RichyBlacK:

False. When laws go against the fundamental human rights of an individual, it is the moral responsibility of other nations to confront those tyrants who do not acknowledge the limits of national sovereignty. Reminders: Afghanistan under the Taliban, Germany under the Nazis, Italy under the Fascists, etc.

Right now, the only reason Saudi Arabia still exists as a nation is because of Western backing. Their is a long history of instability in the Saudi peninsula and even as recently as the early 90s, the Iraqis would have successfully removed the outdated monarchy if the West had not come to the rescue of the House of Saud. The Saudi government, with all the pomp and pageantry they show is very weak and fragile. Al-Qaeda, an organization founded by a Saudi declared Saudi Arabia her No.1 enemy when it was initially formed. Without American backing, what do you think Al-Qaeda would have done to the Saudi government?

The Saudi legal system is a relic!

RichyBlacK:

When it comes to human rights, national sovereignty has clear limits!

National sovereignty cannot be used to excuse laws that trample on the fundamental human rights of individuals. There are many examples where governments have been targeted and brought down by forces from without because the government overstepped their bounds. A good example is what the barbaric government in Sudan is doing to her citizens in Darfur. It is within the rights of the United Nations and the International Criminal Court to confront the tyrants in Khartoum and even force them to stop their senseless policies in Darfur. Part of the reason for toppling Saddam was the atrocities he allowed to be committed against some Shi'a groups in Iraq. The evil Nazis committed crimes against humanity when they murdered Jews who were German citizens. That those atrocities were legally backed by then German laws were and remain laughable excuses.

As far as I'm concerned, the fundamental rights of all humans, irrespective of geographical location, trumps any national laws. Hoodlums in power should not be made to think that their excesses will be ignored by other nations just because they're lording over humans who happen to be within their boarders.

The sad reality is that the United States government is guilty of this and also supports the misguided elements in Riyadh that use religion to terrorize ordinary Saudis. A close inspection of the laws in Saudi-Arabia and those adopted by the much-hated Taliban in Afghanistan would reveal very little differences, yet the United States is still mushy mushy with the Saudi monarchy.

Tùdor:

Its not their fault.islam is fundamentally a barbaric and savage religion.they've refused to move foward and reform. They see every form of reform as western influence. This is sheer narrow mindedness.

jantavanta:

Saudi Arabia was a colony of Turkey's Ottoman Empire and was liberated only during World War 1.

Wahabism has its expansion in the creation of the Ibn Saud's Saudi Arabian nation State, with the help
of Britain through Lawrence of Arabia. The main purpose of Wahabism is to entrench the British-style monarchy of the House of Saud as the rightful ruling family of Saudi Arabia. That is why there are opponents in Saudi Arabia that have to be silenced with strict laws.

America later on superseded Britain in terms of foreign relations, with the policy of "Do what you like, just keep the oil flowing".

Islam in terms of "barbaric" quantification is exactly what Christianity was in Europe 800 years ago. As the youngest member of the
Torahic triad of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Islam will also evolve.

Irish child abuse: The Ryan Report cover-up
By Steve James
26 May 2009


For all the details of sadistic physical, sexual, emotional abuse, neglect and brutalisation of children in Ireland’s industrial school system, the report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA) is a cover up. Nine years of hearings, the probing of hundreds of childhood hells, have resulted in a huge report—five volumes and 3,000 pages—which will not lead to the prosecution of those individually or collectively guilty of crimes against thousands of children.


Neither has political responsibility been attributed. The report by Judge Sean Ryan continues to obscure the role of the Catholic Church, which is an essential element of the Irish state, and successive governments in operating a cruel workhouse system through which at least 170,000 children passed through in the middle decades of the twentieth century.


Even the publication of the report was characterised by official arrogance, contempt and indifference to former inmates who braved hearings and interviews, including cross examination by representatives of the religious orders in whose schools they were incarcerated and brutalised. Paddy Doyle, wheelchair bound, attempted to attend publication of the report last week in the Conrad Hotel, Dublin and was confronted by locked doors, PR and security men. When other victims of abuse managed to force their way into the hearing, police were called.


