Free Republic

Mysterious Group Buys Building Next to Ground Zero For Mosque Wednesday, December 16, 2009 Jim Hoft A mysterous Muslim group with unknown sponsors has purchased a building steps away from Ground Zero. Hudson New York reported: An identified group with unknown sponsors has purchased building steps away from where the WorldTrade Center once stood — to turn it into potentially one of the largest New York City mosques. At the moment the building, the old Burlington Coat Factory, already serves as a mini-mosque: an iron grill lifts every Friday afternoon for a little known Imam leading prayers a few yards...

Crude cartoons intended to offend Muslims in St. Cloud were found posted on utility poles this week. The cartoons, reminiscent of those published in a Danish newspaper in 2005, "are clearly offensive to the Muslim community here, inappropriate and not wanted in our community," said police Sgt. Marty Sayre. Five pages of cartoons, posted on a pair of utility poles, depict the prophet Mohammed in derogatory ways, the Qur'an and a swastika. "We've had swastikas before, but I believe this is the first time we've seen" images specifically targeting Muslims, Sayre said. One of the posts was stapled to a...

GWOT: The arrest of a Danish cartoon terror plotter for an even more lethal role in 2008's Mumbai terror attack reminds us the war on terror is global. So why is this being treated as a mere law-enforcement matter? David Copeland Headley, 49, a Pakistani-American resident of the north side of Chicago, was arrested in October for plotting the terror-killings of the editors of Jyllands-Posten, a Copenhagen-based newspaper that ran unflattering cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in 2006. A month later, the public learned it wasn't his first time. Headley, 49, a failed businessman and convicted drug dealer who'd changed...

Note: The following text is a quote: Chicagoan Charged with Conspiracy in 2008 Mumbai Attacks in Addition to Foreign Terror Plot in Denmark Additional Charges Unsealed Alleging Retired Pakistani Major Conspired in Danish Plot New federal charges filed today allege that a Chicago man, who was arrested in October for planning terrorist attacks against a Danish newspaper and two of its employees, also conducted extensive surveillance of targets in Mumbai for more than two years preceding the November 2008 terrorist attack on India’s largest city that killed approximately 170 people, including six Americans, and injured hundreds more. The defendant, David...

"Stop portraying the Prophet Mohammed as a suicide bomber or more Muslims will become suicide bombers and murder you blasphemers." That's pretty much what Algeria's Ambassador to the U.N., Idriss Jazairy, who serves as chairman of the U.N.'s Ad Hoc Committee on Complementary Standards told the Associated Press in an interview about efforts by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to pass a U.N. treaty banning blasphemy against Islam.The exact quote from the AP:"If we keep hitting this glass wall and say there's nothing you can do about Islamophobia — you can do something about anti-Semitism but Islamophobia is...

GENEVA – Islamic nations are mounting a campaign for an international treaty to protect religious symbols and beliefs from mockery — essentially, a ban on blasphemy. .. Algeria and Pakistan have taken the lead in lobbying to bring the matter to a vote in the U.N. General Assembly. Such a ban would face great resistance in Western nations .. The countries that form the 56-member Organization of the Islamic Conference are currently lobbying a Geneva-based U.N. committee to accept its plan, .. If that occurs, Muslim countries and their allies in the developing world would stand a decent chance of...

SNIPPET: "An Irish jihadist living in Pakistan’s Swat valley says he is preparing to wage war against British and allied troops in Afghanistan. Khalid Kelly, a former altar boy from the Liberties area of Dublin who used to be known as Terry, told The Sunday Times he is undergoing weapons training in Pakistan’s mountainous tribal region in order to fight jihad against the enemies of Islam. His dream is to face a British soldier in combat, although he would “settle” for an American, he said. “I’m already on the path to jihad. I’ve already picked up a gun and done...

