Starting Points: sharia

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Jul 7, 2010

Kenya's constitutional vote on sharia courts pits Muslims against Christians

Kenyans protest the proposed constitution, which goes for a vote next month. Ten percent of the country is Muslim. (Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images)

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Wednesday, July 7, 2010; A01

NAIROBI -- For 13 years, Judge Mudhar Ahmed has worked in relative obscurity, issuing Muslim marriage certificates, divorcing Muslim couples and weighing in on Muslim inheritance disputes. Now, he's facing an issue unlike any he has seen. He has one word to describe it: "Islamophobia."

Ahmed is the head of Nairobi's Kadhis Court, one of 17 judicial bodies that administer sharia, or Islamic law, to Kenya's Muslim minority. The courts were enshrined in the nation's constitution decades ago, but Christian leaders are seeking to remove them from a proposed new constitution, scheduled for a referendum Aug. 4. They argue that Kenya is a secular state and that Muslims should not receive special privileges.

Muslim leaders say the maneuvers are part of an agenda to deny their community rights and undermine their beliefs. "They are creating hatred between Muslims and Christians," said Ahmed, his soft voice hardening.

The tussle portends a larger collision between Islam and Christianity in Kenya, a vital U.S. ally in a region where Washington is quietly fighting the growth of Islamic radicalism. Many Kenyans are concerned that the tensions, if not contained, could deepen political fissures and spawn the sort of communal upheaval that left more than 1,000 people dead in 2008 after elections.

In this predominantly Christian nation, Christians are worried about a Muslim community that is growing in numbers and influence, and they have been vocally backed by U.S.-based Christian groups. Muslims are wary of the rising power of fundamentalist Christian organizations backed by American Christians.

The 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania frayed relations between Christians and Muslims. Those links have further eroded in the decade since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, as concerns about Islamic radicalization and terrorism grew in this East African country.

Many Kenyans today fear that the civil war in neighboring Somalia, where the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab militia is seeking to overthrow the U.S.-backed government, could spread into Kenya. A massive influx of Somali refugees, almost all Muslim, has spawned xenophobia and extended misconceptions of Islam.

"The kadhis courts issue is a red herring," said Rashid Abdi, a Nairobi-based analyst with the International Crisis Group. "They feed into historical prejudices on both sides and misperceptions which has increased in the last 10 years."

Centuries of tradition

The kadhis courts have existed in Kenya for centuries. Under Kenya's constitution, their jurisdiction is limited to matters concerning personal law, such as marriages, divorces and inheritances for Muslims, who form 10 percent of Kenya's population. The courts do not hear criminal matters and have far less power than Kenya's higher courts.

For decades, the courts operated without controversy, under the radar of most Kenyans.

But after the Sept. 11 attacks, church leaders grew concerned that the courts could breed extremism. In 2004, a group of churches filed a court case to remove the kadhis courts from the current constitution, but it languished for years in the judicial system. Some Christian leaders worry that the courts could be used to justify an expansion of sharia law in Kenya.

The proposed constitution is part of an effort to create a fairer balance of power among Kenya's ethnic groups. It was that perceived imbalance that led to much of the 2008 violence. While religion did not play a significant role in the violence, it is now dominating the debate on the upcoming vote.

The U.S. ambassador to Kenya has publicly urged Kenyans to vote in favor of the proposed constitution, including the kadhis courts, arguing that passage is key to keeping Kenya stable. But on Web sites and in opinion pieces, conservative U.S. Christian groups have denounced the proposed constitution. They are opposed to the kadhis courts provision, and they see other aspects of the constitution as being pro-abortion. Some have organized petition drives against the courts.

The American Center for Law and Justice, founded by evangelical Pat Robertson, opened an office in Nairobi this year to oppose the new constitution. On its Web site, the group says that the "high number of Muslims in the slums and a significant increase in the number of Somalis" have brought the kadhis courts issue into "sharp focus."

"There are those who believe there is an overall Islamic agenda geared towards the Islamisation of the country," the group says.

Last month, Kenya's high court ruled that the kadhis courts provision should be removed from the draft constitution. That decision is being appealed. Some senior politicians have railed against removing the courts from the draft constitution, partly because Muslims have become a powerful voting bloc.

'We want unity'

On June 13, explosions ripped through a park in Nairobi during a demonstration against the constitution, killing five people and injuring dozens. No one asserted responsibility, but the assault deepened the suspicion among Christian groups.

"We want unity in Kenya, but not a unity that will compromise us," said Bishop Joseph Methu, a senior evangelical Christian leader. Christian leaders say they fear that if the courts are enshrined in the constitution, "sooner or later, you will find an enclave where they will say we are predominantly Muslim and Islamic laws rule here," said Oliver Kisaka, deputy general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Kenya. "You have created space for the creation of a nation within a nation."

As evidence, the Christian leaders point to an incident in April in which a group of Muslim clerics in the northeastern town of Mandera, near the Somalia border, imposed a ban on public broadcasts of films and soccer ahead of the World Cup.

Muslim leaders say the kadhis courts protect their community's rights and cultural values.

"A good constitution is gauged by the extent to which it protects minorities," said Abdalla Murshid, a Muslim lawyer and community leader.

Other Muslim leaders said the courts would stem Islamic radicalism in Kenya. Judges, not mosque imams, would regulate the uses of sharia law. Muslims would feel a deeper sense of national identity.

Kadhis courts are an entity that binds "Muslims to the Kenyan state," said Hassan Ole Naado, head of the Kenyan Muslim Youth Alliance. "It is for the best interests of Kenya to have such courts."

A recent public debate about the courts at a hotel in Nairobi quickly degenerated into a Muslim-vs.-Christian fight.

A Muslim woman named Fatima said that removing the courts from the constitution would make it too easy for Christian members of parliament to get rid of them altogether.

"That's what we want," muttered a man in the audience.

Then a Christian said: "Who are the Muslims? Are they Kenyan or non-Kenyan? If they are Kenyan, they should be satisfied with only one court."

"The Christian clergy have a problem with Islam," said Hussein Mahad, a sheik from the northeastern town of Garissa. "But we are here to stay. We are not going anywhere."

Afterward, he declared: "This is a Christian agenda to keep Islam contained. They think we are all terrorists."

Jul 6, 2010

Indonesia: The Dark Side of Jama’ah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT) - International Crisis Group

Image of Sidney Jones

Jakarta/Brussels | 6 Jul 2010

Divisions and ideological debates generated by Jama’ah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), an organisation founded by Indonesia’s best-known radical cleric, Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, show the weakness of Indonesia’s jihadi movement.

Indonesia: The Dark Side of Jama’ah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines the many facets of JAT, an ostensibly above-ground organisation whose inner circle has had and continues to have ties to fugitive extremists. It has been in the spotlight since May when three of its officials were accused of helping finance a terrorist training camp in Aceh.

