August 6, 2004
N.Y. Imam's Name Appeared in Iraq Papers
By CURT ANDERSON
.c The Associated PressWASHINGTON (AP) - Documents found by American troops at a terrorist camp in Iraq last year contained the name of a New York mosque imam now facing federal charges of plotting to obtain a shoulder-fired grenade launcher, law enforcement officials said Friday.
An entry in an address book found by the soldiers at an Ansar al-Islam camp last summer in northern Iraq referred to Yassin Aref as ``the commander'' and included his address and telephone number in Albany, N.Y., the officials said.
Although Aref had come to the FBI's attention before the address book's discovery, two law enforcement officials speaking on condition of anonymity said it was a strong indication that Ansar al-Islam - which the United States has linked to the al-Qaida network - had a presence in the United States. The officials insisted on anonymity because the information is not yet officially public.
Aref, 34, and Mohammed Hossain, 49, are charged with money laundering and attempting to conceal material support for a terror organization. They were arrested Thursday as part of an FBI sting operation using an informant who the Justice Department says led them to believe they were taking part in the purchase of an RPG-7 grenade launcher for the assassination of Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations.
Both men were being held Friday pending a detention hearing Tuesday, when the Justice Department is expected to provide additional details in an attempt to persuade a judge to hold them without bond.
Deputy Attorney General James Comey said Thursday the hearing will provide ``an opportunity to say something about what we know about the background of one or both of these defendants.''
U.S. officials have said that Ansar al-Islam members are thought to be linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant whose network is blamed for attacks on U.S. forces and their allies in Iraq.
Supporters and families of the two arrested in Albany deny they have any connection with terror, contending that they came to the United States for freedom and opportunity. Aref was the imam at the storefront Masjid As-Salaam mosque; Hossain was one of the mosque's founders and owns a popular pizza parlor in Albany.
``It's totally wrong and totally false and totally a lie,'' Hossain's wife, Mossamat, said about the terrorist allegations.
Even before the discovery of Aref's name in Iraq, both he and Hossain apparently had come to the attention of the FBI.
Taped conversations between the two and the informant involved in the FBI weapons sting indicate that ``Hossain had himself been visited by the FBI twice and Aref had been visited by the FBI five times,'' according to an FBI court affidavit.
Aref also told the informant in a taped conversation that ``he believed his home, car and the mosque were being electronically monitored'' by law enforcement agents.
On the Net:
Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov
top
August 2, 2004
11 Killed in Coordinated Attacks on Iraqi Christians
By Henry Chu, Times Staff Writer
BAGHDAD — In a wave of coordinated attacks aimed at Iraq's Christian minority, a
series of bombs exploded Sunday outside five churches thronged with worshipers here and in the northern city of Mosul, killing 11 people and injuring dozens more.
It was the first time in this nation's 15-month insurgency that Iraqi Christians were targeted, further fraying the country's delicate religious fabric and raising fears of increased sectarian conflict.
Attackers timed some of the blasts for maximum effect, during evening services that attracted hundreds of faithful. Bloodied and dazed, churchgoers spilled onto streets littered with shards of stained glass and splinters of wood as smoke billowed above them.
"I was praying inside the church with all these people when all the windows shattered," said Father Rafael Kutaimi of an Assyrian Catholic church in Baghdad's Karada neighborhood, where a car packed with explosives blew up during the 6 p.m. service. At least a dozen worshipers were wounded.
"They came into a holy place," Kutaimi said of the attackers, as bystanders scurried away from U.S. armored vehicles that had rolled to the scene. "If they're against the Americans, let them kill the Americans. We're all Iraqis, innocent people. I don't know what their goal is."
Within an hour, four churches were hit in three neighborhoods in the Iraqi capital. The Iraqi Ministry of Health said early today that 11 people had died and 52 were injured.
In perhaps the deadliest of the attacks, twin blasts struck the Chaldean Patriarchate in southern Baghdad, killing a child and at least four other people as churchgoers began arriving for Mass around sunset. Witnesses said they saw two men pull up in separate cars, park them near the church, then casually walk away before the vehicles exploded, hurling debris as far as 100 yards.
The church served as a bomb shelter during last year's U.S. invasion, and local residents, Muslims and Christians alike, banded together to protect it from looters. "We have all lived here in peace for a long time," said Ali Abdulla, 28, who rushed from his house across the street to help the injured.
Around the same time as the Baghdad explosions, at least one car bomb went off outside a church in Mosul, incinerating a passing motorist and wounding four other people. The toll could have been higher if all the mortar shells in the car had detonated, police said.
It was not immediately clear if any of the bombings were suicide attacks. U.S. military officials here said the bombs seemed crudely made, casting doubt on whether fugitive militant leader Abu Musab Zarqawi had masterminded the plan.
Still, the organized assault punctured the sense of relative immunity that many of Iraq's 800,000 Christians had felt, not only during the bloodshed of the last year but stretching back to the reign of Saddam Hussein, who actively cultivated the support of religious minorities as a bulwark against the country's Shiite Muslim majority. Better educated than many Iraqis, Christians here have traditionally exercised an influence disproportionate to their small numbers. Former Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz, now in U.S. custody, is a Christian who was a powerful player in Hussein's inner circle.
Many Christian professionals and businesspeople have fled Iraq in the last 30 years for better economic opportunities and to escape periodic outbreaks of hostility against them. In the late 1980s, during a campaign against ethnic Kurds in northern Iraq, Hussein's forces destroyed scores of Christian villages, demolished ancient monasteries and churches, and forcibly moved Christians to Baghdad.
In addition to Sunday's bombings — which elicited a condemnation from the Vatican — recent weeks have seen a nationwide rise in attacks on liquor and record stores, whose owners are often Christians and whose wares are forbidden by strict Muslims.
Although some Christians predicted that more of them would want to flee Iraq, others pledged to stay, such as engineer Skender Melconian, 59, a leader among Armenian Christians. "This community has been in Baghdad since 1911," he said. "Now is the time for Iraqis to build their country out of the ashes. But there's a drive from some people to move us backward."
In March, four American Christian missionary workers were shot to death in Mosul, though it was unclear whether they were targeted because of their religion or because they were foreigners. Sunday's attack was the first coordinated assault aimed at Iraqi Christians.
