Response to Muslim suit riles Ohio pork industry

From: woi-tv.com

 

By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS
AP Legal Affairs Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A decision by Ohio officials to remove all pork products from prison menus in response to a lawsuit by Muslim inmates is not sitting well with the state's pork producers and processors.

Both promise action of their own, including a possible counter lawsuit, to address what they consider an unfair and illogical decision.

"We really think it's not in the best interest, frankly, of the whole prison system," said Dick Isler, executive director of the Ohio Pork Producers Council. "It seems like we're letting a small group make the rules when it really isn't in the best interest of the rest of prisoners."

Pork is inexpensive and nutritious and compares well to other lean meats, he said.

Ironically, the inmates' lawsuit doesn't involve pork at all; it demands that non-pork meats like beef come from animals slaughtered according to Islamic law. But the prisons system responded by simply removing pork as an option altogether.

If Ohio would provide Muslim inmates with pre-packaged meals similar to those given to Jewish inmates, as the lawsuit requests, it wouldn't be necessary to remove pork from menus, said David Singleton, executive director of the Ohio Justice and Policy Center, which is suing on behalf of the two inmates.

Assistant prisons director Steven Huffman has spoken with Isler, but the system isn't changing its mind, spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said Wednesday.

She said she couldn't comment on the lawsuit specifically, but said removing pork assures that inmates' religious practices aren't jeopardized by pork coming into contact with other food during preparation.

Ohio joins California, Florida, Maryland and Massachusetts among states that don't serve pork in prisons. Massachusetts stopped serving pork more than a decade ago to satisfy religious preferences, said prisons spokeswoman Diane Wiffin.

Ohio first took pork off the menu in 2009 after, in a money-saving attempt, it closed the pig farm and processing facility it operated to provide meat for inmates.

Last year, after lobbying by pork producers, the system added pork rib patties back to the menu once a week, at a cost of about $27,000 a week. The pork was provided by a Michigan company, and so Ohio producers aren't affected, Smith said.

"This issue seems to be blown out of proportion based on a misunderstanding," she said.

Pork is big business in Ohio, the country's eighth-largest producer, with 3,700 farms raising 4 million pigs a year.

Kristin Mullins, who lobbies for Ohio pork processors, said the move last year actually saved Ohio money because pork was less expensive at the time than other meats.

"Let's service the entire prison population and not let one portion dictate what's being served," said Mullins, who also represents processors in Kentucky and Tennessee.

In a federal lawsuit, death row inmate Abdul Awkal complains that the state is restraining his religious freedoms by not providing meals prepared according to Islamic law, known as halal, while at the same time supplying Jewish prisoners with kosher meals. The Quran, the holy book of Islam, prohibits Muslims from eating pork.

Awkal, joined by a second inmate not on death row, says the vegetarian and non-pork options aren't good enough. The inmates say food must be prepared in specific fashion, such as ensuring that an animal is butchered by slitting its throat and draining its blood, to conform to Islamic beliefs.

Prison guidelines for Muslim inmates already provided that meals will be "free of all pork and products containing or derived from pork."

A judge has given lawyers and inmates for the state until next month to finish filing documents bolstering their arguments, ahead of an expected January trial.

Ohio says requiring halal meals could mean new dietary plans for as many as 2,000 inmates, while Awkal's lawyers believe the figure is lower because not all Muslims eat halal meals.

Awkal, 52, is scheduled to die in June for killing his estranged wife, Latife Awkal, and brother-in-law Mahmoud Abdul-Aziz in 1992, in a room in Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court. Joining Awkal in the lawsuit is Cornelius Causey, 35, serving 15 years to life for murder and aggravated robbery convictions out of Hamilton County.

In court documents, Ohio has argued that it provides both non-pork and vegetarian meals to Muslims and says the courts have sided with this practice. The state also says that providing halal meals could hurt Ohio financially, given the current budget situation.

California provides packaged kosher meals to Jewish inmates and halal meals prepared at prisons for Muslim prisoners.

Texas, which does serve pork to prisoners, offers Muslim inmates regular, meat-free or pork-free meals but not halal meals.

Rep. Frank Wolf calls out Grover Norquist for jihad ties; Norquist cries "racism"

From: jihadwatch.org

 

 

Many anti-jihadists' concern about Grover Norquist and his jihad ties ended abruptly when it turned out he was close friends with Rick Perry. People who had been criticizing Norquist for years for being in bed with Islamic supremacists suddenly discovered that, hey, everyone does it (ignoring the fact that Norquist is closer to Perry than he is to other candidates), and what's a few Hamas ties among friends, anyway?

Nonetheless, those concerns remain. Norquist's influence on the Republican Party is extraordinarily damaging, as it keeps on leading so many to turn a blind eye to the stealth jihad that Norquist continues so energetically to advance. Kudos to Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) for having the courage that so many lack and calling out Norquist on the floor of Congress.

