Britons afraid to challenge radical Islam, says former Obama adviser
British people are too afraid to offend a "vocal and aggressive" section of the Muslim community who demand that their cultural values are accepted by wider society, according to a former adviser to Barack Obama.
Professor Krauss, left, was taking part in a debate entitled: "Islam or Atheism: Which Makes More Sense?"
Professor Lawrence Krauss said he had been shocked when taking part at a debate hosted by an Islamic group at a leading British university to find that men and women were segregated.
The professor, a leading physicist and prominent atheist, threatened to walk out unless organisers agreed to let men and women sit together, which was eventually agreed - but was then astonished to find himself being accused of intolerance by angry members of the audience.
He said there had been no such problems when he recently took part in a similar debate in Australia.
Dutch raise terror alert level after increase in Islamist radicals leaving for Syria
By Anthony Deutsch, Sara Webb and Kevin Liffey, Reuters
AMSTERDAM — The Netherlands raised its alert level for terrorist attacks to "substantial" on Wednesday, citing an increase in the number of Islamist militants traveling from the Netherlands to Syria, as well as a radicalization of Dutch youth.
Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) submitted an amendment to H.R. 933 placing conditions on two forms of U.S. assistance to Egypt unless the country adopts economic reforms and human rights safeguards. The amendment will also begin a comprehensive, long-term reevaluation of U.S. military aid to Egypt. Speaking before the Senate, Rubio said, “The U.S.-Egypt relationship has been a critical one for decades, but it must be adapted to reflect the new political reality the Arab Spring has created. That adaptation process must begin with how our money is being spent and conditioning our assistance on Egypt’s adoption of economic reforms and a serious effort to protect the rights of religious minorities, women, a free press and the ability of Egyptian and foreign NGOs to promote civil society, governance and democracy.”
Muslim mobs upset over an alleged derogatory comment about the prophet of Islam burned down more than 180 Christian-owned houses and shops and at least two church buildings here on Saturday (March 9) after authorities told police to “let them vent their grief and anger,” officials said.
When a rumor circulated last week that a Muslim woman in the southern Egyptian city of Kom Ombo had been forcibly converted to Christianity, a mob of Muslims felt compelled to riot, attacking and firebombing the city's local Coptic Christian church.
The rioting in Kom Ombo had begun when local Muslim residents believed a missing 36-year-old Muslim woman had been forced to convert to Christianity and was being held against her will in the Church of Mar Girgis, Kom Ombo's largest Coptic Church.
That transgression was apparently egregious enough to induce hundreds of local Muslims to surround the church for three days hurling Molotov Cocktails and rocks, a melee that caused injury to over two dozen Christians and Egyptian police.
EGX30 falls by 2.3%, EGX70 by 3.03% after prosecutor-general imposes travel ban on both founder and CEO of OCI – Egypt's largest listed stock – on tax evasion charges
Troubles in Orascom Construction Industries led the whole market to tumble (Photo: OCI website)
Egyptian stocks plunged on Monday following news of a travel ban imposed on Onsi Sawiris, founder of Orascom Construction Industries (OCI), and company CEO Nassef Sawiris.
The travel ban was imposed following charges of tax evasion related to the sale of an OCI subsidiary to French cement giant Lafarge five years ago.
اتحاد نشطاء اقباط كندا يصدر بيان شديد اللهجه بشأن احتجاز اقباط في ليبيا و توجه نداء للحكومه الكنديه للتدخل للافراج عن المعتقلين
اصدر اتحاد نشطاء اقباط كندا بيان شديد اللهجه بشأن احتجاز اقباط في ليبيا علي خلفيه اتهامات بالتبشير بالمسيحيه ، و قد جاء هذا البيان في ظل تصاعد الازمه بعد استمرار حملات الاعتقالات و اشاعات عن ارتفاع اعداد المعتقلين الي 500 قبطي معتقل، و نص البيان كما يلي:
The murderers of a 65-year-old Christian in Pakistan are not likely to face justice in this world.
