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LONDON - Female genital mutilation, commonly associated with parts of Africa and the Middle East, is becoming a growing problem in Britain despite efforts to stamp it out. London's Metropolitan Police, Britain's largest police force, hopes a campaign beginning on Wednesday will highlight that the practice is a crime here. To make their point, police are offering a $40,000 reward for information leading to Britain's first prosecution for female genital mutilation, Detective Chief Superintendent Alastair Jeffrey said. In Britain, the problem mostly involves first-generation immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.

Egypt's Muslim religious hierarchy issued a decree on the state MENA news agency on Tuesday outlawing female circumcision as un-Islamic as the authorities prepared to submit a total ban to parliament. "The traditional form of excision is a practice totally banned by Islam because of the compelling evidence of the extensive damage it causes to women's bodies and minds," said the decree issued by the office of the mufti, Sheikh Ali Gomaa. The Egyptian government announced plans on Thursday to impose a total ban on female circumcision, the widely-practised removal of the clitoris, but the draft law still faces a...

CAIRO, Egypt — The death of a 12-year-old Egyptian girl at the hands of a doctor performing female circumcision in the country's south has sparked a public outcry and prompted health and religious authorities this week to ban the practice. The girl, Badour Shaker, died earlier in June while being circumcised in an illegal clinic in the southern town of Maghagh. Her mother, Zeniab Abdel Ghani, told the Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper that she had paid $9 dollars to a female physician to perform the procedure. The mother also told the paper that the doctor later tried to bribe her to...

From those omniscient clerics at Islam Question and Answer: Ruling on female circumcision Question No 1188 Question:Is female circumcision sunnah or a bad practice? I read in a magazine that female circumcision in any form is a bad practice that is harmful from a medical point of view, and that it may sometimes lead to sterility. Is this correct?Answer: Praise be to Allaah. Circumcising females is sunnah; it is neither a bad practice or harmful, if it is done within moderation. When extreme forms of female circumcision are carried out, harm may result. Okay. As long as it is done in moderation.

LONDON (Reuters) - Sacdiya Hussein Ali was 7 years old when she was taken to a stranger's house in her native Kenya and held down on a mat by 10 women... WARNING - ARTICLE IS ABOUT INHUMAN CHILD ABUSE

Current ads for Svedka Vodka feature a fembot made of steel, sporting a curvy backside and a come-hither posture. "The future of adult entertainment," reads the tag line. There's something deeply disturbing about these ads. It's not the animatron with the blank, moldable expression; she's merely a video-game version of the inflatable sex dolls guys get at stag parties. What's so unsettling is that the tag line could very well be right. Thirty-odd years ago, women across the United States burned their bras and carried picket signs advocating free love and the Equal Rights Amendment. Today, many of that generation's...

Set on an arid plain southeast of Kirkuk, Hasira looks like a place forsaken by time. Sheep amble past mud-brick houses and the odd sickly palm tree shades children's games. There is no electricity. Yet along with 39 other villages in this region that Iraq's Kurds have named Germian (meaning hot place), Hasira and its people have become noted for presenting the first statistical evidence in Iraq of the existence of female circumcision, or female genital mutilation (FGM), as critics call it. "We knew Germian was one of the areas most affected by the practice," says Thomas von der Osten-Sacken,...

An Islamic scholar said at an African Regional Conference, entitled “Islam and the Family Well-Being”, that Islam doesn’t support the practice of female circumcision and genital mutilation. "All practices of female circumcision and mutilation are crimes and have no relationship with Islam. Whether it involves the removal of the skin or the cutting of the flesh of the female genital organs...it is not an obligation in Islam," said Dr. Ahmed Talib, Dean of the Faculty of Sharia, Al Azhar University, Cairo. Dr. Talib was speaking on the topic of "Female Genital Cutting and Harmful Practices Against Mother and Child" at...

Special Coverage of Saudi Counter-Terrorism Conference and Jihad on Saudi TV    #550 - Claiming of Responsibility for the Al-Hariri Assassination - No Subtitles Al-Jazeera TV (Qatar) - 02/14/05 - 00:00:50    #549 - Initial Reactions to the Assassination of Former Lebanese President Rafiq Al-Hariri Al-'Alam TV (Iran), Abu Dhabi TV - 02/14/05 - 00:01:44    #547 - Hizbullah Deputy Leader, Sheik Na'im Qassem: US President Bush Considers Himself God of the World, but His Perversion Is Evident Al-Manar TV (Lebanon) - 02/12/05 - 00:00:00    #546 - Debate on Female Circumcision in Djibouti 02/04/05 - 00:00:00  

Islam’s Hatred of the Clitoris FrontPageMagazine.com | October 19, 2001 Editor’s Note: The following article contains graphic descriptions of female genital mutilation, which some sensitive readers may wish to avoid. IF YOU HATE WOMEN, and you hate their sexuality, and you are terrified that you cannot control it, the most effective thing you can do is to mutilate female sexual pleasure. This can be done by a sexual lobotomy, which will destroy an essential and sacred part of a woman’s natural makeup. In achieving this feat on all women, you will become able to ruthlessly dominate them. Make Comments ...

