Author Archives: Grace

Sweden: men with ‘a little additional interest in chemical products’ attempt to manufacture napalm

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We have been informed by our Swedish correspondent that the neighbourhood where the ammunition cache has been found is home to a substantial ‘South Asian’ community.

The Local

Police discover stash of napalm material

Published: 13 Aug 10 07:01 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation

Swedish police have discovered a store of ammunition in rural Österlen in southern Sweden after a raid targeting two men, aged 20 and 23-years-old. Among the items seized was alunat, a material used to make napalm.

“They have tried to manufacture napalm, but have not succeeded,” said prosecutor Helena Lundström to the local Ystads Allehanda daily.

In a raid on the men’s homes police also found weapons magazines and thousands of bullets for, among other things, automatic weapons. Furthermore there were stores of nitroglycerine, gun powder, sulphur, fuse wire, detonators, and two complete bombs.

The two men have now been charged with offences ranging from theft, home distilling, aggravated drink driving, and contravention of the law on flammable and explosive materials.

The pair are accused of having broken into a store at the P 7 military area in Revingehed outside of Lund. Aside from a couple of cases of uniforms they stole seven wooden boxes with alunat, which is a core ingredient in napalm.

Each wooden box contained 16 cans of alunat, with one can being sufficient for 75 litres of napalm.

But according to the prosecutor there are other ingredients needed to make napalm and the men had no motive for developing the substance.

“This matter concerns two otherwise well-ordered boys who just have a little additioinal interest in chemical products,” the prosecutor said.

The men admit to having stolen the alunat but deny that they had intended to manufacture napalm.

A third man has been charged and has admitted to handling stolen goods, while a fourth denies any involvement.

The facts behind New York City’s new ‘Victory Mosque’s’ Imam

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From Hudson New York

The Mosque at Ground Zero: Who Is Behind It?

by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury
July 30, 2010 at 5:30 am

The Imam behind the controversial mosque at Ground Zero dreams of Islamizing United States, as exposed in his book, which has two titles: one in English,m and one in Arabic

In the U.S., his book is called, ‘What’s Right with America Is What’s right with Islam.”

The same book, published in Arabic, bears the title, “The Call from the WTC Rubble: Islamic Da’wah {Proseletism}from the Heart of America Post-9/11.”

Here we get exactly the Imam, who is assigned to “spread Islam right from the WTC rubble.”

Now, let us have some glimpse over the funders and backers of this mosque project. According to information, a scholar and charity head appointed to President Obama’s White House Fellowships Commission is closely tied to the Muslim leaders behind this proposed controversial Islamic cultural center to be built near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks. The White House fellow, Vartan Gregorian, is president of Carnegie Corp. of New York.

Gregorian also serves on the board of the Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum. The museum is reportedly working with the American Society for Muslim Advancement, whose leaders are behind the mosque, to ensure the future museum will represent the voices of American Muslims.

“[The Sept. 11 museum will represent the] voices of American Muslims in particular, and it will honor members of other communities who came together in support and collaboration with the Muslim community on September 11 and its aftermath,” stated Daisy Khan, wife of the founder of the society and chairman of the of the Cordoba Initiative, Imam Faidal AbdulRauf Khan, and executive director of the society.

The future Sept. 11 museum’s oral historian, Jenny Pachucki, is collaborating with the society to ensure the perspective of American Muslims is woven into the overall experience of the museum, according to the museum’s blog.

Daisy Khan’s husband, Feisal Abdul Rauf, is the founder of the society as well as chairman of Cordoba Initiative.

With Gregorian at its helm, Carnegie Corp. is at the top of the list of society supporters on the Islamic group’s website. Carnegie is also listed as a funder of both of the society’s partner organizations, Search for Common Ground and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. Gregorian was a participant in the U.N. body’s first forum, as was Rauf.

Rauf is vice chairman on the board of the Interfaith Center of New York, which honored Gregorian at an awards dinner in 2008.

Gregorian, born in Tabriz, Iran, served for eight years as a president of the New York Public Library and was also president of Brown University. He is the author of “Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith.”

According to a book review by the Middle East Forum, Gregorian’s book “establishes the Islamist goal of world domination.”

A chapter of the book, “Islamism: Liberation Politics,” quotes Ayatollah Khomeini: “Islam does not conquer. Islam wants all countries to become Muslim, of themselves.”

Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, is quoted stating it “is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its laws on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”

Gregorian himself recommends for Muslims a system he calls “theo-democracy,” which he defines as “a divine democratic government” that, according to the book review, “would have a limited popular sovereignty under the suzerainty of Allah.”

Recently, World Net Daily reported that Rauf refused during a live radio interview to condemn violent jihad groups as terrorists. Rauf also repeatedly refused on-air to affirm the U.S. designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization or call the Muslim Brotherhood extremists.

The Brotherhood openly seeks to spread Islam around the world, while Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction and is responsible for scores of suicide bombings, shootings and rocket attacks aimed at Jewish civilian population centers.

During that interview, Rauf was also asked who he believes was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.

“There’s no doubt,” stated Rauf. “The general perception all over the world was it was created by people who were sympathetic to Osama bin Laden. Whether they were part of the killer group or not, these are details that need to be left to the law-enforcement experts.”

Rauf has been on record several times as blaming U.S. policies for the Sept. 11 attacks. He has been quoted refusing to admit Muslims carried out the attacks.

