Egypt sentences 183 Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death

An Egyptian court sentenced 183 supporters of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement to death on Monday over the killing of police officers during unrest in 2013.

The men were convicted of playing a role in the killings of 16 policemen in the town of Kardasa in August, 2013 during the upheaval that followed the army’s ouster of Islamist president Mohammed Morsi. Thirty-four were sentenced in absentia.

Egypt has mounted one of the biggest crackdowns in its modern history on the Brotherhood since the political demise of Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected president.

Thousands of Brotherhood supporters have been arrested and put on mass trials in a campaign which human rights groups say shows the government is systematically repressing opponents.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who as army chief toppled Morsi, describes the Brotherhood as a major security threat.

The movement, however, says it is committed to peaceful activism.

DELAY OF INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS: FG IS PLAYING HANKY-PANKY

The kick-off of the 2015 Nigerian general elections is just ten days away. Reports trending indicate that international observers are yet to arrive in the country. Stakeholders have already started expressing their worries over this delay.
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) joins other well-meaning groups and patriotic individuals in raising the alarm about the absence of foreign observers. International observers take position in countries preparing for elections several weeks before the commencement of the exercise. This is the accepted international standard and Nigeria should not fall short of this practice.
With attempts being made to scuttle the 2015 elections and allegations going round that the Federal Government (FG) is behind these sinister maneuvers, we have every reason to believe that FG is deliberately procrastinating. In connivance with the ruling party, FG is trying to buy more time for its damage-control gimmicks to work.
MURIC rejects this hanky-panky. We assert that mandate-stealing begins with time-stealing. The future of this country remains dicey if Aso Rock does not change its happy-go-lucky mentality. We cannot continue this foot-dragging for the next four years.
The deliberate delay of the arrival of international observers exposes FG’s hidden agenda. This administration comes across as one that never intended to allow a smooth and democratic transition through a free and fair election.
FG must tell Nigerians why its embassies abroad have not commenced issuing visas to foreign journalists and observers. We nurse a strong suspicion that FG has more than one skeleton in its cupboard. Those who organize elections must be transparent in the same way that those who come to equity must come with clean hands. A higgledy-piggledy arrangement can only be calculated towards thwarting one man one vote.
MURIC charges FG to immediately and unconditionally allow international observers to enter Nigeria. This will be a bold step towards becoming democracy-compliant. A regime which claims to be embarking on transformation cannot afford to fall short of international best practices.
Finally, we appeal to the African Union (AU) to beam its floodlight on Nigeria at this crucial moment. In view of Nigeria’s population size and the implications of a humanitarian crisis in the country for the whole of Africa, the continental body should not wait any longer. The time for AU’s presence and diplomatic intervention is now.
By the same token, we extend this appeal to the United Nations Organisation (UNO) as well as the European Union (EU). The world has become a global village and whatever affects Africa may not necessarily remain Africa’s problem alone.
Professor Ishaq Akintola,
Director,

Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC)

Praying directly to God attracted me to Islam

Not convinced by the concept of trinity, Erin (Sumaya Fannoun) wrestled with the concept of faith and looked for the right path. In this first of the two-part narrative, she explains that she became Muslim when she began to research and study Islam. 

