March 23, 2013
NYC Letter: The Caliphate, It's Gonna Be Great! -- Please Shut Up. Well, Um...OK. Redux
Day 1,517 of CHOPE
D-minus 1,402 Days
If you tweet, we thought you might want to know.
BAHRAIN ARRESTS TWITTER USERS,
ARAB LEADERS WARN OF SOCIAL MEDIA "EXTREMISM"
March 14, 2013 (TMN) - Bahraini authorities have detained six people for allegedly defaming the country's ruler on Twitter, according to the country’s public prosecutor’s office.... The Bahraini prosecutor's statement Wednesday said the activists, who were detained over the past couple of days, will be charged with misusing Twitter and insulting King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa.
... Meanwhile, Arab interior ministers warned of the spread of extremism through social media networks at a security meeting in Riyadh Wednesday.
“Extremist thought...on social networks has resulted in a major increase in terrorist acts, political assassinations and sectarian conflicts," Mohammed Kuman, head of the council of Arab interior ministers said in an opening speech.
SAUDI GRAND MUFTI:
TWITTER USERS ARE CLOWNS
March 23, 2013 (Riyadh Bureau) - Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti said Thursday that youth are wasting their time by using the Internet, especially social media sites like Twitter. The daily al-Watan quoted Sheikh Abdulaziz Al Alsheikh as saying, "Twitter has become a gathering place for every clown and corrupter who post tweets that are illegitimate, false and wrong."... Twitter has become a major platform for Saudi to exchange ideas and debate political issues in the country. A recent survey said 51% of internet users in Saudi Arabia are active Twitter users, putting it in first place worldwide. A Saudi official admitted last month that the government is struggling to monitor and censor the site due to the huge volume of messages posted by users inside the country.
A word to the wise, come the Caliphate, catch a clue or perish.
CHOPE.
Clowns.
March 01, 2013
NYC Letter: The Caliphate, It's Gonna Be Great! -- Please Shut Up. Well, Um...OK.
Day 1,496 of CHOPE
D-minus 1,423 Days
Salman Rushdie,The pope gets ridiculed every day, but you don't see Catholics organizing terrorist attacks around the world. ... I don't like the word Islamophobia. We must distinguish between attacking ideas and attacking people. ... People are using offense as an excuse for revenge. But there is no intrinsic right to not be offended, it's absurd.
author and death fatwa conferee
BERLIN October 2, 2012 (ANSAmed)
Of course, Mr. Rushdie has been on the losing end of freedom of expression for 24 years. His is a cautionary tale. Catch a clue or perish.
THE UNCLUED
SAUDI ARABIA'S OWN 'SALMAN RUSHDIE'
ARRESTED FOR MOHAMMAD TWEETS
Who Is Turki Al-Hamad?
December 25 2012 (IBT) - Novelist Turki al-Hamad, 58, one of Saudi Arabia’s more unapologetic and outspoken liberal voices, is now in custody for a series of posts he published on his Twitter last weekend comparing fundamentalist Islamist ideology and its strict social controls to Nazism and suggesting that political Islamists like those allied with Saudi Arabia’s royal family have taken their adulation of Prophet Muhammad too far.This is dangerous language in a country where apostasy is a capital offense, especially in Saudi Arabia’s non-codified justice system that doesn’t follow judicial precedent and instead allows judges to interpret guilt as they see fit based on Islamic doctrine.
GRAND MUFTI APPROVES DEATH PENALTY
FOR 'INNOCENCE OF MUSLIMS' PRODUCERS
January 29, 2013 (Egypt Independent) - Egypt's Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa has approved a death sentence delivered in absentia for seven Coptic Egyptian expats accused of producing and acting a movie deemed insulting to Islam.The declaration was made Tuesday by a judge at the Cairo Criminal Court.
Egypt's State Security Court had sentenced the defendants in November to death and referred the verdict to the mufti for approval.
THE CLUED IN
FACING UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS
By Douglas Murray
February 24, 2013 (JCO) - In a recent Al-Jazeerah interview, Richard Dawkins was asked his views on God. He argued that the god of "the Old Testament" is "hideous" and "a monster", and reiterated his claim from The God Delusion that the God of the Torah is the most unpleasant character "in fiction". Asked if he thought the same of the God of the Koran, Dawkins ducked the question, saying: "Well, um, the God of the Koran I don't know so much about."*
Mr. Dawkins, fearless critic of the Judeo-Christian God, may not "know so much about" about Allah, but we suspect he knows plenty about Allah's votaries. The article goes on to detail recent stories of the "unclued".
In Copenhagen, on 5th February, a well-known critic of Islam -- in the same way Professor Dawkins is a critic of Judaism and Christianity -- narrowly survived an attempted assassination.Lars Hedegaard is a journalist, historian and founder of the Free Press Society. After the worldwide uproar caused by the Danish Mohammed cartoons in 2005 he became the foremost defender of the rights of Danish writers and artists to express their opinions without fear of intimidation and murder.
