Muslim students: Bali bombers are "holy warriors"

FOR the skullcapped students of the Darusy Syahadah Islamic school there is no question that the three radical jihadis behind the 2002 Bali bombings are heroes.
Sheltering from the equatorial sun on the steps of the school's mosque, the students crowd to offer their approval of bombers Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra.
Authorities say the three bombers will face the firing squad by early November for their role in the attack, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
"They're holy warriors, that's how I respond, they're holy warriors,'' said Sir Muhammad Royhan Syihabuddin Ar-Rohmi, a slight 18-year-old.
His friend Nawawi, also 18, leaned forward in agreement: "They are like us, they wanted to do good deeds.''

Good deeds, i.e., killing 200 infidels?

I wonder how many Dhivehin believe the Bali bombers are 'Holy Warriors"?

Jordan: Poet accused of being enemy of Islam and arrested

Jordanian police arrested a local writer Tuesday for incorporating verses of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, into his love poetry, a judicial official said.

The poet, Islam Samhan, published his collection of poems, "Grace like a Shadow," without the approval of the Jordanian government, and authorities say it insults the holy book, the official said.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Samhan was charged with harming the Islamic faith and violating the press and publication law for combining the sacred words of the Quran with sexual themes.

Read more at Roanoke Times

This is an update on the following story...

AMMAN // When Islam Samhan recited his poetry about love, loneliness and life in front of a crowd at a culture club four months ago, he was given a standing ovation. But now, Samhan, 27, who is also a journalist, has been accused of apostasy, a crime that can carry the death sentence in the Islamic world.

Last week, Jordan’s grand mufti, Noah Alqdah Samas, the kingdom’s highest religious authority, called Samhan an enemy of religion for his poetry, some of which included lines comparing his loneliness to that of the prophet Yusuf in the Quran.

Now there are calls for the poet to be detained, his collection of poetry banned and the publishing house penalised. He is even receiving threatening phone calls to his private mobile number.

All this comes as something of a surprise to Samhan, whose book, In a Slim Shadow, published eight months ago, is a collection of his best work over the past decade. The ministry of culture even bought 50 copies.

He dismisses claims that he defamed or insulted the prophet or religion with his poems, but acknowledges that some of his verses may sound similar to the Quran because they were in Arabic.

“The Quran is in Arabic and I am influenced by my language and its rich terminology. Where I grew up, the Quran was sung and its music is still playing in my ears. I have read the Quran, and the Arabic language is that of the Quran.”

Defaming religion in Jordan, as in many Arab and Muslim countries, is a line that cannot be crossed. Although citing Quranic verses in poetry or literature is not forbidden, how they are used is what can cause problems.

In one poem, Samhan has his beloved address God, which his critics say personifies God. In another the woman is talking to God while lying beneath a see-through sheet. Samhan said he was referring to the gods of Greek mythology.

The state-run Press and Publication Department has transferred Samhan’s case to court to decide if his book violates the law.

Top Sunni scholars sanction 'electronic Jihad'

Attacking American and Israeli websites by hacking and sabotage is allowed under Islamic law and is a form of 'Jihad' or holy war, top Muslim scholars have decreed.

The religious edict (fatwa) issued by a committee from the highest authority in Sunni Islam, Egypt's Al-Azhar University in Cairo, was published on the website of the Islamist Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood movement on Thursday.

"This is considered a type of lawful Jihad that helps Islam by paralysing the information systems used by our enemies for their evil aims," said the fatwa.

"This Jihad is not different from the armed one. In fact, it might be more important if you consider the global dimensions of the Internet.

"Whoever wins this war will become the strongest in the realm of information," the fatwa continued.

The Muslim Brotherhood praised the fatwa, which comes in response to dozens of questions from radicals asking to be allowed to destroy Israeli and United States websites.

Last week, the news website of Dubai-based Arabic TV network al-Arabiya was attacked by suspected Shia hackers, who posted a burning Israeli flag to the site.

Beneath the flag, a message in Arabic and English read: 'Serious Warning - if attacks on Shia websites continue, none of your websites will be safe.'

From: Adnkronos International

'A Muslim Can Come Closer to Allah by Hating all Non-Muslims'...

On a website devoted to Ramadhan, the Muslim Brotherhood posted a series of articles by Dr. Ahmad 'Abd Al-Khaleq about Al-Walaa Wa'l-Baraa, an Islamic doctrine which, in its fundamentalist interpretation, stipulates absolute allegiance to the community of Muslims and total rejection of non-Muslims and of Muslims who have strayed from the path of Islam.

