Free Republic

Study on 'group-focused enmity' conducted by researchers from University of Bielefeld in Germany finds hatred of Muslims decreased over past year, while hatred of Jews and homosexuals growing. Poland defined as most racist country Right-wing parties are growing stronger in Europe, and Swiss citizens have even voted in favor of a ban on mosque minarets, yet the fear or hatred of Islam in the continent has dropped over the past year, according to a study conducted in Germany and published Sunday. However, hatred of Jews and homosexuals is on the rise. For the last eight years, the Institute for Interdisciplinary...

A headmistress who was hounded out of her job after being falsely accused of racism was yesterday awarded more than £400,000 in compensation. Erica Connor had run a 'happy and successful' primary school but was driven to a breakdown by the allegations. The Daily Mail can reveal the school's troubles started when a local mosque decided to pack the governing body with Muslims. Paul Martin - a Muslim convert - and Mumtaz Saleem began monopolising meetings with the aim of turning New Monument in Woking into an Islamic faith school. (edit) But when Mrs Connor resisted the new governors'...

How the Quran commands the Muslims to murder the Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Bahais, Druze, Ahmediyas and all other non-Muslims in cold blood!http://www.historyofjihad.org/quran.html This site is dedicated to frank and fearless reporting and commenting to expose the Islamic Jihad Monday, January 29, 2007 2:37:50 AM The History of Jihad site is brought to you by a panel of contributors. This site is co-ordinated by Robin MacArthur with Mahomet Mostapha and Naim al Khoury, New Jersey. Other contributors to this site include professors and members of the faculty from the Universities of Stanford and Michigan (Ann Arbor), Kansas State University, Ohio...

Note: Video included. January 21, 2009 For hate speech -- after declining to do so last year, which means that Islamic supremacist groups in the Netherlands have kept up the pressure on lawmakers until they got the outcome they wanted. Hate speech, of course, is in the eye of the beholder, and hate speech laws are tools in the hands of the powerful that they can use to silence the powerless and crush dissent. And make no mistake: even though the Muslims in the Netherlands and elsewhere in the West present themselves as embattled victims of racism and "Islamophobia," that...

The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), an association of the world's Islamic states, is pushing the United Nations to outlaw "defamation" of religion in general – and of one religion in particular.

Over the past nine months, a major campaign promoted by member-states in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and its Secretariat General has been aiming at forcing a declaration on "defamation of religion" on the United Nations. The OIC, influenced by radical ideologues including the International Union of Clerics headed by Sheikh Yusuf Qardawi, wants the UN to vote a law banning and punishing any criticism of religion in general and of critical debates about Islam in particular. Aside from obstructing reformers and suppressing democratic movements within Muslim societies, the OIC move will be used by Jihadi Terror networks...

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...

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate a series of incidents in which Muslim women in Georgia were prevented from entering courtrooms because they were wearing Islamic headscarves, or hijabs. In the most recent incident, a Muslim woman was jailed today following a dispute over whether she could enter the courtroom while wearing her hijab.According to the woman’s husband, she was seeking to enter the courtroom in Douglasville, Ga., to deal with a matter related to a nephew’s traffic citation. After she walked through the security area, a bailiff allegedly told...

At a time when Jew haters in the Islamic world have become more assertive than ever, Berlin's Center for Research on Anti-Semitism is concentrating on a different group: the "new enemies of Islam." Who exactly belongs to this category is not clear from the center's latest publication, the "Yearbook for Research on Anti-Semitism." But the potential danger is supposedly known: "The fury of the new enemies of Islam is similar to the older rage of anti-Semites against the Jews," writes Prof. Wolfgang Benz, the institute's director. The center will present its new findings today at a conference in Berlin titled...

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Wednesday called on American Muslims to thank the Fox television network and the creator of "The Simpsons" for a recent episode that used comedy to challenge Islamophobia. The episode, which aired Sunday evening and is titled "Mypods and Boomsticks," highlights anti-Muslim sentiment by featuring a young Muslim character named Bashir and his family who face prejudice after moving to Springfield. In the program, Homer Simpson wrongly suspects that Bashir's family is involved in a terrorist plot. Bart Simpson befriends Bashir and defends him from bullies. CAIR's Greater Los Angeles Area office (CAIR-LA) sent...

