Vain Egyptian Islamist Lawmaker Lies About Plastic Surgery

I’m just surprised he didn’t blame it on the Mossad.

The first political scandal of Egypt’s fledgling electoral democracy erupted Monday after an Islamist lawmaker was expelled from his ultraconservative party, accused of fabricating a story that he was viciously beaten by masked gunmen.

Doctors said that the bandages on his face in fact covered up plastic surgery on his nose.

The lawmaker, Anwar el-Balkimy, had belonged to Al Nour, part of the ultraconservative Salafi movement — Egypt’s religious right — whose members typically condemn plastic surgery as sinful, along with most music and other popular entertainment.

At the private hospital where Mr. Balkimy was treated, doctors spoke out against what they called the brazenness of his lies.

But not before a solemn parade of his fellow lawmakers — including the speaker of the Parliament, Saad el-Katatni of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s more mainstream Islamist movement — had visited Mr. Balkimy in his hospital room to express their sympathies. Also not before his colleagues in Al Nour had demanded the public questioning of the interior minister for his potential responsibility in the supposed attacks. State media reported that the ministry had sent a letter offering condolences.

Vain, self-aggrandizing and hypocritical politicians are, of course, as old as politics, even in Egypt. But for their foibles to blossom into public scandal requires conditions that are still a novelty here and elsewhere in the Arab world: lawmakers who win competitive elections with promises to honor their constituents, informants unafraid of extra-legal retribution from the powerful and a free press eager to expose the circus.

30 killed in attack on Nigeria market: medic, witness

Image via Wikipedia

By Aminu Abubakar (AFP) –

KANO, Nigeria — Suspected Nigerian Islamists opened fire and set off bombs at a market in the northeastern city of Maiduguri on Monday, killing at least 30 people, a medic and a witness said.

Gunmen believed to be members of the Islamist sect Boko Haram stormed the fish section of Baga market and sprayed stallholders and vendors with bullets, traders said, reporting that women and children were among the dead.

“The number of dead could not be less than 30,” a Maiduguri hospital nurse told AFP.

The military confirmed the assault on the market but denied any civilian deaths, saying security forces had killed eight assailants and safely detonated bombs planted by the attackers.

Boko Haram Leader Vows More Attacks On Christians | Jih@d

2012/01/15/

by Florian Flade

Imam Abu Bakr Shekau – Boko Haram leader vows more attacks on Nigerian Christians

In 2009 international media for the first time reported about a ominous Islamist group operating in Nigeria – Boko Haram. The group whose name is translated from the Northern Nigerian Hausa language into “Western Eduction is forbidden” carried out a series of attacks, killing dozens of policemen in Christian-dominated regions of Nigeria´s north.

As a result Nigerian security forces took revenge on the Islamists of Boko Haram killing hundreds of the group´s members in and around the city of Maiduguri. Boko Harams leader and founder, Mohammed Yusuf, was captured by security forces. Yusuf had created the Islamist movement in 2002 starting with a network of mosques and Islamic schools to spread Salafi Islam in Nigeria.

Nigerian security forces claimed Mohammed Yusuf was killed during his arrest. Video footage which emerged several days after the raid on Boko Haram showed Mohammed Yusuf alive in custody being interrogated. He was shot dead by Nigerian soldiers and policemen, his body was also seen in videos released later.

TIMELINE-The rise of Morocco’s PJD party

Image by Magharebia via Flickr

Tue Nov 29, 2011 6:13pm GMT

Nov 29 (Reuters) – Morocco’s King Mohammed on Tuesday appointed Abdelilah Benkirane as the new prime minister after his moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) won the most seats in a parliamentary election last week.

Following are key events that have led to its resounding success in the elction:

 

* The party‘s founder is the late Abdelkarim al-Khatib, a prominent figure in the nationalist movement for independence from the French protectorate, who was also the physician of King Mohammed V, grandfather of the current king.

