| NEW YORK | Pakistan Ledger | August 12th, 2008 | Moin Ansari |  The misplaced panglossian gloss cannot hide the truth that even the thinnest veneer the so called secularism (used to be Hinduism light) is dead.  Mr. Advani has launched a nationwide campaign against the Kashmiris, most of whom are Muslims. The Indian state is in trouble both from a physical as well as a philosophical level. Religious wars are making it into the Bosnia which it was predicted to end up as in 1947. Indian nationalism has been challenged once again. Its Hindu vs. Muslim once again in the so called “secular republic”. “Incredible India” is in the throws of major bouts of violence. This time even the die hard Hinduvata cannot blame the Pakistani cross border activity, because the entire state of Kashmir wasn’t to cross the border to Pakistan.

GENOCIDE AGAINST MUSLIMS: Hindus burning Muslim homes

When 250,000 people with 500 trucks want to cross the Line of Control, the slogans from Mr. Advani seem very hollow.

The idea of becoming subservient to India is abhorrent and that of cooperation with India, with the object of promoting tension with China, equally repugnant.” Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto

Srinagar, Aug 10 (PTI) Irked by the objection raised by the Shri Amarnath Sanghrash Samiti (SASS) to the participation of Kashmiri leaders in the all-party meet, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) today said SASS has launched an “anti-Kashmir and anti-Muslim” tirade.

Ridiculing the “illogical boycott” of Kashmiri politicians by SASS, senior PDP leader Tariq Hameed Karra said the Sangh Parivar has made clear its “clandestine” agenda to divide the state on regional and religious lines under the garb of land agitation.
“The SASS patronised by RSS and Bajrang Dal, is trying to give shape to the long-cherished concealed agenda of the Sangh Parivar to divide the state on regional and religious lines,” Karra said.

The SASS met the all-party delegation headed by Home Minister Shivraj Patil yesterday in Jammu after PDP President Mehbooba Mufti said she would not participate in the meet if that helps easing the situation.
Karra said such “chauvinistic and parochial” conduct of SASS is fraught with disastrous consequences and the Samiti would be solely responsible for disintegration of the State.
“Let me make it clear to SASS leaders, they should not try to browbeat the Kashmiri politicians as such idiotic actions could cause more harm to the people of Jammu than any other region,” he said.

Claiming that the ongoing agitation in Jammu is being planned and spearheaded by RSS and Bajrang Dal cadres from outside the state, Karra said he has “credible inputs that thousands of Sangh Parivar activists from Gujarat, UP, MP and Maharashtra have infiltrated into Jammu and it is they who are planning and spearheading the protests there”. PTI

Jammu, Kashmir integral part of India: Advani Exp news service: Mon, Aug11, 2008 at 0215 hrs IST

New Delhi, August 10
After hardselling Amarnath as the party’s new-found symbol of “territorial integrity and cultural nationalism,” BJP’s prime ministerial candidate L K Advani on Sunday claimed that “those opposed to the Amarnath land transfer were questioning Jammu and Kashmir’s status as an integral part of the country”.

“Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India; whoever raises questions on this issue will have to pay for it,” he said at a function to release the special issue of a children’s magazine dedicated to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

“This is not a question of Amarnath or a shrine alone. They are saying it is okay that you have alloted land for Vaishno Devi in Jammu but how can you allot land in Kashmir,” said BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.

Advani, who, as the National Democratic Alliance leader, has been mum on the party’s pet agenda of abrogation of Article 370 (according Jammu and Kashmir a special status) recalled the Bharatiya Jana Sangh ideologue Shyama Prasad Mookerjee’s role in the state’s integration with the country.

“Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, during his struggle 55 years ago for cancelling the visa system for those visiting the state, had promised people that he would either get the permit system abolished or sacrifice his life … we seem to have turned a full circle today,” he said.

On Saturday, Advani, at a Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha rally, had said that “every Indian has the right on every inch of land and that no one could question allotment of land for Amarnath pilgrims in the Valley”.

| NEW YORK | Pakistan Ledger | August 12th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | More than 250,000 Kashmiris are trying to travel to Pakistan. Men, women and children and traders. Some have already paid with their lives. If ever a population has shown its love for the Crescent and Star it is now. The Kashmiris imprisoned in Indian Occupied Kashmir are trying to traverse the LOC from Srinagar to Muzzafargarh — trying to sell their produce to their Muslim brothers residing in Azad Kashmir. We predict that the Indian government will be unable to stem the tide of the protest and will ask the Pakistani government to do their dirty work and shoot on the protesters trying to get to freedom.

