Racist rant thug with 'grenade' and sword who pledged to slash Muslims in viral video is jailed

Hepplestall was accused of using racially-aggravated, threatening language and threatening to destroy or damage property.

But he admitted an alternative charge to the first charge of malicious communication and the second was ordered to lie on the file.

He has 37 previous convictions for 47 offences, including threatening behaviour on three occasions, and has been jailed for dealing cocaine.

Lloyd Morgan, defending, said his "ashamed" client was sorry and told him he was "a f***ing d***head for making that video".

He said Hepplestall, who knew someone at the concert and had been drunk, tried to "redress the balance" after being "completely moronic".

Mr Morgan said he had suffered three "savage attacks" in jail - the last leaving him permanently scarred - and his family had been threatened.

Jailing him for 20 months, Judge Elizabeth Nicholls said: "On the 22nd of May of this year, a number of innocent people were killed and injured at the Manchester Arena due to the actions of a suicide bomber.

"Manchester and the rest of the country were appalled by this atrocity. But Manchester’s response was to kick back at the fear and hatred intended by this act, and (come) together.

Link

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/racist-rant-thug-grenade-sword-13817639

Four men who gang-raped woman on bus will be hanged after losing appeal

Good news, but the juvenile should remain in prison he is a danger to women!

The attackers were sentenced to death in 2013 by the trial court while the fifth hanged himself in prison during the original seven-month case. The verdict was upheld by the high court in 2014 but the attackers – Vinay Sharma, Akshay Kumar Thakur, Pawan Gupta, and Mukesh Singh – appealed to the Supreme Court. Today their sentences were upheld and they now face execution.

Applause broke out in court among relatives of the victim, whose identity is protected by law, as judges explained the crime met the ‘rarest of the rare’ standard required to justify capital punishment in India.

The last recourse of the convicts, all of whom are now in their twenties, would be to seek clemency from President Pranab Mukherjee. The sixth defendant, a minor accused of pulling out part of the woman’s intestines with his own hand, was sent to a reform home for three years and has since been released.

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A Muslim Man

Secret Filming Exposes Prejudice Against Muslims UK

Stop Calling Women Selfish For Choosing Birth Control

EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE A GOOGLE GYNECOLOGIST INSTEAD OF FOCUSING ON THEMSELVES.

It really kills me how Muslims can be so judgmental. And I’m not saying that ‘other’ people aren’t. Trust me, they are, but because I’m very much so Muslim, we’re going to speak about that demographic right now.

Do you know how I know that the “haram police” is so judgy? I used to be on its payroll. I was the girl who still maintained her virginity past the age of 13, never took off my hijab, never dated…smoked weed. Ha! Heck no. Weed was wack. And, if you smoked it you clearly were destined to dwell within the fiery pits of hell.

We grew up in a family where my mother only fed us halal meats, read the Holy Book to us when we woke up and right before we went to sleep (yup, the devil had to be creeping somewhere in the closet), and disbarred watching anything over a PG-13 rating–even that was pushing it. We had to close our eyes if there were kissing scenes, and she’d fast forward any music with curse words in it. A man dressed in women’s clothing on TV? She’d turn it off completely. Magazines with Britney Spears in short-shorts were a no-no. She bought us magazines like National Geographic instead, stating they were more “educational.”

DO YOU KNOW HOW I KNOW THAT THE “HARAM POLICE” IS SO JUDGY? I USED TO BE ON ITS PAYROLL. 

When I turned 19, I moved out. Her world had become overbearing and controlling.

Society had quickly let me know that the world was not as it was back at home and that judgmental shit had to be tossed immediately if I were to make it.

Although I was out of Mom’s house, I still hung around a lot of Muslims and their parents. Their parents were judgmental in the wrong kinds of ways. Most of the parents were hypercritical when it came to other people’s kids, specifically their daughters. If they had a son, they could basically be spotted in a strip club making it rain on someone’s ass and it’d be given 99 excuses plus one. But, let it be a daughter and she’s damned to hell forever.

Of course, this mindset trickled down to the Muslim children. They ranged from middle-grade judgy to Muslim-parent judgy.

Shortly after moving out on my own, I went to the doctor and requested birth control. I knew for a fact that I didn’t want to have a trillion kids like a lot of the Muslim women had in the community. Most of those women hadn’t held a job, were overly-dependent on their cheating ass husbands to pay the bills, hadn’t had anything past a high-school diploma (if that). They weren’t traveling to faraway lands or experiencing the wonders of life. Many of them became career mothers, usually pregnant every other year.

