Study: Muslim job candidates may face discrimination in Republican states

Study: Muslim job candidates may face discrimination in Republican states

    Tuesday, December 03, 2013   No comments

A new study by Carnegie Mellon University found that in the most Republican states in the country, employers may be less likely to interview job candidates whose social networking profiles indicate that the applicants are Muslim.

As part of a social experiment, the researchers created four fictitious job candidates – each with a unique name that most likely points to someone who is male, U.S. born and Caucasian. The candidates had identical resumes. The researchers also created social network profiles for each of the candidates that revealed either his sexual orientation or whether he was a Muslim or Christian. All other information, including the profile photograph used for each candidate, was the same. The resumes, which did not mention the candidates’ online profile, were then sent out to more than 4,000 employers nationwide with job openings.

Readers should note that the study’s authors did not design the pool of open jobs to be representative of all jobs available in the country, or in Republican-leaning or Democrat-leaning states. The number of job vacancies varied from state to state, and overall, a smaller share of all open jobs was located in Republican states.'

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Algerian daily al-Shorouq: “The Algerian security services have conducted a careful investigation into the networks which recruit Salafis to fight against Houthis in Yemen”

Algerian daily al-Shorouq: “The Algerian security services have conducted a careful investigation into the networks which recruit Salafis to fight against Houthis in Yemen”

    Monday, December 02, 2013   No comments

The investigations have been carried out after three people were killed in Wadi al-Souf region in Yemen, it reported.

“There is information showing that certain sides in an Arab country recruit forces in Algeria and pay them huge sums of money up to $8,000 to use them in different conflicts,” the newspaper said.

Other media reports in November also said that Salafi Takfiris continue invasion of Houthi-populated areas in Northern Yemen, killing large groups of them recently.

The clashes broke out in Damaj region of the border province of Sa’ada in October when after several attacks by the Salafis, the Shiite Houthi fighters, who control much of the bordering province, accused their Sunni Salafi rivals of recruiting thousands of foreign fighters in preparation of a large-scale war, and raided the Salafis’ Damaj mosque which resulted in the death of one person and injury of seven others, al-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper reported.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), about 200 to 600 people have been wounded so far.

The two sides declared ceasefire two weeks ago, but it lasted only for two hours.

Addressing the National Dialogue Conference in Yemen, Spokesman of Houthis Ali Al-Bakhiti said that after few hours the ceasefire was broken because Director of Salafis Training Center in Damaj Sheikh Ali Al-Bakhiti could not take control of his foreign armed rebels near Damaj.

Al-Bakhiti reiterated that the clashes are going on between the Houthis and the Salafis in Damaj.

Sectarian rivalry between Salafi Takfiris and Houthis is feared to ignite the fire of civil war in Yemen which is also influenced by foreign meddling, specially by Saudi Arabia.

The continued turmoil on several fronts in the country has risen the alarms of civil war in the country.

The recent events in Damaj have created concern among the Yemeni activists and analysts. “The main goal of these conflicts is feared to be igniting sectarian war,” Yemeni Rights Activist Ali Al-Deilami told FNA in November.

He blamed the Saudi media for the exacerbation of conflicts between Salafis and Houthis, and said publication of the remarks uttered by some Saudi muftis who call for Salafis’ Jihad against the Shiites is threatening and dangerous.

Deilami called on the Yemeni people to keep united against the foreign meddling which seeks to wage a sectarian war in the country.

Sa’ada province is the base for a long-running Houthi fight against the government. Complaining of social, religious and economic discrimination in Yemen, the Houthis fought several battles with government forces between 2004 and 2010, when a truce was announced.

Houthis have been holding demonstrations since June 9, when National Security guards opened fire on a group of protesters, killing 13 of them and wounding 100 others during a demonstration outside the headquarters of the National Security Intelligence Agency in Sana’a. They demand justice for those members of their community who were killed by regime forces.

The protesters were demanding the dismantling of the agency because of its involvement in the suppression of political activists under ousted dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh. The protesters were also demanding the release of the Houthis being held by the authorities.

Human Rights Watch has demanded an investigation into the killings.

Yemen’s Houthi population has long been protesting the oppression and discrimination by Yemen’s Saudi-backed government.

The Houthi movement draws its name from the tribe of its founding leader Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi.

The Free Syrian Army began as a simple group of fighters battling Assad. But Ruth Sherlock, in Antakya, finds their mission is now making millions from bribery and extortion

The Free Syrian Army began as a simple group of fighters battling Assad. But Ruth Sherlock, in Antakya, finds their mission is now making millions from bribery and extortion

    Sunday, December 01, 2013   No comments

The Free Syrian Army commander leant against the door of his four-wheel drive BMW X5 with tinted windows and watched as his men waded through the river on the Syrian border moving the barrels of smuggled petroleum to Turkey.

