 By Geert Wilders | 30 April, Freedom of expression is under attack. This is a theme I am addressing here in America this week as part of the Free Speech Summit being held in Florida under the sponsorship of the Florida Security Council. And it is clear that a serious discussion of the threats to our freedoms in the West cannot come too soon. - For example, my friend Rep. Adam Hasner, the majority leader of the Florida House of Representatives was attacked in a press release issued by the national office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Monday for daring to appear at a private event with me this past weekend. Because of that appearance, CAIR is demanding that Rep. Hasner step down or be removed from his position.
This attack on a friend and fellow legislator is of grave concern to me. CAIR’s assault on Rep. Hasner strikes at the very heart of our most basic freedoms. In fact, it is but the latest episode in that organization’s long-running and determined effort to silence its critics. Indeed, CAIR seeks to suppress all those who dare to challenge the theo-political-legal program that authoritative Islam calls “Shariah.” In so doing, they are seeking to impose what amount to Shariah blasphemy codes. It is especially important to note that Adam Hasner is not only being attacked for comments he made that are deemed offensive by those who seek to impose Shariah in America. His career is now being threatened for comments made by others in his presence – in this case, by me. Thus the Islamists are infringing not only on this country’s constitutionally protected freedom of expression but also freedom of association. Read more.... Source: Islam Watch Geert Wilders
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
 HUMAN RIGHTS LEADERS TO HOLD MASS RALLY IN NEW YORK CITY ON SUNDAY
DIVERSE COALITION WILL CALL FOR DEFEAT OF RADICAL ISLAM; WILL HONOR U.S. DEFENDERS AGAINST ISLAMIST TERROR, 911 FAMILIES AND FIRST RESPONDERS
New York, New York, April 29, 2009 -- Times Square in Manhattan will be the site of a mass gathering of human rights leaders and organizations this coming Sunday, May 3rd, at noon. The gathering will call for defeat of radical Islam and heighten awareness about the danger radical Islam poses to human rights across the globe.
The "Rally for Human Rights and Freedom," will be attended by Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim leaders and organizations. Sponsored by the Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam (HRCARI) and dozens of other partner organizations, the event will feature a special ceremony to honor the US Military, Homeland Security, police, firefighters, emergency workers and others who have defended the United States from terror. Peter Gadiel of the 9/11 Families.who lost his son on 9/11 will be present, as will a retired NYC police officer who lost his son-in-law on 9/11.
The May 3rd event will mark the kick-off event for a new grassroots global action network that is taking on the fight against Radical Islam. A HRCARI spokesperson notes, “As part of this initiative, we intend to educate elected officials to helps prevent the spread of Shariah Islamic law. We will work to publicize the threat of Radical Islamic terrorist groups and their allies, and endeavor to protect the right to freedom of religion, and freedom of speech in the face of those who seek to silence advocates of human rights against the threat of Radical Islam.”
HRCARI believes that Radical Islam is a worldwide threat against commonly accepted human rights and is the most urgent topic of our generation.
The HRCARI rally coalition (still in formation) includes the 911 Families, ACT Manhattan, Aish Center, Americans for a Safe Israel, Alliance for Interfaith Resistance, AMCHA-Coalition for Jewish Concerns, Americans for Peace & Tolerance, American Center for Democracy, Arabs for Israel, Atlas Shrugs, Chinese Community Relations Council, The David Project, Fordham University School of Law's National Security and Law Society, Foundation Nepalese, Gathering of Eagles-NY, Hindu Human Rights Watch, Indian American Intellectuals Forum International Foundation of Bangladeshi Hindus, Iraq Model, Israpundit, Jewish Action Alliance, Mothers Against Terrorism, Muslims Against Sharia, Namdari Sikh Foundation, R.E.A.L Courage, Sikh Recognition Trust, Snapped Shot, StandWithUS, Sudan Freedom Walk, Women United: Code Red, Zionist Organization of America. Source: The Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam H/T: Ted Belman
Jihadists are about to be freed and transplanted to American towns — maybe even yours.By David J. Rusin Scan any list of the most tasteless television series ever produced and you are bound to stumble across the 1990 British sitcom Heil Honey I’m Home! A spoof of 1950s-era comedies, the show depicts Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun enjoying a life of suburban bliss — until they begin tangling with their Jewish neighbors. Public outrage condemned it to the ash heap after just one episode. What premise could spark a similar firestorm in 2009? Perhaps some crass young screenwriter drawing inspiration from his forebears might propose a series about Islamic jihadists, freshly released from a high-security American jail, who move to suburbia and find themselves face to face with Jews or liberated women — or, Allah forbid, liberated Jewish women — in the house next door. Oh, the zany adventures they could have on Heil Honey I’m Home (from Gitmo)! Read more ... Source: Pajamas MediaObama Administration
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
A gang of 28 Muslims known as 'the barbarians' go on trial today accused of the 24-day torture and murder of a young Jewish man that appalled France due to its brutality and apparent anti-Semitism.By Henry Samuel in Paris | 28 April Ilan Halimi: The 23-year-old was in a state of shock and unable to talk, his body covered with burns, cuts and bruises, and he died en route to hospital. Ilan Halimi was lured into a honey trap, kidnapped and tortured for three weeks, before being found naked and handcuffed to a tree near a railway track in February 2006. The 23-year-old was in a state of shock and unable to talk, his body covered with burns, cuts and bruises, and he died en route to hospital. The alleged gang leader, Youssouf Fofana, and 26 others are to answer various charges during the trial, which will be held behind closed doors before a Paris juvenile court because two defendants were minors at the time of the crime. Prosecutors describe Mr Fofana, 28, as a "perverted megalomaniac" bent on kidnapping Jews for ransom "because they are loaded with dough" and "stick together". He escaped to the Ivory Coast shortly after the murder but was arrested and extradited to France. Also known as "Ossama" and "Mohammed", Mr Fofana initially admitted to the murder but has since changed his story several times, often lapsing into unintelligible anti-Semitic rants. He has switched lawyers almost 40 times and has already served a one-year jail sentence for insulting officers and a judge. The French-born son of Ivorian immigrants is the only defendant facing a life sentence, while 15 others are facing charges of kidnapping and sequestering. As the gang's alleged ringleader, he is accused of stabbing Mr Halimi and dousing his body with rubbing alcohol before setting him alight because the victim "looked at him in the eyes" before he was let go. Several other defendants are friends and family members of the gang, who come from the Paris suburbs and who are being prosecuted for having failed to report an offence. Mr Halimi went missing on January 20, 2006 while on a date with a 17-year old girl he had met at the mobile phone store where he worked near République, central Paris. It is alleged the girl turned out to be an accomplice of Mr Fofana and part of a well-prepared plot to lure him to a basement of a building in a Paris suburb. There, he was attacked, subdued with ether, handcuffed and his feet and mouth bound with tape. He was moved to an empty apartment in the Paris suburb of Bagneux. Mr Fofana demanded 450,000 euros from his family. Photographs showing the hostage blindfolded and gaunt, and an audio message of the hostage pleading for his life were released by his captors. A videotaped plea was also sent to the captive's parents. When no ransom was forthcoming, Mr Fofana's accomplices turned against the gang leader, arguing the kidnapping had gone far enough, say prosecutors. On February 13, Mr Fofana told them he planned to release Mr Halimi, who was loaded into the trunk of a stolen car. Three hours later, a train driver spotted his nude body next to the railroad tracks and alerted police. He died on the way to hospital. The then president, Jacques Chirac, met the parents and promised to bring the culprits to justice. The victim's mother has accused police of having botched the investigation by ruling out anti-Semitism as a factor in the crime. "If Ilan wasn't Jewish, he wouldn't have been killed," she claimed. Ruth Halimi is expected to urge the court to open the hearings to the public today to provide a full accounting of her son's death. But Michel Wieviorka, the author of a book on anti-Semitism in France, said: "The motive was money first and anti-Semitism was an additional factor. But at the outset, it was not aimed at expressing hatred toward Jews." Prosecutors believe the gang had used women to lure nine other men in the kidnapping scheme but that these attempts failed. The "Barbarians" also tried to racketeer several doctors and company bosses. All deny murder. Source: Telegraph UK
H/T GH
 That Rudd questions the viability of the Pakistani state should alert Australians to the perfect storm of trouble in Pakistan today. It is the worst and most dangerous security situation in the world, albeit with strong competition from Iran and with North Korea putting in a serious effort. Don't think I'm being alarmist. Last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Congress that the security situation in Pakistan "poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world". She added: "The Pakistani Government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists ... we cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan." Bear in mind that Pakistan is a nation of 170 million people and possesses 75 to 100 nuclear weapons. The Pakistani state is under assault from the Pakistani Taliban, allied with the Afghan Taliban and with al-Qa'ida. It is also under assault from other Islamist and terrorist groups, many of which it originally created or funded (just as it was involved in the founding of the Afghan Taliban) in order to harass India. In the past few days the Pakistani military has hit back at the Taliban who had taken control of the Swat Valley and moved to within 80km of the capital, Islamabad. This is not entirely removed from a situation of civil war. The fighting has been pretty indiscriminate and 30,000 Pakistani civilians have fled their homes, many taking shelter in camps that once housed Afghan refugees. One of the finest analysts of South Asian security, Gopalaswamy Parthasarathy, a former Indian high commissioner to Pakistan, told me this week: "There is a serious concern about whether the Pakistani army is going to defend the state apparatus of Pakistan." More... Source: The Australian
 The US bond with Israel is "as unshakable as ever" as both nations pursue peace, US President Barack Obama said on Israel's 61st birthday.  Obama with then-opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, July 2008.
Photo: AP "On behalf of the people of the United States, President Obama congratulates the people and government of Israel on the 61st anniversary of Israel's independence," said the statement issued Tuesday by the White House. "The United States was the first country to recognize Israel in 1948, minutes after its declaration of independence, and the deep bonds of friendship between the US and Israel remain as strong and unshakable as ever. "The president looks forward to working with Israel to advance our common interests, including the realization of a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, ensuring Israel's security, and strengthening the bilateral relationship, over the months and years to come," the statement continued. Obama is scheduled to meet President Shimon Peres in Washington next week. Peres will be the first Israeli leader to be hosted by the new president, after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu pushed back his inaugural visit to Washington until mid-May. Source: Jerusalem Post H/T GH
 “The Admiral Panteleev (destroyer) captured Tuesday at 1412 GMT a boat carrying pirates. In total, 29 people were arrested,” the ministry said in a statement. “Seven Kalachnikov machine-guns, handguns of different calibres, equipment including satellite navigation devices and a large number of empty shells were discovered on board the boat,” the ministry said, adding that an investigation has been opened. These arrests would dwarf the numbers seized in other recent operations by international military forces patrolling the waters off the Gulf of Aden in the last year. The question of where any eventual trial for the 29 might take place will also come to the fore. Trials relating to a spiralling upsurge in pirate attacks in the region over the last year are largely being hosted by Kenya, following agreements with the European Union, the US and Britain. Eleven Somalis are currently awaiting trial in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa for piracy after their high-seas arrest by the French navy deny. But a Somali teenager captured by US forces in a high-seas drama is to stand trial in New York on piracy charges - the first in the US for a century - that could put him in jail for life. Despite international naval missions - including from NATO and the European Union - ransom-hunting Somalis have tackled ever-bigger and more distant prizes. Without an effective central government since 1991, Somali pirates are currently holding at least 16 ships and more than 250 seamen to ransom. According to the International Maritime Bureau, pirate attacks off the lawless Horn of Africa nation increased tenfold in the first three months of this year compared with the same period in 2008, jumping from six to 61.
 Having spent this morning catching up on my weekend reading, I came across this Page 4 article from Friday's New York Times. Here's the lead paragraph:
"BAGHDAD — At least 80 people died and 120 others were injured Thursday in three bombings, one by a female suicide bomber in Baghdad who, Iraqi officials said, held a young child’s hand as she set off her explosives among a group of women and children receiving emergency food aid." Even putting aside our baseline revulsion at terrorism, there are three especially hideous things that jump out from this: 1) A mother deliberately taking her (presumed) child with her as she immolates herself. For all the hundreds of suicide bombings that Iraq has already witnessed, this has got to be a first. 2) This was a line for food aid. Islamists have gone from attacking U.S. soldiers, to attacking Iraqi soldiers, to attacking police stations, to attacking the religious ceremonies of rival sects — on down the line of nihilism until, now, they are reduced to blowing up hungry people seeking sustenance. 3) This hideous crime was played on page four of The New York Times. And a quick scan of other media suggests it got similar B-rate treatment elsewhere. This sort of act would have been worth a worldwide banner headline a decade ago. But now, it's just another demented Islamist senselessly slaughtering fellow Muslims. With her kid. Yawn.
Says a lot about the world we live in, doesn't it? Source: National Post H/T: Gateway Pundit Female Homicide Bomber
Latest recipient of The Face of Evil Award
 Alan M. Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Last week I came face to face with evil, as I stood just a few feet away from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. We were both staying in the same hotel in Geneva. He was there to be the opening speaker at Durban II, a review and reprise of Durban I, the United Nations sponsored conference on racism that had turned into a racist hate fest against the Jewish people and the Jewish state. I was there - along with Elie Wiesel, Irwin Cotler and others who have devoted their lives to combating bigotry - to try to prevent a recurrence of Durban I. I first set eyes on Ahmadinejad when he walked into the hotel and waved in the general direction of where my wife and I were standing. We looked back contemptuously as my wife let out an audible hiss. He was about to be welcomed to Geneva by the Swiss President who made a special visit to the hotel in order to greet a man who denies the Holocaust while threatening another one, this time with nuclear weapons. When the Swiss President was widely criticized for his warm and uncritical embrace of one of the worlds most evil and dangerous tyrants, he offered two justifications. First, ... More »
By Emily Andrews
Row: Elaina Cohen, pictured in 2001, claims she was told she was 'too white and Jewish' to be selected as a Labour candidate in Birmingham The Labour Party has become embroiled in a race row after a prospective female councillor was allegedly told she was 'too white and Jewish' to be selected.
Elaina Cohen claims that Labour councillor Mahmood Hussain said he would not support her application for an inner-city ward because 'my Muslim members don't want you because you are Jewish'.
Mrs Cohen, 50, has made an official complaint about the alleged remarks made by Mr Hussain, a Muslim and former lord mayor of Birmingham.
She said: 'I am shocked and upset that a member of the Labour Party in this day and age could even think something like that, let alone say it.
'People should not be allowed to make racist comments like that. If someone in the party feels I cannot represent them because of my colour or religion, that's ridiculous.
'I felt particularly aggrieved because I have worked across all sections of the community, particularly with the Muslim section, and have been on official visits to Pakistan.'
Mrs Cohen had applied to stand as a Labour councillor for the Birmingham ward of East Handsworth and Lozells, which has a high Asian and Afro-Caribbean population.
As one of Labour's safest seats on Tory-led Birmingham city council, the final candidate would be almost certain of victory at the June 4 by-election.
But when Mrs Cohen telephoned 57-year-old Mr Hussain for his support, she was astonished to be told that she was too 'white and Jewish' to be considered.
Lorraine Briscoe, who runs a local community association, was sitting next to Mrs Cohen when the conversation took place on speakerphone last Tuesday.
'I was disgusted that a councillor could make comments like that in 2009,' she said.
'He told her, "They will not vote for someone who is white and Jewish. My Muslim members don't want you because you are Jewish".
'Elaina then asked him if he had talked to his Muslim members about it and he said, "I don't want to talk about it with you" and hung up.
'Elaina does a lot of good work in this community and she does not see race or religion, she just sees people.'
Two days after the alleged conversation, Mrs Cohen and another candidate were rejected by a pre-selection panel after failing to gain the support of the local party.
Instead, members were presented with one candidate, black South African Hendrina Quinnen, who was selected by an almost unanimous vote.
