Geert Wilders

Restart for Dutch anti-Islam lawmaker's hate speech trial < Dutch news | Expatica The Netherlands:

"The hate speech trial of Dutch anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders will start afresh after judges trying him were ordered to step down Friday by a panel of their colleagues at the politician's request.

'The trial will start afresh,' Amsterdam district court spokeswoman Mercedes Grootscholten told AFP after a panel of oversight judges said Wilders' concerns of bias on the part of his trial judges were 'understandable'.

Judge GH Marcus, the president of a panel convened to consider Wilders' request for the judges' recusal, said their denial of his request to recall a witness 'appears to be in conflict with the applicable jurisprudence'.

'We find the applicant's fear that the court's decision points to a degree of bias, also in light of earlier incidents, understandable,' the judge said.

Wilders, 47, went on trial on October 4 for inciting hatred by calling Islam 'fascist' and likening the Koran to Hitler's 'Mein Kampf'.

There have been seven days of hearings so far. Judgement had been set for November 5."

Background:
New Dutch Government agrees to ban burqa, cut deficit.

The Land of the Free | The Weekly Standard:

"Some immigrants from the Middle East are Christians escaping persecution... But the vast majority are Muslims. Plausible estimates of the number of Muslims in America vary widely, from 1.3 million to five million. But there is a consensus that Muslim Americans’ share of the population is climbing.

According to a large survey by the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), the number of people in America who described themselves as Muslims more than doubled between 1990 and 2008, from 527,000 to 1.35 million.

By other measures, too, American Muslims are thriving. According to the ARIS study, 35 percent of American Muslims age 25 years and older have college degrees, a share equal to or higher than that of any other religion except Judaism and “Eastern religions.” And a Cornell University study found that Muslim Americans generally earn more money than Americans of other religions.

The deeper irony in the ongoing debates over religious liberty and freedom of speech in America is that these debates wouldn’t even be allowed to take place across most of the Muslim world.

A December 2009 Pew Forum survey on religious freedom found that 70 percent of the world lives in areas of high restrictions of religion. Many of those affected are Christians living in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East.

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, freedom of religion is defined as the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance. No matter how it is defined, religious freedom is not a right enjoyed by most of the approximately 12 to 17 million Christians in the Middle East."

Western countries are so Islamophobic that Muslim immigration is coming towards them, not the other way round. When are we going to start speaking about "non-Muslim-phobia" in the Islamic countries?

Christian Wulff

President Wulff urges Turks to 'actively integrate' in Germany | Germany | Deutsche Welle | 19.10.2010:

"In his speech, Wulff stressed immigrants need not give up their cultural identity or background. But those living in Germany should respect and protect the values of the German constitution, including freedom of speech, equality and the right to a religiously and ideologically neutral state.

'Those who wish to live in Germany must follow these rules and accept our way of life,' he said.

Wulff also touched on the subject of religion, calling on Turkey and other Islamic countries to be more open to Christianity. 'We expect Christians in Muslim countries to have the same right to live their faith publicly, to educate their youth in theology and build churches [as Muslims do in Germany],' he said.

'Without a doubt, Christianity belongs to Turkey,' he said, recalling his Unity Day speech from earlier in October, in which he stated that Islam had become part of Germany."

Has he actually considered what Minister Faruk Çelik said only two days ago?

Background:
Germany: 69% against Turkish entry in the EU, poll shows.
CDU politician calls to stop Muslim immigration.
"Muslims should obey Constitution, not Sharia", Merkel says.
Conservative leaders reject Wullf's remarks on Islam.
Germany agrees in making easier for Turks to get visas.
President Wulff will visit Turkey on Monday, while Merkel criticizes multiculturalism.

Rowan Williams

Episcopal Life Online - WORLD REPORT:

"Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has deplored attempts by governments in Europe to prohibit Muslim women from publicly wearing the burqa, a garment that covers the entire body.

'Governments should have better things to do than ban the burqa,' Williams, the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, told an interfaith meeting organized by the National Council of Churches in India at its headquarters in Nagpur, during a visit to India.

..."I believe that the state ought not to be addressing issues like these. Instead, it should leave such concerns to the religious communities," stated Williams at the Oct. 14 meeting in Nagpur. He described the French ban as "a sign of being overanxious."

More than 100 church leaders, led by the NCCI's president, Methodist Bishop Taranath Sagar, and Bishop Purely Lyngdoh, moderator of the Church of North India, attended the meeting alongside Muslims and Sikhs, and members of the Hindu community.