“JAT has a public face, advocating full implementation of Islamic law, condemning democracy as illegitimate and preaching jihad”, says Sidney Jones, Crisis Group’s Senior Adviser. “That face gives ‘plausible deniability’ to the involvement of senior JAT officials in more covert activities”. She notes that Lutfi Haedaroh alias Ubeid, arrested while fleeing the Aceh camp, was on JAT’s executive council.

JAT was founded in 2008 as a vehicle for Abu Bakar Ba’asyir’s absolute leadership. In fact Ba’asyir’s insistence on full decision-making authority within JAT makes it unlikely that involvement of senior officials in clandestine activities could have taken place without his approval. The briefing examines JAT’s structure and ideology and analyses the disputes that have erupted between JAT and other radical organisations, including Jema’ah Islamiyah (JI), exemplifying not only the fractures in the jihadi movement but also Ba’asyir’s own declining influence.

There is no indication that violent extremism is gaining ground in Indonesia, even though the constant shifting and realignment of groups will undoubtedly produce more terrorist plots in the future. “We are seeing the same old faces finding new packages for old goods”, says Jim Della-Giacoma, South East Asia Project Director. “Recruitment continues, but there’s more community pushback”. Ba’asyir was refused permission by the local Islamic council to speak in Banten province last month.

The truth is that the jihadi project in Indonesia has failed. The far bigger challenge for the country is to manage the aspirations of those who joined JAT for its public, non-violent message: that democracy is antithetical to Islam; that only an Islamic state can uphold the faith; and that Islamic law must be the source of all justice.

May 3, 2010

Islamist Insurgents Seize a Pirate Base in Somalia - NYTimes.com

Image via Wikipedia

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN and MOHAMED IBRAHIM

Radical Islamist insurgents in Somalia seized one of the country’s most notorious pirate dens on Sunday, raising questions about whether rebels with connections to Al Qaeda will now have a pipeline to tens of millions of dollars — and a new ability to threaten global trade.

Dozens of insurgents stormed into Xarardheere, a pirate cove on the central Somali coast, around noon, but instead of putting up a fight, the pirates sped off. According to witnesses, several pirate bosses raced out of town in luxury four-by-four trucks, with TVs packed in the back and mattresses strapped on top. Islamist fighters in a fleet of heavily armed pickup trucks then occupied the strategic points in town, including the defunct police station and several crossroads.

What will happen next is not clear. Two of Somalia’s biggest problems and its most troubling exports — Islamist extremism and piracy — seem to be crashing into each other.

For several years, an intense civil war has raged in the country between a weak United States-backed government and radical Islamist groups that are trying to overthrow it. The ensuing lawlessness has given rise to a thriving piracy trade, in which Somali thugs in small skiffs have commandeered some of the biggest vessels on the sea, including a 1,000-foot-long oil tanker.

Maritime experts estimate that Somali pirates have received more than $100 million in ransoms — an enormous sum for a nation with virtually no economy. The pirates prowl the busy Gulf of Aden, one of the most congested shipping lanes in the world, and recently struck as far away as 1,200 miles offshore.

The pirates of Xarardheere currently hold several hijacked ships. But before they fled, they sent the ships further out to sea to prevent Islamist insurgents from capturing their hostages — a worrying prospect for Western diplomats and others, who fear the insurgents could exploit the hostages for political ends.

An insurgent spokesman implied on Sunday that his movement would shut down Xarardheere’s piracy business.

“We have peacefully seized the town and now we will bring Islamic Shariah,” said Sheik Abdinasir Mohamed Afdhuub, a spokesman for the Hizbul Islam insurgent group.

But many people fear that the insurgents were actually attracted to Xarardheere because of its criminal enterprise and that different groups of insurgents will now battle for control of the town.

“Tension is very high,” said Nor Ahmed, a Xarardheere resident. “People are worried about possible Shabab attacks any time soon.”

Hizbul Islam and the Shabab are two of the most powerful insurgent groups in Somalia and were once closely allied. Both espouse a harsh Islamist ideology and have organized public amputations and stonings. American and Somali security officials said that the leaders of both groups have worked closely with wanted terrorists of Al Qaeda.

But recently, the two groups seemed to have turned against each other. On Saturday, a deadly bombing at a mosque in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, was believed to have wounded a top Shabab official. On Sunday, another mosque was bombed, this time in the southern port town of Kismayu, where the Shabab drove out Hizbul Islam in a power struggle last year. At least two people were killed and eight wounded, in a neighborhood controlled by the Shabab.

Under strict Islamic law, piracy is considered haram (forbidden), and in 2006, during a six-month period when an Islamist movement pacified much of Somalia, the Islamists curtailed piracy significantly.

But now that Hizbul Islam and the Shabab desperately need money, the situation may be changing. The insurgents’ draconian rules banning music, television and bras have steadily alienated much of Somali society, making it harder for the insurgents to raise money and find recruits.

Additionally, Hizbul Islam lost access to hundreds of thousands of dollars in port taxes when they were kicked out of Kismayu last year and may have needed to find a new source of cash.

Jeffrey Gettleman reported from Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mohamed Ibrahim from Djibouti.

Dec 27, 2009

Sharia tightens its grip on Banda Aceh

Image via Wikipedia

By Kathy Marks

Patrols are on the lookout for unmarried couples, although the Indonesian province has stopped short of stoning adulterers

It is late afternoon; the light is softening and young people have gathered at the harbour in Banda Aceh to play music, buy an ice cream and just hang out. Suddenly the tranquillity of the scene is shattered when two black pick-ups arrive and discharge a dozen men and women in olive uniforms.

The officers approach a couple sitting in the shade. One says: "We're here to enforce local regulation 14. Are you married?" Shamefaced, the boy and girl shake their heads. The officers examine their identity papers, then order them to leave. The couple ride off on their motorbike, flushed with embarrassment.

It's all in a day's work for the Wilayatul Hisbah, a special unit established to enforce sharia in the staunchly Muslim province of Aceh, on the western tip of Indonesia's Sumatra island. The unit patrols several times a day, looking out for people drinking alcohol, gambling, unmarried couples, and women wearing tight clothes or not wearing an Islamic headscarf, a jilbab.

Aceh - known as the "Veranda of Mecca" because Islam entered Indonesia there centuries ago - won the right to implement sharia law in 2001, after the province was granted semi-autonomy as part of efforts to end a decades-long separatist war. In recent years, the law has been enforced with increasing rigour, with dozens of public canings carried out.

