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Showing posts from August 18, 2019

China paid Facebook and Twitter to help spread anti-Muslim propaganda

In China’s internment camps, Muslims are reportedly subjected to forced indoctrination, torture, and even death. Yet some paid ads on Facebook and Twitter would have you believe they’re wonderful places. The US-based social media giants have been enabling Chinese state-owned media to spread misinformation about the camps, investigations by the Intercept and BuzzFeed News revealed this week. The paid ads aim to convince Westerners that the camps in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region are not sites of human rights abuses, contrary to the findings of several governments, China experts, and international bodies like the UN. An estimated 1 million Uighurs, the country’s predominantly Muslim minority, have been detained in the camps since 2017. On Facebook, the state-controlled tabloid Global Times posted a sponsored video on Monday titled, “Xinjiang center trainees graduate with hope for future.” It purports to show former detainees baking bread, as an example

How modern, moderate Islam is fighting back in Indonesia

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Quick question. Which country has more Muslims than any other? If you said Saudi Arabia, you're way off. Egypt is another popular guess. So is Turkey. All wrong. If you guessed any of these, you're not even on the right part of the planet. More Muslims live in Indonesia than these three put together. Indonesia's Islamic identity is less obvious mainly because it is generally more moderate and relaxed than those of its Middle Eastern cousins. This is fast changing. The presidential election just held "is like nothing we have seen in the past", according to Sofjan Wanandi, a senior adviser to Indonesian's Vice-President, Jusuf Kalla. "It was the first time religion has played a serious role - this has never happened in the history of Indonesia," says Wanandi, who, at 78, is four years older than independent Indonesia itself, which celebrated its 74th birthday last week. "In the past we thought we only had to take care of the econo

Revisiting Marawi: Women and the Struggle Against the Islamic State in the Philippines

Editor’s Note: The Islamic State’s crimes against women are well known, but it has also managed to appeal to women to join the fight directly or otherwise support the group. Too often, however, governments fail to recognize this risk. Kiriloi Ingram of the University of Queensland draws on her fieldwork in the Philippines to argue that governments and civil society groups need to do a far better job of recognizing the dangers women can pose while also empowering them to help counter violent extremism. Daniel Byman *** It has been more than two years since the Islamic State’s (IS’s) Philippines franchise and the IS-aligned Maute group laid siege to Marawi city on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines for five months. Though government forces eventually drove the militants from Marawi, the threat from IS militants remains, especially after reports of a recent attack on the nearby island of Sulu. There are currently deep concerns th

Qatar refuses to certify China’s human rights record on treatment of Uighur Muslims

Dubai: Qatar withdrew its signature from a letter signed by dozens of countries in support of China’s human-rights record despite international condemnation over its detention of as many as two million ethnic Muslim Uighurs. Qatar informed United Nations Human Rights Council President Coly Seck of its decision to withdraw from the July 12 letter, which was signed by mostly majority-Muslim nations, according to a copy of the correspondence seen by Bloomberg. Several calls and e-mails to Qatar’s government communications office and the UN mission weren’t returned. “Taking into account our focus on compromise and mediation, we believe that co-authorizing the aforementioned letter would compromise our foreign policy key priorities,” Ambassador Ali Al-Mansouri, Qatar’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, wrote to Seck on July 18. “In this regard, we wish to maintain a neutral stance and we offer our mediation and facilitation services.” His signature also appeare

The Fight in the Right: It is Time to Tackle White Supremacist Terrorism Globally - War on the Rocks

In the summer of 2002 as an Air Force major, I was sent to Washington to work as deputy director of U.S. Southern Command’s office in the capital. U.S. Southern Command, where I made much of my career, was the proverbial red-headed step-child of the geographic combatant commands, never getting the attention or money that our bigger brothers at U.S. Pacific Command or European Command got. Those of us with long careers in the region liked to brag that we were victims of our own success. There was no threat of major war, no weapons of mass destruction, and the terrorists we were dealing with, principally in Colombia, were largely local concerns. The narcotics trade took some of our attention, but even there we were primarily in support of a law enforcement effort. In the summer of 2002, of course, all of the commands had taken a back seat to U.S. Central Command and Special Operations Command, which led the 9/11 wars then known as the “Global War on Terror.” Tongue in che

