[IbnAbdullah]

I was switching news channels and stopped at Al Jazeera, it was the program ‘Witness’ about Lal Masjid.

The host spent 5 days in the Lal Masjid or he went there 5 days before the operation launched. He was interviewing Maulana Ghazi Shaheed (rahimahullah), and looking at his beautiful face my heart was melting, that he’s no more with us and was killed in cold blood with hundreds of innocent girls and boys students.

Ghazi said he was not doing anything illegal, according to the state law brothels or massage centres are not allowed in Pakistan and that they took action because the government didn’t do anything against them even after complaints.
He said they just label you as Al-Qayeda or Taliban and after you have been called Taliban, you can be easily killed. He showed the tree in the courtyard of Lal Masjid where his father Maulana ‘Abdullah was martyred. He took the reporter to the top of the building and showed the surrounding area saying that was all uninhabitated in the past but later that was populated. There were brothers making ablution (wudhu) at a pond, everything was emotional to me, as all I was watching on tv screen doesn’t exist now. Brothers and hijabi sisters I saw there may not be alive today and I had tears in my eyes thinking about that.

The reporter was taken inside the Jami’ah Hafsah where men were not allowed, in a hall there were little girls reading Quran sitting on floors, in another room there were adult girls wearing hijab/niqab and pink scarves, a kind of uniform in that level of the class. In another class a hijabi/niqabi teacher was teaching elementary English to little girls. There was a tuck shop with biscuits and other stuff, a garments shop, a clinic with professional lady physicians, I think that wasn’t aleopathic but homeopathic or Greek or whatever. Girls were coming to a reception area where they were handing in a paper sheet to the receptionist, the walls were green-tiled and everything looked sad to me because it doesn’t anymore exist. Girls students wearing their modest hijab chanting slogans and holding sticks gave the sign of Jihad rightly or wrongly but what was painful that we can't see those purified sisters of us anymore.
Jami’ah Saiyidah Hafsah (radhiyAllahu ‘anha) has been leveled to the ground, there’s only debris in its premises with concrete material, human bones, flesh, belongings of the inmates and most probably hundreds of human bodies piled / buried in the basement of Jami’ah.

The Al Jazeera reporter was showed outside the Masjid in the street while there were clashes carried on between students and the security forces, the very first day, 3rd of July.

He was talking to a ‘Liberal Family’ in a house and they were ridiculing the escape of Maulana Abdul ‘Aziz in the burqa, the Al Jazeera reporter was telling the story of ongoing situation and porbaly it was 7th of July after the escape of Maulana Abdul Aziz, the Al Jazeera reporter called Ghazi Shaheed and Ghazi said there were 2000 students inside and children were only a few, wAllahu A’lam.

Situation was getting worse and in the end the reporter said, (in my words) ‘It’s 2’ clock in the afternoon, the operation started at 4 o’clock in the morning and it is said to have been heavy fighting inside the complex ….. and it’s reported that Ghazi has died.’

He was showing the badly damaged and ruined building of Jami’ah Hafsah which was opened for the media a few days after the operation was finished.
The reporter ended his report saying:

This is not the end; this is the beginning.

[IbnAbdullah]

WITNESS SPECIAL: Red Mosque

Producer: Farah Durrani

In the days leading up to the storming of the Red Mosque, Rageh Omaar gained exclusive access.

He and his team were the last TV crew inside the mosque before the siege began and filmed the last interview with Abdul Rashid Ghazi, one of the mosque's leaders, before his death.

With the prospects of violent conflict growing more ominous by the day, Rageh asked him about his meeting with Osama Bin Laden and his religious and political awakening after the assassination of his father.

In a candid interview, Rashid Ghazi states his belief that "wherever Muslims are awakening … much has to do with the aggression, the tyranny being committed by America and its allied forces".

Rashid Ghazi describes the increasing tension between the mosque and the Pakistani authorities and declares he will never surrender, even as the soldiers begin to gather in the streets around the mosque and hopes of a negotiated settlement dwindle.

The film also offers unique access to the Jamia Hafsa madrasa, the religious seminary for women attached to the Red Mosque.

Umme Hassan, the woman who ran the madrasa, explains the philosophy behind the seminary.

"We work for what God wants. The government hasn't fulfilled its duty and when it doesn't, according to the Prophet, the responsibility falls on the clerics."

Two days into the filming, clashes erupted at the mosque between students and security forces.

A week later, an estimated 100 people were dead.

Already, the storming of the mosque has led to violent attacks on government targets around Pakistan.

This Witness Special will broadcast at the following times GMT:

Saturday 28 July: (1900)
Sunday 29 July: (2400, 0500, 1100)

WITNESS SPECIAL: Red Mosque[/quote]