Free Republic

The wide sidewalk in front of that majestic building was occupied, on both sides, by stacks of books, leaving just a narrow path for numerous visitors, obviously interested in literature. Not any literature, but ultra-nationalist, chauvinistic one, and, particularly, the most popular brand of it - the anti-Semitic writings. From 1994 to 2003, whenever I found myself in the capital of my former homeland, Moscow, I used to come without fail to that place in order to replenish my library of paperback and hardcover books, devoted to elaborate and multifaceted Jew-hating. This marketplace of bigotry and hatred (which, by the...

FATWAS forbidding Muslim women from studying at university have been distributed in Sydney's southwestern Muslim heartland, according to the country's highest-profile Islamic leader. Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali said the fatwas condemning aspects of Western society had been brought into Australia from Middle Eastern countries, written in Arabic. He said the religious edicts, reflecting the fundamentalist strand of Islam originating from Saudi Arabia, had been distributed at mosques and prayer halls on pieces of paper. Other fatwas, which Sheik Hilali said were unwelcome in modern Western countries such as Australia, included banning male and female Muslims from voting in democratic elections....