A miasma of political and religious dynamics makes it unlikely. A Pakistani court has ordered a judicial inquiry into the death Niyamat Masih, who died in police custody from torture. Officers tortured him to extract information about whereabouts of a Muslim woman who had eloped with his son.
The physical examination done only a day before Masih’s death, and an autopsy report, show possible connivance between police and the medical authorities that issued these reports. Both reports fail to mention marks of violence, though photos taken after Masih’s death clearly show signs of torture.
An Islamist imam spoke in support of armed jihad at an event held in a Virginia high school on January 26, a video from the event shows.
The event was put together by the First Hijrah Foundation and held at the TC Williams high school in Virginia. According to the organizers, the event's purpose was to “to commemorate the 1st Anniversary of Ethiopian Muslims peaceful struggle for justice and freedom of religion and Fund Raising for the families of the unjustly detained scholars of Ethiopian Muslims.”
An edited video compiling the statements made at the event by Imam Shaker of Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center is below:
The video shows Imam Shaker making the following statements:
Oxford child abuse trial: woman says she was branded at age of 12
Woman tells court she was repeatedly raped by man who burned his initial on her to show she 'belonged' to him
A court artist's sketch of defendants (left to right) Kamar Jamil, Akhtar Dogar, Anjum Dogar, Assad Hussain, Mohammed Karrar, Bassam Karrar, Mohammed Hussain, Zeeshan Ahmed and Bilal Ahmed. Photograph: Elizabeth Cook/PA
A young woman has told the Old Bailey that when she was 12 years old she was branded with the initial of a man so other men who raped her would know she "belonged" to him.
The jury was earlier told that the woman, now 19, had been sold to the man as an 11-year-old. She told the court that until she was 15 he repeatedly and brutally raped her, organising for other men to have sex with her.
The woman, known as girl D for legal reasons, said on several occasions Mohammed Karrar and his brother Bassam Karrar forced her to have sex with one of them while performing a sex act on the other.
Security forces in Egypt have been accused of detaining hundreds of children and subjecting many of them to torture.
Egyptian riot police beat a man, after stripping him, and before dragging him into a police van, during clashes next to the presidential palace in Cairo, Egypt, Friday, Feb. 1, 2013. Photo: AP Photo/Khalil Hamra
Lawyers and activists claim that large numbers of children, some as young as nine, have been illegally imprisoned during protests which followed the second anniversary of the 2011 uprising.
Some of those arrested have been subject to torture including beatings, electrocution and being forced to strip naked before being drenched in cold water, according to a report in the Independent newspaper.
The US has dropped its "velvet glove" handling of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood government, as its ambassador to Cairo openly criticised a "catastrophic" lack of leadership in the country and curbs on press freedom.
Muslim brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie and US Ambassador Anne Patterson in Cairo last year Photo: STR/AFPGETTY
America has been accused by liberal activists of tacitly supporting the new Islamist leadership, even after it introduced a hardline new constitution. Bahieddin Hassan, a human rights activist who briefed President Barack Obama on a trip to Cairo three years ago wrote an open letter this month accusing him of “giving cover” to the regime and “allowing it to fearlessly implement undemocratic policies and commit numerous acts of repression”.
But in her speeches, Anne Patterson, the ambassador, implicitly accused the government of “catastrophic” lack of leadership on the failing economy and called for it to develop a “thicker skin” in dealing with press criticism.
These undated images show three British Muslim men (from left, Irfan Naseer, 31; Irfan Khalid and Ashik Ali, both 27), who were tried at Woolwich Crown Court, London on charges of plotting a bombing campaign that prosecutors said could have been deadlier than the 2005 London transit attacks. / AP Photo/West Midlands Police
LONDON Three young British Muslims were convicted Thursday of plotting terrorist bomb attacks that prosecutors said were intended to be bigger than the 2005 London transit bombings.