The Emotional Life of Nations by Lloyd deMause Chapter 3--The Childhood Origins of Terrorism "He who washes my body around my genitals should wear gloves so that I am not touched there." --Will of Mohammed Atta Because so much of the world outside the West has for historical reasons fallen behind in the evolution of their childrearing modes, the resulting vast differences between national personality types has recently turned into a global battle of terrorism against liberal Western values. In order to understand this new battle, it would be useful to know what makes a terrorist—what developmental life histories they...

Why I lifted the veil on Islam (Filed: 07/09/2004) She likens Mohammed to a 'lecherous tyrant' and blames the Koran for the abuse of her fellow Muslim women. Now the Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali is planning to bring her outspoken views - and armed bodyguards - to Britain. She talks to Olga Craig At the main mosque in Rotterdam, the imam is doing a brisk trade. There are no hawkers, no hard sell; only an orderly line of figures snaking down the side-street and around the corner. In turn, each hands over five euros, takes a book and leaves....

Thank Allah for Little Girlsby Jonathan Tuttle "The average woman is born into near slavery, leads a life of drudgery, and dies invariably in oblivion. This grim condition is the stark reality of half our population simply because they happen to be female." —Findings of a 1985 Pakistani governmental commission investigating the status of women in that country It is disturbing that many Catholics have adopted a philosophical preference for Islam over Judaism. Furthermore, in some instances, some prominent Catholics have even made the unfortunate suggestion that there is much commonality between the true Faith and the religion of Islam....

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Los Angeles couple accused of offering to circumcise young girls for $8,000 were indicted on federal charges on Friday in what prosecutors say is the first U.S. case of its kind. Todd Cameron Bertrang and Robyn Faulkinbury, who were arrested in January after agreeing to circumcise the fictional children of undercover FBI agents posing as parents, were also charged with making and possessing child pornography, prosecutors said. An affidavit filed at the time of their arrest said that Bertrang, 41, referred to the 24-year-old Faulkinbury as his slave and offered to show the FBI agents...

It's Indonesia's biggest secret. Most of its women have been subjected to an operation which the World Health Organisation says is unnecessary. Matthew Moore and Karuni Rompies report.Hospitals across Indonesia are offering new parents a one-price surgical package for their just-born girls - when they pierce their ears, they'll circumcise the girls as well. At Jakarta's Hermina Hospital the price for the two procedures is Rp95,000 (about $16); at IDI hospital in Surabaya in East Java it's only Rp15,000, while in Makassar's Khadijah Hospital in Sulawesi, hospital staff quote Rp25,000 to Rp30,000. In some hospitals and health care centres, vaccinations...

Fri January 9, 2004 07:06 PM ET By Dan Whitcomb LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Los Angeles man who allegedly offered to circumcise young girls for undercover FBI agents posing as their parents was arrested along with his girlfriend on Friday in what prosecutors said was the first U.S. case of its kind. Todd Cameron Bertrang and Robyn Faulkinbury -- who prosecutors say met with undercover FBI agents to arrange circumcisions for two fictitious girls -- were taken into custody at their home outside Los Angeles. "The evidence we uncovered about (Bertrang's) lack of medical knowledge and the lack of...

LOS ANGELES – A Los Angeles County man who allegedly offered to circumcise young girls in his home was arrested with his girlfriend yesterday in what prosecutors said was the first U.S. criminal case of its kind. Todd Cameron Bertrang, 41, and Robyn Faulkinbury, 24, were arrested by FBI agents at their suburban Canyon Country home and charged with conspiring to perform female genital mutilation on two minors. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Aveis said it was the first time anyone has been charged under the Federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act of 1995. The law prohibits the practice of...

The Ministry of Justice has started taking steps to pass a law which would define female circumcision as a crime. During his meeting with the head of the Belgian parliament's foreign relations committee, Justice Minister Ali Muhammad Uthman Yasin said his ministry was working on a law which would define female circumcision as a crime. The minister noted that the [draft] law was now in its final stage. The minister said the government was launching intensive awareness campaigns among women and men with regard to female circumcision, a phenomenon which the Ministry of Justice regards as a violation of human...

10 Nov 2003 17:26:57 GMT Swedish Imam says Islam forbids female circumcision -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Patrick McLoughlin STOCKHOLM, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Female circumcision, or female genital mutilation, is forbidden under Islam, a dominant religion in countries where it is practised, a leading Swedish Muslim leader told an international conference on Monday. Two million girls are circumcised each year, 130 million women in 30 countries have already been mutilated in this way, and campaigners said they hoped the cleric's comments would help stop the practice by making clear it had no basis in religion. "I as Imam would like, with my...

Dr. Ahmad 'Ukasha, a professor of psychiatry, refers to the celebrations that accompany the circumcision operation which is usually attended by the girl's family and relatives. Dr. 'Ukasha views this as humiliating, because the girl, he says, is crying in pain, while everybody around are singing and laughing. In many cases, the girl feels oppressed and starts hating herself and her gender. A long treatment is required to overcome the bad psychological consequences. However, there are senior doctors in Egypt who do not share this opinion. Dr. Munir Muhammad Fauzi, the Head of the Gynecology Department at the Ein Shams...