NEWS Head Lines

Occupation of Iraq was a Terrorist Act.

London Cleric Predict More Attacks

Al-Qaeda Europe Ultimatum Order to Strike: Expert

Terror Has no Religion, Jihad Stereotyped: UK Writer

Iraq fighters name joint spokesperson

Iran In No Need of US Ties

Amnesty Condemns Guantanamo Expansion Plan

OIC Seeks Muslim Seat at UN Security Council

Police-backed Jewish Extremists Try to Storm Al-Aqsa

Chechen Mufti Resigns Over Worsening Conditions

Swiss Muslim Slams Equating “Islamists” With “Terrorists” 

Use Islamic Banking to Avoid Debt-Slavery: Mahathir

The NEWS in Detail

Occupation of Iraq was a Terrorist Act

KUALA LUMPUR - Britain's envoy to Malaysia walked out in disgust on a speech by former premier Mahathir Mohamad on Friday after he used a human-rights conference to accuse Britain and its U.S. ally of murdering Iraqis. and the occupation of Iraq was a terrorist act.

Bruce Cleghorn left the conference room in Kuala Lumpur after Mahathir, an outspoken and veteran critic of the West's approach to human rights, said British and U.S. policies had killed more Iraqis than former ruler Saddam Hussein was ever accused of.

"Unfortunately I found myself listening to abuse and misrepresentation about my country. I therefore left," High Commissioner Cleghorn said in a statement.

Mahathir, whom critics accuse of abusing civil rights during his time in office, told the conference that before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, U.N. economic sanctions had led to the death of around 500,000 infants there.

"At the time this was happening where were the people who were concerned with human rights?" he added. "Did they expose the abusers of Britain and America? Did they protest against their own government? No. It is because they, the enemy, are killed."

Britain and Washington then launched their invasion on false pretences, breaking international laws on human rights, he said, going on to describe U.S. and British bombers as murderers. “Who are the terrorists? The people below who were bombed or the bombers?” In a press conference afterwards Dr Mahathir was unrepentant, labelling Britain and America “state terrorists”. Dr Mahathir co-chairs a committee backing Saddam Hussein’s defence at his forthcoming trial.

Dr Mahathir used his speech to make a blistering attack, describing Britain, America and Israel as “terrorist nations”. Talking of the Iraq invasion, he said: “The British and American bomber pilots came, unopposed, safe and cosy in their state-of-the-art aircraft, pressing buttons to drop bombs, to kill and maim. And these murderers, for that is what they are, would go back to celebrate ‘mission accomplished’.

A few other diplomats also walked out on the speech, witnesses said. The U.S. embassy had decided on Thursday not to send its delegate to listen to Mahathir's speech, in line with some human rights groups who also boycotted the speech.

Mahathir was unrepentant.

"As much as they have the right to criticise me, they should also give me the right to criticise them," said the 80-year-old, who was criticised by some Western governments in the late 1990s over the jailing of his former deputy, Anwar Ibrahim.

"But if you don't want to hear my criticisms of them, then you are denying my right to speak up."

LONDON Cleric Predict More Attacks

LONDON, 23 July 2005 — Militants will continue to attack Britain until the government pulls its troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, one of the country’s most outspoken Islamic clerics said yesterday .

Speaking 15 days after bombers killed over 50 people in London and a day after a series of failed attacks on the city’s transport network, Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed said the British capital should expect more violence.

“What happened yesterday confirmed that as long as the cause and the root problem is still there ... we will see the same effect we saw on July 7,” Bakri said.

“If the cause is still there the effect will happen again and again,” he said, adding he had no information about future attacks or contacts with people planning to carry out attacks.

Bakri, who has been vilified in Britain since 2001 when he praised the Sept. 11 hijackers, said he did not believe the bombings and attempted attacks on London were carried out by British Muslims.

In an interview, Bakri described Osama Bin Laden, leader of the radical network Al-Qaeda, as “a sincere man who fights against evil forces”.

Bakri said he would like Britain to become an Islamic state but feared he would be deported before his dream was realized.

“I would like to see the Islamic flag fly, not only over number 10 Downing Street, but over the whole world,” he said.

