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  • Truth About Islam in Academia?

    07/03/2008 9:23:12 AM PDT · by SmithL · 2 replies · 108+ views
    Campus Watch ^ | 7/3/8 | Cinnamon Stillwell
    While the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) has long dominated the field, its highly politicized leadership's inability to withstand criticism, inattention to radical Islam, and apologetic approach towards the West's foes has left many Middle East studies scholars feeling unwelcome by their umbrella professional organization. Enter the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). Founded last year by Professors Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, ASMEA offers an alternative to MESA's post-colonialist biases and a venue for studying those elements of Islam and the Middle East that MESA's leaders ignore or downplay.ASMEA's emergence is cause for optimism....
  • Cody's, landmark Berkeley bookstore, closes

    06/23/2008 12:43:22 PM PDT · by SmithL · 43 replies · 789+ views
    San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 6/23/8 | Michael Taylor
    Berkeley -- Cody's Books, the legendary Berkeley bookstore that catered to literati nationwide for more than half a century and was firebombed in the 1980s because of its support of the First Amendment, has closed its doors, the victim of lagging sales. The bookstore, which in recent years had closed its flagship store on Telegraph Avenue and its branches in San Francisco and on Berkeley's Fourth Street, finally settling in early April in one store on Shattuck Avenue, shuttered that store Friday. Calling it "a heartbreaking moment," Cody's owner, Hiroshi Kagawa of the Japanese firm IBC Publishing, said in a...
  • Secret video raises questions about bakery leader's role in Bailey killing

    06/19/2008 10:47:06 AM PDT · by SmithL · 3 replies · 564+ views
    Contra Costa Times ^ | 6/19/8 | Thomas Peele, Bob Butler, Mary Fricker and Josh Richman, THE CHAUNCEY BAILEY PROJECT
    Your Black Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV kept the gun used to kill journalist Chauncey Bailey in his closet after the attack and bragged of playing "hella dumb" when investigators asked him about the shooting, according to a secretly recorded police video.He describes Bailey's shooting in detail on the video, then, laughing, he denies he was there, and boasts that his friendship with the case's lead detective protected him from charges.Bey IV has not been arrested in Bailey's Aug. 2 death; Devaughndre Broussard, a then-19-year-old bakery handyman, has been charged in the killing. In an interview last week at...
  • Panel Findings: Islamic Saudi Academy Textbooks Promote Hatred, Intolerance, and Violence

    06/12/2008 1:20:55 PM PDT · by SmithL · 15 replies · 114+ views
    Cinnamon Stillwell's Blog ^ | 6/12/8 | Cinnamon Stillwell
    Hot on the heels of my column yesterday, "Islam in America's Public Schools: Education or Indoctrination?," which included mention of the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) in Fairfax, Virginia, comes news that the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has released its findings from a review of the school's textbooks and found that they promote hatred, intolerance, and violence. As reported by the Associated Press: -The authors of a 12th-grade text on Koranic interpretation state that apostates (those who convert from Islam), adulterers and people who murder Muslims can be permissibly killed. -The authors of a 12th-grade text on monotheism write...
  • Islam in America's public schools: Education or indoctrination?

    06/11/2008 10:12:17 AM PDT · by SmithL · 20 replies · 730+ views
    San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 6/11/8 | Cinnamon Stillwell
    With fatal terrorist attacks on the decline worldwide and al Qaeda apparently in disarray, it would seem a time for optimism in the global war on terrorism. But the war has simply shifted to a different arena. Islamists, or those who believe that Islam is a political and religious system that must dominate all others, are focusing less on the military and more on the ideological. It turns out that Western liberal democracies can be subverted without firing a shot. Nowhere is this more evident than in the educational realm. Islamists have taken what's come to be known as the...
  • The future belongs to Islam [Book review]

    10/29/2006 12:33:12 PM PST · by kiriath_jearim · 70 replies · 2,566+ views
    MacLeans (Canada) ^ | 10/20/06 | Mark Steyn
    The Muslim world has youth, numbers and global ambitions. The West is growing old and enfeebled, and lacks the will to rebuff those who would supplant it. It's the end of the world as we've known it. An excerpt from 'America Alone'. MARK STEYN Sept. 11, 2001, was not "the day everything changed," but the day that revealed how much had already changed. On Sept. 10, how many journalists had the Council of American-Islamic Relations or the Canadian Islamic Congress or the Muslim Council of Britain in their Rolodexes? If you'd said that whether something does or does not cause...
  • Gay Iranian teen wins right to asylum in Britain