The story has time for the detail that CAIR calls Jihad Watch an "Internet hate site," but no time to tell readers that CAIR itself is an unindicted co-conspirator in a jihad terror funding case, with several of its officials convicted on various jihad terror-related offenses. No time to include the fact that its cofounder and longtime Board Chairman has said: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth." No time...

Saudi King Abdullah has been urging the United Nations to pass a universal law prescribing imprisonment for criticizing Islam.  Some skeptics, including myself (notwithstanding that I twice enjoyed the King's generous hospitality in Riyadh), have suggested he start instead by establishing religious liberty in his own country,  where all religious observance other than Wahabi Islam is banned.   Two events occurring last week -- the hideous carnage in Mumbai, accompanied by shameful  proceedings at the U.N. -- convinced me it is urgent for His Majesty to radically alter his plans. Since the U.N. actions were less publicized, let me begin there.  A key U.N. committee passed...

The draft declaration recommends that local, national and international laws and human rights covenants be reviewed and amended as necessary so that "defamation of Islam" is made a criminal offence, losing the protection it has long enjoyed under the "pretext" of "freedom of expression, counter terrorism or national security". It recommends that legal instruments be established to punish offenders -- that is, those who "defame" Islam by associating it with violence, human rights abuses or terrorism....

A television commercial for an "Ahmed the dead terrorist" ringtone mocks Islam and must be withdrawn, the Advertising Standards Authority has ruled. Its ruling followed a complaint by a Moegamat Khan against the GloMobile commercial, flighted on SABC and DSTV. The commercial shows American standup comedian Jeff Durham holding a skeleton puppet with a white cloth around its head, which demands that the audience keeps quiet and says: "Silence! I kill you!" The ASA said Khan had complained that this was offensive to the Islamic religion, and created the impression that all Muslims were terrorists who would kill to get...

Mr. David Littman, speaker for Association of World Education, was forbidden to finish his statement regarding islam and human rights this morning, at the 9th session of United Nations the Human Rights Council, in Geneva (Switzerland). Mr. Littman, husband of the well known islamic scholar Bat Ye'or, addressed the delegates about the danger of creating the word "islamophobia" and the endemic antisemitism spread in the muslim world. The Egyptian ambassador interrupted him and told the President of the Council that discussing religion was out of order at the United Nations. He added furthemore that no discussion of the islamic faith...

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...

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...

It was described as an "exemplary piece of programme making" by an award winning film-maker which launched a week of television coverage of Islam. But a Channel 4 documentary on the Qur'an has angered a group of leading Shia Muslim scholars, who have criticised it for making "seriously inaccurate statements" about their branch of the faith. In a letter to Channel 4, they said that the depiction of Shia beliefs in The Qur'an, broadcast earlier this month, was "disappointing, misleading, even defamatory". The signatories to the letter were also angered by the apparent links made between Shiaism and violence, with...

MUSLIM SUBWAY ADS LINKED TO TERROR PLOTS - New York Post Jul 21, 2008 ... An Islamic group plans to blitz 1000 subway cars with advertisements this September in a campaign being promoted by a Brooklyn imam whom ...

The author of the best-selling new thriller, "The Last Patriot," says his life already has been threatened for contending the Muslim holy book contains errors and is not based on the last revelations of Muhammad. "I've already had multiple death threats come in, and that's something that we're taking very seriously with the tour coming up," said Brad Thor, whose "Patriot" already has climbed to No. 1 on the Amazon fiction list after its release last week. Thor says he's adding security precautions as he goes forward with a national book tour. In the book, which is being called the...

[Arab racism against Jews even inside Israel] Fear of calling a terrorist a terrorist Ha'aretz, Israel - Jul 7, 2008 If justifying the murder of innocents because they belong to a certain hated group is not abject racism, I'd like to know what is. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/999795.html

Three years after the London Tube and bus bombings, it is alarming beyond measure to record that Britain is even now sleepwalking into Islamisation. Some people will think this is mere hyperbole. However, that's the problem. Britain still doesn't grasp that it is facing a pincer attack from both terrorism and cultural infiltration and usurpation. The former is understood; the latter is generally not acknowledged or is even denied, and those who call attention to it are pilloried as either ' Islamophobes' or alarmists who have taken up residence on Planet Paranoia. Certainly, the police and security service have been...

