Author Archives: Somatikos

Saudi Arabia: Doctor halts wedding of 5-year-old girl

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Saudi Arabia: Doctor halts wedding of 5-year-old girl

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/024138.php

Sharia Alert: “We cannot technically impede a marriage with a girl of this age. However, we can delay the process (by refusing to carry out the [state-mandated pre-marital] tests).”

“Saudi Arabia: Doctor stops wedding with five year-old,” from Adnkronos International, December 30:

Riyadh, 30 Dec. (AKI) – A doctor in Saudi Arabia was able to stop the wedding of a five and 11 year-old whose family wanted to marry them to protect financial assets. “Thanks to the law that compels spouses to carry out blood analyses before marriage, we were able to stop a wedding with underage girls, among them a five year-old,” said Hani Harsani, the doctor in charge of laboratory analysis in an interview with Saudi daily al-Watan.

“Two sisters came to us accompanied by their parents to undergo pre-marital blood analyses. The first one was five, and the other 11 years-old. When we asked the mother why they wanted to do the tests, she told us that she wanted to marry the girls to cousins to preserve the family’s property rights.”

During the interview, Harsani remembers an episode when a 10-year-old orphan was brought to do pre-marital blood tests by her brother, who wanted to marry the sister to a 40-year-old friend who already had two other wives.

“We cannot technically impede a marriage with a girl of this age. However, we can delay the process (by refusing to carry out the tests),” said Harsani.

“I hope a law can be passed sooner rather than later to establish a minimum age for marriage.”

That would be nice. But opposition will be fierce, and the defenders of child marriage will invoke Muhammad’s own example in marrying Aisha at the age of 6, and consummating the marriage when she was 9. They may also invoke Qur’an 65:4, which takes child marriage for granted in allowing for the divorce of pre-pubescent girls.

Pre-marital blood tests are compulsory in Saudi Arabia to ensure the spouses are in good health, but also to prevent the spread of hereditary diseases to the children.

Dutch Left calls for an end to suicidal notion of tolerance

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http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/024183.php

For years I have insisted that the resistance to the jihad and Islamic supremacism is not a Left/Right, liberal/conservative issue, but one of the defense of our common civilization — however, hardly anyone on the Left has ever demonstrated any awareness of this, perhaps because they have increasingly discarded the values of that common civilization altogether. However, harsh reality is causing some people to wake up in the Netherlands.

“From the left, a call to end the current Dutch notion of tolerance,” by John Vinocur for the International Herald Tribune, December 29 (thanks to all who sent this in):

AMSTERDAM: Two years ago, the Dutch could quietly congratulate themselves on having brought what seemed to be a fair measure of consensus and reason to the meanest intersection in their national political life: the one where integration of Muslim immigrants crossed Dutch identity.In the run-up to choosing a new government in 2006, just 24 percent of the voters considered the issue important, and only 4 percent regarded it as the election’s central theme.

What a turnabout, it seemed – and whatever the reason (spent passions, optimism, resignation?), it was a soothing respite for a country whose history of tolerance was the first in 21st-century Europe to clash with the on-street realities of its growing Muslim population.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, the Netherlands had lived through something akin to a populist revolt against accommodating Islamic immigrants led by Pim Fortuyn, who was later murdered; the assassination of the filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, accused of blasphemy by a homegrown Muslim killer; and the bitter departure from the Netherlands of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali woman who became a member of Parliament before being marked for death for her criticism of radical Islam.

Now something fairly remarkable is happening again.

Two weeks ago, the country’s biggest left-wing political grouping, the Labor Party, which has responsibility for integration as a member of the coalition government led by the Christian Democrats, issued a position paper calling for the end of the failed model of Dutch “tolerance.”

It came at the same time Nicolas Sarkozy was making a case in France for greater opportunities for minorities that also contained an admission that the French notion of equality “doesn’t work anymore.”

But there was a difference. If judged on the standard scale of caution in dealing with cultural clashes and Muslims’ obligations to their new homes in Europe, the language of the Dutch position paper and Lilianne Ploumen, Labor’s chairperson, was exceptional.

The paper said: “The mistake we can never repeat is stifling criticism of cultures and religions for reasons of tolerance.”…

 

That would be a good starting point, but the wind is still largely blowing in the opposite direction.

Read it all.

Egyptian police torture, rape convert to Christianity from Islam

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Egyptian police torture, rape convert to Christianity from Islam

From DhimmiWatch

Recently in the Hate Mail bag I received a missive berating me for not acknowledging Egypt as a “moderate Muslim country.”

“Egyptian Convert to Christianity Tortured, Raped in Egypt,” from AINA, December 20 (thanks to Pamela):

(AINA) — Martha Samuel, an Egyptian Muslim who converted to Christianity 5 years ago, was arrested at Cairo airport on Wednesday as she and her husband and two sons (4 and 2) were leaving for Russia (AINA 12-17-2008). Her name was on the observation list of people prevented from leaving the country.The Egypt for Christ Ministry is reporting that Martha Samuel has been subjected to sexual assault by Egyptian police officers at El-Nozha police station as well as at the National Security office in Heliopolis. She has also been beaten and tortured in an attempt to force her to return to Islam. The police have promised to release her if she returns to Islam.

Martha Samuel and her children, who are also under arrest, is to be transferred from the National Security office in Heliopolis to Al-Qanater prison after seeing the “renewal judge.” The children are not being provided with food deliberately to pressure their mother to return to Islam. Fadl Thabet, Martha’s husband, has been taken to the National Security office in Alexandria (Somoha District).

