bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
Iraqi journalists arrested for
exercising freedom of speech.
Mafkarat al-Islam in Iraq
reported that US troops arrested two Iraqi journalists on Sunday:
Muhammad Mahmud who works for the newspaper al-Kalimah published in
ar-Ramadi in al-Anbar Province, and the second Sa �d al-A�zami working
for the monthly Sunni magazine al-Murud in Baghdad because of articles
they wrote in their respective publications last Thursday. Spies led the
Americans to the homes of the two journalists, according to their
colleagues whom correspondents for Mafkarat al-Islam interviewed to learn
the background to the arrests. The Americans, who now claim to have invaded Iraq to bring democracy and freedom, arrested Muhammad Mahmud for an article in which he wrote:
�My grandfather used to tell me this story from Iraqi folklore. Once there were three evil youths sitting by the side of the road. They were just wasting time, looking at this, ignoring that, while trying to dream up some new way to amuse themselves and kill time. Finally they decided to have a competition to see which one of them was the worst person. Now, the worst kind of person is one with no chivalry, no decency, no brains, and no religion. The three agreed to go ahead with their dirty game.
�It wasn�t long before an old, blind lady came by who couldn�t see anything around her hobbled along. The first of the youths said, �Watch what I do to her!� So he went over to the old woman and struck her in the middle of the back with all his muscular might, breaking her spine and felling her to the ground. He strutted back to his friends with an insolent smile on his face. But the second youth proclaimed, �I�m worse than you guys,� and marched over to the same old woman lying on the ground and after hitting her again, he ripped her clothes off, exposing her nakedness to all of creation. He proudly returned to his buddies saying, �See there, I�m the worst one!� To which the third youth immediately replied, �No! I�m worse than both of you.� �Oh, yeah?� his friends said, challengingly, �How�s that?� �Because,� he said, �that old lady is my mother, the woman who gave birth to me.�
The journalist Muhammad Mahmud finished of his retelling of his grandfather�s story by observing, �Now, folks, let�s all just substitute the words �my nation� for �my mother� in that story and think about it a bit. The Americans are now hitting us, taking our honor, and shedding our blood, and we�re sitting here looking on just like that evil youth.� Quoting a poetic couplet, he concluded:
�You�ll be heard if you call out to one of the living, but there�s no life in the one whom you call.�
The other Iraqi journalist arrested on Sunday, Sa�d al-A�zami, was also arrested for exercising his free speech � or as the Americans call it, for inciting Iraqis to hate and fight America. Sa�d al-A�zami�s criminal offense was writing an article that said the following:
�In the old days the Arabs used to put guard dogs in front of their houses to protect them from thieves. The Bedouin particularly had that practice. But when a thief wanted to rob a house and knew there was a dog there, he would just slip the animal a small piece of meat over the wall to delight and distract the dog. Then the thief would jump the wall and enter the house, which he could rob �for less than his leisure� as the Egyptians say.
�I�m afraid,� al-A�zami wrote, �that that _expression_ can be used about us and that we are like the dogs � though I apologize for using such a harsh comparison. The occupation has delighted us with ringing words about infidel �democracy� that is not in accord with the pure Islamic religion and that wants to put women in a situation that God has forbidden in the Qur�an. They distracted us with attractive salaries and then came into our country and robbed it. And they�re still robbing it of its oil and gas and mercury and other resources. The dog will eat his piece of meat but then after an hour he�ll grow hungry again, but by then the American thief will have departed, loaded down with all the goods that he wanted from our �house,� sorry, I mean, �from our homeland.� Brothers and sisters, it�s just like the Arabs used to say in ancient times, �Imagining that a stooge will recover his consciousness, or that a coward will charge into battle like a brave man is like imagining that you can light the same match twice.�
Such were the articles that cost Muhammad Mahmud and Sa�d al-A�zami their freedom, and as is usual with people arrested by the �democratic� and �freedom-loving� Americans, only God knows how long they will be locked up for expressing their views.
http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/47691
===
-muslim voice-
___________________________________
BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
All views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in any way reflect the official views of Hidayahnet unless sanctioned or approved otherwise.
If your mailbox clogged with mails from Hidayahnet, you may wish to get a daily digest of emails by logging-on to http://www.yahoogroups.com to change your mail delivery settings or email the moderators at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the title "change to daily digest".
Yahoo! Groups Links
- To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hidayahnet/
- To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.10.3 - Release Date: 25/04/2005
