Muslim Activist Sues Pope, Cardinal

Kissing the Qur'an probably won't help this time

Adel Smith is trying to make Christianity illegal in Italy. The statements quoted below from the Pope and Ratzinger are merely expressions of the Christian Faith. If this most frivolous of all frivolous lawsuits goes forward, it should also render illegal Islamic statements about Muhammad's being the last and perfect revelation, correcting and abrogating all previous ones. From AP, with thanks to Susan and Mrs. Obelix:

A Muslim activist sued the pope, a top cardinal and other church officials Saturday, claiming their comments about the superiority of Christianity violated the Italian constitution.

Activist Adel Smith said he was seeking a court condemnation of the comments but no monetary or other punitive damages.

Smith, who is president of the Muslim Union of Italy, has previously made headlines here for his court battle to have a crucifix taken down from his son's classroom. Several other Islamic organizations distanced themselves from that effort.

In his latest legal effort, Smith said Pope John Paul II and other church officials have violated the Italian constitution which proclaims that all religions are equal under the law. Italy is officially secular, but largely Roman Catholic.

Smith cited a passage of John Paul's 1994 book, "Crossing the Threshold of Hope," in which the pope writes that the "richness of God's self-revelation" in the Bible's Old and New Testament's has been "set aside" in Islam.

The suit also cites comments by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican's orthodoxy watchdog, who in a 2000 document said the faithful of other religions were in a "gravely deficient situation" concerning their salvation compared to Catholics.

Calls placed to the Vatican spokesman weren't immediately returned Saturday.

Islam 101 tries to bridge gap

Here's a feelgood story from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle about clearing away post-9/11 misconceptions about Islam. Of course, the main misunderstanding is about jihad:

On Sept. 11, 2001, just after he watched the World Trade Center towers fall on television, Aly Nahas received a call from a rabbi offering him shelter.

The rabbi was a friend of Nahas’ who was worried that people might take out the horror of that day on local Muslims. But rather than seek shelter, Nahas rushed to the Islamic Center of Rochester, where he was a volunteer.

When he got there, his rabbi friend, two priests and a minister were waiting. Within two hours, the group held a news conference to assure the public that the Muslim community condemned the attacks. In the year and a half after Sept. 11, Nahas gave 45 lectures on Islam. . . .

Carman hopes that the two-hour sessions, which include an hour lecture as well as time for questions, help demystify Islam. One important misconception, he said, is about jihad. The Egyptian-born Nahas said that jihad, often used synonymously with terrorism, essentially means to strive to better oneself.

That's wonderful. I am sure that Nahas's non-Muslim audience will go away feeling reassured. I hope that the Rochester paper will run a follow-up story about Nahas's activities among Muslims, in which he convinces them that the radical understanding of jihad as violence against unbelievers is wrong on Islamic grounds. I wonder what Nahas would say about the almost daily stories posted at Jihad Watch in which Muslims commit violence and call it jihad. Until those Muslims are confronted and that understanding of jihad definitively refuted, dialogues like the one described in this story are essentially meaningless.

Brunei Sharia watch: Too Near Pork Products Complaint Lodged Against Shop

Aieeee!

Even in the supermarket, delicate Muslim sensibilities require discrimination against non-Muslims. To keep a Muslim child from being defiled by picking up a can of pork, Muslims in Brunei are asking that products for non-Muslims be hidden away. From BruDirect, with thanks to Nicolei:

Members of the public particularly shoppers in a prominent supermarket in Kuala Belait are expressing discontent over the arrangements of “non-halal” foods which are placed not far from the daily needs items of Muslim customers at the supermarket.

A number of customers here stated that the arrangements of food for non-Muslims at the stated shop are placed near essential products such as soaps and detergents and next to daily use items such as tissue paper and other goods.

One customer who refused to be named stated that the racks on which are placed the non-halal foods should be moved far away from aisle frequented by Muslim customers.

The customer said that on one occasion his 7-year-old daughter was at the said supermarket to buy instant noodles when she unknowingly picked up a can from the rack to ask him about its contents.

"I was shocked to see that the word ‘pork’ was inscribed on the can that she was holding. The can was taken from a rack which was placed just across the rack from which I took the instant noodles," he claimed.

He had pointed out the matter to the workers there, but till now the problem remains.

When the supermarket was visited again, it was found that racks containing a number of canned and plastic packaged foods for non-Muslims were still placed alongside racks holding washing soaps and tissues, and facing the rack displaying varieties of instant noodles.

The shop owner should have understood the situation surrounding the community and is advised to consider the full interests of the customers, particularly in terms of sale item arrangements.

UK Muslim wives get rights!

What's that? You thought British Muslim women had the same rights as anyone else in Britain? Guess again. Some Muslim men aren't happy about it, but Muslim women have just been granted a whole list of new rights by Britain's Sharia Council. From AsiaNews.co.uk, with thanks to Nicolei:

DETAILS of a new Islamic marriage contract that will protect women's rights have been unveiled for the first time in the North West. At a meeting of top mullahs and Islamic scholars in Bury it was predicted that mosques throughout the UK will use the new contract and revolutionise Islamic marriages.

Called the nikah namah provisions in the contract include:

l A wife's right not to have children
l Equal rights in divorce
l A wife's right to work and control over her own pay . . .
l Outlawing all verbal, physical and sexual abuse by the husband
l The right of a wife to visit relatives in the UK or abroad

The draft contract is the work of the UK Shariah Council and the Muslim Parliament of Britain - organisations that have voiced their concern that Muslim women can get a raw deal from existing Islamic marriage custom. . . .

The response from men was less welcoming and some were shocked over its clauses.

One man, who did not want to give his name, said he was amazed at some of the women's rights proposed.

He said: "The purpose of an Islamic marriage is to have a family but the contact is saying that a woman cannot get pregnant unless she wants to. How can that be increasing the Muslim line in the family?"

Molana Barkatullah said he knew that some men would be unhappy about it.
He added: "During the time of the Prophet, women were given rights for the first time and some of the men found that hard to deal with, but they eventually accepted these rights. That was 1400 years ago and it will happen again."

Los Angeles Teacher Resigns Over Muslim Scarf Flap

The headscarf controversy comes to the US. It's a strange incident: it seems that this instructor had a policy against headgear in class, as it obstructed the view of other students. So he asked a Muslim girl to remove her headscarf. Now he has resigned under pressure, to the delight of the Council on American Islamic Relations. But was this really an anti-Islamic incident? From NBC4TV, with thanks to Twostellas:

An Antelope Valley College instructor resigned Thursday, a week after ordering a Muslim student to take off her religiously mandated head scarf or leave class, school officials said.

Robert Daniel, described as a part-time instructor, taught an introduction to computer science information course. He resigned in writing this morning, school officials said.

The college's Board of Trustees was expected to decide Friday night what action to take against Daniel. The school said other instructors will be brought in to teach the two spring semester courses that had been assigned to Daniel.

Daniel could not be reached for comment.

Fajr Burhan is a 19-year-old electrical engineering student. She was born in Phoenix but her parents are from Syria. About five years ago, Burhan began wearing the traditional Muslim hajib head scarf.

Burhan said the garb had never been a problem at the school until last week, when Daniel told her to remove the hajib.

Daniel told her "to either stay and follow his rules (by removing the scarf) or leave the class," Burhan said.

Burhan is in her last semester at Antelope Valley and hopes to graduate this year and transfer to UCI. To graduate, she needed to pass the course Daniel taught.

Burhan said Daniel made the demand knowing the scarf's religious significance, although she acknowledged that Daniel told her he does not allow hats or headgear because they can block the view of other students.

After a discussion with Tom Miller, the school's dean of business and computer studies, Burhan returned to class wearing the hajib, but said Daniel ignored her when she tried to answer questions.

Interim AVC President Jackie Fisher, who said the school does not have a dress code and has a zero-tolerance policy on discrimination, later apologized to Burhan.

Ra'id Faraj of the Southern California office of the Council on American- Islamic Relations applauded the move.

"It's really bizarre that we would encounter this in a college," Faraj said.

Anti-dhimmitude in Lebanon: Cardinal Sfeir Laments Efforts to Islamize Lebanese Education

A Lebanese patriarch sees a threat to Lebanese culture from Islamization. From Zenit News Agency, with thanks to Nicolei:

Cardinal Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites, warns that an attempt is being made to Islamize public and private education in Lebanon.

In a Lenten message to the faithful and all the population of Lebanon, published on the patriarchate's Web page (www.bkerke.org.lb), the Maronite patriarch invites the Lebanese to a "clear cooperation characterized by transparency."

Cardinal Sfeir focuses on problems that affect the Lebanese governing class, including corruption, nepotism and the impossibility of making free decisions.

To safeguard coexistence in a democratic system, the people must have the right to "ask for explanations from" those who govern them, he said.

The cardinal lamented that drugs, alcoholism and gambling are ever more widespread in the country, making it harder for families to ensure the education of their children.

Cardinal Sfeir is especially concerned about the attempt to Islamize both public and private education, given that the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization -- a sort of Muslim UNESCO -- is allowed to operate in the country and exercise its influence on the Lebanese school system.

Such Islamization of education is "a threat not only to schools but to all of Lebanese culture," he said.

To promote Islamic education as an absolute ideal for schooling is to ignore that in Lebanon "there are two religions, two cultures and two civilizations at work, pertaining to Christianity and Islam," the cardinal said. "Both together form one people."

A question on the status of women taken as prisoners during Jihad

Despite obfuscations and denials by many Muslims in the West, jihad is (as I demonstrate in Onward Muslim Soldiers) a quite coherent and comprehensive set of laws for warfare against non-Muslims and their treatment as dhimmis after the successful conclusion of that war. These laws cover virtually every aspect of that warfare, and they are still part of the Sharia — they have not been set aside or repudiated by any Muslim sect. This is underscored by a question on Ask-Imam.com answered by the South African Mufti Ebrahim Desai. It takes violent jihad, slavery, and the rape of slave women for granted — since, after all, they are declared legal by the Sharia. (Thanks to LGF.)

In the "Jihads" (Islamic wars) that took place, women were also, at times, taken as prisoners of war by the Muslim warriors. These women captives used to be distributed as part of the booty among the soldiers, after their return to Islamic territory. Each soldier was then entitled to have relations ONLY with the slave girl over whom he was given the RIGHT OF OWNERSHIP and NOT with those slave girls that were not in his possession. This RIGHT OF OWNERSHIP was given to him by the "Ameerul-Mu'mineen" (Head of the Islamic state.) Due to this right of ownership, it became lawful for the owner of a slave girl to have intercourse with her.

It may, superficially, appear distasteful to copulate with a woman who is not a man's legal wife, but once Shariah makes something lawful, we have to accept it as lawful, whether it appeals to our taste, or not; and whether we know its underlying wisdom or not. It is necessary for a Muslim to be acquainted with the laws of Shariah, but it is not necessary for him to delve into each law in order to find the underlying wisdom of these laws because knowledge of the wisdom of some of the laws may be beyond his puny comprehension. Allah Ta'ala has said in the Holy
Quraan: "Wa maa ooteetum min al-ilm illaa qaleelan" which means, more or less, that, "You have been given a very small portion of knowledge". Hence, if a person fails to comprehend the underlying wisdom of any law of Shariah, he cannot regard it as a fault of Shariah (Allah forbid), on the contrary, it is the fault of his own perception and lack of understanding, because no law of Shariah is contradictory to wisdom.

Nevertheless, the wisdom underlying the permission granted by Shariah to copulate with a slave woman is as follows: The LEGAL possession that a Muslim receives over a slave woman from the "Ameerul-Mu'mineen" (the Islamic Head of State) gives him legal credence to have coition with the slave woman in his possession, just as the marriage ceremony gives him legal credence to have coition with his wife. In other words, this LEGAL POSSESSION is, in effect, a SUBSTITUTE of the MARRIAGE CEREMONY. A free woman cannot be 'possessed', bought or sold like other possessions; therefore Shariah instituted a 'marriage ceremony' in which affirmation and consent takes place, which gives a man the right to copulate with her. On the other hand, a slave girl can be possessed and even bought and sold, thus, this right of possession, substituting as a marriage ceremony, entitles the owner to copulate with her. A similar example can be found in the slaughtering of animals; that after a formal slaughtering process, in which the words, "Bismillahi Allahu Akbar" are recited, goats, cows, etc.; become "Halaal" and lawful for consumption, whereas fish becomes "Halaal" merely through 'possession' which substitutes for the slaughtering.

In other words, just as legal possession of a fish that has been fished out of the water, makes it Halaal for human consumption without the initiation of a formal slaughtering process; similarly legal possession of a slave woman made her Halaal for the purpose of coition with her owner without the initiation of a formal marriage ceremony.

In short, permission to have intercourse with a slave woman was not something barbaric or uncivilised; on the contrary, it was almost as good as a marriage ceremony. In fact, possession of a slave woman resembles a marriage ceremony in many ways and both have a lot in common with each other. One similarity is this that just as a free woman cannot have two husbands simultaneously; a slave woman cannot be used for intercourse by two owners. Another similarity is that a free woman whose marriage is on the rocks, cannot marry another man until her previous marriage is nullified through divorce, etc. Due to the discrepancies between husband and wife, the marriage sometimes reaches a stage where it becomes virtually impossible for the couple to live as man and wife with the result that divorce is brought into force to nullify marriage ties. Similarly, if a slave woman was married previously in enemy territory to a non-Muslim, and is then captured alone, i.e. without her husband, it is not permissible for any Muslim to have relations with her until her previous marriage is nullified, and that is done by bringing her to an Islamic country and making her the legal possession of a Muslim. Bringing her into Islamic territory necessitates the rendering of her previous marriage as null and void by Islamic law because with her husband in enemy territory and she in Islamic territory, it becomes virtually impossible for them to meet and live as man and wife. That is why it is not permissible to have intercourse with a woman whose husband is also taken into captivity and put into slavery with her. Another resemblance between the two is that, just as a divorcee has to spend a period called "Iddat" before another man is allowed to marry her; similarly, a slave woman has to spend a period called "Istibraa" before her owner can have coition with her.

Another similarity between marriage and possession of a slave woman is that just as the wife becomes a dependant of the husband and he has to provide a home, food and clothing for her, a slave woman also becomes a dependant of her owner and he has to provide a home, food and clothing for her. Yet another similarity is this that just as marriage makes the close relatives of the wife Haraam upon the husband; i.e. he cannot get married to his wife's mother, grandmother, sister, etc., similarly if a man has copulated with a slave woman the slave woman's close relatives also become Haraam upon the owner. With all these similarities it does not make sense to regard copulation with a slave woman distasteful whilst copulation with one's wife is not regarded as distasteful. . . .

One question that still remains is whether slavery still legally prevails anywhere in the Islamic world and whether it can be successfully implemented in this age. Well, there is no prevalence of lawful slavery in the Islamic world today and it would be difficult to implement it because of the stringent conditions attached to it. Firstly, the prisoners have to be captured in 'Jihaad' in the true sense of the word. Then again, If true 'Jihaad' did break out somewhere, there are still a number of other laws and conditions to abide by which are far too stringent for any Islamic country in the world to abide by in this time and age when people's personal gains and whims and desire are being given preference to over Islamic Law. According to Islamic Law, captive female prisoners are also part and parcel of the booty. One fifth of the booty has to be first distributed to the needy, orphans, etc. The remaining four-fifths should then be distributed among the soldiers who participated in the war. The distribution can only take effect after the booty is brought into Islamic territory. The Ameerul-Mu'mineen (Head of the Islamic State) remains the guardian of the female prisoners until he allocates them to the soldiers. Only after a soldier has been allotted a slave girl, and made the owner of her, will she become his lawful possession. After she spends a period called 'Istibraa', which is the elapse of one menstrual period, It becomes permissible for her owner to have relations with her. After possession of the slave too there are a number of other laws that affect the master and slave. There is hardly any Islamic country today that can abide to all these conditions, with the result that it is quite difficult to implement slavery in this time and age.

Anti-dhimmitude in Norway: Man jailed for blocking wife's integration

European Muslim leaders like Dyab Abou Jahjah of the Arab European League, as I show in Onward Muslim Soldiers, fiercely oppose any attempt to integrate Muslims into European society. But now, for the first time, a Norwegian court has declared that illegal. From Aftenposten, with thanks to Ali Dashti:

An Oslo court has convicted an African-Norwegian not only for abusing his Algerian wife but also for preventing her from integrating into Norwegian society. It's the first time a Norwegian court has ruled such practices as illegal, and the offender was sentenced to three years in jail.

Prosecutors are calling the sentence "very important" for efforts to ensure the rights of immigrants, especially women, and promote integration.

The 48-year-old offender has been in Norway for 30 years. Nine years ago, he married an Algerian woman 20 years younger than he was and brought her to Norway as well.

The court claimed in its ruling that he then launched years of physical abuse against his wife and prevented her from leaving their home without his permission. If she did leave home, she was ordered to cover her face and hair.

He also abused the couple's children, and when his wife started attending Norwegian classes at the advice of juvenile authorities, he picked her up directly after the class to prevent her from mingling with other students.

She eventually broke out of the marriage and brought charges against him with the help of public prosecutors.

They used a 102-[year-]old law that states that a man can be punished with prison if he fails to exercise his duties towards his spouse or their child. Given the state's efforts to promote integration and prosecute domestic violence, Hanne Kristin Rohde of the Oslo Police District said "we saw that we had to try" invoking the little-used law.

The man tried to appeal his conviction, but his effort was rejected. The length of his sentence, considered harsh in Norway, is under appeal, however.

Saudis: No Jews Welcome

The Saudi tourist site saying that Jewish people were ineligible to apply for visas was up as late as last night; I sent it to a friend at 7:44 PM yesterday. But now image-conscious Saudis have taken it down. Does that mean their policy has changed? That question is as yet unanswered. From AP:

Rep. Anthony Weiner, a frequent critic of United States policy toward Saudi Arabia, said Thursday that the Middle East country's new visa policy outlined on a tourist Web site should be quickly condemned by American officials.

The Web site, promoting a new Saudi program to offer tourist visas to encourage more foreign visitors, lists four groups not entitled to tourist visas, including "Jewish People."

The Saudi government has traditionally only issued travel visas for employment, Hajj pilgrimages, and other visits with official sanction.

In addition to Jews, the Web site by the Supreme Commission for Tourism also says it will refuse visas to anyone with an Israeli passport or a passport that has an Israeli stamp.

"It is very difficult to see the Saudis as anything other than a backward country with backward ideals and this reaffirms that," said Weiner. "I think the administration should take a hard look at this Web site and decide whether a country that has these policies should be considered our ally."

Weiner said the U.S. should close its doors to Saudis until they "clarify" their immigration policy.

The U.S. Army builds a mosque

When was the last time you heard of the U.S. Army building a church, or a synagogue? What's that? A wall of separation? Well, the wall is down in Afghanistan, where a plaque in front of one mosque proclaims: "Matachina mosque, reconstructed in 2002... with the help of the American people." From AFP, with thanks to Daniel Pipes:

"Matachina Madrassa" reads a rusty, battered metal plaque. A metre away is a brand-new stone on which is written in fresh lettering: "Matachina mosque, reconstructed in 2002... with the help of the American people."

On November 16, 2001, during the heat of the US-led war against the Taliban regime, at least 34 people lost their lives here. The dead included fighters but also religious students, women and children, killed during the bombardment of this Islamic school and mosque in the suburbs of Khost.

Reconstructed

The building has since been reconstructed almost identically with the financial support of the United States army.

Some rubble and a toppled brick wall are the only evidence of the bombing.

And a new mosque has been rebuilt on the site of the carnage. A wooden door, decorated with Arabic writing, opens on to a large, empty vault. Inside, a painted niche indicates the direction of the holy city of Mecca, towards which the faithful pray.

An already dusty plastic floor covering sits between the imposing stone pillars supporting the building. The only exaggerated decoration in this spartan decor is a made-in-China plastic gold clock fixed high on the wall.

Nobody ever comes

"Nobody ever comes into this mosque, what are you doing here," asks a soldier from a neighbouring garrison.

The mosque's guard lives just metres from the building, in a mud-brick home. The door is padlocked shut. "The man has gone to pray in another mosque."

The new Matachina mosque is almost always empty. Hardly refinished, it is already abandoned as the faithful prefer to pray elsewhere.

So the American taxpayers financed a mosque in Afghanistan as a gesture of good will, and nobody goes to it anyway. I hope the Army will henceforth stay out of the mosque-building business.

India: Islamic Militant Groups Demand Women Cover Up

Some Muslims seem to have no trouble turning from calls for the freedom to wear headscarves in France to denying the freedom not to wear them elsewhere. From AP, with thanks to Twostellas:

Three Islamic rebel groups in Indian-controlled Kashmir have demanded that women in the region wear head-to-toe veils and that all beauty parlors close, a newspaper reported Thursday.

The groups want restaurants to shut partitioned areas supposedly reserved for families - but in reality also used by young couples. It also wants tutoring centers, which prepare teenagers for college examinations, to segregate girls and boys, the Times of India newspaper said.

The demands were made by the Al-Madina Regiment, which the newspaper described as a collection of the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Al-Umar and Hezb-ul-Mujahedeen militant groups.

The rebels have been fighting Indian security forces since 1989, seeking independence for Kashmir or its merger with Pakistan. More than 65,000 people have died.

Anyone failing to meet the demands by March 1 would "face the consequences," the newspaper quoted Al-Madina Regiment chief Umar Khalid as saying.

Similar demands have been made in the past - and few are adhered to.

Muslim women in Jammu-Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state, usually don't wear head-to-toe burqa veils and instead cover their heads with loose scarfs.

What Is Arab Antisemitism?

There is a great deal of value in this MEMRI report on Muslim Anti-Semitism, but one passage in particular caught my eye, as I discuss this phenomenon at length in Onward Muslim Soldiers:

It is indeed unfortunate that the status of the Jews as a tolerated minority in the Muslim world before the advent of Zionism has come to figure prominently in the competition between Jews and Arabs to enlist public opinion. The lay reader is often at a loss between the arguments on both sides. On the one hand, he hears that Jews (and Christians) had the status of a protected minority under Islam, and that Jews in Muslim Spain enjoyed a golden age of peace and prosperity; on the other, he is told that Jews and Christians had no legal equality and were never anything other than second-class citizens. These conflicting versions are put into a balanced perspective by Bernard Lewis:

Even at its best, medieval Islam was rather different from the picture provided by Disraeli and other romantic writers. The golden age of equal rights was a myth, and belief in it was a result, more than a cause, of Jewish sympathy for Islam. The myth was invented by Jews in 19th-century Europe as a reproach to Christians – and taken up by Muslims in our own time as a reproach to Jews.

Like most powerful myths, this story contains an element of historic truth. If tolerance means the absence of persecution, then classic Islamic society was indeed tolerant to both its Jewish and its Christian subjects – more tolerant perhaps in Spain than in the East, and in either incomparably more tolerant than was medieval Christendom. But if tolerance means the absence of discrimination, then Islam never was or claimed to be tolerant, but on the contrary insisted on the privileged superiority of the true believer in this world as well as the next.

Read it all. (Thanks to Jeffrey Imm.)

Dhimmitude at the State Department

An official webpage on the U.S. State Department site celebrates "Muslim Life in America." I looked in vain for similar pages celebrating Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist Life in America.

Daniel Pipes, whose own site alerted me to this (with thanks to LGF), points out that "the State Department provides links to and thereby endorses groups that the federal government has either effectively shut down (the American Muslim Council), is currently investigating (Islamic Society of North America), or has arrested multiple employees of (Council on American-Islamic Relations). Additionally, other organizations on the list (Council on Islamic Education, Islamic Institute, Muslim Public Affairs Council) were long ago exposed as sympathetic to militant Islam."

No links, however, to danielpipes.org. Or Jihad Watch.

Security Concerns Prevent Iraqi Christians from Returning Home

The harsh situation of Christians in postwar Iraq. From VOANews, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

Many Iraqis who fled to Syria for safety before, during and just after the war in Iraq say they still are afraid to go home.

Nearly a year after the war in Iraq, Seita Daoud sits in a sparsely furnished, badly heated apartment in a poor neighborhood of Damascus. She says she is afraid to go home. "It was not easy to leave my country," she says. "I was born in Iraq. I raised my children there. But it is too hard and too uncertain there now."

A few days after Baghdad fell to U.S. forces, Seita Daoud packed up her family of nine and headed for safety across the border in Syria. She had already sold off most of their possessions, keeping only a few family photos, including a portrait of her husband who had died years before.

Speaking the ancient language of her Assyrian Christian community, Seita says she is still not sure what to do. "I am ready to go back," she says, "but first I must be sure of security to raise my children. They all left their schools and their jobs. What will we find when we go back," she asks.

Seita is not alone. She says most of her Assyrian Christian neighbors, several hundred families, are here in Damascus with her. "Some," she says, "have arrived in the past few months. They say Iraq is too unstable for religious minorities."

