The International Police (Interpol) has issued an arrest warrant today for more red (high priority) against the founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, at the request sent by the Swedish Justice accused of rape, sexual abuse and coercion. The order allows Assange to be stopped at any of the 188 Interpol member countries and accelerate their extradition to Sweden.
Anusheh Anadil (FaceBook) is Muslim. She practices a form that studies and emulates the example of the mystic Fakirs. In August 2005, the gathering places for Fakirs and practitioners were targets by Islamist fundamentalists in her home of Bangaladesh. Over 400 bombs were detonated across the country that year.
In our superficial pop culture, you can do whatever and get away [with it]. Nobody will attack that with a bomb. You can wear skimpy clothes and dance. It should be more against your Sharia or whatever laws. Why are there no bombs on those stages? Why are there bombs on these stages? Because it is dangerous. You question … you figure out. You think … by Allah! You can’t control me anymore. Because the control is here (gestures to herself). Nobody … none of you can control me because … my guru resides within me. I contain all that I need. To find myself, I don’t need any of you. I don’t need your books, I don’t need your Imams. I don’t need any of you guys!
Anusheh Anadil of Bangladesh and Laxmi Ben Vankar of India Receive the 2009 Meeto Memorial Award
As an outspoken Bangladeshi singer-song writer, Anusheh “has pioneered the fusion of traditional rural songs with rock music, giving them new life” and her band Bangla is very popular with young people in her home country. As a Fakiri, Anusheh states that the Islamists do not represent the real spiritual values of her countrymen and has been attacked by Islamic fundamentalists. Despite that, Anusheh started and runs an ethnic craft shop in Dhaka called Jatra where she employs disabled people, former sex workers and roadside painters. Everything at Jatra is made by local crafts-persons.
As a protest against the religious intolerance, growing religious fundamentalism and violence, Anusheh and Bangla released its second album “Prottutponnomotitto” (2006). “Prottutponnomotitto” means “the presence of wit, instant wit. Knowing exactly and instantly what one must do.” The album reflects on the destruction and havoc that struck Bangladesh in the name of religion. Each of the Lalon musical pieces articulates how the simple humanitarian ideals have taken a back seat to ritualistic religion.
Despite the threat of violence, torture and grave human rights violations including what Amnesty International has identified as “endemic corruption that negatively impacts the poor and dispossessed in the country,” Anusheh and other young Bangladeshis work for peace and justice for everyone. Americans enjoy a level of infrastructure, stability, peace and resources most people in South Asia have never experienced. If Bangladeshi youth can keep working, singing, dancing and creatively dodging any bombs directed towards them, we can do it too!
Now, let us look a bit at the circular migration pattern across the US-Mexico border by way of the film, “The Invisibles” (an English and a Spanish version both available on YouTube.Com). But first an introduction.
The film was first screened on Nov. 4th then publicly launched on Nov. 8th. The first screening took place at the Museo Memoria y Tolerancia (“Museum of Memory and Tolerance”) in Mexico City on November 4th in coordination with Amnesty International’s Refugees and Migrants Rights team (“New film shines a light on the plight of migrants in Mexico” with embedded video, by Charlotte Philips, posted Nov. 8, 2010). About 200 people attended the screening including human rights activists, community members and people representing non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The public launch of the film was on Nov. 9th in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico during the four day meeting of the 4th annual Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD)in order to facilitate discussions directly with the government of Mexico and among participants.
“The Invisibles” is actually broken into four segments. Please pause now and view Part 1.
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