In a region wracked by mayhem and violence, the people of Iran participated in the 12th presidential election in a calm and peaceful atmosphere returning the incumbent, President Hassan Rouhani to a second term in office.
The president’s irascibility can be leveraged for more war.
Western regimes like to project themselves as enlightened and tolerant but their record of abuse of Muslim minorities exposes their fraudulent claim. In Muslim majority countries, Islamic Iran stands out as a beacon of tolerance with not even a hint of propaganda against religious or ethnic minorities.
Unlike most other countries, Iran’s economy is deeply linked to its political and security situation. Without taking this aspect into consideration, its economis progress cannot be properly evaluated.
President-elect Donald Trump has made his intentions clear by appointing rightwing extremists into his administration. Almost all of them are extreme Islamophobes.
If Muslims want to learn how hadith literature has been distorted, these two books will help them in this quest.
2While the US-Russia brokered ceasefire was not expected to last long, the American air strike on the Syrian air base at Deir az-Zour blew it up in less than a week. Why?
1President Erdogan’s policies are leading toward facilitating the establishment of the Kurdish State in Northern Iraq while he thinks he is undermining the Kurds in Syria and Turkey.
1India’s occupation forces—most of them adherents of a racist Hindu ideology akin to Nazism—are continuing the killing and maiming of Kashmiri youth. The people of Kashmir have had enough; they want India to get out of Kashmir!
There was always deep concern among some segments of the Iranian society that the West would not live up to its part of the bargain in the nuclear deal with Iran. A year after the deal was signed has confirmed the skeptics’ worst fears.
1Imperialism uses many tools to advance its agenda. Language is one of them. Such terms as ‘democracy’, ‘elections’ etc need to be deconstructed to expose imperialism’s real agenda.
1While Iran has fulfilled its part of the bargain in the nuclear deal, the US is putting hurdles in its way by refusing to release Iran’s frozen assets. Instead, US courts have indulging in grand larceny by awarding Iranian money to families making ludicrous claims. One Judge, George Benjamin Daniels of US District court in Southern New York is shown in the picture. Is there a better definition of Uncle Tom.
Muslims face multiple challenges from foreign imposed wars to gross incompetence and corruption of their rulers. Imperialists and Zionists also continue to secularize Islam and divide Muslims by promoting sectarianism.
On December 12 and 13, 2015, the Nigerian army slaughtered more than 1,000 members of the Islamic movement allegedly for blocking the road on which the army chief was traveling. On February 14, 2016, a Church group blocked a road in Abuja but the army chief took a detour instead of attacking the Christians. Why the different treatment?
A day after Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons-inspector, delivered a stinging rebuke to US secretary of state Colin Powell, and rejected Powell’s claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass-destruction, people from around the world voted with their feet against the planned attack on Iraq.
The Saudi execution of Shaykh al-Nimr was bound to revoke strong reaction. This is precisely what the US wanted: to set the region on fire as it retreats so that nobody would be able to control it.
By killing more than 1,000 (perhaps as many as 6,000) members of the Islamic movement in Zaria, the Nigerian army has proved, if proof indeed were needed, that it is an agent of Zionism and imperialism.
Five Yemeni prisoners held at the notorious US torture camp at Guantanamo Bay were finally released on November 14. According to a Pentagon announcement, the five were flown to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). None of the five Yemenis was ever charged with a crime.
Canadians in overwhelming numbers rejected the hateful and Islamophobic policies of Stephen Harper, leader of the Conservative Party, in the October 19 federal election. He was booted out of office in one of the most divisive campaigns that he and his gang of racists and bigots led in Canadian history.
The October 19 federal election is likely to be the most crucial for Muslims in Canada. While no party represents their interests, they have a choice about the least detrimental to their interests...
Stepping out of a train station in a European city and seeing a taxi plastered with an advertisement for a swingers club triggered a thought in my mind that leaders, thinkers, scholars, and activists of the global Islamic movement must ponder over deeply and carefully. The thought is not only about haram and halal of gender rela-tions; it is about a realization that committed Muslims today generally lack confi-dence in openly propagating their vision of gender relations.
Omar Khadr has finally won freedom, thanks to the dogged determination of his lawyers Dennis Edney and Nate Whittling. It wasn’t easy; the Harper regime fought them tooth and nail but the courts finally sided with Omar Khadr.
The AnsarAllah movement in Yemen offers important lessons for Islamic movements elsewhere to combine political and military struggles to be successful.
