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Al-Sadr's goons spread a little Islamic cheer at a picnic in Iraq. From the Times Online, with thanks to Treehugger:
THE students had begun to lay out their picnic in the spring sunshine when the men attacked.“There were dozens of them, armed with guns, and they poured into the park,” Ali al-Azawi, 21, the engineering student who had organised the gathering in Basra, said.
“They started shouting at us that we were immoral, that we were meeting boys and girls together and playing music and that this was against Islam.
“They began shooting in the air and people screamed. Then, with one order, they began beating us with their sticks and rifle butts.” Two students were said to have been killed.
Standing over them as the blows rained down was the man who gave the order, dressed in dark clerical garb and wearing a black turban. Ali recognised him immediately as a follower of Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric. Ali realised then that the armed men were members of Hojatoleslam al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army, a private militia that fought American forces last year and is now enforcing its own firebrand version of Islam.
The picnic had run foul of the Islamist powers that increasingly hold sway in the fly-blown southern city, where religious militias rule the streets, forcing women to don the veil and closing down shops that sell alcohol or music....
That victory has brought to a head the issue of whether Iraq’s new constitution will adopt Islamic law — or Sharia — as most religious Shia leaders desire.
In Basra, however, Islamic militias already are beginning to apply their own version of that law, without authority from above or any challenge from the police.
Students say that there was nothing spontaneous about the attack. Police were guarding the picnic in the park, as is customary at any large public gathering, but allowed the armed men in without any resistance.
One brought a video camera to record the sinful spectacle of the picnic, footage of which was later released to the public as a warning to others.
It showed images of one girl struggling as a gunman ripped her blouse off, leaving her half-naked. “We will send these pictures to your parents so they can see how you were dancing naked with men,” a gunman told her. Two students who went to her aid were shot — one in the leg, the other twice in the stomach. The latter was said to have died of his injuries. Fellow students say that the girl later committed suicide. Another girl who was severely beaten around the head lost her sight.
Far from disavowing the attack, senior al-Sadr loyalists said that they had a duty to stop the students’ “dancing, sexy dress and corruption”.
“We beat them because we are authorised by Allah to do so and that is our duty,” Sheik Ahmed al-Basri said after the attack. “It is we who should deal with such disobedience and not the police.”
After escaping with two students, Ali reached a police station and asked for help. “What do you expect me to do about it?” a uniformed officer asked.
Posted by Robert at March 23, 2005 8:43 AM
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What god wants god gets.
Posted by: KAOSKTRL![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 23, 2005 10:08 AM
This is the kind of story that will make an impression, for it is something that all of us have done -- gone on a picnic, a symbol -- save for a Manet or two -- of innocent fun. By the banks of the Cam or the Isis, or along the Seine in a sundays-and-cybele mood, in the woods with the Teddybears, on a weatherbeaten bench in a clearing by a brook or a waterfall in the State Park, we do not expect, and cannot bear, the imagined figures of black reaction coming out, as they did here, and beating to death several people for the crime of this picnic. This is what Islam, not the Islam of the unobservant, or the nonchalant, but the real Islam, if properly followed, can come to, and has often come to, in a great many places. It may not happen in Tunisia now, but that is because Bourguiba did as much as he could to constrain Islam, and his successors continue to do so, but using the harsh methods of a police-state; it would not happen in Istanbul, but it could happen in the Turksih countryside wherever Islam has come back in a big way; it could happen, should anyone have dared to behave this way, in Saudi Arabia, in Iran, in the Sudan, or in Pakistan, or Bangladesh -- wherever Islam has not, to one degree or another, been tied down or in some way limited.
This is a terrible story -- and a useful one.