For more on Norquist's unsavory ties, see Pamela Geller's expose here. Note also how well Norquist has mastered the tried-and-true tactic of his Islamic supremacist partners: crying "racism," smearing his opponent, and claiming victim status whenever his wrongdoing is pointed out, instead of responding with anything substantive.

"Norquist calls attacks from GOP congressman ‘disgusting,’" by Chris Moody for The Ticket, October 4:

Grover Norquist responded to attacks from Virginia Republican Rep. Frank Wolf Tuesday, calling Wolf's accusations that Norquist was connected to terrorists "disgusting" and saying they were copied from "racist websites." [...]

Gee, which websites do you have in mind, Grover?

On the House floor Tuesday, Wolf accused Norquist of being associated with terrorist financiers, discussed his connection in 2006 to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and said that Norquist has used his organization's pledge "to advance many other issues that many Americans would find inappropriate, and when taken as a whole should give people pause." "Some staffer of his went onto the racist websites, you know, dug up stuff from ten years ago," Norquist said in response to Wolf's floor speech. "I'm married to a woman who's Muslim, and it's sad and it's disgusting. It reflects poorly on him. I think given his district, he's going to spend a lot of time apologizing for getting into the gutter and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry. I suppose this staffer who got this stuff off websites did as much chucking [sic] as the idiots who put it forward."

Wolf submitted a detailed report to the official record that outlined his grievances with Norquist.

"Documentation shows that he has deep ties to supporters of Hamas and other terrorist organizations that are sworn enemies of the United States and our ally Israel," Wolf's submitted statement read.

Norquist fired back, calling Wolf's comments "just a series of rants."

"It's just silly," Norquist said. "It's just a series of rants that mean nothing and have no effect on anything, and are neither honorable or honest."

A spokesman for Wolf said the congressman stands by his remarks and intended to send a message to the members of his caucus who have associated themselves with Norquist.
"There's a clear pattern there," Wolf spokesman Dan Scandling told The Ticket. "You need to look at who he's associated with."

Indeed. Unless, of course, you're so in thrall to the prospect of a Rick Perry presidency that suddenly a guy who's in bed with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood doesn't seem so bad after all.

Here is what Wolf actually said about Norquist's jihad ties. If this looks like a racist rant lacking in substance to you, report immediately to the nearest Hamas-linked CAIR office, offer your sincere apologies of U.S. mistreatment of Muslims, and ask how you can be of service.

TERRORIST CONNECTIONS

Not only was Mr. Norquist entangled with the criminal dealings of Jack Abramoff, but documentation shows that he has deep ties to supporters of Hamas and other terrorist organizations that are sworn enemies of the United States and our ally Israel.

According to Senate lobbying disclosure records of his now defunct lobbying firm, Janus-Merritt Strategies, around the years 2000 and 2001 Mr. Norquist’s firm represented Abdurahman Alamoudi, who was convicted two years later for his role in a terrorist plot and who is presently serving a 23-year sentence in federal prison.

Court documents and a October 15, 2004, Department of Justice press release reveal that Alamoudi, the president of the American Muslim Council, was arrested at Dulles Airport in September 2003 upon returning to the U.S after participating in a Libyan plot to assassinate the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. “Alamoudi participated in recruiting participants for this plot by introducing the Libyans to two Saudi dissidents in London and facilitating the transfer of hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash from the Libyans to those dissidents to finance the plot,” the release said.

According to the DOJ press release, Alamoudi, a naturalized citizen, pled guilty to three federal offenses:

· One count of violating the International Emergency Powers Act;

· One count of false statements made in his application for naturalization;

· A tax offense involving a long-term scheme to conceal from the IRS his financial transactions with Libya and his foreign bank accounts and to omit material information from the tax returns filed by his charities.

It is important to point out that Alamoudi’s ties to terrorist groups were no secret prior to his arrest.

Alamoudi spoke at an October 2000 rally in front of the White House in support of Hamas and Hezbollah during the period he was represented by Norquist’s firm, according to Senate lobbying disclosure records.. The “Rally Against Israeli Aggression” was sponsored by Norquist’s Islamic Free Market Institute, according to a September 2000 “Islamic Institute Friday Brief.” The Islamic Free Market Institute was created by Grover Norquist and operated out of his Americans for Tax Reform office in Washington, thanks to sizable start-up contributions from Alamoudi, according to a March 11, 2003, article in the St. Petersburg Times by Mary Jacoby.

I have seen video from the rally, where Alamoudi roared from the stage:
“I have been labeled by the media in New York to be a supporter of Hamas, anybody supports Hamas here?”

