Free Republic

Standing in his stocking feet, Republican Senate candidate Mitt Romney spoke and answered questions at the Utah Islamic Center on Friday before attending a worship service with about 200 Muslims. Romney fielded questions on guns, immigration and health care, but interestingly no one asked him about President Donald Trump's order to restrict travel from several majority Muslims countries, which the president referred to as a "Muslim ban" during the 2016 election

BEIJING (Reuters) - Hundreds of ethnic Hui Muslims are staging a sit-in protest in China’s western region of Ningxia against government plans to demolish a huge new mosque, amid tightening curbs on Islam to pull its practice in line with the Chinese mainstream. China officially guarantees freedom of religion, but in recent years officials nervous about the possibility of radicalization and violence have tightened controls in heavily Muslim areas. The Weizhou grand mosque, with numerous domes and minarets in a Middle Eastern style, had not received proper permits before construction, officials in the town of Weizhou said in a notice...

Jiggs McDonald, NHL Hall of Fame broadcaster speaking in Ontario, says: "I am truly perplexed that so many of my friends are against another mosque being built in Toronto . I think it should be the goal of every Canadian to be tolerant regardless of their religious beliefs Thus the mosque should be allowed, in an effort to promote tolerance." “That is why I also propose that two nightclubs be opened next door to the mosque; thereby promoting tolerance from within the mosque. We could call one of the clubs, which would be gay, "The Turban Cowboy," and the other,...

In a local election on Sunday, the residents of Kaufbeuren, a small town in Bavaria, voted against providing public land for the construction of a mosque. At issue was the question of whether the city would provide the local branch of the nationally active Turkish-Islamic religious association DITIB with a 5,000 square meter (54,000 square foot) plot in an industrial area. At least 45 percent of the approximately 34,000 voters took part in the election. A minimum of a 20 percent turnout was necessary to make the vote valid. The city must now break off its negotiations with DITIB. According...

A doctor who has lived in Verona for 20 years intends to open an Islamic Center at the site of the former Congregation Beth Ahm synagogue at 56 Grove Avenue. Dr. Montaser Awad built a career as a specialist in internal medicine and is now a professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. But he believes it is also his duty to create a compelling place of worship for his fellow Muslims and to build bridges between Islam and the community he has come to love. “I am 63 years old,” Dr. Awad says. “I have a position and I...

The Islamic Cultural Center of Hässleholm was destroyed in a fire on Saturday night. Police are treating the fire as an arson attack, according to P4 Malmö. According to officials, a person entered the Islamic Cultural Center’s prayer room to purposely set the fire. The fire had the potential to spread to connected apartments, Magnus Carlsson of the Hässleholm Rescue Service said. …

Parents, pastors, politicians and educators will join a Muslim imam at a mosque Friday in Oakland County, Michigan, to pray and discuss how to make their schools and community safer in an era of mass school shootings. The Muslim Unity Center, a mosque in the wealthy Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, is hosting an "Interfaith Prayers and Symbolic Walkout Vigil" April 20 that feeds off of the anti-gun fervor created in the wake of the Parkland High School mass shooting that killed 17 students in February.

Brenda Arthur received an unexpected visit on March 8 that, one week later, leaves her feeling more than a little uneasy. At her door that day was an officer with the West Virginia State Police. He wanted to know about her involvement in a Freedom of Information request regarding a local mosque. Arthur, who will turn 67 this summer, is leader of the West Virginia chapter of ACT For America, whose mission is to educate Americans about the advancement of Islamic principles in Western societies. As a Jewish American, she was concerned about a major expansion of the Islamic Association...

Two women were arrested Thursday after allegedly stealing items from an Arizona mosque and broadcasting the whole episode on Facebook Live, police say. In the videos, the women, with three children in tow, can be heard unleashing a steady stream of invective against Muslims. Tahnee Gonzales and Elizabeth Dauenhauer have been charged with third degree burglary, a felony, police in Tempe said.

The residents of Sungai Buloh, Selangor were greeted with an unwelcome guest when a wild boar sneaked into the neighborhood’s mosque on Tuesday night. A mosque-goer was injured by the wild boar amidst the ruckus at Masjid Jamek Sungai Plong. The mosque’s imam Ungku Ahmad Hazwan Ungku Kamarudin said that the incident happened as worshippers were performing additional prayers after Maghrib prayers. “Our mosque was visited by a male wild boar who had gotten lost in the mosque’s grounds. It subsequently started chasing mosque-goers and children in the grounds. It then went into the mosque and we could see that...

