Category Archives: Islam in the Americas

Crown wants man jailed for honour crime

Posted on by

From the Ottawa Citizen

Crown wants taxi union boss jailed for ‘honour crime’

That’s ‘not my world,’ man insists, despite threats to daughter

By Andrew Seymour, The Ottawa CitizenAugust 14, 2009 6:55 AM

OTTAWA — Crown prosecutors are seeking to send the head of Ottawa’s taxi union to jail for up to two years, alleging that a campaign of threatening and intimidating behaviour directed toward his daughter after she turned her back on the family’s Muslim beliefs was an honour crime.

Yusef Al Mezel’s threat of an honour killing was designed to “control and dominate” his then-23-year-old daughter, Eman Al Mezel, by suggesting she had brought shame upon her family that would be met with violent consequences, assistant Crown attorney James Cavanagh argued during a sentencing hearing Thursday.

Al Mezel, who pleaded guilty to criminal harassment last September, was trying to deny his daughter “every basic freedom as to how she could live her life,” Cavanagh said, the result of an “underlying notion of patriarchal dominance” based on a “perverted and archaic belief in family honour.” Continue Reading →

” They have to kill me if they love God more than they love me”: Rifqa Bary’s plight

Posted on by

The plight of Rifqa Bary, a Sri Lankan teen who has converted from Islam to Christianity is detailed in a thoughtful and informative article by Phyllis Chesler. On viewing honour killings and the associated threats thereof, Chesler writes:

How easily everyone is lulled into viewing fundamentalist Islam as a religion just like any other, as if Islam-on-the-march today is still the “soft,” cosmopolitan, hospitable culture it has occasionally been in the past, in certain cities and for certain monied people.

From Pajamas Media

August 13th, 2009 8:53 am

Honor Killing Averted: Muslim Convert to Christianity Flees For Her Life

Fathima Rifqa Bary Surfaces in Florida

Yesterday afternoon, my living room was filled with lights, cameras, and two very friendly ABC crew men. We were taping an interview for Good Morning America which appeared today and which is preserved at their website. We talked about honor killings and the plight of Fathima Rifqa Bary, the Muslim teenager from Ohio who converted to Christianity and who ran away from home because she knows her father will kill her.

Seventeen year-old Rifqa’s interview is heartbreaking. She knows that if a Muslim leaves Islam, converts to another religion, is an “apostate,” that they are supposed to be killed by any other Muslim; this includes members of her own family.

If someone from a Jewish or Christian fundamentalist home converts out, they may be ostracized, they may be treated as if they had died, but they are not physically killed.

RifkaBaryWeeping, the very frightened teenager from Sri Lanka knows that most western journalists (and the police who turned her over to the state and forced her into a public trial), do not believe this can be true. How quickly they forget Salman Rushdie’s plight. How easily everyone is lulled into viewing fundamentalist Islam as a religion just like any other, as if Islam-on-the-march today is still the “soft,” cosmopolitan, hospitable culture it has occasionally been in the past, in certain cities and for certain monied people. Continue Reading →

Hugo Chavez, Israel, and Iran.

Posted on by

Some of my Venezuelan contacts have been telling me things for years now, which are horrifying about Chavez and his ambitions. Today has been an interesting news day in that some of what I have been told for the past 3 years or more has been fully confirmed as you will see in the stories below.

I will take the liberty of stating some of the things I have also been told which have not been confirmed. Take this anyway you like. It is technically merely an insubstantial rumor for the moment.

Chavez is said to be sending out Islamic missionaries of sorts to the more remote rain forest areas, and arming and training tribesman of formerly untouched peoples by civilization. Something every leader of Venezuela since its creation has managed to avoid. He is taking people with no education as we know it, with no history of technology etc, and exposing them to Islam, automatic weapons and making them part of an ideologically based militia. The near future will likely determine the veracity of these claims and rumors.

