Fighting For Freedom While Losing His Own: A Geert Wilders Interview

From Europe News:

Fighting for Freedom While Losing His Own: An Interview with Geert Wilders














David Horowitz's NewsReal Blog 17 May 2011

By Christine Williams



"In the process of fighting for freedom, I lost my own freedom,” Dutch politician Geert Wilders explained.



Our weekly Canadian program, "On the Front Line,” was one of the media outlets carefully selected to interview Wilders during his first visit to Canada last week. For several years, public and private discourse has centered around the sensationalism of Wilders’ epic battle against the Islamization of the West. But this interview (still to be aired) revealed some of Wilders’ less publicized views on moderate Islam and the personal cost of his quest.



Wilders, who remains under explicit death threats from Muslims, is dismissed by leftists as a scary, anti-Muslim radical. While one may disagree with his views and methodologies, his struggle against radicalism is nothing short of a Western obligation. The principal point of contention on Wilder’s approach is that he does not readily make a distinction between moderate and radical Islam. He referred to the famous Belgian Professor of Islamic Studies—Urbain Vermeulen—describing Islam as 95 percent ideology and 5 percent religion. Islam, like communism and fascism, is totalitarian and seeks to rule every aspect of individual and state life.



Wilders pointed out that "there are almost more mosques than windmills in Holland today.” His answer is to stop building new mosques and madrassas that teach violence and hate, and to stop immigration from Muslim countries to stem the Islamization of the West. He does not advocate deporting Muslims, except those that have crossed the "red line” which refers to any Muslim acting according to Shariah and against our values (for example, practicing FGM and honour killings). Such Muslims, says Wilders, should be stripped of their western nationality and sent back to their countries of origin.



Yet on further probing about the moderate Muslims who face death threats fighting for the same anti-Islamist cause, Wilders did recognize the existence of moderates and makes a key distinction between the Muslim individual and the ideologies of Islam. The more moderates the better, he said, and we should support them in any way possible. He also made the point that the Koran regards such Muslims as apostates worthy of death, yet if they see themselves as Muslims, we must support them.



The final question we posed to Wilders concerned the personal toll on his life, even before the release of his short film "Fitna.” His neutral look gave way to his humanity with a brief sadness as he replied:



I’ve lived for seven years now under threats, under protection. My wife and I lived in prisons cells, army barracks and safe houses . I’ve had to wear wigs, mustaches and change places every few days. Unfortunately my life is in danger. In the process of fighting for freedom, I lost my own freedom. It is something you would not wish your worst enemy to have. If I go and see someone I have to tell the diplomatic police in Holland in advance. Abroad is more difficult. I have no privacy .



But I am not complaining. This is not about me. It’s about the fight for freedom. But I know one thing: If I were to moderate my voice, or leave politics, the people who use non-democratic means, who want to kill you, who use threats will win. I will never, ever let them win. I have a mission, I fight for freedom and even though I lost my own freedom I will never give in.



The significance of Geert’s reply is superlative. It bears witness to the forces of radicalism and the risks faced by those having their lives altered and even lost in the fight for our freedoms. Sadly not everyone appreciates the trials of such individuals. Much worse are those (even in some right wing publications) who erroneously criticize the very people engaged in this struggle for freedom. To think someone would actually say this:



Wilders is entitled to this free speech in Canada but I figure if you want to be really tough, drop the seven-member security detail and deal with the realities of what comes from the views you espouse



According to Mark Steyn, "Wilders lives under armed guard because of explicit death threats against him…Ah, yes, in the Netherlands, as in Canada, the truth is no defence.” But the most heinous of all are far leftists who ally themselves with radical Islam.



Closing our interview, Geert Wilders warned that the severity of Islamization in Europe will eventually happen in Canada and the U.S. His closing advice and challenge to Westerners, despite innumerable voices accusing him of being an anti-Muslim hatemonger:



Don’t get angry or violent to Muslims but see what Islam stands for and make a choice: do you fight for our culture based on Judaism, Christianity, humanism, or do we go for a culture that goes for violence and domination?









Posted May 17th, 2011 by pk

Double Honor Killing In India: Muslim Mothers Murder Daughters For Marrying Hindus

From Jihad Watch:


Double honor killing in India: Muslim mothers murder daughters for marrying Hindus







Islamic law forbids Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men. As far as these mothers are concerned, to have allowed such marriages would have been worse than murdering their own daughters. “We killed them because they had brought shame to our community. How could they elope with Hindus? They deserved to die. We have no remorse.”



"Turned over to kin after elopement, Baghpat women killed by mothers," from Indian Express, May 14 (thanks to Creeping Sharia):



Two Muslim women in an Uttar Pradesh town, 40 km east of Delhi, allegedly killed their daughters because they had eloped and married migrant Bihari Hindu labourers, police said.

The victims had sought police protection after they returned to their homes in Baghpat earlier this week, but the subdivisional magistrate sent them home to reconcile with their mothers.



On Wednesday night, Khatun and Subrato, both of whom are widows, allegedly tied their daughters, 19-year-old Zahida and 26-year-old Husna, to cots and threw a rope around their necks. They then held the girls down and tightened the noose until the victims suffocated to death, police said.



Khatun and Subrato have been arrested. A third woman called Momina, their neighbour in Baghpat’s Muslim-dominated Mughalpura area, who allegedly helped them commit the murders, is on the run.



“We killed them because they had brought shame to our community. How could they elope with Hindus? They deserved to die. We have no remorse,” Khatun and Subrato said Friday....





Posted by Robert on May 15, 2011 5:58 AM

Elavating Liberty As A Value For Muslims, Part One

From  AIFD and The Washington Post:

Posted at 09:00 AM ET, 05/15/2011




The Washington Post, May 15, 2011





Zuhdi Jasser Interview: Elevating liberty as a value for Muslims (part 1)



By Jennifer Rubin





Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (which describes its mission as advocating for "the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom"), may be the most important American Muslim you never heard of. He doesn't, as leaders of groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations do, spend his time accusing his fellow citizens of Islamophobia. He doesn't serve as a mouthpiece for the Palestinian Authority. (Instead he describes himself as "pro-Israel.") And he certainly doesn't buy the idea that radical Islam is irrelevant to the war on terror. Moreover, he heads an organization dedicated to "confronting the ideologies of political Islam and openly countering the common belief that the Muslim faith is inextricably rooted to the concept of the Islamic State (Islamism)." For all these reasons he may also be the most vilified American Muslim.



As I reported, he appeared Wednesday on a panel at the Heritage Foundation discussing the battle he thinks needs to go on within Islam, not with guns but with reason. Zuhdi is laboring to reaffirm the separation of mosque and state and to push back against a cult of victimology that perceives every security measure or public debate (whether about how Muslims get radicalized or whether to put a mosque near Ground Zero) as Islamophobia. I found his message so at odds with what we hear daily from self-appointed representatives of the Muslim community I wanted to hear more about his own story and his effort to reclaim liberty as a principal value for Muslim youth.



We met Friday morning. Syria has been the newest hot spot in the Arab Spring, but for Zuhdi, a doctor living in Phoenix, Syria is his family's homeland, as well as home to slews of families whom his family has known for generations. His parents were both born in Syria and met in medical school. He tells me, "My dad was very political," following in the footsteps of his grandfather, for whom Zuhdi is named. His grandfather in the 1950s and '60s was an influential democracy advocate, in and out of prison and subject to house arrest for his efforts to preserve the nascent democracy in Syria after the French departed. (Because of his grandfather's role, Zuhdi says, "I could never go back to Syria." Well, under the Assad regime.) Zuhdi's father refused to serve in the Syrian regime's military, escaped with his wife to Lebanon and eventually came to Ohio. Zuhdi was born and grew up in Wisconsin.



But it is that connection to Syria that makes the recent crackdown by President Bashar al-Assad so personal. He admits tearing up when seeing the news of more killings by the Assad regime. Still, he says, "I am an optimist." In the past Syrian begged him not to be outspoken about the regime, for fear of reprisals. Now, he says with a grin, "I've been unleashed" to talk about the regime and call attention to what he calls "one of the most repressive regimes in the world." For those in Syria, he tells me, the protests "are not going away. It's a one way street."



He has admiring words for the efforts by Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) ("He was the first one to call for Assad to go."). These senators are highlighting Assad's atrocities, demanding sanctions and calling for an accounting of the massacres. It works, he says. He refer to the most recent news reports, telling me that Assad on Friday "finally said they will no longer use bullets on demonstrators." He notes that this is a telling admission that bullets had been used. (On Friday Assad also promised to hold a "national dialogue," another sign he is beginning to feel the heat from international pressure.)



He is not so complimentary about the Obama administration. He says, "It seems that the more benevolent [a Muslim regime], the more pushing there is. The more immoral and anti-American, the less pushback." This stems, he says, from "a weakness in standing up for American principles." The Obama administration, he tells me, is "misguided" in its desire to "keep enemies close."



