Free Republic

CAIRO – Hundreds...have staged a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to demand the release of an Egyptian cleric imprisoned in the United States for plots to blow up New York City landmarks. Omar Abdel Rahman, also known as the blind sheik, is serving life in prison after a 1995 conviction for his advisory role in conspiracies to blow up the United Nations and several New York bridges and tunnels. ....Thursday, protesters near the heavily fortified embassy held banners reading "freedom for our sheik" and chanted slogans and held prayers. The protest leader was Abboud el-Zomor, who...

Jury in the Chauncey Bailey murder trial could see the hourlong clip as soon as Wednesday. OAKLAND -- Large portions of a secretly recorded police video on which former Your Black Muslim leader Yusuf Bey IV laughed about the 2007 killing of journalist Chauncey Bailey, threatened to kill a police officer and implicated himself in a kidnapping and torture case can be shown to jurors, a judge ruled Tuesday. The jury in Bey IV and co-defendant Antoine Mackey's triple murder trial could see the video as early as Wednesday, after other witnesses testify in the case. Judge Thomas Reardon, working...

JERUSALEM – An anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip struck a school bus in southern Israel Thursday, wounding two people, one of them critically, and prompting fierce Israeli retaliation that killed five Palestinians. Israel unleashed airstrikes and tank fire against Hamas targets across the border. It was the heaviest assault on the coastal territory since a broad military offensive two years ago. Besides the dead, more than 30 Palestinians were wounded, said Palestinian health official Adham Abu Salmiya. He said one of the dead was a 50-year-old civilian who was sitting outside his home when he was struck by...

Just when it seemed as though the misuse of language and imagery associated with the Holocaust could get no worse, along came "Never Again for Anyone." A national speaking tour designed to coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, "Never Again for Anyone" traveled the U.S. from January 25 through February 19, 2011, landing at the First Presbyterian Church in Oakland, California on February 17. The event was a benefit for the virulently anti-Israel organization, the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA). The purpose of the tour was pernicious: to draw a connection between the Holocaust and the Arab-Israeli conflict, with Israelis cast as the new...

VILLA PARK – About 500 protesters from various groups demonstrated and chanted slogans against or in support of Councilwoman Deborah Pauly in front of Villa Park City Hall Tuesday evening. The large majority of protesters were Muslim supporters who organized in response to a speech by Pauly last month at a Yorba Linda rally. About 50 protesters showed up Tuesday night to support Pauly. The two groups faced off in the walkway in front of City Hall before the council meeting shouting at each other through bullhorns and brandishing signs with phrases such as, "I'm a Muslim not a terrorist,"...

Moustafa Bayoumi, associate professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, gave a lecture at the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Middle East Studies (CMES) last month titled, "How Does It Feel To Be a Problem: Why Arabs and Muslim Americans Are at the Heart of Today's Culture Wars." Bayoumi is the editor of How Does it Feel To Be a Problem: Being Young and Arab in America, a collection of biographical stories about young, Brooklyn-based Arab-Americans that the CMES website describes, among other things, as "a catalog of mistreatment and discrimination."Baymoui's narrative of Arab victimhood...

When he was in his residency, studying psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Medical Center from 2003 to 2009, Nidal Hasan gave a lecture in which he defended Osama bin Laden, justified suicide bombers and suggested that Muslim Americans in the military - like him - could be prone to fratricidal attacks against fellow troops. He was "a chronic poor performer," who often failed to show up for work and was often on probation. His program director considered him "very lazy" and "a religious fanatic." His superiors described the first draft of a presentation needed to complete his residency as "not...

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- The founder of a Muslim-oriented New York television station has been convicted of beheading his wife in 2009. Muzzammil "Mo" Hassan never denied that he killed Aasiyah Hassan inside the suburban Buffalo station the couple established to promote cultural understanding.

Domodedovo airport: Blast rocks Moscow's main airport breaking news Moscow's Domodedovo airport - the busiest in the Russian capital - has been rocked by an explosion. Interfax news agency reports at least 10 people have died and 20 more are injured.

Islamic protesters sparked fury today after they burned a model of a poppy and deliberately broke the silence at Armistice Day commemorations in central London. As millions of Britons fell silent to remember those who have died in war, members of a group called Muslims Against Crusades clashed with police during an 'emergency demonstration' in Kensington, west London. As the clock struck 11am, the Islamic protesters burned a model of a poppy and chanted 'British soldiers burn in hell'. They held banners which read 'Islam will dominate' and 'Our dead are in paradise, your dead are in hell'. The Muslims...

