A Record Incompatible with the Civilized World

Care to guess who the worst human rights abusers of Arabs really are?

"Violence does not and cannot exist by itself; it is invariably intertwined with the lie."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Arab countries attack Israel on trumped-up charges of human rights violations to cover up their own systemic human rights violations. Not only does the Arab world ignore the rule of international human rights law, many of its violations – from sanctioning honor killings of women to cross-amputations for criminals – are enshrined in the legal system of most Muslim countries. Palestinian self-rule is no different.¹

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Arab Nations’ Actions Fail to Put Human Rights Commitments Into Practice

In 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was the first document considered to hold universal principles of behavior that was agreed upon by an international body. It recognized the fundamental rights of every person to life, liberty, and security; to freedom of speech, religion, and education; and to the right of freedom from torture and degrading treatment. Forty-five years later at the World Conference on Human Rights in 1993, 171 countries reiterated the universality, indivisibility, and interdependence of human rights.

Most Arab countries have constitutions that champion human rights on paper. They also have signed a number of joint declarations of high principles: The 1981 Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the Islamic Council,² the 1994 draft of the Arab Charter on Human Rights approved by the Arab League,³ the 1999 Casablanca Declaration that purported to establish an Arab Human Rights Movement,⁴ and the 1999 Beirut Declaration touted as the First Arab Conference on Justice.⁵ Yet despite the documents’ lofty principles, the record shows the Arab world is one of the worst offenders in the field of human rights.

In its 2001 report, Amnesty International found:

“[g]ross human rights violations took place throughout much of the Middle East and North Africa. They ranged from extra judicial executions to widespread use of torture and unfair trials, harassment and intimidation of human rights defenders. Freedom of expression and association continued to be curtailed; the climate of impunity remained and the victims were still awaiting steps to bring those responsible for past human rights violations to justice.”⁶

In Algeria, for instance, the report cites that more than 2,500 people were killed in 2001 in “individual attacks, massacres, bomb explosions and armed confrontations, and hundreds of civilians killed by armed groups.”

In Iraq, dozens of women accused of prostitution were beheaded without any judicial process, as was a woman obstetrician who actually was silenced for being critical of corruption in the health system. Iran reported 75 executions, and Saudi Arabia recorded 34 amputations as punishment.

By contrast, most of Amnesty’s report on Israel focused on unwarranted or “excessive use of force” that led to casualties among Palestinians in response to “political violence.” It also criticized Israel for arrest, detention, and trial procedures against Palestinians.

Despite Amnesty’s criticism of Israel, what is most revealing is how the Arab world responds not to its own human rights violations, but to Israel’s. Arab leaders go out of their way to exaggerate and spread lies about Israel’s behavior, not only to demonize Israel, but also to create a smoke screen that covers up Arab nations’ own deplorable human rights record.

It is a profound irony that the Arab world, which charges Israel with “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide,” destroyed once-thriving Jewish communities in Arab lands, which today are all but void of Jews. Even in areas of the West Bank and Gaza administered by the Palestinian Authority, Israeli Jews who visit there put their lives in jeopardy.⁷ That picture contrasts sharply from the status of the more than one million Israeli Arabs who enjoy full citizenship and human rights, and can visit and work in Jewish cities unmolested. Nevertheless, Arab and Palestinian charges against Israel persist. Among them are claims that Israeli security procedures such as roadblocks, closures, and searches established to fight terrorism purposely humiliate Palestinians.

The purpose of the smear campaign is not only to criminalize the State of Israel and the Jewish people, but also to attract additional sympathizers from the Western world. Yet those fallacious and often rabidly antisemitic diatribes are also designed to deflect attention away from the deeds of the accusers, and serve to protect genuine abusers of human rights both in the Arab world and elsewhere. Tit-for-tat arrangements among genuinely guilty nations have turned the UN’s human rights apparatus into what one critic labeled “an abusers’ caucus.”⁸

In fact, independent monitoring bodies in the West say that Israel is the only genuine democracy in the Middle East with separation of powers, due process, and respect for minority rights. And it is the only country in the North Africa and West Asia region that was ranked free in a survey of religious freedom conducted by the Center for Religious Freedom.⁹

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Arab Violations: A Daily Affair

By contrast, human rights violations throughout the Arab world are a daily affair, using any objective yardstick.

The absence of basic human rights is reflected not only in the actions of regimes, but also in their social values and attitudes, which are rife with intolerance for the Other. The Arab Middle East suffers from intolerance toward non-Muslims, suppression of ethnic minorities, gross gender bias, and discrimination and persecution of people who are different in virtually every realm of life – from political views to sexual orientation.

