SACW - 9 Nov 2012 | Burma: Rohingyas statement / Pakistan: Enemy past the gates? / India: Gujarat Genocide; Coming Famine; debate on Rape / Fukushima Meltdown / one law for all / Climate change denial
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at gmail.com
Thu Nov 8 16:36:34 EST 2012
South Asia Citizens Wire - 9 Nov 2012 - No. 2764
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Contents:
1. Burma: Joint statement seeks Urgent international Actions to Protect Rohingya People
2. Pakistan: Enemy past the gates? (Amir Zia)
3. Monika Hauser: Support women’s rights not obfuscation in Afghanistan
4. Superstorm Sandy and God’s wrath (Ishtiaq Ahmed)
5. Bangladesh: Bigots attack Ahmadiyya community in Rangpur
6. India: Memorial to a Genocide - Insist on justice (Romila Thapar)
7. India: The Coming Famine in India (Binayak Sen)
8. India: A risky formulation on Rape (Srimati Basu and Brinda Bose)
9. India: Superstition Rules The Place
(a) Education Minister Purifies Workplace
(b) Rationalists obtain court order on against violence of witch craft & black magic
(c) anthropologist talks of witch-hunting
10. India: Selected posts on Communalism Watch:
- On the Indian Readers of Hitler's Mein Kampf (EPW)
- India: Will Showing Exhibits on the Holocaust Curb Popularity of Hitler Among Business Schools ?
- India: Arrest of Mangalore journalist at behest of the Hindu Right
- USA: Modi supporter Joe Walsh loses his US Congress seat
- India: Please remember Yash Chopra's Dhool Ka Phool (1959) and Dharmputra (1961)
- India: Narendra Modi election campaign in Gujarat drapes itself in Vivekananda
- India: Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha where religious leaders and politicians of Hindutva right wing rub shoulders
- Gujarat court frames murder charges against Modi baiter Sanjiv Bhatt (PTI report in Times India)
- Assam riots of 2012: Displaced families in Kokrajhar struggle
- VHP leader in Panchjanya considers “secularism” the “biggest threat”
- India: 'Le Gaya Saddam' filmmaker goes into hiding after edict against him by Rajasthan mufti
- ‘Aap ki Taaqat’ – was targeted by mobs during the recent Faizabad riots
- India - Rajasthan: Report on Gopalgarh Firing: Public Hearing Nov. 4, 2012
- India: Leading sufi shrines in Bombay bar women from sanctum
- Is Gen. V.K Singh India's Former Army Chief Getting Active with RSS Circles?
- India: Pledge to provide jobs to survivors of 1984 anti Sikh riots unfulfilled
- India - Karnataka: Pressure from Hindutva outfits scuttles annual cattle fair
- India: Will Showing Exhibits on the Holocaust Curb Popularity of Hitler Among Business Schools ?
International:
10. David McNeill and Lucy Birmingham: Meltdown - On the Front Lines of Japan’s 3.11 Disaster
11. How families on both sides of the law face tough choices in Somalia (Jamal Osman)
12. America's theologians of climate science denial (Katherine Stewart)
13. UK: No exceptions - one law for all (Rahila Gupta)
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1. BURMA: JOINT STATEMENT SEEKS URGENT INTERNATIONAL ACTIONS TO PROTECT ROHINGYA PEOPLE
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Joint statement
Date: 8th November 2012
Urgent international Actions to Protect Rohingya People
We the undersigned thank all organizations, NGOs, media and individuals for joining today’s “Global Day of Action” event in solidarity with the Rohingya people.
Despite international outcries the Burmese government is trying to use the world’s most oppressive “Burma Citizenship Law of 1982” on the homeless and traumatized Rohingya people whilst most of their documents were burned down in the violence. This is another design of the government to hoodwink the international community.
Since June 2012:
· Many thousands of Rohingya have been killed.
· Thousands of Rohingya are missing.
· Thousands of homes have been destroyed.
· Hundreds of women have been raped.
· More than 100,000 people have been forced to flee their homes.
· Hundreds and thousands of Rohingya have been living under siege while most of them suffering from starvation and diseases.
· Rohingya refugees and internally displaced are blocked from receiving adequate food, shelters, medical treatment and other humanitarian aids.
· A new system of apartheid against Rohingya is being introduced and practised.
Burmese government has not only manifestly failed to protect the Rohingya population but it has also been a primary force behind the persecution and destruction of them. Thus the “responsibility to protect Rohingya” lies with the international community. We, therefore, urge upon the international community, UN, OIC, EU, ASEAN, UK, US and all Burma’s neighbours for the followings:
1. Put pressure on the Burmese government to stop all violence and intimidation against Rohingyas.
2. Support sending UN Peacekeeping Force and International Observers to Arakan.
3. Unhindered delivery of humanitarian aids to the victims.
4. Support for the establishment of a UN Commission of Inquiry in order to establish the true facts and bring those responsible to justice.
