Archive for February, 2015
If there is nothing wrong with his Facebook post calling on Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses, why has Ismail Sabri deleted the post?
Malay Mail Online today reported that “due to his busy work schedule” the Minister for Agriculture and Agro-based Industry, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob is not expected to give his police statement this week over his controversial Facebook post call on Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses.
Yes, Ismail is now very busy basking in the glory of a new “hero” status after political pressure was invoked in the Cabinet, resulting not only in 35 Ministers, but also the two MCA Minister who had been breathing fire and brimstone against Ismail’s racist remarks before yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, to meekly accept that Ismail’s call on Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses were actually a very smart call to all traders and not at those of a certain race to reduce prices!
Nobody knows how the two MCA Ministers could square the circle, but clearly they have acquired such superior art of political somersaults not understood by ordinary mortals, including ordinary politicians.
However, if the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar’s tweet directing a police investigation into Ismail’s Facebook post making the racist call to Malays to boycott Chinese businesses is still to be taken seriously after the Cabinet clearance of Ismail’s Facebook post, shouldn’t the police be investigating the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the entire Cabinet to learn how they could transform Ismail’s racist call to Malay consumers to boycott to Chinese businesses into a call to all traders and not at those of a certain race to reduce prices? Read the rest of this entry »
PAS veteran backs DAP’s third vote bid
Posted by Kit in DAP, Local Goverment, PAS on Thursday, 5 February 2015
The Malay Mail Online
February 3, 2015
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 3 — Despite his party president’s opposition, PAS veteran Datuk Wan Abdul Muttalib Embong has voiced support for DAP’s bid to restore local government elections.
The former lawyer who had also previously acted as the Islamist party’s legal adviser said withholding local elections from being carried out showed democracy was only being half-practised, Sinar Harian reported today.
“We don’t know what their structure is like but (what’s wrong) in in us giving democracy?
“Do you (the government) want 50 per cent democracy? Can’t be like that, you (as the government) are not transparent,” he was quoted saying by the Malay daily.
Wan Abdul Muttalib said since elections were already being held at the state and federal levels, the third vote should also be restored to show that Islamic administrators were also just. Read the rest of this entry »
35 Ministers of Najib Cabinet 2015 made history – proving to have comprehension problems worse than ordinary school children who are already several years behind other countries
Posted by Kit in Crime, Police, Teoh Beng Hock on Thursday, 5 February 2015
Although the Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin claims that Malaysia has the best education system in the world, better than Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, international educational tests like PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) and TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) have consistently shown that Malaysia’s 15-year-old students are not only below the international average in the three critical subjects of reading, science and maths but four or even five years behind their peers in the top-performing countries/regions in Shanghai, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan.
But it is fortunate that the 35 Cabinet Ministers did not represent the country in these PISA and TIMSS tests or Malaysia would be ten or even more years behind other countries.
This is because the Cabinet today has created history and a record of sorts, demonstrating that the 35 Ministers in the Najib Cabinet 2015 have comprehension problems worse than ordinary school children who are already several years behind other countries.
This is because even the average school children would not have made the colossal error committed by the 35 Ministers today in concluding that the call by the Minister for Agriculture and Agro-based Industry, Datuk Ismail Sabri Yaakob to Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses was not targetting Chinese traders alone but aimed at all traders.
After the Cabinet meeeting, the police today called up Ismail Sabri for investigation over his racist call on his Facebook to Malay consumers to boycott Chinese business, which prompted my tweet: “Sheer rigmarole when PMO has cleared Ismail Sabri”.
This has only made the police, the overwhelming majority of whom are dedicated and professional officers committed to the duty to maintain peace and uphold law and order, look very foolish. Read the rest of this entry »
My lawyers instructed to institute criminal and civil proceedings against an UMNO blogger Syed Akhbar Ali for his defamatory tweet insinuating that I am a communist and racialist who is anti-Malay who caused the May 13 race riots
Posted by Kit in Crime, DAP, Malaysian Dream, nation building on Wednesday, 4 February 2015
I have instructed my lawyers to institute criminal and civil proceedings against an UMNO blogger Syed Akhbar Ali for a defamatory tweet late last night insinuating that I am a communist and a racialist who is anti-Malay who caused the May 13 race riots.
