Malaysians turn to strict Islam

Women in Malaysia are under no legal compulsion to wear the headscarf - though many feel pressured to cover up.

Muslim women without headscarves are a common sight on the streets of the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. But engaging them in a discussion about the hijab is difficult.

Norhayati Kaprawi is a Malaysian activist whose recent documentary Aku Siapa (Who Am I) deals with the issue of how women in Malaysia should dress. She found some women unwilling to show their faces in her film - not on religious grounds, but because they feared reprisals.

This is a damning reflection on Malaysia's Muslim society, says Ms Norhayati.

"It's full of fear. If you don't follow the mainstream you will be lynched."

According to the activist, the pressure to wear the hijab grew after the Iranian revolution in 1979, and it is now the most visible sign of Malaysia's rising Islamic fundamentalism.

Muslims account for over half the population of 28 million people and are mainly ethnic Malays. Malaysia often prides itself on being a moderate Muslim nation, which allows other religions freedom of worship.

And while there are no laws forcing women to wear the hijab, Ms Norhayati says many Muslims feel compelled.

 

Crime and punishment

Increasingly, there is a greater emphasis on Islamic codes of conduct.

For the first time last year, Malaysian authorities caned women under Sharia law. The three women sentenced were found guilty of having sex outside of marriage.

And a part-time Muslim model was sentenced to the same punishment in 2009 for drinking beer in public. Islamic authorities eventually reduced Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno's sentence to community service last year after the story made international headlines.

Analysts say this emphasis on Islamic practice is superficial. They blame it on the competition for Malay-Muslim voters between the ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), and the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), both of which are trying to position themselves as defenders of Islam.

The youth wing of the PAS has often lobbied the government to ban Western pop artists from performing in Malaysia, deeming them to be un-Islamic.

Since 2008, when elections delivered a record number of seats to the opposition Pakatan Rakyat coalition, of which the PAS is a member, the party has tried to moderate its stance.

Although the PAS has not abandoned the goal of making Malaysia into an Islamic state, PAS Member of Parliament Khalid Samad says non-Muslims have nothing to fear.

"We do not think Islam is all about cutting off hands and stoning adulterers," he says.

"That's a very minute aspect of the Islamic law. What's more important is the question of good governance."

In a move to show it can work with non-Muslims, the PAS is planning to open up membership to them.

"Nobody can say if we come to power, [that] we cannot govern a multi-religious and multi-racial nation," says Mr Khalid.

Cause for concern?

But a resurgence in Islam has many non-Muslims concerned.

Islamic officials in Selangor state entered a Methodist church without a warrant in early August, breaking up a fundraising dinner. They recorded the details of several Muslims who attended the function.

The Islamic authorities have said they acted on a tip-off, but have refused to reveal the nature of the complaint.

Religious officials are wary about Muslims attending church-organised events. There are fears these are attempts to convert Muslims to Christianity - something that is illegal in Malaysia.

"This action sets a dangerous precedent and makes a mockery of the sanctity and inviolability of all religious places in our beloved country," said the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hindusim, Sikhism and Taoism in a statement.

 

Ongoing row

The fear of conversion has already strained relations between Muslims and the Christian minority, who make up around nine per cent of the country's population and are typically ethnic Chinese and Indians.

Over the last two years, churches have been firebombed and Bibles have been seized in an ongoing row between Christians and Muslims over the use of the word 'Allah'.

The religious minority insists that they have been using the term for centuries in the Malay language to refer to the Christian god.

But in 1986, the government banned non-Muslim from using the word 'Allah' in publications. This ban was not usually enforced until recently when the government began to act upon it at the behest of some Muslim groups.

In a move seen as a bid to win Malay-Muslim votes, the government argued that for non-Muslims, calling their gods 'Allah' would be confusing to the Muslim-majority and threaten national security.

As a result, Malay-language Bibles have been impounded by customs officials. Some Muslim activists fear that Christians are using the Bibles to convert Muslims.

Attacks on places of worship came after the High Court in Kuala Lumpur ruled in December 2009 that the word 'Allah' is not exclusive to Islam. The government has appealed against the decision but no hearing date has been set yet.

In the meantime the prime minister's department has made some concessions in recent months and released some 35,000 seized Bibles. The cabinet has also set up a committee for religious leaders from all faiths to resolve the "Allah" issue.

Reverend Dr Thomas Philips is one of the committee members. He says the meetings have been sporadic but he is optimistic they can reach an understanding.

"I'm convinced Malaysia is a moderate Muslim country," he says.

Norhayati Kaprawi agrees, but fears that the mainstream opinion has been silenced.

"People who hold more progressive or alternative views," she says, "don't dare to speak up in public."

Source : BBC News

Syrian Regime Breaks the Hands of Political Cartoonist

A political cartoonist whose drawings expressed Syrians' frustrated hopes for change was grabbed after he left his studio and beaten by masked gunmen who broke his hands.

 

Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat, lies wounded at a hospital in Damascus

 

One of Syria's most famous artists, Ali Ferzat, 60, earned international recognition and the respect of many Arabs with stinging caricatures that infuriated dictators including Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and, particularly in recent months, Syria's autocratic Assad family.

He lay badly bruised in a hospital bed Thursday evening with his hands swathed in bandages, a stark reminder that no Syrian remains immune to a brutal crackdown on a 5-month anti-government uprising.

Mr Ferzat remembers the gunmen telling him that "this is just a warning," as they beat him, a relative said.

"We will break your hands so that you'll stop drawing," the masked men said, according to the relative, who spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation.

Before inheriting Syria's presidency from his father in 2000, Bashar Assad, a British-trained eye doctor, used to visit Ferzat's exhibitions and offer encouraging words, the artist has said.

When the new president opened Syria to reforms, Mr Ferzat was allowed to publish the country's first private newspaper in decades, a satirical weekly called The Lamplighter.

The paper was an instant hit, with copies of each issue selling out a few hours after hitting the stands. It was soon shut down, however, as Assad began cracking down on dissent and jailing critics after the brief, heady period known as the Damascus Spring quickly lost steam.

Mr Ferzat became a vehement critic of the regime, particularly after the military launched a brutal crackdown on the country's protest movement.

Human rights groups said Assad's forces have killed more than 2,000 people since the uprising against his autocratic rule erupted in mid-March, touched off by the wave of revolutions sweeping the Arab world.

An endearing figure with a bushy grey beard, Ferzat drew cartoons about the uprising and posted the illustrations on his private website, providing comic relief to many Syrians who were unable to follow his work in local newspapers because of a ban on his work.

His illustrations grew bolder in recent months, with some of his cartoons directly criticising Assad, even through caricatures of the president are forbidden in Syria.

This week, he published a cartoon showing Assad with a packed suitcase, frantically hitching a ride with a fleeing Gadhafi. Another drawing showed dictators walking a long red carpet that leads them, in the end, to a dustbin.

The response was swift.

Mr Ferzat, who usually works late into the night, left his studio at 4am Thursday, but a jeep with tinted windows quickly cut him off, according to the relative. Four masked gunmen then dragged him out of his car, bundled him into the jeep and drove him to the airport road just outside Damascus, beating him and making threats all the while.

The men then singed the artist's beard, put a bag over his head and dumped him on the side of the road.

The Facebook page of the US Embassy in Damascus described it as a "government-sponsored, targeted, brutal attack" and said it was deplorable.

Source : The Telegraph UK

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Declares War on the Bikini

More zealous Muslims demand cover-up of pharaonic monuments, too

Sunbathing in Alexandria may soon be a thing of the past, at least if some Egyptian Islamist politicians have their way.

 

 

Egypt's tourism industry has suffered a severe blow since the outburst of anti-regime demonstrations in January. But that did not stop the Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, from demanding stricter regulations over what tourists can do and wear while visiting the country. The party is urging officials to ban skimpy swimwear and the consumption of alcohol on Egyptian streets.

