Boko Haram abducts 234 schoolgirls, still missing after two weeks

[ola.]

Two weeks have passed since the militant group Boko Haram abducted 234 schoolgirls from their boarding school in northern Nigeria.

The teenage girls, who range in age from 16 to 18, were taken from their dormitories at the Government Girls Secondary School in the town of Chibok on April 14 and taken away by trucks in the middle of the night. There are now reports that indicate the school girls, who were thought to be held hostage in the Sambisa Forest, have been sold as brides to Islamic militants for 2,000 naira, or $12.

Nigerian officials have confirmed the teenage girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram, but have not yet confirmed if they have been sold as brides.

“We have heard from members of the forest community where they took the girls,” said Samson Dawah, whose niece Saratu was among the 234 girls abducted by militants. “They said there had been mass marriages and the girls are being shared out as wives among the Boko Haram militants.”

“My wife keeps asking me, why isn’t the government deploying every means to find our children,” Dawah said.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration has been under enormous pressure from the parents of the students and the international community. Jonathan has said his security forces are doing all they can to locate and safely bring the girls back home.

A day after the abduction, the Nigerian military reported they had “freed 107 kidnapped female students,” but retracted their statement as the few girls who were able to escape did so on their own without military assistance.

“The operation is going on and we will continue to deploy more troops,” Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Chris Olukolade told the Associated Press last week.

Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is forbidden,” has been called one of the most murderous extremist organizations in the world for killing nearly 4,000 people in the last five years, according to Amnesty International. That number includes about 1,500 people who were killed in the first three months of 2014 alone.

The Christian-Muslim conflict has continued to escalate in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation. The ongoing religious and ethnic conflict has intensified between the northeastern region of the country, which remains an opposition stronghold, and the southern region where Christian ethnic groups have been persecuted by Muslim extremists from the north.

The militant group advocates enforcing Sharia law and opposes education. Sixteen-year-old activist Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Taliban in Pakistan for speaking out in favor of education for girls, commented on the Nigerian kidnappings and underscored how the militants have misinterpreted the Quran.

“I know there are some militants who are misusing the name of Islam and they’re saying that education is not allowed, but I would just tell them the Prophet, peace be upon him, he said that education is the duty of every Muslim, whether he’s a girl or he’s a boy,” Yousafzai told the BBC. “So if Prophet says it, how can you deny it? And if God is allowing girls and boys to get education, how can you deny this right?”

“Islam allows us to go and get knowledge and to go and get education so how can some militants deny this fact,” she said.

Some school girls were able to jump out of of the trucks and escape. According to one, the militants who raided the school dressed in military uniforms and promised the girls they would be safe.

“They said, ‘Don’t worry. Nothing will happen to you,’” Deborah Sanya told The New Yorker.

“When the men started shooting their guns into the air and shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ … she realized that the men were not who they said they were,” the author wrote.

“I thought it was the end of my life,” Sanya said by phone on Monday from Chibok. “There were many, many of them.”

A village elder in Chibok, Pogo Bitrus, told the news agency Agence France-Presse that “various sources” have been tracking the movements of the girls.

“From the information we received yesterday from Cameroonian border towns our abducted girls were taken … into Chad and Cameroon,” Bitrus said.

Activists have used the hashtag “BringBackOurGirls” on Twitter to put pressure on the Nigerian government, and hundreds of people marched through the capital of Abuja in the Million Woman March on Wednesday.

“For how long are we going to wait for the government to help us? We can’t bear it anymore … We just want the government to help us, we want the world to hear this and help us,” a participant told United Press International.

Source

[Os Cangaceiros]

Boko Haram is cartoonishly fucked up, dude. The spokesman basically said that he was going to sell the girls as slaves, because Allah said that it was cool.

[Tim Cornelis]

I'm not sure if it's correct but apparently he also says the earth is flat because the Qur'an says it is flat.

EDIT:

In a 2009 BBC interview, Yusuf stated his belief that the concept of a spherical Earth is contrary to Islamic teaching and should be rejected, along with Darwinian evolution, and the concept of rain originating from water evaporated by the sun.[5]
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8172270.stm

"Like rain. We believe it is a creation of God rather than an evaporation caused by the sun that condenses and becomes rain.
"Like saying the world is a sphere. If it runs contrary to the teachings of Allah, we reject it. We also reject the theory of Darwinism."

[tachosomoza]

I love how mainstream westerners didn't give a fuck until they saw it on twitter. Kony, part II.

[Rosa Partizan]

I can't believe that almost exclusively feminist pages are reporting about that. And I can't believe either that Mohammed cartoons stir bigger uproar among the Islamic world than this. World's more than fucked up.

