Free Republic

It is the religion that dare not speak its name...at least on NBC News and at the Associated Press among other politically correct circles. Both media outlets reported on a verdict in an "honor killings" case in Canada while managing to avoid mentioning a certain religion whose name starts with "M." To watch or read both reports, you would think that "honor killings" was some sort of bizarre ritual limited to the family in question or perhaps a few other members of an unspoken "patriarchal culture. First the AP report on the MSNBC site which does mention a religion but...

Egypt:Coptic businessman on trial over cartoon: bearded Mickey Mouse and veiled Minnie Mouse Coptic businessman on trial over cartoon Egypt Independent Mon, 09/01/2012 - 12:27 http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/591651 The Central Cairo Prosecution has referred Coptic businessman Naguib Sawiris to trial over charges of defamation of religion. In June, Sawiris posted a picture depicting Mickey Mouse wearing a beard and Minnie Mouse wearing a face veil on his Twitter account, a cartoon that many Muslims considered offensive. Sawiris later apologized for posting the cartoon, however, his apology did not manage to calm the anger of Salafis who filed a report accusing him of...

A Norwegian girl was brutally attacked by her boyfriend as she refused to marry him. Twenty four year old Sulvy Leopreez Sakkur was severely beaten by her Egyptian millionaire boyfriend. The lady confirmed the news in an interview with Al Wafd newspaper. She identified her boyfriend as Ahmed AL Ajati, the son of Egyptian millionaire Yahiya Al Ajati. She said, “The reason behind this was because I refused to marry him and asked him to end our relationship". Sulvy said she feared to speak up about her ordeal for fear of being punished more by the businessman and his son.

A young man dressed as “Father Frost” – the Russian equivalent of Father Christmas – was stabbed to death in Tajikistan on Monday in an attack police believe was motivated by religious hatred, two police sources said. A crowd attacked 24-year-old Parviz Davlatbekov and stabbed him with a knife as he visited relatives in the early hours of Monday dressed as Father Frost, who by tradition brings Russian children presents at New Year. Russian cultural influence remains strong in Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic. “We have witness statements that say the crowd beat Parviz and stabbed him with a knife,...

A Norwegian girl was brutally attacked by her boyfriend as she refused to marry him. Twenty four year old Sulvy Leopreez Sakkur was severely beaten by her Egyptian millionaire boyfriend. The lady confirmed the news in an interview with Al Wafd newspaper. She identified her boyfriend as Ahmed AL Ajati, the son of Egyptian millionaire Yahiya Al Ajati. She said, “The reason behind this was because I refused to marry him and asked him to end our relationship". Sulvy said she feared to speak up about her ordeal for fear of being punished more by the businessman and his son....

Don't laugh. That wouldn't be respectful. And you know how the Saudis, and Islamic supremacists in general, are about respect. Remember also, as Pamela Geller reminds us often, that Obama has assured the Islamic world that we will respect Islam -- and also therefore Islamic law. But the best way to gain respect is to be respectable. This one, on the other hand, made me wonder if maybe someone like John Cleese or Eric Idle had gotten a job writing material for the Muslim scholars at the Majlis al-Ifta’ al-A’ala, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council. Sharia Alert from the Kingdom...

GENEVA (AP) — The U.N.'s top human rights official says her office estimates the death toll in Syria's nine-month uprising is now "much more" than 4,000. Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, gave the latest figure a day before the global body is due to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis in the country. Pillay told reporters in Geneva on Thursday that evidence emerging of abuses committed by Syrian security forces affirms her call that the country's leadership should be prosecuted for "crimes against humanity."

From a Middle East correspondent: Beirut Arab news agency al Nashra reported on Saturday November 22, that [White House Muslim envoy] Dalia Mogahed has succeeded in canceling a meeting between the Maronite Patriarch of Lebanon and President Barack Obama. Writing in al Nashra, the reporter said “an unnamed US source told the news agency, that those who sought canceling a visit of (the spiritual head of the Maronite Church) Patriarch Beshara Rahi to the White House are Dalia Mujahid (Mogahed), the highest adviser on Arab and Islamic Affairs in the State Department, who is from Egyptian origins. And that,” according...

President Obama on Wednesday condemned the terrorist attack that killed dozens in Turkey, offering his condolences to families of victims in a statement. Here’s the full statement: The United States strongly condemns this morning's outrageous terrorist attack against Turkey, one of our closest and strongest allies. On behalf of the American people, I offer my condolences to the families of the victims and to all of the Turkish people. The United States will continue our strong cooperation with the Turkish government as it works to defeat the terrorist threat from the PKK and to bring peace, stability and prosperity to...

