Author Archives: Grace

Something’s rotten in Denmark and it’s not cheese.

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From 9MSN News, courtesy TROP

Anti-Muslim Danish MP faces charges.

The Danish parliament voted on Wednesday to remove a far-right politician’s immunity from prosecution so he can face charges over anti-Muslim comments, parliamentary sources said.

Jesper Langballe, a veteran member of the Danish People’s Party (PPD), a crucial ally of the centre-right government, wrote in a newspaper column published in January that “Muslims kill their daughters (over crimes of honour) and turn a blind eye while they are raped by their uncles”.

The column, which discussed the status of women in Islam and the “Islamisation of Europe”, triggered a political storm and his comments were condemned by Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen.

The Crown Prosecutor decided to pursue Langballe on the grounds that his comments broke anti-racism laws, and sought the lifting of his parliamentary immunity.

The PPD, with the exception of Langballe, abstained from Wednesday’s vote, split between a desire to respect the law and its opposition to the anti-racism provisions, which it says go against freedom of expression.

Langballe himself voted for the lifting of immunity, as he wishes to prove the truth of his comments in court, according to Danish parliamentary television.

The date of the trial has not been set.

Paris: Despite ban, hundreds show for pork and wine party at Arc de Triomphe

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From Metro.co.uk

Facebook ‘pork party’ protest banned by Paris officials

A ‘Pork and wine party’ organised on Facebook to protest against the ‘Islamisation’ of a neighbourhood has been banned by Paris officials.

A 'pork and wine' party, organised on Facebook, has been banned by Paris officials A ‘pork and wine’ party, organised on Facebook, has been banned by Paris officials.

The event, organised on the social networking site, was planned for Friday, when the streets would be teeming with Muslims coming out of mosques.

But police cracked down on the pork-based protest and any other copycat gatherings in the Goutte d’Or area of northern Paris’ 18th arrondissement, or district.

Officials stated that the party could cause ‘serious risks to public order’. The party was following a growing trend in France to host open-air drinks parties, organised via Facebook.

The original idea for the Paris gathering came from a woman calling herself Sylvie Francois, who said that she no longer felt at home in the neighbourhood where she had lived all her life.

‘People of French origin can’t have a drink in peace there. If you are a woman you get hostile looks if you’re not wearing an (Islamic) veil,’ she stated.

Her party, who had nearly 7,000 Facebook attendees, urged users to bring a bottle of wine and a sausage.

The party was then picked up by extremist groups, who published it to other Internet sites as a response to the ‘fascist-Islamist offensive in France.’

The street party would have paraded pork and alcohol, forbidden by Islamic law, outside of a mosque on the Rue Myrha.

A ‘halal and mint tea’ party was set up on Facebook in response to the protest.

———–

***Update****

Hundreds attend Paris sausage, wine fest after ban

PARIS — Several hundred people have attended party serving sausage and wine on a Paris street after the event was banned from a different location.

Another example of the superior moral values dictated by the Islamic world.

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From R.E.A.L., courtesy TROP

UAE: Court Sentences Teenage Gang Rape Victim to 1 Year in Prison

By R.E.A.L. Organization • on June 17, 2010

A court in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has convicted an 18 year old girl (”LH”) to one year in prison for “consensual sex.”  The UAE court convicted her because she agreed to be alone in the car with a man “YM.”

As previously reported, the teenage girl had previously alleged that she was gang raped by six men.  the UAE “The Nation” newspaper reported that LH had “12 bruises ranging from 1cm to 7 cm long on her upper lip, hands, thighs, knee, and behind her left ear.”  LH indicated that her brother had beaten her, although the beatings happened at different times.

However, after the teenage girl “LH” filed charges of rape, according to the “The Nation” on May 25, “LH” was then charged with the crime of “extramarital sex,” which could have led to a penalty of “lashes and a maximum sentence of life in prison,” with a minimum of three years in prison.  LH then pleaded with the court to allow her to withdraw the rape charges, while one of the accused rapists laughed at her in court.  According to the LA Times, LH appeared before the court “shackled and clothed in an inmate’s uniform of hunter green and a black headscarf” and “she rescinded the allegations ‘to get out of’ jail, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.”

The UAE court had reportedly considered the lesser criminal charge of “deception” against “LH,” but chose to convict of “consensual sex,” with a sentence of  1 year in prison. Continue Reading →

More Muslims killing more Muslims.

