sons of Islam,” while presenting Bouteflika as “loyal to the Jews and Christians.” According to the report, “Terrorist groups have a long history of attempting to take advantage of political unrest to capitalize upon and increase hardline Islamic sentiment. Christians are often used in their propaganda as part of their efforts.” In reality, however, “Algerian Christians have faced heavy persecution at the hands of the government.”

In fact, on March 3, the French Parliament “officially opened an inquiry into the persecution of Christians in Algeria,” notes a separate report:

The inquiry specifically points to Algeria’s closure of churches and legal proceedings held against Christian leaders, including those who imported Christian books. Algeria uses building safety committees to shutter churches indefinitely. The authorities also create substantial obstacles for the opening of new churches, making it impossible and leaving Christians to worship in buildings intended for other uses. Algeria has cracked down against churches since 2017, increasingly forcing Christians out of the public sphere. The authorities have not only closed churches, but have also targeted Christian leaders. Algeria’s constitution provides for the freedom of worship but declares Islam to be the state religion. Insulting or offending Islam is considered a criminal offense. In addition to imprisonment, convicted Christians can also face hefty fines if convicted of blasphemy.

Kazakhstan: Police raided two unregistered churches on two consecutive Sundays. Several members were fined; one had to pay the rough equivalent of two months wages. Discussing these developments, a separate report says,

Since 2011, when the government introduced a new religion law, Christians have faced heightened restrictions on meetings and ‘missionary activity.’ To obtain registration, churches are required to provide the names and addresses of at least 50 members, an impossibility for smaller congregations. Kazakhstan is officially a secular state; around 70% of the population are Muslim, with Christians comprising about 26%. Many Christians are from a Russian background and some are ethnic Kazakhs who have converted from Islam. Protestant Christians, and especially those from a Muslim background, are viewed with great distrust.

Attacks on Apostates, Blasphemers, and Preachers

Netherlands: As evidence that “Christian refugees in the country are being threatened or bullied on a regular basis, especially when they used to be Muslim,” a March 14 report recounted the experiences of three such Christian refugees.

“Directly after my conversion to Christianity” in 1999, after reaching the Netherlands, Faradoun Fouad from Iraq “received the first threats. People who I thought were my friends, became my enemies…. Even Muslims who are not very conservative told my wife that they would kill me…. I’m still getting threats every single day.”

“After my conversion” to Christianity, “the threats started,” said Esther Mulder, whose Muslim family fled Somalia. “Most of the time they’re coming from other Somalis. They write to me in Somali, so no one else is able to understand what they’re saying. We once posted [on Facebook] a picture of a Somali conference where everyone was standing in front of a cross. People didn’t like it and we received several threats. I was really sorry about that.” When she visits her family, “my father leaves the house. The last thing he ever said to me, is that I’m no longer his daughter.”

“In 2015 I became a Christian,” said Jassim, from Morocco. “My mother taught me to respect everyone and to be kind. That was in stark contrast to what Islam was teaching me. I had to hate and curse Jews and Christians. Muhammed was my big role model, but his life was bad. He killed Jews and married a girl of six. How could he be my role model?” Due to the large volume of threats he was getting, “I went to the police with eight pages full of threats…. The police advised me to delete my picture from my website…. It’s strange isn’t it: I’m not doing anything wrong, why would I need to hide? I live in a free country.”

Afghanistan: A former Islamic child soldier who converted to Christianity—despite “threats to his life”—shared his experiences. Jahan, 24, said he was taught to kill people who were Christian because they were “infidels and no good.” However, Jahan eventually began “reading the Bible for himself,” an experience he described as “eye opening.” He discovered that “what he had been taught about Christians and Christianity was wrong” and eventually converted—only “to flee from his family who threatened to kill him when they heard about his new faith.” According to the report, “Persecution in Afghanistan is extreme for the country’s tiny Christian community. Most Afghani Christians are converts from Islam and face very real and very deadly threats because of their conversion. In some cases, Christian converts are attacked by their own family who are ashamed that one of their own has become a Christian.” Afghanistan is considered the second worst persecutor of Christians in the world.

Kenya: Muslims beat a Christian pastor of an underground church with wooden clubs on Friday, March 6; among other injuries, he suffered a broken thigh bone. According to the report, “Pastor Abdul (surname withheld for security reasons), a 30-year-old father of three, had finished leading a prayer gathering at 9 p.m. on the outskirts of Garissa and was on his way back to his house when several ethnic Somali Muslims attacked.” As the Muslims approached, one of them said, “We have been following your movements and your evil plans of changing Muslims to Christianity.” “Immediately,” continues Pastor Abdul, “several assailants began hitting me with wooden clubs, and I became unconscious. I woke up and found myself surrounded by neighbors. I was rescued by the neighbors who found me in a pool of blood.” They rushed him to a hospital: “Apart from the thigh pain, I now feel pain all over my body, especially the waist, the back and my left leg near the ankle. I’m almost unable to bear the pain. My family is in great fear, and Christians have located us to another place. Our prayer for now is to get a safe place for my family. My life and that of my family,” a wife and three children, 8, 5, and 3, “is at stake.”

Pakistan: A mentally ill Christian man was apprehended for blasphemy. Stephen Masih was arrested after Muhammad Rafiq and Muhammad Imran told Muhammad Mudassar—a renowned hafiz, one who has memorized the entire Koran—that the Christian “had made derogatory remarks against the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH),” says the report. Stephen, 38, is unmarried and lives with his mother and sister. After contracting typhoid fever as a child, and receiving little medical attention due to his family’s impoverishment, the family noticed changes in his behavior; he was eventually taken to a “doctor [who] declared him mentally disabled.” On March 10, Stephen got into a loud quarrel with his mother and sister. Female Muslim neighbors soon got involved and before long “a few Muslim men … pulled Stephen out of his house and started beating him brutally, gradually joined by others.” Police eventually arrived and arrested the mentally unstable Christian on the testimony of the local cleric. Afterwards, his sister Alia “went to the police station. She says her brother only shouted and used abusive language against the local ladies but did not utter any derogatory remarks against the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), but the police didn’t believe her.” If convicted, Stephen could face the death penalty. According to Section 295-C of Pakistan’s penal code, “Whoever by words, either spoken or written or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.”

General Abuse and Rape of Christians

Pakistan: A Muslim man abducted, tortured and forced a married Christian mother of three to convert to Islam and marry him. When her original husband, Naveed Iqbal, reported the matter to police, the only action they took was “to alert the suspect, Muhammad Khalid Satti, that he [Naveed, the Christian husband] had filed a report against him for abducting his wife, Saima,” says the report. Then, “[o]n March 5, police informed me, said Naveed, that Saima had been found … but that she had converted to Islam and married Satti,” and that “a local Muslim cleric had solemnized” their marriage. Local police further counseled him “to forget about his wife and stop pursuing the case,” even though they had been married and raising children for 15 years. “Satti is a hardened criminal, and this is not the first time he has targeted Christians,” the 40-year-old Catholic husband elaborated. “Some 300-400 Christian families live in the area, and almost everyone has been bullied or tortured by Satti and his accomplices over the years.” It was only after Naveed threatened to set himself on fire before senior officers, that police arrested Muhammad. However, before the hearing, “the accused and the IO [Information Officer] both threatened Saima to say that she had converted to Islam and married Satti of her free will, otherwise her family would suffer severe consequences. Fearing for our lives, Saima said what she had been forced to say, resulting in grant of bail to Satti.” The wife later told her husband how she was kidnapped, raped, tortured and then forced to sign a marriage certificate. “She also showed me the torture marks on her body, and how she had been coerced into submitting to the demands of her tormentor.” Naveed decided to do all he could to get her justice, including uploading a widely watched video of his wife tearfully explaining her ordeal and appealing to Prime Minister Imran Khan for justice. “The video was a desperate attempt to get the attention of senior government officials, because the police were openly siding with the accused.” It worked, and Muhammad was arrested again. Although reunited with her husband and three children, aged 4, 8 and 13, Naveed said his wife is suffering from post-traumatic stress: “She is not the same person now, but I have faith that the Lord will heal her spirit with time.”

In a separate but similar incident, three Muslim men kidnapped a 13-year-old Christian girl, forced her to convert to Islam and marry one of her abductors. When the girl’s distraught family finally discovered her whereabouts, her new Muslim family insisted that she had willingly become Muslim and produced a forged marriage certificate falsely indicating that she was 18, the legal age of marriage.

Discussing the regular abuses Christian and other minorities suffer in Pakistan, a separate March 28 report says,

Across Pakistan, women and girls from religious minority communities are targeted by extremists for abduction and forced conversion. According to the Movement for Solidarity and Peace Pakistan, an estimated 1,000 girls and women, ranging in age between 12 and 25, are victimized by their cruel practice every year. Pakistan’s Hindu and Christian communities are most effected…. Forced conversions to Islam remains one of the cruelest abuses suffered by Pakistan’s minority communities. Practitioners of this abuse often use rape and forced marriage as a means to cover up their crime. To compound the matter, the majority of victims claim that Pakistan’s police force is often unhelpful and regularly sides with the kidnappers because of their shared religious identity.

Egypt: On Sunday, March 17, the ruling court in Minya surprised the Coptic Christian community by recusing itself and stepped down from two ongoing cases concerning the victimization and killing of Christians. Due to this unexpected move, both cases—which had already been at court three and six years—must now be retried anew, a process that will likely take several more years before any hope of justice is met.