[Nakidana]

And I can't believe either that Mohammed cartoons stir bigger uproar among the Islamic world than this.

Uh, why are you singling out the "Islamic world" and why are you suddenly talking about the racist Muhammad cartoons? You sound like the Islamophobes who complain about how Muslims don't condemn terrorism.

[Rosa Partizan]

Uh, why are you singling out the "Islamic world" and why are you suddenly talking about the racist Muhammad cartoons? You sound like the Islamophobes who complain about how Muslims don't condemn terrorism.

because obviously this is happening out of some religious motivation. And no, I'm not saying that Islam wants people to do that, I just find it irritating that people take it to the streets rather because of cartoons than because of child abduction.

[adipocere]

because obviously this is happening out of some religious motivation. And no, I'm not saying that Islam wants people to do that, I just find it irritating that people take it to the streets rather because of cartoons than because of child abduction.

Have you ever stopped to ponder who might be controlling the lens?

[adipocere]

Boko Haram is cartoonishly fucked up, dude. The spokesman basically said that he was going to sell the girls as slaves, because Allah said that it was cool.

It is cartoonish. Usefully so. A Pretext for "humanitarian intervention", Africom expansion and the militarized quest for resources, among them one of the worlds largest oil supplies.

[Tim Cornelis]

It is cartoonish. Usefully so. A Pretext for "humanitarian intervention", Africom expansion and the militarized quest for resources, among them one of the worlds largest oil supplies.

Sure, sure it is.

Except the Boko Haram is located at the opposite ends of Nigeria, away from oil, and the niger delta has had rebels for far longer than the Boko Haram has been active without foreign intervention. Also, the oil is already in British-Dutch and American and French and Italian hands. What the hell is an intervention needed for?

Not everything is a conspiracy you know.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

Uh, why are you singling out the "Islamic world" and why are you suddenly talking about the racist Muhammad cartoons? You sound like the Islamophobes who complain about how Muslims don't condemn terrorism.

Oh, here we go. It's somehow reactionary to criticize Islam I guess. Even though anywhere Muslims have political power or guns, they end up treating women, gays, and non Muslims like complete shit. Quit defending systematic violence.

In before you accuse me of being "Islamaphobic." I guess you can call me "Christianophobic" too though since I also condemn Christians when they do their insane reactionary bullshit such as in Uganda and the evangelist hate groups in the US.

It's funny because I am usually defending Muslims from racist comments in real life. Only when I get on the internet do I find myself calling out people who are trying to make excuses for Muslim violence. Why can we not condemn people who support violence without being accused of Islamaphobia? You have been brainwashed if you think that Islam should be immune to criticism.

[Haldane]

Uh, why are you singling out the "Islamic world" and why are you suddenly talking about the racist Muhammad cartoons? You sound like the Islamophobes who complain about how Muslims don't condemn terrorism.

I am openly Islamophobic. Many great intelligent and humanitarian people like Malcolm X, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and Ibn al-Haytham have been Muslims, but if Islam can drive people to commit horrific atrocities like this and 9/11, then it scares the living shit out of me and I have no qualms about saying the world would be better off today without it. I could say that about most religions, but in today's world Islam is by far the most devastating, next to Christianity and Hinduism, the latter of which everyone likes to let slide because Gandhi was Hindu and forget about the arranged child marriages.

[bricolage]

I can't believe that almost exclusively feminist pages are reporting about that.

They're not. African press and places with actual relationships to groups/people in Nigeria and the surrounding region were reporting this from as soon as it happened. It is certainly true that large Western press organisations didn't pick up on it much straight away (and of course would have been producing ten page spreads had just one white girl been abducted in the US or UK) but from what I can see they are now emphasising the myth that 'NOONE IS REPORTING ON IT!!!' to make their own reporting seem groundbreaking in comparison and to perpetuate this idea that Africans are incapable of reporting on things that happen in Africa.

[Nakidana]

because obviously this is happening out of some religious motivation. And no, I'm not saying that Islam wants people to do that, I just find it irritating that people take it to the streets rather because of cartoons than because of child abduction.

If you don't say that Islam wants people to do that, why do you single out the Islamic world? Why don't you complain about people in general not protesting? And why do you complain that people protested about racist cartoons?

Muslims don't need to show people in the West how much they condemn flying planes into buildings or kidnapping school children and selling them into slavery. If you think they support those things then the problem lies with you, not with them.

Oh, here we go. It's somehow reactionary to criticize Islam I guess.

Oh here we go again, pointing out Islamophobic BS apparently equals saying don't ever criticize Islam.

Even though anywhere Muslims have political power or guns, they end up treating women, gays, and non Muslims like complete shit. Quit defending systematic violence.

