Islamism - 6

04-16-2007, 07:28 AM

QUOTE(Mudy @ Apr 15 2007, 10:52 PM)Police gaffe makes Muslims pray in wrong direction <div class='quotetop'>QUOTEAMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch police station trying to help Muslim detainees face Mecca for their prayers painted arrows in cells pointing in the wrong direction.
[...]
It is a mystery for us how this could have possibly happened.[right][snapback]67103[/snapback][/right]</div>Mystery? Not at all, dear Watson. Merely surprised islamics aren't hailing this as proof of their allah, saying: 'see, he has a sense of humour.' <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='laugh.gif' />

In reality, however, ... <!--emo& Wink

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' />

Husky · (This post was last modified: 04-16-2007, 04:12 PM by Husky.)

QUOTE(Mudy @ Apr 15 2007, 08:52 PM)Looks like Australia is new Jihadi target.
[right][snapback]67085[/snapback][/right]Bit more on the news report pasted in #178:
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411749/1065906
QUOTEHate DVD causes Oz censorship row
Apr 16, 2007

Censorship laws in Australia could be widened to include a ban on pro-terrorism films, says Australia's federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock.

The move follows revelations that children can gain access to a race hate DVD which urges them to martyr themselves.

The film, contained in a package of DVDs prepared by exiled Australian-born Islamic cleric Sheik Feiz Mohammed, also calls for the murder of "infidels" and describes Jews as "pigs".
QUOTEHe (Ruddock) said he had spoken to some of the censors, who were required to work within the law, about why they had given the film a PG classification.

"I asked them why they came to this view and they said `we've looked at the these (Sheik Feiz Mohammed's) sermons and we thought they were just ranting'," Ruddock said.'Just ranting'?! Film censors were probably bored stiff when sheik fiz fizzy came on screen and started hysterically yelling the usual islamic hate speech - sorry, PEACE. But boredom's no excuse for falling asleep on the job.

04-16-2007, 12:23 PM

http://www.tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411749/1065940
QUOTETurkey EU entry "will take time"
Apr 16, 2007

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday that negotiations for Turkish entry to the European Union would take a long time.

She signalled that it was impossible to proceed any faster after Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan criticised Germany for not doing more to speed things up.

"It has always been said that the overall process will be a long one and the outcome is open," Merkel told reporters at a joint news conference with Erdogan.

Erdogan's visit to Germany follows weeks of criticism from Turkey and anger that representatives from Ankara were not invited to recent EU anniversary celebrations in Berlin.

Germany, home to a large Turkish immigrant community, took over the EU's rotating presidency in January.

Erdogan told a German magazine shortly before his two-day visit that Germany could have done more to push on with Turkey's EU membership talks during its leadership of the bloc.

"I seriously expected more from Germany," Erdogan was quoted as telling Der Spiegel news magazine. He called for a clear timetable for Turkish membership and said "2014 or 2015" would be a realistic and possible date.

Speaking through an interpreter, Erdogan told reporters on Sunday: "We must be patient."

Privileged partnership
Merkel's coalition government supports Turkish EU membership but the German leader has told her own Christian Democrat (CDU) party that she personally opposes full membership. Instead she favours a "privileged partnership" for Turkey within the bloc.

Since becoming chancellor, she has stuck to the line agreed with her coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), to continue talks with Turkey.

Merkel stressed on Sunday that one chapter had been closed in the 35 policy areas due to be discussed. A second had been opened and a further two could possibly be opened by the end of the German presidency in June.

In the magazine interview, Erdogan also objected to the decision not to invite Turkey to celebrations last month to mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome.

Merkel said on Sunday that the event had been organised in 2006 before Germany took over the presidency.

Both leaders stressed the importance of Turkey's relations with Germany given the millions of people of Turkish descent who live in the country. Merkel called for better integration of Turkish-speakers into German society.

The two leaders were due to open a trade fair in the northern German city of Hanover later on Sunday. Turkey was Germany's 16th most important export partner in 2006, soaking up around $14 billion euros (NZ$25.6 billion) worth of German exports.

Source: Reuters

04-16-2007, 04:05 PM

Alarm in Spain over al-Qaeda call for its "reconquest"

QUOTEMadrid (dpa) - The emergence of a new al-Qaeda-linked organization in Northern Africa is alarming Spain, which is concerned about Islamists' calls for the reconquest of the country they regard as a lost part of the Muslim world.

"We will not be in peace until we set our foot again in our beloved al-Andalus," al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said on claiming responsibility for an attack which killed at least 24 people in Algiers on Wednesday.

Al-Andalus is the Moorish name for Spain, parts of which were ruled by Muslims for about eight centuries until the last Moorish bastion, Granada, succumbed to the Christian Reconquest in 1492.

The terrorists will undoubtedly attempt to extend their offensive from Northern Africa to European soil, anti-terrorism judge Baltasar Garzon warned, cautioning that Spain was at a "very high risk" of suffering an Islamist attack.
......

