Algerian Catholic cemeteries desecrated, trashed, as government refuses to protect them unless the crosses are removed

The two photos (above and below) are of the Sidi-Bel-Abbes Christian cemetery in Algeria, located about 50 miles southwest of Oran. They were posted at Le Salon Beige with no other explanation or clarification. Some angry LSB readers objected to the absence of information, and this comment was posted by the person who submitted the photos for publication:

I must come to the rescue of Michel Janva (the administrator of Le Salon Beige) since I'm the one responsible for this argument.

I'm from Oran [Algeria], and am a member of the historical committee CLAN (Liaison Committee of Associations of Frenchmen of North Africa). The photos are from 2009. We have a committee in charge of the cemeteries in Algeria that gathers information on the condition of our cemeteries. A year ago, France decided to bring together the remains from several necropolises of smaller cities into one or two large cemeteries. The condition of the sites is disastrous and has been since independence. We can provide detailed documentation that covers more than thirty years of observations.

The military cemeteries have not been spared. As an example, the cemetery of Mers-el-Kébir, where the tombs were smashed a few years ago. The Algerian government did not agree to clean them up unless there were no more crosses, just a simple stone on the graves. The bones were emptied out and placed in a pile.

We received the photos from Oran Tamashouet - a large necropolis if ever there was one. Its indescribable condition proves that there is a conscious will to sully the graves. My family is buried there, and I hope you will spare me any further reckless comments (...)

Note: He is referring to those comments questioning the authenticity of the photos.

French readers can take a look at this webpage on cemeteries in Algeria. Many Frenchmen are trying to trace the grave sites of family members. The absence of information and of assistance from the French government are sources of great frustration.

I did another post on Christian cemeteries in Algeria in January 2008. That post contains a 13-minute video showing the pathetic state of the Catholic cemetery.

Cimetiere catholique algerie
by Comite-6-fevrier

RoP, GalliaWatch

Germany asks if Islam impedes on freedom of speech

A decision by the German publisher Droste not to print a murder mystery about an honour killing because it contained passages insulting Islam has raised questions in Germany about religion impeding on freedom of speech.

Droste publishers said they would have published the book, entitled “To Whom Honour is Due”, had author Gabriele Brinkmann softened the tone in some sections In one, for example, an angry character tells another to dispose of a Koran using a crude phrase we would not reproduce here. “The author was not prepared to change the derogatory passages, which would have been a condition for the publication,” Droste said in a statement on its website.

(Photo: The Merkez Mosque in Duisburg, Aug 21, 2009, Reuters/Ina Fassbender)

Little did they realise what a stir this decision would cause in Germany, which is sensitive to any compromise on freedom of speech and where security fears over Islamists have blocked several artistic ventures in recent years. “For me, it is about the principle. That is why I went public about this. I won’t hurry to be obedient and carry out self censorship,” Brinkmann told German media. “Justified fear or cowardice?” asked the headline in the daily Hamburger Abendblatt.

Droste insists it is not worried about releasing books dealing with controversial themes, but refuse to publish books which insult peoples’ faith — whether Islam, Christianity or other religions. But Brinkmann points out that her book was a work of fiction, and it was clear that the opinions expressed by fictive characters were neither her own nor those of the publishers.

Furthermore, it is questionable if the company would have similary toned down any insults of Christianity, a religion that is regularly parodied and demonised in popular culture. Why not? Perhaps because insults against Christianity probably wouldn’t have carried the same security risks. Monty Python’s comedy The Life of Brian and Dan Brown’s best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code both provoked outrage among sections of the Christian community, but not death threats or violence.

Publisher Felix Droste himself admitted that he was concerned about a security risk that could arise to the company if it published the book, in light of the riots that broke out in several Islamic countries after cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper sparked outrage among Muslims.

How real is the risk? Should artists, producers and publishers seek to anticipate any risk by avoiding any criticism or parody of Islam? And regardless of security, to what extent should a society respect the religious sensitivities of one group if they begin to impede on its basic freedom of speech of all others?

Reuters

Saudi sex braggart gets five years in jail, 1,000 lashes

Saudi man who tells of colorful love life - gets five years in prison and 1,000 lashes. It was thought he might be given 20 years in jail and 12,000 lashes [a few whips later].

RIYADH (AFP) — A Saudi man whose televised boasts about his sex life outraged the country's conservatives was sentenced to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes on Wednesday, his lawyer said.

Mazen Abdul Jawad, a 32-year-old airline sales clerk, was convicted by a Jeddah court on Sharia law-based charges relating to immoral behaviour, Sulaiman al-Jimaie told AFP.

Three friends who appeared on the show with him were given two-year terms and 300 lashes each, while a cameraman who helped film the episode was sentenced to two months in jail.

Jimaie said they would appeal, insisting that his client was a victim of the Beirut-based LBC satellite TV network, which broadcast the show in which he appeared.

"My client has been presented to the people as a scapegoat to cover up the real culprit, LBC," Jimaie said in a statement after the verdict was announced.

He also said his client's case had been hurt by heavy media coverage that sparked public anger over Abdul Jawad's behaviour.

Abdual Jawad was disappointed by the verdict, Jimaie told AFP, "but he is mostly worried about his mother, who is in her 70s and has heart problems."

In July, Abdul Jawad, an employee of Saudi Airlines and a divorced father of four, appeared on an episode of LBC's racy show "Bold Red Line."

On the show, filmed in his Jeddah bachelor's apartment with his three friends present, he talked about having sex at 14 with a neighbour, picking up women using his cellphone's Bluetooth function and displayed sex aids and toys on camera.

A YouTube clip viewed hundreds of thousands of times sparked widespread anger among conservatives, in a country where unrelated men and women are strictly forbidden to meet.

After religious and judicial authorities received what they said were hundreds of complaints from the public, Abdul Jawad was arrested on July 31.

Religious leaders said the programme violated Islamic laws of lewdness and promoted illicit behavior, and that Abdul Jawad should be punished for extramarital sex based on his "confessions".

Jimaie said the case was inappropriately tried in a criminal court, which falls under the Islamic text-based legal system, rather than in a court handling media cases, where presumably more modern business law would prevail.

He said they are suing LBC and that the case will open next month. Abdul Jawad accused LBC of manipulating the episode to show him in a bad light.

Broadcast free-to-air by satellite around the Middle East, the talk show "Bold Red Line" featured frank discussions on provocative subjects like homosexuality among Arabs and women's rights in restrictive Gulf states.

Reached by telephone, Malik Maktebi, the popular host of "Bold Red Line" said he knew of the verdict but was not allowed by LBC to speak publicly about the case.
LBC chairman Pierre Daher also refused comment.

"It's a very sensitive matter, so from the beginning we decided not to talk about the issue," he told AFP by telephone.

The case also sparked a surge in criticism of most popular television from Saudi clerics, who follow the extremely conservative Wahhabist school of Islam.

Although based in more freewheeling Lebanon, LBC and another liberal regional network, Rotana, are owned by Saudi tycoon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a frequent target of Saudi religious conservatives for ignoring their rules.

LBC's offices in Jeddah and Riyadh were shut by Saudi authorities after Abdul Jawad was arrested.

Prominent Islamic scholar Sheikh Yousaf al-Ahmad, referring to some of the largest regional broadcast groups, said in early August: "MBC, Al-Arabiya, ART and the Rotana channels are all axes that destroy Islam and Muslims."

"The owner of LBC is known. We tell Alwaleed bin Talal, fear God!"

Veiled girls left at gate - barred from entering Cairo University [pics.]

