Here is a video that is reputed to be of the fellow who threatened the lives of Trey parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South park at a classic ‘Palestinian’ rally.
Category Archives: Islam in the Americas
Majority of Canadians support niqab ban
From Global News
Majority agree with Quebec’s veil law, poll finds
‘One of few times when Quebec, Alberta are on the same page’
Marian Scott, Canwest News Service: Wednesday, April 21, 2010
One reason support for the niqab ban is higher in Quebec than the rest of Canada is the ongoing debate over reasonable accommodation in that province, according to pollster Angus Reid.
Photo Credit: Philippe Desmazes, AFP, Getty Images, Canwest News Service
Most Canadians agree with a proposed Quebec law that would refuse all government services to women wearing the niqab or burka, an Angus Reid poll has found.
Ninety-five per cent of Quebecers support the proposed law, which would bar the face veil from government offices, schools and other publicly funded institutions, said the poll, conducted for The Gazette and released yesterday.
In the rest of Canada, three out of four people agreed with Bill 94, which was tabled on Wednesday by the government of Jean Charest. The bill would require all public-sector employees to have their faces uncovered, as well as any citizen using government services, such as someone applying for a medicare card.
Mario Canseco, vice-president of public affairs for Angus Reid, said the survey shows an unusually high level of support for a government measure.
“It’s very rare to get 80% of Canadians to agree on something,” he said.
“With numbers like this, there is not going to be much of a controversy over the legislation in Quebec or anywhere else in the country,” he added.
Mr. Canseco said one reason support for the niqab ban is higher in Quebec than the rest of Canada is the ongoing debate over reasonable accommodation in that province. The debate over accommodating minorities has heated up in the wake of the barring of an Egyptian woman from government language classes for wearing the niqab.
Salam Elmenyawi, president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, attributed the poll results to the emotional climate that surrounds the niqab issue.
“They are giving it based on their emotional response to a woman covering her face, which is understandable,” Mr. Elmenyawi said. “It is associated with all the negative stereotypes that have been on the airwaves.”
Mr. Elmenyawi said the survey could have produced different results if the niqab debate had been conducted in a calmer atmosphere and with more empathy.
The poll showed that outside Quebec, Albertans are most likely to support the veil ban, with 82% approving the bill, followed by Ontario with 77% support, the Atlantic provinces (73%) and British Columbia (70%).
Support for withholding government services from those wearing the face veil was lowest in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, at 65%.
“It’s one of the few times when Quebec and Alberta are on the same page,” Mr. Canseco said, noting that Quebecers and Albertans differ sharply on many issues, such as the environment.
Only a handful of Quebec Muslims wear the niqab, an opaque face veil with a slit for the eyes, or the burka, a long gown that also covers the face, with a mesh panel through which the wearer peers.
Eighty-three per cent of Quebecers strongly approve of the niqab law and 12% moderately approve of it. Five per cent of Quebecers oppose it, according to the poll, conducted online among 1,004 adults on Thursday and yesterday.
The respondents were selected randomly from among Angus Reid Forum panellists.
The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5%, 19 times out of 20.
Across Canada, men were slightly more likely to approve the niqab bill than women (83% vs. 77%) and people over 55 were more likely to favour it than those under 35 (86% vs. 69%).
Bloc Quebecois supporters favoured the bill most (95%), along with Conservatives (86%) and Liberals (81%). Three-quarters of NDP supporters agreed with the bill.
A separate poll by Leger Marketing for the Association of Canadian Studies, part of which was also released to The Gazette yesterday, shows that Quebecers are uncomfortable with the Muslim hijab in schools but want to keep the crucifix in the National Assembly and allow the cross in classrooms.
Asked whether Muslim girls should be allowed to wear the hijab (headscarf ) in public schools, 75% of respondents said no, while 20% said yes.
However, 58% of Quebecers want to keep the crucifix above the seat of the president of the National Assembly, whereas 33% say it should be relocated.
As for crucifixes in public-school classrooms, 54% say they should be allowed vs. 41% who say they should not.
“For those who say Quebec wants a societe laique (secular society), this poll shows they do have preferences,” said Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies.
“Crucifixes are fine but the hijab is not,” he added.
Bart Simpson stands by Southpark
From The Telegraph U.K.