The newspaper Bergens Tidende (BT) has changed its mind about the Muhammed cartoons. Under its previous editor, BT’s policy was that freedom of expression is not absolute.and that it can be more important to protect religions and cultures. In the wake of the recent revelations about the terrorist plans targeting the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, BT has decided that it is individuals who need protection, not cultures. was in yesterday’s editorial, headed ”A market for offenses,” that Bergens Tidende (BT) announced its change of policy. It cannot be called sensational, given that BT has acquired a new editor-in-chief since it joined...

MONTREAL — The federal anti-hate law that “official Jews� lobbied for and got passed has, 32 years later, backfired, sowing the seeds for political correctness, media chill and censorship that have undermined the values that define the Jewish People, says Alberta lawyer, author and activist Ezra Levant. Levant, who is Jewish, made the assertion in an Oct. 21 talk to a small audience at Beth Israel Beth Aaron Congregation about his 900-day saga of being prosecuted by the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission for reprinting controversial Danish cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad in his now defunct magazine, the...

The secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) recently delivered a little-reported speech at the United States Institute of Peace. In it he demanded that the United States give the Muslim world "respect." But precisely what does he mean by that? The OIC comprises 57 states with Muslim majorities, and is expected to expand to 60 states. It is the second-largest nongovernmental organization, surpassed only by the United Nations. It is without exception the most powerful Muslim organization in the world, often voting as a bloc on international issues. In his claim to power, Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Insanoglu enjoys expansive...

Remember the Danish "Muhammad cartoons" that set off riots by offended Muslims more than three years ago? The debate pitted freedom of press and speech against notions of freedom from insult of one's religion. It rages still – but now in a forum with international legal implications. For years, Islamic nations have succeeded in passing "blasphemy" resolutions at the United Nations (in the General Assembly and in its human rights body). The measures call on states to limit religiously offensive language or speech. No one wants their beliefs ridiculed, but the freedom to disagree over faith is what allows for...

Two Chicago men have been arrested and charged for allegedly plotting to attack a Danish newspaper that published cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed, the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday. U.S. authorities arrested and charged David Headley on conspiracy charges to commit an act of terrorism and Tahawwur Hussain Rana on a single count of conspiracy, the Justice Department said.

In early October, Kurt Westergaard, a Danish cartoonist, visited Princeton and Yale, two of America’s top universities, to speak to students, who are supposed to be tomorrow’s elite. The students did not feel any sympathy – indeed, were almost hostile – towards Mr. Westergaard, an artist who has been living under constant police protection since he drew a cartoon of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, four years ago. Mr. Westergaard arrived at both Princeton and Yale heavily guarded by policemen. Ten officers kept watch inside the room – with more on guard outside – when he addressed his audience in...

Yale Self-Censors New Book Examining Extreme Muslim Reaction to Danish Cartoons of Prophet Muhammad Thursday, October 01, 2009 By Pete Winn, Senior Writer/Editor (CNSNews.com) – Four years after a Danish newspaper published a dozen cartoons depicting Muhammad, and set off violent protests by Muslims, Yale University Press has touched off protests of its own by censoring the offending cartoons out of a scholarly book it has just released on the protests. “The Cartoons that Shook the World,” by Brandeis University professor Jytte Klausen, examines in detail what happened during those protests – violent incidents staged by Muslim extremists. But Yale...

Yale has run up the white flag to terrorism. ... American universities have no problem questioning the most cherished Western values and American cultural norms. At times, the ivory tower seems to relish flouting propriety, self-righteously proclaiming that the mission of higher education is to push the boundaries of convention and defending their acts in the name of academic freedom. We are certain that if a book raised the ire of conservatives, Christians, gun owners or other politically incorrect members of society, Yale would double down on whatever made the work controversial. However, for whatever reason, whether financial motives or...

Yale University Press is set to publish a new book on the 2005 controversy over the publication of 12 cartoons in a Danish newspaper that satirically depicted the Prophet Muhammad. However, the New York Times reports today that the book, titled The Cartoons That Shook the World, by Jytte Klausen, a Danish-born professor of politics at Brandeis University, will lack one important element: the cartoons themselves.