Syed Akhbar’s tweet carried a graphic of me in the garb of Mao Tse Tung, alleging that I am “Bapa 13 Mei”, and accusing me of having caused the May 13 race riots in 1969 because of my anti-Malay statements and slogans, with a caption “’MELAYU KELUAR! APA LAGI DUDUK SINI, KITA HENTAM LU, SEKARANG KITA SUDAH ADA KUASA” LIM KIT SIANG (BAPA 13 MEI).
The graphic in Syed Akbar’s tweet alleged that I had made the following statements in the following places and dates:
1. Menggunakan slogan “Malai-Si” bermaksud “Mati Melayu”.
2. “Apa polis boleh buat, kita Raja. Buang sama polis Melayu.”
– (11 Mei 69, Bukit Bintang)
3. “Mati Melayu, sakai pergi masuk hutan”.
– (11 Mei 69, Jalan Bukit Bintang).
4. “KL sekarang cina punya”.
Read the rest of this entry »
Jordan Executes Prisoners After ISIS Video of Pilot’s Death
Posted by Kit in Islamic state on Wednesday, 4 February 2015
By ROD NORDLAND and RANYA KADRI
New York Times
Feb. 3, 2015
AMMAN, Jordan — When relatives learned Tuesday night that the Islamic State had released a video showing the death of a Jordanian fighter pilot, First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh, they tried to keep it from his mother, Issaf, and his wife, Anwar. They switched off the television and tried to wrest a smartphone out of his wife’s hand, but she had already seen a mobile news bulletin.
Anwar ran crying into the street, calling her husband’s name and saying, “Please, God, let it not be true.” Issaf fell to the floor screaming, pulled her head scarf off and started tearing at her hair.
That was even before they knew how he had been killed. No one dared let them know right away that Lieutenant Kasasbeh’s tormentors had apparently burned him alive inside a cage, a killing that was soon described as the most brutal in the group’s bloody history.
Jordan responded rapidly, executing Sajida al-Rishawi, who was convicted after attempting a suicide bombing, and Ziad al-Karbouli, a top lieutenant of Al Qaeda in Iraq, before dawn on Wednesday, according to the official news agency Petra. Read the rest of this entry »
Four views on Islam and the state
Posted by Kit in Islam, Islamic state on Wednesday, 4 February 2015
Can Islam support a secular, democratic government?
Christian Science Monitor
August 30, 2007
I need a secular state
By Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na`im
ALTANTA – To be a Muslim by conviction and free choice – which is the only way one can be a Muslim – I need to live in a secular state. By a secular state, I mean one that is neutral regarding religious doctrine to facilitate genuine piety. The state should not enforce sharia (the religious law of Islam) because compliance should never be coerced by fear or faked to appease state officials. When observed voluntarily, sharia-based values can help shape laws and public policy through the democratic process. But if sharia principles are enacted as state law, the outcome will simply be the political will of the state.
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Many Muslims equate secularism with antireligious attitudes. Yet I believe that a secular state can promote genuine religious experience among believers and affirm the role of Islam in public life.
The so-called Islamic state is conceptually incoherent and historically unprecedented. There simply is no scriptural basis for an “Islamic state” to enforce sharia. Read the rest of this entry »
Open Letter to Ministers an hour before Cabinet meeting – Don’t be “half-past six Cabinet” of “deadwood” Ministers, and don’t be moral pygmies and political dwarfs but take a stand on behalf of present and future generations on the great issue of right and wrong in Malaysia
Posted by Kit in Malaysian Dream, Najib Razak, nation building, Zahid on Wednesday, 4 February 2015
Only last Thursday, I had the occasion to comment that the Malaysian Cabinet Edition 2015 is probably the worst in the 58-year Malaysian history – acting like the traditional three monkeys with eyes that see not, ears that hear not and mouths that speak not.
This was when the Cabinet failed to repudiate and reprimand the Urban Well-being, Housing and Local Government Minister, Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan for his irresponsible and reckless statement that the restoration of local government elections could worsen racial polarisation in support of the equally bizarre statement by the PAS President Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang that the restoration of the third vote could cause a repeat of the May 13 race riots.
Abdul Rahman is the most irresponsible Local Government Minister in the nation’s history for no other Local Government Minister had ever made such a statement in the past 50 years since the suspension of local government elections on March 1965 on the ground of threat from Indonesian Confrontation.
