Trump says to host India’s Modi for U.S. visit later this year – White House

January 25, 2017 Article

U.S. President Donald Trump invited Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit the United States later this year, during a phone call on Tuesday in which the leaders discussed economic and defence cooperation.

In its readout of the conversation, the White House said the two leaders also discussed security in South and Central Asia. The region includes Afghanistan, where U.S. troops are still battling Taliban militants, and Pakistan.

The two leaders “resolved that the United States and India stand shoulder to shoulder in the global fight against terrorism,” according to the readout that was posted on the White House website.

Tweeting from his personal account, Modi said his conversation with Trump had been “warm”, and that they would work closely in the coming days to further strengthen bilateral ties. He also invited Trump to visit India.

The U.S.-India relationship has flourished of late and New Delhi is hopeful that this will continue under Trump, who courted the votes of the Indian diaspora in his presidential run.

Trump’s pledge to ban immigration by Muslims from countries he says harbour Islamic militants has also played well among Modi’s Hindu-nationalist base, which is hostile to Pakistan.

There are concerns, though, that Trump may pull back the U.S. security umbrella from the region, exposing India to a rising China. His tough line on immigration and “America First” jobs policy could make it tougher for India’s information technology sector to send staff to the U.S. to do project work.

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Categories: Hindu Nationalist base, India, Modi, News, terrorism, Trump, Visit to the US, White House

Trump’s Presidency Must be a Presidency for All

January 20, 2017 Article

It is not just Muslims living in the US who are apprehensive about the future. Hispanic, LGBT, Jewish and other groups have also raised their fears about a Trump presidency though, there are some within these communities who have joined the Trump bandwagon. Of those who have engaged with Trump’s campaigns and administration, they do so knowing that Trump has no political experience since he has never held political office, yet he has got this far and that cannot be brushed aside.

What is clear is that Trump’s future is based on being a President for all communities and he cannot be seen to be partisan and divisive, which is easy to say, giving his penchant for 140 characters on Twitter and statements that have reduced trust in him from some minority groups, whilst lambasting mainstream press agencies in the US. His recent outburst at CNN for promoting ‘fake news’ left many aghast and showed a combative approach that does not instil and build confidence on a wider level. The more Trump is seen to be aggressive on camera, the greater the polarisation of opinions about him, not only in the US, but across the globe. This is not good for national stability and instability means that community tensions will come out to the foreground.

Nor can we simply write off Trump as someone who simply tapped into disaffection to win the Presidency. His ability to ‘speak to’ and play on the fears of marginalised white (and other) communities in the US, means that he has a base and an audience which he can rally when he wants and particularly when Trump can’t get his own way.

The next four years will certainly be turbulent, yet they will also be exciting. There is, however, one thing we can be certain of. America will continue to be divided along lines of race, economic deprivation and social exclusion. If Trump can reduce the impacts of the last two, he can start to try and address the deep racial divides that coarse within rural America. These are fault-lines that seem intractable, but with vision, energy, a willingness to listen and reaching out to communities, anything can be overcome.

So its “goodbye Obama” and “hello Trump”.

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Categories: CNN, Fake News, Hispanics, News, President, Trump

‘Draconian’ EU security laws target Muslims – Amnesty International

January 17, 2017 Article

A raft of new counterterrorism laws across Europe discriminate against Muslims and refugees, spreading fear and alienation, Amnesty International said in a report on Tuesday.

The human rights group sounded the alarm over security measures adopted over the past two years in 14 EU nations, including expanded surveillance powers. During that period, militant attacks have killed some 280 people in France, Belgium and Germany.

The attacks, mostly claimed by the Islamic State group, have fanned tensions over immigration, fuelled the popularity of right-wing parties and made security a key theme in upcoming French, Dutch and German elections.

“Right across the EU regional space we see Muslims and foreigners being equated with terrorists,” said Julia Hall, an Amnesty International expert on counterterrorism and author of the report. “This stereotyping so disproportionately affects these communities that there is a high degree of fear and alienation.”

She warned that “draconian” surveillance measures and powers of search, detention and arrest like those introduced in France since November 2015, when attacks killed 130 people, could be abused to target activists or minority groups that did not pose a genuine threat.