Now on to a story which Stratfor sent out today from ynet news:

Hezbollah suspected of setting up camp in Venezuela

Senior Israeli political official: Nasrallah established major terrorist base in Venezuela under Chavez sponsorship. Hezbollah members collect intelligence from continent, including Brazil, Argentina, and Peru with objective of carrying out a low-profile revenge attack for assassination of Imad Mughniyeh

Shimon Shiffer

Published: 08.13.09, 13:40 / Israel News

It has recently been made clear that Israel‘s public warnings on the issue stem from intelligence assessments that Hezbollah is investing significant efforts to carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli targets and Jewish institutions in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Peru in a bid to avenge the death of the organization’s late leader Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated in Damascus more than a year ago.

According to the Israeli source, Hezbollah operatives in South America are collecting intelligence to this end. The Israeli intelligence community estimates that Hezbollah will try as much as possible not to leave identifying footprints that could associate the organization with the attack in the wake of such a strike in a bid to avoid Israel’s heavy hand. In the same vein, it is estimated that the organization will not take public responsibility for a terrorist attack if it were to carry one out successfully.

This is also the reason the organization is purportedly looking to carry out an attack far away from Israel.

Egypt has recently exposed cluster of secret Hezbollah-related terrorist cells that planned on assassinated Israeli Ambassador to Egypt Shalom Cohen. Another cell that planned on targeting Israeli tourists was discovered in Jordan. On this backdrop, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon warned that should Hezbollah attack Israeli targets anywhere around the globe, harsh retaliation will ensue.

During his visit to South America a few weeks ago, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman handed over information to his Latin counterparts on Hezbollah’s activities in the countries he visited. According to the Israeli source, the main objective is to signal to Hezbollah that Israel is aware of the organization’s subversive activities in South America and is keeping close watch.

“We sought to deter them and to say to them that the Israeli response will be difficult to bear should they try to take action against Israelis anywhere,” warned the source.

Western media outlets have reported in recent months about a warming relationship between Iran and Venezuela, under the leadership of anti-American Hugo Chavez. It seems that Hezbollah is taking advantage of the growing friendship in order to establish itself in Latin America.

The US Treasury Department indicted two Venezuelan citizens last year for supporting Hezbollah, and froze their assets in the United States. One of them, a diplomat of Lebanese Shiite ancestry, used his position to transfer funds to Hezbollah and to help members of the organization move between Venezuela and Iran for training. The other is a travel agent from the capital city, Caracas, who aided Hezbollah members in planning attacks.

Western counter-terrorism experts warn that Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have established special units to kidnap Jewish businessmen from Latin America and to bring them to Lebanon.

Venezuela has become Hezbollah‘s major terrorist outpost in South America. The Venezuelan regime reportedly provides aid for the terrorist organization that has taken root in its territory, according to a senior Israeli official.

Threats have been volleyed back and forth between Hezbollah and Israel recently. Senior Israeli officials warned that if the organization makes an attempt to attack Israeli targets, the response will be unforgiving. Hezbollah responded in kind with a threat of its own that if Israel were to attack Lebanon, the Jewish State will pay a heavy price.

Terrorism

Report: Lieberman accuses Chavez of ties to ‘radical’ Islamists / AFP
Venezuelan president cooperating with ‘radical branches’ of Islam, FM reportedly says
Full Story

Now, a video from Fausta’s blog, Fausta, was kind enough to translate this video, which I subtitled. I only did as much as there was in English. For anyone wishing to see the whole program/speech by Hugo, please visit the above link and watch it there. Chavez disguises his contept for Israel and all things related less and less well.

Muslim Teen Who Converted to Christianity Says Family Threatened to Kill Her

Posted on by

 FOX NEWS… An Ohio teenager says she ran away from home to Florida because her family threatened to kill her for converting from Islam to Christianity, local media reported.

Rifqa Bary, 17, testified Monday at a custody hearing in Orlando that she’d recently changed religions and is worried her relatives will do something drastic, according to WFTV in Orlando and Central Florida News 13.

“They have to kill me because I’m a Christian. It’s an honor (issue),” the girl told WFTV.

Such threats are common, even in the United States, her attorney, Rosa Gonzalez, told News 13.

