Tag: Islamism

Court forces US to grant visa to Ramadan

A judge has forced the US to grant Tariq Ramadan — who was barred from entering the US last year — a visa after the ACLU and others brought a lawsuit. Whether you like Ramadan and his crypto-Islamist beliefs or not, this is a good thing on principle, for as the judge in the case explained:

while the Executive may exclude an alien for almost any reason, it cannot do so solely because the Executive disagrees with the content of the alien’s speech and therefore wants to prevent the alien from sharing this speech with a willing American audience.

Via Moorishgirl.

Chain of hatred

I previously posted on the blog a letter from a former Islamist detainee, narrating the torture he went through in prison, during our 1990s Dirty War. I was going through my inbox today, and came across a good article from last September by my friend Sara Khorshid, who writes for Islam Online, and other media outlets.
Sara’s report demonstrates clearly, how the regime’s abuses are breeding the next generation of terrorists. Continue reading Chain of hatred

Brothers and Comrades

Back to blogging freely, 3alaa posted something interesting yesterday on his blog, recalling his “release� experience in el-3omraniya police station, and more importantly, he sent strong message of solidarity to the Muslim Brothers’ detainees.
3alaa, the staunch secularist, bumped into the MB youth who were picked up during a summer beach trip in Marsa Matrouh. 3alaa speaks about how the misery of detention unites everyone, and how the brothers and the comrades became friends.
3alaa’s impression of the Brothers youth was that ‘they where from this new breed of islamists that reads blogs, watches al jazeera, sings sha3by songs, talks about intense love stories and chants “down Mubarak”. and being young most of them did not have any experience with prison before.‘
Interesting, coz it’s that same caliber of youth who are pushing the Islamist group towards moderation, and coordination with other secular forces. And it was them who pushed the MB’s leadership to join in the street protests after Kefaya presented both a daring model for breaking political taboos and, at the same time, a pressure on the group to take a stronger stand towards the regime, lest losing the base cadres who are eager for more confrontationalist stand vis a vis the government’s continuous crackdowns.
More raproachment is expected, and needed, between Islamists and leftists, in such a critical stage.

Zawahiri hails Zarqawi in new video

Al-Jazeera broadcasted Friday night a new video by Dr. Ayman el-Zawahiri, the deputy head of Al-Qa3da, where he acknowledged Zarqawi’s death, and hailed him as a “martyr.” The Doha-based Satellite channel had aired a video by Zawahiri, only a day before, where he denounced the “massacre” by US troops against Afghan civilians last month, suggesting that the tape was filmed sometime after the traffic accident that involved US army troops that killed Afghans, sparking riots and more deaths on May 29.

New Zawahiri video

Al-Jazeera has just aired few minutes ago a new video by Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s aide, where he accused the US army of conducting a “massacre against civilians in Kabul” last month. He also called up on Afghanis to support the “mujahideen” in their fight against Western military presence.
Al-Jazeera said it obtained the video from the internet. Continue reading New Zawahiri video

Zarqawi’s successor

Neither the name Ayyoub al-Masri nor Abu Hamza al-Muhajer rang a bell. But after having a look at Zarqawi’s alleged successor’s photo, Islamist lawyer Montasser al-Zayat suggested to Al-Hayat, that the new head of the militant network in Iraq might be a man by the name Youssef al-Dardeeri, an Islamist from one of the Upper Egyptian provinces, who lived for sometime in el-Zawya el-Hamra neighborhood in Cairo. Continue reading Zarqawi’s successor