"Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of
the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.
No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being
moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has
already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at
every step..."
Disturbing pictures show Taliban militants allegedly stoning woman to death in Pakistan
A woman lies tied to the ground as a group of men gather round her, repeatedly throwing stones at her.
She appears to plead for help but despite her cries, they continue to rain stones down on her until she lies still.
Disturbing pictures today released to ABC news purport to show Taliban militants stoning a woman to death in north-west Pakistan.
Stoning is a routine punishment for adultery in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Under the rule of the Taliban however, being seen alone with a man is sufficient crime alone to warrant the death penalty.
A rare video reportedly smuggled out of northwest Pakistan allegedly shows a woman being stoned to death by Taliban militants in the upper region of Orakzai.
The execution allegedly took place two months ago in the upper region of Orakzai.
The grainy cellphone footage of the execution was reportedly smuggled out by a Taliban member who witnessed the stoning and then passed to it Al Aan, a Dubai-based pan-Arab television channel that deals with women's issues in the Arab world.
ABC news was unable to independently confirm the authenticity of the video, which is so graphic that it cannot be shown in its entirety.
The woman was thought to have been executed because she was seen out with a man
In Iran, the case of Ms Sakineh Ashtiani, 43, who has been convicted of murder and adultery under Sharia law, has drawn worldwide attention and international outrage.
EC minister Jorge Barroso described it as ose Manuel Barroso, who called it "barbaric beyond words".
Speaking in France earlier this month, Mr Barroso said: "We condemn such acts, which have no justification under any moral or religious code."
The grainy cellphone footage was smuggled from north-west Pakistan by a witness to the stoning who then passed it to Al-Aan TV
It is thought that the international outrage caused by her case has led her sentence to be commuted from death by stoning to hanging.
While Ms Ashtiani's lawyer, Mohammed Mostaefi, has been forced to flee to Europe for his safety, Ms Ashtiani's fate, as she waits in Evin prison, remains uncertain.
Protestors in Paris demonstrate against the death-by-stoning sentence of Iranian mother Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani
FRANKFURT — Before Abi left her parents’ house in northern Germany
last year, she asked her father, “Daddy, what can I bring you from my
journey?” He looked up from his book and answered, “Some perfumed oil.”
“Will do,” she said, hugging him goodbye.
He is still waiting, more than a year later, for her to return.
Abi, now 23, and her husband never made the trip they said they had
planned to Saudi Arabia to visit Mecca and Medina. Instead they became
part of a growing number of young Muslims from Germany and other
European countries who travel to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region,
eventually ending up in the camps of groups affiliated with Al Qaeda or the Taliban.
One German man, Eric Breininger, was later reported killed in a battle with Pakistani troops.
A Turkish-language Web site announced that in recent days nine foreign
fighters were killed as they traveled to carry out operations with the
Taliban. Two of them were identified as Germans, from Bonn and Berlin.
Others have been arrested on a variety of charges. In one case, several
people were convicted of planning attacks against American military
facilities in Germany.
Intelligence officials are concerned that the young people, most in
their 20s, will be used by the militants for propaganda purposes or
trained to take up arms. They also worry that some will slip back into
Germany to recruit others or to join sleeper cells and ultimately commit
acts of terrorism.
“This is a very dangerous situation and German security services are
very nervous about it,” said Guido Steinberg, terrorism expert of the
German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. “Al
Qaeda and other organizations have put Germany on their target priority
list as one of the top places.”
Security officials believe that the number of young Germans who make the
trip is relatively small, perhaps fewer than 200 since the early 1990s.
But they also believe the number is growing, inspired in part by
German-language videos on the Internet, including some made by a group
called German Taliban Mujahedeen, which promise a happy life with others
committed to Shariah law.
It is difficult to pin down an exact figure because most of those headed
for the border regions first leave Germany by car, to elude airport security checks; many go to Turkey and then illegally into Iran, where they meet smugglers who take them to their destination.
Security officials are also troubled because it appears that whole
families are now making the move, after selling all their possessions
and taking their savings from the bank.
A man who helps smuggle foreigners into the region offered an
explanation for the need for cash. In the past, said the man, Abu Yahia,
who is from Waziristan, the militant groups once had enough money to
support those who joined them. Now, he said, with all the fighting going
on, the newcomers are asked to “bring enough money so they can support
the groups and themselves.”
The parents of Abi — her mother is German and her father is from a West
African country — are appalled by their daughter’s transformation from a
Westernized dental student to a radicalized Muslim. (Fearing
harassment, the parents consented to be interviewed only if their names
were not disclosed. Abi is a shortened form of their daughter’s real
name.)
The changes came slowly, they say, after Abi fell in love with a young
Iranian man, who grew up in Germany. After marrying in a mosque in 2008 —
a shock to her father, though he is Muslim — the young couple changed
their behavior and their dress. He converted from Shiism, started to
follow a radical Sunni form of Islam and grew his beard; she started
wearing head scarves and cut off contact with friends. “My husband told
her that this was not what Islam was teaching, to stop friendships, but
she would not listen,” Abi’s mother said.
At the beginning of March last year, Abi, her husband and three others
left their homes in Germany and ultimately made their way to the
Pakistani border region of Waziristan. At the beginning Abi told her
parents through e-mail that she and her husband wanted to live in an
Islamic society, though her husband later sent signals to his parents
that he wanted to return to Germany. But then he appeared in a
propaganda video with a gun in his hand. “I knew then, that it would be
very tough for them to return,” Abi’s mother said.
Security officials, as well as the parents of Abi, her husband and other
parents of young people who have gone to the Pakistani border region,
hope to learn more about their situation from Rami Makanesi, a
25-year-old German national of Syrian descent, who was recently arrested
by Pakistani officials while in the tribal district of North
Waziristan.
Since his arrest Mr. Makanesi has been in the custody of Pakistan’s main
spy service, the ISI. According to a senior ISI official, Mr. Makanesi
told Pakistani investigators that he was a member of Al Qaeda and had
trained suicide bombers for them in Waziristan. “He did not leave the
impression that he was someone who had no idea what he was doing there,”
said the ISI official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he
was not allowed to speak publicly about the case.
Mr. Makanesi also spoke about dozens of Qaeda-recruited Europeans
fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan. “He spoke about six other German
men who had been in the same region with him,” the official said.
“There are connections between the circles from Hamburg to circles in
Berlin, Bonn and Frankfurt,” said a senior German intelligence official,
who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to
talk about the case. “It is very possible that Mr. Makanesi has met some
people from Germany who traveled from other cities as well.”
One of the families desperate for some information is that of Thomas, a
24-year-old convert to Islam who has grown more observant over the past
two years. The family grew alarmed when Thomas, now using the name
Haroun, and his wife began talking about moving to a place where they
could practice their faith more completely.
“We went to the police and intelligence service and asked for help,
because we noticed how they had changed,” his mother said. “We’ve cried
for help.” But the authorities had no legal basis to intervene.
Last September, he and his wife told his parents that they were leaving
Berlin for a trip to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. Instead,
they made their way to Waziristan.