I’m tempted to call this unbelievable but that simply wouldn’t be true. In fact, the very first words of the Times’s piece are “It’s not all that surprising.” Not only do research universities purportedly devoted to free inquiry now censor primary sources in the interest of “safety,” but I’ve experienced it myself: Imagine, if you will, the absurdity of a panel discussion about images which the audience isn’t allowed to view. It’s come to that. This is the scholarship equivalent of Yale donning a burqa to suppress the temptations its immodesty might otherwise inspire in Muslim men. Good work, academia....

Three men have been jailed for an arson attack at the home of a publisher days before his novel about the Prophet Mohammed was due to be published. Martin Rynja's home in Lonsdale Square, Islington, north London, was targeted on 27 September last year. Abbas Taj, 30, Ali Beheshti, 41, and Abrar Mirza, 23, from east London, were each jailed for four-and-a-half years. They were convicted of conspiracy to commit arson, being reckless as to whether life was endangered. The attack took place as the Jewel of Medina, a novel about the Prophet's child bride A'isha, was to be published...

SNIPPET: "(CNSNews.com) – Buoyed by the presence in the White House of a president who wants to prioritize relations with the world’s Muslims, the head of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) visited both Washington and Brussels this week, and urged the U.S. to quickly appoint an envoy to the Islamic bloc. OIC secretary-general Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu was in Washington on Tuesday when the State Department, in an internal memo, announced that it has selected a “special representative to Muslim communities.” SNIPPET: "From Washington, Ihsanoglu went to Brussels where he announced plans to open a representative office to the European...

THURSDAY, 4 JUNE 2009 "Taliban uses cartoon character to tell the news"

he UN’s Human Rights Council, friend to Islamists and tyrants everywhere n December 2006, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), an international group established in 1971 and representing 57 countries, hosted an emergency summit in Mecca. The event became infamous after two angry imams from Denmark presented a dossier of cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten that mocked the Prophet Mohammed. In the ensuing uproar, Muslims murdered several people in Europe and torched the Danish embassy in Beirut. But the cartoon episode wasn’t the summit’s starkest example of Muslim outrage over free speech. The most critical decision that...

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) member-states at the Durban II gathering in Geneva is pushing for "a new world order" that would expand and impose "nondemocratic and illiberal values on the West," says the Danish editor who in 2005 commissioned and published a series of cartoons, one of which depicted the prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban that led to worldwide Muslim rioting.... Flemming Rose, editor of Jyllands-Posten, Denmark's largest-circulation newspaper, is visiting Israel under the auspices of the Hebrew University's Shasha Center for Strategic Studies, headed by former Mossad director Efraim Halevy. He's here to...

The Obama administration will "with regret" boycott a UN conference on racism next week over objectionable language in the meeting's final document that could single out Israel for criticism and restrict free speech, the State Department said Saturday. The decision follows weeks of furious internal debate came after fierce lobbying by Israel and Jewish groups against US participation. A final draft of the statements, released late Friday, made changes to sections that had referred to a "hierarchy" among forms of racism, but left intact sections that the US had said would cause it to boycott the meetings. The conference is...

For years, the Western world has listened aghast to stories out of Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations of citizens being imprisoned or executed for questioning or offending Islam. Even the most seemingly minor infractions elicit draconian punishments. Late last year, two Afghan journalists were sentenced to prison for blasphemy because they translated the Koran into a Farsi dialect that Afghans can read. In Jordan, a poet was arrested for incorporating Koranic verses into his work. And last week, an Egyptian court banned a magazine for running a similar poem. But now an equally troubling trend is developing...

There will be no apologies for the Mohammed cartoons says NATO's next Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Turkey. Turkey should not expect any apologies when NATO's next Secretary-General and former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen makes a speech in Istanbul today. “Listen. In Denmark we do not apologise for having freedom of speech,” Fogh Rasmussen is quoted by Ritzau as saying. “You all know that a Danish Prime Minister cannot apologise on behalf of a newspaper,” he continues. The newly-appointed upcoming secretary-general for NATO is in Turkey to speak at a United Nations conference on intercultural dialogue and understanding....