A hate figure for the British tabloid press, the bearded and bespectacled Bakri said Islam contained “a message of peace for those who want to live with the Muslims in peace”.

“But Islam is a message of war for those who declare war against Muslims,” he said.

Bakri has Syrian and Lebanese citizenship and says he thinks the British government might deport him to one of those two countries in the wake of this month’s bombings.

“But I think that would be political suicide for the British government if they started to deport and imprison all extremists and radicals,” he said. “Because if, God forbid, something happened again, they would have nobody left to blame.”

Al-Qaeda Europe Ultimatum Order to Strike: Expert

CAIRO, July 19, 2005 (News Agencies) – An Egyptian expert in Islamic militant groups said Tuesday, July 19, the one-month ultimatum given to European countries to leave Iraq or face London-like attacks is actually an order to strike.

"The statement is an order to strike though it does not necessarily means that whoever issued it has actual practical tactics to do that," Diaa Rashwan told IslamOnline.net.

The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, a self-styled group claiming affiliation to Al-Qaeda, threatened Tuesday more terrorist attacks in Europe unless European countries withdraw forces from Iraq, reported Agence France Presse (AFP).

"We want to give you a one-month deadline to bring your soldiers out from the land of Mesopotamia (Iraq)," read the statement dated July 16.

"It's a message we are addressing to the crusaders who are still present in Iraq -- Denmark, the Netherlands, Britain, Italy and those other countries whose troops continue to crisis-cross Iraqi territory."

A statement by the "Europe Division" of the same group has claimed responsibility for the July 7 attacks on London's public transport system which killed at least 56 people and wounded some 700.

A Guardian poll published Tuesday showed that two-thirds of Britons believe the London bombings were linked to Blair's support for the US-led invasion of Iraq.

In a report issued Monday, a respected British think-tank said the Iraq war has given a momentum to Al-Qaeda's recruitment and fundraising and made Britain more vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Attack Message 

Rashwan described the statement as "a media message to unknown local groups subscribing to the same ideology of Al-Qaeda in European countries that have troops in Iraq to carry out attacks that carry the hallmark of Al-Qaeda."

By sending such a message, Osama bin Laden is telling such local groups, which he most probably knows nothing about, that when they carry out such attacks they become part of his Al-Qaeda.

"This fulfills Laden's lifetime dream of being able to incite attacks against Western countries without even knowing the perpetrators."

The Egyptian expert cast serious doubts about the existence of a group called Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades.

"The group has claimed responsibility for attacks in Turkey and Spain and an electricity outage in the United States, where it can hardly have presence," he said.

Rashwan said the attacks were likely carried out by groups that "subscribe to Al-Qaeda's ideology."

The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades takes its name from an Al-Qaeda commander killed during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001.

It previously gave European countries an ultimatum to pull out of Iraq in April, 2004, a month after the Madrid attacks.

Following the expiry of a three-month deadline, the group issued a further statement in August threatening to strike those European countries that continued to attack Muslims and interfere in their domestic affairs.

Terror Has no Religion, Jihad Stereotyped: UK Writer

CAIRO, July 11, 2005 – Islam should not be associated with terrorist acts committed by people who call themselves Muslims because they violate essential Islamic principles, a famed British writer wrote on Monday, July 11.

"We need a phrase that is more exact than 'Islamic terror'. The Qur'an prohibits aggressive warfare, permits war only in self-defense and insists that the true Islamic values are peace, reconciliation and forgiveness," Karen Armstrong wrote in The Guardian.

A prolific writer on all three monotheistic religions, she said that terror has no religion, with people calling themselves Muslims, Christians or Jews committing crimes in the name of their religions.

"So although Muslims, like Christians or Jews, have all too often failed to live up to their ideals, it is not because of the religion per se," averred Armstrong.

“Catholic Terrorism”

Catholic Armstrong said that Islam is all about peace, love and tolerance, and states firmly that there must be no coercion in religious matters.

"And for centuries Islam had a much better record of religious tolerance than Christianity. Islamic law outlaws war against any country in which Muslims are allowed to practice their religion freely, and forbids the use of fire, the destruction of buildings and the killing of innocent civilians in a military campaign," she added.

