“The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.” -Marcus Aurelius
21:09 05 MAR 2011
(AGI) Rawalpindi – AsiaNews report the killing, in Rawalpindi’s town of Dananda, of a man previously acquitted of blasphemy charges. The man, identified as Mohammad Imran, was charged with blasphemy in April 2009, but subsequently released due to lack of evidence. The charges related to his having insulted the Prophet during a conversation with another person inside a cafe’. Imran was shot to death today. . .
The sister of Federal Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, Nomi, after Pakistan’s only Christian cabinet-level official was assassinated. (Photo: Online Photo)
Suspected Islamic extremists from Pakistan’s Taliban and al Qaeda reportedly left a letter at the scene saying those who try to change Pakistan’s blasphemy laws would be killed. The murder comes two months after Punjab Gov. Salman Taseer was killed by his bodyguard for supporting Asia Noreen (also known as Asia Bibi), the first Christian woman sentenced to death in Pakistan on blasphemy charges. Continue Reading →
GEERT WILDERS SEEN CLAPPING IN APPROVAL
Kudos! The pendulum is shifting in the other direction as more lawmakers are seeing the logic of Geert Wilders’ argumentation, who by the way has an excellent op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal that mentions Elisabeth’s case.
H/T: Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff
Monday, February 21, 2011
Islamophobiawatch: Christian Union Senator Roel Kuiper wants to amend the Dutch constitution to include a ban on Sharia, Islamic law. Senator Kuiper made his statement in an interview with newspaper Trouw.
The Christian Union politician wants to ban Islamic law because it is “not rooted in principles which form part of Dutch culture. Our rights, the way we treat each other, our norms of good and evil have all been molded by Christianity.”
Mr Kuiper argues that Islamic law is still grounded in retaliation, while the laws of a democratic constitutional state are geared toward forgiveness, correction and reconciliation. “Our laws are not based on ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’. Our legal system applies the law, but knows reconciliation must follow.” Senator Kuiper also wants to regulate the flow of money from Arab countries to Dutch mosques. The Christian Union politician says these measures are necessary “to take the Islam debate in the Netherlands a step forward”.
Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders has enthusiastically welcomed Senator Kuiper’s proposal. “Sharia is based on the Qur’an. So this means an end to head scarves, halal food, the Qur’an etc.”
Hundreds of Coptic Christians protested in front of the State Television building on Sunday to call for the amendment of Egypt’s Constitution to establish a secular state.
The march started in the mixed Coptic and Muslim neighborhood of Shubra–a northern suburb of Cairo–with chants of “Civil! Civil!” and “The people want to change the constitution.”
The protest reflects the rising fears of the Coptic community since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, who maintained a relatively secular type of governance.
Copts account for nearly 10 percent of Egypt’s population of over 80 million and constitutes the Middle East’s largest Christian community. They have complained about frequent discrimination and sectarian attacks, and allege that they are overlooked for top jobs in the army, police and certain high ranking administrative posts.
In the past 14 months, the minority has been hit by two deadly attacks. Six Copts were killed in a drive-by shooting while leaving late night mass on Coptic Christmas Eve in the Upper Egyptian city of Naga Hammadi in 2010. At the beginning of 2011, at least 23 worshippers were killed in a New Year’s Eve church bombing in Alexandria.
On Saturday the first Islamist political party was formed in the country when a court approved the establishment of the Wasat party (Center party), founded in 1996 by a faction that broke away from the Muslim Brotherhood.
Meanwhile, the committee appointed by the army to amend certain articles of the Constitution includes a Brotherhood-affiliated lawyer, and a Coptic rights group has argued that Christians are under-represented on it.
“Millions of Copts object to the committee formed by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces,” Nagib Gibrail, head of the Egyptian Union for Human Rights, said in a statement.
“I came here from Shubra to ask what’s going on. The army is flirting with Islamists at our expense,” said Mary Maqar, a demonstrator.
Along with around 2000 other protestors, Maqar chanted “Oh Belal, oh Buros, tell the people that the revolution is a cross and crescent!”
They carried pictures of Christians killed during the 18 days of the pro-democracy protests by the police or thugs allegedly affiliated with the then-ruling National Democratic Party.
“We sacrificed our souls for the sake of Egypt, and our aim was a civil state not a religious one. I came here to ask for equality, the Constitution has to be changed and article 2 removed,” said another participant, Janeete Fawzy. Article 2 reads “Islam is the religion of the state. Arabic is its official language, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic jurisprudence (Sharia).”