MOST OF THE PARENTS WERE HYPERCRITICAL WHEN IT CAME TO OTHER PEOPLE’S KIDS, SPECIFICALLY THEIR DAUGHTERS.

Cheers to people who loooooooove having buckets of kids…but that just wasn’t me.

My friends and I were chatting on the couch and pregnancy came up. Someone had gotten pregnant. Again.

“I’m 99.9 percent sure that I’m covered,” I joked.

“What do you mean?” Someone asked.

“Well, I’m on birth control now.”

By the facial expressions, you’d think I just tossed a cat out the window.

I got everything from “That’s not permissible in Islam” and ‘That’s unnatural” to “You won’t ever be able to have a child” and “That’s what women are made for.”

I sat there and took the verbal abuse because that’s exactly what it was. Why was I selfish because I wanted to take control of my body? I mean, God gave me MY body. It wasn’t theirs or my then-husband’s to control. So why were they so adamant on policing my reproductive system in the name of Islam?

WHY WAS I SELFISH BECAUSE I WANTED TO TAKE CONTROL OF MY BODY?

Years passed and I was still unwaveringly on birth control. I’d get asked, “Why don’t you have any kids yet?”

My usual responses: because I don’t want to be a mom or I have no money or I’m pursuing an education.

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Why do I call Rohingya persecution genocide? Maung Zarni

Pls follow this bro on his FB/ twitter etc: @@drzarni      

"Inside Myanmar, Rohingyas live in two different types of situation: open vast prisons and the internally displaced persons camps.

They have no freedom of movement; all aspects of their lives are totally controlled by the Burmese military authorities at the top of the administrative structures and local Buddhist Rakhine who occupy the majority of the admin posts. Rohingyas’ access to food and food systems (such as streams and rivers, paddy fields, etc.) as well as opportunities to earn a living has been controlled and restricted.

Doctor-patience ratio for the two major towns – Buthidaung and Maungdaw – are estimated to be 1: 150,000 – while the national average is 1: 1,000 – 2,000. Extreme malnutrition is prevalent with sub-Sahara-like conditions.

Only Rohingyas are singled out for strict marriage control and child control.

Rape and gang-rape of Rohingya women and even girls are rampant. Mass arrests of Rohingya males are routine. Summary execution, forced labour, extortions, etc. are routinely practised by the security troops that split Rohingya region into two dozen security grids. It is this kind of inhuman conditions under which Rohingyas are forced to exist – not live as humans – that has been a major push factor behind regular, if less dramatic and less reported than the most recent one, waves of fleeing Rohingyas.

Emphatically, I must state that these conditions are maintained as a matter of policy by the central governments since the late 1970’s:

to destroy life as we know it, for the entire Rohingya community as a distinct ethnic group, whether recognized by the State officially, as such or not.

Precisely because of the policy of destroying Rohingya community as a group I have been calling this a genocide – a textbook genocidal act as defined by the Genocide Convention. "

Myanmar forces believed using rape as weapon of war against Muslim Rohingya women, girls

Rape is being used as a weapon of war in the Rohingya crisis, with no woman safe from the risk of sexual attack as Myanmar’s Muslim minority is driven out of its homeland, according to experts in the field and those caught up in the crisis.

Doctors treating some of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar in recent weeks have seen dozens of women with injuries consistent with violent sexual attacks, according to U.N. clinicians.

And women interviewed by the Thomson Reuters Foundation tell of violent rape by Myanmar security forces as they flee their homes, part of a mass Rohingya exodus.

“The Burmese (Myanmar) military has clearly used rape as one of a range of horrific methods of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya,” said Skye Wheeler, a sexual violence expert with Human Rights Watch who has assessed the fast-filling camps.

“Rape and other forms of sexual violence has been widespread and systematic as well as brutal, humiliating and traumatic,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Myanmar dismisses all such accusations of ethnic cleansing, saying it has to tackle insurgents, whom it accuses of starting fires and attacking civilians, as well as the security forces.

Yet villagers fleeing the violence say rape is a routine weapon in the military’s armory, with the United Nations now deliberating whether the violence amounts to genocide.

