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Four Muslims were arrested outside the Old Bailey yesterday during angry protests against the trial of a man allegedly involved in protests against Danish cartoons. Anjem Choudary, who helped organise the anti-Danish protests, was once more involved as was Abu Izzadeen, who confronted John Reid, the Home Secretary, on a recent visit to East London. Mr Choudary said afterwards: "We should not be surprised at people doing something like 7/7. How else do you expect Muslims to express themselves? "We are a community under siege. It's going to blow up one day in everyone's faces." Male demonstrators, most wearing scarves...

Choudary: Refuses to discuss his dissolute youth At 39, Anjem Choudary should be a symbol of success for his peers. Born into the working-class family of a market trader in Welling on the outskirts of London, he has risen - thanks to the opportunities offered by the British education system - to become a qualified lawyer. But it is unlikely his old school will be inviting him to be guest speaker on prize-giving day. Their former pupil is not famous for his elegant oratory in court. Instead, the articulate Mr Choudary preaches hatred and murder in the streets of Britain...

At 39, Anjem Choudary should be a symbol of success. Born into a working-class family, he has risen - thanks to opportunities offered by the British education system - to become a lawyer. Instead, Mr Choudary preaches hatred and murder in the streets of Britain to the next generation of young, impressionable Muslims. This week he stood outside Westminster Cathedral to call for the execution of the Pope as punishment for 'insulting Islam'. He fulminated against Benedict XVl, adding: "Whoever insults the message of Mohammed is going to be subject to capital punishment." It's a long way from days as...

The configuration and physical impact of the bomb detonated last Saturday in Stockholm is best left for forensic specialists to evaluate. For the rest of us, the most important aspect of the event is that it constitutes yet another warning for the unctuously self-righteous, effeminate and oblivious West that Islamist attacks are based on what we do, not who we are and how we think. Taymour Abdul Wahab, the dead bomber, claimed his attack was motivated by Sweden’s contribution of five hundred troops to the U.S.-led Afghan war, the media’s printing of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and other Western...

The suicide bomber who blew himself up yesterday was an Iraqi man who graduated from a British university. Whitehall sources confirm that Taimour-Al-Abdaly, a 28-year-old man who lived in southern Sweden, was the owner of the car that exploded in central Stockholm last night. His Facebook profile lists him as having studied a BSc in sports therapy at the University of Bedfordshire in 2004. Swedish police confirmed that the two explosions that killed one person and injured two more, causing panic among Christmas shoppers, were a terrorist attack. They said last night's explosions were the result of "terror crimes". "We...

SNIPPET: “..."For the Love of Islam: A Second American Woman Is Arrested in Cartoonist Case,” by Vanessa O’Connell, Stephanie Simon and Evan Perez in the Wall Street Journal, March 13..." Last Easter, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, a 31-year-old mom with a $30,000-a-year job as a medical assistant, announced to her family that she had converted to Islam. A few months later, she began posting to Facebook forums whose headings included “STOP caLLing MUSLIMS TERRORISTS!”” SNIPPET: “On Sept. 11, she suddenly left Leadville, Colo., a small town in the Rocky Mountains, for Denver, then for New York, to meet and marry a Muslim...

The trip from a strict Pakistani boarding school to a bohemian bar in Philadelphia has defined David Headley’s life, according to those who know the middle-age man at the center of a global terrorism investigation. Raised by his father in Pakistan as a devout Muslim, Mr. Headley arrived back here at 17 to live with his American mother, a former socialite who ran a bar called the Khyber Pass. Today, Mr. Headley is an Islamic fundamentalist who once liked to get high. He has a traditional Pakistani wife, who lives with their children in Chicago, but also an American girlfriend...

SNIPPET: "Search at Grundy County plant called part of ongoing probe" SNIPPET: "But a source said the owner of the plant, which processes lamb and goat, was taken into custody at his home in Chicago. Documents and records were taken from the plant and from a Chicago travel agency on West Devon Avenue, also owned by the same person, the source said."

AMSTERDAM – Dutch prosecutors said Wednesday they will charge an Arab cultural group under hate speech laws for publishing a cartoon that suggests the death of 6 million Jews during World War II is a fabrication. The public prosecutor's office in the city of Utrecht said the cartoon insults Jews as a group and is therefore an illegal form of discrimination. Prosecutors plan to press charges for "insulting a group and distributing an insulting image." Spokeswoman Mary Hallebeek said the maximum punishment is a year in jail, but a fine of up to euro4,700 ($6,700) is more likely, given that...

A New York Post cartoon that appears to link President Obama to a violent chimpanzee drew criticism Wednesday on media Web sites and from civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton. The cartoon in Wednesday's Post by Sean Delonas shows a dead chimp and two police officers, one with a smoking gun. The caption reads, “They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.'' The cartoon refers to Travis the chimp, who was shot to death by police in Stamford, Conn. on Monday after it mauled a friend of its owner. It links the chimp to Obama,...

