Free Republic

EDITORIAL Swiss Ban On Minarets Is Pure Discrimination Sunday's referendum is a reminder that cultural anxieties can be inflamed even in the most tolerant country. December 2, 2009 Integrating Islamic immigrants has proved to be a multifaceted challenge for European nations unaccustomed to religious and cultural diversity. But there's nothing complicated about the decision of voters in Switzerland to prohibit further construction of minarets. It's religious discrimination pure and simple. Sunday's referendum, in which 57.5% of voters approved the ban on minarets -- a traditional feature of mosques -- is a reminder that cultural anxieties can be inflamed even in...

Icann – the official body that ultimately controls the development of the internet thanks to its oversight of web addresses such as .com, .net and .org – said today that it was ending its agreement with the US government. The deal, part of a contract negotiated with the US department of commerce, effectively pushes California-based Icann towards a new status as an international body with greater representation from companies and governments around the globe. Icann had previously been operating under the auspices of the American government, which had control of the net thanks to its initial role in developing the...

THOMSON, Ill., Nov. 22 (UPI) -- Thousands of jobs would be created in Illinois if the U.S. government purchases a nearly empty prison there to house terror detainees, a study indicates. The study, performed by the Obama White House Council of Economic Advisers and obtained by The Chicago Sun-Times, asserted that 2,290 to 2,960 jobs would be created in and around Thomson, Ill., in the first year after its conversion to house some of the prisoners now held at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility, the newspaper reported Sunday. Local residents in the Illinois-Iowa border town would be "good candidates"...

New Citizenship Guides Spells It Out The Canadian government has just revamped its citizenship guide for immigrants. The document is titled “The Rights and Responsibilities of Canadian Citizenship.” According to Canada’s National Post, “In Canada, men and women are equal under the law,” the document says. “Canada’s openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, ‘honour killings,’ female genital mutilation or other gender-based violence. Those guilty of these crimes are severely punished under Canada’s criminal laws.” Western governments are beginning to wake up to dangerous or “barbaric” practices among immigrants—especially among Muslim immigrants. Whether...

As President Obama belatedly appears at Fort Hood today, will he dare to speak the word "terror?" He won't use the word "Islamist." If he mentions Islam at all, it'll be to sing its praises yet again. We've already learned that Islamist terrorist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan attended the Northern Virginia mosque of Imam Anwar al-Aulaqi, a fiery al Qaeda supporter who later fled the United States. We know that Hasan's peers, subordinates and patients repeatedly raised red flags that his superiors suppressed. We know he was a player on Islamist-extremist Web sites. The FBI's uncovering one extremist link after...

President Barack Obama's display on Thursday made my point more clearly than it usually can be made, for he turned on a dime. He assumed the "presidential grieving tone" over the Fort Hood massacre, the moment after he'd just done an equally scripted segment of light joking banter for the benefit of the Tribal Nations Conference he was addressing. Millions in the television audience must have watched this incredibly cynical "quick flip." I wonder how many noticed it? We should not allow ourselves to be moved by the cold hearts of professional tear-jerkers because when we reward that kind of...

Three-quarters of teachers in Britain's schools believe they should warn pupils about the dangers of patriotism - which some regard as a form of 'brainwashing', researchers have found. A nationwide study found the majority of teachers felt they should not be promoting the subject at all in the classroom, with some preferring to instruct their pupils in the benefits of 'universal brotherhood'. And even those who felt positively about patriotism felt the need to qualify and tone down their support, stressing that they disliked 'jingoistic flag-waving'. The findings are a blow for the Government after Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke...

It is hot in Brussels. Ramadan has begun. The faithful in the predominantly Muslim borough of Molenbeek are not allowed to eat or drink from sunrise until sunset. Non-Muslim policemen, patrolling the streets of Molenbeek in their sweltering cars, are not allowed to eat or drink either. As every year during Ramadan, that they have been told by their superior, Philippe Moureaux, the Socialist mayor of Molenbeek, they have to respect Muslim sensitivities and not to “provoke” Muslims by violating Islamic Ramadan restrictions in public. In effect, Islamic or Sharia law is already applied - for everyone - in the...

Politicians in Colorado are split over the chance detainees from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, could be imprisoned at the Supermax federal detention facility in Florence. Some say Supermax can handle Gitmo suspects just fine, others warn it’s too dangerous. But the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado said in a statement to the Colorado Independent Friday afternoon that moving Gitmo detainees — including many only suspected of crimes — to the country’s most secure prison “is simply another form of torture, one which makes a mockery of ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ ” While the Obama administration’s plans to shut...

