Islam's age-old dogmas shape protests

Deutsche Welle, 26 September 2012

The demonstrators protesting against the abusive anti-Muslim film are shaped by conservative forces rooted in 19th century Islamic experiences, say scholars. But there are reform-oriented interpretations of Islam.

Anger and outrage can be spontaneous. But they can also be rooted in history, fed by extremely old cultural traditions. What seems to be impulsive fervor may also be tied up with feelings associated with certain religious ideologies. According to some Islam scholars, such patterns can be recognized in the recent demonstrations against the abusive anti-Islamic video released on the Internet.

Religious hardening

Consciously or unconsciously, the protesters are identifying with an idea of Islam largely developed in the 19th century, these scholars say. In his book "The Culture of Ambiguity - an alternative history of Islam," Thomas Bauer, an Islam scholar at the University of Münster in Germany describes how Islamic radicalization developed as a result of Western imperialism. 

There have violent protests against
the film in recent weeks

At the start of the 19th century, as the French took over Algeria, Lebanon and Syria and the British occupied Egypt and Palestine, they subdued the conquered peoples culturally as well as politically. The European empires were guided by a worldview that saw the inhabitants of these countries as second-class human beings.

Bauer argues that under the pressure of these new conditions, Islamic teachers transformed their loosely structured religion into an inflexible dogma. Ambiguities were replaced by strict ideological edicts that crystallized religious views to this day.

"While traditional Islamic scholars celebrated the diversity of interpretative possibilities of the Koran, today's interpreters, whether in the West or the East, whether fundamentalist or reform-orientated, believe they know exactly what the one true meaning of any particular part of the Koran is," writes Bauer. 

God's word

This hardening of positions has had consequences beyond religion that have fused religious and legal dimensions, says Bonn-based sociologist and lawyer Werner Gephart. This has created its own problems.

"In Western law, the distinction between law and religion is typical," says Gephart. "But in the Islamic tradition, not only are religious and legal norms summed up under the vague term 'Sharia,' so are elements of everyday life." This has turned Sharia into an ideological system that tries to regulate all aspects of life.

Sharia gains it power from the fact that its source - God's revelations - cannot be contradicted, says Gephart. "That means that there is always a spiritual dimension. If you want to read it from a legal point of view, it is an implicit will by which an entire social order can be organized by totalitarian means."

Power of conservative theology

The competition between different meanings of Islam is based on the fact that the interpretation of religious as well as secular texts can never be unambiguous. But in large parts of the Arab world, influential conservative theologists will not accept modern, historically-argued readings of the Koran.

No one knew this better than Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid, an Egyptian reformer theologian who died in July 2010. Several years ago, Zaid was forced to leave Egypt after being accused of blasphemy. In an interview with Deutsche Welle shortly before his death, he explained why historical and critical readings of Islam are so fraught with difficulty. 

Zaid was an Egyptian scholar
exiled for his reformist views

"This method dramatically endangers the power of religious authorities," he said. "Because they give the individual more opportunity to interpret the texts less dogmatically. The religious powers have fought this ever since this kind of non-dogmatic Koran exegesis was developed, because it is of course a challenge, even a threat, to dogma."

Military and theological power

The dogmatic interpretation of the Koran, as it is taught at the famous Azhar University in Cairo, still has influence on a lot of Muslims. Relatively few people oppose this point of view.

One of them is Syrian philosopher Zadik Al-Azm. He says that in the Middle East, one has to decide whether one wants to live under the hegemony of the military or the Islamists. "For me it's clear: I want to live under military law," he told DW. "At least there I can sign petitions to suspend the law. But who would dare sign a petition calling for the suspension of divine law?"