At the beginning, Thomas sent e-mails to his parents, telling them the
living conditions were tough. Last December, he wrote that he didn’t
know if he would see the next summer.
“Since then no message, no idea if he is still alive or dead, no
certainty, which is making it very complicated,” his mother said.
German security officials say that they believe Thomas went through
military training in Waziristan. “We have indications that he has
appeared in one propaganda video, but with his face covered,” one
official said.
The parents of Abi and Thomas still hope that their children will return
to Germany. But security officials say that in nearly all cases those
who return continue to associate with more militant Muslims.
Abi’s mother says the signals that she is getting from her daughter about a return are not very hopeful.
Abi has told her mother that Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan are
oppressed and need help. That reaction is typical for her daughter, who
always wanted to help people, Abi’s mother said, adding, “I was always
proud of her for this.”
Then tears filled her eyes, as she said: “My husband and I became very
weak because of what she has done, and I would like to ask her, ‘Doesn’t
the Koran say you should never lie to your parents and have to honor
them?’ ”
Some Gaza women smolder over Hamas'
water-pipe ban
AP – A Palestinian woman smokes a water pipe at a cafe in Gaza
City, Sunday, July 18, 2010. Gaza's Hamas rulers …
By DIAA HADID and IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writers
Diaa Hadid And Ibrahim Barzak, Associated Press
Writers
–
Sun Jul 18,
4:08 pm ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – There are few pleasures left
for Gaza's 1.5 million people, squeezed by both a blockade and Hamas
efforts to impose its strict Muslim lifestyle. And women here just lost
another one.
Gaza's Hamas rulers have banned women from
smoking water pipes in cafes, sending plainclothes agents through
popular beachside spots Sunday to enforce the edict. Some women in the
Palestinian territory are grumbling.
"This is silly," said Haya Ahmed, a 29-year-old
accountant who said she has smoked water pipes for 10 years. "We are not
smoking in the streets but in restaurants, where only a few people can
enter."
She predicted the ban would actually make water pipes
more tempting for rebellious young women. "Everything forbidden becomes
desirable. The decision will lead to more smokers," Ahmed said.
Many Gazans pile into beach cafes in the evenings to
puff on water pipes well into the wee hours of the morning. Islamic law
does not ban women from smoking the traditional tobacco-infused pipes,
but many frown upon the practice.
The water pipe restrictions are just the latest in a
yearlong Hamas campaign to gradually enforce a strict Muslim life code
on the people of Gaza — many of whom are conservative Muslims themselves
and not entirely opposed. But the secular minority feels the crunch.
Hamas, the Islamic militant group that overran Gaza
three years ago, has banned women from riding motorbikes — mostly
impoverished women riding behind their husbands on cheaply bought
Vespas. Teenage girls are pressured by their Hamas-loyal school teachers
to cover up in loose robes and headscarves.
Men, meanwhile, are the ones mostly targeted if they
are seen alongside women in public. And they too are bullied by Hamas
officials if they dress in ways considered too Western — like shorts
instead of long pants.
Hamas frequently mixes its strict interpretation of
Islamic law with conservative Gaza tradition. Over the weekend, the two
dovetailed to produce the smoking ban.
"It is inappropriate for a woman to sit cross-legged
and smoke in public. It harms the image of our people," Ihab Ghussein,
Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman, said in a statement Sunday. Police
spokesman Ayman Batneiji claimed husbands have divorced wives who smoked
in public, without substantiating his claim.
Many residents are deeply sensitive to any effort by
Hamas to infringe on leisure activities in the territory, which already
are limited. A three-year-long blockade by Israel and Egypt has
depressed the economy, limiting options in entertainment and practically
every other facet of life.
Some women were seen smoking hookahs Sunday, despite
the ban. Natasha Ali was taking turns puffing on a water pipe with her
husband, Suleiman, at a seaside restaurant Sunday evening.
"I don't think that anyone could force me to do
something against my freedom or my wife's freedom," said Suleiman Ali.
However, many in Gaza see the water pipe as
inappropriate for women because of its sexual connotation and because it
looks crass for ladies to smoke, said Palestinian anthropologist Ali
Qleibo.
It's a sentiment shared in conservative Saudi Arabia, where both sexes are banned
from smoking hookahs. It's frowned upon in Egypt, too, although women
frequently smoke in trendy restaurants out of view of the general
public. Women in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan openly smoke water pipes.
Hamas sometimes backs down when Gazans resist new
rules. A ban on men working in ladies hair salons was never enforced,
and a demand that female lawyers cover their hair before they enter
courtrooms was quietly rescinded.
But Hamas has successfully banned women from riding
motorbikes. Last year the group swooped down on moonshiners, banned
foreigners from bringing alcohol into Gaza and ordered shopkeepers to
take down scantly clad mannequins.
Plainclothes officers frequently stop couples walking
in the streets, demanding to see marriage licenses. Some residents say
they have been interrogated, even beaten, on suspicion they are gay or
had extramarital sex.
Six young men told The Associated Press that they were all harassed by
plainclothes agents who demanded they move away from women they were
walking with, because they weren't married. One man said he was detained
and slapped around.
Human rights activist Subhiya Juma said she is aware of hundreds of
similar cases.
An Internet cafe owner said he was ordered to ban women from his
establishment last year after another plainclothes agent saw women
smoking inside. Two other Gaza cafe owners said they asked men and women
to sit at separate tables to avoid harassment by Hamas police.
In Gaza, art cafe owner Jamal Abu Qumsan, 43, was accused of having
extramarital sex in May. The allegations were made during an
interrogation that began over a hip-hop concert he wanted to host. Hamas
officials are reluctant to allow Western-style music performances in
Gaza, musicians say.
Abu Qumsan said Hamas police whipped him, leaving red welts along his
legs and buttocks during hours-long interrogations over several days. He
has released photographs showing the wounds.
It's unclear how many similar cases exist. Few other Gazans would
acknowledge being targeted for their sex lives because of the shame of
even being suspected of deviating from the territory's conservative
sexual codes.
Last year, a 23-year-old man was interrogated for a week over rumors he
was gay. He requested anonymity for fear of further reprisals. In
another case, the New York-based Human Rights Watch reported that a gay man was
held in a Gaza jail.
Ghussein, the Interior Ministry spokesman, denied claims they were
trying to coerce Gazans into adopting a strictly Islamic lifestyle.
"If we wanted to make Gaza like the Taliban, then we could have done
that very easily," Ghussein said.
Dutch election: Liberals take one-seat lead as far-right party grows in influence
The Liberals have won a narrow one-seat lead in the Dutch election, putting them in pole position to form a coalition.
Published: 6:30AM BST 10 Jun 2010
Right-wing Dutch MP Geert WildersPhoto: PA
With 88 per cent of the votes counted, published partial results showed the Liberals with 31 and Labour on 30.
But the real victory went to Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom (PVV), which demands an end to immigration from Muslim countries and a ban on new mosques. The PVV took its number of seats from nine in the last parliament to 24, and could hope to enter a coalition government.
The far-right leader with his distinctive shock of fair hair called the result "magnificent".