“It is our absolute right to come and express our views against article 2. This provision is the source of discrimination in Egypt. You simply can’t impose your religion on others,” argued Loqqa Wagdy, a university student.
Exactly why are good Canadian men and women fighting, being horribly injured and being killed for this government in Afghanistan please?
The story below is wrong in oh so many ways. But I am sniffing up the trail of one, as I understand it, much much worse than this even and of much more immediate concern to Canadians. Meanwhile, this from the Daily Mail:
One-legged Afghan Red Cross worker set to be hanged after converting to Christianity
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 12:03 AM on 7th February 2011An Afghan physiotherapist will be executed within three days for converting to Christianity.
Said Musa, 45, has been held for eight months in a Kabul prison were he claims he has been tortured and sexually abused by inmates and guards.
Mr Musa, who lost his left leg in a landmine explosion in the 1990s, has worked for the Red Cross for 15 years and helps to treat fellow amputees.
Execution: Christians pray during a mass at a church in Kabul (file picture). Said Musa is facing execution unless he converts back to Islam
He was arrested in May last year as he attempted to seek asylum at the German embassy following a crackdown on Christians within Afghanistan.
He claims he was visited by a judge who told him he would be hanged within days unless he converted back to Islam.
But he remains defiant and said he would be willing to die for his faith.
He told the Sunday Times: ‘My body is theirs to do what they want with.
‘Only God can decide if my spirit goes to hell.’
Defence lawyers have refused to represent him, while others have dropped the case after receiving death threats.
Mr Musa was arrested after a TV station showed western men baptising Afghans during secret ceremonies.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1354246/One-legged-Afghan-Red-Cross-worker-hanged-converting-Christianity.html#ixzz1EBcvROFX
The red cross, abandoning its own employee because he is Christian in Afghanistan. Where is the moral high ground now Red Cross? The time for Canada to stop wasting one more penny or drop of blood in that Taliban Vs. Kharazai, Tweedle Dee Vs. Tweedle Dumb nightmare may be here. I suggest it might be more prudent to defend ourselves from this ideology from infecting us rather than fight to preserve it half way around the world. The barbarians are no longer at the gates. They are building prayer rooms in our schools. And we are paying for them.
Eeyore.
Today, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a young Viennese mother, was convicted under section 283 of the Austrian penal code of vilifying religious teachings for her negative commentary on Islam in a lecture before a political-party gathering in Vienna; she was fined 480 Euros. Sabaditsch-Wolff, a diplomat’s daughter, had lived and worked for several years in various Middle Eastern Muslim countries, and at the lecture in question spoke critically of the treatment of women and the practice of jihad in Iran, Libya, and other places that she had lived in. The court found that Austria’s free-speech guarantees protected her from hate-speech charges.
Anyone want to guess how many of his fellow Muslims and Imams Canada are seething? KGS
The school division is facing the music in a typically Canadian way – that is, bending itself into a trombone to try to accommodate these demands, even though in Manitoba, and indeed the rest of the country, music and phys. ed are compulsory parts of the curriculum.
Officials say they may try to have the Muslim children do a writing project on music to satisfy the curriculum’s requirements. The school officials have apparently consulted the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, and they have also spoken to a member of the Islamic community suggested by those very same Muslim parents.
In any event, the school district is trying to find a way to adapt the curriculum to fit the wishes of these families, rather than these families adapting to fit into the school and Canadian culture.
Mahfooz Kanwar, a member of the Muslim Canadian Congress, says he has some better ideas.
“I’d tell them, this is Canada, and in Canada, we teach music and physical education in our schools. If you don’t like it, leave. If you want to live under sharia law, go back to the hellhole country you came from or go to another hellhole country that lives under sharia law,” said Kanwar, who is a professor emeritus of sociology at Mount Royal University in Calgary.
That might be putting things a little more forcefully than most of us would be comfortable with, but Kanwar says he is tired of hearing about such out-of-tune demands from newcomers to our country. “Immigrants to Canada should adjust to Canada, not the other way around,” he argues.
H/T: ZIP
From The National Post
A Conservative MP introduced a private member’s bill on Friday that would require Canadians to show their faces before they vote.
Laura Stone, Postmedia News · Friday, Feb. 11, 2011
OTTAWA — A Conservative MP introduced a private member’s bill on Friday that would require Canadians to show their faces before they vote.
Steven Blaney, who represents the Quebec riding of Levis-Bellechasse, said the bill would fix a “gap”in the electoral system and is not meant to discriminate against Muslims.