Far right groups in Switzerland have collected enough signatures to force a nationwide referendum on banning minarets, the distinctive towers of Islamic architecture. In what is being seen as a sign of growing Islamophobia in Europe, more than 100,000 Swiss citizens signed a petition to halt the construction of minarets. Under Switzerland's direct democracy rules, that level of support is enough to trigger a referendum. The Swiss interior ministry today confirmed a vote would take place, without setting a date. The petition was launched by Ulrich Schlüer an MP from the controversial Swiss People's party, which was accused of racist...

Vanessa Alikhan was at a Democratic ''unity party'' when she overheard another guest indignantly refute the rumor that Barack Obama is Muslim, as if it was a racial slur. She later recounted the conversation to a friend. ''She told me that this is politics and that I should just deal with it,'' said Alikhan, a Fort Lauderdale graphic artist who converted to Islam about five years ago. ``To me this is the same as telling an African American or a Jewish person they should deal with discrimination because people aren't ready to embrace them as a group.'' She and other...

Addressing the issue of anti-Islamic prejudice in the UK, a British government minister has said that the growing culture of hostility has led many Muslims to say they feel targeted like "the Jews of Europe." Labor MP Shahid Malik, Britain's first Muslim government minister, made the statement in an interview with to be broadcast on Monday on the UK's Channel 4, to coincide with the third anniversary of the 7/7 bombings in London which killed 52 people. Malik, appointed minister for international development by Prime Minister Gordon Brown last year, said it has somehow become legitimate to target Muslims in...

In Democratic primaries this year the overwhelming majority of Muslim Americans voted for a man who has, throughout the campaign, vigorously knocked down rumors that he is a Muslim. But support for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., during the primaries doesn't mean the Democrat has a free pass from the Muslim American community. Last week's incident at an Obama rally in Michigan put some added strain on Obama's support in the Muslim American community. A campaign volunteer reportedly barred two Muslim American women from appearing in camera-range behind Obama's podium after they refused the campaign representative's request to remove their headscarves....

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...

Riyadh - The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a league of 57 Muslim nations, said on Monday a Danish court's rejection of a suit against a paper for printing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad could provoke "Islamophobia". The High Court for western Denmark on Thursday rejected a suit against Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that first published cartoons of Islam's prophet, leading to major 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...

This is fully in accord with Mark Steyn’s precise observation that “so-called hate speech laws” are “not about facts,” but rather, “they’re about feelings.” Yet facts are really all that should concern us; the rocks Mahmoud Alkhazeh threw at the driver he confronted did not hurt more because they were accompanied by stinging words. Hate speech laws are an assault on truth telling, at precisely the moment when so few dare to tell the truth, and it is for that reason all the more urgently needed.

For years those who have repeated the simple truth that while there are Muslims who are moderate, there is no moderate Islam, have been vilified as bigots and “Islamophobes,” and marginalized in the same way by Beltway analysts and the mainstream media (both liberal and faux-fearless conservative) in favor of those who were determined to “engage moderate Muslims.”

Tarek Fatah: Islamists who have a problem with free speech should leave June 10, 2008 Tarek Fatah When Mohamed Elmasry declared a few years ago that there was more press freedom in Egypt than in Canada, it took me some time and effort to lift my jaw up from the floor. However, since then I have become accustomed to the outlandish statements and claims of the good science professor from Egypt. Now, he has managed to pass on his rare talents to his political apprentice Khurrum Awan. An Islamist law student, known for his exaggerated and forced sense of victimhood,...

UN Hatemongers to Investigate U.S. "Racism"   By Joseph KleinFrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, May 19, 2008 The United Nations Special Rapporteur on “contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance”, Dr. Doudou Diène, has been invited by the U.S. government for a three week visit this month and next to the cities of Washington, New York, Chicago, Omaha, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami, and San Juan in Puerto Rico. The stated purpose is for Diène to gather first-hand information on racism in America. He is scheduled to hold meetings with governmental representatives, both at national and local levels,...