[Crowd cheers, "Yes!"]

“…Hear that, Bill Clinton, we are all supporters of Hamas, Allahu Akbar.”
“I wish they added that I am also a supporter of Hezbollah. Anybody supports Hezbollah here?”

[Crowd cheers, "Yes!"]

A few months after the Lafayette Park rally, Alamoudi was photographed in Beirut at a conference attended by representatives of the terror groups Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and al-Qaida, also according to the March 2003 St. Petersburg Times article.

In addition to Alamoudi’s outspoken support for Hamas and Hezbollah, he expressed private support for the 1994 terrorist attack against a synagogue in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which killed 85 people and injured hundreds, according to a December 17, 2003, article in The American Spectator by Shawn Macomber, who reported: “In a wiretapped conversation made public in the recent criminal complaint, he (Alamoudi) praises a 1994 bombing in Buenos Aires. ‘The Jewish Community Center. It is a worthy operation,’ Alamoudi tells an unidentified man, in Arabic. ‘I think that the attacks that are being executed by bin Laden and other Islamic groups are wrong, especially hitting the civilian targets. Many African Muslims have died and not a single American has died. I prefer to hit a Zionist target in America or Europe…I prefer honestly like what happened in Argentina.”

According to a June 11, 2003, Wall Street Journal article by reporters Tom Hamburger and Glenn Simpson, around 1999 Alamoudi sent his deputy at the American Muslim Council, Khaled Saffuri, to work directly for Mr. Norquist to establish the Islamic Free Market Institute – one of the groups that sponsored the October 2000 rally in Lafayette Park. The institute, chaired by Norquist and led by Saffuri, operated out of the Americans for Tax Reform offices here in Washington, according to the March 2003 article in the St. Petersburg Times.
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee report revealed that Saffuri was closely tied to Mr. Norquist and the Abramoff scandal and received money from Abramoff and a front group, the American International Center (AIC), to partner with Abramoff’s firm Greenberg Traurig on his “Malaysian-related interests and issues.”

Mr. Norquist also associated with terror financier Sami Al-Arian, according to Mary Jacoby’s reporting in March 2003, in the St. Petersburg Times. Al-Arian pled guilty in 2006 “to a charge of conspiring to provide services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a specially designated terrorist organization, in violation of U.S. law,” and is under house arrests, according to a Department of Justice press release. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s “paramilitary wing – the al-Quds Brigades – has conducted numerous attacks, including large-scale suicide bombings,” according to the National Counterterrorism Center,
Who is Sami al-Arian? An October 2003 federal affidavit noted that Al-Arian had longstanding connections to associates of al Qaeda. According to the affidavit, “Sheik Rahman (the “Blind Sheik”) visited Al-Arian at his residence in Tampa and spoke at his mosque.” Rahman is currently serving a life sentence in U.S. prison for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center attack and additional terror plots. The federal affidavit also disclosed Al-Arian’s ties with Alamoudi.

Al-Arian’s relationship with Mr. Norquist appears to have spanned several years. Prior to his arrest in February 2003, Sami Al-Arian visited Norquist’s office in Washington for a meeting, also reported in the June 11, 2003, article in the Wall Street Journal. According to Continetti, Mr. Al-Arian also “cc’d Norquist on an e-mail he sent to the Wall Street Journal protesting an editorial that had pointed out his terrorist connections.”

Mr. Norquist himself served as a key facilitator between Al-Arian, Alamoudi and the White House, according to Mary Jacoby’s reporting in March 2003 in The St. Petersburg Times. She reported that “In June 2001, Al-Arian was among the members of the American Muslim Council invited to the White House complex . . . The next month, the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom – a civil liberties group headed by Al-Arian – gave Norquist an award for his work to abolish the use of secret intelligence evidence in terrorism cases.”

OPPOSING THE PATRIOT ACT

Mr. Norquist also has been an outspoken supporter of Al-Arian’s effort to end the use of classified evidence in terror trials. In fact, Norquist was scheduled to lead a delegation to the White House on September 11, 2001, that included a convicted felon and some who would later be identified by federal law enforcement as suspected terrorist financiers.

According to a Arab American Institute 2002 report, “Healing the Nation,” “[o]n the day of the terrorist attacks, Arab American and Muslim American leaders were already in Washington, D.C. for a previously scheduled meeting with President Bush to discuss the use of ‘secret evidence’ in certain immigration proceedings and racial profiling of Arab Americans at the nation’s airports and security checkpoints.”

I have seen the list of attendees for the scheduled meeting. Among those listed:
Madhi Bray, a convicted felon who was found guilty of drug and fraud charges in the 1980s. Bray appeared cheering on stage with Alamoudi at the October 2000 rally in Lafayette Park as Alamoudi declared his support for Hamas and Hezbollah.