“She says her life is in danger and she could be killed in an honor killing,” Gonzalez said after the hearing — which was held because the teenager’s parents are trying to regain custody of her.

Rifqa, a non-citizen whose parents are from Sri Lanka, has for several weeks been staying with an Orlando couple who are pastors of a new Christian church there. She met them on a Facebook prayer group.

Her father denied his daughter’s allegations to NBC 4 in Orlando, saying he never threatened to kill his daughter because she rejected Islam.

He was in Florida for a court hearing, but was reportedly traveling back to Ohio Tuesday.

The Florida Department of Children and Families currently has custody of her, but ultimately, Ohio authorities will decide where the teen should live.

Shut Up! feminists silent on honour killings, rape, oppression

Posted on by

Naomi Lakritz writes in the Calgary Herald on how feminists in the West prefer navel-gazing, book-promoting and self-interest to defending women who face extreme oppression, rape and murder in the name of honour’.

From the Ottawa Citizen.

Feminists who don’t defend women

By Naomi Lakritz, The Calgary HeraldAugust 10, 2009 3:02 AM

All’s been quiet on the sisterhood front. Too quiet, considering how many horrifying stories about women have made the headlines.

There were the alleged honour killings of the three teenaged Shafia girls from Montreal, along with one of their father’s two wives. The father, the mother and the girls’ brother are charged with murder.

Then there was the eight-year-old girl in Phoenix whose Liberian refugee family disowned her after she was raped. They claim she had dishonoured the family.

And there was Saudi beauty pageant winner Aya Ali al-Mulla, who won her crown without anyone ever seeing her face; she was draped from head to foot in Saudi Arabia’s traditional black abaya. Pageant officials pronounced al-Mulla, 18, the Queen of Beautiful Morals. She had to pass rigorous quizzes on her morality, her obedience to her parents, and other such virtues, to win her title.

All of these incidents have as their theme oppression and the quashing of women’s right to autonomy and self-determination, by the males in their milieu. My question is, where are the queens of beautiful morals here in the West?

I checked out the websites of the usual suspects. Naomi Klein is busy tooting her own horn with an announcement that her book, The Shock Doctrine, won the Warwick Prize for Writing! (Exclamation point hers). I did a search for “honour killing” on her site and came up with “Your search yielded no results.”

It’s possible that my good old namesake is unclear on the concept of oppression.

Klein, who is Jewish, is calling for boycotts of Israel in support of the Palestinian cause whose leaders have declared they want to kill Jewish people. Maybe if she supported the Palestinian people via protesting their oppression by their terrorist Hamas leaders, she’d have a worthy cause.

Then I looked at Judy Rebick’s blog. Like Naomi, she’s preoccupied with flogging her own book, Transforming Power. One recent post, dated July 28, was titled: The Toronto Municipal Strike: Who Do We Get Mad At?

I don’t know who to get mad at about the garbage strike in Toronto, Judy. Living in Calgary, it doesn’t cross my mind that much.

But shouldn’t we all be even a teeny bit mad at the way women are being denied their selfhood by the patriarchal environments they live in, be it in Canada, Phoenix or wherever it’s happening?

Judy does have a post from June titled “Take action in solidarity with the indigenous people of Peru.”

What about a little solidarity with four dead women whose car ended up in the Rideau Canal near Kingston? How about a show of solidarity with that beauty queen in Saudi Arabia who’s obviously a brilliant girl because she plans to go to medical school, but who can’t show her face to the world because to do so might dishonour her family and lead to a fatal consequence?

And is there nary a tear to be shed or a word to be spared for that poor child in Phoenix whose family has tossed her aside like so much trash for something that was not her fault?

Meanwhile, on Rose’s Place, which bills itself as a blogsite for Canadian feminists, recent discussions centred around Sonia Sotomayor, Obama’s birth certificate and U.S. health reform, with Toronto Star columnist Antonia Zerbisias complaining about Muslim-bashing regarding the alleged honour killings.

It is not Muslim-bashing to acknowledge that a crime has allegedly happened in a Muslim family.

