Free Republic

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood issued a statement on Wednesday announcing their refusal of the removal of former president Mohamed Morsi, calling the military's move a "coup d'etat." "We refuse to engage in any work with the usurped authority," added the statement. The Brotherhood, who Morsi was a member of its Guidance Bureau before his inauguration in June 2012, called on protesters to practice self-restraint and peaceful protesting. The statement also denounced the "killing, arrests, chaining of media freedom and the closing of TV channels," describing it as tactic of the "oppressive police state."

A new wave of sexual assaults by groups of men targeting women during anti-government protests in Cairo’s central Tahrir Square has been reported as millions of Egyptians take to the streets to demand President Mohammed Morsi’s ouster. A vigilante group formed to protect women in the square, which has become the epicenter of anti-government rallies, said it recorded the highest number of attempts—46—on Sunday as the majority of protesters were festive as families with small children and others spilled into side streets and across boulevards, waving flags, blowing whistles and chanting. … A Dutch woman was assaulted by multiple men...

Hospital reports Dutch journalist underwent gang rape in Cairo square several days ago. Reporter released from hospital after undergoing surgery . ... Egyptian women face sexual harassment and assaults on a daily basis. During and after the revolution, there have been a number of case of foreign reporters who were sexually assaulted, such as Sonia Dridi and Lara Logan. ... According to a report by the UN, the Cairo Demographic Center and Egypt's Institute of National Planning, more than 99% of the hundreds of Egyptian women who participated in the study reported some kind of sexual harassment or assault

The demonstrations that began Sunday in Cairo, Egypt against the Muslim Brotherhood government of President Mohamed Morsi have attracted "millions" of supporters and many counter-demonstrators as well, making the protest the largest political event in the history of the world, according to the BBC. The protests in Tahrir Square and throughout Egypt exceed those that ousted President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 in the key event of the Arab Spring. Two years later, after constitutional reforms and elections that saw Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood move to aggrandize their power, the public backlash is immense.

Sexual violence against women in Egypt has increased in the post-revolutionary Islamist rule, according to official reports and rights activists. The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality said in a report published on May 23 that 99.3 percent of Egyptian women have experienced some form of sexual violence. Nearly 50 percent of women reported more harassment after the revolution; 44 percent said the level of harassment remained the same before and after the revolution. Meanwhile, more than 58 percent of men surveyed said harassment increased after the revolution. …

AFP - Al-Qaeda's military chief in Yemen warned Americans in an audio message posted online Sunday that the Boston bombings revealed a fragile security as he urged Muslims to defend their religion.

Mob-led sexual assaults targeting Egypt’s female protesters could increase if perpetrators are not punished, an international rights group warned on Wednesday. Amnesty International said statements from victims show that the assaults follow a “clear pattern,” where mobs of men encircle the victims, assault them with weapons and hands and then try to undress them. Amnesty’s warning followed a statement from the U.N. human rights office, which last week said that about 25 women were reportedly sexually assaulted—in some cases with extraordinary violence—in Cairo’s Tahrir Square during recent demonstrations against Egypt’s Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. … One particular attack on a...

As Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi said that virulent anti-Semitic comments which he reportedly said prior to his election were taken out of context, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) released another video which depicts him making similar comments. The latest video is an address delivered by Morsi, which was posted on the Internet on January 10, 2010. It was translated by MEMRI and published on Wednesday. In the newly exposed remarks, Morsi calls U.S. President Barack Obama “insincere” and calls for Arabs to raise their children on hatred of Jews.

Foreign workers are being warned of the “deadly risks” they face in Saudi Arabia, with more than 45 maids awaiting execution despite growing anger at the country’s mistreatment of migrants. The death row prisoners include a domestic worker convicted of beating her employer to death when he allegedly tried to rape her. On Wednesday, authorities in the Middle Eastern country ignored international pleas and beheaded maid Rizana Nafeek, 24, who was convicted of killing a baby despite protesting her innocence. … Human rights group say 69 people were executed in Saudi Arabia last year and 79 the year before, including...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won't testify to Congress next week on Benghazi, after fainting and suffering a concussion Saturday and due to her ongoing stomach ailment. "While suffering from a stomach virus, Secretary Clinton became dehydrated and fainted, sustaining a concussion," Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Philippe Reines said in a statement. "She has been recovering at home and will continue to be monitored regularly by her doctors. At their recommendation, she will continue to work from home next week, staying in regular contact with Department and other officials. She is looking forward to being back in the office...

