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Tag: Muslim

  • Pusat Pendidikan Temasek Ditubuh Di Turkey Bagi Kanak-Kanak Pelarian Syria

    Pusat Pendidikan Temasek Ditubuh Di Turkey Bagi Kanak-Kanak Pelarian Syria

    SECEBIS sumbangan Singapura dalam bentuk sebuah sekolah kini wujud di Turkey untuk kanak-kanak pelarian Syria.

    Diberi nama Pusat Pendidikan Temasek, sekolah yang ditubuhkan hasil sumbangan warga Singapura itu telah dirasmikan minggu lalu di bandar Kilis di tenggara Turkey dekat sempadan Syria.

    Pembinaan sekolah itu merupakan sebahagian daripada Projek Bantuan bagi Pelarian Syria di Turkey (Asrit), yang diterajui pusat pendidikan setempat SimplyIslam dan Rangkaian Ekspatriat Muslim (MEX), sebuah divisyen Angkatan Karyawan Islam (AMP), dan disokong pelbagai badan Islam di Singapura, termasuk Yayasan Rahmatan Lil Alamin (RLAF).

    Bangunan sekolah empat tingkat itu telah dibeli pada harga $350,000 hasil sumbangan masyarakat Islam Singapura – antaranya melalui kutipan yang diadakan RLAF.

    Sekolah yang mempunyai lima bilik darjah dan sebuah makmal komputer itu boleh menampung 400 pelajar, iaitu di peringkat menengah dan prasekolah.

    Sejak beroperasi September lalu, sekolah itu mempunyai sekitar 150 pelajar sejauh ini.

    Sekolah itu diiktiraf lembaga pendidikan di Syria, yang bermakna pelajar boleh meneruskan pengajian mereka di institusi di Syria sekembalinya mereka ke sana.

    Majlis perasmian sekolah itu pada 9 Disember lalu turut dihadiri Ketua Projek Asrit, Encik Mohamed Nassir Abdul Sukkur; anggota lembaga pengamanah Yayasan Rahmatan Lil Alamin (RLAF), Encik Zainul Abidin Ibrahim; dan Pengarah (Masjid) Muis, Encik Mohamad Helmy Md Isa.

    “Pusat itu juga menyediakan tempat selamat bagi kanak-kanak itu berinteraksi, jauh daripada trauma dan pengeboman yang mereka alami, dan yang telah menyebabkan mereka lari dari Syria,” ujar Encik Nassir, yang juga pengarah urusan SimplyIslam.

    Encik Zainul pula berkata usaha Asrit dan RLAF tidak akan berhenti dengan perasmian sekolah itu.

    “Kami akan membawa belia daripada masjid, madrasah dan institusi pengajian tinggi di Singapura ke sekolah ini untuk pelbagai program, seperti pembinaan perpustakaan yang lebih baik dan program seperti terapi muzik dan terapi seni untuk memberi kekuatan kepada kanak-kanak di sini,” ujar Encik Zainul, yang juga Pengarah Pendekatan Strategik di Muis.

    Perpustakaan di sekolah itu sekarang mempunyai buku yang didermakan oleh Madrasah Al-Irsyad Al-Islamiah dan Sekolah Menengah Tampines di Singapura.

    Asrit dan RLAF bergabung tenaga dengan Kimse Yok Mu, badan kemanusiaan antarabangsa berpangkalan di Turkey yang berpengalaman mengendalikan sistem persekolahan, bagi penubuhan sekolah tersebut.

    Selain itu, Asrit dan RLAF turut memanfaatkan sumbangan warga Singapura bagi membeli barang keperluan untuk pelarian Syria di Kilis dan di Sanliurfa – satu lagi bandar dekat sempadan Syria – serta makanan panas yang disiapkan setiap hari untuk pelarian.

    Remaja dari Aleppo, Syria, Hajar Sheikh Muhammad, 17 tahun, meluahkan penghargaannya atas sumbangan rakyat Singapura.

    “Kami akan sentiasa terhutang budi kepada anda. Terima kasih Singapura,” ujarnya.

     

    Source:http://beritaharian.sg/

  • Islamophobia Driving Expectation On The Need For Muslims To Openly Deplore Terrorist Acts?

    Islamophobia Driving Expectation On The Need For Muslims To Openly Deplore Terrorist Acts?

    There’s a certain ritual that each and every one of the world’s billion-plus Muslims, especially those living in Western countries, is expected to go through immediately following any incident of violence involving a Muslim perpetrator. It’s a ritual that is continuing now with the Sydney hostage crisis, in which a deranged self-styled sheikh named Man Haron Monis took several people hostage in a downtown café.