Referring to the Sept. 11 attacks, Rauf told CNN, “U.S. policies were an accessory to the crime that happened. We [the U.S.] have been an accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world. Osama bin Laden was made in the USA.”

Madeline Brooks, a regular contributor of Weekly Blitz and anti-Jihadist columnist, who attended a sermon this year by Rauf, quoted the Islamic leader as stating “some people say it was Muslims who attacked on 9/11.”

An unidentified group with unknown sponsors has purchased building with US$ 4.85 million cash steps away from where the World Trade Center once stood — to turn it into potentially one of the largest New York City mosques or Islamic Mecca right inside USA.

The Imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, told the New York Times — which put the story on its front page — that he has assembled several million dollars to turn it into “an Islamic center near the city’s most hallowed piece of land that would stand as one of ground zero’s more unexpected and striking neighbors.”

The 61-year-old Imam said he paid $4.85 million for it — in cash, records show. With 50,000 square feet of air rights and enough financing, he plans an ambitious project of $150 million, he said.

Most US mosques, including many in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx are funded directly or indirectly by Saudi Arabia the country to which 15 of the 19 hijackers who bombed the World Trade Center belonged. The UAE, Qatar and Iran are other major sponsors across the USA.

The source of money matters: a significant part of the hundreds of mosques being built and already erected in this country double up as cultural Islamic centers for distributing literature– Islamist propaganda in fact—from Bay Ridge Brooklyn to Detroit, and for schooling growing Muslim minorities. They house Imams of unknown origin and education, many of whom do not speak a word in English but preach in Arabic and Urdu — radical messages, it often turns out.

While Imam Faisal is gradually moving ahead with his master plan of constructing the Mecca of Islam in NYC, unknown patrons are continuing to put huge amount of cash in gradually having a strong Islamist grip over world media.

In United Kingdom, newspapers like Islamic Times, The Muslim News, The Muslim Weekly, or radio stations like Radio Apni Awaz, Radio Dawn or TV channels like Islam Channel, Muslim TV are only few examples. According to information, Muslim “‘entrepreneurs” are gradually buying shares in several news outlets in UK with money received from unknown sources. Hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing into such projects, with the ultimate goal of virtually waging Islamic Jihad over global media.

There are a few dozens Islamic TV channels already on air. Peace TV [run by notorious Zakir Naik], ARY TV, Q-TV, Islamic TV, Muslim TV; and Islam Channel – UK:

Commenting on Britain’s most popular Islam Channel, Britain’s Office of Communications, OFCOM, in a report found that a number of presenters with extremis tendencies were regularly given the opportunity to air their opinions on the network.

The report also condemned a channel headquartered in London for being demeaning to women, saying that programs instructed women that they could not refuse to have sexual relations with their husbands. Under British law — and recently in the US in a case which was later overturned — a husband who forces his wife to have sex with him can be charged with rape.

The report added that on one program, women were told that they should not leave their homes without their husband’s consent, and should always have a male escort. Another suggested that women who used perfume were prostitutes. Concerns were also raised in the report over a religious advice program in which viewers were told that “the majority of people in hell will be women” because they are the cause of “calamities, hardship and suffering” in Western society.

The channel was accused of promoting the speeches of Anwar al Awlaki, an extremist preacher who has been linked to al Qaeda, and the views of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a fundamentalist organization which the former Prime Minister Tony Blair had tried to ban.

The Islam Channel is watched by an estimated 59 per cent of the UK’s two million Muslims. It is also available as a satellite channel across Europe and Africa.

New Islam TV – Africa:

In Africa, a company named Multichoice has launched a channel named New Islam TV, which is added in DStv bouquets, reaching millions of people. The channel offers choice news and current affairs, children and women’s programs, as well as Quran recitals in Arabic with English subtitles, Islamic values and doctrine.

Azhari TV – Egypt

Egyptian Al Azhar University is set to launch a satellite based television channel in months targeting “1.5 million Muslims and non-Muslims alike in the world.”

Head of Al Azhar, Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, commenting on this channel, which is funded by a Libyan businessman named Hassan Tatanaki said, “in the Age of Obama we realized it was time to look at new ways to deliver our message.”

Hassan Tatanaki placed an initial investment of US$ 2.7 million in this project. Several news sources claim that the real amount of investment in the channel is much higher than shown in the document. The channel will feature a daily sermon from Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi, documentaries relating to al-Azhar, talk shows and an animated series on the Koran. The channel will broadcast 75 percent of its output in Arabic, with the rest initially in English and French. Other languages will be added in 2011.

Another Islamic TV channel named Al Sufiya Wa Atasawaf will also be launched from Egypt in several months.

Al Falah TV – Malaysia

An Islamic television channel named Al Falah TV has been launched by a Malaysian company, World Islamic Television Network. Its chairman, Khairuddin Abu Hassan. said, “This channel will act as a hub for the collection of television programs from Islamic nations and export the same to Europe, the United States and East Asia.”


Canada: Air security won’t ask Muslims to lift veils to prove ID

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From The Toronto Sun

Lifting the veil on airport security

Air security won’t ask for veiled Muslims to prove ID

By Brian Lilley and Bryn Weese, Parliamentary Bureau

Last Updated: August 1, 2010 5:16am

OTTAWA – Frequent flyers know the drill: take off your shoes, surrender your tweezers and pack your shampoo in those little plastic baggies before lining up for the naked body scanners. But lift your niqab? Apparently not.