Omar Ahmed, co-founder of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). According to an April 18, 2011,Politico article by Josh Gerstein, “Federal prosecutors… have introduced evidence in court of Ahmad's attendance at a 1993 meeting in Philadelphia that the FBI contends was a gathering of Hamas supporters seeking to undermine the Middle East peace process. Prosecutors [in the Holy Land Foundation case] have also presented documents that appear to show CAIR as part of a network of Muslim Brotherhood organizations in the U.S.”

The list provided to the White House by Norquist’s Islamic Institute included representatives from each of Norquist’s organizations, including a Janus-Merrit lobbyist. At the top of the list: Grover Norquist, representing Americans for Tax Reform.

According to a June 11, 2003, Wall Street Journal article by reporters Tom Hamburger and Glenn Simpson, “Mr. Norquist helped secure a promise from presidential candidate Bush to moderate federal policy on investigating suspected illegal immigrants. In a nationally televised debate on Oct. 11, 2000, Mr. Bush said: ‘Arab-Americans are racially profiled in what's called secret evidence ... We've got to do something about that.’ Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House has abandoned that promise, as the Justice Department has aggressively pursued prosecutions of Muslims allegedly supporting terrorism.”

Mr. Norquist has also led efforts over the last decade to weaken and repeal the PATRIOT Act, working closely with liberal groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, according to a February 20, 2008, profile on Norquist in the Washington Examiner, “A former lobbyist with the American Civil Liberties Union said privately that Norquist won her over when they joined forces to oppose the Bush administration’s Patriot Act and warrantless wiretapping. ‘I was initially skeptical,’ she said, ‘but I knew there was common ground on this issue and that we would be most powerful if we united.’”

GUANTANAMO BAY DETAINEES

More recently, Mr. Norquist has become an outspoken advocate for moving Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States. According to a November 16, 2009, Huffington Post article by Sam Stein, Norquist led a public campaign to undermine Republican-led efforts to block the Obama Administration’s transfer of 9/11 mastermind Khaled Sheik Mohammed to New York City and other terrorist detainees to Thompson Prison in Illinois, the first time terrorists would be held indefinitely inside the United States.

The article reported that Mr. Norquist wrote that, “moving suspected terrorists to the Thomson, Illinois prison facility, ‘makes good sense.’ Taxpayers, [Norquist wrote], have already invested $145 million in the facility, which has been ‘little used.’ ‘The scaremongering about these issues should stop,’ [Norquist wrote], noting that there is ‘absolutely no reason to fear that prisoners will escape or be released into their communities.’”

Why is Mr. Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, advocating for one of President Obama’s top campaign promises? His efforts fly in the face of near-unanimous congressional opposition to providing al Qaeda terrorists with civilian trials in U.S. courts.

GROUND ZERO MOSQUE

Mr. Norquist also interjected himself into the debate about the proposed “Ground Zero Mosque” last summer, calling legitimate concerns about the location a “Monica Lewinsky ploy” by Republicans, according to an August 18, 2010, report by Michael Scherer on Time magazine’s Web site. Mr. Norquist further trivialized the concerns saying that Republicans were, “distracted by shiny things.”

Mr. Norquist even used Americans for Tax Reform to circulate a petition in support of the “Ground Zero Mosque.” Patrick Gleason, director of state affairs for Americans for Tax Reform, wrote an August 17, 2010, letter to state affiliates urging them to share the petition with their coalition.

Why would Americans for Tax Reform circulate a petition in support of the “Ground Zero Mosque?” For the families of those who lost loved ones on 9/11 or during operations in the War on Terror, concerns about the “Ground Zero Mosque” were neither a ploy nor a distraction, as Norquist described it.

BURKE: Political correctness gone mad at Ground Zero

We can have a Ground Zero Mosque, but not a memorial that actually memorializes 9/11

By Michael Burke

-

The Washington Times

Illustration: WTC sphere

 

This Sept. 11, the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks upon America, New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will dedicate the massive, $600 million National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center. What Americans have not been told is that this “memorial” will remake Ground Zero so that it does not acknowledge 9/11.

Instead of acting as a constant reminder of the attacks, a symbol for us and future generations of the evil that struck, the death and destruction it caused and the heroism and sacrifice in response, the memorial will wipe out all evidence and memory of the attacks.

Replacing all reminders of the attacks will be two immense “voids” with gigantic subterranean waterfalls designed to express exclusively, as per architect Michael Arad, the continuing “absence in our lives caused by these deaths.”

About 500 trees will be planted upon the site. They are, we are told by memorial officials, “traditional symbols of the rejuvenation of life.” They also will eradicate all trace and memory of what stood there for 30 years and its destruction on Sept. 11.

