Reader’s news links for July 16 – 2015

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In order to preserve the flow of conversation about various posted items, and also in order to make it easier for visitors to find the list of related links being shared by other readers, regulars and interested parties in one place, each day a post is automatically created at a minute past midnight ET.

This way, under the various posts of the day, conversation can take place without as much ‘noise’ on the various links and articles and ideas in the main posts and all the news links being submitted can be seen under these auto-posts by clicking on the comments-link right below these ones.

Thank you all for those that take the effort to assist this site in keeping the public informed. Below, typically people can find the latest enemy propaganda, news items of related materials from multiple countries and languages, op-eds from many excellent sites who write on our topics, geopolitics and immigration issues and so on.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

74 Replies to “Reader’s news links for July 16 – 2015”

  1. Just a question: has anyone seen yucki lately? I have had online problems and wasn’t around much.

    • Oh and PS: Vlad Tepes: I just LORRRVE your new letterheads (the bands on top of the blog, I dont know what they are called). Being so beautiful and serene, they are just the other extreme of the subjects treated here. 🙂

    • Here I am!
      Rough times, these are, aren’t they?
      Sure helps to know there’s the one and only RITA, right here for this Yankee Kafir!

      My internet is spotty too. Should we sign up for Conspiracy 101?

      There’s a rally to protest the Iran Deal next week in Times Sq. I think I could get a ride there.

      Not quite so sure about my health, wouldn’t want to drag others down. As happened when I went to Washington about Israel and the war in Lebanon, 2006. No shortage of medical-personnel, though.

  2. Yip… Good order of magnitude… And that is quite a lot…

    Brave woman who dares to shatter a toxic taboo: British Pakistanis are THIRTEEN times more likely to have disabled children because of marriage among relatives (dailymail, July 16, 2015)
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3162989/The-brave-woman-dares-shatter-toxic-taboo.html

    “Britain can rightly take pride in its tolerant outlook. Indeed, it is this attitude that has helped to build our remarkably successful multi-ethnic society, even as immigration has reached unprecedented levels.

    But there is a danger that such tolerance sometimes degenerates into a cowardly reluctance to tackle damaging social practices within certain ethnic minorities. In political circles, the fear of accusations of racial prejudice can create a climate of denial, where hard realities are ignored and difficult truths become unsayable.

    That is certainly what happened over the disgraceful sex-grooming scandal in Rotherham, in which the civic authorities, including the police and social services, tried to cover up the systematic abuse of more than 1,400 vulnerable girls by predatory gangs of Pakistani heritage men.

    Similarly, for too long there was an institutionalised unwillingness to confront the spread of radical extremism. Indeed, in 2007, after Channel 4 made a programme about the influence of hate-preachers in Birmingham mosques, the West Midlands Police urged that the producers be prosecuted for stirring up racial hatred. But it is now time to confront another taboo subject, one that has been hidden from the public, despite the misery it causes to children and families.

    I am referring to the outdated, unBritish custom within some Muslim communities of marriage among close relatives, especially first cousins.

    This tradition, which is followed mainly by migrant families who originate from the Kashmir region of Pakistan, has the tragic consequence of causing disproportionately high rates of disability among their offspring because of the far greater risks of genetic disorders….”

  3. France says it foiled terrorist plot to attack military installations (CNN, July 16, 2015)
    http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/16/europe/france-foiled-terrorist-plot/index.html

    “French intelligence agents have detained four people, including a former navy service member, on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack against “military installations,” the country’s interior minister said.

    The suspects, aged between 16 and 23, were arrested in four different parts of France at dawn on Monday and remain in custody, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in a statement Wednesday.

    One of them is a former sailor in the French navy, he said.

    Investigators identified the “main instigator” in the alleged plot through his “activism on social networks and relations with French jihadists currently in prison,” according to Cazeneuve.

    The main suspect, who had previously been questioned by authorities, had a desire to travel to Syria, the minister said.

    An investigation opened last month by the Paris prosecutor’s office, which handles counterterrorism cases throughout France, enabled authorities to identify other individuals connected to the main suspect, Cazeneuve said.