“For me it is important that we all share this transparency,”said Blaney. “We are all proud to live in this country, we are all proud to share (its) basic principles. I think one of these basic principles is transparency through our election and democratic process, so that’s why I’m presenting this bill and it is applying to everybody and treating everybody in the same way,” he said.
Blaney steered clear of mentioning Islamic head coverings such as burkas or niqabs in his press conference to introduce the bill, instead drawing on examples such as Halloween and ski masks that he said Canadians have donned while attempting to vote.
He also said that while citizens are still allowed to vote by mail, his bill only addresses the process of voting at an election booth. The bill includes an exception for medical reasons.
Elections Canada has an “administrative procedure”in place for validating identities when faces are covered, said spokesman John Enright.
The voter can remove the face-covering in private, or swear an oath of eligibility certifying that they are qualified electors as well as providing two pieces of identification. Anyone who refuses to remove the covering or say the oath will not be permitted to vote, said Enright.
In 2007, both the Conservative federal government and the Quebec government announced they would introduce legislation to ban veiled voting after Elections Canada ruled Muslim women could vote with their faces covered during Quebec byelections. Ottawa passed a law that year which required voters to produce identification, although not necessarily containing a photo if two pieces of ID bearing the voter’s address were presented.
The Quebec government adopted in 2007 the law to compel all voters to uncover their faces. The Conservatives dropped their plans in 2009 amid opposition dissent, although the Liberals and Bloc Quebecois originally supported the decision.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said he disagrees with the Elections Canada procedure outlined by Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand.
According to Elections Canada, there has not been a single instance of an individual attempting to vote with their face covered since 2007.
Postmedia News
All this of course in the best example of the moderate Muslim country of Indonesia. For more on this story please click here:
Java, 1500 Muslim extremists attack an Ahmadi family: three dead, cars and houses in flames
by Mathias Hariyadi
Moderate Muslims and members of civil society condemn sectarian violence. Controversy around President Yudhoyono and the executive, unable to ensure security and protection of minorities. Muslim scholar: strike those who “use violence and manipulate Islam for political ends.”
Jakarta (AsiaNews) – Members of civil society, religious leaders and personalities from the moderate Islamic world strongly condemn the attack that took place yesterday against the Ahmadi community in Indonesia, which has caused death and devastation. The controversy has also embroiled President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the executive, unable to guarantee the safety of all citizens and freedom of worship in the country. The head of state warned that the violence against minorities “in the name of religion” must be stopped, despite his appeal, there is increasing lack of confidence in his abilities.
The latest in a long streak of blood against the Ahmadi community – a victim of violence in other Muslim-majority nations such as Pakistan – took place yesterday morning. A crowd of at least 1500 Muslim extremists attacked the house of a family in the village of Umbulan, in the Cikeusik sub-district, Pandeglang regency (Banten province on the island of Java), torturing the occupants. The toll of the assault is three dead, several injured people, two cars and a house burned.
The episode has raised controversy and fuelled the political confrontation that, in recent weeks, has involved the Indonesian president, unable to guarantee security and the right to religious freedom. Daniel Sparingga, a spokesman for Yudhoyono, revealed that an order has been issued by the President to the Chief of Police, calling for an end to violence. “Enough is enough – said the head of state – violence and attacks against any minority, made in the name of religion, must be stopped.”
However, members of civil society and moderate Muslim leaders – condemning the attack – have denounced the lack of interest shown to date by Yudhoyono, unable to curb sectarian violence. Ulul Huda, a Muslim scholar from Central Java, confirmed to AsiaNews, “the inertia of the government,” adding that “the Ahmadis in the past have contributed to the struggle for independence in Indonesia. Speaking of the attackers, the scholar labels them “extremists” who “use violence and manipulate Islam for political ends.”
The Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the leading moderate Muslim organization in the country has also condemned the attack on the Ahmadiyya community, along with Setara and the Wahid Institute. Professor Azyumardi Azra, from the State Islamic University in South Jakarta , explains to AsiaNews that “violence in the name of religion against certain groups, including the Ahmadis or any other, can not and should not be tolerated.”
The Ahmadi sect is considered heretical because it does not recognize Muhammad as the last prophet. It is the victim of attacks in Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and many other countries where Islam is the most prevalent religion. According to preliminary reports, the mob’s anger was unleashed by rumours of an alleged “invasion” of the village of Umbulan by dozens of Ahmadi. In fact, some non-native Ahmadis came to the village to solve a problem related to residence permits. A Filipino woman, the wife of an Ahmadi faithful has started procedures to regularize the situation with the immigration office.
