UPDATE:Pakistani Jirga Sentences 6 To Death For Dancing Together At Wedding

Adultery isn't the only thing that can get you executed in certain backwoods, rural areas of countries like Pakistan. Nope, mixing with members of the opposite gender can get you sentenced to death, as well- as in the case of six people in Kohistan, Pakistan who were videotaped dancing and singing together at a wedding. Apparently they consider people like that Ghul (fornicators). No wonder Pakistan is ranked #1 in Google's search for 'sex'.

The four women and two men were found guilty of “disrespecting gender segregation customs" at a wedding, by a local jirga (tribal assembly of elders). Although the women are married, the two men they were dancing and singing with are not blood-relatives (mahrams), which is a no-no in Islam. I'm not sure how you can expect to segregate genders at a wedding, but I assume they somehow manage.

Someone at the wedding, two months ago, taped the festivities on their cell phone and then forwarded the footage to the families of the women. The oldest brother of the two accused men, Muhammad Afzal said,

“The jirga did not bother to hear the ‘accused’ and condemned them to death,”  

The jirga obviously knows what they are doing is wrong because they have raised Rs400,00 in case they're sued.

They have also rounded up 40 young men to execute the condemned six. The men are supposed to be shot first, which might be difficult since they happened to escape. The women, on the other hand, were shipped back from their in-laws to their parents' village, and according to Afzal,

“They are tied with ropes. They are being starved.”

Afzal also believes the tape could be bogus since it doesn't really show them dancing together, and he has enemies.

“Since our family is affluent and owns vast acres of forestland, orchards and agriculture farms in Bando Baidar village. They (our rivals) hatched a plot to deprive us of our property."

Abdul Majeed Afridi, the district police officer, agrees with Afzal. The background where the women are singing folk songs is not the same as where the men are seen dancing.
In the meantime, the authorities are doing what they can to make sure the women are not harmed, although there is a discrepancy as to whether the women are safe or not.

“We have detained eight people (from the women’s tribe). And they have given us a written guarantee that the women would not be harmed,” Hazara Division Commissioner Khalid Khan Umerzai told The Express Tribune.

The commissioner claimed that the women were safe at the homes of their parents in Seertaiy village. He also confirmed that the condemned men have fled their village.

The local police chief said that a police party, headed by a deputy superintendent police, has been sent to Seertaiy village to recover the girls who, The Express Tribune reported, were locked in a room and were being starved.

Abdul Majeed Afridi, the district police officer, also endorsed Umerzai’s claimed that “the women are safe in their parents’ homes”.

Why the jirgas are still allowed to exist in 21st century Pakistan, is shameful. Various rights organizations in Pakistan are demanding the end to jirgas. Good luck with that. As Pakistan becomes more Talibanized, it will only get worse.

UPDATE 6/4/12  Some bizarre, conflicting reports have emerged regarding this whole incident. According to the Pakistani news site Dawn, Afzal recently contacted journalists notifying them that the women had been killed by family members on May 30. On the other hand, police officials claim they have arrested four people, Afzal, his two brothers, and the man who videotaped the incident. They also say that no such jirga took place, and that the women are alive and well. Afzal has demanded that if the women are alive, they should bring them forth. So, who knows where the truth lies.

Omar Ahmed Khadr- The Terrorist No-One Wants

No-one wants Omar Ahmed Khadr, the 25-year-old Canadian al-Qaeda murdering terrorist (of Egyptian ancestry), who was captured after a deadly firefight in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was a baby-faced 15 year-old teen. Most of his time since then has been spent in Guantanamo, but the U.S. wants him out and is ready to send him back after a plea deal was reached in 2010 allowing him to serve the rest of his short sentence in a facility in Canada. The trouble is, the Canadians don't want him there either.

According to an interview on Sun News with U.S. Forensic Psychiatrist, Dr.  Michael Welner, Khadr was evaluated back in 2010 (at the behest of the Pentagon) to determine just how dangerous he really was, and the results were not at all promising. Khadr, wants to go home and "become a contributing member of our society," so says his lawyer, John Norris, but Welner has 73 reasons why Khadr still poses a danger to Western society, including the fact that:

1. he has no remorse for his terrorist activities, including killing a U.S. soldier
2. he bragged about killing SFC Christopher Speer
3. tests revealed Khadr as an angry and manipulative young man
4. Khadr has not been de-radicalized, even though his defense team recommended it as recently as 2009
5. the Imam they wanted to help him de-radicalize (who has called President Obama a "house slave") is a radical himself
6. he's actually not eligible to enter a de-radicalization programme because his family is highly radicalized.

