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May 30, 2007

Pakistan: Death Sentence For Insulting Islam's "Prophet"

News from the Daily Times reports that a Christian man from Punjab province, Younis Masih, has been sentenced to death for making derogatory comments against the war-mongering, child-molesting, so-called "prophet" of Islam on September 9, 2005. A charge had been made against him on September 25, 2005.

On September 28 we wrote: "From Pakistan Christian Post, a report of a riot that ensued, causing 50 families to flee, after a Christian man was accused of blasphemy. The incident started in Waheed Park in Chungi Amer Sidhu after 40-year old Younis Masih made derogatory remarks about the Prophet Muhammad at a gathering arranged by another Christian on Friday night. This was followed by Younis first being beaten by local Christians, wanting him to apologise, and then he was attacked by a mob of enraged Muslims. Younis refused to retract his statements.

On Saturday, a mob of 200 Muslims armed with sticks surrounded the Factory Area police station demanding a case be made against Younis under the country's blasphemy laws. By Sunday, 50 Christian families had fled. The police transferred Younis to Kot Lakhpat jail earlier that morning, as the local police station was not strong enough to protect against a lynch mob. His wife arrived at the local police station in tattered clothes, claiming Muslims had attacked her."

Because of the fanatical rage of Muslims concerning this case, the proceedings of Younis Masih's trial took place with the accused remaining in Kot Lakhpat Jail, with a videolink connecting him to the Sessions Court.

Section 295 C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) states that a death sentence is possible for insulting Mohammed, but since the early 1990s, the death sentence is now mandatory.

The lawyer defending Younis Masih, Pervez Aslam Chaudhry, was given an order guaranteeing his security after he had received threats during the trial.

It is strange how Muslims in the West whine about Islamophobia, when they cannot get exclusive rights to act in any way they choose, but these people who whine about Islamophobia never mention the blatant Kaffirphobia that happens in Muslim countries. The kaffirs in Muslim countries have none of the rights and freedoms enjoyed by Muslims in the West.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 10:17 PM | Comments (0)

Spain: Three Pakistani Muslims Jailed On Terror Charges

News from Expatica and the Jang states that yesterday (Tuesday May 29) three Pakistanis were convicted of sending money from Spain to fund Al Qaeda operations in Pakistan.

A tribunal in Madrid gave the three men, Mohammad Afzaal, Shahzad Ali Gujar and Choudhry Mohammad sentences of five and a half years' jail for terrorist collaboration. Mohammad Afzaal was given an additional four years' jail for drug dealing.

The men were said to have transferred 800,000 Euros ($1,074,200) of cash to Islamists, including Amjad Hussain Farooqui, aka Mansur Hasnain alias Imtiaz Siddiqui alias Hyder, alias Doctor. This individual had been implicated in two attempts against the life of Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, and also in the killing of US journalist Daniel Pearl. Farooqui had been killed on September 26, 2004. They may also have given money to Rabei Osman, who is curently on trial in Madrid for the train bombings of March 11, 2004, in which nearly 200 people died.

The three men who were convicted yesterday had been arrested in the fall of 2004, along with 11 other individuals. They had been suspected of plotting to attack high-rise buildings in Barcelona. The prosecution had requested jail sentences of up to 32 years, but the 11 other men were acquitted by the tribunal of these charges, but two of them were convicted of forging documents and sentenced to jail terms of six months.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 8:59 PM | Comments (0)

Belgium: Protests Against Muslim Girls' School

From Expatica, news that a petition has been made against the proposed opening of a Muslim school which is exclusively for girls.

The proposed school is in Molenbeek, and the religious nature of the establishment has angered many who believe in Belgium's separation of church and state.

The petition demands a prohibition against "any ostensible sign of philosophical or religious membership in the context of a school, for students and especially for teachers."

The French-speaking group Mrax (The Movement Against Racism, Anti-Semitism and Xenophobia) has previously campaigned against the French Community Prime Minister, Marie Arena, when she ruled that in schools, no hats nor other headwear should be worn, obviously including hijabs and niqabs.

On the issue of the Muslim girls' school in Molenbeek, a Mrax spokesperson made the statement: "I don't think that setting up an Islamic school is a fantastic idea, but that is what happens when people feel shut out by a traditional school."

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 8:29 PM | Comments (0)

Pakistan: Islamist Crisis Deepens - Part 2 (of 2)

This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared earlier today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission. Part one of the article can be found here.

Pakistan: An Ally's Crisis Deepens

Part One (of Two)

Pakistan's 1,500 mile border with Afghanistan is rugged and mountainous, and for the tribal peoples living alongside it, the border is porous. The border, or "Durand Line", was artificially created in 1893 by the British more as a cartographic exercise than anything taking into consideration the ethnicity of the region. Pashtuns live in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Taliban fighters frequently cross over this border with impunity.

Two provinces lie alongside the border - North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Baluchistan (Balochistan). The latter province also lies alongside Iran, and is rich in oil and gas. Since 2004, there has been an insurgency in this region, led mainly by the Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) which was formed in the 1970s. Bugti tribal leader Nawab Akbar Bugti led this group until he was killed in a shootout with government forces on August 26 last year. The insurgency in Baluchistan has been driven more by financial reasons than religious ones. The local people feel they have not benefited from the revenue made from the oil and gas fields.

The BLA was banned in April last year by the Pakistani government, which denounced it as a terrorist organization. The group has committed atrocities against civilians in Quetta and against military personnel, but most of its targets have been the gas and power networks in the region. Bombings and attacks continue in the region. On the night of Sunday May 27. A bomb was placed in a parking lot of a state-owned gas company office complex in Quetta, killing a security guard and injuring another. The following day, three laborers were injured in six blasts around Quetta.

The Baluchistan insurgency seems less of a threat to the stability of the nation than the Islamist anarchy which has spread from NWFP, where the Pakistani "Taliban" has established itself. In September 2006, General James Jones, then NATO's Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, claimed that the Taliban was headquartered in or around Quetta in Baluchistan. Pakistan has denied this. In 2004, the Pakistan army moved against NWFP tribal leaders who were openly supporting Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban who were based in the tribal agency of North Waziristan in NWFP. The mission failed to gain control of the region, and led to local dissent against the federal authorities.

North Waziristan is one of seven "Federally Administrated Tribal Areas" (FATA) within NWFP. These are still governed under the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) deriving from 1901, when the region was part of British India, states a December 2006 report by the International Crisis Group, entitled "Pakistan's Tribal Areas - Appeasing the Militants. ICG suggests that since 2004, the Pakistan authorities have resorted to peace deals and treaties with tribal leaders, rather than establish real control of the region. Although 70,000 troops have remained posted near the border, and outside journalists are denied entry to the FATA territories, Musharraf's authority here is insignificant. Deals made with groups that resent "alien" Pakistani authority have not brought any positive results.

At the end of 2005, it became clear that "Taliban" influence was becoming officially established in the agencies of North and South Waziristan, described earlier in FSM. By March 2006, the local "Taliban" ruled South Waziristan and had established a sharia court in Wana, the agency's capital. More than 120 clerics and tribal elders had been killed in the year leading up to this takeover. An official accord was signed with tribal leaders of North Waziristan on September 5 last year, but did not stop the cross-border activities of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

In April, Uzbek radicals who had been part of the Talibanization of Waziristan were ousted by local Taliban. These "internal" conflicts appear to have been replaced by drives to impose strict Islamist principles in NWFP. In late April 32-year old Mullah Nazir, one of the South Waziristan Taliban leaders who had been involved in removing the Uzbeks' control declared that he would shelter Osama bin Laden if the Al Qaeda leader wished. On Saturday, May 5, 200 Taliban in Bajaur agency forced cars to stop, smashing their cassette players.

On May 6 the prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, refused to rule out having a state of emergency declared. He said that the constitution allowed for such a measure to be taken. On the same day a member of the PPP party was shot dead in NWFP, and the outlawed Lashkar-e-Islam staged a rally in Khyber agency, NWFP. This group had earlier demanded sharia law be imposed in villages in the agency, and its leader Mangal Bagh had presided over a public stoning in March.

On May 7, US media reported that the US had concerns that nuclear technology could fall into Al Qaeda hands. Such a scenario could happen in the event of an Islamist coup. In February 2004, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, admitted on TV that he had supplied nuclear technology and information to Libya, Iran and North Korea. Khan's illegal acquiring of nuclear technology had led to Pakistan's first nuclear tests which took place in Chagai, Baluchistan on May 28, 1998. Within days of his confession, Khan was pardoned by Musharraf for sharing nuclear technology. The fruits of his treachery led to the regime in North Korea detonating its first nuke on October 9 last year.

On May 14, prime minister Shaukat Aziz declared that there was no need to impose a state of national emergency. Lawyers in NWFP also ordered that if any members of the secular MQM party, which supports Musharraf, should enter the region, they should be shot on sight.

The government prepared for a crackdown on the outlawed Tehrik Nifaz-e-Shariah Muhammadi (TNSM) in Swat district, NWFP. This extreme Islamist group had threatened on March 25 to launch suicide attacks across Pakistan if their jailed leader Maulana Sufi Muhammad was not released within days. Tis individual claimed to have recruited 10,000 jihadists to join the Afghan Taliban in 2001.

The following day the military was attacked with grenades in Tank district, NWFP. A soldier was killed and military personnel and civilians were injured. In Punjab province, four members of the al-Qaeda linked Zafar group were arrested in Lahore.

On May 19, nine government officials were kidnapped in North Waziristan agency, NWFP. Six of these were women. Two days later, Taliban members in Lakki Marwat district, southern NWFP, kidnapped a member of the Ahmadi sect, which is regarded by Islamists as "heretical".

On Monday May 21, Mangal Bagh, the head of Lashkar-e-Islami ordered on FM radio that a tribal journalist in Khyber agency, Nasrullah Afridi, should be killed. Later that day a music shop was blown up in the home village of the federal interior minister, in NWFP.

