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URUMQI, China – The petite Muslim woman with the sky blue head scarf began by complaining that the public washrooms were closed at a crowded mosque on Friday — the most important day of the week for Islamic worship. When a group gathered around her on the sidewalk, Madina Ahtam then railed against communist rule in China's far western region of Xinjiang, rocked by ethnic rioting that has killed at least 184 people this week. The 26-year-old businesswoman eventually led the crowd of mostly men in a fist-pumping street march that was quickly blocked by riot police, some with automatic...

Young Female Islamist Denial By: Joe Kaufman FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, July 10, 2009   Earlier this year, I wrote of a young female leader from the Muslim American Society (MAS), Mashal Azhar, and of the e-mails that she had sent me. She was upset at my group’s slogan, “Fighting Hate with Truth.” She had believed it was dishonest. She was mistaken. In the course of our correspondence, Azhar was unusually candid in describing her and her group’s goal of creating a new America and bringing her brand of Islam to the masses. Recently, I had the opportunity to communicate with...

The French Republic is not blessed or burdened with a First Amendment. So when President Nicolas Sarkozy recently suggested that France ban the wearing of the burqa in all public places, the Chamber of Deputies took it up. Unlike the headscarf, which covers a woman's hair but leaves her face visible, the burqa is a head-to-toe covering that makes walking draperies of women. Some, like the chador worn in Afghanistan, feature a mesh covering for the face. The Saudi version usually sports a slit for the eyes. Here's an online catalogue's description of one: "Khimar and niqab set made of...

Al Qaeda terrorists have vowed to 'wreak dreadful revenge' on France over its plans to ban the burkha. The chilling warning comes after President Nicolas Sarkozy said the Islamic garment which covers the head and body 'debases women' and is not welcome in his country. French MPs have set up a commission to decide if it should be made illegal for women to hide their faces in public. Now leaders of Al Qaeda's North African network have called on French Muslims to react 'with the utmost hostility'. One Islamic extremist website carried the message: 'We will seek dreadful revenge on...

A Muslim teacher was barred from a Roman Catholic college after refusing to remove her full-face veil so staff could identify her. The woman, who works at an Islamic school, opted to leave instead and now the college could face a claim of religious discrimination. The teacher was at an open day at the sixth-form college with two female pupils, all of them wearing niqabs showing only their eyes. After they were asked to remove them to comply with college policy, the girls, thought to be aged 15, agreed but their teacher refused and left. The incident in Justice Secretary...

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has ordered an inquiry in to the "suspicious" death of Neda Soltan, the woman shot by government militiamen during a protest in Tehran. The President sent a letter to the chief of Iran's judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, requesting a serious investigation to help to identify and prosecute “the elements” behind the killing earlier this month. “Given the many fabricated reports around this heartbreaking incident and the widespread propaganda by the foreign media... it seems there is clear interference by the enemies of Iran who want to misuse the situation politically and tarnish the clean...

Hitting limited theaters this weekend is the true and eye-opening story of a modern-day woman who was tragically stoned to death in Iran after she was falsely accused and deemed guilty of adultery. Produced by the man behind “Braveheart” and “The Passion of the Christ” and based on the book of the same name, “The Stoning of Soraya M.” was inspired by true events that took place in 1986 and comes out as the current strife plaguing a deeply divided Iran has caught the world's attention. On Friday, foreign ministers from Group of Eight countries said they deplored post-election violence...

It took the tragic killing of Neda Soltan in Iran for the world to realize that the lives - and deaths - of women are at the center of the struggle for human rights against religious extremism. The astounding protests taking place in Iran over the past week, since the fraudulent victory of Islamic extremist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over Mir Hossein Mousavi, is really a story about women. According to an article in last weekend's Yediot Aharonot, written in collaboration with a journalist inside Iran, the protests were started not by supporters of Mousavi but rather by supporters of his wife...

PARIS (AP) — A top Muslim group in Britain lashed out at Nicolas Sarkozy as "patronizing and offensive" on Tuesday, after the French president said body- and face-covering Islamic garments such as the burqa turn women into prisoners. In Paris, parliament formally created a commission Tuesday to study the wearing of body-cloaking Muslim robes in France, a day after Sarkozy told lawmakers that the burqa would not be welcome in the country. A top official with the Muslim Council of Britain, an umbrella organization for British Muslim groups, accused Sarkozy of "divisive politics," and said his comments could fan an...