Right now American soldiers continue to risk their lives, as they "train" Iraqis, and as we make our absurd plans for a $590 million dollar embassy in Baghdad, and count on the spread of "democracy" in the Middle East. There are, in Iraq, and elsewhere in the Middle East, who if "democracy" comes will be inclined to behave not like the picnickers, but like the people who beat the picnickers to death. What Iraq needs are either semi-enlightened despots (Borguiba, Ataturk, the Shah of Iran), or a situation of such self-evident failure, that Muslims will be ultimatley forced to realize that all of their woes, their backwardness, the political, economic, social, and intellectual failures of their lives, come from Islam itself. Some in Muslim societies realize this, but they cannot get out, for the penalty for apostasy is death. It is this that must stop; all measures that can weaken the grip of Islam on those born into it, must be encouraged. The Adminstration thinks that the solution is "democracy" -- you know, where everyone is so busy running for dog-cather and alderman, that he has no time to worry about the Jihad. How wrong they are, how incomprending of the force, and the immutability, and the aggression, of Islam.
Posted by: Hugh at March 23, 2005 10:11 AM
This story I think says it all about Islam.
Islam is where the ignorant, the stupid, the arrogant, the bigotted, the thuggish and violent thrive and are rewarded.
Posted by: Daffersd at March 23, 2005 10:40 AM
So blindness, pain, and death are preferable to a picnic in a park in their view? Man, this is worse than anything Orwell ever dreamed up.
Blaise Pascal said, "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
And I say, "If anything should be considered sacred it is Life itself, not the supernatural or the false hopes that beliefs in it provide."
Posted by: f.g.
at March 23, 2005 11:23 AM
This explains the lack of Yogi Bear cartoons on Arab television.
JLP
Posted by: John Lee Pedimore at March 23, 2005 11:40 AM
Hugh:
Of course this is appalling, but there was also news today of Iraqi citizens rising up against the jihaddists. Don't you think there's a reasonable possibility that the quiet majority of Iraqis, even if 48% of them voted Dawa/SCIRI, do not support religious violence against the "less orthodox" in their midst?
Posted by: waterdragon52 at March 23, 2005 12:48 PM
Well, the Shiek has taken responsibility for this incident.
As the Basra area is controlled by the British Army and the police forces it's training and supervising, I wonder if the Brits and their students will arrest the Shiek and his boys.
This would be a good chance to place the Shiek's gang on trial for their actions. If that doesn't happen in this case, we might as well write the entire last two years off as a sad object lesson.
Posted by: BobC at March 23, 2005 1:26 PM
Don't you think there's a reasonable possibility that the quiet majority of Iraqis, even if 48% of them voted Dawa/SCIRI, do not support religious violence against the "less orthodox" in their midst?
Therein lies the rub. If the quiet majority doesn't grow some balls and take action then they are guilty of silent consent to these barbaric acts.
The police there should be arrested and charged along with the thugs. They are just as guilty as the thugs through their inaction.
I can see no reason why anyone would stay in Iraq in its present state. It is completely unsafe. Iraq and the surrounding countries are the shame of the entire world. Humanity should expell this culture like a person would spit out sour milk.
Posted by: f.g. at March 23, 2005 2:07 PM
Yes, I posted this last night,
http://www,jihadwatch.org/archives/005444.php#78333
Posted by: Carolyn2 at March 23, 2005 2:20 PM
Geez Louise,
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/005444.php#c78333
Posted by: Carolyn2 at March 23, 2005 2:22 PM
Ali recognised him immediately as a follower of Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric.
Hojat ol-eslam (proof of Islam) is an intermediate step from run of the mill mujtahid to Ayat Allah (sign of Allah or ayatollah as we know it).
This is interesting because Mogtadr al Sadr has, at best spurious, religious credentials, his claim to fame being based on what Shi'a call Sayyids (or descendants of Muhammad) and being the son of Ayatollah Mohammad Sadiq al Sadr,who was assassinated by Saddam. His uncle Ayatollah Muhammad Baqr al Sadr was also assassinated by Saddam.
The grandfather (Sayyid Muhammad al Sadr) was active as well, belonging to the secret society Harfas al Istiqal, which had been established in Baghdad in late 1919, pushing for unity among Shi'a and Sunni's.
