Charlie Hebdo survivor speaks out bravely

Her colleagues were brutally murdered by Islamic terrorists in January last year. She escaped because she just happened to be outside the office of Charlie Hebdo on that day. She is under very specific death threat now. But that is not stopping her from speaking out. Meet Zineb El Rhazoui, the most protected French woman.

Shaken but undeterred by the fatwas and relentless, precise death threats issued via social media to “kill the bitch” since she helped produce the publication’s first survivors’ issue following the attack — and spoke about it in Arabic for the Arab press — the Moroccan-French writer refuses to assume an anonymous identity. Fleeing Paris or abandoning her human rights activism, and her unforgiving critiques of the religion she grew up with, are also out of the question.

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Zineb El Rhazoui,   nylive – nytimes 

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Hazaras massacred for not being true Muslims

One after another, the bodies arrived on the steep hill in western Kabul.

For much of Sunday afternoon, an excavator was flattening the dusty area as men with shovels and pickaxes dug graves — four rows of 20 or so, packed so close that if the dead could stretch out their arms, they would touch those next to them.

ethnic Hazara man cries next to empty caskets on Sunday during burial ceremonies at a cemetery in the Omid-e-Sabz Township near Kabul, Afghanistan. Credit Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

The ethnic Hazara man cries next to empty caskets on Sunday during burial ceremonies at a cemetery in the Omid-e-Sabz Township near Kabul, Afghanistan. Credit Adam Ferguson for The New York Times

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The month of holy violence ?

On Friday night in the Dhaka restaurant they were choosy. On Saturday night in Baghdad,  when they killed 126 people including 25 children enjoying an evening out in the holy month of Ramzan, they were not.

Wait, it seems they were choosy on Saturday too.

Iraqi firefighters and civilians carry bodies of victims killed in a car bomb at a commercial area in Karada neighborhood, Baghdad, Iraq on Sunday. Khalid Mohammed / AP

Iraqi firefighters and civilians carry bodies of victims killed in a car bomb at a commercial area in Karada neighborhood, Baghdad, Iraq on Sunday. Khalid Mohammed / AP

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Killed for not being able to recite Koran and not wearing a veil

Twenty people who were dining in a restaurant in Dhaka, Bangladesh were killed by Islamic terrorists for not being able to recite Koran and not wearing a veil.

Gruesome image (blurred) released by ISIS

Gruesome image (blurred) released by ISIS

Which verse they should have recited ? Though not born a Muslim , I can tell the English translation of a few, though not by heart.

Should they recite this

Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment,              5:33

 

or this

And you did not kill them, but it was Allah who killed them. And you threw not, [O Muhammad], when you threw, but it was Allah who threw that He might test the believers with a good test. Indeed, Allah is Hearing and Knowing                                                                                         8:17

If those verses were recited, it would have reinforced the belief of the terrorist that heinous cruelty they are doing against those who cannot recite their holy book is for the mythical god and they will land up in heaven.

People may still say it has nothing to do with religious beliefs !

Shooting , hostage situation in Dhaka , Bangladesh

After the recent terror strike in Istanbul airport that killed 44 people, more disturbing news coming, this time from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Police exchanged gunfire with armed attackers Friday in a diplomatic zone of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Gunmen are holding about 20 people hostage at Holey Artisan Bakery, a cafe popular with expats, cafe owner Sumon Reza told CNN. A police officer in charge of a nearby police station was shot dead.

Another report :

Sumon Reza, superviser at the bakery, who escaped the attack, told reporters that at least 20 people were at the bakery when the attack began and all of them were foreigners. He saw two attackers and both of them were slim and appeared to be under 30. He said they had small firearms and at least one was carrying a sharp weapon. He said the attackers were shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ when coming into the bakery. Two of the bakery’s staff are also foreigners, he said. One baker, an Italian, had escaped the attack but the other one, an Argentine, could not, according to Reza. His information could not immediately be verified.

Holy month becoming a very violent month?