The British writer wondered why bloody bombings by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) did not cause people to equate Christianity with terrorism as it is now the case with Islam.

"We rarely, if ever, called the IRA bombings 'Catholic' terrorism because we knew enough to realize that this was not essentially a religious campaign," she said.

"Indeed, like the Irish republican movement, many fundamentalist movements worldwide are simply new forms of nationalism in a highly unorthodox religious guise. This is obviously the case with Zionist fundamentalism in Israel and the fervently patriotic Christian right in the US," wrote Armstrong.

Stereotyped Jihad

Armstrong, the author of Islam, a Short History, also criticized stereotyping the Arabic word "jihad" as merely meaning holy war.

"Extremists and unscrupulous politicians have purloined the word for their own purposes, but the real meaning of jihad is not 'holy war' but 'struggle' or 'effort'. Muslims are commanded to make a massive attempt on all fronts - social, economic, intellectual, ethical and spiritual - to put the will of God into practice," she stressed.

Armstrong said "jihad is a cherished spiritual value that, for most Muslims, has no connection with violence."

The British writer noted that some people wrongly prefer to call terrorists "jihadists".

She maintained that terrorists "in no way represent mainstream Islam."

Iraq fighters name joint spokesperson

Monday 04 July 2005,

Two armed groups in Iraq, known for fighting US-led forces and their capture of foreigners including journalists, have appointed a joint spokesperson.

The new spokesperson for the Islamic Army in Iraq and Jaish al-Mujahidin, Dr Ibrahim Yusuf al-Shimmari, told Aljazeera that the decision comes in the context of the groups' plans to implement a political programme and be politically recognised.

"It is most appropriate for the two groups to unite and appoint a media spokesman," said al-Shimmari, "due to the escalating amount of persons who claim to speak on behalf of the resistance and adopt political projects that do not serve the resistance."

This is the first step in the implementation of the groups' plan to unite, added al-Shimmari. "Other steps will follow soon."

The Islamic Army late last year captured and subsequently released two French journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot. The group had demanded that France lift its ban on headscarves in the country's schools.

Defence

The group has also captured foreigners and Arabs working for companies in Iraq that are allegedly linked to the US government.

The Jaish al-Mujahidin has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of Indonesian journalists in February as well as attacks on US forces.

Al-Shimmari refused to clarify whether the groups' members included Iraqis as well as Arabs from other countries, saying "every armed group has its secrets and we cannot reveal all of them at once".

He however added: "We are all sons of the Iraqi people. It is not strange if we unite in order to face our enemy. That is why the situation does not require us to bring fighters from outside the country to defend Iraqi land and its dignity."

US talks denied

Asked to comment on any attempts to involve many other groups in their coalition, al-Shimmari would only say: "Unity is a political vision of the Iraqi resistance. There are many practical steps that will be achieved concerning this issue."

Al-Shimmari has also denied reports of any talks between US forces and armed groups in Iraq.

"The US announcements are nothing but lies. If talks with US forces are useful and in accordance with our political programme, we would have announced this to all our people.

"I assure you," he added, "that no contacts have been made directly or indirectly with the Americans."

The spokesman also said that "the United States carries out vast military operations, devastating vast areas of our land and then it says it has held talks with the fighters".

"This is nothing but deception to pretend that it is a realist administration that holds talks to reach an agreement."

Iran In No Need of US Ties

TEHRAN, 27 June 2005 — President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday Iran would press ahead with its nuclear program and that the country had no real need for ties with archfoe, the United States.

A day after his landslide election, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah sent messages of congratulations to Ahmadinejad and expressed their desire to strengthen Saudi-Iranian relations. “On the occasion of your victory in the general elections, I have the pleasure to congratulate you for the confidence the Iranian people reposed on you,” King Fahd said in his message and wished Ahmadinejad success in his new career.

In press statements yesterday, Ahmadinejad said he would maintain good relations with Arab states and reach out to all countries except Israel. “I will extend my hand to all... and I will strive to expand relations with everyone, with the exception of Israel,” he told Okaz newspaper.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also said that Iran’s “policy of detente” with its neighbors would remain in place.