Cairo University students wearing the hijab (L), a veil which covers the hair, walk freely on campus next to women wearing a niqab, the black veil which covers the face except for the eyes, on October 7, 2009. Niqab wearing women were denied entry to the Universities dorms while the Al-Azhar sheikh, Egypt�s top Islamic authority, has reportedly said the niqab is not part of Islam, and plans to ban it from the prestigious Al-Azhar University campus.

Al-Azhar chief 'should resign over veil remark'

Cairo University students wearing the niqab stand outside their university dormitory.

If these clothes are irritating those in Egypt - imagine how the rest of us feel about them up here.


CAIRO (AFP)— A Islamist lawmaker called on Wednesday for the head of the most prestigious centre of religious learning in the Sunni Muslim world to resign after he told a schoolgirl to remove the veil covering her face.

The demand to step down came as about two dozen students, wearing the face veil, known as a niqab, protested outside the state-run Cairo University, which has banned the veils from its residence hall.

Mohammed Tantawi, head of Al-Azhar University, told a schoolgirl to remove her niqab when he spotted her during a tour of an Al-Azhar affiliated school, the independent Al-Masry al-Youm newspaper reported this week.

He also said he intended to ban the niqab at Al-Azhar and made an unflattering remark about the girl's appearance when she took off the veil, the newspaper said.

"And you look like this; what would you do of you were a bit pretty," he reportedly asked, adding "I know more about religion than your parents."

Al-Azhar spokesman Ahmed Tawfiq confirmed Tantawi had asked the girl to remove the niqab, but said he spoke to her in a kindly way.

He said Tantawi, who insists the niqab is not an Islamic practice, wanted to ban the niqab from Al-Azhar classrooms on religious grounds.

"The imam always bases his decision on religious grounds," said Tawfiq.

Hamdi Hassan, an MP with the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group, said "Tantawi cannot stay in his post; he hurt's Al-Azhar every time he says something.

"I believe the niqab is not an obligation, but it is a benefit," he added. "Why ban it from Al-Azhar? It's a religious institution, not a belly dancing academy."

Meanwhile, about two dozen students wearing the niqab, which covers all but the eyes, gathered outside the gates of Cairo University's residence to protest at the decision, their luggage piled on a nearby pavement.

"I have exams in two weeks. I haven't found a house and I can't study," said one student who gave her name as Fatin. "What happened to individual freedom? Cosmetics are freedom, but not the niqab?"

In Kuwait, hardline Islamist MP Mohammad Hayef called Tantawi's action "shameless" and said the cleric issues "bizarre and abnormal fatwas (religious edicts)."

Most Muslim women in Egypt wear the hijab, which covers the hair, but the niqab is becoming more popular on the streets of Cairo.

The government has shown concern over the trend. The religious endowments ministry issued booklets against the practice, saying the niqab is not Islamic, and the health ministry wants to ban it among doctors and nurses.

In the Middle East, the niqab is associated with Salafism, an ultra-conservative school of thought practised mostly in Saudi Arabia.

Most Salafis shun politics, but the creed has influenced Islamist militants such as Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden.

Al-Azhar has long enjoyed a reputation as Sunni Islam's eminent source of learning and edicts.

Salafis, who actively promote their creed, sometimes funded by wealthy patrons in Saudi Arabia, are opposed to Al-Azhar's theological teachings.

A report on Islam in Britain has emerged: advising Muslims how to conduct themselves inline with living in a free, democratic and secular society

CONTEXTUALISING ISLAM IN BRITAIN: EXPLORATORY PERSPECTIVES pdf.

Director, HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies, Cambridge

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
in Association with the UNIVERSITIES OF EXEtER AND WESTMINSTER
Oc t o b e r 2 0 0 9


Oddly it tries to lay out a path for UK Muslims to embrace life in a secular democracy. What is worrying is the amount of explanation needed - which means that with each generation of Muslims who are continuously being imported into the country [if this continues] this will have to be explained again and again. Never mind getting through the to those already living in the UK.

The report tells Muslims that they don't need to live under an Islamic State - and rather the secular pluralist democracy has benefited them by allowing them to practise their religion freely. And that there should be a healthy distance between religion and state.

What seems logical to us - it seems needs to be explained to many Muslims. To the critics of Islam - Muslims are free to practise their religion in Western society - as minorities. Yet in the Islamic societies - where there is Sharia law - religious freedoms are not readily extended to minorities - under this legal framework Muslims have more rights - than non-Muslims. But within a free society - instead of embracing this freedom - Muslims are using these freedom to try and overturn it - so that it becomes more like those Sharia systems within the Islamic world where Muslims have more rights than all others. It appears it has been their duty to set out to destroy what has been so generously extended to them.

I think the most important part - is the telling Muslims that they can live in a European/western country without trying to overthrow it. [If you are 3% of society and you want to put in Islamic law that's an overthrow]. There are other important parts of the report that tell Muslims - that although Muslim beliefs are strongly held - Muslims should respect that other people also have beliefs which are deeply held. And tells them that in the public arena everyone is equal. They are further told / encourages not to disrespect homosexuals and to treat them fairly.

The report also tries to correct - views of of the Sharia and Jihad - telling non-Muslims that Sharia is not all about beheadings and floggings. And that Jihad most means peaceful struggle for rights within a society... in fact only 3% of Koran and other Islamic holy books list Jihad as a peaceful struggle all other references relate to Holy War.

Many non-Muslims, and Muslims, tend to have a skewed understanding of the term Shari'ah, which conjures up images of floggings and beheadings.

It goes on to try to clear up the differences between the religious requirements/obligations of Sharia law versus the rights and norms laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but when most westerners think of Sharia law we naturally think of the medieval penalties like the chopping off of hands and feet. Though we also think of the deficit in human rights.

The report tries to say that under Sharia everyone is equal. But clearly in the Koran it says non-Muslims must be made to pay the jizya tax with willing submission, or else convert to Islam or be fought against. Non-Muslims are automatically relegated to second class citizenship under Sharia law. A Muslim and a non-Muslim are not the same in an Islamic court of law - neither are Muslim women and Muslim men - the woman's word is worth half.

The report goes on to talk about the concept of apostasy from Islam - and as with most Muslim explanation puts it in the framework - of some event that took place 1000 years ago - when apostasy was seem as being treasonous. But tells them that in the context of todays world that is no longer relevant - at least not in the Western world and those who wish to leave Islam should be freely allowed to do so. It uses the no compulsion but in truth that only pertains to people who were already non-Muslim and not to apostates.

It talks about Muslims getting involved in politics and in the community -

The invocation of notions of divine sovereignty by politicians is problematic in practice since it can be used by individuals or groups ‘to play God’.

one of the problems though of creating a Shari political party - is that it would want to enjoy the same protection as a religion does. To question it is to question God. Then you move in to the whole realm of - this or that articular question offends me - and under those restrictions - particularly with what we are seeing in England and other parts of Europe - people being arrested for a run of the mill religious argument with a Muslim lady. Artist arrested - politicians put on trial for so-called offending Islamic sensibility - all this would mean that a Sharia party would have undue advantage over all other parties. For Muslims it has a whole 'nother context - as who would want to challenge God - therefore may be obliged to follow it.

Whatever it takes to get the Muslims in line - though critics of Islam in the West are going to continue - to see that freedom and democracy are not compromised - and that Sharia makes no significant headway in the West - and in addition that immigration is reformed. On the whole one can conclude that having to explain citizenship to people who are reluctant to embrace it - is worrying. And what the Muslims [segments] are doing is in effect treasonous.

