Rilek1Corner

Tag: USA

  • Marvel To Discipline Indonesian Marvel-Gold Artist For Hidden Political, Religious Reference

    Marvel To Discipline Indonesian Marvel-Gold Artist For Hidden Political, Religious Reference

    Marvel Comics is planning to take disciplinary action against an Indonesian artist who sneaked several controversial references into his artwork for the first issue of X-Men Gold, according to reports citing a statement by the comics giant.

    X-Men Gold #1, which was published on Wednesday (Apr 5), was illustrated by Indonesian artist Ardian Syaf.

    His artwork allegedly contained several hidden religious references and sparked an outcry by comic book fans on social media.

    In one scene, Jewish mutant Kitty Pryde is seen standing in front of a crowd of humans. Her head is adjacent to a sign saying “Jewelry”, which some took to be a reference to her heritage.

    In the same panel, there is a building with the numbers “212” on it – a reference to a mass rally by Indonesian Muslims on Dec 2 last year against Jakarta’s Christian Chinese governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama. Ahok is on trial for blasphemy over accusations that he insulted the Islamic holy book, the Quran.

    Another scene in the issue shows Colossus wearing a t-shirt with “QS 5:51” on it, a reference to a verse in the Quran used by some in Indonesia to support their view that non-Muslims should not lead the government.

    Ardian shared artwork for the issue on his Facebook page on Thursday, in a post that has since been taken down. By Sunday evening, the post had drawn almost 200 comments.

    Many criticised him for the alleged political messages. “The X-Men message at its core is integration, not division,” Facebook user Zauri Severino Junior wrote.

    “It’s shameful to see (an) Indonesian artist make a fool of himself worldwide just because of his impaired religious views and racism,” another commenter, Nuri Agustiani Setiawan, wrote.

    In a statement published by ComicBook on Saturday, Marvel said the artwork “was inserted without knowledge behind its reported meanings”.

    “These implied references do not reflect the views of the writer, editors or anyone else at Marvel and are in direct opposition of the inclusiveness of Marvel Comics and what the X-Men have stood for since their creation,” the statement said.

    Marvel added that disciplinary action would be taken against Syaf, but did not give further details.

    It added that the artwork would be removed from subsequent printings, digital versions, and trade paperbacks.

    In a Facebook post on Tuesday (Apr 11), Syaf said his career was “over now”.

    He added: “It’s the consequence (of) what I did, and I take it. Please no more mockery, debate, no more hate. I hope all in peace.”

     

    Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

  • Amos Yee Granted US Asylum

    Amos Yee Granted US Asylum

    CHICAGO — A US immigration judge in Chicago on Friday (March 24, US time) granted asylum to a Singaporean blogger, saying he was persecuted for his political opinions in the Republic.

    Amos Yee, 18, who had been jailed twice in Singapore, qualifies as a political refugee, according to a 13-page opinion by the US immigration judge.

    Amos is immediately eligible for release after having been held in US immigration detention since Dec 16, 2016, according to his attorney, Ms Sandra Grossman, who is based in Bethesda, Maryland.

    The Singapore Embassy in Washington could not be reached for comment after business hours on Friday evening.

    Judge Samuel Cole ruled Amos’ prosecution, detention and maltreatment at the hands of the Singapore authorities “constitute(s) persecution on account of Amos’ political opinions”, and called him a “young political dissident”.

    “The evidence presented at the hearing demonstrates Singapore’s prosecution of Amos was a pretext to silence his political opinions critical of the Singapore government,” Mr Cole wrote.

    The US Department of Homeland Security had opposed Amos’ asylum application, claiming the Singapore government legitimately prosecuted Amos.

    Ms Grossman said the judge’s decision supported the right of individuals to criticise their government.

    “The right to free speech is sacred, even when such speech is considered offensive,” she said in an email. “The decision timely underscores the vital need for an independent judiciary in a functioning democracy.”

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com

     

  • Don’t Be Fooled, Trump’s New Muslim Ban Is Still Illegal

    Don’t Be Fooled, Trump’s New Muslim Ban Is Still Illegal

    The revised order also continues to traffic in bigoted and largely false perceptions: By requiring the government to compile occurrences of “honor killings” by immigrants, it gives official recognition to an inflammatory and misleading trope of Islam that is perpetuated by anti-Muslim hate groups.

    President Trump has not been subtle in his intentions. We need look no further than his own words to figure them out. On the campaign trail, he constantly conflated the vast majority of peaceful Muslims with the small handful of violent Muslims.

    After the Paris attacks in November 2015, Mr. Trump said that “we’re going to have no choice” but to close some mosques in the United States, where “some really bad things are happening.” The next month, after the attack in San Bernardino, Calif., he called for a “complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” and released a factually dubious statement that “large segments of the Muslim population” have “great hatred towards Americans” and favor Shariah law. Astonishingly, that statement is still posted on Mr. Trump’s website.

    In December, when a reporter asked whether he had reconsidered his stance on Islam, President-elect Trump replied: “You know my plans. All along, I’ve been proven to be right.” This dark and wholly unsubstantiated worldview about Islam and the American Muslim community is shared by several of the president’s senior aides and advisers.

    Let’s be clear: This revised order is a Muslim ban. All the countries he has excluded are more than 90 percent Muslim. Three of them — Iran, Somalia and Yemen — are more than 99 percent Muslim. Even though Mr. Trump tailored his order to survive legal challenges, as his former adviser Rudolph Giuliani conceded on national television, his objective is clearly to exclude Muslims.