Incredibly, suppression of freedom of expression can extend even to the reporting of public opinion. Two Iranian pollsters were sentenced to eight - and nine - year prison terms after their survey found strong public support for contact with the United States. Authorities accused the two of selling secrets to groups linked to the CIA. Among the groups cited was the Gallup organization, which had paid for the poll to find out opinions of people in the Islamic world toward America after the September 11th attacks.¹⁰

Possibly the greatest threat from outside the Arab world, and perhaps rightly so, is the Internet. That is why many Arab nations have employed methods for restricting the flow of information from the Web.¹¹ Proxy servers filter access to content in Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. Indeed, the Saudi government-controlled server banned at least 400,000 Websites, including sites about religion, politics, women, health, pop culture and more, a Harvard study found.¹² Many Arab governments read their citizens’ e-mail, just as they tap phones and restrict free speech. One Bahraini spent over a year in jail for e-mailing allegedly political information to dissidents abroad. In Jordan, taxation and monthly Internet fees are priced so high – $70 a month for moderate usage – that only an estimated 20,000 Jordanians out of five million could afford access to the Web in 1999. By comparison, among Israel’s 6.4 million residents, 600,000 subscribed to Internet providers in 1999, and moderate usage ran an affordable $22 a month.¹³ Astoundingly, out of 880,000 subscribers in the entire Middle East in May 1999, more than 600,000 were from Israel, where no restrictions on Internet usage exist.¹⁴ Israel’s Business Arena reported in November 2001 that there were 1.93 million people with Internet access in Israel. The number of active home Internet users totaled 956,000.¹⁵

Other sharp splits over human rights divide Israel from its neighbors. One such realm centers on homosexuality, where the lives of Palestinian gays are so jeopardized that some have fled to Israel,¹⁶ where tolerance is the law of the land, where workplace discrimination is prohibited, where single-sex couples are eligible for spousal benefits and pensions in the civil service, and declared homosexuals serve in the army and participate in all aspects of public life.¹⁷

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Endangered Human Rights Groups

Maybe it’s not so surprising given the conditions in most Arab nations, but human rights monitoring organizations in the Middle East also face tremendous danger.

If anything, the state of human rights in the Arab world is deteriorating, according to the Arab Commission for Human Rights,¹⁸ an umbrella group established in 1998 to try to unify human rights organizations in the region. The Commission reported that:

continue here at Myths and Facts

"The God of Quran is trying to unskin Muslims from their humanity," - son of a Hamas founder

"The God of Quran is trying to unskin Muslims from their humanity," he said, later adding, "Muslims are good people. But their God is absolutely bad."

Mosab Hassan Yousef, who helped Israel's security forces kill and arrest members of the Islamic militant group Hamas, is probably marked for death. He should be keeping silent. But he's got a story to tell, one he delivers in his new book published this week, "Son of Hamas."

"To be honest with you, being killed is not the worst thing that can happen," he said Wednesday in an interview with The Associated Press. "If they want to do kill me ... let them do it, and they will be responsible for my blood."

In his memoir, Yousef, the 32-year-old son of a Hamas founder, claims he was one of the Shin Bet security agency's best assets and was dubbed The Green Prince, a reference to his Hamas pedigree and the Islamists' signature green color.

During his 50-minute interview, for which he arrived with armed security, Yousef took shots at Hamas leaders including political chief Khaled Meshaal. He lashed out at Hamas, saying the organization lives in the Middle Ages.

And he hurled his most inflammatory comments at Islam, which he called a religion that teaches people to kill.

"It is not a religion of peace," said Yousef, who converted to Christianity. "The biggest terrorist is the God of the Quran. I know this is very dangerous and this will offend many people. The more you follow the steps of the prophet of Islam and the God of Islam, the more you get close to being a terrorist."

Yousef said he started working with the Shin Bet after he was arrested and witnessed Hamas brutalities inside prison. When he was released in 1997, he started meeting with the Shin Bet and gravitating toward Christianity.

Yousef thought he could do some good, preventing the deaths of Israelis and Palestinians.

"I got a chance to stop killing," he said.

continue here at AP

Allah(SWT) knowsBest - Saudi Woman to Get 300 Lashes for Filing Harassment Claim..

A Saudi woman who filed harassment claims in Saudi Arabia without being accompanied by a male relative has been sentenced to 300 lashes and 18 months in jail, Human Rights Watch said.

Sawsan Salim lodged a series of complaints in 2007 at government offices and in court in the northern region of Qasim in which she alleged harassment by local officials, the New York-based rights group said. She was sentenced in January on charges of making “spurious complaints” against government officials and appearing “without a male guardian,” the group said in an e-mailed statement received today.