"The impossible has happened," he told a televised party gathering. "We are the biggest winner today. The Netherlands chose more security, less crime, less immigration and less Islam."
The election ousted Christian Democrat Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende from eight years in office.
The Liberals' narrow lead gives leader Mark Rutte a mandate to form a coalition and become prime minister, but sticking to his austerity policies could prove tough because he needs at least three other parties to secure a parliamentary majority.
Earlier, exit polls had showed the Liberals and Labour running neck-and-neck in an election dominated by debate on fiscal austerity after the euro zone's stability was threatened by sovereign debt woes plaguing Greece.
Mr Balkenende conceded defeat for his Christian Democrats when voters turned against the party, nearly halving its seats from 41 to 21. He resigned as party leader.
The election was triggered when his Christian Democrat-Labour coalition government collapsed in a row over extending the deployment of Dutch troops in Afghanistan.
Mr Wilders and his Freedom Party - a possible coalition contender - gained 10 seats to come third behind the Liberals and Labour with 21, reflecting concern in the country about immigration and foreign policy.
"More security, less crime, less immigration, less Islam - that is what the Netherlands has chosen," Mr Wilders said.
Wearing full Islamic veil could land women in 'citizenship'
school
Under a controversial bill that would ban wearing the full
Islamic veil in public, women "offenders" in France could be forced to
take citizenship courses to "remind them of the values of the French
republic".
Women living in France who are caught wearing the full Islamic
veil in public may be sent to mandatory “French citizenship courses” if
supporters of a controversial bill get their way.
The text of the bill would make it illegal for people to wear any
item of clothing which hides their face in public places. The obvious
target of the proposed law are som
e
two thousand Muslim women in France who don the head-to-toe religious
garment.
According to justice minister Michèle Alliot-Marie, who drafted the
bill, “the full Islamic veil challenges the values that we share and the
very principles according to which we live together.”
The ban would not be limited to full Islamic veils, but would exclude
specific items, such as facial coverage imposed by safety regulations
(helmets for motorcycle drivers or masks for construction workers), and
those worn on special occasions (costumed carnivals).
Foreigners, notably wealthy tourists from Gulf states, would also be
affected by the ban.
Women wearing a full face veil in public could be hit with a 150 euro
fine. But the bill stipulates a much harsher penalty for men found
guilty of forcing their wives or daughters to cover their face: a
one-year jail sentence and a 15,000 euro fine.
In
addition, the bill also proposes that fully-veiled women receive
“French citizenship” courses to “inform or remind them of the values of
the French republic”.
“The courses are aimed at helping women who wear the full veil
understand the reasons behind the ban,” Eric Raoult, an MP for the
ruling centre-right UMP party told FRANCE 24.
Raoult, who participated in a parliamentary commission on the Islamic
veil earlier this year, stressed that the courses would be designed to
“inform women about their rights”.
“The small minority of women who wear the full veil in France live
relatively isolated from society. They don’t always know that the
principle of equality between men and woman is fundamental in France. We
need to tell them that if their husbands or fathers force them to do or
wear anything they don’t want to, the law is on their side,” he said.
According to Raoult, the course would also focus on the negative
effects of wearing a full veil in various practical situations. “A
woman’s field of vision and hearing is impaired by the full veil. This
can lead to dangerous situations while driving, or even when crossing a
busy street”, the MP explained.
Raoult also brings up the potential security risk of people hiding
behind a full veil while engaging in criminal activity, such
as shoplifting or robbing a bank.
Another lesson would focus on France’s long tradition of secularism,
and why religious symbols are barred from public institutions like
schools, government offices and hospitals.
The Socialist opposition has drafted an alternative text restricting
the ban to official state buildings and government offices, citing
repeated warnings from the powerful State Council that a ban in all
public spaces may be deemed unconstitutional.
“We fear that you will go too far”, socialist MP Jean Glavany told
the justice minister at the National Assembly on May 11. “We must defend
the Republic with wisdom and perspicacity”.
If and when the bill is signed into law, a six-month period of
“mediation and pedagogical encounters” would seek to convince women to
shed the full-face veil voluntarily.
Debate over the full veil ban has prompted warnings from various
Muslim
organisations,
which say the legislation could stoke tensions within France’s six
million-strong Muslim community.
"Rather than enacting a law barring women from expressing their
malaise, we should think about what prompted them to want to cover
themselves," Mohamed Moussaoui, the head of France’s Council of the
Muslim Faith, told lawmakers in early May.
BAGHDAD — In the days when it could land him in
jail, Rahim Al-Zaidi would whisper details of his muta'a only to
his closest confidants and the occasional cousin. Never his wife.
Rahim Al-Zaidi, who is married with five children, is
awaiting permission for his third 'pleasure marriage.'
By Rick Jervis,
USA TODAY
Al-Zaidi hopes to soon finalize his third muta'a,
or "pleasure marriage," with a green-eyed neighbor. This time, he talks
about it openly and with obvious relish. Even so, he says, he probably
still won't tell his wife.
The 1,400-year-old practice of muta'a—
"ecstasy" in Arabic — is as old as Islam itself. It was permitted by the
prophet Mohammed as a way to ensure a respectable means of income for
widowed women.
Pleasure marriages were outlawed under Saddam
Hussein but have begun to flourish again. The contracts, lasting
anywhere from one hour to 10 years, generally stipulate that the man
will pay the woman in exchange for sexual intimacy. Now some Iraqi
clerics and women's rights activists are complaining that the contracts
have become less a mechanism for taking care of widows than an outlet
for male sexual desires.
The renaissance of the pleasure marriage
coincides with a revival of other Shiite traditions long suppressed by
the former regime. Interest in Shiite customs has accelerated since
Shiite parties swept Jan. 30 elections to become the biggest bloc in the
new National Assembly.
"Under Saddam, we were very scared," says
Al-Zaidi, 39, a lawyer from Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite neighborhood
in eastern Baghdad. "They would punish people. Now, all my friends are
doing it."
A turbaned Shiite cleric who issues wedding
permits from a street-side counter in Sadr City says he encourages
permanent marriages but gives the OK for pleasure marriages when there
are "special reasons." The cleric, Sayid Kareem As-Sayid Abdullah
Al-Mousawi, says he grants licenses for muta'a in cases where the
woman is widowed or divorced, or for single women who have approval
from their fathers.
Shiites, Sunnis split
"Clerics who blessed them were hounded by
security during the previous regime," he says. "I can assure you, these (muta'a)
marriages are flourishing in (Shiite cities) Najaf, Karbala and
Kadhamiya in an amazing way. There are a lot of hotels (patronized) by
Shiites who approve of such marriages."
Shiites and Sunnis both permit men to take more
than one permanent wife, but the rival branches of Islam are deeply
split over pleasure marriages.
Most Shiite scholars today consider it halal,
or religiously legal. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the highest
religious authority in Shiite Islam, sets conditions and obligations for
muta'a on his Web site. ("A woman with whom temporary marriage
is contracted is not entitled to share the conjugal bed of her husband
and does not inherit from him ...")
