Warning: Undefined array key "rbname" in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 14
Hello !

India-Pakistan

IIRO announces to expand operations in Pakistan

2013-12-03

[Pak Daily Times] International Islamic Relief Organisation (IIRO) has decided to expand its operations in Pakistain from relief work to social sector development. This was decided on Monday at a meeting between IIRO Secretary General Ehssan Saleh Taieb and former minister for information and broadcasting Senator Muhammad Ali Durrani. During the meeting, Director General of IIRO foreign offices Abdul Rehman al Matter, Dr Khalid Ottamani, director Saudi Public Assistance, Behrullah Hazarvi and officials of Saudi embassy were also present. Welcoming Ehssan Saleh Taieb, his delegation and Abdul Rehman al Matter, Durrani expressed his gratitude to the IIRO chief and said that the International Islamic Relief Organisation was doing a great job in helping the victims of natural calamities. He said that the people of Pakistain had great reverence and affection to the people and state of Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... "People of Pakistain have special respect and love for King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz and the royal family as they have always been forthcoming in helping Pakistain and its people." "I come from a poor area of Bahawalpur. Let me admit that the relief work undertaken by the IIRO for the people affected by floods and earthquake in across Pakistain is exemplary and it has no parallel. For this help and assistance, Pakistain and its people are indebted to the funding made by King Abdullah, the people of Saudi Arabia, IIRO and its Pakistain office and the Saudi ambassador to Pakistain for the generous and valuable support of disaster-hit people," Durrani said.