Co-ordinator of the campaign group Survivors of Child Abuse, John Kelly, told the press from the steps of the hotel, “There is nothing by way of justice in any means significant in this report, nothing, We were encouraged by this commission and by the former Taoiseach to open our wounds. We did this and they’ve been left gaping open.”


The Irish state has consistently refused to take any real action against the perpetrators. This is not only because it is complicit, by its silence, in the abuses. More fundamentally, it was dependent upon the Catholic Church to force submission onto numerous poor children exploited as cheap labour in its industrial school system.


The report was only commissioned in 1999 following decades in which the appalling conditions in the industrial religious schools were common knowledge. From as early as 1961 news broadcasts, films, plays and countless personal experiences led to numerous complaints being filed against schools. Yet only in 1999 did then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern commission the CICA inquiry under Judge Mary Laffoy. Laffoy published interim reports and reportedly won respect from the survivor groups, but found her investigations hampered by the Department of Education and the Church. Laffoy resigned in 2003 and Judge Sean Ryan was appointed.


In 2004, Ryan struck a deal to ensure continued participation from the religious orders, agreeing not to name those accused of abuse. The hundreds of religious brothers, nuns and lay persons accused of abuse have been given pseudonyms in the CICA report. Only those previously convicted of child abuse are named. Another deal in 2002 limited the financial liability of the orders to compensation claims to a maximum of €128 million.


The CICA report nevertheless does make clear the horrifying crimes of the child-care system. Dealing mainly with the period between 1930 and 1970, the commission interviewed 1,090 former residents of 216 schools, reformatories and day schools—90 percent of whom said they had been physically abused and over 500 sexually abused.


Compiling other information from the Department of Education, the Vatican and the schools themselves, the commission concluded that some 800 individuals were identified as having physically or sexually abused children in their care.


Nothing more clearly condemns the political system that emerged from the partition of Ireland, the accommodation reached between the Irish bourgeoisie, the Catholic Church, and the former imperialist master in Britain, than the protracted existence of a children’s gulag intended to provide cheap pliant, unskilled, largely agricultural, Catholic labour. Ireland maintained the industrial school system, run by various Catholic, orders until the 1970s.


Journalist Bruce Arnold wrote in the Irish Independent, “The report contains nothing about the steady flow of reform in the British system of childcare, begun by Winston Churchill when he was Home Secretary and continued throughout the grim period in which Tomas Derrig was our Minister for Education. From 1932, Derrig placed an iron fist on top of the smouldering drum of industrial school illegality and did nothing at all. Irregularly, cases came up in the court, the press and in the Dail. They cried out for investigation. Derrig always refused. Investigation was generally refused by other ministers. Nothing is said of this in the report.”


Arnold also noted that the report contains no serious assessment of the role of the District Courts, from which children were committed to the schools. The young people forced into the system—some 1.2 percent of the childhood population between 1936 and 1970—were from the poorest backgrounds. At any time between 5,000 and 6,000 were held in around 50 or so boarding institutions.


Children would be referred by the courts for begging, having no visible means of subsistence, no obvious guardian, being in the charge of parents who were in prison, or had criminal or otherwise dubious reputations. Others were referred for petty offences including non-attendance at school. Young girls who had been raped were sent to reformatories.


Most of the industrial schools held around 250 children. The largest, Artane near Dublin, held around 800. They were universally characterised by violence, fear, neglect, hunger, poor clothing, cold and miserable conditions, bullying, poor education, emotional, physical and sexual abuse.


The greatest numbers of industrial schools were run by the Christian Brothers, which opened its first school in Dublin in 1870 and expanded operations to the UK, Australia, Canada, Gibraltar, India and the United States and still operates in 26 countries.


The Christian Brothers recruited young, often badly educated men from the age of 14 onwards, who took permanent vows of chastity and silence from the age of 25. They were entirely untrained, learning only by the primitive and brutal practice of their elders. The report notes, “The Christian Brothers became a powerful and dominant organisation in the State and were responsible for providing primary and post primary education to the majority of Catholic boys in the country.”