    The investigation into the alleged plot is ongoing….”

  4. Former agent: I was abandoned by MI5 after breakdown (BBC, July 15, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33543352

    “A former MI5 spy has broken cover to give the BBC an unprecedented account of his life in service – and describe his anger at the way he was treated.

    The agent, codenamed Robert Acott, said he spied for 18 years, mostly following Islamic and Irish terrorist suspects.

    He told Newsnight MI5 had pushed him out after he suffered symptoms of stress, later diagnosed as PTSD.

    MI5 would not comment on the claims – but security sources said they felt his was only one side of the story.

    In an interview with Newsnight, Acott says:

    MI5 was completely unprepared for the Islamist terror threat and was so short-staffed during one major plot that it had to rely on British Transport Police to follow terrorist suspects

    The agency had so few non-white officers that one team leader considered “blacking-up” agents – this was tried on a training exercise

    The agency had to undertake some surveillance operations because of suspicions of corruption and leaks within the police

    He challenged senior managers when his team was tasked with looking at a suspected paedophile. Acott considered this beyond the agency’s remit. The operation lasted several weeks, but he says he saw no evidence of child abuse

    Acott, 46, was dismissed five years ago for misconduct after leaving an unmarked MI5 training manual in his garden shed. It was found by a member of the public and handed to police.

    At the time he was sacked, Acott was suffering from panic attacks – and he has since been diagnosed as suffering from Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, brought on by the pressure of his career in the service….”

  5. Officials: ‘Inadequate’ Government Efforts to Prevent US Terrorist Radicalization (abcnews, July 15, 2015)
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/officials-inadequate-government-efforts-prevent-us-terrorist-radicalization/story?id=32472382

    “The Obama administration’s approach to combating terrorist radicalization inside the U.S. has been “inadequate” while ISIS has found extraordinary success at inspiring many to commit violence, current and former officials said at a congressional hearing today.

    So far this year, the FBI has arrested 48 suspects in the U.S. accused of attempting to support ISIS or act violently in the name of the Islamist extremist group – and yet in all of the U.S. government, only half that number of U.S. officials are devoted to Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programs, according to Rep. Michael McCaul, Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

    “In the high-threat environment we are in today, this is unacceptable,” McCaul said.

    But current and former officials have told ABC News the numbers are even worse and that many of those officials counted in the number the administration provided to McCaul split their time between CVE and other duties. Those inside the government solely focused on CVE at the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice and National Counterterrorism Center number approximately eight, these officials said….”

  6. Egyptian naval vessel on fire following Islamic State-claimed rocket attack

    The Islamic State’s Egypt affiliate, Sinai Province, has claimed responsibility for Thursday’s missile attack on a naval boat off the Mediterranean coast of Egypt.

    The Egyptian army said in a statement earlier that the patrol boat was chasing militants off the coast of Rafah, a town in North Sinai, and had exchanged gunfire with them. The boat caught on fire as a result, but the incident left no fatalities, the military said.

    Sinai Province released a statement saying its jihadists had carried out a rocket attack on a naval vessel belonging to the “apostasy army” in the eastern Mediterranean.

    The volatile North Sinai region, where Rafah is located, is an epicenter of a mounting Islamist insurgency that has killed hundreds of members of the security forces since the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

    Earlier in July, 21 soldiers were killed after simultaneous militant assaults on army checkpoints in the North Sinai towns of Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah, prompting days-long fighting between troops and insurgents that left over 200 militants killed.

    http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/135525/Egypt/Politics-/UPDATED-Egypts-Islamic-State-affiliate-claims-rock.aspx

  7. French say 3 suspected extremists planned to behead officer

    PARIS: Three suspects arrested this week in a plot to attack a French military base had planned to decapitate an officer and film the scene, a judicial official said Thursday.

    The hilltop Fort Bear, overlooking the Mediterranean, which is used for training by commandos, was the target location, said the official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

    The arrests, announced Wednesday by Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, injected a new dose of tension into a nation already on edge over terror threats.

    In late June, a man with suspected ties to Islamist extremists beheaded his boss at a transport company and hung the head on a factory gate.