It is not Sikh-bashing to say that some of the alleged honour killings in Canada in the past few years happened in Sikh families.

Shall we just ignore the United Nations Population Fund’s estimate that 5,000 women a year die in honour killings, to avoid casting aspersions on any culture? Shall we pretend it’s not happening in Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Morocco and Pakistan, to name just a few countries?

There seems to be no problem with denouncing Christian culture for decorating trees at Christmastime, or displaying crosses on Remembrance Day, but when members of another culture engage in actual evildoing, we’re supposed to pretend it all just falls under the rubric of domestic violence. Since domestic violence occurs in all cultures, honour killings can be conveniently lumped into that category and we can keep pretending it’s not particular to certain cultures.

Nobody’s even mentioned the fact that Mohammad Shafia was living in this country with two wives, one of whom died with the girls. Let’s just pass completely over that form of oppression visited on these two women, for fear of offending someone.

As Judy Rebick says in another June blog posting: “The revolution will be tweeted or whatever.” Yeah, Judy. Whatever.

Naomi Lakritz writes for the Calgary Herald.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Muslim couple file human rights beef over Superstore salami

Posted on by

Anything for a buck. Disguised as religious and cultural rights.

Oh this poor Muslim family. I’m surprised they did not have their stomachs pumped and a transfusion of “clean” Muslim blood.

William Issa. Douche of the month club

METRO VANCOUVER – There’s no meat in a Muslim couple’s beef about the salami at a Coquitlam Real Canadian Superstore, B.C.’s Human Rights Tribunal ruled earlier this week.

The couple, William and Micheline Issa, filed a complaint with the tribunal on behalf of themselves and their three children, saying the store served them salami containing pork a year ago.

The couple said they eat only 100-per cent beef salami, as consuming pork would violate their religious beliefs.

BC Human Rights Tribunal Chair Heather McNaughton dismissed the complaint, ruling, in part, that it wouldn’t likely succeed.

A deli assistant admitted she mistakenly served salami that contained pork but said the couple told them of the error before receiving the salami.

The Issas concurred but said said in the complaint that they were concerned they had previously been served salami containing pork.

Loblaws, which owns the store, had offered to settle the complaint by paying the couple $5,000 for injury to dignity, feelings and self-respect, and giving another $5,000 to a charity of the couple’s choice.

But the couple proceeded with the complaint.

That “reasonable” settlement, the fact that the deli assisant merely made an error and the lack of proof that the family was previously served pork salami led the tribunal chair to dismiss the complaint.

One other fact didn’t help the couple: “They continue to shop at the Superstore and to purchase all-beef salami from the Deli,” the chair wrote.

William Issa ran for council in Port Coquitlam in 2005 and 2009. His candicacy saw him come 9th in the most recent elections with over 1800 votes. He spent just over $7000 on his political run, $2000 of which came from contributors.

Yemeni cleric to be deported for Hamas fundraising

Posted on by

Sheik_Mohammed_Ali__al-moayadCBC .. A jailed Yemeni cleric will be deported home from the U.S. after pleading guilty Friday in New York City to raising money for Hamas.

As part of the plea deal, Mohammed Ali Hasan Al-Moayad will be sentenced to time served — more than six years — and sent back to Yemen.

A Brooklyn jury had convicted the 60-year-old of supporting terrorism in 2005, for which he received a 75-year prison term. The U.S. government touted the verdict as a major victory in its war against terrorism. But an appeals court threw out the conviction last year, ruling that certain evidence at Al-Moayad’s trial was inflammatory testimony and should not have been admissible.

Rather than try him again, prosecutors opted for a plea deal because to spare government time and expense. They also said the cleric has severe health problems.

The United States considers Hamas, the political and militant group in power in the Gaza Strip, to be a terrorist organization.

Shafia trio appear in Kingston Court, request to speak with surviving children

Posted on by

From The Montreal Gazette.

