Free Republic

State school pupils are set to be taught Islamic traditions and values in compulsory citizenship lessons. The move - part of a package of initiatives announced by Communities Secretary Hazel Blears yesterday - is designed to curb extremism. Education campaigners warned however against giving Islam a privileged position over other faiths. Other plans announced by Miss Blears also drew criticism - including a state-funded panel of Islamic scholars and theologians to provide community leadership. Prominent Muslims said this scheme was naive because Government endorsement would erode the credibility of those taking part, especially among the young and disaffected. Another measure...

It is known as the Veil and is described by its architects as a giant glass Muslim headscarf in the heart of Paris. The former French president Jacques Chirac saw it as one way to avert a clash of civilisations in the run-up to the Iraq war. President Nicolas Sarkozy calls it the symbol of France's friendship with the Arab world. The Louvre's bold new Islamic art wing had its first stone laid by Sarkozy yesterday , launching the museum's most daring project since IM Pei created the giant glass pyramid 20 years ago. The world's most visited museum will...

MANILA, July 17 (Reuters) - The Philippines will hold a plebiscite early next year in more than 700 southern villages to set up an ancestral homeland for Muslims, part of a deal with the country's biggest rebel group, officials said on Thursday. Hermogenes Esperon, the president's peace adviser, told reporters the proposed Muslim homeland would also be empowered to collect about 75 percent of taxes from oil, mines and fisheries in the area. He was speaking in Manila a day after government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) negotiators hammered out a deal in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital. "The...

Christian doctrine is offensive to Muslims, the Archbishop of Canterbury said today. Dr Rowan Williams also criticised Christiaity in history for its violence, harsh use of punishments, and its betrayal of its peaceful principles. His acknowledgement of Christian faults came in a highly conciliatory letter to Islamic leaders calling for an alliance between the two faiths for 'the common good'. It risked fresh controversy for the Archbishop in the wake of his pronouncement earlier this year that a place should be found for Islamic sharia law in the British legal system. The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has admitted...

The arrest of a controversial Dutch cartoonist has set off a wave of protests. The case is raising questions for a changing Europe about free speech, religion and art. Amsterdam On a sunny May morning, six plainclothes police officers, two uniformed policemen and a trio of functionaries from the state prosecutor's office closed in on a small apartment in Amsterdam. Their quarry: a skinny Dutch cartoonist with a rude sense of humor. Informed that he was suspected of sketching offensive drawings of Muslims and other minorities, the Dutchman surrendered without a struggle. "I never expected the Spanish Inquisition," recalls the...

I was Brooklyn bound - or so I thought. I took the subway to see a fellow alumna of New York's High School of Music and Art (as today's LaGuardia High School for the Arts was then called). I looked forward to the nostalgic reunion. I hadn't been in NYC for ages, and catching up with an old classmate seemed an indispensable component of walking down memory lane. What's more, Kathy still lives at the same address in the cozy middle-class neighborhood where I sometimes visited her way back then. It was common for the house-proud Irish to keep property...

Three years after the London Tube and bus bombings, it is alarming beyond measure to record that Britain is even now sleepwalking into Islamisation. Some people will think this is mere hyperbole. However, that's the problem. Britain still doesn't grasp that it is facing a pincer attack from both terrorism and cultural infiltration and usurpation. The former is understood; the latter is generally not acknowledged or is even denied, and those who call attention to it are pilloried as either ' Islamophobes' or alarmists who have taken up residence on Planet Paranoia. Certainly, the police and security service have been...

So this is how it ends: not with a bang, but a whimper. The most senior judge in England has declared that Islamic legal principles in Sharia law may be used within Muslim communities in Britain to settle marital arguments and regulate finance. Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips said, "Those entering into a contractual agreement can agree that the agreement shall be governed by a law other than English law." In his speech at an East London mosque, Lord Phillips said Muslims in Britain could use Islamic legal principles as long as punishments - and divorce rulings - comply with...