The cause of “these deaths,” how these people came to be absent - that is, 9/11 - has been deemed irrelevant and even contrary to your memorial “experience.”
The memorial is not about that; it’s about you.

Cities and towns across America have humbly requested a segment of the twisted steel of the WTC to feature in their own modest Sept. 11 memorials. The only memorial where one is not welcome is the “national” memorial at Ground Zero. Those iconic remnants, exactly because they are iconic, are considered far too gauche for the jury of intellectuals and artists who chose the design.

The National September 11 Memorial at the WTC will not include the iconic WTC “Sphere” - again, exactly because it is iconic. “The Sphere” stood in the center of the WTC plaza for 30 years as a symbol of world peace. On 9/11, though badly damaged (a piece of one of the planes tore through it) it survived the attacks in place and was embraced by many Americans as a symbol of the nation’s strength and resiliency.
That is why it cannot be returned.

It sits at Battery Park, about a half-mile from Ground Zero, where it was installed March 11, 2002, the six-month anniversary of the attacks, as a “temporary” memorial. Battery Park is undergoing its own renovations, and “The Sphere” will have to moved.

One 9/11 anniversary at Ground Zero, Mr. Arad told me that returning “The Sphere” would be “didactic.” That is, it would tell us what to think.

Somehow disposing of it is not telling us what to think.

This is like banishing the USS Arizona from the USS Arizona Memorial.

The 9/11 memorial will not identify Christine Lee Hanson, who died with her parents when United Airlines Flight 175 was slammed into the South Tower, as being “age 2.” This might convince you that the American victims were “innocent” and the foreign terrorists “guilty.”
That would be telling us what to think.

Story Continues →

Michigan Islamic Group Cleared To Take Over Elementary School

 

via Islamic Group Cleared To Take Over Empty Farmington School – Community News Story – WDIV Detroit.

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — The Farmington School Board unanimously approved the sale of the former Eagle Elementary School to the Islamic Cultural Association on Wednesday despite anti-Muslim protests.

At the school board meeting, around 200 people attempted to block the deal expressing concerns that property values would decrease if Muslims congregated in the area.

The school, which was originally slated for demolition, is expected to become an Islamic cultural and activity center.

Judging by the photograph included with this story, residents have every right to be extremely concerned. The terrorist-linked Muslim group CAIR is involved in some way with the school, and that does not bode well for the area. Check back in five to ten years.
from: http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/michigan-islamic-group-cleared-to-take-over-elementary-school/

Islamoblob Expanding in California!

By admin

Like the Blob, Islam is expanding again, as it is devouring more of America. This time the expansion is taking place in California, and as usual the Mosque does not seemed to be concerned with Muslims assimilating.

Let’s take a look at this growing menace to America.

read more: http://loganswarning.com/2011/06/10/islamoblob-expanding-in-california/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Loganswarning+%28Loganswarning%29

The Show Trial of Geert Wilders – Part 1

The following was written by Babs Barron:

Definition - show trial - a trial held for show; the guilt of the accused person has been decided in advance.
Some background:
Geert Wilders is a Dutch politician who is outspoken about the influence of Islam in Dutch society, a point of view which has attracted much support there as well as opprobrium.

Wilders has campaigned to stop the "Islamisation" of Holland. He compares the Qu'ran with Mein Kampf in terms of the violence it advocates against Jews and other non-Muslims who refuse to convert to Islam, and has campaigned to have the book banned in Holland. Even more contentiously, he advocates ending immigration from Muslim countries, and supports banning the construction of new mosques. He was a speaker at the "Facing Jihad" Conference, in Jerusalem in 2008, which discussed the dangers of jihad, and has called for a hard line against what he called the "street terror" exerted by minorities in Dutch cities. His controversial 2008 film about his views on Islam, Fitna, received international attention and placed his life in danger from Islamists.
read more: http://www.citizenwarrior.com/2011/06/show-trial-of-geert-wilders-part-1.html

Prominent Muslim “American” Businesses Celebrate “Legacy” of Khomeini

By Debbie Schlussel

On Monday, I told you about the large group of “moderate,” “American” Muslims who celebrated, honored, and memorialized the late Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of Hezbollah and the man who sent his Iranian henchmen to take over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and hold Americans hostage for 444 days.  I showed you the video on which these Muslims praised Khomeini for, among other things, “bringing America to its knees.”  Yup, as I’ve been saying repeatedly for more than a decade, this is how the so-called “moderate,” “loyal,” “American” Muslims really feel, and now they are feeling brave enough to say it openly–that they hate this country and praise those who would destroy it.  But this isn’t just in Washington, DC, at the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani Embassy, where the ceremony took place over the weekend.

read more: http://www.debbieschlussel.com/38330/prominent-muslim-american-businesses-celebrate-legacy-of-khomeini/

Michigan State University teaches journalism students to lie

…or why you never get the truth about Islam from the media

 Author: barenakedislam

‘Man-caused disasters’ and ‘Overseas contingency operations’ aside, prominent left wing universities like Michigan States are publishing manuals of ‘best practices for journalists reporting on Islam,’ that are nothing more than politically correct taqiyya (the Muslim art of deceiving infidels).