"Beach tourism must take the values and norms of our society into account," Muhammad Saad Al-Katatny, secretary-general of Freedom and Justice, told Egyptian tourism officials on Monday. "We must place regulations on tourists wishing to visit Egypt, which we will announce in advance."

The call for new strictures on tourists comes as Egypt debates the role of Islam in the post-Mubarak era. Freedom and Justice is competing in elections scheduled for this autumn for parliament and opinion polls show a majority of Egyptians favor a greater use of Islamic law and mores. But a vocal minority worries that Egypt risks becoming an Islamic republic.

"This is how things began in Iran," Hani Henry, a psychology professor at the American University in Cairo, told The Media Line. "The moderate youth wanted to implement changes, but the Mullah's hijacked the revolution. The same thing is now happening here in Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood. It makes me sick to my stomach."

Along with Suez Canal tolls and energy exports, tourism is a major source of foreign exchange for Egypt. But with protests, strikes, and continued violence in the cities and Sinai Peninsula months after President Husni Mubarak was forced to step down, foreigners have hesitated to visit the country, which offers some of the world’s most spectacular antiquities as well as beaches and scuba diving.

Finance Minister Hazem Al-Beblawi told the Reuters news agency earlier this month that revenue from tourism would likely total $10 billion in the financial year that started on July 1, compared with $11.6 billion in 2009/10.

Al-Katatny told Al-Masry Al-Youm daily that his party had already set up a subcommittee to investigate the issue of incoming tourism to Egypt and planned to amend legislation following the upcoming parliamentary elections.

"Some slight changes will be made in public beaches, to make the situation better than it was before," Ali Khafagy, youth director of Freedom and Justice in Giza, told The Media Line. "Bathing suits and mixing on the beach are things that go against our tradition. It's not just a matter of religion. When I go to the beach I don't want to see nudity."

He said modest bathing gear or separate beaches for men and women are possible alternatives to the current situation.

Khafagy stressed that tourists would be free to do as they please in specially designated areas, adding that his party supported incoming tourism to the country. But that did not satisfy the heads of Egypt's tourism industry, who met with the party’s secretary-general Al-Katatny for a heated debate on Monday.

"Without alcohol and bathing suits, no tourists will come and we will loose $13 billion a year," Hussam A-Shaer, head of the tourist company association, told Al-Masry al-Youm.

But bathing suits are not the only worry of Egypt’s Islamists. Abd Al-Munim A-Shahhat, a spokesman for the Salafi group Dawa, has said that Egypt's world-renowned pharaonic archeology – its pyramids, Sphinx and other monuments covered with un-Islamic imagery – should also be hidden from the public eye.

"The pharaonic culture is a rotten culture," A-Shahhat told the London-based Arab daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat on Wednesday, saying the faces of ancient statues "should be covered with wax, since they are religiously forbidden." He likened the Egyptian relics to the idols which circled the walls of Mecca in pre-Islamic times.

The Islamist challenges to the tourism industry in post-revolutionary Egypt have led to the establishment of the Coalition to Support Tourism, whose members also met with Al-Katatny on Monday. The coalition, which includes a broad array of travel industry organizations and figures, argued that the real problem isn’t modesty but the absence of any strategy on the part of Egypt's new parties to protect the country's faltering tourism industry.

"Some parties want to ban tourism, or allow it while banning alcohol, certain foods and certain clothes. [A couple] renting a room will require documents proving they are married," wrote the coalition administrator on the group's Facebook page. "These proposals don’t bode well, as many of you know."

Henry of the American University said two classes of beaches already exist in Egypt, with modestly dressed, generally poor Egyptians occupying some and foreign tourists occupying others, mostly in the resorts of the Sinai Peninsula. He said he considered imposition of sharia law in Egypt "an act of aggression" that he would not tolerate.

Islamists have never been enamored of foreign tourism and before they were crushed by the Mubarak regime foreign visitors were often targeted for killings. Close to 60 Western tourists were killed by Islamist terrorists in the southern city of Luxor in 1997. Tourists were also attacked in bombings in the Sinai resorts of Taba, Sharm Al-Sheikh and Dahab in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

But Al-Kantatny said that the Muslim Brotherhood regards Egypt's archeology as belonging to all of humanity, and should therefore be safeguarded. "This heritage belongs to everyone, and one can't simply remove something he doesn't like," he told Al-Ahram daily. 

 

Source : The Media Line

US State Dept: 11,500 Terror Attacks in 2010

On Thursday, the U.S. Department of State released its annual, U.S. Congress-mandated Country Reports on Terrorism 2010, an assessment of incidents and trends in international terrorism that occurred between January 1 and December 31, 2010.

The statistics revealed that more than 11,500 terrorist attacks occurred in 72 nations during 2010, and there were more than 13,200 deaths attributed to terrorist attacks.

Besides filling a Congressional requirement, this analysis is aimed at enhancing Americans' understanding of the international terrorist threat.

The report focuses on policy-related assessments, country-by-country breakdowns of foreign government counterterrorism cooperation, and contains information on WMD terrorism, State Sponsors of Terrorism, Terrorist Safe Havens, and Foreign Terrorist Organizations.The report also includes a statistical annex prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center.

Although the number of attacks rose by almost 5 percent from the previous year, the number of deaths declined for a third consecutive year, dropping 12 percent from 2009. For the second consecutive year, the largest number of reported attacks occurred in South Asia and the Near East, with more than 75 percent of the world’s attacks and deaths occurring in these regions.

According to the State Department analysts, Al-Qaeda (AQ) remained the preeminent terrorist threat to the United States in 2010. Though the AQ core in Pakistan has become weaker, it retained the capability to conduct regional and transnational attacks. Cooperation between AQ and Afghanistan- and Pakistan-based militants was critical to the threat the group posed.

In addition, the danger posed by Lashkar-e Tayyiba (LeT) and increased resource-sharing between AQ and its Pakistan-based allies and associates such as Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Haqqani Network meant the threat in South Asia remained high.

In addition, the affiliates have grown stronger. While AQ senior leadership continued to call for strikes on the U.S. homeland and to arrange plots targeted at Europe, the diversity of these efforts demonstrated the fusion of interests and the sharing of capabilities among AQ groups with different geographical focuses, the analysts found.

U.S. law enforcement saw the Pakistani Taliban provide support to American citizen Faisal Shahzad, who sought to carry out a car bombing in Times Square in May 2010. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) continued to demonstrate its growing ambitions and a strong desire to carry out attacks outside of its region. The group followed up its December 25, 2009 attempt to destroy an airliner bound for Detroit with an October 2010 effort to blow up several U.S.-bound airplanes by shipping bombs that were intended to detonate while in the planes’ cargo holds.

Information about potential AQ plots in Europe prompted several European countries to raise their terror alerts toward the end of the year. On December 11, a car bomb device was detonated minutes before Sweden’s first ever suicide bomber carried out an attack in a crowded pedestrian area in Stockholm, according to the State Department analysts.

Similarly, al-Shabaab in East Africa, some of whose senior leaders have declared adherence to the AQ brand of violent extremism, gained strength in 2010 and conducted its first major attack outside of Somalia in July when it claimed responsibility for twin suicide bombings that killed 76 people in Kampala, Uganda, during the World Cup. Al-Shabaab’s widening scope of operations, safe haven in Somalia, and ability to attract Western militants, made it a continuing threat to U.S. interests in the region.

In addition to operations, AQ affiliates have taken on a greater share of the propaganda work. AQAP created AQ’s first English-language magazine, Inspire. Although the magazine failed to arouse sustained interest from Western media, it proved a platform for dual U.S.-Yemeni citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, who emerged as an operational and ideological leader in AQAP.

In a troubling trend, English-speaking militants increasingly connected to each other through online venues like militant discussion forums and video-sharing platforms, which encouraged both violent behavior and individual action. Many participants in online communities have real-world relationships with extremists who bolster their radicalism and mobilize them toward violent action.

