Abu Risha Calls for Military Support for Anti-IS Sunni Militants

07.12.2014

Basnews
Karzan Sabah Hawrami

ANBAR

Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, the leader of Sunni tribes in Anbar province and the head of the Awakening Movement, has urged the international community to give military support to Iraqi Sunnis fighting Islamic State militants in the northern Iraqi province of Anbar.

The sheikh, who the US supported to set up the Awakening Movement against extremist groups in Iraq in 2007, has called for support for Sunni militants fighting Islamic State in northern Iraq.

Abu Risha is unhappy that his Sunnis have been neglected by international powers in the fight against IS, saying that while Iran is helping Shiite militia groups and the international community supports Kurdish Peshmerga forces, no one is arming Sunni militants.

He also said that although some Arab countries have shown willingness to help the Sunnis, the support must come via the Iraqi government.

“European countries have sent weapons to Peshmerga forces and Iran helps the Shiite militia groups, yet no one supports Sunnis and Islamic State militants have put Anbar province under a great deal of pressure,” added Abu Risha.

Meanwhile, the head of Anbar Province Council, Sabah Karol has told BasNews that they have asked Arab countries to send them military aid so they can fight the extremist group.

Following recent attacks by IS insurgents in northern Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, a number of western countries including the US, UK, France and Germany sent military support to Kurds and the Iranian army has supported Shiite militia groups in re-taking some towns in northern Iraq.

Source: Bas News.
Link: http://basnews.com/en/news/2014/12/07/abu-risha-calls-for-military-support-for-anti-is-sunni-militants/.

Turkey's Erdogan vows to make Ottoman language compulsory

Mon Dec 8, 2014

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pledged to make teaching of Ottoman language compulsory in high schools.

Speaking at a religious council meeting in the capital, Ankara, on Monday, Erdogan underscored the necessity of Ottoman lessons as a way to restore Turkey’s severed ties with its “roots,” noting that the majority of Turkish people are unable to read the tombstones of their ancestors.

“There are those who do not want this to be taught. This is a great danger. Whether they like it or not, the Ottoman language will be learnt and taught in this country,” Erdogan stated.

At the weekend, Turkey’s National Education Council, mainly composed of members backed by the Erdogan administration, voted in favor of making Ottoman classes compulsory at religious high schools and an option at regular high schools.

Ottoman Turkish was used as the administrative language of the 600-year-old Ottoman Empire. In 1928, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, abolished the Ottoman language and replaced its alphabet with a Latin one.

Erdogan described the abolition of Ottoman language as cutting Turkey’s “jugular veins,” saying, “It is a disaster that this nation, which had superior scientific qualities, has lost its wisdom.”

The Turkish president expressed regret over the fact that Ottoman language can be studied in Germany, while “unfortunately this isn’t the case here (Turkey).”

Critics say the new plan is aimed at rolling back Ataturk’s secular reforms.

Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, warned that such measures seek to prevent children from “questioning the world.”

“They want to turn Turkey into a medieval country, but they will never succeed.”

Supporters of the plan, however, argue that compulsory Ottoman language lessons are necessary for the Turkish nation to maintain its links to the past after Ataturk’s radical reforms.

Source: PressTV.
Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/12/08/389333/turkey-plans-to-revive-ottoman-language/.

Islamic Schooling Angers Turkey Secularists

Wednesday, 03 December 2014

ISTANBUL – With almost a million students joining Islamic schools this year, reflecting a sharp rise in Islamic schooling system in Turkey, education officials have also  taken measures to create more places for imam hatip schools, a move criticized by secular parents.

"We are against the governance of education by religious rules," Ilknur Birol, spokeswoman for the "Don't Touch My School" initiative, an umbrella grouping for angry parents, told Reuters on Tuesday, December 2.

"This system is not rooted in youth with a forward-looking perspective enlightened by science, but in a generation that values obedience."

This school year, 2014-2015, about a million students have enrolled to join imam hatip schools, marking a sharp increase from only 65,000 in 2002 when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan first came to power.

The schools teach boys and girls separately, and give around 13 hours a week of Islamic instruction on top of the regular curriculum, including study of Arabic, the Qur'an and the life of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).

