Free Republic

BOSTON (AP) — Boston's Muslim community has been once again thrust into the spotlight as the death penalty trial of convicted marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev nears its conclusion amid rising concerns of terrorist recruitment in America. Newspaper op-eds, advertisements and social media posts have highlighted connections between Boston-area mosques and terrorists and suspected terrorists, despite efforts locally to denounce them.

Sobering tales of apocalyptic battle, where good and evil fight to an end-of-history finish, pervade religious texts. Romantic variations energize the arts, particularly literature, drama and film. The final battle is a resilient plot device. Boy meets girl tops it ... maybe. Hollywood's classic Western version pits an honest sheriff against a cruel, devilish gunslinger. When good guns down evil, the film ends with an up beat. You may now turn on your smartphone. Inspiring good, confronting, then defeating destructive evil has poetic power and fundamental spiritual authority. Unfortunately, propagandists hell bent on ghastly slaughter know how to employ the...

MISSION VIEJO, Calif. (AP) — Sameer Mohiuddin grew more confused by the second as panelists speaking at his Southern California mosque trumpeted a new national initiative to prevent violent extremism. Mohiuddin, 39, is an American citizen, longtime Californian and a vice president at a technology company. His wife was born and raised in Orange County, and they have three children. Why, he wondered, do his family and others like his even figure into the conversation?

Here’s one thing you can’t blame on President Obama: the politically correct approach to radical Islam on American campuses was well under way before he took office. “The Achilles’ heel of democratic societies, as the Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski once observed, is also their moral foundation—the principle of tolerance, which they extend even to those who want to destroy them,” author and activist David Horowitz writes in The Black Book of the American Left. “The Islamists understand this vulnerability and therefore have exploited it as a central strategy along with the intimidation they conduct through terror.” “By deploying defamatory expressions...

High school students in Wisconsin were asked to pretend that they were Muslims for a 10th grade World History writing assignment. Union Grove High School teacher Beth Urban asked students to write a five paragraph essay in which they pretend they are a Muslim male or female in the U.S. "Give three examples of what you do daily for your religion and any struggles you face," Urban instructed.

When an institution sets out to ban something, more often than not the thing they choose to ban simply reflects back on that institution’s way of thinking. So what does it tell us about the Oxford University Press that they are banning authors from using words that refer to pigs? Yes, you read that correctly. Oxford UP is prohibiting authors from using the words pig, pork, sausage, or other pig-related words because they are afraid of offending Jewish or Muslim readers who consider pigs and pork to be off-limits for religious reasons. Now, I can understand how Oxford UP would...

Iran Holocaust cartoon contest receives hundreds of submissions • Over 300 artists from Iran and countries such as France, China sent in entries for controversial competition Hundreds of people from Iran and around the globe submitted entries for the Islamic Republic's Second International Holocaust Cartoon Contest, a competition official announced Monday. "839 artworks have also been sent to the secretariat, 686 of them have been sent to the cartoon section and 153 more are related to caricature section," Secretary Masud Shojaei-Tabatabaii told the semi-official Fars News Agency, marking the second time since 2006 that the country has held the controversial...

Le Bourget (France) (AFP) - One of France's top Muslim leaders has called for the number of mosques to double over the next two years to remedy a shortage of places of worship for the country's millions of faithful. Speaking at a weekend gathering of French Islamic organisations, where participants asked for respect in the face of a rise in anti-Muslim attacks, Dalil Boubakeur said the 2,200 mosques in the country did not adequately represent Europe's largest Muslim community."We need double (that number) within two years," the head of the French Muslim Council and rector of the Paris mosque said...

A driver of a vehicle tried to ram a gate at the National Security Agency building in Fort Meade Monday morning, resulting in a shooting, authorities say. It is not clear if anyone has been injured. There are two vehicles with damage outside the gate. Anne Arundel County police say the National Security Agency is handling the investigation, WUSA9 reports. The incident happened around 9:30 a.m. local time.

One of Sydney's busiest tunnel roads was thrown into chaos today when a car exploded into a ball of flames. The silver Toyota four-wheel-drive burst into fire about 6:30pm on Sunday in the Domain tunnel, causing major traffic delays and widespread fear. The flames engulfed the car but luckily the three people travelling in the Rav 4 managed to escape without any injury. It is still unknown what caused the incident but emergency services are investigating the situation.