As the global war on terror approaches the start of its eighth year, the NYPD says it has never been more prepared - but also warns that the city can never let its guard down. In a two-part series, Daily News reporter Patrice O'Shaughnessy looks at the terror threat in New York - and around the world. Sunday's installment focuses on an NYPD undercover officer who dug deep into the potential terrorists in our midst. A young undercover city detective spent four years in the shadowy world of terrorist wanna-bes - taking part in jihadist discussions and training in parks...

"It's not about terrorism or hatred. It's about love," she said. "Being a Muslim is just like being a Christian or a Jewish person. We are all called to treat each other with respect." The convention, which has taken place in Hartford for the last four years, is expected to draw more than 15,000 people by the time it winds down later today, said Muhammad Rahman, the convention's co-chairman. He said most of those who have shown up this weekend are Muslims from the East Coast stretching from New England to the Carolinas, though many have traveled from Canada and...

Denmark: Church pays protection money to Muslims to prevent attacks on church-goers With 300,000 inhabitants, Aarhus is the second largest city of in Denmark. In Gellerup, a multicultural suburb of Arhus, the multicultural problems can be seen openly. There are many Muslims and many Kalaallit (the natives of Greenland, which belongs to Denmark). The Muslim citizens of Gellerup tyrannize the indigenous population of Greenland in the sourrounding areas of Arhus (as well as in Greenland) since the summer of 2007 so much that they no longer dare venture out of their homes. Muslims see the Kalaallit as second-class people who...

An education authority is investigating claims that two school pupils were punished for refusing to kneel down and pray to Allah during a religious education lesson. Parents complained after the boys, Year 7 pupils at Alsager High School in Cheshire, were given detention for being "disrespectful" to the prophet, the Congleton Chronicle reported. Parent Sharon Luinen told the paper: "This isn't right, it's taking things too far. "I understand that they have to learn about other religions, I can live with that, but it is taking it a step too far to be punished because they wouldn't join in Muslim...

POLICE sniffer dogs trained to spot terrorists at railway stations may no longer come into contact with Muslim passengers – after complaints that it is against the suspects’ religion. A report for the Transport Department has raised the prospect that the animals should only touch passengers’ luggage because it is considered “more acceptable”. In the Muslim faith, dogs are deemed to be spiritually “unclean”. But banning them from touching passengers would severely restrict their ability to do their job. The report follows trials of station security measures in the wake of the 2005 London suicide bomb attacks. In one trial,...

Two schoolboys were given detention after refusing to kneel down and 'pray to Allah' during a religious education lesson. Parents were outraged that the two boys from year seven (11 to 12-year-olds) were punished for not wanting to take part in the practical demonstration of how Allah is worshipped. They said forcing their children to take part in the exercise at Alsager High School, near Stoke-on-Trent - which included wearing Muslim headgear - was a breach of their human rights. One parent, Sharon Luinen, said: "This isn't right, it's taking things too far. "I understand that they have to learn...

Sharia law could play a role in some parts of the legal system, the most senior judge in England and Wales has said. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, emphatically ruled out the possibility of sharia courts sitting in this country or deciding penalties. But in a speech at the East London Muslim Centre in Whitechapel he said there was no reason why sharia principles could not be used in "mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution". Sharia - a set of principles governing the way that many Muslims believe one should live one's life -...

Has the Whole World Gone Mad? http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/06/29/has-the-whole-world-gone-mad/#comment-405813 June 29, 2008 at 3:45 PM Islam, Sharia Law, UN Human Rights Council UN ‘Human Rights Council’ bans criticism of Islam The UN ‘Human Rights Council’ decided this week that it is forbidden to criticize Islam because “religious issues can be “very complex, very sensitive and very intense…This council is not prepared to discuss religious matters in depth, consequently we should not do it.” From now on, only religious scholars would be permitted to broach ‘religious matters’ before the Council. The ban came after a heated session on Monday, when the representative of...

