lifesitenews--2019-11-20--Bishop Athanasius Schneider: Pachamama was worshiped at Vatican and it wasn’t harmless

November 20, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – On October 4, 2019, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, in the presence of Pope Francis and other high ecclesiastical dignitaries, there was held a ceremony in the Vatican Gardens that was clearly religious in character, as stated in the Vatican press release of October 4, 2019: “During the prayer ceremony, concluding the ‘Season of Creation’ initiative promoted recently by Pope Francis, a tree from Assisi was planted as a symbol of integral ecology, to consecrate the Synod on Amazonia to Saint Francis, shortly before the fortieth anniversary of the papal proclamation of the Poverello of Assisi at the patron of ecologists. At the end of the celebration the Holy Father recited the Lord’s Prayer. The ceremony was attended by representatives of indigenous populations from Amazonia, Franciscan brothers and various members of the Church“  What this statement has concealed is the fact that during this prayer ceremony, religious rites from the pagan religions of the Native Americans took place. There were gestures and words that expressed a religious worship of mythological figures of the aboriginal religion, above all, acts of prostration were performed in front of two naked pregnant female figures, which should represent fertility. There was also a religious dance performed around these figures, in which a woman dressed as a shaman used rattles that symbolized pagan fertility gods. The use of the "maracas" or rattles by the shaman means in the indigenous cults of Amazonia the voice of the spirits and they are used to claim the help of the power of the animals and the spirits. The "Maracas" are one of the most powerful magic instruments for these peoples. The head of the "Maraca" is a pumpkin, with the head of the rattle with the shaft represents the fertilization union of the male world (shaft) with the female world (head). Exactly such "maracas" were used at the "Prayer Ceremony" on October 4th.  The statues depicting naked pregnant women were then placed briefly in the Basilica of St. Peter in front of the Petrine tomb, again in the presence of the Pope, and then during the entire time of the Amazon Synod in the church of Santa Maria Traspontina on the Via della Conciliazione and were in regular prayer ceremonies worshiped in a church with a tabernacle and the Eucharistic presence of Christ. Furthermore, the statue of the naked pregnant woman was even carried on October 19 in a Way of the Cross organized by participants of the Synod.  In the first days after these ceremonies, the Vatican avoided mentioning the exact meaning of the two naked pregnant female figures. Only after these figures were removed on October 21 from the church of Santa Maria in Traspontina and thrown into the Tiber, Pope Francis himself announced on October 25 the identity of these figures, which should symbolize the Pachamama, saying: "I would like to say a word about the statues of Pachamama that were removed from the church in the Traspontina and were there without idolatrous intentions and thrown into the Tiber. This was first done in Rome, and as bishop of the diocese, I apologize for the people who are offended by this gesture."  The Jesuit Father Fernando Lopez, one of the organizers of the veneration of the Pachamama statues in the Vatican, said that these statues were bought at a craft market in Manaus, a city in the Brazilian Amazon, adding that the Pachamama makes sense to all of us and that we should continue "the dance of life on Mother Earth".  To declare all these acts of worship of the Pachamama statues, which always took place during a prayer ceremony and in churches, as non-cultic and not religious, but merely as an expression of culture and folklore and thus declare them as something harmless and trivial, denies the evidence and flees from reality.  In the face of the grave fact of such dubious acts of religious worship, which are obviously at least close to superstition and idolatry, some cardinals, bishops, priests, and many lay people have publicly protested, and some of them have even called Pope Francis to repent and make amends. Unfortunately, these brave voices are criticized even by righteous Catholics, often on the grounds that it personally attacks Pope Francis. Such a reasoning is very reminiscent of the story of the Emperor's new clothes. Others regard the worship of Pachamama statues as harmless and compare this issue to the dispute over the so-called Chinese rites (called the "accommodation dispute") in the 17th and 18th centuries. Those who make such affirmations, lack both factual knowledge of what the Pachamama means to indigenous peoples and the worldwide propaganda of the new "Gaia or Mother Earth religion" today, as well as a more detailed knowledge of the historical problem of Chinese rites and their solution in the 20th century.  The fact that the phenomenon "Pachamama" has a clearly religious connotation already proves its definition in the generally accessible and most frequently consulted sources of information, such as, e.g., in Wikipedia, which states, "Pachamama is a goddess revered by the indigenous people of the Andes. She is also known as the earth/time mother. In Inca mythology, Pachamama is a fertility goddess who presides over planting and harvesting, embodies the mountains, and causes earthquakes. She is also an ever-present and independent deity who has her own self-sufficient and creative power to sustain life on this earth. Pachamama is usually translated as Mother Earth, but a more literal translation would be "World Mother" (in Aymara and Quechua). The Inca goddess can be referred to in multiple ways; the primary way being Pachamama. Other names for her are: Mama Pacha, La Pachamama, and Mother Earth. La Pachamama differs from Pachamama because the "La" signifies the interwoven connection that the goddess has with nature, whereas Pachamama – without the "La" – refers to only the goddess.“  Anyone who has dealt with the global environmental movement has undoubtedly heard the term Gaia. Gaia is a revival of paganism that rejects Christianity, views Christianity as its greatest enemy, and sees the Christian faith as the only obstacle to a global religion that focuses on the worship of Gaia and the unification of all forms of life concentrated around the goddess “Mother Earth“ or the “Pachamama”. A sophisticated mix of science, paganism, Eastern mysticism and feminism has made this pagan cult a growing threat to the Christian church. The worship of "Mother Earth", or "Gaia" or "Pachamama" is the focus of today's global environmental policy.  The 2009 UN General Assembly proclaimed April 22 as International “Mother Earth Day”. On that day, Bolivian President Evo Morales, a self-proclaimed Pachamama worshiper, made this telling statement to the United Nations General Assembly: "’Pachamama’ - Quechua's ‘Mother Earth’ - is a fundamental deity of the Native world view, with is based upon a total respect for nature. The earth does not belong to us, but we belong to the earth".  That the expression "Mother Earth" or "Pachamama" is not a harmless cultural name, but has religious traits, is proved, for example, also in a teacher's handbook published in 2002 by UNESCO with the significant title "Pachamama Teacher's Guide". It states, inter alia: "Imagine, Mother Earth assumes a physical form and imagine what it would be like to meet with her. How would she look? What would you talk to her about? What would be your main concern and your questions? How would you answer them? Where could you meet her [Mother Earth]? Think of a place where you could meet them." Such a place, for example, where one could meet "Mother Earth" or "Pachamama" in the guise of nude pregnant women carved as wooden figures, was the prayer ceremony in the Vatican Gardens on the mentioned October 4, 2019, St. Peter's Basilica, the Stations of the Cross Prayer on October 19 and the church of Santa Maria in Traspontina in Rome.  Bishop José Luis Azcona, emeritus bishop of the Amazonian Prelature Marajó, convincingly referred to the absurdity and untenability of the belittling of the Vatican's Pachamama worship. He is a connoisseur of the religions and customs of the Amazon Indians, lived among them for more than 30 years and evangelized them. In an open letter of November 1, 2019, Bishop José Luis Azcona pointed out that it was especially the "little ones" in the Church, and then also converts among the Amazonian Indians who live intensely the Catholic faith, who were scandalized by the Pachamama worship in the Vatican. They were confused and deeply hurt in their Catholic sense of faith. The following statement by Bishop José Luis Azcona causes dismay: "But this gesture [of Pachamama worship] was a scandal (and not pharisaic) to millions of Catholics throughout the world. Especially the poor, the ‘little ones’, the ignorant, the ‘weak,’ who apparently possess the ‘sensus fidei’ (the sense of faith) and are defended by Pope Francis justly and permanently, were severely struck in their unarmed conscience, completely defenseless against such religious violence. At least the poor, the simple, the ‘weak’, the unprotected of Amazonia are the most affected deep in their heart by this idolatrous stroke, which is an attack against the Christian faith, against the ecclesiastical conviction that the only queen of Amazonia is Our Lady of Nazareth, the Mother of God the Creator and the Redeemer. No other mother, no Pachamama of the Andes or from anywhere else and no Yemanja [mother goddess of Afro-Brazilian cults]!".  Bishop José Luis Azcona also referred to the devastating impact that the public acts of Pachamama worship in the Vatican had on faithful Protestants: "For the Protestant and Pentecostal brothers, this scandal had a devastating effect. Horrified, they have witnessed scenes of true idolatry, and between amazement and astonishment they feel more and more confirmed in their erroneous view that the Catholic is a worshiper of idols, not of saints, of Joseph, Mary, but of true demons. In this way, the ecumenical-interreligious dialogue has been shaken with humanly irreparable consequences and grave ecumenical complications for those who want to understand the mystery of the Church as the "Universal Sacrament of Salvation" (Lumen Gentium). "  Bishop José Luis Azcona aptly stated that the idea and symbolism of Mother Earth, the "Gaia" and also the "Pachamama", which is widespread today, can not be detached mentally and religiously from the phenomenon of the many historical pagan mother deities: "Let us remember the countless Mother Earth deities who preceded and accompanied the Pachamama as goddesses of fertility in all biblical cultures and religions. In the Old Testament, Astarte (Asherà) is the goddess of fertility, of sensual love in her nude portrayal. In the New Testament, Acts 19: 23-40; 20, 1, it is the Artemis of Ephesus, "the Great," the goddess of fertility; she is depicted with half of her body full of breasts. She sums up what is meant by the statue of Mother Earth "Pachamama". It is impossible to place the image of Our Lady of Nazareth, the Mother of God and the Church, and the statue of Pachamama, the goddess of fertility, upon the same altar or the same church. "  The comparison of Pachamama worship in the Vatican with the historical dispute of Chinese rites is factually untenable. The Chinese rituals involved acts of worshiping the image of Confucius, a historical person who was revered as a great national hero and thinker of the Chinese culture. Furthermore, it was about the worship of the deceased ancestors. In both cases before the portraits of these historical persons acts of veneration such as bowing or lighting candles were performed. Because these rites in the 17th and 18th centuries were still associated with superstitious beliefs of Confucianism as a religion, the Church has rigorously forbidden such rites to avoid any appearance of superstition and idolatry. In the twentieth century, the acts of veneration of Confucius were purely civil in nature and took place in non-sacral and non-religious places. Furthermore, the effigies of the ancestors were worshiped by the Catholics without the usual inscription "seat of the soul" as it was usual among the Chinese pagans. Thus, after any appearance of of superstition and idolatry ceased, the Holy See allowed the Chinese rites in 1939 by an Instruction of the Propaganda Fide Congregation, however, under the following conditions: one is allowed to make only a head bowing before a Confucius' picture displayed in the civil places, and if it is to be feared a scandal, the right intention of the Catholics must be publicly explained. Further, the Instruction says that Catholics may only make honorific attestations that are purely civil in nature, and if necessary, explain their intent to correct a misinterpretation of these acts. The same applies to the act of veneration of the portraits of the ancestors. Further, the Catholic Church has permitted the use of only the unequivocal divine name, "Lord of Heaven," and forbade other ambiguous Chinese divine names, such as "Heaven" or "Supreme Deity" or "Supreme Emperor", and this prohibition was not repealed by the 1939 Instruction.  