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March 31, 2006

Germany: Muslim School Pupils Create Havoc In Neukoelln, Berlin

A report from Expatica states that a school in the neighbourhood of Neukeolln in Berlin has deteriorated as a result of unruly pupils that police have been seconded to the school, to check the students for weapons.

The school in question is the Ruetli secondary school, which is dominated by Arab and Turkish youths. This week, the teachers published a letter which indicated that the conditions at the school have become so bad that the school should be closed.

The letter claimed that teachers had no authority any more, and refused to enter any classrooms without carrying a cellular phone, so they can call for help, should an emergency arise.

"The mood ... is dominated by aggression, lack of respect and ignorance. We have reached a dead end and there is no way to turn around," the letter stated.

Yesterday, reporters visited the school and were pelted with paving stones, hurled by youths in the schoolyard, wearing face-coverings. The district's mayor stood by, unable to do anything to establish order.

The Berliner Kurier newspaper stated: "While sheer chaos dominated behind him, the mayor talked about the failures of the 1968 generation."

The teachers say that of the 224 children attending the school, 83% are foreign, with 35% Arab, from Lebanon and "Palestine", and 26% Turkish children.

The Deutsche Presse-Agentur quoted an educationalist, who said that Arab male students refuse to accept the authority of women teachers.

There are three classes of secondary schools in Germany. These are the Gymnasium, where students are expected to go on to university. The next class of school is the Realschule, which specialises in training youth for the business professions, and then there is the Hauptschule, of which Ruetli School is an example. The Hauptschule is for children expected to fulfill the role of blue-collar workers, or to supplementl the ranks of the unemployed.

Peter Struck, an education specialist at the University of Hamburg, explained in a radio interview: "It is often Hauptschulen which are hit with difficulties because they have a concentration of problem students and high number of foreigners which means that the boys are often being raised in a home environment which glorifies violence."

Integration between children of immigrants is poor. Even second and third generation offspring of immigrants often do not speak fluent German, and many fail to complete their education. The problem is compounded by "white flight", where Germans of German ancestry have been in a state of constant migration out of areas such as Neukoelln.

Klaus Boeger, Germany's education minister, rejected suggestions that the Reutli School should be closed. Boeger has promised that the school will soon have two social workers and two psychologists to assist the pupils.

Now police are posted at the school, to present some semblance of order. Six officers are stationed at the school, to check the incoming students for weapons.

The problems of the neighbourhood have been compounded by the murder of 42-year old German police officer Uwe Lieschied, who was shot in the head at point blank range while trying to arrest two men involved in a street robbery. Two Turkish males have been arrested since, and one of them has confessed to the shooting. Today, the police officer, who died after a period of being in a coma, was buried.

According to the BBC, a teacher who left the Ruetli School told the Tagesspiegel newspaper that the majority ethnic Arab pupils were bullying the Turks, Germans and other minorities.

One student told N24 Television that pupils were coming to school fully armed. "Things have been getting worse and worse because people seem to be crazy here. They are bringing knives and weapons to school," he said.

According to one contributor on FFI's message board, the school had formerly been an institution to which parents would have been proud to send their children.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 5:27 PM | Comments (1)

Indonesia: Muslims Criticise Tony Blair's Policies

We wrote earlier that Tony Blair was going to have a brief visit to Indonesia, the first visit by a British premier to the nation since Margaret Thatcher met with the dictator Suharto in 1985.

The visit has now come to a close, and Blair should now have returned to British soil. But, according to the Independent, the China People's Daily, the Khaleej Times and the UK Times, Tony Blair was given a rough time by both Muslim leaders and Muslim students.

On Thursday morning, at the palace of the Indonesian President, Blair met Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the president, and also five other Muslim leaders. Here, he also met with leaders of five Muslim organisations. These included Hasyim Muzadi, who is head of the Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia's largest Muslim organisation, which has 40 million members. He also saw Din Syamsuddin, chairman of the second largest group, the Muhammadiyah, which has 30 million members.

President Yudhoyono said later of his meeting: "We agreed to increase the efficiency in our efforts in fighting transnational crimes like terrorism." Blair spoke to him about the two nations working closely on methods of combatting international terrorism. Neither leader elucidated further on the nature of this future cooperation.

According to Din Syamsuddin, the meeting with the Muslim leaders was not so cordial. He said that the leaders had urged Blair to withdraw troops from Iraq and also to talk to the recently-elected Palestinian terrorist organisation, Hamas.

"He didn't respond specifically to our requests, but hopefully tonight he will wake up and realise our suggestions make good sense", Din Syamsuddin said.

"To us, the dialogue was positive. Different opinions must be settled through dialogue", DIn said.

After the visit to the Presidential Palace, Blair was then taken to the Pondok Pesantren Darunnajah, a Muslim boarding school which is, bizarrely, twinned with the Holy Family School in Keighley, West Yorkshire (constituency of Ann Cryer).

When he arrived, he was applauded by pupils, and entertained with displays of martial arts and dancing. He also heard the girls' school band singing John Lennon's Imagine, whose lyrics begin: "Imagine there's no heaven, no religion too..."

It was after this, when Blair engaged in a question and answer session that Blair received a tough grilling from the students.

The teenage students, addressing Blair as "his excelency" questioned him about their "brothers and sisters" in Palestine and Iraq.

The first question involved interrogating Blair about the case of the schoolgirl from Luton, Shabina Begum, who last week lost her fight to wear a head-to-toe garment, a jilbab while she had been a pupil at Denbigh High School. Begum had violated the school's dress code, and last March had won a ruling against her school. The recent case involving the girl, who is supported by Hizb ut-Tahrir, of which her brother is a member, was taken to the House of Lords. The lawyer for the girl, ironically, had been Cherie Booth Blair QC, Blair's wife. On March 22 the House of Lords ruled that the school had been within its rights to demand strict following of its uniform code, and Begum lost. Begum's parents are dead, and her Islamist brother has tried to make political capital out of the case. A further irony is that Blair is trying to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain.

Confronted with a question about this case, Blair replied: "We leave it up to the individual school. Some schools permit it, some do not, but we let the final decision be with the school. There are different views in my country about this."

Another student asked if Blair would be persuading his "best friend" George W Bush to end the "war" in Iraq. Blair relied on his usual defence of describing the situation under Saddam. Another student asked how he would feel if he had been an Iraqi civilian whose relatives had been killed in the conflict. Blair spoke of how people in Iraq and Afghanistan now had the ability to vote, and spoke of how the students had a view on America which he did not share.

Echoing the points raised by the five Muslim leaders in the morning, students questioned him about the Palestine issue and spoke of ending the war against their "brothers and sisters" on the Palestinian side.

Blair answered: "I agree with you. There’s no more important issue than to bring peace between Israel and Palestine. This has been difficult but I will try to do my best to ensure we can bring peace there."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 3:20 PM | Comments (0)

Saudi Arabia: 40 Islamists Arrested In Raids

News from AKI and Dawn reports that over the past week, about 40 Islamists, suspected members of al-Qaeda, have been arrested in a series of raids by Saudi Arabia's security forces.

The news came on Wednesday, announced by a spokesman from the Saudi interior ministry. Eight of these were involved with the planning of the attack on the Abqaiq (Buqaiq) oil refinery on February 24 this year. "The security forces have arrested eight people who are directly linked to that cell (Abqaiq)," the interior ministry satement said, but no names of those arrested have been revealed to the press.

The spokesman said that during simultaneous raids across the kingdom, a substantial cache of arms and explosives have been recovered. These included more than 100 grenades and dozens of assault rifles.

According to the statement: "Some of them were related to publishing the terrorists’ ideas on the internet ... others were providing assistance, hideouts and financing the terrorists." AKI states that 19 individuals were arrested for, according to the statement: "adopting the perverted ideology and spreading it through the Internet plus executing criminal acts along with providing financial support for those activities."

Along with the arms and explosives, documents and electronic devices were taken. At al-Abqaiq, 13 suspects were rounded up. In one location here, 99 Russian-made grenades were found, with 22 tear gas grenades, 18 Kalashnikovs, four flares, 131 machine-gun magazines, two hunting rifles and a metal detector.

The revelation came at the same time as news that a planned second attack upon the Abqaiq refinery had been foiled by Saudi security forces.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 2:42 PM | Comments (0)

UK: Muslims Insult Condoleeza Rice On Blackburn Visit

We mentioned earlier that the US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, was due to visit Blackburn in Lancashire today. The visit has gone ahead, but has been marred by disgraceful displays by Muslims and anti-war protesters.

She had been invited to Blackburn by Jack Straw, Britain's foreign secretary and member of parliament for the town. She visited Pleckgate school, but did not enter through the front door, because a large crowd of Muslims, adults and children, with some Anti-War protesters were shouting abuse and holding placards. She entered via a side door.

These displays have been deliberately manipulated by local Muslims to give themselves maximum media coverage. On BBC and ITV broadcast news, it was strange to hear Muslims, not one of whom spoke with an English accent, saying that this prestigious figure was not welcome in "their" town. One individual claimed she should be extradited to Iraq to be tried for murder.

The manipulation strategies began before the visit. According to The Scotsman, the Guardian, and Channel News Asia, she was originally invited to attend a mosque in the town, the Masjide Al-Hidayah. The invitation had been officially suggested by Jack Straw's office. However, the mosque withdrew its invite at the eleventh hour, because local Muslims were threatening to disrupt the visit.

Threats included Muslims saying they would arrive early and "invade" the mosque and mount protests from within the building. One of the mosque's governing committee members, Ibrahim Master, said: "The visit wasn't cancelled because we don't like Condoleeza Rice. What these people had threatened to do was invade the mosque during dawn prayers. It would have compromised the safety of the visiting dignitaries."

He said that he had no right to prevent any Muslim from entering the mosque.

The visit to Pleckgate school had protests which began yesterday, with 40 people camped outside the building. Hanif Dudhwala, a parent, and one of those who tried to sabotage the visit to the school, said: "We decided we should see the headteacher [Robin Campbell] and ask him to cancel the visit because we were not happy that we were not consulted at the outset."

The man who has campaigned the hardest to disrupt today's events is Saeed Ahmed, a so-called Muslim "leader". According to the Lancashire Evening Post, Ahmed led the campaigning to ban Ms Rice from entering any mosque in the town.

Ahmed (pictured above right) is imam at the Jamia mosque on Clarendon Street in the town. His insults to Ms Rice included calling her a terrorist. He appeared on ITV television news, calling for her to be extradited to Iraq. He has said that she has "blood on her hands", and has said that she is not welcome in the city.