Narendra Modi of India is a Hindu Nazi and a mass murderer. That however is no bar to his being welcomed and feted in Western capitals because Western regimes believe there are economic gains to be had. Greed trumps principles.
Having seen the total failure of its sanctions regime on Islamic Iran, Washington is now opting for a soft-power approach. It hopes to penetrate and undermine Iran through a charm offensive. Islamic Iran, beware!
Bypassing their political leaders, the Rahbar, Imam Seyyed Ali Khamenei sent a message to the youth of Europe and North America advising them to think for themselves and study Islam from authentic sources. He asked whether they knew anything about Islam beyond what the corporate media had told them.
With Hindu Nazis in the driving seat, India is becoming an increasingly dangerous place for its minorities, especially Muslims. Its overly ambitious plan to compete with China, however, will not materialize because of its deep structural and social problems.
The Conservative government is using attacks by two men suffering from mental problems and drug addiction to push through legislation that would drastically curtail the rights of Canadians, especially Muslims.
Islamic Iran and Russia have signed a massive trade deal that would be conducted in their local currencies bypassing the US dollar. Countries around the world are getting fed up with US policies and are abandoning trading in dollars.
The Rahbar, Imam Seyyed Ali Khamenei has told Iranian diplomats not to engage in talks with the US except on specific issues unless Washington changes its insulting behavior.
Despite two weeks of intense talks, the P5+1 and Iran did not finalize a deal on Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program. Instead last November’s interim deal was extended for another four months to give diplomats time to hammer out an agreement.
Five years after promising to shut down the torture camp at the illegally-occupied Cuban island of Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo), it remains open. In fact, there are plans to expand the gulag. The American regime acts as an outlaw.
The anti-Islamic nature of pseudo-Salafis is evident from their behavior in Syria—killing not only civilians but also members of rival groups—but it is the pseudo scholars in the service of empire that must be exposed.
Is Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif serious about peace talks with the Taliban or is he just playing games? The next few weeks will tell.
Despite promising soon after becoming president in January 2009 that he would shut down Guantanamo Bay within a year because it was a “blot” on America’s reputation, Barack Obama has not done so. This exposes his hypocrisy.
As Muslims reassert the power of Islam in their societies, western regimes, their media outlets and so-called thinktanks have gone hoarse proclaiming the Muslims’ alleged failure.
While the Indian establishment has traditionally blamed Muslims for every terrorist attack, investigations show that Hindu fascists have been the ones responsible for such crimes. The rot has even seeped into the Indian armed forces.
The February 9 hanging of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri, in India’s notorious Tihar Jail, has touched a raw nerve in Kashmir. Even fair-minded Indian writers, among them Arudhati Roy, have described it as a judicial murder.
The US is resorting to increasing use of Special Operations Forces worldwide with terrible consequences for targeted societies.
Canadian citizen Omar Khadr, now nearly 26 years old, was supposed to have returned to Canada from Guantanamo Bay at the end of October under a deal brokered between the US and Canadian governments.
Dr. Tarek Mehanna, an American-born Muslim citizen, was handed a 17-year-prison sentence by a Boston court on April 12 for no greater “crime” than exercising his First Amendment right to free speech.
Only the demented minds of American officials could concoct a story of the alleged plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir. In making this scandalous allegation on October 11, US Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert Mueller looked shifty and visibly uncomfortable.
Two Americans accused of spying were released on September 21 as part of a humanitarian gesture by the Islamic Republic of Iran. A delegation of American Christian and Muslim leaders had traveled to Tehran to meet President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other officials to seek the release of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal.
Beyond the drum-beating and chest thumping about what a great job the Canadian soldiers did in Afghanistan, the question that needs to be asked is: what exactly did they achieve despite spending $20 billion on a war that is still raging and the Afghans are no better off today, in fact much worse, than they were 10 years ago?
An estimated 138 million people live in places other than their country of birth. Many are forced by circumstances, especially wars, to flee to safer havens. The overwhelming majority, however, are economic migrants seeking a better life elsewhere.
A full year after the mayhem that gripped Toronto during the G20 summit, Torontonians still do not have answers to many questions. Who ordered the police to go berserk arresting more than 1100 people...
The pent up rage of the masses that erupted in Tunisia last December 17 has engulfed the entire Muslim East. Two dictators — General Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and General Hosni Mubarak of Egypt — were consigned in quick succession to the dustbin of history but others are fighting back.