Amnesty is critical of a European Union draft law, to be adopted this year, that seeks to punish people for travelling or planning to travel to join a terrorist group. It says the wording of the law is unclear and it casts too wide a net.

A European Commission spokeswoman rejected Amnesty’s criticism and said the EU would closely monitor for potential abuses in the bloc’s 28 member states.

EU Security Commissioner Julian King said he agreed with the report that fundamental rights must not be put at risk. “That is what the terrorists are attacking,” he said on Twitter.

APOLOGISTS

New measures to crack down on glorifying or being an apologist for terrorism, Amnesty said, were shrinking the space for freedom of expression. In France in 2015, a third of more than 380 people prosecuted for apologising for terrorism were minors, it said.

The rights group condemned what it dubbed the “Orwellian” use of curfews, travel restrictions and police check-ins to monitor individuals who were not convicted of crimes and often did not know what they were accused of.

Hall criticised what she described as “governments looking at a person and saying: ‘You look very suspicious to me. So I’m going to restrict your behaviour because I think you might commit a crime.’”

France this month paid tribute to 17 people killed two years ago by Islamist militants in three days of violence that began with an attack on satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

Among other major attacks, suicide bombings in Brussels last March killed 32 people, and a Tunisian man mowed down 86 by driving a truck through a Bastille Day crowd in July in the French city of Nice. Another truck attack killed 12 in Berlin last month.

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Categories: Amnesty International, Brussels, EU Security Laws, European Commission, News, terrorism

Myanmar, Bangladesh agree to start talks on Rohingya refugees

January 12, 2017 Article

Myanmar has agreed to begin talks with Bangladesh over an estimated 65,000 Rohingya Muslims who have fled Myanmar’s northwestern Rakhine State since attacks on border posts three months ago, a senior Myanmar official said on Thursday.

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi dispatched a special envoy to Dhaka this week in a thaw in the troubled relations between the neighbours, who each see the stateless Rohingya as the other’s problem.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told Suu Kyi’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Kyaw Tin on Wednesday that Myanmar must accept back all “Myanmar nationals” in Bangladesh, the Bangladeshi premier’s spokesman said.

Aye Aye Soe, director general of Myanmar’s foreign affairs ministry, said the two countries would start discussions on an “identification and verification process”.

“If they find they are from Myanmar, they will be repatriated at the appropriate time,” she said, adding there was “no timeline” for the talks.

The agreement marks a rare bright spot in the two countries’ bilateral relations, which are complicated by as many as 500,000 Rohingyas living in Bangladesh after fleeing decades of persecution in Myanmar.

The United Nations says about 65,000 more people have fled the Muslim-majority northern part of Rakhine to Bangladesh since attacks that killed nine Myanmar border police on Oct. 9, sparking a heavy-handed security response.

Residents and refugees say Myanmar troops and police have carried out beatings, sexual assaults and extrajudicial killings, arbitrarily arrested villagers and set fire to homes. Myanmar has denied almost all the allegations.

The crisis has raised concerns from diplomats and human rights advocates that Myanmar’s military remains unaccountable, despite a Suu Kyi-led civilian government taking power more than nine months ago.

DENIED CITIZENSHIP

A quick resolution seems unlikely as many in Buddhist-majority Myanmar see the Rohingya – whom they call “Bengalis” – as interlopers not deserving of citizenship, despite some tracing their lineage inside Myanmar’s borders back centuries.

Officials in Bangladesh, where the Rohingya are also not accepted, refer to “Muslim nationals of Myanmar”.

“If they are Myanmar nationals they will be repatriated here,” said Myanmar’s Aye Aye Soe.

Asked what the term “Myanmar nationals” referred to, she said: “It could be citizens or it could be people from Myanmar side.”

Aye Aye Soe restated Myanmar’s position after a previous verification process that only 2,415 of those living in Bangladesh from past exoduses were from Myanmar.

The new talks will focus on those who have arrived in Bangladesh since the recent bout of violence, she added.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali said that, with the Myanmar delegation’s visit, the repatriation process was “heading towards the next step, quite evidently.”

While keeping relations with Myanmar “friendly,” Bangladesh’s government wants the Rohingya out of its border area so tourism can develop there, he told reporters on Thursday.

