Free Republic

AN Islamic organisation warning of the return of an empire founded 700 years ago has hacked into the website of a Wollongong church and published disturbing images and messages. For several days, anyone who visited the website of Wollongong's Wesley Church was greeted by anti-war messages flanked by pictures of the Turkish flag, masked soldiers and an image of US President George W Bush with a cross over his face. While the text on the www.wollongongmission.unitingchurch.org.au website was not in English, other websites on the internet hacked by the same group, AdReNaLin, identified those responsible as "sons of the Ottoman...

Once dismissed as imperialist fantasies about the Muslim world, British orientalist paintings are once again becoming popular. Their exotic visions tell us much about the social and cultural history of Victorian Britain A snake writhes over the desert sands that half submerge the Sphinx. A crafty merchant examines a coin presented by two anxious, veiled customers. Heavily laden camels kneel at an encampment. Bored, gorgeously clad concubines lounge in the secret depths of a harem. The British orientalist paintings of Tate Britain's forthcoming exhibition "The Lure of the East" are colourful, exotic, often technically brilliant. But they are also controversial,...

JERUSALEM - Turkey`s government is to erect a memorial for its fallen soldiers from the Ottoman era near Islam`s third holiest site in Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, a senior official said on Thursday. "We allowed the Turkish government to build a memorial for the Ottoman soldiers in Jerusalem," Azzam al-Khattib, the head of the Waqf which oversees Muslim religious sites, told AFP. The memorial will be built outside the walls of Jerusalem`s Old City, several metres east of the bitterly contested holy site known to Muslims as the Al-Haram Al-Sharif and to Jews as the Temple Mount, Judaism`s holiest...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A House vote to label the century-old deaths of Armenians as genocide was in jeopardy Tuesday after several Democrats withdrew their support and sounded alarms it could cripple U.S. relations with Turkey. The loss of support is a major setback to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill, who have fiercely defended the resolution to Republicans and the Bush administration as a moral imperative in condemning the World War I-era killings of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks. President Bush called Pelosi on Tuesday to ask her not to call for...

I never thought the day would come. But here it is! Being an Armenian -- like playing women's basketball at Rutgers, losing money on Enron, and contracting AIDS in Africa before it -- is now relevant and topical. Hell, yes. I feel so damn temporarily important, and I wouldn't trade it for having sold steroids to sluggers or resisted arrest in Los Angeles or, for that matter, having rented storefront from Barney Frank. Bask, fellow Armenians! Bask. Ours is the world and all that's in it -- and, which is more, we'll have a hairy son. Lest you've been comatose...

Islam’s involvement in the black slave trade goes back over 14 centuries, back to its founder, Mohammed, who owned black slaves. Muslim slavers in North Africa also engaged in a red hot trade of white Christians. Read this fascinating, you-won’t-see-it-anywhere-else romp through reality by FSM Contributing Editor Adrian Morgan who explains what politically-correct history books conveniently ignore. (CAIR: care to apologize?) Should The Islamic World Apologize For Slavery? – Part One By Adrian Morgan For members of Britain's politically correct establishment, this week has been one of hand wringing and embarrassing gestures of self-abasement. On Saturday, March 24, a procession...

The clash of civilizations is as old as history, and equally as old is the blindness of those who wish such clashes away; but they are the hinges, the turning points of history. In the latter half of the 16th century, Muslim war drums sounded and the mufti of the Ottoman sultan proclaimed jihad, but only the pope fully appreciated the threat. As Brandon Rogers notes in the Ignatius Press edition of G. K. Chesterton’s poem “Lepanto�: Pope Pius V “understood the tremendous importance of resisting the aggressive expansion of the Turks better than any of his contemporaries appear to...

PARIS (Reuters) - A bronze monument near Paris commemorating the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks has been destroyed just two days after France's parliament passed a bill that would make it a crime to deny the genocide. A local member of the Armenian church in Chaville, a town near Paris, said the heavy bronze sculpture was wrenched off its pedestal late Friday night or early Saturday morning. "Police say it might have been stolen for the metal, but it seems too much of a coincidence that this should have happened just after parliament voted the Armenia bill," said...