“In Saudi Arabia, being a woman going about her legitimate business without a man’s protection is apparently a crime,” Nadya Khalife, women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in the statement. “The government needs to free Sawsan Salim and keep its promise to end this discriminatory system.”

Bandar bin Mohammed al-Aiban, president of the government- run Saudi Human Rights Commission, couldn’t be reached immediately for comment.

Saudi Arabia, which maintains a code of Islamic morals, said in June at a meeting of the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council that it would end the male-guardianship rule, said Human Rights Watch.

Continue to source here Business Week

Saudi Arabia rape victim to be lashed 100 times

Riyadh (AsiaNews/Agencies) – A woman jailed after being raped could be lashed 100 times. Camille, an invented name, is a 35- year-old immigrant from the Philippines who has been in a Saudi jail since September 2009. As a result of her rape, she became pregnant, but miscarried because of harsh prison life.

Under Saudi Arabia’s rigid application of Sharia or Islamic law, sexual relations outside of wedlock are strictly forbidden, irrespective of whether the woman is consenting or not. In fact, rape is punished in accordance with rules laid down in the Qur‘an.

The woman’s mother told her story in an interview with GMANews.Tv. Last spring, Camille went to Saudi Arabia to work in a dental clinic to support her 5, 14 and 15-year-old children. In August, a co-worker from Bangladesh raped her.

Knowing that extra-marital relations are punishable under Saudi law, she did not go to the police to file charges, and tried instead to leave the country and return to the Philippines.

During a routine medical examination that expatriates must undergo before leaving, doctors found that she was pregnant. An arrest warrant was issued against her and on 11 September 2009, she was locked up in Hafer al Baten Central Jail.

Because of the generally harsh conditions in Saudi prisons, Camille miscarried last December.

According to her mother, she is scheduled to go before the judges who could impose 100 lashes.

Sudoku and Understanding Muhammad

Like trying to force a Sudoku solution with wrong numbers, the life of Muhammad simply can't be reconciled to history and political correctness.

For those who like simple analogies, here's one: understanding Muhammad is like doing a Sudoku (or crossword or jigsaw) puzzle. As long as you put down the correct number (or word or piece), everything flows smoothly until completion. Make one uncorrected mistake, and you find yourself forcing things to make them fit. You can do that for a few moves, but unless you correct the error it's impossible to finish.

To solve the Muhammad puzzle correctly, begin with a young man in Mecca with a very big dream. Leading trade caravans to Damascus as well as his interaction with caravans crisscrossing Mecca opened his eyes to a world much larger than his own.

[.................]

Now imagine putting together the jigsaw puzzle (perhaps even one portraying the face of Muhammad!) from the perspective of a Muslim believer or a western non-Muslim apologist for Islam (present and all recent American Presidents included). You believe that a noble young man of Arabia, heartbroken over the idolatry and human rights abuses of his people, was called by God to be the final Prophet of the one true religion. This peaceful Prophet suffered oppression and persecution for 13 years until he was driven from his home to a distant city. There he received direction from God to lead battles of defense against the persecutors who were determined to destroy him and his nascent community. He was guided to conduct raids against the trade caravans to recover the goods his followers had lost in Mecca. He was commanded to remove the Jewish tribes of Medina who opposed his righteous message. He was ordered to marry numerous wives to fortify his political and social unions, as well as to exemplify mercy to widows and divorcees. He was led to order the extermination of all Christians and Jews from Arabia, and was given God's plan to bring the entire world under submission to Islam.

It's not long, however, before you are forcing pieces of the puzzle to try to make them fit. How does a holy Prophet of God in his mid-50s sexually conquer and ejaculate into an innocent 9 year old child? Push that piece into place if you can. How does he tire of her within a few months and begin taking other wives? Force that piece into the puzzle (the first was the beautiful Hafsah, at 20 twice Aysha's age) . Imagine young men on a camel caravan returning from a successful trip to Damascus where they traded olives and figs for the goods their families would live on for the next year. Suddenly they are terrified by a calvary of men with swords held high shouting Allahu Akbar as they swoop down on them to steal their goods, kill some of them, and sell the others for slaves or ransom. Justify that as you push that piece into place.