Economic terrorism unleashed by Hindus in Jammu region by blocking the movement of goods between Jammu and Kashmir have caused serious economic problems and this economic terrorism is resented by Kashmirs who have suffered badly and decided to mach to Muzaffarabad to show their anger Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal

Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who visited the office of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference in Islamabad to express condolences over the death of Kashmiri separatist leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz, regretted what he described as the “excessive use of force” by Indian security forces.

A symbolic march by Kashmirs to march towards north (Muzaffarabad) when they are harmed in the south (Jammu) has caused more lives for Kashmiris. It is indeed a shame for human civilization that India continues to be engaged n genocide of Kashmiris. As part of Indian strategy to kill Kashmiris in a sustained manner under different guises, some more Kashmiri Muslims were murdered by India in the background of the Hindus fascist fight for Sri Amarnath illegal land deal. Dr Abdul Ruff Colachal

Qureshi expressed his grief to Shaikh Yaqoob, the brother of Aziz, who was chief of Jammu and Kashmir People’s League. Representatives of all members of Hurriyat were also present.
The Pakistan minister regretted the “excessive use of force by Indian security forces against the Kashmiri people and called for an immediate end to violence in Jammu and Kashmir”, said a statement issued by the Foreign Office.

The general reaction of India is to blame it all on extremists and on Pakistan. Obviously this humanitarian march to sell their merchandise because the Jammu extremists have have blocked their roads is not a terror enterprise. 

Protesters Defy Curfew in Disputed Kashmir as Toll Rises to 27 By Jay Shankar and Bibhudatta Pradhan

Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) — Police in Indian-administered Kashmir fired at protesters who defied a curfew today, killing 11, as the total death toll from violence over a transfer of land to a Hindu organization in the Muslim-majority state rose to 27.

“Eleven people died during the protests in the valley” in the winter capital of Jammu, Senior Superintendent of Police Showkat Malik said in a telephone interview. “Security forces and policemen are guarding the streets and a curfew has been imposed in the entire valley.”

Authorities cracked down on demonstrators a day after more than 50,000 took to the streets in Jammu and Kashmir, the Himalayan state that’s claimed by India and Pakistan. India’s government accused its nuclear-armed neighbor of interference after Pakistan’s Foreign MinisterShah Mahmood Qureshi condemned what he described as “excessive and unwarranted use of force.”

“The situation is tense,” police official Kailash Kumar said. “The army has been called out and they are patrolling the streets.”

Two protesters were killed and 40 injured in clashes between Hindus and Muslims in Jammu’s Kishtwar region, Kumar said in a phone interview.

Relations between Hindus and Muslims have deteriorated after the state government approved in June the transfer of 99 acres (40 hectares) of land to the Hindu Shri Amarnathji Shrine Board. The land was being used as temporary accommodation for more than 400,000 Hindu pilgrims who trek every year to the site located in a mountain cave.

Scrapped Transfer

The transfer was scrapped last month following protests by Kashmir’s Muslim majority. The state’s Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad resigned on July 7 after the People’s Democratic Party pulled out of the coalition government over the issue.

Four protesters, including a separatist leader, died yesterday when police fired at them to prevent a march to the Kashmiri border with Pakistan. Yesterday’s protests were over a blockade of goods mostly by Hindus in Jammu, the winter capital of the state, who are demanding the state governor be fired and the land restored to the shrine board.

The blockade has caused a shortage of medicines, milk and other commodities in the valley, Ghulam Mustafa Bhat, chairman of the Kashmir Valley Fruit Growers and Dealers Association, said in a telephone interview.

“Fruits are getting rotten as people in Jammu are blocking our trucks,” he said. “From children to old men, all are suffering for the past one month.”

Tear Gas Fired

Police fired tear gas yesterday at the Hindu protesters who stoned trucks and drivers, according to Bashir Ahmad Dar, a member of the association.

There is no blockade on the highway linking Srinagar, the summer capital, with Jammu and other parts of the country, Home Minister Shivraj Patil told reporters in New Delhi. “There is no reason for an agitation on this issue.”

“We will not leave any stone unturned to resolve the issue,” Patil said. “An all party delegation has appealed to all the sections of people in Kashmir to maintain peace and harmony.”

