More beheadings

Manzoor Ahmad Chat, 33, was beheaded by Hizbul militants on Saturday before dawn. Local police recovered the head and the remains of his body from Gundi Pora and Pinglana villages in Pulwama District. Manzoor and his family became believers in Jesus Christ after converting from Islam and regularly attended prayer services held by the SVM (Underground) House Church. He was a prayer leader in the house church.

From: Underground Church Worker Beheaded in Kashmir By Michael Ireland

From: Manila, 20 April (AKI) - The al-Qaeda-linked Muslim Abu Sayyaf rebels have decapitated seven hostages and sent their heads to the army in Jolo, in the southern Philippines archipelago of Sulu, the local press said on Friday quoting the military. The severed heads of six road project workers and one factory worker were delivered to two army outposts in Parang town on Jolo island, 1,000 kilometres south of Manila, Thursday. The victims, all Christians, were working on a government road construction project in the city of Parang, Jolo, when they were abducted Tuesday by rebels led by commander Albader Parad.

Punishment alone is not the solution.

A baby is born out of wedlock. The mother kills the baby. And what does society do? Give her hundred lashes, put her in jail/banish her to another island and go on as before. For 800 years we have meted out the same punishment. But nothing changes. Infanticide cases continue and have actually increased. Do we know how many babies are clinically murdered in hospitals and clinics in Trivandrum and Sri Lanka? We should come up with a better plan to stop mothers from killing their babies.
Having a child out of wedlock is frowned upon by most cultures. In Maldivian society the stigma is overwhelming. The child itself is a "Haraam dhari" and never to be equal to others. If we wish to stop the mothers from killing their own child, we must first stop punishing them. The poor mother on top of the stigma, faces the financial prospect of caring for a child on her own. In their desperate helplessness they resort to taking the life of their own child. Women who get pregnant out of wedlock do not have the same access to prenatal and postnatal services. Social stigmatisation prevents them from freely accessing available services.
What we as a society should do is give them the help and support they need so that they do not kill their own child. Punishment alone is not the solution. Punishment is the main reason why mothers kill their infant child.
(Because some readers have mis-interpreted the post I have added extra clarifications and reposted)

Another Buddhist beheaded by "misguided" muslims

SUSPECTED Muslim insurgents shot and killed two Buddhist labourers and then beheaded one of their victims as violence and bombings rocked southern Thailand today, police said.
A high-ranking police officer was seriously injured when he stepped on a hidden bomb while inspecting a blast site in Narathiwat.
An insurgency in Thailand's three Muslim-dominated southern provinces has claimed more than 2,000 lives since 2004.
From : edinburghnews.scotsman.com

Lies, lies and more lies

100%muslim. The phrase is almost inescapable. You hear it everywhere and almost everyday. But is it true? The constitution says Maldives is a islamic country. But the constitution and laws are not 100% in accordance with the Koran.
Repeatedly we hear that Maldivians embraced Islam. Peacefully.
What about the historical records? The Isdhoo Loamaafaanu? We have brought some of it in a previous post - "The earliest surviving Maldivian government record, etched onto copper in 1194 records that Buddhist monks from the island of Isdhoo in Laamu atoll were taken in triumph to Malé and beheaded by 'the great king Gadanaadeethiya the Prosperous, the uplifter of the noble Lunar Dynasty... defender of the entire hundred thousand islands.' Pursuing a policy of Islamisation, the king 'refrained from killing those infidels who entered the faith of the noble Prophet Muhammad, got them to utter shahaadhath and freed them having performed circumcision on them.'
They were killing anyone who refused to enter Islam? Peaceful indeed!!
To their credit, some people are speaking out.
Inscribed on copper plates buried at some of these destroyed Buddist temples are accounts of how Arab missionaries beheaded 200 priests in just one day in Male', simply for refusing to renounce their religion. True to the non-violent nature of the Buddist religion, they did not organize an opposition. They did not fight back. They just calmly submitted to be beheaded like goats to the slaughter on Muslim holy days. And more importantly, they were Maldivians. The best and the brightest of them!
Is everybody in Maldives a Muslim? No. I personally know many athiests, Buddhists and Christians. I know one person who is a Hindhu and another who claims to be a pagan. But the change is coming. I have seen in some writings where the Maldives is now described as a predominantly Muslim country.
100% Muslim? No. Peaceful conversion? No.
It can be repeated a million times. The ignorant and the misinformed may believe it. But it is not true. It is a lie.

"Ninety percent of Maldivians don't know the meaning of Quran & Hadith but they pretend that they know."