Ironically, if British people like myself said that he and his supporters are not welcome in my country and should go home to their countries of birth, I would probably be tried for inciting racial hatred. But for Muslims, it seems, they can act in whatever way they see fit, and in Britain's pathetically PC climate, they are rarely censured.

Ahmed said to the Evening Post: "Letting Ms Rice inside one of our mosques is like allowing Ariel Sharon inside or a terrorist. We don't think it is right that a woman with thousands of people's blood on her hands should visit our mosques and have her picture taken. We have held meetings and this is the majority view of Muslim leaders here."

Poor Condoleeza Rice spoke diplomatically about the protests, and is now in Liverpool, where more Muslims and anti-war protesters are already preparing a disgusting display of ungraciousness to a leading figure on the world stage who has been invited. This is no way to treat distinguished guests.

Our unwelcome guests, our recently-arrived Muslims who refuse to let their children marry British people and prefer to import spouses via arranged marriages should realise that displays of this nature only fuel the collective hatred against them.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 1:05 PM | Comments (0)

Cloud-Cuckoo Land: Jill Carroll Praises her Kidnappers

Consider this scenario: you are a young woman about to travel, and you take a cab to the Airport. For whatever reason, the cab driver gets mad at you, and calls you a bitch. He does not, however, point a gun at your head, kidnap you, or make you star in hostage videos. Still, would you thank the driver after-the-fact for his hospitality?

I'd think not, unless you are Jill Carroll: Freed U.S. journalist says she was treated well

American Jill Carroll, who was kidnapped in Iraq three months ago, was set free Thursday. She said she had been treated well by her captors.

Carroll, a freelance journalist for The Christian Science Monitor, was reportedly dropped off at the offices of the Iraqi Islamic Party and then turned over to American officials.

In an interview with Baghdad television shortly after her release, Carroll said she didn't know why she had been kidnapped.

"They treated me well. They didn't hit me or threaten me," Carroll, wearing a headscarf, told Baghdad Television in English.

Wait a minute, if she wasn't threatened, how come she said those horrible things about America in the hostage videos? Did she actually mean it? Jill Carrroll will have to answer some tough questions on the days ahead.

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 8:40 AM | Comments (0)

Albania: Muslims Oppose Plans for Mother Teresa Statue

Although we have covered this story alreaday, I have a few words to say. First of all, the Benet Koleka article calls Albanian Mulsims 'Liberal'. They have no basis to make that assessment, other than the wish it were true. Actions, such as this one, speak louder than foolish wishes: Albanian Muslims object to city's statue of Mother Teresa

Shkoder, Albania, March 29 (Reuters) - Muslims in Albania's northern city of Shkoder are opposing plans to erect a statue to Mother Teresa, the ethnic Albanian Catholic nun in line for elevation to sainthood by the Vatican.

The dispute is unusual for Albania, where religion was banned for 27 years under the regime of dictator Enver Hoxha and where religious harmony and mixed marriages are the norm.

Seventy percent of the population are liberal Muslims, the rest are Christian Orthodox and Catholic.[...]

Proof? Who needs proof when you spout the leftist Party line?

[..]Shkoder's Muslims recently protested against crosses being erected on prominent hilltops.

"These acts jeopardise tolerance. Frankly, we're trying hard to maintain religious harmony," said deputy mufti Arben Halluni.[...]

And that's the heart of the matter: do we have to, in the name of tolerance, bow down to Muslim intolerance? On that question the future of our civilization might be decided.

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 8:20 AM | Comments (0)

Opinion: Islam, Apostasy and the Human Right to Freedom of Conscience

Guest writer Paolo Bassi reflects on the Abdul Rahman case:

The decision to change one's faith is rarely ever done on a whim. Conversion almost always results from some life altering personal experience that leaves the individual changed forever. History's seismic religious movements were triggered by such individuals and groups questioning established beliefs – often placing themselves in great danger. Six hundred years before Christ, Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) challenged orthodox Brahmanism in India to give the world the serenity of Buddhism. Two thousand years later, in 16th Century Northern India, the Sikh socio-political movement arose to challenge both the stranglehold of the Brahmanical caste system and the religious apartheid system imposed by India's then Islamic rulers. Considering the immense psychological pressure from Hinduism to absorb Sikhism and the intimidation and violence inflicted on Sikhs by Muslim rulers in the 1700s, it is a miracle these people survived. Around the same time in Europe, the "heretical" Martin Luther was challenging the Vatican's 1500 year reign. The Reformation Luther started permanently altered the nature of European Christianity and freedom.

While the 1789 French Revolution deprived the established Catholic Church of its traditional power, it simultaneously enshrined into law the individual's religious freedom to enter or leave a faith. This freedom of conscience, in subsequent centuries, became fully protected by the secular law of pluralistic democracies throughout Europe, America and elsewhere, such as modern India. However, there has never been any such an affirmation of human rights in the Islamic world, and so the right to choose one's religion - a fundamental human right according to the United Nations - is unknown in the Muslim world. The reason is simple. The Koran and Islamic law expressly reject the idea that other faiths are worthy of equal respect. According to the Koran, non-Muslims are to be converted, slain or reduced to second class status or "dhimmitude". Such totalitarian ideas cannot be conveniently ascribed to Islamic radicalism - they come from Islam's basic texts and historic practices. The religious duty to crush other faiths, is at the heart of Islam. For those who doubt this, one need only study the history of how today's Islamic countries, such as Iran, became Islamic in the first place.

In the early 1990s, while working with refugees in Pakistan, Abdul Rahman, an Afghani Muslim, secretly converted to Christianity. In converting, Rahman did nothing different from Mohammad himself 1,400 years earlier, who in starting Islam, had also broken with his own Meccan pagan cult. Yet while Mohammad is revered, Islamic law regards Rahman as a traitor and an apostate, who must be killed for leaving Islam. Since the only way for a Muslim to leave Islam is by death, Islam, in this regard at least, shares the same fundamentalist belief of Brahmanical Hinduism, in which the only escape from one's birth caste is at death.

Although Afghanistan has adopted a new post-Taleban constitution, that sounds secular, it remains subservient to and based upon Islamic (Sharia) law. This arrangement is disturbingly contradictory, since Islamic law by its very nature seeks power and thus is diametrically opposed to secularism and religious equality. Bolstered by this confusing duality, an Afghani Islamic court took jurisdiction over Rahman's case and threatened to execute him for apostasy unless he returned to Islam. Sharia law – regarded as divine since it is based on the Koran and Mohammad's words and deeds – demands death for any Muslim who leaves Islam. Rahman knew this when he converted to Christianity. Since the issues and law are clear for once, the case raises critical human rights issues for Muslims and the West which need honest examination, unhindered by political correctness or expediency.

The Islamic demand that Muslim apostates be killed raises a glaring contradiction between the rights that Islam reserves for itself and those it denies to other faiths. From its beginnings, Islam established itself as a world force by converting others, whether by force or persuasion. The right to convert others is taken directly from the Koran, which exhorts Muslims to fight non-Muslims until Islam is supreme (Surah 2:193 and 9:33). Those who did not convert could stay alive provided they agreed to live as "dhimmi" or second class citizens, with severe restrictions and upon payment of special taxes. Those who could no longer take the humiliation or pay the taxes, often accepted Islam - proof enough for Islam of its power. Islam also made it quite clear that any non-Muslim daring to try to convert Muslims, was to be killed. In Saudi Arabia, to this day, new converts are publicly feted and financially rewarded to show the power of Islam. In the west, especially Europe, Islam actively seeks converts among non-Muslims - this is part of the reason for Islam's claim of being the fastest growing faith in the West. Two of its more infamous converts being Richard Reid, of shoe-bomber fame (recruited while in prison) and John Walker Lindh who was converted through a local mosque in California.

Since Islam demands that a Muslim who leaves Islam be killed, it should, for example, willingly accept the British Government punishing, even murdering, its Christian citizens who embrace Islam. Since nothing as fascistic as this is likely, Islam will continue to use the religious freedom of the West to expand while silencing its own dissenters. However, if Islam is to be morally consistent and in compliance with international norms, it must respect the rights of those Muslims, who choose to leave it and also allow other faiths to actively reach out to Muslims. If Islam cannot do this, it must stop, or be stopped from, converting others. There is no moral legitimacy in Islam's position in demanding rights for itself that it denies to other religions.

The Rahman case also raises a theological problem for Islam. If Sharia law (which demands the death of apostates) is Allah's divine will and if Allah is all powerful, without's whose will nothing occurs, then the very existence of an infidel, or an ex-Muslim, is also Allah's will. Therefore, logically, it seems that either Islam is against Allah himself, or Allah is setting up apostates and non-Muslims for slaughter. In either case, an explanation is needed.

When a Danish paper published cartoons of Mohammad in 2005, Muslims worldwide exploded in violent rage, claiming that Islam had been insulted. However, the idea that a man should be killed for choosing Christianity over Islam, has triggered no protests in Islamic countries. No Islamic leader has dared to publicly defended Rahman's right to leave Islam and still live. Where then is Muslim moral outrage, if any? Where is the voice of Islamic moral consistency and its much-vaunted tolerance?

The same question can be asked of Western liberals and the left in general, whose usual timidity and fear of questioning Islamic practices is evident. The left seems simply unable and/or unwilling to raise its voice against Islamic excess, regardless of the human rights at stake. If Western liberals can defend such minority interests rights as same-sex marriage, is the right of people such as Rahman to leave Islam less worthy of support? Rahman's case is far more important because it goes to the essence of what it means to be human - the right to free thought and individual responsibility. The death penalty facing Rahman is an attack on all humanity since it seeks to crush freedom of conscience. It is an attack on human freedom by a totalitarian ideology using terror, pure and simple.

To show that Islam is tolerant, Muslim scholars often quote from a particular part of the Koran which states "there is no compulsion in religion". This is part of a larger chapter or Surah and is in direct contradiction to other parts of the Koran which explicitly demand death for apostates. According to the Afghani trial judge in Rahman's case, Ansarullah Mawlazezadah, Islam is a religion of tolerance because Rahman would be invited to return to Islam and only be killed if he refused. In an further absurdly Kafkaesque comment, Ahmad Fahim Hakim, deputy chairman of the state-sponsored Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission stated that any Muslim who rejects Islam should be sentenced to death. The irony is too deadly to be amusing.

Afghanistan's constitution recognizes the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which in Article 18 demands the freedom to worship and to "change" religion or belief. The Rahman case clearly reveals that the UN declaration is inconsistent with Islamic Sharia law, yet Afghanistan continues to allow Sharia a stranglehold on Afghani life. It is this convenient duality that leaves individuals like Rahman with no legal protection.

