Greek nazis threaten ‘slaughter’ of Muslims

From I Can’t Relax in Greece blog:

(19/05/2013)

Note with Golden Dawn emblem printed on the paper says ‘there will be blood’

The Muslim Association of Greece says they received a threatening note giving all Muslims one month to leave the country or be ‘slaughtered like chickens’. The letter, as it appeared on the association’s webpage, has the Golden Dawn emblem printed on it, but the party has firmly denied having anything to do with it.

Yeah, the Golden Dawn party denies so much.

They deny being nazis, though their party song is a Greek translation of Hitler’s Horst Wessel Song.

They deny being nazis, though they do the nazi salute.

They deny being nazis, though a Golden Dawn MP has the nazi slogan Sieg Heil tattooed on his leg; and Golden Dawn MPs shout Heil Hitler in parliament.

They deny being nazis, though another MP is in a band, singing lyrics like “F*** Simon Wiesenthal, f*** Anne Frank” and “Juden raus”.

They deny being nazis, though their Fuehrer, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, wrote an article in the party’s magazine with the title “Hitler for 1000 years”, in which he supported nazism and white supremacy. Specifically he wrote “We are the faithful soldiers of the National Socialist idea and nothing else” and “[...] WE EXIST, and continue the battle, the battle for the final victory of our race”. The final words of the article are: “HEIL HITLER!”

No sir, we aren’t nazis. We are only cuddly, peaceful “nationalists” … [sarcasm off].

The Muslim Association of Greece on Friday received a threatening note giving all Muslims, Greeks and foreigners, one month’s time to evacuate the country or be “slaughtered like chickens”, according to a statement released by the association on Saturday.

[...]

Below is the content of the note (Read at your own discretion)

Muslim Murderers

Until June 30 you shut your bordela in Greece and you will go to hell.

From July 1 onwards those who are still here will [be] slaughtered like chickens on the road.

Islam F*** you, f*** you and the Koran f***ing your mothers.

There will be blood.

Read the full report on ‘Eleftherotypia’s English website.

From dawnofthegreeks blog:

Last week, a number of incidents involving anti-Semitic rhetoric caused the reaction of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, which issued an announcement.

The announcement refers to Golden Dawn MP Christos Papas who admitted admiration of Hitler during a parliament session.

Also from Greece:

Migrant workers stabbed in wages dispute facing deportation

Posted on 22/05/2013 by icantrelaxingreece

Antiracist group calls on authorities to halt deportation so men can testify in court

Antiracist group Keerfa alleges that men, stabbed on May 9 when they demanded 45 days’ backpay, are being deported in order to protect their employers

Two Bangladeshi agricultural labourers who say they were stabbed by middlemen in a dispute over wages earlier this month are being threatened with deportation, an antiracist group has claimed.

The group, the United Movement Against Racism and Fascist Threat (Keerfa), said the police have initiated deportation procedures against the two, in order to cover up the role of their employers in the stabbing.

[...]

Read the full report on ‘Eleftherotypia’s’ English website.

Related articles

• Greek nazi MPs shout Heil Hitler (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Here’s A Greek Member Of Parliament Yelling ‘Heil Hitler’ In The Middle Of A Debate (businessinsider.com)
• Syrian war refugee attacked by Greek nazis (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Greek Politician Screams “Heil Hitler” In Parliament During Debate (jonathanturley.org)
• Popular Greek Neo-Nazi Group gives Greek Muslims one month to leave or be ‘slaughtered like Chicken’ (thedebateinitiative.com)
• Greek neo-Nazis threaten to mobilize against plans for mosque (panarmenian.net)
• UPD Greek Parliament: Neo-nazi MPs shout “Heil Hitler” after ejection of fellow MP for cursing? (keeptalkinggreece.com)
• Neo-Nazis to Slaughter Greece Muslims (dokmz.wordpress.com)
• FASCISM RISING; Greece, Golden Dawn & Syriza Party Clash Over ‘Heil Hitler!’ Cries In Greek Parliament (deadlinelive.info)
• Greek Politicians Shout ‘Heil Hitler’ In Parliament; Far-Right Golden Dawn MP Expelled (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)

Bahrain archeological discoveries

A news item about Bahrain, this time not about babies suffering from police teargas … a five-year-old child shot … an eleven-year old child jailed for playing on a street … pro-democracy activists and athletes tortured by a prince … a poetess tortured by a princess …

Sometimes, there is better news from Bahrain than that. This time not about birds and flowers, or about a Venus transit …

This video is called Excavations at Bu Maher Fort, Bahrain.

Today, from the BBC:

21 May 2013 Last updated at 01:43 GMT

Bahrain digs unveil one of oldest civilisations

By Sylvia Smith BBC News, Manama, Bahrain

Excavations at an archaeological site in Bahrain are shedding light on one of the oldest trading civilisations.

Despite its antiquity, comparatively little is known about the advanced culture represented at Saar.

The site in Bahrain, thought to be the location of the enigmatic Dilmun civilisation, was recently discussed at a conference in Manama, the Gulf nation’s capital, organised by the UN’s educational, scientific and cultural body (Unesco). …

According to Salman al-Mahari, the Bahraini archaeologist in charge, the Saar settlement divides into two: a residential zone and, at a small distance, the cemetery where the inhabitants buried their dead.

“This site has provided a lot of information about daily life,” he explains. “This has enabled us to compare finds made here with objects unearthed at other locations on the island. It is evident that this city and graveyard date back to the early Dilmun period.”

Dilmun, one of most important ancient civilisations of the region and said to date to the third millennium BC, was a hub on a major trading route between Mesopotamia – the world’s oldest civilisation – and the Indus Valley in South Asia.