    “We note the power of the threat, a threat level (France) has never before known,” said Prime Minister Manuel Valls. “The threat is outside, the threat is inside.”

    Thousands of French police and soldiers have been combing streets and guarding sensitive sites – houses of worship to tourist landmarks – since January attacks by three Islamist extremists on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a Kosher grocery that killed 20, including the three attackers.

    The three in the latest case were arrested Monday along with a 16-year-old who was released Wednesday and is no longer a suspect, the official said. A 17-year-old was the alleged instigator.
    **********************************************************************
    The eldest, 23, was a former Marine dropped from the corps, Cazeneuve said without elaborating.
    **********************************************************************
    The judicial official said the plot centered on an attack on Fort Bear with plans to decapitate an officer and film the scene, mimicking the grisly killins of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, a scenario confirmed during interrogation.

    They were arrested Monday in three locations around France, in Marseille, in the northern Nord region, and in Chesnay west of Paris.

    http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/World/2015/Jul-16/306977-french-say-3-suspected-extremists-planned-to-behead-officer.ashx

  8. Some 2,700 migrants rescued at sea near Libya: Italy coast guard

    ROME (Reuters) – Around 2,700 migrants were rescued from 13 boats near the coast of Libya on Wednesday, Italy’s coastguard said.

    A German navy vessel and a search and rescue ship deployed by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres participated in the rescues along with the Italian navy and coastguard.

    A spokeswoman for the Italian coastguard said the rescues had all been carried out in an area around 35 miles (55 km) from the coast of Libya.

    An estimated 150,000 migrants have reached Europe by sea so far in 2015, most of them in Greece and Italy, the International Organization for Migration said. More than 1,900 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean, twice the toll during the same period last year, said spokesman Joel Millman.

    The United Nations refugee agency said on Friday that Greece urgently needed help to cope with 1,000 migrants arriving each day.

    The vast majority of the migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East depart from Libya, where human traffickers have taken advantage of a breakdown in order to build up a lucrative business.

    http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCAKCN0PP2GP20150715

    • Police Officer Shot at Chattanooga, Tennessee, Military Building

      A police officer was shot Thursday at a military building in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and preliminary reports said as many as four people connected to the military may have also been shot.

      U.S. officials said the gunman was dead.

      The shooting started at a military recruitment facility and continued at about six miles away at a naval reserve center, preliminary reports said. It was not clear where the victims were injured.

      The gunman fired 25 to 30 rounds at the recruitment facility, a U.S. military official told NBC News.

      Chattanooga police said about two hours after the first reports that the shooting was over, but they offered no immediate details.

      The first calls came in at about 11 a.m. Police responded to a shooting on Amnicola Highway, the station reported. The U.S. Navy confirmed a shooting, and said officials, including ATF special agents, were at the scene.

      http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/whathappenedtosandybland-womans-texas-jail-death-questioned-n393001

      • Chattanooga shooting situation is over, police say (CNN, July 16, 2015)
        http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/16/us/tennessee-naval-reserve-shooting/index.html

        “Shootings were reported at a Navy Reserve center and a military recruiting center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, late Thursday morning.

        One officer is “down” in connection with the shootings, Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke told reporters. He was not specific about the officer’s condition.

        The U.S. Navy tweeted Thursday that a shooting happened at a Navy Reserve center on Amnicola Highway in Chattanooga, and witnesses said they saw a shooting outside a separate location — a building on Lee Highway that houses military recruiting offices.

        By 1:15 p.m., the “active shooter situation” was over, police tweeted.

        Gina Mule, a server at a restaurant, said she saw a man who’d been in a silver convertible Mustang, firing a “high-powered rifle” at the recruiting offices at about 10:50 a.m.

        She said she first heard “Pow, pow, pow!” She then went to a window, through which she said she saw the man firing shots.

        “I don’t know how many shots he fired, but it was a lot,” she said.

        A second witness, April Grimmett, said she was working at a hair salon near the recruiting center when she looked out a window and saw a man ducking in between cars.

        “Shortly after that, we heard the (shots). It was very loud and very fast,” Grimmett said, without saying what happened to the man she had seen.

        A photo that she took shows glass doors damaged by the gunfire.