I’m going to tell you the truth, and the thing about the truth is that it sticks in your head forever. This is it – the American President is an idiot. In fact, he’s a dangerous idiot. Now I’ll tell you why; When it comes to fighting the spreading cancer of radical Islamic terror that is choking the whole of the Middle East and much of Africa the American President has said he sees himself as a big town mayor fighting local crime. That’s idiotic!He sees ISIS, Al-Qaida, Boko Haram and other groups as rival gangs as in West Side...

A woman waiting for a bus was raped and left for dead in a savage attack described by detectives as attempted murder. An 18-year-old woman was attacked in the Malvern Road area of Leeds shortly before 11pm on Friday night. >Snip< Police are seeking a slim Asian man in his 20s in connection with the assault.

WASHINGTON — More than 100 prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay went right back to being terrorists when they got out, according to a new report. Out of 647 detainees who were released, 116 — or 18 percent — have been confirmed as “re-engaging” in terrorism, according to the report by the Director of National Intelligence. Of those, 25 are dead and 23 are back behind bars. Another 11 percent of those released are “suspected” of re-engaging in their jihadi ways, according to the annual summary that is required by Congress. The trend is likely to continue, even as President Obama...

President Idriss Deby of Chad said on Wednesday he knew the whereabouts of Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram, and called on him to surrender or risk being killed. Chad's army has waged a series of battles against Boko Haram as part of a cross-border military campaign and has re-taken territory the militant group held in northeastern Nigeria. ... The Chadian army is considered one of the best in the region, backed by a strong air force. It first deployed to help Cameroon fend off Boko Haram and is now pressing southwest into Nigerian territory...

France, Belgium and now even liberal Denmark regret letting in so many immigrants from Muslim countries. Their swelling Islamic communities have become breeding grounds for terrorists. So why is the U.S. opening the floodgates to foreign Muslims? The threat Muslim immigrants pose to homeland security was not addressed during the White House's three-day summit on terrorism.

Another anti-Semitic cab driver has been unearthed in the Big Apple, the New York Daily News reported Tuesday, after one cabbie told a 51 year-old Jewish woman that "all Jews must die." On Sunday morning, Jewish news columnist Baila Sebrow hailed a cab from Manhattan's Carlton Hotel - but when she entered the cab, she was instantly asked whether she was Jewish. After answering in the affirmative, Sebrow was told that "all Jews must die," and the driver then began driving "really fast" - so much so that she was afraid he would total the car, she stated. Sebrow, terrified,...

The Islamist terrorist group ISIS is instructing Muslim sympathizers in Europe (and presumably the United States) to seek out leftist activists to form an “armed combat” alliance. The armed alliance against European governments will further ISIS’s goal to conquer Rome by 2020.The call to recruit leftists is in an eBook entitled Black Flags from Rome. The eBook is the subject of a two part report by Bridget Johnson at PJ Media. (Excellent reporting in both part one and part two.) While Western leftist groups like Obama funder group Code Pink , ANSWER , and ISM have given political support and...

Former film star Brigitte Bardot, France’s iconic blonde bombshell and “sex kitten” who reigned supreme from 1952 – 1973, has been on trial five times for insulting Muslims and “inciting racial hatred.” The prosecutor in her fifth trial, Anne de Fontette, wants a heftier fine and a tougher sentence: the equivalent of $24,000 and a two month (hopefully) suspended jail term. What crimes has Bardot committed in the land without a First Amendment, in the land of Hate Speech laws that are being slickly exploited by non-persecuted Muslims? Bardot has written: “I am fed up with being under the thumb...

A Muslim political party will be contesting seats at next month’s regional elections in France, standing on a platform which includes promises to expand the halal industry and allow girls to wear the burqa. Critics have called the Democratic Union for French Muslims a “catastrophe”, claiming that it flies in the face of France’s secular history, but it’s founder insists that his party promotes religious tolerance. 10 percent of the French population is Muslim, giving the party a potential support base of around 6 million voters. “Muslims don’t feel well served by any of the traditional parties,” the party’s founder,...

American and European citizens and journalists are spurring jihadi violence by protesting the arrival of Muslim populations into their societies, President Barack Obama declared Thursday. “We’ve also seen, most recently in Europe, a rise in inexcusable acts of anti-Semitism, or in some cases, anti-Muslim sentiment or anti-immigrant sentiment,” Obama told a Feb. 19 audience of U.S. and foreign officials and advocates, who met to discuss ways to minimize jihadi violence. Peaceful criticism of Islamic culture is bad, he suggested. ”When people spew hatred toward others — because of their faith or because they’re immigrants — it feeds into terrorist narratives....