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"Perceptions of God" – June 6, 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Quantum Teaching, The Fear of God, Near-death Experience, God Becomes Mythology, Worship, Mastery, Intelligent Design, Benevolent Creator, Global Unity.... etc.) (Text version)

“.. For centuries you haven't been able to think past that box of what God must be like. So you create a Human-like God with wars in heaven, angel strife, things that would explain the devil, fallen angels, pearly gates, lists of dos and don'ts, and many rules still based on cultures that are centuries old. You create golden streets and even sexual pleasures as rewards for men (of course) - all Human perspective, pasted upon God. I want to tell you that it's a lot different than that. I want to remind you that there are those who have seen it! Why don't you ask somebody who has had what you would call a near-death experience?

"The End of History" – Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll)

(Subjects: Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Muhammad, Jesus, God, Jews, Arabs, EU, US, Israel, Iran, Russia, Africa, South America, Global Unity,..... etc.) (Text version)

" ..... If an Arab and a Jew can look at one another and see the Akashic lineage and see the one family, there is hope. If they can see that their differences no longer require that they kill one another, then there is a beginning of a change in history. And that's what is happening now. All of humanity, no matter what the spiritual belief, has been guilty of falling into the historic trap of separating instead of unifying. Now it's starting to change. There's a shift happening. ....."

UFO hunters: They are still watching

BBC News, By Jon Kelly, BBC News Magazine, 25 September 2012

A group of British UFO-watchers is celebrating 50 years of searching for spacecraft in the sky. What keeps them looking for extra-terrestrial life?

There are no windows in the functional-looking basement hall beneath a north London hotel. But everyone gathered here is gazing to the heavens.

Figuratively speaking, that is.

The annual conference of the British UFO Research Association (Bufora), is a gathering of enthusiasts for unexplained aerial phenomena that might, they speculate, be evidence of extra-terrestrial intelligence.

Dozens of them have travelled from around the UK to be here. They listen to guest speakers patiently and attentively. Many carefully take notes during lectures on such topics as "Ghost Rockets", "Political, Cultural and Social Influences of UFOs" and "Behind All The Anomalous Reports".

Ufology - as its followers like to term it - is a subculture with its own lexicography - greys, contactees, close encounters. 

Bufora delegates browse
UFO titles at a bookstall

The ufologists also have their own recurring motifs - abductions, government cover-ups - and a distinctive visual aesthetic which looks like a sort of blend of the retro-futurist and the New Age.

At a bookstall, delegates browse titles like The Real Men in Black by Nick Redfern, Reflections of a UFO Investigator by Kevin Randle and The Occult Significance of UFOs by Douglas Baker.

The predominant demographic is older men. But somewhere between a quarter and a third of Bufora attendees look under 30 and a similar proportion are female.

Bufora styles its approach as "scientifically factual", distancing itself from the more esoteric and mystical wings of the movement, such as the Raelians, who believe the Earth was created by an alien race called the Elohim, and followers of David Icke, who teaches that the human race was bred by reptilians from the constellation Draco.

Instead, Bufora devotes its efforts to fact-checking unexplained sightings. The group says that 95% of the 500-plus sightings reported to its National Investigations Committee each year can be explained rationally. And the rest - well, they aren't ruling anything out. Not aliens, anyway.

This logic, and indeed the very notion of an empirically rigorous UFO-spotter, is guaranteed to provoke snorts of derision from sceptics who regard ufology as a blend of pseudo-science, conspiracy theory and mystical hokum.

Certainly, speakers may stress the importance of maintaining an evidence-based approach and not letting one's beliefs colour judgements.

But the questions from the floor tend to concern whether they think a spacecraft landed at Rendlesham Forest in Suffolk in 1980 or if they believe the American government is covering something up at Area 51 in Nevada. No-one demurs when the TV presenter Lionel Fanthorpe tells the audience that the "major possibilities" for explaining strange things in the sky include parallel universes, extra-terrestrial life and "psychic phenomena".

But even opponents would have to concede that the ufological world view has seeped into the mainstream. A study for National Geographic magazine in June found that 36% of Americans said they believed in UFOs and one in 10 claimed they had spotted one. Almost 80% thought the government had concealed information on the subject from the public.

Nonetheless, the last decade has seen a succession of news reports foretelling a crisis in ufology.

