I came across this website tonight http://www.hatehurtsamerica.org/ Apparently is is a coalition of people who want to silence Michael Savage and paint him as a Muslim hater. They have a list of companies that have pulled advertising from Savage here
# Citrix Systems, Inc. # Trusted I.D. # Office Max # JCPenney # AutoZone # AT&T # Wal-Mart
# Elizabeth Sholes, Director of Public Policy, California Council of Churches/California Church IMPACT # Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak, www.JewsOnFirst.org # Stephen F. Rohde, Civil Liberties Attorney, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace* # Bonnie Blustein, member of the Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church of Pasadena - Social Justice Council, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace* # Preston Price, United Methodist Church * # Reverend Jerald M. Stinson, Senior Minister, First Congregational Church of Long Beach, Calif. # Bishop Steve and Judy Gilliland, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints* # Father Chris Ponnet, Pax Christi Los Angeles, Pax Christi Southern California, St. Camillus # Amin David, President, LOS AMIGOS OF ORANGE COUNTY # Reverend Peter Laarman, Executive Director, Progressive Christians Uniting (PCU) # Reverend Peggy Price , Senior Minister, Seal Beach Church of Religious Science* # Marcy Winograd , LA Jews for Peace # Council on American-Islamic Relations # Reverend Douglas Johnstone (Lutheran Pastor) # Muslim Student Association - West
ISLAMIC extremists are using an al-Qaeda training manual to give them instructions for taking over the state's toughest jails, prison authorities have alleged.
Up to 40 inmates had established an internal organisational structure to maintain morale, resist interrogation and recruit members to Islam.
The prisoners had set up leadership groups in several maximum-security jails, with their activities governed by the code outlined in the al-Qaeda manual for incarcerated followers.
A number of Corrective Services staff have been targeted, some with violent threats by inmate groups. Other staff have been singled out for conversion to Islam.
NSW Attorney-General John Hatzistergos said an undisclosed number of inmates had been transferred to other jails in an attempt to disrupt the leadership groups.
WASHINGTON: A testy "president" Musharraf has blamed the United States for Pakistan’s current travails and threatened to quit the scene if the elections being forced on him created a situation that was "unacceptable" to him.
Musharraf, who was virtually forced to retire from the army under western pressure and took oath as a civilian "president" last week, bristled with anger in a rambling, incoherent ABC interview on Friday in which he lashed out at both the US and the domestic opposition. He did not define what constituted "unacceptable" outcome that would cause him to leave office.
"The opposition, they have all along these five years tried to destabilise me and the government. You have to understand, we don’t want agitation here... Agitation means breaking down everything, burning things. That cannot be allowed," said the man who came to power in a military coup and anointed himself a president with the help of a constitution, judiciary and elections that were all rigged to perpetuate his rule.
[...]
Musharraf insisted that the US share blame for Pakistan’s situation because of its inconsistent policies in the war on terror.
"If there’s a failure, it’s not Pakistan’s failure," he said, bristling when asked why his government failed to root out al-Qaida and Taliban militants from the tribal region, adding. "We are fighting terrorism everywhere...We have gone through 30 years of turmoil...we handled the situation along for 12 years. Please don’t accuse us."
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian police will crack down on women in Tehran flouting Islamic dress codes with winter fashions deemed immodest, such as tight trousers tucked into long boots, an officer was quoted as saying on Saturday.
"Considering the start of the cold season and its special way of dressing, police will start early next week a drive against women who wear improper dress," Tehran police chief Ahmad Reza Radan was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.
"Tight trousers tucked inside long boots while wearing short overcoats are against Islamic codes," the police chief said.
"Wearing a hat or cap instead of scarves is also against Islamic dress codes."
Police officials were not immediately available for comment. The Iranian week begins on Saturday.
Police regularly clamp down on skimpier clothing and looser headscarves in the summer. Usually this is for just a few weeks but this year the campaign has run into the autumn.
Nothing about Zahra Baniyaghoub's life suggested she would have wanted to end it. With a flourishing career as a doctor and a stable relationship with a man she loved, she seemed to have everything to live for.
But when she died suddenly in the custody of Iran's morals and virtues police - an organisation empowered by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to enforce Islamic behavioural standards - officials reported it as suicide.
Now Baniyaghoub's family are insisting her death was suspicious and have engaged the country's most famous human rights lawyer, Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel peace prize winner, in an effort to prove she was murdered.
Baniyaghoub's ordeal started on the morning of October 12 while sitting with her fiancé, Hamid Chitsaz, in a park in the western city of Hamedan. Officers arrested the couple because they were not legally related and not entitled to be alone together under Islamic law.
Such treatment must have been galling for such a highly qualified couple. Baniyaghoub, 27, a graduate of Tehran University's elite medical school, was a GP in a remote village in one of Iran's poorest regions and had ambitions to qualify as a heart specialist or urologist. Her fiancé worked as a radio presenter with the state broadcaster IRIB. Nevertheless, they were sent before an Islamic judge who ordered their detention.
Shepherds dressed in old sheets, Christmas carols and the competition to see who will play Mary and Joseph… nativity plays have been a feature of British primary-school life for generations.
But a survey has revealed that headteachers are watering down or ditching the centuries-old Christmas story in favour of secular tales to avoid upsetting pupils of other faiths.
Only one in five schools are planning to perform a traditional nativity play this year. They are now outnumbered by schools that say they will be either putting on a non-religious play, such as Scrooge or Snow White, or giving no performance at all.
Almost half the schools said they planned to put on modern reinterpretations of the Christmas story, with extra characters, new songs and modern themes, such as The Bossy King, Whoops-a-Daisy Angel or The Hoity-Toity Angel.
The findings will add to fears that Christian teachings are being abandoned by schools, despite the wishes of parents. Recent surveys show an overwhelming majority of families would like the nativity play, telling the story of Christ's birth, to live on in schools.
Experts on religious education said headteachers were failing in their duty as educators if they ignored one of the most central stories in our culture. Terence Copley, Professor of Educational Studies at Oxford University, said the idea that the nativity could offend other faiths was "crazy".
"I have never met a single Jew, Muslim, Sikh or Buddhist who has objected to the commemoration and celebration of the birth of Jesus," he said. "In Islam, he is a prophet and his birth is described in the Koran. It is not other religions that are pushing for this at all.
"If we avoid Christmas we are pandering to a secular minority and allowing the event to become all about commercialism, presents and self-indulgence.
"There's nothing wrong with a bit of self-indulgence but if we don't teach about Christmas and deal with it confidently, not just in RE, we are failing in our duty as educators."
The Sunday Telegraph survey of 100 schools found that 36 per cent were staging religion-free Christmas plays or planning no event this winter. That compares with a similar survey in 2004 that found one in seven schools producing no nativity play.
ISLAMABAD: The University of Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan has received an anonymous letter threatening it to not enroll girls.
The watchman of the college, who found the letter, handed it to the head of the political science department, ZA Hilali, on Friday, the 'Stateman' reported on Saturday.
"We have certain reservations about the admission in the department in which the chairman (head of political science department) has given priority to girls and ignored boys," the letter said.
"We have information that girls are freely gossiping and exchanging pleasantries, which is totally against the ideology of Islam," it said.
"Our goal is to persuade the female students to shut their faces from their colleagues because Islam does not allow them to chat freely with each other," it added.
Hilali, however, said the allegations were totally baseless and both boys and girls had been admitted on the basis of merit.
"The admission takes place according to the lists of the directorate of admissions. It is wrong to say that a majority of the female candidates have been admitted in the department," he said.
Hilali said the trend of sending anonymous letters to the university is growing and this would create hurdles for students.
He also said that three people had barged into his office on Friday and wanted to know why he was giving preference to women students.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The co-founder of an Islamic charity in Ashland has been released to await trial on federal tax and conspiracy charges.
Pirouz Sedaghaty, known as Pete Seda, had been held at the Lane County Jail in Eugene while federal prosecutors argued against his release.
The 49-year-old Sedaghaty left the country in 2003, more than a year before a federal grand jury indicted him and the Oregon chapter of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation on charges of smuggling $150,000 to Muslim fighters in Chechnya.
The native of Iran has pleaded not guilty and said he returned in August to clear his name.
Sedaghaty and his attorney, Larry Matasar, declined comment on the release. But Matasar had continually assured U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan that Sedaghaty would meet all conditions imposed by the court.