Industrial Schools were funded on a per-capita basis, encouraging the orders to cram in as many children as possible. The section on Artane notes reasons for committal between 1940 and 1969: 1,374 children were committed for “improper guardianship”, 1,045 for bad school attendance, 720 for destitution, 227 for being homeless, 220 for larceny, 90 for other crimes.


These children were plunged into a medieval environment, with the report compiling a vast litany of atrocities. A few examples are enough.


A letter from the head of the school warns Brother Beaufort, “You are passionate in your dealings with the boys. In fact at times you show so little control of your temper that you are in danger of inflicting serious bodily harm on the boys by your manner of correcting them.”


One victim was picked up and thrown around a class by Brother Beaufort, knocked unconscious, and was only saved by the intervention of another Brother. The child suffered lacerations, broken teeth, eye and neck injuries.


All the staff carried leather straps which were freely used on children. A Brother Oliver repeatedly beat children with particular violence. One victim reported, “I was running trying to get away from him. He hit me, it didn’t matter where, legs, back, head, anywhere, ”


Oliver forced one 12-year-old child to lick excrement from his shoes.


Instruments of punishment included rubber from a pram wheel, hurley sticks, hurley balls, fists, finger nails and fan belts. One child’s hand was held in boiling water. Boys were repeated pulled around by the hair, punched, strapped for crimes such as being left handed, being slow, tearing a blanket, having worn out shoes.


Another inmate commented, “You don’t seem to understand, the place was built on terror, regular beatings were just accepted. What you’re hearing about is the bad ones, but we accepted as normal run of the mill from the minute you got up, that some time in that day you would get beaten.”


Sexual abuse was rife. Artane’s staff hosted a number of Brothers who had repeatedly been warned for “embracing and handling” boys. Two such paedophiles went on to be hung for child murder in Canada. Others accused of rape, beat or bribed their victims into silence. Accused Brothers were invariably excused, lightly admonished or, typically, moved to other institutions where they were free to continue abusing children for decades.


The children provided cheap labour for running the institutions. A 1957 report by the Department of Education complained, “These lads really make the running of Artane possible yet in all the apartments devoted to the farm and the trades there is not a single toilet or wash-basin for these boys. They come into their meals in a shocking condition, hands, faces and clothes are covered with the grime of the trades, boots, stockings and portions of the trousers often soaking from working in the cowhouse or the manure pit.”


St Vincent’s Industrial School, Goldenbridge featured in two broadcasts, “Dear Daughter” and “States of Fear”, which undermined the official silence on the schools. Run by the Sisters of Mercy, young girls were held in conditions of neglect and near starvation, subject to repeated beatings. One victim summed up the lasting impact of their experience. Their comments could apply to the entire system.


“The screaming of children, the screaming of children will stay with me for the rest of my life about Goldenbridge. I still hear it, I still haven’t recovered from that. Children crying and screaming, it was just endless, it never never stopped for years in that place.”


The report is available from here: http://www.childabusecommission.com/rpt/

In Saudi and other Sharialands,those children if they are girls could legally be 6 year old wives of 54 year old men even in 2009

Mad_Max:

The post about children abused in Ireland is meant to do what?This isn't a 'my religion is better than yours' dispute;this is about the very real horrors women and children face under Islamic religious laws. Something that extends to your own backyard, as I hear some Nigerian governor has ordered the girls in non-Muslim schools in his state to start wearing veils. The Catholic church has a notorious child abuse record and seems to attract paedophiles and some very cruel people. But that makes the cruelties inherent in the practice of Sharia all right in what way?

And to the moronic, vengeful ass who recommends the world stay out if it and let 'them' do as they please with those women and girls, afterall it is 'their' religion; like any individual or group has the right to impose their religious beliefs on another, more power to your imbecilic elbow.I suppose you conducted a poll and found those women signed up to be stoned to death, hung or bartered to men old enough to be their grandfathers. You don't need to be a muslim woman to relate with those women, to realise they feel and think and eat and have the same thoughts you do; all you have to be is a human being. You stick your fat ass in front of a computer and dismiss a woman's looming death with a few keystrokes; that's the extent of your courage. If conditions were reversed and it were you or your sister facing needless death, you'd sing a different tune.
Asshole.     

