Indigo Jo Blogs

Before the week begins in earnest, I thought I might offer a round-up of stories which caught my eye the past week:

Stuart Jeffries in the Guardian on the stupid, racist gibberish which has followed the discovery of the woman and her children in the cellar in Austria. Some nonsense has been printed about how there must be something rotten in the Austrian psyche or something like that, probably derived from its wartime record, and the perpetrator himself tried to blame his "sickness" on growing up under Hitler. In fact, Austria was ruled by the Nazis for only seven years, compared to Germany's twelve, so you would expect a plethora of such cases to have appeared in Germany, but no. There have been just two cases, involving about a handful of perpetrators out of several million. What does such a thing about any population?

Hassan Butt has been busted. At last, also, the Observer acknowledges that there are critics of Hassan Butt who are not fanatics issuing threats to his life. They print that some people think Butt is a fantasist or was an MI5 informer; my theory is that he turned tail when times got tough for an extremist.

Yet another alleged adviser to the Quilliam Foundation, Shaikh Babikr Ahmad (the imam at Islamia school), turns out to have nothing to do with them.

Continue reading "Round-up: Austria, Hassan Butt, Julian Baggini in Rotherham, life in Yemen" »

Posted by Indigo Jo at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

BBC NEWS: Princess Diana unlawfully killed

An inquest jury in London has found that the late Lady Diana, Princess of Wales, and her lover Emad "Dodi" Fayed, son of Mohamed al-Fayed, was unlawfully killed due to the "gross negligence" of their driver and the press photographers who were pursuing them, and added that the way they were being driven, and their failure to wear seat-belts, contributed to their deaths.

Continue reading "Jury rejects conspiracy theories about Lady Diana" »

Posted by Indigo Jo at 5:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Over the weekend the government announced that it was considering banning the open display of cigarettes for sale, as is commonly found in any tobacco shop, whether a local corner shop or a supermarket. This would apply not only to over-the-counter cigarettes but also vending machines.

Now, I think this is a really good idea, and I would go further: get rid of brands of cigarette altogether. Just have generic cigarettes or tobacco for rolling, with no flavourings, no vanilla or menthol or anything else (an alternative, which I heard suggested several years ago, is to give all the brands stupid names like "jerk"). Advertising of tobacco products was rightly banned several years ago, because what it does - raise awareness of the availability of tobacco - is harmful. The open display of branded packets of cigarettes and cigars are the last bastion of tobacco advertising.

Continue reading "Tobacco display ban: beyond the easy parodies" »

Posted by Indigo Jo at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Canoeist charged with fraud and deception (The Observer)

I kind of got the impression that this disappearing act was a scam, if not from the moment he turned up, then not long after. The guy disappeared in a supposed canoe accident out at sea in 2002, then walked into a police station last weekend. It turned out he had been living variously in the family home in England, disappearing into a bedsit next door through a hidden passage whenever people visited, and with his wife in Panama. The moment they said he had amnesia and had managed to disappear for five years, with no reported sightings, alarm bells started to ring in my head.

It begs the question of why they decided to leave Panama. Did they have a row, as one paper reported, or were they just sick of live in the ex-pat community out there?

Posted by Indigo Jo at 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Woman killed after rejecting TV marriage proposal - Guardian Unlimited

This is a story about a woman who was murdered in Spain after rejecting a marriage proposal from her violent partner, delivered on a TV chat show which sounds a lot like the Springer, Trisha or Sally Jessy genre. Apparently they did not check up on his background because they have privacy rules and they don't do such investigations. It's not the first time someone has died as a result of something they told someone on a show like this - I recall reading of a man who revealed that he had a crush on his male neighbour, and was shot dead by him a few days later.

Why do people go on these shows? Surely the format is so old now that if someone invites you on, you already know that something is seriously wrong in your family and you really don't want to wait until you are in front of an audience to hear it. It makes me wonder how many of the guests are authentic - the stories they come out with are of such self-destructive stupidity that they make you scream at the TV - but if it's a life or death situation, perhaps faking them would be better than getting people to scream at each other for public entertainment and then play the social worker or counsellor.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

BBC NEWS: Former head sentenced for cruelty

This loathsome creature, who ran a dumping ground, I mean special school, for children with special needs in Norfolk - not a million miles from the place I went to - has got away with a suspended sentence (that is, he will have to do the sentence only if he gets into trouble within the next two years, which is unlikely as he is ill and dying) for abusing them in the 1970s and 1980s. This abuse included being forced to eat their own vomit, to fight each other for the entertainment of other pupils and staff, and to destroy the birthday presents they had received.

