April 25, 2005

Brutal Religious Opression in Saudi Arabia - But a British Lecturers’ Union Condemns Israel

Religious oppression in Saudi Arabia is off the charts:

Before boarding his flight to Crawford to meet with President Bush Monday, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah presided over the arrest of 40 Pakistani Christians on Friday. Their crime? The Pakistanis were caught praying in a private home in the capital Riyadh in violation of the state’s strictly enforced religious law that bans all non-Muslim worship.

As the State Department has determined, there is no religious freedom in Saudi Arabia and everyone there, Muslim or not, must obey the rules of the extreme sharia of the kingdom’s established religion, the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. The Saudi state indoctrinates its nationals from an early age in the Wahhabi ideology of zero tolerance for the “other.” Government textbooks and publications teach that it is a religious obligation for Muslims to hate Christians and Jews and warn against imitating, befriending, or helping them in any way, or taking part in their festivities and celebrations. The state teaches a Nazi-like hatred for Jews, treats the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion as historical fact, and avows that the Muslim’s duty is to eliminate the state of Israel.

Even other Muslims are viciously oppressed in Saudi Arabia:

For example, Muslims who follow the Sufi and Shiite traditions are viewed as heretical dissidents and viciously condemned and discriminated against by the state. Regarding those who convert out of Islam, the Saudi ministry of Islamic affairs explicitly asserts in publications Freedom House has acquired, they “should be killed.”

Which really makes you wonder about these boneheads at the leading British lecturer’s union, the AUT:

Israeli academics who refuse to condemn their government’s actions in the occupied territories risk a boycott by the UK’s leading lecturers’ union.

The Association of University Teachers’ annual council, which begins on April 20 in Eastbourne, will also debate whether to boycott three of Israel’s eight universities – Haifa University, Bar Ilan University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem – over their alleged complicity with the government’s policies on the Palestinian territories. The union voted against an academic boycott policy two years ago, but campaigners believe the motions are more likely to be passed this year.

The new boycott motion contains a clause to exclude “conscientious Israeli academics and intellectuals opposed to their state’s colonial and racist policies”.

By opposing intellectual freedom and freedom of speech, and by supporting the very Islamofascists who want to oppress them, those morons at the AUT show that they don’t care about anything except backing whoever they think has the most power. They are intellectually bankrupt.

AP: Syria is Out of Lebanon - “We started dancing in the street even before they turned the corner”

HAYY EL-RAMEL, Lebanon – As soon as the truckloads of Syrian soldiers had left for home, Mariam Majzoub started dishing out paint to erase the last vestiges of their 29-year presence.

Her children, nephews, nieces and neighbors stuck Lebanese flags on top of the abandoned posts near her home in this tiny Bekaa Valley village, slapped whitewash on the walls and celebrated the departure date in green paint: “Independence 2005, Sunday, April 17.”

“We started dancing in the street even before they turned the corner,” said Majzoub, her plump face glowing with joy. “We could finally express ourselves, and there was nothing they could do about it.”

Syria ended its three-decade presence in Lebanon on Sunday, leaving behind only a few score troops who will attend a farewell ceremony Tuesday.