In one of the world’s most contentious cities, there are two conflicting claims to sovereignty over holy places and residential neighborhoods. East and West Jerusalem are divided along ethnic and religious lines — in addition to the separation fence that Israel built to secure the city.

Palestinians claim the eastern sections of the city as the capital of a future Palestinian state. While successive Israeli prime ministers have announced support for a two-state solution, there is ambivalence about how and when to alter the city’s political fabric.

Martin Savidge hosts Mustafa Barghouti and Gershon Baskin on this week’s Worldfocus Radio show “Jerusalem United or Divided?”

The radio show builds upon three Worldfocus signature videos about Israel — on hi-tech, divorce and settlements — and will focus on the following areas:

• Geography of Jerusalem: East and West, Old City, Temple Mount and security barrier
• Demographic Shift: secular flight, “Judaization,” and “united” capital city
• Shared Capital: unilateral statehood, joint sovereignty and Palestinian government

Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Photo: Ben Piven

GUESTS:

Mustafa Barghouti is the secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative (al-Mubadara), also known as the “third way.” A Ramallah resident, he serves in the Palestinian parliament (PLC) and was the Minister of Information in the short-lived Palestinian unity government. He came in second (with 19%) to Mahmoud Abbas in the 2005 presidential elections. He also appeared on the Daily Show last month.

Gershon Baskin is co-chairman of the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information, a Jerusalem-based organization committed to the two-state solution. He specializes in the future of Jerusalem, strategic cooperation and water issues. He was also on Israeli PM Ehud Barak’s team of Jerusalem experts following the Camp David talks.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Ben Piven and Lisa Biagiotti
Researcher: Mohammad al Kassim

Martin Savidge hosts David Rayside and Rachel Tiven on LGBT politics and gay asylum. We begin the conversation with Jamaica, which makes up 17 of the 55 U.S. asylum cases won by Immigration Equality last year alone. We examine the metastasizing colonial and slave culture, entrenched poverty and rampant violence in Jamaica.

In 1994, former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno expanded asylum law to include persecution based on sexual orientation. Sexual orientation has been increasingly used as grounds for asylum. We also discuss how to begin the process of applying for gay asylum in the U.S.

From human rights abuses to political progress, the gay rights movement is at different stages throughout the world. We take a comparative look at the progress of LGBT politics and the gay rights movement in different countries, including the best and worst places to be gay.

A Greek gay rights parade. Photo: Megan Thompson

• Read about one gay Jamaican’s story of asylum: Gay men in Jamaica must lead two separate lives
• Watch signature videos from Jamaica: Violence and venom force gay Jamaicans to hide and Gays in Jamaica worship in underground church
• Watch our signature video from Greece: Ancient Greek values clash with modern treatment of gays

GUESTS:

David Rayside is a political science professor at the University of Toronto. His latest book “Queer Inclusions, Continental Divisions” is a comparative analysis of Canadian and  American political recognition of same-sex relationships, the extension of parenting rights to same-sex couples and the response to sexual diversity in public schooling. For over thirty years, he has also been an activist on issues related to sexual diversity and gender within academic institutions and beyond.

Rachel B. Tiven is the executive director of Immigration Equality, a national organization fighting for equal immigration rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV-positive community. Under her leadership, Immigration Equality has doubled in size, quadrupled client services and opened a policy office in Washington, D.C.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti and Ben Piven
Researcher: Geneva Sands-Sadowitz

For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Correspondent Lisa Biagiotti, producer Micah Fink and director of photography Gabrielle Weiss report on the secret underground church that is welcoming gay men and women to practice their faith. Reverend Robert Griffin, an American priest, leads the secret church.  He believes religion is at the heart of Jamaica culture of homophobia, and the time has come to reinterpret the Bible for modern times.

• Watch all the Worldfocus In the Shadows video signature series
• Listen to Worldfocus Radio on LGBT politics and gay asylum
• For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

North Korea is a Cold War relic, but its communist roots alone do not explain the widespread adoption of the ideology knows as Juche — essentially a hybrid of East Asian Confucianism and East European Stalinism.

Despite the fact that state literature decrees “man is the master of all things,” Juche (”self-reliance” in Korean) is relentlessly collectivist.