Since the cartoons affair there have been numerous plots by Islamist extremists to kill politicians, editors and others. On New Year's Day 2010, one of the cartoonists, Kurt Westergaard, was visited at his home by a Somali-trained Islamist who attempted to ritually decapitate him with an axe. Westergaard escaped to the "panic room" which the security forces had installed in his house.
This month it was Hedegaard's turn. A ring at his front door bell revealed a "Muslim-looking" immigrant dressed as a postman. The young man fired at the 70-year-old's head from less than a yard. The bullet missed. Hedegaard punched his opponent who dropped his gun, picked it up, aimed and fired again at his head. The gun jammed and the man ran off.
The press caught the clue.
The attack was fleetingly mentioned on the BBC's website, by the Associated Press and a few other outlets. But otherwise there was silence. That is, apart from the Scandinavian media who have in substantial parts -- especially in Sweden -- managed to blame Hedegaard for the attack. Hedegaard was repeatedly described simply as "a critic of Islam". So he brought it on himself, you see. Should have known better. Ought to have learned the cartoonist's lesson. One Swedish paper -- sounding more Saudi or Iranian than Swedish -- even called Hedegaard "an enemy of Islam". Who knew that this was already a crime?Professor Dawkins is not an enemy of Jews or Christians. He is a critic of their religions. Lars Hedegaard is not an enemy of Muslims. He is a critic of aspects of the Islamic religion. If Professor Dawkins were murdered tomorrow by an Orthodox Jew the world would be unlikely to ignore the event. And I suspect that they would be unlikely to blame the victim rather than his assailant.
Well-intentioned idiots (and here) help muss the distinctions between the innocuous private observance of Islam, the barbaric practices of fundamentalist Islam (and this and this), and the terrorism of radical Islam (and this). It's all one big pot. To criticize or raise complaints about particulars is to throw in with the "enemies of Islam". And the "enemies of Islam" inevitably attract the assassins for Islam (and here).
In case you are wondering where all this is leading --
IRAN URGES OIC TO MOVE
TO HARNESS INSULT TO ISLAM
TEHRAN January 1, 2013 (FNA) - Iran condemned the insults leveled against the prophet of Islam in the US and European movies and magazines, and called on the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to compile a convention to prevent such blasphemous acts.
OIC GEARS UP TO GET DENIGRATION
OF RELIGIONS CRIMINALIZED
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia February 18, 2013 (Saudi Gazette)
Surprise! While you were sleeping, insulting Islam already has been criminalized.
[Rizwan Saeed Sheikh, director of cultural affairs at the OIC general secretariat and spokesman for the OIC secretary general], a Pakistani national and an expert on Islamophobia, explained the steps taken by the OIC in confronting Islamophobia by ensuring active involvement of the international community.OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu launched a process, known as the Istanbul Process, in July 2011, together with the then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, as well as with leaders of OIC and non-OIC member states, to build consensus on confronting Islamophobia. Similar meetings were held later in Washington and London as part of the Istanbul Process, and now the US, UK, the African Union, the Arab League and the OIC are moving in a circle, subscribing the process and taking it forward to discuss the issue specifically. The OIC is going to hold the next event focusing squarely on the issue of criminalizing denigration and deciding on whatever actions need to be taken on the basis of Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights ("ICCPR").According to Sheikh, international law, represented by Article 20 of ICCPR, clearly states that denigration of symbols or persons sacred to any religion is a criminal offense. This law ratifies OIC’s position and the only remaining problem is the absence of enforcement in the true spirit by member states.
Should this come to pass, watch the world fall into silence. Not the nice quiet silence of a library reading room, but the paranoid silence encouraged by whatever the global equivalent of the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit turns out to be.
CHOPE.
"But there is no intrinsic right to not be offended, it's absurd."
------------------------------------
* Brave Mr. Dawkins did manage to pluck up his courage when Islamists destroyed historical manuscripts from the Ahmed Baba Institute of Higher Islamic Studies and Research in Timbuktu, Mali.
Like Alexandria, like Bamiyan, Timbuktu's priceless manuscript heritage destroyed by Islamic barbarians bit.ly/XbYBD5 Vive la France
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) January 29, 2013
That didn't go over too well, so Mr. Dawkins helpfully enlarged on the offending tweet:
Some people (perhaps 1st language not English) think I was calling ALL Muslims barbarians. No. I was calling Islamic BARBARIANS barbarians.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) January 29, 2013
And there you go. Unfortunately that won't buy Mr. Dawkins a pass with "Muslim barbarians".
February 04, 2013
NYC Letter: The Caliphate, It's Gonna Be Great! -- For The Children
Day 1,471 of CHOPE
D-minus 1,448 Days
Actually it's not, not going to be great. Not for the children.
SAUDI ARABIA: ISLAMIC CLERIC RAPES,
TORTURES, KILLS DAUGHTER,
PAYS FINE
CAUTION: This is a story of multiple physically brutal crimes. The victim, Lama al-Ghamdi, was five years old.
