The case of Liu Xiaobo vs. the case of Hossein Derakshan

It was a courageous act that the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee was ready to jeopardize their country's relations with China by standing up for and honouring Liu Xiaobo. I noted with satisfaction that the Canadian government issued a statement way back in December 2005 deploring Liu Xiaobo's 11 year prison sentence, in spite of the fact that Mr Liu is not a Canadian citizen. But it saddens me to compare his case with that of Hossein Derakshan, who IS a Canadian citizen, and who was recently sentenced to 19.5 years in Iran. His crime? He was blogging, in Canada, posting critical writings about the present Iranian leadership.

Both are dissidents, both expressed critical opinions on matters of human rights. Surely Liu Xiaobo's political activities are of a heavier weight, culminating in this year's Nobel Peace Prize, while Hossein Derakshan only contributed to freedom of expression for Iranians by being instrumental in developing the use of Persian script on the internet, as well as then using this tool to voice his own opinions later. Liu Xiaobo's 11 year sentence elicited an immediate reaction from the Canadian government, yet seemingly not much reaction came from them when the news of Hossein Derakshan's possible death sentence, which later was downgraded to a 19.5 years(!) prison sentence, hit the news stands.

Wouldn't he deserve at least an official notice, not to speak maybe help from his own government?

Ahmadinejad's UN speech

Mr Ahmadinejad has done it again. This is already beyond comprehension!

I am thinking of two possible explanations. Either he is what he appears to be, but then it puzzles me why Iran's political forces behind him still uphold him in his present position; or there is some rhyme and reason behind the apparent madness, maybe it is a very calculated modus operandi. But then, of course, that begs the question: to what aim?

In either case, after discussions today with some of my Iranian-Canadian friends and acquaintances, a rather embarrassing and painful period in Iranian history is unfolding in front of our eyes...

PS. By the way, as immediate proof of his lack of information / lies / machinations (pick one at your discretion) as far as his assumptions go regarding world opinion about the 9/11 attacks on the US, please read the survey conducted by World Public Opinion.org on opinions in different corners of the world as to who people think is really behind those attacks.

Hossein threatened by the death penalty

This is a disgrace! How low can a country, or rather its leadership, sink? Not enough that our Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was imprisoned and "accidentally" killed in 2003, not enough that the ensuing murder trial was handled with "flagrant denial of due process", as observed by Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister, Bill Graham. Now we have to receive news of Canadian blogger Hossein Derakshan being in danger of execution. He is accused of "collaborating with enemy states (sic?), creating propaganda against the Islamic regime, insulting religious sanctity, and creating propaganda for anti-revolutionary groups". In simpler terms: exercising his right as a Canadian, while within Canada, to free speech.

We cannot let this happen! If anything, it is Iran that is insulting us now. For how long will we allow this regime to repeatedly throw filth in the face of the international community? What do they want to achieve by these rogue actions? If it goes on like this, it will be embarrassing for any Iranian when outside their country to admit to being Iranian... Shame!

The Jews of Libya

I found an interesting page on the history of the Jews of Libya, pages maintained by the UofC in Berkley on the history of Libya.

Jews had a history of over 2000 years in that North African country, not unlike the old communities of Iraq, Tunisia, Yemen, or Egypt. Like everywhere else, the 20th century was fatal to these communities. When the Germans occupied Benghazi, they deported more than 2000 Jews from there into the desert, a fifth of whom perished there. The effects of German propaganda and ideology persisted after the war (as it does to this day!), there were several deadly pogroms in the following years. And so, after Israel was born, most of Lybia's remaining Jews, over 30,000 of them, fled there. During the next couple of decades anti Jewish sentiments kept growing as a result of the Arab-Israeli wars and the growing Pan-Arabist ideology. In 1969 Qaddafi confiscated the property of all the remaining Jews and ordered them to leave.

The ethnic cleansing was successful, there are no Jews left in Libya today, just as there are hardly any Jews left in any of the other Arab countries. The plight of these Jewish refugees is ignored by the rest of the world in spite of the fact that they were fleeing from systematic, open persecution. Today more than half of Israel's population consists of the descendants of these Middle Eastern refugees. Yet we, the rest of the world, still choose to be blind to it, many of us feverishly supporting Gaza, shouting "apartheid" even though there is no Jewish presence there either any more, ignoring the rocket attacks that were and are the cause of the blockade on Gaza in the first place, ignoring the fate of Gilad Shalit.

Ignoring the fact that Arab children today everywhere are taught that there was never a country called Israel in the past, denying the fact that there was Jewish presence throughout the centuries in Byzantine/Arab/Turkish/British Palestine, raising an ignorant generation of Arabs who are indignantly claiming the illegitimacy of the country of the Jews. Such is the power of misinformation. I just hope that at least some of them (us?) will be able to calm ourselves just enough so we can look around with a clear mind, research the history books without prejudice, and rise above all the BS and hatred.

Home-grown hatred in North America

And the trend continues... Practially at the same time there were two terrorist threats in the news in North America.