Okay, stumbled upon this via the interesting Tehran thread at Skyscrapercity.com . Purportedly from June 17 in Tehran a woman steps into traffic without mandatory hijab and with an rather un-islamic dress. The folks in the car filming repeatedly ask whether Revolution has broken out. LOL. This took guts. Hope they don't find her. Video at Youtube

French president Nicolas Sarkozy's rejection of the burka and the face veil are "in keeping with the republican spirit of secularism," according to the rector of the Grand Mosque in Paris, Dalil Boubakeur, quoted by media. Boubakeur said he supported a proposal by French MPs for a panel of deputies to look at the wearing of the burka "on the condition that they listen to what the experts on Islam have to say". The burka marked "a return towards Islam's past, in line with the preaching and vision of fundamentalists" added Boubakeur (photo)....

The French National Assembly announced Tuesday the creation of an inquiry into whether women in France should be allowed to wear the burka, one day after President Nicolas Sarkozy controversially told lawmakers that the traditional Muslim garment was "not welcome" in France.A cross-party panel of 32 lawmakers will investigate whether the traditional Muslim garment poses a threat to the secular nature of the French constitution. They are due to report back with their recommendations in six months.On Monday Sarkozy declared in a keynote parliamentary address that the burka, which covers women from head to toe, is "not welcome" in France....

Dr. Suheir Assady was recently appointed as the new Head of the Nephrology Department at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, Israel, a statement by the facility said Tuesday. To date, Dr. Assady is the first Israeli Muslim woman directing a large medical department in an Israeli hospital. There are only a few women holding similar positions in the entire Middle East.

Neda Agha Soltan, 27, was dubbed the Angel of Freedom after a video which appeared to show her being shot by a government sniper was posted on the internet. Graphic scenes show Neda – her name means "the call" – walking with her father among demonstrators, then separately when she was shot as well as attempts to save her life. Online posters of the woman covered in blood quickly emerged, included one modelled on a prominent image of Barack Obama during the last US presidential campaign. Some online posts speculated the image would rank alongside that of the unnamed man...

... Her family scheduled a memorial service to be held in a mosque in northern Tehran, but the government forbade ceremony, and she was buried quietly on Sunday ... All mosques were given a direct order from the government barring them from holding any memorial services for Neda, and her family was threatened with grave consequences if anyone gathered to mourn her... Now reformist presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi, one of the leaders of the democratic protests in Tehran, has called for a Thursday night memorial service for all protesters who have been killed to be held at the shrine of...

The Islamic burqa is ‘not welcome’ in France and should be banned, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced today. In comments which were set to infuriate radical Muslim leaders, he said the body covering ‘is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience,’ adding: ‘It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic.’ A group of 58 MPs from the Left and Right has called on Parliament to take action against women who are adopting what they called oppressive head-to-toe Islamic dress that ‘breaches individual freedoms’. There are more than five million Muslims in the secular...

Are the Ayatollahs learning that hell hath no fury like 34 million women scorned, forced out of the workplace, harassed and humiliated by religious police for three decades?  I have noticed some of the bravest protestors in Iran have been women, including a few who have been without headscarves and showing a great deal more of their figures than the regime would approve. Roger Cohen of the NY Times has noticed this, too. .... Iran's women stand in the vanguard. For days now, I've seen them urging less courageous men on. I've seen them get beaten and return to the fray. "Why are you...

PARIS – President Nicolas Sarkozy lashed out Monday at the practice of wearing the Muslim burqa, insisting the full-body religious gown is a sign of the "debasement" of women and that it won't be welcome in France. The French leader expressed support for a recent call by dozens of legislators to create a parliamentary commission to study a small but growing trend of wearing the full-body garment in France. In the first presidential address in 136 years to a joint session of France's two houses of parliament, Sarkozy laid out his support for a ban even before the panel has...

President Nicolas Sarkozy's government is to consider banning the burka and other Islamic clothing which French MPs claim is degrading to women. In a move that sparked fierce debate, a group of parliamentarians called for an inquiry into the wearing of the head-to-toe Islamic veil in France and whether Muslim women who cover themselves completely in public constitute an assault on French secularism and women's rights. In a call that won support from senior figures in Mr Sarkozy's government, they demanded that a parliamentary commission consider the fate in France of the burka, where the eyes are covered by a...

France could bar Muslim women from wearing full veils in public, a government minister said yesterday as parliament took action over concerns about an increase in women who are wearing the niqab and burka in big cities. The latest controversy over dress habits among France’s six million Muslims follows public differences this month between Presidents Obama and Sarkozy over the merits of legislating on religious clothing. A group of 58 MPs from the Left and Right called on Wednesday for parliament to react to the phenomenon of women who are adopting what they called oppressive head-to-toe Islamic dress that “breaches...