On Monday May 21, the US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher praised the successes of the Pakistan military in repelling Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives along the Durand line. He said: "They've had 80,000 troops in that (border) area who’ve been active and I would say, for the last six months they’ve been increasingly active in preventing infiltration across the border, disrupting and arresting Taliban and supporting tribal leaders who are trying to expel foreign militants." The next day, an Al Qaeda camp in Zargarkhel village in North Waziristan was attacked by troops, backed up by helicopter gunships. Four al Qaeda members were killed in the operation.

On Thursday May 24 a committee of tribal elders in North Waziristan resigned. These individuals had the responsibility to ensure that the peace deals of the accord of September 5 were followed. They resigned in protest at the killing of four people in the military attack on Zargarkhel village. On the same day in Islamabad, the capital, the deputy leader of the Lal Masjid warned Musharraf that a Taliban opposition was growing to challenge his rule. Abdul Rashid Ghazi said: "If the government tries to suppress the change that our movement is demanding, then there is a likelihood of Talibanization. I can see it happening."

Major General Waheed Arshad, a senior spokesman for the ISI, claimed that support for the Taliban was coming "from a tiny minority". He said that fencing of the Durand line was going ahead, and the first 20 miles of this fencing would be erected along the border of Afghanistan and North and South Waziristan.

In Tank district, seven rockets were fired at a paramilitary fort, without injuries. On Friday, May 25, tribal elders in Mohmand Agency refused to take part in a jirga, or tribal council. The jirga was to have been held to unite elders in condemnation of the Taliban, but the participants feared "target-killings" like those which happen frequently in Waziristan.

On Saturday May 26, three soldiers were killed in Tank after a bomb attack on their convoy. Seven other soldiers were injured. On the same day, the home of Nasrullah Afridi, the journalist who had been subjected to a death fatwa from the Lashkar-e-Islami, was attacked. Three grenades were thrown, but no-one was injured. On the same day in Darra Adam Khel in NWFP, music and video shops were warned to cease their "unIslamic" activities.

On Monday, May 28 two soldiers were killed in Tank by a suicide bomber who rammed an explosives-laden car into their convoy.

India and Pakistan have been at loggerheads over the issue of Kashmir for years, and Pakistan has allowed groups that support Indian Kashmir secede from Delhi's control to function unimpeded within its borders. Since 2003, there have been attempts between the two nations to resolve their differences. There are about 20 groups who support secession of Jammu and Kashmir state from India, and several of these are headquartered in Pakistan, such as Harkatul Mujahideen, Jamat ud-Dawa which is led by Hafiz Mohammed Saeed (who also founded the terror group Lashkar -e-Taiba), and also the group known as Hizbul Mujahideen. The latter group is headed by Syed Salahuddin, who also controls an alliance of separatist groups called the United Jihad Council (UJC).

Pakistani Kashmir, according to a recent EU report entitled "Kashmir: Present situation and Future Prospect", is certainly not a place of freedom. The author, Baroness Emma Nicholson described the two Pakistan-controlled Kashmiri regions of Gilgit and Baltistan as "black holes". In these regions, human rights violations flourish. The report was condemned by Pakistan's ambassador to the EU as lacking objectivity, but Baroness Nicholson insisted that on October 26, 1947 the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, Hari Singh, had clearly spelled out his reasons for his state becoming a part of India, rather than Pakistan. Nicholson described Pakistani Kashmir as being "in chains".

Gilgit is in the north of PoK (Pakistan occupied Kashmir) is 60% Shia, and in the past the Pakistan army has colluded with extremist Sunni groups, including the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, to oppress the Shia population.

The crisis within Pakistan is between secularism and Islamism, federalism and tribalism. The Lal Masjid, based in the Aapara district in the heart of the capital though with a large student intake from NWFP and links with mosques throughout Pakistan, highlights the tensions within the nation as a whole. Members of Pakistan's secret service, the ISI, have been worshippers at the Lal Masjid. One former ISI member, Khalid Khawaja, is currently in jail for fomenting the anarchy of the mosque students. In the past ISI has been responsible for coup attempts. Musharraf, as head of the army, can withstand a coup as long as he is supported by the military.

One retired general, Talat Masood, recently claimed that Musharraf has lost control of the government. On Saturday May 26 Musharraf warned that religious extremism was threatening the stability of the nation.

On the same day, the US warnedits citizens not to travel to Pakistan, on account of intelligence which suggested that Western interests in the nation were due to be attacked. The US Embassy in Lahore warned: "American citizens should avoid areas where Westerners are known to congregate, vary their routes and times, and maintain a low profile. We remind American citizens that protests and demonstrations may occur throughout Pakistan without prior notice and to avoid all demonstrations and protests."

Musharraf is an ally of the West, but he alone cannot stem the tide of religious fundamentalism which is aiming to engulf the nation. Should Pakistan fall to the Islamists there is no knowing what will happen to the nation's nuclear arsenal. In the face of Islamofascism, there are few safeguards to maintain rights and freedoms for minorities. Hindus, Christians and Ahmadis have been treated so poorly under successive Pakistani regimes and their forcibly-imposed regulations that many have fled. The suspended Chief Justice Iftikar M Chaudhry is parading himself on public tours around the country, and claiming that the rule of law is important. When this same judge, supported by the Islamists who wish to tear down the government, upholds a legal system which still blatantly discriminates against women and non-Muslims, then Pakistan is truly in a deep crisis. Musharraf may have his faults, but Pakistan without his influence could easily succumb to the process of Talibanization.

Adrian Morgan

© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 7:35 PM | Comments (0)

UK: Woman Urged Husband To Die As Islamic Martyr

News from Daily Mail, BBC and Telegraph.

A Muslim woman of Dutch origin sent a letter to her husband, urging him to become a martyr, the Old Bailey was told today. 24-year old Bouchra El Hor had written to her 28-year old British-born husband Yassin Nassari: "The moment has come where you and I have to separate for the cause of Allah. I am so proud, my husband, and I am happy for you that Allah had granted you this chance to be a Mujihad in the cause of God. I am writing to let you know that you have my support and to remind you to be strong and do not let Satan influence you... to remind you that jihad is now compulsory and we are now obligated to protect Islam, to help our brothers and sisters to fight the kuffar."

"I really wish I could go with you because I too feel obliged to do all this and look to participate in any way I can. God willing, I will do anything in my power to raise our son the best way I can so he can be a righteous Muslim. I will also tell him all about his father so he can be proud of him and follow in his footsteps."

The letter was written partly in English, partly in Arabic. The letter was found in the couple's luggage after they entered Britain at Luton airport in Bedfordshire on an Easyjet flight from Amsterdam on May 13, 2006. The prosecutor in the trial, Aftab Jafferjee, claimed the letter's significance became fully apparent when Nassari's computer hard drive was examined. There instructions on manufacturing a missile were found.

Jafferjee said: "It is the prosecution case that they are not merely radicalised Muslims, but that Nassari was going to engage in what he and others like him would call a jihad - but what the law describes as terrorism. He held both the ideology and the technology with which that could be achieved. His wife was not only aware of his intention, but positively encouraged it - despite the fact that his actions would almost certainly result in his death in some form of combat and would also result in their son being without a father."

Nassari and his wife lived in Ealing, west London, and had been married in Britain in March 2005. The couple's son was five months old when they were arrested. Nassari had been a student of cognitive science at Westminster University in 2001, when he had been described as someone who accustomed to "enjoying a drink". He had taken a break from his studies. When he reappeared in 2003, he was radicalized, wearing long robes and headgear. "He claimed he was the leader of the Islamic Society at the campus in Harrow," said the prosecutor.

Nassari never achieved his degree. He had been teaching in Syria, and his wife had gone back to the Netherlands to have her baby. They met back in the Netherlands at the end of April, and in May had taken the flight to London.

The material from the hard drive included videos of beheadings, suicide bombings, and also articles entitled: "Virtues of martyrdom in the path of Allah" and "Islamic Ruling on the Permissibility of Self-Sacrificial Operation - Suicide or Martyrdom?"

Nassari is charged with "possessing an article for the purposes of terrorism and possession of a document of record likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism" and his wife is accused of "failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism."

Both parties deny the charges. In court, Bouchra El Hor wore a black hijab.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 7:30 PM | Comments (0)

Opinion: An "Infidel's Prayer To Allah"

Good friend of Western Resistance Wiking, our Danish correspondent, has provided translations (here and here) and has contributed with his own writing.

He has felt inspired to write this latest contribution, his "Infidel's Prayer to Allah". Enjoy.

*****

Dear Allah,

I know you hate me.

You have said so yourself in your Koran, the book you have revealed to mankind through your messenger, Mohammed. You hate all the infidels, and I am an infidel. This is true and has been confirmed again and again by people you have selected to spread your message on earth, the mullahs, the ayatollahs, the imams and all the "scholars" who speak in your name. What is truly disappointing, yes shocking, to me and the other "infidels", is to discover that you created us for the sole purpose to hate us and send us to Hell, and that you offer no guidance to lead us towards your light, and ultimately to salvation. On the contrary, you do your best to deceive us, to lead us astray and to remove us from your presence and your paradise, the brothel in the sky. We are predestined for Hell.

You are indeed the greatest of deceivers.

Don't let the opening address of this prayer mislead you, Allah. I hate you too. I'm not the hating type, but you Allah, has brought hatred into my life.

I'm planning your downfall, Allah.

Yes, I promise. I'll do my outmost in the effort to bring you down; to rid humanity of your evil presence, imaginary though you may be. The world will be a more peaceful and secure place without you. Without you, the 1000 millions of slaves you keep in your "ummah" will be free at last, free to pursue prosperity and happiness, without your evil interference.

You have no power over me Allah. I don't believe in you and I don't fear you, like the millions of slaves you keep in absolute terror and misery throughout the world do. Your Hell holds no terror to me. I breathe freely, in spite of your threats and curses, in spite of the acts of beheading and stoning and shooting and suicide bombing in your name we witness almost every day, in spite of the terror you try to instill in the hearts of every human of this planet.

I'm here to kill you Allah!

Our enmity is boundless, but in all fairness, I'll let you have your chance to defend yourself. Allah, let's fight this out as gentlemen. I know being a gentleman is not one of your traits, but that shall not stop me from behaving like one. I'll give you the right to fire the first shot. Do kill me!