Former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad had dismissed the previous Cabinet as “half-past six” and the former Finance Minister Tun Daim Zainuddin was no less caustic when he talked about “deadwood” Ministers.
But the Cabinet 2015 seems set on proving Mahathir and Daim right in their condemnation of the quality, character and even work ethics of the current batch of Cabinet Ministers.
The Cabinet 2015 had already totted up several major failures in the first month of the new year, including: Read the rest of this entry »
Islamic State shows burning of hostage, Jordan vows ‘earth-shaking’ response
Posted by Kit in Islamic state on Wednesday, 4 February 2015
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi
Reuters
Feb 3, 2015
AMMAN (Reuters) – Islamic State militants released a video on Tuesday appearing to show a captured Jordanian pilot being burnt alive, and Jordan vowed to avenge his death with an “earth-shaking” response.
A Jordanian official said the authorities would execute several militants jailed in Jordan in response, including a Iraqi woman who Amman had sought to swap for the pilot taken captive after his plane crashed in Syria in December.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the content of the video, which showed a man resembling airman Mouath al-Kasaesbeh standing in a black cage before being set ablaze. But the reaction of the Jordanian authorities made clear they treated it as genuine. Read the rest of this entry »
Mutual friends: secularism and Islam
Brian Whitaker
Guardian
14 April 2009
The Middle East will only be convinced by Islamic arguments for a secular state
On the first page of his book, Islam and the Secular State, Abdullahi an-Na’im writes: “In order to be a Muslim by conviction and free choice, which is the only way one can be a Muslim, I need a secular state.”
He explains that he is not advocating a secular society but a state which is neutral with regard to religion – a state whose institutions “neither favour nor disfavour any religious doctrine or principle”, a state that has no enforcing role in religious matters.
The object of state neutrality, an-Na’im says, is to facilitate “the possibility of religious piety out of honest conviction” and allow individuals in their communities the freedom “to accept, object to, or modify any view of religious doctrine or principle”. States that take sides in such matters become an obstacle to religious freedom.
To some readers, this may be little more than a statement of the obvious. But to many Muslims, especially in countries where the state poses as a “defender of Islam” and an enforcer of “Islamic values”, it is not only an unfamiliar argument but one that sounds dangerously mad, even heretical. Read the rest of this entry »
Same old racial mindset in 1Malaysia
Posted by Kit in 1Malaysia, Malaysian Dream, nation building on Monday, 2 February 2015
COMMENTARY BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER
2 February 2015
We have celebrated 51 years as Malaysians but to some people, we are still in the racial silos of Malay, Chinese, Indian and Others. And with that come all the stereotypes of each race.
Mind you, this racial mindset still persists despite Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia campaign to bring all Malaysians together after the fractious 2008 polls where Barisan Nasional (BN) saw its majority evaporate to less than the customary two-thirds in the federal parliament.
1Malaysia has been hardly heard of since BN’s further losses in 2013 and there is a good reason for that: Najib’s colleagues in his hand-picked Cabinet have not much regard for it.
Take the latest volley from Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob, who wrote in his Facebook account that the Malays should boycott Chinese businesses, singling out the Old Town White Coffee franchise because of its alleged DAP links. Read the rest of this entry »
Why silence from IGP on Minister Ismail when Khalid would have tweeted directive to police to investigate DAP or PR leaders under Sedition Act if they had expressed similar racist sentiments?
Posted by Kit in 1Malaysia, Malaysian Dream, Najib Razak, nation building on Monday, 2 February 2015
If a PAS or PKR leader had called on Malay consumers to boycott Chinese businesses to lower prices or a DAP leader had called on non-Malay customers to boycott Malay businesses to lower prices, the Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar would have immediately tweeted directive to his police officers to investigate the DAP or PR leaders
under Sedition Act or a whole host of other laws.
Why then the unusual silence from the Inspector-General of Police when the Minister of Agriculture and Agro-based Industries, Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob called on Malays to boycott Chinese businesses to lower prices?
Has Khalid’s twitter account broken down or is Bukit Aman suffering from a breakdown of internet access?
This itself highlights the double-standards which the IGP had been conducting himself, doing a great disservice to the professionalism and integrity of the overwhelming majority of dedicated men and women in blue who had conscientiously and diligently carried out their duties to uphold the law without fear or favour.