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A good friend said to me recently ” if Islamic nations put the same fanatical zeal into agriculture and science as they do into religion, maybe we’d be moving to their countries”. Grace for Vlad.

From The National Post

Drive-by killings rock Pakistan

Peter Goodspeed, National Post · Saturday, Jun. 19, 2010

Sunni and Shiite assassins on motorcycles are fomenting sectarian and ethnic violence in Karachi, Pakistan’s commercial capital, with 21 drive-by murders in the last two weeks.

The government has responded by putting troops on the streets, banning all public meetings except funerals for a month and arresting 24 hard-line Sunni activists.

Still, fears are growing one of the world’s largest Muslim cities could be plunged into a round of religiously motivated revenge killings.

Even more ominous is the possibility al-Qaeda-linked extremists are using the murders to fan ethnic and sectarian hatreds in order to undermine Pakistan’s government and make Karachi, home to 18 million people, ungovernable.

The city, Pakistan’s financial capital and main port on the Arabian Sea, was wracked by ethnic and sectarian violence for much of the 1980s and 1990s as feuds between Sunnis and Shiites erupted in riots and mass murder.

Its tumultuous politics produced equally violent confrontations between the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (United National Movement, MQM), supported by the Urdu-speaking majority population, whose ancestors migrated from India at the time of partition in 1947, and the Awami National Party (ANP), supported by the ethnic Pashtun minority.

The latest round of violence began last month with targeted assassinations of MQM and ANP activists, and attacks on the Muhajir Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, a MQM splinter group, and the Islamistsupporting Jamaat-e-Islami.

June has seen a new round of mayhem in which most of the victims were Shiites.

Two of this week’s one-dozen murders involved drive-by shootings Thursday of a doctor as he left his clinic in Karachi’s Landhi suburb and a paramilitary Pakistan Ranger in the city’s central Garden district.

In both cases, hit squads on motorcycles drew up alongside the targets and opened fire with handguns and AK47s.

Five of the most recent victims were Shiite doctors, who appear to have been picked for because of their visibility in the community.

Karachi’s Shiite leaders blame the murders on the Islamist terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the armed wing of the now-banned Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP, or Army of the Friends of the Prophet).

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is suspected of being involved in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistan prime minister, in Karachi in December 2007.

The SSP came into existence in Pakistan in the early 1980s as a reaction to the Iranian Revolution. It was allegedly created at the behest of Pakistan’s then-military dictator, Zia-ul-Haq, to counter an increasing Shiite militancy.

The SSP wants Pakistan to become a Sunni state and Shiites to be declared non-Muslims.

Over the years, its members have literally waged war on the Shiites. In December, they killed more than 40 of them in two bombings during a religious procession in Karachi.

SSP members also have close links with the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, receiving arms training in Taliban camps, while offering Taliban members religious instruction in SSP-run madrassas in Pakistan.

The SSP was banned in Pakistan in 2002, around the time some members were accused of involvement in the beheading in Karachi of Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal reporter. But the group has constantly re-emerged under different names.

Now that the United States has stepped up its fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan and pushed Pakistan’s military to root out Islamist fighters in the country’s northwestern tribal belt, the terrorists appear to be trying to destabilize Karachi.

“Anti-state elements are trying to disturb peace in the city and the country,” Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s Interior Minister, said yesterday. “The elements involved in the conspiracy first tried to ignite ethnic riots between the Pashtun and Urdu-speaking populations, but after their failure, they now want to start sectarian clashes.”

pg********@**********st.com

See Spot ??? Iranian cleric issues fatwa against…..dogs.

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From The Toronto Sun

Iran cleric bans dog ownership

By Robin Pomeroy, REUTER

Last Updated: June 19, 2010 5:42am

TEHRAN – A senior Iranian cleric has decreed dogs are “unclean””and should not be kept as pets — a move aimed at discouraging Western-style dog ownership in the Islamic state, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

Dogs are considered “unclean””under Islamic tradition but, while relatively rare in Iran, some people do keep them as pets.

By issuing a fatwa — a religious ruling — Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi has sent a clear message that this trend must stop.

“Friendship with dogs is a blind imitation of the West,” he was quoted as saying in Javan daily. “There are lots of people in the West who love their dogs more than their wives and children.”

http://www.freefoto.com/images/01/07/01_07_1---Pair-of-Dogs_web.jpg

Guard dogs and sheep dogs are considered acceptable under Islamic law but Iranians who carry dogs in their cars or take them to public parks can be stopped by police and fined.

