1. mars 2006

Iraqi officials say WaPo's death toll of violence vastly exaggerated An official at a Baghdad morgue says the WaPo vastly overstated the death toll of the sectarian violence following the shrine explosion. Iraq's Cabinet, meanwhile, disputes a Washington Post tally of 13-hundred Iraqi dead in the past week, calling that number "inaccurate and exaggerated." The Post cited figures from the Baghdad central morgue in its report on deaths in the violence since a Shiite shrine was destroyed. But a morgue official says as of Sunday night it had only received 249 bodies tied to the violence.  I speculated that maybe the Post was reporting the total number of people dying in Baghdad over six days. If you add up the expected number of deaths and the 249 now reported killed in violence, you get reasonably close to the 1,300. Via Gateway pundit. 11:41:06 PM    comment []  trackback []

Dutch filmmaker to make a movie about gay Muslim leaders The well-renowned Dutch filmmaker Eddy Terstall is not scared by the murder of his colleague and co-worker Theo Van Gogh, judging by his latest project. He is now planning a movie about homosexuality among Muslim leaders in the 15th and 16th centuries, according to Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter. My translation: The film is based on the short story "Male Harem", written by the author Vinco David, which describes the male harems held by moguls during Islam's golden age in the 1400s and 1500s. "The view of homosexuality during Islam's greatest age was much more relaxed than today," says Terstell to [the Dutch press agency] ANP. He opines that "right-wing extremist imams should read more books about Islam's history before they speak again." Undoubtedly. I'd still recommend hiring some bodyguards, because chances are that those imams are not going to take his advice. PS: More on the movie here. 10:40:11 PM    comment []  trackback []

Report: Opium production in Afghanistan down There is good news and bad news on Afghan poppy production, according to a State Department report: The number of acres under opium cultivation dropped 48 percent last year, but output declined by only 10 percent because of good weather, the report said. Opium is the main ingredient of heroin. If it is true that poppy producing areas are almost halved in a year, that is quite impressive. Anyway, I'm sure the good weather can be blamed on Bush, so for the press this is a win-win story. 10:26:41 PM    comment []  trackback []

Iraq: Damning evidence against Saddam Hussein Omar of Iraq the Model tells that the trial of Saddam Hussein suddenly got interesting. The session began as usual and as expected with lots of exchanged yelling and whining from defendants, the judge and the defense team until the prosecutor turned the tide when he began presenting loads of documents that prove the guilt of Saddam and his gang, especially his half-brother Barzan and the chief of the infamous revolution court Awad al-Bandar. Barzan had been denying any connection for the intelligence service (Mukhabarat) he headed with the Dujail massacre claiming that the intelligence was solely responsible for watching non-Iraqis and had nothing to do with internal cases like Dujail where the suspects were Iraqis. However, the documents uncovered today showed that Barzan was personally deeply involved in following up the case and "interrogating" the suspects and their families. The documents were presented in chronological order in a way that literally stunned Saddam and Barzan who barely uttered a few words during the more than an hour-long presentation. Dozens of documents that look authentic and carried the signatures of Saddam, Barzan and other criminals were displayed; the earliest ones go back to as early as 2 days after the assassination attempt with the latest dated 7 years after that showing all stages of the massacre from interrogation to sentencing the 148 resident of Dujail to signing and approving and executing the death sentence to finally following up a couple of prisoners who mistakenly were let out to be later recaptured and executed. The documents revealed some unbelievably terrifying facts about the Dujail massacre; can you imagine that when orders were given to execute the 148 "convicts" the prison authorities executed only 96 of them. Why? Because the remaining 48 "convicts" had already passed away during "interrogation"!! What kind of interrogation was that killed one third of the suspects?! The prosecutors obviously knew what they were doing when they chose to concentrate on the Dujail massacre in this trial, despite these being comparatively 'minor' crimes in the terror reign of Saddam Hussein. 4:54:45 PM    comment []  trackback []

MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism Salman Rushdie and eleven other European intellectuals have written and signed a manifesto against Islamism, fittingly published in Jyllands-Posten. After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism. We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all. The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats. Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man's domination of woman, the Islamists' domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people. We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers. We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas. We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism. 12 signatures Ayaan Hirsi Ali Chahla Chafiq Caroline Fourest Bernard-Henri Lévy Irshad Manji Mehdi Mozaffari Maryam Namazie Taslima Nasreen Salman Rushdie Antoine Sfeir Philippe Val Ibn Warraq I'd sign it, too. Via Agora. 12:15:56 PM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2006 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.04.2006; 13:21:06.