Malayur News: 09/05/11

Monday, 5 September 2011

Post Eid provocation. Tremendous torture upon Hindu minorities, loot, molestation, robbery and rampage upon Hindu Temples, Houses, Shops in Bangladesh.

An interior of vandalized Hindu House in Bhani Village of Comilla, Bangladesh by Islamists

Unbearable persecution upon Hindu minorities in Bangladesh by Quran loving people. Loot, molestation and rampage upon…

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An interior of vandalized Hindu House in Bhani Village of Comilla, Bangladesh by Islamists

Unbearable persecution upon Hindu minorities in Bangladesh by Quran loving people. Loot, molestation and rampage upon Hindu Temples and house hold after a provocation through loud speakers.

Hindu Existence Media Centre | Sunday, 4th Sept. 2011.

Reports came to us about tremendous torture upon Hindu minorities, loot, molestation and rampage upon Hindu Temples and house hold after a provocation through Miking in Comilla in Bangladesh. After Eid observation the Majority Muslim miscreants spranged upon the Hindu Minorities with all free Islamic provocations. All the political parties are silent rather enjoying.

On the morning (about 8 am) of Saturday on 3^rd Sept, 2011, the Hindu residents of Bhani village of Debidwar upazill (sub district) of Comilla in Bangladesh saw an terrible incident of attack on Hindu minorities with some explanation of Quran ( 9.5 “So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.”) through loud speaker and attacked seven separate households of Seven Hindu minority families declaring them Kaffir and bitch malaun ( Malauner baccha) in broad daylight for two hours and more.

Though the crude fundamentalists in BNP leadership like Masum Billah, Ex Chairman of the local council – Harun ur Rashid, Momin Member, Prof. Tajul Islam planned the strategy and attacked the Hindu minorities, the Pseudo Secular (actually pro Islamic) Awami Police reached the spot very late to let the persecution finds perfection. In the meanwhile the violent Muslim mob 300 heads tried to molest the women of Hindu ‘Das’ and ‘Ghosh’ family, ruined nine houses, desecrated every Puja sthal ( worshop place with idols and deities) in 29 rooms, rampaged a Home Temple, snatched 30 mobile sets, robbed 7 TV sets, 3 Fridges, 6 DVD players, 25 lacs of Bangladesh Rupees, papers , cheque and funds of Bhani Esha Multi Purpose Co-Op Society and one generator from Das family.

Severely shocked and injured Lovely Das said that all these happened through a provocation while she was tutoring her wards in the morning and could not apprehend the severity beforehand. “They entered in numbers in our house and frightened us with religious slogans like ‘Allah ho Akbar – Naraye Takbir’ etc., tried to touch us badly and snatched all the belongs kept open and ruthlessly beaten up my brother who protested to desecrate the Worship place by urinating” a non traumatized Srabonti Ghosh (name changed) narrated to the media very fearfully. Srabonti is only a student of 7^th standard of a local school. The attackers were empowered with lethal weapons including fire arms.

The Sub Inspector of Debidwar Police station reached the spot late and commented their helplessness before a huge Muslim mass attacking the less than 50 Hindu populace. Actually the Reserve Police were sent to the area to rescue the Hindus along with the injured police constable Daru Mia and Sarwar.

It is reported that a rift between local BNP and Awami League factions in the area council election and some clash between the two groups resulted this big attack upon the Hindus, which has already set a routine persecution upon the Bangladesh minority Hindus as their ate in daily life.

At latest the perpetrators like Masum Billah, Harun ur Rashid, Momin Member and Tajul Islam are absconding and police has the failure to arrest a single one. It is belived that the tortured and victimized Hindus tried to get a shelter of Awami League and hopelessly the counter BNP scaled havoc upon them.

The recent happening inside the Bangladesh now a days after the recent Constitutional amendments upholding Islam as a State Religion of Bangladesh and Bishmilla-Rahamir-Rahim in the prologue of BD Constitution, is unbelievable. Reports are not being covered by the BD Press and media in exactness. These are nothing but an ongoing Talibani Persecution upon the Bangladesh Minority Hindus.

An joint Attack by BAL (BNP, AWAMI & LEAGUE) on HINDU Minority People at NORAIL in Bangladesh very recently………

Other News of post Eid persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh in last couple of days.

Muslim Robbers killed 1 Hindu & critically injured 5 Hindus in Netrakona

One Hindu villager was shot dead and five others were wounded when a gang of robbers opened fire on them in Khaliajuri upazila of Netrakona in the early hours of Sunday (04/09/2011).

