Year: 2010

Muslim women ‘radicalised’ in UK

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And apparently this happens at Universities. This calls for a repost of Prof. Martins rather clear condemnation of them at the end of this BBC article on the radicalization of women in the U.K. h/t snaphanen

On Monday a female suicide bomber killed 54 people in north-east Baghdad.

Dr Nazreen Nawaz, spokeswoman for Hizb ut-Tahrir
We don’t advocate that British Muslims go over and fight
Dr Nazreen Nawaz, Hizb ut-Tahrir

The attack may have happened on another continent, but there are increasing concerns that violent extremism among women may now also be increasing in the UK.

It is believed that the process of radicalisation often takes place at universities.

One Islamist group linked with this practice is Hizb ut-Tahrir.

While not itself connected to any terrorist acts, Hizb ut-Tahrir has courted controversy and politicians have seized on some of its more inflammatory views.

The Conservative Party has said it would ban the organisation altogether.

Nazreen Nawaz is a spokeswoman for the group. She became a member while studying medicine at King’s College London.

Today, sitting at her dining table in south London, she teaches her four-year-old daughter how to spell and explains her decision to join.

“The philosophy of Hizb ut-Tahrir offered me a view of Islam that could solve many of the problems in the Muslim world,” Dr Nawaz says. Continue Reading →

Rome: First halal meat counter

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The Italian capital, Rome will open its first supermarket halal meat counter on Saturday, where Muslims will be able to buy meat slaughtered according to Islamic principles as well as other halal products.

Imams from mosques in Rome, Florence and Ravenna will attend the inauguration at the Ipercoop supermarket in the southern Casilina area of Rome, where traditional Arab dishes will also be served.

Muslim immigrants and converts can buy meat at halal butchers, but haven’t been able to find it in supermarkets, and halal meat counters could help integrate Muslims in Italy, according to some.

“This is a chance to understand each other better and find new opportunities for dialogue, mutual understanding and coexistence – even inside a supermarket,” the organisers of Saturday’s event said in a statement posted to the Italian interfaith website ildialogo.org.

Diana West: ‘Spoofing the death of Wilders’

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From Diana West

Behold the smug mug of Willem Stegeman, who has made a Dutch state-subsidized film “spoofing” an assassination attempt on Geert Wilders.

“Spoofing.”

Of course, the grotesquerie of Stegeman and his “spoof” are not the main story in a backward — no, twisted — report from Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW) that leads with the response (“furious”) of Party for Freedom (PVV) members over “Radio FunX’s” assassination-attempt entertainment. Almost as breath-taking is the nasty photo of Wilders with which RNW, supposedly a news organization, illustrates the story.

Currently embroiled in open-ended Kafka-esque legal jeopardy, Wilders has lived under permanent threat of death since that November day in 2004 when Theo van Gogh was assassinated in broad daylight on an Amsterdam street, his head nearly cut off and an Islamic manifesto pinned with a knife into his chest threatening Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali with a similar fate.

What better subject for state-subsidized parody?

From the story, which includes a trailer of the stomach-turning video:

Radio FunX director Willem Stegeman said that the full satirical video will be released next week. “It is an unmistakeable parody. I cannot give away the plot, but I can reveal that it will be a total anti-climax. We are exploring how far we can go, and some may find it in bad taste. But the same can be said of statements by some people in the political spectrum.

Get it, get it? “Spoofing” Wilders’ death is “bad taste” just as “some people” (Wilders) discussing the Islamic institutions of jihad and dhimmitude in this crucial period of Western Islamization is in “bad taste.” Watch out, mijnheer Stegeman. Your IQ is showing.

We are putting an ironic slant on the whole thing, striking a blow against all the ponderousness surrounding Mr Wilders.”

I think by “ponderousness” he means the two-ton bullet-proof vest Geert must wear anytime he appears in public, and the security detail his life now depends on.

Mr Stegeman emphasised that the film makers are not after demonising the nationalist right-wing anti-Islam MP. “But the film’s author is definitely drawing a connection with Pim Fortuyn,” the popular outcast politician who was assassinated in 2002 following a plea for stricter immigration rules.

