LCCC NEWS
BULLETIN
FEBRUARY 5/2006
Below news from
Miscellaneous sources for 5/2/06
Cartoons Infused Muslims With a Spirit of Defiance’-Arab News 5.2.05
Below news from Naharnet
for 5.2.06
Nasrallah: Quadripartite Alliance Over, We will Take Clear Position in
Baabda-Aley Vote
Nasrallah: Attack is a Message to Israel that Resistance is Here to Stay
Hizbullah Calls For Boycott of European Goods, End to Attacks on Prophet
Anti-Cartoon Rally in Refugee Camp Calls for Bin Laden to Step in
Hizbullah Official: Two Demands Met to End Cabinet Boycott
Border Flare-up Over Killing of Teenage Lebanese Shepherd
Chirac to Issue a Medal in Honor of Hariri
Bodies of 14 Sunnis Allegedly Seized by Police Found Dumped in Baghdad
Palestinians Storm German Center, Stone EU Building over Cartoons
Qaida Suspects Escape from Yemeni Prison
Egyptian Ferry with 1,400 Aboard Sinks in Red Sea, Most Feared Dead
Syria Imam Urges Christian Support in Denouncing Cartoons
Iran Referred to U.N. Security Council Over Nuclear Program
West Divided on Free Speech as Muslim Anger Simmers
Stampede at Manila Stadium Kills at Least 88 People
Protests in London as Straw Criticizes European Press over Cartoons
Syrians torch Danish, Norway embassies over cartoon
Reuters - 12 minutes ago
DAMASCUS, Syria - Several thousand Syrian demonstrators set the Danish and the
Norwegian embassies on fire on Saturday to protest at the publishing of cartoons
of the Prophet Mohammad by European newspapers. The protest marked an escalation
in the Muslim world's uproar over the cartoons, which have been reprinted in a
number of European publications. One depicted Prophet Mohammad wearing a turban
resembling a bomb. The fire badly damaged the Danish embassy's building, a
Reuters witness said. Firefighters put out the blaze.
Nasrallah: Quadripartite Alliance Over, We will Take
Clear Position in Baabda-Aley Vote
Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said that his group would no longer
pay allegiance to former alliances and that a new political map had emerged
after the end of the government crisis.
Nasrallah said Friday the alliance between Hizbullah, Amal, the Progressive
Socialist Party and the Future Movement was over and that the Party of God would
forge new political ties.
"The so-called quadripartite alliance is over," Nasrallah told thousands of
supporters marking the Shiite commemoration of Ashoura in the southern suburbs
of Beirut.The coalition between Lebanon's two Shiite parties Hizbullah and Amal,
the Druze PSP lead by Walid Jumblat and Saad Hariri's Future Movement was formed
during the May-June parliamentary elections.
However, when the 5 Shiite members of cabinet withdrew their participation on
Dec. 12 sparking a government crisis, tensions between Nasrallah and Jumblat
rose with both leaders hurling accusations at each other through the press.
In a veiled reference to Jumblat, Nasrallah said: "It is enough that one party
in this alliance denies its existence. This quadripartite alliance does not
exist anymore."The Party of God leader said his group will from now on cooperate
with the Future Movement but would still leave the door open for dialogue with
the PSP, if the latter chooses to do so.
Hizbullah is ready to coordinate with all members of the March 14 coalition but
reaffirms its close ties with the March 8 groups, Nasrallah said. Jumblat's PSP
and Hariri's Future movement are now the pillars of the anti-Syria March 14
coalition, whereas Hizbullah and Amal are the largest parties in the pro-Syria
March 8 gathering.
Turning to his relation with Gen. Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement,
Nasrallah said the two groups were already conducting dialogue through a special
committee. "We have formed a dialogue committee that was able to draft a
memorandum of understanding that will be taken to the leaderships for
examination," Nasrallah said.
Concluding his statement on how he viewed the new internal political situation,
Nasrallah said: "We will no longer speak of new alliances but of
understanding…The party is open and ready to cooperate and hold dialogue with
everyone for the interest of our country." With regards to the upcoming
Baabda-Aley legislative by-elections, Nasrallah said he favored an agreement on
a consensus candidate to avoid more tensions and confrontations that would
aggravate the fragile internal situation.
However, in case there is an election battle, Hizbullah will take a clear
position and announce which candidate it is backing, he added. "We will have a
clear public position in support of a specific candidate and we will not be
neutral."
Beirut, Updated 04 Feb 06, 09:57
Nasrallah: Attack is a Message to Israel that
Resistance is Here to Stay
Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has said that the group's recent armed
attack against Israel was a message that the resistance is here to stay. "We
sent a message to Israel and those who defend it that the resistance was, still
is and will always be there to defend Lebanon," Nasrallah said in a speech after
the attack Friday. Speaking to thousands of supporters gathered to mark the
Shiite commemoration of Ashoura in Beirut's southern suburbs, Nasrallah said:
"Our blood is not cheap... The resistance will always be ready to retaliate and
punish the criminal killers in any position and whatever the sacrifices."
Hizbullah fired rockets and mortar shells at the Israeli position of Roueissat
el-Alam in retaliation for the killing of a Lebanese shepherd who went missing
near the disputed Shabaa farms on Wednesday. The group said it attacked the same
position that killed 15-year-old Ibrahim Rhayyel. His body was found Thursday,
riddled with bullets, on the Lebanese side of the border.
"We chose this position to punish them because the killers were there. We
pummeled it with 500 rockets and mortars over the course of 45 minutes,"
Nasrallah said. Israel said one soldier was lightly wounded in the Hizbullah
attack, in which some 25 mortar rounds and 107 mm Katyusha rockets pounded
Roueissat el-Alam over the course of half an hour.