Does Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi desire to become a dictator...or another Abraham Lincoln? Did that question make you burst out laughing? If so, please be prepared for an even bigger laugh when you watch Atlantic editor Steve Clemons expend brain cells while struggling to figure out the answer to that question in his column. So laughable are the efforts of Clemons trying to come up with what to even slightly aware people is the obvious answer that you might need an oxygen mask due to an inability to catch a breath:

Hamas has set the destruction of Israel as its goal. Between September 2000 and April 2004, Hamas perpetrated 425 terrorist attacks against Israel and murdered 377 Israelis - nine every month. Hamas was founded by Islamic militant extremists in the Gaza Strip in 1988, shortly after the first intifada broke out. The word Hamas is an acronym for the Arabic words for "Islamic Resistance Movement." Though it is also involved in social and welfare programs, the organization is devoted chiefly to the obliteration of Israel. Its charter states, "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate...

The United States and Germany won a closely contested race Monday among western nations for UN Human Rights Council seats, while the likes of Venezuela and Pakistan secured places without a competitive vote. Rights groups condemned the “pre-cooked” arrangements by most continental groups at the 193-member UN General Assembly which gave council seats to countries whose records have been widely questioned. The United States, Germany and Ireland won the only open election among western nations. …

A mother murdered her young son and set his body on fire when he struggled to learn the Koran off by heart, a court has heard. Sara Ege used a stick to beat seven-year-old Yaseen “like a dog” if he couldn’t recite passages from the Islamic text. The beatings were so brutal that the boy died from his injuries, and his mother tried to burn the body to destroy the evidence, Cardiff Crown Court was told. …

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which monitors anti-Semitic incidents worldwide, has made a strong condemnation of Egypt’s new President Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, after he attended a sermon where the preacher called for the “destruction and dispersal of the Jews.” A video emailed by the center showed Morsi at a mosque in the Mediterranean town of Marsa Matruh, where the congregation answers “Amen” to a cleric who recites a list of prayers in a traditional ritual. In one of the prayers, the cleric asked God to “destroy the Jews and their supporters and disperse them, rend them asunder.” Morsi...

A Middle Eastern man tried to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in Lower Manhattan this morning, law-enforcement sources told the Post. The terrorist parked a van filled with what he thought were explosives outside of the Liberty Street building, sources said, then tried to set them off using a cell phone detonator. The suspect, who was not immediately identified, was provided the explosives from an undercover FBI agent that he met on the Internet and believed to be an accomplice, the sources said. …

Pakistani politicians, media, and civil society are pushing for a robust offensive to finish off the Taliban in the aftermath of the militants' shooting of a girl peace campaigner. The October 9 shooting of 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai in northwestern Swat Valley has led to a groundswell of calls for Islamabad to abandon its long reluctance to take on extremist sanctuaries in the North Waziristan tribal region, on Pakistan's western border with Afghanistan. The region is home to Pakistani and Afghan Taliban factions and allied international jihadists. For years, Islamabad resisted considerable pressure from Western capitals to launch an offensive in...

A ruling handed down on September 13th by the D.C. District Federal Court has finally made clear what many have known for years–that the Obama Administration’s Iran policy was initiated and advanced by a group with illicit, hidden ties to the Iranian Regime and financed by the U.S./Israel- hating George Soros. In 2009, Barack Obama turned over virtually all responsibility and authority for foreign policy negotiations with Iran to Trita Parsi and his National Iranian American Council (NIAC). Founded by Parsi in 2003, the Washington-based NIAC is a powerful lobbying group that is “…widely considered the de facto lobby for...

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday he would seek to have the Palestinians' U.N. status upgraded to a sovereign country and cautioned that Israeli settlement expansion meant time was running out for a two-state solution. "Despite all the complexities of the prevailing reality and all the frustrations that abound, we say before the international community there is still a chance—maybe the last—to save the two-state solution and to salvage peace," Abbas told the U.N. General Assembly. But he warned the 193-nation assembly that Israel was "promising the Palestinian people a new catastrophe" if it continues with its current Jewish...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Egypt's new President Mohammed Morsi assigned himself the heavyweight's role in the Middle East on Wednesday, declaring in his first speech to the United Nations that the civil war raging in Syria is the "tragedy of the age" and must be brought to an end. In a wide-ranging address that touched on all major issues confronting the region, Morsi also decried Israeli settlement-building on territory Palestinians claim for a future state and condemned a film produced in the United States that denigrates Islam's Prophet Muhammad. He urged all U.N. member nations to join in an effort...