As to what the United States can do, he says, "No one is talking about military action." Still, there is plenty the administration could do, he argues. He is a member of Save Syria Now!, a group of Americans of Syrian descent. Its Web site describes the group's mission: "to put pressure on the United States to call for immediate action to be taken against the regime of Bashar Assad of Syria and to bring true liberty to the people of Syria. We stand with the Syrians protesting in the streets to end the tyranny of the Assad family." He tells me that it's critical to demand that Western media be let into Syria for extended periods so that more than the Assad


propaganda line comes through. "The main thing is to shine the light of day on the demonstrators," he contends. If the demonstrations are "broadcast globally," he thinks, Assad will be restrained in the use of force and the demonstrations will continue to build.



Zuhdi argues that it is not all that complicated or difficult. America needs to be "forthright and strong against the regime." He points to the example of Natan Sharansky. "He knew that when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the 'evil empire' that he'd get out." It is that role of international leadership that is missing, he argues. He says it stems both from an "appeasement mentality" and lack of understanding as to how brutal is the regime. "We're at 800 dead now and thousands in prison." He firmly believes that once the U.S. government says that Assad must go, that will seal Assad's fate.



In part 2, Zuhdi talks about the American Muslim community, the theological response to Islamism and his efforts to foster a pro-American, pro-Constitution movement among Muslim youth.



By Jennifer Rubin
09:00 AM ET, 05/15/2011

Tariq Ramadan Discovers His Inner Flower Child

From Campus Watch:

Tariq Ramadan Discovers His Inner Flower Child




by Jonathan Gelbart

American Thinker

May 15, 2011



http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/05/tariq_ramadan_discovers_his_in.html



http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/11307







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Tariq Ramadan -- a member of the world's most famous Islamist family, as the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan el-Banna -- spoke at Stanford University on April 12, 2011, in a lecture entitled, "The Quest for Meaning: Developing a Philosophy of Pluralism."



Sponsored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, the event was packed, with people spilling out the auditorium doors and standing in the aisles. The audience of at least 250 appeared to consist largely of Muslims and non-students, most of whom hung on Ramadan's every word. In summing up the palpable awe of the audience, Stanford religious studies professor Shahzad Bashir, who gave the introduction, gushed that:





If ever there were a case where the speaker did not need an introduction or a very short one, it would be for Dr. Tariq Ramadan.



Ramadan is a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at Oxford University and despite his extensive writings on that subject, he adhered closely to the title of his talk, rarely mentioning religion until the question and answer session.



In the first of what would become a series of open-ended, philosophical questions, Ramadan began by asking the audience how to find meaning in the relatively short time they are given on earth. "What is the meaning [of all this]?" he asked rhetorically. After pausing for a moment, he added an unexpectedly blunt and morbid caveat: "One day you will not be able to pose that question -- because you are all going to die." The audience responded with nervous laughter.



Ramadan then lamented the lack of understanding between the ethnic majority populations in "pluralistic societies," or developed nations, and the minorities. He argued that education is the key to reconciliation: "You have to educate yourself . . . by [leaving your] comfort zone and [understanding] other traditions hands on." He pointed to the existence of "segregated societies" in the U.S., Britain, and other countries as evidence that many "pluralistic societies" were not rising to the occasion and that "the Anglo-Saxon model of hybrid identities is failing." He pointed favorably, however, to France's de facto model of allowing ethnic communities to form their own enclaves instead of integrating into French society. Perhaps he forgot about the 2005 teenage immigrant rampage through the banlieues or the recent ban on face-coverings. It seems that multiculturalism's sharp decline in popularity has yet to reach Ramadan.



He continued by delineating the three concepts that make up a peaceful and progressive society: humility, respect, and consistency. Humility, he explained, means believing that "the other [religious] traditions have something to give me. . . . [It] means listening first and then talking." Ramadan defined respect with the following sentiment: "Not only am I humble with what I think, but I acknowledge the fact that your opinion is legitimate, although I don't share it and I don't understand it." He contrasted respect with the concept of tolerance, arguing that "tolerance is about power" (as in, a superior deciding to tolerate an underling), while "respect is on an equal footing." Ramadan's description of the final dimension, consistency, deserves to be quoted in full if only because the world would be a more peaceful place if his radical co-religionists would take it to heart:





Consistency . . . is the relationship between humility and respect. [It] means that at the very moment you are sharing values and speaking about principles that are, for you, the best principles there are; you also are able to be critical with your fellow members of your tradition. . . . [It means] that you make the difference between what are your principles and where are they implemented. . . . What we have very often are people comparing their principles to the practices of the other. . . . When you compare your ideals with the practices of the other, you are always the winner.

Ramadan's point was that congratulating oneself for moral superiority over opponents is unhelpful and that judging cultural ideals against real practices is an unfair comparison. The problem with all this high-minded rhetoric is that Ramadan's behavior can hardly be called humble, respectful, or consistent. In 2004, he was banned from entering the U.S. after it was discovered that he had donated funds to a charity with ties to Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization designated as such by the European Union, Canada, Japan, and the U.S. His statements are littered with misleading historical inaccuracies and conspiracy theories, including a recent interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in which Ramadan questioned whether al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were behind the 9/11 attacks. As for consistency, French author Caroline Fourest was able to write an entire book, Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan , detailing the contradiction between Ramadan's public support of diversity and respect and his active support of political Islamism.




He continued to describe difficult concepts such as suffering, love, and the end of life, while shying away from the politicized subjects on which his career has been built. In a blatant case of pandering, he implored his audience:





Don't forget to tell the people you love that you love them. . . . Profound love is the way by which you liberate yourselves and look at yourselves in a positive way.



That statement would have been beautiful if it had not come across as so painfully insincere. It could have been inscribed in a greeting card.



Similarly, Ramadan described all belief systems as essentially equal:





Think of it as a mountain. We all have the same top, but there are many ways to reach it. Humility is realizing my path is not the only one.



Though this is a wonderful concept that goes over well with audiences, Islam has shown over the centuries that it is forging a path to quite a different summit in quite a different manner from most of its counterparts -- something that Ramadan did not acknowledge.



Having apparently discovered his inner flower child, he added, "In every tradition, peace is the final goal. Peace within, peace without."



He then elaborated on the need for people to:





[R]ead books, read more, get a sense of history . . . [and] get a sense of religions. . . . Often when you ask other people about other religions they have no idea. Or they don't even know about their own religion. . . . A basic knowledge of religions is necessary if you are serious about pluralism.



When Ramadan next stated that, "in the Islamic tradition, philosophy was perceived as something which was against religion; which is completely wrong," he was exactly right. The influence of Enlightenment philosophy on Western Europe cannot be overstated, and an equivalent intellectual revolution never occurred in the Islamic world. If anything, the Enlightenment's analogue in the Middle East has been the rise of Islamism and violent jihadist groups, with Ramadan's grandfather being one of the latter's first leaders.



The question and answer session led to a thorough airing of the political views that had been previously gone unexamined. In response to a question about how "the weaker" such as "Palestinians, Muslims and blacks" should resist "oppression," Ramadan recounted how, as he put it, "when Israel was killing innocent people in Gaza," Switzerland chose to break its neutrality and take the side of the Palestinians; not to do so would have been to implicitly support the "oppressor." The implication was that if even neutral Switzerland decided to support the Palestinians, everyone should. He did not bring up Hamas's use of human shields or its deliberate choice to store weapons in hospitals and near U.N. buildings, nor did he mention Richard Goldstone's recent recantation on the entire official narrative of the Gaza War.



The obligatory question, "What is jihad?" also came up. Predictably, Ramadan responded by repeating the standard apologist line: "The meaning of jihad is not really war. . . . Jihad is to make peace with yourself." He then made the blatantly false statement that "the association of jihad with war is from the Crusades." On the contrary, Islamic jurisprudence has considered "jihad" a term for warfare since at least the tenth century, 100 years before the Crusades.

Finally, in response to an audience member asking how to respond to those Islamists who refuse to accept Ramadan's rosy view of reality, he stated that, "there are people in every single religion . . . [who] think dialogue is worthless. . . . In every religion there are people who are not ready for it." He then suggested, "You can sometimes challenge them by referring to the text." Unfortunately, it is by referring to the text -- the Koran -- that many Islamists have successfully recruited young Muslims to violent jihad around the world. Ramadan offered no solution to this problem.




It is no exaggeration to say that the world would be better off if everyone adhered to Ramadan's notions of humility, respect, and consistency. Such idealistic pronouncements, however, only serve to obfuscate the real issues facing the world today. It will take more than words, for instance, to stop the persecution of Christians across the Muslim world, the violence directed at Israel, the export of Wahhabi supremacism from Saudi Arabia, and the brutal Iranian theocracy. Ramadan would have done well to explain how his lofty "philosophy of pluralism" can be brought down to earth and used in real solutions to society's most intractable problems.



Jonathan Gelbart is a senior at Stanford University majoring in International Relations. He is the president of Students for an Open Society and former world news editor of the Stanford Review, an independent publication. He wrote this article for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.

The Religious Origins Of Religious Tolerance

From FPRI:

The 14th Annual Templeton Lecture on


Religion and World Affairs



THE RELIGIOUS ORIGINS OF RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE



by Eric Nelson



Philosophy is looking for a black cat in a coal mine.

Metaphysics is looking for a black cat in a coal mine,

but there's no cat. Theology is looking for a black cat

in a coal mine, there's no cat, and someone yells out,

"Look! There he is!"