An Armenian Christian church in the Karada neighborhood was the first to be targeted. It is a few blocks from the Assyrian Catholic church, which was hit about half an hour later, leaving a smoking crater.
Soon after the second bombing, officials with the U.S.-led multinational forces ordered Iraqi police to sweep other churches in the city. Officers found an unexploded device in one, which U.S. teams disabled.
The operation could not be mounted quickly enough to prevent two more explosions, one outside the Chaldean Patriarchate in the southern district of Dora and the other in New Baghdad, a working-class neighborhood to the east.
The apparent target was St. Elya's Chaldean Church, but an adjacent Shiite mosque, its minaret almost nuzzling the church's cross, bore the brunt of the blast. Onlookers said funerals were being held at both houses of worship when the car bomb detonated.
Maher Mahmoud Mohammed, 35, whose barbershop sits near the mosque and the church, was outside when the bomb exploded. He said the force of the blast knocked him down and punched out his shop's windows. He struggled to get up, then bolted, joining dozens of others who had poured out of the two religious buildings.
Minutes later, he sat in a hospital, the left half of his tank top scarlet from the blood that seeped from his cuts. His anger at those responsible was just as inflamed. "These are cowards and criminals," he said as victims in adjacent rooms screamed in pain. "They're not Muslims."
On a nearby gurney, the mosque's elderly spiritual leader, Sayyed Qassim, lay naked and blackened, his body smeared with salve, his quavering voice saying the name of Allah over and over.
His son rushed in, collapsing to the floor and clapping his hands to his face as he cried out, "Father! Father!" The holy man's followers crowded into the hospital, some of them sobbing.
At the scene of the blast, Nazhat Abd was outraged.
"What are they targeting? Churches and mosques are places to give prayers to God. It's the same. These terrorists don't differentiate between anybody anymore, between innocent and guilty, Christian and Muslim."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Times staff writers Megan K. Stack, Edmund Sanders and Alissa J. Rubin contributed to this story.
top July 31, 2004
Iran Frees Twice Condemned Professor
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
.c The Associated PressTEHRAN, Iran (AP) - A university professor who was twice condemned to death for blasphemy walked out of prison on Saturday night, free after a two-year battle with hard-line judges and mass student demonstrations in his favor.
Hashem Aghajari emerged from Evin prison in north Tehran to a warm welcome by more than two dozen relatives and friends, his daughter Maryam Aghajari told The Associated Press.
``Finally, my dad is free,'' she said. The prominent reformist writer Emadeddin Baqi was among those who greeted her father.
Maryam said her father was released on bail of $122,500. The bond had to be posted because Aghajari had not served his full 3-year sentence. He has spent more than two years behind bars.
A professor at Tehran's Teachers Training University, Hashem Aghajari was prosecuted for a speech in June 2002 in which he urged people to question religious teachings, saying the words of clerics should not be considered sacred simply because they were part of history. He said people should not slavishly follow hard-line interpretations of Islam.
His comments enraged the clerical establishment. He was charged with blasphemy, insulting Islam and questioning clerical rule.
But when a court convicted him and condemned him to death, hundreds of thousands of students demonstrated in his support.
His case became a test case in the power struggle between reformists and hard-liners over the future of Iran, with liberals seeking greater freedom and conservatives defending Islamic orthodoxy. As the demonstrations grew, Iran's supreme leader instructed the courts to review Aghajari's trial.
At the end of a retrial, he was again condemned to death. President Mohammad Khatami spoke on his behalf, saying Aghajari had done more for Iran than the ``inexperienced'' judge who sentenced him.
Again the Supreme Court overturned his conviction. Finally, earlier this month, a court convicted Aghajari of the lesser charges of insulting sacred Islamic tenets. It sentenced him to three years' imprisonment with a further two years suspended.
The sentence deprived Aghajari of certain rights for five years, meaning he cannot work in the civil service or stand in elections.
During his trial, Aghajari defended the cause of democratic reform and denounced hard-line clerics whom he accused of suppress freedom in the name of Islam. He denied that he had insulted Islamic tenets.
In his testimony, Aghajari said he stood for ``an Islam that brings about freedom and is compatible with democracy and human rights.
``I have opposed interpretations that justify suppression and dictatorship in the name of Islam,'' he told the court.
He also said he had ``no hope'' of justice and repeatedly accused the presiding judge of bias.
top July 30, 2004
Congress Passes Genocide Resolution After 1,200 Attend "Die-In"
Late last Thursday night, the United States Congress responded to the nearly 20,000 letters that you sent within a matter of hours to the U.S. Congress. Your efforts prodded them to pass a critical resolution urging the president to declare genocide in Sudan and take measures to end it now.
Activists "die-in" to protest the slaughter of thousands in Sudan (from darfurgenocide.org).
Activists "die-in" to protest the slaughter of thousands in Sudan (from darfurgenocide.org). As legislators debated the resolution, 1,200 people from the Sudan Campaign, a broad-based left-right coalition seeking peace and justice in Sudan (of which AASG is a member), converged on Washington, D.C. for a "die-in". A "die-in" is a visual reminder of those slaughtered: those gathered in D.C. fell motionless to the ground, representing the 1,000 people who die every week in Sudan.
This is the first time in U.S. history that the Congress has asked the president to utilize international law to stop genocide, and it stands in stark contrast to the tragic mishandling of the Rwanda crisis. It only happened because people like you demanded action--thank you!
Led by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) in the Senate and Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ) in the House, both the House and Senate passed the joint House and Senate resolution on Sudan unanimously.
Refugees from the Darfur region of Sudan.
Refugees from the Darfur region of Sudan. Backers hoped this strong expression from Congress would pressure the UN and the international community to protect Black Africans from the ruthless government and its Janjaweed militia in a deliberate campaign to murder, rape, enslave, starve, and block aid to the millions of Blacks who live as second-class citizens in western Sudan.
Indeed, the resolution did trigger a stronger response from the international community. The British and Australians declared their willingness to send troops to the region and the European Union joined the U.S. to support a UN resolution placing sanctions on the Janjaweed and the government of Sudan.
However, we must continue to watch, protest, expose, and write to Russia, Pakistan, and China, who have declared their opposition to holding the criminals accountable. While the EU seems to be onboard, France must be watched like a fox in the hen-house because of their previous statements downplaying the strife in Sudan. They also have the tremendous potential to be bought off by French oil company Total, which owns the largest oil concessions in Sudan.