04-16-2007, 05:00 PM

The Spread of Islamic Fundamentalism in Russia

QUOTE
By Dr. Dmitry Shlapentokh for Prague Watchdog

Ever since the beginning of Gorbachevâs reforms almost a generation ago, Russiaâs large and growing Muslim population has been continuously restless. While at the beginning of the process many Russian Muslims actively integrated Islam into the nationalist discourse of the various ethnic groups of the Russian Federation, which has historically professed Islam, a new trend has recently emerged. The Islam that was integrated into the various nationalist ideologies has increasingly been replaced by a universalistic jihadism. 

Although there are many different reasons for this transformation of Islam in Russia, one or two major causes can be singled out. First, the unworkability of nationalistic Islam as an ideology of national revival and possible independence or semi-independence from Russia. Second, the fact that the ideology of universalistic Islamism has increasingly become a replacement for universalistic Russian imperial nationalism.

And because of this, Islam has become increasingly popular among a wider range of converts, mostly ethnic Russians for whom Islam is not connected with any particular national aspiration and who seek in Islam what they have been unable to find in traditional Russian nationalism. The Russian converts seem to find in Islam a global appeal that transcends ethnic and national boundaries, something that has been known historically as the âRussian idea,â implying that Russia, as a sort of collective messiah, will lead humanity to a sort of Omega Point that represents the ideal society.

.....

04-16-2007, 05:09 PM

The Trouble with Islam

Husky · (This post was last modified: 04-19-2007, 02:26 PM by Husky.)

Not just islam, but christianity is to blame too:
http://au.news.yahoo.com//070227/15/12kcs.html
QUOTEThursday April 19, 05:50 PM
Sudan's young endure abuse: report
Children in Sudan are press-ganged, coerced to join armed groups, raped and used as forced labour or sex slaves, according to a new report by humanitarian groups. <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/furious.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='furious.gif' />
Christoislamiterrorism is a plague on this planet. Leave the Sudanese alone, leave Sudan.

Christians in the rich west keep donating to fund militias in Africa (even in countries where there is peace), because they know that where there is strife there will be need, where there is need people will be vulnerable, and where there are vulnerable people - they can be bought for christianity. It's the 'how to convert Africa to jeebus' trick.
And islam in Sudan, well, we needn't even discuss that. The news certainly has no problems relating what islam's doing in Sudan.

QUOTEWhile Sudan's military continues to deny the presence of children in its ranks, the report said its representatives acknowledged that youth from other armed groups recently had been incorporated into the government armed forces.

In Darfur, most rebel and militia groups recruit children, including the pro-government Arab militias known as the Janjaweed, the rebel Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army.

While reports of rape and maiming are prevalent in Darfur, Sudanese girls from other areas have been forced into prostitution or into domestic service in and out of Sudan.

Boys as young as 4 or 5 years old "have been trafficked to Arab Gulf countries to work as camel jockeys and beggars", Watchlist said.

Education is also a horror in many parts of the country, with the south having the lowest rate in the world of only 25 per cent of young people in school.I'm not so bothered about education. Let the children have a childhood first. Once they're safe, get them back to their parents and communities. Then the community will have them educated.

QUOTEThe six groups on the Watchlist steering committee are Care International, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, the Norwegian Refugee Council, International Save the Children Alliance, Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, and World Vision Canada.Oh, so many 'Good' charities - all working to save the children, for feeding them to jeebus!
I'm so sick of their 'look how we're helping'. No they're not. They whine about the islamoterrorists kidnapping Sudanese into slavery, but then what do the christoterrorist 'aid' organisations do? That's right, they buy the slaves (to convert them!; as if they care about African people otherwise) - thus ensuring the kidnapping and slavery continue.
And then many children and women in christo care are also abused. They're never safe with either religion.
Christoislamism is an evil terrorist ideology and it will decimate every population in the world if it's allowed.

04-26-2007, 09:02 PM

Saudi working women find it hard to be 'free'

04-27-2007, 07:02 PM

QUOTE(Mudy @ Apr 26 2007, 09:02 PM)Saudi working women find it hard to be 'free'
[right][snapback]67881[/snapback][/right]Very depressing <!--emo& Sad

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /> Even animals are free (wild animals).

So many restrictive experiences described in there, but this one struck me as a new, morbid way of controlling one half of the world's population:
QUOTEWomen are also banned from driving; so women like Asmaa have to take taxis to work, or be driven by their fathers or male relatives.Imagine, you can't even drive yourself to freedom. They're kept totally reliant.

Arabian women (and men) deserve better than to be treated like domestic animals or to be brought up treating the other half as such. Whenever I think, 'if only India could be free of terrorism and islamic laws and appeasement', I should remember Saudi women, Iranian women and Afghan women. What good is freedom, if it is not shared by all.

If they choose to, as many muslim women do, let them wear burkhas and such. But don't push them into it and beat them up for slight deviations from it. How can Arabian men be happy when their women suffer? Many young Iranian men can't stand it (read this on forums - although the same Iranians also tend to be apostates), and I'm sure the same is true of Arabian men.