Martha Samuel, whose former name is Zainab Said Abdel-Aziz, and her family were trying to travel to Russia using a passport of her Christian name, in order to escape from the continuous persecution by the Egyptian police and her own family, who have been trying to kill her for 5 years as a result of her conversion.

Worshipping the Weather

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December 14, 2008

Worshipping the Weather

By Larrey Anderson

Everyone is religious. People will have their religion. The particular religion does not, necessarily, have to include worship of a god — but it must include a dogma and rituals.

For many on the left, environmentalism has become a religion, no real surprise there. But the reason for the need of some religion, any religion, to fill the spiritual void on the left is rarely discussed. This article will examine some of the implications, and complications, of the new green creed — which is, in fact, an ancient creed. It was once called “paganism.”

Even atheists are religious. They have a dogma (God does not exist) and they have a vast number of rituals. (Most of their rituals involve lawsuits over the use of the term “God.”) They have multiple proselytizing websites. They even have a church.
Their religion gives the atheists’ lives significance. If there is no soul and no afterlife then this life is all that we have. To give meaning to meaninglessness, atheists occupy their time instructing non-atheists on the meaning of the meaningless. This is silliness, of course, but the religion of atheism gives a structure to its practitioner’s otherwise admittedly pointless existence.[i]
Likewise environmentalism. Seen as a religion, environmentalism is Judaeo-Christianity turned on its Hegelian head. Traditionally religion posits an all-powerful God that saves a sinful humanity from itself through the intervention of a human clergy.
In environmentalism, an all-wise clergy, composed of government bureaucrats and “scientists,” saves the planet from a sinful humanity. In the green religion human beings are both God and the devil. We are righteous when we act in conformity with the establishment’s dogma — and we are evil if we question it.
The most fundamental environmental dogma is that man is destroying the planet.[ii] The leading tenet of the environmentalists’ dogma was simple. (It was simple until recent data that the planet is getting colder started pouring in.) The earth is heating rapidly and the increasing temperatures are caused by the man made release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The church of environmentalism has a long list of litanies and a parcel of penances for the faithful to perform as part of their daily ritual (cleverly termed “lifestyle”). The sacraments include buying the right light bulbs, driving the right car, reprocessing the garbage, using recycled products, purchasing from environmentally “friendly” businesses. The list goes on and on.
Just as faithful Catholics intone, “The body of Christ” when they partake of the Eucharist; devoted environmentalists chant, “We are saving Mother Earth” as they separate paper from plastic.
This church of the earth has a catechism for its young members. (Warning: the site for children that I have linked to in that last sentence is spooky.) The church has the green equivalent of tithing. (There are only three links in that last sentence. There are dozens of different green congregations that will gladly take their parishioners’ money.)
The church even has indulgences. The worshippers call them “carbon credits.” And when the indulgences are paid the believers’ multiple sins against mother earth (exhaling is one of them) are forgiven. The followers have purchased the right to believe that they are not only saving the planet … they are creating heaven on earth.
While the media and the left see environmentalism as hip, trendy, and “scientific,” the religious aspect of the environmental movement is nothing but really real “old time religion.” Jews and Christians call it “paganism.”
The term “paganism” is quite appropriate. Pagan comes from the Latin paganus. A literal translation of the word would be “local yocal” or “hick.” A paganus came from the pagus — from out in the countryside or the “sticks.”
The pagans were farmers. They were much more concerned about the harvest than they were about heaven. So they worshipped the weather.
Most of the very early agrarian religions were centered on “worshipping” or otherwise influencing the climate. Their gods and their sacrifices were weather related. What really mattered to these folks was a successful harvest, for without a bounteous yield of crops the afterlife would come … and come quickly.
For millennia there were scores and scores of these fertility cults all over the world. Human beings need to be able to rely on predictable patterns of weather. We cannot survive, en masse, without a stable climate. So, over the ages, we have funneled lots of spiritual energy into trying to convince the gods, or the clouds, or the spirits, or mother earth to give us that much needed climactic stability.
The only thing that differentiates the modern environmentalist from the ancient pagan is that the environmentalist believes that the government is the god who can fix the weather.
Al Gore has famously claimed about global warming, “the debate in the scientific community is over.” Al Gore may be many things to many people — but he is not a scientist.
When a layman declares a scientific debate to be over, one of three things is possible:[iii] (1) the person is a prophet; (2) the person is ignorant and should be ignored by rational human beings; or (3) the person is insane and needs medical treatment.
It follows that someone who believes the layman’s assertion is (1) a religious follower of the prophet, (2) someone whose need for a “moral” issue exceeds his or her capacity to reason, or (3) someone at least as delusional as the person making the claim.
There is no hard and fast evidence for the dogma of man made global warming. In fact, our planet appears to be cooling.[iv] It is time for the environmentalists to rethink their theology. Perhaps they already have. Barack Obama is now calling it “climate change.”
Larrey Anderson is a writer, a philosopher, and submissions editor for American Thinker. His latest award-winning novel is The Order of the Beloved. His memoir, Underground: Life and Survival in the Russian Black Market, has just been released.

