Category Archives: Irrational religious authority

Sikhs must ditch turban to join firearms, riot teams.

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From The Telegraph U.K.

Sikh police banned from joining firearms teams wearing turbans

Sikh police officers will be banned from allowed to join firearms or riot teams unless they remove their turbans, under new police guidance.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) announced Sikh officers serving in the units would have to ditch the traditional head covering in favour of a patka – a smaller piece of material – in order to wear bulletproof helmets.

The turbans were deemed ”unsafe” because they cannot fit under the protective headgear and do not themselves offer sufficient protection.

ACPO rejected the notion of designing a special bullet proof turban made from ballistic material, but said such equipment was worthy of ”future exploration”.

The guidance was issued after the British Sikh Police Association (BSPA) requested clarification on whether their officers could join firearms and public order units. Continue Reading →

“Boobquake”; one woman’s satirical response to Iranian cleric

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From The National Post

‘Boobquake’ an answer for Iranian cleric’s earthquake claims

Allison Cross, Canwest News Service Published: Thursday, April 22, 2010

South Park creators truly worthy of respect.

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Kurt Westergaard in my view is a hero. Not because he drew the Moetoon, that was his job and he had no clue what was to happen as a result. But because he wears the mantle of free speech martyr with great dignity and courage every day. I have met Kurt Westergaard and my impression of him, is of an unusually decent man who admires the arts and good things civilization offers and would like to live his life in pretty much any way other than he does as a  result of the Islamic worlds irrational and dare I say, somewhat arbitrary rage at his drawings.

Mr. Westergaard did not attempt to placate Islam or its adherents. He stoically spoke out in countless interviews and in many countries on the importance of free speech. He continues to live under very difficult conditions when, like Salman Rushdie, perhaps he could have kowtowed to Islam and won a sort of freedom at the expense of his principles.

This makes him a hero in that his actions led to hard choices and he made the best one for all of us, yet the most difficult for himself.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone however knew exactly what they where getting into when they did the 200th episode-anniversary show a chunk of which is below.

As you can see, Matt Stone and Trey Parker ask some perhaps less than obvious but very important questions. If it is forbidden to show an image of Mohamed, then what constitutes an image? Is a line with a circle on top OK? What about if it is a drawing within a drawing like we draw a big bear and say it is a costume within which, is a drawing of Mohamed. In the interview below, both these men quite clearly explain that one must not change principles because one group threatens you. Either it is OK to criticize irrational religious belief, or it is not. And this makes them heroes in my book.

Lastly, here is the all too predictable Muslim Outrage video over even the non-showing of Mohamed in the South Park episode. It is the usual crap but is clearly a threat on the lives of the creators of South park. Skip it if you want.

One last thing that really needs saying, South Park did an episode before the Danish Cartoon where they actually did show Mohamed as the religious leader with the power of flame. There was no reaction to it at all even though that episode probably reached thousands of times more people than the Danish cartoons ever would have, had it not been for the reaction to them.

This shows you that this has nothing to do with religious sensitivities, but to a growing political threat by Islam to the west. That Muslims are to set the agenda for what is OK for us to say, do, eat and think and how we live and not ourselves. Not that this changes anything. If it was about religious sacred imagery I would still say and do still say that the most important right civilization has, is to mock irrational religious authority. However this isn’t the real issue here. It is about control. History from the Super Best Friends episode of South park, to the Danish cartoons episode, to now prove that out.

Eeyore for Vlad Tepes Blog with a huge hat tip and thanks to the stalwart Diana West.

*****   Addendum *****

It would appear that youtube removed the video threatening the lives of the men who created South park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. I understand completely why they did it. Youtube AKA Google cannot let itself be seen as the vector for death threats. Even so, while sympathetic, I think its equally important that we, the rest of us, be able to expose the mentality in the interest of eradicating it. So you will have to be satisfied with a description as to what was on the video. basically, some opening graphix to show they do quality video work, then on to the usual jihadi ‘we want to kill you all’ music which is the only allowable kind in Islam save for the piercing shrill nauseating call to prayer from the minarets that Obama likes so much.

Then, it goes on to show stills of the people who have been killed by various Muslims for doing things Muslims don’t like and the faces of people they want to kill, which now contain the faces of the ‘Toon twins’.