QMI Agency can reveal that neither airlines nor security services are asking Muslim women to lift their veils and prove that the face beneath matches their photo ID.

The issue came to light through a video taken by Mick Flynn of Bradford, England. Flynn was boarding a flight at Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport when he witnessed two women with their faces covered board an Air Canada Heathrow bound flight without being asked to remove their veils.

In fact, in the video that Flynn has posted online, a man traveling with the group hands in all the passports and is the only one to interact with airline staff while two veiled women simply walk through.

“I complained at the desk — and again as I boarded the plane — asking if the pilot was happy that two women boarded without being identified,” Flynn told QMI Agency. “Both members of staff whom I spoke to were flustered and clearly embarrassed.”

Flynn’s communication with Air Canada and his video posting have resulted in a threatened lawsuit from the airline. As for answers from the company about security procedures, their response reveals holes in Canada’s air security.

“Airline passengers have already undergone multiple security checks before arriving at the boarding gate,” Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick told QMI. “A final check is made at the gate prior to boarding in order to confirm passengers on the flight.”

Air Canada says it is capable of checking identification in a private room away from the check-in counter, but said the real responsibility for security measures lies with CATSA, the Canadian Air Transport Security Agency.

Not so, says CATSA.

Greg MacDougall, a spokesman for CATSA, tells QMI that their guards are primarily looking for metal, weapons or other banned material, not ensuring that veiled faces match passport photos.

“We don’t have concerns with that. We have concerns with the fact if the person has any metal under their clothing,” MacDougall said.

A former CATSA employee, who, until recently worked as a frontline screener, tells QMI: “We were never allowed to ask anyone with a veil to lift it. It is their religion.”

Frontline workers for several airlines say that any checks, if they happen at all, would likely happen at the check-in desk, not at boarding or security.

Most airports have wide gaps between where baggage is checked and the secure portions of the airport.

Transport Canada says there should be no confusion: “The airline must be able to verify the identity of all passengers before they are allowed to board,” the department said in a written statement.

Lawyer David Harris of INSIGNIS Strategic Research says Canadians should be concerned about what he deems preferential treatment.

“Full veiling has been a boon for those participating in criminal and terrorist operations,” Harris said pointing to the story of Mustaf Jama.

Jama, a Somali national with a long criminal record, was wanted in Britain for the 2006 murder of police constable Sharon Beshenivsky. As police closed in to arrest the career criminal, Jama was able to escape back to Somalia by wearing a full veil and boarding a flight at Heathrow airport.

Harris’ call for lifting the veil is backed up by two Muslim groups often at odds with each other, the Muslim Canadian Congress and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Canada.

“You cannot allow a person wearing a mask to be in the perimeter of an airport,” says Tarek Fatah of the Congress. “If you don’t want to take off the mask, take the TTC (public transit) to Cairo.”

“Women who wear the niqab are not constrained by the religious belief from removing their veil for legitimate reasons, and security is one of them,” said Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of CAIR-CAN.

Gardee admits that Canadian officials may be reluctant to deal with this issue head-on due to concerns about political correctness. “It’s something that needs to be addressed,” Gardee said.

Gardee says it would be preferable if female staff were able to conduct any screening that involved removing the veil but adds that if female staff are not available, the women must still be forced to remove their niqab.

Canada joins crackdown on “We are fighting for God” al-Awlaki

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Canadian journalist Stewart Bell is one of the few with a thorough understanding of how western nations intentionally or otherwise, nurture jihad, exposing it’s threat and the lasting effects it marks on a free country. I urge everyone interested in the facts surrounding Islamic extremism in Canada to read his bestseller, ” Cold Terror: How Canada Nurtures and Exports Terrorism Around The World”.

From The National Post

Canada joins crackdown on radical Muslim cleric

Anwar al-Awlaki, a former U.S. resident living in Yemen.

Handout/AFP/Getty Images

Anwar al-Awlaki, a former U.S. resident living in Yemen.

Stewart Bell, National Post · Thursday, Jul. 22, 2010

The RCMP’s senior counterterrorism officer singled out radical preacher Anwar Al-Awlaki yesterday as a common thread among young Canadian extremists.

Assistant Commissioner Gilles Michaud said Awlaki, a Yemeni-American terrorist leader, had been popping up during investigations of “the individuals that are of concern to us.”

“He’s a major, major factor in radicalization,” Ass. Comm. Michaud, head of the RCMP’s National Security Criminal Investigations section, told the National Post in an interview.

“This individual, basically he’s born in the U.S., so he knows the Western culture and whatnot, he knows the words to use and how to get to the young people.”

The RCMP have been investigating radicalized Canadians who have travelled to such countries as Somalia and Pakistan for terrorist training.

His comments came a day after the Canadian government ordered financial institutions to look for property linked to Awlaki and, if they find any, to seize it and report it to the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

The move followed similar measures enacted last week by the United States and on Tuesday by the United Nations Security Council, which placed Awlaki on its list of individuals associated with al-Qaeda.

The UN said in its summary of reasons for listing Awlaki that he is a leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and was involved in recruiting and training camps.

Since late 2009, he has “taken on an increasingly operational role in the group.”

In particular, he prepared Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab for his attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day using explosives hidden in his underwear, it said.

Born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents, Awlaki preached in the 1990s at mosques in U.S. cities such as San Diego, where he was repeatedly arrested and fined for picking up prostitutes. He moved to Yemen in 2004.