Shafia family appears in court via video

Charged in Kingston canal slayings; Parents can communicate with children without presence of lawyer, judge rules

By René Bruemmer, THE GAZETTEAugust 7, 2009

Mohammad Shafia, Hamid Mohammed Shafia, 18 and Tooba Mohammad Yahya. All three have been charged in Kingston with four counts of first-degree murder and four counts of conspiracy to commit murder. The bodies of Yahya and Mohammad’s daughters - Zainab, 19, Sahari, 17 and Geeti 13 - and Mohammad's first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, were found in a car submerged in the Rideau Canal on June 30.b

Mohammed Shafia, Hamed Mohammed Shafia and Tooba Mohammed Yahya. Photograph by Marcos Townsend/Tyrel Featherstone, Canwest News Service

KINGSTON, Ont. – The couple charged with murdering their three daughters and the man’s first wife appeared briefly via video at a Kingston courthouse yesterday with one request: that they be allowed to speak to their three surviving children without lawyers present.

Their 18-year-old son, also charged in the murders, made the same request.

Clad in an orange prison jumpsuit, looking drawn and tired, Mohammad Shafia, 56, appeared in the courtroom via video from the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre.

Through his lawyer, with a Farsi interpreter translating, Shafia asked that an earlier regulation, which stipulated he could communicate with his children only with a lawyer present and with the consent of youth protection services that are caring for the children, be amended.

Shafia’s lawyer, Peter Kemp, asked that the requirement to have lawyers present by removed, and that any communication be allowed only if youth protection approves.

The judge agreed to the requests by the father, the mother and the son.

The three were remanded until their next court date, Aug. 14, when lawyers are to discuss the disclosure of evidence.

Mohammad Shafia and his wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, 39, are charged with the murders of their three daughters: Zainab, 19; Sahari, 17; and Geeti, 13; and with the murder of Shafia’s first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad. Hamed Shafia, 18, faces the same charges.

Hamed Shafia and Yahya are staying at the Quinte Detention Centre in Napanee, Ont. Hamed Shafia appeared composed during the short video conference, but Yahya looked stricken, holding onto the wall to support herself, her other hand clutched to her chest.

In prison, Yahya sits and stares wordlessly through the bars of her cell, said Sara Chaloux, who spent a week in the same wing at the prison and was in court yesterday on an unrelated matter.

“I felt bad for her,” Chaloux said in an interview. “Other inmates would go up to her and make comments or threats, but she just sat and stared and never said a word.”

Yahya was escorted from her cell only after all other inmates were enclosed in theirs, Chaloux said.

Lawyers for the men reported Hamed was attacked while in jail, and his father was threatened.

Montreal lawyers were replaced this week by legal counsel from Kingston with strong backgrounds in criminal law. The new lawyers did not speak to the media yesterday.

The bodies of the four family members were discovered June 30 in a Nissan Sentra submerged in the Rideau Canal near Kingston.

The accused and the victims lived together in a duplex in St. Léonard.

After the bodies were found, Shafia and his wife told police Zainab had borrowed the keys to the car. They believed she had left without their knowledge with the other victims, and probably drove into the canal by accident.

Kingston police said they discount this theory and confirmed they are looking into the possibility the slayings were carried out as a so-called honour killing.

Zainab, had been in two relationships of which Mohammad Shafia did not approve, relatives had said.

rb*******@****************st.com

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Campus group advertising Israeli Apartheid Week lodge HRC complaint against university

Posted on by

From the Ottawa Citizen.

Students take Carleton to rights tribunal

Group says school trampled its freedom of expression

By Jennifer Green, with files from Katie Daubs, The Ottawa CitizenAugust 7, 2009

Carleton University was only trying to keep campus political discourse civil. Now, it looks as if it will face Ontario’s human rights tribunal.

In March, a campus group advertised Israeli Apartheid Week with vivid signs of an Israeli fighter jet targeting a Palestinian toddler. Carleton told the group, Students Against Israeli Apartheid, to come up with something less pointed.

It complied, but complained to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario that the school trampled its freedom of expression. A mediation will likely be held in late September or early October, and, if the parties cannot agree, the complaint will proceed to a hearing, said Yavar Hameed, a lawyer representing the Carleton students.

