Category Archives: War on basic human values

Melanie Phillips: The church’s lost leader

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Daily Mail, 30 March 2009

The resignation of Michael Nazir-Ali as Bishop of Rochester is a terrible blow, not just for the Church of England but for Britain.

The bishop says he is resigning so that he can work for endangered or beleaguered Christian minorities both abroad and in the UK.

What a shocking rebuke to the church, that he has to leave his post of influence and authority as a bishop in order to carry out the church’s core duty to defend its own against attack.

Shocking — but hardly surprising. Across the world, in countries such as Nigeria and Sudan, millions of Christians are being persecuted at the hands of militant Islam, with forced conversions, the burning of churches and widespread violence.

Yet in the face of this global onslaught, the Church of England makes scarcely a peep of protest.

Worse still, when Dr Nazir-Ali warned last year that Islamic extremists had created ‘no-go areas’ across Britain where non-Muslims faced intimidation, he was disowned by his fellow churchmen who all but declared that he was a liar – even though he was telling the truth.

For this act of moral courage, he and his family had to be put under police protection, while his own church left him to swing in the wind of bigotry and intimidation.

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Education increasing in Afghanistan

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If there is one reason for Canadians to value our presence in Afghanistan it would be this one. Gloria Galloway writes for the Globe and Mail of the steady increase in school enrolment despite continued threats of death, dismemberment and mutilation of children by the Taliban. At the Mirwais Mina high school where students and their teachers were sprayed in the face with battery acid last November, enrolment has increased. Initially students stayed away immediately following the attacks but now nearly all have returned. Attendance has increased from 800 pupils to 1300 in one year.

It would seem that the combined efforts of  parents, school officials, Canadian and NATO troops are providing the Taliban with an lesson of their own; education is important and threats of danger and even death will not stop children from attending school.

Hajim Anwar, director of education in Kandahar province is frustrated by those who claim little progress has been made in the Afghan education system. ” There is good education and the education is increasing, not decreasing” he said. Parents are resolved in their desire to bring better lives to their children through schooling. Yet most of the spike in attendance is due to the increasing number of boys going to school with many girls still being denied the opportunity as gender discrimination remains the prominent factor in the lives of Afghanis. Hopefully, this gender disparity will decrease as more schools with a rounded and balanced cirriculum open and Taliban inspired madrasses are challenged as the only marker of learning.

Some in Belgium notice an elephant in the room. At least when it stands on them.

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Flip Dewinter of the Vlaams Belang party in Belgium, himself a frequent target of the main parties in Belgium and various charges of hate speech and so on. managed to get this interview out about Islam and its behavior and values in Belgium. He says it very well. And speaks very simple non inflammatory truths. At least, not inflammatory for anyone who is interested in the facts in evidence.

British man brutally beaten in broad daylight by Muslim thugs

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[kaltura-widget wid=”ppjapeqnv6″ width=”410″ height=”364″ addpermission=”3″ editpermission=”3″ /]From The Star UK. British man brutally beaten in broad daylight. The video here is of CCCT Cameras which do surveillance on most of London. The brazenness with which these Islamic thugs attacked an indigenous British citizen shows the callous disregard for British law and culture. No one in London doesn’t know of the cameras. They just do not care. Much like the Australian subway beating from a couple of weeks ago.

Below please see the article from the Star:
Published Date: 23 March 2009
By Sarah Dunn

THREE teenage thugs have been caged after subjecting a man to a brutal beating in broad daylight – tackling him to the ground before repeatedly jumping on his head and kicking him.
Sheffield Crown Court was shown shocking CCTV footage of the vicious attack on Craig Rocket, who tried twice to stagger away before stumbling, dazed, to the ground.

Judge John Swanson called the footage “quite horrifying” – and said he had presided over murder cases in which far less violence had been used.

Mr Rocket was on his way home from an afternoon out with friends when trouble erupted outside the bus station in Rotherham town centre as he finished off a cigarette. A gang of around five or six Asian youths started following him and threatening comments were made.