There is not a single, public Christian church left in Afghanistan, according to the U.S. State Department. This reflects the state of religious freedom in that country ten years after the United States first invaded it and overthrew its Islamist Taliban regime. In the intervening decade, U.S. taxpayers have spent $440 billion to support Afghanistan's new government and more than 1,700 U.S. military personnel have died serving in that country. The last public Christian church in Afghanistan was razed in March 2010, according to the Statet Department's latest International Religious Freedom Report. The report, which was released last month and...

CSW is urgently calling for action on behalf of Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani who faces execution anytime from Thursday onwards after refusing to renounce his faith. Pastor Nadarkhani is currently on trial in Rasht. He has appeared in court three times this week and each time has refused to renounce his faith when asked to do so by the court.

"The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land: that is their disgrace in this world, and a heavy punishment is theirs in the Hereafter." -- Qur'an 5:33 It looks as if these brothers' apparent support for the Christian Gbagbo over the Muslim Ouattara constituted "waging war against Allah and His Messenger." "Brothers crucified by Ouattara forces in Ivory Coast," from Barnabas Aid, June 8 (thanks...

Saudi Women for Driving have a message for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “Where are you?” The women fighting for the right to drive in the Sharia-compliant nation have been surprised by the radio silence coming from Clinton, a leader of female empowerment in America. On June 17th, women in Saudi Arabia staged a mass drive-in, during which they risked bodily harm by ignoring the laws banning women from driving. On June 3rd the group, which came together after the arrest of Manal al-Sharif (a Saudi mother jailed for driving her own car), wrote a letter begging Clinton for a...

A would-be teen beauty queen was stoned to death after her participation in a Ukranian pageant reportedly infuriated local Muslim youths. Katya Koren, 19, was targeted by three fellow teens who said her seventh-place finish in the beauty contest was a violation of Muslim laws, according to British newspaper reports.

ABC News' Jake Tapper reports here and here on the Obama administration giving Osama bin Laden a Muslim-led Islamic burial at sea so as not to "inflame" the Muslim world....The SEALS shot the terrorist leader dead after he refused to surrender. Bin Laden's corpse was taken to Afghanistan to have his DNA tested for positive identification. The body was then flown to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, officials told ABC News and he was buried at sea. The burial was done in accordance with Islamic law, officials said. A Muslim seaman conducted the process and said the prayers, with...

Thousands of Christians have been forced to flee their homes in Western Ethiopia after Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes. At least one Christian has been killed, many more have been injured and anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 have been displaced in the attacks that began March 2 after a Christian in the community of Asendabo was accused of desecrating the Koran. The violence escalated to the point that federal police forces sent to the area two weeks ago were initially overwhelmed by the mobs. Government spokesman Shimelis Kemal told Voice of America...

The Muslim Fatah-controlled authority in Judea and Samaria is encouraging a "sharp demographic shift" in Bethlehem, where the Christian population went from a 60 percent majority in 1990 to a 40 percent minority in 2000, to about 15 percent of the city's total population today. It is estimated that, for the past seven years, more than one thousand Christians have been emigrating from the Bethlehem area annually and that only 10,000 to 13,000 Christians remain in the city. International human rights lawyer Justus Reid Weiner, who teaches at Hebrew University, told the Jerusalem Institute for Global Jewish Affairs that, under...

(AINA) -- A mob of nearly four thousand Muslims has attacked Coptic homes this evening in the village of Soul, Atfif in Helwan Governorate, 30 kilometers from Cairo, and torched the Church of St. Mina and St. George. There are conflicting reports about the whereabouts of the Church pastor Father Yosha and three deacons who were at church; some say they died in the fire and some say they are being held captive by the Muslims inside the church. Witnesses report the mob prevented the fire brigade from entering the village. The army, which has been stationed for the last...

Pakistan's only Christian minister Shahbaz Bhatti was shot dead today after pushing for the reform of harsh blasphemy laws that impose the death penalty for insulting Islam.The assassination comes just a fortnight after Mr Bhatti, Minister for Minorities, said he was prepared to die for his beliefs following a series of death threats. ...Earlier this year, Punjab province Gov. Salman Taseer was killed by a bodyguard who said he was angry that the politician opposed the blasphemy laws.

Obama losing ground across the Middle East It would be easier to forgive the Obama administration's lackluster handling of the political crisis in Egypt over the last couple of weeks if things were going their way elsewhere in the Middle East. Unfortunately, they're not. Start with Iran. Despite two years of engagement, Tehran is still developing nuclear weapons — significantly shaking stability in the Middle East as they do. And, sorry: neither cyber ops like the “Stuxnet” computer virus (which the U.S. may have been behind) nor U.N.-prescribed economic sanctions seem to have put much of a hitch in the...

