Free Republic

Contract Canceled for High School Teacher Who Called Student's Muslim Father a Terrorist Wednesday, May 14, 2008 AP MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. — A high school teacher accused of calling the Muslim father of one of his students a terrorist will not be back next school year. The Michigan City Area Schools Board voted unanimously Tuesday to cancel the contract of John Scheimann, who has taught in the district for 19 years. The action was included in several personnel recommendations by Superintendent Michael Harding. There was no discussion. Scheimann could not be reached for comment Wednesday by The Associated Press because...

Muslim leaders in Britain are outraged about a new game that calls for camouflaged players to shoot BBs at "enemy" players dressed in traditional Arab headdresses, or shemaghs. The game's creators, however, say using the shemaghs is the "easiest way to tell who the enemy are," according to a report in the London Daily Mail. "Any sort of game that associates guns and violence with a particular culture is clearly wrong," said Mokhtar Badri, executive member of the Muslim Association of Britain. "They could use any other type of color or dress to tell between teams which would not cause...

How Muslims are perceived in 21st Century Abid Ullah Jan Exactly four years ago, I came to the conclusion that Muslims are fast becoming 21st Century Jews. The initial thoughts were published in an article on January 7, 2004. The argument was backed up by an attempt to monitor the status of Muslims and attacks on Islam as a religion from around the world. It has been observed that the perception of Muslims as terrorist and extremists kept consolidating with the passage of time. In 2006, the theme was expanded and turned it into a chapter in After Fascism. Two...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A group of Afghans protested on Monday against what they called the desecration of the Koran by British forces, the district governor said, although he and a British spokesman denied any desecration took place. Numerous people describing themselves as demonstrators and residents also telephoned a Reuters reporter in the southern city of Kandahar to say some 600 people took part in the protest in Girishk district of neighbouring Helmand province. Abdul Manaf, Girishk's district governor, said 150 people had demonstrated in the town, but that there had been no desecration of the holy book and Taliban...

A director of Barclaycard has left the company in disgrace after making a joke deemed offensive to Muslims. Marc Howells, 42, who earned £200,000 a year, was addressing senior executives about the credit card company's quarterly figures when he tried to make them laugh with the quip. Mr Howells said: "The results were like Muslims - some were good, some were Shi'ite." Some outraged colleagues forced embarrassed laughs while others were stunned into silence, but Mr Howells seemed unaware of causing any offence. His pun was later reported to senior management, however, and after some discussion he left the company...

KHARTOUM, Sudan (CNN) -- A British teacher arrested in Sudan after allowing her class to name a teddy bear "Mohammed" has been charged by authorities with offending religion, British officials say. Gillian Gibbons, 54, is being held by police in the capital Khartoum after she asked her class of seven-year-olds to come up with a name for the toy as part of a school project, Robert Boulos, the head of Unity High School told CNN. It is expected that she will appear in court Thursday, Sudan state media reported. A British Foreign Office spokeswoman said Gibbons had been charged under...

Two years after France’s immigrant suburbs exploded in rage, the rituals and acts of resentment have reappeared with an eerie sameness: roving gangs clashing with riot police forces, the government appealing for calm, residents complaining that they are ignored. And while the scale of the unrest of the past few days does not yet compare with the three-week convulsion in hundreds of suburbs and towns in 2005, a chilling new factor makes it, in some sense, more menacing. The onetime rock throwers and car burners have taken up hunting shotguns and turned them on the police. More than 100 officers...

PARIS, France (AP) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Wednesday that rioters who shot at police would be brought to justice and called the violence that rocked Paris suburbs "absolutely unacceptable." Armed masked police patrol the streets of Villiers-le-Bel Tuesday night. 1 of 2 It was the first time Sarkozy, who had just returned from China, entered the fray since the rioting broke out Sunday night. The violence ebbed Tuesday night after police were deployed in force and quickly rounded up youths lobbing Molotov cocktails and setting cars ablaze. The violence has drawn comparisons with riots that raged through suburbs...

