Free Republic

HOUSTON — The toddler believed to be the girl whose body was found in Galveston Bay was beaten to death by her stepfather who lost control because she failed to say "please" and "yes sir," an attorney for the girl's mother said Wednesday. Attorney Tommy Stickler Jr. also confirmed Wednesday that the girl's mother, Kimberly Dawn Trenor, is pregnant. Her pregnancy was first reported by the Houston Chronicle. The fatal beating happened after Royce Clyde Zeigler II stayed home from work to make sure his wife was following the discpline plan he'd established for her daughter, 2-year-old Riley Ann Sawyers,...

While often ignored in the Western media, human rights abuses in the Islamic world are a daily occurrence. Both Muslim states and ad hoc religious courts order mutilation and execution, not only of criminals but also of individuals—mainly women—who have not committed anything which would be considered a crime in other societies. In some cases, Shari‘a (Islamic law) tribunals issue death sentences for those acquitted in regular courts.[1] In other cases, religious leaders invoke religion to sanction non-Islamic practices such as honor killings and female genital mutilation. Original Islamic jurisprudence, however, does not necessarily mandate such severe punishments. In the...

'This is not just about cartoons, but standing up for our values' From Anthony Browne, in Copenhagen THE Danish editor who brought the fury of the Muslim world on his country by printing pictures of the Prophet Muhammad defiantly declared yesterday: “We do not apologise for printing the cartoons. It was our right to do so.” As protests continued for a second day in Gaza with shouts of “Death to Denmark”, Flemming Rose, the culture editor of the centre-right daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten, sat in his book-lined office declaring his surprise at the reaction. He said that he had to stand...

PERTH- A Scottish court has set a date for the case of a woman seeking damages from her abortionist for failing to kill both of her twin daughters. Stacy Dow is suing the Perth Royal Infirmary after the hospital sent her home still pregnant with the surviving child, Jayde, now four. “I have got a child now that I wasn't planning to have and I believe the hospital should take some responsibility for that,” Dow told a London newspaper in April. Perth Sheriff Court set has set March 2006 as the date for the case in which Dow is seeking...

Al Qaida abuses young operatives To the long list of Al Qaida's sins against humanity, add one more: child abuse. Al Qaida chief Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi abuses children. His network brainwashes them through abuse and deprivation and forces them to do any number of depraved things. U.S. forces are learning of this as they raid Al Qaida safe houses where these kids are basically held as slaves. Particularly informative was a raid of an Al Qaida safe house east of Tal Afar on Oct. 28. U.S. forces discovered that Al Zarqawi was forcing youngsters to conduct attacks against U.S....

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday the United States must not abandon its mission in Iraq and Americans must realize the consequences of ceding the country to "merciless killers." Rice told students at Princeton University that the Bush administration's focus on the spread of democracy in the Middle East was both a moral obligation and a tough-minded response to global terrorism. "From Cairo and Ramallah to Beirut and Baghdad, they are now finding new spaces of freedom," Rice said. The United States must not be afraid to use all its influence in the world - political, economic, cultural and...

Per Fox News...

UN panel sees grave women's rights abuse in Mexico 27 Jan 2005 20:04:47 GMT Source: Reuters (Adds background, detail, paragraphs 4-14) By Irwin Arieff UNITED NATIONS, Jan 26 (Reuters) - A U.N. panel accused Mexico on Thursday of "grave and systematic" rights violations for failing to solve the killings of hundreds of women in the past decade near the Mexico-U.S. border. The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women said it was "greatly concerned at the fact that these serious and systematic violations of women's rights have continued for over 10 years." The panel, in...

Editors have a nasty little habit of telling news writers, "you missed the lead," when a complicated story buries itself in facts and figures but fails to discover the salient feature that made it worth doing and thus worth reading. When an entire newspaper, and then its ombudsman, miss the lead, it is worth a few lines. The Washington Post began an ambitious three-part series Sunday, December 19, entitled "Pregnancy and Homicide: The Unknown Toll," the gist of which was that the states and the CDC and whatever agencies keep track of intentional deaths are remiss in keeping records regarding...

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Countering a surge in anti-Islamic bigotry requires urgent action by Muslims as well as non-Muslims, governments, the media and educators, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Tuesday. Muslims must condemn and isolate extremists who target and kill civilians in the name of their religion and governments must make good on commitments to protect Muslims from discrimination, Annan told a seminar on Islam and intolerance at U.N. headquarters. At the same time, others must recognize that anti-Western feelings of some Muslims have been fed by a history of colonialism and domination by the West and...

TEHRAN (MNA) -- Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said on Sunday that Iran is seriously concerned about the rise in human rights violations in Europe and especially the rise in anti-Islamic sentiments and the treatment of minority groups. Asefi made the remarks in response to a question about the decision of the European Union to lodge a protest with Tehran expressing concern about the human rights situation in Iran. “The issue of human rights is on the agenda of Iran-EU talks and this is not something one-sided, and we have also some criticism about their (human rights) situation,”...