Bart Simpson shows support for South Park
The Simpsons support South Park writers in Mohammed censorship row
Creators of US cartoon The Simpsons have given a nod of support to rivals at South Park whose recent episode depicting the prophet Mohammed was censored.
By Alastair Jamieson
Published: 10:21AM BST 28 Apr 2010
Published: 10:21AM BST 28 Apr 2010
The opening titles of The Simpsons were altered to acknowledge the controversial decision by channel Comedy Central to change the 201st episode of South Park after the previous edition depicted the prophet disguised in a bear costume.
South Park’s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, were sent a warning by a New York-based radical Islamic website for the 200th episode. The programme also lampooned Jesus and Buddhism.
“South Park – we’d stand beside you if we weren’t so scared,” Bart Simpson wrote on the blackboard in the opening sequences.
The Mohammed character was introduced as part of a joke about censorship based on the 2006 death threats made against Danish cartoonists by Islamist extremists, who see any depiction of Muhammad as a gross insult to their religion. Continue Reading →
Back on the Bus
From Gates of Vienna by way of IFPS
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Back on the Bus
Remember CAIR’s successful effort last week to force the removal of “Islamophobic” ads from Miami municipal buses? Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, working through the Freedom Defense Initiative, placed the ads on the buses to inform Muslims (and any other Americans) that they have the right of religious freedom in this country. The ads included a URL for a Muslim apostates’ site.
It looked like CAIR had chalked up another victory, intimidating anyone who attempts to criticize Islam in public. But David Yerushalmi has turned the tables: his law firm, working with the Thomas More Law Center, forced Miami-Dade County to back down and reinstate the ads.
This is a significant victory for sharia opponents over the most prominent Muslim Brotherhood front group in the United States — which, incidentally, was also an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial. As David Yerushalmi says, “CAIR is a criminal organization with ties to Hamas and other jihadists. This is not my opinion but the considered view of the U.S. Attorney’s office, the FBI, and the federal courts, all based on evidence CAIR has never refuted.”
According to his law firm’s website:
Law Offices of David Yerushalmi, P.C. Win Victory for the First Amendment
Case Demonstrates that CAIR is a Fraudulent Civil Rights Organization Lobbying on behalf of the OIC
April 21, 2010—Miami, Florida: When the South Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) pressured the Miami-Dade Country Transit Authority to yank bus panel ads contracted and paid for by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer of the Freedom Defense Initiative because the ads were “offensive to Muslims”, the two activists turned to the Law Offices of David Yerushalmi, P.C. for help. Mr. Yerushalmi joined forces with the Thomas More Law Center and the two law firms began preparing a federal complaint alleging breach of contract and violation of Ms. Geller’s and Mr. Spencer’s First Amendment Rights.
The bus ad, which appears above, began running on Tuesday, April 13th. Just two days later, on Thursday, after pressure from CAIR, the bus ads had already been pulled down and Mr. Yerushalmi’s clients received notice of the ad contract termination through media reports on Friday.
CAIR, as it typically does, issued nationwide press releases and blasted emails to tens of thousands of outlets on Friday crowing over its “victory” of suppressing free speech on the grounds that the ads promoted “bigotry”. Newspaper and other media stories in the Miami Herald, the Orlando Sentinel, Fox Business News, and NBC ran blindly with the CAIR-generated story on Friday with headlines like: “Miami-Dade Transit Throws Islamic Ad Under the Bus.”
Ironically, CAIR, which has been named by the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI as a Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas front group and unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror fund raising trial—a trial which culminated in guilty verdicts for all of the Muslim Brotherhood defendants—claims it is “the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights organization.” Continue Reading →
Southpark moves from profound to heroic
I have always felt that South Park offered some of the best social commentary on TV. Now, the creators and writers Mat Stone and Trey Parker have dared ask the un-ask-able questions in the current episode of South park. If you draw a line with a circle on top and call it Mohamed, is that ok? What if it is a drawing of a bear suit and you claim a drawing of Mohamed is inside of it? Does that cause or justify Muslim rage?
When I saw this episode, I felt like my office had been bugged as I asked several of the same questions to my colleagues since the Moe-Toon riots (no relation to Mo-town records) including at what level of abstraction is a drawing of Mohamed sufficiently representative to be called a drawing?