Mad_Max:

And I suggested I care more about Saudi women than their own flesh and blood,where?

The world is flat now,silly. It's shrunk and more tightly hewn,and no country is truly 'sovereign' anymore; what each does reverberates and affects others in the short and long run. Given that some states in your own country have declared they owe greater allegiance to the Saudi Arabia govt than to Nigeria, I think you should be more circumspect about dismissing what happens there, hiding a 'they brought it on themselves' vengefulness behind 'reason'. Besides, it's a country's people that are sovereign,I think,and not its govt officials. And yes, the West can be cunning,and it's chilvary can sometimes be guided more by self-interest than anything else-why should it be any other way?- but at least they try. One evil does not another justify.

Mad_Max:

You actually think that argument of yours makes sense? There are so many absurdities therein I don't even know how to begin to answer you.I'm tempted to call you a slowpoke again.
But I really shouldn't have done so the first time, and I'm sorry for that. You're entitled to your opinion, of course, as ridiculous as your stance is.

Wahhabism (Arabic: Al-Wahhābīyya الوهابية) or Wahabism is a name sometimes applied to the conservative 18th century reformist call of Sunni Islam attributed to Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab, an Islamic scholar from what is today known as Saudi Arabia, who became known for advocating a return to the practices of the first three generations of Islamic history. Wahhabism formed the creed upon which the kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded and is the dominant form of Islam found in Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, as well as some pockets of Somalia, Algeria and Mauritania. It is now often referred to as a "sect" or "branch" of Islam, though its supporters reject such designations.

The primary doctrine of Wahhabism is Tawhid, or the uniqueness and unity of God. Ibn Abdul Wahhab was influenced by the writings of scholars such as Ibn Taymiyya and rejected medieval interpretations of Islam, relying on Quran and hadith. He preached against a "perceived moral decline and political weakness" in the Arabian peninsula and condemned idolatry, the popular cult of saints, and shrine and tomb visitation.

$osisi:

Note: Most suicide bombers in Iraq are Wahhabies.

Ikomi:

@Osisi

I think you have joined the ranks of the hate and lie spreading machine. I just dont know the head of the team, either you or Davidylan, but Yeswecan is a true follower.

Ur link does'nt even work, and if it does, point to a book that has some reasonable authority to confirm this your claims.

Anyone could write nonsence on the Internet this days, just like you have chossen to do.

Ikomi:

@Osisi

I think you have joined the ranks of the hate and lie spreading machine. I just dont know the head of the team, either you or Davidylan, but Yeswecan is a true follower.

Ur link does'nt even work, and if it does, point to a book that has some reasonable authority to confirm this your claims.

Anyone could write nonsence on the Internet this days, just like you have chossen to do.

 [size=18pt] Underground Church Growing in Muslim-Dominated Indonesia[/size]
Monday, 08 June 2009 13:05 Julian Lukins News - Featured News
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Pentecostals on the tsunami-ravaged coast of Indonesia are experiencing a wave of conversions and healings.

In the strongly Muslim Aceh province of northern Sumatra—where 167,000 people died in the 2004 tsunami—the underground church movement is growing, with Pentecostal congregations thriving.


Indonesia has an official policy of religious tolerance, but in Muslim-dominated areas Christians face open hostility and persecution. In Aceh province, churches must register with the authorities and are not permitted to evangelize. Many Christians choose to meet in unregistered—or underground—churches.


Sumatra is one of the least evangelized places on earth, according to Operation World. But since the tsunami—which wiped out 15 percent of the population of Aceh's provincial capital Banda Aceh—numerous underground churches have put down roots.


Pastor Nico (full name withheld for security reasons) started an underground Pentecostal church four years ago with only six members. Today 90 people from the neighborhood make up the Spirit-filled congregation. They endure persecution for their faith. One church family had rocks thrown through the windows of their home, and another family was forced to relocate because of threats.