It is also believed that Dilmun had commercial ties with ancient sites at Elam in Oman, Alba in Syria and Haittan in Turkey.

As Salman al-Mahari confirms, the team is now preserving what has been found to ensure that the historical findings are made accessible.

“For 4,000 years this site was underground so it was sheltered,” he says. “Now after excavation, it is exposed to the elements. We have no immediate plans to carry out further excavations. We want to protect the site and to interpret what we have unearthed for visitors.”

The Saar site is far from being the most significant relic of the Dilmun era. On the northern tip of the island, archaeological expeditions have uncovered seven successive levels of settlements at the Qal’at al Bahrain (the fort of Bahrain). Under the oldest and most extensive fort, three consecutive Dilmun cities as well as a Greek city dating back to 200 BC have been unearthed.

The site is impressive: the outer walls enclose an area of several hundred square metres. At its centre lie massive carved stones marking the entrance and walls of a chamber containing an altar once flanked by copper-faced pillars.

Next to it is another structure where the presence of blackened animal bones and charred earth suggest a chamber for sacrifices to the gods.

On the other side of the central altar, a flight of carved steps leads down to a pool, a deep, stone-walled well built over one of the numerous underground springs where one of three principal Sumerian deities – Enki, the water-dwelling god of wisdom – supposedly lived.

The abundance of sweet water flowing from springs which still supply the island with much of its drinking water was one of the cornerstones of Dilmun. The island was an oasis of fertility in ancient times in a mainly desolate region. This could have given rise to a legend that Bahrain may even have been the biblical Garden of Eden.

But as Abdullah Hassan Yehia, the keeper of the Qal’at al Bahrain, explains, the fertile nature of the island encouraged more than just agriculture (Dilmun was famed for its vegetable production). There is strong evidence of religious practices and beliefs that can be compared with those in other advanced societies of the time.

“The belief system here has a lot in common with those of Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt,” he says. “Belief in the after-life is shown by burying the dead with possessions such as tools, food, drinking vessels and gold. We’ve even found weapons.”

Abdullah Hassan Yehia also explains that the Dilmun merchants had a monopoly of trade in copper, a precious commodity which was shipped from the mines of Oman to the cities of Mesopotamia. But he debunks the theory that Bahrain may have been used by prehistoric inhabitants of the Arabian mainland as a cemetery.

The island has approximately 170,000 burial mounds covering an area of 30 square kilometres or 5% of the main island area.

The majority of the burial grounds date back to the second and third centuries BC but some are as recent as 2,000 years old. The oldest and largest burial mounds, referred to as the “Royal Tombs”, are found at Aali and measure up to 15m in height and 45m in diameter.

Archaeologist Salman Al-Mahari agrees: “There were a number of large population centres on the island. We have calculated that there would have been a significant number of deaths of both adults and children who would have been buried here,” he says.

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Fake Italian dragon, pterosaur or dog?

From World Science:

Killed twice in 1600s, hoax “dragon” slain again—in creationism dispute

May 8, 2013
Special to World Science

A “drag­on” thought to have turned up out­side Rome in the 1600s was killed once, or even twice, in the lo­cal lo­re of its day.

It then lay for­got­ten for three cen­turies—be­fore tak­ing on yet a new life, in the minds of some crea­t­ion­ists who saw in the tale com­pel­ling ev­i­dence for their be­liefs.

Two bi­ol­o­gists from Fay­ette­ville State Uni­vers­ity in North Car­o­li­na have now de­cid­ed to slay the beast once and for all, by do­ing some sleuthing to con­firm what many Ital­ians al­ready sus­pected way back then.

The drag­on was a hoax, they con­clude. Such ex­ist­ence as it had, they add, was based on a forgery com­posed of var­i­ous an­i­mal bones. In that sense it was not too un­like the fa­mous Pilt­down Man, a fake “early hu­man” con­sist­ing of the low­er jaw­bone of an orang­u­tan com­bined with a hu­man skull. That scheme was ex­posed in 1953.

The drag­on sto­ry as trans­mit­ted through old doc­u­ments has de­light­ed some crea­t­ion­ists be­cause they cite the mon­ster—en­grav­ings from the time in­clude a de­tailed skele­tal view—as proof that con­tra­ry to main­stream sci­ence, a fly­ing, rep­til­i­an cous­in of the di­no­saurs lived just re­cent­ly.

But the tale cap­ti­vat­ed Ital­ians long be­fore ar­gu­ments over ev­o­lu­tion. The sto­ry brings us back to about the time when the great sculp­tor-ar­chi­tect Gian Lo­ren­zo Ber­ni­ni re­built the fa­mous square in front of St. Pe­ter’s Ba­sil­i­ca in Rome, erect­ing its cel­e­brat­ed col­on­nade.

A cou­ple of dec­ades af­ter that proj­ect, ru­mors of the drag­on cropped up in con­nec­tion with an­oth­er, less fa­mous con­struc­tion near­by.

Ac­tu­al­ly, one pub­lished ver­sion of the drag­on tale ac­tu­ally dat­ed its “death” to the mid­dle of the St. Pe­ter’s Square proj­ect, in 1660. Yet ma­te­ri­al in an­oth­er book sug­gests that ru­mors of its sight­ing cir­cu­lat­ed about 1691, in the swamps out­side Rome where a di­ke was un­der con­struc­tion. Which­ev­er ver­sion might ac­cu­rately re­flect the “real” ru­mor, the lat­ter book is the one with the en­grav­ings.

This book, by an en­gi­neer in­volved with the di­ke, states that the drag­on was killed and pro­vides three de­light­ful en­graved il­lustra­t­ions. But it says lit­tle else on the sub­ject, ex­cept to men­tion that the beast was “was reco­vered in the hands of the en­gi­neer” him­self, one Cor­ne­li­us Mey­er. The book is mostly about di­ke con­struc­tion proj­ects around Rome.