Iranian sources blamed the architect of a recently-built mosque for having a an affinity for "secular Judaism" and participating in a "Zionist plot." The new mosque, built in Tehran, follows a minimalist design which according to the architects is symbolic of "early Islam's modesty." However, more conservative voices have criticized the mosque's design for the fact that it differs from traditional mosques around the world. In their opinion, the design is the result of "secular and Jewish influence." Mashregh, a local news site, claimed the new mosque looks like a kippah (skullcap or beanie), and that the architects must stand...

The big question now is: When are Sheriff Scott Israel and his deputy Nezar Hamze going to be asked to turn their badges in? Not let out in the mainstream media’s “official narrative” on the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting is that the Broward County Sheriff’s Department had been spending resources on firearms training at radical area mosques with attendees being taught how to protect themselves. The progressive left’s Second Amendment slogan should be: ‘Guns: Safe in the hands of jihadists, but not in the hands of American citizens’.

Marty Kiar and Barbara Sharief embrace groups linked to terror and bigotry. ... both Broward officials made videos of themselves voicing statements in support of Emerge USA. While the group has an innocuous – even Patriotic sounding – name, Emerge USA is actually a radical Muslim organization with links to terrorism and bigotry. ... Emerge USA is the brainchild of Khurrum Wahid, a South Florida attorney who has built his name on representing high profile terrorists. His clients include members of al-Qaeda and financiers of the Taliban. Wahid previously served as a legal advisor for the Council on American-Islamic Relations...

Israeli MKs and minister have been working to introduce a new copy of what is known as the “Muezzin Bill” to give power to police to break into mosques to silence the Muslim call to prayer, Quds Press reported yesterday. According to Israeli news website 0404, the new copy of the bill, which had preliminary Knesset approval in March 2017, is planned to be proposed to parliament soon. The website said that a committee consisting of Interior Minister Gilad Erdan, Environment Minister Zeev Elkin and other MKs, including Moti Yogev who initiated the bill, have already laid down the terms...

A small, southwestern mosque was targeted last weekend by spelling-challenged vandals. Neighbors woke up Monday morning to find that someone with a can of red spray paint paid an unwelcome visit to the Golden Mosque in the City of Clovis, New Mexico. That spray paint reads: “Happy Birthday Jesus Christ! From a real Christain [sic]” On the front of the mosque, near the door, was the word “Trump” scrawled twice in blue. The vandal(s) misspelled “Christian” again on the mosque’s marquee. One such neighbor, Toni Pop, spoke with local KRQE News 13 about the incident. She said, “I pass by...

If only New York City had some sort of program to send informants to mosques to sniff out attacks. Like the one it used to have before the left shut it down. So far both of the NYC terror attacks have had links to known terror mosques. First up is our friend Ullah from Bangladesh who tried to blow himself up. Akayed Ullah worships at the same mosque where infamous blind sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman once preached, law enforcement sources told The Post on Monday. Ullah’s brother Ahsan attends MasJid al-Salam mosque in Jersey City, where the radical cleric Abdel-Rahman used to spew...

German police descended on a Christmas market in Berlin after two bags of bullets were found under a nearby mosque last night. About 200 rounds of ammunition was found in an underground car park in West Berlin - but officers quickly ruled out any terror link. The discovery came with Germany still on high alert after a wave of terror attacks and almost a year after a jihadist killed 12 by crashing a lorry through a market in the city.

A man who vandalized a Central Florida mosque by smashing windows and lights with a machete and leaving bacon at the scene pleaded guilty to criminal mischief to a place of worship. The state attorney's office serving Brevard and Seminole counties said Michael Wolfe was sentenced to 15 years in prison followed by 15 years of probation after he pleaded guilty Tuesday. The sentence had a hate crime enhancement.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Reuters) - A man who vandalized a Florida mosque in January 2016 and left a raw slab of bacon on its doorstep was sentenced to 15 years in prison on a hate crime conviction, a state attorney’s spokesman said on Wednesday. Wolfe was also sentenced to 15 years of probation, to be served after his prison sentence, Brown said.

At least 235 people have been killed in a bomb and gun attack on a mosque in Egypt's northern Sinai Peninsula, according to state media. The attack took place in the al-Rawda village, west of el-Arish, shortly after Friday prayers. Egyptian state media MENA provided the death toll, citing an official security source. It also said that 120 people were wounded in the attack. The silence in Sinai: Covering Egypt's 'war on terror' Local media reports said that attackers planted explosives and then opened fire on worshippers while the sermon was under way. Egypt has for years been battling an...