Is it a bird, is it a plane? 

Numerous UFO sightings in the UK were

published by the National Archives in 2012,

but UFO-spotting is nothing new, with many

cases being recorded in different countries:

1946 - Polish-born American George
Adamski claimed to have seen a large
cigar-shaped "mother ship"

1947 - reports of an object crashing near
Roswell, New Mexico was thought to be
an extra-terrestrial spacecraft. The US army
countered that debris recovered belonged
to a weather balloon

1980 - The Rendlesham Forest incident,
when lights and a craft were reportedly
seen in the forest in Suffolk near RAF 
Woodbridge

The folding of the long-established UFO Magazine in 2004 and the Ministry of Defence's decision to close its UFO desk in 2009 led several mainstream commentators to conclude that the phenomenon was a distinctively 20th Century one, unique to an era of Cold War paranoia, space race-fuelled technological optimism and pop culture references to aliens and extra-terrestrials.

There was even speculation that the effect was partly down to 9/11. With a new and definitely real enemy to focus on, the uncommitted would be less drawn to ufology, the theory went.

But still the ufologists gather, longing to discover more about these strange sightings in the sky.

"[The movie] Close Encounters of the Third Kind caused a membership surge for us, as did ET and then the X Files," smiles Bufora chairman Matt Lyons, a cheerful 45-year-old music teacher from Kent.

While unexplained celestial happenings have been witnessed throughout history, UFO-spotting as a popular phenomenon took off after US airman Kenneth Arnold reported sighting nine disc-shaped objects while airborne in 1947. Five years later, George Adamski attracted huge publicity after claiming that he had met Nordic-looking aliens who warned him about the dangers of nuclear war.

Against this backdrop, Bufora was founded in September 1962 as an amalgamation of various regional groups.

Mainstream scientists were not yet embarrassed to be associated with UFOs, recalls retired civil servant and veteran UFO-watcher Lionel Beer. The Duke of Edinburgh was even claimed as a subscriber to Flying Saucer Review. At Bufora's inaugural meeting, in west London's Kensington Central Library, it was "standing room only", Beer wistfully remembers.

Arguably the high point of ufology's influence on British political life came when the House of Lords earnestly debated the subject in January 1979.

By this time, however, sky-watching had taken a darker turn. In the believer's worldview, aliens had been the wise, benevolent secular angels of Adamski's depiction.

But by the end of the 1970s belief was growing in a huge government cover-up at Roswell, Nevada - a plot that, coincidently, began to be speculated about soon after the Watergate scandal shattered public faith in politicians.

Indeed, it's possible to see postwar Western social history reflected through the prism of UFO belief - from early optimism about technological advance through Cold War fears of attacks from above, via 1960s counterculture and the later cynicism that would find its zenith with the X Files.

For this reason, even sceptics like Dr David Clarke of Sheffield Hallam University - who successfully campaigned for the MoD to release its UFO-related files - believe the phenomenon is nonetheless worth studying as a powerful example of 20th Century folklore and mythology.

"Of course, it's pseudo-science," he says. "But people have always looked in the sky and seen things that were odd or puzzling. Before aliens, it was angels, ghosts and spirits.

"What it tells us is that, as human beings, we need to find explanations and believe in something bigger than ourselves."

Not that all non-believers entirely reject life in the ufology world.

Writer and film-maker Mark Pilkington - whose book about the subculture, Mirage Men, forms the basis of a forthcoming documentary - has fond memories of his early days in the UFO community before he abandoned its core tenets.

"If you get into it and take it seriously, you have to learn about physics, chemistry, meteorology and so on," he says.

"It can give you a really good grounding in reality, ironically."

Even the sceptics, it seems, are staring at the stars.

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"The Big Picture - You Are Not Alone" - Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll)

"Common Questions from Non-Lightworkers" - Feb 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"... Question Three: Is there life on other planets?