“The policy of detente is a policy of the regime. It is one of the macro policies of the regime... it will continue,” Asefi told reporters. “We are currently pursuing the policy of trust building, cooperation and participation with other nations. We will have more expansion of ties with regional countries. I don’t think with the new president there will be any changes in the macro policies of the regime,” he said.

But in a sign that his election would cement decades of enmity between Tehran and Washington, Ahmadinejad and US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld traded negative remarks in their first comments since the vote.

But the former mayor of Tehran said Iran would not abandon nuclear talks with the European Union although negotiations would be based on Iran’s “national interest”.

Europe shares US suspicions that Iran is seeking to build atomic weapons. Iran, the world’s fourth largest oil exporter, insists the program is to meet soaring demand for electricity.

“We need this technology for energy and medical purposes. We shall carry on with it,” Ahmadinejad said in his first news conference since beating moderate cleric Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Asked about talks between the European Union and Iran over its nuclear program, he said: “With preserving national interests and by emphasizing the right of the Iranian nation for using peaceful nuclear technology, we will continue the talks.”

European states — Britain, France and Germany — will list incentives that could be part of a deal to end Iran’s uranium enrichment program in late July or early August.

Prior to Ahmadinejad’s news conference, EU Commission Vice President Franco Frattini told Italy’s La Repubblica daily that the EU would freeze dialogue with Iran if Iran’s comments on nuclear or human rights issues were “negative”.

The president of Iran has little power to change national policy in Iran’s system of clerical rule, with the final word in matters of state lying with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But analysts says the hard-liner will influence policy.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Asefi said nuclear policy was unlikely to change.

During campaigning, Ahmadinejad said Iran had an inalienable right to nuclear technology. Rival candidates advocated better ties with the United States, often dubbed the “Great Satan” in Iran, but Ahmadinejad said such ties were not a priority.

“Our nation is continuing on the path of progress and has no significant need for (relations with) the United States,” Ahmadinejad told the news conference yesterday.

Rumsfeld said Ahmadinejad was “no friend of democracy” and would prove himself unacceptable to Iran’s young people and its women.

The 48-year-old Ahmadinejad, who earlier visited the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic state, secured many votes from Iran’s devout poor as he railed against rich cliques and promised to share out oil wealth.

His opponents fear Ahmadinejad’s victory heralds a return to the purges and strictures of the early days after the 1979 revolution. As mayor, he has swept out old managers in municipal bodies and replaced them with young recruits.

Ahmadinejad, a former officer in the Revolutionary Guards and instructor in the Basij religious militia, has dismissed such worries as scaremongering by rivals and called for national unity.

“No extremism will be acceptable in popular government,” he told the news conference, adding that his government would be one of “peace and moderation”.

But he said he would fight corruption in Iran’s oil and other sectors of the economy.

Iran’s conservative press hailed Ahmadinejad as a man who could take on the United States and uphold the moral principles of the revolution. Reformists blamed themselves for failing to implement reforms under outgoing President Mohammad Khatami. The conservative Kayhan newspaper wrote Ahmadinejad’s win would scupper US attempts to flex its muscles in the Middle East under what it called a smokescreen of spreading democracy.

“The recent election and the people’s leaning toward a devout man... means America’s plot of democratization in the region has backfired,” wrote editor Hossein Shariatmadari.

Amnesty Condemns Guantanamo Expansion Plans

LONDON, June 18, 2005 (News Agencies) - Amnesty International has condemned the Bush administration’s decision to expand its infamous Guantanamo detention camp, dashing hopes that the notorious facility would be shut down.

"The administration's announcement that it is to expand the prison is the wrong decision and will fuel worldwide concern over the stories of torture and ill-treatment, religious humiliation and arbitrary detention that are seeping from the facility," the London-based human rights watchdog said in a press release on its Web site.

A subsidiary of the controversial oil services giant Halliburton, once led by US Vice-President Dick Cheney, has been awarded a $30 million contract to build a new prison camp at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay.

Revelations of torture, mistreatment and desecration of the Noble Qur’an by its jailers to "soften" detainees have sparked a global outrage at the US, which sent mixed signals over the rising internal and external uproar that the detention camp should be shut down.

"Guantanamo has become a symbol of abuse and represents a system of detention that is betraying the best US values and undermines international standards."