De­tails on the bi­zarre rep­til­i­an tale are thus fog­gy. But the two bi­ol­o­gists, Pon­danesa D. Wil­kins and Phil Sen­ter, spec­u­late, based on the doc­u­ments, that a drag­on ru­mor be­came an ob­sta­cle to a di­ke con­struc­tion in 1691. Lo­cals or work­ers might have balked at the proj­ect, be­liev­ing a drag­on was on the loose in the ar­ea, per­haps one that was an­gry over the dis­turb­ance of its home. The beast was per­haps viewed as a res­ur­rec­tion of the same mon­ster writ­ten else­where to have died in 1660, al­so in the Rome ar­ea.

In any case, the bi­ol­o­gists pro­pose that Mey­er’s pub­lished “ev­i­dence” of the death in­clud­ing the en­grav­ings might have been part of an effort to fi­nally quell the ru­mors and keep the proj­ect afloat. A pa­per with their findings ap­pears in the May-August is­sue of the on­line re­search jour­nal Pa­lae­on­tolo­gia Elec­tron­ica.

The explanation for the engravings is that “Meyer chose not to invite op­position by ex­press­ing skepticism about the lo­cal rumor,” they argue. “In­stead, he wisely chose to avoid re­sist­ance by hu­moring the lo­cals… em­bracing the lo­cal rumor and pro­viding vi­sual evid­ence that their source of con­cern had been van­quished.”

Wil­kins and Sen­ter ar­gue that some­one likely cob­bled to­geth­er a fake skel­e­ton. This nat­u­rally found its way in­to some of those closely ob­served de­pic­tions for which Ital­ians had such a flair. In one of these en­grav­ings, the ske­l­e­ton ap­pears, prop­erly perched on a charm­ing ba­roque ped­es­tal.

All that re­mained was for Wil­kins and Sen­ter to fig­ure out just what went in­to this “skel­e­ton.” In­ter­est­ingly “the en­grav­ing is de­tailed enough to test” the view that it’s a real pter­o­saur, the re­search­ers wrote.

The con­clu­sions from their analysis are cut­ting.

“The skull of Mey­er’s drag­on is that of a do­mes­tic dog,” they write. “The man­di­ble is that of a sec­ond, smaller do­mes­tic dog. The ‘hindlimb’ is the fore­limb of a bear. The ribs are from a large fish. Os­ten­si­ble skin hides the junc­tions be­tween the parts of dif­fer­ent an­i­mals. The tail is a sculpted fake. The wings are fake and lack di­ag­nos­tic traits of bat wings and pter­o­saur wings. No part of the ske­l­e­ton re­sem­bles its coun­ter­part in pter­o­saurs.”

“This piece of young-Earth crea­t­ion­ist ‘ev­i­dence’ there­fore now joins the ranks of oth­er dis­cred­ited ‘ev­i­dence’ for hu­man-pter­o­saur coex­ist­ence and against the ex­ist­ence of the pas­sage of mil­lions of years,” Wil­kins and Sen­ter add. “Also, a three-century-old hoax is fi­nally un­veiled, the mys­tery of its con­struc­tion is solved, and an in­ter­est­ing and bi­zarre ep­i­sode in Ren­ais­sance Ital­ian histo­ry is elucidat­ed.”

Skep­ti­cism over the drag­on yarn is far from new. The con­tem­po­rary Ger­man au­thor George Kirch­meyer re­counts that the “fly­ing ser­pent” was sup­posedly “killed by a hunt­er af­ter a se­vere and dan­ger­ous strug­gle”; but “this sto­ry, which ap­peared more like some fa­ble than real truth, was a sub­ject of dis­cus­sion among the learn­ed. The cir­cum­stance was de­nied by many, be­lieved by oth­ers, and left in doubt by sev­er­al.”

Two crea­t­ion­ists who have cho­sen to join the be­liev­ers are the au­thors John Go­ertzen and Da­vid Woet­zel, who penned 1998 and 2006 pa­pers on the sub­ject, re­spec­tive­ly.

“This study helps to es­tab­lish the re­cent ex­ist­ence of rham­phorhyn­choid pter­o­saurs; an­i­mals that main­stream sci­ence be­lieves be­came ex­tinct about 140 mil­lion years ago,” Go­ertzen wrote in his pa­per, which ap­peared in the Pro­ceed­ings of the Fourth In­terna­t­ional Con­fer­ence on Crea­t­ion.

Crea­t­ion­ists claim that the Bi­ble proves Earth is only a few thou­sand years old. Thus things like di­no­saurs, which died out 65 mil­lion years ago, pose a prob­lem for crea­t­ion­ists.

Woet­zel did not re­spond to an e­mail sent through his web­site re­quest­ing com­ment.

Go­ertzen could not be lo­cat­ed via e­mail or tel­e­phone, with none of his sev­er­al pa­pers on­line pro­vid­ing con­tact in­forma­t­ion. How­ev­er, his 1998 pa­per on the drag­on ar­gued that the Ital­ian drag­on tale was not the only piece of ev­i­dence for its re­cent ex­ist­ence.

“The re­mark­a­ble thing about this an­i­mal is that it was de­picted in sev­er­al cul­tures of an­ti­qu­ity. Ar­ti­facts iden­ti­fied with this in­ter­est­ing pter­o­saur spe­cies in­clude Roman-Alex­and­rian coins, an Ara­bia-Phil­istia coin, a French wood carv­ing, a Ger­man stat­ue and coin, sev­er­al Mid­dle Ages pic­ture maps, and an en­light­en­ing sketch of a mount­ed an­i­mal in Rome.”