The Koran does not explicitly prohibit contact with dogs, Shirazi said, but Islamic tradition showed it to be so. “We have lots of narrations in Islam that say dogs are unclean.”

The interpretation of religious rules on personal conduct is a constant source of debate and potential conflict in Iran which has been an Islamic republic since a revolution ousted the Western-backed Shah in 1979.

In a television interview last week, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad weighed in on the issue of the Islamic dress code, saying women who fail to cover their hair completely should not be harassed by the police.

Morality police are conducting their annual crackdown and women who reveal strands of hair are liable to be stopped in the streets for failing to respect the dress code, or “hijab”.

Ahmadinejad’s surprisingly liberal view was condemned by fellow hardliner politicians and senior clerics “I wish he had not said those words about the hijab,” Grand Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati told the faithful during the week’s Friday prayers, in a rare criticism of the president.

“We are grappling with many problems including economic and political ones but the issues of morality and ethical security are among the important issues that cannot be ignored,” he said.

Tehran University has set up a thinktank “to investigate the problems related to hijab”, the representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to the university announced on Monday.

One more case of the pot calling the tea towel black.

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From The Calgary Herald

Worst human rights offenders condemn West

By Licia Corbella, Calgary Herald June 19, 2010 4:03 AM

“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.” — Adolf Hitler.

In what can only be described as Orwellian double-speak, the Organization of the Islamic Conference told the United Nations Human Rights Council — made up of many of the world’s worst human rights violators — that Muslims in western democracies face unbearable racism and discrimination, and demanded that the UN do something about it.

“People of Arab origin face new forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance and experience discrimination and marginalization,” an Egyptian delegate said on Wednesday.

Pakistan, speaking for the 57-nation OIC, tabled a resolution instructing the council’s special investigator into religious freedom to look into such racism, “especially in western societies” to “work closely with mass media organizations to ensure that they create and promote an atmosphere of respect and tolerance for religious and cultural diversity.”

Mahfooz Kanwar, a professor emeritus at Mount Royal University and author, said these resolutions — which are expected to pass owing to the over-abundance of “Islamist and other dictatorial states” that sit on the oxymoronically named UN Human Rights Council — would be funny for their sheer audacity and hypocrisy if they were not so potentially harmful and disturbing. Continue Reading →

Islamic countries press UN to ‘root out’ Islamophobia in Western nations

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From The National Post

Muslim states push for UN action on ‘Islamophobia’

A woman demonstrates outside the Saudi government-funded Islamic Saudi Academy on Jun. 17, 2008 in Alexandria, Virginia.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

A woman demonstrates outside the Saudi government-funded Islamic Saudi Academy on Jun. 17, 2008 in Alexandria, Virginia.

Steven Edwards, Canwest News Service · Wednesday, Jun. 16, 2010

UNITED NATIONS — Muslim governments on Wednesday pressed the United Nations to step up investigations of Western countries to root out what they call “Islamophobia” — defined by them as discrimination against people of the Muslim faith.

Delegates from Islamic countries, such as Egypt, Iran and Pakistan, drafted new guidelines for the UN’s freedom-of-religion investigator that say Western diplomats aim to shield Islam from commentary Muslims might deem derogatory.

During a debate in front of the UN Human Rights Council, they also charged that the UN’s anti-racism investigator — in a report he tabled about his activities — had not focused enough on what they called the rising incidence of discrimination against Muslims in Western countries.

According to the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the anti-racism investigator should focus on what it called “contemporary” racism, “particularly in Western societies.”

The group said Islamophobia was growing “particularly in the countries of the North.”

Egypt and Libya also charged that Muslims were targets of racism and discrimination in Western countries.

“People of foreign descent, such as Africans, Arabs, Muslims and Asians, do face derogatory stereotyping and stigmatization in an environment of victimization and xenophobia and, at times, violence,” said Ahmed Ihab Gamaleldin, the Egyptian delegate.

From Ottawa, Canada called for a “constructive approach” to ensuring the right of freedom of religion.

But the OIC is likely to see their new guidelines for the freedom-of-religion investigator approved, since Muslim countries and allies — such as Cuba, Russia and China — form a voting bloc in the Geneva-based body that overshadows that of the Western democracies.

Once passed, the new mandate is likely to see Western countries come under increased UN pressure to prevent criticism of Islam, even if that means overriding traditional freedom-of-speech protections.

