Francis’s New Saints

The new pope, Francis I, just canonized hundreds of new saints for the Roman Catholic Church, some of whom are martyrs. I found the story I read in the Associated Press interesting.

Pope Francis on Sunday gave the Catholic Church new saints, including hundreds of 15th-century martyrs who were beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam, as he led his first canonization ceremony Sunday in a packed St. Peter’s Square.

The “Martyrs of Otranto” were 813 Italians who were slain in the southern Italian city in 1480 for defying demands by Turkish invaders who overran the citadel to renounce Christianity.

Their approval for sainthood was decided upon by Francis’ predecessor, Benedict XVI, in a decree read at the ceremony in February where the former pontiff announced his retirement.

Christian martyrs are people who died rather than renounce the faith, unlike Islamic martyrs which are people who have murdered as many innocent infidels as possible. This is where the article gets a little interesting.

Shortly after his election in March, Francis called for more dialogue with Muslims, and it was unclear how the granting of sainthood to the martyrs would be received. Islam is a sensitive subject for the church, and Benedict stumbled significantly in his relations with the Muslim community.

I am not sure whether it is the Catholic Church that is at fault for any problems it may be having with the Muslim community. It seems to me that everything is a sensitive subject with the Muslim community. Why shouldn’t the Pope honor Catholics who refused to convert to Islam even when threatened with death? Christians are often called upon to apologize for acts done centuries ago. When is a Muslim authority going to apologize for atrocities such as the attack on Otranto, not to mention the centuries of aggressive warfare various Muslim states have waged against Christendom? Persecution of Christians isn’t something that only in the distant past, as Pope Francis noted.

Francis told the crowd that the martyrs are a source of inspiration, especially for “so many Christians, who, right in these times and in so many parts of the world, still suffer violence.” He prayed that they receive “the courage of loyalty and to respond to evil with good.”

The pope didn’t single out any country. But Christian churches have been attacked in Nigeria and Iraq, and Catholics in China loyal to the Vatican have been subject to harassment and sometimes jail over the last decades.

Christians in Saudi Arabia must worship out of the public eye because the ultraconservative kingdom does not officially permit churches and non-Muslim religious sites.

In fact, all over the Middle East, Christians are afraid for their lives and fleeing the lands dominated by the Religion of Peace.

The other new saints include a Mexican and a Columbian.

The first pontiff from South America also gave Colombia its first saint: a nun who toiled as a teacher and spiritual guide to indigenous people in the 20th century.

With Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos among the VIPS, the Argentine pope held out Laura of St. Catherine of Siena Montoya y Upegui as a potential source of inspiration to the country’s peace process, attempted after decades-long conflict between rebels and government forces.

Francis prayed that “Colombia’s beloved children continue to work for peace and just development of the country.”

He also canonized another Latin American woman. Maria Guadalupe Garcia Zavala, a Mexican who dedicated herself to nursing the sick, helped Catholics avoid persecution during a government crackdown on the faith in the 1920s.

Also known as Mother Lupita, she hid the Guadalajara archbishop in an eye clinic for more than a year after fearful local Catholic families refused to shelter him.

Francis prayed that the new Mexican saint’s intercession could help the nation “eradicate all the violence and insecurity,” an apparent reference to years of bloodshed and other crime largely linked to powerful drug trafficking clans.

The pope also hailed the Mexican saint for renouncing a comfortable life to work with the sick and poor, even kneeling on the bare floor of the hospital before the patients to serve them with “tenderness and compassion.”

Mother Lupita’s example, said Francis, should encourage people not to “get wrapped up in themselves, their own problems, their own ideas, their own interests, but to go out and meet those who need attention, comprehension, help” and other assistance.

Francis noted that the crowd included participants in an anti-abortion march of several thousand people, who walked a few kilometers (miles) from the Colosseum, crossing a bridge over the Tiber river to end near the Vatican while Mass was being celebrated in St. Peter’s Square.

He drew attention to a signature-gathering drive in many Italian churches to push for a European initiative to “guarantee legal protection for embryos, protecting every human being from the first instant of existence.”

Vatican teaching forbids abortion.

I doubt if that petition will get anywhere in the European Union.

Related articles

• Pope Francis gives church hundreds of new saints (arkansasonline.com)
• Pope Francis gives church hundreds of new saints – The Seattle Times (seattletimes.com)
• 800 Italian Saints Named by Pope Francis (theepochtimes.com)
• Martyred for Christ: 800 victims of Islamic violence who will become saints this month (iranaware.com)
• You: Pope Francis completes contentious canonisation of Otranto martyrs (guardian.co.uk)

What Hawking is Supporting

By participating in an academic boycott of Israel in support of the Palestinians, Stephen Hawking is sending an implied message of support to the Palestinian leadership, which in the Gaza Strip is composed of the terrorist group Hamas. It might be worthwhile for Professor Hawking to learn more about what sort of people he is siding with. First up is a report from Israel National News.

Hamas is lobbying for a stricter enforcement of Islamic law in Gaza – including provisions to cut off the hands of thieves, and execution of individuals who cheat on their spouses. A report in the Al-Hayat daily newspaper said that Hamas expects the new regulations to take effect in the coming months, after introduction of the legislation in the PA parliament.

Existing laws mete out the death penalty to individuals convicted of murder, spying, homosexuality, or selling land to Jews. The new legislation will expand the crimes for which individuals can be executed to include disloyalty to a spouse – having sexual relations outside the context of marriage. Other provisions of the law include chopping off the right hand of a thief (along with at least a seven year jail sentence), and lashes for a large number of “crimes,” including drinking alcoholic beverages and gambling. All the punishments are derived from sharia, Islamic law.

