Saturday, February 12, 2011

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - DECEMBER 15:  Anthony Mund...Image by Getty Images via @daylife
New Zealand sporting star converts to Islam...










Sonny Bill Williams embraces the Islamic faith - what sort of influence will this have on young non-Caucasian New Zealanders?

He's converted from a rugby league teen sensation into an All Black juggernaut, and along the way become a promising heavyweight boxer.

But Sonny Bill Williams has also made a spiritual conversion to Islam.

While rumours of the 25-year-old sporting superstar's religious beliefs have circulated for some time, the Herald on Sunday can reveal he made the leap of faith two years ago.

He has since become the first Muslim to wear the All Black jersey, and requested halal food during the Northern Hemisphere tour last year.

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when followers are forbidden from eating between dawn and sunset, falls in August this year - when the All Blacks play three Tri Nations matches. It is during the final build-up to the Rugby World Cup.

Williams regularly attends Friday prayer sessions at a Christchurch mosque, according to friends.

Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand first vice-president Javed Khan said his allegiance was commonly known among the Muslim community.


"He is practising the religion and he is a great role model for the youngsters. We will pray to Allah that he will win the World Cup for us. Everyone talks about it you know. The Muslim community, everyone knows everyone, you know."

Williams' manager Khoder Nasser and mentor, league star and boxer Anthony Mundine, are both Muslims, as is his brother Johnny, who lives with him in Christchurch.

YouTube footage appears to show Williams performing a Muslim prayer in the changing room before his debut for Canterbury against Bay of Plenty in the ITM Cup last year.

Williams' friend Tairek Smith said he had regularly prayed with the 1.91m, 108kg second five-eighth since he embraced the Sunni branch of Islam during a ceremony at the Regent's Park mosque in Sydney's western suburbs in 2008, where former Canterbury Bulldogs teammate Hazem El Masri attends.

All Black manager Darren Shand said the star's religious beliefs had a "minimal" impact on the team.

He said: "He has talked to us about his dietary needs and we do make some concessions there. We request halal beef and so on but he doesn't make a big deal of it.

"We always leave players' religious affiliations and a lot of those holistic things outside of the game. That's their personal life and they decide what they do."

When asked if his faith clashed with the All Blacks' philosophy for encouraging players to be free thinking and self reliant, Shand said Williams was a "sponge" for information.

"That's why he is so good at all the sports he has been involved in. He just ticks all the boxes. He wants to be the best."

Since converting to Islam, Williams has put a string of embarrassing alcohol-related incidents behind him.

He is in training for the Crusaders' Super Rugby campaign and was unavailable for comment.
* * *

Sporting conversions

Muhammad Ali: The boxing legend changed his name from Cassius Clay in 1964.

Mike Tyson: converted to Islam after being imprisoned for rape in 1992.

Brad Thorn: The hardest man in NZ rugby gave up the hard living in 1998 to become a Christian.

Kaka: the Real Madrid football superstar suffered a spinal fracture at age 18, and devoted his life to God after his miraculous recovery.

Mark "Bull" Allen: The shaven-headed former All Black prop and TV personality joined Brian Tamaki's Destiny Church.

Acknowledgements: carolyne.meng-yee@hos.co.nz

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Friday, February 11, 2011

Operational Response GroupImage via WikipediaThe Australian Rebels motor-cycle gang moves into New Zealand...






Gang's NZ offsiders have notched up 170 years' jail time. Largest membership in Australasia.




Police Minister Judith Collins at Palmerston North press conference, Detective Inspector Chris Bensemann (left) and Central Police District Commander Russell Gibson
Members and prospects of the recently formed New Zealand branch of the Rebels motorcycle gang have more than 200 criminal convictions between them and have spent nearly 170 years in jail.


Police intelligence has identified 17 patched members of Australia's largest gang here in New Zealand, with nearly 100 convictions for serious drug and violence offences between them.


Prison sentences for those patched members total 77 years, a figure topped by the 90 years of jail time for a further 14 identified Rebel prospects or associates.


Detective Superintendent Brett Kane, of the Organised and Financial Crime Agency, released the information yesterday after a major police operation arrested 30 people accused of running a methamphetamine ring across the North Island.


Vehicles were seized during the armed raids in Manawatu, Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Northland, as well as $120,000 cash, drugs, guns and gang patches. Four Rebels were arrested in Operation Stamp as the police target the expansion of the major Australian criminal group before it gets a foothold here.




Mr Kane said police had been working with Australian law enforcement agencies since late last year after learning of the Rebels' plans to expand in New Zealand.


Mr Kane said the Rebels' expansion in New Zealand stemmed from a number of expat Kiwis joining the Australian gang and rising to senior leadership positions.


The Rebels still have family links to New Zealand - and can fly back and forth on their passports - and were already taking over local gang the Tribesmen in a rebranding process known as "patching over".