Mrs Cohen has now sent an official complaint to Labour Party general secretary Ray Collins and Birmingham city council accusing Mr Hussain of improper conduct. Mr Hussain said yesterday: 'I would not make those sort of comments. The allegations are not true.' Source: Daily Mail H/T: Jihadwatch
Residents said terrified people, mostly women and children, were continuing to flee the area with their belongings after Pakistan troops and helicopter gunships launched Operation Black Thunder to drive out the Taliban. One local charity said yesterday it had registered 2241 displaced families. "Up to 30,000 people have left Maidan in Lower Dir district over the past few days. "We are making arrangements for them in Peshawar, Nowshera and Timargarah districts," minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said. Mr Hussain said the Government remained "determined to fully implement the (operation) but some outsiders who do not want peace have infiltrated in Buner and Dir districts to sabotage the accord". Pakistan troops and helicopter gunships launched the offensive in Lower Dir, near the Taliban-held Swat valley, on Sunday, killing about 50 insurgents, officials said. The military said eight paramilitary soldiers had been killed. Heavy artillery shelling by the paramilitary Frontier Corps troops continued yesterday, a senior military officer said. "We destroyed several militants' hideouts in heavy artillery shelling of suspected bases in the area," the officer said. Following the military push into Dir, a district on the Afghanistan border, militants described their peace pact with the Government as "worthless". Pakistan agreed in February to impose Islamic law in the Taliban-held Swat valley and surrounding districts of the Malakand Division if militants ended a rebellion that included beheading opponents and burning schools for girls. However, the concession appeared to embolden the Taliban, which staged a foray last week into neighbouring Buner district, just 100km from the capital, Islamabad, reportedly patrolling other areas in the region as well. Losing Lower or Upper Dir would be a blow not only for Pakistan but for US efforts to shore up the faltering war effort against the Taliban in Afghanistan. US officials worry the pact could turn Swat into another haven for militants and encourage extremists to call for Islamic law in other areas of the country. Western allies have expressed frustration that Pakistan is focusing on arch-rival India, distracting the Government from dealing with extremist sanctuaries on the Afghan border. Afghan police clashed with Taliban fighters outside the capital, Kabul, leaving a dozen militants and an officer dead, while bomb blasts killed five more policemen, the Government said yesterday. The fresh violence was linked to the insurgency led by the Taliban, who are battling to wrest back power after being ousted from government by the 2001 US-led invasion. The militants were killed on Monday in a sweep to clear Taliban from Musayi district about 15km south of Kabul, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary. "The head of the district criminal investigation department was wounded and later died in hospital. "Twelve enemies were also killed," he said. Separately, a rocket landed inside an international military base on the outskirts of Kabul early yesterday, wounding three French soldiers, a French military spokesman said. Meanwhile, US officials yesterday denied claims from Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari that Osama bin Laden was dead. The officials said yesterday that the planner of the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington was most likely hiding in the mountains along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. "We continue to believe that bin Laden is alive," one US official said. Source: The Australian
 RIVAL Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah resumed talks in Cairo yesterday to negotiate a national unity government as hostilities between the two reached new lows. The first of four sessions ended without a breakthrough on the key questions of security, the Palestine Liberation Organisation and elections, said senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath. However, "the climate was positive", he said. "The issues are complex and we are taking an open approach towards them," said Hamas's senior Gaza leader, Mahmud Zahar, confirming that talks would continue overnight. "The dialogue is in its final phase," the state-run MENA news agency quoted a senior Egyptian official as saying. "Egypt has put forward proposals to bring the two sides together ... and will listen to their responses." A national unity government could then begin talks with Israel aimed at resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The meetings came two weeks after Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, accused Fatah, responsible for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, of attempting to assassinate one of its leaders. Egyptian officials have been trying since the end of the Gaza war in January to broker a peace deal. This is their third attempt and is seen by many observers as likely to be the last for some time if it fails. The key points of difference appear to be Hamas's refusal to recognise Israel's right to exist and renounce violence. Another major difference involves the role of the Palestinian police and security officers - many security personnel in the West Bank are trained by Jordan or the US, which Hamas says is unacceptable. The Cairo talks resumed as Israel's Foreign Ministry said recognition of Israel as a Jewish state was an essential condition for any resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. This followed comments last week by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that he did not see recognition of Israel as a Jewish state as a pre-condition for peace talks. Israeli president Shimon Peres warned yesterday that if Israel was drawn into another war it "will always win". "We do not want war, but if it is forced upon us ... we will always win. The fallen have left behind them a strong and assured country," he said. Source: The Australian
By Steve Emerson A potentially significant terrorist case in California is being exploited by radical Islamist groups to mount a campaign against FBI efforts to collect intelligence on suspected terrorists. The case involves Ahmadullah Niazi, who has been indicted on immigration charges. His brother-in-law has served as Osama bin Laden's security coordinator. During a February bond hearing, an FBI agent testified that Niazi referred to bin Laden as "an angel" and provided an informant with taped sermons from an imam considered to have been a spiritual advisor for two September 11th hijackers. Read more ...Source: FSM
 By Dave Gaubatz Earlier this year, I conducted research at a Somali Islamic Center (Al Farooq) in Nashville. One need only to have studied and understand Counterterrorism 101 to know this Center and its leadership advocates violence against America, which of course includes innocent children of all religions, races, and cultures. Our researchers have an enormous amount of counterterrorism training; understand the Islamic ideology, the mindset of Islamic terrorist groups, and most importantly, their tactics and methodology of implementing/achieving their goal of forming an Islamic Ummah (Nation) worldwide and under Sharia law. Evidence to support my professional opinion that the leadership and their supporters of Al Farooq pose a serious threat to our national security was provided to senior law enforcement, the Nashville Prosecutor’s office, and to Nashville Child Protective Services. This included video/audio of a child crying because Islamic leaders had been “hitting” the children during Quran and Sharia lessons. This child had also mentioned having a husband (she is seven years old). Read more ...Source: FSM
By David S. Cloud Democrats in Congress are joining Republicans in calling for tough new sanctions on Iran and warning the Obama administration that its policy of engagement shouldn’t last too long before turning to harsher steps aimed at halting Tehran’s nuclear program. This week, as many as 20 senators, including several senior Democrats in the House and Senate, are expected to join in introducing a bill that would authorize sanctions against companies involved in supplying gasoline and other refined petroleum products to Iran. A similar bill is also in the works in the House. Last month, seven senior Democrats, including Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), warned President Barack Obama against “open-ended engagement with Iran.” The administration is so far moving on a slower timetable, refusing to commit itself to new sanctions until it sees whether its diplomatic outreach to Iran produces results. Read more ...Source: Politico
 FoxNews and the AP today are reporting that t he Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Conference, representing most Muslim nations, has persuaded Molleindustria to remove its online game "Faith Fighter" in which various gods are depicted fighting each other.
From the news story: In the game "Faith Fighter," caricatures of Jesus, the Prophet Muhammad, Buddha, God and the Hindu god Ganesh fight each other against a backdrop of burning buildings. God attacks with bolts of lighting and pillars of fire while the turbaned Muhammad can summon a burning black meteorite. The OIC's complaint was "The game was incendiary in its content and offensive to Muslims and Christians. ... The game would serve no other purpose than to incite intolerance." Molleindustria has the following statement on its website:
Today after an official statement by the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) we decided to remove the game Faith Fighter from our site. Faith Fighter was meant to be a game against intolerance that used over the top irony and a cartoonish style to express the instrumental use of religions. Faith Fighter depicted in a mildly politically incorrect way all the major religions as a response to the one-way islamophobic satire of the Danish Mohammad cartoons. If a established organization didn't understand the irony and the message of the game and is claiming it is inciting intolerance, we simply failed. The game has been released more than a year ago, it got international news coverage and has been played by millions of players on the Internet and it has been exhibited in several artistic venues around the world. Reviews have been generally positive and we only received two letters of complaints by two catholic players. We suspect that people at OIC never played the game and only referred to the article on Metro UK that successfully manufactured this controversy.
According to Molleindustria's site, it is composed of "an Italian team of artists, designers and programmers that aims at starting a serious discussion about social and political implications of video games." One should question, however, how this team invited "serious" discussions given their other "games": "Pedopriest," which mocks the Catholic Church's recent scandals, "Queer Power," where the inhabitants of Queerland do not have "fixed sexual orientations" but rather fornicate with whomever with whatever whim, and "Oiligarchy," where you as the oil baron can explore and drill, corrupting politicians and suppressing alternative fuels as you go. One could perhaps argue that Molleindustria showed some cultural sensitivity in giving the game a "censored" option, which blocked out the face of Muhammad ... But, it is unlikely that one could get very far with that argument.
[submitted by kmacginn of Hummers & Cigarettes]
The Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam
Radical Islam presents a worldwide threat to human rights. Our group does not debate theology and will never claim “Islam” is inherently radical, or that all Muslims are “radicals” or terrorists. However, it is a simple fact that Radical Islam is a threat to world peace. Presently there are Radical Muslims fighting in countries across the world, including, but not limited to: India, Thailand, the Philippines, Ethiopia, Israel, Iraq, Lebanon, Iran, Afghanistan, Russia and “Western” states such as the United States, Australia and Western Europe.
The Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam is not anti-Muslim. On the contrary! Radical Islam is a threat to Muslims even more than it is to non-Muslims. More Muslims have died due to Radical Islam than non-Muslims. The Taliban makes life a living hell for citizens of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Women are honor killed and gays have been killed for the mere crime of being gay. It is with an eye towards protecting human rights around the world that this diverse group has formed.
Who are we and what are our goals?
1. We are a coalition of organizations and individuals representing a full cross-section of the American people. Americans of every race, color and creed are represented in this coalition of groups -- all have been personally affected by the spread of Radical Islam. As such, individuals from continents across the world and religions from around the world have joined together to say "YES to human rights" and "NO to radical Islam." The religions and ideologies represented include Christians of numerous denominations, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims and Secular Humanists.
2. Our mission is to educate the American people to the threat of Radical Islam and Sharia Law, and to challenge those enablers and apologists who would diminish our vigilance in opposing this virulent threat to humanistic values and values of tolerance. With education comes mobilization to action, as noted in mission statement #3, below.
3. Our strategy is to leverage the strengths of our coalition participants: 1) to conduct physical events such as marches, demonstrations, and leafleting; 2) to utilize the Internet to spread our message; 3) to promote media appearances by those who support our cause; 4) to utilize print and video to educate the public and the media to the threats we face; 5) to lobby locally and in Washington DC with letter writing campaigns; 6) to picket media and other outlets which promote the anti-human rights agenda of Radical Islam; 7) to expand our outreach to include educational seminars at local community centers, churches, synagogues and schools.
4. Our group seeks to promote a human rights agenda. The specific enemies of human rights we are struggling against are, in addition to ignorance and apathy, those groups and individuals in the United States and elsewhere who are part of, or supporters of, Radical Islam. These groups include, amongst others, Al Queda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Lashkar-e-Toiba, Deobandi Islamists, the Iranian regime, and other supporters known as Wahhabists (fundamentalist Muslims and Islamists). Additional groups and ideologies that fight against human rights are the “enablers” of Radical Islam.
These groups and ideologies include “political correctness,” the mainstream media (which often blame terror attacks on 'South Asians' or 'militants', rather than simply naming the enemy, and which seeks to employ tactics of moral equivalence), university faculties (which often employ known members of terror groups, such as Sami Al-Arian, and Rashid Khalidi, who was a PLO spokesperson, and similarly teach “post-modern” moral equivalence), student groups such as the International Solidarity Movement (which acts as “human shields” and aids and abets Radical Islam); and “human rights” groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations (which, through ignorance, misunderstanding, paternalism, willful blindness or guilt, fail to appreciate Radical Islam’s threat to decency, tolerance and peace). These “human rights” groups have taken over the English language, claiming they believe in 'peace', when in fact they are often aiding and abeting Radical Islam.
5. This group will be tarred and feathered in the press as being 'Islamophobic', even as we seek to promote the human rights of Muslims. Our group will always show a tolerant and moderate message of human rights; however, it is a simple fact that those who seek to promote the truth about Radical Islam face the claim of being “Islamophobic.” In order to avoid pitfalls others have fallen into, this group will never debate theology. The group’s goal is not to present Islam as inherently one way or another, but rather to showcase the human rights atrocities going on across the world, in order to spur action. If necessary, a legal defense fund will be set up to ensure that our human rights message is seen and heard around the world. Source: The Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam H/T: Ted Belman
The number of times Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded was the focus of major media attention -- and highly misleading. By Joseph Abrams The New York Times reported last week that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, was waterboarded 183 times in one month by CIA interrogators. The "183 times" was widely circulated by news outlets throughout the world. It was shocking. And it was highly misleading. The number is a vast inflation, according to information from a U.S. official and the testimony of the terrorists themselves. A U.S. official with knowledge of the interrogation program told FOX News that the much-cited figure represents the number of times water was poured onto Mohammed's face -- not the number of times the CIA applied the simulated-drowning technique on the terror suspect. According to a 2007 Red Cross report, he was subjected a total of "five sessions of ill-treatment." Read more ... Source: Fox NewsH/T: Christopher Brown
 By Ben Johnson IF HISTORY IS ANY GUIDE, A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND JIHADISTS. In 2004, after the media published photos of Abu Ghraib and leftist politicians blamed America, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi prefaced his beheading of Nicholas Berg with these words: “we tell you that the dignity of the Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is not redeemed except by blood and souls. You will not receive anything from us but coffins after coffins...slaughtered in this way.” Yet those images had a more lasting impact on the War on Terror. John McCain revealed four months ago that “a former high-ranking member of al-Qaeda” told him “‘the greatest recruiting tool we had – we were able to recruit thousands of young men,’ he said – ‘was Abu Ghraib.’” Yet America’s dark history of releasing compromising photos is not detaining President Obama from handing al-Qaeda a veritable public relations coup. The media have emphasized that he plans to release 44 photos of interrogators abusing detainees by May 28; however, sources report the administration will release a “substantial number” of other images, and up to 2,000 photos in all could be divulged. Read more ...Source: FrontPage MagazineBarack Obama
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
Mideast: Abbas refuses to recognise Israel as Jewish state Ramallah, 27 April (AKI) - Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Monday dismissed calls by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to recognise Israel as a Jewish state. He also said a halt to Israel's continuing expansion of illegal Jewish settlements inside the West Bank was a prerequisite for resuming peace talks."A Jewish state, what is that supposed to mean?," said Abbas, quoted by Israeli media. "You can call yourselves as you like, but I don't accept it and I say so publicly."He also said it was not his job to define or name the Israeli state."Name yourself, it's not my business. Name yourself the Hebrew Socialist Republic. All I know is that there is the state of Israel, in the borders of 1967, not one centimetre more, not one centimetre less. Anything else, I do not accept."Many observers believe the so called 'green line' – the pre-1967 Six-Day War ceasefire line between Israel and Jordan – should be the basis for an international border between Israel and the West Bank in the creation of a future Palestinian state. Israeli daily Haaretz said last week that Netanyahu wanted to impose the precondition of recognition of Israel as a Jewish state in order to resume peace negotiations. However, it is believed such recognition would block the Palestinians demand for the "right of return" of millions of refugees who fled or were expelled by Jewish forces, during the establishment of Israel in 1948 and subsequent wars. The refugees are now scattered throughout the Middle East. Israel's hardline foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman said last Thursday that the right of return is not up for discussion.Netanyahu has also not yet accepted the establishment of a Palestinian state existing alongside Israel, which is a main goal of US-backed peace talks. Abbas and Netanyahu will travel to Washington in May for their first meeting with US president Barack Obama since he became president. A defiant Abbas said a complete building freeze on Israel's building of settlements inside the West Bank is essential for the resumption of peace talks. "For sure, we will not submit to pressures. For example, if they say 'come and then we will see, come.' No, we won't accept it. "Regarding the peace talks, this is our position, even if someone, if anyone in the world says 'you're wrong', he said. Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law and are a major source of friction between Israelis and Palestinians. They are one of the most contentious issues in the long-running conflict. Meanwhile, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics said on Monday that Israel's population stands at 7.41 million inhabitants, of which 75 per cent of them are Jewish and 20.2 percent Arab.
 Hamed Dawood Mohammed Khalil al Zawi,
who is better known as Abu Omar al Baghdadi. By Bill Roggio Abu Omar al Baghdadi, the leader of al Qaeda’s puppet Islamic State of Iraq, was captured after a two-month-long intelligence operation, Iraq’s prime minister said. Last week, the Ministry of Defense reported Baghdadi was captured during a raid by Iraqi forces. The US military has yet to confirm Baghdadi’s capture. Al Qaeda in Iraq, the Islamic State of Iraq, and other jihadi web forums have neither confirmed nor denied Baghdadi’s capture. In the past, al Qaeda has been quick to dismiss false reports of its captured senior leaders. Iraq has a poor track record for reporting on the death or capture of senior al Qaeda leaders. Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the brutal former leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, was reported to have been killed or captured several times before he was finally killed by US forces in Baqubah in June 2006. Read more ...Source: The Long War JournalCapturers of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
In September 2007 Muslims Against Sharia issued s statement that we will provide a payment of 100,000kr (about $15,000) for the information leading to capture or neutralization of Abu Omar Al Baghdadi. Please contact us at info at reformislam.com. Anonymity guaranteed.
 A SPANISH warship has intercepted a skiff carrying nine suspected Somali pirates believed to have attacked an Italian cruise ship at the weekend, the defence ministry said today. The Numancia frigate “intercepted a skiff with nine occupants who could be connected to the hijacking attempt of the Italian cruise ship which was eventually repelled by the boat,” it said in a statement.
The cruise liner Melody, carrying more than 1,500 people, was attacked on Saturday but Israeli security guards on board the ship responded to the pirates' gunfire and were able to repel them.
After the hijacking attempt The Numancia, along with patrol planes from France and the Seychelles and an Indian navy ship, launched a high-seas hunt for the assailants.
During the search, the naval mission found “two small boats with nine suspects on board very close to the scene of the attack against the cruise,” the Spanish defence ministry said.
The suspects abandoned one the boats and were later caught in the skiff. The Spanish navy handed over the suspects to a Seychelles ship since they were captured in the island nation's waters in the Indian Ocean.
A commander of the pirates who attacked the cruise ship described the bandits' attempt to seize the boat in an interview with AFP today.
“Unfortunately, for technical reasons, we could not seize the ship,” Mohamed Muse told AFP by phone from the pirate lair of Eyl, in the northern Somali breakaway state of Puntland.
“We were aware that hijacking such a big ship would have been a new landmark in piracy off the coast of Somalia but unfortunately they used good tactics and we were not able to board,” he said.
“It was not the first time we went for that kind of ship and this time we came closer to capturing it and we really sprayed it with gunfire,” Muse said.
The captain of the cruise liner, Ciro Pinto, said the attack had felt like a war, and praised the response of the security guards.
“The ship was very big and there were only a dozen pirates involved in the attack so we eventually had to decide to back off after chasing it for close to 30 minutes,” Muse said.
Somali pirates are currently holding at least 16 ships and more than 250 seamen to ransom. Attacks surged in April as calm seas allowed them to approach their prey more easily and dodge the increasing naval presence in the region.