"Maldivians are more like Afghanitanis and they support Bin-ladin. So how can you teach democracy. A country which was very moderate a few years is now becoming a part of Islamic terrorism. You will see this soon and countries like Srilianka, India, Singapore should be careful of Maldivians. The time for them to kill European tourists is very close and they will do this. The Maldivians already started making petrol bombs and they tested few. The government do not expose these news. They don't want to show others that they are also like other Islamic terrorists but they are."
The above is from a comment on Will Jordans blog by Shad. I have just given a few lines from the comment here. The whole comment is worth reading. I think he is saying the truth when he writes "Maldivians think they are superior to all because they follow Islam. In Islam it says the followers of Islam are superios and Jews and Christians are dirty and do not become thier friends. This message is given to all Maldivians every day by the government owned media."

To read the whole comment, please visit Will Jordans blog and checkout Bloody Foreigners and go to the comments.

Female genital mutilation on the rise in Maldives

A doctor who wishes to remain anonymous confirms to Dhivehistan Report that girls are being brought to the hospital because they are getting infected from genital mutilation.
While this practice is primarily cultural, some religions do include FGM as part of their practices.
According to Egyptian Al-Azhar University scholar Sheikh Muhammad Al-Mussayar "First of all, there are reliable hadiths in Al-Bukhari and Al-Muslim which support female circumcision. The Prophet Muhammad said: 'If a circumcised woman and man have intercourse, they must undergo ablution.' Unreliable hadiths do not cancel out the reliable ones. We have unreliable hadiths regarding prayer, fasting, charity, and pilgrimage. Should we abolish prayer and charity just because some hadiths are unreliable? According to some hadiths in Al-Bukhari and Al-Muslim, 'If a circumcised woman and man have intercourse, they must undergo ablution.' People would curse one another by saying: 'You son of a clit woman' - the son of a non-circumcised woman. The objections to circumcision are illogical and unnatural."

Female genital mutilation opponent badly beaten

Norwegian-Somalian Kadra, who became famous in Norway for exposing imam support of female circumcision, was beaten unconscious on Thursday.
Kadra was attacked and beaten senseless by seven or eight persons of Somali origin, newspaper VG reports.
"I was terrified. While I lay on the pavement they kicked me and screamed that I had trampled on the Koran. Several shouted Allah-o-akbar (God is great) and also recited from the Koran," Kadra told VG.
Kadra linked the attack to recent remarks in VG where she said that the Koran's views on women needed to be reinterpreted.

To read the full report go to the AFTENPOSTEN

reports of an attempt by the al-Qa'ida-linked terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Toiba to assassinate the Tibetan spiritual leader

"SECURITY surrounding the Dalai Lama has been tightened after reports of an attempt by the al-Qa'ida-linked terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Toiba to assassinate the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.
A three-tier security ring has been thrown around the 72-year-old Buddhist head, who lives at Dharamsala, in the Himalayan foothills, Indian police spokesman Prem Lal said.
All those approaching the exiled Tibetan chief will be closely watched by highly trained Tibetan security guards as well as heavily armed deployments of Indian police.
Visitors are being body-searched before being allowed to approach him."

The article goes on..

"Superintendent Lal said police had been alerted by central intelligence agencies to the reported plot by Lashkar-e-Toiba to kill the Dalai Lama "on the directions of a foreign organisation", which he declined to name, but is assumed to be al-Qa'ida.
In a recent document, Osama bin Laden denounced "pagan Buddhism" as part of his general attack on anything not Islamic.
The assassination threat picked up by Indian authorities is thought to be based on bin Laden's denunciation and the extremist jihadi movement's hatred for anything and anyone that is not Muslim.
Lashkar-e-Toiba is believed to be al-Qa'ida's agent in South Asia and has been involved in virtually every major terrorist attack in India.
Indian authorities recently heightened the security surrounding India's political leader, Sonia Gandhi, and members of her high-profile family following intelligence reports that they were on the extremist movement's hit list. Mrs Gandhi now travels the country in armed motorcades similar to those that carry the country's head of state, President Abdul Kalam.
The heavy security cordon thrown around the Dalai Lama at the Dharamsala exile where he has lived since fleeing Tibet is in sharp contrast to the normally relaxed atmosphere that pervades the town and is testimony of the extent to which Islamic terrorism is affecting even remote parts of the world.
As police disclosed the threat to the Dalai Lama, Indian officials drafted a strong declaration on terrorism in South Asia for leaders attending the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation summit beginning in New Delhi today.
Indian foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon said the draft declaration would discuss "not only about implementing what we have already agreed to, but to see what further action we, in thesub-region, can take against terrorism".
There are suggestions that leaders at the eight-nation summit will consider extending throughout Asia the joint mechanism to deal with terrorism recently established between India and Pakistan.
The mechanism involves close co-operation on all matters relating to terrorism and a regular exchange of intelligence.
Sri Lanka is particularly keen to see an integrated strategy that would assist it in its war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers. Colombo wants SAARC members to work with it to defeat the Tigers.
Similarly, India wants all eight SAARC nations to help it defeat the Lashkar-e-Toiba group and to pursue a campaign against the terrorist movement. But many Pakistanis see LeT fighters as heroes."

