Australian-Egyptians back anti-Mubarak protests

Protesting Egyptians are not deterred by bloodshed on the streets and they will continue fighting until embattled president Hosni Mubarak is ousted, says a spokesman for Australia's Egyptian community.At least 125 people are known to have died in six days of protests against Mr Mubarak's government, and fighter jets and helicopters buzzed protesters in the streets of Cairo overnight in an apparent show of force from the regime.Australian Egyptian Friendship Association spokesman Omar Mustafa expects more blood will be spilled in coming days as the situation intensifies.But he says spirits remain high and although people are scared of both looters and the ruling regime, thousands more are joining the fight.

"I was just on the phone with a friend of mine who unfortunately lost an eye but he covered it and is still protesting on the streets - people are not leaving the streets," he told ABC News Online.

"A friend of ours is the cameraman for Al Jazeera in Egypt and he got shot many times with rubber bullets. He didn't want to leave but he had to, and has since come back on the streets.

"There are no police or firefighters or ambulances in the streets anymore, so if you can imagine a place like that when a fire breaks out, no-one can put it out for you.

"So when there are thugs running around the streets you have two options: you can give them what you have or you can fight them, and that's what the people are doing."

Mr Mustafa says his entire family is currently either protesting or protecting property in Cairo and he is desperately trying to return home to join them.

"Of course I want to be with my fellow Egyptians. We can do here as much as we want but our real place now is to be amongst our fellow Egyptians and fight for our cause," he said.

"I want to march the streets, protect my property and be with my family. I want to hopefully celebrate this dictator falling in a few days.

"I started speaking to my family again yesterday because our self-acclaimed president has cut all means of communication to the other side.

"We're not talking social networks; we're talking no internet, no mobile phones, no landlines.

"They started working two days ago and now you can reach people on mobiles every now and then, and that's how we're getting news from them."

Mr Mustafa has called Mr Mubarak a criminal and attacked his appointment of the first vice-president since he came to power.

"He's committed so many crimes, stolen so much of the Egyptian people's money, he's participated in so much corruption," he said.

"He's a very stubborn man and has this authority addiction.

"People are asking him to leave but he instead sacks the government and calls his two best friends to come and help him. He's made one of them his vice-president and the other prime minister.

"The people have been patient for so long and now they've spoken. And when they say 'no', it means no."

Regime change

Although Mr Mustafa says he there is no ideal candidate to step into the president's shoes, he is certain there will not be a power void.

"This man has lied to Egyptians for so long and he's been scaring them with the idea that if his regime goes the only alternative is the Muslim Brotherhood - and that's completely wrong," he said.

"We know there isn't enough support from the Egyptian people to do that.

"There are politicised people, there are perfect leaders for the country. Any of them can takeover or someone new can as well.

"Egypt is a country with a population of almost 100 million people, mostly educated, so I don't think it's going to be a problem finding someone to take over."

But Bishop Suriel, from the Coptic Orthodox Church in Melbourne, believes Coptic Christians in Egypt are concerned about the influence the Muslim Brotherhood might have on any new governmental arrangements.

"We are concerned about any extremist group that may take hold," he said.

"It will not be good news for all of Egypt or for the Christians of Egypt for any extremist group that may have their own political agenda.

"That will cause havoc and a lot of distress for Egyptians and for the Coptics and we are against any extremist group that may take hold of the country. We hope and we pray that this does not happen."

Silence from Muslim- Americans

AMID THE uproar earlier this month over the assassination of Salmaan Taseer, the secularist governor of the Pakistani province of Punjab, Muslim-American organizations have been largely silent. At a time when mainstream Muslim leaders have been trying to demonstrate their embrace of religious tolerance and pluralism to their fellow Americans, few have had a word to say about this People’s Party leader whose denunciation of Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy law led to his death at the hands of a Muslim zealot
a zealot who has since been celebrated by fundamentalists around the globe.
The most notable silence is on the part of the Islamic Circle of North America. Operating in this country for about 40 years, this organization has ideological ties to the Jamaat-e-Islami, one of Pakistan’s main Islamist political parties. The Jamaat explained away the assassination of Taseer on the grounds that it could have been avoided if the government had simply removed him from office. Though the Islamic Circle of North America does not necessarily take orders from its Pakistani parent, it appears unwilling to challenge the views of its overwhelmingly immigrant membership from Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh — many of whom seem to have little sympathy for the slain politician’s secularist views.

Nor is this the first instance of such silence. Last May, when the Pakistani Taliban slaughtered 93 members of a persecuted Muslim sect, the Ahmadiyya, the Islamic Circle of North America held its annual convention in Hartford. Speakers continually reminded the several thousand attendees that “Islam is a religion of peace,’’ yet one of us in attendance heard not a word about the killings all weekend. Other Muslim-American organizations, none of which has such direct and exclusive ties to Pakistan and the region, had even less excuse for their silence.

While Muslim-American leaders are constantly reminding their followers to exercise their rights as Americans, they also embrace the view that Muslims here are part of the worldwide community of fellow believers — the ummah. As such, these organizations are riven by numberless fissures that run along linguistic, ethnic, racial, and doctrinal lines. Their leaders are preoccupied with not saying or doing anything that would cause such fissures to develop into major ruptures.