Whatever the legal definition, 18-year-old Nurshida knows only too well what happened to her.

Speaking to Thomson Reuters Foundation from the relative safety of her camp, Nurshida recalled how her class of 30 was marched in silence to their school last month, held at gunpoint by uniformed soldiers, then manhandled into the main auditorium.

The schoolgirls, she said, cowered as one in a corner; the men — breathing heavily and dripping sweat — occupied another.

The gang rape began immediately.

Fair-skinned Nurshida, with bangles looping her wrist and a loose scarf shrouding her hair, said she was chosen first by the group, six clean-shaven soldiers carrying guns and machetes.

“One of the men held me tightly on the floor. I started screaming, but a second soldier hit me in the face with his hand and undressed me fully. I was silent when they raped me, there was nothing I could do,” Nurshida said.

Her two friends were thrown to the floor next. As they were raped, smoke was rising in the distance — her native Naisapru village was on fire, one of many set alight in the exodus.

“All of the schoolgirls were raped and there were loud screams everywhere,” said Nurshida, sitting in a mud hut in Bangladesh’s Kutupalong camp where she is waiting to register as a refugee.

Authorities say her story fits a horribly familiar pattern.

“The stories we hear point to rape being used strategically as a weapon of war,” aid Rashed Hasan, a lieutenant colonel in the Bangladesh army.

Women of all ages and backgrounds have reported similarly brutal sexual assaults — as well as witnessing family killings, losing children and being forced from their homes.

“Rape is an act of power. It knows no discrimination in terms of age, sex or ethnicity,” Saba Zariv of the United Nations Population Fund told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

At 9 months pregnant, Jannet says she was brutally tortured and raped at her home in Myanmar.

“My husband was killed five days before soldiers attacked our village. Our three children have never been seen again since,” she said, cradling 5-day-old Fatima in the flimsy makeshift tent she now calls home.

Fatima, who was delivered in a rice field, is her only remaining family member.

Late into her pregnancy, Jannet said she was alone when the army marched into Fakira Bazaar village. While everyone scattered into the jungle, the 22-year-old chose to hide.

“Several soldiers broke the door. They saw that I was pregnant, but they all raped me.” At the end of the day she was left naked, beaten, her children gone.

“I cried and screamed for them, but I still don’t know where they are,” she said. “I never want to go back to Myanmar. … I have lost everything.”

Yet safety is not guaranteed in the chaotic Rohingya refugee camps that are quickly becoming the world’s largest.

Parvin, 20, said she has been rejected by her in-laws after soldiers beheaded her husband and raped her while she was 5 months pregnant.

“They beat me unconscious,” she said. “I woke up to an empty village and my in-laws searching for me. I was lying naked on the floor of their house.”

The last thing Parvin’s mother-in-law did for her was help her wash after the rape. “They told me they didn’t want to take responsibility for me and rejected me.”

Now she lives alone in a bamboo house, terrified of men.

“I can never get married again now that I was raped. I have no choice but to raise my baby alone,” she said. “That’s all that drives me now. I have lost all else.”

Link

The long arm of the sheikhs

Absolute disgrace!! where is the accountability?!! How can this despicable family be allowed to carry on like this!

But then he raped my two daughters.

To his followers, Abdul Wahab is a saint. He has been dead for 23 years now, but he is still worshipped daily, in the Noeroel Islam mosque in The Hague, among other places. The centre of worship in the British village Nuneaton, too, is a kind of Dutch enclave. Many Surinamese people from The Hague commute back and forth to the large estate or even settle to live on the 25 hectare grounds.

There, Abdul Wahab’s eldest son Faizul Siddiqi reigns supreme.

Faizul, himself a lawyer in the British Sharia courts, aims to give the mosque in The Hague its own arbitration council very soon. Such courts are widespread in England, but here they are very contentious because the judgments in family cases can be contrary to Dutch law. For example, women may be advised by Sharia judges to accept polygamy, or not to report domestic violence to the police.

AudienceDutch academic Machteld Zee, an Islam researcher, went to visit Faizul in Nuneaton. She was given an audience in his luxurious office ’with the biggest flat screen I have ever seen’. Faizul told her that it would be to great advantage if Dutch Muslims no longer have to go to England for a Sharia judgment.