As the crisis in Egypt continues, Western nations are faced with a conundrum of their own making: how does one simultaneously demand that Arabic nations abandon their “7th century” mentality, best represented by oppressive, often totalitarian regimes, even as one knows the current uprisings against such regimes will likely produce results utterly antithetical to Western interests? At this juncture, perhaps the best the West can hope for is clarity. For the last ten years, both the Bush administration and the Obama administration have worked mightily to convince the American public that the “overwhelming majority” of Muslims are “on our side”...

President Obama likely may have lost Egypt. If he has, it will be one of the most dramatic and devastating foreign policy defeats for the United States in decades. It also will be a significant victory for the forces of radical Islam - a blow that threatens to undermine American interests across the Middle East. The regime of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak is teetering on the brink. He is a spent force. He will be out of office by September, if not much sooner. His son Gamal, who was groomed to be his successor, has fled to London. The rampaging...

Flashback from 2009: ‘Obama met Muslim Brotherhood members in U.S.’Underground Uprising in Egypt: Obama's acitivist friends Bill Ayers, Bernandine Dohrn, and Code Pink had their fingerprints all over the Egypt uprising, including involvement with the terror group 'The Muslim Brotherhood'.Flashback 2009: Muslim Brotherhood Members to Attend Obama's Cairo Speech  Obama Muslim Brotherhood flashback!: Muslim Brotherhood Granted ‘Direct Access’ To Taxpayer’s Stimulus Grants By Obama!Egypt-gate?..."White House: We're Not Taking Sides in Egypt  -- Flashback! 2009...New Obama Administration Muslim Appointee Echoes Muslim Brotherhood PositionsThe White House says the Obama administration has had no contact with the Muslim BrotherhoodGibbs: Aid to Egypt may change

And Syria’s opposition hails TunisiansTunisians are on the path to establishing Islamic rule in their country after having toppled a Western-backed dictator, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday. "It is very clear that the nation of Tunisia rose up against a Western-backed dictator using Islamic, humane, monotheistic and justice-seeking slogans," he told a cheering crowd in the central city of Yazd. "In one word, the Tunisians are after establishing Islamic law and rules," the hardliner said in a speech broadcast live on state television. Ahmadinejad's remarks come after 228 lawmakers in the 290-member Iranian parliament voiced their support on...

Churches empty and Christmas decorations are put away after al-Qaida renews deadly threat. Their cathedrals stand silent and their neighbourhoods are rapidly emptying. Now Iraq's Christians face two further unthinkable realities: that Christmas this year is all but cancelled, and that few among them will stay around to celebrate future holy days. It has been the worst of years for the country's Christians, with thousands fleeing in the past month and more leaving the country during 2010 than at any time since the invasion nearly eight years ago. Christian leaders say there have been few more defining years in their...

Unless told what to look for, the casual visitor to the once glamorous Baghdad thoroughfare that hugs the east bank of the Tigris would almost certainly pass them by. The Stars of David carved into the stonework of the low-slung buildings that line the alleyways of Abu Nuwas Street are little more than a curiosity these days – a memento of a civilisation lost to the pages of history. Judaism has a connection to Iraq that no other faith can match. The patriarch Abraham may well have been born there; the prophet Jonah reluctantly returned to foretell the destruction of...

A series of bomb blasts targeting Christians in Baghdad has killed at least three people and injured two dozen more, security sources have said. At least 14 roadside bombs were detonated and a mortar round was fired in Christian districts across the Iraqi capital last night and early this morning. An interior ministry source told Reuters that the attacks were a “continuation” of the massacre at Our Lady of Salvation church which killed dozens of worshippers last week. According to one report, today’s bombings targeted the family of one of the victims of the massacre. The Islamic State of Iraq...

(CNN) -- A Syriac Orthodox archbishop in Britain called for all Christians in Iraq to leave the country Sunday, one week to the day after gunmen stormed a Catholic church in Baghdad. Some 50 people were killed and 75 wounded in the attack at the Sayidat al-Nejat church last week, including women, children and two priests. Archbishop Athanasios Dawood slammed the Iraqi government for not doing enough to protect the rights of minorities and urged Christians to quit the country. "I say clearly and now -- the Christian people should leave their beloved land of our ancestors and escape the...

