Sami al-Hajj About Guantanamo: It Makes People Lose Their Senses

Six years in “Gitmo” (for reasons never disclosed) have left journalist Sami al-Hajj permanently disabled and unable to perform his former duties at al-Jazeerah since he has difficulties in walking. (He now works for al-Jazeerah in their studios.)

Six Years Inside Gitmo: A Journalist’s Tale

Vivienne Walt (Time)

Both John McCain and Barack Obama have said they would shut the U.S. military detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, where about 250 men remain behind bars – some in their eighth year of captivity. But neither presidential candidate has outlined when and how they plan to do it. One man ready to offer them some free advice on the problem of Guantánamo is Sami Al-Hajj, an al-Jazeera TV cameraman recently freed, without facing charges, after six and a half years at Guantánamo. “It’s worse than the fire of Hell,” he wrote two years ago from his cell to his British attorney, Clive Stafford Smith. “It makes people lose their senses. Death may come at any time….”

Cambodia: Somaly Mam and her Struggle Against Human Traffickers

A Heroine From the Brothels

NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF (New York Times)

World leaders are parading through New York this week for a United Nations General Assembly reviewing their (lack of) progress in fighting global poverty. That’s urgent and necessary, but what they aren’t talking enough about is one of the grimmest of all manifestations of poverty — sex trafficking….

UAE: Culture Clashes in Dubai

Sex and drugs and rock & roll have come to Dubai, and not everyone is happy about that.

In the first article, the NY Times author seems to be thrilled that young, single Muslim ex-pats are idling away their free hours in Dubai drinking alcohol and wooing prostitutes. The second article from Reuters looks at the sex-on-the-beach case that’s being tried in Dubai, and the cultural friction between Western workers and “holiday makers” versus the traditional Arab society. (For the record, the couple in question was not arrested immediately by the police officer who discovered them canoodling on the beach. The officer had requested that they get dressed and leave the area. When he returned, the couple was still there and the woman got abusive and threw a shoe at him. Public fornication and assault on a police officer will get you arrested in most places. On that point, the UAE certainly is not unique.)

Young and Arab in Land of Mosques and Bars

Michael Slackman (New York Times)

… In Egypt, and across much of the Arab world, there is an Islamic revival being driven by young people, where faith and ritual are increasingly the cornerstone of identity. But that is not true amid the ethnic mix that is Dubai, where 80 percent of the people are expatriates, with 200 nationalities.

This economically vital, socially freewheeling yet unmistakably Muslim state has had a transforming effect on young men. Religion has become more of a personal choice and Islam less of a common bond than national identity….

and ….

Beach sex trial highlights Dubai cultural divide

Raissa Kasolowsky and Lin Noueihed (Reuters)

Sex on the beach or drunken trysts may not raise eyebrows in many cities, but a recent case in Dubai has exposed a growing cultural divide between native Muslims and Western residents seeking fun in the sun.

The story of a British pair facing possible jail terms on charges of having drunken sex on the beach made headlines around the world, but in Dubai, reports are frequent of hapless foreigners falling foul of local laws that strictly control drinking and ban homosexuality or kissing in public.

USA: Washington DC Fire Fighters, Beards and Safety

The Washington DC fire department wants to ban beards on fire fighters for safety reasons: respirators require a clean-shaven face to get a good seal. This is for the fire fighter’s protection. It’s a matter of safety, not religious discrimination. As a staff member of the Environment, Health & Safety department for an un-named Fortune 500 company, that’s my 2 cents. There are people in my company who have beards that they won’t shave; that’s fine. However, none of these people is permitted to work in areas that require respirators with air-tight seals. It’s not something we can compromise on.

Fighting for their whiskers

Hilary Krieger (Jerusalem Post)

USA: Atlanta Muslims from 36 Mosques Set to Feed Homeless Today

Health screenings, blankets, towels and other supplies & services will also be provided to the needy.

Muslim group feeding 1,000 homeless on Saturday

Charity during Ramadan: 200 volunteers from 36 mosques will help with downtown event

CHRISTOPHER QUINN (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Over the last few days, Muslims from across metro Atlanta have gathered in homes and mosques to prepare food and care packages for the city’s hungry and homeless….

Saudi Arabia: Oprah Winfrey’s Popularity

Oprah’s audience is growing among Saudi women.

Saudi Women Find an Unlikely Role Model: Oprah

KATHERINE ZOEPF (New York Times)

… When “The Oprah Winfrey Show” was first broadcast in Saudi Arabia in November 2004 on a Dubai-based satellite channel, it became an immediate sensation among young Saudi women. Within months, it had become the highest-rated English-language program among women 25 and younger, an age group that makes up about a third of Saudi Arabia’s population….

