FULL ARTICLES

PASSIONATE PUBLIC KISS IN INDONESIA COULD MEAN JAIL

Passionate Public Kiss in Indonesia Could Mean Jail
Reuters
March 8, 2004

Couples caught kissing passionately in public in Indonesia could spend five years in jail.

Members of parliament in the world's most populous Muslim country have proposed an anti-pornography bill that includes a ban on kissing on the mouth in public.

"I think there must be some restrictions on such acts because it is against our traditions of decency," said Aisyah Hamid Baidlowi, head of a parliamentary committee drafting the bill.

Heavy kissing could carry a maximum penalty of five years in jail or a 250 million rupiah ($29,000) fine. Anyone caught flashing would face similar penalties.

The bill also proposes bans on public nudity, erotic dances and sex parties, with jail terms ranging from three to 10 years. Watching such shows could lead to two years behind bars.

Indonesians have long followed a moderate version of Islam, although an emphasis on Muslim practices and identification with Islamic traditions have grown stronger in recent years.

Public displays of affection are frowned upon by many, though prostitution is rampant in many parts of the archipelago.

 

PALESTINIAN PM CAME CLOSE TO WINNING NOBEL PRIZE

Palestinian PM came close to winning Nobel Prize
Reuters
March 9, 2004

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia was considered for the Nobel Peace Prize a decade ago for his work in negotiating the now-derailed Oslo peace accords, a former committee member said on Monday.

Breaking a 50-year rule of silence meant to keep committee deliberations secret, Kaare Kristiansen told Reuters that Qurie's inclusion in the controversial 1994 prize would have made it more balanced between Palestinians and Israelis.

Kristiansen resigned when Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat was chosen to share the award with late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and former Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres for what was at the time a landmark peace deal.

Qureia, also known as Abu Ala, had been one of the main negotiators of the accords in secret talks in Norway in 1993.

"Abu Ala was being discussed as a possible candidate," Kristiansen, a strongly pro-Israeli member of Norway's Christian People's Party, said on the eve of a two-day visit by Qureia to Norway.

"It would have been natural to pick two from each side but that was not possible," he said. The Nobel Peace Prize, set up in the will of Sweden's Alfred Nobel, a Swedish philanthropist and the inventor of dynamite, can only be split three ways.

Kristiansen had regarded Arafat as a source of violence in the Middle East and he opposed awarding him the prize. But his objections were overruled by other members of the five-strong committee.

"It was meaningless to give the award to Arafat. It has become more meaningless with time," Kristiansen said. "It would have been less controversial."

The 1994 prize has been bitterly criticized from supporters of both sides in the Middle East conflict. The award, once made, cannot be withdrawn.

Two members of the committee quit in 1973 when U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger shared the prize with North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho for efforts to end the Vietnam War. And two resigned when the 1935 prize went to German Carl von Ossietzky, a jailed anti-Nazi journalist.

 

CHRISTIANS AXED TO DEATH

Christians axed to death
From correspondents in Cairo
The Herald Sun (Australia)
March 4, 2004

Egyptian police deployed several hundred men in a southern town today after a Muslim man axed to death two Christians, triggering fears of revenge acts and sectarian clashes.

The Muslim farmer hit the two Coptic Christians with an axe in a brawl that broke out when his donkey slipped on a wet dirt road outside their house in the town of Salamun, police said. The man was arrested and police beefed up their presence in the town near the city of Sohag, 500km south of Cairo.

The suspected murderer was "mentally ill", one officer said.

Such descriptions are frequently made by Egyptian authorities in similar situations in order to pacify the population.

The towns and villages of Sohag province are home to large Christian Coptic communities and there have been several sectarian clashes over the past few years.

The region was also a breeding ground for Islamist groups who conducted a campaign of violence in the 1990s.

Salamun, 460km south of Cairo, has about 40,000 inhabitants, including 15,000 Coptic Christians, according to police estimates.

In January 2000, 20 Copts and a Muslim were killed in clashes in Kosheh, a predominantly Christian town near Sohag. The fighting started after a quarrel between a Coptic merchant and a Muslim customer.

 

SYRIAN AUTHORITIES BREAK UP RARE PROTEST

Syrian Authorities Break Up Rare Protest
By Zeina Karam
The Associated Press
March 8,2004

Syrian authorities on Monday broke up a rare protest by human rights activists demanding political and civil reforms on the 41st anniversary of the ruling party's accession to power.

It was not clear how many of the approximately 20 activists were arrested. Witnesses speaking on condition of anonymity said several were seen taken away in buses by Syrian police.

Several news photographers and reporters were briefly detained and questioned and later released.

The protest outside Parliament, organized by the Committees for the Defense of Democratic Liberties and Human Rights in Syria, would have been the first of its kind in a country where political activity is tightly controlled.

The head of the group, Aktham Naisse, told The Associated Press a day earlier that he had been pressured by authorities to cancel the sit-in.

A close relative of Naisse, who did not want to be identified, said Naisse was among those arrested.

Before the protest, Syrian riot police and plainclothes security agents stood ready around the Parliament building in downtown Damascus.

When the group of around 20 protesters arrived, they were told to disperse. One man raised a banner that read: "Freedom for Prisoners of Opinion and Conscience." The banner was quickly torn up by agents, who snatched the notebooks of journalists gathered to cover the sit-in.