The Sudanese government, one of seven countries the U.S. State Department notes is a sponsor of terrorism, is now encouraging terrorists to defend Sudan from international intervention. Sudan and its terrorist allies would rather fight forces helping to free, feed, and assist the suffering Muslims in Darfur rather than trying to aid them.
Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is arrested for civil disobedience at the Sudanese Embassy.
Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is arrested for civil disobedience at the Sudanese Embassy. Our work is certainly not done. We encourage our members to support the daily civil disobedience action and protests occurring at the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, at the Sudanese Mission to the UN in New York, and in cities across the world. We also hope that you will join our Freedom Brigade and make our continuing efforts to end genocide possible. Contact the American Anti-Slavery Group at (617) 426-8161 for more information and let us continue keeping the pressure on.
top July 28, 2004
Campaigners take "apostasy rights" bid to U.N.
A bid for freedom of conscience at the UN. You will be able to read documents related to this initiative in my forthcoming essay collection The Myth of Islamic Tolerance. From Reuters, with thanks to David G. Littman:GENEVA, July 28 (Reuters) Religious rights campaigners, buoyed by a UN call for an end to repression of minorities by majority religions, today urged the world body to tackle persecution of ''apostates'' in Muslim countries.
The move came as humanist groups hailed the UN's 2004 Human Development Report for declaring that ''individuals must be free not only to criticise the religion into which they are born, but to reject it for another or to remain without one.'' The campaigners' appeal -- in the form of a petition signed by nearly 90,000 people in 32 countries, including present and former Muslims -- was delivered to new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour.It said Muslim religious leaders and organisations should make a clear public call for reinterpretation of Islamic law ''so that Muslims who change their faith will not have to face intimidation, harassment, persecution or death as a result.'' The petition, launched by British-based Christian group The Barnabas Fund, called on the U.N. Human Rights Commission, governments and international bodies to speak out on the issue and raise it ''as a matter of urgency'' with Muslim groupings.
Fund advocacy manager Paul Cook -- who welcomed the UN report's ''very encouraging affirmation'' of the right to apostasy -- said his group's efforts to get dialogue going with Muslim bodies on the problem had so far met with silence.
top July 20, 2004
Iranian History Professor Sentenced
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
.c The Associated PressTEHRAN, Iran (AP) - A prominent history professor twice condemned to death on blasphemy charges has been sentenced to three years in jail for insulting Islamic sacred beliefs, the judge in charge of the case said Tuesday. The defendant's lawyer said he would appeal.
Hashem Aghajari, a professor at Tehran's Teachers Training University, had his death sentence overturned twice before the charges were reduced in a third trial earlier this month.
Judge Mohammad Eslami said he issued his verdict Saturday and informed Aghajari's lawyer on Tuesday. He said the sentence also deprives Aghajari of his social rights for five years, meaning he cannot take official posts or compete in elections.
Eslami told The Associated Press that he acquitted Aghajari of charges of propagating against the ruling Islamic establishment'' and ``spreading lies for the purpose of inciting public opinion.''
Aghajari's lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, said the full sentence was five years, with two years suspended. Aghajari, who has already spent more than two years in jail, will serve just one year of the new sentence.
``Aghajari is innocent and has to be acquitted. I will definitely appeal the sentence within the legal 20 days period,'' Nikbakht told the AP.
The charges stemmed from a June 2002 speech in which Aghajari said clerics' teachings on Islam were considered sacred simply because they were part of history.
He was initially convicted on charges of blasphemy, insulting Islam and questioning Iran's clerical rule, but both death sentences were overturned by the Supreme Court after a public outcry.
Earlier this month, he stood three days of open trial on amended charges that carried a penalty of one to five years imprisonment. The judiciary did not explain why the charges were reduced.
The new verdict is widely seen as a compromise that saves Aghajari's life and at the same time avoids discrediting the Iranian judiciary.
Aghajari used this month's trial as a platform to defend democratic reforms and denounce hard-line clerics who he said suppress freedoms in the name of Islam, comments that already cost him more than two years in jail. He firmly rejected charges that he insulted Islamic sacred tenants.
Aghajari said during his trial that he defends ``an Islam that brings about freedom and is compatible with democracy and human rights. I've opposed interpretations that justify suppression and dictatorship in the name of Islam.''
During his trial, Aghajari said he had ``no hope'' of justice and repeatedly accused judge Eslami of violating neutrality.
top July 16, 2004
Ecumenical News International
News HighlightsHead of US church body arrested in protest over Sudan
Washington DC (ENI). The head of the US National Council of
Churches who was arrested outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington DC said it was a protest to call attention to the
worsening humanitarian situation in the western Sudan region of
Darfur.
NCC general secretary, the Rev. Robert Edgar, was one of 50 people taking part in the protest about the situation in Darfur, where tens of thousands of people have died and more than 1 million people in the region have been displaced in what observers are calling "ethnic cleansing."
top June 25, 2004
Iraqi Christians face persecution
Threatened with torture, burning, bombing for not joining 'resistance'
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Assyrian Christians recently liberated from Saddam Hussein's regime are suffering a string of deadly attacks church leaders believe are religiously motivated.
Christians and churches have received letters in Arabic threatening that if they don't follow Islamic practice and support "the resistance," they will face the consequences: "torture, and burning or exploding the house with the family in it," says Elizabeth Kendal, researcher for the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission, in a report published by the Assist News Service.
Mandaean Christians, who follow the teachings of John the Baptist, have been receiving the same threats and suffering the same violence, Kendal says.
The unchecked Islamic aggression is forcing the Christians to flee, she states, citing some examples.
On June 7, four masked men drove into the Christian Assyrian Quarters of the Dora district of Baghdad and opened fire on Assyrians going to work. Four were killed and several others wounded.
In the afternoon, the same day, three Assyrian women were killed in another drive-by shooting as they returned home from working at the Coalition Provisional Authority.
On 22 March, an elderly Assyrian couple was murdered in the Assyrian district. The wife was beaten to death and the husband had his throat cut.
As WorldNetDaily reported, Ken Joseph Jr., an Assyrian who directs Assyrianchristians.com, says several developments that "bode ill for Christians in Iraq are causing believers to flee the nation."