Christian preacher refused entry to Britain under rules intended to fight extremism

Mr Hinn has visited before without any problem but the Home Office has changed the rules for ministers of religion. He fell foul of tier five of the new points-based system for all visitors to Britain, which came into effect last November. One of the aims of the new rules was to combat extremism and prevent teachers of religious hate entering the country.

This is the problem with tampering with the freedoms of speech laws. The place soon erodes into a dictatorship - when that speech is not directed at causing violence - then it comes to down the opinion - often personal opinion - of those making the rules - and that's just not good enough.

Thousands who travelled to see Mr Hinn perform at a London rally have been were left disappointed after officials at Stansted airport would not let him in the country.

Border Agency officials turned back Mr Hinn, who landed by private jet, because he had failed to bring a valid sponsorship certificate from his church, required under rules introduced last November.

The Pentecostal preacher, who was due to perform at a three day rally in a Docklands exhibition centre this weekend, flew on to Paris, and attempted – and failed – to regain entry to Britain via Luton.

Thousands of evangelical Christians who had booked long weekend breaks to see the mission at the ExCeL centre were left waiting for Mr Hinn to appear at the free preaching event, not knowing why he failed to appear. Instead another pastor took his place.

His "fire conference and miracle service" was scheduled to last three days, finishing on Saturday night.

Among the "miracles" the Texan preacher performs is one in which he instructs participants to "let the bodies hit the floor". Videos of the services show the devout falling down backwards, "slain in spirit".

Mr Hinn has previously visited Britain without problems, but since November, under Home Office rules intended to combat extremism, all religious workers must obtain a valid certificate of sponsorship before they arrive in the UK.

One of the aims of the new points-based system was to prevent teachers of religious hate entering the country.

A Border Agency spokesman said the rules were designed to ensure that a legitimate sponsor is linked to any application to enter Britain for work purposes. He added: "These rules are applied objectively and clearly set out for travellers".

Jill Masefield, who lives in Bristol, said she and thousands of other followers had been left waiting for Mr Hinn to appear at the free preaching event, not knowing why he had not appeared.

"He's been coming here for years and years," she said. "I think it is very unfair thaty they have blocked him now. It has cost me a fortune in hotel bills and I feel we have been led up the garden path"

Telegraph

Buying Sharia: Saudi Arabia wants to invest billions in Dutch companies and projects

Kind of like the Mafia ~ I just want to do you this little favor !!

Oh him ~ it's a Saudi thing!! They do that every Valentine's Day.

It looks just a little bit suspicious! But then maybe the Saudi's are playing their cards right - they have managed to buy off - the West's most prestigious Universities - who now put out studies that say things like - 'Men who got to Mecca - treat women better'. Never mind Mecca is in Saudi Arabia where women have the least rights in the world. But then if it comes from an Ivy League University - it's like God's voice bellowing from the clouds.

For these Muslim movers and shakers [short for Islamizers of the free world], it suits them to have the debate about Islam framed around hatred for Muslims.

It produces the typical Pavlov response in the ultra-Left, who salivate at the sound of any who questions Islam. Useful attack dogs for Muslims wishing to set up a Sharia base. They keep the area clear.

But by framing the debate around Islamization and the implementation of Sharia type laws - on the hatred of Muslims - then they can offer to help - because if you hate - then there is a problem with you - so that you need help - in this case - by liking Muslims better - accepting Sharia law and the loss of some of your personal rights and freedoms - is slipped in with it.

It is a charm offensive - its the opposite of for example when Darth Vadar [Star Wars] says ~ 'So You Are Not Happy With This Arrangement?' With Islam ~ rather if you object to Sharia law being introduced in your country ~ then you hate Muslims. Next some guy on the Left ~ will send you to a program to 'understand Islam better', have you arrested, put on trial or fired from your job on hate crimes charges.

In truth it would be hard for the Saudi's to buck the trend - that is working against Islamization of the Western world. But by all means they are free to try.


The government of Saudi Arabia and Saudi companies want to invest billions of euros in the Netherlands.

This is Amr Al-Dabbagh, governor of the state investment company Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (Sagia), said yesterday in an interview with the Financial Times. "After oil capital is our largest export product. We have a lot of money for the export of capital available. And we want a fair share of Netherlands gets, "said the governor of Sagia.

Saudi Arabia is engaged in a charm offensive, now mega-investments by state funds in recent years in the West have proved politically sensitive. The country has the coming years along with other oil states and Asian countries thousands of billions to invest. The ability of the state funds from oil-exporting countries will grow from $ 5000 billion at the end of last year to $ 13.000 billion in 2013, estimates McKinsey.

Saudi Arabia will invest in Dutch intellectual capital

The Saudis want to invest in the Netherlands in the food processing industry, agribusiness, technology companies and other firms that Saudi Arabia of knowledge and intellectual capital can provide. "We seek investments that provide added value for the Saudi economy can produce."

Governor Amr Al-Dabbagh, who yesterday visited several Dutch companies and held a lecture at the Rotterdam School of Management, also calls on Dutch companies to invest more in his homeland. "We currently build four new economic cities, where foreign investors a 100 '% in projects can take. There are tremendous opportunities for Dutch business. Saudi Arabia is for them an engine of economic growth, especially now as the traditional market outlets because of the economic crisis fail. We lay the red carpet for the Dutch business from. "

No concrete talks

The boss of the government investment agency speaks with pride about his homeland, which recently part of the G20 and this year the 'Doing business' list of the World Bank ranks thirteenth. This list looks at the business climate in 181 countries. "In 2004 we were still in place today at 67 and 13. In 2010 we want the top 10 most competitive countries in the world. "

Amr Al-Dabbagh is no concrete examples of interviews with Dutch companies about investment. That the Saudis in the Dutch agribusiness to invest, however, is obvious. This is a much higher level than in countries like Egypt, Kazakhstan, Indonesia and Turkey, where they have invested billions in recent years with the aim of food domestically secure.

Please read our file on the credit crisis

Netherlands already has some big Saudi investors. Sabic offers in Limburg, the acquisition of a DSM-division (2002) employs about two thousand people. Sister company Sabic Innovative Plastics, formerly GE Plastics, Bergen op Zoom in 1300 employees. State oil company Saudi Aramco is also a well known investor. These investments were in the Netherlands hardly controversial.

fd.nl

Pakistan: Christians in Gojra refuse aid from US Consulate in Lahore, demand repeal of blasphemy law

This is the reality of those Christians living in the Islamic world - imagine no one has been arrested for the Gojran Christian massacre - indeed the police report placed blame on the regions Christian leadership [the Bishop]. And it appears that the Pakistan authority has given a Muslim's family who also lost someone in the same attack, about $12,000 while not offering the Christian family similar amounts.


Gojra (AsiaNews) – Gojra Christians staged a noisy protest at a ceremony in which officials from the US Consulate in Lahore were handing out relief packages. Many intended beneficiaries refused to accept the aid offered by Carmella Conroy, principal officer at the US Consulate in Lahore, in protest against the failure by Pakistani police to arrest the Muslim extremists who carried out the massacre of seven Christians last August.

Ms Conroy was set to hand out aid to 150 Christians in a ceremony held at the small Catholic church in Gojra. But the first recipient, Shabaz Hameed, refused the package, demanding instead justice for the victims of the massacre in which his family was burnt alive.

Hameed called for immediate action against those who carried out the attack; their names appear in the original report (First Information Report) filed with police after the violent incident.

Other Christians did the same and turned down the aid offered by the US Consulate.

The situation eventually degenerated into a scuffle as a number of people began shouting slogans against the Pakistani police, others against US policy vis-à-vis Pakistan, and some began throwing the packages against the stage where Ms Conroy was sitting.