    Here is what Muslims and Muslim organizations are expected to say: “As a Muslim, I condemn this attack and terrorism in any form.”

    This expectation we place on Muslims, to be absolutely clear, is Islamophobic and bigoted. The denunciation is a form of apology: an apology for Islam and for Muslims. The implication is that every Muslim is under suspicion of being sympathetic to terrorism unless he or she explicitly says otherwise.

    The implication is also that any crime committed by a Muslim is the responsibility of all Muslims simply by virtue of their shared religion. This sort of thinking — blaming an entire group for the actions of a few individuals, assuming the worst about a person just because of their identity — is the very definition of bigotry.

    It is time for that ritual to end: non-Muslims in all countries, and today especially those in Australia, should finally take on the correct assumption that Muslims hate terrorism just as much as they do, and cease expecting Muslims to prove their innocence just because of their faith.

    Bigoted assumptions are the only plausible reason for this ritual to exist, which means that maintaining the ritual is maintaining bigotry. Otherwise, we wouldn’t expect Muslims to condemn Haron Monis — who is clearly a crazy person who has no affiliations with formal religious groups — any more than we would expect Christians to condemn Timothy McVeigh. Similarly, if someone blames all Jews for the act of, say, extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank, we immediately and correctly reject that position as prejudiced. We understand that such an accusation is hateful and wrong — but not when it is applied to Muslims.

    This is, quite literally, a different set of standards that we apply only to Muslims. Hend Amry, who is Libyan-American, brilliantly satirized this expectation with this tweet, highlighting the arbitrary expectations about what Muslims are and are not expected to condemn:

    This ritual began shortly after September 2001. American Muslims, as well as Muslims in other Western countries, feared that they could be victims to a public backlash against people of their religion. President George W. Bush feared this as well and gave a speech imploring Americans to embrace Muslim-Americans as fellow citizens. But while the short-term need to guard against a backlash was real, that moment has passed, and the ritual’s persistence is perpetuating Islamophobia rather than reducing it, by constantly reminding us of our assumption that Muslims are guilty until proven innocent.

    The media has played a significant role in maintaining this ritual and thus the prejudiced ideas behind it. Yes, that includes openly Islamophobic cable news hosts like those in the US. But it also includes even well-intentioned media outlets and reporters who broadcast Muslims’ and Muslim organizations’ condemnation of acts of extremist violence, like the hostage crisis in Sydney.

    There is no question that this coverage is explicitly and earnestly designed to combat Islamophobia and promote equal treatment of Muslims. No question. All the same, this coverage ends up cementing the ritual condemnation as a necessary act, and thus cementing as well the racist implications of that ritual. By treating it as news every time, the media is reminding its readers and viewers that Muslims are held to a different standard; it is implicitly if unintentionally reiterating the idea that they are guilty until proven innocent, that maybe there is something to the idea of collective Muslim responsibility for lone criminals who happen to share their religion.

    Instead, we should treat the assumptions that compel this ritual — that Muslims bear collective responsibility, that they are presumed terrorist-sympathizers until proven otherwise — as flatly bigoted ideas with no place in our society. There is no legitimate reason for Muslim groups to need to condemn Haron Monis, nor is there any legitimate reason to treat those condemnations as news. So we should stop.

    We should treat people Haron Monis as what he is: a deranged lunatic. And we should treat Muslims as what they: normal people who of course reject terrorism, rather than as a lesser form of humanity that is expected to reject violence every time it happens.

     

    Source: www.vox.com

  • Sydney Siege Gunman Identified As Self-Styled Islamic State Preacher Sheik Haron Monis

    Sydney Siege Gunman Identified As Self-Styled Islamic State Preacher Sheik Haron Monis

    He is Sheik Man Haron Monis, who is a self-styled preacher of Islamic State on bail for accessory to murder.

    Monis, 50, died at the end of a 16-hour siege at the cafe early this morning, but was no stranger to Australian authorities.

    He first came to public notice in 2010 when he faced charges for sending offensive letters to the families of two Australian soldiers who died in Afghanistan – and the family of a trade official, Craig Senger, who died in the 2009 Jakarta bombing.

    As a result, he was convicted of 12 counts of using a postal service to cause offence, ordered to perform 300 hours of community service and placed on a two-year good behaviour bond.

    Monis was banned from sending similar letters to the relatives of British soldiers, but claimed in court at the time the condition was a breach of his freedom of speech.

    Monis’ former lawyer Manny Conditsis describes him as a “damaged goods individual” with an ideology that clouds his common sense.

