Germany Headscarf Martyr - Egypt mourns headscarf martyr - English
Marwa Sherbini is being hailed as the shahida, or martyr, of the Hijab
The body of a Muslim woman, killed in a German courtroom by a man convicted...
Marwa Sherbini is being hailed as the shahida, or martyr, of the Hijab
The body of a Muslim woman, killed in a German courtroom by a man convicted of insulting her religion, has been taken back to her native Egypt for burial.
Dr. Marwa Sherbini was three-months pregnant when she was murdered in court by her molester. Her murder has sparked off angry protests around the Muslim world.
Dr. Marwa Sherbini, 31, was stabbed 18 times by Axel W, who is now under arrest in Dresden for suspected murder.
Husband Elwi Okaz is also in a critical condition in hospital, after being injured as he tried to save his wife.
Ms Sherbini had sued her killer after he called her a "terrorist" because of her headscarf.
The case has attracted much attention in Egypt and the Muslim world.
German prosecutors have said the 28-year-old attacker, identified only as Axel W, was driven by a deep hatred of foreigners and Muslims.
'Martyr'
Medics were unable to save Ms Sherbini who was three months pregnant with her second child. Her three-year-old son was with the family in court when she was killed.
Egypt funeral for stabbing victim
Egyptian woman killed in a knife attack in a Dresden courtroom is laid
Axel W and Ms Sherbini and family were in court for his appeal against a fine of 750 euros ($1,050) for insulting her in 2008, apparently because she was wearing the Muslim headscarf or Hijab.
Newspapers in Egypt have expressed outrage at the case, asking how it was allowed to happen and dubbing Ms Sherbini "the martyr of the Hijab".
Senior Egyptian officials and German diplomatic staff attended the funeral in Alexandria along with hundreds of mourners.
Media reports say Mr Okaz was injured both by the attacker and when a policeman opened fire in the courtroom.
http://intermultira cialissues. suite101. com/article. cfm/killing_ of_pregnant_ muslim_woman_ in_german_ court#ixzz0KVKCI aS3&D
"People are looking for victims and Muslims are sometimes seen as a viable option"
Sulaiman Wilms,
European Muslim Union
For eight long minutes, the 28-year old German man of Russian origins continued to stab Marwa Sherbini. For eight long minutes, she suffered the stabs in full view of the panel of judges inside the Dresden courtroom. When the German police finally arrived on the scene, they shot her husband who was desperately trying to save her. The image of middle-easterners as potential terrorists, an image propagated by the media for years now, led them to the wrong conclusion that Elwy Okaz, genetic researcher at Max Planck Institute, must have been the perpetrator of the violence.
Marwa Sherbini’s Four-Year Old Son Watched his Mother Being Butchered
Four-year old Mustapha was witness to the massacre of his mother and the injury of his father. After the incident, he was left in the custody of German Authorities until his aunt arrived to take him home back to Egypt, suffering from severe shock. He will need rehabilitation to be able to cope with the trauma he experienced. In all probability, the tragedy will leave a permanent psychological scar on his whole life.
Marwa’s Body Arrived in Egypt
Marwa Sherbini probably never imagined that this was how she would return home after her years with her husband in Germany. Hosts of grieving mourners stood at 8pm on 5th July, 2009, as the body of the Egyptian pharmacist arrived at Cairo Airport. The dominant feeling was one of deep anger. Her funeral in her native city of Alexandria the following afternoon was marked by masses of people who probably never knew her. Among the mourners were young students from her old school, the EGC, who came to pay their last respects to her
Media Silence Regarding the Murder of the Muslim Woman in the Courtroom
The official stand of the German authorities has been one of muted regret. European media in general, and German media in particular, gave the brutal attack no prominence at all, regarding it as an isolated incident and presenting the attacker as a man who is mentally disturbed. The question that immediately comes to mind is where Marwa Sherbini went wrong. She sought justice and had no doubt in her mind that she would get it. The cruel irony was that she was murdered in the very place that should have protected her and afforded her the highest degree of safety and justice. She trusted the propaganda that Europe was a place of freedom and equality for all, regardless of gender, race or religious persuasion. She did not realize that in Europe some human beings are more equal than others. She had paid for her misconception with her very life.
