Habib Siddiqui

02:11 Three Nobel Peace Prize laureates are urging Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi, herself a Nobel laureate, to condemn the violence against Rohingya refugees or possibly face prosecution for genocide. Three female Nobel peace laureates have accused Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi  and the military of the "genocide" of Rohingya. Shirin Ebadi of Iran, Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland and Tawakkol Karman of Yemen made the accusation during a press conference on Wednesday in Dhaka shortly after  visiting Rohingya refugee camps in the southern Bangladeshi district of Cox's Bazar.  The mission of the Nobel Women's Initiative was launched so that the three Nobel laureates could witness the plight of Rohingya women in the squalid refugee camps. They urged Myanmar's defacto leader Aung San Suu Kyi to condemn the violence against Rohingya refugees or possibly face prosecution for genocide. Aung San Suu Kyi "is d...

Written by Harsh Mander | Published: March 1, 2018 12:06 am <img class="wp-image-4973577 size-full" src="http://images.indianexpress.com/2017/12/rajasthan-labourer-murder-7591.jpg" alt="rajasthan man burnt alive, rajasthan murder, afrazul murder, rajasthan love jihad, rajsamand, shambhulal regar, muslim killed in rajasthan, rajasthan murder video, indian express news" /> A screengrab of Shambhulal Regar, the main accused in the case. The victim Afrazul (inset) was hacked and burnt alive in Rajasthan allegedly over an affair. We began this New Year with a journey of the Karwan e Mohabbat into Bengal. Few parts of India are untouched by the swirling tides of hate, therefore we had resolved to take our Karwan to at least one state every month, visiting the homes of families hit by acts of hate violence. There, ...

by  Liaquat Ali Khan This commentary focuses on hate crimes motivated by religion and argues that American Jews and Muslims as the primary targets of religious hatred must cooperate to fight the hate menace. The commentary also argues that the provocateurs of religious hatred and their corporate sponsors should be identified, exposed, and held responsible under both civil and criminal laws. Since 2001, the animus against American Jews and Muslims has remained steady. After the 9/11 attacks, the hate crimes against American Muslims (554 victims) peaked out. In the same year, however, American Jews also faced the most incidents of hate crimes (1196 victims).  In 2015 & 2016, the hate crimes against American Muslims have roughly doubled as compared to those in immediately preceding years; but the hate crimes against Jews have also ascended. As the chart demonstrates, regardless of yearly fluctuations, American Jews and Muslims are the principal victims of hate crimes moti...

A 12-year-old Dalit boy was killed and his sister and mother were injured in an attack on their family by unidentified persons at a nearby village  in India, the police said. Amid allegations that the girl and woman were sexually assaulted in the February 22 pre-dawn attack at Vellamputhur, which came to light on Monday, the police said medical tests were being conducted. The girl and the woman were admitted to the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER) in nearby Puducherry, the police said, adding that a probe was on to ascertain the motive behind the attack. Political parties demanded stern action against the culprits, while alleging that the girl and her mother were raped. "A boy, aged about 12 years, was killed. His 15-year-old sister and mother sustained head injuries," a senior district police official told PTI . On the motive behind the attack and allegations levelled by political parties that the victims were targeted over a ...

Bihar hit-and-run case: The Bihar Police had said that eyewitness accounts and CCTV footage have helped “conclude” that Manoj Baitha was driving the SUV that ran over the schoolchildren. Sitamarhi BJP leader Manoj Baitha, who allegedly ran over nine schoolchildren crossing a road at Minapur in Muzaffarpur district (India) on Saturday, surrendered before the police on Wednesday morning. DSP (East) Muzaffarpur Gaurav Pandey confirmed the arrest. Baitha has been shifted to Patna Medical College and Hospital treatment of the injuries he suffered during the accident. The Bihar Police had on Tuesday said that eyewitness accounts and CCTV footage have helped “conclude” that Baitha was driving the SUV that ran over schoolchildren. Police also believe Baitha was treated for injuries after the accident, including 24 stitches, before he ‘fled away’ . While trying to flee after running down a 65-year-old woman near the Dharampur middle school on February 24, Baith...

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - Inter-ethnic clashes in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have killed at least 22 people, including 15 civilians, over the past two days, a local official said on Monday. Militiamen from the Hutu-dominated Nyatura militia attacked a Nande-dominated militia called Mai Mai Mazembe in the village of Kalusi on Sunday and Bwalanda on Monday, local administrator Hope Sabini told Reuters. Eleven civilians were killed in the fighting in Kalusi, while four civilians and seven militiamen were killed in Bwalanda, Sabini said.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union foreign ministers agreed on Monday to prepare sanctions against Myanmar generals over the killings of Rohingya Muslims and to strengthen the EU arms embargo, accusing state security forces of grave human rights abuses. Ten Rohingya Muslim men with their hands bound kneel in Inn Din village September 1, 2017. Handout via REUTERS As reported by Reuters last week, foreign ministers meeting in Brussels asked the EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, to draw up a list of names to be hit with EU travel bans and asset freezes. In a statement, ministers called for “targeted restrictive measures against senior military officers of the Myanmar armed forces responsible for serious and systematic human rights violations without delay”. The measures would be the EU’s toughest yet to try to hold the Myanmar military accountable for the abuses, likely joining U.S. and Canadian sanctions already in place. Foreign ministers also want to streng...