Once calling the prison the "gulag of our time," the international rights watchdog said US President George W. Bush should close the jail and “disclose the situation in the USA's shadowy network of detention centers around the globe.”

‘Halliburton’s Misconduct’

The expansion contract was awarded to Kellogg Brown and Root Services Inc. to build a two-story, 220-man facility with day rooms, exercise areas, medical and dental spaces and a security control room, the Pentagon said in a statement Thursday, June 16.

It said the work to be completed by July 2006.

The decision drew fire from Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg, a critic of past contracts awarded to Halliburton, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"After all of Halliburton’s misconduct, why is the Bush administration giving them more contracts? Its just another example of how in this administration, the foxes are guarding the henhouse," he said.

In December of 2003, Halliburton, which was awarded a multi-billion no-bid contract  to rebuild Iraq's oil industry, embarrassed the Bush administration after overcharging US forces in Iraq for fuel by up to $61 million.

The Time magazine reported in May of last year that Cheney "coordinated" the Iraq contract to his former employer before the US-led invasion of the oil-rich Arab country.

“Nazis”

In recent weeks, a growing chorus of Democrats, and some Republicans, have called on the US administration to close the infamous Guantanamo detention camp.

Last week, Democrat Senator Dick Durbin compared interrogation practices at Guantanamo with methods used by the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot in Cambodia.

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings," he said.

"More than 1700 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and our country’s standing in the world community has been badly damaged by the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. My statement in the Senate was critical of the policies of this administration which add to the risk our soldiers face," he said in a statement after harsh criticism from the White House.

The American lawmaker vowed to "continue to speak out when I disagree with this administration."

Also last week, US Senators censured the Pentagon after more revelations that prisoners at Guantanamo were subjected to shocking torture techniques to extract information.

"It's not appropriate. It's not at all within the standards of who we are as a civilized people, what our laws are," Senator Chuck Hagel had said.

Guantanamo has been at the center of a political storm after a Newsweek report that military interrogators at the camp flushed a Qur’an down a toilet to rattle Muslim inmates.

The US military also detailed on Friday, June 3, five cases in which jailers at Guantanamo had desecrated copies of the Noble Qur’an, including one incident which occurred as recently as March.

OIC Seeks Muslim Seat at UN Security Council

JEDDAH, 11 June 2005 — The 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) yesterday urged the United Nations to include a Muslim country in the Security Council during the forthcoming expansion of the powerful world body.

“Nobody can ignore the Islamic world that represents one fifth of global population and a country must represent the Islamic world in the Security Council,” OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu said.

He said the next meeting of the OIC foreign ministers, which is scheduled to be held in the Yemeni capital Sanaa on June 28-30, will discuss the issue of the representation of the Islamic world at the Security Council.

Ihsanoglu said the OIC must be strengthened to be able to address the problems of the Islamic nation. “We should not be ashamed of proposals for domestic reforms. The subject is already there on the agenda of others and we have to take the initiatives for reforms from within,” the Saudi Press Agency quoted him as saying.

The OIC chief said his organization would support Iraq to complete its democratic process. He hoped the new elections next year would bring about a strong government in Baghdad representing the Iraqi people.

Ihsanoglu said Islamic countries had risen to the occasion when the tsunami hit a number of Asian and African countries last December, adding that the OIC countries extended donations worth $1.3 billion including $500 million offered by the Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank.

He said the foreign ministers' meeting would also discuss the idea of setting up a disaster fund in order to provide urgent assistance and relief to the victims of natural and other calamities, wars and famines.

“The conference will also discuss prospect of another fund to take care of some 35,000 children orphaned by the tsunami,” he told a news conference in Tunis.

The OIC would launch a fund-raising campaign for the purpose in Ramadan.

He commended Saudi Arabia's continuous support for the organization, adding that the foundation for its new headquarters building in Jeddah would be laid before the upcoming Islamic summit.

Police-backed Jewish Extremists Try to Storm Al-Aqsa

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, June 6, 2005  – Palestinians stood up Monday, June 6, to attempts by extremist Jews, backed by Israeli police, to storm Al-Aqsa Mosque to mark Israel's occupation of Arab East Jerusalem 38 years ago.