In his articles, the writer argues that according to this principle, a Muslim can come closer to Allah by hating all non-Muslims - Christians, Jews, atheists, or polytheists - and by waging jihad against them in every possible manner.

For full report, visit http://www.memriiwmp.org/content/en/report.htm?report=2877.

To learn "Al-Walaa Wa'l-Baraa" go to your local Medina "Islamic Scholar" or Emme Mathee Majlis.

Man Under House Arrest over Son's Apostasy...

Muslim clerics and neighbors have ordered the father of a man who converted to Catholicism to remain confined to his house until retaliatory punishment can be exacted from the convert.

“Are you not ashamed that your son became Christian?” the founder of a mosque here asked Ruhul Amin Khandaker, father of a 32-year-old businessman who went to Australia earlier this year to court a Philippine Catholic woman, converting to her faith in April. “Why did you not sacrifice your son like cattle before telling the news to us?”

Khandaker has become a social outcast whose family lives under threat from fellow Muslims, in violation of Bangladesh’s constitution and international human rights safeguards. His son, Rashidul Amin Khandaker, has applied for protection from Australian immigration officials as he believes police in 88 percent-Muslim Bangladesh would do nothing to protect him from Islamists threatening to kill him.

“They will try to kill me anywhere, any time in Bangladesh, and the police and the authority will not protect me,” Rashidul Khandaker wrote in his plea to Australian authorities. “There are records that show a converted person is not protected by the police, authority and society.”

Khandaker’s life would be in danger if he returned to Bangladesh, said his brother-in-law, identified only as Siddik, adding that “we are also surviving in the society at our own peril.”

Continue here at Compass Direct News

Malaysians warned not to question the supremacy of Islam

An influential council of Malaysia's state rulers has warned people not to question the supremacy of Islam or the special privileges enjoyed by the country's ethnic Malay majority.

Racial and religious tensions have increased in the past year as minorities have become more vocal in their complaints about an affirmative action program that they say unfairly favors Malays. They also complain that their religious rights are being ignored.

In an unprecedented comment on current affairs, the sultans of nine states did not directly accuse the Chinese and Indian minorities of stoking anti-Malay feelings, but said recent statements and forums "held by certain quarters" had "caused provocation and uneasiness among the people."

Questioning the special position of Malays "can lead to disunity and racial strife that can undermine the peace and harmony," the state rulers said in a statement.

The warning underscores the social tensions in Malaysia, where Muslim Malays are about 60 percent of the nation's 27 million people. Chinese and Indians, who are mostly non-Muslims, comprise a third of the population and friction among the three ethnic groups is always below the surface.

The lengthy statement issued Thursday night follows a two-day meeting of the sultans, known as the Conference of Rulers. The hereditary sultans, who are Muslim Malays, occupy ceremonial offices but wield considerable moral authority among Malays.

"It (the warning) is quite unprecedented and I think it is coming in response to what the country is facing — what the rulers perceive as the fracturing of racial harmony," said Tricia Yeoh of Center for Policy Research think-tank.

Last month, an ethnic Chinese opposition lawmaker was accused by a Malay newspaper of being anti-Islam. She was detained by police for a few days but no charges were filed. In August, lawyers were forced to abandon a conference on religious conversion after protesters stormed the forum.

The statement reiterates the supremacy of Islam, the special position of the Malays and the guarantee to protect minority rights — all enshrined in Malaysia's constitution.

"Non-Malays should not harbour any apprehension or worry over their genuine rights because these rights are guaranteed," the statement said.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP)

"Death to the!"......already dead?

An Islamic militant has been convicted for a second time of planning to crash a plane into the mausoleum of the founder of modern Turkey.
Metin Kaplan was also convicted of attempting to overthrow Turkey's secular regime following a retrial in Istanbul Wednesday. His life sentence was reconfirmed.
Kaplan was extradited from Germany and sentenced to life in prison in 2005, but an appeals court overturned the decision, citing insufficient investigation and procedural errors.
Kaplan had previously lived in Cologne, Germany. He led the group the Caliphate State, which wants to replace Turkey's secular regime with an Islamic state. The group has been outlawed in Germany and Turkey.

From: The International Herald Tribune. And there is more on this story here

Bangladeshi Islamists Force Removal of Statues...

