Lawmakers in the United States and elsewhere should not to try to censor Islamic extremists’ use of the Internet, says a new report from a global think tank.
“There is no censorship option,” Greg Austin, vice president of the East West Institute, told United Press International. “Trying to suppress anything (on the Internet) except direct operational use by terrorists is a mistake.”

Austin said a careful distinction had to be drawn between extremist sites “advocating violent ideologies or asserting the right to use violence in general” and terrorist sites that “call for or support specific terrorist attacks.”

The report urges that, rather than try to close extremists sites, the private sector and religious and community groups should step up, countering extremists’ propaganda strategy with messages that promote peaceful dialogue and emphasize the human cost of extremist violence.

The East-West Institute, a non-partisan global research institute based in New York, Moscow and Brussels, published the report “Countering Violent Extremism: Video-power and Cyber-space,” to coincide with its fifth annual security conference in Brussels this week.

“We will lose the battle for cyberspace with terrorists and violent extremists if owners of large TV, film and Internet companies do not step up soon,” said Austin, adding media industry leaders had to “choose sides” to prevent terrorist recruitment of “radicalized youth around the world through (their) sophisticated and aggressive use of the Internet.”

But pressuring Internet providers to close down extremist Web sites is not the answer, he said. The report argues that efforts to close them down are doomed to fail and will end up merely “providing violent extremists with additional ammunition through the form of attempted censorship.”

Internet experts say that trying to take extremist sites like Web chat rooms offline is a game of whack-a-mole, although doing so does generate “chatter” among members that can be combed for intelligence about them.

“Responses need to be compartmentalized,” argues the report. “While particular acts of terrorism and social movements of violent extremism are far from mutually exclusive phenomena, responses to them should be clearly distinguished.”

“It’s a fine line to draw,” acknowledged Austin. “In any particular case it could be ambiguous,” he added, noting that “We know terrorists have used public sites to send coded messages.”

Yigal Carmon, a former Israeli intelligence official who founded the non-profit research institute MEMRI to monitor extremist media, said he supported the report’s recommendations.

“Terrorist use of the Internet should be suppressed,” he said, calling on Internet providers to “respect their own rules and policy (against hate speech and incitement to violence) and respect the laws of the United States,” which ban the provision of any service to designated terrorist organizations.

Intelligence experts say many extremist sites are closely watched by intelligence and law enforcement agencies and can yield valuable information about potential or actual supporters of terror groups.

The report calls for the formation of a global media leadership forum to get “media owners and senior journalists” to start a public debate on the best strategies “to counter violent extremism among peoples of different faiths, cultures, beliefs, ethnicities, and language groups.”

As a start, it argues for more coverage of anti-extremist initiatives, calls for dialogue and other activities traditionally seen as less newsworthy than terror attacks or other violent incidents; and for the industry to think hard about images that glorify violence.

“The wealth and power of global media assets now directed at promoting various religions — especially in the United States, Europe and the Middle East — could usefully be redirected toward countering extremists who promote violence,” Austin said. “We need richer video material, and more of it, that is dedicated to de-legitimizing extremist violence.”

He said there were concerns about some legislative initiatives in the United States and elsewhere, including a bill being pushed in the U.S. House by Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif.

The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, which passed out of committee but has yet to be voted on by the full House, would establish a national commission to study how violent ideologies are propagated in the United States. It would direct the secretary of homeland security to ensure, using an audit system designed by the department’s civil rights officer, that efforts against radicalization were racially neutral and did not violate constitutional rights.

“There’s exploration to be done” of the bill’s proposals, said Austin, but he added, “They are entertaining the idea that there’s a censorship option. There isn’t.”

Carmon said he too was opposed to legislation, but added that Internet providers “should reform themselves, before Congress steps in.”

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) accused Benazir Bhutto of being an Indian agent and tried to ruin her efforts to improve ties with India when she was the premier, says the last book written by the assassinated leader.

Benazir Bhutto—Reconciliation, Islam, Democracy and the West, which was released in London on Tuesday, says the ISI tried to wreck the “budding relationship” between Benazir and Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who were willing to “think out of the box” and break the stalemate in ties.

Bhutto wrote in the book she was proud of her work with Gandhi and they both were committed to improving ties between the two countries using the guidelines framed in the Shimla Accord but the ISI opposed their efforts.

“I am particularly proud of our work with Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, building on the progress in Pakistan-Indian relations that our parents had established in the Shimla Accord,” Benazir wrote.