Her son Yvan is blunt. "We number fewer than two-million," he says, "with no strong tribal leaders or big politicians to protect us."

U.S. officials and members of the Iraqi Governing Council insist ethnic and religious minorities, which make up about three-percent of the population, will be legally protected by any future government.

Yvan is not convinced. He says minorities suffered under Saddam Hussein and he does not want to see it happen again.

He acknowledges that Iraq's majority Shiite Muslim community was harshly persecuted by Saddam Hussein. Now, he worries how Christians and other religious minorities would be treated if strict Islamists gain control of a future government.

His mother worries more about the violence and lack of jobs. "Where would we find work," Seita asks. "You need a connection to get work with the Americans." But she shakes her head. "And, those who do work with the Americans are afraid," she says, "because the Americans are targets and Iraqis working with them are too."

For 26-year-old Taygor, the decision to leave was easy. Like other university students, he says he had to sign up for military training and he did not want to fight to defend Saddam Hussein. He left school and Iraq well before war began. "Saddam ruined our lives. He ruined our society," Taygor says. "Everything that is happening now is a result of what he did when he was in power."

Taygor cheered when the U.S.-led coalition took control of his country, but he says he has no desire to go back even now that Saddam Hussein is gone.

Neither does 33-year-old Anwar Deriyawish, another Iraqi Christian from Baghdad. The former welder lived in a rented house with his wife and children. "I have nothing there. Why should I go back," he asks.

Anwar has applied for a visa to Australia, but speaks no English and is not optimistic he will ever go there.

In contrast, Seita Daoud has no doubts she and her children will return to Iraq one day. She just cannot say when that day will come.

"We didn't kill our beautiful daughter"

The tragic story of Shafilea Ahmed is not necessarily one of honor killing; however, the girl was upset enough at the prospect of an arranged marriage to swallow bleach. As young Muslims in the West are increasingly caught between two cultures, we will see more of such stories. From the Telegraph, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

The parents of Shafilea Ahmed, the murdered Asian teenager, upstaged detectives yesterday when they gatecrashed a televised police briefing to deny that they were guilty of a so-called "honour killing".

Senior officers had just given details of how their daughter's badly decomposed body was found concealed in undergrowth when Iftikhar Ahmed, 44, and his wife, Farzana, 41, arrived with their legal team.

The couple, from Warrington, both of whom are on police bail after being arrested on suspicion of kidnap, were weeping and dabbing their eyes with handkerchiefs as they entered a privately-hired suite in a Cheshire hotel.

Det Chief Insp Geraint Jones, who is leading the investigation, looked surprised at their arrival and refused to allow them to sit at a table positioned in front of a Cheshire Police screen. A few minutes later, clearly embarrassed by the interruption, he and his team left the building.

Neither of the Ahmeds spoke during their protest. However, through their solicitor they insisted they were in no way involved in the death of their "beautiful and irreplaceable daughter".

They went on to accuse police of having become blinkered by a racial stereotype which dictated that as Asian parents they must have been involved in their daughter's murder. This was a course of action, they claimed, that was allowing "the real culprit" to remain at large.

Shafilea, 17, disappeared six months ago, shortly after returning from a trip to Pakistan where she had resisted the overtures of a distant cousin to take part in an arranged marriage.

While in Pakistan she became so distraught she swallowed a quantity of bleach. This burned her gullet so severely that she required hospital treatment both there and once she had returned to Britain. Shafilea spent most of Sept 11, 2003, at Priestley Sixth Form College and later went to a local call centre where she worked four nights a week.

Her mother picked her up and drove her home. She went to bed, as she did every night, with her seven-year-old sister. When the household awoke she had gone. She was reported missing eight days later by her former teachers at Great Sankey High School.

Cheshire Police have been convinced almost from the outset that Shafilea was kidnapped and possibly murdered. At press conferences they consistently refused to rule out the possibility that she was the victim of an honour killing.

Instead, they portrayed the "intelligent, ambitious and popular" teenager as a girl torn between traditional family ties and the Western culture she sought to embrace.

At home she spoke Urdu and observed Muslim prayers with her three sisters and younger brother. But at the same time she idolised R&B singers, wore tight jeans and secretly stored the mobile telephone numbers of male friends at college.

She and her 15-year-old sister, who was also her closest friend, shared a love of pop stars such as Justin Timberlake and Kelly Rowland. They frequently travelled to the Trafford Centre, Manchester, to go window shopping.

Police fears that Shafilea had been murdered were confirmed when workmen found a girl's body beside a riverbank five miles from the M6 near Kendal, Cumbria.

However, the remains were so badly decomposed it took forensic scientists three weeks to confirm her identity. During that time the Ahmeds said jewellery found on the body was "similar" to some their daughter had owned.

Mr Jones did not invite the girl's parents to yesterday's press conference. But they turned up anyway, arriving at the Village Hotel, Warrington, in a dark blue Mercedes.

Milton Firman, their solicitor, asked police if he and the Ahmeds could sit at their table. When they refused, he stood in the corner of the room and began reading from a prepared statement.

Nothing, he said, could change the cruel reality that the couple had lost a beautiful daughter - "a reality made all the more painful in view of the unsubstantiated allegations against them".

He went on: "Mr and Mrs Ahmed wish to confirm once more that they strenuously deny any direct or indirect involvement in their daughter's untimely demise.

"If called upon to do so, they shall not hesitate to defend their good and unblemished names in any court." Police should begin to work with the family, rather than to carry on an inquiry based upon a form of ethnic stereotyping, he said.

The Ahmeds should now be left to grieve while the authorities "go elsewhere to find those truly responsible for any foul play". Later Mr Firman accused detectives of "putting two and two together and coming up with 14".

He said the couple "despised" the term "honour killing", and in their daughter's case it was entirely inappropriate.

He said the Ahmeds had not reported their daughter missing in September because she had run away twice before and on each occasion the police response had been poor.

Mr Firman added: "It is very easy to stereotype parents in an Asian family and look for tell-tale signs. There is certainly an in-built prejudice in the way these inquiries are handled."

Mr Jones had earlier refused to be drawn on questions about the Ahmeds. But he said the discovery of Shafilia's body meant that "the net is now closing" on whoever had murdered her.

The teenager's body was found in bushes beside the River Kent, in the first area of woodland off Junction 38 of the M6. Her killer or killers had deliberately concealed her beneath undergrowth. A pathologist has yet to confirm the cause of death.

Iranian Government Daily: The U.S. & 'Zionists' have Bribed the IAEA to Fabricate Lies About Iran's Nuclear Progress

When under pressure, blame the Zionists. The Tehran Times is resorting to this in the face of IAEA findings about Iran's nuclear program. From MEMRI, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

"Pressured by U.S. officials and supported by the Zionists, some officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its official website have started fabricating lies about the Iranian nuclear program, and even allowing some secret news about the Iranian nuclear program to leak to Western media. Such moves show the Iranian officials should have considered suspending cooperation with the IAEA rather than suspending enriching uranium.

"Recently, diplomats from the Vienna-based IAEA have warned about the increasing U.S. pressure on the IAEA top officials, including its director Muhammad El-Baradei and some inspectors, in order to egg on them [sic] to give a negative report on Iran's cooperation with the IAEA. Even an expert from the IAEA told the Mehr News Agency about secret meetings between the IAEA senior officials and some envoys from the U.S. and Israeli intelligence services in recent weeks. The expert even didn't rule out the possibility of bribing or threatening IAEA officials by these secret services.

"Some observers in Vienna have evaluated the U.S. pressure on El-Baradei as so high that he has become depressed and passive. Even a Western diplomat from the UN nuclear watchdog has said there is no certainty the statements aired inside the IAEA headquarters are not eavesdropped. Some evidences including recent statements by El-Baradei, stressing the necessity of tough inspection of the members' nuclear sites, especially after unfounded allegations by the U.S. officials over Iran's nuclear program and a wide coverage of these rumors by the Western media despite a close cooperation between Tehran and the IAEA would clearly show that the agency has been degenerated into an international political tool for pushing forward the U.S. unilateral policies in the world. There are some other indications to substantiate the point."

Revealed: the child brides who are forced to marry in Britain

From the Observer, with thanks to Susan:

Ayse was 14 when she was smuggled into Britain and forced to marry her cousin. Family members turned out in large numbers to welcome her at the illegal ceremony in a north London public hall.

'They kept whispering in my ear to ask why I wasn't smiling,' recalls Ayse, now 20 and living in a refuge in east London. 'I told them I was terrified and desperate, that I was just a child and far too young to get married. I pleaded with them to help me escape, but no one saw anything wrong in what was happening. I begged my husband not to marry me, but he told me I had no choice.'

Despite being two years below the British age of consent, Ayse was moved into her cousin's family home, where she lived openly as his wife in the local Kurdish Turkish community.

'I was all alone in a foreign country, unable to speak the language,' she said. 'I was trapped. Until I escaped, I didn't even realise that marrying at 14 wasn't legal in Britain: everyone I knew in London regarded it as normal.'

In the two years before she reached 16, the sex Ayse was coerced into having with her cousin was statutory rape. 'It was disgusting, awful,' she said. 'I used to scream and cry all night. I was too young, too tender. It killed me inside. Life became meaningless.'

Ayse's new family refused her permission to continue school and kept her a virtual prisoner in their home. During her four-and-a-half year marriage, Ayse was treated as a servant by her new family and prevented from speaking to anyone outside their immediate circle.

As she matured, Ayse became increasingly desperate and, after twice attempting suicide, found the courage to climb through a window and flee.

'I knew the cost escaping would have on my life. I now live in fear of being tracked down and killed by my husband's family. I have been rejected by my family back home and by the Kurdish community here. As a young girl, I could not face the thought of how my life would be if I escaped. But once I became a woman, I developed the strength to take that step.'

Authorities have long battled to stop the traffic in underage British girls taken back to their country of origin to be married off by their parents. But an Observer investigation has discovered that a growing number are now being married without leaving Britain. The ceremonies are known as community marriages.

'They're happening and numbers are growing,' said Peter Cripps, head of the Community Safety Unit at Shoreditch police station in east London. The Metropolitan Police is one of the few forces to admit that such marriages take place on its territory.

'I'd say we were at the stage with community marriages now that we were at with honour killings six years ago. That is, the idea is so horrible and incredible most people don't accept they're happening. Six years ago, honour killings were barely even talked about, but now the police are getting convictions. Basically, we're waiting for community marriages to hit the news the same way, then we expect a flurry of cases.'

Community marriages are held in accordance with the religious laws of many south Asian, Turkish, Middle Eastern and north African cultures. After the ceremony, the girl is moved into the home of her 'husband'. She is raped in the name of marital sex, frequently abused by her new family and allowed to attend school only if it would attract the attention of the law if she left.

Ann Cryer, MP for Keighley, has demanded an urgent meeting with the Minister for Children, Margaret Hodge, next week to discuss the issue. Cryer, who drove through Labour's action plan on forced marriages now wants to create similar guidelines for underage community marriages.

'Entire communities are complicit in this,' she said. 'And unless the Government does something about it, a rapidly increasing number of underage girls will be forced into situations where they are subjected to statutory rape in the name of culture and tradition.'

Cryer learnt this specific form of forced marriage existed only when she received a call from a school concerning a 15-year-old who is now believed to have been married to a 41-year-old relative.

'A young girl had gone to her teachers one Friday before Christmas, saying she didn't want to go home because she suspected her parents intended marrying her off that weekend,' she said.

But when the teachers phoned social services, they were told the earliest appointment available was the following Tuesday. 'The school protested, but social services were unmoved,' Cryer said. 'It was a completely inappropriate response and we've launched an investigation.'

The teachers were eventually forced to take her back home. Their intervention, however, seemed to have dissuaded the parents from carrying out their plans, but a few weeks later the school contacted Cryer again. 'Apparently the child's demeanour has completely changed in the past few weeks,' she said.

She has begun missing school for long periods of time and when she attends, a man waits for her at the gates at break times, lunch and after school. 'When she does turn up, she is completely introverted,' said Cryer. 'It's like she's in deep trauma or shock.'

Cryer is investigating, but her attempt is complicated by the fact the child is now refusing to talk. 'If the case is going to stick, we have to persuade the girl to give evidence against her family and if we go in, all guns blazing, she could deny the whole thing,' she said.

The hermetic nature of the communities involved means that in the vast majority of cases no one who is not a close family friend is aware that any specific ceremony is taking place.

'We know this happens a lot, but it tends not to come to wider notice until much later when the girl seeks help and is able to find a way of doing so,' said Dave Macnaghten, who sits on the Association of Chief Police Officers' forced marriage steering group. 'Unfortunately, if that happens at all, it takes place many years afterwards when the girl has found the maturity and courage to escape.'

Even those who live and work in the community have been unable to solve the problem 'We don't hear of the cases where the marriage takes place in this country any more than the authorities do,' said Houzan Mahmoud, a domestic violence adviser for the Middle East Centre for Women's Rights. 'These communities have become ghettoised. The girls don't know where to go for help. They believe the prestige of their whole family is at stake.'

Zahir Fatima, director of Kiran Asian Women's Aid, has come across five cases of underage community marriages.

'Often we only hear about it by mistake,' she said. 'When the women finally escape, they tell us the age they married in the course of telling us about all the other abuse they have suffered at hands of their husbands and families.

'I've met quite a lot of young girls who were bought into this country by much older men. The youngest was a 12-year-old from Kashmir, who was bought over six years ago to marry her first cousin, a man in his late twenties.'

About a year later, the girl gave birth to a son. 'She worked in a factory in the north of England and though the whole south Asian community there knew she was married and had a son, despite being just 13, they didn't find it odd,' said Fatima.

The girl began to be abused by her husband and made several suicide attempts. 'She was desperate, she was just a child,' said Fatima. 'But I only learnt about when she had grown up enough to flee the abuse and ended up in our refuge.'

The police believe that a central problem in convincing the local community to report these marriages is the belief that they are acting in the best interests of their community.

'Parents have no fear of getting caught because they have no sense that they're doing anything wrong,' said Jim Blair, head of the Metropolitan Police's Diversity Directorate. 'Parents who force their children into marriages justify their behaviour as building stronger families and protecting cultural and religious traditions.'

Guidelines concerning child protection procedures and forced marriage were given to every police station and social service office in 2001, but officials admit they frequently fail to reach those on the front line.

'I hear of incidents concerning community marriages all the time, but those with the power to act often don't know what to do when confronted with real-life examples,' said Monawara Bakht, manager for NSPCC Young People's Centre Unit and a chair of Acpo's forced marriage steering group.

Anticipating which communities might be more likely to approve of underage community marriages is also difficult because it depends on different traditional readings of central religious texts. According to some interpretations of, for example, Sharia law, a woman can be married as soon as she reaches puberty, which can be as young as nine.

But some say there are many other reasons why traditional families are feeling an increased anxiety and pressure to marry off their underage daughters.

'It is impossible to identify any single reason, but izzat, or honour, always plays a large role,' said Arvinder Lall, from the Ashiana Project in east London which runs the only refuge in Britain for women fleeing forced marriages.

Lall says the daughter's izzat links her behaviour to the honour of her entire family. If a girl behaves badly - that is, if the family judges she is becoming too independent, too westernised or is gaining the attention of other men - she could destroy the izzat of them all. 'It's very easy to damn these parents, but it's important to remember that they're not doing it to be cruel.

'First-generation immigrants fought for their culture to be accepted in Britain. Now they're watching as their achievements are whittled away by their own, increasingly westernised children. They're desperate to protect their culture and this is an extreme way in which they try to do that.'

What the men get out of marrying an underage girl is the prospect of a malleable wife who has not yet learnt to be independent or question the role a strict Islamic wife is expected to fulfil.

Lall was recently hired to teach police in Cambridgeshire about forced marriages after they found themselves dealing with the attempted murder of a 15-year-old Asian girl from east London and the murder of her two friends.

'When the family found she had a boyfriend, they arranged for her to get married to a member of their community,' said Lall. 'To escape, the girl left home with her boyfriend and two of his friends.'

On the motorway, the youths' car was run off the road by another vehicle, killing the boyfriend's two friends. Although the girl is now living in a police safe house, a lack of evidence has prevented charges being brought.

Laili Sadr, also from the Ashiana project, is still haunted by the case of Ashana, a 15-year-old girl from east London who was being pressured by her family to marry a young local man from her own community. Sadr spent six weeks trying to persuade Ashana to report her case to social services, but the child refused and eventually severed all contact.

'Ashana was more like a 12-year-old than a 15-year-old,' said Sadr. 'She was terrified of getting married, but what young girl could face the complete rejection and fury from her community? She was crying when she came to see us. She didn't have a clear idea of what marriage meant - and certainly didn't want to have sex - but felt she had no choice.'

Shortly after the ceremony, Ashana's mobile stopped working and Sadr never heard from her again. 'I pray that she's safe. But there's no way I can be certain.'

Community leaders are at a loss as to how to deal with a crime that few can prove occurs. 'There are already enough laws to stop this sort of practice and they are having no effect' said Fatima. 'Community integration is the only answer, but that shows no sign of happening.'

Cryer adds: 'I expect there to be a surge in numbers because, in contrast to the rest of the British population, there's disproportionate number of young people in the south Asian community reaching marriageable age.

'But there is no appetite among left-wing campaigners to tackle the issue because they are terrified of being called racist. If you take a stand on this issue in Bradford, you are accused of demonising the south Asian community. As a result, many politicians and other people feel they are not allowed to talk about this for fear of being told they are doing the BNP's work for them.'

Government officials deny they are afraid to risk controversy and claim that funding, not courage, is the issue. Heather Harvey, from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, recently come across the case of a 13-year-old from Yemen, who lived openly with her husband and baby in London.

'These cases will continue until we have some way of centrally collating evidence of the trend,' she said. 'At the moment, no single organisation collects every record of this practice, which means we can't prove it is widespread. And unless we can prove it is a trend, we can't get funding to tackle it.'

In her east London refuge, Ayse weeps uncontrollably when she thinks about her past and her future. 'I had my childhood taken away and missed out on all my teenage years. I missed every kind of love, even my own mother's, and am finding it very difficult to put my life back together. Sometimes I still wonder if it's worth trying to have a future. Many days, I'm not at all sure that it is.'

Mickey in controversial 9/11 art

Celebrating 9/11 at the Royal Scottish Academy. From AFP, with thanks to "Allah":

Art show organisers have defended a sculpture of Mickey Mouse flying a plane into the World Trade Centre, saying it was about "making you think".

Mickey's Taliban Adventures is one of almost 300 pieces in the Royal Scottish Academy's student exhibition in Edinburgh, which opened to the public on Saturday.

The exhibition by final-year and postgraduate students from Scotland's art and architectural schools also includes a short film showing the dying moments of a poisoned mouse.

The Twin Towers work - based on the attack on New York on 11 September 2001 in which 2752 people died - was made by Alan Bennie of the Edinburgh College of Art.

It shows the Disney figurehead flying a toy plane into cartoon-like foam models of the World Trade Centre, which have been given eyes to lend them a surprised expression, as well as flames made of felt.

"I don't think it's a particularly shocking piece," said Colin Greenslade, exhibitions co-ordinator for the Royal Scottish Academy.

Universal icon

"The Twin Towers have become an icon and everyone has their own feelings about it, whether they knew people who were involved or can just remember where they were when it happened," he said.

"This is about making you think."

The film of the poisoned mouse, by student Jock Mooney, is exhibited next to a statement explaining the circumstances, following complaints from animal rights activists.

In it, Mooney said the mouse had already been poisoned when he found it outside his flat and that his film was intended to show the effects of the methods used to get rid of rodents.

Diana West: Staring down sharia law

Diana West has some acute and perceptive insights on Sharia and Iraq:

Another big story has come out of Iraq with little media fanfare -- and this is one with colossal implications.

Recently, L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official in Iraq, toured a new women's center in Karbala. (The center occupies a former Ba'athist Party headquarters -- nice touch.) There, citing a 2003 United Nations report that pegged the poverty and non-productivity of the Arab-Muslim world to the repression of half its workforce -- women -- under Islamic sharia law, Bremer touted the equal rights and full participation of women in the new Iraq.

This topic was apt, particularly since the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council voted in late December to withdraw Iraqi family law matters from their secular jurisdiction and place them under an undefined Islamic sharia law. Such a legal maneuver could subject women to underage marriages, polygamous marriages, on-the-spot divorces ("I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you," is all a husband has to say in certain sharia proceedings), unfair inheritance laws and other terrible inequities.

Bremer has not approved the Islamization of Iraqi family law. (Nor, as Paul Marshall reported at National Review Online, has Bremer intervened in the Islamization of Iraq's universities, nor the peremptory removal of a female deputy minister for whom hardliners refused to work.) Against such a political backdrop, Bremer discussed the current draft of the interim Iraqi constitution, which is due Feb. 28. The draft designates Islam the state religion of Iraq, Bremer said, and "a source of inspiration for the law" -- not the only source of inspiration for that law.

What would happen, Bremer was asked, if Iraqi leaders write an interim constitution inspired exclusively by Islamic law? "Our position is clear," Bremer replied in an unforgivably underreported answer picked up by the Associated Press. "It can't be law until I sign it." This statement strongly suggests Bremer would veto an Islamic charter -- which, of course, he should for the sake of liberty and justice for all Iraqis. Equal rights before the law do not exist under Islamic law. One citizen, one vote does not exist under Islamic law. Freedom of worship does not exist under Islamic law. Minorities -- that is, non-Muslims -- enjoy rights and protections at the pleasure of the Muslim community that are ever-subject to the capriciousness of a rights-canceling fatwa. Indeed, Islamic law is not the basis of a religion, as the Judeo-Christian world understands religion, but is rather the basis of a controlling ideology that is nothing short of totalitarian.

Sharia's adherents, of course, would disagree. In a January article about the Governing Council's family law decision, every judge and lawyer the Los Angeles Times interviewed in Baghdad insisted on the superiority of sharia law to civil law.

"Sharia is from God, the law is man-made, and sharia is better because what comes from Allah is fixed," said Kadhim Jubori, 55, who has practiced family law for 33 years in Baghdad. ("I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you" is fixed?) Fixed or not, U.S. efforts to tend democracy's roots in Iraq would wither under any sharia-based constitution.

This would bode ill, but not just for Iraq. The fact is, as columnist Charles Krauthammer said recently in a magisterial address to the American Enterprise Institute, "You win by taking territory -- and leaving something behind." We won Iraq by taking territory -- and now must leave the basis for democracy behind. Not sharia.

Such a policy -- Krauthammer calls it "democratic globalism" -- combines realism with an idealistic commitment to human freedom, tempered, he cautioned, by "strategic necessity." That means that the United States commits blood and treasure only in "places central to the larger war against the existential enemy, the enemy that poses a global mortal threat to freedom."

Fifty years ago, that described Germany and Japan, vortexes of fascism. Both nations, Krauthammer noted, "were turned, by nation-building, into bulwarks against the next great threat to freedom, Soviet communism." Today, he continued, the new global threat to freedom is "the new existential enemy, the Arab-Islamic totalitarianism that has threatened us in both its secular and religious forms for the quarter-century since the Khomeini revolution of 1979." He continued: "Establishing civilized, decent, non-belligerent, pro-Western polities in Afghanistan and Iraq ... would, like the flipping of Germany and Japan, change the strategic balance in the fight against Arab-Islamic radicalism."

Krauthammer admits we may fail even as he insists we must try. Certainly, the first thing to do is for Bremer -- and the American people -- to be prepared to veto a sharia-based constitution in Iraq.

Australia: Terror's many tongues

Andrew Bolt in the Herald Sun has some pointed observations about the situation in Australia. (Thanks to Kevin.)

IT goes like this. First, Australia's Mufti, Taj El-Din El-Hilaly, praises terrorists in Arabic.

Then, when his words leak out, the sheik's spokesman, Keysar Trad of the Lebanese Muslim Association, tells us in English how we've again got the peace-loving cleric all wrong.

Roll the tape. Just before the September 11 attacks, Hilaly was filmed by SBS in his Sydney mosque endorsing suicide bombers.

Afterwards, Hilaly went to Lebanon and signed a statement by clerics endorsing suicide attacks in Israel -- like those which have killed so many civilians.

Trad tried to explain away both incidents, just as he this week claimed Hilaly was again taken out of context by reports this week of his visit to Lebanon.

Those reports said he'd again called for a jihad against Israel, praised suicide bombers as "martyrs", and met the head of Hezbollah, a terrorist group he called a "model for all the Mujahideen in the world".

And how credible is Trad as an apologist for this?

After all, Trad was a translator for the extremist Islamic Youth Movement of Australia, which has been linked to al Qaida.

And although denouncing terrorism himself, he is a zealot who has called Australians "the descendants of ... criminal dregs".

Lovely. So why do Muslims call Hilaly their Mufti?