By Dr. Walid Phares As the U.S. administration and its allies are devising a new strategy for the next steps in Afghanistan, the jihadists have already begun their next move — but this time it’s inside Pakistan. As I’ve written over the past few months, we need to look at Afghanistan, Pakistan and India as one regional battlefield where the “other side” is coordinating strategically, acting methodically and for sure beating the international coalition in speed. If Washington and its allies fail to see the big picture in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, the rapidly deteriorating situation will soon exceed the northwestern provinces of Pakistan to spill over to both Afghanistan and India, if not beyond. That’s how I suggest “reading” the recent worrisome leaps achieved by the Taliban from the SWAT valley into the neighboring district of Buner. So what’s the story and why should we consider it as a crossing of red lines? Read more ...Source: FrontPage Magazine
 It is a strange situation when Egypt and Jordan feel it necessary to defend Israel against American criticism. But this is the situation in which we find ourselves today. Last Friday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee that Arab support for Israel's bid to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is contingent on its agreeing to support the rapid establishment of a Palestinian state. In her words, "For Israel to get the kind of strong support it's looking for vis-a-vis Iran, it can't stay on the sidelines with respect to the Palestinians and the peace efforts." As far as Clinton is concerned, the two, "go hand-in-hand." But just around the time that Clinton was making this statement, Jordan's King Abdullah II was telling The Washington Post that he is satisfied with the Netanyahu government's position on the Palestinians. In his words, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has "sent a message that he's committed to peace with the Arabs. All the words I heard were the right words." As for Egypt, in spite of the media's hysteria that Egypt won't deal with the Netanyahu government and the Obama administration's warning that Israel can only expect Egypt to support its position that Iran must be denied nuclear weapons if it gives Jerusalem to the PLO, last week's visit by Egypt's intelligence chief Omar Suleiman clearly demonstrated that Egypt wishes to work with the government on a whole host of issues. Coming as it did on the heels of Egypt's revelation that Iranian-controlled Hizbullah agents were arrested for planning strategic attacks against it, Suleiman's visit was a clear sign that Egypt is as keen as Israel to neutralize Iranian power in the region by preventing it from acquiring nuclear weapons. And Egypt and Jordan are not alone in supporting Israel's commitment to preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power. American and other Western sources who have visited the Persian Gulf in recent months report that leaders of the Gulf states from Bahrain - which Iran refers to as its 14th province - to Saudi Arabia to Kuwait and, of course, to Iraq - are praying for Israel to strike Iran's nuclear facilities and only complain that it has waited so long to attack them. As one American who recently met with Persian Gulf leaders explained last week, "As far as the Gulf leaders are concerned, Israel cannot attack Iran fast enough. They understand what the stakes are." More...... Source: Jerusalem Post
 Bloggers are taking on Iran's mullahs and winning. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, bloggers are on the front line of the struggle for freedom. Today, there are about 80,000 bloggers in Iran living under constant threat of surveillance, harassment and imprisonment. One such blogger, Mojtaba Saminejad, 28, was arrested and tortured along with 30 others in 2004. He spent three months in solitary confinement in Iran's notorious Evin Prison. Two weeks after he was freed, he was arrested again for complaining on his blog about the mistreatment he had endured. He was held for 21 months on the charge of showing disrespect to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. We recently conducted an exclusive interview with Mr. Saminejad, translated by Ladan Yazdian. He told us Iranian blog sites have proliferated as a direct consequence of the regime's restrictions on other forms of public expression. "In Iran, people need to get a permit to publish any piece of information, including a book, an article or a song," he told us. "Therefore, with the government's total control over people's minds, it is difficult to bypass the government's numerous filters, and even more difficult to access information. Such boundaries do not exist in the blogosphere." He said blogs are "an ideal forum to express private thoughts" in a county where privacy is increasingly scarce. The Iranian blogosphere took off in 2001 and has since faced a continually escalating war with the regime. "Monitoring all the blogs is not possible," Mr. Saminejad said, "so the government shows its frustration by imposing pressure and intimidation." Tehran began filtering Web sites, and bloggers responded with filtering countermeasures. Then bloggers were arrested, "frequently jailed for 'un-Islamic' content, which is against the national security interests of the country," so the opposition began to form closer, more cooperative support networks and continued to post on the arrested bloggers' sites. The regime responded by sponsoring pro-regime bloggers and held a "Festival of Web Logs and Web Sites of the Islamic Revolution." The regime also sanctioned hacker groups, such as the Hadid Hacking Team and IHS (Iran Hackers Sabotage), which launched attacks on dissident blog sites and Western, frequently Israeli, targets. In response, dissidents moved to alternate platforms, utilized e-mail and RSS distribution, stood up mirror sites and joined invitation-only online communities such as Google's Orkut. In 2006, the regime proposed a national Internet structure that would host all government and nongovernment sites inside Iran and cut out Western and especially U.S. servers. In 2008, the regime reached the pinnacle of blogger oppression with a draft law that imposes the death penalty for facad - undermining the authority or stability of the state - which is a dangerously vague and sufficiently elastic charge that could slip any blogger's head into the noose. "Under this law," Mr. Saminejad told us, "any freedom-seeking blogger can face the death penalty for promoting illegal activities." Some never even get their day in a kangaroo court. Twenty-five-year-old Omid-Reza Mirsayafi died in Evin Prison in March under mysterious circumstances. The next day the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps was unleashed on bloggers and made mass arrests. Tehran claimed "these detainees are part of organized networks who are working on evil projects that insult the holy Koran, spread pornographic material and advertise the 'sale' of Iranian girls." The future is difficult for Iranian bloggers like Mr. Saminejad, but he and his compatriots see no alternative but to continue their dangerous activities. There is no other alternative. As Mr. Saminejad says, the blogosphere is "the main outlet to receive the news and analysis from Iran." And so long as their sites survive, the world will know freedom's flame still burns in Iran. Source: Washington Times
April 26th | Chris Van Buren Reporters without Borders reports that Iranian-American journalist, Roxana Saberi — sentenced last Saturday to 8 years in prison after a sham 1 day closed trial in Tehran — is protesting her detention with a hunger strike. (For more background on Saberi, and her dubious arrest by Iranian authorities, read this profile by her former employer, the BBC.) Even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, not typically the most civil liberties friendly, had directly appealed to the Iran’s independent judiciary to process the case of Saberi with openness and transparency. Perhaps he is feeling the pressure of a potential American rapprochement. The visibility of the Saberi case could easily flare up into a full grown diplomatic feud. So far, Secretary Clinton’s language has been measured, though concerned. Might the internet play a constructive role here in changing the diplomatic end game by raising the heat on Iranian authorities? Imagine, it was years before Solzhenitsin could get The Gulag Archipelago published in the West, much less in the Soviet Union. Now, despite all the Iranians’ best efforts at a low key and hack job political trial, anyone with Google can learn the inner workings of Saberi’s detention and moreover Iran’s infamous Evin political prison where she’s being held. While — as AbuAardvark and NetEffect’s Evgeny Morozov have been right to point out — the internet is not radically democraticizing the world, it does raise the embarassment and diplomatic costs of political prisoners. Hard to complain you’ve been shut out of the community of nations when your injustice is plainly on display. And the web is what solves this informational assymetry, even if it can’t shake kings and autocrats. Saberi’s partner, Kurdish-Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi, has written an open letter appealing to Iranian authorities. The letter can be read in full here and is circulating on numerous media outlets and websites (BBC, Campaign for Human Rights in Iran to name a few). Source: Internet and Democracy
PAKISTAN civilians began pouring out of the North West Frontier Province yesterday, driven out by fierce fighting between Taliban extremists and military forces sent in to stem the insurgents' march on the rest of the country. Frontier corps troops and helicopter gunships engaged several hundred militants in the Lower Dir Province, west of the Swat Valley and abutting the Afghanistan border. The clashes, which began on Sunday after Taliban fighters blocked the path of an army convoy trying to reach the Swat Valley, has brought to the brink of collapse an uneasy peace deal between the two sides. Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan yesterday said the February peace deal - in which the Government agreed to impose sharia law on the NWFP's Malakand region in exchange for the militants' laying down their arms - was now "worthless" as a result of the military action. The militants have suspended peace talks with the Government over Swat, a former tourist region within the NWFP now under their control, until the army halts its operation. They have also threatened to stage attacks across the Malakand - a group of six districts and home to three million people - if peace is not restored. Troops were finally sent into the NWFP late on Thursday after hundreds of Taliban militants poured out of Swat and seized control of towns and villages less than 100km from the capital, Islamabad. Taliban fighters quickly established control of several administrative centres within the Buner district, forcing women off the streets, issuing warnings to barbers and music shops and recruiting locals to their cause. Many eventually retreated on Friday following negotiations with local authorities and government warnings of military action, although reports from the region yesterday suggested the Taliban were still in control of Buner and patrolling the streets. However, militants had more quietly also seized control of Lower Dir in recent weeks, creating a new corridor for extremists fighting US-led coalition forces in neighbouring Afghanistan. One local official said the military moved into the region following reports that the Taliban had begun kidnapping prominent local residents for ransom. On Saturday, 12 local children were killed after playing with a bomb they mistook for a football. The latest offensive was ordered under pressure from the US, which has issued increasingly strident statements in recent days demanding action from Pakistan's leaders to halt the advance of the Taliban into the interior of the nuclear-armed nation. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused the Pakistani Government last week of "abdicating to the Taliban" and at the weekend expressed fears the Taliban could eventually hold the keys to Pakistan's nuclear weapons. More... Source: The Australian
Apr 26 AMMAN, Jordan – Jordan's king urged President Barack Obama Sunday to take a more forceful role in the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, warning of a new Mideast war if there is no significant progress in the next 18 months. Speaking to NBC's "Meet the Press," King Abdullah described the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as the core problem of the region and solving it would help the U.S. in dealing with Iran and combatting the appeal of radical Islamic groups like Al-Qaida. "In the next 18 months, if we don't move the process forward, and bring people to the negotiation table, there will be another conflict between Israel and another protagonist," he said in the interview recorded in Washington on Friday. "If it's left to the players, the Israelis and the Palestinians by themselves, we're not going to get anywhere — it can only happen if there is an American umbrella with a determined American president," he added. Jordan is one of two Arab countries that have signed a peace treaty with Israel and is a strong U.S. ally in the region. The majority of the country's citizens are also of Palestinian origin, making it very interested in the ongoing peace talks. Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, relaunched in late 2007, have made little visible progress — in part due to Palestinian infighting. The new Israeli government also has not endorsed the goal of an independent Palestinian state. A Palestinian state alongside Israel is the centerpiece of U.S. peace efforts in the region. The king also addressed the use of torture, acknowledging that he had heard in the press that it was being used by United States, but denying allegations that Jordan was involved. Human Rights Watch, among other groups, has issued reports alleging that the Jordanian intelligence service brutally interrogated detainees on behalf of the CIA. Instead, Abdullah said his intelligence services specialized in turning enemy agents and using them as informants. "I think that we have been very smart in being intelligent (and) convincing operatives that we have come across to end up working for us — and you can't do that when it comes to torture," he said. The king also noted that Obama had substantially improved the image of the United States in the region. "America is providing a new image of how things should be done and I think the world has a belief in the president," he said. Source: AP
The entire Western Civilization, is on the verge of destruction, from the fifth columnists whom are hell bent to take over every single country in the world. Not since WW2@ have we truly faced a world menace of the type and dynamics of islamo-fascism and islamo-stealth jihad to destroy the west from within. Following the blue print discovered of the Islamic Brotherhood of Egypt and sent world wide, the stealth jihad is working steadily to achieve the object to overthrow governments, one country at a time, and institute Islamic sharia on all people, not just islamists, the dark ages is on the door step of our once powerful nations. What would Jesus do? He would say defend your people and your families, and fight the evil legally and democratically to expose all that they are doing, think Global, but act Local. Read more ...Source: Resistance is Not Futile
By Michael Scheuer | April 26 In surprisingly good English, the captive quietly answers: 'Yes, all thanks to God, I do know when the mujaheddin will, with God's permission, detonate a nuclear weapon in the United States, and I also know how many and in which cities." Startled, the CIA interrogators quickly demand more detail. Smiling his trademark shy smile, the captive says nothing. Reporting the interrogation's results to the White House, the CIA director can only shrug when the president asks: "What can we do to make Osama bin Laden talk?" Americans should keep this worst-case scenario in mind as they watch the tragicomic spectacle taking place in the wake of the publication of the Justice Department's interrogation memos. It will help them recognize this episode of political theater as another major step in the bipartisan dismantling of America's defenses based on the requirements of presidential ideology. George W. Bush's democracy-spreading philosophy yielded the invasion of Iraq and set the United States at war with much of the Muslim world. Bush's worldview thereby produced an enemy that quickly outpaced the limited but proven threat-containing capacities of the major U.S. counterterrorism programs -- rendition, interrogation and unmanned aerial vehicle attacks. Now, in a single week, President Obama has eliminated two-thirds of that successful-but-not-sufficient national defense troika because his personal ideology -- a fair gist of which is "If the world likes us more we are more secure" -- cannot tolerate harsh interrogation techniques, torture or coercive interviews, call them what you will. Surprisingly, Obama now stands alongside Bush as a genuine American Jacobin, both of them seeing the world as they want it to be, not as it is. Whereas Bush saw a world of Muslims yearning to betray their God for Western secularism, Obama gazes upon a globe that he regards as largely carnivore-free and believes that remaining threats can be defused by semantic warfare; just stop saying "War on Terror" and give talks in Turkey and on al-Arabiyah television, for example. Americans should be clear on what Obama has done. In a breathtaking display of self-righteousness and intellectual arrogance, the president told Americans that his personal beliefs are more important than protecting their country, their homes and their families.
The interrogation techniques in question, the president asserted, are a sign that Americans have lost their "moral compass," a compliment similar to Attorney General Eric Holder's identifying them as "moral cowards." Mulling Obama's claim, one can wonder what could be more moral for a president than doing all that is needed to defend America and its citizens? Or, asked another way, is it moral for the president of the United States to abandon intelligence tools that have saved the lives and property of Americans and their allies in favor of his own ideological beliefs? Before enthroning Obama's personal morality as U.S. defense policy, of course, some dirty work had to be done. Last Sunday, Obama's hit man and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel led the charge by telling the American people that the interrogation techniques are a major recruiting tool for al-Qaeda and its Islamist partners. Well, no, Mr. Emanuel, that is not at all the case. The techniques surely are not popular with our foes and their supporters -- should that be a concern in any event? -- but they do not even make the Islamists' hit parade of anti-U.S. recruiting tools. That list is headed by Washington's support for Arab tyrannies in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, its presence on the Arabian Peninsula and its unqualified support for Israel. Still, Emanuel's statement surely sounded plausible to Americans who have received no education about our Islamist enemy's true motivation from Obama, George W. Bush, Clinton or George H.W. Bush. Next, the president used his personal popularity and the stature of his office to implicitly identify as liars those former senior U.S. officials who know -- not "argue" or "contend" or "assert" but know -- that the interrogation techniques have yielded intelligence essential to the nation's defense. The integrity, intellect and reputations of Judge Michael Mukasey, Gen. Michael V. Hayden and others have now been besmirched by Obama because their realistic worldview and firsthand experience do not mesh with the president's desire to install his personal "moral compass" as the core of U.S. foreign and defense policy. And after visiting CIA headquarters last week, the president made it clear that he rejected statements surely made by CIA officers who risked their careers to tell him how many successful covert operations against al-Qaeda have flowed from interrogation information. As with all Jacobins, Obama cannot allow a hard and often brutal reality -- call it an inconvenient truth -- to impinge on his view of how the world should and must be made to work. And so as the Justice Department memos farce plays out over the coming weeks, Americans can be confident that both parties will play politics to the hilt while letting the nation's safety take the hindmost. Obama and his team will "reluctantly" agree to a congressional investigation of former Bush officials and serving CIA officers, politically targeted indictments from Holder's minions and perhaps even a truth commission to prove that even the United States can aspire to be a half-baked Third World country. Republicans will welcome the Democrats' actions as a chance to reclaim their mantle as the most reliable protectors of U.S. national security. They will seek to prove that Obama and his party are eager to persecute the men and women who defend America and will denounce Democratic actions as a "witch hunt." Those words were used last week by Sen. John McCain, a man who seems to have forgotten that as a presidential candidate he, more than anyone, persuaded Americans that the interrogation techniques amounted to torture and gloried in calling the CIA and its officers a "rogue institution." Americans and their country's security will be the losers. The Republicans do not have the votes to stop Obama, and the world will not be safer for America because the president abandons interrogations to please his party's left wing and the European pacifists it so admires. Both are incorrigibly anti-American, oppose the use of force in America's defense and -- like Obama -- naively believe that the West's Islamist foes can be sweet-talked into a future alive with the sound of kumbaya. So if the above worst-case scenario ever comes to pass, Americans will have at least two things from which to take solace, even after the loss of major cities and tens of thousands of countrymen. First, they will know that their president believes that those losses are a small price to pay for stopping interrogations and making foreign peoples like us more. And second, they will see Osama bin Laden's shy smile turn into a calm and beautiful God-is-Great grin. Michael Scheuer, the chief of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999, is the author of "Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq." Source: Washington Post
April 25, Barack Obama's obvious comfort level with leaders of unfree countries shouldn't surprise anyone. He is not only our first black president. He is also our first president who doesn't like the free country he was elected to lead and feels his job is to change it. Obama's cordial encounter with Venezuelan thug Hugo Chavez and his bow of deference in London to the Saudi Arabian king are extensions of behavior we have always seen on the black left. Jesse Jackson openly embraced Chavez, as well as having maintained relations with the likes of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi and Yasser Arafat. This should be kept in mind as our president now makes his own effort to bring peace to the Middle East. It should be clear to anyone conscious and watching that central to Obama's Middle East strategy is to disabuse the long-held notion that there exists a "special relationship" between the United States and Israel. The sense of unique kinship between our country and the Jewish state has existed since Israel's founding just 60 years ago. The Arab world has always resented the U.S.-Israel connection and has felt that because of this, Americans would never be an honest broker in Arab-Israeli negotiations. Mr. Obama is out to change this. His first hundred days, from his very first television interview – given to an Arab television network – have focused on warming up our relations with Islamic nations and cooling down our Israeli ones. We should appreciate that this shift is more than a technical change in diplomatic strategy. It reflects a change in values. The "special" American-Israeli relationship has always reflected the shared values and traditions of the two countries: a commitment to freedom sustained by traditional Judeo-Christian core values. Freedom House is a widely respected non-partisan organization that publishes annual reports on the state of freedom around the world. They rate the state of freedom on a scale of 1 to 7, "1" being most free. According to the latest Freedom House data, released this past January, in the area of "political rights," Israel rates 1. On "civil liberties," Israel gets a 2. And Israel's Arab neighbors? On "political rights," Egypt scores 6, Jordan 5, Syria 7 and Lebanon 5. On "civil liberties," Egypt ranks 5, Jordan 5, Syria 6 and Lebanon 4. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia, to whose king the president of the United States bowed deeply at the waist, ranks 7 in "political rights" and 6 in "civil liberties." Freedom House also reports on freedom of the press. Of 18 countries in the Middle Easter/North African area, they report only one country with a free press. Israel. Eleven of these countries have no free press, including Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Egypt and Lebanon are rated partly free. Despite being the youngest country in the region, Israel's per capita gross domestic product is five times higher than the average of all its neighbors. Also, despite having no great endowment of natural resources, its GDP per capita, at $24,097, is higher than Saudi Arabia's $22, 296, which has, by far, the world's largest oil production and reserves. The great American writer Mark Twain visited the Holy Land in 1867 before Jews made their miraculous return to their ancient homeland. He reported that there was nothing there. "Palestine is desolate and unlovely." You have to be either blind or have a political agenda to refuse to see the incredible miracle that has occurred in the re-birth of the Jewish nation. Of course there is a special relationship between the United States and Israel. The same values and traditions have produced in both places freedom and prosperity from nothing. Should we denigrate Arabs and Muslims? Certainly not. But anyone who thinks that peace and prosperity will come from abandoning those very values that got us to where we are, and along with this our friends who share those values, is deeply misguided. Unfortunately, today we have an American president who is set on doing just that. Principled Americans and Israelis should tighten their seatbelts and prepare to defend the truths we hold dear.
