newswire

Anti-Arab graffiti stuns Maryland churches

By Erin Donaghue

It was Jan. 13, a Tuesday evening, when parishioners at the Sts. Peter and Paul Antiochian Orthodox Church on River Road first noticed the graffiti. It was scrawled in blue spray paint on a back entryway to the church — according to officials there, a dimly lit area that would make it an easy target for vandals.

Written across the door was a Star of David and the words "Israel forever — Arabs never." The incident has shocked congregants at the Potomac church, which draws many parishioners who are of Middle Eastern descent. While the services are conducted in English, much of the chanting is in Greek or Arabic.

"I was stunned," said Bethesda resident Joanne Demchok, a parishioner at the church. "Why would someone do something like that?" According to the Rev. George Rados, a priest there, the incident was most likely tied to the recent conflict in Gaza. Israel launched an offensive into Gaza late last month, drawing widespread criticism from humanitarian groups, in response to rocket fire.

Source: [Gazette.net]

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Report: Senior Saudi cleric OKs 10-year-old to marry

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) A pan-Arab newspaper quotes Saudi Arabia's most senior Muslim cleric as saying it is OK for 10-year-old girls to marry.The London-based Al-Hayat newspaper also quotes Sheik Abdul-Aziz bin Baz, the country's grand mufti, as saying that those who believe women should not marry before the age of 25 are following a "bad path."

His comments during a lecture Monday come as Saudi human rights groups are fighting to put an end to marriages involving the very young. The groups are pressing the government to define the minimum age for marriage.

On Sunday, the government-run National Human Rights Commission condemned marriages of minor girls, saying such marriages are an "inhumane violation."

Source: [MSNBC]

Saudi cleric favours one-eye veil

Two-eyed look remains too seductive for Sheikh Habadan

A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye.
Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan said showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye make-up to look seductive.

The question of how much of her face a woman should cover is a controversial topic in many Muslim societies. The niqab is more common in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, but women in much of the Muslim Middle East wear a headscarf which covers only their hair.

Sheikh Habadan, an ultra-conservative cleric who is said to have wide influence among religious Saudis, was answering questions on the Muslim satellite channel al-Majd.

Source: [BBC]

Gunmen kidnap Iraqi Chaldean Catholic archbishop

MOSUL, Iraq -- Gunmen kidnapped the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul on Friday in the northern Iraqi city and killed his driver and two companions, police said. "He was kidnapped in the al-Nour district in eastern Mosul when he left a church. Gunmen opened fire on the car, killed the other three and kidnapped the archbishop," said provincial police spokesman Brigadier-General Khaled Abdul Sattar.

An assistant to Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, the Chaldean patriarch of Baghdad and spiritual leader of Iraq's Catholics, said they had heard that three people had been killed and they did not know the fate of the archbishop, Paulos Faraj Rahho.

Christian clergy targeted

A number of Christian clergy have been kidnapped or killed, and churches bombed in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.Last June gunmen murdered Catholic priest Ragheed Aziz Kani and three assistants in Mosul, 240 miles north of Baghdad, after stopping his car near a church in the eastern part of the city.

Source: [MSNBC]

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Saudi Arabian men arrested for flirting

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Saudi Arabia began interrogating 57 men Saturday who were arrested for flirting with women in front of a shopping mall in the holy city of Mecca, a local newspaper reported.

The country's religious police arrested the men Thursday night for behavior that also allegedly included dancing to pop music blaring from their cars and wearing improper clothing, reported the Okaz newspaper, which is deemed close to the government.

Saturday's newspaper report did not say what kind of outfits the young men were wearing, but T-shirts emblazoned with drawings or English writing are often an invitation for harassment by the religious police. Islamic radicals also consider pop music a corrupting force.

Source: [MSNBC]

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When We Torture

By Nicholas D. Kristof

The most famous journalist you may never have heard of is Sami al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera cameraman who is on a hunger strike to protest abuse during more than six years in a Kafkaesque prison system. Mr. Hajj's fortitude has turned him into a household name in the Arab world, and his story is sowing anger at the authorities holding him without trial.