Yes, seriously. Kill me! Show the world what a mighty god you are. Show them your power and grandeur and how you handle your enemies. Send me to Hell! Open a channel to the inferno and let the world see my suffering. Don't be such a limp dick. Show them what you can do. After all, you are an omnipotent god! You are the mightiest they say. Some even say there are no other gods, but this I very much doubt. There are thousands of gods, and there have been millions of gods through human history, all as imaginary as you are.

See you at dawn Allah.

Yours in enmity,
Wiking

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 2:30 PM | Comments (3)

Malaysia: Christian Woman Denied Right To Leave Islam

The legal case of Lina Joy, a convert to Christianity who wants the right to be recognised as a non-Muslim, has gone on for several years. Born 43 years ago as Azlina Jailani as a Malay, her "Mykad" identity card, automatically given to all citizens at age 12, claimed that she was a Muslim. This is the labeling given to all Malays, whom the UMNO-led government considers to be de facto "Muslim". Details of Mykads, which must be carried at all times, are stored at the National Registration Department or NRD.

26 years ago, she became a Christian. On February 2, 1997 as "Lina Joy" she applied to the NRD to have her new Christian name registered on her MyKad. On August 11, 1997, this claim was rejected. She applied again to the NRD to have her Christian name recognized, and the NRD approved having the name Lina Joy entered on her MyKad, but refused to designate her faith as Christian. It remained as "Muslim".

Article 11 of Malaysia's constitution states that anyone can follow any religion of their choosing, but in 1988, this was undermined. An amendment (1A) was made to Article 121, which stated that the civil courts have no jurisdiction over "any matter" which falls under the jurisdiction of the Islamic (or Syariah) Courts.

As we wrote earlier:

Lina Joy is not allowed to marry her boyfriend, an "official" Christian, as she is still "officially" a Muslim. Under Islamic law, a Muslim man can marry out of the faith, but not a woman. She took her case of registering her conversion on her MyKad to the Federal Court last August, but instead of reaching a publicly proclaimed decision, the court and the Malaysian media became silent on the issue.

Even Article 11 of the constitution, which states that a citizen can follow any religion of their choosing, contains a clause which shows that Malaysia has no concept of religious freedom. This clause states: "The law may control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among persons professing the religion of Islam." In August 2006 the church which had baptized Lina Joy was subjected to a police report, for contravening this clause. The church of Our Lady of Fatima, Brickfields, was reported to the authorities by a Muslim. Both Lina Joy and her boyfriend have been issued with death threats by Muslims. The Federal Court has still not come to a decision on her case.

No decision was taken by the Federal Court in August, perhaps as it was too close to the nation's Merdeka or Independence Day celebrations (August 31) and the authorities did want any unpleasant aspects of their Islamofascist regime to be publicly revealed. Finally, after nine months, the three judges have voted 2 to 1 against Lina Joy's rights to officially leave Islam.

The news is carried by MalaysiaKini, Bernama, ABC News, Reuters, Asia News and the Australian.

Chief Justice Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim and Federal Judge Alauddin Mohammed Sheriff ruled against Lina Joy, and Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Richard Malanjum (a non-Muslim) ruled in her favor. The decision remains that in order to have her religious designation changed from being Muslim, she must apply to the Islamic courts. No Islamic court in Malaysia has ever allowed a living person to leave Islam.

Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim decreed: "On the question that the National Registration Department has the right to demand a certification from the Islamic court that confirms the appellant's renunciation of Islam, my answer is that NRD has the right."

Halim said apostasy came under the jurisdiction of the Shariah courts. He said: "Civil courts cannot interfere. In short, she cannot, at her own whim, simply enter or leave her religion... She must follow rules. The appeal has been rejected with cause."

Richard Malanjum, the dissenting judge said the demands of the NRD were "discriminatory and unconstitutional". He also said that by applying to an Islamic court (which has powers to rule against apostasy which is illegal in some states) the decision would lead to Ms Joy being made to "self-incriminate" herself.

On September 19, 2005, the Court of Appeal had made a similar 2-1 ruling against Lina Joy removing the word "Islam" from her Mykad. The official ruling was announced earlier today from the Palace of Justice in Putrajaya. Outside the court, a crowd of between 200 and 300 Muslims (pictured) shouted Allahu Ackbar ("God is Great") when the ruling was announced. Ms Joy did not appear at court, fearful that she would be attacked by Muslim fanatics.

America has a "Free Trade Agreement" with Malaysia, valid as of March 2006, even though the US State Department noted its abuses against religious freedom in November 18, 2005. The US is Malaysia's largest trading partner, and Malaysia is America's tenth largest business partner.

Though the US Commission on International Religious Freedom aims to identify countries which abuse rights to religious freedom, Malaysia appears neither on its list of countries of serious concern nor on its watch list. The country is not mentioned on its 2006 Annual Report.

Anyone who thinks that the United States has a duty to ensure that it trades only with countries that allow human and religious rights, can write to the State Department, or should contact the US Commission on International Religious Freedom:

United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
800 N. Capitol Street, N.W., Suite 790
Washington, D.C. 20002

Phone: (202) 523-3240
Fax: (202) 523-5020

email: communications@uscirf.gov

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)

May 29, 2007

Italy: EU Prevents Muslims' Deportation

AKI and the Associated Press via the International Herald Tribune and NorthWest Florida Daily News reported earlier that Italy had been preparing to expel two Moroccans, one of whom had been an imam.

These had been acquitted of terrorism charges by a Milan court on May 24, after they had been accused of raising funds for the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (Groupe Islamique Combatant Marocain or GICM) which was responsible for the Casablanca suicide bombings of May 16, 2003, in which 45 people (including the bombers) were killed.

Abdelmajid Zergout (Majid Zergout) was the former imam at the city of Varese in the north. The other man is Abdelillah el Kaflaoui. The two men were on the point ofleaving Varese police station to be taken to the Malpensa airport in Milan, when an intervention order blocking the expulsions came from the European Court of Human Rights which is based in Strasbourg, Belgium. Mohamed Raouiane, an assistant of Zergout, is currently in jail, and was due to be deported later.

Extradition procedures had been finalized by the Interior Ministry while the men had been on trial. The lawyer for the two men, Luca Bauccio, had applied to the European court, claiming that in Morocco the men would face torture and human rights abuses.

The court in Strasbourg has not made an official blocking of the expulsion, but requested that the Italian authorities suspend the deportations while awaiting a ruling.

Mohammed Raouiane has been convicted in absentia in Morocco of terrorism charges, and awaits a 10-year jail term upon his arrival.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 8:41 PM | Comments (4)

US: Islamic Society Of Boston Abandons Its Legal Vendetta

Finally, an end has come to the long-running saga of the Islamic Society of Boston's lawsuit against various groups whom it claimed were "defaming" it. The ISB has dropped its case.

The 16 respondents in the case included Steve Emerson of the Investigative Project, the David Project (a group which aims to promote understanding about Israel, and a "fair and honest understanding of the Middle East conflict"), Citizens for Peace & Tolerance, the Boston Herald, Fox News. Two individuals from the David Project were also personally named in the suit: Anna Kolodner, the David Project's director of education, and Charles Jacobs. Mr Jacobs is a founder-chairman of the American Anti-Slavery Group, which for more than a decade has helped free 80,000 slaves, and also someone who has drawn attention to genocides in Darfur.

I have written to the David Project in the hope that their press release (found here and here) can be reproduced in its entirety on Western Resistance, with their permission.

In the meantime, here are some extracts of what we have written previously on this case.

***********
US: Boston Islamic Society - The Enemy Within?
January 2, 2006

The Boston Islamic Society, founded in 1982, has been busy of late, filing lawsuits against anyone who dares to even question their motives or their legitimacy in constructing a mosque at Roxbury, whose cost is estimated to run to $24 million dollars. When complete, it will be the largest Muslim religious building in the northeastern US. It will have a 125-foot minaret and a 75-foot dome.

The first "groundbreaking" happened on November 7, 2002, when luminaries of the mosque and the City posed with shovels for the cameras. John Kerry (remember him?) praised the IBS for its "outstanding work", which was happening at a time when people needed "cross-cultural understanding and cooperaton."

But despite IBS' threats of lawsuits against its critics, the Boston Globe yesterday brought out a list of "questions the Islamic Society should answer".

The last time the Islamic Society tried to answer a newspaper's questions, it messed up badly. In March, 2004, Dr Walid Fitaih, one of the founders of the group was reported to have written in an Arabic newspaper that Jews were the "murderers of Prophets" and other anti-semitic comments, such as Jews would be punished for their "oppression, murder, and rape of the worshipers of Allah" by the Boston Herald. Fitaihi was a trustee and treasurer of IBS.

The answer to the Herald's commentary was placed on IBS' website on 10 September 2004, where it has remained. It states: "Ultimately, we decided, based on what we know of Dr. Fitaihi's views, the historic and linguistic context of the articles, as well as Dr. Fitaihi's internal statement on the issue, to accept his contention that the articles were intended to condemn particular individuals whom he believes were working to destroy one of Islam's holiest sites, killing innocent children, and thereby blocking the possibility of peace in the Middle East; the articles were not meant to incite hatred of an entire faith or people."

On October 14, 2004, the Boston Globe reported that Boston Islamic Society was publicly distancing itself from Dr Walid Fitaihi, following pressure from various groups, including Jewish citizens' groups. IBS sent a letter, signed by 7 board members, to Mayor Thomas M. Menino, apologising for producing "ambivalent" statements about the case.

But the "ambivalent" September 10 statement remains on their website, so perhaps they are not as morally scrupulous as they would like to appear. Yesterday's "questions" in the Globe include the following points.

One of the eight founders of the group is Abdurahman Alamoudi (pictured left). He is serving a 23-year prison term for being involved in an assassination plot. He was an outspoken supporter of terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah, and has been identified by the US Treasury Department as a fund-raiser for al-Qaeda.

It took seven months for the Boston Islamic Society to repudiate Dr Walid Fitaihi's anti-semitic comments.