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Do not go see the video unless it has been some time since you have eaten, and are not planning to go to sleep anytime soon. Continue Reading →
Not content to allow his previous trial to end with anything other than a guilty verdict, the Dutch Crown attourney’s office insisted on re-trying him for the same crime. Something to do with offending Muslims.
Below is the speech given by Geert Wilders on the opening day of his new trial on “hate speech” charges in Amsterdam. Many thanks to Vlaamse Leeuw for the translation:
The lights are going out all over Europe. All over the continent where our culture flourished and where man created freedom, prosperity and civilization. The foundation of the West is under attack everywhere.
All over Europe the elites are acting as the protectors of an ideology that has been bent on destroying us since the fourteenth century. An ideology that has sprung from the desert and that can produce only deserts because it does not give people freedom. The Islamic Mozart, the Islamic Gerard Reve [a Dutch author], the Islamic Bill Gates; they do not exist because without freedom there is no creativity. The ideology of Islam is especially noted for killing and oppression and can only produce societies that are backward and impoverished. Surprisingly, the elites do not want to hear any criticism of this ideology.
My trial is not an isolated incident. Only fools believe it is. All over Europe multicultural elites are waging total war against their populations. Their goal is to continue the strategy of mass immigration, which will ultimately result in an Islamic Europe — a Europe without freedom: Eurabia.
The lights are going out all over Europe. Anyone who thinks or speaks individually is at risk. Freedom-loving citizens who criticize Islam, or even merely suggest that there is a relationship between Islam and crime or honour killing, must suffer, and are threatened or criminalized. Those who speak the truth are in danger.
The lights are going out allover Europe. Everywhere the Orwellian thought police are at work, on the lookout for thought crimes everywhere, casting the populace back within the confines where it is allowed to think.
This trial is not about me. It is about something much greater. Freedom of speech is not the property of those who happen to belong to the elites of a country. It is an inalienable right, the birthright of our people. For centuries battles have been fought for it, and now it is being sacrificed to please a totalitarian ideology.
Future generations will look back at this trial and wonder who was right. Who defended freedom and who wanted to get rid of it.
The lights are going out all over Europe. Our freedom is being restricted everywhere, so I repeat what I said here last year:
It is not only the privilege, but also the duty of free people — and hence also my duty as a member of the Dutch Parliament — to speak out against any ideology that threatens freedom. Hence it is a right and a duty to speak the truth about the evil ideology that is called Islam. I hope that freedom of speech will emerge triumphant from this trial. I hope not only that I shall be acquitted, but especially that freedom of speech will continue to exist in the Netherlands and in Europe.
From The Ottawa Citizen
By Nick Martin, Winnipeg Freepress
February 5, 2011
The school division has alerted Education Minister Nancy Allen about the situation because music and phys-ed are compulsory in the province’s elementary schools. Photograph by Max Whittaker/The New York Times XX
WINNIPEG — A dozen Muslim families who recently arrived in Canada have told Winnipeg’s Louis Riel School Division that they want their children excused from compulsory elementary school music and coed physical education programs for religious and cultural reasons.
“This is one of our realities in Manitoba now, as a result of immigration,” said superintendent Terry Borys. “We were faced with some families who were really adamant about this. Music was not part of the cultural reality.”
Borys said the school division has alerted Education Minister Nancy Allan about the situation since music and phys-ed are compulsory in the province’s elementary schools.
There have been no issues so far with children of middle-school or high-school age, he said.
The families accept physical education, as long as the boys and girls have separate classes, but do not want their children exposed to singing or the playing musical instruments, Borys said. The division has suggested they could instead do a writing project to satisfy the music requirements of the arts curriculum.
However, a local Muslim leader says there is no reason for young kids to be held out of music or phys-ed classes based on religious and cultural grounds.
“Who is advising them? My first concern would be who are these new immigrants talking to?” said Shahina Siddiqui, executive director of the Islamic Social Services. “This is the first time I am hearing this; I’m not very happy about it.”
Siddiqui said there is no problem with elementary-school children taking coed phys-ed, at least “not with little kids under the age of puberty.”
She said when some middle-school and high-school students have asked not to mix genders, they have been accommodated by schools.
Siddiqui acknowledged that music can be an issue — but only for a few people.
“Music is controversial in our community; this is a North American phenomenon,” she said. “There is a minority view that music is forbidden. (That view) is not accepted by the majority.”
Borys said that there had been one or two requests for kids to be excused previously, but this year a dozen families came forward at six schools.