[i] It took me several years to understand why atheists spend so much time trying to do the impossible, i.e., prove the negative claim that God does not exist. The non-existence of God is not a fact. It is a belief. Once I understood that atheism was a religion (a belief system) — the obsession of atheists with the propagation of their dogma became easier for me to comprehend.
[ii] Notice when you read environmentalist literature that the sexist term “man” is used to describe negative impact on the earth by human beings, e.g., Man made global warming. This is part of the feminization and the paganization of the thinking of the left. The traditional male is evil. Mother earth is good.
[iii] For example, imagine I, a non-science layman, announced in this article that a cure for cancer has been discovered. No more scientific research is necessary. I declare that the debate about the cause of cancer is over. Cancer, I contend, is caused by allergies. The cure for cancer is the elimination of pollen. I call for a worldwide government imposed ban of all pollen producing plant life. I might be called many things for making such a claim. But “the man who cured cancer” should not be one of them.
[iv] Mars is also cooling.

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Beware: The Gay Enemies List

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Beware: The Gay Enemies List

From American Thinker

Rick Moran
Opponents of gay marriage in California are suffering the effects of a childish tantrum thrown by those who lost on Proposition 8. There have been attacks on Mormons for leading the fight for the ballot initiative as well as racial epithets hurled at African Americans because 70% of them voted “Yes” to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

Now these activists have taken their derangement to another level; they are publishing lists of ordinary people who donated to the “Yes on 8” coalition:

In addition to protests, gay activists have begun publishing lists online exposing individuals and organizations who have donated money in support of Proposition 8. On AntiGayBlacklist.com, individuals who gave money toward Proposition 8 are publicized, with readers urged not to patronize their businesses or services. The list of donors was culled from data on ElectionTrack.com, which follows all contributions of over $1,000 and all contributions of over $100 given before October 17. Dentists, accountants, veterinarians and the like who gave a few thousand dollars to the cause are listed alongside major donors like the Container Supply Co., Inc. of Garden Grove, Calif., which gave $250,000. “Anyone who steps into a political fight aimed at taking away fundamental rights from fellow citizens opens themselves up to criticism,” said Wolfson. “The First Amendment gives them the right of freedom of speech and to support political views, but people also have the right to criticize them.”

This is stupid and self defeating. Rather than trying to change their opinion, they are making these people enemies for life. And carrying out pogroms like this against people who oppose gay marriage based on their religious beliefs borders on bigotry.

There are other means of protest to make your displeasure known than targeting individuals. All the gay marriage advocates are doing is sealing their fate the next time such a measure goes before the votes.

Why Europe is secretly afraid of a socialist America

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November 14, 2008

Why Europe is secretly afraid of a socialist America

By James Lewis

Suppose you’ve been living under the protective wings of a benevolent superpower for sixty years. And suppose you’ve used that big half century to take off on an endless vacation — spending all your tax money to buy votes for the socialist Ruling Class. It’s been one long, grand, drug-infested, sex-drenched, self-indulgent, tabloid party scene. Any time danger threatens you look to Washington for protection. The rest of the time you noisily abuse those Yankee imperialists, merely to boost your fragile ego. Corruption has become pervasive.

That’s Europe today.
What a sweet deal.
But now you see your guardian superpower electing a guy who wants to follow your example. Whooops! Time to sober up. Fast.
Yes, you went hoarse cheering Obama’s ego trip at the Berlin Victory Monument, because you love the idea that O will teach America to love Eurosocialism forever and ever. But shivers are running up and down your spine — because if he is what you think he is, America won’t be there any more to save you. It will just slide into vegetarian nihilism and leave Europe to the New Soviet Empire.
Europe would crumble like a soggy crouton without America’s commitment to its defense. We saw that happen three times in the 20th century, and the bad news is that it’s starting again. Real danger is at the gates; Europe’s Ruling Class is in denial; and half of it is preparing to surrender to the Russians or the Muslim fascists, whichever gets there first.
The Archbishop of Canterbury welcomes a future of Sharia for Britain. Prime Minister Gordon Brown wants to cannibalize your dead body for parts for the National Health Service without your prior consent. Two years ago the European Union solemnly promised to supply six helicopters to save endangered Africans in Chad — and they haven’t been able to get those choppers going yet. Those African civilians are long dead, and the Eurocrats are still dithering.

Corruption: Sleaze might bring down the EU

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Sleaze might bring down the EU

Posted By: Daniel Hannan at Jun 11, 2008 at 22:22:00 [General]

Posted in: Politics

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/daniel_hannan/blog/2008/06/11/sleaze_might_bring_down_the_eu
I wonder whether this is how Samson felt as the pillars rumbled down and the dust filled his mouth. Over the past week, I’ve been getting some extremely crotchety emails. “So, when are you MEPs finally going to publish your expenses?” says one. “You people disgust me. Hanging is to [sic] good for you,” says another. “I don’t suppose you’ll tear yourself away from the gravy train for long enough to answer a mere constituent”,” says a third.


When will MEPs ever come clean about their expenses?

Vainly do I remonstrate that it was I who first exposed how European Parliament expenses work in a Daily Telegraph article right back in 1999. Vainly do I protest that I have been harping on about the subject single-mindedly, boringly even, ever since. (See here, here, here and here for examples). As Tim Bell used to maintain: “If they haven’t heard it, you haven’t said it”.

In the current climate, no one is disposed to distinguish between the MEPs who have come clean about their staff allowances and the ones who haven’t. “For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good,” Our Lord tells us, “and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

And, in a sense, the critics are right. It’s not fallen individuals they are angry about; it’s an entire system , a system that tends to corrupt, to make good people behave badly. The EU has become a racket, and all who work here, even those who are individually honest, are part of it.

