Headlines:
• UK: Conservative Party Candidate Quits Over Anti-Islamic Tweets
• Egypt’s Al Sisi: Muslim Brotherhood Is Finished
• FBI Agent Arrested in Pakistan on Weapons Charge
• Dozens of Muslims killed in Ethnic Violence in North-East India
UK: Conservative Party Candidate Quits Over Anti-Islamic Tweets
A Conservative council candidate has resigned from the party with immediate effect after posting anti-Islamic comments on Twitter. David Bishop, a candidate in Brentwood South, Essex, apologised after retweeting messages, including one that claimed Islam was the religion of rape. “I have let myself and my party down,” Mr Bishop said in a statement. It comes after a UKIP council candidate, who tweeted that Islam was “evil”, was suspended from the party. In a statement, Mr Bishop apologised “for the real offence caused” and said he would “not be asking anyone to vote for me on May 22″.”I recognise that someone standing for public office should show leadership and seek to unite communities, not divide them. I hope the residents of Brentwood South can forgive my lack of judgement in time,” he said. John Kerslake, chairman of Brentwood and Ongar Conservatives said the matter had been dealt with “swiftly and conclusively in the best interest of Brentwood and the party”. Louise McKinlay, group leader of Brentwood Conservatives, added that Mr Bishop’s views had “no place in our team”. Mr Bishop’s resignation comes as UKIP council candidate, Harry Perry, who was seeking election in the Offerton ward in Stockport, was suspended by the party on Friday after tweeting that Islam was “evil” and homosexuality was an “abomination”. [Source: BBC]
This is a plain warning to those Muslims who are eager to join the conservative party and somehow think that Islam will not be targeted. Allah says in the Quran:
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ لاَ تَتَّخِذُواْ بِطَانَةً مِّن دُونِكُمْ لاَ يَأْلُونَكُمْ خَبَالاً وَدُّواْ مَا عَنِتُّمْ قَدْ بَدَتِ الْبَغْضَاء مِنْ أَفْوَاهِهِمْ وَمَا تُخْفِي صُدُورُهُمْ أَكْبَرُ قَدْ بَيَّنَّا لَكُمُ الآيَاتِ إِن كُنتُمْ تَعْقِلُونَ
“Oh you who have Iman! Take not for intimates others than your own folk, who would spare no pains to ruin you; they love to hamper you. Hatred is revealed by (the utterance of) their mouths, but that which their breasts hide is greater. We have made plain for you the revelations if ye will understand. We have made plain for you the revelations if you will understand”
(Al-Imran: 118)
Egypt’s Al Sisi: Muslim Brotherhood Is Finished
Egyptian presidential favourite Abdel Fattah al Sisi, who ousted the country’s Islamist leader Mohamed Morsi from power, has said the Muslim Brotherhood is “finished”. Speaking in his first television interview of his electoral campaign, he said, “I want to tell you that it is not me that finished (the Brotherhood). You, the Egyptians, are the ones who finished it.” The country has been in turmoil for much of the past three years. Mass protests got rid of autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and elections followed a year later. The only other candidate in the presidential race, Hamdeen Sabahi. Mr Morsi assumed office as Egypt’s first freely elected and civilian president. But he was in office for little more than a year when he too was removed. Since then the military-backed interim government has waged a crackdown on his Muslim Brotherhood party, declaring it a terrorist group – a claim which it denies. And Mr al Sisi repeated the allegations during Monday’s broadcast, accusing the Brotherhood of links to violent militant groups. The 59-year-old former head of the army, who is expected to win the May 26-27 poll, also revealed two plots to assassinate him had been uncovered. Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands arrested since the Muslim Brotherhood was banned. Last week, a judge sentenced the group’s spiritual leader, Mohammed Badie, and 682 supporters to death in a mass trial. [Source: Sky News]
Egypt has a long history of depot rulers who take pride in subduing Islam only to discover later to their horror how political Islam returns to undermine their rule. Sisi should remember that Islam flows in the veins of the Egyptian people and it is only a matter of time before the people will rise up and remove the tyrant.
