Posted tagged ‘Islam and human rights’

Erdogan Revs Hate Between Muslims and Turkey’s Minorities

June 1, 2016

Erdogan Revs Hate Between Muslims and Turkey’s Minorities, Clarion Project, William Reed, June 1, 2016

ErdoganPortrait-IP_2Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (Photo: © Reuters)

On May 28, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakır and delivered a public speech in which he targeted Kurds requesting official recognition and the right to self-rule, calling them “atheists” and “Zoroastrians.”

In an attempt to appeal to Islamist sentiment, Erdogan claimed that Kurdish militants had burnt down schools and mosques, stating, “They are atheists, they are Zoroastrians. They are useless. They have not and are not acting with our values.”

This was not the first time Erdogan targeted non-Muslims in his public speeches.

In February, 2014, in the city of Balikesir, Erdogan, then prime minister, referred to the students of the Middle East University in Ankara, as “atheists” and “terrorists.” The students had protested the construction of the “1071 Manzikert Boulevard,” to which the police responded with gas bombs and pressurized water.

“On Monday, we opened the boulevard built by our metropolitan municipality of Ankara,” said Erdogan. “Despite whom? Despite those leftists! Despite those atheists! They are atheists! They are terrorists!”

The Battle of Manzikert was fought in 1071 in Anatolia between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuq Turks, which marked the beginning of the Islamic invasion of Anatolia. The defeat of the Byzantine army and the capture of the Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes paved the way for the gradual Turkification and Islamization of Anatolia and Armenia.

Erdogan bashed the university students in his own unique way: “What is the name of the boulevard? Manzikert 1071. One of them was wearing Byzantine clothes. Alp Arslan [the Sultan of the Seljuq Empire] fought against Byzantium. So he [the student] put himself in the position of Byzantium. Shame on you!”

Apparently, Erdogan knows the easy and certain way of getting votes from much of Turkish public: Target any non-Muslim community – Jews, Christians, atheists, Alevis, Zoroastrians, you name it – and get the votes of millions of people, those who might not even know anything about the said religions or people but whose overall hatred for the “infidel” would be enough to make them enjoy the hate-filled slurs.

In May 2015, in the predominantly Kurdish city of Batman, Erdogan once again publicly targeted the secular, pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) – for “having nothing to do with Islam.”

“They say they will abolish Diyanet [Turkey’s Presidency of Religious Affairs]. They have nothing to do with religion. The Diyanet that they say they will abolish has published the Kurdish translation of the Koran.

“They [the HDP party] go to extremes by saying that Jerusalem belongs to Jews. They have nothing whatsoever with Islam. Jerusalem is the most important Kaaba [sacred site] of Muslims; it is where we found life.

“We have documents that in the mountains, they [the PKK] give education of the Zoroastrian religion.”

Despite the hateful stigma of Erdogan regarding Zoroastrianism, it is an ancient faith of peace, ethics and wisdom. Basic tenets of Zoroastrians include:

“The basic moral principles that guide the life of a Zoroastrian are three: Humata, ‘Good Thoughts’, Hukhata, ‘Good Words’, and Havarashta, ‘Good Deeds’.

“These three principles are included in many Zoroastrian prayers, and children commit themselves to abide by them at their initiation ceremony, marking their responsible entry into the faith as practicing Zoroastrians. They are the moral code by which a Zoroastrian lives.”

Sadly, this ancient, peaceful religion has become one of the greatest victims of Islamic jihad.

Before Iran (formerly called Persia) was invaded by Muslim armies in the 7th century, Zoroastrianism was the major religion there. Founded by the Prophet Zoroaster, Zoroastrianism was the state religion of several Persian empires.

Muslims should actually feel guilt and shame in the face of the enormous damage and destruction they have brought to the Zoroastrian people, but the Islamist ideology seems to erase even the most humane emotions of its followers.

Another social disease commonplace in Turkey is “atheophobia” ‎– fear or hatred of atheism or atheists.

The 2015 Freedom of Thought Report by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) puts Turkey in the category of countries which expose their citizens who identify as atheists or non-religious to “severe discrimination.”

“Freedom of expression is theoretically protected by the current constitution, but is increasingly not respected in practice,” said the report. “Identifying [as an] ‘atheist’ prompts insults, threats, discrimination.”

In 2015, for instance, members of the Turkish Atheism Association (Ateizm Derneği), spoke up about receiving death threats and hate mail, and how “atheist”  is used as an insult or equated with “Satanism” or “terrorism.”

“The term ‘atheist’ is used as a harsh insult – one of the harshest in the country,” said Morgan Romano, vice-president of the Turkish Atheism Association, at the group’s first public conference in Germany.

“Furthermore, atheists are commonly and publicly discriminated against and are subjects of public and private hate speech in Yeni Turkiye [the New Turkey] all the time.”

In March, 2015, the Atheism Association had its website blocked in Turkey in a decision the association protested was “arbitrary.”

Given the Islamic roots of hatred for infidels, it seems that the Atheism Association is engaged in an extremely grueling business in Turkey: trying to promote understanding, tolerance and liberty in a sociologically Islamic society.

“Any person who openly disrespects the religious belief of a group is punished with imprisonment from six months to one year if such act causes potential risk for public peace,” says article 216 of the Turkish penal code.

But this “blasphemy law” seems to be in action only to punish non-Muslims or former Muslims or anyone who speaks critically about Islam. Bringing to account those who insult or even threaten non-Muslims is not very much included within the scope of this law.

The current constitution of Turkey lists secularism as one of the fundamental characteristics of the republic. The written law, which is not even put into practice effectively, is something; but promoting secularism as well as religious freedom and tolerance – through various means including public education and media – is another. And Turkey seems to fail terribly in the latter.

Muslim reformers vs. Islamists

May 26, 2016

Muslim reformers vs. Islamists, Dan Miller’s Blog, May 26, 2016

(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)

Whether Islam will eventually be reformed is an open question. The topic is much discussed by Muslims, a few of whom favor reformation and more of whom oppose it. The issue is important for America, and indeed the free world in general. There is little that non-Muslims can do to assist a reformation beyond recognizing the substantial differences between moderate and radical (mainstream) Muslims, supporting the former and purging the latter. Please don’t conflate the cops with the killers.

Reformation of Islam

Here’s are comments by an American Muslim reformer, Dr. Zuhdi Jasser

In the following December 2015 video, the Fox News host misrepresented Donald Trump’s position as banning “all” Muslims, apparently permanently. Trump’s proposal was to ban Muslims until we can vet them adequately. Dr. Jasser agreed that Muslims advocating Islamist political ideology should be banned and that we should temporarily ban them all until we can distinguish moderate Muslims from “radical” Muslims. His suggestions for vetting Muslims included cessation of reliance on the Council on American – Islamic Relations (CAIR), et al, which are on the side of the Islamists.

An article by Raymond Ibrahim delves into Muslim perceptions of moderate vs. “radical” (i.e., mainstream) Islam and posts these views, as articulated by Dr. Ahmed Ibrahim Khadr, an Islamist. Dr. Khadr stated,

“Islamic researchers are agreed that what the West and its followers call ‘moderate Islam’ and ‘moderate Muslims’ is simply a slur against Islam and Muslims, a distortion of Islam, a rift among Muslims, a spark to ignite war among them. They also see that the division of Islam into ‘moderate Islam’ and ‘radical Islam’ has no basis in Islam — neither in its doctrines and rulings, nor in its understandings or reality. [Emphasis added.]

. . . .

Among the major distinctions (translated verbatim) made in Khadr’s article are:

  • Radicals want the caliphate to return; moderates reject the caliphate.
  • Radicals want to apply Sharia (Islamic law); moderates reject the application of Sharia.
  • Radicals reject the idea of renewal and reform, seeing it as a way to conform Islam to Western culture; moderates accept it.
  • Radicals accept the duty of waging jihad in the path of Allah; moderates reject it.
  • Radicals reject any criticism whatsoever of Islam; moderates welcome it on the basis of freedom of speech.
  • Radicals accept those laws that punish whoever insults or leaves the religion [apostates]; moderates recoil from these laws.
  • Radicals respond to any insult against Islam or the prophet Muhammad — peace and blessing upon him — with great violence and anger; moderates respond calmly and peacefully on the basis of freedom of expression.
  • Radicals respect and revere every deed and every word of the prophet — peace be upon him — in the hadith; moderates do not.
  • Radicals oppose democracy; moderates accept it.
  • Radicals see the people of the book [Jews and Christians] as dhimmis[barely tolerated subjects]; moderates oppose this [view].
  • Radicals reject the idea that non-Muslim minorities should have equality or authority over Muslims; moderates accept it.
  • Radicals reject the idea that men and women are equal; moderates accept it, according to Western views.
  • Radicals oppose the idea of religious freedom and apostasy from Islam; moderates agree to it.
  • Radicals desire to see Islam reign supreme; moderates oppose this.
  • Radicals place the Koran over the constitution; moderates reject this [assumption].
  • Radicals reject the idea of religious equality because Allah’s true religion is Islam; moderates accept it.
  • Radicals embrace the wearing of hijabs and niqabs; moderates reject it.
  • Radicals accept killing young girls who commit adultery or otherwise besmirch their family’s honor; moderates reject this [response].
  • Radicals reject the status of women today and think that the status of women today should be like the status of women in the time of the prophet; moderates oppose that women should be as in the time of the prophet.
  • Radicals vehemently reject that women should have the freedom to choose partners; moderates accept that she can choose a boyfriend without marriage.
  • Radicals agree to clitorectomies; moderates reject them.
  • Radicals reject the so-called war on terror and see it as a war on Islam; moderates accept it.
  • Radicals support jihadi groups; moderates reject them.
  • Radicals reject the terms “Islamic terrorism” or “Islamic fascism”; moderates accept them.
  • Radicals reject universal human rights, including the right to be homosexual; moderates accept them.
  • Radicals reject the idea of allying with the West; moderates support it.
  • Radicals oppose secularism; moderates support it. [Emphasis added.]

