Habib Siddiqui

As I have noted many times Israel gives a bad name to democracy. In spite of all its pretensions, it has always been an apartheid state with rules and laws that discriminate people based on religion and ethnicity. Israel's 'equality under law' simply doesn't apply to Palestinians, even to juveniles. According to a report published last week by B'Tselem (the Israeli human rights group), just one Palestinian juvenile defendant out of 835 was acquitted of stone-throwing over the past six years. (That is like 0.1 percent! Even the murderers in the USA have a much better statistics on getting acquitted!) The others were convicted, mostly through plea bargains. About 60 percent of the convicted minors served prison terms of four months or more. Among those who served sentences of a few days and up to two months in prison were 19 defendants who were 12 to 13 years old. It should be noted here that the Palestinian juveniles are not the only ones throwing rocks. The Israelis...

Last week, the UN welcomed South Sudan as its latest member. For nearly half a century the Christian missionaries have championed the cause of the south Sudanese, mostly animist and Christian, to break into pieces the largest African republic. Their efforts paid off when President George W. Bush elevated Sudan to the top of his foreign policy agenda after coming to office in 2000. In 2005, the American government pushed the southern rebels and the central government to sign a comprehensive peace agreement that guaranteed the southerners the right to secede. An American-backed treaty set the stage for a referendum in January in which more than 98 percent of southerners voted for independence. Last Saturday the southerners officially proclaimed their independence. For the last 63 years, the Palestinians have also been seeking independence – much like the south Sudanese. So have the Kashmiri people for the last 64 years. And their plight continues, in spite of the repeated promises made b...

In his website, Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician, posted an article – My message to Muslims, which deserve some response. Here below is my response to him. Mr. Wilders, In your message to Muslims you mentioned about your unpleasant experience visiting Egypt in 1982 as an 18-year old almost penniless student. Any wise person would have advised you not to undertake such a journey into a foreign land when you can’t speak the language of the people you visited and don’t have any local guide or acquaintance to help you, let alone being penniless. It was a stupid decision. And yet, as your first impression you were ‘overwhelmed by the kindness, friendliness and helpfulness of its people.’ Doesn’t it say a lot about the defining character of these warm-hearted people who in spite of their dire poverty and living under one of the worst despots of our time made you feel so welcome? You were surprised to see how frightened people had felt when it was announced that the Egyptian president Hos...

Today, I read an article by Nicolas Kristof in the NY Times where he mentions about new signs of trouble in the Nuba Mountains area of Sudan where the Samaritan Purse, the Christian missionary group that is led by Franklin Graham, is involved. Here are my comments I just sent to Kristof in his blog: Samaritan Purse is a Christian missionary group with declared agenda to turn Africa into a continent of Christianity. For years, it has worked with minority Christians to stir trouble against non-Christian regimes. Reports from Africa has shown that these Christian evangelical groups have provided arms and dollars to Christians to create Christian enclaves in those countries. And probably nowhere is this strategy more vivid than Sudan where the group was able to win referendum for the southern Sudanese Christians away from their majority Sudanese Muslims. I am, thus, concerned about the development in the Nuba mountains where the new allegations have emerged about government's strong a...

Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician who heads the fascist-leaning Party for Freedom (PVV), has gained much notoriety -- and deservingly so -- in the western world for his hate speeches inciting violence, discrimination, racism, bigotry and xenophobia against immigrants, in general, and the Muslim community, in particular. In the post-9/11 era of Islamophobia, he has often acted as its lead pit bull in Europe savagely attacking Islam and Muslims with his depraved and hateful statements and messages. He has called for banning of the Qur’an, comparing it with Hitler’s Mein Kampf. He has also produced the hate-filled documentary film Fitna, which since its release in 2008 has been promoted and distributed by Ruder Finn, the same PR firm that was instrumental in crafting the public relations campaign for its long-time client Philip Morris (now Altria) that disputed the evidence that tobacco smoking is hazardous to health. Thanks to his pro-Israeli and rabidly Islamophobic supporters like R...

In recent weeks, I have been getting some messages from Mr. Perumal, the founding president of a Kerala based human rights group: OHIROS that wants to weed out caste system. Here below is my suggestion to him: Salam (Peace). I was impressed with your website which is trying to weed out the curse of the caste system. As you and I know too well, caste system is the worst form of perennial slavery the world has ever known. It forces people to be enslaved not only in this earthly life but also in the afterlife (if you especially believe in reincarnation). This caste system was introduced by the Aryan invaders to the south Asian landmass, east of the HIndukush mountain range. The process resulted in the development of the most oppressive system ever known to mankind - the caste system in which the conquered people were relegated to the lowest of the low position, the Sudra - the untouchables, while the invaders claimed self-styled the Brahmin and Kshatriya status among their priestly and w...

Are Muslim Americans trying to impose a Taliban-style Shariah law in the USA? Seemingly, the answer is ‘yes’, if you are a Republican politician. The idea that America is this close to having her constitution replaced by the Muslim Scripture – the Qur’an - used to be a fringe notion in the post-9/11 era of Islamophobia that was packaged, promoted and propagated by malicious “Islamist watchdog” bloggers, neocon pundits with some think tanks and pen-pushing zealots. But nowadays that absurd idea has inched closer to the mainstream, thanks to our Republican politicians. Truly, outside Ron Paul of Texas, I don’t know of any serious Republican politician who has not tried to bank on this ‘menace.’ Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, is the lead dog in this evil campaign. Last year, in his speech at the American Enterprise Institute (a neocon think tank) where he is a senior fellow, Gingrich said, “The fight against Shariah and the maddrassas and mosques which teach hatred and fa...