The deceased was identified as Chayan Das, 24, of Adompur village of the upazila.

A gang of around twelve to fifteen Muslim robbers entered the Hindu village around 12:30am and looted valuables worth about Tk 10 lakh from four or five houses including the house of the deceased, reports our Netrakona correspondent quoting Md Shahiduzzaman, officer-in-charge of Khaliajuri Police Station.

When Hindu locals were alerted of the robbers’ presence, they chased them and at one stage, the robbers fired several rounds of bullets to avoid being captured, the OC added saying that Chayan died on the spot.

Critically injured villagers Joti Das, Dabol, Monoranjan, Sanjoy and Johor Lal have been undergoing treatment at Mymensingh Medical College Hospital.

A case was filed with Khaliajuri Police Station in this connection.

Robbers loot 10 Hindu shops in Kushtia, Barisal

Muslim Robbers looted nine shops belonging to Hindus in Kushtia on Saturday (03/09/2011) and took away over 150 tolas of gold from a jewellery shop in Barisal on Wednesday on Eid day (31/08/2011).

Armed robbers looted nine shops at Kamlapur bazar in Sadar upazila in Kashtia district early yesterday, reports our correspondent.

According to police, an armed gang went to the bazar, 6 kilometres away from Kushtia town and held two night guards hostage at gunpoint at about 2:00am.

Then the robbers broke the locks and looted cash and valuables from three jewellery and seven clothes shops.

In Barisal, robbers looted 152 tolas gold from a jewellery shop at city’s business centre at Katpotti road near Kotwali police station on Wednesday night.

Owner of ‘Badhua Jewellery’ Satyajit Karmakar said, on Wednesday, he returned to his house closing his shop at around 10:30pm but on Thursday morning he found the shutters of the shop broken.

He also found his iron safe broken and 152 tolas of gold ornaments missing. Satyajit said the robbers entered the shop late at night and looted the gold ornament worth about Tk 80 lakh.

A case was filed and police detained two night guards of the business centre for interrogation.

IN NEXT THREE YEARS BANGLADESH MAY BE HINDU LESS UNDER A DEVOUT ISLAMIC DESIGN. SHOULD INDIAN AND WORLD HINDUS ONLY LOOK VACANT ?? ONE BANGLADESHI HINDU SHOULD TRY TO HAND OVER THIS COPY OF REPORTING TO VISITING PM OF INDIA MR. MANMOHAN SINGH IN DHAKA.

Professor in 'jail' after four con weddings

Some get hooked to making money, others to sex and drugs, but Mohammad Kamil had a unique problem - he was obsessed with getting married. To achieve this, he even…

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Khairy to take on Mat Sabu in ‘communist’ debate

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KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 5 — Khairy Jamaluddin has accepted a challenge to debate Mohamad Sabu on the PAS deputy president’s recent controversial remarks on Malaya’s pre-independence freedom fighters that some say undermine Umno’s role in that process.

The Umno Youth chief, who has repeatedly derided Mohamad following a report in Utusan Malaysia that the latter had glorified the communists by saying that the 1950 Bukit Kepong tragedy was perpetrated by freedom fighters, said last night that he had accepted the invitation extended by the PAS-led Kelantan government.

“Done. Got invitation to rumble w/ Sabu. I’ll be there,” Khairy (picture) said on micro-blogging site Twitter.

A copy of the invitation sighted by The Malaysian Insider said that the debate will be held at the Balai Islam in Kota Baru at the end of the month.

Although the letter said that the Kelantan administration is still arranging for Mohamad to go up against Khairy, the Rembau MP told The Malaysian Insider that “only Sabu (will do) for me.”

“No need to look for a neutral venue. Your lion’s den. See you there, Mat Sabu,” he added on Twitter.
However, it is unclear if this is the same debate proposed by PAS information chief Datuk Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man yesterday as Khairy said his invitation came directly from the Kelantan government.

Tuan Ibrahim had said that PAS will challenge Umno to a debate entitled “Who are the true fighters for independence” on the history of the Bukit Kepong tragedy which saw 25 killed 61 years ago.

He had continued PAS’s defence of Muhammad Indera, who led the guerrilla assault on the Bukit Kepong police station, saying his party felt “sympathetic” to the Malay communist leader and his kinsmen, claiming they had been forced to endure wild accusations in “Umno’s version of history” without being given room to defend themselves.