The essential difference between the rites of Pachamama worship and the so-called Chinese rites is the fact that the Pachamama is a construct of pagan mythologies, i. e. it is worshiped as either a pure myth or an inanimate and impersonal conglomeration of matter, such as the earth.  Anyone who claims that the worship of Pachamama was harmless and had no religious, but only a cultural aspect, is better taught by a prayer to Pachamama published in the context of the Amazon Synod by the "Fondazione Missio", an organ of the Italian Episcopal Conference, where it is said: "Pachamama, good mother, be propitious to us! Be propitious to! Let the seed taste good, that nothing bad happens, that frost should not disturb it, that it produces good food. We ask you: give us everything! Be propitious to us! Be propitious to us!".  The Pachamama cult practiced in the Vatican during the Amazon Synod is either a form of idolatrous superstition because it contains gestures that in its original form imply the worship of the "mother earth" considered a deity, or it is a form of non-idolatrous superstition. For this Pachamama cult expresses the belief in the earth as a living and personal being, therefore, it is a syncretism that introduces deceptive elements into the Christian cult, which, after all, must always be directed towards the true God.  In an article on October 23, 2019, for Internetsite Infocatolica (www.infocatolica.com), Fr. Nelson Medina, OP, himself a Columbian Amazon missionary, unmasked the fraud of allegedly innocuous Pachamama worship with the following apt statement: "The image [the pachamama] brought to Rome is not representative of the Colombian Amazon, and I believe nowhere in the Amazon. The figure represents nothing of the ‘ancestors’ in the culture of the Amazon. And does our faith adore or worship cultically fertility, life or the woman as such? If they are not worshiped, why associate this worship with the altar, on which the unique and universal sacrifice of Christ is present? Is not this exactly a public, an scandalous public violation of the First Commandment of the Law of God? Bringing these statues to sacred places can only mean that they have a religious significance, as they would otherwise have been exhibited in an art gallery or museum of ethnic or Amazonian history.”  Vatican representatives also used St. John Henry Newman to legitimize the Pachamama worship with his help. However, this comparison is far-fetched and factually inaccurate, as Fr. Nelson Medina has convincingly put it, by showing that John Henry Newman was referring to some actions or objects that are relatively neutral in themselves, and then transformed in their meaning in order to be used in the church. The images designed for the Amazon Synod have nothing of this neutrality: celebrating "life" without worshiping God, the only Creator, is simple paganism. And among the pagan idols, be it the golden calf or the money of the merchants in the Temple of Jerusalem, decisive and clear measures are needed ... which can reach even as far as the Tiber.  At all times, and also through the instruction of 1939 on the Chinese rites, the Catholic Church, in faithful imitation of the Apostles' behavior, was as it were scrupulously engaged in its words and actions, to avoid even any shadow both of idolatry (idolatria) and of superstition (superstitio) and not to give it the least appearance (see also St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theol., IIa IIae, q 93, a.1).  With Gianfranco Amato, an Italian lawyer and life-lawyer, the following can be summarized as regards the Pachamama worship in the Vatican (see his essay in "La Verità" of November 14, 2019):  "To portray Pachamama as an icon of the indigenous culture of the Amazon not only means distorting reality, but denying and humiliating the diversity of true Amazonian cultures in order to impose an indigenous theological vision for enforcing purely ideological and political purposes.  The Mexican President Lopéz Obrador has held a ritual in honor of the deity Pachamama to apply for permission to build the Mayan railway in southeastern Mexico. Hugo Chávez, Nicolas Maduro, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Evo Morales and Daniel Ortega are just a few heads of state who have officially participated in worship services in honor of Mother Earth. So, not only is it a purely Peruvian religious fact, but we are facing a real political fact that is inserted in a precise political agenda that promotes pantheistic thinking. It excludes the Christian idea of a transcendent God in relation to creation and places the dignity of the earth above the dignity of the human person. A Copernican Cultural Revolution is being attempted: to overcome the anthropocentrism of modernity with an ecological "geocentrism". The earth and not the human being should now be at the center of the cosmos, to the point that we already hear speeches in which the limitation of human rights in favor of the "rights" of the earth is theorized.  The Pachamama is a theological deceit for Christians. As we have seen, it is a pagan Inka-deity. The images that reproduce it from a theological point of view are simply idols. The fact that a theologian, a priest, a bishop, a cardinal, a pope, or a simple believer can not recognize this apparently indisputable fact seems truly disturbing and completely incomprehensible. We could say that we are facing a new eclipse of conscience, this time not in the sphere of the law of life, but in the sphere of the first and most important commandment: in the rights of God. To this comes the aggravating circumstance that not only the conscience of a people, but the conscience of the Church itself is obscured by this cult of Pachamama. In the light of the divine revelation contained in the Word of God, in the Tradition of the Church and in the Magisterium, the question is very simple: to make idols for worship is a very grave sin. To prostrate themselves before idols is idolatry. Offering them gifts and sacrifices, carrying them in triumph, setting them on a throne, crowning them and burning them incense is a manifest idolatry that is utterly immoral. To put them on altars or in consecrated churches in order to worship them, is a true and plain desecration.  The Pachamama worship is a deception in terms of understanding tolerance. The sensitivity of the faithful seems rightly hurt when they experience the bleak spectacle of idols worshiped in Catholic churches. It is a deeply unpleasant fact that requires a strict condemnation. This is not a lack of respect or tolerance for people who profess a different religion. We respect everyone's religious beliefs, but this is about imposing tolerance for idolatry in Catholic churches and places desecrated by the presence of idols. That is not acceptable. To tolerate all this means to be accomplices of the desecration. For this reason, the gesture of "idoloclasmus" (destruction of idols), courageously carried out in the Roman church of Santa Maria in Transpontina, is the expression of the noblest faith. It is not the subject of slander but deserves praise.  The Pachamama worship is a deception of inculturation. The principle of inculturation is the proclamation of the Gospel, which can be welcomed by all peoples of all cultures. The dynamism of evangelization leads to a gradual process of transformation of the culture that welcomes the Word of God, and penetrates into the heart of the same culture through the maintenance of the good, the cleansing of the evil that is contained in it, and brings about a dynamic evolution of the faith that is always able to renew everything. Without consideration of the criterion of contrast, we can not speak of inculturation. It is clear that evangelization is a necessary contrast to the grave immoral aspects of the cultures that it seeks to achieve, and obviously demands the renunciation of idolatry."  The story of Pachamama is an accurate x-ray of the state of the Church at this dramatic moment in history, reminiscent of the truly prophetic words of Professor Joseph Ratzinger in his essay "The New Pagans and the Church," first published in the magazine "Hochland" (October/1958). The following shocking words of Joseph Ratzinger can certainly be read as a kind of topical commentary on the acts of Pachamama worship that took place in the Vatican and were even justified by Pope Francis: "Paganism today sits in the church itself, and that is what characterizes the Church of our day, as well as the new Paganism, that it is a paganism in the Church and a Church in whose heart paganism lives."  The following flaming words from the heart of Bishop José Luís Azcona, an Amazon missionary and a worthy successor to the apostles, remain glowing in history: "One of the most shameful aspects of this idolatrous gesture [in the Vatican] was the crushing of the conscience of the ‘little ones’ through this scandal".  In view of the undeniable fact of the objective gravity of the acts of Pachamama worship in the Vatican, with its clear pseudo-religious entanglements and its sentimentalization for the propaganda of the globalist world religion of "Mother Earth", can one still speak of harmlessness or take refuge to the alibi of the "Chinese rites"? That would mean defending the indefensible.  At the time of the great ecclesial doctrinal and pastoral confusion during the Arian crisis in the 4th century, St. Hilary of Poitiers, the Athanasius of the West, had the conviction that such a state must not be accepted with silence or belittling of the situation. These words, quoted in the following, are of the utmost timely and quite applicable to the Vatican's scandal of the Pachamama worship: "From now on, silence would no longer be called restraint but inertia" (Contra Const. 1).  To all those in the Church of our day, who have neither belittled nor silently accepted the acts of Pachamama worship in the Vatican, but raised their admonishing voice, should be given gratitude and appreciation, first and foremost to the laity, who were moved by their supernatural sense of faith and through these acts expressed their true love and respect for the Pope and their mother, the Holy Catholic Church.  + Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana  Editor's note: This was originally published on Kath.net here. This translation was authorized by Bishop Schneider.


