NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT
"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with
power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams
(RFA) - The atheist ruling Chinese Communist Party has tightened restrictions on the practice of religion by its nearly 90 million members, as well as insisting that they show positive signs of loyalty to President Xi Jinping.
Newly revised "Regulations on Disciplinary Measures" issued on Aug. 26 require the party to "strictly deal with the use of religious activities to undermine national unity."
Party committees at every level, whether in government departments or major enterprises, must also "strengthen the ideological education of religious members."
"If this education hasn't helped, the member should be persuaded to quit the party," the rules say.
As well as forgoing religious practices, members are expected to demonstrate that they consciously support Xi Jinping as a "core leader," rather than simply nodding along with official propaganda, political analysts said.
"Anyone who vilifies the party or the national image, vilifies and defiles party and state leaders and heroes, or distorts the history of the party, the People's Republic of China, or the People's Liberation Army (PLA) must be punished," the directive says.
U.S.-based political analyst Gao Xin said the ruling party's regulations are the equivalent of criminal legislation.
"That means that if you don't consciously uphold the core position of Xi Jinping, you will have committed a disciplinary violation," Gao told RFA.
"Punishments range up to expulsion ... which is the equivalent of the death penalty in criminal law."
"So the fact that they have written this into the disciplinary regulations is a very different thing from just symbolic propaganda slogans [about the core leader]," he said.
"Xi Jinping requires the whole party and the whole country to bow down before him," Gao said.
He said the rules also mean that anyone questioning the official version of history will face sanctions.
"[The rules aren't saying] that you can't distort historical truth; they are saying that you're not allowed to distort the version of history approved by [the Communist Party]," Gao said.
I have always said that all nations have the right to exist behind secure borders. It is nice to see others are starting to come around.
(International Business Times) - The Dalai Lama, leader of Tibetan Buddhism, urged caution on the
migration crisis in Europe, saying Tuesday that there are "too many"
refugees in the European Union. His statement comes after recent weeks
have been fraught with Mediterranean rescues of migrants and
asylum-seekers attempting to cross into Europe from Northern Africa.
"When
we look at the face of each refugee, but especially those of the
children and women, we feel their suffering, and a human being who has a
better situation in life has the responsibility to help them. But on
the other hand, there are too many at
the moment," he said, Agence-France Presse reported. "Europe, Germany
in particular, cannot become an Arab country, Germany is Germany," he
added.
New mosques springing up in Germany
The Dalai Lama added that “from a moral point of view too, I think that the refugees should only be admitted temporarily”. “The goal should be that they return and help rebuild their countries.”
The spiritual leader, who himself has lived in exile for
nearly half a century, has long held somewhat temperate views on
Europe's responsibility to help a large asylum-seeking population. When
migration to Europe first began to surge in the summer of 2015, the
Dalai Lama applauded countries like Austria and Germany that had opened
their doors to refugees, while also pointing out the limits of a
nation's ability to provide services to thousands of additional people.
More than 1 million people sought asylum in Europe in 2015, with the
vast majority of them looking to settle in Northern European countries
like Germany and Sweden. Nearly all of the people who arrived in Europe
via smugglers' boats throughout the year were bona fide political
refugees, according to the United Nations, with around half of them
fleeing war-torn Syria.
Arrivals to Europe via Greece have dropped
this year, following a deal between the EU and Turkey stipulating that
all asylum-seekers risk be returned to Turkey upon arrival to Greece.
Meanwhile, at least 46,000 people have crossed into Italy from Northern
Africa, with many being rescued at sea and at least 700 having drowned in the past week alone.
The jihad in Thailand is only going to get worse. As America’s power in the world continues to diminish under Obama, the forces of evil are becoming more emboldened, brazen and savage. There is growing Muslim support for the Islamic State (IS) from South Asia to the Far East; four new jihadist groups are planning an Islamic caliphate comprising Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Southern Philippines. "Car bomb hits insurgency-plagued southern Thailand; 13 hurt,” Daily Star, February 20, 2015:
HAT YAI, Thailand: Suspected Muslim insurgents in southern Thailand Friday detonated a car bomb that wounded 13 people and damaged buildings, police said. Two other bombs were defused.