Authorities in Bangladesh have been forced to remove new decorations at the international airport in the capital Dhaka after Muslim protesters threatened to destroy them.

Officials had commissioned the country's best-known sculptor, Mrinal Haq, to produce statues of five local folk singers to cheer up the decidedly drab complex.

But thousands of Muslim hardliners say the sculptures erected outside Zia International airport were idols, which are strictly forbidden in Islam, and had threatened to attack the artwork with power tools.

Authorities say the folk singers will now be replaced by a fountain.

source: Radio Australia

What will Muslim Maldivians do to the Christians among them?

Eighteen years ago, Rashin Soodmand's father was hanged in Iran for converting to Christianity. Now her brother is in a Mashad jail, and expects to be executed under new religious laws brought in this summer. Alasdair Palmer reports.

A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted in favour of a draft bill, entitled "Islamic Penal Code", which would codify the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith. Women would get life imprisonment. The majority in favour of the new law was overwhelming: 196 votes for, with just seven against.
Imposing the death penalty for changing religion blatantly violates one of the most fundamental of all human rights. The right to freedom of religion is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and in the European Convention of Human Rights. It is even enshrined as Article 23 of Iran's own constitution, which states that no one may be molested simply for his beliefs.
And yet few politicians or clerics in Iran see any contradiction between a law mandating the death penalty for changing religion and Iran's constitution. There has been no public protest in Iran against it.

Continue reading at The Telegraph

Adhaalathu in Saudi Arabia

Their constitution is the Koran. Their flag is emblazoned with the Shahada and two swords. This is Saudi Arabia where Mohammed Prophet of Islam was born and lived.

Foreigners eight times more likely to be executed in Saudi Arabia, report says

Foreigners facing capital punishment in Saudi Arabia are eight times more likely to be put to death than citizens of the Islamic kingdom, a report from Amnesty International has shown.

The vast majority of foreigners charged with crimes meriting the death penalty are relatively impoverished menial labourers, predominantly from third world countries. Members of this group cannot afford the "diya" or blood money payments to a victim's relative that can win clemency from the Shariah system of Islamic justice.
Although foreigners make up just one quarter of the oil rich state's population, Amnesty reported they made up the majority of all those sent to death row. Its report revealed that at least 1,695 executions were carried out between 1985 and May 2008, with the number of non-nationals totalling 830, compared with 809 local citizens. It was impossible to ascertain the nationality of the remaining 56.
But it is in the number of reprieves that the greatest disparity lies. Amnesty claimed that a pardon is granted in one in every four capital cases involving a Saudi citizen but only one in 30 of each foreign case.
Saudi Arabia executed 78 people in the first eight months of this year, a figure in line with the 2007 total of 158.
"Poor foreign workers are literally paying with their lives when accused of capital crimes in Saudi Arabia," said Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen. "Frequently bamboozled by secretive and unfair trials conducted in a language they don't even understand, they go to their deaths with little assistance from their home countries and little mercy from a grossly unfair Saudi justice system. The use of capital punishment in Saudi Arabia is a disgrace. The Kingdom should introduce a moratorium immediately."

With thanks to the Telegraph

"There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humour in Islam. There is no fun in Islam."

Why the hell can’t we take the piss out of Muslims? We take the piss out of Christians and Jews. We take the piss out of Jedi Knights and Scientology. Why do we have to treat Muslims with kid gloves?

After all, they can be hilarious. Just draw a cartoon of their marauding prophet, and the world is set alight. Sometimes literally, in parts.

Threaten to publish a book, and publishers shy away from it, having taken advice from “scholars”.

Print a picture of a little doggy on a postcard that’s meant to help the police, and Muslims are up in arms.

Make a film about their “holy book” and they threaten consequences if it’s not taken off YouTube.

Try venturing into a “Muslim area” in Birmingham, UK, and you could just have a hilarious time being beaten up – or at least being told to get lost by a policeman wannabe who, in this case, happens to be Muslim.

There are Muslim comedians who take the piss out of all sorts of things – including Muslims. It’s called comedy. There’s this thing called irony. There’s satire. Only a bone-headed primitive religion would object.

Often, Muslims – the more enlightened ones, and there are many – don’t object. Often, it’s left to the indigenous politicians and civil servants and assorted do-gooders to prevent you from “going there”.