osce--2019-08-21--To combat religious hatred we must recognize its link to other human rights abuses OSCE human righ

To combat religious hatred, we must recognize its link to other human rights abuses, OSCE human rights head says

WARSAW, 22 August 2019 – Amid increasingly violent outbreaks of religious intolerance, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) welcomes the first-ever United Nations International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion today, and calls on governments to promote the interfaith dialogue and education needed to combat hatred and violence.  “The hate crimes and intolerance we are seeing against people with a particular religion or belief rarely take place in isolation, but go hand in hand with other human rights violations,” said ODIHR Director Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir. “The negative effect of such violence and discrimination should not be underestimated, on the communities concerned but also on the security situation in the OSCE region overall.”  In order to counteract hate crime and discrimination, governments are encouraged to adopt a comprehensive approach that helps to build a culture of mutual respect and understanding  through interfaith and interreligious dialogue and partnerships, and education programmes that promote equality and respect for human rights. At the same time, they have to develop a strong support system to assist victims. The efforts of civil society, including religious or belief communities and other community organizations, are vital in this area, making the freedom to carry out their activities and access to funding particularly important.  ODIHR is making every effort to assist countries across the OSCE in living up to their commitments on freedom of religion or belief as well as tolerance and non-discrimination. It works with a wide range of stakeholders to ensure that no group is singled out for protection at the expense of another. More information about ODIHR’s work in this area is available here.


pravadareport--2019-03-20--Christchurch aftermath Invaders complain of invaders

Christchurch aftermath: Invaders complain of invaders

Brenton Tarrant, the shooter from New Zealand's Christchurch, was not a lone wolf. The West has missed out an important point - the formation of organised Christian extremism. Tarrant killed  about 50 people in two mosques. At first glance, this crime is reminiscent to the that committed by Anders Breivik, who killed 77 in Norway in 2011. Breivik was a "lonely wolf", though. Is Tarrant another lone terrorist, or is he a member of an extremist group?  In his 74-page manifesto titled "The Great Replacement," Tarrant said that he comes from a working, low-income family. He moved to New Zealand from Australia to plan an attack that would reveal the truth about the "attack on our civilization," "that nowhere in the world is safe." "We must crush immigration and deport those invaders already living on our soil," he wrote. "It is not just a matter of our prosperity, but the very survival of our people."  By "invaders" Tarrant means Muslims. The killer described his attack as an act of "revenge on the invaders for the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by foreign invaders in Europeans lands throughout history.  Here is an excerpt from the manifesto:  "To take revenge on the invaders for the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by foreign invaders in European lands throughout history.  "To take revenge for the enslavement of millions of Europeans taken from their lands by the Islamic slavers.  "To take revenge for the thousands of European lives lost to terror attacks throughout European lands.  "To directly reduce immigration rates to European lands by intimidating and physically removing the invaders themselves.  "To incite violence, retaliation and further divide between the European people and the invaders currently occupying European soil.  "To avenge those European men and women lost in the constant and never ending wars of European history who died for their lands, died for their people only to have their lands given away to any foreign scum that bother to show up."  New Zealand is a country where it is not easy to buy automatic or semi-automatic weapons, which Tarrant used in his attack. One requires a license, which a person can receive after a number of thorough police inspections. It does not seem to be likely that the killer could obtain the license himself. It seems much more likely that the weapons were provided to him from local members of a criminal group.  It just so happens that the West has missed the moment of the formation of the organised protest extremist movement of white people with Bibles in their hands. It goes without saying that they have nothing to do with Christians and Christianity, just like those who kill in the name of the Quran. Such terrible crimes come as a radical act of protest against the policy of the global melting pot, multiculturalism and omnipresent tolerance.  Security Specialist Paul Buchanan told Herald.nz that Tarrant was a member of ultra-right communities on social networks. Another member of those groups shot parishioners at a synagogue in Pittsburgh last year. Buchanan believes that Christchurch is home to a very active community of white supremacists who have repeatedly attacked refugees and people of color in the last 20 years.  "New Zealand had succumbed to "the homicidal politics of confrontation that we see in the US and Europe," Buchanan said.  Dmitry Mosyakov, chief of the Center for Southeast Asia at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Pravda.Ru that  in Europe, tensions between migrants, most often from Muslim countries, and the local population are most often eased at courts. "In most cases, people would make some posters and hold a demonstration to say that they condemn violence. However, Australia and New Zealand is a patriarchal society, in which non-acceptance of migrants may lead to a terrible tragedy. When migrants tried to harass Australian women on the beach, all of Sydney was infuriated very quickly," Dmitry Mosyakov said.  In other words, the "Western periphery" has never become part of liberal policy of multiculturalism and tolerance. "Many believe that New Zealand is like heaven on Earth. It is really so, if you come to the country as a tourist. However, if you live there as a local resident, then you live in the environment that is exempt from global Western trends," the expert noted.  According to him, the Christchurch massacre will cause great and just riots in the Muslim world, because it is an absolutely unprovoked terrorist act: there is no Muslim extremism in New Zealand."  "At the same time, there were examples of such extremism in South-East Asia, for example, when Australians were killed in Bali explosions. This indicates deep contradictions inside the modern Western world. The liberal paradigm is not successful in regulating interethnic and inter-religious relations," concluded Dmitry Mosyakov.  We would like to add here that New Zealand, just like Australia and many other countries of the world, used to be a British colony. Anglo-Saxons had colonised those countries and did their best to exterminate indigenous populations. They colonise half of the world, use humans as slaves and then complain of immigrants and call them invaders.