Making use of his fluency in English, he began to exploit the Internet to introduce al-Qaeda’s worldview to the online generation. His recordings, in which he exhorts Muslims to commit terrorist violence, have made him popular among angry youths — and a target. In April, the Obama administration authorized U.S. agencies to capture or kill him.

“We seek to apply the rule of Koran, and make the word of Allah supreme over all other and God willing, we will strive to achieve these goals with all what we possess, and we will fight to the last man against whoever stands in our way,” he said in a recent online message. “We are fighting for God.”

From the Toronto 18 to the Somali-Canadians in Al-Shabab, many of those involved in terrorist groups share a fascination with Awlaki, who has been in hiding somewhere in Yemen since 2007.

“I disagree with him all the way,” said Saed Rageah, Imam of the Abu Huraira mosque in Toronto. He said he had listened to tapes of Awlaki and found he was taking Koranic verses out of context to justify his views. “I disagree killing innocent people, Islam disagrees with that,” Imam Rageah said.

On Wednesday, the police crackdown on Awlaki’s followers continued. Zachary Adam Chesser, 20, was arrested after he allegedly attempted to travel to Somalia to join Al-Shabab, the terrorist group behind the bombings in Uganda that killed 76 during the World Cup soccer final.

Mr. Chesser told the FBI that since converting to Islam in 2008 he had become “very extremist” in his beliefs, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Virginia. He said he was a fan of Awlaki’s videos and had exchanged emails with the fugitive preacher.

When he was stopped at New York’s JFK airport on June 10, because he was on the U.S. no-fly list, he was travelling with his infant son. He later told the FBI he was using the child to cover up his true intention, which was to travel to Somalia.

Also known as Abu Talha Al-Amrikee, he had earlier come to public attention for supporting the killing of the creators of the animated television show South Park, which had depicted the Muslim prophet Muhamed wearing a bear costume.

sb***@**********st.com

Child torture: FGM on the rise despite being illegal

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From The Guardian U.K. Observer

British girls undergo horror of genital mutilation despite tough laws

Female circumcision will be inflicted on up to 2,000 British schoolgirls during the summer holidays – leaving brutal physical and emotional scars. Yet there have been no prosecutions against the practice.

Like any 12-year-old, Jamelia was excited at the prospect of a plane journey and a long summer holiday in the sun. An avid reader, she had filled her suitcases with books and was reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban when her mother came for her. “She said, ‘You know it’s going to be today?’ I didn’t know exactly what it would entail but I knew something was going to be cut. I was made to believe it was genuinely part of our religion.”

She went on: “I came to the living room and there were loads of women. I later found out it was to hold me down, they bring lots of women to hold the girl down. I thought I was going to be brave so I didn’t really need that. I just lay down and I remember looking at the ceiling and staring at the fan.

“I don’t remember screaming, I remember the ridiculous amount of pain, I remember the blood everywhere, one of the maids, I actually saw her pick up the bit of flesh that they cut away ’cause she was mopping up the blood. There was blood everywhere.”

Some 500 to 2,000 British schoolgirls will be genitally mutilated over the summer holidays. Some will be taken abroad, others will be “cut” or circumcised and sewn closed here in the UK by women already living here or who are flown in and brought to “cutting parties” for a few girls at a time in a cost-saving exercise.

Then the girls will return to their schools and try to get on with their lives, scarred mentally and physically by female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice that serves as a social and cultural bonding exercise and, among those who are stitched up, to ensure that chastity can be proved to a future husband.

Even girls who suffer less extreme forms of FGM are unlikely to be promiscuous. One study among Egyptian women found 50% of women who had undergone FGM “endured” rather than enjoyed sex.

Cleanliness, neatness of appearance and the increased sexual pleasure for the man are all motivations for the practice. But the desire to conform to tradition is the most powerful motive. The rite of passage, condemned by many Islamic scholars, predates both the Koran and the Bible and possibly even Judaism, appearing in the 2nd century BC.

Although unable to give consent, many girls are compliant when they have the prodecure carried out, believing they will be outcasts if they are not cut. The mothers believe they are doing the best for their daughters. Few have any idea of the lifetime of hurt it can involve or the medical implications.

Jamelia, now 20, who says her whole personality changed afterwards.”I felt a lot older. It was odd because nobody says this is a secret, keep your mouth shut but that’s the message you get loud and clear.” She stopped the sports and swimming she used to love and became “strangely disconnected with her own body”. Other girls have died, of shock or blood loss; some have picked up infections from dirty tools. Jamelia’s mother paid extra for the woman to use a clean razor. It is thought that in the UK there are one or two doctors who can be bribed by the very rich to to carry out FGM using anaesthetic and sterilised instruments.

Comfort Momoh works at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London, in one of the 16 clinics up and down the country who deal with FGM and its health repercusssions. Women who have had much of their external genitalia sliced off and their vaginas stitched closed, but for a tiny hole, also come to be cut open in order to give birth.

There are four types of female circumcision identified by the World Health Organisation, ranging from partial to total removal of the external female genitalia. Some 140 million women worldwide have been subjected to FGM and an estimated further two million are at risk every year. Most live in 28 African countries while others are in Yemen, Kurdistan, the US, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Canada. Continue Reading →

Canada: Muslim extremist sites downed by U.S. Go Daddy and Irish Blacknight

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From The National Post

Internet company pulls plug on extremist’s websites

A screen grab from Salman Hossain's former "Filthy Jewish Terrorist" website.