For example, five Pakistani Americans contacted by a Taliban recruiter through YouTube encouraged one another to travel to Pakistan to train for warfare against the United States; they remained in Pakistani custody at year’s end. Several Somali Americans decided to go overseas to fight with al-Shabaab -- a decision that was likely shaped by a combination of online propaganda, face-to-face recruitment, and supportive real-world peer networks.

Not all of AQ’s formal affiliates and informal allies presented as grave a threat to U.S. interests in 2010. No group has made a bigger name for itself in the kidnapping for ransom business than al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which relies on ransom payments to sustain and develop itself in the harsh Saharan environment. AQIM carried out several attacks and continued kidnapping foreigners for ransom but is not an serious threat to governments in the region.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) continued to be politically marginalized as its constituency dwindled further in 2010. Though AQI remained capable of carrying out occasional sizable attacks, its violent tactics failed to ignite the sectarian violence the group sought. Instead, we saw two successful elections in Iraq and a decision by Sunni leaders in the country to participate in the political process.

The defeats suffered by AQ in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2010 had no significant effect on other terrorist groups with deep roots in the Middle East, as both Hamas and Hezbollah continued to play destabilizing roles in the region. Hezbollah’s persistence as a well-armed terrorist group in Lebanon with an entrenched hold, if not veto, on the political process in Lebanon, as well as its robust relationships with Iran and Syria, and acquisition of increasingly sophisticated missiles and rockets threatened the interests of Lebanon and other U.S. partners in the region, especially Israel.

Hezbollah’s aggressive stance and threatening statements about the Special Tribunal on Lebanon, which is investigating the 2005 murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, increased the danger of Lebanon moving even closer toward sectarian violence. Hamas retained its grip on Gaza, where it continued to stockpile weapons -- supplied in large part by Iran -- that posed a serious threat to regional stability.

Source : Examiner

Is Anders Behring Breivik a Christian?

Who gets to define the word "Christian"? The three main sources would be: (1) Christian scriptures, (2) the Christian community, or (3) non-Christians. If we go with (1), Breivik fails miserably. If we go with (2), Breivik will be utterly rejected. Hence, the only way Breivik could be considered a Christian is if certain non-Christians (e.g. Muslims and the media) decide to define the term "Christian" as "anyone who calls himself a Christian, regardless of whether his beliefs line up with Christianity." Is this the route we want to go?

Since our Muslim friends really, really, really want to classify Breivik as a Christian, I have to ask a few questions. (i) Do non-Muslims get to define who is and who isn't a Muslim? (ii) Since the Lesbian author Irshad Manji calls herself a Muslim, is she a Muslim? (iii) How can Muslims reject Ahmadis as Muslims, but call Breivik a Christian, when Breivik obviously strays much further from orthodoxy than Ahmadis do?

Source : Answering Muslims

Iran Seizes, Burns Bibles to 'Protect Youth'

According to an article posted by Rob Kerby, Senior Editor of Beliefnet" Iranian authorities have seized 6,500 copies of the Bible in northwest of Iran. In another incident, officials burned 300 Bibles."

it was also said that "A spokesman said the Bibles were confiscated to block missionaries who “are trying to deviate our youth.”

 

 

Deviate their youth? what the heck is that ? Well that may be a good thing as I do not see many christian youth taking up arms or getting on planes to carry out terrorist acts against others. I do not see or know of many christian youth who strap bombs on themselves to kill others in the name of religion/suicide bombings etc.

So perhaps if they deviate , all that sort of thinking would perhaps end and there in I say lies the fear.So what is the world or the west at war to create ? Yes I remember democracy, I say democracy my eye tooth when the bible or any other religious books may not be allowed.

The report also said that a Dr. Majid Abhari, who is an adviser to the social issues committee of the parliament in Iran, told the official Iranian news agency, Mehr,that “With regard to the activities of these Christian missionaries to deceive people specially youngsters, they have begun a huge campaign by spending huge sums and false propaganda for deviating the public. These books were made with the best paper in the world in pocket size.”

This statement sounds like paranoia to me. It is okay for Islamic countries to dictate what gets in and out relating to what is deemed "propaganda" but the United States of America which was founded on Christian principles can have no say. This seems odd to me.

it seems the freedom allowed by the constitution which was written by the christians have allowed freedom to others which they wont extend to the christians. What's the fear? Just saying, I love to question things especially when they reek of "coddling others who do not have one's interest at heart and those who want to enjoy the freedoms of a free world but get enraged when one questions their ideology.

So I say, where is the outrage from Christians, if we recall when that Pastor Jones in Florida planned on burning the Koran it was almost world war three in the Islamic world pretty much and even so in the western world especially in America where some said he should not as that was not "constitutionally correct' to coin a phrase.

So why are the Iranians allowed to do confiscate and burn bibles without much noise from the anyone? Maybe Christians are just awesome and understood what Christ meant re loving thy neighbor as thy self and forgiving seventy times seven, turn the other cheek. How wonderful is that. Peaceful coexistence!

Others can spread their word but Christian bibles are burnt and confiscated at the government level. I wonder why those are so afraid of the bible in their country?
 

I think I know why - Jesus speaks of love and others speak of - you decide.

 

Source : All Voices

Obama admits "He is a Muslim"

The Dhimmi Lama

Stop fretting, you lot.

Islam is a religion of peace.

The Dalai Lama said so.

Not on this current trip, I don’t think; I didn’t hurry along to bask in the wisdom, myself, but some time ago I did see him on youtube nodding and smiling sagely as a Muslim professor of Islamic studies and philosopher, Sayeed Hossein Nasr, held forth in a kind of global interfaith session about “happiness.” His Holiness of course is a popular expert, author and judge on this subject.

The Dalai Lama likes Islam. He has said (2010, while receiving an honorary degree from an Indian Islamic university) that Islam is one of the most important religions of the world and that “it can not be blamed for a few miscreants creating trouble,” that it is a “religion of the heart and needs to be protected.” Jihad, said the Dalai Lama, means to “conquer the evil within individuals.” Indeed, he said, he has been defending Islam since 2001. And so on.

On another occasion, he said that compassion is important in Islam.

“Let me tell you about the Islam I know. Tibet has had an Islamic community for around 400 years, although my richest contacts with Islam have been in India, which has the world’s second-largest Muslim population. An imam in Ladakh once told me that a true Muslim should love and respect all of Allah’s creatures. And in my understanding, Islam enshrines compassion as a core spiritual principle, reflected in the very name of God, the “Compassionate and Merciful,” that appears at the beginning of virtually each chapter of the Koran.”

The Dalai Lama, while gaining interfaith brownie points as he recalls his rich contacts, is forgetting a few things, even apart from the avowedly non-compassionate, harshly discriminative nature of Allah. Tibet did not always have a weak army and government, such as it had come to have by the time the Chinese invaded in 1950 (indeed, Tibet’s history includes a rather savage destruction of the shaman traditions by the Buddhists). Thus while Tibet’s relatively few Muslims may well have misunderstood their religion so much that they believed it was inherently peaceful, they may simply have been prudent enough to realize the pointlessness of pushing ahead with a supremacist agenda with insufficient support from outside and against the power of the Tibetan government.

Before the Dalai Lama’s time, Tibet’s Muslims came mainly from Kashmir and China’s north. They came as traders or when escaping famine, and predictably married Tibetan women. The fifth Dalai Lama (1617-1682) was impressed by the piety of Muslims he encountered and decided to encourage diversity in Tibet by granting the Muslims favours. Accordingly, they were given land for a mosque and cemetery, were able to practice sharia law among themselves, were exempted from tax, and were excused from observing certain respectful Buddhist traditions. Furthermore, they quickly dominated the meat industry, Buddhists being averse to the killing of animals if not the eating of them, and to this day have maintained this dominance; their treatment of the animals has however caused resentment from the Tibetans.