"When there is no such thing as religious culture and moral education, serious social problems such as drug addiction and racism fill the gap," Erdogan told a symposium on drug policy and public health earlier this year.

Facing dilemma to create more imam hatip places, education officials have requisitioned parts of schools along with new buildings constructed to serve students.

The move, however, prompted protests from parents who want secular education for their children.

Filiz Gurlu, a parent at the Kadir Rezan Has school in Istanbul, protested the conversion of one of the school’s two buildings to imam hatip facilities.

"The library, laboratory, computer and music rooms were in the confiscated part, so the kids don't have access anymore," she said.

"Some classrooms have barely enough space ... This is an unplanned move, kids just can't simply fit in."

Change for the Better

Rejecting parents’ criticism, imam hatip school officials confirmed that the changes were made based on people’s demand.

Speaking to Reuters, Huseyin Korkut, head of the imam hatip alumni association, said there was strong demand for imam hatip schools, according to surveys made in Kayseri, Konya and Erzurum provinces.

He said the body had urged the government to conduct a nationwide survey.

Isik Tuzun, a coordinator at the Education Reform Initiative, a think-tank at Istanbul's Sabanci University, rejected his argument.

"Changes in school types were decided by local bureaucrats in a rather arbitrary manner," he said.

"(It) has definitely been rushed."

Nevertheless, reforms under the AK Party were seen as redressing the balance after decades of secularist rule.

Religious middle schools were shut in 1997 under pressure from the secularist military after an Islamist-led government was pushed from power.

A secularist government later tried to undermine religious schools by tweaking university entrance exam grading to make it more difficult for their pupils to gain access.

"Those were truly hurtful days. I hope God never makes us live through days like those again," Erdogan told the school opening last month.

Primary school students no longer recite a deeply nationalistic vow at the start of each week beginning with the words "I am Turk", a legacy of Ataturk.

University entrance grading was revised in 2011 so imam hatip pupils were no longer disadvantaged, and a ban on the Islamic headscarf in middle schools was lifted last year.

The Turkish model of Imam Hatip schools is fusion of Islamic and modern education as it contains as much arts and science classes as normal high schools do.

Originally founded to educate Muslim imams in the 1920s, the imam Hatip syllabus devotes only around 40 percent of study to religious subjects like Arabic, Islamic jurisprudence and rhetoric. The rest is given over to secular topics.

The network has incubated the elite of the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party which came to power in Turkey in 2002.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- who went on to study economics -- and around one third of his party's MPs attended imam hatip schools.

Apart from secularists’ anger, education experts asserted that the past decade under Erdogan’s AK Party has witnessed an improvement in average test scores for 15-year-olds.

"Turkey still has a long way to catch up with the industrialized world in education,” Andreas Schleicher, an education expert at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), said.

“But if you just look at the amount of change that has happened, both on quality and equity, that's still remarkable.”

Source: OnIslam.
Link: http://onislam.net/english/news/europe/480369-islamic-schools-angers-turkey-secularists.html.

Palestinian Cabinet member dead after Israel clash

December 10, 2014

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — A Palestinian Cabinet member died Wednesday after a scuffle with Israeli troops during a West Bank protest, and images of an Israeli officer grabbing the 55-year-old by the throat before he collapsed quickly stirred Palestinian anger at a time of badly strained relations with Israel.

An autopsy has yet to determine what killed Ziad Abu Ain, but Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called him the victim of a "clear crime" and a "barbaric act." He decreed three days of mourning for the minister, whose portfolio included organizing protests against Israeli settlements and the West Bank separation barrier.

The incident threatened to further inflame tensions between Israel and the Palestinians. Calls grew for Abbas to suspend security coordination with Israel — a policy that has become the cornerstone of relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the absence of peace talks.

Abbas met with officials from his Fatah movement and the Palestine Liberation Organization late Wednesday to consider a response and said all options were open. In the session, Abbas held up a photo of the Israeli officer grabbing Abu Ain's throat. Palestinians circulated the photo on social media under the hashtag #ICantBreathe — drawing a link to the death of an unarmed black man after being placed into a chokehold by a white police officer in New York.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said the military was ready to investigate the incident jointly with Palestinian officials, and an Israeli pathologist was to attend an autopsy, along with Palestinian and Jordanian doctors.