The first case concerns Soa‘d Thabet, a 70-year-old Coptic Christian grandmother. On May 20, 2016, a mob of 300 Muslim men descended on her home, stripped her completely naked, beat, spit on, and paraded her in the streets to jeers, whistles, and triumphant shouts of “Allahu Akbar.” They were angry because her son was allegedly involved with a Muslim woman.

The second case goes back to July 2013, when General Sisi ousted then President Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, following massive popular demonstrations against Morsi. Then, Brotherhood sympathizers all around Egypt rioted, mostly by targeting Coptic Christian people, homes, and especially churches, of which almost one hundred were set ablaze or destroyed. During these rampages, rioters randomly killed an elderly Coptic man, Iskander (Alexander) and dragged his body on the ground to jeers and more cries of “Allahu Akbar” (graphic video here). His corpse was then hurled into a garbage bin. For three days, his children were prevented from retrieving it for burial. An unknown person eventually buried Alexander in an unmarked grave. His relentless murderers found the grave, exhumed the mangled body, propped it up, and used it for target practice.

In both the case of the stripped Christian woman and the case of the slaughtered Christian man, the names and faces of the culprits and murderers are well known. Commenting on the recusal, Adel Guindy, of Coptic Solidarity told Gatestone, “The judiciary system in Egypt, as well as the rest of the pillars of the state (often referred to as the ‘deep state’) have become impregnated with fundamentalist Islamic ideology, and are thus decidedly biased against Copts. The political leadership of the country takes no concrete corrective measures and, worse still, lets this ideology shape and dominate the society, through education and media.”

United Kingdom: In two unrelated cases, the United Kingdom denied asylum to persecuted Christians by bizarrely citing the Bible and Islam. Both Christians, a man and a woman, are former Muslims who were separately seeking asylum from the Islamic Republic of Iran, the ninth worst persecutor of Christians, particularly those who were formerly Muslims, as in these two cases.

In his rejection letter from the UK’s Home Office, the Iranian man was told that biblical passages were “inconsistent” with his claim to have converted to Christianity after discovering it was a “peaceful” faith. The letter cited several biblical excerpts, including from Exodus, Leviticus, and Matthew, as supposed proof that the Bible is violent; it said Revelation was “filled with imagery of revenge, destruction, death and violence.” The rejection letter then concluded: “These examples are inconsistent with your claim that you converted to Christianity after discovering it is a ‘peaceful’ religion, as opposed to Islam which contains violence, rage and revenge.”

In the second case, an Iranian female asylum seeker was sarcastically informed in her rejection letter that “You affirmed in your AIR [Asylum Interview Record] that Jesus is your saviour, but then claimed that He would not be able to save you from the Iranian regime. It is therefore considered that you have no conviction in your faith and your belief in Jesus is half-hearted.” Discussing her experiences, the rejected woman said: “When I was in Iran I converted to Christianity and the situation changed and the government were [sic] looking for me and I had to flee from Iran…. In my country if someone converts to Christianity their punishment is death or execution.” Concerning the asylum process, she said that whenever she responded to her Home Office interviewer, “he was either chuckling or maybe just kind of mocking when he was talking to me…. [H]e asked me why Jesus didn’t help you from the Iranian regime or Iranian authorities.”

These two recently exposed cases appear to be symptomatic of the Home Office’s bias against Christians (as more fully documented here).

Raymond Ibrahim, author of the new book, Sword and Scimitar, Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

About this Series

The persecution of Christians in the Islamic world has become endemic. Accordingly, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month.

#Sharia #Jihad #Persecution #Islam #Legal #News #Politics

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newstfionline · 5 years ago

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Headlines

Donald Trump gets the royal treatment on state visit to UK (Reuters) Britain rolled out the royal red carpet for Donald Trump on Monday, with Queen Elizabeth leading the pomp and pageantry in honor of the U.S. president whose interventions into London’s political crises threatened to overshadow the visit.

‘Trump Baby’ Balloon to Fly Outside British Parliament as Big Protests Expected (Reuters) A giant inflatable blimp depicting Donald Trump as a pouting baby in a diaper will fly outside the British parliament in London on Tuesday ahead of what is expected to be one of the city’s largest protests against a foreign leader.

Mexican foreign minister says tariffs would have dire consequences, won’t affect immigration policy (Washington Post) Mexico’s foreign minister warned Monday of dire economic consequences if the United States imposes the tariffs that President Trump has threatened as punishment for the flow of migrants transiting to the U.S. border. Marcelo Ebrard, who spoke at a news conference in Washington, said the threat would have no impact on Mexico’s immigration policy. But it remained unclear what shifts in immigration enforcement Mexico could propose that would satisfy Trump. The Trump administration has said Mexico must do more to secure its southern border with Guatemala and interdict buses of migrants.

Protesters Return to Streets in Honduras, Despite President’s Concessions (Reuters) Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez’s decision to repeal decrees that have sparked violent demonstrations against his government in recent days failed to stop protesters from returning to the streets on Monday.

EU migrant policy: Lawyers call it a crime against humanity (AP) More than 40,000 people have been intercepted in the Mediterranean and taken to detention camps and torture houses under a European migration policy that is responsible for crimes against humanity, according to a legal document asking the International Criminal Court to take the case Monday. The request filed with the ICC alleges that European Union officials are knowingly responsible for deaths of migrants at land and sea, and their widespread rape and torture at the hands of a Libyan coast guard funded and trained at the expense of European taxpayers.

Amid U.S. Fears Over Huawei, Pompeo Warns Swiss About Close Ties to China (Reuters) U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Switzerland about its close business ties with China, telling a newspaper the neutral European country was exposing itself to privacy breaches if it let Chinese companies help build its infrastructure.

Erdogan Says Turkey Committed to Russian Missile Defence Deal (Reuters) President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday it was out of the question for Turkey to take a step back from its deal with Moscow to buy Russian S-400 missile defence systems.

Australia Minister in Sri Lanka Stresses ‘Tough’ Asylum Policy (Reuters) A senior minister restated Australia’s tough border policy on a visit to Sri Lanka on Tuesday amid reports that the Australian navy had intercepted and returned several boats carrying asylum seekers from the Indian Ocean island.

#KuToo No More! Japanese Women Take Stand Against High Heels (Reuters) A social media campaign against dress codes and expectations that women wear high heels at work has gone viral in Japan, with thousands joining the #KuToo movement.

Top North Korean official reappears days after purge report (AP) A senior North Korean official who had been reported to be sentenced to hard labor over the failed nuclear summit with Washington was shown in state media on Monday enjoying a concert near leader Kim Jong Un.

Prosperity, repression mark China 30 years after Tiananmen (AP) Thirty years since the Tiananmen Square protests, China’s economy has catapulted up the world rankings, yet political repression is harsher than ever. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims are held in re-education camps without charge, student activists face relentless harassment and leaders in the beleaguered dissident community have been locked up or simply vanished. Religious groups face ever greater pressure to conform, and a web of mass surveillance is bolstering a system many call totalitarian. It’s a far cry from the hopes of the idealistic student demonstrators, and a level of control far beyond what many imagined possible, even after the army’s bloody crushing of the protests on the night of June 3-4, 1989.

U.S. to Sell 34 Surveillance Drones to Allies in South China Sea Region (Reuters) The Trump administration has moved ahead with a surveillance drone sale to four U.S. allies in the South China Sea region as acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said Washington will no longer “tiptoe” around Chinese behavior in Asia.

Faithful Muslims Around the World Begin Celebrating Eid (AP) Muslims across the Middle East and beyond are celebrating the start of the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr, a time for family and festivities.

Afghan President Says He’ll Visit Pakistan to Improve Ties (AP) Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Tuesday said he will visit Pakistan on June 27 to open a new chapter in his country’s uneasy relationship with its neighbor and mend ties that are often characterized by mistrust and tit-for-tat accusations.

Tunnel Crossing Between Lebanon and Israel Went 22 Storeys Deep (Reuters) The Israeli army on Monday showed the inside of a sophisticated tunnel passing deep underground from Lebanon into northern Israel, saying it was intended for use by Lebanese Hezbollah militants. The tunnel was rigged with electrical wiring, fuse boxes and communications equipment. An army spokesman said it began almost a kilometre (mile) away inside Lebanon and reached depths of some 80 meters (265 feet)--about the height of a 22-storey building--as it crossed into Israel, near the town of Zarit.

Sudan’s Military Scraps Deal With Protest Groups, Calls for Elections Within Nine Months (Reuters) Sudan’s ruling military council said on Tuesday it was cancelling all agreements with the main opposition coalition and called for elections within nine months, following the worst violence since President Omar al-Bashir was ousted in April.