http://intermultira cialissues. suite101. com/article. cfm/killing_ of_pregnant_ muslim_woman_ in_german_ court#ixzz0KVKpL CPz&D
For eight long minutes, the 28-year old German man of Russian origins continued to stab Marwa Sherbini. For eight long minutes, she suffered the stabs in full view of the panel of judges inside the Dresden courtroom. When the German police finally arrived on the scene, they shot her husband who was desperately trying to save her. The image of middle-easterners as potential terrorists, an image propagated by the media for years now, led them to the wrong conclusion that Elwy Okaz, genetic researcher at Max Planck Institute, must have been the perpetrator of the violence.
Marwa Sherbini’s Four-Year Old Son Watched his Mother Being Butchered
Four-year old Mustapha was witness to the massacre of his mother and the injury of his father. After the incident, he was left in the custody of German Authorities until his aunt arrived to take him home back to Egypt, suffering from severe shock. He will need rehabilitation to be able to cope with the trauma he experienced. In all probability, the tragedy will leave a permanent psychological scar on his whole life.
Marwa’s Body Arrived in Egypt
Marwa Sherbini probably never imagined that this was how she would return home after her years with her husband in Germany. Hosts of grieving mourners stood at 8pm on 5th July, 2009, as the body of the Egyptian pharmacist arrived at Cairo Airport. The dominant feeling was one of deep anger. Her funeral in her native city of Alexandria the following afternoon was marked by masses of people who probably never knew her. Among the mourners were young students from her old school, the EGC, who came to pay their last respects to her
Media Silence Regarding the Murder of the Muslim Woman in the Courtroom
The official stand of the German authorities has been one of muted regret. European media in general, and German media in particular, gave the brutal attack no prominence at all, regarding it as an isolated incident and presenting the attacker as a man who is mentally disturbed. The question that immediately comes to mind is where Marwa Sherbini went wrong. She sought justice and had no doubt in her mind that she would get it. The cruel irony was that she was murdered in the very place that should have protected her and afforded her the highest degree of safety and justice. She trusted the propaganda that Europe was a place of freedom and equality for all, regardless of gender, race or religious persuasion. She did not realize that in Europe some human beings are more equal than others. She had paid for her misconception with her very life.
http://intermultira cialissues. suite101. com/article. cfm/killing_ of_pregnant_ muslim_woman_ in_german_ court#ixzz0KVKpL CPz&D
Egypt cleric seeks stiff penalty for Sherbini killer
Tantawi says man who killed 'veil martyr' in Germany should receive maximum punishment.
ALEXANDRIA - A man who stabbed a pregnant Egyptian woman to death in Germany should be punished to the utmost extent of the law, Egypt's top cleric said on Monday as the woman was buried in her hometown.
"The man who killed Marwa Sherbini, the Egyptian citizen in Germany, and wounded her husband Elwi Ali Okaz should receive the maximum punishment," Grand Imam Sheikh Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi told the official MENA agency.
"The killer is a terrorist who should receive severe punishment for what he has done, something that contradicts all the values of humanity, decency and religion," he said.
Sherbini, 32, was killed in a court in the northern German city of Dresden on Wednesday shortly before she was to give evidence in an appeal lodged by her attacker.
The 28-year-old attacker, identified only as Axel W. had been convicted and fined after calling her a "terrorist" for wearing the Islamic headscarf.
According to the Egyptian press, Sherbini was three months pregnant when she was killed. She was laid to rest in her hometown of Alexandria in northern Egypt on Monday.
Her husband, a researcher in genetic engineering who was reportedly shot by German police while trying to save his wife, is still in critical condition in hospital having also been stabbed by the assailant.
Tantawi told MENA he hoped the killing of Sherbini, whom he described as a "martyr," would not negatively affect the dialogue between the West and Islam because it was "an isolated event."
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Cynthia McKinney in an Israeli jail - English
As if we needed any more proof that the international media deliberately avoids exposing anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian injustices, its suspect...
As if we needed any more proof that the international media deliberately avoids exposing anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian injustices, its suspect behavior during recent days has sealed the case.