The Jewish state retaliated by staging air raids and pounding suspected
Hizbullah bases in south Lebanon. An Nahar said one woman was wounded in the
attack. The Israeli army said Thursday the person who was killed was armed and
trying to infiltrate Israel from Lebanon when he stumbled upon Israeli troops
and shot at them. The soldiers returned fire and hit the infiltrator, the army
said. But an investigation conducted by the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon showed
that Rhayyel was shot dead by Israeli gunfire inside Lebanese territory. On
Friday, Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh met with representatives of U.N.
Security Council member countries to inform them of the "new Israeli
aggression." He said Lebanon "hoped for a firm condemnation by the U.N. of the
Israeli acts of aggression that threaten the stability" of the border
region.(Naharnet-AFP)
Beirut, Updated 04 Feb 06, 10:33
Hizbullah Calls For Boycott of European Goods, End to
Attacks on Prophet
Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has called on Islamic states to boycott
European products and demand that Western countries outlaw attacks on God and
the prophets. "We should commit ourselves to the boycott of all their products,"
Nasrallah told thousands of supporters marking the Shiite commemoration of
Ashoura in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday. "I invite Islamic states to
work together so that European parliaments and governments adopt a law
prohibiting the media from attacking God and the prophets," he said. "We are
facing a new trend of hypocrisy and duplicity in the West ... that adopts a
policy of double standards," Nasrallah added. He cited as examples French
philosopher Roger Garaudy, who is being pursued in the courts for writing a book
denying the Holocaust. He also said Hizbullah's Al-Manar television station is
banned in Europe for anti-Semitism because "it speaks of the crimes perpetrated
by the Zionists and challenges their right to usurp a state."
The Party of God leader said that attacking Judaism was a red-line that cannot
be crossed, whereas defaming the Prophet of 1.4 billion Muslims was allowed
under the pretext of freedom of expression.
Nasrallah also announced plans for a massive demonstration on Thursday, the 10th
and final day of Ashoura, with the theme of "defending our religion and our
prophet whatever the cost."Demonstrations have been held across the Muslim world
against 12 drawings of the Prophet, originally published by Denmark's
Jyllands-Posten newspaper in September.
Anger over the affair has bubbled since then, deepening this week as other
newspapers opted to publish some of the caricatures.(AFP-Naharnet)
Beirut, Updated 04 Feb 06, 13:33
Chirac to Issue a Medal in Honor of Hariri
French President Jacques Chirac will declare Saturday the issuance of a medal in
memory of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, according to the Elysees Palace.
Chirac was a close friend of Hariri, who was killed in a massive bomb blast in
Beirut along with 22 others on Feb. 14, 2005. Upon hearing the news, the French
president headed to Lebanon to pay his condolences to the Hariri family. He
often meets the slain ex-premier's son, Saad, at the Elysees. The medal was
stamped by a French monetary authority two weeks before the first anniversary of
Hariri's assassination. Chirac has repeatedly urged Syria to cooperate fully and
unconditionally with the U.N. commission investigating the killing of Hariri. In
two interim reports published last year, the commission implicated Syrian and
Lebanese security and intelligence officials in the assassination. Beirut,
Updated 03 Feb 06, 13:59
Cartoons Infused Muslims With a Spirit of Defiance’
Arab News -JEDDAH, 4 February 2006 — An influential imam of the Grand Mosque in
Makkah proclaimed a new spirit of defiance among Muslims after worldwide
protests over cartoons denigrating the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in
European newspapers.
“A great new spirit is flowing through the body of the Islamic Ummah... The
world can no longer ignore this Ummah and its feelings,” Saleh Bin-Humaid said
while delivering his Friday sermon.“The nation has worked hard in support of its
Prophet Muhammad in recent days. It is the right of every Muslim to show joy at
this defense of our beloved Prophet,” he told hundreds of thousands of faithful
who packed the Grand Mosque.
Bin-Humaid commended the leading role played by Saudi Arabia in campaigns
protesting the provocative cartoons. The Kingdom withdrew its ambassador to
Denmark, saying the government had not done enough to assuage anger over the
cartoons published last September in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper.
Egyptian cleric Youssef Al-Qaradawi, told worshippers in Qatar: “The whole
nation must be angry and rise up to show their anger... Anger is a must, we are
not a nation of donkeys. We are a nation of lions.”
Washington yesterday condemned the caricatures. “These cartoons are indeed
offensive to the belief of Muslims,” State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper
said in answer to a question. “We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the
press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility. Inciting
religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable.”
Muslim outrage spread through Asia yesterday over the cartoons. In Indonesia,
anger boiled over as up to 300 people went on the rampage in the lobby of a
Jakarta building housing the Danish Embassy. The protesters from the Islamic
Defenders Front smashed lamps, threw chairs, rotten eggs and tomatoes, and tore
up the Danish flag.
Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai commended French newspaper France Soir for
sacking its managing editor for reprinting the cartoons and urged other papers
to do the same. In neighboring Pakistan, President Pervez Musharraf and the
upper house of Parliament condemned the cartoons as blasphemous. The Parliament
called on the government to consider economic and political actions to “prevent
uncivilized behavior by the Danish daily and other European media against the
Muslim faith.”Flemish newspapers yesterday printed a slew of cartoons of the Prophet,
including those published by Jyllands-Posten. “Right for Satire,” said a
front-page headline in Het Nieuwsblad. An editorial in the newspaper called the
outcry over the cartoons an attack on freedom of expression.
Another Dutch-language newspaper, Het Volk, printed drawings of the Prophet by
leading Flemish cartoonists and quoted renowned Belgian philosopher Etienne
Vermeersch as saying that Belgian papers should publish such caricatures every
week “so that Muslims could get used to the idea.”
