Day: April 2, 2015

Economist
Apr 4th 2015 | KOTA BHARU

A floundering government indulges calls to toughen Islamic law

SEVERING a thief’s hand is the work of seconds, but a campaign to introduce strict Islamic punishments in Kelantan, a state in northern Malaysia, has ground on for 50 years. It could now be reaching a climax. In March state politicians in Kelantan’s capital, Kota Bharu, took a big step towards forcing a vote in the federal parliament that they hope will lead to local judges being allowed to sentence miscreants to whipping, amputations and even death by stoning.

It is hard to imagine hudud, corporal and capital punishments laid down in traditional Islamic law, actually being implemented in Kelantan. But the renewed discussion is harming Malaysia’s reputation as a bastion of moderate Islam. It is worrying Malaysia’s ethnic Chinese and Indians, who make up more than one-third of the population, not to mention a great many ethnic-Malay Muslims. It risks tearing apart the country’s opposition coalition. And it should concern America, which has made Malaysia a key ally. Continue reading “Riding a tiger”

In my media statement of 21st March 2015, I said: “The mastermind of UMNO’s ‘UG’ (Unity Government between UMNO and PAS) conspiracy achieved an unexpected coup within a year when the Kelantan hudud enactment question completely drowned out all the issues currently haunting UMNO and the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak – the 1MDB scandal; Anwar Ibrahim’s five-year jailing; Mongolian Altantunya Shaariibuu’s 2006 murder and conviction of two former police commandos Azila Hadri and Sirul Azhar with motives neither established nor pursued; the new jet for PM; the lavish spending on wedding of Najib’s daughter and above all, Najib’s survival as Prime Minister and UMNO President”.

Yes, the hudud trap and issue has come to the aid of Najib by seemingly drowning out all the grave injustices and scandals in the country, but Najib should realise that these injustices and scandals cannot lay hidden for long or forever, so long as they remained unrectified.

This is why “the ghost of Altantunya rides again” when former Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir has finally included it as among the scandals which have caused Najib to lose the trust of Malaysians, predicting that the ruling UMNO/Barisan Nasional will lose the next polls if the UMNO president remains in power.

The judiciary, the Attorney-General and the Inspector-General of Police have all been guilty of first-degree dereliction of duty when they ignored the “elephant in the room” in the Altantuya murder case when they should have known that the two former police commandos, Azilah Hadri and Sirul Azhar Umar could not have killed the Mongolian whom they did not know, without a motive and a mastermind! Continue reading “Two former Prime Ministers, Tun Mahathir and Tun Abdullah should be sent on a national mission to Australia to find out from Sirul who gave the order to kill Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu”

By Max Blumenthal
AlterNet
March 26, 2015

One of America’s most prominent Islam bashers has a long history of making things up.

While promoting her new book, Heretic, on a March 23 episode of “The Daily Show,” Somali-born author and anti-Islam activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali made a staggering claim: “If you look at 70 percent of the violence in the world today, Muslims are responsible,” she told host Jon Stewart.

Stewart did not demand any evidence and Hirsi Ali provided no citation. However, she made a strikingly similar statement in a March 20 essay previewing her new book for the Wall Street Journal: “According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies,” Hirsi Ali wrote in WSJ’s Saturday Essay, “at least 70% of all the fatalities in armed conflicts around the world last year were in wars involving Muslims.”

I contacted the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a leading British foreign policy think tank, to inquire about the source of Hirsi Ali’s statistic. According to IISS Media Relations and Communications Officer Kat Slowe, IISS did not explicitly state such a figure in its research.

“I have spoken to a number of our experts and they cannot identify where this statistic may have come from,” Slowe told me.

“Their best guess is that the journalist in question [Hirsi Ali] may have access/a subscription to the [IISS] Armed Conflict Database and may have calculated this statistic independently. There are some concerns that it could be misleading as, without Syria (near 200,000 total deaths, and almost half of last year’s global conflict deaths) the figure would look massively different (and of course, this conflict did not have its root in religion),” Slowe added. Continue reading “Exposing Anti-Islam Author Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Latest Deception”

By Hafiz Yatim
Malaysiakini
Apr 2, 2015

The government should compensate whistleblower judge Syed Ahmad Idid Syed Abdullah Idid, said former Court of Appeal judge KC Vohrah.

Syed Ahmad Idid was forced to resign after making revelations of wrongdoing in the judiciary in 1996.

Vohrah, now a consultant with law firm Lee, Hishammuddin, Allen and Gledhill, also commended Malaysiakini for highlighting Syed Ahmad Idid’s plight after so many years.

“Syed Ahmad Idid deserves it (compensation),” he told Malaysiakini recently in response to an interview this news portal had with Syed Ahmad Idid, a former High Court judge last month.

Syed Ahmad Idid in that interview had commended the revelations made by Vohrah in an article for the Court of Appeal, Malaysia, 1994-2014, 20th Anniversary book, published last year.

Syed Ahmad Idid had said he felt vindicated with Vohrah’s exposure. Continue reading “Vohrah: Whistleblower judge should be compensated”

By Zainab Chaudry
Patheos
March 31, 2015

Authors who publish books generally want to sell them. Well, what sells better then timely, dramatized sensationalism with a personal angle, which reinforces readers’ latent fears and beliefs?

After reading Somali-born author and anti-Islam activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s disturbingly deceptive new book, Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now, I can confidently vouch that this read is exactly that: Dramatized sensationalism with a personal angle that reinforces the larger audience’s fears and suspicions.

The book’s abject flaws begin with the introduction, which doggedly fixates on media reports disproportionately covering slanted stories of terrorist acts involving Muslims in destabilized and conflict-ridden regions of the world — without providing any crucially relevant context or background.

All, of course, to make the case that Islam is not a religion of peace. Continue reading “To Ayaan Hirsi Ali – The Problem is Not with Islam, but with the Author”