Islam is the most democratic religion, says Albright. Yet in 1400 years of Islamic history, there has only been one democracy: Turkey. Albright says that Turkey is a "perfect example" of how Islam is democratic. But let's look at the record. In the aftermath of World War I, Mustafa Kemal, who called himself Ataturk, or Father of the Turks, established the first secular government in a Muslim society, leading the Sheikh who famously visited Osama bin Laden on video in 2001 to refer to “infidels like the Turks.” Ataturk declared that “the civilized world is far ahead of us. We have no choice but to catch up. It is time to stop nonsense, such as ‘should we or should we not wear hats?’ We shall adopt hats along with all other works of Western civilization. Uncivilized people are doomed to be trodden under the feet of civilized people.” Hats were more than just a symbol: because of their brims, they interfered with the prostrations that were and are an essential element of Islamic prayer. By outlawing turbans and mandating hats, Ataturk was striking at the very heart of Turkish Islamic society. Within a relatively brief period the great Islamic empire that had been the seat of the caliphate and the lodestar of the Muslim world became a Western-style modern state. The unity of the polity was based on racial, not religious grounds (resulting in the murder and exile of millions of Armenians and a not inconsiderable number of Greeks, who fared marginally better even as dhimmis, at least until they were deemed to have violated the terms of the dhimma, than they did under the nationalistic and secular Turkish government). Ataturk accomplished this transformation by abolishing the caliphate, restricting political Islam and other expressions of Islam, including Islamic marriages, and letting mosques and Islamic shrines fall into disrepair. He worked hard to diminish the place of Islam in Turkish society. Isn’t this the dream of moderate, Western-influenced and Western-friendly Muslims and their non-Muslim patrons? Ataturk labored to erect a truly Jeffersonian wall of separation between mosque and state. If the notion of a modernized, secularized Islam really has any viability, it should show in Turkey, its principal research and development project. But there was resistance to Ataturk’s program in Turkey virtually from the beginning. Scholar Paul Dumont notes that “the expeditious secularization imposed on the country by Mustafa Kemal and his entourage created a shock wave through the country which has not yet died out.” Opposition to Kemalism, as secular rule in Turkey came to be known, was fundamentally religious. Rank-and-file Turks, according to Ataturk’s biographer Andrew Mango, believed that “misery was the fruit of impiety, prosperity the reward of obedience to the law of Islam.” Religious uprisings have been a feature of the Turkish secular state virtually since its inception, and those desiring to restore Islam to centrality in public life have made steady gains. By the 1950s, says Farah, the secular authorities “found it prudent henceforth to play up to Islamic loyalties and allow the ulama and other religious leaders a freer hand.” That hand has been growing even freer ever since.
Even Albright, while she was Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, expressed her displeasure with the “drift of Turkey away from secularism.” "Albright Praises Obama's Efforts to Engage Muslim World," by Mohamed Elshinnawi for VOA News, April 24 Source: JihadWatch
By John Bingham Complete with photographs of men in white robes with scarves covering their faces performing a variety of squats and sit-ups, it advises supporters to keep in shape so that they can "strike hard" against their enemies. There is also a warning against visiting "un-Islamic" western gyms including LA Fitness with their "music, semi-naked women, free mixing and the danger of showing off". And there is advice against using weights because of their unavailability on the front line in places such as Afghanistan. The advice is contained in Jihad Recollections, an English language online magazine believed to be published in the United States which openly supports al-Qaeda and contains an article purporting to be written by Osama bin Laden. Read more ...Source: TelegraphH/T: Jihad Watch
April 24 Fighting Terror: It's a very real threat when people who are our sworn enemies suddenly begin capturing territory at the expense of our allies. And today, that's exactly what's happening in Pakistan. Taliban Militants Stay In Control Near Pakistan Capital." That headline should send a chill through you. Because it means the forces of medieval darkness and terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan are gaining ground — and are perhaps just one leap away from capturing Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, and its nuclear arsenal. Pakistan's government made the big mistake a week and a half ago of agreeing to let Taliban-linked groups in the North-West Frontier Province enforce Sharia, or Islamic law, in the Swat Valley. Since then, the Taliban and its radical affiliates have begun infiltrating members into surrounding areas, especially the Buner Valley — just 60 miles from Islamabad. They smell weakness on the part of the Pakistani regime, and are going to push until they're stopped. At this rate, if unchecked, they'll control Pakistan by year-end — not to mention the Pakistani government's 24 to 55 nuclear weapons. We're glad to see this isn't going unnoticed. "Pakistan poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last Wednesday, in blunt remarks that took some by surprise. This, surely, is the "test" that Vice President Joseph Biden warned that President Obama would face early in his presidency. Now, the question is, recognizing the problem, what do we do? The answer's unclear. True, Obama has sent 17,000 added troops to Afghanistan. And pressuring the Pakistani government to "do more" will at least put the heat on it to take the Taliban seriously. But what concerns us is this administration's failure to recognize, as the previous administration did, that this isn't only about Pakistan; it's about Islamic extremism, a worldwide movement whose ultimate goal is to weaken, subvert, defeat and replace a demoralized West. Pakistan would be quite a prize for the extremists. As we said, that nation has nuclear weapons It lies adjacent to India, Pakistan's most bitter enemy, one of our best allies and the world's largest democracy. We agree with Clinton that this is a mortal threat. We wonder, though, how we can defeat our enemies if we can't even bring ourselves to call them terrorists. How we can win the global war on terror when we downgrade it rhetorically to merely an "overseas contingency operation"? And how can we defeat them if we're on the verge of revealing dozens of photographs that purport to show U.S. military personnel mistreating captives in Afghanistan? Surely, that will inflame Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan, making the job of our military now engaged in a life-or-death struggle for Afghanistan with the Taliban all the more difficult. It will end up costing American lives. And for what? To score a few cheap political points against former President Bush's policy of pursuing terrorists to the hilt? The problem is, the only reason Pakistan's government made a deal with the Taliban in the first place is, frankly, it doubts the bona fides of the Obama administration when it comes to fighting terrorism. Better to cut a deal with the renegades and hope for mercy later than to have the U.S. sit and do nothing to aid a vital ally, as we did when the shah of Iran fell in 1979. Worse, if we and Pakistan's feckless government allow a Taliban takeover, how seriously will Iran take our protestations as it marches toward its own nuclear answer to the West? Last week, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair called on the world to defeat Islamic extremists, calling them as big a threat as communism was in the 20th century. "Our job is simple," Blair said. "It is to support and partner those Muslims who believe deeply in Islam, but also who believe in peaceful co-existence, in taking on and defeating extremists who don't." We agree. But it will take more than pressuring the locals and their governments to do the job. We have a major problem in Pakistan, and no, contrary to the assertions of the Obama White House, it's not just al-Qaida. It's only one part of a multifaceted, international problem, as Blair rightly pointed out. And while we show an interest in diplomacy, these foes see diplomacy as the last resort of weaklings. At the very least, we must insist that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani reassert control over the country. We also must recognize that the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which U.S. forces treat as something real and inviolable, is little more than fiction. The war on terror has no borders. Source: Investor's Business Daily
By Daniel Pipes | 24 Apr Does terrorism work, meaning, does it achieve its perpetrators' objectives? With terror attacks having become a routine and nearly daily occurrence, especially in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, the conventional wisdom holds that terrorism works very well. For example, the late Ehud Sprinzak of the Hebrew University ascribed the prevalence of suicide terrorism to its "gruesome effectiveness." Robert Pape of the University of Chicago argues that suicide terrorism is growing "because terrorists have learned that it pays." Harvard law professor Alan M. Dershowitz titled one of his books, Why Terrorism Works. But Max Abrahms, a fellow at Stanford University, disputes this conclusion, noting that they focus narrowly on the well-known but rare terrorist victories – while ignoring the much broader, if more obscure, pattern of terrorism's failures. To remedy this deficiency, Abrahms took a close look at each of the 28 terrorist groups so designated by the U.S. Department of State since 2001 and tallied how many of them achieved its objectives. His study, "Why Terrorism Does Not Work," finds that those 28 groups had 42 different political goals and that they achieved only 3 of those goals, for a measly 7 percent success rate. Those three victories would be: (1) Hezbollah's success at expelling the multinational peacekeepers from Lebanon in 1984, (2) Hezbollah's success at driving Israeli forces out of Lebanon in 1985 and 2000, and (3) the Tamil Tiger's partial success at winning control over areas of Sri Lanka after 1990. That's it. The other 26 groups, from the Abu Nidal Organization and Al-Qaeda and Hamas to Aum Shinriko and Kach and the Shining Path, occasionally achieved limited success but mostly failed completely. Abrahms draws three policy implications from the data. -
Guerrilla groups that mainly attack military targets succeed more often than terrorist groups that mainly attack civilian targets. (Terrorists got lucky in the Madrid attack of 2004.) -
Terrorists find it "extremely difficult to transform or annihilate a country's political system"; those with limited objectives (such as acquiring territory) do better than those with maximalist objectives (such as seeking regime change). -
Not only is terrorism "an ineffective instrument of coercion, but … its poor success rate is inherent to the tactic of terrorism itself." This lack of success should "ultimately dissuade potential jihadists" from blowing up civilians.
This final implication, of frequent failure leading to demoralization, suggests an eventual reduction of terrorism in favor of less violent tactics. Indeed, signs of change are already apparent. Sayyid Imam al-Sharif At the elite level, for example the former jihad theorist, Sayyid Imam al-Sharif (a.k.a. Dr. Fadl), now denounces violence: "We are prohibited from committing aggression," he writes, "even if the enemies of Islam do that." On the popular level, the Pew Research Center's 2005 Global Attitudes Project found that "support for suicide bombings and other terrorist acts has fallen in most Muslim-majority nations surveyed" and "so too has confidence in Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden." Likewise, a 2007 Program on International Policy Attitudes study found that "Large majorities in all countries oppose attacks against civilians for political purposes and see them as contrary to Islam. … Most respondents … believe that politically-motivated attacks on civilians, such as bombings or assassinations, cannot be justified." On the practical level, terrorist groups are evolving. Several of them – specifically in Algeria, Egypt, and Syria – have dropped violence and now work within the political system. Others have taken on non-violent functions – Hezbollah delivers medical services and Hamas won an election. If Ayatollah Khomeini and Osama bin Laden represent Islamism's first iteration, Hezbollah and Hamas represent a transitional stage, and Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, arguably the world's most influential Islamist, shows the benefits of going legitimate. But if going the political route works so well, why does Islamist violence continue and even expand? Because they are not always practical. Rita Katz of the SITE Intelligence Group explains: "Engaged in a divine struggle, jihadists measure success not by tangible victories in this life but by God's eternal benediction and by rewards received in the hereafter." In the long term, however, Islamists will likely recognize the limits of violence and increasingly pursue their repugnant goals through legitimate ways. Radical Islam's best chance to defeat us lies not in bombings and beheadings but in classrooms, law courts, computer games, television studios, and electoral campaigns. We are on notice. Source: Islam Watch
By Roberta Bonazzi | April 24 Last March, the organisation Human Rights Activists in Iran issued an annual report on human rights violations in Iran. A total of 278 people had been condemned to death, 30 of whom were aged under 18. And 297 people had been executed, including 8 aged under 18. According to the report, the pressure on blog writers has progressively grown during the course of the year. Thousands of websites and blogs have been filtered, banned or closed down. Some 29 periodicals have also been banned and over 70 journalists had been brought before justice. Of these, according to the report, 21 have been fined, while 17 have received prison sentences. Students were not immune from the repression: 66 students had to pay large fines, while 215 students were imprisoned. Over 60 student newspapers were also banned and a total of 234 students were suspended for a number of university terms. Bahai students faced even harsher punishments: they were expelled from universities. The Human Rights Report also highlighted how also the situation of Iranian workers had deteriorated during the course of the year, with about 11,000 workers laid off and legal proceedings instituted against at least 26 workers. Tens of thousands of women have been detained for “failing to comply with Islamic dress codes”. Security forces issued summons against 25 female activists, interrogating them and putting them under pressure. Another 40 female activists had been condemned to long prison sentences and were now languishing behind bars. And several women had been in prison for some time without any court ruling. www.europeandemocracy.org Source: Hudson New York
 By Larry Neumeister NEW YORK (AP) -- A Pakistani immigrant described by prosecutors as "Hezbollah's man in New York City" was sentenced Thursday to nearly six years in prison for airing the militant group's television station. U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman handed down a sentence of five years and nine months to Javed Iqbal, who had pleaded guilty in December to providing aid to a terrorist organization. Iqbal, 45, admitted as part of a plea agreement that he used satellite dishes on his Staten Island home to distribute broadcasts of Al Manar, the TV station of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which has been fighting Israel since the early 1980s and has been branded by the U.S. government as a terrorist group. Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Snyder said Iqbal recruited Al Manar, even traveling to "the belly of the beast, South Beirut," to meet with its general manager. "He was, in a very real sense, Hezbollah's man in New York City," Snyder said. Snyder said Iqbal bought special satellite equipment to allow Al Manar to provide 24-hour programming from November 2005 through May 2006 so Hezbollah could use it to recruit followers and suicide bombers. Prosecutors said Iqbal's business was paid $28,000 monthly for at least five months for airing the station to its North American customers. Read more ...Source: AP H/T: Jihad WatchJaved Iqbal
Latest recipients of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award
A potentially significant terrorist case in California is being exploited by radical Islamist groups to mount a campaign against FBI efforts to collect intelligence on suspected terrorists. The case involves Ahmadullah Niazi, who has been indicted on immigration charges. His brother-in-law has served as Osama bin Laden's security coordinator. During a February bond hearing, an FBI agent testified that Niazi referred to bin Laden as "an angel" and provided an informant with taped sermons from an imam considered to have been a spiritual advisor for two September 11th hijackers. Rather than praising law enforcement for rooting out a would-be terrorist from their community, Islamist groups are casting FBI efforts - the use of an informant inside mosques - as an assault on the civil liberties of all Muslim Americans. Read more ...Source: IPT News
 A recent commentary by Maria Giovanna Maglie for the Italian daily Il Giornale notes how the Italian Muslim Brotherhood affiliate, the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy (UCOII), has begun to mimic various other branches of the Islamist movement around the world by waging "another kind of jihad, one that takes place in court and achieves the goal of scaring people on a personal and financial level." As such, various individuals have been sued, threatened, and bullied into silence. As Maglie's article states, "[a]nybody dealing with Islam – journalists, politicians, and academics – risks being sued for 'offending a group of people because of their religion.'" This same pattern has been clearly evident on this side of the pond with another Brotherhood offshoot, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR's historical links to the Brotherhood have been detailed at length on this website, and as recently as last year were confirmed by a senior Egyptian Brotherhood leader. As a result of these connections – particularly those to the Brotherhood-linked HAMAS terror group – the FBI recently decided to sever ties with CAIR. Read more ...Source: IPT Blog
Source: Pakistan.docTranslated into Italian by FFFFF
Source: Ahadith.docTranslated into Italian by FFFFF
Two articles on Islamic slavery: La storia di una bambina egiziana, domestica negli Stati Uniti I datori di lavoro dovrebbero riflettere sulle loro responsabilità in merito al rispetto dei Diritti dei loro lavoratori domestici Source: Download IslamicSlavery.docTranslated into Italian by FFFFF
Gaza – Ma’an – The Fatah-affiliated Al-Mujahideen Brigades called all the Palestinian factions to unite and solve all issues preventing national unity during a commemoration ceremony in Gaza City Thursday.
