RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16623/belarus-human-rights

Belarusians want an end to Lukashenko’s 26-year long rule of Soviet-style authoritarianism with unfree elections, a censored media and widespread repression of political dissent. Both the US and the EU have described the recent election as neither free nor fair.

Lukashenko, however, clinging onto power, has framed the protests as “foreign interference”. The claim serves both as an excuse to crack down on the protests and to ensure the support of Russia.

Since the election [on August 9], more than 10,000 people have been detained and at least 244 people have been implicated in criminal cases on various charges related to the protests, according to Viasna human rights center leader Ales Bialiatski.

Now that Lukashenko is being pressured both internationally and at home, he is completely beholden to Putin, who is likely to take full advantage of this position by conditioning his help and support on Lukashenko’s acceptance of further “integration” with Russia. Ultimately, this could lead to a “soft” power grab by Putin – no need for military invasions — in which Putin could finally bring about the close “integration” from Belarus — “coming closer together” socially and economically — that Putin has previously sought.

For two months, Belarusians have turned out in force every Sunday, drawing up to 200,000 protesters against the August 9 presidential election, which gave President Alexander Lukashenko, a crushing if highly dubious victory.

Belarusians want an end to Lukashenko’s 26-year long rule of Soviet-style authoritarianism with unfree elections, a censored media and widespread repression of political dissent. Both the US and the EU have described the recent election as neither free nor fair.

Lukashenko’s main challenger, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who received nearly 10% of the vote, was detained after contesting the election results and fled to Lithuania, She had said that she was ready to serve as a temporary “national leader” and hold new free and fair elections. For that purpose, she and other members of the opposition formed an opposition council, a move that prompted prosecutors to open a criminal case against the council with the claim that it had been set up as an illegal attempt to seize power. Since the council’s creation in mid-August, most of its leaders have been detained, several of them abducted and then expelled from the country. One of the last free members of the council, Maxim Znak, was dragged out of his office by masked men on September 9, detained and charged with “incitement to undermine national security”.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16660/islam-crisis

Other Arabs said that Muslims have only themselves to blame for the “crisis” in their religion. They are referring to the use of Islam, by many Muslims, to carry out terrorist attacks and other atrocities against Muslims and non-Muslims.

The message these Arabs and Muslims are sending is: We created the crisis in our religion by allowing terrorists and extremists to use Islam as a pretext for their crimes.

The views expressed by these Arabs and Muslims are reminiscent of those by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi. In 2014, he called for a “religious revolution” in Islam and appealed to leading Muslim groups to “confront the misleading ideologies harming Islam and Muslims worldwide.”

“The fact is that the biggest conspirators against Islam are the Muslims themselves, specifically those who reproduce the discourse of closed-mindedness and hatred. In this context, there is no difference between those who create, finance or carry out terrorism and those who are silent about it or justify it.” — Mohammad Maghouti, Moroccan writer, Hespress, October 13, 2020.

“[W]e have to call on France to place the Muslim Brotherhood and Hezbollah on the list of terrorist organizations.” — Nervana Mahmoud, prominent Egyptian commentator and blogger, Al Hurrah, October 11, 2020.

“The crisis that Islam is suffering from was made by Muslims with their own hands when they allowed a handful of them to adopt violence as a language for dialogue with the other. Macron was right in everything he said. His message should be considered a wake-up call. Muslims have greatly offended Islam when they showed it to be a religion that incites violence and spreads chaos in stable societies that received them as refugees and provided them with protection. Muslims made a mistake when they used their religion as a justification for attacking others. This does not give us the right to condemn others and accuse them of being hostile to Islam. Islam is in crisis because it has been distorted, mutilated, and destroyed from within. We should have said thank you to Macron rather than curse him.” — Farouk Yousef, Egyptian writer, Middle East Online, October 13, 2020.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/10/muslim-beheads-man-french-street-and-here-we-go-robert-spencer/

It happened again on Friday: a Muslim migrant from Chechnya, screaming “Allahu akbar,” beheaded a schoolteacher, Samuel Paty, on a street in a Paris suburb for the crime of showing cartoons of Muhammad to his students. The response to this gruesome jihad murder has been as predictable, and dreary, and drearily predictable, as one might expect.

In response to the murder, French President Emmanuel Macron said: “This battle is ours and it is existential. They will not pass. Obscurantism and the violence that goes with it will not win. They will not divide us. That’s what they seek and we must stand together.”

This sounds great on the first hearing. That’s the idea. But in reality, “They will not divide us” is a statement that is designed to reassure Muslims in France. Macron is saying that he will do nothing to “divide” the supposedly happily united French people. What would “divide” them? Well, something like scrutinizing the Islamic death penalty for blasphemy and challenging Muslim leaders in France to repudiate it explicitly and declare their support for the freedom of speech, and to demonstrate their sincerity by instituting programs in mosques and Islamic schools in France to teach against Sharia blasphemy laws and emphasize the importance of the freedom of speech. That would “divide us.” Macron is saying it won’t happen, as expected.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/china-threatens-to-detain-u-s-citizens-over-prosecutions-of-researchers-linked-to-chinese-military/

China is threatening to detain U.S. citizens in response to Justice Department prosecutions of researchers linked to the Chinese military, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

The Justice Department has indicted several Chinese researchers who worked in the U.S., accusing them of attempting to conceal their connections with the People’s Liberation Army. U.S. intelligence officials believe that a small number of Chinese researchers have been involved in gathering intelligence for the P.L.A. When the State Department ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston, the department also ordered China to remove all P.L.A.–connected researchers from the U.S., the Journal reported in August.

Chinese diplomats have been issuing warnings to their American counterparts that if the Justice Department continues its prosecutions of P.L.A.–linked researchers, U.S. citizens in China could run into legal troubles, people familiar with the matter told the Journal. China began issuing the threats after the U.S. arrests of those researchers.

The State Department issued a level-3 travel advisory in September for Americans planning to visit China. A level-3 advisory is the agency’s second-highest travel advisory, and is implemented “due to serious risks to safety and security” of travelers.

“The [Chinese] government arbitrarily enforces local laws, including by carrying out arbitrary and wrongful detentions and through the use of exit bans on U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries without due process of law,” the State Department’s warning states. “U.S. citizens traveling or residing in [China] or Hong Kong, may be detained without access to U.S. consular services or information about their alleged crime.”