    05/20/2008 7:39:06 PM PDT · by SmithL · 15 replies · 585+ views
    LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) -- Britain said Tuesday that it is granting asylum to a gay Iranian teenager who fears that he could face execution if forced to return to his homeland. Britain's Border Agency said it would allow asylum for Mehdi Kazemi, who traveled in 2005 to London to study English and while there learned that his lover in Iran had been charged with sodomy and hanged. Kazemi, 19, then sought asylum in Britain, but it was rejected, then in the Netherlands. The Netherlands' highest court rejected his claim in March, ruling that Britain was responsible for the case...
  • US `heartbroken' that terrorists use children

    05/20/2008 7:35:04 PM PDT · by SmithL · 5 replies · 262+ views
    AP via SFGate ^ | 5/20/8 | EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer
    UNITED NATIONS, (AP) -- The top American envoy at the U.N. slammed terrorists and insurgents for using children to carry out violence, but said Tuesday that the U.S. tries to provide special treatment when it detains those young people. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad's comments followed the release of a U.S. report that 2,500 people under age 18 have been detained, almost all in Iraq, since 2002 during the war on terror. Some had been held for periods up to a year or more. "We are heartbroken that terrorists and extremists use kids for their campaign of violence," said Khalilzad, a...
  • 25-Year-Old Saudi Woman Blogger and Social Critic Dies "Unexpectedly"

    05/20/2008 2:14:19 PM PDT · by SmithL · 7 replies · 568+ views
    Cinnamon Stillwell's Blog ^ | 5/20/8 | Cinnamon Stillwell
    There's definitely something fishy about 25-year-old, Saudi, female, dissident blogger Hadeel Alhodaif's untimely death. Via the Arab News, we learn that Alhodaif "unexpectedly" fell into a coma and 25-days later, simply "passed away." But considering her legacy of activism, both within the blogosphere and without, and the fact that she insisted on blogging under her real name, it's more likely she was targeted for death by Saudi authorities. That she was a proponent of women's rights in this most backward of nations (and regions) is even more reason the enemies of progress would want her out of the way. The...
  • Netanyahu: No mandate to negotiate

    05/19/2008 1:03:34 PM PDT · by SmithL · 3 replies · 286+ views
    Arutz Sheva - IsraelNationalNews ^ | 5/19/8 | Avi Tuchmayer
    Likud Party Chairman and opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu called for early elections Monday, and said Prime Minister Olmert and the current government have no mandate to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority. "This government has no mandate to negotiate the borders of this country or to divide its capital city," he told a meeting of the Likud Knesset faction. "The government must go back to the people and allow the nation to choose its leadership once again." Netanyahu cited five reasons that Olmert should step down, including failures in the Second Lebanon War, ongoing rocket attacks on Israel, failures in the...
  • Middle East Studies in Fiction

    05/15/2008 11:22:23 AM PDT · by SmithL · 3 replies · 144+ views
    FrontPage Magazine ^ | 5/15/8 | Cinnamon Stillwell
    It isn’t often that characters based on the field of Middle East studies show up in current fiction, but the novels of author Daniel Silva are an exception. The last three novels of his series featuring Israeli secret agent/art restorer Gabriel Allon explore the intersection of Middle East studies and international intrigue. The sixth novel in the series, Prince of Fire, begins with a horrific terrorist attack at the Israeli embassy in Rome, explores the origins of the modern state of Israel, and ends in an archaeological excavation trench in Provence. Figuring throughout is the handsome and mysterious Paul Martineau,...
  • Rice says Mideast peace improbable, not impossible

    05/13/2008 11:43:06 AM PDT · by SmithL · 10 replies · 332+ views
    AP via SFGate ^ | 5/13/8 | TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
    JERUSALEM, Israel (AP) -- The United States said Tuesday that reaching a Mideast peace agreement within the next eight months "might be improbable but it's not impossible," cautioning that no major breakthroughs are expected when President Bush arrives in Israel on Wednesday. Bush will attend ceremonies in Jerusalem marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish state. He also will go to Saudi Arabia where he promises to press King Abdullah to increase oil production to ease soaring costs on consumers. Bush made a similar plea in January but it was ignored. The president's final stop will be...
  • Judge dismisses case of woman who says veil cost her claim