The Tribesmen have been weakened by successful police operations targeting the drug dealing of the gang and feeder gang the Killer Beez.


Many of the Tribesmen are also heavy users of P, which Police Association president Greg O'Connor said had damaged the organisation and contributed to their loss of influence and power in the underworld.


He referred to the gang as "The Friedsmen" and said it made sense for them to reach out to a stronger gang such as the Rebels.


The Weekend Herald has also learned that some of the Nomads, who have been in turmoil since the death of their founder Dennis "Mossie" Hines in 2009, are also "patching over" to the Rebels.


The Nomads are based in Horowhenua.


The Lost Breed gang in Nelson has also been mentioned as possibly aligning with the Rebels.


"This is all about business and to expand business," said Mr O'Connor. "The Rebels are like the McDonald's of the criminal world. There is strength in numbers and economies of scale. But with a criminal bent."


Mr Kane said New Zealand would need strong ties with Australian law enforcement agencies to keep the Rebels in check, and a former head of the Auckland drug squad was to be embedded with the Australian Federal Police in Canberra.


Rebel prospects- Local gangs who could "patch over" to the Australians:


Tribesmen: Weakened by the jailing of key members and too much P use (nicknamed "Friedsmen").


Nomads: Lower North Island gang in turmoil since the death of their leader Dennis "Mossie" Hines.


Lost Breed: Nelson gang whose rivals are backed by the Hell's Angels.


Acknowledgements: NZ Herald


www.nzherald.co.nz
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Monday, February 07, 2011

Art work of President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.Image via WikipediaJust what the hell are western nations doing in Afghanistan anyway?




By peter petterson




Just what the hell are western nations doing in snuggling up to a monsterous Islamic regime who is no better than the Taleban they are all fighting against. I'm discussing of course the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai's government who is purging Afghanistan of Christians. Karzai's regime is an Islamic society which has adopted Sharia Law, no better than the Taleban itself.

I posted a news story here at 'The Kiwi Riverman Post' a couple of days ago about the despicable practice that appears to be ingrained in Afghanistan society  -  boy rape.

Now we read about the purge of Afghanis who have converted to Christianity. One in particular has made the headlines and was interviewed by The Sunday  Times.  The person in question is Said Musa an Afghani working for the Red Cross who is under sentence of death for his conversion to Christianity nine years ago.

Said Musa tried to seek asylum at the German Embassy following the order made by Karzai to purge Afghanistan of Christianity. He was arrested and tortured and sentenced to death. A Judge visited Musa in prison and ordered him to convert back to Islam or be hanged. His conversion to Christianity appears to have been after he watched graphic television reports of a bombing in Pakistan, something he could no longer condone or support. There is allegedly now more than a thousand Afghani converts to Christianity because of the actions against innocent men,women and children.

Musa was tortured, beaten with sticks, sexually assaulted and condemned as a dirty infidel. His lawyer dropped his defence because it was unwinnable, his wife and children were evicted from their home and called infidel lovers.

His friends and supporters have launched a campaign for his release, accusing human rights groups, including the Red Cross and the United Nations, of failing to lobby the government for his release. Nothing has been done for him so far. It should be pointed out that Afghanistan had signed the human rights convention but the West refuses to lobby on his behalf because its a an 'extremely sensitive case'. Yeah right!

The truth of the matter is the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission is concerned that an army of radical mullahs in Afghanistan could turn the problem into more than a battle against freedom of religion. They and other Western groups are concerned that any public campaign could further infuriate the government that  increasingly blames foreign interference for the country's woes.

And so Afghani nationals such as Said Musa , who is a 45 year old amputee who specialised in rehabilitating fellow landmine victims, continue to be detained in prison. At least Musa has been treated a little more lenient since the US embassy put some pressure on authorities, who moved him to another jail and have put him in a corridor outside the head guard's office to avoid him being further beaten.

But when will he be released? When he renounces Christianity! If he did he would be forgiven under Sharia Law and wouldn't be executed. Musa claims he will die before he renounces Christianity.

As I stated when I began this post, what the hell are Western nations troops doing in Afghanistan: Fighting to defeat the Taleban or just looking after their self interests - ensuring and insuring their oil supplies in Afghanistan?

Don't worry too much about the average Afghani - nothing has really changed in centuries. Whatever gains such as education and employment opportunities for women, will disappear like the grains of sand in this desert and mountainous hell-hole of a country once  the Kharzai  regime no longer needs the western military.
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Sunday, February 06, 2011

Children in Helmand Province of AfghanistanImage via Wikipedia
Despicable and depraved Afghan boy rape rampant...




At last the truth comes out. People have been reporting on this depravity for years, decades and centuries. Yet, nothing ever changes: Boy rape is so endemic to Afghanistan and other places that it has become institutionalized.

This appalling disgrace goes on day after day, from the lowest levels of society to the highest, with officials of all manner engaging in it.

