Iran's Ahmadinejad warns rivals their plans will fail

Fri Jul 31, 2009 1:42pm BST




By Parisa Hafezi

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned his political rivals on Friday that their efforts to drive a wedge between him and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would come to nothing.

Iran's disputed presidential poll on June 12 plunged the country, the world's fifth biggest oil exporter, into its biggest internal crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution and exposed deep divisions in its ruling elite.

Added to the widespread popular unrest and the wrath of reformists over the disputed election, Ahmadinejad has come under fire from his own allies and lost two hardline cabinet members by defying Khamenei over his choice of vice president.

But Ahmadinejad denied any rifts among the leaders.

"This is not a political relationship ... our relationship is based on kindness. It is like a relationship between a father and his son,"

Ahmadinejad said in a speech in the holy Shi'ite city of Mashhad.

"Your efforts will bear no fruit. This road is closed for those devils who dream about harming our relationship. Their dream will be buried along with them,"

state television reported.

Khamenei, who endorsed the election result and sided openly with Ahmadinejad, reacted firmly when the president named Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaie as his deputy.

In an Islamic system in which the Supreme Leader's word is supposed to be final and obeyed, Ahmadinejad ignored Khamenei's order for a week.

In the past few days, some hardline backers of the president and conservative media have made unusually blunt comment on the affair, saying Ahmadinejad has challenged the authority of Khamenei, Iran's most powerful figure.

"FOMENTING INSTABILITY"

Hardline cleric Ahmad Jannati, head of Iran's top legislative body, also criticised Ahmadinejad.

"Such appointments hurt your supporters ... A key position should not be given to a person who is not respected," Jannati told worshippers at Tehran University. His speech was broadcast live on state radio.

The disarray in the hardline camp is likely to complicate his job of forming a new cabinet. Jannati urged the parliament to help Ahmadinejad over the new cabinet.

Jannati said the vote was Iran's "healthiest" since the revolution, adding Iran's moderate defeated candidate Mirhossein Mousavi should go on trial for fomenting instability in Iran.

Mousavi and other leading moderates say the vote was rigged, calling the new government "illegitimate."

"You were behind these unrests. You are responsible for the bloodshed," Jannati said. "Sooner or later you will be punished for your illegal and un-Islamic acts."

Iranian media have reported the deaths of 20 protesters since the vote. Mousavi blames the authorities for killing of his supporters, saying he would not allow their "blood to be trampled."

Rights groups say hundreds of people, including senior pro-reform politicians, journalists and lawyers, have been detained since June. Reformers demand their immediate release.

"We can not demand release of those criminals who have damaged public properties, created disorder and instability," Jannati said. "But others should be freed."

Some prominent reformists had been detained for acting against national security, a common charge against dissenting voices in Iran. They could even face the death penalty.

In a show of defiance on Thursday thousands of pro-reformers mourned Neda Agha-Soltan's killing in post-election unrests. Iranian riot police fired tear gas and arrested protesters.

A police official told the semi-official ILNA news agency on Friday that 50 protesters had been arrested at the unrest but "many of them have been released later."

Reformist former President Mohammad Khatami again denounced the killings and arrests on Friday, saying reformers will continue their path, ILNA reported.

(Editing by Samia Nakhoul)

Bombs kill at least 28 near Baghdad mosques

31 Jul 2009 14:41:43 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Apparently coordinated strike hit Friday prayers

* Despite drop in violence, militants stage big attacks

(Adds details, background)

By Muhanad Mohammed and Waleed Ibrahim

BAGHDAD, July 31 (Reuters) - Six bombs struck Shi'ite mosques across Baghdad on Friday, police said, killing at least 28 people and angering Iraqis who blamed local forces now taking over from U.S. soldiers for failing to protect them.

The blasts, which wounded at least 130 people and appeared to target Shi'ite Muslims taking part in Friday prayers, were a reminder of militants' persistent capabilities in Iraq despite the sharp drop in violence over the last 18 months.

In the worst attack, a car bomb struck people praying in the street outside a crowded mosque in northern Baghdad's Shaab district, killing at least 23 people and wounding 107.

One Iraqi at the scene said a car parked near the al-Shurufi mosque in Shaab exploded midway through the service.

"I saw 15 martyrs," he said.

After the blast, blood soaked the ground and stained prayer mats outside the mosque. The site was littered with abandoned slippers. The charred skeleton of a car sat nearby.

Shi'ite religious gatherings in the past have been targets of Sunni Islamist al Qaeda, which regards Shi'ites as heretics.

U.S. combat forces withdrew from Iraqi cities and towns last month, raising fears that untested local forces, disbanded and rebuilt from scratch since 2003, would be unable to fend off renewed violence, over six years after the U.S.-led invasion.

Another man working at a car park next to the mosque told Reuters TV he had tried to warn the Iraqi army about a suspicious-looking car.

"There was a taxi in the car park that looked suspicious. I called the Iraqi army to take a look, and they said there's nothing wrong with it. Fifteen minutes later, it exploded."

On the other side of the city, two blasts around the same time went off near a mosque in southeastern Baghdad's Diyala bridge area, killing four people and wounding 17.

Another bomb in Zaafaraniya, southeast Baghdad, killed one person and wounded six. Two more bombs close to mosques in Kamaliya and Alam districts wounded nine people.

Iraqi army and police officials had no immediate comment.

MORE VIOLENCE EXPECTED

The attacks raise questions about Iraq's future just a few weeks after U.S. combat soldiers withdrew from urban bases and as Washington prepares to pull out all U.S. troops by 2012.

U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates, visiting Iraq this week, said the United States may accelerate to some degree its withdrawal plans as Iraq stabilises.

Iraqi forces are far improved, but they lack equipment and technology as they face off against a dogged insurgency.

There are also growing concerns about potential violence between majority Arabs and minority Kurds in their largely autonomous northern enclave, who have their own army and show no sign of backing down from claims to disputed territories.

U.S. officials say al Qaeda and other Sunni insurgent groups, most active in ethnically mixed areas north of Baghdad, are trying to reignite the sectarian conflict that brought Iraq to the brink of all-out civil war in 2006 and 2007.

This month, several Shi'ite pilgrims commemorating the death of a medieval holy man died in bomb attacks, but U.S. and Iraqi officials praised the absence of the kind of major bloodshed such events have witnessed in the past as proof of Iraqi forces' success in handling their new role leading urban security.

U.S. and Iraqi officials expect militant attacks to increase in the run-up to national polls in January, in which Maliki is hoping to capitalise on security gains to present himself as a nationalist leader who has brought stability to Iraq.

Opponents are sure to use such attacks as ammunition against Maliki's increasing assertiveness.

"I lay the blame for these blasts on the government and Baghdad security officials," said Raad Souar, a politician close to the movement of anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

"The reason for the high number of casualties is due to the weakness of security in Baghdad," he said. (Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Missy Ryan)

------------



Latest in string of west Iraq bombings kills six
02 Aug 2009 12:11:57 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Blast comes two days after major attacks in Baghdad

* Latest in a string of west Iraq bombings

(Adds governor's comment, details)

By Fadhel al-Badrani

FALLUJA, Iraq, Aug 2 (Reuters) - A car bomb in a market killed six people on Sunday in western Iraq's Anbar province, a health official said, the latest in a string of attacks in the former Sunni Arab insurgent heartland.

The blast in Haditha, 190 km (120 miles) west of Baghdad, wounded 21 people, said the doctor in a local hospital that received the bodies and casualties.

Police said they only knew of four killed.

Several high-profile bombings hit Anbar last month, prompting a rare temporary vehicle ban across the desert province, Iraq's largest.

A week ago, a suicide bomber killed four people at a funeral tent in the Anbar city of Falluja. A day earlier, a car bomb killed five people there. On July 21, the provincial capital Ramadi declared a state of emergency after bombs killed three people.

Anbar, once an al Qaeda haven and the centre of a raging Sunni Arab insurgency, had been relatively quiet for months after tribal leaders in 2006 turned on the Sunni Islamist militants dominating the region.

The Haditha blast came two days after a series of apparently coordinated bomb attacks near Shi'ite mosques in Baghdad killed 31 people and wounded scores.

Violence has fallen sharply overall in Iraq in the last 18 months, and the number of civilians killed in July fell to 224 from 373 a month earlier, the Health Ministry said on Saturday.

But insurgents are still able to launch frequent large-scale attacks, raising questions about the Iraqi security forces' ability to cope alone after U.S. troops withdrew from urban centres in June, part of an agreement to leave Iraq by 2012.

Anbar's governor denied that violence was on the rise.

"These blasts do not raise our fears or make us worry. What is going on in Anbar province is the same as what is going on in (other parts of) Iraq," Anbar governor Qassim al-Fahdawi said.

"There will be no return of terrorists to our province in any way. The capabilities of our forces are increasing and their (the terrorists') strength is decreasing," he said. (Additional reporting by Ali al-Mashhadani in Ramadi and Waleed Ibrahim in Baghdad; writing by Mohammed Abbas; editing by Robin Pomeroy)

MOUSAVI ARRIVES AT TEHRAN CEMETERY TO COMMEMORATE

30 Jul 2009 11:27:49 GMT
Source: Reuters
OPPOSITION LEADER MOUSAVI ARRIVES AT TEHRAN CEMETERY TO COMMEMORATE VICTIMS OF POST-ELECTION UNREST - WITNESS


Iran police arrest mourners at cemetery - witness
30 Jul 2009 11:23:46 GMT
Source: Reuters
TEHRAN, July 30 (Reuters) - Iranian police arrested mourners who gathered at a Tehran cemetery to commemorate victims of the unrest that followed the country's disputed June presidential election, witnesses said.

"Hundreds have gathered around Neda Agha-Soltan's grave to mourn her death and other victims' death ... police arrested some of them ... dozens of riot police also arrived and are trying to disperse the crowd,"

a witness told Reuters. (Editing by Tim Pearce)

(Tehran newsroom)


----------------

Iran memorial planned for election unrest victims

AP


FILE - This photo dated May 2009 and provided by Caspian Makan, 37-year-old AP – FILE - This photo dated May 2009 and provided by Caspian Makan, 37-year-old photojournalist in Tehran …



By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer Nasser Karimi, 1 hr 28 mins ago

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's opposition defied a government ban and planned a silent memorial Thursday for victims of post-election unrest that could turn into another flashpoint for clashes with authorities who have harshly cracked down on any protests.

Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims the June 12 presidential election was fraudulent and he was the true winner, planned to attend the memorial, according to his Web site. The opposition may also try to stage rallies along major roundabouts and squares in the capital Tehran at the same time as the memorial.

Mousavi's Web site said the gathering would be held at the graveside of a young woman shot to death during protests on June 20. Thursday is the end of the 40-day mourning period for Neda Agha Soltan, whose dying moments were caught on video that became one of the iconic images of the upheaval.

Authorities say some 20 protesters have been killed in the crackdown, although rights groups say the number is probably far higher. The opposition says Iranian authorities have pressured families of slain protesters not to mourn publicly out of fear the gatherings could spark the kind of demonstrations that followed the disputed vote.

Massive protests and deadly clashes erupted in the days and weeks after electoral authorities declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner of last month's vote by a landslide. But Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard and its allied Basij militia have adopted a zero-tolerance policy that have largely thwarted protests over the past month. Nevertheless, demonstrators have still turned out on the streets.

Mousavi and fellow pro-reform leader Mahdi Karroubi will hold the ceremony in Behesht-e Zahra — the large cemetery on Tehran's southern outskirts where some slain protesters have been buried — after authorities rejected their request to hold it at Tehran's main Mosalla mosque.

The two leaders sent a request Sunday to the Interior Ministry asking permission for the ceremony. They said the gathering would "be held without any speeches and will be limited to the reciting of the Quran and moments of silence" to mark the 40-day period since 10 people died, including Soltan, during the June 20 protests.

Interior Ministry official Mahmoud Abbaszadeh Meshkini was quoted by the state IRNA news agency as saying Wednesday the ministry has not issued "any permission for any gathering."

"So far, it's unprecedented that someone asks permission for a memorial service from the Interior Ministry," Meshkini said, adding sarcastically: "Unless the applicant has other particular political intentions."

The deaths of protesters during the 1979 Islamic Revolution fueled a 40-day cycle of mourning marches, and shootings of mourners, that contributed to the overthrow of the U.S.-backed dictator, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

The election unrest has given rise to rare criticism of Iran's leadership from the country's top clerics and even conservative supporters who have complained about prison abuses, including reports of detainee deaths and the brutal beatings of protesters.

The government announced that first trials of detained opposition supporters will begin Saturday, with the prosecution of around 20 protesters. They also include some accused of sending images of the unrest to the media while top pro-reform politicians will be tried later for allegedly ordering riots.

The opposition has said detainees were tortured to extract false confessions for the courts.

American dad, sons accused of jihad plot

Court ordered terror suspect to lose hand, foot
N.C. drywaller’s punishment was eventually overturned by Pakistan court
Image: Daniel Patrick Boyd
City County Bureau of Identification in Wake County / AP
Authorities say Daniel Patrick Boyd lived in Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1989 to 1992, where he allegedly had military-style training in terrorist camps.

RALEIGH, N.C. - American Daniel Patrick Boyd faced stern a punishment after being convicted of robbing a bank in Pakistan: Losing a hand and foot.

He avoided the sentence when his conviction was overturned. Two decades later, the 39-year-old Boyd is accused of organizing a group in the U.S. with international terrorist aspirations, and he faces life in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors say Boyd's time in Pakistan also included terrorist training that he brought back to North Carolina, where over the past three years he recruited followers willing to die as martyrs waging jihad — the Arabic word for holy war. Seven members of the group, including Boyd and two adult sons, were arrested Monday and charged with providing material support to terrorism and "conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad."


Prosecutors would not detail what the group was targeting overseas. An indictment said they provided money, training, transportation and men to help terrorists. Boyd and some of the others traveled to Israel in June 2007 intending to wage "violent jihad," but returned home without success, the document said.

Boyd lived at an unassuming lakeside home in a rural area south of Raleigh, where he and his family operated a drywall business.

Jim Stephenson, a neighbor in Willow Spring, said he often saw the Boyd family walking their dog. The indictment shocked neighbors.

"We never saw anything to give any clues that something like that could be going on in their family," Stephenson said.

Authorities believe Boyd's roots in terrorism run deep. They said when he was in Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1989 through 1992, he had military-style training in terrorist camps and fought the Soviets, who were occupying Afghanistan.

It is unclear when he and his family returned to the U.S., but in March 2006, Boyd traveled to Gaza and attempted to introduce his son to individuals who also believed that violent jihad was a personal religious obligation, the indictment said.

Two of his sons, Zakariya Boyd, 20, and Dylan Boyd, 22, were named in the indictment. Another son, Luqman, died two years ago in a car accident. The document did not say which son Boyd took to Gaza.

The others charged are Anes Subasic, 33; Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 22; and Ziyad Yaghi, 21. Hysen Sherifi, 24, a native of Kosovo and a U.S. legal permanent resident was also charged in the case. He was the only person arrested who was not a U.S. citizen.

No attorneys for the men were listed in court records.

'Sounds weird to me'
Reached at her home in Silver Spring, Md., Daniel Boyd's mother said she knew nothing about the current case.

"It certainly sounds weird to me," Pat Saddler said.

Hassan's father declined to comment, and other families did not have listed numbers or did not return calls.

In 1991 in Pakistan, Daniel Boyd and his older brother denied they were guilty of stealing $3,200 from the bank. When the sentence was imposed, Boyd shouted: "This isn't an Islamic court. It's a court of infidels!"

When the brothers were arrested, they were accused of carrying identification showing they belonged to the radical Afghan guerrilla group, Hezb-e-Islami, or Party of Islam. They had become the first foreigners to be convicted and sentenced by special Islamic courts set up by the conservative federal government to impose speedy trials for so-called "heinous" crimes.

About a month later, when the brothers' convictions were overturned, Daniel Boyd said, "The truth has finally come out."

Holy warriors
The men's wives, also Americans, said in an interview at the time that the couples had come to Pakistan in 1989 and that the United States was a country of "kafirs" — Arabic for heathens. The wives refused to answer questions about their husbands' links to the Afghan mujahedeen, or Islamic holy warriors, though they did say their husbands embraced Islam nine years earlier.

Boyd's wife, Sabrina, had three sons with her in Pakistan at the time of the sentencing: 3-year-old Zakariya, 1-year-old Luqman and 5-year-old Mohammed. The indictment filed in North Carolina says Dylan Boyd is also known as Mohammed.

It's unclear how U.S. authorities learned of the allegations of the past three years, although court documents indicate that prosecutors will introduce evidence gathered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Several of the defendants, including Boyd and his sons, also face firearms charges. The indictment says they had obtained a variety of weapons from handguns to rifles.

In July 2008, Sherifi left for Kosovo to engage in violent jihad, but it's unclear if he did any actual fighting. He returned to North Carolina in April 2009 to solicit funds and warriors to support the mujahedeen, but again the indictment did not give details. In October 2006, Yaghi went to Jordan to engage in violent jihad, according to the indictment.

Boyd's beliefs about Islam did not concur with his Raleigh-area moderate mosque, which he stopped attending this year and instead began meeting for Friday prayers in his home, U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said in an interview. He did not say whether any or all the defendants met with him.

"This is not an indictment of the entire Muslim community," Holding said. "These people had broken away because their local mosque did not follow their vision of being a good Muslim."


-------------------

High Jewish price for freezing settlements!

The Jews have been having it too good for far too long. During the last 50 years, they have succeeded in controlling American financial institutions, the News media and US politics. At present American politicians are under pressure to put Israeli interests ahead of US national or strategic interests. After few statements from Obama about the need to freeze illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem, Netanyahu went to openly challenge and defy the Americans. Obama had no option but to settle for a small face-saving Jewish gesture into which the Jewish State accepts to temporarily freeze expanding some settlements against the following:
1. Arab regimes acceptance of a total normalisation of relations with Israel.
2. American support for the projected Israeli attack on Iran.
3. An American acceptance to supply Israel with two squadrons of F-35.
It is for this reason Obama has dispatched George Mitchell, Robert Gates, Jim Jones and other high CIA and State Department officials to Israel. If Iran happens to accept US request for stopping its Nuclear Program then Israel can go ahead and build more settlements knowing that the prostrated Arab governments can either be bought or intimidated into forgetting about UN Security Council Resolutions and go ahead with recognising Israel. But what if Iran was attacked and most of the USraeli interests have gone up in flames?
It seems that we are back at square one; exposing the true colours of Obama and revealing the fallacy of his promised change in US foreign policy. The Arab and Muslim people can’t be easily fooled by the latest USraeli ploy as they continue to ask why putting sanctions on Iran and not on Israel for its breach of 39 UN Security Council Resolutions and for its massive nuclear arsenal? Observers believe that Obama-Netanyahu policy will guarantee continued attacks on USraeli interests from Nigeria to Indonesia.


The Nazi were making fun of the Russians!


Keep laughing until Iran or Hezbullah missiles start to fall on Tel-Aviv. The Nazis underestimated the backward Russians and attacked the Soviet Union with their superior Panzers and Luftwaffe. The Americans made a mistake by attacking disarmed Iraq. Now it is the turn of the Israelis to under-estimate their enemies. I pray that arrogant Naetanyahu sends planes and missiles to attacking Iran. The Russians chased the Germans back to Berlin after destroying everything German in their way. The Iraqi resitance put America on its knees. The Arabs and Muslims hope to punish the Jewish Nazis and destroy Tel Aviv.

After six years of US occupation, thousands of troops killed or wounded and $billion wasted, not a single American can sit down in an Iraqi cafe and ask for a drink. Because he'll be shot on the spot by revenge-seeking Iraqis. The Americans have killed Iraqis and destroyed their country on behalf of Israel and deserve to be punished. It is easy to get involved in exchanging compliments. But what is the use as Israel is about to commit suicide!


Adnan Darwash, Iraq Occupation Times

Counter Improvised Explosive Device (CIED)

U.S. Army soldiers of 741st EOD Battalion Counter Improvised Explosive Device (CIED) Team stand behind a vehicle as a cloud of dust and debris rise into the air after a controlled detonation outside the Forward Operating Base (FOB) Shank in Logar Province in Afghanistan July 27, 2009. U.S and Czech soldiers destroyed IEDs, explosives and ammunition recently discovered throughout the Logar province. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov (AFGHANISTAN POLITICS CONFLICT MILITARY IMAGES OF THE DAY)
REUTERS/SHAMIL ZHUMATOV

Iranians to chose a path b/w Allah & Ayato'Allahs

Iran's influential former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Sunday defied a call by a group of hardline clerics to back the country's disputed presidential election result, a news agency reported.