In September the provincial parliament approved a new criminal code that includes a provision for adulterers to be stoned to death. The move was condemned by human rights groups, and has alarmed local businessmen, who fear it will harm Aceh's attempts to attract investment following the tsunami five years ago. The provincial governor, Irwandi Yusuf, has refused to sign the new code, so for now it remains in an uncomfortable limbo. That has not prevented the Wilayatul Hisbah, sometimes compared with Saudi Arabia's notorious "vice and virtue" police, from pursuing their task with zeal. And Aceh is not alone. Across Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, dozens of local governments - given wide scope to enact their own laws under a decentralised system - have adopted Islamic regulations on dress and behaviour.

The trend threatens to undermine Indonesia's reputation for fostering a moderate brand of Islam, yet the creeping fundamentalism is not widely endorsed. At elections earlier this year, support for Islamic parties plummeted, at national level and also in Aceh. Many Acehnese abhor the stoning penalty, although few are prepared to criticise it publicly for fear of being labelled bad Muslims.

Image via Wikipedia

Observers say a radical Islamist minority is being allowed to hijack the agenda, and in Aceh that minority is certainly making headway. In October, clerics denounced an Acehnese woman who failed to wear a jilbab while competing in a national beauty pageant. From 1 January, tight trousers will be banned in one district.

Iskandar, head of the Wilayatul Hisbah, or "Wi-Ha", as it is known colloquially, applauds such measures. "In our religion, it's forbidden to wear tight clothes, because they can show the body shape and arouse men's desire to do things with women," he explains. "It's all about protecting women and increasing respect for them. Before sharia law, women were dressing impolitely and getting pregnant outside marriage. That has all decreased now."

At Wi-Ha's dilapidated headquarters in central Banda Aceh, Iskandar is in charge of 62 officers, including 16 women. "Right now three of them are pregnant," he confides, adding hastily: "All are married, of course."

For the dusk patrol, six women and six men set off in the two vehicles, men in front, women following. They cruise slowly towards the harbour, then suddenly veer off sharply to the right. Two young couples have been spotted behaving suspiciously.

It turns out that they are just sitting together in a public place. But Kuzri, the patrol leader, gives them a stiff warning nonetheless. "It's preventative action, to make sure nothing else happens," he says. "We told them that to be together in a romantic way if not married can be dangerous and is actually forbidden. It can lead to bigger things, and on to adultery." ("Adultery", in Aceh, means any kind of illicit sex.)

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Further on, a girl and boy take off on a motorbike as soon as the sharia police arrive. "Actually we're brother and sister, but we were leaving anyway," says the boy. Another couple, who are fishing off some rocks, say they are married. Kuzri believes them. "You can tell whether people are married," he says. "First the location: married people don't need to find a secluded place to spend time with their spouses. Unmarried couples will try to find a place out of sight. Also, they sit next to each other, very close. People who are married don't do that."

It may seem semi-farcical, yet those who transgress the moral code can be caned, even if the stoning law has yet to be enacted. Critics say the code discriminates against women and poor people (since rich couples can go to a hotel), intrudes into private lives, encourages vigilantism and violates the Indonesian constitution. Iskandar receives about 20 anonymous tip-offs a day. A man is spotted going into a hair and beauty salon; he is suspected of visiting prostitutes. An unmarried couple are seen entering a house at 7pm and not leaving until dawn. "What do you think they were doing all that time?" asks Iskandar. He laughs. "Just sleeping or talking?"

But he insists that Aceh is "very different from Afghanistan", and says no one has been caned since he took over last year. "I prefer to give people advice, maybe call in their parents. I think caning is not a good solution." He leans forward conspiratorially. "Actually, I hate caning," he says.

While there is support for sharia, particularly in socially conservative rural areas, many Acehnese have reservations. Lindawati, a seamstress, says: "Women are dressing more modestly now, and there are fewer cases of adultery, which is good. But as for the stoning regulation, I don't know how I would feel if one of my family had to suffer that kind of punishment."

Back at the harbour, a woman selling barbecued sweetcorn by the roadside is displeased to see Kuzri's team. "To be honest, most people don't like the sharia police," she says. One of her customers, a young man, agrees. "I got a warning for being out with my girlfriend," he says. "It's annoying. We weren't doing anything wrong."

But the Wi-Ha is happy in its work. "There are two advantages of our job," says Herman. "We get to carry out our duties, and we also get blessed by God because we're strengthening Islam."

Nov 16, 2009

Cleric says he was confidant to Hasan - washingtonpost.com

Image by eesti via Flickr

In Yemen, al-Aulaqi tells of e-mail exchanges, says he did not instigate rampage

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, November 16, 2009

SANAA, YEMEN -- In his first interview with a journalist since the Fort Hood rampage, Yemeni American cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi said that he neither ordered nor pressured Maj. Nidal M. Hasan to harm Americans, but that he considered himself a confidant of the Army psychiatrist who was given a glimpse via e-mail into Hasan's growing discomfort with the U.S. military.

The cleric said he thought he played a role in transforming Hasan into a devout Muslim eight years ago, when Hasan listened to his lectures at the Dar al-Hijra mosque in Northern Virginia. Aulaqi said that Hasan "trusted" him and that the two developed an e-mail correspondence over the past year.

The portrait of the alleged Fort Hood shooter offered by Aulaqi provides some hints as to Hasan's mind-set and motivations in the months leading up to the Nov. 5 rampage, in which 13 were killed. Aulaqi's comments also add to questions over whether U.S. authorities, who were aware of at least some of Hasan's e-mails to Aulaqi, should have sensed a potential threat. U.S. intelligence agencies intercepted e-mails from Hasan, but the FBI concluded that they posed no serious danger and that an investigation was unnecessary, said federal law enforcement officials.

Aulaqi declined to be interviewed by an American journalist with The Washington Post. But he provided an account of his relationship with Hasan -- which consisted of a correspondence of a dozen or so e-mails -- to Abdulelah Hider Shaea, a Yemeni journalist and terrorism expert with close ties to Aulaqi whom The Post contacted to conduct the interview. The Post reimbursed Shaea's travel expenses but did not pay him.

On Sunday, Shaea offered details of his interview with Aulaqi, an influential preacher whose sermons and writings supporting jihad have attracted a wide following among radical Islamists. Shaea allowed a Post reporter to view a video recording of a man who closely resembles pictures of Aulaqi sitting in front of his laptop computer reading the e-mails, and to hear an audiotape in which a man, who like Aulaqi speaks English with an American accent, discusses his e-mail correspondence with Hasan.

The quotes in this article are based on Shaea's handwritten notes. Shaea said he was allowed to review the e-mails between Hasan and Aulaqi, but they were not provided to The Post.

The thick-bearded, white-robed Aulaqi, who was born in New Mexico, served as an imam at two mosques attended by three of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers -- Virginia's Dar al-Hijra and another in California. Aulaqi, who is in his late 30s, is also fluent in Arabic. U.S. officials have accused him of working with al-Qaeda networks in the Persian Gulf after leaving Northern Virginia. In mid-2006, he was detained in Yemen, his ancestral homeland, at the request of U.S. authorities. He was released in December 2007.