For years, one of the listed trustees of the ISB in its tax returns and on the website was Yusef al Qaradawi, the Qatari-based sheikh, who has praised suicide bombers and advocated killing homosexuals. He has given his blessings to the killing of US soldiers in Iraq, and was asked to attend an IBS fundraiser event in 2002 (he is barred from the US, so he appeared via video-link). Qaradawi has said that Pokemon should be banned in Islamic nations, because it promotes Darwinism(!)

An examination of the Society's library in 2003 by an Islamic scholar found several publications and videos which promoted hostility to the US and were derogatory of other faiths.

These are the allegations contained in the article, by Jeff Jacoby, who condemns the recent recourse to lawsuits as an overreaction which "does rank-and-file Muslims no favors -- and gives all of us, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, another reason to wonder about its motives."

Recently, on 14 December, the Weekly Standard discussed the nature of the lawsuits emanating from the ISB.

There followed lawsuits. The ISB sued Fox Channel 25, the Boston Herald, and 14 other private citizens and organizations for having conspired to defame the organization. Meanwhile, a citizen of Boston sued the Boston Redevelopment Authority for giving the land for the mosque to the ISB at a price significantly below market value.

They got the land, which had been valued as being worth more than $400,000, for a mere $175,000. To get the documentation signed by all the trustees, paperwork had to be sent to Saudi Arabia.

Private citizens named in the lawsuit, filed in May 2005, include TV and media news pundit Steve Emerson, who is described in the suit as a "widely discredited and self professed 'expert' on radical Islam and Islamic terrorism." The suit further claims "Emerson's research and findings have been routinely, publicly and severely criticized as both uninformed and biased against Muslims."

Another private citizen named in the defamation suit is Charles Jacobs (pictured right), who belongs to a group, the David Project which aims to come to a "fair and honest understanding of the Middle East conflict."

The Standard notes that Mr Jacobs is also founder-chairman of the American Anti-Slavery Group, which for more than a decade has helped free 80,000 slaves, and also someone who has drawn attention to genocides in Darfur. The Jewish Advocate notes on November 3 that, as well as charges of defamation, the lawsuit had been expanded to claim that the defendants conspired to deprive the plaintiffs of "their basic rights of free association and the free exercise of religion."

On Tuesday November 1, the David Project released a statement, containing the following: "The ISB lawsuit is an ugly and obvious attempt to bully American citizens into not exercising their fundamental First Amendment rights: the right to engage in free speech, the right to express views to governmental bodies about important public policy issues, and the right to communicate with other citizens."

The expansion of the suit was covered by the Boston Globe on 1 November.

In early November, a Suffolk Superior Court judge denied a motion to dismiss another lawsuit from progressing through the courts. This lawsuit, states Jewish Advocate, is against the city of Boston, charging that by selling the land to the ISB at a knock-down price, it violated the mandatory separation of church and state. The case was filed against the city of Boston and the Boston Redevelopment Authority by James Policastro.

The Weekly Standard states that one City Councillor, Jerry McDermott, has been looking into the possible waste of public money in the land deal between the city and the ISB, and has called for an open investigation. As a result, he has been threatened by ISB with lawsuits. He has also received threatening phone calls to his house, which he shares with a wife and two children.

Steve Emerson, the TV news pundit states that extremists "are adept at getting a toe-hold" in the States, and this time "it's happening at the behest and with the sanction of the government."

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US: CAIR Joins Boston Islamic Society Controversy
January 7, 2006

Today, Reuters discusses the rising tensions between ISB leadership and leaders of Jewish groups in Boston. On Thursday, Boston's Jewish Advocate newspaper carried a full page advertisement, in which ISB was accused of using litigation to suppress discussion, and also of failing to adequately respond to Jewish leaders' questions. Jewish leaders have, since London's 7/7, where mosques have been cited as sources of extremism, been concerned about mosques with possible terror links.

Larry Lowenthal heads the American Jewish Committee's Boston branch. He says: "There is a great deal of anxiety.... The distance that I think has to be established between these current leaders and their colleagues who have made troubling statements ... that distance has to be clearly distinct and established."

There are an estimated 240,000 Jews in the Boston region, with 70,000 Muslims. Reuters reports that the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has 33 branches in the US and Canada, has also thrown its support behind the Islamic Society of Boston.

Arsalan Iftikhar, who is legal director for CAIR, said: "Unfortunately, I see the Boston case as indicative of a growing trend in anti-Muslim rhetoric that has grown after 9/11. It has especially impacted local Muslim communities in terms of building their mosques. High concentrations of Muslim populations are being given a hard time for just trying to practice their faith."

Well CAIR knows what a hard time it has had, just trying to practice its faith. CAIR was founded in 1994, at a period according to Ahmed Bedier, the group's communications director, when it was not "immoral" to support Islamic Jihad, the anti-Israeli terrorist organisation.

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US: Boston Islamic Society Can Proceed With Its Legal Vendetta
July 21, 2006

The Boston Globe reports that yesterday, a Superior Court judge ruled that the Islamic Society of Boston can go ahead with its legal suit, which claims that various groups "defamed" it.

The sixteen groups and individuals named in the suit include the Boston Herald, Fox Channel 25, The Jewish rights group The David Project and Citizens for Peace and Tolerance. The latter group is an alliance of Jewish, Christian and Muslim citizens opposed to religious bigotry.

The defamation suit alleges that the above-named groups, and others, by highlighting known links of the group's associates with terrorists, as printed in the Boston Herald and stated on Fox TV in 2004, attempted to halt the construction of the Roxbury Mosque......

.....Howard Cooper, the attorney for the Islamic Society of Boston, said: "For many months since my clients simply sought to file a lawsuit and redress their rights in court, all we heard was that we were attempting to intimidate people and we would end up having to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorneys' fees. The court has now rejected the defendants' arguments in their entirety and ruled that the ISB filed its lawsuit appropriately."

Jeff Robbins, attorney for some of the "nonmedia" defendants said the ruling would be appealed but was not a setback. He said his clients were eager to present their responses to the defamation suit in court. He said: "There is a very strong desire on the part of those who have been sued to lay out the evidence about the ISB on the public record. They think this is a very important public service, to lay out who provided the funds to the ISB, to whom the ISB has made contributions."

Howard Cooper called on those named in the suit to enter mediation on their dispute, and if they did so, the society would drop the suit.

************

US: Boston Islamic Society's Lawsuit Progresses
September 23, 2006

ISB was founded in 1982. It has been linked with a dodgy land deal with Boston City, itself the subject of another lawsuit which is mounted against Boston and was allowed in November 2005 to progress through the courts by a Suffolk Superior Court judge. This case is being made against the city of Boston and the Boston Redevelopment Authority by James Policastro.

The land was sold to ISB at a knock-down price of $175,000 by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, even though its market value was said to be worth nearly half a million dollars. The land at Roxbury was to be used for the construction of a giant mosque which will, when completed, be the largest mosque in North America. On November 7, 2002, ISB officials and members of the City establishment posed with shovels for the cameras as the first "groundbreaking" took place. John Kerry praised ISB for its "outstanding work" and said the mosque was being built at a time when people needed cross-cultural understanding and cooperaton."

The mosque's construction costs are estimated at $25 million. It will have a 125-foot high minaret and a 75 foot high dome....

.....On July 20 Judge Janet L. Sanders said that a 1994 law, which was designed to protect private citizens who brought legal cases against developers, was not applicable when applied in a defamation case, and said that the lawsuit could go ahead.....

....Yesterday, Superior Court Judge Janet L. Sanders dismissed a claim by the defendants. ISB had made claims that the stories disseminated by the defendants had caused mosque donations to dry up. The defendants' lawyers had stated that the claims of conspiracy and defamation were related to stories which were protected under the First Amendment. This, the defendants argued, should mean the litigation should be abandoned. Judge Sanders rejected this line of argument and said that ISB's case should be heard in court.

And while ISB wastes its funds (now where do there funds come from?) on litigation, the proposed giant mosque remains in a state of incompletion at Roxbury Crossing.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 5:54 PM | Comments (1)

UK: Taxes Fund Muslim Polygamy

On April 18, the Daily Mail revealed that even though polygamy is illegal in Britain, guidelines from the Department of Work and Pensions approved the funding of such illegal unions. DWP guidelines on council and housing benefits state: "If you were legally married to more than one partner under the laws of a country that permits this, then your relationship is called a polygamous marriage. In this case your household consists of you and any partners who live with you and to whom you are married."

When the Daily Mail made the report, it stated that DWP officials were reviewing whether the state should "continue to pay out income support, jobseeker's allowance and housing and council tax benefits to 'extra' spouses."

Yesterday, the Times reported that the UK government has finally admitted for the first time that almost 1,000 men are currently living in polygamous unions in Britain. Apparently, the government has been assailed for years to provide figures, but has only now responded as a request from the Times was answered under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act.

The DWP stated: "It is estimated that there are fewer than 1,000 valid polygamous marriages in the UK, few of whom are claiming a state benefit. Because of the small numbers concerned, our IT systems do not specifically record such information."

Muslim wives who were married in countries where such unions are legal can enter Britain as students or tourists. A Home Office rule book on immigration states: "Entry clearance may not be withheld from a second wife where the husband has divorced his previous wife and the divorce is thought to be one of convenience. This is so, even if the husband is still living with the previous wife and to issue the entry clearance would lead to the formation of a polygamous household."

A statement released under the terms of the Freedom of Information act asserted: "A polygamous marriage is the only circumstance in which an adult dependency increase is payable in income-related benefits. In any other circumstances an adult 'dependent' would have to make a separate claim."

Conservative MP Humphrey Malins, founder of the Immigration Advisory Service, requested from the government three years ago information on how many unregistered polygamous marriages took place in Britain. He never got an answer. Now, the officials admit that they do not know the number.

He said: "I've not been able to find out from the Government what the extent of the problem is. It's a very serious issue." Malins demanded that action was taken to prevent women being encouraged to enter into unrecognized "marriages". He said: "The Government has no grip on the situation. This is quite clearly exploitation of women."

Housing benefit can be claimed for polygamous wives (where the marriage took place in a country where such cases are legal) even when she is abroad, for up to a whole year, as long as the departure from Britain is judged to be temporary and for necessary reasons.

