Editor acquitted over Mohammed cartoons row
From correspondents in Paris

March 23, 2007 12:00

A PARIS court acquitted the editor of a satirical French weekly sued by two Muslim groups for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, in a case seen as a test for freedom of expression.

Applause broke out in the courtroom at the announcement of the verdict, which ruled that three cartoons published by the weekly Charlie Hebdo in February 2006 were not insulting to Muslims.

The Paris Grand Mosque and the Union of Islamic Organisations of France took Charlie Hebdo editor Philippe Val to court for reprinting cartoons that first appeared in a Danish newspaper, sparking angry protests by Muslims worldwide.

They argued that the images drew an offensive link between Islam and terrorism and asked for €30,000 ($A49,800) in damages.

Mr Val welcomed the ruling and said it would open a much-needed debate among Muslims in France.

“If you believe as we do that Islam is perfectly compatible with French democracy, such a debate is a blessing,” he said.

The court ruled that two of the cartoons were absolutely not offensive to Muslims.

One, reprinted from Denmark's Jyllands-Posten, showed the prophet standing on a cloud, turning away suicide bombers from paradise with the caption “Stop, stop, we ran out of virgins”.

The second, by the French cartoonist Cabu, showed Mohammed sobbing, holding his head in his hands and saying: “It is hard to be loved by fools”, under the caption “Mohammed overwhelmed by fundamentalists”.

On the third cartoon - showing Mohammed wearing a turban shaped as a bomb, and first printed in Jyllands-Posten - the court's ruling was more nuanced.

The court decided that the caricature could potentially be insulting to Muslims but that the context of its publication in Charlie Hebdo made clear there was no intention to offend.

The president of the Union of Islamic Organisations of France, Lhaj Thami Breze, said following the hearing that he intended to appeal “because we are unhappy with the verdict”.

We don't understand, the judgement says that one of the drawings is shocking but that it falls within the framework of freedom of expression,” said the group's lawyer.

But lawyers for the Paris Mosque said they would not challenge the court's decision.

Quote:


There was nothing in the earlier article saying he wasnt murdered. It said his death was suspicious, and investigations were continuing.

If there is no evidence of murder, it doesnt rule out a murder taking place. It only means that the reason for death was not readily apparent.

Muslim pupils beat teacher to death over KoranFrom correspondents in Gombe
March 22, 2007 03:32am
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MUSLIM pupils at a secondary school in northeastern Nigeria beat a teacher to death today after accusing her of desecrating the Koran.

Oluwatoyin Olusase, a Christian, was adjudicating an Islamic Religious Knowledge exam at the school in Gombe state when the incident occurred.

The students attacked her outside the school compound after the exam and killed her, witnesses said.

It was not clear exactly what Olusase had done that angered the students.

Police confirmed the killing and said their intervention had prevented the incident from turning into a riot.

"We have received information that a female teacher has been lynched by her students. We are investigating the report," Gombe state police commissioner Joseph Ibi said.

At least five people were killed and several churches burned down in February 2006 in the neighbouring state of Bauchi by Muslims infuriated that a Christian teacher in a secondary school had tried to confiscate a Koran from a student who was reading it during class.

Word got out into the streets that the teacher had desecrated the Koran, infuriating Muslims who went on the rampage.

At least 15,000 people have died in religious, communal and political violence in Africa's most populous country since 1999, when Nigeria returned to democracy after 30 years of almost unbroken military rule.

Iran would 'hit back with everything it has' if attacked - leader
Email this storyPrint this story 7:45AM Thursday March 22, 2007



Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Photo / Reuters

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TEHRAN - Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned today Iran would hit back with everything it has if attacked over its nuclear program, which the United States believes is aimed at making atom bombs.

Khamenei, who has previously threatened US regional interests if attacked, was speaking in the northeastern city of Mashhad to mark the Iranian new year, which falls on March 21.

"If they want to threaten us and use force and violence against us, they should not doubt that Iranian officials will use all they have in their power to deal a blow to those who assault them," he said in an address carried by Iranian television news.

The United Nations Security Council is considering new sanctions against Iran over its refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment program, whose product can be used to make fuel for power generation or, when more highly enriched, nuclear weapons.

Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, insists the program is peaceful and aimed solely at generating electricity.


Khamenei said Iran's nuclear work followed international rules, but if major powers via the Security Council took "illegal actions" and ignored Iran's rights, "we can also carry out illegal actions and we will do that."

Washington has said it would prefer a diplomatic solution to the standoff, but has not ruled out military options.

- REUTERS

Christian schoolgirl beheadings: militants jailed
Email Print Normal font Large font March 21, 2007 - 8:17PM

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AdvertisementThree Islamic militants were found guilty today of decapitating three Christian schoolgirls in Indonesia and dumping their bloodied heads in nearby villages, judges said.

