Letter from Dr Derek Summerfield to Michael Baum, professor emeritus of surgery, University College London, London

Dear Dr Baum

I trust you were in receipt of my open letter to you of 21 May, copied for public information reasons to a range of interested parties, including medical journal editors and the International Committee of the British Medical Association (concerned with medical ethics). As before, I asked you to provide evidence for your unconditional support in the BMJ last year of the Israeli Medical Association in their dismissal (they call it a “lie” and this you endorsed) of the huge body of evidence of the IMA’s systematic collusion with ongoing violations by Israeli doctors of the World Medical Association’s anti-torture Declaration of Tokyo, and of the Fourth Geneva Convention regarding the rights of Gaza residents to access medical and other services vital to life. As before I attached supportive citations from a range of international (Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, United Nations OCHA, International Red Cross etc) and regional (PHR Israel, B’Tselem, Public Committee Against Torture in Israel etc) organisations. Its not my word at stake Dr Baum, but the word of these organisations in report after report over the years.

5 weeks have passed and you have not replied. Clearly, as last year, you are refusing to engage with the evidence because there is nothing there to your or Israel’s advantage- because it all points unambiguously the same way and because no independent counter-evidence supportive of the probity of the IMA exists. As your own remarks (about academic boycott etc) posted up elsewhere make crystal clear, the point- at source the only point- is to be a loyal Zionist supporter of Israel, isn’t it Dr Baum? I and others urge you to comment on the evidential mountain informing so crucial an issue for the public reputation of the medical profession, one upon which you have committed yourself in the BMJ, and you complain that you are being subjected to a “vendetta”. Those of us- in particular hundreds of doctors and other health professionals in UK and worldwide who are reading this letter- have to contend with pro-Israel apologists in UK ,US etc who deploy all the professional weight and authority at their disposal to blacken the name of those who point to the evidence, and to threaten the editors of the medical journals who dare to publish it. In your various ways you are all Israel’s soldiers, and your aggressive self-righteousness and sense of impunity mirrors Israel’s own public stance. This is ethical corruption straight and simple, a slur upon the profession. How do you imagine medical historians will assess your role in due course?

Yours

Derek Summerfield BSc(Hons) MBBS MRCPsych

Reza Moradi's remake of Fitna, the Movie: Fitna Remade

"To stop terrorism we must be against poles of terrorism, the US terrorism and the Islamist terrorism; being against one should not lead us to support the other one. No one must be allowed to legitimize and promote killing people …”

-- Shiva Mahbobi, 30/9/2006 (on Maryam Namazie's blog here: http://tinyurl.com/66v8w5 )

Some comments from the discussion (link below §)

“[Wilders] has got his own [very right wing] agenda [and] his basic concern is [about] immigration into Europe [as well as] the threat that he thinks Islam poses to Europe. [I]f it wasn’t for that he would have absolutely no concerns about Islam and so his agenda really doesn’t coincide with ours at all…”

“[T]he aim of this film was not to criticise Islam, it was to attack immigrants who are basically labelled Muslims. It was ridiculous propaganda I think against these people. …”

“[B]ut criticising Islam is important …and there should be big criticism [but] the bad thing that I think the film has supported is, that the next person who wants to criticise Islam, they are just going to point the finger at him saying: oh you are anti-Muslim, anti-immigration, anti-foreigners. I think this big distinction needs to be made. …”

Maryam Namazie: “[I] thought how dare he. The political Islamic movement has wreaked havoc for decades, long before September 11, long before the Madrid or London bombings. In Iran, we have lost an entire generation to this movement and we have struggled and fought against this movement. How dare he equate all of us as one and the same with the political Islamic movement? It made me quite angry.”

----------------oOo------------------

Fariborz Pooya, summing up the discussion §, says: "Fitna, as mentioned here, doesn’t fundamentally criticise Islam; it doesn’t criticise the political Islamic movement and Islamic states that is destroying the lives of millions every day. And effectively its anti-immigrant tone distorts the whole picture. The reality is that millions of people are fighting against the political Islamic movement and that’s the movement that needs to be supported. Freedom of expression and the right to criticise Islam and religion and is a fundamental right that needs to be upheld."

Reza Moradi (See also below* for more information on him), a member of the Council of ex-Muslims in Britain (CEMB)’s Executive Committee, has produced Fitna Remade in response to Geert Wilders Fitna, the Movie, May 20, 2008 He said: "Fitna, the Movie ... doesn’t really criticise Islam and more importantly the political Islamic movement. Rather, it attacks immigrants, labels millions as ‘Muslims’, and implies their support for a movement that millions have opposed, resisted and fled from. I had to do a remake to show the real story from one of these millions."

Council of ex-Muslims of Britain:

http://www.ex-muslim.org.uk/

I have transcribed the commentary from Fitna Remade (any errors are mine, Brian R) as follows: (Link to the video, and also to a discussion on Wilders’ original film, are below.)

The opening (written) statement of Fitna Remade has this: "Fitna is a 2008 short film by right wing Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders. It does not represent the truth; in fact it represents Eurocentric racist views about people labeled or deemed Muslim.

“What follows is an edited version of Fitna with [Reza Moradi's] commentary about the realities of Islam and political Islam. It is an attempt to disgrace political Islam and its apologists and side with the masses of people resisting it in the Middle East."

The commentary continues: "There are similar inhumane verses [Wilders had quoted from the Koran – BR] in all religions but what is different about Islam today is that it is a religion in power. ... On September 11, the political Islamic movement extended its reach of terror to the people in the west ... Unfortunately people in the west have not been witness to the slaughter of an entire generation in the Middle East and North Africa. They have not seen the stoning of Maryam Ayoubi on their TV screens … the hanging of sweet 16 Atefeh Rajabi for acts against chastity ... the acid thrown on women's faces for improper veilings …the torture of labour and student activists and political opponents … the beheadings and the mass graves ...