Washington -- The county council of Howard County, Maryland -- a suburb of Washington and Baltimore -- made headlines recently when it passed legislation prohibiting the scheduling of public hearings on the two Eid holidays, the most holy days in Islam. Although Howard County's action is unusual, it does reflect a growing trend toward official recognition of Muslim holidays in the United States, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which informally tracks such developments. Especially since the attacks of September 11, 2001, "more and more Muslims are working to get their communities integrated into U.S. society and have...

Islam stands for universal peace Human dignity has been proclaimed in the Holy Quran : "And surely we have honoured the children of Adam...." (17:70) Fraternity and unity of mankind has also been proclaimed : "Mankind was one single nation....."(2:213) "Verily this brotherhood of yours is a single brotherhood..." (21:92) "Mankind was but one nation, but differed (later)." (10:19) There are other verses in the Quran on unity, integrity and solidarity of humanity. The Holy Quran marks the friends of division and conflict in the human race, which lead to human disaster and destruction : "But people have cut off...

Five days before 9/11, Charles Vincent bought his first Koran. Six weeks later, while smoke was still pouring from the remains of the World Trade Center, he formally converted to Islam in the mosque attached to the Islamic Cultural Center on 96th Street and Third Avenue in New York City. A blonde, blue-eyed 29-year-old from Torrance, California, he readily admits that he chose an unlikely moment to fall in love with the world's most newsworthy religion. But in the three years since, his devotion to Islam has only deepened. Like a growing number of white Americans and Europeans, he has...

CHICAGO -- When David Kelly -- aka "Capital D" -- raps, he doesn't follow the mainstream mantra of women, cars and jewelry. Instead, the Chicago rapper uses his rhymes to dish out praise for Allah, criticize the war in Iraq and blast corporate America. Kelly is among a new group of Muslim rap artists gaining popularity among Muslim-Americans looking for entertainment that reflects both their mainstream tastes and religious beliefs. "Muslims in the United States are not going away. They're part of the culture, but they're not creating their own culture," Kelly says. "I try to show them that you...

ONDON – Hunched in black robes over his microphone, Sheikh Omar Bakri suddenly heaves himself upright in rhetorical climax and pounds the table. "Embrace capitalism or Christianity, you go to hellfire!" he bellows. The crowd of men seated before him nod in agreement as Sheikh Bakri warns against misplaced sympathy for Western society. "Don't think that because [the unbelievers] give us income support we should have less hate," he continues. "Because we hate not for our sakes, but for the sake of Allah." ... Hard-line Islamists like Bakri have become the bête noire for Britons who question whether the growing...

Expressions of shame and self-reproach have swept the Arab world as Muslims mourn the deaths of Russian schoolchildren - and voice unusually critical condemnations of the social ills blamed for breeding terrorism. The Arab world has watched with mounting disgust as a wave of civilian hostages - some of them Arabs and Muslims - were slaughtered by insurgents in Iraq. Last week, newspapers and satellite channels were dominated by pictures of bloodied, naked children in Beslan, north Ossetia, fleeing armed guerillas suspected to be Islamic rebels. Many Arabs found themselves in an increasingly common quandary: struggling to reconcile their sympathy...

AH, REUTERS [Ramesh Ponnuru] Doug Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, sent out a press release on the latest partial-birth ruling. Here's an email he got in response from Todd Eastham, the North American news editor for Reuters:"What's your plan for parenting & educating all the unwanted children you people want to bring into the world? Who will pay for policing our streets & maintaining the prisons needed to contain them when you, their parents & the system fail them? Oh, sorry. All that money has been earmarked to pay off the Bush deficit. Give me...

Friday, 17 January, 2003, 17:53 GMT Belgian court brings Dutroux trial closer Marc Dutroux arrives at the Neufchateau courthouse A court in Belgium has ruled that the man suspected of the country's most notorious child murders should finally stand trial - more than six years after his arrest. The suspect, Marc Dutroux, is accused of raping and killing four girls, and of raping two others who were found alive at one of his properties. After seven years three people will face a jury court Georges-Henri Beauthier, plaintiffs' lawyer The court in Neufchateau, south-east Belgium, said there was enough evidence to...

Sons of drowned family members sue county for negligence The surviving sons of a family that drowned in Lake Isabella last summer are suing the county. The Bakersfield Californian reports that Jeremy and Cody Skaggs, and their grandparents, filed a claim late last month against the county. It claims the county negligently built, operated and maintained the lake. The suit is asking for $1 million dollars per victim. Last July, six members of the Skaggs family drowned, including four children. An autopsy revealed the two parents, Martin Skaggs and Charlotte Whittington, were under the influence of methamphetamine when they...