SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Armenians worldwide gathered Wednesday to mark the 98th anniversary of the mass killings of their kin in the Ottoman Empire during World War I, which they want recognized internationally as a genocide.

In Armenia, thousands flocked on to a hilltop memorial above Yerevan for the annual ceremony broadcast by all national television channels to lay flowers at the eternal flame.

"Today we bow to the memory of innocent victims," President Serzh Sarkisian said in a statement.

He attacked modern-day Turkey for refusing to accept that the killings were genocide – a term strongly rejected by Ankara.

"It is our duty to realize and to bring the attention of the international community to the fact that denial of the genocide constitutes direct continuation of that very crime," said Sarkisian.

In Beirut, several hundred demonstrators from all over Lebanon marched from the Armenian neighborhood of Bourj Hammoud to Martyr’s Square to commemorate the massacre with Armenian flags and traditional music.

Family members of the Lebanese pilgrims abducted in Syria were also present at the march, along with representatives of the Amal and Hezbollah parties, the National News Agency reported.

In Greece, around 250 protesters, mostly from Greek-Armenian groups, who were gathered outside the Turkish consulate in the city of Thessaloniki were dispersed by the police using pepper spray.

Using both diplomatic levers and its influential diaspora abroad, Armenia has long sought to win the massacre's international recognition as genocide.

Last year, a diplomatic row erupted between Ankara and Paris when France's then-president Nicolas Sarkozy initiated a law criminalizing denial of the mass killings as genocide.

France's top court later struck down the law on the grounds that it infringed freedom of expression.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million people were killed during World War I as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart, a claim supported by several other countries.

Turkey argues 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman rulers sided with invading Russian troops.

More than 20 countries have so far recognized the massacres as genocide. www.shafaqna.com/English

Source:al-akhbar

The Saudis old policy of promoting the Wahabi ideology in Islamic countries has led to formation of fanatical groups such as LeJ. Extremist groups funded by Saudi petro-dollars and armed by the US and its western allies have become a convenient instrument in the hand of Pakistani political and military establishments in its conflict with India over Kashmir, and in the wars in Afghanistan and most recently in Syria.

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – The latest massive bomb blast destroyed a busy shopping area in Quetta in south west of Pakistan on 16 February 2013. Police confirmed a water tanker packed with about 2200 pounds of explosives was detonated killing 110 and wounded 180. The victims as usual were mainly innocent school children returning home, men and women buying groceries. The victims were members of the ethnic minority of Hazara, a target of ethnic cleansing by Pakistan's extremist groups. Like many other massacres before, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), an extremist militant group who claims to be Sunnis claimed responsibility for this latest attack on Shias.

The spokesman for LeJ, calling himself Abu Bakar Siddiq, contacted local media and claimed the responsibility for the bomb attack. He stressed the aim of his illegal group is "making Baloochistan a graveyard for the Shias." He declared "either we or the Shias will live in Quetta." LeJ murderous activities started in 1996, as a branch of the Sipah-e Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), an extremist organisation which was established in 1985 initially to support the anti-Soviet Jihadist groups in Afghanistan. Some experts believe that after the Islamic revolution in Iran, the US and Saudi-Arabia decided to strengthen these extremist groups to counter as they put it, the influence of the Shias in the Islamic world.

The Saudis old policy of promoting the Wahabi ideology in Islamic countries has led to formation of fanatical groups such as LeJ. Extremist groups funded by Saudi petro-dollars and armed by the US and its western allies have become a convenient instrument in the hand of Pakistani political and military establishments in its conflict with India over Kashmir, and in the wars in Afghanistan and most recently in Syria. In Afghanistan, LeJ was one of several foreign militant groups that helped the Taliban movement to establish itself in that country with Pakistan's support in the mid-1990s. These extremist groups along with Al-Qaeda provided the Taliban with the supply of fanatical members and financial resources. Under Taliban, LeJ was given a training camp in the Surobi district of Kabul which has been used for ethnic cleansing of Shias in Afghanistan.

In 2011 LeJ distributed pamphlets in Quetta saying according to them and their sect leaders Hazaras are wajeb-ul-qatl (those who according to a decree can be killed). They also declared that “Just as our fighters waged a successful jihad against the Shia Hazaras in Afghanistan, our mission is the elimination of this unclean sect and people, the Shia and Hazaras, from every city, every village and every corner of Pakistan.” Similar fatwas (religious decrees) have been and is being issued by Saudi Wahabi muftis (religious leaders) on a regular basis. Hazaras are a minority community of more than half a million in Quetta, and they practice Shia Islam in a predominantly Sunni country.

