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International News Briefs |
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By Various Authors
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Qaradawi, Rafsanjani urge unity
By Ahmad Maher
IslamOnline.net
CAIRO, Egypt -- Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of Iran’s influential Expediency Council, called on Muslims all the world over to act in unison and take into their strides differences to face challenges ahead.
In the meeting on February 14, Rafsanjani warned that "the enemy" was trying to pit Muslims against one another and throw a spanner in the good work of Sunni and Shiite scholars to cement their unity.
He said the Lebanese victory over Israel last summer has provoked the adversaries to sow division among Muslim countries as they fear a strong Muslim front if all Muslim countries have acted in unison.
"Muslims have a plethora of problems in Somalia, Sudan, Iraq and elsewhere but unity can resolve them all," said Rafsanjani.
Qaradawi further said differences with Shiites in certain issues should not be used a pretext by some Sunnis to support any aggression by the West on Tehran.
"If Iran was attacked by the United States, we would rally behind it, no doubt about that," he said.
China executes Uighur Muslim activist
AFP
WASHINGTON -- China has executed an ethnic Uighur Muslim activist on charges he tried to "split the (Chinese) motherland," according to the US government-sponsored Radio Free Asia.
Ismail Semed, whom his wife has said was forced into confessing to his alleged crimes, was executed in the far-west Chinese city of Urumqi on February 8, RFA said.
Semed was deported to China from Pakistan in 2003 and was sentenced to death October 31, 2005 by the Urumqi City Intermediate People’s Court for "attempting to split the motherland" and "possessing firearms and explosives," Uighur sources told the radio station.
Sources close to the case said the charges were based on the allegation that Semed was a founding member of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a Muslim Uighur separatist movement which Beijing has outlawed as a terrorist group.
T. Kumar of Amnesty International in Washington said "hundreds, if not thousands, were killed or seriously injured" in unrest sparked by the inbcident in February 1997 in which Chinese security forces broke up a Uighur demonstration in Yining (Ghulja).
Poll: Muslim-West divide can be bridged
By D’arcy Doran
Associated Press
LONDON -- A majority of people around the world do not believe the world is locked in a "clash of civilizations" that will lead to violent conflict between Islam and the West, according to findings of a poll published Monday.
The British Broadcasting Corp. World Service poll of more than 28,000 people found that 56 percent of respondents believed "common ground can be found" between Muslims and Westerners, while only 28 percent said violence was inevitable.
The survey also found that 52 percent of people believed that tensions between Muslims and Westerners were caused by political power and interests, compared to 29 percent who said religion and culture were to blame.
Pollsters questioned about 1,000 people in 27 different countries, including the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, India, Brazil, Mexico and Australia; as well as four predominantly Muslim countries: Egypt, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia; and two countries with large Muslim populations: Lebanon and Nigeria.
Iraqi troops admit rape charges
IslamOnline.net and News Agencies
BAGHDAD — One Iraqi officer and three soldiers have confessed to raping a Sunni woman in northern Iraq, the second such sexual assault in a week of Sunni women by Iraqi security forces
Tal Afar Mayor Brigadier General Najim Abdullah Al-Jubari told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the troops – three soldiers and an officer – initially denied the charges but later confessed when the women identified them at an identity parade.
It has not been confirmed if the soldiers are Shiites, which could further raise sectarian tensions in Iraq.
When asked why she did not report the attack, the victim, a 40-year-old married mother of 11 from Iraq’s Turkoman minority, said, "Who do I complain to? Noone allows us to complain."
According to human rights groups, several Iraqi women fell victims for sexual abuse by both Iraqi and US forces, but most of the cases went unreported.
This came one day after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki sacked Ahmad Abdel Ghafour Al-Samarrai, the head of the government-funded Sunni Endowment, for accusing Iraqi police of raping Sunni women.
"The government wants to hush any voice that seeks the truth," a Sunni mosque imam told IslamOnline.net, requesting anonymity.
Additional reporting by Anas Al-Ubaidi
Charles visits Kuwait Grand mosque
AFP
Prince Charles and his wife Camilla on February 21 visited Kuwait’s Grand Mosque and met with officials to discuss the Gulf state’s efforts to promote inter-faith understanding.