Rahman in the end avoided the death penalty. It was not the "secular" Afghani constitution or Islamic clemency that saved him, but rather concerted international pressure from the United States and various European governments. The publicity in the end was too much to ignore but a face saving formulae had to be found to appease the Afghani mullahs. These mullahs had threatened to incite the people to tear "Rahman to pieces" should the Afghan Government yield to international pressure and interfere with the death penalty that Islamic law had imposed. Rahman was declared unfit to stand trial, even though he had bravely stated he was ready to die for his Christian faith and rejected accusations he was an infidel. While Rahman's reprieve is welcome, the one-time face-saving, ad-hoc solution is wholly unsatisfactory for a problem that is world wide and will recur. This arbitrary solution may have saved Rahman's life but does nothing for the debate over religious rights under Islam. It merely continues to screen Islamic totalitarianism from attention. In time the world will forget Rahman yet the tragedy is that there are thousands more Rahmans and will be in the future. These silent dissidents are unlikely to receive any attention from the Washington. The clerics and mullahs too will learn from the Rahman case and ensure that the next Islamic apostate is dealt with quietly. It is now critical that the West and other countries that respect religious equality and freedom, put intense diplomatic pressure on Muslim countries to force them to grant equal rights to non-Muslims and Muslim apostates. The Western press also has a duty to ensure that this issue be kept alive until Muslim governments are forced to respond.

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 8:02 AM | Comments (0)

Australia: Jihad Jack Gets Five Years' Jail Sentence

We reported that on February 26 former Melbourne taxi-driver, Joseph Terrence Thomas, aka "Jihad Jack" (pictured with his mother Patsy), was found guilty of receiving money from al-Qaeda.

He was the first person to be convicted under new legislation introduced in 2002 to combat terrorism. The amount he received is Aus $5,000 or US $3,500. He was also found guilty of receiving a plane ticket from an al-Qaeda agent, Khaled bin Attash, who is thought to have been involved in the attack against USS Cole in the Gulf of Aden in 2000.

Today, the BBC announced that Judge Philip Cummins at Victoria's Supreme Court in Melbourne gave Jihad Jack a five year jail sentence. He must serve at least two years of this sentence behind bars.

Thomas could have received a 25 year sentence. His lawyer had asked for leniency in Thomas' case, arguing that his client, who has an Indonesian wife and three children, had wanted to return home to Australia, after being involved with a terror training camp in Afghanistan.

Jihad Jack has claimed that he never intended to become an operative for al-Qaeda.

He had travelled to Afghanistan in 2001, where he attended the al-Farooq training camp, where individuals were trained in military tactics, before being sent to fight "infidels". He had fought for about a week "on the front line".

Before last month's guilty verdict, he had said: "I might be naive and I might be an idealist, but I am not a dickhead who will help to hurt innocent people."

Brought up as an Anglican, he changed his name by deed-poll to "Jihad" before he left to Afghanistan in 2001.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 5:39 AM | Comments (0)

March 30, 2006

Denmark: Muslim Groups Sue Over Cartoons

While the world takes a deep breath after the shocking case of the Afghan Christian and the attempts by 500 Muslim clerics to have him murdered in the name of Islam, the Muslims of Denmark are still whining about the issue of the "offensive" cartoons which were originally published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on September 30.

Instead of letting the issue drop, a coalition of 27 Islamic groups have decided to take the issue to court, states Associated Press via CNN.

And of course, the Muslims are trying to make money out of suing the newspaper. Michael Christiani Havemann, a lawyer representing the groups, has claimed that a sum of 100,000 kroner, equivalent to $16,100 is being demanded from the newspaper's editor Carsten Juste and its culture editor, Flemming Rose.

The suit was filed yesterday, and alleges that the drawings were "gratuitously defamatory and injurious", Havemann claimed.

The main prosecutor in Denmark had earlier said that there was nothing in the laws on racism or blasphemy which was violated by the newspaper's decision to piblish the pictures.

The issue would naver have caused the worldwide protests, and numerous deaths, had not a Muslim cleric, Abu Laban (below, right) and his associate Ahmed Akkari (above, left) gone on tours of Middle Eastern countries, carrying with them images of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons, and three additional fake images, which were never published by the newspaper. One of these was said to represent Mohammed with a pig's snout. In fact it was a photograph of the winner in a French "pig-squealing" contest.

Abu Laban and Ahmed Akkari have recently featured in scandals. Australia's Advertiser reported that a French television team have caught Ahmed Akkari on film, calling for a bomb attack to be made upon Naser Khader, a moderate Muslim lawmaker and Danish member of parliament.

Copenhagen Post gave more details. A French-Algerian journalist, Mohammed Sifaoui, had filmed Laban and Akkari joking about suicide bombings and making veiled death threats. Laban was also caught on film using a hidden camera saying that he knew of an individual who was willing to conduct a suicide bombing.

Six young people who attended Laban's mosque in Copenhagen were arrested at the end of October last year, accused of plotting a major bombing attack. Laban, as we mentioned said the young men had a colossal hatred of society, which made them introverted. The filming in which he claimed to know of another potential bomber took place after this statement.

When confronted with the accusation, 61-year old Palestinian-born Abu Laban showed his baser nature, saying: "If I ever heard a person say that, I would use my fist to knock his teeth out."

Mohammed Sifaoui stated to the Danish newspaper Politiken on Tuesday last week: "I have never stated that Abu Laban or Ahmed Akkari are terrorists in the sense that they are bombers themselves. They are something far worse: They are the ideologues who give young lunatics the necessary excuse for carrying out an act of terrorism in Denmark."

On Monday, Danish police questioned the pair over their controversial remarks. The threat against Naser Khader was condemned last week by the Danish prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who said to reporters: "It is truly shocking that an elected Danish politician can be the object of threats in this way. I take for granted that the police will investigate what happened and will deal with it."

According to Islam Online, the anti-immigration political group, the People's party has called for the revoking of the citizenship of three imams, including Akkari. Akkari was born in Lebanon in 1978.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 4:03 PM | Comments (0)

France: Islamist Metro Bomber Jailed

We reported in November that Rachid Ramda, a French suspect accused of bombing the Paris Metro in 1995, lost his appeal against extradition to France. He had fled to Britain shortly after the bombing, and had been arrested and subsequently detained in custody in the UK in November of that year. His lawyers said they would take the case to the House of Lords to prevent his extradition.

Despite their protests, we announced that he arrived in France on December 1. The unnecessary detention of Ramda in Britain (at the tax-payers' expense) created mistrust of Britain by the French authorities.

Ramda (pictured in an earlier court sketch) was a leading member of an Islamist group called Groupe Islam Arme (GIA) which was responsible for the bombings of locations on the Paris Metro in summer 1995. The specific blast for which Ramda was held responsible took place at the St Michel Metro (subway) station in Paris on 25 July, 1995. This killed eight people and injured 87. The bomb had comprised explosives and nails packed into a glass vessel, causing horrific laceration injuries to its victims.

In France, he was accused as a conspirator in this blast, as well as facing 23 charges of financing the bombing campaign which lasted from August to November, 1995. GIA's last attempt at terror that year involved an attempted derailment of a high speed TGV passenger train going from Lyons to Paris. The campaign only ended when he fled the country and claimed asylum under a fake name.

Yesterday, the Times reported that 36-year old Ramda was found guilty on the charges of bankrolling the bombing campaign, and for this he has been given a sentence of 10 years, the maximum sentence possible under French law for this offence.

He will still be charged in a second procedure, for the crime of carrying out the bombings, for which he could receive an additional life sentence.

Ramda is a native of Algeria, and in 1993, he was sentenced to death in absentia for a bombing in his native country. He was found guilty of an attack at Algiers airport, which killed 9 people, and injured 123.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 2:07 PM | Comments (0)

Iraq: Muslim Persecution of Christians Intensifies, Many Flee

The Iraqi Chaldean Catholic Church said its numbers are diminishing quickly as Muslims step up attacks on Christians. As Muslims have bombed Iraqi churches and slaughtered Christians in the streets, many are fleeing the country.

``Desperation, hopelessness, and constant fear is forcing more and more Christians to flee Iraq,'' said Abuna Andraos, a bishop in the Chaldean Catholic Church, reported the Russian web newspaper, Newsru. ``These people do not want to leave their country, however, they are forced to do so because of what's happening around them.''

He added that the situation has deteriorated since the recent elections in December. Before the Anglo-American liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein, the country had about one million Christians, or about four percent of the population. Today, there are about 750,000. Persecution and massacres are nothing new to Christians in Iraq. During the First World War, the Ottoman Turks slaughtered about 70,000 of them.

The Islamic revival in Iraq after decades of suppression under the atheist Baath regime of Saddam Hussein has inspired Muslims to follow though with the dictates of the 7th century Arabian warlord, Mohammed, to kill the `infidel.' The events of the past few years make it clear they are enacting their `final solution' to the `problem' of the country's Christian community with sincere Muslim fervor.

``Even though there are still many people attending church, as soon as you walk outside, you understand very well that Christians are finished in Iraq,'' concluded Bishop Andraos.

Posted by at 4:46 AM | Comments (0)

March 29, 2006

Albania: Muslims Object To Mother Theresa Statue

In another sign of the intolerance of Islam in the modern world, the inhabitants of a city in northern Albania are campaigning to prevent a statue being erected to Mother Theresa (pictured), who died on 5 September, 1997, aged 87.

The Scotsman has the story. It also appears in the left-wing and greedy New York Times but one must pay to view their articles online.

The reasons are not because Mother Theresa (real name Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu) though an ethnic Albanian, was born in Macedonia, not Albania, nor the fact that her face resembles a scrotum or a walnut, and may frighten small children.

The brouhaha is taking place in Shkoder, and the reasons for the protestations are that Mother Theresa is a "religious figure", and that would offend Muslims. Religion was officially banned for 27 years by Enver Hoxha's dictatorship, and such militancy among Muslims appears to be a recent development.

There are numerous "mixed" marriages in the country, which has a population of 70% "liberal" Muslims, and the rest being Orthodox and Catholic Christian.

Despite her not possessing the most visually pleasing facial features, Mother Theresa's charitable work, in particular her work with the poor and the sick at her Missionaries of Charity home in central Calcutta, India, (where she died) is internationally recognised. Her deep faith and her commitment to the oppressed has led to her being placed on the fast-track to sainthood by the Vatican.