The Hazaras do not have any political support in a country of 180 million people nor have the power to fight against LeJ and unfortunately no international organisation like the UN give them any protection. As more money and sophisticated weapons given to extremists like LeJ they in turn increase the number of innocent people they can kill in order to carry out ethnic cleansing of a race on the orders of their Saudi/Wahabi masters. The type of immunity that outlaw groups such as LeJ enjoy in Pakistan is almost unbelievable. The involvement and co-operation of elements in Pakistani military and intelligence agencies with extremist and violent groups, in particular when these groups served its political or security interests in the conflicts in Kashmir or Afghanistan, are not hidden to people of that country or outside world.

So far not a single murderer from the fanatical Wahabi groups has been arrested or brought to justice in Pakistan or elsewhere. This shows lack of effort or willingness by the authorities to protect a minority community who are the citizens of Pakistan. Hazaras accused Pakistani authorities of turning a blind eye to their killings, and they have good reason to distrust Pakistani institutions. Many killers have been arrested but released later without any actions taken by the Pakistani authorities. Malik Ishaq, one of the top leaders of LeJ, was released in Lahore in July 2011, apparently for lack of evidence. He was detained in 1997 on charges of involvement in dozens of murder and violent activities. Usman Kurd and Shafique Rind, two of the main leaders of LeJ death squads in Baloochistan escaped from prison in 2008. The main question is, how long the world will tolerate this situation and turn a blind eye to the genocide of Shias in Pakistan and Afghanistan?

www.shafaqna.com/english

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) --

www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Bosnia's war crimes court has sentenced a former Serb police officer for 20 years for his role in murdering Muslims during the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, the worst atrocity in Europe since World War Two.

Bozidar Kuvelja "participated in the expulsion of the Srebrenica population, detention of men and execution of detainees," presiding Judge Jasmina Kosovic said, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported on Friday, January 11.

"He is found guilty for crimes against humanity and the court sentences him to 20 years imprisonment," she added.

Slaughtering Srebrenica Muslims

Serb Leader on Trial for Muslim Genocide

Kuvelja at the time was a member of a Bosnian Serb interior ministry's training centre.

The judge said that the 41-year-old defendant, who had pleaded not guilty, "on July 14, 1995, took part in the execution of several dozen men detained at a farm in Kravica," a village near Srebrenica.

At the same time the court acquitted Kuvelja of genocide charges, saying the prosecutor had failed to prove that he consciously intended to exterminate an ethnic group.

Kuvelja had fled to Serbia during the 1990s war in Bosnia and joined his unit shortly before the Srebrenica massacre, the judge said.

In May two top officials of the Bosnian Serb training centre were given 30- and 35-year jail sentences after being found guilty of genocide against Srebrenica Muslim men and boys.

Srebrenica was a UN-protected Muslim enclave until July 11, 1995, when it was overrun by Serb forces.

More than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered and buried in mass graves.

The Srebrenica massacre has been termed genocide by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal.

The former Serbian general Ratko Mladic is on trial in The Hague accused of genocide in Srebrenica.

Mladic's mentor, Milosevic, the architect of the Balkan wars, died in detention in 2006, a few months before a verdict in his trial for genocide and other war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

The Bosnian Serbs' wartime political leader, Radovan Karadzic, is also on trial in The Hague accused of genocide.-www.shfaqna.com/English

Source: On Islam

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- Supreme Court judges in India have summoned the health secretaries in seven states over a worrying fall in the number of young girls in India.

They are demanding details about clinics flouting the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act – to determine the sex of unborn babies – with potentially fatal consequences.

The judges are blaming what they call rampant foeticide and infanticide, and they say the mindset of parents and society need to change.

The UN children's charity UNICEF says the culture of favouring males in India is costing the lives of millions of young girls.

The agency says more than 2,000 illegal abortions are being carried out every single day, and it is dramatically altering the balance of the population.

It warns: "Decades of sex determination tests and female foeticide that has acquired proportions are finally catching up with states in India. This is only the tip if the demographic and social problems confronting India in the coming years."

Speaking in April 2011, Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, called for a crusade against the widespread practice of foeticide and infanticide.

"The falling child sex ratio is an indictment of our social values. Our girls and women have done us proud in classrooms, in boardrooms and on the sports field. It is a national shame for us that despite this, female foeticide and infanticide continues."

The 1991 Indian census showed there were 945 girls for every 1,000 boys, aged up to six. Ten years later, it dipped even further to just 914 girls for every 1,000 boys.

But that is just the average. The figures are far worse in some states.

The 2011 census found there were 830 girls for every 1,000 boys in the northern state of Haryana. It was 846 in neighbouring Punjab state. And in the national capital territory of Delhi the figure was 866.

India has very strict abortion laws. Until 1971, terminating pregnancies was only allowed if the mother's life was at risk. Other exceptions were then allowed: for fetuses with potential birth defects; for babies conceived through rape; and for pregnancies in unmarried girls below 18.