Not demonizing Wilders, oh no — but “definitely” connecting Wilders to the demonized Fortuyn?

Words fail.

Bombs and beatings: Life among the Taliban

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BBCNEWS… In Pakistan an account of life with the Taliban has emerged from a 13-year-old girl called Meena, who says her own family tried to turn her into a suicide bomber. There is no independent confirmation of her account but police say they believe she is telling the truth, and her information could be valuable. Meena told her story to our Pakistan correspondent Orla Guerin.

 VIDEO

My brother used to tell me that the place for a woman is either at home or in the grave. I was always restricted to home.

He said: “If you leave the house I’ll cut off your head and put it on your chest.”

My brother had been to the local school and beaten the girls and the teachers.

He said anyone who wanted to study was a friend of America.

I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted it so much that once I dreamt I was sitting in a hospital, working as a doctor. I wanted to help the poor, those who cannot afford medical fees.

Taliban commanders used to come to our house. There was an underground bunker beside the house, with electricity.

It was concrete and very strong. Cars would drive on top but no-one would realise what was underneath. In that hideout they used to train suicide bombers.

Most were children of my age or younger than me. They were used for these activities because they were too young to know any better.

Going to ‘paradise’

I used to see these children getting on a vehicle to go for their missions. They used loud Islamic CDs to motivate them.

And I would think, “My God, more Muslims are going to be buried”. Then the news would come that more Muslims were wiped out.

My brother used to prepare bombs and my sister-in-law did too. He told me that he would teach me this. I told him no. I would not even look at what they were doing.

My father and brother told me to carry out a suicide attack. They were pressuring me to do this.

They told me: “If you do it you will go to paradise long before us.” I replied: “Why don’t you tell me I will go to hell long before you?”

Every day they used to tell me this. Every day. I was very young when they started telling me this. I said to them: “What about all the people I will kill? They are all Muslims.”

They started beating me when I refused. They beat me non-stop. They made my life hell. I never had a single moment of happiness. They did everything other than kill me.

Bomber’s medicine

They said: “The bomb will be connected with a button, or something like the remote control of a TV. We will give you this kind of remote, and you will go to the place.

“We will also give you a mobile, and we will ring that phone, and press the remote, and you will be blown up with this bomb.” Continue Reading →

No French citizenship for man who forced wife to don burqa

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From The Telegraph U.K.

France denies citizenship to foreigner who made wife wear a veil

The French government has refused to give citizenship to a foreigner who has forced his French wife to wear a full-face Islamic veil.

Published: 7:00AM GMT 03 Feb 2010

The announcement came just days after a parliamentary commission called for a law to ban the wearing of head-to-toe veils in public places, such as schools, hospitals and government offices.

Immigration Minister Eric Besson said that investigations had shown that the foreign man, whose name was not given, was making his French wife wear the veil.

“He was depriving her of her liberty to come and go with her face uncovered and rejected the principles of secularism and equality between men and women,” he said.

Le Figaro newspaper said the man, who needs French citizenship to settle here with his wife, came from Morocco.

The debate over whether to ban the full-face veil has proved highly controversial, with critics arguing that it risked stereotyping France’s large Muslim community.

French police say only about 1,900 women wear the full veils, known here as burqas although almost all are Arab-style niqabs showing the eyes.

The French Catholic Church warned the government on Monday against banning the veils, saying France must respect the rights of its Muslims if it wanted Islamic countries to do the same for their Christian minorities.

Turkey: girl buried alive for talking to boys

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Sixteen year old Medine Memi’s father was unhappy that his daughter had male friends. Her grandfather beat her for having friendships with boys. Her hand-bound body was recovered in December from a shallow hole dug under a chicken pen on the family property. Her lungs and stomach were filled with soil, indicating that she had been buried alive.

“She has male friends” her father said, “We are uneasy about that.”

Her death followed a family ‘council’ meeting. Official figures show that such honour killings account for half of all murders which occur yearly in Turkey.