Explaining why he wrote on his Web site that Hasan was a "hero," According to Shaea, Aulaqi said: "I blessed the act because it was against a military target. And the soldiers who were killed were not normal soldiers, but those who were trained and prepared to go to Afghanistan and Iraq."

Aulaqi's views are controversial, earning him not only designation by U.S. counterterrorism officials as a leading English-language promoter and supporter of al-Qaeda, but also criticism from other fundamentalist Islamic clerics. Sheik Salman al-Awdah, a Saudi religious leader, gave an interview last week calling the massacre at Fort Hood "unjustified," "irrational" and "inadvisable" because it will cause a backlash against Muslims in America and Europe.

But Aulaqi's statements reflect the increasingly radical path he has taken since settling in Yemen in 2004. Print, video and audio files of his words have been found on the private hard drives of terrorism suspects in Canada in 2006 and in the United States in 2007 and 2008. He also wrote congratulations to al Shabaab, an Islamic extremist group leading an insurgency in Somalia, after it apparently used the first U.S.-citizen suicide bomber last fall.

"Fighting against the US army is an Islamic duty today," Aulaqi allegedly wrote on his Web site after Hasan's ties to him were reported after the shootings. "The only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the US army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal."

On Dec. 23, 2008, days after he said Hasan first e-mailed him, Aulaqi also posted online words encouraging attacks on U.S. soldiers, writing: "The bullets of the fighters of Afghanistan and Iraq are a reflection of the feelings of the Muslims towards America," according to the NEFA Foundation, a private South Carolina group that monitors extremist Web sites.

Aulaqi is an "example of al-Qaeda reach into" the United States, U.S. officials said publicly in October 2008, years after his ties to the Sept. 11 hijackers were probed by the 9/11 Commission. The panel also revealed earlier FBI investigations into his connections to al-Qaeda associates.

Aulaqi described Hasan as a man who took his Muslim faith seriously, and who was eager to understand how to interpret Islamic sharia law. In the e-mails, Hasan appeared to question U.S. involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and often used "evidence from sharia that what America was doing should be confronted," the cleric told Shaea.

"So Nidal was providing evidence to Anwar, not vice versa," said Shaea. "Anwar felt, after seeing Nidal's e-mails, that [Hasan] had wide knowledge of sharia law." Shaea said he interviewed Aulaqi in his house on Saturday in Shabwa, a province in southern Yemen that has become an extremist stronghold and where al-Qaeda is seeking to create a haven.

Aulaqi told Shaea that Hasan first reached out to him in an e-mail dated Dec. 17, 2008. He described Hasan introducing himself and writing: "Do you remember me? I used to pray with you at the Virginia mosque."

Initially, Aulaqi said he did not recall Hasan and did not reply to the e-mail. But after Hasan sent two or three more e-mails, the cleric said he "started to remember who he was," according to Shaea.

Aulaqi said Hasan viewed him as a confidant. "It was clear from his e-mails that Nidal trusted me. Nidal told me: 'I speak with you about issues that I never speak with anyone else,' " he told Shaea.

The cleric said Hasan informed him that he had become a devout Muslim around the time Aulaqi was preaching at Dar al-Hijrah, in 2001 and 2002. "Anwar said, 'Maybe Nidal was affected by one of my lectures,'" said Shaea.

Of the dozen or so e-mails, said Shaea, Aulaqi replied to Hasan two or three times. Aulaqi declined to comment on what he told Hasan. Asked whether Hasan mentioned Fort Hood as a target in his e-mails, Shaea declined to comment.

Aulaqi said Hasan's alleged shooting spree was allowed under Islam because it was a form of jihad. "There are some people in the United States who said this shooting has nothing to do with Islam, that it was not permissible under Islam," he said, according to Shaea. "But I would say it is permissible. . . . America was the one who first brought the battle to Muslim countries."

The cleric also denounced what he described as contradictory behavior by Muslims who condemned Hasan's actions and "let him down." According to Shaea, he said: "They say American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan should be killed, so how can they say the American soldier should not be killed at the moment they are going to Iraq and Afghanistan?"

Staff writer Spencer S. Hsu in Washington contributed to this report.

Nov 14, 2009

Sudan's 'trouser lady' continues to fight decency laws - washingtonpost.com

Image by khowaga1 via Flickr

Defiant 'trouser lady' continues to fight decency laws

By Stephanie McCrummen
Saturday, November 14, 2009

KHARTOUM, SUDAN -- A few months after she was arrested for wearing pants, Lubna Hussein was lounging around her home in a shady, upper-class neighborhood in this capital along the Nile River. It was a hot afternoon, but the 34-year-old Sudanese journalist was wearing thick jeans adorned with sequins and embroidered flowers.

"Since all this happened, I will only wear pants," she said in the calmly defiant manner that led to her fleeting global celebrity as "the trouser lady," and a less-publicized backlash that has included anonymous death threats and newspaper columns calling her a prostitute. "If you have something to fight for, you can lose your life."

In July, Hussein attempted to shame Sudan's Islamist ruling party by inviting reporters to view her public flogging, a punishment under Islamic law that is sometimes applied here -- by leather whip or bamboo cane of the sort used on camels -- to women deemed to have violated decency laws.

As news spread, her court date drew crowds of women and men protesting in solidarity, and she received support from the likes of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Sudanese women started Web sites such as iamlubna.com, and some compared her to Rosa Parks, the American civil rights icon who challenged segregation laws.

Then, the campaign fizzled. Eager to dispense with the negative publicity, a judge sentenced Hussein to jail instead of flogging. She was released days later, and the attention surrounding her case settled into discussions among women about their experiences with Khartoum's vaguely worded decency laws, and the politics of keeping public order.

"When I was young, I used to see people free and wearing any kind of clothes they want," said Hussein, who is Muslim. "Some women were wearing miniskirts. But since the Islamists came, women don't have that power."

Soon after Omar Hassan al-Bashir came to power in a 1989 coup, Islamists in his party began asserting tight control across Sudan, a country whose north, including Khartoum, is mostly Muslim.

In Khartoum, local authorities showed their loyalty by adopting public-order laws requiring, among other things, "decent" dress and conduct.

Over the years, the public-order police have been relatively tolerant, and these days, women's fashions vary widely in the capital, from long black burqas and gloves to skinny jeans. Trousers are fairly common, but head scarves, long skirts and wraps remain standard attire for most Muslim women here. At times, though, police have implemented the law arbitrarily and even bizarrely.

For months, Sudanese women recalled, a man wearing a red bandana around his head and a whip on his waist was posted at a crowded bus station. He would call out to women he decided were showing too much wrist or ankle and whip them on the spot. Sometimes he would spit on them, they said.