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and other
Shiite lawmakers have said they want Iraq's new constitution to use the sharia,
or Islamic law, as its basis. That could give muta'a formal
legal protection. Sunni Arabs and Kurds, who are mainly Sunni, oppose
the idea. But the practice is growing among Sunnis and Shiites alike.
Sunni scholars fear that giving official sanction
to pleasure marriages — many of which are only verbal agreements
between the couple — are little more than legalized prostitution that
could lead to a collapse of moral values, especially among young people.
"We have reports about one-hour pleasure
marriages that are flourishing among students," says Sheik Ali
Al-Mashhadani, a Sunni imam at the Ibn Taimiya mosque in Baghdad. "I'm
advising parents to watch their sons very carefully, particularly those
who are in the colleges and universities."
Short-term marriages were considered idolatry by
Saddam's ruling Baath Party in the 1970s and '80s, says Kamal Hamdul,
president of the Iraqi Bar Association. Muta'a were
punishable by fines or prison, he says. Couples took the practice
underground, meeting in out-of-the-way apartments and hotels — and
rarely telling even family members.
Pleasure marriages began to resurface after the
fall of Baghdad in 2003. One reason is that Shiites, 60% of Iraq's
population, have a greater ability to shape social mores than they did
under Saddam, a Sunni Arab whose top aides were also Sunnis.
Payments to women vary
A woman agreeing to a pleasure marriage that
involves a one-time encounter might be able to count on about $100. For a
muta'a that runs longer, she might be paid $200 a month, though
the amounts vary widely and can depend on whether she has children.
Zeinab Ahmed, 31, lost her husband in a car
accident five years ago. She says she has considered entering into a muta'a
contract with a man, but the stigma attached has kept her from doing
so.
"All my friends who have done this have told me
they got married in this way just to meet their sexual desires," Ahmed
says, "but later on they started to love that man, and he does not
accept to get married permanently. ... Most of the men, at the end of
the contract, they feel contempt towards the woman."
Contracts for pleasure marriage strongly favor
men.
Married women can't enter a muta'a,
although a married man can. Men can void the contract at any time; women
don't have that option unless it's negotiated at the outset. The couple
agrees not to have children. A woman who unintentionally gets pregnant
can have an abortion but must then pay a fine to a cleric.
Women's rights activists are concerned. Salama
Al-Khafaji, a Shiite lawmaker who supports the concept of sharia law
but advocates for women's rights, calls the re-emergence of muta'a
an "unhealthy phenomenon."
With the right intentions, she says, muta'a
can serve the noble purpose of helping divorced and widowed women. But
too many men are using temporary marriages to exploit women for sex, she
says. Her solution is to reinforce the importance of permanent
marriages with work programs for newlywed couples and education
campaigns.
"A woman who practices muta'a does not
usually feel comfortable about it," Al-Khafaji says. "People these days
are creating excuses to practice these acts."
Al-Mousawi, the Shiite cleric, says the practice
of pleasure marriages is open to abuse and misinterpretation. He says he
is particularly troubled by kiss-and-tell men. "After they've finished
with the woman, they've told their friends about her beauty and given a
description of her body, which is something absolutely unacceptable in
Islam," he says.
Al-Zaidi, the Sadr City lawyer, says his
motivations are spiritual. In 2002, he says he persuaded a Sunni widow
to enter into a one-year muta'a with him, even though at first
she refused.
To him, pleasure marriages are legitimate in
God's eyes. They bring responsibility and formality to what would
otherwise be squalid and sinful, he says. "There is a noble goal in this
kind of marriage," says Al-Zaidi, still married to his first wife and
has five children. "It's to eradicate moral corruption."
In the past, some muta'a contracts have
been struck when permanent, legal marriages were not possible.
Ayad Muhammed Ali fell in love eight years ago
with a woman who walked into his Baghdad tailor shop. She was a widow
with two young sons whose husband, a member of an underground group
outlawed by Saddam, had been executed by Saddam's men. The woman also
was richer than Ali, so her family would never have consented to a legal
marriage.
The lovers agreed to a yearlong muta'a in
1993 and have renewed their contract every year since, he says. In the
decade after their muta'a, the couple never dared meet in the
open. In April 2003, the month U.S. forces swept into the capital, they
began meeting in public places for the first time, he says.
"I was always so afraid someone would find out
and I'd go to prison," says Ali, 29. "Now, I'm not afraid. My only fear
is her family."
Contributing: Mona Mahmoud
MUSLIM CONGRESS RULES IN FAVOR OF FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION
Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the leading Islamic organization in Indonesia
with 30 million members, sanctioned pedophilia this weekend at its 32nd
Congress, ruling that Muslim men may marry prepubescent girls as young
as six, and also gave its stamp of approval on female genital
mutilation.
The NU clerics ruled that female circumcision should not only be
viewed as “sunnah” or “recommended but should be made mandatory
throughout the Islamic world.
Several of the Sunni clerics in attendance offered suggestions that
midwives and handmaids should employ while conducting partial
clitoridectomies.
“Don’t cut too much. Just cut the small skin on the tip of the
clitoris. Otherwise, a woman would lose her sexuality, and you males
don’t like that to happen, do you?” prominent cleric KH Mohammad
Masyhuri Naim told a press conference.
Mr. Masyhuri, who is also a member of NU Suriah (lawmaking body),
said that a proper female circumcision should not cause any damage to
woman genitals. “No bleeding, if you do it properly.”
He suggested that circumcision should be conducted on a female baby
at the age of 7 days.
The NU religious leader also took an example of mass female
circumcision in Bandung in the past which had triggered opposition from
many Islam communities, some of which then considered female
circumcision haram.
“That was not a good example of the way to conduct a female
circumcision. The bad thing was that the media had blown the issue out
of proportion,” Mr.Masyhuri said.
Nahdlatul Ulama has been the authoritative voice of Islam in
Indonesia since 1926.
Lolo Soetoro, President Barack Obama’s stepfather, reportedly was a
member in good standing of this organization until his death of liver
cancer in 1981.
Scores of cases involving the genital mutilation of infant Muslim
girls have been reported in the United States in recent years. On March
15, 2010, a Muslim woman was arrested in Le Grange, Georgia, for
performing a life-threatening clitoridectomy on her newborn daughter.
140 Muslim women throughout the world have been subjected to
circumcision – - almost all in primitive and unsanitary settings.
The National Women’s Health Information Center reports that
preventing minors from undergoing FGM is hampered by problems “with
cultural adaptation, immigration status, economic issues, isolation and
access to education and healthcare services.”
The Center further states that remains unlikely that a girl or woman
experiencing complications from undergoing female genital mutilation
will receive health care “because the fear of legal repercussions would
be too strong.”
Although female genital mutilation is illegal under federal law, only
seventeen states have passed legislation that criminalizes the practice
on minors and children.
Police force to issue compasses to point Muslims to Mecca
Muslim prisoners are to be given compasses so they can face towards the holy city of Mecca when praying in their cells under plans announced by a police force.
