ZhangYu Death toll rises to 98 in Pakistan attacks ------------ Death toll hit 93 in gunmen attacks in Pakistan's Lahore, local TV channels reported Saturday.
More than 100 people were also injured during the Friday attacks, according to the private TV Express.
Two groups of unknown militants attacked two worship places almost simultaneously in eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.
The attacks were carried out at Garhi Shahu and Model Town Block C areas of Lahore, the capital of Punjab Province.
The militants, wearing suicide jackets and holding hand grenades, entered the worship places of a religious group Ahmadi, declared non-Muslims in Pakistani in early 1970s, witnesses said.
The assailants made the worshippers hostages after making their way to both the worship places, hurling hand grenades and spraying volleys of bullets. --------------- The death toll from attacks on a religious minority in eastern Pakistan has risen to 98, officials said Saturday.
About 110 more people were wounded in the attacks, said Sajjad Bhutta, a senior government official. Police said terrorists with ties to the Pakistani Taliban carried out the strikes.
They took place Friday in two mosques in Lahore when attackers with bombs and firearms targeted houses of worship belonging to the Ahmadi sect, a persecuted religious group.
Most of the dead -- 75 -- were killed at the place of worship in the Model Town neighborhood, Bhutta said. The remaining 23 were killed in the Garhi Shahu neighborhood, he said.
Witnesses and officials said the attackers tossed hand grenades and fired weapons, including AK-47s. In the Model Town attack, one of the gunmen was critically injured and another was detained, police said.
Ahmadis regard themselves as Muslim, but the government says they aren't, and many Muslim extremists have targeted them. Sunni and Shiite Muslims say Ahmadis are not Muslim because they do not regard Mohammed as the last prophet sent by God.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a nongovernmental organization, deplored the attacks and said it had warned the Punjab provincial government about threats to the Ahmadi community center in Model Town for more than a year. Lahore is the capital of Punjab province.
The movement was founded in 1889. Its followers believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who lived between 1835 and 1908, was sent by God as a prophet "to end religious wars, condemn bloodshed and reinstitute morality, justice and peace," the worldwide Ahmadi group says.
The group, which is thought to number between 3 million and 4 million people in the country, endures "the most severe legal restrictions and officially sanctioned discrimination" among Pakistan's religious minorities, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
The religious freedom commission, an independent, bipartisan U.S. government body, said in its latest annual report that "Ahmadis may not call their places of worship 'mosques,' worship in non-Ahmadi mosques or public prayer rooms which are otherwise open to all Muslims, perform the Muslim call to prayer, use the traditional Islamic greeting in public, publicly quote from the Quran or display the basic affirmation of the Muslim faith."
The agency says it's illegal for the group to preach publicly, pursue converts or pass out religious material, and adherents are restricted from holding public conferences and traveling to Saudi Arabia for the hajj pilgrimage.
While the greatest number of its followers are in Pakistan and India, Ahmadis have a presence in many European countries, such as Britain, where the religion's fifth and current spiritual head, Mirza Masroor Ahmad, resides. ---------------------- http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/05/29/pakistan.attacks/index.html?hpt=T2
Hundreds of Hong Kongers protest Tiananmen crackdown on 21st anniversary -------------------------------------
Hundreds of Hong Kong protesters demanded exoneration of participants in pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The mourning has been practiced in Hong Kong every year but in a more suppressed manner since the return of Hong Kong in 1997 from Britain to Beijing.
This year police arrested 13 activists a day before the scheduled protest and confiscated statue they set up near shopping mall that symbolizes democracy. Yet protesters are firmly insisting their plan to keep moving on regardless of any harsh crackdown by the Chinese government.
The protesters of about 400 people first gathered and chanted that "political presecution is shameful" and then marched to the government liason and finally ended up by displaying sit-ins on the road. They are planning on doing candlelight vigil on this coming friday, the day of Tiananmen crackdown. ---------------------------------------
Hundreds of Hong Kongers protest Tiananmen crackdown on 21st anniversary By Min Lee (CP) – 47 minutes ago
HONG KONG — Hundreds of Hong Kong protesters demanded Sunday that the Chinese government exonerate the participants in pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square that it brutally suppressed 21 years ago.