Just two observations, though. It seems disproportionate that Conservative MEPs, who have come clean about who handles their staff allowances, are being clobbered over information that they have voluntarily placed before the public, while Labour and Lib Dem MEPs, most of whom have refused to disclose equivalent information, have received almost no attention. I’m not trying to justify any wrong-doing: I’m simply wondering why there is no pressure on the other parties to declare where their allowances have gone.

Second, why is there not equivalent attention in other countries? When are French, German and Italian MEPs going to be asked who their paying agents are, whether they have run any surpluses, whether any money is going to family members?

It’s striking how dismissive people on the Continent can be about Britain’s “Europhobic” press. But at least our papers are discharging their primary investigative role. When are their European counterparts going to do the same thing?

And, while we’re on the subject, how many Irish MEPs, currently touring their country in support of the European Constitution Lisbon Treaty, are prepared to tell us who handles their staff allowances?

Sharia comes to the UK

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Sharia comes to the UK

/From DhimmiWatch/

Britain will come to regret this, but whether or not it will before it’s too late is an open question. More on this story. “Revealed: UK’s first official sharia courts,” by Abul Taher in The Sunday Times, September 14 (thanks to all who sent this in):

ISLAMIC law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court.

Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims.

Who will be responsible for enforcement now?

It has now emerged that sharia courts with these powers have been set up in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester with the network’s headquarters in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Two more courts are being planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh.Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, whose Muslim Arbitration Tribunal runs the courts, said he had taken advantage of a clause in the Arbitration Act 1996.

Under the act, the sharia courts are classified as arbitration tribunals. The rulings of arbitration tribunals are binding in law, provided that both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their case.

Siddiqi said: “We realised that under the Arbitration Act we can make rulings which can be enforced by county and high courts. The act allows disputes to be resolved using alternatives like tribunals. This method is called alternative dispute resolution, which for Muslims is what the sharia courts are.” […]

In fact, Muslim tribunal courts started passing sharia judgments in August 2007. They have dealt with more than 100 cases that range from Muslim divorce and inheritance to nuisance neighbours.

It has also emerged that tribunal courts have settled six cases of domestic violence between married couples, working in tandem with the police investigations.

Did they wink at domestic violence because of Qur’an 4:34? Does anyone know? Does anyone care?

Siddiqi said he expected the courts to handle a greater number of “smaller” criminal cases in coming years as more Muslim clients approach them. “All we are doing is regulating community affairs in these cases,” said Siddiqi, chairman of the governing council of the tribunal.Jewish Beth Din courts operate under the same provision in the Arbitration Act and resolve civil cases, ranging from divorce to business disputes. They have existed in Britain for more than 100 years, and previously operated under a precursor to the act.

Politicians and church leaders expressed concerns that this could mark the beginnings of a “parallel legal system” based on sharia for some British Muslims.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: “If it is true that these tribunals are passing binding decisions in the areas of family and criminal law, I would like to know which courts are enforcing them because I would consider such action unlawful. British law is absolute and must remain so.”

Douglas Murray, the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: “I think it’s appalling. I don’t think arbitration that is done by sharia should ever be endorsed or enforced by the British state.”

There are concerns that women who agree to go to tribunal courts are getting worse deals because Islamic law favours men.

Siddiqi said that in a recent inheritance dispute handled by the court in Nuneaton, the estate of a Midlands man was divided between three daughters and two sons.

The judges on the panel gave the sons twice as much as the daughters, in accordance with sharia. Had the family gone to a normal British court, the daughters would have got equal amounts.

In the six cases of domestic violence, Siddiqi said the judges ordered the husbands to take anger management classes and mentoring from community elders. There was no further punishment.

In each case, the women subsequently withdrew the complaints they had lodged with the police and the police stopped their investigations.

Siddiqi said that in the domestic violence cases, the advantage was that marriages were saved and couples given a second chance.

Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “The MCB supports these tribunals. If the Jewish courts are allowed to flourish, so must the sharia ones.”

Except Jewish courts do not rule on the basis of a law that Jews are laboring to impose upon the whole of British society. Sharia courts are. Will Bunglawala address this distinction? Of course not.

Constantinople saves Western Civilization from Islam

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Raymond Ibrahim: Today in History, Constantinople saves Western Civilization from Islam

gr_fire.gif
Since certain Muslim media are fond of rehashing old history, reminding Muslims of the “atrocities” committed by the hated Crusader—past and present—it seems only logical that we here in the West also remember the past. Today in history, Christendom secured a great victory over Islam—one that is responsible for the very existence of Western civilization.

The year was 715, and one Suleiman had risen to the caliphate. He immediately made it clear that he would be the one Muslim who would fulfill Muhammad’s prophecy that Constantinople would eventually be subsumed into the umma. After spending nearly two years mustering the Muslims and preparing a massive navy, he unleashed the full might of the caliphate: the chroniclers say that 120,000 infantry and cavalry, along with 80,000 seamen, were sent to seal Constantinople’s fate. To further give his “blessing” to this campaign, and evincing how seriously he took it, he appointed his own brother, Maslama, at the head of the land army.