Dr. Jasser’s views on what American Islam should be are remarkably similar to the perceptions of moderate Islam set forth by Dr. Khadr, albeit with contempt as “a slur against Islam and Muslims, a distortion of Islam, a rift among Muslims, a spark to ignite war among them.” Mr. Ibrahim concludes his article by suggesting that “the West may need to rethink one of its main means of countering radical Islam: moderate Muslims and moderate Islam.” I agree. What is being done now is actually furthering “radical” Islam.

The former president of Egypt’s Al-Azhar University called, rather amorphously, for reform in the Islamic religious discourse.

Here’s an address to the Canadian Parliament by a moderate Muslim journalist. Please watch the whole thing, because it sets forth quite well the differences between Islamists who want to overpower us and moderate Muslims who support freedom and want to eliminate Islamism.

Moderate Islam is not mainstream Islam

Germany’s largest Muslim organization recently had a moderate Muslim theologian fired from the University of Munster.

Islamic apologists routinely claim that violent Qur’an verses have no validity beyond Muhammad’s time, but this story illustrates that this is not the mainstream view in Islam. The persecution of Mouhanad Khorchide also shows the uphill battle that genuine Muslim reformers face: branded as heretics and/or apostates, they’re often shunned (or worse) by the very community that needs their ideas the most. [Emphasis added.]

The author, Robert Spencer, quotes a May 23rd article by Susanne Schröter in a German periodical:

When the theologian Mouhanad Khorchide, who teaches at the University of Münster, published “Islam Is Compassion” in 2012, he received a variety of diverse reactions. Many non-Muslims celebrated the work as the revelation of a humanistic Islam: an Islam that no one needs to fear. This feeling arose in part because the author created a picture of God that is not “interested in the labels of Muslim or Christian or Jewish, believer or nonbeliever.”

Korchide threw out the idea that Koran verses that appear violent or hostile toward women or non-Muslims may be valid for all eternity. He wanted them to be viewed as the words of a bygone era.

It seemed that the professor, with the swoop of his pen, managed to brush aside all those reservations that made people wonder whether Islam really “belonged to Germany,” as former President Christian Wulff said famously in a 2010. One might even have thought that Muslims would offer Khorchide a pat on the back.

On the website for DITIB, Germany’s Turkish Islamic union and the country’s largest Muslim organization, one can read that Khorchide’s statements were a “rejection of the teachings of classical Islam” and an “insult to Muslim identity.” For this reason, the professor was removed from his post at the university.

Canadian journalist Tarek Fatah, the moderate Muslim in a video provided above, wrote

In November 2014, while testifying before the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, I raised the issue of Islamic clerics using mosque sermons to attack the foundational principles of Western civilization and liberal secular democracy.

The Senate Committee session referred to is the one presented in the video referenced above.

Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell was outraged by my testimony that at most Canadian mosques, the Friday congregation includes a ritual prayer asking, “Allah to give victory to Muslims over the ‘Kufaar’ (non-Muslims).” In a heated exchange with me, the senator suggested I wasn’t telling the truth, implying I was motivated by Islamophobia. Sadly, Sen. Mitchell is not alone in such views.

But neither is there any let-up in the attacks on Canadian values emanating from many mosque pulpits and Islamic conferences hosted by radical Islamist groups.

For example, in a sermon on Friday, May 6, delivered at a mosque in Edmonton, an imam invoked the memory of Prophet Muhammad to whip up hatred against Israel. He declared peace accords with Israel are “useless garbage” and vowed that Jerusalem will be conquered “through blood.”

In February, the same cleric predicted Islam would soon conquer Rome, “the heart of the Christian state.”

The Edmonton mosque diatribe was not isolated.

On May 13, just north of Toronto, an Islamic society hosted a celebration of Iranian mass murderer, Ayatollah Khomeini. The poster promoting the event described Khomeini as a, “Liberator and Reformer of the Masses.”

On Saturday, the Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, banned in some countries, hosted a conference to discuss the re-establishment of a global Islamic caliphate.

Here are excerpts from an article about the Hizb-ut-Tahrir meeting referenced by Mr. Fatah.

1616

The first speaker was Brother Mostafa, of Arabic roots. Mostafa started by calling nationalism and sectarian conflict the main reasons for division in the Ummah (Islamic nation). He reminded Muslims that they are obligated to implement Allah’s demands that fulfill the Islamic State. It is “not permissible for us to choose, ” he said. He cited the verse: [Emphasis added]

“It is not for a believing man or a believing woman, when Allah and His Messenger have decided a matter, that they should [thereafter] have any choice about their affair. And whoever disobeys Allah and His Messenger has certainly strayed into clear error.” — Surat-Al-Ahzab (33), verse 36. ]Emphasis added.]

. . . .

As the event started late, Naeema [a woman in the audience] began a conversation. We talked about our origins and how long we had been in Canada. She said she had been here 40 years, so I asked about the disconnect between enjoying 40 years of democracy, yet trying to end it. I mentioned a book published by Hizb-ut-Tahrir:

“Democracy is Infidelity: its use, application and promotion are prohibited.”

“الديمقراطية نظام كفر، يحرم أخذها أو تطبيقها أو الدعوة إليها”

Naeema said she was not qualified to debate the topic, but that democracy had done nothing good for people, so she and other believers would follow the rule of Allah. [Emphasis added]

The meeting participants are comparable to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim Brotherhood – Hamas affiliated organization which, along with similar groups, provides Obama and His “fighting violent extremism” cohorts their marching orders on fighting, not Islamist jihad or Islamisation , but “Islamophobia.”

Conclusions

America would fare better in fighting “violent extremism” if the principal enemy were named: it is political Islam — Islamism. Presently, naming it is forbidden and those engaged in “fighting” it — supposedly on our behalf — are Islamists dedicated to the Islamisation of America.

Suppose that, instead of relying on CAIR, et al, as representative of “peaceful” Islam, our government rejected CAIR and its Islamist colleagues favored by Obama and instead supported and relied upon Dr. Jasser’s moderate group, American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

A devout Muslim, Dr. Jasser founded AIFD in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States as an effort to provide an American Muslim voice advocating for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. Dr. Jasser is a first generation American Muslim whose parents fled the oppressive Baath regime of Syria in the mid-1960’s for American freedom. He is leading the fight to shake the hold that the Muslim Brotherhood and their network of American Islamist organizations and mosques seek to exert on organized Islam in America. [Emphasis added.]

Perhaps, if our next president is neither Hillary Clinton nor Bernie Sanders, we will do that. If we don’t, the Islamists will continue to win, the Islamisation of America will continue and American principles will go down the toilet. We cannot permit that to happen.

In an 1886 Fourth of July address to the citizens of the Dickinson Dakota Territory, Theodore Roosevelt said,

We only have the right to live on as free men, so long as we show ourselves worthy of the privileges we enjoy. We must remember that the republic can only be kept pure by the individual purity of its members, and that if it once becomes thoroughly corrupt it will surely cease to exist.

. . . .

All American citizens whether born here or elsewhere, whether of one creed or another, stand on the same footing; we welcome every honest immigrant, no matter from what country he comes, provided only that he leaves behind him his former nationality and remains neither Celt nor Saxon, neither Frenchman nor German, but becomes an American, desirous of fulfilling in good faith the duties of American citizenship. [Emphasis added]

When we thus rule ourselves we have the responsibilities of sovereigns not of subjects. We must never exercise our rights either wickedly or thoughtlessly; we can continue to preserve them in but one possible way – by making the proper use of them.

It has been my observation (and to a substantial extent that of the Canadian journalist and moderate Muslim in a video embedded above) that the principal loyalty of many Islamists is not geographical or to a state. Rather, it is to their version of Islam, be it Shiite, Sunni or some variation thereof. For example, Hezbollah members fight, not to help Lebanon or Syria, but to support the Iranian version of Shiite Islam — an apocalyptic vision in which the hidden iman will return and bring the world to an end. It is reasonable to assume that the principal loyalty of mainstream Muslims (Islamists) in America is, and will continue to be, to Islam, not to America.

American origins and views are very different and perhaps uniquely so.

This land was made, not for Islamists but for immigrants who leave behind their former nationalities and remain “neither Celt nor Saxon, neither Frenchman nor German, but become an American, desirous of fulfilling in good faith the duties of American citizenship.” How many of America’s current crop of immigrants do that?

We have had little of this thus far. How much do we want? It’s pretty much up to us.

Canada Home to Islamic Radicals

May 25, 2016

Canada Home to Islamic RadicalsThe Toronto Sun via Middle East Forum, Tarek Fatah, May 24, 2016

2683

In November 2014, while testifying before the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, I raised the issue of Islamic clerics using mosque sermons to attack the foundational principles of Western civilization and liberal secular democracy.

Liberal Senator Grant Mitchell was outraged by my testimony that at most Canadian mosques, the Friday congregation includes a ritual prayer asking, “Allah to give victory to Muslims over the ‘Kufaar’ (non-Muslims).” In a heated exchange with me, the senator suggested I wasn’t telling the truth, implying I was motivated by Islamophobia. Sadly, Sen. Mitchell is not alone in such views.

But neither is there any let-up in the attacks on Canadian values emanating from many mosque pulpits and Islamic conferences hosted by radical Islamist groups.

For example, in a sermon on Friday, May 6, delivered at a mosque in Edmonton, an imam invoked the memory of Prophet Muhammad to whip up hatred against Israel. He declared peace accords with Israel are “useless garbage” and vowed that Jerusalem will be conquered “through blood.”

In February, the same cleric predicted Islam would soon conquer Rome, “the heart of the Christian state.”

The Edmonton mosque diatribe was not isolated.

On May 13, just north of Toronto, an Islamic society hosted a celebration of Iranian mass murderer, Ayatollah Khomeini. The poster promoting the event described Khomeini as a, “Liberator and Reformer of the Masses.”

On Saturday, the Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, banned in some countries, hosted a conference to discuss the re-establishment of a global Islamic caliphate.