    05/13/2008 10:25:42 AM PDT · by SmithL · 15 replies · 1,044+ views
    DETROIT (AP) -- A federal judge in Detroit has dismissed the case of a Muslim woman who sued a judge for demanding she remove her veil in court. The judge ruled Monday against Ginnnah (ZHIN'-nuh) Muhammad's claims that her rights to freedom of religion and court access were violated. Judge Paul Paruk (per-ROOK) requested she remove her veil during a 2006 hearing in the town of Hamtramck (ham-TRA'-mick). She was contesting a $3,000 charge from a rental-car company to repair a vehicle she said thieves had broken into.
  • Lawyer: DC sniper now wants to fight his death sentence { John Allen Muhammad }

    05/09/2008 3:57:20 PM PDT · by SmithL · 15 replies · 323+ views
    AP via SFGate ^ | 5/9/8 | MATTHEW BARAKAT, Associated Press Writer
    McLean, Va. (AP) -- Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad has changed his mind again and now wants to go forward with a federal appeal of his conviction and death sentence, according to his lawyers. In a handwritten letter from death row made public this week, Muhammad told the Virginia attorney general that he wanted to suspend all appeals on his 2003 death sentence and that appeals filed on his behalf were not authorized. But Muhammad's lawyer, James Connell, wrote a letter Thursday to a U.S. District judge saying Muhammad now wants to go forward with his appeal. "Mr. Muhammad expressly...
  • { John Allen Muhammad } D.C.-area sniper asks in letter for end to death-row appeal

    05/06/2008 2:22:41 PM PDT · by SmithL · 32 replies · 759+ views
    Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad asks prosecutors in a letter for help to put an end to his legal appeals from death row. Muhammad says in the letter released Tuesday that he is waiving all rights to appeal his 2003 conviction and death sentence for the sniper killings in 2002 that terrorized the Washington, D.C., region. Muhammad says he has tried without success to stop efforts by his defense lawyers,
  • Muslim rebels expel Christians

    05/02/2008 4:41:30 PM PDT · by forkinsocket · 15 replies · 443+ views
    TVNZ ^ | May 2, 2008 | Staff
    Muslim rebels have forced hundreds of mainly Christian families off their farms in the southern Philippines, escalating tensions in the region ahead of the withdrawal of Malaysian peace monitors next week. Rolando Garcia, mayor of Kalamansig town on the troubled southern island of Mindanao, said that heavily-armed members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) claimed the farmers' land belonged to the Muslim minority. "We have about 1,200 people in our temporary shelter areas...afraid to return to their farms," Garcia told reporters, adding rice was about to be harvested when the rebels came late on Wednesday. The 11,000-strong MILF is...
  • Middle East Studies Profs. Still Peddling Peaceful Jihad

    04/29/2008 7:30:33 AM PDT · by SmithL · 1 replies · 101+ views
    Campus Watch ^ | 4/28/8 | Cinnamon Stillwell
    In his 2002 Commentary article, "Jihad and the Professors," Middle East Forum director Daniel Pipes makes a compelling case for "the nearly universal falsification of jihad on the part of American academic scholars." Rather than acknowledging the aggressively military nature of jihad (otherwise known as "holy war"), such academics would have us believe that it consists either of defensive warfare, a struggle for spiritual and personal improvement, or the promotion of social justice. Here are a few of the quotes he cites in the article: Jihad as "usually understood" means "a struggle to be true to the will of God...
  • British Muslim 'bullied' for converting to Christianity

    04/28/2008 2:10:20 PM PDT · by forkinsocket · 12 replies · 647+ views
    Timesonline.co.uk ^ | April 28, 2008 | Ruth Gledhill
    A British citizen who converted to Christianity from Islam and then complained to police when locals threatened to burn his house down was told by officers to “stop being a crusader”, according to a new report. Nissar Hussein, 43, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, who was born and raised in Britain, converted from Islam to Christianity with his wife, Qubra, in 1996. The report says that he was subjected to a number of attacks and, after being told that his house would be burnt down if he did not repent and return to Islam, reported the threat to the police. It...
  • Critics Cost Muslim Educator Her Dream School

    04/28/2008 2:07:04 PM PDT · by forkinsocket · 8 replies · 594+ views
    The NY Times ^ | April 28, 2008 | ANDREA ELLIOTT
    Debbie Almontaser dreamed of starting a public school like no other in New York City. Children of Arab descent would join students of other ethnicities, learning Arabic together. By graduation, they would be fluent in the language and groomed for the country’s elite colleges. They would be ready, in Ms. Almontaser’s words, to become “ambassadors of peace and hope.” Things have not gone according to plan. Only one-fifth of the 60 students at the Khalil Gibran International Academy are Arab-American. Since the school opened in Brooklyn last fall, children have been suspended for carrying weapons, repeatedly gotten into fights and...
  • Gaza on verge of eruption