While making their way through that great desolate no-man’s land between the Byzantine and Umayyad empires, where certain Turkic tribes (then mushrikin) frequented the region, the Muslims would often wait till near dawn, and then shout in mass “Allahu Akbar!” (God is greatest), attacking and slaying all in their path. According to the Muslim chronicler al-Tabari, “The inhabitants of the city were filled with terror the likes of which they had never experienced before. All they saw were Muslims in their midst screaming ‘Allahu Akbar!’ Allah planted terror in their hearts…. The men were crucified over the course of 24 km.” (Al-Tabari goes on to explain that they did so, and were successful, in accordance to Koranic verse 3:151: “We shall cast terror into the hearts of infidels!”)

Simultaneously, the Muslim fleets were on their way to the Bosporus. Luckily for Constantinople, Leo III came to power, since it was in part due to his many stratagems that the Muslims were repulsed. (Tabari simply relates that Leo continuously duped Maslama, as if the latter were “a silly plaything of a woman.”)

At any rate, the Byzantine war-ships, which had recently come to utilize a new “secret weapon” commonly known as “fire-water” or “Greek fire,” according to Theophanes, set ablaze almost the entire Muslim fleet. After this Christian victory, the Byzantines settled into their fortified city for the winter, and let the elements have their way with Maslama’s massive land force. According to the chroniclers, this was by far one of the harshest winters; many thousands of Muslims perished of starvation and disease. Says Theophanes: “Some even say they put dead men and their own dung in pans, kneaded this, and ate it. A plague-like disease descended on them, and destroyed a countless throng.” The second sentence verifies the veracity of the first.

The new caliph, Omar II (the ambitious Suleiman had by now died of “indigestion,” apparently after consuming two baskets of eggs and figs, followed by marrow and sugar for dessert) had just assumed the caliphate. After many Muslims had died out on the frontiers (where snow lasted on the earth for 100 days), Omar finally sent reinforcements and supplies. It was by now spring, and the Muslims tried one last effort. The chroniclers relay that some 800 ships were sent from Alexandria and North Africa to the Bosporus, this time on guard against the Greek fire. Maslama had also renewed the siege.

Delivery for Constantinople came from the least expected source—the Egyptian crew of the Alexandrian ships. During the night, they all fled to Constantinople, acclaiming the Christian emperor. Why? Because they were all primarily still Christian—Copts—and, contrary to the many apologetics that suggest the Copts “welcomed” the invading Muslims, as this anecdote clearly reveals, had no great love for Islamic rule. Theophanes says that, as the Copts were fleeing in desertion to the city, “the sea looked entirely made of wood.” Taking advantage of this, Leo released from the citadel once again the fire-ships. Considering the loss of manpower with the Copts’ desertion, the confrontation was more a rout than a battle.

Finally, and due to Leo’s “diplomatic” overtures to the warlike Bulgars, he managed to get this Turkic people to attack Maslama’s already wearied army—killing, according to the chroniclers, 22,000 Muslims. It was over, and, on August 15th, 718, the siege was lifted, and the dejected Muslim army made its way back to Dar al-Islam.

Though many historians have rightly hailed the somewhat contemporary Battle of Tours of 732, where Charles the Hammer repulsed the invading Muslim armies, as one of the most decisive victories for Western civilization, in fact, the Byzantine victory over the Muslims is more important: it had the full backing of the caliphate, and consisted of far greater manpower. Had the Muslims won, and since Byzantium was the bulwark of Europe’s eastern flank, there would have been nothing in their way from turning the whole of Europe into the north-western appendage of Dar al-Islam.

This has been a “Today in History” moment.

CNN Avoids Mentioning Islam in Segment on ‘Honor Killings’

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http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/022174.php

No surprise here. But the only victims of this politically correct silence will be women who are victimized by honor killings while no one calls Muslim communities to account to do anything about this problem.

A manual of Islamic law certified by Al-Azhar as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy says that “retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right.” However, “not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.” (‘Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2).

In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law.

Why does this stipulation appear in a manual of Islamic law if this has nothing to do with Islam?

“CNN Avoids Mentioning Islam in Segment on ‘Honor Killings,'” by Mark Finkelstein for NewsBusters, August 11 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Quite a feat: CNN has pulled off the MSM equivalent of describing a spiral staircase without using one’s hands. It has managed to produce a segment on “honor killings” and related violence in the UK . . . without using the word “Muslim” or “Islam.” CNN Newsroom anchor Don Lemon introduced the segment this afternoon at 1:37 PM EDT.

DON LEMON: Women forced into marriages, or killed for having the wrong boyfriend. So-called “honor crimes” are often committed by fathers or brothers when daughters do something that supposedly brings shame on the family. It’s on the rise in Britain, and authorities, they are very worried about it. Our Paula Newton reports.

View video here.

Honor crimes are “often committed” by father and brothers? And the crimes are “on the rise” in Britain? Now why would that be? Newton did little to elucidate. She told the story of Banaz Mahmod: kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered at the order of her father, Mahmod Mahmod, for “bringing shame” on her family. Newton never mentioned that Mahmod was a Muslim, an Iraqi Kurd. According to Diana Nammi with the London-based Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organization, “we’re seeing an increase around the world, due in part to the rise in Islamic fundamentalism.”

Instead of identifying the root of the problem, Newton said only that British authorities have instituted public awareness campaigns in “the few communities” where they’ve seen problems. She cited a figure of 17,000 honor crimes or forced marriages as possibly being only the tip of the iceberg in the UK. A British police official is then seen decrying the fact that “the perceived honor of the family is seen as more important than the life of a child.” In which families? The policeman never said and CNN never explained….