Why is it that the courts, when dealing with decrepit old child abusers, show them more mercy than they ever showed the children they mistreated? This is the same scandal as happened with Sister Alphonso (Marie Docherty), a Catholic nun who was convicted of assaulting several children in her care but still walked free from court in 2000 because of her age (only 58!) and illness. Such people, including this man and this one, should be sent to jail, and if they die in jail because they got away with it for long enough, so be it.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 9:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The news agencies are reporting that two British women were raped last Saturday in fields near to the Jordan-Israel border. The women, who had been studying Arabic in Damascus, were on a short visit to Jordan and were visiting the Jordan valley and Dead Sea:

An investigation found the two female students could not find transport back to Amman after visits to the Jordan Valley and the nearby Dead Sea.

The women accepted an invitation from a Jordanian woman to spend the night at her house, a judicial official said. He said four drunk men sought to enter the house by force to kidnap the Britons.

The Jordanian woman sneaked them out a back door accompanied by her brother and his friend, the official added. On the road, the brother and his friend allegedly raped the Britons and dumped them in the vegetable grove.

The two women were studying Arabic at Damascus University, Syria, and came to Jordan for a visit during the Muslim festival of Eid.

Two men have been charged with the rape and could be executed if convicted; police are looking for two other suspects. Any of the sisters (or other women for that matter) travelling in Jordan should take good care until these men are caught (the description gives the impression that these women are indeed Muslims - does anyone have any info?).

Posted by Indigo Jo at 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The other, invisible suffering of Burma « Islam, Muslims, and an Anthropologist

In the recent rush to support the monk-led uprising against the military junta in Burma, the situation of the long-suffering Muslim minority, particularly in the state bordering Bangladesh where they make up 50% of the population but do not enjoy the rights other Burmese citizens enjoy. The country's monks have also played a role in the Muslims' suffering, for example attacking mosques on the basis of rumours of Muslims raping Buddhist girls; there have also been pamphlets circulated "glorifying race purity and Buddhism and actually reinforcing anti-Muslim sentiments".

Posted by Indigo Jo at 5:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The BBC yesterday reported that a Muslim dentist in Bury, near Manchester, has been brought before a disciplinary tribunal accused of demanding that a Muslim woman wear a hijab to his practice if she wanted to be treated (HT: UZ). He allegedly told her she could not register with his practice unless she covered her hair, a rule he apparently only applied to Muslim women. There is more on this at the Manchester Evening News, which I found via Dhimmi Watch, having expected that he would pick up on this.

Continue reading "Dentists as moral arbiters" »

Posted by Indigo Jo at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

BBC NEWS: Job losses over eBay 'addiction'

A council in south Wales has fired nine of its staff for spending "up to two hours per day" on eBay. The council has a policy of allowing their staff access to the Internet, but insist that they use it in their own time - which presumably means breaks - not in council time.

The really extraordinary thing about this is that the welfare officer for Unison, the public service union, alleged that "temption was put in their way" by the management by allowing them Internet access! Perhaps he is suggesting that workers should not be allowed it, then? If a worker is using his paid work time to do personal shopping, he is an irresponsible person who is effectively stealing from his employer and ought to be fired; the whole workforce should not be punished by having their access removed in the name of removing "temptation", as this guy is suggesting.

In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with having a news page open and glancing at it, or refreshing it, every so often, as long as you actually get the work done. Anyone who suggests that workers should be treated like children and have this "temptation" taken away from them really shouldn't be speaking for their union.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Technorati Tags: mother theresa, donal macintyre

It was the 10th anniversary of Mother Teresa's death yesterday, as shown on this BBC News article, but it's noticeable that everybody is concentrating on her supposed "crisis of faith", the spiritual emptiness she described in various letters that have been published, but which she wanted destroyed. (Umm Zaid has written a bit about this, with reference to Muslims who experience crises of faith.)