After calm was re-established, the US consular official said that the relief goods were part of a message of harmony and peace to them from the United States.

In response, Gojra Christians called on the US official to get Washington to put pressures on Pakistani authorities in Islamabad to bring justice in their case.

Naveed Walter, chairman of Human Rights Focus Pakistan (HRFP), welcomed the Christians’ position, reiterating the need to abolish the blasphemy law, which Muslim extremists used in Gojra as a pretext to attack and kill Christians. “In their agitation,” Christians have shown “no trust in the [Pakistani] government,” he said.

Naveed noted that Christians were also angered by the government’s decision to give a million rupees (US$ 12,000) in compensation to the family of Muhammad Asif, a Muslim man who died during the attack on Christians in Gojra.

The National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), a human rights organisation of the Catholic Church of Pakistan, recently reported that since 2001, about 50 Christians were killed in attacks against Christian places of worship or other Church institutions after accusations of blasphemy were levelled against them.

Christians are not alone in this; other religious minorities have also been targeted for violent action by Muslim extremists.

Representatives of the Ahmadi community, a Muslim group considered heretical by both Sunni and Shia Muslims, have reported that 12 of their co-religionists have been killed in 2009.

Since 1984, 107 Ahmadi have been killed and 719 arrested on blasphemy charges.

Love Jihad: Middle Eastern money channeled into helping Indian Muslims to focibly convert, then radicalise Indian girls

Where girls are kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam in Pakistan and even Egypt the state's Islamic law will side with the kidnapper - as no one is allowed to legally leave Islam. That leaves the very young [12 yrs] and the naive are vulnerable to these kinds of dastardly actions. As return of these girls is not automatic - even though they were snatched or kidnapped - their families are forced to apply to the court.


New Delhi (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The High Court of Kerala has asked the state police and the Interior Minister in New Delhi to open an investigation into the so-called "Love Jihad" and "Romeo Jihad" operations planned by Muslim organizations that lure young girls with the promise of the soul mate and then force them to convert to Islam.

The request of the judge KT Sankaran has coincided with a Kerala court rejection of a request to release on bail of two young Muslim men accused of having deceived two schoolgirls from Pathanamthitta college. The suspects belong to the Campus Front, a Muslim student group, linked to the Popular Front of India (PFI) a confederation of organizations of Islamic inspiration, also active in the states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

The two students, originally from Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram, testified in court that they were lured with promises of marriage and then held hostage in a centre in Malappuram. They say they were forced to watch videos and read books glorifying religious extremism.

The police in Kerala is concerned that the phenomenon may be widespread. The Muslims are the second largest religious community of the state after Hindus, accounting for 24% of the population, over 30 million people, and this gives a dense network of relationships that can facilitate the operations of priming and conversion.

The first clues to the story date to the beginning of 2009 when the police registered in over six months, almost 4 thousand conversions to Islam among girls who had had dealings with the network of Romeo Jihad.

The main instrument used for grooming is the Internet. The profile of young people involved is well defined: Hindu or Christian, a student in college or their first job, coming from wealthy families. The primers were precise: two weeks to verify the feasibility of converting the girl, six months for submission to real brainwashing. During their mission the young men are given cell phones, bikes and clothing needed to lure young women; if the conversion occurred 100 thousand rupees, about 1,400 Euros, as financial aid to start a business of their own.

The High Court of Kerala has demanded that the central authorities and those of the state also investigate funds that finance the two campaigns. To date, investigators have been able to discover that the money comes from abroad, probably from Middle East or the Arabian peninsula.

Air passengers face full body X-rays after suicide bombers hide devices INSIDE their bodies

Introducing the Bum-Bomb !!

Travellers to Europe face being treated like drug smugglers as security chiefs are expected to recommend new intrusive security measures.

French anti-terror chiefs are expected to propose the new measures, such as full body X-rays or handing in all electronic devices, after a terrorist tried to kill a Saudi prince with a bomb he had inserted into his body.

Al Qaeda's latest ploy was first pioneered by Abdullah Hassan al Asiri, who blew himself apart in Jeddah in late August in an attack on Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi anti-terrorism chief.

The 23-year-old terrorist blew himself into 70 pieces when he detonated the bomb - inserted into his rectum - with a mobile phone.

His body was said to have absorbed some of the impact of the explosion, however, leaving the prince only slightly injured.

However experts claimed such a blast would be catastrophic in the pressurised atmosphere of a passenger jet.

Now President Nicolas Sarkozy's new domestic intelligence directorate (DCRI) is considering draconian measures, police commanders told Le Figaro newspaper.

But some in the government are already slamming measures that would leave passengers being treated as drug smugglers.

'It is unthinkable when you think about the frequency with which some people fly,' a senior Interior Ministry official told Le Figaro. 'The health risks would be too high.'

The 'bum bombs' - or, in American terms, 'keister bombs' - could have a catastrophic result on an aircraft, especially if it were removed from the bomber's body, Scott Stewart of Stratfor, a Texas-based global intelligence firm, told the Times.

Because the human body absorbs much of the impact, however, a certain amount of explosive would be needed.

The devices could also be used in targeted attacks - such as the failed assasination attempt on the Saudi prince.

Al Qaeda has promised to put instructions to create such a bomb on the internet.

Daily Mail

Barbs fly in Middle East over the Egyptian scholar's call to ban the face veil/ burqa at al-Azhar school

Damascus/Cairo - Islamic scholars from around the Middle East on Tuesday weighed in on the recent controversy in Egypt over whether the niqab, a veil that covers the full face, is Islamically correct.

Cairo's independent daily al-Masry al-Youm set off a firestorm of controversy on Monday when it quoted leading Egyptian religious authority Sheikh Mohammed Tantawi as saying he planned to ban the niqab from schools in the al-Azhar system.

Tantawi, the head of al-Azhar University, Cairo's centuries-old centre of Islamic learning, reportedly told a young girl to take off the niqab when he visited her classroom over the weekend. Al-Azhar runs a network of primary and secondary schools across the country.

'The niqab has nothing to do with Islam,' al-Masry al-Youm quoted Tantawi as saying. 'I know more about religion than you or your parents do.'

Tantawi is traveling in Tajikistan and neither he nor his staff have confirmed the newspaper report.

Because the opinions of the sheikh of al-Azhar have traditionally carried significant weight throughout the Sunni Muslim world, the comments have attracted regional attention, and have pitted scholars affiliated with secular governments such as Egypt's and Syria's against those affiliated with the conservative Saudi state.

At home, an Egyptian Islamist opposition lawmaker called for Tantawi's resignation, calling the reported remarks 'totally irresponsible.'

'On what basis does he issue such an edict and ban teachers and students who wear the niqab from entering al-Azhar?' the weekly Egyptian Mail quoted Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Hamdi Hassan as saying.

His response echoed that of senior Saudi religious scholar, Sheikh Mohammed al-Najimi.
'With all respect to our friend, Sheikh Tantawi, the niqab is not (merely) a tradition,' al-Najimi told the German Press Agency dpa by phone.

'I hope he will reconsider what the religious scholars said. It would be a great mistake to prevent wearing the niqab from entering al-Azhar.'

But Sheikh Mohammed al-Habash, a Syrian preacher who also holds a seat in that country's parliament, on Tuesday expressed his support for Tantawi's opinion.

'The niqab has no basis in Islamic law,' he told dpa in Damascus. 'Few scholars in the history of Islamic scholarship regard it as compulsory.'

The question may never be put to test, in any case. Atef Mohammed Abdou, head of an al-Azhar-affiliate institution in Cairo, was quoted by the pan-Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat as expressing doubt that Tantawi would go through with the ban.

