Free Republic

The Grand Mufti of the Department of Social Justice (aka, DOJ) has issued a fatwa prohibiting states from using zoning laws to deny building permits for Islamic “culture centers” -- Mosques with “youth centers.” … as a grand jury investigates another Minneapolis mosque for radicalizing recruits for ISIL, the Justice Department is suing local officials for blocking a new extremist mosque in the area. Attorney General Eric Holder sued St. Anthony, Minn., after the Minneapolis suburb rejected the Abu Huraira Islamic Center and its 15,000-square-foot mosque over zoning issues. The mosque website openly endorses jihad. Its website says that Muslims...

During a televised debate, last week, candidate for U.S. Congress Staci Appel (D-IA) opposed the idea of revoking passports of Americans who have admitted to joining and fighting with terrorist organizations. Appel said, “I would not be urging taking away their passports. I think we need to make sure that we work through the system and look through it on a very diligent basis.” Her comment came after Republican candidate David Young said that if he were elected to Congress, he would call on the State Department to revoke the passports of admitted terrorists. Young, who previously served as U.S....

Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, tore apart President Obama’s claim that “ISIL is not Islamic,” calling Obama both the “excommunicator-in-chief” and “enabler-in-chief” for islamist groups. Jasser labeled Obama the “excommunicator-in-chief” for publicly declaring who is and isn’t ‘Islamic’ during his prime-time address on the Islamic State. Jasser argued the Islamic State is indeed ‘Islamic’ and is representative of the dangerous combination of religion and state in Islamic countries: [The Islamist groups] want nothing more than to suppress the voices of reform. If you talk to reformers, they will tell you that the Islamic State...

Holder apparently never explained what kind of “violent extremism” he hopes to counter. Susan Jones of CNS News writes that it “sounds like he wants law enforcement and community leaders to meet regularly, to share information on people who may have traveled overseas to join ISIS, or on people who may be plotting attacks right here in the U.S.” Yet if Holder did make any reference, however oblique, to jihadis traveling overseas to join the Islamic State, Jones did not quote it. The only thing Holder says that is close to that, at least according to this report, is this:...

The brother of British hostage David Haines murdered by Islamist militants issued Sunday a tearful video statement about growing religious radicalisation in which he quoted a verse from the Koran. "We are seeing more and more radicalisation in every walk of life. It is not a race, religion or political issue, it is a human issue," Mike Haines told British media. His voice breaking with emotion, Haines read out a passage from the Koran saying: "Since good and evil cannot be equal, repel thou evil with something that is better." He added: "The Muslim faith is not to blame for...

With its slogan “Out with the racists, in with the feminists,” the party has broadened traditional feminist values to also fight discrimination on the basis of race, sexual identity and physical disabilities.

Ted Cruz has made a serious mistake—one supported by sentiments of millions of American evangelicals—and it could cost the lives of many Christians. I suppose you’ve heard by now that Ted Cruz was recently “booed off stage” for a senseless, ill-placed “stand with Israel” gaffe at a banquet for persecuted Middle East Christians. The worst part of his comments is not that they were calculated for self-serving political purposes—as others have noted already. Although that is certainly bad enough, it is hardly as offensive as the main implication of what he said. Apparently, we must agree with him, or else...

The value of the ISIS oil trade has been widely estimated at between $1 and $3 million per day, though experts have warned that the figure could be a high estimate. On Wednesday, as part of President Barack Obama's plan to "systematically degrade, dismantle and defeat" the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the U.S. Treasury Department said that it would step up pressure on the extremist group's illicit oil sales. In a blog post that day, David Cohen, the department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said that the "Treasury is committed to ensuring that [ISIS] is unable...

The Rev. Bruce Shipman, an Episcopal chaplain at Yale University, resigned in the wake of his letter to The New York Times that blamed rising anti-Semitism in Europe on Israel. The Episcopal Church at Yale issued a statement on September 4 announcing that Shipman, “on his own initiative, had resigned as Priest-in-Charge of the Episcopal Church at Yale, effective immediately.” The statement does not reference the letter to the Times, saying instead, “It is our belief that the dynamics between the Board of Governors and the Priest-in-Charge occasioned the resignation of the Rev. Shipman.“The Episcopal Church at Yale, its Board...

The former Archbishop of Mosul, Amel Nona, said that the end of the Church in Iraq at ISISÂ’s hands is a warning to fellow Catholics throughout the world, particularly in the West: Please, try to understand us. Your liberal and democratic principles are worth nothing here. You must consider again our reality in the Middle East, because you are welcoming in your countries an ever growing number of Muslims. Also you are in danger. You must take strong and courageous decisions, even at the cost of contradicting your principles. You think all men are equal, but that is not...