Listen to the Prophet describe the beautiful virgins waiting for his warriors in paradise to satisfy all their sexual desires if they die in battle, (Quran 52:20 and numerous similar verses) and then sending them off to war to do just that. Push that piece into place. Watch him sending his female prisoners of war across the desert to be sold as slaves for weapons and horses. How do you force that piece into the puzzle? See him and his warriors lining up the young Jewish boys of Medina and examining them for pubic hair to decide whether they would be beheaded with their fathers or exiled with their mothers. Can you push that piece into place (Book 38, 4390)? Listen to the Prophet joyfully telling one wife that Allah has commanded him to marry his own daughter-in-law. Push that into place if you can. Go with him to visit another wife and then hear him lie to get her out of the house so he can sleep with the beautiful Egyptian slave girl he has recently given her. Can you force that into place? Watch him torture a young Jewish man to death for refusing to reveal the location of his wealth that Muhammad wants to steal, and then accompany the Prophet as he "marries" his wife the same night. Can you really push that piece into place? Listen to the Prophet bless and congratulate the companion who drove his spear through the body of a young Jewish poetess as she lay sleeping with her nursing child because she had written poetry he did not like. Try to force that piece into place if you can.

Some jigsaw puzzles have 1000 pieces, and one could easily find that many examples of Muslims trying to force each one into place as they attempt to defend their Prophet. There is, however, good news. Thousands of men and women who were born Muslim are giving up the impossible task (see here and here). They might be now Buddhist, Christian, atheist, or simply following their own conscience, but they are free. They come from many backgounds, but they could probably all echo the sentiments of Aayan Hirsi Ali who was once asked by Manji Irshad why she had chosen to leave Islam rather than become a "Muslim reformer". Aayan's simple response was, "I couldn't live with the dichotomy for five minutes." Many others are saying the same.

With thanks to Staring at the View

Indian teacher accused of preaching Christianity expelled from Vaikaradhoo, Maldives

22 February 2010
Mariyam Ashiya

An Indian teacher employed at Haa Dhaalu Atoll Vaikaradhoo School has been expelled from that island after being accused of spreading Christianity.

Vaikaradhoo Councillor Ahmed Hashim said that the Indian national who taught Computer Studies at the school on that island was sent to Male on Thursday at the request of the Ministry of Education. He said that a Maldivian teacher had complained that the Indian had been trying to tell students stories about Christianity in order to spread that religion.

Hashim said that “even as he was being escorted out of the island the man had asked someone to spread the stories he had told. The man had also taught a Christian prayer to a large number of students.”

"He had spoken to students about the Sacred Prophet (Mohamed) in derogatory terms", Hashim added.

The Police Office confirmed that although the matter has been referred to the Police, investigations are being done by the Education Ministry.

So far we have not been able to obtain any comment from the Education Ministry regarding this matter.

Earlier this month there was an allegation that a foreign teacher who teaches in Raa Atoll Rasgetheemu had spoken to students criticising Islam.

(Translation of Haveeru news item)

Why is there not a single ISLAMIC country in the HDI list in the list of top 30 countries.?

The Human Development Index (HDI) was developed by the Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq. It is a measure of poverty, literacy, education, life expectancy, childbirth, and other factors for countries worldwide & is a standard means of measuring well-being.
In the list of top thirty countries ranked on the basis of HDI, there is not a single Islamic country even though they control most of the world’s oil.

Is it because the blind faith does not allow for rational thinking which is a must for scientific progress?
Or because of a lack of freedom in Islamic societies (innovations & inventions thrive in free societies & free thought)

Or because of the intolerance practised in Islam – no tolerance for criticism or the other point of view, or the inability to accept that there is a problem. (To solve a problem the first step is to accept there is one!)
No disrespect meant here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

From Literary News

No Umma for black muslims

A Muslim victim of the Arab genocide in Darfur speaks candidly about how much "help" his people are getting from fellow Muslims - and which country is really providing the assistance.

Man Claims to be Last Prophet of Islam (Quickly Beaten to Death)

As the residents of a village near Kasur have demonstrated — with fatal consequences — there is little that is as explosive as anger ignited by religious passions.

In yet another incident of a frenzied mob out to punish alleged blasphemy, a young man was beaten to death after his father reportedly claimed that he was the last prophet of Islam. The alleged blasphemer — an illiterate brick-kiln worker-turned-faith healer — is in police custody and other members of his family are in hiding. Their lives may still be in danger as reports from the area suggest that public anger has not subsided.

The incident is part of an established pattern. Propelled and led by religious leaders, an angry mob takes the law into its own hands to punish alleged blasphemers. The authorities almost always fail to defuse the situation. The Gojra incident in August 2009, where allegations of blasphemy led to deaths and large-scale arson, is one example.

In its attempts to ‘Islamise’ society over the years, especially during the Zia era, the state has come to a point where it is not able to rein in the obscurantist forces of its own creation. It has lost its authority to challenge the semi-literate maulvis who do more harm than good.

Few things have fed such forces more than the blasphemy laws. Since the mid-1980s when these laws were introduced, blasphemy cases have grown exponentially. Many alleged blasphemers have died, mostly at the hands of mobs, much before their case was heard or decided.