The United States called for a "swift, fair and transparent" inquiry into the incident. "At this difficult time, we continue to call on both sides to work to lower tensions and prevent an escalation of violence," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini urged restraint, amid fears the minister's death could lead to a further deterioration in Israeli-Palestinian relations, already at a low point after failed U.S.-led peace efforts.

Ban said he was "deeply saddened" by the death, while Mogherini said "reports of excessive use of force by Israeli security forces are extremely worrying." The Israeli military said it was sending two battalions of soldiers and two companies of paramilitary border police to the West Bank as reinforcements.

The day's events began around mid-morning when several dozen Palestinians, including Abu Ain, marched from the West Bank village of Turmus Aya toward an unauthorized Israeli settlement outpost, Adei-Ad. They planned to plant olive tree saplings on land belonging to one of the villagers, who has repeatedly been barred from reaching his property by Israeli troops citing concern about frictions with the settlers, participants said.

Several dozen soldiers and members of the paramilitary border police blocked the marchers, firing tear gas and stun grenades, according to Palestinian witnesses and members of Yesh Din, an Israeli rights group that joined the protest.

Eventually, marchers and troops faced each other, scuffling and shouting. Abu Ain, who was at the forefront of the group, told reporters: "We came to our Palestinian land to plant some olive trees and they attacked us immediately. No one threw a stone or attacked them, but this terrorist army is attacking us."

At one point a border policeman grabbed the Palestinian minister by the throat and pushed him, according to an Associated Press photographer. Other witnesses said a soldier also pushed a rifle butt into Abu Ain's chest.

Several minutes later, a pale-faced Abu Ain was seen sitting on the ground, then leaning back against a large rock, his right hand clutching his heart. A bystander tried to help him, patting his back and getting him to sit up, before Abu Ain slumped backward.

An aide, Abu Sassaka, said an Israeli soldier administered first aid to Abu Ain before protesters carried him away. An ambulance later took him to Ramallah Hospital and he died en route, Abu Sassaka said.

The Israeli daily Haaretz quoted relatives of Abu Ain as saying he suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure. The Israeli military said that about 200 "rioters" had gathered in Turmus Aya and that troops prevented them from reaching Adei-Ad, using "riot dispersal means." That typically means tear gas and stun grenades.

Yesh Din, the Israeli rights group, said the Palestinian protest had been peaceful. An attorney for the group, Shlomy Zachary, "reported to a senior army official that IDF soldiers were exercising extensive force against Palestinian civilians without any justification," the group said.

Earlier Wednesday, Yesh Din appealed to Israel's Supreme Court on behalf of four villages surrounding Adei-Ad, demanding that the military enforce long-standing orders to dismantle such unauthorized settlements. Adei-Ad is one of dozens of such outposts set up by settlers across the West Bank without government authorization, though a number have been retroactively legalized.

The international community considers all settlements, including those sanctioned by the government, to be illegal. The settlements are built on occupied lands the Palestinian seek for a future state.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian activist said he hoped the #ICantBreathe hashtag would draw more attention to Abu Ain's death. "What is happening here is no different from the discrimination against blacks in America," said Mahmoud Hreidat.

Abu Ain headed a Palestinian Authority department dealing with Israeli settlements and the Israeli separation barrier, and had the rank of Cabinet member. Previously, he served as deputy minister for prisoner affairs.

A member of Abbas' Fatah movement, Abu Ain had spent several years in Israeli prisons. He was arrested in the United States in 1979 and extradited to Israel two years later, according to a nephew, Baha Abu Ain. In Israel, he was sentenced to life in prison for being a member of a cell that planted a bomb that killed two Israelis. Abu Ain was released in a 1985 prisoner swap.

During the second Palestinian uprising in 2002, he spent a year in administrative detention without trial or charges.