A London jury found 27-year-old Irfan Khalid, 31-year-old Irfan Naseer and Ashik Ali, 27, guilty of being central figures in the foiled plot to explode knapsack bombs in crowded areas — attacks potentially deadlier than the July 2005 attacks on Underground trains and a bus which killed 52 commuters.
Egypt court allows policemen to grow Islamic beards
Yasmine Saleh– 20 February 2013
AN Egyptian court has ruled that policemen may grow beards, ending a decades-old convention barring them from making what is often seen here as a display of Islamic piety.
Dozens of police officers were suspended from work in February for breaking the de facto ban on beards introduced under deposed President Hosni Mubarak. They had protested outside the Interior Ministry, calling on Islamist President Mohamed Mursi - who is bearded himself - to secure their reinstatement.
Cairo's High Administrative Court rejected a request by the Interior Ministry to let it suspend officers who defied the unwritten rule. "The court ruled ... that police officers have the right to grow beards," judge Maher Abu el-Enin said.
Egypt is becoming synonymous with sexual harassment and rape. Critics say it is far down the official priority list, although vigilante groups are trying to improve safety for women in public places.
Egyptian Human Rights groups say verbal and physical violence against women there is endemic.
Organised campaigns to fight this are building support, as courageous women – and some men – condemn the phenomenon.
CAIRO (Reuters) - Two years after the Egyptian revolution that ousted an authoritarian regime, liberals are increasingly concerned that the ruling Islamists are out to curb personal freedoms and build a society in their own image.
Alcohol, prohibited by most Islamic scholars, is one area where the new authorities are introducing controversial change.
Nabil Abbas, the vice president of the New Urban Communities Authorities (NUCA), told Reuters on Sunday that the government would no longer issue licences for the sale of alcohol in new residential settlements on the outskirts of Cairo, Alexandria and other big cities.
(AINA) -- On Friday evening Muslims in the village of Sarsena, Tamiya district in Fayoum province (103 KM southwest of central Cairo) set fire to the church of St. George and hurled stones at it, causing damage to its dome; they broke the cross on top of the dome, demolished parts of its interior and defaced and destroyed its icons. This was prompted by Salafists Muslims who instigated the villagers to attack the church because the church is "an unlawful neighbor to the Muslims who live adjacent to it and must therefore be moved." They demanded the relocation of the church away from Muslim homes and are not allowing its priest Pastor Domadios to enter the church. All these events were witnessed by the security authorities but they did nothing to stop the attack.
The church was built in the mid-1980s and serves nearly 200 Coptic families. Three months ago the Muslims made a hole in the church to monitor the activities inside. Yesterday the Muslims said the church has to move and refused an offer from the church to buy the home of the Muslim neighbor. The Muslims also demanded the church not use a small plot of land it owns as a kindergarten.
Few things offer surreal experiences as when Islam and the West interact—when 7th century primordialism encounters 21st century relativism. Consider the issue of "interfaith dialogue." In principle, it is a decent thing: Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others trying to reach a common ground and professing mutual respect. But what does one make of the gross contradictions that emerge when a human-rights violating nation calls for "dialogue," even as it enforces religious intolerance on its own turf?
Enter Saudi Arabia. Birthplace of Islam, the Arabian kingdom is also the one Muslim nation that regularly sponsors interfaith initiatives in the West—even as its official policy back home is to demonize and persecute the very faiths it claims to want to have an interfaith dialogue with.
Protesters around the world demonstrate against the sharp rise of mob attacks and gang rapes in Cairo.
By Vivian Salama
Egyptian women activists chant slogans while taking part in a protest against sexual harassment in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013. (Nasser Nasser/AP)
With reports of mob attacks and gang rape growing alarmingly common in Egypt, angry protesters demonstrated in Cairo on Tuesday, calling for urgently needed protection and harsher punishment of perpetrators of sexual assault.
