The Case of Talha Ahsan: What is going on and what can I do?

Imagine that your child, sibling, relative or friend is taken from you and detained for years without trial.  They are accused of 'terrorism-related' crimes by a superpower waging war on its enemies.  Would you turn away from them or take notice?

Justice, dignity, humanity and mercy are crucial principles in our lives, which is why we must know what we can and do what we can for Talha Ahsan. 

Talha  is a 31 year old poet from Tooting who has been imprisoned for coming onto 6 years, without evidence or trial, pending extradition to the USA. Born and bred in London, Talha comes from a Muslim Bangladeshi background and is diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism.  A shy bookish young man, with a first class honours degree in Arabic from SOAS, he continues to write poetry from prison. At the time of his arrest in July 2006 he was due to be interviewed for a job as a librarian, we are poorer without him.

The USA government requested his extradition from the UK under dubious 'terrorism' related charges and the compliant British authorities did not even scrutinise the evidence against him properly.  Talha, his family and supporters are campaigning for a fair UK trial, which we believe is not possible in the USA.  Achieving justice whilst Muslim is hard, and we must exercise courage, skill and unity of purpose to get it. It is not a ready-made meal.

We must act immediately to build momentum in our communities. From July, as the Olympics capture public attention, Talha may be extradited to the rapturous applause of much of the media, who will drown out the injustice with dehumanising images of men with beards, hooks for hands and loathsome angry preachers.  We know that the story is different, but we need to share this story amongst our families, friends and neighbours and do it justice. 

Muslims in the UK are blessed with many favours but also endangered. Like the Irish throughout the Troubles in Northern Ireland, we are proving easy to accuse, lock up and ignore. We request your support for Talha and others in similar situations help us establish a justice-making, supportive community of principles. There is no shortage of things to do.

• Become informed, organised and mobilised about the issues
• Attend the Public Meeting in Central London on 23^rd May*
• Speak to our close ones about and promote the Free Talha campaign
• Remember Talha in our prayers
• Champion the cause in our organisations
• Write to Talha (who can still receive correspondence so long as he is on these shores)
• Write to the media
• Write to your MP, make it relevant to them, it is surprising how little they know.

To learn more about the case visit www.freetalha.org

 

You can also get involved through social media: find the FreeTalha Ahsan page on Facebook, follow the @freetalha Twitter account and tweet #freetalha

*The Public Meeting will feature Salma Yaqoob, Gareth Pierce, Riz Ahmed and Bruce Kent and take place from 6pm - 8pm at Hend House, 233 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8EE. Nearest tube: Tottenham Court Road  http://www.facebook.com/events/283339501756605/

Fetih 1453

It warms the me to the core to discover films like Fetih 1453, an Ummahtic swashbuckler that brings to life the Opening of Istanbul by the 21 year old Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II. Here he is sniffing a flower (see right).

Fetih is the most costly Turkish film to date. It does the same kind of thing as Malaysia's recent Puteri Gunung Ledang, National Visual Archive Making, with  Ottoman grit and substance. The Turkish Film Festival in London always hosts fantastic work, so this isn't a plutocratic shot in the dark. I could see from the end credits just how many small companies supported this work. I hope they like the finished product.

This victorious siege was important because if it had failed, it would have been curtains for the Sultan, his army and his people. Many Muslim armies had unsuccessfully tried to capture Constantinople, inspired by a saying of the Prophet, a hadith which is references from the very  beginning. Framed with Prophesy, that's what this film is.

For Mehmet II be able to succeed was an immense honour for all involved, and of profound importance for Islamic futures that it enabled.  Beamingly pro-Islam, it includes an unforgettable scene of the Sultan leading Fajr (dawn) prayers on the battlefield, and several sky splitting Takbeeric waves. I recommend it to folks to support this film, acquire it and view it multi-generationally.

Historical-technological features abound, those with an interest are treated to the manufacturing of Urban's famous canon, The use of ostrich eggs in building material, and the drawing of the Byzantine chain across the Bosphorous. Special mention must go to the wardrobe team, I hope and pray that Musalmenn the ummah over take heed of the threads on display here and incorporate there into their wedding wardrobes. Beats Green Street Indian tat any day. Girls will like Urban's adopted daughter.