Facing next Wednesday's deadline for transfer of power, a temporary constitution that reads Islam is the "Official Religion of the State," and the failure to receive even one position on the Executive Council and only one ministry post – the Christians of Iraq are voting with their feet, says Joseph.
Kendal says the Assyrian Christians greatly fear that the history of abandonment and massacre of their minority group is about to repeat itself.
Historians regard the Assyrians as the indigenous people of Iraq. In biblical times, their homeland was centered around the Nineveh plains in Upper Mesopotamia, now northern Iraq, where they were visited by the prophet Jonah. The Assyrian Church of the East was founded in AD 33. Some 600 years later Arab invaders put the Assyrians under Muslim domination.
Invasions over the centuries nearly eliminated them. The Assyrians fought for the Allies in World War I and were promised autonomy in their homeland upon victory. But they were abandoned to the mercy of the Ottoman Turks when the British mandate was lifted in 1932, resulting in the massacre of two-thirds of the population.
In Saddam Hussein's secular state, the Assyrian remnant suffered severely under his discriminatory ethnic policy of Arabization.
top June 21, 2004
Saudi Police Aided Abduction
By MAGGIE MICHAEL
.c The Associated PressCAIRO, Egypt (AP) - The al-Qaida cell that kidnapped and killed American Paul M. Johnson Jr. said in an online periodical Sunday that sympathizers in the kingdom's security forces supplied it with police uniforms and vehicles and set up fake checkpoints to facilitate last week's abduction.
The details of the kidnapping appeared in Sawt al-Jihad, or Voice of Holy War, a semimonthly online periodical published by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. A separate article, the final one written by cell leader Abdulaziz al-Moqrin, killed in a shootout Friday night, justified Johnson's slaying.
The first article said militants wearing police uniforms and using police cars set up a fake checkpoint on al-Khadma Road, leading the airport, near Imam Mohammed bin Saud University.
When Johnson's car approached the checkpoint June 12, the militants in police uniforms stopped his car - a Camry - detained him, anesthetized him and carried him to another car, the article said.
It said they then blew up Johnson's car.
``This car is the one the Saudi media claimed was laden with explosives and that (the security) seized and defused it,'' the article said.
Security officials said last week that Johnson's car was found near Imam University. Saudi press reports said the car was booby-trapped and later caught fire.
``A number of the cooperators who are sincere to their religion in the security apparatus donated those clothes and the police cars. We ask God to reward them and that they use their energy to serve Islam and the mujahedeen,'' the article read.
It said the militants decided to behead Johnson when Adel al-Jubeir, foreign affairs adviser to Crown Prince Abdullah in Washington, declared that Saudi Arabia would not negotiate with the kidnappers, who had demanded the release of jailed al-Qaida militants by Friday in exchange for Johnson's life.
``The stupid Saudi government took the initiative and announced by the Americanized tongue Adel Al-Jubeir that it will not submit to the conditions of the mujahedeen, claiming that it doesn't negotiate with terrorists,'' the statement read.
The group said it beheaded Johnson when its deadline expired Friday.
Al-Moqrin's final article, written after Johnson's kidnapping, described the American as ``an infidel, a warrior of the military. ... He works for military aviation and he belongs to the American army which kills, torture and harm Muslims everywhere, which supports enemies (of Islam) in Palestine, Philippines, Kashmir.''
Johnson, 49, had worked on Apache helicopters for Lockheed Martin.
He replied to critics urging the release Johnson, saying: ``Do those people want to see this infidel carry on the killing of the children and the raping of the women in Baghdad and Kabul in order to bless his killing?''
He said it is no excuse that Johnson was not a member of the U.S. military.
``According to this twisted logic, U.S. President George W. Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and others are innocent and peaceful because they are like the hostage, all of them do not wear the military uniform and ... stay away from the battlefield,'' al-Moqrin wrote.
``We can't preserve the dignity of Muslims but through these means,'' he wrote.
top June 18, 2004
Captors Behead U.S. Hostage in Saudi Arabia
AP - An Islamic Web site posted this image of Paul Johnson earlier this week.By SALAH NASRAWI, Reuters
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (June 18) -- An al-Qaida group said Friday it killed American hostage Paul M. Johnson Jr, posting an Internet message that showed three photographs of a severed head that appeared to be his.
The message, in the name of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, appeared as a 72-hour deadline set by the group ended.
''In answer to what we promised ... to kill the hostage Paul Marshall (Johnson) after the period is over ... the infidel got his fair treatment,'' the statement said.
''Let him taste something of what Muslims have long tasted from Apache helicopter fire and missiles,'' the statement said.
Johnson, 49, who worked on Apache attack helicopter systems for Lockheed Martin, was kidnapped last weekend by militants who threatened to kill him by Friday if the kingdom did not release its al-Qaida prisoners. The Saudi government rejected the demands.
As the deadline approached, Saudi security forces launched an all-out search, going door-to-door in some Riyadh neighborhoods, as Johnson's wife went on Arab television Friday pleading for his release.
After Johnson's death was reported, his family was in seclusion at a town house in Galloway Township, N.J., where they have been holding a vigil. A man standing in front of the house identified himself only as ''Bill'' and said the family did not want to talk to reporters.
One of the three photographs posted on the Web site showed a man's head, face toward the camera, being held by a hand. The other two showed a beheaded body lying prone on a bed, with the severed head placed in the small of his back, the clothes underneath bloodied.
The face looked like Johnson's.
The beheaded body was dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit, similar to those issued to suspected Islamic militants imprisoned by the United States at Guantanamo Bay - and similar to the suit another American captive, Nicholas Berg, was wearing when he was beheaded in Iraq last month by another group of Islamic militants inspired by al-Qaida.
''To the Americans and whoever is their ally in the infidel and criminal world and their allies in the war against Islam, this action is punishment to them and a lesson for them to know that whoever steps foot in our country, this decisive action will be his fate,'' the statement said.
The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh had no immediate comment. ''We are working on verification,'' the spokesperson said. Spokespersons for the CIA and State Department in Washington also said they could not confirm the reports of Johnson's death.
A Saudi senior security official, reached by The Associated Press, said: ''We have so far nothing on this.''
Soon after the statement appeared, the Web site was inaccessible, with a message saying it was closed for maintenance.
Johnson was the latest victim of an escalating campaign targeting Westerners that Saudi and U.S. officials say aims to drive foreign workers from the kingdom and undermine the ruling royal family, hated by al-Qaida.