The Chinese government still considers the 1989 protests a "counterrevolutionary riot," and public discussion of the student movement is taboo. But the military crackdown, which killed at least hundreds, is mourned openly every year in Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese territory that is promised Western-style civil liberties.
This year, however, Hong Kong democracy activists alleged that local police were trying to clamp down on their mourning activities. On Saturday, police officers arrested 13 activists and confiscated a "Goddess of Democracy" statue dedicated to the Tiananmen victims and set up next to a shopping mall. Police said the activists didn't have a license to display the statue.
The activists pressed ahead with a scheduled protest Sunday, displaying a smaller version of the statue. Police did not interfere with Sunday's protest.
"Political persecution is shameful," the 400 protesters chanted in the rain before setting off for Hong Kong's government headquarters.
"No matter how harsh the crackdown, we will persist until the end with a firm hand," veteran activist Szeto Wah told the crowd.
"The Hong Kong government is so narrow-minded," protester Anthony Cheung said, adding he was worried that freedom of speech was being eroded in the former British colony.
"It is giving us less and less space to express our views," the 67-year-old retiree said.
After most protesters dispersed, about 30 marched on to the Chinese government's liaison office in Hong Kong, where they scuffled with police guarding the building. They later staged a sit-in on the road in front of the compound, stopping traffic.
The activists plan to stage a candlelight vigil on Friday, the anniversary of the crackdown. The annual vigil usually draws tens of thousands of people. -----------------------------------------
A very down to earth* kind of guy. I'm an environmental sociologist interested in establishing material and organizational sustainability worldwide. I'm always looking for interesting materials/technologies, inspiring ideas, or institutional examples of sustainability to inspire others to recognize their choices now. To be fatalistic about an unsustainable world is a sign of a captive mind, given all our options.
*(If "earth" is defined in a planetary sense, concerning comparative historical knowledge and interest in the past 10,000 years or so anywhere...) See both blogs.
ZhangYu
ReplyDeleteDeath toll rises to 98 in Pakistan attacks
------------
Death toll hit 93 in gunmen attacks in Pakistan's Lahore, local TV channels reported Saturday.
More than 100 people were also injured during the Friday attacks, according to the private TV Express.
Two groups of unknown militants attacked two worship places almost simultaneously in eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.
The attacks were carried out at Garhi Shahu and Model Town Block C areas of Lahore, the capital of Punjab Province.
The militants, wearing suicide jackets and holding hand grenades, entered the worship places of a religious group Ahmadi, declared non-Muslims in Pakistani in early 1970s, witnesses said.
The assailants made the worshippers hostages after making their way to both the worship places, hurling hand grenades and spraying volleys of bullets.
---------------
The death toll from attacks on a religious minority in eastern Pakistan has risen to 98, officials said Saturday.
About 110 more people were wounded in the attacks, said Sajjad Bhutta, a senior government official. Police said terrorists with ties to the Pakistani Taliban carried out the strikes.
They took place Friday in two mosques in Lahore when attackers with bombs and firearms targeted houses of worship belonging to the Ahmadi sect, a persecuted religious group.
Most of the dead -- 75 -- were killed at the place of worship in the Model Town neighborhood, Bhutta said. The remaining 23 were killed in the Garhi Shahu neighborhood, he said.
Witnesses and officials said the attackers tossed hand grenades and fired weapons, including AK-47s. In the Model Town attack, one of the gunmen was critically injured and another was detained, police said.
Ahmadis regard themselves as Muslim, but the government says they aren't, and many Muslim extremists have targeted them. Sunni and Shiite Muslims say Ahmadis are not Muslim because they do not regard Mohammed as the last prophet sent by God.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, a nongovernmental organization, deplored the attacks and said it had warned the Punjab provincial government about threats to the Ahmadi community center in Model Town for more than a year. Lahore is the capital of Punjab province.