Cartoon upsets Muslims Anton Ferreira Zapiro’s dig at a Sunday newspaper’s zero tolerance for Satanism upsets some readers. Cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro — better known as Zapiro — has riled Muslims with a cartoon that portrays Allah, but he is unrepentant. “I do these things because I believe in freedom of expression,” Shapiro said, acknowledging that his cartoon in the Cape Times yesterday had landed him in hot water. He said he understood the cartoon had provoked a flood of angry SMS messages from the Muslim community. It was drawn in support of columnist Deon Maas, who was fired by Rapport...

ROCHESTER - There is a new debate in Monroe County related to Governor Spitzer's plan to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. The debate has worked its way into the county legislature races. It has to do with a campaign mailing sent out by the Republican Party. It is not so much what it says but what it shows that has members of the Islamic community upset. The flyer suggests that county legislature democrats want to license potential terrorists and the literature contains images intended to depict terrorists. "Seeing these things are very wrong for me to see it in...

Michael Savage tells Muslims 'take your religion and shove it up your behind' WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy group today called on radio listeners of all faiths to contact companies that advertise on Michael Savage's nationally-syndicated radio program to express their concerns about the host's recent anti-Muslim tirade. The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said Savage, whose "The Savage Nation" airs on more than 300 radio stations nationwide, screamed attacks on Muslims, Islam and the Quran, Islam's revealed text, during his October 29, 2007, program. A number of concerned listeners contacted...

SAN DIEGO – The takeoff of an American Airlines flight out of Lindbergh Field was canceled in August because the crew was suspicious of several Middle Eastern passengers, an investigative report said. The crew notified the captain, who canceled the flight. At the time, the airline said it was a woman traveling with her two small children who raised the alarm. According to the airline's account of the incident, the woman said the men made her so nervous she asked to be let off the plane, and the ensuing delay pushed the Aug. 28 flight to Chicago past the 11:30...

The shockwaves continue from a small protest this month against a Muslim Family Day at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington. A court hearing is set for today on a request for a preliminary injunction against the Florida man who organized the protest. And appointment of another of the protesters to a Carrollton board has ruffled feathers in that city. Khalil Meek, board president of the Muslim Legal Fund of America, said the Muslim groups support the protesters' right to voice their opinions. What they object to, he said, is their allegation that the Muslim organizations, and therefore Six Flags,...

Scores of Muslim inmates at a high security prison are set to launch a multi-million pound claim for compensation after they were offered ham sandwiches during the holy month of Ramadan. They say their human rights were breached when they were given a special nightly menu - drawn up to recognise their specific dietary requirements - by officers at HMP Leeds last month. More than 200 Muslim inmates at the jail are believed to have been offered the meat which is strictly forbidden by Islam. The sandwich was one of three options on the menu card which was created to...

It has been an unusually violent week for Amsterdam's western Slotervaart district. Cars were torched and youths clashed with police on several consecutive nights after a 22-year-old ethnic Moroccan was shot dead at a police station. He was killed by a policewoman he had just stabbed a number of times. The riots that followed reminded Amsterdam's Chief Commissioner Bernard Welten of a major nightmare for Western European cities: violence on a Parisian scale. Every major town in the Netherlands has its share of so-called problem youths, the type of violent adolescents who gang up to terrorise the neighbourhood. Many of...

A controversial week of events, billed as Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, launches at the University of Washington and some 100 other colleges next week — drawing condemnations from Muslim groups here and across the country. The UW College Republicans...say the week is intended to foster awareness of the terrorist threat posed by a small number of extremists within Islam. But some local Muslims say the week fosters Islamophobia and racism and attempts to paint all Muslims as terrorists. Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, launched this year by a recent graduate of Duke University...is intended to "confront the two Big Lies of the political...

Saint-Dizier, France - French police clashed overnight with youths who went on a rampage in a town in eastern France, prompting Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie to travel to the trouble spot. Between 40 and 50 masked youths used metal bars to smash a firefighters' vehicle and a police car dispatched to a shopping mall in Saint-Dizier, said Yves Guillot, the head of the Haute-Marne regional government. The youths then fanned out across the town of 30 000 inhabitants, setting fire to two buildings, a car rental office and 16 vehicles. Police reinforcements were sent in to quell the violence. "We...