These laws have been used as weapons for personal, political, social and economic victimisation. What else can justify the registration of a blasphemy case against the country’s foremost development practitioner Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan?

Efforts must be made towards the repeal of the blasphemy laws if the state is serious about dousing religious anger before it is consumed by it.

From DAWN.COM

Following is a small photo gallery of pious Dhivehi followers of Allah (SWT) & Mohamed (PBUH). At the top is the first identified Dhivehi suicide killer for Allah(SWT).

Read the verse (and the rest of the Quran) and ask yourself if we can expect more killings as commanded by Allah .

Qur'an (4:89) - "They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (From what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks."

Ali Jaleel is the first native of the Maldives known to have committed a suicide bombing

Sexual Starvation and Jihad Fantasies

"The person who is in the least ranks of Heaven-dwellers will have in service 80,000 servants, 82 women, 100 people’s strength and after intercourse, (she) will always be re-virginised. " - His Eminence Mullah Ilyas Hussain, Vice President of the Adalat Party of Maldives.


”the hair of a woman can easily arouse a man” - 23-year-old Nigerian charged with trying to detonate a bomb on a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit on Christmas Day

[This article is from The Sydney Morning Herald.]

The 23-year-old Nigerian charged with trying to detonate a bomb on a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit on Christmas Day was lonely and sexually repressed, according to messages left on an Islamic website.

As a US Senate Homeland Security committee continued to argue this week about how to handle Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the emotional anguish in his web posts provides an insight into fanatical Islam and what drives often hapless young men to become suicide bombers. Much as we would like them to be, they are not monsters.

Being the son of a wealthy banker, and living in London, Abdulmutallab had no real beef with Western life, did not complain about racism or express concern for downtrodden Muslim brothers.

But, like the September 11 bombers, who visited strip clubs before their date with destiny, when his devout religious beliefs conflicted with his corporeal desires, he found that blowing himself up along with a whole lot of infidels was preferable to being sexually frustrated.

As the New York Post put it: “The bomb wasn’t the only thing burning in his pants.”

On the Islamic Forum of the Gawaher website in 2005 and 2006 were more than 300 posts by Farouk1986 – Abdulmutallab’s middle name and birth year.

Under the heading: “I think I feel lonely,” Farouk1986 complains he has never found “a true Muslim friend”.

“As I get lonely, the natural sexual drive awakens and I struggle to control it, sometimes leading to minor sinful activities like not lowering the gaze.

“And this problem makes me want to get married to avoid getting aroused … but I am only 18.” In another post, he writes ”the hair of a woman can easily arouse a man”.

He also writes of “my dilemma between liberalism and extremism … how should one put the balance right?”

He talks at one point about his fantasies: ”The bad part of it is sometimes the fantasies are a bit worldly rather than concentrating in the hereafter.”

He tries instead to focus on more acceptable “jihad fantasies”.

”I imagine how the great jihad will take place, how the Muslims will win Insha’Allah and rule the whole world, and establish the greatest empire once again!!!”

As the youngest of 16 children and the son of his father’s No. 2 wife, he reportedly spent most of his childhood at an English boarding school in West Africa. The trajectory to extreme violence of this gentle, pious young man who wanted so much to be good and consequential, and yet was consumed with guilt about sex, fits with much of what is known about other Islamist suicide bombers.

Perhaps the best psychological explanation comes from United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror, the recent book by Jamie Glazov, the managing editor of FrontPage Magazine.

In a chapter entitled “To Hate a Woman”, he describes in chilling detail the oppression of women in parts of the Muslim world and the “theological justification” for violence against females “from the very moment of their birth”.

Islamist hatred of women has “fertilised the soil in which … terrorism and the new death cult have grown”.

He claims there is an “Islamist war on private love [which] derives most of its energy from a deep-seated misogyny. Women’s empowerment, independence and self-determination, especially the sexual variety, pose a threat to Islamism’s very existence.”

Islamist misogyny, he claims, comes from Islam itself. “The notion that women are by their very nature inferior to men is the underpinning of the entire structure and derives its legitimacy from numerous traditional teachings.”

It is no coincidence that the Arabic word “fitna” has two meanings – beautiful woman and social chaos.

Glazov writes that in many Islamic societies, “women are supposed to dehumanise themselves in order to be tolerated … Women are considered to be the incarnation of shahwa [desire] which comes from the devil. In this environment the pathological notion arises that a man and a woman cannot be alone without the ominous threat of evil in their midst.

“The men denigrate the object of their lust so as to diminish their own shame. In this dynamic of sexual repression and misogyny, love is reduced to violent domination which becomes directly intertwined with terrorism against societies that allow women freedom, especially sexual freedom.”