The mosque’s esplanade was bustling with scores of Palestinians, who descended on the old town late Sunday, June 5, to deter supporters of the far-right Jewish groups Revava and the Temple Mount Faithful, who have frequently been threatening to storm Islam’s third holiest shrine.

Palestinians Monday pelted extremist Jews with stones and glass bottles, injuring two of them and forcing the others to retreat.

Israeli police forces then faced off against the Palestinians, firing stun grenades and tear gas canisters, wounding at least five.

Palestinian scholars, including deputy head of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Sheikh Kamal Al-Khatib, appealed for calm and Israeli soldiers later pulled out from the mosque compound.

Occupied Jerusalem police spokesman, Shmuel Ben-Ruby, said Palestinians had thrown stones at groups of Jews visiting the compound on "Jerusalem Day", which marks Israel's seizure of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, according to Reuters.

Israel Radio said local Muslim religious authorities had appealed for calm as several hundred chanting Palestinians faced off against police and waved green Islamic flags outside Al-Aqsa.

The Israeli occupation army set up checkpoints around Al-Quds Sunday and deployed dozens of forces, turning the holy city into a garrison.

It further banned Palestinian worshippers under 40 from entering the mosque.

Over the past two months, thousands of Palestinians used to gather in and outside Al-Aqsa Mosque compound to shield it against "malicious attempts" to storm Al-Aqsa by extremist Jews.

Anti-Zionism Jewish group Neturei Karta condemned last month the storming attempts, urging the Jews of the world to reject the Zionist schemes orchestrated by the “illegal” state of Israel.

‘Dire Circumstances’

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, commenting on the incident, told reporters in the West Bank Monday that visits by right-wing Jews to the holy site could have “dire circumstances,” Reuters news agency reported.

In the Gaza Strip, a spokesman for the Islamic Jihad resistance group said any harm to Al-Aqsa would be met with “martyrdom operations, rocket firings, infiltrations and bombings.”

The second Palestinian Intifada erupted in September 2000 after Sharon, Israel's opposition leader at the time, toured the compound.

Palestinian experts warned last month that threats by Jewish extremist groups to storm the mosque had a more serious religious undertone as they believe that 2005 was the year for the construction of the so-called third temple.

They said that such groups are “fed on Zionist and racist ideologies stemming basically from the right-wing and took, over the years, the shape of armed gangs, which work covertly and overtly.”

Al-Haram Al-Sharif, which includes Al-Aqsa Mosque, represents the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict because of its religious significance for Muslims.

Jews claim that their alleged Haykal (Temple of Solomon) exists underneath Al-Haram Al-Sharif which was the first qiblah (direction Muslims take during prayers).

Palestinian and Jordanian archeologists have warned that ongoing Israeli excavations have weakened the foundations of the mosque, cautioning it would not stand a powerful earthquake.

A part of the road leading to one of the mosque’s main gates collapsed in February last year due to the destructive Israeli digging work.

Reports said earlier in the week that Israeli-backed Jewish extremists are building a religious city under Al-Aqsa.

Chechen Mufti Resigns Over Worsening Conditions

MOSCOW , May 28, 2005 – The pro-Moscow mufti of Chechnya has resigned, protesting appalling security and social conditions in the Caucasus republic.

“After years in office, I decided to resign because of the bad security and social conditions in this country which move from worse to worst,” Akhmad Khadzhi Shamaiev said in a press statement published Saturday, May 28, 2005 by the  business daily Kommersant.

“Life in Chechnya has become unbearable. As a mufti I have seen the people suffer backbreaking problems,” he wrote.

Shamaiev, 55, was appointed mufti by the pro-Moscow Chechen administration in 2000 after his predecessor Ahmad Kadyrov was named president.

Kadyrov was killed in an explosion in central Grozny last May claimed by Chechen fighters, who have been locked in a bloody struggle with Russian forces.

Never Again

The resigned mufti said he has lost a great deal because of his post.

Shamaiev’a son and daughter were both killed in 2003 and 2004 respectively.

He announced that he would leave Chechnya “and never come back.”

The Chechen presidency, for its part, said Shamaiev was resigning because of “bad health conditions.”

The resignation is likely to lose Moscow one of its key allies in Chechnya .