On Friday, 50 members of the 86-seat Assembly of Experts, called on Rafsanjani in a statement to show more support for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who endorsed the re-election of the hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, soon after the June 12 vote, which moderates say was rigged.

Challenging the authority of Iran's most powerful figure, Rafsanjani declared the Islamic republic in crisis in during his sermon on July 17 and demanded an end to arrests of moderates.

"My standpoint (about the election) is the same as I mentioned in the Friday prayer sermon," Rafsanjani was quoted as saying by the semi-official ILNA news agency.

5 dead, 15 injured in New Delhi metro rail bridge collapse

NEW DELHI: Five people were killed and another 15 injured when a section of a partially-constructed New Delhi metro bridge gave way suddenly early on Sunday, a spokesman for the rail service said. The accident occurred when a pillar supporting part of the carriageway collapsed, Anuj Dayal, spokesman for the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) told reporters. “We are investigating the matter.

It appears that there is a problem in the design of the pillar of the bridge,”

Dayal said. The dead were labourers who were among a group of 30 men working at the site in south Delhi. While three of the five were pronounced dead in hospital, emergency workers were still trying to recover the bodies of two others from the concrete debris, Dayal said. “Two of the injured are in a serious condition” while some workers had been discharged after first aid, he said. Television footage showed a long section of concrete lying at an angle with one end on the ground and the other atop a supporting pillar. DMRC chief E Sreedharan, who toured the site, later told reporters he had submitted his resignation to the Delhi government, taking responsibility for the accident. “In this project we have maintained a fairly high standard of safety. Today is a major jolt. I personally feel I have to take full moral responsibility for this accident ... I have decided to resign as managing director of DMRC,” Sreedharan said after naming a five-member committee to investigate the collapse. afp


----------------


Six injured in second accident at Delhi metro site
New Delhi - Six people were injured after cranes crashed in a new accident at a metro construction site in Delhi Monday, one day after a rail bridge on the section collapsed killing six people. Witnesses said three construction cranes that were being...

Posted : Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:02:46 GMT
Author : DPA
Category : India (World)
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New Delhi - Six people were injured after cranes crashed in a new accident at a metro construction site in Delhi Monday, one day after a rail bridge on the section collapsed killing six people. Witnesses said three construction cranes that were being operated to clear the debris collapsed at the site of Sunday's accident in the Greater Kailash area of southern Delhi.

Local television networks showed images of the three cranes toppling while lifting a heavy steel girder, leading to panic among workers who scrambled for safety.

"Six people, including two engineers, a worker and an onlooker sustained minor injuries in the accident," local police inspector Manhar Kumar said.

"They were moved to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences for treatment," he added.

A section of the bridge under construction had collapsed on Sunday, killing six people and injuring 17.

Traffic in southern Delhi came to a halt as the police closed arterial roads in the area.

The second accident within 24 hours on the metro site sent the Delhi administration into a scramble even as the federal government promised a high-level probe.

Delhi Metro Rail Corporation managing director E Sreedharan, who has headed the project since its inception, offered to quit after the accident but his resignation was not accepted by the Delhi government.

The bridge that collapsed Sunday was one of the 10 new corridors of the Delhi Metro, part of the project's second phase, slated to be completed by September 2010.

The construction of the new lines had been put on a fast track with the aim of completing work before the 2010 Commonwealth Games, which are scheduled to be held in Delhi.

Urban Development Minister S Jaipal Reddy told the Indian parliament that a four-member committee had been constituted to investigate the causes leading to the accident.

"The accident did not take place because of any hurry. We are no doubt keen about completing various projects related to Commonwealth but we shall never compromise on the quality of work (to reach deadlines)," he told the parliament.

------

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Friday issued notice to Gammon India, a contractor in Delhi Metro Rail project, on a petition filed by the
family members of victims of the July 12 mishap, seeking compensation.

Justice Rewa Khetrapal directed the company to file its response by August 20 when the matter will be taken up for further hearing.

The court passed the order on a joint petition filed by family members of four persons who lost their lives in the mishap.

Six persons, including an engineer, were killed and over a dozen others injured when an under-construction over-bridge of the Delhi Metro collapsed on July 12 in south Delhi.

The petitioners pleaded before the court that the family of the deceased should get a compensation of Rs 50 lakh each while injured persons should be given Rs 25 lakh each.

What next in Iran's post-election turmoil?

Iran's President-Elect Under Pressure From Rivals



January 31, 1980, Thursday

Page A7, 575 words

TEHERAN, Iran Jan. 30--Iran's President-elect, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, is fighting to preserve his position from rivals in the revolutionary movement, according to diplomats and others here.

Rafsanjani, an architect of the Islamic revolution, warned the post-election power struggle would harm the establishment.

"The leader and I have been friends for over 50 years. We have been through various stages of the revolution together," Rafsanjani said, in a clear answer to the members of the assembly who called on him to show his loyalty to Khamenei by supporting the result.


On Friday, 50 members of the 86-seat Assembly of Experts, called on Rafsanjani in a statement to show more support for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who endorsed the re-election of the hardline president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, soon after the June 12 vote, which moderates say was rigged.

Challenging the authority of Iran's most powerful figure, Rafsanjani declared the Islamic republic in crisis in during his sermon on July 17 and demanded an end to arrests of moderates.

"My standpoint (about the election) is the same as I mentioned in the Friday prayer sermon," Rafsanjani was quoted as saying by the semi-official ILNA news agency.
Rafsanjani confirmed there were divisions inside the clerical establishment over the election.

"The existing dispute is related to the election ... If differences (over the election) were resolved, then the dispute would come to an end as well," Rafsanjani said.
Q+A-
26 Jul 2009 15:04:28 GMT
Source: Reuters
July 26 (Reuters) - More cracks have emerged among Iran's conservatives, after renewed opposition clamour over a disputed June 12 election. Both sides are targeting hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the eve of his second term.

The death in prison of the son of an aide to Mohsen Rezaie, a defeated conservative candidate, reported by a reformist website on Saturday, could stoke what is already Iran's worst internal conflict for 30 years.

Here are some questions and answers on what direction the political storm might take and the challenges it poses to Ahmadinejad and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

WHAT ARE THE OPPOSITION'S LATEST MOVES?

Defeated presidential candidates Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, backed by reformist former President Mohammad Khatami, still say the vote was rigged, defying Khamenei who has endorsed the result and demanded an end to protests.

On Saturday, the three men urged senior clerics to help secure the release of people detained after the election. Rights groups say hundreds have been jailed, including prominent reformists, journalists, academics and lawyers.

Karoubi, an ex-parliament speaker, wrote to the intelligence minister and accused the secret police of subjecting detainees in illegal centres to mental torture and physical threat.

Mousavi and Karoubi released a letter on Sunday asking the Interior Ministry to authorise a silent ceremony in Tehran to commemorate those killed in the unrest, without setting a date.

Mousavi, a moderate who was prime minister in the 1980s and who emerged as Ahmadinejad's main election challenger, has vowed to set up a new political front to "preserve people's votes".

HOW HAS THE GOVERNMENT RESPONDED?

The government has accused its critics of inciting "riots" on behalf of Iran's Western enemies and blamed them for post-election bloodshed in which it says 20 people were killed. Reformists and rights groups put the death toll much higher.

Some hardline clerics have demanded that Mousavi and Karoubi be tried on charges that could carry the death penalty.

Khamenei, having rejected calls for the election result to be annulled or re-examined, is expected to confirm Ahmadinejad as president soon. Parliament will then swear him in.

WHAT CHALLENGES FACE KHAMENEI?

The supreme leader has the last word on affairs of state in Iran's blend of clerical rule and republican institutions.

But Khamenei's Friday prayer sermon on June 19 failed to silence Mousavi and others who said the election was a fraud and that Ahmadinejad's next government would be illegitimate.

The religious establishment itself is divided. Many senior Shi'ite clerics have refrained from congratulating Ahmadinejad.

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an influential former president and heavyweight of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, helped embolden the opposition in a July 17 sermon in which he said Iran was in crisis, and demanded an end to detentions and press curbs.

Khamenei thus faces an unprecedented challenge to his authority from senior politicians and clerical figures. So far, he has made no concessions to the opposition, nor has he ordered even harsher repression, such as the arrest of its leaders.

WHAT CHALLENGES FACE AHMADINEJAD?

The fiery president is backed by hardline authorities and the elite Revolutionary Guard, with its Basij religious militia, but his support base elsewhere appears to have narrowed.

If confirmed, he will enter his second term on the back of a bitterly contested election whose outcome prompted hundreds of thousands of Iranians to take to the streets in protest.

The dissent may have tarnished Ahmadinejad's appeal even to his admirers abroad who share his hostility to the West. It has also dampened any prospect of dialogue with the United States to calm tensions over Iran's disputed nuclear programme.

Surprisingly, Ahmadinejad has also incurred the wrath of hardline conservatives enraged by his choice of his son-in-law, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, as his first vice president.

In a humiliating setback, Khamenei publicly forced Ahmadinejad to cancel the appointment of Mashaie, who was once quoted as saying Iran was friendly with everyone, even Israeli. (Writing by Alistair Lyon; editing by Robert Woodward)

Forty-two dead as sect, police clash in Nigeria

by Aminu Abubakar Aminu Abubakar – 9 mins ago

KANO, Nigeria (AFP) – Forty-two people were killed Sunday in clashes between police and members of a radical Islamic sect in Nigeria that is inspired by the Taliban in Afghanistan, a hospital source said.

"We have received a total of 42 bodies," Awwal Isa, a nurse at Bauchi Specialist Hospital in the northern city of Bauchi where the violence took place, told AFP by telephone.

They were victims of "fighting between security personnel and members of the Taliban," he said, alluding to the sect founded in Nigeria in 2004 with a mission to set up a strict Islamic state in Nigeria.

The two sides exchanged gunfire after a failed dawn attack on a police station in the neighbourhood of Dutsen Tenshin.

"Our men succeeded in repelling the dawn attack by the Taliban and killed five members of the group in the exchange of gunfire," Bauchi police spokesman Mohammed Barau told AFP by telephone.

"We have launched a manhunt for other members of the group that have fled," Barau added.

Local journalists who went to Bauchi Specialist Hospital told AFP earlier on Sunday they had counted nine bodies there -- six Taliban militants and three local inhabitants.

Isa said that, initially, the hospital received nine bodies, followed by another 33. He added that one of the dead was a soldier, the rest were members of the Taliban sect.