        “I could not believe how many bullet holes were in that door. It was insane,” she said.

        The U.S. Navy said that besides the Navy Reserve center, it was also investigating reports of a shooting at another Navy building in the city. It wasn’t immediately clear whether that second Navy building was the recruiting center that the witnesses spoke about.

        “Horrific incident in our community,” Berke, the mayor, tweeted. “We will release details as they are confirmed. Prayers to all those affected.”…..”

  9. At least 33 killed in three attacks in northeast Nigeria (CNN, July 15, 2015)
    http://edition.cnn.com/2015/07/15/africa/nigeria-violence/index.html

    “Militants believed to be with Boko Haram killed at least 33 people in three separate attacks in northeastern Nigeria, a lawmaker, residents and civilian vigilantes who oppose the Islamist terror group said Wednesday.

    All the attacks took place in Borno state, which has been among the areas most targeted in recent years by Boko Haram.

    The deadliest happened around 5 p.m. (noon ET) Tuesday, when gunmen barricaded a highway linking Maiduguri, the Borno state capital, and Damaturu, the capital of neighboring Yobe state, and killed more than 20 motorists, federal lawmaker Mohammed Sanda said.

    These attackers — who Sanda said were Boko Haram militants — then stormed the village of Ngamdu, setting homes on fire and spurring residents to flee, said the lawmaker said.

    Boko Haram gunmen also ambushed and killed eight people traveling on a lorry, or large truck, from Maiduguri to the town of Baga, which is on the shore of Lake Chad, local vigilantes said.

    Those on the vehicle had fled Baga due to the militant group’s bloody advance and were heading home after Nigeria’s military reclaimed their hometown. They were about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) away when gunmen attacked around 4 p.m.

    Tuesday, shot the eight passengers in the head, then fled into the nearby bush, according to the vigilantes.

    And in Damasak — a town taken by Boko Haram last November that’s just a few miles away from Niger — dozens of militants burned structures and killed at least five people, residents said. This attack came shortly after Chadian troops, which had warned people to evacuate, pulled out of Damasak….”

  10. Kirgyzstan Police say kill six militants in Kyrgyz capital

    BISHKEK, July 16 (Reuters) – Security forces said they killed six gunmen in two clashes in Kyrgyzstan’s capital on Thursday, stoking fears of the spread of militancy in the politically turbulent region.

    Bursts of machinegun fire and explosions rang out from Bishkek’s Gorky Street area, about a mile (1.5 km) from parliament and government buildings, people said on social media.

    “They were preparing a terrorist attack,” National Security Committee spokesman Rakhat Sulaimanov said, adding it was not clear what group they belonged to.

    Authorities in the mostly Muslim nation have said they are worried about the risk of locals joining militant groups in Iraq and Syria, then returning to mount attacks at home.

    Kyrgyzstan’s Interior Ministry has said it knows of more than 350 Kyrgyz citizens who have gone to fight for the Islamic State group in Syria, more than 30 of whom have died.

    Police said four attackers were killed and four security service members wounded in central Bishkek – and two more attackers were killed at around the same time in the suburbs.

    Kyrgyzstsan remains ethnically and culturally divided between its more developed north and a much poorer south, densely populated by ethnic Uzbeks.

    Fears of militancy have been echoed by Russia, which has a military airbase in the country, and by governments of other former Soviet republics in Central Asia.

    Kyrgyzstan also lies on a drug trafficking route out of Afghanistan. Two presidents have been deposed since 2005 and hundreds were killed in inter-ethnic bloodshed in the south in 2010.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-3164052/Security-police-kill-four-militants-operation-Kyrgyz-capital.html

  11. ITALY – SICILY – Migrants revolt over unpaid pocket money

    Twelve migrants have been accused of kidnapping and attempted robbery after allegedly storming into the director’s office of a refugee centre in Sicily and locking up two workers in a bid to ‘steal’ the pocket money they hadn’t been paid.

    The incident happened on Tuesday afternoon at the state-run Sprar (System for the Protection of Asylum Seekers and Refugees) centre in Vittoria, near Ragusa, Sicily.