In addition, girls age 15 will be able to decide to marry on their own, without requiring permission from their parents. Individuals age ten and over are considered adults under the new legislation, and are subject to the full force of the law for offenses.

Hamas has a large majority in the PA parliament, with 74 of the 134 parliamentarians belonging to the Islamist party. Many of them belong to the fundamentalist Salafist movement, and they are behind the push for the new laws. While there is opposition in Hamas to the passage of the legislation at this point, it is expected to easily pass. Once it does, the laws will be extant in both Gaza and Palestinian Authority-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria, but it is not clear if they will be enforced there.

Selling land to Jews merits the death penalty. Who is the violator of human rights here? Next up is a report from ABC News.

A prominent Islamic scholar making a landmark visit to the Gaza Strip declared Thursday that Israel has no right to exist and voiced his support for rocket fire on Israel, giving a boost of legitimacy to the militant Islamist Hamas rulers of the Palestinian territory.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi is the latest of a few high profile figures visit Gaza, boosting the Hamas effort to break its international isolation. The U.S., EU and Israel brand Hamas a terror group, while the rival Fatah, which rules in the West Bank, enjoys Western backing.

Al-Qaradawi issued the strongest anti-Israel declarations of any of the visitors to date.

“This land has never once been a Jewish land. Palestine is for the Arab Islamic nation,” said al-Qaradawi, a Qatar-based cleric made famous by his popular TV show and widely respected in the Muslim world.

“The rockets made in Gaza are more powerful than the (Israeli) occupation’s rockets,” he added.

Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 following several days of fighting against the rival Palestinian faction Fatah. Since then, Hamas militants have launched thousands of rockets into Israeli towns. Israel carried out two punishing military offensives, one in the winter of 2008-2009 and another late last year which killed the chief of the Hamas military wing.

Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, but imposes a maritime blockade and controls the flow of goods coming from Israel into the territory. Gaza’s Hamas rulers and their backers still refer to Israel as “the occupation,” referring to Israel’s control of the West Bank and reflecting a belief that the presence of a Jewish state in the Middle East is an illegitimate occupation.

The Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, which governs in the West Bank, condemned al-Qaradawi’s visit, saying his presence is cementing the rift between the two Palestinian factions.

Fatah and Hamas have tried to reconcile their differences in recent years but failed. Western leaders have demanded that a unified Fatah-Hamas government must recognize Israel and agree to enter peace negotiations. Hamas has refused.

How do you make peace with people who will not concede you have a right to exist? Please note that while the Fatah faction is not so openly calling for the destruction of Israel, that is their goal too. The difference between the two factions is that the leadership of Fatah has enough sense to downplay their genocidal ambitions, at least before Western audiences.

And finally here is a report from Palestinian Media Watch.

wo senior Palestinian Authority officials praised the use of violence against Israel last week.

Senior PA official Sultan Abu Al-Einein expressed his open support for the murderer who killed Evyatar Borovsky, an Israeli who was stabbed to death by Palestinian terrorist Salam Al-Zaghal while he was waiting for a ride.

Abu Al-Einein, who was until recently an advisor holding the rank of minister to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and who was subsequently appointed Head of the Palestinian Council for NGO Affairs by Abbas, honored the murderer:

“We salute the heroic fighter, the self-sacrificing Salam Al-Zaghal.”

Abu Al-Einein also praised the murderer and his killing with the words:

“He insisted on defending his honor, so he went against the settler and killed him. Blessings to the breast that nursed Salam Al-Zaghal.”

The audience applauded and whistled at this statement.

Last week, Palestinian Media Watch reported that only hours after the murder, the administrator of Fatah’s official Facebook page glorified Al-Zaghal as a “hero.”

Another senior PA official, Jibril Rajoub, also praised the use of violence against Israel. During an interview on a Lebanese TV channel, the host referred to “the negotiations game” with Israel, and Rajoub expressed the view that negotiations are held because the Palestinians lack military strength:

“I swear that if we had a nuke, we’d have used it this very morning.”

Jibril Rajoub is the Deputy Secretary of the Fatah Central Committee and Chairman of the PA Olympic Committee. The interview was broadcast on the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen TV channel and also published on Rajoub’s Facebook page on May 2, 2013.

Senior PA officials often state that avoiding violent confrontation or war with Israel is only temporarily, due to the PA’s inability to take on such a conflict. They claim that negotiations with Israel are the right course of action for now, because conditions are not right for violence.

Mahmoud Abbas himself has also said on several occasions that if the Arab nations would begin a war against Israel, “Palestine” would join them.

The following is an excerpt of senior PA official Sultan Abu Al-Einein’s interview, in which he praises a murderer as a “heroic fighter”:

“Praise Allah who honored us and designated us to be in Ribat (religious war defending or liberating “Islamic” land) until Judgment Day, until the dawn of freedom and national independence will shine [on us]… On behalf of all those who fell as Martyrs or were wounded, we salute the heroic fighter, the self-sacrificing Salam Al-Zaghal from the Tulkarem District, whose honor and pride would not let him remain silent, consenting to the settlers’ aggression against him in his vehicle. He insisted on defending his honor, so he went against the settler and killed him. Blessings to the breast that nursed Salam Al-Zaghal.”

[Palestine Live TV, May 2, 2013]

The following is the translation of senior PA official Jibril Rajoub’s interview, in which he swears that the PA would use nuclear weapons against Israel, if it possessed them:

Lebanese TV host: “The American [John Kerry] came to the PA. They are talking about reviving negotiations, about getting back to the table with the Israelis… Will you go back to the negotiations game?”
Jibril Rajoub: “There is no going back to negotiations unless the source of authority is the international resolutions, with a time frame and with the freezing of all unilateral Israeli steps: Jerusalem, the fence, settlements and prisoners.”
Host: “You’ve heard Israel’s refusal.”
Jibril Rajoub: “That doesn’t matter. Listen. We as yet don’t have a nuke, but I swear that if we had a nuke, we’d have used it this very morning.”

