Yesterday, it was Remebrance Day in the UK, the day when British people remember their troops, specially those killed or wounded in combat. But Muslims Against Crusades didn’t want to honor British troops, rather the opposite:
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Related: Why Islam is fractured? @ RSN.
it was no surprise that Michelle Obama managed to be stylish and show respect to her Muslim hosts when she visited a mosque on her tour of Indonesia.
The First Lady covered her hair with a beige animal-print scarf as she toured Jakarta’s Istiqlal Mosque, the largest in southeast Asia.
via Obama’s Indonesia trip: Michelle dons headscarf as she visits mosque | Mail Online.
Stylish? That isn’t really the adjective I have in mind when I see these photos: Continue reading
A Spanish judge has ruled that a violent occupation of the Cathedral of Cordoba by a group of Muslims in March of this year did not violate the nation’s law against offending religious sentiments.
According to Europa Press, the judge occupying the seat of the Fourth Court of Instruction of Cordoba ruled that the incursion into the cathedral, which culminated in an assault on several guards and a policeman, was merely a “public disorder” and was not intended to offend anyone’s religious sentiments.
“There isn’t so much an intention to minimize or harm the religious sentiments of the Catholic religion so much as an attempt to favor, not to say clearly impose, in a false gesture of tolerance, the possibility of carrying out joint worship [in the cathedral],” the judge declared. “It doesn’t act to demerit or discredit the Catholic religion, but rather in favor of joint use.”
Spanish Muslims have long demanded the right to carry out Islamic worship in the Cathedral of Cordoba, which was demolished by Muslims in the 8th century and replaced with a mosque following their conquest of the area. The cathedral was rebuilt in the 13th century after Christians reconquered Cordoba. However, much of the original architecture of the mosque was left intact.
Despite a prohibition against Islamic worship in the cathedral, a group of approximately one hundred Muslims from Austria entered the building during Holy Week on March 31, led by an imam and sporting walkie-talkies. After they began to carry out the rites of the Islamic religion they were confronted by security guards and police, several of whom suffered injuries after being attacked by eight members of the group, one of whom brandished a knife. The eight aggressors were arrested, while the rest were allowed to go free after being forcibly removed from the cathedral.
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If someone would have gone to a mosque to try to pray there, would this judge have reached the same solution?
Background: Spain: Muslims protest Bishop’s petition not to call Cordoba’s Cathedral as a “mosque”.
The four posts (in Tower Hamlets’ council) Lutfur has filled are all from the ranks of the councillors who defected from Labour to him before the election. They include Alibor Choudhury, a man with even closer links than Lutfur to the Muslim supremacist group, the Islamic Forum of Europe. Alibor has, incredibly, been given the key post of cabinet member for resources – that is, he will be in charge of the money.
Alibor was previously manager of one of the IFE’s front organisations, a drugs project called Nafas. In a tape-recorded interview with my colleague Ted Jeory, the IFE’s own president at the time, Muhammad Habibur Rahman, admitted that Alibor had “associations with” the IFE. Alibor also has a deeply unsavoury past. In 2006, he stood trial in connection with a gang attack. The trial was halted at the committal stage. Alibor says this was because of “abuse of process,” though he has always refused to discuss with me what the “abuse” actually was. Others say it was halted because key witnesses refused to give evidence.
via Lutfur Rahman puts fundamentalist sympathiser in charge of the money – Telegraph Blogs.
This happens two days after, it was known that the council is promoting a preacher who supports wife-beating:
The preacher, Abdur Raheem Green, has stated that “Islam is not compatible with democracy.” He also says that a husband has the right to administer “some type of physical force… a very light beating” to his wife, to prevent her from committing “evil.”
(Found).
Background:
UK: Islamist organization receives funds secretly.
UK: Charity praised by PM and Prince Charles, linked to Hamas.
IFE supported Ratman Lutfur wins on Tower Hamlets: 1, 2, 3.
Iran was defeated today in its bid for a seat on the board of a new United Nations body to promote women’s rights after what an Iranian envoy called a “politically motivated” campaign by the U.S.
The UN’s 54-member Economic and Social Council elected 41 members to the board of the agency, to be known as UN Women, which officially begins its work Jan. 1. The UN General Assembly voted in July to create the agency by merging four existing bodies.
“These policies by the U.S. to put pressure on others to not vote for Iran is very sad for the UN,” Eshagh Al Habib, Iran’s deputy ambassador to the UN, said in an interview. “It is a very politically motivated position. It is not constructive.” Al Habib said Iran was “progressing very fast in the field” of women’s rights.
The U.S. and rights groups including London-based Amnesty International and New York-based Human Rights Watch opposed Iran’s candidacy for one of the 10 board seats designated for Asian nations. There were only 10 candidates, which would have virtually guaranteed Iran’s election, until East Timor sought a seat this week.
East Timor, Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, India, Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Pakistan were elected to the Asian board seats.
via Iran Loses Vote for Board Seat of UN Women’s Agency – BusinessWeek.
Good news. Although some of those elected countries are not beacons of the protection of Human Rights either… 
Background: Iranian Mullahcracy to “protect” women’s rights?
Kareem Amer is an Egyptian blogger who was condemned to a 4-year-prison term for “insulting Islam“. The end of his imprisonment has come but, instead of freeing him, he has been kept in prison and beaten severely.
The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information reports that Kareem is being beaten at the State Security Intelligence (SSI) headquarters in Alexandria where he was held illegally for the past five days. The press release notes that Kareem has completed his full sentence and should therefore be released. A translation of the report’s highlights are below:
On the 6th of November Kareem Amer was released from the Borj Al Arab prison, where he was held for years, and his official release was meant to be processed, however he was detained by the State Security Intelligence in Alexandria where he faced beatings by a junior officer as well as an order for his continued detainment.
Gamal Eid, the director of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, said that these practices against an unarmed prisoner is creating a climate of hatred against the police forces in general and the State Security Intelligence officials in particular. Kareem already spent years of punishment and his release is now a legal obligation, therefore why is he being beaten and held illegally?
The network stresses that holding a prisoner under these conditions despite having completed the sentence given four years ago is an injustice that people will not be willing to forget. Egypt’s ministry of interior will have to one day answer for these crimes. The ministry in question, with all its soldiers and officers, are not more powerful than a person’s right.
via Free Kareem! – Kareem is being beaten at the State Security Intelligence headquarters.
During his prison term he has been harrassed repeatedly:
“This is not the first time prison authorities have gone out of their way to harass Karim Amer,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Mohamed Abdel Dayem. “Egyptian authorities seem intent on degrading critics even when they are in prison. Karim Amer should not be in prison at all.”
I really hope that he is freed as soon as possible. He did nothing but speak his mind. And yet, he was condemned, imprisoned, tortured, harrassed and is now facing illegal detention. On a personal basis, his family disowned him and his father wanted Sharia Law to be applied to him:
The family of Al-Azhar student Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman, accused of “contempt of religion”, has disowned him before his court verdict session on the upcoming Thursday. His father, a retired mathematics teacher, has demanded applying the Sharia [Islamic law] ruling on him by giving him three days to repent, followed by having him killed if he does not announce his repentance.