Link

Bangladesh

Terror financed due to HSBC failure

2012-07-18

[Bangla Daily Star] Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd and Social Islami Bank Ltd came into the spotlight yesterday for their alleged links to terrorist financing after a US Senate report exposed British banking giant HSBC's internal governance failure to control flows of suspect funds. One of the banks was allegedly funding al-Qaeda, and the late Osama bin Laden ... who knows that it's like to live in the belly of a whale only he's not living... 's brother-in-law held shares in a company that has shares in the bank. In all these cases, profit motive rather than cautions from various levels within the bank and standard procedures ruled the game. More thoughts were given to the bank's making $47,000 in revenue that might go up to $75,000 a year later than to the terrorist links the banks allegedly had, or the US authorities' view of the banks. A report of the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, a congressional watchdog panel, has revealed these troubling information which show a "pervasively polluted" culture at HSBC Holdings Plc. The bank acted as financier to clients seeking to route shadowy funds from the world's most dangerous and secretive corners, including Mexico, Iran, Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face... and Syria, according to the report. The US report also mentioned that Al Rajhi Bank, a Saudi bank, was involved in suspicious transactions. HSBC apologised to the US Senate, saying it takes "compliance with the law, wherever it operates, very seriously". In one instance, when Islami Bank wanted to open a US dollar account with the HSBC US office, questions were raised about the Saudi bank Al Rajhi's 37 percent ownership in Islami Bank. Ears of HSBC's anti-money laundering unit were cocked. But the then head of HSBC Global Banknotes, Chris Lok, felt that his interest in considering a new account depended upon whether there was enough potential revenue to make. "Is this an account worth chasing....How much money can you expect to make from this name? It's just that if the revenue is there then we are prepared for a good fight," he wrote. "The money is there and we should go for this account." "Then Lok and others approved the account despite questions about its [Islami Bank] primary shareholder Al Rajhi Bank, whose past links to terrorist financing had received attention in the media ...and troubling information about Islami Bank itself," the senate report said. HSBC's own Financial Intelligence Group (FIG) unit had reported that Sheikh Abdur Rahman, chief of Bangladesh's terrorist outfit JMB, had an account with Islami Bank. Bangladesh Bank found that two branches of Islami Bank had been engaged in "suspicious transactions" and urged the bank to take action against 20 bank employees for failing to report the suspicious transactions, according to the FIG report. Six top snuffies including JMB chief Abdur Rahman and his deputy Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai were executed for killing two Jhalakathi judges in 2007. HSBC's Know Your Customer unit had reported that Islami Bank be classified as a highest risk client but HSBC rejected the suggestion. It meant HSBC did not subject the bank to any enhanced monitoring. HSBC's another internal report said a Saudi NGO, International Islamic Relief Organisation (IIRO), had been implicated in terrorist financing by the US government and included on the list of those prohibited to do business in the US. The IIRO had accounts with both Islami Bank and Social Islami Bank, and yet HSBC's Compliance Department denied an internal request of due diligence on the bank. "Today, although HSBC exited the US banknotes business in 2010, Islami Bank remains a customer of two dozen HSBC affiliates," the report said. Similarly on Social Islami Bank, the HSBC's internal report said two shareholders of the bank -- the IIRO and Islamic Charitable Society Lajnat al-Birr Al Islam -- had alleged links to terrorism. "IIRO has also reportedly funded al-Qaeda directly as well as several of its satellite groups. Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law Mohammad Jamal Halifa headed the Philippine branch of the IIRO," said the FIG's internal report. While the FIG cautioned about opening an account of Social Islami Bank, it failed to inform HSBC that Lajnat al-Birr, whose original name is Benevolence International Foundation, was designated by the US as a "financier of terrorism" with whom US persons are prohibited from doing business. There were debates within HSBC about whether to open an account of Social Islami Bank, and yet the account was finally opened. The FIG of HSBC also cautioned the bank about keeping Social Islami Bank as a client, an advice ignored by the British bank. According to the US report, HSBC Bank USA, the US affiliate of the Asia-focused bank, supplied US dollars to Islami Bank and Social Islami Bank despite evidence of their links to terrorist financing. The report, prepared by a team led by Senator Carl Levin, said in the case of Islami Bank, the factors included substantial ownership of the bank by al Rajhi, the central bank's fines for failing to report suspicious transactions by bad turbans, and an account provided to a terrorist organization. And in terms of Social Islami Bank, the factors included ownership stakes held by two terrorist organizations whose shares were exposed but never sold as promised, and a bank chairman found to be involved with criminal wrongdoing. The report said Al Rajhi Bank was associated with Islami Bank Bangladesh that provided an account to a Bangladeshi who had been accused of involvement in a terrorist bombing. Islami Bank was fined three times for violating the anti-money laundering requirements in connection with providing bank services to "militants." Al Rajhi Bank provided a correspondent account to Social Islami Bank, whose largest single shareholder had been the IIRO for many years. A second shareholder was the precursor to the Benevolence Islamic Foundation, also later designated by the US as a terrorist organization, said the report. In a statement on Monday, HSBC said, "We will acknowledge that, in the past, we have sometimes failed to meet the standards that regulators and customers expect. We will apologise, acknowledge these mistakes, answer for our actions and give our absolute commitment to fixing what went wrong. "We have learned a great deal working with the Subcommittee on this case history and also working with U.S. regulatory authorities, and recognise that our controls could and should have been stronger and more effective in order to spot and deal with unacceptable behaviour. "We believe that this case history will provide important lessons for the whole industry in seeking to prevent illicit actors entering the global financial system." The bank said with a new big shotship team and a new strategy in place since last year, the HSBC Group has already taken a number of concrete steps to augment the framework to address these issues including significant changes to strengthen compliance, risk management and culture.