Representatives of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, the Samajwadi Party, an ally of the ruling coalition, the Communist Party of India and former state chief ministers Farooq Abdullah andGhulam Nabi Azad met for a second day today.

More than a dozen Islamic separatist groups have been fighting since 1989 for Jammu and Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with Pakistan. The insurgency has left more than 50,000 people dead. A separatist leader, Sheikh Abdul Aziz, was killed during the protests yesterday, said Police Superintendent Malik, without elaborating.

`Immediate Steps’

Pakistan Foreign Minister Qureshi called for “immediate steps to end the violence against innocent Kashmiris,” according to a statement on the ministry’s Web site.

“These statements constitute clear interference in the internal affairs of an integral part of India,” Navtej Sarna, spokesman at India’s Foreign Ministry said in New Delhi today.

India and Pakistan began restoring ties in April 2003 after coming close to fighting a fourth war the previous year. More than a dozen Islamic separatist groups are fighting against Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir, where about 50,000 people have died in the conflict.

“Such statements by leaders of a foreign country do not help the situation,” Sarna said. “Nor do they contribute to creating the atmosphere necessary for the dialogue between India and Pakistan to move forward.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jay Shankar in Bangalore at jshankar1@bloomberg.net.

| NEW YORK | Pakistan Ledger | August 12th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | The Who’s who of Islampbobia can be found on the list of invitees for the Pro Kohn’s conference in Cologne Germany. Jean-Marie Le Pen of France, Austria’s Heinz-Christian Strache, and Belgium’s Filip Dewinter. They are back. Islampbhibia Inc congregates in Cologne Germany. They are meeting in Germany for the perpetuation of the 4th Reich. Provoking an emotional populace is a full time industry. Islamphobia Inc. is meeting in Cologne Germany to chart out strategies to malign and misconstrue the teachings of Islam. A similar meeting took place in 1097 which led to the beginnings of the Crusades in 1098. A similar meeting took place in 1491 which led to the Spanish Inquisition. The same meeting took place in 1492 which led to the begriming of colonialism of Muslim lands. A similar meeting met in 1936 to define a strategy for the extermination of the other children of Abraham-The Jews.

OIC slams anti-Islam congress in Germany Arab News

JEDDAH: The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has expressed serious concerns about reports that an far right group is holding an anti-Islam conference in the German city of Cologne in September.

A spokesman for the OIC’s Islamophobia Observatory in Jeddah said in a statement issued yesterday that the proposed conference was aimed at arousing anti-Muslim sentiments in Europe and that it would pose a threat to inter-communal peace and harmony in society.

The right-wing extremist group Pro Koln is organizing the event on Sept. 19-20, with the aim of issuing a declaration against the purported “Islami-fication” of Europe.

The meeting is expected to be attended by some of the most inflammatory names in European race politics, including Jean-Marie Le Pen of France, Austria’s Heinz-Christian Strache, and Belgium’s Filip Dewinter.

The organizers of the conference are motivated by racial hatred and xenophobia, said the OIC spokesman.

“The OIC hopes that all segments of society in Germany and other parts of Europe will come out strongly against the holding of such a conference, and reject the proponents of hatred and racism,” he said in the statement.

Various international groups have condemned Pro Koln for organizing the conference and called for public initiatives to confront efforts to spread the right-wing propaganda against people of other ethnic or religious groups.

Meanwhile, German Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor Ralph Giordano has come out strongly against the planned conference.

He said his protests against the “symptoms of a political and militant Islam” have always been based on his desire to “protect the constitutional state based on fundamental rights.”

“Pro Koln doesn’t want any democracy at all,” Giordano said, adding that he would “defend any Muslim who is affected by anti-foreigner feeling or xenophobia

| NEW YORK | Pakistan Ledger | August 12th, 2008 | Moin Ansari | They are back. Islampbhibia Inc congregates in Cologne Germany. They are meeting in Germany for the perpetuation of the 4th Reich. Provoking an emotional populace is a full time industry. Islamphobia Inc. is meeting in Cologne Germany to chart out strategies to malign and misconstrue the teachings of Islam. A similar meeting took place in 1097 which led to the beginnings of the Crusades in 1098. A similar meeting took place in 1491 which led to the Spanish Inquisition. The same meeting took place in 1492 which led to the begriming of colonialism of Muslim lands. A similar meeting met in 1936 to define a strategy for the extermination of the other children of Abraham-The Jews.