See also here.

Related articles

• Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571 – 1610) (chsopensource.org)

Cannibalistic Pentagon Syrian war allies

WARNING: horrible video. Not for children! Its title is Rebel Eats Heart of Syrian Soldier.

By Alex Lantier:

Video shows US-backed opposition fighter cannibalizing Syrian soldier

16 May 2013

A gruesome video posted on YouTube shows Khalid al-Hamad, the leader of the opposition Farouq Brigade, desecrating the corpse of a Syrian soldier, cutting out his internal organs and biting into one of them.

The video makes clear the barbaric character of the Sunni Islamist militias Washington has mobilized in its proxy war against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The video was made to terrorize Syria’s Shiite Alawite community, from which most of the Assad government is drawn, and to encourage donations from the Farouq Brigade’s financial backers in the Persian Gulf oil sheikhdoms.

While desecrating the Syrian soldier’s body, an action that legally is a war crime, Hamad screams: “I swear we will eat from your hearts and livers, you dogs of Bashar… Look at the heroes of Baba Amr, slaughtering the Alawites and eating their hearts.”

Founded as the Syrian war began in mid-2011, the Farouq Brigade has been active around the Baba Amr area of the city of Homs, an early center of armed Islamist opposition to Assad. There are varying reports of its strength, ranging from a few thousand to 20,000 men.

Hamad contacted Time magazine on Tuesday to confirm that he had indeed bitten one of the dead soldier’s organs, as shown in the video.

He then called for a sectarian genocide of Alawites, telling Time: “Hopefully we will slaughter all of them. I have another video clip that I will send to them. In the clip, I am sawing another shabiha [pro-Assad militiaman] with a saw, the saw we use to cut trees. I sawed him into small piece and large ones.”

Hamad, also known as Abu Sakkar, has also been videotaped indiscriminately firing rockets into Lebanon and posing with the corpses of fighters of Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite militia allied with Assad. Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch said, “Abu Sakkar is a very significant commander—he’s in charge of one of the most important battles happening in Syria right now.”

Significantly, Western officials speaking to the BBC described the Farouq Brigade as a “moderately Islamist” tendency inside the US-backed opposition, as compared to supposedly more extremist forces like the Al Nusra Front, which is affiliated to Al Qaeda.

This shows that current proposals in Washington to only arm “moderate” opposition forces, presented as an alternative to arming the entire opposition, including Al Nusra, are a cynical fraud. In either case, Washington and its European allies are arming war criminals calling for sectarian mass murder.

While Hamad’s video is particularly gruesome, numerous graphic videos posted by the US-backed opposition have made its bloody, sectarian character clear from early on. To name only a few, such videos include Sunni Sheikh Adnan al-Arour’s July 2011 threat to run Syrian Alawites through a “meat grinder,” and 2012 videos of opposition fighters beheading a prisoner and another forcing a child to do so.

The anti-Assad militias have all along enjoyed the support of governments, political parties and the media. The Obama administration has continued funding them to the tune of $500 million—as its Persian Gulf allies also poured money and thousands of tons of weapons into the opposition—even after Washington formally designated Al Nusra as a terrorist group last December.

As reports of Hamad’s video broke in the British press on Monday, British Prime Minister David Cameron said that he might sanction direct military intervention in Syria to back the opposition, citing claims that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons. Allegations of chemical weapons use by Assad had already been refuted by UN investigator Carla del Ponte, who said that these weapons, used in March, were fired by the opposition.

The Syrian war has been enthusiastically supported by reactionary pseudo-left groups such as France’s New Anti-capitalist Party, Germany’s Left Party, and the American International Socialist Organization (ISO). Hamad’s cannibalistic video is yet another refutation of the ISO’s claim that the Syrian proxy war is a “people’s revolution for freedom and dignity.” (See “The International Socialist Organization and the imperialist onslaught against Syria”)

These parties have functioned as a key barrier to the development of popular opposition to the Syrian war and to its continuous promotion in the media.

As part of this pro-war agitation, the media has largely sought to divorce Hamad’s video from the US-led war, or to present it as an isolated incident posing a vexing obstacle to attempts by Washington and its allies to escalate the war.

Thus, while discussing Hamad’s video, the BBC asked: “It is a reminder of the horror and bestiality of warfare—especially civil warfare, waged within a society. But does it tell us anything more than that?”

It also complained that “key governments in the West are trying to clarify their approach and push for a more active engagement on the side of the rebels. A man ripping out the heart out of a dead opponent—isolated episode or not—makes this task much harder.”

In reality, the promotion of bloody sectarian war by the US-backed opposition—both the so-called “moderate” and extremist elements—is not a coincidence, but a reality reflecting the essential character of the opposition and of US imperialist strategy.

The war is fought to topple an Alawite-led regime in Syria, which is supported by the Shiite regime in Iran and the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. Both of these are targets of US military intervention: oil-rich Iran is the main obstacle to US strategic hegemony in the Persian Gulf and thus the world oil trade, while Hezbollah is the main obstacle to Israeli domination of the Near East.

For this reason, Washington has sought to mobilize sectarian Sunni forces tied to its right-wing Persian Gulf allies, such as Saudi Arabia, to topple Assad. Hamad’s gruesome video is the outcome of these reactionary politics.

Syrian rebel leader admits he cut out heart of dead government soldier and ATE it: here.

Syria’s “Cannibal Commander” Says He Has at Least One Other Gruesome Video: here.

Syrian regime and rebels both face claims of abuse: here.