    04/16/2008 11:01:04 AM PDT · by jhpigott · 37 replies · 1,193+ views
    Hamas faces unprecedented crisis, as Israel, Egypt prepare for flare-up Alex Fishman 4/16/08 Egypt asked Israel to put its forces along the Gaza Strip border on alert, while at the same time the Egyptian army is on special deployment on the Philadelphi Route and south of it. Officials in Israel and Egypt estimate that Gaza is on the brink of eruption that may be violently manifested on the Strip’s border with the two countries. Israeli security officials estimate that Hamas’ Gaza regime has reached a dead-end and is facing an unprecedented crisis not seen since it took over the Strip....
  • Egypt Sentences 5 Men for Homosexuality

    04/09/2008 4:30:55 PM PDT · by SmithL · 26 replies · 905+ views
    AP via SFGate ^ | 4/9/8 | MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Writer
    CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- An Egyptian court convicted five men Wednesday on charges of homosexual behavior and sentenced them to three years in prison, officials said. Defense lawyer, Adel Ramadan, said the judge found the men guilty of the "habitual practice of debauchery" — a term used in the Egyptian legal system to denote consensual homosexual acts. The convictions were confirmed by a judicial official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists. Homosexuality is not explicitly referred to in Egypt's legal code, but a wide range of laws covering obscenity, prostitution and...
  • Muslim Group Hopes to Marry Off Terrorists’ Widows

    03/13/2008 4:04:29 PM PDT · by SmithL · 14 replies · 397+ views
    (IsraelNN.com) The Islamic group “Samuh al-Islam” has begun a campaign to find husbands for the widows of deceased terrorists, according to Omedia. The group describes the campaign as an effort to revive an ancient Islamic custom. The group’s religious leaders point out that Mohammed, who Muslims hail as a prophet, married the widow of a follower who died in battle, despite the fact that she was less attractive than his other wives. Terrorists’ widows pose a challenge to the social structure in many areas, especially Palestinian Authority-controlled territories, where several thousand men have been killed while fighting the IDF or...
  • Arab MKs Lead Rock-Throwing Demo Against 'ZioNazis'

    03/05/2008 3:25:30 PM PST · by SmithL · 3 replies · 91+ views
    Several thousand Arabs led by Arab nationalist Knesset members participated in a procession through the Israeli city of Umm el-Fahm near Megiddo Tuesday evening. The demonstration was held in protest of Israeli military operations in Gaza and involved incidents of rock throwing at Israeli cars.The crowd chanted "Israel, the mother of terror" and held a sign that read "Stop the Zionazi" in English. Additional slogans were "Rest, O martyr, we will complete the task," "Warm blessings to the rock children," as well as the standard "With blood and spirit, we will redeem Palestine." The participants held Syrian and PLO...
  • Amnesty rips IDF for 'reckless disregard of life' in Gaza

    03/03/2008 12:54:28 PM PST · by SmithL · 15 replies · 110+ views
    Jerusalem Post ^ | 3/3/8 | JONNY PAUL
    The London-based human rights organization Amnesty International has condemned Israel's attacks on Gaza, claiming they are "being carried out with reckless disregard for civilian life." "Israeli military attacks over the past few days have killed more than 75 Palestinians in Gaza, including at least 10 children, and other unarmed civilian bystanders not involved in the confrontations" Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa program, said Sunday. "Israel has a legal obligation to protect the civilian population of Gaza. Such attacks are disproportionate and go beyond lawful measures which Israeli forces may take in response to rocket attacks...
  • Uproar Over Honors for Israeli Writers

    02/29/2008 3:29:17 PM PST · by SmithL · 7 replies · 69+ views
    AP via SFGate ^ | 2/29/8 | ANGELA DOLAND, Associated Press Writer
    PARIS, France (AP) -- Israeli writers will be the toast of the Paris international book fair in March but some Arab intellectuals argue that honoring Israel's literature has brought dishonor upon France. The Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization urged its 50 member states this week to boycott the March 14-19 event. The fair's organizer said Friday that he regrets the uproar: He wanted to honor books, not take sides in international politics. "I'm not a government minister. My job is to bring literature to readers," Serge Eyrolles told The Associated Press. "I'm very surprised by how political this is...
  • Israel Kills 20 Palestinians in Gaza