It surely must be obvious to any disinterested observer that the Palestinians do not want peace with Israel. The only way that they will agree to peace with Israel is if they are convinced that they cannot win by violent means. When well meaning but idiotic Westerners support them and condemn Israel, the Palestinians are encouraged to believe that they will prevail. The Palestinians will never bargain in good faith if they think they can destroy Israel. By supporting an academic boycott of Israel, Stephen Hawking is encouraging terrorists to keep up their campaign of terror and is costing the lives of people on both sides of the struggle.

All of the above links came courtesy of Jihad Watch, a website Stephen Hawking ought to read. There is a lot more there.

 

Related articles

• Palestinian leaders tell their own people what they really mean (legalinsurrection.com)
• PA Official: ‘If We Had Nuke, We’d Have Used It This Morning’ (israelnationalnews.com)
• Islamic cleric in Gaza rejects Israel’s existence (stripes.com)
• Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israel in solidarity with Palestinians (rawstory.com)
• New PA Laws: Cutting Off Thieves’ Hands, Lashes for Drinking (iamnotashamedofthegospelofchrist.com)
• Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israel (worldbulletin.net)
• Furore deepens over Stephen Hawking’s Israel boycott (guardian.co.uk)

They Want Sharia

It has long been an article of faith among many in the West and especially among our learned elites that the vast majority of Muslims are essentially moderate people who want freedom and democracy just as the people of the West do. Terrorists such as Osama bin Ladin and the Tsarnaev brothers who held to be part of a tiny minority of extremists who twist and distort the peaceful teachings of Islam. The problem with this view is that it is simply not true. While the great majority of Muslims are not terrorists and would prefer to live in peace with their neighbors, the truth is that the doctrines of al-Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood are a lot closer to the mainstream of Islamic teachings than many in the West would like to admit.

There is a recent public opinion poll of the citizens of various Muslim countries which suggests that a large number of people in these countries would prefer to live under Islamic law or Sharia. Here is the story in Yahoo News which was originally published by Reuters.

Large majorities in the Muslim world want the Islamic legal and moral code of sharia as the official law in their countries, but they disagree on what it includes and who should be subject to it, an extensive new survey says.

Suicide bombing was mostly rejected In the study by the Washington-based Pew Forum, but it won 40 percent support in the Palestinian territories, 39 percent in Afghanistan, 29 percent in Eygpt and 26 percent in Bangladesh.

Three-quarters of respondents said abortion is morally wrong and 80 percent or more rejected homosexuality and sex outside of marriage.

Over three-quarters of Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia want sharia courts to decide family law issues such as divorce and property disputes, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life said on Tuesday.

Views on punishments such as chopping off thieves’ hands or decreeing death for apostates is more evenly divided in much of the Islamic world, although more than three-quarters of Muslims in South Asia say they are justified.

To be fair, it is likely that many of those who support the implementation of Sharia may not realize some of the implications of such rules. It is likely that after a decade or so of living under Sharia, many would come to detest it.

Those punishments have helped make sharia controversial in some non-Islamic countries, where some critics say radical Muslims want to impose it on Western societies, but the survey shows views in Muslim countries are far from monolithic.

“Muslims are not equally comfortable with all aspects of sharia,” the study said. “Most do not believe it should be applied to non-Muslims.”

Unlike codified Western law, sharia is a loosely defined set of moral and legal guidelines based on the Koran, the sayings of Prophet Mohammad (hadith) and Muslim traditions. Its rules and advice cover everything from prayers to personal hygiene.

Amaney Jamal, a Princeton University political scientist who was special adviser for the project, said Muslims in poor and repressive societies tended to identify sharia with basic Islamic values such as equality and social justice.

“In those societies, you tend to see significant support for sharia,” she told journalists on a conference call. By contrast, Muslims who have lived under “narrow if not rigid” Islamic systems were less supportive of sharia as the official law.

Unlike Western law codes which leave a wide space of private actions, Islamic law tends to be totalitarian, in the sense that even private actions and beliefs are covered by the law. If a Man’s home is his castle in the West, under Sharia his home and his life belongs to Allah.

More than four-fifths of the 38,000 Muslims interviewed in 39 countries said non-Muslims in their countries could practice their faith freely and that this was good.

This view was strongest in South Asia, where 97 percent of Bangladeshis and 96 percent of Pakistanis agreed, while the lowest Middle Eastern result was 77 percent in Egypt.

The survey polled only Muslims and not minorities. In several Muslim countries, embattled Christian minorities say they cannot practice their faith freely and are subject to discrimination and physical attacks.

The survey produced mixed results on questions relating to the relationship between politics and Islam.

Democracy wins slight majorities in key Middle Eastern states – 54 percent in Iraq, 55 percent in Egypt – and falls to 29 percent in Pakistan. By contrast, it stands at 81 percent in Lebanon, 75 percent in Tunisia and 70 percent in Bangladesh.

In most countries surveyed, Muslims were more worried about Islamist militancy than any other form of religious violence.

I am sure that if a pollster had asked Whites in the Jim Crow South whether the Blacks were content with their lot, the great majority of Whites would have answered, sincerely, yes. No where in the Islamic world are Christians free to worship as they please. At best they can hope for a grudging tolerance. I have to wonder just what the respondents mean when they talk about democracy. It is no good if they are thinking democracy is a way to vote away other people’s’ rights and liberty.  Freedom is more than just having regular elections, even if they are free and honest. In order for a people to be truly free, they have to learn to respect the rights of others. No one wants to be oppressed. The trick is not wanting to oppress other people, especially the despised minority. So far, the human rights situation throughout the Middle East does not lend much support for the idea that the people of that region really understand this. The article ends on a slightly optimistic note.