This joke seems to epitomize a particular and reputable way

of thinking about the trajectory of Western intellectual

history, one according to which the West moves from an

indefensibly theological frame of mind to a confusedly

metaphysical one, and then finally to a respectably rational

one. This is the standard story we tell ourselves about the

rise of "modernity" and it attaches a particular

significance to the period I study-the early modern period,

and particularly the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in

Europe. It was at this moment, we are told, that a titanic

shift occurred in the way that European Christians thought

about moral and political philosophy. In the previous

period, they had approached these subjects from a

fundamentally theologized perspective: the way you answered

questions about how we should live was to ask the question,

"How does God wish for us to live?" However, in this period,

under the influence of a set of circumstances and events-the

rise of the new science, philosophical skepticism, and the

carnage of the religious wars-Western theorists turned away

from religion, regarding its claims as lacking authority,

and also as being fundamentally dangerous and inimical to

peace.



The result of all of this is supposed to have been something

called the "Great Separation," a decision made by Western

theorists to sequester religion from moral and political

theory and to allow those disciplines to get on according to

their own rational criteria without any recourse to

religious claims. This is an old and established view, but

it's one that has been defended recently with a great deal

of intensity. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks

and the global convulsions that followed, a number of

Western scholars have devoted themselves to the task of

recovering and highlighting the secular pedigree of our most

central moral and political commitments, defending them

against what they perceive to be a very different,

retrograde and reactionary set of religious impulses which

are to be resisted.



For a number of these scholars, this story, this way of

cutting the deck, is not just about philosophy, and it's not

just about historiography. It's also about politics. Their

writings bear the unmistakable mark of the long controversy

over the Iraq war, and they invoke the "secularization"

narrative in order to insist, not only that we in the West

should hold fast to our secularism, but also that because of


the secular character of our values, we should not expect

them to travel well. If liberal democratic norms depend for

their coherence on a secularized world view that assigns

religion no role in moral and political philosophy, then

these norms will not be able to take root in cultures that

have not experienced their own secularizing moment. The

West on this account is once again exceptional, but for a

new and different reason. As a result of a contingent set of

circumstances in early-modern European history, we managed

to emerge with a precious, fragile and utterly idiosyncratic

moral and political inheritance. It follows that while we

should fiercely defend this inheritance at home, we should

emphatically not attempt to export it abroad.



Now, it may or may not be a good idea to try to export our

values abroad. That is an argument for another day. But what

I want very much to insist on is this: If it is a bad idea

to try to do this, it is not because the central commitments

of Western modernity emerged out of a secularizing moment.

Nothing, I want to suggest, could be further from the truth.

Many, if not most, of our most fundamental commitments

emerged instead out of a deeply theologized context, and

were explicitly justified in the first instance on the basis

of religious claims. Today, I want to talk about one of

these-religious toleration.



RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE

I've chosen to focus on religious tolerance not only because

of its obvious importance, but also because there's a good

intuitive reason for supposing that it does indeed rely on

secularization, or at least on religious skepticism. If one

is certain of the truth of a particular religious belief,

then surely one is more likely to be intolerant toward those

who don't conform to it. Conversely, if one has doubts or is

convinced that the whole religious enterprise is nonsensical

in the first place, then surely one will be more likely to

tolerate religious diversity. As I say, there's a surface

plausibility to this view, but it doesn't take all that much

to see through it.



As we well know, it certainly does not follow that because

one is skeptical about religious truth, or denies the

religious perspective outright, one is, therefore, committed

to toleration. History provides far too many counter-

examples. Indeed, in the early modern period religious

skeptics were often the least interested in tolerating

religious dissent. If the whole business is nonsense anyway,

why not pick one politically useful sort of nonsense and

insist that everyone subscribe to it to maintain the peace?

It was not an uncommon argument. But I'm more interested in

why committed early modern Christians found themselves

arguing in favor of religious toleration, and doing so on

religious grounds.



I want to focus on one of their arguments in particular-the

one that I take to have been the most important and

influential. It's a strange argument to modern ears, not

only because of its explicitly religious character, but also


because it understood toleration to require not the

separation of church and state, but rather their union. In

order to set the stage, I first have to say a bit about the

cultural and intellectual phenomenon out of which it

emerged: the "Hebrew Revival" of the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries. . . .



Read the Templeton Lecture in full at:

http://www.fpri.org/pubs/2011/201105.nelson.religiousoriginsofreligioustolerance.html



For texts and videos of previous Templeton Lectures, visit:

http://www.fpri.org/education/templetonlecture.html



----------------------------------------------------------

Copyright Foreign Policy Research Institute

(http://www.fpri.org/).

Pakistan: Christian Student Kidnapped, Forced To Convert To Islam And Marry Muslim; Police Do Nothing

From Jihad Watch:


Pakistan: Christian student kidnapped, forced to convert to Islam and marry Muslim; police do nothing







Another day, another story of Muslims persecuting Christians in Pakistan. A whole lot of people sure missed the memo about Islam's tolerance, didn't they? That is the only conclusion available to those who still believe Islam applies a standard of tolerance comparable to the expectations of the Western tradition.



As for this case, we might hear it is un-Islamic because "there is no compulsion in religion" (Qur'an 2:256). But Islamic law is rife in letter and spirit with subtle and not-so-subtle means of coercion. After a certain point, the lines between persuasion and compulsion become blurred, and those doing the compelling could care less, because it is difficult, if not dangerous, to challenge those wielding power on where the distinction lies.



"Punjab: Christian student nurse forced to convert to marry Muslim man," by Jibran Khan for Asia News, May 12:



Lahore (AsiaNews) – A 24-year Christian woman from southern Punjab was abducted by a Muslim man who, after forcing her to convert to Islam, also forced her to marry him. Although her family filed a formal report of kidnapping, the police did not act immediately, either to stop the abduction or to arrest the culprits. Likewise, her family has gone to court to get her released to no avail; the young student nurse remains in fact in the hands of her kidnappers. This, according to a local priest, is part of an “alarming” trend in anti-Christian violence. He is, to put it mildly, “disappointed by the behaviour of local authorities”. A human rights activist confirms that the region of Pakistan where the woman lives is a “safe haven for extremists” who perpetrate abuses and kidnappings “with total impunity”.



Farah Hatim, 24, from Rahim Yar Khan, a town in southern Punjab, was training to be a nurse at the Sheikh Zaid Medical College, working in the orthopaedic ward. Last Sunday, she was kidnapped as she crossed Jinnah Park, which is located near the college where she worked.



Her kidnapper is Zeehan Iliyas, a young Muslim man working as an office boy at a local branch of the United Bank Ltd. With the help his brothers Imram and Gulfam, he abducted the young woman, ordering her to convert to Islam and marry him.



Islamic law allows for Muslim men to marry Christian women, but this added step of making her convert helps to put her legally out of the reach of her Christian family's attempts to rescue her.



“This [Muslim] family has a history of kidnapping young Christian women and forcing them to convert,” said Bilquees Marriam, Farah’s mother, adding that they act with impunity because they are backed by a local Member of the National Assembly, who belongs to the ruling party.



The woman and her other six children went to the police to file the abduction report, but the duty officer refused to take a First Information Report (FIR).



The day after the kidnapping, the local Christian community rallied around the kidnapped woman’s family and began protesting against the violence against her and the complicity of local law enforcement. Initially, police tried to disperse the crowd but following the intervention of the superintendent of police, a FIR application was accepted and an investigation was launched.



However, the delay gave Farah Hatim’s kidnappers time to take the young woman to a district court under duress so that she could state that she had converted to Islam and would marry Zeehan Iliyas.



The judge, who failed to cross-examine the woman, especially with regards to the wounds to her body, simply accepted her statement as “valid”.



Zahid Hussain, the Hatim family lawyer, slammed the gross violation of the Farah’s rights and the faulty legal procedures. He said that when “someone makes a statement before a court, the judge must question the applicant alone in order to determine whether his or her decision was made under duress or by consent. In this case, the courtroom was full of people, including those who actively took part in her abduction and assault. The judge also ignored her wounds. [. . .] All this shows that she was forced to sign the statement”.



Last Tuesday, Farah’s family filed a second complaint, which the police has so far failed to pursue.



“Southern Punjab is a safe haven for extremists,” said Rizwan Paul, head of the human rights organisation ‘Life for All’. Indeed, local authorities and police are more interested in “protecting offenders” than in justice.



“We have highlighted several cases of forced conversions and brought it to the attention of the authorities, but they have turned a deaf ear to our complaints,” he said.



“It is a sad incident,” said Fr Sohail John, parish priest at Rahim Yar Khan. “We strongly condemn the kidnapping and the forced conversion. We are disappointed over the response of the local authorities. It is alarming that [. . .] the Punjab government has failed to protect the minorities” and is instead “protecting the culprit”.



Posted by Marisol on May 13, 2011 4:05 AM

Modern, Moderate Indonesia Bans Celebrations Of Israel's Independence

From Jihad Watch:


Modern, moderate Indonesia bans celebrations of Israel's independence







The relentless demonization of Israel in Muslim countries extends even to faraway and increasingly less "moderate" Indonesia. "Indonesia: Govt bans celebrations of Israel's independence," from AGI, May 13 (thanks to C. Cantoni):



Jakarta, 13 May (AKI/Jakarta Post) - Indonesian foreign minister Marty Natalegawa says the Indonesian government will halt any attempt to celebrate Israel’s independence day, because Indonesia does not officially recognise the state of Israel.