A group of people at Noeroel Islam mosque want nothing to do with this sort of thing. They do not trust the Siddiqi clan one bit. This can certainly be said of Alwin, who now has the deepest regret about handing his girls over to the family long ago in blind idolisation. He sent them to England to live with the Siddiqis. The daughters were supposed to receive an Islamic education. In reality, they became domestic slaves.

Their mother Farida became suspicious and made a police report in 1993. ’You did not teach my daughters about Islam and Arabic as was promised’, she wrote to Abdul Wahab, ’but you raped them, abused them and assaulted them from the age of eleven.’ To the mosque-goers she wrote: ’People who are known as a saint, are worshipped, receive good treatment everywhere and who secretly violently rape young girls for years, week in, week out, terrify them with stories about evil spirits, so that they cannot sleep at night, and make them work as slaves all day until late at night, I will never forgive people like that.’ Nobody at the mosque wanted to listen.

InvestigationRotterdam police did want to listen. They, together with Interpol London, stated an investigation. However, it was stopped when Abdul Wahab died in 1994 at the age of 52. No suspect, no case.

One of the daughters wrote a detailed statement about what happened to her in the Siddiqi household. According to her, Faizul, the movement’s current spiritual leader, couldn’t keep his hands to himself either. Her sister confirms this. A second son, Noor, also made advances on the young teenage girls. But according to the statement, the father was the worst.

’Abdul Wahab called me into his room, suddenly grabbed hold of me and pulled my trousers [or: pants] off’, the woman writes in an account full of fear and pain. After that first time, the abuse took on systemic forms. According to the victim, Abdul Wahab would threaten that jinns (Islamic spirits) would punish her if she spoke out. ’The spirit would have become very angry and would have destroyed my future and my parents. I would be left unable to have children’.

She describes how the sheikh tried to make her believe that a spirit could give back her virginity. ’But first he had to take nude photographs of me to give to the jinn’.

ChargesNot only the father and the eldest son were accused. A third son, Qamar, was prosecuted in 2013 for the rape of a woman, but was acquitted. A fourth son was convicted, but for something very different: embezzlement.

Link

The other stories of Diwali

This Diwali I was surprised to find out from an Indian colleague that the traditional story of the Hindu Lord Ram winning against the evil Ravana and returning back home is not the only story about Deepavali. There are other stories that the lower caste Hindus (Dalits) believe in.

The most popular story among them is about a just king called Bali who was killed by a Brahmin (high caste Hindu) as they were not happy because of Bali' prosperous kingdom. I found the detailed story here.

More details also available here.

The other one is about the Asura King, Naraka.

After terming Mahishasura a hero during Dasara festivities, Dalit scholars of Osmania University have now outraged orthodox Hindus by lionising Narakasura, whose killing by Lord Krishna is celebrated as Diwali.

These scholars contend that Narakasura, the son of the earth goddess Bhudevi, was no demon but a king who was defeated in battle by Lord Krishna and Satyabhama in a deceitful manner.

As people celebrated Naraka Chaturdasi on Thursday, a group of Dalits in the Osmania University observed it as vardhanti (death anniversary).

They also offered floral tributes to a picture of Narakasura in the Arts College Campus raising hackles among conservative Hindus.

The scholars asked people not to celebrate Diwali and claimed that Dalits belonged to the lineage of Narakasura and other so called “demon” kings who they say have been portrayed as evil by upper castes.

OU SC, ST, BC and minorities students also organised a seminar ‘Narakasurudu — Raakshasuda (demon) or Rakshasuda (protector)?” wherein participants claimed that history has been distorted to project all those who lost wars as demons.

“We are observing Narakachardashi as vardhanti (death anniversary),” said Mr Visarvardhan, a research scholar. “It is not an occasion to celebrate. We are trying to set right the facts. Narakasura is amaraveerdu (martyr) and not a womaniser.”

“Nowhere in the world does anyone celebrate a death,” said the Dalit scholar, Prof. Kancha Ilaiah. “Nowhere in the world have Gods killed people except in India.”

Source

In a reversal of traditional Diwali beliefs, students held that Naraka, the Asura killed on Diwali day, was not demonic as portrayed in the popular myth.

According to a local belief, Narakasura was a Dravidian emperor who had ruled a massive kingdom that was destroyed in Aryan invasion.

Naraka, according to this interpretation, is also believed to be of Dalit lineage thereby making mourning ceremonies of his death, the apt celebration on Diwali, at least for a section.