Pakistan-Canadian writer Tahir Gora went to cover the event, but was barred from entering the hall. “They said this was a closed door, in-camera meeting for our supporters,” Gora told me after he was asked to leave.

2684A speaker addresses the Hizb-ut-Tahrir conference in Mississauga, Ontario, on May 21.

Fortunately, one Palestinian-Canadian woman was able to enter the event.

She shared with me some of the proceedings from inside the gathering. “I walked into the banquet hall with approximately 100 attendees who were gender segregated. I sat next to a woman who said she had been in Canada for 40 years.” When I asked her if she felt any disconnect between enjoying 40 years of democracy, yet supporting the Hizb-ut-Tahrir who wanted to end it, she explained that democracy has done nothing good to people, so she and other believers follow Allah’s rule.

“The first speaker reminded Muslims that they are obligated to implement Allah’s orders that fulfil the Islamic State. It is “not permissible for us to choose’ he said, citing the Quran. However, he said it was necessary to win the public’s hearts and minds; and to partner with people of power, citing examples from the life of the Prophet.”

“At the end, a three-minute video was presented to demonstrate the collective oil and natural gas production capabilities of the Muslim world, the human capital needed to mine and process these resources … the military power required to protect them and the types of weapons needed to make such a military effective.”

While this was unfolding we received news that the Trudeau government, as part of its infrastructure development program, had authorised a $200,000 grant to a southern Ontario mosque with links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Which begs the question: Who’s minding the store?

Islamists Infiltrate the Swedish Government

May 16, 2016

Islamists Infiltrate the Swedish Government, Gatestone InstituteIngrid Carlqvist, May 16, 2016

One Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in Sweden: April 2016

♦ The library in Arvika surprised patrons by offering Arabic language courses. Many Swedes wondered if offering courses in Swedish to the Arabic-speaking immigrants would not be more productive. The library, however, does not offer any such service.

♦ The Immigration Service released a new report on April 8, entitled “Are You Married?”, which showed how its own case officers allow child marriages.

♦ Swedish authorities have approved hundreds of polygamous marriages among immigrants, law professor Göran Lind revealed on April 4.

♦ An asylum seeker was arrested April 23 for kicking his wife in the head, among other things. According to police, the man became angry with his wife because she was trying to learn Swedish.

April was the month when the Islamist scandals in the Green Party (Miljöpartiet) came one after the other. The Green Party sits in Sweden’s government, along with its coalition partner, the Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterna). They have made themselves known as a party favoring open borders, and with a passionate love for multiculturalism. These infatuations are precisely why the party has been a perfect candidate for Islamist infiltration. Within the Green Party, even to ask the question whether Muslims view Islam as a political force has been considered rude and “Islamophobic.”

On April 17: Housing Minister Mehmet Kaplan was forced to resign after it was reported that he not only socialized with Islamists and fascists, but also compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians with Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews.

April 20: A would-be member of the Green Party executive, Yasri Khan, refused to shake hands with a female TV reporter, Ann Tiberg, causing much hoopla and eventually forcing Khan to resign.

April 22: The scholar Lars Nicander of the Swedish Defense University warned that the Green Party may have been infiltrated by Islamists: “It is obvious they are trying to get in and ascend to positions of trust,” Nicander told the daily Aftonbladet.

Anders Wallner, Secretary of the Green Party, commented on Nicander’s remarks:

“What is being put forth by Lars Nicander is something we take very seriously. Extremism has no place in our party, something our spokespersons have been very clear about.”

April 23: Semanur Taskin, spokesperson for the Green Youth (the Green Party’s youth wing) in Stockholm, decided to drop out of politics. As a Swedish Muslim, she said, she felt “misunderstood and no longer secure in politics.” Taskin is also a member of an organization founded by Mehmet Kaplan — Swedish Muslims for Peace and Justice (Svenska muslimer för fred och rättvisa). The organization is best known for working for Muslim rights in Sweden; participating in “Ships to Gaza,” and criticizing all things they perceive as “Islamophobic” or the government’s work against Islamism.

April 24: It was reported that the spokesperson for the Green Youth in Malmö, Salahaden Raoof,could be seen giving the so-called Rabia sign — a four-fingered salute in support of the Muslim Brotherhood — on live television, filmed during a political convention at Almedalen in 2015. He was, however, allowed to retain his post after stating that he “will not do it again.”

1601Salahaden Raoof (left), spokesperson for the Green Youth in Malmö, Sweden, appeared on live TV giving the Rabia sign — a four-fingered salute in support of the Muslim Brotherhood. He was allowed to retain his post after stating that he “will not do it again.” Pictured at right: Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader and Egypt’s deposed president, popularized the Rabia sign.

April 27: Local Green Party politician Kamal al Rifai from Burlöv announced he was taking a time out from politics — after attracting much attention for inviting a world-famous Salafist, Salman al-Ouda, to speak at an event in Malmö for the benefit of the children of Syria. Al-Ouda is known, among other things, for being the mentor of Osama bin Laden. He later renounced bin Laden and now preaches a “peaceful transition to sharia.”

May 3: Mohamed Temsamani of the Green Party (Solna) was also identified as an Islamist. It emerged that he had been active in a political party connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, and had been seen giving the Rabia sign.

April 29: The author and social commentator Johan Lundberg wrote in the daily Göteborgs-Posten:

“The examples of associations and organizations with an Islamist agenda, who have received state subsidies and won the hearts of Green Party Ministers abound. How then, do you explain the Green Party dedication to conservative Islam? One explanation is the common view of identity politics, norm criticism and diversity in the sense of ethnicity, which has led to a troublesome blindness to extremism.”

Other Islamic and Multicultural News in Sweden in April

April 1: An Afghan man claiming to be a child was placed in an institution for youths, where he raped a 15-year-old girl. The man came to Sweden at the end of last year, and applied for asylum on December 14. The next day, he was arrested for raping a girl at the home for youths with psychiatric problems, where he had been placed. The girl had several times reported that the man (who later turned out to be at least 19 years old) was uncomfortably intimate towards her. Even so, they were left alone one night in front of the television. When the staff came back, they saw the Afghan raping the crying girl. He has now been sentenced to forensic psychiatric care and deportation.

April 4: A large police search was called to look for an Iraqi citizen, Ramin Sherzaj, 23, who was abducted against his will in central Gävle. He was pulled into a car, which, with “screeching tires,” disappeared from the site. Sometime later, five Iraqis who came to Sweden early this century were arrested: one woman and four men. Two weeks later, Sherzaj’s dead body was found. In all, seven people have now been taken into custody in connection with the murder.

April 4: Polygamy is against the Swedish constitution’s demands for equality and totally foreign to the Swedish legal system. Still, Swedish authorities have approved hundreds of polygamous marriages, law professor Göran Lind revealed. Men bringing several wives to Sweden have had their marriages approved. Göran Lind says that Swedish courts need to stop approving these marriages:

“This can create big problems if, say, an Iraqi man with three wives dies. Do all three have marital rights to the estate? Are they to share the half a monogamous widow gets or is the estate to be shared some other way? And are the children shared, or children from previous marriages?”

April 5: A Somali known as “Muhamed” was sentenced to community service for 180 hours, after brutally raping a 12-year-old girl. “Black dick is expensive,” he commented during the rape. Now the girl is being stalked, threatened and physically abused by Muhamed’s friends and family. The local daily Sundsvalls Tidning interviewed the girl, who told the paper about how she ran into the perpetrator’s family at a bus stop, and was beaten by one of his brothers:

“There came the other one, who I have a restraining order against, and I thought he was going to help me get up, but he punched me on the mouth with his fist. Then his mother came and I thought they would quit, but she kicked me, too.”

April 6: The Swedish National Audit Office, in its yearly review, criticized the Immigration Service on several counts. Members of the Audit Office wrote in their report that there was a risk of corruption. The auditors complained about a lack of policy documents and clear routines, and that the case officers can pick and choose which errands they want to process — opening up opportunities for corruption.

April 7: A 20-year-old Muslim medical student, Aydin Sevigin, was prosecuted for planning to blow himself up in Sweden in a terrorist attack. According to the prosecutor, Sevigin could have caused serious damage. When the trial started on April 15, Sevigin seemed unperturbed when the prosecutor read a passage about how one becomes a jihadi one-man army. He admitted to the police that he wants to die a martyr. Among the evidence presented against him are pictures in which Sevigin can be seen buying bomb-making ingredients at an Ikea store.

April 8: The Immigration Service released a new report, entitled “Are You Married?”, which showed how its own case officers allow child marriages. The report highlighted several cases where the officers did not ask any questions whatsoever, despite dealing with married 16- to 17-year-old girls.

The Immigration Service wrote:

“The Immigration Service has a duty to investigate, and questions about the marriage should be asked, regardless of whether a married child points to this circumstance as a factor in his or her need for protection or not.”

The report also noted that there is no comprehensive view or analysis of what is in the best interest of the child. Rules are not followed, and reports to Social Services and the police are not being filed to the extent that they should be.

April 10: For many years, the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brottsförebyggande rådet), BRÅ, has claimed that the lethal violence in Sweden is on the decline. However, BRÅ failed to mention that this is in comparison to the record-breaking years, 1989-1991. If one instead were to compare the present with the 1950s, when Sweden was still a homogenous country, the number of murders and manslaughter cases has doubled. Recently, BRÅ was forced to confess that lethal violence did in fact increase in 2015, when 112 people were killed: 25 more than the year before. 2016 appears on track to top that — during the first three months of the year, 40 murders and 57 attempted murders were committed in Sweden, according to statistics compiled by journalist Elisabeth Höglund.

April 11: The New Welfare (Den Nya Välfärden), a think tank, presented an opinion poll that showed 70% of Swedes now think immigration is too high. In 2014, only 45% felt this way; in 2015, 58%. The poll also showed that the difference in opinion between people with higher education and blue-collar workers continued to shrink. The largest increase in critics of immigration is found among academics.