5. Put pressure on the government of Burma to repeal and replace the 1982 Burma citizenship Law with a law in line with international law standards and human rights principles.
Signatories on this statement
Arakan Rohingya National Organisation (ARNO) +880 15584 8691
Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK) +44 7888714866
Burmese Rohingya Association Japan (BRAJ) +81 8030835327
Burmese Rohingya Community in Australia (BRCA) +614 32574315
Burmese Rohingya Association Deutschland (BRAD) +49 1523361084
Burmese Rohingya Association in Thailand (BRAT) +668 79772045
Burmese Rohingya Community in Denmark ( BRCD) +45 22556897
Burmese Rohingya Community in Netherlands (BRCNL) +31 615033663
Rohingya League for Democracy Burma (RLDB) + 880 1674030911
Rohingya Community in Norway (RCN) + 47 92428989
Rohingya Society Malaysia (RSM) +60 122727002
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2. PAKISTAN: ENEMY PAST THE GATES?
by Amir Zia
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(The News, November 06, 2012)
All of a sudden some of the high and mighty of this country seem to have woken up to the fact that Taliban insurgents have gained a foothold in Karachi. These religious zealots are resorting to bank robberies, kidnappings and extortion to raise funds for the so-called holy war that has consumed nearly 40,000 Pakistani lives since early 2002. Apart from operating crime rackets, the Taliban are also carrying out systematic assassinations of political rivals in Karachi’s Pakhtun-dominated neighbourhoods, where they have established control by ousting the nationalist Awami National Party (ANP) workers. A network of seminaries, mainstream religious parties, and new and old Islamic charities provide the militants a platform from where they penetrate, organise and entrench themselves in the city.
Therefore, the honourable Supreme Court – during a suo-motu hearing last week on the law and order crisis in Karachi – ordered action against the Taliban. The same week, President Asif Ali Zardari also asked authorities to present a report on the Taliban’s activities, while Interior Minister Rehman Malik informed the nation that Pakistan’s financial and industrial capital has transformed into a hub of these religious militants.
On its part, the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) added the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) to its ever-expanding list of declared enemies. A TTP spokesman vowed that the Taliban would target MQM workers as a “religious obligation.” In his statement, he also encouraged the small Baloch and Sindhi militant bands to continue their struggle – in an apparent bid to find new allies and fuel ethnic, political and sectarian violence in Karachi, where more than 1,900 people have been killed so far this year. With the master of orchestrating suicide bombings and terror assaults formally announcing to join the fray in Karachi by throwing the gauntlet to the MQM, this means graver times lie ahead for the city.
Terrorist groups like the Taliban thrive on anarchy and disorder. Karachi’s fractured and highly polarised economic, social, ethnic and political environment makes it an ideal choice for all kinds of radicals and militants who want to confront and topple the existing order.
Although the Taliban presence in Karachi hit the headlines only in recent days, they have been expanding their network in the city for the past several years. The process gained momentum with the increased influx of the Pakhtun population to Karachi following the military operation in Swat and South Waziristan in 2009, and an escalation in US drone strikes on the militant-infested North Waziristan region. The majority of the refugees were ordinary citizens trying to escape the conflict, but a large number of militants also managed to find a safe-haven in the vast urban jungle of Karachi during this period.
The TTP’s hostility towards the MQM is understandable, since MQM leader Altaf Hussain and his supporters were the first to raise an alarm over increasing Talibanisation and the misuse of seminaries by extremist religious forces in the city. However, the MQM’s early warning shots were largely ignored by friends and foes alike. Forces like the ANP saw it as a tactic by the MQM to protest against the continued influx of Pakhtuns in the megalopolis, while the concerned government officials and state institutions remained in a state of self-denial by design or default. The PPP – MQM’s senior partner in the ruling coalition – also failed to grasp the gravity of the situation as all the mainstream forces remained locked in self-defeating turf-wars and infighting at the cost of vital issues. The lack of focus and absence of any broad counter-terrorism strategy for the city allowed Al-Qaeda-inspired militants to rest, regroup, expand and carry out their activities – almost with impunity – in Karachi.
The MQM also emerged as the strongest and most vocal critic of the Taliban and their mindset following the assassination bid on Malala Yousafzai, in which she and two of her friends were wounded. In contrast to the other mainstream political parties, the MQM tried to challenge the orthodox militia by trying to come up with an ideological counter-narrative, underlining the vision of Pakistan’s founding father, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah, who stood for a modern, progressive and secular state fused with the best traditions of Islam. While doing this, the MQM tried to mobilise people at different levels – especially the intelligentsia and the educated urban middle and upper-middle classes. The MQM’s plan to hold a referendum on November 8 to ask the people to decide whether they want Quaid-e-Azam’s Pakistan or the Taliban’s – is a positive initiative to mobilise public opinion against religious extremism and intolerance.