Marking the second anniversary of the Israeli assassination of brigades’ leader Omar Abu Shri’a the group gathered supporters in the Rashad Ash-Shawwa area of central Gaza City. In speeches during the event leaders called on rival parties and military groups to prepare the coming generations to be more united for a better future.
The brigades promised their late general and all Palestinians who sacrificed their lives that they would remain committed to Jihad and resistance, but that they would also work to ensure unity in an effort to strengthen the Palestinian position. Source: Ma'an News AgencyH/T: Jihad Watch
 By Melanie Phillips It’s some small comfort at least that Lord Carlile, the sensible terrorism law watchdog, has taken a personal decision to conduct a review of the debacle in which 12 men, 11 of them Pakistani students plus one British national, were arrested a fortnight ago in Manchester, Liverpool and Lancashire amid claims of an enormous Easter terrorist bomb plot, but are not to be charged at all and with the 11 facing instead deportation on national security grounds. This looks like a fiasco of no small proportion. The police operation appeared to founder when the former head of the Metropolitan Police Counter-Terror Command, Bob Quick, inadvertently revealed details of the impending arrests on a carelessly exposed folder as he emerged from his car. He promptly fell upon his truncheon, and the story was that as a result of his carelessness the arrests had to be brought forward by 12 hours, thus causing police and intelligence officials to scramble to reel in all 12 suspects in what was described by the Prime Minister as a very big terrorist plot. Read more ...Source: FSM
 By Jamie Glazov Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Dave Gaubatz, the first U.S. civilian (1811) Federal Agent deployed to Iraq in 2003. He is the owner of DG Counter-terrorism Publishing. He is currently conducting a 50 State Counter-terrorism Research Tour (CTRT). He can be contacted at davegaubatz@gmail.com. FP: Dave Gaubatz,welcome to Frontpage Interview. Although you have only been on the road a few days during your Counter-terrorism Research Tour (CTRT), do you have any interesting intelligence to report? Gaubatz: Thank you Jamie. It has been a fast paced few days, but I will focus this interview on North Carolina. Most readers know Senator Larry Shaw (D/NC) has assumed the role as the ‘Chairman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR). On 15 April 2009, Senator Shaw contacted me and advised he was aware of my 50 State CTRT. He advised he would keep me in his “prayers and would have his staff follow my research.” Senator Shaw had written the following to me, “Under no circumstances should innocent children be abused, assaulted, neglected or mistreated; that was one of the major driving forces for my introduction of a bill in the North Carolina General Assembly in 2007 that would require the state of North Carolina to divest from companies operating in Sudan, Darfur.” I have not released to anyone my schedule of the states/Islamic Centers I would visit as part of my research, and on 17 April 2009, I drove to Raleigh, NC. I visited the Islamic Center of Raleigh, next door to UN State University, and only a few blocks from Senator Shaw’s Legislative office. Readers can view some photographs of my visit at www.daveg.us. Read more ...Source: FrontPage Magazine
 By Elias Bejjani How superficial, naive, and childish are those Lebanese and Arab officials, clergymen and politicians who voiced their surprise and shock after the recent unveiling of a terrorist Hezbollah cell in Egypt? They are either deceiving themselves and their people, or are totally detached from reality, residing on Mars. and not in the Middle East in general, and in Lebanon in particular. For heaven's sake, whom are these officials, clergymen and politicians fooling? Is there no concerned individual in the whole Middle East, and in the free world countries who is not yet aware of the fact that Hezbollah is merely an Iranian militant brigade connected directly, and on level to the Iran's notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Who in Lebanon and in its neighboring countries does not know that Syria during its occupation era of Lebanon (1976-2005), had forced the armed Hezbollah organization on both the Shiite community, and the Lebanese people under the false disguise of resistance against Israel? Syria and Iran jointly orchestrated, by brutal and criminal means, the erection of a mini Hezbollah state in the Shiite suburbs of Beirut, South and Bekaa, and accordingly exempted it from being disarmed in 1990, after all other Christian, Druze and Sunni Lebanese militias were disarmed in accordance with the "Taef Accord," that put an end to the civil war in Lebanon. Read more ...Source: FrontPage Magazine
Barack Obama's administration is trying to smooth the way for aid to a Palestinian government backed by Hamas in a striking contrast to the policy of George W. Bush, the former president, who sought to bring down any such government. In a request for more than $800m in US funds for the West Bank and Gaza, the administration has asked Congress to soften rules for granting assistance to the Palestinians, to prevent disruption of aid in the event of a national unity government being formed.... According to legislation passed this year, aid to a power-sharing government including Hamas can only continue if Mr Obama certifies that the militant Islamist organisation has accepted international principles including renouncing violence, abiding by past agreements and recognising Israel's right to exist. Read more ...Source: Financial TimesH/T: Jihad WatchBarack Obama
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
(Alessandro Della Bella/EPA) Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent Tony Blair has said he does not regret leading Britain to war in Iraq when he was Prime Minister and has called on the world to take on and defeat Islamic extremists. He believes that, without intervention, the problem will continue to grow in countries such as Afghanistan. He called for a battle to be waged against militant Islam similar to that fought against revolutionary communism. In an address last night to a forum on religion and politics in Chicago, Mr Blair said that the world today faced a struggle posed by "an extreme and misguided form of Islam", which threatened the majority of Muslims as well as non-Muslims. "Our job is simple: it is to support and partner those Muslims who believe deeply in Islam but also who believe in peaceful co-existence, in taking on and defeating the extremists who don't." Mr Blair was speaking almost ten years to the day since he gave an address in Chicago at the height of the Kosovo crisis when he set out what he described as a "doctrine of international community" that sought to justify intervention, including military intervention, not only when a nation's interests are directly engaged but also where there exists a humanitarian crisis or gross oppression of a civilian population. The speech was criticised widely at the time as hopelessly idealistic and even dangerous. "Probably, in the light of events since then, some would feel vindicated," Mr Blair said last night, but he stood by his stance. 'I still believe that those who oppress and brutalise their citizens are better put out of power than kept in it,' he said. Defending his intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said the argument that Britain should revert to a more traditional, cautious foreign policy should be resisted. "The case for the doctrine I advocated ten years ago remains as strong now as it was then," he said, arguing that there was a link between the murders in Mumbai, the terror attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, the attempts to destabilise countries such as Yemen, and the training camps of insurgents in Somalia. "It is not one movement. There is no defined command and control. But there is a shared ideology. There are many links criss-crossing the map of Jihadist extremism. And there are elements in the leadership of a major country, namely Iran, that can support and succour its practitioners." Defending the Obama Administration's attempts to engage with Iran, Mr Blair said: "The Iranian Government should not be able to claim that we have refused the opportunity for constructive dialogue, and the stature and importance of such an ancient and extraordinary civilisation means that as a nation, Iran should command respect and be accorded its proper place in the world's affairs." I hope this engagement succeeds. More... Source: Times Online
 Jamal Badawi, an important leader of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, has lectured a camp sponsored by the Native European Muslim Assembly (NEMA), a part of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe (FIOE), essentially the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe. An article posted on Islam Online describes both the activities at the camp, attended chiefly by new Greek Muslims, as well as describing the founding of NEMA, a previously unknown part of FIOE: Imagine 60 native European Muslims to gather in one place for four days to discuss, learn, and seek beneficial inspiration for overcoming any challenges facing them as European Muslim reverts – that is what the Native European Muslim Assembly (NEMA) current camp looks like. As one of the associations of the Federation of Islamic Organizationsin Europe (FIOE), NEMA organizes its second annual meeting for EU Muslim converts in Istanbul. The camp, which started on April 10 and lasted for three days, aimed at reinforcing a European-scale network for the new Muslims. Read more ... Source: The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report
'This is not what we want for Pakistan'Ayeshah Alam, V-Day activist Renowned social activist Ayeshah Alam speaks out against the recent flogging of a teenage girl by Taliban fighters. The violence was captured on a mobile phone and spread throughout the internet, highlighting militant brutality in the once-peaceful district, a sign of Taliban influence spreading deeper into the country of Pakistan.
When Samar Minallah first forwarded me the video of a young 17-year-old girl being flogged in public I was stunned. These were images that one had gotten used to seeing come out of Afghanistan but not my country. For years on my morning radio show and then later on my morning television show. I had been saying, “we are ignoring what's really happening in our tribal areas.” Hushed stories had been filtered through and my pathan friends kept going on about how the government was ignoring the gradual growing strength of extremist elements. We failed. As a society. When we could see the warning signs, they weren't in our faces and perhaps that's why it was easier to brush them aside...but we failed and today the flogging of our 17 year old sister...daughter is because we kept quiet then and didn't make a loud enough noise to say NO.... this is not what we want for Pakistan.
Today I am proud to see so many men and women stand up for the little girl and tell the people who did this...YOU WILL NOT DO THIS ANYMORE. I was even more pleasantly surprised to see clergymen, different political parties, all come together with one voice and say NO. Yet there are still the men in those areas, which are not under the write of the government who continue to have their beliefs and are making the women of that territory miserable. Some were cynical and said it was fake. Clearly Chaand Bibi's screams for help and mercy were not enough proof for them. Today we don't know where Chaand Bibi is. We don't know if she is still alive. The courts have asked for the victim to be produced but the family will never come forward as it "dishonors" the family name. That today in the year 2009, these events and ideas are still alive is a shameful thing. Yes governments have their role to play, but even as individuals, we can all contribute in making a change of opinions and ideas and ways of living and thinking, if only in the slightest way. We have a saying in Urdu that says "katray katray say durya bunta hai" which means “ a river can be created drop by drop,” or, as Margaret Mead liked to say "Never doubt a small group of people can change the world... it never happened any other way."
Thank you for your work in challenging accepted norms... lets keep challenging and changing so the Chaand Bibis' of the world don't have to scream helplessly anymore. - Ayeshah
Ayeshah Alam is a blogger, filmmaker and radio host based in Pakistan.Source: http://newsite.vday.org/vmoment/alamHumaira Awais Shahid: Fighting Forced MarriagesBy Tekla Szymanski - From the January 2004 issue of World Press Review A Pakistani legislator fights unspeakable women’s rights abuses—with surprising success. The acid burns the hair off their heads, fuses lips, melts breasts, and leaves the victims blind, in agony, unrecognizable, and scarred for life. According to the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), at least 211 women were killed in 2002 and countless others maimed when their husbands threw acid in their faces to punish them for disobedience. In Urdu, the acid is called tez ab—sharp water. Some victims say that it is worse than dying. Humaira Awais Shahid, 32, a former investigative journalist turned legislator at the Punjab Assembly, is lobbying to treat this "ruthless tribal custom" as attempted murder. On Aug. 5, 2003, the Assembly passed her resolution to treat it as a crime and prosecute the men who commit it. According to HRCP, an estimated 70-90 percent of Pakistani women have suffered some form of domestic violence—ranging from beatings and rape to maiming and murder. Shahid became aware of these practices while researching forced marriages for the Lahore-based daily Khabrain. The so-called "blood marriages" (vinni, from the Pashto word for blood) are forced unions between rival clan members in parts of northwestern Pakistan. They settle disputes, restore honor, win forgiveness, and turn mostly minor girls—some as young as 5 years old—into servant-mistresses. Tribal jirgas, or assemblies, order the unions. One girl above the age of 7 or two girls younger than that are an acceptable compensation for, say, murder. The girls become the property of the victim's family. According to Junaid Bahadur of Karachi's Dawn, "The girl's parents usually pray for her death so the period of their disgrace is shortened." During her research, Shahid came across the account of the forced marriages of a 17-year-old girl and her 8-year-old sister. Shahid challenged the local jirga: The marriages were dissolved and a monetary settlement between the families was worked out. Though part of the political establishment, Shahid, too, is a victim of prejudice. "To my horror, most of the time, [we] aren't allowed to speak up in debates," she says. "It's like we are just there to amuse the male legislators." Nevertheless, in February 2003, Shahid's resolution to outlaw vinni passed unanimously. "Women's issues...will never totally disappear from the agenda of the [Assembly]," says Shahid, "but they will only be touched upon and never debated. Women's empowerment is a fashionable discourse." Source: http://www.tekla-szymanski.com/englpeople2004.html
 No date for the proposed visit was announced in Jerusalem | Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been invited to visit Egypt, Israeli officials say. The offer was made during talks between Mr Netanyahu and Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman in Jerusalem. Mr Suleiman also met Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who last year angered Egyptians with comments about the Middle East peace process. Mr Suleiman also discussed efforts to release of an Israeli soldier seized by Palestinian militants in 2006. Gilad Shalit was captured by militants, including members of the Hamas group which runs Gaza, in a raid into Israel which also left two Israeli soldiers dead. Lieberman's 'respect' During the Jerusalem talks, Mr Netanyahu told Mr Suleiman that "Israel and Egypt have common interests, and the most important one is peace," Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported. In his turn, Mr Suleiman delivered an official invitation from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to Mr Netanyahu to visit Cairo. No date was announced. It was their first meeting since a cabinet led by Mr Netanyahu, a right-wing politician, took office in Israel. Mr Suleiman also held separate talks with Mr Lieberman. The Israeli foreign ministry later said in a statement that Mr Lieberman "expressed his respect and appreciation for Egypt's leading role in the region and his personal respect for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Minister Suleiman". Mr Lieberman, who heads the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, last year caused outrage in Egypt by saying Mr Mubarak could "go to hell" for refusing to make an official visit to Israel. Mr Suleiman has led Egyptian efforts to mediate a lasting ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian faction Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. Source: BBC
 ISLAMIC militants are within striking distance of Tarbela Dam, one of Pakistan's main sources of water and power, an MP warned yesterday as Hillary Clinton accused the Government of "abdicating to the Taliban". The Taliban are within 100km of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, after seizing control of more towns in the North Western Frontier Province this week, including the provincial administrative headquarters of Buner. Pakistani paramilitary forces have been deployed to protect government buildings and bridges in Buner, a senior official said. The leader of the Jamiat Ulema-I-Islam Islamic party, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, told parliament the Taliban forces could soon be "knocking at the doors of Islamabad". "After occupying Buner, they have reached Kala Dhaka and may also be taking over the water reservoir of the Tarbela Dam," Mr Rehman said. The southern tip of Tarbela - the world's largest earth- and rock-filled dam - is just 50km from Islamabad. The dam provides 30 per cent of the country's hydroelectricity and much of the north's irrigation water. The US has reacted with alarm to the security crisis in its subcontinental ally. US President Barack Obama has dispatched his joint chiefs of staff chairman Mike Mullen to Islamabad for the second time in a fortnight, and has summoned the Pakistan and Afghan presidents to Washington. The march of the Taliban prompted harsh criticism yesterday from the US Secretary of State, Ms Clinton, who told a congressional panel the deteriorating security situation in Pakistan "poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world". "The Pakistani Government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists," she said. "We cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan." Ms Clinton called on Pakistanis to speak out "forcefully" against the policies of their Government, which was ceding "more and more territory to the insurgents, to the Taliban, to al-Qa'ida, to the allies that are in this terrorist syndicate". Pakistan's Government agreed in February to impose sharia law in the country's northwestern Swat Valley and the surrounding Malakand region in exchange for a ceasefire with Taliban forces. President Asif Ali Zardari ratified the agreement last week following unanimous parliamentary support. But on Tuesday, hundreds of armed Taliban entered Buner, a district of more than a million people 100km from Islamabad, setting up checkpoints, occupying mosques and ransacking offices of non-government organisations. Regular courts stopped functioning in Buner yesterday after the Peshawar High Court deemed it too dangerous for officials to function. The move coincided with a deadline set by the militants for the Government to abolish the regular courts. A Taliban commander said they would set up sharia courts in Buner - as they have done in Swat - to end a "sense of deprivation", but would not interfere with police work. The Pakistani Government yesterday refused to rule out using force against the Taliban. Source: The Australian
Khaled Abu Toameh April 22 Jamal Zahalka is an Arab member of the Knesset who complained at the UN's World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Tolerance in Geneva that he's a victim of "Israeli racist apartheid." Hamed Bitawi is a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council who was shot and wounded by a Palestinian security officer as he walked out of a mosque in the West Bank city of Nablus. This incident occurred almost at the same time that Zahalka was depicting himself as a victim of racism and apartheid. Also while Zahalka was spewing his hate statements, the authorities in Kuwait arrested Khalifa al-Kharafi, an election candidate, for criticizing members of the ruling al-Sabah family. Another Kuwaiti parliamentarian candidate was arrested days earlier over a similar issue. Former Islamist MP Daifallah Buramia had been quoted as saying that the country's defense minister, a senior member of the royal family, was incapable of becoming prime minister. In Lebanon, four parliament members have been assassinated since the killing of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. The spree of assassinations, believed to be ordered by Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, prompted 40 members of the Lebanese parliament to hide in a heavily-guarded hotel in Beirut for several weeks. In Jordan, former lawmaker Toujan al-Faial was convicted and sentenced a few years ago to 18 months in jail for “harming the state’s dignity” when she accused a former prime minister and his cabinet of financial corruption. The Jordanian government now claims that she is ineligible to run for Parliament. Al-Faisal declared in response: "Here, the head of a corrupt government decides who can and cannot run for office. They want a Parliament that won’t hold the government accountable for corruption.” These are only a few examples of the dangers facing members of parliament in the Arab world. But as far as Zahalka, the Arab member of the Knesset, is concerned, the plight of his Arab fellow parliamentarians is not an important case worth mentioning at the Durban II conference. Zahalka forgot to mention in his speech that thanks to Israeli "apartheid" and "racism," he is a democratically elected member of the Knesset. He also forgot that when he was sworn in, he voluntarily made an oath of loyalty to the state of Israel. Zahalka was elected on a platform that promised to bring better services and equal rights to the 1.4 million Arab citizens of Israel. It is hard to see how participating in an anti-Israel conference in Geneva along with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinajad and other Israel-haters will help solve the serious problems facing the Arab sector in Israel, such as unemployment, lack of infrastructure and poverty. The opposite is true. Zahalka's participation and fiery statements only play into the hands of those in Israel who are trying to depict the Arab citizens as a "fifth column" and an "enemy from within." If Israel were an "apartheid" state, Zahalka would not be sitting in the Knesset, enjoying all the social and economic privileges of an elected lawmaker. While there is no denying that the Arabs have long been suffering from a policy of discrimination in many fields, especially in the allocation of public funds and building zones, Zahalka and his friends are doing the blacks of South Africa injustice by drawing a parallel between their suffering under the former (and real) apartheid system and the problems facing the Arab minority. And if Zahalka really cared about racism and apartheid, why doesn't he endorse the case of the detained Kuwaiti parliament candidtaes or that of the terrified Lebanese lawmakers who are often afraid to walk out of their homes or that of the Palestinian legislator who was shot in the leg? Source: Hudson New York
 The Council on American-Islamic Rela tions (CAIR) has slammed Rep. Peter King for his alleged "bigoted" remarks, but the Long Island Republican is standing his ground.
