Free Republic

Gainesville -- Officials at Mar-Jac Poultry said they were shocked to find out Thursday that federal officials suspect the company might have ties to terrorist funding. Company Vice President Doug Carnes said at least a half-dozen U.S. Customs agents spent all day Wednesday gathering financial records and charitable contribution files. They were "real nice, professional and complimentary," he said, but they didn't disclose the nature of their visit. It was only on Thursday that Carnes was alerted by company officials in Virginia as to what the agents were looking for. "I'm shocked. I'm in disbelief. I've worked for them for...

Anti-Shariah activist Pamela Geller’s campaign to get halal meat labeled on American supermarket shelves has been sent down the memory hole by the federal government. Geller started a petition drive in November 2011 with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service seeking to have halal meat – which is ritually slaughtered in the presence of an imam to make it suitable for Muslims to consume – labeled as such. It was only fair, she said. Kosher meat, which is blessed by a rabbi before slaughter, is labeled on store shelves so why not halal meat? More than...

This is an outrage. If the roles were were reversed and it was Muslims being ignored, Muslims whose dietary religious traditions being violated, all hell would break loose. Pamela Geller: USDA Ignores AFDI Petition to Require All Halal Meat Be Labeled as Such A great deal of meat sold in this country is halal but is not labeled is such. It’s a scandal — but an established practice: meat packers generally do not separate halal meat from non-halal meat, and do not label halal meat as such. We attempted to right that wrong. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture has...

Al Shabrawy Meat Incorporated Recalls Meat and Poultry Products Due To Misbranding and Undeclared Allergens http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/newsroom/news-releases-statements-transcripts/news-release-archives-by-year/!ut/p/a1/jY_RCoJAFES_xQ9Y9m6W6KNIlpqKSGb7ElusumCrqBj29Sk9GUXOfRo4M5fBFKeYStaLnHWikqycPNUuEIFGDAvc0DZtcALVTvRgR2C7GYHzDDDIBCRR6FkW6IG6MP9DJvzLuwserBrf8nNMa9YVSMiswqnkjxY1vOSs5Yg1t0L0vEXXAQ2cNfiE6bwWyHhjbbzeu4EKnvYJfNn9Bn4Pq-_H9HnIYidXlBfFAzLK/?1dmy&current=true&urile=wcm%3apath%3a%2FFSIS-Content%2Finternet%2Fmain%2Ftopics%2Frecalls-and-public-health-alerts%2Frecall-case-archive%2Farchive%2F2016%2Frecall-070-2016-release Al Shabrawy Meat Incorporated Recalls Meat and Poultry Products Due To Misbranding and Undeclared Allergens Class I Recall 070-2016 Health Risk: High Aug 6, 2016 En Español Congressional and Public Affairs Richard J. McIntire (202) 720-9113 Press@fsis.usda.gov WASHINGTON, AUG. 6, 2016 – Al Shabrawy Meat Inc., a South River, N.J. establishment, is recalling an undetermined amount of meat and poultry products due to misbranding and undeclared allergens, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today. Some of the products...

JENSEN BEACH, Fla.— Omar Mateen visited a gun shop in this town near his home about five or six weeks ago. His request: heavy-duty body armor—rated IIIA, the sort typically used by law enforcement—and bulk ammunition. While at the store, Mateen had a phone conversation in which he appeared to be speaking in a Middle Eastern language, according to Robbie Abell, the co-owner of the store, Lotus Gunworks of South Florida. Staffers also noticed him texting on his phone. Mateen “just seemed very odd,” Mr. Abell said. “The questions he was asking [about body armor] were not the normal questions...

A number of mostly Muslim migrants hosted in a hotel in the northern Italian town of Chioggia ripped down the Italian flag in protest of an Easter meal of pasta in place of their usual chicken and french fries. The owners of the Al Bragosso di Sant’Anna Hotel usually give the 45 migrants a dinner consisting of chicken and French fries on Sundays, but on Easter they decided to serve the pasta instead to properly celebrate the holiday.

MUSLIM staff at a care home refused to let patients eat bacon sandwiches for breakfast, a watchdog has found. . . . The report said: "Staff were not providing support that was responsive to the person's preferences and were restricting the person's right to choice. "The person said they had raised their concern with senior staff members but nothing had been done about it."

A Cedar Rapids businessman convicted of mislabeling Halal meat will spend 2 years in prison. 74-year-old Bill Aossey, founder of Midamar, was sentenced in federal court Thursday morning on federal fraud charges. The sentence also calls for three years of supervision after release and a $60,000 fine. During the hearing the judge repeatedly scolded Aossey for committing perjury during his trial in court last year. Aossey’s conviction originally called for a 9 to11 year sentence. The judge cut the sentence due to Aossey’s age of 74 and the unlikeliness that he would commit another offense. Aossey was convicted by a...

Proposed legislation was introduced into New York City Council to require that the city’s public schools provide Islamic-compliant food – halal – as an option in the cafeterias. The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) joined forces with council member Rafael L. Espinal, Jr. (Brooklyn) to support Resolution 54 at a press conference on the steps of New York City Hall on Wednesday, March 26. Fourteen other city councilmembers co-sponsored Espinal’s Resolution. The Resolution goes into explicit detail about what Islamic-observant students are permitted to eat and what they must avoid eating, as well as stating...