Are you kidding? There's life everywhere. Everywhere! Right now, your scientists are searching for microbial life on all the planets and their moons in your solar system, and they will eventually find it. They expect to find it. They will eventually understand that the seeds of life are everywhere. ...."

"... Is there life on other planets? The scientists are saying, "It's going to be a long time before we get to the stars, you know? We have to get in this little metal can and put air in it, and then travel in it for years and years before we ever get to the next star." Meanwhile, a Pleiadian can do it in the blink of an eye! What do you think is going on there? Do you even believe me?...."

"... Question Five: Why don't more people see what you are saying?

You know why? It's because this information goes against current Human reality. Here is an example: Let me take you back a few years in medicine. There was an idea put forward that on your hands there were what I will call little creepy crawlers (that came out of my partner's mind). You couldn't see them, since they were invisible, and they carried disease. So it was put forward that you ought to sterilize everything you could to keep the creepy crawlers from getting onto other people when you touch them and when doctors operate on them - and it was funny! All the biologists and doctors laughed and laughed. Imagine such an idea! Invisible entities that you carry with you!  

The word is germs, and then they found them. You can't see them, but they are all over your body....."

Relatives of Saudi inmates hold protest over detentions

BBC News, 24 September 2012

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Relatives of Saudi prisoners - most of them held without charge - have held a rare protest urging their release.

More than 100 people, including women and children, have taken part in the sit-in that began on Sunday outside a desert prison in Qassim province.

Riot police used force to break it up, arresting several protesters, according to activists.

They say a similar protest has begun outside the office of the Human Rights Commission in the capital, Riyadh.

One of the protesters in Qassim, Rima Jureish, told AFP news agency that her husband had been "detained for more than nine years without charge".

King Abdullah has introduced economic and social reforms during his seven-year reign, including moves to improve the position of women, but correspondents say he has left Saudi Arabia's political system untouched.

Vietnam jails dissident bloggers

BBC News, 24 September 2012

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Earlier this month, Vietnam's prime
minister  hit out at anti-government
blogs

Vietnam has jailed three bloggers accused of spreading anti-government propaganda, in a case highly criticised by rights groups.

The high-profile but brief trial took place in Ho Chi Minh City under heavy security, reports say.

The trio were given jail sentences of between four and 12 years.

The government, which does not allow freedom of expression, has been under pressure from bloggers over corruption cases and human rights issues.

The three were accused of posting political articles on a banned website called Free Journalists' Club, as well as articles critical of the government on their own blogs.

Nguyen Van Hai, who uses the pen name Dieu Cay, received the longest sentence of 12 years.

The case of Dieu Cay, who was a soldier before he became a dissident writer, was raised by US President Barack Obama earlier this year.

Former policewoman Ta Phong Tan, who also wrote a blog called ''Justice and Truth'', was sent to jail for a decade. In July, her mother died after setting herself on fire to protest against the detention of her daughter.

The third dissident writer, Phan Thanh Hai, was jailed for four years.

In a statement, the US embassy in Hanoi called on the Vietnamese government to free the group.

"We are deeply concerned by reports that the Ho Chi Minh City People's Court convicted and sentenced blogger Dieu Cay to 12 years in prison for peacefully expressing his political views," the statement said.

Activists have accused the government of stepping up a crackdown against bloggers and peaceful activists.

"Vietnam's arbitrary use of vaguely worded national security laws to imprison critics of the government means bloggers are bearing the brunt of this assault on freedom of expression," Brad Adams, Asia director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a statement urging the release of the trio

Earlier this month, Vietnam's prime minister hit out at three blogs critical of the government.

A statement on a government website said PM Nguyen Tan Dung had ordered police to investigate and take action against those responsible.

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Sweeping new changes expected at NKorean farms

Associated Press, Sep. 24, 2012

Displaced North Korean women, left homeless by July flooding, walk among
 temporary tents set up in their destroyed neighborhood in Ungok, North Korea
 on Monday, Aug. 13, 2012. Floods killed at least 169 North Koreans nationwide
 and destroyed tens of thousands of homes. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

SARIWON, North Korea (AP) — Farmers would be able to keep a bigger share of their crops under proposed changes aiming to boost production by North Korea's collective farms, which have chronically struggled to provide enough food for the country's 24 million people.