A screen grab from Salman Hossain’s former “Filthy Jewish Terrorist” website.

Stewart Bell, National Post · Tuesday, Jul. 20, 2010

TORONTO — A U.S. Internet company pulled the plug on the websites of a Canadian extremist today after receiving a complaint from Canada’s Attorney-General.

One of the websites taken down by Arizona-based web host Go Daddy had been used by Salman Hossain of Mississauga to call for a genocide of the Jewish community.

The other was a new site that was not yet on-line.

“Go Daddy received a complaint from Canada’s Attorney-General regarding the domain names in question,” said Ben Butler, the company’s Director of Network Abuse.

“After reviewing the content on the sites, Go Daddy determined they are in direct violation of our terms of service and have been removed from our network.” Continue Reading →

If you want sharia, Britain is the place for you. Don’t want it? Too bad.

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I for one, have never bought the notion that the wearing of the burqa is a benign expression of one’s religion and have long argued that it is in fact, only one tenet of sharia. As we can see, despite the fact that the majority of Britains polled do not support the wearing of the burqa, the government has no intention of supporting, nor defending their concerns against those Islamists who dream of Britain as an Islamic state, working diligently to realize this seemingly inevitable outcome.

Farooq Murad of the Muslim Council of Britain, pointed to the spread of mosques and sharia, or Islamic law, as positive signs of the greater freedom Muslims are given in this country. He says, ” There’s a great British sense of fairness and justice. We can have great pride in what a tolerant country Britain is, looking at the growth of mosques, and how nearly more people eat halal meat than don’t.”

He warned, ” any moves to restrict the expression of Islam by banning the veil or blocking the building of minarets would alienate the Muslim community and threaten social cohesion”.

From The Telegraph U.K.

Burka ban ruled out by immigration minister

Britain will not follow France by introducing a law banning women from wearing the burka, the immigration minister has ruled.

By Patrick Hennessy, Political Editor
Published: 8:28PM BST 17 Jul 2010
A woman in a burka

YouGov: 67 per cent of voters wanted the wearing of full-face veils to be made illegal Photo: GETTY

Damian Green said such a move would be “rather un-British” and run contrary to the conventions of a “tolerant and mutually respectful society”.

He said it would be “undesirable” for Parliament to vote on a burka ban in Britain and that there was no prospect of the Coalition proposing it.

His comments will dismay the growing number of supporters of a ban. A YouGov survey last week found that 67 per cent of voters wanted the wearing of full-face veils to be made illegal. Continue Reading →

Muslim outrage at Facebook: reinstate Islamic pages, ban anti-islamic comments and stop ignoring our feelings!

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From The Daily Mail U.K.

More than 2.5m Muslims threaten to leave Facebook after four Islamic pages are taken down

By Niall Firth
Last updated at 12:04 PM on 16th July 2010

More than 2.5million users will leave Facebook unless certain Islamic pages are reinstated, it has been claimed.

A template letter that has been pasted into numerous Facebook pages accuses founder Mark Zuckerberg and other senior members of Facebook of ‘ignoring the feelings of more than 2.5million Muslims’.

The Muslim community is angry that four extremely popular Islamic pages were removed from the site and the letter warns that unless its demands are met Facebook’s Muslim users will move to an Islamic alternative.

The letter demands not only that the pages are reinstated but that new rules are introduced which make it a violation of Facebook’s terms to post anti-Islamic comments.

And Facebook is given notice that unless the changes are introduced then 2.5 million Muslim users will leave to join madina.com, a social networking site for Muslims.

The letter reads: ‘Although you have attended the world’s best communication skills courses you have been most successful in growing great hatred and hostility between you and Muslims around the world, but seriously this time you have caused an almost unrepairable [sic] damage.’

Facebook has been warned that Muslims will leave unless certain pages are reinstatedFacebook has been warned that Muslims will leave unless certain pages are reinstated

It also accuses Facebook of ‘irresponsible behaviour’ for allowing to host ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’ pages which sparked controversy for encouraging users to draw portraits of the Prophet.

There is no specific ban on images of Allah or the Prophet Mohammed in the Koran but there is one line which is commonly taken to mean that it is impossible for human hands to recreate his likeness. To attempt to do so would is an insult to Allah, it is believed.

The letter demands that the four deleted pages are reinstated, disrespecting Islamic religious symbols is banned and any Facebook page which does so is disabled.

Madina.com was a social networking site set up specifically for the Muslim community.

It pledges to abide by the ‘highest Islamic principals’ and encourages Muslim unity. Female users are asked not to use pictures of themselves as profile pictures.

A spokeswoman for Facebook said that the Islamic pages, which included ‘I love Mohammed’ and ‘Quran Lovers’, were taken down because they were being used to ‘spam’ users, which is against the company’s policy.

CAIR pushes for Muslim holidays to be added to New York school calendar

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From TROP

Muslims seek to add holidays on NY school calendar

By Karina Ioffee

NEW YORK | Mon Jul 12, 2010 4:15pm EDT

(Reuters) – Muslim parents, students and civic groups are campaigning to add two of their religious holidays to the New York City public school calendar, pinning their hopes on state lawmakers after failing to win over Mayor Michael Bloomberg to the idea.
Putting Eid Ul-Fitr, a holiday marking the end of Ramadan, and Eid Ul-Adha, celebrating the end of the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, on the list of official school holidays will help ease suspicion and reduce anti-Muslim sentiment nearly a decade after the September 11 attacks, they say.