FRANCE may introduce a law banning full burqas if a parliamentary commission finds the growing number of women wearing them have been coerced into doing so. Nearly 60 legislators signed a proposal on Wednesday calling for a parliamentary commission to look into the spread of the burqa in France, a garment that they said amounted "to a breach of individual freedoms on our national territory". France, home to Europe's largest Muslim minority, is strongly attached to its secular values and to gender equality, and many see the burqa, which covers the wearer from head to toe and hides her face,...

Those who want to know the truth about Iranian justice must see Cyrus Nowrasteh’s gripping feature documentary film “The Stoning of Soraya M.” The film - based on the book written by Friedounce Sahebjam and debuting today at the Toronto International Film Festival - depicts the true life story of Soraya M, an Iranian woman falsely accused of adultery. She was then sentenced to death by stoning so that her husband would be free to marry a 14-year old. Partially buried in the ground, she was savagely stoned to death by a mob of men that included her own father,...

There's no doubt that Iran's election will be a major test for incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But many Iranian women hope the results will also shake the current status of women in the Islamic republic. "Thirty-four million women demand to have female Cabinet ministers; 34 million women demand to be eligible to run for president," Zahra Rahnavard, wife of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi, told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. Whether her husband wins or loses Friday, Rahnavard has broken barriers for women just by appearing on the campaign trail with her husband, a rarity for political wives in Iran. "We look...

Regardless of whether their preferred candidate ends up winning Friday's enthusiastic presidential election in Iran, women have emerged as a force to be reckoned with in the country's politics. Women have long been a potent force in Iran, and have come out to vote for other candidates in the past – in 1997, for example, 40 per cent of the voters who supported another reform candidate, Mohammad Khatami, were women – but observers this year say that never before have women played such a major part in an election. The two pro-reform candidates – Mir-Hossein Mousavi and cleric Mehdi Karoubi...

Your name is Aisha and you are fifteen years old. You live in Dearborn, Michigan, and your parents are Muslim. So were you once, but it isn’t so easy now. When you were little, you could play with your friends from school, do cartwheels — and laugh. Then, aged nine, your life changed. Your parents made you wear the hijab. At first you didn’t mind; all girls like to dress up. But you got fed up with it; it got in the way when you wanted to do cartwheels. “It’s for your own good,” they said. “It will stop the...

Woman caned in BD for talking to Hindu man Sunday, 07 Jun, 2009 | 04:17 AM PST DHAKA, June 6: A mother was caned for talking to a Hindu man in Bangladesh, police said on Saturday, prompting fresh concerns about a rise in cases of harsh treatment of women under religious laws. The punishment was carried out in a remote village on the orders of village elders, local police chief Enamul Monowar said over telephone. The village elders found Kamala Begum, 38, a mother of four children, guilty under Sharia law of chatting with an unidentified Hindu man, Monowar said....

Some photos of a barefoot, scarved Secretary Clinton touring Cairo's Sultan Hassan Mosque. There's also a video of the mosque tour at the bottom of this post. Nothing else for today.

CAIRO (AP) — President Barack Obama says women should have the right to choose whether they want to be equal with men. He discussed women's rights in a speech about America's relationship with the Muslim world.

The National Association of Muslim American Women (NAMAW) has charged the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with entrapping four New York City Muslims arrested for planning to bomb a synagogue. The cell was nabbed last week after a year-long police dragnet that involved an informant, who the Times of London reported probably is Shahed Hussain, a former New York state motel owner. He began collaborating with the FBI in 2002 to avoid deportation to Pakistan after being arrested on charges of fraud. NAMAW appealed to the Justice Department to investigate the case, accusing the FBI of plotting to entrap the...

Responding to threats from the Taliban, at least 10 girls' schools have shut down near Kunduz in northern Afghanistan. Visiting the schools is a dangerous proposition -- a trip leading directly into the heart of Islamist territory. When the deputy director of Aqtash High School talks of the government, he isn't referring to Hamid Karzai's central government in Kabul. Nor does he refer to the provincial administration in Kunduz. "The Taliban are our government," Bashir says. "They have taken over our region, their commanders give the orders here." Bashir is standing in a dusty classroom on the ground floor of...