Two workers at a farm south of Pyongyang told The Associated Press on Sunday that the new rules will allow them to keep any surplus crops — to sell, barter or donate — after they have fulfilled state-mandated quotas. Current rules require them to turn everything over to the state beyond what farmers can keep to feed their families.

The new directives have been widely rumored abroad but were never previously made public outside North Korea's collective farms. The changes may seem highly technical to outsiders, but by giving farmers an incentive to boost production North Korea could be starting down the same path as China when it first began experimenting with market-based reforms in the 1970s.

They would also mark the first significant changes to North Korea's collective farming system since leader Kim Jong Un took power earlier this year. The outside world has been watching closely to see how Kim's rule will differ from that of his autocratic father, who died in December, and how he will deal with the country's chronic food shortage.

The farmers at Migok Cooperative Farm in South Hwanghae Province, in southwestern North Korea, were informed of the changes during meetings last month, according to the workers. These new directives could take effect with this year's upcoming fall harvest, they said.

"We expect a good harvest this year," said O Yong Ae, a worker at the Migok farm, one of the region's largest and most productive. "I'm happy because we can keep the crops we worked so hard to grow."

Follow AP's Korea bureau chief Jean H. Lee at twitter.com/newsjean.

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UFO sighted over Carlton Gardens in central Melbourne

News.com.au, Shannon Deery, Herald Sun, September 23, 2012

This UFO was seen hovering above the
Carlton Gardens on September 22.
Source: Supplied

A MELBOURNE man has captured footage of what he claims to be another UFO hovering across the city skyline.

The three-minute clip was recorded as the UFO hovered over Carlton Gardens last night.

Tod, who did not want his surname published, said he captured the footage on his phone after he first saw the object about 9.30pm.

Other witnesses have reported seeing it as early as 7.30pm.

Tod said the object left the Carlton Gardens area about 11pm, flying past the Immigration Museum.

“It was moving like no other flying object that I'm aware exists, and it was displaying amazing patterns of lights that looked something like a light show display in the sky,” he said.

“I was on Lygon St when I first saw it then I walked up to Carlton Gardens, there were a whole bunch of other people saw it as well,” he said.

Astronomical Society of Victoria spokesman Perry Vlahos said it was unlikely the object was anything extraordinary.

This UFO was seen hovering above the 
Carlton Gardens on September 22.
Source: Supplied

“Something that has been around that long and not seen by astronomers is probably unlikely to be anything odd,” he said.

“The fact it was in the sky for that long probably indicates it was something not too unusual." Mr Vlahos said members of the ASV had not reported anything unexpected.

“The ASV has hundreds of members - many are looking into the sky with large telescopes every clear night from various locations around the state, including Melbourne, and none of them have reported seeing anything unexpected,” he said.

But other witnesses have described seeing other UFOs in the area.

Carlton resident Penny De La Soyo said she was shocked after seeing a “weird formation” of lights from the balcony of her 9th floor apartment.

Ms De La Soyo said the formation passed her home about 10.15pm.

“Eight orange lights in a weird formation came up over the horizon, then their formation changed a bit, one disappeared and then others did,” she said.

“It all lasted about a minute. I know it wasn’t a plane or helicopter.

“The lights were orange, they weren’t flashing like lights on a plane,” she said.Ms De LA Soyo said she had tried to “be logical” about the sighting, but said it was unlike anything she had seen before.

The sightings comes less than a week after a western suburbs man captured an eight minute video of a fast-moving disc-shaped object descending and ascending high above his Albanvale house.

The man, known only as Ivan, said a neighbour called him outside to witness the spectacle, both looking on in astonishment.

"I have dismissed a lot of things thinking of what it could be," Ivan said.

"But I am left with very little other than to think it is something unearthly."

