Free Republic

Human Rights: Saudi Arabia has a funny way of moving toward democratic reforms. Its Shariah court just sentenced a gang-raped woman to 200 lashes of the whip, arguing she was to blame. This is barbaric on so many levels. First, that any state in the 21st century still whips citizens; second, that women are defendants in rape crimes, and worst of all, that victims of violence are then punished with more violence.

I am a bit late with this, and you have probably already seen it, but I thought it was worth commenting on anyway. Anjem Choudhury of the Omar Bakri group of jihadists in Britain here appears on the BBC's Hard Talk (thanks to Hana). He is entirely ready to condemn attacks on innocent civilians, but he notes that because non-Muslims have rejected Islam, none of them are innocent. Therefore attacks like 9/11 and 7/7 are perfectly justified.

For the clip, follow this link: http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1600.htm Following are excerpts from a debate on secularism and Islamism in the Middle East with Syrian author Nidhal Na'isa and Egyptian cleric Sheik Ibrahim Al-Khouli, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on October 30, 2007. Interviewer: What is better for the Arab world – the modern Western platform or the Islamic platform? Only 10.4% voted for the modern Western platform, while 89.6% voted for the Islamic platform. Nidhal Na'isa, let me begin with you. Despite the Western, economic, political, cultural, media, and social invasion of the region, the Arab individual's hatred of the foreign...

"The hatred of the extremist mullahs for the Baha'is is such that they, like the Taliban of Afghanistan who destroyed the towering Buddhist sculptures at Bamiyan, intend not only to eradicate the religion, but even to erase all traces of its existence in the country of its birth," says the statement, which took the form of a paid advertisement in the New York Times. Such has been the plight of one of the greatest segments of the Iranian population. In 1993, in Tehran alone, under the orders of the Islamic authorities, more than 1500 graves were bulldozed on the pretext...

WASHINGTON: Shadow boxing between the United States and Pakistan regarding Islamabad's control over its nuclear weapons is threatening to suck in India after a Pakistani official warned that his country "possesses adequate retaliatory capacity to defend its strategic assets." The big unanswered question: Retaliate against whom and with what? The latest spat began after a flurry of reports in the Western media about what unnamed US officials describe as "contingency plans" to take control of Pakistan's nuclear weapons in the event of an imminent jihadist takeover in the country. The reports have angered and panicked Pakistan's military government, and on...

Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat on Monday rejected Israel's demand that the Palestinians acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state. "There is no country in the world where religious and national identities are intertwined," Erekat told Radio Palestine. Additionally, Erekat said, when agreements are signed, the Palestinians would demand that Israel make a commitment in writing to releasing all Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. A senior official in the Prime Minister's Office said in response that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert insists that the Palestinians recognize Israel's Jewish identity, as a condition for Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state. The official...

Continued after Muslim Women – If You Can’t Live With Them - Beat Them. Here is part of the transcript. Saudi Cleric Muhammad Al-'Arifi Explains Wife Beating in Islam to Young Muslims in a Ramadhan Show Following are excerpts from a program with Saudi cleric Muhammad Al-'Arifi, which aired on LBC TV on September 9, 2007. Muhammad Al-'Arifi: Men beat women more often than women beat men. I said that some women beat their husbands because this happens, but it is rare, and there is no need to hold conferences on wives who beat their husbands. I believe this is...

Every newlywed couple has their problems adjusting to each other. It’s a give and take and eventually if there’s real love there, the coupe finds a middle ground that both can live with. Marriage, like politics, is the art of compromise. Or as Ann Landers once said, marriages are made in heaven but lived out here on earth. That being said, this strategy of love doesn’t apply to the traditional Muslim male. Compromise is not an option – and he is supported in this view by his imams. Last month, during a Saudi television show, Muslim author and religious leader...

Gen. Pervez Musharraf claims he is saving Pakistan by declaring emergency rule. But like most dictators and would-be dictators, this cocky, inward-looking army commander appears to want to make his country his personal turf. This is potentially disastrous not only for late-budding democracy in Pakistan but also for the struggle in the name of democracy against Islamist terrorism in much of Asia. It is a betrayal of the renewed alliance between the United States and Pakistan: perhaps U.S. President George W. Bush's biggest mistake in the war against terror. It increases the danger of Pakistan's nuclear bombs - even now...

Like many younger pupils at Karachi's Jamia Binoria madrassa, 12-year-old Imran Mohammed is a shy, quietly spoken child who is all but tongue-tied in front of his elders. One thing can get him talking though – for hours if need be. "God is one and he is our creator," he intones, his faltering voice suddenly breaking into fluent Arabic. "He has not given birth of anyone, nor did anyone give birth of him." It is a verse from the Koran, a tiny part of four entire chapters he has learnt by heart since arriving at the madrassa, or religious school,...