However, the MQM – with all its support in urban Sindh, a well-oiled organisational structure, die-hard workers and muscle power – is hardly in a position to take on the terrorist threat of the Taliban. In fact no political party can match the Taliban and its other Al-Qaeda-inspired allies on their turf of terrorism and suicide missions. A party the size of the MQM remains a soft target for the extremists, who already have a history of targeting the two other partners of the present ruling coalition – the ANP and the PPP – and depriving them of their some top leaders and scores of workers. Now the religious militia has added a new and dangerous element to Karachi’s ethnic and political minefield with their pledge to target the MQM. Dealing with the Taliban’s terror threat remains the sole responsibility of the country’s security forces, which too have remained the prime target of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgents.
But the Taliban challenge in Karachi should push the mainstream political parties to shun their petty differences and unite on the minimum agenda of fighting religious extremism in all its forms and manifestations. Any such consensus remains a must to mobilise public opinion against the Taliban and other non-state actors. It will isolate Taliban apologists like Imran Khan, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and various factions of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) and allow the security forces to move against militants decisively on the back of popular support.
The PPP, the MQM, the ANP and other mainstream democratic forces – despite their differences and clash of interests – have a lot more in common when it comes to their politics and ideology. They cannot defeat terrorism alone, and need to join hands and unite the people if they want Pakistan to keep up with the 21st century world. The civil leadership must rise to the challenge in this battle of ideas without which the real conflict can never be won by the security forces in the short to mid-term.
In the long-term, both civilian and military leaders must focus on rehabilitating the foot-soldiers of these militant groups and focus on reforming seminaries, and providing modern education and economic opportunities to poor students. Karachi can be a game-changer in this conflict, but the window of opportunity in the election year might be very small.
All we need is a little common sense, a clear vision and some sincerity on the part of the politicians and military leaders to save Pakistan, which is teetering towards complete anarchy and chaos. Although the past offers little hope, rational thinking and sane decisions remain our only bet. Do we have any other choice? It is a matter of life and death now.
The writer is editor The News, Karachi.
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3. MONIKA HAUSER: SUPPORT WOMEN’S RIGHTS NOT OBFUSCATION IN AFGHANISTAN
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Berlin will now rely on local notions of legitimacy and on traditions to help stabilize fragile states. What will this mean, however, for Afghan women, who until now have been dramatically underrepresented in all government bodies, and whose desire for political participation is openly met with insult, persecution, and violence? These women suffer daily under the strict conservative and patriarchal structures of society. In the name of a just social peace, it should be a matter of fighting against such structures rather than accepting them.
http://www.sacw.net/article3294.html
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4. SUPERSTORM SANDY AND GOD’S WRATH
by Ishtiaq Ahmed
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Every time death and destruction result after the ‘normal’ weather pattern is disrupted and hurricanes, typhoons and storms occur or vigorous seismic activity takes place that results in earthquakes and tsunamis, our clerics and even many professionals and intelligentsia describe them as proof of God Almighty inflicting punishment and pain on humanity gone astray.
http://www.sacw.net/article3298.html
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5. BANGLADESH: BIGOTS ATTACK AHMADIYYA COMMUNITY IN RANGPUR
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(The Daily Star, November 8, 2012)
Star Report
Religious bigots allegedly with links to Jamaat-e-Islami yesterday launched an attack on Ahmadiyya community in Taraganj upazila of Rangpur, leaving 15 people injured.
They set fire to two houses and attacked a religious establishment of Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama'at at Kismat Mena Nagar village in the upazila, local sources said.
Mostafizer Rahman, officer-in-charge of Taraganj Police Station, told The Daily Star that a group of people attacked the houses of Ahmadiyyas over the construction of a mosque by the community.
Members of the Ahmadiyya community claimed that local Jamaat leaders Abul Kasem, Abdul Kader and Kazi Rafiqul Islam led the attack.
“Following an announcement on loudspeaker against Ahmadiyyas, several thousand people around 2:00pm equipped with sticks made the attack,” they added.
The mob set ablaze two houses of the community, the OC said, adding that police had arrested 11 people for their alleged involvement in the attack.
“But we are yet to identify their political affiliation,” he said.
Around 20 Ahmadiyya families live in Kismat Mena Nagar under Hariar Kuti union, and all male members of these families are hiding in fear of further attacks, sources said.
Witnesses said a chase and counter chase took place between the mob and the law enforcers when a police team led by Upazila Nirbahi Officer Syed Farhad Hossain went to the spot to quell the violence at 2:15pm.
Police fired several tear gas shells to disperse the mob.
The mob also snatched a camera and mobile phones from the daily Prothom Alo Taraganj correspondent Rahidul Islam and assaulted him physically as he was taking footage of the fire.
Rahidul was later admitted to Rangpur Medical College Hospital.
“Police at first retreated from the spot when the religious bigots attacked them. On receiving information, a large number of police members rushed to the area and brought the situation under control,” the OC told The Daily Star over the phone.