Published: 6:50AM BST 01 Jul 2009
Muslim prisoners are to be given compasses so they can face towards the holy city of Mecca when praying in their cells
Norfolk Police Authority put forward the plan in its Custody Visitors Committee report, following a trial at Bethel Street Police Station in Norwich where compass points correctly aligned were painted on the ceilings of cells.
The report states: "The painted compasses on the ceilings at Bethel Street will be replicated across the rest of the county.
"However further guidance has been received and in future small compasses will be issued to those detainees who request them."
The custody suite at the force's King's Lynn Station is the next in line to be redecorated.
Insp Colin Williamson said: "We have responsibilities to ensure that everyone detained has their specific needs met whether they are unable to read, visually impaired or a vulnerable young person.
"Whereever possible custody staff facilitate any reasonable request in respect of religious considerations.'
Risk assessments are to be carried out before each compass is issued.
Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, is a focal point for all Muslims and the centre of Islamic pilgrimage, the Hajj, visited by more than 2 million followers every year.
Muslim NHS dentist 'tried to force patients to wear traditional Islamic dress'
A Muslim NHS dentist faces being struck off after a tribunal ruled he tried to force patients to wear traditional Islamic dress before treating them.
Published: 9:26AM BST 02 Jul 2009
Omer Butt kept a box full of hijabs at his practice so he could lend them to women before checking their teeth. Photo: CENTRAL
Omer Butt, 32, whose brother Hassan used to be spokesman for the banned radical Muslim group Al Muhajiroun, ordered female patients to wear headscarves and forced men to take off gold jewellery before allowing them into the dentists' chair.
He even kept a box full of hijabs at his practice so he could lend them to women before checking their teeth.
Butt enforced his religious dress code despite previously being warned by the General Dental Council for the same offence.
The GDC has ruled Butt imposed a general dress code at his practice, the Unsworth Smile Clinic in Bury, Lancashire, for more than two years from April 2005.
Butt was also found to have confrontations with two patients known as Ms B and Mr C and their families during that period.
The panel will now decide what action to take.
"Your evidence was that you regard yourself as a Muslim first and a dentist second and it is clear you were using your position as a dentist to seek to influence patients as to non-clinical issues," committee chairwoman Gill Brown told the dentist.
"You have explained you had a moral and religious obligation to persuade other Muslims to comply with Islamic requirements.
"The committee is satisfied from all the evidence that your attitude went beyond merely seeking to persuade, request or advise Muslim patients and that you sought to impose the dress code upon them."
Butt posted a sign on his waiting room wall telling Muslim patients to adhere to his strict code.
NHS managers visited the surgery in April 2005 following complaints from patients and ordered him to abandon the policy or face a formal misconduct hearing.
He removed the sign but persisted with the dress code – getting staff to take Muslim patients into a consultation room and tell them they had to wear the right clothes.
Butg phoned the police when Ms B refused to leave his clinic without a complaint form following a treatment session.
The dentist, from Manchester, told her he did not want to see her again after she brought in her son for emergency work.
During treatment Butt asked the mother if her son prayed and when she said "yes" he gave the boy composite fillings rather than silver ones. Using the precious metal for fillings is frowned upon in Islam.
Mr C made a complaint about Butt after bringing his family to register for NHS treatment at the clinic in June 2007.
The dentist asked the man to tell his wife to wear a headscarf or he would not offer the family any treatment.
Mr C then asked for a copy of the surgery admissions policy to be sent to him – which never happened – then made an official complaint.
The case continues.
Muslim staff escape NHS hygiene rule
Muslim doctors and nurses are to be allowed to opt out of strict hygiene
rules
introduced by the NHS to restrict the spread of hospital superbugs.
Published: 12:30AM BST 11 Apr 2010
Muslim doctors and nurses are to be
allowed to opt out of strict hygiene rules introduced by the NHS to
restrict teh spread of hospital superbugs.Photo: MARTIN POPE
Female staff who follow the Islamic faith will be allowed to cover their
arms
to preserve their modesty despite earlier guidance that all staff
should be "bare
below the elbow".
The Department of Health has also relaxed rules prohibiting jewellery so
that
Sikh members of staff can wear bangles linked with their faith,
providing
they are pushed up the arm while the medic treats a patient.
The Mail on Sunday reported the change had been made after female
Muslims objected to being required to expose their arm below the elbow
under
guidance introduced by Alan Johnson when he was health secretary in
2007.
The rules were drawn up to reduce the number of patients who were
falling ill,
and even dying, from superbugs such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile.
Revised guidance which relaxed the requirements for some religions was
published last month.
Some Muslim staff and those from other groups may be allowed to use
disposable
plastic over-sleeves which cover their clothes below the elbow and
allow the
skin to remain covered up.
Derek Butler, chairman of MRSA Action UK, said: "My worry is that
allowing some medics to use disposable sleeves you compromise patient
safety
because unless you change the sleeves between each patient, you spread
bacteria.
"Scrubbing bare arms is far more effective."
A Department of Health spokesman said: "The guidance is intended to
provide direction to services in how they can balance infection
control
measures with cultural beliefs without compromising patient safety."
Child Bride Dies After Sex Organs Rupture
Thursday, April 08, 2010
A 13-year-old Yemeni girl who was forced into marriage died five days after her wedding when she suffered a rupture in her sex organs and hemorrhaging, a local rights organization said Thursday.
Ilham Mahdi al Assi died last Friday in a hospital in Yemen's Hajja province, the Shaqaeq Arab Forum for Human Rights said in a statement quoting a medical report.
She was wedded the previous Monday in a traditional arrangement known as a "swap marriage," in which the brother of the bride also married the sister of the groom, it said.
"The child Ilham has died as a martyr due to the abuse of children's lives in Yemen," the non-governmental organization said.
Her death was a "flagrant example" of the results of opposing the ban on child marriage in Yemen, which was leading to "killing child females," it said.
The marriage of young girls is widespread in Yemen, which has a strong tribal structure.
The death of a 12-year-old girl in childbirth in September illustrated the case of the country's "brides of death," many of whom were married off even before puberty.
Controversy heightened in Yemen recently over a law banning child marriage in the impoverished country through setting a minimum age of 17 for women and 18 for men.
Thousands of conservative women demonstrated outside parliament last month, answering a call by Islamist parties opposing the law.
A lesser number of women rallied at the same venue a few days later in support of the law, the implementation of which was blocked pending a request by a group of politicians for a review.
This article acknowledges that the practice is permitted under Sharia law. But far too few people realize that the persistence of this practice in Muslim communities stems from Muhammad's own example:
"Narrated 'Aisha: the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death)" (Sahih Bukhari7.62.64).
"Muslim child brides on rise," by Tom Godfrey for theToronto Sun, March 12:
"Federal immigration officials say there's little they can do to stop "child brides" from being sponsored into Canada by much older husbands who wed them in arranged marriages abroad.
Top immigration officials in Canada and Pakistan say all they can do is reject the sponsorships of husbands trying to bring their child-brides to Canada. The men have to reapply when the bride turns 16. The marriages are permitted under Sharia Law.