#headlines

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a-journey-to-true-self · 6 months ago

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The Importance of Charity and Righteousness for Women

The Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) once addressed a group of women and encouraged them to give charity. He said that he had seen that most of the people in Hell were women. The women asked why this was so. Why Women Should Be Mindful Women often curse and are ungrateful to their husbands. Women can be led astray easily. Women have some deficiencies in their intelligence and religion. What Are These…

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#3 daughters in islam #3 wives islam #30 australian women accept islam #30 australian women convert to islam #30 australian women islam #30 australian women reverted to islam #4 best women in islam #4 greatest women in islam #4 wives islam #4 women in islam #5 things haram in islam for women&039;s #7 most sinful woman in quran #8 march women&039;s day in islam #ablution in islam women #anwarul islam women&039;s arabic college mongam #are men and women equal in islam #are women allowed to work in islam #beauty of islam women #best jobs for women in islam #best women in islam #brave women in islam #british women convert to islam #can men and women just be friends islam #can women do business in islam #can women drive in islam #can women earn money in islam #can women fast during periods in islam #can women go to gym in islam #can women grow nails in islam #can women join army in islam

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featurenews · 2 years ago

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‘Full responsibility’: Michaelia Cash challenges Labor on security after repatriation of families from Syria

Government says process was informed by national security advice, individual assessments and detailed work by security agencies * Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast The Albanese government must assume “full responsibility” if there is any risk to Australians from repatriating women and children from Syrian camps after the fall of Islamic State, Michaelia Cash has warned. The former attorney general made the remarks following the return of four Australian women and 13 children to Sydney on Saturday. Sign up for our free morning and afternoon email newsletters from Guardian Australia for your daily news roundup Continue reading... https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/oct/30/full-responsibility-michaelia-cash-challenges-labor-on-security-after-repatriation-of-families-from-syria?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=tumblr

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jagadeeshkrishnan · 3 years ago

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[26/08, 10:10 PM] 98 41 121780: Awesome Without Allah: Why These Muslims Are Leaving Islam And Are Proud Of It

How a North American group is building public support for those who seek to leave, or have left, the Muslim faith.

For the past few days, the hashtag #AwesomeWithoutAllah is trending on Twitter. Ex-Muslims across the world are celebrating leaving Islam and sharing with ‘twitterati’ their happiness on being free from the shackles of Sharia and acquiring newfound freedoms which they could only imagine before.

Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA), a non-profit organisation, is spearheading this campaign online as well as offline. It has put up billboards at various public places. “Nearly one in four Muslims raised in the United States have left Islam,” reads one. “Godless. Fearless. Ex-Muslim,” it adds.

One of the goals of EXMNA is to reduce discrimination faced by those who leave Islam. It promotes secular values and is working towards making religious dissent acceptable. The initiative was founded in 2012 by Muhammad Syed, a human rights activist.

Islam is a one-way street as far as its affiliation is concerned. It allows, no, insists, on converting people of other faiths. But no one can leave it for the punishment decreed by Sharia (Islamic law), for apostasy is death.

And killing someone for leaving Islam is not a mere disturbing theory. It is regularly enforced across the Muslim world and that includes even the Western nations where Sharia is not the law. Where the state is not Islamic, zealous Muslims take it upon themselves to punish those who ‘stray’ from the path of Allah. Last week, two Muslim men were arrested by the authorities in the UK for plotting to kill a female relative who had renounced Islam.

"This is why @ExmuslimsOrg works to normalize dissent in Muslim communities. This is why we run campaigns like #AwesomeWithoutAllah," tweeted Sarah Haider, executive director at EXMNA.

In such a scary environment where apostates have to live in constant fear of getting killed, what the organisation is doing is quite courageous.On its call to trend #AwesomeWithoutAllah on Twitter, many ex-Muslims have shared their stories on why they are happy to leave Islam. And it should come as no surprise that most of them are women, given their secondary status in the religion.

Nik, a co-founder of Ex-Muslim Support Network of Australia and who goes by the Twitter handle @HereticalGray, explains why she is awesome without Allah. “Because no child should be forced into a hijab/niqab. Because my worth is not determined by a cloth. Because by removing my hijab, it does not mean I am an immoral person that deserves to be raped. Because I believe everyone has a choice,” she tweeted.

“Now we are free to enjoy life as we want. Our minds are free to think what we want. Our hearts are free to love who we want. We are no longer under the commands of some narcissistic demanding being,” tweeted Yasmine Mohammed. Her profile reads: think outside the kaaba (which is depicted in form of an emoji).

‘Unapologetic Madow Lover’ (@gabariskufilan), an honour killing survivor, says she left Islam for feminism. “Because as a radical Black feminist, I can NOT be simultaneously Muslim and feminist. I choose women’s liberation. I love to travel solo, wear whatever I want without victim blaming and support LGBTQIA rights," she tweeted.

"My mother wanted me dead for removing hijab & leaving her house. She endlessly prayed for God to kill me from the moment I left & honestly believes I'm going to die soon bc "allah listens to her prayers"," tweeted Jinan Murtad, a Muslim-turned atheist, sharing her deeply personal story. “Its been 2 yrs now, I'm still alive & well but mostly #AwesomeWithoutAllah," she added.

The best part about leaving Islam, according to Meriem who recorded a video for the EXMNA campaign, is that she doesn't simply pray or fast anymore. “I am breaking free from a toxic, abusive and patriarchal environment,” she said, adding that, “No one can force me to wear something, or do something, or feel something, or be something that I'm not.”

Zara Kay, a Tanzania-Australian, tweeted a picture with her dog. “I am #AwesomeWithoutAllah Because puppies! No more feeling like I shouldn't touch dogs because they're najis," she gave her reason. She is getting a lot of abuse and threats on Twitter for coming out as an Ex-Muslim. But she is not deterred.

“I woke up to 30 messages in my inbox, people wishing death to me, calling me a bitch, talking about hellfire, or wanting to kill me. This is exactly why we need to keep fighting,” she tweeted. She also posted screenshots of some of the abuses coming her way.

In all the backlash that the 'Awesome without Allah' campaign is getting, EXMNA executive director Sarah Haider said she was 'amused by the many "omg it's the end of timess!!!" comments by believers in response to our billboards and the trending of #AwesomeWithoutAllah. I have good news! It's not THE end of times! It's the end of A time — the end of a time of religious privilege, abuse, persecution."

"If #exMuslims speaking up about their persecution, legalized murder in 12+ countries, their jailing & torture, myriad other horrors they face due to Islam makes YOU uncomfortable, it's because you can't bear to look at yourself in the mirror, have some shame!," EXMNA founder and president Muhammad Syed tweeted.

It's not just women who are speaking out and coming out of the closet. Muslim men are also doing so in droves.

Sohail Ahmed, an Ahmadi Muslim by birth, says that 'the best part of leaving Islam was in no longer having to defend verses of the Quran where the inequality of men & women is baked in.

Ali Malik, who is an atheist now, tweeted that is awesome without Allah 'because how independent, human, humble and compassionate it made me.'

"The best part of leaving Islam is to be free from mental shackles." said Abdullah Sameer in a video he shot for the EXMNA initiative.

Alireza Azami posted a photo with the hashtag showing his middle finger.

Supporting these voices of dissent, Ali A. Rizvi, a Pakistani-Canadian and author of The Atheist Muslim, said that Muslims are not immune to reason, secularism, and enlightenment. “We normalised lapsed Catholics, secular Jews, and ex-Mormons. Now it’s time to normalize ex-Muslims,” he tweeted.

Islamic theology has no love lost for the non-believers. It decrees unrelenting hostility towards kafirs. The believers must shun all kinds of relationships with them and if they are to be engaged then that should be done strictly out of necessity. They cannot be accorded any position of respect.

Even saying words of respect to them is not allowed. Not even in their death. To ask dua for them is haram. Their places of worship are places of the devil. Their festivals are haram. They are physically detestable and untrustworthy.

It is no wonder then that when a believer leaves Islam and becomes a non-believer, it is considered a great affront to the religion. That's why the punishment for apostasy is nothing short of death.

If some ex-Muslims are daring to come out in the open and speak against the problematic aspects of their former religion, their dissent not only must be fiercely protected but also promoted.

They are doing a great service to humanity and even Islam itself. Criticism and dissent is the first step toward reform. And Islam needed reformation yesterday

Jagadeesh krishnan

Psychologist and International Author

[26/08, 10:11 PM] 98 41 121780: அல்லாஹ் இல்லாமல் அற்புதம்: இந்த முஸ்லிம்கள் ஏன் இஸ்லாத்தை விட்டு வெளியேறி பெருமைப்படுகிறார்கள்

ஒரு முஸ்லீம் நம்பிக்கையை விட்டு வெளியேற விரும்புவோருக்கு அல்லது வெளியேறியவர்களுக்கு ஒரு வட அமெரிக்க குழு எவ்வாறு பொது ஆதரவை உருவாக்குகிறது.

கடந்த சில நாட்களாக, #AwesomeWithoutAllah என்ற ஹேஷ்டேக் ட்விட்டரில் ட்ரெண்டாகி வருகிறது. உலகெங்கிலும் உள்ள முன்னாள் முஸ்லீம்கள் இஸ்லாத்தை விட்டு வெளியேறி, ஷரியாவின் பிடியில் இருந்து விடுபட்டு, தங்களுக்கு முன்பு கற்பனை செய்து பார்க்க முடிந்த புதிய சுதந்திரங்களைப் பெற்ற மகிழ்ச்சியை 'டுவிட்டர்' உடன் பகிர்ந்து கொண்டாடி வருகின்றனர்.

வட அமெரிக்காவின் முன்னாள் முஸ்லிம்கள் (EXMNA), ஒரு இலாப நோக்கற்ற அமைப்பு, இந்த பிரச்சாரத்தை ஆன்லைனிலும் ஆஃப்லைனிலும் முன்னின்று நடத்துகிறது. இது பல்வேறு பொது இடங்களில் விளம்பர பலகைகளை வைத்துள்ளது. "அமெரிக்காவில் வளர்க்கப்பட்ட நான்கில் ஒரு முஸ்லிம்கள் இஸ்லாத்தை விட்டு வெளியேறினர்" என்று ஒருவர் வாசிக்கிறார். "கடவுள் இல்லாதவர். அச்சமற்ற. முன்னாள் முஸ்லீம், ”அது மேலும் கூறுகிறது.