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6. INDIA: MEMORIAL TO A GENOCIDE - INSIST ON JUSTICE
by Romila Thapar
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Would those who encouraged the victimisers to kill in Gujarat be willing to apologise or make a conciliatory gesture to the victims? That would be a confession of guilt and guilt is what Narendra Modi is constantly denying
http://www.sacw.net/article3287.html
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7. INDIA: THE COMING FAMINE IN INDIA
by Binayak Sen
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Dr Binayak Sen, an internationally renowned medical practitioner and social activist (a leading figure in the People’s Union for Civil Liberties), was incarcerated in Chhattisgarh and held in detention in Raipur having been branded as a Maoist for his activities in defence of poor tribals in the State. He is now out on bail. The following is the text of the Arvind Narayan Das Memorial Lecture he delivered in New Delhi on October 6, 2012.
http://www.sacw.net/article3289.html
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8. INDIA: A RISKY FORMULATION ON RAPE
by Srimati Basu and Brinda Bose
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In perceiving the public sphere entirely as a zone of male competition, Banerjee’s argument replicates the idea that rape is correlated to uncontrollable male urges — a physical and psychological given, with a ‘men will be men’ sigh of resignation — and its removal must therefore be dependent upon finding more legitimate, socially-acceptable means of satiating them. This dangerous formulation relies on an entrenched sense of male entitlement to women’s bodies as empty (or irrelevant) vessels waiting to satisfy male sexual desires. Urbanisation, modernity, or women’s sexual confidence and assertiveness become justifications for men’s refusal to wait for consent before displaying, and slaying, their lust.
http://www.sacw.net/article3297.html
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9. India: Superstition Rules The Place
(a) Education Minister's office purified by priests
(b) Orissa High Court seeks law to curb practice of witchcraft and black magic
(c) Shashank Shekhar Sinha on witch-hunting
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(a) (The Sunday Guardian, 8 Nov 2012)
VAASTU-FOLLOWER RAJU’S OFFICE PURIFIED BY PRIESTS
Mohammed Anas New Delhi | 3rd Nov 2012
http://sunday-guardian.com//administrator/iupload/raju365_1351963611.jpg
Illustration by Sandeep Adhwaryu
The new Human Resources Development Minister, Mallipudi Raju Pallam Mangapati, aka Pallam Raju, performed "chair puja" before assuming office in Shashtri Bhawan on Wednesday. The US-educated minister from Andhra Pradesh brought priests from the famous Tirupati temple to get his office room "purified and furniture reset according to befitting Vastu positions", said sources in the ministry.
The staff in Raju's HRD team dismissed all references to "superstition" when questioned about this. "It's a ritual for religiously inclined people to have havans and prayers organised before taking over new duties. As for following Vaastu Shashtra guidelines, it's quite in vogue in cities these days. Even foreigners follow such guidelines and hire Indian experts for this purpose," a staff member said.
The member revealed that as per new Vaastu instructions, Raju's chair will be situated on the south-east side of the room. "The priests have said that it's a shakti disha (power direction), which is expected to protect the power of his ministry," the member said.
He added that the shelves and sofas that were placed according to former HRD Minister Kapil Sibal's choice have been reorganised.
Interestingly, another member of the HRD staff said that yellow laddoos were distributed as prasad (offerings) and that Raju was advised to use pen with ink other than black. "When he was about to sign his first file in the office with a black pen on his table, he was advised by the priests to go for a green pen," said the member. But, this too, according to Raju's staff, was only because of "a careful preference for colours".
Most of Raju's team members in Shashtri Bhawan this correspondent spoke to insisted that the minister was a modern technocrat.
o o o
(b) Activist Sashiprava Bindhani and secretary of Odisha Rationalist Society Debendra Sutar had filed two separate PILs seeking enactment of a law and issuing of guidelines by the Odisha government to curb the rising incidents of atrocities on women on charges of being witches or practicing witchcraft. On May 17 2012 The High Court of Orissa directed the State government to spread awareness involving all gram panchayats of the State in order to curb the violence arising out of witchcraft practice and black magic.
Disposing off a PIL filed in this connection by Odisha Rationalist Society, a Division Bench of the High Court comprising Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice S.K. Mishra formulated guidelines to check the trouble created by witchcraft practice as no such law is prevalent in the State to curb this practice.
Asking the State police to register cases under Indian Penal Code (IPC) and prosecute the perpetrators of such practices, the High Court said the police should record the statements of the accused and witnesses under Section 164 of CrPC. Further the High Court pointed out that all the guidelines framed by the High Court shall be in force until a law to check the menace.
SASHIPRAVA BINDHANI & ANR.-V- STATE OF ORISSA & ORS.
W.P.(C) NOS.17638/2011 & 6287/2012 (Dt.25.04.2012)
CONSTITUTION OF INDIA, 1950 – ART. 226.
