Free Republic

Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges .. hours after she lost the Southwest light-rail vote, she visited a Somali mall on E. 24th Street in a blue hijab, accompanied by her Somali liaison, Abdirahman Muse. Hodges’ office said she is fulfilling many of the promises she put forth in a 100-day plan for the Somali community, including asking the city attorney for a review of small business regulations. In an upstairs room, Somali shopkeepers praised her for showing up, and poured out their concerns through translators, telling her they needed more space to park, more opportunities for idle youth, and more Somali...

Students have reportedly tried to tear the clothes off a blonde woman as she walked across the campus of Cairo University in an outfit described by the dean as “a bit unconventional”. A video that shows the long-haired woman wearing a hot pink top and black jeans appearing to rush through the campus as she is swarmed by a crowd of wolf-whistling men has gone viral and sparked outrage across Egypt. A member of an anti-sexual harassment group told AFP male students had verbally attacked the woman and attempted to undress her. …

Two Christian women were publicly beheaded by Islamist terrorists in southeastern Somalia, as part of a campaign to “wipe out” any Christian presence in the east African country. The Morning Star reported Friday that the two women—identified as mother-of-two Sadia Ali Omar, 41, and her 35-year-old cousin Osman Mohamoud Moge—were executed by the Al Qaeda-aligned Al Shabaab militia in the port town of Barawa in the Lower Shebelle Region after their Christian identities were discovered. Villagers were reportedly forced to witness the murder, including Omar’s eight and 15-year-old daughters. Locals described the harrowing scenes as the younger daughter screamed in...

"Our Dharamshala (community centre) has been gutted and the temple has been partially damaged. All the statues have been destroyed by the attackers," Kalpana Devi, chairperson of the local Hindu committee, told Reuters. Hundreds of students from local Islamic seminaries attacked the temple holding batons, one witness, Javed Shah, said. Police arrived quickly to protect Kumar from the angry crowd. "They acted smartly and took him out after making him put on a police uniform to save him from the wrath of the crowd," said Shah. "It took nearly 20 minutes to break down the doors (of the temple) before...

A Malaysian church was attacked with firebombs early Monday, police said, sparking concerns of escalating tensions amid a dispute over the use of the word “Allah” by non-Muslims. Penang state police chief Abdul Rahim Hanafi said two men on a motorcycle threw Molotov cocktails into the compound of The Assumption Church. No one was injured. The attack came after a banner was found hanging outside three Penang churches, including The Assumption, on Sunday. The banner read: “Allah is great; Jesus is the son of Allah.” The churches have lodged complaints with police over the banner. …

As Israelis mourn the passing of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Palestinian leaders from both the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and the Islamist Hamas movement celebrated his death, with a senior official labeling him a “criminal” and accusing him of being responsible for the death in 2004 of former PA Chairman Yasser Arafat. “Sharon was a criminal, responsible for the assassination of Arafat, and we would have hoped to see him appear before the International Criminal Court as a war criminal,” said Jibril Rajub, a senior official of the Fatah party. […] “We have become more confident in victory with the...

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei marked the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women with a series of Twitter messages extolling women, but U.N. rights experts paint a bleak picture of Iran’s treatment of women, especially those in prison. Several other Islamic countries also have a poor record when it comes to treatment of women, with abuses including female genital mutilation, stoning for adultery, and “honor” killings—the murder of women accused of bringing family honor into disrepute by their behavior. … A September 2012 report by the U.N. “special rapporteur” on human rights in Iran noted that...

President Hamid Karzai’s government is considering bringing back stoning for adultery—and imposing 100 lashes (which is a death sentence) for unmarried people who have had sexual relations. Thus, Afghan men can marry female children, keep male children as sex-toys, maintain four wives, and visit prostitutes from dawn to dawn. But it is a capital crime if an Afghan man dishonors another Afghan man by having relations with his female “property;” and, if he has raped the poor wife, she is also to be stoned. Worse yet, if two young Afghans meet and fall in love on their own and have...

Last October, Muslims from the urban municipality of Viana, Luanda, attended the destruction of the minaret of their mosque Zengo. (On Islam) Angola became the first country in the world to ban Islam and dismantle mosques in an effort to stem the spread of extremism. IBTimes reported: A number of news outlets have reported that Angola has “banned” Islam and started to dismantle mosques in a bold effort to stem the spread of Muslim extremism. Weekly French-language Moroccan newspaper La Nouvelle Tribune published an article on Friday sourcing “several” Angolan officials, including the Southwest African nation’s minister of culture,...