Link

Bangladesh

Banks want to activate frozen IIRO accounts

2008-10-10

Bangladesh Bank (BB) has sought directions from the foreign ministry in regard to the suspended bank accounts of the International Islamic Relief Organisation (IIRO), which has an alleged link with the al-Qaeda. The BB in a letter apprised the foreign ministry last month of the requests made by the two private commercial banks to resume the bank accounts of IIRO. The US Embassy in 2006 requested Bangladesh to provide information about some alleged terrorist organisations and the IIRO. Following the allegation of the IIRO's link with the al-Qaeda, the Bangladesh Bank suspended its bank accounts in Bangladesh. Meanwhile, Islami Bank earlier this year informed the BB in a letter that the IIRO has been involved in health, education and socio-economic development programmes of the country since 1990 and neither the BB nor the NGO Affairs Bureau has taken any regulatory measurers against the IIRO so far. It also mentioned that the NGO Affairs Bureau has recently approved a Tk 60 crore 'Health, Education, Socio-Economic Development' project for the years 2007-12. The IIRO has already allocated Tk 10 crore for the first phase of the project and asked the project officials to withdraw the fund from Islami Bank, Gulshan Branch. Following the approval of the fund Islami Bank sought permission from the BB to re-activate the frozen account of IIRO so that it can withdraw the fund. The IIRO has a fund of Tk 26.56 lakh with the Bahrain-based bank, the Bank Alfalah, and IIRO requested the bank to resume the operation of its account. Following the request Bank Alfalah requested Bangladesh Bank to provide it with the information about the present condition of IIRO bank account. Earlier, Bangladesh Bank following the reports of alleged link of the IIRO with the al-Qaeda halted two bank accounts of the IIRO at Islami Bank and Social Investment Bank Ltd (SIBL) with whom IIRO had 50,445 shares worth Tk 1,000 each. The BB suspended distribution of dividend against the shares of the IIRO with the SIBL while the Islami Bank voluntarily froze bank accounts of IIRO. A high official of the Bangladesh Bank said the US Embassy had sought account information of IIRO under an UN resolution. But as the government currently is undertaking a project funded by the IIRO, the BB is seeking information from the foreign ministry regarding the status of the IIRO bank accounts.