pravadareport--2019-05-24--The neverending containment of Iran

The neverending containment of Iran

The Trump administration seems to have brushed up a dream of global hegemony called "Project for a new American century", developed in the 90s by thinkers and strategists belonging to the neocon universe, such as Robert Kagan, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and John Bolton, Trump's National Security Advisor.  The ambitious goal of the think tank, now dissolved, but whose ideas continue to permeate the Republican Party, the religious right and the American exceptionalism's world, was to adequately exploit the Cold War victory to extend American hegemony on a world-level, with a particular focus on the Middle East.  The new American century supporters are often remembered for the alleged influence played on the Bush Jr. era's foreign agenda, particularly in the launch of the so-called War on Terror, during which Saddam Hussein's Iraq was hit by a regime change. It was the beginning of the chaos in the Middle East: it were scattered the seeds for the spreading of chronic instability, proxy wars, interreligious violence, feeding a twenty-year-long prosperous Islamic radicalism, of which not Al-Qaeda but the birth of the self-proclaimed Islamic State undoubtedly represents the most emblematic experience.  The problem was not Iraq itself, but the presence of Saddam Hussein, who was a valuable strategic partner for the West during the Cold War, armed and funded to declare war on Iran, but with over time he had become intolerable due to its expansionist ambitions in the Arab region.  Iran, on the other hand, was described by the think tank as a threat of a different nature, namely not eliminable through a mere regime change but deserving a long-term containment strategy due to a  series of geopolitical and cultural characteristics.  Recently, The New York Times published a very interesting analysis by Carol Giacomo entitled "Iran and the United States: Doomed to Be Forever Enemies?". Giacomo describes carefully the phases that have led the two countries to transform themselves from strategic partners to bitter enemies, and the conclusions are sharable: both countries should find a way to cooperate in order to avoid an international-level dangerous escalation.  The real problem, which analysts of international relations seem not to understand, is the following: between Iran and the United States there can never be a long-lasting peace, because Tehran, just like Moscow, is doomed to be considered a natural-born enemy by the American empire.  Iran and Russia share a similar story and destiny, and it was precisely the perennial feeling of encirclement by foreign powers willing to deprive them of their natural spheres of influence, and to subdue them by means of puppet governments, that pushed them to forge a close relationship in the last decade.  The anti-Iranian and anti-Russian containment also share also a common starting point: the Great Game. At the time, however, it was not the United States that led an expansionist agenda in the Middle East and Central Asia, but the United Kingdom and Russia.  Some countries are victims of the so-called "resource curse", others, like Iran, are victims of what can be called the "curse of geography". Iran is the true meeting point between the Middle East and East Asia, between Russian Asia and the Indian subcontinent, it is the site of a millenary civilization that has flourished for centuries exploiting this geostrategic position, and which boasts contacts dating back to ancient times with the European, Russian, Ottoman, Indian and Chinese civilizations.  Unlike the other countries in the area, Iran has a long-standing tradition of political and social stability, a deep-rooted national identity which has been strengthened to every attempt of westernization, also because it is linked to a precise (and not artificially-constructed) history, on the background of a significant disposal of strategic resources, such as oil and natural gas.  It is because of these factors that Iran has been at the center of hegemonic clashes between the world-greatest powers since the so-called Great Game, a period of opposition mainly between the United Kingdom and the Russian Empire that lasted from 1830 to 1895.  The British feared that Russian adventurism in Asia would end with the fall of the Persian and Ottoman empires in Moscow's sphere of influence, with inevitable repercussions on the control of the Indian subcontinent and, therefore, of the entire Far East.  At the same time, Russians feared that the British could use their influence on Muslim-majority  lands to provoke anti-Russian uprisings throughout the empire and in Russian-friendly khanates.  The declining Persian empire was between two fires, led by the Qajar dynasty. Eventually, the royal family had managed to survive the Great Game, succeeding in the difficult task of satisfying both Russian and British interests in a precariously-balanced way.  In the post-WWIr, the British took advantage of the Soviet Union's moment of weakness to depose the Qajar dynasty because judged too incompetent to defend the interests of the British crown. It was established a new dynasty, based on the Pahlavi family.  Reza Shah was chosen by the British as the dynasty's leader and the country and, at least initially, he satisfied the requests coming from London. Since the 1930s, however, his political line had progressively changed direction, revealing the Shah's will to emancipate Iran from the British subjection.  In 1932 he canceled the oil concession to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company to retract a new division of profits more favorable to Iran, obtaining a new compromise the following year. Then, he transferred the right to print money from the British Imperial Bank to the National Bank of Iran, and issued a series of laws to limit the presence of foreign personnel in strategic sectors.  In line with his nationalistic ambitions, in 1935 he changed the country's name from Persia to Iran, on the background of the reduction of trade with the Soviet Union and Great Britain in favour of new partners, including Nazi Germany.  At the outbreak of World War II, London and Moscow jointly decided to depose the Shah, invading the country in August 1941 and occupying Tehran. The British forced the Shah to abdicate, leaving the throne to his son Mohammad.  Mohammad initially met the British needs, continuing his father's path of cultural and economic westernization but, just like him, he gradually turned towards a nationalistic policy with the aim to reduce British influence.  In 1951 Mohammad Mosaddegh, a fervent nationalist, was appointed prime minister, marking the start of a battle season that ended three years later in the Ajax operation. Mosaddegh was the leader of the most intransigent wing of the nationalist front and the nationalization of strategic sectors, including the oil industry, was his most important workhorse.  Mosaddegh convinced the Shah, politics and society of the need to fully control Iranian oil, both to achieve economic and political independence, in order to deprive Britain of its main instrument of domination over Tehran.  Britain asked for US assistance to remove the uncomfortable PM and bring the Shah back into line, emphasizing the (false) possibility that the nationalization program might actually hide communist ambitions, even in light of the anti-Western and anti-imperialist rhetoric used in Iranian panorama.  With the help of military disloyal to the government, CIA and SIS spread chaos and violence in the country as part of the so-called Ajax operation. The Shah was forced to depose the PM in favour of the pro-American General Fazlollah Zahedi.  The Ajax operation marked a watershed moment in the Arab-Islamic world's recent history: on one side it sanctioned the definitive end of the British rule over the Middle East and the entry of the United States, on the other its cultural legacy played a key role in feeding the Islamic revival  occurred some decades later.  In post-Ajax, the Shah invigorated the policy of forced westernization, known as the "white revolution", and he started encountering the harsh opposition of the Shiite clergy, but also of a good part of society. Furthermore, on US initiative, he established close diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, giving rise to the so-called two-pillar policy: Tehran and Riyadh had become custodians of US interests in the Arab-Persian area.  In the 1970s, the Shah gave new life to a new political course based on nationalism, though weaker than in the Mossadegh era, establishing relations with Gaddafi's Libya, supporting and encouraging OPEC countries during the 1973 oil crisis, criticizing the influence of the Israeli lobby in US policy, and signing the Algiers agreements with Iraq, without prior consultation with the United States, on the basis of which all forms of support to the Kurds were ceased and the US and Israel were prevented from using the Iranian territory to send them aid.  The westernization of society and the gradual return to anti-imperialism in foreign policy took place on the background of the country's fall in instability, due to the increasingly frequent and violent  protests led by the Shiite clergy and the Communists. In 1979 the country was on the brink of civil war, a situation that convinced the Shah to flee, receiving asylum in Anwar Sadat's Egypt, and the temporary government led by Shapour Bakhtiar to call back Ruhollah Khomeini, the protests' moral leader, to homeland.  On April 1, 1979, Iranians were called to a referendum to transform Iran into a sharia-based Islamic republic: they voted "yes". Later the same year Khomeini assumed the role of Supreme Leader and quickly transported the country out of the Western orbit.  40 years after the revolution, it is still a source of debate if there was an actual interest by the West to overthrow the untrustworthy Shah. It was precisely him, from exile, to spread conspiracy theories expressed in the famous sentence: "If you lift up Khomeini's beard, you fill find 'Made in England' written under his chin".  Some CIA declassified documents, whose authenticity is disputed, seem to prove that Khomeini tried to approach the US to overthrow the Shah since the 1960s. Furthermore, it is undoubtedly true that the higher ranks of Iranian army were infiltrated by US-paid men since the post-Ajax and no shocking revolution would take place without their consent in such a strategic country.  We should take into account Shah's claims only because history teaches that even when a revolution may be spontaneous and bottom-up, it always takes place an external influence aimed at taking advantage of the newly-created dynamics.  But even if the Shah was right and Khomeini was truly helped by the West, nothing changes the fact that the West eventually lost the one-century-long match against a misunderstood freedom-aspiring nation. Indeed, Khomeini's Iran quickly ended the two-pillar policy, by engaging a proxy war with Israel and Saudi Arabia, challenged the US hegemony over the Muslim world, and started spreading the revolutionary values all over the world.  The West tried to overturn the situation by instigating Saddam Hussein to declare war on Iran, but Tehran showed to the world an incredible will to survive and resist.  To date, despite the Mossad-backed campaign of targeted killings that deprived the country of its best minds, hindering Iran's arms race, the 20-year-long harsh sanctionatory regime, and the periodic attempts to provoke colored revolutions, Khomeinism continues to permeate deeply the Iranian society, culture and politics, and Tehran has gradually succeeded in exporting revolutionary values all over the world, as shown by the unstoppable growing of Twelver Shi'ism in the Middle East and Latin America, and to extend its sphere of influence up to Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, with the aim of giving rise to the so-called "Axis of resistance".  The Trump administration has recovered the new American century's project and, together with it, the idea of exerting maximum pressure on Iran to provoke a bottom-up regime change. The war, in fact, is not a valid option: the costs, both human and economic, would be too high and, contrarily to Saddam's Iraq, Iran has all the potential to extend the war to the entire Middle East, up to the gates of Israel and Saudi Arabia, thanks to the galaxy of proxies built in the last twenty years.  But even if the Bolton's hard-line proved to be successful and the Khomeinist regime fell, it is the application of geophilosophy to the reading of history to show that cultural and geopolitical peculiarities make vain any attempt to subdue Tehran.  A pro-Western order would not last in the long run, because the people, the intellectual world and the political class would demand greater autonomy. It were always the same men carefully chosen by London and Washington to protect Western interests that, in the end, decided to break the chains of oppression, despite the awareness of the risks, to gain power. and independence.  Political realism must take into consideration the existence of only-marginally-alterable variables that make not practicable the coercive diplomacy with Iran, such as a deep-rooted national consciousness, a resistent and resilient culture, both expressions of a millenary civilization. This set of variables should push the US to accept the presence, and the existence, in international relations of players willing to have their own spheres of influence.  The Iran deal signed during the Obama era has shown that the two countries can, and must, replace rivalry with mutual respect in order to achieve goals whose importance is of global interest, even if the price to pay is the sacrifice of purposes considered of vital importance.


prepareforchange--2019-11-02--Report Exposes Right-Wing Effort to Ban Criticism of Israel in US Schools

“Fanatical Zionists are pushing U.S. state legislatures to pass sweeping new restrictions on free speech.  Human rights and free speech advocates responded with alarm Thursday to a Guardian report revealing that pro-Israel and right-wing lobbyists are encouraging Republican state lawmakers to pass legislation that could outlaw discussions about the Israeli government’s human rights abuses and occupation of Palestinian territory at all levels of the U.S. public education system under the guise of fighting anti-Semitism.  Concerns about the legislation relate to its wide definition of anti-Semitism that goes beyond protecting Jewish people from hate speech. According to The Guardian:  Among the activities that would be prohibited by the new laws are human rights investigations focusing specifically on Israel. Also banned would be any speech “demonizing Israel by … blaming Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions” or “delegitimizing Israel by … questioning Israel’s right to exist.” The push began at a conference in August held by the American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC, a conservative network which has a long history of propagating right-wing policies at state level through model bills.  The report stems from a pair of emails (pdf) that David Armiak, research director for the watchdog Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), obtained under a Freedom of Information request and shared with The Guardian.  ALEC, which did not reply to the newspaper’s request for comment, has a record of churning out right-wing model legislation on a variety of issues, from criminalizing environmental and animal rights activism to promoting the privatization of schools, gerrymandering, and union-busting.  Alluding to the organization’s history, writer Regina Schrambling shared The Guardian‘s report on Twitter with the introduction, “Today in ‘all evil leads to ALEC.'”  The emails reveal that Republican state lawmakers from Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and South Carolina met with representatives from pro-Israel lobbyist groups at ALEC’s August conference in Austin, Texas.  Florida Republican Randy Fine reportedly led a private meeting at the conference after pushing through the first anti-Semitism state law earlier this year.  Critics say Fine’s law “goes too far,” the Sun-Sentinel explained in an editorial in May. “Some of its provisions confuse anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel. That has profound constitutional problems, as the bill is plainly meant to be enforced throughout Florida’s public schools, colleges, and universities.”  Liz Jackson, a staff attorney with the group Palestine Legal, is Jewish and a critic of certain components of Florida’s law, which was passed amid rising rates of anti-Semitism attacks in the United States and around the world.  “It’s riding off the universally agreed idea that anti-Semitism is bad and must be stopped at a time of a frightening resurgence in white supremacist violence,” Jackson told The Guardian about the state law. “It’s extremely cynical to masquerade as fighting anti-Semitism when you are, in fact, shutting down criticism of Israel.”  The week after the ALEC meeting, Fine sent an email to state lawmakers; A.D. Motzen, national director of state Relations at Agudath Israel of America; and Joseph Sabag Israeli-American Coalition (IAC) for Action. Fine briefly outlined the Florida measure and encouraged the lawmakers to reach out to him and Sabag with questions about pursuing similar legislation in their states.  Sabag wrote in a response to the group that “my legal team has now taken Randy’s bill and refined it into a model that can be brought everywhere.” Sabag urged the lawmakers to contact him or Republican South Carolina state Rep. Alan Cemmons, who is ALEC’s national chairman and sponsored anti-Semitism legislation in his state, “and take advantage of our policy support if you are considering filing a bill.”  Contacted by The Guardian, Sabag said the emails “emerged out of an after-hours private gathering of friends and colleagues, not an ALEC function and ALEC held no such forum or discussion at its conference.” He also pushed back against the suggestion that IAC for Action was encouraging lawmakers to adopt the definition of anti-Semitism that’s provoked criticism, saying that his organization “provides legal analysis and policy resources in response to requests from legislators who wish to draw upon our subject matter expertise.”  Summarizing The Guardian‘s report, Palestinian-American journalist Ali Abunimah wrote in a series of tweets that “fanatical Zionists are pushing U.S. state legislatures to pass sweeping new restrictions on free speech, including a ban on ‘demonizing Israel’ and investigating Israeli human rights abuses.”  “There is no doubt whatsoever,” Abunimah added, “that the Israel lobby is the greatest direct threat to free speech in the United States.”  Disclaimer: We at Prepare for Change (PFC) bring you information that is not offered by the mainstream news, and therefore may seem controversial. The opinions, views, statements, and/or information we present are not necessarily promoted, endorsed, espoused, or agreed to by Prepare for Change, its leadership Council, members, those who work with PFC, or those who read its content. However, they are hopefully provocative. Please use discernment! Use logical thinking, your own intuition and your own connection with Source, Spirit and Natural Laws to help you determine what is true and what is not. By sharing information and seeding dialogue, it is our goal to raise consciousness and awareness of higher truths to free us from enslavement of the matrix in this material realm.