Charges of unlawful assembly and use of uniform in public were brought against 11 members of a group trying to enforce aspects of strict Islamic Sharia law in the North Rhine-Westphalia city, a spokeswoman for the Wuppertal police told The Local. Officers stopped the 11-man group on the street on Wednesday. Some were wearing orange vests bearing the words 'Shariah Police', in violation of federal German law, the spokeswoman said. The group has been stopping young people at local drinking and gambling establishments and urging them to abstain from activities deemed to be ungodly according to Islam. The Wednesday incident...

President Barack Obama said Friday he was confident he could gather a broad international coalition to defeat Islamic State extremists in Iraq and Syria, following two days of talks at the NATO summit. “I leave here confident that NATO allies and partners are prepared to join in a broad, international coalition,” Obama said after a meeting of the Western military alliance in Wales. “We’re going to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL (IS’s previous name) the same way we’ve gone after al-Qaeda,” he said. Following the beheading of two US journalists by the Islamic State, which has overrun swaths of northern...

Confronting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is quickly pushing other issues aside to become priority No. 1 at the NATO summit in Wales this week, but that doesn't mean the U.S. and its allies will emerge with a clear plan of attack in Syria.President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron discussed the ISIS threat Thursday during a car ride to a school in Newport and later with King Abdullah of Jordan.Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry made similar appeals for help from their defense and diplomatic counterparts in Britain, Australia and elsewhere.“They made...

In August, 35 Afghan Sikhs were found in a container at Tilbury docks - one had died. But why are they so desperate to come to the UK? (snip) The turmoil of the civil war in Afghanistan in 1992 and the subsequent rise of the Taliban left many with their civil liberties infringed. But the Sikhs say it has been worse for them. Cremations, a fundamental part of their belief, are frowned on. The practice is forbidden under Islamic law and the main cremation ground in Kabul was moved miles out of the city. And there is pressure to convert...

For the despicable protectors of political correctness and multiculturalism, the systematic sexual abuse of 1,400 girls over the course of a decade and a half — including some as young as 11 years of age — was the lesser of two evils that occurred in Rotherham, England. In a stunning testament to the bankruptcy of both ideologies, a researcher who blew the whistle on this appalling scandal more than a decade ago was sent to an “ethnic and diversity course” by child protection authorities after she revealed the ethnic identity of the abusers.The revelation emerged in a segment of Panorama,...

The recent increase in security at a key Army base near a Mexican border city where Islamic terrorists are confirmed to be operating and planning an attack on the United States indicates that the facility is a target, according to senior military experts contacted by Judicial Watch.Last week JW reported that the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) is working in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED). High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources confirmed to...

OKLAHOMA CITY — The leader of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations on Wednesday called on Republican leaders to repudiate remarks made by state Rep. John Bennett on his private Facebook account. Adam Soltani, CAIR Oklahoma executive director, is also asking the Republican from Sallisaw to apologize for the remarks. A Monday Facebook post from Bennett reads: “The Quran clearly states that non Muslims should be killed. Arab is the ethnicity, not Muslim or Islam. Be wary of the individuals who claim to be ‘Muslim American.’ Be especially wary if you are Christian.” Soltani said Bennett took...

Ohio University student body president Megan Marzec took the "ALS Ice Bucket Challenge" to a new level, dumping a bucket of blood on herself in support of alleged Palestinian suffering at the hands of the Israeli state. In the video, she intoned, “As student senate president, I’m sending a message of student concern about the genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine by the Israeli state,” prior to endorsing the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel which only singles out the Jewish state. “I’m urging you and OU (Ohio University) to divest and cut all ties to...

The Washington Free Beacon revealed Friday that “the FBI’s most recent national threat assessment for domestic terrorism makes no reference to Islamist terror threats, despite last year’s Boston Marathon bombing and the 2009 Fort Hood shooting—both carried out by radical Muslim Americans.” Instead, the threat assessment focused on eight types of groups: “anti-government militia groups and white supremacy extremists, along with ‘sovereign citizen’ nationalists, and anarchists,” along with “violent animal rights and environmentalist extremists, black separatists, anti- and pro-abortion activists, and Puerto Rican nationalists.”The FBI focus on “anti-government militia groups and white supremacy extremists, along with ‘sovereign citizen’ nationalists, and...

The historian Jeffrey Herf writes at the American Interest of the emergence of a pro-Hamas left: On July 31, 2014, a group of left-leaning historians called “Historians Against the War” posted an open letter to President Obama denouncing Israel’s actions in the Gaza War and calling for a cut-off of American military assistance to Israel. On August 13, the letter was posted on the website of the History News Network. On August 13, the signers reported that “in less than twenty-four hours over two hundred US, based [sic] historians had signed the letter.” This remarkable turnout depended on the mobilization...