One provision calls on the UN investigator to “work closely with mass media organizations to ensure that they create and promote an atmosphere of respect and tolerance for religious and cultural diversity,” according to the draft that Pakistan tabled on behalf of the OIC.

Many human-rights groups have argued that Islamic countries seek enhanced “protections” against religious discrimination in order to justify crackdowns in their own countries against apostates and others deemed to be working against the Islam religion.

“UN Watch is alarmed by the Islamic bloc’s attempt to turn an international shield for religious freedom into a sword for religious-motivated state censorship,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based watchdog group. “It’s part of a larger campaign to invert the real danger of Islamist extremism into an imagined narrative of Western victimization of Islam and its adherents.”

Veteran UN-accredited activist David Littman highlighted that the focus on the West appeared out of place when the council has “yet to address” a charge made in the chamber last week by Syria that Israeli children are taught to sing about drinking the blood off Arabs.

The claim recalls an ancient blood libel claiming that Jews use human blood in their religious and other rituals.

Related reading: ” Eight years after 9/11, where’s the Islamophobia” by Barbara Kay

Barcelona says no to burqas

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From The Telegraph U.K.

Barcelona bans burkas in public buildings

Barcelona has become the first big city in Spain to forbid full face veils in public buildings such as markets and libraries.

Published: 9:42PM BST 14 Jun 2010

Barcelona bans burkas in public buildings

The Barcelona ban is due to take effect after the summer. Photo: ABBIE TRAYLER-SMITH

Full veils are banned in all public spaces in small towns Lerida and El Vendrell, which like Barcelona are in the northeastern region of Catalonia.

“Barcelona will forbid the use of the burqa, niqab and any other item which hinders personal identification in any of the city’s public installations,” a statement from the Barcelona municipal government said.

The French cabinet approved a bill last month to outlaw the wearing of niqabs and burqas in public, and Belgium’s lower house has voted in favour of prohibiting the full veil, provoking strong reaction and stoking debate across Europe.

Barcelona Mayor Jordi Hereu resisted calls to impose a ban on full face veils in all public spaces in Spain’s second-largest city because he said it was outside the jurisdiction of a municipal government.

“The use of the burqa and niqab undermines the dignity and freedom of women,” Alberto Fernandez, a Barcelona city councillor for the conservative Popular Party (PP), said on his website.

“The mayoral decree is a half-measure, because as well as forbidding the burqa and niqab in public installations, it is necessary to forbid it on the street,” he added.

The Barcelona ban is due to take effect after the summer.

Spain was partly ruled by Islamic Moors from the 8th to the 15th centuries and had around 1.4 million Muslims in 2009 – about 3 percent of the population – according to the Islamic Commission of Spain.

In a recent controversy, a young woman in Madrid changed schools after refusing to remove her Islamic headscarf when the institute where she was studying enforced its rule banning the wearing of headcoverings.

Khadr son charged with sexual assault

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The Khadr’s, Canada’s First Family of Terror, are a despicable lot. Not a year goes by without one of them appearing on the front pages, living out their Islamist customs and traditions. This time it’s Abdulkareem Khadr, the son of patriarch Ahmed, who was killed in a firefight near the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. Abdulkareem was left paralyzed from a bullet to his spine in this same firefight and after returning to Canada, now finds himself charged with sexual assault of a minor.

From The National Post

Khadr son charged with sexual assualt

Abdulkareem Khadr in 2008. Khadr, partially paralyzed after a firefight in Pakistan, is facing charges of sexual assault

Joshua Sheruci/Wikipedia

Abdulkareem Khadr in 2008. Khadr, partially paralyzed after a firefight in Pakistan, is facing charges of sexual assault

Stewart Bell, National Post · Tuesday, Jun. 15, 2010

TORONTO — The partially paralyzed son of the late Canadian al-Qaeda associate Ahmed Said Khadr has been arrested in Toronto for alleged sexual exploitation of a minor.

Abdulkareem Ahmed Khadr, 21, was arrested 10 days ago by Toronto Police and is scheduled to appear before the Ontario Court of Justice on July 15.

“He has been charged with sexual assault and sexual exploitation,” Constable Tony Vella, a police spokesman, said on Monday. The alleged victim was a minor but is now 18 years of age, Const. Vella said.

Reached at the family apartment on Monday, Mr. Khadr said: “Don’t worry about it. I’m pretty sure the law is going to do what it’s supposed to do.”

