Headlines

• Germany's Anti-Islam Pegida Makes Surprise Gains in First Election Bid

• Tony Abbott Using Citizenship Debate to Win Next Election

• Obama: US Strategy on Iraq Not Yet Complete

• Pakistan to Provide $5m Food Grant to Rohingya Camps

Details

Germany's Anti-Islam Pegida Makes Surprise Gains in First Election Bid

Germany’s anti-Islam Pegida movement took nearly 10% of the vote in mayoral elections in its eastern stronghold of Dresden on Sunday, a better-than-expected result for a group whose weekly demonstrations have steadily dwindled. In Pegida’s first appearance at the ballot box, candidate Tatjana Festerling came fourth in the city’s polls with 9.6% of the vote. The only opinion poll published ahead of the election, by the Technical University of Dresden, had predicted she would secure between just 1-2% of votes. The surprisingly strong showing is likely to be hailed as a success by Pegida, which stands for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident and at its height brought up to 25,000 people onto the streets of Dresden.

The group, founded late last year, has also been weakened in recent months by internal strife and scandal among its leaders, yet it still managed to spur Pegida clones in other cities, while also sparking often far bigger counter-protests. In her campaign speeches, 51-year-old Festerling called for a “renaissance” of German culture and condemned asylum seekers who have “left family and home because here there’s somewhere nice to live and you get dough from the state”. [Souce: The Guardian]

Given Europe’s deep hostility towards Islam and the constant demonization of Muslims living in the West, is it really a surprise to find Islam-bashing parties gaining popularity in Germany and other European countries?

Tony Abbott Using Citizenship Debate to Win Next Election

A Muslim community leader has accused Tony Abbott of using the citizenship discussion like the “reds under the bed” communist debate of the 1950s in order to win the next election. Silma Ihram, of the Australian Muslim Women’s Association, has also warned that some Muslim Australians could end up like the Rohingya people of Burma, left stateless or “shipped off to Cambodia”. She has joined the growing chorus of criticism by some government ministers and backbenchers, legal experts and community groups, over attempts to increase executive powers to revoke citizenship of suspected terrorists. Ihram told Guardian Australia that some Australian Muslims feel “numbed by the progress and speed of the government” on national security laws, such as the measure to strip the Australian citizenship from dual nationals suspected of terrorist offences on the approval of the minister rather than the courts. After a bruising cabinet discussion on the citizenship issue was leaked to the media, the Abbott government is still considering stripping sole citizens suspected of terrorist offences if they can potentially access citizenship elsewhere. The measure is contained in a discussion paper on the rights and responsibilities of Australian citizenship and 40 government backbenchers have signed a letter of support to the prime minister, as long as such a measure does not leave anybody stateless.

However one of those backbenchers, Queensland Liberal MP Ewen Jones, told the ABC on Monday he was disturbed by the level of racist hate mail he had received that was directed at Muslims. “I am very, very worried about the latent, for want of a better term, racism, that we are seeing in the country when it comes to our Muslim population,” he said. “I’m still getting people sending me stuff saying, ‘what about these bloody Muslims’ and you go back to them and say ‘you know that’s a false story’.” [Source: The Guardian]

The Australian government is the latest Western government to re-institute the Spanish Inquisitor model of mass expulsions by taking the first step of intentionally leaking details about revoking citizenship of Australian Muslims

Obama: US Strategy on Iraq Not Yet Complete

The US does not yet have a "complete strategy" for helping Iraq regain territory from Islamic State (IS), President Barack Obama has said. He said the Pentagon was reviewing ways to help Iraq train and equip its forces. But Mr Obama said a full commitment to the process was needed by the Iraqis themselves. He had earlier met Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Germany. IS has recently made gains in Iraq despite US-led coalition air strikes. In May the militants seized Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, Iraq's largest province, as well as the Syrian town of Tadmur and the neighbouring ancient ruins of Palmyra. US officials cited a lack of training as a major factor in the fall of Ramadi. But Mr Obama said that the 3,000 US service personnel in Iraq sometimes found themselves with "more training capacity than we've got recruits". "We don't have, yet, a complete strategy, because it requires commitments on the part of Iraqis as well about how recruitment takes place, how that training takes place," Mr Obama told a news conference. [Source: BBC]

Once again, Obama’s administration is concealing its nefarious ambitions behind the term “lack of strategy” to use ISIL to accelerate the division of Iraq along ethnic lines. Complicit with America in this crime are regional countries such as Turkey, Iran and the GCC that provide clandestine support to different groups to fan the flames of sectarianism.

Pakistan to Provide $5m Food Grant to Rohingya Camps

A Cabinet committee formed to tackle issues over the plight of Rohingya Muslims has decided on a $5 million grant in the form of food to be channeled through the World Food Program for distribution in Rohingya camps in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Pakistan will also appeal to the United Nations to impress upon the Myanmar government to grant Rohingya Muslims equal citizenship rights and ensure the protection of the oppressed minority community. Recommendations to intensify diplomatic efforts in this regard were made by the special committee— comprising Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs and National Security Sartaj Aziz and Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Tariq Fatmi— which were approved by PM Nawaz Sharif. In addition, Pakistan will propose the establishment of a three-member committee of OIC foreign ministers who will travel to Myanmar in order to impress upon the Myanmar government to restore fundamental rights of the Rohingya community so they can live peacefully without fear of persecution. Nisar vehemently pleaded the case of the Rohingya Muslims and raised the issue twice during the last two cabinet meetings. The plight of the Rohingya evoked immediate response from the prime minister and cabinet members and it was decided that a committee led by the interior minister would be constituted to chalk out an effective response to the issue. [Source: The Dawn]

Instead of the paltry $5m, the Pakistani government should severe all links with Myanmar and militarily intervene to provide peace and security to Rohingyan Muslims.