The bomb was hidden in a pickup truck that was parked in front of a karaoke bar in a commercial district in Narathiwat province, police Col. Manit Yimsaai said. He said the explosion wounded two soldiers and 11 civilians, one of them seriously.
Manit said the blast just after the lunch break also damaged rows of restaurants and shops in the predominantly Buddhist neighborhood.
He said the pickup was reported to have been stolen on Thailand’s southern border with Malaysia and had been used in a previous rebel attack.
Suspected militants also threw a pipe bomb at a restaurant 50 meters from the first explosion, but the improvised device did not go off and was defused, police said.
Manit said an explosive ordnance disposal unit used water canon to successfully destroy another explosive device hidden in a motorcycle in front of a nearby grocery store.
Narathiwat is one of the three Muslim-majority southern provinces in Buddhist-dominated Thailand.
More than 5,000 people have been killed in the region since an Islamic insurgency erupted in 2004.
In the 30-minute visit, Obama, who wore a dark suit and took off his shoes, toured the
prayer hall and the Warriors Mausoleum.
“Pray for me”
Comrade Obama visits a mosque and asks the Imam to pray for him. But Obama does not visit a Buddhist or Hindu Temple or a Christian Church even though those groups make up 39% of the population.
Obama’s a Muslim all right, no question about THAT.
(From 1389 Blog - Counterjihad!) – Visiting Malaysia’s National Mosque on Sunday, President Obama was asked by the institution’s imam to end oppression against Muslims worldwide, Malaysia’s national press agency Bernama reported via CNS News.
“Pray for me,” Obama replied, according to Grand Imam Ismail Muhammad, who took him on a 25-minute tour of the mosque, called Masjid Negara in Malay [more about that here], in Kuala Lumpur.
“Obama also said that every day when he wakes up he always does his best to put an end to oppression and conflicts affecting communities,” Bernama quoted Ismail as saying.
The 70 year-old cleric said Obama had frequently replied with InsyAllah (Malay for “Allah willing”) and terima kasih (“thank you”) during the tour.
“It was nice of him, although he could not speak much of the Malay language but understood what I had said to him,” he said.
Obama, who wore a dark suit and removed his shoes, also visited and paid his respects at the National Mausoleum at the mosque complex, where former prime ministers and deputy prime ministers are buried.
Malaysia’s Star newspaper quoted Abdullah Muhammad Zin, religious advisor to Prime Minister Najib Razak, as saying it was “not common” for the leader of a superpower to include a visit to a mosque in his itinerary.
“There can be no better way for Obama to honor Islam than by visiting Masjid Negara,” he said.
Bernama quoted several other senior Muslim figures commenting on the visit.
“This is out of the ordinary as I cannot recall any non-Muslim world leader visiting the National Mosque and this is a good start for Muslims here,” said Ustaz Wan Akashah Wan Abdul Hamid, a religious scholar.
The news agency also cited a former National Mosque imam, Hassan Mahmood Al-Hafiz, as saying that “the willingness of the world leader to set foot on the Islamic landmark was a good omen, more so when Muslims were being wrongly linked to violence.”
The National Mosque was built in 1965, several years after Malaysia won independence from Britain, on the site of a Brethren Church that had been appropriated by the Malaysian government for the purpose. (The church, which had stood there since 1922, was offered an alternative site.)
Obama strolled alongside Syaikh Ismail to the prayer hall and made a brief stop at the Warriors' Mausoleum, next to the National Mosque.
Relations between Malaysia’s Muslim majority (around 61 percent) and minorities including Buddhists (almost 20 percent), Christians (9 percent) and Hindus (6 percent) have been troubled at times.
Invited to comment on Obama’s decision to visit a mosque but not a church while in the country, Council of Churches of Malaysia general secretary Hermen Shastri demurred, but said that those responsible for arranging the visit had “ensured that he is made aware of the religious freedom issues in the country.”
A spokesman for the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship chairman, Rev. Dr. Eu Hong Seng, said he welcomed the fact Obama chose to tour the National Mosque.
“Given the challenges and concerns for non-Muslim religions in Malaysia, especially Christianity, it would have been good for President Obama to also visit the places of religious worship of other religions,” he said. “This would help him better understand the issues facing non-Muslim religions in Malaysia.”