Most Americans are led to believe that their country is the richest and the best in the world. It is a land of milk and honey and of limitless opportunities. There is little doubt that the US has enormous wealth; with a GDP of $17 trillion, it is by far the richest country in the world but is this wealth fairly distributed?
George Galloway, the former British Member of Parliament, is a sharp debater and gifted orator with a ready wit. He was in Canada on a 9-city speaking tour from November 16–27. He addressed standing room audiences in cities from coast to coast to coast including Yellowknife in Canada’s frozen north.
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the frail neuroscientist kidnapped in Pakistan and tortured and brutalized for many years in Kabul’s notorious Bagram prison, was sentenced to 86 years by a US court in New York on September 23.
The answer to the above is not as complicated as many think. The key factor is to be able to see beyond the modern myth which projects China as the next superpower of the world
“These people are the worst of the worst,” bellow some family members. “We cannot let them loose to attack America or Americans again.” Others chime in: “They have better facilities here than they have at home..."
The so-called NGOs that are financed by the US government are an important part of US policy to advance its hegemonic goals. It is likely that during the presidency of Barack Obama the NGO sector may be used even more frequently as a tool of US foreign policy.
“America has the best democracy money can buy,” is not merely a catchy slogan; it accurately captures the essence and nature of US democracy...
Nicholson, however, refused to ask Washington to return Khadr to his country of birth, Canada, despite the Supreme Court ruling that Ottawa had violated his Charter rights...
With bones of massacre victims still being identified, many family members choose to reopen graves for each new fragment...
By Tahir Mahmoud On July 20, 1988 when Iran accepted a ceasefire in the Iraqi-imposed war that was backed and financed by the US and Arab regimes, most people assumed that the war had ended. The shooting may have stopped but the war against
The West insists that it is “civilized”; so civilized in fact that it wants to export its values to the rest of the world. Those unable to appreciate Western values must be uncivilized, especially Muslims, who cling to such
The minority Conservative government of Canada appears determined to deny Omar Khadr his Charter Rights even in the face of several court rulings, the latest of which was handed down on April 23. Justice James O’Reilly of the Federal Court issued a clear ruling ordering Canada to seek Khadr’s repatriation from Guantanamo Bay where he has languished since October 2002.
If someone mentioned spiritual poverty in Saudi Arabia, it would surprise few given the rigid literalist Wahhabi ideology that is imposed on people in the archaic kingdom. After all, women are prohibited from driving and the mutawwa, religious police go around beating people for no apparent reason except that these religious zealots presume people are not following their literalist ideology.
Political commentators have advanced numerous reasons for Israel’s onslaught on Ghazzah. From the official Israeli line to stop Hamas rocket attacks to Israeli politicians’ need to act tough before next month’s elections to presenting a fait accompli to the incoming US president have all been trotted out.
The trial of Canadian citizen Omar Khadr that was due to begin at the notorious detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba on November 10 was postponed until January 26, 2009. Guantanamo has come to symbolize the worst of American attitude toward the rule of law.
The US supreme court verdict on June 12 that detainees at Guantanamo Bay are entitled to habeas corpus (the right to be free from illegal detention and, if held without charge, to challenge it in a civilian court) was welcome to human-rights activists and lawyers, but so far appears to have left the US government unmoved.
What was described as the biggest terrorism-related case in Canada is gradually unraveling: four more Muslims have walked free after the prosecution “stayed” charges against them on April 15. Qayum Abdul Jamal, Ibrahim Aboud, Ahmad Ghany and Yasin Abdi Mohamed joined three others against whom charges were dropped a year ago.
Things are not going well for US president George Bush, not only because he is now seen as a lame-duck president or that bad news continues to pour out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the phony war on terror is not yielding results as it did immediately after 911, when frequent “orange alert” warnings kept people frightened enough to agree to whatever the government was demanding, including curtailment of civil liberties. People seen to have seem through these tricks of the government, which is widely distrusted by most Americans today.
The “guilty” verdict handed down to Jose Padilla and two other defendants (Adham Hassoun and Kifah Jayyousi) on August 16 by a court in Miami is both bizarre and revealing. US government spokesmen hailed the verdict as a major victory in the war on terror, despite the fact that Washington had done everything in its power to prevent the case from ever being heard in a civilian court.
Exactly a year after 17 Muslims were arrested on terrorism-related charges in Toronto, the case is largely being ignored by the media for two main reasons. One is an official ban on reporting of court proceedings, the other is the fact that several individuals—all of them minors at the time—have had charges against them either reduced or dropped altogether because of lack of evidence.
