Tag Archives: Topic: Islam

Christian Post: A massive four-day national prayer event is starting today, Oct. 26, in the desert north of Cairo, and is expected to draw 50,000 people from all over Egypt and reach around 5 to 6 million viewers with television coverage.

TheStar.com: At least 56 people were killed and nearly 2,000 homes destroyed in the latest outbreak of ethnic violence in western Burma, a government official said Thursday. The 25 men and 31 women were reported dead in four Rakhine state townships in violence between the Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya communities that re-erupted Sunday, local government spokesman Win Myaing said.

Catholic Culture: An Orthodox priest who had been kidnapped near Damascus on October 19 has been found dead, the Fides news service reports.

Wall Street Journal: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit said Thursday said that the side of the bus, in this case, wasn’t a public forum because the transit authority – Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation, or SMART – rejected all political advertisements. The state never opened the space for discourse. | American Freedom Defense Initiative v. Suburban Mobility Authority For
Regional Transportation (SMART), No. 11-1538

Reuters: An increasing majority of people in France believe Islam plays too influential a role in their society and almost half see Muslims as a threat to their national identity, according to a poll published on Thursday.

MySanAntonio.com: The entire sign at the church reads, “VOTE FOR THE MORMON, NOT THE MUSLIM! THE CAPITALIST, NOT THE COMMUNIST!”

AP: The latest issue appeared relatively minor – Ahmadinejad’s intention to visit a prison north of Tehran. The head of the judiciary branch, Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani, said permission from his office was needed to visit Evin prison, and Ahmadinejad angrily rejected that.

Gatestone Institute: In Islamist radical convicted of stabbing two German police officers during a protest against “offensive” cartoons has been sentenced to six years in prison. Murat K, a 26-year-old German-born Salafist of Turkish heritage from the western state of Hessen, openly admitted that he had attacked and wounded the two police officers with a kitchen knife during the cartoon riots in May. He showed no remorse, however, during his trial at the district court in the city of Bonn; he said he had been morally obligated to follow Islamic Sharia law.

Washington Post: Nomadic Muslim herdsmen attacked a Christian village in central Nigeria over long-running land disputes, killing at least 30 people in their latest assault, police said Wednesday.

Religion Clause Blog: On Oct. 15, the European Union’s Venice Commission  along with the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights issued a Joint Opinion (Opinion 681 / 2012) finding numerous problems with Azerbaijan’s 2011 Law on Freedom of Religious Belief.

AP: One of the two Taliban militants suspected of attacking a teenage girl activist was detained by the Pakistani military in 2009 but subsequently released, intelligence officials said Thursday.

Pakistan Christian Post: On the news of attack on St. Francis of Assisi Parish, Old Haji Camp, Karachi he immediately visit the church. The MPA strongly condemned the today’s attack on Church where cars of Father’s, holy books, doors and windows of the churches smashed to pieces.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: Yesterday morning the President of the 67th session of the General Assembly, Mr. Vuk Jeremić, surprised the third committee of the GA, which addresses economic, social and humanitarian affairs, with a highly unusual request – he asked the committee to take the lead in condemning hate speech, saying that the “General Assembly should take action.”

CBN (includes video): Islam is making inroads in Haiti, a country that’s been dominated by Catholic, Protestant, and even Voodoo religions.

Telegraph: An 8,000-year-old rock engraving depicting the Sun as a divinity has been destroyed in the south of Morocco, local residents said, blaming Salafists seeking to impose their fundamentalist view of Islam.

AP: A teacher in southern Egypt punished two 12-year-old schoolgirls for not wearing the Muslim headscarf by cutting their hair . . .

Religion Clause Blog: According to Ahram Online, two separate drafts of a proposed constitution for Egypt have been released during the last week.  The drafts, while criticized from various sides, do reflect compromises on some issues worked out between secularists and Salafists.

Boston Globe (AP): Egypt’s highest court lashed out Tuesday at an Islamist-led panel tasked with writing the country’s new constitution, saying that some provisions proposed for the text undercut the court’s mandate and keep it under the president’s power.