Police have so far declined to give a total death toll from the gun battle, which according to the hospital figures would amount to the biggest number of casualties the Taliban sect has suffered in clashes with Nigerian authorities. The Nigerian Taliban debuted in 2004 when it set up a base -- dubbed Afghanistan -- in Kanamma village in northern Yobe state, on the border with Niger, from where it attacked police outposts and killed police officers.

Its membership is mainly drawn from university dropouts.

The north of Nigeria is majority Muslim, although large Christian minorities have settled in the main towns, raising tensions between the two groups.

Since 1999 and the return of a civilian regime to Nigeria's central government, 12 northern states have introduced Islamic Sharia law.

Religious clashes between Muslims and Christians in Bauchi state killed five people in February.

A Muslim mob went on the rampage, attacking Christians and burning churches in reprisals over the burning of two mosques, which Muslims blamed on Christians, they said.

More than 700 people died last November in Jos, capital of Plateau state, when a political feud over a local election degenerated into bloody confrontation between Muslims and Christians.

One of the Nigerian Taliban leaders, Aminu Tashen-Ilimi, told AFP in a 2005 interview that the group intended to lead an armed insurrection and rid society of "immorality" and "infidelity."

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Q+A-Who are the Islamic sect in northern Nigeria?
31 Jul 2009 07:13:27 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Nick Tattersall

LAGOS, July 31 (Reuters) - The leader of a radical Islamic sect in northern Nigeria was shot dead in police custody late on Thursday after days of clashes between his followers and the security forces killed hundreds of people.

Militant preacher Mohammed Yusuf, whose Boko Haram sect wants a wider adoption of sharia (Islamic law) across Africa's most populous nation, was captured after a manhunt involving military helicopters, soldiers and armed police.

The violence first erupted on Sunday in Bauchi state after some members of the group were arrested on suspicion of plotting to attack a police station.

For the latest story, click on [nLV406672]

Following are questions and answers on who the group are, what they want, and whether their ideology is widely followed.

WHO OR WHAT IS BOKO HARAM?

Sometimes referred to as the "Nigerian Taliban", the group's members are followers of a self-proclaimed Islamic scholar, Mohammed Yusuf, who was radically opposed to Western education and wants sharia (Islamic law) to be adopted across Nigeria.

Based in Maiduguri, capital of the northeastern state of Borno, his followers include former university lecturers and students in other northern states including Kano, Yobe, Sokoto and Bauchi, as well as illiterate, jobless youths.

Boko Haram means "Western education is sinful" in the Hausa language spoken across northern Nigeria and sums up the main pillar of the group's ideology. Some of its members resigned their jobs as lecturers when they joined the sect.

Yusuf himself, who was born in 1970, had 4 wives and 12 children. He had considerable private wealth and received a Western-style education, but his followers -- who come from diverse ethnic backgrounds in the predominantly Muslim north -- say he was also educated in Iran.

Boko Haram followers pray in separate mosques in cities including Maiduguri, Kano and Sokoto, and wear long beards and red or black headscarves.

They believe their wives should not be seen by any men other than themselves and are not supposed to use Western-made goods.

Anybody who does not follow their strict ideology -- whether Christian or Muslim -- is considered an infidel.

WHY DID THE VIOLENCE ERUPT?

President Umaru Yar'Adua has said the security agencies had been tracking the sect for several years, describing them as a "potentially dangerous group" who have been gathering weapons and intelligence to try to force their views on Nigerians.

Violence broke out in Bauchi state on Sunday when some members of the group were arrested on suspicion of plotting to attack a police station. Unrest quickly spread to other cities across northern Nigeria.

Yar'Adua ordered the security forces to use all necessary means to control the situation after sect members armed with machetes, knives, home-made hunting rifles and petrol bombs went on the rampage attacking churches and government buildings.

IS THERE A HISTORY OF SECTARIAN VIOLENCE IN NIGERIA?

Africa's most populous nation is roughly equally divided between Christians and Muslims and more than 200 ethnic groups generally live peacefully side by side, although civil war left one million dead between 1967 and 1970.

The stricter enforcement of sharia in 12 of Nigeria's 36 states in 2000 alienated sizeable Christian minorities in the north and sparked clashes which killed thousands.

In 2002 at least 215 people died in rioting in the northern city of Kaduna following a newspaper article suggesting the Prophet Mohammad would probably have married one of the beauty queens at a Miss World contest being held in Abuja.

A Muslim protest against Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in the northern city of Maiduguri ran out of control in 2006, sparking a week of rioting which killed at least 157.

There have also been clashes between Muslim and Christian gangs in central Nigeria, a region known as the Middle Belt, most recently last November in the wake of a disputed local government chairmanship election, although the hostilities were more about politics than religion.

DOES RADICAL ISLAM HAVE A FOOTHOLD IN WEST AFRICA?

West Africa has a strong tradition of moderate Sufi Islam whose brotherhoods are renowned for their tolerance, particularly in the Sahel -- the southern fringe of the Sahara desert stretching across the northern edge of Nigeria.

Salafist insurgents from Algeria, Tablighi clerics from Pakistan and Wahabist missionaries from Saudi Arabia -- all seen as potential threats by Western intelligence services -- have tried to gain a foothold in the region in recent years.

By and large they have failed.

Islamic jurisprudence in Nigeria is based on the moderate Maliki school of Sunni Islam, and Boko Haram's ideology is widely dismissed by the country's Muslim leaders and believers.

The main militant threat in the Sahara is seen as al Qaeda's North African wing, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which grew out of Algeria's civil war in the 1990s and was formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).

Nigeria arrested a group of Islamists with suspected links to al Qaeda in 2007 and some Western diplomats have expressed concerns that -- with its huge population, widespread poverty and strategic importance as an oil supplier to the West and to China -- it could become a target for radical Islamic groups.

Boko Haram's apparently chaotic tactics have little in common with those of Islamic militant groups elsewhere and no conclusive evidence of al Qaeda's presence in Nigeria or of links to the Taliban in Afghanistan has been made public.

(For more Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://af.reuters.com/ ) (Additional reporting by Ibrahim Mshelizza in Maiduguri, Faruku Umar in Sokoto, Ardo Hazzad in Bauchi)

Were deaths of 4 Afghan women a matter of 'honour'?

That's a theory being pursued by police as family members are charged with first-degree murder in bizarre drownings of a woman and three teenaged girls in the Rideau Canal
Jul 24, 2009 04:30 AM
Andrew Chung
In Kingston, Ont.
Daniel Dale
In Toronto


After the tragedy, the mother and father wept, while the eldest son lashed out in anger, each calling it an accident, a rebellious teenager's joyride gone terribly wrong.

Yesterday, as they filed, handcuffed, one by one, into the prisoners' box, prosecutors offered a much darker explanation, calling it murder.

Authorities are exploring the possibility the deaths of three sisters and another woman, found dead in their car in the Rideau Canal in Kingston, were an "honour" killing, a crime typically committed by males against female relatives perceived to have brought shame upon the family.

Father, Mohammad Shafia, 56, wearing a shy smile; mother, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 39, dabbing her eyes with a tissue; and son, Hamed Mohammad Shafia, with an icy stare, were all charged with four counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

They did not enter a plea, and were remanded into custody.

The Shafia sisters – Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17 and Geeti, 13 – died along with Rona Amir Mohammed, 50, on June 30. Their car, a Nissan Sentra, was found underwater near the Kingston Mills locks. The Montreal family was returning from a trip to Niagara Falls when they stopped for the night at a motel in Kingston.

Immediately after the incident, family members told reporters that Rona Amir Mohammed was the father's cousin. However, police now say she was, in fact, Shafia's first wife.

Trouble appears to have been percolating inside the Shafia household. Montreal's child protection agency, the Direction de la protection de la jeunesse, visited the family on three occasions several months ago, sources told La Presse in Montreal.

Hamed Mohammad Shafia was harsh and authoritarian with his sisters, police sources said, and Zainab had complained to police, who referred the matter to child protection services because the brother was not yet 18.

The charges indicate investigators believe the plans to commit the murders began as early as May.

Yesterday, Kingston Police Chief Stephen Tanner began a press conference with a moment of silence for the victims. They "all shared the rights within our great country to live without fear, to enjoy safety and security, and to exercise freedom of choice and expression and yet had their lives cut short by members of their own family."

Asked whether police believe the deaths were "honour" killings, as suggested in an email to police by Rona Amir Mohammed's sister Diba Masoomi, who lives in France, Tanner suggested it was possible but not certain and will form part of the investigation.

Neither Tanner nor Insp. Brian Begbie would directly give a motive for the murders. Tanner noted the behaviour of one or more of the teenagers may have played a role.

The Shafia family hails from Kabul, Afghanistan, one of the countries in which honour crimes are most common, and lived in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, for 15 years before arriving in Canada two years ago.

In the days following the deaths, family members speculated to reporters that one of the sisters, likely Zainab, might have taken the car to practise driving.

The family members said Zainab was rebellious and had taken the car in the past.

But this is "false," Begbie said. Investigators believe that on the night of the murders, the three accused operated the car. He did not say if the victims were dead before the car entered the water.

The family's version of events was always puzzling to investigators, particularly as to how the car made it through numerous obstacles to end in the water at the locks.

Speaking to reporters shortly after the deaths, the parents appeared to be distraught. On July 3, Shafia sobbed as he held a photo album in the family's home. "Three night no sleeping, no eating."

The application of the phrase "honour killing" can be contentious, particularly for minority communities that fear being collectively tarred by the violence of a small number of people.

Anver Emon, a University of Toronto law professor who specializes in Islamic law, said he sympathizes with such concerns but supports the employment of the phrase when justified by the facts.

"From a social perspective, you don't want to criminalize a community by associating them with a particular, heinous act of violence," Emon said.

"On the other hand, from a legal perspective ... why `honour killing' can be useful is that it captures the idea of a kind of premeditation – that this wasn't an in-the-moment, spur-of-the-moment crime of passion but something that may have been planned. . . . It speaks to a kind of evil and hideousness that we must at all times prevent."

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Daughter's lifestyle angered parents

Relatives of murder victim say the Shafias disapproved of their eldest child's love interest


Ingrid Peritz

Montreal — Last updated on Friday, Jul. 24, 2009 10:52PM EDT

One of the teenage girls allegedly killed by members of her Afghan-born family in Kingston, Ont., had been dating a Pakistani boy in Montreal against her parents' wishes, according to a man and woman who say they are siblings of one of the victims.