EXMNA இலக்குகளில் ஒன்று இஸ்லாத்தை விட்டு வெளியேறுபவர்கள் எதிர்கொள்ளும் பாகுபாட்டைக் குறைப்பதாகும். இது மதச்சார்பற்ற மதிப்புகளை ஊக்குவிக்கிறது மற்றும் மத எதிர்ப்பை ஏற்றுக்கொள்ளும் வகையில் செயல்படுகிறது. இந்த முயற்சி 2012 இல் மனித உரிமை ஆர்வலர் முஹம்மது சையத் என்பவரால் நிறுவப்பட்டது.

இஸ்லாம் அதன் இணைப்பைப் பொறுத்தவரை ஒரு வழிப் பாதை. மற்ற மதத்தினரை மாற்றுவதற்கு இது அனுமதிக்கிறது, இல்லை, வலியுறுத்துகிறது. ஆனால் ஷரியா (இஸ்லாமிய சட்டம்) விதித்த தண்டனைக்காக யாரும் அதை விட்டுவிட முடியாது, ஏனெனில் துறவறம் மரணம்.

இஸ்லாத்தை விட்டு வெளியேறியதற்காக ஒருவரைக் கொல்வது வெறும் குழப்பமான கோட்பாடு அல்ல. இது முஸ்லீம் உலகம் முழுவதும் தவறாமல் அமல்படுத்தப்படுகிறது மற்றும் ஷரியா சட்டம் இல்லாத மேற்கத்திய நாடுகளையும் உள்ளடக்கியது. அரசு இஸ்லாமியமாக இல்லாத இடத்தில், வைராக்கியமுள்ள முஸ்லீம்கள் அல்லாஹ்வின் பாதையில் இருந்து ‘வழிதவறி’ வருபவர்களைத் தண்டிக்கிறார்கள். கடந்த வாரம், இஸ்லாத்தை துறந்த பெண் உறவினர் ஒருவரை கொல்ல சதி செய்ததாக இரண்டு முஸ்லீம் ஆண்கள் இங்கிலாந்தில் அதிகாரிகளால் கைது செய்யப்பட்டனர்.

"இதனால்தான் @ExmuslimsOrg முஸ்லீம் சமூகங்களில் கருத்து வேறுபாட்டை இயல்பாக்குகிறது. இதனால்தான் நாங்கள் #AwesomeWithoutAllah போன்ற பிரச்சாரங்களை நடத்துகிறோம்" என்று EXMNA இன் நிர்வாக இயக்குனர் சாரா ஹைதர் ட்வீட் செய்தார்.

துரோகிகள் கொலை செய்யப்படுவார்கள் என்ற பயத்தில் தொடர்ந்து வாழ வேண்டிய ஒரு பயங்கரமான சூழலில், அந்த அமைப்பு என்ன செய்கிறது என்பது மிகவும் தைரியமானது. ட்விட்டரில் #AwesomeWithoutAllah ட்ரெண்டில் அதன் அழைப்பில், பல முன்னாள் முஸ்லீம்கள் தங்கள் கதைகளை ஏன் மகிழ்ச்சியாக பகிர்ந்து ��ொண்டனர் இஸ்லாத்தை விட்டு. அவர்களில் பெரும்பாலானவர்கள் பெண்கள், மதத்தில் இரண்டாம் நிலை அந்தஸ்து வழங்கப்பட்டதில் ஆச்சரியமில்லை.

நிக், ஆஸ்திரேலியாவின் முன்னாள் முஸ்லீம் ஆதரவு நெட்வொர்க்கின் இணை நிறுவனர் மற்றும் @HereticalGray என்ற ட்விட்டர் கைப்பிடியின் மூலம், அவர் ஏன் அல்லாஹ் இல்லாமல் அற்புதமாக இருக்கிறார் என்பதை விளக்குகிறார். ஏனென்றால், எந்த குழந்தையும் ஹிஜாப்/நிகாப்பில் கட்டாயப்படுத்தப்படக்கூடாது. ஏனென்றால் என் மதிப்பு ஒரு துணியால் தீர்மானிக்கப்படவில்லை. ஏனென்றால், எனது ஹிஜாபை நீக்குவதன் மூலம், நான் பாலியல் பலாத்காரம் செய்யப்பட வேண்டிய ஒழுக்கமற்ற நபர் என்று அர்த்தமல்ல. ஏனென்றால் அனைவருக்கும் ஒரு தேர்வு இருக்கிறது என்று நான் நம்புகிறேன், ”என்று அவர் ட்வீட் செய்தார்.

"இ��்போது நாம் விரும்பியபடி வாழ்க்கையை அனுபவிக்க சுதந்திரமாக இருக்கிறோம். நமக்கு என்ன வேண்டும் என்று சிந்திக்க நம் மனம் சுதந்திரமாக உள்ளது. நாம் விரும்பியவரை நேசிக்க எங்கள் இதயங்கள் சுதந்திரமாக உள்ளன. நாங்கள் இனி சில நாசீசிஸ்டிக் கோட்பாடுகளின் கட்டளைகளின் கீழ் இல்லை, ”என்று யாஸ்மின் முகமது ட்வீட் செய்தார். அவளுடைய சுயவிவரம் பின்வருமாறு கூறுகிறது: காபாவுக்கு வெளியே சிந்தியுங்கள் (இது ஒரு ஈமோஜி வடிவத்தில் சித்தரிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது).

‘Unapologetic Madow Lover’ (@gabariskufilan), ஒரு க honorரவக் கொலையில் உயிர் பிழைத்தவர், அவர் பெண்ணுரிமைக்காக இஸ்லாத்தை விட்டு வெளியேறினார். "ஏனெனில் ஒரு தீவிர கருப்பு பெண்ணியவாதியாக, நான் ஒரே சமயத்தில் முஸ்லீம் மற்றும் பெண்ணியவாதியாக இருக்க முடியாது. நான் பெண் விடுதலையைத் தேர்வு செய்கிறேன். நான் தனியாக பயணம் செய்ய விரும்புகிறேன், பாதிக்கப்பட்டவரை குற்றம் சாட்டாமல் நான் விரும்பும் எதையும் அணிய விரும்புகிறேன் மற்றும் LGBTQIA உரிமைகளை ஆதரிக்கிறேன், ”என்று அவர் ட்வீட் செய்துள்ளார்.

"ஹிஜாபை அகற்றிவிட்டு வீட்டை விட்டு வெளியேறியதற்காக என் அம்மா என்னை இறக்க விரும்பினார். நான் போகும் தருணத்திலிருந்து கடவுளைக் கொல்லும்படி அவள் முடிவில்லாமல் பிரார்த்தனை செய்தாள், நான் விரைவில் இறந்துவிடுவேன் என்று நம்புகிறேன்" அல்லா அவளுடைய பிரார்த்தனைகளைக் கேட்கிறார் "என்று ஜினன் முர்டாட் ட்வீட் செய்துள்ளார். ஒரு முஸ்லீம் நாத்திகர், தனது ஆழ்ந்த தனிப்பட்ட கதையைப் பகிர்ந்து கொண்டார். "இப்போது 2 வருடங்கள் ஆகிறது, நான் இன்னும் உயிருடன் இருக்கிறேன், ஆனால் பெரும்பாலும் #AwesomeWithoutAllah," என்று அவர் மேலும் கூறினார்.

EXMNA பிரச்சாரத்திற்காக ஒரு வீடியோவைப் பதிவுசெய்த மெரீமின் கூற்றுப்படி, இஸ்லாத்தை விட்டு வெளியேறுவது பற்றிய சிறந்த பகுதி, அவள் இனி பிரார்த்தனை செய்யவோ அல்லது விரதம் இருக்கவோ இல்லை. "நான் ஒரு நச்சு, துஷ்பிரயோகம் மற்றும் ஆணாதிக்க சூழலில் இருந்து விடுபடுகிறேன்," என்று அவர் கூறினார், "யாராவது என்னை ஏதாவது அணியவோ, ஏதாவது செய்யவோ, அல்லது உணரவோ அல்லது நான் இல்லாத ஒன்றாக இருக்கவோ கட்டாயப்படுத்த முடியாது."

தான்சானியா-ஆஸ்திரேலியரான ஜாரா கே தனது நாயுடன் ஒரு படத்தை ட்வீட் செய்தார். "நான் #அற்புதமானவன் அல்லா ஏனெனில் நாய்க்குட்டிகள்! நாய்கள் நாஜிகளாக இருப்பதால் நான் அவர்களைத் தொடக் கூடாது என உணர்கிறேன், "என்று அவர் தனது காரணத்தைக் கூறினார். அவர் முன்னாள் முஸ்லீமாக வெளிவந்ததற்காக ட்விட்டரில் நிறைய துஷ்பிரயோகங்களையும் அச்சுறுத்தல்களையும் பெறுகிறார். ஆனால் அவள் தடுக்கப்படவில்லை.

"நான் என் இன்பாக்ஸில் 30 செய்திகளை எழுப்பினேன், மக்கள் எனக்கு மரணத்தை விரும்புகிறார்கள், என்னை ஒரு பிச் என்று அழைக்கிறார்கள், நரக நெருப்பைப் பற்றி பேசுகிறார்கள், அல்லது என்னைக் கொல்ல விரும்புகிறார்கள். இதனால்தான் நாங்கள் தொடர்ந்து போரா�� வேண்டும், ”என்று அவர் ட்வீட் செய்தார். அவள் வரும் சில முறைகேடுகளின் ஸ்கிரீன் ஷாட்களையும் அவர் வெளியிட்டார்.