Johnson was seized on June 12, the same day that Islamic militants shot and killed American Kenneth Scroggs, from Laconia, N.H., in his garage.
Scroggs worked for Advanced Electronics Co., a Saudi firm whose Web site lists Lockheed Martin among its customers. The office number on Johnson's business card was for Advanced Electronics.
The same week as Scroggs' death, another American and an Irish citizen were also shot and killed in Riyadh.
Johnson's death was the second beheading displayed on the Internet by militants with grisly images.
Berg, a businessman, was beheaded in Iraq, and his last moments later appeared on a videotape posted on an al-Qaida-linked Web site. His body was found on May 12. U.S. officials say al-Qaida-linked Muslim militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may have been Berg's killer.
A senior Saudi official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the government did not yet have any independent confirmation of Johnson's death. ''There is no body, and we know of no videotape,'' said the official.
Reached by phone at the Bethesda, Md. headquarters of Lockheed Martin Corp., a spokesman said the company had ''no official notification on the status of Paul Johnson.''
''But obviously we hope that the media reports people are seeing are not true,'' spokesman Jeff Adams said.
A message posted on the defense contractor's Web site reads ''Our thoughts and prayers are with Paul M. Johnson Jr. and his family,'' but a notation on the message refers to it as ''Employee Kidnapped.''
06-18-04 14:49 EDT
Copyright 2004 Reuters Limited. All rights
top June 5, 2004
Un-Islamic Books Seized in Cairo
By MOHAMED KHALIFA
.c The Associated PressCAIRO, Egypt (AP) - One of Islam's most-prominent religious institutions is seizing extremist books and pamphlets sold on Cairo streets, and has been granted the authority to confiscate materials deemed un-Islamic.
Egyptian rights activists worry authorities are creating a religious police force akin to Saudi Arabia's Committee for the Protection of Virtue and Prohibition of Vice that roams streets looking for violators of strict Islamic social norms.
Unlike the Saudi religious police, the roaming clerics in Cairo have a narrow mandate and do not have the power to make arrests, though they can report suspicious activity to police for further investigation.
A cleric with al-Azhar, the foremost theological institute in the mainstream Sunni sect of Islam, said Saturday that "secularists have nothing to fear from this decision.''
"I believe that this decision leans more toward targeting the fundamentalist religious movement,'' Abd el-Azim al-Mataani, a member of al-Azhar University's faculty, told The Associated Press. He said the aim appeared to curb extremist literature that leads to "so-called terrorism.''
The Muslim world has been under pressure since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States to reign in extremist rhetoric that could incite terrorist acts.
Justice Minister Farouk Seif el-Nasr's decision last month to empower al-Azhar with search-and-seizure powers - something normally reserved for law enforcement - came in response to al-Azhar's long-standing desire for more authority to confront and confiscate material that violates Islam as well as extremist writings readily available on the streets but printed without official permission.
The independent daily newspaper Nahdet Masr reported Saturday that the first search conducted by clerics of al-Azhar's Islamic Research Academy was Thursday and involved searches of bookstores and publishing houses for religious material that had been circulated without permission.
Nahdet Masr said the clerics had confiscated a couple hundred illegitimate copies of the Quran and several Islamic tapes that had been released without al-Azhar's consent, as required by law in Egypt.
Police officials confirmed the search and confiscation but gave no further details. There was no answer Saturday at the academy.
Al-Azhar's influence among Sunni Muslims is considerable. Its decisions and religious edicts have far-reaching influence in the Muslim world and its clerics, called Azharis, are widely respected.
During the 1980s and 1990s, President Hosni Mubarak's government cracked down heavily on Egyptian militant groups, jailing thousands. A wave of fundamentalism in Egyptian society has led many to believe that al-Azhar, fearing marginalization by more radical interpretations of Islam, is seeking to appease extremists by cracking down on publications and behavior that is deemed un-Islamic.
Rights groups fear having al-Azhar take on a policing role could infringe on freedom of expression.
"A disaster" is how Hisham Kassem, head of the Egyptian Organization of Human Rights, described the decision. "We were shocked by this."
"We condemn this," Kassem said. "The lines are not clear.
We are fully against widening the search and seizure powers of al-Azhar."
Powers of search and seizure normally have been restricted to police and other branches of Egypt's security apparatus. Crackdowns regularly target items deemed sexually explicit or religiously unacceptable.
Aides to several Justice Ministry officials said nobody was available to comment on the issue.
Controversy over books or other publications is not unusual in Egypt, where the secular government, in a precarious balancing act, tries to satisfy a traditional, religiously conservative majority by portraying itself as no less Islamic than its critics.
Bloody confrontations erupted three years ago between protesting students and police when the government published a novel by a Syrian writer that was deemed blasphemous.
In 2001, three state-published novels were banned after coming under fire from Islamists in parliament for alleged indecency, and last month al-Azhar urged the Egyptian government to ban a novel by an outspoken feminist writer, saying it violates Islam.
"This is the beginnings of a religious police in Egypt,'' prominent journalist and writer Adel Hammouda told the AP.
"This is very, very dangerous,'' he warned. "It is a subjective power that gives the religious establishment an executive authority when it should only be consultative.''
Even having a permit to publish material will not be enough now, Hammouda said, adding that "they can now be judge, jury and executioner.''
06/05/04 11:42 EDT
top May 29, 2004
10 Killed in Saudi Arabia by Militants
By DONNA ABU-NASR
.c The Associated PressKHOBAR, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Saudi security forces stormed an upscale expatriate housing complex where suspected Islamic militants holed up and took hostages after a shooting rampage on compounds housing oil company offices. The kingdom's de facto ruler said at least 10 people, including a child, were killed.
Saudi security forces stormed the waterfront Oasis complex to kill or capture the militants. The manager of a Saudi housing complex says militants still holding 50 hostages.
British and Filipino citizens and Saudi guards were reportedly among those killed, as well as a 10-year-old Egyptian boy whose father works for an oil company. There were reports the death toll could reach 15.
It was the second deadly assault this month targeting the oil industry in Saudi Arabia, and there were signs the militants might be linked to al-Qaida. Previous terror attacks in Saudi Arabia have been blamed on Osama bin Laden's network, which has vowed to undermine the Saudi kingdom for its close ties to the United States.