Link

Arabia

Saudi Arabia is hub of world terror

2007-11-04

King Abdullah was surprised during his two-day state visit to Britain last week by the barrage of criticism directed at the Saudi kingdom. Officials were in “considerable shock”, one former British diplomat said. Y'don't think the "Star Wars" theme music might have tipped them off? Back home the king is regarded as a modest reformer who has cracked down on home-grown terrorism and loosened a few relatively minor restrictions on his subjects’ personal freedom. To anyone with eyes in his head, they've been busy playing both ends against the middle, maintaining a foreign policy grounded in arrogance and large amounts of cash while using both government and non-government affiliated organizations to push their religion down the throats of the rest of the world. With oil prices surging, Saudi Arabia is growing in prosperity and embracing some modern trappings. Bibles and crucifixes are still banned, but internet access is spreading and there are plans for “Mile High Tower”, the world’s tallest skyscraper, in Jeddah. The internet is a weapon to be used by the global jihadists. But if we win in the end, it will largely be because that weapon cuts both ways. As a key ally of the West, the king had every reason to expect a warm welcome. "Yeah. Those dumbassed infidels ain't noticed a thing!" Yet wealthy Saudis remain the chief financiers of worldwide terror networks. No! Reeeeeeeally? “If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia,” said Stuart Levey, the US Treasury official in charge of tracking terror financing. That's where the biggest pot of money funds the biggest herd of holy men. Extremist clerics provide a stream of recruits to some of the world’s nastiest trouble spots. And they do it on King Abdullah's petrodollar. An analysis by NBC News suggested that the Saudis make up 55% of foreign fighters in Iraq. They are also among the most uncompromising and militant. That's because they've been raised in that fundo crap since they were eggs. Half the foreign fighters held by the US at Camp Cropper near Baghdad are Saudis. They are kept in yellow jumpsuits in a separate, windowless compound after they attempted to impose sharia on the other detainees and preached an extreme form of Wahhabist Islam. Islam on its own is merely unpleasant to the rest of the world. Salafism preys on everyone, whether religious or not, to include other Muslims. In recent months, Saudi religious scholars have caused consternation in Iraq and Iran by issuing fatwas calling for the destruction of the great Shi’ite shrines in Najaf and Karbala in Iraq, some of which have already been bombed. And while prominent members of the ruling al-Saud dynasty regularly express their abhorrence of terrorism, leading figures within the kingdom who advocate extremism are tolerated. Even revered. Sheikh Saleh al-Luhaidan, the chief justice, who oversees terrorist trials, was recorded on tape in a mosque in 2004, encouraging young men to fight in Iraq. “Entering Iraq has become risky now,” he cautioned. “It requires avoiding those evil satellites and those drone aircraft, which own every corner of the skies over Iraq. If someone knows that he is capable of entering Iraq in order to join the fight, and if his intention is to raise up the word of God, then he is free to do so.” So here we have a member of the Soddy government encouraging young Soddies to run away to fight us infidels. He's doing so in a state-funded mosque, and his pay check is from the state. But, really, it's not a matter of state policy. I'm not sure my mind is limber enough to envelop that idea. The Bush administration is split over how to deal with the Saudi threat, with the State Department warning against pressure that might lead the royal family to fall and be replaced by more dangerous extremists. “The urban legend is that George Bush and Dick Cheney are close to the Saudis because of oil and their past ties with them, but they’re pretty disillusioned with them,” said Stephen Schwartz, of the Centre for Islamic Pluralism in Washington. “The problem is that the Saudis have been part of American policy for so long that it’s not easy to work out a solution.” The problem is also that they're at the heart of Islam, and many of our allies in the war on terror are in fact Muslim. We are at war with Salafism, but Salafism is the state religion of Soddy Arabia. Intricately intertwined are the worms in that can. According to Levey, not one person identified by America or the United Nations as a terrorist financier has been prosecuted by Saudi authorities. Kind of obvious they won't be, too. A fortnight ago exasperated US Treasury officials named three Saudi citizens as terrorist financiers. “In order to deter other would-be donors, it is important to hold these terrorists publicly accountable,” Levey said. All three had worked in the Philippines, where they are alleged to have helped to finance the Abu Sayyaf group, an Al-Qaeda affiliate. One, Muhammad Sughayr, was said to be the main link between Abu Sayyaf and wealthy Gulf donors. Sughayr was arrested in the Philippines in 2005 and swiftly deported to Saudi Arabia after pressure from the Saudi embassy in Manila. There is no evidence that he was prosecuted on his return home. Prosecutions are for those who engage in terrorism within Soddy Arabia. Despite the number of Soddy policemen and national guard killed in those operations, we've yet to see anyone's head chopped off. This year the Saudis arrested 10 people thought to be terrorist financiers, but the excitement faded when their defence lawyers claimed that they were political dissidents and human rights groups took up their cause. Matthew Levitt, a former intelligence analyst at the US Treasury and counter-terrorism expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, believes the Saudis could do more. He said: “It is important for the Saudis to hold people publicly accountable. Key financiers have built up considerable personal wealth and are loath to put that at risk. There is some evidence that individuals who have been outed have curtailed their financial activities.” Best take a look at the activities of their relatives, then. And if they haven't picked up the ball, check the financial records of mosque associates. In the past the Saudis openly supported Islamic