It is now official - Britain makes bigamy illegal, but supports Muslim polygamy.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 4:23 PM | Comments (1)

Opinion: Please, Keep Building Cluster Munitions

The good, wonderful people are at it again: Stop world cluster bombs, urge six Nobel Prize winners

Jody Williams and five other female Nobel prize laureates on Tuesday urged civilians to press for the elimination of cluster bombs, which cripple children and others long after the fighting has stopped.

"While so many of the worlds arms cause so much human misery, cluster munitions deserve to be singled out as an especially pernicious weapon of ill repute," Williams said.

"They have become synonymous with civilian casualties," the US Nobel laureate read from the statement signed by her and five women Nobel Peace Prize winners: Rigoberta Menchu (Guatemala-1992); Shirin Ebadi (Iran-2003); Wangari Maathai (Kenya-2004); Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire (Ireland-1976).

Oh, how the heart bleeds. Has any of these women thought about the consequences of their well-intentioned (one assumes) proposal? The article notices that the main manufacturers of cluster munitions are the United States, Russia, and China. Of these countries the only one that may fall to pressure to ban the munitions is the United States. If they succeed, it will be the United States and Israel that get militarily weaker, while our enemies get stronger.

The landmines campaign provides a clear example. Yielding to pressure, the United States removed its minefields from Guantanamo Bay Naval Station from 1996 to 1999. They were replaced by other, less effective, more expensive, defensive measures. The landmines on the Cuban side still stand there. American wealth was wasted and our soldiers are less protected. All because some people allegedly had some good intentions.

Ms. Williams goes wrong with her beliefs about causation: "While so many of the world's arms cause so much human misery...." This is philosophical hogwash. It is humans who cause human misery. Arms help the process along. Something as humble as the machete "caused" more deaths last century than cluster munitions could hope to do this one.

So far, the United States is resisting the pressure to participate in the "dialogue" to ban cluster munitions. One hopes our government will stand firm. The lives of our soldiers should not be risked to satisfy the ego of petty political activists. Even is they are all Nobel Prize winners. Because so was Yasser Arafat.

Posted by Ruy Diaz at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)

Pakistan: Islamist Crisis Deepens - Part 1 (of 2)

This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared earlier today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission.

Pakistan: An Ally's Crisis Deepens

Part One (of Two)

In April I described the mounting crisis that was then starting to engulf Pakistan (parts one, two and three). At that time there were problems with Islamist radicals in Islamabad, the capital, protests across the country from lawyers against Predisent Musharraf, and in North-West Frontier Province the Pakistani Taliban were flexing their muscles and intimidating those not deemed "Islamic" enough. In all these areas the problems remain, but they have become worse.

The Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad has a compound containing two madrassas (Islamic seminaries), called the Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Fareedia. Students from these seminaries had occupied the only children's library in the capital since January. The head imam at the Lal Masjid, Abdul Aziz, had threatened that any interference with his students would be met with a campaign of suicide attacks across Pakistan. Many of his students came from the troubled North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) which borders Afghanistan, and while the Lal Masjid students attacked stores selling Western DVDs and CDs in the capital, similar actions were being taken in NWFP.

On March 26, students had kidnapped three women and a six month old child, and held them hostage, tied up with rope. The kidnap victims were accused of running a brothel and were only released three days later when they publicly recanted their "immoral behavior". On March 27, when police tried to arrest two female madrassa teachers as they went to work, armed students kidnapped two policemen. The policemen were released the following day. In April, the Lal Masjid established a "sharia court" in the complex.

On April 9, the first fatwa of the Lal Masjid sharia court was issued - targeting a woman member of the government. Tourism minister Nilofar Bakhtiar was accused of "lewd conduct", after she had been photographed being hugged by a paragliding instructor in Paris. Ms Bakhtiar had been raising money for victims of the earthquake of October 8, 2005, which had killed thousands. On May 20 Bakhtiar succumbed to pressure and resigned as tourism minister. She had been forced to resign from her post as head of the women's league within her party, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q), earlier in the month and had also received death threats.

Negotiations were made with the Lal Masjid leaders by politician Chaudry Shujaat Hussain, at the behest of President Musharraf, but the mosque leaders refused to tone down their public demands for nationwide sharia law. Threats of suicide attacks continue to be made. The Lal Masjid has 2,500 students at two madrassas - the Jamia Hafsa and the Jamia Fareedia. In 2005, after the London 7/7 bombings, there was a crackdown on extreme madrassas. The Lal Masjid showed then that it would react violently to interference from the authorities. When police tried to enter the mosque complex (without removing their shoes) there were violent clashes, in which 35 girl students were injured.

On Friday, May 18, four policemen were kidnapped by students from the mosque complex as an act of retaliation for the arrests of 27 students. Two policemen were released the following day, but the other two were kept inside the complex. On Thursday May 24, the remaining officers were escorted from the building (pictured) by Abdul Rashid Ghazi, one of the two cleric brothers who run the complex. Ghazi said: "We have released the two policemen on Islamic and humanitarian grounds because their relatives came to us with requests to free them. We are not cruel people like the government. None of them contacted us for negotiations, nor did they release our remaining students."

All four kidnapped officers claimed that weapons were being held inside the mosque complex. The authorities had been planning an operation to storm the complex, and to this end had drafted in 10,000 police constables from Punjab province. This action was conducted in a haphazard manner, with some officers sent to Islamabad on only an hour's notice. When they arrived at the capital, no accommodation had been made for them, and many were forced to sleep rough. Some had been housed at local mosques, but had been ejected when clerics learned that they were to be involved in a storming of the Lal Masjid complex.

On the night of Saturday May 26, half of the Punjabi police left the capital. A group of 2,200 Punjabi police had taken up residence in the Pakistan Sports Complex last week, against the wishes of the center's administrators, who accused the police of vandalism. Doors of some rooms and toilets had been broken down, and water pumps and chairs at the main Jinnah Stadium had been vandalized. 5,000 police reservists remain in the capital, and police chiefs claim that the storming of the Lal Masjid has only been postponed, not cancelled.

On Friday, May 25, Maulana Abdul Aziz, the senior cleric at the Lal Masjid announced that his students would attack shops selling audio CDs and videos unless these stores were closed. He said: "Our students can attack these outlets anytime because the deadline given to their owners had already passed."

The deputy secretary of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), the coalition of Islamist parties with 66 members sitting in the parliament, accused Musharraf of deliberately manipulating the Lal Masjid situation. Liaquat Baloch claimed that the issue was being exploited to draw attention away from the other problems in the country.

The Pakistan People's Party (PPP), headed by exiled former rime minister Benazir Butto, has made similar claims. The PPM spokesman said: "The situation in Islamabad is all contrived. The government wants to tell the west that Pakistan is in danger of being taken over by Islamists."

The MMA has been involved in demonstrations by members of the judiciary against the government, but its aims are ultimately the same as those of the Lal Masjid - to enforce Sharia law throughout the country. Both the MMA and the Lal Masjid members support the Taliban. Earlier in May, the MMA had introduced a proposed bill to the National Assembly, called the Apostasy Act. Under the terms of this bill, any person who left Islam for another faith would be subjected to draconian punishments - death for a man, and life imprisonment for a woman. In addition, anyone convicted under this proposed law would lose legal custody of their children, and have their land and property confiscated. The draft bill was approved by the Assembly. Additionally, a law to water down Pakistan's blasphemy laws was rejected by the parliament.

Pakistan's blasphemy laws are deliberately exploited to discriminate against minority groups. These rules were introduced in 1986 by the Islamist military dictator General Zia ul-Haq. Article 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) stipulates that anyone who insults prophet Mohammed can receive the death penalty. Originally, judges had the option to impose a death sentence or life imprisonment, but in the early 1990s, the law was altered so that the death penalty was mandatory for breaches of Article 295-C.

Article 295-B of the blasphemy laws maintains that anyone who "defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Quran or of an extract therefrom" shall receive life imprisonment. Once accused of blasphemy, there is no possibility of bail - the person is automatically held in custody until the trial is concluded. False accusations, particularly against minorities such as the Ahmadi sect of Islam and Christians, proliferate. In April an 11-year old boy was among five Christians detained under Article 295-B.

In Lahore in Punjab province, a 79-year old Christian is currently facing the death penalty, after his neighbors who run the Jamil Mosque accused him of insulting Mohammed and burning the Koran. The mosque members took over Walter Fazal Khan's property and turned it into a madrassa. Mr Khan's 84-year old wife Gladys has been forcibly converted to Islam. She has been so traumatized by the experience that she is in hospital, unable to talk. Such abuses of the blasphemy laws and attacks upon Christians have recently escalated. On May 10 Christians living in Charsadda in North-West Frontier Province received letters, giving them a one-week deadline to convert to Islam.

The demonstrations by lawyers began in March after Musharraf suspended Chief Justice Iftikar M Chaudhry from his post in the Supreme Court, accusing him of misuse of power. These have continued, assisted by the MMA and other opposition parties. On May 24, effigies of Musharraf were burned in Dera Ghazi Khan in North-West Frontier Province. The leaders of the Lal Masjid also support the suspended Chief Justice. Abdul Rashid Ghazi said: "We have sympathy for the chief justice's plight, which is because of the system that has allowed Musharraf to do this kind of thing. The man who is meant to give justice to the people is begging for justice himself."

Chaudhry responded on Saturday May 26 to Musharraf's accusations in a speech that was broadcast on television. He did not mention the president by name, but said: "Abuse of power often occurs in a system of governance where there is centralisation of all power in one person." He claimed that the judiciary was a "bulwark against abuse of power". When the judiciary upholds laws that blatantly discriminate against citizens, Chaudhry's defense of the legal process in Pakistan sounds hollow.

There are two large parties in Pakistan's National Assembly which support President Musharraf - the PML-Q which was established by the president in 2001, and the MQM - the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. MQM has 48 seats in the National Assembly. The MQM was established in 1978 in Karachi, largest city in Pakistan, in Sindh province in the southeast of the country. Though avowedly secular, and an advocate of equal rights for women, the party has been linked to acts of terrorism and violence in Karachi. The party's leader, 53-year old Altaf Hussain, has been based in Edgeware in northwest London since 1992. He claims to live in Britain because of fears of assassination in Pakistan. He has been granted British citizenship.