Supporters say there are more than 100,000 Muslim students in the public schools, or about 12 percent of the enrollment. Continue Reading →

Sh*t and get off the pot; nile pans outfitted in shopping mall.

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From The Daily Mail U.K.

Shopping centre bosses approve ‘Asian squat toilets’ following cultural awareness course

 By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:00 PM on 14th July 2010Middle Eastern-style ‘squat’ toilets are to be fitted in a shopping centre after bosses attended a cultural awareness course.

WCs at Rochdale’s Exchange shopping centre will include two Nile pans alongside traditional western toilets when they reopen following a refurbishment.

The pans differ from western toilets as the user is able to squat over them, rather than sitting.

They are preferred by some members of the Asian community for cultural reasons and were installed to give staff and customers the option of using them.

The decision to install pans in the ladies and gents toilets came about after centre management attended a cultural training course with community activist Ghulam Rasul Shahzad. Continue Reading →

France bans the burqa.

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From CNN World

Burqa ban passes French lower house overwhelmingly

By the CNN Wire Staff
July 13, 2010 11:24 a.m. EDT

Paris, France (CNN) — France’s lower house of parliament Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a ban on any veils that cover the face — including the burqa, the full-body covering worn by some Muslim women.

The vote was 335 to 1, with 339 lawmakers not voting.

The measure must still go to the French Senate before it becomes law. The Senate is expected to vote on it in the week of September 20.

A veiled woman speaks with another woman at a courthouse in Nanterre, Paris, earlier this month.

A veiled woman speaks with another woman at a courthouse in Nanterre, Paris, earlier this month.

French people back the ban by a margin of more than four to one, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found in a survey this spring.

Some 82 percent of people polled approved of a ban, while 17 percent disapproved. That was the widest support the Washington-based think tank found in any of the five countries it surveyed.

Clear majorities also backed burqa bans in Germany, Britain and Spain, while two out of three Americans opposed it, the survey found.

The French Council of Ministers approved the measure in May, saying veils that cover the face “cannot be tolerated in any public place.” Their approval sent the bill to parliament.

The parliamentary vote is the latest step in France’s efforts to ban the burqa, niqab and other Muslim garments that cover a woman’s face.

A panel of French lawmakers recommended a ban last year, and lawmakers unanimously passed a non-binding resolution in May calling the full-face veil contrary to the laws of the nation.

“Given the damage it produces on those rules which allow the life in community, ensure the dignity of the person and equality between sexes, this practice, even if it is voluntary, cannot be tolerated in any public place,” the French government said when it sent the measure to parliament in May.

The bill envisions a fine of 150 euros ($190) and/or a citizenship course as punishment for wearing a face-covering veil.

Forcing a woman to wear a niqab or a burqa would be punishable by a year in prison or a 15,000-euro ($19,000) fine, the government said, calling it “a new form of enslavement that the republic cannot accept on its soil.”

The measure would take effect six months after passage, giving authorities time to try to persuade women who veil themselves voluntarily to stop.

The French Council of State has warned that the ban could be incompatible with international human rights laws and the country’s own constitution. The council advises on laws, but the government is not required to follow its recommendations.

Amnesty International has repeatedly urged French lawmakers not to approve the ban.

“A complete ban on the covering of the face would violate the rights to freedom of expression and religion of those women who wear the burqa or the niqab in public as an expression of their identity or beliefs,” said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s expert on discrimination in Europe, in May.

If the French bill is approved by the upper house and signed into law, it will be the first national ban in Europe on the burqa, a full-body covering that includes a mesh over the face, and the niqab, a full-face veil that leaves an opening only for the eyes.

The hijab, which tightly covers the hair and neck but not the face, and the chador, which covers the body but not the face, apparently would not be banned by either law. However, a 2004 law in France bans the wearing or displaying of overt religious symbols in schools — including the wearing of headscarves by schoolgirls.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life estimates that France has about 3.5 million Muslims, or about 6 percent of the population.

France does not keep its own statistics on religious affiliation of the population, in keeping with its laws requiring the state to be strictly secular.

Related: Muslim World: Sweeping support to ban full Islamic veil in Western Europe as France votes on burka ban, suryey shows.

Barbara Kay: Action on Honour Killings.

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From The National Post

Barbara Kay: Action on honour killings

July 12, 2010 – 4:20 pm

Muhammad Shan Parvez and Waqas Parvez

Nathan Denette / National Post

Muhammad Shan Parvez, left, and Waqas Parvez — brothers of murderer teenager Aqsa Parvez — leave a Brampton, Ont., courthouse on Dec. 14, 2007.

The Minister for Status of Women, Rona Ambrose, gave a press conference today on “culturally-driven violence and so-called ‘honour crimes.’ ” The occasion prompting her remarks was the official release of a position paper on the growing problem of culturally driven violence in Canada’s immigrant communities by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, the subject of my July 7th column.

The report, Culturally-Driven Violence Against Women: A growing problem in Canada’s immigrant communities, was written by Aruna Papp, a counsellor to immigrant men and women caught up in domestic conflicts. Ms Papp, an immigrant from India who herself suffered a great deal of culturally-related abuse, has emerged as an expert on South Asian cultural gender roles and honour/shame-related behaviours. Ms Papp has written about the subject of culturally-driven violence in the National Post.

