Islamic Societies Review WEEKLY

Monday, February 11, 2013

Islamists chant anti-French slogans at rally in Tunisia

Monday, February 11, 2013 No comments

Thousands of pro-government supporters rallied in the streets of the Tunisian capital Saturday, shouting anti-French slogans and accusing its former colonial ruler of interference, a day after the funeral of slain opposition leader Chokri Belaid.

Several thousand supporters of Tunisia’s ruling moderate Islamist party rallied in the capital in a pro-government demonstration on February 9, a day after the funeral of an assassinated opposition politician. Protesters hurled insults at France, accusing the former colonial ruler of interfering in the North African country’s politics.

The ruling Ennahda party had called for a show of support for the constitutional assembly, whose work on a new constitution suffered a severe setback after the killing of Chokri Belaid on Feb. 6 - when leftist parties withdrew their participation. It said the demonstration would also protest “French interference” after comments earlier in the week by French Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who denounced Belaid’s killing as an attack on “the values of Tunisia’s Jasmine revolution.”

Violence and democracy in Syria

Monday, February 11, 2013 No comments

by HAYTHAM MANNA

Could political violence coexist with a democratic project? This big question has been raised for decades by the progressive democratic movement in Latin America, and we are obliged to pose it strongly in the Syrian case. We see with our own eyes that the counter-revolution at the hands of most Islamists conjoint with some neo-liberals in this war is no longer primarily about democratic change, except in public relations and the media.

It is not possible to say that the language of non-violence and peaceful civil struggle was embedded in the political discourse in the region, although Moncef Marzouki and I have defended the idea of civil resistance as the most important weapon to overthrow dictatorship in the Arab world since the end of the ‘90s in articles and studies which sought to situate these goals in the broader political and human rights movement. See Moncef Marzouki’s books, Second Independence and Until the Nation has a Place in this Time, and my Short Universal Encyclopaedia of human rights, and my book, Civil Resistance.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

False Eyewitness: “Who are you going  to believe? Me or your lying  eyes?”

Sunday, February 10, 2013 No comments

By Douglas Starr

Late last year, psychologist Gary Wells was watching an oral argument before the United States Supreme Court. He wasn’t enjoying it.

Wells, who has the countenance of a boxer and the mind of a Talmudic scholar, had come with a group of scientists affiliated with the American Psychological Association, along with lawyers from the Innocence Project, for the appeal of a convicted New Hampshire burglar. The case involved a middle-of-the-night car break-in. Police had apprehended Barion Perry in a parking lot carrying a couple of car radio speakers. One officer stayed with him while another went upstairs to question a woman who had reported a “tall black man” peering into cars. Although she had identified Perry only from her distant vantage on a third-floor balcony, her testimony was used successfully to convict him.

To Wells and his fellow scientists and lawyers, the case illustrated the weakness of many eyewitness convictions. The woman saw the suspect only briefly and in the custody of police; naturally she would assume he was a criminal. The psychologists agreed with Perry’s attorney that the witness’s memory was so unreliable that the judge should have held a pretrial hearing to determine whether it should be admissible at all. Now they wanted to go much further: They hoped that the Supreme Court justices would use the case to reexamine the whole legal question of eyewitness memory—a question the court hadn’t considered since 1977.

Obama’s Turn in Bush’s Bind

Sunday, February 10, 2013 No comments

By PETER BAKER

WASHINGTON — If President Obama tuned in to the past week’s bracing debate on Capitol Hill about terrorism, executive power, secrecy and due process, he might have recognized the arguments his critics were making: He once made some of them himself.

Four years into his tenure, the onetime critic of President George W. Bush finds himself cast as a present-day Mr. Bush, justifying the muscular application of force in the defense of the nation while detractors complain that he has sacrificed the country’s core values in the name of security.

The debate is not an exact parallel to those of the Bush era, and Mr. Obama can point to ways he has tried to exorcise what he sees as the excesses of the last administration. But in broad terms, the conversation generated by the confirmation hearing of John O. Brennan, his nominee for C.I.A. director, underscored the degree to which Mr. Obama has embraced some of Mr. Bush’s approach to counterterrorism, right down to a secret legal memo authorizing presidential action unfettered by outside forces.

Friday, February 08, 2013

The assassination of a secular opposition leader is forcing an Islamist-led government to give ground. But how much?

Friday, February 08, 2013 No comments

THE Islamist-led government that has been running Tunisia for the past year has been badly shaken by the assassination on February 6th of a prominent secular-minded opposition leader, Chokri Belaid, who was shot dead outside his house in Tunis by assailants so far unknown. After a wave of angry protests erupted in the capital and across the country, the prime minister, Hamadi Jebali, who is also secretary-general of the Islamist Nahda party, condemned the murder as an “act of terrorism…against the whole of Tunisia” and said he would form a new government “of competent figures without party affiliations”. The event has sparked Tunisia’s worst crisis since the revolution that toppled the country’s long-serving, secular-minded dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who fled into exile in January 2011.

It was unclear if Mr Jebali’s hasty reaction meant that Nahda, which handsomely won an election to a constituent assembly in October, 2011, would actually cede power or whether there would merely be a government reshuffle; it already heads a three-party coalition that includes non-Islamists. Mr Jebali has urged the constituent assembly to hurry up and finish the writing of a new constitution so that there can be a fresh election to a proper parliament as soon as possible, perhaps by the end of June.