The Hui Muslims from China settled in north-eastern Tibet from the 17th century and some formed a separate community in Lhasa. The Muslims of Qinghai, the northern region so named by the Chinese, now number up to one million, or a fifth of the population. This growth has not always been peaceful or from immigration. The Muslim warlord Ma Bufang, in his attempt to establish an Islamic enclave in Qinghai in the 1930s, drove Tibetans off their land, and killed or forced many to convert.

Addressing the students and faculty members of Jamia Millia Islamia: Islam is the religion of the heart and needs to be protected. We should not generalise Islam as something fearful just due to a handful of miscreants. Jihad is not a medium of attack. There is a need to break this false notion as Jihad actually means to conquer the evil within individuals.

 

Military opponents and would-be colonizers, history shows us, have different natures. The British Lieutenant Younghusband, on his expedition to annex Tibet in 1903, ordered the killing of several hundred Tibetans, mainly monks. His subsequent remorse was so strong, and so effectively conveyed back to Britain, that imperial designs on Tibet were abandoned, and Younghusband himself, impressed by Tibetan Buddhism but himself a Christian, adopted an “interfaith” attitude to spirituality. The Dalai Lama would no doubt approve.

Chinese remorse, after killing at least one million Tibetans since 1950, destroying monasteries and much of Tibetan culture and appropriating the wealth of Tibet, has been slow in coming, and the Tibetans are still an oppressed people.

So while the British abandoned their designs on Tibet, the Chinese imposed – or tried their best to – atheism, as they took control of the country.

After the Chinese invasion, the Dalai Lama was lucky enough to be accepted by newly post-colonial India, which had a nice hill village, abandoned by the British, to spare for the fleeing Tibetan refugees. Now, sixty years later, India is taking refugees from its own territory, mainly Islamic Kashmir, as well as from the territory it lost at Partition, Pakistan – because of a foe it is loath to identify in the way Tibet could identify Chinese Communism.

That foe, Islam, was responsible for the weakening of Buddhism in central Asia by means of forced conversion and killing. It is unimaginable that the Dalai Lama knows nothing of the history of his region and seems incomprehensible that he prefers to promote Islam as a religion of peace with a few bad eggs muddying its reputation. Buddhism in central Asia has been squeezed from the east by Communism and from the west and north by Islam. How does the Dalai Lama think Islam came to Ladakh? Between 1400 and 1600, Ladakh was subject to raids and invasions from neighbouring Muslim states; that is why the Dalai Lama’s good Ladakh imam friend is enjoying the “love” of Islam now.

Somehow the “happiness” of the Dalai Lama comes across as rather indelicate, an affront to his suffering people and patronizing to Western people whose hunger for “happiness” he takes as insatiable. His promotion of meditation and peacefulness sounds historically incongruous, as his famously “spiritual” people allowed their army to decline. Tibet is at the top of the world, difficult to access, cold and inhospitable; if it had had a robust army (and if India had not followed the Gandhian path of “ahisma” but had helped to defend its neighbour) the Chinese could have been repelled. But an inward-looking culture and the pursuit of spirituality caused the country to become passive, “yin” to the Chinese “yang”, and eminently open to invasion. Is this a role model the Dalai Lama should promote for the West?

The Dalai Lama’s huge popularity is linked to a current reverence for not only pacifism but also for refugees, who are particularly honoured and sanctified by an influential element in Western society. This element is at work on our schoolchildren, who were much encouraged to attend lectures by the Dalai Lama during his visit and to absorb his message of compassion to refugees while turning a blind eye to the causes of their departure from their countries - or those people’s inability or unwillingness to resist invasion or totalitarianism.

The Dalai Lama gave $100,000 to the youth worker Les Twentyman for the work he does with troubled youth. I would have preferred to see that money given to people such as the south Sudanese, who now have to cope with thousands of Ngok Dinka, driven out of their homes by members of the Dalai Lama’s supposedly compassionate Islamic faith – or even given to the southern army which (heaven forbid!) is trying to defend the Dinkas and their land. At least our troubled youth are eating, and have homes to live in. But the problems they face can be construed, in keeping with political correctness, as being the fault of our insufficiently happy, insufficiently spiritual Western society, not the fault of a savage and unmentionable enemy, an uncomfortable reality which ensures scant global concern for the hounded non-Muslims of Sudan and elsewhere in the Islamic world.

As a student teacher, I was subjected to a lesson by a “global studies” specialist, who was there to instruct us how to create “global citizens” out of our students. In this class, we were told to teach our students that they should meditate because it will help in the cause of world peace. I have nothing against meditation; I myself am a sometime practitioner of an ancient and esoteric form of qigong, but have no illusions about its benefits outside my own health. But we were supposed, in our secular schools, to teach this fantasy as fact. Must we believe this is possible? Has this formula for peace been proven to be the case anywhere in the world? Did the Allies meditate to defeat Hitler? The example of Tibet is instructive, but unfortunately the wrong message is being promulgated.

The Dalai Lama could better employ his time – if he had the nerve – visiting terrorist training camps to promote world peace through the pursuit of happiness, or teaching Buddhist-flavoured meditation to Muslim children in “jihad” madrassas. But he conveniently believes Islam is already peaceful, except for a few of its practioners, just as with Christians and Buddhists; we in the West need the benefit of his wisdom much more than do Muslims.

Cynicism aside, it must be asked why the Dalai Lama has chosen to jump on the dhimmi bandwagon. To what purpose is his enthusiasm for interfaith “harmony”, rather than the promotion of his own religion as would be expected and as we usually see from the leader of a spiritual community such as the Pope?

A website called “The Green Agenda” claims to have the answer. Along with a staggering list of luminaries, the Dalai Lama is said to be a member of the Club of Rome, which has its aim the creation of a one-world government with, yes, a frightening “green” agenda to harmonize (in the most sinister meaning of the word) the world’s population. The UN is to oversee the uniting of the world’s religions into one; the UN is infiltrated by the Baha’i faith at the highest levels; the Baha’i faith is an offshoot of Islam.

And the organization is “green” to the point where it sees the enemy of the world as humanity itself, sorely in need of numbers reduction. As the UN is encouraging, even enforcing, the saturation of Western countries with Muslims, the role of those Muslims would hardly be likely to be discussed or challenged by the Dalai Lama if one-world “harmony” is his dream.

Elsewhere, the Western Shugden Society, which aims to defend Buddhism and expose unpalatable facts about the Dalai Lama, including his alleged collaboration with the Communist Party and financial shenanigans, claims that he was born a Muslim. The society says that he was born in a Muslim area, Takster in Qinghai, that he was taken from a Muslim family and that a good deal of money (400,000 pieces of silver) was paid to the warlord Ma Bufang in order that he could be released from his Muslim community. In Tibet, the Dalai Lama was referred to as the “saffron-robed Muslim”. These details, apart from the Dalai Lama’s birth as a Muslim, which however seems understood by the context, are confirmed in Lee Feigon’s book about Tibetan history.

All of this might be unfounded supposition; but to be suspicious of anyone in an influential position who defends and even promotes Islam is surely a rational response.

If, at his age, the Dalai Lama is still hopelessly naïve, then we are making utter fools of ourselves in glorifying his naivety and accepting it as an indication of spiritual superiority. If his defence of Islam springs from his birth as a Muslim and residual loyalty to Islam, or his connection with dubious one-world schemes of domination and control, we have even more reason for concern because of his dishonesty.

Tibet’s future appears to be dominated by the probability of its culture being overwhelmed by immigration from China. However, many of the immigrants are Muslim, and the Chinese Communist Party has since its inception shown itself less hostile to Islam than to Christianity, Buddhism or even Confucianism. Tibetans in Lhasa in 2008 rioted against Muslims and burned down a mosque, fearful of the encroachment of Hui Muslims in Lhasa. The Chinese Government was quick to assert control and downplay the incidents at the time, in its attempt to show a face of ethnic and religious harmony to the world. But it was noted at the time that Tibetans were blamed for intolerance of Muslims rather than Muslims for their provocative customs.