Good for him -- because what motivates King is a legitimate concern for the security of Americans, and he's not going to let such allegations silence him.
King was commenting Friday on the Department of Homeland Security's inflammatory report on "right-wing extremism." He noted that DHS "never put out a report saying . . . look out for Islamic terrorists in our country" or "that very few Muslims come forward to cooperate with the police" on terrorism.
"If they sent out a report like that," he added, "there would be hell to pay."
No doubt. Even the Obama folks seem to go out of their way to avoid mentioning Islam and terror in one sentence.
King rightly acknowledges that most US Muslims are loyal and oppose terrorism. But he also says too many won't come forward and cooperate with law-enforcement agencies investigating terrorist threats.
He's made similar remarks before, basing them on talks with law-enforcement officials and other information.
CAIR, it should be noted, was named an unindicted co-conspirator by prosecutors in 2007 in connection with a plot to support the terrorists of Hamas.
Far from bigotry, King understands that the world is still a dangerous place, that America still has terrorist enemies -- with ties to radical Islam. He deserves to be praised -- not bashed. Source: NY PostH/T: IPT BlogHon. Peter King
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
In an amazing display of advertising incompetence the warmed over CAIR front organization - United Voice for America - is selling tickets for the Florida Security Council (FSC) Free Speech Summit on April 27, 2009.
Please read this CAIR/UVA email that very angry Muslims sent out to attack the Free Speech Right of Rep. Adam Hasner. Take a moment - read it and then like many others who read this CAIR/UVA email
BUY A TICKET & COME TO OUR FREE SPEECH SUMMIT.
THE ANGRY, ANTI-FREE SPEECH EMAILOne of Florida's top Republican Politicians, State Representative Adam Hasner (district 87), is hosting an event that promotes fear, and propagates stereotypes, lies, and hatred. Hasner in cooperation with a committee of right-wing extremists is organizing an event to show the propoganda film FITNA and to honor its producer the controversial Dutch MP Geert Wilders.
ACT NOW tell GOP Leaders to reject the hate, click here to sign your letter.
The film Fitna uses select excerpts from the Qur'an that are not only taken out of context but blatantly misinterpreted. The film uses imagery to create a message that Islam is a faith that commands followers to kill & terrorize non-believers.
The film's creator, Wilders, has earned international condemnation. His own government is prosecuting him for inciting hate, and he has been banned from entering several nations including the UK. Wilders holds the view that the Qur'an should be banned and has said that Muhammad (PBUH) would "... in these days be hunted down as a terrorist."
Two week ago in California, Wilders said "Muhammad was a warlord, a conqueror, a pedophile and a mass murderer."
In spite of Wilder's record of incitement, Rep. Hasner is hosting the right-wing politician in Florida giving him a forum to spew his hate.
Hasner is the same politician who last month spoke out against Muslim day at the state capitol. Hasner organized what he dubbed as an "information campaign" to prevent Muslims from lobbying.
Hasner has attempted to disenfranchise minorities, he has spewed and spawned hate, and he will continue to do so, UNLESS YOU SPEAK OUT AGAINST IT!
CLICK HERE TO SEND SIGN A LETTER TO THE GOVERNOR AND GOP LEADERS
DO SOMETHING!
Tell Governor Crist and the Republican leadership to REJECT REP. HASNER'S DIVISIVE ACTIONS, that you will no longer listen to rhetoric against minorities by elected officials, that they should be spending their time resolving issues like the budget and the economic disaster instead of supporting propaganda. In senconds and 1-click your letter will reach politicians, ACT NOW DON'T DELAY.
Best regards and salaam
Ramey Hito United Voices For America So there you have it. A CAIR/UVA advertising blunder that is leading motivated Patriotic, Freedom Loving Americans to reject the hate-speech attacks against Rep. Adam Hasner and Mr. Geert Wilders and join with us at the Florida Security Council's 1st Annual FREE SPEECH SUMMIT! RUIN A TERRORISTS DAY - FORWARD THIS EMAILPRESS INFO: FOR INTERVIEWS CONTACT: TOM TRENTO Tom@FloridaSecurityCouncil.org / 561-582-1424 WWW.FLORIDASECURITYCOUNCIL.ORGSource: FSCH/T: UAC Ramey Hito
Latest recipients of the Distinguished Islamofascist Award
 The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit against Iran filed by Americans held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran 30 years ago. The request comes in a $6.6 billion class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. Fifty-two American diplomats and military officials were held captive for more than a year at the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency by a group of Islamist students who supported the Iranian revolution. The hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981, just minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the new president. In court papers filed Tuesday night without any announcement, the Justice Department argued that the agreement to release the hostages, known as the Algiers Accords, precluded lawsuits against Iran. A similar lawsuit brought by the Iranian hostages was dismissed in 2000 after the government successfully argued it was banned by the Algiers Accords. The hostages argue that legislation passed by Congress last year and signed into law by President George W. Bush gives them the right to bring private lawsuits. Read more ...Source: APH/T: Christopher Holton
By Aryn Baker / Islamabad The move by Taliban-backed militants into the Buner district of northwestern Pakistan, closer than ever to Pakistan's capital of Islamabad, have prompted concerns both within the country and abroad that the nuclear-armed nation of 165 million is on the verge of inexorable collapse. On Wednesday a local Taliban militia crossed from the Swat Valley - where a February cease-fire allowed the implementation of strict Islamic, or Shari'a, law - into the neighboring Buner district, which is just a few hours drive from Islamabad (65 miles, separated by a mountain range, as the crow flies). Read more ...Source: Time
The two-minute video, shot using a mobile phone, shows a burka-clad woman face down on the ground. Two men hold her arms and feet while a third, a black-turbaned fighter with a flowing beard, whips her repeatedly.
"Please stop it," she begs, alternately whimpering or screaming in pain with each blow to the backside. "Either kill me or stop it now."
A crowd of men stands by, watching silently. Off camera a voice issues instructions. "Hold her legs tightly," he says as she squirms and yelps.
After 34 lashes the punishment stops and the wailing woman is led into a stone building, trailed by a Kalashnikov-carrying militant.
Reached by phone, Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan claimed responsibility for the flogging. "She came out of her house with another guy who was not her husband, so we must punish her. There are boundaries you cannot cross," he said. He defended the Taliban's right to thrash women shoppers who were inappropriately dressed, saying it was permitted under Islamic law.
The Guardian received the video through Samar Minallah, a Pashtun documentary maker and anthropologist who lived in Swat for two years in the late 1990s. It has been passed between Swat residents by mobile phones.
Ms Minallah said the punishment had been inflicted within the last 10 days, following the signing of a controversial peace deal under which the provincial government ceded control of the valley's judicial system to the militants.
"This video is being widely circulated because the Taliban want people to see it. They want to give the message that this is taking place after the peace deal because this is something they ideologically believe in," she said.
Local sources including journalists and human rights workers, some of whom declined to be identified, confirmed the video was recent, although estimates of its timing varied between one and three weeks ago. The Taliban spokesman said it predated the peace deal.
Sher Muhammad Khan, an official in Swat with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said: "They have committed so many atrocities since the peace deal. They have taken entire control of the district. There is nobody to control them; they decide disputes according to their whims."
Since the 15 February deal, a hybrid of traditional and Islamic law has been operational in Mingora, the largest city in Swat district. The qazi courts, as they are known, are not operated by the Taliban but by a related political movement. They have a murky legal status because the changes have yet to be signed into law.
Floggings and other physical punishments have not been imposed in Mingora, where some residents have praised the system's efficiency. However, in outlying districts, where government writ has been entirely crushed, a crude form of gun justice prevails.
The woman in the video, named as Chaand and believed to be aged 17, was punished in Matta, a district further up the Swat Valley.
Minallah and other sources said the girl was punished on suspicion of having had an illicit relationship with a married man. She did not receive a trial. "The whole case is based on the suspicions of one neighbour," said Minallah.
The woman's brother is among the men pinning her down, she added. "It's symbolic that he does it with his own hands. It gives him honour in local society, that he has done it for the sake of religion."
The Swat Valley is controlled by Maulana Fazlullah, a charismatic preacher who initially gained popularity through radio broadcasts, then seized control through gun battles, suicide attacks and intimidation of the local population.
Since the peace deal, women have been beaten for shopping unaccompanied in Mingora's main market and dozens of girls' schools remain closed, many of them bombed.
Fazlullah has sworn loyalty to Baitullah Mehsud, the overall Taliban leader from South Waziristan who claimed responsibility for last Monday's eight-hour assault on a police centre in Lahore and has vowed to mount attacks in Washington.
On Wednesday a presumed American drone fired rockets at a compound controlled by his network, killing at least 14 people.
The effective surrender of government authority in Swat has caused great alarm across Pakistan and among western allies.Minallah said she feared Talibanisation would spread across Pakistan.
"I have distributed this video because I feel people are in denial. They don't want to believe what is happening." Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/02/taliban-pakistan-justice-women-flogging
 AT least 70 people were killed in two bloody suicide bomb attacks in Iraq today as the military announced the capture of the al-Qaeda chief in Iraq. In the deadliest strike, at least 45 people, including several Iranian pilgrims, were killed when a suicide bomber struck a restaurant in a town northeast of Baghdad, a military official said. Another 28 people, including children, were killed in a suicide attack on a police patrol in southeastern Baghdad, defence and interior ministry officials said.The bloodshed was unleashed as the Iraq military announced the arrest of one of the country's most wanted men, the head of the Iraqi wing of al-Qaeda which calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq. "Abu Omar al-Baghdadi was arrested today in Baghdad," Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qasim Atta said. "It was Iraqi forces who arrested him based on an intelligence tipoff from someone," he added. Security has improved dramatically in Iraq over the past two years as local and US forces crack down on al-Qaeda fighters, but attacks targeting security forces are still common in some parts of the country, including the capital. At least 45 people were killed on when a suicide bomber struck a restaurant in a town near the restive city of Baquba, a military official said. The official said another 55 people were wounded in the attack on the restaurant, which was packed with Iranian pilgrims on their way to the Shi'ite holy city of Karbala south of Baghdad. The attack took place in the town of Muqdadiyah northeast of Baquba, the capital of the ethnically and religiously mixed Diyala province, which still sees sporadic attacks despite security improvements elsewhere in Iraq. In southeastern Baghdad, another 28 people were killed in the attack on a police patrol in the mixed district of Al-Riyadh, officials said. "Iraqi police were distributing aid to displaced families when a suicide bomber blew himself up," an interior ministry official said. "At least 10 police and five children are among 28 dead." Fifty-two people were also wounded in the blast, defence and interior ministry officials said. A second interior ministry source said the suicide bomber was a woman but this could not immediately be confirmed.
Shouldn't the UN be promoting human rights instead of racism as the organization's integrity takes a pounding?
 The United Nations enjoys what is known as the "halo effect", whereby, because of its supposed humanitarian focus and promotion of universal values, it is insulated from scrutiny and is regarded as above reproach by the media, which often holds international bodies such as the UN to be a reference and a guiding moral light.
HonestReporting has regularly attempted to redress the balance, focusing on some of the long list of discriminatory actions by the UN against Israel and highlighting shortcomings within the international organization that the media failed to cover. -
Sept. 2001: The first Durban anti-racist conference that descended into the most hate-filled festival of anti-Semitism since the end of WW2. -
July 2004: The UN's International Court of Justice rules against Israel's security barrier, failing to even mention the Palestinian terrorism that prompted its construction in the first place. -
Oct. 2004: Ignored by the media, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza admits that Hamas members are on his payroll. -
June 2006: The new UN Human Rights Council is inaugurated. It quickly focuses on singling Israel out for condemnation while ignoring the worst cases of human rights abuses around the world. -
Nov. 2006: "Special Raporteur on Palestine to the UN Human Rights Council" John Dugard writes that Israel "has many of the worst characteristics of apartheid." -
Jan. 2009: UN staff in Gaza accuse Israel of shelling a UN school, killing 43 civilians. The story is later proven to be false and John Ging, UNRWA's operations director in Gaza is forced to admit that the mortar shells landed outside of the school and that nobody inside was killed. The UN's incorrect public pronouncements however, were responsible for letting the story turn into another anti-Israel libel.
In October 2008, HonestReporting updated you on the preparations for the Durban Review Conference currently taking place in Geneva, Switzerland. Led by a committee consisting of human rights violators such as Libya, Iran and Cuba, the writing was already on the wall for Durban 2.  But is the "halo effect" starting to dissipate? The UN's aura of high morality took a beating as Durban 2 gave a platform to Iran's President Ahmadinejad. As the Dallas Morning News mused:
After all, giving the Holocaust-denying fruitcake Ahmadinejad a platform to lecture the world about racism is like inviting Bernie Madoff to headline a global conference on business ethics. While those countries that staged a walk-out during Ahmadinejad's vitriol are to be commended, many media outlets, particularly outside of the US and Canada, which decided to boycott the conference in its totality, have failed to grasp the significance of the final conference communique, which has been signed earlier than expected on Tuesday instead of the end of the week to avoid further controversies. For, as the New York Times states: While there have been improvements in the communique, as now written, it would affirm the conclusions of the last one, implicitly still singling out Israel. The United Nations conference can never have credibility, or value, if it is used to attack one country — Israel — especially when so many other countries have truly abysmal human rights records, including China, Sudan and Iran. In stark contrast to the UN's tarnished integrity, The Australian noted that Australia's quest for a temporary seat on the Security Council could be damaged by its boycott of Durban 2. However, in stark contrast to the UN's tarnished integrity, the paper concluded: Before Durban II, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said participants would "be judged harshly" if the conference failed. So they will be. Some nations, rightly, walked out as the Iranian President spoke. Whatever the cost of our non-participation in terms of votes for the Security Council, Australia was right to have no part of it. Predictably, although there was almost wall-to-wall condemnation of Ahmadinejad, some media outlets expressed regret that his appearance had perhaps vindicated Israel's concerns. The Guardian wrote: It makes whatever desire there is within the UN to investigate allegations of Israeli war crimes in Gaza that much harder to realise, as the UN as a whole is tainted by the Iranian leader's presence at one conference. Other UK papers, such as The Times and Daily Telegraph admonished the British government for attending Durban 2 even before Ahmadinejad's outburst. (See HonestReporting UK for more details.) Sadly, as Gerald Steinberg in the Wall Street Journal points out: Once again, the obsessive focus on the Jewish state meant that the real problems of racism and genocide were largely ignored at this U.N. conference. Only outside the official U.N. antiracism conference, at well-attended "counterconferences" organized by NGOs such as U.N. Watch, did the real victims of racism and mass murder get the attention they deserved. Only at those counterconferences could one witness moving presentations by victims of Iranian oppression, survivors of the Rwandan genocide and the continuing slaughter in Darfur. Source: Honest Reporting
By Erick Stakelbeck A major Hezbollah terror cell has been broken up and it could have huge ramifications for the Middle East. Egyptian authorities recently arrested 25 Hezbollah operatives. They're accused of planning to carry out attacks on Egyptian soil. According to Egyptian media outlets, Israeli tourists in the Sinai Peninsula were among Hezbollah's targets. Other reports suggest that the cell was planning suicide bombings in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. Does Iran Have More Planned Than Just The Destruction of Israel? Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, says the group had no plans to conduct strikes in Egypt. Iran – which trains, funds and controls Hezbollah – says the same. But Israeli embassy spokesman Jonathan Peled told CBN News that the arrests show that Iran has designs in the region that go far beyond the destruction of Israel. Read more ...Source: FSM
One of the common tactics of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood is to construct coalitions of its own front organizations as well as inter-related groups and individuals, giving the appearance that the Brotherhood has more broad-based support than it actually enjoys. A recent example of this tactic is an announcement recently made by the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT) identifying additional organizations that have become signatories to a statement threatening to suspend outreach to the FBI. According to the announcement: More Muslim and civil liberties organizations, activists and academics have signed on to a statement by the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT), a coalition of major national Islamic organizations, saying that it is considering suspending outreach relations with the FBI over recent incidents in which American mosques and Muslim groups have been targeted. The new signatories include the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California (ISCSC), the National Lawyers Guild, the Colorado Muslim Council, and the Muslim Consultative Network. Read more ... Source: Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report
 By A. Faizur Rahman
The passage of a law in Afghanistan asking Muslim women to unconditionally submit to the sexual whims of their husbands once in four days is a shocking piece of legislation that seeks to dehumanise women reducing them to mere chattels devoid of human rights. Although this law applies only to the Shia minority, it is outrageous that the Afghan mullahs thought it Islamic to legislate on a private relationship which is confined to the four walls of a bedroom. To add insult to injury the 300 women who were bold enough to protest against this inhuman law were pelted with stones and called “dogs” and “slaves of the Christians.” One fails to understand why motives should be attributed to a democratic protest. How can the moderate Muslims who have always been part of the larger Muslim society suddenly become agents of the West “which is out to destroy Islam?” The truth is that it is the bigoted Talibanised Muslims who are destroying Islam through their misinterpretations and intolerance for progressive ideas. It is they who need to be treated for their fossilized mind-set. It is strange the puppet regime of Hamid Karzai, which was installed by the US and its allies to replace the Taliban, is doing exactly what the Taliban would have done if they were in power. If this was what was in store for Afghanistan why were the Taliban replaced at all? Infact, the entire region seems to be relapsing into medievalism with Pakistan signing a deal with the terrorists of the Swat valley to implement their version of the shariah which is symbolized by the brutal and arbitrary public flogging of an young girl without establishing her guilt in a proper court of law, to say nothing about the recent refusal of a Saudi judge to annul the marriage of an eight year old child to a forty seven year old man. A deeper probe into the psyche of most of the narrow-minded radicalized jurists would reveal that their interpretations are based on traditional tafsirs (commentaries) written by patriarchal males representing only the experiences of men with either the total exclusion of experiences of women, or their interpretation through the coloured vision of men. This has resulted in women being brought under the control of men to be exploited at will. For instance, ininteresting incident concerning the shariah, The New York Times on March 22, 2007 reported that a German Judge turned down citing the Quran, a Muslim wife's request for a fast-track divorce on the ground that her husband beat her from the beginning of their marriage. The Judge justified her ruling by saying that the couple came from a Moroccan cultural milieu in which it is common for husbands to beat their wives because the Quran sanctions such physical abuse.