Abdou suggested that the wearing of the niqab should be considered a personal decision.

Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court has indicated that it agrees. A total ban on the niqab contravened the Egyptian constitution, the court found, in considering the case of a researcher who sued after she was prevented from using a university library because she would not remove the niqab in 2001.

In contrast to Saudi Arabia, where the state enforces a conservative brand of Islam, most Egyptian women wear the hijab, or headscarf, and the full niqab is rare.

Monsters & Critics

Now Italy considers banning the burqa too

Italy today became the latest European government to announce it was considering introducing a law which would make wearing a burqa illegal.

MPs from the anti-immigration Northern League party, a member of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's ruling right wing coalition, have presented the proposal in a bill.

It comes just weeks after France also said that it was considering making the wearing of burqas by Muslim women illegal - a statement which prompted al Qaeda terrorists to vow revenge if it was banned.

Italy has more than one million Muslims but it is rare to see women wearing the full burqa.

There have been incidents, especially in northern cities such as Milan and Verona, where women wearing it have been asked to remove at least the face veil.

Last month centre-right politician Daniela Santanche was involved in clashes with Muslims after she attended an end of Ramadan festival and urged women to remove their burqas.

There has also been a backlash against the 'burkini', a bathing costume that is suitable for Islamic dress. Several Musilim women who have used swimming pools wearing burkinis in Italy have been asked to leave, with officials claiming the garments are 'unhygienic'.

The Northern League's proposal aims at amending a 1975 law, introduced amid concern over domestic terrorism, which bans anyone wearing anything which makes their identification impossible.

The only exceptions are for 'justified cause' - which until now has been interpreted to include religious reasons in court rulings against local bans on the burqa.

The Northern League also has the backing of Berlusconi's People of Freedom party. The League's Roberto Cota said: 'We are not racist and we have nothing against Muslims but the law must be equal for everyone.

'The aim of this bill is to clarify the 1975 law in a definitive way and allow the ban to be extended to garments worn for reasons of religious affiliation.'

MP Barbara Saltamartini, of the People of Freedom, said:'Banning the burqa can not be considered anti-Muslim because wearing it is not obligatory in Islam.

'The Imam of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the highest authority in Sunni Islam, has just stated unequivocally that Muslim women have the right to their own identity and that the burqa is not part of Muslim tradition.

'This position is of extreme importance not only because it dismantles false myths perpetrated by a patriarchal fundamentalism, but also because it shows how the dignity of a women is compatible with the symbols and values of Islam.

'It would be absurd now if countries like Egypt ban this instrument of submission and we continue to avoid dealing with the question.'

Centre left opposition MPs criticised the proposal and said it was 'unconstitutional because it infringes on religious freedom and justifying it because of law and order is totally out of place.'

Daily Mail

Robert Spencer at Pax Europa Kundgebung Berlin human rights rally [3.10.2009] [Video]

In English & German

Couple of important points Robert Spencer makes:

This experiment by Western governments to introduce a little bit of Sharia law is doomed to fail. As Sharia encompasses all aspect of human life - and is both a religious and political law. We should expect Sharia courts to openly challenge Western law.

When in Saudi Arabia - one has to abide by Islamic law - as this is their country - but in the West now we must [or are being asked to] abide by Islamic law - which is not in the Islamic world.

The idea that any criticism of Islam is racist is flawed. Recent terrorist plots to blow up sites in the US have been White converts to Islam.

There has never been an immigrant in recent times like the Islamic immigrant - Spencer speaks a little about his own immigrant grandfather of Armenian descent who refused the Turkish generous offer to convert to Islam and who without a doubt escaped the horrors of the Armenian genocide - that left some 3 million dead - how his grandfather like so many others welcomed the life of freedom in America and tried their best to honor that by staying involved with national issues. Versus the new Muslim immigrant who sees America only as a place to conquer and subjugated beneath Sharia laws.

At the Islamic prayer on Capital Hill Spencer mingled with the Muslim attendees and asked them what their opinions were on Sharia law in America - by and large everyone he spoke to said that they saw an America ruled by Sharia. [*Then we must assume that is why they were there praying!]

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Germany: Muslim honour killing book cancelled over safety fears

Muslim girl's body found dumped in this lonely wooded area in Germany - her face battered beyond recognition - by her own brother.

Another European publisher has fallen victim to the continent’s blasphemy laws – blasphemy against Islam, that is. As the German press is reporting:

Dusseldorf – A German publisher has cancelled plans to publish a mass-market novel out of fears that it might face violent protests due to a rude reference to the Koran, Der Spiegel magazine reported Saturday. The crime novel – about the “honour killing” of a Muslim woman – had been scheduled for September publication, but the Droste publishing company of Dusseldorf decided not to print it after all, the magazine said in a story to appear in its Monday issue.

It said the publisher had first asked the author, Gabriele Brinkmann, writing under the pen name WW Domsky, to tone down dialogue in “To Those Worthy of Honour” which might be construed as offensive, but she had refused.

Spiegel reported that the offensive phrase in question was a character saying: “You can shove your Koran up …”

Publisher Felix Droste had asked an expert on Islamic society to study whether the crime story’s text could compromise the safety of his firm or his family, and the expert suggested the phrase be modified.

But the author refused to alter it to “You can shove your honour up …”
Droste wrote back that riots over Danish cartoons that poked fun at the Prophet Mohammed in 2005 showed that anyone publishing insults to Islam was putting their safety at risk, Spiegel said.

Over the weekend I heard Mark Steel on the wireless [radio] mocking the idea that there was an “Islamisation” of Europe, doing an impression of a call to prayer on Radio Surrey. Funny as always, but wrong – Islamisation does not mean waking up one day to find the newsreaders sporting a massive beard and a hook on his hand, or the local hoodie [young men who can cause trouble and wear the hooded tops] having his hand cut off in public, any more than climate change means immediate and dramatic Hollywood-style disasters.

Islamisation refers to small but significant erosions of our freedom, bit by bit, demand by demand, concession by concession. The initial victims are Muslims themselves: for many Muslim women and girls living in Britain, especially those 20,000 said to be at risk from genital mutilation or the smaller number threatened with honour killings or with being murdered for apostasy, Islamisation is already a reality.

For the rest of us it is less immediate and less noticeable, but a little bit of our freedom dies every time someone is cowed into silence.

Telegraph

British spies go public with official history

A new book says Britain's domestic spy service thinks the threat from Islamist terrorism has stopped growing but remains severe, with terrorists eager to acquire weapons of mass destruction

Historian Christopher Andrew says the MI5 agency was initially slow to grasp the threat from militant Islam. But since Sept. 11, 2001, it has foiled several major terrorist plots.

"The Defence of the Realm," published Monday in Britain is the first authorized history of MI5. It quotes MI5 chief Jonathan Evans as saying that recent counterterrorism successes have had "a chilling effect on the enthusiasm of the plotters."

But Andrew says terrorists remain determined to get chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

AP

Egypt purges niqab/burqa from schools and colleges

A glimmer of modernity.

Saudi Arabia has oil money pouring in - money for nothing. How is Egypt going to survive with all its women locked behind burqas - can't do this and can't do that - that's the state of the nation.

If you are out in the dry desert and sand is blowing into your mouth and nose that kind of clothing is logical - covering the face in those conditions is a requirement for survival. The nomadic men in the Sahara and Arabian Deserts still do it - but it is only the women who are required to continue wearing the face covering once they are in developed areas. Many of the Muslim countries in North Africa want to copy Saudi Arabia - but who can afford it. And in the blazing sun - who in their right mind would wear black - Saudi men put themselves in cool white. It is a clear example of the subjugation of women.