One here in Canada, in the Sikh community. The well known and well liked (I can only speak for non-Sikhs) PM from Vancouver, Ujjal Dosanjh was threatened on a Sher-I-Punjab radio show because he criticized the fact that portraits of know Sikh terrorists were carried in their parade, thereby giving validity to violence. Of course, the RCMP takes the threat very seriously. I, as a Canadian, believe that once we become Canadian citizens we don't have the right to bring our political squabbles into this country, no matter what is behind us in our history.

But I am also very happy to see that on the Facebook website Ujjal Dosanjh is a Sikh Traitor he has a lot of support expressed both from the part of Sikhs and non-Sikhs.

The other recent event is the threat against Matt Stone and Trey Parker of the South Park cartoon fame, known for their irreverent satires, poking fun in the past even at Jesus and God. But now they dared touch The Prophet (peace be upon him)...!!!

In this instance the threat comes from Zachary Adam Chesser, aka Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, a self-proclaimed American Jihadist. To quote: "... Trey and Matt has to be sliced ... inshallah." And the result is...? Comedy Central bleeped the "offending" parts. This, of course, means that the Jihadists won, at least in this case.

What I find disturbing is that in both cases the people who uttered these threats were born here and educated here. Are we becoming too lax and complacent...?

Antisemitism in Ottawa.

This past Tuesday there was an anti-semitic attack in Ottawa that involved several machete wielding young Arabic speaking individuals. The focus of their attack was two young Carleton students perceived by them to be Jews. Yet one of them wasn't even Jewish, he is the vice-president of the Carleton University Students' Association, but who happens to be openly sympathetic to Jews and Israel.

As someone with some Armenian ancestry in my family tree, I am very sensitive to the cause of both Armenians and Jews, both peoples from the Middle East, who both had to face premeditated genocide. As a child I grew up with horror stories, the Jewish experience still very fresh at the time. I did make a decision then and there that I will do whatever I can to support both nations in their efforts to re-establish themselves in their homelands. Israel became a Jewish country again in 1949, Armenia regained its freedom in 1991. Yet peace is still elusive in both cases. Armenians still have to iron out their differences with the Azeris, Israel still has to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians, and to at all gain the acceptance of a large part of the world.

Ideologies, memes do not die easily. Antisemitism survived under the ashes, particularly in Eastern Europe where the whole issue was swept under the carpet and not dealt with ever since WWII. In spite of some feeble efforts from the part of the state, young people there still get the old ideology instilled in them by their parents, by people around them who still believe the Nazi propaganda of Jews being responsible for all the ills of the World. As for the Muslim world...? That has even more issues piled on top of their inherited ones.

The events of the last few years make me really concerned. I keep meeting otherwise educated people, even university professors, who do not take the necessary effort to check the verity of what they read and hear. Very dangerous! We cannot allow baseless raw hatred to take hold of people's minds. We cannot sit around idly while the displaced Palestinians are still kept in squalid refugee camps, after 60 years(!), in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, even in the West Bank! Not accepted, even exploited by their Muslim brothers, who instead fill their heads and hearts with hateful propaganda, using them as living bombs against a country that they also refuse to accept.

I watch Israel with growing concern, a country that accommodated waves and waves of refugees, including those who had to flee from their ancient homelands in Muslim countries, and whose numbers were pretty much the same as the original Palestinian refugees, making up now roughly half of the country's present population. Who also lost everything when they fled, yet who never got any UN help. Israel feels more and more pushed in a corner, and as a result its despairing population chooses to elect more radical right-wing leadership, a fact which then whips the flames of antisemitism into an ever growing frenzy in the rest of the world. Very dangerous!

And now to have to read about incidents like what happened in Ottawa! Imagine a scenario in which Muslim students would get attacked in a similar manner. Wouldn't we react with utmost indignation? We cannot allow incidents like this to occur here in Canada! We cannot allow our streets to become battlegrounds! We cannot allow hatred of any kind to take hold of Canadian minds!

Religious violence world-wide

I celebrated Easter with a heavy heart. Religious tensions are growing world-wide and our coreligionists in particular are under attack at an increasing rate. In Iraq bombings and sectarian strife are a daily occurrence, but lately there were personal attacks on known Christian families. A bomb was placed next to the house of Ramzy Balbole, a painter. His wife and three children got seriously injured as a result, their three year old eventually succumbing to his injuries in the hospital. In the past few years several Chaldo-Assyrian priests were murdered and, although during Hussein's time only 5% of the population was Christian, today they make up 40% of the refugees now living in the neighbouring countries.

This past month over 500 people, mostly women and children, were killed near the city of Jos in Nigeria, although truth be told, there were prior clashes in which 150 Muslim villager got killed, so this was a revenge attack.

It is estimated that in Sudan over 1.5 million Christians have been killed in the civil wars since 1984 by the Janjaweed (the Arab Muslim militia). Also, over 200 000 people were taken into slavery, mostly of the Dinka people, about 75% of whom are Christian.

Last August in Pakistan six people, one man, four women and a child, were burnt alive in Gojra by Muslim militant. They were Christian and they were accused of desecrating the Qur'an.