Yet the atheist Communists of China may ultimately find that they will have been the driving force behind the Islamisation of Tibet. This paradoxical situation has a parallel in the West, where politically-correct Marxism, militant atheism and the singling out of once-dominant Christianity for destruction is also creating conditions for the rise of Islam, which is threatening to turn our striving for “happiness” into a struggle for survival.

But the Dalai Lama prefers to see us focused on “happiness”, for reasons of his own.

Source : Islam Monitor

Libyan leader Al-Qadhafi's congratulation message to Obama

UNCLAS TRIPOLI 000874

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

DEPT FOR S/ES-CR, S/ES-O, AND NEA/MAG

E.O. 12958: N/A

TAGS: OPDC PREL OVIP LY

SUBJECT: LIBYAN LEADER AL-QADHAFI'S CONGRATULATORY MESSAGE TO THE PRESIDENT-ELECT

REF: STATE 118192

¶1. (U) Post received on November 9 via telefax a letter from Leader Muammar al-Qadhafi conveying his congratulations to the President-elect. We have not yet received the note in hard copy.  

 

 

¶2. (SBU) Post's informal translation of the Arabic language letter follows: Begin text of letter: Dear Mr. President Obama, I have the pleasure to send a congratulation note for the first time to an American president, and on behalf of all Africa, and of Cen-Sad, the base of the African pyramid, and on behalf of the Arab Maghreb Union, and in the name of all Arab leaders as I am their dean. Since relations are resumed between our two countries, we have the right to congratulate you from the bottom of our hearts because you are the son of Africa. God gives reign to whom He wishes and takes it away from whom He wishes; he holds dear whom he wants and humiliates whom he wants as well. He retains all the good in His hands, and He is the all powerful; and He pledged to confer His favors on those deemed weak and to bequeath them the Earth. Blacks were deemed weak and were oppressed, and were taken to the American continent as slaves and indentured servants. The main point is that Blacks shall not have an inferiority complex and imitate the Yankees. They have to prove that they are partners to the whites and sharing the same continent; that the Whites themselves are not indigenous, but that they have come from overseas; that the black man is not less competent than the white man; and that the black color shall prevail in the world as predicted by the Green Book. I salute the American people who have chosen you in these historical elections for such a high position, so that you may lead the change that you have promised them and for which they have rallied around you. We hope that you lead the United States of America on the path of good and respect peoples' sovereignty and observe the policy of neutrality. 

 

Sincerely,

Muammar al-Qadhafi 

 

Source : WikiLeaks

French Woman Killed for Refusing "Ramadan Sex"

A Malaysian man was charged Tuesday with the murder of a French tourist, a government prosecutor said, as a report quoted police saying the woman was killed after refusing his sexual advances.

Stephanie Foray, a 30-year-old civil servant, went missing in Malaysia in May and her remains were found earlier this month buried in a cave on the resort island of Tioman, off the east coast of peninsular Malaysia.

She and the suspect Asni Omar, a 36-year-old local businessman, had been drinking together on the island and she was later killed after refusing to have sex with him, the New Straits Times quoted police sources as saying.

Asni was charged with murder in a court in the town of Pekan, prosecutor Amalina Zainal Mokhtar told AFP, adding that he faced death by hanging if convicted.

He has not yet entered a plea, she said.

Asni earlier took investigators to a trash dumping site on Tioman to retrieve the murder weapon, a bottle, the New Straits Times said.

Amalina said she had no details on the alleged crime, while police declined to confirm specifics to AFP.

Foray had arrived in Malaysia on May 5 and went missing shortly after taking a ferry five days later to Tioman island.

She had left France last November on a holiday that took her to India and Sri Lanka before arriving in Malaysia.

 

Source : Yahoo News

Islamic scholar: Every Muslim has right to kill Zionists

Islamic scholar Dr. Salah Sultan issued a religious decree according to which it is permissible to kill "any Israeli on Egyptian land, in response to the killing of Egyptian soldiers near the border with Israel," Egyptian Al-Shuruq newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Sultan is a lecturer of Muslim jurisprudence at the Cairo University. In the decree, he ruled that "every Muslim who meets a Zionist is entitled to kill him, after Israel killed 'Camp David'. The Egyptian people do not distinguish between Egyptian and Palestinian blood," he ruled.

Source : ynet News

Muslim Immigrant Plotted to Poison Spain's Water

An Al-Qaeda suspect plotted to poison tourists’ water supplies to avenge the killing of Osama bin Laden, a Spanish judge said Saturday as he remanded the man in custody.

 'Kill the enemies in the heart of Europe' - Moroccan al-Qaeda suspect Abdelatif Aoulad Chiba being led away by members of te Spanish Guardia Civil

Abdellatif Aoulad Chiba, a 36-year-old Moroccan, had gone so far as to obtain manuals on poisons, toxins and explosives on jihadist websites, the judge said.Police swooped soon after the suspect appeared to be saying farewell to his wife.

Chiba’s online comments on jihadist websites “expressed a clear desire to carry out an attack against ‘infidels’ by poisoning human water supplies”, he said in a written ruling. The online comments indicated that he wanted to strike “at camp sites and tourist resorts”, most likely in Spain, said the judge of the National Court, Spain’s highest authority for hearing terrorist cases.

“The risk increased after he entered in contact with other users of the forum who supplied him with manuals on how to make and use poisons, toxins and explosives.”

Police arrested Chiba on Wednesday in the southern town of Linea de la Concepcion.

He was remanded in custody Saturday on suspicion of conspiracy to commit a terrorist killing and of being a member of a terrorist organisation. Formal charges have not yet been laid. In one online post found by police he swore his allegiance to Al-Qaeda’s North African offshoot, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

The suspect had “expressed his intention to continue the organisation’s efforts to avenge the death of Osama bin Laden and other key members of Al-Qaeda”, the court said.

US forces killed bin Laden on May 1 in Pakistan, a decade after the September 11, 2001 attacks he masterminded levelled the World Trade Center in New York and damaged the Pentagon.

“It is considered probable that all the actions carried out by Abdellatif Aoulad could be the steps taken according to a plan whose goal could be to carry out a terrorist act,” the judge said. Chiba called for attacks to be carried out in Europe and the United States in the online postings but the court said the plot to poison water supplies “probably concerned Spain since that is where he lives”.

In one post he wrote on August 11, he urged members of the jihadi forum “to kill the enemies in the heart of Europe and the USA … attack their houses, poison their water, set off explosives in their markets and the places where they meet”.

Europeans- try to ensure that you remember this story well, the next time you hear of the EU spending millions of your country’s money on reaching out to ‘our neighbours in the Southern Mediterranean’ – or breathless journalists hailing the arrival of the ‘Arab Spring’ in the Islamic Maghreb.

Be careful what they wish for.

The restoration of al-Andalus is a high priority for Islamic terrorism worldwide – and as you can see here, it is clearly already underway.

Source : undhimmi.com

Ground Zero Mosque Financier Sued over Insurance Scam

The self-proclaimed leading moneyman behind the Ground Zero mosque ran a $5.1 million insurance scam that cashed in on car-accident injuries, a lawsuit alleges.

Hisham Elzanaty, 52, ran the "highly developed and sophisticated kickback scheme" for years, Allstate Insurance claims in a federal suit on Long Island.

The scheme routinely submitted inflated medical bills to Allstate and involved illegal fee-splitting, court papers say.

Allstate claimed that Elzanaty fraudulently incorporated medical professional corporations in The Bronx -- which were then used to bill the company for care of patients involved in wrecks.

The operations were fraudulent because Elzanaty is not a licensed medical professional, as required by law, court papers say.

Elzanaty did not return requests for comment.