Muslims in America are living under increasing pressure because of the atmosphere created by the political establishment and media since September 2001. Zionist and other interest groups have joined in, but some Muslims are fighting back. TAHIR MAHMOUD reports.
Serious policy differences between the usually secretive members of the House of Saud have turned into a feud that is threatening to unravel the carefully constructed façade of dynastic rule maintained by bribes and terror for more than seven decades. Personal ambitions, coupled with fears that they may not survive long in power if the US flees Iraq after its defeat, have resulted in some strange public behaviour by Saudi royals.
UN secretary general Kofi Annan, under pressure from the US and zionist-Christian groups, dispatched Lakhdar Brahimi to Sudan on May 25 to coordinate the deployment of UN peacekeeping troops in Darfur after the Darfur accord signed in Abuja, capital of Nigeria, on May 5.
By camping outside US president George Bush’s Crawford ranch and demanding to meet him, the mother of a slain American soldier has given a human face to the anti-war movement. She has also energized it in a way that had not seemed possible only a few weeks earlier.
Having discovered the political utility of fear, US officials miss no opportunity to invoke the dreaded terror alert, thus keeping the American public scared enough to have no time to think about the real problems confronting them...
Last month’s announcement that Israel has agreed to a "prisoner" exchange with Hizbullah again highlights the deviousness of the zionists: Israel has kidnapped scores of Lebanese and other activists and held them hostage, while Hizbullah has captured Israeli soldiers in battle.
In view of the US’s disastrous entanglement in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would be logical to expect that Washington would be a little more circumspect in picking fights elsewhere. If logic prevailed in Washington that would be a reasonable hope, but US policy today is in the control of hardcore warriors who are being goaded by a zionist cabal. These men have advanced such demonic notions as "perpetual war" and "pre-emptive strikes." So Washington’s mad dogs and their zionist allies are now barking at Iran over its peaceful nuclear programme.
Yashwant Sinha, India’s external affairs minister, has joined the fire-breathing Indian home minister L K Advani in threatening a "pre-emptive strike" against Pakistan over Kashmir. In an interview published in the Hindustan Times on April 6, Sinha repeated the threat which had first been carried by the French news agency, Agence France Presse (AFP), three days earlier.
Abdul-Majid Dar, area commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, the largest group fighting against the Indian occupation, was gunned down on March 23 while visiting his brother’s home in Sopore. His mother and sister were also seriously wounded.
Hundreds (perhaps a thousand) Muslims are being held in US jails as a result of new rules that require citizens of certain countries to register with the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). Many who have been resident in the US for many years...
Among the many Muslim political prisoners in the world, the case of Imam Jamil Abdullah al-Amin stands out as quite extraordinary. Convicted of murder last February in a trial that can only be described as bizarre, Imam Jamil has now been moved from the Reedsville prison...
In a move to cripple Muslim charitable work, the US government moved against three leading charities during Ramadhan, accusing them of “supporting terrorism”.
According to some observers, it has almost become a crime to be a Muslim in the US since September 11. Only those Muslims are tolerated who submit to US supremacy.
As if not to be left out of the big league, the Canadian government has introduced a bill in parliament, called Bill C-36, that threatens to remove the freedoms individuals currently enjoy in the country.
Dan Quayle, who served as vice president under George Bush senior, could not spell potato correctly; George Bush junior, now president of the United States, does not know where Prince Edward Island, the Canadian province where potatoes are grown, is.
The migratory patterns of birds and animals in search of food (and therefore survival) are well known. Human beings, too, throughout history have travelled in search of work.
Battle lines are beginning to harden over the forthcoming “World Conference on Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance” in Durban, South Africa, from August 31 to September 7.
The US media’s anti-Islam bias is well known; it is reflective of the establishment’s views. Academia in the US, however, used to pride itself on being free of such biases, yet of late the anti-Muslim virus seems to have infected these so-called bastions of intellectual freedom as well.
The brutal assault by Serb police on peaceful student rallies in Pristina and five other towns on December 30 indicates that Belgrade is pressing ahead with its policy of Serbianization in the predominantly Muslim Albanian province of Kosovo.
That US foreign policy is hostage to Israeli/zionist interests is no secret. With the appointment of Madeleine K Albright (the ‘K’ stands for Korbelova, later abbreviated to Korbel!) as US secretary of State, it has once again brought this into sharp focus.