Free speech obviously does not rank very high on the list of human rights for this group. From Israel Matzav: The UN 'Human Rights Council' decided this week that it is forbidden to criticize Islam because "religious issues can be "very complex, very sensitive and very intense...This council is not prepared to discuss religious matters in depth, consequently we should not do it." From now on, only religious scholars would be permitted to broach 'religious matters' before the Council.

A drunken teenager who beat up a priest walked free yesterday after the judge accepted the attack was a 'one-off mistake'. Babul Islam was one of three Asian youths who attacked Canon Michael Ainsworth in his churchyard. The 19-year-old punched the vicar in the head while others kicked him ' one all¬egedly shouting 'f*****g priest' ' only stopping when passers-by intervened. His battered victim spent nearly two weeks in hospital after the assault, which prosecutor Carl May-Smith said 'had a profound effect on him'. The shop assistant admitted being extremely drunk during the attack but denied it was religiously-motivated '...

LONDON: Muslim passengers may not be touched by sniffer dogs of the British Transport Police after complaints that the practice is against Islam. According to the religion, dogs are deemed to be spiritually “unclean”. A Transport Department report has raised the prospect that animals should only touch passengers’ luggage because it is considered “more acceptable”, the Daily Express reported. The ban may restrict the efficiency of sniffer dog squads which have been trained to spot terrorists at railway stations. On Thursday night, British Transport Police insisted that it would still use sniffer dogs with any passengers regardless of faith, but...

"Miss Rawlins, I Need Help"In 1999 the British Labour Party, in one of those boneheaded acts that the left excels at, made a seemingly minor adjustment to it's immigration policy that doomed many thousands of young girls to death, beatings, and a nightmare life. In January 2000 The Independent reported that thousands of young U.K. Muslim girls were being forced into marriages to foreigners, primarily Pakistanis. Many of these girls were third generation Brits, with only a rudimentary understanding of their new language. The groom was often a cousin, a visa seeker--or something worse. And it is not only her...

No country is wholly free of anti-immigrant prejudice, whether it is the United States, where illegal immigration was a hot-button issue in the Republican primaries, or post-apartheid South Africa, where economic migrants were recently burned to death. But in many Western European countries today, something new and insidious seems to be happening. The familiar old arguments against immigrants — that they are criminals, that their culture makes them a bad fit, that they take jobs from natives — are mutating into an anti-Islamic bias that is becoming institutionalized in the continent’s otherwise ordinary politics. Examples abound. The Swiss People’s Party...

With fatal terrorist attacks on the decline worldwide and al Qaeda apparently in disarray, it would seem a time for optimism in the global war on terrorism. But the war has simply shifted to a different arena. Islamists, or those who believe that Islam is a political and religious system that must dominate all others, are focusing less on the military and more on the ideological. It turns out that Western liberal democracies can be subverted without firing a shot. Nowhere is this more evident than in the educational realm. Islamists have taken what's come to be known as the...

Gay people in Holland have been shocked by a public attack on a gay man in Amsterdam. Model Mike Du Pree was taking part in a fashion show to promote tolerance towards gay people when a gang of ten Muslim youths dragged him from the catwalk and beat him. A right wing Dutch MP has called for the youths to be deported. Mr Du Pree's nose was broken in the attack, which was motivated by homophobia. The fashion event was held on a public holiday marking the birth of Holland's late Queen Julianna. Newspaper Gay Krant reports that a bystander...

AMSTERDAM, 06/06/08 - Amsterdam municipal transport company (GVB) bus-drivers and tram personnel cannot celebrate Christmas any more. GVB is axing the event to please Muslims, newspaper de Telegraaf suggested yesterday. Personnel association VTN has been told by GVB management that "the multicultural representation of the colleagues at the Christmas party is too one-sided." Supposedly, GVB meant to say that only white GVB staffs have been attending the annual event organised by management in the past years. It has therefore halted its financial contribution to the Christmas party. "We have a limited budget and want to organise something that is intended...