Yes, papa Ahmed was also allegedly a terrorist (or at the very least a sympathizer) until he was killed alongside other al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Afghanistan in 2003; and several of his brothers also have extremist tendencies. In fact, even mama Khadr is very anti-Western, which is why the Khadr kids were often shuttled back and forth from Canada to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where Khadr supposedly worked for several charitable NGOs. Even though mama Khadr thinks Western society turns kids into gay, drug addicts, she's back living in Canada.  I guess she had no problem with the Afghan opium trade, and the gay Pashtuns.

I'd like to think that people are redeemable, but religious extremists (especially Muslims) don't easily let go of their fanatical ideology, and the recidivism rate for radical Muslims (especially former Guantanamo detainees) is apparently very high.
So what will happen to Omar? Canada will reluctantly repatriate him, he'll serve out the rest of his sentence there, he'll be back out on the streets, and soon ship off to Yemen to join his Qaeda buddies.
We shall see.




H/T SM

Money The Root Of All Jihad: Khalil Dale Beheaded For Not Paying Ransom

For all their claims that their holy jihad is against foreign invaders, most Islamist extremists are nothing more than low down, barbaric, common criminals. Supposed holy warriors don't attack innocents, they don't attack people who are in their country to help, and they certainly don't kill someone because a ransom wasn't paid. But it happens alot. 

Ironically, the kidnapped Scottish Red Cross nurse who was found decapitated, dumped by the side of a Quetta, Pakistan road covered in plastic with a note attached saying “This is the body of Khalil who we have slaughtered for not paying a ransom amount” was a Muslim convert. 60-year-old Khalil Rasjed Dale (fka Ken) converted to Islam 30 years ago.  I wonder if he ever envisioned having his head chopped off by fellow believers?

Dale had been working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) when he was kidnapped on January 5th. He was driving with two others, a Pakistani doctor and a driver, but there was no interest in those two because obviously there was no monetary gain to be had. Foreign aid workers are often targets because they are potential cash cows. 

In spite of  "tireless efforts" to gain Dale's release by the British government (working in tandem with the ICRC), the fact that no money exchanged hands effectively secured his death sentence. Both Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague and the ICRC's Director General Yves Daccord condemned the act:

“The ICRC condemns in the strongest possible terms this barbaric act. All of us at the ICRC and at the British Red Cross share the grief and outrage of Khalil’s family and friends.”

“This was a senseless and cruel act, targeting someone whose role was to help the people of Pakistan, and causing immeasurable pain to those who knew Dale,” Hague said in the statement.

Dale had been shot and beheaded, but who knows if he was still alive when they sliced his head off.  According to Safdar Hussain,the doctor who examined his body, “A sharp knife was used to sever his head from the body.”  Not surprisingly, there's a video of his beheading that the butchers have threatened to release, but the ICRC has asked the Pakistani  media to not air it. Who knows if they will comply. 

It's time aid organizations pull out of that whole region.


Sources: Guardian UK, Al Arabiya, Daily Mail

Stacey Dooley's "My Hometown Fanatics"- the rise of extremist Muslims in Luton, England

In this BBC 3 documentary, Stacey Dooley goes to Luton (North London) to witness up close and personal the radical Muslims who have overtaken her home town, now known as the 'extremist capital of Britain'. In the end, she seems to think they can all somehow live together, shariah law be damned. But what can one expect from a liberal. With attitudes like hers, the end of England will come even sooner than expected.

Veils For Women in Timbuktu- Islamists Take Over More Than Half of Mali

A struggle between secular democracies and Islamism is on the rise in the Middle East, parts of Asia and Africa. The latest country to succumb to the battle is Mali. The West African nation (of Timbuktu fame), was recently subjected to a military coup, after 21 years or so of a constitutional democracy. Considered relatively stable (until now), Mali has a population that's 90% Muslim. And though a secular state with a constitution that allows for freedom of religion, that's rapidly changing.

Troubles began in early 2012 in the north with a separatist group, comprised of the Tuareg (Berber nomad) peoples, who want to liberate the Azawad region of northern Mali (where Timbuktu is located) from the Mali government. The Islamists, Ansar Dine, want Mali to become an Islamic state. The coup was in response to President Amadou Toumani Touré's  failure to handle the insurgency,  but that in itself has made the situation in the African nation ten times worse.  In fact, the coup has allowed Tuareg rebels and Islamists in the north to take over half of the country, and the Islamists are working rapidly to establish their religious agenda, including forcing women in Timbuktu to wear veils.

Islamists seized control of the ancient trading hub Timbuktu over the weekend alongside Tuareg rebels and have since chased out their allies and declared to residents and religious leaders that they were imposing sharia law.

This sparked alarm abroad ahead of an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting on Mali, with Paris expressing concern over the Islamist threat in a country considered a democratic success until the coup.

