Sri Lanka: Buddhist monk jailed for inciting violence against Muslims

August 8, 2018 Article

A Sri Lankan court on Wednesday handed a six-year jail term to a Buddhist monk accused of inciting violence against Muslims, holding him guilty of contempt just months after he was convicted of intimidating the wife of a missing journalist.

The monk, Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara, leads the hardline Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) or “Buddhist Power Force”, which government ministers and Muslims have accused of stirring up violence against Muslims and Christians, allegations he has denied.

The court sentenced him to six years’ rigorous imprisonment over a 2016 incident when Gnanasara interrupted a court hearing on the abduction of the journalist, Prageeth Eknaligoda, in which military intelligence officials were accused.

He shouted at the judge and lawyers because the military officials had not been given bail, and threatened Eknaligoda’s wife.

“The convict intentionally committed the offence to undermine the judiciary,” Preethi Padman Surasena, the president of the court of appeal, said in delivering Wednesday’s judgment, adding, “Found guilty of all charges beyond reasonable doubt.”

The monk was convicted on four counts of contempt of court, receiving terms of four years each on the first and the second counts, six years on the third and five for the fourth, all to run concurrently.

A BBS official told Reuters the group would appeal against Wednesday’s ruling.

“We feel there is an attempt by interested parties to have judicial process targeting Gnanasara, therefore, though we do not agree with the judgment, we accept the sentence, and we will appeal,” said Dilantha Vithanage, the group’s chief executive.

Gnanasara, who is being treated in hospital for an ailment, was not in court for the ruling. He has been on bail since filing an appeal against a conviction in a separate case on June 14.

In that case, he received two concurrent jail terms of six months, a fine of 1,500 rupees ($9.39), and a compensation payment of 50,000 rupees ($313) for having threatened the journalist’s wife, Sandhya Eknaligoda.

Since 2014, the monk has faced accusations in cases regarding anti-Muslim violence, hate speech, and defaming the Koran, the Muslim holy book.

That year Gnanasara signed a pact with Myanmar’s Ashin Wirathu, who once described himself as “the Burmese bin Laden”, in what the duo called a bid to counter regional conversion efforts by Islamists.

($1=159.7000 Sri Lankan rupees)

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Categories: anti-Muslim hatred, anti-Muslim violence, Buddhism, Buddhist monk, hate crime, inciting violence, News, Sri Lanka

EU’s top court backs copyright holder in landmark ruling

August 8, 2018 Article

Users who publish content freely available on the Internet should get consent from the person behind it, Europe’s top court ruled on Tuesday in a boost to the bloc’s creative industries.

Regulators say they lose out because illegal uploads of works on big online platforms such as Google’s YouTube and Vivendi’s video-sharing site Dailymotion deny publishers, broadcasters and artists of revenues.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) ruling came after a secondary school student in Germany downloaded a photograph of Cordoba from a travel website to illustrate a presentation which was then published on the school website.

Photographer Dirk Renckhoff then sued the city of Waltrop and North Rhine-Westphalia for copyright infringement and 400 euros in damages. A German court then sought guidance from the Luxembourg-based ECJ, which went against a non-binding opinion from its adviser four months ago.

“The posting on a website of a photograph that was freely accessible on another website with the consent of the author requires a new authorisation by that author,” judges said.

“By posting on the internet, the photograph is made available to a new public,” they said.

Judges said posting a work online was different from hyperlinks which lead users to another website and thus contribute to the smooth functioning of the internet.

“Subject to the exceptions and limitations laid down exhaustively in that directive, any use of a work by a third party without such prior consent must be regarded as infringing the copyright of that work,” the court said, referring to EU copyright legislation.

The ruling could result in a rash of litigation as artists assert their rights, said Nils Rauer, a partner at Frankfurt-based Hogan Lovells.

“The idea is that we as a society should appreciate and protect copyrighted works. The overall intention of the Commission, European Parliament and the court is to create respect for copyright,” he added.

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Categories: copyright, copyright infringement, court, Court of Justice of the European Union, creative industries, creatives, damages, download, ECJ, Google, Internet, News, platforms, posting, regulation, websites, Youtube

Indian atheist and outspoken crusader for social justice Karunanidhi dies

August 8, 2018 Article

Muthuvel Karunanidhi, five-time chief minister of India’s Tamil Nadu state and one of the dominant figures in the politics of southern India for half a century, died on Tuesday at the age of 94.