“We want to see them leave Bangladesh quickly,” Mahmood Ali added.

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Categories: Bangladesh, Citizenship, Myanmar, News, Persecution, Rakhine State, Rohingya

Former Porn Star Jenna Jameson’s Rants on Muslims and Islam

January 5, 2017 Article

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Jenna Jameson has built a following through her work in the porn industry in the United States and has over 650,000 Twitter followers apart from other social media reach outlets. Known in the porn industry and a household name to many men watching their TV screens late at night whilst their partners were asleep, Jameson remains someone who has influence through her marketability and through her brand.

Yesterday though, she took to the Twitter airwaves to show a mindset that is polarised in opinions about Muslims. She promoted the classic anti-Muslim rhetoric and ideology of ‘Islamic taqiyya’ that we have highlighted before on this site. She also conflated the Islamic State’s ‘End of Days’ rhetoric with peaceful Muslims living their lives across the globe, showing how skewed her thinking has become. 

In one of her tweets Jameson signs of with:

“I’m sorry you follow an ideology that promotes child rape, female genital mutilation, butchering non-believers and polygamy.”

Anti-Muslim bigotry is promoted widely through the comments and statements of well-known individuals as some people who follow or connect with them may have a tendency to believe what they are saying because of a form of reverence to these ‘stars’ – whether in the film industry or, dare we say it, the porn industry. Jameson is a classic example of someone who believes in ‘them and us’. Sadly, she conflates ‘them’ with all Muslims and not with cults like IS who have also murdered tens of thousands of Muslims in their wake.

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Categories: Jenna Jameson, News, Porn Star, US

San Bernardino marks one-year anniversary of shooting that killed 14

December 2, 2016 Article

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Police and fire officials in Southern California who dealt with the carnage of a mass shooting by Islamic militants that left 14 people dead will mark the one-year anniversary on Friday of the attack that shook even the most hardened emergency responders.

The massacre on Dec. 2, 2015, in San Bernardino by a married couple was one of the deadliest attacks by militants in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks.

Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, opened fire during a party and training session for San Bernardino County employees, who were Farook’s co-workers, wounding 22 people in addition to the 14 killed.

Law enforcement officers look over the evidence near the remains of a SUV involved in the Wednesdays attack is shown in San Bernardino, California December 3, 2015. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo

Law enforcement officers look over the evidence near the remains of a SUV involved in the Wednesdays attack is shown in San Bernardino, California December 3, 2015. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo

Police officers were stunned as they entered the conference room where Farook and Malik had fired on dozens of people, according to a report issued this year by the Police Foundation, which spoke to emergency responders and witnesses.

“It looked like a bomb had gone off,” the report said, with blood covering the room and the smell of gunpowder filling the air.

On Friday, the victims will be remembered with a ceremony at a San Bernardino blood bank, a 14-mile (23 km) bicycle ride – representing one mile for each person killed – and a moment of silence.

The ceremony at the blood bank will be attended by officials and emergency responders, and residents are expected to line up to donate blood. The bike ride by police officers and others will be held a short time later, organizers said.

The moment of silence will be held at 10:58 a.m., the time when the shooting was reported to emergency responders, San Bernardino city spokeswoman Monica Lagos said.

In the evening, another local event is expected to draw at least 2,000 participants to an arena, she said.

Authorities have said that U.S.-born Farook and Malik, a native of Pakistan, were inspired by Islamic extremism. The couple died in a shootout with police four hours after the massacre.

A special report this week by ABC News showed a photo of the gathering the couple had targeted, which included elements of a holiday party such as a Christmas tree and costumes.

San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan told ABC News that Malik had previously expressed discontent with the party.

“She had essentially made the statement in an online account that she didn’t think that a Muslim (her husband) should have to participate in a non-Muslim holiday or event,” Burguan told ABC News.

The post San Bernardino marks one-year anniversary of shooting that killed 14 appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: Farooq, Islamic extremism, Malik, News, San Bernardino, Southern California

San Bernardino marks one-year anniversary of shooting that killed 14

December 2, 2016 Article

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Police and fire officials in Southern California who dealt with the carnage of a mass shooting by Islamic militants that left 14 people dead will mark the one-year anniversary on Friday of the attack that shook even the most hardened emergency responders.