“Our policy on this has been crystal clear — that we will recognise the existence of [the state of] Israel only if it acknowledges [the state of] Palestine,” Marty said Thursday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.



Earlier, the website eramuslim.com published a story that a Jewish community in Indonesia had planned to organize a local celebration of Israel’s independence day....





Posted by Robert on May 13, 2011 7:38 AM

Geert Wilders: A Warning To America

From Jihad Watch:


Geert Wilders: A Warning to America







A Warning to America

Speech of Geert Wilders, Cornerstone Church, Nashville, 12 May 2011



Dear friends from Tennessee. I am very happy to be in your midst today. I am happy and proud to be in this impressive church.



My friends, I am here to speak words of truth and freedom.



Do you know why America is in a better state than Europe? Because you enjoy more freedom than Europeans.



And do you know why Americans enjoy more freedom than Europeans? Because you are still allowed to tell the truth.



In Europe and Canada people are dragged to court for telling the truth about islam.



I, too, have been dragged to court. I am an elected member of the house of representatives in the Netherlands. I am currently standing in court like a common criminal for saying that islam is a dangerous totalitarian ideology rather than a religion.



The court case is still pending, but I risk a jail sentence of 16 months.



Last week, my friend Lars Hedegaard, a journalist from Denmark, was fined because in a private conservation, which was recorded without his knowing, he had criticised the way women are treated in islamic societies.



Recently, another friend, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a human rights activist from Austria, was fined because she had criticised islam’s founder Muhammad. She had said that Muhammad was a pedophile because he had married a 6-year old girl and raped her when she was 9.



Unfortunately, there are many similar cases.



I am especially happy to be in your midst because here I can say what I want to say without having to fear that I will be dragged to court upon leaving this church.



My dear American friends, you cannot imagine how we envy your First Amendment. The day when America follows the example of Europe and Canada and introduces so-called “hate speech crimes” which is only used to punish people who are critical of islam, that day America will have lost its freedom.



My friends, let us hope that this never happens.



Last week, we celebrated Liberation Day in the Netherlands. We celebrated the liberation from the nazi occupation in 1945. Many American soldiers, including many young Tennesseans, played a decisive role in the liberation of the Netherlands from nazi tyranny. We are immensely grateful for that. Young Americans gave their lives so that the Dutch might be free. I assure you: The Dutch people will never forget this.



Unfortunately, however, the Europe which your fathers and grandfathers fought and died for is not the Europe we are living in today.



I travel the world to tell people what Europe has become. I wish I could take you all on a visit to my country and show you what Europe has become. It has changed beyond recognition as a result of mass immigration. And not just any mass immigration, but mass immigration driven by the dangerous force of islam.



My friends, I am sorry. I am here today with an unpleasant message. I am here with a warning. I am here with a battle cry: “Wake up, Christians of Tennessee. Islam is at your gate.” Do not make the mistake which Europe made. Do not allow islam to gain a foothold here.



Islam is dangerous. Islam wants to establish a state on earth, ruled by islamic sharia law. Islam aims for the submission, whether by persuasion, intimidation or violence, of all non-Muslims, including Christians.



The results can be seen in Europe.



Islam is an ideology of conquest. It uses two methods to achieve this goal: the first method is the sword. Do you know what figures on the flag of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a country where Christian churches are banned and Christians are not even allowed to wear a tiny crucifix? There is a huge sword on that flag, just below the islamic creed. The message is clear. Without the sword islam would not have been able to spread its creed.



The second method is immigration. Islam’s founder Muhammad himself taught his followers how to conquer through immigration when they moved from Mecca to Medina. This phenomenon of conquest through immigration is called al-Hijra. My learned friend Sam Solomon has written a perfect book about it.



I had a copy of Sam’s book sent to all the members of the Dutch Parliament. But most of them are worse than Saint-Thomas in the Bible. Thomas did not believe what he had not seen. Most politicians refuse to believe the things they see before their very eyes.



In Europe we have been experiencing al-Hijra for over 30 years now. Many of our cities have changed beyond recognition. “In each one of our cities” wrote the well-known Italian author Oriana Fallaci shortly before her death in 2006, “there is a second city, a state within the state, a government within the government. A Muslim city, a city ruled by the Koran.” – end of quote.



How did the Europeans get into this situation? It is partly our own fault because we have foolishly adopted the concept of cultural relativism, which manifests itself in the ideology of multiculturalism.



Cultural relativism advocates that all cultures are equal. However, cultures wither away and die if people no longer believe that its values are better than those of another culture.



Islam is spreading like wildfire wherever people lack the guts to say that their values are better than the Islamic values.



Islam is spreading like wildfire because the Koran explicitly tells Muslims that they are “the best of peoples ever raised up for mankind” and that non-Muslims are “the worst of creatures.”



Islam is spreading like wildfire everywhere in the West where political, academic, cultural and media elites lack the guts to proudly proclaim, as I believe we all should proclaim:



Our Judeo-Christian Western culture is far better and far superior to the islamic culture. We must be proud to say so!



Multiculturalism is a disaster. Almost everyone acknowledges this today, but few dare say why. Let me tell you why: Multiculturalism made us tolerate the intolerant, and now intolerance is annihilating tolerance.



We should, in the name of tolerance, claim the right not to tolerate the intolerant. Let us no longer be afraid and politically correct, let us be brave and bold. Let us tell the truth about islam.



Before I continue I want to make clear that I do not have a problem with people. I always make a distinction between the people and the ideology, between Muslims and islam.



Indeed, I have no problems with Muslims, but I do have a problem with the totalitarian Islamic ideology of hate and violence. The fact that there are many so-called moderate Muslims, does not imply that there exists a moderate islam. A moderate islam does not exist and will never exist.



And because there is no such thing as a moderate islam, the islamization of our free Western societies is an enormous danger.



Only two weeks ago, the British press revealed how the so-called “London Taliban” is threatening to kill women who do not wear veils in the London borough of Tower Hamlets.



In some neighbourhoods Islamic regulations are already being enforced, also on non-Muslims. Women’s rights are being trampled. We are confronted with headscarves and burqa’s, polygamy, female genital mutilation, honor-killings where men murder their wives, daughters or sisters because they do not behave in accordance with Islamic rules.



Polls show that the influence of those Muslims who live according to islam’s aggressive requirements is growing, especially among young people.



Among 15-year-old German Muslims, 40 percent consider islam more important than democracy.



Among Muslim university students in Britain, 40 percent support sharia. One in three of those students considers it legitimate to kill in the name of islam.



Christians are asked to follow the example of Jesus. Muslims are ordered to follow the example of Muhammad. That is why islam is dangerous. While Christianity preaches love, islam preached hatred and practices violence. Hatred and violence for everyone who is not a Muslim.



Muhammad personally participated in the ethnic cleansing of Medina, where half the population once was Jewish. Muhammad helped to chop off their heads. On his deathbed, he ordered his followers to cleanse Arabia of all Jews and Christians.



To this very day, Christian symbols are prohibited in Saudi-Arabia. If you wear a cross in Saudi Arabia, they sent you to jail.



And now, Europe is beginning to look like Arabia.



Just today, a poll revealed that in Brussels, the capital of the European Union, half the islamic youths are anti-semitic. It is dangerous for Jews to walk the streets in Brussels.

If you wear a cross or a kippah in certain urban areas in Europe today, you risk being beaten up. In the capital of my own country, Amsterdam, a tram driver was forced to remove his crucifix from sight, while his Muslim colleagues are allowed to wear the veil.



In June 2008, the Christian church authorities in the Danish town of Arhus decided to pay so-called “protection money” to islamic so-called “security guards” who assure that church goers are not harassed by islamic youths.



On March 31st, 2010, Muslims entered the Roman Catholic cathedral of Cordoba, Spain, and attacked the guards with knives. They claimed the cathedral was theirs.



Last month, the bishops of Sweden sent out a letter to priests advising them to avoid converting asylum seekers from islamic countries to Christianity, because the converts would risk losing their lives.



In the Netherlands, the city authorities in Amsterdam register polygamous marriages. The authorities in Rotterdam serve only halal meals in municipal cafeterias. Theaters provide separate seats for women who are not allowed to sit next to men. Municipal swimming pools have separate swimming hours for men and women, Muslim lawyers do not have to stand when the judges enter court rooms.



Meanwhile Jews are no longer safe on our streets. In Amsterdam, the city of Anne Frank, Jews are again being harassed in the streets. Even political leaders acknowledged that life has become unsafe for Jews in Holland. Do you know what they said? They advised Jews to emigrate. Jews are already running for Israel. But I say: Jews must not leave, violent Muslims must leave!



What is needed, my friends, is a spirit of resistance.



I repeat: What we need is a spirit of resistance.



Why? Because resistance to evil is our moral duty. This resistance begins with expressing our solidarity to Christians, Jews, indeed, to all people worldwide, who are the victims of islam. There are millions of them.



We can see what islam has in store for us if we watch the fate of the Christians in the islamic world, such as the Copts in Egypt, the Maronites in Lebanon, the Assyrians in Iraq, and Christians elsewhere.