From The Telegraph U.K.

Teenage girl buried alive in Turkey for talking to boys

A 16-year-old girl has been buried alive by her relatives in Turkey as punishment for talking to boys, police have said.

Published: 6:30AM GMT 05 Feb 2010

The hole where Medine Memi was buried by her relatives in the courtyard of their house in Adiyaman, southeastern Turkey: Teenage girl buried alive in Turkey for talking to boys The hole where Medine Memi was buried by her relatives in the courtyard of their house in Adiyaman, southeastern Turkey. Photo: REUTERS

Medine Memi was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman.

Her father and grandfather have since been arrested and are due to face trial over her death. Her mother was also charged but has since been released.

Police made the discovery in December after a tip-off from an informant, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported on its website.

Medine had first been reported missing 40 days earlier.

The informant told the police she had been killed following a family “council” meeting. Continue Reading →

Geert Wilders. A Sharia-Compliant Court. Assassination by Trial

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From The Brussels Journal

A few years ago Britain’s Channel 4 TV broadcast a documentary exposing a number of hate preachers. These were shown variously praising Osama bin Laden, denouncing non-Muslims, or “kuffar,” calling women “deficient,” and inciting violence, including the murder of Jews and homosexuals. Much of what was said, and broadcast in Undercover Mosque, was patently illegal under British law. Instead of acting against the preachers, the police filed a complaint against the filmmakers, who they accused of taking things “out of context” – it’s just that easy to do, when imams call for murder, apparently.

The filmmakers were later vindicated. But the message had been sent loud and clear: Shine a light on the growth of radical Islam, expose the extremists, and you – not they – will be prosecuted.

Britain’s police weren’t the only ones to defend the fanatics. Equally surreal, when he interviewed David Henshaw, the producer of the documentary, MP George Galloway refused to even mention the Koran by name, even though it was he who introduced it in defense of the hate preachers. When Henshaw brought up preachers inciting the murder of gays, exposed in Undercover Mosque, Galloway barked [video]:

“Were they calling for killing or were they referring to a text – a remarkably similar text to that that you would find in the Old Testament.” Continue Reading →

Found: Rocket Burried by Saddam Hussein Regime

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From The Daily Mail

They have been searching in Iraq for the past nine years, 10 months and 15 days.

Today, the hard work finally paid off as soldiers found one of those elusive ‘weapons of mass destruction’ that Saddam Hussein was supposed to have been hiding.

So is it all round to Tony Blair’s house for celebratory drinks?
Iraqi army

Unfortunately the discovery came just a few days late for the former prime minister, who could have used the extraordinary find as proof he was right about Iraq all along during the Chilcot Inquiry.

But from the looks of the rocket, it would appear unlikely it could be deployed anywhere in 45 minutes, let alone be fired at the UK, as a certain dossier led us to believe.

The bomb is thought to have been buried by Saddam Hussein’s regime before the UK and U.S. invasion of Iraq started in 2003.

Iraqi guards were as surprised as the rest of us to discover the ‘missile’ during an operation in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib suburb.

It is not yet known whether the seven-meter rocket is armed with a warhead.

Mark Steyn: Bananas over Bush

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I’m sorry but as a long time opponent of government grants to the arts in Canada this story had me imitating that awful Norwegian painting for several seconds. Come to think of it, I wonder if Edvard did this painting cause he was turned down for a fat government grant.

From The National Review:

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Bananas Over Bush   [Mark Steyn]

News from the art world:

An Argentine artist called Caesar Saëz applied to the Canada Arts Council and le Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec and was given, between the two bodies, a grant of $130,000 to create a 300-metre long flying banana that would float over Texas protesting the policies of George W. Bush.

Why Canadian taxpayers are subsidizing Argentine artists to violate U.S. airspace is a topic best left to the next Summit of the Americas.