At one point, Naisse, a lawyer from the northern town of Latakia, told the activists to raise their hands in the air, which they did, and told them: "We're going to prison, we are not afraid."

Police then dispersed the protesters and angrily told reporters to leave.

Naisse helped found the human rights group in 1991 and spent seven years in detention until being pardoned in 1998 by late Syrian President Hafez Assad.

Naisse told AP on Sunday that he had been summoned by security agents repeatedly in the past few days and told indirectly to cancel the sit-in. He said he was told the protests were unnecessary and "served American interests at this time." Since the U.S.-led war on Iraq, Syria has been under pressure from the U.S. administration to reform and stop support for what the U.S. deems to be terrorist organizations in the region.

But Naisse said the protest would go on.

Syria on Monday marked the 1963 March Revolution, when a coup brought the Baath Arab Socialist Party to power. In Damascus, Syrian flags and large banners proclaiming support for President Bashar Assad filled the streets.

The rights group had declared Monday to be a national day of protest against the state of emergency imposed since 1963 and to call for political, social, cultural and economic reforms. Peaceful protests were also scheduled to take place outside Syrian embassies in London and Paris.

"(Monday) will be a test for all, especially pro-democracy activists who have a chance to prove that their demands are not just words on paper," Naisse said.

Naisse's group has circulated a petition, to be handed to Syrian authorities later this month, demanding political and economic reform. Naisse had hoped the petition, started in January, would collect a million signatures by March, but it so far only has 6,000.

Syria has a population of around 18 million.

The petition calls for the abrogation of emergency laws, the release of political detainees and return of all exiles.

President Bashar Assad, who took office when his father died in 2000, has taken limited steps to loosen Syria from the totalitarian system set up by his father. He released hundreds of political detainees and, initially, allowed political discussion groups to hold small gatherings indoors.

But in 2001, Assad began to clamp down on pro-democracy activists, raiding their meetings and jailing two lawmakers and other activists. They were convicted on a charge of trying illegally to change the constitution.

Assad, in a January interview with the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, said reforms were already in place but made clear he rejected Western-style democracy. "We will not accept wearing clothes that are not tailored for us," he said.

He insisted there was room for criticism under his reign but, in a sign that there were limits to his willingness to tolerate dissent, he added: "You cannot respect those who do not respect their country."

 

SAUDI CLERICS FORBID MUSLIMS TO WATCH US ARABIC CHANNEL

Saudi clerics forbid Muslims to watch US Arabic channel
The Associated Press
March 8, 2004

It's un-Islamic to have anything to do with the Washington-sponsored station, one religious edict decrees

Clerics in Saudi Arabia are venting their anger at a new United States-funded television channel for Arab viewers, saying it was founded to fight Islam and Muslims are religiously forbidden to watch it.

Sheikh Ibrahim al-Khudairi, a cleric and judge in Riyadh, and Sheikh Mansour bin Ahmed al-Hussein, another government-appointed cleric in the Saudi capital, both slammed Al-Hurra. They said no one should work for the station, watch it or support it with advertising.

During his Friday sermon before thousands of worshippers, Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Sudais, prayer leader of the Grand Mosque in the holy city of Mecca, said that Western satellite channels directed at Arab viewers were part of a 'war of ideas' against the Muslim world.

Al-Hurra, or The Free One, made its broadcast debut on Feb 14 with footage of windows being opened, symbolising freedom, and comments by US President George W. Bush praising Iraq's determination for democracy.

Al-Hurra is the latest US government effort to reach out to Arabs.

The others include the Arabic-language Radio Sawa, also overseen by the Broadcasting Board of Governors that runs Al-Hurra, and hi, a slick Arabic-English cultural and lifestyle magazine for youth.

In a written fatwa, or religious edict, Sheikh al-Khudairi said last week that Muslims were religiously forbidden to watch the station or have anything to do with it.

The channel was 'founded by America to fight Islam, and to propagate massive decay to Americanise the world', said the edict.

'It must be boycotted... not used for advertising, or written about in praise in a manner that would lure anyone to watch it.'

Sheikh al-Khudairi could not immediately be reached, and officials at the board which runs Al-Hurra declined to comment on the fatwa.

The channel will cost US taxpayers about US$62 million (S$107 million) in its first year, and US officials have said they hope to air balanced programming to counter what they say is anti-American 'hateful propaganda' in the Muslim world.

Sheikh al-Khudairi's edict was not endorsed by the Commission of Senior Clerics, which includes the Grand Mufti of the kingdom, meaning that it does not carry a government approval.

But it reflects a growing sentiment against the station in the kingdom.

'Satellite stations that claim to speak in the name of freedom and independence are sowing the seeds of doubt' about Islamic principles, the official Saudi Press Agency quoted Sheikh al-Sudais as saying.

Sheikh al-Hussein, who teaches Islamic law at a school in Riyadh, said there was a consensus among the religious authorities that Al-Hurra was founded with the sole aim of 'weakening the Islamic nation and sowing divisions between Muslim nations'.

Al-Hurra is broadcast from the Washington area but with facilities in several capitals, including Baghdad.

It has a largely Arab staff.