CNSNews: A leading Jewish human rights group is urging President Obama to sever ties with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood after its top leader called for “holy war” against Israel.

Telegraph (includes video): A protest by 10,000 Muslims outside the offices of Google in London today is just the first in an orchestrated attempt to force the company to remove an anti-Islamic film from website YouTube in Britain.

TimesofIsrael.com: Judge says Google-owned YouTube was not included as a respondent in the proceedings

Religion Clause Blog: Last month, in Republic v. The Head Teacher, Kenya High School, (High Ct. Kenya, Sept. 18, 2012), the High Court in Narobi, Kenya upheld the uniform requirements of Kenya High School which bar Muslim girls from wearing the hijab . . .

StCatherinesStandard.ca: Saudi millionaires who flout Canadian laws by arriving with multiple wives will be kicked out if immigration authorities find they lied about their polygamous relationships.

Catholic Culture: Up to 400 evangelical Protestants have been arrested in the last two weeks in Iran, according to a news site that chronicles the persecution of Christians.

Reuters: Western opposition has made it impossible for Muslim states to obtain a ban on blasphemy, including anti-Islamic videos and cartoons that have touched off deadly riots, the Islamic world’s top diplomat said.

Yahoo News: Thousands of Buddhist monks marched in Myanmar’s two biggest cities on Monday to protest against efforts by the world’s biggest Islamic body to help Rohingya Muslims involved in deadly communal clashes four months ago.

Fox News: aliban thugs who shot a teen activist in the head may succeed in scaring Pakistani families out of sending girls to school, but they also may have created a powerful martyr who could turn the public against them, say human rights activists.

Nonie Darwish at Gatestone Institute: The problem with Islam is that Muslims riot and burn and kill those who repeat what is already in their scriptures.

Christian Today: Seven Christians from the Church of Iran denomination were detained today following a raid by members of the security services on a house in the city of Shiraz in Fars Province . . . The detentions are part of a marked upsurge in a campaign of harassment of Christians of all denominations, with reports of a significant increase in arrests during recent weeks.

AP: A Pakistani teen shot in the head by the Taliban for promoting girls’ education and criticizing militants has arrived in Britain, where she is to get specialized care.

Christian Persecution Info: Five Christian converts will be tried in southwestern Iran on charges linked to their Christian activities, after spending eight months in prison, an Iranian Christian news agency reported. Mohabat News said Mojtaba Hosseini, Mohammad-Reza Partoei Kourosh, Vahid Hakkani, Homayoun Shokouhi and his wife Fariba Nazemian face the feared Revolutionary Court in the city of Shiraz on October 17. They have been charged with “creating illegal groups”, “participating in house church services”, “propagation against the Islamic regime” and “defaming Islamic holy figures through Christian evangelizing, the agency said.

Reuters: Opponents and supporters of Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi clashed in Cairo on Friday in the first street violence between rival factions since the Islamist leader took office.

WorldNetDaily: Two days after WND reported the ring Barack Obama has worn since his college years appears to feature the first part of the Shahada, the Islamic statement of faith, millions of Americans have read the story and thousands are joining the debate online. But the establishment media hasn’t touched the story.

National Post: The U.S. pastor behind “International Burn a Koran Day” said he would “possibly” try again to enter Canada after border officers turned him back Thursday as he was on his way to speak in Toronto. “We will see,” Terry Jones said in an interview. “We were looking forward to coming there and we were looking forward to speaking. … We were definitely disappointed and we were surprised.”

Seattle Times: Pakistani police have opened a blasphemy case against a teenage Christian boy accused of sending derogatory text messages about Islam’s prophet to neighbors in the southern city of Karachi, an official said Friday.

Jerome Corsi at WorldNetDaily: In the interview, Musa Ismail Obama, President Obama’s first cousin in Kenya, told the Arabic-language satellite TV network Al-Jazeera that the Saudi Arabian royal family has developed a strong relationship with the Obama family in their home village of Kogelo in Alego, Siaya District, West Kenya.