April 11: The library in Arvika surprised patrons by offering Arabic language courses. Many Swedes wondered if offering courses in Swedish to the Arab-speaking immigrants would not be more productive. The library, however, does not offer any such service. Library representatives wrote in a press release:

“As part of our work to create meeting points, bolster integration and increase knowledge of other cultures, peoples and languages, the Arvika Library and the Education Association NBV are now giving a course in Arabic at Arvika Library.”

April 12: A 33-year-old Arab man and a 34-year-old Turkish woman were prosecuted for a brutal murder in Malmö in the summer of 2015. The victim, a middle-aged Swedish man, had let the woman stay with him at his apartment in central Malmö. The woman was the one who called the police after the murder. However, the prosecutor believes that the murder actually took place 24 hours earlier, and that by the time the police arrived, the crime scene had been “scrubbed.” Both suspects have entered a plea of not guilty, and blame each other for the murder. Their motive remains unclear.

April 14: Gambian citizen Baboucar Mboge, 21, was sentenced to one year in prison for rape, robbery and minor drug-related offenses. He was also sentenced to pay 125,000 kronor (about $14,000) in damages to the woman he raped and mugged. The rape took place four years ago, but it was not until Mboge became a suspect in a robbery against a convenience store in Stockholm that his DNA could be tied to the rape. When questioned by the police, the Gambian claimed that the girl had consensual sex with him on a lawn, and he bragged about “f**king for over ten minutes.” The prosecutor did not ask for deportation.

April 14: Many Muslims in Sweden have been granted damages by the Discrimination Ombudsman (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen), DO, after their refusal to shake hands has led to them not getting a job for which they have applied. But the woman who refused to shake a doctor’s hand, leading to her not getting the physical examination she wanted, did not get any money. The Hässleholm Municipal Court previously convicted the doctor and the company he worked for, and sentenced them to pay the woman 75,000 kronor (about $8,700) in damages, but the verdict was reversed in the Court of Appeals, which said that the DO could not prove that the missed physical examination was due to the woman not shaking the doctor’s hand.

April 14: A 27-year-old scientist at Uppsala University was arrested, suspected of selling poison, munitions and narcotics online. The man, nicknamed “Chemical Ali,” is a German citizen of Turkish descent. He was arrested on suspicion of drug-related crimes, preparing to spread poison (aggravated offense) and breaking the munitions law. He was also suspected of attempted aggravated extortion after sending someone a poisonous substance “while trying to blackmail them.”

April 14: A Syrian asylum seeker was sentenced to two years in prison and deportation for having assaulted a woman in January, at an asylum house in Leksand. The woman had locked herself into a bathroom, but the 34-year old man managed to pick the lock, pull her out, rip off her clothes and rape her. During the rape, the man pulled his victim’s hair and beat her. She retaliated by biting his finger and shoulder. It was only when the man saw his wife outside the window that he stopped.

April 16: When local politicians of the Stockholm suburbs of Spånga-Tensta met the would-be neighbors of a planned asylum house for 600 people, the mood was close to that of a lynch mob. The citizens were concerned about the asylum house, planned right next to a school: “We will fight to our last drop of blood to make sure this plan is not carried out,” said one man, to uproarious applause.

Despite agitated feelings, the politicians had no answers, making the people even more upset. Several shouted: “Answer! Answer our questions! Why are you doing this? Where is your analysis? Are we to risk our children’s health?”

April 17: A soccer tournament for “unaccompanied refugee children” in Jämtland ended in a mass brawl, involving 40 people fighting with iron bars and wooden sticks. At least one person had to be taken to hospital. The police investigation turned up at least seven suspects in the case. “It is plaintiffs and suspects all jumbled together,” police officer Cecilia Modin told local paper, Länstidningen. A couple of days later, the municipality decided not to host any more soccer tournaments for “unaccompanied.”

April 23: An immigrant from the Middle East, Ali Al-Ali, at first evaded being sentenced for kidnapping and robbing a taxi driver as he was, according to public record, only 14 years old at the time the crimes were committed. His two accomplices, who both received six months in juvenile detention, but avoided deportation, stated to the court that Ali Al-Ali is older than 18, and frequently brags about fooling the Swedish authorities. Two days after the sentence, Ali Al-Ali was arrested at a shopping mall in Malmö. At the time, he was accompanied by two other youths, carrying firearms, knives and a balaclava. The other two youths escaped the scene, but Ali Al-Ali, suspected of preparing an armed robbery, is now in police custody.

April 23: The political news editor of the local newspaper, Eskilstuna-Kuriren, Alex Voronov, posted a picture of himself giving the Rabia-sign — four fingers in the air as a salute to the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) — on Twitter. “I have met several MB-politicians who are now behind bars after mock trials,” Voronov tweeted, “and this is of course something that concerns me.”

The paper refused to comment on its editor’s message.

April 23: An asylum seeker from Hagfors was arrested, suspected of, among other things, having kicked his wife in the head. According to the police, the man became angry with his wife because she was trying to learn Swedish. The couple needed interpreter assistance in Dari, a language spoken in Afghanistan.

April 28: After brusquely rebutting a proposal by the Sweden Democrats (SD) to eliminate the two-week long suspension of Sweden’s border controls, the government suddenly announced that the border controls would not be suspended after all. The decision was welcomed by the SD, whose members are critical of immigration, and who assert that border-controls issue has been handled appallingly.

Kent Ekeroth, an SD representative and member of the parliament’s Justice Committee, stated:

“It is pretty comical how the other parties time and again vote no to our motion to remove the waiting period in connection with the identity checks, but it is good that they are now following our lead point by point and copying our suggestions.”

April 27: A 34-year-old Somali, who raped a woman in Gothenburg last year, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison. The man pulled a dark hood over the woman’s head, held a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her. Then he ripped off her clothes and raped her. Afterwards, he stole her cell phone and said, “You could get 10,000 kronor if you come home with me and I could f**k you for a whole day.” Despite the court’s assertion that his crimes are of “a most serious nature,” the man will not be deported.

April 30: The mosque of Imam Abo Raad, identified as the foremost “militant Islamist leader in Sweden,” was subjected to a firebomb attack. The Islamist mosque, located in Gävle, has been highlighted in the local paper, Gefle Dagblad, in a series of articles beginning in the fall of 2015. On March 30, it also emerged that Gefle Dagblad’s editor-in-chief, Anna Gullberg, had received death threats from a close relative of Abo Raad. “This is a direct threat against the freedom of the press,” Gullberg said. “The threats are obviously connected to the articles Gefle Dagblad has published.”

Pakistan: Christians Tortured At Hands of Police

May 11, 2016

Pakistan: Christians Tortured At Hands of Police, Clarion Project, May 11, 2016

Pakistan--Christian-Torutre-Police-IPOne of the Christian men being tortured by police taken by a relative who bribed his way into the police station.

Two Pakistani Christians men are both fighting for their lives after being tortured by police in Lahore. The two men, Faraz Masih, 30, and Doya Masih, 40, were arrested for allegedly committing a robbery, a crime which they deny.

Pakistan--Christian-Torutre-Police-Inside

Without being formally charged, the men were kept in police custody for days, hung upside down and brutally beaten. Family members were denied access to the prisoners. However, after offering a huge bribe to a junior police officer, one relative was allowed into the police station where he photographed the gruesome scene.

After sharing the photos with local crime reporters, the mainstream media picked up the story. Media attention on the case forced the police to transfer the near-unconscious men to a private clinic for medical attention.

In a strategy reported by locals to be typical in such cases (which are also reportedly very common), the privately-managed clinic was chosen by the police to avoid legal “complications.” If the police would have transferred the men to a public government hospital, their medical records could be used an evidence against the offending officers.

Although a senior police officer ordered a commission of inquiry to investigate the incident, locals say this is a common tactic used to deflect attention from the police and silence the media.  It is not expected to bear any outcome.

Although Pakistani law disallows any corporal punishment while in custody and states that all those arrested for crimes must be brought to a court within 24 hours after their arrests, in this case, the police did not charge the men and, therefore, there is no official record of their arrest.

One relative reported that the police were demanding a huge bribe to release the men, who both come from poor families. “The police investigators applied third-degree torture methods during interrogation. They were demanding one hundred thousand rupees ($955) for the release of the suspects,” he told local media.

The sum, which represents more than a year’s salary for those living in poverty in Pakistan, was impossible for the families to pay. According to a survey by the Christian Monitor, most prisoners in Lahore’s prisons are Christians who cannot afford to pay the requisite bribe asked after every arrest.

Thousands in Pakistan have lost their lives through this state-sanctioned abuse that criminal suspects encounter at the hands of police and prison officials.

Pope Francis Blasts Europe Over Migrants

May 7, 2016

Pope Francis Blasts Europe Over Migrants, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, May 7, 2016

02

Sigh.

Europe is struggling to live up to the vision of its founders, Pope Francis has said in a powerful speech that asked: “What has happened to you, the Europe of humanism, the champion of human rights, democracy and freedom?”

Speaking as he became the first pope to accept the prestigious Charlemagne prize for his work on behalf of European solidarity, the pontiff called for Europe to reclaim the principles that had been established after the second world war, above all by embracing integration and revamping its economic model to “benefit ordinary people and society as a whole”.

…Founded in 1950 by Dr. Kurt Pfeiffer, the Charlemagne Prize is “the oldest and best-known prize awarded for work done in the service of European unification,” according to the organization’s website.

Kurt Pfeiffer was a Nazi. There are debates about whether he was a reluctant Nazi or not, but he was certainly a member. Rodney Atkinson has spoken about this in the past, I don’t know that I accept the whole thing, but certainly there are valid questions to be raised here.

The Charlemagne Prize. The prize was originally founded by the Nazis, but was then re-founded in 1949 by the efforts of the Aachen textile merchant Kurt Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer, who had previously been a member of the Nazi Party and of five other Nazi organizations, maintained that he had always tended to be a fundamental believer in Europe. And the Charlemagne Prize Society was to be associated with the imperial idea Reichsidee of the Emperor Charlemagne. The post-war image of Charlemagne as unifier of the Christian west was preceded by his Nazi portrayal as a unifier of the German tribes. Charlemagne had been compared with Hitler, his Reich and Greater Germany. This is clearly exemplified by the career of the Aachen professor of philosophy Peter Mennicken, who took over the professorship previously occupied by an expelled Jew, and who after the war had authorized influence over the symbolism of the Charlemagne Prize and the liturgy of its award ceremonies.