The good news is that Señor Saëz cashed the check and skipped the country. So the banana’s whereabouts are unknown. French-speaking readers will enjoy this radio interview: “Une subvention de 128 000$ pour faire voler une banane géante au-dessus du Texas.” I particularly like the arts bureaucrats’ insistence that there’s nothing to see here (literally): The granting of public monies for the purpose of producing a particular work of art imposes no obligation upon the artist to produce the work of art. Although the artist was quite specific about the construction of the giant anti-Bush banana (a bamboo structure covered in Tyvek), he never specifically promised to make it. Therefore, its non-existence is not an issue: In taking the dough and scramming town, the artist is in full compliance with the terms of his grant.

And, as I’m sure most contemporary art scholars would assure us, the non-existing work of art becomes paradoxically a work of “performance art” (or non-performance non-art) in its own right. Failing that, he could always claim it floated off over New Mexico with a five-year-old boy inside it.

Counter-terrorism officers target universities. U.K.

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Special Branch officers are being stationed in universities at risk of being targeted by extremists, the Government has admitted.

A number of institutions have been identified by counter-terrorism officers amid fears students are in danger of being groomed by fanatics.

David Lammy, the Higher Education Minister, insisted the threat posed to universities had been exaggerated but admitted that it remained an “extremely serious issue”.

The move comes just weeks after a former student at University College London sparked a major terror investigation when he allegedly attempted to detonate explosives on a flight over the United States on Christmas Day.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was president of the university’s Islamic Society for three years before graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering in June 2009.

UCL – rated as one of the best in the world – has now launched an investigation into his time at the university.

In an interview, Mr Lammy admitted that security had been stepped up at a series of universities, with anti-terrorism officers actively patrolling campuses.

“We have identified universities for whom the risk is greater and they have to work closely with Special Branch, and so I think it is a partnership between leadership at universities and the police,” he said.

Mr Lammy said he did “not recognise a caricature of a significant risk across Britain”.

But he added: “We do recognise that threat levels have been raised and that this is an extremely serious issue and that there are particular institutions – and those institutions are aware of this because we have brought it to their attention – where the risk is greater and those institutions are working very closely with the police and are working closely with Special Branch and those institutions (police and Special Branch) are present on campus.”

The Government refused to be drawn on which universities had been identified or the number of institutions with tightened security.

In the past, Prof Anthony Glees, director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at Buckingham University, has suggested as many as 24 institutions may have been infiltrated by extremists. The Government has denied the claims.

Vice-chancellors announced last month they were establishing a panel to look at how universities can take action to prevent violent extremism while protecting freedom of speech.

Police warn of Jihad training for children

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From Britain’s The Telegraph: (Video not in original Telegraph article)

Some young children in Britain are being indoctrinated to hate non-Muslims and champion a holy war, according to a new documentary.

”No child is ever too young to be started off on Jihad training,” states one document recovered by police from the North West’s Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) during raids.

CTU officers, interviewed by the BBC’s Inside Out team for a special programme, show the document and a film they recovered of two children aged about three and six playing with a pistol and Kalashnikov rifle.

The officers say the discoveries are evidence of attempts to radicalise youngsters. The footage, which police believe was filmed in Pakistan, was uncovered on the hard drive of a suspect’s computer – though investigators have not revealed when the material was seized.

The video shows a girl and young boy playing with guns, which police believe are real. ”What do you do with the weapon?” asks a man’s voice. He answers his own question: ”I want to kill the infidels.”

A senior CTU officer, who cannot be identified for security reasons, tells the programme makers: ”We believe this was filmed abroad. We have no idea who the children are. We were shocked to find it at the house. We have no reason to believe this is faked. The guns are real.”

The officer said of another raid: ”We found a series of flash cards and documents on how to raise Mujahid children. The cards were written in English – and instead of having M for Muhammad they had M for Mujahideen. They have the potential to indoctrinate. It just shows the mindset of some people and what we are up against.”

Police also found documents downloaded from an extremist website instructing parents to raise Mujahid children. The documents say: ”The key is to start instilling these values in them while they are babies. Don’t wait until they are seven. No child is ever too young to be started off on Jihad training.” Continue Reading →

GERMAN PROSECUTOR: ISLAMISTS PLANNED MASS MURDER

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BUT WAIT, HE THEN APPLIES

DAMAGE CONTROL FOR ISLAM

State prosecutor Volker Brinkmann: ‘The accused have damaged Islam. They have given new nourishment to the reservations held against the world’s second largest religion,’ the prosecutor continued, adding that few people shared their fundamentalist Wahabi views.”