The arrest is the latest chapter in the saga of the Khadrs, Canadian citizens who once lived in the same compound as Osama bin Laden but fled Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

The family patriarch, Amhed Khadr, crossed into Pakistan, where he was killed in a shootout with Pakistani security forces in 2003. His son Omar is at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, accused of killing a U.S. soldier.

Another son, Abdullah, is in Toronto awaiting extradition to the United States, where he has been charged with smuggling weapons to the Taliban and al-Qaeda, while son Abdurahman has said his father tried to recruit him to become a suicide bomber.

The fifth of six Khadr children, Abdulkareem, who was born in Pakistan, was present when his father was killed near the Afghanistan border. Then 14, Abdulkareem took a bullet to the spine and is paralyzed from the waist down.

He returned to Toronto in 2004 using an emergency passport issued by the Canadian government. At the time, Stockwell Day, then an opposition MP and now International Trade Minister, said the Khadrs had lost the right to call themselves Canadians.

“They’ve expressed their allegiance to the principles of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden,” Mr. Day said. “That alone should be grounds to have their citizenship revoked.”

The mother denies the family has ties to al-Qaeda.

In 2006, Abdulkareem turned up in Brampton, Ont., to watch bail hearings for the Toronto 18 terrorists who plotted truck bomb attacks in southern Ontario. Two years later, he took part in a protest outside the United States consulate in Toronto to call for the release of his brother Omar.

On Monday, Abdulkareem said he was arrested at a police station in suburban Scarborough on June 4. “I went to go see what they were talking about, talk to them and that’s it,” he said. “They gave me the papers and whatnot and that’s it, they let me go.”

Mr. Khadr said he was unsure whether he would have to appear in court next month. “I might not need to appear, I might need to appear, it doesn’t matter,” he said. Asked if he meant the case might be resolved or the charges dropped before that date, he said, “yes.”

His sister Zaynab said she was unaware of any charges.

“He hasn’t been charged with anything, if there was any charges believe me I’d know about it,” she said on Monday. “I don’t know about any of that and believe me I would have known, I have a minor in the house.”

National Post

Islamic Navigational System

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From The Daily Mail U.K.

Woman fined for erratic driving caused by niqab headscarf impairing her vision

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 12:43 PM on 14th June 2010

Restricted: The niqab was 'bothering the driver in her manoeuvres' according to policeRestricted: The niqab was ‘bothering the driver in her manoeuvres’ according to police

A motorist has been fined for erratic driving caused by her Islamic headscarf, just weeks after a similar incident sparked a major political row.

Police in Vaucluse in southern France stopped the woman after she was spotted driving her vehicle carelessly on the road.

It was then officers noticed the driver was wearing a niqab, a veil that leaves only the eyes exposed, and that her sight was impaired, according to commanding officer Charles Bourillon.

‘[The headscarf] was bothering the driver in her manoeuvres … It was obvious she could not see a thing,’ he said.

Police gave the driver a ticket for 22 euros (£18) for driving with a reduced field of vision.

Officers then suggested that the woman remove her niqab to improve her sight, which she did.

The Islamic veil has become a political hot potato in France.

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government is pushing ahead with a legal ban on wearing full-face veils such as the niqab or burqa in public, despite a warning from state judicial experts that such a law could be unconstitutional.

In April, a woman in the French city of Nantes was fined for wearing a veil while driving.

The incident spiralled after a minister threatened to punish her Muslim husband for offences including polygamy.

Soccer fans executed for watching World Cup.

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From The Telegraph U.K.

World Cup 2010: Somali football fans executed for watching matches

Two Somali football fans have been killed by Islamic militants after being caught watching World Cup matches.

By Aislinn Laing, Southern Africa correspondent
Published: 5:59PM BST 14 Jun 2010

World Cup 2010: Somali football fans executed for watching matches
A Somali football fan adjusts the Television set for the group D game between Ghana and Serbia Photo: EPA

The deaths happened on Saturday near the capital Mogadishu when members of the Hizbul Islam group stormed a house where people were watching Nigeria play Argentina.

A further 10 people were arrested by the group, which has imposed a strict version of Islam in the areas they control in southern and central Somalia.

The following night, another 30 people including a 15-year-old boy were arrested as the watched the Germany-Australia game in two private homes in the town of Afgoye.

A spokesman for the group, Sheikh Mohamed Abdi Aros, said the rest of Somalia should respect their ban on the World Cup – the first to be hosted in Africa – and focus instead on “pursuing holy jihad”.

