As western media outlets continue their fixation with news from Russia and NATO capitals over the unpredictable geopolitical developments in Ukraine, the end game for all sides remains unclear and not properly understood. While both Russia and NATO regimes adjust their objectives and tactics based on the rapidly evolving situation, there are certain fixed points.
Intolerance and hatred of the ‘other’ is part of the DNA of Europe but such racism and xenophobia could lead to the disintegration of Europe itself.
For decades the Saudis have peddled their narrow-minded nonsense as ideology by disbursing petrodollars. Given its disastrous consequences for the Ummah, this no longer works even with its own agents.
The illegitimate Aliyev regime is determined to cling to power at any cost, including starting a civil war in the country that would cost it dearly.
The Chechen liberation war has started with great hopes in 1994 but the intrusion of Wahhabism into this predominantly spiritually inclined society destroyed all hopes. Today, Chechen independence is a pipedream.
The strategic shift caused in Syria through Russian involvement is self-evident. NATO’s project against Islamic Iran in Syria has collapsed but what are the ramifications beyond Syria?
The politics of takfir (excommunication) in the contemporary Muslim world is at its peak because of the subtle sophisticated promotion of the phenomenon by external forces. This does not mean that takfir has not been known in Islamic history; it existed and still does in all major religions.
Jeremy Corbyn’s election as leader of the British Labour Party should not be exaggerated or minimized. He is certainly not your average politician hence the long daggers drawn out against him...
The much-hyped refugee problem with boatloads of people streaming out of North Africa and the Middle East is the direct result of EU-Western meddling in Muslim affairs.
One of our correspondents shares his experiences of working with the Crescent International and what it has contributed to creating awareness about regional as well as global issues. After writing for ICIT’s publication, Crescent International, since 2009, one of our journalists decided to share his understanding and experience of working with the oldest surviving Islamic publication on current affairs.
1Unable to match Islamic Iran’s sincere efforts at helping struggling Muslims worldwide, the Arabian regimes use crude propaganda accusing the only Islamic state of pursuing its “national interests.”
Graeme Wood’s attempt to paint the takfiris as “Islamic” is meant to discredit Islam and turn Muslims away from its principles to establish an Islamic State.
Returning to Iran after three years of absence, our Correspondent finds a vibrant society that is building itself through its own effort from the ground up. Far from stymieing its growth, US sanctions have helped spur development.
The Islamic World Congress on Extremism and Takfirism was held in Qom, Iran on November 23-24. It was attended by hundreds of ulama, academics and activists from all Schools of Thought in Islam. Our correspondent was there and filed this report.
Turkey has a new president in Recep Tayip Erdogan, hitherto Turkey’s prime minister. Our correspondent reports what he saw before, during and after the election in Turkey. After spending half a month during and after the latest presidential election in Turkey, a Crescent International correspondent shares his observations and analysis.
Sacking of princes shortly after their appointment and the failure of Saudi policies both at home and abroad point to growing uncertainty in the ruling family. The latest prince to get the boot was Deputy Defence Minister Prince Khaled bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz who had been at his post for merely two months. Clearly, the rotten "royal" family is on its way to oblivion.
The Americans are faced with fighting on two fronts in Afghanistan now: against the Taliban and Hamid Karzai's government. They have intensified their campaign of destabilization in Pakistan.
Current regional socio-political environment and the economic decline of Western powers indicates that their Cold War approach towards Iran is constrained by ground realities.
Crescent International recently interviewed an Addis Ababa-based Muslim journalist and Islamic activist on the current situation in Ethiopia.
As Turkey’s hopes of becoming the leading power to restore Muslim public identity and its own Islamic socio-political distinctiveness gradually fade away from Muslim memory, it is important not to exaggerate the deviations of contemporary Turkey.
On March 12, 2012, a delegation of First Nations Chiefs including Chief Frank Brown, Chief Smoke, Former Chief Ken Whitecloud and Chief Terrance Nelson met Kambiz Sheikh Hassani, Head of Mission of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Ottawa.
On October 29, Muslim researchers, journalists and editors gathered in Tehran to inaugurate the establishment of the Press Union of the Islamic World. The first general assembly session of the press union attracted Muslim media professionals from 38 countries representing different media outlets including Crescent International.