The movement was founded in 1889. Its followers believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who lived between 1835 and 1908, was sent by God as a prophet "to end religious wars, condemn bloodshed and reinstitute morality, justice and peace," the worldwide Ahmadi group says.
The group, which is thought to number between 3 million and 4 million people in the country, endures "the most severe legal restrictions and officially sanctioned discrimination" among Pakistan's religious minorities, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
The religious freedom commission, an independent, bipartisan U.S. government body, said in its latest annual report that "Ahmadis may not call their places of worship 'mosques,' worship in non-Ahmadi mosques or public prayer rooms which are otherwise open to all Muslims, perform the Muslim call to prayer, use the traditional Islamic greeting in public, publicly quote from the Quran or display the basic affirmation of the Muslim faith."
The agency says it's illegal for the group to preach publicly, pursue converts or pass out religious material, and adherents are restricted from holding public conferences and traveling to Saudi Arabia for the hajj pilgrimage.
While the greatest number of its followers are in Pakistan and India, Ahmadis have a presence in many European countries, such as Britain, where the religion's fifth and current spiritual head, Mirza Masroor Ahmad, resides.
----------------------
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/05/29/pakistan.attacks/index.html?hpt=T2
Hundreds of Hong Kongers protest Tiananmen crackdown on 21st anniversary
ReplyDelete-------------------------------------
Hundreds of Hong Kong protesters demanded exoneration of participants in pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The mourning has been practiced in Hong Kong every year but in a more suppressed manner since the return of Hong Kong in 1997 from Britain to Beijing.
This year police arrested 13 activists a day before the scheduled protest and confiscated statue they set up near shopping mall that symbolizes democracy. Yet protesters are firmly insisting their plan to keep moving on regardless of any harsh crackdown by the Chinese government.
The protesters of about 400 people first gathered and chanted that "political presecution is shameful" and then marched to the government liason and finally ended up by displaying sit-ins on the road. They are planning on doing candlelight vigil on this coming friday, the day of Tiananmen crackdown.
---------------------------------------
Hundreds of Hong Kongers protest Tiananmen crackdown on 21st anniversary
By Min Lee (CP) – 47 minutes ago
HONG KONG — Hundreds of Hong Kong protesters demanded Sunday that the Chinese government exonerate the participants in pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square that it brutally suppressed 21 years ago.
The Chinese government still considers the 1989 protests a "counterrevolutionary riot," and public discussion of the student movement is taboo. But the military crackdown, which killed at least hundreds, is mourned openly every year in Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese territory that is promised Western-style civil liberties.
This year, however, Hong Kong democracy activists alleged that local police were trying to clamp down on their mourning activities. On Saturday, police officers arrested 13 activists and confiscated a "Goddess of Democracy" statue dedicated to the Tiananmen victims and set up next to a shopping mall. Police said the activists didn't have a license to display the statue.
The activists pressed ahead with a scheduled protest Sunday, displaying a smaller version of the statue. Police did not interfere with Sunday's protest.
"Political persecution is shameful," the 400 protesters chanted in the rain before setting off for Hong Kong's government headquarters.
"No matter how harsh the crackdown, we will persist until the end with a firm hand," veteran activist Szeto Wah told the crowd.
"The Hong Kong government is so narrow-minded," protester Anthony Cheung said, adding he was worried that freedom of speech was being eroded in the former British colony.
"It is giving us less and less space to express our views," the 67-year-old retiree said.
After most protesters dispersed, about 30 marched on to the Chinese government's liaison office in Hong Kong, where they scuffled with police guarding the building. They later staged a sit-in on the road in front of the compound, stopping traffic.
The activists plan to stage a candlelight vigil on Friday, the anniversary of the crackdown. The annual vigil usually draws tens of thousands of people.
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jFfU4GLUknoFmh9j6dx6RGPgxdpQ