Free Republic

FULL TITLE: 'Britain's first and only Muslim drag queen' banned from discussing homosexuality in BBC 'Free Speech' debate in mosque Muslim drag queen Asifa Lahore is already a prominent figure on the LGBT (lesbian gay, bisexual and transgender) circuit. The British Pakistani drag artist regularly appears on the cabaret and club scene and makes glamorous music videos, often with a comedy edge. However, he raised a serious question at a debate being recorded for BBC Three show Free Speech live at Birmingham Central Mosque, which was: 'When will it be accepted to be gay and Muslim?'

A lawyers group has called on Malaysian Airlines to introduce Muslim rules on all flights amidst the current crisis the airline is facing over the mysterious disappearance of flight MH370. The Muslim Lawyers Association of Malaysia has urged for Muslim prayer standards to be put into place before flights, as well as for all female flight attendants to be dressed according to Islamic law.

Parents have condemned a school's decision to ban all pork products from the menu and replace other meats with halal versions. Pupils aged between three and 11 at Brinsworth Manor Infant and Junior Schools in Rotherham - which Ofsted identifies as having only a small number of pupils from minority ethnic groups - will no longer be able to enjoy sausages, bacon or ham. Parents at both schools, which share a site, were told of the decision in a letter from Rotherham Council’s principal catering officer Ron Parry, who wrote that there had been ‘minor adjustments’ to the lunch menu....

In Somali culture, women don’t strive to become police officers, Kadra Mohamed said. On Saturday morning, Mohamed was recognized as the first Somali-American woman to join the St. Paul Police Department, a move made possible by the department’s announcement that it has approved an option for employees to wear a police-issued hijab. “It’s nerve-wracking in a way,” Mohamed, 21, said of being the first woman of Somali descent in the department. “I want to be a good role model for others, especially Somali women.” Mohamed was recognized at the police’s Western District building during a graduation ceremony for youth who...

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN (Feb 23, 2014): The Brunei government will ban the use of 19 Islamic words, including "Allah" and "masjid", by non-Muslims, according to the Brunei Times today. The ban will take effect from April, the paper said. Under the Syariah Penal Code Order, these words cannot be used with respect to other religions. They are azan; baitullah; Al Quran; Allah; fatwa; Firman Allah; hadith; haji; hukum syara'; ilahi; Ka'bah; kalimah al syahadah; kiblat; masjid; imam; mufti; mu'min; solat; and wali. The Brunei Times quoted Hardifadhillah Mohd Salleh, a senior syariah legal officer of the Islamic Legal Unit as...

A Fatwa has been issued against living on Mars by clerics who say that trying to set up home there would be un-Islamic. The fatwa—or ruling—was issued by the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowment (GAIAE) in the UAE after the Mars One organization announced that it would try and establish a permanent human settlement on Mars. The committee argued that an attempt to dwell on the planet would be so hazardous as to be suicidal and killing oneself is not permitted by Islam. …

Women took to the streets wearing panties on their heads Sunday as they protested new laws banning lace underwear in Kazakhstan. The legislation - which includes provisions covering the required level of moisture absorbtion in the garments - will come into force this summer in Kazakhstan as well as Russia and Belarus, according to the Moscow Times. This sparked the so-called "Panties for the President" demonstrations in the Kazakh capital, Almaty, on Sunday. "It irritates me the most that the authorities want to decide what I should wear," Iryna Davydenko, a bank manager who travels regularly between Kazakhstan, Russia and...

The Iranian clergy has revived Salman Rushdie’s death fatwa 25 years after it was issued over his “blasphemous” Satanic Verses. On February 14, 1989, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini called on all Muslims to murder the award-winning author and anyone involved in the publication of his work. This Friday, senior cleric Ahmad Khatami reminded worshipers at the Tehran Friday prayer that the “historical fatwa” is “as fresh as ever”. He added that even if Rushdie repents, it will not affect the sentence. …

DAKAR, Senegal — A mob attacked gay people in a neighborhood in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, dragging young men from their homes, beating them with nail-studded clubs and whips, and shouting that they were “cleansing the community” of gays, several Nigerian activists and a witness said Saturday. The attack took place late Wednesday night in the Gishiri neighborhood, and one victim was beaten nearly to death, the witness said. Afterward, the mob of about 50 young men dragged four of the victims to a nearby police station, where the police further beat and insulted them, said the witness, who...

via OUR LIBRARY CAVED IN :: Reader comments at Daniel Pipes. h/t Atlas Shrugs who writes, “Remember this is Boston, as in the Boston Marathon bombing.” Submitted by Anne (United States), Feb 10, 2014 at 14:00 I work at a university library in Boston, Mass., and books are shelved according to the Dewey Decimal System, not by title or “importance”. Muslim students (most of them from abroad) told administrators that they were offended because the Koran wasn’t given a place of honor on a top shelf, as dictated by Islamic law and custom. Library staff were then ordered to shift...