Muslim men, who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents return to their homeland to wed a "child bride" in an arranged marriage in which a dowry is given to the girl's parents. Officials said some of the brides can be 14 years old or younger and are "forced" to marry. The practice occurs in a host of countries including: Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Lebanon.
Not valid in Canada
Canadian visa officer Steve Bulmer said in classified documents he refused to allow one Pakistani man to sponsor his 15-year-old bride in August 2009.
"I can find no section (of law) that states the marriage is 'invalid' or 'void," Bulmer wrote in e-mails obtained by lawyer Richard Kurland under Access of Information. "I am afraid the age does not invalidate the marriage even if it is illegal to marry."
Abdul Hameed, of the Canadian embassy in Islamabad, said child marriages are not valid in Canada.
"A child marriage is punishable but it does not render the marriage invalid," Hameed said. "We are refusing such application on grounds the marriage will not be valid as per Canadian laws."
William Hawke, of immigration's Permanent Resident Unit, said the young brides won't be allowed in Canada.
"Sponsorship applications submitted for a spouse under 16 will be refused," he said.
What happens next will have major implications for Muslims everywhere.
The arrest and indictment of top military figures in Turkey last week precipitated what is potentially the country’s most severe crisis since Ataturk founded the republic in 1923. The weeks ahead will probably indicate whether the country will continue its slide toward Islamism or revert to its traditional secularism. The denouement has major implications for Muslims everywhere.
Turkey’s military has long been both the state’s most trusted institution and the guarantor of Ataturk’s legacy, especially his laicism. Devotion to the founder is not some dry abstraction but a very real and central part of a Turkish officer’s life; as journalist Mehmet Ali Birand has documented, cadet-officers can hardly go an hour without hearing Ataturk’s name invoked.
On four occasions between 1960 and 1997, the military intervened to repair a political process gone awry. On the last of these occasions, it forced the Islamist government of Necmettin Erbakan out of power. Chastened by this experience, some of Erbakan’s staff re-organized themselves as the more cautious Justice and Development Party (AKP). In the decisive election of 2002, they surged ahead of discredited and fragmented centrist parties with a plurality of 34 percent of the popular vote.
Parliamentary rules then transformed that plurality into a 66 percent supermajority of assembly seats and a rare case of single-party rule. Not only did the AKP skillfully take advantage of its opportunity to lay the foundations of an Islamic order, but no other party or leader emerged to challenge it. As a result, the AKP increased its portion of the vote in the 2007 elections to a resounding 47 percent, with control over 62 percent of parliamentary seats.
Repeated AKP electoral successes encouraged it to drop its earlier caution and hasten moving the country toward AKP’s dream, an Islamic Republic of Turkey. The party placed partisans in the presidency and the judiciary while seizing increased control of education, business, media, and other leading institutions. It even challenged the secularists’ hold over what Turks call the “deep state” — the non-elected institutions of the intelligence agencies, security services, and judiciary. Only the military, the ultimate arbiter of the country’s direction, remained beyond AKP control.
Several factors then prompted the AKP to confront the military: European Union accession demands for civilian control over the military; a 2008 court case that came close to shutting down the AKP; and the growing assertiveness of its Islamist ally, the Fethullah Gülen movement. An erosion in AKP popularity (from 47 percent in 2007 to 29 percent now) added a sense of urgency to this confrontation, for it pointed to the end of one-party AKP rule in the next elections.
The AKP devised an elaborate conspiracy theory in 2007, dubbed “Ergenekon,” to arrest about two hundred AKP critics, including military officers, under accusation of plotting to overthrow the elected government. The military responded passively, so the AKP raised the stakes on January 22 by concocting a second conspiracy theory, this one termed “Balyoz” (“Sledgehammer”) and exclusively directed against the military.
The military denied any illegal activities and the chief of general staff, İlker Başbuğ, warned that “our patience has a limit.” Nonetheless, the government proceeded, starting on February 22, to arrest 67 active and retired military officers, including former heads of the air force and navy. So far, 35 officers have been indicted.
Thus has the AKP thrown down the gauntlet, leaving the military leadership basically with two unattractive options: (1) continue selectively to acquiesce to the AKP and hope that fair elections by 2011 will terminate and reverse this process; or (2) stage a coup d’état, risking voter backlash and increased Islamist electoral strength.
At stake is whether the Ergenekon/Balyoz offensives will succeed in transforming the military from an Ataturkist to a Gülenist institution; or whether the AKP’s blatant deceit and over-reaching will spur secularists to find their voice and their confidence. Ultimately the issue is whether sharia will rule Turkey or the country will return to secularism.
Turkey’s Islamic importance suggests that the outcome of this crisis has consequences for Muslims everywhere. AKP domination of the military would put Islamists in control of the umma’s most powerful secular institution, making them unstoppable. But if the military retains its independence, Ataturk’s vision will remain alive in Turkey and offer Muslims worldwide an alternative to the Islamist juggernaut.
Kadhafi calls for jihad against Switzerland over minaret ban
Feb 25 03:22 PM US/Eastern
Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi called on Thursday for jihad (holy war) against Switzerland over the ban adopted last year on the construction of minarets in the country.
"It is against unbelieving and apostate Switzerland that jihad ought to be proclaimed by all means," Kadhafi said during a speech in the Mediterranean coastal city of Bengazi to mark the birthday of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed.
"Jihad against Switzerland, against Zionism, against foreign aggression is not terrorism," Kadhafi said.
"Any Muslim around the world who has dealings with Switzerland is an infidel (and is) against Islam, against Mohammed, against God, against the Koran," the leader told a crowd of thousands in a speech broadcast live on television.
In a November 29 referendum, Swiss voters approved by a margin of 57.5 percent a ban on the construction in their country of minarets, the tower that are a signature part of mosques.
Iran clerics start taking control of schools
Nov 25 12:48 PM US/Eastern By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN,Iran (AP) - Islamic religious authorities have begun tightening their grip on Iranian public schools, a report said Wednesday, as hard-liners expand an ideological "soft war" against Western influence.
The effort appears to be part of a wider drive to counter opposition groups and other pro-reform factions that have been emboldened by the unprecedented protests after June's disputed presidential election.
Authorities have recently emphasized the need to battle the reach of Western media, viewpoints and culture—which resonate strongly in a country where nearly half the population was born after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Officials also have stepped up blocks on Internet links and closures of the few remaining liberal-leaning news outlets, while expanding state-run media arms and giving hard-liners more sway over education.
"Now, the enemy has put soft war on its agenda and the top priority today is to fight the soft war," Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on state television Wednesday during a meeting with Revolutionary Guard commanders and its affiliate paramilitary Basij forces.
Mousavi's statement said the Basij, the street wing of the Guard, was created by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, as a popular body to serve the public and not to become stooges of the government and kill citizens holding peaceful protests.
"Basij, which the Imam (Khomeini) favored, didn't stand against the people, it stood by the people," he said in the statement. "It was not expected that Basij ... rob the people of their free votes ... and be rewarded for detaining people at gatherings."
Mousavi says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the June 12 election from him through massive vote fraud. Hundreds of thousands of protesters poured into the streets in the weeks after the vote, prompting a violent government crackdown.