Reflecting upon the events of Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week, we felt compelled to once again examine the alleged source of all the chanting, frothing, eye-bulging, beheading, suicide-bomb vest-donning, IED-planting, plane-crashing, WMD-seeking passion that is Islamania: the existence of Israel. At a recent Al Quds Day Celebration (October 5 if you missed it), the “It Girl” of contemporary fascism – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – declared, “The creation of the Zionist Regime and the continuation of its existence are an insult to human dignity.” This is a most telling declaration on the part of Mr. Ahmadinejad (although it tends to get far...

Video montage of the Religion of Peace making a difference in the lives of children. warning: strong images of dead children killed by Islamic militants in Beslan. Never forget what not just America, but the whole world is fighting against http://shock.military.com/Shock/videos.do?displayContent=152637&page=1

Twenty-four years ago this week, October 23, 1983, a truck laden with explosives rammed into the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, killing nearly 250 American military personnel who were serving as peacekeepers. One local columnist for the Newark Advocate, Marion Star, and regular Columbus Dispatch letter to the editor contributor, Mahmoud El-Yousseph of Westerville, who promotes his previous military service as though it immunizes him from criticism, openly praises and defends the group responsible for this atrocity. Prior to 9/11, the terrorist group responsible for killing the most Americans was not Al-Qaeda, but Hezbollah, the Iranian and Syrian-backed Shi'ite terrorist...

Europe’s no-go zones or SUAs (“sensitive urban areas”) are multiplying. These are areas where the police no longer dares to venture and where Islamists hold sway. Every night since the beginning of last week, immigrant youths have been torching cars and clashing with police in Amsterdam’s Slotervaart district. The incidents started on Oct. 14 when a policewoman shot dead Bilal Bajaka, a 22-year old ethnic Moroccan, whilst he was stabbing her and a colleague with a knife. The officers were stabbed in the breast, face, neck and back. Surgeons could only narrowly save their lives. Since the incident, Slotervaart has...

An infidel loses patience with Islamic terror and Islamic excuses. Let's see if this one makes CAIR's "Incitement Watch" list. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtG7-0mKG4c&mode=related&search

Islamists certainly aren’t the only representation of terrorists throughout the world, but compared to them, the other guys are small potatoes. Why? FSM Contributing Editor Tom Ordeman, Jr. provides an exercise in compare and contrast that you won’t want to miss. By Tom Ordeman, Jr. Six years after the events that made large-scale terrorism a daily concern of American citizens, the staggering ignorance of the American citizens and many self-professed terrorism experts continues to be a frustration to many legitimate specialists in international terrorism. While facts and opinions can always be disputed, the clarification of obscure facts and the correction...

The following are excerpts of an animated film that was shown on Al-Aqsa TV on October 12, 2007. To view a webpage with more clips of the indoctrination of children, please visit: http://www.memritv.org/subject/en/178.htm. To view this clip visit:http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1579.htm. Narrator: "We continue to march with little Amjad. We continue to march with little Amjad." Children singing in the background: “We are not afraid of the soldiers, we are all steadfast. We are not afraid of the soldiers; we are all steadfast in this land… in this land… We demand our right, and we carry our school bags, We demand our right,...

As you read this, Ayaan Hirsi Ali sits in a safe house with armed men guarding her door. She is one of the most poised, intelligent and compassionate advocates of freedom of speech and conscience alive today, and for this she is despised in Muslim communities throughout the world. The details of her story bear repeating, as they illustrate how poorly equipped we are to deal with the threat of Muslim extremism in the West. Hirsi Ali first fled to the Netherlands as a refugee from Somalia in 1992 after declining to submit to a forced marriage to a man...

The Esam Omeish affair is the latest example of a "moderate," "peaceful" American Muslim leader done in by his own words, caught on tape. Omeish, the president of the Muslim American Society (MAS), was forced to resign last week from his recently-appointed position on Virginia Governor Tim Kaine's immigration commission when videos featuring Omeish posted by Little Green Footballs and the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) were brought to the governor's attention. Kaine asked for Omeish's resignation after observing one video featuring Omeish at a December 2000 rally praising Palestinians for "...you have learned the way, that you have known...

The killing of a prominent Palestinian Christian activist on Sunday sent a shudder of fear through the Gaza Strip's tiny Christian community, which is feeling increasingly insecure since the Islamic Hamas seized control there last summer. The body of Rami Khader Ayyad, the 32-year-old director of Gaza's only Christian bookstore, was found on a Gaza City street early Sunday. The body bore a visible gunshot wound to the head, and an official at Gaza's Shifa Hospital said he was also stabbed numerous times. Ayyad had been missing since Saturday afternoon.