sottnet--2019-09-02--Indias published citizenship list leaves 2M stateless

India's published citizenship list leaves 2M stateless

Almost two million people in northeast India were left facing statelessness on Saturday after they were excluded from a citizenship list aimed at weeding out "foreign infiltrators", in a process the central government wants to replicate nationwide.according to an official statement. A large chunk of those excluded were expected to be Muslims.Shahibul Haque Shikdar, a Muslim college teacher, was distraught after two of his children made it to the list but he was left out. "Even my father's name is there in the final NRC but I have been left out," the 39-year-old told AFP.Assam has long seen large influxes from elsewhere, including under British colonial rule and around Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence when millions fled into India. For decades this has made Assam a hotbed of inter-religious and ethnic tensions. Sporadic violence has included the 1983 massacre of around 2,000 people.Security was beefed up in Assam ahead of the release of the NRC, with some 20,000 extra personnel brought in and gatherings banned in some locations. There were no disturbances reported on Saturday however.Anxious residents had started queueing up since early morning, braving rain and bad weather to check their names on the list.But navigating the complex process is a huge challenge for many in a flood-prone poor region of high illiteracy where many lack documentation.Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party runs Assam, and critics say theIn January India's lower house passed legislation that would grant citizenship to people who moved to India as recently as six years ago -- as long as they are not Muslims. This has stoked fears among India's 170-million Muslim minority for their future.Home Minister Amit Shah, Modi's right-hand-man, hasand said before the BJP's thumping re-election victory in May thatThose left off the NRC have 120 days to appeal at special Foreigners Tribunals, which the government says are being expanded in number. But activists say that tribunal members are often underqualified and are subject to "performance" targets, and that the process has been riddled with inconsistencies and errors.Instances of people being declared foreigners because of clerical errors, such as differences in the spelling of names, are "appallingly common", Amnesty International said Saturday.Local lawmaker Ananta Kumar Malo, whose name was missing from the list, said he was appalled by the process. "There are some problems with the system, otherwise how can they exclude my name?" he told AFP.With many "genuine Indians" left off, the party is mulling a "fresh strategy on how we can drive out the illegal migrants", said Himanta Biswa Sarma, a local BJP minister.Those rejected by the tribunals who have exhausted all other legal avenues can be declared foreigners and -- in theory -- be placed in one of six detention centres with a view to possible deportation, although Bangladesh is yet to signal its cooperation.One with space for 3,000 is being constructed in Goalpara, west of Assam's biggest city Guwahati. The camps currently hold 1,135 people, according to the state government, and have been operating for years.Nur Mohammad, 65, spent almost 10 years in one such camp until a Supreme Court order saw him released this month. "I was born here and lived in Assam all my life," he told AFP this week. "I don't know if my name will be in the NRC or not."Samujjal Bhattacharya from the All Assam Students' Union (AASU), a key driver behind the NRC, said the register was necessary to protect Assam's indigenous "sons of the soil".he told AFP.


sputnik--2019-05-07--Netizens Condemn Honour-killing as Young Couple Set Ablaze in Indian Village

Netizens Condemn ‘Honour-killing' as Young Couple Set Ablaze in Indian Village

New Delhi (Sputnik) — Last week's incident of a young village couple in the Indian state of Maharashtra allegedly being set ablaze by the woman's livid relatives over their inter-caste love marriage, has left a lot of netizens disgusted, evoking sharp reactions. Police have termed it an "honour-killing".  The 19-year-old woman, who sustained burns over 70 percent of her body and died on Sunday night, was pregnant. Her husband suffered 50 percent burns and is being treated at the hospital. The incident took place in Nighoj village, around 55 km from Ahmednagar, on 1 May, Police Officer Vijay Kumar Botre told Sputnik.  "There is no ‘honour' in killing", tweeted this user.  "Rukmini's two uncles have already been arrested. Now, her father has also been apprehended", Investigating Officer Vijay Kumar Botre told Sputnik news agency on Tuesday afternoon.  "Mangesh (23) and his wife Rukmini (19) were accosted and set ablaze because they had embarked on an inter-caste marriage against their families' wishes", he added.  Quoting the police, The New Indian Express has reported that Rana Singh, a construction worker and Rukmini had married in November last year against the wishes of the latter's parents. "On 28 April, she came to meet her parents. On 1 May, Mangesh also came to take her back to their marital home", a police official said.  The woman's father Rama Bharathiya along with her uncle Surendra Bhartiya and maternal uncle Ghansham Saroj allegedly locked the couple in a room and set them ablaze, the official added.  Noteworthy is the fact that to tackle the menace of honour killings, the government in the Indian state of Maharashtra, where this crime took place, is mulling to bring about a law to encourage inter-caste and inter-religious marriages, and give protection to such couples.


sputnik--2019-11-09--Six Top Facts About Hindu-Muslim Conflict Over India's Ayodhya Amid Supreme Court Ruling

The Ayodhya dispute dates back to the 16th century, and the construction of the Babri Masjid Mosque. Built between 1528 and 1529 on a holy hill thought by Hindu believers to be the birthplace of Rama, a major deity of Hinduism, the mosque’s construction soon became a bone of contention between India’s Hindu and Muslim communities. These divisions were intensified in the 1830s, after a surveyor from the British colonial administration concluded that the pillars used in the construction of the mosque were taken from a pre-existing Hindu temple which was demolished beforehand.  Legal disputes, protests and violent clashes over the site would continue for nearly a century, and in December 1949, two years after India was granted independence from the British Empire, Hindu activists placed Hindu idols in the mosque, after which Hindu believers began visiting the site, prompting heightened inter-religious tensions and mass protests which ended in the government placing the holy place under lock and key, preventing visits from Muslims and Hindus alike. In 1986, after more than 30 years on lockdown, the holy site was reopened, with Muslims staging protests as Hindus were allowed to carry out religious ceremonies at the mosque.  Tensions continued to grow throughout the 1980s, as Hindu nationalist activists began campaigning to build a Hindu temple at the site, with the campaign soon joined by the Bharatiya Janata Party (the party of current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi) and other Hindu nationalist forces. In December 1992, tensions reached a boiling point after Hindu activists gathered at Ayodhya and destroyed the Babri Masjid Mosque.  This event sparked a spate of riots across the country that lasted two months; at least 2,000 people, most of them Muslim believers, were killed in the violence. This included 700 deaths in the city of Mumbai alone, between December 1992 and January 1993. The Mumbai riots were themselves followed by the March 1993 Mumbai bombings, when over 300 people were killed and 1,400 others injured in a series of car bombings orchestrated by a local criminal syndicate affiliated with Islamist terrorists. A 2002 Islamist train bombing targeting Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya led to the deaths of another 58 people, with over 2,000 more believed to have died in further rioting.  The Indian government first set up a commission to investigate the destruction of the Babri Masjid Mosque in 1993, with further investigations established over the next two decades to establish the legitimacy of Hindu claims, including claims as to whether a Hindu temple dedicated to Rama was originally located at the site. In 2010, the Allahabad High Court, which has jurisdiction over the state of Uttar Pradesh, ruled to divide the Ayodhya holy site’s territory into three parts, giving two thirds control to two Hindu groups, and one third to a local Sunni Muslim group. This ruling was later challenged, and in mid-2011, India’s Supreme Court nullified the ruling amid contesting claims from both Hindu and Muslim entities.  In August 2019, after several more years of hearings and debate, mediation and repeated adjournments, the Supreme Court’s Constitution Bench began day-to-day hearings in the Ayodhya dispute, which continued until mid-October, when the court concluded them and began preparations for their final judgement. This judgement was finally delivered on November 9, with the Supreme Court ruling to grant Hindu believers the entire 2.77 acre territory in Ayodhya, with Muslims receiving 5 acres, paid for by the central government, at a separate location.  Given the violence previously associated with the Ayodhya dispute, and Indian-Muslim tensions associated with New Delhi’s recent decision to change the disputed status of Jammu and Kashmir, the Modi government has braced for renewed violence between India’s 960 million Hindu and 195 million Muslim communities over the Ayodhya ruling. Over 5,000 Indian troops and police were deployed in Ayodhya in the run-up to the Supreme Court ruling, with hundreds of people reportedly detained Friday while awaiting the verdict. Fears of violence spread to Mumbai, where authorities imposed prohibitions on the assembly of four or more people in one place on Saturday. Late last month, Prime Minister Modi urged Indians of all faiths to show restraint on the matter to avoid provocations and violence.


tass--2019-06-03--Crimea successfully resists outside attempts to sow inter-ethnic discord official

Crimea successfully resists outside attempts to sow inter-ethnic discord — official

### Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko  © Mikhail Metzel/TASS  YALTA, June 3. /TASS/. Crimean residents are successfully withstanding attempts from the outside to sow inter-ethnic discord on the peninsula, Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko told reporters on Monday after a meeting with representatives of Crimea's cultural and religious organizations.  "What are our enemies trying to do from the outside now? They are doing everything possible to sow inter-ethnic and inter-religious discord in Crimea. They are distributing made-up news, trying to fan tensions with the help of extremists, and so on. However, this does not succeed, as there is a different basis, different foundation. There are Crimean residents who want to leave in peace and accord," Matviyenko said.  She noted that Crimean authorities are working effectively to preserve inter- ethnic accord and resolve problems. "Peace, accord and mutual understanding are evident in the region," she added. Matviyenko reminded that there are three official languages in Crimea — Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar.  "There are no infringements on anyone's rights, be that language rights or cultural traditions. Everybody said that over the 5 years since reunification with Russia, many positive changes have occurred," she stressed.  "Inter-ethnic accord in Crimea is an important element of peaceful, free and happy life, it is a condition for successfuly development of the peninsula's economy," Matviyenko said.  In other media


thehuffingtonpost--2019-04-30--Florida Passes Bill Banning Anti-Semitism In Public Schools After Synagogue Shooting

The bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Joe Gruters, referred to the shooting at Chabad of Poway before the bill was passed. One woman was killed in the rampage on Saturday and three others were wounded.  The 19-year-old suspected shooter allegedly yelled anti-Semitic slurs as he entered the synagogue on the last day of Passover, The New York Times reported. Officials are investigating whether he posted an anti-Semitic and white nationalist manifesto to an online message board before the shooting.  “He knew nothing about the victims, other than that they were Jewish. That was enough for them to die in his own mind,” Gruters said about the shooter, according to the Miami Herald. “Anti-Semitism is on the rise, and we have the ability to do something about it. No one is born with hate in their heart.”  The suspect has been charged with murder and attempted murder, The Associated Press reports. Poway Mayor Steve Vaus and President Donald Trump have both described the shooting as a hate crime.  The Florida bill requires public school officials to treat anti-Semitic behavior by students or employees the way they treat racial discrimination. The measure includes a lengthy explanation of anti-Semitism, defining it as expressing hatred for Jewish people, making “mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical” allegations about Jews or Jewish organizations, and denying facts about the Holocaust.  The bill also incorporates Israel into its definition of anti-Semitism. It states that “delegitimizing Israel by denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination,” “blaming Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions,” and “requiring behavior of Israel that is not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation,” should all be counted as examples of anti-Semitism.  Critics of the bill take issue with the fact that it only refers to religious discrimination against Jewish people, since other religious minorities have also been recently targeted for violence. Some also fear the bill would silence legitimate criticism of Israel’s policies.  The bill’s text states that “criticism of Israel that is similar to criticism toward any other country may not be regarded as anti-Semitic.”  The measure was first introduced in the Florida House in February, where it later passed unanimously. It was tabled in the Senate, but leaders in the legislature allowed it to be brought before legislators on Monday.  The bill comes amid a nationwide spike in anti-Semitism. According to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitic incidents at K-12 schools and on college campuses nearly doubled between 2016 and 2017.


westernjournal--2019-02-02--Central African Republic 14 armed groups reach peace deal

Central African Republic, 14 armed groups reach peace deal

The Western Journal has not reviewed this Associated Press story prior to publication. Therefore, it may contain editorial bias or may in some other way not meet our normal editorial standards. It is provided to our readers as a service from The Western Journal.  JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A peace deal has been reached between the Central African Republic government and 14 armed groups after their first-ever direct dialogue aimed at ending years of conflict, the United Nations and African Union announced on Saturday.  The peace deal represents rare hope for the impoverished, landlocked nation where interreligious and intercommunal fighting has continued since 2013. Thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in a conflict that has sent two people to the International Criminal Court.  “I am determined to work with the president and his government to address the concerns of our brothers who took up arms,” said Central African Republic’s Cabinet director Firmin Ngrebada, according to the U.N.  The parties on Sunday will sign a draft of the agreement, which focuses on power-sharing and transitional justice, Sudan’s state media reported, citing Sudan’s chief negotiator Atta al-Manan. The final deal is expected to be signed on Wednesday. Talks began Jan. 24 in Khartoum.  “This is a great day for Central African Republic and all its people,” said the AU commissioner for peace and security, Smail Chergui.  TRENDING: Trump Has Pelosi and Schumer Right Where He Wants Them  The fighting has carried the high risk of genocide, the U.N. has warned. The conflict began in 2013 when predominantly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power in the capital, Bangui. Largely Christian anti-Balaka militias fought back. Scores of mosques were burned. Priests and other religious leaders were killed. Many Muslims fled the country after mobs decapitated and dismembered some in the streets.  The vicious fighting in a country known more for coups than interreligious violence was so alarming that Pope Francis made a bold visit in 2015, removing his shoes and bowing his head at the Central Mosque in the last remaining Muslim neighborhood of the capital, Bangui.  “Together we say ‘no’ to hatred,” the pope said.  The violence has never disappeared, intensifying and spreading last year after a period of relative peace as armed groups battled over lands rich in gold, diamonds and uranium.  After more than 40 people were killed in a rebel attack on a displaced persons camp in November, both the leader of the 13,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission and the country’s prime minister both acknowledged shortcomings in the response. “I knew that we did not have all the necessary means to protect our people,” the prime minister said.  In a grim report last year marking five years of the conflict, the U.N. children’s agency said fighters often target civilians rather than each other, attacking health facilities and schools, mosques and churches and camps for displaced people. At least half of the more than 640,000 people displaced are children, it said, and thousands are thought to have joined the armed groups, often under pressure.  Last month the chief of Central African Republic’s soccer federation appeared at the International Criminal Court for the first time since he was arrested last year in France on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes. Patrice-Edouard Ngaissona is accused of leading the anti-Balaka for at least a year early in the fighting.  In November a Central African Republic militia leader and lawmaker, Alfred Yekatom, made his first ICC appearance, accused of crimes including murder, torture and using child soldiers. He allegedly commanded some 3,000 fighters in a predominantly Christian militia in and around the capital early in the fighting. He was arrested last year after firing gunshots in parliament.  So far no Seleka fighters have been publicly targeted by the court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda.  As the peace talks began last month, the Norwegian Refugee Council warned of “catastrophe” if no agreement was reached, saying repeated cycles of violence in one of the world’s poorest nations had “pushed people(asterisk)s resistance to breaking point.”  A majority of Central African Republic’s 2.9 million people urgently need humanitarian support, the group said.  On Thursday, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to extend an arms embargo on Central African Republic for a year but raised the possibility that it could be lifted earlier as the government has long urged.  The Associated Press contributed to this report.  We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.


windowoneurasiablog--2019-07-07--Ethno-National Identities in Russia Intensifying as is Civic Russian Identity Drobizheva Says

Ethno-National Identities in Russia Intensifying as is Civic Russian Identity, Drobizheva Says

Staunton, July 5 – Many had expected Tatar officials and scholars to make use of the 13th Congress of Anthropologists and Ethnologists of Russia, held this year in Kazan, to make an impassioned defense of the rights of non-Russian peoples and of their languages. But at the plenary session at least, that did not happen.  The deputy said that officials keep promising to present a concept paper on the study of native languages but “no one has seen it yet.” The only document that has been prepared, he said, is a draft law creating a register of numerically small peoples, something the Russian Federation needs but that isn’t as critical as one about national languages.  Valery Tishkov, former director of the Moscow Institute of Anthropology and Ethnology, former Russian nationalities minister, and chief proponent of making the study of non-Russian nationalities entirely voluntary, chaired the meeting but didn’t make a speech, leaving the task of presenting Kremlin’s position to others.  Leokadiya Drobizheva of the Moscow Institute of Sociology did that. She said that the construction of a single civic Russian nation had already been constructed and that recognition of this was simply a matter of time. Ever more residents of the Russian Federation identify as rossiyane, she said, something that reduce interethnic and interreligious tensions.  At the same time, however, the senior scholar said that ethno-national identities are strengthening as well, as indication that in her mind at least the strengthening of the civic national identity need not come at the cost of ethnic ones as many have assumed and some have feared.  From the point of view of non-Russian concerns, perhaps the most important speech was delivered by Marina Martynova of the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology who pointed out that “the first and chief hit on national education was made in 1950 by the decree concerning the voluntary choice of the language of instruction.”  After that time, she said, “the number of those studying in non-Russian language schools had unceasingly fallen,” exactly the point many non-Russians have made about Vladimir Putin’s push to make the study of non-Russian languages voluntary while keeping the study of Russian compulsory.  Despite the upbeat remarks from the first speakers to the conference, Olga Artemova of the Moscow Institute spoke about the difficult state of ethnology in Russia as a result of the dramatic fall off and in some places elimination of ethnographic instruction in universities and of budgetary places for those where such instruction is still available.  If that trend continues, the field will inevitably age and contract; and there won’t be the experts necessary to evaluate this most sensitive area of public life. As a result, the political leadership almost certainly will make decisions with less input about the situation among the non-Russians, further tilting policy in the direction of the ethnic Russian majority.


activistpost--2019-04-24--Facebook Just Hired a Lawyer Who Helped Write the Patriot Act