Naglaseed Ahmad, who was among those protesting in support of Hussein's case, recalled being arrested as she was demonstrating against the drafting of her fellow university students into the Sudanese army. A judge found her guilty of violating decency laws and ordered another woman, accused of being a prostitute, to administer 10 lashes in front of him.

"The judge, he was smiling the whole time," Ahmad recalled. "He was enjoying these lashes."

Some women say they are harassed by ordinary men who fancy themselves as sort of a vigilante force. Nahid Mohammed al-Hassan Ali, a psychiatrist who demonstrated with Ahmad, said men who know her shout out "Hey, professor!" when her head scarf slips.

Last year, about 40,000 women were arrested on charges of violating public-order laws, according to human rights groups. They say most cases involved Khartoum's poorest women, such as those who sell tea under trees along the capital's sandy streets.

Hussein's case was somewhat unusual in that she is a relatively wealthy professional. She was enjoying an evening of music with friends at a restaurant when police showed up and began picking women out of the crowd, asking them to parade across the room.

Police said Hussein's green pants -- covered to mid-thigh by a shirt -- were too tight. She and several other women were hauled off to the police station. That night, Hussein, angry not only at her situation, but also at seeing a 16-year-old girl being harassed, crying and wetting herself out of fear, began planning her campaign to overturn the decency laws.

"I decided to cry, but in a different way," she said.

Hussein's more moderate critics say the public-order laws reflect values accepted by a majority of people in Khartoum and dismiss her cause as elitist.

There are harsher critics, though. Women demonstrating on the day of Hussein's trial were met by a counter-protest by men, including some carrying containers of acid. "They said, 'After this trial we will use this acid,' " Ali, the psychiatrist, said with a weary laugh. "We are just familiar with this attitude."

At this point, she and others consider the public-order laws another repressive tool of a ruling party aiming to keep society under control.

Ali and others said that changing these laws will be difficult but that there are small signs of revolt. Around Khartoum, women refer to the gap between a short shirt and a skirt as "the separation of church and state." If a skirt is too short, or too open, they mockingly call it "the failure of civilization."

"It's a kind of mutiny, I guess," Ali said. "Because we've been treated so badly."

Sep 29, 2009

Al Jazeera English - Malaysia caning sentence upheld

Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno would be the first Muslim woman to be caned in Malaysia [AFP]

A Malaysian Islamic court has upheld the caning sentence for a Muslim woman convicted of drinking beer at a hotel, local media reports have said.

If the punishment is carried out, Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, a 32-year-old mother of two, will become the first Muslim woman to be caned in the country.

She had originally been due to be caned late last month, but at the last minute the sentence was put on hold during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

At the time the government asked the Sharia High Court Appeals Panel in Kuantan, the capital of the eastern state of Pahang, to review the verdict.

But late on Monday a chief judge with the court announced that the sentence would be upheld.

Reacting to the news Kartika's father, Shukarno Abdul Muttlib, said that while the family had yet to be informed of the court's decision, his daughter "accepts the punishment" and would like it to be carried out as soon as possible.

"We obey the law [and] it's a challenge ... [but] it's the way of my life," he told the Associated Press.

No date has yet been set for the caning.

Guilty plea

Kartika, a former nurse turned part-time model, was sentenced in July to six strokes of the cane and a fine of $1,400 for drinking beer in 2007 at a beach resort.

She had pleaded guilty in her original trial and had refused to appeal her sentence, despite an intervention from the Malaysian prime minister who said she would likely receive a sympathetic hearing if she did so.

The case had caused an uproar in the media and among rights activists.

Malaysia has a large Chinese and Indian community, but uses a dual-track legal system where sharia courts can try Muslims for religious and moral offences under Islamic law.

Alcohol is widely available in the country but is forbidden for the majority Muslim community, who make up just over half the population.

Symbolic

The actual caning is expected to be carried out using a thin stick on the back and would be largely symbolic rather than aimed at causing pain.

Caning under Malaysia's criminal law, used in the case of convicted rapists and drug smugglers, uses a thick rattan stick applied with heavy force on bare buttocks that causes the skin to break and leave scars.

Nonetheless rights groups have said that even a gentle caning raises the broader question of the role of Islam in the justice system and whether Islamic laws should intrude into people's private lives.

Sep 21, 2009

Indonesia's sharia push may scare investors, moderates - Reuters

Image by lakerae via Flickr

By Sunanda Creagh - Analysis

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Recent moves in Indonesia, including plans by one province to stone adulterers to death, have raised concerns about the reputation of the world's most populous Muslin country as a beacon of moderate Islam.

The provincial assembly in the westernmost province of Aceh -- at the epicenter of the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 170,000 people there nearly five years ago -- this week decreed the ancient Islamic penalty of stoning to death for adultery.

The decision could still be overturned once Aceh's new parliament is sworn in next month.

But many, including Aceh's governor, the central government in Jakarta, and local businessmen, are concerned about the impact a broadcast public execution by stoning could have on Indonesia's international reputation.

"The perception and the reaction from the international community would be condemnation," said Anton Gunawan, chief economist at Bank Danamon, who stressed he thought an actual stoning unlikely.

"For investors who are relatively familiar with Indonesia and know it is mostly moderate, it might not have an impact. But for people who don't know Indonesia, they will think 'Oh, now I have to be careful of it'," he said.

The Aceh case is one of several showing how hardline Muslim groups are influencing policy in Indonesia.

Local governments, given wide latitude to enact laws under Indonesia's decentralization program, have begun to mandate sharia regulations, including dress codes for women.

One ethnic Chinese Indonesian businessman, a practicing Christian who asked not to be quoted by name, said he feared if the trend continued it could lead to capital flight by the wealthy Chinese, Christian minority.

"A lot of regional laws are going in that direction. It's already alarming the way it's going. It's a minority who are doing this, but the problem is that the silent majority just keep silent."

ANTIPORNOGRAPHY LAW

Last year, the government imposed restrictions on Ahmadiyya, a minority Muslim cult, following intense lobbying by hardline Muslim groups to have them banned.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's party also backed an anti-pornography law, which imposes restrictions on certain forms of dance, traditional dress and the depiction of nudity in art.

The law was widely condemned by minority religious and ethnic groups, including Balinese.

A new film law passed this month goes even further, prohibiting depictions of drug use, gambling and pornography, and requiring film-makers to have their plots approved by the Minister of Culture before production can begin.

"I think the Islamic parties will be a strong influence on the law-making of the next cabinet," said Suma Mihardja, who led a campaign against the anti-pornography law.

"Tension could be directed toward xenophobia, racism, or religious conflict as we see in Malaysia today."

Other legislation on the cards at the national level includes a bill making halal certification compulsory, instead of voluntary as is now the case.