February 3, 2013 (Examiner) - In Saudi Arabia an Islamic cleric who admits to raping, torturing and killing his daughter received a fine but no jail time for his heinous crime. Saudi media reports that the father paid 200,000 riyals ($50,000 US) in "blood money" for his crime, but will not be required to serve any time in prison.... Fayhan al-Ghamdi, the victim's father and a popular Islamic preacher who has made numerous television appearances promoting Islam, confessed to the heinous crime. Ghamdi told Saudi officials he used cables and a cane on his five-year-old daughter, leaving her with multiple injuries, including a crushed skull, broken ribs and left arm, extensive bruising and burns. In addition, one of Lama’s fingernails had been torn off. Hospital staff reports the child's rectum had been torn open and the abuser had attempted to burn it closed.
Reports indicate the father had doubted his five-year old daughter's virginity.
Lama al-Ghamdi died last October. The amount her father was fined for the brutal rape, torture and murder, would have been doubled if Lama had been male. In Saudi Arabia, Islamic law is interpreted to be that a father cannot be executed for murdering his children, nor can husbands be executed for murdering their wives.
RAPIST IN UK SPARED JAIL FOR
BEING ISLAMIC STUDENT
LONDON January 26, 2013 (Zee News) - An 18-year-old Muslim boy in Britain was spared jail term despite raping a teenager when the judge heard that the youngster studied at an Islamic school which taught him that women were worthless.Adil Rashid, 18, claimed he was not aware that it was illegal for him to have sex with the girl because his education left him ignorant of British law, Daily Mail reported.
... Earlier, the Nottingham Crown Court heard that such crimes usually result in a four to seven-year prison sentence. The judge, however, said since Rashid was "passive" and "lacking assertiveness", sending him to jail might cause him "more damage than good".
[Hat tip: Hervé]
This sentence was not pronounced in a Shari'a court, but in a Crown Court charged with meting justice under British law.
MALDIVES GIRL FACES FLOGGING
AFTER ALLEGED RAPE
January 8, 2013 (Australian/AFP) - A 15-year-old in the Maldives whose father is accused of repeatedly raping her and killing the resulting baby risks being flogged for "fornication" with another man under the nation's strict Islamic law, a police source says.In the course of inquiries into the rape case, investigators say they unearthed evidence of the girl having had consensual sex with another man, which is an offence in the Indian Ocean holiday destination, the source told AFP.
The child's step-father is accused by police of repeatedly raping the girl and fathering a child by her which he subsequently murdered. The girl's mother has been charged with helping dispose of the infant's body, police said.
Women, including minors, having consensual sex outside marriage can be charged in the Maldives, where convicts can be publicly flogged. Minors receive the punishment when they reach 18, the age of majority.
... The country carries out the flogging of women despite calls from the UN Human Rights Council to drop the practice. In September, a Maldivian court ordered a public flogging for a 16-year-old girl who confessed to having pre-marital sex. Her 29-year-old lover was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
"BURKAS FOR BABIES": SAUDI CLERIC'S
NEW FATWA CAUSES CONTROVERSY
February 3, 2013 (Al Arabiya) - A Saudi cleric has called for all female babies to be fully covered by wearing the face veil, commonly known as the burka, citing reports of little girls being sexually molested.In a TV interview on the Islamic al-Majd TV, which seems to date back to mid-last year, Sheikh Abdullah Daoud, stressed that wearing the veil will protect baby girls. The Sheikh tried to back his assertion with claims of sexual molestation against babies in the kingdom, quoting unnamed medical and security sources.
... Sheikh Mohammad al-Jzlana, former judge at the Saudi Board of Grievances, told Al Arabiya that Dauod’s ruling was denigrating to Islam and Shariah and made Islam look bad.
ROADSIDE BOMB KILLS 2 MORE POLIO WORKERS
IN NORTHWESTERN PAKISTAN, OFFICIAL SAYS
PARACHINAR, Pakistan January 31, 2013 (WaPo/AP) - A roadside bomb killed two Pakistani polio workers on their way to vaccinate children in a northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border on Thursday, an official said.... The attack -- the third this week against polio workers in Pakistan -- took place in the Kurram region, a known militant stronghold.
... Some of the militants oppose the vaccination campaign, accuse health workers of acting as spies for the U.S. and claim the polio vaccine is intended to make Muslim children sterile.
Pakistan is one of only three countries where the crippling disease is endemic. The virus usually infects children living in unsanitary conditions; it attacks the nerves and can kill or paralyze.
... In December, gunmen killed nine polio workers in similar attacks across Pakistan, prompting authorities to suspend the vaccination campaign in the troubled areas. The U.N. also suspended its field operations in December as a result of the attacks, though it has since resumed some activities.