It is interesting, as Diana West notes, that no one seems to be talking about it.
Eeyore for Vlad
H/T Diana West
Fox Reports: “Retribution” Could Be Coming to South Park, Updated
Apr 20
Written by: Diana West
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 9:15 AM 
Cartoon: Mohammed is the one in the bear suit.
—
Have been meaning to post about a sicko Islamic death threat video about “South Park” founders Matt Stone and Trey Parker, with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Theo van Gogh, Salman Rushdie, Geert Wilders, Kurt Westergaard and Lars Vilks rounding out the cast of those similarly targeted for “offending” Islam, even as I have been simultaneously monitoring the reluctance (read: fear) of the MSM to report the story, period.
Imagine: Mega-star animators Stone & Parker are threatened with death by jihadists for their “South Park” cartoon satirizing Mohammed for being off limits to mockery (to the point, in the cartoon, where both redheads or “gingers” and celebrities all want some of what he’s got), and the MSM, most of it, wants to pretend nothing is happening.
It’s happening, whether clean shaven in Geneva, or in beards in Brooklyn.
By “it” I mean submission to Islam.
And what to make of this Fox News headline on the story?
‘South Park’ Creators Could Face Retribution for Depicting Muhammad, Website Warns
“Retribution”???? My Webster’s tells me retribution means “1. deserved punishment for evil done, or, sometimes, reward for good done; merited requital. 2. in theology, reward or punishment in another life for things done in this.
Did News Corp stakeholder, Saudi scion, and Murdoch crony Prince Talal bin Alwaleed write the headline?
Updated: Even if it is the “website” that “warns” of retribution, Fox needs at the very least the padding of quotation marks around “retribution” to put some needed distance between it and them.
Protesters denounce bill-94 in Montreal
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.
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.
CAIR scores. freedom of speech loses.
The Irony is sick. If anything CAIR said in this article was true, then they would not have felt the need to have these adds pulled. They would instead say, ‘Yes, there are some people who misinterpret Islam based on tribal rules and those people should have a place to go or call if such a threat is issued’. What are the chances of hearing that from CAIR?
No, they out and out lied about Islam while simultaneously proving the truth of these adds. If you want to even talk about leaving Islam, large, well funded and influential groups will stop you.
Miami-Dade Transit to remove `offensive’ Islamic bus ads
BY JAWEED KALEEM
jk*****@*********ld.com
Miami-Dade Transit is pulling advertisements from 10 buses that South Florida Muslims have said are offensive to Islam.
The ads, which went up Tuesday, said “Fatwa on your head? Is your community or family threatening you?” and directed Muslims to a website encouraging them to leave Islam.
Robert Spencer, associate director of New York-based Stop the Islamization of America, which purchased the ads for one-month as the first leg of a national campaign, said they were “offered in defense of religious liberty.”
But on Thursday, Miami-Dade Transit spokeswoman Karla Damian said that after reviewing the ads, the department decided they “may be offensive to Islam” and would remove them before the buses ran on Friday.
Damian said the ads were able to initially go up because Miami-Dade Transit has an outside company sell ad space and does not routinely review ads before they run.
The South Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations had critiqued the ads as promoting “bigotry” and making false statements about Islam.
“Islam guarantees freedom to and freedom from religion. . . . [We] reject as un-Islamic any extremist interpretation that sanctions the killing of any individual because she decided to `leave Islam,” said director Muhammed Malik.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/16/1581903/miami-dade-transit-says-it-will.html#ixzz0lR67eaHv
Canadian takes on Islamist movement
By Salim Mansur, QMI Agency from The Edmonton Sun
Point de bascule, or the tipping point, is a Montreal-based French language webmagazine. It is dedicated to explore and expose Islamist activities in our midst, particularly in Quebec.
Point de bascule is the creation of Marc Lebuis, a remarkable French-Canadian with a passionate interest in global affairs and adeep concern about the dangers of Islamism to his country.
Last Thursday, Point de bascule held a press conference open to the mainstream media and public to discuss the latest lecture tour of Tariq Ramadan in Montreal and Ottawa sponsored by Islamist organizations, such as the various chapters of the Muslim Association of Canada, for fundraising purposes.
