Habib Siddiqui

President Francois Hollande on Saturday acknowledged the French state’s role in the Nazi persecution of French Gypsies held in Nazi internment camps during World War II. France’s collaborationist Vichy regime helped deport tens of thousands Jews to death camps and send thousands of Gypsies to internment camps. It wasn’t until 1995 that then-President Jacques Chirac acknowledged the French state’s role in the Holocaust, and on Saturday, Hollande called attention to the Gypsies’ plight. To read the full news, click here .

Just five months after her party took power, Myanmar’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is facing international pressure over recent reports that soldiers have been killing, raping and burning homes of the country’s long-persecuted Rohingya Muslims.             The US state department joined activist and aid groups in raising concerns about new reports of rape and murder, while satellite imagery released on Monday by Human Rights Watch shows that at least three villages in the western state of Rakhine have been burned. Myanmar government officials deny the reports of attacks, and presidential spokesman Zaw Htay said on Monday that United Nations (UN) representatives should visit “and see the actual situation in that region”. The government has long made access to the region a challenge, generally banning foreign aid workers and journalists. But the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, s...

New Satellite imagery shows evident fire-related destruction in at least three villages in Burma's northern Rakhine State, Human Rights Watch said today. The Burmese government should urgently allow the United Nations to assist in investigating reported destruction of villages in the area. A government-chaperoned delegation of UN aid agencies and foreign diplomats is expected to visit the area on October 31, 2016, marking the first time international aid agencies have been allowed into the area since October 9, although it is unclear whether they will have full access to affected villages. A UN-assisted investigation needs to examine the deadly attacks on border guard posts on October 9, and allegations that government security forces subsequently committed summary killings, sexual violence, arson, and other rights abuses against ethnic Rohingya villagers in Rakhine State’s Maungdaw district, Human Rights Watch said. “New satellite images reveal destruction in Rakhine State that...

A series of communal incidents in Madhya Pradesh has raised the question about the security of Muslims. In all these incidents Muslims were the main targets. According to the findings of a team of All India Secular Forum more than 40 houses and about the same number of shops owned by Muslims were set on fire. Besides destroying the houses and shops the culprits also looted the belongings in houses and various commodities stored in shops. The destruction was total. According to the report submitted to the Director General of Police the scene in the burnt houses and shops was such as if it was the handiwork of army of an enemy country. The two villages of Dhar district where arson and loot took place are Gandhwani and Pipalya. The incidents of arson and loot took place on October 12. The affected families related the sequence of events. According to villagers there was a disputed ground which was used by Hindu right wing organisations for religious activities. Some Muslims organis...

Here below is a case made by one of the presidential candidates: In 1854, a few thousand people gathered in Jackson, Michigan to launch an independent challenge to a national political system dominated by two parties. "Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements," a party leader later recalled, "we gathered from the four winds…[with] every external circumstance against us." This challenge was fueled by the radical abolitionist movement that united white workers and formerly enslaved Africans against the criminal institution of slavery, as a response to the political crisis caused by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In just two years, this insurgent third party — created by movement activists — had gained ground across the Northern states, challenging the Whig Party. In short order this insurgent "third party" had become a major opposition party. By 1858 they had won an influential foothold in Congress, and by 1860, that party leader — Abraham Lincoln — was...

The news below is from RB News: A Rohingya girl who is just 10-year-old was raped by Myanmar’s Border Guard Police in Mie Taik village tract in Taung Pyo Lat Wel sub-Towship in Maungdaw district. On October 27th 2016 a Ten-year-old Rohingya girl, whose identity is being withheld, from Ye Aung Chaung hamlet of Mie Taik village tract was tending to cattle in a field outside of the hamlet. At the same time three Border Guard Police were patrolling near the field while the Rakhine State Chief Minister U Nyi Pu was passing through the village on his way to Sittwe.  When the Border Guard Police saw her they reportedly detained her and raped her. While one of the police was raping the girl another child who was also tending the cattle saw the incident and yelled for help from the other villagers. When the child was yelling the villagers stopped an left. The BGP appeared to plan a gang rape, and one villager said they thought if they had done so the girl would have died from ...

The news below is from RB News: On the 29th of October, 2016, in the morning military forces destroyed several properties, tortured women and committed religious offense while stationed inside of the mosques in U Shey Kyar Village, Northern Maungdaw, Arakan State. On the 29th October, 2016, at around 11:30 AM, military forces along with NaTaLa villagers raided a mosque and madrassa together in U Shey Kyar’s West Hamlet. While they were there they destroyed copies of the Holy Quran by tearing them apart.  The military in the village at this time had been divided into four patrol groups, with one headed to the Northern Hamlet where they raided mosques and also desecrated the Holy Quran by tearing it up. Two of the other groups during raids on the Middle Hamlet mosque and a nearby market.  The four military groups looted properties at this time as well, taking what they wanted and destroying other belongings of he Rohingya living in the village. The soldiers were al...