A ceramic bobblehead doll of the Prophet Muhammed - created to resemble the infamous caricature published by a Danish newspaper - is being hawked online for $22.99 a pop by an ex-Marine. The unapologetic creator, Timothy Ames, 28, said the bobblehead is similar to "dashboard Jesus" figurines that can be stuck with adhesive to flat surfaces. "I thought, 'If they flipped out over some cartoons what will they do with a dashboard Muhammed?'" Ames said from his home in Hawaii. But Islamic experts are not amused, saying the bobbleheads could anger Muslims, whose religion strictly prohibits depictions of the prophet....

COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Denmark's top prosecutor said Wednesday he will not press charges against the newspaper that first published the Prophet Muhammad cartoons that triggered angry protests from Muslims worldwide. The Foreign Ministry warned the decision could spark "negative reactions" against Danes and warned citizens to be cautious when traveling in Muslim countries. [snip] A boycott on Danish goods started in Saudi Arabia on Jan. 26 and spread to dozens of Muslim countries. The cartoons were seen as an insult to Muhammad, depicting him as violent and primitive. Sunni Muslim tradition bans any image of the prophet, since depicting him...

Czech foreign minister Cyril Svoboda is gathering support for special EU funds to compensate Denmark for trade and other economic damage caused by the muslim backlash against the Mohammed cartoons. Mr Svoboda argues the EU should signal its strong loyalty to Copenhagen, as well as to the freedom of expression principle cherished in Europe. The clash with the Islamic countries was sparked by illustrations of the prophet published in September in Danish daily Jyllands-Posten. The cartoons were later republished by other European media, but Denmark has suffered the greatest losses with its embassies burnt down in some Islamic countries and...

Thanks to Little Green Footballs for highlighting Charles Krauthammer's new column, Curse of the Moderates. In a related post, Little Green Footballs points out that the New York Times refused to publish pictures of the Danish cartoons of Mohammed, but instead made its point about freedom of speech by printing a picture of the Virgin Mary -- created in elephant dung. Apparently the New York Times is less fearful of rioting Catholics than it is of rioting Muslims. In his column, Krauthammer laments about the lack of true moderation in Islam: What passes for moderation in the Islamic community -- "I share...

On CNN today, Bill Bennett hit back at the American media, especially CNN, for refusing to show the Danish cartoons that sparked the current controversy. During the lead-in, CNN showed a number of anti-Semitic cartoons from Middle Eastern newspapers as part of a feature story on double standards in the Arab world. But when the segment turned to a debate between Bennett and Arab American Institute president James Zogby, Bennett criticized CNN for its own double standard — showing the anti-Semitic cartoons as part of a news story, but refusing to show the Danish cartoons:

To see the latest creation from conservative t-shirt maker MetroSpy some would think the Muslim world had every right to be upset. MetroSpy's new t-shirts depict an unflattering caricature of the prophet Mohammed with a bomb on his head. The controversial cartoon, which first ran in European newspapers, has outraged Muslims around the world because Islamic tradition forbids a graphic depiction of the Prophet Mohammed. Many in the U.S however, are angered by the violence being displayed by extreme Islamic protesters -- torching buildings, desecrating flags and in some cases even killing people. Annoyed by the violent images broadcast from...

Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen of Denmark said Thursday that the governments of Iran and Syria had intentionally inflamed Muslim protests against a Danish newspaper's publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad to distract attention from their own diplomatic crises. "Syria and Iran have taken advantage of the situation because both countries are under international pressure," Rasmussen said in an interview that echoed statements Wednesday by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Rasmussen also said he would "not exclude the possibility" that Syria had also been involved in violent protests in Beirut, the Lebanese capital. "I think they have taken this...

Notify Blogger about objectionable content. What does this mean? MMS Friends BlogThis!The Belmont Club History and History in the Making Thursday, February 09, 2006 Just to sing The European blog Barcepundit reports the EU is preparing regulations to restrict speech to prevent angering religious communities. I'm afraid the esteemed Victor Davis Hanson was a tad too optimistic when he wrote that the cartoon controversy might mean an European awakening against Islamic fascism. Turns out that the European Union is planning a press code of conduct: Plans for a European press charter committing the media to "prudence" when reporting on Islam...

Were it to happen on any other network, say CNN, CBS, MSNBC, or PBS, it would surprise almost no one. Nor would it generate much subsequent attention. It's a whole different ballgame, however, when a FOX News Channel contributor, seemingly in the name of political correctness, appears to face on-air censorship. After Michelle Malkin's Tuesday Hannity & Colmes visit, where the camera cut away just as she attempted to show a series of controversial Danish cartoons related to Islam, the blogosphere has become hopping mad. Expose The Left has video here.

Egyptian Sandmonkey has scanned images of Egyptian newspaper Al Faqr—who published the infamous cartoons of blasphemy last October, at the height of Ramadan, with not a single squeak of outrage. (Hat tip: Solomonia.)