So says PoliGazette, citing a Dutch newspaper. Hurriyet, a Turkish news service, has it too. Simply appalling, and all the more so because it seems to be motivated by nothing more noble than Rasmussen’s personal ambition to be appointed head of NATO. The kicker? He’s going to do it in Istanbul.

Cartoon strip aimed at under-12s depicts Christian boy as Islamaphobe thug By JONATHAN PETRE 04th April 2009 A Government-funded charity was at the centre of a row last night after a magazine it publishes for children appeared to depict Christians as Islamaphobes who regard Muslims as terrorists. In a cartoon strip, a boy wearing a large cross around his neck is shown telling a friend that a smiling Muslim girl in a veil looks like a terrorist. He later confronts her and shouts: ‘Hey, whatever your name is, what are you hiding under your turban?’

Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister Erdogan is raising cain over Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen becoming NATO Secretary General. He cites "lingering anger" of Muslims over Danish cartoons of Muhammed, and Rasmussen's defense of freedom of speech in that regard. Muslim majority countries are urging Turkey,[sadly a NATO member], to veto Rasmussen's nomination. This is another good reason why Turkey should not be in the EU.

SNIPPET: "The proposal by Pakistan had drawn strong criticism from free-speech campaigners and liberal democracies. A simple majority of 23 members of the 47-nation Human Rights Council voted in favor of the resolution. Eleven mostly Western nations opposed it and 13 countries abstained." SNIPPET: "The council is dominated by Muslim and African countries. Muslim nations have argued that religions, in particular Islam, must be shielded from criticism in the media and other areas of public life. They cited cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as an example of unacceptable free speech. "Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations...

A new book released in Europe contains essays critical of Islam and illustrations of the Prophet Mohammed. In response, some are calling for blood. Danish journalist Lars Hedegaard's book Groft Sagt (Rough Talk), was released in Denmark Monday. It is a collection of about 100 of his favorite newspaper columns from a Copenhagen daily. Many of the columns are critical of Islam. In addition, the book features 26 new illustrations from Kurt Westergaard, whose drawings of the Prophet Mohammed in the newspaper Jyllands Posten in 2005 sparked a wave of violent protests. An Israeli security center is sounding the alarm...

Nearly three years ago, a shocked Western world witnessed “a carefully orchestrated campaign of incitement” and intimidation that left embassies ablaze and innocent people dead – all ostensibly on account of some mediocre drawings of the Prophet Mohammed deemed offensive by Muslim leaders. The resulting debates about the limits of free speech have died down, but depictions of Mohammed continue to spark outrage around the world, mostly below the mass media’s radar. Last week, for example, the government of Indonesia denounced as “very inappropriate” two online drawings of the Prophet Mohammed. Many Muslims believe it is forbidden to depict Mohammed...

Kurt Westergaard has illustrated a new book and includes a picture reminiscent of his contribution to the Jyllands-Posten Mohammed cartoon series The man who was nearly killed for drawing a picture of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban plans... The man who was nearly killed for drawing a picture of Mohammed with a bomb in his turban plans to release another set of provocative cartoons as part of a new book from historian Lars Hedegaard. Kurt Westergaard will contribute 26 illustrations to the new book, ‘Groft Sagt’ (Roughly Speaking), a collection of Hedegaard’s sardonic contributions to the Berlingkse Tidende...

Geert Wilders is a member of the Dutch Parliament and a documentary film producer; not exactly the person one would expect to find on the front line in the battle against both radical Islam and the Islamist assault on free speech. Yet, that is where the 45 year-old founder of the Party for Freedom stands. Wilders, by posting the infamous Danish cartoons of Muhammad on his website and producing a short film titled Fitna, has stirred international controversy that has prompted boycotts of Dutch products, condemnation by the UN Secretary General, constant death threats, and civil and criminal prosecution. Americans,...