"It's very difficult for the Muslims to accept us here," the 34-year-old pastor told Charisma. "If the authorities knew where we meet, they would close us down."
Despite the risks, the congregation is mission minded. "We'd like to go to the homes in this area, to the marketplace, to share about Jesus and start another church," Pastor Nico explained. "We love God, but we also have to love people—even those who don't love us."


One of the church members, Novi (full name withheld), grew up in a Buddhist home, burning offerings of money and incense at her family shrine. Two years ago, a traumatic experience set the 24-year-old Novi on a spiritual quest that led to healing and faith in Christ.


Whenever Novi was close to her husband, she felt a peculiar sensation, which she described as worms wriggling under her skin. "You could actually see something moving under the skin," recalled her husband Fumin.


Deeply distressed, the couple sought help from various sources, including witchdoctors, traditional healers and their Buddhist idols. But Novi's condition worsened, leaving her on the verge of a breakdown. "I thought: 'I'm going to go crazy and die,"' she recalled. "I couldn't sleep. ,  I felt an overwhelming sense of fear."


Novi became convinced the affliction was a spiritual attack. A relative suggested the couple cross the sea in order to "leave the evil behind." In desperation, they flew to another island, but the attacks intensified.


At her wit's end, Novi listened to her sister who had become a Christian. "My sister told me that I should go to the Highest Power for healing—that is, Jesus," Novi told Charisma. "I thought: If Jesus can heal me, I will follow Him forever."


As they prayed together in Jesus' name, Novi felt a "cleansing surge" through her body. A few days later, she felt another attack and cried out to Jesus. Since then, she has never suffered a recurrence. Now her husband is a leader in the church, and their testimony has drawn others to Christ, including his parents, brother and sister-in-law.


The new converts in Aceh's growing underground church include former Muslims like Ernawati (full name withheld). As a little girl growing up in a devoutly Muslim home, Ernawati visited the mosque with her parents and knelt to pray five times a day.

However, she often asked herself: Who is God? Does He really hear my prayers? Her curiosity grew when she saw the crucifixion scene on The Jesus Film, an evangelistic movie produced by Campus Crusade for Christ. "I wanted to know more about this Jesus," she said.


Shortly before Christmas 2004, 30-year-old Ernawati was at home when a man wearing a white robe appeared and said to her: "Do not be afraid."
"Naturally, I was very afraid," Ernawati recalled. "I didn't know who he was ,  and then he disappeared."


Just days later, the tsunami struck. Submerged by the wave, Ernawati cried out: "Jesus ,  save me!" Although she could not swim, she suddenly found herself above water and scrambled to safety.


Thousands drowned that day but she was one of the miraculous survivors. Ernawati gave her life to Jesus and joined the underground church. "Now I know the Truth, and the Truth has set me free," she testifies. -Julian Lukins in Sumatra, Indonesia

$osisi:

Congress finds the following:

(1) The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia does not provide legal protection for freedom of religion because Salafi Islam is the official religion of the country.

(2) The Mutawwa'in, or religious police, has engaged in the persecution of non-Muslims in Saudi Arabia, most recently in the late May 2005 detention of seven Christians whose private security and property were violated.

(3) The annual Department of State Report on International Religious Freedom states that citizens of Saudi Arabia are denied the freedom to choose or change their religion. Specifically, conversion by a Muslim to another religion is considered apostasy, a crime punishable by death if the accused does not recant.

(4) Sunni Muslims are discriminated against in government employment and higher education and there are still cases in textbooks and teachings of anti-Shi'a instruction.

(5) Individuals of the Hindu and Sikh faiths are considered under Sharia law to be polytheists and are therefore permitted in accidental death or injury compensation to be allowed only 1/16 of the amount a male Muslim receives in compensation in similar instances.

(6) Saudi Arabia continues to prohibit non-Muslim clergy to enter the country and conduct religious services, which particularly affects religious believers such as Catholics and Orthodox Christians who require religious clergy and services regularly as part of their faith.

(7) Many Christians in Saudi Arabia have been detained and deported for praying or for other practices relating to the expression of their faith.