Feeling the smooth wedge of American bank notes he had just been given in exchange, he was suddenly proud of everything he had become.

In three short years he had risen from peasant to war lord: from a seller of cigarettes on the street of a provincial village to the ruler of a province, with a rebel group to man his checkpoints and control these lucrative smuggling routes.

The FSA, a collection of tenuously coordinated, moderately Islamic, rebel groups was long the focus of the West’s hopes for ousting President Bashar al-Assad.

But in northern Syria, the FSA has now become a largely criminal enterprise, with commanders more concerned about profits from corruption, kidnapping and theft than fighting the regime, according to a series of interviews with The Sunday Telegraph.

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Dissenting deputy sent to disciplinary board resigns from ruling AKP

Dissenting deputy sent to disciplinary board resigns from ruling AKP

    Saturday, November 30, 2013   No comments

İdris Bal

The ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) Kütahya Deputy İdris Bal, who drew attention for his dissenting statements on several issues,  announced his resignation from his party on Nov. 30.

Bal was sent last week to the AKP’s Joint Disciplinary Board with the request of definite expulsion from both the party and the parliamentary group after he expressed views contrary to those of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the latest test prep schools row.

“I am someone with backbone who stands upright. I won’t stay where I am not wanted,” Bal told reporters in the inner Aegean province of Kütahya where he is expected to make a speech during a rally. “They have cast all the smears possible, called me a ‘mole’. They raised all kind of obstacles to prevent me from making statements on television. I have been treated with all sorts of injustice. I resign from my party. I don’t want any party organization which does not want me,” Bal said.

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Disillusionment Grows Among Syrian Opposition as Fighting Drags On

Disillusionment Grows Among Syrian Opposition as Fighting Drags On

    Friday, November 29, 2013   No comments

DAMASCUS, Syria — In a terrace cafe within earshot of army artillery, a 28-year-old graduate student wept as she confessed that she had stopped planning antigovernment protests and delivering medical supplies to rebel-held towns.

Khaled, 33, a former protester who fled Damascus after being tortured and fired from his bank post, quit his job in Turkey with the exile opposition, disillusioned and saying that he wished the uprising “had never happened.”

In the Syrian city of Homs, a rebel fighter, Abu Firas, 30, recently put down the gun his wife had sold her jewelry to buy, disgusted with his commanders, who, he said, focus on enriching themselves. Now he finds himself trapped under government shelling, broke and hopeless.

“The ones who fight now are from the side of the regime or the side of the thieves,” he said in a recent interview via Skype. “I was stupid and naïve,” he added. “We were all stupid.”

Even as President Bashar al-Assad of Syria racks up modest battlefield victories, this may well be his greatest success to date: wearing down the resolve of some who were committed to his downfall. People have turned their backs on the opposition for many different reasons after two and a half years of fighting, some disillusioned with the growing power of Islamists among rebels, some complaining of corruption, others just exhausted with a conflict that shows no signs of abating.

But the net effect is the same, as some of the Syrians who risked their lives for the fight are effectively giving up, finding themselves in a kind of checkmate born of Mr. Assad’s shrewdness and their own failures — though none interviewed say they are willing to return to his fold.

Their numbers are impossible to measure, and there remain many who vow to keep struggling. Yet a range of Mr. Assad’s opponents, armed and unarmed, inside and outside Syria, tell of a common experience: When protests began, they thought they were witnessing the chance for a new life. They took risks they had never dreamed of taking. They lost jobs, houses, friends and relatives, suffered torture and hunger, saw their neighborhoods destroyed. It was all they could do, yet it was not enough.

What finally forced them to the sidelines, they say, were the disarray and division on their side, the government’s deft exploitation of their mistakes, and a growing sense that there is no happy ending in sight. Some said they came to believe that the war could be won only by those as violent and oppressive as Mr. Assad, or worse.

Such conclusions have been expressed by more and more people in recent months, in interviews in Damascus, the Syrian capital; Lebanon; and Turkey and via Skype across rebel-held areas in Syria. Many more fighters say they continue mainly because quitting would leave them feeling guilty toward other fighters.

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Row between Turkish government and Gülen heats up with new document

Row between Turkish government and Gülen heats up with new document

    Thursday, November 28, 2013   No comments

The row between followers of the Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen’s movement of and the Turkish government took another dimension after a daily revealed Nov. 28 that a decision from the National Security Council (MGK) recommending an action plan against the Gülen movement be signed by the government in 2004.