The objections to a proposal by the local council were articulated by the mufti of Shkoder, Bashkim Bajrajtari. Other residents complained that there was a plot to portray the town as a Catholic enclave. Recently, the city's Muslims prevented crosses from being erected on nearby hilltops.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 9:59 PM | Comments (0)

Italy: Muslim Apostate Is Safe And Out Of Afghanistan

Finally, a piece of genuine good news. Abdur Rahman (pictured), the Afghan Christian who was under a threat of death from the barbarian clerics in his own country, has escaped to find sanctuary in Italy. Earlier, as we mentioned, the Italian cabinet approved his request for asylum. AKI reported that Silvio Berlosconi, the Italian prime minister said that his nation would be "very glad to be able to welcome someone who has been so courageous."

And the BBC now confirms that 41-year old Mr Rahman has already arrived in Italy.

Mr Rahman will face a tough time adjusting to his new life, and will probably need to be under protection, but he is no longer within reach of the evil Talibanised clerics within his native country.

But the issues which his case has raised, such as those highlighted by the Jesuit priest Samir Khalil Samir, are not going to go away.

Nor should they. We have heard so many lies from so-called moderate Muslims. Pakistan has addressed the international media with its claims to be "moderate". But under its Islamocentric Penal Code, it is forbidden to blaspheme against Islam. Under section 295-C of this code, the mere act of insulting the so-called "prophet" Mohammed, the 7th century mass-murdering paedophile caravan-raider, is enough to invoke the death penalty.

Islam has never been a "religion of peace", and it never will be. When Islam's founder killed those who apostasised from his vile faith, the religion is not fit to exist in the modern world, among civilised nations.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 8:20 PM | Comments (0)

Indonesia: Muslims Favoured By New Decree On Places Of Worship

We have documented the campaigns in Indonesia to close churches, and wrote on October 29 of how a particular law has been exploited by Islamist groups to have churches closed down.

This law, the Joint Ministerial Decree of 1969 was originally introduced by the dictator Haji Mohamed Suharto (above), second ruler of Indonesia, who was in power from 1967 to 1998. The law required a permit from local authorities to build a place of worship. Though brought in to give the authorities a weapon in Suharto's battle against Islamists, whom he saw as a threat, it has recently been turned around, and was until recently employed by the Front Pembela Islam and the Hizb ut-Tahrir (united under the umbrella group called Anti-Apostacy Alliance) to persecute Christians, and deny them places of worship.

In November, Andy Mallerangeng, spokesman for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, announced that as a result ofpressure from Christian communities, the Indonesian government would be trying to stop the persecution of religious minorities.

Not only Christians have suffered under campaigns of persecution.. The Ahmadi or Ahmadiyyah sect have been on the receiving end of attacks by Islamic fanatics. This discrimination is not being discouraged by the government. In September last year in Sudkadana, West Java, 70 houses and six mosques wee attacked by a mob of 1,000 rampaging Muslims.

Earlier this month, Indonesia's Religious Affairs Minister, Maftuh Basyuni stated that instead of calling themselves Muslims, the Ahmadiyya should declare themselves a new religion.

Last Tuesday, March 21, Religious affairs Minister M. Maftuh Basyuni and Home Minister M. Ma'ruf signed into law a revision of Suharto's Joint Ministerial Decree of 1969.

The old law had led to 23 churches being closed down in West Java alone, because they did not have the necessary permits. But the new decree is causing just as many problems as the old decree. According to Hera Diani, writing in the Jakarta Post on March 25:

The decree rules that new places of worship must have congregations of a minimum of 90 people, and receive consent of 60 people of other faiths living in the area. There also is a requirement to obtain permits from the local administration and the Communication Forum for Religious Harmony.

Daniel Biantoro of the Orthodox Church said the decree heightened mistrust among people of different religious faiths.

"We used to live in perfect harmony in a neighborhood. But now we are suspicious of each other," he said.

Mubarik Ahmad, spokesman for Ahmadiyah which is considered a heretical strict by Islamic organizations, said the requirement on the minimum number of congregation members was ridiculous.

Christians and Ahmadiyya members joined together in condemnation of the new ruling. Several leaders of both faiths said on Friday that they intended to challenge the ruling in the Supreme Court. They claim that it is in contravention of the nation's Constitution, ignored human rights, and sowed discord.

Indonesia's senior Islamic body, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), is annoyed at the new decree because it appears to give freedoms to other faiths disproportionately. Last July the MUI issued a fatwa, which had 11 decrees, including activities involving interfaith, pluralist and "liberal" thought. This fatwa had the effect of increasing the persecutions against the Ahmadiyyah sect.

Earlier today, Muniggar Sri Saraswati, writing in the Jakarta Post said that yesterday a request for a judicial review of the revised Joint Ministerial Decree was submitted to the Supreme Court by the Defense Team for Religious and Faith Freedom (TPKB), a group of lawyers representing those of various faiths.

Their leader, Saor Siagian, said: "We want it annulled. The decree is against the Constitution, the Human Rights Law and the principles of freedom to exercise one's religion and faith. Hasyim Muzadi, the leader of the nation's largest Muslim body, the Nahdlatul Ulama, said on Monday that the new decree was more restrictive than its predecessor, because it tried to accommodate too many interests.

Almost as soon as the joint Ministerial Decree No. 1/2006 came into force, its rulings were being exploited by Muslim fanatics, states AKI. On Sunday in West Java province, a crowd of Muslims forced a Christian pastor, Fekky Tatulus, to finish his service early and close his church, which is based in his own home. According to the Islamists, pastor Tatulus did not have the requisite permit to operate services from his home.

In 2005, Indonesia was included in a list, produced by the US State Department, of nations which breach acceptable standards on freedoms of religion.

While all this is going on, Indonesia is undergoing a resurgence of Islamism in its politics, demonstarated most dramatically in the ANti-Pornography Bill currently being reviewed by legislators. It is feared that this Bill will seriously affect tourism on the mainly Hindu island of Bali, where Westerners wear bikinis on the beaches. It will enact punishments on anyone exposing areas of flesh.

This evening, Britain's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, currently embattled by accusations of corruption for apparently offering positions in the House of Lords in exchange for "loans", arrived in Indonesia. Bambi Blair is now looking like ragged venison, as earlier today it was announced that senior policeman are mounting an investigation into the loans issue. They want to interview Blair when he returns to the UK.

Blair's intention in this visit is to boost bilateral ties between Britain and Indonesia. He will meet Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono tomorrow (Thursday) morning. It will be the first visit by a British premier to Indonesia since 1985, when Margaret Thatcher visited Suharto. Hasyim Muzadi and Din Syamsuddin, chairmen of the country's largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama and the second largest Muslim organization Muhammadiyah, have been invited to the presidential palace to meet Blair.

State Secretary Yusril Ihza Mahendra said yesterday that the visit was important as a dialogue on the nature of moderate Islam in Indonesia should counteract any misunderstandings about the religion.

Trade between Britain and Indonesia will also be discussed, as this has stagnated. Trade was at $1.99 billion US in 2004, a drop from $2.05 billion US in 2000, states the Jakarta Post. Britain is one of the main foreign investors in Indonesia.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 8:03 PM | Comments (0)

US: Falls Church Islamist Gets Thirty Years' Jail Sentence

We reported on November 22 last year that a jury found Ahmed Omar Abu Ali (pictured) a guilty verdict, on charges that he joined a terrorist organisation (al-Qaeda) and had plotted to assassinate President George W. Bush.

Today, Associated Press, via Katu.com announces that earlier today, U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee handed down a sentence of thirty years' imprisonment on Ali. He said that his deeds did not lead to anyone being killed, but stated that the sentence was sufficient punishment.

Houston-born Omar Abu Ali, a US citizen, had been arrested by Saudis in 2003. He had argued in his defense that he had been tortured into making a confession of al-Qaida involvement, by agents of Mubahith, the Saudi security force.

Ali had been brought up in Falls Church, Virginia, by Jordanian parents, who had indoctrinated him in extreme Islam by ensuring he attended a Salafist mosque. When their home had been raided, writings of an extreme radical nature were discovered.

His parents had sent him to a Wahhabi school, where only a narrow and fundamental strain of Islam is preached. He was at the Islamic University of Medina, in his final year, when he had been arrested.

He told Saudi authorities of the terror plot against Mr Bush, and also of his intention to set up an al-Qaeda cell in the United States.

Judge Lee saw similarities in Ali's case to that of John Walker Lindh, who was captured in Afghanistan and became known as the "American Taliban". Lindh received a jail sentence of 20 years.

Prosecutor David Laufman said: "The facts in this case are still astonishing. Barely a year after September 11 the defendant joined the organization responsible for 3,000 deaths."

The Counterterrorism Blog gives intriguing details of Ali's involvement with a co-conspirator, probably Zubayr al-Rimi, who was killed in a shoot-out with Saudi security forces in September 2003.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 7:05 PM | Comments (0)

Lebanon: Jesuit Priest Claims Islam Denies Basic Human Rights

We reported yesterday that the Afghan Christian man Abdur Rahman, who was freed on a technicality from charges of apostasising from Islam had been the subject of talks in Italy to have him taken in as an asylum-seeker. Today AKI states that the Italian cabinet has approved Mr Rahman's asylum request.

But the issue, even if it hopefully allows Mr Rahman a chance of a new life, without the threats of death made against him by barbarian Islamic clerics, leaves Westerners with some devastating images of Islam at its most barbaric and most hostile to our fundamental notions of justice.

Today, William Buckley writes a cogent critique of Islam in Afghanistan, found on Yahoo News, in which he sates:

Australia's prime minister wants the Afghan government to renounce the thought of executing someone for exercising religious liberty. So do prominent leaders in Germany, Great Britain and Italy. The Afghan court sidestepped the main issue by releasing Rahman on a technicality. If it arises again, the challenge for the United States will be to devise a means of saying to the Afghan government: You cannot do this. Not while we're around.

But the surprise critique of Islam's current trend towards barbarism and totalitarianism comes from an unexpected source, a Jesuit priest who lives in Lebanon and has been an ardent proponent of Islamic/Christian dialoque. When a Catholic who has spent much of his life arguing for rights of Muslims states that Islam denies the most basic of human rights, it is time to take notice.

Father Samir Khalil Samir (pictured above) is a professor of Oriental Theology at St Joseph's University in Lebanon. Born in Cairo, Father Samir also teaches at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, and i s a founder and leader of the Centre for Arab-Christian Documentation and Research (CEDRAC).