And Now, the Islamophobia Observatory Sat, May 10, 2008 at 6:08:43 pm PDT Who says Islamic nations aren’t coming up with ground-breaking, innovative research? The 57 nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference are opening a new observatory! No, not that kind of observatory, silly. This kind: =============================================== Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu has stated that a project called the Islamophobia Observatory has been launched in order to eliminate the worldwide waves of fear of Islam. [Good luck with that. – ed.] Ihsanoglu cited the commonsensical intellectual reaction of the Danish public following cartoons published...

Scotland's first Muslim Police Association is being created in an attempt to encourage more Muslims to join and stay in the force. Strathclyde Police hopes the group will also help tackle Islamophobia and improve understanding of Islam. Pc Amar Shakoor, who was Scotland's first Muslim officer, said negativity had recently been directed towards the Muslim community. He said the association hoped to put Islam in a more positive light. "We want to highlight some of the positive things Islam can provide to the communities and not just the police services," he said. According to Pc Shakoor, since the 9/11 World...

Winning hearts and minds -- the Bush administration, foreign policy wonks, even the U.S. military agree that this is the key to any victory over global terrorism. Yet our public diplomacy program has made little progress on improving America's image. Few seem to recognize that American ignorance of Islam and Muslims has been the fatal flaw. How much do Americans know about the views and beliefs of Muslims around the world? According to polls, not much. Perhaps not surprising, the majority of Americans (66%) admit to having at least some prejudice against Muslims; one in five say they have "a...

He's a Muslim. He was sworn into office on the Koran. He doesn't say the Pledge of Allegiance. His pastor is an anti-Semite. He's a tool of Louis Farrakhan. He's anti-Israel. His advisers are anti-Israel. He's friends with terrorists. The terrorists want him to win. He's the Antichrist. By now you've probably seen at least some of these e-mails and articles about Barack Obama bouncing around the Internet. They distort Obama's religious faith, question his support for Israel, warp the identity and positions of his campaign advisers and defame his friends and allies from Chicago. The purpose of the smear...

The world's Muslim countries warned Wednesday that an "alarming" rise in anti-Islamic insults and attacks in the West has become a threat to international security. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) called on Europe and America to take stronger measures against 'Islamophobia' in a report prepared for a summit of the group's 57 members in Dakar on Thursday and Friday. The report by a special OIC monitoring group said the organisation was struggling to get the West to understand that Islamophobia "has dangerous implications on global peace and security" and to convince western powers to do more. Islamic leaders...

“The Sept. 11 attacks, the Iraq war and suicide bombings worldwide have changed not only the way we live but the way we look at those around us, especially Muslims. "Islamophobia" has entered the American vernacular, and the anti-Muslim attitudes and prejudice it describes remain common.” – ABC News, Ann Sorkowitz & Julie N. Hays In an appalling piece of news staging and misrepresentation, ABC has produced a Primetime segment right out of the ideological playbook of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). In the segment entitled – “Witness to Discrimination: What Would You Do?” – with the byline...

Apparently to prove that the US is filled with Muslim hating Yahoos, ABC went on the hunt to find "Islamophobia" in America and the result is "Witness to Discrimination: What Would You Do?" Since they didn't really know where to find any, ABC News decided to create their own prejudice against Muslims by hiring an actress to put on Muslim dress and get "confronted" by a Muslim hating coffee store server -- also an actor hired by ABC. Then, they rolled the cameras, opened the doors to the public and, viola, ABC "found" prejudice in America.

"The Sept. 11 attacks, the Iraq war and suicide bombings worldwide have changed not only the way we live but the way we look at those around us, especially Muslims. "Islamophobia" has entered the American vernacular, and the anti-Muslim attitudes and prejudice it describes remain common. Content Special Section: What Would You Do?But what if you witnessed "Islamophobia" in action and saw someone being victimized because of someone else's prejudices? What would you do? ABC's production crew outfitted The Czech Stop, a bustling roadside bakery north of Waco, Texas, with hidden cameras and two actors. One played a female customer...

THE leader of an alleged home-grown Muslim terrorist group talked of an attack that would kill 1000 people, a Melbourne terror trial heard today. Abdul Nacer Benbrika, 47, said that in order to make the Government withdraw Australian troops from Iraq a large-scale operation was needed. "To cause maximum damage. To cause the death of a thousand.... by use of a bomb." The group of Melbourne men bent on violent Jihad planned terrorist attacks on football games or train stations to maximise deaths, the jury was told. And the director and leader of the alleged terrorist group in Melbourne gave...

