Category Archives: Irrational religious authority

Child torture: FGM on the rise despite being illegal

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From The Guardian U.K. Observer

British girls undergo horror of genital mutilation despite tough laws

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lars Vilks takes a fan request, draws Mohamed as blind man with guide dog being refused access to a bus

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Correction: FANS of Lars Vilks did these drawings, Not Lars himself. Mia Maxima Culpa

I have to say, it makes more sense if he drew the the bus driver as Mohamed refusing to let a blind man on. I guess this is in the ‘turn around is fair play’ category.

This post ripped from Tundra Tabloids, who initially made the request to Lars to do the drawing,

Friday, July 23, 2010

‘BLIND MOHAMED WITH A SEEING EYE DOG BEING REFUSED BY CABBIES’ ART FESTIVAL…….

The Tundra Tabloids posted earlier about Lars Vilks’ most recent drawing of Paraplegic Mohamed, to which a TT commenter quipped that a “Blind Mohamed” being rejected by a cabbie might be another interesting concept.
The TT then laid down the guantlet and asked for its readers to send their version of it in, to be published here. David C., a TT reader was the first to accept the challenge and therefore gets full honors. Here it is, with other entries being added as they come in. Remember, in Mo art, there’s no such thing as crude. KGS

David C: “I’m a terrible artist, but I couldn’t resist.”

Carl: Here ya go…!

Andrew Bostom: Understanding the Islam in Muslim Jew Hatred

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Here is an excellent lecture by Dr. Andrew Bostom, author of many books on Islam and it’s history and frames of reference, as well as co-author with Bat Ye’or. This one deals specifically with his new book on Islamic antisemitism, currently the topic of several new books by authors such as Sam Solomon etc. For those who prefer to read rather than watch and listen, the text of the speech is below the fold.

Eeyore for Vlad with special thanks to Dr. Bostom for giving me the opportunity to edit this video. The second lecture by Dr. Bostom on Jihad, will be posted sometime here in the next few days.

Andrew Bostom: Understanding the Islam in Muslim Jew Hatred from Vlad Tepes on Vimeo.

Continue Reading →

UK Muslim group targets Pope’s visit

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From Sunday Mercury Net:

Pope’s Birmingham open air mass targeted by Muslim group

Jul 18 2010 by Adam Aspinall, Sunday Mercury

AN MP fears the Pope’s visit to Birmingham could be marred by violence after a fundamentalist Muslim group told followers to ‘convert’ Catholics attending an open air mass.

The sinister orders have appeared in an inflammatory article on a hardline website called the Islamic Standard – which also brands the Pontiff ‘evil’.

It is urging Muslims to disrupt Pope Benedict XVI’s appearance at Cofton Park in September when up to 80,000 Catholics will attend a live mass.

Last night, Perry Barr MP Khalid Mahmood called for a police probe into the Leicester-based website.

He said: “These supposed Muslims are doing all they can to incite violence. Sadly, if Muslims do turn up and preach at Catholics it could easily turn to violence. Continue Reading →

UK: Muslim bus drivers refuse to let guide dogs on board

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From The Daily Mail:

By ANDY DOLAN
Last updated at 4:14 AM on 19th July 2010

Blind passengers are being ordered off buses or refused taxi rides because Muslim drivers or passengers object to their ‘unclean’ guide dogs.

One pensioner, a cancer sufferer, told how had twice been confronted by drivers and asked to get off the bus because of his guide dog, and had also faced hostility at a hospital and in a supermarket over the animal.

The problem to carry guide dogs on religious grounds has become so widespread that the matter was raised in the House of Lords last week, prompting transport minister Norman Baker to warn that a religious objection was not a reason to eject a passenger with a well-behaved guide dog.

George Herridge and his guide dog‘Stunned’: George Herridge, 73, was twice asked by bus drivers to leave their vehicles because of his guide dog, a black labrador

While drivers can use their discretion to refuse to carry non-disabled passengers with dogs, they are compelled to accept guide dogs under disability discrimination law.

Yesterday both the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association and the National Federation of the Blind confirmed the problem was common, and, according to the latter organisation was ‘getting worse’. Continue Reading →

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

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

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

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

From The Telegraph U.K.

Burka ban ruled out by immigration minister

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

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

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

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

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

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

More insane appeasment of Muslims by Guantanamo

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Thanks to Blazing Cat fur for the tip on this one.

Islam when it is asserting itself as dominant, and forcing infidels to feel themselves subdued and under willing submission, likes to destroy any representational art as its some form of superstition that any recreation of a living thing is insulting to thier god, who apparently cannot do anything for himself and has to have seventh century psychopathic lunatics do his work for him.

In that spirit… well watch the video.

From the editor of Inspire magazine.

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 There has been a lot of talk about the magazine Inspire. The one thing that some people are talking about is they can’t find it. Only makes sense for a rational person to want to see something before they comment on it.

So here is page one.