Today's Catholic World News summarises his current article, in which he criticises Sharia Law as being against human rights thus:

If shari'a kills a man who changes religion, argues Father Samir Khalil Samir, SJ, it is to be condemned and cannot be the principle inspiring law, in that it destroys any ideal of coexistence and contradicts the UN declaration on human rights, approved in 1948 by almost all Muslim countries. He argues that the West can no longer remain silent in the face of Islamic fundamentalist regimes that routinely violate human rights, especially in matters of religious liberty.

Father Samir states in his essay, which is entitled "Islam humiliates religious freedom of Christians and human rights of Muslims. It's time for change" that Article 18 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights specifies: "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."

Father Samir writes in today's e-edition of Asia News that

"if Islam is a political project, a movement that uses even the most extreme violence, then it must be fought politically. And, most of all, it would be necessary to no longer call it a religion, a spiritual movement that helps man to create peace. There is in fact in Islam a strong ambiguity to which attention must be drawn: at times, Muslims speak in spiritual terms ("Islam means peace (salam), coexistence, tolerance etc...."); other times, they act politically, justifying violent choices."

His words pull no punches. They are the same arguments that those of us who oppose Islam and its political march over human rights and freedoms have long espoused, but this is the first time such a senior figure in Pope Benedict's church has really spoken honestly on this subject. He says:

We cannot keep silent or continue to speak of Islam in an ambiguous fashion, defining Islam as a religion that "speaks of peace and tolerance," hiding the verses that encourage violence and brutal killings. Such an ambiguous behaviour is shameful to those who adopt it and to those who keep silent."

An earlier interview with Father Shamir can be found here, but I urge all our visitors to read: Islam humiliates religious freedom of Christians and human rights of Muslims. It's time for change.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 4:57 PM | Comments (0)

Pakistan: Islamic Radio Feud Leads To 24 Deaths

Reports yesterday from Dawn, from CNN and Associated Press via Seattle Pi relate that a feud between Islamic clerics, which has been played out for several months on illegal FM radio stations, has led to a battle in which 24 people have been killed in the Khyber Agency in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, on the border with Afghanistan.

The two clerics are Pir Saifur Rahman, of the Barelvi sect of Islam, and Mufti Munir Shakir. The two clerics fell out with each other when they used their broadcasts, which are transmitted from private addresses in the firecely tribal Pashtun region, to denigrate each other's religious beliefs.

A jirga or tribal council was held in February, which officially banned the clerics from making broadcasts, and told them to leave the Khyber Agency. Muni Shakir ignored the request and continued his illicit broadcasts from Nala village.

Shakir's supporters have been encouraging listeners to join a private army called the Laskar-i-Islam (Army of Islam) or Lashkar-i-Islam. This is touted as the means to ensure peace in the border region, which saw five people killed in a clash last month.

The recent fighting began on Monday evening in the village of Bara in Sur Dand area of Khyber Agency. It was provoked when members of the Laskar-i-Islami arrived at the house of one of cleric Pir Saifur Rahman's ardent supporters, Bacha Jee. The militia ordered him to surrender, but he refused.

The gun battle which ensued lasted for eight hours, in which seven militiamen were killed and 25 other people were injured.

The regional authorities, with the aid of a jirga, negotiated a truce between the two factions, but early yesterday morning the Laskar-i-Islam decided to violate this truce. They launched a pre-dawn raid again upon Bacha Jee's house, in which they killed 18 men, and took women and children hostage. They set the house ablaze, and then demolished the building (pictured).

Mangal Bagh, the leader of Laskar-i-Islam said that Pir Rehman's supporters gave support to terrorists and justified the attack by saying his men were carrying out a "clean-up" operation. "We have no ill-will toward the government," he said.

The whereabouts of the two trouble-making radio stars, Pir Rehman and Mufti Shakir, are now unknown by the authorities.

It has been suggested that the fighting happened because, despite orders from Governor Khalilur Rehman to clamp down on law-breakers, the Frontier Corps had taken no action when it would have been appropriate.

Negotiations were taking place to have the captured women and children released, and a one kilometer cordon has been set up around Bara. Only two suspects have been arrested, and more were being hunted.

In separate news, in the troubled region of South Waziristan Agency in the same province, where Islamic clerics allied to the Taliban and al-Qaeda have recently established Sharia Law, three members of Hizbul Mujahideen, an Islamist group more commonly associated with fighting in Kashmir, have been arrested.

The men were taken in the town of Tank, and were found to be carrying explosives and ammunition, stated Reuters AlertNet. The three were from Karachi and had been staying with a comrade in Wana. Spokespeople from Hizbul Mujahideen have denied claims that the three were from their operations.

One, Saleem Hashmi said "No Kashmiri, especially anyone belonging to Hizbul Mujahideen, has been arrested in the tribal areas. Kashmiris are carrying out an indigenous struggle inside Indian-held Kahsmir, and have nothing to do with al Qaeda and the like."

A press release was published by separatist group Greater Kashmir.com, which again quoted Hasmi: "We've nothing to do with Al-Qaida or Taliban and neither we are present in Waziristan. We are just fighting state terrorism unleashed in Kashmir by Indian army."

The three individuals who were arrested were in a four-wheel drive vehicle leaving South Waziristan when they were stopped at a police checkpoint in Tank town, stated Dar Ali Khattak, Senior Superintendent of Police in the area. Along with explosives, arms and ammunition, the three were also found to have bomb-making manuals.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 4:04 PM | Comments (0)

Women's Rights: Islam a Violent and Inimical Force

According to the United Nations, between 113 million and 200 million women around the globe have gone demographically ``missing.'' Up to 3 million meet an untimely and unnecessary death due to violence or neglect. Muslim countries, where ``honor'' killings by male relatives and genital mutilation are common, count as the worse offenders.

``The Islamists are engaged in reviving and spreading a brutal and retrograde body of laws,'' wrote in the March 25 issue of the International Herald Tribune, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, co-author of the film ``Submission'' about Islam and women. Her partner on the film, Theo van Gogh, was murdered for that work in Nov. 2004 , and Ms. Ali lives under 24-hour protection due to death threats by Muslims.

``Wherever the Islamists implement Shariah, or Islamic law, women are hounded from the public arena, denied education and forced into a life of domestic slavery,'' added Ali. ``This mind-set needs to be broken. A culture that carves the genitals of young girls, hobbles their minds, and justifies their physical oppression is not equal to a culture that believes women have the same rights as men.''

``We need a worldwide campaign to reform cultures that permit this kind of crime. Let's start to name them and shame them. Just as we put an end to slavery, we must put an end to gendercide.''

The only problem with Ms. Ali's idea is that, as anyone familiar with Islam knows very well, the totalitarian sect cannot be reformed. If an ethnic Muslim chooses to follow the teachings of the 7th century Arabian warlord, Mohammed, he must ascribe not only to its call to behave properly toward other Muslims, but to act intolerantly and violently toward non-Muslims.

Posted by at 3:21 PM | Comments (0)

Holland: Islamist Death Threats Against Politicians

Today, Expatica states that politicians have informed the police of 121 cases where threats have been made against them since 2005.

The results were published by the public prosecutor's office (OM) today. 52 cases are still being investigated, and seven have resulted in trials. 32 cases have reached an impasse.

The majority of the threats were made against the MPs Ayan Hirsi Ali (right) and Geert Wilders (pictured left).

When Mohammed Bouyeri murdered film-maker Theo van Gogh on November 2, 2004, a note was pinned with a knife to his chest, in which these two politicians were threatened by name.

As a result of this, the two MPs have been forced into hiding, only appearing in public with bodyguards.

Wilders has criticised Muslim behaviour and has asked for bans on burkas in Holland. Hirsi Ali worked with van Gogh on the script for his film Submission, which detailed the abusive treatment of women in Islam, and provoked Bouyeri to murder the fim-maker and relative of Vincent van Gogh.

She has since completed a script for a follow-up film, Submission 2, about Islam's poor treatment of homosexuals.

One case involves a juvenile. This Friday, a Children's Court will deal with a case of threats.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 3:07 PM | Comments (0)

Pakistan: Islamist Leader Beaten, In Critical Condition

The BBC and AKI today report that in Pakistan, the leader of the Islamist terror group Harkatul Mujahideen, Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman Khalil, or Fazal Rehman Khalil (pictured), has been beaten badly and his body dumped outside a mosque in an Islamabad suburb.

A spokesman for the group, Sultan Zia, said that Khalil had been taken from a mosque in Tarnol, three miles outside Islamabad, during evening prayers.

Reuters was told: "They badly thrashed him and his driver with rifle butts and they have serious head injuries. At the moment, doctors are not letting us see Maulana because of his critical condition."

Now, Khalil is in hospital in Rawalpindi.

Harkatul Mujahideen has its own website, where Mufti Khubaib Sahib has "inspiring essays" such as one where moderate Muslims are described thus: "To them slaughtering of the inner devil is vital, but they regard the slaughtering of the enemies of Allah Ta`ala, disdainful. This limited and narrow approach to the Religious teachings and practices, turn them away from other essential and important Teachings of Islam."

The group is involved mainly with the Islamist operations in the disputed regions of Kashmir. On January 1 we wrote that a leader of the group, Ghulam Qadir Mughal, was killed in a shoot-out with Indian soldiers in Kashmir.

The young British terrorist Shehzad Tanweer, who was one of the bombers who killed 52 people in London on 7 July 2005, had learned explosives handling at a training camp run by Harkatul Mujahideen. The camp was at Manshera in Pakistan, close to the Kashmir border.

Harkatul Mujahideen, according to Global Security was originally named Harakat al-Ansar. It is based in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan.

Khalil is an associate of Bin Laden. He signed bin Laden's February 1998 fatwa, which authorised attacks against the US and Western interests. He is also linked with the Taliban. When the US launched its offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Khalil went into hiding in October, 2001.

In 1991, he had led a group which defeated the communist army in Khost, southern Afghanistan, in 1991.

After founding his Harkatul-Ansar in 1980, in 1985 the group had a split in opinions, and Maulana Masood Azhar went on to found Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Khalil renamed his group Harkatul Mujahideen, or "Movement of the Holy Warrior".

Harkatul Mujahideen was banned in Pakistan by President Pervez Musharraf in 2001. It had been designated as a terror organisation by the US State Department in 1994.

In recent years, Khalil has been arrested on three occasions by Pakistani security forces, but on each occasion, he had subsequently been released. According to AKI, he was under suspicion recently of involvement with his ties to Taliban fighters in the Waziristan region of Pakistan, close to the Afhanistan border.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 1:53 PM | Comments (0)

Saudi Arabia: Second Islamist Attack On Refinery Foiled

On February 24, a suicide attack was made against a major oil refinery in Abqaiq (Buqayq) where three cars were driven towards the gates of the installation, and following gunshots from security forces, the vehicles were detonated. On February 27, five Islamists suspected of involvement with these attacks were shot dead following a gunfight at a house in the outskirts of Riyadh, and a sixth man was arrested at another location nearby.