The Judge was obviously quoting one of the most mistranslated verses of the Quran (4:34) which supposedly allows wife beating. The mistranslated word is wazribuhunna which is derived from the root zaraba. Major commentators of the Quran including Ibn Kasir, Pickthall, and Maulana Maududi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami, have rendered this word as "beat them" ignoring the fact that the wordzaraba has various other shades of meaning. Out of the 50 times it occurs in the Quran, 31 times it has been used in the meaning of "to explain by giving an example." Only 10 times it has used to mean "to strike" but mostly in the context of Moses "striking the rock" or the sea, and angels "striking the faces" of the sinners.The verse 4:34 actually talks about the various means at the disposal of a husband to bring about a reconciliation with his wife and obviously beating the wife cannot be an option to sort out differences. Thus, the translation "beat them" is clearly not justified in this context. But unfortunately even today most Muslim societies consider it their Islamic right to beat their wives for disobedience. In other words, the passage of the controversial Afghan law would allow husbands to beat their wives if they refuse sex or step out of the house without their permission. For Islam to be exploited in this manner is indeed shocking given the fact that the Prophet was one of the greatest promoters of women’s rights.
The same holds true for the punishment of stoning to death for adultery. The primary source of Islamic law, the Quran, does not prescribe stoning as a punishment for any crime much less adultery. It only authorizes the Muslim state to flog those guilty of adultery or fornication but only after the case has been proved by four eyewitnesses which is a near impossibility. Even here the flogging is not meant to hurt the person but only to humiliate him. A report in Kitabul Hudud of Bukhari says that when a man was brought before the Prophet for habitual drinking he was asked to be flogged. And it was done with a lash made out of twisted clothing which could not have hurt him. Interestingly, when someone in the group cursed the drunken man saying “May Allah disgrace you” he was chided by the Prophet.
Compare this to the brutality of what is being done in the name of Islam today. It is time the ulema worldwide collaborated on a liberal interpretation of Islam in the modern context. The author is student of comparative study of religions. He may be reached at faizz@rocketmail.com Source: The Hindustan Times, April 18, 2009 H/T: A.S.
TALIBAN militants have begun their march towards Pakistan's capital after seizing further territory in the country's northwest and setting up street patrols and checkpoints less than 100km from Islamabad. Residents and journalists have reported heavily armed Taliban patrols in Mingora, the main city in the former tourist haven of the Swat Valley, and in nearby towns where the militants are said to be digging trenches and setting up bunkers. Pakistan's Dawn newspaper said yesterday that police and security forces had been confined to their stations and camps after the Taliban seized all administrative offices in Buner, which was the headquarters of the provincial Awami National Party government. The militants had begun recruiting unemployed youth from the streets of Buner and surrounding towns to help enforce their brand of Islamism, the newspaper said. The move comes a week after Pakistan's parliament signed into law the imposition of Sharia law over roughly one-third of the country's North West Frontier Province in exchange for peace in the region, effectively breaking up the country into those areas ruled by the state and those ruled by Islamic law. News of the Taliban's extended reach appears to bear out warnings that the deal would only embolden the Islamic extremists. The Taliban agreed in February to lay down arms after the Government yielded to their bloody 18-month campaign for Islamic law in the Swat Valley - a former tourist haven. But Taliban troops began moving south from Swat into Buner in the neighbouring Gokand Valley a fortnight ago. Initial negotiations by local elders to peacefully remove the militants failed. Since then, the Taliban has reportedly taken over a police station, looted international aid offices, forced out elected leaders and business people and engaged in a deadly shoot-out with local militia formed to clear them from the area. A local politician, Istiqbal Khan, confirmed yesterday that the militants had entered the district in "large numbers" and had started setting up checkpoints at main roads and other strategic positions. "They are patrolling in Buner, and local elders and clerics are negotiating with them to resolve this issue through talks," he said. The militants are reportedly advancing towards border areas of Swabi, Malakand and Mardan - the hometown of North West Frontier Province chief minister Amir Haider Khan Hoti. A top government official in Upper Dir, a district adjacent to Swat, was reported missing yesterday and is believed to have been kidnapped by militants, another official said. Pakistani and US officials estimate that up to 8000 militants are based in the Swat region - nearly double the number at the end of last year. Many politicians backed the deal, in the interests of peace in a region that has been racked by violence. In a recent interview, Swat Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said al-Qa'ida leader Osama bin Laden and other militants aiming to oust the US from Afghanistan would be welcome and protected in Swat.
 Source: Facebook
 April 23, 2009, 15:00 – 17:00
Palais des Nations, Geneva
Room/Salle XXV
Renowned Muslim experts from Africa, Asia, Europe and North America gather to consider how the implementation of universal human rights standards should be applied to racism and religious intolerance
UN Member States have agreed to the responsibility to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity, but what is today’s reality? With the proliferation of xenophobia and the questioning of universal human rights standards, the world is witnessing increasing conflict and repression rooted in intolerance. The Hudson Institute presents a unique opportunity to hear a prestigious panel gathered from four continents to discuss the universality of human rights standards in the fight against racism and religious intolerance.
Zeyno Baran is the Director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Eurasian Policy. Formerly, Baran directed the International Security and Energy Programs at The Nixon Center and the Caucasus Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She was awarded the Order of Honor by Georgian President Shevardnadze, and has been a Distinguished Visitor at the American Academy in Berlin.
Khaled Abu Toameh is an Israeli Arab journalist and documentary filmmaker. He is the West Bank and Gaza correspondent for U.S. News and World Report and the Jerusalem Post, and has been the Palestinian affairs producer for NBC News since 1988.
Stephen Schwartz is the author of 20 books, including The Two Faces of Islam (translated into Bosnian, Albanian, Indonesian, and Farsi) and The Other Islam, both of which have gained wide readership in the Muslim world as well as in the West. He also worked as a consultant for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia.
Irfan Al-Alawi is a barrister in the U.K. and has a Ph. D. in Islamic Studies from Al-Azhar University, Cairo. He is currently Executive Director of the Islamic Heritage Foundation UK. He is a widely recognized historian of Mecca and Medina and co-author of an important work with Shaykh Yusuf Rifa'i.
Veli Sirin is a graduate in Islamic studies of the University of Bochum, he is a leader in the Alevi Youth Movement, a journalist and German Director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism.
Tarek Heggy studied law at Ain Shams University in Cairo, followed by a degree from the International Management Institute of Geneva University. He taught law in Algeria and Morocco and went on to become Chairman of Shell Companies in Egypt. He has lectured at universities throughout the world.
Hudson Institute is a non-partisan policy research organization dedicated to innovative research and analysis that promotes global security, prosperity, and freedom.
For further information, please contact:
Zeyno Baran, +1-202-255-2073, zeyno@hudson.org
Vivian Hakkak, Press Officer + 41 78 740 2422 vh@span.chHudson Institute
Latest recipient of The MASH Award
 ‘Assolutamente dominatrice’: Naseebah Bibi, ritratta
fuori dal Tribunale di Preston Crown, è accusata di
aver tenuto prigioniere le mogli dei suoi figli
nella sua casa di BlackburnDi Jaya Narain | 1. aprile 2009 Una madre ha tenuto sotto chiave tre nuore e le ha minacciate come schiave per più di una decade: è quanto è stato detto in un Tribunale ieri. Naseebah Bibi, 62 anni, si dice aver gestito le donne con la paura – picchiandole e maltrattandole se le disobbedivano, minacciandole di romper loro le gambe e negando loro il cibo. Il dramma è venuto alla luce solo quando una moglie ha tentato di fuggire ed è corsa in mezzo alla strada allarmando un vicino. Al Tribunale è stato riferito che Tazeem Akhtar, Nagina Akhtar e Nisbah Akhtar sono arrivate in Gran Bretagna diversi anni prima, dopo dei matrimoni combinati con i figli di Bibi: Nahim, Fahim e Nadeem in Pakistan. Invece di vivere con i loro mariti e crescere le loro famiglie, le donne sono state messe al lavoro dalla loro suocera, a cucinare, pulire e usare una cucitrice industriale. Bibi, madre di sei figli, nega le tre accuse di scorretto imprigionamento delle tre donne fra il 1993 e il 2006. Suo figlio Nadeem, 31 anni, nega di aver scorrettamente imprigionato la moglie Nisbah fra il 2005 e il 2007 e un’accusa di lesioni fisiche. Philip Boyd, che accusa, dice: 'la signora Bibi ha chiaramente sfruttato ognuna di queste donne. Sono state trattate come bambini, schiave o cani tramite un regime di minacce d’uso della forza o l’uso effettivo della forza.’ ‘Queste giovani donne sono state rigettate dai mariti dei loro matrimoni combinati, non sapevano parlare inglese, non potevano tornare in Pakistan, erano in un Limbo e così sono state sfruttate dall’imputata per i suoi propri scopi.’ Il Tribunale di Preston Crown ha sentito che la prima moglie è stata Nagina Akhtar, che ha sposato suo marito Fahim nel 1993. La coppia ha avuto tre figli, ma lei ha passato i suoi giorni a pulire e a fare vestiti ad una cucitrice elettrica. Il signor Boyd ha detto: ‘appena è arrivata in questo Paese, le è stato ordinato dalla signora Bibi di passare il giorno cucendo ad una macchina industriale.’ ‘Lei cuciva tutto il giorno, ogni giorno. Cuciva per denaro, ma non ha visto niente di questo denaro.’ Quando una volta ha lasciato la piccola casa con terrazza di Blackburn, Bibi l’ha avvisata: ‘come ti permetti di lasciare la casa? Se lo fai ancora ti spezzo le gambe!’ Il signor Boyd ha detto al Tribunale che Nagina è stata forzata a vivere in queste condizioni per più di 13 anni.  La casa a Blackburn dove erano tenute le donneIl suo incubo è finito ad ottobre 2006, quando suo figlio Umar, di tre anni, ha detto al personale dell’Asilo nido che aveva visto la nonna picchiare sua madre. Nagina è stata portata in un Rifugio per vittime di violenza domestica e i suoi figli sono stati messi sotto custodia. La seconda moglie era Tazeem Akhtar, che ha sposato Nahim in Pakistan, ed è arrivata in Gran Bretagna dopo che le è stato dato il Visto nel 2001. Il signor Boyd ha detto: ‘è giunta aspettandosi di vivere e avere figli con suo marito, qualcosa che aveva sognato per qualche anno. Il suo sogno è stato spezzato.’ ‘Non sapeva che Nahim avesse già una partner, una donna bianca, e che aveva due figli. Egli non aveva in effetti intenzione di vivere come suo marito. Egli aveva in effetti una propria moglie e Tazeem l’ha scoperto solo il primo giorno in cui è arrivata.’ È pure stata messa al lavoro dalla sua suocera, in una routine estenuante che durava dall’alba a mezzanotte e che la lasciava distrutta. Il signor Boyd ha detto: ‘era semplicemente trattata come una schiava. Veniva svegliata alle 6 del mattino e le veniva ordinato di fare tutto il lavoro di casa, di pulire i pavimenti e le finestre e ha dovuto perfino fare il bucato con acqua fredda, a mano, sebbene ci fosse una macchina da lavare elettrica.’ ‘Una volta ha tentato di usare la macchina da lavare ma è stata picchiata dalla signora Bibi. Veniva picchiata con schiaffi sulla faccia, colpita con una scarpa sulle braccia e sulle gambe e le venivano tirati i capelli.’ Le veniva concesso di mangiare solo quando le veniva dato il permesso. Il suo calvario è finito dopo 18 mesi, nel 2003, quando Bibi l’ha rispedita in Pakistan e l’ha abbandonata là. Dandone evidenza tramite un video girato ad Islamabad, Tazeem ha detto: ‘in Inghilterra la mia vita non è stata felice. È stata molto triste. Ho affrontato un sacco di dolore ed è stato molto brutto per me.’ Asciugandosi le lacrime, ha detto che se disobbediva a Bibi veniva ‘picchiata con una spazzola sulla testa’. Dice: ‘ero spaventata e impaurita. Non mi ha mai lasciato uscire. Dovevo lavorare, lavorare, lavorare.’ La terza moglie era Nisbah Akhtar, la sorella di Tazeem, che ha sposato Nadeem in Pakistan e è arrivata in Inghilterra a dicembre 2005. ‘Quando è arrivata si aspettava di essere marito e moglie e che avrebbe avuto un futuro roseo’, dice il signor Boyd. ‘Ma al suo arrivo è stata allontanata da suo marito ed è iniziato lo stesso schema d’abuso.’ Il Tribunale è stato informato che il 28 ottobre 2007, si è scatenato un battibecco fra Bibi e Nisbah, che è finito con suo marito Nadeem che le ha tirato un pugno in faccia ed è stata chiusa a chiave nella sua stanza.’ Lei ha finto di aver bisogno di andare alla toilette e poi ha tentato di scappare, correndo fuori dalla porta principale fino in strada. Un vicino ha allertato la Polizia, e Bibi e Nadeem sono stati interrogati. Il processo continua. Source: Daily MailTranslated into Italian by FFFFF
 INDICE
Pagina / Personaggio / ARTICOLO
3 Ghada Jamsheer, Attivista per i Diritti umani – Bahrain
3 DENUNCIA DI ‘FATWA’ CHE AUTORIZZA A FARE SESSO CON I BAMBINI
5 Nawal Al-Sa'dawi, Femminista, Scrittrice, Attivista e Psichiatra - Egitto à Stati Uniti
5 RISPOSTA AD ACCUSE DI ‘BLASFEMIA’
6 Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Politica e Scrittrice - Somalia à Olanda e Stati Uniti
