Muslim Iraqis Protest against Christian Persecution

Two anchorwomen in the Middle East have protested against the persecution of Christians in their countries on TV while reading the news.

The Muslim journalist Dalia AlAqidi, who works for the Iraqi TV network Sumaria, wore a cross around her neck on air and launched a verbal attack from the TV against "Islamist fascism", in support of Christians in Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.

AlAqidi made this gesture not only because of the disappearance from Mosul - which since June is in the hands of jihadists - of a Christian community that numbered in the thousands of faithful, but also for "the good of the whole country." She believes the exodus of Christians to be bad for everyone: "Christians are part of the indigenous people of this land and we cannot go on without them."

Dalia defended wearing the Cross, which is forbidden in Mosul, and has shrugged off threats already aimed at her. Writing on her Facebook page, she said she already received calls from Saudi Arabia.

AlAqidi says that this is not a "religious initiative but an uprising against anyone trying to obliterate civilisation...If I do not speak and others remain silent, then, as the saying goes, 'He who is silent about justice is a mute devil.'"

Other - very few - Muslim Iraqis have taken risks by defending the Christians from persecution by the Islamic State. Still others have been killed for not pledging allegiance to the Islamic State.

The Islamic State jihadists, after having settled in Mosul and declared the caliphate, have started a systematic persecution of Christians, which culminated in their expulsion from their homes.

While the large majority of Muslims and Muslim leaders - like the grand imam of Al Azhar mosque in Egypt - have remained silent, a small group of Muslims have protested, paying with their lives.

Sixteen of them, the news of whose killing was released about a month after the capture of Mosul by the Islamic state, were killed according to the UN on 12-14 June. Among them are the imam of Mosul’s Great Nurridin Mosque, Muhammad al-Mansuri, and that of the mosque of the Prophet Jonah, Abdel-Salam Muhammad.

Bielefeldt, a professor of human rights and human rights politics at the University of Erlangen-Nurnberg in Germany, said the purpose of such executions was to silence critics of extreme movements. Those who oppose the movement, he said, “don’t dare to say this publicly because it can be a matter of life and death.”

The executions apparently have had an effect. A resident of Mosul who once worked at the Great Nurridin Mosque told McClatchy on Saturday that the Islamic State is now dictating the content of Friday sermons in Mosul. The resident cannot be identified for security reasons.

More recently Mahmoud Al ‘Asali, a Muslim law professor who lectures on pedagogy at the University of Mosul, was killed after speaking out against the persecution of Christians, against the looting and burning of Mosul Christians' properties and possessions.

He refused to keep silent about the violence agaist Mosul’s Christians who are forced to choose between converting to the Muslim faith, paying the jizyah (the Islamic tax for non-Muslims) or fleeing...

Professor Ali ‘Asali knew what he was risking: everyone in Mosul knows that in Raqqa - the Syrian city which the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant seized last year – there are many human rights activists who have paid for their opposition to ISIS’ acts of intolerance with their own lives. But Al ‘Asali was nevertheless unable to stand by in silence.

Christians in Mosul have been given the ultimatum: convert to Islam, pay the jizyah or be put to death. Those who decide to flee are not allowed to take anything with them, except the clothes they are wearing. Christians who are not healthy enough to flee Mosul must renounce their faith for Islam "just to stay alive".

The jizyah tax for non-Muslims - that all Christians have to pay if they want to stay alive and remain or return to Mosul - is 450 dollars per month, "which is an impossible sum for anyone living in Northern Iraq to pay".

It's unspeakable that the West ignores the Christian genocide in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East.

The jihadists of the Islamic state - reminiscent of Nazi methods - mark Christian homes in Mosul with the Arabic letter "N" which stands for the word "Nasrani", meaning "Christian" in Arabic.

Some Muslims have launched the “I am Iraqi, I am Christian” campaign in solidarity with Christians and in response to the letter "N" written on the walls of Christian homes. A group of them turned up outside the Chaldean Church of St. George in Baghdad with a banner displaying that slogan, and posted a picture on Facebook.

Joining this initiative and inspired by her Iraqi colleague Dalia AlAqidi, Dima Sadeq, of the Lebanese TV network LBCI, appeared on television wearing a t-shirt printed with the Arabic letter "ن" (corresponding to the "N" - pronounced Noon - of the word "Nasrani", Christian) used to mark the Christian homes. Before beginning to read the newscast, Sadeq said: "From Mosul to Beirut, we are all Christians."

Subsequently, the LBCI has turned its logo into Lb ن and launched the hashtag # Lb ن to kick off a campaign that has persuaded thousands of Twitter and Facebook users to replace their profile images and avatars with a picture of a yellow “ن” in a black background, the "brand" of Iraqi Christians. "The darkest place in hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis" Dalia AlAqidi said, paraphrasing Dante Alighieri. "We will not allow", Sadeq echoed, "the walls to become the place on which letters of exile are drawn."