Hameed said criticism of Israel was a sensitive issue on university campuses, and he didn’t know if this case would be resolved during the mediation stage. “The nature of this complaint focuses on the advocacy of Palestinian human rights,” he said. “We’re hopeful the human rights tribunal will take that issue seriously so Palestinian students and their allies will not feel chilled or marginalized when they try to speak about their basic rights.”

In an e-mail, Carleton spokesman Jason MacDonald said the students’ claims were “false and completely unfounded. The issue is now being addressed by the human rights tribunal and will provide us a with formal opportunity to respond point by point to these false claims once and for all. In the meantime we’re not going to do anything to undermine that process.”

Ben Saifer, a member of Students Against Israeli Apartheid, said the group would not back down. “The days of administrative intimidation and sophism are counted at Carleton University, and the tides are turning in North America against the supporters of the illegal Israeli occupation and apartheid regime.”

On its website, the group said: “In its fifth year, Toronto’s Israeli Apartheid Week has seen an alarming increase in harassment, intimidation and physical violence against its organizers and guests. While people who seem to be affiliated with the Jewish Defense League are the primary organizers of the attacks, unfortunately, the student groups Hasbara and Hillel have also joined in, using cameras, physical proximity, and threatening language to intimidate activists, especially women students, calling them ‘terrorists’ and repeating the accusations of ‘incitement’ and ‘hate speech.’ When these incidents of harassment and intimidation are reported to campus police, the police have taken no action.”

The university is also in hot water over its decision in late July to remove sessional lecturer Hassan Diab from a teaching post. A Lebanese-born Canadian citizen, Diab is accused of killing four people in the bombing of a Paris synagogue. Senior administrators at Carleton had approved his appointment, but the Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith said it was “deeply disturbed by the news that Hassan Diab, the alleged bomber of the Rue Copernic synagogue in Paris in 1980, will be teaching an upcoming sociology course at Carleton University. That terrorist attack, blamed on the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operations, resulted in the murders of four Jews, with scores more injured.”

The university fired the teacher, but a few days later, sociology and anthropology professors called for Diab’s reinstatement.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

A hatemongers guide to conversion: the United Church of Canada plays to Arab/Muslim anti-Semitism

Posted on by

From The Ottawa Citizen.

Pray for the United Church

The Ottawa CitizenAugust 7, 2009

Reports that anti-Semitism is incubating in some corners of the United Church are generating anger toward the church, from both Christians and Jews. But the anger might be misplaced, because the church could end up the principal victim.

Anti-Semitism is a virus that destroys its host organism. In this case, the anti-Semitism seems to be masking itself as “anti-Zionism,” that is, hatred of Israel. Now, it is absolutely true that criticism of Israel does not automatically signal antipathy toward Jews. Many Jews themselves question Israeli government policies. It’s wrong to assume that critics of Israel are by definition anti-Jewish.

But it’s also true that every anti-Semite is most assuredly an anti-Zionist, so there is overlap between the groups. Identifying instances when the campaign to delegitimize Israel is a cover to attack Jews has always been a challenge. One giveaway is the appearance of age-old anti-Semitic tropes.

Which brings us back to the United Church of Canada. Beginning this weekend, the church will hold its General Council in Kelowna, B.C. The church will consider numerous resolutions, among them several that express extreme hostility to Israel.

It’s not just the double standard — singling out Israel, a liberal democracy, as the world’s greatest outlaw state? — that raises old memories of scapegoating the Jews. No, it’s the language in the background materials, available on the United Church’s website, that has shocked so many people.

One document warns that “some Members of Parliament are affiliated with the State of Israel” and “have sensitive roles in Canada.” Is this a coded reference to Jewish MPs, in an attempt to raise the ancient accusation that Jews are duplicitous and have dual loyalties?