"We are glad that the archbishop spoke out clearly on the burqa controversy. He is very objective and respects other faiths," A. Majid Parekh, a Muslim leader in Nagpur, told ENInews after listening to the Anglican leader.

Williams told ENInews that the controversy generated by bans on the burqa, the Sikh turban and the Christian cross in some European countries, "shows the extension of secularism too far. This ought to be resisted. The communities should have the right to decide on such issues." Williams said he had protested when a British Airways employee was told she should not wear her necklace cross visibly while at work.

He told the meeting that attacks against migrants in Europe were not the result of Christian prejudice against non-Christians but a "crude nationalist prejudice against migrants and outsiders."

On the link between religions and terrorism, the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion said that terrorism is a product of "bad" religion. "The positive affirmation of faith in God and respect for one another is the solution for it," he stated."

"We can say I worked as shepherd," he smiles. "I was in charge of a herd of goats in northern Morocco." Until he crossed the Straits and settled in the province of Tarragona. Unemployed, handicapped by the lack of training and a chronic disease for many years improvised direction of prayers in several mosques in the vicinity of Valls and Torredembarra. Rachid H. worked as an imam. "Not really, but I know Islam better than others", said after admitting that no studies that Muslim countries call for the task.

What kind of prayers were performed by this improvised imam? "I talked about everything: the relationship between men and women, life's problems," he says. Witnesses say those prayers castigated women and young Muslims who were related to people outside this belief. Rachid denies without elaborating. But at home, he stores magazines, recordings and videos that shed some clue to his speeches. The material supports that an adulterous wife should be punished with death and supports other repressive behaviors on the role of women relative to men, according to the report of the register details of the property conducted by the Autonomous Police in 2009. Rachid, who asked not to reveal his name for his legal situation, only occasionally leads prayers, due to his poor state of health and also because he is on probation after being charged with promoting violence linked to radical Salafism, Islam's ultra-conservative current.

They say "Muslims defend Spanish and European values".

The Bishop of Cordoba, Bishop Demetrio Fernandez, wrote this weekend's edition of ABC Córdoba, that Córdoba Cathedral has been a Catholic house of worship for eight centuries, "declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, which is open only the Catholic faith.

The prelate also noted that "the Catholic community of Cordova has been involved in its maintenance" and "celebrates every day the mysteries of the Christian faith" in it:

"When the Muslims arrived in Cordoba in 711, the place was already a sacred place. It was the ancient Basilica of San Vicente Martyr, which was destroyed to build the mosque.

King Fernando III the Saint came out of blood in the city on June 28, 1236 and ordered to consecrate the temple which was built as a mosque, and was saved from destruction by the good King Fernando negotiations with the occupying Muslims, who wanted to destroy it before surrendering. "

Therefore, Bishop Fernandez believes that the term "mosque" in the signs to the city are wrong. The bishop of the city claims to be called to the scene as it is 800 years: the Cathedral of Cordoba

Only a few days before the start of the school year, the debate on Islamic headscarves in schools will continue and this will be hardened by petitions to prohibit the burqa. But the discussions on these kinds of symbols could also get radicalized in the coming months, just as it seems that the traditional or fundamentalist versions of Islam sticklers are growing fast in Spain. A strange situation, the experts say, in contrast with the religious attitude and behavior that prevails among the urban middle classes in countries like Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan. This is the case of the Syrian president's wife, Asma al-Assad, who came to Spain in July. Perhaps impressed by the debonair and European looks of Asma, a woman who has modern looks, wears short dresses and trousers, swims and rides a bike, and seems the same as the president, a reporter asked if that that was normal in her country, which she replied to that it was "a mirror of Syrian society." 

Islam In Spain also differs. Judging from positions that we can read on Islamic groups' webs in Spain, the manner in which they responded to hijab or burqa bans or the attitudes of some imams, it doesn't seem that Asma al-Assad is the prototype of the female Muslim Spain. Even among Spanish converts (between 35,000 and 40,000 people practice a moderate Islam). "What is not clear," says Fernando Bravo, TEIM (International Mediterranean Studies Workshop) of the Autonomous University of Madrid, "is whether this apparent spread of a more traditional Islam, even a fundamentalist one, is due to an increase in religiosity or an attitude of claims arising from the feeling, stronger in Europe than in their countries, that their identity is threatened".

