Four Killed In Anti-Charlie Hebdo Protests

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 17 Januari 2015 | 22.57

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At least four people have died in Niger in violent protests over the Charlie Hebdo magazine's publication of a new cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.

Forty five people were also injured in the clashes in the city of Zinder, with demonstrators ransacking three churches and setting fire to the French cultural centre.

At least two churches were set on fire in the capital Niamey and 100 riot police guarded the city's cathedral to protect it from a crowd of stone-throwing youths.

Tear gas was also fired to disperse some 1,000 youths who gathered in front of the city's grand mosque. Protesters in several parts of the city were also seen carrying clubs and iron bars.

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Gallery: Niger Protests Over Charlie Hebdo

Smoke billows in a street near the grand mosque in Niamey as people demonstrate against French weekly Charlie Hebdo's publication of a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed

This picture shows a charred vehicle burnt out during the protests, after thousands of protesters gathered following Friday prayers

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A ransacked church burns after it was set ablaze

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Protesters burned a French flag in the city of Zinder

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This church was ransacked before it was set ablaze

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In Karachi, Pakistan, people were injured when protesters clashed with police outside the French consulate.

Protesters in Senegal and Mauritania torched French flags, and Qatar and Bahrain warned that the cartoon could fuel hatred.

Thousands of people around the world have been taking to the streets to vent anger at the French satirical magazine's front-cover cartoon, which features the Prophet holding a Je Suis Charlie sign under the headline "All Is Forgiven".

In Pakistan, police fired water cannon and tear gas into the air as they clashed with protesters from the Jamaat-e-Islami religious party.

The nationwide rallies followed comments by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who led parliament in condemning the cartoons in Charlie Hebdo, whose Paris offices were attacked last week, leaving 12 people dead.

A statement from one faction of the Pakistani Taliban has issued a statement lauding the Islamist Kouachi brothers who carried out the massacre, saying: "They freed the Earth from the existence of filthy blasphemers."

Insulting the Prophet carries the death penalty under Pakistan's blasphemy laws, with 14 people currently on death row.

In Jordan's capital Amman, around 2,500 protesters set off from Al Husseini mosque under tight security, holding banners that read "insulting the Prophet is global terrorism".

In Algiers, there were clashes as up to 3,000 marchers chanted: "We are all Mohammed."

Around 100 protesters rallied in Istanbul in response to a call by a group calling itself the Fraternal Platform of the Prophet's Companions, with some holding pictures of the Kouachis.

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Written By Unknown on Jumat, 16 Januari 2015 | 22.57

The flogging of writer Raif Badawi has been postponed by Saudi officials on medical grounds, Amnesty International has said.

Mr Badawi, who was flogged 50 times in public a week ago by an Interior Ministry official, was due to face the same punishment every Friday until he had received 1,000 lashes, followed by 10 years in prison.

Amnesty International said the prison doctor concluded that the wounds Mr Badawi had received from his previous beating had not yet healed properly and that he would not be able to withstand another round of lashes at that time.

Following news of the postponement, Amnesty International's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa Programme said: "Not only does this postponement on health grounds expose the utter brutality of this punishment, it underlines its outrageous inhumanity.

"The notion that Raif Badawi must be allowed to heal so that he can suffer this cruel punishment again and again is macabre and outrageous."

Saudi Arabia has come under increased pressure from Western countries over its weekly flogging of Mr Badawi for "insulting Islam", particularly since the Paris attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine, which was condemned by Riyadh.

The UN human rights chief this week urged the Saudi king to pardon Mr Badawi and review the "cruel" penalty of flogging.

"Flogging is, in my view, at the very least, a form of cruel and inhuman punishment," UN commissioner Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said in a statement.

The United States, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders all denounced the flogging as a horrific form of punishment, saying Mr Badawi was exercising his right to freedom of expression.

His wife Ensaf Haidar, who sought asylum in Canada with their three children after Mr Badawi was jailed in June 2012, has also pleaded for his release

The co-founder of the now-banned Saudi Liberal Network was found guilty of insulting Islam after criticising Saudi Arabian clerics on a forum he founded in 2008.

In the past year Saudi authorities have been criticised by international rights groups for jailing several prominent activists on charges ranging from setting up an illegal organisation to damaging the reputation of the country.

However, the country is reluctant to be seen to yield to Western pressure with large numbers of conservative Saudis defending the punishment on social media, and accusing the authorities of being weak in the face of insults to Islam in the West - particularly the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in publications such as Charlie Hebdo.

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Terror Suspects Planned To Kill Police In Street

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Two suspects killed in a Belgian anti-terror raid were poised to murder several police officers in the street - and had police uniforms at their hideout, authorities say.

AK-47s, knives and explosives were found with uniforms and fake ID during raids on an apartment in eastern Belgium.

The suspects were killed during a raid on the apartment in Verviers - one of 10 raids across the country.

The details emerged after hundreds of police across Europe raided properties targeting Islamist terrorists.

More than 25 people were held in Germany, France and Belgium amid fears of another terror attack following the Paris atrocities.

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Gallery: French Special Forces Detain Suspect In Post Office Hostage Situation

Armed police surround the post office in Colombes outside Paris after a man holds a number of people hostage.

It was initially unclear whether the situation was linked to terrorism.

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Later reports suggested that the man was known to police and had called officers himself to alert them.

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The suspect was eventually detained by members of special French RAID forces.

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Police say the hostages were freed unharmed but were in shock.

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Meanwhile, in the UK, Britons queued outside bookshops to buy the first Charlie Hebdo magazine since the Paris shootings.

Demand is high for the new issue, which carries a front-cover cartoon of a crying Prophet Mohammed.