INDONESIAN ULEMA IN FAVOUR
OF FEMALE CIRCUMCISION:
A "HUMAN RIGHT"
JAKARTA January 24, 2013 (AsiaNews) - The Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) is in favour of female circumcision... [A]lthough it cannot be considered mandatory, it is still "morally recommended".
Female circumcision is the nice way of saying female genital mutilation ("FGM"), its various forms described here.
FGM is typically carried out on girls from a few days old to puberty. It may take place in a hospital, but is usually performed, without anaesthesia, by a traditional circumciser using a knife, razor, or scissors. ... Opposition to FGM focuses on human rights violations, lack of informed consent, and health risks, which include fatal hemorrhaging, epidermoid cysts, recurrent urinary and vaginal infections, chronic pain, and obstetrical complications.
One Islamist will say these stories are not representative of Islam. Another will say these stories go to the heart of Islam. Whatever Islam is, the one thing it is not is compatible with Western liberties and rights. Yet the West continues its accommodation of Islam, while Islam continues its disdain for the West and non-Muslims.
Osama Saeed,The revival of a strong Muslim civilisation would be for the betterment of the whole world.
Muslim Association of Britain spokesman,
arguing for the restitution of the Caliphate
to improve the world
THE RETURN OF THE CALIPHATE
OP-ED November 1, 2005 (Guardian)
Yeah.
CHOPE.
Sanctioned: rape, public flogging, mutilation. A package deal with the Caliphate.
June 24, 2012
NYC Letter: Democrats In Charge VII - The Arab Autumn
Day 1,247 of CHOPE
D-minus 209 Days
There was never much spring in the Arab spring. It was a trade-down from brutal autocratic masters to brutal Islamist masters.
Mohamed Morsi,The Koran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader, jihad is our path, and death in the name of Allah is our goal.
Muslim Brotherhood politico and newly elected president,
reintroducing the 7th century platform
CAIRO May 12, 2012 (ruvr.ru)
Meet Egypt's new president.
ISLAMIST MORSI ELECTED EGYPT'S PRESIDENT
CAIRO June 24, 2012 (ABC News/AP) - Islamist Mohammed Morsi was declared the winner Sunday in Egypt's first free presidential election in history, closing the tumultuous first phase of a democratic transition and opening a new struggle with the still-dominant military rulers who recently stripped the presidency of most of its powers.... Morsi narrowly defeated [Ahmed] Shafiq with 51.7 percent of the vote versus 48.3, by a margin of only 800,000 votes, the election commission said. Turnout was 51 percent.
... In his first televised speech, the 60-year old U.S.-trained engineer called on Egyptians to unite and tried to reassure minority Christians [and here], who mostly backed Morsi's rival Ahmed Shafiq because they feared Islamic rule.
... In the lengthy and redundant speech, Morsi appeared to be struggling to compose his sentences. Wearing a blue suit and tie, he looked stiff and uncomfortable and did not smile throughout as he read from a paper. He was non-confrontational and did not mention the last-minute power grab by the ruling military, instead praising the armed forces.
The White House congratulated Morsi and urged him to advance national unity as he forms a new government. White House press secretary Jay Carney said Morsi's victory is a milestone in Egypt's transition to democracy after decades of authoritarian rule under Mubarak.
Yeah. Some democracy.
Just one week ago, at the moment polls were closing in the presidential runoff, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) issued constitutional amendments that stripped the president's office of most of its major powers. The ruling generals made themselves the final arbiters over the most pressing issues still complicating the transition— such as writing the constitution, legislating, passing the state budget— and granted military police broad powers to detain civilians.... Also, a few days before that constitutional declaration, a court dissolved the freely elected parliament, which is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, leaving the military now in charge of legislating.
Clueless Team Barry remains -- clueless.
BIDEN PRAISES ARAB SPRING ON SAME DAY
EGYPT DISSOLVES ITS PARLIAMENT
June 14, 2012 (CNS News) - Vice President Joe Biden, speaking at a high school commencement ceremony in Virginia on Thursday, called the Arab Spring a "democratic movement"--on the same day that the Egyptian high court nullified the Islamist majority parliament and the Egyptian military assumed control of the legislature.
EGYPT'S SECULAR FORCES CONDEMN US SUPPORT
FOR MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD CANDIDATE
June 23, 2012 (Ahram Online)
And then there is this mook.
KERRY: DON’T 'PREJUDGE'
THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD
June 24, 2012 (PJM) - [Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) the] chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee warned against "prejudging" the Muslim Brotherhood as Mohammed Morsi became Egypt's first Islamist president today. Mr. Kerry:During my recent visits to Cairo, I’ve had two candid discussions with the new president. He's acknowledged that the central issue to Egypt's future is economic. His words suggest he understands the gravity of the challenges facing Egypt. In our discussions, Mr. Morsi committed to protecting fundamental freedoms, including women’s rights, minority rights, the right to free expression and assembly, and he said he understood the importance of Egypt's post-revolutionary relationships with America and Israel. ... Obviously American concerns about the Muslim Brotherhood’s past statements and positions are widely shared and well understood. But it would be a mistake for us to pull back from our engagement with a free and democratic Egypt.