It gets worse. The church document accuses the Canadian Parliament of harbouring MPs who are actually citizens of Israel. This is a lie. So far as anyone knows, there are no MPs who hold Israeli citizenship. But what if there were? Parliament is a multicultural and diverse place, like Canadian society generally. It’s conspicuous that the United Church is not witch-hunting South Asian or Muslim MPs to out those who hold dual citizenship. Only Jews constitute an enemy within.

The head of the church, moderator Rev. David Giuliano, acknowledged Tuesday that all of this is causing “pain and hurt to Jewish people in Canada,” yet he refuses to disown the architects of this campaign. Instead, he said that a rabbi will be invited to have “full speaking” privileges at the Kelowna conference. Will the rabbi be expected to answer the charge that Jews — sorry, people “affiliated” with Israel — should not have “sensitive” government jobs? Or that the Canada Revenue Agency should stop allowing tax deductions for respected Jewish charities, another idea that can be found in the materials posted on the church’s website?

Admirers of the United Church are right to be despondent. As one newspaper letter-writer put it, even if the proposals are rejected in Kelowna, “severe and irreparable damage has been done to the credibility of the (church) as a viable and doctrinally sound organization.”

The United Church of Canada isn’t the first organization that hatemongers have tried to convert into a vehicle for attacking Israel. Labour unions, student associations, even a camping store (Mountain Equipment Co-op) have had to fight off similar hijackings, not always successfully.

People with radical or hateful ideas know that by themselves they will remain marginal voices, so they infiltrate respectable institutions in order to give legitimacy to their agenda. The United Church is a great institution, and Canadians should pray that it is able to fight off those who would shame it.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

North Carolina Muslim men plot violent jihad

Posted on by

US/World News

Seven North Carolina Muslim men charged with plotting ‘violent jihad’

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Tuesday, July 28th 2009, 4:00 AM

RALEIGH, North Carolina – A father, his two sons and four other North Carolina men are accused of military-style training at home and plotting “violent jihad” through a series of terror attacks abroad, federal authorities said Monday.

Officials said the group was led by Daniel Patrick Boyd, a married 39-year-old who lived in an unassuming lakeside home in a rural area south of Raleigh, where he and his family walked their dog and operated a drywall business.

But two decades ago, Boyd, who is a U.S. citizen, trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan and fought against the Soviets for three years before returning to the United States.

An indictment released Monday does not detail any specific terrorist plans or targets overseas, although it claims some of the defendants traveled to Israel in 2007 with the intent of waging “violent jihad” and returned home without success.

“These charges hammer home the point that terrorists and their supporters are not confined to the remote regions of some far away land but can grow and fester right here at home,” U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said. He would not give details of the alleged plots beyond what was in a news release and indictment.

The seven men made their first court appearances in Raleigh on Monday, charged with providing material support to terrorism. If convicted, they could face life in prison. Court documents charged that Boyd, also known as “Saifullah,” encouraged others to engage in jihad.

Boyd’s beliefs did not concur with his Raleigh-area moderate mosque, which he stopped attending and instead began meeting for Friday prayers in his home, said Holding, who did not say whether any or all the defendants met with him.

“These people had broken away because their local mosque did not follow their vision of being a good Muslim,” Holding said. “This is not an indictment of the entire Muslim community.”

In 1991, Boyd and his brother were convicted of bank robbery in Pakistan – accused of carrying identification showing they belonged to the radical Afghan guerrilla group, Hezb-e-Islami, or Party of Islam. Each was sentenced to have a foot and a hand cut off for the robbery, but the decision was later overturned.

Their wives told The Associated Press in an interview at the time that the couples had U.S. roots but the United States was a country of “kafirs” – Arabic for heathens.

Jim Stephenson, a neighbor of Daniel Boyd in Willow Spring, said he saw the family walking their dog in the neighborhood and that the indictment shocked the residents.

“We never saw anything to give any clues that something like that could be going on in their family,” Stephenson said.

Two of the suspects are Boyd’s sons: Zakariya Boyd, 20 and Dylan Boyd, 22. The others include Anes Subasic, 33; Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, 22; and Ziyad Yaghi, 21.