The massacre on Dec. 2, 2015, in San Bernardino by a married couple was one of the deadliest attacks by militants in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks.

Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, opened fire during a party and training session for San Bernardino County employees, who were Farook’s co-workers, wounding 22 people in addition to the 14 killed.

Law enforcement officers look over the evidence near the remains of a SUV involved in the Wednesdays attack is shown in San Bernardino, California December 3, 2015. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo

Law enforcement officers look over the evidence near the remains of a SUV involved in the Wednesdays attack is shown in San Bernardino, California December 3, 2015. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo

Police officers were stunned as they entered the conference room where Farook and Malik had fired on dozens of people, according to a report issued this year by the Police Foundation, which spoke to emergency responders and witnesses.

“It looked like a bomb had gone off,” the report said, with blood covering the room and the smell of gunpowder filling the air.

On Friday, the victims will be remembered with a ceremony at a San Bernardino blood bank, a 14-mile (23 km) bicycle ride – representing one mile for each person killed – and a moment of silence.

The ceremony at the blood bank will be attended by officials and emergency responders, and residents are expected to line up to donate blood. The bike ride by police officers and others will be held a short time later, organizers said.

The moment of silence will be held at 10:58 a.m., the time when the shooting was reported to emergency responders, San Bernardino city spokeswoman Monica Lagos said.

In the evening, another local event is expected to draw at least 2,000 participants to an arena, she said.

Authorities have said that U.S.-born Farook and Malik, a native of Pakistan, were inspired by Islamic extremism. The couple died in a shootout with police four hours after the massacre.

A special report this week by ABC News showed a photo of the gathering the couple had targeted, which included elements of a holiday party such as a Christmas tree and costumes.

San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan told ABC News that Malik had previously expressed discontent with the party.

“She had essentially made the statement in an online account that she didn’t think that a Muslim (her husband) should have to participate in a non-Muslim holiday or event,” Burguan told ABC News.

The post San Bernardino marks one-year anniversary of shooting that killed 14 appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: Farooq, Islamic extremism, News, San Bernardino, Southern California

Holocaust Museum in the United States Accepts Righteous Muslims Exhibition Boards

November 30, 2016 Article

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We are pleased to announce that the Role of Righteous Muslims exhibition boards that Faith Matters put together as part of an educational drive for civil society organisations and schools, has been accepted by a Holocaust Museum in the United States.

The posters depict stories of Muslims who saved Jews in the Holocaust and the educational boards will be placed within the Holocaust Museum in the United States to ensure that people reflect on such stories and on the personal drives that led some Muslims to save the lives of Jews that they had lived, worked with or known.

We are pleased to add to the collection and exhibition of the museum in the United States and we would be happy to donate a further set to any Holocaust educational centre who thinks that they can add value to learning around the Holocaust. It is vital that all communities be exposed to learning about the greatest catastrophe to befit Jewish and other communities in modern history and how communities can be castigated and dehumanised within a short space of time.

The post Holocaust Museum in the United States Accepts Righteous Muslims Exhibition Boards appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: Educational Boards, Florida, Holocaust, Jews, Museum, News, Yad Vashem

Knights Templar International Facebook Page & Web-Site Are Extremely Concerning

November 28, 2016 Article
The Knights Templar International. Conspiracy Theories, Racial Superiority Dogmas & a Dose of Attracting anti-Semitic Followers

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The Knights Templar International Facebook site makes itself out to be a site that cares for the future of Europe whilst evoking images of Crusaders and in whipping up a sense of fear that things are going to get worse in Europe because of migration and migrants. In fact, ever few hours, the Facebook page posts up pictures of armour, Crusader imagery and swords.

A Facebook page that has over 400,000 Facebook likes, including from prominent ex-politicians, it’s ability to draw in anti-Semites through postings about George Soros and his ‘coup plot’ against Trump, can be seen below.

In response to a post from Knights Templar International, entitled, “Wake up! The storm is brewing“, the following sickening full-blown anti-Semitic posts can be seen:

“Pull out $oro$ gold teeth, shave his head. make him do manual labour put him in ditch blow his brains out. Make bars of soap and lampshades.”