(CD) — Social media giant Facebook made a major hire Monday, bringing on lawyer Jennifer Newstead as the company’s general counsel—a move that generated criticism due to Newstead’s work two decades ago drafting the Patriot Act.  The company announced the hire by citing Newstead’s extensive work in government. Most recently, Newstead acted as the legal adviser for the State Department.  During her time in the Bush administration, Newstead was known for being the “day to day manager of the Patriot Act in Congress,” according to torture memo author John Yoo.  “Jennifer is a seasoned leader whose global perspective and experience will help us fulfill our mission,” Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said in a statement.  Newstead referred to Facebook’s role in the public discourse in a statement released by the company.  “Facebook’s products play an important role in societies around the world,” said Newstead. “I am looking forward to working with the team and outside experts and regulators on a range of legal issues as we seek to uphold our responsibilities and shared values.”  Support Independent Media for as Little as $1 Per Month  Newstead’s history in government, though, triggered criticism of Facebook for putting her in a position of power—especially in light of recent comments from the company’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg that emphasized a more secure and private experience for users.  The Observer, in a report on the hire, took a skeptical view of Newstead’s past as far as it related to tech.  Thus, as technologist Ashkan Soltani pointed out to Politico, the hire of Newstead is incompatible with the company’s public pivot to privacy.  “It’s almost as if we’re living in some bizarro world where the company does exactly the opposite of what Zuckerberg states publicly,” said Soltani.  Fight For the Future deputy director Evan Greer mused about how Newstead’s hiring fits into an ostensibly different privacy culture at Facebook.  “I can’t help but wonder how all the ‘privacy advocates’ that Facebook has been hiring lately are going to feel about working with a LITERAL AUTHOR OF THE PATRIOT ACT as their general counsel,” Greer tweeted.  Writer Jonah Blank put the hire in perspective, implying that Newstead’s addition to the Facebook team was not the best move.  “How has #Facebook responded to charges that it violates its users’ privacy, fuels ethnic/racial/religious tension, and may have helped #Russia interfere with the 2016 US election?” asked Blank.


aljazeera--2019-02-27--At Indian air raid site no casualties and a mysterious madrassa

At Indian air raid site, no casualties and a mysterious madrassa

Jaba, Pakistan - Indian air raids launched on Pakistani territory earlier this week destroyed parts of a mostly uninhabited forest and a farmer's field, witnesses and local officials told Al Jazeera, although mystery remains around a seminary run by armed group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) near the bombing site.  Four bombs hit a forest and a field in a remote area outside of the northern Pakistani town of Jaba, about 100km north of capital Islamabad, Al Jazeera found on a visit to the site on Wednesday.  Splintered pine trees and rocks were strewn across the blast craters, and there was no evidence of any infrastructure debris or casualties. Metal shrapnel from the bombs was visible at four distinct craters.  India claimed on Tuesday to have conducted air raids against a "Jaish-e-Mohammed training camp" in the area, saying "a very large number of JeM terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of jihadis who were being trained for [suicide] action were eliminated."  Pakistan denied that any casualties had occurred. On Wednesday, Pakistan's military said its aircraft launched air strikes on six locations on the India-administered territory in the disputed region of Kashmir.  Local hospital officials and several residents who rushed to the scene said they did not find any bodies or wounded people following the Indian attack, which took place at approximately 3am local time on Tuesday.  "I woke up at the sound of the first explosion, and ran out of bed," said Nooran Shah, 58, a farmer on whose land two of the bombs landed. "The second blast knocked the doors off my house."  When Shah went outside to investigate, he said, a piece of shrapnel or a stone struck him on the forehead, leaving a wound.  Syed Rehman Shah, 50, a neighbour, said he, too, ran outside his home when he heard the explosions.  "I heard four loud explosions, separated by a few seconds each," said Rehman Shah. "It felt like the day of judgement had come."  Shah said he saw "fire and smoke" when he exited his home, and ran to the aid of his neighbour.  Shah was unconscious on the ground with a wound to his forehead, Rehman Shah said. He was moved to safety and later taken to hospital. The walls of Shah’s home appeared cracked, with several holes where shrapnel appeared to have hit them.  "We are just farmers out here, we grow wheat and maize," said Rehman Shah. "Some people keep some livestock."  Following the air raids, India's foreign ministry said it had hit a training camp run by JeM founder Masood Azhar's brother-in-law, Yousuf Azhar.  Founded in 2000, JeM is an armed group that has launched several high-profile attacks against Indian security and government targets, mostly in the disputed region of Kashmir.  Most recently, JeM claimed a suicide attack that killed more than 42 Indian security forces personnel in the Indian-administered Kashmir town of Pulwama, triggering the latest crisis between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.  India accuses Pakistan of offering sanctuary to JeM and other armed groups. Following the Pulwama attack, a top Indian military commander said the country had evidence the attack had been "controlled" by Pakistani intelligence.  Pakistan denies the charge, and says it has been acting against JeM since it banned the group in 2002.  Less than a kilometre to the east of one of the bomb craters, atop a steep ridge, sits a seminary run by JeM, residents told Al Jazeera. A road sign located some distance away confirmed the location of the seminary, and that it was run by the armed group.  The sign for the Madrassa Taleem-ul-Quran lists Masood Azhar as its leader, and Muhammad Yousuf Azhar as its administrator.  Masood Azhar founded the JeM after he was released from Indian custody in exchange for more than 150 hostages after the hijacking of an Indian commercial airliner in 1999. He remains under US sanctions for JeM's alleged links with the Afghan Taliban.  Yousuf Azhar is wanted by India in connection with the 1999 hijacking.  Al Jazeera was unable to visit the site of the seminary.  Residents offered conflicting accounts of the facility's work, with some saying it only offered religious education for local school children, while others alleged it was a training camp for JeM fighters.  "The madrassa there, at the top of the mountain, that is a training camp for mujahideen [religious fighters]," said one resident, gesturing in the direction of the seminary. He spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the subject.  "Everyone here knows there is a Jaish camp there, at the madrassa," said another 31-year-old local resident, also on condition of anonymity. "It is an active training centre, they teach people how to fight there."  Others, however, disputed that claim.  "There is no camp here, and no terrorists either," said Mir Afzal Gulzar, who lives a few kilometres away from the bombing site.  "There was a mujahideen camp here, during the 1980s, but it is gone now," he said.  There is evidence to suggest the seminary was an active recruitment centre, if not training site, for JeM.  In April 2018, Abdul Rauf Asghar - a top JeM commander and Masood Azhar's brother - addressed a yearly religious gathering at the seminary, calling upon those present to join "jihad", or Islamic religious war, according to an article in JeM-affiliated publication al-Qalam.  "This institution is progressing every day in its aim of providing education, and instruction in religion and jihad," reads the article.  Speakers at the event praised the concept of fighting in the name of religion and "offered arguments against certain notions that have been spread against jihad", the article says.  A US Department of Defence memo dated January 31, 2004, leaked by Wikileaks in 2011, indicates the existence of "a [JeM] training camp that offers both basic and advanced terrorist training on explosives and artillery" located near Jaba's geographic location.  The memo detailed the case of Khalil Rehman Hafez, a Pakistani national and member of JeM, who was captured in Afghanistan while fighting US forces and transferred to the Guantanamo Bay prison. Hafez was released and repatriated to Pakistan in 2004.  Back at the bomb site in Jaba, the afternoon sun shines through a thick pine forest, as local residents gather at Nooran Shah's house. Some investigate the crater, under the watchful eye of Pakistani soldiers, while others pose for local news media cameras.  In the shadow of the cracked wall of Shah's house, a defiant group begins to yell patriotic slogans for the cameras.  Shah, a slight man clad in a blue shalwar kameez and still sporting a white bandage around his forehead, turns to face another interviewer.  Asad Hashim is Al Jazeera's digital correspondent in Pakistan. He tweets @AsadHashim


aljazeera--2019-04-24--Not your enemies Sri Lanka Muslims fear backlash after blasts

'Not your enemies': Sri Lanka Muslims fear backlash after blasts

Mohamed Hasan has barely left his home in Colombo since a string of deadly blasts struck Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, afraid he could be attacked because he is Muslim.  He has a job at a printing press, but the 41-year-old's family have begged him to stay home.  "They are worried that if I go out, will I be able to come back alive?" he told AFP news agency outside the Jumma mosque in Dematagoda, where he had ventured briefly to pray.  More than 350 people were killed in the carnage unleashed in the Easter attacks against churches and hotels, which have been claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS). The armed group has provided no evidence.  On Tuesday, the country's state minister of defence said the bombings were in retaliation for a recent attack on mosques in New Zealand.  Ruwan Wijewardene made the comment to politicians in parliament without providing evidence or explaining where the information came from about the worst attacks since the country's civil war ended in 2009.  The deaths have horrified Sri Lankans and been condemned by Muslim groups, but many in the community have been left feeling vulnerable.  Zareena Begum, 60, said she had barely slept since the weekend.  "I know people are angry at Muslims," she said in tears outside the mosque. "Infants being carried in the arms of their mothers were killed.  "I never imagined such hatred being there in the hearts of these people (who attacked). Hatred must not sow more hatred."  Wearing a black dress and white headscarf, Begum added: "We have been huddled at our homes. We are scared about going out."  Sri Lanka's population of about 22 million is a patchwork of ethnicities and religions, dominated by the Sinhalese Buddhist majority.  Muslims account for 10 percent of the population and are the second-largest minority after Hindus. Around seven percent of Sri Lankans are Christians.  Ethnic and religious tensions abound in the country, which suffered through a decades-long Tamil armed rebellion and more recently has seen outbreaks of sectarian violence.  Muslims have been at the receiving end of sporadic violence and hate attacks since the civil war ended in 2009.  Hardline Buddhist monks have led campaigns against the community and in 2013 and 2018, Muslim businesses came under attack.  Rumours were even spread that Sinhalese could become sterile if they wore underwear bought from Muslim shops, and that food sold by Muslims would cause infertility.  In the wake of the attacks, Sri Lankan leaders including Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe have urged calm and solidarity.  "The vast majority of Muslims condemn this and they are as angry as the Tamils and the Sinhalese about what happened," he said on Tuesday, calling for unity.  But at the Jumma mosque there was an atmosphere of anxiety, and several worshippers said they hoped police would "take care of every citizen in such critical times".  Hilmy Ahamed, vice-president of the influential Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, said the community was braced for a backlash, with emotions running high.  "Hundreds of people are being buried (so) there is going to be an emotional outburst and some of it could be justifiable," said Ahamed.  "We have asked the government... to ensure security is maintained. This (attack) has not been carried out by the Muslim community but by some fringe elements."  In fact, Ahamed and other Muslim leaders said they had warned Sri Lankan authorities years earlier about the leader of the National Thowheed Jamath, a group the government says is its key suspect in the attacks.  The group's leader, Zahran Hashim, was well known to Muslim leaders as a hardliner.  "This person was a loner and he had radicalised young people in the guise of conducting Quran classes," Ahamed said.  Back at the mosque, RF Ameer said the community just wanted safety.  "We are living in constant fear because if someone sees us wearing the skull cap they will perceive us to be their enemies," he said, his forehead creased with worry.  "But we want to tell everyone we are not your enemies. This is our homeland, it is known as the pearl of Asia. We want it to remain like that."