The Mullahs in Iran have no respect for Mogtadr al Sadr, as they refer to him as "Mister al Sadr". But his claim to being a Sayyid (the black turban he wears means that he claims to be a descendant of Muhammad through Fatima-Ali), is spurious, there were (are) so many Sayyids (anyone could make the claim) that the term Sayyid took on the equivalency of Mister.
Sayyids were supported by the state (Iraq and Iran) from the Khums (the 1/5th or prophets share), perpetual welfare recipients, as it was though unseeming that a descendant of Mo's should actually have to work for a living.
They of course gravitate to religious schools and the clergy, because that is where the socioeconomic power and status are in Islam (especially Shi'a) Islam.
(The corruption under the Shah is now worse under the Mullahs) as the Mullahs enjoy socio economic privilege and status that would have made the Shah and his supporters mouths water.. who can argue with "gods" representatives.
Anyway, either Mogtadr al Sadr is still contesting the power of Ayatollah al Sistani and SCIRI, or is ingratiating himself with al Sistani and SCIRI by forming his own mutawain (religous police) (Shades of Afghanistan,Saudi Arabia, Iran).
Posted by: Giaour at March 23, 2005 5:45 PM
No coed volleyball or ultimate frisbee in the park is enough to call me to arms
Posted by: juicealot at March 23, 2005 6:04 PM
I would say to these young people:
If you want your freedon you will have to fight for it! Create a sting operation -- lure these brutes to an out-of-the-way picnic. Have snipers set up and be armed -- each and every one of you!
Leave the girls/women home. A few of you smaller more delicate males can be dressed in female clothes. When they start the "immoral picnic" insanity, open up on them with a pre-arranged signal. Make sure not to leave a single one living.
This is dangerous but if you want to live under a Taliban-like bunch of sadistic knuckle draggers, don't do anything. If you are creative, organized and do this enough you may embolden others like you willing to fight for freedom. Do you see any other alternative?
Posted by: Kemaste at March 23, 2005 7:20 PM
Q 9: 133 O Prophet! It is forbidden for believers to sit about on blankets in the presence of naji women and consume in the woods as in the town. For it may be that you like a thing that Allah does not like, such as pork or those little sweet pickles; but that you do not like a thing that Allah likes, such as jihad and ensuring the obligations of women. And verily you may cast about trash in the manner of the polytheists. Lo! For Allah is Merciful, Unlittering, and Prevents Forest Fires.
Geoff
Posted by: Geoff at March 24, 2005 2:14 AM
Kemaste-
100% right! Triangulation of fire.
You would think that the "peaceful picnicking Iraqis" would NOT be acting like such limp little lambs going gutlessly to the slaughter BY NOW.
And that BY NOW everyone in the damned country would have at least one old AK-47 or .45 automatic strapped on.
After two years of incessant internal warfare, anyone behaving so naively in public is simply incredibly foolhardy.
Don't they have any intact human instincts left after 3 decades of being cowed by Saddam?
Iraqis! Wake up and smell the banana clips!
at March 24, 2005 3:05 AM
Hugh, for crying out loud, I'm a "figure of black reaction" myself, but I enjoy picnicking, too--especially if I can barbecue pork ribs or those marvellous bratwursts available in the USA!
F.G.: the Iraqi sites Iraq the Model and Free Iraqi report that the campuses of southern Iraq are getting restless, for the assault apparently ticked off the classmates of the assaulted engineering students. Maybe something's going to blow.
Posted by: Kepha at March 24, 2005 6:49 AM
Geoff, LMAO. You need to write a book of "Law of Geoff". Verily I say unto you.
Posted by: Carolyn2 at March 24, 2005 1:13 PM
No, no, Geoff: "Only YOU can prevent forest fires."
Who are you going to believe -- Allah, or Smokey the Bear?
Posted by: Hugh at March 24, 2005 2:34 PM
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