( Saudi Arabia law requires Saudi citizens to carry an Iqamas, or a legal resident identity card, which contains designation for `Muslim' and `non-Muslim', which leads to discrimination by the police of non-Muslims.

(9) The Government of Saudi Arabia continues to violate freedom of speech, as exhibited in the November 2003 case of Mansur al-Noqaidan who criticized the Saudi Government's response to religious extremism in an editorial in The New York Times and was subsequently sentenced to lashings for incendiary comments.

(10) As compiled in an extensive report by Freedom House, it was found that Saudi Arabia's General Presidency for Managing Research and Religious Fatwas disseminated through mosques in the United States `Document No. 20,' which states: `It is not right for a Muslim to support the unbelievers, or to ask them to support him against his enemies, they are the enemy, do not trust them . . . Muslims should not be recruited into their Army, whether they are Arabs or non-Arabs, because the unbeliever is the enemy of the believer.'.

(11) In the same Freedom House report, it was discovered that the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., through its Cultural Department, distributed fatwas against Muslims who are seeking to obtain United States citizenship, even if such individuals are stateless. As an example, `Document No. 44' states: `It is forbidden for a Muslim to become citizens of a country [such as the United States] governed by infidels,' which exhibits a clear hatred and contempt for civil society and pluralism in the United States.

(12) The Saudi Air Force, Foreign Ministry, and Embassy in Washington, D.C., have been used to propagate the aforementioned hate ideology and to facilitate religious extremism into the United States by spreading anti-pluralistic and anti-democratic ideologies.

(13) Saudi Arabia is a country that practices religious apartheid and continuously subjugates its citizenry, both Muslim and non-Muslim, to a specific interpretation of Islam. Saudi Arabia is a country that, through its system of education and segregation, is a breeding pool for terrorists. Saudi Arabia is a country that exports through official government agencies both terrorists and its discriminatory values. Saudi Arabia is also a country that benefits from American money through intermediate companies which fund such activities.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.4543.IH:

RichyBlacK:

The al-Shabab group must be crushed! These foul imbeciles taking orders from Saudi Arabia to desecrate the dead must be routed at all cost!

There is absolutely no excuse in this world or the next, to desecrate graves. Only the most ignominious bastards will do such a thing.

What idiotic interpretation of Islam teaches Muslims to not only kill other Muslims but to also desecrate their graves? This is unpardonable and the Sufis must fight back and annihilate the Wahhabists. These dirty urchins in Saudi-Arabia are trying to introduce their barbaric religion into Somalia and all must bring them to their knees. As far as I'm concerned, there are no worse humans than Wahhabists on this earth!

Thankfully, the Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jama (the umbrella group of Sufi sects in Somalia) is fighting back ferociously.

I hope more true Muslims will stop seeing the failed state of Saudi-Arabia as anything special. Just because Mecca and Medina are in Saudi-Arabia does not make those gremlins who advocate Wahhabism any more special than saner Muslims in America, Egypt, Iran and Jordan.

We, the living can fight as much as we want, but going to disturb the dead is unconscionable!

RichyBlacK:

The al-Shabab group must be crushed! These foul imbeciles taking orders from Saudi Arabia to desecrate the dead must be routed at all cost!

There is absolutely no excuse in this world or the next, to desecrate graves. Only the most ignominious bastards will do such a thing.

What idiotic interpretation of Islam teaches Muslims to not only kill other Muslims but to also desecrate their graves? This is unpardonable and the Sufis must fight back and annihilate the Wahhabists. These dirty urchins in Saudi-Arabia are trying to introduce their barbaric religion into Somalia and all must bring them to their knees. As far as I'm concerned, there are no worse humans than Wahhabists on this earth!

Thankfully, the Ahlu Sunnah Wal Jama (the umbrella group of Sufi sects in Somalia) is fighting back ferociously.

I hope more true Muslims will stop seeing the failed state of Saudi-Arabia as anything special. Just because Mecca and Medina are in Saudi-Arabia does not make those gremlins who advocate Wahhabism any more special than saner Muslims in America, Egypt, Iran and Jordan.

We, the living can fight as much as we want, but going to disturb the dead is unconscionable!