Zainab Shafia had gone out several times with the boy and even left the family home once, and was roughed up by her younger brother as a result, according to the relatives, Diba Masoomi and Wali Abdali, who live in France.

The bodies of 19-year-old Zainab Shafia and her sisters, aged 17 and 13, were found in a submerged car in a lock near Kingston last month. Rona Mohammad – the sister of Ms. Masoomi and Mr. Abdali – was also killed.

The girls' parents and 18-year-old brother Hamed Mohammad-Shafia are charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

“She [Zainab] had fallen in love, like all teenagers at a certain point,” Mr. Abdali told CTV News. “The parents didn't like that she should marry a Pakistani boy without money or wealth. They didn't want it to be seen by society, or by other Afghans.”

Rona, 50, confided to her two siblings that she overheard Mr. Shafia saying he would kill his eldest daughter over her behaviour and the relationship.

The Shafia family had told reporters after the deaths that Rona was the father's cousin. Mr. Abdali said that, in fact, his sister Rona was married to Mohammad Shafia but was unable to bear children. He took a second wife with whom he had seven children. Rona remained in the family and helped raised the children.

But family tensions had worsened. Mr. Shafia, a well-to-do businessman, was authoritarian and violent; Rona feared for her life, her brother said.

“The family situation had deteriorated,” he said. The second wife, Tooba Mohammad Yehya, didn't want the first wife around, he said.

Rona was nervous about going on the trip to Niagara Falls but Mr. Shafia insisted; in the household, he was “the master,” Mr. Adbali said. Rona had wanted to get a divorce but her husband refused, he said.

Zainab and her two younger sisters were close, “kept secrets” among themselves and confided in Rona, the siblings in France said.

Mr. and Mrs. Shafia told reporters at their home this month that they had pulled into a Kingston motel late at night after a long drive from Niagara Falls, and only discovered their daughters' missing car in the morning. But Rona called relatives in Europe at about 3 p.m. local Canadian time and said the family had already pulled into the motel.

They planned to set off to Montreal at around midnight to avoid traffic, Rona said.

The relative told Rona to be careful, but Rona tried to be reassuring, her brother said. “No, no, no, the children are with us, we're all together,” she said.

A few hours later, Rona and the three sisters were dead.


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Car landed in canal via unlikely route

Detectives baffled at how aunt, three nieces from Montreal met their fate in Rideau Canal


Les Perreaux

Montreal — From Friday's Globe and Mail Last updated on Friday, Jul. 24, 2009 01:19AM EDT

On a still but rainy night, the black Nissan Sentra had to thread two needles before plunging into the Rideau Canal just north of Kingston, leaving local detectives baffled.

The four-door car carrying three Montreal sisters and an aunt to their graves likely turned north off Kingston Mills Road, where it had to skirt a locked green gate barring vehicle access to the canal.

The rocky ground next to the gate would have given the Nissan a bump, but the 1.7-metre-wide compact could probably have squeezed past. It's unlikely the manoeuvre was a simple wrong turn.

The next obstacle was the canal itself, with stone moorings spaced a few metres apart, and the ancient black iron control wheel standing about a metre above the canal's edge.

If the car went straight from the road into the water, the driver would have had to make a quick left turn into the canal. Witnesses and police say there are no skid marks in the green grass next to the canal, no telltale signs of sudden braking, turning or acceleration.

It would have been a smooth turn made at a reasonable speed. The stone edge of the canal shows just a few scrapes from the car sliding in.

“The area is fairly level, there are rocky areas, but you'd still have to do some manoeuvring to get out to this spot,” said Constable Mike Menor of Kingston police.

The car was discovered at 9 a.m. Tuesday in three metres of water right next to the lock gates. Nearby residents had heard a noise some six hours earlier. Three sisters and their aunt were found inside.

Kingston police identified 19-year-old Zainab Shafia, 17-year-old Sahar Shafia and 13-year-old Geeti Shafia as the sisters who were found in the vehicle. The body of their aunt, Rona Amir Mohammed, 50, was also retrieved from the vehicle. All four victims were from St-Leonard, a borough in Montreal.

Investigators say the condition of the bodies suggests they'd gone into the water overnight.

Police are left to sort through a myriad of theories, each with glaring problems and unlikely probabilities.

“We're still trying to ascertain the why, the why, the why,” said Constable Menor, a 20-year veteran of the force. “It's the unknowns. I can't recall anything like it. It was there for a reason, it didn't drop out of the sky.”

Without revealing details, police say the foursome had spent the earlier part of the evening in Kingston.

“We pieced together that they did have a bit of a family vacation west of us on the other side of Toronto and were returning to Quebec,” said Staff Sergeant Chris Scott of the Kingston police criminal investigations division.

With picnic tables along the canal shore, the tourists from Montreal may have stopped for a moment before the plunge. But 3 a.m. would be an unusual time for a picnic in the secluded spot.

Perhaps the driver didn't know the canal was there, or perhaps she didn't care. Police have not excluded a suicide pact, murder-suicide or something as simple as the bad luck of a misguided U-turn or mistaking “drive” for “reverse.”

Another possibility is that the passengers were already dead and someone else pushed the Nissan into the canal, with the four females inside.

Montreal police said they were asked by Kingston police to locate a second vehicle in Montreal that may have been seen with the Nissan. Late Thursday, Kingston police denied they were looking for another vehicle.

Autopsies were performed Thursday but results could take weeks, investigators said.

Kingston police have refused to reveal if there were signs of violence on the bodies.

With a report from Dakshana Bascaramurty andThe Canadian Press



Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 48, of Glendale, is seen in an undated photo provided by the Peoria Police Dept. HHe is suspected of running down his daughter because she was becoming too 'Westernized' and was not living according to their traditional Iraqi values. Police say 48-year-old Faleh Hassan Almaleki of Glendale allegedly ran his daughter down Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009 at an Arizona Department of Economic Security parking lot in Peoria.The victim, 20-year-old Noor Faleh Almaleki of Surprise, remains hospitalized with life-threatening injuries.
(AP Photo/Peoria, Ariz., Police Dept.)


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Father accused of murdering his 15-year-old daughter in 'honour killing' told her to 'kiss her youngest brother goodbye'

By Lucy Ballinger
Last updated at 3:09 AM on 21st October 2009



Tulay Goren

'Tied up': The court heard how Tulay Goren's mother found her bound and face down on her bedroom floor

A schoolgirl murdered by her father in an 'honour killing' was told to kiss her brother goodbye the day she went missing, a court has heard.

Mehmet Goren, 45, told his daughter Tulay, 15, to let her brother embrace her one last time in an emotional farewell, it is alleged.

Her mother Hanim, 45, said her husband had tied up Tulay with bits cut from a shawl and left her face-down on the floor of her bedroom the night before, the Old Bailey heard.

He and his brothers Ali, 55, and Cuma Goren, 42, are charged with Tulay's murder, and the attempted murder of her boyfriend Halil Unal, then 30, in 1999.

They were furious the pair planned to marry as he was a Sunni Muslim, while their family were Alevis, the court has heard. The day before Tulay went missing Mrs Goren and her husband visited their daughter at her boyfriend's home and insisted she come home with them.

Mrs Goren claimed when she returned home from picking up their other young children eight-year-old Tuncay, and Hatice, 13, she found Tulay with her hands and feet bound so tightly they were 'purple and black'.

Speaking through an interpreter, she said she and Hatice had tried to untie Tulay but she had said: 'Mum don't untie me, I want to die.'

She told the court: 'In the meantime Mehmet had come from downstairs saying, "Don't touch her... so that she doesn't run away again, I tied her up''.

Later that night Tulay was seen by Mrs Goren trying to escape from a window. Mehmet is said to have slapped her and then drugged her with a sleeping pill.

The next morning Mehmet told his wife to take their children to his brother Cuma's house, but leave Tulay. She wept as she told the court he said to her: 'I am going to stay with Tulay. I am going to make her talk about what her problems are.'


In the dock: A court sketch of Tulay's father Mehmet (far right) with his brothers Ali and Cuma during their trial at the Old Bailey

She added: 'Mehmet said "Come let Tuncay kiss you, Tulay. This will be the last time you see each other.'' Mehmet phoned his wife later that day to say the teenager had run away.

The next day when they returned to their family home Mrs Goren said her husband had a 'deep wound' on his hand and that his hands were covered with scratches. Two kitchen knives were also missing.

She said: 'Mehmet's hands were exactly like as if he had been working in the garden without gloves.'

She also said soil in the back garden had been disturbed.

Mrs Goren claimed her husband told her to disown Tulay.

She said: 'He said to me "From now on she is gone, I disown her. She is not my child any more. From now on we don't have four children any more, we will have three children only."

The prosecution claim Mehmet had buried Tulay's body in the back garden.

Mehmet Goren, Cuma Goren, and Ali Goren, all of East London, deny the murder of Tulay on January 7 1999. They also deny a conspiracy to murder Mr Unal.

The case continues.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1221705/Mother-honour-killing-victim-tied-day-murdered-father.html#ixzz0ZnDQtjPp


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Sheema Khan
The shame of honour crimes

It’s time to stop the importation of this murderous custom


Between 2001 and 2004, Haideh Moghissi, Saeed Rahnema and Mark J. Goodman of York University conducted an extensive study of about 2,000 immigrants to Canada from Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Palestinian territories and Jordan.

Not surprisingly, immigrants experienced a clash of cultures, including tension between individual rights and community loyalty. Another key area was gender equality: Immigrants believed women had more independence and rights in Canada than in their country of origin. Female immigrants believed this to be a good thing; the men weren’t so sure. Unsurprisingly, gender equity was found to be a primary source of tension between spouses. The study did not probe the cultural schizophrenia experienced by immigrant youths, or how families retained cohesiveness in the face of these tensions. This analysis is essential, given the recent murders of young women by family members for pursuing individual choices contrary to tradition.

Between 2006 and 2009, at least three women have been killed in Ontario for breaching family “honour.” Recently, a Montreal-area Afghan-Canadian woman was charged with attempted murder of her 19-year-old daughter, apparently after she came home late. While these unproven allegations are shocking, more so are the roles alleged to have been played by victims’ brothers.

In 2006, Khatera Sadiqi, 20, and fiancé Feroz Mangal, 23 were shot to death in Ottawa by Ms. Sadiqi’s brother. Ms. Sadiqi’s father did not approve of her fiancé; brother Hasibullah sought to “restore” the Afghan family’s honour by killing her. He received a 25-year prison sentence.