The intention of writing my story is that for Allah’s sake, I may help someone who is searching for the truth, to realize that they have found it in Islam.
I began writing this on Easter Sunday, kind of appropriate, I think. I have been a Muslim now for seven years, Alhamdulillah (all praise is for Allah).
I first learned of Islam while attending university, from a Muslim friend of mine. I had managed to get out of a very good, college-prep high school believing that Muslims were idol-worshipping pagans. I was not interested in learning about a new religion.
I held the ethnocentric view that since the US was a super power nation, we must have the best of everything, including religion.
I knew that Christianity wasn’t perfect, but believed that it was the best that there was. I had a long-held opinion that although the Bible contained the word of God, it also contained the word of the common man, who wrote it down. As Allah would have it, every time I had picked up the Bible in my life, I had come across some really strange and actually dirty passages.
I could not understand why the Prophets of God would do such abominable things when there are plenty of average people who live their whole lives without thinking of doing such disgusting and immoral things, such as those attributed to Prophets David, Solomon and Lot (peace be upon them all) just to name a few.
I remember hearing in Church that since these Prophets committed such sins, how could the common people be any better than them? And so, it was said, Jesus had to be sacrificed for our sins, because we just couldn’t help ourselves, as the “flesh is weak.”
So, I wrestled with the notion of the trinity, trying to understand how my God was not one, but three. One who created the earth; one whose blood was spilled for our sins, and then there was the question of the holy ghost, yet all one and the same!
When I would pray to God, I had a certain image in my mind of a wise old man in flowing robe, up in the clouds. When I would pray to Jesus, I pictured a young white man with long golden hair, beard and blue eyes. As for the holy spirit, well, I could only conjure up a misty creature whose purpose I wasn’t sure of.
It really didn’t feel as though I was praying to one God. I found though that when I was really in a tight spot, I would automatically call directly on God. I knew inherently, that going straight to God, was the best bet.
When I began to research and study Islam, I didn’t have a problem with praying to God directly, it seemed the natural thing to do. However, I feared forsaking Jesus, and spent a lot of time contemplating the subject.
I began to study the Christian history, searching for the truth. The more I looked into it, the more I saw the parallel between the deification and sacrifice of Jesus, and the stories of Greek mythology that I had learned in junior high, where a god and a human woman would produce a child which would be a demigod, possessing some attributes of a god.
I learned of how important it had been to “St. Paul,” to have this religion accepted by the Greeks to whom he preached, and how some of the disciples had disagreed with his methods. It seemed very probable that this could have been a more appealing form of worship to the Greeks than the strict monotheism of the Old Testament. And only Allah knows.
I began to have certain difficulties with Christian thought while still in high school. Two things bothered me very much. The first was the direct contradiction between material in the Old and New Testaments.
I had always thought of the Ten Commandments as very straight forward, simple rules that God obviously wanted us to follow. Yet, worshipping Christ, was breaking the first commandment completely and totally, by associating a partner with God.
I could not understand why an omniscient God would change His mind, so to speak. Then there is the question of repentance. In the Old Testament, people are told to repent for their sins; but in the New Testament, it is no longer necessary, as Christ was sacrificed for the sins of the people.
“Paul did not call upon his hearers to repent of particular sins, but rather announced God’s victory over all sin in the cross of Christ. The radical nature of God’s power is affirmed in Paul’s insistence that in the death of Christ has rectified the ungodly (see Romans 4:5). Human beings are not called upon to do good works in order that God may rectify them.”
So what incentive did we even have to be good, when being bad could be a lot of fun? Society has answered by redefining good and bad. Any childcare expert will tell you that children must learn that their actions have consequences, and they encourage parents to allow them to experience the natural consequences of their actions. Yet in Christianity, there are no consequences, so people have begun to act like spoiled children.
Demanding the right to do as they please, demanding God’s and peoples’ unconditional love and acceptance of even vile behavior.

To be continued next week
Courtesy: islam-universe.com 

Rock concert, rallies overwhelm Germany's anti-Islam group

Germany's anti-Islam PEGIDA movement was overwhelmed by opponents of the far-right group at a rock concert for tolerance in Dresden on Monday and enormously popular counter-demonstrations in cities across the country.

More than 22,000 cheered German rock stars at an anti-PEGIDA rally in Dresden, where the movement that argues the country is being overrun by Muslims and refugees began in October. In Frankfurt 70 PEGIDA backers were outnumbered by 15,000.
"It's great that you're all here with us to send a signal tonight," said Herbert Groenemeyer, one of Germany's best-selling rock artists at the hastily organized free concert under the motto "Open and colorful -- Dresden is for everyone."
"It's horrible and sad what's been happening in some people's minds lately -- creating an atmosphere of hysteria where one religious group is being targeted as the scapegoat. It's absurd, mean, unjust, undemocratic and completely unacceptable."
PEGIDA, already reeling after its leader Lutz Bachmann quit for posing for a picture looking like Hitler and calling refugees "scumbags", normally holds its rallies on Mondays but switched to Sunday to make way for the parade of rock stars.
"There are 4 million Muslims in Germany and they are just as much a part of our 'economic miracle' as all the other religions in Germany," said Groenemeyer to the crowd, which braved heavy rain and chilly January temperatures for three hours.
In Munich, more than 2,300 anti-PEGIDA demonstrators outnumbered the 800 who took part in the PEGIDA rally there while, in Berlin, 500 supporters of the local BAERGIDA group were met by more than 1,000 counter-demonstrators.
Earlier on Monday, on the eve of Tuesday's 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germans had an everlasting responsibility to fight all forms of anti-Semitism and racism.

In what appeared to be an indirect reference to PEGIDA, Merkel told a memorial for the victims of Auschwitz: "We've got to fight anti-Semitism and all racism from the outset."
"We've got to constantly be on guard to protect our freedom, democracy and rule of law," she said. "We've got to expose those who promote prejudices and conjure up bogeymen, the old ones as well as the new."
Merkel said it was a disgrace that some Jews or those expressing support for Israel had been threatened or attacked in Germany, which was responsible for the Holocaust, and that protecting the growing Jewish community was a national duty.
 

China has just banned the burqa in its biggest Muslim city

Chinese authorities have banned women in Urumqi, the capital city of Xinjiang—an autonomous western region where Muslims account for almost half of the population—from wearing burqas in public, according to a brief article on a government-run website, Tianshan News. Local legislators for Urumqi proposed the ban in December, and now the regional legislature has approved it.

It’s not clear when the ban on 蒙面罩袍, literally “face-masking robes” will go into effect. State media said only that it will be implemented after being modified to meet comments proposed in a meeting over the weekend.