Juche emphasizes rigid hierarchical authority and the harmonious arrangement of highly deferential individuals. Economic independence and military self-defense are its primary goals.

Juche is the main philosophical component of the political system known as Kimilsungism, which emerged from the leadership of Kim Jong-il’s father, Kim Il-sung.

The Kim Il-sung cult overshadows reverence for Kim Jong-il, whose image is scarcely seen on monuments. Scholars debate whether Juche qualifies as a religion, but the North Korean government certainly permits worship of no other gods.

Omnipresent Juche obelisks and Kim Il-sung immortality towers memorialize the “eternal president” who died in 1994 after almost a half-century in power. His portrait adorns every major public space, as Mao and Stalin’s did in their respective societies.

But subordination to the dead emperor is more theocratic than in Maoism and Stalinism. Pyongyang is Juche’s Jerusalem, and Kim’s birthplace, Mangyongdae, is the North Korean Bethlehem. His presidential palace, Kumsusan, is a sprawling compound with intimidating right angles and exquisite marble interiors, where his body lies in state - like Mao in Tian’anmen Square.

North Korean society is organized into groups. Citizens rarely do anything alone, and there is no concept of pluralism. Self-esteem and personal confidence come from conformity and compatibility with the Juche ideological framework.

The mass culture of North Korea is stunning due to its high level of coordination and the sheer numbers of participants in events such as the Arirang Games, the mass games spectacle involving over 100,000 performers — including 20,000 schoolchildren who form a human television.

Ironically, Pyongyang was the center of Korean Christianity prior to the Korean War, but currently religious freedom is limited to three Christian churches in the capital and a handful of state-run Buddhist temples. Pohyonsa, a Buddhist temple complex near Mt. Myohyang, is designated as #40 on the “national treasure” list. A vestige of once-flourishing Buddhism, the site is reminiscent of Holocaust memorials to extinct communities.

In the Hermit Kingdom, Juche trumps all.

- Ben Piven

But now the United Nations Development Program’s Bureau for Development Policy is recruiting religious groups to encourage people around the world to go green.

Daljit Dhaliwal speaks with Olav Kjorven, director of the UNDP’s Bureau for Development Policy, about why the organization is turning to world religions in the fight against climate change.

Correspondent Gizem Yarbil and producer Bryan Myers report on how traditional religion and modern democracy are trying to coexist in Turkey today.

For more on secularism in Turkey:

• Read Do Islamist groups pose a threat to democracy in Turkey? by Dr. Ömer Taşpınar, the director of the Turkey Project at the Brookings Institution
• Tune in to Worldfocus Radio: Turkey torn between East and West where we examine push and pull factors

Should the P5+1 stand in solidarity with Iran’s reformers?

For the past 15 years, Dwight Bashir has worked on international conflict, human rights and religious freedom issues. He is a senior advisor for an independent U.S. commission focusing on international religious freedom. The views expressed here are his own personal views.

Now that the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, Russian, China + Germany) have embarked on multilateral negotiations with the Iranian government, it is time to look forward, not backward. The one-day talks in Geneva held last week will resume after an October 25 visit to Iran by representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to assess Iran’s newly-declared nuclear facility.

As expected, international attention has focused on Iran’s apparent willingness to send most of its enriched uranium out of the country and to allow the IAEA to inspect its latest facility. What has not received adequate attention is what happened on the fringes of the formal talks –- separate discussions between American and Iranian diplomats on human rights.

Here’s how the U.S. State Department spokesman characterized these conversations: “In addition to the focus on the nuclear program, they also had a frank exchange on a number of other issues, including issues of human rights. And we also raised the issue of American citizens who are being held in Iran…”

Understandably, the United States government asked about American detainees in Iran, but what other human rights issues were discussed? Unfortunately, there has been no further explanation.

Did anyone inquire about the hundreds of Iranian citizens injured or killed while peacefully protesting the contested outcome of the June 12 elections? Or the scores of dissidents and reformers who have been beaten by Iranian security and militia forces and unlawfully detained for weeks? What about before the elections, and the thousands of brave women’s rights activists, journalists, bloggers, ethnic and religious minorities, human rights defenders and others who have been unjustly imprisoned?

