Does North Korea execute Muslims as well?

North Korea 'executes Christians'
By Andre Vornic BBC News

North Korea views religion as a threat to its state ideology

Human rights groups in South Korea say North Korea has stepped up executions of Christians, some of them in public.

The communist country, the world's most closed society, views religion as a major threat.
Only the founder of the country, Kim Il-sung, and his son, Kim Jong-il, may be worshipped, in mass public displays of fervour.

Despite the persecutions, it is thought up to 30,000 North Koreans may practise Christianity secretly in their homes.

A report by a number of South Korean groups highlights one particular case of a woman allegedly executed in public last month, in a northern town close to the Chinese border.
She was accused of distributing Bibles, spying for South Korea and the United States and helping to organise dissidents.

Her parents, husband, and children were sent to a prison camp.
Such reports are hard to verify, but North Korea is known to be intolerant of religion - it views any form of alternative social organisation as a competitor for its own, religion-like ideology.
The US government says just owning a Bible in North Korea may be a cause for torture and disappearance.

Pyongyang's position appears to have hardened on everything from human rights to defence policy and international relations in the last year or so.

It is thought this may be a way to shore up the government through Mr Kim's illness and the process of anointing his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, as North Korea's next leader.

This is Outrageous. When is this stuff ever going to stop?

Manila maid ‘survives’ to tell sadist employer’s torture saga

KUWAIT CITY, July 18: A Filipina household service worker employed by a Kuwaiti family sought refuge at the Philippine Embassy this weekend after allegedly suffering severe maltreatment for almost two years at the hands of her lady employer. Jenny, 41, single and a native of Alabang, Manila was sobbing in pain as she narrated to the Arab Times on Saturday the ‘burning’ torture that her lady employer allegedly did on her. “There was no single day that she did not hurt me. She loved hurting me,” cried Jenny as she showed all the scars and fresh wounds dotting her body. She recounted that her lady employer would usually time her whenever a household task is to be done. “She wants me to finish everything fast, but I’m the only housemaid at home and she has two small kids. We’re staying in a flat with four rooms and with four bathrooms. I do all the household chores, cook, clean, baby-sit and laundry. Sometimes, due to extreme fatigue, I tend to work slowly and she would be very mad at me and the torture begins,” she stated. She narrated that her lady employer had fun torturing her by heating a knife on the stove and once it is scorching hot, she would place the hot knife on any part of the latter’s body leaving burns and blisters.
“I kept on begging her not to do it. I said, enough, enough madam, but she won’t stop until my skin is burnt and blistered. It was horrible. She looked like a devil hitting me with the hot knife. How can a normal person do that?” sobbed Jenny whose wrists, arms, left foot and back were covered with bandage to prevent burnt infection after coming from the Mubarak Al-Kabeer Hospital for treatment. Her ears resembled like a crunchy chicharron after her lady employer burnt them with a knife. “She burned my ears, because there was a time when she called me and I wasn’t able to go to her immediately because I was doing something at the kitchen so she got angry and burned my two ears for not replying to her quickly,” she stated as tears welled in her eyes.
The lady employer also burned her hands and arms with the hot knife for not washing the dishes quickly. “She burned my legs and foot for walking slowly, she burned my nape too and she boxed me on my eye so that I cannot see things clearly,” outlined Jenny. The lady employer also did not spare Jenny’s lips. As she narrated her harrowing experience, she pointed to her blistered, flaking and discoloured burnt lips. “She also hit my back using a water hose and lashed me with the ‘oqal’ of her husband,” she stated, showing her scarred back with newly bandaged burn wounds. The ‘oqal’ is the doubled black cord generally made of tightly woven black goat-hair and sheep’s wool, that is used to secure the ‘Ghutra’ or headdress of Arab men in place.
The lady employer also cut the shoulder-length hair of Jenny leaving her almost bald. “I want to fight back but I was scared because she’s six-months pregnant and I might harm her baby so I endured all the beatings,” she pointed out. After inflicting pain on her, the lady employer would usually give her some cream to treat the burns in various parts of her body. “I really can’t understand why she’s doing that. She would even ask me to wear gloves while washing the dishes to protect my hands and give me hand moisturisers,” she stated.
Last week, the lady employer allegedly threatened to burn Jenny’s eyes and face, prompting the latter to run to the embassy for help. “I finally decided to run to the embassy for help because only God knows, I may not be able to control myself and I might be forced to fight back and I might harm her and the baby in her womb,” she stated. She called first the local manpower agency that recruited her and asked for help but the man from the agency refused to help her. “I told him, please help me, take me out from this hell, but the guy at the agency even scolded me and told me not to go to the agency or he will kick me out of the agency. I called them five times. So I decided to sneak out of the house and go to the embassy” she claimed.
Meanwhile, Philippine Ambassador Ricardo Endaya disclosed that the embassy has already hired a Kuwaiti lawyer for Jenny so appropriate charges will be filed against her lady employer. “I’m still at a loss how a human being can do this to her fellow human being. I hope the Kuwaiti authorities will not close their eyes on this so that justice will be served and the employer should be castigated for committing such inhumane acts,” he stressed. “I want her to be in jail. She should pay for what she has done to me,” cried Jenny as she hopes to go back to the Philippines after getting the justice that she wants.
By Michelle Fe Santiago