Live Leak - The manual, developed by Michigan State journalism students, includes sections on ethics, knowledge, objectivity and sources (depite the fact that none were used in the creation of this manual).

Under “Knowledge,” the manual says:“Do not make assumptions based on the connotation of words. As a reporter, you should research, investigate and understand the true meaning of words not used frequently in your native language to make sure the words are being used properly.

read more: http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/michigan-state-university-teaches-journalism-students-to-lie-or-why-you-never-get-the-truth-about-islam-from-the-media/

Ireland aims to be home of Islamic finance in Europe

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jun/02/ireland-islamic-finance

Sharia-compliant financial regulations will make Dublin a centre of excellence for Islamic finances, taoiseach says

• 

Ireland's sharia-compliant financial regulations could make Dublin a centre of excellence for Islamic finance, says the taoiseach, Enda Kenny, above. Photograph: Julien Behal/PA

 

Ireland has launched a bid to become the home of Islamic finance in Europe as it seeks to rebuild its once dominant financial services sector.

The taoiseach, Enda Kenny, who was swept to power on a wave of public anger at the taxpayers' €70bn (£62bn) bailout of failed banks, told the Irish Funds Industry Association (IFIA) that he was doing everything he could to "ensure" Dublin became "a centre of excellence for Islamic finances".

Irish tax laws and financial regulations are now sharia-compliant, he said, and the government had recently signed double-taxation agreements with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

"There is first-mover advantage. If they [Islamic institutions] feel comfortable in a particular jurisdiction and you develop a cluster, more will follow," said Ken Owens, chairman of the IFIA. He said there was currently "a scramble" for Islamic business internationally and Ireland is just behind the UK in terms of adjusting its laws to be sharia-compliant.

Sharia law prohibits the payment of interest on loans or overdrafts, or the receipt of interest, and also prevents investment in certain categories including defence, adult entertainment and gambling.

"Their investment universe is quite limited. Islamic funds want to own the ship or the building, not a share in it. They want to own things outright because they can't pay interest. They want commmodities, infrastructure, manufacturing, property," said Owens.

On the mortgage market, institutions buy the house or the commercial real estate; the buyer then pays rent instead of interest.

Owens said Irish and UK financial institutions, which were devastated by the financial crisis, saw opportunities worth billions in Islamic finance, either seeking to get a toehold in Islamic countries or attract Islamic institutions to Dublin.

"The US and European asset management firms are already out in the Middle East and Asia with their products but now you've got those guys in China going 'I know China better than any US or European investor' and coming to Europe to compete with us," he said.

Owens, who is a partner in Pricewaterhouse Coopers Ireland, has one Middle-Eastern client who is about to open nine funds in Ireland; and the Irish Central Bank has recently authorised several Islamic institutions to operate in the Dublin's International Financial Services Centre.

The value of funds administered in Dublin is worth €1,890bn, split evenly between Irish and non-domiciled funds.

Your Laws Can Go To Hell

Coptic Bishop Warns Native Germans About Islam: "You´re up Next!"

CAIR Asks Napolitano to Probe Use of Islamophobic Trainers

 

By Council on American-Islamic Relations

 

WASHINGTON, May 23, 2011 -- Renewed request comes following use of ethnic stereotypes in Minn. airport drill

WASHINGTON, May 23, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization today called on Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to conduct an agency-wide investigation of the use of outside trainers who offer hostile, stereotypical and grossly inaccurate information about Muslims and Islam to the nation's security personnel.

That request by the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) came after revelations that ethnic stereotypes were used as part of a controversial security drill at the Minneapolis-St.

Paul International Airport. During the drill, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) personnel used a person "who appeared to be Middle Eastern in descent or Indian/Pakistani" to test screening procedures.

SEE: TSA Used Man of 'Middle Eastern Descent' with Fake Bomb to Test MSP Security
http://www.startribune.com/local/122446774.html

Over the weekend, it was also revealed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) paid a notorious Islamophobe $5,000 for a recent appearance at a conference sponsored by the South Dakota Department of Public Safety (DPS).

The speaker, Walid Shoebat, claims "Islam is the devil" and that President Obama is a Muslim. Shoebat once told a Missouri newspaper that he sees "many parallels between the Antichrist and Islam" and "Islam is not the religion of God -- Islam is the devil." (Springfield News-Leader, 9/24/07) CAIR asked DPS to drop its endorsement of the conference.