The Rohingya Muslims are currently the world’s most persecuted minority. Since last year at least 625,000, over half the total population, have fled slaughter in Myanmar (also known as Burma). This is only the latest wave in a series of killings and expulsions starting in 1978. The UN calls it a ‘textbook example’ of ethnic cleansing. T wo recently-published books provide necessary background to the Rohingya tragedy. Francis Wade’s “Myanmar’s Enemy Within: the Making of a Muslim Other” contextualises events politically and historically. Azeem Ibrahim’s “The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Genocide” covers similar ground while, as the title suggests, convincingly arguing that Myanmar “stands on the brink” of genocide,  a crime defined by the UN as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” The Rohingyas have been designated as ‘Foreigners’ since 1978. The Myanmar state today describes them either as Indians imported by the British ...

Turkey on Saturday described as “extremely worrying” the US push to open its embassy in Jerusalem this May to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the founding of Israel. To read more, click here .

No one would realise better than a woman how it feels when a child is snatched away from the arms of a mother and slaughtered, a man is murdered before the eyes of his wife, or a girl is raped. That is what happened to countless Rohingya women back in Rakhine State of Myanmar. As three Nobel laureates listened to such harrowing tales of tortured women and children one by one in the refugee camps of Cox's Bazar, they could not hold tears back. The trio, all of them mother themselves, then urged Myanmar's de facto leader and their fellow Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to speak out about violence against the Rohingyas, often dubbed one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. They implored her to "wake up" to the brutalities, warning she otherwise risks prosecution for "genocide". The three Nobel Peace Prize winners -- Tawakkol Karman, Shirin Ebadi and Mairead Maguire -- demanded those responsible for the atrocities in Rakhine should be hauled t...

by TOFAYEL AHMAD AND JULHAS ALAM 02:41 AL JAZEERA : Hundreds of Rohingya Muslims are still pouring over Myanmar border into Bangladesh every  week, bringing accounts of torture and murder, six months after a military crackdown.   Their houses are often made of plastic sheets . Much of their food comes from aid agencies. Jobs are few, and there is painfully little to do. The nightmares are relentless. But six months after their horrors began, the Rohingya Muslims who fled army attacks in Myanmar for refuge in Bangladesh feel immense consolation. "Nobody is coming to kill us, that's for sure," said Mohammed Amanullah, whose village was destroyed last year just before he left for Bangladesh with his wife and three children. They now live in the Kutupalong refugee camp outside the coastal city of Cox's Bazar. KEVIN FRAYER/GETTY IMAGES : A Rohingya refugee boy desperate for aid cries as he climbs on a truck distribut...

At least 428 people, including 98 children, have been killed in the aerial offensive on the besieged rebel suburb of Damascus in one of the worst episodes of violence in the seven-year-long war. A sixth day of air strikes, including illegal barrel bombs, shelling and rocket fire, continued unabated in the area on Friday.  More than 22 medical facilities have been damaged, leaving thousands of injured people unable to access adequate help. The criminal Asad regime is relentless. To read the full story, click here .

While the world focuses on Florida, gun violence is an everyday reality for young people in Philadelphia. To read the article, click her e.

Here is the link to Dr. James Zogby's article that discusses the aftermath of invasion of Iraq.

Once again, Kashmir is living proof that it is not going to compromise, far less abandon, its demand for Aazaadi (freedom) which is its birthright and for which it has paid a price in blood and suffering which has not been exacted from any other people of the South Asian subcontinent. Compared to the sacrifice Kashmir has had to endure, India and Pakistan themselves gained their freedom through a highly civilized process. That is a most poignant truth. But even more bitterly ironical is the contrast between the complex and decades-long agony the Kashmir issue has caused to Kashmiris, to Pakistan and to India itself and the simple, rational measures that would be needed for its solution. No sleight of hand is required, no subtle concepts are to be deployed, and no ingenious deal needs to be struck between an Indian and a Pakistani leader with the endorsement of the more pliable Kashmiri figures. The time for deceptiveness is gone. All that is needed is going back — yes, going back — t...

By Habib Siddiqui   Billy Graham, widely touted here in the USA as ‘America’s pastor’, died on February 21 at his home in Montreat, North Carolina. He was 99 years old. In 1963, he famously said, “We are selling the greatest product on earth. Why shouldn’t we promote it as effectively as we promote a bar of soap?” [Saturday Evening Post] What Billy was selling to his audience was the ‘soul-saving’ tablet of Christianity, which he packaged as “crusades” from small events in towns across the USA to television sets around the world. Truly, he was a precursor of the Protestant televangelism that helped reshape the American religious and political landscapes. According to his ministry, he preached Christianity to more people than anyone else in history, reaching hundreds of millions of people either in person or via TV and satellite links. Billy Graham was called a preacher to presidents - Democratic and Republican alike.   He started meeting with presidents since...