French rapper stuns fans, makes first TV appearance wearing hijab

[email protected] (Ramdane Belamri , Al Arabiya)
October 3, 2012
French_rapper

Paris, October 3: Amid a nationwide debate in France surrounding attitudes towards the Islamic veil, or hijab, a French rapper has surprised fans by announcing her conversion to Islam and choosing to wear a headscarf.

Mélanie Georgiades, known as Diam's, has gone through what onlookers have described as a “complete transformation” from an image she had prior to 2009.

Since 2009, Diam's had been unusually absent from the mainstream rap scene, prompting more than three years of controversy over her whereabouts, despite making the odd public appearance with her scarf.


But recently the French rapper made her first television appearance with her new image.

Diam's appeared in an exclusive TV interview with French TV station TF1, to talk about a past experience with drugs, including hallucinating narcotics, and being in a mental asylum until she discovered the “serenity of Islam.” The rapper said the religion was introduced to her by coincidence, when she saw a Muslim friend praying.

Diam's, said she has been married for over a year and is a now a new mother, moving far away from her drug-relate past.

In her TV interview she said her “conversion to Islam was the result of a personal conviction, after understanding the religion and reading the Holy Quran.”

When asked about wearing the hijab in France, a country which has banned the niqab, she said: “I believe that I live in a tolerant society, and I don't feel hurt by criticism, but by insults and stereotyping and ready-made judgments.”

Asked by her host about why she is wearing a hijab while many Muslim women don't wear it, and don't find it to be a religious obligation, she answered: “I see it as a divine order or a divine advice, this brings joy to my heart and for me this is enough.”


Stardom?

Diam's said that by converting to Islam she gained comfort, adding that stardom doesn't fit in with her life anymore, adding “this has warmed my heart, as I know now the purpose of my existence, and why am I here on Earth.”

Diam's criticized the media which photographed her coming out of one of the mosques in France, wearing her Hijab and looking at her mobile, preceded by a man in a training suit, which many believed to be her husband.

Discussing how her life was like before her conversion to Islam, Diam's said: “I was very famous and I had what every famous person looks for, but I was always crying bitterly alone at home, and this is what none of my fans had felt.”

She added: “I was heavily addicted to drugs, including hallucinating narcotics and was admitted in mental asylum to recover, but this was in vain until I heard one of my Muslim friends saying ‘I am going to pray for a while and will come back,' so I told her that I want to pray as well.”

Recalling that moment, Diam's said: “it was the first time that I touched the floor with head, and I had a strong feeling that I have never experienced before, and I believe now that kneeling in prayer, shouldn't be done to anyone but Allah.”


Islam, a religion of tolerance

Diam's said that she moved to Mauritius to read the Quran, and have a better understanding of Islam, discovering during her retreat, the tolerance of Islam.

When asked by her host about her views on Islam, and those who commit all the murders and atrocities pretending to be doing it in the name of religion, she answered: “I think we should differentiate between the ignorant and the knowledgeable, and the ignorant should not speak about what he doesn't know, Islam does not allow murdering innocent victims the way we see it nowadays.”



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Agencies
August 8,2020

Washington, Aug 8: The United States has reported 58,173 new coronavirus cases on Friday, bringing the total past 4.9 million, according to Johns Hopkins University.

"The first case of COVID-19 in the US was reported 198 days ago on 22.01.2020.Yesterday, the country reported 58,173 new confirmed cases and 1,243 deaths," it said.

The country is expected to cross the 5 million thresholds in the coming days. It leads the world both in terms of coronavirus cases and deaths estimated at over 161,300.

Overall, there have been 19.4 million cases confirmed globally and almost 721,800 people have died from virus-related complications. Another 11.7 million have recovered.

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Agencies
February 17,2020

Islamabad, Feb 17: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday warned that Pakistan may face another refugee crisis if the international community failed to take notice of the current situation in India.

Speaking at the two-day refugee summit in Islamabad on 40 years of hosting Afghan refugees in Pakistan, he said India’s "ultranationalist ideology going unchecked could lead to destruction and the region could become a flashpoint", The Express Tribune quoted him as saying.

Khan said if the international community does not take notice of this situation, it will create another refugee crisis for Pakistan as Muslims of India will move to Pakistan.