'அல்லாஹ் இல்லாமல் அருமை' பிரச்சாரம் பெறுகின்ற அனைத்து பின்னடைவுகளிலும், எக்ஸ்எம்என்ஏ நிர்வாக இயக்குனர் சாரா ஹைதர் கூறுகையில், "ஓம்ஜி இது நேரத்தின் முடிவு !!!" எங்கள் விளம்பர பலகைகளுக்கு பதிலளிக்கும் விதமாக விசுவாசிகளின் கருத்துகள் மற்றும் #AwesomeWithoutAllah இன் போக்கு. என்னிடம் நல்ல செய்தி உள்ளது! இது காலத்தின் முடிவு அல்ல! இது ஒரு காலத்தின் முடிவு - மத சலுகை, துஷ்பிரயோகம், துன்புறுத்தல் ஆகியவற்றின் நேரத்தின் முடிவு. "

இஸ்லாமியர்கள் தங்களின் துன்புறுத்தல்கள், 12+ நாடுகளில் சட்டபூர்வமான கொலை, அவர்களின் சிறை & சித்திரவதைகள், இஸ்லாமியர்களால் அவர்கள் எதிர்கொள்ளும் எண்ணற்ற பிற கொடுமைகள் பற்றி பேசினால் உங்களுக்கு அசableகரியம் ஏற்படுகிறது என்றால், கண்ணாடியில் உங்களைப் பார்க்க நீங்கள் பொறுத்துக் கொள்ள முடியாது. சில அவமானங்கள்!

வெளியே பேசுவது மற்றும் வெளியே வருவது பெண்கள் மட்டுமல்ல. முஸ்லீம் ஆண்களும் கூட்டமாக செய்கிறார்கள்.

சோஹைல் அகமது, பிறப்பால் அஹ்மதி முஸ்லீம், 'இஸ்லாத்தை விட்டு வெளியேறுவதன் மிகச் சிறந்த பகுதி குர்ஆனின் வசனங்களை பாதுகாக்க வேண்டிய அவசியமில்லை, அங்கு ஆண்கள் மற்றும் பெண்களின் சமத்துவமின்மை சுட்டப்படுகிறது.

இப்போது நாத்திகராக இருக்கும் அலி மாலிக், அல்லாஹ் இல்லாமல் அற்புதமானவர் 'ஏனெனில் அது என்னை எவ்வளவு சுதந்திரமாகவும், மனிதனாகவும், மனத்தாழ்மையாகவும், கருணையுடனும் ஆக்கியது.'

"இஸ்லாத்தை விட்டு வெளியேறுவதில் சிறந்த பகுதி மனக் கட்டுப்பாட்டிலிருந்து விடுபடுவதாகும்." எக்ஸ்எம்என்ஏ முன்முயற்சிக்காக அவர் படம்பிடித்த வீடியோவில் அப்துல்லா சமீர் கூறினார்.

அலிரேசா ஆசாமி தனது நடுத்தர விரலைக் காட்டும் ஹேஷ்டேக்குடன் ஒரு புகைப்படத்தை வெளியிட்டார்.

இந்த எதிர்ப்புக் குரல்களை ஆதரித்து, பாகிஸ்தானிய-கனடியரும், நாத்திக முஸ்லீம் ஆசிரியருமான அலி ஏ.ரிஸ்வி, முஸ்லிம்கள் பகுத்தறிவு, மதச்சார்பின்மை மற்றும் அறிவொளி ஆகியவற்றிலிருந்து விடுபடவில்லை என்று கூறினார். "நாங்கள் கத்தோலிக்கர்கள், மதச்சார்பற்ற யூதர்கள் மற்றும் முன்னாள் மோர்மான்ஸை இயல்பாக்கினோம். முன்னாள் முஸ்லீம்களை இயல்பாக்க வேண்டிய நேரம் வந்துவிட்டது, ”என்று அவர் ட்வீட் செய்துள்ளார்.

இஸ்லாமிய இறையியல் நம்பிக்கை இல்லாதவர்கள் மீது அன்பை இழக்கவில்லை. இது காபிர்கள் மீது தீராத பகைமையை வெளிப்படுத்துகிறது. விசுவாசிகள் அவர்களுடனான அனைத்து வகையான உறவுகளையும் தவிர்க்க வேண்டும், அவர்கள் நிச்சயதார்த்தத்தில் ஈடுபட வேண்டும் என்றால் அது கண்டிப்பாக தேவையின்றி செய்யப்பட வேண்டும். அவர்களுக்கு எந்த மரியாதையும் அளிக்க முடியாது.

அவர்களுக்கு மரியாதை வார்த்தைகள் சொல்வது கூட அனுமதிக்கப்படவில்லை. அவர்களின் மரணத்தில் கூட இல்லை. அவர்களுக்காக துஆ கேட்பது ஹராம். அவர்களின் வழிபாட்டுத் தலங்கள் பிசாசின் இடங்கள். அவர்களின் பண்டிகைகள் ஹராம். அவர்கள் உடல் ரீதியாக வெறுக்கத்தக்கவர்கள் மற்றும் நம்பமுடியாதவர்கள்.

ஒரு விசுவாசி இஸ்லாத்தை விட்டு வெளியேறி, நம்பிக்கையற்றவராக மாறும்போது, அது மார்க்கத்திற்கு பெரும் அவமானமாக கருதப்படுவதில் ஆச்சரியமில்லை. அதனால்தான் துறவுக்கான தண்டனை மரணத்திற்கு குறைவாக இல்லை.

சில முன்னாள் முஸ்லீம்கள் வெளிப்படையாக வெளியே வந்து தங்கள் முன்னாள் மதத்தின் பிரச்சனையான அம்சங்களுக்கு எதிராக பேசத் துணிந்தால், அவர்களின் கருத்து வேறுபாடு கடுமையாகப் பாதுகாக்கப்படுவது மட்டுமல்லாமல் ஊக்குவிக்கப்பட வேண்டும்.

அவர்கள் மனிதகுலத்திற்கும் இஸ்லாத்திற்கும் கூட ஒரு சிறந்த சேவையைச் செய்கிறார்கள். விமர்சனமும் கருத்து வேறுபாடும் சீர்திருத்தத்திற்கான முதல் படியாகும். இஸ்லாத்திற்கு நேற்று சீர்திருத்தம் தேவைப்பட்டது

மூலம்

ஜெகதீஷ் கிருஷ்ணன்

உளவியலாளர் மற்றும் சர்வதேச எழுத்தாளர்

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rightsinexile · 4 years ago

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Publications

“Competition between industrial and artisanal miners is a source of tension in the Democratic Republic of Congo” - Mineral Concessions: Avoiding Conflict in DR Congo’s Mining Heartland. International Crisis Group. 30 June 2020.

“Yemen’s terrible war grinds on, despite a COVID-19 epidemic that has deepened what was already the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Stopping the fighting is urgent. Diplomats should adopt an inclusive, multiparty framework for talks to replace today’s flawed model.” - Rethinking Peace in Yemen. International Crisis Group. 2 July 2020.

“This article examines closely the crucial link between religious conversions of two groups of refugees from Islam to Evangelism by taking up the cases of Afghan and Iranian refugees in India and in Turkey, respectively” - Religious conversions in forced migration. Sebnem Koser Akcapar. Journal of Eurasian Studies. 2019.

“With the Multinational Joint Task Force, the Lake Chad basin states are combining efforts to defeat jihadist elements that endanger them all. It has won some victories but militants have recovered. To keep progressing, and secure more funds, the four armies should deepen their cooperation.” - What Role for the Multinational Joint Task Force in Fighting Boko Haram?. International Crisis Group. 7 July 2020.

“The global refugee crisis reveals refugees and other forcibly displaced persons (FDP) are uniquely vulnerable consumers on a dynamic pathway precipitated by trigger events that have disrupted or fractured marketing systems requisite for safety and well-being, resulting in dangerous journeys to temporary or permanent settlements.” - The Global Refugee Crisis: Pathway for a More Humanitarian Solution. Marcos Ferreira Santos et al.. Journal of Macromarketing. 2020.

“This report provides a contextual analysis of the provision of reception to asylum seekers in Lebanon, with a particular focus on the developments of the period spanning 2011 to 2019.” - Reception Policies, Practices and Responses – Lebanon Country Report. Karen Rahme. Respond Working Paper Series. 2020.

“This article compares lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) 'activist-humanitarianism' in Beirut and Athens. In both locations, 'out' or 'outed' refugees endure a unique combination of structural and physical violence. In response, LGBT activists and their allies have established grassroots aid and solidarity networks.” - Against Abandonment Activist-Humanitarian Responses to LGBT Refugees in Athens and Beirut. Philip Proudfoot. The Oxford Journal of Refugee Studies. 2020.

“This report provides guidance to policy makers, donors and development and humanitarian organisations on policy options for host countries that cater to their own development needs, as well as the needs of refugees in protracted situations.” - Bridging Refugee Protection and Development. Maegan Hendow. 2019.

“This report seeks to analyse border and migration governance in Lebanon; it provides an overview of legislation and policies concerned with border management and control in Lebanon, by systematically analysing pre-entry controls, controls at the border, internal control regimes, and return policies.” - Lebanon's Border Regime: Fluid Rigidity, Foreign Interference, and Hybrid Security Assemblages Working Papers Global Migration: Consequences and Responses. Risha Jagarnathsingh. RESPOND Working Paper Series. 2019.