Umno’s Utusan Malaysia had reported that Mohamad, popularly known as Mat Sabu, told a ceramah recently that those who attacked the Bukit Kepong police station during the pre-independence communist insurgency were “freedom fighters”.

The maverick politician has since been accused of being a communist sympathiser by Umno leaders and sniped at daily in Utusan Malaysia despite denying that he had used the word “communism” during his speech.

But Umno appears determined to use Mohamad’s statement to woo support from the Malay electorate, among whom communism remains a bogeyman, and last week announced a nationwide campaign to attack the PAS deputy president.

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has accused PAS of glorifying the communists in hopes of reducing public gratitude towards Umno for defeating the British and achieving independence for Malaya.

But the former prime minister predicted the more experienced politicians in Pakatan Rakyat (PR) would not accept this strategy as it erodes support from those who struggled for independence.

PAS has made inroads in getting a major share of the Malay vote, which is now seen as split among Umno, PKR and the Islamist party since 1999, a year after Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was sacked as deputy prime minister.

The controversy over PAS’s support for the communists is seen as Umno’s strategy to claw back support for a two-thirds parliamentary majority from the dominant Malay electorate in the next general election widely speculated to be called within a year.

A man in a Spiderman costume attempting to entertain a young boy during a mass circumcision ceremony at the House of Representatives in Jakarta recently. Guidelines on how to…

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A man in a Spiderman costume attempting to entertain a young boy during a mass circumcision ceremony at the House of Representatives in Jakarta recently. Guidelines on how to perform female genital mutilation/cutting issued by the Indonesian Ministry of Health could cause an increase in the practice, medical experts and rights groups fear.

West Java. Guidelines on how to perform female genital mutilation/cutting issued by the Indonesian Ministry of Health could cause an increase in the practice, medical experts and rights groups fear.

“This will give doctors a new motivation to circumcise [girls] because now they can say the Ministry of Health approves of this, and the Indonesian Council of Ulema [MUI] approves of it,” said Jurnalis Uddin, a doctor and lecturer at Yarsi University in Jakarta.

Though FGM/C was banned in 2006, two of Indonesia’s Muslim organizations, including the largest and mostly moderate, Nahdlatul Ulama, ultimately condone the practice advising “not to cut too much,” and, as a result, many continue to perform the procedure.

By directing health professionals not to cut a girl’s genitals but to “scrape the skin covering the clitoris, without injuring the clitoris”, the Ministry of Health stands by the regulations, passed in June, as a medically safe form of FGM/C representing an effort to further regulate the illegal practice and protect women.

But recent uproar has questioned this reasoning. Others are concerned the guidelines could well be misinterpreted as an endorsement of the procedure, combined with an enticement for doctors to encourage the practice, Uddin said.

“I think that doctors will use these guidelines to make money from circumcision,” Uddin said, adding that Indonesia’s poorly regulated medical practitioners often viewed medicine as a business.

FGM/C is typically done at birth, or before a girl is five years old and in the past was often performed by local healers, called dukun, or by birth attendants. Traditionally, FGM/C was mostly “symbolic” with a small cut on the clitoris, or rubbing the clitoris with tumeric root, making it less invasive than other types of FGM/C.

However, Uddin, who conducted an Indonesia-wide survey of FGM/C practices in 2009, said he had found that when medical practitioners performed the procedure, there was a trend toward more extensive cutting of the clitoris.

Public outcry

Dozens of Indonesian groups continue to call for the Ministry to revoke the guidelines.

“This gives a justification for health practitioners to damage women’s bodies,” said Frenia Nababan, spokeswoman for the Indonesian Family Planning Association. She added, “We fear it will increase control of women’s bodies by the state and religious groups.”

Amnesty International, is one of more than 100 signatories to a letter stating that the guidelines should be revoked partially on the grounds of Indonesia’s child protection laws, as well as the government’s commitment to the international Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), signed by Indonesia in 1984.

Experts say there has been increasing support for the practice from Muslim groups since the downfall of authoritarian leader Suharto in 1998, resulting in greater religious and political freedom, known as “Reformasi”.

“Before Reformasi [FGM/C] was mostly done on an individual basis, but since Reformasi, it has been done in mass events,” said Siti Musda Mulia, an academic specializing in Islamic studies, who initially conducted research on the process during the Suharto era, and has conducted follow-up research since 1998.