If you’ve ever wondered why radical leftists—who supposedly care about women’s rights—feel compelled to justify Islam’s violent oppression of women, you should read United in Hate by Jamie Glazov. Glazov does an excellent job of examining the love affair between leftists in the West and radical Muslims who treat women as “less worthy than cows and sheep,” as Palestinian writer Souad says in the book. While some liberals in the U.S. and Europe have no problem telling the truth about Islamic gender apartheid, others fanatically defend it.

Iran is all astir over the sensational case of the alleged serial killer inspired to hunt her elderly prey by the mystery novels of Agatha Christie. According to press accounts, Iranian police arrested the 32-year-old alleged killer in the city of Qazvin, about 60 miles northwest of the capital. She has been identified only by her first name, Mahin. The suspect allegedly confessed to luring into her clutches elderly women by offering them rides in her car after prayers. She allegedly lulled her passengers into a sense of security by telling them how much they reminded her of her own...

A SAUDI judge has told a seminar on domestic violence that it is okay for a man to slap his wife for lavish spending, a local newspaper has reported. Jeddah judge Hamad al-Razine gave the example of overspending to buy a high-end abaya, the head-to toe black shroud Saudi women have to wear in public, as justifying a smack for one's wife, Arab News said. ”If a person gives 1,200 riyals ($423.50) to his wife and she spends 900 riyals ($317.65) to purchase an abaya from a brand shop, and if her husband slaps her on the face as a...

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, May 8, 2009 – The young Dari interpreter standing by the desk translates the words of the American doctor to the young woman, as she sits quietly. An examining table stands against one yellow wall in the small room. Various tools and medical equipment are positioned around the room. Army Col. (Dr.) Kathryn Hall-Boyer, the Joint Sustainment Command Afghanistan surgeon, examines a girl’s ear for infection at the women’s clinic at the Afghan National Army Kandahar Regional Hospital in Afghanistan, April 21, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Elisebet Freeburg  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available....

NINE people, including a 30-year-old woman, have been hanged in Iran, state media reported yesterday. The state-run daily newspaper Iran said four of the nine including the woman were convicted of murder in separate cases and were hanged on Wednesday. The woman was found guilty of killing her husband with a hammer, it said.

Human rights groups have protested against the execution on Friday of a young Iranian woman for a murder committed when she was 17 years old. Amnesty International said it was outraged by Delara Darabi's hanging and that she did not get a fair trial.

'Mother, they're going to kill me': Outrage as Iran executes woman, 23, for alleged murder when she was just 17 By DAILY MAIL REPORTER 02nd May 2009 An Amnesty International member protester demonstrates outside the Iranian Embassy in Kensington on Delara Darabi's behalf A 23-year-old woman made a frantic phonecall to her mother begging for help before Iran authorities held a rushed execution - disregarding a stay-of-execution and allegedly without informing her lawyer. 'Mother they are going to execute me, please save me,' Delara Darabi screamed, before a prison official grabbed the phone and told her mother: 'We are going...

A BRITISH air stewardess was sacked for refusing to fly to Saudi Arabia after she was ordered to wear a traditional Islamic robe and walk behind male colleagues. Lisa Ashton, a £15,000-a-year stewardess with BMI, was told that in public areas in Saudi Arabia she was required to wear a black robe, known as an abaya. This covers everything but the face, feet and hands. She was told to follow her male colleagues, irrespective of rank. Ashton, 37, who was worried about security in the country, refused to fly there, claiming the instructions were discriminatory. She was sacked last April....

Israel is not an apartheid state but Islam, as it is practiced in many countries today, is the world’s largest practitioner of gender and religious apartheid. I have been asked to speak about Islamic gender apartheid. To some extent, the documentation of “real” apartheid, which characterizes Islam, should serve as a necessary corrective to the false accusation against Israel as an apartheid nation state. But let me also note that Muslim countries have historically persecuted their non-Muslim citizens but would have us believe that this is not “racism.” Today, Christians, Ba’hai, Hindus, Zoroastrians all live at their peril in Muslim...

Reporting from Cairo -- Egyptians are cautiously rejoicing over the recent appointment of a veiled Egyptian American Muslim woman as an advisor to President Obama. Dalia Mogahed, senior analyst and executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, was appointed this month to Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Arabs are closely watching for signs that the new leadership in Washington is making efforts to improve relations with Islam, which many Muslims believe were severely damaged during the eight years of the Bush administration. The selection of Mogahed is viewed by many in the Middle East as...

A Yemeni woman has been executed by firing squad for killing her husband, whom she accused of molesting their daughter. The woman's lawyer, Abdel-Alim al-Wafi, says she was executed Sunday in a province north of the capital, San'a. SNIP She was sentenced to death in 2003. Under Yemeni law, she could have been pardoned if one of her children had agreed. But the lawyer says none of her children did because of pressure from the father's family.