Related articles

• Syria: Video of rebel eating soldier’s heart sparks widespread condemnation (thestar.com)
• Syria mutilation footage sparks doubts over wisdom of backing rebels (guardian.co.uk)
• Syrian Rebel Eats Soldier’s Heart: What Could This Viral Video Mean for the War in Damascus? (hngn.com)
• Anger over ‘heart-eating’ video (smh.com.au)
• Anti-Assad Forces: Caught in the Act Again (sjlendman.blogspot.com)
• Cannibalistic, Organ Eating Opposition Fighter Unrepentant – Fsa Issues Poster for His Arrest “Dead or Alive” (altahrir.wordpress.com)

Israeli extremist violence against praying women

From the (Rightist) Jerusalem Post in Israel:

Haredim heckle and harass Women of the Wall during prayer

By JEREMY SHARON, JPOST.COM STAFF

LAST UPDATED: 05/10/2013 10:21

Protestors throw garbage, spit, shout insults at female worshipers as they legally pray for first time at the Western Wall; Three haredi men arrested for disturbing peace; two police officers lightly wounded.

Protests at the Western Wall in Jerusalem opposing the Women of the Wall prayer group ended on Friday morning with the arrest of three haredi men suspected of disturbing the peace, as well as two police officers who suffered light injuries and were treated at the scene. A large number of security forces were at the holy site, attempting to create a human barrier between the men and women‘s sections.

Haredi protesters threw water bottles and other objects and shouted insults at the Women of the Wall activists, according to Israel Radio.

Rabbi Susan Silverman, comedian Sarah Silverman‘s sister who prays with the Women of the Wall, was at the protest where she said that haredi men spit globs of spit on her three daughters. she told The Jerusalem Post. Silverman also said that the haredim threw coffee at the Women of the Wall activists and that a little girl next to her was hit in the head with something hard.

Silverman told the Post that the haredi protesters represent “A fundamentalism and a belief in a single and very narrow view of god that I believe is idolatrous.”

Women of the Wall Spokesperson, Oshrat Ben Shimshon told Israel Radio, “Orthodox rabbis have determined that there is no halachik barrier to women praying with prayer shawls and tefillin and reading from the Torah.” …

Several thousand yeshiva students and haredi school girls convened at the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem to protest the monthly prayer service of the Women of the Wall.

The protesters shouted at the Women of the Wall activists as they were conducting their first monthly service without restrictions after a court ruling two weeks ago reinterpreted existing laws and allowed them to be able to perform their own customs, such as wearing prayer shawls and tefillin, without fear of being arrested.

The idea to send haredi school girls to protest the Women of the Wall was devised by MKs from the United Torah Judaism party earlier this week in consultation with principals of haredi girls schools, on condition the initiative received approval from the leading haredi rabbis.

According to a report on haredi website Kikar Hashabbat, spiritual leader of the haredi world Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman gave his blessing to the proposal on Thursday.

Many participants in the Women of the Wall services don prayer shawls and perform other customs usually performed by men in Orthodox practice, that has until now been prohibited by state law, and as of late, women have been arrested on a frequent basis for wearing prayer shawls during the WoW services.

A court ruling two weeks ago reinterpreted existing laws and the Women of the Wall will on Friday be able to perform their own customs.

At a hearing of the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women earlier this week, a representative of the Jerusalem Police confirmed that the police would not act against the recent Jerusalem District Court ruling which decided that WoW’s customs did not contravene “local custom,” that has been the basis for outlawing the group’s non-Orthodox customs.

United Torah Judaism MK Yisrael Eichler expressed outrage during the committee hearing at what he referred to as the Women of the Wall’s “provocations.” He asked if the police would allow the right of protest and demonstration against the group’s prayer service.

The Women of the Wall issued a statement on Thursday celebrating their new found freedoms.

“We have the great merit that Israeli women will arrive in their masses tomorrow for the prayer service for the New Month of Sivan. We call on the public which supports us, women and men, to come and pray with us, to liberate the Western Wall and to turn it into to the home of everyone,” the group said.

Israel: The heads of the Reform and Conservative movements will demand that Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein investigate the involvement of rabbis on the government payroll in Friday’s violent demonstrations at the Western Wall: here.

Related articles

• Haredim Riot at the Kotel (failedmessiah.typepad.com)
• Jerusalem: Haredim stone Women of the Wall – Ynetnews (ynetnews.com)
• Haredi Orthodox youth mob Western Wall in protest of women’s prayer service (jta.org)
• Ultra-Orthodox clash with Women of the Wall at Kotel (timesofisrael.com)
• Government Decides To Circumvent Court Ruling, Effectively Ban Women’s Prayer Groups At Kotel By Fiat (failedmessiah.typepad.com)
• Arrests as women pray at Jerusalem’s Western Wall (newsinfo.inquirer.net)
• After Friday’s confrontation, are more haredi protests ahead? (blogs.jta.org)
• It ain’t over ’til it’s over: Women of the Wall edition (blogs.jta.org)

Horse meat scandal update

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Horse meat fraud man fined £42,000

NETHERLANDS: An appeals court upheld the conviction today of a man who sold horse meat labelled as Halal beef to French traders.

Jan Fasen was convicted in 2012 for buying horse meat from Brazil and Mexico and claiming it was beef slaughtered according to Muslim dietary law.

He had been handed nine months in prison, reduced on appeal to a six-month suspended sentence and €50,000 (£42,000) fine.

More about this is here. And here. And here. And here.