For that matter, did anyone raise specific cases such as the seven Baha’i leaders, in jail since early last year, who could be sentenced to death on October 18 on baseless espionage charges? What about the status of two Christian women, Maryam and Marzieh, who reportedly have serious health concerns yet continue to languish in prison — now for more than six months — without charge and facing the death penalty for apostasy?

Let’s also not forget that just two weeks ago, President Ahmadinejad arrived in New York on very shaky international standing with internal turmoil alive and well in Iran. Nevertheless, he still felt confident enough to spew anti-Semitic rants and anti-Western vitriol during his address to the United Nations General Assembly.

All is not lost. There is a way forward.

In addition to holding the Iranian government to account for its nuclear ambitions, the P5+1 should use its new platform to raise substantive human rights issues, and not just behind closed doors. The Iranian government has already agreed to “embark on comprehensive, all-encompassing and constructive negotiations,” so human rights are fair game. In particular, the P5+1 should publicly express its genuine concern about the plight of Iranian citizens, as well as raising specific cases (a similar method was used successfully by the United States during the 1970s when it raised human rights effectively during arms talks with the Soviet Union). This message must emerge in future deliberations, otherwise the morale of Iran’s reformers and — of advocates of freedom and democracy globally — will have suffered a major blow.

The P5+1 can cite Iran’s obligations under international human rights law; in particular, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Iran is a party. Not only would this present a unified front among P5+1 partners, but would also demonstrate solidarity with the Iranian people. If Russia and China balk, the four Western partners can still take a powerful stand. The Iranian people need to know that the international community cares about their fate and will not trade away 30 years of transgressions for potential nuclear concessions.

The U.S. Congress can also play its part. Both the Senate and House are moving forward on providing the Obama administration with a new set of targeted economic sanctions should Iran fail to produce tangible results in a timely fashion. Current legislation under debate identifies nuclear proliferation and support for international terrorism as justification for imposing new sanctions. Final legislation should add international human rights violations to the list. This inclusion would demonstrate that the Iranian government’s poor human rights record is on equal footing with other security concerns.

Even if symbolic, Congress should also consider triggering a targeted sanction under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA). Iran has been on the U.S. blacklist of religious freedom violators for 10 years, yet no new sanction has been imposed. In addition, the State Department has a statutory requirement under IRFA to identify foreign agencies and officials responsible for violations of religious freedom and can bar individuals from entry into the United States.

This requirement remains unfulfilled.

Ideally, the ultimate goal would be to get international agreement among the P5+1 on any new sanctions. Although this isn’t a must. Again, if Russian and/or China hold out, the four Western allies can still work together. Since late 2006, the U.N. Security Council has passed three rounds of sanctions penalizing Iran’s nuclear program and imposing travel bans on those individuals involved. Why not do the same for Iranian officials involved in human rights abuses? It’s high time to identify Iran’s human rights violations as a justification for tougher sanctions. This act alone would bolster Iran’s reformers to play their part inside Iran.

- Dwight Bashir

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Plug 1 under a Creative Commons license.

A French Muslim woman wears a niqab in Paris.

Six years ago, I was looking for an apartment in the French capital. Searching for the 5-A buzzer, an American friend and I came across an old French man who thought we were trespassing.

“Vous allez faire un kamikaze?” he shouted, wondering whether we were about to blow up his building.

“Avez-vous un tapis de priere?” he asked in a southern French accent, assuming that we were Moroccans who carry prayer rugs.

We responded that we were just American students, despite our relatively swarthy complexions, and then he proceeded with an extremist anti-Arab rant.

This was my first exposure to virulent French racism and cultural insensitivity. His tirade echoed the xenophobia of the far-right Front National party, which had received 17 percent of the vote in France’s 2002 presidential election.

Today, France is still wracked by intolerance and Islamophobia, despite a long tradition of democracy and dissent. As France struggles to integrate second-generation North Africans who are largely clustered in poor neighborhoods on the outskirts of cities, the Islamic dress controversy continues to rage.

In July, a report by French newspaper Le Monde revealed that just 367 women wear the full Islamic veil in France. The figure makes French President Nicholas Sarkozy seem heavy-handed in his recent declaration that the niqab was “not welcome.” This piece of hard evidence, supplied by data from two domestic intelligence agencies, makes it unlikely that the center-right Sarkozy would pursue an absolute ban. The hyperactive leader is known for his pragmatism, and he doesn’t want to appear too extremist.