The opposition says at least 72 people died in the security crackdown on protesters and that many of those detained were abused in custody. The government puts the number of dead at half that figure.
Although the street protests died down months ago, Mousavi and other leading opposition figures have refused to silence their protests and their pressure on the country's Islamic leadership.
In his Wednesday statement, Mousavi said the Revolutionary Guard has under Khameini, Khomeini's successor, deviated from the values it was once committed to.
"Should anyone who rejects the superstition offered to the people in the name of religion ... be beaten up in the streets, tortured in prison and sentenced to long jail terms? Does Islam ... allow that people who seek justice from their rulers be killed?" he asked.
Cleric Ali Zolelm, who heads a joint school-seminary committee, said Islamic clerics have already widened control in some schools, the daily Etemad newspaper reported.
Full details of the plan have not come out and it was not known whether the Education Ministry would relinquish full oversight. But hard-liners, including Ahmadinejad, have criticized Western influence in school curriculum.
"Recently, seminaries took management control of some schools in several provinces," the paper quoted Zolelm as saying.
Elementary grades were believed to be the focus of the nationwide plan. It was not immediately clear whether higher grades also would fall under clerical influence.
Earlier this month, Iranian officials announced plans to appoint a cleric in every school—a move widely seen as an effort to bring stricter Islamic interpretations into the public education system and address growing divides between clerics and many young, secular-oriented Iranians.
An Education Ministry official, Ali Asghar Yazdani, was quoted as saying that the clerics could lead collective prayers in schools and answer religious questions by students.
Last month in Tehran, pupils elected a classmate in student elections because his name was similar to opposition leader Mousavi's.
In the central city of Isfahan, a student running for school office copied Mousavi's campaign and used the green as his signature color.
While Iranian government officials tried hard to stop spread of the news, words of the student vote spread across the nation.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press
The Million Muslim March?
2009 November 12
by Jamie Glazov
On yesterday’s O’Reilly Factor, O’Reilly had a profound discussion about the Fort Hood massacre with Bernie Goldberg, author of the new book, A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media. Goldberg is always superb and this time he narrowed in wisely on the pathologies that the Fort Hood massacre has exposed: the political correctness nurtured by the Left in our society and the disinclination of so-called “moderate” Muslims to stand up in mass numbers and denounce the likes of Nidal Malik Hasan.
In making his point, Goldberg shrewdly asked when we are going to see a Million Muslim March take place in Washington – in which a million Muslims gather to denounce terror and declare that what Nidal Malik Hasan did was un-Islamic.
Goldberg’s point is crucial, but we need to add to it. The key that is often missed in our nation’s discussion on Islamic terrorism is that this is not necessarily about Muslims themselves. As the scholar Robert Spencer has stressed over and over again, the problem is not Muslims, the problem is Islam – in the sense that the problem is what Islam teaches. So the crucial issue in all of this is not what this Muslim may think or that Muslim may think. It’s not about these empty arguments about whether the majority or minority of Muslims are peaceful or not. The issue is what Islamic theology mandates.
And so the crux of the issue is this: if Islam is really a Religion of Peace and if the majority of Muslims really do support peace and reject violence, then when are they going to rise up in majority numbers and denounce the teachings within Islam that inspire and sanction the terrorism that Islamic terrorists engage in? When will they renounce the verses and teachings that Islamic terrorists point to and quote in justifying and explaining their violence?
So here is an idea. Thank you Bernie Goldberg, there does need to be a Million Muslim March. And if Islam is a Religion of Peace, then in this Million Muslim March the million Muslims who gather can demonstrate it by categorically doing the following:
[1] Repudiate Sura 9:29 of the Qur’an, which commands Muslims to fight Jews and Christians (“the People of the Book”) until they “pay the jizya [a non-Muslim poll tax] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” The teaching is that, if they refuse to pay the jizya, Jews and Christians should be killed. Are Muslims ready to join the Million Muslim March and reject this as un-Islamic? Are they ready to completely negate Islamic law when it comes to the teaching of the necessity to subjugate Jews and Christians?
[2] Collectively agree that a woman has a right to engage in a love life she chooses without having to fear for her life. In other words, to accept that women have the right to self-determination, including in the sexual realm, and that their lives must not be at stake in this matter. This reality is in many respects, and on many realms, at the heart of our terror war, as jihad is very much inspired by the impulse to keep women enslaved under a system of gender apartheid. As Wafa Sultan, Hirsi Ali, Nonie Darwish, Brigitte Gabriel, Phyllis Chesler and others can tell you, jihadists are infuriated by women’s freedom in the West and see this as a grave threat to their misogynistic systems of totalitarian Puritanism.
If Muslims at the Million Muslim March cannot agree on this principle of women having the right to be free, then they are in the end legitimizing violence against women and declaring Islamic ideology to be incompatible with the democratic system in which they live. And this reality, of course, explains why honor killings are perpetrated by Muslims throughout the world and why they are on a skyrocketing increase in America and in the West.
[3] Reject the Islamic doctrine on apostasy, which holds that a Muslim has to be killed if he changes his religion.
[4] Reject the Islamic doctrine that Muslims are obligated to turn the whole world into committed Muslims, by force and jihad if necessary. In other words, the Muslims who arrive at the Million Muslim March can prove their religion is one of peace by repudiating all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence that teach that it is part of the responsibility of the umma to subjugate the non-Muslim world through jihad.
[5] State that Christians and other non-Muslim religions can freely proselytize in a Muslim land or community and remain unharmed.
[6] Reject the Qur’an’s description of Jews being apes and pigs. (Suras 2: 62-65, 5:59-60, 7:166)
These are the first six ideas for the Million Muslim March. There are, of course, many more. Perhaps various scholars of Islam, like Robert Spencer, will be invited to contribute more ideas by the organizers of the Million Muslim March. But I have a feeling all of this will not happen, just as I have a feeling that the six suggestions I have made, and the facts that are contained within them, will not be ingredients for discussion in our media, especially among those who are vehemently denying that the Fort Hood massacre has anything to do with Islam, jihad or Islamic terror.
Somali rebels say bra un-Islamic, whip women
REUTERS 17 October 2009, 01:24am IST
|
MOGADISHU: Somalia’s hardline Islamist group al Shabaab has publicly whipped women for wearing bras they say violate Islam by constituting a
deception, north Mogadishu residents said on Friday.
The insurgent group, which seeks to impose a strict form of sharia Islamic law, amputated a foot and a hand each from two young men accused of robbery. They have also banned movies, musical ringtones, dancing at wedding ceremonies and playing or watching soccer.
Residents said gunmen had been rounding up any woman seen with a firm bust and then had them publicly whipped by masked men. The women were then told to remove their bras and shake their breasts.
“Al shabaab forced us to wear their type of veil and now they order us to shake our breasts,” a resident, Halima said adding that her daughters were whipped. “They first banned the former veil and introduced a hard fabric which stands stiffly on women’s chests. They are now saying that breasts should be firm naturally, or just flat.”