* After independence in 1956, Khatib joined pro-palace figures to create the Popular Movement party to counter the nationalist Istiqlal Party (Independence Party) in the aftermath of unrest and assassinations of prominent figures in the resistance movement.

Morocco Islamists poised to win parliamentary vote

Image via Wikipedia

By Souhail Karam

RABAT | Sun Nov 27, 2011 8:59am IST

Morocco‘s moderate Islamist PJD party is on course to win a parliamentary election, partial results showed on Saturday, in what would be the second victory for Islamists in the region in the wake of the “Arab Spring” uprisings.

Incomplete results from Friday’s vote indicate that PJD will lead a coalition government in partnership with the secularist party of the outgoing prime minister and two other groups.

Tunisia, birthplace of the Arab Spring, sent ripples through the Middle East last month when a moderate Islamist movement won the country’s first democratic election.

Morocco has not had a revolution of the kind seen elsewhere in the region, with its ruler, King Mohammed, still firmly in charge. But it has witnessed some protests inspired by Arab uprisings, mostly to demand fewer direct powers for the monarchy and an end to corruption. In response, the king has introduced limited reforms.

Ali Anozla, editor of the independent Lakome.com news portal, said the monarchy emerges as the main winner of the election. “It now has a lot of time to hold back real reform.

“PJD should hold the biggest number of portfolios in the next government. But how will it be able to govern when the palace holds sweeping prerogatives?” he said.

The party has said it will promote Islamic finance though it will steer clear of imposing a strict moral code on society. The party, whose deceased founder was a physician of King Mohammed’s grandfather, is loyal to the monarchy and backs its role as the supreme religious authority in the country.

Turkey’s cautionary tale

April 15, 2011 /

By Caroline B. Glick

Today’s Turkey is a cautionary tale for the West. But Western leaders are loath to consider its lessons.

Ever since Turkey’s Islamist Justice and Peace AKP party under Recip Tayip Erdogan won the November 2002 elections, Western officials have upheld the AKP, Erdogan and his colleagues as proof that political Islam is consonant with democratic values. During Erdogan’s June 2005 visit to the White House for instance, then president George W. Bush praised Turkish democracy as “an important example for the people in the broader Middle East.”

Unfortunately, nine years into the AKP’s “democratic” regime it is clear that Erdogan and his colleagues’ embrace of the language and tools of democracy was a mile wide and an inch thick. They used democracy to gain power. Now that they have power, they are systematically destroying freedom in their country.

Turkey ranks 138th in the international media freedom group Reporters Sans Frontiers country index on press freedom. 68 journalists are languishing in Turkish jails for the crime of doing their job. The most recent round-up of reporters occurred in early March. And it is demonstrative of Turkey’s Islamist leaders’ exploitation of democratic freedoms in the service of their tyrannical ends.

As Der Spiegel reported last week, veteran journalists Ahmet Sik from the far left Radikal newspaper and Nedim Sener from the highbrow Milliyet journal were among those rounded up. As radical leftists, both men oppose the AKP’s Islamist politics. But they shared its interest in weakening the Turkish military.

Court withdraws passports from alleged terror camp recruits

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:27:10 GMT

Berlin – Alleged Islamists can have their passports removed to prevent them from travelling from Germany to attend terrorist training camps, a Berlin court announced on Friday. The ruling came in a case brought by three men who were stopped as they attempted to board planes to Istanbul last September, since there was reason to believe they aimed to reach Pakistan or Afghanistan to join jihad, or holy war.

It was acceptable to confiscate a passport if there was reason to suspect that German interests were under threat, the administrative court said.

Four Islamists killed in Algeria firefights: reports

Fri May 8, 3:52 pm ET

ALGIERS (AFP) – Four armed Islamists have been killed by Algerian security forces during firefights in Tizi Ouzou and Boumerdes, east of the capital Algiers, local news media reported Friday.