I hope that within minutes of this statement going out, we will see Khalid in twitter action! Read the rest of this entry »
Roundtable Conference of concerned MPs, NGOs and NGIs to outline the contours of Parliamentary Inquiry into Altantunya Murder or alternatives before Parliament reconvenes on March 9 being considered by the DAP Legal Bureau
Posted by Kit in Court, Crime, Najib Razak, Police on Monday, 2 February 2015
I have received positive and favourable response to the suggestion for an all-party Parliamentary Committee to inquire into the many unresolved but important and critical public interest questions on the Altantunya Shaariibu Murder Case, despite the end of the Altantuya murder trial and the conviction of two elite policemen Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar of the Special Action Unit (UTK) for the murder and their death sentence.
Many however are not sanguine that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Najib and his Cabinet would agree to the proposal for an all-party Parliamentary Committee into the Altantuya Murder, even if the parliamentary committee is headed by a Barisan Nasional MP.
Najib and his Cabinet has a month before Parliament reconvenes on March 9 to decide whether to endorse the establishment of an all-party Parliamentary Committee on Altantunya Murder.
If the Najib Government is not prepared to agree to a Parliamentary Committee or any other form of public investigation into the Altantunya Murder, then the alternatives will have to be explored, including a hybrid of a Parliamentary-Civil Society Inquiry Committee comprising MPs from both the Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat and the civil society (both NGOs and NGIs) who believe that good conscience, national interests and our international reputation for justice, the rule of law and good governance demand that the answers to the many outstanding public interest questions about the Altantuya Murder case must be ascertained.
With the victim a Mongolian and one of the convicted murderers Sirul Azhar Umar holding out in Australia refusing to return to the death row in the country, the inquiry into the unresolved public interest issues in the Altantuya Murder Case will become an international one. Read the rest of this entry »
DAP’s Impian Kelantan to pay flood victims to rebuild own homes
Posted by Kit in DAP, Impian Malaysia, Kelantan, NaturaL disaster on Monday, 2 February 2015
by Eileen Ng
The Malaysian Insider
2 February 2015
Flood victims in the east coast state of Kelantan, who lost their homes in last year’s floods, will get help rebuilding their houses and receive a wage if they do the work themselves under DAP’s Impian Kelantan programme.
The Pakatan Rakyat component party is collaborating with 39 local non-governmental organisations to identify and build new homes for more than 30,000 people displaced by the floods late last year, which were the worst to hit the peninsula.
Villagers will be given a sum of money for picking up tools to build their own homes as a way to boost their income, especially since many had lost their livelihoods in the agricultural and farming sector, said DAP national organising secretary Anthony Loke Siew Fook.
The money will come from funds the party raised from the public late last year to assist flood victims.
“We have already identified some of the villagers and have started work in rebuilding their homes. Read the rest of this entry »
Why Secularism Is Compatible with the Quran and Sunnah — And an ‘Islamic State’ Is Not
Posted by Kit in Islam, Islamic state on Monday, 2 February 2015
Akbar Ganji
Dissident Iranian journalist; Intl. Press Association World Press Freedom Hero
World Post
01/27/2015
Introduction
Extremist Islamic groups such as ISIS, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda and the al-Nusra Front in Syria, have transformed the holy Quran into a manifesto for war, terrorism and bloodshed. These groups use the most modern weaponry and technology, and their crimes have created worldwide concerns. Their goal is to return the Islamic world to the medieval age.
At the same time, the corrupt dictatorial Arab regimes in the Middle East, particularly the Arab nations of the Persian Gulf, have transformed the democratic Arab Spring into a sectarian war between the Shiites and Sunnis, in order to prevent democracy from taking roots in their own nations.
Simultaneous with such developments, a Western-made “industry” called Islamophobia not only presents the Holy Quran as the manifesto of fundamentalist warmongers (that claim to represent Islam) and their rigid interpretation of its teachings, it also reduces Islam to its skewed “interpretations.” This reductionist approach has been popular among the Orientalists. The approach also claims that formation of an Islamic government is a necessary condition for a society to be Islamic.
As I will argue in this essay, these claims are false.
