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Comments (0)Two Pakistanis suspected of helping facilitate the November 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai were arrested.
The men, a father and son, were arrested Saturday in the northern Italian city of Brescia.
Ten terrorists believed to have come from Pakistan carried out the attacks in the India city. At least 166 people were killed, including six Jews at the Chabad House. Among the victims there were its directors, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his pregnant wife, Rivkah.
Targets also included hotels and a train station.
Police on Saturday said the Pakistanis were arrested in Brescia for having transferred about $230 to finance Internet telephone lines used by the attackers.
A police statement said the father and son were accused of illegal financial activity, as well as aiding and abetting international terrorism.
Riot Police Break Up Hungarian Neo-Nazi Group Meeting
Police in riot gear broke up a recruiting meeting of the outlawed neo-Nazi Hungarian Guard.
Some 50 uniformed guardsmen were on hand last Friday at a beer hall at Csepel, a poor industrial suburb of the Hungarian capital, when some 200 police arrived to break up the meeting to launch a national recruitment campaign.
The commander of the Guard called for reinforcement, and some 400 guardsmen were rushed to the scene, but diplomatic bargaining ended the confrontation. Police made three arrests.
A landmark court ruling earlier this year banned the paramilitary Guard, the private army of the extreme nationalist Jobbik Party. The Guard displays the colors and marches to the tunes of the defunct Arrow Cross, a Hungarian movement that murdered thousands of Jews, Gypsies and political dissidents during the Holocaust. The ruling also banned the uniform.
Csepel council members are organizing an all-party motion to reinforce an earlier local government decision declaring the Guard “unwelcome” in the district. This follows a brawl last week at Sajobabony in the impoverished northeast of Hungary where hundreds of Guardsmen and their supporters clashed with Gypsy residents outraged by racist attitudes expressed at a Jobbik public meeting.
Krisztina Morvai, a Jobbik deputy at the European Parliament who occasionally wears the Guard uniform, says the Guard’s style innocently reflects Hungarian folk culture. Morvai was scheduled to address a London conference in December organized by the Palestinian Return Centre, but her invitation was withdrawn last week when her extremist attitudes on race relations became known.
Brazilians Protest Ahmadinejad Visit
Hundreds of Jewish and non-Jewish Brazilians protested in Rio de Janeiro on the eve of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit.
About 800 people marched along the elegant Ipanema beach to protest the Iranian president’s visit slated for today.
Jews, homosexuals, Afro-Brazilians, Gypsies, students, human rights activists and members of several other groups carried banners and posters that read “Mr. President: freedom of expression, explain it to your guest,” “The Holocaust didn’t happen?” and “Denying the Holocaust is like denying there was slavery in Brazil.”
One of the march organizers, Victor Grinbaum of the Zionist Articulation group, told JTA that “Ahmadinejad’s visit to Brazil challenges our country’s tradition, for we are an example of a liberal, multiracial and peaceful society. Neither diplomacy nor commercial pragmatism justify such an invitation because Ahmadinejad exports hatred.”
For Hillel group member Michel Gherman, “Ahmadinejad is not only a threat for Jews, blacks and homosexuals, he is a threat for democracy. We’re here united to defend a free world.”
Similar marches were held last week in several other Brazilian cities. In Sao Paulo, some 2,000 protesters gathered at a major city square. On Saturday, a small airplane flew over the same Ipanema beach with the message “Ahmadinejad: Respect human rights and don’t come back.”
Ahmadinejad is the third Middle Eastern leader to visit Brazil this month. Both Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have recently been to South America’s largest country.
Ahmadinejad will make a one-day political and commercial visit to Brazil’s capital, Brasilia, on Monday. He will meet President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and other Brazilian government officials. His 200-member business delegation is being called the largest to follow him on an international trip.
Last month, Israeli Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger rapped Brazil’s Senate president Jose Sarney over the Iranian president’s upcoming visit.
“It is very sad to know that Brazil will receive a man who publicly says he wants to destroy our country,” Metzger said.
In May, an Ahmadinejad visit to Brazil was canceled at the last minute following several protests by thousands of demonstrators.