There has been an outcry in Belgium over a proposal to convert little-used churches into mosques. A senior official in Antwerp argues too many of the city's churches stand empty most of the time and he has put forward suggestions to convert them into mosques to benefit the city's large Muslim population. Philip Heylen, who is deputy-mayor, says he wants to "break the taboo" over the future of the city's churches, many of which have dwindling and ageing congregations. He shrugs: "It's a looming issue yet it seems impossible to have a debate about this, churches were built as places...

Two Christian preachers in Britain have been told that trying to spread the gospel to Muslims is a hate crime. It's another sign that much of England has given up on being England. British media are reporting that Arthur Cunningham and Joseph Abraham, American evangelical ministers who've been living in Great Britain for years, were told by a police community support officer to "stop handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham."....

A police community support officer ordered two Christian preachers to stop handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham. The evangelists say they were threatened with arrest for committing a "hate crime" and were told they risked being beaten up if they returned. The incident will fuel fears that "no-go areas" for Christians are emerging in British towns and cities, as the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, claimed in The Sunday Telegraph this year. Arthur Cunningham, 48, and Joseph Abraham, 65, both full-time evangelical ministers, have launched legal action against West Midlands Police, claiming...

Last week we noted the bizarre arguments of Seattle Times editorial writer Bruce Ramsey, who tried so hard to defend Barack Obama against President Bush’s “appeasement” speech that he actually ended up defending Hitler for annexing Austria. His exact words were: “What Hitler was demanding was not unreasonable.” If you think that’s an ahistorical pretzel of monumental proportions, though, you ain’t seen nothin’ — because here comes Pat Buchanan. According to old Pat, not only was the Anchluss not a problem, Hitler’s invasion of Poland was also perfectly understandable, given the Poles’ refusal to negotiate. Those darned stubborn Poles were...

If recent reports of trends in religious observance prove to be correct, then in some 30 years the mosque will be able to claim that, religiously speaking, the UK is an Islamic nation, and therefore needs a share in any religious establishment to reflect this. The progress of conservative Islam in the UK has been amazing, and it has come at a time of prolonged decline in church attendance that seems likely to continue. This progress has been enthusiastically assisted by this government in particular with its hard-line multi-cultural dogma and willingness to concede to virtually every demand made by...

STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) — Republican John McCain on Thursday rejected endorsements from two influential but controversial televangelists, saying there is no place for their incendiary criticisms of other faiths. McCain rejected the months-old endorsement of Texas preacher John Hagee after an audio recording surfaced in which the preacher said God sent Adolf Hitler to help Jews reach the promised land. McCain called the comment "crazy and unacceptable." He later repudiated the support of Rod Parsley, an Ohio preacher who has sharply criticized Islam and called the religion inherently violent. McCain issued a statement Thursday afternoon announcing his decision about Hagee....

Tyler Hurd, a 23-year-old junior at SCSU, hopes to be a special education teacher. Hurd spent the past month at Technical High School in St. Cloud, working toward completing the 50 hours of secondary field placement required to earn his teaching license. But student teaching, along with many other aspects of daily life, is not always simple for Hurd. When Hurd was 14, he sustained a head injury while playing hockey. The injury resulted in epilepsy, a neurological disorder causing chronic seizures. Because a seizure can take place at any moment, Hurd was matched with Emmitt, a 2 and a...

Amsterdam CDA municipal council member Lex van Drooge was recently asked to move to a different seat on a KLM flight from Istanbul to Amsterdam, since the Muslim woman sitting next to him had objections about sitting next to a man. The council member had been a work-trip to Istanbul together with a group of Amsterdam politicians. He says that at beginning of the trip back he was asked by a stewardess to move elsewhere in the plane. Later it turned out this request was from his original headscarf wearing neighbor. Van Drooge says that apparently we don't know how...