But we’ll skip over to the speech about the ideals of the EU’s founders. Some of whom just happened to Nazi-ish.

He expressed his desire for a Europe “where being a migrant is not a crime but a summons to greater commitment on behalf of the dignity of every human being,” and where youth can “breathe the pure air of honesty” in a culture that is “undefiled by the insatiable needs of consumerism.”

“I dream of fa Europe that promotes and protects the rights of everyone, without neglecting its duties towards all,” he said, and voiced his hope for a Europe “of which it will not be said that its commitment to human rights was its last utopia.”

Except you can’t protect the rights of all. Sometimes you have to choose.

You couldn’t protect German sovereignty and Polish sovereignty at the same time. You couldn’t protect German and French civilians at the same time. You had to make choices. You can’t protect Muslim rights to migrate and the right of the Jewish population of Europe not to be terrorized or murdered.

You have to choose. You have to decide between good and evil rather than providing a fuzzy humanistic picture in which evil does not appear to exist except as selfishness in the face of social justice demands. In which evil is not going along with the latest horrible and disastrous scheme executed at your own expense.

Pointing to French statesman Robert Schuman, the Pope echoed his insistence at the birth of the first European Community that the continent couldn’t be built all at once, but “through concrete achievements which first create a ‘de facto solidarity.’”

Schuman was one of Petain’s ministers. Again, like Pfeiffer, his legacy is complex and mixed, but it’s interesting that so many key EU people are so tainted.

The Pope also stressed the importance of cultural integration, rather than merely resettling foreigners geographically, allowing European peoples to overcome “the temptation of falling back on unilateral paradigms and opting for forms of ideological colonization.”

Francis advocated for a culture of dialogue involving “a discipline that enables us to view others as valid dialogue partners, to respect the foreigner, the immigrant and people from different cultures as worthy of being listened to.”

“Today we urgently need to build coalitions that are not only military and economic, but cultural, educational, philosophical and religious,” he said, and encouraged the leaders to arm their people “with the culture of dialogue and encounter.”

How does the culture of dialogue work within Islam? It’s the old “nice doggie” until you find a big enough rock school of dialogue.

And what does cultural integration mean? It seems to involve listening to Muslim migrants, rather than them listening.

To create dignified, well-paying jobs “requires coming up with new, more inclusive and equitable economic models, aimed not at serving the few, but at benefiting ordinary people and society as a whole,” he said.

“It would involve passing from an economy directed at revenue, profiting from speculation and lending at interest, to a social economy that invests in persons by creating jobs and providing training,” he said, adding that “we need to move from a liquid economy prepared to use corruption as a means of obtaining profits to a social economy that guarantees access to land and lodging through labor.”

An economy is based on profit. A social economy is just a welfare state funded by profitability somewhere. Even Communist countries ended up needing to find a profitable venue. China did really well at it. The USSR was terrible at it and collapsed.

In an actual economy, social mobility and dignity may not be perfect, but they are available. A social economy is just feudalism with more buzzwords and depends entirely on the goodwill of insiders. No one has dignity in a social economy. They have no sense of worth. They depend entirely on charity dispensed by political barons which is stolen from the people who have been enslaved and denied the profits of their work.

Pope Francis closed his speech by voicing his dream for “a new European humanism” based on the welcome for foreigners, care for the poor, and respect for human life and dignity.

You can have two out of three. But if you turn Europe into Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, you’ll eventually have none of the above.

Importing Terror

May 6, 2016

Importing Terror, Front Page MagazineJoseph Klein, May 6, 2016

Obama with Syrians

President Obama is willing to gamble with the lives of American citizens. He is intent on emptying Guantanamo of as many of the detainees as possible, even as some of the released jihadists have returned to the battlefield to fight against our soldiers. Now the Obama administration is reportedly planning to accelerate the screening process for Syrians claiming refugee status, so that they can be rapidly resettled in communities across the United States.

The Washington Free Beacon has reported that, according to its sources, “The Obama administration has committed to bring at least 10,000 Syrian refugees onto American soil in fiscal year 2016 by accelerating security screening procedures from 18-24 months to around three months.”

The current resettlement vetting process for self-proclaimed refugees begins with an initial screening by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).  The applications of some who make it through this preliminary UN screen are referred to United States authorities for further consideration and possible resettlement. UNCHR’s role in the front end of the vetting process should be reason enough for alarm.

The United Nations has called for more open borders to accommodate the millions of “refugees” and other migrants whom have left the Middle East and North Africa. To this end, UNCHR is said to be looking for alternative avenues to admit Syrian refugees that are faster than the current refugee “resettlement” vetting process. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi suggested a number of such alternatives last March, at a high-level meeting held in Geneva to discuss “global responsibility sharing through pathways for admission of Syrian refugees.”

Among the alternative “pathways” listed by the UNCHR High Commissioner for Refugees were “labour mobility schemes, student visa and scholarships, as well as visa for medical reasons.” He added, “Resettlement needs vastly outstrip the places that have been made available so far… But humanitarian and student visa, job permits and family reunification would represent safe avenues of admission for many other refugees as well.”

The net effect of expanding the grounds for admitting Syrian refugees to include job and student related visas could be to bump American citizens from jobs and scholarships that are given to the refugees instead.

Apparently, the Obama administration is onboard with looking for alternatives to the current refugee resettlement system that depends on cooperation with the states. Perhaps it is reacting to the fact that numerous states have recently elected to opt out of refugee resettlement programs, including New Jersey.

“The United States joins UNHCR in calling for new ways nations, civil society, the private sector, and individuals can together address the global refugee challenge,” the State Department wrote in a Media Note following the Geneva conference. The State Department added that it has “created a program to allow U.S. citizens and permanent residents to file refugee applications for their Syrian family members.”

Who are such “family members?” Would they include siblings and cousins of fighting age? Do we really want to add more loopholes to the existing visa system, which was already breached by the female jihadist who took part in the San Bernardino massacre after being admitted to the United States on a “fiancé” visa? Apparently so, if the Obama administration gets its way. Speeding up the “refugee” admission process and avoiding state roadblocks in the current refugee resettlement pathway appear to have become its top priority.

Meanwhile, Obama administration officials tell us not to worry. They assure us they have a “robust” screening process in place to vet Syrians claiming to be refugees. Don’t believe them. They are deliberately turning a blind eye to the warnings of experts such as FBI Director James Comey, who said last year, during a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing, that the federal government lacked the data to adequately vet “refugees” seeking entry to the U.S.

“We can only query against that which we have collected,” Comey told the committee. “So if someone has never made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity or their interest reflected in our database, we can query our database until the cows come home, but there will be nothing show up because we have no record of them.”

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned earlier this year that he considered ISIS and its branches to be the number 1 terrorist threat. Clapper pointed to ISIS’s success in “taking advantage of the torrent of migrants to insert operatives into that flow.”

Even those “refugees” who enter the United States without pre-existing ties to ISIS are vulnerable to indoctrination by jihadists already in this country. Somali “refugees” are a prime example. As Andrew Liepman, who was serving as deputy director for intelligence at the National Counterterrorism Center until he retired from government service in 2012, said during the first year of Obama’s presidency: “Despite significant efforts to facilitate their settlement into American communities, many Somali immigrants face isolation.”

Jihadists have been busy “recruiting and radicalizing young people,” Liepman added.

Nevertheless, seven years later, the Obama administration continues to send as many as 700 Somali “refugees” per month to cities across the United States, with the largest number settling in Minnesota where large concentrations of Somalis already live.

Barack Obama has said that it is wrong to “start equating the issue of refugees with the issue of terrorism.” He refuses to associate Islam or jihad with acts of terrorism or with what he calls violent extremism. He rails against “negative stereotypes of Islam” and “those who slander the prophet of Islam.” But telling the truth about the violent and supremacist strains in Islamic ideology, rooted in the Koran and the sayings of Prophet Muhammad, is neither stereotyping nor slander. It is identifying the enemy we are fighting. And wanting to make sure that we have a foolproof vetting system in place before admitting more Muslims from the sectarian conflict-ravaged areas in the Middle East or North Africa is neither fear-mongering nor discrimination. It is common sense defense of the American people from undue risk of attacks in our homeland, which is the primary duty of every U.S. president as commander-in-chief including Barack Obama.

How Many Molenbeeks in France?

May 3, 2016

How Many Molenbeeks in France? Gatestone InstituteYves Mamou, May 3, 2016

♦ “There are today, we know, a hundred neighborhoods in France that present potential similarities with what’s happened in Molenbeek.” — Patrick Kanner, Minister for Urban Areas.

♦ The Salafists, in fact, do not want to “take the power in these neighborhoods.” In many, they already have it.

♦ “The farther I walked between the buildings, the more I was stunned. A courtyard of Islamist miracles; an enclave that wants to live like during the times of Muhammad. Bakery, hairdresser… It’s a mini Islamic Republic. During the sermons, they denounce, they criminalize. A woman who smokes? A degenerate. A woman who does not veil herself? A tease. A man that does not eat halal? He has an express ticket to hell.” — Paris Match.

♦ Remadna received a death threat over the phone: “We know where your kids go to school,” and “your daughter is very pretty.” The next day, a delegation of completely veiled Salafist “true Muslim mothers” came and told her, “We want mosques, not schools.”

Patrick Kanner, France’s Minister for Urban Areas, was undoubtedly not planning to tell the truth on March 27.

He was on the set of Europe 1 TV to emphasize the left’s credo: Islamist terrorism is rooted in poverty and unemployment. But they asked one question again and again: “How many Molenbeeks are in France?” Finally, he said: “There are today, we know, a hundred neighborhoods in France that present potential similarities with what has happened in Molenbeek.”