In 2006, the FBI reported that hate crimes against Muslims numbered 156 or about one for every two million people, which is certainly unfortunate and tragic for the victims, but hardly an epidemic of hate against Muslims. After 9-11 and two ongoing and brutal wars against Islamic fanatics, Americans are remarkably tolerant, well-behaved and eminently multicultural. Yet, groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) want you to believe Muslims in America are afraid to leave their homes for fear of violence, and their allies on the far left want you to believe that an Islamophobic epidemic is sweeping...

Discrimination: New FBI data on hate crimes reveal Muslim groups are crying wolf about exploding anti-Muslim abuses. They're actually shrinking, belying claims of mass Islamophobia.Not only are anti-Islamic hate crimes way down, but they're a fraction of overall religious hate crimes. The overwhelming majority of such crimes target Jews, something CAIR and other Muslim groups don't seem all that concerned about. In 2006, a whopping 66% of religiously motivated attacks were on Jews, while just 11% targeted Muslims, even though the Jewish and Muslim populations are similar in size. Catholics and Protestants, who together account for 9% of victims, are...

CORDOBA, Spain (AFP) — Islamophobia gathered pace in the West with the end of the Cold War, long before the September 11, 2001 attacks against the US, participants at a two-day OSCE conference that began in Spain Tuesday said. "After the end of the Cold War, certain people took Muslims and Islam to be the new scapegoat and enemy," Mustapha Cherif, an expert on Islam at the University of Algiers, told AFP on the sidelines of the gathering. "But after the senseless act of September 11, this has been amplified," added Cherif, who is known for his commitment to battling...

GENEVA (Reuters) - United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said on Monday that bigotry and prejudice, especially in regard to Muslims, were common in Europe and called on governments to tackle the issue. The remarks from the former Canadian Supreme Court judge, which came in the wake of similar charges issued last week by a U.N. rights investigator, were quickly challenged by a leading global non-religious grouping. The report by investigator Doudou Diene of Senegal documented what he called an alarming rise in intolerance, and in particular Islamophobia, in European countries, and Arbour said, "I have no...

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NEW YORK (AFP) - CIA director Michael Hayden warned Friday that Al-Qaeda was plotting fresh attacks on the United States aimed at sowing death and destruction on a massive scale. "I want to be as clear as I can about the threat we face," Hayden said, saying the Central Intelligence Agency would use "every inch we're given" by the US government to wage the "war on terror" and hunt down militants. "We bear responsibility for standing watch on this threat," he said. "Our nation is in a state of armed conflict with Al-Qaeda and its affiliates. It's a conflict that...

All employees of the United Kingdom's National Health Service, some worked together as colleagues at hospitals in England and Scotland, and experts and officials say the evidence points to the plot being hatched after they met in Britain, rather than overseas. "To think that these guys were a sleeper cell and somehow were able to plan this operation from the different places they were, and then orchestrate being hired by the NHS so they could get to the UK, then get jobs in the same area - I think that's a planning impossibility," said Bob Ayres, a former U.S. intelligence...

THE car-bomb/suicide-terror operations in London and Glasgow should have provided a fresh opportunity for reminding everyone, especially Muslims in Britain, that terrorism in the name of Islam still poses a major threat to public peace and safety. Yet this is not what is happening. Prime Minister Gordon Brown keeps repeating that the attacks have nothing to do with Islam - but, at the same time, keeps inviting "Muslim community leaders" to Downing Street to discuss how to prevent attacks. If the attacks have nothing to do with Islam, why invite Muslim "leaders" rather than Buddhist monks?

Pakistan demanded on Monday that Britain withdraw a knighthood awarded to author Salman Rushdie, as a government minister said the honour gave a justification for suicide attacks by Muslims. Angry protesters in several cities torched British flags and beat them with their shoes in protest at the accolade for the Indian-born writer of "The Satanic Verses" and chanted "Death to Britain, death to Rushdie." "If somebody has to attack by strapping bombs to his body to protect the honour of the Prophet, then it is justified," Pakistani Religious Affairs Minister Ijaz-ul-Haq told the national assembly. Iran has already accused British...