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Egyptian Jews, history and today

From The Art Newspaper:

Fight to preserve Egypt’s ancient Jewish sites

New leader want the government to recognise that “Jewish temples are like the pyramids and the Sphinx”— an important part of the country’s history

By Lauren Gelfond Feldinger. Web only

Published online: 26 April 2013

Magda Haroun

The new elected head of Cairo’s declining Jewish community, Magda Haroun, said she will campaign to save Egypt’s Jewish synagogues and other historic sites—but according to reports, she will reject offers of help from Israel, because she wants the Egyptian government to recognise that the sites are an important part of their history. “Jewish temples are like the pyramids and the Sphinx,” she told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram. “They are part of Egypt’s history that cannot be ignored.”

Haroun’s election, following the death last month of 84-year-old Carmen Weinstein, is a good sign for Egyptian heritage, an Egyptian filmmaker told The Art Newspaper. Amir Ramses, whose documentary “Jews of Egypt” was released on 27 March, spent four years researching the country’s Jewish communities and heritage sites. Haroun, a 60-year-old-lawyer, “gets what she wants”, Ramses said. “She is very keen to protect Jewish heritage and keep it a part of Egyptian culture and history, just as [with] any other religious historical heritage.”

Officials have alienated Egyptians from the Jewish part of their historical legacy over the years because of the Israeli-Arab conflict, the secular Christian filmmaker said. Haroun will fight to make the Jewish heritage sites more accessible to the Egyptian public “for the first time…in years”, Ramses said, adding that only the Ben Ezra synagogue in a tourist district is accessible. “It is the Egyptian government’s duty to handle the Jewish history in equality to Muslim and Christian,” he said.

At Carmen Weinstein’s funeral last month, Haroun invited the public to Cairo’s dilapidated Bassatine cemetery to witness the waterlogged and neglected state of the ninth-century Jewish burial site, as she talked about following in Weinstein’s footsteps to protect heritage.

In her inaugural letter published by the Cairo Jewish Community Centre, Haroun described Weinstein’s funeral as a coming together of Muslims, Catholics, Copts, officials, youth and other Egyptians. “All of the above were assembled together to honour the passing of a symbol of the Egypt that was. An Egypt open to people from all creeds, nationality and colour,” she wrote.

The Egyptian intellectual community has supported Haroun’s appointment, because of her family history, Ramses said. Haroun’s father was a founder of Egypt’s Tagammu party, which promotes democratic, humanist and socialist values and has opposed the Muslim Brotherhood.

According to a spokeswoman at the Alexandria Jewish Community Centre, Alexandria is one of only two Jewish centres left in Egypt, with 20 Jews remaining in the city: 17 women and three men aged 70-90. In Cairo, there are an estimated 20 or 25 Jews. Most of Egypt’s tens of thousands of Jews fled between the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the 1956 Suez Crisis.

The historical remnants of Egypt’s Jewish history—around two dozen synagogues and a handful of cemeteries and Jewish schools around the country—range from being in well-preserved and reasonable condition to “disastrous”, despite some new restoration projects taken on in recent years by the former minister of culture Farouk Hosni, Ramses said.

Haroun told Al-Ahram that she is seeking Egyptian funding for restoration projects and would otherwise turn to Unesco for assistance. The Alexandria spokeswoman said that they are also hoping for Unesco assistance.

Related articles

• Leader’s Death Provides New Focus on Egypt’s Jews (dailynewsegypt.com)
• Leader of Egypt’s Dwindling Jewish Community Buried in Rundown Cemetery (blackchristiannews.com)
• Magda Haroun elected head of Egyptian Jewish community (jta.org)
• Egypt’s remaining Jews gather to bury one of their own… (telegraph.co.uk)
• New Head of Egypt’s Jews Rejects Israel’s Synagogue Renovation Help (jewishpress.com)
• New Leader to Head Egypt’s Jewish Community – ABC News (abcnews.go.com)
• Farewell Ms. Weinstein (eldahshan.com)

German government targets anti-nazi pastor instead of nazis

This is a video about German Protestant preacher Lothar König, speaking at an anti-racist demonstration in Jena.

By Martin Nowak in Germany:

State prosecutors in Dresden, Germany, target anti-Nazi protesters

26 April 2013

The state prosecutor in Dresden is systematically targeting opponents of Nazi groups, in a region that is one of the centres of right-wing extremism in Germany. Along with Mecklenburg-Pomerania, Saxony is the only state where the neo-fascist German National Democratic Party (NPD) is represented in the state parliament. The party also has representation in all city councils and many community councils. Saxony was the epicentre of the National Socialist Underground (NSU), a right-wing terrorist group responsible for at least nine murders between 2000 and 2006.

The trial against a youth pastor from the town of Jena, Lothar König, which began on April 4, is the high point of the campaign by the state authorities in Dresden. König has been accused of serious breach of the peace, obstruction of justice and resisting police officers. He supposedly incited demonstrators to attack the police at an annual demonstration against right-wing extremism in February 2011.

König, who is almost 60, has been involved for years in protests against the extreme right and Nazi groups. With his young followers, he supported protests in the 1990s against right-wing extremism and anti-immigrant chauvinism. At these events, he was known for opposing any sort of violence and intervening to de-escalate situations. His work among youth in Jena is well-regarded, and he has received awards from several anti-racist foundations.

As he has done every year, König travelled to Dresden on February 19, 2011, to demonstrate with a broad coalition of political parties, trade unions and victim-support groups against a march held by neo-Nazis to commemorate German victims of the allied bombing of the city during WWII. In his renovated Volkswagen (VW) bus with loudspeakers, nicknamed “Noisy”, he accompanied roughly 20,000 demonstrators, who protested against some 3,000 neo-Nazis.

In the course of the protest, clashes took place between demonstrators and the police, which according to police sources resulted in 118 severe injuries to officers. In reality, only eight police officers were hurt, while others suffered only minor injuries as they waded in against demonstrators.