Great casting too: of the Sultan who was played by a graceful man, and of his loyal friend Hassan, not to forget the obligatory sparkly-eyed Shayk who shifts the mood at the darkest hour, with spiritual-material truths at the grave of Eyub el Ansari, the Prophet's companion buried outside the walls of the city at the time of the first attempt to take it. I remember praying Jumma at Eyup. Try to.

There were times during the 160 minutes when I felt I was watching Xena Warrior Princess, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, or Maid Marian and her Merry Men. There's even a a bit of Su-Fi and a Golum at Mount Doom moment. 

I did have a few issues with this marvelous piece of Cultural Jihad.  It could have done a little more booby coverage folks,  the colouring seemed oversaturated / supernatural at times, and the English subtitles of Turkish dialogue took a little getting used to.

Faruk Aksoy and team, thank you, senu seviorum.

A place worthy of the name Salahudin

Tonight's tarawi was so juicy, that i was sad when it was over. 8 rakats of beautiful qirat refreshing, no machine gunning here, no race to finish a sipara. The venue, the Salahudin mosque of Paddington, arranged a loving iftar but we didn't really stay for it (eclectic mix of soup and biryani). A small mainly kurdish community of humble people built this institution, its a modest 3/4 storey converted house job. Cute and unpretentious, no girly bits, this jamat had *the love*.

Opening + the Old Man and the Mynah Bird

Well this is a start, who knows who will end up reading my personalised vanity product?

This is definately going to build 'writing' skills.

I dont traditionally write, when i do this is what happens..... its coded enough for nobody to understand it really

A story about an old man and a mynah bird

This is really about a mate of mine. He is becoming rather worried about hings lately, and I think this will give him a good laugh.

In a big city there lived an old man, he wasn’t really that old and he wasn’t all that masculine, but if you sat with him in a room, you would understand. Well, this old man had a mynah bird, you know the kind that spoke when spoken to, and generally did what it was told to, without worrying too much about revolting against the cruel system that held her captive in a big city. She was happy with her life, if a little busy. He was happy too, and loved to wander the streets and wonder about things.

The old man sat on a park bench and started feeding the ducks with the little food he had, he wasn’t rich, but he made full use of what he had. It was on a duck feeding expedition that the mynah bird and the old man came across each other. Spring was letting itself be known to both of them. The mynah bird had noticed how sadly misguided many of the duckfeeders were in their duckfeeding ways. She would often chastise the duckfeeders and try to tell them what would be better for duckkind, but it was hard. Now the old man was an interesting and noble soul, and held a similar duckfeeding stance to the mynah bird and so they got along together swimmingly.

Their months together were fruitful for ducks and duckfeeders and duckfeeder intermediaries. Autumn started to burn the life out of the park and the mynah bird rejected the old mans kind offer of a house for the winter, stocked with all the cakes a bird could eat. She was drawn to join her flock of mynah birds on a pigeon spotting project, which was a stable profession that was societaly respected and pretty cushy really, though it did take up a lot of her time. The old man was far more interested in building the most exquisite clocks in the land, and he took to it like a man possessed.

Now years passed and neither the old man, nor the dear mynah bird spent much time thinking about each other, until the mynah bird swooped back onto the old mans shoulder. This messed up the old mans rhythm and turned him into a different person, slightly more obsessed than before, but with something else, something birdy. He wanted to build clocks, she was a qualified pigeon spotter with a tiring schedule.

The old man thought long and hard about his renewed relationship with the mynah bird, they were different from before. And this mynah bird was less talkative. ‘Why don’t you talk to me Mynah Bird?’ the old man asked himself, ‘How comes I have to do everything?’ This was not good for his mental health and was killing his ambition and even the some of the best parts of his nature.

This continued for months and months, much to the amusement and fear of some of the people who loved the old man. Then one day he decided to proverbially ‘Sod it’.

The End