“Rajiv and I negotiated a remarkable treaty committing our nations not to attack each other’s nuclear facilities. This was the first nuclear confidence-building treaty between Pakistan and India.”

Benazir claimed the 1972 Shimla Accord was “quite a triumph” for her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was then Prime Minister, because it enabled the return of lost territory to Pakistan without having to recognise Bangladesh or accept a no-war clause with India.

“I was present when my father negotiated the Shimla Accord with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1972 to return Pakistani territory lost in the western wing, repatriate the 90,000 prisoners of war, and save 5,000 people threatened with trial by a war crimes tribunal as well as seek a peaceful resolution of disputes between India and Pakistan,” she writes.

“Actually, it was quite a triumph for Prime Minister Bhutto because he was dealing with an extremely weak hand yet managed to negotiate peace without having to recognise Bangladesh or accept a no-war clause with India.”

“The Simla Accord also called for resumption of trade, over-flights, and communications between the two states. It established the Line of Control in Kashmir (a de facto border), made possible the immediate return of lost territory to West Pakistan.”

Benazir said not just East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), but “all of Pakistan would have been threatened” if the US had not come out militarily in favour of West Pakistan.

“My father did succeed… in convincing Washington to save West Pakistan,” she wrote.

“President Nixon ordered the Seventh Fleet to Pakistan in the famous ’tilt to Pakistan’. Without that famous ’tilt’ all of Pakistan would have been threatened in 1971,” she added.

Benazir completed the book shortly before she was assassinated in Rawalpindi on December 27 last year.

Despite sporadic incidents of violence and occasional encounters between the security forces and terrorists, the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, militarily, is now better than it has been since the insurgency first reared its ugly head in 1989. A sense of normalcy has returned to the Kashmir valley with schools, colleges and hospitals open, commerce flourishing and tourists thronging the scenic spots.

Over 300,000 pilgrims visited the Hindu cave shrine of Amarnath in 2007. The Hindu festivals of Janmashtami and Dussehra were celebrated with traditional fervour after almost two decades. In the Jammu region too, violence is at a low ebb.

There was a 50 percent decrease in the number of incidents of violence during the summer months of 2007, though there was no let-up in attempts at infiltration across the Line of Control (LoC). However, the levels of militancy in the hinterland are somewhat more enhanced.

The number of trained and armed terrorists has come down to about 1,400, with about 700 to 800 in Kashmir Valley and the remainder in the Jammu region. However, not all of them are now active. Sleeper cells are lying low and waiting to strike at a more opportune time. While conducting counter-infiltration operations, the aim should not be deterrence of infiltration but destruction of the infiltrators.

The Pakistan Army and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), unable to fight simultaneously on three fronts - proxy war against India, the Al Qaeda-Taliban combine in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and vicious internal instability - have apparently ordered a “tactical freeze” in Jammu and Kashmir. However, the Pakistan Army’s grand strategy of trying to wrest Kashmir from India and “bleeding India through a thousand cuts” has not changed; only the tactics have changed as the army is itself bleeding profusely - mainly from self-inflicted wounds.

While infiltration from across the LoC has been reduced to a trickle, the machinery is being kept well oiled so that ISI can raise the ante whenever it chooses to do so in future.

The terrorists remaining in Kashmir no longer have the support of the people and are being increasingly actively resisted. Militant groups are now relying less on violence and more on other means like influencing viewpoints through coercion of the local media, prevailing on bar associations to file human rights abuse cases and nudging some of the political parties to carry forward the agenda of separatism. Besides inadequate socio-economic development, inadequate governance is a major factor that is fuelling conflict as it is readily exploited by the terrorists.

After some loose talk of “demilitarisation”, Kashmiri political leaders have realised that this term is really applicable only to the LoC. As and when the LoC is accepted as a permanent border between India and Pakistan, it will be up to the negotiating teams of the two countries to plan a phased demilitarisation of troops deployed to defend it against aggression.

The term “disengagement” is more appropriate for discussing the force levels of the army and other security forces in the hinterland of Kashmir. The army is conscious of the fact that in case the situation continues to improve, it must gradually reduce the force levels and that it will be counter-productive not to do so. At present the situation is not conducive to any major reduction in the number of army troops.

As the army commences the process of thinning out, the Jammu and Kashmir police and the paramilitary forces must take its place. These forces are still not in a position to take over the responsibility for maintaining security in the hinterland in terms of the number of battalions, adequacy of arms and equipment and the quality of training.