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's military said on Friday Armenian soldiers fired into its territory two days ago amid an escalation in tensions after France's passage of a law making it a crime to deny Armenians suffered genocide by Ottoman Turks. The powerful General Staff called on the Foreign Ministry to investigate the incident on the border on October 11, which it said caused no injuries or material damage. "Turkish soldiers came under harassing fire from Armenian territories on the Turkey-Armenia border on October 11, 2006," the Turkish General Staff said in a statement. Turkey closed its border with the ex-Soviet...

The search continues for the numinous or hieroglyphic significance of the date September 11. Believers in propaganda by deed, like Gavrilo Princip and Timothy McVeigh, usually choose to invest themselves with portentousness by selecting an anniversary that will freight their murder with meaning. Often, it is a date that only meant something to a very limited or arcane circle until its true value was unveiled to a stunned world. Thus Princip chose the date of Serbia's 14th century defeat in Kosovo and McVeigh chose the anniversary of Janet Reno's bloodbath at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. I've also...

It is impossible to debate a subject like genocide without giving offense. PBS is supposed to give offense responsibly. And that was the idea behind a panel discussion that PBS planned to show after tonight's broadcast of "The Armenian Genocide," a documentary about the extermination of more than one million Armenians by the Turkish Ottoman Empire during World War I. The powerful hourlong film will be shown on most of the 348 PBS affiliate stations. But nearly a third of those stations decided to cancel the follow-up discussion after an intense lobbying campaign by Armenian groups and some members of...

Rome, 10 Feb. (AKI) - Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the head of the Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI), announced on Friday that Andrea Santoro, an Italian priest murdered in Turkey this week, should be made a saint. Addressing hundreds of mourners at Santoro's funeral in Rome's Saint John in Lateran basilica, Ruini in his homily said that all the Catholic Church's procedures for canonisation would be respected, though he was already convinced the priest was a martyr. "We will fully respect the laws and timeframes of the Church in the process of beatification and canonisation that I have in mind to open,"...

The struggle over Palestine, with contradictory promises made by Britain to both Jews and Arabs, fueled four Arab-Israeli wars, brought the US and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, contributed to the use of oil and terrorism as political weapons, and was used as a pretext (amongst others) for Islamists dedicated to Israel's and the West's destruction.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Hamlet has become a Muslim prince at the Ottoman court in an adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy which its Bosnian director says reflects the world after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. In possibly the biggest theater co-production the war-torn Balkans region has seen in some 20 years, Haris Pasovic is seeking to put "Hamlet" into a 21st Century setting. "One of the most important issues of the 21st century is the world's increased understanding of the Muslim issue following the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York," Pasovic, himself a Bosnian Muslim, told Reuters...

One of the most important battles of the 17th century was the Battle of Vienna, which was fought on September 12, 1683... This victory freed Europe from the Ottoman Turks and their invasions and secured Christianity as the main religion in all of Europe.

A recent defense accord under which Israel pledges to consult with the United States in advance on arms exports to third countries may diminish the Jewish state's role as an attractive defense equipment supplier for Turkey and complicate future deals, analysts say. The document, signed Aug. 16 by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Washington and Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz in Israel, aims to remove spats between the two close allies over Israel's arms sales -- mainly to China, which is seen as the United States' future strategic rival. Under the deal, Israel has agreed to inform the United...

The Turkish political weekly Tempo, along with some major Turkish daily newspapers including Milliyet,Aksam and Cumhuriyet, reported that the Islamist Turkish terrorist organization Great East Islamic Raiders Front (IBDA-C) [1] has begun publishing a new weekly, Kaide ("Al-Qaeda" in Turkish) which openly praises its namesake and idolizes Osama bin Laden. Kaide, which looks like an Al-Qaeda bulletin and includes all Al-Qaeda announcements, is published legally in Istanbul and sold at newsstands across Turkey. It is worth noting that according to Aksam, [2] Kaide is distributed by Yay-Sat, which is Turkey’s largest magazine-newspaper marketing and distribution network. Yay-Sat is owned by...

If you believe in the just case that Hagia Sophia should be restored to its proper religious role as a church, for which it was built in the first place, then we ask you to support our petition to the EU Parliament that Turkey should not be admitted as a member of the European Community until it restores Hagia Sophia to its original purpose as a church and not a museum. We need a minimum of 1.000.000 signatures in order to force the European Union to consider this proposal seriously and debate it immediately as one of the conditions to...