They showed this documentary on the Emirates recently and how it was growing and many luxuries were entering the country. They showed this very rich young woman, without burkha and decked in the latest fashion and jewellery, who was passionate about jewellery. I wondered if she ever thinks about the freedom she enjoys due to her wealthy and more open-minded family, and whether she then thinks about the plight of her female compatriots. How can she bear it. I feel guilty and it's not even my religion or country.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 04-28-2007, 06:12 PM by Husky.)

Some interesting bits:

Reviewed Work(s): The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama by Sanjay Subrahmanyam, by Douglas L. Wheeler, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 28, No. 4. (Spring, 1998), pp. 673-674.
QUOTESubrahmanyam, an Asian historian who teaches in France, lends an Asian perspective to da Gama and the economic relationships in the Indian Ocean during the first quarter of the sixteenth century. He argues convincingly that no "Islamic world economy" had infiltrated the region c. 1500, only polycentric networks of great religious and ethnic diversity-the challenging context into which the Portuguese inserted themselves. 

Irrigation Agrosystems in Eastern Spain: Roman or Islamic Origins?, Karl W. Butzer; Juan F. Mateu; Elisabeth K. Butzer; Pavel Kraus, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 75, No. 4. (Dec., 1985), pp. 479-509.
QUOTEAbstract. The long-standing controversy concerning Islamic diffusion of cultivars and irrigation technology to Spain is approached by comparing Roman and Islamic agrosystems at the general, regional, and local levels. We describe the Roman intensification of the older Mediterranean agrosystem and then examine the subsequent agricultural and demographic decline between A.D. 250 and 800. The operation, organization, and evolution of large, intermediate, and small-scale irrigation are analyzed in seven case studies from the Valencia region of eastern Spain. The largest systems were refurbished in Islamic times, but during a period when Berber and Arab settlement was thin and acculturation of the indigenous population incomplete. As a result the Roman agrosystem and irrigation networks remained largely unchanged, despite the presence of new technologic features and cultivars. Later transfer of irrigation agriculture to the adjacent mountain valleys followed the Roman model, but with more Islamic elements apparent. Muslim agriculture in the area remained characteristically Mediterranean after the Christian Reconquest (A.D. 1238), and it survived largely intact into the present century, even after the Muslim expulsion in 1609. [...]QUOTEIn conclusion, the Spanish irrigation agrosystem was not the product of Islamic civilization, and it is a bad cliche to regard Medieval horticulture in Spain as a re-creation of the desert oasis. Islam contributed significantly to both renewed expansion and further development of Spanish agrosystems. But the Hispano-Romans practiced sophisticated irrigation on a major scale, their basic agrosystem survived intact during the late Roman and Visigothic economic depression, and subsequent re-intensification represented a revival of the Roman system under conditions of demographic and economic growth.

The Mirage of Islamic Art: Reflections on the Study of an Unwieldy Field, Sheila S. Blair; Jonathan M. Bloom, The Art Bulletin, Vol. 85, No. 1. (Mar., 2003), pp. 152-184.
QUOTEThe Definition and Historiography of Islamic Art
Islamic art is generally held to be "the art made by artists or artisans whose religion was Islam, for patrons who lived in predominantly Muslirn lands, or for purposes that are restricted or peculiar to a Muslim population or a Muslim setting." It therefore encompasses much, if not most, of the art produced over fourteen centuries in the "islamic lands," usually defined as the arid belt covering much of West Asia but stretching from the Atlantic coast of North Africa and Spain on the west to the steppes of Central Asia and the Indian Ocean on the east.QUOTEDespite its name, the academic field of Islamic art has only a tenuous and problematic relationship with the religion of Islam. While some Islamic art may have been made by Muslims for purposes of the faith, much of it was not. A mosque or a copy of the Koran clearly fits everybody's definition of Islamic art, but what about a twelfth-century Syrian bronze canteen inlaid with Arabic inscriptions and Christian scenes? A carpet bearing a design of a niche containing a lamp and laid on the ground in the direction of Mecca is clearly Islamic art, but what about a technically identical but iconographically different carpet used simply to cover and soften the floor? Some historians have attempted to solve these problems by creating new adjectives such as "Islamicate" to refer to the secular culture of Islamic civilization, but these unwieldy neologisms have not found widespread acceptance. Rather, most scholars tacitly accept that the convenient if incorrect term "Islamic" refers not just to the religion of Islam but to the larger culture in which Islam was the dominant - but not sole - religion practiced. Although it looks similar, "Islamic art" is therefore not cornparable to such concepts as "Christian" or "Buddhist" art, which are normally understood to refer specifically to religious art. Christian art, for example, does not usually include all the art of Europe between the fall of Rome and the Reformation, nor does Buddhist art encompass all the arts of Asia produced between the Kushans and Kyoto. This important, if simple, distinction is often overlooked.QUOTECompared with other fields of art history, the study of Islamic art and architecture is relatively new. It was invented at the end of the nineteenth century and was of interest primarily to European and later American scholars. Unlike the study of Chinese art, which Chinese scholars have pursued for centuries, there is no indigenous tradition in any of the Islamic lands of studying islamic art, with the possible exception of calligraphy, which has enjoyed a special status since the seventh century, and by extension book painting, which was collected since the sixteenth." There is no evidence that any artist or patron in the fourteen centuries since the revelation of Islam ever thought of his or her art as "islamic," and the notion of a distinctly "Islamic" tradition of art and architecture, eventually encompassing the lands between the Atlantic and the Indian oceans, is a product of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western scholarship, as is the terminology used to identify it. Until that time, European scholars used such restrictive geographic or ethnic terms as "Indian" ("Hindu"), "Persian," "Turkish," "Arab," "Saracenic," and "Moorish" to describe distinct regional styles current in the Indian subcontinent, the Ottoman Empire, Iran, the Levant, and southern Spain. Such all-embracing terms as "Mahommedan" or "Mohammedan," "Moslem" or "Muslim," and "Islamic" came into favor only when twentieth-century scholars began to look back to a golden age of Islamic culture that they believe had flourished in the eighth and ninth centuries and project it simplistically onto the kaleidoscopic modern world. In short, Islamic art as it exists in the early twenty-first century is largely a creation of Western culture. This all-embracing view of islam and islamic art was a by-product of European interest in delineating the history of religions, in which the multifarious varieties of human spiritual expression were lumped together in a normative notion of a single "Islam," which could be effectively juxtaposed not only to heterodox "variants" such as "Shiism" and "Sufism" but also, and more importantly in the Western view, to equally normative notions of "Christianity" or "Judaism."