While oil supply and export facilities were unaffected, analysts said Saturday's attack could further raise oil prices, already driven to new highs partly by fears that Saudi Arabia - the world's largest oil producer - is unable to protect its oil industry from terrorists.
In Washington, a CIA spokesperson said the agency had no immediate information about the identity of the militants. But a Saudi security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the method of the attack was "definitely inspired by al-Qaida.''
Earlier, a statement on an Islamic Web site apparently referred to the attacks under the title, "A gift to al-Moqrin and his heroic brothers'' - a reference to AbdulAziz al-Moqrin, believed to lead al-Qaida operations on the Arabian Peninsula. The text was deleted, however, and it was unclear if the posting was a claim of responsibility.
Another Islamic Web site offered a link to "an early statement from holy warriors in the Arabian Peninsula about al-Khobar operation.'' That statement also was inaccessible.
The shooting rampage started Saturday morning in the city of Khobar, 250 miles northeast of Riyadh. Guards at the oil industry compounds said four gunmen in military-style dress opened fire and engaged in a shootout with Saudi security forces before fleeing up the street to the Oasis.
One of the oil industry compounds contains offices and apartments for the Arab Petroleum Investment Corporation, or Apicorp, and the other - the Petroleum Center building - houses offices of various international firms.
Journalists were turned away from the compounds and kept back from the Oasis, where hundreds of Saudi security forces were trying to capture or kill the militants. Saudi forces had fired shots inside the compound, officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A civilian car had slammed into a sign outside the Apicorp compound, and there was a burned car at the entrance and glass shards on the ground. Witnesses earlier said at least 10 ambulances were outside the Oasis, and that hundreds of policemen had surrounded the complex with helicopters overhead.
In addition to Apicorp, oil industry companies with offices in the compounds include a joint venture among Royal Dutch/Shell Group, Total SA and Saudi Aramco; Lukoil Holdings of Russia; and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., or Sinopec.
The Egyptian boy who was killed was the son of an Apicorp employee, said Mahmoud Ouf, an Egyptian consular officer in Riyadh.
Egypt's Middle East News Agency quoted his father, Samir, as saying his son was on his way to school with other students. "The terrorists opened heavy fire on the car, killing Rami and setting fire to the car,'' his father said, adding that his daughter ran from the car uninjured.
Employees from the other companies were safe, Shell spokesman Simon Buerk and a Saudi oil industry official, Yahya Shinawi, told AP by telephone.
Other companies believed to be in the compounds included Schlumberger and INOVx, both based in Houston, and Aveva, of Cambridge, England. There was no immediate word on their employees.
The attack came as Saudi Arabia, OPEC's most powerful member, is urging the group to boost oil production to try to reduce the high cost of crude.
Peter Gignoux, a London-based oil adviser for GDP Associates in New York, said news of the attacks might trigger a further rise in oil prices but noted that oil facilities were unaffected.
Michael Rothman, chief energy strategist at Merrill Lynch in New York, also said there might be "a limited psychological reaction'' in oil markets but that the attack would not affect supply.
Official Saudi reports said only that "militants'' had "randomly opened fire'' at about 7:30 a.m. and killed and wounded an unspecified number of people. A statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency said security forces had surrounded the militants inside a building in the residential complex and that "they are currently being dealt with.''
The U.S. Embassy said one American was confirmed dead, and in Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Joanne Moore said two Americans were wounded.
The British Foreign Office in London was investigating reports that a British citizen was killed. Philippines officials in Manila said they were checking unconfirmed reports that three Filipinos were among the dead.
Witnesses said the bodies of three men with Western features had been lying on the ground covered with newspapers until ambulances took them away.
The pan-Arab satellite television network Al-Arabiya showed the body of a man, apparently shot dead, in the driver's seat of a car and the burned-out frame of a sport utility vehicle. Bullet holes were visible in other vehicles, some with windows smashed and blood staining the seats.
Two security guards were believed to be dead, according to a Western diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Inside the Oasis compound, a police officer who identified himself only by his rank, a major, told AP there were no more hostages but that authorities had surrounded the gunmen and "are negotiating certain demands.''
Lebanon's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Ahmed Chammat, told AP that five Lebanese hostages had been released. He did not know the nationalities of others who might have been taken captive.
Saudi Arabia launched a high-profile crackdown on terrorists after attacks on Riyadh housing compounds in 2003, and claims to have foiled dozens of terror plots in the kingdom.
The most recent attack targeted the offices of Houston-based ABB Lummus Global Inc. in the western city of Yanbu on May 1, killing six Westerners and a Saudi.
Saudi Arabia relies heavily on 6 million expatriate workers, including about 30,000 Americans, to run its oil industry and other sectors. The kingdom produces about 8 million barrels of oil a day.
Many expatriates decided to leave, at least temporarily, after the Yanbu attack. Then, U.S. Ambassador James C. Oberwetter advised Americans to leave the country - a move criticized by Saudi officials.
top May 6, 2004
EGYPT - Police Officer Murders Three Christians
A police officer in El Minia, Egypt, drove a truck into a canal killing three of his five bound prisoners, including an elderly church leader.
The police officer arrested five Christians in the early hours of Sunday 2 May in the village of Taha El Omadeen, El Minia. Sixty-four year old Father Ibrahim Mikhaeil and four others were charged with the unlawful construction of a church fence. Part of the fence had collapsed during a storm and the five men attempted to mend it as soon as possible, concerned that, given the opportunity, local officials would stall and possibly halt its rebuilding. Obstruction and the refusal to grant permits for church repairs is a recurring problem in Egypt.
The officer, named Ahmed Kelani, went to the church at 1 a.m. after a Muslim villager informed the police station of the efforts of the five men to repair the fence. The arrested men were bound and placed in the back of a rented vehicle. Officer Kelani ordered the vehicle’s driver to get out and took control of the truck himself. As the vehicle approached the brink of the Ibrahimiya Canal, Kelani jumped out.
Father Mikhaeil and two other Christians (Mahrous and Nasef) were killed, while the other two remain in a critical condition in hospital. Abuse of Christians by local police officers is not uncommon, but the shocking news of these killings has caused an uproar among the local Christian community. The Egyptian media have reported the event as an accident but Christian sources confirm that it was deliberately arranged.
top May 7, 2004
EU urges Turkey to toughen penalties for 'honor' killings Mehmet Halitogullari faces 24 years or as little as 8 for killing his daughter.