The small mountainous Caucasus republic has been ravaged by conflict since 1994, with just three years of relative peace after the first Russian invasion of the region ended in August 1996 and the second began in October 1999.

It was on December 11, 1994 that former Russian president Boris Yeltsin ordered Russian troops into Chechnya to subdue an increasingly powerful separatist movement.

After two years of horrific fighting, Russian troops pulled out in 1996.

In 1999, then-prime minister Vladimir Putin pushed some 80,000 Russian troops into Chechnya in what Moscow called a lightning-strike “anti-terror operation” but which has since degenerated into a grinding war with Chechen fighters.

At least 100,000 Chechen civilians and 10,000 Russian troops are estimated to have been killed in both invasions, but human rights groups have said the real numbers could be much higher.

Thousands of refugees from war-torn Chechnya live in battered tent camps  in neighboring Ingushetia and refuse to return home because of continuing insecurity.

Swiss Muslim Slams Equating “Islamists” With “Terrorists” 

ZURICH, May 28, 2005 – A Swiss Muslim activist has denounced a Zurich Supreme Court's ruling that considered labeling Islamists as “terrorists” was neither punishable by law nor an incitement of religious hatred.

“Justice is denied by this verdict and apparently the court has come under intense pressure from media, which used Islam and Muslims as a scarecrow,” Palestinian-born Ahmed Elisa told IslamOnline.net on Saturday, May 28.

He charged that the court was influenced by “Zionist-run western newspapers” and statements made by German Interior Minister Otto Schily, who once regarded “Islamic terrorism” as a serious threat to Germany’s national security.

Elisa filed the case after the Jewish lobby group, David, accused “Islamic, Arab and Palestinian terror” of standing behind the 2002 car bomb at the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel in the Kenyan city of Mombassa, though the perpetrators remain unknown to date.

In an open appeal to the Swiss federal government and media in 2002, it claimed that mosques, not churches or synagogues, were breeding grounds for terrorism.

The group further held the Islamic civilization inferior to the Jeudo-Christian civilization.

Inciting religious hatred and racism is a criminal offense under Article 261 (bis) of the Swiss penal code, which can be punished by a fine or a prison sentence.

However, the court’s verdict, which was issued on Wednesday, May 25, neither found hatred rhetoric in the group’s appeal nor in its derogatory remarks about mosques.

The judge based his ruling on a Reuters report at the time of the Mombassa incident that people of Arab appearances were spotted near the scene of the bombing.

He further cited writings by western authors who described Islamists as “terrorists.”

Independent Swiss legal experts said the court stopped short of taking into account books by western authors, who refused to equate Islam with terrorism, says IOL correspondent.

Last June, Swiss Muslims launched a ten-day campaign to reach out to non-Muslims in the capital Geneva, to counter malicious media onslaughts and clear stereotypes on Islam.

Muslim Support

Elisa criticized the inaction of the Arab and Muslim minorities in Europe and Switzerland, saying they failed to stand up firmly to the ferocious anti-Islam campaign in the West.

He also blamed “liberal” Muslims for the impotent reaction.

“It is ridiculous that the court cites a statement made by Muslim writer Bassam Al-Tibi, who warned of the Islamists' threat,” Elias told.

He urged Al-Azhar, the highest seat of learning in the Sunni Muslim world, the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe and leading Muslim organizations to intervene.

“Authentic Muslim bodies should clearly define the world ‘Islamist,’ so that we can defend ourselves and disassociate Islamists from terrorism,” he said.

“I feel lonely in this battle and wonder when will Muslims in the West act in concert to stop the venomous media campaign? Elias wondered bitterly.

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights adopted last month a resolution calling for combating defamation campaigns against Islam and Muslims in the West.

On his next step, the Muslim activist said he plans to take his case to the Supreme Federal Court, the highest judicial authority in Switzerland.

“But that requires financial support because the case will cost around $20,000,” he said.

Switzerland is home to some 380,000 Muslims representing a sizable 4.7 percent of the country’s some eight million people. Islam is the second religion in the country after Christianity.

The development of a bond fund would help reduce Islamic countries' dependency on expensive bank borrowings and gain access to more competitive financing.