    02/28/2008 1:21:33 PM PST · by SmithL · 18 replies · 113+ views
    AP via SFGate ^ | 2/28/8 | IBRAHIM BARZAK and KARIN LAUB, Associated Press Writers
    Gaza Strip (AP) -- A bloody spike in Israel-Hamas fighting put the Israeli city of Ashkelon and its 110,000 residents at the center of an intensifying militant rocket barrage Thursday — and Israel's defense minister warned he would invade Gaza, if necessary, to halt the attacks. Israel sent a not-so-veiled warning to Gaza's Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, killing 20 Palestinians in almost a dozen airstrikes, including a missile attack on a guard post outside Haniyeh's home. Hamas leaders have been in hiding in recent weeks, though Israel has so far only targeted militants, not Hamas politicians. The dead Thursday...
  • Right wing plays Muslim card against Obama

    02/28/2008 12:07:03 PM PST · by SmithL · 160 replies · 1,646+ views
    San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 2/28/8 | Joe Garofoli
    When a conservative talk show host introduced Sen. John McCain at an Ohio rally this week and referred to his possible opponent by his full name - "Barack Hussein Obama" - he highlighted a probable attack strategy, should Obama get the Democratic nomination: American xenophobia. If the ascendancy of Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic race shows that Americans' attitudes toward race and gender have evolved, the latest round of media images alluding - incorrectly - to an overseas Muslim upbringing for Obama will test the degree to which Americans fear foreigners in a post-Sept. 11 world....
  • Sudan Bans Danish Goods in Prophet Case

    02/26/2008 10:16:25 AM PST · by SmithL · 33 replies · 1,038+ views
    AP via SFGate ^ | 2/26/8 | ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writer
    KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) -- Sudan has enacted a ban on Danish imports in reaction to the reprinting of a cartoon that satirizes Islam's Prophet Muhammad, the Sudanese state-run news agency said Tuesday. Seventeen Danish newspapers reprinted the cartoon — showing Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban — in a gesture of free speech on Feb. 13, a day after three men were arrested in an alleged plot to kill the drawing's creator. The reprinting prompted protests in Muslim countries and among Muslims in Denmark, though so far the reaction has been low-key in comparison to the 2006 riots that followed...
  • Police: Man used daughter as shield against stun gun

    02/22/2008 7:55:39 AM PST · by SmithL · 5 replies · 56+ views
    Knoxville News Sentinel ^ | 2/22/8 | Don Jacobs
    Police arrested a man who used his 13-year-old daughter as a human shield to thwart officers’ attempts to zap him with an electrical stun gun. Jad Mubarak, 37, was arrested Thursday night after a two-hour standoff at the America’s Best Value Inn and Suites off Merchants Drive where he had barricaded himself inside a room with his two children, police said. Mubarak was suspected of shoplifting four iPods, software and an MPS recorder on Wednesday from a Target store, where he also allegedly assaulted a male employee who confronted him about the thefts, said Knoxville Police Department spokesman Darrell DeBusk....
  • ANALYSIS: What Hezbollah could lose in avenging Mughniyah

    02/16/2008 4:02:48 PM PST · by SmithL · 19 replies · 151+ views
    Haaretz ^ | 2/17/8 | Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel
    The German weekly Der Spiegel reported Saturday that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert plans to declare the two soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah, Eldad Regev and Udi Goldwasser, dead. Olmert was in Germany last week, and the Germans are the chief mediators between Israel and Hezbollah on this issue. The likelihood that they are dead increases with every day that goes by with no sign of life from them. Israeli security sources confirmed last night that the intelligence community is reassessing the kidnapped soldiers' situation and is likely to make "difficult decisions" on the matter in the coming weeks. But Israel is...
  • Esposito at Stanford

    02/15/2008 9:45:13 AM PST · by SmithL · 2 replies · 42+ views
    Campus Watch ^ | 2/15/8 | Cinnamon Stillwell
    Georgetown professor John Esposito, director of the Saudi-financed Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding has a reputation as an apologist for radical Islam. And it's one he lived up to with a Stanford University speech last week titled, "Dying for God? Suicide Terrorism and Militant Islam." Esposito claimed that Islamic terrorism grows primarily out of a sense of political and economic grievance and, of course, "occupation" on the part of "neo-colonial powers." This spin allowed him to deflect responsibility for Islamic terrorism to the West while negating the need for self-reflection among Muslims.When an attendee asked him why...
  • Syria blast killed Moughniyah - Hezbollah [Commander of]

    02/13/2008 12:52:19 AM PST · by HAL9000 · 428 replies · 3,313+ views
    Reuters (excerpt) ^ | February 13, 2007
    DAMASCUS BLAST ON TUESDAY KILLED SENIOR HEZBOLLAH MILITARY COMMANDER - LEBANESE POLITICAL SOURCE
  • Detective's dogged pursuit ends decades of sex abuse {Oakland's Your Black Muslim Bakery }