ISTANBUL (AP) -- About a week ago, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared to the United Nations that most people in the world believe the United States was behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. To many people in the West, the statement was ludicrous, almost laughable if it weren't so incendiary. And surveys show that a majority of the world does not in fact believe that the U.S. orchestrated the attacks. However, the belief persists strongly among a minority, even with U.S. allies like Turkey or in the U.S. itself. And it cannot be dismissed because it reflects a...

WASHINGTON – Despite billions in aid from Washington and a shared threat from extremists, Pakistanis have an overwhelmingly negative view of the United States, according to results of a Pew Research Center poll released Thursday......

The truth of the matter is, Barack Obama cannot be satirized. His character is in possession of a deftly insurmountable and impervious force-field, such that his being on the business-end of a joke is statistically improbable.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his "foremost" mission as the head of America's space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.

90 min Landon Donovan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was meant to be! The tension on the field was exceeding the one in the White House today where the future of General McChrystal and the fate of the Afghan War were decided. One of the most attractive games in the World Cup so far – shot were flying left and right, hitting occasional crossbar and putting the goalkeepers to test. In the first half of the game Team USA had more shots toward the Algerian target than for the whole match with England. On the soccer field USA and the Arabs managed to...

Pressures appear to be growing from the U.S.-backed government in Kabul against any manifestation of Christianity in Afghanistan by Afghan citizens or by citizens of other nations who are working in the troubled central Asian nation, according to World Magazine's Mindy Belz. Afghan Christians make up a tiny minority of the officially Muslim nation's population. The Afghanistan constitution adopted in 2004 with substantial U.S. input and backing affirms the right of all persons to practice their religious faiths. But the latter is qualified by saying such practices must be conducted within the provisions of Afghan law, which effectively means Sharia,...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled to attend a three-day regional summit starting Monday in Istanbul, to be chaired by Turkish President Abdullah Gul, according to the Fars news agency. Among those attending the third summit on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) will be heads of state from Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Macedonia, Kazakhistan and Azerbaijan. In addition, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, high-level United States officials, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Kyrgyz interim leader Roza Otunbayeva are expected to show up, along with the prime ministers of Jordan, Oman, China and Cambodia..

Muslim praise for Obama dries up a year after Cairo speech By Miret el Naggar and Margaret Talev, McClatchy Newspapers Miret El Naggar And Margaret Talev, Mcclatchy Newspapers 47 mins ago CAIRO , Egypt_A year ago Friday, President Barack Obama stood in Cairo and vowed "a new beginning" in a speech about how he'd change U.S. relations with the Muslim world. Egyptian vendors sold T-shirts portraying Obama in King Tut regalia, and Muslims throughout the region thrilled at his middle name: Hussein. Now, many Muslims in Egypt and the rest of the Middle East say they're dismayed that the promise...

Note: The following text is a quote: Gen. Petraeus statement on Saudi Fatwa on Financing of Terrorism U.S. Central Command MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (May 21, 2010) - U. S. Central Commander, General David Petraeus, released the following statement today regarding the recent fatwa issued by The Council of Senior Scholars in Saudi Arabia which, for the first time, specifically condemns and outlaws financing terrorism as a violation of Islamic law. "Last month in Riyadh, the Council of Senior Scholars issued an important fatwa that deserves wider recognition than it has received. The Council has, of course, issued fatwas...

Christian children have been tortured to death, reported the U.S. Catholic Bishops. Islamic fanatics broke into a Chaldean home near Mosul and killed a ten-year-old boy while shouting, "We've come to exterminate you. This is the end for you Christians!" ChaldoAssyrian workers have been murdered for "collaborating" with the United States. And Christian women have been hit hard; it was at Mosul University that some young Christian women were raped and killed for offending some Muslims by wearing jeans and having a picnic with male colleagues.

Islamabad (AsiaNews) – A court in Kasur district, Punjab, convicted a Christian couple, Munir Masih and Ruqqiya Bibi, to 25 years in prison. According to the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), judge Ajmal Hussein convicted the couple for touching the Qur‘an without washing their hands. Munir Masih and Ruqqiya Bibi were released on bail last January, but were re-arrested after the judge ruled against them. The husband was locked up in Kasur’s district prison; the wife was sent to the women’s prison in Multan. Both have started serving 25 years behind bars. CLAAS, an association that fights...