militants. Osama Bin Laden was originally treated as a favourite son of the regime and feted as a hero for fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. Huge charitable organisations such as the International Islamic Relief Organisation and the al-Haramain Foundation – accused in American court documents of having links to extremist groups – flourished, sometimes with patronage from senior Saudi royals. The 1991 Gulf war was a wake-up call for the Saudis. Bin Laden began making vitriolic attacks on the Saudi royal family for cooperating with the US and demanded the expulsion of foreign troops from Arabia. His citizenship was revoked in 1994. The 1996 attack on the Khobar Towers in Dhahran, which killed 19 US servicemen and one Saudi, was a warning that he could strike within the kingdom. The tool used in that particular attack was Soddy Hezbollah, if I remember correctly, which kinda proves my contention that all Islamic terrorism is one -- the terrorism part is more important than the Islamic part. As long as foreigners were the principal targets, the Saudis turned a blind eye to terror. Even the September 11 attacks of 2001, in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, could not shake their complacency. Despite promises to crack down on radical imams, Saudi mosques continued to preach hatred of America. The mood began to change in 2003 and 2004, when Al-Qaeda mounted a series of terrorist attacks within the kingdom that threatened to become an insurgency. “They finally acknowledged at the highest levels that they had a problem and it was coming for them,” said Rachel Bronson, the author of Thicker than Oil: America’s Uneasy Partnership with Saudi Arabia. Assassination attempts against security officials caused some of the royals to fear for their own safety. In May 2004 Islamic terrorists struck two oil industry installations and a foreigners’ housing compound in Khobar, taking 50 hostages and killing 22 of them. The Saudi authorities began to cooperate more with the FBI, clamp down on extremist charities, monitor mosques and keep a watchful eye on fighters returning from Iraq. Only last month Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz al-Sheikh, the kingdom’s leading cleric, criticised gullible Saudis for becoming “convenient knights for whoever wants to exploit their zeal, even to the point of turning them into walking bombs”. And last week in London, King Abdullah warned young British Muslims not to become involved with extremists. Yet the Saudis’ ambivalence towards terrorism has not gone away. Money for foreign fighters and terror groups still pours out of the kingdom, but it now tends to be carried in cash by couriers rather than sent through the wires, where it can be stopped and identified more easily. A National Commission for Relief and Charity Work Abroad, a nongovernmental organisation that was intended to regulate private aid abroad to guard against terrorist financing, has still not been created three years after it was trumpeted by the Saudi embassy in Washington. Hundreds of Islamic militants have been arrested but many have been released after undergoing reeducation programmes led by Muslim clerics. And to date not one head has been chopped off. According to the daily Alwatan, the interior ministry has given 115m riyals (£14.7m) to detainees and their families to help them to repay debts, to assist families with health care and housing, to pay for weddings and to buy a car on their release. The most needy prisoners’ families receive 2,000-3,000 riyals (£286 to £384) a month. Ali Saad Al-Mussa, a lecturer at King Khaled University in Abha, protested: “I’m afraid that holding [extremist] views leads to earning a prize or, worse, a steady income.” Former detainees from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba are also benefiting. To celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid, 55 prisoners were temporarily released last month and given the equivalent of £1,300 each to spend with their families. School textbooks still teach the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious antiSemitic forgery, and preach hatred towards Christians, Jews and other religions, including Shi’ite Muslims, who are considered heretics. The Soddies (and other Muslims worldwide) seem to have swallowed whole the story of the Protocols. We can see on a near daily basis the evidence that they've "countered" them by developing their own Protocols, which I've been referring to for a number of years now as the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Islam. This as yet theoretical document lays out the plan for Muslims to subvert the world and take it over, instituting shariah and subjugating all other religions. The structure it creates features a "lower house", which would be the Supreme Council of Global Jihad or its successor. I discount the Supreme Council as the controller of all jihad simply based on its size. My guess is that the "upper house" lies entirely within Soddy Arabia and consists of princes and holy men, and that there's a "politiburo" that does the actual thinking and planning. Try as we might, we have distressingly few details from open source on these entities. Even the Supreme Council was only briefly visible but then disappeared, taking its web page with it. Ali al-Ahmed, director of the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs, said: “The Saudi education system has over 5m children using these books. If only one in 1,000 take these teachings to heart and seek to act on them violently, there will be 5,000 terrorists.” In frustration, Arlen Specter, the Republican senator for Pennsylvania, introduced the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act 10 days ago, calling for strong encouragement of the Saudi government to “end its support for institutions that fund, train, incite, encourage or in any other way aid and abet terrorism”. The act, however, is expected to die when it reaches the Senate foreign relations committee: the Bush administration is counting on Saudi Arabia to help stabilise Iraq, curtail Iran’s nuclear and regional ambitions and give a push to the Israeli and Palestinian peace process at a conference due to be held this month in Annapolis, Maryland. “Do we really want to take on the Saudis at the moment?” asks Bronson. “We’ve got enough problems as it is.”