Source : New York Post

Iran Refuses to Free American Hikers

Media had speculated that Bauer and Fattal could be freed as a goodwill gesture during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan which began on Aug. 1 and ends this week.

Tehran's chief prosecutor confirmed on Sunday eight-year jail sentences for two Americans arrested more than two years ago on spying charges, the ISNA news agency reported.

A TV grab taken from Iran''s state-run news network Press TV on 06 February 2011 shows the trial of two Josh Fatal (C) and Shane Bauer (L) accused of spying on Iran, on 06 February 2011 in Tehran, Iran.(EPA)

Prosecutor-General Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi told a news conference that Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal had 20 days to appeal the verdict, ISNA said, confirming news leaked to Iranian state TV on Saturday.

There was still no verdict on Sarah Shourd, who was arrested with the others on July 31, 2009 near Iran's border with Iraq where they said they were hiking, Dolatabadi said.

Shourd, who got engaged to Bauer while jailed at Tehran's Evin prison, was released on $500,000 bail in September 2010 and returned home to California.

The trio, in their late 20s and early 30s, say they were hiking in the mountains of northern Iraq and, if they crossed the unmarked border into Iran, it was "by mistake".

Their trial took place behind closed doors and the evidence against them has not been made public.

The case is likely to further strain Iran's already very poor relations with Washington which denies that the three Americans were spies.

In a filmed interview posted on the website freethehikers.org, Shourd said that after two initial months of interrogations her questioner told her their case was on hold as it was "political" and that she was caught in a "tug of war between two countries".

Media had speculated that Bauer and Fattal could be freed as a goodwill gesture during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan which began on Aug. 1 and ends this week.

Source : World Bulletin

Israeli Dead Included Teachers, Family Members

JERUSALEM, Israel - On Friday morning, Israelis buried family members who were killed in Thursday morning's terror attacks.

Some were shot dead by Palestinian Arab terrorists; others died defending their countrymen against neighbors who seek to annihilate them.

Among the dead were two sisters and their husbands who died when Arabs ambushed their car. The four -- who lived in Kfar Saba near Hevron -- were en route to Eilat for a weekend getaway.

Both sisters were elementary school teachers. One couple was looking forward to the birth of their first grandchild. The other already had two grandchildren.

In a similar attack on a couple driving home to Holon, outside Tel Aviv, from Eilat, Palestinians sprayed their vehicle with bullets, killing the husband. The wife, who had been hit in the chest, survived by playing dead for an hour and a half until she was able to call one of her children for help.

Israel Defense Forces Staff Sgt. Moshe Naftali, 22, a resident of Ofra, 25 miles north of Jerusalem in Samaria, was killed in a firefight with terrorists near Eilat.

Like other mothers whose children have died defending the country, Naftali's parents were proud of their son. "He did everything with dedication and perseverance," his mother said after learning of his death.

At his funeral Friday morning at Mount Herzl Military Cemetery, his grandfather told friends he just "wanted to kiss him," The Jerusalem Post reported.

Islam's Perspective

Muslim mothers, on the other hand, often express pride when their sons or daughters die killing Israelis, thought of as interlopers in a land Arabs have been taught belongs to them. Islam calls people who die for their faith, such as suicide bombers, shahids or martyrs.

During the Islamic month of Ramadan, Palestinian Authority television is featuring a program called "The Best Mothers," the Palestinian Media Watch reported.

One mother featured on the program spoke of her son Yusuf, who builds bombs for the al-Aksa Martyrs' Brigades -- Fatah's "military" wing. Fatah is the party of P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas, Israel's alleged peace partner.

Yusef's mother explained that her son wanted to marry the "70," referring to the 72 dark-eyed virgins waiting in paradise for those who martyr themselves.

Another mother on the program quoted her bomb-making son saying he wouldn't "rest" until he had 70 wives.

The mother of a female suicide bomber said she wanted to sing to her daughter, the bride, before she detonated the explosives belt strapped to her waist. "It's the night before your wedding, Darin," her mother said, "and we won't see you anymore, my daughter…I want to sing, Darin is a bride."

The contrast between Judaism, which celebrates life, and Islam, which celebrates death, is stark.

This evening at sunset, Israeli mothers -- some younger, some older -- will kindle the Sabbath candles with heavy hearts. Little did they know the lives of their loved ones would be snuffed out yesterday by neighboring Arabs who have been taught that Israelis are their enemies and killing them is honorable.

After all, if they die in the process, they'll be greeted by 72 beautiful virgins in paradise.

Source : CBN News

Muslims blame Natural Disaster on Dancing Women

Naming natural calamities after women is not common in Pakistan but attaching such disasters to moral degradation surrounding women is a dominant way of thinking.

 

This is especially true in some areas hit by floods last year where women claim to know exactly why the disaster struck.

“It was destined to happen because Allah was angry over a festival organised in Kalam,” most women in upper Swat unanimously say.

Naseema Bibi, lost her 17-year-old son in the floods. She is convinced it was Allah’s anger over what went on at the festival. “Women danced there and you know Allah never forgives such deeds. His wrath came in the shape of floods.”

Like many other women living close to River Swat in Madyyan, Naseema does not speak or understand Urdu. “I never need to speak Urdu. We step outside our homes only when we are very sick or to get married.”

Her two room house is infested with flies. The gutters are choking with filth and garbage and waste of animals is stacked at the street corner. The smiles of little children are covered with dirt.

In short, even the minimum standards of cleanliness, considered half faith in Islam, are being violated.

The girls here are denied education that is the religion’s base.

But for Naseema it were the dancing women who invited trouble. Her 10-year-old son agrees with his mum. “She is right; there was music and women danced. Everyone knows floods came because of that.”

The boy never attended the festival himself and learnt about the events from his Qari (religious tutor).

Similarly, for women their sources of information are often men who learn about such justifications from religious leaders.

Naseema, a patient of goitre, has seven more children. She has tears in her eyes as she tells how her son was swept away.

He had gone down to River Swat with 11 of his friends to fish out logs flowing in the gushing waters at the time when the flood was at its peak.

“They were trapped in the middle of the river and there was no way to help them; the weather was really bad,” she recalls. “The entire village watched them for two days losing grip on the trees they had been holding on to and then giving in to the might of the flood one by one.”

While most women believe the festival caused the floods, there are however a few who think such destruction could not have come because of one single festival.

The festival in question was staged from July 11-18, 2011 marking the return of peace to Swat Valley cleared of militants by the Pakistani military.

The event was a big success and attracted visitors from across the country after a two-year break because of the military operation in the valley.

Suddenly, the hotels and restaurants were doing brisk business as tourists began streaming in. The festival helped revive jobs for as many as 20,000 people in the area.

The newspapers and television channels termed the festival a breakthrough for Swat’s ailing tourism.

A car rally and a music show comprising folk singers and others were the significant features of the festival, inaugurated by Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Minister for Tourism and Culture Syed Aqil Shah.

The festival’s long over but it is not Naseema’s fault to think the way she does. She is an uneducated woman. Her farming family does not even have a television at home. If some families in the area do have this luxury, they cannot even watch Pakistan Television as the terminals destroyed by the Taliban have yet to be repaired.

But it is not people like Naseema who have such views. Ask Maryum Rehmat, a professional doctor belonging to Swat and she would tell you her own version of the calamity and why it happened.

“The floods were the result of moral degradation of women in the area,” she says confidently. “You know what the latest fashion in Swat is? The girls make ‘mehndi’ tattoos on their backs at a place where they can easily be seen. The women in Swat are very beautiful and many have become prostitutes. No wonder, the floods were destined to come.”

Interestingly, no such views were shared by women about men or the men themselves.

Maryum had no answer when asked if she had ever thought about the sins of men that possibly could have brought the natural calamity.

In contrast to what people like Maryum and Naseema think, the Pakistan Meteorological Office had this to say about the floods: “The unusual interaction of two weather systems during July 27-29 and August 2-9, 2010 caused massive rainfall and flooding in Pakistan.”