Religions of Malaysia
Buddhists Ignored by Obama Comrade Obama eagerly visited a mosque but did not bother to visit the Buddhist shrine of Kek Lok Si, or "Temple of Sukhāvatī", in Penang, Malaysia.
The recent burning and beheading of female victims in Thailand’s southern Muslim provinces marks a renewed campaign of terror by insurgent groups, according to a Human Rights Watch statement released today.
At least three Thai Buddhist women have been killed and mutilated by insurgents since February, according to HRW.
“Southern insurgents are killing Buddhist women and spreading terror by beheading and burning their bodies,” Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW, said in the statement reports UCA News.
Muslims attack Buddhists in Thailand
Such attacks are carried out for two reasons, said Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher on Thailand at HRW.
Attacks involving mutilation are intended to send a message of “terror” to scare Thai Buddhists into leaving Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani provinces, or are carried out as “retaliation” for extrajudicial killings committed by Thai security forces, he said.
On February 12, insurgents in Pattani province’s Yaring district shot dead Sayamol Sae Lim, 29, a female employee of Bangkok Bank, and burned her body.
On March 14, Siriporn Srichai, a 43-year-old teacher, was shot dead while on the way to work Pattani province’s Mayo district. The attackers doused her body with gasoline and set it on fire.
On April 2, insurgents killed a village chief from Yala province’s Bannang Sata district and two female deputy chiefs. One of the deputies, Urai Thabtong, 47, was shot and then decapitated.
Male victims have been decapitated numerous times in the past, but this marked the first case in the past 10 years when a female victim was beheaded, said Sunai.
At least 5,488 people have been killed in the southern border provinces since the conflict intensified in January 2004.
Last year, the primary focus of insurgent attacks shifted from civilians to security forces and government officials, said Sunai. “But since the beginning of this year [the attacks] have shifted back to civilians.”
Both insurgents and Thai security forces have been responsible for serious abuses in the southern border provinces, according to HRW.
Under Islam there is no freedom of religion, freedom
of speech or freedom of thought.
The Federal Department of Islamic Development (Jakim) urged Putrajaya in its Friday sermon to consider internet censorship to stop attacks against Islam.
The sermon stated that given the challenges posed by anti-Islam groups through information technology, it was important that the Muslim community used whatever reasonable strategy available including social media to counter, answer and ward off the propaganda of the enemies of Islam.
“Muslims must be kept updated on current developments so that we get accurate information and not be influenced by enemy propaganda"reports the Malaysian Digest.
“You all can also use new media such as YouTube, Twitter and blogs as mediums to send out the right message and spread the teachings of Islam."
Muslims rally against Malaysian Christians
Malaysian Muslims destroy Buddhist Statue and Temple
“While Muslims are working at strengthening the economy and the Malay race, the enemies have not slackened for a minute to run their mission to destroy Islam by using whatever strategy possible, including cyber troopers,” said Jakim in the sermon.
The Islamic body said it was required of Muslims to identify the agenda designed to erode the sanctity of Islam and to also identify those who attempted to do so.
Jakim warned that the international line of thinking, such as liberalism and pluralism, seems to be spreading fast via the internet and influencing the younger generation.
“They are launching calculated attacks by spreading news which insults Islam through the use of symbols and in social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
"From our observations, many symbols and hundreds of websites on the internet are being used to confuse and weaken those of the Islamic faith."
Jakim also warned that the use of websites to weaken the faith of Muslims was the cunning strategy of the enemies of Islam that had succeeded in bringing down a few countries in the Middle East.
Last week, Islamic NGO Pertubuhan Martabat Jalinan Muhibbah Malaysia lodged a police report against a Facebook account owner for allegedly insulting Islam.
Its chairman Abdul Rani Kulup Abdullah had said the report was lodged against the account owner, who used the name Adlin Abd Jalil, for displaying a picture of a grilled pig with the words "Allah" and "Muhammad", as well as the Jakim's halal logo on it on the posting.
In his police report, Abdul Rani urged the Home Ministry, Jakim and the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission to look into the matter and take stern action against the account owner.
Religions in Malaysia When Muslims become the majority you will not dare to think for yourself, Islam will crush you and your family in the name of Allah.