After the process is begun in earnest, it will take two to three years for these state and central government forces to gain the confidence necessary to fight well-armed and well-trained terrorists who enjoy external support. However, army battalions camping in public places like school compounds are being moved out and the premises are being handed over to the civil authorities. Also, cases of inadequate compensation are being examined jointly with the civil authorities and redressal is being given where due.

Perception management is a neglected field that needs to be urgently addressed. The majority in Kashmir is no longer interested in joining Pakistan or even in seeking independence. People will gladly settle for a just and equitable political package that addresses their feelings of alienation.

They are likely to accept political autonomy that gives them the right to self-governance. The continuing lack of the political will to find a solution to the people’s problems is a major stumbling block. This is perhaps due to the complexities of coalition politics.

The government must continue to engage with all the political parties that are willing to participate in elections to the state assembly to determine the contours of a political and socio-economic settlement of the complex challenge confronting the nation. It must do everything possible to encourage the constituent members of the Hurriyat Conference to also join the political mainstream and participate in the forthcoming elections.

Clearly, there is a need to evolve a long-term, national-level, inter-departmental, inter-agency strategy that simultaneously addresses political, diplomatic, economic, social and psychological issues.

It must enter into a sustained dialogue with all the parties concerned to resolve the conflict in Kashmir. There is hope on the horizon in Kashmir and losing this opportunity may prove to be an insurmountable setback.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is facing calls to resign after suggesting that the introduction in Britain of some aspects of Islamic law was unavoidable.

In a BBC interview, Dr Williams talked about the use of Sharia to resolve some personal or domestic issues among Britain’s Muslims, much like the way Orthodox Jews have their own courts for some matters.

Asked if Sharia needed to be applied in some cases for community cohesion the spiritual leader of the world’s 77 million Anglicans said: “It seems unavoidable.”

Dr Williams’ comments has sparked outrage in some of Britain’s popular newspapers, led by the mass circulation Sun, which has launched a campaign to remove him from office, accusing him of giving heart to “Muslim terrorists”.

The issue of integrating Britain’s 1.8 million Muslims has been widely debated since July 2005, when four British Islamists carried out suicide bombings on London’s transport system, killing 52 people.

Dr Williams’ predecessor as archbishop, George Carey, has joined the criticism, saying that Dr Williams’ “acceptance of some Muslim laws within British law would be disastrous for the nation”.

However, he says Dr Williams, who is already battling divisions within his church over gay priests, should not resign.

Some bishops criticised Dr Williams and several members of the Church of England’s governing body, the general synod, calling for his resignation.

General synod member Alison Ruoff says Dr Williams is not the right person to be Archbishop of Canterbury.

“At best it [the comment] was politically inept and at worst it was sheer foolishness,” she said.

Defenders
Other church leaders leaped to Dr Williams’ defence.

George Cassidy, bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, says he is saddened by what he calls the “hysterical knee jerk reaction” to Dr Williams’ comments.

A statement on Williams’ website denied he had called for the introduction of Sharia as a “parallel jurisdiction to the civil law.”

Dr Williams himself has made no comment on the controversy.

As he left a church service in Cambridge, a heckler shouted “Resign!” while a few people booed and a few applauded.

Sharia is the body of Islamic religious law based primarily on the Koran, as well as the words and actions of the Prophet Mohammad. It is a legal framework that regulates both public and private life.

Sharia covers a broad range of issues including worship, commercial dealings, marriage, inheritance and penal laws.

Technorati Tags: Rowan Williams, sharia, religious insanity, islam, islamism, islamic, muslim, muslims, islamic extremism

It’s important that those looking at the headscarf keep an open mind to let the true reasons of Muslim women in.

We are American Muslim women, who strongly identify with our faith. We are Georgetown University seniors who remain active and involved with the American Muslim community. One of us wears a headscarf, known in Arabic as the hijab. The other does not. Yet the right to wear the headscarf – without censure, condemnation or patronising pity – is a right we both defend.

The notion of the sexually exotic but tragically repressed Muslim woman has resided within the Western consciousness since the West first interacted with the Muslim world. In an article which appeared in Islamica Magazine, Mohja Kahf, a professor at the University of Arkansas, links this hackneyed character to the “era of Romantic literature, and the Byronic plot of a white man saving a harem girl, [which] continued to thrive in the heyday of European colonialism, feeding a white Christian supremacist hero complex.”

In modern times, the veil has become an emotionally charged symbol of the struggle between tradition and modernity, between Islam and the West. It has arguably served as a partial political justification for certain policies spearheaded by the United States to “liberate Muslim women” in Afghanistan or Iraq. We, as American Muslim women, simply by living our dual identity, demand a re-evaluation of this externally imposed dichotomy. As Americans, it is not our place to speak on behalf of the women of other nations. What we can do is share our experiences and insights into what hijab means to us, here in the United States.