Almost every day, churches are arsoned and Christians are assassinated in islamic countries.



In a report on the persecution of Christians in the world, Archbishop Twal of Jerusalem, wrote recently– I quote: “In the Middle East to be Christian means accepting that you must make a great sacrifice. All too often and in many places, Christians suffer various threats. On some occasions, their homes and churches are burnt, and people are killed. How many atrocities must we endure before somebody somewhere comes to our aid?” – end of quote.



Indeed, how many atrocities before we come to their aid?



Rivers of tears are flowing from the Middle East, where there is only one safe haven for Christians. You know where that is. The only place in the Middle East where Christians are safe is Israel.



That is why Israel deserves our support. Israel is a safe haven for everyone, whatever their belief and opinions. Israel is a beacon of light in a region of total darkness. Israel is fighting our fight.



The jihad against Israel is a jihad against all of us. If Israel falls, we, too, will feel the consequences. If Jerusalem falls, Athens, Rome, Amsterdam and Nashville will fall. Therefore, we all are Israel. We should always support Israel!



Today, we are confronted with political unrest in the Arab countries. The Arab peoples long for freedom. However, the ideology and culture of islam is so deeply entrenched in these countries that real freedom is simply impossible as long as islam remains dominant.



A recent poll in post-revolution Egypt found that 85 percent of Egyptians are convinced that islam’s influence on politics is good, 82 percent believe that adulterers should be stoned, 84 percent want the death penalty for apostates. The press refers to the events in the Arab world today as the Arab spring. I call it the Arab winter.



Islam and freedom, islam and democracy are not compatible.



The death of Osama bin Laden last week was a victory for the free world, but we will be confronted with Islamic terrorism as long as islam exists, because islam’s founder Muhammad himself was a terrorist, worse than Bin Laden.



And here is another truth: The rise of islam means the rise of sharia law in our judicial systems. In Europe we already have sharia wills, sharia schools, sharia banks. Britain even has sharia courts.



In my own country, the Netherlands, sharia is being applied by the courts in cases relating to divorce, child custody, inheritance, and property ownership. Women are always the victims of this because sharia discriminates women.



This is a disgrace. This is not the way we should treat women.



My friends, I told you that we have just remembered Liberation Day to commemorate the young Americans and all the heroes who offered their lives to free the Netherlands from nazi tyranny. It would be an insult to them if we Europeans would give up that precious freedom for another totalitarian ideology called Islam.



That is the goal for which my party and I work day after day. And we are having success.

In the Netherlands, we are successfully starting to roll back islam. The current Dutch government is a minority government which can only survive with the backing of my party, the Party for Freedom.



We have 24 seats of the 150 seats in parliament and we support the government, in return for measures to prohibit certain aspects of sharia law.



We have achieved that the Netherlands will soon ban the burka and the niqaab.



We will also restrict immigration from non-Western countries by up to 50% in the next four years. We are not going to allow islam to steal our country from us. It was the land of our fathers, it is our land now, our values are based on Christianity, Judaism and Humanism and we will pass this on to our children with all the freedoms that the previous generations have fought for.



Let those who want to rob us from our freedoms, stay in their own countries. We do not need them. If you want to wear a burqa, stay in Saudi-Arabia. If you want four wives, stay in Iran. If you want to live in a country where the islamic ideology is dominant, stay in Pakistan, if you don’t want to assimilate in our society, stay in Somalia. But don’t come over here.



We are also going to strip criminals who have a double nationality – for instance Dutch and Moroccan, and who repeatedly commit serious crimes, of their Dutch nationality. We will send them packing, back to their homeland.



My friends, what the Party for Freedom has achieved, shows that it can be done. We can fight the islamization of our societies.



Dear friends, here is my warning. Make no mistake: Islam is also coming for America. In fact, it is already here. America is facing a stealth jihad, the islamic attempt to introduce sharia law bit by bit. Last March, a judge in Tampa, Florida, ruled that a lawsuit against a mosque and involving the control of 2.4 million dollars, should proceed under Islamic law.



My friends, be aware that this is only the beginning. This is also how it started in Europe. If things continue like this, you will soon have the same problems as we are currently facing.



Leaders who talk about immigration without mentioning islam are blind. They ignore the most important problem Europe and America are facing. I have a message for them: it’s islam stupid!



My friends, fortunately, not all politicians are irresponsible. Here, in Tennessee, brave politicians want to pass legislation which gives the state the power to declare organisations as terrorist groups and allowing material supporters of terrorism to be prosecuted. I applaud them for that. They are true heroes.



Yesterday and today, I met some of those brave legislators. They told me that Tennessee in particular is a target of islam. Help them win their battle.



They need your support.



While Tennessee is in the frontline, similar legislative initiatives are also being taken in the states of Oklahoma, Wyoming, South Carolina, Texas, Florida, Missouri, Arizona, Indiana. It is encouraging to see that so many politicians are willing to resist islam.



This gives us hope and courage. I am not a pessimist. We can still turn the tide – even in Europe – if we act today.



There are five things which we must do.



First, we must defend freedom of speech.



Freedom is the source of human creativity and development. People and nations wither away without the freedom to question what is presented to them as the truth.



Without freedom of speech we risk becoming slaves. Frederick Douglass, the 19th century black American politician, the son of a slave, said – I quote – “To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.”



I have already told you about my court case. This legal charade will not, however, prevent me from saying the truth. Never. I will speak out, even if they drag me before 500 courts and threaten to jail me for a thousand years.



The fact that we are being treated as criminals for telling the truth must not deter us. We are doomed if we remain silent or let ourselves be silenced. Let us not forget, this is our first and most important obligation: defend the right to speak the truth.



Second, we must end cultural relativism and political correctness. We must repeat it over and over again, especially to our children: Our Western culture based on Christianity and Judaism is superior to the islamic culture. Our laws are superior to sharia. Our judeo-christian values are better than islam’s totalitarian rules.



And because they are superior and better, we must defend them. We must fight for our own identity, or else we will lose it. We need to be warriors for the good, because the good is worth fighting for. Neutrality in the face of evil is evil.



Third, we must stop the islamization of our countries. More islam means less freedom. There is enough islam in the West already. We must stop immigration from non-Western countries, which are mostly islamic countries. We must expel criminal immigrants. We must forbid the construction of new hate palaces called mosques.



We must also close down all islamic schools because educating children in a spirit of hate is one of the worst things imaginable. We must introduce anti-sharia legislation everywhere in the free world. Enough is enough.



Fourth, we must take pride in our nations again. We must cherish and preserve the culture and identity of our country. Preserving our own culture and identity is the best antidote against islamization.



And fifth, last but certainly not least, we must elect wise and courageous leaders who are brave enough to address the problems which are facing us, including the threat of islam.

Politicians who have the courage to speak the truth about islam.



Politicians who dare to denounce the devastating results of the multicultural society.

Politicians who – without political correctness – say: enough is enough.



You and I, Americans and Europeans, we belong to a common Western culture. We share the ideas and ideals of our common Judeo-Christian heritage. In order to pass this heritage on to our children and grandchildren, we must stand together, side by side, in our struggle against Islamic barbarism.



That, my friends, is why I am here. I am here to forge an alliance. Our international freedom alliance. We must stand together for the Judeo-Christian West.



We will not allow islam to overrun Israel and Europe, the cradle of the judeo-Christian civilization.



My friends, we will stand together.



We will stand firm.



We will not submit. Never. Not in Israel, not in Europe, not in America. Nowhere.



We will survive.



We will stop islam.



We will defend our freedoms.



We will remain free.



Thank you.



Posted by Robert on May 13, 2011 7:44 AM

Canadain University Offered $2 Million From Muslim Brotherhood-Linked Groups To Establish Islamic Studies Program

From Jihad Watch:


Canada University offered $2 million from Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups to establish Islamic Studies program







If they take their money, they will echo their line and advance their agenda. "A $2-million gift that UWO might want to turn down," by Barbara Kay in the National Post, May 13:



For various reasons, some good, many Western universities are keen to establish Islamic Studies programs. And for various other reasons, the same is true of Islamist organizations -which tend toward a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. To this end, with a professed goal of fostering "understanding" of Islam, the latter offer hefty financial endowments to universities.

Some critics worry that such a scenario may be in progress at Huron University College, an affiliate of University of Western Ontario (UWO). Huron offers post-baccalaureate and professional degree programs in theology. The College recently accepted a $2-million endowment for a new Chair in Islamic Studies within the College's historically Anglican Faculty of Theology. About half the money is to come via fundraising facilitated by the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), and the other, matching half from the Virginia-based International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). A cofounder of the latter group was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007-2008 trial of Sami al-Arian, an Islamist academic linked to jihadism.



On April 5, 26 self-identified "alumni, friends and faculty" of the university signed on to a letter written by UWO associate professor of economics John Palmer, protesting acceptance of the endowment (Google "electecon, islamic chair" for the full text of the letter). In it, Palmer contends that although MAC and IIIT claim they are moderate and democratic organizations, their approach is influenced by Imam Hassan Al-Banna, founder and even decades after his death still ideological guru of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), who, according to the MAC website, "best exemplifies [a] balanced, comprehensive understanding of Islam."