The release order signed Friday by Hogan listed typical conditions, such as prohibiting Sedaghaty from carrying a firearm. But it requires Sedaghaty to get a job and to allow federal officials to inspect his computer at any time.
He had been approved to live at a friend's Ashland home by U.S. Pretrial Services, the arm of the federal court that handles detention and release of federal defendants.
But the friend, Paul Copeland, said Friday that Sedaghaty would be staying with other friends in Ashland temporarily until more permanent arrangements can be made pending his trial in April.
I came across a documentary film titled “The Film Class” by Uri Rosenwaks. It is about slavery in a Bedouin community. You can read more about it here. Here is a small part of the film where a man talks about kids being kidnapped and made slaves.
A feminist author is to rewrite her autobiography after she was forced to flee from Muslim extremists who placed a bounty on her head.
Taslima Nasreen, 45, a former doctor, said today that she hoped that the move would appease fundamentalist groups and end a controversy that forced her to leave Calcutta last week.
Ms Nasreen had claimed that the religious references in Dwikhandito, which means Divided, are sourced from “universally accepted” books on Islamic history.
Today she relented under pressure and said that “controversial lines” relating to Islam from the autobiographical novel would be removed.
“The book was written in 2002, based on my memories of Bangladesh in the 1980s, during which time secularism was removed from the Bangladesh constitution. I wrote the book in support of the people who defended secular values. I had no intention to hurt anybody’s sentiment,” she said today from a secret location.
“I have done what I have never done in my life. I have compromised even in a secular India.” She added that she hoped she would now be able to “live peacefully” in India.
Prashant Mukherjee, her publisher in Calcutta, refused to divulge the exact text or the nature of the sentences that were deemed particularly offensive by Islamic clerics, but said two paragraphs would be deleted.
Mr Mukherjee said that the Muslim-born author, who was whisked to a safe house near Delhi by federal security officers, had instructed him not to reveal the content for fear of stoking communal tensions further.
“I can tell you that we thought it to be historical and true and that it would not give rise to any controversy,” he said. “It’s nothing extraordinarily poisonous against Islam but these people are hypersensitive.”
An update on this story. Apparently Darrick Michael Jackson aka "Abdul-Jalil Mohammed" not only had connections to Imam Musa but also acknowledges he agrees very much with Musa. This via NBC4
GREENBELT, Md. -- Federal jurors began deliberations Friday in the case of a former Andrews Air Force Base security guard who is accused of failing to include his Muslim name on a background check to hide his ties to a controversial imam.
Darrick Michael Jackson is charged with making a false statement for not listing "Abdul-Jalil Mohammed" as an alias on a federal form required for private guards who work at the Maryland base, which is used to fly the president and other dignitaries in and out of Washington. He could face five years in prison if convicted.
[...]
Witnesses testified that Jackson appeared to share similar beliefs to Musa. He allegedly showed the Musa video clip to a co-worker and echoed the imam's words. Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Glatfelter said in her closing argument that Jackson "told people Hamas and Hezbollah are doing good things." And prosecutors presented a 2004 e-mail in which Jackson referred to the government as a system of "thieves," "sodomites," and "racist drug dealers."
BEIRUT: Lebanon's senior Shiite cleric, Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, lashed out at the "flagrant" US interference in ths country's internal affairs on Friday, while also condemning the US-led Annapolis Middle East peace conference. In his weekly Friday sermon delivered from the Imam Hassanayn Mosque in Haret Hreik, Fadlallah said the US "only respects its strategic interests."
"The US wants Lebanon and its presidency, government, army and the political group supporting it to serve its projects [in the region]," he said.
"All the Lebanese," he said, "should pay attention to statements made by the US ambassador [Jeffrey Feltman] and his flagrant interference in Lebanon's domestic affairs when it comes to the presidential elections and other issues."
"This is part of the US official political strategy to impose its tutelage on Lebanon," he added.
Commenting on the Annapolis peace conference held earlier this week, Fadlallah said the meeting was not meant to achieve peace for the Arabs and Palestinians but "an opportunity for President George W. Bush to present himself as a president working in favor of peace."
JAMMU, India, March 30 (Reuters) - Muslim separatists shot dead five Hindu road workers and wounded three others in India's Jammu and Kashmir state, police said on Friday.
"Two militants in camouflage fatigue descended on the work site late last night near Rajouri district and opened indiscriminate fire on the labourers' camp," said S.P. Vaid, a senior police officer.
"All of them belonged to the minority community."
The mountainous Rajouri district is 170 km (105 miles), northwest of Jammu, the winter capital of the scenic Himalayan region, which is claimed in full by both India and Pakistan, and the cause of two of their wars.
The Rajouri killings late on Thursday came days ahead of a meeting in New Delhi next week of leaders of South Asian countries, including India and Pakistan, to discuss regional cooperation on issues such as terrorism.
Hindus are a minority in Jammu and Kashmir, mainly Hindu India's only Muslim-majority state, where they have been targetted by Islamist rebels fighting New Delhi's rule.
The 17-year-old-revolt has killed more than 42,000 people officials say. However, human rights groups put the toll at around 60,000.
KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) - Thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and knives, rallied Friday in a central square and demanded the execution of a British teacher convicted of insulting Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Muhammad."
In response to the demonstration, teacher Gillian Gibbons was moved from the women's prison near Khartoum to a secret location for her safety, her lawyer said.
The protesters streamed out of mosques after Friday sermons, as pickup trucks with loudspeakers blared messages against Gibbons, who was sentenced Thursday to 15 days in prison and deportation. She avoided the more serious punishment of 40 lashes.
They massed in central Martyrs Square outside the presidential palace, where hundreds of riot police were deployed. They did not try to stop the rally, which lasted about an hour.
"Shame, shame on the U.K.," protesters chanted.
They called for Gibbons' execution, saying, "No tolerance: Execution," and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad."
Problem is what exactly do they define as "terrorism". Do they consider the attacks on the Pentagon on 9/11 terrorism? Will they denounce all forms of jihad warfare? Will they denounce the idea of the United States Constitution being replaced by Sharia law? So many people in the west will look at this and say "see they denounce terrorism!". Problem is what do they consider terrorism?
During a joint appearance by Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders at the National Press Club on Friday, a national campaign to unite all Americans against terrorists was launched, highlighted by the proclamation of a fatwa by the Fiqh Council of North America. Dr. Muzammil H. Siddiqi, chairman of the council, read the fatwa to a packed house gathered for a press club luncheon. The fatwa states that all acts of terrorism are forbidden in Islam; it is forbidden for a Muslim to cooperate or associate with any individual or group that is involved in any act of terrorism or violence; and it is the duty of Muslims to report to enforcement authorities any threat which is designed to place a human being in harm's way, bringing them before a competent court of law and in accordance with due process. "We pray for the defeat of extremism, terrorism and injustice," Siddiqi said. "We pray for the safety and security of our country the United States and its people. We pray for the safety and security of all inhabitants of this globe. We pray that interfaith harmony and cooperation prevail both in the United States and everywhere in the world." Theodore McCarrick, Catholic archbishop emeritus of Washington from 2001 until his retirement last year, was the luncheon speaker for the event, where he announced the launch of a grass-roots "Uniting to Protect" national campaign. Also featured was Rabbi Jack Luxembourg of Temple Beth Ami in nearby Rockville, Maryland. Luxembourg served in the American Jewish Congress as president of the National Capital Region.
ISTANBUL, Turkey: Turkey's fiercely secular military on Friday expelled seven officers it accused of Islamist activity along with 31 other officers accused of a lack discipline.
Yesterday I noted that I could not find anyone covering this story. But just a few minutes ago Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch covered this. Heres Spencers comments:
The truth-challenged unindicted co-conspirators of the Council on American Islamic Relations have been targeting radio host Michael Savage, as they have targeted so many others before him. They've been pressuring advertisers to stop advertising on his show, and they've been succeeding. Background here.
But Savage, unlike Fox, unlike National Review, unlike so many others, is unwilling to play the dhimmi and kowtow to these lying Islamic supremacist thugs in their continued assaults on the freedom of speech. It's about time that somebody with the resources to do so has fought back.
I also notice The Drudge Report ran this story. It is good to see this is getting alot of attention now. You can read the full text of the lawsuit HERE.