That's us. Mr. Hajj is one of our forgotten prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. If the Bush administration appointed an Under Secretary of State for Antagonizing the Islamic World, with advice from a Blue Ribbon Commission for Sullying America's Image, it couldn't have done a more systematic job of discrediting our reputation around the globe. Instead of using American political capital to push for peace in the Middle East or Darfur, it is using it to force-feed Mr. Hajj.

President Bush is now moving forward with plans to try six Guantánamo prisoners before a military tribunal, rather than hold a regular trial. That will call new attention to abuses in Guantánamo and sow more anti-Americanism around the world.

Source: [NY Times]

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Militants bomb Gaza YMCA library

Gunmen have attacked the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in Gaza City and blown up its library, burning thousands of books, its director says. Eissa Saba said 14 men overpowered the centre's two security guards before placing bombs in the library and main office. The latter did not explode.

The guards said the gunmen had asked them why they worked for "infidels," Gaza, which is controlled by the Islamist group Hamas, is home to 3,500 Christians, mostly Greek Orthodox.

A number of Christian and other institutions regarded by Muslim extremists as un-Islamic have been targeted by armed gangs over the past two years in the coastal territory, the BBC's Katya Adler in Jerusalem says. So far no-one has claimed responsibility for the attack, which has been condemned by all the main Palestinian factions.

Hamas, which ousted the rival Fatah movement from the territory in June, has said it is looking into Friday's incident. The YMCA in Gaza City is a social institution open to Palestinians from all communities.

Source: [BBC]

Saudi Woman Faces Death For Witchcraft

A leading human rights group appealed to Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah on Thursday to stop the execution of a woman accused of witchcraft and performing supernatural acts. The New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement that the kingdom's religious police who arrested and interrogated Fawza Falih, and the judges who tried her in the northern town of Quraiyat never gave her the opportunity to prove her innocence in the face of "absurd charges that have no basis in law."

Falih's case underscores shortcomings in Saudi Arabia's Islamic legal system in which rules of evidence are shaky, lawyers are not always present and sentences often depend on the whim of judges.

The most frequent victims are women, who already suffer severe restrictions on daily life in Saudi Arabia: They cannot drive, appear before a judge without a male representative, or travel abroad without a male guardian's permission. Witchcraft is considered an offense against Islam in the conservative kingdom.

Source: [CBS News]

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Saudis clamp down on Valentine's Day gifts

Religious police in Saudi Arabia are banning the sale of Valentine's Day gifts including red roses, a local newspaper has reported. The Saudi Gazette quoted shop workers as saying that officials had warned them to remove all red items including flowers and wrapping paper.

Black market prices for roses were already rising, the paper said. Saudi authorities consider Valentine's Day, along with a host of other annual celebrations, as un-Islamic. In addition to the prohibition on celebrating non-Islamic festivals, the authorities consider Valentine's Day as encouraging relations between men and women outside wedlock - punishable by law in the conservative kingdom.

The Saudi Gazette reported that some people placed orders with florists days or weeks before Valentine's Day in anticipation of the ban, which is a regular occurrence. "Sometimes we deliver the bouquets in the middle of the night or early morning, to avoid suspicion," one florist said.

Others were planning to travel to the more religiously liberal neighbouring countries, Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, to celebrate. Saudi Arabian authorities impose a strict Islamic code that prevents men and women from mixing.

Source: [BBC]

Danish Muhammad cartoon reprinted

Danish newspapers have reprinted one of several caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad which sparked violent protests across the Muslim world in 2005. They say they wanted to show their commitment to freedom of speech after an alleged plot to kill one of the cartoonists behind the drawings.

Of three suspects detained over the alleged plot on Tuesday, one - a Danish citizen - was released on Wednesday. The remaining two - Tunisian citizens - are set to be deported without trial.

The cartoons were originally published by Jyllands-Posten in September 2005. Danish embassies were attacked around the world and dozens died in riots that followed.

Source: [BBC]

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