"This is not the India of Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi. The United Nations (UN) must play its role otherwise it will become a very big problem in the future," Duniya News quoted Khan as saying.

He said said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement that India can destroy Pakistan in 11 days is not a responsible statement by a premier of a nuclear state with a huge population, the paper reported.

Khan made the statement in the presence of visiting UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who was also attending the summit.

He said because of the "Hindutva" ideology, Kashmiris have been lockdown for over 200 days. He alleged under the same ideology, the BJP-led government passed two discriminatory nationalistic legislations, targeting 200 million Muslims in India.

Khan was referring to India's Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the revocation of the special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

The new citizenship law passed by the Indian Parliament in December 2019 offers citizenship to non-Muslim persecuted religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

The Indian government has maintained that the CAA is an internal matter of the country and stressed that the goal is to protect the oppressed minorities of neighbouring countries.

India revoked Jammu and Kashmir's special status on August 5. Reacting to India's move, Pakistan downgraded diplomatic ties with New Delhi and expelled the Indian High Commissioner.

India has always maintained that Jammu and Kashmir is its integral part and ruled out any third party mediation, including either from the UN or the US, saying it is a bilateral issue with Pakistan.

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News Network
April 26,2020

Washington/Seoul, Apr 26: A special train possibly belonging to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was spotted this week at a resort town in the country, according to satellite images reviewed by a Washington-based North Korea monitoring project, amid conflicting reports about Mr. Kim's health and whereabouts.

The monitoring project, 38 North, said in its report on Saturday that the train was parked at the “leadership station” in Wonsan on April 21 and April 23. The station is reserved for the use of the Kim family, it said.

Though the group said it was probably Kim Jong Un's train, Reuters has not been able to confirm that independently, or whether he was in Wonsan.

“The train's presence does not prove the whereabouts of the North Korean leader or indicate anything about his health but it does lend weight to reports that Kim is staying at an elite area on the country's eastern coast,” the report said.

Speculation about Mr. Kim's health first arose due to his absence from the anniversary of the birthday of North Korea's founding father and Mr. Kim's grandfather, Kim Il Sung, on April 15.

North Korea's state media last reported on Mr. Kim's whereabouts when he presided over a meeting on April 11.

China has dispatched a team to North Korea including medical experts to advise on Kim Jong Un, according to three people familiar with the situation.

A third-generation hereditary leader who came to power after his father's death in 2011, Kim has no clear successor in a nuclear-armed country, which could present major international risk.

On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump downplayed reports that Mr. Kim was ill. “I think the report was incorrect,” Mr. Trump told reporters, but he declined to say if he had been in touch with North Korean officials.

Mr. Trump has met Mr. Kim three times in an attempt to persuade him to give up a nuclear weapons program that threatens the United States as well as its Asian neighbors. While talks have stalled, Mr. Trump has continued to hail Mr. Kim as a friend.

Reporting from inside North Korea is notoriously difficult because of tight controls on information.

A Trump administration official said continuing days of North Korean media silence on Mr. Kim's whereabouts had heightened concerns about his condition, and that information remained scant from a country U.S. intelligence has long regarded as a ”black box.”

The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to questions about the situation on Saturday.

Daily NK, a Seoul-based website that reports on North Korea, cited one unnamed source in North Korea on Monday as saying that Kim had undergone medical treatment in the resort county of Hyangsan north of the capital Pyongyang.

It said that Mr. Kim was recovering after undergoing a cardiovascular procedure on April 12.

Since then, multiple South Korean media reports have cited unnamed sources this week saying that Mr. Kim might be staying in the Wonsan area.

On Friday, local news agency Newsis cited South Korean intelligence sources as reporting that a special train for Mr. Kim's use had been seen in Wonsan, while Mr. Kim's private plane remained in Pyongyang.

Newsis reported Mr. Kim may be sheltering from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Mr. Kim, believed to be 36, has disappeared from coverage in North Korean state media before. In 2014, he vanished for more than a month and North Korean state TV later showed him walking with a limp.

Speculation about his health has been fanned by his heavy smoking, apparent weight gain since taking power and family history of cardiovascular problems.

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