    02/10/2008 7:52:13 AM PST · by SmithL · 7 replies · 106+ views
    Contra Costa Times ^ | 2/10/8 | By Mary Fricker - CHAUNCEY BAILEY PROJECT
    Leader of Your Black Muslim Bakery dies before trial involving 30 years, many victims For 30 years, authorities did nothing to stop Your Black Muslim Bakery patriarch Yusuf Bey's sexual assault of minors and physical abuse of women, though at least six complaints were made to police and social workers and the attacks were well known within the bakery community. Then, one of the raped women told her story to Oakland police investigator Jim Saleda. Less than three months later, Yusuf Bey was arrested. The story of Saleda's methodical pursuit in 2002 of one of Oakland's most prominent and influential...
  • Promotion of Islam in Our Schools [on Ayad Al-Qazzaz of Cal State, Sacramento]

    02/05/2008 10:10:37 AM PST · by SmithL · 1 replies · 43+ views
    Campus Watch ^ | 2/5/8 | Cinnamon Stillwell
    Public school children in grades K-12 are being assigned textbooks that misrepresent and, in some cases, glorify Islamic beliefs and history – often at the expense of other religions and cultures. The apologetics and indoctrination common in university Middle East studies programs is being carried into public schools by contentious, ahistorical, and inaccurate textbooks written by those same Middle East studies professors. History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond, a textbook published by the Teachers' Curriculum Institute, was removed from the Scottsdale, Arizona school district in 2005 for this very reason. The textbook is now causing controversy in California and...
  • Western Feminists Feeling the Sting of Criticism?

    01/30/2008 1:14:10 PM PST · by SmithL · 6 replies · 62+ views
    Cinnamon Stillwell's Blog ^ | 1/30/8 | Cinnamon Stillwell
    Like many others on the right, I have been a consistent critic of the Western feminist movement's veritable silence on the oppression of women in Muslim culture. Putting multiculturalism and leftist political preoccupations such as being anti-American and anti-Israel ahead of women's (and, indeed, human) rights, the movement is out to lunch on the great feminist calling of our time. In a recent SFGate column on the rise of so-called honor killings in the West, I elaborated on the subject: Fearful of giving offense or being branded with the ubiquitous "Islamophobia" label, law enforcement, journalists, social workers, government officials and,...
  • {Your Black Muslim Bakery's} Bey IV speeches a month before Bailey killed

    01/29/2008 8:18:03 AM PST · by SmithL · 17 replies · 66+ views
    San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 1/29/8 | Jaxon Van Derbeken
    One month before the slaying of a journalist who was investigating Your Black Muslim Bakery, the bakery's young leader urged his followers to be "strong soldiers" and combat the many enemies he said were conspiring to bring down the embattled Oakland institution. "We fight the government, we fight the police, we fight our own families, we fight our own people, and we fight Caucasian people daily - just to do right," Yusuf Bey IV declared in a fiery videotaped sermon obtained recently by The Chronicle. "They use our own people to go against us - people like you or I...
  • Audio of an Honor Killing, Sarah Said slowly dying

    An update in regards to the recent honor killings in Texas of Sarah Said, 17, and Aminah Said 18. This makes you sick, the audio shows that Sarah just sat there suffering until she slowly died, with her sister most likely already dead in the cab with her. This is the result of Islam, this is what an honor killing sounds like:http://www.courier-gazette.com/articles/2008/01/16/breaking_news/61.tnv Sarah & Aminah Said RIP, may we make sure others don't suffer the same fate The story:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,323265,00.html
  • Texas Manhunt Continues for Father Suspected of Killing Teen Girls (Religion of Peace Alert)

    01/04/2008 10:55:45 AM PST · by tobyhill · 52 replies · 80+ views
    fox news ^ | 1/4/2007 | fox news
    A manhunt in Texas continued Friday for a father accused of shooting his teen daughters and leaving them to die in a taxi. Yaser Abdel Said, 50, of Lewisville, Texas, is wanted for shooting Sarah Yaser Said, 17, and Amina Yaser Said, 18, in his taxi Tuesday night. Police say they don't have a motive for the shootings, but believe a domestic issue may have led to the deaths. Friends gathered Thursday night for a vigil to remember the sisters. The girls' mother, who has been in hiding since the shootings, attended. The victims' brother made a statement at the...
  • Free speech vs. hate speech