It wasn’t great viewing. But it was there.

***** Addendum two *****

Here is a great video about this whole issue. featuring Ayaan Hirsi Ali H/T Liberties Alliance

Iranian Cleric Says Promiscuous Women Are to Blame for Earthquakes

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I guess I’ll have to start grading women using the Richter scale. Let’s hope none of them use a water-bed. Clearly that would cause a tsunami.

Associated Press from FOX news with a HT to TL

BEIRUT

A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.

BEIRUT — A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.

Iran is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, and the cleric’s unusual explanation for why the earth shakes follows a prediction by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that a quake is certain to hit Tehran and that many of its 12 million inhabitants should relocate.

“Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Continue Reading →

Inmates return tv’s; X Factor too distracting to Islamic studies

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From The Sun

By STAFF REPORTER

Published: 11 Apr 2010

ISLAMIC inmates at a maximum security jail have handed in their cell TVs because they do not want to watch the ‘distracting’ X Factor.

Crooks including terror suspects at HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire say they would rather spend more time on religious study than watch the raucous talent show, judged by Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole, Danni Minogue and Louis Walsh.

Islamic inmate Abu Dira wrote to lag magazine Inside Time about the X Factor protest at the maximum security jail.

Extremism

He said: “Many Muslims in Long Lartin have handed back their televisions, as they are viewed as nothing more than a distraction to religious study.

“I do not envisage hordes of crying Muslims lamenting the loss of X Factor.”

The inmate also blasted plans to fight Islamic extremism by flooding the prison library with books from moderates, saying no one would read them, “let alone accept the viewpoint of those individuals who align themselves with occupational forces”.

Figures revealed show the Muslim population inside Long Lartin has doubled in just two years, with a quarter of all prisoners now followers of Islam.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that extremists held in the maximum security terror detainee unit are being given fresh sheets after every cell search by drug dogs so that their religion is not offended.

Yet non-Muslim prisoners have complained that Islamic inmates are being offered preferential treatment as others are not offered clean sheets.

James Brandon, a researcher for anti-extremist think tank The Quilliam Foundation, said: “Tensions between Muslims and prison staff have arisen from the use of search dogs as a result of some Islamic traditions teaching dogs are unclean, which leads to distress for ordinary Muslims as well as extremists.

“Extremists are able to make political capital out of almost any issue which concerns ordinary Muslims making it imperative for the Prison Service to minimize the issues and grievances which Islamists can exploit.”

Fanatics at Long Lartin include Mohammed Hamid, 51, dubbed Osama Bin London for training militants in the Lake District, and Al Qaeda member Adel Abdel Bary, wanted for the 1998 African embassy bombings which killed more than 200 people.

Protesters denounce bill-94 in Montreal

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From CTV News Montreal

Protesters denounce Bill 94

A niqab-wearing woman holds a placard at a demonstration against Bill 94 on Saturday, April 17, 2010.

A niqab-wearing woman holds a placard at a demonstration against Bill 94 on Saturday, April 17, 2010.

Updated: Sat Apr. 17 2010 6:16:25 PM

ctvmontreal.ca

About 100 demonstrators gathered in front of Montreal city hall Saturday afternoon to express their anger over the Bill 94, legislation tabled by the Charest government that seeks to ban the niqab and the burqa.

If passed, Bill 94 would force anyone providing or receiving government services to do so with an uncovered face.

The bill was proposed last month in the midst of a renewed debate over reasonable accommodation, sparked when a Muslim woman was expelled from a French course for refusing to remove her religious face covering.

Afifa Suleman, an 11-year-old girl wearing a niqab at Saturday’s protest, said she plans to ask her parents to move back to Pakistan if the bill passes.

“Where they have respect for religion, for women and their modesty, that’s where I’d go,” she said.

Christina Dudander, a non-Muslim woman who attended the protest, said the government’s proposed legislation is excessive — given that just a few dozen women in Quebec wear the niqab or burqa.

“It’s really a very small issue, it does not involve a very big problem at all. Why do they pick on women who can’t defend themselves?” she asked.

The protest was organized by Meena Samreen, a Montrealer who spent five years living in Pakistan.