During an appearance on CNN’s Parker/Spitzer, Radical Muslim cleric Imam Anjem Choudary revealed a few unsettling details of Islamic extremists’ worldview, including the role of “moderate” Muslims in spreading Sharia law around the globe. Choudary says that spreading Sharia law is a “noble” goal as it represents a “superior way of life” compared to the “shackles of man-made law.” According to Choudary, violent terrorist attacks are a “peaceful” warning to countries like the United States and Israel, whom he claims are occupying Muslim lands. He also admits to encouraging Muslims in the United States to carry out these kinds of...

A Florida pastor's plan to burn the Quran on the anniversary of 9/11 is a breathtakingly dumb idea. It's bad for the country. As Gen. David Petraeus warned, this illiterate's stunt could incite violence against U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Pastor Terry Jones has argued that he enjoys a First Amendment right to burn the books. I'll buy that. Likewise an imam has the right to build a mosque where he will, but he ought not claim that putting an Islamic center near ground zero would help build bridges across religious lines. Jones explained his commitment to the pyrotechnics to ABC...

When the Rev. Karen Stokes was called to jury duty and found herself being screened for a long and complex trial involving a member of the former Your Black Muslim Bakery, her first thought was, "I can get out of this." When Alameda County Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon said the trial would take about six weeks to complete, the calendar in Stokes' mind lit up. The trial schedule corresponded with Lent, the Christian season culminating on Easter. For Stokes, the pastor of Montclair Presbyterian Church, it was, in simple terms, her busy season. She listened as Reardon talked to...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- The Hamas government on Thursday executed two men accused of collaborating with Israel, signaling an escalation in the militant Palestinian group's method of controlling the Gaza Strip.

OAKLAND -- A member of the now-defunct Your Black Muslim Bakery could face up to life in prison after being convicted today of charges that he kidnapped a mother and daughter in East Oakland in 2007 and tortured the daughter so she would reveal the location of a drug dealer's cash. Richard Lewis, 26, took off his glasses, put his hands over his face and then shook his head as he was found guilty of three counts of kidnapping, two counts of carjacking and one count of torture in Alameda County Superior Court. Lewis faces a maximum sentence of life...

MOSCOW — Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on Moscow's subway system as it was jam-packed with rush-hour passengers Monday, killing at least 37 people and wounding 102, officials said. The head of Russia's main security agency said preliminary investigation places the blame on rebels from the restive Caucasus region that includes Chechnya, where separatists have fought Russian forces since the mid-1990s. The first explosion took place just before 8 a.m. at the Lubyanka station in central Moscow. The station is underneath the building that houses the main offices of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the KGB's main...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A video made by three cousins from Hayward charged with an alleged anti-gay shooting with a BB rifle last month in San Francisco shows 11 other attacks in a single night, authorities said Friday. The men have been charged in San Francisco with a hate crime and assault for allegedly firing a BB rifle Feb. 26 at the face of a man they believed was gay. The man, who was walking on 16th Street near Guerrero Street, was not badly hurt and later identified the three suspects. The three were freed on $50,000 bail soon after their...

OAKLAND — The city's Police Department had an unwritten policy of avoiding confrontation with members of Your Black Muslim Bakery, a retired officer testified Thursday. That policy once included police retreating from the bakery's San Pablo Avenue complex despite reports of a woman being held there against her will, he said. Frank Gyson, who retired this year, said he did not recall when the incident took place. The bakery closed in August 2007 following the arrest of its leader, Yusuf Bey IV, and several of his followers on numerous felony charges, including kidnapping, torture and murder. "It wasn't a written...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- A Danish newspaper on Friday apologized for offending Muslims by reprinting a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb-shaped turban, rekindling heated debate about the limits of freedom of speech. Danish daily Politiken said its apology was part of a settlement with a Saudi lawyer representing eight Muslim groups in the Middle East and Australia. It drew strong criticism among Danish media, which previously had stood united in rejecting calls to apologize for 12 Muhammad cartoons that sparked fierce protests in the Muslim world four years ago. Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen expressed surprise at...

OAKLAND — A jury Monday deadlocked on assault charges against three men who once were members of Your Black Muslim Bakery and acquitted a fourth, ending a two-week trial with no convictions. Jurors told Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Horner that they could not reach verdicts against Dahood Bey and Basheer Muhammad, who were accused of leading an attack Dec. 21, 2008, against a man who rented a room from Bey. Bey also was charged with torture. Ajuwon Muhammad, the third defendant, was acquitted on a robbery charge; jurors said they could not agree on an assault charge against him. The...