This morning, according to AKI, security officials in Saudi Arabia announced that they had foiled a second attack on the Abqaiq refinery, which is the largest in the kingdom.

Two car bombs have been found in the area near the refinery. Yesterday, searches in the al-Mantar area of Abqaib led to the arrest of one man. Arms and explosives were recovered during the raid. The suburb is home to many employees of the oil company Aramco. The vehicles which were intended to be used in the second attack upon the refinery bore the logo Aramco.

Abqaib handles two thirds of Saudi Arabia's petroleum output. Al-Arabiya television said that the thrree cars which were employed in the February 24 attempt on the refinery also carried the Aramco logo.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 1:08 PM | Comments (0)

Russia: Muslims Target Sexy Pop Music Group

Russian Muslims are revving up their offensive to thrust Islamic mores upon the world's largest country. One of Russia's favorite girlie groups, the busty and scantily clad, Blestyashy, has come under scathing attack from Russian Muslim groups for its recent ``immoral'' music video. WR has not yet been able to ascertain whether the girls have been threatened by the Muslims.

The uproar is due to Blestyashy's use of a Middle Eastern theme in the offending music video, ``Eastern Fairy Tale.'' Also, the chairman of the Russian Islamic Committee, Gaydar Dzhemal, complained about the lyrics, reported Kommersant newspaper, one of Russia's last remaining free newspapers. The girls sing with a male, who judging by the accent, is Middle Eastern. In the song, he asks the female lead singer to be his ``fourth wife,'' and she answers, ``Ok, but you will be my sixth husband.''

Dzhemal said the Blestyashy girls, ``positioned themselves in the video as eastern women, and therefore offended female Muslims by propagating the offensive idea that it is possible to have more than one husband.'' He added that the lyrics depict Muslim men and women as ``sexually-obsessed animals.'' Dzhemal is supported by Chechen singer, Liza Umarova, who said the music video offends her Muslim sensitivities, and has caused her much ``anguish and grieving.''

Dzhemal then went on to rant and rave about Muslims allegedly being the most abused and taunted group in society.

Blestyashy singer, Anna Semenovich, dismissed Dzhemal's accusations, reported Kommersant. She said that the group, ``didn't intend to insult Muslims in any way.''

Posted by at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)

UK: Burial Strike - But Muslims Get Special Treatment

According to today's Times, the current national strike of local government workers has created extra controversy in Blackburn, Lancashire.

In echoes of the 1978-79 "winter of discontent" where bodies were unburied because of striking workers, this time round, Blackburn funeral directors were making Christians wait for their relatives to be interred, but only Christians were not having burials in a council-run cemetery in the town.

Funerals had to be re-arranged, and mourners were instructed that they could not visit the cemetery to read its book of remembrance.

So while Christians were forced to undergo this indignity at a moment of sorrow, the Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council announced that Muslims would be exempted from the ban on burials, and would be receiving special treatment.

It stated that a special emergency service would be provided for Muslims, because it is said under the terms of their faith that dead bodies should be interred as soon as is possible.

After being accused of positive discrimination by one funeral director, last night the Council tried a desperate back-peddling measure in damage limitation.

A spokeswoman for the council said: "We will bury anybody, irrespective of religion, if that's their request."

During yesterday's strike, other councils either closed their cemeteries for all, or ran them as normal. This happened in Sheffield and Birmingham. These two councils have large numbers of Muslims in their population.

There are four cemeteries in Blackburn and Darwen Borough, but only one, the Pleasington, is open "for business" on Sundays, and thus is regarded as important to local Muslims, who demand 7/7 access to burial sites. The council caused a fuss at the start of this year when it introduced a one hundred pound ($173.39) increase in its burial charges.

On Friday and Saturday, US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice will be visiting Blackburn, for reasons that even escape the locals, some of whom describe their town as "scruffy and poor".

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 9:25 AM | Comments (0)

March 28, 2006

Thailand: Islamic Teachers Arrested

News from the Bangkok Post states that 19 Islamic teachers have been held on suspicion of involvement with the insugency which has gone on in the south of the nation for 2 years, and which has seem more than 1,100 people killed.

The teachers from Thamma Wittaya school in Yala city, Yala province, were apprehended under the nation's emergency rules, which allows suspects to be hald for 30 days without charge.

The school was founded by Sapaeing Bazo, who is a leader in the separatist movement, which wishes the southern provinces of Yala, Narathiwat, Pattani and two districts of Songhkla province to secede from Thailand. Sapaeing is currently a fugitive, with a bounty of 10 million baht ($256,227 US) upon his head. Currently he is in hiding across the border in Malaysia.

Since the insurgency began in January 2004, six teachers at the Islamic school have been killed.

Some of the 19 teachers who were arrested have been educated in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Egypt. Their names were given by suspects picked up for interrogation, state security officials.

Earlier today, three people were shot dead in Pattani and Narathiwat provinces.

In Pattani's Muang district, 36-year old Chamnarn Noochukaew was shot in the morning as he went to work.

Two men on a motorbike killed 32-year old Jaehor Sor, an employee at a shopping mall as he went to work.

In tambon of Bachor in Narathiwat province, a 45-year old garment vendor, Wae Lorhu, was shot and seriously wounded. His 19 year old son Suming was shot dead.

In Narathiwat, eight men have been arrested for involvement with recent attacks connected with the insurgency. Five were arrested on suspicion of involvement with a gun attack in Rueso district which saw two soldiers shot dead. The other three, all brothers, were arrested for their part in a gun battle with security forces on 19th February. Weapons were taken in their arrest.

The insurgencey is an attempt to recreate the former independent sultanate of Pattani, which comprised the three southern provinces. This was annexed into Thailand a century ago.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 9:22 PM | Comments (0)

Holland: Muslim Woman Is Allowed To Refuse Handshakes

A strange ruling from Holland is reported in Dawn and Islam Online. In the central Dutch town of Amersfoort, an adult education centre barred a Muslim woman from its classes. The reason given was that the woman insisted that due to her faith, she refused to shake hands with men. According to her, Islam forbids physical contact between a woman and any male above the age of 12.

Fatima Amghar was not content with being barred from attending classes to train as an education assistant, and took the matter to the national Commission for Equal Treatment. And the Commission decided that the education centre was wrong in its former decision.

"Every school has the duty to be free of discrimination and treat men and women equally. This duty extends to individual students who refuse physical contact on religious grounds," the Commission stated in its judgement. It decided there were other ways in which a woman could greet a male.

Last year Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk was photographed extending her hand to an imam at a mosque she was visiting. The imam rudely withdrew his hand, and the issue was widely commented upon, in the Dutch media.

There are about 1 million Muslims in Holland, which has a total population of about 16 million.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 6:28 PM | Comments (0)

Russia: Creeping Muslim Offensive for Control

After years of carefully observing the situation in Russia, WR has detected a clear Muslim effort to gain significant influence, if not eventual control, over the world's largest country. The stakes are clear. Russia has enormous natural resources and about 20,000 nuclear weapons. No wonder Saudi money has been pouring in to build mosques and schools to spread the intolerant and insidious message of the brutal 7th century Arab warlord, Mohammed.

While Muslims might not achieve any significant power in Russia in the short-term, the fact that they believe they will eventually control the country, whether it take 30 or 50 years, is undeniable. Under the Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, that dream may happen sooner than later. With every one of Putin's statements sympathetic to Islam and affirming his friendship with the Muslim world, Russia's Muslim leaders only become emboldened and make more aggressive statements.

Russian Muslims started to throw their weight around shortly after Putin came to power. Head of Russia's Council of Muftis, Ravil Gainutdin, said in 2001, ``today is happening what 100 years ago seemed a wild dream --- Russia is destined to become one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.''

Now compare that statement five years ago to what Gainutdin said two months ago, when he made the assertion that while about 15 percent of Russians were ethnic Muslim (a figure most likely true, and their number might total as much as 20 million), only about 6 percent of Russians were Orthodox Christian. If we dot the `i' then it's clear that Russia's Muslim leadership already considers their totalitarian sect to be the dominant religion in this country of 142 million people. (For the record, the Russian Orthodox Church claims that 80 percent of Russians adhere to its faith.)

Ethnic Russians, however, are experiencing a dramatic population decline with mortality rates among the worse in the world (58.5 years for males) and with an average birth-rate of about 1.2 per couple. Compare this to ethnic Muslims' birth-rate which is believed to be about 3.5 per couple, as well as greater longevity. Muslim clerics believe demographics and time is on their side.

This demographic weapon has already encouraged Muslim clerics to call for having a vice-president in the federal government who would be responsible for Muslim affairs, and such a position would be held by a Muslim.

Other recent troubling developments include the call by Nafigulla Ashirov, co-chairman of the Council of Muftis, the country's most influential Muslim organization, to increase the number of mosques in Moscow from the current four to about 40. Speaking at a press conference earlier this month, he claimed that 10 percent of Moscow's approximate 12 million inhabitants are Muslim and that the mosque expansion is needed to meet their `spiritual' needs.

If this were Buddhism, Hinduism, or any other religion there would be little reason for concern. But only dedicated and passionate Muslim believers have carried out savage terrorist attacks that have killed hundreds in Russia in the past four years. A year ago, some of the children who escaped the slaughter in the school in Beslan in September 2004 told WR how the Chechen terrorists prayed five times a day during the approximate 60 hour siege, and invoked the blood-thirsty Islamic deity known as, Allakh, in Russian.

Mufti Ashirov's recent expansionist platform was tinged with veiled threats, saying that more mosques in Moscow would, ``help prevent upheavals in our society, especially since the situation in the country is far from normal, considering events in the Caucasus region.''

He was referring to armed insurrections by Islamic movements in Russia's Muslim republics of Chechnya, Dagestan, and Kabardino-Balkaria. Besides these regions, Russia's republic of Tatarstan on the Volga River is predominantly Muslim.

Other militant declarations by Ashirov include his outbursts against Russian Orthodox priests serving in the military as chaplains, as well as his fighting the teaching of a course, ``The basics of Orthodox culture,'' in public schools. His most controversial idea has been calling for the removal of the cross from the country's national symbols. In a recent TV interview on NTV he based his position on the fact that the Russian Constitution does not allow one religion to take precedence over another.