Samreen believes the biggest problem in the west is a lack of understanding when it comes to Islam.

“Go to a mosque, go and sit down and listen to a sermon. It’s not what people think. It’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said.

Samreen also said Bill 94 is hypocritical.

“We send our troops to protect those women, to open educational institutes for them, and here we’re stopping women from going into educational institutes because they choose to cover their faces,” she said.

But others, like Anabelle Gendron, are uncomfortable with face coverings in public settings.

“They should take their religion and do it at home, but in school I don’t really think it’s appropriate,” said Gendron.

Infant murdered in honour killing

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ABC News, courtesy TROP

Turkey Detains Mother for Newborn’s “Honor Killing”

April 16, 2010

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish police Friday detained an unmarried mother and six other people near Istanbul for their suspected role in the so-called “honor killing” of a 2-day-old baby girl, state news agency Anatolian said.

The baby was suffocated by her grandmother after the family learned the 25-year-old mother became pregnant out of wedlock, Anatolian said.

“My family decided to kill my baby,” the mother told the police, according to Anatolian. “My 55-year-old mother choked the baby with a cloth. Then, my brothers buried the baby in a hole in the garden and covered the hole with cement.”

Police found the body after receiving an anonymous phone call.

Among those detained were also a doctor and the doctor’s secretary, They allegedly had agreed not to register the baby’s birth in return for an undisclosed amount of money.

The baby’s father is doing his military service and was not involved in the incident.

“Honor killings” or crimes carried out against women seen to have tainted the family’s name, are not uncommon in mainly Muslim Turkey, particularly in poor and rural areas.

The European Union, which Turkey has applied to join, has repeatedly urged Ankara to take a tougher stance against such crimes.

(Writing by Ibon Villelabeitia; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Canadian Islamic Congress’ regional director slams Quebec’s niqab ban as ‘inflammatory’ to Muslims

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The following is an article written by the regional director of the Canadian Islamic Congress on Quebec’s legislation forbidding Muslim women from wearing the niqab while requiring public services. The CIC (Mohamed Elmasry’s old stomping ground), continues to work diligently to ensure sharia law finds it’s ‘cultural’ place in Canada.

From The Saskatoon Star Pheonix

Quebec decision on niqab sends troubling signal

By Dr. Ahmed Shoker, The StarPhoenix

April 8, 2010

Following is the viewpoint of Shoker, a professor of medicine at the University of Saskatchewan, past-president of the Islamic association of Saskatoon and regional director of the Canadian Islamic Congress.

Premier Jean Charest’s government in Quebec recently announced its commitment to secularism and gender equality, and proposed legislation that essentially bans the niqab — a full-veil covering worn by a few Muslim women — from all government bodies.

Under common Islamic interpretations this bill is unnecessary. The government’s move is inflammatory, and let me tell you why.

In Islam, it is a divine inscription that adult women should, as do Muslim men in other ways, exercise modesty in public places. They are expected to cover their beauty, which includes either wearing the commonly seen veil that covers the hair but not the face, or (in accordance with a minority of scholars) a niqab that covers both the hair and face. Continue Reading →

Islamists ban ‘Christian sounding’ school bells along with ringtones, music, movies and bras

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From The Cape Times

Militants ban school bells – they ‘sound too Christian’

April 16, 2010 Edition 1

Reuters

MOGADISHU: Somalia’s al-Shabaab militants had ordered schools in Jowhar town to stop using bells to signal the end of classes because they sounded like those of Christian churches, teachers said yesterday.

Al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab is Somalia’s most powerful insurgent group and controls large parts of the south and the capital, Mogadishu. It is battling the western-backed government for control of the country.

Teachers and a school headmaster in Shabaab-controlled Jowhar town, about 90km north of Mogadishu, said an al-Shabaab member had ordered schools to silence their bells because the sound was too similar to those in Christian churches.

“We were called by Sheikh Farah, the head of al-Shabaab’s education, and he told us we can’t use bell sounds from now on,” a teacher in Jowhar said. “He told us any school heard using bell sounds after now will be brought to Islamic justice.”

A local headmaster confirmed the report and added that al-Shabaab had informed his school that it would begin explaining to students the significance of Islamic Jihad.