Torrent's Islamic Center has agreed with the neighbors of Nicholas Andreu, at a meeting orchestrated by the Office of Mayor of the City, paralyzing the work being undertaken in a building on Calle San Ernesto to convert it into a mosque and find another location that satisfies all parties.

For seven years, Muslims have come to the headquarters of Torrent's Islamic center located in a room of just 120 square feet of Nicholas Andreu Street and had never had any problems with neighbors. However, the growing number of faithful forced many to stay in the street to pray at the designated days of the Muslim calendar.

Therefore, the Islamic Center sought and rented a closer and more extensive than could accommodate smoothly to 200 or 300 worshipers. This is a warehouse located in the basement of a building on Rue Saint Ernesto, in the same neighborhood. However, this new location seemed to disturb the neighbors who claimed, from their Association, that the street is very narrow, there are parking problems and that there are two schools close so that, at peak times, it can be to collapse.

The makers of the Islamic Center, meanwhile, do not understand the complaints recalling that during seven years there has been no notable incidents and that the relocation was done precisely to avoid nuisance to neighbors. But the desire to avoid a conflict with the neighbors has led to the Hall to mediate in the negotiation between both parties to reach a consensual solution.

Although the Muslim Association had already begun work on the ship rented by pulling some walls, has reached agreement with the neighbors to paralyze the work and find another location that would satisfy all parties.

The mayor of the municipality, Maria José Català, has acknowledged being "satisfied" with the outcome of the negotiations as "the reference of the government team has been at all times comply with current legislation and the welfare of neighbors."

"We had the cooperation of locals who have understood from the outset that the best option was to work with the government team for the proper resolution of this conflict," he said.

Source (found).

Barcepundit compares the treatment that Spanish MSM is doing of Ground Zero mosque and this one: "In Ground Zero's affair, everybody has been giving their opinion: Islamophobes, racists, intolerants, scared shitless, imperialists, bloody invaders of Islamic lands, blablabla... The polemic has been on the TV news opening. We will see what they say regarding this affair".

(Translation: T&P).

The Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), the political party of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, was forced on Tuesday to cancel a public debate organized in its headquarters, amid concerns that the debate would spark new accusations of racism and discrimination.

Titled “Immigration, Islamism: Is France Threatened?,” the controversial debate did not come at a good time for UMP, which is now presenting a new bill on immigration in the Assemblee Nationale (National Assembly), the lower house of French bicameral Parliament.

“We have chosen this time to really participate in Parliament discussions on future immigration law, as they are starting this week and will be at full intensity on that day,” explained the Droite Libre (Free Right), the UMP-associated group that organized the meeting.

“These issues are a concern to our fellow citizens, yet they almost never have a chance to discuss them; those who dare to mention immigration and Islam are framed by the intellectual terror of ‘political correctness.’”

Source.

"Catholics are terrorists and accomplices of rape". "Spain was invaded by the Jews, not Muslims." This was said Wednesday in an anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish rally in the auditorium of the University of Valladolid (UVA). At that meeting, which lacked only in insults to Blacks and Asians, a buffoon (called Leo Bassi, right) mocked the signs of illness and old age who suffered (the late Pope) John Paul II. Three months ago the government fined Intereconomía not insulting, because they criticized the march of 'gay pride'. But Intereconomía is Catholic and right-wing, of course. Things change if the left insults and slander Catholics and Jews and mocks a deceased elderly person. In that case even offers the auditorium of a public university to launch better insults. By the way: Is this what the left means by "education for citizenship"?

Incidentally, and considering the serious crimes charged upon us, are we to assume he wants to see all the Catholics in prison? Or does he prefer for us something more progressive and which does not require testing for trapping the divergent, as a gulag or a torture chamber? I say this because accussing of false crimes to an entire social group is a typical practice of many totalitarian groups, and has often been a precursor to crack down on members of this social group.

On the other hand, I wonder what following acts will be authorized by the University of Valladolid for these facilities paid for with public money, ie, taxes paid, among others, Catholics and Jews insulted and maligned at the rally. Will the program include a cross burning by members of the anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic also Ku Klux Klan? Will they present a new edition of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion", a talk in which blame the Jews of being the cause of all evil and wanting to rule the world? Or maybe there will be a meeting in which they will made a mockery of the disabled? What will be the next lecture of vileness, hatred and intolerance provide this University will provide?