No doubt this ruling will help those in Europe who would like to openly object to the burqa - in schools and public offices.

Egypt has embarked on a campaign to restrict the most conservative forms of Muslim dress after one of Islam's most respected clerics ordered a schoolgirl to remove her niqab, or veil.

Sheikh Mohammed Tantawi was reportedly angered during a tour of a Cairo school when he saw a girl wearing a niqab, the full veil worn by some devout Muslim women which covers the entire body except for the eyes.

Sheikh Tantawi, regarded by many as Egypt's Imam and Sunni Islam's foremost spiritual authority, asked the teenage girl to remove her veil saying: "The niqab is a tradition, it has no connection with religion."

The imam instructed the girl, a pupil at a secondary school in Cairo's Madinet Nasr suburb, never to wear the niqab again and promised to issue a fatwa, or religious edict, against its use in schools. The ruling will not affect use of the hijab, the Islamic headscarf worn by most Muslim women in Egypt.

Although definitions vary, the niqab is generally distinct from the burka, a garment which covers the entire body and allows only a mesh material in front of the eyes.

Shekih Tantawi's order is likely to resonate throughout the Islamic world even though, ironically, the schoolgirl had only worn the niqab in honour of his visit to the school.

Following the imam's lead, Egypt's minister of higher education is to ban female undergraduates from wearing the niqab from the country's public universities, Cairo's Al-Masri Al-Yom newspaper reported.

The Egyptian government has become increasingly uneasy about the growing popularity of the niqab, seeing it as another manifestation of the religious puritanism it has long sought to suppress.

Although the Koran does not require women to cover their faces, Sheikh Tantawi's edict is likely to prove unpopular among fundamentalist Muslims. One popular Saudi cleric has already argued that the niqab is not conservative enough and has called on devout women to ensure they only reveal one eye in public.

While undoubtedly influential, Sheikh Tantawi has plenty of detractors who deplore his moderation in many fields.

They have criticised him for shaking hands with Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, backing France's ban on wearing the hijab in schools and issuing a fatwa allowing abortion for women who became pregnant through rape.

Telegraph

Egypt's top cleric plans face veil ban at the al-Azhar school

Man ~ got to dress like all the other human beings!!

Egypt has also cracked down on this rickets-wear in hospitals as well.


CAIRO (AP)— Egypt's top Islamic cleric is planning to ban students wearing the face veil from entering the schools of al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's premier institute of learning, according to an independent daily Monday.

A security official also told The Associated Press that police have standing verbal orders to bar girls covered from head to toe from entering al-Azhar's institutions, including middle and high schools, as well as the dormitories of several universities in Cairo.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he's not authorized to speak to the press, said the ban was for security reasons.

The moves appear to be part of a government campaign cracking down on increasingly overt manifestations of ultraconservative Islam in Egypt.

While a vast majority of Egyptian women wear the headscarf, only a few wear the niqab, which covers the face and is common in neighboring Saudi Arabia which practices the more conservative form of Wahhabi Islam. The trend seems to gaining ground in the Arab world's most populous country.

There is no uniform religious opinion across the Muslim world about whether a head scarf — much less a face veil — is required.

The majority of Islamic scholars say the face veil is not required but is merely a custom that dates back to tribal, nomadic societies living in the Arabian desert before Islam began.

Sheik of al-Azhar Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi's plans came to light when he told a middle school student in a class he was visiting earlier this week to take off her niqab.

Tantawi was inspecting al-Azhar's schools at the start of the academic year to check on measures in place to stem the spread of swine flu, according to details of the visit published by the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm.

Tantawi angrily told the girl that the niqab "has nothing to do with Islam and is only a custom" and made her take it off.

He then announced he would soon issue an order banning girls from entering al-Azhar schools wearing the niqab.

"Niqab has nothing to do with Islam...I know about religion better than you and your parents," the cleric was quoted as telling the student.

Tantawi left Cairo late Sunday on a visit to Tajikistan and was not available for comments. Calls to his deputies went unanswered.

However, Abdel Moati Bayoumi, a scholar in an al-Azhar affiliated research center, said al-Azhar's scholars would back Tantawi if he issues the order.

"We all agree that niqab is not a religious requirement," Bayoumi said. "Taliban forces women to wear the niqab... The phenomena is spreading" and it has to be confronted, he added. "The time has come."

Critics of the move, however, say the ban has little chance of being implemented. A previous directive by the minister of religious endowment to ban women preachers wearing the niqab from mosques was hotly contested. A ban on nurses wearing full veil was announced last year, but not enforced.

A researcher wearing the niqab prevented from using the library at the American University in Cairo in 2001 took her case to the Egypt's supreme court and eventually won. The court ruled a total ban on the niqab to be unconstitutional.

The court did recommend that women wearing the niqab be made to uncover their faces before female security guards to verify their identity.

On Saturday, scores of female university students protested outside al-Azhar university dormitory calling for the repeal of the decision banning fully veiled women from entering. There were similar demonstrations at Cairo University.

Sheik Safwat Hijazi, a scholar and preacher, said he would personally sue anyone who prevented his daughter or wife wearing full niqab from going about her daily life, including entering government offices.

"Preventing a woman from wearing what she wants is a crime," Hijazi said. "Whoever says the niqab is a custom is not respectable."

Hossam Bahgat, of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said the series of government decisions against the niqab are "arbitrary" and while designed to combat extremism, only end up being discriminatory against women.

"The (veiled female students) are barred from government subsidized housing and nutrition because they are considered extremists," he said.

ERDOGAN: OUR GOAL IS RESTORATION OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE MIGHT

Turkey’s goal is to live in peace with all countries and restore the might of the Ottoman Empire, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. “I believe that each Turkish family should have at least three children. We believe in Turkey’s future and call on everybody to believe,” he said. Dwelling on Turkish-Russian relations, he described them as strategic. “Russia is our partner. The trade between our countries has reached $40 billion,” Milliyet newspaper quoted Erdogan as saying.

This was obvious - and my guess is that he wants to use the European Union to achieve that. A shortcut to power. After this [if this statement is factual] European nations have got to know - that Turkey's full membership in Europe Union is the wrong decision.

This kind of sentiment is not only coming from Erdogan's party but also the Turkish National[ist] Party who say that if they were elected they would restore the Ottoman Empire to its former glory - and more openly state their belief that the Turkish people are superior - as in a racial sense - to all mankind.

They are the third largest party - behind Erdogan's - with the second largest being the secular - though dated Atatürk supporters.

It doesn't look good for Europe.

A couple of questions - why is Turkey trying to become a member of the EU - why not join with the countries to the east - because the Turks conquered and colonized them once and they now only trust Turkey at arms length?

But then Turkey has a pipeline - we must all fall in line? At least that is what we are being sold.

What we have is a Turkey that wants to Islamize - is being prevented from doing so by a thread - its courts and military [and may eventually want to Islamize the EU] - together with ambitions of reviving a supremacist Empire. Why should the EU taxpayer fund that! Let them work for it - themselves!


ArmTown

Iran's Nuclear Proliferation: Genie out of the bottle

Overlooking religious minorities: Turkey on US Religious Freedom's Watch List

Christian monk walks to attend a service at Mor Gabriel. The monastery is fighting over land it says it's had since the 4th century.


Anyone taking public transportation in Washington recently has seen the posters of a beautiful Turkish dancer beckoning from Metro buses and from posters in Union Station. The advertisement invites people to attend the Seventh Annual Turkish-American Festival on Sunday. Thousands are likely to accept the invitation and on a fall afternoon, crowd Pennsylvania Avenue to enjoy "Turkish Arts, Crafts, Dance, Food and Fun."