Muslim women are not a monolithic entity. One might think that this sentence is stating the obvious, yet we often encounter peers and professors alike who fail to understand that the broad, abstract concepts they encounter in academia do not take the same invariable form when actualised in the lives of real people. It is only to be expected, then, that the reasons and motivations behind wearing the headscarf, and the form it takes, are not uniform. Many assume that a covered woman is a repressed woman, forced by some male authority figure to dress a certain way. In reality, it is this profoundly prejudiced projection of ignorance onto our beliefs that is constraining, insulting, and, in a twisted, hypocritical gesture of concern, serves only to undermine our autonomy and intelligence.

It is important here to clarify that wearing the hijab is not a pillar of Islam. It is directly related to the notion of modesty, which is an essential virtue that Muslims, men and women, are enjoined upon to embody. We say this not to devalue it, but simply to point out that the breadth of Islamic teachings and practices extend far beyond a piece of cloth. Yet we wish to address the hijab specifically because it is so deeply Misunderstood by many and is representative of general misconceptions of Islam.

If you ask Muslim women why they do or do not wear the hijab, you will come across no simple answer. Perhaps the most prevalent reason offered for wearing the headscarf is one of sincere conviction – women believe it is obligatory according to the teachings of Islam, and reference the Qur’anic verse in which women are instructed “not to display their charms [in public] beyond what may be apparent thereof; hence, let them draw their head-coverings over their bosoms” (Qur’an, 24:31).

Some women wear a headscarf because they want to visibly express their Muslim identity. Other women may wear the hijab as protection, because according to her conceptualisation, she does not have to reveal her body to strange men. And for others, the hijab serves as a personal, constant reminder to remain true to the values that Islam espouses.

Standing out in a society that places such emphasis on physical attractiveness is not easy, and is often uncomfortable. The women who do decide to cover their hair – in direct contradiction of the values and standards of the mainstream society to which we belong – require conviction, strength of will, and a deep, personal understanding of its significance.

For those who chose not to wear the hijab, the reasoning also differs. Some Muslim women interpret the aforementioned Qur’anic verse differently; they believe that although the principles of modesty are mentioned and extolled upon in the Qu’ran, donning the headscarf is more of a cultural interpretation or continuation rather than a requirement. Others may feel that although it is important, it does not reflect their personal level of spirituality or religious practice.

There is a somewhat prevalent perception that women who wear the headscarf must abide by a certain standard of behaviour; this view oftentimes deters women from covering their hair. Others believe that the values the headscarf espouses can be manifested in other ways. While wearing the headscarf may have been important in the past, today – especially in the United States – a veiled woman will garner more attention, rather than less attention, which goes contrary to the headscarf allowing women to engage in society without being judged for her personal appearance.

At the end of the day, why a woman wears the headscarf is her personal decision. It is important that those looking at the headscarf from outside the tradition keep an open mind – open enough to let the true reasons and motivations of Muslim women in. To do anything less is a profound injustice.

Violence at the hands of their relatives is more of a threat to some Muslim women than racism, writes James Button.

The grainy video, taken on a mobile phone and played in a British court last year, shows a young woman lying on a bed, telling how her father had tried to kill her that day. She says he gave her some brandy, pulled the curtains and asked her to turn around, at which point she fled the house. It sounds far-fetched, but Banaz Mahmod knew what she was talking about. Within a month, the 19-year-old was dead.

Mahmod, an Iraqi Kurd whose family arrived in Britain as asylum seekers when she was 10, had been forced to marry a Kurdish man from the Midlands. But the marriage was a disaster and Mahmod fled to the family home in south London, saying her husband had raped her.

Back in London she fell in love with another man, Rahmat Sulemani, an Iranian Kurd who her family said was not a good enough Muslim. One day she kissed him on a street. A Kurdish bystander photographed the kiss on a mobile phone and showed it to her uncle, Ari Mahmod. He called a family meeting where it was decided the couple would be murdered.

Three months after she disappeared, Mahmod’s naked body was found in a case buried in a Birmingham backyard. The gang of young men her uncle had recruited to kill her had also raped and tortured her, and left the bootlace they used to strangle her around her neck.

Sentencing Mahmod’s uncle, father and one of the killers to a collective 60 years in jail, the judge told them Banaz had been an admirable woman who had made one mistake: she fell in love “with an accomplished man that you and you family thought was unsuitable. So to restore your family honour you decided that she should die.” The men’s standing in their community, the judge said, had been “more important than the happiness of your flesh and blood”.