Halal and Kosher are terms often heard in the context of meat and dairy, and although it's common knowledge that the terms refer to guidelines on what can be consumed and what cannot, few know what either really means, let alone how they differ. "Is this kosher?" has become a common expression that has transcended the context of religion and food to the point that it simply means "Is this acceptable?" in a colloquial sense. Halal and Kosher refer to what's permitted by Islamic and Jewish religious laws respectively. Halal is an Islamic term that means lawful or permitted. Although...

Let’s take a little break from poop swastikas and other campus micro/macro aggressions to examine a real conflict from abroad. France has finally found something in the clash of cultures to take a stand on…wine. Ahead of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s landmark European trip kicking off this weekend, French officials reportedly nixed plans for a formal meal in Paris with President François Hollande following a dispute over the menu. The Iranians, according to France’s RTL Radio, insisted on a wine-free meal with halal meat — a request based on Islamic codes that amounted to culinary sacrilege in France, a nation...

The request for halal food is perfectly reasonable: if Hollande is going to invite Rouhani to lunch, he shouldn’t serve him food that his guest cannot eat for religious reasons. But the request that there be no wine on the table is inherently supremacist and absolutely unjustifiable. Rouhani would not be forced to drink wine, but that’s not enough: if he is not going to drink wine, then no one else can drink it either, including the non-Muslims present. This demand is in line with the old axiom: in Muslim countries, one must conform one’s behavior to Muslim sensibilities. And...

Kitchens that are shared between office workers may soon be banned from storing pork products like sausage rolls over fears that they are “offensive”. New guidelines proposed by interfaith group CoExist House say that employers should consider worker’s religions before allowing ham sandwiches placed in the fridge alongside other products. The group also suggests that alcohol should not be served at corporate events in case it upsets members of certain faiths.

Hygiene isn't Halal Immigration is all about diversity and cultural enrichment. And this Muslim eatery enriched the UK with a new strain of Ecoli that sent customers to the hospital because handwashing was Haram. A teenage girl almost died and more than 140 others were taken severely ill after contracting a E.coli in a filthy takeaway where staff did not wash their hands after going to the toilet. 142 customers who ate at the Khyber Pass in Hyson Green, Nottingham, suffered with nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea after the outbreak last June, and a 13-year-old girl was left so ill that...

“Animal rights come before religion” Editor’s note: This story was published in error; it incorrectly suggested that Denmark’s ban is new. See correction appended Denmark enacted a sweeping ban on the religious slaughter of animals in 2014, prompting a furious backlash from Jewish and Muslim community representatives.

CEDAR RAPIDS — Convicted Monday of most charges in a halal beef exporting scheme, Midamar Corp. founder William Aossey Jr. was put in jail while a federal judge considers what to do with the 73-year-old until his sentencing.Aossey was convicted by a jury on 15 of 19 federal charges involving the sale of misbranded “halal” beef products and falsifying export documents and certificates.The founder of the Cedar Rapids company, at 1105 60th Ave. S.W., was accused in October 2014 of falsely representing that the beef he was exporting to Malaysia and Indonesia met strict slaughtering standards.After a trial last week,...

Aldi has landed in hot water after selling black pudding that contained pork, which is forbidden in Islam. The supermarket has apologised for stocking the item which lists among its ingredients pork blood, pork skins and pork stock. The black pudding had received the UK Health Code stamp saying it was suitable for Muslims.

Who says Islam is not adapting to the times? Fatwas issued by top clerics in Turkey and Saudi Arabia this week might be shocking to much of the civilized world, but they do indicate change. In Turkey, the top religious authority, known as the Directorate of Religious Affairs or Divanet, proclaimed that though water is the preferred method of cleansing oneself after using the toilet, paper is now an acceptable alternative if a water source is unavailable, reports the nation’s Hurriyet Daily News. [Snip] Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia the grand mufti has reportedly found a new definition of halal –...

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh has denied issuing a fatwa that states it is permissible for a starving man to save himself by eating the flesh of a woman. In a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency on Thursday, Al-Asheikh said the religious edict was false and created by Islam’s enemies to slander him and “keep the community busy squabbling over irrelevant issues instead of standing united behind the rightly guided rulers.” “The fatwa attributed to us is wrong. It is nothing but lies ... It has been circulated to distort the image of Islam, which has elevated...

Just when you thought you’d heard it all: A report circulating throughout the Arabic-language media claims a leading Saudi cleric has issued a fatwa (religious ruling) permitting husbands to eat their wives (yes, eat them) in the event that they are really, really hungry. The report appeared among other places in the major pan-Arab, London-based Al Quds Al-Arabi, which cited the alleged edict by the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia Abdul Aziz ibn Abdullah Al-Asheikh permitting a husband to eat his wife if he is afflicted with “severe hunger”. It claimed Al-Asheikh clarified that the husband could choose to eat...