In 1994 the government passed a new law making it illegal to use ultrasound scans to determine the sex of the baby – a crime carrying a jail term of up to three years.

So what needs to be done to change the centuries-old mindset of favouring boys?

Joining the Inside Story discussion with presenter Shiulie Ghosh are guests: Mitu Khurana, a pediatrician and a women's rights activist; Suhas Chakma, the director of the Asian Centre for Human Rights; Sadanand Dhume, a journalist/writer and a resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute.

www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – A global Muslim body urged the international community on Saturday, November 17, to protect Bengali-ethnic Muslims, known as Rohingyas, from “genocide” as US President readied for a landmark trip to the Asian country.

“We expect from the United states to convey a strong message to the government of Burma so they protect that minority, what is going on there is a genocide,” Djibouti Foreign Minister Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, who is the acting chairman of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, told Agence France Presse (AFP).

“We are telling things how they are, we believe that the United States and other ... countries ... should act quickly to save that minority which is submitted to an oppressive policy and a genocide,” he said.

Described by the UN as one of the world's most persecuted minorities, Rohingya Muslims are facing a catalogue of discrimination in their homeland.

They have been denied citizenship rights since an amendment to the citizenship laws in 1982 and are treated as illegal immigrants in their own home.

The Burmese government as well as the Buddhist majority refuse to recognize the term “Rohingya”, referring to them as “Bengalis”.

In the latest wave of anti-Muslim violence, which erupted last October 21, at least 84 people have been killed and 129 others injured in deadly clashes between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state.

Official figures have shown that at least 180 people have been killed in deadly clashes between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine since June.

The violence has displaced nearly 29,000 people, more than 97 percent of whom are Rohingya Muslims, according to the United Nations.

Many now live in camps, adding to 75,000 mostly Rohingya displaced in June.

Human rights groups have accused Burmese police and troops of disproportionate use of force and arrests of Rohingyas in the wake of the riots.

Human Rights Watch has accused Burmese security forces of targeting Rohingya Muslims with killing, rape and arrest following the unrest.

President Barack Obama on Monday will become the first sitting US president to visit Burma, in a short but hugely symbolic trip that he hopes will spur greater reform in the formerly isolated country and highlight a rare success for his policy of engaging pariah regimes.

Ethnic Cleansing

OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu called for stopping “ethnic cleansing” of the world’s most prosecuted group of Rohingya Muslims.

“We would like the international world to act immediately to stop the ethnic cleansing,” Ihsanoglu said.

The OIC calls are not the first.

Last October, the OIC said that it had obtained the green light from the Burmese government to open an office in the country.

It came after a delegation from the Muslim group visited Rakhine state, which was the scene of deadly sectarian violence between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims.

But the plans to open an OIC office in Burma have triggered massive protests by Buddhist monks who blocked the opening of the organization’s office.

Burma is about 90 percent Buddhist and the majority are ethnically Burman, but the remaining people are a diverse group of over 100 ethnic and religious minorities.

Treating Buddhism as the state de facto religion, the Buddhist Burman majority was singled out as the trustworthy pillar of national identity.

The latest bout of violence has raised concerns that the violence could spread to other parts of Burma, where Muslims make up about 4 percent of the population.

Thousands of Rohingyas have been displaced from their homes in the western state of Rakhine after a new bout of sectarian violence with the Buddhist majority.

An investigative report by Reuters found that the attacks on Rohingya Muslims were incited by Buddhist monks and led by nationalists tied to a powerful political party.— www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: On Islam

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) — A large number of Ahle Sunnat youngsters protested against the ongoing Shia Genocide in Lahore today. They were holding banners and posters with slogans such as; Stop Shia Target Killing, Shias and Sunnis are brothers and Unity is the way to defeat the enemy. The protest went on for several hours.

Speeches were made at the protest which outlined the fact that Shias had played an exceptional part in the making of Pakistan and had perhaps made more sacrifices than Sunnis during the 1947 Partition. However a recent plan has been put into action where Ahle Tashai (Shias) are being pin-pointed and killed in an attempt to create Sectarian Violence in the country. The government's criminal silence makes it seem as though everything is being done according to the government.

The protest leaders said that they belong to no political party but are just Patriotic Sunnis who feel for the Shias. They said they are grieved over the recent killings of their Shia brothers. They said they are standing beside their Shia brothers in these dark days. They said, referring to the government, that the Shia Genocide should be stopped immediately and Shias should be provided adequate security in every city.

The protesters said the Chief Justice of Pakistan should take Su Moto on this issue. They expressed grief over the fact that if a girl is molested in a remote village on the outskirts of Punjab, the chief justice can't sleep but sleeps peacefully without taking any action against the mass target killing of Shias.

They said the Chief Justice should not be biased.

