Three Arab youths were caught Saturday night desecrating Jewish holy books at a sacred Jewish cemetery in Jerusalem. The vandals were in the process of trying to burn several Tehillim – volumes of the Book of Psalms authored by the Biblical King David – at the ancient Mount of Olives Cemetery.

The three perpetrators, Arab teens about 16 years old, are residents of the Arab neighborood adjacent to the cemetery. All were arrested; two confessed to the crime, and the third was also found to have been involved although he continued to deny it. Police told reporters they plan to expedite prosecution of the case.

more here: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/160030#.UFXr11HC58F

Muslim men from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries have asked their embassies to help to help them find Syrian girls living in makeshift refugee camps in Jordan and Iraq. “Exploiting the conditions of the girls in the refugee camps by marrying them temporarily is a form of rape that must stop immediately. Those responsible for this crime should be brought to trial,” says Abdel Bari Atwan of Al-Quds Al-Arabi.

read on: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3339/syrian-refugees

By Suzannah Hills

PUBLISHED: 09:47 GMT, 9 September 2012 | UPDATED: 12:20 GMT, 9 September 2012

British Muslim mosque leaders are agreeing to carry out secret marriages with child brides as young as 12 in the UK, it emerged today.

In an undercover investigation, a Shi’te mosque leader agreed to marry a 12-year-old girl so long as she was a willing participant.

A Sunday Times journalist visited the Husaini Islamic Centre in Peterborough – the ‘first Shi’te mosque in the whole of Europe’ – posing as the father of a 12-year-old girl.

Secret marriages: Some Muslim religious leaders consent to marry a girl of 12 if she consents – and her parents keep it a secret (stock image)

According to the newspaper, the reporter was told by Imam Mohamed Kassamali that ‘under sharia [Islamic law] there is no problem’ in marrying a 12-year-old.

But while he declared Islamic Law dictated a girl should see ‘her first sign of puberty at the house of her husband’, he admitted they would all get in to trouble if she went to police saying she was forced into the marriage.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2200555/The-British-child-brides-Muslim-mosque-leaders-agree-marry-girl-12–long-parents-dont-tell-anyone.html#ixzz25ylUULzO

I’ll be happy to be proved wrong, but as soon as a read the original story i thought this, highly educated, professionally successful, well integrated into British life and nominally muslim (caravanning through France doesn’t get much more normal). You know he’s going to be hated by his or his wife’s  observant family. I mean look at the bad example he sets to the kids? They’ll all look up to this “corrupt” peer model.

Well let’s hope his 2 surviving kids are not shipped away to be “reprogrammed”.

Family feud may have led to executions in the Alps

A British family murdered during a holiday in France may have been the victims of a contract killing triggered by a family feud, investigators believe.

By Gordon Rayner, Henry Samuel and Duncan Gardham

10:00PM BST 06 Sep 2012

Saad al-Hilli, 50, his wife Iqbal, 47, and Mrs Hilli’s 77-year-old mother were all shot dead in a ruthlessly efficient execution-style killing inside their family car. A French cyclist who was “in the wrong place at the wrong time” was also murdered.

The Hillis’ seven-year-old daughter Zainab, who was battered and shot, and her four-year-old sister Zeena, who escaped the killers by hiding in a passenger footwell, were both under armed guard in separate hospitals last night for fear that the killers would return for the only remaining witnesses to the slaughter.

Police sources in France said that the “professional” nature of the murders, with three of the victims shot in the centre of the forehead, pointed to a contract killing, with a “family drama” one of the possible motives.

more here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9527036/Family-feud-may-have-led-to-executions-in-the-Alps.html

Hamas: Israeli Jews should return to their Arab countries of origin

Yemeni Jews aboard a plane to Israel in operation Magic Carpet, 1949 (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Hamas on Wednesday lambasted an Israeli initiative that seeks to raise awareness for Jewish refugees from Arab countries, and urged the Arab world to repatriate Israeli Jews who emigrated from countries of origin in the Middle East.

In a letter to Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby, Hamas called on member states to combat a new campaign titled “I am a refugee,” which was launched recently by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The online campaign encourages Jews who left Arab countries to upload testimonials to a specially created Facebook page.

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, who is spearheading the campaign, says that 856,000 Jews were driven from their homes in the Arab world following the declaration of the State of Israel, “as a result of anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish riots.”

But Hamas presented a different narrative in its letter to the Arab League. According to the Islamic movement, an Arab League decision defining Jewish immigration to Israel as “illegal” proves that “Arab states are not involved in expelling their Jews but, on the contrary, are calling on Jews to return.”

“[We call on member states] to exert more effective effort to prevent in all possible ways Jewish emigration from their territory to Israel,” the letter read, according to Hamas-affiliated media.

Hamas claimed that Jews had never suffered discrimination or persecution in Arab countries, where they resided for centuries. It was the Zionist movement, the letter argued, which caused Jews to leave — a fact well-documented by “Jewish researchers and officials.”