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama confirmed on Tuesday that he plans to stick to the aggressive targets he had set earlier for fighting climate change and for spurring the development of clean-energy technology, saying, “Delay is no longer an option.” The remarks were striking for being made in what was billed as a “surprise taped statement,” before a bipartisan conference on climate change in Los Angeles that included governors who have battled the Bush administration by trying to pass stricter pollution standards than federal guidelines require. Officials from at least 10 other countries were also present, and Mr. Obama addressed...

It has been sixty years since George Orwell wrote his chilling dystopian classic, 1984, and it has been thirty years since we saw the creepiest example of educated and free people willingly walking into a living dystopia.  November 18, 1978, three decades ago, 918 people drank Kool-Aid laced with cyanide.  Jim Jones, the communist leader of Jonestown, Guyana, had become "Big Brother." Soviet and Communist Chinese propaganda films and condemnations of capitalist and imperialist America blared continually to the subjects of this island of Leftist Hell. Jonestown ended in mass suicide, but the real horror was that ordinary people, Americans...

“Drink the Kool-Aid” has long been a part of the vernacular, used in both a positive and negative sense when we talk about following a mission or philosophy; that is, “buying the program” or “swallowing the party line.” But its origin lies in the 1978 tragedy at Jonestown, where over 900 members of Peoples Temple took poisoned fruit punch at the behest of their leader, Jim Jones. For those connected personally to this horror, the ubiquitous “Kool-Aid” metaphor, often used frivolously, recalls an unending nightmare. One little known footnote: the fruit drink actually used at Jonestown on that day was...

Why Barack Obama Is Good For Israel By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Jerusalem --- November 4, 2008...... Israel by its very nature is a conservative nation. With the threat of terror attacks and war taking place at any moment, Israel deserves that status. So when many of my Facebook friends ask me how can I as an Israeli vote for Obama, I understand where they are coming from. Just Obama's name is enough to scare anyone walking the streets of Tel Aviv, Haifa or Jerusalem. And Barack Obama has had many friends in the past who helped create an...

A fast-growing anti-Republican wave threatens to significantly shrink the party's ranks in Congress, as Democratic challengers make headway against once safe incumbents including the Senate's minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Nearly a dozen Senate Republicans - many considered safe for re-election just weeks ago - are now in locked in tight races with Democrats. Analysts and operatives agree that such a change could put Democrats within reach of a filibuster-proof, 60-vote majority. Democrats also are poised to make significant gains in the House, where they now have a 36-seat majority in the 435-member chamber. Analysts are predicting that Republicans...

A college has renamed the traditional Christmas and Easter breaks in a bid to avoid offending students from other religions. The college's new calendar shows that both of the traditional holiday periods have now been re-branded as 'end of term breaks'. Critics have complained that the decision by Yorkshire Coast College is nothing more than 'political correctness'. Tory MP Robert Goodwill said: 'I have heard that some people refer to the Christmas period as the Winterval, which is worse. This is absolutely barmy. 'We are a Christian country and, to be honest, religious tolerance in this country is about respecting...

ROTTERDAM, 12/08/08 - Although polygamy is banned in the Netherlands, the marriages of Muslims who have several wives are recognised by Dutch authorities. Registrars in the major cities, in particular, record dozens of bigamous or polygamous marriages per year. These marriages are prohibited and an offence in the Netherlands. However, polygamous marriages that take place in countries where more than one wife is permitted, such as Morocco, are accepted, newspaper NRC Handelsblad reports. If immigrants with several wives settle in the Netherlands, the local authorities register all the marriages. However, the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS), where all marriages are...

You must be nicer to Muslims, Britain is told by UN human rights chiefs By Mail Foreign Service Last updated at 8:34 AM on 25th July 2008 Britain was told yesterday by a United Nations committee to take firm action to combat 'negative public attitudes' towards Muslims. The nine-member human rights committee also criticised some of the UK's antiterror measures. The body, which is composed of legal experts, said it was concerned ' negative public attitudes towards Muslim members of society' continued to develop in Britain. Be nice: Britain has been told to take firm action and combat negative public...

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...

THE HAGUE, 27/05/08 - The Amsterdam police corps is giving its officers a discount if they buy the Koran translation of writer Kader Abdolah. Officers should thereby be encouraged to get a better insight into Islam, according to a corps spokesman. Abdolah says he translated the Koran to make the book accessible to the Dutch. The book of the Iranian-Dutch author was published at the end of last month by publisher De Geus. Officers who buy the book pay half price. The other half is paid out of the Amsterdam police budget. Officers are not obligated to read the book,...