Trend-setting radio talk show host Michael Savage has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the Council on Islamic-American Relations, and has accused the organization of being a "political vehicle of international terrorism" that seeks to do "material harm to those voices who speak against the violent agenda of CAIR's clients."
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in California, seeks damages equal to the ongoing donations from CAIR supporters "who expect CAIR to act in this manner in exchange for continuing financial support" as well as "actual damages according to proof."
A spokesman for Savage indicated the top-rated talk show host would have no further comment, saying the text of the lawsuit itself would answer questions.
The focal point of the lawsuit is a series of audio clips CAIR has been using in its promotions and fundraising efforts.
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) - A Christian cleric who was abducted earlier this week in southeast Turkey was rescued Friday, his friend said. Assyrian cleric Daniel Savci was rescued by security forces in the province of Batman two days after he was abducted in nearby Mardin province, Gabriel Akkurt, another Assyrian cleric, told The Associated Press. The kidnappers had called Akkurt after abducting Savci and demanded ¤300,000 (US$445,000) for the cleric's return.
Zahra Bani Yaghoub was a 27-year-old medical university graduate from Tehran who some two years ago volunteered to work in the western city of Hamadan.
Bani Yaghoub was due to return to Tehran next year to complete her medical studies and become a specialist in urology. But instead she died in suspicious circumstances in Hamadan prison on October 13.
Eyewitnesses said she was arrested by Iran's morality police while walking with her fiance in a Hamadan city park. Her fiance was released an hour later, but she was kept in prison overnight.
The next day, her lifeless body was handed over to her parents with the police claiming she committed suicide by hanging herself.
Her father, who reportedly works at an Islamic Revolution Guards Corps facility, accuses the police of assaulting and murdering his daughter.
The family also says her brother had spoken with her over the phone 15 minutes before the time the police claim she killed herself. Bani Yaghoub's brother said there was no indication she was minutes away from taking her life.
The family says Bani Yaghoub's body was bruised and that there was blood in her nose and in her ears.
DETROIT, Nov 29 (Reuters) - A Detroit-area man on Thursday pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges after a failed 1998 attempt to deliver global positioning systems and night-vision goggles to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Fawzi Assi, 47, pleaded guilty in federal court in Detroit to attempting to provide support to a terrorist organization under U.S. law, federal prosecutors said.
The guilty plea marked the latest twist one of the first prosecutions under a 1996 U.S. law that made it illegal to provide money or other aid to terrorists groups as defined by the U.S. government.
The U.S. State Department designated Hezbollah a terrorist group in 1997.
Assi, who has been held in federal prison for the past three and a half years, now faces up to a 10-year prison term and a fine of up to $250,000, prosecutors said.
Assi was stopped in July 1998 when he attempted to board a flight from Detroit to Lebanon with two Boeing Co (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research)-manufactured global positioning system kits, night vision goggles and a thermal-imaging camera.
In his plea, Assi said he was attempting to deliver the equipment to a person in Lebanon who he knew was buying the gear for Hezbollah.
In an earlier hearing, FBI agents testified that Assi had told them during questioning that he supported Hezbollah's goal of driving Israel out of southern Lebanon.
Assi fled to Lebanon shortly after his arrest in 1998. He returned to the United States and surrendered to authorities in May 2004.
"Anyone who gives money, technology or other material support to any terrorist organization will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," U.S. Attorney Stephen Murphy said in a statement.
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (AFP) - Eight soldiers and Muslim militants were killed in a clash in the southern Philippines on Friday, military officials said.
Soldiers hunting for renegade Muslim leader Habier Malik were attacked by his followers on the outskirts of Kalingalan Kaluang town in the southern Sulu islands, leading to a fierce clash that sparked the casualties.
"We have sent the rangers to reinforce the marines in the area and to hunt down those responsible in the killings," said Brigadier General Ruperto Pabustan, commander of elite forces in Sulu.
Malik is a member of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), a former Muslim separatist group that waged a bloody Islamic separatist war in the 1970s but which signed a peace accord in 1996.
However the rebel leader has expressed dissatisfaction with the terms of the peace accord, once even holding a peace negotiating team hostage for several days in February.
Malik's forces have since helped other Muslim gunmen in battles with the government, resulting in 21 slain soldiers and rebels in April.
A teenage girl wearing a jilbab (head scarf) stared sharply at Banda Aceh's sharia enforcement officer Raja Dakdan, who was lecturing girls rounded-up for wearing "inappropriate" clothes in front of the city's Baiturrahman Grand Mosque.
Some of them bent in shame and others, including one without jilbab, expressed their indifference to an angered Raja, who pointed at the youths and criticized their tight jeans and shirts.
Although they wore scarves and covered their aurat or certain body parts, they were still considered in breach of Qanun (bylaw) No. 11/2002 on Muslim women's dress code, and as reported in the front page photo of The Jakarta Post, Nov. 16, the girls could be caned.
What happened if my children were among them? That was the first reaction as I scrutinized the picture, because my two daughters do not wear head scarves. Second, can the measures taken to enforce the bylaw give a better understanding of Islam and nurture legal obedience among youths?
Muslims are told to teach their children how to obey rules originating in the Koran and Hadith (Prophet Muhammad's sayings and traditions) and to obey the government.
Jihadist sympathizer professor Julio Pino who I have reported in detail about has taken a trip to the Middle East. Apparently the trip was not properly approved by the college and the History Dept Chair was fired for approving it. Mike Adams has more at Town Hall
My old buddy John Jameson just got fired from his job as Chair of the History Department at Kent State University. This action was a result of his decision to grant – without proper authority - a paid leave to terrorist supporting professor Julio Pino. Generally, it isn’t a good idea to let Muslim professors who advocate the mass killing of Jews and American troops go to the United Arab Emirates on paid leave. This is especially true when you don’t seek required approval from the higher administration.
All Jameson had to do was seek the approval of his Interim Dean and Provost before allowing Julio the Jihadist to travel to the Middle East. But to do so would have risked rejection from the higher administration. So, instead, he risked his own job to make sure that Pino got out of his teaching duties to go hang out in the Middle East in the middle of the semester. Bear in mind that this was during the same calendar year Pino was caught working on a terrorist web site posting bomb-making instructions. The site also urged using the bombs against American troops.
[...]
After this unapproved leave-of-absence was discovered, a Kent State administrator threatened Pino with loss of his salary if he stayed in the Middle East. The university paid his return fare – a cool two thousand bucks - and now he is back in America assuring members of the media that he no longer contributes to the terrorist website “Global War.” What he is not telling the media is that he is not contributing to the site because a conservative columnist (guess who?) had it shut down in March with the help of Matt Drudge and Fox News. Nor is he explaining how he could no longer write for a site that Kent State officials said he never wrote for in the first place.
It really is the height of hypocrisy that Kent State is only firing Chair Jameson who is now contemplating doing research along the Mexican border (I’m not kidding). Rumors that he plans to help smuggle suicide bombers into the U.S. are completely unfounded. Probably completely unfounded but, who knows, it is Kent State we’re talking about. Maybe the National Guard can help monitor the situation.
Michael Savage announced tonight on his show that Daniel Horowitz will be representing him in his law suit against CAIR monday. You can hear the entire show HERE He also gives details on the law suit against CAIR. I having a hard time finding any other bloggers covering this.
The cunning Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which Internet writer Selwyn Duke calls “a group that could be the legal arm of al-Qaeda” is out to take down radio talk show host Michael Savage.
Correction: CAIR is out to take down Americans and to stifle freedom of speech—Savage is just the chosen icon.
CAIR activities usually get a free ride from the mainstream media. Even cash rich television networks don’t want the inconvenience of litigation, which is CAIR’s best longsuit.
Look at the path of destruction as CAIR carries out its campaigns safe from the media spotlight. They went after National Review Magazine, the mild and silken-voiced radio personality Paul Harvey who wouldn’t hurt the proverbial fly, the producers of the television program 24, who aren’t even in the news business and anyone else they decide is worthy of their vengeance.
In Canada, it was top-drawer journalist David Frum and author Michael Harris--both of whom stood their ground against them and eventually won.
Even as this is being written CAIR has bestselling author and Jihad Watch Director Robert Spencer in its ferocious pitbull jaws.