1There are thousands of ways to look at 9/11. Much has already been said about 9/11 and much more will be said in the years to come. Here is what we think about this milestone in the politics of the 21st imperialist century.
In October 2010, the ruling regime in Azerbaijan banned hijab in public schools and revived an unprecedented socio-political activism of the Islamic movement. The mobilization is not only domestic, but also international. For the first time an international conference on an Islamic issue in Azerbaijan was organized.
Add to this grim picture the lawlessness that has gripped Pakistan from Karachi to the Khyber Pass, thanks to America’s war on terror that will escalate further following the failed Time Square bomb plot in New York...
According to family members of Dr. No formal charges were filed nor did they have a warrant for his arrest...
Let us get something straight after knocking out all the middlemen: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is US president Barack Obama’s boss. A person incapable of seeing this basic point will never be able to understand the off-again, on-again...
When Iran’s Press TV first joined the global media networks some two years ago, it generated much excitement among committed Muslims as well as those seeking honest reporting of global events.
By staging a walk out while President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad of Iran was addressing the UN anti-racism conference in Geneva on April 20, the European countries have exposed their own racism without affecting the ultimate outcome of the meeting. Representatives from a tiny minority of European countries that have a chequered history regarding human rights are all former colonialists who have perpetrated horrible crimes during the colonial era.
Israeli soldiers. That the Palestinians, the direct victims of Israel’s crimes, and much of the rest of the world knew this because this was so clearly evident from television footage provided by Al-Jazeera and Press TV, Israel and its apologists, especially in the West, continued to insist that Israel not only had the “right” to defend itself against Hamas rockets (regardless of how ineffectual they were) but that Zionist Israel carried its operations with utmost regard to civilian life.
One of the consequences of Israel’s barbaric assault on Ghazzah has been to bring to surface the split in Jewish communities in North America and Europe. The split was always there but pro-Israeli groups consistently managed to monopolize media discourse and successfully blackmailed politicians and journalists to toe the line given to them.
The war in Bosnia that resulted in the deaths of some 300,000 people, most of them Bosnian Muslims, may be over but old hatreds still run deep, and not too far beneath the surface. Theoreti-cally, the Republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina is made up of three peoples: the Bosnians, Croats and Serbs.
Mohamed “Anni” Nasheed was sworn in as president of Maldives on November 11, exactly 30 years to the day his autocratic predecessor, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom had ascended to the top post. It was sweet revenge for the 41-year-old Nasheed who had spent six years in prison trying to organize his supporters and to create space for political involvement.
A fifth of Egypt's 80 million people live under the official poverty-line of US$2 a day, and a large proportion only just above it; the economic hardship they are suffering has worsened as a result of the sharp rise in inflation and food -prices. Most Egyptians are too young to remember the bread riots of 1977, which resulted in successive governments subsidising food-prices.
Suddenly in September this year, Burma found itself centre-stage in the western media, despite the fact that reports from the country are vague and not in accordance with generally-used definitions of news authenticity. Three months after reports about a “bloodbath” and “massive protests” in the capital, it now seems that the status quo in Burma is going to survive. The demonstrations reported around the world, most of which are being coordinated by western NGOs and human-rights activists, appear to have changed nothing at all.
The US government suffered a stunning defeat on October 21 when a court in Dallas, Texas, refused to convict officials of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) charity despite a long government campaign against them. The HLF was shut down in December 2001 amid allegations that it was supporting terrorism and had links with Hamas, the Islamic resistance movement in Palestine.
The preliminary hearings into the terrorism-related charges against 14 Muslim youths that should have determined whether they should be tried took a bizarre turn on September 24 when the prosecution abruptly halted proceedings. Crown attorneys wanted instead to go directly to trial. Defence lawyers were appalled at such “abuse of process” and described prosecution tactics as a “disgrace”.
The oil-rich countries in the Gulf region as a whole are well-known for employing and abusing huge numbers of foreign workers, who contribute to and sustain the boom in their economic, industrial and building development. Yet the international community (including the UN), press and broadcast media have ignored the plight of these workers even though in many cases they outnumber the indigenous populations.
The pressure on the Sudanese government to allow a UN peace force into western Darfur to set the basis for a political settlement – similar to southern Sudan’s right to secede after a referendum – is intensifying. The latest push comes from the UN and from a joint effort by Britain and France.