Islamic Art - Through the Eyes of Faith

Geometric patterns, in near infinite variations of pattern and scale are combined with floral and vegetal designs for a reason that exceeds any aesthetic directive: they express something about the world itself.[1]

Islamic art in its two dimensional form, falls into the three genres of calligraphy, geometry, and nature. Entire books can be devoted to each of these genres alone, but it is common in Islamic religious art to find all three present at the same time.

The Grand mosque of Kuwait is full of these triadic surprises and contains beautiful examples of Islamic art. The subject of this article is the small mihrab (prayer niche). There are six[2] identical mihrabs built into the South-West wall. Their function is to serve as the jibla’, pointing the faithful to pray in the direction of Mecca. They also serve as a sound chamber and ‘pulpit’ for a teacher speaking to small groups of students.

The art portrayed in the mihrab is bewilderingly complex, integrating abstract geometrical patterns, swirling leaves, and a wonderful motif of the honey comb[3]. The geometrical patterns are divided from the portrayal of nature (the honey and leaves) by verses from the Qurán written in Kufi script. Framing the top of the mihrab chamber is an outcrop of Isfahan style stucco. It conveys images of stalactites found in a cave[4] and indeed standing inside the mihrab is a cave like experience. You are embraced by the chamber and your view of the vast worship area in front of you is framed by the archway of the entrance.

If you start from the ground up, the richly coloured hues of blue, yellow and brown Morrocan mosaic patterns portray star and circle shapes. There is a complex repetition requires some concentration to discern, though one is subconsciously aware that there is order. which The mathematics under-girding this art form is formidable. Its origins lie in Pythagorean Theorem which was brilliantly applied to an Islamic context by early Islamic philosopher al-Kindi. The geometrical patterns convey a cosmology which reveals the belief that the universe reflect an intelligent design held together in unity by a creator. The early Islamic philosophers believed that part of their task was to discern the patterns and principles which governed the cosmos and in doing so they would learn more of the divine nature. The geometrical designs reflect the crystalline structures believed to be the building blocks of creation[5]. Yet this philosophy acknowledged that as well as frozen shapes there is a fluidity and variety which reflects the work of the eternal divine principle. Think of the snowflake. There is a basic structure and yet within this order is an endless variety of swirling patterns.

This stunning design is then interrupted at head level by the calligraphic words from the Qurán. Then arching over your head is carved a series of honeycomb motifs[6], the familiar hexagon construct framed by an intricate pattern of leaves and plant tendrils.

The mihrabs in the mosque blend the three elements of order, voice and nature. It conveys a theology to the believer of a created world divided by the spoken Word which separates the created and temporal from the sublime and eternal gardens of paradise. The stucco outcrop framing the mihrab suggests that the believer can encounter the divine within the context of our cave experiences.

[1] Jason Elliot. 2006. Mirrors of the Unseen. (Picador:London)
[2] The number six is significant in Islamic numerology. For an explanation see Keith Critchlow’s, (1999) Islamic Patterns.
[3] According to the Qurán a river of honey flows in paradise.(Surah 47.15)
[4] The prophet of Islam received his first revelation of the Qurán while meditating in a cave.
[5] Modern science vindicates this understanding of nature with the discover of the atom cell, DNA structures and so on.
[6] And your Lord taught the bee to build its cells in hills, on trees. . . there issues from within their bodies a drink of varying colours, wherein is healing for men: Verily, in this is a sign for those who give thought. (Surah 16:68-69)