Reflecting opinions expressed in the report, the minister endorsed Ms Papp’s most important points, emphasizing, with regard to honour killings, “These heinous acts cannot be justified by cultural relativism or excused under the guise of political correctness.” Continue Reading →

Canada: Mother declared fit to stand trial for attempted honour killing

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From CTV News

Mom fit for trial for alleged ‘honour crime’ attempt

By: The Canadian Press

Date: Monday Jul. 12, 2010 10:59 AM PT

MONTREAL

— A woman alleged to have stabbed her daughter in the head in a so-called “honour crime” has been declared fit to stand trial.

Johra Kaleki will return to Quebec court on July 26 for a bail hearing. The prosecution says it will seek to have Kaleki remain behind bars.

Kaleki, 38, is charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and assault with a weapon against her own 19-year-old daughter.

She had been sent to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation at the defence’s request, and the results were deposited with the court Monday.

“There were two things that were evaluated: her fitness to stand trial and her responsibility,” Crown prosecutor Anne Gauvin told reporters outside the courtroom.

“At this stage, she comes back fit and responsible.”

The Crown said it would oppose Kaleki’s attempt at bail because of the emotions involved in the case.

Slideshow image

Johra Kaleki, 38, is seen in this artist’s rendition during court proceedings, Monday, June 14, 2010.

Gauvin argued unsuccessfully that Kaleki should be barred from speaking with her family, notably her husband Ebrahim Ebrahimi.

Ebrahimi will be the one putting up bail in two weeks’ time. The Crown fears there will be pressure on the victim to alter her testimony or simply not testify at all.

“It (parental pressure) could change the way it’s related in court,” Gauvin said.

“She’s (the victim) sort of facing her mother, what happened to her is not something ordinary and the pressure is there.”

The incident occurred inside the family’s Montreal-area home in the early morning hours of June 13.

The daughter is said to have returned home after a late night out and police said Kaleki was in a hysterical state.

Initial police reports suggested Kaleki’s husband tried to stop the attack.

Police quickly reached a conclusion that they were dealing with a so-called “honour” crime — an attack by a family on one of its members for an act believed to have brought shame to the family.

Ebrahimi has said the case was a misunderstanding and has pleaded with authorities to release his wife and reunite the family.

The 19-year-old victim, the eldest of four daughters, has since returned home after spending some time in hospital.

Iran’s grotesque abuse of human rights.

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From The Guardian U.K.

Iranians still facing death by stoning despite ‘reprieve’

Fifteen could still die in horrific sentence after being allegedly convicted of adultery

An Iranian woman at a protest in Brussels highlights the barbarity of death by stoning An Iranian woman at a protest in Brussels highlights the barbarity of death by stoning, in which women are buried up to their necks in front of a crowd of volunteers. Photograph: Thierry Roge/Reuters

Twelve Iranian women and three men are on death row awaiting execution by stoning despite an apparent last-minute reprieve for a mother of two who had been facing the horrific sentence after being convicted of adultery.

Human rights groups and activists welcomed a wave of international publicity and protests over the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, who was awaiting execution in the western Iranian town of Tabriz after what her lawyer called an unjust trial and a sham conviction.

The Iranian embassy in London said in a statement that “according to information from the relevant judicial authorities” the stoning would not go ahead. If confirmed it would be an victory for a brief but intense campaign that was first highlighted by the Guardian last week.

However, there are still concerns over her plight. In a previous case a prisoner who was to be stoned was instead executed by hanging. Continue Reading →

7/7: the lesson not yet learned

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From The Telegraph U.K.

We have not learnt the lesson of the July 7 suicide bombing

In the five years since suicide bombers killed 52 people in London, placatory government policy on Islamist terrorism has achieved little but store up trouble for the future, argues Douglas Murray.

By Douglas Murray
Published: 8:33AM BST 06 Jul 2010
Whose law? Members of Islam4UK leave a London press conference in January

Whose law? Members of Islam4UK leave a London press conference in January Photo: Getty

Tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of the day suicide bombing came to Britain. On July 7, 2005 three young British-born men exploded their devices simultaneously on the London Underground. A fourth man detonated his an hour later on a bus in Tavistock Square. Together they left 52 people dead, many more injured, and a country only starting to realise that a problem it had long exported had found its way home.

While July 7 was the first time that jihadi terrorism had come to British streets, these were not the first streets to which British-born Islamists had brought terror. Two years earlier, two young British men had gone to Mike’s Place, a bar in Tel Aviv, and carried out a suicide bombing. Almost a decade before July 7 – in 1996 – the man said to have been Britain’s first suicide bomber died in Afghanistan, self-detonating to kill opponents of the Taliban forces he was fighting alongside.

By 2005 British-raised jihadis had fought around the world, spurred on by radical clerics at home, backed by British networks and allowed to operate by a government and security service who believed that this was a problem for other people. It took 10 years for Britain to extradite to France the Algerian man accused of blowing up the Paris Metro in 1995. Britain had become a soft touch: a magnet for foreign jihadis and a hub of home-grown radicalisation.

To coincide with the fifth anniversary of July 7 this week, the Centre for Social Cohesion is releasing Islamist Terrorism: the British Connections. It is a 500-page, telephone directory-sized work that aims to present an overview of every traceable Islamist convicted of Islamism-inspired terrorist offences and attacks over the last decade. It also examines the scope of British-linked Islamism-inspired terrorism threats worldwide since 1993, listing many foreign combatants and extradition cases and British citizens convicted abroad.