What is clear is that neither the University will consent nor these leftist groups will convene a meeting to insult, slander and make fun of Muslims. Faced with an orgy of insults to Muslims like the one on Wednesday launched against Jews and Catholics (which I seem as reprehensible as of yesterday), the left would be the first to air allegations of racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia and fascism as we have seen many times before with much less strong adjectives thrown from certain sites against the followers of Mohammed. The case is that almost all countries are democracies from the Judeo-Christian tradition - will this be what bothers you the fool? - while in many Muslim majority countries to certain persons are hanged for being gay, and some women the stoning for adultery. But that does not seem to matter much to some leftists, who feel very comfortable with radical Islamism that shares their rejection of Western Judeo-Christian roots.

Source.

Precisely the fact that these insults were made from a PUBLIC University, paid by every Spanish citizen, including those who were actually deeply insulted, is the difference with the Mohammed cartoons, which were published by a PRIVATE newspaper.

Translation: T&P.

ABNA.ir:

A holiday celebrating the introduction of Islam into Russia has just been approved in the Russian republic of Tatarstan.

The new holiday will be on 21 May of each year and marks the adoption of Islam by the Volga Bulgars, the ancestors of the present-day Tatars, in 922.

The new law was adopted by an overwhelming majority of the Tatarstan parliament (79 – "For", 1 - " Against"). In addition, it was decided to make a holiday of Eid al-Fitr.

Originally, the commemoration day was supposed to become a national holiday for all of Russia, after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on 1 June this year signed a law introducing a national holiday on July 28 each year to commemorate the adoption of Christianity in 988.

However, the initiative for the Muslim holiday got bogged down in disagreements between Tatars and North Caucasus Muslims on the date Islam was first established in Russia.

Volga Bulgars adopted Islam in the 10th century, while clerics in Daghestan claim that Islam appeared in the North Caucasus as early as the seventh century.

More here.

Related:
Russian Duma deputy downplays threat to Tatarstan's soreveignty.

Army 1st Lt. Rafael Lantigua, an ecclesiastically endorsed, fully ordained minister, will assume his post after finishing classes required by the Armed Services Chaplain Board.

“I am humbled for this opportunity to be a role model for other members of my faith throughout the military,” he said.

As he was growing up, Lantigua was not a Muslim. He decided to convert when he was a teenager, he said, and he attributed that decision to the diversity of his background. His Baptist mother is an African-American, and his Roman Catholic father is from the Dominican Republic. After his parents divorced, he said, his mother married a Buddhist.

“Growing up in such diversity caused me to explore my options,” Lantigua said.

That diversity, he said, enabled him to embrace the Muslim faith before he enlisted in the Air Force. He has continued to be open about his religious beliefs, he added, in the hope that he can break down the stigma surrounding Muslims since Sept. 11, 2001.

VOA NEWS:

A prestigious Indonesian Islamic theologian is traveling to Europe to promote the country's tolerant, pluralist interpretation of Islam and counter the violent ideology of radical extremists. The tour is organized by groups that promote pluralism and is part of a plan to develop a network of Muslim leaders to give voice to what they call the "great silent majority" of peace-loving Muslims.
Kyai Haji Achmad Mustofa Bisri, an influential Islamic cleric and member of the supreme council of Nahdlatul Ulama, an Indonesian Muslim organization with 40 million members, has preached tolerance and moderation for over 30 years. Now he has agreed to travel to Europe to help reconcile what he describes as growing animosity between Muslims and Christians there.
He says his perception of the world that we live in is that it is like very dry grass that is easy to catch fire and burn.
Islam, the cleric says, is a religion that promotes love, peace and tolerance.
He says if one misreads the message of love to give rise to hatred, then clearly there is a failure to understand.
And Bisri says that both Islamic extremists and those who hate Muslims share the misguided view that Islam sanctions violence.

I wonder where people have learned that "misunderstanding" from... And, wouldn't it be more practical if they would just convince violent Islamic guys of this "loving and peaceful nature of Islam"?

AINA:

On March 30 an administrative judicial court in Egypt dismissed a lawsuit filed by Mrs. Camilia Lutfi, mother of the Coptic Christian twins boys Mario and Andrew (right), against the Interior Minister, and the director of the Civil Status Department for refusing to re-instate the Christian religion on their birth certificates, and invalidate those which were forcefully changed to "Islam" in 2005 by their father Medhat Ramsis Labib, who had converted to Islam.