Molenbeek, as the entire world knows today, is the neighborhood of Brussels that has become the epicenter of jihad in Europe. It is a neighborhood under Salafist control that sent three of its residents to assassinate hundreds of people in Paris on November 13, 2015. These are the residents of the same neighborhood that bombed the Brussels airport and the Maalbeek Metro station.

1577The Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels has become the epicenter of jihad in Europe. Abdelhamid Abaaoud (right), mastermind of the November 2015 attacks in Paris, lived in Molenbeek. Amedy Coulibaly (left), who in January 2015 murdered a policewoman and four Jews in Paris, spent time in Molenbeek.

The reactions to Kanner’s statement have not been slow. The first secretary of the Socialist Party, Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, accused Kanner of “dissolving national harmony.” Julien Dray, another leading figure of the Socialist Party, also criticized Kanner, telling him: “I do not like it when we stigmatize [people].”

Nonetheless, Kanner will not let himself be intimidated. In a March 28 interview in Le Parisien, he recalled,

“Amedy Coulibaly [the killer in the Hyper Cacher attack], who was from the Grande-Borne à Grigny, Mehdi Nemmouche [the Brussels Jewish Museum killer], who passed through the Bourgogne neighborhood in Tourcoing. and Mohamed Merah, who was from the Mirail neighborhood in Toulouse.”

Malek Boutih, Socialist Deputy, came to Kanner’s aid. He declared,

“It is the first time that a minister of the suburbs says even a little bit of the truth, namely that the ghettos have transformed, little by little, into zones that we cannot control very well… Neighborhoods that are incubators for terrorists.”

Samia Ghali, a Senator from Bouches du Rhones (Socialist Party), echoed the statements of the Minister for Urban Areas: “There are training camps in the neighborhoods of Marseille where people are learning to shoot.” She adds, “I’ve gotten to the point of asking if we should build walls to protect schoolyards from Kalashnikov bullets or from rifles finding their way into the school yard.”

Gilles Kepel, professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, and one of the best experts on Islamism in France, explained in early April that three ingredients are necessary for making a Molenbeek:

“1) A strong system of crime organized around kif [a type of marijuana]; 2) Hideouts for terrorists and sites where they can stock weapons; 3) Local politicians who accept that the Salafists have opened countless uncontrollable mosques.”

These three ingredients would be uniformly present in all 100 French Molenbeeks, added Kepel. But the goal of the Salafists, he adds, is actually to seize neighborhoods in order to wage a “enclave war.”

Patrick Kanner, the Minister for Urban Areas confirmed this view: “The Salafists want to take the power in these neighborhoods.” The gravity of the situation was recently underscored by Prime Minister Manual Valls: a fundamentalist “minority,” he said, is about to win “the ideological and cultural battle” over Islam.

The Salafists, in fact, do not want to “take the power in these neighborhoods.” In many, they already have it.

On January 27, the magazine Paris-Match dedicated several pages to the neighborhood Reine-Jeanne in Avignon, a large city in the south of France, where the Salafists have systematically exploited half a million Muslims.

“The farther I walked between the buildings, the more I was stunned. A courtyard of Islamist miracles, a Salafist pocket, an enclave that wants to live like during the times of Muhammad. Bakery, hairdresser, building managers, teenagers. All (or almost) overcome with the Koran. Well, their Koran. It’s a mini Islamic Republic.

“During the sermons, they denounce, they criminalize. A woman who smokes? A degenerate. A woman who does not veil herself? A tease. A man that does not eathalal? He has an express ticket to hell. That female neighbor, the one who is divorced, with three kids, and works with men? She will end up losing her virtue. She should just give up. In order to not pass for an ‘easy woman,’ the unlucky choose the hard life, welfare benefits!”

In Sevran, a suburb of Paris, the Salafist mosque was sealed off several weeks ago because it had been recruiting a dozen young Muslims for the Islamic State. Six may have already been killed in Syria. Nadia Remadna, a Muslim social worker, lives in Sevran. She started the local “Mothers’ Brigade” to help women keep control over their children, against the Islamists. In 2014, she wrote the provocative book, How I Saved My Children, with the sub-title “Before, we feared our children would fall in with delinquents. Now, we fear they will become terrorists.”

On March 14, Remadna received a death threat over the phone: “We know where your kids go to school,” and “your daughter is very pretty.”

The next day, a delegation of completely veiled Salafist “true Muslim mothers” came and told her, “We want mosques, not schools.”

On March 29, the philosopher Yves Michaud spoke to the magazine Paris Match about his students:

“My ex-students who teach today in the suburbs… tell me that among their students they have some who could become terrorists overnight. They take on the weight of Islam, of adolescence, of the ghettoization that makes them question their identity, of cultural disorientation. It is an ideal breeding-ground for the jihadist calling.”

How many Salafists are there in France? 15,000 to 20,000, according to Bernard Godard, former head of the Bureau of Religion for the Ministry of the Interior. According to the politician Antoine Sfeir, there are 20,000 to 30,000 Salafists. According to police sources, out of 2,500 listed Islamic places of worship in metropolitan France, at least 90 are Salafist. The number doubles every three years. They are located in the suburbs of Paris, in the Lyon region and in Marseille.

According to the Ministry of the Interior, 41 Islamic places of worship have been the target of “infiltration,” meaning that “traditional” imams are being forcibly evicted and replaced by Salafist imams.

The real question is: If the state is aware of the situation — and it is — why has it not banned Salafism, and why does it not expel the Salafist imams who are prospering not only in these neighborhoods, but also on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter?

“It Is My Dream to Behead Someone” — American Muslim

May 1, 2016

“It Is My Dream to Behead Someone” — American Muslim, Gatestone InstituteRaymond Ibrahim, May 1, 2016

♦ “Why are your bishops silent on a threat that is yours today as well? Because the bishops are, like you, raised in political correctness. But Jesus was never politically correct, he was politically just! The responsibility of a bishop is to teach, to use his influence to transmit truth.” — Jean-Clément Jeanbart, the Melkite Greek Catholic archbishop of Aleppo, Syria.

♦ Federal authorities arrested Khalil Abu-Rayyan of Dearborn Heights, Michigan, an ISIS supporter who had planned to carry out an attack on a 6,000-member Detroit church. Abu-Rayyan allegedly had guns and a large knife, and told an undercover FBI agent that he “tried to shoot up a church one day … If I can’t do jihad in the Middle East, I would do my jihad over here. … It is my dream to behead someone.”

♦ n Pakistan, a disabled Christian man sentenced to death for blasphemy said that he was forced into admitting to the charges in order to stop his wife from being tortured… Emmanuel and his wife were found guilty of insulting the Muslim prophet Muhammad in text messages to a local imam in 2013, and sentenced to death. The conviction came despite the fact that the poor Christian couple are illiterate.

As opposed to their Western counterparts, Christian leaders who live in the Middle East continued expressing their frustration at the West’s indifference and worse. Jean-Clément Jeanbart, the Melkite Greek Catholic archbishop of Aleppo, during an interview, asked “Why are your bishops silent on a threat that is yours today as well? Because the bishops are, like you, raised in political correctness. But Jesus was never politically correct, he was politically just! The responsibility of a bishop is to teach, to use his influence to transmit truth. Why are your bishops afraid of speaking? Of course they would be criticized, but that would give them a chance to defend themselves, and to defend this truth. You must remember that silence often means consent.”

The archbishop also criticized the migration policies of Western countries: “The egoism and the interests slavishly defended by your governments will in the end kill you as well. Open your eyes, didn’t you see what happened recently in Paris?”

Similarly, in Iraq, Christian representatives invited to participate in the “Conference on the Protection of Peaceful Coexistence” — the sort of conference that would be heavily attended, praised, and cited by Christians in the West — boycotted the event on the grounds that such government-sponsored events are purely for show and nothing comes of them. “What need is there in participating in meetings like this and repeating the formulas that give the title to the conference if then one does not see initiatives and changes in concrete terms?” said Chaldean Patriarch Raphael Louis I. Other non-Muslim religious minorities, including the Yazidis and Mandaeans, also boycotted the conference.

The Chaldean Patriarch went on to launch an appeal to government authorities and political and religious leaders to denounce the continuing legal discrimination and sectarian bullying suffered by Christians: “We met with government officials, and paid a visit to some of the Islamic religious authorities to talk about what we have in common, with regards to our faiths and the life we share in this land. During these meetings, we assured our loyalty to Iraq, which is our country, and we do not seek revenge, we want to live in peace with all Iraqis. Unfortunately, none of their promises has become reality.”

January’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes, but is not limited to, the following:

Muslim Persecution of Christian Churches

USA: Federal authorities arrested a Michigan man believed to be an ISIS supporter who had planned to carry out an attack on a 6,000-member Detroit church. Khalil Abu-Rayyan, 21, of Dearborn Heights, allegedly had guns and a large knife, and told an undercover FBI agent that he “tried to shoot up a church one day.” “I bought a bunch of bullets. I practiced reloading and unloading,” he said in an online conversation. Investigators did not specify which church Abu-Rayyan was eyeing, but said it has a capacity of 6,000 members. In conversations with an undercover agent, he said, “If I can’t do jihad in the Middle East, I would do my jihad over here.” He also had armed himself with a knife and told the undercover agent, “It is my dream to behead someone.”

Bangladesh: Catholic nuns were attacked on two separate occasions. In the early morning hours of February 7, around 15 masked, armed men broke into the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, and its adjacent Catechist Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary convent, in Chuadanga. They vandalized the convent’s chapel, desecrated the Eucharist, slapped a nun around, and looted over $8,000 as well as other valuables. A few days later in Tumilia, 12 men broke into St. Mary’s Catholic Mother Care Center, a hospital clinic founded in 1933, and stole some items. “They broke down the door of my room,” said Sister Mary, “and were armed. They threatened me and asked where I held the money. I had no other choice, I gave them all the cash we had.” According to Theophil Nokrek, secretary of the Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace, the two recent attacks “are not isolated incidents. Some groups are trying to harm our Christian community. They are doing so with premeditated actions. The government should protect us adequately.” He added that a few days earlier in the same district a Christian micro-credit bank was also robbed.