Link

Arabia

Political Motive Seen in Closure of Al-Haramain

2005-04-08

The spokesman of an American non-governmental organization that works for Islamic charitable organizations hinted yesterday that the closure of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation might have been politically motivated and linked to the US presidential elections last year. M. Wendell Belew, Jr., president of the Belew Law Firm and spokesman of Friends of Charities Association (FOCA), also announced that the Dutch government is understood to be unfreezing the assets of Al-Haramain Foundation, since it has not discovered any material evidence that would justify continued freeze on its assets. FOCA's website, coincidentally, is registered to al-Buthi, the head of Haramain. Its member organizations include Muslim World League, International Islamic Relief Organisation — which used to be run by Binny's brother-in-law, World Assembly of Muslim Youth, Al Haramain Islamic Foundation, Al Muntada, and Makkah Al-Mukarrama Charity Foundation. I'd pretty much classify it as a Soddy front organization. M. Wendell, even more coincidentally, represented the Soddies who were sued in the wake of 9-11. Belew was speaking to the media after a press conference at which he spoke about the difficulties FOCA has been facing in representing the cause of the Islamic charitable associations. The press conference was held at the headquarters of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) and attended by Dr. Saleh Al-Wohaibi, secretary-general of WAMY, Dr. Saleh Babaeer, assistant secretary- general, and the representatives of various Islamic organizations in the Kingdom. Referring to the closure of the Al-Haramain Foundation, Belew said: "Security was an important issue in the election and they wanted to show progress. Now I can't go into the thoughts of the policymakers, but I can certainly say that there was a temptation to take action that would show the war on terror. The fact that this process is closed and not subject to public scrutiny puts the government in a bad position of people assuming...it as a political motivation." That's a fact, especially when there's princely largesse involved in shaping that opinion. He also cited the findings of the 9/11 Commission Report according to which many of the US government's actions were motivated more by diplomatic reasons than by issues arising out of the war on terror. "My experience would tend to support the conclusions of the 9/11 Commission." He's not doubt referring to us letting all those Soddies, including some of Binny's relatives, fly home when air traffic was reopened. That was pretty nice of us, not to intern them all for the duration of the war. It was done for political reasons, of course... Significantly, following the closure of the Foundation's office in Riyadh, Minister of Islamic Affairs Saleh ibn Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh said earlier this year that there were no plans for the closure of any charity and that no imams (prayer leaders) have been sacked this year for having ties with terror cells or helping terrorists.