On May 12, there were riots in Karachi, in which up to 40 people were said to have been killed. The riots happened after Hussain ordered his supporters in the city to support Musharraf's decision to suspend Chief Justice Iftikar M Chaudhry. Supporters of Benazir Bhutto's PPP, clashed with MQM members, and shots were fired. The rioting lasted for an hour. MQM was condemned by the PPP and also the Islamist parties of the MMA for instigating the rioting. Mohammed Anwar, the London-based senior coordinator of MQM stated: "We were the only party in the city that had permission from the authorities to hold a rally in the city on Saturday, so why would we shoot out own supporters?" He blamed the MMA and PPP for starting the violence, saying: "It is the death squads of these parties who were responsible for the carnage, and nothing to do with MQM."

The Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI), a party founded by cricketer and former playboy Imran Khan, announced its intention to sue the British government for "harboring" the leader of the MQM. A coalition of opposition parties, including the PTI, PPP and MMa announced that they would be making a legal challenge against Blair's decision to grant Altaf Hussain citizenship. The head of the MMA, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, has demanded that Altaf Hussain be extradited to Pakistan. It should be noted that Qazi Hussain Ahmad is a suporter of the Taliban and has frequently praised Osama bin Laden. The MQM released a video last week, apparently showing PPP guards opening fire on demonstrators.

Altaf Hussain stands by his support of the President. He said: "Because of activities next door in Afghanistan as well as our own country, the Taliban is growing very strong. He is doing his level best to fight these groups. Musharraf is a very brave man. Only he can prevent the Talibanization of Pakistan."

The internal intrigues of the squabbling factions within the National Assembly are insignificant compared to the very real threat of the country descending into the clutches of a Taliban-style regime. The march of Islamization is quickening its step, assisted by a general dissatisfaction with Musharraf.

On Wednesday May 23, a report by the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity announced that of all the countries in the "war on terror" alliance, Pakistan was the largest recipient of funds, gaining about $200 million per quarter. The Coalition Support Fund donated more than $3 billion to Pakistan between 2002 and 2006.

There may be reasons to question the size of these sums, but as Pakistan is a nuclear power, the need to keep the nation out of the clutches of Islamofascists is paramount. As I will describe in Part Two, even though Musharraf has made moves to counteract the threat of both Al Qaeda and the Taliban, the threat of large parts of the nation being taken over by the current movements for Talibanization is becoming increasingly real.

Concluded in Part Two tomorrow.......

Adrian Morgan

© 2003-2007 FamilySecurityMatters.org All Rights Reserved

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 6:43 AM | Comments (0)

May 28, 2007

Thailand: Children Killed In Islamist Bomb Attack

The current Islamist insurgency in the south of Thailand began on January 4, 2004. Since then, it has claimed the lives of 2,200 people. The insurgency predominantly takes place in the provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala, but attacks have also taken place in parts of Songkhla province. These regions formerly comprised an independent sultanate called Pattani, which was officially annexed ito Siam (Thailand) in 1902.

Earlier today, state Reuters, TNA English News and the Nation, a bomb was detonated in a market in the Saba Yoi district of Songkhla province. Four people were killed and 26 were injured. Two of the dead were young girls. Two-year old Napaswan Chombodin and eight-year old Amornthip Dangsrithe died at the scene of the blast, and the two adults died later in hospital. 10 of the injured are said to be in a serious condition. One of these - 20 year old Niwat Chuchart suffered serious head injuries, causing brain damage, as well as internal injuries. Doctors were waiting for his condition to stabilize before operating.

According to TNA, the toll of injured is 38. The bombing happened during the rush hour at 3.45 pm local time, and was caused by explosives packed into a motorbike which was parked at the market, near the railway station. Shoppers in the market were buying provisions for their evening meals.

Saba Yai district is not far from Hat Yai, where a series of coordinated bomb attacks took place on Sunday night (May 27). These seven explosions were less severe than the market blast today, but still caused 13 people to be injured. The Sunday blasts were similar in some ways to the coordinated attacks upon Hat Yai which took place on September 16 last year. 70 people had been injured in last year's attacks, and five people had died. Hat Yai is the main city of the province, and is regarded as a tourist center, unlike the locations in the other three southern provinces.

The first of Sunday's blasts took place at 9 pm local time in front of the Thoengsia Siang Tueng Foundation. Shortly after, the other blasts ensued, targeting a house shrine in front of Big C superstore, Lotus hypermarket and Ratri drugstore on Suppasan Rangsan road, the Tong Siang Tueng intersection, Pab Nai Nang restaurant on Thammanoonvithee road, the JB Hotel and also an area outside the Hat Yai Garden Home hotel.

The Big C superstore had been hit in the September 2006 attacks. One bomb at the Lotus hypermarket had failed to explode, and it was defused safely. Sonthi Boonyaratkalin, who had masterminded the coup which tok place on September 19, three days after the first Hat Yai attacks, said that Sunday's bombs were intended to cause disturbance, rather than widespread injuries.

On April 3, 2005, Hat Yai airport had been the target of a bomb attack. Police have claimed that SUnday's bombs were of a type used in the New Years Eve attacks upon Bangkok which killed two and injured 36 others.

The attacks against schools in the south have caused 30 Buddhist teachers to request transfers out of the stricken provinces. On Saturday, a primary school in Narathiwat province was attacked by arsonists. The Ban Supeh school in Rueso district was saved by villagers who had extinguished the flames. On Sunday at 9.30 pm local time, arsonists returned, armed with guns. They held defense volunteers hostage, and then set the remaining buildings of the school alight. All 15 of the school's classrooms were destroyed in Sunday's blaze. The attackers felled trees and lay spikes in the road to prevent firefighters and emergency services from reaching the scene.

On Friday and Saturday, three people were shot dead in Narathiwat province. A village head man was killed by gunmen riding in a pick-up truck on Friday night. On Saturday, a man named as Anhuan Loding was leaving a tea shop in Rueso district to mount his motorcycle when he was shot at. When he lay on the ground, he was shot again in the head. An hour later, a man named as Rose Mama was going to work at a rubber plantation in Cho Ai Rong (Cho-I-Rong or Joh-I-Rong) district when he was shot in the head and body by a gunmen riding a motorcycle.

This morning in Si Sakhon district in Narathiwat province, two bed sellers were injured when they were shot at by a gunmen who was riding pillion on a motorcycle.

In Bacho district of Narathiwat, a Muslim policeman, 42-year old senior sergeant Abdul Parik Saleh was shot at close range by two gunmen as he stopped at an outdoor market.

In Yala, a former community police volunteer, 28-year old Wicha Tohka, was shot in the right knee and foot as he rode his motorcycle home from a soccer game.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 5:21 PM | Comments (0)

Italy: Islamist Imam Acquitted On Terror Charges, But Is He Guilty?

News from International Herald Tribune, the Independent Online and Austria's PR Inside relates that a hardline Italian cleric, based in Milan, has had charges against him dropped. The imam of the Viale Jenner mosque and cultural center in Milan, called Abu Imad (though also known as Arman Ahmed Hissini) had been on trial with 31 others, accused of organizing and assisting the sending of jihadists to Bosnia and the Middle East. Only three of the defendants were found guilty on minor charges, and were given jail terms ranging from four and a half to six years.

The reason for Abu Imad and the others being acquitted by a panel of three judges today is not because of a lack of incriminating evidence, but because the statute of limitations has expired. In the official judges' report, Abu Imad was said to be "directly involved in financing, establishing contact with foreign groups and supplying combatants" and was "undoubtedly one of the organizers of the group."

The men who were on trial with Imad were from Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Libya, and were said to be providing logistical aid to the Salafist Group for Preching and Combat (GSPC, now renamed Al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb) and also Ansar al-Islam. Both groups are linked with al Qaeda. The supporting of these groups is said to have taken place between 1990 and 1995.

So who is Abu Imad? He was wanted by the Egyptian authorities for involvement in the Egyptian terror group Gamaa Islamiya (also called Jamaa Islamiya or al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya). This group had been formerly headed by eye surgeon Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is now the deputy leader of al-Qaeda. In August last year, this group announced that it had joined al Qaeda. The group had slaughtered Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in a bomb attack in 1981, and in November 1997 members of the group had murdered 58 tourists at Luxor.

Imad was scared that the CIA would arrange an "extraordinary rendition". This had happened to an associate of Imad/Hissini called Abu Omar (pictured), also known as Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, who was an Egyptian asylum seeker. He had been taken by the CIA and the Italian secret Service from Milan in 2003. He claimed he had been sent back to Egypt, where he suffered torture in Cairo at the hands of the Egyptian authorities.

Abu Imad, aka Arman Ahmed Hissini or Al Husseini Ali Erman, was a vocal opponent of the publication of the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. In an interview with the BBC in March 2006, Imad had called the publishers of the cartoons "ignorant". He said: "Who are these people? Do they think that if they blow hard enough they can put out the sun?" At that time, Imad denied he had links with terror groups outside Italy, and said he did not send people to Iraq.

The magazine Il Giornale published in February 2006 an article by Fausto Biloslavo, in which Imad's associations with the late Abu Laban, the Danish cleric who manipulated the "cartoon crisis", were shown.

Biloslavo stated that immediately after the assassination of Anwar Sadat, Abu Imad had been jailed by the Egyptian authorities. On a cassette to commemorate the Islamic Cultural Center (Viale Jenner) and its ninth convention (held at Modena), Abu Imad can be heard asking guest speaker Mohammed al-Fizazi: "Is it alright to kill a person who prays and fasts, but agrees with the ideas of the secular, democratic, and communist practical people?"

Mohammed al-Fizazi had been the preacher at the Al-Quds mosque in Hamburg, and his fiery sermons had been listened to by Mohammed Atta and other members of the "Hamburg cell" who had been involved in 9/11.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 3:40 PM | Comments (0)

Spain: 15 Islamists Arrested

News from Expatica, AFP, Xinhua, Associated Press and DPA:

The Spanish interior ministry has revealed today that 15 Muslims - thirteen from Algeria and two from Morocco - at locations in Barcelona, Aranjuez (south of Madrid) and in Malaga.