The report comes amid a French legislative commission’s investigation on the use of the full veil in public places. The panel seeks to address the style’s popularity, and it will make a recommendation about the usefulness of a ban.

But there is linguistic confusion about the full veil. The Islamic article of clothing in question is actually the niqab (originally from Saudi Arabia), rather than the burka (popular in Afghanistan). An explanatory diagram in Le Point shows the differences between the three primary types of Muslim veil.

An Egyptian woman in Alexandria wearing a Burqini.

The evolution of conservative Islamic fashion does not stop there. In mid-August controversy erupted at a Paris pool surrounding the “burqini,” a bathing suit designed by Australian company Ahiida to uphold the modesty of Muslim women.

An editorial accompanying the niqab statistic in left-leaning Le Monde criticized the need to “legislate for an exception” and further stigmatize French Islam. Declaring the niqab to be a phénomène ultraminoritaire (very rare phenomenon), the editorial recognizes that the several hundred women who wear the niqab are not sufficiently integrated into French culture.

The French are fierce defenders of their secular republic and will defend women’s rights against fundamentalist religious customs such as the veil. But there are disagreements about whether it would be helpful to legislate religious expression in the public sphere.

“We cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity,” said the French president in June, frustrating many cultural commentators such as a blogger at “Moor Next Door“:

The trouble the French may want to worry about is not the burqa as it is worn in France today, but that such a ban, as the headscarf ban has done, will make the garment a greater symbol of Muslim identity and sign of cultural defiance. France has done a good job at finding ways of alienating racial and religious minorities. Indeed, among Western nations it is a leader in this field. This is a quality that does little to further the assimilationist cause the French so actively pursue.

The Le Monde report indeed suggests that most of the 367 women in question are under 30 and wear the niqab to make an explicit political point to defy French society — and in some cases, rebel against their own families. The vast majority of French Muslims reject the full body veils, according to the French intelligence reports. Moreover, according to the French Council of Muslim Worship, wearing the niqab is a personal, cultural choice.

But, unlike the U.S., France values secularism even more than the right to free expression of religion. A “burka ban” would never pass muster in the U.S. But French politicians insist that they will not fight a second battle to separate church from the French state. The first church-state battle was with the Catholic church, from which the government legally separated in 1905.

In 2004, France received much criticism after banning the headscarf in public schools. The law was one of many factors that led to more than a month of civil unrest by minority youths across France in November 2005.

France has Europe’s largest Muslim population, estimated around 5 million. But France does not keep official statistics on race or religion, so this figure could easily be much higher. Regardless, just one in every 90,000 French women wear the full-body veil. And apparently one-quarter of them are converts to Islam.

One French Muslim organization that has been discouraging women to wear the full veil is Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whores Nor Submissives). Founded by Fadela Amara, a liberal Muslim woman of North African origin, the group promotes a modern combination of Islam and feminism.

Amara, now a minister in Prime Minister Francois Fillon’s right-leaning government, has become far more popular among politicians than among folks in la banlieue (working-class suburbs). Amara told Le Parisien last year:

The burka is a prison, it’s a straitjacket…It is not a religious insignia but the insignia of a totalitarian political project that advocates inequality between the sexes and which is totally devoid of democracy.

- Ben Piven

Photos courtesy of Flickr users I.Diabate and Giorgio Montersino under a Creative Commons license.

Religious minorities in Iran, including Christians, have been targeted.

For the past 15 years, Dwight Bashir has worked on international conflict, human rights and religious freedom issues. He is a senior advisor for an independent U.S. commission focusing on international religious freedom. The views expressed here are his own personal views.

The good news is that since the June 12 elections in Iran, much of the world has been exposed to the egregious human rights abuses committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The bad news is that we are witnessing the kinds of practices that have been carried out since the inception of the Islamic Republic some 30 years ago.

Yesterday, the Iranian government announced that it was releasing 140 detainees associated with the post-election protests only after reports surfaced that several prisoners had been beaten and tortured resulting in some deaths. Today, the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) announced that trials would begin next week for approximately 20 post-election protesters. Their crime? “Planning and carrying out sabotage.”