With thanks to The Australian

Buddhist woman burned alive

A Buddhist woman was shot and burned alive in Thailand's violence-torn Muslim-majority south on Wednesday, prompting angry protests in front of visiting army chief Sonthi Boonyaratglin.
Watcharaporn Boonmak, 26, was ambushed by gunmen as she rode her motorcycle through a Muslim village in Yala, one of the three southern provinces roiled by three years of separatist insurgency in which more than 2,000 people have been killed.
"She might have been shot in the stomach before they set fire to her and her motorcycle," a Yala police officer, who asked to remain anonymous, told Reuters by telephone.
One of her relatives told Reuters that witnesses at the scene heard Watcharaporn, a garage clerk, screaming and crawling along the road for help but nobody dared respond for fear of reprisals.
Even by the standards of a conflict that has seen well over a dozen civilians beheaded, it was a shocking incident.
"It is the most cruel and brutal thing I've seen in my life," Jaran Kongchuay said as he joined hundreds of Buddhists bearing Watcharaporn's charred body on a hospital stretcher to the provincial hall, demanding action from Sonthi.
To read more visit Reuters AlertNet

'No nudity for sex'

According to the religious edict issued by Rashad Hassan Khalil, a former dean of Al-Azhar University's faculty of Sharia (or Islamic law), "being completely naked during the act of coitus annuls the marriage".
The religious decree sparked a hot debate on the private satellite network Dream's popular religious talk show and on the front page of Sunday's Al-Masri Al-Yom, Egypt's leading independent daily newspaper.
Suad Saleh, who heads the women's department of Al-Azhar's Islamic studies faculty, pleaded for "anything that can bring spouses closer to each other" and rejected the claim that nudity during intercourse could invalidate a union.
During the live televised debate, Islamic scholar Abdel Muti dismissed the fatwa: "Nothing is prohibited during marital sex, except of course sodomy."
For his part, Al-Azhar's fatwa committee chairman Abdullah Megawar argued that married couples could see each other naked but should not look at each other's genitalia and suggested they cover up with a blanket during sex.
To read the article visit News24

M.I.B - A Special Fashion Feature Posting.

As Maldivians divest themselves of their ancient culture and copy the ways of their spiritual and cultural overlords, there is confusion among some people as to the role of the buruga (the recent controversy over an article by Aaniya). Nevertheless the buruga is gaining ground among Maldivian men. Although we are unable to bring you a photo of Ali Rameez in this posting, we bring you a collection of Men In Buruga. For those men among you who wish to wear the buruga in the traditional arab way, we suggest you go to SHEMAGH WRAP INSTRUCTIONS.
We also predict that once enough men are wearing buruga, the next new rage will be men kissing men in greeting. Enjoy!!

Will the Himandhoo Taliban community refuse polio vaccination?

A cleric in a northern Pakistani village has opposed a foreign-funded polio vaccination campaign of the Pakistan government, urging locals not to take any preventive measures against polio "as those killed during an outbreak are martyrs". "I must tell my brothers and sisters that finding a cure (vaccination) for an epidemic before its outbreak is not allowed in Sharia ," said Maulana Fazlullah during a Friday sermon in Mam Dherai village where he is building a madrassa with local funds.“According to Sharia, one should avoid going to the areas where an epidemic has broken out, but those who do go to such areas and get killed during an outbreak are martyrs,” he said. The provincial government has launched an anti-polio campaign to run between February 20 and 22 in selected parts of the province, but there have been reports of people refusing to get their children vaccinated.
Sermons like this are influencing people into refusing polio vaccination in many parts of the NWFP. Like Nigeria, Pakistan is another country where clergy is blocking efforts aimed at eliminating fatal diseases like polio. Cases of people misbehaving with polio vaccination staff have been reported from several areas. Recently, a surgeon, Dr Ghani Khan, was killed in a bomb blast in remote Bajaur Agency, causing postponement of the anti-polio campaign, official sources said.
Swat is one area where polio staff is facing resistance, said an official, adding that deeply religious people often resisted things involving foreigners.
Maulana Fazlullah suspects the intentions of foreign agencies involved in funding drives against fatal diseases: “I don’t understand why foreigners would think of our well-being when we see that they are killing Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq.” He cited the example of a companion of the Prophet who, he said, was ‘martyred’ during an epidemic.