The adage that “when you point one finger at another, four other fingers point back to you” aptly describes the Australian prime minister’s statement after his country’s withdrawal from a cricket tour in Zimbabwe last month. “The Mugabe regime is behaving like the Gestapo towards its political opponents,” said John Howard(pic). The statement is not surprising coming from Howard, known for his strong support for any policies adapted by European and American leaders. The Howard government recently outdid its Western masters in the war on terror, announcing that it would begin banning and restricting materials that it deemed to be promoting ‘terrorism’.
Albanians constitute at least 90 percent of Kosova’s population, populating virtually the entire country, while the tiny Serb minority is mostly in an enclave in the north and in much smaller ones in the predominantly Albanian-populated areas. The Albanians laid the basis for their country’s independence and for the exercise of their right to self-determination under international law as a result of the 1998–99 Kosova war that successfully ended Serbia’s control.
It was as long ago as 1999 that NATO launched air attacks on Serbia, ostensibly to end the ‘ethnic cleansing' of Kosovan Albanians, and the UN Security Council turned Kosova into a protectorate of the UN, with six countries – America, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia – acting as the ‘contact group'. Yet the UN is still administering the province, and NATO troops (about 17,000 of them) remain in place to preserve a grudging peace between the Albanian Kosovars and the remaining Serb minority.
The election on December 11 of Dr Irwandi Yusuf as governor of the Indonesian province of Aceh has finally laid to rest one myth deliberately peddled by successive governments in Jakarta: that the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) is a fringe group.
That US President George W. Bush is disliked, both at home and abroad, is no secret; what is less well known is the depth of the antipathy to him. Indonesia, for instance, is presented as a moderate (read pro-US) Muslim state where people do not indulge in serious political activity and Bush is disliked less than he is in the Middle East. Yet Indonesians on most parts of the political spectrum were angered by Bush visiting their country after his participation in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Hanoi last month.
President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB boss during the Soviet era, has turned his country into an undisguisedly racist and anti-Islamic fortress since taking power in 2004: there has always been an element of discrimination (albeit disguised) against Muslims in the Soviet Union, but it is getting worse.
Religious conflict between Nigerian Muslims and Christians is traditional, and the clashes between members of the two faiths which took place in late February are not a new phenomenon. What is new is that the clashes were set off by the cartoons recently published by Danish and other European newspapers that depicted the Prophet Muhammad (saw) in an extremely offensive manner.
Are parliamentary elections – or, for that matter, presidential polls – inevitably rigged in a Muslim country that happens to be strategically placed, oil-rich and allied to Western countries, particularly the US? The answer seems to be "yes".
What do Sudan and Syria have in common apart from being two Muslim countries that are also members of the Arab League? Each is the victim of mounting and relentless pressure from the West and their Arab allies, the UN and the international media, over their internal and regional policies, which they are required to abandon in the interests of those targeting them...
Russian president Vladimir Putin, in a vain attempt to exploit the Beslan school siege in North Ossetia on September 3, in which more than 340 people died, has sharply increased the scale and intensity of executions, tortures and kidnaps in Chechnya that are already a part of the Chechens’ lives...
1Human-rights groups Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have published reports accusing the Sudanese government of complicity in the mass rapes and ethnic cleansing attributed to Janjaweed, despite previous denials by Khartoum...
Uzbekistan, which became independent when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, is yet another Muslim country under a tyrannical and exploitative dictator, and mired in civil strife and economic deprivation as a result of the corrupt and ruthless exercise of power...
One sometimes wonders how George W. Bush and other US officials can so seriously utter claims and statements that they and those around him must know are recognised around the world as absolute nonsense...
Muslims in the Russian Federation and in China – who are pursuing their ‘universal right’ to self-determination in the face of horrendous opposition – were probably not surprised by the abrupt way in which moves in the UN to condemn violations of human rights in China and by Russia were blocked...
The UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva debated a new code, the Human Rights Norms for Business, on April 8, in the face of strong opposition from companies and governments in the West and developing countries...
After nearly a year’s delay, Manila and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) will finally begin peace talks this April. This agreement, mediated by Malaysia, was reached on February 19 in Kuala Lumpur...