Hamas also appealed to the Arab League to withdraw the Arab Peace Initiative, which calls for “a just and agreed-upon” solution to the Palestinian refugee issue, rather than an unequivocal demand for their settlement in Israel.

original here

“Constantly associating Islam with issues of violence and security policy can only lead to false perceptions,” the groups said in a joint statement.
:- No, it leads to the right perceptions that bad people should be turned in.

“…that more classes on religion in schools would be a more effective way of combating radicalization among young people.”
:- No this is not the time to demand the forcing of islam down everyone’s throats.

(Reuters) – A poster campaign by Germany’s Interior Ministry to advertise a hotline for those worried that a friend or family member may be turning to radical Islam has incensed some Muslims who say it stigmatizes them.

Germany, home to four million Muslims, has become increasingly concerned about home-grown Islamic militants over the past decade after Hamburg served as a base for three of the September 11 suicide airline hijackers in 2001.

Officials are especially worried about the ease with which individuals can be recruited over the Internet by extremists. Last year a young Kosovo Albanian Muslim shot dead two U.S. airmen at Frankfurt airport after being radicalized online.

In the new campaign, posters showing four fictitious missing persons – ‘Hassan’, ‘Fatima’, German convert ‘Tim’ and ‘Ahmed’ – will be displayed in Arabic, Turkish and German in major cities with big immigrant populations from September 21.

“This is my brother Hassan. I miss him and hardly recognize him anymore,” one poster reads.

“He has become reclusive and gets more radical every day. I’m afraid of losing him completely to religious fanatics and terrorist groups. If you’re experiencing something similar, contact the information center for radicalization,” it says.

Critics fear the campaign could fuel stereotypes of Muslims.

“Muslims are always regarded as a potential threat,” said Aydan Oezoguz, a Turkish-German member of parliament and integration commissioner for the opposition Social Democrats.

“This is a very important issue, but it risks alienating an entire religious community,” Oezoguz added.

The Interior Ministry says the campaign was crafted with the help of Muslim interest groups as part of a larger initiative to improve ties between security agencies and Muslim communities.

“FALSE PERCEPTIONS”

However, four of the six interest groups involved in the confidence-building initiative have since withdrawn their support.

“Constantly associating Islam with issues of violence and security policy can only lead to false perceptions,” the groups said in a joint statement.

Mistrust among Germany’s immigrant population increased after the authorities’ botched handling of a wave of neo-Nazi killings of mostly Turkish shopkeepers. For years, authorities told victims’ families that the murders were the result of score settling between organized criminal gangs.

Erol Puerlue from the Association of Muslim Cultural Centres, one of the groups involved in the initiative, said too much focus was placed on extremism among Muslims rather than in German society as a whole.

“Addressing extremism only among Muslims risks putting them under a general suspicion,” he said, adding that more classes on religion in schools would be a more effective way of combating radicalization among young people.

“We also have to talk about protecting Muslims. They can fall victim to extremism too,” said Puerlue.

Joachim Trebbe, a professor of media analysis at Berlin’s Free University, said stereotypes were unavoidable when trying to depict people with immigrant backgrounds.

“The alternative would be to not include any pictures, you’re always going to be stereotyping someone,” he said.

(Reporting By Chris Cottrell, editing by Gareth Jones)
from reuters.com

Jailed Ethiopia Christians deported from Saudi Arabia for praying

Ethiopian Christians praying, but in Saudi they were jailed and deported.

CAIRO: At least 35 Christians from Ethiopia were deported by Saudi Arabia last week after having been detained for over 7 months for reportedly praying in the privacy of their own homes.

International Christian Concern (ICC) wrote in a statement published on their website that “Saudi Arabia deported the last of the 35 Ethiopian Christians who were detained for holding an all-night prayer vigil.

“Saudi security officials assaulted, harassed and pressured the Christians to convert to Islam during their incarceration,” it added.

“We have arrived home safe. We believe that we are released as the result of the pressure exerted by ICC and others,” one of the Ethiopians reportedly told the ICC.

In February, Ethiopians living in the United States, protested in front of the Saudi Embassy, demanding their rights be upheld and that they be granted full freedom of religion.

“We urge all those concerned in the Washington, D.C. area to participate in this protest. Saudi Arabian officials have refused to release the Christians despite quiet diplomatic pressure,” Jonathan Racho, Regional Manager for Africa at the ICC, an advocacy group and one of the protest’s organizers, said in a statement at the time.

“We must raise our voices and demand the Saudis release the prisoners who were imprisoned simply for praying together.”

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that 29 of those arrested are women and were subjected to “arbitrary body cavity searches” while in custody.

The Christians had gathered together to pray on December 15 at a private home of one of the Ethiopians, but police responded by raiding the house and arresting the group of Ethiopians, three of those jailed told HRW.

“While King Abdullah sets up an international interfaith dialogue center, his police are trampling on the rights of believers of others faiths,” said Christoph Wilcke, senior Middle East researcher for Human Rights Watch. “The Saudi government needs to change its own intolerant ways before it can promote religious dialogue abroad.”

In October last year, Saudi Arabia, together with Austria and Spain, founded the King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue, located in Vienna, and funded by Saudi Arabia.