That would result in higher costs for many food and pharmaceuticals companies, domestic and foreign, ranging from Nestle and Unilever to Kraft Foods Inc and Cadbury Plc, said Suroso Natakusuma from the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

"Every single item will need halal certification and an external audit process may follow," he said.

"The auditor may need to be sent to the country where the product was made to check the process is halal. That means air tickets, hotels. This will mean a lot of extra costs."

ISLAMIC VOTE FALLING

The religiously-inspired laws seem to run against the wishes of the electorate.

In the 2009 parliamentary election, the vote for the conservative Islamic party PPP declined 2.8 percentage points to just 5 percent of the total vote, while the vote for another Islamic group, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), rose only 1.5 percentage points to 9 percent of the total.

Overall, the share of votes for Islamic parties has steadily declined.

"People appear to be pandering to an audience that isn't really asking for anything," said James Bryson of HB Capital, which invests in Indonesian stocks. "The halal bill is not winning any votes and it's making an already complex system of certification even more expensive."

"Many of these laws lately are becoming more conservative,' said Said Abdullah of secular opposition party PDI-P who is on the committee debating the halal bill. "The government is trying to accommodate the Muslim community but they are actually not following our real constitution."

President Yudhoyono, a former general, won a second five-year term in July on promises to continue the battle against corruption and spur economic growth.

In the run-up to elections, Yudhoyono and his secular Democrat Party shifted closer to a clutch of religious parties including the hardline Islamist PKS, as relations with his main coalition partner, Golkar, grew increasingly strained.

Resources-rich Aceh suffered a decades-long conflict between secessionists and the Indonesian military. The tsunami and the 9.1 earthquake that spawned it brought billions of dollars in aid to the devastated land. That paved the way for a peace agreement with separatists -- whose political party won April's election, and now must deal with the new adultery law.

Aceh wants to attract more investment, just like many other parts of Indonesia. Holding public executions by stoning, which could be televised and shown around the world, could well make that more difficult.

(Editing by Sara Webb and Bill Tarrant)

Sep 7, 2009

Sudan Court to Define Indecent Dress for Women - NYTimes.com

Image by Rita Willaert via Flickr

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

NAIROBI, Kenya — This is not about pants, Lubna Hussein insists. It is about principles.

A woman should be able to wear what she wants and not be publicly whipped for it, says Mrs. Hussein, a defiant Sudanese journalist, and on Monday her belief will be put to the test.

Mrs. Hussein has been charged in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, with indecent dress, a crime that carries a $100 fine and 40 lashings. She was arrested in July, along with 12 other women, who were caught at a cafe wearing trousers.

Sudan is partially ruled by Islamic law, which emphasizes modest dress for women. Mrs. Hussein, 34, has pleaded not guilty and is daring the Sudanese authorities to punish her.

“I am Muslim; I understand Muslim law,” Mrs. Hussein said in an interview. “But I ask: what passage in the Koran says women can’t wear pants? This is not nice.”

Mrs. Hussein even printed up invitation cards for her initial court date in July and sent out e-mail messages asking people to witness her whipping, if it came to that. She said she wanted the world to see how Sudan treated women.

Hundreds of Sudanese women — many wearing pants — swarmed in front of the court where the trial was supposed to take place, protesting that the law was unfair. Twice now, the trial has been postponed. Some of the other women arrested with Mrs. Hussein have pleaded guilty and were lashed as a result. Past floggings have been carried out with plastic whips that leave permanent scars.

“The flogging, yes, it causes pain,” Mrs. Hussein said. “But more important, it is an insult. This is why I want to change the law.”

The law in contention here is Article 152 of Sudan’s penal code. Concisely stated, the law says that up to 40 lashes and a fine should be assessed anyone “who commits an indecent act which violates public morality or wears indecent clothing.”

The question is: what exactly is indecent clothing?

In Sudan, some women wear veils and loose fitting dresses; others do not. Northern Sudanese, who are mostly Muslim, are supposed to obey Islamic law, while southern Sudanese, who are mostly Christian, are not. Mrs. Hussein argues that Article 152 is intentionally vague, in part to punish women.

Rabie A. Atti, a Sudanese government spokesman, said the law was meant for the opposite reason, to “protect the people.”

“We have an act controlling the behavior of women and men so the behavior doesn’t harm others, whether it’s speech or dress or et cetera,” he said.

But, he insisted, Mrs. Hussein must have done something else to run afoul of the authorities, besides wearing pants.

“You come to Khartoum and you will see for yourself,” he said. “Many women, in offices and wedding ceremonies, wear trousers.”

“Thousands of girls wear the trousers,” he added.

Asked what other offenses Mrs. Hussein may have committed, Mr. Atti said that the case file was secret and that he did not know.

Mrs. Hussein countered that she did not do anything else that might have violated the law, and that countless people from inside and outside Sudan are supporting her.

“It’s well known that Sudanese women are pioneers in the history of women’s rights in this region, and that we won our rights a long time ago because of our awareness, open mind, good culture and struggle,” she said.

The last time Sudan’s courts handled a case that attracted such international attention, they found a compromise solution. A British schoolteacher faced up to 40 lashes and six months in prison for allowing her students to name a class teddy bear Muhammad, which was perceived as an insult to Islam. But after being sentenced to 15 days in jail, she was soon pardoned by the Sudanese president.

A widow with no children, Mrs. Hussein is a career journalist who recently worked as a public information assistant for the United Nations in Sudan. She quit, she said, because she did not want to get the United Nations embroiled in her case. But Sudan, given its renewed interest in normalizing relations with the United States, might be reluctant to draw much international ire by harshly punishing her.

Protesters are expected to come out on her behalf again when Mrs. Hussein returns to court Monday morning. She says her family is also behind her.

“My mother supports me,” she said, “but she is worried for me and prays for me.”

Aug 27, 2009

No Black Eyed Peas for Muslims, Says Malaysia - The Jakarta Globe

Image via Wikipedia

Malaysia’s government has barred Muslims from a concert by US hip-hop stars the Black Eyed Peas next month because the event is organized by Irish beer giant Guinness, an official said on Thursday.

The prohibition comes amid a clampdown on alcohol consumption among Malaysia’s Muslim majority. A Muslim woman who drank beer in public was sentenced to caning by an Islamic court last month, though authorities this week agreed to review the penalty. Officials also recently curbed retail sales of liquor in a central state.

In family and personal matters, Muslims in Malaysia are governed by Shariah, or Islamic law, which forbids the consumption of alcohol.

The Black Eyed Peas will perform at a theme park near Kuala Lumpur on Sept. 25 as part of worldwide celebrations to mark the 250th anniversary of Guinness’s flagship brewery in Dublin, Ireland. Malaysia’s largest city is one of five places hosting the concerts.