Views on whether women should decide themselves if they should wear a headscarf vary greatly, from 89 percent in Tunisia and 79 percent in Indonesia saying yes and 45 percent in Iraq and 30 percent in Afghanistan saying no.

Majorities from 74 percent in Lebanon to 96 percent in Malaysia said wives should always obey their husbands.

Only a minority saw Sunni-Shi’ite tensions as a very big problem, ranging from 38 percent in Lebanon and 34 percent in Pakistan to 23 percent in Iraq and 14 percent in Turkey.

Conflict with other religions loomed larger, with 68 percent in Lebanon saying it was a big problem, 65 percent in Tunisia, 60 percent in Nigeria and 57 percent in Pakistan.

A section of the survey on U.S. Muslims noted they “sometimes more closely resemble other Americans than they do Muslims around the world”. Only about half say their closest friends are Muslim, compared to 95 percent of Muslims globally.

So American Muslims are assimilating. That’s good as far as it goes. I hope there is never any sort of religious revival among our Muslim population.

Related articles

• Muslims worldwide want Sharia (campusravegist.wordpress.com)
• Most Muslims want sharia law, split on interpretation (worldbulletin.net)
• Mideast Muslims Favor Sharia Law (personalliberty.com)
• The Muslim world wants Sharia as law of land: survey (ramyabdeljabbar.wordpress.com)
• Pew Research study: Most Muslims want sharia law – Digital Journal – DigitalJournal.com (digitaljournal.com)
• Most Muslims Want To Live Under Sharia Law (sweetness-light.com)
• Huge Flaw in Pew Survey on Muslim Views about Sharia (nationalreview.com) The poll does not include Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Sudan.

Saudi Arabia Deports Irresistible Men

And on a lighter note, I may have to postpone my trip to Saudi Arabia. Evidently they do not want handsome men who Saudi women could fall for in their kingdom. At least that is what this story in the Telegraph says.

The delegates from the United Arab Emirates were in attendance at the Jenadrivah Heritage & Culture Festival in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, when religious police officers stormed the stand and evicted the men because “they are too handsome,” according to the Arabic language newspaper, Elaph.

“A festival official said the three Emiratis were taken out on the grounds they are too handsome and that the Commission [for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vices] members feared female visitors could fall for them,” Elaph reported.

The UAE released an official statement indicating that the religious police were anxious over the unexpected presence of an unnamed female artist in the pavilion.

“Her visit to the UAE stand was a coincidence as it was not included in the programme which we had already provided to the festival’s management,” Saeed Al Kaabi, head of the UAE delegation to the festival, said in a statement.

It was not clear if the woman’s presence was related to the decision to evict the “handsome” Emirati men.

Following the incident, Elaph said the festival’s management took swift action to deport the trio back to Abu Dhabi, capital of the Emirates.

With a majority Sunni Muslim population, Saudi Arabia is a deeply religious and ultraconservative society which forbids women from interacting with unrelated males and refuses to accord them with the same rights as men.

With my irresistible good looks, they probably wouldn’t even let me into the country.

Obviously I am kidding, both about traveling to Saudi Arabia and about my looks.

Related articles

• Saudi Arabia deports ‘irresistible’ men deemed ‘too handsome’ to women (telegraph.co.uk)
• Saudis deport three men for being too handsome (theprovince.com)
• ‘Female visitors could fall for them’: Saudis deport three men for being ‘too handsome’ (news.nationalpost.com)
• Men Deemed ‘Too Handsome’ Deported from Saudi Arabia for Fear They Would Be Irresistible to Women (gawker.com)
• PV companies must understand Saudi Arabia in order to beat competitors (prweb.com) It would be very hard for anyone rational to understand that country.

Boston Marathon Suspects

One of the men responsible for the atrocity at the Boston Marathon has been killed and the other is presently the object of an intense manhunt in Boston. They are Dzokhar A. Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The Tsarnaevs are brothers from Chechnya and contrary to the fantasies of liberal commentators, are not Tea Partiers protesting  Tax Day. Rather, they appear to be followers of the Religion of Peace. Here are parts of the story I read at Yahoo News.

The Associated Press identified the surviving Boston bomb suspect as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, of Cambridge, Mass., and said that the suspects were brothers. The second bombing suspect is Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, according to NBC News, who was found with an IED on his body. The brothers’ family is believed to be originally from Chechnya, a volatile southern Russian republic.  Photographer Johannes Hirn took this photo essay of the older brother, a boxer. The captions suggest Tsarnaev came to America as a child with his family as refugees after fleeing Chechnya. Dhokhar Tsarnaev posted links to Islamic and pro-Chechnyan independence sites on what appears to be his social media page.

The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth announced shortly after 10:30 a.m. on Friday that they were evacuating the entire campus after learning Tsarnaev is a student there.

At sunrise, Gov. Deval Patrick ordered a shutdown of all public transit and residents on the edges of Boston to stay indoors as a massive manhunt for the second suspect was underway. The entire city in Boston was under a shelter in place order by late Friday morning.

“This situation is grave and we are trying to protect the public safety,” said Massachusetts State Police Col. Timothy Alben, who ordered a lockdown of Watertown, Waltham, Belmont, Cambridge, Newton, Allston and Brighton. A no fly zone has been declared over Watertown. The city of Boston was eerily quiet during Friday’s rush hour, the city’s busy intersections totally abandoned.