‘Bound for Freedom’s Light: African Americans and the Civil War’

Friday, February 08, 2013 No comments

It’s easy to believe that when Abraham Lincoln drafted his second inaugural address in 1865 — writing that if God willed it, the struggle against slavery would continue until “every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword” — he had in mind a famous photograph made two years earlier. The image shows a former slave, known only as “Gordon,” who had escaped bondage in Louisiana to freedom behind Union lines at Baton Rouge. The man appeared seated, with his face and torso turned away from the camera, showing a gruesome and abstract welter of lash marks and lacerations on his back.

The photograph was one of the most convulsive images of the 19th century, circulated widely by abolitionists, reproduced and disseminated not just through popular magazines but on visiting cards, small reproductions on card stock that could be purchased and collected in albums. As Frank Goodyear writes in a recently published Smithsonian book, “Photography Changes Everything,” the image not only galvanized antislavery sentiments, but it “also inspired many free blacks in the North to enlist.”

Monday, February 04, 2013

Syrian opposition leader renews dialogue offer, urges Assad to respond

Monday, February 04, 2013 No comments

DAMASCUS, Syria — The leader of Syria’s main opposition group urged President Bashar Assad on Monday to respond to his offer for a dialogue, insisting he is ready to sit down with members of the regime despite sharp criticism from some of his colleagues.

Mouaz al-Khatib, leader of the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition, said he is extending his hand to the regime to “facilitate its peaceful departure.” And some anti-regime activists are behind him, threatening even deeper fractures in the already divided movement to oust Assad.

Al-Khatib’s offer, first made last week, marks a departure from the mainstream opposition’s narrative insisting that Assad step down before any talks. It has angered some of his colleagues who accuse him of acting unilaterally.

It is likely to be rejected by Syrian officials who insist Assad will stay in power at least until his term ends in mid-2014. And even if accepted, he will likely not have broad enough backing among the opposition to make any deal meaningful.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

'I feel like a stranger where I live’

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 No comments

"When you go swimming, it’s much healthier to keep your whole body completely covered, you know.” The Muslim lady behind the counter in my local pharmacy has recently started giving me advice like this. It’s kindly meant and I’m always glad to hear her views because she is one of the few people in west London where I live who talks to me.

The streets around Acton, which has been my home since 1996, have taken on a new identity. Most of the shops are now owned by Muslims and even the fish and chip shop and Indian takeaway are Halal. It seems that almost overnight it’s changed from Acton Vale into Acton Veil.

Of the 8.17 million people in London, one million are Muslim, with the majority of them young families. That is not, in reality, a great number. But because so many Muslims increasingly insist on emphasising their separateness, it feels as if they have taken over; my female neighbours flap past in full niqab, some so heavily veiled that I can’t see their eyes. I’ve made an effort to communicate by smiling deliberately at the ones I thought I was seeing out and about regularly, but this didn’t lead to conversation because they never look me in the face.

Canadian 'guilty of crimes against humanity in Libya'

Wednesday, January 30, 2013 No comments

A professional bodyguard who worked on and off for years providing protection to the “playboy” third son of Muammar Gaddafi faces deportation from Canada within days, after an immigration board found he was complicit in atrocities committed during the final days of the regime.

Repeated trips made to Libya during the 2011 uprising came back to haunt Gary Peters, who is originally from Australia, after the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board ordered him deported after finding that he was complicit in atrocities committed by the Gaddafi’s in their last day’s in power and additionally had broken international laws in helping the son, al-Saadi, escape to Niger.

As a bodyguard to al-Saadi, Mr Peters effectively became a “member of the government apparatus” in Libya as it tried to quell the rebellion, a member of the Board, Alicia Seifert, said as she delivered the ruling. She said that while Mr Peters received tens of thousands of dollars to ensure the safety of his client, the regime was committing acts of murder and torture as it struggled to hold on to power.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Timbuktu mayor: Mali rebels torched library of historic manuscripts

Monday, January 28, 2013 No comments

Islamist insurgents retreating from Timbuktu set fire to a library containing thousands of priceless historic manuscripts, according to the Saharan town's mayor, in an incident he described as a "devastating blow" to world heritage.

Hallé Ousmani Cissé told the Guardian that al-Qaida-allied fighters on Saturday torched two buildings that held the manuscripts, some of which dated back to the 13th century. They also burned down the town hall, the governor's office and an MP's residence, and shot dead a man who was celebrating the arrival of the French military.

French troops and the Malian army reached the gates of Timbuktu on Saturday and secured the town's airport. But they appear to have got there too late to rescue the leather-bound manuscripts that were a unique record of sub-Saharan Africa's rich medieval history. The rebels attacked the airport on Sunday, the mayor said.

"It's true. They have burned the manuscripts," Cissé said in a phone interview from Mali's capital, Bamako. "They also burned down several buildings. There was one guy who was celebrating in the street and they killed him."

He added: "This is terrible news. The manuscripts were a part not only of Mali's heritage but the world's heritage. By destroying them they threaten the world. We have to kill all of the rebels in the north."