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...

The Austrian authorities have indicted politician Susanne Winter on charges of incitement and degradation of religious symbols and religious agitation. This offence carries a maximum sentence of two years. Last January, Ms Winter said that the prophet Muhammad was “a child molester” because he had married a six-year-old girl. She also said he was “a warlord” who had written the Koran during “epileptic fits.” The politician, a member of the Austrian Freedom Party FPÖ, an anti-immigration party which is in opposition, added that Islam is “a totalitarian system of domination that should be cast back to its birthplace on the...

The Swedish government is to set up an inquiry to look into the possibility of using state funds to provide training programmes for imams. Muslim religious representatives should be able to benefit from Swedish tax kronor in the same way as Christian priests and ministers, according to Minster for Higher Education and Research Lars Leijonborg. The former Liberal Party leader also believes that the move will help stem the development of radical Islam in Sweden. "It has been suggested that radical Muslims from Saudi Arabia are offering to provide imams for free, and a lack of money means that moderate...

The price: 20 cents per word. The project: 30,000 words. The total expenses: $25,669.50 The goal: Translate civil and self-represented litigant forms into Spanish, Vietnamese and Arabic to help eliminate language barriers new Americans face when dealing with Nebraska’s court system. The project, Nebraska Efforts to Ensure Equal Access to Justice, will help the court system serve those who don’t speak English — or those who speak limited English — in civil and self-represented court issues, said Liz Neeley, a project organizer. Before this project, perhaps a dozen court documents were translated into Spanish, said Neeley, project director for the...

A MUSLIM store worker refused to serve a customer buying a children’s book on Christianity because she said it was “unclean”. Shopper Sally Friday felt publicly humiliated at a branch of Marks & Spencer when she tried to pay for First Bible Stories as a gift for her young grandson. When she put the book on the check-out counter, the young assistant refused to touch it, declared it was unclean and summoned another member of staff to serve instead. Mrs Friday said she was so upset that she has now complained to the store’s management. Last night politicians and religious...

Last Wednesday, New York's Jewish Week reported that the editor of Israel's self-described "newspaper of record" asked the US secretary of state to rape his country and told her that his erotic fantasy is to watch America rape Israel. On September 10, at a dinner at the home of US Ambassador Richard Jones, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with a group of Israeli "elites." Among the elitists was Haaretz editor David Landau. According to the Jewish Week, Landau "referred to Israel as a "failed state" politically, one in need of a US-imposed settlement. He was said to have implored...

The deputy commander of the European Union's new border post was anxious. "Is the camera switched on?" he whispered to his colleagues. Heads shook. "Sort it out," he ordered them quietly, not realising he was being overheard. An officer hurried down a corridor of the small brick building, on the frontier between Hungary and Ukraine, to switch on a television monitor and look busy. Moments later, as The Sunday Telegraph was escorted into his office, he was in front of his screen, panning the camera across the drab Hungarian countryside, apparently searching for illegal immigrants attempting to sneak in from...

Hospital staff told to make sure Muslim patients' beds face Mecca five times a dayThe job of the nurse used to one of caring for the sick and needy. But not - it would seem - in today's politically-correct Britain. Now, nurses are being encouraged to spend valuable time turning around the beds of Muslim patients up to five times a day - so they can face Mecca. In a bid to promote cultural understanding, they are also expected to provide patients with running water so they can wash before prayer. And then, of course, they are required to turn...

An anti-illegal immigrant sentiment is taking hold in the Houston region, according to a new Rice University survey showing that most white residents in Fort Bend, Galveston and Montgomery counties favor punishing employers who hire undocumented workers. The survey, released Thursday, reflects how contentious the illegal immigration debate has become and provides a fresh glimpse into regional attitudes about a subject that's increasingly becoming a major presidential election issue.

One of the most telling points in the excellent piece in yesterday's Daily Telegraph by my colleague Jeff Randall, on the dishonesty of government statistics, was to do with immigration. Slough says it has so many immigrants it needs more money: the Government says it hasn't. For decades, bare-faced lies have been told by our rulers about immigration. When Enoch Powell was vilified in the late 1960s for drawing attention to the problem, the then social services secretary, Dick Crossman, ordered officials to conceal what he and they knew to be the true figures. Is this deceit still going on?...

War— humanity's great curse— seems to have developed hand-in-hand with the better angels of our nature, new research suggests. The strange combination of sharing with our neighbors while we engage in organized group killing of outsiders— two relatively unusual and puzzling human traits— could in fact go together, according to new research by a New Mexico scientist. Groups of brutish warriors— fierce toward neighbors while nobly sharing among themselves— could have swept aside groups that otherwise would have prospered in peace, Santa Fe Institute researcher Samuel Bowles has found. Bowles said in an interview this week that he finds the...