So while many Muslim-Americans may abhor what happened in Pakistan, others may agree with friends and relatives back home that Taseer’s killing was justified, or at least to be tolerated. In between are Muslims who are conflicted about such events but who get little guidance from leaders who seem to lack either the wisdom or the courage to speak with moral clarity. Some of these leaders are not the pluralists they claim to be. Others have simply grown accustomed to avoiding the difficult choices facing them and instead, especially since 9/11, would rather mobilize and unify their fractious members by pointing to a common enemy — whether it is the FBI, the Patriot Act, or Islamophobes.

The situation is not hopeless, however. It is certainly noteworthy that all the leaders and organizations that have been silent about Taseer’s assassination have been equally vocal and explicit in their denunciation of the slaughter of Coptic Christians in Egypt on Jan. 1. They clearly understood that the killing of Christians by Muslims is not something about which they could remain silent. Now these leaders must confront the reality that in contemporary America, genuine religious pluralism requires them to be just as outraged when Muslims kill Muslims.

In the name of Muslim unity, many Muslim-American leaders and organizations have been less than coherent when it comes to violent extremism. As a result, they have confused their members as to what true religious toleration and pluralism require, and consequently feed the very suspicions of those inclined to doubt the possibility of Muslims fully assimilating to the American way of life. This is a profound disservice to the many Muslim-Americans who are doing just that.

Peter Skerry is professor of political science at Boston College and nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Gary Schmitt is resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute

Muslim dignitaries visit Auschwitz to pay respects

In a bid to fight anti-Semitism and bridge cultural rifts, a large delegation of Muslim dignitaries visited Auschwitz in Poland on Tuesday to pay tribute to the millions of Jews and others who were systematically killed in the Holocaust.The group of some 150 people included representatives from Morocco, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq, as well as rabbis, Holocaust survivors and Christian representatives. Several European dignitaries also were part of the group, including the former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

"Muslims have to stand up with Jewish friends because in Europe, anti-Semitism is rising. And where there is anti-Semitism, Islamophobia is not far away," said British Mufti Abduljalil Sajid.

Sajid said he knew of the Holocaust from books and movies but that it was his first visit to Auschwitz. "I wanted to see it with my own eyes  and teach others about the evil of hate," he said. "This should never happen again, to anybody."

Israel Meir Lau, a former chief rabbi of Israel and himself a Holocaust survivor, said he was happy that such a large number of Muslim leaders were seeking to deepen their understanding of the Holocaust.
A response to Holocaust deniers

The trip was organized by UNESCO, the educational and cultural arm of the United Nations, as well as Paris City Hall and a new anti-racism group called the Aladdin Project. It comes at a time when some in the West voice unease over Islam's growing clout in the underbelly of their communities and with anti-Israel statements by political leaders such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The Grand Mufti of Bosnia, Mustafa Ceric, surveys the former Nazi death camp on Tuesday. Prominent Muslims joined Jews and Christians at Auschwitz in a gesture of interfaith solidarity. The Grand Mufti of Bosnia, Mustafa Ceric, surveys the former Nazi death camp on Tuesday. Prominent Muslims joined Jews and Christians at Auschwitz in a gesture of interfaith solidarity.

It also comes amid the recent upheaval that toppled a regime in Tunisia and is threatening the regime of Egypt's longtime president, Hosni Mubarak, with whom Israel has painstakingly built strong ties.

Anne-Marie Revcolevschi, head of the Aladdin Project, said it was important to have the Muslim representatives on hand.

"The reason is clear," she said. "Because it's primarily from some of these countries where the speeches and documents that trade in Holocaust denial, hatred and anti-Semitism come from."

She noted the participation of Karim Lahidji, the head of the Iranian League of Human Rights and a former top lawyer in Tehran, saying: "No one will miss out on how his presence is important."

The Paris-based Aladdin Project was created two years ago to raise awareness about the Holocaust and to fight racism, Islamophobia and intolerance. Its website offers primers about Judaism for non-Jews and about Islam for non-Muslims, and highlights the historic ties between their communities.

Envoys from Egypt, Tunisia, Iran and Algeria had to cancel for various reasons, including the current political upheaval in the Mideast.

The visit comes after Thursday's commemoration of the 66th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Nazi Germany's most notorious death camp built in occupied Poland where 1.1 million Jews, Gypsies and others were murdered

American Official Involved in Pakistan Shooting Identified

Though the U.S. State Department and Pakistani officials are at odds over the identity of a U.S. consular employee accused of killing two Pakistani men, private security officer Raymond Davis was involved in the incident,
Davis, a "technical adviser" to the U.S. government whose record shows experience in the U.S. Special Forces, is accused of shooting two men who were apparently attempting to rob him Thursday in Lahore. A third Pakistani man was killed when a vehicle struck him while reportedly racing to the American's aid.
Pakistani officials named Davis as the accused American to Muslim News, in reports and in court documents Thursday, but State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the name had been misreported.
A source close to Davis told Muslim News today he was involved in the incident. Court documents filed in Lahore list Davis as charged with murder. A trial will determine whether the killing was intentional, accidental or in self-defense.

After denying the man's name is Raymond Davis, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley would not say who accused government employee is, in what capacity he worked for the embassy or why he was apparently carrying a firearm.

"I can confirm that an employee at the U.S. consulate in Lahore was involved in an incident today," Crowley said Thursday. "It is under investigation. We have not released the identity of our employee at this point."

Davis runs Hyperion Protective Consultants, LLC, a company that provides "loss and risk management professionals."

Since it is not known in what capacity Davis was working for the government, it is not clear whether he is entitled to diplomatic immunity.

The State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this report.