Ivan said the object lingered in the sky for around an hour and changed colour - switching between green, red and blue - and for several seconds at a time disappeared.

shannon.deery@news.com.au

North Korea Takes Notice of 'Gangnam Style'

Jakarta Globe, September 23, 2012

South Korean rapper Psy performs his massive K-pop hit 'Gangnam Style'
live on NBC's 'Today' show, on Friday, Sept. 14, 2012, in New York. Psy — real
 name Park Jae Sang — posted another landmark Tuesday, when the video of
his global-hit 'Gangnam Style' notched 200 million views on YouTube, days after
topping the US iTunes chart. (Photo by Jason DeCrow/Invision/AP Images) 

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Seoul. Even North Korea is paying attention to PSY's globally popular "Gangnam Style" song and the South Korean rapper's memorable horse-riding dance.

The North has posted a video on its official Uriminzokkiri website of a horse-dancing PSY character that has a photo of conservative South Korean presidential candidate Park Geun-hye's face transposed on it.

The lyrics have the character satirically defending Park's late dictator father, Park Chung-hee.

Park is a front-runner in polls ahead of December presidential elections. But she has faced liberal criticism that she hasn't adequately addressed her father's legacy.

Park Chung-hee was a harsh autocrat. But he is seen by supporters as an important factor in South Korea's economic rise from the Korean War.

The original "Gangnam Style" video has 220 million YouTube views and counting.

Associated Press

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Australian Roman Catholic Church admits child sex abuse

BBC News, 22 September 2012

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The church says it is still
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The Roman Catholic Church in the Australian state of Victoria has confirmed that more than 600 children have been sexually abused by its priests since the 1930s.

The Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, described the figures as "horrific and shameful".

They were released in a submission to a state parliamentary inquiry into the handling of abuse cases.

Campaigners say the true number of abuse victims could be up to 10,000.

In its submission, the church said the 620 cases went back 80 years with the majority taking place between the 1960s and the 1980s.

It says it is still investigating a further 45 cases.

In a statement, Archbishop Hart said it was important to be open "about the horrific abuse that has occurred in Victoria and elsewhere".

"We look to this inquiry to assist the healing of those who have been abused, to examine the broad context of the church's response, especially over the last 16 years, and to make recommendations to enhance the care for victims and preventative measures that are now in place," the statement said.

Campaign groups say that many cases of abuse have gone unreported, and they believe the true number of victims is closer to 10,000 in Victoria alone.

Abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests has been a major issue in Australia recent years.

During a visit to Australia in July 2008, Pope Benedict XVI met some of the victims and made a public apology for the abuse.

Gangnam Style dance-off escalates into gang shootout in Bangkok

West Side Story-esque show of rivalry stokes Thai debate over gang violence and demonstrates wide appeal of K-pop video

The Guardian, Kate Hodal in Bangkok, Friday 21 September 2012

Psy performing Gangnam Style live on NBC's Today show in
New York. Photograph: Jason Decrow/AP

The dance has inspired a host of parodies, the song has hit the top of the charts in South Korea, Malaysia, Finland and Latvia, and the YouTube video has accumulated more than 227m views. Now, according to Thai media, Gangnam Style, by the K-pop star Psy, has inspired a West Side Story-esque show of rivalry between two Bangkok gangs who are said to have had a dance-off before engaging in a gun battle.

The INN website reported that the two gangs were dining in the same restaurant when "the younger members of both groups danced provocatively at each other in the manner of top hit Gangnam Style". The dance-off escalated into an argument and, eventually, a gun attack in the upmarket Ekkamai neighbourhood, in which one of the gangs fired at least 50 bullets from a carbine and an 11mm gun.

No one was injured in the incident, police Lt Col Apichart Thongchandee told the Bangkok Post. He said the two gangs had a history of confrontation and would face arrest warrants.