I recently set out to learn more about Islam. I had no agenda at the time except to broaden my knowledge on the subject. What I have learned sickened me. I had previously been accepting of the notion that Islam was a peaceful religion and that the Muslim terrorists who inflict so much pain and death around the world represented a fringe element outside of mainstream Islam. I was wrong. The Islamic deity, Allah, is a false god. While the term "Allah" does indeed carry the same meaning as "God," Mohammed's Allah is nothing more than a construct of a...

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - A conference questioning Turkey's official policy as regards the Armenian killings during World War I has been cancelled following pressure from the government. The conference entitled "Ottoman Armenians at decline of the empire. Scientific responsibility and issues of democracy" was to start on Wednesday (26 May) and would have given the floor to academics to discuss the Turkish position of denying the genocide. But Turkish Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said that the conference was "treason" and a "stab in the back of the Turkish people", according to international media. "We must end this treason, the spreading...

BRUSSELS (AA) - Reactions of Turkish community to the resolution on the so-called Armenian genocide allegations, adopted by the Belgian parliament and sent to the Senate for approval, have increased in this country.      Some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and political circles continue to warn the Belgian politicians, while efforts are under way to organize protest marches participated by large groups.      The resolution foresees that those who reject the so-called Armenian genocide shall be sentenced to up to a year imprisonment, and fined between 26-5,000 Euros.           -WARNING LETTER TO BELGIAN POLITICIANS-           A NGO named ``Anadolu`` (Anatolia)...

Leaders from Turkey, New Zealand, Australia and Britain have attended a ceremony to mark the 90th anniversary of the bloody WWI Gallipoli landings.A minute's silence was observed at the Turkish memorial on the Gallipoli peninsula on Sunday - the beginning of two days of events. Turkish jets performed an acrobatic display while battleships and frigate sailed past the Dardanelles. More than 100,000 died in the failed allied bid to win a foothold in Turkey. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country's "excellent relations" with Australia and New Zealand "provides a fresh breeze to the souls of all those...

PARIS (AFP) - The Armenian community in France and elsewhere in Europe held solemn masses, marches and memorials on Sunday to mark the 90th anniversary of mass killings by Ottoman Turks which a growing number of countries have recognised as a genocide. The Parisian landmark of Notre Dame cathedral hosted a requiem mass Sunday and many other gatherings took place across the city. Some 350,000 ethnic Armenians live in France. The mass was followed by a meeting at an Armenian monument where on Friday French President Jacques Chirac and Armenian President Robert Kocharian placed a wreath. French Socialist Party leader...

ANKARA, Turkey - When a leading Turkish novelist said earlier this year that 1 million Armenians were murdered in his country during World War I, he broke a deep taboo. Three lawsuits were filed against Orhan Pamuk, accusing him of damaging the state. "He shouldn't be allowed to breathe," roared one nationalist group. In Istanbul, a school collected his books from students to return to him. On a news Web site, the vote ran 4-1 against him. Turkey's mass expulsion of Armenians during World War I — which Armenians say was part of a genocide that claimed 1.5 million lives...

Turkey Wins Removal Of Armenian Genocide From German Schools (dpa) - Pressure from Turkey has resulted in the removal of a reference to the Armenian genocide from a German school curriculum, reports said Wednesday. The eastern German state of Brandenburg has eliminated half a sentence on the Armenians included in ninth and tenth grade history classes after a Turkish diplomat complained to state Prime Minister Matthias Platzeck, the newspaper Die Welt reported. In a chapter entitled "War, Technology and Civilian Populations" the school book text said "for example, the genocide of the Armenians population of Anatolia." That passage has...

Dispute between Greece, England resumes with Olympics Games With the Olympic Games soon to open in Athens, one of the more bitter rivalries in history is set to resume, and it doesn't involve parallel bars or water polo. The Greek government is spending tens of millions of dollars on a museum atop the Acropolis in hopes that Britain will choose this occasion to return the Elgin Marbles, the elaborate sets of sculptures pried off the Parthenon and shipped to London two centuries ago. The British, unsurprisingly, have not complied. To understand why the sculptures mean so much to both...