Islamhobic Inc. routinely publishes books to inflame, inspire, instigate. The Jewel of Medina is one such book that is squashed but will surely reappear in some form or the other.

Call for compensation after shelving of Islam novel: Random House accused of cowardice after withdrawing The Jewel of Medina amid fears of Muslim controversy

Tuesday August 12 2008 10:30 BST

The lawyer who was threatened by terrorists whilst acting for Salman Rushdie has said that Random House US should pay “substantial compensation” to Sherry Jones, whose novel about Muhammad’s child bride Aisha was dropped by the publisher over fears it could provoke terrorist attacks. Jones’s The Jewel of Medina was described as potentially more controversial than both Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses and the Danish newspaper cartoons of Muhammad.

Geoffrey Robertson QC, whose latest book The Tyrannicide Brief is published by Random House US and who was under terrorist threat whilst acting for Rushdie, said: “We can’t be overcritical of American publishers for cowering under terrorist threats. After all, the Guardian, like every other British newspaper, lacked the gumption to publish the Danish cartoons. But all who care about free speech have a duty to make this sort of censorship counterproductive. Random House should pay this author substantial compensation, and the book should be placed on a website so everyone can read it.”

The Jewel of Medina was due to be published by Random House US on August 12, but the publisher dropped the book after consultations with academics and security experts suggested that it “might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment”. The move has provoked a storm of controversy across the internet, with some bloggers calling on readers to boycott Random House, and others criticising Jones for “insulting the Prophet”.

In a statement, Random House said: “We stand firmly by our responsibility to support our authors and the free discussion of ideas, even those that may be construed as offensive by some. However, a publisher must weigh that responsibility against others that it also bears, and in this instance we decided, after much deliberation, to postpone publication for the safety of the author, employees of Random House Inc, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the book.” When Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses was published in 1988, attempts were made on the lives of his Norwegian and Italian publishers, and the Japanese translator of the novel was killed.

Jones said she did not believe there was any risk involved in publishing the book. “Frankly I’m more afraid of global warming than of terrorist attacks,” she said. “I did expect my book would be controversial, just because I’m a pink woman writing about a culture that was not my own and a religion that is not my own … [but] my aim was not to provoke, it was to portray the difficulty of being a woman in that era, and to portray this wonderful heroine who overcame obstacles to become a prominent figure in Islam.”

The first person narrative details the life of Aisha, one of Muhammad’s wives, from the age of six until 18 when Muhammad dies. Aisha is portrayed as a spirited young woman, distressed by being put into purdah aged six, and keen to be treated as equal to men. “I pulled myself up to my windowsill and peered into the stars, imagining they were the one thousand and one eyes of al-Lah. When He looked at me, what did He see? Inferiority, a shrunken soul, a light that shone more feebly than that of a man? Or did He see what I felt – a bright burning, like the bush He’d inhabited the day He’d revealed Himself to Moses?”

Jones skirts around the edges of Aisha’s sexual relationship with Muhammad without going into graphic details. “This was the beginning of something new, something terrible. Soon I would be lying on my bed beneath him, squashed like a scarab beetle, flailing and sobbing while he slammed himself against me. He would not want to hurt me, but how could he help it? It’s always painful the first time.” The author compared the novel, which was described as “soft core pornography” by one academic, to works such as Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent, which retells the story of the rape of Dinah from Genesis chapter 34. “My portrayal of Muhammad is extremely respectful, and of the origins of Islam is very accurate and respectful,” she said. “Muhammad says in the Koran that he was a mortal. I assume he did all the things a man does. He had 12 wives – I’m sure he had sex with them.”

She said she was hopeful of finding a new publisher shortly. “I’m glad the story has come out because now any publisher who takes it on will do so with eyes wide open. I’m hoping to find someone who is as passionate as I am and my agent is.”

Publisher Andrew Franklin, director of Profile Books, said that Random House should not have been deterred from publishing by imagined threats of Islamic extremism. “It’s absolutely shocking. They are such cowards,” he said. Franklin pointed to Penguin’s publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988. “I think Penguin acted with great integrity,” said Franklin, who was working for Penguin at the time. “They behaved as any publisher in the west should do, and upheld freedom of publication and freedom of speech. They stuck by their guns at not inconsiderable risk to their senior executives. These are the principles we should live and die by.”