“We are warning all the youth of Somalia not to dare watch these World Cup matches. It is a waste of money and time and they will not benefit anything or get any experience by watching mad men jumping up and down,” he said.

The ban, which has seen radio stations around the city taken off air for playing music, has resulted in people flocking to public cinemas in the few Government-controlled areas of the country.

Ahmed Santos used to live in an area of Somalia run by militants, but now is in a government-controlled area.

“I can now freely watch the matches,” he said. “I am so sorry that some of my friends who are now living where I was once don’t have that chance to watch the World Cup. I really feel sorry for them.”

Others are risking the wrath of the militants, such is their love of the beautiful game.

One man, who lives in the militant-controlled livestock market area of the city said he watched Algeria-Slovenia at home with his family.

“I have one eye on the TV and the other on the door, and the sound turned down,” he said.

Canada: Police investigate honour crime in Montreal, mother charged

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From The Montreal Gazette, courtesy TROP

Mother faces charges in daughter’s Dorval stabbing

Home on Louise Lamy St. in Dorval where a 19-year-old woman suffered serious stab wounds to her head and face Sunday. Police arrested the victim's 38-year-old mother, who is scheduled to be arraigned Monday for attempted murder, armed assault and possession of a weapon with dangerous intent.

Home on Louise Lamy St. in Dorval where a 19-year-old woman suffered serious stab wounds to her head and face Sunday. Police arrested the victim’s 38-year-old mother, who is scheduled to be arraigned Monday for attempted murder, armed assault and possession of a weapon with dangerous intent.

Photograph by: Allen McInnis, the Gazette

This story has been updated.

MONTREAL – A 38-year-old woman is scheduled to be arraigned Monday afternoon on charges of attempted murder, armed assault and possession of a weapon with dangerous intent after her daughter, 19, suffered serious stab wounds at the family’s West Island home.

The victim suffered significant injuries to her head and face but was listed in stable condition Monday, police said.

Police said the weapon used was a large kitchen knife. The victim was attacked at her home on Louise Lamy St. near Carson Ave. in Dorval about 8:15 a.m. Sunday. The victim’s father and three sisters, age 10, 14 and 16, were home at the time of the stabbing, police Constable Anie Lemieux said.

Montreal police Constable Olivier Lapointe said the incident is being investigated as a possible honour crime, generally defined as an act of violence perpetrated because the victim is believed to have brought dishonor upon the family. The family is originally from Afghanistan, police said.

Lapointe noted that the victim had stayed out all night before she was attacked and this will be considered as part of the investigation.

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Canadian court case to decide whether or not to be sharia compliant at trials.

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From The National Post

Muslim group alleges ‘misuse of religion’

Tarek Fatah of the Muslim Canadian Congress argues for a defendant's right to see his accuser in court over religious freedom.

Tyler Anderson, National Post

Tarek Fatah of the Muslim Canadian Congress argues for a defendant’s right to see his accuser in court over religious freedom.

Shannon Kari, National Post · Friday, Jun. 4, 2010

A precedent-setting case that could determine whether a woman can wear a niqab while testifying in Canadian courts has a leading feminist group and a national Muslim organization on opposite sides of the contentious debate. But their respective positions, outlined in written arguments filed with the Ontario Court of Appeal, may come as a surprise. Continue Reading →

Family moves back to Iraq: Muslims in Canada “too violent”.

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From The Ottawa Citizen

Man jailed 12 years for brutal stabbing over iPod

Tire iron plunged into victim’s chest in savage attack

By Andrew Seymour, The Ottawa Citizen June 3, 2010

OTTAWA-For weeks, Hassan Al-Khazaali had relentlessly pursued Safeolah Fizeeli for his missing iPod.

The 17-year-old had left it in the back seat of Fizeeli’s car, or so he believed, and he wanted it back.

In an argument at the Coliseum movie theatre, Al-Khazaali said he’d take $80 in exchange for the device. Later, Al-Khazaali and a group of his friends met 19-year-old Fizeeli and his friends in the parking lot of a shopping plaza and demanded the iPod or the cash.

But Fizeeli didn’t know where the music player was, and wasn’t going to pay.