04-29-2007, 10:59 PM

Iran bans Western haircuts, eyebrow plucking for menQUOTEStory Highlights
â¢ Fashion bans are attempts to crack down on clothes, hairdos deemed un-Islamic
â¢ Hairstyle ban comes a week after crackdown on women in short, skimpy clothes
â¢ Women can be lashed, fined, imprisoned for wearing suggestive attire
â¢ Union: Violating barbers could see monthlong suspensions, license revocations

Husky · (This post was last modified: 05-01-2007, 08:22 PM by Husky.)

2 different news reports:

(1) Note the title - no mention of the islamics. Just some random Brits, then? Thought not.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070430/2/13aj4.html
QUOTETuesday May 1, 07:38 AM
Brits get life for bombing spree plot
A judge jailed five Britons for life for plotting to carry out al-Qaeda-inspired bomb attacks across Britain at targets ranging from nightclubs to trains and a shopping centre.

"The sentences are for life. Release is not a foregone conclusion. Some or all of you may never be released," judge Michael Astill told the court.
(Though I thoroughly agree, have to wonder. Are these the same Brits who are telling India not to hang Afzal? Instant death - not the painful electric chair variety - is more merciful than ~65-70 yrs in prison, I'd have thought. Maybe the Indian Psecular Association for Defense of Terrorists feels it incumbent on themselves to go and protest the UK sentence now.)

"You are considered cruel, ruthless misfits by society."

The gang planned to use 600 kg of ammonium nitrate fertiliser to make explosives to be used in bombings in revenge for Britain's support for the United States in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, prosecutors said.

Court papers, which could only be detailed after the trial, showed police observing the gang had established links between them and two of four British Islamists who later carried out suicide bombings in London on July 7, 2005, killing 52 people.

Spies had seen Mohammed Sidique Khan, the suspected ringleader of the July 7 bombings, and accomplice Shehzad Tanweer with the men in the days leading up to their arrest but discounted them because they were not involved in the plot.

Opposition parties and survivors of the bombings demanded a public inquiry into the July 7 attacks in response to the news.

The government praised the police for their work.

"Five dangerous terrorists are now behind bars thanks to the hard work of our police and security services," Home Secretary (Interior Minister) John Reid told reporters.

"It's not the first time they have averted a very serious threat to life in this country. This is an endless task, it is a continuing one."

Counter-terrorism experts said the gang could have produced a "formidable weapon" more powerful than some of the devices used in recent devastating attacks around the world.

"It was the first time since 9/11 that British people were attempting to commit mass murder in the UK," said one senior detective.
(These terrorists are not British, they do not regard themselves as British in private. They consider themselves the Faithful, with loyalties to the koran and the global ummah. So the detectives shouldn't be afraid to use the appropriate term.)

"The only sensible conclusion is that al-Qaeda does sit behind it," he told reporters.It's like a little game the international media and western governments play. Everyone works hard not to identify the terrorists by the correct term, for fear of implicating the ideology. Because that would be un-PC. But it's the ideology that is the cause of the terrorism. They'll never defeat the problem unless they dare to utter its name. Admitting to a problem is the first step, after all. Goes to show UK is dhimmistan already; the mind is ready to accept submission ('islam'). Next step: dar-ul-islam.

(2) Turkiye:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070501/15/13b19.html
QUOTETuesday May 1, 11:29 PM
Turk police detain hundreds, political tension high
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish police beat and detained hundreds of May Day protesters in Istanbul on Tuesday, adding to tension in a country already rocked by a court challenge to the presidential election, army threats and a million-strong march.
Police detained 700 people in Istanbul in street battles with leftist demonstrators protesting on the May Day anniversary of a mass shooting 30 years ago by unknown gunmen. Riot police fired tear gas and used water canons to break up the crowds. Youths threw Molotov cocktails and set cars ablaze.