This kind of contrived charge exemplifies the fact that the Iranian government will crack down on any individual who does not fully espouse the repressive ideals of the Islamic Revolution or any individual or group who is a perceived threat to the legitimacy or continued existence of the regime.  This includes political dissidents, reformers, women’s rights activists, religious and ethnic minorities, to name only a few.

While it is vital that there continue to be a spotlight on the treatment of the post-election protesters and dissidents targeted by the regime, it is just as important that the same level of attention be given to those who have suffered a similar fate long before the elections took place.

Disfavored Muslims and non-Muslim religious minorities surely fit into this category.  Dissident Shiite clerics who seek reform or advocate a separation of religion and state have been targeted and imprisoned for years. Several members of the minority Sufi Nematollah Gonabadi Order have been in prison since last year without charge.

The largest and most persecuted non-Muslim minority in Iran are the Baha’is. At least 30 Baha’is are in prison solely because of their religious identity.  Seven Baha’i leaders have been held in the notorious Evin prison for more than a year now on unsubstantiated and baseless charges, two of which carry the death penalty.  Their trial could take place at any time, and if the past is any indication, they could be tried, convicted and sentenced on the same day.

Since March, two Iranian converts to Christianity have been held in Evin prison without charge.  The concern is that they will be charged with apostasy, a crime which can carry a death sentence in Iran. The list goes on and on.

On July 25, in more than 100 cities worldwide, thousands came together in a Global Day of Action to highlight and condemn the range of human rights abuses perpetrated by the Iranian government.  One of the objectives of the campaign is to encourage UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to send an official delegation to Iran to investigate postelection human rights violations in Iran. While dispatching an envoy is no doubt warranted, the Secretary General should ensure that any envoy’s mandate includes looking into violations committed against those targeted by the regime long before the June 12 elections.

In addition, the international community must step up its collective efforts to demonstrate that it will not tolerate such systematic human rights abuses by the Islamic Republic without repercussions, similar to the way it has taken a strong stance on Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

- Dwight Bashir

For more, view our Voices of Iran extended coverage page and listen to our online radio show on Baha’i faith and modern Iran.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user N_Creatures under a Creative Commons license.

The pageant she hopes to win has one competition that will test and strain the cultural norms of the society she lives in.

Watch the full film and find more information at the Wide Angle website.

Outside the court, gay rights advocates hailed it as a huge step forward and said it would have the practical effect of cutting down on police harassment of gay people. Homosexuality has been a crime in conservative India since the British colonial era.

Opponents of the ruling can still challenge it in the country’s Supreme Court.

Watch a video of a recent gay pride parade in New Delhi from YouTube user trulyinternet:

Bellow, read what bloggers have to say about the court’s decision.

Blogger “Vijay” is ecstatic about the decision and takes pride in India’s progress:

In all honesty, I never thought that this will happen in India before my grandchildren came, but amazed and delighted that while some of the so called developed countries are still debating and discriminating, India, a land of multiple religions, cultures, social stigma and religious conservatism has moved forward.

Gay pride parades have risen in popularity in India.

Indian blogger Aravind is surprised at how long this decision took, adding that there has been backlash:

I was frankly surprised that such a movement took so long to arrive home in India – it is high time that people to come to terms with reality.  The response was mostly good, but it was a bit astonishing to see that several letters to [the] editor in The Hindu responded quite discouragingly.

The very first of these said removing the law would lead to dire consequences, such as leading to child abuse and a decay of morality and values, an erosion of ethics, and that it would mean giving undue freedom to minorities without responsibility and accountability.

At the heart of it all lies the myth that the whole thing is against the law of nature.

Blogger “Sanjukta” describes the reaction of religious leaders to the ruling:

The religious groups have already started reacting negatively. They say this is a sad day for civilised people.

The road ahead is still long, the next struggles would be about homosexuals couple’s property rights, adoption rights, marriage rights, domestic violence in intimate relations etc.

A blogger at “Counterlight’s Peculiars“ remains somewhat skeptical, pointing out that discrimination will continue:

Life is not likely to change much for India’s LGBT population, which faces severe public hostility and persecution. Sex of all kinds is a taboo subject in India that is rarely publicly discussed.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user lighttripper under a Creative Commons license.