CBN (includes video): Many Egyptian Christian women fear they’ll be targets for abduction and forced marriage by Muslims. CBN News traveled to Cairo to investigate the trafficking of Coptic women.

Daniel Greenfield at Front Page Magazine: The ACLU now counts at least eight Muslims on its national executive staff alone. In fact, a Muslim runs the ACLU’s Center for Democracy, while another heads its National Security Project.

Religion Clause Blog: Gatestone Institute reports on a Sept. 28 decision by the Hessian Administrative Court in Germany refusing to excuse a 12-year old Muslim girl from co-ed swimming lessons in her school.

AP: A spokeswoman for U.S. pastor Terry Jones said Thursday that Canada has denied entry to the preacher . . .

AP: Thousands of supporters and opponents of Egypt’s new Islamist president clashed in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday, hurling stones and concrete and swinging sticks at each other in the first such violence since Mohammed Morsi took office more than three months ago.

Samuel Tadros at the Wall Street Journal: Visit any Coptic church in the United States and you immediately recognize the newcomers. You see it in their eyes, hear it in their broken English, sense it in how they cling to the church in search of the familiar. They have come here escaping a place they used to call home, where their ancestors had lived for centuries.

WorldNetDaily: Moreover, according to Arabic-language and Islamic experts, the ring Obama has been wearing for more than 30 years is adorned with the first part of the Islamic declaration of faith, the Shahada: “There is no god except Allah.”

WND: Report: Duke Professor Confirms Arabic On Obama Ring

Reuters: Masked gunmen shot dead a Yemeni security chief on his way to work at the U.S. embassy in Sanaa on Thursday, in an attack a Yemeni security source said appeared to be the work of al Qaeda.

Raymond Ibrahim at the Middle East Forum: ast week Reuters reported that “Most Christians living near Egypt’s border with Israel [in the town of Rafah in Sinai] are fleeing their homes after Islamist militants made death threats and gunmen attacked a Coptic-owned shop.” Photos of desecrated churches and Christian property show Arabic graffiti saying things like “don’t come back” and “Islam is the truth.”

AP: A Malaysian court on Thursday dismissed an attempt by a group of transsexuals to challenge a law that bars Muslim men from wearing women’s clothes.

AP: Indian police have arrested three Muslim militants suspected of planning terror attacks in New Delhi during a major Hindu festival season that starts later this month . . .

Detroit Free Press: Jones, who sparked international protests from Muslims over the burning of Islam’s holy book, intends to protest outside Edsel Ford High School, claiming that Muslim students are bullying non-Muslim students.

Reuters: When Islamic scholar Zaghloul el-Naggar recommended the consumption of camel urine, describing it as an Islamic remedy for incurable diseases on a television show last month, the channel’s switchboard was bombarded with angry phone calls within minutes.

FoxNews: Islam has won a growing number of followers in this impoverished country, especially after the catastrophe two years ago that killed some 300,000 people and left millions more homeless. A capital where church attendance is so prevalent that the streets echo with Christian hymns on Sundays now has at least five mosques, a Muslim parliament member and a nightly local television program devoted to Islam.

NY Times: On Tuesday, masked Taliban gunmen answered Ms. Yousafzai’s courage with bullets, singling out the 14-year-old on a bus filled with terrified schoolchildren, then shooting her in the head. Two other girls were also wounded in the attack.

Christian Science Monitor: A 14-year-old girl who became a national heroine when she protested the Pakistani Taliban’s ban on education for girls in her home district was in critical condition Tuesday after she was shot in the head as she waited for a ride home from her beloved school, according to officials and witnesses.

Catholic Culture: Accompanied by his sons and others, a prosecutor of the criminal court in Alexandria entered a Coptic Orthodox church, demolishing most of its altar.

Business Recorder: French authorities vowed Tuesday to show zero tolerance for anti-Semitism as new details emerged of the suspects detained in a crackdown on Islamic extremists who allegedly targeted the Jewish community.

Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy: An interesting case, S.B. v. W.A. (N.Y. trial court Sept. 26, 2012). A quick and oversimplified summary . . .