Federal agents swarmed Watertown after local police were involved in a car chase and shootout with the men identified Thursday by the FBI as Suspect 1 and Suspect 2 in the Boston bombings. During the pursuit, officers could be heard on police radio traffic describing the men as having handguns, grenades and other explosives.

The mayhem began at approximately 10:20 p.m. Thursday when police said the bombing suspects robbed a 7-Eleven store in Cambridge. Minutes later, police said, the men shot and killed an MIT campus officer responding to the robbery call. The terror suspects then carjacked a Mercedes-Benz with the driver inside and fled, eventually letting driver go. They were then spotted in Watertown where they exchanged dozens of rounds of gunfire with patrol officers.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot by police and brought to Beth Israel Medical Center. He arrived at the hospital under cardiac arrest with multiple gunshot wounds and blast-like injuries to his chest. The second suspect fled on foot, leading to the tense manhunt that is still underway at this hour.

“We believe this to be a terrorist,” said Boston police Commissioner Ed Davis. “We believe this to be a man who has come here to kill people. We need to get him into custody.”

A transit officer, Richard H. Donohue, was seriously wounded during the exchange of gunfire, officials said.

In a radio alert sent issued to fellow officers, the suspect was described as a “white male with dark complexion … with thick curly hair wearing a charcoal gray hooded sweatshirt … possibly with an assault rifle and explosives.” Police in Watertown, Newton, Brighton and Cambridge were put on high alert. “Units use caution,” an officer said. “He might have an explosive object on his person.”

Worried residents in Watertown, a suburb about 8 miles from downtown Boston, were ordered to stay indoors and turn off their cell phones out of fear that they could trigger improvised explosive devices.

Dozens of police officers, many of them off-duty, searched backyards in pursuit of the second suspect, and a police perimeter of several blocks was established. K9 units and SWAT teams searched homes on Spruce Street as officers with a police robot searched an SUV that the suspects had abandoned. Multiple devices were left in the road and two handguns were recovered, according to police scanners.

The Watertown shootout occurred after a gunfight erupted near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where the MIT police officer, 26-year-old Sean Collier, was shot and later died. The campus was placed on lockdown for several hours, and students were told to remain indoors.

Shortly before 2 a.m. Friday, MIT issued a statement on its website saying that the suspect “in this evening’s shooting is no longer on campus. It is now safe to resume normal activities. Please remain vigilant in the coming hours.” MIT, Harvard, Boston University and other local colleges have cancelled classes.

President Barack Obama, who attended an interfaith service for the bombing victims in Boston on Thursday, was briefed on the overnight developments, the White House said early Friday.

At approximately 3:30 a.m., Massachusetts State Police issued a plea on Twitter for residents of Watertown to lock their doors and not open them for anyone as they searched backyards and exteriors of houses there.

“Residents in and around Watertown should stay in their residences,” the alert read. “Do NOT answer door unless it is an identified police officer.”

This man is very dangerous and at this point doesn’t have anything to lose. Indeed, if he is a fanatic Muslim he may well desire to be martyred, taking as many infidels with him as possible, so they he can get his 72 virgins. Let us hope and pray he is apprehended quickly.

 

 

Related articles

• Boston shut down as one bombing suspect dead, one on the run (news.nationalpost.com)
• Boston Bombing Suspects are Brothers from Chechnya The suspect at large, Dzhokar Tsarnaev, is 19 (conservativeread.com)
• AP: Hunted bombing suspect is Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev (bostonherald.com)
• All of Boston under lockdown order as manhunt intensifies (bostonherald.com)
• Boston Marathon Suspect Killed, Other Still on Loose after MIT Officer Murdered (atlantablackstar.com)
• Who is Tamerlan Tsarnaev? (foreignpolicy.com)
• Boston Marathon Bombing Suspect Killed (scooprocket.com)
• What We Know About Boston Marathon Bomb Suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (buzzfeed.com)
• Who is Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev? 3 Key Images to See (insidermonkey.com)
• Bombing Suspects’ Uncle: They Do Not Deserve To Live On This Earth (boston.cbslocal.com)

 

Lack of Swordsmen

They are progressing in Saudi Arabia. Soon they’ll join the eleventh century. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sometimes it is hard to find good people to do a difficult and demanding job. For example, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia may have to resort to firing squads to execute murderers and sorcerers since there is starting to be a shortage of swordsmen to behead criminals.

Is this what progress looks like in Saudi Arabia? The kingdom is considering ending execution by beheading in favor of firing squads, reports the Egyptian English-language news website Ahram Online. A committee consisting of representatives from the Ministries of Interior, Justice and Health says there are shortages in government swordsmen and argue that a change to execution by firing squad would not violate Islamic law, the Saudi daily newspaper al-Youm writes. According to an official statement from the committee, “This solution seems practical, especially in light of shortages in official swordsmen or their belated arrival to execution yards in some incidents.”

I have to wonder, how hard can the job be? It’s not like brain surgery where precision is needed, just a stroke at the neck. It can’t be a highly skilled job or one that demands much education. I imagine that it would be desirable to behead the victim with one stroke and that might take practice. You don’t want the person executed to be just lying there screaming as the executioner whacks away over and over.

I wonder if the Saudi government provides the sword, or would you have to use your own? Do they have regular inspections to make sure the swordsmen keep their sword properly sharpened? What about laundry bills from blood spatters? Maybe they get a special uniform. It might be interesting to be able to tell people at a gathering that you are a beheader, or is this the sort of job that makes people not want to have anything to do with you?

Kidding aside, I suppose this is progress, of a sort. Personally, I am less concerned about the death penalty than Saudi standards of jurisprudence.