Turkey, like all nations in a tourism campaign, wants to put the best foot forward. However, as demonstrated in an early September desecration of an Orthodox Christian cemetery in Istanbul, religious minorities in Turkey face problems that go often unreported or are ignored.

Because of these concerns, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) undertook a fact finding tour of Turkey in 2006. Religious minorities reported that they continued to experience serious problems regarding opening, maintaining and operating houses of worship, as well as serious restrictions on their ability to train clergy, maintain educational and cultural organizations, and own private and collective property. Communities affected include the Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox Churches, as well as Roman Catholics, Protestants and others.

Anti-Semitism remains an alarming concern, as well. USCIRF also learned of significant restrictions on religious freedom for the majority Sunni Muslim community and the minority Alevis (usually viewed as a unique sect of Islam).

Because these and other religious freedom problems persist, and the existence of several religious communities in Turkey remains imperiled, USCIRF placed Turkey on its "Watch List" in May 2009.

Turkey is approximately 98 percent Muslim, mostly Sunni. About 20 percent of that majority are Alevis, who are subject to unofficial and official discrimination because of their heterodox Islamic faith. The Alevi, who do not worship in mosques, for example, have great difficulty getting official permits to build assembly houses for worship.

The remaining 2 percent of Turkey's population, estimated at 75 million, is comprised of non-Muslim and mainly Christian minorities. The significant restrictions on religious minority communities include state policies and actions that have effectively used religious freedom restrictions to produce the broader political and economic disenfranchisement of religious minorities who, in some cases, are being eliminated from lands that they have inhabited for millennia.

Today, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of the Greek Orthodox Church, the seat of Eastern Christianity, is nearly extinct. The U.S. State Department estimates fewer than 3,000 remain and other estimates cut that estimate in half. This experience is shared by other Christian faiths that face similar obstacles to the free practice of their religion.

For more than 50 years, the Turkish government has used convoluted regulations and undemocratic laws to confiscate hundreds of religious minority properties, primarily those belonging to the Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Syriac Orthodox, Roman Catholic and other communities. The state also has closed seminaries, denying these communities the right to train clergy.

In 1971, the Turkish government nationalized the Greek Orthodox Theological School of Haliki on the island of Heybeli, depriving the Greek Orthodox community of its only educational institution for its leadership in Turkey, and putting the very survival of the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Greek Orthodox community at risk.

Hate crimes are a problem, as nonstate actors have attacked religious minorities or symbols of their existence, with inconsistent government investigations or prosecutions - sometimes nothing is done at all. In addition to the desecration of the Orthodox cemetery referenced earlier, the killing of members of minority religious groups has occurred in recent years: In 2003, terrorists bombed two synagogues; in 2006, a Catholic priest was murdered; in January 2007, prominent human rights activist Hrant Dink was killed; and in April 2007, three members of a Protestant church were tortured to death. The crimes were investigated and prosecuted, but not with the speed necessary to ensure timely justice. The Turkish government has not done enough to combat this discrimination, which is sometimes violent.

USCIRF has urged the U.S. government to encourage Turkish officials to continue to condemn violent hate crimes against members of religious and ethnic communities and to ensure prompt investigation and prosecutions, and to stem growing anti-Semitism in some sectors of the Turkish media.

[..]

Elizabeth H. Prodromou is vice chairman and Leonard Leo is chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom

Washington Times

Geert Wilders: On Radical Islam [Video]

Tears of Jihad: 270 million slaughtered in name of Islam

The following article attempts to shed light on the number of people killed by Islamic Jihad. It arrives at the the figure of 270 million. But I know for example the figure for Hindus and Buddhist killed by Islamic Jihad was put at 80 million as a moderate estimate - some historians believed that it was possible that 100-120 million Indians were killed to bring that country under Sharia.

The real figure of those killed by Islamic Jihad could be somewhere around 300-400 million. Because here we are forgetting to conquests of the Middle East, Persia, the Caucasus and North Africa. There are stories of the Berber tribes people [who now call themselves Arab], put up a good fight against the Islamic invaders, one woman commander among them.

In addition - though the following article states that only Christians and Jews were awarded the status of dhimmihood - while Hindus and others had to convert or die - to some extent the invaders held to this Islamic 'truth' - killing 100,000 in a single day. Still 100,000's and possibly millions of Hindus/Buddhists were sent as slaves to Baghdad markets. Many of those who were enslaved were forcibly converted and turned round to conquer more of India. The Ottoman Empire used the same tactics in Eastern Europe - where even today in Bulgaria for ex. for a Muslim to call a non-Muslim a slave or Giaour is considered an insult - comparable to a racial slur.

We are told that the Muslim population around the world is 1.3 billion. Of course converting from Islam is not allowed - so the secret Christians of Iran and across the Middle East and North African would not be counted. But if just 300 million people were slaughtered in Jihad - that would mean that nearly every 4 Muslims alive today ~ 1 would have been killed to spread Islam or 1/4.

Chilling statistics - and what is more chilling is that unlike Christians who will apologize profusely for past wrongs - expect Muslims to make no such apologies - these are God's wars. All that killing in the name of Islam from the time of Muhammad - to them was sanctioned by God.

Political Islam: Tears of Jihad

These figures are a rough estimate of the death of non-Muslims by the political act of jihad.

Africa

Thomas Sowell [Thomas Sowell, Race and Culture, BasicBooks, 1994, p. 188] estimates that 11 million slaves were shipped across the Atlantic and 14 million were sent to the Islamic nations of North Africa and the Middle East. For every slave captured many others died. Estimates of this collateral damage vary. The renowned missionary David Livingstone estimated that for every slave who reached a plantation, five others were killed in the initial raid or died of illness and privation on the forced march.[Woman’s Presbyterian Board of Missions, David Livingstone, p. 62, 1888] Those who were left behind were the very young, the weak, the sick and the old. These soon died since the main providers had been killed or enslaved. So, for 25 million slaves delivered to the market, we have an estimated death of about 120 million people. Islam ran the wholesale slave trade in Africa.

120 million Africans

Christians

The number of Christians martyred by Islam is 9 million [David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends AD 30-AD 2200, William Carey Library, 2001, p. 230, table 4-10] . A rough estimate by Raphael Moore in History of Asia Minor is that another 50 million died in wars by jihad. So counting the million African Christians killed in the 20th century we have:

60 million Christians

Hindus

Koenard Elst in Negationism in India gives an estimate of 80 million Hindus killed in the total jihad against India. [Koenard Elst, Negationism in India, Voice of India, New Delhi, 2002, pg. 34.] The country of India today is only half the size of ancient India, due to jihad. The mountains near India are called the Hindu Kush, meaning the “funeral pyre of the Hindus.”

80 million Hindus

Buddhists

Buddhists do not keep up with the history of war. Keep in mind that in jihad only Christians and Jews were allowed to survive as dhimmis (servants to Islam); everyone else had to convert or die. Jihad killed the Buddhists in Turkey, Afghanistan, along the Silk Route, and in India. The total is roughly 10 million. [David B. Barrett, Todd M. Johnson, World Christian Trends AD 30-AD 2200, William Carey Library, 2001, p. 230, table 4-1.]

10 million Buddhists

Jews

Oddly enough there were not enough Jews killed in jihad to significantly affect the totals of the Great Annihilation. The jihad in Arabia was 100 percent effective, but the numbers were in the thousands, not millions. After that, the Jews submitted and became the dhimmis (servants and second class citizens) of Islam and did not have geographic political power.

This gives a rough estimate of 270 million killed by jihad.