In Egypt and elsewhere, the Muslim Brotherhood often presents itself as tolerant in its outlook. Yet it has radical roots. A 1991 memorandum written by one member of the Muslim Brotherhood Shura Council proposed that Muslim settlement in Canada and the United States be viewed as a "'Civilization-Jihadist Process,' with all the word means. The Ikhwan [MB] must understand that their work in America is kind of a grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house." To my knowledge, neither principals of MAC nor of IIIT have ever distanced themselves from or denounced this pernicious statement....





Posted by Robert on May 13, 2011 8:33 AM

Pakistan: Muslim Businessman Falsely Accuse Christian Rival Of Blasphemy, Forces Him To Flee, Mob Sets Fire To His Shop

From Jihad Watch:


Pakistan: Muslim businessman falsely accuses Christian rival of blasphemy, forces him to flee, mob sets fire to his shop







One more illustration of how Pakistan's blasphemy laws are so easily abused and used to victimize non-Muslims. "Pakistan: Sialkot: Muslim businessman uses blasphemy law against Christian rival," from SperoNews, May 12:



Lahore – Once more, Pakistan’s ‘black law’ strikes again. A Muslim businessman has used the infamous blasphemy law against a rival and former associate, who happens to be Christian. More and more, the law is being used to persecute the country’s Christian minority or settle personal scores. The victim is Gulzar Masih, from Sialkot, who owns a bookstore. Yesterday, he and his son had to flee town, fearing reprisals by local Muslims who tried to set fire to his shop. Only the intervention of police stopped the attackers.

Ten years ago, Gulzar Masih opened a bookstore in Druman Wala Chowk, a Sialkot neighbourhood, along with a Muslim associate Abdul Rauf. As business increased, they bought a bigger store.



“As soon as the business started growing, Abdul Rauf wanted to take over the business. Some issues started between the partners, and ultimately in 2009 the Delight Book Shop was divided into two shops, Delight Books and New Delight Books,” said Fr Anwar Feroze, who knows the victim. “However, because Gulzar Masih had good contacts with suppliers, his business grew. Rauf was not happy with that and quarrelled with his old partner.”



Yesterday, there was a showdown. Gulzar Masih’s son Suleman went to open the store and found some burnt pages of the Qur‘an under the shutter. After witnessing the scene, employees of Abdul Rauf began to shout, accusing Gulzar and his son of the deed.



According to Fr Naeem Taj, a priest involved in defending Christians, the burnt pages were deliberately planted in order to frame the Christian businessman and his rival was behind it to drive his competitor out of business. “The blasphemy law is being once more as a pretext to settle a personal score,” the clergyman said.



Upon hearing shouts from the Muslim bookseller, a group of Muslims gathered in order to attack Suleman Masih, who was however able to flee and inform his father. In the meantime, the mob went over to the shop owned by the Christian man to set it on fire. Police intervened in time to prevent the fire and disperse the crowd, but they did not file any charges for the attempted arson....





What a surprise.



Posted by Robert on May 12, 2011 7:54 AM

Canada: Jews Present Quran To Muslims And Donate Money To Build Toronto Mosque

From Jihad Watch:


Canada: Jews present Qur'an to Muslims and donate money to build Toronto mosque







An article from IslamOnline (posted several years ago and since taken down, but captured here) shows what was in the book that the Jews presented to the Muslims:



Dear Sheikh! As-Salam `Alaykum. What, according to the Qur’an, are the main characteristics and qualities of Jews?

Answer: [...] As regards the question you posed, the following is the fatwa issued by Sheikh `Atiyyah Saqr, former Head of Al-Azhar Fatwa Committee, in which he states the following:



“The Qur’an has specified a considerable deal of its verses to talking about Jews, their personal qualities and characteristics. The Qur’anic description of Jews is quite impartial; praising them in some occasions where they deserve praise and condemning them in other occasions where they practice blameworthy acts. Yet, the latter occasions outnumbered the former, due to their bad qualities and the heinous acts they used to commit.



The Qur’an praises them on the verse that reads: “ And verily We gave the Children of Israel the Scripture and the Command and the Prophethood, and provided them with good things and favored them above (all) peoples.” (Al-Jathiyah:16) i.e. the peoples of their time.



Among the bad qualities they were characterized with are the following:



1. They used to fabricate things and falsely ascribe them to Allah. Allah Almighty says: “ That is because they say: We have no duty to the Gentiles. They speak a lie concerning Allah knowingly.” (Al-`Imran:75) Also: “The Jews say: Allah's hand is fettered. Their hands are fettered and they are accursed for saying so. Nay, but both His hands are spread out wide in bounty. He bestoweth as He will.” (Al-Ma`idah:64)



In another verse Almighty Allah says: “Verily Allah heard the saying of those who said, (when asked for contributions to the war): "Allah, forsooth, is poor, and we are rich! We shall record their saying with their slaying of the Prophets wrongfully and We shall say: Taste ye the punishment of burning!” (Al-`Imran:181)



2. They love to listen to lies. Concerning this Allah says: “and of the Jews: listeners for the sake of falsehood, listeners on behalf of other folk” (Al-Ma’idah: 41)



3. Disobeying Almighty Allah and never observing His commands. Allah says: “And because of their breaking their covenant, We have cursed them and made hard their hearts.” (Al-Ma’idah: 13)



4. Disputing and quarreling. This is clear in the verse that reads: “Their Prophet said unto them: Lo! Allah hath raised up Saul to be a king for you. They said: How can he have kingdom over us when we are more deserving of the kingdom than he is, since he hath not been given wealth enough?” (Al-Baqarah: 247)



5. Hiding the truth and standing for misleading. This can be understood from the verse that reads: “…distort the Scripture with their tongues, that ye may think that what they say is from the Scripture, when it is not from the Scripture.” (Al-`Imran: 78)



6. Staging rebellion against the Prophets and rejecting their guidance. This is clear in the verse: “And when ye said: O Moses! We will not believe in thee till we see Allah plainly.” (Al-Baqarah: 55)



7. Hypocrisy. In a verse, we read: “And when they fall in with those who believe, they say: We believe; but when they go apart to their devils they declare: Lo! we are with you; verily we did but mock.” (Al-Baqarah: 14) In another verse, we read: “Enjoin ye righteousness upon mankind while ye yourselves forget (to practice it)? And ye are readers of the Scripture! Have ye then no sense?” (Al-Baqarah: 44)



8. Giving preference to their own interests over the rulings of religion and the dictates of truth. Allah says: “…when there cometh unto you a messenger (from Allah) with that which ye yourselves desire not, ye grow arrogant, and some ye disbelieve and some ye slay?” (Al-Baqarah: 87)



9. Wishing evil for people and trying to mislead them. This is clear in the verse that reads: “Many of the People of the Scripture long to make you disbelievers after your belief, through envy on their own account, after the truth hath become manifest unto them.” (Al-Baqarah: 109)



10. They feel pain to see others in happiness and are gleeful when others are afflicted with a calamity. This is clear in the verse that reads: “If a lucky chance befall you, it is evil unto them, and if disaster strike you they rejoice thereat.” (Al-`Imran:120)



11. They are known of their arrogance and haughtiness. They claimed to be the sons and of Allah and His beloved ones. Allah tells us about this in the verse that reads: “The Jews and Christians say: We are sons of Allah and His loved ones.” (Al-Ma’idah: 18)



12. Utilitarianism and opportunism are among their innate traits. This is clear in the verse that reads: “And of their taking usury when they were forbidden it, and of their devouring people's wealth by false pretences.” (An-Nisa’: 161)



13. Their impoliteness and indecent way of speech is beyond description. Referring to this, the Qur’anic verse reads: “Some of those who are Jews change words from their context and say: "We hear and disobey; hear thou as one who heareth not" and "Listen to us!" distorting with their tongues and slandering religion. If they had said: "We hear and we obey; hear thou, and look at us" it had been better for them, and more upright. But Allah hath cursed them for their disbelief, so they believe not, save a few.” (An-Nisa’:46)



14. It is easy for them to slay people and kill innocents. Nothing in the world is dear to their hearts than shedding blood and murdering human beings. They never give up this trait even with the Messengers and the Prophets. Allah says: “…and slew the prophets wrongfully.” (Al-Baqarah: 61)



15. They are merciless and heartless. In this meaning, the Qur’anic verse explains: “Then, even after that, your hearts were hardened and became as rocks, or worse than rocks, for hardness.” (Al-Baqarah: 74)



16. They never keep their promises or fulfill their words. Almighty Allah says: “Is it ever so that when ye make a covenant a party of you set it aside? The truth is, most of them believe not.” (Al-Baqarah: 100)



17. They rush hurriedly to sins and compete in transgression. Allah says: “They restrained not one another from the wickedness they did. Verily evil was that they used to do!” (Al-MA’idah:79)



18. Cowardice and their love for this worldly life are their undisputable traits. To this, the Qur’an refers when saying: “Ye are more awful as a fear in their bosoms than Allah. That is because they are a folk who understand not. They will not fight against you in a body save in fortified villages or from behind walls. Their adversity among themselves is very great. Ye think of them as a whole whereas their hearts are divers.” (Al-Hashr:13-14) Allah Almighty also says: “And thou wilt find them greediest of mankind for life and (greedier) than the idolaters.” (Al-Baqarah:96)



19. Miserliness runs deep in their hearts. Describing this, the Qur’an states: “Or have they even a share in the Sovereignty? Then in that case, they would not give mankind even the speck on a date stone.” (An-Nisa’:53)



20. Distorting Divine Revelation and Allah’s Sacred Books. Allah says in this regard: “Therefore woe be unto those who write the Scripture with their hands anthem say, "This is from Allah," that they may purchase a small gain therewith. Woe unto them for that their hands have written, and woe unto them for that they earn thereby.” (Al-Baqara: 79)





"Jews Extend Qur’an to Muslims," by Habeeb Alli for the Common Ground News Service via Middle East Online, May 11:



Toronto, Canada - I’m thrilled again to have been a part of recent history – while someone burned the Qur’an in the United States, another presented us with a Qur’an in an expression of solidarity. I told this to my congregation during a Friday service and they were all moved by the gesture.