Execution by beheading in Saudi Arabia has continually been condemned by human-rights groups. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), at least 69 people were executed by beheading in 2012, while Amnesty International says 79 were killed under the death penalty in the same period. In 2012 HRW wrote, “Saudi Arabia has no penal code, so prosecutors and judges largely define criminal offenses at their discretion.” Rape, murder, armed robbery, drug trafficking and even suspected “sorcery” are punishable by death under Saudi Arabia’s Islamic law.

The Saudi death penalty recently made headlines following the execution of Rizana Nafeek, a young Sri Lankan woman who was beheaded for the murder of her employers’ 4-month-old son. Nafeek arrived in Saudi Arabia in 2005 at age 17 but spent the next seven years in Saudi jails after the baby died under her care, writes CNN. The family of the boy believed he had been strangled by Nafeek, while she claimed he had choked on his milk. The young Sri Lankan immigrant had no access to a lawyer during her pretrial interrogation during which she said she was forced to sign a confession, notes CNN. The execution of this young woman revealed how “woefully out of step they [the Saudi justice system] are with their international obligations regarding the use of the death penalty,” said Philip Luther from Amnesty International. It highlighted how Saudi law tends to treat children as adults in criminal cases even though international law prohibits the death penalty for crimes committed before the age of 18, writes HRW.

I don’t mind the idea of chopping people’s heads off so much, but I would like proof beyond a reasonable doubt that they actually are guilty of a crime.

Related articles

• A Lack of Swordsmen May Lead Saudis to Abolish Beheadings (world.time.com)
• Lack of Swordsmen May Lead Saudis to Abolish Beheadings (world.time.com)
• Saudis rethink beheadings amid swordsmen shortage (foxnews.com)
• Saudi Arabia Considers Halt On Beheadings . . . Due To Shortage of Swordsmen (jonathanturley.org)

Iranian Christians On Trial

It isn’t easy to be a Christian in Iran, particularly if you are a convert from Islam. Here is an example of the difficulties Christians face in Iran brought to us by FoxNews.

Five Iranian Christian converts who were detained late last year will reportedly begin trial in Iran’s Revolutionary Court this week, according to a human rights group following the case.

The five men were among seven arrested in October when security forces raided an underground house church in the city of Shiraz during a prayer session. They will be tried at the Revolutionary Court in Shiraz’s Fars Province on charges of disturbing public order, evangelizing, threatening national security and engaging in Internet activity that threatens the government, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a religious persecution watchdog group.

“Judging from recent cases, it is likely that, at the very least, those detained may face lengthy prison sentences,” said CSW spokesperson Kiri Kankhwende.

According to Kankhwende, the crackdown against Christian converts and house churches parallels a general increase in repression against many, including journalists, religious and cultural minorities and others as the government is leading up to June’s presidential elections.

They have to worship in their houses because converts are not able to attend churches.

he underground church network has been rapidly growing in Iran as a place where converts from Islam to Christianity can pray as they are forbidden to attend services at formal churches.

Alongside the growing network of home churches has been the increase in violent crackdowns and raids on these communities and arrests made on Christian converts, among them the internationalized case of Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, held for almost three years on charges of apostasy and more recently American Pastor Saeed Abedini who is currently serving an eight-year sentence for evangelizing and threatening national security.

“House churches are growing because the converts have nowhere else to go,” said Tiffany Barrans, international legal director at the American Center for Law and Justice,

“When you’re a convert to Christianity in Iran, you can’t go worship at the church on the corner, because conversion is not acceptable. If they were allowed to go to an official place of worship, there wouldn’t be a house church movement,” Barrans said.

“Essentially they have created the house church problem and now use it to persecute its own people.”

For all the talk of the dire threat of Islamophobia and the stories of the persecution that Muslims suffer in the West, it should be noted that no where in the world is it unlawful to convert to Islam, nor do such converts fear being imprisoned. On the other hand, anyone who dares to convert from Islam, it doesn’t matter if the convert becomes a Christian, Buddhist, or atheist, they fear for their lives.

Under Shariah, or Islamic law, a Muslim who converts to Christianity is on a par with someone waging war against Islam. Death sentences for such individuals are prescribed by fatwas, or legal decrees, and reinforced by Iran’s Constitution, which allows judges to rely on fatwas for determining charges and sentencing on crimes not addressed in the Iranian penal code.

All religious minorities in Iran, including Bahais, Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians, have faced various forms of persecution and political and social marginalization throughout the regime’s 30-year reign. But the government saves its harshest retribution for those who have abandoned Islam.

It is interesting, and a little encouraging that Christianity seems to be growing in Iran, even under the harshest persecution.

Related articles

• Christians tried for ‘action against national security’ (wnd.com)
• Iran a “Rational actor”? ; Iran Imprisons Citizens for being Christian (amerisrael.typepad.com)
• Iran puts five Christians on trial for their faith Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/03/11/iran-puts-five-christians-on-trial-for-their-faith/#ixzz2NGmypKYf (churchonfire.wordpress.com)
• ‘They Are Being Persecuted For Their Christian Faith’: Five Iranian Christians Arrested At Prayer Service Facing Trial With ‘Political’ Charges (midnightwatcher.wordpress.com)
• Dr. Terry Jones Demands Release of Iranian-American Christian Pastor Saeed Abedini (1389blog.com)

 

Hijab for a Day

Here is a bit of nonsense reported by the BBC. The idea is that non-Muslim women should wear a hajib for a day and this will somehow increase understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims and help to end the dreadful specter of Islamophobia.

World Hijab Day calls on non-Muslim women to try out life under the traditional head scarf. Can it lead to more religious tolerance and understanding?

“Because I’m not very skilled I’m wearing what you could call a one-piece hijab – you just pull it over your head. But I’ve discovered the scope is endless. There are all sorts of options.”