For over a 1,000 years Russia has been a predominantly Orthodox Christian country, however. After Muslim armies destroyed the Greek Christian empire of Byzantium in the mid 15th century, Russia took up the cause of Eastern Christianity and defended East and South Europe against advancing Muslim armies right up until the First World War.

In the mid 16th century, led by Ivan the Terrible, Russia finally destroyed the Muslim khanates of Astrakhan (on the Caspian Sea) and Kazan (upper Volga region, today the capital of Tatarstan). For over 300 years, these Muslim states had terrorized Russia with constant brutal and devastating invasions where entire cities were erased from the face of the earth, and women and children targeted for sex slavery.

In the late 18th century, Catherine the Great hatched a plan to liberate Byzantium and make her son, Konstantin, ruler in Constantinople, the occupied Byzantine capital. (For trivia buffs, friends of WR recently found a letter in Russia's Historical Archives where Catherine the Great called for the Scottish-American naval hero, John Paul Jones, to be recruited to join the Russian navy as an admiral in order ``to liberate Constantinople.'' Jones did serve as an admiral in the Russian navy, and scored several major victories against the Ottoman Turks, but Constantinople was never reached and as is well known, remains occupied today by Muslims.)

In the 19th century, Russia liberated part of the Balkans from Turkish Muslim tyranny and genocide.

As is clear from the recent events and statements stated earlier in this article, Muslims in Russia harbor the desire to turn the clock back to the Middle Ages and once again establish their brutal and violent hegemony over the country. Muslims have already turned Chechnya, most of whose ethnic Chechen population was atheist for decades during the Soviet period, into a brutal criminal state where even common Chechens are now regularly terrorized.

Imagine what will happen when the `religion of peace' gains the upper hand throughout Russia? Given current demographics in Russia and a political elite ever so eager to appease the Muslim world, that day looks likely to come, whether it take 25 or 50 years.

Posted by at 6:25 AM | Comments (0)

Afghanistan: Apostate From Islam Is Freed

News breaking from ITV.com, the Telegraph, from Associated Press via the Toronto Star and Italy's AKI relates that Abdul Rahman (pictured left), the man who had been facing a possible death sentence for converting from Islam to Christianity, has finally been officially freed.

Mohammed Sarwar Danish, Afghanistan's Justice Minister, announced that Mr Rahman has been freed. "He is not in detention," he said. The case was officially dropped due to "gaps in evidence", though in reality, Afghanistan was forced to succumb to international pressure, mainly coming from the US and Canada, where the case has caused the greatest public outrage.

The question now remains of his safety. Clerics (pictured below) have threatened to incite Afghanis to have 41-year old Rahman killed, in line with the barbarism of their interpretation of faith and Sharia law.

According to AKI, Afghanistan's deputy attorney general Eshaq Aloko said Mr Rahman is currently with justice ministry officials, and will be undergoing tests to confirm his unsuitability for trial. The argument that he is mentally ill is widely seen by many as a face-saving exercise by the Afghani authorities.

On Friday 25 March, Mr Rahman had been moved to detention in Kabul's high-security Policharki prison, home to many Taliban militant prisoners. In his police detention prior to transfer to jail, Mr Rahman had received death threats from other detainees.

In the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif a large protest lasted for about two hours, with protesters chanting "Death to Bush!" and other anti-Western slogans. This protest was to express anger at the court's decision to drop the case.

The United Nations had announced before his official "release" that Mr Rahman had requested asylum outside Afghanistan. Adrian Edwards, a UN representative, said that his organisation was in conference with the AFghan government to resolve the issue of asylum.

AKI states that Italy's foreign minister, Gianfranco Fini is requesting that his country take in Mr Rahman as an asylum seeker. Mr Fini was spoke earlier this morning with Ettore Francesco Sequi, Italy's ambassador to Kabul, about the case.

This story will not be concluded successfully until Mr Rahman is outside of Afghanistan and beyond the clutches of its hate-filled and bloodthirsty imams.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 6:16 AM | Comments (0)

March 27, 2006

Pakistan: Taliban Execute First Person Under Islamic Law

We reported on March 11 that for a brief period at the start of the month, Pakistan lost control of Miran Shah (Miranshah), main town of North Waziristan Agency in the North West Frontier Province to Taliban and Al-Qaeda-allied Islamists. In the adjoining South Waziristan Agency, on 10th March Friday prayers, tribal imams announced that cases of justice would no longer be settled by a jirga (tribal council) but by an Islamic judge, using Sharia Law.

Last week, on Tuesday 21 March, the Guardian announced that the Taliban had consolidated its rule in the tribal regions of Pakistan adjoining the Afghanistan border in the North West Frontier Province. The Guardian stated that Islamic militias were erecting checkpoints and collecting taxes from passing vehicles in the region.

These members of the so-called Pakistan Taliban have been gaining power for some time. They have killed more than 100 pro-government elders and politicians since summer last year. They are led, state analysts, by the radical clerics Sadiq Noor and Abdul Khaliq. These clerics established an Islamic court in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan Agency.

Today, it was announced by local residents that this Islamic Court executed its first criminal on Sunday (26 March), states Pakistan's Daily Times. The man, aged 24, was called Hayat Gul, and was accused of the killing of a taxi driver. A shopkeeper told the paper: "The accused was buried on Monday. He was a professional car-snatcher - a bad guy."

The shura (Sharia Court) had heard pleadings from the taxi-driver's family for vengeance. Bilal, the taxi-driver, had been killed in Wana in February. Gul pleaded guilty, and was granted permission to ask for clemency from Bilal's family. They refused, and he was executed.

On Friday, Pakistan's Interior Minister, Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao had denied the presence of the Taliban in the region. On March 17th, a spokesman for the governor of North West Frontier Province had denied that the region had been taken over by the Taliban.

The situation in the region has been deteriorating for some time. Two years ago, Pakistan mobilised 70,000 troops to the region, to combat the foreign fighters, but obviously this action has not worked.

On Friday, Reuters India announced that the Pakistan government had been airdropping leaflets over Wana and Miranshah, urging locals to shun "foreign terrorists", who were said to be part of a "Hindu and Jewish plot" (!).

On December 1 last year, a blast at Haisori village near Miranshah killed Al Qaeda's third in command, Egyptian-born Abu Hamza Rabia.

Since December, atrocities against those considered to be "bandits" have increased, and now, violent DVDs of these executions are on sale in local markets and across the border in Afghanistan.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 10:04 PM | Comments (0)

US: Moussaoui's Links To UK Islamist In White House Attack Plot

Today Zacarias Moussaoui (pictured left) took to the stand at the court in Alexandria, Virginia, to give evidence in the trial hearing which will decide if he should receive the death penalty or a life sentence. He pleaded guilty on April 22 last year to conspiracy charges, related to his involvement with the attacks on 9/11, 2001.

His performance today has been revelatory, to say the least. According to Bloomberg, he testified that he had planned to hijack a plane and fly it into the White House. His co-conspirator was, he claimed, Richard Reid (pictured, below right), the British born potential shoe-bomber, who is currently in prison in the United States, after he failed to detonate a bomb in his shoe on a transatlantic flight.

It is known that the two had attended the Finsbury Park Mosque, when its imam was hook-handed Abu Hamza, currently serving a seven year sentence in the UK for conspiracy to murder, and other offences.

When defense lawyer Gerald Zerkin today asked Moussaoui if he had been scheduled to be a pilot on September 11, 2001, Moussaoui answered: "Yes, I was supposed to pilot a plane to hit the White House."

According to Reuters, Associated Press via Forbes and the BBC, before Moussaoui had taken the stand, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema asked if he would tell the truth.

37-year old Moussaoui, a French national of North African descent said he was an al-Qaeda member, but said he was not scheduled to be part of the attacks which took place on September 11, 2001. He had been intended to be part of a second wave later that day.

According to BBC TV News, Moussaoui had been arrested in Minnesota on August 16, 2001, three weeks before the attacks of 9/11, but bought a radio while in prison, so that he could hear the live news of those attacks as they happened.

When asked by Zerkin if anyone else had been scheduled to be on the plane he intended to hijack, he answered: "Richard Reid. The other crew members were not definite."

His evidence was a direct contradiction of the stories he had previously told for three years, i.e. that he was not meant to be a 9/11 attacker, and that he intended to fly a plane into the White House later on, conditional upon the US releasing an imprisoned Egyptian sheikh.

He told the court that by deliberately misleading investigators while he was in custody, enabled the 9/11 attacks to go ahead.

Prosecutor Rob Spencer asked him: "You lied because you wanted to conceal that you were a member of al-Qaida?"

Moussaoui replied: "That's correct."

Spencer stated: "You lied so the plan could go forward?"

"That's correct," Moussaoui confirmed.

Upon being asked about his knowledge of the details of the 9/11 plot, he said: "I had knowledge that the two towers would be hit but I didn't have the detail."

Agence France Presse state, according to the BBC, that when he was asked who had ordered him to fly a plane into the White House, Moussaoui had answered: "Osama bin Laden."

Richard Reid was on board an American Airlines Flight 63 bound from Paris to Miami, when he began to act suspiciously, attempting to put a lighted match to his shoe, on December 22, 2001. Passengers, including an American football player, subdued Reid, and the plane landed safely in Boston.

In January 2003, Reid, then aged 29, a former petty criminal, was sentenced to life imprisonment, while shouting his hatred for America.

It has been argued that Moussaoui's surprise confession has been done as a means of quick suicide, as his revelations certainly strengthen the case of the prosecution, who are arguing for the death penalty to be enacted.

Three times, Prosecutor Rob Spencer asked Moussaoui that if he received the death penalty, would he not be a martyr, and the defendant answered that the answer depended on if he had "fought to the best of your ability."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 7:57 PM | Comments (2)

Somalia: Islamic Militia Battle Ceasefire - 90 Dead

We reported on March 22 on the violence which was caused by Islamic militias, fighting under the control of a businessman, Abukar Omar Caddaan, who ambushed a checkpoint on Wednesday at Galgalato, northern Mogadishu. The fighting which ensued saw two factions recruiting more members and bringing more weaponry to the scene.

The Islamic militias were fighting against the Counter-Terror Alliance, a group founded in February to combat the violence which has been connected with the Islamist fundamentalists connected with the Union of Islamic Councils. On March 14 we described how Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, leader of the Union of Islamic Councils, had vowd that his supporters would take Mogadishu by force.

The Counter-Terror Alliance forces who were fighting last week were led by Bashir Rage. Yesterday, during a lull in the fighting, Associated Press via the Washington Post reported that Islamic militiamen buried their dead and brought in more forces, ready for a new offensive.