We have seen videos on TV of Muslim Jihadis beheading infidel hostages. Less attention has been paid to the fact that Muslims are beheading entire nation states. Although this is happening in slow motion, it is no less dramatic. Historically, the major cities have constituted a country’s “head,” the seat of most of its political institutions and the largest concentration of its cultural brainpower. What happens when this “head” is cut off from the rest of the body? In many countries across Western Europe, Muslim immigrants tend to settle in major cities, with the native population retreating to minor cities...

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - A French court on Tuesday fined a guesthouse owner who refused to give a room to a woman wearing a Muslim headscarf unless she removed it in common areas. Found guilty of religious discrimination, Yvette Truchelut, 54, was handed a suspended four month prison sentence and fined 1,000 euros ($1409). She will have to pay a total of 7,400 euros to the plaintiff and rights groups that brought the action. Horia Demiati, who is of Moroccan origin, came to the guesthouse in eastern France in August 2006 with her mother, who was also wearing a headscarf,...

Perhaps there is no more controversial an issue of the 2008 election cycle than that of illegal immigration. It is a topic plagued with partisan and electoral politics unlike any other on our national agenda. Despite the concerns of the everyday citizen, illegal immigration continues to go unadvised, which is not only a risk to our national security, but a continuous drain on our country’s resources. Illegal immigration refers to the unlawful crossing across national borders in such a manner that violates the immigration laws of the destination country. In the case of the United States: the U.S./ Mexican/Canadian borders...

Bassam Tibi knows the obstacles a Muslim faces in Germany, where he has lived for 45 years and has been a citizen for two decades. As an internationally acknowledged expert on Islam, Tibi often appeared in the German media to discuss the Gulf War and was introduced as a Syrian holding a German passport. Jason Koski/University Photography Bassam Tibi, pictured at the Statler Hotel Sept. 18, developed the concept EuroIslam, an interpretation of Europe in Islamic terms. But when Tibi raised issues about Western Europe's reception of its 20 million Muslim immigrants, he was suddenly declared persona non grata by...

The number of people migrating to the UK each year will be 45,000 more than previously predicted, according to official estimates. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) had estimated the net increase in population due to migration would be 145,000 a year. But it has revised that upwards by about a third to 190,000 migrants annually over the next 20 years. The ONS also predicts life expectancy will rise further than anticipated. Sir Andrew Green, chair of Migrationwatch UK, said: "The result is that 86% of our population increase will now be due to immigration, which will add 7.2 million...

Another absolutely disgusting example of pre-emptive dhimmitude, in the name of tolerance and multiculturalism, right here in the US: First Jell-O, now Santa. So long, Halloween parade. Farewell, Santa’s gift shop. The holiday traditions are facing elimination in some Oak Lawn schools this year after complaints that the activities are offensive, particularly to Muslim students. Final decisions on which of the festivities will be axed will fall to the principals at each of Ridgeland School District 122’s five schools, Supt. Tom Smyth said. Parents expect that the announcement is going to add to the tension that has been building since...

The new Foreign Minister of Britain is either a brilliant liar or a fool. The trouble is, even he may not know which it is. David Milliband, a rising politician in British Labour (the socialist party of Britain), has demanded Turkish entry into the European Union. Turkish entry means free and unbounded immigration rights for 70 million Turkish Muslims into any EU member country. Since income per capita for Turkey is less than $10,000, the incentive for an enormous wave of Muslim migration will be unstoppable. It is civilizational suicide for Europe. For that reason millions of Europeans are having...

AMSTERDAM, 22/09/07 - The Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) says the Dutch must adapt themselves more to Islam. It also advises the elimination of the word 'allochtoon', the most common term used to describe residents with a foreign background. The WRR itself thought up the word allochtoon in 1989. In a report at the time it was suggested this neutral-sounding word was less stigmatising than, for example, immigrant or foreigner. The WRR advice was successful; today, media, schools and politicians all use allochtoon. Now the WRR however advises using the word allochtoon as little as possible. The word "is...

Andrew Sullivan, a senior editor at The Atlantic, came upon a chart at TheAgitator.com last week showing two trend lines: the ranks of private workers decreasing and the number of government beneficiaries increasing in the United States since 1950, with beneficiaries now surpassing workers. The only comment from Mr. Sullivan on his blog at TheAtlantic.com was his headline: “The Road to Serfdom.” Radley Balko, the libertarian commentator and journalist who writes TheAgitator.com, credits the chart to A. Gary Shilling’s financial newsletter Insight. It was also posted on the Web site of Reason magazine, where Mr. Balko is an editor (reason.com)....