In a politically correct world where western leaders are terrified to mention the name of the Christian God (Britain’s Tony Blair)—at least while still in office, and where saying “Boo” can find you ostracized, CAIR uses our hard-fought freedoms against us. Free people everywhere must remember that the Freedom of the Common Man’s day in court was never instituted by CAIR.
We cannot stop the ideals that CAIR, in effect, protects such as beheading enemies on public television; the incredibly cruel lashing of rape victims, the IEDs that cut down courageous young troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. The enemy is radical Islam not moderate Muslims. And we can’t stop the enemy from using Anglo-Saxon names from getting jobs at airlines such as Andrew’s Air Force Base where Airforce 1 takes off and lands. We can’t keep the enemy from flooding over American and Canadian porous borders to become the Enemy Within.
But even when CAIR spreads its roots into other innocent-sounding organizations, such as the newly-formed, Hate Hurts America Community and Interfaith Coalition (HHA) that seems able to frighten advertisers into instant capitulation, we can fight them collectively both in court and with our buying power.
A HHA statement released this week said in part: “We have a duty to make sure every person in America is treated with respect and human dignity.
Diversity is what makes this nation so special. The many companies that do not want to be affiliated with Michael Savage’s bigotry and have stopped advertising or refuse to advertise on his show include AutoZone, Citrix, TrustedID, JD Penney, and OfficeMax. Today we are pleased to announce that Wal-Mart and AT&T have joined the growing list of companies that refuse to sponsor Savage’s hate speech.”
The name of the HHA coordinator boasting about advertisers frightened off the Michael Savage show? Sabiha Khan.
Surely it is not HHA’s or CAIR’s “duty”, but ours to ensure that every person in America is treated with respect and human dignity.
“These people know how to use freedom to destroy freedom,” Savage said on his radio show last night. “Let’s pray to God that we’re not destined to relive the Second World War and that we can nip this in the bud.”
We can take courage in this battle that organizations like CAIR and HHA are overlooking one vital detail.
Moderate Muslims everywhere stand against them. Many moderate Muslims now living in the freedom of the United States and in other countries lost family members to radical Islam—and will never, ever forget.
Meanwhile, where are you Rush, Bill, Sean, Matt and Joseph?
If CAIR takes down Michael Savage, they come next for you.
ISTANBUL, Nov. 29 — Turkish prosecutors on Thursday questioned the Turkish publisher of the book “The God Delusion,” by a British author, Richard Dawkins, after a young reader complained that it was offensive, the publisher said.
Erol Karaaslan, whose publishing house is Kuzey Publications, does not face formal charges at this point for bringing out the book, which is a best seller in the United States. But he was informed by prosecutors that a young reader from the neighborhood of Kadikoy filed a complaint against him under a law prohibiting “inciting hatred,” Mr. Karaaslan said in a telephone interview.
In Turkey, the government can open cases against authors or publishers based on complaints about content filed by private citizens, a far-reaching power that sharply limits freedom of expression and is an enduring part of Turkey’s rigid state-controlled past.
The rules have led to the prosecution of authors including Orhan Pamuk, who won the Nobel Prize for literature. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is working to soften these rules as part of Turkey’s effort to join the European Union.
The book, which argues against the existence of God, upset the reader, who argued that it meets the criteria of “inciting hatred,” because it insults God and is offensive to Muslims, Christians and Jews in Turkey.
MIAMI (AFP) — US prosecutors on Thursday urged jurors to convict seven alleged homegrown terrorists, claiming they plotted to blow up buildings and bring down the US government with the help of the Al-Qaeda terror network.
"One of the missions of the seven defendants was to overthrow or wage war on the government of the United States," US Attorney Jacqueline Arango said in here closing arguments.
She claimed the seven members of an obscure religious sect "tried to create an unholy alliance with a terrorist organization."
Arango told the jurors that because the seven are accused of conspiracy, "it's the intent that is the crime."
"The government need not wait for buildings to come down or people to get shot to prove they are terrorists," she said.
She dismissed claims by the defendants had merely tried to scam Al-Qaeda out of tens of thousands of dollars."
"Tell them with your verdict that you don't the believe defendants were trying to rip off the deadliest terrorist group in the world," the prosecutor said.
The seven are accused of conspiring to provide assistance to Al-Qaeda, to carry out acts of terror and to bring down the US government.
They allegedly planned to blow up the 108-story Sears Towers in Chicago and other buildings including FBI offices in Miami, and shoot any survivors.
"They wanted to join forces with Al Qaeda for a mission that would be 'just as good or greater than 9-11'," Arango said in reference to a comment allegedly made by the group's leader, Narseal Batiste.
The 12 jurors were again shown secretly-taped video footage showing the defendants pledging an oath to Al-Qaeda, in the presence of an undercover FBI informant posing as a member of the terrorist network that claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
"Batiste tried to create an unholy alliance with a terrorist organization," said Arango.
But the defense lawyers argued that the accused feigned interest in carrying out attacks hoping to get money from a man pretending to be an Al-Qaeda operative, but who in reality was an informant who pushed the alleged plot along to get paid by the FBI.
"I was behind a couple of months on the rent, the children had no clothes," Batiste, a father of four, testified. "There was no food for a couple of days. There was a lot of pressure on me at that time."
The defendants, known as the "Liberty City Seven" after the predominantly African-American Miami neighborhood where they lived, were members of a faction of the Moorish Science Temple, a sect that blends teachings of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
Prosecutors said the whole plot was discovered after a man who had recently left Miami for his native Yemen called the FBI to say Batiste had asked him to get in touch with Al-Qaeda.
The man was flown back to Miami, infiltrated the group and later brought in another FBI informant, who posed as an Al-Qaeda member.
This kind of attitude solves nothing! Be sure to contact Vicki Truitt at Vicki.Truitt@house.state.tx.us and let her know its a horrible idea for any money to be invested in Iran!
Texas Employees Retirement System, Austin, is being encouraged to think twice about divesting any Iran-related investments. Texas state Rep. Vicki Truitt, chair of the House Committee on Pensions and Investments, sent a letter Monday to Bill Ceverha, chairman of the board of the $24 billion fund, urging him and other board members “to continue making prudent policy decisions for the exclusive benefit of the members, and not allow external pressures and demands to affect your decision-making.” The letter was in response to a Sept. 25 letter Gov. Rick Perry sent to officials of the ERS and the $111 billion Texas Teacher Retirement System, Austin, asking them to divest all stocks of companies doing business with Iran.
Ms. Truitt, in her letter, argued that “any attempt to alter the optimum investment strategy recommended by the system’s investment professionals (is) especially troublesome,” and “any use of the assets of the trust for purposes other than those that will benefit the members, risks violating the Texas constitution, endangers the system’s tax-exempt status, and potentially breaches the board’s fiduciary duties as trustees.”
The Iranian government has announced a campaign against rap music which it considers obscene.
The Ministry for Culture and Islamic Guidance said illegal studios would be closed and rap singers "confronted".
An official condemned rappers for using very vulgar words, but it was not clear if the whole genre was being banned.
Rap music in Farsi is increasingly popular among young men in Tehran, with lyrics covering political, social and sexual themes.
Iranians wanting to record an album or stage a concert need to get official permission.
Some songs are approved by the ministry, but most are circulated through a growing underground market for rap.
The culture ministry official, Mohammad Dashtgoli, was quoted by the official Irna news agency as saying he wanted to "find a solution" to internet distribution of the music.
Iranian rappers are inspired by the Iranian exile community in Los Angeles - one of the main centres of American rap.
Young Iranian singers are trying to replicate the accents and subject material used by many US artists.
British teacher Gillian Gibbons has been convicted of inciting religious hatred for letting her pupils name a teddy bear Muhammad and sentenced to 15 days in prison and deportation from Sudan, one of her defense lawyers said Thursday.
"The judge found Gillian Gibbons guilty and sentenced her to 15 days jail and deportation," said Ali Mohammed Hajab, a member of her defense team.
Osama bin Laden urged Europeans to break ranks with the United States and quit Afghanistan, while stressing he alone was behind the 9/11 attacks, in a tape attributed to him on Al-Jazeera television on Thursday.
The United States "insisted on invading" Afghanistan even though it knew that the Afghans were not behind the 2001 attacks, and "Europe walked behind it," the voice purported to be that of the Al-Qaeda chief said in a "message to the European peoples."