Al-Shabaab runs administrations in the areas it controls using a harsh version of sharia (Muslim law), cutting off hands of thieves, making sure women wear veils and banning what it calls social vices, like music and TV sports.

On Wednesday Islamist militants ordered music off the air, labelling it un-Islamic, in a hardline edict reminiscent of the Taliban.

Stations immediately complied with the order, fearful that disc jockeys would face the harsh punishment militants mete out here: amputations and stonings.

The edict is the latest unpopular order from the Islamists, who also have banned musical ringtones, movies and bras.

More than a dozen radio stations complied with the order by the militant group Hizbul Islam, the National Union of Somali Journalists said.

“Journalists working in these stations have in the past witnessed broad daylight assassination of their colleagues and have now been signalled that they would follow the same fate if they do not obey these oppressive orders,” said Omar Faruk Osman, the union’s secretary-general.

Somalia has a tradition of music, and most residents greeted the ban with dismay. Rock, rap and love songs from the US, Europe and Africa could be heard on Somali stations before the ban.

Senegal: Islamic schools force child begging, inflict abuse; children living in slave conditions

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From The Vancouver Sun

Islamic schools force children to beg

Beatings used to coerce kids into panhandling for leaders of Koranic system, rights group finds

By Richard Valdmanis, ReutersApril 17, 2010

Barefoot children in tattered clothes scramble through the dusty, trash-strewn streets of Dakar, tapping on car windows and shadowing market-goers in the hopes of a few coins or a cup of rice.

The sight of young people begging is not uncommon in a country struggling with deep-rooted poverty, but in the West African state of Senegal there is a twist. These children are students in the nation’s traditional Koranic school system being forced by teachers to panhandle on pain of severe beatings, according to an investigation by global advocacy group Human Rights Watch.

“There are at least 50,000 children just in urban residential daaras [Koranic schools] that are living in conditions akin to slavery,” said study author Matt Wells. Continue Reading →

The religion of peace demonstrates its tolerance in many ways today

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Here is an interesting story out of Somalia, from Jihad watch. Now if only they would stop shooting guns cause it reminds them of American infidels. Or stop eating food cause it reminds them of Hindus. Or breathing air because it reminds them of Jews.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Somalia’s al Shabaab militants have ordered schools in Jowhar town to stop using bells to signal the end of classes because they sound like those of Christian churches, teachers said on Thursday.

Now when you factor in the following chart from Blazing Cat Fur:

(Explanation for this chart and origins at link above)

Let me explain why this graph is, well, frankly, bullshit.

When a Christian, Jew, Hindu or Buddhist, atheist or frankly any non Muslim hears the question they will hear it in one of a few similar ways. In essense, they think you mean, and rightfully so, that if someone attacks through words your symbols or ideas or what you may hold sacred within your faith or religious traditions. Or, they might hear that if you are personally physcially attacked for being what you are in terms of your religious identity. Some variant on one of these two themes.

Let me be very clear here.

When a Muslim thinks in these terms, or hears this question, they are hearing that if someone was to stop them imposing their religion and sharia laws on them, it is an attack on their religion. In Islam, they have an absolute unimpeachable and unalterable duty to spread Islam and impose it on the world. To prevent them from doing so, even in the nicest possible ways, to allow total freedom of religious worship but stop them from making you a subject of them, is an attack on their religion as they see it, and deserving of more physical force, even more than they where already using to impose their religion on you, for which you are a bad person for resisting, in the first place.

I know this is hard to wrap your heads around, but Islam has basically buggered a lot of the terms we are comfortable with amongst each other for the express purpose of anesthetizing us into becoming serfs under Islam. One of those terms, is ‘defence’.

When you factor that in, you realize the Muslims are answering a very different question, and that tends to make the results a lot more sque’d than they already are.

Eeyore for Vlad.

Savage acid attack in the name of honour

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From The Daily Mail U.K.

Acid attack victim ‘targeted over affair with woman he met on Facebook’

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 8:46 AM on 14th April 2010

A Facebook user was disfigured in a revenge-fuelled acid attack over his intimate relationship with a married woman he met online, a court heard today.

Awais Akram, 25, looked like a ‘cross between a zombie from a horror movie and the Incredible Hulk’ after the assault in July last year, jurors were told.