Witch craft and witch-hunting – Most of the victims are women – Prevalent mainly in tribal districts- It mainly happens due to ignorance and superstition etc. – Convention on the Elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW) endorsed witch-hunting as one of the harmful practices – Legislation required to prevent such problem – Held, direction issued to the State Government to introduce an appropriate bill in the State legislature within one year and till a suitable legislation is passed the State Authorities shall take preventive steps to tackle the menace of witch-hunting.
(V.Gopala Gowda, CJ & S.K.Mishra, J.)
www.orissahighcourt.nic.in/courtnews/June2012.pdf
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(c) Shashank Shekhar Sinha on witch-hunting
What are the key areas you seek to highlight through your analysis of adivasi movements and the politics of witch-hunting?
A. This topic forms a part of my larger book project (work-in-progress), which explores the politics of witch-hunting in Chotanagpur/Jharkhand over the last 200 years. The larger argument I am trying to make is that the world of spirits and witches was not a dead, insular domain. It intersected closely with changes in the socio-political milieu to acquire varied meanings and forms. The presence of different agents and forces with specific interests and locations—the colonial administration, ethnographers and anthropologists, adivasi patriarchs and reformers, witch doctors, caste-Hindus, Christian missionaries, and the post-colonial 'development' regime—invested the world of spirits and witches with an intensely political character.
http://www.sacw.net/article3299.html
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10. India: posts on Communalism Watch
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- Text of Romila Thapar's intervention at an event marking 10 years of Gujarat Genocide (9 oct in Jamia Milia)
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/text-of-romila-tapars-intervention-at.html
On the Indian Readers of Hitler's Mein Kampf (EPW)
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/on-indian-readers-of-hitlers-mein-kampf.html
- India: Will Showing Exhibits on the Holocaust Curb Popularity of Hitler Among Business Schools ?
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/india-popularity-of-hitler-among.html
- India: Arrest of Mangalore journalist at behest of the Hindu Right
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/arrest-of-mangalore-journalist-at.html
- USA: Modi supporter Joe Walsh loses his US Congress seat
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/usa-modi-supporter-joe-walsh-loses-his.html
- India: Please remember Yash Chopra's Dhool Ka Phool (1959) and Dharmputra (1961)
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/india-please-remember-yash-chopras.html
India: Narendra Modi election campaign in Gujarat drapes itself in Vivekananda
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/india-narendra-modi-election-campaign.html
India: Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha where religious leaders and politicians of Hindutva right wing rub shoulders
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/india-hindu-dharma-acharya-sabha-where.html
Gujarat court frames murder charges against Modi baiter Sanjiv Bhatt (PTI report in Times India)
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/gujarat-court-frames-murder-charges.html
- Assam riots of 2012: Displaced families in Kokrajhar struggle
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/assam-riots-of-2012-displaced-families.html
VHP leader in Panchjanya considers “secularism” the “biggest threat”
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/vhp-leader-in-panchjanya-considers.html
India: 'Le Gaya Saddam' filmmaker goes into hiding after edict against him by Rajasthan mufti
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/india-le-gaya-saddam-filmmaker-goes.html
‘Aap ki Taaqat’ – was targeted by mobs during the recent Faizabad riots
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/aap-ki-taaqat-was-targeted-by-mobs.html
- India - Rajasthan: Report on Gopalgarh Firing: Public Hearing Nov. 4, 2012
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/rajasthan-report-on-gopalgarh-firing.html
- India: Leading sufi shrines in Bombay bar women from sanctum
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/india-leading-sufi-shrines-in-bombay.html
- A photo exhibition capturing the carnage of 1984
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/a-photo-exhibition-capturing-carnage-of.html
- Is Gen. V.K Singh India's Former Army Chief Getting Active with RSS Circles?
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/is-gen-vk-singh-indias-former-army.html
- India: Pledge to provide jobs to survivors of 1984 anti Sikh riots unfulfilled
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/india-pledge-to-provide-jobs-to.html
India - Karnataka: Pressure from Hindutva outfits scuttles annual cattle fair
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/karnataka-pressure-from-hindutva.html
The original sin of November 1984 - Editorial The Hindu (1 Nov 2012)
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/the-original-sin-of-november-1984.html
India: Will Showing Exhibits on the Holocaust Curb Popularity of Hitler Among Business Schools ?