    The Trump administration argues that the ban protects the country. Yet by excluding Iraq from the order, Mr. Trump has cleared travel from one of the two countries from which Islamic State terrorists operates. Moreover, the Department of Homeland Security concluded last month that “country of citizenship is unlikely to be a reliable indicator of potential terrorist activity.” Former national security officials from Democratic and Republican administrations have made clear that the January order does not make our country safer. Instead, the bigotry that Mr. Trump spews at news conferences and on Twitter have been a boon for terrorists’ recruitment efforts.

    The twisted worldview does not match reality. Muslims have been part of America for centuries, since the first slave ships arrived in the 17th century. Today, Muslims represent 1 percent of the United States population: They are our teachers, doctors, neighbors and co-workers.

    American Muslims will suffer a particular harm from this executive order: Those who have ties to the banned countries won’t be able to see their family members and close friends. American Muslims will also be deprived of the instruction from the leading Islamic scholars who are from those countries.

    Thousands of Muslim men and women serve in the armed forces; many have given their lives defending our nation and our ideals. They contribute to the diversity that has always been our nation’s pride and strength. President George W. Bush paid tribute to this in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks when he said, “There are thousands of Muslims who proudly call themselves Americans, and they know what I know — that the Muslim faith is based upon peace and love and compassion.”

    President Trump and his top advisers would be wise to listen to President Bush. The Muslim ban and President Trump’s relentless attacks on Islam are not just an assault on thousands of patriotic, innocent Americans — they violate our Constitution and our most fundamental American values and beliefs.

    Source: NYTimes

  • Alfian Sa’at: Donald Trump Wants To Keep America Safe, But Who Would Protect The World From Them?

    Alfian Sa’at: Donald Trump Wants To Keep America Safe, But Who Would Protect The World From Them?

    I remember making a joke when I was visiting New York last October: “It’s my last chance to visit the US before Trump becomes president and decides to ban Muslims.”

    That offhand joke is now a real nightmare, and laughter has turned to bile in the throat.

    I don’t intend to set foot on American soil again. The problem is that it’s easy to overlook the kinds of darkness that reside there because for a long time at least in a bipolar world, the US, compared to the Soviet Union, looked like the lesser of two evils. In addition there’s also something about soft power that throws a veil of gauze over sharp edges, that puts the horror into soft focus. America is in our earphones, in our cinemas, on our computer screens and smartphones, and all these help to domesticate its otherness. But alas that soft power is just a pretty collar on a dangerous animal and is not a leash.

    There is an America, ostensibly, of Disney and jazz and Instagram. But there is also that other America of unending gun violence, mass incarcerations, a militarised police, a broken healthcare system, white nationalism, a history of Native American genocide and African slavery; an America that exports weapons, that installs puppets and brutal dictators, that undermines popular sovereignty and stages coups, that lies to the world about Weapons of Mass Destruction and steals oil and turns entire neighbourhoods into rubble. How much hatred there must be towards this factory whose main manufacturing products are widows and orphans. And how convenient that those who are anti-American are seen as people who are ‘radicalised’ instead of people who refuse to accept the narrative churned out by the American propaganda machine.

    Trump has unmasked this other face of America, or at least made it more public than it ever was before. As a man voted in for being able ‘to say it like it is’, there is no better man for the job.

    On the other hand there is an Iran, of unsmiling black robed mullahs and Hezbollah and Ahmadinejad. But there is also another Iran, of rose gardens and fountains and nightingales, of the poets Hafez and Ferdowsi, of some of the greatest films ever made by the likes of Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Jafar Panahi and Asghar Farhadi. I remember once wanting to visit Iran but wondering whether it would in any way jeopardise any future entry into the US. What foolishness that was. It is both a gift and a curse to be reading and writing in this language. One has access to so much knowledge, but at the same time how susceptible one becomes to American imperialism, one of whose effects is to think of America’s enemies as our own. America fears what it cannot bend to its will. By sharing this fear we are also bending to America’s will.

    America wants to be safe. But who will keep the world safe from America?

     

    Source: Alfian Sa’at

  • Internet Notices Something Odd About Donald Trump’s Time Cover

    Internet Notices Something Odd About Donald Trump’s Time Cover

    The Internet has noticed something odd about the placement of US President-elect Donald Trump’s head on the cover of Time magazine.

    Time on Wednesday (Dec 7) named Donald Trump its Person Of The Year for 2016 for his stunning upset election victory.

    The President-elect called NBC’s Today show, welcoming the accolade as a “very, very great honour” and denying he was responsible for divisions within the country since his win.

    But as the news sunk in, people started noticing something strange about the Time cover.

    “Horns. They gave him horns,” tweeted actress  Alyssa Milano.

    She wasn’t the only one who noticed.

    Time dismissed the horn assessment and pointed to 35 other covers on which the “M” was partially blocked by someone’s head.

    “Any resemblance to cats, bats or devil horns is entirely coincidental,” Time said in a short post about the issue.

    Former US presidents Bill Clinton and Abraham Lincoln, Pope Francis, Darth Vader from the movie Star Wars, and even Jesus Christ have been depicted on the Time cover with apparent “horns”.

    Time last year (2015) assured its readers that any extra features sported by its cover stars were not a statement of any sort, but rather a result of “the shape of the letter ‘m’ in the magazine’s name and its location on the cover.

     

    Source: The Straits Times