The clashes come just two days after a peaceful march by an estimated one million people in the city against the government nomination for president of Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, a former minister in an ousted Islamist government 10 years ago.

May Day protests are an annual feature in Turkey and unconnected to the crisis over the presidency, but could still add to the air of crisis that has rattled financial markets in the $400 billion-dollar economy.

"It's for the election and May 1. I came for both. Turkey is going through a tense period," said one protester, Erhan, 28, a driver who declined to give his full name.

The Constitutional Court said it will try to issue a verdict on Tuesday on the request by the secularist Republican People's Party (CHP) to halt the presidential election.

The CHP says there were not enough deputies in the chamber in the first round of voting last week to make it valid.

Suspending the presidential election could trigger early parliamentary polls and, analysts say, help defuse the tensions between secularists, including the army, and the government.

But the court has been urged to reject the CHP challenge. Constitutional Court rapporteur Hikmet Tulen, who acts as a prosecutor in such cases, had recommended the bid be rejected, newspapers said. The recommendation is not binding.

The crisis stems from a failure to bridge a divide between people who want Turkey to keep a strict separation of state and mosque and a growing class of more religiously-minded Turks who have prospered under the ruling AK Party and want a relaxation of strict curbs on religious symbols and expression.

CIVIL UNREST

Thousands of people also protested at a peaceful authorized May Day march on the Asian side of Istanbul, a city severely disrupted on Tuesday by a security clampdown. People carried Turkish flags with only a few banners opposing Gul's presidency.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is facing his biggest crisis since coming to power and has appealed for national unity. He has not commented on the fiercely secular army's threatened intervention in the presidential election, or the rallies.

Turkish financial markets recorded their biggest falls in a year on Monday and the currency lost more ground on Tuesday.

Economy Minister Ali Babacan said the economy was ready for early elections, a comment seen as an attempt to calm markets.

Turkey's military has intervened four times since 1960. In 1997 it helped push out a government it deemed an Islamist threat. Gul was a minister in the 1997 government.

The secularist establishment fears that once the AK Party secures control of the presidency it will chip away at the secular principles of the republic. The party denies the claim.

Parliament, in which AK Party has a big majority, elects the president for a seven-year term in predominantly Muslim Turkey.

Parliament is due to hold a second round of voting in the presidential election on Wednesday after Gul failed to secure enough votes at the first round last Friday.

(Additional reporting by Daren Butler, Osman Senkul and Mustafa Yukselbaba in Istanbul)Secular Turks can only hold islamistan at bay up to the point where the majority starts clammering for one. After that, even democracy will ensure a faithful party is elected, and that will lead to islamisation of the secular nation and eventual end of all secularism.
Besides, there's that other option the faithful have and are known to use: any secular country of muslims is always one step away from some islamic revolution or 'struggle' that will topple the secular government/replace it with an islami one.

05-04-2007, 09:32 AM

QUOTEMosque minarets a threat: Swiss MPs

GENEVA: Right-wing politicians from Switzerlandâs largest political party on Thursday launched a campaign for a referendum to ban the construction of minarets on mosques, claiming they symbolised an Islamist bid for power. The group, including more than half of the Swiss Peopleâs Partyâs (SVP) parliamentarians, said in a statement that a ban would help stop âattempts by Islamist circles to impose a legal system based on the sharia in Switzerlandâ. Some of the politicians said they did not oppose mosques or Muslimsâ right to worship. The Swiss constitution guarantees religious freedoms and the legality of the initiative was questioned by one former judge. Parliamentarian Oskar Freysinger branded minarets âlighthouses of jihadâ while his colleague Ulrich Schlueer claimed that they were âIslamist buildings with an imperialist connotationâ. Schlueer said minarets were not a religious symbol but a sign of a âpolitical-religious bid for powerâ. Under the rules of Switzerlandâs âpeopleâs initiativeâ, the campaigners need to collect at least 100,000 signatures by November 2008 backing their call in order to trigger a national referendum on the issue, subject to legal checks. The campaigners want to amend another constitutional article that upholds peace between members of religious communities, by inserting a clause explicitly forbidding the construction of minarets. The move follows at least four localised challenges by rightwingers to plans to build small minarets or even the principle, although the challenges have often been rejected by local authorities or courts. There are just two mosques in Switzerland with minarets, in Zurich and Geneva, built in the 1960s and 1970s. Swiss Roman Catholic bishops dealing with relations with Muslims said in a statement that they opposed the campaign for a blanket ban on minarets. Supporters of the anti-minaret initiative include 36 of the SVPâs 63 parliamentarians and two from a small hard right party. The SVPâs assembly is due to decide next month whether or not to grant the partyâs support to the initiative. The campaign will also coincide with general elections in October. afp

05-04-2007, 11:08 PM

QUOTEPakistani Sikh chased out for not embracing 'authentic Islam' 
Pioneer.com
PTI | Islamabad
An Islamist group in Pakistan has forced a Sikh, who had converted to Islam 29 years ago, to leave his village in Peshawar's Tirah Valley after his house was set on fire and his son kidnapped for not embracing "authentic Islam".