Some queued from midnight, with around 1,000 copies available at UK stores, including the French Bookshop, in South Kensington, London.

In Belgium, Jewish schools were closed for the day and security forces surrounded the police HQ in Brussels.

At a news conference on Friday morning, Belgian authorities said 13 people had been detained in Belgium and two in France following the raids.

Eric Van der Sypt, a Belgian federal magistrate, said the terrorists' goal was to kill police on the street or in their offices.

He said that some of the suspects had recently returned from Syria where they had been training and fighting with Islamic State.

In Germany, police raided 11 properties linked to radical Islamists, shortly after the Belgian operation.

The German arrests, involving 250 police, followed months of investigation into five Turkish citizens, aged between 31 and 44.

They are suspected of "preparing a serious act of violence against the state in Syria" and money laundering.

In France, 10 people were arrested overnight in anti-terrorism raids.

The raids targeted individuals linked to Amedy Coulibaly, who attacked a kosher supermarket in Paris, leaving four hostages dead.

Prosecutor's spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre says the arrests began overnight and continued in three towns on Friday morning.

Police in Paris also confirmed that a major city railway station - the Gare de L'Est - had been evacuated and closed in the morning because of a bomb threat.

There were also fears that a new siege at a post office in Colombes, outside Paris, today, may be linked to terror.

But the armed suspect was arrested quickly and all hostages freed. Sources indicate that the situation was not linked to terrorism.

Also in France, a series of funerals have been taking place for the cartoonists killed in the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris.

One was for the magazine's editor-in-chief Stephane Charbonnier, in Pontoise, north-west of Paris.

In a separate development, several French national media websites went down following a series of hacking incidents.

Elsewhere, police in Pakistan used a water cannon to disperse anti-Charlie Hebdo protesters at the French consulate in Karachi.

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Gallery: Belgian Police Target Returning Jihadists

Forensic officers work in the rain on Rue de la Colline in Verviers, eastern Belgium

Belgian police shot dead two suspects in a huge operation against jihadists who had returned from Syria and planned an imminent attack

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A photographer working for the French news agency AFP was wounded in the disturbances.

The protesters belong to the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami religious party, which is holding nationwide rallies against the depiction of the Prophet Mohammed by the French satirical weekly.

Amid the worldwide tensions, US Secretary of State John Kerry met President Francois Hollande in Paris to offer support.

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Written By Unknown on Kamis, 15 Januari 2015 | 22.57

Spain's Former King Faces Paternity Suit

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The Supreme Court in Spain has agreed to hear a paternity suit against the former king Juan Carlos in a further embarrassing episode for the royal family.

The 77-year-old was immune from criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits while king, but he lost that privilege after he abdicated in June in favour of his son, Felipe VI.

The paternity suit has been filed by a Belgian woman, Ingrid Jeanne Sartiau, who claims to be his daughter.

She says her mother had a relationship with the then crown prince in the 1960s.

Ms Sartiau claims the relationship lasted until 1966, the year she was born.

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Gallery: King Juan Carlos' Reign In Pictures

October 1975: Former Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco, right, salutes beside his wife Carmen Polo (second right), the then Prince Juan Carlos of Spain and his wife Princess Sofia as they listen to the national anthem during a ceremony at El Pardo Palace. The king has confirmed his wish to abdicate the throne to his son.

February 1993: King Juan Carlos goes down the slopes of the Candanchu ski resort.

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April 1993: Juan Carlos, accompanied by Queen Sofia, appears in front of the coffin of his father Don Juan de Borbon y Battenberg, lying in state at the royal palace April 2. Don Juan died on April 1 after a 13-year battle against throat cancer.

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June 1993: Pope John Paul II and Juan Carlos hold hands after making their speeches at Seville Airport after the Pope's arrival June 12. At right is Spanish Queen Sofia.

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August 1993: King Juan Carlos is thrown into a swimming pool after winning the King's Cup Yacht Race in Palma de Mallorca.

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She said she began to investigate after her mother one day saw Juan Carlos on TV and told her: "This man is your father."

Juan Carlos and his wife, former Queen Sofia, were married in 1962.

If there is sufficient evidence to back the woman's claim, Juan Carlos could be ordered to take a paternity test, a court spokesman, who declined to be named, told AP news agency.

The court dismissed a second paternity claim brought by a 58-year-old Spanish writer, Albert Sola Jimenez, saying it did not meet the legal requirements.

Mr Sola, an adopted child, has claimed for years that his birth mother had an affair with Juan Carlos before he married Sofia.

A spokesman for the royal palace said it would not comment on the matter, stating only: "We respect the independence of the judiciary."

The lawsuit is the latest scandal to hit the Spanish monarchy.

Juan Carlos, who has had health problems and walks with a cane after multiple hip operations, had hoped his abdication in favour of Felipe, 46, would restore the monarchy's popularity.

The former king, who reigned for almost 40 years, was once well regarded for steering the country from military dictatorship to democracy when he took over the throne in 1975, two days after the death of long-term dictator General Francisco Franco.

But his reputation plummeted after he took a secret elephant hunting trip to Botswana in 2012 at the height of Spain's financial crisis. He later apologised for going on the trip.

Last week, a Palma de Mallorca judge confirmed that Juan Carlos' youngest daughter, 49-year-old Cristina, is to be tried on charges of tax fraud.

She will be the first member of the Spanish royal family to stand trial since the monarchy was restored in 1975.

After the king's abdication, parliament rushed through a law giving him similar legal protection to that enjoyed by many high-ranking civil servants and politicians.

But it does not shield him completely, with the Supreme Court being allowed to make a final decision.

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