They were sentenced to between 14 and 20 years.

The alleged members of the al-Qaeda linked Jemaah Islamiah network left a handwritten note close to the bodies, vowing more killings to avenge the deaths of Muslims in earlier sectarian violence on Sulawesi island.

"Wanted - 100 more heads," said Judge Lilik Mulyadi, reciting the letter's text. "Blood must be paid with blood, lives with lives, heads with heads."

Hasanuddin, 34, who goes by a single name, was sentenced to 20 years for masterminding the 2005 attack. His co-conspirators Lilik Purnomo, 28, and Irwanto Irano, 29, each got 14 years.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has been hit by a string of terrorist attacks in recent years targeting local Christians and nightclubs, restaurants and foreign embassies.

But the grisly nature of the beheadings - which occurred as the children were cutting through a cocoa plantation on their way to school - gave fresh impetus to the country's war on terrorism and was followed by scores of arrests.

The three militants had faced a maximum penalty of death by firing squad, but judges ruled that they deserved some leniency for cooperating with authorities, confessing and showing remorse.

Siregar told the Central Jakarta District Court that Hasanuddin ordered the slayings and helped dumped their girls' heads in three Christian-dominated villages. Purnomo and Irano were found guilty of "ambushing and beheading" the teenagers, he said.

It was not immediately clear if the three would appeal.

More than 90 per cent of Indonesia's 220 million people are Muslims, but Central Sulawesi province - the scene of religious clashes that left at least 1000 people dead from 1998 to 2002 - has a roughly equal number of Muslims and Christians.

A peace agreement ended the worst of the violence, but tensions flared after the 2005 beheadings and again in September 2006, after the execution of three Roman Catholic militants convicted of leading a 2000 attack on an Islamic school that killed up to 70 people.

In January, 15 alleged Islamic militants were killed in a gunbattle in Sulawesi. Several others were arrested, including three others who have confessed to taking part in the beheadings but have yet to be brought to trial.

FYI - beheadings are popular and common in the koran. Shows your extremist ways.

Zimbabwe Aussie's '80 lashes'

March 21, 2007 12:00

A 64-YEAR-OLD former Australian resident trapped in Zimbabwe says she was lashed more than 80 times by 15 police and fears she will die if she stays in the strife-torn southern African country.

Sekai Holland remains under armed guard in a Harare hospital where she is receiving treatment for her injuries, which include a broken leg, broken hand and three broken ribs.

Lawyers for Ms Holland and fellow opposition activist Grace Kwinzeh will go to court at midday today in Harare (9pm AEDT) in a bid for a court order allowing them to leave the country.

Ms Holland and Ms Kwinzeh were arrested on March 11 following an opposition protest, but are yet to be charged.

Ms Holland, policy secretary for Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, said she was detained and severely beaten by president Robert Mugabe's police.

Speaking secretly to ABC Radio today from her hospital bed on a borrowed mobile phone, the grandmother said she feared the worst if she was prevented from going to South Africa for medical treatment.

"Of course I will die – I will have an early death," Ms Holland said.

She told of horrific injuries she said she received in police custody after her arrest.

"My body is still covered with 81 lashes, minimum, administered by 15 men, really strong men," she said.

Despite her injuries and fears for her life, Ms Holland said she did not regret opposing Mr Mugabe's regime.

"No, we have lived our lives for this," she said.

Ms Holland came to Australia from Zimbabwe in 1961 and married Australian Jim Holland before the couple moved back to her homeland in 1981.

Mr Holland, who still lives in Harare, said because police had confiscated his wife's passport, he was not confident she would be able to leave Zimbabwe, even if a judge does issue a court order allowing her to travel.

Meanwhile, the Federal Government is pressing Cricket Australia to call off its tour of Zimbabwe in September, although it would leave the decision to Cricket Australia (CA).

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said next week's meeting of foreign ministers at the Southern African Development Commission could bring a shift in the region's muted response to events in Zimbabwe.

"That meeting is going to be an important point where hopefully there will be a turn in the approach of the southern African countries towards the issue of Zimbabwe," he told ABC Radio.

Mr Downer vowed Australia would not back down from its position on Zimbabwe, despite Australia's ambassador in Harare, Jon Sheppard, and ambassadors of other countries being called in by Zimbabwe's foreign minister.

"They were told that they had been acting in breach of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations by intervening in domestic politics and aiding and abetting people who were committing acts of violence," he said.

"This simply is an illustration of a regime that doesn't even tolerate transparency.

"We know it doesn't tolerate dissent. We have seen the opposition being savagely attacked physically. But it apparently doesn't even tolerate monitoring of their activities."

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was among dozens of opposition figures arrested and savagely beaten by police who broke up the March 11 meeting.

One MDC activist, Gift Tandare, died in the crackdown.