Tahira Noor from the National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) says myths about women being directly responsible for any kind of catastrophe, calamity and disaster are quite prevalent and believed across the geographic divide in Pakistan.

“These communities believe that bodily and societal conduct of women and girls play conducive role in maintaining and balancing the moral fabric and character of the whole society.

“The more modest women and girls are and are excluded from social front, confined to domestic sphere exclusively, the most pious and sanctimonious they are, and this ultimately results in earning blessings of Allah,” she says.

After the catastrophic 2005 earthquake Noor worked with an international donor agency in AJK, and some parts of then NWFP. She used to visit the affected areas frequently in order to ensure that services delivery was carried out timely and effectively.

“Most of the time, I would get caught up in discussions around the reasons of disaster and its consequences. I would get to hear appalling and pathetic arguments and opinions about the causes behind a disaster of such magnitude.

“The disaster and destruction was completely attributed to women and girls for not behaving in a proper way and not living their lives according to Islamic way.”

The more she got into such discussions, the more she noticed the deep-rooted stereotypical mindset behind this popular theory in the area.

A member of one of the community organizations said, “The social and moral fabric of society is being extremely disturbed and destroyed by women and girls. They wear makeup, dress fashionably; attend schools where co-educations systems exist.

“The young girls have been interacting with stranger men and boys which is against the fundamental teachings of Islam. Women are strictly prohibited to interact with ‘na mahraams’, it is ‘haram’ in Islam.

This is earning us Allah’s wrath in the form of natural disasters. Poor and honest men and children are being punished for the wrong doings of women,” he said.

Noor says people in these areas strictly believe that Islam means having complete control and command over women’s lives and choices. According to them, women need to fulfil their reproductive roles only, catering to children and elderly, meeting the husband’s demands, cooking, cleaning and nurturing and raising children.

“They do not accept women in productive roles. For them it is ‘haram’ for a man to live on his wife’s earning or money. The men claim that Allah has entrusted this responsibility on men to cater to the food and shelter needs of women.

However, it is all together a different debate that to what extent these holy men are sincere and honest in fulfilling this Godly and divine duty.”

Source : The International News

Christians Assulted for Watching 'Jesus' Film

A group of Christians have been attacked by a mob of Muslims in a park near where Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.

The Christian group was gathered to watch a 1979 movie called “Jesus,” depicting the life of Christ when they were set upon by the extremists.

The August 12 assault on the church workers included a beating as well as a smashed projector before the police intervened, UCANews.com has reported.

According to Full Gospel Assembly members, no arrests were made for the brutal attack and public disturbance.

Now clerics have warned members of the Catholic Church that the attacks seem to stem from an incident that occurred a week before that the Muslim mob was not happy with.

A week before the attack, the local Catholic priest was interrogated for looking at Osama bin Laden’s compound, where the successful May 2 raid that killed the al-Qaida leader had taken place.

According to Father Akram Javed Gill, parish priest of St. Peter Canisius Church, he had taken a friend close to bin Laden’s compound and climbed a nearby house rooftop overlooking it.

“I learnt a lot from that experience. Christians cannot afford to get involved in risky situations, especially after the bin Laden episode,” he said.

The Archbishop of Lahore, Emeritus Lawrence Saldanha, warned the church workers to be more careful due to the delicate situation. The Catholic Church asked them to also be more careful about how they decide to express their faith publicly.

About 150 Catholics live in the city and just three in the Bilal town where bin Laden was killed.

Source : Christian Post

Europe ‘on course to become one country’

David Cameron was under mounting pressure last night to hold a referendum on EU membership amid claims that the Coalition is paving the way for full eurozone financial integration.

 The Daily Express crusade to force a debate on pulling out of the EU continues to gather momentum.

 

Tory and Labour MPs believe that Chancellor George Osborne’s hopes for a single eurozone tax system will lead to the EU becoming a fundamentally different organisation to the one the UK joined in 1973.

Many also fear that Britain will come under intense pressure to adapt its tax and regulatory policies to conform more closely with the eurozone once fiscal union is under way, even if the UK remains outside the single currency. Steve Baker, Tory MP for Wycombe, said: “It is very clear that the EU is heading at full speed towards being one country.”

**CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION TODAY**

Like other Tory and Labour MPs, Mr Baker has signed up to an In/Out referendum being championed by fellow Conservative Zac Goldsmith, MP for Richmond Park & North Kingston.

His comments come as the Daily Express crusade to force a Commons debate on Britain pulling out of the EU continues to gather momentum.

All demands that gain at least 100,000 online signatures on the Government’s new e-petition website have to be considered for a debate in Parliament. The Daily Express website has already gathered 75,000 online signatures calling for a referendum and we are pressing for those names to be added to the official petition.

Our move comes amid a fierce Europe-wide debate on the future of the EU and the single currency. The Commons European scrutiny committee is to conduct its own inquiries into the effect that fiscal union for the eurozone would have on the UK’s economic independence.
 

Its chairman, veteran Tory MP Bill Cash, said: “Allowing the other member states to go ahead towards fiscal union is a disaster. We must have a referendum in the light of such a profound change in our political relationship with Europe.”

With the eurozone in crisis, the Chancellor and Mr Cameron believe the euro’s only hope of survival is more co-ordination of tax and spending policies.

Source : Express UK

Syrian Gunboats Blast Coastal City

Syrian gunboats pounded the Mediterranean coastal city of Latakia with heavy machine gun fire yesterday, killing at least 19 people in the latest wave of the regime's crackdown on anti-government protests.

The attacks were part of an aggressive new military offensive that began alongside the Muslim holy month of Ramadan at the start of August. Several hundred people were killed in the first week alone, according to human rights groups and activists, and the campaign brought fresh international outrage.

As the gunships blasted poor waterfront districts, ground troops backed by tanks and security agents stormed several neighbourhoods.

"We are being targeted from the ground and the sea," said a resident of the al-Ramel district, which is also home to a Palestinian refugee camp.

"The shooting is intense. Many homes have been destroyed and the shabiha (pro-regime thugs] have broken into shops."

The resident said at least three gunboats were taking part in the offensive, and that many people have been killed and wounded.

"We cannot go out. They are raiding and breaking into people's homes," he said, citing reports that about 100 people have been arrested.

Human rights and activist groups said gunboats are taking part in the offensive, firing heavy machine guns. A large number of people were wounded as a result of the indiscriminate firing on houses, they said.

"They are trying to take control of the city as they did in other places," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory.

The security forces appear to be intent on crushing dissent in the al-Ramel district, which has seen large protests against president Bashar al-Assad since the uprising began in mid-March.

On Friday, as many as 10,000 people took to the streets, calling for Mr Assad to go. On Saturday, at least 20 tanks and armoured personnel carriers rolled into al-Ramel amid intense gunfire that saw many residents flee the area. Two people were killed.

Activist network the Local Co-ordination Committees put the number of dead yesterday at 19.

The intense operation in Latakia, a key port city once known as a summer tourist attraction, follows brutal government crackdowns on a number of other cities and towns over the past few weeks.

The city has a potentially explosive sectarian mix. Sunnis, a majority in Syria, live in Latakia's urban core, while Mr Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, populates villages on the outskirts, along with small numbers of Christians, ethnic Turks and other groups.

The crackdown, which has targeted predominantly Sunni areas of the city of more than 600,000 people, raised concerns of sectarian bloodshed in a country that has already seen an alarming rise in such tensions since the start of the uprising.

The protests calling for the Assad regime's downfall have grown dramatically over the past five months, driven in part by anger over the government's bloody crackdown in which rights groups say at least 1,700 civilians have been killed.

The government has justified its crackdown by saying it is dealing with terrorist gangs and criminals fomenting unrest.

State-run news agency SANA said troops were pursuing "gunmen using machine guns, hand grenades and bombs who have been terrorising residents in al-Ramel district". The agency denied reports the area was being targeted from the sea.