Leaders of Ansar-ul-Islam (AI), a religious group in North West Frontier Province's Khyber Agency, was accused of expelling the Tirah-based Sikh for converting to the "Lashkar-e-Islam's untrue version of Islam".

"Qazi Mehboob and Said Akbar came to me and said my first Islam is not genuine. They said it was tableeghi Islam," said Din Muhammad, who had converted to Islam 29 years ago.

Din said the Ansar-ul-Islam leaders forced his family to leave their native village Landakas in Tirah Valley when he refused to accept their demand to revert to Sikhism or embrace the "authentic Islam" that the Ansar-ul-Islam was practising.

He accused the Ansar-ul-Islam activists of kidnapping one of his four sons and forcing him to a pay a ransom of Rs 200,000 for his release. They also set his house on fire a month ago and seized his five kanals of land.

"I am now living in a rented house in Sureyzai village near Peshawar along with my wife, four sons and six daughters, Din said, adding that he was jobless and only his eldest son was working at a poultry farm.

"We are living from hand to mouth," he said, adding that the Sikh community in Tirah Valley had abandoned them when he and his family converted to Islam.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 05-05-2007, 06:43 PM by Husky.)

http://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?Story...04-035224-1159r
QUOTEUS gets creative in online battle against Al Qaeda
May 4, 2007

WASHINGTON -- US officials championing freedom and democracy are well aware that they cannot try to silence Islamist militants by censoring or blocking the burgeoning number of Al Qaeda related Web sites.

But they are attempting to exploit potential weaknesses in the terror network's skyrocketing use of online media to spread its ideology, raise money, and recruit and train new followers.

"It is not possible to capture, kill, or incarcerate ideas," Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Felter, director of the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States military academy at West Point, told a Senate hearing on homeland security Thursday. "But we can do a better job of understanding how the Internet facilitates these processes so we can monitor and thwart those who join the jihadi movement."

Frank Cilluffo, director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University, said that the Internet has created a "largely borderless world."

"Internet chat rooms are now supplementing and replacing mosques, community centers, and coffee shops as venues for recruitment and radicalization by terrorist groups like Al Qaeda," he said.

To fight that, Cilluffo outlined a number of tactics for tapping into the online community and using its very nature to US advantage.

For one, "it is possible that an intelligence officer posing as a sympathizer could infiltrate an online extremist community," he said. "Seeds of confusion, doubt, and distrust could then be planted in order to chip away at the ties that bind individual extremists into a cohesive and dangerous group."
(I thought they were already using this method on many online communities?)

Other tactics that he proposed included "deepen[ing] our understanding of the process of radicalization."

Michael Doran, deputy assistant secretary of defense, said that the anonymous nature of the Internet makes militants difficult to track, and the speed with which messages are broadcast and copied onto other sites compounds the challenges.

"Because individuals can access the Internet anonymously from virtually anywhere on the globe, the use of the Web by terrorists is a constantly moving target," he said. "From a handful of terrorist Web sites in 2000, today there are many thousands of terrorist-related Web sites in existence, with more appearing each week.

"Our deep commitment to a free society and the very nature of the Web make it virtually impossible to prevent terrorists from using the Internet altogether," he added.

Felter concurred that attempts to close down the sites have proven futile.

"Attempts to shut down Web sites have proven as fruitless as a game of whack-a-mole. An open society in the information age offers opportunities for asymmetric warfare that cannot be taken away, only countered."

Felter said that militants use the satellite mapping site Google Earth to plan attacks in Iraq, and gather specifications on US tactical vehicles used in Iraq based on the manufacturers' Web sites, techniques that US intelligence can use, too.

"Know your enemy - read what the terrorists are telling us online," he said.

"Exploit enemy vulnerabilities made publicly available on the Internet. One of the most effective ways to hurt the jihadis is to use their own writings, discourse, and Web postings against them," Felter said. "We can monitor them ... follow the networks and assess their operational capacity. We can sabotage them by infiltrating their networks and flooding the Web with bogus information.

"And we can anticipate their attacks by reading their strategic literature and following trends on their Web forums and discussion boards."

Cilluffo advised offering "a compelling narrative that pulls potential extremists back from the brink," but warned that such a narrative "should not be confused with efforts to improve America's image," rather it should "offer a 'dream.'"

He also lamented the lack of Arabic-speakers in US intelligence services.

"The ability to speak, understand, and translate Arabic is crucial to prevention and response efforts, yet US government capacities in that regard are much weaker than they should be."(a) Doesn't the US already flood the web with bogus information? Wackypedia is unlikely to be the only source of utter drivel.
(b) Glad they've finally caught onto what everyone already knows, and are now intending to start monitoring islami forums: the islamists are unashamedly advertising on forums what they're going to do to kafirs and kafiristans. Someone just needs to read all that boring hatespeech to find out what. Wrongly thought US was already on this.