"It would be better for you if you (restrained) your politicians who flock to the White House and worked actively to end the wrong done to the oppressed," he said in the audiotape.
"I am responsible" for the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, the speaker said.
Qatar-based Al-Jazeera aired a head shot of a smiling bin Laden wearing a white headdress of the type used by Muslim fundamentalist clerics.
"The truth, as I said before, is that the Manhattan events were in retaliation for the killing of our kinfolk in Palestine and Lebanon by the US-Israeli alliance and that I am responsible for them," the voice said.
"I affirm that the Afghans -- government and people -- had no knowledge whatsoever of these events and America knows that," since it captured and interrogated some ministers from the Islamist militant Taliban movement, which was ousted from power by a 2001 US invasion.
By following in the footsteps of the US in Afghanistan, Europe could only be a "subordinate" to Washington, as attested to by the fact that "you entered this war and US soldiers were exempted from accountability in European courts."
"That is why my message is addressed to you, not to your politicians," said the typically soft-spoken voice thought to be that of the world's most wanted man.
The voice claimed that US influence was waning, saying US forces will go back home and "leave neighbours to settle scores."
The speaker accused countries which took part in the Afghan war of flouting war ethics, accusing them of targeting women and children in their air strikes and other attacks.
CHICAGO (AP) — A convert to Islam pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges alleging he plotted to use hand grenades to attack holiday shoppers at a mall in Rockford.
Derrick Shareef was arrested in December 2006 on charges of scheming to use weapons of mass destruction against the Cherryvale Mall in the northern Illinois city.
Prosecutors have said he plotted with an undercover federal informant to commit acts of “violent jihad,” or holy war, including setting off hand grenades concealed in garbage cans at the mall.
Shareef, 23, was arrested after meeting an undercover federal agent and agreeing to trade his stereo speakers for four grenades and a gun.
Apparently the State Department doesn't find it necessary to speak out about this women being persecuted for simply naming a bear Muhammad. My question is does the State Department ever take a stand on any issue when it relates to Muhammad or Islam?
Question: What is the U.S. reaction to the case of the British teacher who faces charges of “insulting Islam” after the primary school class named a teddy bear Mohammed?
We are following the situation of the British teacher closely and with concern. We understand the British government is pursuing this with the Sudanese government directly.
NEW YORK -- A doctor convicted in New York of conspiring to help treat wounded al-Qaida fighters was sentenced to 25 years in prison Tuesday.
Jurors found Dr. Rafiq Sabir tried to assist al-Qaida fighters overseas after hearing secret recordings of meetings where he pledged support to Osama Bin Laden.
During the trial, prosecutors said Sabir said "yes to Osama bin Laden, yes to al-Qaeda and yes to providing material support to terrorists." A photo of Bin Laden was displayed on a screen in the courtroom.
Sabir, 52, received the 25-year sentence after standing trial. Three co-defendants each pleaded guilty, agreeing to serve between 13 and 15 years in prison in deals with the government.
Sabir's former best friend, martial arts expert and jazz musician Tarik Shah, was among those who pleaded guilty. Assistant U.S. Attorney Karl Metzner had called Sabir and Shah "blood brothers" committed to helping al-Qaida and bin Laden further their goals.
Persian blogger Reza Valizadeh was arrested for his report about expensive German dogs being used in Ahmadinejad's guard team.
On November 16th he wrote about the four dogs which are recently added to Ahmadinejad’s security team, after they were purchased form Germany for $150,000 each [Persian]. Read the complete translation of his post at Expensive German Dogs for Ahmadinejad. Also read an independent report in Guardian, probably based on Reza's post.
His post was an indicator that Ahmadinejad's repeated claims of "living a simple life" are more of a propaganda issue than anything else. Reza's post irritated the state to the extent that the state-run news agency Fars News talked to "a person in the security teams" who "emphasized that Dogs are used all over the world for security purposes" [Persian]. While dismissing Reza's report about the price paid for the dogs, the official admitted that Dogs are of indeed of a German breed, but that "they are trained by Iranians". The official then went on by saying, "The recent propaganda about the dogs is a psycho-war, geared towards weakening the security teams". Answering to Reza's question about the consideration of dogs as filthy animals in Islam, the official stated, "There are fatwas that using trained Dogs for security purposes is not against the Sharia".
Fars's report was only preparation for the next move, which was arresting Reza on charges laid by President's Office. As a result, Valizadeh is given the chance to be released on a $50,000 bail. His charges include acting against the national security as well as disruption of public opinion [Persian]. Valizadeh is the founder of the leading feed aggregator Baznegar [Persian].
[...] When I got out of the car, I couldn't even walk. I rang the doorbell and my mother opened the door.
She said: 'You look tired.' She thought I was with my husband."
The woman said she did not eat for a week after the attack and needed sleeping pills.
The attackers began talking about the assault in the community, she recalled, suggesting her husband would divorce her.
"They wanted to ruin my reputation. Slowly my husband started to know what had happened. Four months later, we started a case. My family heard about the case. My brother hit me and tried to kill me."
Unbelievable! Then again N.0.W probably feels the same way The State Department feels about these issues. They are just "cultural" misunderstandings.
In the U.S., a spokeswoman for the National Organization for Women said the situation “is definitely on the radar, and N.O.W. is not ignoring it.”
But she added that the U.S.-based organization is “not putting out a statement or taking a position.”
Radio personality Tammy Bruce, former president of the Los Angles chapter of the National Organization for Women and past member of their board of directors, criticized the organization for not taking a stand.
“We have a duty to make a difference for women around the world,” Bruce told FOX News. “The supposed feminist establishment is refusing to take a position in this regard because they have no sensibility of what is right anymore. They’re afraid of offending people. They are bound by political correctness.”
“The American feminist movement has not taken one stand to support the women of Iraq, the women of Afghanistan, the women of Iran,” she said. “It is the United States Marines who have been doing the feminist work by liberating women and children around the world.”
A Syriac Christian priest has been kidnapped in southeast Turkey and police have launched an operation to secure his release, security officials said on Wednesday.
They said the priest, 55-year-old Daniel Savci, was from the Mor Yakup monastery near the town of Midyat and was kidnapped on Wednesday.
An official at the monastery said an unknown person had called the monastery and said they sought a ransom for the priest's release. CNN Turk television said the assailants had ambushed the priest in his car as he travelled to the Mor Yakup church.
Most of Turkey's 75 million people are Muslim and it has barely 100,000 Christians, mostly of Greek and Armenian origin. The community has been the target of attacks in the last two years.
Three Christians, two Turks and a German, had their throats slit by youths who burst into their Bible publishing house in the southeastern town of Malatya in April.
Turkish Armenian writer Hrant Dink was murdered in Istanbul in January by a young nationalist gunman and an Italian Catholic priest was killed in his church by a youth in Trabzon in 2006.
Muslims in East Oxford are asking Oxford city councillors if they can add to the noise of life on Cowley Road by broadcasting a call to prayer.o The Central Mosque in Manzil Way, one of four East Oxford mosques, attracts congregations of up to 700.
Now, the Iman at the mosque, Mohammad Munir Christi, and other trustees, want permission to broadcast the call to prayer from the minaret.
The mosque has expanded since moving from Bath Road five years ago and building work has recently started on the first-floor worship area with the completion of the central cupola.
Sardar Rana, 68, a spokesman for the Central Mosque, said the call would be broadcast three times a day from early next year if permission is granted.
He said: "The call to prayer has been taking place in other major cities now for many years and we would like to be able to do the same thing at the central mosque three times a day.
"During the winter months the call to prayer would be at 12.45pm, 2.30pm and at 4.20pm, although the times would be slightly different during the summer months. advertisement
"The call to prayer would be made in the central hall and then linked to three speakers in the minaret, which would point in different directions.
"I hope the majority of people would not object to this - I don't think it would disturb anybody, but I don't know yet how loud we would be able to broadcast the call."
There are normally five prayer times during the day, starting at 6.45am and the call to prayer lasts about two minutes each time, said Mr Rana.
The bid has been backed by Canon David Partridge, a retired Anglican priest and Interfaith worker in Oxford.
He said: "In the City of Dreaming Spires, many calls to prayer are heard from its bell-ringing towers, but all of them are Christian in historical origin and intent."