This is the same mook who, in his expert opinion, assured all that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was a reformer. [Pause.] Yeah.
KERRY: TIME TO CONSIDER SAFE ZONES
AND ARMING THE OPPOSITION IN SYRIA
May 8, 2012 (The Cable)
Another spot-on revisionist call by Mr. Kerry! Oh. Wait.
REBELS RESPONSIBLE FOR
HOULA MASSACRE
By John Rosenthal
June 9, 2012 (NRO) - It was, in the words of U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan, the "tipping point" in the Syria conflict: a savage massacre of over 90 people, predominantly women and children, for which the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad was immediately blamed by virtually the entirety of the Western media. Within days of the first reports of the Houla massacre, the U.S., France, Great Britain, Germany, and several other Western countries announced that they were expelling Syria’s ambassadors in protest.But according to a new report in Germany’s leading daily, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ("FAZ"), the Houla massacre was in fact committed by anti-Assad Sunni militants, and the bulk of the victims were member of the Alawi and Shia minorities, which have been largely supportive of Assad. For its account of the massacre, the report cites opponents of Assad, who, however, declined to have their names appear in print out of fear of reprisals from armed opposition groups.
... The FAZ report echoes eyewitness accounts collected from refugees from the Houla region by members of the Monastery of St. James in Qara, Syria. According to monastery sources cited by the Dutch Middle East expert Martin Janssen, armed rebels murdered “entire Alawi families” in the village of Taldo in the Houla region.
Already at the beginning of April, Mother Agnès-Mariam de la Croix of the St. James Monastery warned of rebel atrocities' being repackaged in both Arab and Western media accounts as regime atrocities. She cited the case of a massacre in the Khalidiya neighborhood in Homs. According to an account published in French on the monastery’s website, rebels gathered Christian and Alawi hostages in a building in Khalidiya and blew up the building with dynamite. They then attributed the crime to the regular Syrian army. "Even though this act has been attributed to regular army forces...the evidence and testimony are irrefutable: It was an operation undertaken by armed groups affiliated with the opposition," Mother Agnès-Mariam wrote.
And the trademark Islamist kill-everyone suicide bombs. Oh, yes! Let's give these Islamist terrorists freedom fighters bigger better weapons!
US HOLDS HIGH-LEVEL TALKS WITH SYRIAN REBELS
SEEKING WEAPONS IN WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON June 15, 2012 (Telegraph)
C.I.A. SAID TO AID IN STEERING
ARMS TO SYRIAN OPPOSITION
WASHINGTON June 21, 2012 (NYT)
Whoa! Whoa! We were kidding.
There are no easy calls in the Arab world, but Team Barry continues to mince American policy into irrelevancy. They were for bombing Libya to protect rebels but have demurred on bombing Syria to protect protesters. They were against arming the Syrian rebels before they were for arming them. They brag on exterminating Al Qaeda, yet admit that Al Qaeda has infiltrated the populist movements (and here) they support. Al Qaeda and Iran and Russia are already on the ground in Syria filling the vacuum of desultory American power and influence.
Team Barry's foreign policy confusion flows from the tippy-top -- Mr. Obama was against democracy in the Arab world before he was for it.
CHOPE.
Smart Power For Dummies By Dummies.
May 15, 2012
NYC Letter: The Caliphate, It's Gonna Be Great! -- It's In The Qu'ran
Day 1,207 of CHOPE
- In our days of glory
Now centuries past
The kingdom of Islam
Stood mighty and vast
Then we failed our faith
And watched your power grow
But soon our greatness will return
And this is how we know
Because it's in the Koran
It's written in the Koran
A world united under Allah is
The future of man
And what a world it will be. It's gonna be great!
Mohamed Morsi,The Koran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader, jihad is our path, and death in the name of Allah is our goal.
presidential wannabe from the Muslim Brotherhood,
reintroducing the 7th century platform
CAIRO May 12, 2012 (ruvr.ru)
SALAFI MP ADVOCATES FEMALE CIRCUMCISION
May 14, 2012 (Egypt Independent) - Female circumcision is part of the prophetic Sunnah, said MP Nasser al-Shaker of the Salafi-led Nour Party, who previously proposed a bill that would allow the practice. ... Imam Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, Abdel Halim Mahmoud, former Islamic Research Academy member Sheikh Attiya Saqr and former Egyptian Mufti Nasr Farid Wasel — all prominent Egyptian religious figures, the first three of whom have died — had all authorized the practice, also known as female genital mutilation, Shaker said.... The issue surfaced after some people accused the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party of launching a charity medical campaign last month in Minya, during which they had performed the practice on some girls.