    01/04/2008 10:38:18 AM PST · by SmithL · 44 replies · 112+ views
    San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 1/4/8 | Safaa Ibrahim
    Cinnamon Stillwell's recent column in SF Gate, "Savage vs. CAIR: The battle over free speech" on Dec. 19 offers a holiday assortment of misleading truths and omissions of facts. In her misguided defense of the "Savage Nation" radio show, Stillwell essentially defends anarchistic hate against minority groups including African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Muslims, Catholics, Jews, immigrants and women. She does so under the pretense of defending free speech. Of course, most elementary school students will tell you that hate speech is not to be confused with free speech. CAIR, the California Council of Churches, Rabbi Haim Dov Beilak and other...
  • The Assassination of Chauncey Bailey - Convert's Unsolved Killing

    12/24/2007 7:56:14 AM PST · by SmithL · 5 replies · 116+ views
    San Francisco Chronicle ^ | December 24, 2007 | Jaxon Van Derbeken
    25 years later, family still suspects Ronald Allen was slain by fellow followers of Your Black Muslim Bakery - and now, police are taking another look - Ronald Allen tried to show his minister father that the tenets of Your Black Muslim Bakery weren't that different from the precepts of the Bible. His family would soon have cause to fear otherwise. On Easter morning, April 11, 1982, a day after he went out for a meal with his bakery brethren, the 32-year-old father of five was found shot to death near the Berkeley dump. Twenty-five years later, the case remains...
  • THE ASSASSINATION OF CHAUNCEY BAILEY: Bakery leader defiant in sermons after arrest

    12/23/2007 2:03:37 PM PST · by SmithL · 6 replies · 65+ views
    San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 12/23/7 | Matthai Kuruvila
    Yusuf Bey asserted: 'You do me wrong, I'm going to fix you up. I'll send some fearless soldiers out here.' Yusuf Bey stood before his followers at the headquarters of Your Black Muslim Bakery in Oakland one Sunday in 2002. In his familiar double-breasted suit, bow tie and fez, he delivered an emphatic sermon. His message that afternoon was a vow of defiance in the face of his arrest on charges of raping young girls entrusted to his care - defiance, and a refusal to submit to any authority other than himself.The message was at the core of Bey's gospel...
  • 'I want to study, but not in a burqa' ( Religion of Peace )

    12/18/2007 8:45:16 PM PST · by george76 · 32 replies · 73+ views
    Little girls in the militancy-hit Swat Valley in northwestern Pakistan hate a diktat issued by pro-Taliban rebels to attend school in burqas. Burqas are the only option some girls' schools in northwestern Pakistan have against being shut down or worse, being bombed. "I want to study, but not in a burqa," said Shah Rukh, a 12-year-old girl enrolled at a primary school at Saidu Sharif in Swat. Shah Rukh is just one of many girls who have learnt to speak out against the burqa diktat in the picturesque Valley. "My 11-year-old daughter cries every morning when she has to wear...
  • Guilty pleas expected in SoCal terrorism case, prosecutors say

    12/14/2007 10:43:11 AM PST · by SmithL · 4 replies · 102+ views
    AP via SFGate ^ | 12/14/7 | GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press Writer
    Santa Ana, Calif. (AP) -- Two men accused of plotting attacks on military sites and other targets in Southern California in 2005 were expected to plead guilty to terrorism conspiracy charges Friday, prosecutors said. Kevin James and Levar Haley Washington were set to enter the pleas in federal court in Santa Ana, the U.S. attorney's office said in a statement. Both were indicted two years ago on federal charges, including conspiring to wage war against the U.S. government through terrorism. Authorities claim James, Washington and two others were a cell of a California prison gang of radical Muslims that was...
  • Colorado Church Gunman `Hated Christians'

    12/10/2007 2:24:21 PM PST · by tcrlaf · 236 replies · 444+ views
    Houston Chronicle ^ | 12-10-07 | Judith Kohler
    COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The deadly shooting sprees at a megachurch and a missionary training school were believed to have been carried out by the same person — a 24-year-old suburban Denver man who "hated Christians," a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation, identified the gunman as Matthew Murray, the son of a neurologist who is a prominent researcher on multiple sclerosis. Five people — including a gunman — were killed, and five others wounded Sunday in the two eruptions...
  • Joel Brinkley: Hypocrisy in portrayal of U.S. in Arab press