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/11/india-popularity-of-hitler-among.html
INTERNATIONAL
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10. DAVID MCNEILL AND LUCY BIRMINGHAM: MELTDOWN - ON THE FRONT LINES OF JAPAN’S 3.11 DISASTER
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Strong in the Rain, a new book co-authored by Japan Focus coordinator David McNeill and Lucy Birmingham, Time magazine’s Tokyo reporter, tells the story of Japan’s 2001 triple disaster through the eyes of six ordinary Japanese people. The books follows the six – a housewife, a fisherman, the mayor of the coastal city of Minamisoma, a student, a foreign teacher and a maintenance worker at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant as they deal first with the shock of the initial earthquake and tsunami, then the horrific consequences of the nuclear disaster. In this except from Chapter Four, plant worker Watanabe Kai (a pseudonym) and Mayor Sakurai Katsunobu begin to realize the full scale of the triple meltdown at the Daiichi plant and what it will mean for their lives.
http://www.sacw.net/article3284.html
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11. HOW FAMILIES ON BOTH SIDES OF THE LAW FACE TOUGH CHOICES IN SOMALIA
by Jamal Osman
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Relatives of murder victims must pardon the perpetrators, kill them or demand blood money – currently set at about $20,000
When Ali Faras's 21-year-old son was murdered, the local court gave him three options: to pardon the killer, demand blood money from the man's family or call for his execution. If he decided the latter, he would have to perform the killing himself.
The killer, Mohamed Sanbaare, had been his son's friend and business partner. Sanbaare owned a fishing boat and the pair worked together as human traffickers, ferrying immigrants across the sea to Yemen. One day, out at sea, Sanbaare shot and killed his friend. It was, he said, an accident.
Sanbaare was found guilty of murder at a court in Bossasso, in Somalia's semi-autonomous region of Puntland. Puntland more stable than the capital, Mogadishu, with functioning local authorities.
Bossasso has the largest prison in the region, with room for 400 criminals, and every week the port city's highest court deals with serious criminal cases including murder, terrorism and piracy. Murderers are judged according to Somalia's sharia law and the concept of Qisas, or "equal retaliation", which states that the victim's family must decide the fate of the murderer. They can choose to forgive, to ask for money as recompense or to demand the killer's death.
"Once the sentence is passed, if the victim's family choose to kill, then we take the defendant to the execution site, and the killing is carried out," said Sheikh Adam Ahmed, the highest judge in Bossasso.
The local authorities provide the family of the victim with an AK-47 and five bullets. The condemned man is blindfolded and tied to a small tree known as the tree of death. The person chosen to carry out the deed stands five metres away.
Read More at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/28/somali-sharia-families-law-choices
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12. AMERICA'S THEOLOGIANS OF CLIMATE SCIENCE DENIAL
by Katherine Stewart
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(The Guardian, 4 November 2012)
The religious right in the US backs GOP climate change denial because science also supports evolution against creationism
Now that Sandy has exacted a steep toll in lives and property, the question is unavoidable: why do so many people in America refuse to take climate science seriously?
I am not assuming that Sandy was the direct consequence of human-caused climate change. But with this fresh evidence of the impact of climate issues on real people, how is it possible for anyone to think that thousands of scientists around the world are engaged in an elaborate hoax?
The standard reply is that some powerful organizations – above all, in the fossil fuel industry – think that they can benefit from misleading the public, and have funded a successful disinformation campaign. There is a lot of truth to this answer, but it isn't the whole truth.
For the average climate science denier in the street (and there are a lot of them on some streets), there is often little correlation between the vehemence of their denials and the so-called "facts" at their disposal. The average Chuck is like Chuck Norris, who has claimed that climate science is a "trick". Not an innocent mistake, not a systemic bias, but a premeditated fraud.
Climate science denial needs disinformation to survive, but it has its feet firmly planted in a part of American culture. That culture draws on lots of different sources. But if you want to understand it, you need to understand something about America's religious landscape.
Take a look at some of the most recent initiatives in the climate science denial wars. In Louisiana, Tennessee, New Hampshire and other states, legislatures have either passed or put forward bills intended to disinform secondary-school students about climate science. Sure, they paper over the assault on education with claims that they only want to teach "both sides" of the issue and encourage "critical thinking". But, as leaked documents made clear in at least one instance, the ultimate purpose is to produce a young generation of "skeptics" whose views on climate science will happily coincide with those of the fossil fuel industry.
Who is behind these programs of de-education?
The group writing much of the legislation is the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), a "nonpartisan" consortium of state legislators and business interests that gets plenty of money from the usual suspects. But the legislation has also received vital support from groups associated with the religious right. For example, the perversely named Louisiana Science Education Act, which opens the door to climate science denial in the classroom, was co-authored by the Discovery Institute, a Seattle-based creationist thinktank. That act also received crucial support from the Alliance Defending Freedom, the well-funded Christian legal advocacy group that has described itself as "a servant organization that provides the resources that will keep the door open for the spread of the Gospel", and which promotes a radical religious agenda in public schools.
What does religion have to do with climate science? Radical religious activists promote the anti-science bills, in part, because they also seek to undermine the teaching of evolution – another issue that supposedly has "two sides", so schools should "teach the controversy". Now, you don't have to believe that Earth was created in six hectic days in order to be skeptical about climate science, but a large number of climate science deniers also happen to be evolution deniers.
What exactly is the theology of climate science denial? The Cornwall Alliance – a coalition whose list of signatories could double as a directory of major players in the religious right – has a produced a declaration asserting, as a matter of theology, that "there is no convincing scientific evidence that human contribution to greenhouse gases is causing dangerous global warming."