So says Jess Rhodes, 21, a student from Norwich in the UK. She had always wanted to try a headscarf but, as a non-Muslim, didn’t think it an option. So, when given the opportunity by a friend to try wearing the scarf, she took it.

“She assured me that I didn’t need to be Muslim, that it was just about modesty, although obviously linked to Islam, so I thought, ‘why not?’”

Rhodes is one of hundreds of non-Muslims who will be wearing the headscarf as part of the first annual World Hijab Day on 1 February.

Originated by New York woman Nazma Khan, the movement has been organised almost solely over social networking sites. It has attracted interest from Muslims and non-Muslims in more than 50 countries across the world.

For many people, the hijab is a symbol of oppression and divisiveness. It’s a visible target that often bears the brunt of a larger debate about Islam in the West.

World Hijab Day is designed to counteract these controversies. It encourages non-Muslim women (or even Muslim women who do not ordinarily wear one) to don the hijab and experience what it’s like to do so, as part of a bid to foster better understanding.

“Growing up in the Bronx, in NYC, I experienced a great deal of discrimination due to my hijab,” says organiser Khan, who moved to New York from Bangladesh aged 11. She was the only “hijabi” (a word for someone who wears the headscarf) in her school.

“In middle school I was ‘Batman’ or ‘ninja,’” she says.

“When I moved on to college it was just after 9/11, so they would call me Osama Bin Laden or terrorist. It was awful.

“I figured the only way to end discrimination is if we ask our fellow sisters to experience hijab themselves.”

Non-Muslims are not the ones who need to learn about tolerance. If Khan thinks she has been badly treated by some name calling, what does she have to say about the fate of women in Muslim countries who choose not to wear a hajib or veil.

If your an unveiled female then watch out, because soon enough you might be getting your hair burned or if “the gang” is having a good day, then they will only end up shaving it all of.

A couple of weeks ago when the two 12 year old girls in aswan got their hair cut by their teacher for not wearing the veil, we said ok, ONE crazy woman, don’t be happening again.

Two ladies wearing the Niqab attached two coptic unveiled females on the metro. The first victim was the 13 year old magy, “you can’t imagine what I am going to do to you” said one of the attackers out of the blue to little magy, seconds later magy was shocked to see that her hair is on the back of her jacket, an unexpected hair cut.

The second incident which was reported by the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights, Two women wearing the Niqab attacked the 30 year old Nariman Samuel, dragging her off the metro carriage violently. Samuel was attached while trying to help a pregnant women sit on the metro, right before the attackers called her an “Infidel” and injured her.

This brings us to last Saturday’s events, where six women “the gang” wearing Niqab attacked another unveiled women outside the high court at around 8pm. They beat her and attempted to burn her hair. Thankfully two men were able to save her before she got seriously hurt.

If Khan thinks there is discrimination against Muslims in western countries, what does she have to say about the often horrific discrimination against non-Muslims in Muslims countries.

Christian communities and individuals have played a vital role in the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity, as of other religions.  Pope Benedict XVI, speaking in Castelgandolfo on September 2, 2007, is not alone in warning that “[c]hurches in the Middle East are threatened in their very existence.”

The outlook for Christians is indeed bleak.  The Arab countries have not abided by the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights (Article 18) of December 1948, which states that “[e]veryone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.”  Discrimination against non-Muslims has always been present in the Arab Muslim world.  In the Ottoman Empire, as elsewhere, Christians were second-class subjects, except for a short period after 1856 when the sultan conceded the principle of equality of the law to all subjects.

No reliable census has been available in Arab countries for many years, but the estimate of Christians in the Middle East numbers about 12 million.  Accused of identification with Western colonialism and imperialism, they are now facing aggravating hostility and persecution of various kinds.  The Christians and their institutions, in a context of internecine wars in the area, a falling birth rate in the midst of an increase in the number of Muslims, and the political rise of extreme Islamist groups, face physical brutality; destruction of their churches; discrimination in basic rights as well as in employment opportunities; boycotts of their businesses; and malignity in many forms of popular culture, television programs, and school textbooks.  They are unable to practice or have difficulty in practicing their faith and fear prosecution by law for offences of apostasy and blasphemy, devices intended to intimidate or prevent critical speech.

Even those regimes and ideas, such as Nasserism, Pan-Arabism, and Arab nationalism, which in the past exemplified to some extent moderation in religious matters regarding Christians, now play a less significant role.

Increasing violence and brutality against Christians is now evident in almost all the Arab countries, except Jordan under the relatively benign King Abdullah.  Even there, those Muslims who converted to Christianity face severe discrimination.

Just a little bit worse than a bit of name calling, wouldn’t you say? If we really want to improve understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims, how about a let’s pretend women are human beings day? Or, why not a let’s not go into a murderous frenzy every time someone insults the prophet Mohammed day? This might do a whole lot more good towards promoting civilized behavior than wearing a hijab would.

 

Related articles

• Hijab for a day: Non-Muslim women who try the headscarf (bbc.co.uk)
• Imam seeking government directive allowing women to wear hijab at work (timesofmalta.com)
• “World Hijab Day calls on non-Muslim women to try out life under the traditional head scarf.” (althouse.blogspot.com)

 

Burkas for Babies

Maybe, I just need to stop reading the news for a while. The more I read, the more I am convinced that the whole world is going mad, which is a very depressing thought. The latest outrage against sanity is a fatwa issued by a Saudi cleric, (actually anything coming out of Saudi Arabia is likely to be some kind of outrage), that baby girls should be veiled to keep away child molesters. The Drudge Report has a link to the story in Al Arabiya News.

A Saudi cleric has called for all female babies to be fully covered by wearing the face veil, commonly known as the burka, citing reports of little girls being sexually molested.