Former two-term president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who currently heads the Assembly of Experts — which has the authority to oversee the supreme leader — and Ayatollah Khamenei are thought to have a strained relationship.

Throughout the campaign, Rafsanjani was very critical of President Ahmedinejad. Recently, his daughter, Faezed Hashemi, was arrested while speaking to a crowd of hundreds at a rally in support of Ahmedinejad’s main rival, Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

Geneive Abdo of The Century Foundation joins Martin Savidge to discus the power structure in the Islamic Republic and how important the clerical struggle really is.

Tony Blair in 2008.

It’s two years since Tony Blair left 10 Downing Street for good, but he hasn’t been able to win the praise and credit he yearns for after a decade of accomplishments as the Labor Party’s longest-serving prime minister, from British economic growth to peace in Northern Ireland. 

Blair and his friends have been arguing that the former prime minister should be better treated. One thing gets in the way: His friendship with George W. Bush and his decision to join the United States in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The latest: The London Telegraph reports that Blair’s decision-making in office — including the decision to invade Iraq — was based on his religious beliefs. It’s reminiscent of Bush’s description of the war on terrorism as a “crusade.”

The Telegraph quotes a book, “We Don’t Do God,” by John Burton, Blair’s political associate and sometimes mentor. The book says Blair played down his religious fervor while in office, but it was always at the forefront:

Tony’s Christian faith is part of him, down to his cotton socks. He believed strongly at the time, that intervention in Kosovo, Sierra Leone — Iraq too — was all part of the Christian battle; good should triumph over evil, making lives better.

He applied that same principle in everything he did — from establishing the Social Exclusion Unit to ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, and ridding Iraq of the evils of Saddam Hussein’s rule.

Bush’s religion-dominated worldview has also been in the news recently. GQ reported this month that former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld mixed memos to Bush on Iraq with quotations from the Scriptures.

This week, Clive Hamilton, a visiting professor at Yale University, reports on a new book about former French President Jacques Chirac, written by journalist Jean Claude Maurice. The book says Bush spoke of Satan and the need to cleanse the world to prepare for Armageddon.

Chirac is said to have been stupefied and disturbed by Bush’s invocation of Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”

Prediction, not prophesy — Blair and Bush will long be the focus of armchair psychoanalysis: Bush for why he did what he did, Blair for why he didn’t know better.

- Peter Eisner

Photo courtesy of Flickr user World Economic Forum under a Creative Commons license.

For more background on the conflict, listen to our online radio show on violence in Northern Ireland.

Worldfocus special correspondent Martin Himel reports on how a decade of peace has not ended the pain for many families whose loved ones were murdered or vanished.  

Young Pakistanis face dim economic prospects.

“Poverty alleviation is fundamental to contain and reverse extremism,” an aide to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari recently stated. 

Terrorism has cost Pakistan an estimated $35 billion, and though international donors recently pledged billions to help the country’s deteriorating economy, the unemployment rate is soaring. 

Sharmeen Gangat is a Pakistani-American who writes at the “World Policy Blog” to explain why she left Pakistan — and why youth too poor to leave often resort to lucrative criminal acts. 

Sharmeen Gangat: Crime and (the Lack of) Punishment in Pakistan

The grim reality of daily violence is an ever-present concern for millions of Pakistanis. Sadly, fearing for the safety of one’s family is a part of everyday life.

From my perch outside Pakistan, the international discussion often focuses on my homeland as a place for harboring and exporting terrorists. What goes missing is any apparent concern for what is happening to civilian life within the country.

Since 2002, there have been 140 suicide blasts. But the total figures obscure a worrying rising trend: in 2008 alone, 61 suicide bombings killed approximately 889 civilians and injured 2,072.

“When suicide bombs are such a norm, who would cry over kidnappings, robberies, and murders?” said my brother.[...]

At the root of the problem are Pakistan’s weak political and legal institutions, and the lack of opportunities for educated and the resourceful youth. As such, those with the means (like myself) look to migrate abroad. Those who don’t have sufficient funds or connections to leave the country often resort to picking up arms—either for corrupt political leaders, on behalf of terrorist organizations, or sometimes just for themselves.