At least 93 people had been killed in the current spate of fighting, and at least 200 were injured. On Saturday (25 March), 300 of the Islamic militiamen mounted an operation against the port of El Maan in a pre-dawn raid, and also tried to gain control of an airstrip north of Mogadishu. They failed in both these efforts. El Maan is the only working port in Somalia.

Today, Reuters AlertNet, Reuters via MSNBC and SomaliNet report that a fragile ceasefire has been brokered between the two sides. Following urgings from Somali clan leaders, the Islamic militias have engaged in talks with businessmen and warlords.

It appears the port of El Maan was taken over, and the warlords who control it were driven from the region. The port is now, under the terms of the ceasefire, currently open. The UN-approved interim government is believed to be involved with brokering the peace, though this body has little actual power, and is based in Jowhar, outside the capital, because of the poor security in the nation.

Mohammed Said Barre, the dictator, was deposed in 1991, and since then, the capital has been governed by warlords who hold regions of Mogadishu under their exclusive control. Some of these are also involved with ship hi-jacking and piracy. In recent years, the powers of the Islamic militias have grown, and they are accused of killing moderate Muslims, intellectuals and businessmen. They conduct their own bandit raids upon places they deem "un-Islamic", such as bars and cinemas.

Our previous articles on Somalia can be found here.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 3:52 PM | Comments (0)

Turkey: Muslims Killing And Torturing Stray Dogs

A report from today's Telegraph relates the unpleasant news that pro-Islamic municipal authorities in Turkey are engaged in a policy of hunting, torturing and killing hundreds of stray dogs.

When Burcu Isikalp, a veterinary surgeon, went looking for strays she had been caring for near Ankara, the capital, she found that municipal workers had taken them.

At Mamak, the city's largest refuse dump, the dogs were found, along with hundreds of others. "They were all dead, stacked in large pits," she said. "We also found 10 dead puppies in a bound plastic bag. There is a myth among pious Muslims that dogs are unclean."

Two of the dogs were found to have been sexually assaulted.

Gazi Sahin, of Erdogan's Islamist AKP (Justice and Development) Party, the mayor of Mamak, denied any responsibility for the killing of the animals.

The notion of dogs being "najess" or "unclean" has Islamic precedent. The following hadiths are from the Sunan Abu Dawud:

Book 16, Number 2839:

Narrated Abdullah ibn Mughaffal:

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: Were dogs not a species of creature I should command that they all be killed; but kill every pure black one.

Book 16, Number 2840:

Narrated Jabir ibn Abdullah:

The Prophet of Allah (peace be upon him) ordered to kill dogs, and we were even killing a dog which a woman brought with her from the desert. Afterwards he forbade to kill them, saying: Confine yourselves to the type which is black.

And Sahih Muslim contains the following in Book 10, Chapter 31:

Book 010, Number 3809:

Ibn 'Umar (Allah be pleased with them) reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) giving command for killing dogs.

Book 010, Number 3810:

Ibn 'Umar (Allah be pleased with them) reported: Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) ordered to kill dogs, and he sent (men) to the corners of Medina that they should be killed.

Book 010, Number 3811:

Abdullah (b. Umar) (Allah be pleased with them) reported: Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) ordered the killing of dogs and we would send (men) in Medina and its corners and we did not spare any dog that we did not kill, so much so that we killed the dog that accompanied the wet she-camel belonging to the people of the desert.

So much for the Holy Apostle of Allah, who is described by many Muslims as "the perfect man". He certainly was no friend to Man's best friend. Burcu Isikalp says that the notion of Muslims regarding dogs as "unclean" is a myth among "pious Muslims". Unless the hadiths and sunnahs are wrong, for most Muslims there is no myth about this. Mohammed hated dogs and, in common with other things (and people) he took a dislike to, he wanted them annihilated.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 8:27 AM | Comments (0)

Egypt: Islamist Bomb Suspects Charged

News from AKI, from Reuters and Asarq Alawasat reports that 13 people have been charged yesterday in conection with the terror blasts which happened at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on 23 July last year. 64 people, mostly tourists, were killed and 170 were injured when a series of bombs hit a market and two hotels.

The July blasts were the last of a series of bombings at SInai resorts which were carried out by the Islamist group Tawhid and Jihad. Though Israel has suggested al-Qaeda had been involved in the attacks, the Egyptian government has claimed those involved were local militants with no international links.

Prosecutor Hisham Badawi said those charged with bombings "formed a terrorist organization ... which carried out the explosions."

The 13 individuals are charged with bombs which took place on July 23, 2005, and also bombings from October 2004, in which 34 people were killed at resorts of Taba and Ras Shitan, close to the Israeli border.

Two individuals have been on trial since July 2, but yesterday the 13 new individuals were brought to the court in Ismailiya. These had been arrested shortly after the Sharm el-Sheikh attacks.

Tawhid and Jihad (Monotheism and Holy War) has released a statement, claiming the bombings were carried out at the behest of Osama bin Laden, adding to the confusion surrounding the case.

In November last year, we reported that a Bedouin leader, Salem Khadr al-Shnub, who is believed to have been the "bombmaker" in the attacks, was shot dead in the SInai peninsula.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 7:31 AM | Comments (0)

Philippines: Suspected Islamists Kill Two In Blast

According to today's AKI, an explosion has taken place in the Philippines on the southern island of Jolo in the maritime province of Sulu. Jolo has long been a stronghold of the militant Islamist group Abu Sayyaf.

The explosion happened inside a grocery shop in Jolo town, killing at least two people and injuring seven people.

Currently many businesses and shops are closed, and police have erected roadblocks.

The authorities believe that today's explosion is the handiwork of Abu Sayyaf.

The Philippines government, which has been fighting an insurgency against Abu Sayyaf and rebels from the Moro National Liberation Front which began on November 11 last year, signed a truce with the insurgents in January.

The government has declared that the rebels of Abu Sayyaf have been diminished in numbers recently, and are currently "on the run". On March 13, Burham Sali, a leader of the group linked with the kidnappings and decapitations of both Filipinos and foreigners, was arrested on the neighbouring island of Basilan.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 7:09 AM | Comments (0)

March 26, 2006

Afghanistan: The True Horror Of Islamic Laws

We reported earlier on the case of Abdul Rahman (pictured), the Christian man who was facing a trial, with a potential death penalty if convicted, by a Kabul court. The incident has caused international outcry, and anguish for those nations which have been bankrolling the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Since we covered the case, the situation has developed. Reuters reported on Thursday that even the leftwing New York Times described Abdur Rahman's case as "barbaric". Christians in America, who backed the presence of US peacekeeping troops have been outraged at the case.

The European media has condemned the trial. Germany's Die Welt wrote of Afghanistan facing "the dark ages of barbarity", with similar themes echoed by La Corriere in Milan, Italy, and by the Dutch newspaper Trouw, which wrote: "We have a duty not to cooperate in bringing back the burning of heretics at the stake." Denmark's Jyllands-Posten suggested that should 41-year old Rahman be convicted of apostasy, Danish troops currently based in Afganistan should liberate him and take him to Denmark for asylum.

Friday's Voice of America News reported that despite Afghan officials discussing the case, the judge in the case, Ansarullah Mawlawizadah, insisted that the trial would go ahead uninterrupted. Clerics have been demanding that the trial should go ahead. On Friday, some of these Mullahs were saying they would incite Muslims to kill Abdur Rahman if he did not return to Islam.

The same judge sentenced Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, a magazine editor to two years imprisonment on October 23 last year for blasphemy, merely for questioning the Sharia Law regarding killing of apostates. Nasab was freed on appeal on December 21. In the current case of Abdur Rahman, Ansarullah Malawizadah has said that if he returns to Islam "we will forgive him, because Islam is a religion of tolerance," according to AFP via Paris News.

Islam is so tolerant that it condones the killing of apostates. Though the only verses in the Koran which deal with apostasy do not outright condemn apostates to death, there are plenty of hadiths that do.

In the Women, in the Koran, this is written:

4:90 Except those who seek refuge with a people between whom and you there is a covenant, or (those who) come unto you because their hearts forbid them to make war on you or make war on their own folk. Had Allah willed He could have given them power over you so that assuredly they would have fought you. So, if they hold aloof from you and wage not war against you and offer you peace, Allah alloweth you no way against them.

4:91 Ye will find others who desire that they should have security from you, and security from their own folk. So often as they are returned to hostility they are plunged therein. If they keep not aloof from you nor offer you peace nor hold their hands, then take them and kill them wherever ye find them. Against such We have given you clear warrant.

This implies that apostates should only be killed if they fight with Muslims. In The Bee, Sura 16, verses 104 to 109, apostates are prescribed the "awful doom" of Hell, in the hereafter. The Bee verses do not advocate killing of apostates.

However, the Hadiths and sunna are a different matter. The Sunan Abu Dawud is clear on the fate of apostates:

Ikrimah said: 'Ali burned some people who retreated from Islam. When Ibn 'Abbas was informed of it, he said: If it had been I, I would not have them burned, for the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) said: Do not inflict Allah's punishment on anyone, but would have had killed them on account of the statement of the Apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him). The Apostle said: Kill those who change their religion. - Sunan Abu Dawud, Book XXXIII, Kitab al-Hudud

There is no "tolerance" in these hadiths by Sahih Muslim:

Book 001, Number 0031:

It is reported on the authority of Abu Huraira that he heard the Messenger of Allah say: I have been commanded to fight against people, till they testify to the fact that there is no god but Allah, and believe in me (that) I am the messenger (from the Lord) and in all that I have brought. And when they do it, their blood and riches are guaranteed protection on my behalf except where it is justified by law, and their affairs rest with Allah.

Book 001, Number 0032:

It is narrated on the authority of Jabir that the Messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded that I should fight against people till they declare that there is no god but Allah, and when they profess it that there is no god but Allah, their blood and riches are guaranteed protection on my behalf except where it is justified by law, and their affairs rest with Allah, and then he (the Holy Prophet) recited (this verse of the Holy Qur'an):" Thou art not over them a warden" (lxxxviii, 22).

And here, Sahih Muslim relates that the prophet's approach to those who apostasise is to torture them to death:

Book 016, Number 4130:

Anas b. Malik reported that some people belonging (to the tribe) of 'Uraina came to Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) at Medina, but they found its climate uncogenial. So Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said to them: If you so like, you may go to the camels of Sadaqa and drink their milk and urine. They did so and were all right. They then fell upon the shepherds and killed them and turned apostates from Islam and drove off the camels of the Prophet (may peace be upon him). This news reached Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) and he sent (people) on their track a