Turkey's purge of the judiciary and police has brought a corruption investigation shaking the government to a grinding halt and could undermine confidence in state institutions, senior legal figures and the opposition said on Wednesday. Ninety-six judges and prosecutors were reassigned overnight, the biggest purge of the judiciary since a graft scandal erupted on December 17 with the arrest of businessmen close to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and three ministers' sons. Erdogan has portrayed the corruption inquiry as an attempted "judicial coup" orchestrated by U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whose network of sympathizers, known locally as "Cemaat" (religious community), hold considerable...

Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen has refused to ratify a bill that seeks to partially criminalize marital rape, calling it “un-Islamic.” The parliament voted 67-2 last month to limit a husband’s right to have non-consensual sex with his wife. The bill says a husband cannot force his wife to have sex if the couple have filed for divorce, dissolution or mutual separation, and if the intent is to transmit a sexual disease. […] The Maldives, an Indian Ocean archipelago of about 330,000 people, claims to have a 100 percent Muslim population. Its constitution states that “no law contrary to any tenet...

Saudi Arabia’s feared religious police entered a public park in the Gulf Kingdom and told women to stop using swings, an act that drew applause and criticism by viewers of a picture showing the men warning some women at the swings. The picture went viral on social networks in Saudi Arabia before it was published by newspapers showing two men from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice warning women against using the swings. “Some viewers of the picture supported the move by the Commission members on the grounds women using the swing could encourage men...

Accused of casting magic spell on family of 18Saudi Arabia’s feared religious police arrested an Indonesian housemaid on charges of casting a magic spell on a family of 18 members. Members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice seized the maid after she was reported by her employers in the central town of Al Rass. A search of the house resulted in finding beads, threads, needles, amulets and other magic items hidden by the unnamed maid in various parts of the employer’s house. “The maid was accused of casting a magic spell on the 18...

Laws to apply to the Sultanate's majority Muslim population The Sultan of Brunei announced on Tuesday the gradual introduction of harsh Islamic punishments, such as death by stoning for adulterers, severing of limbs for theft and flogging for a wide range of crimes including abortion and consumption of alcohol.

Twelve years after 9/11, the U.S. has changed sides. The Long War Journal reported on June 29 that the Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant, which is “al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria,” has “cooperated with Free Syrian Army units to establish sharia, or Islamic law, in Aleppo and in eastern Syria.” What is the Free Syrian Army? The "moderates" whom we are training and to whom we are giving weapons: “the US government is backing the Free Syrian Army despite the group’s known ties to the Al Nusrah Front.” "Training of Syrian insurgents steps up in Saudi...

Turkey lifted a ban on women wearing the Islamic head scarf in state institutions on Tuesday, ending a generations-old restriction as part of a package of reforms the government says are meant to improve democracy. The ban, whose roots date back almost 90 years to the early days of the Turkish Republic, has kept many women from joining the public work force, but secularists see its abolition as evidence of the government pushing an Islamic agenda. The new rules, which will not apply to the judiciary or the military, were published in the Official Gazette and take immediate effect in...

In an interview with Salon late Tuesday, congressman Keith Ellison, D-Minn., co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, slammed as “disgusting” the GOP’s plan of “passing these piecemeal things” protecting certain high-profile programs while allowing the government shutdown to continue. “It reminds me of that time we voted … [that] people who fly every day, they get to skip the sequester, but kids on Headstart don’t,” Ellison said. “It’s wrong. So Republicans are right now calculating, you know, which shutdown elements are going to give bad press … they want to try to trick the press into thinking that this is...

On Friday, Obama cited a “fatwa,” or religious edict, from Iran’s all-powerful Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, banning the pursuit of nuclear weapons. "I do believe that there is a basis for a resolution [because] Iran’s Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons,” Obama told reporters. “There is no such fatwa. It is a lie from the Iranians, a deception, and it is tragic that President Obama has endorsed it,” MEMRI Founder and President Yigal Carmon told FoxNews.com.

North Carolina has become the seventh state to prohibit state judges from considering Islamic law in family cases, joining what critics say is a national anti-Muslim campaign. ... North Carolina now joins Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee, according to Religion News Service, in banning Islamic Sharia law. A constitutional amendment seeking the same change in Alabama will be on the 2014 ballot. In Missouri, the governor vetoed an anti-Sharia bill because of its potential impact on international adoptions. But the law in Oklahoma was struck down in court as unconstitutional,