Of course, nothing's stopping the salamis from flooding the web with bogus islami info just to fool the US monitoring agencies. I like the idea of CIA and jihadis wasting their time creating and reading each other's nonsense. I mean, they were already creating nonsense, but never before did they have such dedicated readership for it <!--emo& Big Grin

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />

05-06-2007, 09:16 PM

Now Muslims get their own laws in Britain 
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/5795
By Paul Jeeves - April 30,2007

05-06-2007, 10:06 PM

QUOTEhttp://www.metimes.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20070503-060203-5633r
Hindu gets custody of children from MuslimÂ wife
May 3, 2007
KUALA LUMPUR --Â A Malaysian Hindu manÂ forcibly separated from his Muslim wife by Islamic authorities because they areÂ of different religions was Thursday granted custody of their children in aÂ milestone case.

The children will be raised as Hindus inÂ central Selangor state despite having one Muslim parent - which lawyers said wasÂ unprecedented in mainly Muslim Malaysia.

Selangor Islamic authoritiesÂ last month forcibly separated ethnic Indian P. Marimuthu from his ethnic IndianÂ Muslim wife of 21 years, Raimah Bibi Noordin and six of their seven children.Â

During a high court hearing west of Kuala Lumpur, Raimah, 39, clad inÂ traditional Malay floor-length attire with a Muslim headscarf, told the judgeÂ that she was voluntarily giving up custody of her children.

"I agree toÂ hand over the custody of my children to my husband to be raised as Hindus," Raimah said, before she broke down in tears.

Under Malaysian law, a non-Muslim must convertÂ to Islam in order to marry a Muslim, and children born to Muslims must be raisedÂ as followers of that religion.

Government legal advisorÂ Zauyah Be Loth Khan said that Selangor's Islamic Affairs Department did notÂ object to the children being raised as Hindus.

"She is still entitled toÂ visiting rights at any time," Zauyah toldÂ reporters.

First victory in Islamic nation.

Bharatvarsh · 05-07-2007, 02:04 AM

QUOTEFirst victory in Islamic nation.
Not really, as Husky pointed out in the other thread, the woman was a practicing Hindu and was adopted by a Muslim couple, they have been married for 21 years or something before the idiots intervened now.

05-09-2007, 03:22 AM

QUOTETo the Shores of Tripoli 
By Fred Thompson

From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of Tripoli.
We fight our countryâs battles in the air, on land and sea.
First to fight for right and freedom, and to keep our honor clean;
We are proud to claim the title of United States Marine. 

Thatâs from the Marine Corps Hymn, of course, and you can thank me for not singing it. When I was a boy, a lot of America kids knew that verse â and probably a few more. I hope they still do, but I get the impression that might not be the case. U.S. Marines patrol the street in Ramadi, 115 kilometers (70 miles) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, April 8, 2007. U.S. forces have tried just about everything to quell the Sunni insurgency in the capital of blood-soaked Anbar province, and after years of some of the fiercest street fighting of the war, something finally appears to have worked: Ramadi, at least by Ramadi standards, is calm.

Thatâs one reason Iâd like to spend some time talking about the heritage this song represents. Another reason is that the lyrics hold a history lesson critical to Americaâs future. I realize a lot of you already know this material, but indulge me for the sake of those who might not.

The very first line written for the Marine Corps Hymn, about the shores of Tripoli, refers to Americaâs first foreign war. After the Revolution, U.S. ships were sailing the world in search of trade without British protection. With no real navy to protect our merchants and travelers, American vessels and citizens were being targeted for looting, enslavement and ransom. The enemy was the so-called Barbary pirates â agents of the North African provinces of the Ottoman Caliphate.

Ransom and protection money were demanded and paid. Stories of terrible treatment of American men and women in the dungeons of North Africa were well known. Behind it all, the country was having a pro- and antiwar debate.

On the one hand were those who took the âno blood for tradeâ approach. They had legitimate concerns about the cost and political impact of maintaining a standing military. They favored negotiations and payments rather than fighting. For a long time, their side was winning the argument. In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams even went to London to negotiate directly with the envoy from Tripoli.

Several historians and writers have reminded us recently of the ambassadorâs nearly forgotten answer. Fortunately, Jefferson prepared a written report for the government and left other records of the incident. Hereâs a description from The Atlantic Monthly in 1872:

Disguising their feelings as best they could, they âtook the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury.â The ambassador replied that it was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave.â He claimed every one of their guys who was âslain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise.

This answer may have helped sway the debate to the side of those who favored military response over further attempts at diplomacy. Some believe it had a personal impact on Jefferson himself, though higher and higher ransoms probably helped too. Congress finally acted, creating the U.S. Navy in 1794. This included approval for the construction and manning of six frigate warships, including the USS Constitution â which is afloat and commissioned to this day.