Cybercrime: Financing Terrorism In Indonesia – Analysis

Indonesian terrorist groups could resort to cybercrime, specifically hacking, to finance terrorism in the future. The encouragement and guidance by each generation of terrorists is coupled with possible money-laundering paths using virtual payments. This poses a challenge for the authorities to disrupt terrorism financing in the country. By V. Arianti Terrorism financiang typically comprises three stages: fund-raising, fund-moving, and fund-using. In the fund-raising stage, terrorist groups have resorted to criminal activities online such as hacking – defined by US cyber security expert Dorothy E. Denning as “activities conducted online and covertly that seek to reveal, manipulate, or otherwise exploit vulnerabilities in computer operating systems and other software” – to finance terrorism. Is there a propensity for Indonesian terrorist groups to resort to hacking? How do the terrorists move and use the proceeds from their hacking activities? Events in the past point t

Hong Kong unions urge Cathay Pacific to end 'white terror'

HONG KONG: Cathay Pacific Airways , which is caught in the crosswinds between authorities in Beijing and anti-government protesters in Hong Kong , must put an end to "all forms of white terror", trade unions in the Chinese-ruled city said on Friday. The carrier has become the biggest corporate casualty of the protests after China demanded it suspend staff involved in, or who support, the demonstrations that have plunged the former British colony into a political crisis. The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) called a news conference after the sudden dismissal of Rebecca Sy, the head of Cathay Dragon's Airlines Flight Attendants' Association, after a 17-year career. Sy said she was fired, without explanation, after managers saw and confirmed her Facebook account. HKCTU said 14 people have been fired so far over the protests, and called Sy's dismissal a "blatant act of suppression". "All the employees are being frightened, n

Terrorism and extremism - An inability to control either one

There has been a significant uptick in the frequency and intensity of terrorist attacks recently, most notably in Balochistan that has had four attacks in the past four weeks. Last month an attack in North Waziristan claimed the lives of ten soldiers while on the same day an attack in Turbat, Balochistan resulted in the killing of four paramilitary soldiers. The attacks are primarily targeted towards law enforcement agencies that are easy targets as they are the first line of defence against terrorists. It has been a long, weary and bloody war fought over the past ten years to get the menace of terrorism under our control– according to NACTA there were 2,081 fatalities in 2010 due to terror-related attacks; this figure has been reduced to 584 in 2018. The achievements are undeniable but there still remains a lot to be done to eradicate terrorism completely in order to get control of the situation prevalent in the two provinces that have been the most affected– Balochista

China, Pakistan come under scanner on persecution of religious minorities at UNSC meet

China and Pakistan were targeted for their persecution of religious minorities, with western powers such the US and UK calling out both nations at a UN Security Council meeting on Thursday for the oppression faced by Christians, Ahmadis, Uighurs and other ethnic minorities. The Arria-Formula Meeting of the Security Council on ‘Advancing the Safety and Security of Persons Belonging to Religious Minorities in Armed Conflict’ was organised by Poland, the Council President for August, to mark the first International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief. Addressing the meeting, US Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Samuel Brownback said religious freedom is essential for achieving peace and stability within nations and among nations. He then called out Pakistan for the persecution religious minorities in the country. “In Pakistan, religious minorities continue to suffer from persecution, either at the

ISS: West Africa must confront its foreign terrorist fighters

Better information, border control and cooperation is needed to deal with foreign combatants in the region. One year ago, 13 Senegalese nationals were convicted for acts of terrorism by criminal association. Twelve of them had joined Boko Haram in Nigeria. The 13 th  joined Katiba al-Furqane, a branch of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in Mali. Why do nationals from West African countries leave to join terrorist groups in distant battlegrounds as foreign combatants? For answers, states must look at how extremist groups access these individuals and the logistical and financial support they offer.’ The principle of free movement of people and goods in West Africa and the porous nature of borders calls for a rethink of the responses needed to deal with the phenomenon. The convicted Senegalese nationals are a prime example. They crossed several countries during their journey, moving from Kaolack in Senegal and passing through Mali, Burkina Faso and Nig