Dutch-Iranian ex-Muslim joins Wilders' Freedom Party

This is a man with a mission. He has been a champion for the rights of ex-Muslims in Holland - and also made an Islamic video - where he interviews Muhammad, challenging Muslim beliefs.

By joining the Wilders's team - it would be harder to charge Wilders with racism. As he has said - he is not a racist.

Amsterdam - A Dutch self-declared ex-Muslim and critic of Islam has joined the rightist Freedom Party PVV which is also highly critical of Islam, its party leader confirmed Thursday. Iranian-born Ehsan Jami, 24, may run for a council seat in The Hague in the upcoming local elections in 2010. Or, he may try to enter parliament following the general elections in 2011, PVV leader Geert Wilders said.

"I think he prefers parliament," Wilders said, adding Jami was someone "with guts and interesting viewpoints."

Jami, born and raised in Iran, previously was a council member for left-wing Labour in Leidschendam-Voorburg near The Hague.

In the spring of 2007 he established a committee for former Muslims demanding Muslims' right to renounce their faith.



In September of that year he wrote an op-ed essay together with Freedom Party leader Wilders in the national daily Volkskrant, in which they compared Mohammed with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Labour subsequently expelled Jami from the party, but he continued as an independent councilman in Leidschendam-Voorburg. Both the liberal VVD and the Freedom Party tried to recruit Jami in the following months.

On December 10, 2008, Jami produced a short film portraying a fictitious interview with Mohammed. In it, Mohammed conveys the message to the Muslim world that Islam should be interpreted in its historical context and that it is wrong to copy ideas directly from the Koran.

Jami, who has repeatedly criticized Islam, has been living under heavy security protection since August 4, 2007. He lives in a so- called safe house in a secret location.

Earth Times

Dutch Cabinet Raises Requirements for [Islamic] Marriage Migration

What's swept over the Dutch !!

This new proposal indicates that they know its time to wake up. The whole immigrant marriage system is a sham. Especially since this new immigrant is saying - we are going to take over your country and make it Islamic. All while getting help from the state - and living often off the money of so-called racist and Islamophobic taxpayers.

What the Danish did in 2002 has been extremely successful - by raising the immigrant marriage age to 24 - in addition to requiring marriage partners from the Muslim world prove they have a connection to Denmark - outside of the family of the spouse. Shuts the door to quite a lot of the fetching marriage practises - that flout immigration laws.

Call what's happening in Holland - the Wilders' Effect - but then there is the realization that he is getting 40% of popular support - in some cases leading the country's polls - people must see value in the things he is saying.


THE HAGUE, 03/10/09 - The cabinet announced a package of measures Friday to reduce marriage migration.

Marriage between nephews and nieces will no longer be permitted. "A legislative amendment will be drawn up to ensure that new marriages between blood relatives up to the third and fourth degree are no longer accepted as grounds for admission," according to a cabinet statement.

Under the new system, potential import brides and grooms will have to meet higher criteria for command of the Dutch language, and they will have to undergo job training once they're in the Netherlands.
In other measures:

The Dutch language test, which has to be taken before departing for the Netherlands at the country's Dutch embassy, will be made more difficult (A1 level). "A written test will also be added to the exam," which currently only covers speaking and comprehension skills.

NRC

Also, the Netherlands will place liaison officers from the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) at its embassies to prevent forced marriages. "Here, simultaneous hearings with both marriage partners are being considered in the case of suspicions of a marriage of convenience, before the foreign partner leaves for the Netherlands."

The IND will also tighten up checkups within the first year after the arrival of the marriage partner in the Netherlands on whether the partners still comply with the existing income requirements. For example, the 'importing' partner must earn at least 120 percent of the minimum wage.

The cabinet will also study a series of other measures. For example, whether family migrants can be asked to make a "supplementary integration course effort" after arrival in the Netherlands will be "considered". Additionally, the cabinet is "investigating" whether the importing partner "can be made responsible for the entire integration process for the foreign partner."

The cabinet will also investigate "the possibility of raising the minimum age for recognition of marriages concluded abroad from 15 to 18 by means of a treaty amendment." At the moment, the marriage of a minor concluded abroad can still be recognised in Dutch law.

Regarding polygamy, "possibilities will be explored for no longer recognising polygamous marriages concluded abroad in the Netherlands." At the same time, the "desirability will be considered" of giving the Public Prosecutor's Office (OM) powers to launch prosecutions of polygamy committed outside the Netherlands by aliens living in the Netherlands.

Finally, "whether an age threshold of 24 years can be introduced" in the European family reunification directive, to be updated in 2010, will be investigated. In any case, the Netherlands will "propose an educational requirement for the partner in the Netherlands as a condition for family reunification."

The cabinet says the labour market participation of marriage migrants is only 25 percent. These are often women who are "sometimes deliberately kept at home." Due to a lack of knowledge of the Dutch language and their low educational level, "the risk exists that they will not be able to bring up their children adequately," which can lead to "school dropout, nuisance and in the worst cases, crime." These "problems (...) put pressure on the (government) budgets."

NIS

Rights group says Iran planning to execute juvenile offender

Iran: Child offender due to be executed today - Amnesty appeal

Posted: 05 October 2009

The execution of Afghan national Abbas Hosseini in Iran today (5 October) - for a murder he is accused of committing when he was only 17 - must be stopped, Amnesty International warned today.

Amnesty said that it was 'sickened' by the Iranian authorities' moves to set a date for the execution of a juvenile offender, in violation of Iran's international human rights obligations.

Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East Deputy Programme Director at Amnesty International, said:

'It is sickening that Iran continues to flout international law by arranging to kill those accused of committing crimes as children. We appeal to the Head of the Judiciary to issue immediately an order to stay this execution and ensure that Abbas Hosseini's death sentence is overturned.

'Not only has Abbas Hosseini been sentenced to death for a crime he is accused of having committed as a child, but the protracted judicial uncertainty surrounding the review and retrial of his case, and the halting at the last minute of his scheduled execution, has also compounded his suffering.'

Abbas Hosseini's was sentenced to death in June 2004 for the murder of a man who had tried to rape him in July 2003. He has since been re-tried but his death sentence has been upheld in spite of his age at the time of the alleged offence.

The victim's family are refusing to pardon him in exchange for monetary compensation in the form of diyeh (blood money).

Since 1990, at least 41 alleged child offenders have been executed in Iran and over 140 are known to remain on death row. At least three have been executed so far in 2009, in breach of Iran's international obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child which unequivocally ban the execution of juvenile offenders.

Background Information

The Iranian authorities are planning to execute Abbas Hosseini in Mashhad, north-eastern Iran, on Monday.

Abbas Hosseini's was sentenced to death in June 2004 by Branch 43 of the General Court in Mashhad for the murder of a man who had tried to rape him in July 2003.

His sentence was upheld by Branch 41 of the Supreme Court on 30 September 2004. He claimed before the court to have committed the crime 'in a moment of insanity,' but this was rejected.

He was due to be executed on 1 May 2005, but at the last minute was granted a one-week stay of execution to give the victim's family another opportunity to accept payment of diyeh.

The Head of the Judiciary then ordered the local judiciary in Mashhad not to proceed with the execution and Abbas Hosseini's case was sent for review.

On 27 April 2008, Branch 13 of the Supreme Court sent the case for retrial on account of Abbas Hosseini's age at the time of the crime.

He was sentenced to death again on 5 August 2008 by Branch 103 of the General Juvenile Court in Mashhad. This sentence was upheld on 29 December 2008 by Branch 33 of the Supreme Court and has now been given final approval by the Head of the Judiciary, paving the way for his execution.

Amnesty International