Mr Rocket became so worried he took out his mobile phone to pretend he was talking to a friend, and eventually ran off from the group in fear. But Easem Rariq, aged 19, and Moseeb Zabear, 17, chased after him, along with another teenager, Howis Iqbal, also 17.

Rariq rugby-tackled Mr Rocket to ground before Zabear jumped on his head. Iqbal then joined in, repeatedly kicking Mr Rocket to his body.

Judge Swanson said the level of violence Mr Rocket endured was “almost unbelievable”.

“I have seen a video of what happened which is quite horrifying,” he
told the court. “I have known murder cases where there was considerably less violence used than in this case.” In fact, miraculously, Mr Rocket escaped with only superficial injuries from the attack on September 20 last year.

Rariq, of Boswell Street, Rotherham; Zabear, of Clough Green, Masbrough; and Iqbal, of Shawsfield Road, Broom, Rotherham, all pleaded guilty to attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent.

They claimed Mr Rocket had been making racist remarks towards them but no evidence was put before the court.

They were each sentenced to two years in a young offenders institution.

Sam Andrews, defending Zabear, said he was remorseful about what he had done and added personal and professional references showed evidence of a man “in stark contrast” to the thug seen on the CCTV footage.

Dapinder Singh, for Rariq, and Nawaz Hussain, for Iqbal, both said their clients were also remorseful for their actions.

Sky News does another piece on Swat and imposition of sharia law

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One thing, the interview with the elderly gentleman at the end should be taken with a grain of salt. No one dares speak against the Taliban. Anyone interviewed with half a brain or who likes living will say they think its a good thing.

This video found on Frozen North:

NGO’s ordered out of Swat. Taliban finds them ‘vulgar’

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Karachi, Mar.23 (ANI): The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has virtually imposed a ban on all the non-governmental organizations (NGO) working in the Swat Valley, as it has asked them to leave the region immediately.
The TTP has said the way of working of the NGOs was against Islam and it is not acceptable to it.
NGO is another name for vulgarity and obscenity. They hire women who work with men in the field and in offices. This is totally un-Islamic and unacceptable, TTP spokesman, Muslim Khan said.
Khan strongly opposed the presence of foreigners in the region.
They come and tell us how to make lavatories in mosques and houses. Im sure we can do it ourselves. There is no need for foreigners to tell us this, The Daily Times quoted Khan, as saying.
When asked that why the Taliban has been opposing the polio vaccination, Khan said: It (vaccination) causes infertility.
He added that the major reason why the Taliban was against the vaccination is that the vaccines were manufactured in foreign countries, and the vaccination program was run by NGOs. (ANI)

Laina Farhat-Holzman: British are gutless supporters of multicultural tolerance

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From The Santa Cruz Sentinal:

Baroness Warsi has warned that politicians have failed to tackle the problem of polygamy because of 'cultural sensitivity'Baroness Warsi has warned that politicians have failed to tackle the problem of polygamy because of ‘cultural sensitivity’

Recently in my part of California, an immigrant fieldworker, Marcelino de Jesus Martinez, sold his teenage daughter to a man in marriage in exchange for $16,000, 100 cases of beer, 100 cases of meat, and a case of Gatorade. He went to the police to get his daughter back when the “husband” did not pay up. He thought he had done nothing wrong; people did this in his home village. The public and legal response was immediate and unsympathetic. In the U.S., we do not let “multiculturalism” trump American law and values. But this is not true everywhere.

England, from whom we derived our religious and political values, concepts of liberty, justice, and equality under the law, has lost its way. Today’s England is a multicultural mess, whose basic values are being challenged by its largest immigrant community, migrants from the Muslim world mainly Somalia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The challenges are coming from polygamists who not only want the British justice system to permit them to practice, but also expect it to pay welfare to them, their many wives, and hordes of children. The British courts have become gutless supporters of multicultural tolerance — which is finally stirring up public wrath.

How is this done?

A man seeks sanctuary or immigration rights. He brings a wife and then divorces her a sham divorce so that he can bring a younger wife or wives from his native land. There are thousands of these cases.