For the eighth year, an exercise of interfaith exchange between Jews, Muslims and Christians in Ontario has progressed in good faith – and the gift of the Qur’an was this year’s highlight. The Abraham Festival in Peterborough originated on the premise that all three faiths have a common heritage, which needs to be explored and shared. Walking through the symbolic tent of Abraham – referring to the Biblical prophet’s tent, a place of hospitality and engagement with strangers which was open to the four winds – in order to enter the St. Andrew's United Church gave attendees the sense that history can be relived, even in a modern day setting.



Dr. Dan Houpt, a Jewish partner, facilitator and doctor who has been keen in bringing the three faiths together in Peterborough, presented the Qur’an to us Muslims during the festival last month. He first suggested the idea to his Muslim counterpart and co-founder Elizabeth Rahman, who then consulted with the Canadian Council of Imams about the gift. Rahman is a convert from the UK and first became active in the community in the 1970s, with her late Indian husband.



The Muslims Students Association at the nearby Trent University hosted the Friday service, on the first day of the festival this year, so that Christian and Jewish neighbours could observe the presenting of the Qur’an. Houpt offered some thoughts on the gift, stating, "It shows we stand with [Muslims] in solidarity," and then added that this offering "shows it's a terrible act to burn a holy book." [...]



The presentation of the Qur’an by the local Jewish community was a way to show goodwill and remove any misunderstanding and hurt that Muslims may have experienced in today’s unfortunate atmosphere of Islamophobia – something Jews can relate to given their long years of dealing with anti-Semitism.



I also told festival goers that recently a group of Jewish people had donated money and time to build a mosque in Toronto. Television producer Kenny Hotz will highlight this daring project – the Peace Mosque – in his documentary to be shown on the Showcase Television channel this spring....





Posted by Robert on May 11, 2011 9:21 AM

Quebec: Muslim National Assembly Member Sole Dissenter To Motion Affirminf Quebec's Stance Against "The Menace Of Terrorism"

From Jihad Watch:


Quebec: Muslim national assembly member sole dissenter to motion affirming Quebec's stance against "the menace of terrorism"







Amir Khadir complained that it sounded like Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin. And meanwhile, he sounds like Noam Chomsky or Michael Moore. "Quebec motion inspired by bin Laden's death draws just 1 dissenter," by Kevin Dougherty for Postmedia News, May 10 (thanks to Twostellas):



QUEBEC — Quebec solidaire's lone member was the only member of the province's 125-seat national assembly to vote Tuesday against a resolution inspired by the death of Osama bin Laden, saying the motion smacked of "Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin's" rhetoric.

Amir Khadir was the only dissenter to a motion presented by Action democratique du Quebec leader Gerard Deltell, whose Chauveau riding is near Canadian Forces Base Valcartier.



It affirmed that Quebec "has and will continue to be an ally of the whole international community in security issues and more particularly against the menace of terrorism."



The motion's co-sponsors were Louise Beaudoin, of the Parti Quebecois, and two independents.



Deltell called the death of bin Laden "justice," saying the world's best-known terrorist orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on New York's World Trade Center, killing nearly 3,000 people and leading to the United Nations-mandated military operation in Afghanistan, where 27 Quebec soldiers have died.



But Khadir recalled that bin Laden was trained by the Central Intelligence Agency to fight a guerrilla war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, "when Islamic terrorism was acceptable to the military-industrial complex in the United States and largely supported by the monarchist, theocratic, fundamentalist government of Saudi Arabia."



Then, he said, "these religious fundamentalists, who used Islam for terrorist ends, turned against the United States."



In addition to the 9/11 attacks, Khadir noted that bin Laden's al-Qaida has also killed in Africa, Asia and the Arab countries, including in Iraq.



Khadir later explained that his objection was to the "security" aspect of the motion, which he said ignored the causes of terrorism, naming the status of the Palestinian people.





Not the jihad doctrine. Oh, no. Of course not.



He also called the military operation in Afghanistan "a lamentable failure."

Khadir said rather than warfare, Canadian tax dollars would have been better spent rebuilding the Afghan economy.



Khadir said the killing of bin Laden may have been "illegal," but it was not immoral in a context of warfare. He called the death "primary justice," and said he regretted that the "magnificent occasion" of a bin Laden trial had been lost.





I wonder why he thinks it would have been a "magnificent occasion." Bin Laden would have been given a platform to propagandize. Would that have been "magnificent"?



Posted by Robert on May 11, 2011 10:37 AM

Hedegaard Found Guilty

From The Legal Project:

Another Bite at the Apple: Hedegaard Found Guilty


by Ann Snyder • May 10, 2011 at 3:48 pm



http://www.legal-project.org/blog/2011/05/another-bite-at-the-apple-hedegaard-found-guilty



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Last week, Lars Hedegaard, president and founder of the Danish and International Free Press Societies was convicted of "hate speech" under Article 266 b of the Danish penal code and fined the equivalent of about $1000. (See IFPS's press release here.) Beyond being an appalling assault on freedom of speech, if the conviction strikes you as a bit odd, perhaps it should. Just this past March, the Legal Project published an interview with Hedegaard following his acquittal on the very same charges. (Note: In December 2010, Danish MP, Jesper Langballe, of the Danish People's Party "confessed" to violating the same provision for remarks made in support of Hedegaard.)





Apparently the Danish government's current position on free speech isn't the only thing rotten in Denmark. In what reeks of violation of the general proscription against double jeopardy from this American's perspective, it would seem Danish prosecutors are allowed to make multiple attacks against the same defendant on the same charges. Determined to convict Hedegaard, the prosecutor appealed the lower court's decision, and Hedegaard was retried on April 26, 2010, the same day he released his new book, Muhammed's Girls: Violence, Murder and Rape in the House of Islam.



Hedegaard will appeal, of course, "to the Supreme Court and – if that is denied – to the European Court of Human Rights," according to a released statement. Hedegaard will not give in, and so, who are the real losers in this case? According to Hedegaard:



"The real victims of this despicable case are freedom of speech and the tens of thousands of girls and women – Muslim as well as non-Muslim – whose plight may no longer be mentioned in my country for fear of legal prosecution and public denigration."



Noted feminist psychologist, Dr. Phyllis Chesler offers a similar perspective on Hedegaard's conviction.



While it is true that some topics may make us uncomfortable and may be difficult to discuss – sexual and honor violence probably fall squarely into this category - it doesn't logically follow that they shouldn't or needn't be discussed, let alone outlawed. If we cannot even talk about the problem, what are our chances, realistically, of doing anything to stop it? Slim-to-none, I would wager.



In its zeal to convict Hedegaard the prosecution not only diminished free speech rights, generally, but also made it harder to protect the victims of violence. All of this begs the question: which side is the prosecution on, anyway? That of the perpetrators of violence and those whose PC sensibilities are offended by discussing the realities of sexual and honor violence or that of the victims and those who have the courage to speak out despite being persecuted (and prosecuted) for it? The answer seems pretty clear.

Egypt: Coptic Christians Say They Are Under Organized Attack

From The Telegraph and ADF:


Egyptian Christians say they are 'under organised attack'



A priest whose church was at the centre of sectarian riots at the weekend has said Egyptian Christians were "under organised attack" as religious authorities warned the country was at risk of civil war





Egyptian Coptic Christian priests perform a mass prayer for those killed in clashes between Muslims and Christian in the Imbaba Photo: EPA











By Richard Spencer, Cairo12:04AM BST 10 May 2011









Armed troops and riot police guarded the streets around St Mena's church and nearby burned-out shops and apartment blocks in the impoverished, crumbling Cairo suburb of Imbaba.





Inside, Father Cherubim Awad said a conspiracy was the only possible explanation for the violence that had engulfed relations between Christians and Muslims in recent weeks.





"Five churches were attacked on the same night," he said. "From the beginning of this year we have had all these attacks in a short space of time.





"There is some hidden hand behind this, whether from inside the country or outside it."





The street battles, which began on Saturday evening outside his church, demonstrated the breakdown in law and order in parts of Egyptthat began during the uprising that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak in February.







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The police failed to intervene, while Fr Cherubim said that, after several hours, the army moved in to protect the church but not the surrounding buildings, and refused to try to break up the warring sides.