After his conversion, Andrew and Mario became Muslims in what is called "Islamization by dependence," by which children follow the religion of a converted parent (to Islam only) until they reach the age of puberty (fifteen), because Islam is "the best among all religions," according to Egyptian Court rulings.

The purpose of Lutfi's litigation was to restore back to her twins their identity as Christians, before reaching the age of 16 in June, when they will have their national ID cards issued. Camilia said that because of the developments in their case, her worst nightmares would materialize, in which they would have Islam as religious affiliation on their ID cards. "If they change to Christianity after that, they will be considered apostates," she told Freecopts advocacy. She expressed her surprise at the intransigence of the judiciary in dealing with the issue of her sons, especially after they have already reached the legal age of 15-years, when they can choose their own religion. "The boys have lived this tragedy for the last ten years, through no fault of their own."

ElYoum 7 Newspaper reported that 15-years-old Mario and Andrew were extremely disappointed with the court verdict, saying "faith is not by force, we want to remain Christians and we do not wish to become Muslims." Both boys are practicing Christians and were consecrated last year as deacons in their regular church in Alexandria.

The court explained in its verdict, which was issued on April 14, that Camilia Lutfi has not presented a verdict from a relevant court (it did not say which court) proving the change of her sons' religion from Islam to Christianity. "How come that when their father changed their religion from Christianity to Islam, he required no court verdict, and now that they want to revert back to Christianity, the court requires a verdict?" she told Freecopts.

Although the mother's lawyers presented to the court a portfolio containing 15 different certificates proving they are Christians, contradicting what was written on their birth certificates, the court said in its reasoning that it does not recognize the validity of a certificate issued by the Church as a document of change of religion from Islam to Christianity, as "churches by law are not competent to issue such certificates." The courts only accept certificates of religion change from Al-Azhar (the Muslim theology school in Cairo). Moreover the Court said that there is no law to force the Interior minister and the Civil Status Department chief to change the religion of the boys on their documents without a court ruling to this effect.

Hmm, what marvellous freedom of religion there is in Egypt, hein? And this is happening NOW, not 500 years ago. Just as we speak. Of course, CNN, BBC or El País will not run a piece on these two teenagers. But their case exist (as it exists in other cases, some of them known, some of others unknown), nonetheless.

AN Iraqi Muslim man allegedly raped a Muslim woman as "punishment" for her reading the Bible.
Campbelltown District Court in Sydney's west yesterday heard Abdul Reda Al Shawany twice sexually assaulted the woman, a practising Muslim, and then said to her: "Let your Jesus help you."
Al Shawany, 52, has plead not guilty to two counts of having sexual intercourse without consent between September 1 and 27, 2002, at a unit in Warwick Farm.
At the first day of the week-long trial yesterday, Crown prosecutor Michael O'Brien outlined the case and told how the woman allegedly kept the clothes and underwear she was wearing on the day of the alleged rape in a plastic bag for about three years.
The woman initially reported the matter to police but did not want to take it further because she felt "ashamed", Mr O'Brien said. She later changed her mind and Al Shawany, of Hillsdale, was arrested in July 2005 and the woman provided police with the clothing.
The Crown alleges swab samples from the accused had the same DNA as the semen sample taken from the woman's clothing.
"The complainant was born a Muslim and raised a Muslim and was a Muslim all her life," Mr O'Brien said.
He said when the woman came to Australia from the Middle East she began listening to Christian teachers and reading the Bible.
He said the woman - who wears the Muslim hijab - had received threats from members of her faith for reading the Bible but had not converted to Christianity.

So this woman who is an observant Muslim is raped because she read the Bible to know what those Christians are believing in, while shouting "let that Jesus save you". As a Muslim, doesn't he believe that Jesus was a prophet?

Speaking about "respect for other religions". Lots of respect for "religions" (just in case someone laughs about theirs) but non about the believers in other religions.

An increasing number of Russia’s Muslim parishes are electing not to register with the Russian government as the law requires or to subordinate themselves to any MSD, thus making their activities far more autonomous and effectively recreating the Soviet-era division between “official” and “unofficial” Islam.

In Soviet times, many Muslim believers refused to register their communities with the state, something that was often difficult if not impossible, or to cooperate with the MSDs, institutions that they frequently and reasonably viewed as adjuncts of the state in its efforts to control the faithful and to reduce Islam from a way of life to ritual.