    12/10/2007 7:45:07 AM PST · by SmithL · 5 replies · 60+ views
    Sacramento Bee ^ | 12/10/7 | Joel Brinkley
    Two recent incidents in or near the Middle East have highlighted a noxious bit of hypocrisy for anyone to see. Next time you hear Arab leaders complain about the portrayal of Islam in America, think twice before you sympathize. Consider that unfortunate British teacher in Sudan who mistakenly agreed with her students' suggestion to name the class teddy bear Mohammed. Last month, a court sentenced her to 15 days in jail for offending Islam. Reacting to international outrage, Sudan's dictator-president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, pardoned her – but not before hundreds of Sudanese called for her execution before a firing squad....
  • S.F. Housing Authority sued over failure to protect Muslim tenants

    12/10/2007 7:38:55 AM PST · by SmithL · 24 replies · 31+ views
    San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 12/10/7 | Marisa Lagos
    A family of Pakistani immigrants living in San Francisco public housing was improperly denied an emergency transfer to another apartment after someone broke into their home, desecrated their Quran, defaced their passports and shredded their traditional clothing, according to a federal court lawsuit. After the August 2005 incident - which took place during a time of intensified anti-Muslim sentiment in the country and while the San Francisco Housing Authority was under court order to better protect tenants from hate-motivated crimes - agency officials ruled that the break-in at Ashan Khan's apartment was a simple burglary and didn't qualify the family...
  • Saudi Arabian Justice: 136 Beheadings, Jail for Rape Victim

    11/27/2007 1:51:14 PM PST · by SmithL · 23 replies · 58+ views
    Arutz Sheva -- IsraelNational News ^ | 11/27/7 | Hillel Fendel
    (IsraelNN.com) Saudi Arabia not only continues to deserve its title as the world's "beheading capital," but has now also sentenced a rape victim to 200 lashes. On Sunday, Saudi Arabian authorities carried out the kingdom's 136th beheading of the year, surpassing by far its combined totals for the two previous years. The latest victim was a man convicted of murdering another with an assault rifle. Saudi Arabia often defends its practice of beheading by explaining that it follows an interpretation of the Quran by which the crimes of murder, drug trafficking, rape and armed robbery are punished by public execution...
  • French Youths Riot, Clash With Police

    11/26/2007 10:20:53 AM PST · by SmithL · 27 replies · 27+ views
    AP via SFGate ^ | 11/26/7 | ZORAN JANKOVIC, Associated Press Writer
    VILLIERS-LE-BEL, France (AP) -- Youths assaulted a police station, torched cars and vandalized stores in a weekend rampage that injured 21 police officers in this rundown Paris suburb. Sunday night's violence, prompted when two teens were killed in a motorbike crash with a police patrol car, was a reminder of unresolved tensions that drove nationwide riots in 2005 in immigrant-heavy housing projects. Questions remained Monday about the crash in Villiers-le-Bel, a town of public housing blocks home to Arab, black and white residents just a few miles north of the French capital. Eight people were arrested and 21 police officers...
  • Oakland man convicted of killing Black Muslim bakery leader { Antar Bey }

    11/19/2007 12:30:56 PM PST · by SmithL · 17 replies · 36+ views
    SFGate ^ | 11/19/7 | Henry K. Lee
    An Oakland man was convicted today of first-degree murder for fatally shooting the head of Your Black Muslim Bakery in 2005 during a failed carjacking. Alfonza Phillips III, 22, smirked as the guilty verdict on the special-circumstances murder charge was read in an Oakland courtroom. Phillips faces life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing Antar Bey, 23, when he is sentenced Dec. 14 by Judge Jon Rolefson of Alameda County Superior Court. The 10-man, two-woman jury deliberated about two days after a three-week trial. The panel also convicted Phillips on charges that he personally used and discharged...
  • Tangled web of housing deals {Your Black Muslim Real Estate Racket}

    11/14/2007 7:41:37 AM PST · by SmithL · 4 replies · 27+ views
    Contra Costa Times ^ | 11/14/7 | Thomas Peele, Josh Richman, A.C. Thompson, G.W. Schulz and Bob Butler, THE CHAUNCEY BAILEY PROJECT
    Former homeowners say they have lost a combined $1.77 million in property and equity to Bey associate and her spouse -- An Antioch real estate broker with ties to Oakland's Bey family and her husband have, since 2003, acquired nearly $2 million worth of East Bay properties through deals tainted with allegations of deceit. The revelations about Esperanza Johnson and Antron Thurman come as authorities scrutinize the extensive real estate dealings of the Bey family, their bankrupt Your Black Muslim Bakery and Johnson's role as the broker for an Oakland woman attempting to buy the bakery's headquarters. Johnson bore four...