Islam and secularism are completely compatible. What I call “secular Islam” is thus the best antidote for Islamic terrorism. “Secular Islam” means that the collection of beliefs, moral values and teachings which comprise Islam do not confer on Muslims a mission to form a government or state. The idea of establishing an Islamic state based on the Quran and the Sunnah is incorrect, as neither presents a model for such a state. Read the rest of this entry »
Don’t allow extremists to tear the country apart
Posted by Kit in Malaysian Dream, UMNO on Monday, 2 February 2015
– Salleh Said Keruak
The Malaysian Insider
1 February 2015
Umno Supreme Council Member Puad Zarkashi has urged the Home Ministry and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission to investigate the masterminds behind Free Malaysia Today, The Malaysian Insider and MalaysiaKini, which he said are fuelling an internal crisis in Umno.
Batu Kawan Umno vice-chairman, Datuk Khairuddin Abu Hassan, responded to this by saying, “Ow! Stop tickling me, Puad Zarkashi. No one can split Umno if the party has leaders of quality, particularly those who champion the people”.
Khairuddin added that any crisis in Umno could only be because of a weak party leadership.
This public debate between Puad and Khairuddin is just one more of many that have cropped up of late. It appears like the opposition need not do anything any more. All they need to do is to sit back and allow the Umno leaders to slander each other.
There are many issues more important than fighting one other. In Penang, 33 Indians were detained on allegations that they were planning to start a riot during the Thaipusam celebrations.
This is very alarming and is a matter that should not be taken lightly. Any riot in Penang will very quickly spread to the rest of Malaysia and without laws such as the ISA that allow for pre-emptive detention the authorities would be hard-pressed to act until it is too late.
Chinese-Muslim preacher Ridhuan Tee is also not helping with his fiery and very inflammatory statements. This just raises the sentiments of the people even further and fuels the hatred that already exists between some Malays and non-Malays.
Religion is a very dangerous weapon to use and once conflict is triggered it is very difficult to stop it. Read the rest of this entry »
With UMNO’s Kangkong Professors running riot with their illiterate interpretation of national developments, Malaysia’s university ranking can only plunge further south without hope of restoring our former world-class university status
Posted by Kit in Education, Elections, university on Sunday, 1 February 2015
UMNO’s Kangkong Professors have been running riot with their illiterate interpretation of national developments, and the most recent example is the Bernama report yesterday entitled “Local Council Elections Contravene Constitution, An Attempt To Create Autonomy: Analysts – by Erda Khursyiah Basir”.
It quoted Kankong Professor (1), Universiti Utara Malaysia’s Dean of the College of Legal, Government and International Studies, Asso Prof Dr. Ahmad Martadha Mohamad and Kangkong Professor (2), Universiti Utara Malaysia senior lecturer in Political and International Studies, Md Shukri Shuib, to ground the allegations that the “DAP’s endeavour to hold local elections in Penang” is seen as “an attempt to challenge the Federal Constitution” and “turn the Pearl of the Orient into an autonomous states” which “only serve to shatter racial unity and adversely impact nation-building efforts”.
It is sad and tragic that the Dean of the College of Legal, Government and International Studies of a local public university does not understand the Federal Constitution or he would not say such a nonsense about the DAP challenging the Federal Constitution for holding the view that local government elections should be restored 50 years after suspension in 1965, at the time on the ground of threat of Indonesian Confrontation.
Can the Kankong Professor who holds the exalted position of Dean of College of Legal, Government and International Studies explain how the DAP’s position that local government elections should be restored, which the then Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman had promised would be done once Indonesian Confrontation ended? Read the rest of this entry »
IGP Khalid lucky there is no IPCMC as recommended by Dzaiddin Police Royal Commission of Inquiry or he would be the first IGP to be the subject of complaint of police misconduct…
The Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar is lucky that there is no Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) as recommended by the Dzaiddin Police Royal Commission of Inquiry a decade ago or he would be the first IGP to be the subject of complaint of police misconduct for refusing to investigate as to why two elite policemen murdered in cold blood with C4 explosives a defenceless Mongolian woman, who they did not know or had never met before.
I am really astounded by the lame excuse Khalid has given for not launching a thorough and wide-ranging inquiry to ascertain why two police commandos Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar of the elite police squad, the Special Action Unit (UTK), tasked with protecting people’s lives, had murdered in cold blood defenceless Altantuya Shaariibuu now that their murder trial had ended with their conviction and death sentence.