While the origin of the lore is not dated, a section of Adivasis and Dalits in Karimnagar and Khammam districts worship Narakasura, students who held the commemoration pointed out. As a reflection of this belief, in Osmania University (OU), Hyderabad and Kakatiya University (KU), Warangal, close to 50 students erected idols of Narakasura even as they sang songs to praise the king’s greatness.

Re-reading of Diwali

Quoting the lore which is based on a re-reading of the popular Diwali myth, students held that Naraka was in fact a scholar who had held several scholastic sessions from time to time in his palace.

“He was a nature-lover, a son of the soil. His death has to be mourned and his life should be commemorated,” said Naliganti Sharath, a student who participated in commemorating the Asura’s death, on the OU campus.

“My family always narrated stories of Narakasura as a celestial power which had saved children from deadly diseases. We do not celebrate Diwali,” said Rajesh, a student of Kakatiya University.

Source.

The lesson I learned was to check with my Hindu colleagues in future if they believe in Diwali and what version do they believe in.

What is your legacy?

Abu Hurairah (may Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “When the human being dies, his deeds come to an end except for three: ongoing charity, beneficial knowledge, or a righteous child who prays for him.” (Muslim)

Root Causes Of Our Crisis - Sh Hamza Yusuf

Enjoin justice and forbid evil: Verse of the day

"Had not God repelled some people by the might of others, the monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques in which God's praise is celebrated daily, would have been utterly demolished. God will certainly help those who help His cause. . .These are the people who, if We establish them in the land, will remain constant in prayer and give in charity, enjoin justice and forbid evil." The Holy Quran, 22:40-41

Rohingya refugees share stories of sexual violence (Trigger Warning)

Rajuma Begum, 20, survived the August 30 massacre in Tula Toli, believed to have been one of the most brutal incidents of Myanmar army violence. Villagers were taken to a beach by the river where the men were separated from the women and children and then gunned down, hacked to death and bayoneted.

Rajuma was holding her son, Mohammed Saddique, in her arms, when four or five soldiers began taking women away in groups of five to seven.

"They took me along with another four women inside a house," Rajuma recounted, speaking at a school in Kutupalong refugee camp.

"They ripped my son from my arms and threw him [on the ground] and cut his throat," she said, before burying her head in her hands and starting to wail.

"I am thirsty to hear someone calling me 'ma'," Rajuma said between sobs. "I had a younger brother who is 10 years old. I'm sorry to him because they took him and I couldn't save him."

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Ali ibn Abi Talib's Letter to Malik al-Ashtar, the Governor of Egypt

Excerpts from Ali ibn Abi Talib's letter to Malik al Ashtar, Governor of Egypt, written around 658 AD 
'Develop in your heart the feeling of love for your people and let it be the source of kindliness and blessing to them.' 
 
'Should you be elated by power, ever feel in your mind the slightest symptoms of pride and arrogance, then look at the power and majesty of the Divine governance of the Universe over which you have absolutely no control. It will restore the sense of  balance to your wayward intelligence and give you the sense of calmness and affability.'

'Maintain justice in administration and impose it on your own self and seek the consent of the people, for, the discontent of the masses sterilises the contentment of the privileged few and the discontent of the few loses itself in the contentment of the many. Remember the privileged few will not rally round you in moments of difficulty: they will try to side-track justice, they will ask for more than what they deserve and will show no gratitude for favours done to them. (…) 

'Do not make haste in seeking confirmation of tale-telling, for the tale-teller is a deceitful person appearing in the garb of a friend.'

'Do not disregard the noble traditions established by our forbears, which have promoted harmony and progress among the people; and do not initiate anything which might minimize their usefulness. The men who had established these noble traditions have had their reward; but responsibility will be yours if they are disturbed.'

​'Remember that the people are composed of different classes. The progress of one is dependent on the progress of every other, and none can afford to be independent of the other' 
'He who does not realise his own responsibilities can hardly appraise the responsibilities of others.'

'Beware! Fear God when dealing with the problem of the poor who have none to patronise them, who are forlorn, indigent, helpless and are greatly torn in mind – victims of the vicissitudes of time. Among them are some who do not question their lot in life and who, notwithstanding their misery, do not go about seeing alms. For God’s sake, safeguard their rights, for on you rests the responsibility of protecting their interests.

Full article