Hijabbed security guard frisks nun (thanks to all who sent this in). Of course there should be random searches, and no one should be exempt -- if any group is exempt, its dress will soon be adopted by the terrorists. But there is an absurdity to this photo. And a hint that maybe we would do better devoting our resources to searching those who are more likely to be threats -- were that not so politically incorrect.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 10,000 people from countries designated as sponsors of terrorism have entered the United States under an immigration diversity program with relatively few restrictions, a report released on Friday said. The report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office said the State Department's inspector general warned in 2003 that the Diversity Visa Program posed a significant risk to national security and recommended it be closed to people from countries on the U.S. list of state terrorism sponsors. But four years later, the program remains open to people from those nations and little is known about what becomes of...

WASHINGTON — Prodded by Congress and human rights groups, the Bush administration is promising to increase the pace for allowing Iraqi refugees into the United States. Of the estimated 4.2 million Iraqis displaced by the war, either to nearby countries or within Iraq, only 68 Iraqis legally entered the U.S. between October and June as refugees, State Department and Homeland Security officials acknowledged Friday.

A suspected burglar fell 30 feet from a top-storey window of a London hotel after being disturbed by guests. He is fighting for his life after plunging face first on to the pavement from the second-floor window of the building in Victoria. Five men, all of whom are believed to be tourists and guests at the hotel, are being interviewed by police. "Two men have been arrested and are being held at a central London police station," a Scotland Yard spokeswoman said. Witnesses heard shouting and smashing noises from the top floor of the building just before the man fell...

The story of the week wasn't Gen. David Petraeus' testimony on Iraq, although it dominated the headlines. The story of the week wasn't the sixth return of Sept. 11 since the jihad atrocity of 2001, although it inspired many public statements and ceremonies. The week's biggest story garnered little press and few comments. But, in a significant way, this overlooked story -- an outrageous display of police force in Brussels on Sept. 11, 2007 -- symbolizes the missing link in our flawed comprehension of both Iraq and Sept. 11. There, in the so-called capital of Europe, 200 people marked the...

SYDNEY, Australia (CP) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Elections Canada is subverting the will of Parliament by permitting Muslim women to wear veils and burkas while voting. Harper, speaking Saturday in Sydney, Australia, after an international summit, said he "profoundly disagrees" with the ruling prompted by three byelections in Quebec on Sept. 17. Harper says the House of Commons just voted in favour of having all Canadian voters provide visual identification at voting stations. He says Elections Canada's ruling goes in an entirely different direction. The prime minister, who has been battling with the arms-length elections regulator for years,...

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, North America's foremost Islamist group, bills itself as a "civil rights organization," suggesting it maintains high standards of decency and morality. But, as I personally can attest, it fails abysmally to do so. Its seven-year-long campaign against me has included misappropriation, misrepresentation, misquotation, defamation, and inaccuracy, prompting one one writer recently to compare its propaganda with that of Nazi Germany. Consider several dirty-trick episodes: DanielPipes.com: On December 15, 2000, simultaneous with the debut of my website, www.DanielPipes.org, John Michael Janney registered the domain www.DanielPipes.com. Janney was both a member of CAIR and an...

One of the world’s most respected Deobandi scholars believes that aggressive military jihad should be waged by Muslims “to establish the supremacy of Islam” worldwide. Justice Muhammad Taqi Usmani argues that Muslims should live peacefully in countries such as Britain, where they have the freedom to practise Islam, only until they gain enough power to engage in battle. His views explode the myth that the creed of offensive, expansionist jihad represents a distortion of traditional Islamic thinking. Mr Usmani, 64, sat for 20 years as a Sharia judge in Pakistan’s Supreme Court. He is an adviser to several global financial...

Remember the illegal alien TB carrier in Atlanta? They’re letting him go and trusting him to show up for a deportation hearing in a few weeks. Yes, really. It happens all the time. That misplaced trust is why we have hundreds of thousands of deportation fugitives on the loose today. The “notice to appear” letter that the article mentions here is known in open-borders circles as a “run letter.” As in: Don’t actually do what the letter orders you to do. Just run!

And where there is an utterly depraved nincompoop, there is the President of Mexico: President Felipe Calderon blasted U.S. immigration policies on Sunday and promised to fight harder to protect the rights of Mexicans in the U.S., saying “Mexico does not end at its borders.”