President Vladimir Putin is engaged in a systematic and murderous campaign of suppression of Chechnya’s struggle for independence. In this campaign anyone sympathetic to Chechnya’s desire and aspiration to leave the Russian Federation is classified as terrorist...
Abbas Madani, the leader of Algeria’s banned Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and his deputy, Ali Belhadj, were released from house arrest and jail respectively on July 2...
A week after the US and Britain launched their invasion of Iraq on March 20, it is increasingly clear that all is not going smoothly in the campaign.
The impotence of Arab regimes was again on display on February 17, when foreign ministers from the 22-member Arab League gathered in Cairo for an "extraordinary" meeting, not to formulate a common response to the invasion of Iraq, but merely to agree on a date for an "emergency" summit.
Some news items remain fairly constant: while the world’s attention is turned to international politicking before the US’s almost-inevitable attack on Iraq
Kuwait lurched deeper into political crisis on June 24, when the country’s parliament began to question Dr Youssef al-Ibrahim, finance minister and minister of planning and managerial development, about allegations that he mismanaged the state’s finances.
With Qazi Husain Ahmed, its amir (leader), in detention since October, the Jama’at-e Islami, an Islamic political party in Pakistan, is feeling somewhat adrift, although acting amir Syed Munawwar Hasan is trying gamely to lead.
The recent ban on Turkey’s Islamist Fazilat (‘Virtue’) Party (Fazilet Partisi or FP) caused division in the ranks of the country’s largest Islamist party along the lines of a longstanding rift between its so-called “traditionalist”/ “loyalist” and “modernist” / “reformist” factions.
Always smooth, Dr Hassan al-Turabi, leader of Sudan’s opposition Popular National Congress (PNC), has been honing his skills lately. But the latest rabbit he pulled out of his turban, the alliance the PNC forged with the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), has landed him and scores of his supporters in prison.
Like other Arab dictators, General ‘Umar Hassan al-Bashir thinks that nothing can offset the precipitous decline in public support for his regime like prattling about democracy and holding elections boycotted by all major opposition groups. In a press conference in Khartoum on December 29, the head of Sudan’s General Election Authority...
Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s announcement last month extending the ceasefire in Kashmir has generally been welcomed, although it has not prevented the Indian occupation army from continuing its murderous campaign against civilians.
The trial of some 300 members of the outlawed Moroccan Islamic Justice and Charity Group (Jama’at al-’Adl wal-Ihsan) started on December 11. They are among some 800 people arrested for taking part in rallies marking the United Nations Human Rights Day held on December 10 by human rights and Islamic groups.
Dr Yusuf Abu-Safiat, the Palestinian Authority’s ‘minister for the environment’, has accused Israel of turning the Palestinian Authority-ruled area of the West Bank into a vast dumping-ground for its domestic industrial, chemical and nuclear waste, thereby creating a potentially catastrophic environmental nightmare.
In the age of the Internet and cyberspace, radio programming may appear small potatoes. But it is not, especially in North America ,as the protests since last March against Pacifica Network policy, which owns KPFK Radio Stations, show.
The war being waged against Islamic activism in the Arab world and Africa has taken an ominous new turn last month as the Arab League’s ‘anti-terrorism’ pact goes into force and plans are put into place for the adoption of a similar treaty by the member-states of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU).
The extraordinary outpouring of international sympathy and goodwill at the death of King Hussain of Jordan last February, and the lavish promises of economic aid made at the time by western and oil-rich leaders have not yet been translated into reality.
Chinese authorities executed two Uighur mujahideen early this month for their part in the Muslim uprising in Chinese-occupied East Turkestan (which the Chinese call Xinjiang Province) in Ramadhan 1417 (February 1997).
Turkey’s Islamist Fazilat party suffered a disappointing result in the country’s parliamentary elections on April 18. The largest party in the old Parliament, they hoped to increase their largest-single party status by increasing the number of seats they won.
Ayatullah Muhammed Sadiq al-Sadr was a marked man the moment he demanded that the Iraqi regime release 106 Islamic scholars jailed since the March 1991 uprising in Southern Iraq. He was gunned down together with his two sons - Mustafa and Muammal - in the holy city of Najaf on February 19, a week after his defiant call.