 

Source : NEWS.scotsman.com

Cleric Warns Against Using Yoga to Ease Fasting Difficulty

The Religious Affairs Directorate has severely criticized people who have resorted to yoga to lessen the intense feeling of hunger and thirst while fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.

 

The intention of trying to prevent hunger and thirst is against the Islamic spirit, according to Religious Affairs Directorate Supreme Board member Altuntaş.

 

The intention of trying to prevent hunger and thirst is against the Islamic spirit, Religious Affairs Directorate Supreme Board member and associate professor Dr. Halil Altuntaş said.

According to some experts, yoga can be used to increase body resistance against hunger and thirst through pranayama (respiration) and pratyahara (sense control), as well as prevent tension caused by fasting. Altuntaş also noted the “different religious beliefs” behind yoga’s philosophy, Radikal reported while emphasizing that hunger and thirst were among the main reasons and aims of fasting. “In this way, humans think of Allah, who provides food, and empathize with those who can not find it as easily. What is the point of not eating or drinking without feeling all of this?” he asked.

Stating that fasting without going through any difficulty was against Islam, Altuntaş said: “Foreign trends seeking acceptance from Muslims are trying to [penetrate into society] using Islam. Do not give credit to it.” 

 

Source : Hurriyet Daily News

UK Islamists Vow 'Nightmare' on Downing Street

London Islamist: David Cameron Will Get On His Hands And Knees And Pay Us The Jizya Tax, Queen Elizabeth And The “Whore” Kate Middleton Will Wear The Niqab

Abu Waleed: What is the nightmare on Downing Street? The nightmare on Downing Street, my dear brothers, is when the door of 10 Downing Street is kicked down by one monotheist, and the Caliph walks in and establishes the Sharia,

 

Audience member: Say: Allah Akbar.

Audience: Allah Akbar!

Abu Waleed: The nightmare on Downing Street, my dear brothers, is when one monotheist pulls a rope, and raises the banner of “There is no god but Allah” above the Big Ben. The nightmare on Downing Street is when one monotheist flies a helicopter all the way to the top of the Big Ben. He removes those numbers, and replaces them with Arabic numbers. That is the nightmare of Downing Street, my dear brothers.

As you all understand, we, as Muslims, are not those types of coconut-chocolate moderate Muslims – the ones who bow their heads down to the government. Rather, we are the ones who want to work for the sake of Allah, to establish the manifestation of Islam, and make sure that David Cameron comes on his hands and knees, and give us the Jiziya – yeah, that’s right – and cover up all the women and put a Niqab on their faces, including Queen Elizabeth and Kate Middleton, the whore, the fornicator.

Source : Weasel Zippers

Female Convert to Christianity Stripped and Beaten

Four months after a recent convert to Christianity from Islam in eastern India’s West Bengal state was stripped and beaten, about 50 Muslim extremists yesterday disrupted a prayer meeting held in her home, threatening to burn it down if she did not return to Islam, area Christians said.

The extremists warned Selina Bibi of Motijil village in Murshidabad district that if she did not return to Islam, then she must either leave the area or see her house burned down. At her baptism at Believers Church four kilometers from her home on March 29, a large crowd of Muslim extremists disrupted the service, said a pastor identified only as Bashir.

“I pleaded with them to let me at least finish the worship service before they attack us,” he told Compass.

When word of her conversion to Christianity reached her village, another extremist group from Motijil led by Jamal Shaike disrupted the service. Shaike and the others verbally abused the Christians, and he ordered his son who was present at the service to leave immediately, Bashir said.

The pastor said that on April 5, two Muslim women along with members of the extremist group summoned Selina Bibi to one of their homes and forcefully stripped her naked.

“The radicals believe that when any person from the Muslim community becomes Christian, they get Christian marks on their body,” Bashir said. “When the radicals could not find such marks, they started beating her up.”

The Muslim extremists later gathered at the local mosque and resolved to ostracize her until she returned to Islam. She lives only with her two teenage sons.

Selina Bibi told Bashir that her body bore the marks of suffering for the sake of Christ, and that she was being treated like a criminal.

“She was not allowed to buy goods from the store, nor was she allowed to sell any vegetables,” he said. “They have also restricted her from procuring water from the village well. In spite of the persecutions she constantly faces from the radicals, she has started conducting a Bible study for ladies every Thursday at her home.”

After the extremist threats yesterday, study member Naseema Bibi said she and some of the other women attending the meeting went to the Murshidabad police station to file a complaint. Police called both parties, and they agreed in writing to allow each other to practice their respective faiths, and that police would prosecute any further attacks or disturbances, she said.

Burn Threat

In Natungram, Murshidabad district, Muslim extremists held three Christian women for an hour on July 21, threatening to beat and burn them alive if they continued worshipping Christ, area Christians said.

Moyazan Bibi and Aimazan Bibi of Believers Church told Compass that at 5:30 p.m. they had set out to visit a widow, Suryja Bibi, to share the message of Christ at her invitation. As they reached her house, a large mob of Muslim extremists led by Fakir Shaike, Sajahan Shaike, Manuwar Shaike, Samsul Shaike, Ahamed Shaike and Jalal Shaike blocked their way, pushed them around and verbally abused them for their faith in Christ as they threatened them.

“The extremists called us infidels and held us captive, threatening that they will call a public meeting to socially boycott us,” Aimazan Bibi said. “The extremists angrily shouted that we should not return to our homes, while they continued to mock and push us around.”

The extremists rushed Suryja Bibi, asking her why she invited “infidels” into her home as they were pushing her. One of the assailants twisted her hand, the Christian women said.

“She was injured, but by God’s grace it was not broken,” said Bashir, founder and pastor of the Believers Church. “They warned Suryja Bibi never to call the Christians to her home again or leave the area and they also threatened all the villagers with the dire consequences they will face if they attend Christian meetings or talk to any one of them.”

Suryja Bibi tried to file a police complaint the next day, July 22, but the local Muslim head and other extremists stopped her, threatening to harm her, area Christians said.

Bashir said Suryja Bibi showed interest in hearing more about Christ, and that he met her and her daughters Mamoota and Darju at his house church fellowship on July19.

“Since then, the radicals have warned them not to attend any Christian service or talk to any Christians or else they will be burned alive,” he said.

Naseema Bibi informed Bashir of the incident by phone, and he called police, he said.

“I also tried to call Aimazan,” he said. “At that time she could not take my call, as some radicals were trying to snatch her mobile phone from her.”

Moyazan Bibi said she pleaded with the assailants.

“I asked the attackers what crime have we done for them to torture us in this manner?” she said. “But the enraged extremists brutally pushed us around, furiously shouting at us to convert back to Islam or face dire consequences.”

After holding and harassing the Christian women for about an hour, the extremists fled in fear after they learned that Bashir had contacted the police, the women said.

The area was still tense at press time, with Suryja Bibi and her family unable to attend any Christian meetings as the extremists are closely monitoring them and are prepared to pounce on them at the slightest opportunity, Bashir said.

“We are trying to contact Suryja Bibi, but the radicals are not allowing any Christian to contact or meet her,” he said. “But we are praying for her safety.”

Aizama Bibi and Moyazan Bibi, who two years ago began trusting Christ as their Savior, told Compass that last December the extremists tried to chase them away from the village, threatening to burn them and their houses. They were not allowed to sell and buy in the area and were kept from using the public bathroom and the water well.

The extremists also burned the crops field of Aimazan’s husband, Gaffar. The Christians reported the matter to police, and officers warned the Muslim extremists not to disturb the Christians again.

The Evangelical Fellowship of India last year reported that Muslim extremists in Natungram on Nov. 28, 2010, ostracized another member of Believers Church, keeping Chanda Bibi and her family from selling and buying. They also warned the family to stop attending church services and threatened to impose a fine on her if her family continued to follow Christ.

Source : Christian Post