Letter to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder

From the Simon Wiesenthal Center (with thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

Monday, February 23, 2004

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder

We join with the Simon Wiesenthal Center in demanding your public rebuke of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation, the flagship of your Social Democratic Party, for funding the three-day Beirut International Conference on 'The Islamic World and Europe: from Dialogue towards Understanding that featured speakers from Hezbollah and Hamas - two terrorist organizations that murder Jews and promote the most libelous anti-Jewish canards including the 'Blood Libel' and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. As you know these organizations are blacklisted by the European Union for their murderous activities. Other speakers included one associated with the Moslem Brotherhood who is notorious for sowing the seeds of Jew hatred in France; another is believed to have ties to al-Qaeda, and a leading Hamas idealogue and former activist in Islamic Jihad.

All this happened simultaneously while Germany’s Foreign Minister Fischer gave his speech at the European Commission’s Antisemitism Conference in Brussels where he sought to reassure Elie Wiesel and other Holocaust survivors that your nation stands in solidarity against the antisemitic venom emanating from the Arab world.

Chancellor Schroeder, if the Foreign Minister’s speech is indeed German policy, it is a message that needs to be delivered not so much to Jews, but to the Arab Nations. We await your public rebuke of the Foundation and a commitment that Germany will no longer invest any more of its funds and prestige to legitimize mass murderers and Jew haters.

You can add your name to this petition here.

Kerry's wife supports U.S. radicals, jihadists

I was starting to think that the message John Kerry's campaign sent to an Iranian news agency was just a blanket email in which the Iranians were included, but was not specifically a message to the mullahs. That may be true. But Kerry's wife is a major donor to a group that funds all sorts of organizations the mullahs would love. From WND:

If John Kerry becomes president, the first lady will have a track record of support for the causes of radical, anti-American groups – including Islamists, terrorist-defense law firms, abortionists and homosexual activists – that, by comparison, would make much of the country nostalgic for the days of Hillary Clinton, a study of her philanthropy patterns by Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin concludes.

One of heiress Teresa Heinz Kerry's favorite charities is the Tides Foundation, a 28-year-old grant-making institution that funds to the tune of hundreds of millions radical groups that, among other things, protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq, demand open U.S. borders, provide the legal defense of suspected terrorists and promote the spread of Islamist ideology in the U.S.

Heinz Kerry, worth an estimated three-quarters of a billion dollars, working through the Howard Heinz Endowment, oversaw the donation of more than $4 million to the Tides Foundation between 1995 and 2001, reports G2 Bulletin, a premium, online intelligence newsletter published by WorldNetDaily.

While John Kerry criticizes the way President Bush has conducted the war in Iraq, he actually cast a Senate vote to support it. Yet, Tides' Iraq Peace Fund and Peace Studies Fund supports the War Resisters League and Ramsey Clark's International Action Center. Clark actually offered to defend Saddam Hussein. His center also sponsored International ANSWER and United for Peace and Justice, both of which were run by long-time communist revolutionaries.

The Democratic Justice Fund, created through the efforts of Tides and George Soros, seeks to ease U.S. restrictions on Muslim immigration from countries designated by the State Department as “terrorist nations.” Tides also supports the Council for American Islamic Relations, a group that bills itself as a “Muslim civil rights group,” but one whose leaders have links to the terrorist group Hamas.

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad openly stated in 1994, “I am a supporter of the Hamas movement.” Community Affairs Director Bassem K. Khafagi has been arrested for visa and bank fraud. Randall Royer, a communications specialist and civil rights coordinator at CAIR, was arrested along with a group of Islamic radicals in Virginia for allegedly planning jihadist activities. CAIR has defended terrorist fronts posing as “charities” – some of which have shut down by the Bush administration.

Tides supports the National Lawyers Guild, which began as a Communist Party front. Last October, Lynne Stewart, an indicted terrorist NLG lawyer, gave a rousing closing speech at the organization's convention. Stewart was arrested for helping her client, convicted 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, communicate with terrorist cells in Egypt.

"And modern heroes, dare I mention?" she said. "Ho and Mao and Lenin, Fidel and Nelson Mandela and John Brown, Che Guevara, who reminds us, 'At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.' Our quests like theirs are to shake the very foundations of the continents."

Heinz Kerry not only serves as chairman of the Howard Heinz Endowment, she also sits on the board of the Vira I. Heinz Endowment.

The Earth Island Institute is a recipient of Heinz cash. Three days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America by Islamists, the group published a statement on its website rationalizing the terrorist actions. Under the headline, "U.S. Responds to Terrorist Attacks with Self-Righteous Arrogance," the statement explained that the destruction of the World Trade Center, the crash at the Pentagon, the four airline hijackings and the 3,000 Americans killed "was not an 'attack on all American people,'" but "an act of anger, desperation and indignation." . . .

In addition to its support of CAIR, Tides supports the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Arab American Action Network.

A group called "Barrio Warriors" is also a recipient of Tides grants. This race-conscious Hispanic organization calls for the "liberation of Aztlan," the American southwest, including California, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas.

Sharia vs. polio in Nigeria

AP reported that the rejection of the polio vaccine by a polio-ravaged Nigerian state was due to anti-American sentiment and conspiracy theories. That is true, but it is also true that these fears are being stoked by the local Islamic authorities: "But fears mounted last year after Datti Ahmed, a Kano physician who heads a prominent Muslim group, the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria, said polio vaccines were 'corrupted and tainted by evildoers from America and their Western allies.'" From News24.com, with thanks to pgrockas:

Polio left Dauda Abdullahi with twisted limbs, unable to walk. But he refuses to allow his children to be immunised against the disease that crippled him three decades ago.

"Only Allah can save us. I don't trust medicine," the 42-year-old roadside shoemaker said.

Immunising toddlers with mouth drops has reduced the number of polio cases from 350 000 children annually in the 1980s to fewer than 800 worldwide last year. Yet the virus is spreading again from Nigeria, where UN officials say a third of the world's cases are the result of a vaccine boycott.

Amid rising Muslim-Western tensions worldwide, Nigeria's Muslims are heeding allegations that the vaccine is a US plot to spread Aids or infertility.

Since October, three northern Nigerian states have banned door-to-door vaccinations until they are satisfied the vaccines do not contain harmful substances.

"Since September 11, the Muslim world is beginning to be suspicious of any move from the Western world," said Sule Ya'u Sule, speaking for the governor of Kano, one of the states where the vaccine is banned. "Our people have become really concerned about polio vaccine."

UN and Nigerian federal government officials stress the vaccines have repeatedly been proven safe. But detractors don't believe it, and meanwhile polio strains are spreading from northern Nigeria's trading centre of Kano to at least seven nearby countries where the disease was previously eradicated, says the World Health Organisation's Bruce Aylward.

Dozens of recent cases

Aylward, WHO's global co-ordinator for the polio eradication campaign, cited dozens of recent cases in Ghana, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad and Cameroon.

On Sunday, Nigeria sent a team of 12 scientists, government officials and Muslim leaders to South Africa, Indonesia and India to spend a week witnessing tests that would dispel the suspicions.

Muslims in Nigeria's arid north have become increasingly wary of vaccine initiatives since 1996, when families in Kano accused New York-based Pfizer Inc of using an experimental meningitis drug on patients without fully informing them of the risks.

The company denied any wrongdoing and a US court dismissed a lawsuit by 20 disabled Nigerians alleged to have taken part in the study, but a US appeals court revived it late last year.

Zubairu Shaba, a former journalist who has lobbied the Nigerian government for compensation on behalf of the Pfizer patients' families, said he and others distrust the entire Western medical establishment.

'They prefer to die'

"So many families won't go to hospitals again. They prefer to die," Shaba said. "We are suspicious of people who come to our doors with liquid for our children's mouths. We don't know who they are or what they want."

Not everyone agrees. "I've heard lots of people saying bad things about polio vaccine. I don't believe it," 22-year-old Habiba Nara said as a nurse at a clinic in northern Nigeria put vaccine drops in the mouth of Abubakar, her screaming 40-day-old baby boy.

Community health worker Jammai Bala says she encourages the nervous "to believe in God".

But fears mounted last year after Datti Ahmed, a Kano physician who heads a prominent Muslim group, the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria, said polio vaccines were "corrupted and tainted by evildoers from America and their Western allies".

Subsequent tests initiated by the federal government in Nigeria and South Africa proved conclusively the vaccines were free of all harmful substances, officials say.

Muslim groups rejected the results. Kano state officials insisted their own scientists tested the vaccines and found trace amounts of oestrogen and progesterone, female sex hormones which the officials feared could cause infertility.

Jama'atu Nasril Islam, an influential Muslim group, said it sponsored its own tests in Britain and India and got similar results.

Modern day Hitlers

"We believe that modern-day Hitlers have deliberately adulterated the oral polio vaccines with anti-fertility drugs and contaminated with certain viruses which are known to cause HIV and Aids," Ahmed said.

Aylward, the UN official, says any test results showing hormones are "false positives" arising from improper testing methods or the mixing of foreign materials during testing.

Even hormones at the levels alleged by critics would be of "absolutely of no health consequence" and amount to less than the amount found naturally in mothers' breast milk, Aylward said.

Presbyterian church apologizes

Jeffrey Imm has forwarded to me an apology from the Presbyterian church for anti-Semitic remarks made by a Muslim speaker sponsored by a Presbyterian group, speaking at Wooster College in Ohio.

The following statement is made by the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, the Office for Interfaith Relations and the Office for the Middle East and Europe of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in response to concerns about a presentation made at the College of Wooster last October. The speaker appeared through a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) program that itinerates individuals involved in peace and justice efforts in other countries to presbyteries, synods, and Presbyterian colleges and seminaries to help Presbyterians understand concerns for peace around the world.

FOR RELEASE, February 10, 2004

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), by action of its General Assembly, has adopted and re-affirmed clear policies abhorring, renouncing and opposing
all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism.

Consistent with those policies, the church's Peacemaking Program, Office for Interfaith Relations and Office for the Middle East and Europe, unequivocally disavow remarks and images reportedly used by a speaker at a
church-sponsored event at the College of Wooster last October. We regret
that some in the audience may have been offended.

While the church cannot take responsibility for expressions made by an individual, it categorically rejects harmful attitudes or the use of demeaning language. It is committed to resist and overcome anti-Semitism and all other attitudes, expressions, or actions that deny or defame the full humanity of another.

In this regard, our offices restate the PC(USA)'s long-standing position affirming Israel's right to exist within legitimate and secure borders; calling for justice and the restoration of dignity and freedom for the Palestinian people; and advocating for an end to the Israeli occupation, a cessation of all forms of violence on all sides, and an urgent return to sanity through negotiation for an honorable and enduring peace in Israel and Palestine.

Sara P. Lisherness
Coordinator
Presbyterian Peacemaking Program
100 Witherspoon Street, Rm. 1625
Louisville, KY 40202-1396
888.728.7228 x5779
slishern@ctr.pcusa.org

Pakistan Sharia watch: ninth school destroyed

From the BBC, with thanks to Nicolei:

Police in Pakistan's remote Northern Areas said on Friday that a ninth school in five days had been attacked and destroyed. Local officials have blamed hardline Islamists opposed to female education. Eight of the schools were for girls, although the latest - burned down in a village near the town of Chilas on Thursday - was a boys' school. Three people have been arrested, taking the total detained over the spate of attacks to 20. The schools attacked were mostly set up by non-governmental organisations with foreign assistance. The BBC's Haroon Rashid in Peshawar says observers view the attacks as a setback to efforts to promote literacy in the under-developed region. Thursday night's attack was on a two-room community school in a remote village called Akhrot, near Chilas, 120km south of the regional capital of Gilgit.

Police said unidentified people torched the school, destroying the furniture and wooden parts of the building. No one was injured.

On 15 February seven girls' schools under the government's Social Action Programme were destroyed in the Daarayle Valley.

On 19 February a primary school in Chilas was dynamited.

Some local officials blame people opposed to the education of girls.

However, others believe the latest incident shows a more general targeting of international aid agencies by people who regard the construction of community schools with their funding as un-Islamic.

Last year attacks at the offices of the International Fund for Agriculture Development (Ifad) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Chilas caused severe damage.

Local officials say they have formed committees to investigate the matter.

A senior government official in Gilgit told the Reuters news agency: "We have about 100 community schools and the attacks have not stopped girls from going to them."

The Northern Areas have a population of around 1.5 million.

The literacy rate is among the lowest in the country at 12% but efforts by aid agencies to raise it have been met with suspicion by some hardline Islamists.

This week's attacks came shortly after President Pervez Musharraf appealed to Muslim religious leaders to help curb extremism.

Sharia alert: Bangladesh bans another novel by Taslima Nasreen

Can such actions be compatible with a free society? From the Hindustan Times, with thanks to TwoStellas:

Bangladesh has banned controversial feminist author Taslima Nasrin latest book for allegedly containing "objectionable" comments about Islam and Prophet Mohammad.

The government in a notification issued on Thursday banned the printing, reprinting, sale and stockpiling of the book, Shai Sob Andhakar (Those Dark Days) published last month in West Bengal.

The government banned the import, sale and printing of the book in the country because it contains "grave and objectionable comments about Islam and Prophet Mohammad" and "may cause hatred in the society," an official notification said.

The exiled author's autobiography was banned on the day it was to be released at the ongoing book fair in Dhaka on the occasion of language day. This is Nasreen's second book, which has been banned by the government in the last four months.

The new book is the follow-up volume of the controversial book Ka, which was banned late last year after the country's leading poet Syed Shamsul Haq filed a defamation suit alleging that the book portrayed him in bad light.

Nasreen, a physician-turned-writer now in exile, fled Bangladesh in 1994 after Islamic fundamentalists threatened to kill her following publication of her novel Lajja.

She is currently researching secularisation and women' emancipation in Islamic countries at Harward University.

Islam illegal under law, court told

Interesting court case going on in Australia. Two Christian pastors are on trial for "vilifying Muslims" during a 2002 seminar. But as they make their defense, they are going on the offensive. From The Age, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

Islam was an illegal religion because the Koran preached violence against Christians and Jews, a Christian group told a judge yesterday.

The group's barrister, David Perkins, said that Christianity was established under Australia's constitution and had special protection, especially through the blasphemy law.

Mr Perkins told the Victorian and Civil Administrative Tribunal that if the state's new religious hatred law intended to fetter the teaching of Christian doctrine it was invalid.

Victoria's Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001 referred to lawful religion, and it was in that sense, he said, that by preaching violence Islam was disqualified.

"The Koran contradicts Christian doctrine in a number of places and, under the blasphemy law, is therefore illegal," he said.

In the first case under the act, the Islamic Council of Victoria has complained that Catch the Fire Ministries, Pastor Danny Nalliah and speaker Daniel Scot, also a pastor, vilified Muslims at a seminar in March 2002.

Australia: Mufti not to be investigated

The Australian Mufti, Sheikh Al-Hilali, who reportedly called for jihad against Israel recently (as well as claiming that Australia was originally Muslim), is now singing a different tune — and Australia's Federal Police are accepting that he does not support an armed uprising against any state. From News.com.au, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

THE Australian Federal Police has rejected a request for a formal investigation into the conduct of Australia's most senior Muslim leader.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock yesterday asked the AFP to look into the activities of the Sheik Taj Aldin Alhilali, the Mufti of Australia, while overseas.

Sheik Alhilali reportedly called for a jihad against Israel and met Hizbollah leaders during a recent visit to Lebanon.

An AFP spokeswoman said the force was not investigating Sheik Alhilali but refused to comment further.

"We are not investigating the matter," the spokeswoman said.

Prime Minister John Howard yesterday condemned Sheik Alhilali for incredible insensitivity over the meeting with Hizbollah.

Hizbollah's military wing is listed as a terrorist organisation in Australia but its political wing is not.

Mr Howard today denied he was out to get Sheik Alhilali but said he was seeking further information about what was said and attempting to get a copy of the speech.

"I'm not out to get him," Mr Howard told Sydney radio 2GB.

"As Prime Minister, I am reacting to something which on the face of it, from somebody who is the titular leader of 300,000 people in this country is quite unacceptable."

Sheik Alhilali last night told SBS radio's Arabic language program that he had not called for a jihad and did not support suicide bombing, a Sydney newspaper reported today.

Alabama to Allow Headscarves in Drivers License Photos

A new policy in Alabama is not in and of itself an example of dhimmitude, but it is interesting to contrast this with the French headscarf ban:

Responding to complaints from Muslims and Sikhs, Gov. Bob Riley's administration is changing a policy that prohibited the wearing of head scarves and turbans in driver's license photos.

The new policy says head coverings and headgear are acceptable for religious beliefs and medical conditions, but for no other reason. State Public Safety Director Mike Coppage said his department was delivering the rule change to county probate judges on Friday, and that it would take effect Monday.

Muslim women who had complained were glad to see the state's quick response. "This is a victory for religious freedom for everyone in this country," said LaTonya Floyd of Mobile.

Dhimmitude in India

This one seems motivated by a desire to get votes. From Sify.com:

The BJP has strongly protested against the Mulayam Singh Yadav Government's decision to cut short school hours on Fridays to allow Muslim students to offer Jumma ki namaz.

The move is being perceived as an effort to appease the Muslim votebank ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. According to a Government order issued on February 16 to all schools and colleges affiliated to the UP Board, the school hours would now be from 8 am to 12 pm on all Fridays.

Reacting strongly to the "absurd Government decision", state BJP chief Vinay Katiyar, demanded that the Government order be withdrawn immediately.

"It smacks of the Government's appeasement policy. Mulayam Singh Yadav is scared of his shifting mass base in the coming Lok Sabha polls. Hence he's using such tactics to draw minority votes. Such a step will create a divide between Hindu and Muslim children in schools," he said.

Katiyar further said the BJP would take to the streets to protest this decision. He argued: "In that case even the bhakts of Lord Shiva would demand a holiday on Monday and devotees of Lord Hanuman would demand a holiday on Tuesday."

He said the party would stage an agitation in front of the Assembly. "The protest would continue till the Government withdraws the order," he added.

The order issued by the Principal Secretary, Education, Neera Yadav on February 16, says that the State Government, after due consideration, has decided to change the school timings on Friday's from 8 am to 12 pm.

The changed timing would be applicable to all aided, unaided, and Government-run primary schools, junior schools, high schools and intercolleges in the state. So far, school timings have been six hours -- from 8 am to 2 pm or 10 am to 4 pm, Monday to Friday, with Saturday being a half day.

District Inspector of Schools Vikas Srivastava said the order would be implemented with immediate effect in the state Capital and students can look forward to the new timings from this Friday.

Girls' schools in Pakistan blasted

Discrimination against women is so deeply ingrained into the Sharia in so many ways (women's testimony is devalued, they cannot marry or even leave the house without permission, they may be beaten (Qur'an, Sura 4:34), etc.), that many Islamic radicals consider the very idea of education for women to be an affront to Islam. This article shows how far some are willing to take this. Non-Muslims should take note, for these radicals would no doubt enforce the Sharia's provisions for dhimmis with equal ferocity, given the opportunity. From the Gulf Daily News, with thanks to Nicolei:

Islamic militants dynamited seven primary schools for girls in Pakistan's remote north in the past week in a bid to discourage female education, a government official said yesterday..

The attacks occurred in two districts of the Northern Areas but caused no injuries as they were carried out at night, a senior government official from Gilgit said.

Unknown men planted a low intensity explosive device in the three-room school building which exploded on Wednesday without causing any casualties, local police officer Zaheer Khan said.

"The attack caused minor damage to the building, but no casualties," he said.

It was the fifth incident in less than a week in which schools had been targeted.

He blamed the attacks on local tribesmen encouraged by "religious elements" opposed to education of girls.

"The majority of the people are supportive of girls' education but a tiny minority is opposed," said the official.

"We have about a 100 community schools and the attacks have not stopped girls from going to them."

Police said they had detained 16 people in connection with the attacks, six of which happened in Diamir district and the seventh in Chilas.

Khan said non-governmental organisations had set up several schools in Diamir district which Khan said had upset extremists in the region.

The latest attack, which badly damaged the school, occurred just three days after a group of men, angered over increasing activities of foreign-funded charity organisations, set fire to seven schools for girls, damaging the buildings and furniture.

However, it was not immediately clear whether the same people were behind Wednesday's attack, said Mohammed Jan, a government official in Chilas.

Message of hate brought to Ohio campus

A disquieting story about the propagation of jihadist "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" slander in the United States, unconscionable dhimmitude from a Presbyterian "peacemaking group" — and nothing but supine silence from officials at an American college. From Cleveland Jewish News, with thanks to EPG:

Last October, Samir Makhlouf, invited to speak at the College of Wooster, delivered a diatribe against Jews.

During his presentation, he presented the fraudulent, antisemitic screed The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a factual book that "explains" how Zionists have been taking over the world's political, economic, religious and communication organizations.

Makhlouf's 15-20 minute slide presentation was rife with dead Palestinian bodies "proving" Israeli war crimes. The slide show ended with a Star of David morphing into a swastika, and had frames equating Zionism with Nazism. The "equals" sign was then replaced by a "greater than" sign, suggesting that Zionism was even worse than Nazism.

While no one disputes that this is what Makhlouf presented, to date, no one from the College of Wooster, or Presbyterian Peacemakers, the organization that provided the speaker, has issued an apology or acknowledged those who were offended by the presentation.

Bettysue Feuer, regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, says she has been working on this issue with the College of Wooster for quite a while. A public apology, she says, "would go a long way." Noting that Makhlouf is not the first antisemitic speaker the College of Wooster has hosted, Feuer says she is disturbed by the seeming lack of supervision over who is permitted to air their views.

"It's a shame there is not more sensitivity shown to the diverse population of the campus. To allow a speaker who shows such bigotry shows a real lack of understanding on (the College of Wooster's) part."

Feuer is also interested in knowing the criteria the Presbyterian Peacemakers use to choose their speakers.

Mark Wilson, a Jew who is a professor of geology at the college, says he was approached by a number of students following Makhlouf's presentations, one held during an ethics class, and another at an open public lecture. The students told him they "were rather amazed" by what they saw and heard.

Relatively few Jews attend the college, notes Wilson, so there didn't seem to be much of an outcry against Makhlouf's presentations. Nevertheless, he says, an apology should have been issued.

Also disturbing, Wilson adds, is the response some of the more virulently antisemitic speakers receive. "Fawaz Damra (imam of the Islamic Center of Cleveland and recently cited for lying about his ties to terrorist organizations) was invited here, and while I don't mind having him on campus, I was disturbed that no mention was made of his recent past."

While he's not sure how many students or faculty came to hear Damra, Wilson says there was a "very large turnout of people from the area who cheered him and cheered him."

The Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church, proclaims a "commitment to peacemaking" on its Web site. They profess "a journey of racial justice and understanding" as well as commitment to overcoming prejudice.

Sweet Young, an administrative assistant for the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, told the CJN that no one from the organization would be available to comment on the October presentation by Makhlouf until some time in February. She directed questions to Gordon Shull, who hosted the speaker in Wooster.

Shull, a Presbyterian and former professor at the College of Wooster, admits he understands some students may have been offended. He is also aware that non-Jewish students may have come away with erroneous and harmful information about the validity of the Protocols. However, he says, he "would not encourage them (Peacemaker organization) to issue an apology. I'm not into apologies or casting blame."

Shull sent out e-mails to the College of Wooster faculty intimating that the speaker's presence at the college was actually the responsibility of the Israeli government because the Palestinian speaker he had initially tried to get was unable to secure a travel visa. He repeated the charge several times in a phone interview with this reporter that he felt the speaker's appearance could be blamed on the Israeli government. Shull later called back saying he would like to retract that sentiment.

In further deflecting responsibility from himself, Shull said, "I regret that the director of the Hillel Foundation (Professor Peter Pozefsky) chose to be offended by it, rather than take it as a teachable event."

Pozefsky a professor of history who has assumed the Hillel post as a volunteer, has pretty much singly-handedly raised concerns to fellow staff and administration about speakers such as Makhlouf and Damra. He estimates that at least seven such individuals making antisemitic remarks have spoken at the college in the past few years.

"There are plenty of people who are willing to say this is awful, but no one is willing to put their necks on the line," he says. "I shouldn't be the only one making sure Jews aren't trashed on this campus."

Pozefsky likens the Makhlouf fiasco to the response he received to requests he raised before Damra came to speak. "I didn't want to censor him," he says. "I just wanted students to know who he was before he spoke."

Pozefsky e-mailed his concerns on the faculty listserve, but the response he got "was a combination of hostility and complacency." On one occasion, a colleague accused him of trying to violate free speech. Another time, he was accused of harassment.

After the Presbyterian Peacemaker presentation, Pozefsky found himself once again in the position of attempting to rectify the damage made by a speaker's slanderous allegations against Jews. While he didn't attend the lectures, some of the students expressed their concerns to him. One student told him that he found "the illusion Makhlouf painted about Jewish bankers and their domination of the West" particularly disturbing. So was a slide that read, "May God bless our martyrs; may they find peace in the heavens."

"There are very few Jewish students on campus," Pozefsky points out, "and they don't want to be activists or seem like crybabies." However, he notes, these young people are in the care of the college, and their feelings and well-being should be taken into consideration. Further, he says, non-Jewish students have gotten "terribly shamefully biased, unscholarly and misleading, stridently antisemitic information as part of their (college) education.