Read it all.

The hadith sources of this sacralized pedophilia

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Sahih Muslim, Book 008, Number 3311:

‘A’isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported that Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) married her when she was seven years old, and she was taken to his house as a bride when she was nine, and her dolls were with her; and when he (the Holy Prophet) died she was eighteen years old.

Sahih Bukhari, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 88:

Narrated ‘Ursa:

The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with ‘Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).

Sahih Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 73, Number 151:

Narrated ‘Aisha: I used to play with the dolls in the presence of the Prophet, and my girl friends also used to play with me. When Allah’s Apostle used to enter (my dwelling place) they used to hide themselves, but the Prophet would call them to join and play with me. (The playing with the dolls and similar images is forbidden, but it was allowed for ‘Aisha at that time, as she was a little girl, wo had not yet reached the age of puberty.) (Fateh-al-Bari page 143, Vol.13)

Sahih Muslim, Book 031, Number 5981:

‘A’isha reported that she used to play with dolls in the presence of Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) and when her playmates came to her they left (the house) because they felt shy of Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him), whereas Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) sent them to her

Metock Case Ruling: The Irish Were Right

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Metock Case Ruling: The Irish Were Right

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3457
From the desk of Filip van Laenen on Mon, 2008-08-11 21:16

Two months ago the Irish held a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon, and we all now know how it ended. One of the elements in the run-up to that referendum was the Irish concern for their abortion laws. Not only are the Irish so old-fashioned that they have an abortion legislation that simply doesn’t fit in the mind of most liberal journalists, those islanders were stupid enough to think that the Treaty of Lisbon could liberalize it against their will too. That’s why the Irish voted No, some argue, even after so many explicit promises by politicians that there was absolutely no reason to worry. On 26 July, the Court of Justice of the European Communities (Ecj) proved the Irish were right though: national law is subordinate to whatever would be made up on the European level, and as a consequence, the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen got himself a huge internal problem this summer: after the ruling in the Metock case, the Danish immigration legislation is in effect completely void and worthless.

Here’s a verbatim quote from the press release from the European Court of Justice:

A non-community spouse of a citizen of the Union can move and reside with that citizen in the Union without having previously been lawfully resident in a member state. The right of a national of a non-member country who is a family member of a Union citizen to accompany or join that citizen cannot be made conditional on prior lawful residence in another Member State.

This ruling came after a lawsuit started by four men who had sought asylum in Ireland. Their application was ultimately rejected by Ireland, but in the mean time each of them had married a non-Irish EU citizen, and wanted to appeal to EU law to obtain a residence permit in Ireland. However, the Irish state ruled that the EU law didn’t apply because they hadn’t stayed in another EU country before coming to Ireland, but the European Court of Justice rejected that argument and ruled the four men should be given a residence permit.

Almost immediately after the ruling was made public, a number of couples showed up «spontaneously» at the city hall in Copenhagen to demand residence permits for their respective non-EU spouses. As the reader probably already knows, Denmark has greatly restricted the possibilities to immigrate to the country since 2002, but the ruling in the Metock case threatens to bring the entire Danish immigration legislation down. To make things worse, this ruling comes on top of a small scandal that came to surface last month, when it became known that candidate immigrants had not always been fully informed about all of their rights and possibilities to enter the country and obtain a residence permit by the Danish immigration officers.

But let’s go back for a while to the background of the current –or should I write former?– Danish immigration laws. Just like most other Western European countries, Denmark has a considerable group of immigrants that doesn’t exactly always slip in seamlessly with the rest of its population. Forced marriages at a very young age with cousins or nieces from the home country that depend on social welfare programs for years once they’ve moved to Denmark were unfortunately all too common, hence the Danish government introduced a few concrete conditions into its immigration legislation over the last couple of years to tackle the problem. Not much of these conditions is left now, and even the Indvandringsprøve (Immigration test) that was planned for 2009 and that can be compared to the German Einbürgerungstest, but for immigrants, now comes into question.

For the sake of clarity, the Danish public radio DR summarized the situation like this:

  1. Until now, spouses or children who wanted to use family reunification had to have a permanent residence permit in another EU country prior to their arrival to Denmark. The Metock case ruling removes this condition.
  2. A Dane who comes back from abroad together with his non-EU spouse had to have been working as an employee or freelancer during his stay abroad. This condition has been reduced to a period of just a couple of weeks.
  3. Upon his return to Denmark, the Dane had to be able to support himself and his or her spouse. This condition was already removed in December last year due to the ruling in the Eind case, also delivered by the same European Court of Justice.
  4. Moreover, the EU also allows family reunification without having to consider the Danish rules like the minimum age of 24, the presence of stronger ties to Denmark than to the home country of the spouse, good living conditions and sufficient income, financial guarantees and the nephew-niece rule.

In practice all this means that a Danish immigrant now can rely on his European rights to circumvent the entire Danish immigration legislation. To make things clear: it suffices to spend the honeymoon on the other side of the Øresund in the Swedish town of Malmö having some simple job –cashier at a supermarket or taxi driver will do– and that’s it: you’re ready to import your bride or groom into Denmark.

Needless to say that the Metock case caused quite a stir at the right side of the Danish political spectrum. Pia Kjærsgaard from the Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti, DF) said the government should simply ignore the ruling from the European Court of Justice. The conservative Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen from the Liberal Party (Venstre) replied that the Danish People’s Party should perhaps rather cool down a bit from the recent summer heat. According to him it would be irresponsible to defy the judges of the European Court of Justice, because on a longer term, it would lead to many chaotic situations in the EU. It should be noted that Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s minority government usually relies on the oppositional Danish People’s Party to get a majority in parliament.