“This report examines how the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) downplayed the risk of COVID-19 in its detention system through insufficient testing, rejection of expert advice, failure to report on COVID-19 infections among staff of the private contractors that largely administer this system, and adoption of guidelines with which virtually none of its facilities could comply.” - Immigrant Detention and COVID-19: How a Pandemic Exploited and Spread through the US Immigrant Detention System. Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS). August 2020.

“This MPI Europe report explores the varied forms these programs take, with their content, timing, and delivery shaped by the refugees’ situation and the resettlement country’s resources and priorities.” - Preparing for the Unknown: Designing Effective Predeparture Orientation for Resettling Refugees. Lena Kainz. Migration Policy Institute. 2019.

“The Asylum Research Centre Foundation (ARC Foundation) and the Dutch Council for Refugees (DCR) provide comments on the various methodologies, as well as on specific issues/profiles of importance for an assessment of international protection status determination of Syrians regarding the publication of the seven recent European Asylum Support Office’s (EASO) Country of Origin Information (COI) reports on Syria.” - Commentary on EASO's COI reports on Syria. Asylum Research Centre Foundation/Dutch Council for Refugees, June 2020.

“From a COI methodological standpoint, it is considered that the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) reports diverge from some of the accepted principles and standards of COI, i.e. relevance, reliability, balance, neutrality, accuracy, currency, traceability and transparency.” - Commentary on the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's (DFAT) Country Report on Sri Lanka. Asylum Research Centre Foundation. July 2020.

“The UK Home Office fact-finding missions to Sri Lanka took place between 28th September to 5th October 2019 and was conducted to gather “accurate and up-to-date information from a range of sources about a number of issues concerning the treatment of Tamils” and “the treatment of members of diaspora groups” in order to “complement existing publicly available material”. - Sri Lanka: Observations on UK Home Office's Fact Finding Mission report. Asylum Research Centre Foundation. July 2020.

“This report presents the findings of DTM Round 30 (March- April 2020) data collection, in which at least 625,638 migrants from over 44 countries of origin were identified in Libya.” - Libya - Migrant Report 30 (March - April 2020). International Organization of Migration. 29 June 2020.

“The outbreak of Coronavirus and the ensuing lockdown have devastated the asylum seekers’ community in Israel - a community already marginalized and living in poverty. The restrictions on movement, loss of earnings and extreme uncertainty have pushed the community into an ongoing crisis. Many asylum seekers are struggling to feed themselves and their families; many face losing their homes as they are unable to pay rent.” - ASSAF’s activities to support asylum seekers during the lockdown imposed in Israel to combat COVID-19 (March-May 2020). Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel. July 2020.

“This handbook contributes to the objectives of the Action Plan by providing a practical guide both to key legal standards and to promising practices in the field of family reunification and restoring family links.” - Family reunification standards and promising practices. The Council of Europe. 2 July 2020.

“The new Greek asylum law that entered into force on 1 January 2020 has significantly diminished protection for people seeking asylum. The law and its amendments increase asylum seekers’ vulnerabilities, while limiting access to their fundamental right to seek asylum and be protected from serious risks. Meanwhile, the Greek policies and practices are part of a worrying EU-wide effort to reduce the number of refugees who can find safety in European countries.” - Diminished, derogated, denied: how the right to asylum in Greece is undermined by the lack of EU responsibility sharing. Oxfam International. 2 July 2020.

“This operational report presents a comparative analysis of data collected from the first baseline of the ReDSS annual aspirations survey conducted in Somalia from June to September 2019 in four locations: Baidoa, Dollow, Kismayo and Mogadishu. The aspirations survey focuses on five specific themes that impact displacement and that reflect the most important dimensions of local (re)integration for internally displaced persons (IDPs): (1) displacement patterns; (2) economic development; (3) social integration; (4) perceptions of safety and security; and (5) housing, land, and property (HLP)” - Listening to Displacement Affected Communities Over Time. ReDSS. 2019.

“This report examines to what extent, and how, States from the East and Horn of Africa contribute to the advancement of women’s and girls’ rights at the UN Human Rights Council.” - Making a difference for Women and Girls?. Eastern and Horn of Africa countries and women’s and girls’ rights at the UN Human Rights Council. Defend Defenders. June 2020.

“Approximately 370 refugees remain stranded offshore –seven years since Operation Sovereign Borders was launched to stop refugees arriving by boat. Amnesty International is deeply concerned about the level of human rights violations under the Australian Government’s policies of deterrence and detention -both onshore and offshore –which punish people fleeing persecution and seeking safety in Australia.” - Australia: Human Rights in Review. Amnesty International. 2020.

“The EASO COI report Afghanistan, Anti-Government Elements (AGEs) provides an overview of the main Anti-Government Elements (AGEs) in Afghanistan, primarily the Taliban and Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), with a focus on describing their modus operandi, structure and activities with respect to targeted killings and attacks on particular profiles.” - EASO: Country of origin information report - Afghanistan. European Asylum Support Office (EASO). 10 August 2020.

“This guidance informs of the planned process to resume substantive asylum interviews, mainly via video conferencing. This guidance does not replace the Asylum Interviews guidance, and should be read and implemented in partnership with that guidance.” - On resumption of substantive asylum interviews in the UK. UK Home Office. 6 August 2020.

“Aiming to advance protection standards, refugee law specialists have produced a vast body of advocacy scholarship. Literature within the field is framed by a protection narrative that speaks of a human rights approach to refugee law premised on legal duties and moral obligations towards refugees and the economic and cultural benefits that flow from fulfilling them. Having previously enjoyed varying degrees of acceptance by European policy makers and the public, the protection narrative has lost traction in the current EU refugee crisis.” - Refugee Advocacy Scholarship. Canadian Journal of Human Rights. 2019.

“In recent years, the United States and Mexico have taken a series of steps that make it easier to return Guatemalans back to their home country. These steps include policies and programs related to detention, deportation, and limits in asylum, such as the Remain in Mexico program (officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols or MPP by its acronym). These measures force home many Guatemalans with valid refugee claims who are at risk of persecution upon return. Others have legitimate fears for their security and safety when they get home because returnees are at greater risk of becoming targets of violence and extortion. Once back, Guatemalans often struggle to reintegrate.” - Harmful returns: the compounded vulnerabilities of returned Guatemalans in the time of Covid-19. Refugees International. June 2020.

“Global, European and national trends and events shaped developments in asylum in 2019. To bring diverse perspectives together in one place, observations by civil society organisations and other partners are presented throughout the report by topic. In 2019,their concerns mainly centred around access to procedure, reception conditions and criteria for the detention of applicants. Throughout the sections, relevant case law is also described as national courts continued to interpret a wide range of aspects related to CEAS.” - EASO annual report 2020. European Asylum Support Office (EASO). 2020.

“It has been seven years since 19 July 2013. On that date, the Australian Government announced that anyone who arrived in Australia by boat to seek protection and was taken to offshore processing centres on Nauru and Manus Island, would never be resettled in Australia even if they were processed and recognised to be a refugee.” - Seven Years On: An Overview of Australia Offshore Processing Policies. Refugee Council of Australia. July 2020.

“A camp may be described as a temporary space in which individuals receive humanitarian relief and protection until a durable solution can be found to their situation. The camp environment is often riddled with contradictions - the camp can be a place of refuge while at the same time, a place of overcrowding, exclusion, and suffering. This article asks to what extent removal of an individual from state A to state B, where he or she will have to live in a camp, is a breach of state A's human rights law obligations” - Complementary Protection and Encampment. Bríd Ní Ghráinne. Human rights Law Review. 2019.

“Current challenges to the traditionally privileged position of law in both refugee policy and refugee studies invite scholars to consider carefully the approach we take to our craft. This article argues that refugee law scholarship is surrounded by thin walls, as researchers broker the ‘dual imperative’ to simultaneously advance knowledge and protection in a field heavily influenced by policy interests and networks of practitioners that actively take part in, and promote, scholarly production” - International Refugee Law between Scholarship and Practice. Rosemary Byrne, Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen. International Journal of Refugee Law. 15 June 2020.

“This report tells a chilling story – one with many strands, originating in towns, cities and villages across the African continent, but which converge in Libya, where the abuses against refugees and migrants travelling along what has become known as the Central Mediterranean Route have blighted tens of thousands of lives over the last decade.” - On this journey, no one cares if you live or die.' Abuse, protection, and justice along routes between East and West Africa and Africa's Mediterranean coast. UNHCR. July 2020.

“Since the Syrian conflict began in March 2011, men and boys and transgender women have been subjected to rape and other forms of sexual violence by the Syrian government and non-state armed groups, including the extremist armed group Islamic State (also known as ISIS). Heterosexual men and boys are vulnerable to sexual violence in Syria, but men who are gay or bisexual—or perceived to be—and transgender women are particularly at risk.” - “They Treated Us in Monstrous Ways”: Sexual Violence Against Men, Boys, and Transgender Women in the Syrian Conflict. Brian Stauffer. Human Rights Watch. 29 July 2020.

“As members of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW Sydney, we are pleased to provide this submission to the Inquiry into the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for Australia’s foreign affairs, defence and trade. Our submission considers two issues relevant to the Inquiry’s terms of reference and the Centre’s expertise.” - Submission for the Inquiry into the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for Australia’s foreign affairs, defence and trade. The Kaldor Centre. 29 June 2020.