SEE: Controversial Speaker Paid $5,000 for Rapid City Appearance
http://tinyurl.com/3olxevp

CAIR Asks S.D. Agency to Drop Conference Featuring Islamophobe
http://tinyurl.com/3s5es62

In a letter sent today to Secretary Napolitano, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad wrote in part:
"The use and funding of Islamophobic private trainers harms our nation's safety and security and contradicts both DHS policy and your public statements on improving relations with the American Muslim community. Promoting anti-Muslim hostility only serves to tear down hard-won trust and spread unjustified fear and suspicion.

"The fact that repeated calls for government investigations of this disturbing trend have gone unanswered sends a very negative message to American Muslims and to the larger society.

"Islamophobic trainers are undercutting your efforts and those of President Obama, who repeatedly states that our nation is not at war with Islam or Muslims."

CAIR has in the past called on the Obama administration, DHS, the Department of Defense, and Congress to provide oversight for apparently widespread anti-Muslim bias in the training of law enforcement and security and military personnel nationwide.

Video: CAIR Decries Anti-Muslim Police Trainers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxX5y7zX8RU

New Concern About Bias in Counterterror Training (NPR)
http://tinyurl.com/4tpxvzy

Islam-Bashing Bigots Train Counterterrorism Agents
http://tinyurl.com/29bsgc9

Trainers for American military personnel have included Islamophobes such as Robert Spencer, co-founder of Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA). SIOA has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

CAIR: Muslim-Basher Trains U.S. Military Personnel in Kentucky
http://tinyurl.com/3wbjv4z

Active Anti-Muslim Groups
http://www.splcenter.org/node/3502/activegroups

CAIR's renewed request for oversight comes following the release of an 80-page report, titled "Manufacturing the Muslim Menace: Private Firms, Public Servants, & the Threat to Rights and Security," released by Political Research Associates (PRA) that details a systemic failure to regulate content in counterterrorism training.

Manufacturing the Muslim Menace
http://tinyurl.com/4qeretq 

Washington Monthly magazine also published a major investigative article showing similar anti-Islam attitudes by private trainers of law enforcement agencies.

SEE: How We Train Our Cops to Fear Islam
http://tinyurl.com/4ajnx3h

CAIR's New York chapter (CAIR-NY) called on the New York Police Department (NYPD) to investigate how a notorious anti-Muslim propaganda film came to be used in mandatory counterterrorism training.

SEE: NYPD Cops' Training Included an Anti-Muslim Horror Flick
http://tinyurl.com/5vyc4fs

CAIR made a similar request of counterterrorism and military leaders not to employ Muslim-bashers as trainers following a Washington Post investigative report on post-9/11 government surveillance, which stated: "Seeking to learn more about Islam and terrorism, some law enforcement agencies have hired as trainers self-described experts whose extremist views on Islam and terrorism are considered inaccurate and counterproductive by the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies."
SEE: Monitoring America (Wash. Post)

http://tinyurl.com/2b6eetr

Last year, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) acknowledged that an anti-Islam film should not have been used in training offered to security personnel by that military law enforcement agency.

CAIR contacted NCIS after receiving a report that a three-day NCIS surveillance detection course at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., included the viewing of a propagandistic anti-Islam film.

SEE: CAIR Seeks Probe of Anti-Islam Bias in Military Training
http://tinyurl.com/2awmz5n 

CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.

Become a Fan of CAIR on Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/CAIRNational

Subscribe to CAIR's E-Mail List
http://tinyurl.com/cairsubscribe

Subscribe to CAIR's Twitter Feed
http://twitter.com/cairnational

Subscribe to CAIR's YouTube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/cairtv

CONTACT: CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, E-Mail: ihooper@cair.com; CAIR Communications Coordinator Amina Rubin, 202-488-8787, 202-341-4171, E-Mail: arubin@cair.com

SOURCE Council on American-Islamic Relations

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/05/23/3648258/cair-asks-napolitano-to-probe.html#ixzz1NDZXGuTF

Moosa and the Madrassas

May 22, 2011

 

By Stephen Schwartz

 