Countless eyewitnesses and recordings have confirmed that König sought to de-escalate the situation, even when the police closed off all routes for the protesters. He used the loudspeakers on his vehicle to play music, show demonstrators where to go, and call for peaceful protest against the neo-Nazis.

Nonetheless, the state prosecutor has accused him of encouraging violence, either with declarations he apparently made or merely by his presence. According to officials, with the aid of “Noisy”, König acted as a “communications point and coordinator of violent acts.” “From his vehicle”, they claim, “he called upon leftists to commit violence.” The prosecutor alleges König’s vehicle issued a call to “cover the pigs with stones” and attempted to force a police vehicle off the road.

All of the available video and sound recordings of the demonstration directly contradict the accusations made against König by the state prosecutor.

In a video extract that the prosecution has used against him, König says, “Come on people. There are a lot of us here. Just move on. Go further on. The police have no shields, no weapons.” Then he turned his vehicle around and called for everyone to follow him.

The claim by the prosecutor that König called at this point for violence against the police is absurd. In an interview with ZDF television, Professor Martin Kutscha, an expert on constitutional law who had seen the video, declared, “I have the impression that the pastor tried to encourage moderation among the demonstrators by turning his vehicle around and calling upon them to stay with his car, and certainly did not attempt to incite people to throw stones or something similar.”

The prosecutor is even trying to use the fact that König played music against him. The prosecutor’s office refers to the “aggressive and inflammatory” character of the music—i.e., “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones and “Kein Macht für Niemand” (“No Power for Anybody”) by the German group Ton Steine Scherben—which supposedly promoted violence.

The trial of König is such a blatant travesty of basic constitutional principles and democratic rights that no fewer than four human rights organisations have denounced it as a “political trial.”

The lead-up to the trial and the course it has run so far make clear that the prosecution of König is aimed at criminalising all opposition to the annual neo-Nazi march in Dresden.

The trial was first postponed from its original start date of March 19. The defence requested this after discovering just a few days earlier that there were up to 170 pages of documents and a CD in the evidence files of which they had not been aware. The prosecution and a spokesperson for the court falsely claimed that this was insignificant material.

The first day of the trial focused on the accusations against König. The defence argued that the indictment should not be read out at the start, stating it was vague and suggestive, and did not even contain a concrete charge. Nevertheless, the charges were read out, after which König and his defence lawyer gave statements in which they accused the prosecution of suppressing evidence, sloppiness, laziness and making allegations damaging to König.

The Dresden state prosecutor has initiated thousands of investigations targeting participants in demonstrations against neo-Nazis. The police collected data from more than a million mobile phones through illegal surveillance. Thousands of charges were brought against opponents of neo-Nazis, including 1,500 alone for alleged offences against a law covering demonstrations.

Special forces commandos have stormed and searched the homes of suspects, in some cases without any permission, including König’s office in Jena. When König was away on a trip to the Alps, police officers broke into his home without any authorisation and confiscated a computer, some CDs and his VW bus, which was parked in front of the house.

The raid on August 10 of last year came just days after König gave an interview to the news magazine Der Spiegel, in which he criticised the authorities in Saxony, comparing their actions to the notorious Stasi security forces in the GDR (former East Germany), and denounced the police for their brutal methods.

The close ties between the authorities in Dresden and the extreme right are so evident that even the bourgeois press has published critical articles. Der Spiegel commented on the large-scale measures taken by the police against anti-Nazi demonstrators at the protest last year. “In fact, it seems like the authorities and the judiciary in Saxony seek to hound citizens who oppose the Nazis with full force, while the extreme right are able to do what they like”, noted the newspaper.

The Dresden district court intends to make an example of König. Just a few months before the beginning of his trial, another anti-Nazi protester, Tim H, was sentenced to 22 months imprisonment without bail for a severe breach of the peace, grievous bodily harm and verbal abuse. In this case, too, neither the court nor the prosecution was able to prove the alleged offences or even any general involvement in criminal activities on the part of the defendant.

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Japanese government honours World War II criminals

This video from Japan says about itself:

Protest at Yasukuni Shrine on August 15 – Japanese WWII Surrender Day

Aug 16, 2010

Aug 15, 1945, 65 years ago, Japan officially surrendered, thereby ending World War II. Every year nationalistic rightwing groups gather to protest the Peace Anti-War demonstrators at the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. Yasukuni Shrine dates back to the mid-19th century and it is a shrine for all those died serving the Emperor. In 1978 the spirits of Class A war criminals were enshrined there and official government visits there have often sparked outrage with Asian countries who suffered from Japan’s actions in WWII.

The Peace Party marched through a gauntlet of rightwingers surrounded by police in riot gear. Some of the rightwingers would make for the Peace party but would always get stopped by the police.

By Peter Symonds:

Japanese ministers visit notorious war shrine

23 April 2013

Visits by Japanese ministers, including deputy prime minister Taro Aso, to the notorious Yasukuni Shrine to the country’s war dead last weekend are another indication of the government’s nationalist and militarist agenda.

Internal Affairs Minister Yoshitaka Shindo, National Public Safety Commission chief Keiji Furuya and deputy chief cabinet secretary Katsunobu Kato all made separate trips to the war shrine to take part in religious ceremonies associated with the spring festival.

While Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did not make a visit, he pointedly sent ritual offerings inscribed with his name and title to the shrine. As opposition leader, Abe made a trip to the Yasukuni Shrine last October prior to winning the December election and subsequently gave the green light for his ministers to make visits.

The shrine to Japan’s war dead, including convicted war criminals, is a focus for right-wing nationalists who deny or dismiss the Japanese military’s involvement in terrible war crimes in the 1930s and 1940s. An associated war museum makes no mention of the atrocities and repeats wartime propaganda depicting Japan as a liberator of Asia from Western colonialism.