No word yet on whether broadcasters airing The Oprah Winfrey Show are included in Sheikh Saleh al-Luhaidan’s recent fatwa permitting the death penalty for prgrammers airing shows that are not on his approved list.

USA: Muslim Exchange Students and American Hosts Benefit

Muslim students say YES to the U.S.

Matthew Rusling (Christian Science Monitor

Iraq: Television Crew Murdered

The murdered television crew was delivering Iftar to a needy Iraqi family to help them celebrate Ramadan. I sincerely hope that the murderers are caught and punished.

Terrorists murder a television crew

Nicholas Spangler and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers)

The Iraqi TV crew brought the gifts that had come to be the trademark of their reality show: some basic household appliances and a delicious supper to break the Ramadan fast for a family of little means.

They’d done it many times before. But this episode didn’t get made. Gunmen seized four of them from their vehicles, hauled them down the street and executed them…

USA: Some Teachers Are Just Special

One teacher’s extraordinary efforts to reach a young child dealing with the demons he left behind in Sudan.

Student in a Strange Land
Christina Shunnarah (New York Times)

Iran: Movie “Ekhrajiha” (The Rejects) Gives Alternate View of War with iraq

War film shows a different side of Iran

Borzou Daragahi (Los Angeles Times)

The plot may seem familiar: A group of wayward and foulmouthed young men volunteer to go to the front because of their devotion to their bomber-jacket-wearing ringleader. They are wisecracking, rude and undisciplined, singing bawdy songs and breaking prohibitions against smoking and gambling. But eventually they become heroes, proving themselves on the battlefield.

But in the Islamic Republic of Iran, such a less-than-holy depiction of the men who fought the “War of Sacred Defense,” as the 1980s conflagration with Iraq is sometimes called, was groundbreaking….

Saudi Arabia: Final Solution for Bad Television Programming

I doubt that television broadcasters in Saudi Arabia get much comfort from this “toned down” fatwa which still states that they may be killed if the religious authorities object to their programming.

Saudi cleric tones down death ruling for ‘depraved’ TV bosses

(Agence France Presse)

Saudi Arabia’s top judge sought on Sunday to tone down a controversial religious edict sanctioning the killing of owners of television stations that air “debauchery.”

Sheikh Saleh al-Luhaidan said on state television that “depraved” television owners could only be put to death after a judicial process, reflecting the anger of many clerics at programmes perceived as un-Islamic….

Book Review: In the Land of Invisible Women

A Dr. Quanta Ahmed, British citizen of Pakistani origin, records her experiences as a medic working on assignment in Saudi Arabia.

A Muslim doctor from Britain finds oddities, obstacles for women and enchantment in Saudi Arabia

REBECCA SANTANA (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Most job contracts don’t mention the death penalty, but when Dr. Qanta Ahmed agreed to accept a new job in a Saudi Arabian hospital she became subject to the laws of that country, which, as she writes in her memoir, “In the Land of Invisible Women,” can call for decapitation….

More at Amazon.com.

China: Local Governments Preventing Ramadan Observance

Spying on mosques, forcing restaurants to stay open during the day in Muslim areas, forbidding beards and veils — China has stepped up its campaign to eradicate Islam from within its borders.

Ramadan Curbs Imposed in China

EDWARD WONG (New York Times)

Local governments in a Muslim desert region in western China have imposed strict limits on religious practices during the traditional Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began last week, according to the Web sites of four of those governments.

The rules include prohibiting women from wearing veils and men from growing beards, as well as barring government officials from observing Ramadan. One town, Yingmaili, requires that local officials check up on mosques at least twice a week during Ramadan…

USA: WD Mohammed Has Passed

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajeoon. From Allah we come and to Allah we return.

W.D. Mohammed dies; son of Nation of Islam founder

(Associated Press)

Imam W.D. Mohammed, the son of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad who moved thousands of blacks into mainstream Islam, died Tuesday, according to his nephew…

More about Warith Deen Mohammed at Wikipedia.

Gaza: Culture, the Arts and Hamas

Watching ‘Friends’ in Gaza: A Culture Clash

MICHAEL KIMMELMAN (New York Times)

… in what is clearly an emerging struggle within Hamas between political pragmatists, trying to consolidate their new authority, and extremists who have begun pressing a more fundamentalist agenda, culture is a central battleground for control of Gaza…

Hamas is distrustful of Turkish soap operas, American sit-coms, Egyptian love songs and other arts and entertainment that do not conform to their dreary and violent outlook. However, their immediate targets for takeover or destruction are government and non-profit galleries and theaters, many of which have been taken over and turned Hamas propaganda outlets.