#refugee #asylum #asylum seeker

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xtruss · 4 years ago

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The Ugliest Face of China

China’s Repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang

More than a million Muslims have been arbitrarily detained in China’s Xinjiang region. The reeducation camps are just one part of the government’s crackdown on Uighurs.

— Backgrounder by Lindsay Maizland | Last updated June 30, 2020 | Council on Foreign Relations

A Uighur man works at his shop in Kashgar in Xinjiang Province. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

The Chinese government has reportedly detained more than a million Muslims in reeducation camps. Most of the people who have been arbitrarily detained are Uighur, a predominantly Turkic-speaking ethnic group primarily from China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang.

Human rights organizations, UN officials, and many foreign governments are urging China to stop the crackdown. But Chinese officials maintain that what they call vocational training centers do not infringe on Uighurs’ human rights. They have refused to share information about the detention centers, and prevented journalists and foreign investigators from examining them. However, internal Chinese government documents leaked in late 2019 have provided important details on how officials launched and maintain the detention camps.

When did mass detentions of Muslims start?

Some eight hundred thousand to two million Uighurs and other Muslims, including ethnic Kazakhs and Uzbeks, have been detained since April 2017, according to experts and government officials [PDF]. Outside of the camps, the eleven million Uighurs living in Xinjiang have continued to suffer from a decades-long crackdown by Chinese authorities.

Most people in the camps have never been charged with crimes and have no legal avenues to challenge their detentions. The detainees seem to have been targeted for a variety of reasons, according to media reports, including traveling to or contacting people from any of the twenty-six countries China considers sensitive, such as Turkey and Afghanistan; attending services at mosques; having more than three children; and sending texts containing Quranic verses. Often, their only crime is being Muslim, human rights groups say, adding that many Uighurs have been labeled as extremists simply for practicing their religion.

Hundreds of camps are located in Xinjiang. Officially known as the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, the northwestern region has been claimed by China since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took power in 1949. Some Uighurs living there refer to the region as East Turkestan and argue that it ought to be independent from China. Xinjiang takes up one-sixth of China’s landmass and borders eight countries, including Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Experts estimate that Xinjiang reeducation efforts started in 2014 and were drastically expanded in 2017. Reuters journalists, observing satellite imagery, found that thirty-nine of the camps almost tripled in size between April 2017 and August 2018; they cover a total area roughly the size of 140 soccer fields. Similarly, analyzing local and national budgets over the past few years, Germany-based Xinjiang expert Adrian Zenz found that construction spending on security-related facilities in Xinjiang increased by 20 billion yuan (around $2.96 billion) in 2017.

What is happening in the camps?

Information on what actually happens in the camps is limited, but many detainees who have since fled China describe harsh conditions. Detainees are forced to pledge loyalty to the CCP and renounce Islam, they say, as well as sing praises for communism and learn Mandarin. Some reported prison-like conditions, with cameras and microphones monitoring their every move and utterance. Others said they were tortured and subjected to sleep deprivation during interrogations. Women have shared stories of sexual abuse, with some saying they were forced to undergo abortions or have contraceptive devices implanted against their will. Some released detainees contemplated suicide or witnessed others kill themselves.

Detention also disrupts families. Children whose parents have been sent to the camps are often forced to stay in state-run orphanages. Uighur parents living outside of China often face a difficult choice: return home to be with their children and risk detention, or stay abroad, separated from their children and unable to contact them.

Why is China detaining Uighurs in Xinjiang now?

Chinese officials are concerned that Uighurs hold extremist and separatist ideas, and they view the camps as a way of eliminating threats to China’s territorial integrity, government, and population.

President Xi Jinping warned of the “toxicity of religious extremism” and advocated for using the tools of “dictatorship” to eliminate Islamist extremism in a series of secret speeches while visiting Xinjiang in 2014. In the speeches, revealed by the New York Times in November 2019, Xi did not explicitly call for arbitrary detention but laid the groundwork for the crackdown in Xinjiang.

Arbitrary detention became widely used by regional officials under Chen Quanguo, Xinjiang’s Communist Party secretary, who moved to the region in 2016 after holding a top leadership position in Tibet. Known for increasing the number of police and security checkpoints, as well as state control over Buddhist monasteries in Tibet, Chen has since dramatically intensified security in Xinjiang. He repeatedly called on officials to “round up everyone who should be rounded up,” according to the New York Times report.

In March 2017, Xinjiang’s government passed an anti-extremism law that prohibited people from growing long beards and wearing veils in public. It also officially recognized the use of training centers to eliminate extremism.

Workers walk along the fence of a likely detention center for Muslims in Xinjiang Province on September 4, 2018. Thomas Peter/Reuters

Under Xi, the CCP has pushed to Sinicize religion, or shape all religions to conform to the officially atheist party’s doctrines and the majority Han-Chinese society’s customs. Though the government recognizes five religions—Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Islam, and Protestantism—it has long feared that foreigners could use religious practice to spur separatism.

The Chinese government has come to characterize any expression of Islam in Xinjiang as extremist, a reaction to past independence movements and occasional outbursts of violence. The government has blamed terrorist attacks on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a separatist group founded by militant Uighurs, in recent decades. Following the 9/11 attacks, the Chinese government started justifying its actions toward Uighurs as part of the Global War on Terrorism. It said it would combat what it calls “the three evils”—separatism, religious extremism, and international terrorism—at all costs.

In 2009, rioting in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, broke out as mostly Uighur demonstrators protested against state-incentivized Han Chinese migration in the region and widespread economic and cultural discrimination. Nearly two hundred people were killed, and experts say it marked a turning point in Beijing’s attitude toward Uighurs. In the eyes of Beijing, all Uighurs could potentially be terrorists or terrorist sympathizers.

During the next few years, authorities blamed Uighurs for attacks at a local government office, train station, and open-air market, as well as Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The government also feared that thousands of Uighurs who moved to Syria to fight for various militant groups, including the self-proclaimed Islamic State, after the outbreak of civil war in 2011 would return to China and spark violence.

Are economic factors involved in this crackdown?

Xinjiang is an important link in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a massive development plan stretching through Asia and Europe. Beijing hopes to eradicate any possibility of separatist activity to continue its development of Xinjiang, which is home to China’s largest coal and natural gas reserves. Human rights organizations have observed that the economic benefits of resource extraction and development are often disproportionately enjoyed by Han Chinese, and Uighur people are increasingly marginalized.

Many people who were arbitrarily detained have been forced to work in factories close to the detention camps, according to multiple reports [PDF]. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute estimates that since 2017 eighty thousand previously detained Uighurs have been sent to factories throughout China linked to eighty-three global brands. Researchers from the Center for Strategic and International Studies say forced labor is an important element of the government’s plan for Xinjiang’s economic development, which includes making it a hub of textile and apparel manufacturing. Chinese officials have described the policy as “poverty alleviation.”

What do Chinese officials say about the camps?

Government officials first denied the camps’ existence. Starting in October 2018, officials started calling them centers for “vocational education and training programs.” In March 2019, their official name became “vocational training centers,” and Xinjiang’s governor, Shohrat Zakir, described them as “boarding schools” that provide job skills to “trainees” who are voluntarily admitted and allowed to leave the camps. But documents leaked in late 2019 showed how officials worked to repress Uighurs, lock them in camps, and prevent them from leaving.

Chinese officials publicly maintain that the camps have two purposes: to teach Mandarin, Chinese laws, and vocational skills, and to prevent citizens from becoming influenced by extremist ideas, to “nip terrorist activities in the bud,” according to a government report. Pointing out that Xinjiang has not experienced a terrorist attack since December 2016, officials claim the camps have prevented violence.

The government has resisted international pressure to allow in outside investigators, saying anything happening inside Xinjiang is an internal issue. It denies that people are forced to denounce Islam, are detained against their will, and experience abuse in the camps. In early 2019, it organized several trips for foreign diplomats to visit Xinjiang and tour a center; a U.S. official criticized them as “highly choreographed.”

What is happening outside the camps in Xinjiang?

Even before the camps became a major part of the Chinese government’s anti-extremism campaign, the government was accused of cracking down on religious freedom and basic human rights in Xinjiang.

Experts say Xinjiang has been turned into a surveillance state that relies on cutting-edge technology to monitor millions of people. Under Xinjiang’s Communist Party leader, Chen, Xinjiang was placed under a grid-management system, as described in media reports, in which cities and villages were split into squares of about five hundred people. Each square has a police station that closely monitors inhabitants by regularly scanning their identification cards, taking their photographs and fingerprints, and searching their cell phones. In some cities, such as western Xinjiang’s Kashgar, police checkpoints are found every one hundred yards or so, and facial-recognition cameras are everywhere. The government also collects and stores citizens’ biometric data through a required program advertised as Physicals for All.

Much of that information is collected into a massive database, known as the Integrated Joint Operations Platform, which then uses artificial intelligence to create lists of so-called suspicious people. Classified Chinese government documents released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in November 2019 revealed that more than fifteen thousand Xinjiang residents were placed in detention centers during a seven-day period in June 2017 after being flagged by the algorithm. The Chinese government called the leaked documents “pure fabrication” and maintained that the camps are education and training centers.

Many aspects of Muslim life have been erased, journalists reporting from Xinjiang have found. Communist Party members have been recruited since 2014 to stay in Uighur homes and report on any perceived “extremist” behaviors, including fasting during Ramadan. Officials have destroyed mosques, claiming the buildings were shoddily constructed and unsafe for worshippers. Uighur and other minority women have reported forced sterilizations and intrauterine device insertions, and officials have threatened to detain anyone who has too many children. Uighur parents are banned from giving their babies certain names, including Mohammed and Medina. Halal food, which is prepared according to Islamic law, has become harder to find in Urumqi as the local government has launched a campaign against it.