Kosovo: Four ethnic Albanians were arrested near the Serbian Orthodox monastery, Visoki Decani, a UNESCO world heritage site. Two of the suspects wore beards and were dressed in Salafi garb. A Kalashnikov rifle with ammunition and a pistol, as well as some extremist jihadi books, were found in their car. One of the suspects was later found to have an ISIS flag in his house. More than a year earlier, in October 2014, ISIS graffiti was sprayed on buildings belonging to the monastery. Even so, Kosovo police said the four men had no intention to attack the monastery and had no links to terrorism; Albanian media accused the monastery of exaggerating the threat. One month earlier, Muslims had urinated in an Orthodox Christian church in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo.

Turkey: On February 18, authorities ordered four Christian congregations to vacate the church building they shared. The Christians were given until February 26 to comply—eight days. Built in the 1880s, the building, which accommodated as many as 200 people, had, since 2004, been shared by four different Christian denominations for their Sunday worship. Due to protests against the decision, on February 23 authorities withdrew the order. Discussing this incident, Turkish academic Aykan Erdemir said, “Christians do not have any legal entitlement to the building. They only have usage rights for the time being, which I think is a very precarious situation …. Members of non-majority religions have to depend on the goodwill of bureaucrats and the majority population.”

Muslim Violence Against and Slaughter of Christians

United States: Police shot and killed a Muslim man of Somali background after he attacked several people with a machete at Nazareth Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. The restaurant is owned by a pro-Israel Arab Christian. Thirty-year-old Mohamed Barry walked into the restaurant, had a conversation with an employee and then left. He returned a half hour later, went up to a man and a woman who were sitting at a booth just inside the door, and started slashing. Four people were injured. Law enforcement said the man had traveled to the Middle East in 2012 and that the incident appears to be the type of “lone wolf terrorist attacks they’re trying to stop.” Even so, Columbus police Sgt. Rich Weiner said, “right now there’s nothing that leads us to believe that this is anything but a random attack.”

Recalling the incident, a waitress said, “He looked straight at me, but he went over to the booths and just started going down the booths. It all seemed to happen in slow motion.”

Karen Bass, another eyewitness, said, “He came to each table and just started hitting them. There were tables and chairs overturned there was a man on the floor bleeding there was blood on the floor. I fell like five times. My legs felt like jelly. I just thought he was going to come behind me and slash me up.” After the attacks, Barry fled in his car but was chased by police and cornered. With a knife in one hand and a machete in the other, Barry got out of his car and lunged across the hood at the officers before he was shot dead.

1571In Columbus, Ohio, Mohamed Barry, a Muslim man of Somali background, attacked several people with a machete at Nazareth Restaurant — a business owned by a pro-Israel Arab Christian. Police later shot and killed Barry when he lunged at them with a machete and knife.

Kenya: In a pre-dawn raid on a predominantly Christian area, the Somalia-based Islamic jihadi group, Al Shabaab, killed at least four Christians, one of whom was beheaded. According to a Christian who was shot in his hand but survived, there were five or six heavily-armed assailants speaking Somali and dressed in military uniforms. They shot two Christians dead, hacked and beheaded another and killed yet another by setting his house on fire. “I could not understand them, so they shot me in my hand, but I managed to escape while a neighbor who was with me was beheaded by the other attackers…. As I fled for my life, bleeding, I could see two houses burning. Those who were attacked are Christians. I am very sure that the attackers were looking for Christians… This is the third time the area has been attacked, and we have lost several Christians.”

Egypt: Another young Coptic Christian conscript allegedly committed suicide in his unit in Menufia. According to Maj. Gen. Muhammad Mas’ud, the 20-year-old, known only as Michael, “shot a bullet from his firearm into his chest, dying instantly.” He supposedly killed himself “after receiving a phone call from his home,” said Mas’ud. Lawyer Hani Ramses remarked that “It’s new for us constantly to hear about Coptic recruits killing themselves in the military and police stations. It’s especially strange that it’s happening now, and not previously, when Egypt was often in a state of war and under constant threat… The killing of Coptic conscripts in the military has become a [new] phenomenon.” (Read here for several more accounts of Coptic Christians being killed in their military units under “mysterious circumstances,” such as supposed suicide.) The lawyer also wondered if these deaths indicate that “extremist groups” have infiltrated the Egyptian military.

Muslim Attacks on Christian Freedom: No to Apostasy and Blasphemy

Italy: A report said that more than one thousand Muslim converts to Christianity currently living in Italy are hiding their conversions for fear of violent retaliation from the Muslim community.

One of them, a 55-year-old Egyptian chemical engineer who now works a waiter, said he had been a fervent Muslim who was converted to Christianity and baptized in Italy after the death of his mother three years ago. The man, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid retribution from Muslims, stated that the decisive element in his conversion came from seeing Christians with “a humanity more complete than mine.” He openly expressed his frustration about having to hide his newfound faith. “I cannot openly practice my Christian faith. I am afraid that some fanatical Muslim may do harm not only to me, but especially to relatives who remained in Egypt…. How is it that Italians who convert to Islam can go on TV and talk about it, and instead I have to hide to avoid retaliation?”

Uganda: A Muslim imam known as “the malaria of Christianity” was arrested in connection with the killing of a 28-year-old Muslim convert to Christianity. Laurence Maiso’s body was found on January 27 at his own house, his head in a pool of blood. Four days earlier, Imam Kamulali Hussein had met his wife and him on a local road. According to Maiso’s wife, the imam told him, “You have refused to join us. Do you know that Allah does not want us to have a kafir [infidel] neighbor? And you should know that Allah is about to send to you the Angel of Death in your house. Please prepare to meet him at any time.” Four days after this warning, Maiso’s wife went out of the home and returned to find her husband dead on the floor. A neighbor said that on the day of the murder she saw eight men—including Imam Hussein—coming out of Maiso’s house. On several earlier occasions other Muslims had confronted Maiso and demanded that he recant his Christian faith. The killing is the latest in a series of attacks on Christians. On December 23, 2015, a pastor was hacked to death as he and other church members resisted an effort by Muslims to take over their land. And less than a week earlier, five underground Christians, including a pregnant mother, in a predominantly Muslim village, died from a pesticide put into their food after a Bible study.

Pakistan: A disabled Christian man sentenced to death for blasphemy said that he was forced into admitting to the charges in order to stop his wife from being tortured: “There is no man who can stand to see his wife being tortured by police, so to save my wife, I confessed,” Shafqat Emmanuel said in his appeal. Emmanuel and his wife were found guilty of insulting the Muslim prophet Muhammad in text messages to a local imam in 2013, and sentenced to death. The conviction came despite the fact that the poor Christian couple are illiterate, witnesses are offering contradicting testimonies against them, and evidence that the blasphemous text messages could not have been sent by from the phone of the Christians.

Kenya: A Christian of Somali descent was last reported unable to see or eat after Muslim relatives beat him unconscious on his way to church service, Sunday, February 7, outside Nairobi. Relatives told 26-year-old Hassan that they ambushed him because they had learned that he and others were holding mid-week Christian devotional times in their home. “They hit me with a blunt object, and I fell down bleeding. Then they stepped on my stomach, and while I was struggling, another hit me on my head [with the blunt object]. I was not able to know what happened after that point. I just woke up to find my mother screaming for help.”

One of the assailants had told Hassan, “You have been deceiving us that you have been having a ‘family meeting’ – we have found out that you have been conducting Christian activities, which is against our family tradition of being a Muslim family.” Hassan declined to name the relatives, saying he feared they would kill him. Somalis generally believe all Somalis are Muslims by birth and that consequently any Somali who becomes a Christian can be charged with apostasy, but Hassan was raised Christian from childhood.

Dhimmitude

United States: The Principal of the Bruce Vento Elementary School in St. Paul, Minnesota, Scott Masini, banned the celebration of Valentine’s Day, a move that accords with Islamic teaching. As St. Valentine’s Day has its origins in the Christian religion, it is banned throughout the Muslim world. In a letter to parents, Masini said that, “my personal feeling is we need to find a way to honor and engage in holidays that are inclusive of our student population.” He went on to explain that the holiday was cancelled as it violates some students’ religious beliefs: “I have come to the difficult decision to discontinue the celebration of the dominant holidays until we can come to a better understanding of how the dominant view will suppress someone else’s view.” He added that the school would also no longer celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving, or Christmas, as celebrating those holidays “is encroaching on the educational opportunities of others and threatening the culture of tolerance and respect for all.” Several parents were unhappy with the decision. One parent on the school’s Facebook page wrote, “Very sad. All the fun is gone.” Another wrote, “Tired of the PC. Totally ridiculous.”

Germany: All throughout asylum centers, Muslim migrants are tearing up Bibles, assaulting Christians, sexually abusing women and children, and beating up homosexuals, reported the German newspaper, Die Welt. Yazidi girls who were formerly used as sex slaves by the Islamic State are housed in secret locations in Germany, in order not to attract unwanted attention from migrants sympathetic to the Islamic State or Muslims who view them as nothing more than sexual objects. More than a thousand of these women live in various special shelters across Germany.

Malaysia: Catholic school pupils are being pressured to convert to Islam, according to Sister Rita Chew, president of the Educational Commission of the Archdiocese of Kota Kinabalu. She partially attributed this new pressure to increasingly aggressive Muslims in schools run by the Church: “Some people seem very interested in bringing forward Muslim programs in our elementary schools.” Local sources said that Islamic proselytism activities take place in all schools of the country—including Catholic and Christian institutions. Several episodes also show a widespread prejudice against non-Muslim students, noted the sister, adding “Our fear comes from the fact that conversions take place, but the government denies this fact. Some Christian parents have found that their children are taught Islamic prayers.”