Dutch political cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot was arrested on suspicion of violating the country’s so-called “hate speech” laws. It took a police team of 10 to accomplish the apprehension of Nekschot at his home, where he declined to resist arrest, much to the dismay of several of the officers. Police also seized his computer, sketches, CDs, DVDs, pencils, paper and telephone. The presence of several “unclean” comestibles—a can of Spam and a bag of fried pork rinds in his larder was also noted. Nekschot’s cartoons have mainly mocked leftists and Muslim extremists, though the spokeswoman for his publisher said “any strong...

Bearing petitions and prayers, about 70 people gathered Sunday to protest the “hateful utterances” of national radio personality Michael Savage, whose talk show is carried locally by KCMO 710-AM. Representatives from several faiths, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Sikhism, were meeting for the first time as the Interfaith Coalition Against Bigotry at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The group has collected hundreds of signatures on petitions protesting Savage’s statements last fall, “which included a call to deport Muslims from the United States without due process of law,” the group said. “We have become sometimes saddened and sometimes angered by...

"Obama is the only major candidate who supports tough, direct, presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions." - Barackobama.com Barack Obama has enshrined the principle of unconditional summitry with Iran as one of the central foreign policy planks of his campaign for President. This despite recent efforts by Obama surrogates to confuse the electorate. The statement above is found on the campaign website of Senator Obama and reflects his view -- repeated a number of times by himself in debates and question and answer sessions -- that the thrust of his foreign policy will be personal Presidential engagement with tyrannical regimes...

Denmark, long the liberal, open society that welcomed immigrants, has done an about face. After being the symbolic envy of Universalists, of Socialists, of cultural liberalism, Denmark today has the strictest immigration policy in Europe. The Muslim population in Denmark, constituting a mere 4% of the total, refuses to integrate, consumes 40% of the welfare, and constitutes a majority of the country’s convicted rapists. The Danes now acknowledge that their core values of personal liberty, free speech, equality for women and tolerance of other ethnic groups are incompatible with Islam as they know it. Muslim leaders openly advocate introducing Islamic...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's most powerful Sunni Arab political party on Monday said a U.S. soldier's desecration of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, requires the "severest of punishments," not just an apology and a military reassignment. The Iraqi Islamic Party, the movement of Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, condemned what it said was a "blatant assault on the sanctities of Muslims all over the world." An American staff sergeant who was a sniper section leader used a Quran for target practice on May 9. The U.S. commander in Baghdad on Saturday issued a formal apology and read a...

Last year I wrote an article about how Swedish society is disintegrating and is in danger of collapsing, at least in certain areas and regions. The country that gave us Bergman, ABBA and Volvo could become known as the Bosnia of northern Europe. The “Swedish model” would no longer refer to a stable and peaceful state with an advanced economy, but to a Eurabian horror story of utopian multiculturalism, socialist mismanagement and runaway immigration. Some thought I was exaggerating, and that talk of the possibility of a future civil war in Sweden was pure paranoia. Was it? In a new...

Oslo police recently released its 2007 Rape Report. The report shows a marked increase in Somali rapists, generally on account of gang rapes. At least ten women were attacked and molested by a gang of Somali men at Sofienberg park in Oslo on Saturday evening. Last year a record-high 161 rapes and 35 rape attempts were reported in Oslo. Over 70% of the rapists were non-Norwegian [ed. ethnically, a majority had Norwegian citizenship]. Lawyer Abid Raja visited a cafe in Grønland in Oslo for Norwegian broadcaster P4. There he met three young men (ages 26, 30 and 35), from Somalia...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A soldier used the Quran -- Islam's holy book -- for target practice, forcing the chief U.S. commander in Baghdad to issue a formal apology on Saturday. Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond apologizes after a soldier admitted using the Quran for target practice. Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, apologized to leaders in Radhwaniya, in the western outskirts of Baghdad, for the staff sergeant who was a sniper section leader assigned to the headquarters of the 64th Armored Regiment. He also read a letter of apology by the shooter. It was the first...