But what do the people in the street think about this? An opinion poll for the newspaper Jyllands-Posten showed that a majority of 57% disagrees with the Prime Minister, and wants to keep the Danish immigration legislation as it is. Only 33% of the people interviewed said they wanted the Danish legislation to be adjusted to the European. These results are in sharp contrast to the results of another poll though, conducted for the business newspaper Børsen , that suggested there is still a solid majority to abolish Denmark’s four so-called EU exceptions to the Maastricht Treaty. Anders Fogh Rasmussen now wants to try to solve the problem using diplomacy, and joined forces with nine other EU countries, including Ireland, Finland and Great-Britain, to convince his other European colleagues to detail the rules on the free movement of workers more precisely.

And that’s exactly the core of the problem: the rules for the free movement of workers weren’t detailed enough, thus giving the judges of the European Court of Justice the possibility to interpret them as broad as they wanted. This also means that when the Danish politicians promised their voters that Denmark wasn’t giving up its sovereignty by joining the European Union and then implementing a whole series of treaties and other «non-constitutions», they probably did so in good faith. And to link back to the Irish referendum: if the Danish immigration legislation could be wiped out like this by a simple European Court ruling, who says the Irish or Polish abortion laws won’t be next in turn to be brought down by some European judges?

By the way, the U-turn Maria Wetterstrand from the Swedish Green Party (Miljöpartiet de Gröna) did earlier this year is very illustrating. Officially, the Green Party still wants Sweden to withdraw from the European Union, but personally Maria Wetterstrand came to the conclusion that Swedish EU membership isn’t so bad at all. The reason? The way one can work with environmental issues in the EU, and that the EU isn’t afraid to use all its means at its disposal to force solutions down on its member states. They probably don’t need any further explanation with that in Denmark right now.

For those who do need one though: the European Commission seemed to be pretty excited about the Metock case ruling. But why on earth the Irish had to vote No to the Treaty of Lisbon so massively is still a complete mystery to them though.

UK Health: Dangers of “Muslim Inbreeding”

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UK: Minister Warns Of “Muslim Inbreeding”

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at February 10, 2008 8:30 PM

News from the Sunday Times, also picked up by the Telegraph revisits a theme we mentioned here in November 2005 – inbreeding amongst Pakistani-origin Muslims. This time an environment minister, Phil Woolas, has brought attention to the problem, calling it “an elephant in the room”.

Woolas, a former race relations minister, said: “If you have a child with your cousin the likelihood is there’ll be a genetic problem. The issue we need to debate is first cousin marriages, whereby a lot of arranged marriages are with first cousins, and that produces lots of genetic problems in terms of disability [in offspring of such unions].”

Back in November 2005, only Ann Cryer, MP for Keighley and Ilkley, seemed concerned enough to bring the matter to the attention of parliament. She has said earlier today that cousin marriage was “to do with a medieval culture where you keep wealth within the family. If you go into a paediatric ward in Bradford or Keighley you will find more than half of the kids there are from the Asian community. Since Asians only represent 20 per to 30 per cent of the population, you can see that they are over-represented.”

This is what we wrote in November 2005:

No, this is not a racist attack on Pakistani Muslims, but a sign that something is severely wrong with the traditional arranged marriages practised by many Muslims in Britain who have Pakistani origins.UK Member of Parliament for Keighley and Ilkley, Ann Cryer, has urged British Asians to stop marrying their cousins, state both the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph. The results of a report she has commissioned make for alarming reading. Even though Pakistani births represent 3.4% of births nationally, the incidence of recessive disorders from this group accounts for 30% of all births nationally with these traits.

Speaking on BBC’s Newsnight, she said “We address problems of smoking, drinking, obesity and we say it’s a public health issue, therefore we have to get involved with persuading people to adopt a different lifestyle. I think this should be applied to the Asian community. They must look outside the family for husbands and wives for their young people.”

“There is something very wrong going on. I think the sooner we start to have a debate and we start to encourage the Asian community to address it themselves by saying we have to stop this tradition of first-cousin marriages.”

The Telegraph states that more than 55% of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins, and in areas such as Bradford, more than 75% of all Pakistani marriages involve first cousin unions. Most hospitals record 20-30 different recessive disorders amongst local children, but Bradford’s Royal Infirmary has identified more than 140.

The variant genes which account for recessive defects are, in a normal union, only estimated to be present in a child of such a union in a likelihood of 100 to 1. In cases of marriages of first cousins, the odds increase to one in eight.

Trevor Philips, the Chairman of the UK’s Racial Equality Commission argued in September that Britain was already developing in its urban areas segregated ghettoes. Migration Watch has said that arranged marriages between people originated from the Indian sub-continent, marrying imported spouses from the subcontinent, were fueling this segregation.

Arranged marriages also take place between Hindus and SIkhs who in similar ways regularly import spouses from the Indian sub-continent to Britain. The issue of recessive disorders not occurring so frequently in these unions is probably because marriage between first cousins from these communities is frowned upon.

Habits which are ingrained will be hard to break. The Telegraph quotes one Pakistani British citizen. She says of her marriage to her cousin “You have an understanding, you have the same family history. It’s just a nicer emotional feel.”