Could it be that the No. 1 Policeman is just not interested in finding out why two members of the police elite corps, instead of upholding the law, became the most heinous law breakers, even abusing their special position in the police force to secure C4 explosives to do their dastardly deed, so that there could be no such recurrence?
I find any IGP who is indifferent as to the motive for the murderous deed by the two elite policeman most inexplicable and extraordinary, for it is tantamount to a serious dereliction of duty as the No. 1 policeman in the country.
If the IPCMC is in operation today, I have no doubt that complaints would have been lodged against him for gross police misconduct for not investigating or wanting to know what could be the motive for the cold-blooded murder using C4 explosives of defenceless Altantuya. Read the rest of this entry »
PAS Kelantan State Government should establish public inquiry into the handling of the 2014 Floods Catastrophe to find out the weaknesses, lapses and failures so that the state will be better prepared to face future flood disasters
Posted by Kit in Kelantan, NaturaL disaster on Sunday, 1 February 2015
In the floods disaster last year which hit the East Coast States, Kelantan faced the worst floods catastrophe within living memory in Malaysia.
Tonight’s launch of Gabungan Impian Kelantan comprising at present of 39 NGOs and political groups is the upshot of the 2014 Floods which saw the rise of the NGOs (non-government organizations) and NGIs (non-government individuals), both in Kelantan and elsewhere in Malaysia, who played a most sterling role in the floods catastrophe to come to the aid of the flood victims where the government failed in all three phases of a disaster management – response, relief and reconstruction.
It was not possible to avoid the 2014 floods catastrophe, but the damage could have been minimized as not to lead to the loss of 25 lives, creating a million floods victims with quarter of million flood evacuees, and causing billions of ringgit of damages if there had been better floods management preparedness and plans in all three phases of response, relief and reconstruction.
Furthermore I shudder to think of the damages and sufferings the people in Kelantan and other East Coast States had to undergo if NGOs and NGIs had not risen up to come to the aid of the stricken and stranded flood victims which the government had not been able to help, not for one day but for several days at a stretch, leaving the flood victims without food, water, shelter, electricity or communications.
This was why I had consistently called for the declaration of an emergency to centralize all resources whether assets or personnel, particularly military and police, to as to provide the quickest aid to the most needy as the first step of an adequate response to the worst floods catastrophe within living memory and why subsequently I also called for a Royal Commission of Inquiry to investigate the causes and weaknesses, lapses and failures revealed by the floods catastrophe in terms of disaster management preparedness and planning. Read the rest of this entry »
Iranian film on prophet Muhammad set for premiere
Saeed Kamali Dehghan
Guardian
30 January 2015
Majid Majidi’s Tehran-backed production telling the story of Muhammad’s early years to be shown at Iran’s Fajr international film festival
As controversy swirls on how the prophet Muhammad is depicted, a multimillion-dollar biopic about his youth – Iran’s most expensive and lavish film to date – is set to premiere on Sunday.
Tehran’s Fajr international film festival, which coincides with the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, is scheduled to show the country’s own version of how Islam’s most revered figure lived. To protect the prophet’s dignity, the film will be shown out of competition.
Iran has been a vocal critic of the prophet’s portrayal in the west, recently expressing strong condemnation of the Charlie Hebdo cover cartoon in the aftermath of the deadly attacks in Paris, which depicted Muhammad weeping and holding up a sign reading Je Suis Charlie.
The film, to be originally released as Muhammad, Messenger of God in the festival’s opening ceremony, is made by Majid Majidi, a leading pro-establishment Iranian director who has worked for more than five years – with a great deal of secrecy – to produce what is only the second big-budget feature ever made about the prophet. The first film was Moustapha Akkad’s 1976 The Message, starring Anthony Quinn, which sparked controversy despite not showing the prophet on screen to avoid hurting Muslim sensitivities.
Majidi has had his own doubts about Akkad’s biopic, which he said failed to do justice to Muhammad’s life by showing “only Jihad and war” and also because “the image of Islam in that film is the image of a sword”.
Majidi’s state-sponsored film, which is the first part of an ambitious trilogy about the prophet’s life, tells the story of Muhammad from his birth through the age of 12, ending with his first visit to Sham (Syria) where Bahira, a Christian monk, is believed to have predicted he would one day become a prophet.
Iran is bracing for a large international release in March, at least in the English and Arabic world. Read the rest of this entry »
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