"If women or blacks were spoken about like this, or if someone came and spread homophobic hate speech, that would never be tolerated," he says. "Is this acceptable because it was directed toward Jews?"

R. Stanton Hales, president of the College of Wooster, did not return calls to the CJN. John Hopkins, assistant vice president for college relations and marketing, e-mailed the CJN to say that Hales will "make a statement once he has determined all the facts to his satisfaction." He did not give a date when that would be.

Anti-dhimmitude in Denmark

Jihadist khutbas are not welcome in Denmark. From the Guardian, with thanks to Andy Bannister:

Denmark is tightening its immigration rules to make it harder for fundamentalist Muslim clerics to settle in the country and establish radical communities.

The move is designed to encourage Muslims to integrate into wider Danish society but is bound to attract criticism that it is discriminatory.

Indeed, it is bound to. But where is the guarantee that imams will not preach jihadist hatred in the mosques?

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the prime minister, said the measure would affect all religious groups, but a rightwing political party admitted it was principally intended to tackle Islamic extremism.

Denmark's 170,000 Muslims account for 3% of the population and are the second largest religious community after the Lutheran church, followed by four-fifths of the country's 5.3 million strong population.

"Access to obtaining a Danish residence permit for foreign missionaries has been too easy up until now," Mr Rasmussen said. "That is why we are putting forward new requirements for residing in the country."

Critics complained that the influence of radical imams had been exaggerated, while the government said it merely wanted to encourage integration.

"This is to make sure that they are worthy of the trust society shows by letting them in," a spokesman said yesterday.

Supporters of the measure accuse foreign clerics of urging Muslim immigrants to stick to customs such as wearing the veil, female circumcision and stopping women from working and learning Danish.

Mr Rasmussen's minority centre-right government relies on the anti-immigrant Danish People's party's to pass legislation. The proposed changes are part of a deal reached last year with the People's party and the opposition Social Democrats.

The new rules will require any person coming to Denmark on a religious visa to show that they are a "worthy" candidate, are educated, financially self-supporting and connected with one of 200 recognised religious communities.

The DPP, which proposed the changes, confirmed they were aimed to curb the activities of Muslim clerics, or imams. "In theory, these rules concern all clerics from all religions," said Peter Skaarup, a party spokesman. "But in practice, they target the imams."

Like France, the Netherlands and other western European countries, Denmark has been struggling with Muslim issues since before, but especially after, the September 11 attacks on the US.

Danish media have reported the case of an imam who praised Osama bin Laden in his Friday sermons.

Baghdad Pastor Shot Dead

When dhimmis get out of line, they forfeit their contract of protection. One of the ways they do that is by proselytizing. Thanks to FreedomNowNews for forwarding this:

On Saturday, February 14, 2004 at approximately 4:30 pm local time in Baghdad, a van loaded with four Americans was attacked in an execution style attack. The attack occurred near the village of Mahmodia which is about one half hour south of Baghdad. The four passengers were: Pastor John Kelley, Pastor Kirk Di Vietro, Pastor David Davis and Pastor Garland Carey. Their van was sprayed with automatic weapon fire. The attack came from a small passenger car that was behind the van. The car passed the van on the right side and repeatedly sprayed the vehicle with bullets. Three of the men in the van received minor wounds, but Pastor John Kelly of the Curtis Corner Baptist, Wakefield Rhode Island, was killed in the attack. The driver of the van saved the lives of the other three men by evasive driving tactics and delivering the en to an Iraqi hospital. He was not injured, although the van was damaged considerably. The US Army got involved at the hospital and supervised their examinations and medical attention. A member of the US Consulate contacted me and delivered the three survivors safely into my hands at approximately 10:30 pm. They have each one talked with their families and they are resting today. We have been assured that they will be able to fly from Baghdad soon. I personally called Mrs. Kelley with this information. We are in contact with the US Military command and are awaiting instructions.

This was a tragic loss. Pastor Kelley has been a close associate of mine for many years. We have worked on a number of projects together in the work of the Lord. he was volunteer for this team, as were the other members. He requested permission to come and he has certainly been a blessing to all with whom he has had contact. My grief is without description. He was a great man. He served in the US Marines, pastored for more than 25 years and was a pillar of Christian manhood.

Robert Lewis, in Baghdad

If you would like to send a sympathy card to Mrs. Kelly, you may do so at
the following address.

Mrs. Kelley
Curtis Corner Baptist Church
591 Curtis Corner Rd
Wakefield, RI

Out of context in Australia

The Mufti of Australia and New Zealand, Taj Al-Din Hamed Abdallah Al-Hilali (the one who claimed Australia was originally Muslim), has come under fire for his remarks praising jihad and suicide bombing. His defense? His remarks were "taken out of context."

I couldn't begin to count the times that Muslim spokesmen have told me I am taking Qur'an quotes, or Hadith quotes, or the words of radical Muslims, out of context. It is an all-purpose defense, but it's a lazy and ultimately ineffective one. What possible context could justify or mitigate incitements to mass murder? And even if the Qur'an's injunction to "slay unbelievers wherever you find them" (Sura 9:5) really does only apply to some of the Prophet Muhammad's opponents, it is not being wrenched out of this context by "venomous Orientalists" like me, but by radical Muslims around the world who seem unimpressed by arguments that this behavior was restricted to Muhammad's day. And why are they unimpressed? Because the entire context of the Qur'an and the way it is traditionally interpreted by Muslims does not teach that this verse cannot be applied to contemporary situations. Moreover, if the Prophet behaved that way, his actions in this as in everything else are exemplary -- so even the argument used by the "out-of-context" folks doesn't blunt the force of this verse or keep it from being used by radicals.

What is needed is thoroughgoing reform that will rule out radical Muslim exegesis of the Qur'an as an option for Muslims. Shallow, tiresome bleats of "out of context" and "religion of peace" don't quite accomplish this.

From The Australian, with thanks to Kevin:

A SENIOR Liberal MP today urged the Federal Government to consider action against the leader of Australia's Muslims for praising Islamic suicide bombers and calling for a holy war against Israel. . . .

Christopher Pyne, parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Family and Community Services, said he was appalled and horrified by Sheik Alhilali's alleged support for violence.

But a spokesman for the Sydney-based Mufti said he had been taken out of context. . . .

The Mufti's spokesman in Sydney, Keysar Trad, said MEMRI had taken the Muslim leader out of context.

"The Mufti is a proponent of peace and peaceful solutions to any conflict," he told ABC radio.

"I spoke to him today and he assured me that the context in which he made his message was not in the way that it was reported by these people."

Mr Trad said the Mufti believed Muslim resistance fighters may target occupying military forces, but not civilians.

He said the Mufti was not urging people to carry out suicide bombings.

"He is saying, let's not condemn them because these people are making a major sacrifice to protect their country," said Mr Trad, of the Lebanese Muslim Association.

Nor was the Mufti calling for a war against Israel.

"He was not so much calling for a jihad in the nature of war, but in the nature of what will get that country to respect the United Nations resolutions."

Hmm. A peaceful jihad to force respect for UN resolutions. That's a new one.

Sharia alert: Living in fear of Pakistan's new 'Taliban' regime

The seriousness of those who want to impose Sharia and all its restrictions (including the prohibition of music) upon Pakistan (where dhimmi Christians already have it bad enough) is illustrated by this Telegraph story about the terrorization of a Pakistani pop singer. It also contains interesting information about how these radical Muslims want to force women to wear the veil. (Thanks to Jeffrey Imm.)

Fame was no protection for one of Pakistan's most celebrated pop stars when he indulged in the "un-Islamic" practice of singing in public.

Gulzar Alam was beaten with rifle butts and fists when 20 policemen armed with AK47s raided a wedding party where he was performing.

"They are trying to be the Taliban," said Mr Alam. "They are trying to impose this Islamic system. But music is our tradition and it reflects our culture."

Covered in bruises, he was dragged to the cells in the frontier city of Peshawar and locked up for four hours before friends secured his release.

Mr Alam, 42, said: "The police said, 'This music is banned'. They swore at me. They treated me like a very low person. This province has become a police state."

Mr Alam had fallen foul of the Islamist coalition running Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. For the first time, extreme religious parties have won outright control of the government of this crucial area near the border with Afghanistan.

They have a simple manifesto: to reinvent the Taliban in a corner of Pakistan.

Since winning power less than 18 months ago the coalition has banned anyone from playing music or singing in public and confiscated thousands of music tapes from the bazaars. These were heaped on a huge bonfire in Peshawar and set alight by the local police chief.

Videotapes of test cricket matches were also thrown on to the flames because the authorities had noticed that shots of the crowds showed fleeting glimpses of unveiled women.

The ritual - a conscious imitation of the frequent bonfires of "un-Islamic" material staged by the Taliban regime in Kabul - was followed by the closure of Peshawar's only theatre.

Near the deserted Nishter Hall, once the centre of a community of 350 actors and musicians, a billboard carrying an advertisement for shoes was damaged. Black paint covered the faces of two women.

Across the province almost all billboards carrying pictures of women have been torn down or sprayed. At the Shabistan cinema in Peshawar colourful hoardings that once tempted passers-by with pictures of women clad in bright saris and men brandishing guns have been removed. Anodyne pictures of eagles and lions have replaced them.

Mr Alam believes that the Islamists are waging a vendetta against the entire artistic community. As the province's most famous performer, he has been singled out for harassment.

Two months after beating him up at the wedding party, police raided Mr Alam's house in Peshawar's Old City.

By chance, he was away, so they arrested his brother, Alam Khan, 25, and his sons, Salman, 19, and Shan, 13. They were beaten and held in the cells overnight on trumped-up charges of kidnapping two Afghan children.

When the provincial assembly meets next month the authorities will press ahead with the next stage of their campaign. They will introduce a law creating a new body modelled on the Taliban's "ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice".

This will have sweeping powers to intervene in any area of life and uphold "Islamic standards". The law will also create a parallel police and judicial system to implement a Sharia Law Act passed by the provincial assembly last year.

"This is the most dangerous development," said Afrasiab Khattak, from the Pakistan Human Rights Commission. "It will allow the government to intervene in anything, without challenge from the courts." The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal coalition which runs the provincial government insists that there is no cause for concern. Malik Zafar Azam, the justice and parliamentary affairs minister, shies away from comparisons with the Taliban and points out the Islamists won 67 of the local assembly's 124 seats in free elections in 2002.

"We are doing what the people want us to do," he said. "We have given them security. You can go where you want in safety here."

The Islamists have also pledged to segregate tertiary education by building a new women's university in Peshawar, with women forced to wear veils. "The value of a person is in one's mind, not in what one wears," said Saman Mushtaq, 20, a business studies student at Peshawar University.

"They should not impose the veil upon us."

Indonesian churches attacked

From Compass Direct:

Muslim protestors have attacked at least four churches over the past three weeks in the regions of East Java, West Java and North Sumatra, Indonesia.

A crowd of approximately 100 people attacked the Gereja Protestan Indonesia (GPI) church in East Bekasi on January 9. Government officials had given permission for the church to renovate an old house which they had used as a church since 1975. However, leaders of the local Amar Ma’arut mosque encouraged Muslim neighbors to protest against the renovations. Church members met with local government and mosque officials on January 12 and agreed to suspend renovations temporarily.

Meanwhile, two other churches were attacked in Surubaya in late December and early January, and a bomb was placed in another church in Medan, North Sumatra. Muslim protestors forced the two churches in Surabaya, East Java, to close their doors. The pastor of one of the churches received death threats from the attackers.

Jenny Tonge defends suicide attacks again

British MP Jenny Tonge, who ran into trouble last month for her remarks in "empathy" with suicide bombing, has done it again. She was sent by BBC Radio 4's Today show to meet families and victims of suicide bombers, and filed this report (thanks to Andy Bannister for the link).

My remarks last month, expressing empathy with suicide bombers, had been misinterpreted by the tabloids as meaning sympathy and approval.

It was, therefore, with some trepidation that I travelled from Jerusalem to the checkpoint out to Bethlehem and the Occupied Territories. . . .

In Israel, the armed forces have F16 fighter planes, helicopter gun-ships, tanks, even nuclear weapons.

The disparity was pointed out to me by a civil society group in Bethlehem, when I asked why Palestinians used suicide bombers.

"Tell the US to give us the arms that Israel has and we will stop such attacks," was the response.

What then is the explanation for suicide bombings against civilians in Chechnya, Kashmir, Bali, etc.?

We met up with some al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terrorists after lurking guiltily in Manger Square waiting for them to arrive.

We were taken to a safe Christian house, where two bearded, shaded, skull-capped men, one with a black Kalashnikov, sat on a sofa near a huge wall hanging of Jesus the Good Shepherd.

They had heard about my remarks and were pleased that I understood the reasons why they were terrorists, even "proud" of me. This was spine-chilling.

More re-assuring was the statement that they now accepted that Israel had a right to exist and their campaign would stop when Israel withdrew to its 1967 borders, removed settlements and returned Jerusalem to the Palestinians.

It is a different message from the one we have been used to.

Yet one to be taken at face value, Ms. Tonge?

We visited the family of a suicide bomber. The stories of indoctrination of little children right through their schooldays didn't seem to apply here.

The brothers of Mohamed showed no signs of this and his mother claimed she had no idea her son was planning this until the al-Aqsa Brigade delivered his "memorial" picture taken before the mission.

It is certainly true that suicide bombers are regarded as national heroes here, but what else do they have - born out of despair and the desire to resist occupation, laced with religious belief.

Civilian targets are chosen because there is no way of getting at military targets.

That may be the most credulity-straining phrase in this whole piece. It also blissfully ignores the many justifications issued by Islamic spokesmen for attacks against civilians, proclaiming that "there are no civilians in Israel."

We visited the spot where the Angel Gabriel "came down" to the shepherds in their fields and drove back to Jerusalem as a rainbow formed over the golden city - surely one of the most beautiful places on earth.

The next day back in Israel, I couldn't find anyone who was willing to see why the Palestinians resorted to suicide attacks.

You don't say!

Some of the Israeli arguments had truth in them, but it was all so negative.

Well then, how could they be true? The truth is always positive, of course!

Until, late in the day, we met a single mother whose 15-year-old daughter had been killed in the local supermarket by an 18-year-old female suicide bomber.

Grief-stricken, she had tried to contact the bomber's family, only to find they were "proud" of their daughter.

The idea that anyone could see this kind of thing justified in any way is barbaric.

But then she received a letter from a Palestinian mother expressing her condolences and asking for a meeting. Her young, civilian son had been killed by an Israeli soldier. They were going to meet.

I left this woman feeling that there was the first sign of reconciliation; we know there are many such people in Israel and Palestine, fed up with the stupidity of their leaders.

I hope these people win out in the end. But Tonge isn't helping.

U.S. May Veto Islamic Law in Iraq

Paul Bremer has apparently weighed in against Sharia in Iraq. From AP:

The top U.S. administrator in Iraq suggested Monday he would block any interim constitution that would make Islam the chief source of law, as some members of the Iraqi Governing Council have sought.

L. Paul Bremer said the current draft of the constitution would make Islam the state religion of Iraq and "a source of inspiration for the law" — as opposed to the main source.

Many Iraqi women have expressed fears that the rights they hold under Iraq's longtime secular system would be rolled back in the interim constitution being written by U.S.-picked Iraqi leaders and their advisers, many of them Americans. U.S. lawmakers have urged the White House to prevent Islamic restrictions on Iraqi women.

Asked what would happen if Iraqi leaders wrote into the constitution that Islamic sharia law is the principal basis of the law, Bremer suggested he would wield his veto. "Our position is clear. It can't be law until I sign it," he said.

Bremer must sign into law all measures passed by the 25-member council, including the interim constitution. Iraq's powerful Shiite clergy, however, has demanded the document be approved by an elected legislature. Under U.S. plans, a permanent constitution would not be drawn up and voted on until 2005.

Bremer used the inauguration ceremony at a women's center in the southern city of Karbala to argue for more than "token" women's representation in the transitional government due to take power June 30.

"I think it is very important that women be represented in all the political bodies," Bremer said.

"Women are the majority in this country, in this area probably a substantial majority," he said, referring to the Saddam Hussein's 1991 purges of Shiite Muslim men. Those killings left the holy city of Karbala and other Shiite cities dotted with mass graves and brimming with thousands of widows.

Bremer and an entourage of reporters flew from Baghdad into this Shiite holy city in a pair of U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters. He toured a women's center renovated by U.S. and seized Iraqi funds, pausing to chat with women and girls who were sewing curtains and surfing the Internet.

In a speech to about 100 women — most dressed in flowing black abayas and some with tattooed chins — Bremer cited a 2003 United Nations report that found that productivity in Arab countries was being strangled because women had been kept out of the work force. Bremer suggested that women's participation did not run counter to Muslim values.

"Women who can read and write and understand mathematics are not prevented from being good mothers. Quite the opposite," Bremer told the gathering. "No son is better off because his mother and sisters cannot read."

Nawal Jabar, 44, whose husband was killed in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, said she joined the women's center to learn a trade.

"Either my mother or my brother has supported me from time to time since my husband died," Jabar said. "It's a very bad situation. But I am hoping I can get a job here so that I can support my kids."

Enshrining women's rights in a constitution could be difficult. U.S. observers have predicted liberal reforms introduced in the transitional law could well be rolled back in a future constitution. Bremer acknowledged that U.S. influence on an Iraqi constitution would fade after the June 30 handover.

"There will be a sovereign government here in June. The Iraqis then will then have responsibility for their own country," Bremer said. "There's a real hunger for democracy in this country. It may not look like American democracy, but there's a real hunger for it and we're encouraging that."

There are three women on the Governing Council.

Mohsen Abdel-Hamid, the current council president and a member of a committee drafting the interim constitution, has proposed making Islamic sharia law the "principal basis" of legislation.

The phrasing could have broad effects on secular Iraq. In particular, it would likely make moot much of Iraq's 1959 Law of Personal Status, which grants uniform rights to husband and wife to divorce and inheritance, and governs related issues like child support.

Under most interpretations of Islamic law, women's rights to seek divorce are strictly limited and they only receive half the inheritance of men. Islamic law also allows for polygamy and often permits marriage of girls at a younger age than secular law.

In December, the council passed a decision abolishing the 1959 law and allowing each of the main religious groups to apply its own tradition — including Islamic law. Many Iraqi women expressed alarm at the decision, and Bremer has not signed it into law.

Earlier this month, 45 members of the U.S. House of Representatives signed a letter to President Bush urging him to preserve women's rights.

"It would be a tragedy beyond words if Iraqi women lost the rights they had under Saddam Hussein, especially when the purpose of our mission in Iraq was to make life better for the Iraqi people," the letter read.

Dhimmitude from Lord Norman Lamont

The former British chancellor of the exchequer, Lord Norman Lamont, has criticized the French headscarf ban in a speech in Pakistan. Lamont talked some sense about Islamic terrorism, but then lapsed into nonsense. From HiPakistan, with thanks to Bassam Madany and Nicolei:

He observed that 9/11 dramtically [sic] increased awareness in the US and Europe of terrorists who claimed to be acting in the name of Islam. "Most Muslims are not fundamentalists, and most fundamentalists are not terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslims and proud of it. When Muslims ask why are Irish terrorists and Basque terrorists not described as Christian, the answer is simple. They do not describe themselves like that. Many in the West react in an enormous information vacuumm [sic]. Many see only media stereotypes portraying Islam through distorted lenses focussing purely on terrorists, religious extremists and oppressed women. Others see the religious revival of Islam throughout the world. They fear that fundamentalists, who too often they equate with extremists, want to turn every Muslim society into a theocracy fanning the flames of hatred against the West in order to wage Jihad and restore the Caliphate throughout a large part of the world," he said.

But then came the nonsense:

Mr Lamont said: "Islam's attitude towards other religions is more tolerant than that of Christianity. The Prophet (PBUH) and his community in Medina accepted the co-existence of Muslims, Jews and Christians. The Prophet (PBUH) discussed and debated with, and gave freedom of religious thought and practice to, Jews and Christians. When the Catholic rulers of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, drove out the Jews many found refuge in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire. When Muslims conquered Byzantine [sic] they were welcomed by some Christians who were persecuted as heretics. The Muslim conquerers proved to be far more tolerant than imperial Christianity had been. During the Crusades despite the conflict Muslims tolerated the practice of Christianity, an example not emulated by the other side. The Ottoman Empire, for the most part, is an example of the positive treatment of religious minorities in a Muslim majority context."

Lord Norman should look again at the history of dhimmitude, as I outline it in Onward Muslim Soldiers and as has been amply documented by the renowned historian Bat Ye'or in her books The Dhimmi, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam, and Islam and Dhimmitude. It is nice to dream of Islamic tolerance, but the fact is that discrimination against non-Muslims is part of Islamic law and always has been. It does no good to anyone to pretend otherwise. What is needed instead of obfuscations like Lord Norman's is a forthright effort to reform Islamic law, so that it comes into line with true equality of rights as outlined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Does discrimination cause jihad terrorism?

Australian commentator Tanveer Ahmed thinks it does. He writes in The Australian (with thanks to Nicolei):

Numerous perpetrators of the September 11 attacks, remember, were raised and educated in the West. A French study looked at the life of one of them, Moussaoui.

He came to France as a young child and had a relatively normal upbringing in the outer suburbs of Paris where there are large numbers of Muslim immigrants. He was an average student in school and showed no signs of pathological behaviour.

His first moves towards extremist Islam coincided with being discriminated against in the workplace and in leisure situations.

There was one clear incident where a bouncer denied him entry to a Parisian nightclub, telling him openly it was because he was an Arab. Moussaoui's brother tells the French sociologists that his interest in Islam began soon afterwards. The rest is history.

The study went on to hypothesise that extremist Islam was only an option when being French no longer seemed a possibility.

The man who kidnapped The Wall Street Journal writer, Daniel Pearl, was born in Britain, studied at an English public school and then at the London School of Economics - not known for its "madrasah" qualities. His parents were Pakistani migrants. Ahmed Omar Sheikh said he wasn't British or Pakistani, just Muslim. He said he could never be accepted by the "racist" British.

It is something I see in my younger, second-generation Arab or Asian psychiatric patients in Sydney. It is difficult for them to feel deep ties to the country of their parents. They see the pictures on the walls, may speak some of the language but ultimately have never lived there. And when they have visited, for the majority, it is the first time they have felt Australian.

But living in Australia, the recurring motifs of Australian life - sun, beer and sport - do not connect with the migrant experience. Nor do the myths and legends of outback Australia have resonance. Their non-white appearance is often commented upon at work or school. These are not usually racist or discriminatory remarks but highlight a sense of the foreign nevertheless. Perhaps notions of mateship and egalitarianism do resonate but they are not enough to drive home a feeling of being Australian.

What often fills the void is religion. This is where their search for identity finds a voice. And it is not necessarily Islam. Christianity or Buddhism can have just such a transformative effect.

But for groups that may suffer from feelings of exclusion or discrimination, Islam provides the deepest connection. Islam has become the religion of choice for the dispossessed, the poor or the oppressed.

From African-Americans to Afghan refugees, Islam cushions a feeling of disconnection. A religion now defined by its ability to turn feelings of frustration and defeat to outright defiance, it can win the hearts of those longing to belong.

I visited a weekly gathering of Muslims, led by a charismatic Egyptian cleric, that a young Arab patient began attending in Sydney. The patient was of Lebanese background and had been depressed. His malaise was deeply rooted in a feeling of disconnection.

But he seemed to be improving since attending these meetings. The group was dominated by those under the age of 30. Everyone I met had a university degree and spoke in an Australian accent.

Despite having plenty of great things to say about Australia as a country and a sense of gratitude at the opportunities they were given, many of the youths felt they could never be accepted as an Australian, that they would remain on the cultural fringes. They felt their ties could not extend beyond the economic.

But I saw no evidence of a turn towards extremism. This would require a stimulus from the outside world. For Moussaoui, it came when he was rejected from somewhere as apolitical as a nightclub. For others, it may be a missed promotion, an unjust encounter with the police or perhaps expulsion from school for inappropriate dress.

This ignores, of course, the role of traditional Islamic jihad ideology in fomenting this extremism. As Nicolei points out, "to blame Islamic militancy on their host/adopted nations is shift the blame from themselves and the religion that fosters jihad. Other migrants such as non-Muslim Indians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Black Africans face the same struggles as the Muslims, yet they do not turn to militancy to solve their problems."

Australian Muslim women embrace the hijab

Says Australian Muslim teenager Feda Abdo: "People think we have no choice -- that we are forced to wear it. Most young Muslim women choose to wear it."

That's great. But what if Ms. Abdo lived in an Islamic state — say, Iran? We recently saw that there, "Women had fought in the revolution so that their choices would be expanded. They had donned the veils at the demonstrations against the Shah to say that nobody could stop them from wearing the veil if they wanted. The Islamic regime reversed their statement and made it impossible for women to choose not to practice the hijab." Would Feda Abdo defend the rights of non-Muslims and non-practicing Muslims not to wear the hijab?