    The motive? The migrants had not received their weekly €17.50 allowance for Saturday July 11th.

    But it’s claimed that this wasn’t down to neglect. They hadn’t been paid because they had refused to be transferred to another Sprar centre in Agrigento, in south-west Sicily, Ragusa24.it reported.

    At the beginning of July, some 34 of the centre’s 45 inhabitants emphatically refused to move to Agrigento, and rebelled so much that police had to be called in to restore order at the centre.

    Finally, some agreed to leave but others remained, making use of services and resources to which they no longer technically had the right.

    The money of those who refused to be transferred was not paid because officially at least, they had been transferred to the Agrigento centre and were no longer at the Vittoria one.

    Furious at not being paid, the twelve angry migrants burst into the centre director’s office to demand their pocket money – a request which was refused.

    Led by a 24-year-old from Guinea Bassau, they then reportedly decided to take their money by force, locking the 46-year-old centre director and his 35-year-old colleague in an office, before pinching the keys to his scooter.

    They also tried to take the bunch of keys that contained the one for the centre’s safe, where the money used to cover its day-to-day costs is kept. During the attempted robbery, they also took control of the centre’s phone, to make sure nobody called the police.

    In spite of everything, the director managed to call the police from another phone in the office where he was trapped.

    The migrants were taken to the police station, formally identified and placed under house arrest, accused of kidnapping and attempted robbery.

    http://www.thelocal.it/20150715/migrants-in-sicily-revolt-over-unpaid-pocket-money

    • Watch the global goo over this one.
      Do you get a “killed in action” citation if the enemy kills you in your own home?

      • Not under this administration, if you watch Fox News this morning you saw Juan Williams showing the line the Dems are going to take, it was work place violence and we don’t want to arm the military since that would be a danger to everyone when they got into an argument. The wild west scenario is thrown put every time more rational gun laws and actions are discussed, it hasn’t happened yet but the left keeps throwing it out for the low information voters.

  12. Greek debt crisis news: 14 people arrested during violent protests in Athens – but not one of them was from Greece

    […]Kathimarini reported that four of those arrested came from Germany, two were French, one Australian, one Ukraine, one Dutch and three Polish. There were given charges relating to damage of a metro station.

    […]A further two people were arrested in front of the parliament for attacks on police officers – one an Italian and one an Albanian.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/greek-debt-crisis-news-14-people-arrested-during-violent-protests-in-athens–but-not-one-of-them-was-from-greece-10393386.html

  13. Moderately entertaining story here:

    AP Exclusive: Palestinians Quit Medical Study in Venezuela (abcnews, July 16, 2015)
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/ap-exclusive-palestinians-quit-medical-study-venezuela-32483772

    “The Palestinian students were greeted like celebrities upon arrival in Caracas. President Nicolas Maduro wore a kaffiyeh headdress and played up their symbolic importance during an address broadcast across the socialist South American country.

    “Today, Palestine enters the heart of Venezuela,” Maduro declared in November when he greeted the first 119 recipients of a medical school scholarship, adding that the historic exchange with a key ideological ally had made him cry.

    The program to train young Palestinians as doctors was to be the latest addition to an array of international solidarity programs the late President Hugo Chavez established, the best-known of which provides communist Cuba with cheap oil in exchange for the services of tens of thousands of health professionals.

    But eight months later, about a third of the Palestinians have dropped out, complaining the program lacks academic rigor, according to interviews The Associated Press conducted with students, teachers and government officials. At least 29 already have gone home, while the other dropouts have stayed on living rent-free as they wait to receive plane tickets.

    The Palestinians who left the Yasser Arafat Scholarship Program, which included seven years of room and board at a state-run school staffed by Cuban doctors, said they weren’t getting the training they needed to become recognized physicians. Dismissing those concerns, school officials say the young people were homesick and susceptible to manipulation by government critics.

    The students’ decision to leave prompted Venezuela to freeze the scholarship program that was supposed to bring in hundreds more Palestinians to study in various fields, according to an official in the Palestinian Education Ministry in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The young people’s choices have raised diplomatic tensions between the two allies, said the official, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

    Chavez, who saw himself as a leader of the developing world, was a vocal proponent of the Palestinians’ right to statehood, which he saw as part of a broader battle against colonialism and the West.