A significant part of the fault of boy rape lies with Islam. Partially to blame are the culture and environment—the ruggedness and brutality of the Afghan landscape manifests itself in its people. Entirely at fault, of course, would be the Almighty God and Lord of the Cosmos, were theism to be considered a “reality.”

If so, God is responsible not only for allowing such evil to occur but also for creating such a creature in the first place who would attack a young child, hold him down, and violently and savagely penetrate his small body.

Canadian soldier traumatized:

With such heinous images in mind, I can fully understand the trauma suffered by a young soldier who is speaking out against what he saw in Afghanistan. Former Canadian corporal Travis Schouten has broken the disturbing silence about this outrage tolerated by the world, by relating his eyewitness accounts of boy rape and the “tip of the iceberg” under which “lies the systemic sexual abuse of boys at the hands of Afghanistan’s police and army.”

Schouten’s allegations—which are undoubtedly true, based on a long history of this behavior reported by many others over the centuries—have been dismissed. Yet, as The Province reports:

Army officers also met in 2007 to discuss the issue of Afghan security personnel “having anal sex with young boys” but their main concern was the media would somehow find out.

To justify complicity in not stopping these atrocious practices, we hear of a lame excuse:

Others in the military note they were told such practices were an age-old part of Afghan culture. One soldier who e-mailed Canwest News Service stated he served at the same base at another time and troops had orders to stop any rapes. But he also noted they were told the practise of “Man Love Thursdays,” as it was called, involved consenting Afghans and no one was raped by older men. The children involved were given small gifts or money in return for sex, soldiers said.

There are several astonishing aspects to this paragraph, including the admission not only that such boy rape exists and is widely practiced as a virtual cultural institution, but also that this derangement has been occurring for ages, somehow justified all the time by the morally numbed brain because the children involved were “rewarded” for serving this perverted need.

In nauseating detail, Schouten related other encounters with this horrendous abuse of children:
And not all Afghans are so accepting of what some claim is tradition. Afghan villagers this summer complained to British troops in Helmand province that Afghan police were abducting children to be used for sex.
Last year also saw an extremely rare event; three Afghan police officers who gang-raped a 12-year-old boy and his father were sent to prison.

Although reports in a Toronto newspaper noted that Schouten saw the aftermath of the attack on a young boy, he said that is not accurate. He actually entered the headquarters and witnessed two Afghan security personnel sodomizing the child. “I walked in and they were raping a kid,” he recalled. “The kid was bleeding. They guy with the camo fatigues had a knife in his hand.”…

Afterward, he was approached by an Afghan interpreter who worked with troops. The man had with him a couple of five-year-old boys who had also been allowed on the Canadian base. “He brought up the fact he likes to rape little boys,” Schouten said. “He’s telling me how he likes to use a knife on them.”

Boy rape in Afghanistan dates back many centuries, having been recorded by the Italian traveler Marco Polo, for one, but undoubtedly reaching back much farther in time. Islamic practice is largely to blame for this savagery, because the oppression of women to the point where men can only find sexual “outlets”—for, a mere “outlet” is what people shaped by ruggedness and brutality consider sex to be, as they can rarely engage in its higher intricacies, and true love is scarce—in boys and animals.

Islamic oppression responsible:

Whether or not the abuse predates the faith in Afghanistan, boy rape is exacerbated by Islam, because the latter discourages normal, healthy relationships with women. As much has been said repeatedly over the years by a number of male inhabitants of Afghanistan and elsewhere: To wit, they say that because there is no access to women, they have sex with each other. In Dubai, one Arab Muslim essentially stated that his homosexuality was due to Islamic laws prohibiting contact with women:

In Saudi, it’s hard to be straight when you’re young. The women are shut away so everyone has gay sex. But they only want to have sex with boys—15- to 21-year-olds. I’m 27, so I’m too old now.

This conclusion concerning much homosexuality as rooted in the segregation of genders would seem to make perfect sense to those possessed of a logical and rational mind.

The widespread practice of boy rape can be seen manifested in such traditions as “bacha bazi,” meaning “boy for play.” These “boys for play” are essentially sex slaves to powerful and rich Afghan men. Although they banned the overt practice of bacha bazi and committed cruel and brutal public punishments against suspected “homosexuals,” the Taliban are notorious for privately and hypocritically engaging in “play” with boys.

While the world coddles Islamist sensibilities and tolerates “cultural differences,” what about all these poor boys? Where does this chain of violence and abuse end? Raped boys become rapists—are we now so numbed to atrocity and so “politically correct” that we can forget the screams of the boys as they are held against their wills and brutalized by angry individuals who themselves were no doubt likewise violated? The children of the world—and all sensate, moral individuals—demand that this institutionalized baseness, cruelty and criminality be stopped.

www.faithfreedom.org/op-ed/afghan-boy-rape-rampant/

Why do coalition troops defend a regime that encourages depraved boy rape in Afghanistan? Ask their governments why? I will ask my government!


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