Authorities on Monday beheaded a Saudi woman convicted of fatally shooting her husband and setting his body on fire. Laila Bin Hamdan al-Shammari was executed in the northern city of Hayel. The Interior Ministry said the woman killed her husband after a dispute. It did not explain the nature of the argument. Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islam under which people convicted of murder, drug trafficking, rape and armed robbery can be executed - usually with a sword.

Diplomatic row breaks out as Iranian-American reporter Roxana Saberi threatens to go on hunger strike after eight-year sentence US-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi, who has just been jailed as a spy in Iran for eight years, taking footage in Tehran. Photograph: Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images An Iranian-American journalist, Roxana Saberi, was sentenced to eight years in prison yesterday by the Iranian authorities after being found guilty of spying for the United States. The jailing of Saberi - a freelance who has worked for the BBC - seems certain to deepen tensions between America and Iran following indications that, with Barack Obama in...

A female provincial official known for fighting for women's rights has been gunned down in southern Afghanistan, following a day of fighting in the region that left 22 militants dead, officials said. A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmedi, claimed responsibility for Sunday's attack. Gunmen killed Sitara Achakzai outside of her home in the city of Kandahar and then drove off, said Matiullah Khan Qateh, police chief of Kandahar province. He said the four men drove up on two motorcycles and shot Achakzai as she was getting out of her car. Achakzai, a dual German-Afghan citizen, spent the years of Taliban...

AN Azeri immigrant in Russia's northern city of Saint Petersburg has been charged with hiring hit men to kill his 21-year-old daughter for wearing a mini-skirt, police said today. The man's arrest follows the detention last week of two other citizens of Azerbaijan, a majority Muslim state in the Caucasus, who confessed to murdering the girl, a university medical student. “They admitted to being paid 100,000 rubles ($4140) by the girl's father. They said he wanted to punish his daughter for flouting national traditions and wearing a mini-skirt,” a police source told said today. The girl was abducted on the...

From correspondents in St Petersburg | April 13, 2009 Article from: Agence France-Presse AN Azeri immigrant in Russia's northern city of Saint Petersburg has been charged with hiring hit men to kill his 21-year-old daughter for wearing a mini-skirt, police said today. The man's arrest follows the detention last week of two other citizens of Azerbaijan, a majority Muslim state in the Caucasus, who confessed to murdering the girl, a university medical student. “They admitted to being paid 100,000 rubles ($4140) by the girl's father. They said he wanted to punish his daughter for flouting national traditions and wearing a...

(CNN) -- A Saudi judge has refused for a second time to annul a marriage between an 8-year-old girl and a 47-year-old man, a relative of the girl told CNN. The most recent ruling, in which the judge upheld his original verdict, was handed down Saturday in the Saudi city of Onaiza, where late last year the same judge rejected a petition from the girl's mother, who was seeking a divorce for her daughter. The relative said the judge, Sheikh Habib Al-Habib, "stuck by his earlier verdict and insisted that the girl could petition the court for a divorce once...

A Saudi mother is expected to appeal a judge's ruling after he once again refused to let her 8-year-old daughter divorce a 47-year-old man, a relative said. Sheikh Habib Al-Habib made the ruling Saturday in the Saudi city of Onaiza. Late last year, he rejected a petition to annul the marriage. The case, which has drawn criticism from local and international rights groups, came to light in December when Al-Habib declined to annul the marriage on a legal technicality. His dismissal of the mother's petition sparked outrage and made headlines around the world.

The traveling, never-ending campaign road show came home this week. POTUS is back in Washington from his “I like you-you like me,” excellent adventure in Europe and “surprise” trip to Baghdad. It was nice of Obama to thank the troops. He should have bowed to them instead of King Abdullah. Members of the O-Team, recovering from late-night teleprompter edits, grand parties and jet-lag now deny that the apparently obsequious gesture to the Saudi king was really a “bow.” Perhaps it would be better described as a “curtsey.” Whatever it was, the Arab press applauded the moment as servile -- and...

<p>For 30 years, Nonie Darwish lived under sharia law as a Muslim in Egypt. After moving to the United States, she became a follower of Jesus Christ and quietly lived the American dream.</p> <p>But the 9/11 terrorist attacks awakened her to the threat of Islamic terrorism and spurred her to research what the Quran, sharia law, and Muslim religious literatures actually teach its followers.</p>