To read the complete article go to adnkronosinternational the global information gateway

(Some) mullahs declare polio vaccination an American plot

"The parents of 24,000 children in northern Pakistan refused to allow health workers to administer polio vaccinations last month, mostly due to rumours that the harmless vaccine was an American plot to sterilise innocent Muslim children.
The disinformation - spread by extremist clerics using mosque loudspeakers and illegal radio stations, and by word of mouth - has caused a sharp jump in polio cases in Pakistan and hit global efforts to eradicate the debilitating disease.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recorded 39 cases of polio in Pakistan in 2006, up from 28 in 2005. The disease is concentrated in North-West Frontier Province, where 60% of the refusals were attributed to "religious reasons".
"It was very striking. There was a lot of anti-American propaganda as well as some misconceptions about sterilisation," said Dr Sarfaraz Afridi, a campaign manager with the WHO in Peshawar.
The scaremongering and appeals to Islam echoed a similar campaign in the Nigerian state of Kano in 2003, where the disease then spread to 12 polio-free countries over the following 18 months. Pakistan is one of just four countries where polio remains endemic. The others are Nigeria, India and Afghanistan."
To read the entire article go to Guardian Unlimited

Jinni's make big comeback

While googling to find God is a recent phenomenon, dialling a jinni for help has been practised for a long time. Fanditha, a mixture of folk medicine, charms and black magic, based on ancient beliefs and superstitions has its roots in the Hindhu-Vedic culture of our ancestors and has been around from the days of the first Maldivians. The jinni was added to this mix with the arrival of the Arab invaders in the latter part of 12th century.

The father of Jenni is Devil ( Iblis ) while the father of mankind is Adam , peace upon him . Regarding the nature of their creation , God the Almighty told us that they were created from fire when he said ( We created the demons from the fire of poisons ), his saying ( The demons are created from a tip of flaming fire ) . The scholars from the ancestors explained the words ( Marej Min Nar) as the tip of flame, as reported by each of Ibn Abbas , Ekrema , Mujahed , Al-Hassan , and so on . (from alroqia.com)

The last judicial execution in Maldives also involved the arcane and the supernatural. On Tuesday 7 April 1953, the trial of the black magicians for the poisoning murder of Huvadhu Atoll Chief Veeru Ali Didi was held at the Civilisation Club. Abdullah Jalaluddheen Sheikhul Islam the Chief Justice of Maldives passed a death sentence and Nilandhoo Hakeem Didi was promptly tied to a coconut palm on Hulule' and shot to death. During the Presidency of Rannabadeyri Kilegefaan Ibrahim Nasir, fanditha appears to have been pushed to the fringes as Maldives tried to enter the modern world. Nasir Kilegafaan was a science and technology man.
Now fanditha has made a big comeback. The demand for it has grown since Maumoon took power. Apparently, Maumoon's father was also a black magician. From acquiring weath and wives to curing chikungunya, an increasing number of people are turning to fanditha. There is wide variety of solutions. The thaveedhu, and the glass of water over which the magic words are recited, are the most common. Then there is the the broadband access to the world of jinni. This is achieved by top black magicians by accessing a jinni through a person who has fits.
Fanditha is resurging and black magicians are doing brisk business. This is not at all surprising considering the fact that even the current Minister of Health himself apparently uses fanditha. According to a Police investigation conducted at the request of the Minister for the President's Office, he enlisted black magic help from the daughter of Hakeem Didi, because his fingers were disintegrating, and cysts and dermatitis were forming on his body, and for many other things including a bid for the Presidency. This investigation finally climaxed with a court case.

"Any person who wishes to practise Dhivehi medicine, Fanditha, Circumcision, and Midwifery must write to the Ministry of Health for a permit, and must receive a permit before practising anything mentioned above.In relation to these matters, the Ministry of Health has the discretion to choose to grant an appropriate permit to those who make a request, and may also cancel any of these permits."
Translation of Act No:74/78, 5 June 1978, Statutes of the Maldives, Administration Office of the People's Majlis, Malé 1997.
With many thanks to Maldives Culture.

M.I.B guard girl students (Those who dress like Pakis... part II )

Men In Buruga are guarding the girl students of Jamia Hafsa who have refused to vacate a children’s public library until the government enforces Sharia law in Pakistan.

"Some of the burqa-clad people occupying a children’s public library here are actually men and not women", a student of the Jamia Hafsa seminary said on Thursday. Students of the girls seminary have taken over the library to protest at the demolition of a mosque built on encroached state land. The girl student said on condition of anonymity that burqa-clad male students not only guard the library, but also roam freely in the Jamia Hafsa compound, and the girl students resented this. “When we told the male students to leave the compound and not to trespass, they paid no heed, saying that they were there for our safety and protection,” she said. nni"


“We want Sharia or we are ready to embrace martyrdom,” representatives of the ‘Students Action Committee’ told reporters here on Thursday.

With thanks to Daily Times