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"Slavery in Sudan" Story Unravels Further: Court Forces Paper to Apologize
Walker Lindh Gives up: American Taliban Saw No Hope in U.S. Justice System
A Look at the Death Sentence Imposed on Omar Shaikh in Pakistan

[First the latest news: A Palestinian resistance attack against Jewish occupiers has killed 7 Jews and injured 14. The attack was well coordinated and not a martyrdom operation. Under international law, occupied populations have the right to hit the occupiers in any and every way they can. Russian, French and Jewish resistance to German occupiers during World War II created extensive precedence for resistance. All efforts to wipe out occupation are perfectly legitimate in that context.]

[American Muslim groups such as those led by Imam W. D. Muhammad as well as immigrant groups are urged to declare that they will accept the Qur'an and Sunnah as decisive in their dealings with the U.S. government. It appeared in the recent ICNA Convention in Baltimore, that the high profile immigrant groups HAVE RECOGNIZED ISRAEL although Islam does not permit them to do so. If the LEADERS of these groups have NOT recognized Israel, they should state so clearly and we will publish their statement.}

SULAYMAN WALKER LINDH's CASE had a sudden pathetic ending. The young man seems to have collapsed in front of the tremendous pressure he was facing and copped a plea which means he decided to plead guilty to two lesser charges to avoid facing a life in prison sentence. The charges against Lindh were very flimsy and if he had stuck it out, the government would have been exposed. The U.S. was in effect saying that embracing Islam and joining the Taliban are crimes. An attempt to connect Lindh to the death of CIA agent Spann was an impossible endeavor. In fact witnesses from the incident with Spann would have thrown light on the massacre of Islamic prisoners which took place under U.S. supervision.
It appears that Lindh was persuaded, perhaps by his attorney, that he had no chance and would get a life sentence if he persisted in his defense. It would be tragic indeed if this young man were to get 20 years in October sentencing just for embracing Islam and joining the Taliban. [Note that at one time the U.S. had good relations with the Taliban and Lindh did not go to Afghanistan to fight the U.S. The U.S. went there to fight the Taliban.]

Even more murky is the case of OMAR SAEED SHAIKH sentenced to death in Pakistan for the murder of Daniel Pearl with three of his associates given life sentences. The case seems to have been rushed through the Pakistani court under tremendous pressure from the U.S. It appears that seven people who allegedly did the actual killing are still missing. Evidently Saeed Shaikh is not the actual killer of Pearl. He could have been a decoy used to divert attention from the actual killers. The body has not been found. No murder case can be just when in spite of its complexity, the verdict is brought in within a matter of months. This was a hatchet job. An important question was evaded by the whole trial of Saeed Shaikh. Who were the killers? Did they kill Pearl because they were cold-blooded murderers or were they involved in the war between the U.S. and Islam. Were they involved in the classic eye-for-an-eye response owing to the deaths of civilians in Afghanistan? Should U.S. air force pilots have been brought to the court as witnesses to the bombing of Afghan civilians? Jewish media like the NEW YORK TIMES and NPR admit that civilian deaths in Afghanistan caused by U.S. bombing number in the THOUSANDS. Was the murder of Pearl the death of a civilian by the other side in the conflict? In international law, as David Irving has shown, there is an important concept :It's wrong to put others on trial for crimes which are not very different from those our side has committed. If we kill their civilians, we are innocent? If they kill our civilians, they should be tried for murder?
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AN IMPORTANT BOOK FROM PAKISTAN. This is in the Urdu language, so please do not order it unless you can read Urdu. Title: AFGHANISTAN PER AMRIKKA KA QABZA: MAQASID, ASRAAT, NATAIJ [America's seizure of Afghanistan: Purposes, effects, results] by Zahid Mahmud Chaudhery, 512 pages, $20, February 2002, U Publishers, Lahore, Pakistan.] This book is specially important because it reflects the viewpoint of the Pakistani masses: pro-Taliban, pro-Osama, a real shocker for American audiences.
IN A DATE BY DATE CHRONOLOGY OF U.S. BOMBING OF AFGHANISTAN, the book indicates that in the BOMBING OF KANDAHAR alone, between 10 and 13 THOUSAND civilians were killed by the Americans. Kandahar was subject to relentless bombing around the clock with the most sophisticated U.S. aircraft using the most deadly weaponry.
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SUDAN: THE ENTIRE SLAVERY STORY HAS UNRAVELLED. Readers might remember that Jamaat al-Muslimeen in USA confronted the Zionist propaganda against Sudan right from the beginning. JAM rallied at the office of the Baltimore Sun and challenged Jewish media man Mark Steiner on Johns Hopkins Radio (now called WYPR). Jamaat al-Muslimeen distributed tens of thousands of flyers about Sudan and critiqued the stories spread by Gregory Kane about slaves allegedly observed and freed in Sudan.
Br. Hodari Abdul Ali, who knows more about Sudan than most African-Americans, has sent us the following email about the latest episode. It brings out the low level of the propaganda against Sudan by prominent segments of the British media.

"... The British Supreme court has ruled against a London newspaper and forced it to apologize and to pay damages for its false and libelous charges of slavery leveled against a Sudanese diplomat based in London."
"The Sunday TELEGRAPH published a story in September 2000 alleging that the Embassy of Sudan Press Counsellor, Mr. Abdel Mahmoud Alkoronky, had 'kept a slave girl in his London home.' Incredibly, the newspaper failed to even interview the domestic worker, Ms. Zainab Nadir. In its apology, the newspaper said, "Ms. Nadir had not been kept as a slave and had not in any way been treated badly or improperly by Mr. Alkoronky or his wife."

In response to the court ruling and the newspaper apology, Mr. Alkoronky said: "Although I was personally attacked in this libelous article, there is no doubt in my mind that my country SUDAN was the ultimate target. My vindication is more than a personal victory. It is also a vindication for Sudan. It is also a victory for those within the developing world who have so often been subjected to irresponsible and baseless claims by powerful first-world media outlets."
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LATE BUT IMPORTANT NEWS FROM AFRICA: (Courtesy Muslim News, London)

NIGER (not to be confused with Nigeria) IN CENTRAL AFRICA has severed with ISRAEL following demonstrations by thousands of people in the streets of Niamey (the capital) denouncing Israel. Government Secretary General, Lawal Kader Mahamadou, who announced the break, accused Israel of GENOCIDE against the Palestinian people. [Niger had renewed diplomatic relations with Israel in 1996. Israeli agents are busy all over Africa.]
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2002-07-17 Wed 17:00ct