From the Daily Telegraph, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

More young Sydney women are choosing to wear the hijab, or head scarf, to show pride in their religion and encourage others to understand Islam rather than fear it.

At a time when the wearing of the veil has come under intense attack in Europe, Muslim women in Sydney are taking up the practice in unprecedented numbers.

Shops and internet sites selling the hijab have reported a spike in sales in recent months.

The shift in visibility of Muslim women in post-"war on terror" Australian society has also led to the introduction of a magazine aimed at twenty-something Muslim women, featuring fashion articles and cooking tips.

Nineteen-year-old student Feda Abdo said more of her friends were choosing to identify their religion.

"More Muslim women are taking a stand and asserting their identity," Ms Abdo told The Daily Telegraph.

"The hijab is an expression of your identity."

Ms Abdo has worn the veil for seven years since her parents allowed her to make a decision.

Her sister did not make the transition until she was well into her teens.

"People think we have no choice -- that we are forced to wear it," said Ms Abdo, who has two drawers full of scarves.

"Most young Muslim women choose to wear it."

Ms Abdo said that by wearing the veil, she was encouraging non-Muslims to ask questions about her religion and help them "understand".

Abdul Shukr, who runs an internet store selling "traditional" Muslim attire for men and women, said there had been an increase in demand in recent months.

"I do believe there are more and more Muslim, and non-Muslim, women donning the hijab," Mr Shukr said.

Dhimmitude and the NGO's

"The major international and Palestinian NGOs were conspicuously silent following the January 29, 2004 Jerusalem suicide bombing that murdered 11 people. Indeed, Oxfam, Miftah, HRW, and Save the Children, all of whom claim to advocate the universal human rights, failed to even produce a passing news item." This from NGO Monitor, with thanks to IMRA.

However, in sharp contrast to the above-mentioned NGOs, Amnesty International “strongly” condemned the attack, and demanded that, “Palestinian armed groups put an immediate end to suicide bombings and other deliberate attacks against civilians.” In addition, Amnesty noted that such “deliberate and systematic targeting of civilians constitutes crimes against humanity.”

It should be noted that Amnesty International released its condemnation of the Jerusalem suicide bombing on the same day the attack took place – a marked improvement over the organizations’ previous response to the November 15, 2003 Istanbul Synagogue bombings, which was voiced five days after the assault.

EMHRN, founded “to promote dialogue and respect for human rights and diverse cultures throughout the Euro-Mediterranean region”, simply recycled the above-mentioned Amnesty press release condemning the Jerusalem bombing. EMHRN reacted similarly to the November 15, 2003 Istanbul Synagogue bombings, when it re-posted press releases of Amnesty and HRW regarding the attacks.

The failure of the major international and Palestinian NGOs to explicitly condemn the latest Jerusalem suicide bombing and previous attacks against Jewish and Israeli targets both in Israel and abroad raises serious questions about their adherence to an unbiased human rights agenda.

Tolerance in Britain: Prominent Jews targeted by Muslims and neo-Nazis

In Canada, a Muslim association got Bill Baker to speak; in Britain, "prominent Jews in Britain are being targeted in a wave of anti-Semitic harassment by far-Right and Islamic fundamentalist organisations." From the Telegraph, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:

The home of Lord Triesman, the former general secretary of the Labour party, has been attacked by Combat 18, the neo-Nazi group. Uri Geller, the Israeli television personality, and Barbara Roche, the former Labour minister, have been the victims of graffiti and hate mail. The incidents have emerged as police prepare to release figures this week showing that Britain saw a significant rise in anti-Semitic incidents in 2003.

Mike Whine, the security spokesman for the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said that the problem of prejudice directed towards Jews on the European mainland was spreading to Britain. "Tensions in the Middle East and the rise of far-Right activity have come together to produce a depressing increase in anti-Semitic activity," he said.

Mr Whine, who works closely with the police to monitor anti-Semitic attacks on synagogues and Jewish graves, said that extremist Islamic groups are behind many anti-Semitic incidents. "There is reliable evidence from the police to prove that an increasing number of incidents are committed by sympathisers of the Palestinians and Islamists.

"The promotion of anti-Semitism by the Arab media and by Islamist organisations worldwide is having a significant effect on the attitudes of Muslim communities around the world towards the Jews." . . .

Abu Hamza, the hook-handed former cleric of Finsbury Park mosque, north London, was reported to the police yesterday for preaching alleged anti-Semitic comments about the Holocaust.

He is one of a number of extremist Islamic clerics who have been accused of encouraging anti-Semitic views among young Muslims.

Dhimmitude in Morton Grove, Illinois

In the course of a Boston Globe story about a dispute over a Muslim school and mosque that Muslims are planning to expand in Morton Grove, Illinois, this exchange is reported:

Many residents expressed concerns regarding what they called the "side issue" of outside funding. "I read that most of the mosques in France are being built with money from Saudi Arabia, from the Saudi royal family, and is that the case with you?" one resident asked Kaiseruddin, who has said that funding for the mosque would not come from outside the United States. Students often pass around collection boxes at Friday services.

John Mauck, a lawyer for the Muslim Education Center, says the learning process for residents has been gradual. "That's not the question that would be asked if the Vatican were sending money for a church," Mauck said of the Saudi funding question. "To say that type of thing, I think people aren't thinking through whether they're being biased in their fears."

"That's not the question that would be asked if the Vatican were sending money for a church"?? You know, there's a reason for that: there is no evidence that the Vatican is funding international terrorism, and doing it through churches. Can the same thing be said for Saudi Arabia and the mosques it has established in the United States and around the world?

One would think that after all the publicity that Wahhabis have received, Mauck would not have been able to get away with a howler like that. But of course this is consistent with the strategy being used Congressman Peter King: distract and divert. Rebut questions about terrorist activity by charging that the questioner is just a bigot.

CAIR demands that Bush repudiate King

Predictably, the Council on American Islamic Relations wants the President to denounce Congressman Peter King. From HiPakistan, with thanks to Nicolei:

An Islamic civil rights and advocacy group on Thursday called on President Bush and other political and religious leaders to repudiate remarks by a New York's Republican congressman Rep. Peter T. King, who claimed that the vast majority of American Muslim community leaders are "an enemy living amongst us" and that "no (American) Muslims" cooperate in the war on terror.

This is overstated. On the other hand, in light of the fact that it was a Muslim — Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani — who first asserted (before a State Department Open Forum) that 80% of American mosques are controlled by extremists, it is by no means clear that King is simply indulging in uninformed ranting. The extent of support for Islamic terrorism among American Muslims has never been investigated, and it should be.

Mr King, who serves on the Select Committee on Homeland Security and the International Relations Committee, made the assertion on Sean Hannity's nationally-syndicated Radio talk show while promoting a book he had written recently.

"It is unconscionable that an elected official would defame America's Islamic leaders and ordinary Muslims, including those in his own district, just to sell a few more books for personal gain," said CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad.

"President Bush and other political and religious leaders should repudiate these baseless smears and reject the growing exploitation of legitimate fears of terrorism to marginalize an entire community."

While promoting his new novel "Veil of Tears," King complained that "no (American) Muslims are cooperating" with law enforcement officials to combat terrorism.

He added: "I would say, you could say that 80-85 percent of mosques in this country are controlled by Islamic fundamentalists. Those who are in control. The average Muslim, no, they are loyal, but they don't work, they don't come forward, they don't tell the police."

Mr King's novel, which he described as "half truth and half fiction," deals with future terrorist attacks by "Muslim extremists" in Nassau County, New York. During his segment on Hannity's program, King was particularly critical of an unnamed mosque in Westbury, New York which he accused of failing to adequately condemn terrorism.

When questioned by Hannity whether he was really claiming that 85 percent of mosques in America are "ruled by the extremists," King said: "Yes. And I can get you the documentation on that from experts in the field.

Talk to a Steve Emerson, talk to a (Daniel) Pipes, talk to any of those. They will tell you. It's a real issue', I'll stand by that number of 85 percent. This is an enemy living amongst us."

Steven Emerson and Daniel Pipes are regarded by many Muslims as America's leading Islamophobes. Pipes has claimed that up to 15 percent of all Muslims are "potential killers" and that the enfranchisement of American Muslims presents "true dangers" to the United States. Both are strong backers of Israelis policies against the Palestinians.

Emerson and Pipes are only regarded as "Islamophobes" by those who use that ridiculous label to try to smear honest men who are courageous enough to speak out against radical Islam in the United States.

Mr King also said that while most American Muslims are loyal to this country: "They won't turn in their own. They won't tell what's going on in the mosques. They won't come forward and cooperate with the police."

Again, when credible sources allege that a Muslim FBI agent refused to tape his interrogations of terror suspects, saying, "A Muslim doesn't record another Muslim," there are reasonable questions that need to be answered. But no answers are forthcoming from CAIR.

CAIR's director Awad said that since being among the first to condemn the 9-11 terror attacks, American Muslim leaders have frequently worked with law enforcement officials on the national, state and local levels. He also invited King to meet with local and national Islamic leaders to learn more about Muslims in America and their contributions to society.

Banning Valentine’s to fight crises of legitimacy

Majid Mohammadi explores the delicate and easily-wounded sensibilities of radical Muslims. As Muslims in Western Europe and the U.S. assert their right to maintain their culture and not assimilate, as Dyab Abou Jahjah of the Arab European League has insisted, we will see more of this sort of thing in the West: "In Saudi Arabia, for example, the Ministry of Commerce checks trademarks of imported goods to ensure there are no violations of religious law. . . . The criteria for recognizing something as “Western “ or “Christian” are totally subjective. A good example is the necktie, which is considered Christian and hence is forbidden in Iran; or the letter “X” that is forbidden in Saudi Arabia in trademarks because it is shaped like a cross. Everything disturbing the delicate sensibilities of Islamists is banned. Every summer, Iranian men have their arms spray-painted by Ansaar-e Hizbullah, the Iranian morality police, when they visit shopping areas in insufficiently conservative clothing. The same thing takes place in Saudi Arabia." In fact, this sensibility has already manifested itself in France, in attacks on girls not wearing hijab. From the Daily Star, with thanks to Nicolei:

On this Valentine’s Day, it is useful to examine how Western holidays and cultural habits are playing out in the Muslim world, particularly in two countries where a conservative version of Islam is buttressed by powerful religious establishments: Iran and Saudi Arabia. There are two strong ideological currents in both countries confronting one other. Reformers are offering more tolerant readings of Islam, against the proscriptions of religious establishments facing legitimacy crises.

The original arrangements between the Al-Saud and Mohammed Ibn Abdulwahab in late 18th-century Saudi Arabia, and between the Shiite ulama and the Qajar dynasty in early 20th-century Iran, were designed to resolve such crises of legitimacy. Clerics agreed to support the political leaderships, in exchange for Islam being made the ideology of the domain. Although this deal was breached in Iran during the Pahlavi era, culminating in the Islamic revolution, it was revived under the Islamic Republic. However, the new order was characterized by disagreements, first, between the Islamic left and right and, subsequently, between Islamists and reformists, amid a growing legitimacy crisis in an era of overwhelming democratic discourse.

These crises are best reflected in the policy toward public culture and morality. Morality and culture in Saudi Arabia and Iran are totally ideologized, and specifically enforced by religious policies of the state and government institutions, particularly “morality police” having a free hand in internal affairs ­ despite several catastrophic incidents where the actions of this “police” have led to violence against civilians, and indeed death. This free hand is granted because the Iranian and Saudi religious establishments offer legitimacy to the state. This has led to a crackdown on Western cultural commodities, ideas and institutions, amid increasing domestic demand for greater choice, democracy and vindication of human rights and the rule of law.

A good example is the different policies toward Christian and Western celebrations. There have always been major crackdowns on items related to Valentine’s Day or Christmas in both Iran and Saudi Arabia. Stores have been closed down or fined, and merchandise has been confiscated after coordinated campaigns of raids against “disobedient” outlets. In Iran, shopping centers that belong to Christians must make this fact clear at the entrance. This is one way of controlling the sale of forbidden materials. The religious establishments regard the Christian or Western celebrations as “pagan” (in Saudi Arabia) and as an embodiment of “cultural invasion” (in Iran).

Iranian Islamists are not only harsh when it comes to Western holidays. They still cannot accept Iranian celebrations such as Sizdah Bedar (celebrating the 13th day of spring) or Nowruz (Iranian New Year). The only holidays accepted are those mentioned in the Koran or by the Prophet Mohammed.

Restrictions are not usually declared as official policy in Iran or Saudi Arabia, but their enforcement is seen as a way of reestablishing the eroding authority of the Wahhabi or Shiite states. There are those in both societies who buy into such restrictive policies, because of the deep identity crisis in the Muslim world. The public wants to define itself as something different from the West and usually picks the simplest and least expensive way of doing that, namely through a policy of rejection.

At the same time, the public also wants to celebrate love, as on Valentine’s Day, in societies that prohibit worldly love other than between couples in prearranged marriages; people also want to dance and listen to music in public celebrations.

Enforcing religious policies is not limited to the morality police in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Every government office is obliged to implement such policies, and those who breach them are liable to bear the consequences. In Saudi Arabia, for example, the Ministry of Commerce checks trademarks of imported goods to ensure there are no violations of religious law. If the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice objects to a name or a specific commodity, the commerce ministry may refuse to register or clear it.
The criteria for recognizing something as “Western “ or “Christian” are totally subjective. A good example is the necktie, which is considered Christian and hence is forbidden in Iran; or the letter “X” that is forbidden in Saudi Arabia in trademarks because it is shaped like a cross. Everything disturbing the delicate sensibilities of Islamists is banned. Every summer, Iranian men have their arms spray-painted by Ansaar-e Hizbullah, the Iranian morality police, when they visit shopping areas in insufficiently conservative clothing. The same thing takes place in Saudi Arabia.

The members of the morality police consider themselves selfless. Indeed they must be. Could it be any different when these learned and faithful must confront apostates and infidels on a daily basis?

Tolerance in Saudi Arabia: Unhappy Valentine's Day

Tolerance in Saudi Arabia means non-Muslims can work there, but note: not only are Muslims not to celebrate it, but they are not to offer non-Muslims holiday greetings, and stores are not to sell any Valentines Day material. So while the Muslim majority is free not to celebrate the day, non-Muslims are not free to celebrate it. From Reuters, with thanks to Nicolei:

Saudi Arabia's religious authorities have ordered Muslims to shun the "pagan" holiday of Valentine's Day so as not to incur God's wrath, the local al-Riyadh newspaper says.

"It is a pagan Christian holiday and Muslims who believe in God and Judgment Day should not celebrate or acknowledge it or congratulate (people on it). It is a duty to shun it to avoid God's anger and punishment," said an edict issued by Saudi Arabia's fatwa committee published in the Arabic-language daily on Friday.

"There are only two holidays in Islam -- Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha -- and any other holidays, whether to celebrate an individual, group or event, are inventions which Muslims are banned from," said the committee, headed by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Abdullah al-Sheikh.

Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha are Muslim feasts that follow the annual fasting month of Ramadan and the haj pilgrimage.

The kingdom, which implements a strict version of Islamic law, bans non-Muslim holidays and its morality police usually conduct raids to ensure shops do not sell gifts or ornaments on New Year, Christmas or Valentine's Day, which is named after a Christian saint.

About seven million foreigners live in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam. Many of them are from Asian countries where Valentines' Day is celebrated.

Dhimmitude in Australia: Broadcaster Can't Call Hamas or Hizballah 'Terrorist Groups'

As news comes from France of possible terrorist attacks being planned for Australia, Australia itself is more concerned not to offend PC sensibilities. Broadcasters there can't refer to Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups, even though the Australian government lists Hizballah as a terrorist group and is likely to add Hamas soon. From CNSNews.com, with thanks to Jean-Luc:

Australia's national broadcaster has instructed its staff not to identify Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizballah as terrorist organizations, because they have not been designated as such by the United Nations.

The instruction comes despite the fact the Australian government has listed Hizballah as a terrorist group, and is likely to add Hamas and Islamic Jihad to the list soon.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation's head of international operations, John Tulloh, confirmed the policy Friday, in response to emailed queries.

An internal memo to ABC staff reportedly reads: "Please be careful with Middle Eastern references. Several recent slip-ups have attracted justified complaints. The ABC follows U.N. guidelines on proscribed groups: Hamas, Hizballah, and Islamic Jihad are not included in the U.N.'s list of terrorist organizations and therefore must not be described as such."

Tulloh declined to elaborate on the "justified complaints," saying that correspondence from ABC listeners and viewers was private.

Tulloh's memo reportedly continues to say that while the groups shouldn't be called terrorist, it is appropriate for the ABC to describe "a suicide bombing or similar outrage" as an act of terrorism, and to call a suicide bomber a terrorist.

Last year, Australia's federal parliament passed a law specifically listing Hizballah as a terrorist group.

Tulloh confirmed on Friday, however, that the ABC policy regarding Hizballah stood despite that law. . . .

After the Oct. 2002 bombings in Bali, in which 88 Australians were killed, parliament passed a law enabling the government to ban terrorist organizations.

But a civil liberty safeguard, incorporated into that law at the opposition's insistence, prevented the government from listing as a terrorist group any organization not on the U.N.'s terrorist list.

The U.N. list, which was drawn up by a committee set up prior to the 9/11 attacks to monitor sanctions against al-Qaeda and the Taliban, is restricted to "individuals and entities" linked to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

This has left Australia in the position of not being able to outlaw organizations that are not affiliated to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, despite serious concerns about other groups' activities. Hizballah is an exception, because of the specific legislation passed last year. . . .

Asked whether any future designation of Hamas and Islamic Jihad as terrorist groups would change the ABC's policy with respect to the two organizations, Tulloh replied: "not at this stage."

Terrorist criteria

Invited to comment, Tzvi Fleischer of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) said Friday the identification of terrorist organizations was not the problem the ABC claimed it was.

"Terrorist attacks are attacks directed primarily at civilians, and are generally readily identifiable, as even the ABC's own memo concedes," he said.

"A terrorist organization is one whose leadership espouses or claims credit for such attacks, or which has been identified by a legitimate court of law as having carried out such an attack, regardless of the cause in which the attacks was carried out. By this criteria, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizballah are unequivocally terrorist organizations."

Fleischer also questioned the policy of a taxpayer-funded Australian broadcaster to appeal to the U.N. as the "ultimate authority" when it came to designating organizations as terrorist.

"The U.N. is neither a judicial body, nor a world parliament, and the ABC was established to represent an Australian point of view, and not that of a political multinational organization in New York," he said. . . .

Critics have frequently accused the taxpayer-funded ABC of anti-establishment and left wing bias, and last year its coverage of the Iraq war came under fire from the minister responsible for communications.

Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, both Palestinian groups, have claimed responsibility for scores of suicide bombings and other attacks, costing hundreds of Israeli lives.

Tolerance in Kuwait: writer jailed for private lecture on Islamic Studies

The Sharia not only denies equality of rights to non-Muslims and women; it also tends to a totalitarian extinguishing of free thought. From the Index on Censorship, with thanks to Nicolei:

A one-year prison sentence was handed down to writer, journalist and researcher Yasser al-Habib on 20 January 2004, when he was reportedly convicted of 'questioning the conduct and integrity of some of the companions of the prophet Muhammad' in a lecture he had delivered.

Al-Habib, who has worked for several Arabic-language newspapers, including the monthly al-Menbar (The Pulpit), was abducted in Kuwait City on 30 November 2003 by unknown individuals and taken away in an unmarked vehicle. His family was not informed that he had been detained by security forces until the following day.

Al-Habib was reportedly arrested in connection with an audio cassette recording of a lecture he gave to a small audience in a private lecture on Islamic historical issues. His research is believed to have relied heavily on Wahhabi references and texts, and is said to have angered hardline Wahhabi groups who have used their influence within the establishment to bring about the maximum punishment against al-Habib. . . .

Al-Habib has reportedly been subject to several orchestrated violent attacks in prison by Wahhabi inmates.

Tolerance at UC Berkeley: MSA disrupts Pipes lecture

Even more distressing than this shameful account of how Daniel Pipes was mistreated at UC Berkeley is the fact that this sort of reception greets him on other campuses as well. Daniel Pipes is a man of great courage speaking out against a great evil. From ChronWatch, with thanks to Nicolei:

Pipes had anticipated problems beforehand and had warned supporters that the Muslim Student Association was planning to make an appearance. They had posted an announcement about the lecture at the leftist website SFIndyMedia.org, raving that a ''Zionist'' was coming to town, and exhorting members to show up. In fact, the lecture was moved to another site on campus to accomodate a larger audience, but the MSA students still managed to sniff it out. . . .

The tension in the air was thick, tempers were rising, and yet amidst it all, Pipes kept his cool. He managed to deliver his lecture, which covered the War on Terrorism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Iraq, but he was forced to stop many times. Pipes spoke directly to the protesters on several occasions, pointing out the irony of their undemocratic behavior, as well as mentioning casually that it is only when he speaks at college campuses that he requires such heavy security. He even brought up the fact that members of the MSA are currently under investigation for possible ties to terrorism.

Their reaction to his speech was telling.

When Pipes brought up the need to support moderate Muslims over those who subscribe to militant Islam, they booed.

When he brought up the need to improve the status of women in Islamic countries, they booed.

When he warned that peace in the Middle East would never be achieved as long as the Palestinians continued to subscribe to a ''cult of death,'' they booed.

When he mentioned Middle East Studies professors who have been arrested under terrorism charges, they booed.

When he discussed the need to combat Islamic terrorism, they booed.

When he referred to the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks as subscribers to militant Islam, they booed and shouted ''Zionism''--no doubt a reference to the myth that Jews were behind the attacks.

When Pipes brought up CampusWatch.org, the website he founded to provide a voice for students feeling oppressed by their leftist professors, they shouted out ''McCarthyism'' and of course ''racist'' yet again.

And when he mentioned Iraqis’ ''liberation'' from Saddam Hussein’s tyranny, they booed even louder.

''I’m sure the Iraqis were much better off under Saddam Hussein,'' Pipes responded sarcastically.

When it came time for the question and answer period, the group of MSA students all got up together and left, chanting ''racist'' and ''Zionist'' over and over again. However, a few stragglers were left in the audience and they eventually had to be escorted outside by the police because of their unruly behavior. One of them was the man who had been babbling outside about Gandhi. But this time he got down to basics, calling Pipes ''a racist Jew.'' Sadly, it took several more of these epithets before he was forcibly removed.

After the lecture, many Jews in the audience were visibly shaken. For those who hadn’t yet encountered Muslim hostility up close and personal, it was an eye-opening experience. Perhaps not all of UC Berkeley’s Muslim students subscribe to the anti-Semitic views of the MSA, but if that’s the case, they certainly didn’t make their voices heard that evening.

The fact is, radical Muslim students and their leftist counterparts are the most domineering, destructive, and dangerous forces in higher education today. If we’re to win the War on Terrorism, we may have to start with our own college campuses.

Anti-dhimmitude from Rep. Peter King

CAIR is fuming over remarks made by Congressman Peter King (R-NY), but refreshingly, he is not backing down. From Newsday, with thanks to Nicolei:

Rep. Peter King said Wednesday he continues to believe that 85 percent of the mosques in the United States have "extremist leadership," and that while most Muslims are "loyal Americans," they are reluctant to come forward to cooperate with law enforcement when they hear anti-American rhetoric or plots.

King's comments, first made on the Sean Hannity radio show Tuesday, prompted outrage from the American Muslim community. Ghazi Khankan, director of the Westbury-based Islamic Center of Long Island, called King "out of touch with the Muslim community" and said he was particularly offended because King has visited the center many times.

King (R-Seaford) said Wednesday he based his belief on extensive conversations he has had with law enforcement officials, both in New York and Washington, D.C.. He said the issue crystallized for him in the weeks following Sept. 11, 2001. At a community "solidarity" meeting at Temple Beth-El in Great Neck, Dr. Faroque Kahn of the Islamic Center criticized America's foreign policy toward Arab and Palestinian communities, prompting some Jewish attendees to walk out.

King said he used the information he got on Muslim leaders from law enforcement officials for a plot line in his new novel "Vale of Tears." In the book, a Muslim extremist group cooperates with remnants of the Irish Republican Army to plan a terrorist attack on the United States.

King also could have referred to the 1999 testimony before a State Department Open Forum of Sheikh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, a Sufi Muslim. As I detail in Onward Muslim Soldiers, Kabbani investigated American mosques (visiting them personally) and concluded that 80% were controlled by extremists. He has been similarly vilified by American Muslim advocacy groups since then, but he has them somewhat wrongfooted: they have to depart from their usual playbook, since it's hard to call him an anti-Muslim hatemonger.

"Most of the Muslim community is cooperating with police and local authorities," King said Wednesday . "But 85 percent of the mosques have extremist leadership in this country. Most Muslims, the overwhelming majority of Muslims, are loyal Americans but they seem unwilling to come forward."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim umbrella group based in Washington, D.C., and the Islamic Center both accused King of making the comments to sell his book.