Abe is promoting militarism as part of his aim of building a “strong Japan”. He is a long-time supporter of the revision of school history books to remove “unjust” perceptions of the country’s wartime record. Abe has also indicated that he intends to modify previous, limited formal apologies by Japanese leaders for war crimes in Asia.

The latest visits to the Yasukuni Shrine have provoked protests by the South Korean and Chinese governments, which are exploiting the issue to stir up nationalist sentiment at home. South Korea’s foreign minister Yun Byung-se cancelled a trip to Tokyo and a foreign ministry spokesman expressed “deep concern and regret” over the visits to a shrine that “glorifies Japan’s wars of aggression.”

The Chinese foreign ministry also sent a “stern message” to Tokyo. The state-run Xinhua news agency declared that the Yasukuni visits were “a major obstacle for Japan to mend its ties with neighbouring China and South Korea.”

Since taking office, Abe has been cautious about expressing his nationalist views too openly, in large part to avoid alienating voters in the lead up to upper house elections in July. There is deep-rooted hostility in the working class to Japanese militarism, which was responsible for brutal repression at home as well as war crimes in Asia.

Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won the election last December, not because of widespread support for his right-wing agenda, but due to popular hostility towards the previous Democratic Party of Japan government, its broken promises and regressive social and economic policies.

At the same time, the LDP government is proceeding with its aim of transforming the Japanese armed forces into a “normal” military, unfettered by the so-called pacifist clause in the country’s post war constitution. Abe has already announced an increase in the military budget—the first rise in more than a decade—and has taken a hard-line stance in the ongoing dispute with China over islands in the East China Sea.

Abe is planning to make constitutional change a feature of the upper house election, but has avoided targeting Article 9, which, formally at least, “renounces war” and “the threat of use of force as a means of settling international disputes”. Article 9, which also prohibits “the maintenance of air, sea or land forces”, has not prevented Japan from maintaining a sizeable military under the pretext of “self defence forces” or from providing military assistance to the US-led occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

As a first step, the LDP government is proposing to modify the constitution to make future changes easier and thus open the door for more substantive alterations, including to Article 9. Currently any constitutional change requires a two-thirds majority in both parliamentary houses, followed by approval in a referendum. Abe is seeking to alter the constitution to require only a simple majority in the upper and lower houses.

Earlier this month, Abe met with officials of the extreme nationalist Japan Restoration Party (JRP), including Toru Hashimoto, to discuss cooperation on constitutional change. Hashimoto is JRP co-leader with Shintaro Ishihara, who until last year was Tokyo governor and a leading LDP member. Ishihara has called for a complete rewriting of the constitution and supports a major military expansion, even suggesting the development of Japanese nuclear weapons.

As part of his “pivot to Asia” aimed against China, US President Barack Obama called on Japan to play a greater regional “security role” and, in doing so, encouraged Tokyo to take a more aggressive stance towards Beijing. Hashimoto re-ignited the dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands last year by proposing to buy the islands from their private Japanese owner. Tensions with China flared after the DPJ government “nationalised” the islands and Chinese maritime vessels and aircraft began challenging Japanese control of the area.

Washington has backed Tokyo in any conflict with China over the islands. It is also tacitly supporting the push for constitutional revision to allow Japan to collaborate more closely in its war plans against China. The LDP government is proposing to modify the constitution to allow Japan to engage in “collective self-defence”—that is, to join military pacts and engage in joint military operations with the US and other powers. Japan’s involvement in the Iraq war, which provoked widespread protests at home, was limited to sending a battalion sized reconstruction unit, not combat troops.

At the same time, the re-emergence of Japanese militarism has also generated obstacles for the Obama administration’s strategy of building a web of strategic alliances throughout Asia. Despite US pressure for Japan and South Korea to work more closely together, the two countries remain at loggerheads over the disputed Dokdo/Takeshima islands. Last year South Korea pulled out of an intelligence-sharing agreement with Japan that had been pushed by Washington.

By deliberately inflaming tensions throughout the region, the Obama administration is recklessly setting in motion forces that it does not control. While Japan has relied on the American military alliance since the end of World War II, it is rearming to defend its own economic and strategic interests that can conflict with those of the US.

Related articles

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• South Korean foreign minister cancels trip to Japan over war shrine – @YonhapNews (english.yonhapnews.co.kr)
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Rupert Murdoch, warmonger, phone hacker, burglar … and mystic?

This video from the USA is called Murdoch tweets about ‘Jewish owned press’.

Rupert Murdoch is mainly known as a phone hacker, a burglar, a warmonger and a Bahrain dictatorship admirer.

It seems there are more sides to press lord Murdoch.

From Media Monkey in daily The Guardian in Britain:

Rupert Murdoch: yogi bared

Mention transcendental meditation and you might think of the Beatles visiting Indian yogis, the Beach Boys’ Mike Love, or, more recently, Sting or Madonna. But over the weekend it emerged that the latest devotee of the technique is Rupert Murdoch. On Sunday he tweeted: “Trying to learn transcendental meditation. Everyone recommends, not that easy to get started, but said to improve everything!”

But this only seems to be part of the mogul’s exploration of his spiritual side, as he tweeted earlier this month: “Having two days off with some colleagues and family in Australian bush. Feels like spiritual home. Peace and rest.” Former Telegraph and Evening Standard writer Norman Lebrecht responded: “Rubbish! It’s just another Hollywood fad” and later said: “Bosh! It’s a cynical, commercial misapplication of ancient teachings. Astonished a canny media owner has got conned.” Monkey wonders how long Murdoch’s new-found spirituality will be extended to his critics.

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