    Monis was also accused of being an accessory to his ex-wife’s murder and faced charges on 40 offences relating to the indecent and sexual assault of several women in 2002.

    He was granted bail and was set to reappear in court in February 2015.

     

    Source: www.sbs.com.au

  • Sydney Siege Ended After Australian Police Storm Cafe

    Sydney Siege Ended After Australian Police Storm Cafe

    SYDNEY – Heavily armed Australian police stormed a Sydney cafe early on Tuesday morning and freed a number of hostages being held there at gunpoint, in a dramatic end to a 16-hour siege in which three people including the attacker were killed.

    Police have not publicly identified the gunman but a police source named him as Man Haron Monis, an Iranian refugee and self-styled sheikh known for sending hate mail to the families of Australian troops killed in Afghanistan. He was charged last year with being an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife, but had been free on bail.

    Several videos apparently showing hostages inside the Lindt cafe in Sydney’s central business district making demands on behalf of Monis were posted on social media during the siege.

    The gunman, whom the frightened hostages referred to as “brother”, demanded to talk to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the delivery of an Islamic State flag, and that media broadcast that Australia was under attack by Islamic State.

    Abbott said the gunman was well known to authorities and had a history of extremism and mental instability.

    Around 2 a.m. local time (10.00 a.m. ET on Monday), at least six people believed to have been held captive in the cafe managed to flee after gunshots were heard coming from inside.

    Police then moved in, with heavy gunfire and blasts from stun grenades echoing from the building.

    “They made the call because they believed at that time if they didn’t enter there would have been many more lives lost,” said Andrew Scipione, police commissioner for the state of New South Wales.

    An investigation would determine whether hostages were killed by the gunman or died in cross-fire, Scipione told reporters just before dawn.

    CAFE MANAGER, BARRISTER KILLED

    Police said a 50-year-old man, believed to be the attacker, was killed. Television pictures showed he appeared to have been armed with a sawn-off shotgun.

    A man aged 34 and a 38-year-old woman were also killed, police said. The man was the cafe manager and the woman was a mother and lawyer, Sydney media reported. Four were wounded, including a policeman hit in the face with shotgun pellets.

    Medics tried to resuscitate at least one person after the raid and took away several wounded people on gurneys, a Reuters witness said. Bomb squad members moved in to search for explosives, but none were found.

    So far 17 hostages have been accounted for, including at least five others who were released or escaped on Monday.

    The area near the cafe remained cordoned off on Tuesday morning, with bystanders and passing office workers leaving flowers under police tape. Flags flew at half mast across the country.

    Leaders from around the world had expressed their concern over the siege, including Stephen Harper, the prime minister of Canada, which suffered an attack on its parliament by a suspected jihadist sympathizer in October.

    NO LINKS TO TERROR GROUPS

    Monis was found guilty in 2012 of sending threatening letters to the families of eight Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan as a protest against Australia’s involvement there. He was also facing more than 40 sexual assault charges.

    “He had a long history of violent crime, infatuation with extremism and mental instability,” Abbott told reporters in Canberra. The prime minister did not identify the gunman.

    New South Wales Premier Mike Baird declined to comment when asked by a journalist whether it was appropriate for Monis to be free on bail.

    A U.S. security official said the U.S. government was being advised by Australia that there was no sign at this stage that the gunman was connected to known terrorist organizations.

    Although the hostage taker was known to the authorities, security experts said preventing attacks by people acting alone could be difficult.

    “We are entering a new phase of terrorism that is far more dangerous and more difficult to defeat than al Qaeda ever was,” ​said Cornell University law professor Jens David Ohlin, speaking in New York.

    Australia, a staunch ally of the United States and its escalating action against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, has been on high alert for attacks by home-grown militants returning from fighting in the Middle East or their supporters.

    News footage showed hostages in the cafe holding up a black and white flag displaying the Shahada, a testament to the faith of Muslims. The flag has been popular among Sunni Islamist militant groups such as Islamic State and al Qaeda.

    The incident forced the evacuation of nearby buildings and sent shockwaves around a country where many people were turning their attention to the Christmas holiday.

    In September, anti-terrorism police said they had thwarted an imminent threat to behead a random member of the public and, days later, a teenager in the city of Melbourne was shot dead after attacking two anti-terrorism officers with a knife.

    The siege cafe is in Martin Place, a pedestrian strip popular with workers on their lunch break, which was revealed as a potential location for the thwarted beheading.

