Shi’ite Muslims have a cultural heritage of oppression and suffering but it would be wrong to see this as the determinate factor in the politicisation of the Lebanese Shi’ites and the rise of Hizbu’llah.The chief determinates of Shi’ite activism in Lebanon have been the same social, economic and political conditions which have driven Third World [...]
The forebears of the Slavs and the races who now inhabit (the former ) Yugoslavia first migrated there from the steppes and forests of the north. Individual Serb, Croat, Bosnian and Slovene princes and chieftains alternately fought amongst themselves for supremacy or joined together against one or other of their neighbours. These small kingdoms and [...]
Over the five year long War in Iraq, the Voice has carried extensive coverage of the misery and carnage brought upon that country by the US and Britain’s ‘War on Terror’.
The most important coverage has come from inside Iraq by Isam Rasheed.
Eddie Truman looks back at some of the articles sent at great risk from Isam.
“White youth, black youth Better find another solution Why not phone up robin hood And ask him for some wealth distribution” White Man In Hammersmith Palais 30 years ago a social revolution was in full swing that had burst onto the scene a year earlier in 1976. In ‘The Future Is Unwritten’ Julien Temple has [...]
When I wrote about Mohammed Atif Siddique’s conviction for terrorist related offences in September I commented that without the amended Terrorism Act of 2000 it was unlikely that the Crown would have been able to make a breach of the peace charge stick. Today Siddique was sentenced to 8 years in prison on 3 terrorism [...]
After a 4 week trial and a 9 hour jury deliberation, Scotland has its first home grown Islamic terrorist plot and plotter. But without the near impossible to defend charges under the amended terrorism Act of 2000, it is unlikely that the prosecution would have been able to make a Breach of the Peace charge [...]
Rana Al-aiouby carries bodies out from flattened Iraqi homes, and she carries medicine into plundered, crumbling Iraqi hospitals.
She has brought documentation of atrocities committed by the occupying American military, which gives the lie to claims that those war crimes we hear of are isolated incidents.
Rana spoke to Eddie Truman while in Scotland as part of efforts to build practical solidarity between the two countries.
“Ban The Veil” screamed the Daily Express, in Glasgow Imam Shamsuddin is subject to a violent assault, in Liverpool a Muslim woman has a veil ripped from her face by a man shouting racist abuse, in Falkirk a mosque was deliberately set ablaze. The cause of this renewed wave of attacks on the Muslim community? [...]
In a world in which people with dark skins and vaguely foreign sounding names are being chucked off planes for fear they might blow up, Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks about Islam couldn’t have come at a worse time. Choosing to quote the words of the 14th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II, “Show me just what Muhammad [...]