The wives generally speak no English, are not permitted out of the house, and have nowhere to turn when the polygamy begins. Add to this the threat of beatings or “honor killing” if a wife goes public and “shames” the family.

Men claim that Islam permits them to have up to four wives, provided they are treated equally. For some, this means separate apartments for each wife and her children, of course paid for by state welfare money.

When the issue goes to court, surplus wives being faced with deportation, the men claim that they are only doing what their religion permits and that British law should respect that. Some judges appear weak-kneed enough to buy this.

Other government departments apparently collude in this too. This from the Daily Mail, Sue Reed, Feb. 24: “A recent review by four Government departments — the Treasury, the Work and Pensions Department, the Inland Revenue and the Home Office — has concluded that 1,000 men in the United Kingdom are now polygamists, although some say the figure is higher.”

What is more, the review found, a Muslim man can claim state support of more than 10,000 pounds a year to keep his wives, if the wedding took place in one of those countries where polygamy is commonplace, such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia and across huge tracts of Africa.

At a time of financial crunch, note what a polygamist can get from the state: more generous housing benefits and bigger council houses to reflect the large size of his family. He is also able to claim 1,000 a year in child benefit for each of his growing brood.

The “growing brood” should also alarm the British, who at this rate would find themselves well outnumbered. Is this desirable? The Taxpayers’ Alliance, a lobby group, has complained: “Polygamy is not officially condoned here, so why should British taxpayers have to pay for extra benefits for men to have two, three or four wives?’ ”

One National Health Service nurse said this was now commonplace. He knew of a Bangladeshi-born male patient with two wives and 13 children aged between 3 months and 15 years.

Finally, let’s hear from a British intellectual. A leading Muslim academic at Cambridge University has claimed that men are biologically designed to desire more than one woman and that, therefore, polygamy should be legalized.

Biologically designed, eh? Perhaps wife battery is biologically designed too. How about murder? Who gave him an academic degree?

Laina Farhat-Holzman is a historian, lecturer, and author. Contact her at Lf********@*ol.com or globalthink.net.

A speech by Hillel Neuer of U.N. Watch given in Ottawa March 17 09

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I had the opportunity to go to a lecture by Hillel Neuer of U.N Watch. An organization which all of us certainly should know about if anyone already doesn’t. In fact I brought my Macbook and videotaped the whole thing as I was hoping to post all of, or segments at least of this speech as I was pretty sure it would be a good one. Hillel did not disappoint. Photobooth did. hillel-neuer-and-kofi-annan Memo to all interested, do not use photo booth as a video camera unless you are prepared for crushing disappointment. I got exactly four seconds of it. I did however take some notes. My pen typically works or if it doesn’t I know right away. UN watch is an NGO who occasionally get to speak to the UN on matters which pertain to its various bodies and committees, in this case, the UN Human Rights Council. The lecture was at Carleton University in Ottawa and was attended by about 10 people two of whom where there to protest the speech. Please see videos below of some of the excellent work UN Watch does. Firstly, a word about the United Nations. This is a body of 192 member states. The Human Rights Council has 53 voting members made up from some of the general assembly of the 192 member states. The HRC was created by Eleanor Roosevelt who wrote its charter and mission statement and was in fact, a very good idea. Or at least seemed like it at the time given that it was created shortly after the horrors of Nazi Germany became widely known. The purpose of the HRC was to observe and report on human rights abuses around the world by governments typically against their own citizens. The HRC does not have the power of the sword as the security council does, nor does it have the power of the purse as the general assembly and other UN bodies do, who can fund or stop funding for various groups based on policy. But the HRC has the power of shame. When the UN passes a resolution against human rights abuses, it makes news and brings focus and attention to issues that might otherwise go unnoticed. As a consequence, strange alliances are made at the UN-HRC. There is a body within the UN called the OIC or, ‘Organization of Islamic Councils’ or alternatively, ‘Organization of Islamic Countries’ who of course represent a couple of things. One, the interests of Islam and protection of Islamic goals agendas sensitivities and so on and perhaps more importantly, protect states which are totalitarian, have no basic rights for their own citizens or any similarities to free democracies as we in the west and the Anglosphere would know them. As a consequence, nations rather famous for being atheist and working against religion and religious ideologies tend to vote with the OIC such as Cuba, Venezuela, Russia, China or any other communist or socialist totalitarian state. It turns out, the anti religious sentiments of communist nations is a distant second to protecting their dictatorships and making sure that the notion of real individual human rights or individualism at all in fact, never manages to sneak into the human rights council of the United nations. In other words, the UNHRC works actively against any form of human rights whatsoever. Darfur springs lightly to mind. Roosevelt would be hemmoraging from the spleen if she was at a typical UNHRC meeting today. In theory, the Human Rights Commission was created to have the opportunity to speak truth to power. This goes back to the idea of shame as it’s only real tool as referred to above. But then we have the case of John Ziegler. From Reason.com:

As media coverage of Falk’s nomination has metastasized, it has unfortunately obscured news of UN-HRC’s nomination of the Swiss socialist Jean Ziegler to the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee. A brief recapitulation of Ziegler’s qualifications: In 1996, he defended Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy not only on free speech grounds—an admirable position, after all—but further celebrated his supposed scholarship. “All your work as a writer and philosopher,” Ziegler wrote, “attests to the rigor of your analysis and the unwavering honesty of your intentions. It makes you one of the leading thinkers of our time.” He lauded the Zimbabwean tyrant Robert Mugabe, a leader who “has history and morality with him.” He offered his “total support for the Cuban revolution.” He recently told a Lebanese newspaper the he “refuse[d] to describe Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. It is a national movement of resistance.” Then there’s Ziegler’s friendship with Libyan dictator Moammar Kaddafi. In 1989, according to a report in Neue Zurcher Zeitung (one that confirms research done by UN Watch), Ziegler helped establish the Kaddafi Prize for Human Rights. In 2002, Ziegler himself received the prize, which he shared with, among others, Roger Garaudy. Previous recipients include Fidel Castro, Louis Farrakhan, and Hugo Chavez.

So we have a fellow, influential in the UNHRC, who created a human rights prize, named after a well known brutal dictator, who then accepted his own prize shortly after. Not a very illustrious record for a prize I would say. Even the most amateur performer knows not to clap for himself.

Then we have the GONGO’s. “What’s a gongo” you may ask? “I don’t even fully understand what an NGO is yet”.  Welcome to the club. A GONGO is a governmental organization designed to appear to be a non governmental one. A GONGO is a shill, dressed up like an NGO but representing actual fascist dictators. They are apparently, all the rage at the UNHRC. Everyone has one from Cuba to China and of course, the Sudan. The idea is, they celebrate all the worst actions of each nation who hires them. “Genocide? I don’t see no genocide everyone in Darfur is happy and fulfilled”.  They manage to add noise to proceedings so that any attempt to actually bring notice shame or attention to the outrages perpetrated by the worst human rights abusers on earth are drowned out in celebration. The one thing the GONGO’s, the John Ziegler people and the dictators all agree on? The US is evil for one, and Israel is the only place they can all safely pass condemnatory resolutions on.

Another word on Ziegler, he was appointed the UN HRC expert on hunger. Oh, before I forget, he was also a good friend and admirer of Robert Mugabe. Who is Mugabe? well of course he is the president for life of Zimbabwe formerly Rhodesia and the cause of most of the worlds hunger. Rhodesia was in fact the bread basket of Africa. A major net exporter of food. Mugabe drove out all the farmers so he could give the land and material wealth to his friends. The excuse was, the farmers where white and hence colonists although most of them if not all had been multi generational for decades to centuries. His friends of course mostly grew a crop of marijuana if they grew anything at all, sold off the equipment and buggered off to Europe.

I suppose this would make Ziegler an expert on hunger. One would hope though that his expertise was based on alieviating it rather than causing it as Mugabe indisputably did.

As the time of NGO’s to speak to the UNHRC is limited, the job of the GONGO’s is to use it up so that real NGO’s really can’t get  much of a word in. They are effective at this we are told by UN Watch.