Hysen Sherifi, 24, a native of Kosovo and a permanent legal U.S. resident was also charged in the case. He was the only person arrested who was not a U.S. citizen.

No attorneys for the men were listed in court records.

Reached at her home in Silver Spring, Maryland, Boyd’s mother said she had not heard of their arrests and knew nothing about the current case.

“It certainly sounds weird to me,” Pat Saddler said. “That’s news to me.”

Hassan‘s father declined to comment Monday night while others did not have listed numbers or did not return calls.

It’s unclear how authorities learned of the activities, although court documents indicate that prosecutors will introduce evidence gathered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

After the unsuccessful attempt at jihad in Israel, the men returned home, officials said. Court papers also say Yaghi went to Jordan to engage in jihad in 2006.

Boyd was also accused of trying to raise money last year to fund others’ travel overseas to fight. One of the men, Sherifi, went to Kosovo to engage in violent jihad, according to the indictment, but it’s unclear if he did any actual fighting.

Expansion of Islamic Saudi Academy in Virginia Approved, Outraging Opponents

Posted on by

I don’t think I will make many friends when I say, “It is official, Yanks are wanks”. Are you all so willing to sell out your futures for fear of offending the most offencive? The very type of Islamic teaching that puts all Americans at risk is welcomed in Fairfax? This should be making any American with a right mind break out in Tourettes.

Dhimmi USA FOX NEWS.. A controversial Saudi-funded academy that teaches strict adherence to traditional Islamic law has been given the green light to expand its Virginia campus — a decision by local officials that infuriates opponents who say the school’s teachings are anti-American.The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors voted 6-4 Monday to grant a zoning exemption to the Islamic Saudi Academy. The officials said the outcome was based strictly on zoning issues, not on what goes on in the school’s classrooms.

That left some in the community outraged.

“How could they … say they are such fine students? They are fine students but they are learning the wrong thing,” academy critic Ruth Mizell said after the vote, according to MyFOXDC.com.

Jim Lafferty, another opponent, vowed political retaliation against the supervisors who supported the expansion.

“We need to resist these people, make it clear they may have bought six votes in there but they are not buying my vote,” said Lafferty, according to MyFOXDC. “We will support — even if it’s Pee-Wee Herman — we will support whoever is running against them.”

 The academy was founded in 1984 and has some 1,000 students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12. It is the only Saudi-funded school in the United States.

About 80 percent of its students are U.S. citizens from the area’s Muslim communities. Most students attend classes at a second campus in the Alexandria section of Fairfax.

The plans granted approval on Monday permit construction of a building that would eventually accommodate 500 students.

“The community will get an awful lot of development,” said supervisor Penelope A. Gross. “I think (it) will improve the community.”

The school has undergone a series of high-profile examinations of its religious curriculum, which has been revised repeatedly to remove passages that extolled militant jihad and martyrdom. In 2007, at least one textbook still said that the killing of adulterers and apostates was “justified.”

But students, parents and teachers say the school does not teach intolerance.

“Throughout my whole time in ISA, I’ve never been taught to hate anyone,” said Heba Rashed, 16, a junior at the school.

The school’s curriculum was revised at the start of the 2008-09 school year after the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom condemned its textbooks.

Critics of the academy say most of the offensive material has been taken out. But they say the textbooks clearly remain guided by Wahhabism, the fundamentalist school of Sunni Islam that is dominant in Saudi Arabia.

“The stuff about killing, it’s not there anymore,” said Ali Al-Ahmed, the head of the Institute for Gulf Affairs and a critic of the Saudi government, who got copies of the latest textbooks.

Al-Ahmed said references to jihad had been removed from the curriculum. He found that strange, because the idea — which in the Koran is described as “striving in the path of God,” and is not necessarily violent — was essential to Islam.

In the past, textbooks referred to the militant form of jihad. Al-Ahmed said he would have felt better if moderate references to jihad had been kept.

Attorney Lynne Strobel, who represented the academy, said she was pleased with the vote and said the school has undertaken efforts to reduce some of the potential traffic.