It presents a timeline of the jihad, a list of the major networks and analysis of the data, presenting the most accurate picture possible of what makes up a violent British Islamist. Terrorism expert Marc Sageman has already said it “will become the indispensable reference for any future inquiry into British neo-jihadi terrorism”. Yet it is a work that neither the Home Office nor the Crown Prosecution Service, nor any other department of government, has got around to compiling.

Contrary to government claims, there are very clear pointers as to what makes up the average individual convicted of an Islamist-inspired offence. As the profiles of 127 convictions and attacks show, the overwhelming majority of those involved (96 per cent) are men; 68 per cent are under 30; 32 per cent of those convicted have links to proscribed organisations – 14.5 per cent had links with al-Qaeda, while the largest number (15 per cent) were linked to the now banned al-Muhajiroun; and 31 per cent attended terrorist training camps abroad.

The idea that lack of opportunities, poverty or lack of education are more than an aggravating factor is not supported by the findings. A minimum of 31 per cent of those convicted of Islamist-related offences had at some point attended university or a higher education institute. Among these, as the University College London Christmas Day bomber reminded us, are people who have attended some of our finest institutions.

And the idea that a terrorist cannot to some extent be racially profiled is also wrong. Government should not ignore facts because they are difficult. Almost half of those convicted were of south-central Asian ancestry (46 per cent) – though this is lower than the percentage of Muslims in the UK who have such ancestry. But apologists for jihadis often try to claim that profiling is counter-productive. In fact, as one arm of surveillance, it can be very productive indeed.

The Intelligence and Security Committee inquiry into the July 7 bombings, published in May last year, queried the lack of a database like the one we have produced, concluding: “The Committee is both disappointed and concerned that such a simple, yet essential, piece of the evidence base – the successful conviction of terrorists – was not only unused, but was not even available.”

There may be many reasons for this oversight, not least that government is now busy trying to deal with the problem it allowed to go unchallenged and even fuelled for years. But it may also be because in the wake of the
July 7 bombs a polite fiction has crept into the British body politic – a fatal unwillingness to deal with facts and unpleasant truths. Our Security Service’s efforts have been hugely successful – since September 11, 2001 a major plot has been thwarted nearly every year – but politically, this country’s policy for dealing with radical Islam has gone off at a terrible tangent and may actually be storing up problems for the future.

It started with Tony Blair who, in the wake of the London bombs, said he would change “the rules of the game”. But the rules did not change. Blair could have used the opportunity to expel foreign clerics, to pursue and lock up those who had gone to training camps, and to start explaining not how people could understand Islam better but how Islam should understand Britain better.

Instead of arguing the case for our values and the non-negotiability of our way of life, Blair and his colleagues treated the radicalisation of young Muslims as a theological issue. Via the “Prevent” strategy, millions of pounds were poured into programmes designed to encourage a different version of Islam from that of some radical ideologues. But money was spent on grassroots events at which radical preachers spoke; there was support, too, for organisations affiliated to groups such as the radical Muslim Brotherhood to carry out proselytising, or dawah, work. In many cases, both here and abroad, the government decided to ally with those who were political opponents of violent groups, but who were themselves only opposed to violence in particular contexts.

Blair’s advisory committees included people who were on record expressing admiration for Osama bin Laden, people who believe British foreign policy is dictated by Jews and Freemasons, and those at best equivocal about the use of suicide bombing in certain contexts. And as usual, once government got involved, it found a way for itself to get involved more. A whole department dedicated itself to pumping out the lie that the problem was not Islamist extremism, but “violent extremism”; not jihadism but what the home secretary at the time of the Glasgow airport bombing and the attempted bombing in Haymarket, Jacqui Smith, requested be re-termed “anti-Islamic activity”.

This was all part of a concerted attempt to placate Muslim demagogues who teach grievance, as well as ordinary Muslims who might feel under pressure, by pretending that absolutely anybody could become a suicide bomber – a pretence that allows Muslim leaders and communities off the hook entirely. There are many security threats facing this country. There are the continuing efforts by Irish republicans who have not accepted the Good Friday Agreement. There are the so-called “lone-wolf” white racists like the Brixton, Soho and Brick Lane bomber David Copeland. But by far and away the greatest security threat, our Security Service estimates, is the threat of what it terms “al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism”. Yet government has been desperate to evade this fact.

The Security Service believes that more than 2,000 people in the UK pose a terrorist threat; in March 2005, it was estimated that up to 200 al-Qaeda operatives were in the UK. In January of this year the terror threat level was raised from “substantial” to “severe”, meaning an attack is “highly likely”.

Our police and Security Service continue to do the hard work of preventing actual attacks, and have been remarkably successful. Yet for the past five years the major political parties have failed in their principal task, which should be to argue for British values. MPs who have spoken out frankly have been silenced or reprimanded by their parties. Outspoken critics of radical Islam have been sidelined or ignored.

Senior counter-terrorism officials have made clear that it is a matter of “when” not “if” the next July 7 occurs. By engaging extremists and sidelining not just progressive Muslims but also the mainstream opinions of British society, government has done much to store up far more problems in the future. In the long run, is it better for Britain to Islamicise or for Islam to become more British? Any government worthy of governing Britain should be able to answer that clearly.

Douglas Murray is director of the Centre for Social Cohesion