FJP has denied the reports, and Hussein Ibrahim, head of the party’s parliamentary bloc, told the People’s Assembly Sunday that the party didn’t sponsor any such campaigns. ... Egypt officially banned female genital mutilation in 2007.
EGYPT’S BROTHERHOOD MOBILE FGM CONVOYS
CONDEMNED BY WOMEN’S GROUP
CAIRO May 14, 2012 (http://bikyamasr.com) - A number of Egyptian human rights groups have submitted a communication to the Attorney General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud against the Muslim Brotherhood`s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) to investigate the complaints of people in the village of Abu Aziz in the Minya governorate, south of Cairo, over the existence of a large medical convoy organized by the party that wanders streets and does medical examination on people, including female circumcision, or female genital mutilation, in violation of Egyptian law, conventions and treaties signed by Egypt.In Egypt’s legal code, Female Genital Mutilation is criminalized, as well as the inciting by doctors to convince families of the young girls of the need to agree to circumcise their daughters, "as a matter of preserving chastity".
[Musical interlude.]
- We're happy to torture
We're eager to rape
We savor your last screams
On videotape
We massacre children
We ransack a shrine
And all our acts are sanctified
By Suras 2 through 9
May 15, 2012 (Daily Mail) - The glossy 16-page guide includes rules that recruits must follow as well as recommendations on how to cope with the hardships and dangers of life as a jihad.... The guide was written by Samir Khan, an American who served as the top propagandist for the Yemen-based branch of Al Qaeda, who was killed by US Hellfire missiles during a drone attack.
... Khan then goes on to offer advice on how to cope with the life of a jihad.
If you feel terrified close your eyes and imagine yourself inside paradise. Think of your hoor [ḥūr or ḥūrīyah (Arabic: حورية) = paradisiacal virgins] that are awaiting you as well as meeting the prophets.
[Big musical finale. The houri form a high-kicking chorus line.]
- So don't look for mercy
When you're at our feet
The justice we'll give you
Is harsh and complete
We danced in delight
When your Twin Towers fell
And you'll weep with your slaughtered
As you burn with them in Hell
Because it's in the Koran
It's written in the Koran
Your fate was settled long before
This latest battle began
CHOPE.
Hurry the day!
April 26, 2012
NYC Letter: The Caliphate, It's Gonna Be Great! -- "Farewell Intercourse"
Day 1,188 of CHOPE
Osama Saeed,The revival of a strong Muslim civilisation would be for the betterment of the whole world.
Muslim Association of Britain spokesman,
arguing for the restitution of the Caliphate
to improve the world
THE RETURN OF THE CALIPHATE
OP-ED November 1, 2005 (Guardian)
From time to time we look in on what an Islamist caliphate might be like. There is no dearth of prefigurements (and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here).
And there's always more "betterment" to be had.
April 26, 2012 (Daily Mail) - Egyptian husbands will soon be legally allowed to have sex with their dead wives - for up to six hours after their death. The controversial new law is part of a raft of measures being introduced by the Islamist-dominated parliament.It will also see the minimum age of marriage lowered to 14 and the ridding of women's rights of getting education and employment.
[Hat tip: Hervé]
And another "betterment".
100,000 WOMEN UNDERGO
BRUTAL GENITAL MUTILATION
ILLEGALLY IN BRITAIN
(AND SOME OF THE VICTIMS ARE AS YOUNG AS TEN)
Police Have Failed To Bring Forward A Single Conviction
April 22, 2012 (Daily Mail) - As many as 100,000 women in Britain have undergone female genital mutilations with medics in the UK offering to carry out the illegal procedure on girls as young as 10, it has been reported.Investigators from The Sunday Times said they secretly filmed a doctor, dentist and alternative medicine practitioner who were allegedly willing to perform circumcisions or arrange for the operation to be carried out.
... The practice, which involves the surgical removal of external genitalia and in some cases the stitching of the vaginal opening, is illegal in Britain and carries up to a 14 year prison sentence.
It is also against the law to arrange FGM.
Known as 'cutting', the procedure is traditionally carried out for cultural reasons and in Africa and with large numbers of immigration from countries like Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia it is becoming more common in the UK.
And hiding behind the masking locution "cultural reasons" is Islam. And behind Islam hides Mr. Saeed's Caliphate.
The Metropolitan Police said since 2008, it had received 166 reports of people who fear they are at risk of FGM but it has failed to bring forward a single perpetrator. It is the same for all 43 forces across England and Wales with no convictions for the offence ever taking place.FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION
THE DIFFERENT TYPESMajority of FGMs occur in Africa and Middle Eastern countries where it is seen as vital in preserving chastity. In Somalia, Sudan and parts of Egypt more than 90 per cent of women are forced to go through with the procedure.
- The first type involves the removal of the clitoris.
- The second type involves the removal of the clitoris and part of the labia - the outer part of the vagina. This is the most common and account for about 80 per cent of FGMs.
- The third type involves the removal of all external genitalia and stitching of the vaginal opening. Scar tissue eventually develops and only a small hole is left open.