The arrests were ordered by Baltasar Garzon, the National Court investigative magistrate. The raids took place today before dawn, and a "substantial amount" of computer material was seized in the raids, stated Cadena SER Radio. Additionally manuscripts and other documents and mobile phones were seized.

The men are all suspected of recruiting jihadists to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq against coalition forces, and to become part of terror groups operating from North Africa.

The arrests today are related to the arrests of 22 persons which took place at the start of 2006. Twenty were taken on January 10. Another individual from Morocco had been arrested on January 3, 2006 and a Tunisian was arrested in Malaga on February 27 in Malaga. Those individuals had been members of the Algerian terror group known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).

GSPC renamed itself as the Al Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb in April this year. According to AFP, the operation today was codenamed "Tala" and had arrests made in Barcelona and the towns of Igualada and Santa Coloma de Gramanet. Both of these towns are in the regional province of Catalonia, (Catalunya) of which Barcelona is the capital.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 2:29 PM | Comments (0)

May 27, 2007

US: Democrats Meet With Muslim Brotherhood Members

The Democrat party has been behind some questionable actions this year. Nancy Pelosi's trip in April to Syria was condemned by President George W. Bush, who stated: "Photo opportunities and/or meetings with President Assad lead the Assad government to believe they're part of the mainstream of the international community when, in fact, they're a state sponsor of terror."

Former President Jimmy Carter had approved her trip. Accompanying Pelosi on her trip to Syria were four Democrat Representatives - Keith Ellison, Minn., Nick Rahall, West Virginia, Tom Lantos, Calif., Henry Waxman, Calif., and one Republican - David Hobson, Ohio.

Despite criticism from the President, Pelosi's deputy press secretary Drew Hamill had justified the trip thus: "The Iraq Study Group recommended a diplomatic effort that should include 'every country that has an interest in avoiding a chaotic Iraq'."

Syria, as a supporter and sponsor of Hezbollah, is hardly a country to be "courted" by politicians, and any "diplomatic" moves by the Democrats to "legitimize" terror-sponsors do nothing to benefit either the US, the Iraqi people, nor the Middle East at large.

Since Pelosi's visit, other Democrats have been making overtures to Muslims of dubious standing. Pelosi met with President Assad of Syria on Wednesday April 4 and claimed he was "ready to engage in negotiations for peace with Israel" (even though Hezbollah had killed and also kidnapped Israeli soldiers in 2006, leading to the Israel/Lebanon conflict).

The day after Pelosi's meeting with the Syrian President, a leading US Democrat in Congress met a senior leader of the Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood twice in one day in Egypt. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer met with Mohammed Saad el-Katatni, the leader of the Brotherhood's 55 members within the Egyptian parliament. The Brotherhood had been officially banned from participating in the elections of 2005, but its MPs had posed as "independent" candidates to get elected, making up a fifth of the 454 seats.

According to Hamdi Hassan, the Brotherhood's spokesman, Hoyer met with el-Katani once at the parliament building and later at the home of the US ambassador to Egypt.

Once again, Mohammed Saad el-Katatni has been in meetings with Americans, this time a Congressional delegation led by a Democrat, David Price from North Carolina. The meeting took place early this morning, state the International Herald Tribune, Jerusalem Post and DPA via Earth Times.

The delegation met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak earlier in the morning, followed by another meeting with parliamentarians, including el-Katatni.

The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is not a group to be trusted, particularly for a nation with strong links to Israel. Last year, the Egyptian leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Mehdi Akef, announced during the Israel/Lebanon conflict that he had 10,000 fighters, ready to be sent to Lebanon to fight alongside Hezbollah against Israel. Akef also attacked Arab leaders in an Egyptian newspaper interview, where he said: "If they weren't Muslims, we would have killed them, because they are a bigger threat to the nation than Israel itself."

The terrorist group Hamas in Israel was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood Palestinian leader Sheikh Yassin, and the "spiritual leader" of the Muslim Brotherhood, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, has made a fatwa condoning suicide attacks against Israeli civilians. The Muslim Brotherhood maintains that it is against violence. If the Democrats cannot see that this is a lie, then their own credibility is at question.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 8:53 PM | Comments (2)

May 26, 2007

Islam: Where Are The Voices Of Sanity And Reform?

The problem that many Westerners feel about Islam is that groups like CAIR and MCB constantly whine about the "Islamophobia" of the West, but their condemnation of acts of terrorism committed in the name of their faith is superficial at best.

This site was established to document these globally-occurring atrocities, which cause innocent Muslims to suffer as much as - if not more than - non-Muslims. In the Muslim world, so many moderate voices are never heard, and many of those who profess to represent moderate attitudes have their own political agenda which is far from moderate.

CAIR, for example, claims to represent US Muslims, and is a "rights advocacy group". An interesting analysis of their financial spending by Patrick Poole can be found in FrontPage Mag. This shows that CAIR allots only 9% of its program to "civil rights" and 10% on government affairs - a combined total which is less than a fifth of its output. Mr Poole shows that the membership of CAIR is so small it can hardly be said to represent ordinary US Muslims.

There have been brave Muslims who have spoken out against radicalism and extremism, but these have received appalling treatment from their fellow Muslims. Taslima Nasrim was forced to leave her native Bangladesh in 1994, where she practiced as a doctor. A court had ruled that she should be detained for the "anti-Islamic" statements contained in her writing (she defended the rights of Hindu women from Islamist persecution). She had also been subjected to fatwa from a Bangladeshi imam, who had urged on her death, with a reward of $5,000 for her assasssins.

She moved to West Bengal to take care of her ailing mother, who has since died. In India, she has been subjected to threats. In March 2000 the head of a Muslim academy, the Raza Academy threatened to burn her if she ever set foot in Mumbai. In January 2004, the head cleric of Calcutta's main mosque, S.M.N. Rahman Barkati, issued threats against her. In front of a crowd of 10,000 at Friday pravers, the imam said "Her writings are against humanity and Islam....Her face can be blackened with ink, paint or tar. Or she can be garlanded with shoes." The latter are regarded as extreme insults in the Indian subcontinent. The cleric ordered a bounty of 20,000 rupees ($436) for anyone who would carry out the act. She had to remain under police protection, following this "fatwa".

In June last year, after she told a literary convention that "As a eight-year-old child, I was warned by my mother that if I abused Allah I would be punished, but I did that and nothing happened to me," the same cleric issued a fatwa against her. Syed Noor-ur-Rehman Barkati, main imam of Tippu Sultan Mosque in Kolkata had said that if anyone blackened the 43-year old author's face and drove her out of Kolkata (Calcutta), he would pay 50,000 rupees ($1,175). Barkati later claimed that he had been "misquoted".

In March this year, the president of All India Ibtehad Council, Taqi Raza Khan, issued a 500,000 rupee ($11,760) reward for anyone who would decapitate (sar qalam karna) her or drive her from India. Britain's National Secular Society sent a letter of protest against this fatwa to the Indian High Commissioner.

Her persecution continues, with no action taken against the imams who are effectively organizing a campaign of torment. Khan is unapologetic in his perverse and savage notion of religious "morality", saying: "Anyone who opposes the Prophet does not deserve to live. There have been a number of e-mails and telephone calls congratulating me for the bold stance I have taken."

There is nothing bold in manipulating a lynch mob to commit unspeakable atrocities against a defenseless woman. But where are the voices from within India's Islamic communities, condemning the imam's blatantly illegal acts of incitement? They are not to be found. If the secular government of India can not silence and punish one imam for advocating murder, then Muslim leaders need not bother condemning. Once again, the voices of Islamic barbarism prevail over those unheard voices of Muslim peace and moderation.

Throughout Islam's history, there have been movements that strive for a peaceful interpretation of Islam, which have grown alongside other movements within Islam that demand war, death and destruction of "infidels". Immediately following the death of Mohammed, a movement sprang up in North Africa, that of the Khawajites or Kharijites. It began in 657 AD, and soon amassed a following of 60,000. Kharijites were responsible for the deaths of three of Mohammed's close associates - Umar bin Khattab, Usman bin Affan and Ali bin Abi Thalib.

The direct descendants of his movement are Salafists and neo-Salafists, who treat their religion as if it is a doctrine of war against the unbeliever. Movements like the Tawwasuf or Sufis have strived for a more peaceful, less political form of Islam, where an individual connection with Allah is sought, rather than tribalist collectivism. Many Muslims around the world are Sufis, who are not particularly interested in establishing a Caliphate, or having apostates killed. But even within the Sufi movement, there have been extremists such as Tamerlane (Tamburlane - c.1330 - 1405), whose trademark was to leave piles of his victims' skulls outside the gates of cities he had conquered.

The Assassins or Hashishin would commit murder in the name of their faith. A subset of Ismaeli Muslims, the Assassins thrived from the 11th to 13th centuries, and they would be primed to kill Muslim leaders whom they considered "unIslamic". These would apparently give their jihadists or fedayeen a concoction of hashish to cause them to see visions of the paradise to come. Once fortified with this hallucinatory promise of eternal bliss and the whoring services of 72 virgins, the Assassins' jihadists would kill in the name of Allah. Takfiri Muslims are similar to the Assassins - though they do not take hashish to dream of Paradise. Takfiri target heretical Muslim rulers ("takfeer" is the denouncing of another Muslim as unIslamic), and like Assassins allow themselves the liberty of disguising themselves as secularists to achieve their ends.

The spread of radical Islam has been assisted by Saudi Arabia. When the nation was officially founded in 1932 by Abdul Aziz bin Saud, after his clan had conquered the smaller kingdoms in Arabia, he established the form of faith known as Wahhabism. This extremist form of Islam was developed by Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1792). Wahhab had made an alliance with Abdul Aziz's ancestor, Muhammad Ibn Saud in 1744. Wahhab wrote one book which survives, called the Kitab al-Tawhid, the "Book of Monotheism". In Chapter 36 of this book, Wahhab stated that no-one should obey a scholar or ruler if the scholar or ruler contradicts the Qur'an or the Sunnah (actions of the Prophet) in any way. . In his own lifetime, Wahhab had a religious police force - henchmen who would rigidly enforce his strict edicts upon villagers and tribes. He commanded that there should be no gravestones for the dead, lest they become objects of pilgrimage or worship.