Government officials, however, wasted no time in making statements about the MGK decision and said it has never been enforced.

The decision made during the August 2004 National Security Council meeting includes a two-page section titled, “Measures that should be taken against Fetullah Gülen’s operations,” the daily Taraf reported Nov. 28.

“Legal regulations that introduce harsh sanctions should be adopted and an action plan [against the Gülen Movement] should be prepared,” says the decision, signed by the former President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, former Chief of General Staff Hilmi Özkök and current President Abdullah Gül, who was then foreign minister.

Tension between the government and the Gülen Movement, known in Turkish as “Cemaat” (community) or “Hizmet” (service), escalated recently after Erdoğan announced plans to abolish private examination prep schools (dershane), many of which are financed and run by Gülen’s followers. Erdoğan describes the group’s loud objections to his government’s plans as “a smear campaign.”

Although the Gülen Movement is thought to have had close relations with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) until recently, the daily Taraf claimed the MGK document proved that a decision to “finish” the movement had already been made in 2004.

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Turkish protesters: “Erdoğan, withdraw your al-Qaeda from Rojava”

Turkish protesters: “Erdoğan, withdraw your al-Qaeda from Rojava”

    Monday, November 25, 2013   No comments

The Peace and Democracy Party’s (BDP) meeting in Istanbul’s Asian side district of Kadıköy in support of Syria’s Kurdish region Rojava turned violent on Nov. 24 because of the police’s move against a banner on a building.

Police and protesters became involved in reciprocal attacks when police officers removed a banner reading “[Turkish Prime Minister] Erdoğan withdraw your Al-Qaeda from Rojava” from a building on the way of rally.

Protesters, opposing the removal of the banner, tried to enter the building but met with police intervention, after which some protesters threw stones at the building and policemen, Doğan News Agency footage showed. The protesters hung the banner again after police left the building’s entrance.

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Almost 80 percent of protesters detained as part of the Gezi Park protests were Alevis, according to daily Milliyet citing a report by Turkish security and intelligence authorities

Almost 80 percent of protesters detained as part of the Gezi Park protests were Alevis, according to daily Milliyet citing a report by Turkish security and intelligence authorities

    Monday, November 25, 2013   No comments

The daily reported that the authorities have prepared a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the anti-governmental protests spread across the country over summer, using detainees as samples.

More than 5,500 demonstrations or activities were staged within the framework of the country-wide movement dubbed “Gezi protests” that were prolonged for 112 days after being kindled in Taksim Gezi Park at the end of May, according to the analysis reported by daily Milliyet columnist Tolga Şardan Nov. 25.

The security forces’ study also sheds light on the characteristics of the protestors, by using more than 5,000 detainees’ personal data as samples to determine the profile of whole movement.
Seventy-eight percent of people detained were Alevis, the report said.

Also according to the analysis, only 12 percent of the suspects are “linked with political parties,” 6 percent of which are involved in “extremist leftist groups,” dubbed as marginal left groups by the Security Directorate. Some 4 percent of them also alleged to be working for “terrorist organizations and their legal organizations affiliated with them.”

Around 3.6 million people attended demonstrations while 5,513 of them have been detained by the police in the 80 provinces the protests erupted in. The Black Sea province Bayburt was reported to be the only province in which no protests were staged, the analysis revealed.
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P5+1 & Iran agree landmark nuclear deal at Geneva talks

P5+1 & Iran agree landmark nuclear deal at Geneva talks

    Sunday, November 24, 2013   No comments

Iran and six major powers agreed early Sunday on a historic deal that freezes key parts of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for temporary relief on some economic sanctions.

The agreement, sealed at a 3 a.m. signing ceremony in Geneva’s Palace of Nations, requires Iran to halt or scale back parts of its nuclear infrastructure, the first such pause in more than a decade.

 

President Obama Makes a Statement on Iran

Turkey's Ruling AKP moves to expel dissenting deputy

Turkey's Ruling AKP moves to expel dissenting deputy

    Friday, November 22, 2013   No comments

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has launched the required procedural process for expelling a deputy who openly expressed views contrary to those of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan about plans for closing down test prep schools.

AKP Deputy Parliamentary Group Chair Ahmet Aydın, speaking to Anadolu Agency on Nov. 21, said deputy İdris Bal had been sent to the Joint Disciplinary Board of the party, with request of definite expulsion from both the party and the parliamentary group. The request came as a result of Bal's "remarks that have been published in the press and which have been against party policies.”

According to the regulations, Bal will not be able to participate in any party activities, including weekly parliamentary group meetings, until a final decision by the Board is announced. The decision will be made after Bal presents his defense.

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