Police said anti-Jewish and anti-Christian fliers were found on cars parked in a lot on the northwest corner of 15 Mile and Ryan roads. Sterling Heights police Detective Sgt. Paul Jesperson said three separate complaints were filed by residents Tuesday who found the fliers on their windshields. He said the flier said: "Kill Jews and Christians if they don't believe in Allah and Mohammad." It further advises people to "Fight those who do not believe."

In a statement of support, CAIR said: "The scurrilous smear campaign against Dr. Omeish is only the latest episode in a sustained effort by a vocal minority of Islamophobes who seek to demonize and marginalize the mainstream Muslim community and its leaders. "These hate-mongers target any Muslim individual or institution seeking to offer an Islamic perspective on issues of importance to our society. It is a dirty political game in which our entire society is the loser. "Unfortunately, the hysteria that has been created about 'jihad' and the fear generated by the domestic lobby in support of Israel's Apartheid-like polices...

Another absolutely disgusting example of pre-emptive dhimmitude, in the name of tolerance and multiculturalism, right here in the US: First Jell-O, now Santa. So long, Halloween parade. Farewell, Santa’s gift shop. The holiday traditions are facing elimination in some Oak Lawn schools this year after complaints that the activities are offensive, particularly to Muslim students. Final decisions on which of the festivities will be axed will fall to the principals at each of Ridgeland School District 122’s five schools, Supt. Tom Smyth said. Parents expect that the announcement is going to add to the tension that has been building since...

ROME (Reuters) - A far-right Italian senator outraged Muslims on Thursday by calling for a "Pig Day" protest against the planned construction of a mosque in northern Italy. Roberto Calderoli of the anti-immigrant Northern League party said he was ready to bring his own pig to "defile" the site where the mosque is due to be built in the northern city of Bologna. "I am making myself and my pig available for a walk at the site where they want to build the mosque," Calderoli, who is a deputy speaker of Italy's Senate, said in a statement. Calderoli also said...

Muslims, Han Chinese clash in north China - group 04 Sep 2007 04:25:00 GMT Source: Reuters Alert Me | Print | Email this article | RSS [-] Text [+] BEIJING, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Thousands of Han Chinese and members of the Muslim Hui ethnic minority group clashed over a dispute in north China, resulting in one death, a Hong Kong human rights group said on Tuesday. Relations between the Han, who make up more than 90 percent of China's 1.3 billion population, and the 10-million-strong Hui Muslims have long been sensitive. Huis complain about offences to their religion and...

The artist behind the controversial caricature of the Muslim prophet Muhammad published in Nerikes Allehanda, Lars Vilks, claims to have begun receiving death threats. Vilks says he is planning to report the matter to the police after a slew of threats arrived over the last 24 hour. "There have been a lot of threats. A variety of death threats have come through via telephone, e-mail and in the comment section in my blog," Vilks told TV4. Despite the death threats, the artist says that he has no regrets about drawing the pictures of Muhammad as a dog.

Marking the beginning of yet another dispute over free speech and religious sensitivity, the government of Pakistan has joined Iran in protesting the publication in a Swedish newspaper of a sketch featuring the head of Mohammed on the body of a dog. "Pakistan condemns, in the strongest terms, the publication of an offensive and blasphemous sketch of the Holy Prophet in the Swedish newspaper," the foreign ministry in Islamabad said in a statement Thursday. A Swedish diplomat was summoned to the ministry and "was told that the publication of the sketch had caused grave affront to the religious sentiments of...

For Arabs and Muslims across the Puget Sound area, a rise in the nation's threat level or a bombing halfway around the world often can mark a period of unease.