Practices such as polygamy and repudiation – in which a man can divorce his wife by pronouncing certain words – conspire to “minimise the possibility of private love even among married couples”.

“Islam teaches that the sexual act is dirty and consequently surrounds it with rituals. The objective is to build a wall between the lovers themselves.”

Polygamy, Glazov writes, has a disastrous effect on Muslim boys who grow up with “all kinds of siblings born of different women which gives them the idea that none of these women, including their own mother, was good enough to be cherished alone. The boys internalise this misogyny which leads in turn to self hate.”

Their psychological abandonment of their mothers is “directly connected to their urge for terror and suicide”.

Female genital mutilation, in which a woman’s clitoris – or entire external genital organs – is removed is an attempt to “deny women even the possibility of personal happiness and sexual satisfaction”.

Glazov writes of Saudi instructional TV programs about wife-beating and cites a report from the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences which estimated 90 per cent of Pakistani wives had been beaten or sexually abused for offences such as cooking an unsatisfactory meal.

These stories are not remote from Australian concerns. The Islamic Women’s Welfare Council of Victoria, in a 2008 report, since removed from its website, concluded that some Australian Muslim religious leaders condoned rape within marriage, polygamy and domestic violence.

In gang rape trials, Muslim men have mounted the defence that their strict religious upbringing made them believe they could rape Australian non-Muslim girls.

This week, in Melbourne, an Afghan refugee is being tried for allegedly strangling his wife with her veil after complaining she was “becoming Australian”. The jury was told the victim had claimed her husband punched her and told her her only purpose was to have babies.

For more on sexual fantasies please read this English translation of a sermon given in Malé, Maldives, by His Eminence Mullah Ilyas Hussain, Vice President of the Adalat Party which is in coalition with the President of the Republic Mr Mohamed Nasheed.

The translation is followed by a respectful open letter to His Eminence Mullah Hussain.

A woman with a buruga that could have been put to better use....(Allah is Watching

Cracks in the Islamist Curtain - Is the Religion of Peace finally beginning to boil over?

"Criticism of Islam is coming at them from every direction, putting Muslim clerics in a quagmire unable to honestly answer questions. Muslim scholars were never trained to answer questions critical of Islam or engage in hostile debate."

From an interview with Nonie Darwish, the co-founder of FormerMuslimsUnited.com and the author of Cruel and Usual Punishment:-

FP: Nonie Darwish, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

I would like to talk to you today a bit about the Muslim voices for change that are increasing through the Islamic world. There is an unprecedented defiance taking place behind the Islamic Curtain.

Can you tell us what is transpiring?

Darwish: As you know, Jamie, I lived for 30 years in the cocoon of the Muslim world and I can see a huge change going on inside the Muslim world. More and more people are challenging the status quo.

After 9/11 and with constant recurring explosive Islamic terrorism, it has become harder for the Muslim establishment to keep the lid on Muslims questioning their system, religion and holy wars. Criticism of Islam is coming at them from every direction, putting Muslim clerics in a quagmire unable to honestly answer questions. Muslim scholars were never trained to answer questions critical of Islam or engage in hostile debate. But now, suddenly, they are challenged to the core like never before, not by Western critics, but by brave hosts of Arabic language shows from unidentified locations in the West and hosted by former Muslims and/or Egyptian Christian Copts.

Father Zakareya Botros rocks the Arab world with his show "Howard Al Hak" or "Honest Debate" when callers from various parts of the Muslim world call in renouncing Islam. Former Muslim turned Christian, Rachid Hmami, originally from Morocco, has a popular show "Fil Samim", or "from the core". Hmami, who is the son of a Muslim cleric, is eloquent, respectful with a calm and peaceful demeanor -- a characteristic in sharp contrast to the angry loud and cursing image of many Muslim clerics.

The Muslim leadership is suddenly under a lot of pressure to answer taboo questions rarely ever asked before; taboo topics such as questioning the validity of the Qur'an, the life and marriage of Mohammad, his violent wars and assassinations, the fact that there is no minimum age for marriage of women in Islam and about ridiculous Fatwas regarding breast feeding of adult males by Muslim women and Muhammad's urine as a cure. Muslim callers to these Arabic shows have proved beyond doubt how many Muslims have no clue as to what is written in their scriptures and religious laws.