From Donald Trump to Brexit supporters , many Westerners view Muslims as a threat and want to close the borders. But 500 years ago, Queen Elizabeth I made alliances with the Shah of Iran and the Ottoman Sultan. What can Elizabeth I’s relations with the Islamic world teach us? To find the answer, click here .

Despite the U.S.-led rolling back of economic sanctions and internationally backed national elections taking place early next month, more than a million people in Burma are facing state-sponsored genocide, according to a new report. The Rohingya Muslim community of the military-dominated Southeast Asian nation, which is now officially known as Myanmar, has been systematically persecuted and expunged from the national narrative — often at the behest of powerful extremist groups from the country’s majority Buddhist population and even government authorities — to the point where complete extermination is a possibility, according to a damning new study by the International State Crime Initiative (ISCI) at the Queen Mary University of London. “The Rohingya face the final stages of genocide,” concludes the report. ISCI uses noted genocide expert Daniel Feierstein’s framework of the six stages of genocide, outlined in his 2014 book Genocide as Social Practice , as a lens through which to v...

Anne Applebaum is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and historian, who writes for the Washington Post. She wrote an article on populism back in September, which is worth sharing now given the strength of populism that it has steadily gained in the days leading to the presidential election in the USA. Here is the link to her must-read article on the dangerous promise of populism, which is also shared below (in full). ================ The word “populist,” a very old part of the political vocabulary, has lately had a new lease on life. It’s generally used to describe movements of “the people” against “the elite,” whether that takes the form of the French Revolution or a revolt of American farmers. Usually it refers to movements that are said to be “left-wing,” and in recent years, the word has been almost entirely usurped by Latin America, where charismatic populist leaders have galvanized mass movements and pushed through public spending programs ostensibly designed to...

"For decades, Israel has held itself out as being the lone “democracy” in the Middle East; a state where the rights of individuals could not and would not be held hostage to the autocratic whims of royalty, but rather a full partner to a free and robust electoral process that guarantees not just meaningful input from the governed but the ability to challenge state policies as the winds of change blow from “the river to the sea.” Once again, recent events have proven this to be just so much a perverse myth… empty rhetoric… second only to the brazen unfounded Israeli boast of having the “most humane army in the world,” even as the body count of Palestinian children grows in cemeteries and prisons that have become very much its own unique brand of 21 st century youth hostel," writes Stanley Cohen. Recently, Hagai El-Ad , an Israeli and Jew, who serves as executive director of B’Tselem (The Israel Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories), spoke before ...

Here is an article by Azeem Ibrahim on Suu Kyi.

For too long, we have witnessed the abuse of Nobel Peace prize which is given to those who don't deserve. Suu Kyi has become a willing endorser of the genocidal pogroms taking place to this date inside Myanmar. It is simply shameful! Please, consider signing the petition here to protect the rights of the persecuted Rohingyas of Myanmar.

Here is the link to an interview of Ashish Nandy ( renowned political psychologist ) on Savarkar, the grandfather of Hindutvadi fascism. While in jail, Savarkar wrote the work describing Hindutva , espousing Hindu nationalism . In 1921, under restrictions after signing a plea for clemency , he was released on the condition that he renounce revolutionary activities. Traveling widely, Savarkar became a forceful orator and writer, advocating Hindu political and social unity. Serving as the president of the Hindu Mahasabha , Savarkar endorsed the ideal of India as a Hindu Rashtra and opposed the Quit India struggle in 1942, calling it a "Quit India but keep your army" movement. He became a fierce critic of the Indian National Congress and its acceptance of India's partition . He was accused of the assassination of Indian leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi but acquitted by the court. In his latest book, Nandy wrote, " Hindutva is an attack on Hinduism, that Hind...

Here is the link to an interesting piece on Kashmir.

Myanmar’s government said that the October 9 raids were conducted by the Aqamul Mujahidin organization, which it described as being affiliated with an extremist group. On the other hand, a previously unknown group - Faith Movement - has released a press statement on October 15 in which it claimed itself as the sons of Arakan soil who were compelled by the dire situation that they faced to make their own destiny through uprising, self-determination in self-defense. “We stand as an independent body which is free from all elements of terror in any nature,” the press release stated “that seeks fundamental but legitimate rights and justice for all ARAKANESE including our innocent Rohingyas and OTHER civilians dying from the continuous military assaults.” An outcome like this was only waiting to happen given that history has repeatedly shown that such prolonged encampment in IDP concentration camps create a sense of ultimate abandonment by the state, pushing even the most moderates to ...