- The final type is the most severe and often leaves the women with infections and serious emotional scars. It involves the cutting and sewing of the vagina and at times the introduction of a foreign substance into the vagina.
We began this theme with this post. Osama Saeed had argued the case for yet another Caliphate. We took issue with Mr. Saeed's many fond claims and the grand proposition at the heart of his argument, quoted above.
The revival of a strong Muslim civilisation would be for the betterment of the whole world.
We provided Mr. Saeed's enthymeme: as long as that bettered world was the Caliphate.
Elsewhere we wondered why, In šāʾ Allāh (إن شاء الله, God willing), Islamists looked to the West to give them incrementally what an approving Allah with not so much as a pinky-lift could bestow in an instant. Either Allah is not backing their play or Islamists do not trust in Allah's providence, or both.
If Mr. Saeed gets his Caliphate, a politely timorous West will hand it to him. Gift-wrapped in nonjudgmental pieties.
CHOPE.
The Caliphate. Coming soon to aboriginal low-birthrate Western nations everywhere.
March 04, 2012
NYC Letter: The Caliphate, It's Gonna Be Great! -- Honey, I'm Home!
Day 1,136 of CHOPE
Really! The Caliphate, it's gonna be great!
AFGHAN WOMEN SAY BEING THE WIFE
OF TALIBAN FIGHTERS HAS ITS PERKS:
"WHEN THEY COME HOME THEY ARE TIRED
AND DON’T BEAT US"
March 3, 2012 (Weasel Zipper/London Times)
CHOPE.
Hurry the day!
March 01, 2012
NYC Letter: Got That Wrong -- Calming Down Islam
Day 1,133 of CHOPE
The story so far.
On February 21 Afghan garbage collectors found remnants of burned Korans at Bagram air base. The Korans and other materials were removed and burned from the library at Parwan Detention Facility when it was discovered they were being used as an inmate messaging system for incitement and coordinating extremism.
The local Afghans rioted.
That same day ISAF commander Gen. John Allen publicly apologized for the burnings. WH press secretary Jay Carney publicly apologized, and before the day was out Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also publicly apologized.
By now Afghans were rioting nationwide.
On February 23, unprompted Mr. Obama sent a letter of apology to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The letter was so sincere and heartfelt that the WH deemed its disclosure to the press "inappropriate". Intensifying WH regret, Mr. Carney explained the appropriateness of America's "severe apologies".
As the rioting spread elsewhere (and here), more American apologies and self-condemnation followed.
The outcome of all these apologies was -- even more rioting. And mayhem. And deaths.
KORAN PROTESTS RESUME IN
AFGHANISTAN DESPITE U.S. APOLOGY
KABUL February 24, 2012 (NYT)
AFGHAN CHAOS: US CONSULATE STORMED
AND NATO TRUCKS TORCHED
KABUL February 24, 2012 (RT)
TWELVE KILLED IN PROTESTS
ACROSS AFGHANISTAN
KABUL February 24, 2012 (Reuters)
AFGHAN RAGE: UN COMPOUND STORMED,
PROTESTS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY
KABUL February 25, 2012 (RT)
TWO U.S. OFFICERS SLAIN;
ADVISERS TO EXIT KABUL MINISTRIES
KABUL February 25, 2012 (NYT)
SEVEN U.S. SOLDIERS WOUNDED AFTER
AFGHAN NATO BASE ATTACKED
KUNDUZ/KABUL February 26, 2012 (Reuters)
SUICIDE ATTACK KILLS 9
IN EASTERN AFGHANISTAN
KABUL February 27, 2012 (NYT)
MORE KILLED AMID GROWING AFGHAN
FURY OVER KORAN BURNING
February 28, 2012 (SMH)
At this point Mr. Obama was back to assure us his actions had calmed things down.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: KORAN APOLOGY
'CALMED THINGS DOWN'
WASHINGTON February 29, 2012 (ABC News) - President Obama said his formal apology to Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the burning of Korans by U.S. troops last week has "calmed things down" after the incident sparked an outbreak of violence across the country.... Still, the president's critics and some members of the military have questioned the appropriateness of the move, given the subsequent murder of two U.S. military officers at the hands of an Afghan inside one of the capital's secure ministry buildings.
"Everything else -- the politics or second guessing of these various decisions -- I'm not worried about," Obama said.
And if Mr. Obama isn't worried, then, dear uneasy skimmer, why should you be? [Pause to slough sarcasm.] Mr. Obama's apology didn't calm anything down, it has only served to validate the hopped-up protesters. The next day in Kandahar another two American soldiers where shot dead on base by a gunman wearing the Afghan National Army uniform.
The apology didn't satisfy anyone, but has stoked the inciters with America's incessant regret. The apology left Mr. Karzai stoked for more.