Uddin found Indonesia-wide FGM/C had not increased dramatically since the Suharto era; however in some areas, such as Bandung, West Java, there was an increasing tendency to perform it, even among moderate Muslims.

Across Indonesia approximately 12 percent of female babies born in hospitals, birthing centres or assisted by government midwives have been circumcised, a figure that excludes FGM/C procedures done outside such facilities, Uddin said.

FGM/C remains a controversial practice, with debated origins. Religious experts say it is a foreign cultural practice not sanctioned in any of Islam’s religious texts.

Even a scratch or small cut on the clitoris is a dangerous procedure to perform on infants, say medical practitioners. Long-term consequences include bladder and urinary tract infections, as well as cysts and infertility.

The Ministry of Health argues it is not “legitimizing or legalizing” FGM/C with its standards but only trying to make the practice less risky by encouraging trained health professionals rather than traditional healers to perform the procedure.

“It is feared that community members who want to circumcise female babies will therefore go to traditional healers for this procedure, and it will increase the number of [medical] complications. If this procedure is done by health professionals, then it has to be done in accordance with the ministerial instruction 1636, and this will guarantee the protection of the female reproductive system,” the Ministry stated in response to national criticism.

IRIN

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Insulting Muslims 101

The Nut Graph Shape of a Pocket by Jacqueline Ann Surin

This post is reproduced from here

HOW does one insult Islam in Malaysia? And how does one insult Muslims…

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The Nut Graph Shape of a Pocket by Jacqueline Ann Surin

This post is reproduced from here

HOW does one insult Islam in Malaysia? And how does one insult Muslims in Malaysia?

Over the past few years and increasingly over the past months, the state, politicians and pressure groups like Perkasa have demonstrated just how to do either one or both. For the most part, these incidents are an insult to Muslims in Malaysia, rather than to the world’s fastest growing religion per se.

Here’s my take on how these groups have been giving lessons to the nation, and to the world, on Insulting Muslims 101.

Step 1: Weak and wavering

Here’s how to portray Malaysian Muslims as weak and easily swayed by all manner of external influence:

Ban a movie about a pig because it may just convince Muslims to eat what their faith teaches them to be haram. Don’t stop there. Discipline a child for bringing to school the pork lunch his Christian mother prepared for him. Similarly, make sure alcohol can’t be sold in Muslim-majority areas.

Tell Muslims that if they practise yoga, they might be tempted to worship Hindu gods. If there is a Hindu temple in their neighbourhood, their faith might be threatened.

Ban the use of “Allah”, and three other Arabic words, in non-Muslim worship. Send a message to Muslims in Malaysia and in other parts of the world, where incidentally “Allah” is used by non-Muslims in their worship, that Malaysian Muslims are easily confused.

Step 2: Intolerant and judgemental

This is oh-so-easy to execute especially post-Sept 11 when many fear Muslims to be violent and irrational terrorists. Within that global context, adding “intolerant” and “judgemental” to the cocktail of bad traits Muslims purportedly have doesn’t require very much effort.

Projecting an image of Malaysian Muslims as intolerant and judgemental can be done in several ways. For example, show them in an 8TV Ramadan ad as being affected by a non-Muslim Chinese Malaysian who wears a sleeveless top to a Ramadan bazaar. Let them be police and judge in these TV ads who can tell non-Muslims what good, moral behaviour is all about and how non-Muslims should dress.

Step 3: Constantly needing state intervention

If Step 1 is effectively executed, Step 3 is a logical next step. Because Malaysian Muslims are purportedly so weak and easily swayed, the state must step in to protect Muslim faith. And so apostasy is made a crime under syariah law in Malaysia. Not fasting during Ramadan is a punishable offence for Malaysian Muslims. Never mind that in Indonesia, in the most populous Muslim country in the world, no such regulation is needed.

Ostensibly, it’s also because Muslims are so weak in Malaysia that should a non-Muslim marry a Muslim, she or he must convert. No such legal requirement is imposed on non-Muslim couples of different faiths who marry each other. Neither is this legal requirement in place in Indonesia where Malays can even be Christians and yet this poses no threat to Indonesian Muslims.

Yes, and because Malaysian Muslims are weak, they need a Faith Rescue Unit in Selangor and at the federal level, they need an Islamic Affairs Ministry in an already over-bloated cabinet. Without the state watching over how Muslims live out their faith and intervening in both their public and private lives, woe is sure to follow the ummah.