In 2007, 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez’s brother and father murdered her in their Mississauga home for allegedly “shaming” the Pakistani family with her preference for Western norms. Family members told police that retribution was the price to pay for violating cultural and religious boundaries. Each man received a life prison sentence.

In one other case that has yet to go to trial, so none of the allegations are proven, Zainab Shafia, 19, her sisters Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13, and their father’s first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, 50, were found dead in a car submerged in the Rideau Canal. The parents and brother of the girls were charged with first-degree murder. Police hinted they believe “honour” was the motive.

Misogyny over gender equality, tribalism over individuality, control over freedom. One would think that the younger generation would shed old customs in favour of new ones. But according to University of Toronto professor Shahrzad Mojab (who served as an expert witness on honour killing at Hasibullah Sadiqi’s trial), members of diaspora communities tend to cling to their traditions tenaciously in order to preserve a distinct identity. In cultures where control of women represents male control over the family, an individualistic female “tarnishes” a male’s reputation and “shames” the family in the eyes of the community. Honour is “purified” by killing the source of shame.

Combined with the York University study, this analysis makes it seem that Canada’s spate of honour crimes may continue. Cultural tensions, male domination and instant social messaging are ingredients for disaster. Indiscretions can be instantly broadcast to the world, leaving young women vulnerable to retribution.

We must act quickly before more blood is shed. These barbaric acts should be clearly designated as honour crimes, making it clear that such customs are unwelcome and will be severely punished. There should be wide publication of the long prison sentences recently meted out.

Community leaders must unequivocally condemn imported misogynous practices and attitudes. They should deal with the root causes of gender-based violence head on, rather than blaming the media for image problems. It’s time for a critical examination of violence rooted in religious and cultural tradition.

A comprehensive effort must be made to reach vulnerable families in communities that value family “honour” above all else. This must include social programs directed to violence-prone males, such as the Cease Fire program in Chicago, which has successfully reversed gang violence. Its basic elements could be adopted to help prevent gender-based violence. The program uses a public health approach to address at-risk communities and individuals by using street-level outreach, public education, community organizations, faith leaders and the police to change community norms.

Women are dead as a result of breaching family honour. Who knows how many live under the threat of violence? It’s time to take off the gloves of political correctness and stop the importation of this murderous custom.

Tarek Fatah: How to Cure the 'Cancer' of Honour Killings

How to Cure the 'Cancer' of Honour Killings

Yesterday at 5:45am
“There is no denying that Islam, in its contemporary expression, is obsessed with women's sexuality, and considers it a fundamental problem. The hijab, the niqab, the burka and polygamy are all manifestations of this phobia.”

Tarek Fatah
The National Post

Almost as soon as news broke that the murders of three Afghan-Canadian teenage sisters and their father's first wife in Kingston, Ont., were possible "honour killings," some in the Muslim community reacted in the most predictable fashion: defensiveness and denial.

Instead of voicing outrage at the murders, two Muslim callers to my CFRB radio show in Toronto slammed me for raising the subject, and suggested I had some hidden agenda. "This has nothing to do with Islam," said one caller, despite the fact no one on the show had, to that point, even mentioned the word "Islam," let alone accused the religion of sanctioning honour killings.

The callers were not alone. The head of the Canadian branch of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) told the CBC more or less the same thing - that the story was unrelated to Islam, which apparently does not permit honour killings.

They are both right and wrong. It is true that Islam's holy book, the Koran, does not sanction honour killings. But to deny the fact that many incidents of honour killings are conducted by Muslim fathers, sons and brothers, and that many victims are Muslim women, is to exercise intellectual dishonesty. At worst, it is an attempt to shut off debate.

When Mississauga, Ont., teenager Aqsa Pervez was killed, everyone from Mullahs to so-called Muslim feminists claimed it was not an honour killing - even though there were allegations she had run afoul of her family for socializing with non-Muslim friends and not wearing a hijab. Critics then charged that to refer to the murder in such words was to be an anti-Muslim bigot. Humbug.

As I said, it is true that the Koran does not sanction such murders, but man-made sharia law, which has been falsely imputed divine status, does allow for the killing of women if they indulge in pre-marital or extra-marital consensual sex. This is precisely why so many progressive and liberal Muslims have opposed the introduction of sharia law in Canada.

There is no denying that Islam, in its contemporary expression, is obsessed with women's sexuality, and considers it a fundamental problem. The hijab, the niqab, the burka and polygamy are all manifestations of this phobia.

The mullahs and the mosque leadership may deny their role in ensuring that Muslim women are second-class citizens within the community, but the place they reserve for women in the house of God, the Mosque, reveals their real conviction. Other than one mosque in Toronto, not a single other is willing to let Muslim women sit in the front row. They are sent to the back, or behind curtains, or pushed into basements or balconies, for they are considered not as our mothers or daughters and sisters, but as sexual triggers that may ignite male passions.

Honour killings take place because some Muslims have been convinced by their mullahs that the burden of their family's honour and their religion is vested in the virginity of their daughters and sisters. Most mullahs acknowledge that according to sharia law, a woman who has consensual sex with a man outside marriage deserves to be lashed in public or stoned to death by an Islamic State or an Islamic court. Don't these Islamists see how this interpretation can be taken as a license by men to take the law into their own hands?

Not until Muslim clerics and imams seriously abandon their notion about women being the possession of men will we begin to address the cancer of honour killings, which take more than 5,000 lives in South Asia and the Middle East alone.

The underlying mentality is a problem in virtually all parts of the world. In October 2006, for instance, an Australian imam of Lebanese descent, the country's most senior Muslim cleric, triggered outrage when he described women who dress immodestly (in his view) as "uncovered meat" who invite sexual attacks. Sheikh Taj Al-din al-Hilali, the so-called Mufti of Australia, condemned women who, he said, "sway suggestively," wear makeup, and do not wear the hijab.

Until 2007, only men had translated the Koran and interpreted it. That's because the very idea of a woman translating the holy book offends Islamists. Consider, for example, the reaction to the first-ever translation by a woman - Laleh Bakhtiar's The Sublime Quran - two years ago.

Mohammad Ashraf of the Canadian branch of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) - the same gentleman who this week told the CBC that there was no provision for honour killings in Islam - told The Toronto Star that he would not permit The Sublime Quran to be sold in the ISNA bookstore. "Our bookstore would not allow this kind of translation," he said. "I will consider banning it ... This woman-friendly translation will be out of line and will not fly too far."

What had Laleh Bakhtiar done to deserve the punishment of having her translation of the Koran banned from ISNA's Islamic bookstores? Her fault, in the eyes of Islamists, is that she believes the Koran does not condone spousal abuse, as claimed by Islamists.

If a woman's translation of the Koran is banned from an Islamic bookstore, what is available at such places. At one Toronto bookstore, the title of a gaudy paperback screamed at passersby: Women Who Deserve to Go to Hell. The book, which is also widely available in British libraries and mosques, lists the type of women who will face eternal damnation.

Among them are:

•"The Grumbler ... the woman who complains against her husband every now and then is one of Hell."
• "The Woman Who Adorns Herself."
•"The Woman Who Apes Men, Tattoos, Cuts Hair Short and Alters Nature."

Not until the leadership of the Muslim clergy takes steps to end gender apartheid and misogyny(Hatred of women) will they be taken seriously when they say, "honour killing" is not permitted by Islam. They cannot have it both ways: proclaim women as the source of sin as well as deserving of death for consensual sex, and then claim the men who carry out the death sentence are acting against Islamic law.

Male Truths, Female Consequences

Former president Jimmy Carter and other world leaders issued this statement: "The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable." What's your reaction to these statements? Are 'male interpretations of religious texts' to blame for the 'deprivation of women's equal rights?'

Women's equality with men is long overdue. In particular, societies need to safeguard women's right to self-determination -- from personal moral choices about how to lead their lives, to familial decisions about marriage and children, to agency in educational, economic, political, social, medical, and religious spheres.

Some of this can be accomplished through legal channels, but much more of it will require fundamental shifts in attitudes away from patriarchal understandings of human nature that proclaim men have the right to determine the course of women's lives, and which delineate gender roles so rigidly as to remove all possibility of deviation from gender norms for both men and women.

We will also have to reject totalitarian political notions that lead to excessive interventions by states into the personal lives of their citizens, whether it be something as trivial as requiring or forbidding certain attire, or something as momentous as curtailing women's freedom of movement, their economic opportunities, and their political participation.

Patriarchal interpretations of religious texts -- whether by men or by women -- have been instrumental in supporting and creating cultural and traditional mores that circumscribe women's freedom and equality. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Muslim world, where religious patriarchy has intersected with social conservatism, political and theological totalitarianism, and reactionary resistance to political, economic and cultural colonialism to create devastating consequences for women's lives.

Lost in all the interpretation and history are the profoundly egalitarian ideals of the Qur'an such as we find in 49:13, ""O mankind! We have created you male and female, and made you into nations and tribes so that you might come to know one another. The most honorable among you in the sight of God is the most pious."

Or, even more aptly, 33:35 "For Muslim men and women,- for believing men and women, for devout men and women, for true men and women, for men and women who are patient and constant, for men and women who humble themselves, for men and women who give in Charity, for men and women who fast, for men and women who guard their chastity, and for men and women who engage much in Allah's praise,- for them has Allah prepared forgiveness and great reward,"

Or 4:32-33: 32: Hence, do not covet the bounties which God has bestowed more abundantly on some of you than on others. Men shall have a benefit from what they earn, and women shall have a benefit from what they earn. Ask, therefore, God [to give you] out of His bounty: behold, God has indeed full knowledge of everything. 33: And unto everyone have We appointed heirs to what he may leave behind: parents, and near kinsfolk, and those to whom you have pledged your troth (Good faith; fidelity.)give them, therefore, their share. Behold, God is indeed a witness unto everything.

It would be disingenuous, though, to pretend that the Qur'an does not have verses which do not uphold such egalitarian principles. Verses that prescribe differential inheritances for males and females of the same familial relationship, or that posit men as the financial supporters of women, or impose differential dress codes upon men and women. To be sure, each verse that depicts a patriarchal family structure is countered by two or three that describe men and women as equal partners, that describe familial decision making as a process of mutual consultation and such. But the fact remains that the Qur'an provides ample material for patriarchal arguments to hold weight with the religious community.

