Islamist website offers $100,000 for Iranian rapper's death

An Iranian rapper living in Germany has a $100,000 bounty on his head after an Islamist website offered a reward for anyone who kills him over a song that satirizes the Islamic Republic and irreverently addresses a historic religious figure.

The Iranian news and religion website Shia-Online.ir said hip-hop star Shahin Najafi deserved to die for a song which it said “grossly insulted” Ali al-Hadi al-Naqi, one of the 12 imams, the religious figures highly revered by Shi’ite Muslims.

Najafi denied his song focused on the revered Shi’ite imam or was meant to criticize Islam.

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A white rose is placed on barbed wire at the museum of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz Birkenau marking the 67th anniversary of the liberation of the camp by Soviet troops and to remember the victims of the Holocaust, in Auschwitz Birkenau January 27, 2012. [REUTERS/Kacper Pempel]
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A white rose is placed on barbed wire at the museum of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz Birkenau marking the 67th anniversary of the liberation of the camp by Soviet troops and to remember the victims of the Holocaust, in Auschwitz Birkenau January 27, 2012. [REUTERS/Kacper Pempel]

euralmanac: Germany: many seek to switch to public health insurance Shocked by premium increases of as much as 50 percent, many Germans with private health insurance are seeking to switch to a national health plan, the news magazine Der Spiegel reported Sunday. Many private health insurance plans pushed through hefty premium increases at the beginning of the year and that’s behind the move to switch, the magazine said. “We’ve gotten increased telephone inquiries from those privately insured who want to come to the AOK,” Wilfried Jacobs, the head of the AOK in Rheinland/Hamburg, told the magazine. The AOK, with 15 regional branches and some 24 million members, is Germany’s largest public health insurance organisation. The magazine said other public health insurers have received similar inquiries. But it’s not so easy to switch once you’ve opted for private insurance. German law only allows people to change from public to private in exceptional situations. These include when someone has lost their job. You can also switch if you are an employee whose salary falls below the € 45,900 level. Workers who used to be self-employed but now have a full-time position with a similar salary may also change. (via The Local)
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euralmanac:

Germany: many seek to switch to public health insurance

Shocked by premium increases of as much as 50 percent, many Germans with private health insurance are seeking to switch to a national health plan, the news magazine Der Spiegel reported Sunday.

Many private health insurance plans pushed through hefty premium increases at the beginning of the year and that’s behind the move to switch, the magazine said.

“We’ve gotten increased telephone inquiries from those privately insured who want to come to the AOK,” Wilfried Jacobs, the head of the AOK in Rheinland/Hamburg, told the magazine. The AOK, with 15 regional branches and some 24 million members, is Germany’s largest public health insurance organisation. The magazine said other public health insurers have received similar inquiries.

But it’s not so easy to switch once you’ve opted for private insurance. German law only allows people to change from public to private in exceptional situations.

These include when someone has lost their job. You can also switch if you are an employee whose salary falls below the € 45,900 level. Workers who used to be self-employed but now have a full-time position with a similar salary may also change. (via The Local)

Source: thelocal.de