Muslims want ban on Easter eggs 22 August 2007 ANTWERP – "If headscarves are banned for employees who work at the desk at city services in order to guarantee neutrality of services, then we demand that no Christmas trees be set up in city buildings and that no Easter eggs be given out." Antwerp trade union representative Badia Miri said this on Wednesday in the Gazet van Antwerpen. Miri is one of the seven Muslim women who were forced to remove their headscarves if they wanted to continue working at the desk. Three of the seven staff members of the...

Published Monday | July 23, 2007 Muslims draft complaint against Swift meatpacking plant THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Tension came to a head at a Grand Island meatpacking plant in June, when Jama Mohamed said his desire for 10 minutes to pray at sunset was met with shouting. After he left the production line and began praying, Mohamed said, supervisors took his prayer mat, pulled him up by his collar and sent him crying to a lead supervisor, who fired him. "I told him, 'Look, I know I am in America and I know in America there is a freedom of religion...

The caller began: "Sir, I'm calling because of some statements you've been making in the past week about the religion of Islam and … " Boortz interrupted: It's a cult, it's not even a religion. … " After a long list of crimes perpetrated all over the world in the name of Islam, the talk host told the caller, "You don't have a word of condemnation in you until the non-Islamic world rises up and starts to make it clear that we are fed up with your damned religion. We've had it up to here. "And somebody, like I said...

MOSCOW, March 4 (Reuters) - Plans to build a memorial to the 333 hostages killed three years ago in the Beslan school siege have sparked a row between Christians and Muslims in Russia. The local Russian Orthodox diocese says it will build a church in the grounds of Beslan's school No. 1 to commemorate the victims -- half of them children -- killed in a clash between insurgents and Russian troops. But one of Russia's leading Muslim clerics has accused the Orthodox church of trying to hijack a national tragedy by building a memorial that he said would exclude the...

The 18-year-old man who shot and killed at least five people Monday night at Trolley Square has been identified as Solejman Talovic, a Bosnian refugee who lived in Salt Lake City. Little additional information was released about Talovic. The Bosnian community, which numbers about 3,000 in Utah, planned a press conference later this afternoon. Talovic parked his car in the west parking lot and walked into the mall, encountering two people, whom he shot. Then he walked further into the mall and shot a woman, said Police Chief Chris Burbank. He then walked to a gift shop and shot five...

The imam of the Taipei Grand Mosque complained to Taiwan's foreign minister for sending him a greeting card for the Chinese New Year showing four pigs, a newspaper said on Saturday. After receiving the New Year card, Imam Ma Hsiao-chi pointed out to the Foreign Ministry that the card was offensive to Muslims, the Liberty Times reported. Muslims do not eat pork and regard pigs as unclean animals. But the ministry defended Foreign Minister Huang Chih-fang's sending out the greeting cards, which were printed because 2007 is the Year of Pig according to the Chinese lunar calendar. "Sending New Year...

NEW YORK - Three groups are urging ABC News not to keep CNN Headline News personality Glenn Beck on as a "Good Morning America" commentator because they believe he's biased against Arabs.

Muslim Groups Opposed to ABC's Hiring of Radio Talk Show Host (CNSNews.com) - Three Arab and Muslim American advocacy groups are voicing their opposition to ABC's "Good Morning America" hiring talk-show host Glenn Beck, claiming he has "an obvious anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice in his broadcasts." The Arab American Institute, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council claim Beck made "threats and blatantly inaccurate statements" on his show. The groups sent a letter to ABC/Disney asking for a meeting to detail their concerns. They have also launched a membership action campaign urging supporters to contact ABC News over...

In mosques all around the world, a crier known as a muezzin calls the faithful to prayer five times a day. He shouts to the four compass points one after the other, “Allah is the greatest... Make haste towards prayer... Make haste towards prayer... Allah is the greatest.” This public display of obdurate virtue is well-known, but it is less well-known what goes on inside the mosques where Muslims gather for their prayers. The Islamic religion has always had an element of secrecy about it, including keeping the holy city of Mecca off limits to anyone except Muslims.