What is clear, though, is that moves like these are likely to further alienate an already disenchanted minority group—the Uighurs, who feel their culture and economy is being overrun by Han Chinese. Ever since a group of Uighur Muslims went on a killing spree in a train station in Kunming last March, Chinese officials have ratcheted up restrictions on a group they see as potential extremists. Xinjiang officials later banned students and civil servants from fasting for Ramadan, and authorities in the Xinjiang city of Karamy barred anyone wearing burqas, niqabs, hijabs or simply “large beards” from taking public buses.

Despite—or as a result of—these measures, attacks and clashes involving Uighurs have only increased. Today, police in Shule county, near Kashgar, shot dead six attackers who were allegedly trying to detonate a series of explosives. Militants attacked police, residents, and officials in Shache county in August, leaving almost 100 dead.

The state-run news agency Xinhua justified the burqa ban by pointing out that burqas are also banned in France (perhaps not the best example to use, given the recent extremist attack on French magazine Charlie Hebdo). The Xinhua report in English said, “Burqas are not traditional dress for Uighur women… The regulation is seen as an effort to curb growing extremism that forced Uighur women to abandon their colorful traditional dress and wear black burqas.”

But as long as Chinese officials tell residents they will be safer if religious expressions are kept to a minimum, these measures are likely to continue. Zhang Haitao, an activist based in Urumqi, told Radio Free Asia, “You can’t deprive the freedom of a small portion of people to maintain the stability of the society. But here, for a long time, the authorities have been kidnapping public opinion in the name of stability.”

Credit to Lily Kuo

Facebook Invades the Workplace and This Time It’s Legit

Facebook, the productivity killer and perennial thorn in the side of corporate managers and executives everywhere, recently revealed its latest plan to take over a little more of the world.
 With its eye on Yammer and an emerging trend towards work-driven private social networks, the company has announced Facebook at Work, billed as an alternative (and presumably better) way for employees of a company to communicate internally.
 Some apparently think that anything is better than being constantly hammered with a deluge of email. I can think of something worse — being hit with the same amount of messages but in an alternate reality Facebook where the only people who exist are the people I work with.
 But there is a positive side to Facebook’s announcement. It means more people are figuring out that email clients were never intended to be used as instant messaging software.
“Did you get the email I sent you?”
 “Probably, but I haven’t checked my email in a couple of hours.”
 “You don’t keep your inbox open?”
Nope. Because If I did, I wouldn’t get anything else done. To increase my productivity, I’ve made an effort to limit checking corporate email to three times a day. Even as an editor working with writers on what is often time-sensitive content, I’ve found that three times is usually sufficient. Collaboration doesn’t always need to be instantaneous. And when it does, there are better, more specialized tools out there than Facebook.
Some companies have an outright ban on Facebook in the workplace, partly because they see people in the outside world as a distraction to the folks inside who are trying to get work done. But Facebook believes it can convince company executives to let employees use its “at work” version like a company intranet. They’re even changing the color of the user interface so supervisors can tell with one glance if you’re on “work Facebook” or “real Facebook.”
The whole idea, of course, is based on the false assumption that people inside your company won’t be as much a of a drag on productivity as those in your newsfeed who are outside the company.
Good luck with that. Have you ever been pulled reluctantly into a real-time chat on Facebook when you were really intending to just check your feed and move on to something else? Imagine having this experience on a regular basis with your colleagues.
Another big question is Facebook’s ability to keep data safe. If Facebook at Work is meant to be a collaborative space, there’s inevitably going to be some confidential information on the network. Facebook says information will be kept “secure, confidential and completely separate” from personal Facebook profiles.
Recent high-profile security breaches like the one at Sony, however, might give some companies a reason to be skeptical. But even if the social media giant can deliver on its guarantee, who’s going to protect our information from Facebook?
I can’t even look at a pair of Nikes online without the same shoes following me to virtually every other site I visit online, including making multiple appearances in my Facebook feed. And Facebook already creeps me out with its ability to target ads. What would it be able to do if it knew my daily work details too?
Facebook, for its part, assures that such a scenario wouldn’t happen. BBC reports, “At this stage the work version will not feature adverts, nor will it gather data about its users that could be sold on to third parties.”
But what about the next stage? Could a company that has built massive wealth by collecting user data and selling targeted advertising really give up its data addiction so easily?
Don’t count on it.
I’m not suggesting there’s anything wrong with a company collecting data as part of its business model, as long as it’s up front about it. Own what you do. But why is it that, with Facebook, every new announcement always makes you wonder if another shoe is about to drop?
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, like any shrewd businessman, is not only trying to reach more potential customers, he’s trying to create more potential customers. This week, he’s in Colombia launching an initiative for Internet.org, a nonprofit partnership aimed at bringing affordable Internet access to everyone.
According to Reuters, the partnership’s free Internet application brings tools like Wikipedia, job listings, weather websites and health information to low income users. And Facebook — did I mention Facebook? Because apparently no one in the world can do without Facebook.
Soon there won’t be too many places where you can escape it. Including, if Zuckerberg has his way, your office.




Credit to Shane Raynor