In my personal life, I see those verses, which come from the more legalistic and latter revelations, as recognition of the economics that ruled at the time of the Prophet's community in Medina. In fact, most of them appear to be intended to mitigate the most egregious of the abuses of women at the time (for instance from having no inheritance rights at all, they were given mandated shares). They are rules that apply to that social and economic milieu, while the egalitarian verses map out the ideals for that society to aim for, a road map to a future in which men and women live in equality.

Others, see them as a blueprint for all human societies in perpetuity.

Either way, many of the excesses of modern Muslim society cannot be justified by any verse in the Qur'an, but rely upon extrapolation, analogy, and patriarchal notions of public welfare.

That is why it is so important for religious authorities, especially male religious authorities to help turn back the tide of the excessive curtailment of women's rights and demand their right to full participation in every sphere of life. It is essential for them to emphasize the importance of overarching and fundamental values, many of which the more conservative parts of the Muslim world seem to have lost touch with.

By Pamela K. Taylor | July 22, 2009; 8:29 AM ET

Ghusl/Bath Details as per Islam

Ghusl: Obligatory Baths

http://www.shiatv.net/search_result.php?search_id=ghusl


There are seven obligatory baths:

* Bath for Janabat
* Bath for Hayz (for women only)
* Bath for Nifas (for women only)
* Bath for Istihaza (for women only)
* Bath for touching a dead body
* Bath for a dead body
* Bath which becomes obligatory on account of a vow or an oath to perform it.

Rules Regarding Janabat
351. * A person enters the state of Janabat in two ways:

* Sexual intercourse
* Discharge of semen, while sleeping or when awake, little or more, with lust or otherwise, voluntarily or involuntarily.

352. When one cannot ascertain whether the fluid emitted from one's body is semen, urine or something else, it will be treated as semen if it is thrown out with lust and if the body is slackened. If all or some of these signs are not present the fluid will not be treated as semen. In the case of illness, the fluid may not come out with sudden swiftness and the body may not slacken; but if the emission takes place with lust, it will be treated as semen.

353. If a fluid emitted by a healthy person possesses one of the aforesaid three signs and he does not know whether or not it also possessed other signs, and if before the emission he was with wudhu he will content himself with that wudhu. And if he was not with wudhu, it would be sufficient for him to perform wudhu only, and Ghusl would not be necessary.

354. It is Mustahab that a person should urinate after the seminal discharge. If he did not urinate and an emission was seen after Ghusl, which could not been determined as semen or something else, it would be treated as semen.

355. If a person has sexual intercourse with a woman and the male organ enters either of the private parts of the woman up to the point of circumcision or more, both of them enter Janabat, regardless of whether they are adults or minors and whether ejaculation takes place or not.

356. If a person doubts whether or not his penis penetrated up to the point of circumcision, Ghusl will not become obligatory on him.

357. If (God forbid!) a person has sexual intercourse with an animal and ejaculates, Ghusl alone will be sufficient for him, and if he does not ejaculate and he was with wudhu at the time of committing the unnatural act even then Ghusl will be sufficient for him. However, if he was not with wudhu at that time, the obligatory precaution is that he should do Ghusl and also perform wudhu. And the same orders apply if one commits sodomy.

358. If movement of seminal fluid is felt but not emitted, or if a person doubts whether or not semen has been ejaculated, Ghusl will not be obligatory upon him.

359. A person who is unable to do Ghusl, but can perform tayammum is allowed to have sexual intercourse with his wife even after the time for daily prayers has set in.

360. If a person observes semen on his dress and knows that it is his own, and he has not done Ghusl on that account, he should do Ghusl, and repeat as Qadha all those prayers about which he is certain that he offered them after the discharge of semen. However, it is not necessary for him to repeat those prayers about which there is a probability that he might have offered them before the discharge of semen.
Forbidden Acts for those in Janabat

361. * The following five things are Haraam for junub:

* To touch with any part of one's body the script of the holy Qur'an or the Name of Almighty Allah in whichever language it may be. And it is better that the names of the holy Prophet and Imams and Hazrat Fatima Zahra (peace be upon them) should also not be touched in that condition.
* Entering Masjidul Haraam or Masjidun Nabi, even though it may be only passing from one gate and going out of another.
* To stay or halt in all other Masjids, and similarly, on the basis of obligatory precaution, to stay in the shrines of the holy Imams. However, there is no harm if one crosses or traverses through a mosque, entering from one gate and exiting from another.
* To enter a mosque with an intention of lifting away something or placing something in it.
* To recite those verses of the holy Qur'an on the recitation of which performance of Sajdah becomes obligatory. These verses occur in four surahs of the holy Qur'an:
o Surah Alif Lam Mim as-Sajdah, 32:15
o Surah Ha Mim Sajdah, 41:38
o Surah an-Najm, 53:62
o Surah al 'Alaq, 96:19

Things which are Makrooh for Junub

362. * The following nine things are Makrooh for junub:

* To eat
* To drink
But if the junub washes his or her face, hands and mouth, then eating or drinking in that state will not be Makrooh. And if he or she washes the hands only, then unworthiness of the acts is reduced.
* To recite more than seven verses of the holy Qur'an other than those in which obligatory Sajdah occur.
* To touch the cover, the margin or border of the holy Qur'an or the space between its lines, with any part of one's body.
* To keep the holy Qur'an with oneself.
* To sleep. But its would not be Makrooh to sleep if the person concerned performs wudhu or performs tayammum instead of Ghusl on account of non-availability of water.
* To dye one's hair with henna etc
* To apply oil on one's body.
* To have sexual intercourse after Ihtelam (i.e. discharge of semen during sleep).

Ghusl for Janabat

363. * Ghusl for Janabat is obligatory for offering the daily prayers and other similar acts of worship. However, it is not obligatory for Namaz-e-Mayyit or for sajdatus sahv (prostrating on account of oversight) or sajdatush shukr' (prostration for thanksgiving) or for the obligatory Sajdah upon reciting the four particular verses of the holy Qur'an. (Rule no. 361)

364. * At the time of doing ghusl, it is not necessary to have in mind that one is performing an obligatory Ghusl. It is sufficient if one performs the Ghusl with the intention of Qurbat, i.e. complying with Allah's orders.

365. If a person who performs Ghusl with the niyyat of Wajib after having ascertained that the time of Namaz had set in, comes to know after performing the bath that it was performed before the time for prayers had set in, the bath would be correct and valid.

366. * There are two methods of performing Ghusls, both Wajib and Mustahab.

* Tartibi (Sequential)
* Irtimasi (By submerging the whole body).

Tartibi

367. * In this method, a person should first make a niyyat for Ghusl. Thereafter one should first wash one's head and neck, and thereafter the remaining parts of one's body. It is better that one washes the right part of the body first and then the left part.

And if a person, while standing under the water, jerks each of these parts on one's body with an intention of performing Tartibi Ghusl, it will not be sufficient and the precaution is that one should not content oneself with it.

And if a person washes the body before washing the head, either intentionally, or on account of forgetfulness or because of not knowing the rule, Ghusl is void.

368. * If a person washed the body before the head it will not be necessary to repeat the bath. What one has to do is to wash the body again and Ghusl will then be correct.

369. In order to ensure that both the parts (head, neck and remaining parts of the body) have been washed thoroughly one should, while washing a part, also include some portion of the other part with it.

370. After the Ghusl, if a person realises that certain parts of the body have been left out, not knowing which, it will not be necessary to wash the head again. One will wash only those parts of one's body which one feels had not been washed.

371. If one realises after Ghusl that one has not washed a certain part of the body it is sufficient to wash only that part if it is the left side. However, if that part is the right side then the recommended precaution is that after washing that part of the body one should wash the left side again. And if the unwashed part is that of head and neck one should, after washing that part, wash the body once again.

372. * If a person doubts before completing Ghusl whether one has washed a part on the left or right side it will be necessary to wash that part and if one doubts about having washed a part of the head and neck then, as an obligatory precaution, one would wash that part and then wash the right and the left side of the body again.
Irtimasi

373. * Ghusl by way of Irtimasi is either carried out instantly or gradually. If the Ghusl of Irtimasi is to be done at one instance, then water must reach all parts of the body at one time. However, it is not necessary that the whole body be submerged in water from the very beginning of Ghusl. If a part of the body is outside, and is later submerged with the niyyat of Ghusl, it will be deemed in order.

374. If one wishes to perform Irtimasi Ghusl gradually, then it is necessary that the whole body is out of water before Ghusl commences. Then one would submerge one's body gradually in water with the intention of Ghusl.

375. If after performing Ghusl Irtimasi it becomes known that water has not reached some part of the body one should repeat the Ghusl, whether the part up to which water has not reached is determined or not.

376. If one does not have sufficient time for Tartibi, one should perform Ghusl by way of Irtimasi.

377. * A person who has put on Ihram for Hajj and Umrah is not allowed to perform Ghusl by way of Irtimasi. However, if one performs it forgetfully the Ghusl will be valid.
Rules About Ghusl

378. It is not necessary that the entire body of a person should be Pak before Irtimasi and Tartibi Ghusl. So, if the body becomes Pak while diving in water or pouring water over one's body with the intention of the Ghusl, the Ghusl will be in order.

379. If a person who entered the state of Janabat due to an unlawful act takes a bath with warm water, the Ghusl will be valid even though one may perspire at that time. But the recommended precaution is that such a person should do Ghusl with cold water.

380. While doing Ghusl, if a part of the body, however small, remains unwashed the Ghusl is invalid. But, it is not obligatory to wash the inside of the ear or nose and other places which are reckoned to be the interior of the body.

381. * If a person doubts whether a particular part of the body is to be treated as external or internal, it should be washed.

382. If the hole pierced for an earring and other similar objects is so wide that it is reckoned to be external, then it should be washed; otherwise it is not necessary to wash it.

383. All things which prevent water from reaching the body should be removed. If a person does Ghusl before ensuring that such obstacles have been removed, the Ghusl will be void.

384. At the time of Ghusl, if one doubts whether there is something on one's body which would prevent water from reaching the body, one should investigate and satisfy oneself that the obstacle is not there.

385. While doing Ghusl, one should wash the short hair which are taken as a part of the body. Washing of the long hair is not obligatory. However, if one makes water reach the skin in such a way that those long hair do not become wet, the Ghusl is in order. However, if it is not possible to make water reach the skin without washing those hair one should wash them so that water may reach the body.