Many Muslims are demanding answers from their religious leaders and for them to vigorously defend such criticism of Islam. However, not one Muslim cleric has answered the questions on people's minds. Their response is more yelling, threatening, hate speech, paranoid accusations and propaganda of misinformation. This led Hmami and Father Zakaria, for instance, to personally challenge Muslim leaders to a debate. A well-known Muslim cleric was exposed to have lied when he accepted the challenge to debate on TV, but privately, on recorded phone call with Hmami, the Muslim cleric was evasive, lied and declined the invitation to the debate, giving ridiculous excuses.

FP: Where do we stand with the apostate issue?

Darwish: For the first time in Egyptian Islamic history, a number of apostates have come out publicly demanding their right choose to leave Islam and practice Christianity. Their demand was legally rejected and fatwas of death issued against them. Maher al-Gohari, Mohammed Higazi, and prominent feminist attorney Naglaa Al Imam, are among a few courageous ones. From the number of callers to the shows who claim they left Islam, I believe the number of apostates inside the Muslim world to be significant but are mostly silent. The main power of Islam and its clerics lie in the Muslim death sentence for apostasy and blasphemy. A number of apostates living in the West have greatly impacted the Muslim world. Among those are Wafa Sultan, the Italian/Egyptian Magdi Allam who was baptized by the Pope, Ibn Warraq and myself, and many others such as several former graduates of the Islamic Al Azhar University living today in the West.

I have received a recently released Arabic poem claimed to have been written by Taha Hussein, the prominent Egyptian father of Arabic literature 1889-1973. The highly intellectual and well written poem is extremely critical of the God of Islam and admits the apostasy of its writer. Hussein was once prosecuted with the accusation of insulting Islam. Challenges to Islam are coming from intellectuals, artists and journalists across the Muslim world, such as the Egyptian Sayed El Qemany; they must walk a fine line lest they get accused of apostasy or blasphemy.

While this trend challenging Islam is significant when compared to recent history, we must caution from being over optimistic for a reformation in Islam since the new trend is still in its infancy and has not yet established itself legitimately to become part of the mainstream. The reaction to such a challenge is intense and often violently lashing out in the form of acts of threat and terror. Some Muslim people of influence have admitted recently that terrorism is a Muslim commandment. On January of 2006, a member of Egyptian Parliament, "Ragab Hilal Hamida', said from the floor of the Egyptian Parliament that "the Quran directly commands us to commit terrorism, so why are we afraid of it?"

Continue>>>>>>>here

Islam’s war against others

Few Dhivehi today know that for hundreds of years their ancestors took refuge in the wisdom of a certain Gautama Siddartha, the Buddha.

Most Dhivehis do not know that their ancient script - dives akuru was replaced with thaana, a writing system created using Arabic numeral.

Today there is no Dhivehi who can read, write or understand their old alphabet.

"The Islamic conquerors took everything from the newly conquered: money, language, culture, traditions, wives, children, values. Everything. The nature of Islam is that it replaces cultures wherever it gets a foothold."

Read the following from: Clifford May, The Dickinson Press

In 2001, the monumental sixth century Buddhas of Bamiyan were dynamited on orders from Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. The United States and other Western governments issued protests. Afghanistan’s Islamist rulers shrugged them off.

In 2010, Al-Kifl, the tomb of the Prophet Ezekiel, near Baghdad, is being desecrated. On the tomb are inscriptions in Hebrew and an ark in which a Torah was displayed centuries ago. Iraq’s Antiquities and Heritage Authority, under pressure from Islamists, is erasing the Hebrew words, removing the Hebrew ornaments and planning to build a mosque on top of the grave.

So far, we’re hearing protests from almost no one. But this is not just another “Where is the outrage?” story. The larger and more alarming trend is that in a growing number of Muslim-majority countries a war is being waged against non-Muslim minorities.

Where non-Muslim minorities already have been “cleansed” — as in Afghanistan and Iraq — the attacks are against their memory. Ethnic minorities also are being targeted: The genocidal conflict against the black Muslims of Darfur is only the most infamous example.

Connect these dots: In Nigeria this week, Muslim youths set fire to a church, killing more than two dozen Christian worshippers. In Egypt, Coptic Christians have been suffering increased persecution including, this month, a drive-by shooting outside a church in which seven people were murdered. In Pakistan, Christian churches were bombed over Christmas. In Turkey, authorities have been closing Christian churches, monasteries and schools. Recently, churches in Malaysia have been attacked, too, provoked by this grievance: Christians inside the churches were referring to God as “Allah.” How dare infidels use the same name for the Almighty as do Muslims!

Many Muslims, no doubt, disapprove of the persecution of non-Muslims. But in most Muslim-majority countries, any Muslim openly opposing the Islamists risks being branded an apostate. And under the Islamist interpretation of Sharia, Islamic law, apostates deserve death.