Four female members of Ankara’s Islamic-rooted government attended a parliament session on Thursday wearing headscarves, a first in 14 years in secular Turkey. The last time a headscarf was seen in Parliament was when Turkish-American MP Merve Kavakci turned up for her swearing-in ceremony in Islamic dress. She was booed out of the house and eventually had her Turkish citizen(ship) revoked. Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lifted a decades-old ban on headscarves in the civil service in early October as part of a package of reforms meant to improve democracy and freedoms. …

Syrian rebels beheaded a Christian man and fed his body to dogs, according to a nun who says the West is ignoring atrocities committed by Islamic extremists. The nun said taxi driver Andrei Arbashe, 38, was kidnapped after his brother was heard complaining that fighters against the ruling regime behaved like bandits. She said his headless corpse was found by the side of the road, surrounded by hungry dogs. He had recently married and was soon to be a father.

WASHINGTON - The world - especially the Greater Middle East - has become less peaceful than it was five years ago, according to the 2013 edition of the annual Global Peace Index (GPI) released here Tuesday by the Institute for Economics and Peace. Consistent with that trend, the index also found that global peacefulness declined over the past year, chiefly due to the intensifying civil war in Syria; the rising number of homicides, especially in Mexico, Central America, and several sub-Saharan African countries; and increased military spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) in many nations. Led by...

Samantha Power will take over at as ambassador to the United Nations following Susan Rice’s promotion to national security adviser. Here are Power’s five most embarrassing comments. 1. Power called for global apology tour Power wrote that U.S. foreign policy “needs not tweaking but overhauling,” in a 2003 New Republic article. Power recommended that United States officials should apologize to the world for its past failures in order to enhance credibility with foreign countries. “A country has to look back before it can move forward,” Power wrote. “Instituting a doctrine of the mea culpa would enhance our credibility

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.

Hundreds of residents of Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem, were astounded Monday morning to see an oversized Nazi flag flying next to a mosque in the Arab town of Beit Omar. The residents notified the IDF. A resident, Uri Arnon, told the Tazpit News Agency: "I felt we were going back 75 years, losing our hold on the land. The Arabs no longer feel the need to hide their murderous tendencies, announcing out loud that they wish to annihilate us."

Ali Tepsurkaev was at work on a construction site in Nantucket when his boss approached him to deliver the news: the two prime suspects had been identified as ethnic Chechens “I was so upset, I couldn’t work,” said Mr. Tepsurkaev, Until a few days ago, most Chechens in the United States lived largely anonymous lives. Few Americans even knew what and where Chechnya was. Now, two Chechen brothers are at the center of one of the most serious terrorist attacks on the United States since Sept. 11, 2001. While the motivations behind the bombings are still unknown, the attack has...

Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday expressed sympathy for the families of nine Turkish activists killed during violent clashes with Israeli commandos who raided a ship trying to break the security blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Speaking in Istanbul, Kerry commented on a recent U.S.-mediated deal aimed at ending a diplomatic rift between Israel and Turkey, whose Islamist government is supportive of Hamas. The agreement entailed an Israeli apology for “any errors that could have led to loss of life” during the 2010 incident and a pledge to negotiate compensation. … Speaking alongside Kerry, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet...

The Muslim Brotherhood denounced the U.S. State Department for expressing concern over legal action taken against an Egyptian satirist accused of insulting Islam and President Mohamed Morsi, stating that denigration of the Muslim religion is a “serious breach of law.” “The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) has strongly criticized remarks made by U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on legal complaints accusing Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef of contempt of religions,” said the Muslim Brotherhood in a statement on its official English website “Ikhwan Web.” … Known as Egypt’s Jon Stewart, Bassem Youssef was accused of insulting Islam and Morsi on...

America’s free-speech model is in desperate need of an update, says an American-Muslim human rights activist who recently spoke at an event linked to an Obama administration appointee. Dr. Qasim Rashid argued that cyber-bullying laws could be used to limit freedom of expression – such as the burning of Korans -- in war time: “When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in times of peace are a hindrance to this effort,” Rashid said on March 19 at Howard University. “And their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight and…no court can regard...

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.