JAILS are spending thousands on colour-coded kitchen tools for Muslims, it was revealed last night. They are getting special red handled equipment to prepare Halal meals. The move comes after an MPs’ committee recommended more should be done to meet the needs of Muslim prisoners. So far 900 kits — costing £500 to £800 — have gone to jails across the UK. The Koran prohibits eating pig meat, which is considered unclean. So the serving spoons, ice cream scoops and ladles are kept in special locked chests to prevent contamination by those used for other inmates. A Muslim in Wakefield...

KUWAIT CITY — Is it religiously acceptable for Muslims to wish their Christian colleagues or acquaintances a Merry Christmas? In Kuwait, it depends on who you ask. Days before the holiday that is not officially celebrated in this small oil-rich state, fundamentalists like Mohammed al-Kandari began urging fellow Muslims not to extend the greeting to Christians they know. Al-Kandari, who heads the Society of Sharia, or Islamic law, told Al-Watan daily the celebration contradicted with Islam because Christians believe Jesus was the son of God. The decline in tolerance of other faiths comes as political Islam is sharply increasing its...

Man attacked over wife's veil comment By Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) - A man,whose wife made a passing comment about a Muslim woman's full face veil, suffered a broken nose and lost his front teeth after being attacked and headbutted by the woman's partner, police said on Sunday. The victim, a 46-year-old white man, was walking through Regent's Park with his wife, son and daughter when they passed another family, a Muslim man and his wife who was pushing a baby in a pushchair. "The victim's wife made a comment directed to her husband that she thought it must be...

A KORAN has been torn up and smeared with faeces and the floors of a Melbourne prayer hall urinated on, in an apparent retaliation to Muslim schoolboys desecrating the Bible. The Islamic community was last night furious as the police continued their investigation into the "criminal damage" done to the Melbourne airport facility on Wednesday morning. Muslim spiritual leader Fehmi Naji El-Imam condemned the desecration as "ignorant and immature", fearing that it was in retaliation to an incident earlier this month where young boys at a Melbourne Islamic school burned and urinated on the Bible. "This kind of behaviour just...

New Delhi, Dec 09: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday said plans for minorities, particularly Muslims, must have the "first claim" on resources so that benefits of development reach them equitably. "We will have to devise innovative plans to ensure that minorities, particularly the Muslim minority, are empowered to share equitably the fruits of development. These must have the first claim on resources," he said in his address at the 52nd meeting of the National Development Council (NDC) here. The Centre`s resources, he added, will be stretched with greater responsibility given to states in this regard. "The Centre has a...

President Asked to Rescind Appointment of Dennis Prager Holocaust Museum Council Member Said Quran Oath 'Undermines American Civilization' 12/6/2006 3:39:00 PM To: City Desk Contact: Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, 202-488-8787, or 202-744-7726, or ihooper@cair.com WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Council on American- Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on President Bush to rescind the appointment of radio talk show host Dennis Prager to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council because of his intolerant views toward Islam in American society. Earlier this week, CAIR urged the taxpayer-supported museum's council to remove Prager because of a recent...

UK Govt driving Muslims to extremism: Study Agence France-Presse London, December 4, 2006 Attempts by the British government to engage with the Muslim community since last year's bomb attacks in London have backfired and are not hampering the spread of extremism, a report said on Monday. Instead of isolating extremist elements, government initiatives had tended to "drive a wedge" between the Muslim population and the wider community, the study by the left-of-centre think-tank Demos said. The report -- part-funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government -- accused ministers of failing to engage with Muslims over "reasonable" grievances, including...

Play triggers brawl as Islamists storm stage Reuters Riyadh: A play criticising hardliners in Saudi Arabia descended into a brawl when angry Islamists stormed onto the stage, Saudi newspapers and websites reported on Tuesday. As the play Wasati Bila Wasatiya (A Moderate without Moderation) began, a group of men surged forward to stop the performance at a cultural festival in the Yamama College in Riyadh on Monday, Al Hayat newspaper and website Elaph said. Police fired shots into the air to break up violence which ensued, as the Islamists, students and actors threw chairs and attacked each other with sticks....

