Thursday, September 26, 2013

Russian court bans 'extremist' Qu'ran

(Huffington Post)
Top cleric tells Putin the ban is "outrageous" and "illiterate".

Moscow:
Russia's top Islamic cleric has protested a provincial court order to declare a translation of the Quran as extremist and to destroy it.

Ravil Gainutdin, the head of the Council of Muftis of Russia, said in an open letter to President Vladimir Putin released Monday that the ruling was "illiterate" and "provocative."

The Quran is available in Russian translation, but the court last week ruled that the translation by Elmir Kuliyev published in Saudi Arabia in 2002 violated federal law banning extremist materials.

Gainutdin said that the "Russian Muslims were appalled by the neglect of law shown by the court" in the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk and demanded that the verdict be revoked. He said the court's order to destroy the Muslim holy book was particularly outrageous.



Militants attack police station, army camp in J&K, six killed

(NDTV)
September 26, 2013

 J&K: Militants dressed in army fatigues attacked a police station this morning in Hiranagar of Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district, killing six people, including four cops. They then escaped and have surfaced in the adjoining Samba district, where they have reportedly attacked an Army installation.

Early reports say the group of militants escaped after the first attack in a truck. They are reportedly heavily armed and are now engaged in a gun battle with the Army in Samba.

Hiranagar in Kathua is about a kilometre from the border with Pakistan and the militants are believed to have infiltrated into India recently.

The audacious attack comes only a day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh confirmed that he will meet Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the US on the sidelines of a United Nations session. The two leaders are expected to meet on Sunday.

Kashmir watchers say militants tend to step up attacks just before a round of talks between India and Pakistan.

Sources said there have been intelligence reports warning that there could be militant attacks in the Jammu region.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

White Widow Samantha Lewthwaite's family torn apart by shame of terrorist linked to Nairobi attack

(Mirror UK)
25 Sep 2013


Her family have struggled to deal with the mum-of-three’s disappearance after husband killed 26 people in the 7/7 London bombings


As a soldier who served in Northern Ireland during the 1970s at the height of the Troubles, Andy Lewthwaite understands the dreadful toll of terror attacks.

But today he is carrying the burden of being the father of the world’s most reviled international terrorist.

His daughter Samantha – dubbed the White Widow – is believed to have played a key role in planning the ­Westgate mall massacre in Nairobi.

And she could even have died in a firefight with Kenyan soldiers.

Last night experts were still trying to determine if a white woman’s body found among militants was the 29-year-old.

For years her family, of Aylesbury, Bucks, have struggled to deal with the mum-of-three’s disappearance after husband Germaine Lindsay killed 26 people in the 7/7 London bombings.

Now builder Andy, 57, who has two other children with Lewthwaite’s mum Christine Allen, has to come to terms with how his happy little girl became apparently capable of slaughtering children.

One neighbour said: “Andy is aware of how appalling indiscriminate shootings are.

"For him to imagine his own daughter is involved in this is very painful.

“He has been very dignified. He served his country; his daughter is apparently tarnishing both his reputation and his country’s reputation.”


While the family have refused to speak out, neighbours recall the White Widow as a different person.

Businessman Niknam Hussein, 50, met Lewthwaite when she was a ­teenager.

He said: “She was quiet and shy. There was nothing extraordinary about her. The frightening thing is she was perfectly normal.”

He went on: “How does a housewife and mother suddenly become the mastermind of an attack in East Africa? She came from a close family.

“Even after 7/7 they were still together under police protection, her and her parents.

“They are mystified and angry. They are astonished as I am.”

Yesterday, the strain on the family became clear when Lewthwaite’s ­grandmother Elizabeth Allen, of Banbridge, Co Down, was admitted to hospital because of heart problems.

Joan Baird, a councillor in Banbridge, who knows the family, said: “Mrs Allen, at 85, is too ill to cope with all this.

"Her health is poor and continuing to fail as a result of the pressure and all the news reports about her granddaughter.”

Lewthwaite’s transformation into one of terror group al-Shabaab’s figureheads on the run in East Africa is something few can comprehend.

She was still at primary school when her family moved from her birthplace in Northern Ireland to Buckinghamshire. Her parents split in 1995.

Raj Khan, an Aylesbury councillor, said: “I knew her when she was a child.

"She was very innocent, lacking ­confidence, shy and very easy to get on with. She was a follower not a leader.

“That’s why I find it absolutely amazing that she is supposed to be the head of an international criminal terrorist organisation.”


As a teenager at Aylesbury’s Grange School, Lewthwaite became friendly with a local Muslim family who helped her to convert to Islam.