The Tuareg rebels want an independent state while Ansar Dine which has seized Timbuktu wants to impose Islamic law and has linked up with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told AFP the two were “closely tied” and Ansar Dine’s “goals are not clear, but it may be to install an Islamic regime across the whole of Mali.”

Three of the four leaders of al-Qaeda’s north Africa branch, Abou Zeid, Mokhtar Belmokhtar and Yahya Abou Al-Hammam, were in Timbuktu on Tuesday, security and religious sources in the city said.

Residents reported women in the normally secular city that hosted a major music festival in January were on Tuesday wearing headscarves.

In spite of sanctions and calls for the junta to relinquish power immediately, no-one's budging, yet.  The coup leaders claim they don't want to stay in power forever, and are calling for a "national convention" set for April 5, to discuss the transition back to civilian rule. But the longer they wait to settle things, the worse the situation will get.  The rise of Islamism in Mali wasn't the result of a thirst for democracy that turned sour, like the Arab Spring; the country already had a democratic, secular society, and President  Toure' wasn't a Mubarak.   In this case, the military facilitated the takeover by Islamists through their coup d'etat, and any further delay will allow the Islamists to claim more territory.

UNESCO (the U.N.'s cultural agency) is worried about what might happen to Timbuktu's "outstanding architectural wonders”,  and though that is worrisome, what I fear the most is the loss of freedom, for women in particular, in an Islamic state.

Young Afghan Boy and Girl Killed After Acid Attack, No-One Claims Bodies

Here's another example of how religion and a twisted sense of honor is more important than the value of a life, or in this case, the lives of two young children. Dumped in the middle of nowhere, after being burned by acid, for unknown reasons.

Two children, unceremoniously dumped in the middle of nowhere.

GHAZNI: A 12-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy have been killed in an acid attack in Afghanistan, an official said on Saturday, with witnesses claiming it was because of their friendship in what is an ultra-conservative country.


The bodies were discovered on Friday in wasteland in the Esfandi area of Ghazni province in south central Afghanistan, provincial police chief Zorawar Zahid told AFP.


“Their bodies and faces were burnt by acid,” he said.


The police chief said officers were investigating the motive for the attack, but witnesses who found the bodies told AFP the two were probably killed because of their friendship.


No one has claimed the bodies, which are still in Ghazni hospital, police said.

What kind of parents would do this to their own children?

Darwin Award Contender: Brit Man Wanted To Join Somalia's Al Shabaab To "Relax And Hang Out"

Here's a candidate for the Darwin Awards:

45 year-old British Muslim (born in Jamaica) Clive Everton Dennis was arrested by Somali police in Mogadishu  airport with a suitcase full of hashish and daggers, and no visa.  According to chain-smoking Dennis, who sports several earrings and short dreadlocks, he wanted to join al-Qaeda (in the form of al-Shabaab which rules the roost in parts of Somalia), because:

 " I was told by some people in Kenya that the guys in Kismayo were the best Muslims." 

But clueless Dennis has no idea about geography.

"I agreed to join them, and I was trying to find the way. I didn't know that Mogadishu was not Kismayo, I thought that there would be a plane I could catch there directly."

And the violence?  He didn't want any "of the violent stuff". Nope, none of that jihadi stuff for Dennis. He just wanted some camaraderie with fellow Muslims and little R and R.

" I wanted to go somewhere sunny where I could relax and hang-out with other Muslims without being bothered by people.

Apparently Dennis had been a bad boy in England (convicted of some 'minor' crime) and was having a hard time finding work. I guess he thought the next best thing would be to join an extremist group in Somalia. He also said he that he

"can't get a normal life there in London."

So, of course, he'll find normalcy with an ultra Islamist extremist group in Somalia that bans everything from music to women's bras, to television and practically everything else. Yeah, that's normalcy for you. And as for his hash, earrings and short dreads?  Someone forgot to tell old Dennis that those things would be a no-go with his new found Shabaab buds.

Poor old Dennis is being held

 on suspicion of entering the country illegally and plotting to join Islamic radicals waging a war to control the country according to a strict interpretation of Islam.

A Somali government spokesman said that the "due course of the law" would be followed, and that Mr Dennis would likely face charges for entering the country illegally.

He was not seen as a serious threat "compared to the terrorists we usually have to face", the spokesman added.

They're not too worried about Dennis because no-one with any sense knows to stay away from Mogadishu Airport. Security Forces said that

"Anyone who knows what they are doing, or is being sent to Somalia by someone who knows what they are doing, would avoid Mogadishu at all costs," said one.

"It's the seat of the government, the airport's swarming with intelligence [officers], and it's far, far easier simply to slip in overland or by sea from Kenya."

Oops.

I think maybe Dennis has smoked a little too much of that hashish, but he definitely deserves a spot in the Darwin Awards.