In a TV interview on the Islamic al-Majd TV, which seems to date back to mid-last year, Sheikh Abdullah Daoud, stressed that wearing the veil will protect baby girls. The Sheikh tried to back his assertion with claims of sexual molestation against babies in the kingdom, quoting unnamed medical and security sources.

Recently picked up on social media, Sheikh Dauod’s statement prompted wide condemnation from his fellow Saudis on Twitter. Some tweeps called for the Sheikh to be held accountable because his ruling denigrates Islam and breaches individual privacy.

Sheikh Mohammad al-Jzlana, former judge at the Saudi Board of Grievances, told Al Arabiya that Dauod’s ruling was denigrating to Islam and Shariah and made Islam look bad.

Jzlana urged people to ignore unregulated fatwas and explained that there are special regulations set by the Saudi authorities to administer religious edicts and appoint those who are entitled to issue them.

He said that he feels sad whenever he sees a family walking around with a veiled baby, describing that as injustice to children.

Not that their regulated fatwas are much saner. It occurs to me that the person most likely to abuse a little girl would be a male relative, or someone who has access to the child, especially given the nature of Saudi society, making it largely irrelevant whether the baby goes out covered up. It also occurs to me that the strict rules regulating interactions between the sexes found in Islam seem to imply that people, especially men, are simply unable to control their urges, that is if a man rapes a woman wearing a mini-skirt, he simply couldn’t stop himself. It seems a rather pessimisic assessment of human nature.

Related articles

• Saudi Cleric Calls for Burkas For Baby Girls – So They Won’t Be So Tempting (thegatewaypundit.com)
• “Burkas for babies”: Saudi cleric’s new fatwa causes controversy (refreshingnews99.blogspot.com)
• More backasswardsness from the Shariah Corner (thedaleygator.wordpress.com)
• Burkas for baby girls to prevent temptation? (wnd.com)

 

Book Burning in Timbucktu

English: Image of Timbuktu manuscripts. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When I was a child, Timbuktu generally seemed to mean the farthest possible place it was possible to travel to while still remaining on the planet, an almost mystical city, not one you who expect to travel to. It actually came a something of a shock to me when I saw Timbuktu on a map. I didn’t really think it was a real city.

Well, Timbuktu is real enough and not nearly far from the troubles of the world as the inhabitants might wish. Timbuktu has been in the news quite a lot recently as a battleground in Mali‘s civil war. Recently, Malian and French soldiers captured the city from the Islamic militants who had seized the city ten months ago. The terrorists did not show much respect for the historical or cultural legacy of Timbuktu, and even less respect for the rights and well being of the people there. I read this report from the Associated Press.

Timbuktu, a city of mud-walled buildings and 50,000 people, was for centuries a seat of Islamic learning and a major trading center along the North African caravan routes that carried slaves, gold and salt. In Europe, legend had it that it was a city of gold. Today, its name is synonymous to many with the ends of the earth.

It has been home to some 20,000 irreplaceable manuscripts, some dating to the 12th century. It was not immediately known how many were destroyed in the blaze that was set in recent days in an act of vengeance by the Islamists before they withdrew.

Michael Covitt, chairman of the Malian Manuscript Foundation, called the arson a “desecration to humanity.”

“These manuscripts are irreplaceable. They have the wisdom of the ages and it’s the most important find since the Dead Sea Scrolls,” he said.

The militants seized Timbuktu last April and began imposing a strict Islamic version of Shariah, or religious law, across northern Mali, carrying out amputations and public executions. Women could be whipped for going out in public without wearing veils, while men could be lashed for having cigarettes.

During their rule in Timbuktu, the militants systematically destroyed cultural sites, including the ancient tombs of Sufi saints, which they denounced as contrary to Islam because they encouraged Muslims to venerate saints instead of God.

The mayor said the Islamists burned his office as well as the Ahmed Baba institute, a library rich in historical documents.

“It’s truly alarming that this has happened,” Mayor Ousmane Halle told The Associated Press by telephone from Bamako. “They torched all the important ancient manuscripts. The ancient books of geography and science. It is the history of Timbuktu, of its people.”

This is unfortunate, but not unexpected. There is something of a tradition of iconoclasm among the more fanatic Muslim sects. Muslims generally regard the pre-Muslim past as the time of Jahiliyyah or ignorance. This often leads Muslims to denigrate the pre-Islamic history and culture of a nation and more devout or fanatic Muslims can even systematically destroy artifacts from the past, especially art that is considered pagan or idolatrous. The worst offenders in this regard are probably the members of the Wahhabi sect, prominent in Saudi Arabia. In their zeal to purify the Islamic faith and to ensure that Allah alone is worshiped, the Wahhabi have often attacked long standing customs and traditions of less strict Muslim sects, such as the veneration of saints, Sufi mysticism, and the Shi’ites whom they regard as heretics. The Wahhabi dominated government of Saudi Arabia has been destroying historical sites in Mecca and Medina that are associated with the beginnings and early history of Islam.

I am not certain to what extent the militants in Mali have been influenced by Wahhabism. The story said that they were linked to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Ladin was, of course, from Saudi Arabia. It seems likely that their ignorant destruction of historical manuscripts is derived from the same sort of fanaticism that drives the Saudis to destroy houses and mosques associated with Mohammed and other figures from early Islam.

Related articles

• Timbuktu manuscripts mostly safe, university says (cnsnews.com)
• Islamist militants in Mali burn library of ancient scrolls (foxnews.com)
• Mali Islamists torch Timbuktu library ahead of army advance (cbc.ca)
• In Salafis wake, charred Malian heritage in Timbuktu (csmonitor.com) They didn’t mention that the Malians were Salafis. That is the strictest school of Islamic jurisprudence and is associated with the Wahhabis.