The last point is the activities of the chair of the UNHRC. The chair of course is acutely aware of who will cause embarrassment to the totalitarian states. And the chair picks who can and cannot speak, and can stop any speaker on points of order which, as you can easily see from the videos, is to make sure no embarrassment falls on exactly who the UN and the UNHRC was intended by design, to if not stop, at least embarras.

Eeyore for Vladtepesblog.com

Some UNHRC videos from UN watch below the more fold:

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Islamic Saudi school in US stacks deck at public meeting.

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Watch this video and read this article. More to come on this. According to a highly reputable source who was actually at this meeting, it went on till 2:45 AM and the serious issues addressed and which occurred at this ‘meeting’ was not even covered by the media. I hope to get those events written out here later tonight.

It is important to note that I am unable to include all the links in the article below. I have put many of them in but do go to the original source on this article please and check any of the links you may feel important in terms of the sources for this information and organizations involved. It’s also important to check the links on the many claims in this article about the textbooks used at the ISA to which the links provide unimpeachable evidence.

Eeyore for Vlad

Virginia: Bullying Mob Packs Govt Meeting in Support of Islamic Supremacist Institution

March 19, 2009

by Jeffrey Imm
Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.)
http://www.realcourage.org/2009/03/fairfax_600/
http://anti-jihad.org/blog/2009/03/fairfax-600/
http://www.unitedstatesaction.com/blog/imm-articles/132.html

Imagine facing the overwhelming odds of fighting for equality in Islamic supremacist Saudi Arabia or in the 1960s-era white supremacist Mississippi.

These were the same odds faced by a handful of activists in challenging the estimated 600 supporters of the Islamic Saudi Academy at Northern Virginia’s Fairfax County Planning Commission on the night of March 18, 2009. Many hundreds of the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) supporters wore printed name tag badges reading “I Support ISA,” including ISA’s logo containing the emblem of Saudi Arabian government with its two crossed swords.

This is the same Saudi government that a few weeks ago the U.S. State Department condemned for its “significant human rights problems” in denying basic freedoms and human rights to men, women, and non-Muslims, and the same Saudi government whose courts recently sentenced a 75 year old woman to 40 lashes for “mingling” with men, and whose courts recently sentenced a pregnant gang-rape victim to 100 lashes for “adultery.”

The meeting of the Fairfax County Government Planning Commission was to consider a special exemption to a zoning regulation to allow for the building of an expansion to the Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax, Virginia. The Fairfax County government has been leasing space for the existing Saudi Academy facilities for years now. As a suburb of Washington DC, Fairfax, Virginia is slightly more than 20 miles away from our nation’s capital. The Islamic Saudi Academy has been frequently criticized for its reported use of textbooks promoting hate and violence, its former students associated with jihad plots, reports of negligence on reporting female child sex abuse, and ISA’s former valedictorian convicted of joining Al-Qaeda and plotting to assassinate the president.
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All homosexuals should be stoned to death, says Muslim preacher of hate

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By Sam Greenhill
Last updated at 12:34 AM on 21st March 2009

From The Daily Mail

All homosexuals should face stoning to death, a Muslim preacher of hate declared yesterday.

Anjem Choudary, the firebrand cleric who wants to see Britain ruled by Sharia law, said such a regime was the only way to fix the country’s ills.

Under it, adulterers and homosexuals would be killed by stoning. Asked if that would include anybody – even a Cabinet minister such as Business Secretary Lord Mandelson – Choudary responded with an astonishing diatribe.
Choudary

Hate, hate and more hate: Anjem Choudary (centre), flanked by two cohorts, prepares to give a press conference on Friday in which he says homosexuals should be stoned to death

He said: ‘If a man likes another man, it can happen, but if you go on to fulfil your desire, if it is proved, then there is a punishment to follow. You don’t stone to death unless there are four eyewitnesses. It is a very stringent procedure.

‘There are some people who are attracted to donkeys but that does not mean it is right.’

Choudary was speaking at a press conference in London arranged by Muslim extremists to justify their protest in Luton last week against soldiers returning home from Iraq.