Erica Bingley, 26, of Southfield Road, who can see the mosque from her road, said: "I think the call to prayer would add to the cosmopolitan ambience of Cowley Road."
The application is likely to be discussed by the East Area Parliament in the near future because the move would require a change in a planning condition.
Jan Bartlett, who owns Premier Lettings, in Manzil Way, said: "It's absolutely fine with me, whatever each person's religion needs we should try to assist.
"They have to put up with our church bells ringing."
One day after talks of peace between Israel and Palestine. A map that erases Israel all together Airs on Palestinian Tv.
Just a day after Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the Annapolis peace conference pledged to negotiate a peace treaty by the end of 2008, Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority continues to paint a picture for its people of a world without Israel.
An information clip produced by the Palestinian Authority Central Bureau of Statistics and rebroadcast today on Abbas-controlled Palestinian television, shows a map in which Israel is painted in the colors of the Palestinian flag, symbolizing Israel turned into a Palestinian state. The description of all of the state of Israel as "Palestine" is not coincidental, and is part of a formal, systematic educational approach throughout the Palestinian Authority. This uniform message of a world without Israel is repeated in school books, children's programs, crossword puzzles, video clips, formal symbols, school and street names, etc. The picture painted for the Palestinian population, both verbally and visually, is of a world without Israel. The fact that this campaign continues before the ink on the Annapolis agreement is even dry appears to contradict the central promise of the Palestinians at the Annapolis conference: that Israel has a right to exist.
I posted briefly about this story here. This story has been all the buzz in the blogosphere. Today the woman was officially charged with insulting Islam due to naming a bear Mohammed in a class she teaches. One of her students said that she was just naming the bear after him. But that doesnt mean a thing to the Islamist. For more on this check out these post: Jawa Report: Mohammed-Teddy-Bear-Gate: Day 3
BERLIN (AFP)--Germany fears an Islamist group that claimed it was trying to bomb U.S. interests in the country in September is hatching a new plot, Deputy Interior Minister August Hanning said Wednesday.
The Islamic Jihad Union, a group with roots in Uzbekistan and links to Al- Qaida, said that three men arrested in Germany in September had been ordered to attack the U.S. military airbase in Ramstein and U.S. and Uzbek consulates in Germany.
Large quantities of a chemical that can be used to make bombs were found at the house where the men were seized.
Hanning told AFP on the sidelines of a security conference in Berlin that the group claimed it would try again.
"We received a message on the Internet in early September from the Islamic Jihad Union saying 'We missed our target this time, but our brothers are going to try again'," Hanning said.
"We are trying to find out who is in Pakistan at the moment and who is being trained in camps to then return to Germany and carry out attacks," he said.
Hanning, a former head of the German foreign intelligence service, admitted that German authorities did not know for sure if there was a sleeper cell of the Islamic Jihad Union operating in Germany.
He said however that Germany "had the impression" that a new plot was being hatched "in Pakistan, by the same group linked to Al-Qaida."
A fourth suspect in the alleged plot in September was arrested in Turkey this month on an international arrest warrant.
NARATHIWAT,Thailand - A Muslim military informant was shot and crucified, while two Buddhist men were beheaded Wednesday by suspected Islamic separatists in Thailand’s restive south, police said.
The Muslim man, a 58-year-old who belonged to a government-backed militia, was shot and then stabbed so badly that he was nearly decapitated, police Lieutenant Khanchitthol Kreunor told AFP.
Suspected rebels then drove six-inch nails through his head, arms and legs to attach him to two pieces of wood, which were laid out like a cross in the middle of a road in Rueso district of Narathiwat province, near the southern border with Malaysia, he said.
Khanchitthol said police found a note written in Thai and left near the cross, reading: ‘This is what the infidels deserve. The soldier dogs must meet this end.’
‘The victim was attacked and killed in such a grisly way because they knew he was a military informant. This is to terrify the people,’ Khanchitthol said.
About two hours later, two Buddhist fishmongers aged 20 and 61 were shot and then beheaded in another district of Narathiwat, police said.
The killings came after a month of spiralling violence in the region, which has seen more than 2,700 killed since separatist unrest erupted four years ago.
Thailand’s southernmost provinces were an ethnic Malay sultanate until the Buddhist kingdom annexed it a century ago, provoking decades of tension.
Dutch member of parliament Geert Wilders is working on a provocative tv movie on the Koran. It is Mr Wilders' next step in his fight in what he sees as deadly islam. He recently pleaded for a ban on the Koran, which he calls fascist. Wilders compared the book to Hitler's Mein Kampf. The politician says his film shows similarities with Submission, a film made in 2004 by Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Reaction The Dutch cabinet is worried about Mr Wilders' plans. Both the Interior and the Justice Ministries have alerted Wilders to the risks he is taking with his film project. The Justice Ministry says it has taken measures in case there should be international uproar after the movie appears. The ministry emphasizes that Mr Wilders is free to express his opinion.
It is not the first time that Mr Wilders is alerted to the dangers that his statements contain. The National Co-ordinator for the Prevention of Terrorism, Tjibbe Joustra, warned the MP in September that his utterances are conducive to radicalisation. Radical statements, says Mr Joustra, could be the final push for people who are harbouring violent plans. The Head of the Dutch security services, Sybrand van Hulst, is playing down Joustra's words in today's de Volkskrant daily. He says the Netherlands are getting used to the tone of voice practised by the likes of Wilders.
Apparently the Dutch Parliament is worried the religion of peace may not be so peaceful about this film.
THE HAGUE – The cabinet is concerned about the reaction to a provocative television film on the Koran that Geert Wilders is working on. The ministers of justice and home affairs have reportedly pointed out the risks of the film project to the Freedom Party PVV leader during a talk.
"Measures have been taken in the event that a heated discussion follows on the film here and abroad," a spokesperson for Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin said on Wednesday in response to reports in the Telegraaf.
Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin stressed on Wednesday that Wilders is free to express his views, but that people also have a responsibility to society as a whole. "Think about the repercussions," is what he told the MP.
Controversy continues to brew over a speaker scheduled to visit UW-Milwaukee, as the university demands more money to protect him.
Walid Shoebat, a former Islamic Terrorist who wrote a book called "Why I Left Jihad," is scheduled to speak next week. Shoebat has now publicly disdained Islam.
A student group called the Conservative Union is hosting the event, but the president of that group tells the Journal Sentinel that the school has imposed an extra $2,500 fee for security.
The Conservative Union believes officials are trying to get in the way of allowing Shoebat to speak. UWM acknowledges the fee is high. but says it's necessary for this type of speaker.
The Muslim Student Association at UWM says it wouldn't mind if the event was canceled. President Mohamed Elsayed says Shoebat promotes hate speech.
"There's a difference between freedom of speech and hate speech," said Elsayed.
"We're very tolerant of every religion. If you don't believe in our religion, that's fine, but why go on and spread hate about another religion?"
A member of the Muslim Student Association had said they were planning a large protest during the speech, but Elsayed says that's not going to happen.
KHAR, Pakistan (AFP) — Pro-Taliban militants in a Pakistani tribal district have warned residents not to put musical ring tones or pictures in their mobile phones, witnesses said Wednesday.
A pamphlet distributed in Khar, the main town of Bajaur district bordering Afghanistan, also told people not to shave their beards, listen to music or smoke cigarettes and hashish.
Islamic militancy is spreading in conservative northwest Pakistan, where militants -- emulating the ultra-orthodox Taliban who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 -- are trying to impose their own strict brand of Islam.
Bajaur is one of seven semi-autonomous tribal regions in the area. In the past militants have blown up music shops and hair salons and plucked stereos from vehicles.
The pamphlet, handwritten in Pashto language, also forbade tribesmen from leaving their homes without caps or to carry weapons without permission from the militants.
Bajaur is a known Al-Qaeda and Taliban hideout. Many tribesmen sympathise with militants across the border in Afghanistan and are pushing for a Taliban-style system of governance in the rugged region.
A nine year old girl who came for Arabic and Islam lessons ended up being abused by the teacher. The sexual attacks took place at the Muslim society at Sørlandet for several months before last Christmas, writes Fædrelandsvennen newspaper online.
The court at Kristiansand sentenced the man to an unconditional prison sentence of 2.5 years for raping the 9 year old and sexually attacking both her and her younger sister (7).
The suspect claimed that the children were used as a tool to compromise him and that the reports of an attack were an act of vengeance from the parent's side.