    Sandra Moreno, director of the Dr. Salvador Allende medical school, did not respond to multiple requests for interviews, nor did federal health and higher education officials in Venezuela….”

  14. This looks important:
    Egypt Accuses Turkey of Subversion

    The Egyptian military revealed on July 8, 2015, that it had captured Turkish intelligence officers who were actively involved in the guerrilla war waged by the Islamic State in Sinai and inside Egypt itself against the Sisi regime.

    The Turkish National Intelligence Organization (NIO) operatives named included Col. Ismail Aly Bal (described as a coordinator of battlefield operations), Diaa al-Din Mehmet Gado, Bakoush al-Husseyni Youzmi and Abdallah al-Turki.

    On July 12, the Egyptian military spokesman announced the uncovering of a “terrorist cell” whose instructions were given by the Muslim Brotherhood headquartered in Turkey and whose mission was to destabilize Egypt.

    If the facts revealed by the Egyptian military are correct, this would dramatically confirm the links between the Turkish regime and the Islamic State militants, as well as with other jihadist groups fighting in Syria and Iraq.

    Israeli military intelligence said that Turkey allowed the establishment of at least three training camps for jihadists on its territory bordering Syria and Iraq under the supervision and guidance of Turkish intelligence.

    Turkey and Egypt have been at loggerheads since President Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood was ousted by Field Marshall Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in what Turkey considered a “coup d’tat.” Part of the Muslim Brotherhood leadership found refuge in Turkey.

    http://jcpa.org/article/egypt-accuses-turkey-of-subversion/

  15. Between Adolf Erdogan with Caliph ambitions and courageous Sisi (Isis spelled backwards – copyright Perfect Child) I have no hesitation to know which side I’m on.

  16. German TV to air Muslim prayers in historic broadcast

    German TV is scheduled to broadcast live Muslim Eid prayers from a mosque in a town near Munich, a move that is the first of its kind in the country’s history, Al Jazeera has learned.

    The prayers, at 4:45am local time on Friday, will be aired from the Penzberg Mosque on public TV and radio broadcaster Bayerischen Rundfunk.

    Benjamin Idriz, the preacher who will lead the prayers, hailed the move as historic for Muslims in Germany.

    He told Al Jazeera that the broadcast will be part of a wider two-hour coverage on the Muslim holiday that will include the sermon, narration of the Islam’s holy book Quran, Islamic chanting and speeches by Christian Catholic and Protestant priests.

    […]The move comes just two weeks after German Chancellor Angela Merkel attended an iftar, the meal to break the Ramadan fast, for the first time as the head of government. At the event, she said that Islam “is a part of Germany”.

    http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/german-tv-air-muslim-prayers-historic-broadcast-150716150029860.html

    Rundgang durch die Penzberger Moschee

  17. Hindu-Muslim couple slit each other’s throats in Taj Mahal ‘suicide pact’

    AGRA: An Indian couple forbidden to marry because of their different backgrounds are in hospital after slitting their own throats in an apparent suicide pact at India’s famed monument to love, the Taj Mahal.

    Police said the pair — named in the Times of India as Rajveer Singh and Shabnam Ali — were stable after they were discovered in a pool of blood in the grounds of the Taj Mahal on Wednesday afternoon.

    “This couple, one of whom is a Hindu and the other a Muslim, tried to commit suicide at the Taj,” said police deputy superintendent Aseem Chaudhary.

    “The girl cut her throat first followed by the boy.”

    Read: Freewill: Love-marriage-couple say police harassing them

    Marriage outside caste or religion still attracts strong censure in parts of India and can even lead to so-called honour killings, carried out to protect what is seen as family pride.

    “Both Shabnam and I tried hard to convince our parents that they should allow us to get married, but the boundaries of religion remained the biggest hurdle,” the Times of India quoted Singh as saying.

    “We did this after failing at all possible ways to be together.”

    http://tribune.com.pk/story/922011/thwarted-indian-couple-in-taj-mahal-suicide-pact/