aljazeera--2019-05-01--Mozambique church a refuge for Muslim cyclone survivors

Next to a marble pulpit inside a Catholic church, a young Muslim girl chases around with other children.  The church has become a home for her and nearly 1,000 others from different faiths as they wait out the aftermath of Mozambique's latest devastating cyclone.  Situated in the heart of this predominantly Muslim but diverse city ravaged by Cyclone Kenneth, the Maria Auxiliadora parish houses those displaced by the storm in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique's northernmost province.  "We don't ask about people's religions, human life is all we value," Father Ricardo Filipe Rosa Marques, the 41-year-old priest in charge, told AP news agency.  The government has said 41 people have died after the cyclone made landfall on Thursday, and the humanitarian situation in Pemba and other areas is dire.  More than 55 centimetres of rain have fallen in Pemba since Kenneth arrived just six weeks after Cyclone Idai tore into central Mozambique.  This is the first time two cyclones have struck the country in a single season, and Kenneth was the first cyclone recorded so far north in Mozambique in the era of satellite imaging.  The danger is not over. More rain was expected and rivers were expected to reach flood stage by Thursday, the United Nations humanitarian office has said, citing a UK aid analysis. It is the end of the rainy season and rivers already were running high.  Shelter is a top priority for most cyclone survivors and this is what the church is providing, promoting itself as a safe space even before the storm.  In a region where little-known Muslim armed groups have reportedly killed dozens of people in recent months, a certain amount of tension might be expected. But for some, what matters most is shelter.  "I had never been in a church before ... but as long as I am safe I don't mind," said Aamilah Felciano, who is Muslim. "It doesn't mean I have abandoned my faith, I am just saving my life."  The church has suspended mass and other routine programmes. There is no space or time for such activities, the priest said.  "There can be no better mass than giving people shelter and hope. That is the church's mission," he said.    Women and children have taken up residence inside the main hall. The few belongs they could carry as they fled, mainly clothing and plastic buckets, are tucked close by.  Children climb over the pulpit and the priest's chair, playing. In one corner a woman breastfeeds her baby. Church pews have been turned into washing lines.  Outside, shielded from the pounding rains, girls and boys take turns stirring huge pots of rice and soup.  As nightfall approaches, people prepare reed mats or pieces of cloth. Some will sleep on the bare floor. Men sleep on the hall's balcony.  More than 900 displaced people are sheltering here, while about 200 others are staying at church centres elsewhere in the city, according to Joao Paulo, an official with Caritas, a Catholic relief agency.  Some people are still arriving. But getting people to leave their homes was not easy at first.  "The difficulty was that a lot of people here are Muslims, some said they cannot stay in a Catholic church," said the priest, Rosa Marques, adding: "Some refused and preferred to stay at their homes. My heart broke because these people chose to face death over safety."  But there are few religious tensions among city residents, he said, and many of the people arriving at the church with food, medicine and other aid are Muslim. "It is not as difficult as in other areas," he said.  As he spoke, the Muslim call to prayer blared from speakers at one of the numerous mosques nearby, and people left the church to pray.  Kenneth is not the first calamity to bring people of different faiths together in the province. When the Muslim armed groups intensified their attacks on local communities last year, Muslims and Christians organised joint prayer meetings and opened an inter-faith dialogue centre, the priest said.  "People here have suffered a lot. They have been through (Portuguese) colonialism, civil war and the recent killings. They have been living with scars for years yet their love and sense of sharing is amazing," he said.  "I am learning from them. The people here are teaching me how to be a true priest."


aljazeera--2019-05-29--Myanmar Arrest warrant issued for anti-Muslim monk Wirathu

Myanmar: Arrest warrant issued for anti-Muslim monk Wirathu

Yangon, Myanmar - A court in Myanmar has issued an arrest warrant against Wirathu, a notorious Buddhist monk whose hate-preaching sermons against the Rohingya and other minority Muslims have stoked religious tensions.  The monk, who once reportedly dubbed himself the "Burmese bin Laden", faces up to life imprisonment under the country's sedition law, which prohibits stirring up "hatred", "contempt" or "disaffection" towards the government.  Police have so far declined to say why Wirathu has been charged, but the monk recently drew anger from senior officials for a series of speeches in which he attacked Myanmar's de facto civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.  Wirathu has not yet been arrested and his exact whereabouts are unknown. A police spokesperson did not answer calls from Al Jazeera seeking comment.  He is usually based at his monastery in the city of Mandalay, but a judge has told police to bring him before a court in the country's main city of Yangon before June 4, the Myanmar Now news agency reported.  Contacted by phone, a man who described himself as a student of Wirathu told Al Jazeera the monk had left Mandalay for Yangon, where he has been summoned to appear before a panel of senior monks on Thursday.  The panel is expected to reprimand him for his involvement in "mundane affairs" after a recent speech he gave defending Myanmar's military-drafted constitution and railing against Aung San Suu Kyi's efforts to amend it.  During the speech he said military members of parliament, who are guaranteed unelected seats by the constitution, should be worshipped like the Buddha.  His nationalist followers have vowed to show their support for him with a protest on Thursday near Yangon's Shwedagon pagoda, the country's holiest Buddhist site.  Wirathu has described Muslims as "mad dogs" and threatened to use violence to oppose international efforts to bring Myanmar's generals to justice for the slaughter of thousands of Rohingya in 2017, which United Nations investigators have said may amount to genocide.  In 2003, he was jailed for almost 10 years for inciting deadly riots against Muslims. Last year, Facebook barred him from the platform in response to his incendiary posts about the minority.  Myanmar's first civilian government in decades, led by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party, has long regarded Wirathu as a nuisance.  In 2017, a government-appointed committee of top monks barred Wirathu from preaching for a year, stating that he had "repeatedly delivered hate speech against religions to cause communal strife." In the same year, the committee disbanded Ma Ba Tha, a Buddhist nationalist group in which he was a key figure.  But Aung San Suu Kyi has been unable to shake criticism that she is bowing to pressure from Buddhist hardliners.  David Mathieson, a Myanmar-based analyst, said the sedition charges against Wirathu followed a shift in public opinion towards the monk.  "Wirathu has been widely dismissed inside Myanmar as a buffoonish ultranationalist for a long time now," he told Al Jazeera. "The authorities may have calculated what remained of his support base would be unlikely to create serious trouble if he was arrested."  With an election coming up next year, "the NLD may well have calculated moving against Wirathu would generate more popular support, not less," he added.  Rights groups are uneasy about the decision to target the monk with a sedition law.  "The government's use of sedition charges raises concerns about the focus of the investigation, which should be squarely on Wirathu's incitement of violence and hostility," said Matthew Bugher, head of Asia for Article 19, an advocacy group focussed on freedom of expression.  "Wirathu's speech is vile and repugnant," he added. "International investigators have already reported on the apparent links between his words and the violence and discrimination directed at Muslim populations. A criminal investigation into his speech and actions is clearly warranted."


aljazeera--2019-10-12--At least a dozen killed in Burkina Faso mosque attack

Armed men have stormed a mosque in Burkina Faso as worshippers were at prayer, killing at least a dozen people and sending residents fleeing, according to media reports.  The attack took place at the Grand Mosque in the northern village of Salmossi on Friday evening, according to AFP and Reuters. The village is located in the Oudalan region bordering Mali.  One source told AFP 13 people died on the spot and three succumbed to their injuries later. Two of the wounded were in critical condition.  "Since this morning, people have started to flee the area," one resident from the nearby town of Gorom-Gorom told AFP.  He said there was a "climate of panic despite military reinforcements" that were deployed after the deadly attack.  A security source and a local official told Reuters about 15 people were killed in the attack.  The identities of the gunmen were not yet clear.  In recent years, Burkina Faso has seen a surge in violence linked to armed groups, including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS).  The groups, who crossed crossed into Burkina Faso from neighbouring Mali, igniting ethnic and religious tensions, especially in northern regions.  Combining guerrilla hit-and-run tactics with road mines and suicide bombings, the fighters have killed nearly 600 people, according to a toll compiled by AFP. Civil society groups put the number at more than 1,000, with attacks taking place on almost a daily basis.  Almost 500,000 people have fled their homes because of the violence, according to the United Nations refugee agency, which has warned of a humanitarian crisis affecting 1.5 million people.  Almost 3,000 schools have closed, and the impact on an overwhelmingly rural economy is escalating, disrupting trade and markets. Last week, 20 people were killed in an attack by gunmen on a gold-mining site in the north.  Meanwhile, Burkina Faso's defence and security forces are badly-equipped, poorly trained and have shown themselves to be unable to put a halt to the increasing violence. France has a force of 200 in the country but also intervenes frequently as part of its regional Barkhane operation.  Although hit by violence, many Burkinabes oppose the presence of foreign troops on their territory.  On Saturday, a crowd of about 1,000 people marched in the capital Ouagadougou "to denounce terrorism and the presence of foreign military bases in Africa".  "Terrorism has now become an ideal pretext for installing foreign military bases in our country," Gabin Korbeogo, one of co-organisers of the march told AFP.  "The French, American, Canadian, German and other armies have set foot in our sub-region, saying they want to fight terrorism. But despite this massive presence... the terrorist groups... are growing stronger."