Beijing has also pressured other governments to repatriate Uighurs who have fled China. In 2015, for example, Thailand returned more than one hundred Uighurs, and in 2017 Egypt deported several students. The documents released by ICIJ showed that the Chinese government instructed officials to collect information on Chinese Uighurs living abroad and called for many to be arrested as soon as they reentered China.

What has the global response been?

Much of the world has condemned China’s detention of Uighurs in Xinjiang. The UN human rights chief and other UN officials have demanded access to the camps. The European Union has called on China to respect religious freedom and change its policies in Xinjiang. And human rights organizations have urged China to immediately shut down the camps and answer questions about disappeared Uighurs.

Notably silent are many Muslim nations. Prioritizing their economic ties and strategic relationships with China, many governments have ignored the human rights abuses. In July 2019, after a group of mostly European countries—and no Muslim-majority countries—signed a letter to the UN human rights chief condemning China’s actions in Xinjiang, more than three dozen states, including Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, signed their own letter [PDF] praising China’s “remarkable achievements” in human rights and its “counterterrorism” efforts in Xinjiang. Earlier in 2019, Turkey became the only Muslim-majority country to voice concern when its foreign minister called on China to ensure “the full protection of the cultural identities of the Uighurs and other Muslims” during a UN Human Rights Council session.

In October 2019, the United States imposed visa restrictions on Chinese officials “believed to be responsible for, or complicit in” the detention of Muslims in Xinjiang. It also blacklisted more than two dozen Chinese companies and agencies linked to abuses in the region—including surveillance technology manufacturers and Xinjiang’s public security bureau—effectively blocking them from buying U.S. products. In June 2020, President Donald J. Trump signed legislation, passed with overwhelming support from Congress, mandating that individuals, including Chen, face sanctions for oppressing Uighurs. The law also requires that U.S. businesses and individuals selling products to or operating in Xinjiang ensure their activities don’t contribute to human rights violations, including the use of forced labor.

Human Rights Watch has advocated other actions the United States and other countries could take: publicly challenging Xi; denying exports of technologies that facilitate abuse; pressing China to allow UN investigators in Xinjiang; and preventing China from targeting members of the Uighur diaspora. Activists have also called on the United States to grant asylum to Uighurs who have fled Xinjiang.

— Jessica Moss contributed to this report.

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southeastasianists · 7 years ago

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In Myanmar, rumours abound about the assault and coercion of Buddhist women. What makes this trope of everyday storytelling—often factually inaccurate—so resistant to “debunking”?

Based on more than four years of in-depth qualitative research, we argue that rumours are durable because they resonate with, and allocate blame for, the suffering and stagnation of the 1990s and 2000s.

We see these dynamics at play in support for the four “Protection of Race and Religion” laws. Drafted with assistance of Buddhist organisation Ma Ba Tha, they were passed in the final months of the U Thein Sein government and remain a thorn in the side of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy government.

During the 2012 to 2016 period when we were conducting fieldwork in Yangon and in central Myanmar, discussions about these laws with interlocutors often centred on detailed rumours propagated on Facebook and by trusted contacts.

Muslim men, we were often told, were attempting to sexually assault or force the conversion of Buddhist women to Islam through “terrorism”, financial incentives or complex legal contracts. The allegedly high birth rate within the Muslim community was cited as “proof” of a systematic “strategy” to propagate Islam and thereby weaken Buddhism in Myanmar.

Assumptions that Muslims are wealthy, sexually deviant and capable of coercing outcomes reflect findings of the Myanmar Media and Society project from University of Oxford. Based on interviews around the country, that research showed how people in Myanmar are reframing memories of the past as they try to make sense of recent communal conflict as well as global narratives of Islamic extremism.

We argue that rumours about Myanmar’s Muslims are seen to contain an element of “truth” because they project blame for decades of suffering under military rule.

Consider the following scene, which unfolded in a betel nut shop in central Myanmar in mid-2015. A young Burmese man showed a Facebook clip on his smartphone, titled “Something everyone should watch”, to the other attendees lazing on plastic chairs in a dusty market. The young man had found the video on Facebook, where it had been shared more than 3,000 times.

The seven-minute clip showed a quarrel in a busy market between a bearded man in his late 30s—presumed to be Muslim by those watching—and a young woman in her early 20s, who was presumed to be Buddhist.

In the clip, apparently filmed on a bystander’s smartphone, the agitated young woman repeatedly lambasts the bearded man as a “liar”, while slapping him and saying he “promised to marry her”.

After watching the video, discussion at the table framed the story of the young woman as a cautionary tale about inter-religious relationships but also of the economic advantage of Muslims. One man said, “He has a lot of money, so she is interested in him. But you really cannot trust them [Muslims].”

The video sparked discussion of the alleged economic dominance of Muslims, the potential for sexual exploitation of “naïve” Buddhist women as well as petty corruption in the bureaucracy that “gives Muslims more chances and opportunities”.

Attendees agreed that it was best to be “careful” with Muslims, mentioning stories of lived suffering during Myanmar’s military period and the way Muslims allegedly experienced this period differently due to their “wealth” and ability to bribe government officials.

This was neither a unique or unusual discussion, and nor was it factually correct. Muslims control a tiny proportion of Myanmar’s economy compared to military-linked businesspeople, for example.

However, similar cautionary tales recur at betel shops and other meeting places, real and virtual, around the country. Behind these discussions are narratives of suffering interlinked with concern about the moral and spiritual decline of a Buddhist-imbued notion of “nation”.

Ko Kyaw Win (a pseudonym), a petty trader in his 20s from a poor urban family in a Buddhist majority town in central Myanmar, sheds lights on those narratives. Kyaw Win began volunteering for the “969” movement after listening at a local monastery to a sermon by U Wirathu about the 2012 Rakhine violence.

Deeply disturbed by the detailed accounts of rape described in the sermon, he contributed two weeks of his meagre salary—a donation of the equivalent of around US$100—to have 500 DVDs made of U Wirathu’s sermons. Over the space of a few weeks in 2013, Kyaw Win disseminated these DVDs throughout rural and urban areas as part of his trading routes. Later, he helped distribute petitions for Ma Ba Tha’s nationwide signature campaign in support of the four “Laws for Protection of Race and Religion”.

Throughout 2015 and 2016, one of the authors regularly met with Kyaw Win. During these interactions he often recounted stories of how he and his family had suffered through the 1990s and 2000s.

They had struggled because of Myanmar’s economic isolation, high unemployment and, as he put it, “shit-bag health and education systems”. For Kyaw Win, the “economic” and “moral” states of Myanmar were closely intertwined. He said that “most people are morally destroyed…they have no time to meditate or do social work”.

He blamed successive military regimes for “disconnecting Myanmar from the rest of the world”. He even refused to vote in the November 2015 elections, saying he was unable to choose between the Union Solidarity and Development Party, which he said was “corrupt”, or the National League for Democracy, which had “quarreled with monks”.

In explaining the need for the race and religion laws, however, Kyaw Win blended specific rumours about the desecration of Buddha images and the physical violation and exploitation of Buddhist women at the hands of “Islamic terrorism” with a sincerely held concern about the future of Buddhism.

Kyaw Win said that Ma Ba Tha believed that “there should be no terrorism in religion” and that they had drafted the package of four laws for “protecting race/nation”.

“Many Buddhist women are marrying people of other religions. The Ma Ba Tha laws allow Buddhist women to marry people of other religions, but they make sure that monks check if there is any terrorism,” he argued.

“If a Buddhist woman tells the monks that she is converting to Islam, the monks must check if it is her real attitude and will or if there is any terrorism like a debt that she owes him.”

The clarity of Kyaw Win and other Ma Ba Tha activists’ narratives of suffering and frustration during the 1990s contrasts sharply with the figure of the wealthy, sexually deviant Muslim man that is seen to justify discriminatory legislation and requires monks to “protect Buddhist women”.

The associations and attribution of grievances embedded in these rumours and explanations are neither natural nor automatic. Here is the power of gendered rumours: they link real and experienced suffering and grievances with the embodied vulnerability of women and, by extension, the social reproduction of Buddhism. Whether they are true or false, the power of these stories lies in the allocation of blame to a non-military scapegoat for the suffering of authoritarian rule.

The loaded nature of everyday rumours means that anti-Muslim prejudice cannot be addressed simply through “public education” or “debunking” campaigns that do not acknowledge experiences of suffering and grievance.

If the NLD wants to address Myanmar’s widespread Islamophobia and build an inclusive democracy, it must start by apportioning blame to the real culprits for the suffering of the 1990s and 2000s and begin to bring social and economic improvements to the lives of ordinary people.

…………………

Gerard McCarthy is associate director of the Australian National University’s Myanmar Research Centre, and a PhD Candidate at the ANU’s Department of Political and Social Change.

Jacqueline Menager is a PhD Candidate at the ANU’s Department of Political and Social Change.

This article first appeared at Frontier Myanmar and is republished with permission. Its content is extracted and adapted from “Gendered Rumours and the Muslim Scapegoat in Myanmar’s Transition”, which was recently published in a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Asia (vol 47, no 3, 2017, 396-412).

#Southeast Asia #Burma #Myanmar #Buddhism #Islam #Religion

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