The Malaysian show’s official Web site said “the party is only open to non-Muslims aged 18 years and above.” Previous major pop concerts in Malaysia, including one by the Black Eyed Peas in 2007, have always been open to Muslims.

“Muslims cannot attend. Non-Muslims can go and have fun,” an official at the Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture said.

She said the concert would not have been permitted at all under normal circumstances because government regulations forbid alcohol companies from organizing concerts. But authorities made an exception in the hopes the event would boost tourism, the official said on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to make a statement. Guinness, however, must not use its logo in concert publicity material, she said.

It was not immediately clear how the ban on Muslims would be enforced. Concert organizers did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

Ethnic Malays comprise nearly 60 percent of Malaysia’s 28 million people and are all legally considered Muslim, while the rest of the country is mainly ethnic Chinese and Indians, most of whom are Buddhist, Christian or Hindu.

The performance next month is the latest to be hit by restrictions in Malaysia. Shows by Gwen Stefani and Avril Lavigne in recent years faced protests by conservatives over immodest clothing, forcing the artists to don attire that was less revealing.

Aug 12, 2009

For Many, Nigeria's Moderate Form of Sharia Fails to Deliver on Promises

By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, August 12, 2009

KANO, Nigeria -- As military rule ended in Nigeria a decade ago, an Islamic legal system was swept into place on a wave of popular support in the country's desperately poor and mostly Muslim northern states. It has turned out in a way few expected.

The draconian amputation sentences warned of by human rights activists and the religious oppression feared by Christians have mostly not come to pass. But neither has the utopia envisioned by backers of sharia law, who believed politicians' promises that it would end decades of corruption and pillaging by civilian and military rulers. The people are still poor and miserable, residents complain, and politicians are still rich.

How the battles over sharia play out could have effects beyond Nigeria, a nation pivotal to West Africa's stability and viewed by the United States as key to stopping the spread of religious extremism in Africa. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to discuss the issue with Nigerian leaders on a visit to the country this week.

"People want sharia. But not this kind of sharia," said Ahmad Al-Khanawy, 41, a reed-thin filmmaker, adding that the most visible signs of Islamic law are new censorship rules banning dancing and singing in movies made in Kannywood, as this city's film industry is known. Sharia-promoting politicians, he said, "want to cover their failure by making noise about fighting immorality. That is it."

Nigeria's moderate form of sharia may not have delivered a Muslim revolution, but it has fueled a growing disillusionment that analysts say has weakened public faith in democracy -- and could, if unchecked, spark religious militancy. That prospect was highlighted last month when a radical Islamist sect called Boko Haram attacked security forces in northern Nigeria, triggering violence that killed more than 700 people. The group draws its members from the ranks of frustrated youths.

"Political space is so limited . . . that the disenchanted are finding little avenues for achieving change through dialogue and peaceful expression," said Nnamdi Obasi, West Africa analyst for the International Crisis Group.

Reforms Missing Mark

So far, analysts say, extremist groups such as Boko Haram remain small and do not have links to international terrorist organizations. In Kano, northern Nigeria's largest city, many say the bigger short-term danger is that people have begun to view this form of sharia -- and the democracy that brought it -- as just another broken political promise.

Kano remains a sunbaked metropolis where electricity is fitful, child beggars swarm on street corners and goats graze in trash heaps. Many of the region's leaders have been accused of corruption, which plagues Nigeria. Against that backdrop, residents say, sharia reforms such as movie censorship and a ban on women riding motorbike taxis seem like window-dressing.

"Sharia is about justice. Where you have sharia, you have development," said Salisu Saidu, 32, standing amid the leather bags he sells in Kano's labyrinthine market. "Nothing has changed. If one relied on tap water, one would die of thirst. We don't even talk of electricity."

Islam has dominated in this region on the edge of the Sahara for centuries, in a tenuous coexistence with the Christianity that is prevalent in more prosperous southern Nigeria. When Kano and 11 other northern states that had long applied Islamic law to civil cases adopted sharia for criminal matters, clashes broke out between Christians and Muslims. Early on, several sentences of death by stoning for female adulterers -- never carried out -- and the amputation of two men's hands for theft drew international condemnation.

But this version of sharia turned out to be fairly temperate, reflecting local sensibilities and religious law's existence within a secular federal system. The harshest sentences imposed under the new system, which applies only to Muslims, garnered little public support. The efforts to ban women from motorbike taxis sparked protests, so veiled women still zip about Kano with their arms around male drivers. The federal government reined in the sharia police, known as the Hisbah, after they were accused of terrorizing people.

Still, the Hisbah remain active. This year, they thwarted a planned protest by divorced Muslim women. Alongside politicians, they regularly smash bottles of liquor seized from trucks smuggling them into Kano's Christian neighborhood, where bars operate openly despite a state ban on alcohol sales. The Hisbah's actions have rankled Christian leaders.

"To us, sharia is a religious injunction laced around the strings of love, tolerance and respect for human dignity," said Tobias Michael Idika, 48, a Christian community leader, who on a recent day sat in a Kano hotel lobby and read from a letter he had written to local officials to protest the actions.

He looked up and shook his head: "Now we are being used as sacrificial lambs."

No Turning Back

All this has added up to a mishmash that looks little like the progress sharia supporters had envisaged. In their version, the tenets of Islam would guide leaders to care for the downtrodden, use resources wisely and punish criminals both powerful and lowly.

But few officials in sharia-governed states have been convicted of corruption, although critics point to their grand houses as evidence that wealth is not being spread.

"If anybody comes to me and asks for my support on the promise of implementing sharia, I wouldn't even vote for him," said Abba Adam Koki, an imam who served on a government sharia board for two years but said he quit after deciding that officials were committed only to preserving their power. "I prefer someone to come and tell me what programs he has for the people."

Government officials say they are doing their best and insist there can be no turning back from Islamic law, though they concede that a full sharia state in multi-faith Nigeria is impossible.

Sule Ya'u Sule, Kano state's spokesman, said the governor has established several agencies to oversee the spread of Islamic principles, including an anti-corruption unit and a branch that collects alms to pay the hospital bills of thousands of poor people each year. The government created 40,000 jobs in the four years prior to 2007 and has curbed prostitution and drinking, he said.

The challenges, Sule said, are that the secular federal police who still patrol Kano are unwilling to cooperate with the Hisbah and that the government does not gives states enough money. Officials require decent clothing, cars and houses, he said, but that does not mean they are corrupt.

"The federal government only gives you a little amount every month. And it is that amount that it expects you to use to develop the state," Sule said. "This money is not enough to finish this work and distribute it to the needy."

On a recent day outside the Islamic court in the northern city of Kaduna, two businessmen lamented that even the heart of Nigeria's Islamic law revolution -- its courts -- had turned out as sluggish as any.