We condemn this vicious act in the strongest terms. The government and the people, scholars, tribal dignitaries, spiritual figures of Afghanistan, the educated people of our country all share the people's feelings. ... Our people's sensitiveness is right and is laudable. ... We call on the US government to bring the perpetrators of the act to justice and put them on trial and punish them.
The Taliban is stoked. Iran is stoked. Libya is stoked. Egypt is stoked. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation is stoked. The United Nations is stoked.
The only ones not stoked are American troops, the patsies of the war's political leadership.
Perhaps Muslims are genuinely outraged by cartoons and Koran burnings, but it is a selective outrage. No riots followed this Pakistani report last year of hundreds of Korans discarded by Muslims in a sewage canal.
And it is an outrage they reserve to themselves only.
Whenever Muslims go on a tear about disrespected Islam we are reminded of the 2002 39-day siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Under the rubric of sanctuary, the Church, for fear of retaliation by Palestinian "security" forces, and the media, so as not to queer their heroic narrative of the Palestinian struggle, managed to completely ignore the desecration of the shrine itself. Neither Catholics nor Protestants took to the streets to violently vent their outrage. Instead they folded the morning paper and meekly accepted the sad state of the world. And no prominent Muslim came forward to apologize for Muslim gunmen violating one of the holiest shrines in Christiandom. Everyone expects the Palestinians to behave badly. Why had Israel run them to ground in Manger Square? Clearly Israel alone was to blame, zeroing out the desecration by Muslim gunmen.
So what was the correct response to the Koran burnings? We think Allen West (R-FL, 22nd) gets it right:
I want to extend my sincere condolences to the families of the Army Colonel and Major who were killed by Afghanistan security forces over this “burning Koran” episode.If we had resolute leadership in the White House, we would have explained that these Islamic terrorist enemy combatants detained at the Parwan facility used the Koran to write jihadist messages to pass to others. In doing so, they violated their own cultural practice and defiled the Koran and turned the Koran into contraband. The Islamic cultural practice and Parwan detention facility procedures support burning the "contraband".
Instead here we go again, offering apology after apology and promising to "hold those responsible accountable". Responsible for what?
When tolerance becomes a one-way street it leads to cultural suicide.
This time it immediately led to the deaths of two American Warriors.
America is awaiting the apology from President Hamid Karzai.
CHOPE.
January 10, 2010
NYC Letter: NO-Mo (PBUH)
Day 355 of CHOPE
The Metropolitan Museum in New York has removed portraits of Mohammed by Islamic artists from an exhibition of Islamic art.
'JIHAD' JITTERS AT MET
Mohammed Art Gone
NYC January 10, 2010 (NYPost) - Is the Met afraid of Mohammed?The Metropolitan Museum of Art quietly pulled images of the Prophet Mohammed from its Islamic collection and may not include them in a renovated exhibition area slated to open in 2011, The Post has learned.
The museum said the controversial images -- objected to by conservative Muslims who say their religion forbids images of their holy founder -- were "under review."
This is a canard. The cringing West insists on its legitimacy, while knowledgible Muslims enjoy the cringe.
Critics say the Met has a history of dodging criticism and likely wants to escape the kind of outcry that Danish cartoons of Mohammed caused in 2006.
Three years ago, the Met changed its "Primitive Art Galleries" to the "Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas" for the sake of political correctness, said author Michael Gross, author of "Rogues' Gallery," a book about the Met.Just recently, it decided its highly anticipated "Islamic Galleries" will be given an awkward new name ahead of the 2011 opening. Visitors will stroll around rooms dedicated to art from "Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia," according to a museum press release.
[Islamic art expert Kishwar] Rizvi said it was "a shame" the museum dropped the word Islamic from the title.
It's cumbersome and problematic to base it on nationalistic boundaries.
The Met obviously hasn't gotten the memo not to worry, the "mood music" has changed.
With joblessness still plaguing the economy and health care dominating his agenda, Obama has not wanted his presidency to be defined by the war on terror, as Bush’s was. He has given relatively few public speeches on the topic and declined to discuss it for this article. Rather than seeing terrorism as the challenge of our time, Obama rejects the phrase "war on terror" altogether, hoping to recast the struggle as only one of a number of vital challenges confronting America.And so perhaps the biggest change Obama has made is what one former adviser calls the "mood music" — choice of language, outreach to Muslims, rhetorical fidelity to the rule of law and a shift in tone from the all-or-nothing days of the Bush administration. He is committed to taking aggressive actions to disrupt terrorist cells, aides said, but he also considers his speech in Cairo to the Islamic world in June central to his efforts to combat terrorism. Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama's chief of staff:
If you asked him what are the most important things he’s done to fight terrorism in his first year, he would put Cairo in the top three.
This is not too surprising given the lack of top choices among Team Barry's missteps on terrorism. While Mr. Bush was president the Met did not feel compelled to remove the Mr. Mo (PBUH) portraits. [Pause.] But now Mr. Obama is in charge.
CHOPE.
More muzak. No war.
------------------------------------
* Or this. Or this.