The lack of economic opportunities for youth combined with religious indoctrination has resulted in a gang mentality, with violent crime as the obvious result. There are more students graduating than there are jobs available, and a lack of technical, professional, and vocational institutions adds to the problem.

In this climate, criminal activities offer a lucrative option, spiced with religious frenzy and anti-American banter that has roots in the U.S.-supported war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in 1979 and that has been re-inflamed by recent events.

If the scourge of terrorism is to be fought and won in that country, the United States will have to ally with local youth (in both Pakistan and Afghanistan) who can be won over by positive economic and social development.

In the past, Pakistanis have responded warmly to American humanitarian efforts. For example, after the United States pledged $510 million for post-earthquake relief efforts in Pakistan in 2005, 78 percent of Pakistanis expressed a more favorable opinion of the United States—with the strongest support among those under 35 years of age. Interestingly, this also resulted in a significant decline in support for Al Qaeda.

But what must come first is support for the rule of law and the rebuilding of a broken police and security apparatus. Until people feel safe at home and have opportunities for education, advancement, and steady employment, the lure of the gun will prove too strong.

To read more, see the original post.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Travlr under a Creative Commons license.

Iran arrested seven leaders of the religious Baha’i community last year, charging them with espionage and alleging that the five men and two women are spies for Israel. Baha’i headquarters are located in Israel.

Iranian leaders view the religion as heresy and it has been banned since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Many followers of the Baha’i faith in Iran have been arrested, imprisoned or executed.

The Baha’i faith is a monotheistic religion with origins in 19th-century Iran. Baha’is are considered Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority, with about 300,000 members.

The U.S. has condemned Iran for its persecution of the Baha’is, calling the detainment of religious leaders “baseless.”

Worldfocus.org’s weekly radio show explored the background and history of the Baha’i faith, religious persecution in Iran and the arrest and forthcoming trial of the seven Baha’i leaders.

Martin Savidge hosted a panel of guests:

Dwight Bashir is a senior advisor for the Middle East at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Mr. Bashir is a specialist in ethnic and religious conflict and preventive diplomacy. He has traveled widely in Europe, the Middle East and West Africa and has lectured and published on a wide array of topics in international affairs, including human rights, religious extremism and U.S. foreign policy.

Kit Bigelow is the director of external affairs for the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the U.S. Since 1985, she has represented the National Spiritual Assembly in the promotion and protection of human rights, including religious freedom, the rights of women, U.S. ratification of United Nations human rights treaties and the elimination of racism. She advocates on these issues at the White House, the State Department, the Congress and the U.N. She has testified before Congress on the oppression of the Bahá’ís in Iran and of Egypt.

Trita Parsi is the founder and president of the National Iranian American Council and an expert on U.S.-Iranian relations, Iranian politics and the balance of power in the Middle East. He is the author of “Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States” and an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute. He was born in Iran and has followed Middle East politics through work in the field and experience on Capitol Hill and at the United Nations.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti and Katie Combs

Some Christians have shunned the series due to its portrayal of witchcraft, as have a handful of Islamic Web sites that have issued a fatwa on the books.

Josef Joffe, a fellow in International Relations at the Hoover Institution, is publisher-editor of the German weekly Die Zeit and writes at Harvard’s “Middle East Strategy” blog about a recent Iranian television program that painted the book series as a “Jewish conspiracy.”

Iran’s Protocols of Potter

It was high time that anti-Semitism would find something hipper than those dusty Protocols of the Elders of Zion, concocted sometime between 1895 and 1902 by Russian journalist Matvei Golovinski and then used by the pro-Tsarists to discredit reforms in Russia as a Jewish plot. Egyptian and Syrian state media have turned the Protocols into television series, trying to modernize the plot and bringing it forward into the 20th century.

Iranian TV has beaten them hands down with “Harry Potter and the Ziono-Hollywoodist Conspiracy.” J.K. Rowling, that English (and no doubt, fully Aryan) rose, as avatar of the globe-encircling Jewish kraken? Yes, though the evidence is a bit disjointed as the clip unfolds on YouTube.