Sectarian violence has increased in Egypt. It began with a church bombing in Alexandria before the uprising began, but has worsened since.



A large gang of Salafi Muslims – followers of a purist sect to which most Islamist terrorist groups are aligned – led the attack on St Mena's, claiming a Christian woman who had converted to Islam to marry a Muslim was being held inside against her will.



"They performed evening prayer 200 metres from the church and after they finished they started shouting 'We want you to leave', meaning the Copts," Fr Cherubim said.



"They were shouting 'Islamiya, Islamiya, Islamiya, with our souls and blood we sacrifice ourselves for the crescent'.



"Are we not citizens? Are we foreigners? Should we leave this country now and go away?"



The Christian and Muslim sides disagree about who began the escalation of protests. Local Muslims said it was a local Christian café owner who fired a gun into the air.



But both sides brought out guns, including rifles, and fired from the closely packed, brick-built blocks lining the street. As the night progressed, a stream of injured poured into the church.



Five Christians died in or around the church, including Rami Radian, 23, who was keeping lookout from the bell tower and was hit by a sniper.



Six Muslims died outside on Al-Mashoe Street. After the army sealed it, the mob moved on to the nearby Church of the Virgin Mary, burned it to the ground and beat the watchman to death.



Abdul Moneim al-Shahad, a spokesman for the Dawa Salafi movement, said it opposed all violence.



But he said Muslims were angry at the church's refusal to hand over women who convert to Islam so that they can divorce their husbands, which the Coptic church makes difficult.



Salafis and even the once-banned Gamaa Islamiya, which was responsible for terrorist attacks on tourists in the 1990s, have been more prominent since the downfall of Mr Mubarak, announcing they would back candidates at forthcoming elections.



A group of Salafis held a prayer vigil for Osama bin Laden last week, despite attempts by the army to stop them. Egyptian newspapers yesterday claimed that the riots were being deliberately orchestrated by elements of the old regime still loyal to Mr Mubarak, eager to make his warnings that without him there would be chaos come true.



The Supreme Military Council, which replaced him, is promising an "iron fist" to end the discord, but Ali Gomaa, the country's Grand Mufti, or senior Islamic scholar, warned there was a potential for civil war.



"Outlaws want to defy the authority of the state," he said.

The Germans: All Set For Dhimmitude?

From Europe News:

Germans All Set for Dhimmitude?





Hot Air 10 May 2011

By J.E. Dyer



Everyone knows at this point about the German judge who filed a criminal complaint against Chancellor Angela Merkel for her remark that she was glad Osama bin Laden was dead. A great deal has been made of what she said and whether it’s appropriate to be "glad” that bin Laden was killed. But what concerns me is that a German judge thought what she did was criminal.



The situation here is actually worse than it looks. It would be bad enough if the problem were only that a bunch of Germans through it was inappropriate to cheer over bin Laden’s death. That’s the least of our worries. I had the same thought myself; but I don’t propose doing anything about it other than expressing my opinion.



The real problem is that the German judge’s complaint against Merkel, while calling it "tacky and undignified” for her to be "glad” about bin Laden’s death, invoked Germany’s criminal code specifically by claiming that Merkel was "rewarding and approving of a crime” in her statement about it.



Rewarding a crime is one thing – although it is first necessary for a competent authority to determine that a crime has occurred. No such determination has been made in the case of the slaying of bin Laden. Rewarding a crime in a material sense may, however, be sensibly deemed criminal. (...)









Posted May 10th, 2011 by pk

Islam A Threat To Western Freedom: Wilders

From Europe News:

Islam a threat to Western freedom: Wilders



National Post 10 May 2011

By Jessica Hume



The presence of Muslims in Canada threatens the country’s freedoms and democracy, and only if immigration from Islamic countries is suspended can the cultural deterioration of the country be stopped, controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders told a packed house Monday night in Toronto.



"Our Western culture is far superior to Islamic culture,” Mr. Wilders said. "And only once we are convinced of this will we be able to defend our civilization.”



The event, held at the Canadian Christian College in north Toronto, marked Mr. Wilders’ second stop on a three-city tour. The visit, his first to Canada, is sponsored by the International Free Press Society.



He spoke in London on Sunday, and he will be in Ottawa on Tuesday.



Charles McVety, president of the Christian College, introduced Mr. Wilders to an ebullient crowd as a man with "a prophetic message.”



The leader of Party for Freedom, the third party in the Dutch parliament, Mr. Wilders is better known for his uncompromising position on Islam. His vitriol against the religion has necessitated the hiring of 24-hour personal security for the past seven years.



In his speech on Monday night, he said Muslim immigrants to Europe have changed the social and political landscape there. An increasingly vociferous Islamic lobby has led to the harassment of Christians, female genital mutilation and polygamy, he said, adding that with its own growing Muslim community, Canada faces the same fate.



His career has been driven by a belief that the Koran encourages violence, that moderate Islam is an impossibility and that in allowing Muslims to immigrate to Western nations, these countries open themselves up to inevitable Islamization.









Posted May 10th, 2011 by pk

Ireland: Warning Sounded Over Polygamous Muslim Marriages

From Europe News:

Warning sounded over polygamous Muslim marriages




Sunday Business Post 10 May 2011

By John Burke



The government has been told that it may be risking causing offence to Muslims living in Ireland who wish to engage in polygamous marriages. Senior department officials at the Department of Social Protection said procedures where children born to second or concurrent wives were recorded as illegitimate could cause offence. In a special briefing note prepared for the minister, Joan Burton, the officials warned that Muslim men here may believe that Irish procedures were ‘‘disrespectful’’ to their religion.



The move follows concerns by the High Court over the acceptance of certain marriages as valid when celebrated in certain countries under so-called ‘native law and custom’.



The High Court’s concern follows a case brought by a Lebanese man last year, in which he sought to obtain recognition for a second concurrent marriage, both of which he had entered into while living in Lebanon. (...)









Posted May 10th, 2011 by pk

EDL Oppose Radical Muslims Outside The U.S. Embassy

From Europe News:

EDL Oppose Radical Muslims Outside the US Embassy




English Defence League 10 May 2011



On Saturday, a small group of brave patriots from across London and the surrounding area came together to once again oppose the radical Islamic group Muslims Against Crusades (MAC).









The support received from the public as we leafleted outside the muster pub was truly astounding - men and women of all ages, races and social classes, all thanking us and wishing us well.



Not surprisingly, there was no sign of the UAF, the trade unions or anyone else that claims to ‘oppose all extremism’, but who only actually come out to counter our demonstrations.As we marched to the park opposite the US embassy, cars and vans hooted in support. Once in the park, we relaxed with music, songs, casual chatter, crosswords and a bite to eat, as we waited for MAC to arrive.



Then a Muslim lady came over to speak to us. We were hoping to be able to address any misconceptions that she may have had about our intentions and for her to join our counter-demonstration. But unfortunately she just yelled abuse, calling us "scum" and showering praise on Osama bin Laden, calling him a "martyr" and "freedom fighter" – exactly the sort of extremism that we’d come to oppose.



Obviously this provoked a reaction, but EDL supporters kept it peaceful and attempted to have a reasoned debate with the woman. What did the police do in the face of this obvious provocation? Absolutely nothing… except warn US to be careful. I complained to an officer about them allowing this lady to provoke us and incite hatred. The officer’s response?



"What can we do? Orders from above, we can’t touch them."



Just what you want to hear, the police force refusing to protect British citizens or to arrest criminals, based on nothing but the criminals’ religion.That response at least served as a warning. Despite complying fully with the police (on the day and during the build up) we had to endure 3 hours penned in to a small area near the US embassy, and officers refused to answer basic questions about where we were permitted to go and how long our movements would be restricted.



This was all going on whilst MAC were allowed to pollute London’s air with their hate speech and threats. They faced no warnings or any action of any kind from the police, despite the fact that members of the public had been attacked by MAC on their march to the embassy, with a young lad being knocked unconscious (we've since had word that he's been released from hospital and will be fine).Throughout the protests, the EDL supporters were entirely peaceful with no hint of violence. Three individuals were arrested (for reasons that remain unclear), but no charges were filed. All in all, the counter-demonstration itself was a joyous occasion with chants of "Where’s bin Laden gone?" and "We love Navy Seals" joining the usual patriotic songs. There was even a conga thrown in for good measure.



It was a day of celebration for us. A murderous terrorist is dead and he doesn’t deserve to be mourned – unlike, of course, the innocent people who were murdered in the 9/11 and 7/7 atrocities. Their memories live on through their friends and relatives, in England, in the US, and around the world. We stand side by side with all those who lost people on those horrible days, and reject those who believe that these terrible acts were justified.On Saturday we did our part to make clear that terrorist supporters have no place in England. It is to our shame that so many terrorist sympathisers, financiers, radical preachers, recruiters and eventual terrorists have found a safe haven in this country. This needs to stop.



We need to stand up for the people of England, for the United Kingdom, for our American cousins, and for all freedom-loving peoples across the world. Defending ourselves from radical Islam is the only way in which we can help to defend others.



We’re glad that the public were so receptive to our counter-demonstration, as it would seem to signal a growing willingness to acknowledge the threat that radical Islam poses, and a desire to see it defeated









Posted May 10th, 2011 by pk