The Ahle Sunnat youth said that for the protection of Pakistan, Shias and Sunnis are united and well aware of the enemy.

They said that enemies of Islam and stability of Pakistan will not succeed in their plans as Shias and Sunnis will no longer fight amongst themselves, infact very soon Shias and Sunnis will kick the enemies out together.—www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Shafaqna

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) — Noor Ali martyred in Quetta due to firing of terrorists

A terrorist group of Wahhabis killed a Shia Muslim in a targeted attack on a medical store in Quetta on Saturday.

Noor Ali was sitting on the medical store on Kanwari Road Quetta. The nasbi terrorists stormed into the medical store and opened fire upon him leaving him dead.

Shia leaders have condemned the murder of Noor Ali and prayed to rest departed soul in eternal peace. They express sympathy with the martyr’s family. They demanded of the government to arrest killers and punish them forthwith.

Qadir Bux martyred in Osta Mohammad, Balochistan

Another Shia Muslim was martyred in Balochistan province raising the death toll of the martyrs to two.

Qadir Bux was martyred due to firing of terrorists in Osta Mohammad. He was son of Haji Mithal Umrani, a known and leading Shia notable of the area. —www.shafaqna.com/english

Source: Abna

SHAFAQNA (Shia international Association) — Majlis-e-Wahdat-e-Muslimeen central leaders have demanded of the government and the judiciary to order to hang publicly those terrorists who have perpetrated genocide of Shia Muslims in all over Pakistan.

The demand was made at a press conference addressed at Imam Bargah Shah-e-Khorasan on Thursday. Allama Hassan Zafar Naqvi, central spokesman, Allama Mirza Yousuf Hussain, Ali Ausat, secretary political affairs, and Asghar Abbas Zaidi spoke.

They said that targeted killings of Shia Muslims continued unabated. They warned that they would launch a countrywide protest and surround the rulers’ houses if the genocide was not stopped.

They said that the genocide was being committed on the instigation of the United States. They said that agencies, government and political parties were also patronizing terrorists. They said that on the other, judiciary was releasing terrorists of banned terrorist groups. They said that it was an anti-Pakistan conspiracy and this plot would be foiled.

The MWM leaders said that Gilgit-Baltistan was acting like Shah of Iran who had ordered exile of Imam Khomeini because G-B government ordered to expel MWM Chief Allama Raja Nasir Abbas Jafri and ban on his entry for 90 days.

They said that MWM secretary general, Allama Jafri, was punished for his support to the oppressed people of Gilgit-Baltistan and victims of Chilas and Kohistan tragedies. They appreciated people of the province for their stiff protest outside Chief Minister G-B House that compelled the government to rescind its orders.

They also condemned the teargas shelling and firing upon Imam Bargah Shah-e-Khorasan and alam of Hazrat Abbas (AS). They demanded that legal action be taken against the DIG East Police otherwise Shia Muslims would register their protest in all over Pakistan.

They said that 27 Shias were made targets by terrorist killers and targeted killings continue in Quetta and other parts of the country. Therefore, they demanded that terrorists should be hanged publicly for genocide of Shia Muslims.—www.shafaqna.com/english

Source: Shia Post

SHAFAQNA (Shia News Association) - There is another genocide, other than the Bosnia and Herzegovina one, where Canada was guilty as seen: The one in Rwanda. Where over a period of some three and a half to four months an estimated eight hundred thousand people were murdered.

Canadian contingent was on the ground, military was on the ground, they knew genocide it was being committed. Canadian general, Robert Dallaire, who was leading that contingent, demanded action from the United Nations and Ottawa. Both United Nations in Ottawa turned deaf ear. General Dallaire who suffered as a result, as a consequence, suffered as he witnessed the genocide. There were breakdowns upon his return to Canada so that another thorn inside of Canada that it has been there, it has been on the ground with the Geneva Genocide Convention in their back pocket. They had the soldiers and they did nothing to prevent and punish the criminal genocide.

So Bosnia was not the only time that kind of failed Geneva Genocide Convention and kind of failed it in Rwanda and it will fail it again because what was done once and did not punished will be done again. Today we know that Serbia is preparing for another genocide against Bosnia and whoever doesn’t think that it will happen will be surprised.

So those are the things that we need to ask publicly; why Canada who promotes itself as a champion of human rights abroad, why Canada does not honor its commitments within international law?  That’s a very simple question and it should be answered. Canadian politicians will give you all kinds of excuses and banalities instead of following the rules of law, that’s how Ottawa operates.

Fundamental changes did not, in politics, bring fundamental changes in policy; it had always stayed the same. Whoever runs Ottawa for one reason and one reason only: To serve the interest of specially interest groups and also to act as a puppet to the Zionist genocide of entity in Palestine. That’s how Ottawa makes business.