Where does he get that from? How does one come to that simple minded conclusion that “few share Whabbi views”, did he interview the world’s Muslims and get detailed responses from them all? What he’s doing is assuming, or worse yet, hoping against all hope that most Muslims do not hold Islamic traditionalist/racist/supremacist views. KGS

>

The Sheik says it best: 

Aren’t you sick and tired of these mental gorilla’s who are too intellectually lazy to educate themselves about the RoP? What does it take, apart from a few hours here and there to read the Koran, the hadith, or to read a bit on the Islam section of this blog? But no, even 9 years after 9/11 we have to bear the ignorance of our bureaucrats and officials, who just won’t learn. A sad state of affairs. An intolerable state of affairs….

German prosecutor: ‘The accused have damaged Islam. They have given new nourishment to the reservations held against the world’s second largest religion…’ How so, mister prosecutor? The prosecutor, like many non-Muslim officials before him, took it upon himself to defend something he clearly knows nothing about — Islam.

Prosecutor: German Islamists planned mass murder

Dusseldorf – The chief prosecutor in the German trial of four alleged Islamists said on Wednesday that they had planned ‘mass murder’ on a scale unknown in Germany.

State prosecutor Volker Brinkmann said the members of the so- called Sauerland Group were driven by an overwhelming hatred of US soldiers and by a desire to carry out mass murder, and would not have shied away from killing innocent women and children.

The group, consisting of Daniel Schneider, Fritz Gelowicz, Adem Yilmaz and Attila Selek, is accused of planning attacks on US military bases in 2007. The chief prosecutor emphatically warned against the ‘cancer of Islamist terrorism,’ as he set out his case to the Dusseldorf court. He argued that this ‘cancer’ would stop at nothing and chose its victims at random. Brinkmann said the four defendants had shown no real remorse during the nine-month trial, and said they did not confess out of regret.

‘The accused wanted to buy themselves a reduced sentence by pleading to the charges. Even the most convinced holy warrior does not want to sit in prison and watch the jihad (holy war) pass by,’ the prosecutor said.

Muslim chaplain ‘smuggled’ box-cutter blades into jail

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A city Department of Correction Muslim chaplain who served 14 years in prison for murder and robbery was arrested today for carrying three utility blades and a pair of scissors into a lower Manhattan jail, authorities said.

The chaplain, Zulqarnain Abdu-Shahid, had the utility blades and scissors in his duffel bag when he arrived at the Manhattan Detention Complex in the morning, according to the city Department of Investigation.

The dangerous items were found after an X-ray machine alerted correction officers to the presence of metal in the bag, the DOI said. 

Authorities did not say why Abdu-Shahid was visiting the jail, commonly known as the Tombs, or why he was carrying the scissors and the rectangular blades, which were 1-and-1/2 inches long by three-quarters of an inch wide.

Abdu-Shahid, 58, was arrested at the scene and charged with four counts of first-degree promoting prison contraband — a felony carrying a maximum 7-year prison term — and four counts of the same charge in the second degree, a misdemeanor.

The Staten Island resident, who is married with three children, was ordered held in lieu of $30,000 bail during a hearing in Manhattan Criminal Court last night, where he appeared in a long robe and navy blue skull cap.

His lawyer, James McQueeney said the blades were ‘injector razor blades from an injector razor,” and that when Abdu-Shahid told that to the correction officers who stopped him, “his explanation that he didn’t know there were there [in the duffel bag] was accepted.”

“He was allowed into the” Tombs after the blades were confiscated,” McQueeney said. “Only later were questions raised about this.”

Despite that claim, DOI Commissioner Rose Gil Hearn said, “This arrest demonstrates the serious consequences of bringing in contraband to the city’s correctional facilities.” Continue Reading →