You Islamophobic motherfucker.

In before you accuse me of being "Islamaphobic."

I don't accuse you, I know you are you dipshit.

I guess you can call me "Christianophobic" too though since I also condemn Christians when they do their insane reactionary bullshit such as in Uganda and the evangelist hate groups in the US.

When you start saying that "anywhere Christians have political power or guns, they end up treating women, gays, and non Christians like complete shit." I might. Seriously though, there isn't a problem with Christianphobia in the world (well tbh Christians are persecuted in some places), there is with Islamophobia. If the past decade hasn't made this clear to your bigoted ass then you can't be convinced.

Nobody has a problem with criticism of religion, but when you start talking about Muslims not doing this, or Muslims doing that, or Muslims being worse than other people, then it suddenly turns into racism.

It's funny because I am usually defending Muslims from racist comments in real life.

Sure you are, and you have a Muslim friend too, so that means you can't be Islamophobic, right?

Only when I get on the internet do I find myself calling out people who are trying to make excuses for Muslim violence.

Who the fuck is excusing "Muslim violence"?

Why can we not condemn people who support violence without being accused of Islamaphobia?

Because you single out Muslims as if they're a special case, a worse kind of people.

You have been brainwashed if you think that Islam should be immune to criticism.

"Boohoo nobody can criticize Islam anymore, it's political correctness gone mad I tell ya, just look at the media today! The love and praise of Islam and Muslims is sickening! If only I had a place, any place, where I could spread the word about how bad Islam is. Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris...somebody..anybody help me!"

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

If you don't say that Islam wants people to do that, why do you single out the Islamic world? Why don't you complain about people in general not protesting? And why do you complain that people protested about racist cartoons?

Muslims don't need to show people in the West how much they condemn flying planes into buildings or kidnapping school children and selling them into slavery. If you think they support those things then the problem lies with you, not with them.



Oh here we go again, pointing out Islamophobic BS apparently equals saying don't ever criticize Islam.



You Islamophobic motherfucker.



I don't accuse you, I know you are you dipshit.



When you start saying that "anywhere Christians have political power or guns, they end up treating women, gays, and non Christians like complete shit." I might. Seriously though, there isn't a problem with Christianphobia in the world (well tbh Christians are persecuted in some places), there is with Islamophobia. If the past decade hasn't made this clear to your bigoted ass then you can't be convinced.

Nobody has a problem with criticism of religion, but when you start talking about Muslims not doing this, or Muslims doing that, or Muslims being worse than other people, then it suddenly turns into racism.



Sure you are, and you have a Muslim friend too, so that means you can't be Islamophobic, right?



Who the fuck is excusing "Muslim violence"?



Because you single out Muslims as if they're a special case, a worse kind of people.



"Boohoo nobody can criticize Islam anymore, it's political correctness gone mad I tell ya, just look at the media today! The love and praise of Islam and Muslims is sickening! If only I had a place, any place, where I could spread the word about how bad Islam is. Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris...somebody..anybody help me!"

I love how you've basically made me into a caricature of the stereotypical racist conservatives on television and shit.

Also, you cannot be racist against a fucking world religion. Am I the dipshit? Because last I checked, the MAJORITY of Muslims are not Arab. In fact, Muslims comprise all sorts of ethnicities. I guess you didn't know that, I suggest educating yourself though before making a fool of yourself on an internet forum accusing me of being racist towards a world religion.

I didn't "single out" Muslims. If this militant group of reactionary savages was a Christian group, I would be railing on against Christian violence. But guess what? People on this site know about Christian hate groups. But you can't criticize those innocent Muslims who treat women, gays, and non Muslims terribly.

Also, I never even mentioned Muslims in the West. Again, Muslims in the West are the ones who generally need to be defended from racists because there IS racism against Arabs. Even if an Arab is not Muslim, there is racism because they are Arab and it's associated with bad things. You understand?

But nah, just keep calling me racist towards a world religion and continue making excuses for violent acts committed towards women and other minority groups by Muslim radicals

[Dagoth Ur]

The leader of BH is hilarious.

[tachosomoza]

The leader of BH is hilarious.

Yeah, so were Idi Amin and Mobutu Sese Soko. They play the buffoon on the world stage so people will just laugh while they're chopping people's hands off.

[Dagoth Ur]

BH is more about rape than chopping off hands.

[tachosomoza]

I'm not amused and neither are the women of Nigeria.

[Dagoth Ur]

Like you care about Nigeria. The women of Nigeria need to organize or else this will keep happening. No matter if it is Boko Haram (with their leader of lols) or Christian militias, or "the government" of Nigeria.