Gulf Arab states close ranks with navy, police

December 10, 2014

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, which is concerned about Shiite Iran's regional influence and the rise of Sunni extremist groups, agreed on Tuesday to create a joint naval force based out of Bahrain and announced a police force based out of the United Arab Emirates' capital of Abu Dhabi.

The creation of the police force, known as GCC-POL, and the naval force were announced at the conclusion of the Gulf bloc's annual summit in Qatar. The meeting was held just weeks after the Western-allied countries reached a reconciliation agreement linked to Qatar's support for Islamist groups throughout the region.

The summit took place on the same day that the price of brent crude oil hit a five-year low of $65, with Kuwait's emir warning in his remarks that the slide in price is impacting development programs. Gulf monarchs rely on income from oil to sustain generous welfare programs used to appease the public.

Qatari Foreign Minster Khalid bin Mohammed Al-Attiyah said the police force would improve cooperation against terrorism. "It will be an Interpol-like force but inside GCC countries," he said at a news conference. GCC leaders announced officially at the summit that the force been established, but did not say when work had begun.

State-linked local newspapers say the police force is also expected to tackle drug trafficking, money laundering and cyber-crime. "The emergence of terrorism ... requires a concerted group effort from us and the international community to reach its root causes and cure its real political, social and economic causes," Qatar's Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani said at the opening of the summit.

The Gulf monarchies hold that the marginalization of Sunnis in Iraq and Syria is a factor for the rise of extremist militants in those countries. Qatar and Saudi Arabia are staunch backers of Sunni rebels in Syria seeking to oust Iranian-backed President Bashar Assad.

Of the six GCC nations, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain have taken part in airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. Qatar and Kuwait are hosting bases for Western countries active in the U.S.-led coalition.

The GCC also includes Oman, which has differed from its Gulf neighbors on Iran. Oman serves as a bridge in talks between Iran and the U.S. The plan for a joint naval force was announced in the summit's final communique, without giving further details. The Gulf bloc already has an emergency military force called Peninsula Shield, which intervened in Bahrain to help the monarchy crush protests led by the Shiite majority in 2011. (moved the graph)

Bahrain currently hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet. The Gulf naval force there is expected to act as deterrence to Iran, which shares the world's largest gas field with Qatar in the Persian Gulf. The Sunni-led monarchies of the Gulf have collectively spent billions of dollars on U.S. and European military equipment amid lingering regional tensions with Iran.

In its statement, the GCC called on Iran to respect its members-states' national sovereignty. Gulf leaders have accused Iran in the past of meddling in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and eastern Saudi Arabia.

The GCC also condemned the use of arms by Shiite rebel Houthis in Yemen, and called on the rebels to withdraw from areas they have overrun. It also condemned Israeli actions against Palestinians in Jerusalem.

The Arab Gulf countries additionally expressed their political backing for Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. It marks a pivot for Qatar, which backed former Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, who el-Sissi ousted from power amid widespread protests last year when he was defense minister.

"There has never been disagreement between Qatar and Egypt for there to be reconciliation," Qatar's foreign minister said after the summit. "Egypt is strong and capable and is the backbone of all Arabs."

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain formally withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar in March in a move widely seen as a protest over Doha's support for Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Morsi was a leading member. They reinstated ambassadors last month after an agreement was reached. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE consider the Brotherhood a "terrorist group" and see the 86 year-old movement as a political threat.

Al-Thani said that the recent events "have taught us not to rush to convert disagreement in political viewpoints... into differences that would affect sectors such as economy, society, media and others."

Saudi Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and UAE Prime Minister and Vice President Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum took part in the summit. Also in attendance were Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah and a senior official from Oman.

Batrawy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Hong Kong police start clearing main protest camp

December 11, 2014

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong authorities started clearing barricades Thursday from a pro-democracy protest camp spread across a busy highway as part of a final push to retake streets occupied by activists for two and a half months.

Watched by police, workers in white helmets used box cutters and pliers to remove plastic ties from the barricades, which were made up of metal and plastic safety barriers topped with traffic cones and scaffolding poles. They then passed parts of the barricades to co-workers who quickly shuffled them away to the side of the road.