By Suzan Fraser
.c The Associated Press
ANKARA, Turkey - Ignoring the pleas of his 14-year-old daughter to spare her life, Mehmet Halitogullari pulled on a wire wrapped around her neck and strangled her - supposedly to restore the family's honor after she was kidnapped and raped.
Nuran Halitogullari, buried Thursday in a ceremony attended by women's rights advocates, is the latest victim in a long history of so-called "honor" killings, which Turkey's government is struggling to curb.
Each year, dozens of girls are killed in Turkey by their relatives for allegedly disgracing their families - some for merely being seen speaking to men. The practice is especially common in the more traditional southeast and among families who have migrated to big cities from the region.
Honor killings also occur in Pakistan and some countries of the Middle East and among immigrant families in European Union countries like Britain and Sweden. The EU, which Turkey aspires to join, is pressing the country to take steps to curb a practice it says violates women's rights.
Parliament last year voted to raise the punishment for such crimes to as long as 24 years in prison. But a loophole allows relatives to escape with sentences as light as eight years if they can prove they were "provoked" into committing the crime.
Europe wants loophole shut
European countries want Turkey to ensure that family members cannot benefit from the loophole.
"No reductions should be made and everyone should know that such crimes will be punished and that no one can escape," Sweden's ambassador to Turkey, Anne Dismorr, said in an interview with the weekly Nokta magazine. "In our view the main cause behind the honor killings is the fact that honor is regarded as grounds for reduced sentences."
Turkey has embarked on a major overhaul of its penal code and is expected to rectify the loophole, but the draft code is weeks away from being endorsed. Some politicians on Thursday called on the government to immediately bring the issue to parliament.
Lawyer Senal Saruhan, a women's-rights advocate, fears the draft may not go far enough. She insists that family members who incite or encourage the killings should also be punished.
"Unless we bring severe punishments, we will never stop these killings," she said.
Guldal Aksit, the minister in charge of women's issues, added that attitudes are what really need to be addressed to stop the practice. "These are not problems that we can solve on paper by changing laws. … We need to educate society," she said.
Suicides may be murders
Women's groups believe that a number of suicides among young women in the southeast are actually murders by relatives who believe they are saving the family honor. Often the youngest member of the family is forced to carry out the killings in the belief that a youth would get a less-stringent punishment.
On Wednesday, authorities charged two brothers with murder after they shot their 22-year-old sister in the head in her hospital bed, where she was recovering from an earlier attack by them. The woman had had a child out of wedlock.
In the latest case, newspapers said Halitogullari was abducted in Istanbul on her way back from a supermarket and raped over six days. She was rescued by police and returned to her family.
top May 6, 2004
Group: Bloody Ethnic Cleansing in Sudan
By NIKO PRICE
.c The Associated PressCAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Sudan is waging a bloody campaign of "ethnic cleansing'' in the western Darfur region, killing thousands of people and driving more than 1 million more from their homes by bombing villages, shooting men and raping women, a prominent human rights group said Friday.
Human Rights Watch, based in New York, called on the U.N. Security Council, scheduled to meet Friday on the Darfur situation, to step in to help stop the bloodshed and look for evidence of crimes against humanity.
The rights group likened the situation in Darfur to the beginning of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, when 500,000 people were slaughtered by a government-backed, extremist militia. The international community has been widely criticized for not intervening to stop the bloodshed.
"Ten years after the Rwandan genocide and despite years of soul-searching, the response of the international community to the events in Sudan has been nothing short of shameful,'' Human Rights Watch said in its 77-page report.
The rights group, drawing on a visit to the region by researchers in March and April, described a pattern of violence by government forces and militiamen, known as janjaweed, made up of nomads who often sweep into villages riding camels and horses.
Human rights groups said the two forces - the Arab-dominated government and the Arab militia - set out last year on a deliberate campaign to drive black African tribes from the Darfur region.
"Together, the government and Arab janjaweed militias targeted the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa (ethnic groups) through a combination of indiscriminate and deliberate aerial bombardment, denial of access to humanitarian assistance, and scorched-earth tactics that displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians,'' the group said.
Sudan's government has denied supporting the janjaweed militia, which it said is defending itself against autonomy-seeking rebels. Ahmed al-Mufti, the head of Sudan's government human rights organization in Khartoum, said Thursday he would not comment on the Human Rights Watch report.
But Human Rights Watch said the government not only supports the janjaweed - providing salaries, ammunition and satellite telephones - but actually created it.
"They organized them and built them up to what they are today,'' said Jemera Rome, a Sudan researcher for Human Rights Watch reached by telephone in London. "The janjaweed have offices in the capitals of the three states of Darfur.''
In its report, Human Rights Watch added: "Janjaweed always outnumber government soldiers, but arrive with them and leave with them. It is not clear which force is the commanding force. It is clear that the Janjaweed are not restrained, in any way, by the uniformed government forces who accompany them in army cars and trucks.''
The report chronicled attacks on 14 villages in one area between September and February that it said killed 770 civilians, although it presented the attacks as examples, saying many more occurred in the same period. All involved coordinated assaults by the government and janjaweed.
It described men on horseback killing 82 men, women and children in a mosque; a militiaman using racial slurs to insult a 3-year-old boy, then shooting him point-blank; and janjaweed raping a group of 13 women.
The violence has sent more than 1 million people fleeing, according to the United Nations, and about 110,000 have crossed the border into Chad, although it is difficult to know the exact number.
"People are scattered along this massive strip 370 miles long. It's a race against time to move them before the rains set in,'' in about 10 days, said Peter Kessler, spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency, speaking in a telephone interview from Geneva.
After that, he said, "it will be impossible to get aid to them.''
The Darfur crisis comes as Sudan moves closer to a delicate, internationally brokered peace in a 21-year civil war that broadly pits the Muslim north against the Christian and animist south. More than 2 million people have died in the war. Darfur is almost completely Muslim.
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05/06/04 22:25 EDT
top May 3, 2004
Death Sentence Reimposed on Iran Professor
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
.c The Associated PressTEHRAN, Iran (AP) - An Iranian court reimposed a death sentence Monday against a university professor who criticized clerical rule, a judicial official told The Associated Press.