FBI Agent Arrested in Pakistan on Weapons Charge
On Tuesday, he appeared in court on charges that he had violated local anti-terrorism laws that prohibit the carrying of weapons or ammunition on a commercial flight. A judge ordered that the agent be detained until at least Saturday so Pakistani security officials can investigate the matter. The American’s arrest was news across Pakistan, and one television station aired footage of the agent sitting in a jail cell in Karachi, the country’s largest city and one of its most dangerous. U.S. officials in Washington confirmed that the agent, who is assigned to the FBI Miami Field Office, was in Pakistan on temporary duty. They requested that the agent’s name be withheld, citing the sensitivity of the situation. A U.S. official with knowledge of the case said the agent was unarmed and had apparently forgotten about the loaded magazine in his bag. The agent was in Pakistan as part of a multi-agency effort to help the Pakistanis investigate corruption, the official said. Reached by phone, the agent’s father said his son was scheduled to be in Pakistan for about three months for “office-type work” with “a non-FBI-type” entity. An FBI spokesman in Miami referred questions about the arrest to the State Department. Meghan Gregonis, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, said U.S. officials are working to resolve the matter. “We are aware of the reports, and we are coordinating closely with Pakistani authorities on the matter,” Gregonis said. [Source: Washington Post]
Will the Pakistani government demonstrate its sincerity in punishing another Raymond Davis operative caught red handed? Or are the terror laws only applicable to innocent Pakistanis who work for the return of Islam and oppose America’s war on Pakistan. Dr Ismail Sheikh and Naveed Butt are two noble dawah carriers who have been hounded and abducted by the Pakistani authorities, whilst Raymond Davis operatives are free to roam the country and cause mayhem.
Dozens of Muslims killed in Ethnic Violence in North-East India
Nearly 30 Muslims have been killed and houses burned in the worst outbreak of ethnic violence in the remote north-eastern region of India in two years, officials have said. Police arrested 22 people after authorities called in the army to restore order in Assam state and imposed an indefinite curfew in the wake of the 29 deaths. They have been blamed on rebels from the Bodo ethnic group, who have long accused Muslim residents of coming into India illegally from neighbouring Bangladesh. A state minister for border areas, Siddique Ahmed, said after visiting the affected areas that his government and the ruling Congress party had failed to protect the victims, who included at least eight women and as many children. “Even two-year-old children who could barely walk have been shot dead. I have never witnessed such scenes in my life,” he told reporters. Police said they had arrested 22 people who allegedly burned homes or provided shelter to the insurgents, according to the regional police inspector general, LR Bishnoi. He said the rebels belong to a faction of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, which has been fighting for a separate homeland for the ethnic Bodo people for decades. The Bodos are an indigenous group in Assam, making up 10% of the state’s 33 million people. However, in an email to reporters on Saturday the rebel faction denied the charge and blamed the killings on the state government. The violence came at a time of heightened security during India’s general election, with voting taking place over six weeks. Tensions have been high since a Bodo politician in India’s parliament criticised Muslims for not voting for the Bodo candidate, said Lafikul Islam Ahmed, leader of a Muslim youth organisation called the All Bodoland Muslim Students’ Union. [Source: The Guardian]
It is open season against Muslims across the world. Remote areas with Muslim populations are now routinely targeted by bigots who despise Islam. Burma, Central African Republic and now Assam; what is next we wonder? The messenger of Allah سبحانه وتعالى said:
إِنَّمَا الْإِمَامُ جُنَّةٌ يُقَاتَلُ مِنْ وَرَائِهِ وَيُتَّقَى بِهِ، فَإِنْ أَمَرَ بِتَقْوَى اللَّهِ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ، وَعَدَلَ كَانَ لَهُ بِذَلِكَ أَجْرٌ، وَإِنْ يَأْمُرْ بِغَيْرِهِ كَانَ عَلَيْهِ مِنْهُ
“Only the Imam is a shield, behind whom you fight and you protect yourself with, so if he orders by taqwa and is just then he has reward for that, and if he orders by other than that then it is against himself.” [Muslim]