An outspoken atheist in a country where politicians often trumpet their piety, Karunanidhi built his political machine as a crusader for social justice, with policies aimed at helping those at the bottom of India’s rigid Hindu caste hierarchy.

Thousands of his supporters were gathered outside the hospital in state capital Chennai to mourn his demise, as scores of policemen kept watch. Roads outside the hospital and at Karunanidhi’s residence were packed with people.

Karunanidhi, who led his party Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) for about 50 years, had been treated in hospital since July 26 for age-related ailments including urinary tract infections.

His death comes less than two years after that of his bitter rival, actress-turned politician J Jayalalithaa, leaving a political void in the state.

“His understanding of policy and emphasis on social welfare stood out,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted following the veteran’s demise.

India’s two national parties, Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Congress, have little presence in Tamil Nadu, a state of nearly 70 million people where politics have been dominated by the DMK and Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK.

Karunanidhi, who always appeared in public with dark glasses and a yellow shawl draped on a shoulder, built his career fighting oppression by Brahmins, a priestly community at the top of the Hindu caste system.

He criticised organised religion and superstition and was known for his sharp wit, command of the Tamil language, and populist schemes for those at the bottom of society.

Supporters on Twitter reminisced about how his scheme to offer free education to first-generation graduates had helped them. The iconoclastic leader also tried to install non-Brahmins as priests in temples.

He was known for drawing foreign investors to India’s second largest state economy, and oversaw the state becoming an industrial powerhouse, credited with opening many industrial and technology parks.

Karunanidhi, who wrote scripts for Tamil cinema before entering politics, faced allegations of corruption and nepotism. Many of his close family members served as lawmakers and his son M. K. Stalin is his de facto successor.

In one case involving an alleged loss to the state over construction of a bridge, police dragged Karunanidhi out of his home after midnight.

Pictures of the dishevelled politician made it to the nation’s television screens, but police were not able to produce enough evidence and charges were dropped. He blamed the raid on his opponent Jayalalithaa who also faced allegations of graft and was found guilty of corruption after her death.

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Categories: atheism, India, Karunanidhi, Muthuvel Karunanidhi, News, social justice, Tamil

Kenya: U.S. marks 20 years since al Qaeda’s first major attack

August 8, 2018 Article

The U.S. ambassador joined a ceremony in Nairobi on Tuesday to commemorate 20 years since truck bombs hit the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 258 people and marking the start of al Qaeda’s global campaign of violence.

Some 200 Kenyans and Americans, many of them survivors of the attack, gathered at Nairobi’s August 7th Memorial Park to pray and remember the victims.

“We forgive those who hurt us, but we may not forget. Let’s pray for them to change their mind so that we can live happily together,” said Thaddeus Mutiiria Nyaga, whose son, Emmanuel, was killed on Aug. 7. His name was read out along with those of the other victims, as candles were lit during the ceremony.

The blasts killed 12 Americans, and wounded several thousand people in what was al Qaeda’s first big attack in a campaign by the Islamist militants.

Three years later, the group would conduct its most notorious attack, flying passenger planes into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing some 3,000 people.

“The terrorists really sought to divide us. They sought to divide Kenyans and Americans. They sought to attack civilization. And they failed,” U.S. Ambassador Robert Godec said at the ceremony.

Kenya’s director of counter-terrorism, Martin Kimani, said terrorism remained a threat, “but our country has taken giant strides to prepare better to be more ready, and part of that readiness is our cooperation with our friends”.

In 2013, gunmen from the Somali militant group al-Shabaab, an al Qaeda affiliate, killed at least 67 people inside a shopping mall and held out for four days as security forces laid siege to the complex.

Kenyan troops are fighting in neighbouring Somalia against al-Shabaab as part of an African Union peacekeeping force that has been deployed there for more than a decade.

Mourner Ali Mwadama said militants who say they kill in the name of religion do not represent Islam or any faith.

“We can’t call them Muslims,” he said. “If you are a Muslim you must follow the rules of Allah.”

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Categories: Al Qaeda, Islamism, Kenya, Nairobi, News, terrorism, terrorist attack, United States, US