Now, Ann Cryer is urging the National Health Service to be more proactive in warning Asian families of the dangers of cousin marriage. She said: “I have encountered cases of blindness and deafness. There was one poor girl who had to have an oxygen tank on her back and breathe from a hole in the front of her neck. The parents were warned they should not have any more children. But when the husband returned again from Pakistan, within months they had another child with exactly the same condition.”

The Sunday Times points to medical research which finds that although British of Pakistani origins account for 3% of total births in Britain, they nonetheless account for one in three children born in Britain who suffer a genetic illness.

The Telegraph states that more than 55% of British Pakistanis are married to their first cousins. With the high incidence of shared recessive genes leading to birth defects and congenital illness, the only explanation for the rise of such conditions is through inbreeding, much of which has gone on for generations.

It is estimated that the chance of an unrelated couple having the same variant gene that causes such disorders is 1 in 100. Within first cousin marriages, these rise to one in eight. It stands to reason that if the parents of the couple themselves belong to a line of individuals who “traditionally” engage in cousin marriage, the odds of having a birth with recessive disorders would increase further still.

Bradford is said to have 75% of its Pakistani-origin marriages being between first cousins. The Telegraph mentions that Indian doctors last year published a study in Neurology Asia, which found that there was a “significantly higher rate” of epilepsy amongst the offspring of blood relatives. The study, entitled “Arranged Marriage, Consanguinity and Epilepsy” by M. M. Mehndiratta, B. Paul and P. Mehndiratta, can be downloaded as a pdf document here.

Arranged marriage, as I have repeatedly stressed, is closely connected to issues of forced marriage and honor violence. If Muslims who come to this country do not abandon this anti-libertarian custom for the sake of their future offspring, then perhaps it is time to outlaw arranged marriage or make it more difficult to achieve. There are plans by the government to make forced marriage easier to confront, though whether these will be successful will remain to be seen.

In the Netherlands, arranged marriage is not illegal, but according to the Times of October 13, 2005: “People can bring in a husband or wife only once they are 24 years old, and do not depend on welfare benefits. The measures are aimed at curbing international arranged marriages.” Such a measure, introduced in Britain, could stop people importing brides or husbands from Pakistan, but could increase the number of girls forced to go to Pakistan to marry.

Ultimately, the best solution would be for Pakistani immigrants who currently isolate themselves in self-created ghettoes to abandon their reliance upon rural traditions. It is not fair on their children, nor on their children’s children, to perpetuate arranged marriage. There must come a time when immigrant cultures decide to become part of the society they moved to. Pakistani and also Bangladeshi communities have resolutely failed to do so, and have helped to create the “no-go areas” for non-Muslims, which were mentioned by Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, Bishop of Rochester.

Despite its support from members of the Muslim Council Britain, such as Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari and Inayat Bunglawala, arranged marriages are not part of British culture and should not be celebrated in the name of “multiculturalism”. In rural Pakistan, where such customs originate, the treatment of women is appalling. How can one tell where an “arranged” marriage becomes a “forced marriage“? If taxpayers will have to pay for the care of the offspring of couples who engaged in inbreeding, the problem is no longer something that is an “Asian” issue – it will impact upon the rest of British society.


Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at February 10, 2008 8:30 PM

Pakistan: Christian girls kidnapped; captors file for custody, claiming girls converted to Islam

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Pakistan: Christian girls kidnapped; captors file for custody, claiming girls converted to Islam

And the police weren’t about to be of any help without outside pressure: The girls’ father “was told to ‘remain silent,’ as the officers said the girls had embraced Islam in a written statement.”

“Pakistan: Girls kidnapped, allegedly forced to convert,” from Compass Direct News, July 11:

ISTANBUL, July 11 (Compass Direct News) – A Christian father in Pakistan is in a legal battle with kidnappers for the custody of his pre-teen daughters, who allegedly have been forced to convert to Islam.

Yesterday a judge in Pakistan’s Punjab province ordered further investigation into the kidnapping of Saba Younis, 12, and Aneela Younis, 10, who went missing on June 26 in the small town of Chowk Munda. The kidnappers filed for custody of the girls at the local police house on June 28, stating that the sisters had converted to Islam and their father no longer had jurisdiction over them.

When the father of the two girls, Younis Masih, was summoned to the police house to testify, police initially refused to file a case against the kidnappers – Muhammed Arif, Abjad Ali, taxi driver Muhammed Asraf and an unidentified fourth man – who are known to belong to a powerful human trafficking ring. Instead, human rights activists told Compass, Masih was told to “remain silent,” as the officers said the girls had embraced Islam in a written statement.

It was not until yesterday that, with the help of advocates and the Human Rights and Minorities Affairs Ministry, Masih filed an official complaint at the local police house. […]

Ashfaq Fateh, a Christian advocate who established contact with Masih this week, said that the girls’ Catholic family had not received threats for their faith. He asserted, however, that the kidnapping was a religious matter.

“Being weaker and belonging to the Christian community, the girls were kidnapped,” he said.

Saba and Aneela Younis, the youngest of eight children, were kidnapped while on their way to see their uncle.

“The kidnapping of my daughters has made me feel insecure in the country,” Masih told Fateh in a telephone conversation. “My Muslim countrymen think we [Christians] are not human beings. They think we do not have dignity.”

“This happens every day,” Tahir said of the kidnappings of Pakistani children and unjust treatment toward Christians, “because we are marginalized and downtrodden people.”