Le Pen Leads in Poll on Next President

An opinion poll among 947 people on the French electoral roll, with a margin of error of about 2.5%, conducted for the French magazine Marianne, shows Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National party, leading in first round of France’s next presidential election.

The FN performed very well at the last European Election in May, getting almost 25% of the French vote, while President François Hollande's socialists only got 14%.

The Front National wants France to leave the euro and would support France's continued European Union membership only under certain, very strict conditions - including primacy of French law over EU law, abolition of the Schengen Area of free movement of people, €0 net contribution to the EU budget and nationalisation of agricultural policy.

It is firmly opposed to unrestricted immigration, on which its policies are:

Reduce legal immigration 95% to 10,000 people annually, no amnesty or benefits for illegal immigrants or their children, abolition of jus soli, and citizenship only to be granted to foreigners’ children who are legally resident, speak French, are law-abiding and show “proof of assimilation.”

According to the latest poll, carried out online by Ifop on July 21 and 22, Le Pen would attract 26% of the vote, more than former president Nicolas Sarkozy's 25%. From Bloomberg:

The socialist candidate, President Francois Hollande or Prime Minister Manuel Valls, would finish third and would fail to make the second round with 17 percent. The poll did not measure second-round voting intentions.

Marine Le Pen's father and founder of FN Jean-Marie Le Pen reached the second round of the presidential election in 2002 with 17%, beating socialist Lionel Jospin and only losing in the second round to Jacques Chirac.

Marine took over the Front National in 2011 and has been trying to render it more moderate, although some say that the transformation is more superficial than fundamental.

Neverthless, for a while she and Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch anti-Islam party PVV and one of the best-known figures of the European counterjihad, seemed bound to form a publicly-funded alliance of like-minded parties in the European Parliament.

Fred and Ginger

Today the film "The Gay Divorce" with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers was on the TV.

Watching it - even the little bit I did - is like experiencing a cultural time travel through the development in mores between then and now.

The term "gay" could still be used in its proper sense, then, before being highjacked by the homosexualist movement that made it impossible to use it except in their own chosen meaning, as in any other way it would give rise to misinterpretations.

Psychoanalysis - with its corollary of word association - was still fashionable, as was elephant hunting.

Two step forward and one step back, but it's a huge step back in its implications.

Not Much Hope but Lots of Hate

I don't know if you'ever heard of the extreme Left group Hope not Hate (HnH).

I hadn't, until I joined the party Liberty GB. Because all the activity of this group consists of is attacking political organisations that have different opinions from them.

The choice of its name is particularly unfortunate, especially the "Not Hate" bit, as hate for the holders of non-socialist views is what motivates the group and its only raison d'etre.

Not being an avid reader of its website, only yesterday I chanced to see a blog post in it, written before the last European Elections, in which the three Liberty GB candidates - Paul Weston, Jack Buckby and I - are scrutinised.

But don't expect analysis, or even comment, on ideas and political positions.

Hope not Hate doesn't waste time and the little mental energy it must have on such trivia as the ideolological foundations for a party manifesto policy or the arguments supporting a political stance.

In the old electoral-campaign polarisation of issues versus personalities, this far-Left group has no hesitation in siding with the latter.

Ad hominem attacks is what it's specialised in, indeed not just in this post but in all the others in its website that I read.

The most paradoxical, if we were to take Hope not Hate seriously - choice that I don't recommend - and therefore consider it as a suitable object for a logical assessment of self-contradictions, thing I read was the part about me, since I am, as HnH nicely put it, a "Johnny Foreigner".

Here this group that prides itself for its anti-bigotry and open-mindedness showed itself - inadvertently, but then intellect is not its strong point - for what it is: exactly the opposite.

Here is what it says:

"This one is a woman and she is from Italy. Before you can throw accusations of bunga-bunga at the party, Enza Ferreri, the woman in question, has a name not too dissimilar to that of a flash sports car that rich people drive and she also has a degree in philosophy from an Italian University.

"Like Jack and Paul, it appears she is also very posh. She claims she used to write for the Italian magazine L'Espresso which is probably some kind of industry magazine for coffee lovers."

See how many national stereotypes and prejudices you can cram into a few sentences if you put your mind to it?

The "bunga bunga" reference is particularly telling, since only Italians are mindlessly and sweepingly associated with the sexcapades of their politicians, in this case former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

As Italian journalist and friend Alessandra Nucci said, Americans are not all painted with the same brush as Oval Office adulterer Bill Clinton.

So here you have it as clear as daylight: the self-proclaimed anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-xenophobic group par excellence is revealing its hidden bigotry, thus showing to be motivated not so much by pure and philanthropic ideals but by hatred for conservatives, as the entire focus and activity of the group - merely negative, attacking something or rather someone - also amply demonstrates.

http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/blog/insider/a-bit-of-racist-posh-and-spice-3586