Well, there’s an interesting piece in the UK's Independent on Sunday about it, which is worth reading. In it, David Lister argues, “The irony is that in [making Muslims a comedy no-go area], they really are insulting Muslims, the hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Britain who are perfectly capable of laughing at themselves, and would resent the patronising protection supposedly offered them by the comedy police.”

He was commenting on the fact that the comedian Harry Enfield had been told to leave alone a Muslim hoody character he had developed.

The production company Tiger Aspect, which makes Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse’s show Harry and Paul, confirmed that, “Obviously, it is a sensitive area. It [Enfield’s character] never made it further than the page. This was a decision taken collectively by key members of the production team.”

Back in April, I seem to remember, another comedian and writer, Ben Elton, was complaining of how Islam has become a no-go zone for comedians.

Quite simply, no religion should be exempt. The more they complain about it, the more the urine should be extracted, in huge quantities. If they shut up, they’ll take their share of piss-take with the rest – and not just religions, but politicians, celebs and just about anyone or anything in the public eye.

Good comedy helps us to see things in a different light. That makes it an art form. Anything that takes the piss for the sake of being cruel is not really comedy. Our laughter, if indeed it’s generated from such material, is not healthy laughter. It’s smutty laughter.

However, it shouldn’t be censored. In the marketplace of public performance, there is a mechanism. Crap comedy can be ridiculed by those whose job it is to do that: critics and other commentators.

Anyway, if thine eye offend thee, pluck at the off switch.

Crossposted here

Israel to Treat 12-Year-Old Iranian Cancer Victim...

A 12-year-old cancer-stricken Iranian boy arrived at an Israeli hospital on Friday for emergency treatment on his brain tumor.

The boy - who was identified only as Roy, to protect his privacy - was wheeled on a stretcher into the Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, after treatments in Iran and Turkey failed. His face was puffy, apparently due to the drugs administered to ease his pain.

Israel granted the child a special permit to enter the country and he arrived at Ben Gurion Airport on Friday. The rare arrangement was mediated by an Israeli businessman of Iranian origin. The boy was accompanied to the hospital by his father and veiled mother, who were also granted special entry permits into Israel.

Iran and Israel are bitter enemies and have no formal relations. Iran's president has denied the Holocaust and repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Sheba CEO Zeev Rotstein said it wasn't the first time Israeli doctors have treated children from adversarial states.

"We hope that with the love and affection we give these kids we are paving the way for at least some understanding between people," he said. "We can't change the politics. We are not politicians. We do this because we feel it is our job."

Israel is home to world-class hospitals and state-of-the-art medical technology.

Dr. Amos Toren, head of Sheba's Pediatric Hemato-Oncology Department, said his initial diagnosis was that the boy's year- old growth was the most aggressive tumor that exists among brain tumors.

"He is conscious and he can smile but it is hard," he said. "We will give him the most modern treatment possible and maybe we will be able to help him."

Rotstein said the child had been operated on before and may need another procedure in Israel. "There are very limited things you can do," he said. "But if this kid has any chance, it is here."

He said the hospital kept the identities of patients from countries hostile to Israel secret, so that they would not face danger upon their return home. Iran and several other Middle East countries oppose any type of normalization with Israel.

Rotstein said he hoped treatments, like those of Roy, would help break down some of those barriers.

"As far as we are concerned, we are not involved in politics," he said. "He is from a country that doesn't really like our existence here, but I think part of our job is to prove to countries like Iran that we are here to help the regular people."

Source

"He who fights that Islam should be superior fights in Allah's cause" - Prophet Mohammed

Latest Offerings from the Religion of Peace

10/10/2008 (Orakzai, Pakistan) - A Fedayeen bomber sends over forty souls to Allah at a tribal meeting.
10/10/2008 (Khost, Afghanistan) - Two people are blown up by a Taliban suicide bomber.
10/9/2008 (Bajaur, Pakistan) - Four tribal elders are abducted and beheaded in the name of Allah.
10/9/2008 (Uruzgan, Afghanistan) - Women and children are among the casualties during a shooting attack by religious extremists.
10/9/2008 (Udhaim, Iraq) - Two children are among four family members wiped out by Jihadi bombers.
10/9/2008 (Tal Afar, Iraq) - Mujahideen bomb a restaurant, killing two patrons.

Monthly Jihad Report September 2008
Jihad Attacks: 216
Countries: 19
Religions: 5
Dead Bodies: 922
Critically Injured: 1836

Will Maldives hunt down "Jewish" Barbie dolls?