Link

Down Under

Jihad on the bookshelf

2004-01-31

ELF IT’S a colourful book that sits on a shelf in the country’s largest Islamic bookshop deep in the southwestern suburbs of Sydney. But unlike much of the texts surrounding it, Jihad and Jurisprudence is considered by moderate Muslims to pose a danger to society. Inside, Western laws are described as null and void and all Muslims are called to participate in violent jihad, or holy war, in "infidel lands". Its author Abu Qatada is the suspected leader of al-Qa’ida in Europe and is under arrest in Britain. Joining a jihad group is, he states, "not a seasonal choice" but a divine order. "Infidel Christians and Jews who live on Muslim lands can be considered protected people, but those who are not in Muslim lands can have no protection and cannot be trusted; they are war infidels." The Arabic-language book was bought by The Weekend Australian from The Islamic Bookstore, in Sydney’s Lakemba. It is evidence of what moderate Muslims fear is the spread of radicalising books and pamphlets that could serve as a convincing rationale for terrorism among younger impressionable members of the Australian Muslim community. Among those concerned are the country’s most senior Islamic leader, Sheikh Taj Din Al Hilaly, and Islamic scholar Mohsen Labban. Both warn this literature could lead to Muslims isolating themselves from mainstream society and create a situation where radical ideas can be incubated. "They (fundamentalists) choose certain translations which have this tendency towards dogmatic and violent attitudes as the meaning of verses (from the Koran)," Mr Labban says. "What we are talking about is shaping the mind. A mind that makes you dogmatic, superior and intolerant towards everyone else. This leads to no tolerance for integration or assimilation or acceptance, and perhaps antagonism towards the rest of society." Sheikh Hilaly himself is an unwilling recipient of this kind of literature, including the works of the 18th century founder of the fundamentalist Wahhabi form of Islam, Sheikh Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab. But some time ago he made a firm decision about how to deal with the caches of booklets and pamphlets that turn up unsolicited every few months on the doorstop of Lakemba Mosque, the most prominent place of worship for Australia’s 280,000 Muslims. So seriously does he take the literature’s ability to influence people, he makes trips to the rubbish tip to dispose of it. Most of the literature raising concern is Wahabi, the pure form of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia. Based on a strict interpretation of the Koran, Wahabism has developed a negative reputation worldwide because its adherents include Osama bin Laden and his followers as well as Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban. Wahabis believe laws laid down in the Koran, termed Sharia law, should be the way society is governed. Other moderate Muslims say official groups are spreading this literature, rather than a few individuals returning from the Middle East with books in their suitcase. But the moderates are reluctant to name these groups publicly, fearful of dividing the Muslim community and attracting unwanted attention. The Saudi embassy in Canberra has a dedicated branch called the Daawa Office to distribute Islamic literature but has refused to answer repeated questions from this newspaper about its role. The Weekend Australian understands responsibility for spreading Wahhabi literature worldwide rests with the Muslim World League and its affiliate the International Islamic Relief Organisation, both registered in Australia. They are Saudi government-controlled and have both been implicated in funnelling money to al-Qa’ida. The US Central Intelligence Agency says the IIRO funded six militant training camps in Afghanistan. The MWL is run out of an apartment in Melbourne’s northern suburb of Preston. Director Mohamed Ahmed says about four shipping containers of literature arrive every year from Saudi Arabia for distribution in Australia, but says the material is never extremist -- merely copies of the Koran and other booklets to aid sheikhs and imams. Shafiq Rahman Abdullah Khan, who is listed on registration documents as IIRO director, says he has no knowledge of the organisation. The Australian Government has expressed its concerns to Saudi officials about the distribution of literature as well as money flowing from Saudi Arabia to schools, mosques and Islamic centres in Australia. But it remains a delicate area for the Government. Religious freedom is a fundamental right in any democracy. And the importation and dissemination of fundamentalist doctrine is therefore legal. However, Wahabism remains a potent label that some Muslims use against their rivals to try to damage their reputation. "It’s a derogatory term that some people use to describe Muslims they don’t agree with," says Amir Butler, chair of the Melbourne-based Australian Muslim Public Affairs Committee. "There is no doubt we would like to see him out of there," one member of the coalition says of Sheikh Hilaly. Jihad and Jurisprudence has a Wahabi rationale. Qatada rejects democracy, elections and parliaments. According to Wahhabism, they contradict Islam because God made laws, not man. Wahhabi followers in Australia exist on the fringes of the peaceful mainstream Muslim community. Qatada’s book clearly differs. The Jordanian-born cleric says violent jihad should occur everywhere and all Muslims are obliged to participate to remove the infidels. "Muslims, there is no substitute for fire, no substitute for arms, no substitute for blood," he exhorts. As the spittle flows from his lips. In other words, it’s a Religion of Peace Why do we let them in our countries?

Link

Europe

French author sued for insulting Islam

2002-08-24

A French novelist, renown for his anti-Muslim attitudes, is being sued by four Muslim organizations in Paris after making insulting remarks about Islam in an interview on his latest book. The action against Michel Houellebecq, 44, is being launched on 17 September by plaintiffs including Saudi Arabia's World Islamic League and the Mosque of Paris, reported BBC’s online news service. World Islamic League, led by Mufti Abdul Aziz bin Baz, is the umbrella organization controlling the International Islamic Relief Organisation and the Islamic Relief Agency. Dalil Boubakeur, imam of the Paris mosque, said Muslims felt insulted by comments in the novel Plateforme, in which a character admits to a "quiver of glee" every time a "Palestinian terrorist" is killed, reported the BBC. Boy, am I in trouble. Guess I'd better call my lawyer now... Last December, Chems Hafiz, an attorney acting for Muslim authorities in Paris said that Houellebecq was to appear in court to face charges of inciting religious hatred. Hafiz said a Paris court was due to hear the complaint filed by officials from the main mosques in Paris and Lyon on February 5. The literary magazine Lire (Reading), which published Michel Houellebecq's remarks, is also cited as a defendant. So if you express the opinion that you don't like Muslims in France — say, for their little cultural foibles like killing and maiming people — they can take you to court, and will, backed by a Soddy front NGO. If that doesn't work, they'll probably just get somebody to issue a fatwah against him and kill him...

Link

Warning: Undefined property: stdClass::$T in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 132
-7 More