FBI Warns of Potential Terror Attacks The FBI and Department of Homeland Security today issued an analytical "note" to U.S. law-enforcement officials cautioning that al-Qaida terrorists have in the past expressed interest in attacking public buildings using a dozen suicide bombers each carrying 20 kilograms of explosives. Authors with the U.S. Office of Intelligence and Analysis added that they have "no credible or specific information that terrorists are planning operations against public buildings in the United States." The FBI and DHS analysts said they were releasing the note because "it is important for local authorities and building owners and...

Criminalizing Criticism of Islam By ELIZABETH SAMSON FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE September 10, 2008 There are strange happenings in the world of international jurisprudence that do not bode well for the future of free speech. In an unprecedented case, a Jordanian court is prosecuting 12 Europeans in an extraterritorial attempt to silence the debate on radical Islam. The prosecutor general in Amman charged the 12 with blasphemy, demeaning Islam and Muslim feelings, and slandering and insulting the prophet Muhammad in violation of the Jordanian Penal Code. The charges are especially unusual because the alleged violations were not committed...

How The West Was Won The rapid and unexpected decline of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq was officially recognized this week, when Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commanding the Marine Expeditionary Force, turned operational control of Anbar Province over to the Iraqi army and police. Anbar, a vast expanse of desert the size of North Carolina, had been the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. For years, foreign fighters loyal to al-Qaida had sneaked across Iraq's northwestern border with Syria, into Anbar and down a "rat line" of safe houses in Haditha, Ramadi and Hit. From Fallujah, the arch terrorist Zarqawi...

A new al-Qaida video identifies the Saudi purportedly behind a suicide bombing at the Danish Embassy in Pakistan, and he is shown warning in a taped last testament that more attacks will punish Denmark over newspaper caricatures of Islam's founder. In the 55-minute video posted on the Internet late Thursday, the alleged bomber is referred to both by a nom de guerre, Abu Ghareeb al-Makki, and by his real name, Kamal Saleem Atiyyah al-Fudli al-Hathli. He appears in an explosives vest as he recounts his plan for the attack. "As for my final message to the worshippers of the cross...

Pentagon Makes Fighting Extremism Top Priority Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon on Thursday officially named "the long war" against global extremism as its top priority and pledged to avert any conventional military threat from China or Russia through dialogue. The Defense Department, in a new national defense strategy, also emphasized the need to subordinate military operations to "soft power" initiatives to undermine Islamist militancy by promoting economic, political and social development in vulnerable corners of the world. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he hoped the change would help establish permanent institutional support for counterinsurgency skills...

After a year-long investigation, the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission has rejected a complaint by the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities against former Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant over his republication of the Danish Muhammad cartoons. The allegation that the February 14, 2006, issue of the now defunct magazine was likely to expose Muslims to hatred helped to spark a national debate about human rights law and free speech, and its rejection comes after similar complaints of Islamophobia against Maclean's magazine also failed. ... "I was let go because I'm in the media every day. I've been down to...

My lawyers have just received a copy of a letter from the Alberta Human Rights Commission dismissing the complaint of “discrimination� filed against me by the radical Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities. They had complained that by publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in the Western Standard in February 2006, I had engaged in an illegal act. Their complaint was identical to the one filed earlier by an anti-Semitic imam named a href=http://ezralevant.com/2008/01/inside-syed-soharwardys-mosque.html>Syed Soharwardy. Soharwardy abandoned his complaint this spring. You can see Soharwardy’s complaint here; it named both me and the magazine. The Edmonton complaint named just the...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: The Obama campaign, they continue to be in a tizzy over this New Yorker cartoon. Let me ask you a question. Obama and his team are upset over a cartoon on the cover of The New Yorker, a leftist publication, that makes him look like a Muslim, that makes his wife look like a terrorist Muslim, that has the American flag burning in the fireplace, under the portrait of Osama Bin Laden in the Oval Office. The Obama campaign and The Messiah himself were said to be very, very upset over this. Let me ask you...