What is America’s strategy vis-a-vis Iraq? This is a question being widely debated in the west now, and the general opinion is that it doesn’t have one, but is simply hoping something will come along.
Killing Iraqi civilians, especially children, has become so routine that it hardly evokes a yawn in the western media. For those who consider this to be harsh judgement, just look at the media coverage of the latest outrage perpetrated by the US on January 25...
When general Abdulsalam Abubakar took over as Nigerian head of State in June, following the sudden death of his predecessor general Sani Abacha, he promised to reform the country’s political system, re-introduce democracy, and ‘withdraw all charges against political offenders.’
It would be funny if it were not so tragic. With most of its population trapped in poverty and pervasive unemployment, and its national assets being plundered by a corrupt ruling elite and foreign business interests under the guise of an IMF structural adjustment programme...
Australian politicians and pundits are lining up to express their dismay at the return of racism to public life, urging the electorate not to vote for Ms Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party in the snap October 3 election called partly to contain its growing threat to the main political parties.
United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan - fresh from the triumph of brokering the Iraqi deal, and cruising through his African tour with the air of a savior come to rescue his beloved continent from the folly of its ruler - suddenly faces the cruel prospect of being cut down to size.
The Serb assault on the Muslims of Kosova was renewed late last month, with operations in the Decani and Djakovica regions southwest of the capital Prishtina, close to the border with Albania.
A high-level delegation of American religious leaders, hand-picked by the white house and approved by Beijing, which is touring China does not include American Muslims and will not visit Muslim regions or meet Chinese Muslim representatives, although its official mission is to assess the state of religious freedom in the communist country.
By all accounts Tunisia’s president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali managed to keep a straight face when officials of an Italian University conferred on him an honorary doctorate at a Rome ceremony on December 4.
In fighting off a ruthless superpower bully, at a colossal cost, the Chechens have established that they have a tremendous sense of purpose. And now they prove that lurking behind that sense of purpose is great sense of humour and originality as well.
In a bizarre twist even by Nigerian military regime’s standards, four visitors of imprisoned Muslim leader, Mu’allim Ibrahim Zakzaky, were arrested and imprisoned after going on a routine visit to the alim and his three co-defendants known as the Zaria Four.
The Algerian army, like the Turkish military, shows no sign of relinquishing its grip on power, and the speculation generated by the recent release of the two Islamic Salvation Front Leaders...
A deal between two leading factions in Afghanistan has aroused hopes that the long agony of the war-torn country may be nearing an end.
The brutal manner in which Muslims are being treated in Myanmar (Burma) is no bar to the junta’s ambition to join ASEAN, the grouping of South East Asian Nations.
With Greece, Armenia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Russia, China and others engaged, to varying degrees, in attacking Turkish interests or blocking Turkish influence in Europe and Central Asia, Turkey is not short of enemies.
Only one day after colonel Mu’ammar Qaddafi had vowed publicly to fight ‘terrorism’ and destroy all traces of religion in his country’s politics, the Vatican announced the establishment of ambassadorial-level diplomatic relations with Libya.
Only as recently as December 30 (1996), Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was adamant that Israel would never leave Hebron.
Renewed street protests against the Albanian government broke out in the capital Tirana and other major towns on February 5. These erupted after the Democratic Party (PD) government of president Salih Berisha failed to satisfy investors that it would repay the money they had invested in failed ‘pyramid’ investment schemes.
In May 1988, Mohammad Salleh Abas, the then Lord President of Malaysia, the most senior judge in the country, was suspended following a statement he made allegedly containing ‘political innuendos’.
Juvenile delinquency, a phrase hitherto associated with America and the rest of the West, is making its presence felt in Malaysia. “Throughout the nation, a total of 11 cases involving juvenile delinquents were recorded daily in 1993.
This school boy craze for scoring the first in everything seems to be the Malaysian idea of progress. Malaysia can now boast of having the largest number of everything tallest, longest and biggest - tallest flag-mast, tallest twin-tower, tallest telecommunication tower, longest bridge and in another decade the biggest dam in the world.
The Russians have proved, yet again, that they cannot be trusted. The peace agreement signed between Russian president Boris Yeltsin and Chechen leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev in Moscow on May 27 and whose details were worked out in Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia, over several days...