Not so long ago, the Broader Middle East was a diverse region. Lebanon had a Christian majority for centuries but that ended around 1990 — the result of years of civil war among the country’s religious and ethnic communities. The Christian population of Turkey has diminished substantially in recent years. Islamists have driven Christians out of Bethlehem and other parts of the West Bank; almost all Christians have fled Gaza since Hamas’ takeover.

There were Jewish communities throughout the Middle East for millennia. The Jews of Iran trace their history back 2,700 years but about eight out of 10 Iranian Jews have emigrated since the 1979 Islamist Revolution; only about 40,000 remain.

The Jews of what is now Saudi Arabia were wiped out shortly after Mohammad and his followers established a new religion and began to build a new empire in the 7th century A.D. But Jewish communities survived elsewhere until after World War II when Jews were forced to abandon their homes in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen and other countries. In many cases they were driven out by Muslims furious over the establishment of the modern state of Israel. But how odd is it to protest the creation of a safe haven and homeland for Jews by making your own Jewish citizens homeless and stateless?

In 1947, Pakistan also was founded as a safe haven — for Indian Muslims. The country’s founding father, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was determined that Pakistan would be tolerant of Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Parsees and others — as much as 20 percent of the population at independence. It hasn’t worked out that way and, as a result, non-Muslim minorities today constitute only about 3 percent of Pakistan’s population.

When the dots are connected, the picture that emerges is not pretty: An “Islamic world” in which terrorists are regarded often with lenience, sometimes with respect and occasionally with reverence, while minority groups face increasing intolerance, persecution and “cleansing,” where even their histories are erased. And we in the West are too polite, too “politically correct,” and perhaps too cowardly to say much about it.

— May is president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism. E-mail him at cliff@defenddemocracy.org.

Pakistan: Muslim Parties Object to Ban on Sexual Harassment of Women...

Muslim leaders say such a law was a "violation of the fundamental norms of Islam" and would promote “vulgarity among women”..

Islamabad, Jan.21 (ANI): The Pakistan National Assembly has passed a bill to amend the existing law against sexual harassment of women at workplace.

The new amendment bill, which was moved in the Lower House by Law Minister Babar Awan, seeks to insert a new offence in the Pakistan Penal Code to provide for punishment over sexual harassment at workplaces.

The amendment, which has now been sent to the Upper House for approval, also seeks to make the offence punishable with imprisonment extending upto three years or a fine of up to 500,000 rupees, or both.

The amendment was supported by all political parties in the house apart from religious parties, The Daily Times reported.

JUI Senators Mohammad Khan Shirani, Ghafoor Haideri, Gul Naseeb Khan along with members of the Jamaat-e Islam (JI) objected to the bill, saying that it was a violation of the fundamental norms of Islam and the constitution.

They said that such a law would promote “vulgarity among women”, and proposed sending the bill to the Council of Islamic Ideology for further review. (ANI)

a law to provide for punishment over sexual harassment at workplaces would "promote vulgarity" among these women?

More at : Pak NA passes bill against sexual harassment of women at workplace

Saudi Arabia: 80-year-old man marries 11-year-old girl

"There is no law that prohibits the marriage of a girl under 18," says the randy old goat, and he's right. After all, Muhammad did it:

"The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)." -- Bukhari 7.62.88

It seems likely that this is the same case as the one we reported about here, although it could conceivably be a similar but different case of child marriage. "Saudi activists outraged as man marries 11 yr old," from Al-Arabiya, January 17 (thanks to Sr. Soph):

DUBAI (Al Arabiya) News of a Saudi octogenarian marrying an eleven-year-old girl has outraged human rights activists amid calls on the government to regulate the marriage of underage girls, local media reported Saturday.

The Saudi National Human Rights Commission formed a committee to investigate the marriage, which activists consider a flagrant violation of human and children rights, the Saudi newspaper al-Riyadh said.

The marriage registrar, who was widely criticized since he agreed to seal the marriage contract knowing the girl's age, absolved himself of any blame.

"There is no law that prohibits the marriage of a girl under 18," he told the paper. "Plus, I summoned the girl and she declared her consent and signed the contract."...

The father, who took 85,000 riyals (more than $22,000) in dowry, defended his decision to marry off his 11-year-old daughter even though his wife vehemently objected.

"I don't care about her age," he told the paper. "Her health and her body build make her fit for marriage. I also don't care what her mother thinks."

Of course not. Why should he?

The father added that marriage at such an early age has been a custom in the Saudi society for a very long time and that he saw no reason why it should be a problem now.

"This is a very old custom and there is nothing wrong with it whether religiously or socially."...

As for the bride, she just called for help as she burst into tears.

"Save me. I don't want him," she cried.

With thanks to Jihad Watch