While those who refused to register were often persecuted by the government for their activities, their communities often were the most vibrant part of the Islamic umma. And when it became possible for them to operate more openly and officially, they were the source of much of the dramatic increase in the number of mosques in the Russian Federation.

Moreover, in the new post-Soviet reality, many of these parishes were willing to work with and even subordinate themselves to the MSDs, viewing these organizations as no longer quasi-state agencies designed to limit Islam but rather as relatively independent bodies interested in promoting that.

Now, there is evidence that this is changing. In a recent interview, Galimzhan Bikmullin, the mufti of the Tyumen MSD, said that the number of officially registered Muslim communities in the southern part of his district had fallen from 81 to 48 since 2003 but that “in fact,” the number operating there has not declined but increased (www.islamnews.ru/news-23366.html).

A very good article (though it doesn't mention Islam or Islamic once) about Elham Madhin al Assi, the child bride who suffered haemorraghia and rupture in sexual organs, after her loving husband drugged her up, tied her up and raped her:

In their 2005 observations of Yemen, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child stated many concerns, including Yemen's inconsistency in defining a child's age, the low legal age for marriage of girls, and the fact that girls were marrying even younger than 15 years due to the lack of law enforcement.

Five years have passed and Yemen is still one of the worst places to be a child. The committee's September 2009 observations and recommendations are not for the light-hearted. In addition to their continued concern that the law still does not provide equal protection to all children under the age of 18, the committee is "deeply concerned" that the following offenses against children are not explicitly criminalized: illegal adoption, sexual exploitation, especially under the guise of "tourist marriages" or "temporary marriages," forced child labor, child pornography, and the sale of children -- with parental consent -- for their organs.

This is a human rights crisis in a country where grown men in parliament sit and argue for the right to marry children under the pretense of religious authority. The UN needs to do more than be "deeply concerned." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ann Veneman, UNICEF Executive Director, should visit Yemen and let them know that the world is watching their snail-paced response to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. We need to send a strong message that girls are not property to be sold or traded. Girls are not objects existing to prove men's "manhood" in Yemen or any other country in the world. 

It is quite a surprise to read this on Huffington Post, isn't it? Go ahead, read it all.

(PS: When I read it, it only had ONE comment, precisely saying that, if Israel would have had something to do with this, the page would have been full of comments against it...).

Reuters:

URUMQI, China (Reuters) - At least 140 people have been killed in rioting in China's northwestern Xinjiang region, with the government blaming exiled separatists for the traditionally Muslim area's worst case of unrest in years.
Hundreds of people have been arrested, the official Xinhua news agency said, after protestors from the Uighur minority took to the streets of the regional capital on Sunday, burning and smashing vehicles and shops, and clashing with anti-riot police.

More in Yahoo.

Tensions between Uighurs and the majority Han Chinese are never far from the surface in Xinjiang, a sprawling region rich in minerals and oil that borders eight Central Asian nations. Many Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers) yearn for independence and some militants have waged a sporadic, violent separatist campaign.
Uighurs make up the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, but not in the capital of Urumqi, which has attracted large numbers of Han Chinese migrants. The city of 2.3 million is now overwhelmingly Chinese — a source of frustration for native Uighurs who say they are being squeezed out.
Kakharman Khozamberdi — leader of a Uighur political movement in Kazakhstan, where the Uighur minority has its largest presence outside China — said machine gun fire was heard all night long. One witness told Khozamberdi 10 bodies were seen near a bazaar, including those of women and children.
In Geneva, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged China and any country with violent protests to use extreme care. He urged all government to "protect the life and safety of civilians."

Not even a mention to the another part of the problem: Uighurs are Muslims.

WSJ:

Xinhua quoted Liu Yaohua, a senior police official in Xinjiang, as saying that rioters had burned 261 vehicles, including 190 buses and two police cars, several of which were still ablaze as of Monday morning. Mr. Liu said the death toll of 140 "would still be climbing."

NYT:

The casualty toll, if confirmed, would make this the deadliest outbreak of violence in China in many years.
(...)
At least 1,000 rioters took to the streets, throwing stones at the police and setting vehicles on fire. Plumes of smoke billowed into the sky, while police officers used fire hoses and batons to beat back rioters and detained Uighurs who appeared to be leading the protest, witnesses said.
The Associated Press reported Monday that protests had also spread to a second city, Kashgar, citing eyewitness accounts.

 BBC:



Last news: 156 killed in the riots.