Step 4: Afraid of Christians and Christianity

Are Malaysian Muslims so threatened by Christians and Christianity? Apparently, they are or even if they really aren’t, they need to be.

And that’s why Christian events should not be held during Ramadan. And of course, Muslims must be shown that that it would be disastrous for them to attend any event held on church premises. Muslims who do attend such events must go for counselling so their faith can be protected.

How is this insulting? Well, I’m reminded of my own experience living as a Catholic with other non-Muslims in Third College in Universiti Malaya where the boarders and administrators were predominantly Muslim. And where the loudspeaker for the azan was just outside the bedroom I shared with a Hindu senior. Even though we were bombarded with the call for Muslim prayer five times a day, every single day, and surrounded by Muslims and their practises, that didn’t stop us from going to church or the temple or from practising our faith. Somehow, we were not tempted to apostasise.

So, if even stepping onto church premises for a community dinner can so quickly turn their faith on its head, Muslims must be particularly vulnerable to Christian influence. We must remember though, that this vulnerability may not be applicable for Muslims, including Malaysian Muslims, in other countries where Muslims can visit cathedrals and temples and not feel compelled to apostasise.

It must be this special vulnerability to Christians in Malaysia that forms the reason for Perkasa wanting Christian teachers to be barred from teaching in national schools or at least, to have them monitored. Never mind that our prime minister and other notable Malaysian Muslims attended Christian missionary schools and today remain Muslims. Or that Datuk Seri Najib Razak was at the Vatican with the head of the Catholic Church and did not recant his faith. The prime minister must be in a league of his own compared to other Muslim mortals who don’t hold such high office.

The sting of the insult

Why are these insults really insulting?

Well, because Malaysian Muslims, at least most of them, are far more certain about their faith, and less susceptible to non-Muslim influence and lifestyles, then they are made out to be.

During Ramadan for example, I stayed in a Muslim household for a week to help a good friend with her new-born. Guess what happened when I had breakfast and lunch in front of the fasting Muslims? Was I chastised for tempting these Muslims and endangering their faith? Not at all. Even though they could not eat, they made sure food was available for me, even cooking for me.

On another occasion, a non-Muslim friend who was dressed in a spaghetti strap top didn’t receive stares or rebukes at the Ramadan bazaar we were at in Section 3, PJ. The Muslim vendors and customers weren’t interested in looking at her bare arms and shoulders, nor did they find it offensive. They were more interested in the food so that they could break fast.

So who are these people who would insult Malaysian Muslims and make them out to be so weak and so much in need of state support? And why would they want to do that?

The politics of fear

One way to answer this question is to ask: Whose interest would it serve to have Malaysian Muslims believe they are weak and under threat from non-Muslims, and hence need constant rescuing?

Seems to me it would serve the interest of the politicians and state and non-state actors who insist that without them, Muslims in Malaysia would indeed be lost souls.

Who might these be? Well, Umno and PAS for certain, who demonstrate repeatedly just how much they would like to control the lives of Muslims — even to the point of disrupting the lives of non-Muslims — in Malaysia. That Utusan Malaysia, TV3 and TV1 — all of which fall under Umno either through ownership or government control — have published and broadcast inaccurate reports about Christian proselytisation of Muslims is yet another sign of what is at stake. The possibility that the religious beliefs of the majority in Malaysia are being threatened by the minority is surely one of the easiest ways to fester disharmony and distrust in multi-racial Malaysia.

And of course, there’s Perkasa which, in the name of Islam, would emasculate all Malaysian Muslims with their politics of fear and animosity, and threat of violence against non-Muslims and non-Malays.

If Muslim and non-Muslim Malaysians were to believe everything that is done from Steps 1 to 4, this country would have crumbled a while ago from the strain of having a fearful, besieged Muslim majority reacting to every external influence as a threat.

That we haven’t become a Humpty Dumpty nation suggests that we are all far more resilient and respectful of each other than what has been portrayed. And yes, that includes the Muslims who live among us. Question then is, what will we do to stop this campaign of insulting Muslims in Malaysia?

Jacqueline Ann Surin wonders just how the revived Inter-faith Relations Working Committee will address the phenomenon of Muslims insulting Muslims and Islam in Malaysia.

India's great expectations

Fears Indonesian Female Circumcision Guidelines Could Increase Practice

A man in a Spiderman costume attempting to entertain a young boy during a mass circumcision ceremony at the House of Representatives in Jakarta recently. Guidelines on how to…

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