Her interest in religion developed when she enrolled on a degree course in politics and the study of religions in 2002 at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

She met Jamaican-born Muslim convert Lindsay through an Islamic internet chatroom the same year and they married a few months later.

They lived in Lindsay’s home town of Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, but moved back to Aylesbury in September 2003.

Six months later, their first child, a boy, was born. Their second child, a daughter, was born after 7/7.

After being quizzed over the 2005 London suicide attacks, in which 52 people lost their lives, the White Widow returned to her family, who were convinced of her innocence.

Andy, together with Lewthwaite’s older brother Allan and younger sister Sabrina, condemned the bombings, but were shocked about “loving husband” and “brilliant father” Lindsay’s role.

Lewthwaite vanished soon after her third child was fathered by Habib Ghani, of Hounslow, West London, in 2009.

Ghani was shot dead in Somalia two weeks ago in what was understood to be a row between al-Shabaab factions.

It is thought this could have spurred grieving Lewthwaite to urge terror chiefs to push ahead with the Kenya atrocity.

And it is also believed to be no coincidence that the Nairobi attack came on the eve of the trial of another al-Shabaab Briton, Jermaine Grant, in Mombasa.

The White Widow and Grant allegedly planned to bomb Kenyan beach resorts before police swooped on their rented flat in December 2011.

Cops found bomb-making equipment and chemicals but Lewthwaite escaped

The only clues about her whereabouts since have come through her occasional taunts against the West on Twitter.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

British Sikh girls at risk of 'sexual grooming': BBC report


(PTI)

Minor British Sikh girls sexually abused by gangs of Asian men who befriend them over a period of time usually do not report the crime to authorities, according to a new investigation by the BBC.

The probe found that in many cases, the men deceive the girls into believing they are Sikh to gain their trust. "Desperate to hide their secret for fear of bringing shame to their families, girls are often forced to leave home," the BBC's "Inside Out" programme reported.

Reporter Chris Rogers travelled to a remote part of the US to meet a 16-year-old British Sikh girl who was "groomed" and sexually abused over a period of time. She is one of at least a dozen British Sikh girls living abroad to hide their secret.

The Sikh Awareness Society UK (SAS), a charity that focuses on family welfare, claimed it has investigated over 200 reports of child sexual grooming in Britain over the past five years.

However, there are no official statistics to support this claim, because incidents of sexual abuse involving Sikh minors are rarely reported to the authorities.

"Grooming" refers to actions undertaken with the aim of befriending and establishing an emotional connection with a minor in order to exploit the person for sex or labour.

Last week, six men - including two of Indian origin - were jailed at Leicester Crown Court for offences including facilitating child prostitution of a Sikh girl.

The convictions are being seen as a legal landmark because it is the first high-profile case involving a Sikh victim of sexual abuse that has led to convictions in the UK, BBC reported.

25-year-old Bharat Modhwadia was jailed for 16 months for paying for the sexual services of a child, inciting child pornography and trafficking the girl by driving her to a location for sex, while 37-year-old Chandresh Mistry was jailed for eight months for attempting to pay for the sexual services of a child.

The other four men, aged between 20 and 39, were jailed for periods ranging from eight months to five years.

"While it is fair to say that none of the defendants played any part in her decision to prostitute herself, it is equally true to say that anyone meeting her would immediately have realised that this was a vulnerable 16-year-old girl from a good Sikh family, who was embarking upon a disastrous course of action," Judge Michael Pert said in his judgement.

According to Detective Superintendent David Sandall of Leicestershire Police, sexual abuse remains severely under-reported among "faith-based communities".

He said, "We want more victims to come forward because we are here to help."

The reason Sikhs rarely reveal incidents of abuse to the authorities has been linked to the strong sense of family honour within the community.

"Our community is very honour-based. The majority of parents just want to shut up shop as if nothing has happened because they know that a girl who is tarnished with this kind of thing will never actually get married," explained Mohan Singh of SAS.

The "Inside Out" investigation, telecast last night, discovered that groomers exploited the fact that Sikh families are less likely to report incidents of abuse.

"Inside Out" spoke to a girl whose own mother told her not to go to the police even though she had been subjected to sexual abuse by countless men. Fifteen-year old Jaswinder was under the control of a groomer for nearly two years.

The man charged countless men to have sex with her and took obscene pictures that he used to blackmail her.

Campaigners have called for greater awareness and tougher action to tackle the issue of sexual grooming targeting specific communities in Britain.

Sue Berelowitz, deputy children's commissioner for England, said: "There is quite a way to go in terms of police forces around the country waking up to the fact that there are ethnic minority victims of sexual abuse."

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