Police arrest 200 in dawn raid on Naples drug clans
From correspondents in Naples, Italy

March 21, 2007 12:00

ITALIAN police arrested nearly 200 people in a dawn raid on drug traffickers in the centre of Naples, in one of the biggest ever anti-mafia operations in a city notorious for organised crime.

The Carabinieri police said they were trying to break up the drug business controlled by two clans that make up the Naples mafia known as the Camorra.

TV pictures showed people crying as police dragged the suspects away. Many of those arrested were women and in some cases entire families were taken into custody, police said.

Naples, an ancient port city sprawling round the bay at the foot of the volcano Vesuvius, has gained notoriety as one of Italy's most crime-ridden cities.

The Government sent hundreds of police reinforcements to the city in November to tackle a bloody vendetta between rival mafia gangs.

Last year a Canadian tourist was wounded by a stray bullet while strolling in the central Piazza del Plebiscito and an American was beaten up by locals after he gave chase to two muggers.

Drug violence surges in Mexico

MEXICO CITY – A Monterrey police officer was gunned down in her patrol car Friday, hours after a state police commander was killed nearby. The deaths came three days after a hail of gunfire directed at a jewelry shop killed another officer, his wife, a bystander and the shop owner.

But the violence this week was not limited to Monterrey.

Mexican officials seized $205.6 million in cash from a luxurious house in one of Mexico City's most upscale neighborhoods on Friday. The money was believed to be tied to the meth trade.
The body of an El Paso resident was discovered Thursday in Ciudad Juárez, across the border from El Paso. A former military general survived an assassination attempt Wednesday in the Gulf state of Tabasco. A head was left outside the state security office Thursday near the Tabasco capital of Villahermosa.

And so went one of the bloodiest weeks of drug hits in Mexican history.

More than 50 people, many of them police officers, were gunned down throughout the week, signaling a renewed surge in violence and more brazen tactics by drug traffickers as they reassemble and secure territories to distribute illegal drugs.

To do that, they generally target police officers, some of them corrupt agents working for rival cartels. Of the 470 people killed this year in drug-related violence, 58 have been police officers, according to Jose Arturo Yañez Romero, a crime expert at Mexico City's Police Formation Institute. That's an average of six people a day killed since the start of the year. "This is the bloodiest week in Mexico, particularly against police officers," said Mr. Yañez, who cited figures from Mexico City's El Universal newspaper. "And it will only get worse."

President Felipe Calderón said the violence is a backlash against a crackdown he initiated shortly after taking office Dec. 1. More than 24,000 federal police and soldiers have been sent to eight drug strongholds across the country. Although the show is impressive, no big kingpins have fallen.

"We have launched a frontal fight against organized crime. We are not going to leave our lives in the hands of criminals," Mr. Calderón said. "We are fighting to save our children from the talons of drugs and the danger of organized crime."

The violence comes in the same week that President Bush vowed to reduce U.S. demand for drugs, which he in part blamed for the drug violence in Mexico.

"I made it very clear to the president that I recognize the United States has a responsibility in the fight against drugs," Mr. Bush said during his visit with Mr. Calderón. "And one major responsibility is to encourage people to use less drugs."

The immensity of the drug trade was laid out in the form of more than $200 million in cash that was seized by police in Mexico City's plush Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood.

The stacks and stacks of $100 bills were laid next to 200 thousand euros and 157,000 pesos in dramatic photos released by the attorney general's office Friday. Seven people were arrested.

Meanwhile, the wave of shootings has prompted mass police resignations in several key states – among them, more than 300 in Nuevo León and dozens more in the state of Chihuahua, two states that border Texas, 26 in the northwestern state of Sonora.


Monte Alejandro Rubidio García, an undersecretary at the Public Safety Ministry, warned that drug kingpins will not "give in so easily."

"They will battle hand-in-hand to defend their territory," he said, as viable drug smuggling routes become fewer and more hotly contested. Mr. Rubidio García said the killings are a "reflection that the crackdown is a success because the criminal structures are cracking," but he added that it will be "extremely difficult" for the crime wave to subside this year.

Critics say Mr. Calderón's achievements are superficial. "This isn't so much about a response to the government's crackdown," Mr. Yañez said. "This is about cartels flexing their muscles and securing distribution routes. Drug trafficking is so lucrative – we're talking billions and billions of dollars – that the government cannot make a dent."

The government's strategy, according to Alfredo Quijano, editor of the Norte de Ciudad Juárez newspaper, "is not to dismantle the cartels, or finish them off, but rather to force them to the negotiating table to talk. Business, meantime, goes on, but at a greater cost to human life," he said, noting that 63 people have been killed in Juárez this year.

But the worst part of the killings, said Mr. Yañez, is this: "There is total impunity. No one has been arrested. It's open season on cops, and no one seems to give a damn."


Staff writer Laurence Iliff contributed to this report.