The Banaz Mahmod case horrified Britain. It also showed how far the country has come in fighting the extraordinary phenomenon of honour killings - and how far it has to go.

Police say 12 or 13 Britons - mainly women but very occasionally men - are the victims of honour killings each year. Activists say the figure dramatically understates the true number, and police agree: they are reviewing 117 cases of women who died in mysterious circumstances over the previous 15 years, many of which are thought to have been honour killings. (Police and activists dislike the term honour killings because it appears to excuse the crime, but it remains official use.)

The fact that young British Asian women (from Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi backgrounds) kill themselves at three times the national average for women of their age is also being studied. Could some of these deaths be hidden murders, or suicides imposed on a woman to restore her family’s honour?

One of the oldest rivals to the community news site Digg is pointing to recent unrest at the site as evidence that the social news model is flawed.
Last week, frequent users of Digg protested changes in its algorithms that were designed to emphasize broader voting in determining which stories make it to Digg’s well-trafficked main page. Digg executives Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson listened to and addressed the protesters in an attempt to defuse their objections and prevent their threatened exodus from the community.
Meanwhile, to Rob Malda, aka CmdrTaco, founder of the pioneering technology news site Slashdot, the chickens were coming home to roost.
Mr. Malda, 31, spoke from his home in Michigan about Slashdot’s new site, Idle, a compendium of links to non-technology-related video and news bits. The new site, which is currently in testing mode, is clearly aimed at taking some audience away from weird-news-of-the-day sites like Digg and Fark.com.
“We read or watch everything submitted to us,” Mr. Malda said of his site, which rather traditionally employs a small cadre of editors to select which stories make it to the main Slashdot page. “Historically, if it wasn’t about tech, we rejected it. But we realized we could put it somewhere and let the Slashdot community talk about it and enjoy it as well.”
But Mr. Malda could not help using the discussion about Idle to address problems at Digg, and what he sees as the flaws of the community news model.
“A lot of these community news sites are all about Ron Paul,” he said. “Ron Paul may be a valid candidate. But what that is really demonstrating is that you are seeing 1 or 2 percent of a community shaping where the whole community is going. A small dedicated group of people can manipulate these sites very easily.”
Mr. Malda said that Digg must move to deemphasize that vocal minority in the overall voting. But then it would inevitably alienate its core user base. “All these sites start with a nucleus of dedicated people. Then as the gawkers join in you see a dilution. People who were there originally feel alienated and feel that the thing they helped created is being perverted.”
“I try not to paint Digg as my arch-nemesis. The Digg method and Digg community are a wider audience than Slashdot,” he said. “But with sites like Digg, it’s the wisdom of the crowds or the tyranny of the mob. You never know what you’re going to get.”

The deposed chief justice of Pakistan has described President Musharraf as an “extremist general” for sacking him and 60 other top judges.

Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry also criticised the president for keeping him and his family under house arrest for the last three months.

Mr Chaudhry had a reputation for taking a firm line on government misdemeanours and human rights abuses.

He was sacked when President Musharraf imposed emergency rule in November.

His dismissal came as the court was preparing to rule on the validity of President Musharraf’s re-election.

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This piece,today’s cover story in the New York Times Magazine, is long and complicated, and it may not even be right–vast global geo-strategic syntheses rarely are–but it does get you thinking…and what it got me thinking about was John McCain.

You watch McCain talking about the world and it very quickly becomes apparent that he is talking about a place that existed maybe 15 or 20 years ago, a globe where the U.S. is hegemon and where the challenges are always binary and manichean. It’s us v. the Soviets…or now, us against radical Islamic extremism, a threat that he gins up into the one of the Greatest Ever, the “transcendent threat of the 21st Century.” Maybe so. Maybe Osama and the Cave-dwellers will be able to produce a 9/11, or worse, every decade or so…maybe we’ll have to continue to spend $200 billion a year to fight that threat.

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If social and political conservatives tend to be more cautious about Pan-European institutions than those on the left, this week provided another example why. The European Court of Human Rights overturned French court rulings that prevented a single lesbian woman from adopting a child. The decision sets a precedent not just across the 27-nation European Union, but throughout the 47-member Council of Europe. Gay and lesbian groups say it opens the way for legal challenges in other European states with adoption laws similar to those of France — yet falls well short of a blanket ruling that would oblige all countries to allow adoption by homosexuals.

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