It also tells us – on the firm foundation of Holy Scriptures – that policies intended to slow the pace of climate change represent a "dangerous expansion of government control over private life". It also alerts us that the environmental movement is "un-Biblical" – indeed, a new and false religion. If the Cornwall Declaration seems like a tough read, you can get what you need from the organization's DVD series: "Resisting the Green Dragon: A Biblical Response to one of the Greatest Deceptions of our Day."
Now, this isn't the theology of every religion in America, or of every strain of Christianity; not by a long stretch. Most Christians accept climate science and believe in protecting the environment, and many of them do so for religious as well as scientific reasons. But theirs is not the theology that holds sway in the upper reaches of the Republican party, or moves your average climate science denier Chuck. As Rick Santorum explained at an energy summit in Colorado:
"We were put on this Earth as creatures of God to have dominion over the Earth … for our benefit not for the Earth's benefit."
Why does this theology of science denial have such power? For one thing, it gives its adherents something to throw back in the face of all those obnoxious "elites", which they think are telling them what to do with their lives. There's no need to master the facts if all you need is to learn a few words of scripture.
But, perhaps, more to the point is that this kind of religion works for Chuck because it allows him to disguise the extraordinary selfishness of his position in a cloak of sanctimony. Translated into the kind of language that you can take to the shopping mall, it says that God wants you to squeeze whatever you can out of the earth – and to hell with the grandkids.
I hear plenty of cynicism about the choice facing people this Tuesday, 6 November. Some say that it really doesn't matter who gets elected. It is true that Obama has largely kept climate change out of the campaign. But it is delusional to imagine that Obama is just the same as Romney and the Republican party on this issue. Paul Ryan is on record as a world-class climate science denier. Mitt Romney's press secretary has been a shill for oil companies.
Romney's proposals on energy policy and climate issues, so far as they can be discerned, are indistinguishable from those of the fossil fuel industry. And anyone who thinks that Republican party policies won't be informed by some of that old-time religion simply hasn't been listening to what its candidates have to say about women, reproductive rights, and what they speciously call "religious liberty".
There is a choice. And even if you don't think it matters, your grandkids will.
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13. UK: NO EXCEPTIONS - ONE LAW FOR ALL
by Rahila Gupta
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(open democracy, 7 November 2012)
Should we be worried that a parallel legal system is creeping into existence in the UK when one law for all should be the defining principle of a liberal democracy? asks Rahila Gupta
Are Sharia councils proliferating in Britain? Are they different from the Muslim Arbitration Tribunals? How does the ‘one law for all’ ideal account for the Jewish religious courts, the Beth Din, that were set up more than 100 years ago by a UK statute, or the little discussed existence of Catholic Tribunals?
Theoretically, the judgments of sharia councils, an informal system of dispensing justice, often connected to or based in mosques, are not legally binding in the UK . Theoretically, their intervention is sought by families on a voluntary basis. Theoretically, no decision made by the councils or MATS (more on that below) in the area of family law should be in contravention of UK law. In that theoretical world, in the name of religious freedoms and the right of citizens to seek alternative forms of dispute resolution, the State has little room for manoeuvre. Furthermore, Dr Samia Bano, finds in a recent survey that sharia councils, ‘sought to avoid conflict with the state and did not appear to have any desire to replace civil law mechanisms. Fears that councils are forming a parallel legal system appear to be unfounded.’
So why does this fail to reassure? Because in reality the gap between theory and practice is treacherous. The longstanding critique of multi-culturalism and, since Blair and New Labour, multi-faithism, by feminist organisations like Southall Black Sisters (SBS), where undue power was vested in the hands of religious and community leaders by the state, is seen at its sharpest in the work of religious courts. The idea of it being ‘voluntary’ is laughable as many women are not aware of their rights and feel pressurised to go to the sharia council, which functions as an extension of the pressure to reconcile exerted by the extended family and community elders even when the relationship has been violent. SBS has found that sharia councils are widely used by the State, for example, through the work of social services departments as 'experts' which gives them an indirect influence on individual legal cases. Dr Bano reports that social workers often attended Sharia Councils to see ‘how Islam works’ so as to accommodate demands for the recognition of ‘diversity’ before making decisions about fathers' access to their children. Even where women had secured protection orders through the civil law to prevent their husbands having access to their children, their husbands used the promise of unilateral divorce (talaq) to regain access to their children.
While most women who come to SBS do not want religious courts to interfere in their lives, they also fear the stigma of not getting a religious divorce and being unable to remarry in a mosque. Often a civil divorce is not available to the women because, unknown to them, they did not have a valid marriage in the first place. From 2000, there has been an increase in women complaining about their inability to get religious divorces even when they have been deserted by their husbands or have left a violent relationship. The issue of stigma also haunts Jewish women in the Beth Din where the power to grant a divorce lies with the man. A woman who is refused a religious divorce, a get, turns into the ‘chained woman’ and her children from a remarriage will inherit the stigma and be unable to marry other members of Orthodox Jewish communities.