Still, though, congress refused to act directly against the Barbary pirates for years. Eventually, between 10 and 20 percent of U.S. revenues would be paid annually without ever buying actual safety for Americans. In the end, Thomas Jefferson acted on his own, sending forces into harmâs way. America entered into its first and protracted foreign war. From beginning to end, in fact, the conflict lasted approximately 14 years. I couldnât tell you, by the way, if the Barbary wars were ever described as a âquagmireâ or âlost.â

I wonât describe here the taking of Tripoli by courageous American soldiers. And I sure donât have time to talk about Americaâs eventual victory over the forces of that eraâs religiously justified terrorism. I would though encourage you to read about it for yourself. Itâs a great story and it holds an important lesson about the nature of the world.

Sometimes folks around the world mock Americans for not having more of a sense of history. They might be right, but I think it is often for a good reason. Americans are a people who look to the future instead of the past. We hope and believe that things can and will get better. We are more than willing to forgive our old enemies and move forward together in peace. So we tend to forget the bad things we left behind.

Unfortunately, some of our enemies feel differently. They neither forgive nor forget. Listening to the messages of al Qaedaâs leaders, you understand that they see their old defeats in very personal and contemporary terms. They are in a âlong warâ against us, even if we donât know it. And theyâre committed to winning it.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 05-09-2007, 01:33 PM by Husky.)

Attempted yeehahd in America.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/070508/19/13e4x.html
QUOTEWednesday May 9, 04:00 PM
Six arrested in plot against US army base

Photo : AFPÂ
NEW YORK (AFP) - Six suspected Islamic radicals have been arrested and charged with plotting to kill "as many soldiers as possible" at a US military base in New Jersey, US authorities said on Tuesday.

The suspects, including a pizza delivery man who allegedly used his job to case the army base, were arrested on Monday night as they tried to buy automatic rifles. They were due to appear Tuesday in a New Jersey court after a 16-month sting operation.

Two undercover FBI informers had infiltrated the group and recorded their conversations about launching an attack on Fort Dix army base, federal prosecutors said.

The alleged plot was foiled after a shop clerk alerted police to a "disturbing" video that the suspects had made of themselves and asked to be burned to a DVD.

Prosecutors said the footage showed the accused firing guns in militia-style, calling for holy war and shouting "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is great."

One of the suspects, Mohamad Shnewer, a Philadelphia taxi driver, allegedly told an informer that six or seven "jihadists" planned the operation on Fort Dix to kill "at least one hundred soldiers" by using rocket-propelled grenades or other weapons, the New Jersey US attorney's office said.

"My intent is to hit a heavy concentration of soldiers," Shnewer was quoted as saying in the charge sheet. "You hit four, five or six humvees and light the whole place (up) and retreat completely without any losses."

The White House and law enforcement officials said the group apparently had no ties to international terrorist networks, but an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation said the case represented a new kind of "homegrown" terrorist threat.

"What we are witnessing is a brand new form of terrorism. Today threats come from smaller, more loosely defined individuals who may or may not be affiliated with Al-Qaeda but are inspired by their violent ideology," FBI special agent J.P. Weis told a news conference in New Jersey.
(Here's a hint for the CIA and FBI and DIA and DOD and the other PC (clueless?) departments: the 'violent ideology' has a name. It's called islam. You know, it's the one everyone declares means 'peace'.)

"This homegrown terror can prove to be as dangerous as any group known if not more so. They operate under the radar," he said.

Weis also praised the shop clerk who informed police about the video as "an unsung hero."

Prosecutors said the suspects sought out detailed maps of Fort Dix and also scouted other military installations as possible targets, including a naval site to be attacked during the annual Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia.

"It was clear they were committed," White House Homeland Security advisor Frances Townsend told CNN.

"They had in their possession the last will and testaments of two of the 9/11 hijackers," she said.

Five of the suspects are charged with conspiracy to murder US soldiers and the sixth defendant is accused of aiding the suspects in acquiring illegal firearms, the US Attorney's office said.

The men are accused of attending training sessions in the Pocono mountains in Pennsylvania, trying to acquire AK-47 assault rifles and other weapons, and reviewing "terrorist training videos," according to federal prosecutors.
(Terrorist training camps in US' own backyard. Like the ones US funds TSP and Taliban to create in India.)

Four of the suspects, including three brothers, were from former Yugoslavia, while the fifth was born in Jordan and the sixth in Turkey. Three worked as roofers, another as a taxi driver.
(Ah, islamis from Yugoslavia. The same people the US greatly helped to oppress and murder Serbians and destroy Serbia.
And here I was, starting to think 'what goes around comes around' had stopped being a truism.)

The Council on American-Islamic Relations applauded government authorities for disrupting the alleged plot and repudiated all those claiming religious justification for acts of terror.

The group also asked that US officials and media "refrain from linking this case to the faith of Islam."
(It is very much islam.
CAIR is lying again - but then, 'lying for islam' is thoroughly ok. Everyone knows CAIR is made up of a gang of almost out-and-about jihadists themselves, albeit a more groomed variety. CAIR should stop terrorising Americans, and go terrorise its own kind in Ooosama's street. I hear they're starved for entertainment there. CAIR might wash.)

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