Borys said that school division contacted a member of the Islamic community whom the parents suggested, consulted the Manitoba Human Rights Commission and looked at what other jurisdictions are doing about accommodation, particularly Ontario.
The division is trying to figure out what issues might arise when the children enter junior high or high school, he said.
Music is optional beyond Grade 6, but phys-ed is coed right through Grade 12.
© Copyright (c) Winnipeg Free Press
Egyptians reject radical Islamists, but want Islam to play a large role in politics and think democracy is the best political system, according to poll data collected in Muslim countries last year. The sample group of 1,000 was surveyed in face-to-face interviews in April and May of last year for the U.S.-based Pew Research Center. These results give an idea of Egyptian public opinion before the current protests there broke out.-
Democracy
59%: Say democracy is preferable to any other form of government.
22%: Say a non-democratic system can be preferable in certain circumstances
Islam in politics
95%: Say it’s good that Islam plays a large role in politics
85%: Say Islam’s influence on politics is good
48%: Say Islam currently play a large role in Egyptian politics
Islamist extremism
80%: Think suicide bombings are never or rarely justified.
20%: Think suicide bombings are sometimes or often justified
70%: Are concerned or very concerned about Islamist extremism in the world
61%: Are concerned or very concerned about Islamist extremism in the Egypt
Traditional Muslim practices
54%: Believe men and women should be segregated in the workplace
82%: Believe adulterers should be stoned
84%: Believe apostates from Islam should face the death penalty
77%: Believe thieves should be flogged or have their hands cut off
I for one am very proud of this young man for managing a disingenuous hostile interviewer who’s intention was sabotage and not the dissemination of information. Tommy also showed how class plays into attitudes in England (for beter or worse) today as always. People who live in towns and cities like Tommy’s, they see the problem of massive destruction of local culture and history a lot differently than the well insulated upper classes.
Congratulations Tommy Robinson. You have won my admiration. Again.
Eeyore for Vlad.
The Full Segment:
Last updated at 10:03 PM on 24th February 2009
He cut a smart figure in his grey suit and crisply ironed shirt. The 6ft tall Somalian bowed to the judge, calling him ‘Sir’, before begging for his wife, Fatima, and their teenage son to be allowed to stay in Britain.
Fatima, with a black khimar veil covering her hair and shoulders, sat quietly next to her husband.
In her late 30s and wearing open sandals, she lowered her dark eyes as the details of the unconventional life she and her husband, Abdi, led in the West London suburb of Shepherd’s Bush unfolded at a busy immigration court.
Multiple marriages in Britain were first declared illegal in 1604
The judge listened in silence. Perhaps he knew from past experience what was coming next. Abdi went on to reveal that Fatima was not his only wife.
Indeed, he was a self-confessed bigamist who had a second, much younger wife and a 13-year-old daughter by her. They both lived nearby.
‘I visit them regularly,’ said Abdi, 51, who arrived in Britain in the 1990s and works in an old people’s home. ‘I have done nothing wrong. In Somalia, it is normal to have two wives – even three or four. Fatima is still my wife and she should not be deported.’
He was unable to produce wedding certificates or valid official documents to prove where, or when, he had married both women, therefore raising questions over the validity of the unions, under either Somali or British law.
Yet his story, unravelling at an ordinary weekday hearing at Taylor House, an asylum appeals’ centre in North London, is just one example of the growing phenomenon of multiple marriage in Britain.
Officially, such unions are punishable by up to seven years in prison. They were first declared illegal in England and Wales in 1604, when the Parliament of James I took action to restrain ‘evil persons’ marrying more than one wife. Parliament ruled that anyone found guilty of the crime would be sentenced to death.
In the four centuries since, bigamy (having two wives) and polygamy (more than two) has been frowned on by the state, the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church.
Yet it is clear that officialdom is turning a blind eye to such marriages.
A recent review by four Government departments – the Treasury, the Work and Pensions Department, the Inland Revenue and the Home Office – has concluded that 1,000 men in the United Kingdom are now polygamists, although some say the figure is higher.
Baroness Warsi has warned that politicians have failed to tackle the problem of polygamy because of ‘cultural sensitivity’
What is more, the review found, a Muslim man can claim state support of more than £10,000 a year to keep his wives, if the wedding took place in one of those countries where polygamy is commonplace, such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia and across huge tracts of Africa.
For example, a man can receive &£92.80 a week in income support for wife number one, and a further £33.65p for each of his subsequent spouses. Continue Reading →
