Maryam Namazie of the Organization of Women's Liberation in Iran (OWLI) gave the following speech, "Political Islam in the Heart of Secular Europe," at the International Humanist and Ethical Union Congress in Paris the day before the London terror attacks:

* Sweet 16 year old Atefeh Rajabi was publicly hanged in the city centre in Neka in Iran on 15 August 2004 for "acts incompatible with chastity".
* In April this year, Amina was publicly stoned to death in Argu district, Afghanistan, after being accused of adultery by her husband.
* This month, physicians have been beaten for treating female patients and women have been brutally attacked for not being veiled in Basra, Iraq.

The list is endless.

With all of the current horrors in the headlines, the world has paid little note to the tenth anniversary of the July 1995 massacre of 8,000 at the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica after it was overrun by besieging Serb rebel forces. The town's women, children and elderly were put on buses at gunpoint and expelled to Bosnian government-held territory. But the adult men were separated out and kept by the Serb forces for "interrogation." Their whereabouts became the subject of an international investigation which is now bearing grim fruit—thousands of corpses exhumed from mass graves, held in Bosnia's morgues, where international teams are conducting the lugubrious work of DNA identification, matching genetic material from the bones with samples provided by relatives of the missing. Some 2,000 of the dead have now been thusly identified, the International Commission on Missing Persons reports. The massacre is rightly called Europe's worst since World War II.

Protesters are starting to leave Edinburgh, but at least four were re-arrested for violating bail conditions banning them from the city while actually trying to get out of town. Human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar told the court: "The situation with public transport out of Edinburgh [on July 7] was pandemonium after the bomb blasts in London. I find it impossible to see how people are able to leave Edinburgh if the bail restrictions say they are not allowed in Edinburgh. It seems they are getting arrested by overzealous police officers." (The Scotsman, July 9) In a proverbial case of strange bedfellows, World Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz praised do-gooder rock star Bob Geldof for his campaign to pressure the G8 on African poverty. The G8 finally arrived at a deal for increased aid and debt relief for Africa. The leaders of Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania attended the summit to lobby for the debt relief program. "I thought it was extremely positive," Wolfowitz said. "If you'd told me a couple of months ago that there would be a commitment to a doubling of aid and debt cancellation, I'd have said you were dreaming." But he emphasized that the aid and debt relief programs are conditioned on economic reforms. "It's a deal for a deal," he said. (London Sunday Times, July 10)

As this fairly comprehensive account from The Australian makes clear, the notion that the London attacks were carried out by a heretofore unheard-of "Secret Organization of the Jihad of al-Qaeda in Europe" originates from reports on the websites of Germany's Der Spiegel and the Italian news agency ANSA that a communique claiming responsibility in that name appeared on an unnamed Islamic militant website. The quoted rhetoric is entirely plausible:

Collected by Mazin Qumsiyeh:

http://www.masnet.org/takeaction.asp?id=2594
http://mpac.org/home_article_display.aspx?ITEM=790
http://icna.org/pr_london_attacks.htm
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050707/dcth034.html?.v=19
http://isna.net/index.php?id=35&backPID=1&tt_news=220

See our last post on the attacks.

Jul. 7, 2005 22:59 | Updated Jul. 8, 2005 1:08
Arab world shocked at London attacks

By ORLY HALPERN

Some in the Arab world expressed shock at the bombings in a city for which many felt great affection and which is home to numerous Arab exile groups, newspapers and businesses.

Militant Cleric Says Attack on London ‘Inevitable‘
Sun Apr 18, 2004 04:33 PM ET

LISBON (Reuters) - Several Islamic militant groups are preparing attacks on London, making such a strike unavoidable, a radical Muslim cleric said in an interview published Sunday.

Al-Qaeda takes reponsibilty, threatens Denmark, Italy if troops not removed from Iraq.

Four London Blasts Kill 40, Injure 300

Thursday July 7, 2005 3:01 PM

By JANE WARDELL

Associated Press Writer

LONDON (AP) - Three blasts rocked the London subway and one tore open a packed double-decker bus during the morning rush hour Thursday, sending bloodied victims fleeing in what a shaken Prime Minister Tony Blair called "barbaric" terrorist attacks. A U.S. law enforcement official said at least 40 people were killed and London hospitals reported more than 300 injured.