CNSNews: Hours after Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi assured the Christians in the North Sinai city of Rafah that attacks on them “will not happen again,” gunmen opened fire on a Christian’s home.

Christian Concern: Local residents and volunteers have launched their campaign against the proposed mega-mosque at West Ham, close to the Olympic Park in east London.

Yahoo News (Reuters): U.S.-based Human Rights Watch on Monday urged Egyptians drawing up a new constitution to amend the current draft which it said did not adequately protect women and children’s rights, ensure freedom of religion or speak out clearly against torture.

National Review: But Iran is still Iran, and now it has moved against Pastor Nadarkhani’s heroic Muslim lawyer, Mohammed Ali Dadkah, detaining him and ordering him to serve a lengthy prison term. His crime? Providing pro bono legal representation to persecuted religious minorities. In the perverse logic of Iran’s theocratic regime, this representation constitutes “aiding and abetting” his clients alleged (and often imaginary) crimes.

AP: Egyptian authorities on Thursday released two Coptic Christian boys taken into in juvenile detention for allegedly urinating on the Quran, but they will remain under investigation . . .

NY Times: Two Coptic Christian boys have been detained by the authorities on charges that they defiled the pages of a Koran, the latest in a spate of recent cases involving accusations that people have insulted Islam.

Baptist Press: A cloud has been cast on the Turkish courtroom where proceedings began Sept. 3 against 19 suspects in the murder of three Christians in 2007.

Christian Post: Multiple sources have confirmed that about 25 to 30 Christian college students were massacred at a university in northeastern Nigeria late Monday night, causing Christians to pray for a “change of heart” among the extremist Islamist group Boko Haram to put a stop to the continued violence.

ABC.net.au: The Premier Colin Barnett says the right wing Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, is not welcome in Western Australia.

Business Week: Two Coptic Christian boys were arrested and detained by Egyptian authorities for insulting Islam after accusations they had torn up pages of the Koran.

NY Daily News: The Delhi High Court Wednesday reserved its order on a plea seeking direction to the central government for acting against Google India for not removing videos of controversial anti-Islam film “Innocence of Muslims” from YouTube.

Religion Clause Blog: Egypt’s Constitution Party which was formed last August to provide a liberal alternative to Islamist parties last week filed a complaint with prosecutors over a religious fatwa issued against it

AP: Bangladesh’s High Court asked the government on Wednesday to explain why local officials failed to provide security to minority Buddhists whose homes, temples and businesses were attacked over a picture of a burned Quran posted on Facebook.

AP: Saudi authorities instructed the religious police, run by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, to draw up guidelines to keep individual officers from imposing their personal interpretations of Islamic rules

British Pakistani Christian Association: We have recently have had our attention drawn to an excellent article by Barnabas Fund on why calls for blasphemy laws should be resisted. Of course, readers of this blog should already have a very good idea why! However, for the bigger picture, you might find this useful.

Australian: FAR-RIGHT Dutch politician Geert Wilders has postponed a speaking tour of Australia until early next year after Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said he would not block his visa, sparking concerns his “hatred” would lead to more protests and violence.

Fox News: Dozens of Iranians angered over an anti-Islam film made in the U.S. and caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad published in a weekly in France have attacked the French Embassy in Tehran.

Ed News: The University of California Student Association (UCSA) secretly passed a resolution last month which condemned the nation of Israel of “racism.”

Volokh Conspiracy: So reports the AP: Ihsanoglu, whose organization represents 57 Muslim-majority countries, said they respect the right of freedom of expression, but believed a line had to be drawn at incitement. “We are not saying stop free speech. We are staying stop hate speech,” Ihsanoglu said.

Volokh Conspiracy: A generally very good discussion, I think, from a State Department online press conference on Sept. 27. One can debate whether or not some of the condemnation of certain kinds of speech might go a bit far (though it doesn’t go as far, I think, as the general condemnation of “denigration of religion” that I had earlier criticized). But that’s much less significant in this context, I think, than the detailed, repeated, and unembarrassed reaffirmation of free speech protection . . .