Saudi oil money has funded the expansion of this repressive and intolerant form of Islam throughout the world. In regions such as Indonesia, whose islands had formerly been home to a tolerant form of Islam for centuries, Saudi-influenced extremism has been increasing over the past decades. All Muslims on their Hajj pilgrimage must travel to Saudi Arabia and cannot help but be exposed to the draconian forms of Wahhabism which flourish at Mecca. Before Abdul Aziz became ruler of Saudi Arabia, he had been assisted in his campaign of expansion by a clique of Wahhabist extremists called the Ikhwan or Brotherhood. When Abdul Aziz had conquered most of the Arabian regions, the Ikhwan staged a rebellion in the 1920s on account of the Saud leader's contact with Christians. The Ikhwan was obliterated with force, but their tenets were upheld by their successors.

Two other movements have followed which promote Islamism - the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwanu I-Muslimin or Hizb al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimoon), founded in 1928 in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna, and Hizb ut-Tahrir, founded in 1953 by an Islamic jurist, Taqiuddin al-Nabhani. He was an associate of the murderous Mufti of Jerusalem, Ayman al-Husseini, who had slaughtered Jews in Palestine and was welcomed by Hitler. Husseini had gone on to found a Muslim Nazi force in Bosnia. The leading luminary of the Muslim Brotherhood was Sayyid Qutb, a bizarre individual who was terrified of Western women and their "sexuality". His book Milestones on the Road is a document which lays the intellectual foundations of global jihad. He was hanged in 1966, aged 60. Osama bin Laden was a student of Mohammed Qutb, brother of Sayyid Qutb.

Muslim spokespeople in the West complain of Islamophobia, and claim that Islam condemns violence, but the latter suggestion is a falsehood. The Koran is littered with exhortations to violence. According to Sahih Bukhari (Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220), Mohammed said on his deathbed: "I have been made victorious with terror".

Most of the peaceful passages in the Koran are relegated to the end of the book. It is not written in chronological order. In his lifetime, Mohammed's earlier texts which were written in Medina were peaceful. After he had established himself at Mecca (which he took by force, riding at the head of four armies) - the tone of his suras changes dramatically, and encourage warfare. The following are Yusufali's translations:

Sura 8, verse 12 states: "Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): "I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instil terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them."

Sura 3, Verse 151 states: "Soon shall We cast terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers, for that they joined companions with Allah, for which He had sent no authority: their abode will be the Fire: And evil is the home of the wrong-doers! "

Sura 9, Verse 5 reads: "But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, an seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practise regular charity, then open the way for them: for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful. "

Sura 9, Verse 29 states: "Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued."

There is a tradition that if a verse in the Koran contradicts one that was written earlier, the later verse is to be followed - thereby "abrogating" the original statement. One famous Sura of the Koran is often quoted by apologists of Islam - Sura 2: 256, which states "Let there be no compulsion in religion". This Sura is in fact early, and was composed around 634 or 625 AD, being generally assumed by some scholars to have been his 21st "revelation". Therefore, the Sura 2: 256 is "abrogated" by Sura 9: 29.

Despite the desire of most Muslims to live a peaceful life, there are passages in the Koran which cannot be ignored, which are far from peaceful. The modern world is currently assailed by an extremist and purist form of Islam - that promoted by jihadists and Wahhabists. Where is the Martin Luther, prepared to nail a manifesto to the Ka'abah, declaring a reformation of Islam?

Salman Rushdie said in 2004 that to reform Islam, most of the chapters of the Koran would have to be thrown away. There have been those who seek to reinterpret Islam, much as the Jews have interpreted the violent passages of the Torah as being allegorical or not relevant to modern life.

One individual who struggled to convince Muslims of the need for a softer interpretation of Islam was Tashbih Sayyed, who has sadly died aged 66. He will be buried tomorrow in Los Angeles. An open advocate for reform of Islam is someone whose passing will diminish the struggle for peace within the Muslim world and the cause of greater understanding between Muslims and Westerners.

The sad truth is that no matter how many Muslims are moderate and peaceful, the continuous onslaughts of the jihadists and Salafists are eroding any hope of a reconciliation between Islam and the West, and also crushing harmony between Muslims in the global Ummah. As US army general John Abizaid said last year: "We must defeat the extremism of bin Laden and his associated movement. It's murderous. It's ruthless. It's very capable. It's got strength as a network unlike any nonstate actor has ever seen before. We've got to defeat it. Think of it as an opportunity to confront fascism in 1920 if only we'd had the guts to do it then. I believe that if we don't have guts enough to confront this ideology today, we will move toward World War III tomorrow."

One voice of sanity in the Muslim world is an Egyptian-born advocate of Islamic reform called Dr Tawfik Hamid, author of the book "Roots of Jihad. Hamid himself was a former member of a terrorist group Jamaa Islamiya (also called Gamaa Islamiya or al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya) which was once headed by former eye surgeon Ayman al-Zawahiri, who now is the deputy leader of Al Qaeda.

Hamid has attended the Intelligence Summit's 2007 conference, and now argues that Islam itself needs to undergo some form of reformation to eradicate the voices of terrorism. His change of heart against radicalism led him and his family to flee Egypt and later to run from Saudi Arabia. He does not disclose his address, not even the country in which he usually esides, because of the threats of extremists. He has lectured at UCLA, Stanford and Georgetown University, and spoke at this year's Secular Islam Summit in March, which took place in Florida.

He has recently written in the Wall Street Journal: "It will not suffice to merely suppress the symptoms. It is imperative to adopt new Islamic teachings that do not allow killing apostates. Islamic authorities must provide mainstream Islamic books that forbid polygamy and beating women. Accepted Islamic doctrine should take a strong stand against slavery and the raping of female war prisoners, as happens in Darfur under the explicit canons of Shariah. Muslims should teach, everywhere and universally, that a woman's testimony in court counts as much as a man's, that women should not be punished if they marry whom they please or dress as they wish."

He claims that "Muslims should publicly show our strong disapproval for the growing number of attacks by Muslims against other faiths and against other Muslims. Let us not dwell on 9/11, Madrid, London, Bali and countless other scenes of carnage. It has been estimated that of the two million refugees fleeing Islamic terror in Iraq, 40 percent are Christian and many of them seek a haven in Lebanon, where the Christian population itself has declined by 60 percent. Even in Turkey, Islamists recently found it necessary to slit the throats of three Christians for publishing Bibles."

"Why was there silence over the Mumbai train bombings which took the lives of over 200 Hindus in 2006? We must not forget that innocent Muslims, too, are suffering. Indeed, the most common murderers of Muslims are, and have always been, other Muslims. Where is the Muslim outcry over the Sunni-Shiite violence in Iraq?"

"...It is well past time that Muslims cease using the charge of 'Islamophobia' as a tool to intimidate and blackmail those who speak up against suspicious passengers and against those who rightly criticise current Islamic practices and preachings."

Islam is trapped by its history - no matter how hard some Muslims may wish to move forward, to keep up with the technological and sociological advances made in the modern non-Muslim world, the fundamentalists will always, like snakes in the Snakes & Ladders board game, drag them down to the lower positions. The Koran is the "perfect word of God", revealed to the "most perfect man who ever lived", claim the fundamentalists. But Mohammed was a man of his time and place - the savage world of 7th century Arabia, where girl children were often buried alive in the pre-Islamic period known as Jahaliyah (ignorance). Unless a reformation of Islam takes place soon, the loudest and most aggressive voices in the Muslim world will drag its peaceful members back to the 7th century. And if we in the West are not aware of this, then we will be dragged there with them.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at 10:53 PM | Comments (5)

May 25, 2007

UK: Islamist Hate Preacher Deported

News from the Telegraph, Radio Jamaica, the Guardian, This is London, BBC, Reuters and the Times:

Radical preacher of Muslim hate Abdullah el-Faisal was today deported to Britain from his native Jamaica. 43-year old Faisal had come to Britain in 1992, after studying at the Imam Ibn Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He was funded by Saudis to do "Da'wah" or missionary work, in Britain. His da'wah involved preaching hate against Jews and Hindus, and also urging followers to fight Americans.

On February 24, 2003 Faisal had been convicted of soliciting murder (under the terms of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act) and inciting racial hatred. His trial had been bizarre, in that the judge, Peter Beaumont, had allowed the defense request to exclude any Hindus or Jews from sitting on the jury. This precedent went against the prevailing notion that justice should be impartial. Additionally, during this trial the judge was also offered a bribe of £50,000 ($98,000), in a letter which had been posted from Scotland.

On March 7, 2003 Faisel had been sentenced to nine years' jail, but this was later reduced on appeal to seven years. At the culmination of his trial, there were protests at the Old Bailey court from Muslims.

Faisal had been born in Jamaica as Trevor WIlliam Forrest to a Christian family with Salvation Army connections, and in Britain he had married a Pakistani-born graduate of biology called Zubeida Khan. The couple who live din Stratford, east London, had three children. Judge Peter Beaumont, who is the Common Serjeant of London, had said at the end of his trial: "Instead of calming fears, you fanned the flames of hatred. Furthermore, your words were not confined to your study circles but were recorded to be distributed to bookshops for sale. You urged those who listened and watched to kill those who did not share your faith."

The judge also stated that Faisal should be deported at the end of his sentence. In April 2007, when Faisal knew that he would soon be released from prison (in the UK it is usual for prisoners to only serve half of their jail tariff) he appealed against his deportation. He claimed that deporting him would "breach his human rights" - even though his hate-filled sermons gave no consideration of the human rights of Hindus or Jews. He claimed that under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, he should be entitled to "privacy and a family life".

The sermons Faisal made were recorded onto cassete and distributed to Muslims around Britain. The official Home Office report on the events of 7/7, 2005, in which 52 innocent people were killed, claimed that Germaine