The Ethiopian men spent two days at al-Nuzha police station in Jeddah, after which the police transferred them to Buraiman prison. The women had already been transferred to Buraiman prison. Two of the women said that officials there forced the women to strip, and then an officer inserted her finger into each of the women’s genitals, under the pretext of searching for illegal substances hidden inside their bodies. She wore a plastic glove that she did not change, the women told the New York-based human rights organization.

Officers also kicked and beat the men in Buraiman prison, and insulted them as “unbelievers,” the jailed Ethiopian man said.

Both men and women complained of inadequate medical care and unsanitary conditions at Buraiman prison. There were too few toilets, they said. In the men’s wing, 6 of 12 toilets were reserved for Saudi inmates, while hundreds of foreign inmates were forced to share the remaining 6 toilets. One female detainee said she suffers from diabetes and was given an injection in the prison clinic that caused swelling, and has received no further medical attention.

According to the ICC, which said it has spoken directly with the prisoners, the Christian men and women corroborate the claims that they were violently arrested and currently experience attempts at conversion to Islam while in prison.

The prisoners reported earlier this year that a Muslim preacher was sent by officials to speak to them about converting to Islam, the ICC said, but this could not be independently verified by Bikyamasr.com sources.

The preacher reportedly also “vilified Christianity and denigrated the Bible,” the ICC reported.

“These are law-abiding Ethiopian citizens. They were simply arrested for practicing their faith at a private home,” Kebadu Belachew, an Ethiopian-American human rights activist and one of the organizers of the rally, told ICC.

BM

original http://www.bikyamasr.com/74762/jailed-ethiopia-christians-deported-from-saudi-arabia-for-praying/

But it’s alright though, the police are investigating accusations of blasphemy against him.

from the Telegraph

The tortured body of an 11 year old Christian boy has been found in a town in Punjab, Pakistan, days after a young Christian girl was arrested on blasphemy charges.

President Asif Zardari intervened in the case after dozens of Christians fled their homes fearing violence Photo: AFP

the bbc have been proved to be biased countless times, for example in their incessant use of the word “Asian” to describe criminal pakistani muslims, and their ending any story regarding settlements in Israel with the quote “The settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this”. to name just a couple

But now with the coming conference season the Tories feel threatened.

Tories to closely monitor BBC for left wing bias ahead of party conference season

By Gerri Peev, Political Correspondent

PUBLISHED: 00:46 GMT, 20 August 2012 | UPDATED: 07:00 GMT, 20 August 2012

The BBC will be more closely monitored by the Conservative Party’s high command to check for signs of political bias, ahead of the party conference season.

Tory fury at what they call the liberal, left-wing leaning of the state broadcaster was laid bare after Iain Duncan Smith accused the BBC’s economics editor, Stephanie Flanders, of ‘peeing all over British business’.

The Work and Pensions Secretary lashed out over the BBC’s ‘carping and moaning’, singling out Miss Flanders over a report questioning the recession- defying rise in the number of jobs.

Reporting row: Iain Duncan Smith accused Stephanie Flanders of ‘peeing all over British industry’ with her coverage of employment figures

A senior Conservative source said last night: ‘Conservative campaign headquarters will be monitoring the output from the BBC even more carefully ahead of the party conference season.’

The row erupted after Miss Flanders reported: ‘Britain’s jobs numbers are a puzzle which keeps getting harder to solve. Of course it’s good news…but it is not necessarily good news for us or the Chancellor if we are needing more people as a country to make less stuff.’

She added that ‘hidden unemployment’ could be ‘lurking behind the statistics’ before going on to question Jacqui Connell, a nurse made redundant last year before becoming self-employed.

Miss Flanders put it to her she was a hidden figure in unemployment statistics, to which she replied: ‘I do think I’m a hidden figure.’

Mr Duncan Smith said the BBC had ‘popped those words into her mouth’. He added: ‘When the news is good, the BBC view is “get the Government out of the picture quickly, don’t allow them to say anything about it”. When the news is bad, it’s “let’s all dump on the Government”.’

Attack: Iain Duncan Smith said the BBC had a view of ‘let’s all dump on the Government’ when there was bad news

The BBC had tried to dig out ‘every little bit of bad news on jobs’, Mr Duncan Smith said. He went on: ‘Last month, there was a marginal rise in youth unemployment so they centred on that.

‘This time it came down so they cast doubt on the figures. [Flanders] said it could be industry is so bad they have to take on two people where one person could do the job.

‘She was peeing all over British industry and the private sector. It was terrible. Our private industry is unbelievably robust compared to much of Europe.’

Tory MP Stewart Jackson said: ‘There is an undeniable liberal bias at the BBC as acknowledged by former director general Mark Thompson. The broadcaster must understand the people are entitled to fair and balanced coverage.’

Last week it was revealed the BBC bought more copies of the left-leaning Guardian for its staff than any other newspaper.

A BBC spokesman said: ‘The BBC has no concerns about Stephanie’s commitment to impartiality.’

He added that if the Conservative Party wanted to monitor output, ‘we welcome their attention and would be happy to receive their input as we would with all parties’.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2190766/Tories-closely-monitor-BBC-left-wing-bias-ahead-party-conference-season.html#ixzz246XFR172