Continue reading "Mother Teresa: the crisis and the scandal" »

Posted by Indigo Jo at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

Technorati Tags: amnesty international

Amnesty International last week announced that it had abandoned its policy of neutrality on the issue of abortion in favour of supporting it "in some circumstances", including pregnancies resulting from rape or incest or when the mother's life or health is at stake. Naturally, this has caused a lot of upset, with the Catholic church threatening to withdraw support from the group. Cath Elliot, "a feminist and a trade unionist" who works in local government, wrote an article for Comment is Free supporting the new position, alleging that "forcing a woman to continue with a pregnancy against her will is a continuation of the violence against her"; Sunny at Pickled Politics agrees.

Given that I'm a Muslim, you might guess what my position on abortion is (not pro, although not as strictly anti as the Catholic church is). However, it seems like another example of an organisation succumbing to "mission creep", involving itself in matters which have nothing to do with the reason it was set up - rather like the Soil Association threatening to remove organic status from air-freighted African produce because of the environmental damage air-freighting causes. Amnesty's main work is to free prisoners of conscience, people jailed for peacefully-held beliefs. It also opposes capital punishment - a policy adopted more recently, and sometimes controversial; I remember seeing a letter in their magazine from someone "shocked" at being asked to write on behalf of a mass murderer facing execution in Guatemala.

However, abortion is a totally separate issue, and it seems that they have opted for a "western secular liberal" stance rather than remaining a broad organisation fighting for political freedoms. Surely there are already enough people fighting for women's abortion "rights"; for Amnesty International to take this on as a side issue hardly helps that cause but hurts its own, because of the inevitable falling-off of funding. It is a mistake.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 11:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (1)

Yesterday, for the second time in the space of a week, they were discussing sexual harassment on Vanessa Feltz's morning phone-in show. The occasion yesterday was the report that a driving instructor had been convicted of sexual assault after, among other things, making inappropriate remarks about his 17-year-old client's breasts. The earlier occasion was that a man who continually groped female passengers' backsides on trains in London had his ban on entering trains or stations in London lifted on appeal because a judge decided that "the risk here of sexual harm was less than serious" and that it could not be proved that it left lasting damage. The man in question has a history of sexual offences going back nearly 30 years.

Continue reading "Sexual harassment is no joke" »

Posted by Indigo Jo at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

In the absence of an entry since Wednesday on the grounds of too much work and too little energy for composing one, here's a round-up of this week's news, insha Allah:

• The Guardian printed this piece, originally from The Nation, compiled from interviews with US Iraq war vets. Really, what can I say? When they wreck people's houses on a whim and spray bullets at a car for driving a bit too fast near a checkpoint, can we really believe the story that the "insurgency" is actually a Saudi Wahhabi-dominated plot to re-establish a global caliphate?

• Still on the subject of the alleged "war on terror", Clive Stafford Smith in the current New Statesman explains how one of his clients, abducted in Pakistan and sold to the Americans, was repatriated to Tunisia, a notoriously repressive country with a long record of unjust imprisonment and torture, to face a 23-year jail term (we're not told what for, but it was held while he was unable to defend himself) before his lawyers could see him in Guantánamo. It's these sorts of countries our government want to send alleged terrorists back to. Sickening.

• On a quite different subject, the "super casino" plan for Manchester has been put on ice. This is really good news ma sha Allah. I don't know why anyone thinks casinos equal regeneration when they are dumped in a deprived area; if anything, recent evidence shows that gambling shops are a sign that an area is going down-hill, simply because they fill up with people desperate for money. The only way to regenerate any area is to invest in it with real industry.

• Don't know how much news this was in America, but the conviction of Conrad Black for fraud was big news in the UK. Obviously I don't object if he has stolen shareholders' money and used it for his own ends and gets locked up, but I don't believe that a jail sentence in double figures is justified for a non-violent property crime. In this country, he would get five years or so - and, no doubt, be barred from company directorships and face other public disgraces, as Jeffrey Archer and Jonathan Aitken did.

Posted by Indigo Jo at 6:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

BBC NEWS: Red-haired family forced to move

This report is about a family which has had to move house twice because of harrassment by moronic neighbours who took objection to ... their red hair! This sounds like something out of the Catherine Tate Show, a comedy sketch show best-known for the girl with the "am I bovvered?" attitude, but also features a sketch about "Russet Lodge", a refuge for "gingers". Is it for real? A family moving twice, each time facing abuse over having ginger hair? Are they so rare on Tyneside as to be treated as aliens?

Posted by Indigo Jo at 12:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)