386. All the conditions for the validity of Wudhu (e.g. the water being pure and not having been usurped) also apply to the validity of Ghusl. However, for Ghusl it is not necessary that the body be washed downwards from the head. Moreover, it is not necessary in Tartibi Ghusl to wash the body immediately after washing the head and the neck. There is no harm, therefore, if there is a lapse of some time after washing one's head and neck before washing one's body. It is not necessary that one should wash one's head, neck and body in one instance. However, if a person is incontinent, unable to retain urine or faeces except for such time that he could be able to offer prayers after Ghusl then he should do Ghusl at once and offer his prayers immediately thereafter.

387. If a person uses a public bath with an intention of deferring payment to its owner, without a prior consent of the owner, the Ghusl will be void even if the owner is later made to agree to the arrangement.

388. If the owner of the public bath is agreeable to the Ghusl being done on credit basis, but the person doing Ghusl intends not to pay the charges to him or to pay him from the money acquired illegally, the Ghusl will be void.

389. If a person pays to the owner of the public bath from the funds whose Khums (1/5 of the yearly profit see rule no. 1760) has not been paid, then such a person commits a sinful act, but the Ghusl will be valid, though the liability for khums remains.

390. If a person hires a public bath for Ghusl, but before commencing Ghusl, he or she carries out an extra function of making the anal part Pak with the same water of the public bath, and if it becomes doubtful whether the owner would agree to the Ghusl being taken, then the owner's consent must be sought before the Ghusl. Otherwise, the Ghusl will be void.

391. * When a person is in doubt whether he or she has done Ghusl or not, such a person must do Ghusl. However, if doubt arises in the mind after Ghusl as to whether Ghusl was correct or not, then there is no need to do Ghusl again.

392. * If one urinates or passes wind (or does any act which would invalidate the Wudhu) while doing the Ghusl, one does not have to abandon the Ghusl and start all over again. In fact, one can continue with the same Ghusl till completion. However, in this situation, one will have to do Wudhu also, as per obligatory precaution.

393. * A person who has very little time at his disposal before Qadha, should perform Tayammum instead of Ghusl. Yet, if such a person does Ghusl under the impression that there is sufficient time for Ghusl and offering prayers, the Ghusl will be valid, provided that it was done with the intention of complying with the orders of Allah, even if the Ghusl was done with a view to offering the prayers.

394. * If a person after being Junub doubts whether or not he or she did Ghusl, the prayers already offered during that period would be deemed valid. But for the later prayers, such a person should do the Ghusl. If any such act which would invalidate Wudhu is committed, like urinating or passing the wind, after the prayers, then it will be necessary to do Wudhu, and as an obligatory precaution, to repeat the prayers he had offered, if time permits.

395. A person who has more than one Ghusl to do can do one Ghusl with the niyyat of the rest. In fact, one Ghusl with its niyyat is enough to represent all others.

396. If a verse of the holy Qur'an or Name of the Almighty Allah is written or tattooed on the body of a person then such a person while doing Wudhu or Ghusl, will be required to pour water on that part without touching the writing.

397. A person who does Ghusl of Janabat should not do Wudhu for the prayers. In fact one can offer prayers without performing Wudhu after all Wajib Ghusls (except the bath for medium istihaza) as well as after Mustahab Ghusls (see rule no. 651). In the case of Mustahab Ghusls, however, it is better to do Wudhu as a recommended precaution.


Mustahab Ghusls

651. * In Islam, several Ghusls are Mustahab. Some of them are listed below:

* Ghusl-e-Jumuah: Its prescribed time is from Fajr to sunset, but it is better to perform it near Zuhr. If, however, a person does not perform it till noon, he can perform it till dusk without a Niyyat of either performing it on time or as Qadha. And if a person does not perform his Ghusl on Friday it is Mustahab that he should perform the Qadha of Ghusl on Saturday at any time between dawn and dusk. And if a person knows that it will not be possible for him to procure water for his Ghusl on Friday he can perform the Ghusl on Thursday with the Niyyat of Raja', that is, as a desirable act. And it is Mustahab to recite the following supplication while performing Friday Ghusl: 'Ash hadu an la ilaha il lal lahu wahdahu la sharika lah wa ash hadu anna Muhammadan 'abduhu wa Rasuluh. Alla humma salli 'ala Muhammadin wa Ali Muhammad waj'alni minat tawwabina waj'alni minal mutatahhirin. (I testify that there is none to be worshipped but Allah alone, Who has no associate and Muhammad is His servant and Messenger. O Allah! Bless Muhammad and his Progeny. And make me one of those who are repentant and pure).
* Taking baths on the 1st and 17th nights and in the earlier part of the 19th, 21st, 23rd nights and 24th night of the holy month of Ramadhan.
* Ghusl on Eidul Fitr day and Eidul Azha day. The time of this Ghusl is from Fajr up to sunset. It is, however, better to perform it before Eid prayers.
* Ghusl on the 8th and 9th of the month of Dhul-Hijj. As regards the bathing on the 9th of Dhul-Hijj it is better to perform it at noon-time.
* Ghusl by a person who has touched a dead body after it has been given Ghusl.
* Ghusl for Ihram (pilgrim's dress).
* Ghusl for entry into the haram of Makkah.
* Ghusl for entry into Makkah.
* Ghusl for visiting the holy Ka'bah.
* Ghusl for entry into the holy Ka'bah.
* Ghusl for slaughtering an animal and for shaving one's head (during pilgrimage).
* Ghusl for entry into Madinah, and its haram (sanctuary).
* Ghusl for entry into the Mosque of the holy Prophet.
* Ghusl at the time of bidding farewell to the sacred shrine of the holy Prophet.
* Ghusl for Mubahala (imprecation) with the enemy.
* Ghusl to a new-born child.
* Ghusl for Istakhara .
* Ghusl for offering Istisqa' - invocation for rains.

652. * The Fuqaha have mentioned many more Mustahab Ghusls, some of which are as follows:

* Ghusl on all odd nights of the month of Ramadhan and on each of its last 10 nights and in the last part of its 23rd night.
* Ghusl on the 24th day of Dhul-Hijj.
* Ghusl on the day of Eid-i-Nawroz and 15th of Sha'ban and 9th and 17th of Rabi'ul Awwal and the 25th day of Dhul-Qa'dah.
* Ghusl by a woman who has perfumed herself for someone other than her husband.
* Ghusl by one who slept in a state of intoxication.
* Ghusl by a person who went to witness the hanging and saw the hanged person. However, if his eyes fell on him by chance or helplessly, or if he had gone for example, to give evidence, Ghusl will not be Mustahab for him.
* Ghusl for the Ziyarat of the Masoomen (A.S.) whether from near or far. However, as a precaution, these Ghusls should be done with the Niyyat of 'Raja', (i.e. with a hope that it might be a desirable act).

653. After having taken the Mustahab Ghusl listed in rule no. 651, one can perform acts (e.g. prayers) for which Wudhu is necessary. However, Ghusl performed with the Niyyat of 'Raja' do not not suffice for Wudhu (i.e. Wudhu has to be performed).

 654. If a person wishes to perform a number of Mustahab Ghusls, one Ghusl with the Niyyat of performing all the Ghusls will be sufficient.



===========

“…but when ye are free from danger, set up Regular Prayers:
For such Prayers are enjoined on believers at stated times.”
(Qur'an: Chapter 4, Verse 103)
How to Perform
the Daily Prayers
It is obligatory to perform the following five prayers every day
during the prescribed times:
􀂉 Salat al-Fajr (Dawn prayer), which consist of two units (each
unit of prayer is called a rak`ah)
􀂉 Salat al-Zuhr (Midday prayer) consisting of four units
􀂉 Salat al-`Asr (Afternoon prayer) consisting of four units
􀂉 Salat al-Maghrib (Dusk prayer) which consist of three units
􀂉 Salat al-`Isha (Night prayer) consisting of four units.
Performing the Daily Prayers according to the Shi’ah Ja’fari school of
law involves taking prescribed steps in order (tartib) and in regular
succession without undue delay between them (muwalat). The person
must first perform preliminary purification (ghusl, if necessary, or
wudhu) and fulfil all other prerequisites.



Tashahhud : After the second prostration resume the kneeling position, and recite:
Ash hadu al laa ilaaha illallaahu wahdahu
laa shareeka lah,
wa ash hadu anna Muhammadan `abduhu
wa rasuluh
Allaahumma salli `alaa Muhammadin wa
Aali Muhammad
I bear witness that there is no god apart from
Allah, Who is unique and without partners.
I also bear witness that Muhammad is His
servant and His Prophet.
O God, bless Muhammad and the progeny of
Muhammad.
If you are performing the Fajr (Dawn) prayer, please skip the rest and go to section
entitled Completion.
If you are performing the Zuhr (Midday), `Asr (Afternoon), Maghrib (Dusk), or `Isha
(Night) prayer, continue by standing up for the third unit while reciting Bihawlillahi….
as described at the end of the section First Rak`ah.
Third Rak`ah
At-Tasbihat al-Arba`ah : After regaining the upright posture, either recite Surat al-
Fatiha, or recite al-Tasbihat al-Arba`ah three times, as follows:
Subhaanallaahi wa’l hamdu lillaahi wa laa ilaaha illallaahu wallaahu akbar
Glory be to God, and praise be to God; there is no god but Allah, and Allah is Greater
Perform the ruku`, stand up momentarily and then do the two sujud. This is exactly as
described under section First Rak`ah. If you are performing the Maghrib (Dusk)
prayers, recite the Tashahhud next. Then skip the rest and go to Completion.
If you are performing the Zuhr (Midday), `Asr (Afternoon), or `Isha (Night) prayer,
continue by standing up for the fourth rak`ah while reciting Bihawlillahi…. as
described at the end of the section First Rak`ah.
Fourth Rak`ah
This is identical to the third rak`ah. After the second prostration resume the kneeling
position, and recite the Tashahhud.
Completion
After reciting the Tashahhud of the final rak`ah, recite the Taslim (Salutation) which
completes your prayer:
Assalaamu `alayka ayyuhan nabiyyu wa
rahmatullaahi wa barakaatuh
Assalamu `alaynaa wa `alaa `ibaadillaahis
saaliheen
Assalamu `alaykum wa rahmatullaahi wa
barakaatuh
Peace be upon you, O Prophet, and God’s
mercy and blessing.
Peace be upon us, and upon the righteous
servants of God.
Peace be upon you [all], and God’s mercy and
blessing.
Thereafter (optionally) say Takbir three times.
To find out further details about the ritual and spiritual aspects
of the Daily Prayers, visit:
http://al-islam.org/faq/