"If he wrote about Muslim extremists in Nassau County, it is very much in poor taste, because extremists do not have a religion," said Khankan, adding that his mosque has offered cooperation in the fight against terrorism to Nassau, Suffolk and New York City police officials and FBI agents. "Would King write another fiction and say that some Catholic extremists would do a terrorist act, or that some Jewish terrorist would do some violent acts on Long Island? He wouldn't dare, but he thinks that because we are small in number, he could try to sell books on our backs."

This retort proceeds, of course, from the assumption that the Islamic identity of the terrorists is incidental and accidental. But if you read the actual words of the terrorists themselves (as you can do in Onward Muslim Soldiers), you will find that that is far from the case.

Council on American-Islamic Relations executive director Nihad Awad said that the council was among the first organizations to condemn the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Since then American Muslim leaders have frequently worked with law enforcement officials on the national, state and local levels, he said. Awad invited King to meet with local and national Islamic leaders to "learn more about Muslims in America and their contributions to society."

King said he would meet with them, but "on my terms. I'm not going to listen to propaganda. The purpose of the meeting will be to detail the cooperation they are giving to law enforcement and what they are doing to work against al-Qaida in this country."

He said criticizing American foreign policy is fine, but "not in the wake of the largest tragedy ever to strike this country."

"If the IRA had blown up lower Manhattan, I wouldn't be up defending the IRA the next week," said King, who has a long history working with the Irish peace process under former President Bill Clinton.

Amnesty International warned to stop "disparaging Islam"

Yesterday I wrote here that "Musharraf wants to examine Sharia law, particularly laws regarding rape (which I discuss at length in Islam Unveiled) in the light of "chivalry," but for millions of Muslims in Pakistan and elsewhere, it is the law of Allah. It is not to be judged or revised -- an idea that bodes ill for non-Muslims and women in Sharia societies." Here is more evidence of that problem: in chronicling human rights abuses, Amnesty International has run afoul of Nigerian Muslims, who protest that what AI calls abuses are just exercises of the Sharia, which cannot be abusive as it is Allah's law.

From the Mail and Guardian, with thanks to Nicolei:

An influential Nigerian Islamic body on Wednesday warned the London-based rights group Amnesty International to stop interfering in Islamic religion in the name of human rights campaigns.

The warning by the Jama'atu Nasril Islam (JNI), the umbrella body for Nigeria's Muslims, followed Tuesday's report by Amnesty condemning the use of the death penalty in 12 northern Nigerian states where the Sharia legal system is in operation.

JNI spokesperson Zubairu Jibrin told a local radio in a report monitored in Kano that the rights group is hiding under the guise of human rights to attack Islam or the Sharia legal system.

"We are warning Amnesty to desist from disparaging Islam under the guise of human rights," he said.

"The issue of stoning for adultery is an Islamic injunction which applies only to Muslims and every Muslim who commits adultery is aware of the consequence of this offence if he is prosecuted," he added.

"The issue of stoning for adultery is not confined to Islam. Both Judaism and Christianity prescribe same punishment for adultery, even in severer form," he added.

Of course this is a common dodge, but it is false on several levels. Christianity in fact does not prescribe stoning for adultery, and the laying aside of that punishment is the subject of the famous incident in which Jesus tells those ready to begin stoning an adulteress: "let the one who is without sin cast the first stone" (John 7:53-8:11.) As for Judaism, this punishment is nowhere practiced today, for the rabbinic tradition has elaborated methods of interpretation of the Torah that rule it out. In Islam, however, it persists.

Amnesty had said the death penalty violates women's human rights by curbing their right to a fair trial and by exposing them to homicide charges for abortion-related offences.

The London-based organisation said it "believes that the death penalty in its application in Nigeria in particular violates women's human rights to access to justice ... and has a discriminatory effect on women in certain cases and for certain crimes".

It said that the death penalty remains on the books in Nigeria in both its Constitution and in the Islamic law imposed in 12 northern states for a range of crimes including armed robbery, treason, murder and culpable homicide, with the latter "often" being used in abortion-related cases.

There have been "at least 33 death sentences since 1999", a summary of the report said.

"One of the convicted was a woman charged with a capital offence of culpable homicide, after allegedly having had a still-born baby, which event the court termed as an illegal abortion," it added.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country of about 126-million people, is almost evenly spread between Muslims and Christians.

The reintroduction of the Sharia in 12 northern states since Nigeria returned to civil rule in 1999 after more than 15 years of military dictatorship has been widely criticised by local and international rights bodies, Christians and the country's central government.

Last month, President Olusegun Obasanjo told an international audience the Islamic legal system had fizzled out in Nigeria.

Pakistan's Musharraf wants debate on Islamic laws

Here is the difficulty: Musharraf wants to examine Sharia law, particularly laws regarding rape (which I discuss at length in Islam Unveiled) in the light of "chivalry," but for millions of Muslims in Pakistan and elsewhere, it is the law of Allah. It is not to be judged or revised -- an idea that bodes ill for non-Muslims and women in Sharia societies. From Reuters, with thanks to Nicolei:

Traditional Islamic laws that require multiple witnesses to prove a rape case or permit the stoning of adulterers must be put up for debate, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf said on Tuesday.

Addressing a summit of first ladies of 17 Asian countries, Musharraf said he was aware the "Hudood Ordinances" introduced during the Islamic dictatorship of the late General Zia-ul-Haq in 1979 were a "very touchy and thorny issue".

"But there is no doubt in my mind that it should be open to any debate," he said. "Why should we shy away from even discussing it?"

Appealing to Pakistani men to be "chivalrous", he added: "We must discuss it."

Powerful Islamic groups have vowed to resist attempts to change the laws opposed by secular political parties and civil rights and women's groups, who say rape and other violent crimes against women have soared since they were passed.

One of the most controversial provisions of the laws states that a woman must have four pious male Muslim witnesses to prove a rape, or face a charge of adultery herself. Men and women found guilty of adultery face stoning to death or 100 lashes.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) says the incidence of rape could be higher than the one every two hours reported in the local media.

But the HRCP estimates only a tiny percentage of cases ever go to court either because of the difficulty in proving a crime under Hudood Laws, the social stigma attached to rape, or the use of force by influential people to cover up such incidents.

Of the cases that do reach a lower court, fewer than half lead to prosecution, said commission member Afrasiab Khattack.

"Because of the strict requirement of evidence in Hudood cases, it is very rare that the accused gets convicted," said Naheeda Mehboob Elahi, a women's rights activist and secretary general of the Human Rights Society of Pakistan.

Musharraf stopped short of endorsing a government-appointed commission's recommendations for repeal of the laws, but looked to be preparing the ground for such a move by urging a debate.

Musharraf, who has taken a tough stance against Islamic militants since taking power in a 1999 coup, said there was a need to examine what Islam's holy book, the Koran, and the teachings of the Prophet Mohammad, said on the issue.

"The question is of correct interpretation of the Koran and Sunnah," he said.

The National Commission on the Status of Women, chaired by a former judge, recommended in September that the ordinances be repealed, but parliament has yet to take up the issue.

Successive governments have failed to change the ordinances given stiff opposition from Islamist groups, traditional allies of the military which Musharraf heads.

In his speech, Musharraf also urged Pakistanis to change their attitude towards honour killings, in which male relatives kill women deemed to have offended family honour by marrying without consent or bringing an inadequate dowry.

Musharraf said people in authority who were supposed to deal with the issue had a "negative mindset".

"I would like to urge these people, urge the population of Pakistan, all those who are in a position of authority to try cases, appear as witnesses, to deal with these cases," he said.

Musharraf said it was important for Pakistanis to demonstrate civilised behaviour, "to show we are a tolerant, progressive, educated society".

On Anniversary of Iran's Revolution, Iranian Women Remember Shattered Dreams

The other side of the French headscarf debate, where Muslim women demand the freedom to wear the veil, is the fact that women in many Muslim countries have no freedom not to wear the veil. The most notorious example of this is Iran, where during the Khomeini revolution the veil was for many a symbol of freedom. This from Persian Journal, with thanks to Nicolei:

She walked into a public square in Tehran last March, doused herself with gasoline and set herself aflame. The last words of Dr. Homa Darabi, Iranian university professor and activist against the Islamic regime, were, "Death to dictatorship! Long live freedom!" . . .

Inspired by hopes for democracy, economic prosperity for all classes, gender equality and a leadership that would not allow Iranian culture to be swallowed up by Western values, many Iranian women joined the 1978-'79 rebellion against the rule of the Shah.

Women came together to protest such sexist attitudes as expressed by the Shah in 1973 when he said, "A woman is important in a man's life only if she is beautiful and charming. . . . You are equal to a man in the eyes of the law. But excuse me for saying so, you are certainly not equal [to a man] in your capabilities."

But did the Iranian Revolution and the Islamic Republic come through for women? Did it give them the freedom, the equality and the dignity that it promised? Fourteen years after the revolution, perhaps the most revealing answer to this question was given by Darabi when she sacrificed herself.

Zaria, a member of L'Association des femmes Iraniennes de Montr?al, said the public suicide of Darabi "was to show all the injustices against a woman [in Iran]."

Zaria said Darabi had repeatedly tried to leave the country to see her children, but was denied permission because her husband would not sign a consent form.

"In Iran, women are not allowed to leave unless their husbands give them permission," explained Zaria, noting that if a woman does not have a husband, it is the father who gives permission. "It is always the man who is in power."

Darabi's suicide speaks most loudly as a testimony for the conditions surrounding Iranian women because of the silence that surrounded her act. Neither the Iranian nor the international press took it seriously. Zaria claims her association tried to contact the Montreal press, "but nobody would listen."

At the start of the rule of the Islamic Republic, women were a central part of revolutionary activities. They used their influence to rally support for Khomeini through women's groups, charity work and propaganda in the Iranian women's journals, such as Zan-e-Rouz.

The Ayatollah recognized the participation of these women and made efforts to "praise" them.

He is quoted as saying, "In our revolutionary movement, women have. . .earned more credit than men, for it was the women who not only displayed courage themselves, but also had reared men of courage. . . . If nations were deprived of courageous women to rear true men, they would decline and collapse."

Iranian women began to receive the rewards for their support of the Islamic Republic soon after 1981. The first of these was the compulsory hijab (Islamic modest dress) in the work place.

This was followed by a law ordering the hijab in all public places, for all women, Muslim or not.

Women had fought in the revolution so that their choices would be expanded. They had donned the veils at the demonstrations against the Shah to say that nobody could stop them from wearing the veil if they wanted. The Islamic regime reversed their statement and made it impossible for women to choose not to practice the hijab. . . .

The new policy concerning women continued to be implemented in a series of laws between 1981 and 1983. Segregation of the sexes stretched to public pools, buses and, finally, to educational institutions. Women's voices were banned from the radio and female singers and actresses were no longer seen on television. Women were systematically purged from any high-level government positions and were banned from participating in the judiciary. More and more, the public role of women was equated with corrupted morality and lack of chastity.

An example of this policy in practice was the December 1979 execution of Farrokhru Parsa, the female minister of education. Parsa was accused of promoting prostitution, corrupting the earth, and "warring against God." . . .

At the same time as the new policies were being implemented, the constitution of the Islamic Republic enshrined women's right to vote, saying that both men and women were equal before the law.

The stipulation was qualified, however, by adding that the equality only went so far as the Shar'ia (Islamic law) allowed.

This meant that women were subject to many restrictions. One example, cited by Zaria, is the inability of women to divorce.

Another is the lack of credibility given to a woman's testimony in a court of law. Zaria explained that, whereas a male witness' testimony to the crime of assassination is accepted, "it takes two female witnesses to give the same credibility." . . .

When the women of Iran supported the revolution, they did so because of the promise of more equality for everyone. Unfortunately, women have fallen prey to a new, but no less drastic, form of oppression than that of the regime they helped to destroy.

The veil and rising anti-Semitism

The French Parliament "voted 494 to 36 to ban Muslim headscarves, Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses and to expel pupils who insisted on wearing them."

Meanwhile, according to the International Herald Tribune:

While the public discussion focuses on France’s vaunted secularism, on women’s rights and the definitions of Frenchness, racism is a silent but powerful undercurrent propelling the debate.

It’s an undercurrent that Sarah Aguado, a precocious 13-year-old, knows well. As the only Jew in a school with a large Muslim minority, she was repeatedly insulted and attacked and finally forced to flee.

Classmates called her a ‘‘dirty Jew.’’ One student slapped her and made a racist remark. Another asked whether her family in Israel ‘‘owned guns and killed Palestinians.’’

And in nearby Belgium, "Jewish children going to the Athénée Maimonide Bruxelles, a Jewish school, are not allowed to take the subway at the nearby Lemonnier station anymore."

Why? Were they forming gangs and terrorizing other passengers? Not quite:

Because of frequent attacks by 'muslim youths', the school board has decided that the kids are not allowed to use the station. One teacher said to the paper that the attacks follow current affairs, and have started when the 'second intifada' began. He also said hatred against Jews was something temporarily, and that it wouldn't take long for the situation to cool down.

I would like to know what he thinks is going to cool it down. (Thanks to LGF.)

Iraqi Official Wants Law Based on Islam

I've been saying for a long time that many Muslims reject the idea of democracy as incompatible with what they see as God's law: the Sharia. As such, democratic forces in Iraq face an uphill battle, and this bodes ill for equality of rights for non-Muslims and women. From the Washington Post, with thanks to Nicolei:

Iraq's current top official has demanded that Islam be the principal basis for Iraq's laws, a move that breaches a previous agreement among the framers of the interim constitution and creates the possibility that Islamic law could rule the land. If approved, the proposal could have broad effects on secular Iraq, taking away rights of women in divorce and inheritance cases, shuttering liquor stores and banning gambling, legal advisers here say. Elements also run counter to President Bush's goal of turning Iraq into a beacon for democracy in the Middle East.

"There could be changes in the Iraqi state," said Salem Chalabi, a legal adviser to the Governing Council and a member of the 10-member committee framing the basic transitional law, which acts as an interim constitution and is to take effect at the end of this month.

"If someone proposes a law of inheritance that conflicts with sharia, or Islam, then it's invalid," Chalabi said. "The registration of liquor stores may become illegal." . . .

Islamic law influences the legal code throughout most of the Middle East, but in relatively secular countries, such as Egypt, loopholes are applied in certain areas, for example to allow Western-style banking and in rules governing women's dress.

On the other hand, Saudi Arabia follows an Islam-based legal code that provides for amputations for theft and public beheadings for murder and rape.

In an interview televised on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, Bush said Iraqis would not approve of an extremist Islamic regime.

"They're not going to develop that. And the reason I can say that is because I'm very aware of this basic law they're writing," Bush said to NBC's Tim Russert.

Bush said he discussed the law with three Governing Council members who assured him a future constitution would enshrine minority rights and freedom of religion.

Abdel-Hamid's measure would not take away freedom to practice other religions, but would make Islamic codes the arbiter of future laws, with exceptions made for minority religions. The proposal sparked what framers of the law called "heated" discussions.

The problem is also that that freedom to practice other religions will be severely restricted, if the Sharia is implemented in its fullness, by the discrimination and humiliation mandated for the dhimmis.

Perhaps the largest effect would be to moot much of Iraq's 1959 Law of Personal Status, which grants uniform rights to husband and wife to divorce and inheritance, and governs related issues like child support, Chalabi said.

Representatives of Iraq's Kurdish and Christian parties, and those with liberal Western views have voiced opposition to the Islamization of Iraq's legal code, and the issue remains under discussion. Women would be most affected, said one opponent.

"If this happens 50 percent of Iraqi society will need to be liberated," said Younadem Kana, a Christian member of the Governing Council. "We need to fight for the rights of all Iraqis - women and minorities as well."

Speaking in defense of the proposal, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, a Shiite cleric and member of the Governing Council, said on Saturday that future Iraqi legislators would be prevented from adopting laws that violate Islam. Al-Hakim also said special cases could be made for non-Muslim minorities, including Iraq's 1 million Christians, whose rights to purchase alcohol could be protected.

But that is granting nothing. This right is given to dhimmis under the Sharia.

Committee members said the law, if passed, would bring Iraq's legal code far short of those espoused by more conservative neighbors such as Saudi Arabia - where women aren't permitted to vote or drive.

"Nobody's suggesting that Iraq become an Islamic state," Chalabi said. "Nobody's really going that far."

I hope they don't.

Kerry: I'll be a good dhimmi

Yesterday we posted an article reporting that Iran's mullahs are hoping Bush loses the presidential election. Some comments criticized us for bringing politics into the struggle against global jihad. Well, actually I would love to keep politics out of it. In Onward Muslim Soldiers I make the case that the struggle against jihad terror is not a conservative issue, but should be one taken up by all those who value universal human rights.

Nevertheless, as Al Pacino would say, just when we think we're out, they pull us back in. Now the Tehran Times is reporting that John Kerry's office has warmed the mullahs' hearts, such as they are, by sending a note to an Iranian news agency promising to repair the damage Bush has done. (Thanks to dtrini.)

The office of Senator John Kerry, the frontrunner in the Democratic presidential primary in the U.S., sent the Mehr News Agency an e-email saying that Kerry will try to repair the damage done by the incumbent president if he wins the election. The text of the e-mail follows.

As Americans who have lived and worked extensively overseas, we have personally witnessed the high regard with which people around the world have historically viewed the United States. Sadly, we are also painfully aware of how the actions and the attitudes demonstrated by the U.S. government over the past three years have threatened the goodwill earned by presidents of both parties over many decades and put many of our international relationships at risk.

It is in the urgent interests of the people of the United States to restore our country's credibility in the eyes of the world. America needs the kind of leadership that will repair alliances with countries on every continent that have been so damaged in the past few years, as well as build new friendships and overcome tensions with others.

We are convinced that John Kerry is the candidate best qualified to meet this challenge. Senator Kerry has the diplomatic skill and temperament as well as a lifetime of accomplishments in field of international affairs. He believes that collaboration with other countries is crucial to efforts to win the war on terror and make America safer.

An understanding of global affairs is essential in these times, and central to this campaign Kerry has the experience and the understanding necessary to successfully restore the United States to its position of respect within the community of nations. He has the judgment and vision necessary to assure that the United States fulfills a leadership role in meeting the challenges we face throughout the world.

The current Administration's policies of unilateralism and rejection of important international initiatives, from the Kyoto Accords to the Biological Weapons Convention, have alienated much of the world and squandered remarkable reserves of support after 9/11. This climate of hostility affects us all, but most especially impacts those who reside overseas. Disappointment with current U.S. leadership is widespread, extending not just to the corridors of power and politics, but to the man and woman on the street as well.

We believe John Kerry is the Democrat who can go toe-to-toe against the current Administration on national security and defense issues. We also remain convinced that John Kerry has the best chance of beating the incumbent in November, and putting America on a new course that will lead to a safer, more secure, and more stable world.

WND reminds of us why this might not have been the wisest note to send to Iran. (Thanks to Jeffrey Imm):

While Kerry's e-mail mentions combating terrorism, Iran has been long on the U.S. list of nations sponsoring terrorism. Two years ago in his State of the Union address, the president referred to Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil."

Iran is officially considered an Islamic republic, governed by Muslim Shia law.

Commercial relations between Iran and the United States are restricted by U.S. sanctions and consist mainly of Iranian purchases of food and medical products and U.S. purchases of carpets and food. The U.S. government prohibits most trade with Iran.

The U.S. State Department cites the following as "serious obstacles" to improved relations between the two countries:

• Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction;
• its support for and involvement in international terrorism;
• its support for violent opposition to the Middle East peace process; and
• its dismal human rights record.

As reported in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, Tehran is sponsoring a 10-day conference of major terrorist organizations this week. The purpose of the conference is to discuss anti-U.S. strategy.

Among the groups headed to Iran to participate are: Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and al-Qaida allies Ansar Al Islam.

Dhimmitude at The Observer

This story in The Observer discusses the notorious jihad rap video we posted here not long ago. (Thanks to "Allah.") It leaves unchallenged this statement by the Saudi Islamic radical Mohammed al-Massari: "I believe the lyrics are only metaphorical. It is not like this is a fatwa."

Al-Massari also says:

I do not know of any young Muslim who has not either seen or got this video. It is selling everywhere. Everyone I meet at the mosque is asking for it.

Let's look at some of these peaceful metaphors. These either appear on the screen or are spoken by the rappers:

Kill the Crusaders

Kill the Zionazis

Be prepared for battle with the infidels

Send 'em home in body bags

Apostate rulers of Muslim lands must be overthrown

Burnin around the world like the Grand Poobah
We're gonna be taking over like we took over the Shah
From Kandahar to Ramallah we comin, sah
Peace to Hamas and the Hizballah
OBL grooving like a shining star
Like the way we destroyed the Two Tow-ahh, ha ha ha ha

Jihad against the Crusaders

All that is metaphor for striving to resist worldly temptations, I guess.

Dhimmitude at the Chicago Tribune

Accompanying a big story about the Bridgeview mosque, the Chicago Tribune appended a note from the editors. (Thanks to Bassam Madany and Paul Weyrich.)

Islam, the world's fastest-growing religion, preaches tolerance, non-violence and respect for human life. But a struggle for the soul of Islam is under way, one that poses challenges for Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

The editors should have asked themselves why, if they were able to find these teachings so easily in Islam, do these teachings so consistently elude the members of Al-Qaeda, and Hamas, and Hizballah, and Jemaah Islamiyah, and all the many other Islamic radical groups around the world.

Take, for example, this excerpt from a lecture from Iran available now at an Islamic website, explaining the marvelous Qur'anic verse of tolerance "there is no compulsion in religion" (Sura 2:256) and some related verses. (Thanks to Nancy Block).

There is no place for the use of compulsion in religion, no one must be obliged to accept the religion of Islam. . . . Whoever wants to believe will believe, and whoever wants to be a kafir [unbeliever] will be a kafir. So this verse has also stated that faith and rejection, iman and kufr, can only be chosen by oneself, they cannot be forced upon one by others. So Islam does not say that others must be forced into Islam; that if they become Muslims, well and good, and if they do not, they are to be killed, that the choice is theirs. Islam says that whoever wants to believe will believe, and whoever does not want to, will not.

The Trib continues on to portray religious teachers of this kind as (of course) a tiny minority of extremists:

Radical elements of the religion, bent on attacking America and its allies, use Islam and the notion of holy war to justify assaults by suicide bombers who believe a ride on a Jerusalem bus will buy them a trip to paradise.

The radicals who stoke the fires of violence aren't many. But their influence extends far beyond their numbers. They form a magnetic field of militancy that threatens to pull the entire religion rightward.

"Rightward"? There is no logic or consistency in calling people like Osama bin Laden "right-wing" -- unless the editors operate according to the philosophy of "Left Good. Right Bad."

Mainstream Muslim leaders insist they don't back their radical brethren. Nowhere in the Koran, Islam's holy book, these leaders say, is there any justification for the pageantry of terror that plays out in headlines nearly every day.

No single interpretation of the Qur'an is authoritative. The problem is that radical Muslims do quote the Qur'an copiously to justify themselves. See Onward Muslim Soldiers for many examples. For another from Chechnya, see here. For the moderates to insist that there is nothing in the Qur'an to justify what the radicals do ignores mountains of evidence to the contrary -- and does nothing to stop the radicals.

"They wrote that I am out of Islam and I must be killed"

In Australia a refugee from Saddam Hussein's Iraq has not found the peace and safety she expected. This from News.com.au, with thanks to Kevin:

Iraqi refugee Guzin Najim thought she'd be safe when she escaped to Australia after her diplomat husband was murdered by Saddam Hussein's brutal secret police and she'd been forced to live, with her children, for three years under house arrest.

But the terror has reached Sydney. Religious fanatics faithful to the murderous tyrant have delivered death threats to her home in the city's south-western suburbs, forcing her once again to flee for her life.

Now Ms Najim, 47, has moved to a secret location to hide from the men who have ordered that her throat be cut for speaking out publicly against Saddam's brutal regime.

"At first, I was very frightened," said Ms Najim at her new home. "I thought, 'How can this happen in Sydney, where life is so peaceful and everyone smiles?' But then I became angry, and I decided that these fanatics will not succeed in intimidating me.

"I will not be silenced. I lived in fear for so long over there. I cannot let that happen again in Australia."

The threats started after the release of the book The Promise, in which author Sandra Lee told of Ms Najim's terrible ordeal at the hands of the Iraqi secret police.

Her husband Ra'ad was taken away from their home in Baghdad by two men and was dumped back, paralysed, fevered and barely able to speak a few hours later. After four days of agony he died, at the age of 48. It was thought he'd been fed rat poison, Saddam's favourite method of assassination.

Ms Najim was held with her two children under house arrest for three years, during which time she was beaten regularly and had her hand broken by her captors. Finally, she escaped to Jordan but, after death threats from those loyal to the Iraqi dictator, she and her children were accepted as refugees by the United Nations and chose to come and live in the relative sanctity of Australia.