GOP Lawmakers Accuse Muslim Advocacy Group CAIR of Planting Spies on Capitol Hill
Four congressmen are asking for an investigation into the Council on American Islamic Relations after discovering an internal memo noting the group's strategy.
FOXNews.com
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Four House Republicans on Wednesday accused the nation's largest Muslim advocacy group of trying to "infiltrate" Capitol Hill by placing interns in the offices of lawmakers who handle national security issues.
The four lawmakers, members of the anti-terror caucus, asked for an investigation into the Council on American Islamic Relations after discovering an internal memo noting the group's strategy. They also highlighted a new book by Paul Sperry titled "Muslim Mafia," scheduled for release on Thursday, which claims the group has been actively infiltrating Congress.
Reps. Sue Myrick of North Carolina, Trent Franks of Arizona, Paul Broun of Georgia and John Shadegg of Arizona asked the Internal Revenue Service to determine whether CAIR deserves its nonprofit status. They also are asking their colleagues to review a summary of findings that led the Justice Department to name CAIR as a co-conspirator in a terrorism case.
The internal memo, provided to FOXNews.com, stated that CAIR would "focus on influencing congressmen responsible for policy that directly impacts the American Muslim community."
The memo cited three House committees -- Homeland Security, Intelligence and the Judiciary -- as panels on which lawmakers preside over policy affecting American Muslims.
"We will develop national initiatives such as a lobby day and placing Muslim interns in Congressional offices," the memo read.
Earlier this year the FBI severed its once-close ties with CAIR as evidence mounted of the group's links to a support network for Hamas, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization.
"It's frightening to think that an organization with clear-cut ties to terrorism could have a hand in influencing policy -- especially national security policy -- within our government," Myrick said. "The investigations that we're asking for are simple, and I'm hopeful that they will bring to light any and all information regarding the goals of CAIR."
Franks called on CAIR to renounce its ties to terrorist groups and state publicly that it does not support Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood.
"I take the charges levied against CAIR and laid out in this book very seriously because they affect our national security," Franks said in a statement. "This Congress must be deliberate in taking a strong stance against those groups and organizations that align themselves with terrorists."
"We live in a post-9/11 world where the coincidence of nuclear proliferation and Islamic terrorism pose a very dangerous combination and real threat to America's national security," he said. "That is why it is critical, in light of the well supported documents and information, that the U.S. Congress take this issue seriously."
CAIR decried the call as a "racist" and "insidious" attack on Muslims and mocked the allegations.
"If it wasn't so insidious, it would be laughable," CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper told FOXNews.com. "What are their charges? CAIR seeks political participation of Muslims. I'm shocked."
Hooper said the evidence proves only that the group is trying, like every other minority group, to engage Muslims in the political process.
"Why is it evil when Muslims seek political participation?" he asked.
In the book "Muslim Mafia," a six-month sting appears to link CAIR to an organized crime network made up of more than 100 other Muslim front groups that make up the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. The book claims the group is bent on destroying Western civilization.
Hooper said Sperry's efforts only proved the group's good intentions.
"The guy spied on us for months, stole documents -- and the most they came up with is CAIR seeks to work with policymakers on Capitol Hill?" Hooper said.
"I see it as a stamp of approval."
Report: Global Muslim population hits 1.57 billion
By ERIC GORSKI (AP) – 1 day ago
The global Muslim population stands at 1.57 billion, meaning that nearly 1 in 4 people in the world practice Islam, according to a report Wednesday billed as the most comprehensive of its kind.
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life report provides a precise number for a population whose size has long has been subject to guesswork, with estimates ranging anywhere from 1 billion to 1.8 billion.
The project, three years in the making, also presents a portrait of the Muslim world that might surprise some. For instance, Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon, China has more Muslims than Syria, Russia has more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined, and Ethiopia has nearly as many Muslims as Afghanistan.
"This whole idea that Muslims are Arabs and Arabs are Muslims is really just obliterated by this report," said Amaney Jamal, an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University who reviewed an advance copy.
Pew officials call the report the most thorough on the size and distribution of adherents of the world's second largest religion behind Christianity, which has an estimated 2.1 billion to 2.2 billion followers.
The arduous task of determining the Muslim populations in 232 countries and territories involved analyzing census reports, demographic studies and general population surveys, the report says. In cases where the data was a few years old, researchers projected 2009 numbers.
The report also sought to pinpoint the world's Sunni-Shiite breakdown, but difficulties arose because so few countries track sectarian affiliation, said Brian Grim, the project's senior researcher.
As a result, the Shiite numbers are not as precise; the report estimates that Shiites represent between 10 and 13 percent of the Muslim population, in line with or slightly lower than other studies. As much as 80 percent of the world's Shiite population lives in four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq.
The report provides further evidence that while the heart of Islam might beat in the Middle East, its greatest numbers lie in Asia: More than 60 percent of the world's Muslims live in Asia.
About 20 percent live in the Middle East and North Africa, 15 percent live in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2.4 percent are in Europe and 0.3 percent are in the Americas. While the Middle East and North Africa have fewer Muslims overall than Asia, the region easily claims the most Muslim-majority countries.
While those population trends are well established, the large numbers of Muslims who live as minorities in countries aren't as scrutinized. The report identified about 317 million Muslims — or one-fifth of the world's Muslim population — living in countries where Islam is not the majority religion.
About three-quarters of Muslims living as minorities are concentrated in five countries: India (161 million), Ethiopia (28 million), China (22 million), Russia (16 million) and Tanzania (13 million).
In several of these countries — from India to Nigeria and China to France — divisions featuring a volatile mix of religion, class and politics have contributed to tension and bloodshed among groups.
The immense size of majority-Hindu India is underscored by the fact that it boasts the third-largest Muslim population of any nation — yet Muslims account for just 13 percent of India's population.
"Most people think of the Muslim world being Muslims living mostly in Muslim-majority countries," Grim said. "But with India ... that sort of turns that on its head a bit."
Among the report's other highlights:
_ Two-thirds of all Muslims live in 10 countries. Six are in Asia (Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Iran and Turkey), three are in North Africa (Egypt, Algeria and Morocco) and one is in sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria).
_ Indonesia, which has a tradition of a more tolerant Islam, has the world's largest Muslim population (203 million, or 13 percent of the world's total). Religious extremists have been involved in several high-profile bombings there in recent years.
_ In China, the highest concentrations of Muslims were in western provinces. The country experienced its worst outbreak of ethnic violence in decades when rioting broke out this summer between minority Muslim Uighurs and majority Han Chinese.
_ Europe is home to about 38 million Muslims, or about five percent of its population. Germany appears to have more than 4 million Muslims — almost as many as North and South America combined. In France, where tensions have run high over an influx of Muslim immigrant laborers, the overall numbers were lower but a larger percentage of the population is Muslim.
_ Of roughly 4.6 million Muslims in the Americas, more than half live in the United States although they only make up 0.8 percent of the population there. About 700,000 people in Canada are Muslim, or about 2 percent of the total population.
A future Pew Forum project, scheduled to be released in 2010, will build on the report's data to estimate growth rates among Muslim populations and project future trends.
A similar study on global Christianity is planned to begin next year.
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