Making good on a promise he made to Muslims last year, President Barack Obama will host an entrepreneurship conference next week to deepen ties between business people in the United States and (50) Muslim countries

“Dalia Mogahed: A Muslim George Gallup or Islamist Ideologue?” IPT News April 15, 2010 SNIPPET: “Few American Islamists receive the kind of glowing media coverage given to Dalia Mogahed, executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, who is sometimes described as the “most influential person” shaping the Obama Administration’s Middle East message. Mogahed, who claims to have played an important role in the drafting of President Obama’s historic Cairo speech to the Muslim world, was appointed to serve on the President’s Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The council released its final recommendations last month. When European Islamist...

World leader, known for reminding the Islamic world that his middle name is Hussein, hosts nuclear summit, presided over by large Islamic-shaped crescent: Photo by Ron Sachs. It is hard to believe that the State Department could do this by accident: An Islamic crescent is a very distinct and completely unnatural geometric shape, combining a circular outer arc with a non-concentric circular inner arc. The unnaturalness is an Islamic religious requirement. A lunar crescent has an elliptical inner arc. Using such a natural shape as a religious symbol would risk idolatry (the worship of any actual thing besides God). Thus...

A 13-year-old Yemeni girl died of internal injuries four days after a family-arranged marriage to a man almost twice her age, a human rights group said. Ilham Mahdi al Assi died last Friday in a hospital in Yemen's Hajja province, the Shaqaeq Arab Forum for Human Rights said, quoting a medical report. She was married the previous Monday in a traditional arrangement known as a 'swap marriage', in which the brother of the bride also married the sister of the groom, it said. Sigrid Kaag, regional director for UNICEF, said in a statement that the United Nations child agency was...

Obama Preparing Middle East Peace Plan More By Max Fisher on April 08, 2010 12:41pm After weeks of chilly relations between the U.S. and Israel over Israeli settlements, reports are emerging that President Obama may be preparing to announce a peace plan for the Israel-Palestine conflict. Long pursued by U.S. presidents as the holy grail of foreign policy accomplishments,  such a proposal from the Obama camp would be an ambitious step. Is he really going forward? And what would the plan say? What's In It, When It's Coming  First reporting the possible plan, the Washington Post's David Ignatius wrote, "an...

Jews have been accused of harming and murdering non-Jews since the twelfth century in England, when Jewish convert to Catholicism Theobald of Cambridge perjuriously proclaimed that European Jews ritually slaughtered Christian children each year and drank their blood during Passover season. That medieval blood libel, largely abandoned in the contemporary West, does, however, still appear as part of the Arab world's vilification of Jews -- now transmogrified into a slander against Israel, the Jew of nations. But in the regular chorus of defamation against Israel by a world infected with Palestinianism, a new, more odious trend has begun to show...

The silence from Pakistani authorities is deafening. An update on this story. "Punjab: Christian burned alive dies, Christian community calls for justice," by Fareed Khan for Asia News, March 23: Islamabad (AsiaNews) - Arshed Masih died last night in hospital from the serious injuries - burns covering 80% of his body - which the 38 year old Pakistani Christian suffered when he was set on fire because he refused to convert to Islam. The funeral of man, who died after three days of agony, should take place in the late afternoon, but the family has asked that "before an autopsy...

Barack Obama reached out to skeptical Jewish political activists immediately after nailing down his presidential nomination in 2008, promising he would "never compromise" in his support for Israel. Now president, he risks alienating a core Democratic constituency by ratcheting up a public feud with Israel's prime minister. Obama's demands that Israel cancel new housing construction in Palestinian areas of east Jerusalem may be backfiring. The hardball tactic clearly failed to advance prospects for restarting Middle East peace talks, and it may be undermining Obama's standing among Jewish groups in the United States. It also enabled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu...

Don't take my word for it...look at how the American President has treated Israel every day of his Presidency. Last year, during the UN General Assembly, Obama refused to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Then, when he finally did meet with him...he did so without live cameras. This year, after Israel openly insulted Vice President Joe Biden by announcing expansion of settlements in East Jerusalem, Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have taken one of the hardest lines in recent memory. Obama cancelled several military shipments, including bunker buster bombs, to Israel in retaliation. And today, when...

The number three Republican in the House of Representatives today told reporters, "I never thought I'd live to see the day that an American administration would denounce the Jewish state of Israel for rebuilding Jerusalem." Pence is a strong supporter of Israel and his remarks came just before a bipartisan meeting with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Speaking of bipartisanship, Pence has penned a letter with Democrat Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. asking the administration to focus less attention on where Israelis are building settlements and pay more attention on Iran's push for nuclear weapons. Here's a copy of the letter,...

Indonesia: Churches Burned On Jan. 22, two church buildings under construction in North Sumatra, Indonesia, were burned by suspected Islamic extremists, according to Compass Direct News.