    Muslim leaders urged calm. The Australian National Imams Council condemned “this criminal act unequivocally” in a joint statement with the Grand Mufti of Australia. REUTERS

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

  • Perbankan Islam Tumbuh Pantas Tetapi Masih Boleh Diperluas

    Perbankan Islam Tumbuh Pantas Tetapi Masih Boleh Diperluas

    BANK Islam tumbuh lebih pantas daripada bank konvensional tetapi ia terlalu tertumpu dalam beberapa negara utama sehingga terlepas peluang membangunkan sektor perbankan Islam sejagat, menurut satu laporan firma runding cara sejagat, Ernst & Young.

    Bank Islam di enam negara utama iaitu Qatar, Indonesia, Arab Saudi, Malaysia, Amiriah Arab Bersatu (UAE) dan Turkey menguasai AS$625 bilion ($812 bilion) sehingga akhir tahun lalu atau 80 peratus daripada pasaran kewangan Islam sejagat.

    Jika mengambil kira Bahrain, Pakistan dan Kuwait, perkongsian pasaran mencecah 95 peratus.

    Laporan itu menganggarkan aset perbankan Islam dalam enam negara utama dijangka mencapai AS$1.8 trilion menjelang 2019.

    Ia tumbuh 1.9 kali lebih pantas daripada bank konvensional dari 2009 hingga 2013.

    “Apabila Turkey dan Malaysia meningkatkan lagi rentak pertumbuhan dan bank-bank Saudi meneruskan rombakan bagi banknya agar mematuhi syariah, kami jangkakan perkongsian pasaran negara-negara utama itu akan mencapai 80 hingga 90 peratus daripada pasaran sejagat,” kata rakan kongsi Pusat Kecemerlangan Perbankan Islam Sejagat Ernst & Young, Encik Ashar Nazim.

    Beliau menambah bahawa industri juga akan meraih manfaat apabila lebih banyak negara seperti Mesir, Pakistan, negara-negara Afrika Utara seperti Tunisia, Algeria dan Maghribi menembusi sektor itu.

    “Namun, tanpa rombakan undang-undang dan sokongan pemerintah yang kukuh, rentak pertumbuhan industri perbankan Islam dijangka sederhana,” tambah Encik Ashar.

    Kekurangan pakar dan kurangnya kesediaan meneroka pasaran luar negara juga boleh menjejas pertumbuhan industri itu di samping menyekat pertumbuhan keuntungan bank Islam.

    Secara purata, pulangan terhadap ekuiti (ROE) bagi 20 bank Islam terbaik di dunia adalah 11.9 peratus bagi tempoh lima tahun sehingga 2013.

    Ini berbanding pulangan terhadap ekuiti sebanyak 14.5 peratus bagi 20 bank konvensional, tambah laporan itu.

    Bank Islam mempunyai saiz satu perempat daripada saiz bank konvensional.

    Walaupun Singapura tidak mempunyai penduduk Muslim sebagai penduduk majoriti, Penguasa Kewangan Singapura (MAS) berkata potensi pertumbuhan bagi kewangan Islam di Singapura amat kukuh, dengan lebih banyak bank luar negara menawarkan produk mereka.

    Penolong Pengarah Urusan MAS, Encik Ng Nam Sin, sebelum ini berkata MAS komited mengembangkan “sektor penting ini”.

    Malah, dengan permintaan daripada masyarakat Islam dan pelabur bukan Islam, kewangan Islam kini sama menonjol sejajar dengan khidmat kewangan konvensional.

    Beberapa bank Timur Tengah pula, seperti Qatar National Bank, bank terbesar di rantau itu, difahamkan berminat mengembangkan khidmat kewangan Islam di sini.

    “Potensi pertumbuhan bagi kewangan Islam di Singapura kukuh dan MAS komited mengembangkan sektor penting ini dalam industri khidmat kewangan,” ujar Encik Ng.

    Beliau menambah bahawa matlamat MAS ialah menggembleng kekuatannya dalam perbankan borong, pengurusan aset dan pasaran modal bagi mengembangkan kewangan Islam.

    Menurutnya, pendekatan serampang tiga mata dilaksana MAS bagi mengembangkan industri itu di sini.

    Pertama, ia memastikan medan permainan sama rata bagi kewangan Islam dan kewangan konvensional.

    Kedua, ia akan juga mempromosikan pembangunan bakat karyawan kewangan Islam di sini.

    Ketiga, MAS akan turut serta dalam memupuk piawaian antarabangsa bagi industri itu dengan menjadi anggota majlis Lembaga Khidmat Kewangan Islam (IFSB).

     

    Source: http://beritaharian.sg