Further investigation into the Facebook page shows that the page has been used to fundraise for material and surveillance material which has been sent to ‘Bulgarian volunteers’ supposedly defending their borders against pitiful migrants.The Facebook page no doubt invokes a Europe standing against those ‘invading’ Europe and the play on Crusader imagery and the polarised depictions of Muslims through the lens of extremism alone, provide further evidence of a Facebook page that sees Europe as an ethno and mono-cultural continent that needs ‘defending’.

How the surveillance material has been used and whether it has been used against migrants, we will not know, yet with a UK phone number for the Knights Templar International Facebook page, we are sure that the Government’s Extremism Analysis Unit would like to know more about this group and its activities within Europe.

Racial Demographics

Just when you thought that the Facebook page might not revert to race, it goes ahead and does that. On one of the posts, the term ‘Afrikaner’ emblazons a headline and demographics are brought into the discussion with the following title:

“Amerikaner Free State – demographics is destiny, so the USA is destined to break up!”

So, just in case you see an advertisement come by which plays to imagery of the Crusades and which suggests that Europe is under threat, there is a chance that it could be the Knights Templar International. We hope that it will not be, once we report this page to Facebook, but if you do come across it, just think of what is posted onto it. Would you really be comfortable your name being associated with this poisonous material?

Knights Templar International Cite Conspiracy Theories

                    Knights Templar International Cite Conspiracy Theories

 

Classic antiSemitic responses to posts about George Soros

          Classic vile antiSemitic responses to posts about George Soros

Racial Demographics on the Knights Templar Facebook site

                Racial Demographics on the Knights Templar Facebook site

 

Conspiracy galore on the Knights Templar International Facebook page: Trump win forms the basis for a few more years before 'minority' demographic growth leads to the break up of the US

Conspiracy galore on the Knights Templar International Facebook page: Trump win forms the basis for a few more years before ‘minority’ demographic growth leads to the break up of the US

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The post Knights Templar International Facebook Page & Web-Site Are Extremely Concerning appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Categories: Bulgaria, Facebook page, Far Right groups, Knights Templar International, News, refugees

Three California mosques receive hateful letters mentioning Trump

November 27, 2016 Article
President Elect Trump

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Hateful letters sent anonymously to three mosques in California with a warning that President-elect Donald Trump would “cleanse” the United States of Muslims have stirred fears among congregants, a community leader said on Saturday.

Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the letters were identical and were postmarked as being sent from Santa Clarita just north of Los Angeles.

Ayloush said his group is considering asking the Federal Bureau of Investigation to look into the letters, which he believes were sent to other mosques aside from the three that received them earlier this week.

Civil rights groups have signalled alarm over attacks targeting minorities, including Muslims, since Republican Trump won the presidential election on Nov. 8. There have also been reports of harassment toward Trump supporters.

The letters were sent earlier this week to the Islamic centres of Long Beach and Claremont in Southern California and to Evergreen Islamic Center in the Northern California city of San Jose, Ayloush said.

They are signed anonymously as “Americans for a Better Way” and say that Trump would “cleanse America and make it shine again” and would carry out a genocide against Muslims.

“You Muslims would be wise to pack your bags and get out of Dodge,” the letter said.

Ayloush said he has counselled the three mosques to work with their local police departments to have the letters investigated as hate crimes.

The San Jose Police Department in a statement said that, following a report about the letter, it sent officers to Evergreen Islamic Center on Thursday and that a unit that handles hate crime investigations will conduct the probe.

Trump’s name has been mentioned in some hateful graffiti markings that surfaced since his election.

A representative of Trump’s transition team could not be reached immediately for comment.

Last year, as a candidate in the Republican presidential primary, Trump called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. Trump this year pledged to suspend immigration from countries where Islamist militants are active but did not say he still wanted to ban all Muslims.

Following his election, Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, promised to be a president for all Americans.

CAIR has tallied more than 100 incidents targeting Muslims in the United States since Trump was elected.

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Categories: CAIR, California, Claremont, Cleanse, Hate Mail, Letters, Longbeach, mosques, News, POTUS, Trump, United States