6 L’EUROPA HA BISOGNO DI DONNE COME AYAAN HIRSI ALI
6 SUL POLITICALLY-CORRECT OCCIDENTALE VERSO L’ISLAM’
6 CONTRO LA MUTILAZIONE GENITALE MASCHILE, OLTRE CHE FEMMINILE
7 SUL MONDO OCCIDENTALE E SUL MONDO ISLAMICO OGGI
9 Necla Kelek, Sociologa e Attivista per i Diritti della Donna – Turchia à Germania
9 NEKLA KELEK CONFRONTA TARIQ RAMADAN
10 Taslima Nasreen, Medico, Scrittrice, Femminista, Attivista per i Diritti umani – Bangladesh à India
10 ISLAM E DIRITTI DELLA DONNA SONO INCOMPATIBILI
11 Wafa Sultan, Psicologa – Siria à Stati Uniti
11 L’ASSENZA DI ONORABILITÀ ISLAMICA
11 L’OCCIDENTE DEVE COMBATTERE L’ISLAM
14 Ibn Warraq (pseudonimo), Scrittore – India/Pakistan à Stati Uniti
14 IN RELAZIONE AL SUO LIBRO ‘PERCHÉ NON SONO UN ISLAMICO’: L'ISLAM È UN CULTO?
16 DISCUSSIONE SULL’ISLAM, A CUI È INTERVENUTO
18 Robert Spencer, Autore – Stati Uniti
18 DECAPITAZIONE/ONORICIDIO DELLA MOGLIE DA PARTE DI UN ISLAMICO ‘MODERATO’
20 Ali Sina (pseudonimo), Fondatore di Faith Freedom International – Iran à Canada
20 IL PRINCIPE CARLO: IL COSTANTINO DELL’ISLAM?
25 RISPOSTA AD UNA GIOVANE PERPLESSA – ALLAH È SATANA
27 PERCHÉ HO LASCIATO L’ISLAM
33 David Horowitz, Attivista e Scrittore conservatore, Editore di Front Page Magazine – Stati Uniti
33 VIDEO ISPIRATO DA ARTICOLO SU FRONT PAGE - COSA SIGNIFICA CONCRETAMENTE ISLAM
35 Nonie Darwish, Scrittrice e Oratrice – Gaza/Egitto à Stati Uniti
35 ODIO ISLAMICO
38 Mina Ahadi, Attivista politica – Iran à Germania
38 8 MARZO (2007)
40 Brigitte Gabriel, Giornalista, Scrittrice – Libano à Stati Uniti
40 LA LIBERTÀ D'ESPRESSIONE È MESSA AL MURO
42 DECAPITAZIONE DELLA MOGLIE DA PARTE DI UN ‚MODERATO’
44 Organizzazione internazionale Muslims Against Shari’a – sede principale negli Stati Uniti
44 ISLAM SOTTO PROCESSO: CHE SIGNIFICATO HA LA DECAPITAZIONE DI BUFFALO
45 DELITTO D'ONORE DIMOSTRATO
47 GLI ONORICIDI SIANO RICONOSCIUTI COME DELITTI DI PRIMO GRADO
49 Moussa Hassan, figlio del Fondatore di Hamas – Gaza à (esilio)
49 INTERVISTA
50 Donna che ha lasciato l'Islam – Pakistan à (Occidente)
50 BREVE INTERVISTA
51 Organizzazione internazionale No To Political Islam – Fondatori principali residenti in Europa e India
51 PETIZIONE
52 PERCHÈ DIRE DI NO ALL'ISLAM POLITICO - RAZZISMO E ISLAMOFOBIA
52 ISLAM E DEMOCRAZIA - NON-ISLAMICI E LA SHARI'A
53 Documentario ‘Mangia zucchero e parla dolcemente’ (su matrimoni combinati e forzati e stupri ‘autorizzati’) - Donne da Turchia e Pakistan à Europa
53 "MANGIA ZUCCHERO E PARLA DOLCEMENTE"
55 INTERVISTA AL MEDIATORE CULTURALE CHE SEGUE L’ESECUTORE DI UN ONORICIDIO
57 Tawfik Hamid, Ex-fondamentalista, Oratore – Egitto à Stati Uniti
57 INTERVISTA: ESPERIENZA CON I ‘FRATELLI MUSULMANI’
58 Hossein Salahuddin, libero Pensatore e Poeta – Bangladesh
58 UN ISLAMICO LASCIA L’ISLAM
63 Sami AlRabaa, Professore di Sociologia – (Paese arabo) à Germania/Stati Uniti
63 MEDIO ORIENTE E CULTURA DELL'ODIO
64 ESCLUSIVO: LE DONNE NEGLI AHADITH
72 Sam Solomon, Scolaro islamico, Consigliere in materia di Legge islamica – (…à) Gran Bretagna/Stati Uniti
72 INTERVISTA AL PREMIO ORIANA FALLACI PER GEERT WILDERS
72 INTERVISTA CON UNO STUDENTE ISLAMICO - SAM SALOMON Source: Download AlcuniTesti.docTranslated into Italian by FFFFF
What does it mean if 61% of the Koran talks hatefully of unbelievers -- and only 2.6% of it talks about the overall good of humanity? By Jamie Glazov Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Moorthy Muthuswamy, an expert on terrorism in India. He grew up in India, where he had firsthand experience with political Islam and jihad. He moved to America in 1984 to pursue graduate studies. In 1992, he received a doctorate in nuclear physics from Stony Brook University, New York. Since 1999 he has extensively published ideas on neutralizing political Islam's terror war as it is imposed on unbelievers. His new book is Defeating Political Islam: The New Cold War. FP: Moorthy Muthuswamy, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Muthuswamy: Thank you for the opportunity, Jamie. FP: We’re here today to talk about statistical Islam. First, introduce for us the context of statistics in a scientific analysis. Muthuswamy: Statistics is a tool of science. In doing a scientific analysis of a large pool of data, statistical analysis is by and far the most effective way of interpreting or extracting useful information. Especially in the social context, data may often represent views or outlook in varying or even in opposing directions. The statistical synthesis consists of representation of data in certain percentages that clearly bring out the overall thrust of what should otherwise be a confusing set of information. Read more ...Source: FrontPage Magazine
Welcome to the masquerade where gross human rights violators lecture human rights champions.By Jamie Weinstein GENEVA – "For months we said that this conference is a circus, this conference is a masquerade," President of the French Union of Jewish Students Raphael Haddad told me at the UN Durban II conference against racism in Geneva, Switzerland on Monday. "When you see that there is someone who is racist with xenophobe, with anti-Semite, with negationist, with homophobe, and he is speaking at a conference against racism, it just means that this conference is a masquerade." The someone Haddad was referring to was petite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who had just given a bigoted speech attacking Israel as "the most cruel and repressive racist regime." For good measure, Ahmadinejad excoriated the West for the entire world’s problems (both currently and in history) and for propping up that wicked Zionist regime. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t find time during his 40-minute speech to make any comments about his own country’s brutal treatment of gays and people of the Baha’i faith, among others. Read more ...Source: FrontPage Magazine
 US civil rights activist Jesse Jackson plans to visit Iran to push for the release of jailed US-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi. “We have applied for visas today and we hope we will be granted entry, and if so we want to make a humanitarian plea, a moral appeal to gain the release of the journalist,” he said on a visit to Malaysia. Saberi, 31, was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment last week by an Iranian revolutionary court that convicted her of spying for the United States. In an unprecedented move on Sunday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for “justice” for Saberi and said she should be given the right to defend herself. Jackson said no date had been set yet for his mission, which he said would complement the appeals already made by US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “I hope the Iranian leadership will accept our mercy appeal and let her go,” he said, urging Malaysians to use any connections with Iran, a fellow Muslim nation. “If you have access to a voice in Iran, whether religious or political, join with us in making a plea to release that young woman from prison,” he said. Jackson, who has been involved in US hostage negotiations in the past, is in Malaysia to address a peace conference. Source:The Australian
 Rosa Brooks: Gihadis' Useful IdiotBy Dave Eberhart A liberal newspaper columnist and former counsel to billionaire George Soros’ Open Societies Institute has been tapped for a key Defense Department position despite what Washington insiders have termed her “extremist,” Bush-bashing views. Rosa Brooks will serve as principal adviser to Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy, according to a report in the Weekly Standard. In that substantial insider position, Brooks, who once famously penned that the Bush administration’s “big legal lies paved the way for some of the most shameful episodes in our history,” will have constant contact with DOD policy chief Flournoy, who reports directly to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and eyeballs every major defense department decision. Gates, a holdover from the Bush era, hasn’t exactly embraced the controversial Brooks. One anonymous staffer characterized Brooks as an “extremist,” noting that her coming onboard was Flournoy’s doing, not his leader’s, according to a report in HumanEvents.com. Read more ...Source: NewsmaxRosa Brooks
Latest recipient of The Dhimmi Award
 Thanks to Khalim Massoud, president of Muslims against Sharia--Islamic Reform Movement, for his press release in support of Tom Burnett Sr.'s efforts to stop the Park Service from planting a giant Mecca-oriented crescent atop his son's grave. Islamic Reform Movement is clear eyed on the problem: We all know who the enemy is. It's Islamic radicals who are guided by the ideology of Islamic supremacy. Just as Nazis were guided by the ideology of Aryan supremacy. The only difference is that Gihadis consider it their religious duty to impose Islam all over the world and many of them yearn to die (and kill) for Allah. They use lines from the Koran such as "kill them [infidels] wherever you find them" or "slay the idolaters wherever you find them" as their guiding principles. Islam needs to be reformed so that it rejects supremacism and violent conquest, but trying reform Islam is a difficult and dangerous business: Islamic radicals murder more Muslims than Christians, Jews, Hindus and everybody else combined. Gihadis may hate you for being infidels. But they really hate us for not following their demented dogma. In this struggle for the soul of Islam, the last thing that moral Muslims want is any kind of victory for the supremacists, never mind a mind-boggling symbolic victory over the heroes of Flight 93: What possible reason could be there for including anything Islamic or anything even resembling an Islamic symbol into Flight 93 Memorial? Inclusion of Islamic symbols memorializes murderers who brought down the plane and is tantamount to spitting in the faces of victims and their families. United Airlines Flight 93 was hijacked in 2001. Let's not allow hijacking of Flight 93 Memorial in 2008. Muslims know all about facing Mecca for prayerOne of the difficulties in getting people to understand the significance of the Mecca-orientation of the Crescent of Embrace is that it all seems so esoteric, and if it is esoteric, how important can it be? Witness Allahpundit, who as Michelle Malkin's pointman on this issue ought to be one of our strongest allies. Instead, he dismisses all concern about Islamic symbolism (effectively dismissing Michelle's original concern about the giant crescent, which remains completely intact in the "broken circle" redesign), on the grounds that: "if you need a protractor to properly express your outrage, you've probably gone too far." We don't need a protractor to express our outrage. We need a protractor to explain what architect Paul Murdoch did. He built the world's largest mihrab: the Mecca-direction indicator around which every mosque is built. The planned memorial will be the world's largest mosque by a factor of a hundred. The gigantic Sacred Mosque in Mecca would fit four times over inside Murdoch's 3000 foot wide crescent, which is just the centerpiece of Murdoch's mosque. Orientation on Mecca is THE central symbol of Islam, together with the crescent shape. Unlike Allahpundit, Khalim knows these things: The shape of the "broken circle" resembles a crescent moon. So does the shape of the tower. Crescent moon is the most recognizable Islamic symbol. When we pray, we face Mecca and Mosques are traditionally built to face Mecca. The case could be made that the proposed design is aligned in North-Easterly direction, which corresponds with Qiblah, a direction to Mecca. Conventional wisdom would dictate that since Mecca is located to the South-East of Somerset, Qiblah cannot possibly have a North-Easterly direction. This assumption would be correct if you're using a flat map. However, if you take a globe, place pins on locations of Somerset and Mecca, and connect those pins with a string, you'll see that the string at the base of the Somerset pin points North-East. This symbolism may not be noticeable to a non-Muslim, and it is also possible, but likely improbable that the designer is ignorant of its significance. The proposed design would be perfect for EgyptAir 990 memorial. But for United 93 memorial, it is simply unacceptable. Allahpundit is just being careless, but the willful blindness of the Park Service is foundationalThe Memorial Project is committed to the idea that Islam was also hijacked on 9/11. To them, blaming Islam would be as bad as blaming the hijacked passengers and crew. Thus the possibility of hostile Islamic intent cannot be contemplated, no matter how high the "coincidences" pile. According to Flight 93 Advisory Commission member Tim Baird, the Memorial Project participants all know that the Crescent of Embrace does in fact point almost exactly at Mecca (despite the Memorial Project's many public denials). They just assume it has to be a coincidence, just as they assume it is a coincidence that the Sacred Ground Plaza sits almost exactly in the position of the star on an Islamic crescent-and-star flag. (Both of these almost-exact Islamic symbol shapes also contain exact Islamic symbol shapes. Remove the symbolically broken-off parts of the giant crescent and what is symbolically left standing in the wake of 9/11 is a giant Islamic-shaped crescent pointing EXACTLY at Mecca. In the exact position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag is a separate upper section of Memorial Wall, centered on the centerline of the giant crescent, that will be inscribed with the 9/11 date.) Backers of the crescent design chose it specifically as a symbol of healing and outreach, implicitly to the Islamic world. Having been so generous to Islam, they just can't believe that a hidden al Qaeda sympathizer could be so ungenerous as to take advantage of their outreach by sneaking a memorial to the terrorists past their noses. They just can't believe that anyone could actually want to hijack Flight 93! This refusal to acknowledge evidence of hostile Islamic intent stabs at the heart of what Islamic reformers like Khalim are trying to accomplish. How to distinguish a moral Muslim from an Islamic supremacistBeing knowledgeable about Islam, moral Muslims recognize (as bin Laden's followers do) that Osama bin Laden is a perfectly orthodox Wahabbist, using traditional means of violence and deception to pursue the traditional Islamic objective of world domination. The difference is that moral Muslims reject the totalitarian methods and objectives of established Islam. Moral Muslims recognize that traditional Islamic orthodoxy needs to be reformed. Textually, the opportunities for reform are very propitious. The Koran contains both sweeping calls to violence ( 9.05, 9.29), and sweeping calls for tolerance ( 2.256, 109). To turn these diverse commands into a religion of violent conquest, every major school of Islamic interpretation, both Sunni and Shiite, considers the peaceful verses of the Koran to be expunged via the doctrine of "abrogation." Where different verses can be seen to contradict each other, the doctrine of abrogation holds the earlier verses to be abrogated and replaced by the later verses. The peaceful verses are all early verses, so as far as traditional Islam is concerned, they don't even exist, except as a device for deceiving infidels into believing that Islam is a "religion of peace." This doctrine of abrogation flies in the face of the Koran's own insistence that it contains no contradictions ( 4.82), and that nothing is abrogated ( 2.106). Textually, traditional Islam does not have a leg to stand on, but anyone who points it out is subject to the traditional Sharia death penalty for blasphemy. Alternatively, in a Wahabbist specialty called "taking takfir," such heretical interpretations constitute apostasy, another death penalty crime in every major school of Islamic interpretation. The Koran repeats dozens of times over that those who forget the words of Moses will burn in Hell forever (e.g. 2.75, 3.187, 5.13, 13.25, 15.90, 16.63). This is repeated so many times because it is Muhammad's accusation against the Jews: that they twist the "allegorical parts" of the Torah ( 3.07). But the LEAST allegorical part of the Torah is the Ten Commandments. Thus according to the Koran, the 6th Commandment--Thou shalt not murder--is binding on Muslims. Murder is any killing that is not in defense against either a violent attack or a conspiracy to violent attack, and there is no clearer case of murder than the traditional Islamic death penalty for apostates, who only want to go their own way. The same goes for blasphemy. To kill someone for challenging doctrine is MURDER. If the Koran really is the word of God, then every traditional Muslim in the entire world who supports established Sharia law is "wood for the fire." Whether Islamic reformers are out to save the lives of those who would be murdered, or out to save the souls of the murderers, they are engaged in a great contest with perhaps the greatest evil the world has ever known: a RELIGION of evil. All they need to do to win is expose the truth: that traditional Islam is in systematic violation of the Koran's own most fundamental commandments, yet to expose this truth they must break through the teeth of traditional Islam's strength: its totalitarian repression of dissent. In short, all they have to do is bring truth to the most psychologically brutalized people in the history of the planet. What could be worse, in a battle like this, than to see the land of liberty--the great haven from which truth can be spoken--build a gigantic terrorist-memorial mosque on the Flight 93 crash site? No helping hand from the land of the freeIf this willful blindness prevails, it will be a clear signal that in the battle to wrest Islam from the grasp of evil, America will not help. By following the morally blind idea that goodwill to Islam means having a see-no-evil attitude toward Islam, America is refusing to witness what moral Muslims are trying to expose: that the worst evils--condemned to the fire many times over by the Koran itself--thrive at the heart of Islamic institutions. That evil heart is what throbs, a half-mile across, in the crescent memorial to Flight 93, and the refusal of our own Park Service, fully alert to all the facts, to witness this evil is the worst possible betrayal, not just of America, but of the good people in the Islamic world as well. A see-no-evil attitude towards Islam is NOT goodwill. It emboldens the worst in Islam at the expense of the best. To help the good against the bad, we have to distinguish the good from the bad. The good are those who are trying to reform Islam. The bad are those who pretend that traditional Islam orthodoxy is already peaceful, and deny that reform is necessary. Muslims against Sharia has a facebook group, if anyone wants to join. Check out the Islamic Reform Movement website here. To join our blogbursts, just send your blog's url. Source: Error Theory
 IN July 2005, al-Qa'ida's chief strategist Ayman al-Zawahiri outlined a critical element of his organisation's war against the West. "We are in a battle and more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media. We are in a media battle for the hearts and minds of our umma (community)." Al-Qa'ida has made "the media battle" a key front in its war, a strategy that helps explain why the jihadist movement continues to flourish. Yet intelligence and security agencies engaged in the so-called war on terror have been slow to seize this imperative, choosing instead to remain in the shadows, avoiding the vigorous media and public debate about terrorism and how it should be combated. Their reluctance has allowed the jihadists to gain the upper hand in the crucial battle for hearts and minds. Al-Qa'ida's media strategy was deliberate and targeted from the outset, in keeping with an earlier directive from Zawahiri: "We must get our message across to the masses of the nation and break the media siege." Osama bin Laden's first television interview in May 1997 was with CNN. The launch of his World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and Crusaders in 1998 was announced at a press conference, where invited journalists were treated to a show staged by his entourage of mujaheddin, firing their AK47s and rocket-propelled grenades at the mountains. In 2004 bin Laden's videotaped "Message to America" was released for broadcast just before the US elections. From its inception, al-Qa'ida established a media committee to run its propaganda offensive and a media production company, Al-Sahab, to film and distribute professionally produced videos, DVDs and other propaganda. Its activity has escalated markedly in recent years. In 2006, Al-Sahab released 58 videos, one every six days. In 2007 it issued 97, one every four days. The trend has continued. More..... Source: The Australian
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