The basic visual argument is hardly as compelling as the original Protocols which, after all, have real-life Jews who have real faces and names, working out complicated plans to conquer the world and pollute the race. You only get Harry and his buddies and professors flitting in and out of the picture while the voice-over proclaims a story line that actually has nothing to do with Messrs. Voldemort and Dumbledore.

It is “Witchcraft and Brainwashing” that spreads the “evil essence of Zionism.” This is how the logic apparently works: Since Harry Potter movies are all about W ‘n’ B, they are a Zionist tool. Along with “devil worship,” W ‘n’ B will corrupt “innocent children and youth” around the world. Why is this a Zionist tool? Because witchcraft was invented by the “rabbis of ancient Egypt.” Now we get a few seconds from the Order of the Phoenix even though it does not contain witchcraft-mongering rabbis. But wait. Aren’t those longbearded faculty at Hogwarts kind of Jewish-looking? Didn’t we see Jewish symbols in every Harry Potter movie? I swear, the kids were playing with dreidels in The Philosopher’s Stone. And when they assembled for a meal in The Order of the Phoenix, they were actually celebrating Passover. You thought the matzohs were crackers, eh? Whenever the kids joust and fight, they are actually preparing for the Last Battle that will do in or enslave all the Muslims.

As we hop along this warped path of Iranian TV logic, we also learn that the world faces a “cultural crusaders’ war” that is more powerful than any military assault the West has engineered in, say, Afghanistan and Iraq. How will the Jews attain world domination? By hastening Armageddon, the “End of Days,” which will deliver a kind of Jewish endsieg, the Nazi term for “final victory.”

What does this have to do with Harry Potter? Well, because in the next volume, Iranian TV intones, he finally wants to face down Voldemort. That will be the mother of all battles, to coin a phrase—a secret metaphor (and call to arms) for Armageddon.

Personally, I find this insulting to the Jews. Previously, the Iranian propaganda line painted the “Little Satan” as mighty regional superpower. Now, this TV clip puts down Israel/Jewry as a bunch of losers who no longer have the will and wherewithal to subjugate the Muslims directly and by force of arms. Now, they have to rely on a bunch of kids—on Harry and Hermione—to execute their evil designs.

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Associated thumbnail courtesy of Flickr user alvarezperea under a Creative Commons license.

Iran arrested seven leaders of the religious Baha’i community last year, charging them with espionage and alleging that the five men and two women are spies for Israel. Baha’i headquarters are located in Israel.

Iranian leaders view the religion as heresy and it has been banned since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Many followers of the Baha’i faith in Iran have been arrested, imprisoned or executed.

The Baha’i faith is a monotheistic religion with origins in 19th-century Iran. Baha’is are considered Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority, with about 300,000 members.

The U.S. has condemned Iran for its persecution of the Baha’is, calling the detainment of religious leaders “baseless.”

Thank you for your questions. Worldfocus.org’s weekly radio show explored the background and history of the Baha’i faith, religious persecution in Iran and the arrest and forthcoming trial of the seven Baha’i leaders.

Martin Savidge hosted a panel of guests:

Dwight Bashir is a senior advisor for the Middle East at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Mr. Bashir is a specialist in ethnic and religious conflict and preventive diplomacy. He has traveled widely in Europe, the Middle East and West Africa and has lectured and published on a wide array of topics in international affairs, including human rights, religious extremism and U.S. foreign policy.

Kit Bigelow is the director of external affairs for the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of the U.S. Since 1985, she has represented the National Spiritual Assembly in the promotion and protection of human rights, including religious freedom, the rights of women, U.S. ratification of United Nations human rights treaties and the elimination of racism. She advocates on these issues at the White House, the State Department, the Congress and the U.N. She has testified before Congress on the oppression of the Bahá’ís in Iran and of Egypt. 

Trita Parsi is the founder and president of the National Iranian American Council and an expert on U.S.-Iranian relations, Iranian politics and the balance of power in the Middle East. He is the author of “Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States” and an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute. He was born in Iran and has followed Middle East politics through work in the field and experience on Capitol Hill and at the United Nations.

Members of these various religions, and others, often clash. Just this month, in France, the tombs of 500 Muslim soldiers were desecrated. More recently, near Lyon in France, a mosque was set on fire. 

David Smock of the United States Institute of Peace and an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ joins Daljit Daliwal to discuss religion’s role in war and peace.