A Protestant church in the Indonesian province of West Java has been destroyed by a group of 250 “radical Muslims” according to Open Doors.
The Muslims from the “Anti Apostasy Movement Alliance” (AAMA) entered the Pasundan Christian Church in the South Bandung area of West Java by force.
Although no one was in the church at the time the husband and children of Pastor Cristine Yohanes were forced to hide nearby, according to Open Doors.
The militants held an Islamic prayer service in the church before proceeding "to destroy the interior with sticks and knifes", said Pastor Timorason, leader of the West Java branch of Christian Communication Forum, which is an umbrella group of Indonesian churches, reports BosNewsLife.
The attack destroyed the sound installation, glass works and chairs. The church has been attacked before by the AAMA, which claims to have 300 members.
In 2005, Christians were forced to close their buildings when local authorities said they did not have the proper documents to operate.
Despite the arrest of two suspects, Pastor Timorason has said that the police are reluctant to act against the militants.
He said, "We urge the government to take this case seriously because we have heard that a dozen other churches have been nominated [by extremists] for attacks in the coming weeks," according to BosNewsLife.
Over 100 churches have been closed in West Java in recent years due to concerns that radical Islam has been on the increase. According to Open Doors 2007 alone 25 Christian places of worship were forced to close, attacked or destroyed by militants. The perpetrators of the attacks are usually not apprehended by the authorities.
A Murcia company has introduced the Islamic veil as part of their work uniform. It means that from January the 850 workers at Agromediterránea S.C.L. can wear a plain white veil if they so want.
The preserves company employs as many as 150 Muslim workers, and it’s thought to be the first case of its type where a Murcia company has changed uniform regulations to accommodate the religious customs of their workers.
20 minutos reports that the initiative comes at the women’s request.
GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A former security guard at Andrews Air Force Base who failed to put his Muslim name on a job application was trying to conceal his ties to a controversial Washington imam, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
U.S. District Court jurors began hearing the case against Darrick Michael Jackson, who failed to list "Abdul-Jalil Mohammed" as an alias on an application for a job at the suburban Washington base, home to Air Force One.
Jackson's attorney, David Chamble, said that Jackson used the Mohammed name only while at mosque or with Muslim friends, and that he didn't consider it a true alias that he needed to disclose. Chamble called it "an innocent omission" and excoriated the government for pursing criminal charges against Jackson.
Jackson is charged with making a false statement and could face five years in prison if convicted.
He already was a security guard at Andrews when he reapplied in 2005 after the contract for security at the base changed. He had to fill out a federal form, which asked whether he had any aliases.
At the time, he was affiliated with the Masjid Al-Islam mosque in southeast Washington, which is led by a fiery imam named Abdul Alim Musa. Musa is not on trial in the case, but prosecutors said Jackson tried to hide his ties to Musa and the mosque to avoid an investigation that might have led to the denial of his application.
Federal prosecutor David Salem told jurors, without elaborating, that Musa "has made some inflammatory statements about the United States." He told jurors the government was not pursuing the case because of Jackson's religion.
Musa, who was not at the trial, did not immediately return a phone call left Tuesday at the Masjid Al-Islam mosque seeking comment. Some of his public comments have included praise for Palestinian suicide bombers and a paraphrasing of the former 1960s Black Panther H. Rap Brown, now known as Jamil Al-Amin, saying, "We're going to burn America down."
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A judge on Tuesday sentenced a Somali immigrant to 10 years in prison for plotting to blow up an Ohio shopping mall with a man later convicted of being an al-Qaida terrorist.
Nuradin Abdi, a cell phone salesman before his arrest, will be deported to Somalia after serving the sentence. U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley imposed the sentence as part of a plea deal Abdi agreed to in July.
In a 20-minute statement to the court, Abdi's attorney Mahir Sherif said his client apologized to the people of the United States, the people of Ohio and the Muslim community.
''He apologizes for the things he thought about and the things he talked about and the crimes he pleaded guilty to,'' Sherif said. ''He wants to make it very, very clear that he does not hate America.''
The alleged plot was never carried out and Sherif long maintained Abdi was guilty at most of ranting about the United States' handling of the war in Afghanistan.
Abdi pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide material support for terrorists. Three charges were dropped as part of his plea deal; Abdi could have received 80 years in prison had he been convicted of all the counts he had faced.
Prosecutors said Abdi made threatening comments about the unspecified shopping mall during a meeting with two other alleged terrorists on Aug. 8, 2002, at a coffee shop in suburban Columbus.
Abdi and the two ''could attack the mall with a bomb,'' Abdi told his friends as they sipped $11.25 in refreshments at the coffee shop, according to court documents.
One of the men with Abdi that day was Iyman Faris, who pleaded guilty in May 2003 to providing material support for terrorism. A Pakistani immigrant, Faris was convicted of plotting to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The third man alleged to be at the meeting is Christopher Paul, a U.S. citizen who grew up in suburban Columbus. He was charged in April with plotting to bomb European tourist resorts frequented by Americans as well as overseas U.S. military bases, and his trial is scheduled for January 2009.
Abdi was arrested in November 2003. His attorneys have said he was upset at the war in Afghanistan and reports of civilians killed in bombings by the U.S.-led invasion.
Prosecutors also say Abdi gave stolen credit card numbers to a man accused of buying gear for al-Qaida, and lied on immigration documents to visit a jihadist training camp.
Abdi's attorneys have said that the stolen credit card numbers were never used and that the Justice Department never alleged what organization they believed was running the camp, what Abdi intended to do with the training, or whether he ever actually went.
The decision to yank a teen soccer player from a match because she was wearing a religious head scarf has outraged a local Muslim leader.
Syed Soharwardy, president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, said Safaa Menhem should be permitted on the field wearing a hijab.
"I don't buy it because a person could also pull a shirt and choke a person. This is not a safety issue. It is just a racist and discriminatory decision against Muslims," Soharwardy said.
"Her rights should be respected -- this is her free choice."
On Saturday, a senior referee pulled Safaa, 14, a forward on the Chinook Phantoms U16 squad, from a soccer match because he believed the chin strap on her hijab posed a choking risk, said Gary Roy, referee development officer for the Alberta Soccer Association.
Roy said the ref was simply following the rules.
"I can 100% guarantee this is not a religious issue, it's a safety issue," he said.
"The options are: Conform the head gear so it becomes safe; remove it and play; or don't play."
Dozens of youths clashed with police and set fire to buildings in a Paris suburb on Sunday after two teenagers were killed in a crash with a police car.
At least 40 French police were hurt late on Monday in running battles with scores of rioters in a suburb north of Paris where two youths died after a crash involving a police car.
During a second night of disturbances in Villiers-le-Bel and nearby areas, a local government official said one policeman was shot in the shoulder by some kind of firearm but was only slightly wounded.
Youths rampaged for a third night in the tough suburbs north of Paris and violence spread to a southern city late Tuesday as police struggled to contain rioters who have burned cars and buildings and — in an ominous turn — shot at officers.
A senior police union official warned that “urban guerrillas” had joined the unrest, saying the violence was worse than during three weeks of rioting that raged around French cities in 2005, when firearms were rarely used.
November 27, 2007 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - CAIR's world of deceit was again evident today, displayed outside the Townsend Street, San Francisco offices of AM 910 radio station, KNEW.
At the carefully prepared but poorly attended "press conference," representatives of the Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR] castigated the allegedly "hateful" comments directed against Muslims made by the nationally popular talk show host Michael Savage, but in a redux of previous encounters with the organization, Basim Elkarra, Executive Director of CAIR's Sacramento branch [pictured to the left], refused to condemn the terrorist group HAMAS, specifically and by name, when challenged to do so by by this reporter - though he was given ample opportunity.
CAIR carries some heavy baggage in this regard. Last summer, it was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation [HLF] prosecution and the founder of CAIR's Texas chapter, Ghassan Elashi, was found guilty and sentenced in the Infocom terror case. Elashi remains a key defendant in the HLF trial.