The shootout has stoked debate over gang violence in Thailand. Much of the violence plays out in secondary schools and vocational colleges – the latter primarily cater to working-class children – where students seek to defend their school's honour with guns, knives, machetes and even homemade grenades. Between January and July this year, Bangkok police registered more than 1,000 cases of student rivalry, according to a recent report by Agence France-Presse. Several students have been killed or injured since the start of the school year in May.

Thai authorities recently established an army-style boot camp where, according to AFP, repeat offenders must endure regular fitness drills and 5am wake-up calls side by side with their rivals. Not all those attending went back home reformed, Lt Col Wanchana Sawasdeem said, "but for 90% it will work, even if it just means they hesitate before fighting … At least the camp will have made them think."

That the two gangs apparently engaged in a Gangnam Style dance-off is indicative of the video's popularity. Psy, otherwise known as Park Jae-Sang, told Radio 1's ScottMills this week that his distinctive dance style emulated "riding an invisible horse in your lower body". The video features Park doing the dance all over Seoul – from car parks to steam rooms – with a supporting cast dressed as geishas, nuns and boxers. Park sports various outfits, among them a blue tuxedo together with shellacked bouffant and sunglasses. "This is the point of the Gangnam Style," Park told Mills. "Dress classy and dance cheesy."

The track, which is said to mock the affluent Seoul suburb Gangnam, could become the first Korean pop song to reach number one in the UK charts, according to the BBC. Park has already featured on numerous US TV shows, taught the horse-riding dance to Britney Spears, and helped inspire a flash-mob wedding proposal in Malaysia. The video has been parodied by Los Angeles lifeguards (who, according to LA news outlets, were fired for the stunt), an American college football team and even the government of North Korea. Park recently signed a record deal with Justin Bieber's management team.

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Suu Kyi calls for release of Pussy Riot singers

AFP/Google, Fabienne Faur (AFP), 20 September 2012

Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar speaks during a town hall

meeting hosted by Amnesty International (AFP, Saul Loeb)

WASHINGTON — Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday called for the release "as soon as possible" of punk band Pussy Riot -- whose members are jailed in Russia -- during an Amnesty International event.

The opposition lawmaker, currently visiting the United States, said that she "would like the whole group to be released as soon as possible," in a response to a question posed during her discussion with 300 youths.

"Was it anything in the song that was nasty to other people?" asked the Nobel peace laureate, who was freed at the end of 2010 after spending much of the previous 15 years under house arrest.

When told her comments could be seen as criticizing the Russian government, she said -- to the laughter and applause of the crowd -- that "governments must be prepared to take criticism."

"It's a different matter if you are insulting other people individually," Suu Kyi told the audience, which included Pyotr Verzilov, husband of one of the imprisoned singers.

Three members of Pussy Riot were convicted in August of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, and sentenced to two years in a labor camp, for a performance against Russian President Vladimir Putin in an Orthodox cathedral.

The band is scheduled to begin an appeal on October 1.

Suu Kyi spent an hour answering questions about her house arrest and her philosophy on human rights during the event at the Newseum, a museum dedicated to media and journalism.

She said the years she spent confined to her home were "worth it."

"I never thought I was making any sort of sacrifice. I never thought I was suffering.

"I never forgot that I was much more fortunate than my colleagues who were in jail," she added.

Suu Kyi said she has "always been very fond of the military," adding that her father, who was assassinated in 1947, when she was two years old, "founded the modern Burmese army.

"My earliest memories of him were in uniform," the opposition leader said, using Myanmar's former name.

She also condemned the use of violence, saying those who resort to it are "undermining the very foundations of human rights."

She advised her young admirers to follow her example: "When something troubles me I think to myself, well, after 24 hours this will seem less serious.

"And the moment I think like that, the whole thing is much more easier."

Suu Kyi has been in Washington since Monday as part of a three-week trip across the United States. The pro-democracy activist has received a rapturous welcome during the visit, her first since her release from house arrest.

Myanmar was ruled by an iron-fisted junta for decades but, since taking office last year, a reformist government under former general Thein Sein has freed political prisoners and allowed Suu Kyi's party into electoral politics.