Muslim World’s Vice Squads Hunt ‘Jewish’ Barbie Dolls - And just when the Muslim world is starting get control of its Barbie doll problem, along comes Superman. . .

When Iranian toy seller Masoumeh Rahimi thinks of Barbie and Ken dolls, she thinks of heavy artillery — only worse. “I think every Barbie doll is more harmful than an American missile,” Ms. Rahmi told the BBC back in 2002. In April 2008, Iran’s top prosecutor and religious cleric, Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi, upped the anti-Barbie campaign by calling for a ban on the sale of all Barbie dolls from the country. “Barbie is an emissary of nudity and promotes moral corruption,” wrote the hardliner newspaper Kahyan.
Barbie and Ken have been picked on by Islamic leaders for years, since Saudi Arabia announced it was banning the sale of Barbie from the kingdom in September 2003, stating on its official website:

• Jewish Barbie dolls, with their naked clothing, lewd positions, and different samples and accessories, are symbols of decadence of the perverted West. Let us recognize their danger and worry.

The ban-Barbie effort was huge. The religious police, or Mutaween, hung colorful posters outlawing “Jewish Barbie dolls” in schools and hospitals across the country. For a while, photos of confiscated Barbie dolls were posted on the government website.
The anti-Semitic tirade came after the Mutaween learned that Barbie’s creator, Ruth Handler, was Jewish — and that the American businesswoman, entrepreneur, and U.S. Business Hall of Famer had named the dolls after her two Jewish children, Barbie and Ken Handler.
But it appears not all religious clerics are doing their homework about which Jew created what incredibly popular icon. Last summer, Hassan Nasrallah — the leader of the terrorist organization Hezbollah — appeared proudly depicted as Superman in the Palestinian daily newspaper Al Ayyam. In the cartoon, Nasrallah was pictured pulling back his religious robes, a la Clark Kent, to reveal a Superman suit underneath. Superman is Lebanon’s most popular superhero. Many teenagers believe him to be Lebanese because of his dark, swarthy looks. But if Barbie is “Jewish,” so is Superman; he was created by two Jews named Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, in 1932.
.....
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With Barbie banned first from Saudi Arabia and now from Iran, one wonders who or what is getting the hatchet next.

Read the complete article here

Muhammad Look-Alike Contest Promises to 'Be a Blast'...

A Muhammad look-a-like competition is slated to take place during the Frankfurt Book Fair, and it has already offended and outraged people far beyond Germany. But Titanic, the monthly satirical magazine behind the inflamatory event, insists: "It will be a blast."

Titanic, the German satire magazine, is never far from polemics, but its latest action takes its reputation for controversy to new heights: It is staging a Muhammad look-a-like competition -- and has invited the Turkish President Abdullah Gül to take part.

Turkish newspapers were quick to react to the "unbelievable competition," which is to be held parallel to the Frankfurt Book Fair, where Turkey will be the guest country this year. The popular Turkish daily Sabah drew parallels with the infamous Muhammad cartoons published in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper in 2005, which sparked death threats and protests across the Muslim world, with some escalating into violence.

According to its Web site, however, Titanic is going ahead with its look-alike contest: "Come along to the most dangerous event of the Frankfurt Book Fair ... It will be a blast," it wrote. The competition, to be held on Oct. 18, is set to take place on a specially built stage at the state-funded Caricatura Museum in Frankfurt. Achim Frenz, head of the museum, said it was designed to test of the boundaries of "jokes and fun." The museum's Web site comments: "Of course it is a sin to represent the prophet. For this reason, we are trying to do something exceptional."
Nine participants are expected to take part, including Osman Engin, a Turkish-German satirist, and Hans Zippert, a prominent columnist for the conservative daily Die Welt. During the competition there will be readings from the Koran and participants will be encouraged to mimic the Muslim prophet. "Of course you can never create a picture of the prophet," the magazine claims in a flyer advertising the event, "but you can try to emulate him."

Titanic, the German equivalent of Britain's Private Eye, has a track record of inflamatory stunts, including hoax bribery faxes sent in 2000 to delegates of the FIFA soccer world championship committee, urging them to support the German bid for the 2006 World Cup. In return for their votes, Titanic offered gifts of a cuckoo clock and Black Forest ham. Titanic also founded its own political party, Die Partei (the party), which lists the rebuilding of the Berlin Wall as one of its goals.

Spiegel Online