In making full disclosure here, I was invited by Marc Lebuis to join four other individuals in exploring the ramifications for us of the transnational political movement that Tariq Ramadan represents, and how Quebec is exceedingly vulnerable in the systematic penetration of Canada by Islamists.
Joining me were Tarek Fatah, the well-known author and journalist from Toronto, and Ariless Bouktit, a Canadian of Algerian origin. By webcast Zuhdi Jasser from the U.S. and Naser Khader from Denmark joined us in Montreal.
Retired officer
Jasser is of Syrian-Arab origin and a retired officer from the U.S. Navy practising medicine in Arizona. Khader is also of Syrian-Arab origin and a member of the Danish parliament. All five of us are of Muslim faith.
Tariq Ramadan is the grandson of Hasan al-Banna (1906-49), the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. MB is the oldest and most powerful Islamist organization in the Arab world with deep pockets — resources donated by followers and petrodollar rulers in the Middle East. Continue Reading →
Canadian Islamic Congress’ regional director slams Quebec’s niqab ban as ‘inflammatory’ to Muslims
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 →
Canada: Court hears of ‘jihadi flavour’ at terror training bootcamp
From The National Post
‘Jihadi flavour’ at boot camp, witness says
Simulating Combat; Trainees told to target ‘infidels,’ court hears
Megan O’Toole, National Post Published: Wednesday, April 14, 2010
A key Crown witness said he felt as though he had entered the mind of an “ideal jihadi” during accused terrorist Fahim Ahmad’s speech to potential recruits at a training camp north of Toronto.
During the speech, Mr. Ahmad urged participants to overcome individual obstacles, adhere to a common goal and learn how to deceive the public about the group’s true intentions.
“It was like living in the mind of an ideal jihadi who does everything right all the time,” witness Mubin Shaikh testified yesterday. Continue Reading →
Quebec says No to Sharia; ‘Aisha’ recent niqabi tossed from class.
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. 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 →
CBC interviews Nick Bergamini on being attacked in Ottawa
Incident with Qatar diplomat likely not shoe bomb: U.S. official
So readers, what do you think will happen? I think this guy won’t even need to claim diplomatic immunity. All he will needs to say is he was merely responding to “Islamaphobic” attitude from the flight crew and that will be it.
National Post… A United Airlines domestic flight landed safely in Denver Wednesday after a disturbance on board by a passenger, but officials said the incident did not appear to be a serious security threat.
“It looks like the individual in question was perhaps smoking in the lavatory and might have made an unfortunate remark” once confronted by airline personnel, a U.S. official said.
United Flight 663, which originated from Washington’s Reagan National Airport, arrived at about 9 p.m. EDT after two F-16 fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the Boeing 757 aircraft, according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command which is responsible for safeguarding U.S. airspace.
ABC News, citing federal law enforcement officials, had reported earlier that U.S. air marshals subdued a Qatari man who authorities say tried to “light his shoes on fire” on the flight.
CNN said the man identified as a mid-level Qatari diplomat, when asked why he was in the toilet so long, “said something about lighting his shoe on fire.”
The plane was surrounded by security vehicles at Denver International Airport.
“Law enforcement and TSA have responded to the scene and the passenger is currently in custody,” the Transportation Security Administration said in a statement. “All steps are being taken to ensure the safety of the traveling public.”
There were 157 passengers aboard the plane and six crew members, according to United.
The latest aviation scare came amid heightened worries about attempts to attack the United States.
U.S. authorities have been on heightened alert after a Nigerian man, who had ties to an al Qaeda-affiliated group, tried to explode a bomb hidden in his underwear on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day last year.
In December 2001, Richard Reid, a self-admitted member of al Qaeda, was subdued on an trans-Atlantic flight diverted to Boston after attempting to detonate explosives hidden in his shoes.
Reid pleaded guilty to eight counts related to terrorism and was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
Some interesting links between Islamic terrorism and U.S. politics
‘Shoe bomb’ attempt on US plane
BBC… A man has been detained after he tried to set fire to his shoes on a US flight, reports say.
The man was subdued on United flight 663 from Washington Reagan airport to Denver, ABC news reported.
While the presence of explosives has not been confirmed, reports are referring to the incident as a “shoe bomb attempt”.
AN ABC report identified the suspect as a Qatari diplomat stationed at the country’s Washington embassy.