Muslim Arbitration Tribunals are a more recent development, the first one was set up in Britain in 2007, and classified under the Arbitration Act 1996 , which makes their rulings binding in law, provided that both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their case. While the Arbitration Act does not explicitly exclude family matters from the jurisdiction of tribunals, their remit is meant to cover commercial and inheritance issues, a point reiterated by Jack Straw as Minister of Justice in 2008. However, the MAT website openly lists its areas of work as forced marriages, domestic violence, family disputes, Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007, alongside commercial and mosque disputes.
Whilst criminal matters fall expressly outside their jurisdiction, where they intersect with domestic violence, this is what the MAT website alarmingly has to say on the subject. “MAT is unable to deal with criminal offences as we do not have jurisdiction to try such matters in the UK. However where there are criminal charges such as assault within the context of domestic violence, the parties will be able ask MAT to assist in reaching reconciliation which is observed and approved by MAT as an independent organisation. The terms of such a reconciliation can then be passed by MAT on to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) though the local Police Domestic Violence Liaison Officers with a view to reconsidering the criminal charges.” The powers that they are arrogating to themselves are dangerous and in breach of the good practice developed by women’s organisations when dealing with domestic violence. Reconciliation, where violence has occurred, is putting a woman in a life-threatening situation; encouraging the police to drop charges can have devastating consequences if the woman has an insecure immigration status and needs to provide evidence of violence in order to secure the right to remain here. The incompatibility of personal religious laws with secular civil law is not lost on the Tribunals. Their dearly held aspiration is declared, without irony, ‘What a great achievement it will be if we can produce a result to the satisfaction of both English and Islamic law!’
The drastic cutbacks in legal aid in the UK make these religious courts a cheaper and much more attractive proposition for minority communities, and for a government which is looking to cut costs wherever possible. There has been widespread concern among secular organisations at the growing influence of religious courts, a concern which was given political expression by the One Law for All campaign which had called for amendments to the Arbitration Act. In June 2012 Baroness Cox, a crossbench member of the House of Lords, introduced the Arbitration and Mediation (Equality) Services Bill , co-sponsored by the National Secular Society, to curb the powers of religious courts especially in family matters. The Bill would create a new criminal offence of 'falsely claiming legal jurisdiction' for any person who adjudicates upon matters which ought to be decided by criminal or family courts, make explicit that these areas lie outside the remit of Arbitration tribunals and that sex discrimination law applies to arbitration tribunal proceedings. At its second reading in October, the government refused to support it on the basis that many of the amendments put forward in the bill were already provided for under current equalities legislation.
The use of any religious laws in family matters should be disallowed and anyone seeking to arbitrate in family matters using religious laws should be criminalised. This is a radical proposition because it goes beyond the question of whether the law should grant such jurisdiction to religious courts and engages directly with the wider question of how far the law should accommodate religion. Whether the rulings are discriminatory or not, religious law must not be used in family matters. The proposition is made by SBS, and would sweep up sharia councils, MATs, the Beth Din and Catholic tribunals in its path, more than Baroness Cox, a devout Christian, would have bargained for. Of course, religious bodies support the ‘explicit accommodation of religious views through the “rule and exception” model of law’ like the Catholic Bishops conference stated in 2008, a model that other religions latch on to on the grounds of parity. The Catholic Bishops give examples such as ‘conscientious objection (the doctor refusing to do a termination)’, a rule and exception model that must be opposed by all self-respecting secularists.
The debate in Parliament, the campaign materials, the various supporters of the Bill referred almost exclusively to sharia laws. Although sharia has become a live issue because of the demographics of recent migration, at a time of anti-Muslim racism, it is extremely important not to be targeting only sharia but all personal religious laws. In this context, Cox’s Christian evangelical beliefs make her a problematic ally. She is co-founder of One Jerusalem whose stated mission is "maintaining a united Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel", a patron of the Christian Institute, an evangelical group that campaigns against abortion and gay rights, she is infamous for inviting Geert Wilders to show his anti-Islam film Fitna at the House for Lords, and supported the introduction of Christian assemblies in school. It is something Cox herself is aware of as she prefaced the debate in the House with the disclaimer that, "I immediately reassure your Lordships that I am not anti-Muslim." I asked Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of NSS , which stands for a separation between religion and state, whether he saw any contradictions in working closely with Cox. He said, “We will work with anyone on a common agenda, towards retaining one law for all” adding that “she’s the only one brave enough to take to take on this very worrying problem.”
On closer examination, it is obvious that we cannot ‘retain’ what we don’t have: one law for all. There are many unexamined and insidious ways in which the more established religions have already carved out a space for themselves within the legal and political system of the UK. All secular organisations should be supporting a more thorough root and branch reform.
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