So, on an April night in 2007, Fizeeli was chased by Al-Khazaali and his friends from the yard of an elementary school as part of an escalating feud that a judge would eventually say was like a running battle between two packs of animals. Continue Reading →

Terry Glavin in Full Comment: You don’t end war by aiding terrorists

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From The National Post

Terry Glavin: You don’t end war by aiding terrorists

By Terry Glavin June 3, 2010 – 1:30 pm

No, I won’t. I’m not going to pretend that this has anything to do with “anti-war” activism, or that it’s about bringing relief to the suffering Palestinians. Not going to go along with it. This is about something else. I’ve tried to make some sense of it all today in The Mark.

There’s no lack of cause to slag off Israel for the blockade. Cutting off Gaza has meant a lot of suffering among ordinary people there. But neither is there a lack of evidence that the Foundation for Human Rights & Humanitarian Relief (IHH), the Turkish charity that partnered with the Cyprus-based Free Gaza Movement to launch the flotilla, has a history of shadowy ties with some of the world’s most bloodthirsty terrorists. The IHH is openly affiliated with Hamas, and is also part of an umbrella coalition headed by Muslim Brotherhood leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who says suicide bombing is wrong except when it targets Israelis, and even pregnant Israeli women are fair game.

You have to look hard to find these facts reported anywhere unless they are presented as merely claims that Israel is making, but you will spend a much longer time looking for any reports at all that reveal just what the flotilla’s other big sponsor, the Perdana Global Peace Organization, is all about.

The New York Times disclosed that Perdana helped the Free Gaza Movement buy two yachts and a cargo ship for the flotilla, but even the Times noticed only that Perdana “describes itself on its Web site as opposed to war.”

Perdana’s founder and guiding light is the deranged former Malaysian strongman Mahathir Mohamad, who was harping on about “hook-nosed” Jews as far back as 1970. Up to the days immediately before his retirement in 2003 he was still carrying on about how “the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.”

Only a few months ago, Mohamad proclaimed that European Jews “had to be confined to ghettoes and periodically massacred. But still they remained, they thrived and they held whole governments to ransom … Even after their massacre by the Nazis of Germany, they survived to continue to be a source of even greater problems for the world.”

That is what this “anti-war” activism is about, and no amount of histrionics, excuse-making, yes-buttery or cunning public-relations work can wash the blood from their hands. Hideously self-aggrandizing revisionism cannot cover up what this spectacularly narcissistic act of moral exhibitionism was intended to conceal from the start. “This mission is not about delivering humanitarian supplies.” That’s not me talking. It’s what flotilla organizer Greta Berlin said, before the bloodbath. This is not charity. This is politics.

This is about the continuing isolation and demonization of Israel, undermining the Palestinian Authority, and strengthening Hamas – which now enjoys the support of only 16 per cent of the people of Gaza, its stronghold.

The dead are dead. Some of them got exactly what they wanted out of this – glorious death. From the Palestinian Authority daily newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida: Three of the four Turks killed in the Israeli attack on the ‘Freedom Flotilla’ bound for the Gaza Strip wanted to die as Martyrs, said their relatives and friends.

While the flotillistas pat themselves on the back, the true friends of the Palestinian cause for freedom carry on, alone. Like One Voice. Like Combatants for Peace. Like Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine:

We are very much aware of the ongoing suffering of the inhabitants of Gaza. We are also aware that the inhabitants of Gaza are held hostage by the terror regime of Hamas which violently took over the Gaza Strip in 2007 and uninhibited, has exerted any means to harm peace, human rights and workers supporters (including PGFTU leaders and representatives who were forced to flee to the West Bank in order to save their lives and the lives of their families) and persecute them in a brutal manner. This terror organization, whose main objective is the extinction of the Israeli State, has harmed Israeli innocent civilians and workers by firing missiles in the past ten years which intensified after the withdrawal of Israel from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

The Histadrut, whose value of solidarity is its top priority, supports the humanitarian assistance for the residents of Gaza, coordinates the access for different Confederations and unions to Gaza and ensures the success of their activity through coordination with the Israeli security forces.

This activity of the Histadrut proves that it is possible to offer humanitarian assistance to the residents of Gaza via peaceful means whose positive results yield assistance and aid that are meaningful.

The conduct of the flotilla’s organizers and their methods of action utterly contradict the cooperation and the responsibility to achieve the goal we all aspire to attain — effective humanitarian assistance for the residents of Gaza. . .

Journalist, author and blogger Terry Glavin is an adjunct professor of creative writing at the University of British Columbia and editor of Transmontanus Books. He was awarded the 2009 B.C. Lieutenant-Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence.

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