“The biggest victims for several decades have been those deemed or labelled Muslim by Geert Wilders Western governments' only concern about this movement is that it has moved out of its sphere of influence, otherwise it was their policy that brought it to centre stage during the Cold War. It was their solution to a Left-leaning revolution in Iran.

“The threats faced by people at the forefront of resisting this movement in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere are not headline news. Instead, the killers are heads of state who are warmly welcomed into the UN, the ILO, and given the red carpet treatment by western governments.

“Political Islam in Iran is being brought to its knees by a vast social movement. Today this movement leads a battle of enlightenment against Islam in power. Its victory depends on the solidarity of people everywhere with the people's movement in Iran against both poles of international terrorism - US-led and Islamic terrorism.

“The rise of Islam in power in Europe is opening the way for religion's detrimental role in society and the diminishing of secularism. Labelling masses of people as Muslims is an attempt to make them one and the same with the political Islamic movement. In reality, a large majority of these so-called Muslims are victims, survivors and opponents of the political Islamic movement. They must be granted asylum, protection and treated as equal citizens.

“Appeasing the political Islamic movement, cultural relativism, and labelling and ghettoizing masses of people, only serves to hand them over to reactionary Islamic organisations and parasitical imams and is a prescription for increased discrimination and violence in society, such as honour killings. This has been the reality for people in the Middle East for three decades now. It can only be stopped, not by bombing Iran and Iraq, but by showing real solidarity with the resisting people in the region, by defending universal rights, by defending secularism and demanding an end to religion's role in society at large.”

----------------oOo------------------

Fitna Remade can be seen here:

http://www.fitna-remade.com/Pages/fitna-remade.html

(I haven’t included a link to Wilders’ original, which can still be found around the web.)

§ Watch the discussion on Wilders' film here:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=064_1207316350&p=1

§ Transcript (substantially complete) here:

http://www.fitna-remade.com/Pages/resources.html

*See Johann Hari here: http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=843

And I ought to let you know about this too:

http://moonbatmedia.com/time_to_go_230906/rezamoradi.html (I was at this Rally – Brian R) 12 Feb 2009 - the web page appears to no longer exist.

"Reza Moradi stages counter-protest" during Tony Benn's speech at STWC anti-war rally, Sept 2006; also

http://maryamnamazie.blogspot.com/2006/09/womens-rights-activists-manhandled-by.html which is:

http://tinyurl.com/66v8w5 :- "To stop terrorism we must be against poles of terrorism, the US terrorism and the Islamist terrorism; being against one should not lead us to support the other one. No one must be allowed to legitimize and promote killing people including the Stop the War Coalition."

Radical Muslim doctors and what they mean for the NHS

This article has been moved HERE and I've added 2 responses that have appeared this week

Page last updated at 10:37 GMT, Monday, 21 April 2008 11:37 UK

From BBC online

Saudi women 'kept in childhood'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7358448.stm

Women cannot make even simple decisions on children, the report says

Saudi women are being kept in perpetual childhood so male relatives can exercise "guardianship" over them, the Human Rights Watch group has said.

The New York-based group says Saudi women have to obtain permission from male relatives to work, travel, study, marry or even receive health care.

Their access to justice is also severely constrained, it says.

The group says the Saudi establishment sacrifices basic human rights to maintain male control over women.

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women are not allowed to drive.

Saudi clerics see the guardianship of women's honour as a key to the country's social and moral order.

'No progress'

The report, Perpetual Minors: Human Rights Abuses Stemming from Male Guardianship and Sex Segregation in Saudi Arabia, draws on more than 100 interviews with Saudi women.

Farida Deif, women's rights researcher for the Middle East at Human Rights Watch, said: "Saudi women won't make any progress until the government ends the abuses that stem from these misguided policies."

It's astonishing that the Saudi government denies adult women the right to make decisions for themselves but holds them criminally responsible for their actions at puberty

Farida Deif,
Human Rights Watch

Read the full HRW report

The report says that Saudi women are denied the legal right to make even trivial decisions for their children - women cannot open bank accounts for children, enrol them in school, obtain school files or travel with their children without written permission from the child's father.

Human Rights Watch says that Saudi women are prevented from accessing government agencies that have no established female sections unless they have a male representative.

The need to establish separate office spaces for women is a disincentive to hiring female employees, and female students are often relegated to unequal facilities with unequal academic opportunities, the report says.

Male guardianship over adult women also contributes to their risk of exposure to violence within the family as victims of violence find it difficult to seek protection or redress from the courts.

Social workers, physicians and lawyers say that it is nearly impossible to remove guardianship from male guardians who are abusive, the group says.

"It's astonishing that the Saudi government denies adult women the right to make decisions for themselves but holds them criminally responsible for their actions at puberty," said Ms Deif.

"For Saudi women, reaching adulthood brings no rights, only responsibilities."

Israel's royal welcome

Original at Comment is Free

HERE

An organisation which discriminates against non-Jews is having a 'charitable' dinner at Windsor Castle

Tony Greenstein

March 25, 2008 10:00 AM |

Steve Richards: Overwhelming and still underestimated factors propelled Blair into war in Iraq

The Independent Thursday, 27 March 2008

Andreas Whittam Smith: Yet another reason to condemn Blair over Iraq
There was no analysis of British interest in joining the invasion. Now I understand why

Monday, 31 March 2008

HERE