Mr Akram was left burned and bleeding from his nose and eyes and with flesh hanging off his body, prosecutor David Markham said.

A court artist's impression of, from left, Mohammed Vakas, Mohammed Adeel and a 17-year-old defendant who cannot be identified, appearing at the Old Bailey‘Acid attack’: A court artist’s impression of, from left, Mohammed Vakas, Mohammed Adeel and a 17-year-old defendant who cannot be identified, appearing at the Old Bailey

A ‘high pitched scream rang out’ as he was set upon by a group of men in the early hours of the morning in Leytonstone, east London, the Old Bailey heard. Continue Reading →

What is ‘Halal meat’ and what does that mean?

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Animal rights people may want to make themselves aware of this. Warning, this is very, very harsh.

wilderssupport — April 13, 2010 — This video starts by showing the Western humane “Bolt Gun” method of instant slaughter. The remainder of the video then shows the Islamic Halal method of slaughter. Halal is the Sharia Law prescribed method of ritual killing involving the cutting of animals throats and letting them bleed to death. Halal killed animal products are being pushed into the mainstream consumer production of animal stuffs and taken up by the likes of Mc Donnalds and other well known fast food outlets. Are you eating according to Islam’s Sharia without your knowledge? Contains graphic and upsetting content. Please don’t let children watch.

Mulsim shoe tossing sanctioned as cultural ‘symbolic’ gesture

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http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3644/3427824987_e0c07ae8ef.jpg

From The Telegraph U.K.

Muslim protesters ‘will be allowed to throw their shoes’

The Metropolitan Police has quietly sanctioned the throwing of shoes by Muslim protesters on the grounds that it is “a symbolic” political gesture rather than a criminal act of violence.

Published: 7:30AM BST 12 Apr 2010

The ruling emerged after a judge in the case of Aquib Salim, 21, a student who threw a shoe during last year’s Gaza protests in London dismissed a charge of violent disorder for the act.

His comments, at Isleworth Crown Court, mean that many of the 70 mainly Muslim protesters charged with violent disorder following the protests outside the Israeli embassy could also escape prosecution if they threw shoes rather than other missiles.

It has since been confirmed by the Crown Prosecution Service that the judge’s decision was based partly on guidance issued by police in 2008 shortly after an Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at George Bush during a press conference in Baghdad.

It has led to an increase in the practice, with protesters hurling shoes at Downing Street and at the US consulate in Edinburgh during the Gaza protests.

Chris Holt, Salim’s solicitor, said his client was likely to escape with a suspended sentence for another offence of throwing a stick at police – an offence to which he pleaded guilty.

“The court accepted that the earlier shoe-throwing incident was simply a ritual form of protest and therefore not a criminal act of violence,” he said.

The form of protest is based on the Muslim belief that shoes and particularly their soles are unclean.

Lindsey German, of the Stop the War coalition which has led a series of protests against the Iraq and Afghan wars, said the group sought advice from police on shoe-throwing for a protest outside Downing Street after the Baghdad protest.

“They said that was OK and there was a facility allowed for people to bring old pairs of shoes. Afterwards, they joked that they didn’t realise we were going to throw the shoes so hard,” she told The Sunday Times.


Quebec says No to Sharia; ‘Aisha’ recent niqabi tossed from class.

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From The Globe and Mail

Quebec Muslim woman ordered to unveil or leave French course

A file photo of women wering the niqab in The Hague, Netherlands.

A file photo of women wering the niqab in The Hague, Netherlands. Fred Ernst/The Associated Press

Ingrid Peritz

Montreal — From Monday’s Globe and Mail Published on Sunday, Apr. 11, 2010 9:19PM EDT Last updated on Monday, Apr. 12, 2010 12:17AM EDT

One morning recently, a young Muslim woman whose face was hidden by a religious covering was pulled out of her government French class near Montreal and told to unveil or leave the course.

“Aisha,” a 25-year-old permanent resident from India, is the second such case to come to light in Quebec. Last month, the same ultimatum was given to Naema Ahmed, an Egyptian-born woman whose case sparked an uproar and led to landmark provincial legislation against religious face veils. Continue Reading →