But when the book caught the country's attention and she was asked to appear on national TV and radio to talk about her ordeal, the cold chill of religious fanaticism suddenly arrived on her Sydney doorstep.

She received two death threats over the intercom of her home, and another written death threat was slid under her front door. Bankstown police are investigating the threats and studying the letter.

"They wrote that I am out of Islam and I must be killed," Ms Najim said.

"It said that I support Americans.

"It was such a shock that this happened in Australia. But then I became very depressed. I didn't eat for two days. I started to think that I had brought my children to safety to this country, and now I am ready to die. I felt tired of it all and wanted to sleep and escape from reality.

"But then I became very angry. Even if they are determined to kill me, I will not stop talking. I will never change my mind."

In her new home with her son Mohammed, 23, and daughter Lina, 28, living nearby, Ms Najim is trying hard to rebuild her life.

Tolerance and the hijab

Andy Bannister sends along a letter from today's Sunday Times (UK):

The tolerance of the West is justified only up to the point when it does not undermine the efforts of other societies struggling against the concept of political Islam, including the hijab (Comment, News Review and Letters, last week).

As an Iranian woman I witnessed at first hand how we suffered from our
naive tolerance 30 years ago when the hijab came into the political
arena of the Iranian opposition.

We too thought it would disappear. Nobody said a word for fear of being
considered a partisan of the Shah. And many preferred it to the
miniskirt anyway. But it did not end there, as we all know well.

You do not tolerate the wearing of black shirts in your schools; nor
should you tolerate the hijab. Both are used to promote ideologies that
are dangerous to our way of life.

Afsaneh Khalat-Bari
London W9

New film depicts life in Taliban Afghanistan

A new movie, Osama, shows life under Afghanistan's Taliban government — the society that radical Muslims around the world will emulate if ever given the chance. This from the New York Post, with thanks to the many people who alerted me to this film.

OSAMA

Quietly devastating.

In Dari, with English subtitles. Running time: 82 minutes. Not rated (adult themes). At the Lincoln Plaza and the Union Square.

IT'S amazing enough that "Osama" was made at all: This film about the oppression of women in the Taliban era was shot amidst the ruins of a Kabul that is still threatened by violence and general chaos.

That it is such a powerful and indeed beautiful film is simply extraordinary.

Everyone is at least vaguely aware of the crazed misogynistic bigotry of the Taliban, the fundamentalist peasant militia that ruled much of Afghanistan until its overthrow in late 2001.

But "Osama" uses a real-life story and non-professional actors from the streets of Kabul to make the medieval horrors of Taliban rule devastatingly, viscerally real.

Written and directed by Siddiq Barmak, a Russian-trained Afghan filmmaker who fled Kabul after the Taliban takeover, "Osama" tells the tale of a 12-year-old girl (Marina Golbahari) forced to take a terrible risk to save her family.

The girl's mother — a widow like so many Afghan women after two decades of war — is a nurse with a job in a decrepit hospital.

But she loses her job under the Taliban, which bans all women from working and even from going outside the home unless in the company of a male relative.

Faced with starvation, mother and granddaughter come up with the idea of cutting the little girl's hair and sending her out to work disguised as a boy.

Using the common Afghan boy's name of Osama and wearing her father's cut-down clothing, she gets work in a milk shop.

But when Osama makes mistakes during all-male prayers, the Taliban take her (and a nosy beggar boy who knows her real identity) to a schools to be trained in Islam and soldiering.

Sometimes the Osama character seems a little too stupid and naive to believe, and there are moments when the storytelling feels surprisingly crude given both the first-time director's ambitions (the opening sequence is a film within a film — supposedly documentary video footage shot by a foreigner) and the elegance of the photography.

Yet the calm, restrained way "Osama" depicts the Gestapo-like ubiquity and viciousness of the Taliban — whether they are abusing a bicyclist for letting his female passenger show her toes, or hammering on the door of a house where women are holding a secret wedding party — makes it all the more effective.

Sharia, Again in Iraq?

From Concerned Women for America, an incisive article by Janice Shaw Crouse:

Perhaps nothing illustrates the hard-won liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq any more than the freedom of their women –– symbolized by, for instance, the removal of burqas, sending girls back to school and bringing women back into public life.

But nothing threatens that liberation any more than a naïve understanding of Islamic factions –– specifically how some Muslims interpret Islamic law to prevail over individual liberty, human rights and freedom, especially for women and girl children.

I used to teach parliamentary procedure which is based on the premise that rules of order for conducting a meeting must ensure that the majority prevails while seeing that the minority’s rights are respected and their views freely and completely expressed. Likewise, freedom means that all have the right to be respected and to express their views freely and completely. That freedom is the essence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; that everyone has the right of “freedom of thought, conscience and religion.” Those same individual freedoms are essential in the broader, community or national context; democracy means that the majority prevails, though minority rights are fully protected.

Both individual rights and democracy are at risk now in Iraq, just as they were previously in Afghanistan. The new Afghan constitution is not all that it should be; it establishes institutional religious rights but fails to protect individual religious freedom. The new Iraqi constitution is not merely important for Iraq; it will also be a model for the whole Middle East. It must not be overlooked that the November 15 agreement mandates religious freedom as an integral aspect of the new constitution.

Iraq’s Governing Council will complete the drafting of the interim constitution by the end of this month –– February 28 –– and that constitution will be in place until the permanent constitution is enacted –– not before mid-2005. At present, there are very real threats to the separation of church and state in Iraq: there is a big difference between the “freedom of worship” and the “freedom of religion,” just as there are significant differences between “religious rites” and “religious rights.”

Certain Islamist groups are seeking to establish an Islamic state and to bring back sectarian laws such as Sharia (which directly affects women’s freedoms by limiting their involvement in public life as well as affecting inheritance and domestic laws). The conflict between the various Muslim groups is a power struggle with significant and long-range ramifications for freedom, democracy and the equality of women. It is not an exaggeration to say that ultimately the outcome will determine whether Iraq remains free and whether Iraqi women and children will have equal status and opportunity as citizens.

Two prominent women in Iraq have already felt the strong arm of Sharia. A woman lawyer in Najaf was dismissed from her job by a Shiite cleric who declared that judges must be “sane, mature and male.” The woman deputy minister of agriculture, Dr. Sawson al-Sharafi, is under attack because some Islamists do not want to work for a woman.

In the same way, if Islam becomes the state religion, religious liberty will be curtailed by the extremists who are already introducing resolutions and proposals that seek to overturn religious neutrality and women’s equality. We must never forget that religious freedom is essential to democracy and individual liberties.

Nigeria is learning this lesson the hard way. Examples abound: 23 Christian women have been brought before Islamic courts charged with non-compliance of the Muslim dress code, prostitution (being unmarried and older than 13 years), or refusal to marry early. At the University of Maiduguri in Borno state, female students have been forced to adhere to the Islamic dress code in order to sit for exams, some are being expelled from the university. Eleven female nurses were fired in Azare when they refused to change their nurse uniforms for Islamic attire.

Individual religious liberty and women’s equality must be guaranteed in Iraq’s interim constitution, otherwise all that we have fought for in the Middle East will be lost –– not just for Iraq and its citizens, but for the United States’ interests and democratic values as well.

Indonesia: Mayor imposes Islamic dress code on state workers

This story is a couple of weeks old, but it is still relevant in light of the ongoing French headscarf controversy. In the Indonesian suburb of Tangerang, the headscarf is being imposed — possibly on non-Muslims as well as Muslims. This from AsiaNews, with thanks to Nancy Block:

The mayor of Tangerang, a suburb of Jakarta, ordered all public employees to cover their heads and respect Islamic dress code on Fridays.

Friday is the holy day for Muslims. Women will be asked to wear Islamic headscarves and long-sleeved shirts to cover their arms; men will have to wear Islamic loose-fitting shirts. The mayor’s spokesman, Achmad Chairuddin, told the Jakarta Post that “the new arrangement is a direct order from the mayor…Muslim dress reflects the municipality’s devout image.”

It is still not known if the rule is also true for Christian, Hindu and Buddhist employees.

Until now, state workers in Tangerang have all worn brown uniforms from Monday to Thursday and green ones on Friday.

Even if Indonesia is a secular state and Islam is only one of five officially-recognized religions, in recent years some local councils have started imposing Islamic dress and behavior codes to increase their image and popularity..

Last year the mayor of West Jakarta gave orders requiring students to respect Islamic dress habits on Fridays. Yet criticism came pouring in from other religious groups, accusing him of discrimination. The mayor then went back on his decree.

Also some districts, like West Java, Indramayu and Cianjur, have introduced Islamic laws which force state employees to wear Islamic dress every Friday and close offices to allow time for prayer. The local governments in Pamekasan, East Java, have moreover suggested that its employees hold monthly readings of the Koran.

Aceh, on the northern tip of Sumatra, is the only province in which the Islamic sharia law is applied. Jakarta’s central government has accepted application of the sharia law as a compromise to appease a region marked by separatist conflicts for 27 years. Aceh has been under martial law since last May, yet Islamic sharia law has never become operational in a court of law.

No Chinese New Year in Malaysia

Chinese in Malaysia are getting a taste of what life is like in the Islamic society that radical Muslims want to impose upon the world. This from AP, with thanks to nevermindlv:

Malaysia's Islamic party has rejected permission for a major Chinese New Year celebration in a state under its control, criticizing plans for women performers to sing and dance.

Organizers vowed Thursday to defy the ban, saying the state government's refusal to grant a permit challenged traditions of tolerance between the Malay Muslim majority and the large ethnic Chinese minority.

The refusal put the state government of Terengganu, controlled by the Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party, on a collision course with the organizers, led by the national Culture, Arts and Tourism Ministry and the state chapters of two ethnic Chinese parties.

Abdul Hadi Awang, chief minister of Terengganu, was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times newspaper that permission had been denied because women would be performing during the time of Muslim evening prayers.

"We will not tolerate any activities with female performers dancing and singing, especially when Muslims are supposed to perform the evening prayers," Abdul Hadi was quoted Thursday as saying.

"If they insist on holding the program, we will take action against them later," said Abdul Hadi, who is also leader of the Islamic party.

But organizers vowed to go ahead with Friday's celebration with or without a permit and invited state authorities to take the case to court, the national news agency Bernama reported.

Culture Minister Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir said the Malaysian constitution guaranteed ethnic minorities the right to hold traditional celebrations without interference.

The Islamic party controls two of Malaysia's 13 states and is gearing up to make more gains in general elections that the government is expected to call in the next few months. Though the party is unlikely to win power at the national level, it could capture another state.

The party has vowed to turn this moderate Southeast Asian country into an Islamic state if it forms a national government. The party has tried to impose harsh Islamic laws - including amputating the hands of thieves and stoning adulterers to death - in the states in controls, but has consistently been overruled by the national government.

Dhimmitude in Norway

A Norwegian teacher has been told he cannot wear the Star of David. Why? It might offend Muslims. This from Aftenposten, with thanks to Scandinavian Infidel and jboxell:

A municipally employed teacher in Kristiansand has been prevented from wearing a Star of David around his neck. Kristiansand Adult Education Center, where the man works, ruled that the Jewish symbol could be deemed a provocation towards the many Muslim students at the school, Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reports.

Not only that: the teacher wears it under his shirt.

Teacher Inge Telhaug said he feels this is a violation of his freedom of speech.

"I can't accept this. It is a small star, 16 millimeters (0.6 inches) that I have around my neck, usually under a T-shirt. I see it as my right to wear it," Telhaug told NRK.

However, the headscarf is just fine. Aftenposten also reports in a separate story:

Education Minister Kristin Clemet said during question time in parliament on Wednesday that she had no plans to ban the hijab - the head scarf worn by Muslim women that has recently become increasingly associated with Islamism. The Progress Party's parliamentary group agreed Wednesday to propose banning the hijab and the burka from elementary schools.

Islam: The Next American Religion

Michael Wolfe, a convert to Islam, was largely responsible for PBS's hagiographical biography of Muhammad that appeared about a year ago. Now he is touting a coming Islamic moment in the United States. This from Beliefnet.com via Al-Jazeera (with thanks to Nicolei):

The U.S. began as a haven for Christian outcasts. But what religion fits our current zeitgeist? The answer may be Islam.

Americans tend to think of their country as, at the very least, a nominally Christian nation. Didn't the Pilgrims come here for freedom to practice their Christian religion? Don't Christian values of righteousness under God, and freedom, reinforce America's democratic, capitalist ideals?

True enough. But there's a new religion on the block now, one that fits the current zeitgeist nicely. It's Islam. Islam is the third-largest and fastest growing religious community in the United States. This is not just because of immigration. More than 50% of America's six million Muslims were born here. Statistics like these imply some basic agreement between core American values and the beliefs that Muslims hold. Americans who make the effort to look beyond popular stereotypes to learn the truth of Islam are surprised to find themselves on familiar ground.

Is America a Muslim nation? Here are seven reasons the answer may be yes.

Islam is monotheistic. Muslims worship the same God as Jews and Christians. They also revere the same prophets as Judaism and Christianity, from Abraham, the first monotheist, to Moses, the law giver and messenger of God, to Jesus--not leaving out Noah, Job, or Isaiah along the way. The concept of a Judeo-Christian tradition only came to the fore in the 1940s in America. Now, as a nation, we may be transcending it, turning to a more inclusive "Abrahamic" view.

In January, President Bush grouped mosques with churches and synagogues in his inaugural address. A few days later, when he posed for photographers at a meeting of several dozen religious figures, the Shi'ite imam Muhammad Qazwini, of Orange County, Calif., stood directly behind Bush's chair like a presiding angel, dressed in the robes and turban of his south Iraqi youth.

Islam is democratic in spirit. Islam advocates the right to vote and educate yourself and pursue a profession. The Qur'an, on which Islamic law is based, enjoins Muslims to govern themselves by discussion and consensus. In mosques, there is no particular priestly hierarchy. With Islam, each individual is responsible for the condition of her or his own soul. Everyone stands equal before God.

Notice: "The Qur'an . . . enjoins Muslims to govern themselves by discussion and consensus." The extension of these principles to non-Muslims on an equal basis with Muslims is not found in Islamic law.

Wolfe also rather predictably corrects "misunderstandings" of the term jihad:

Islam is often viewed as an aggressive faith because of the concept of jihad, but this is actually a misunderstood term. Because Muslims believe that God wants a just world, they tend to be activists, and they emphasize that people are equal before God. These are two reasons why African Americans have been drawn in such large numbers to Islam. They now comprise about one-third of all Muslims in America.

Remember: those "activists" around the world today carry rifles and bombs.

Perhaps most egregious of all, in light of the Qur'an's injunction to husbands to beat their disobedient wives (Sura 4:34), and of a host of other Sharia regulations that discriminate against women, is this:

Meanwhile, this egalitarian streak also plays itself out in relations between the sexes. Muhammad, Islam's prophet, actually was a reformer in his day. Following the Qur'an, he limited the number of wives a man could have and strongly recommended against polygamy. The Qur'an laid out a set of marriage laws that guarantees married women their family names, their own possessions and capital, the right to agree upon whom they will marry, and the right to initiate divorce. In Islam's early period, women were professionals and property owners, as increasingly they are today. None of this may seem obvious to most Americans because of cultural overlays that at times make Islam appear to be a repressive faith toward women--but if you look more closely, you can see the egalitarian streak preserved in the Qur'an finding expression in contemporary terms. In today's Iran, for example, more women than men attend university, and in recent local elections there, 5,000 women ran for public office.

Finally:

Islam encourages the pursuit of religious freedom. The Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock is not the world's first story of religious emigration. Muhammad and his little band of 100 followers fled religious persecution, too, from Mecca in the year 622. They only survived by going to Madinah, an oasis a few hundred miles north, where they established a new community based on a religion they could only practice secretly back home. No wonder then that, in our own day, many Muslims have come here as pilgrims from oppression, leaving places like Kashmir, Bosnia, and Kosovo, where being a Muslim may radically shorten your life span. When the 20th century's list of emigrant exiles is added up, it will prove to be heavy with Muslims, that's for sure.

Not a word about dhimmi laws which mandate discrimination against non-Muslims in Muslim society. Because such laws exist, Wolfe's vision of a Muslim America would in reality not be quite the paradise he imagines.

Dhimmitude at the Trib

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has discovered terrorism. This from Honest Reporting, with thanks to EPG:

For the past three years, no matter how monstrous the Palestinian attack on Israeli civilians, the Minneapolis Star Tribune has consistently refused to apply the word 'terrorism.' One of the paper's editors explained their 'evenhanded' position in February, 2002: In the case of the term 'terrorist,' other words ― 'gunman,' 'separatist' and 'rebel,' for example ― may be more precise and less likely to be viewed as judgmental.

We also take extra care to avoid the term 'terrorist' in articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because of the emotional and heated nature of that dispute.

Now, suddenly, the largest paper in Minnesota has discovered 'terrorism' in the Mideast.

No, it wasn't the horrific murder of 11 men, women and children on a Jerusalem bus on Jan. 29. That was described yet again in Star Tribune wire reports as the work of a 'militant group'.

Here were the rule-breakers:

1) On Jan. 31, the Star Tribune ran a profile of a local priest, Michael Ovikian, who grew up in Jerusalem. The reporter describes Ovikian surviving the 1946 Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel (emphasis added):

It was midday July 22, 1946. Ovikian was eating in the basement of the King David Hotel when Zionist terrorists struck... The Brits had fortified the hotel's eight-story southern wing with barbed wire and tanks. But the terrorists sneaked in the northern end dressed as delivery people, their milk cans filled with TNT.

So the Star Tribune, which has maintained a 'non-judgmental' refusal to call Palestinian terror by name, determined that the King David bombing was, in fact, 'Zionist terror'. This, despite the fact that (unlike any Palestinian terror) the Irgun issued specific warnings of the impending strike against the British command at the hotel, and that civilians were not intentionally targeted.

2) The Jan. 21 edition of the Star Tribune carried an AP article on IDF anti-Hezbollah actions, accompanied by a photo of the IDF dismantling a West Bank outpost and synagogue. The photo caption was careful to point out that the "synagogue was dedicated to the memory and teachings of American-Israeli Meir Kahane, whose anti-Arab Kach movement is on the U.S. State Department list of terror organizations," but the article describes Hezbollah (which is on that same State Department list) as mere "guerrillas." Moreover, the Star Tribune edited out the following passage from the original AP article, which described American support for the Israeli reprisal:

The United States blamed Hezbollah guerrillas for the escalation and cautioned Syria against giving support to the Lebanese militant group.

It seems that all the talk by the Star Tribune of sophisticated editorial policy was just a lot of hot air ― masking what is genuinely an anti-Israel double-standard.

A further indication of the double standard: The Star Tribune has a special section of its online edition devoted to world terrorism, which includes archived articles on terror threats and attacks in the US, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan - even Nigeria. But blowing up a Jerusalem commuter bus didn't qualify.

These latest blunders extend the Star Tribune's history of distorting the conflict. In 2002, after being caught red-handed, Star Tribune editors publicly admitted that the newspaper re-wrote wire service stories in a manner which radically distorted the meaning of a Human Rights Watch report on casualties in the Jenin refugee camp. The Star Tribune's own ombudsman called this an "embarrassing wart."

In response to the latest events, Minnesotans Against Terrorism clarified to HonestReporting that the issue is not whether Kach or the Irgun committed terrorist acts: "MAT's primary concern is that when innocent civilians are specifically targeted for death and terror, that conduct and its perpetrators be accurately and objectively referred to as 'terrorism' regardless of the cause, and regardless of the nationality of the victims. The Star Tribune should be honest with its readers and call all attacks specifically targeted against innocent men, women and children by its proper name, 'terrorism', and not play favorites with specific groups or causes. . . ."

UPDATE: Star Tribune editors have recognized the problem with both articles above, apologized, and expressed their commitment to more balanced Mideast coverage. For the text of the Star Tribune's response, see our weblog, BackSpin.

From Indonesia, a call for secularism

Here is a call to remove the dhimmi provision hidden in the Indonesian Constitution. This from the Jakarta Post, with thanks to Nancy Block:

To avoid an endless wrangle between Islam and "nationalism", the preamble to the 1945 Constitution -- which thus far has been held sacrosanct despite constitutional reform -- must be changed. To allow amendments to the body of articles of the constitution, but not its preamble, does not make sense. ...

The ambiguity of the meaning of the first principle -- though never admitted, revealed, or discussed openly except in the Constitutional Assembly in the 1950s, prior to the vote on whether the republic should be a secular or theocratic state -- has always posed a threat to national unity and the integrity of the state.

It has resulted also in the perpetually ambiguous identity of the Indonesian state, which has always been understood as "neither a theocratic nor a secular state". Many Muslims tend to interpret the first principle as the obligation of every citizen to believe in God. And to believe in God is taken to mean the obligation to profess to a religion. This can only be one of those religions officially recognized by the state, although no religion needs to be state sanctioned.

Most non-Muslims take the principle of belief in God as an expression of religious freedom. But in some cases they feel discriminated against. They have to obtain not only permission from the government to build their house of worship, but also from the community in the vicinity of the proposed site.

In contrast, Muslims do not seem to require the government's permission to build mosques, nor the consent of the surrounding community. The mosques are free to use loudspeakers, without any apparent concern for possible non-Muslims nearby, elderly or sick people, or children who may need rest and sleep. Yet non-Muslims rarely, if ever, complain, not so much because of their "religious tolerance" but for fear of offending Muslim neighbors.

What is more serious is that because of the state's ambiguous identity, it is never clear whether religious law should be the source of state law, or at least form part of it.

If state law was to be clearly derived from religious law, would Islamic law, as the religion of the majority, be its foundation? Would the country then be defined as a theocratic state? In which fields would Islamic law be applied, and to what extent? The trend so far has been toward more and more elements of religious (Islamic) law creeping into state legislation "through the back door", as it were, namely, not clothed in the sharia.

Our nation was not built upon a common religious ground, but a common political ideal -- the establishment of a nation-state, independent of any foreign domination, to promote general welfare based on justice -- not to implement any religious law and teachings. Hence the independent republic was designed to be a secular state, separating state and religion.

The term "secular" or "secularization", however, is often misunderstood here as "anti-religion". Here one should note the words of noted scholar Fatema Mernissi. In a translation of her book Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World, the noted female Muslim scholar from Morocco wrote the following:

"The .... argument is that if Islam is separated from the state, no one will any longer believe in Allah ... Since we are constantly bombarded via satellite by advertisements for all sorts of products ... the state must defend Islam.

"Such reasoning is in fact an insult to Islam, with its suggestion that Islam can succeed only if it is imposed on people in a totalitarian manner, through courts that punish those who drink wine or refuse to fast during Ramadhan ... Islam has nothing to offer a modern citizen, who would quickly abandon it if state surveillance were lifted ...

"As both Christianity and Judaism have done, Islam cannot only survive but thrive in a secular state. Once dissociated from coercive power, it will witness a renewal of spirituality."

She continues, "Christianity and Judaism strongly rooted in people's hearts are what I have seen in the United States, France and Germany. It has put a brake on the state's manipulation of religion. It took three centuries of effort by many European philosophers and several revolutions for this fundamental nuance to be developed, accepted, and made understandable ..."

The preamble to the Constitution should be changed so as to make the Republic of Indonesia a secular state. Otherwise this nation would continuously be subject to conflicts and threatened by disintegration. The principles of Pancasila [the ideology of the Indonesian state] are already embodied in democratic ideals -- equality and justice for all, and respect for human rights.

"The headscarf is just the tip of the iceberg"

"In a Jan. 23 interview with 'Avvenire' (the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops’ Conference) the influential Jesuit Islamicist, Khalil Samir, said that 'the headscarf is just the tip of the iceberg of a radical proposal to refuse the integration (of citizens) and, in the face of crisis of secular and Christian Europe, reintroduces Islam as a global, religious and political alternative.'" This from Chiesa, with thanks to Nicolei:

ROMA – Starting Feb. 3 the French Parliament will examine and vote on a law proposed by the Jacques Chirac administration which aims at banning the wearing of religious symbols in public schools.

The law proposal states: “In public schools, colleges and high schools it is forbidden to wear symbols or dress by which students ostentatiously (“ostensiblement” in French) reveal their associations with religious groups or creeds.”

It is not only the Islamic headscarf (or “veil”) that is forbidden, but also Christians crosses of certain sizes, the Jewish kippah, sikh’s turbans, and even “a certain shagginess of hair”, which according to the minister of education, Luc Ferry, is equal to long beards grown as prescribed by Muslim law.

But the Islamic headscarf is at the heart of the controversy. It is the headscarf which inspired the law proposal. Among those against the French law is Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, archbishop of Paris.

Even John Paul II from Rome gave his indirect disapproval In his Jan. 12 speech to the Diplomatic Corps to the Holy See he condemned forms of secularity which act under the guise of “secularism”.