The Religion of Peace hates everyone they come in contact with.
And "enlightened" Western nations go out of their way to deliberately import millions of Muslims into their nations.
Islamic fanatics have attacked dozens of Hindu temples and hundreds of homes
across Bangladesh since an Islamist leader was sentenced to death for war crimes
last month. .
Bangladesh Puja Udjapon Parishad, a group which looks after Hindu temples said 47 temples and at least 700 Hindu houses had either been torched or vandalised since the verdict against Delwar Hossain
Sayedee.
Sayedee, vice-president of the country's largest Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami,
was sentenced to hang on February 28 for crimes including rape and murder
committed during the 1971 independence conflict.
The sentencing of Sayedee and other Jamaat-e-Islami leaders has triggered the
worst violence in impoverished Muslim-majority Bangladesh since independence,
with 85 people so far killed in the unrest reports the Hindustan Times.
Buddhists, Hindus protest Muslim Bangladesh attack Hundreds of people demonstrated against the recent burning of Buddhist monasteries and Hindu temples in Bangladesh by Muslims, who complained that a Buddhist man had insulted Islam. General Secretary of Himalayan Buddhist Cultural Association, Siliguri, Sonam Lhundup Lama urged the central government and the United Nations, Human Rights Commission, to intervene the matter.
Lama added that many people sustained injuries and many houses of locals were burnt. Buddhist monks, social activists along with school children took out to streets holding photos of injured monks, vandalised temples' and raised slogans against the atrocities being done against the Buddhist people in Bangladesh.
ANTI HINDU Riots in Bangladesh - Muslims breaking Hindu temples
The Thakur and Banikya children in front of their destroyed homes at Rajganj, Begumganj in Noakhali.
Kazal Debnath, a vice-president of Bangladesh Puja Udjapon Parishad, blamed
the attacks on Hindu temples and homes on Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing
Islami Chhatra Shibir.
"It was the work of the Jamaat and Shibir, but we also accuse the government,
the police and the local government representatives including (our) MPs for
failing to protect the temples and our community," he told AFP.
He said the attackers were given free rein to "torch our temples, houses and
properties".
But foreign minister Dipu Moni told diplomats last week that Jamaat and
Shibir attacked Hindu temples and houses in a "pre-planned manner".
Hindus, who make up nearly 10% of Bangladesh's 153 million-strong population,
are traditionally seen as supporters of the Awami League, which brands itself as
a secular party.
They were the main targets during Bangladesh's 1971 independence war against
Pakistan and during post-poll violence in 2001 when a centre-right party allied
with Jamaat won a two-thirds majority.
Jamaat-e-Islami leaders have been on trial at the domestic International
Crimes Tribunal, accused of colluding with Pakistan and pro-Pakistan militias
during the war for independence.
Fatwa Malaysian Sultan forbids using ‘Allah’ outside Islam
Muslims want freedom of religion and speech only for themselves.
The Sultan of the Malaysian state Selangor has issued a decree that the sacred word ‘Allah’ can be used only by Muslims. The move put more fire into controversy in the state where language peculiarities also make Christians use the term.
“Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah made a decision and decreed that the word ‘Allah’ is a sacred word specific to Muslims and it is prohibited to be used by any non-Muslim in Selangor,” the Islamic Affairs Council of the Selangor state said Tuesday.
The body added "a stern action" was ordered against those questioning the new fatwa, but did not elaborate reports RT News.
Religion in Malaysia
The sultan, mufti and council convened after the chief minister of another state, Penang, urged the central government to allow the word ‘Allah’ to be used in the Malay translation of the Bible, national daily The Star Online reported.
Christians in Indonesia and Malaysia also use ‘Allah’ to refer to God in their languages. This comes through traditional translations of the Bible made back in the 16th-17th centuries which put the Hebrew’s ‘Elohim’ (‘God’ in English holy books) as ‘Allah’.
But in 2007 the central Malaysian government decided to put an end to the old tradition and limited the usage of the term to the Muslim context only. This was revoked by the High Court two years later; the judges said the law was unconstitutional. The government appealed the ruling and the short-lived implementation of the 2009 court verdict has since been suspended.