Throughout its history, the Saudi funded CAIR has refused to condemn HAMAS, giving credence to charges made by critics and borne out in government documents that it is tied to the terrorist group via a complex of associations leading back to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Forsooth received an e-mail that is the Hijaby girl's equivalent to paradise: Sabaya. Owned by the female equivelant of Ahmed El Fishawy, Hanan Turk, it's a half hairsalon/half restaurant that is just for girls, where no men are allowed to enter and no music will be played. Their promotional e-mail lists a number of perks to those who want to frequent the place:
Advantges of SABAYA café - You have the freedom of taking your veil/neqab off. 2- Meeting muslim girls who are willing to get closer to Allah. 3- Increasing your 'so7ba sale7a circle'. 4-Getting the opportuinity of being inspired by real stories by the same girls you meet. 5-You can have parties. 6-Learn how to shun sin…since You won't be exposed to songs or movies JUST CARTOONS AND RELIGIOUS SHOWS. 7- Get to meet Hanan Turk. heheheheheheheheheheheh 8-Enjoy the feeling that you'r making everything which is not allowed outdoors and Allah won't be mad at you :D..
P.S. Attending sabaya will be very useful from both the life and religious prespective, since YOu will be helping in changing the wrong perceptions about both Neqabis/ Hegabis that were already inheritied ages ago.
Sounds great, right? Well, just one more thing:
- First please Don't invite Christian girls , because they aren't allowed to the place.. Second inform all your friends that if the number of visitors increased remarkably in the coming year..inshAllah next year they may be able to open a branch in mohandesen or down town ..We ARE IN DIRE NEED OF A PLACE THAT CONTAINS US 'NEQABIS' OR 'HEGABIS' SO PLEASE THINK BEFORE U GO ANYOTHER CAFE ;)
Yep. You read that correctly. They are barring christian girls. No Christian girls allowed in Sabaya. This has to be the first open for public place that bans people on the basis of faith, and it's seriously fucked up. I can't believe that this is happening in Egypt. I can't believe that people have gotten so fucked in the head that we now segregate based on religious beliefs. Unbelieveable.
I am just wondering how they will enforce their no Christian girls allowed policy. What are they gonna do? Put a "No Christians allowed" sign on the door? Card people on the door and check out their religious identity on their ID's? What if a Christian girl sneaks in? Are they gonna grab her and throw her out? Is this even legal?
Well, here is their number and address:
Address: 6 Meet 3'amr street . . Midan Safir . . Masr El Gedida. if u know the street that has Cook Door / McDonald's / Oriflame /Smiley's ) . . it's behind McDonald's . . when u see McD . . go right. . then left . . Sabaya will be on ur left . . isA
Tel: 2240 2223 - 2240 2229
So, if you are an egyptian with any sense of decency, you should call them and give them a piece of your mind. And if you are a member of the MB- and god knows they have been coming more often to this blog- well, this is the kind of place that is the inevtiable conclusion of your group's policies and ideology. This is what you are advocating. This is the Egypt that you want. Another version of Saudi. Well, assholes, it's not gonna happen. Take a good look, because this is the closest that you will ever gonna get to it.
This is the 21st century assholes, not the 10th, try to catch up!
Update: I was so incensed that I got this christian co-worker of mine- let's call her S- call them to see if they are for real. The first number didn't work, the second one did. Here is the transcript of the conversation:
S: Salamo 3alikom, Sabaya?
Sabaya worker : we 3alikom el salam, yes?
S: I read your email, and I was just wondering, I have a Christian friend, and she’s interested in Islam, is there any way I can bring her with me?
Sabaya worker: We only permit entry to Muhajabat
S: Even in your café?
Sabaya worker: Well no in the café you can come in, but she can’t.
S: I was just hoping I can bring her with me, maybe she’ll come to her senses and god will bless her
Sabaya worker: Well we just don’t want to cause any discomfort to anyone, but god blesses us all.
S: Oh too bad, it would have been a great thawab
Sabaya worker: Ok I’ll ask Madam Hanan and can you call me back in an hour?
This is a true conversation.. and it would be funny if it wasn't so messed up!
Update: This other female friend of mine called them and asked them if it's true that Sabaya is for Hejabis and Niqabis only, and they confirmed it. When she asked them if that means no christian girls are allowed, the lady said Yes, no christians, and no girl who doesn;t have her hair coverd in general. My Friend told them that she intends to sue them, and they said to "bring it". She fully intends to.
Pro-Taliban radio preacher Maulana Fazlullah, known as the FM mullah, has incited Pakistani Islamists to the point that nine of the 12 districts of Pakistan’s Swat Valley have been taken over by Islamist militants. Sharia law has been established in these areas, television and music have been banned, women are prohibited from going to school and are required to wear veils, and men are required to grow beards.
The Pakistani military has launched an operation to reclaim the valley. Yet, even though 15,000 Pakistani troops have been deployed with numerous helicopters, tanks and armored vehicles, the area has not yet been reclaimed from the approximately 500-strong Islamist militants.
Most of the insurgents are home-grown—Pakistanis nourished by resentment for the current Pakistani government and by jihadist teachings of the FM mullah.
Earlier this summer, Islamists belonging to Lal Masjid, or the Red Mosque, led by two brothers, Maulana Abdul Aziz and Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, sought to establish a Taliban-like system of sharia law within the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s raid on the Red Mosque in July marked one of his biggest crackdowns on Islamic terror since he came to power in 1999.
Musharraf’s suppression of Islamists in Islamabad and the Swat Valley has intensified his confrontation with extremists across Pakistan. The high death toll unleashed by both these operations seems to be further turning popular support against Musharraf. Fazullah’s takeover of the Swat Valley followed, and may have been in response to, the government’s strike against the Red Mosque.
Musharraf justified his decision to declare emergency rule on November 3 by declaring that such drastic measures were necessary to halt the growing threat of Islamic extremism in Pakistan. Now, however, he seems to be backing down, under international pressure. He has scheduled parliamentary elections for January 8, and his official spokesman confirms that the president will quit the army on Wednesday (November 28). Gen. Ashfaq Kayani has been named Musharraf’s successor as army chief as soon as Musharraf quits the army and is sworn in as a civilian president.
United States President George W. Bush is optimistic about Musharraf’s steps to get Pakistan back on the path to democracy. Yet, it will be hard for Pakistan to fight Islamic terrorism when the support of the people is divided between Musharraf, opposition leaders Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, and Islamic extremist movements.
Bhutto is considering boycotting the parliamentary elections in January unless Musharraf lifts emergency rule before then. Pakistan’s Daily Times editor Najam Sethi has claimed that “Bhutto was unlikely to boycott the elections because pro-Taliban Islamic parties would probably take part. If Ms. Bhutto doesn’t contest the elections and sits with Nawaz Sharif, whereas the mullahs go ahead and participate, that could lead to a very interesting situation.”
WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- Saudi Arabia has released from jail more than 1,500 men authorities say have renounced their ideology of Taqfir, or Islamic extremism.
In an interview with al-Watan newspaper, a member of a special committee set up by the Interior Ministry to rehabilitate those jailed in Saudi Arabia's crackdown on al-Qaida and its sympathizers in the kingdom said the prisoners had undergone lengthy counseling prior to their renunciation of Taqfir, an ideology that brands as an apostate any Muslim who disagrees with their extremist interpretation of Islam.
Excerpts of the interview with Muhammad al-Nujaimi, a member of the Counseling Committee and professor of comparative jurisprudence at the King Fahd Security College, were translated Monday by the Arab News Web site.
Al-Nujaimi told the paper that the Counseling Committee was set up in 2004 by Prince Muhammad ibn Naif, assistant minister of interior for security affairs. Reports earlier this year said that the prince had personally met some of the youths being rehabilitated and was paying wedding expenses for some of the Saudis returned by the United States from detention at Guantanamo Bay.
The committee's work is jointly overseen by the ministries of the Interior and Islamic Affairs, Arab News said, and it is made up of 100 "religious scholars, preachers, specialists in religious doctrine and law, psychologists and social workers."
"The committee has met around 5,000 times to offer counseling to 3,200 people, who were accused of embracing the Taqfir ideology," al-Nujaimi told al-Watan. "The committee has successfully completed reforming 1,500 people."
He did not say what had happened to the other 1,700 prisoners.
He told the paper the prisoners had been confused about the meaning of jihad, which they had interpreted as justifying violence against apostates and infidels, including "Muslim rulers, scholars and public."
"After several graded sessions with the committee, and having been convinced of their misguided vision, they renounced their erroneous ideologies, including the concept of driving out all infidels from the Arabian Peninsula," he said.