The number of attacks on Coptic Christians (the earliest of Christian sects) has been increasing in Egypt in the last few decades. One year ago two men were shot dead and several injured in Southern Egypt during an Easter vigil. In September a Muslim man beheaded a Christian man in Bagour and injured two others in other villages.

This year, in January, three Muslim men in a car opened fire on a crowd of celebrating Copts near a church, killing 8 people. Unknown number of girls have been kidnapped, raped, and/or forced to convert, or marry Muslim men with the resulting children automatically considered Muslims.

In Saudi Arabia, if anyone is known to have converted to Christianity, they can be executed -- by law.

Sometimes I can't help remembering the Communist teachings of my childhood that said that "religions are the root of all evil". Could they have been right...?

Islamic conquest of Rome...?

Ten days from today there will be a presentation taking place in London, England, on the topic of Islam in Italy. No, it is not an anti-Muslim presentation that wishes to warn us about Islam planning on conquering Europe. It is organized by the Association of Italian Muslim Sisters UK, raising funds in support of the growing Muslim community in Rome.

But if you scroll down a bit, you will find the following text:

"Imam Ahmad reports in his Musnad that Abdullah bin Amr bin Al-'As (ra) mentioned: "Whilst we were around the Prophet (saw) writing he was asked, 'Which of the two cities will be opened first, Constantinople or Rome?' He (the Prophet Muhammad) answered, 'The city of Heraclius will be opened first!'

The Great Ottoman, Sultan Muhammad Fatih (rh) fulfilled the first part of this prophecy by conquering Constantinople. Thus, remains the second part. Having been forced out of Andalusia, and more recently, dispersed across the Balkan states, the city of Gaius Julius Caesar (Rome) remains. So let the da'wah (call, summon) begin ..."

Lucky they ARE Muslims, otherwise we might call them Islamophobes hallucinating about some nonexistent Muslim plans of conquest...

International reactions to the suspension of Parliament in Canada

When I first heard that Mr Harper decided to suspend Parliament for two whole months, I was not amused. I was even less amused when I heard his interview (on CTV - if I remember well) where he said "the Canadian public doesn't really care, anyway". Huh...? He even cited the Winter Olympics as an excuse. Hmmm...really? To me this long "vacation" says something else. It says that the Conservatives are jittery about something and need time to sort things out without the annoyance of having to deal with the opposition.

This whole thing reminds me very much of last year's prorogue, which was actually only one month long, but which was surrounded by a cloud of quite nasty TV ads attacking Mr Ignatieff, even though the idea of an election was only a vague possibility. Yet, even though a lot of Canadians found those ads disgusting and made them weary of Conservative political tactics, it did prove to be effective in hoodwinking a large enough part of the rest of the electorate to make the party actually rise in the polls. A fact that proves the power of media and the political shallowness of the general public. (Sad, but true...)

Today I became aware of the editorial in The Economist, and it made me embarrassed... The Economist is a British magazine with a large international readership. In their editorial of the latest print edition they harshly criticize our prime minister. They point out that such a long recess will mean that "all government bills will die, no matter how close they are to approval"; and that Mr Harper apparently thinks that this extra break "would not bother Canadians much". Well, it does bother a good many of us! One of my sons goes as far as calling Mr Harper a "dictator", and he very much supports the letter signed by 132 political scientists in which they are calling for an electoral reform. Apparently "finance Minister Jim Flaherty and others in cabinet will be 'meeting with and hearing from Canadian families, homeowners, workers, business-owners and industries from across the country.'" My family and I would be delighted if called upon!

Up to now Canadian prime ministers always asked the governor general (the Queen's representative in Canada) to be allowed to prorogue Parliament, and did so only after all unfinished business was dealt with. This time there were a whole bunch of bills still on the table, these will have to be re-introduced, all committees will get disbanded, a lot of effort will be wasted. The question arises: is this all because of the issue of the Afghan detainees? That does not seem to be such a hefty threat to the government as last year's situation, when Mr Harper clearly used his powers to dodge a confidence vote which could have triggered a new election. So what is behind this prorogation, then? For one thing we know that the Conservatives are planning to appoint a good number of Conservative senators, something that could not be done without Parliament's approval if it was in session, but can be done now. I wonder what else is up Mr Harper's sleeves...?

The conservatives cited several previous long historic prorogations, but I can imagine that in earlier times winter conditions were harsh enough to interfere with travels of MPs to and from Ottawa, thus interfering with proper functioning of Parliament and making long winter breaks almost necessary. Not that some prime ministers couldn't have ulterior motives, I am sure. But Mr Harper's political frolics are becoming too obvious. AND dangerous! We cannot create such precedence which would allow future prime ministers to suspend Parliament at any which whim. We, the Canadian public, have to let our prime minister know that we are not "complacent". Demographics are changing, the number of ice-hockey fans are not as numerous and not as fanatically devoted as Mr Harper is hoping for. We do pay attention, specially when issues start taking up international proportions. If the turn of events will necessitate a political "revolution", we are ready to ignore the Olympics in favour of straightening out our country's governmental meanderings.