Cardinal Mario F. Pompedda, prefect of the Apostolic Signature and thus the highest legal authority in the Holy See, said in the Jan. 29 issue of the Italian daily, “il Giornale”, that the French prohibition of the headscarf is a patently clear example of wayward secularity, calling it “a principle of freedom converted in a refusal of liberty to individuals”; or worse still, that is has been transformed into “ life-dominating sort of divine rule.”

However, not all Catholics see things with the same eye. In a Jan. 23 interview with “Avvenire” (the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops’ Conference) the influential Jesuit Islamicist, Khalil Samir, said that “the headscarf is just the tip of the iceberg of a radical proposal to refuse the integration (of citizens) and, in the face of crisis of secular and Christian Europe, reintroduces Islam as a global, religious and political alternative.”

Behind the headscarf’s symbolic nature –added Fr. Samir – “is a pretence to model society based on Islamic ideals, even using multiculturalism as a Trojan horse to permit the dissemination of political correctness.” The French government does well to “to put a check on Islam’s radical tendencies” and to defend “that form of secularity which the French believe to be an inalienable and well-established national heritage.”

Fr. Samir’s same concerns are growing also among Muslims who are adverse to extremist tendencies.

The president of Cairo’s University of Al-Azhar, Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, said that Muslim women living in a non-Islamic state which bans the headscarf are free from the religious constraint of wearing it.

In France, while thousands of women protested against the law proposal, the Mufti of Marseilles, Soheib Bensheikh, accused them of acting like “those fake religious people who use secularity as a Trojan horse to favor obscurantist and political Islamism.”

Yet isn’t the woman’s headscarf an inherent obligation in Muslim religion? And if not so, why is it worn? It is first necessary to answer these questions before the topic can be further discussed. The following is a what an Algerian-born, Muslim professor of Islamic studies at the University of Trieste and Urbino, Khaled Fouad Allam, wrote in the Jan. 22 issue of the “la Repubblica”. The article comes from a professor who has a wide following among ecclesiastic circles.

This piece was appended to Magister's article. It doesn't take sufficient note of the fact that whatever the covering was called, the idea that a woman must not venture out publicly with head uncovered is rooted in the Hadith:

Narrated Aisha, Ummul Mu'minin [Mother of the Believers]: Asma, daughter of AbuBakr, entered upon the Apostle of Allah [Muhammad] (peace_be_upon_him) wearing thin clothes. The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) turned his attention from her. He said: O Asma', when a woman reaches the age of menstruation, it does not suit her that she displays her parts of body except this and this, and he pointed to her face and hands. (Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 32, Number 4092).

Nonetheless, this piece contains much that is of interest.

Koranic Law Does not Impose the Headscarf

by Khaled Fouad Allam

Historically speaking, the “hijab” (or Islamic headscarf) has never represented any form of Islamic dogma, legal obligation or religious symbol, even if today the impression is such.

Jurists during the classical period of Islam – who when Muslim law was first formulated for the four great legal schools of Islam – never presented any theories on the headscarf. The celebrated jurist and founder of the Theological University of Fez in Morocco, Qayrawin (died in 996), spoke about the headscarf only in reference to prayer rituals, when women enter mosques to pray on Fridays. And the word he used was “khimar”, a veil covering women from head to toe. He never used the term “hijab”. It is the same with other authors of the period.

There is indeed an explanation for all this. Classical Islam jurists warned of the need to formulate legal theory concerning the headscarf or veil, simply because a woman’s medieval world was that of a cloister, where she didn’t leave home, leading her life within the borders of private property. And when she did venture out, which was rare, she had to do so with the authorization of a male figure – whether it be her father, husband or brother –and only under exceptional circumstances, as for some formal ceremony or pilgrimage.

The hijab in an invention of the 14th century, and it has not real basis in the Koran. In the Koran, “hijab” comes from the root “hjb”, which refers not to an object, but an action: wearing a headscarf, pulling down a curtain or screen or reducing light so as to prevent others from prying or looking in.

The change to the word “hijab”, from signifying an action to meaning an object, comes in the 14th century. The jurist, Ibn Taymiyya, was the first to use the word “hijab” to mean “headscarf”. It was a headscarf that distinguished Muslim from non-Muslim women. It came to distinguish a woman’s identity and religious association.

Ibn Taymiyya stated that a free woman has the obligation to cover herself with a headscarf, while a slave is not obliged as such He justified this based on a maximalist interpretation (cf. Koran, verse 21, sura 24), transforming the words of a generic statement into a principle, by giving it a binding or legal sense. Yet all this – and we do well to point it out – was still an interpretation, an interpretation which gave rise to a rule.

This change in language and social interpretation is a sign of crisis within the 14th century Muslim world: the end of the great Islamic empires and the invasion of Baghdad by a foreign power – the Mongols of Genghis Khan. The “ummah” (the community of believers) had to therefore face and struggle with what nowadays we call the principle of “otherness”. This posed the same problem then as it does nowadays: today’s Muslims now must cope with how to be themselves in a society dominated by non-Muslims. The headscarf is a sign of the Muslim community’s defensive reactions and focuses on legal norms not to create leeway for freedom of expression, but rather to establish a form of control – on Islam itself.

Therefore it is no coincidence that Ibn Taymiyya (died 1328) is a daily point of reference in neo-fundamentalist language.

However the decisive change for the “hijab” in terms of meaning and law occurs in the 20th century, especially in its last fifty years. In Muslim countries, following the period of decolonization, the processes of modernization create great difficulties for traditional societal structures and institutions. Two unprecedented phenomena occur: literacy of the masses and women going to school, work and out from their homes. The outside world is added to their main world of reference.

In the face of such social changes, many exegetes in Islam have reacted in neo-conservative ways, creating a legal system legitimizing and prescribing the use of the hijab The headscarf thus becomes a distinct symbol of Islamic identity and separation between sexes. The headscarf’s introduction and use into public areas indeed favors the creation of a gender barrier, which today is not limited to the headscarf itself, but in some other countries has given rise to an actual division of space, even in public transport vehicles (e.g. some neo-fundamentalist-minded architects have drawn up ideas for separate elevators for men and women). Thus public space, instead of sanctioning a principle of equality, focuses on sexual discrimination.

However, all these changes in the headscarf’s use and practice is joined to that which is a constant in the customs and norms of Muslim society: the dichotomy between the pure and impure, and prohibition as a basis for Islamic law.

The frequent emphasis in sacred texts – that women mustn’t do anything to look at other men and draw attention to themselves, hence covering up their figures – has indeed led the collective Muslim unconscious to associate femininity with lust. In this way women have become synonymous with the chaos and disorder attributed to vice. Hence with women there is always the imminent risk of committing acts of impurity. Due to their reproductive role, women are invested with a certain sacred nature. Therefore, breaking the rule – that is say, showing themselves off – means contaminating their original purity.

This taboo spells for a puritan society and articulates a legal system of control. Muslim societies are obsessed by issues of impurity; and the headscarf tends to symbolically preserve the bounds between the pure and impure.

Today the headscarf takes on the meaning of an identity crisis. In addition to expressing the widespread malaise found in Islamic society, the headscarf conceals its changes and exacerbates people’s fears. Whoever wears it, especially in the West, does so because they are coerced or conditioned to do so or are claiming their rights and asserting free choices. There are many opinions, but they all defer to a series of unsolved conflicts: between Islam and the West, with Islam itself and between law and culture.

Anti-dhimmitude in Norway: Scores flee forced marriages

Norway's Aftenposten reports that Norwegian authorities are helping young people "with immigrant backgrounds" flee forced marriages. The immigrant backgrounds are never identified, but Norway has a sizable Islamic community, and of course arranged marriages are common in the Islamic world. It is refreshing that the Norwegians aren't legalizing forced marriage in the name of pluralism. (Thanks to jboxell and Susan.)

Norwegian authorities last year arranged new identities and other assistance for nearly 60 youth with immigrant backgrounds. All feared they'd be forced to enter into arranged marriages.

One local agency that offers assistance (SEIF, Selvhjelp for innvandrere og flyktninger) said pleas for help have tripled during the last five years.

The number of crisis cases skyrocketed after a young woman in Sweden was killed by her father in 2002, after she pursued a romantic relationship of her choice. A third of those seeking help in Norway are under age 18.

Even though many are equipped with new legal identities, new addresses and a portable alarm that summons police if they feel threatened, most say they won't feel secure until they're also allowed to change the number that everyone resident in Norway is issued by the government.

Many of those seeking help are escorted by teachers in whom they've confided at local public schools. Not all are girls who fear their fathers will force them to marry cousins or others handpicked by the parents. Several boys also have sought help, fearing for their lives if they refuse to accept the wife chosen by their parents.

Dhimmitude and Bernard Lewis revisited

Bernard Lewis's reputation is richly deserved, but everyone has blind spots. Several appear in an admiring piece by Peter Waldman in the Wall Street Journal entitled "A Historian’s Take on Islam Steers U.S. in Terrorism Fight: Bernard Lewis’s Blueprint — Sowing Arab Democracy — Is Facing a Test in Iraq." (Thanks to Bassam Madany.) In it is this paragraph:

Mr. Lewis is also close to government circles in Israel and Turkey—non-Arab lands he describes as the only successful modern states in the region. He warmly praises Kemal Attaturk, who made Turkey a secular republic after World War I by suppressing Islam. (He has also said the Ottoman Turks’ killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 wasn’t genocide but the brutal byproduct of war. It was a stance for which a French court convicted Mr. Lewis in 1995 under France’s Holocaust-denial statute, imposing a token penalty.) Israeli experts say Mr. Lewis’s contacts with Turkish generals and politicians helped cement Israeli-Turkish military ties in the 1990s.

Not genocide, eh? It was not only genocide; it was jihad. I examine the historical record in Onward Muslim Soldiers. In 1894, long before World War I, the Ottoman government began killing Armenians. According to the Chief Dragoman (Turkish interpreter) of the British embassy, when the Turks initiated the first wave of the Armenian genocide in 1894, they were "guided in their general action by the prescriptions of the Sheri [Sharia] Law. That law prescribes that if the 'rayah' [dhimmi] Christian attempts, by having recourse to foreign powers, to overstep the limits of privileges allowed them by their Mussulman [Muslim] masters, and free themselves from their bondage, their lives and property are to be forfeited, and are at the mercy of the Mussulmans. To the Turkish mind the Armenians had tried to overstep those limits by appealing to foreign powers, especially England. They therefore considered it their religious duty and a righteous thing to destroy and seize the lives and properties of the Armenians." (Vahakn Dadrian, The History of the Armenian Genocide, Berghahn Books, 1995. P. 147.)

The New York Times reported it in 1915: "Both Armenians and Greeks, the two native Christian races of Turkey, are being systematically uprooted from their homes en masse and driven forth summarily to distant provinces, where they are scattered in small groups among Turkish Villages and given the choice between immediate acceptance of Islam or death by the sword or starvation." ("Turks are Evicting Native Christians," New York Times, July 11, 1915.)

Over a million Armenians were killed -- mostly noncombatants.

The French were right to convict Lewis.

Sharia alert: Muslim women and the vote

Barry Rubin in the Jerusalem Post reports on the sorry state of women's rights in the Islamic world — a condition made possible and reinforced by Sharia laws mandating gender (as well as religious) inequality. (Thanks to EPG.)

Thirteen years ago, in 1991, US soldiers arrived in Saudi Arabia to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi aggression and annexation. Among the American forces were women who drove vehicles. Perhaps inspired by this presence, several dozen Saudi women later held a demonstration in which they drove cars illegally.

Women cannot drive in Saudi Arabia. Despite a recent, highly-publicized statement by a Saudi prince saying this situation would change soon there is no sign whatsoever of the law being altered. Indeed, in July 2003 a powerful Saudi businessman and writer submitted his regular column to a leading Saudi newspaper, Ukaz, forseeing a future when women would have equal rights in his country.

After first being rejected the article was finally published. It stirred up a great deal of controversy and reaction ranging from death threats to support. Western media sources hailed it as an example of the increasingly open debate in the kingdom. A few days later the writer's column was dropped from the newspaper.

What makes this especially remarkable is the fact that the writer's father was the founder of the newspaper and the writer himself a major stockholder in it.

Within the last few days top state-appointed Saudi clerics have strongly criticized the presence of women at an international development conference being held in the country. Many observers conclude that this official decision is going to make it almost impossible to increase women's rights in the kingdom even if the regime there wanted to do that.

Some Arab governments do recognize that inequality for women is one of the main reasons for their slow pace of social progress and lagging economic development – though there are many others. But look what has happened – or rather hasn't – even in these cases.

After the Iraqi army was driven from Kuwait in 1991, its monarch promised women rights. Consequently, in May 1999 – the time gap says something about the pace of change in the region – he issued a decree giving women the right to vote and run for office in the next Kuwaiti elections.

While Kuwait is the most democratic country in the Gulf, arguably in the whole Arab world, voting rights are strictly limited. Of two million people living in the country only 800,000 are Kuwaiti citizens, and of these just 112,000 males can vote.

In July 1999 the elections saw the victory of more liberals than ever before, holding about 16 of the 50 seats. Supporters of women's suffrage confidently predicted parliament would endorse the ruler's plan. Islamist members, however, passionately opposed the idea, with wide popular support.

"Those women who are calling for political rights have reached menopause and need someone to remind them of God," said one. When the most popular version of the women's voting rights legislation came up for the vote, the elected members rejected it by a 32 to 15 margin.

This was supposedly to be only a temporary setback. The government suggested it would resubmit the bill in 2000. A liberal parliamentarian remarked, "One thing I know for sure: In 2003 women will have their political rights."

But he was wrong. Kuwaiti women still don't have the right to vote or run for office.

Also in 1999 the Jordanian government proposed canceling article 340 of the Penal Code, which said that killing a wife or female relative engaged in adultery was not a crime. Even after the king endorsed the change a poll showed about two-thirds of his subjects against the cancellation.

The most recent development is perhaps the most shocking of all. The US-supervised Iraqi Governing Council Decision No. 137 called for replacing that country's civil law with Islamic law. After protests from women's and other groups, the decision was reportedly withdrawn. Still, one wonders what will happen when Iraqis can vote on this issue.

OF COURSE, it is possible to point to progress on women's rights in the Arab world. Women now vote in Qatar, they are elected in small numbers to many parliaments, and they have an increasing role in business and rising levels of education. Saudi Arabia is not typical.

Yet the amount of progress and the pace of change is still remarkably slow. If Iran is also considered, the situation becomes even worse.

But in Egypt a survey shows that one-third of women have been beaten by their husbands, female circumcision continues to be practiced, and a husband who kills a wife involved in adultery would only receive a three-year sentence.

With rising Islamist influence – or at least regime efforts to appease such groups – the clock in many places seems to be running backwards.

By no means do all women support a basic change in their status, and even those who do are often not exactly "progressive" on other issues.

Experts estimate that Kuwaiti women are even more conservative than the men and, given the chance, would vote for parties that would deny them the vote.

Clearly, women have emerged as a major constituency favoring democracy and a moderate regime in Iran. This has not yet happened in the Arab world. The appeal of traditional viewpoints, radical Arab nationalism, and Islamism have attracted far more women than have liberal ideas. Whether or not their voices are heard on the side of reform will be one of the main factors determining whether the Arab world remains socially stagnant and politically authoritarian.

Uganda: Muslims Reject New Family Law

Muslims in Uganda, who according to the CIA make up only 16% of the population, but they are already vowing to reject a proposed anti-polygamy law on Islamic grounds. It is certain that such challenges will also come, sooner or later, to Western anti-polygamy laws on the same grounds — that these laws are against Islam.

Also in the West's future are likely to be Muslims, if they attain majority status in any Western country, agitating for the implementation of dhimmi laws there. After all, they are just as much part of Islamic law as polygamy.

This from AllAfrica.com, with thanks to Nicolei:

Several Muslim leaders in Uganda celebrated the Idd Adha holiday yesterday vowing to disobey a proposed new family law.

Several speakers here - at the headquarters of the Uganda Muslim Supreme Council - opposed the Domestic Relations Bill, which proposes, among others, to outlaw polygamy.

Muslim leaders said the proposal violates the Muslim holy book, the Koran, which allows Muslim men to marry up to four women.

One of the speakers, acting Mufti Sheikh Rajab Kakooza, who is also the director of Sharia law, said the DRB contradicts the Koran.

"In Islam we are taught to obey our leaders, but when they are diverting us from the Koran, we have to oppose them and obey Allah," he said.

Kakooza asked politicians to always consult religious leaders over spiritual matters before making laws that could spark off chaos in the country.

Both the Mufti, Sheikh Ramathan Mubajje, and his deputy, Sheikh Twaib Mukuye, are in Saudi Arabia for the hajj pilgrimage and did not attend the prayers.

Energy minister Syda Bbumba represented government and asked Muslims to pray for peace in Acholi and Lango.

She also reassured the Muslim community about the DRB. "Hajat Janat Mukwaya, who is in charge, is a devoted Muslim and can't sell anything that contradicts Islam," she said.

Mukwaya is the Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister.

Storm over Indian women's mosque

Muslim women aren't fighting for equality just in West Virginia. This news from India comes via the the BBC, with thanks to EPG:

Daud Sharifa is meeting a group of distressed Muslim women - business as usual at her red-brick office in sleepy Pudukkottai, in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu.

The shy women tell in low voices stories of how they have been divorced, abandoned and mistreated by their husbands.

Sharifa, a 39-year-old single woman who runs a 3,000-strong network to help Muslim women, gives advice.

The audience listens to her impassioned plea for women to build their own place of worship and be involved in community rulings on marriage, divorce, domestic abuse and child custody.

"Would having a place of worship of your own help? Would a jamat [community elders at mosques who adjudicate on family matters] of women be more sympathetic to your cause?" asks Sharifa.

The women nod in unison.

Rising complaints

Sharifa, an unlikely feminist in India's traditionally male-dominated southern heartland, has caused a storm by leading the movement for the women's mosque.

"We want our space to meet, talk, discuss our grievances and pray. We want to have a say in community rulings," Sharifa told BBC News Online.

In India, Muslim women mostly pray in buildings adjoining mosques; in some big mosques there are separate prayer enclosures.

"The majority of mosques do not allow women to pray," says Badar Sayed, a Chennai-based lawyer and chairwoman of Tamil Nadu's Waqf Board.

Waqf boards are elected bodies of Muslim theologians.

Ms Sayed says it is extremely important for women to be a part of a mosque congregation.

"Sometimes the sermons relate to women. Women should be present, listening in and finding out what they are all about," she says.

Female worshippers must often pray in adjacent buildings

Sharifa says the idea of a women's mosque was motivated by the rising number of complaints from local Muslim women against what they see as partisan rulings by the jamat.

Last year, she received over 100 petitions from women against jamat rulings in matters of dowry, divorce and domestic violence.

"The mosque will be a symbol of our awakening. Men are welcome to come and pray, but women will manage the affairs and be on its jamat," says Sharifa.

Badar Sayed agrees that the "male-dominated jamats" are often biased in rulings that affect women.

"Women are oppressed. The jamat does rule against them most of the time," she says.

"Men are sitting in judgment. Jamats should accept women into their fold."

Compromise

But Mohammed Sikkandar, secretary of Chennai's Purasawalkam mosque, says the jamats are "by and large fair".

"In matters of family dispute, we take our decision after talking to the affected women. Nothing is hastily decided," he says.

Mr Sikkandar says that of the 40 family dispute cases that came to his mosque in the past year, all but five were settled with a compromise.

He says jamats have even given away hefty compensation packages to women, citing the example of a 400,000-rupee ($8,800) award his jamat paid to a woman divorcing her abusive husband.

But this does not deter Sharifa, who says that there "might be a few good men, and a few good jamats", but the system is stacked against women.

She has toured villages and towns, collecting 9,000 rupees ($200) towards building the mosque. She will need $55,000.

Rashida Begum, a 21-year-old teacher and divorcee, is one of the Pudukkottai women supporting her.

"We are confined to our homes. Our thoughts are pent up. Our mosque will help us to get together and vent our feelings," Ms Begum says.

Rajitha Begum, 37, whose husband abandoned her, says a mosque would help women who have "nobody to go to".

"You don't realise how helpless women are. We have no fallback, no opportunities to decide our fates. Our mosque will show the way," she says.

Anti-dhimmitude in France: France to curb anti-Jewish TV broadcasts

Maybe the headscarf ban really is an indication that France is serious about cracking down on radical Islam. This from Reuters, with thanks to Alyssa Lappen:

France will soon pass a law to curb anti-Semitic television broadcasts coming from the Middle East and fine satellite operators who distribute anti-Jewish programmes, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said.

Raffarin told the annual dinner of the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF) that he and several cabinet ministers had seen some of these broadcasts and found them "unbearable to watch (and) revolting".

This followed an appeal by CRIF President Roger Cukierman to block anti-Semitic broadcasts from the Middle East, which officials here say encourage Muslim youths in France to attack Jews to take revenge for Israeli policy against the Palestinians.

"I believe deeply that our struggle against hate must take on a new dimension," Raffarin said as he announced the government would submit a bill to parliament to enable French judges to stop a satellite station that broadcasts anti-Semitic material.

He said the law would force satellite operators to inform Paris which stations they carried and threaten them with fines if they transmitted provocative broadcasts.

Satellite television is widely watched in the poor suburbs around French cities where most recent anti-Semitic attacks have occurred.

Cukierman said: "We see that messages of anti-Jewish hate are invading the air waves. Day after day, they reach households in our cities and suburbs thanks to satellite dishes."

He said satellite television broadcasters had beamed into France Egyptian and Syrian programmes based on the 19th-century Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious forgery purporting to show Jewish plots to dominate the world.

"The Al Manar station, which belongs to Hezbollah, broadcasts from Lebanon unbearable scenes ... one sees actors disguised as Jews who slit the throat of a non-Jewish child and collect in a saucer blood supposedly meant for their unleavened bread," he said.

Cukierman said France's 600,000 Jews were living "a period of malaise" and asked what their future would be.

"The anti-Jewish climate is spreading at schools and universities, across the whole country. Even small Jewish children have become victims."

He indirectly supported the government's plan to ban religious symbols from state schools, including the Jewish skullcap, to ensure that schools remained oases of neutrality where religious activists could not press their views on others.

He also urged the government to ban the Party of French Muslims, an openly anti-Zionist group whose leader Mohamed Latreche is now being investigated for a speech at a recent protest march that Jewish leaders denounced as anti-Semitic.

News from Muslim France: Paris Suburb to Televise Slaughter of Sheep

How are Muslims changing French society? The key point here is that anyone who challenges this broadcast, on the grounds of animal rights or good taste or whatever, would no doubt be told that it is a religious freedom issue. But at what point does religious freedom stop, when the religion in question contains doctrines that call for warfare against unbelievers, and their dominance and subjugation? This from Arab News, with thanks to LGF:

The Paris suburb of Evry, which has one of France’s largest Muslim populations, has decided to install video screens to enable the local faithful to watch some 3,300 sheep being slaughtered for Eid this year.

The televised ritual slaughter which will take place in a large mobile abattoir is the idea of a local meat wholesaler.

“If the idea succeeds this year then it’s likely to become a permanent fixture of Eids in future,” a local municipal spokesman said.

Meanwhile, at Le Mans, west of Paris, the local authorities have decided to build a “hard” structure in which the sheep belonging to local Muslims can be killed.

“If this works out,” says an official for the prefecture which is overseeing the development, “then it’s an idea that will probably be tried elsewhere in France.”

The new approach to the slaughter of the Eid sheep comes after years of difficulties for French Muslims who, having bought a sheep for Eid, thought it was their right to see them killed in a local slaughterhouse.

That, however, contravened strict governmental regulations on security and hygiene. Additionally, there were relatively few slaughterhouses available for the killing of the sheep according to Halal practice.

However, with the number of sheep to be killed this year rising to 110,000, the government decided it was time to introduce new methods by which they might be slaughtered under government sanitary regulations but also religiously-authorized conditions.

The authorities have notified Muslim representatives, in particular the new official French Council for the Muslim Faith, of the changes. But they will wait to see the response before planning any future Eid-related projects.

Woman fights for gender equality in West Virginia mosque

In the bad old days you had to go around to the back door if you were of the wrong race. In the new Islamic order — here in the United States already, at least in this mosque in West Virginia — you have to go around to the back if you're the wrong gender. This is a manifestation of the same law that oppresses non-Muslim dhimmis. But one Muslim woman is fighting back. This from AP, with thanks to Andy Bannister:

A woman is trying to break a gender barrier -- in her West Virginia mosque.

Asra Nomani is filing a discrimination complaint against a mosque that asks women to enter by a side door. The Morgantown congregation also separates men and women during prayer services.

Three months ago, Nomani, her mother and niece entered the mosque through the front door and began praying in the main room.

Nomani claims the men then broke off the service and tried to intimidate her into leaving. She and her father -- a mosque board member -- have complained to police.

The mosque board plans to meet soon on the situation, but will give no other comment.

The dispute comes as research indicates more U-S mosques are separating men and women during prayer.