Mecca, October 23: Fear of the spread of Islam in non-Muslim countries motivates attacks on Muslims in the West, the imam of Islam's holiest shrine told worshippers celebrating Eid al-Fitr feast. "Did you wonder why this issue is raised every now and then?" Sheikh Saleh bin Humaid, who also heads the Saudi-appointed Shura (consultative) Council, asked at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, western Saudi Arabia. He was referring to controversial remarks by Pope Benedict XVI last month in which he cited a 14th-century Christian emperor who said Islam's Prophet Mohammed had brought the world ‘evil and inhuman’ practices "such as...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An American Muslim group is criticizing Virginia Beach religious broadcaster Reverend Pat Robertson for suggesting that the Quran, rather than being a divine revelation, was a fraudulent creation of Muhammad to justify his own actions. On his television show "The 700 Club" last Thursday, Robertson also said "violent jihad" is a core Islamic teaching, and he said Islam is not a religion of peace. Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says Muslims who hear such statements may conclude that their faith is under attack from America. Hooper says clerics should be promoting their own...

The West's anti-Muslim campaign By Shireen M Mazari Since the Danish cartoon issue, a pattern seems to be emerging from the US and Europe where there appears to be a concerted two-pronged effort to harass and discriminate against Europe's Muslim population and undermine assertive/strong Muslim states. One cannot simply label it a coincidence that even as British politicians began abusing the veiled Muslim women, a Danish outfit chose to show a film on the blasphemous cartoons and so-called analysts in the US and the UK began to launch a new campaign against the state of Pakistan, while the French lower...

Kelly tries to pacify growing Muslim anger By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor (Filed: 17/10/2006) Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, yesterday tried to draw a line under days of rising religious tensions after Government ministers were accused of "demonising" Muslims. Ruth Kelly denies that the Government was pursuing an 'Islamophobic" agenda Downing Street was also forced to issue denials that Whitehall was asking university dons to "spy" on Asian-looking students in case they were being recruited by jihadi groups. Labour MPs are increasingly concerned that the controversy — triggered when Jack Straw, the Commons Leader, wrote about his discomfort in...

Muslims' anger as London Olympics clash with RamadanBy Claudia Joseph Last updated at 22:24pm on 14th October 2006 The Olympics will be held over the Muslim holy month of Ramadan The 2012 London Olympics have been plunged into controversy by the discovery that the Games will clash with Ramadan, the most holy month in the Islamic calendar. The clash will put Muslim athletes at a disadvantage as they will be expected to fast from sunrise to sunset for the entire duration of the Games. In 2012, Ramadan will take place from July 21 to August 20, while the Olympics run...

Danish toymaker Lego Group today issued a pre-emptive apology to Muslims around the world for the appearance a second time since spring - via e-mail and on numerous Web sites - of an authentic-looking Lego box showing the prophet Mohammed in a sexually compromising position, company officials said. "The picture of the box is computer manipulated and in the picture Lego elements are used to depict the Prophet Mohammed in a situation of a sexual nature - with a severely offensive text," Charlotte Simonsen, Lego's head of corporate communications, said in a company statement. Lego operates its headquarters for North...

The 2012 London Olympics have been plunged into controversy by the discovery that the Games will clash with Ramadan, the most holy month in the Islamic calendar. The clash will put Muslim athletes at a disadvantage as they will be expected to fast from sunrise to sunset for the entire duration of the Games. In 2012, Ramadan will take place from July 21 to August 20, while the Olympics run from July 27 to August 12. An anticipated 3,000 Muslim competitors are expected to be affected. About a quarter of the 11,099 athletes who took part in the 2004 Athens...

Straw's veil comments spark anger Mr Straw says covering faces makes good community relations difficult Jack Straw, the ex-foreign secretary, has angered Muslim groups by suggesting women who wear veils can make relations between communities more difficult. The Blackburn MP says the veil is a "visible statement of separation and of difference" and he asks women visiting his surgery to consider removing it. The Islamic Human Rights Commission said the Commons leader's request was selective discrimination. But the Muslim Council of Britain said it understood Mr Straw's discomfort. Muslims make up about a quarter of the population of Blackburn, and...