The royal couple also met with Kuwait’s religious affairs minister Abdullah al-Maatouq and the directors of two centers working on improving Western perceptions of Islam.
The royal couple also vistited Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
The Prince’s office said the visit would "advance key British government priorities in the promotion of moderate Islam, military cooperation, environmental protection and energy security."
OIC chair Malaysia says to sever ties with Israel
AFP
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Malaysia, the chair of the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), has said Saturday the grouping had agreed to sever ties with Israel over its works at the Al-Aqsa mosque.
"We suggested that Islamic countries having diplomatic relations with Israel sever the ties or recall their ambassadors temporarily to show that we are serious and do not engage in mere empty talk," the Bernama news agency quoted Foreign Minister Syed Hamid as saying.
Malaysia has long been a critic of Israel’s policies in the Middle East and does not have diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.
The country earlier this month called on the United Nations Security Council to intervene and put pressure on Israel to halt work near Jerusalem’s holy Al-Aqsa mosque compound that has enraged Muslims around the world.
Malaysia also suggested the OIC seek a resolution from the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Israel’s actions, Bernama reported.
US to have Africa military command
Al Jazeera
WASHINGTON -- The US president has approved plans to create a US military command for Africa, a move that reflects increasing US strategic interests in the continent.
George Bush said in a statement on February 6 that he had asked Robert Gates, his defense secretary, to get the new "Africom" unit up and running by the end of September 2008.
"Africa Command will enhance our efforts to bring peace and security to the people of Africa and promote our common goals of development, health, education, democracy and economic growth in Africa," Bush said.
Bush’s decision comes as Washington grows increasingly concerned about growing "Islamist militancy" in parts of Africa.
The US is also concerned at Chinese attempts to gain greater control over the continent’s natural resources. Hu Jintao, the Chinese president has been on a seven country tour of the continent, during which he has pledged to write off $70 million worth of Sudanese debt.
Josh Rushing, Al Jazeera’s military analyst, told the Inside Story program that Africa Command came down to simply "following the oil".
Meanwhile on the same program Salim Lone an international affairs analyst and a former UN spokesman, lamented, "Finally an engagement has been made with Africa but a military one."
West’s Muslims urged to focus at home
By Aamir Latif
IslamOnline.net
DOHA — Internal affairs like health care, insurance and welfare should come first for Muslim minorities in the West before foreign policy issues if they are to prove their mettle as pure citizens of their respective societies, minority Muslim leaders agreed.
"We should think like locals, or even if we protest against our countries; foreign policies, we should act like locals," British Muslim Member of Parliament Shahid Malik, told a Muslim Minority Leaders seminar at the US-Islamic World Forum in Doha on February 18.
Akram Baker, Co-President of Arab Western Summit of Skills in the United States, agreed that the country’s foreign policy should not be the one and only criterion in judging governments.
"If we just forget the US foreign policy, Muslims and Americans have various common grounds to get united. And even if we come to foreign policy, a large number of Americans are against the US foreign policy," he said.
The participants further said that Muslim leaders in the West should disseminate more information about Islam to non-Muslims to break the "ignorance" barrier.
Muslims, Croats blast Srebrenica verdict
IslamOnline.net and News Agencies
SARAJEVO — Muslims who lost their loved ones in the Srebrenica genocide and Bosnian officials lashed out at the UN’s top court for exonerating Serbia of the massacre, lamenting the verdict as a new defeat.
"Europe has once again proved that it is against Muslims," Munira Subasic who lost 22 family members including her father, husband and son, in the mass killings in eastern Bosnia, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) has declared the mass killings and rapes of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica a genocide.
Though accusing Serbia of failing to prevent the massacre, the UN’s top court clear Serbia of being involved in committing the genocide.
More than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were massacred after Serb forces overran Srebrenica, then a United Nations "safe haven", in July 1995.
The atrocity, the worst in Europe since World War II, aimed to ensure there were no Muslims to fight back or reclaim Serb-occupied land or homes in the future.
Zeljko Komsic, the non-Muslim Croat member of the presidency, echoed similar resentment of the UN ruling.
"We must respect the court’s ruling, but I know what I will teach my children."
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