  • Islamic hate preacher Anjem Choudary probed over call to ‘hide terror clues’
  • Britons who HATE Britain: The Muslim extremists hell-bent on segregation rather than integration
  • Swilling beer, smoking dope and leering at porn, the other side of hate preacher ‘Andy’ Choudary

    • His incendiary remarks immediately prompted calls for him to be investigated by police. Tory MP Patrick Mercer said: ‘These statements show the depravity of this man’s beliefs. They must incite hatred and encourage terrorism, and I would encourage the Metropolitan Police to investigate them as rigorously as possible.’

    The Rev Sharon Ferguson, chief executive of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, said: ‘This is appalling. The police should look very closely at what has been said to see if there is any action they should be taking.’

    Contempt: Muslim protesters at Tuesday's parade in Luton

    Contempt: Muslim protesters hurl insults at the homecoming parade of British soldiers in Luton

    Police were not at the press conference but a Scotland Yard spokesman said officers would investigate if a complaint was made.

    Only last week, Choudary, a self-styled ‘judge of the Sharia Court of the UK’, was defending the shameful protests against soldiers parading through Luton after a tour of duty in Iraq.

    Yet a week ago, the Daily Mail exposed fundamentalist Choudary’s student days when he was pictured swigging beer, cavorting with women and puffing on a cannabis joint – offences for which he would be lashed and stoned under his version of Sharia law. Yesterday he sheepishly confessed:

    ‘Yes, I was not always practising Islam. Certainly in my student days I was not a practising Muslim.’

    Muslim cleric Omar Bakri Mohammedi

    Wake-up call: Omar Bakri has warned of another 7/7-style attack

    Yesterday Choudary, 42, was flanked by two fellow firebrands at the press conference at the Express by Holiday Inn Hotel in Chingford, East London.

    It started with warning from fellow hate cleric Omar Bakri, who warned that Britons should ‘wake up before it is too late’ or suffer another 7/7 terror attack.

    The preacher threatened that ordinary Muslims living here would rise up and retaliate for the ‘evil’ acts of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Bakri, banned from Britain four years ago, broadcast his threats from his Lebanon bolthole over a speakerphone.

    In London, sitting alongside Choudary was Ishtiaq Alamgir, another ringleader of the Luton protests, who accused British soldiers of torture, rape and murder. He said: ‘Those British soldiers have blood on their hands.’

    A third firebrand, Abu Abdullah, 30, branded the British Government ‘tyrannical’ and warned: ‘Do not relax, do not recline, or you will be touched by the fire of hell.’

    Muslim Woman Calls on Non-Muslims To Save Her From Muslims

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    By Jihadwatch

    Taliban threatens to behead founder of jihadist website

    JihadUnspunThreatened.jpg
    To be bitten by the dog she fed?

    Over the years we’ve linked to Jihad Unspun several times to illustrate jihadist perspectives. The site’s founder, Beverly Giesbrecht, is a Canadian convert to Islam who now goes by the name Khadija Abdul Qahaar — but her open allegiance to the global jihad didn’t stop jihadists in Pakistan from kidnapping her. I’ve also heard many times that Jihad Unspun was a CIA front, but don’t have any confirmation of this, and that doesn’t seem to be why the Taliban kidnapped her.

    Now she calls upon her country — whose traditions, laws, and society she has despised and rejected — to save her.

    “Taliban threaten to behead Canadian hostage: Ransom must be paid by end of March, captive says in video,” by Rehmat Mehsud and Tu Thanh Ha in the Globe and Mail, March 20 (thanks to all who sent this in):

    BANNU, PAKISTAN and TORONTO — A Canadian held hostage after she travelled to the lawless tribal belt of northern Pakistan says the Taliban will behead her by the end of the month if a ransom isn’t paid.In a new video provided to The Globe and Mail, Beverly Giesbrecht expresses fear for her life if her captors aren’t paid.

    “I have been advised and asked to make this video. We have very short time now and I am going to be killed, as you can see,” she says, gesturing at the dagger on the wall behind her, pointed at her head.