Sultan Sharafuddin’s decree could not but create an immediate political standoff. It comes on the eve of a broad meeting called by Pakatan Rakyat, a national affiliation within the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS). For the convention, Pakatan Rakyat allowed the use of ‘Allah’ to all groups, including non-Muslims.
Muslims rally against Christians in Malaysia
Christians tortured in Muslim "Purification Centers" Gary Lane of CBN News traveled to Kuala Lampur to investigate the government-sanctioned hostility against Christians. In his travels, he observed hidden "purification centers" where many Christians are held. These centers are known to beat and torture Christians.
Many Christians remain in hiding, avoiding the watchful eye of the Malaysian government. If caught, these Christians face severe treatment, beatings, and torture, in an attempt to reconvert them to Islam.
Christians protest Government blocks 30,000 Bibles in Malay . The Christian Federation of
Malaysia express the disappointment, anger and despair of Christians in a
statement: "It would seem that the authorities are conducting an ongoing
program, surreptitiously and systematically against Christians in Malaysia,
denying them access to the Bible in the Malay language. " The block tied to the
controversy on the use of the word "Allah" to refer to God. . The largest Christian organization in Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim country,
said it is "fed up" of the government's refusal to allow the distribution of
tens of thousands of Bibles. It argues that it is an affront to
religious freedom. It is a rare protest by the
Christian Federation of Malaysia. It 's also a sign of growing
impatience among the religious minorities, over the dispute, now years old, on
the government ban on the use of the word "Allah" as a translation of the word
"God" in the Bible and Christian religious texts in the Malay
language. .
Federation president, Bishop Ng Moon Hing said that the
authorities are holding 30 thousand copies of the Bible in Malay in a port of
the island of Borneo. This is the latest attempt by Christians to
import Bibles, particularly from Indonesia, after previous attempts failed.
There are no problems for texts in English. (www.asianews.it/news-en)
Just minutes after the forbidding decree, PAS leadership endorsed by other opposition parties proclaimed they stand firm by their decision.
“‘Allah’ in its original Koran meaning stands for ‘The One and Only God' and it should not be misused by others against the Muslim community, to the point of creating confusion,” PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang said. “Nevertheless, Islam does not stop followers of other religions from using the word ‘Allah’ in practicing their faith, although it might not be equitable to the actual meaning of the original Koranic word.”
Malaysia's Council of Churches also said it will continue to use the word “Allah” in the Malay version of the Bible.
"Many indigenous communities in our nation have incorporated this word in their everyday language. That being the case, we shall continue this practice, and call on all parties to respect this fundamental right,” the prominent organization said in a statement adding the practice was a right “guaranteed to them in the country's Federal Constitution” under Article 11, which secures freedom of religion.
However, officials across the country reacted positively to the reaffirmed ban on the word, some of them saying that Sultan Sharafuddin has every right to issue such decrees, him being the head of the state's Islamic affairs.
Christian church leaders have expressed concern over the effect of the Selangor Sultan’s royal decree banning followers of faiths other than Islam from using the word “Allah” to describe their gods.
The state Ruler had also instructed the Selangor Islamic Religious Council (MAIS) and the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (JAIS) yesterday to take firm action against all groups, including non-Muslims, who continued to question the state fatwa (edict) and a 1988 state law restricting use of the Arabic word. “Can a fatwa be applied to a non-Muslim?” asked Father Lawrence Andrew, the editor of the country’s sole Catholic newspaper, Herald, when contacted by The Malaysian Insider.
Muslims Destroy Buddhist Temples Funny how those Malaysian Muslims keepfindingexcuses to demolish one 'infidel' house of worship after another. This time, the pretext is a new Malaysian mass transit line, and wouldn't you know it, there's not one, but two pesky temples that are somehow right in the way of this new line. And of course, those troublesome temples -- two Buddhist temples this time -- have gotta go.
Isn't it interesting how, despite the vast number of mosques, suraus, madrassahs, etc. that Malaysia surely has, how not one of these Muslim holy place is ever inconvenienced in any way? It's almost as if Malaysia's government is chock-full of Islamic supremacists or something, dedicated to sweeping away all traces of Jahiliyya (i.e. all non Islamic culture).
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