In the turquoise-walled courtroom, prosecutors scolded the judge for postponing several long-standing cases on the docket, including an inheritance dispute and the case of a woman seeking to divorce her husband on grounds that their seven-year-old marriage had not been consummated.

Muhammed Bello, 45, and Yushau Inuwa, 28, were there to see whether a friend accused of theft a year ago -- and badly beaten by the Hisbah, they said -- would finally face trial. The courts were inefficient, they said, and the government had not delivered on what they referred to as their constitutional rights to better roads, schools and health care.

"It's a double tragedy," Inuwa said, though he insisted that the answer to his frustration was not violence. "We need better leaders."

Aug 6, 2009

Clinton's Visit to Somalia Gives New Meaning to 'Handshake Diplomacy'

By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 6, 2009

NAIROBI, Aug. 5 -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Somali President Sharif Ahmed are expected to discuss weighty security issues when they meet in this city Thursday. But many Somalis will be paying close attention to a more delicate, but highly symbolic, matter of diplomacy: whether the two will shake hands.

"The talk is everywhere," said Abdirhaman Mumin, a Somali sugar exporter who is hoping for the handshake. "Will he or won't he? For many people, whether he's loyal to Islam or not depends on the handshake."

Somalia is a traditionally moderate Muslim country. Music and poetry are treasured, and handshaking between men and women -- taboo according to some conservative readings of Islam -- has long been considered normal. But since the collapse of the last central government in 1991, a more conservative strain of Islam has taken hold, with Somalis depending more on Islamic law to establish order.

Ahmed, a former geography teacher and Islamic scholar, was the widely respected leader of a movement of Islamist courts that briefly took power in 2006 and imposed a more strict interpretation of Islamic law. The movement was soon ousted in a U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion fueled by accusations that the movement's military wing, known as al-Shabab, had ties to al-Qaeda.

These days, a more resolutely moderate Ahmed is back in power and battling the Shabab, which broke with him and now controls much of southern Somalia.

Increasingly, though, its members are rebels without a cause. They lost one of their main battle cries when the Ethiopian army withdrew from Somalia. They lost another recently, when Ahmed heeded a popular call and adopted Islamic law for the country. And so, at the moment, the Shabab is relying heavily on portraying Ahmed as an "impure" Muslim, a puppet of the West, a turncoat.

Last week, pro-Shabab Web sites were speculating about a possible shake between Ahmed and Clinton, arguing that, were it to come to fruition, it would prove that Ahmed had lost credibility with Islamists. Some Somalis have argued that Sharif should refrain from pressing palms, if only to keep the Shabab from scoring a public relations victory.

"If they shake hands, they'll definitely use it as propaganda," said one Somali analyst who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the Shabab is known to target critics.

But in recent interviews with Somali exiles -- a generally moderate bunch -- most said they are in favor of the handshake, a view that reflects their cautious optimism about U.S. support for Ahmed, usually referred to as Sheikh Sharif. The United States recently shipped 40 tons of ammunition to help the government fight the rebels.

The pro-shake crowd also reflects a deep-seated desire among many Somalis to shed their image as citizens of one of the most dysfunctional and anarchic countries in the world.

"I think it's good for him to shake hands," said Abdi Ibrahim, who was discussing the issue with friends at a cafe in Nairobi's bustling Eastleigh neighborhood. "Sheikh Sharif has to show Somalis that this is normal. Everyone shakes hands. Why should Somalis be different? Why the big deal? We need to join the world."

"But," he added somewhat gloomily, "the insurgents will use it to say he has changed a lot -- maybe he shouldn't. I cannot say 100 percent."

The former spokesman for the ousted Islamist courts movement, Abdirahim Issa Addou, said that in his view, Sharif is no longer interested in appeasing the Shabab and that "we need to show the Americans we're different."

Following that line of reasoning, he said, Sharif should not just offer Clinton a hearty handshake. "To me, I'd go as far as kissing her," Addou joked. "But really, Sheikh Sharif is in a difficult position. "You know," he said with a sigh, "that Sharif has a lot of problems."

Jul 27, 2009

Nigerian Islamist Attacks Spread

Dozens of people have been killed after Islamist militants staged three attacks in northern Nigeria, taking the total killed in two days of violence to 150.

A BBC reporter has counted 100 bodies, mostly of militants, near the police headquarters in Maiduguri, Borno State, where hundreds are fleeing their homes.

Witnesses told the BBC a gun battle raged for hours in Potiskum, Yobe State and a police station was set on fire.

Some of the militants follow a preacher who campaigns against Western schools.

ANALYSIS
By Caroline Duffield, BBC News, Nigeria

Tensions are never far from the surface in northern Nigeria. Poverty and competition for scarce resources, along with ethnic, cultural and religious differences have all fuelled sudden violence.

But the latest violence is not between communities, it involves young men from religious groups, arming themselves and attacking local police.

Fringe religious groups in Nigeria have claimed links to the Taliban before - individuals have also been accused of links to al-Qaeda. But Nigeria is very different to countries like Mali or Algeria, where groups such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb operate.

The idea of radical Islamist militants gaining a serious foothold in Nigeria is usually dismissed, because of the strength of local identities and traditions.

The preacher, Mohammed Yusuf, says Western education is against Islamic teaching.

There has also been an attack in Wudil, some 20km (12 miles) from Kano, the largest city in northern Nigeria.

A curfew is in force in Bauchi, the scene of Sunday's violence.

Sharia law is in place across northern Nigeria, but there is no history of al-Qaeda-linked violence in the country.

Nigeria's 150 million people are split almost equally between Muslims and Christians and the two groups generally live peacefully side by side, despite occasional outbreaks of communal violence.

Militants chanting "God is great" attacked the Potiskum police station at about 0215 local time (0115 GMT) - the same time as the raid was launched in Maiduguri.

The police station and neighbouring buildings in Potiskum have been razed to the ground, eyewitnesses say.

Two people have been confirmed dead and the police have made 23 arrests.

Fringe group

The corpses of civilians are scattered around the streets of Maiduguri, after being pulled from their cars and shot, eyewitnesses say.

The police and army are patrolling, firing into the air, apparently trying to clear civilians from the area.

There are unconfirmed reports of a jailbreak in the town.

In Wudil, three people have been killed and more than 33 arrested. The senior police officer in Wudil has been wounded.

Security is said to have been beefed up in Plateau State, to the south of Bauchi, where hundreds were killed in clashes between Muslims and Christians last year.

Mr Yusuf's followers in Bauchi are known as Boko Haram, which means "Education is prohibited".

They attacked a police station on Sunday after some of their leaders were arrested.

Correspondents say the group is seen locally as a fringe group and has aroused suspicion for its recruitment of young men, and its belief that Western education, Western culture and science are sinful.