Even as we were being force-fed minute details of Michael Jackson's colorful life along with endless speculation as to the true parentage of his children, a former U.S. Congresswomen and presidential candidate, Cynthia McKinney, was languishing in an Israeli jail.
Her 'crime' was boarding the Free Gaza Movement's aid vessel The Spirit of Humanity in Cyprus, in an effort to break Israel's cruel siege of Gaza, which even the U.S. President has condemned.
Like several of her sister vessels, The Spirit of Humanity was attacked by the Israeli Navy in international waters before being boarded by Israeli commandos and dragged along with its crew and passengers towards Israel.
Once there, 21 human rights advocates from the U.S., Britain, Ireland, Denmark, Jordan, Palestine and Yemen, including McKinney, Noble Laureate Mairead Maguire, and documentary filmmaker Adam Shapiro, were incarcerated.
Let's be realistic. If just about any other high-profile U.S. politician on any other mission had been detained within a cell block on foreign soil, the incident would have merited headlines.
However, McKinney's abduction went almost unnoticed. Not only was the story relegated to the back pages, if it ran at all, there was a corresponding absence of comment from Congress and the White House.
McKinney is now home after refusing to sign a statement in Hebrew that she was guilty of a violation, but the mainstream media is certainly not clamoring at her door for interviews.
As far as I can tell, her ordeal has mostly been covered by left-wing outlets such as Democracy Now or Middle East networks including Al Jazeera and Press TV.
A number of McKinney's supporters say the reason for the media blackout was the fact that she is a Black American. But, in fact, it's her cause that's the problem rather than her color.
My analysis is based on the lack of media coverage given to the Viva Palestina aid convoy of trucks and ambulances from London to Gaza, led by British Parliamentarian George Galloway.
The Herculean efforts of hundreds of ordinary Britons to deliver much-needed humanitarian supplies to war-torn Gaza earlier this year was a non-event as far as the media was concerned until Galloway was barred from entering Canada as a result.
Unless you're a person who relentlessly digs on the internet, you probably are not aware that during McKinney's ordeal, Galloway, along with Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic, were meeting up with over 200 Americans in Cairo armed with $2 million (Dh7.35 million) that was raised in the U.S. to buy trucks and medical aid destined for Gaza.
The Egyptian English-language paper Al Ahram Weekly dubs this ""the largest grassroots medical relief effort for Gaza in U.S. history"" but once again, this doesn't merit column inches in either U.S. or European mainstream papers.
In a similar vein, is the way that the horrendous courtroom stabbing of 32-year-old Marwa Al Sherbini was considered inconsequential by the German media until it elicited angry protests in her hometown of Alexandria.
There are so many aspects to this story, which should have been emblazoned across front pages.
First of all it was a blatant race crime, which Germany is normally sensitive about. Second, it begs questions concerning court security.
What were armed officers doing when Marwa was stabbed 18 times and why was her husband shot when he attempted to protect his pregnant wife?
What kind of editors would bin reports of such a horrendous crime carried out in full view of the authorities? What were they thinking?
Purely coincidentally, I was sitting at a table with one of Marwa's uncles in an Alexandria coffee shop when he received a call on his mobile and had to dash off because of a ""family emergency"".
Today, this exceptionally close-knit family is devastated and hurt that the murder of one of their own wasn't initially treated with the weight the crime deserved.
Egyptians are outraged at Germany's disinterest and the inaction of their own foreign office. The numbers who attended her funeral, who gathered outside the German embassy in Cairo and who demonstrated in Cairo and Alexandria speak for themselves.
Because Marwa's dispute with her attacker was based on his objections to her Islamic headscarf, the death of the young pharmacist has become an emblem for the rights of Muslim women at a time when the French President is attempting to ban the burqa. Marwa loved life.
She didn't plan to become a martyr. But in the eyes of Egyptians calling for a mosque and a street in Alexandria to be renamed in her honor, she is a heroine.
If the U.S. and Europe are chronically supine when it comes to Muslim causes, then the governments and media throughout the Arab and Muslim world should embrace them clearly and loudly.
With anti-Muslim hate crimes on the rise, Muslims need a strong united voice on the international stage. Shame on the world's media that appears to be united only in its anti-Muslim bias!
Linda S. Heard is a specialist British writer on Middle East affairs.
(Source: Gulf News
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