Egypt: For the second time, Mervat Seifein, a Christian school teacher, was rejected by students in her school in Minya, Upper Egypt, simply for being Christian. On February 8, Seifein was promoted to school director of Beni Mazar Secondary Girls’ School. It was a routine promotion in which she replaced the previous school director, a Muslim. But students—joined by some teachers—protested and held a sit-in in the school courtyard demanding her removal. “We don’t want a Copt,” they shouted. Police were not able to disband the boys’ demonstration in the school courtyard. Seifein said “The girls who demonstrated against me don’t know me, so why the antagonism? Simply because I am Coptic [Christian]? The only explanation I can fathom is there has been fanatic incitement going on against my promotion, possibly by persons who are purely extremist or who have an interest in keeping me out of that post.” This is not the first such incident. According to Ezzat Ibrahim, a Minya activist who demanded that a prompt official investigation be conducted,

“This is flagrant religious discrimination. It brings to mind the incident in the southern province of Qena when the Islamists rose against the appointment of a Coptic governor in the past-Arab Spring weeks in 2011, and the State gave in and went back on the appointment. It is catastrophic that some 50 or 100 teenage girls or boys should impose their will on the State. And it is equally disastrous that these students were pushed to do so by a group of fanatic Islamists. The positive official response to their preposterous demands amounts to an invitation for religious discrimination. The deputy minister who did that must be dismissed.”

Separately, more than 150 Coptic Christians staged a sit-in protest at the provincial administration office in Minya, to spread awareness for the continued kidnappings of Christians across the country. The protest specifically highlighted the case of an 18-year-old Christian girl who was kidnapped a few days earlier. “Kidnappings that target Christians remain a scourge for the Coptic community in many areas of Egypt. Already several appeals have been launched by Christian organizations to Egyptian authorities, including President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, to take so that adequate measures are taken to combat this phenomenon,” added the report. Several kidnappings have ended in the murder of the hostages.

Pakistan: Tahira, 21, and Reema Bibi, 20, two Christian women, were abducted last December from near their home in Sargodha (Punjab) while walking together from work. Two Muslim men apparently seized the two women, raped them and then forcibly married them. Afterwards, they kept them segregated in their Islamabad home. On February 11, Tahira managed to escape. Her Muslim “husband,” however, filed a complaint with police, who immediately arrested six members of her Christian family. The relatives were released thanks to pressure from human rights groups, but the authorities have ordered the family to return Tahira to her kidnapper-rapist-husband. According to human rights activists, these are common experiences for Christian girls and their families in Pakistan. Even if a case goes to court, the victims are always threatened and pressured by their “husbands” to declare that their conversion was voluntary. Victims are often sexually abused, forced into prostitution, and suffer domestic abuse or even wind up as victims of human trafficking. Those who try to rebel are told that they “are now Muslims and that the punishment for apostasy is death,” noted the report.

Separately, a man refused to renounce Christ, despite being tortured by Muslim co-workers who tried to convert him to Islam. Patras Hanif, a construction worker and father of five, said he was targeted because of his Christian faith. His co-workers tried to pressure him into converting, even threatening false blasphemy charges. “They very often called me ‘kafir,’ which means unfaithful [“infidel”], and they threatened me that they would resort to false accusations of blasphemy if I refused to convert to Islam. A blasphemy charge in Pakistan is very serious and usually results in the death penalty,” noted Hanif.

According to Hanif’s lawyer, “This is the suffering Christians in Pakistan go through. Islamic extremist groups would like to eliminate Christianity and other religions.”

Jordan: Official school curricula intentionally omit and distort Christian history in the region. This came out in Amman, during a conference entitled, “Toward a Complete Strategy to Combat Extremism,” hosted by the Jerusalem Center for Political Studies. Dr. Hena al-Kaldani, a Christian, said that “there is a complete cancelation of Arab Christian history in the pre-Islamic era” and “many historical mistakes” in the school curriculums of Jordan. Al-Kaldani asserted that “there are unjustifiable historic leaps in our Jordanian curriculum,” meaning that centuries’ worth of Christian history is bypassed or suppressed. He said that, for example, “10th grade textbooks omit any mention of any Christian or church history in the region.”

Textbooks completely ignore historic Christian figures of importance and make no mention of Jerusalem’s Christian sites, while giving detailed accounts about Islamic sites, he added. That the original inhabitants of Petra, the Nabateans, were once pagans who converted to Christianity is also omitted. Wherever Christianity is mentioned, omissions and mischaracterizations proliferate. One Arabic language textbook uses the phrase, “Man shall not live by bread alone” without attributing it to Christ or the Bible. Christianity is primarily mentioned as a Western (that is, “foreign”) source of colonization, said al-Kaldani.

About this Series

While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians by Muslims is growing. The report entitled “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some — though by no means all — of the instances of the Muslim persecution of Christians that surface each month.

It documents what the mainstream media often fails to report.

It posits that such Muslim persecution is not random but rather systematic, and takes place in all languages, ethnicities, and locations.

Britain? Moderates? How’s That Again?

April 30, 2016

Britain? Moderates? How’s That Again? Gatestone InstituteDouglas Murray, April 30, 2016

♦ A new poll of British Muslims found that a majority hold views with which most British people would disagree. For instance, 52% of British Muslims think that homosexuality should be made illegal. An earlier poll found that 27% of British Muslims have “some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks” at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last year.

♦ Whenever opinion poll results come out, nearly the entire Muslim community, including nearly all Muslims in the media and all self-appointed groups of “Muslim community leaders” try to prove that the poll is a fraud.

♦ If I had always known my “community” harboured such views, and a poll revealing this truth came out, I would be deeply ashamed. But when such polls emerge about the opinions of British Muslims, is that there is never any hint of introspection. There is no shame and no concern, only attack.

♦ If there were indeed a “moderate majority,” when a poll comes out saying that a quarter of your community wants fundamentally to alter the law of the land and live under Sharia, the other 75% would spend their time trying to change the opinions of that quarter. Instead, about 74% of the 75% not in favour of sharia spend their time covering for the 25% and attacking the polling company which discovered them.

One often hears about the “moderate Muslim majority.” ‘After any terrorist attack, politicians tell us that, “The moderate majority of Muslims utterly condemn this.” After any outrage, commentators and pundits spring up to say, “Of course the vast majority of Muslims are moderate.” But is it true? Are the vast majority of Muslims really “moderate”?

A number of factors suggest perhaps not — most obviously the problem repeatedly revealed by opinion polls. Time and again, the results of opinion polls in the Western world, never mind in the Middle East or North Africa, show a quite different picture from the “moderate majority” aquatint.

True, such polls can often show that, for instance, only 27% of British Muslims have “some sympathy for the motives behind the attacks” at the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last year. True, that is only between a quarter and a third of British Muslims sympathizing with the blasphemy enforcement squad. On other occasions, such as recently in Britain with a new ICM poll commissioned by Channel 4, they find that a majority of Muslims hold views with which most British people would disagree. So for instance, the recent ICM poll found that 52% of British Muslims think that homosexuality should be made illegal. That’s a striking figure. Not 52% of British Muslims saying homosexuality is “not their cup of tea” or that they are “not entirely on board with gay marriage,” but 52% of British Muslims thinking that homosexuality should be made a crime under the law.

But it is what happens after such polls emerge that the “moderate majority” idea really comes under strain. First, of course, there is always an attempt to put a positive spin on the results. So for instance, when the post-Charlie Hebdo poll came out last year, the BBC (which had commissioned the poll) ran it with the headline, “Most British Muslims ‘oppose Muhammad cartoon reprisals.’” Although true, it is not the most striking aspect of its findings. But it is what happens next that is most revealing and more truly calls into question whether we are really dealing with a “moderate majority” or, more truthfully, with a “moderate minority.” Because whenever the results come out, nearly the entire Muslim community, including nearly all Muslims in the media and all self-appointed groups of “Muslim community leaders,” try to prove that the poll is a fraud. It happened with the release of the ICM poll in the UK, as it has happened with every previous poll. With the exception of only one or two prominent dissident Muslims, every Muslim voice in the media and every Muslim group decided not to concern themselves with the ICM findings, but to try to pull apart the validity, methodology and even ‘motives’ of the poll. This is deeply revealing.

It is worth trying a thought-experiment here. Whatever community you come from, imagine your reaction if a poll like the ICM one on British Muslims had come out about whatever community you feel a part of. Imagine you are a Jew and a poll had come out saying the majority of other Jews in your country want to make being gay a crime. What would your first reaction be? My impression is that most Jews would be deeply embarrassed. Very shortly after that first reaction, you might begin to wonder what could be done to change such a terrible statistic around. It is possible, if you knew nobody of your faith who thought that homosexuality should be criminalized and had never come across this position before (or any previous polling which suggested the same thing) that you might question the credibility and methodology of the poll. But otherwise, you would probably sigh and wonder what could be done to improve things. If you knew the findings to be fairly accurate, why would you try to tear apart the findings?

Likewise, if tomorrow a poll were published of the opinions of white British people of Christian upbringing in the UK, I would take some interest in it. If it revealed that 39% of British Christians believed that wives should always obey their husbands (as the ICM poll showed British Muslims believe) then I would have some worries. If it also found that almost a quarter (23%) of British people of Christian origin wanted areas of the UK to divest themselves of the law of the land and be run instead on some Biblical literalist “take” on the law, I would worry some more.

Of course, neither of these eventualities is remotely likely to arise. But let us say that it did. What would be my reaction? The first would be to hang my head in shame. And I would hang it just that bit lower if the findings came as absolutely no surprise to me. If I had always known my “community” harboured such views, and a poll revealing this truth came out, I would be deeply ashamed that what I had always known was now known by everyone else in the country.

What is most interesting then, when such polls emerge about the opinions of British Muslims, is that there is never, ever, any hint of such introspection. There is no shame and no concern, only attack. If there were indeed a “moderate majority,” then when a poll comes out saying that a quarter of your community wants fundamentally to alter the law of the land and live under Sharia law, the other 75% would spend their time trying to change the opinions of that quarter. Instead, about 74% of the 75% not in favour of sharia spend their time covering for the 25% and attacking the polling company which discovered them. It is a tiny symptom of a much larger problem, the repercussions of which our societies have hardly begun to face.

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