The arrest of a controversial Dutch cartoonist has set off a wave of protests. The case is raising questions for a changing Europe about free speech, religion and art. Amsterdam On a sunny May morning, six plainclothes police officers, two uniformed policemen and a trio of functionaries from the state prosecutor's office closed in on a small apartment in Amsterdam. Their quarry: a skinny Dutch cartoonist with a rude sense of humor. Informed that he was suspected of sketching offensive drawings of Muslims and other minorities, the Dutchman surrendered without a struggle. "I never expected the Spanish Inquisition," recalls the...

Al-Qaeda Draws New Recruits Via Internet Al-Qaeda is using the Internet to recruit vulnerable young people to its terrorist network, according to a programme aired on Saudi Arabian TV late on Tuesday. Umm Osama, the founder of al-Qaeda's first women-only website, al-Khansa, joined several others on the programme to discuss how they renounced jihadist ideology. Among those who sought a response to this question was an imam from the Medina mosque, Saleh Ibn Awad al-Mudamsi, and the father of a young al-Qaeda suspect held in an Iraqi prison. Read More Qaeda Targets U.S. Oil Interests in North Africa U.S....

American School Books Redefine 'Jihad' to Exclude Violence -- Where is Media? By Warner Todd Huston | June 8, 2008 - 21:49 ET In yet another example of why the west could be too weak to fight the sort of global terrorism that takes the form of Islamofascism, a textbook monitoring group is charging that American textbooks have been cleansed of mentioning the violence inherent in the Islamic "Jihad." Now, our children will not be taught what "Jihad" truly means, nor that it has been used as an excuse to kill their fellow citizens because our schools have sanitized Islam...

THE Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a league of 57 Muslim nations, said a Danish court's rejection of a suit against a paper for printing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad could provoke "Islamophobia". Last Thursday the High Court for western Denmark rejected a suit against Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that first published cartoons of Islam's prophet, leading to deadly protests in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The court said the editors had not meant to depict Muslims as criminals or terrorists, the cartoons had not broken the law, and there was a relationship between acts of violence and Islam...

Terrorism experts and Pakistan's ambassador in Denmark are linking Monday's terror bombing to the Mohammed cartoons Danes need look no further than their own newspapers to find the reason for the car bombing that severely damaged their embassy in Pakistan on Monday, according to Rohan Gunaranta, an international terrorism expert from Pakistan. 'There is still a lot of dissatisfaction here about the cartoons, as well as the fact that the Danish government still has not condemned them or the people that were responsible for them. As long as that hasn't happened, Denmark will be under the constant threat of militant...

The Hunt for American al Qaeda The United States is turning up the heat in the hunt for the California boy turned al Qaeda operative, Adam Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. If caught and convicted, Gadahn could face the death penalty. The State Department along with the Department of Diplomatic Security announced the beginning of a publicity campaign in Afghanistan urging locals to provide any information on Gadahn's whereabouts, with a reward if the information leads to his capture. Radio advertisements with information concerning the $1 million reward have...

ISLAMABAD (AFP) — A blast occurred Monday outside the Danish embassy in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, causing casualties, police and security officials said. "Yes, there has been a blast at the Danish embassy but we are not sure whether it was inside or out," local police official Mohammad Shabir told AFP. Security officials said there were several casualties.

Dutch cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot was arrested when his house was raided by ten police men. He spent a night in a police cell and was then released. It is unclear if Nekschot is to be prosecuted. The raid apparently happened because of complaints by fundamentalist imam van de Ven, a Dutch Islam convert who once said that he'd like to see critics of Islam like Geert Wilders to be dead. Nekschot is a controversial cartoonist who criticizes multi cultural society and religions. Although his work is not exactly an example of fine taste sometimes his arrest raised protests. The raid...

U.S. Wary Of Small Boat Terrorism As boating season approaches, the Bush administration wants to enlist America's 80 million recreational boaters to help reduce the chances that a small boat could deliver a nuclear or radiological bomb somewhere along the 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline and inland waterways. According to an April 23 intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press, "The use of a small boat as a weapon is likely to remain al Qaeda's weapon of choice in the maritime environment, given its ease in arming and deploying, low cost, and record of success." While the United States...