April 29, 2009

Hungarian Roma protest against racially motivated murders

A blood stain marks place where a member of Hungary's Roma community was shot and killed.

His was the seventh Roma death in Hungary in a year and the third fatal shooting targeting the Roma community in the past five months.

In March a father and his five year old son were killed as they ran from their home which had been set alight.

The incident mirrored a similar attack on a man and woman in November.

Police are so concerned over the spate of attacks they have offered a 222,000 dollar reward for information.

Meanwhile the Roma community staged a protest in the Hungarian capital Budapest. Speakers criticised the the criminal justice system and people's complacency over the attacks.

Roma people say the marches of the far right radical extremist organization, Magyar Gárda (Hungarian Guard) have legitimized the anti-Roma feelings in society by openly talking about what they call Gypsy crime.

Hungary has one of the largest Roma communities in eastern Europe, which makes up between 5 and 7 percent of the population. They have remained on the margins, lacking jobs, wealth and proper education for decades.

April 26, 2009

Slovak Police Brutality against Roma kids (Video Included)


The policemen in the eastern city of Kosice, Slovakia forced the six Roma boys aged 11 to 16 to punch each other in the face, kiss each other and strip naked.

The officers also let loose unmuzzled dogs at the boys, and some of the children were bitten.

The policemen recorded “humiliating scenes” with their mobile phones and cameras, laughing and encouraging the children to punch each other.

Referring to the recording, the daily wrote that the police had shouted and called names at the boys and ordered them to undress. The video was released on 8 April, 2009, a day before International Roma Day, a day to raise awareness of anti-Roma discrimination.


The worst case of Slovakian police brutality against the Roma so far occurred in July 2001, when 50-year-old Karol Sendrei was taken to a police station, handcuffed to a radiator and beaten throughout the night. He was discovered dead in the morning with the post-mortem detailing damage to his vital organs from kicks and punches.

The Roma, who make up approximately 6 percent of Slovakia’s population, are targets for abuse in many Eastern and Central European countries where they are a substantial minority.They have long suffered from discrimination in areas such as jobs, education and housing, which has in some places become worse in the current economic crisis.

WATCH VIDEO


April 16, 2009

Sikh families leave Orakzai after Taliban demand jizia

As the rule of Islam spread beyond the borders of Arabias, Muslim rulers found it impossible either to convert the entire population or to exterminate the whole. The solution was found by admitting the non-Muslims to the status of Zimmis. Zimmis are those non-Muslims whose life is held under a contract. Jizia tax(a capitation tax/head tax imposed on free non-Muslims living under Muslim rule) used to be imposed on non-Muslims as a punishment for their unbelief and in order to humiliate themJizia tax is back.Now this Jizia tax is back into action.

HANGU: Sikh families living in Orakzai Agency (Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan) have left the agency after the Taliban demanded Rs 50 million as jizia (tax) from them, official sources and locals said on Tuesday.

Residents of Ferozekhel area in Lower Orakzai Agency told Daily Times on Tuesday that around 10 Sikh families left the agency after the demand by the Taliban, who said they were a minority and liable to pay the tax for living in the area in accordance with sharia.

Locals said the Taliban had notified the Sikh families about the ‘tax’ around a week ago. They said of the 15 Sikh families in Ferozekhel, 10 had shifted while the remaining were preparing to do so.

The locals said the families were impoverished and had left the area to avoid any Taliban action.
Daily Times



April 15, 2009

Taliban executed couples for adultery

The Taliban has publicly executed a young unmarried couple in southern Afghanistan. The woman, 19, and the man, 21, were accused by the militants of immoral acts, and a council of conservative clerics decided that the two should be killed, said Ghulam Dastagir Azad, the governor of the southwestern province of Nimroz. Terming the brutal incident an ‘insult to Islam’ he said local religious leaders had ordered a death sentence for the couple.

The two had fled their homes and hoped to travel to Iran, but their parents sent villagers to bring them home, said Sadiq Chakhansori, the chief of Nimroz' provincial council. Once back home, the pair was either turned over to the Taliban by their parents or the militants came and took them by force, the officials said, providing slightly varying accounts.

A similar incident happened in Hangu district of North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, which is outside the purview of Pakistan government.

A man and a woman, who were accused of committing adultery, were gunned down by the Taliban in northwest Pakistan a few days ago.

The chilling video footage of the execution was sent to the Dawn newspaper yesterday. It shows a Taliban firing squad killing the man and woman, both apparently in their forties, after accusing them of adultery.

They were shot dead in the presence of their relatives. The newspaper quoted its sources as saying that the incident took place in Hangu district of North West Frontier Province.

In this video, the woman is heard appealing to the Taliban militants for mercy. Have mercy on me, please have mercy. The charges against me are false and no man has ever touched me, she is heard saying.

The couple try to flee when they realise what is about to happen.But the militant first shoot the woman by firing two bullets in her chest and later open a burst of Kalashnikov fire at both the woman and the man, leaving them bleeding in the dirt. But the woman is still seen breathing, and the Talibans start yelling that she is alive and issuing orders to "kill her, kill her".

Sources told the channel that the Taliban had asked the relatives of the woman and the man to present the two before them for questioning at a specified place. The relatives brought both of them to the Taliban, who killed them in cold blood.





April 4, 2009

Witchcraft Murders: Five people suspected of witchcraft burnt alive in Kenya

Incidents of witches being killed or burned alive is no more a strange fact. A large number of men, women and children are branded as witches and then killed through out the world.But this time this horrific incident was caught on a video of people beating and burning alive alleged witches in Nyamataro, near Kisii town in Kenya. The victims were older people (80 years and above), and four of the five were women.Last year, on May 2008, eleven elderly people accused of being witches have been burned to death.

This graphic, inhumane murder and burning of victims captured on the video left me stunned and horrified. Some of the victim tried to crawl out of the ditch where they were being burned,but they beaten mercilessly, kicked and dragged back. The human cruelty captured in this video clip is beyond belief.



April 3, 2009

Taliban publicly whipped a girl in Swat


A 17-year-old screaming, burqa-clad girl was whipped by Taliban fighters in Pakistan's Swat Valley for coming "out of her house with another guy who was not her husband", a two-minute video shot through a mobile phone showed. The video showed the girl face down on the ground. Two men held her arms and feet while a third, a black-turbaned fighter with a flowing beard, whipped her repeatedly.

“Please! Enough! Enough” the girl is heard crying. "Please stop it," the girl begged repeatedly. "Either kill me or stop it now." After 34 lashes the punishment stopped and the wailing girl was led into a stone building.

What is her crime??According to local reporters the girl was whipped because she came out of her house with a man who was not her husband. But some residents have revealed a local Taliban commander ordered the beating to get revenge after the girl refused to accept his proposal of marriage.

Pakistan government ceded authority of Swat valley to the Taliban under a peace deal(?), giving them almost a free hand to impose their puritan Islamic rule on the around 600,000 people of Swat and its seven neighbouring districts.