Democracy & Civics

News Outlet Seeks Reader Donations to Fund Iraq Trip

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An Oregon news service has come up with an unusual way to help pay for a reporter’s trip to Iraq: It’s asking readers to donate money to the cause
Tim King, executive editor for the Salem News, is heading to Iraq later this month to spend up to six weeks embedded with Oregon National Guard troops. In order to defray the high costs of such a trip, the agency is putting on a fundraising event March 9 at an Oregon winery, and also has links on its Web site for readers to donate through PayPal. The site has taken a strongly populist approach in its funding appeals. One article requesting donations is headlined “Making War Coverage a National Community Project,” while another reads: “If You Really Care About our Soldiers in Iraq.” The Salem News also solicited and received donations for a previous reporting trip to Afghanistan.

Democracy & Civics

Koran in Hand, She Wins Over Mullahs

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Fiery and not yet out of her 20s, Wazhma Frogh has been making waves in Afghanistan by using the Koran to undermine oppression of women and boost her literacy and education programs.
The Christian Science Monitor reports that Frogh’s work is part of a trend among liberal-minded Muslims to use sacred texts to advance women’s issues where secular approaches have failed. Now an employee of a Canadian international development agency, Frogh works at both the policy level and on the street. Her greatest task — to win over the men who predominate both in Afghan government and village life — has been surprisingly successful, given the country’s struggles with the fundamentalist Taliban. Her boosters say among Frogh’s great strengths are her encyclopedic knowledge of the Koran, and her facility with Arabic, both of which often exceed the capacities of local mullahs. Source:
“Inside Islam, a woman’s roar”
Christian Science Monitor, March 5, 2008

Democracy & Civics

Uzbek Strongman Has Powerful Friends Again

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Western nations are once again making diplomatic overtures to Uzbekistan, despite the former Soviet republic’s dismal human rights record. Admiral William Fallon, of the U.S. Central Command, visited the Central Asian nation’s capital last week, and European officials have also made the trip in recent weeks. The Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe congratulated President Islam Kamirov on his victory in last month’s elections, despite the fact that it said the vote was unfair. Uzbekistan’s location bordering Afghanistan makes it an important player in the United States’ war on terrorism, but Western nations pulled away from Kamirov’s government in 2005 after troops fired on peaceful protestors in the Uzbek city of Andijon. Hundreds of people were reportedly killed in that incident.

Democracy & Civics

Canada Acknowledges Afghan Torture

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Canada’s defense minister acknowledged that the military knew prisoners they transferred to Afghan jails were being tortured. Although the military stopped such transfers last year, the decision was kept secret, and publicly Canada’s government denied any knowledge of torture of Taliban prisoners by Afghan jailers, according to the Globe and Mail. Radio Netherlands reports that the government initially “ridiculed” allegations by the political opposition that torture was happening. One law professor in Ottowa said the revelation makes him doubt Canadians are being told the truth about prisoners and torture in Afghanistan. Amnesty International is suing to have prisoner transfers banned altogether, claiming that Canada risks violating the Geneva Conventions by handing prisoners over to potential torturers.

Democracy & Civics

War Crimes Trial Spurs Threat Claim

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A witness in the war crimes trial of Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, said a group of men stormed his family compound and said they would “all be killed,” reports the BBC. The witness — Vamba Sherif, a former aide to Taylor — claims that the ex-president provided shelter in Liberia to rebels from neighboring Sierra Leone. The trial is currently underway in the Netherlands. Prosecutors say that Taylor backed rebels in Sierra Leone, provoking border-crossing violence, extrajudicial killings, sexual slavery and looting. Source:
“‘Death threats’ over Taylor trial”
BBC, January 25, 2008

Democracy & Civics

The Dutch Ponder a Free-Speech Powder Keg

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Geert Wilders, one the Netherland’s most notorious right-wing politicians, seeks to make headlines around the world with the debut of a new film that criticizes the Koran. A Radio Netherlands report on Dutch expatriates living in Muslim nations finds widespread concerns about a backlash over the film. A majority, recalling the murder of Theo Van Gogh by a religious extremist over his film “Submission,” which criticized the status of women in Islam, also say that Wilders’ film project will put his own life in danger. And almost half of “Dutch citizens in Islamic nations” said they are already facing “problems or even danger” due to Wilders’ activities. Despite this, a majority supported Wilders’ right to free expression, and blamed the Dutch government for failing to adequately deal with pressing immigration issues at home.

Democracy & Civics

Iran Grapples with Discrimination, Division

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Despite an ongoing crackdown on dissent, women’s rights and ethnic separatism remain a thorn in the side of Iran’s fundamentalist government. Reuters reports that the “Million Signatures Campaign,” aimed at improving the legal standing of Iranian women in divorce, child custody, inheritance and other cases, continues unabated despite the periodic jailing of its leaders. One Iranian cleric told Reuters that religious law ensures women there are not turned into “products” and sex symbols in the Western fashion. But according to campaigners — who collect signatures on buses, in shopping centers and at social events — the strict Islamic dress code is less important to them than social equity. Advocates say the social standing of women in Iran has improved, and that the majority of university students today are women, although the law of the land continues to reinforce discrimination.

World

Muslim Extremists Target Historic Buddha Statue

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A huge, centuries-old Buddhist statue in northern Pakistan has been badly damaged after it was attacked by Muslim militants, Asia Times reports. Spurred on by a former cleric known as the Radio Mullah, who broadcasts from a pirate radio station in the region, militants detonated explosives on the statute, destroying its face. The 23-foot-tall, 7th century Buddha of Jehanabad is the last remaining of many huge statues and carvings from the Gandhara civilization, which had its capital in what is now Pakistan’s Swat Valley. The attack was reportedly carried out by members of extremist group Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Sharia Muhammadia, after their leader, Maulana Fazlullah, used his radio station to call for the destruction of “un-Islamic” imagery. The attack echoed the Taliban’s 2001 destruction of Afghanistan’s equally historic Bamiyan Buddhas.

Democracy & Civics

Judge SeeksTerror Trial Jury Blackout

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A federal judge in Miami ordered jurors to be selected anonymously in the upcoming retrial of an alleged terrorist cell, citing concerns about the potential for jury tampering. The move, which is sometimes made in organized crime trials, will mean that potential jurors in the closely watched case will be referred to by number instead of by name. Jurors will also be investigated and supervised by the U.S. Marshals Service in order to guard against any outside influence or attempts at intimidation. “I do find there is a strong reason to believe that the jury needs protection,” said U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard. She cited an incident in which a defense lawyer in the case handed a complete list of names from a jury to a client’s mother, so that she could pray for a not guilty verdict.

Democracy & Civics

Afghan Reconstruction Faces U.S. Budget Cuts

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An innovative reconstruction program in Afghanistan has been praised for giving decision-making power to small villages and communities, but may be shuttered due to funding shortfalls. Washington Monthly reports that Afghanistan’s National Solidarity Program is a success across the country, even in unstable areas where the Taliban still holds sway. Originally developed by a “maverick” World Bank officer in Indonesia, advocates say the NSP ensures a sense of ownership by involving all community members in public meetings to determine what local needs are, and allows their direct participation in subsequent construction and development. It also enforces local accountability by requiring full, public disclosure of fund uses and project timelines by village leaders to their constituents. The magazine reports that small public works projects in, such as hydropower and irrigation development, tend to stay intact in “low-security environments.”