Brothers and sisters in Islam, masahllah our taqiyya is doing wonders in America . We have successfully pulled wool over americans eyes in making them believe that Islam is not a religion ofstaright jacket but is a religion of peace and personal freedom . Here in the video our CAIR hero Ahmed gives an excellent demonstration of taqiyya by lieing thru his teeth with a straight face and declaring thatin Islam women have freedom of choice regarding what to wear AMERICA LOVES ISLAM Our job as moderate muslims is to lull the kuffar to a false sense of security while...

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - A Dutch political cartoonist was arrested this week on suspicion of insulting people because of their race or religion through his work, authorities said Friday. The cartoonist, who works under the pseudonym Gregorius Nekschot, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of violating hate speech laws and held overnight before being released, a spokeswoman for his publisher Uitgeverij Xtra said. "He was arrested with a great show of force, by around 10 policemen," the spokeswoman said.

Dutch cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot was arrested when his house was raided by ten police men. He spent a night in a police cell and was then released. It is unclear if Nekschot is to be prosecuted. The raid apparently happened because of complaints by fundamentalist imam van de Ven, a Dutch Islam convert who once said that he'd like to see critics of Islam like Geert Wilders to be dead. Nekschot is a controversial cartoonist who criticizes multi cultural society and religions. Although his work is not exactly an example of fine taste sometimes his arrest raised protests. The raid...

-- snip --As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant. Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him. His conversion, however, was a...

Hizbullah's successful overthrow of the pro-democracy forces in Lebanon this past week was eminently foreseeable. But that doesn't make the violent overthrow of the forces of freedom in that country any less of a tragedy. And the fact that Hizbullah's coup was predictable does not mean that it was inevitable. A great many forces had to turn their backs on Lebanon's democratic forces in order to enable Hizbullah's easy triumph. A great many actors had to turn a blind eye to Hizbullah's Iranian and Syrian-financed rearmament over the past two years. A great many actors had to ignore and so...

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...

A student teacher who uses a service dog for his epilepsy has had to leave his position early after a Muslim student harassed the animal, and worse. Tyler Hurd needs the dog for his protection and for emergency supplies for first-aid responders, but apparently Technical High School in St Cloud believes that Hurd’s needs are secondary to providing a dog-free zone for its Muslim students. Hurd says he feels threatened by the action, as well he should — because the student threatened to kill the dog: A St. Cloud State University student in a teacher-training program at Technical High School...

SETH J. FRANTZMAN On a pleasant Thursday in December 1948, Emilio Traubner, a correspondent for The Palestine Post, found himself near Abu Kabir, not far from Jaffa. Trenches and expended cartridges were strewn about, reminders of the fighting between units of the Irgun and local Arab forces that had taken place there seven months previously. There was a large Arab villa from where Traubner recovered a diary. It turned out to be the daily record of Yusuf Begovic of Pale, a town near Sarajevo in modern-day Bosnia-Herzegovina. In it Begovic had described his activities as a cook for the “Arab...

Scotland's first Muslim Police Association is being created in an attempt to encourage more Muslims to join and stay in the force. Strathclyde Police hopes the group will also help tackle Islamophobia and improve understanding of Islam. Pc Amar Shakoor, who was Scotland's first Muslim officer, said negativity had recently been directed towards the Muslim community. He said the association hoped to put Islam in a more positive light. "We want to highlight some of the positive things Islam can provide to the communities and not just the police services," he said. According to Pc Shakoor, since the 9/11 World...

When some parents at Prairie View Middle School asked for a separate lunch table for their children during the Ramadan fast, Principal Joel Martin thought the request seemed reasonable. As long as the gathering of fasting students didn't disrupt and didn't cost the district anything, Martin had no qualm with offering the religious accommodation. » Click to enlarge image Ryan Vandewiel collected about 60 signatures on a petition at Prairie View School to have the administration set aside lunch tables for practicing Catholics during the Lenten season. (Carol Dorsett/SouthtownStar) If you go ... The Kirby School District 140 board will...