    She alluded to Piotr Stanczak, a kidnapped Polish engineer who was executed by militants last month, the first killing of a Western hostage in Pakistan since U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.

    In the video, Canadian Beverley Giesbrecht gestures to the dagger pointed toward her head as a sign she is going to be killed.

    “I am going to be beheaded just like the Polish engineer, probably by the end of the month. The deadline is by the end of March, and that’s basically, I don’t know, 18 days or 16 days,” she says, closing her eyes.

    “I’m not quite sure how long that is but the time is very short and my life is going to end,” she adds in a choked voice.

    In the short video, Ms. Giesbrecht, 52, wearing a head scarf and sitting on a wooden chair, says that she is being held by the Taliban “near the Afghan border, either Pakistan or Afghanistan.”

    The video opens with a voice reciting from the Koran. Abu Jindal, a moniker adopted by some jihadis, appears in Arabic and Urdu, superimposed over Ms. Giesbrecht’s face.

    Ms. Giesbrecht, who is also known as Khadija Abdul Qahaar, has been a captive for four months.

    The West Vancouver resident converted to Islam after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and runs a website, Jihad Unspun, that says it provides information “devoid of the constraints of mainstream media.” Her visa application to Pakistan said she was a freelance journalist working on a documentary for the Al-Jazeera television network.

    She was captured by gunmen last November, reportedly by the Taliban commander Gul Bahadur, who leads fighters in the volatile North Waziristan region.

    “I need some kind, someone to help me, the Pakistani government and my own country and somebody must move now, because my life is going to be over. I want to go home. So, these people are serious. Please help me,” a wavering Ms. Giesbrecht says in her latest video….

    Sharia courts begin work in Swat Valley with restrictions on women

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    by Qaiser Felix
    Women cannot go out unaccompanied or speak in public but must cover their heads. Girls’ schools could be closed for good. Local Catholics and Protestants fear for their future; some are starting to leave the region. Taliban militia leader threatens new judges; anyone not applying Sharia correctly will be removed from office immediately.

    Peshawar (AsiaNews) – Sharia courts have begun to administer justice in the Swat Valley. With Sharia in place in Malakand area, women are no longer allowed to go out unaccompanied or speak in public. They must also cover their heads. Girls’ schools, essentially run by missionaries, could close for good, especially after recent bomb attacks. Although no one was injured in the blasts, about a thousands girls are now unable to go to class, about 95 per cent of whom are Muslim.The future of the region’s Catholics and Protestants, who number around a thousand, is grim. Many of them are labourers and street sweepers, but some work in hospitals and a few teach in missionaries-run schools. All of them fear discrimination and many have begun packing up to move to areas where Sharia is not enforced. .

    Since the start of the year the Taliban have carried out hundreds of attacks against schools, video and CD stores and barber shops and all other activities they claim to be un-Islamic.

    With the implementation of Nizam-e-Adl Regulations 2009, civilian courts no longer have jurisdiction in this area and have been replaced by Qazi (Islamic) courts and Qazis (Islamic judges).

    More specifically seven courts are now in place in the Swat Valley after Tehreek-i-Nafaz-i-Shariat-i-Muhammadi (TNSM) Taliban militias and the government of President Asif Ali Zardari reached an agreement to that effect. The Lower and Upper Dir districts, Buner, Malakand Agency, Shangla, Kohistan and Chitral districts are now under Sharia law.

    North West Frontier Province (NWFP) Communication Minister Iftikhar Hussain said that the aforementioned courts will be the models other districts will follow when they will implement Sharia. This way the latter can come into effect without presidential approval.

    In announcing the start of the new courts TSNM chief Maulana Sufi Muhammad said that Islamic courts will come under a new supreme court, the Darul Qaza. Two of its three qazis have already been selected; the third one will be designated in the near future.

    Sufi Muhammad also said that if qazis do not correctly implement Sharia they will be replaced.

    This has led the High Court in Peshawar to express concerns with respect to the TSNM chief’s threats, calling on NWFP authorities to ensure the safety of the judges.