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Allah says: (And inspire the believers to fight) [al-Anfal: 65]. It is from this verse that we derive the name of our new magazine. The word used in the verse is “harid” which is commonly translated as incite. However, the word should properly be translated as inspire, motivate, or encourage. The word harid in Arabic carries none of the negative
connotations that the English word “incite” carries. To the contrary, it actually has the opposite meaning. The authoritative Arabic lexicon “Taj al-Arus” quotes the classical Arabic language scholar al-Zajjaj as saying that the verb hari? comes from the adjective harid, which means “a person or a being that
is perishing.” Therefore, he says that when you inspire someone towards something using the verb harid, you are saying that unless they do what you are inspiring them to do they would perish. So the word harid is an inspiration that saves a person and guides them towards what is good for them.

Continue Reading →

“Islam is not an Abrahamic religion”

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A truly excellent and interesting post by Henrik of Europe News, lifted with permission from Jihad Watch:

What’s so bad about ‘Satanic,’ anyway?

It raised a couple of eyebrows when the Organization of the Islamic Conference quoted two pages from an article on EuropeNews, discussing if Muhammad was, in fact, a messenger for Satan rather than for God.
In the article based on a television broadcast, Father Zakaria Botros, based on relevant scripture, made a brief analysis of the qualities of Jewish/Christian prophets and compared those to the qualities of Muhammad. What the article did not go into, however, was an analysis of what ‘Satanic’ actually means. We are commonly assuming that ‘Satanic’ means ‘bad’, ‘evil’, ‘wrong’ – to such an extent that even discussing the actual nature of this badness is irrelevant. But if we do not understand what ‘bad’ or ‘Satanic’ means, how can we choose to reject it? Some knowledge of Right and Wrong behaviour is needed for this to be functional.

We first encounter Satan in the Book of Job, which is part of the Old Testament, and the Torah. In this intriguing tale, Satan gets permission (!) by God to tempt Job to disavowing God through a multitude of loss, disease and suffering. Job, staunchly true to God, refuses in spite of poverty and failing health, and is eventually rewarded by even more wealth than he had initially. The morale of this tale, of course, is that one should be true to God under all circumstances, and redemption will come eventually.

An interesting point is that Satan is working by permission from God, not as a separate, opposing entity. Being true to God also implies being true to his teachings, the Ten Commandments etc. Those were good guidelines then and have not lost their value as a moral compass even today. Being a good Jew or a good Christian implies being generally true to these guidelines. Muhammad, born and raised in pagan Arabia, never talked of these and personally broke most of them, as recorded in the Sirat (Ibn Ishaq & Al-Tabari). The Ten Commandments are not generally used in Islam, and as Muhammad violated most, if not all, of them, should be proof that Islam is not an Abrahamic religion, despite claims to the contrary.

The Satanic Verses

Satan earns a few mentions in the life of Muhammad. The first is at the incident known as “The Satanic Verses”. This takes place after Muhammad had been mocking the Meccans for eight years for their paganism and their false gods, calling them to worship the one god he worships. This is interesting, not least because the Meccans had been worshipping Allah for generations before Muhammad – see for instance the chapter on Muhammads’ 5th generation forefather Qusayy (al-Tabari VI pages 19-26).

The events are set in motion by the Quraysh:

Al-Tabari VI p. 106-107:

Quraysh promised the Messenger of Allah that they would give him so much wealth that he would become the richest man in Mecca, would give him as many wives as he wanted in marriage, and would submit to his commands.
One may consider this the ultimate in Satanic temptation for a holy man: Money, sex and power – the core objects of worldly desire.

Al-Tabari VI p. 107:

They said, “This is what we will give you, Muhammad, so desist from reviling our gods and do not speak evilly of them. If you will not do so, we offer you one means which will be to your advantage and to ours.” “What it is?” he asked. They said, “You will worship our gods, al-Lat and al-Uzza, for a year, and we shall worship your god for a year.” “Let me see what revelation comes to me from my Lord, he replied.
Remarkably, Muhammad chooses to consider their offer. And he refers to ‘my Lord’, not Allah, as the source of revelation. That is less mysterious than it would seem, however, for the Meccans were already worshipping Allah. The distinction is made clear in the revelation quoted in response:

Al-Tabari VI p. 107:

Say: O disbelievers! I worship not what you worship; nor do you worship what I worship. And I shall not worship that which you worship, nor will you worship that which I worship. To you your religion, and to me my religion.
It is not made quite clear who has which religion. We know with reasonable certainty (see the chapter on Qusayy mentioned previously) that the Meccans through generations were practising worship of Allah and the other idols of the Kaaba, were in charge of the rituals of pilgrimage (Hajj & Umra) that we know as part of Islam today, including details such as the standing (‘mawqif’) at Arafat, the dispersal from Mina, and stoning the ‘jimar’ (in Islam considered the Devil) at sunset. Muhammad, who swore that he never participated in pagan rituals, is not making the details of his religion clear.

The reconciliation proceeds in spite of these differences: Continue Reading →

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

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From The Daily Mail U.K.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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From TROP

Muslims seek to add holidays on NY school calendar

By Karina Ioffee

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

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

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

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

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From The Daily Mail U.K.

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

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

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

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

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

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

France bans the burqa.

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From CNN World

Burqa ban passes French lower house overwhelmingly

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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