The protesters reject Beijing's restrictions on the first election for the city's top leader, scheduled for 2017, but have failed to win any concessions from Hong Kong's government, and the movement's momentum has faded recently as the government stuck to its apparent strategy of waiting the protesters out.

Politics student Max Leung, 22, said he felt sad to see the barricades removed and would stay until police cleared the area. He said he was willing to be arrested but would not resist officers. "We redefined the public space," Leung said at his tent set up within the zone. "It was supposed to be just cars and now we occupy it, we have a study area for students in the middle of the highway, people here they care about each other."

The workers were carrying out a court restraining order calling for barriers to be dismantled and obstructions removed from three sections of the protest site. Police then plan to move in to clear other blocked sections of road so that traffic can start flowing again.

The operation will be under close scrutiny with a group of about 30 academics monitoring the operation, along with the Independent Police Complaints Council and human rights groups. The sprawling encampment in Hong Kong's Admiralty section, on the edge of the financial district, has been the focal point for the protesters, who have occupied the site for 75 days. As the clear out neared, protesters chanted "I want universal suffrage" and threw pieces of paper that read "We will be back."

On Sept. 28 police fired dozens of tear gas rounds at thousands of protesters gathering in the area angry over the prolonged detention of a student leader. The move infuriated protesters and the wider public and kick-started the student-led protest movement, which came to include two other protest sites in Hong Kong.

Over the past 2 ½ months, police say 655 people have been arrested, and 129 officers injured. They have given no overall injury toll. A separate court order led to the clearing of the Mong Kok protest site in late November. The operation and ensuing nighttime clashes in the gritty neighborhood's surrounding streets resulted in about 160 arrests.

On the eve of the action to clear the area, thousands of protesters and supporters streamed into the site for a last night of what's come to be known as the "Umbrella Movement," named for the pro-democracy protesters' preferred method of deflecting police pepper spray.

Two student groups that played key roles in organizing the protests had called for supporters to stay until the last moment, but not to resist authorities. "If the government wants to use police to clear the site, don't forget, the clearance can't resolve political conflicts, it can't resolve society's dilemma," said Joshua Wong, the 18-year-old head of the Scholarism group and the pro-democracy movement's most prominent leader.

The sprawling encampment in Hong Kong's Admiralty neighborhood, on the edge of the financial district, has become the symbolic nucleus of the protest movement.

Ukraine president urges Russia to withdraw troops

December 11, 2014

SYDNEY (AP) — Australia pledged its support for Ukraine during a visit by the nation's president on Thursday, with Australia's prime minister calling for an end to the bloody conflict in Eastern Europe and Ukraine's leader urging Russia to withdraw.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, a sharp critic of Russia since Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down in July over rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine, said Russia must honor a little-respected cease-fire agreement signed in September.

Asked by a journalist if Australia was taking sides in a European war, Abbott replied: "The side we take is the side of freedom, democracy and self-determination.... And plainly, freedom, democracy and self-determination are currently at risk in parts of Eastern Europe."

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, in Australia for a three-day visit, urged Russia to withdraw from the region, where both sides have been engaged in a one-day truce that Poroshenko proposed in a bid to revive the September cease-fire deal.

"Please stop the fire. Please release the hostages. Please withdraw your troops from my territory. Please close the border," Poroshenko said during a press conference in Melbourne. "And I promise if you close the border, within one, two, three weeks, we have peace and stability in Ukraine. Very simple."

Australia and Ukraine have formed close ties over the Flight 17 disaster, which killed everyone on board, including 38 Australian citizens and residents. Abbott and other Western leaders have accused Russia of providing military support for those who shot down the plane. Russian state-run TV has blamed Ukraine's air force.

"If it turns out that people under Russian authority had a hand in this, we absolutely expect them to be surrendered to investigators and to prosecutors because this is an atrocity," Abbott said. "It was mass murder on a vast scale."

The two also discussed a potential energy export deal, with the Ukrainian president saying his country may buy Australian uranium for its nuclear power stations, along with coal. "Australia is an energy superpower and energy security is very important to Ukraine, particularly given its current vulnerability to supply shocks," Abbott said.