The original sentence handed down to Hashem Aghajari in November 2002 provoked the biggest student demonstrations in years.
The Supreme Court lifted the death sentence in February 2003, but it was reinstated by a court in the western province of Hamedan after a review of the case, the province's chief judiciary official, Zekrollah Ahmadi, said.
The case was seen as part of Iran's power struggle between reformists who support President Mohammad Khatami and hard-liners who defend a strict interpretation of Islam.
Earlier Monday, Khatami criticized the judge who issued the initial death sentence against Aghajari, saying the professor had done more for the country than "that inexperienced judge who unjustly accused him of apostasy.''
Aghajari's lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, told the AP on Monday: "The sentence is not final.'' He did not elaborate.
A history professor at a Tehran teachers' college, Aghajari was convicted in 2002 of insulting Islam and questioning the rule of hard-line clerics. He was banned from teaching for 10 years, exiled for eight years to three remote cities, and sentenced to 74 lashes and eventual death.
The sentence sparked violent protests at Tehran University, and the demonstrations later spread to major campuses around the country.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, succeeded in calming the situation by taking the rare step of ordering the judiciary to reconsider the verdict.
The Supreme Court overturned the sentence, saying the charges were inconsistent with what Aghajari had said in the speech that triggered his prosecution.
Aghajari is currently serving a four-year term in Tehran's Evin prison.
05/03/04 13:55 EDT
top April 20, 2004
Cleric Who Advocated Wife-Beating Is Held
.c The Associated Press
PARIS (AP) - An Algerian-born Muslim cleric who said wife-beating was justified in cases of adultery has been detained and will be expelled from France, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday.
The announcement about Chirane Abdelkader Bouziane, an imam in the Lyon suburb of Venissieux, came after France deported another Algerian-born imam who was accused of preaching radical Islam.
Bouziane was detained hours after Justice Minister Dominique Perben said he may have to answer for his remarks.
"The government cannot tolerate remarks in public that are contrary to human rights, detrimental to human dignity and in particular to the dignity of women, (or) calls of hate, violence or defense of terrorism,'' the ministry said in a statement.
In the April edition of the magazine Lyon Mag, Bouziane said he favors wife-beating "under certain conditions, notably if the woman cheats on her husband.'' He claimed the Quran, the Muslim holy book, authorizes such punishment - an interpretation rejected by moderate Muslims.
Bouziane also said a woman should not work alongside a man because "she could be tempted by adultery,'' according to Lyon Mag.
In its effort to fight the spread of Muslim fundamentalism, France has been cracking down on imams who preach violence or values that run counter to the mainstream.
On Thursday, France deported Algerian-born imam Abdelkader Yahia Cherif for allegedly preaching radical Islam at a mosque in the Atlantic coastal city of Brest.
The Interior Ministry said he gave a sermon last month that urged jihad, or holy war, and expressed support for the March 11 railway bombings in Madrid, Spain, that killed 191 people.
The Interior Ministry statement said Bouziane had been placed on an expulsion list on Feb. 26 for disturbing public order and that officials had now decided to speed up the case, the ministry said.
Also this year, France passed a law passed a ban on Islamic head scarves in public schools despite protests at home and abroad that it was discriminatory.
President Jacques Chirac said the law was needed to protect the principle of separation of church and state to stop the spread of Muslim fundamentalism in France.
The law forbids religious apparel and signs that "conspicuously show'' a student's religious affiliation - Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses. However, authorities made clear it was aimed at removing Islamic head scarves from classrooms.
Debate over head scarves divided France since 1989, when two young girls were expelled from their school in Creil, outside Paris, for wearing the head coverings.
04/20/04 18:37 EDT
top April 13, 2004
Muslims Warn Democracy Can't Be Imposed
By JAMES C. HELICKE
.c The Associated PressISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) - A conference on democracy in the Islamic world opened Tuesday with warnings from Turkey and Jordan that political reforms must not be imposed by outside powers, like the United States.
Representatives from the two key U.S. Middle Eastern allies said political and social reforms were needed in the Islamic world.
But "a one-blueprint-for-all action plan is unrealistic,'' said Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher at the opening of The Congress of Democrats from the Islamic World.
The congress comes as the United States pushes for reforms in the Middle East. Also under debate is the role of religion in political life in Islamic nations and concerns about the prospects for democracy in countries including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
One American plan - President Bush's Greater Middle East Initiative - is intended to encourage countries in the region to promote democracy and human rights and to upgrade schools.
The plan has not been officially released. But Tuesday it was already sparking complaints that America was once again interfering in the region and seeking to import Western ideas.
Muasher criticized the plan, dismissing the concept of a "Greater Middle East'' - "countries are lumped together for sometimes no other reason other than their common religion is Islam,'' he said.
Middle Eastern countries need to find their own ways to promote greater freedoms, women's rights, and education reform, Muasher said.
Otherwise, "opponents of political and social reform will conveniently label reform efforts as a mere implementation of a Western agenda,'' he said. "We, together as Muslims, have to come out with a collective blueprint for reform and democratic transformation acquiescent to our religious and cultural values.''
Cemil Cicek, Turkey's justice minister, criticized those who link terrorism with Islam and said conflicts, like the one Iraq, should be quickly ended so as not to give "reasons for terrorism.''
"Blood and tears, the smell of gunpowder and sound of bullets drown out the sound of democracy,'' he told the dozens of delegates from countries as far afield as Sierra Leone and Indonesia.
The meeting is sponsored by the U.N. Development Program and the Washington-based National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, which is headed by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who is attending.
"It was a conscious choice to hold this meeting in Turkey,'' said Abdel Karim al-Iryani, a former prime minister of Yemen, who is attending the congress. "The (Turkish) Islamic movement embraced the secular state. This new experience in Turkey is a model for all Muslim countries.''
But not everyone is convinced. Critics point out that the Justice and Development Party was founded by former members of a banned pro-Islamic party. They also say the United States enjoyed warmer ties with previous governments that stuck to hardline secularism.
Since winning elections in 2002, the Justice party has broadened freedom of expression, trimmed the military's influence in politics, and worked to improve Turkey's much criticized human rights record. The party says it does not have an Islamic agenda and its main goal is to further Turkey's aim of European Union membership.
At the same time, the Justice party has portrayed itself as an inspiration for the other Muslim countries.