At the end of a week in which U.S. military forces in Pakistan carried out the execution of Osama bin Laden and the Afghan Taliban declared that the death of "Sheikh Osama bin Laden will give a new impetus to the current jihad against the invaders in this critical phase of jihad," a stunning display of Islamist insensitivity and arrogance took place at the University of California, Berkeley.  On Friday, May 6, 2011, Ebrahim Moosa, a South African Muslim and professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University in North Carolina, speaking at a UC Berkeley workshop on "Religious Norms in the Public Sphere," defended Deobandism, the madrassa-based radical ideology that inspires the Taliban.
The workshop was cosponsored by the Center on Institutions and Governance of UC Berkeley's Institute of International Studies; the Center for Islamic Studies at its Graduate Theological Union; the Kadish Center for Morality, Law & Public Affairs at Berkeley Law; the Partner University Fund, which is supported by the French government; and the Social Science Research Council.
A subdued audience of fewer than twenty people and speakers arrayed around a square set of long tables constituted the event, which was held at the Bancroft Hotel adjoining the UC Berkeley campus.Moosa was one of the May 6 "speakers/performers" -- a perhaps unintentionally accurate description -- as were UC Berkeley lecturer Hatem Bazian and French Islamologist Olivier Roy.
Moosa is, indeed, quite a "performer"; he has gained a reputation as an Islamic moderate based on his 2005 study of the  twelfth-century Muslim theologian Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali and his editing of the last book of the late scholar of Islam Fazlur Rahman, of the University of Chicago.
In his "keynote lecture," Moosa reveled in a defense of Deobandism and its main madrassa, Dar Ul-Uloom Deoband, located in India.  The title of his presentation was innocuous: "Norms in the Madrassa-Sphere: Between Tradition, Scripture, and the Public Good."  Nevertheless, after an introduction by GTU Islamic Studies director and assistant professor Munir Jiwa, Moosa made clear early in his presentation that his aim was to cleanse the "narrative" on madrassas, in which, he claimed, madrassas have been "treated in [the] media with dread as a threat to Western security."
Moosa gave no ground to those who would argue that many madrassas, especially in South Asia, are centers for radical Islamist indoctrination.  He dismissed in a passing reference reports that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban chief for whose capture the U.S. government has offered a $10-million reward as an accomplice of bin Laden and al-Qaeda, was a student at Dar Ul-Uloom Deoband.  According to Moosa, Mullah Omar's involvement with the madrassa "caused Deoband to be identified with the Taliban," as if the association was trivial or manufactured by media.  In reality, the murderous extremists in Afghanistan were inspired by Deobandism, and Mullah Omar was not the sole alumnus of its madrassa system among their ranks.
According to journalist Ahmed Rashid in his 2001 book, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, "at least eight Taliban cabinet ministers [...] were graduates of Dar Ul-Uloom Haqqania," a madrassa established in Pakistan in conformity with the model at Deoband in India, and "dozens more graduates served as Taliban governors in the provinces, military commanders, judges, and bureaucrats."Treating the entire subject benevolently, Moosa declared that the Deobandi network had spread internationally through support from British and South African Muslims, as well as donations by Indian Muslim business leaders.  He failed to mention that, as noted by Rashid, "funds from Saudi Arabia to madrassas and parties which were sympathetic to the Wahhabi creed" -- the most violent fundamentalist movement ever identified with Sunni Islam -- "as the Deobandis were, helped these madrassas turn out young militants."Referring to the Deobandi history of aggression against spiritual Muslim Sufis, Moosa conceded that the madrassa system that spawned the Taliban was "severe" in its attitude.  This is an understatement typical of those who try to absolve Islamist fundamentalists by describing them as "puritan" or "austere" and ignoring that their tendencies towards "Puritanism," "austerity," and even "reform" lead to the murder of dissenters.  Moosa was equally benign in noting the emergence of the radical Tabligh-i-Jamaat da'wa (missionization) movement from the Deobandi environment, and in casually praising Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the world-famous Islamist hate-preacher headquartered in Qatar and banned from entry into Britain and the U.S.
It should be noted that Moosa is himself a graduate of Deobandi theological training, which he recalled lyrically between comments on recondite Islamic theological distinctions throughout the remainder of his presentation.  According to his website biography, Moosa "earned his M.A. (1989) and Ph.D. (1995) from the University of Cape Town.  Prior to that, he took the `alimiyya [clerical] degree in Islamic and Arabic studies from Darul Ulum Nadwatul `Ulama," a Deobandi campus at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Moosa was shocking -- or so one would expect in left-leaning Berkeley -- in his apologetic description of two controversies involving the Deobandi madrassas.  In 1964, Muslim clerics in his native South Africa were upset when a Deobandi scholar held that Islamically prohibited interest, or riba, could be collected in Muslim business transactions in the country, because it was not a Muslim-majority territory.  Moosa noted pleasantly that the apartheid state had allowed shariah-based banks and insurance companies to function without hindrance.  The bien-pensant Berkeley audience, accustomed to the false charge that Israel imposes apartheid upon Arabs, was unfazed by Moosa's amiable approval of the tolerance for shariah under the government that invented the term "apartheid."  Moosa's website biography also states that he "advised the first independent South African government after apartheid on Islamic affairs," yet he seemed amnesiac about the discrimination Muslims had suffered under South African apartheid.The audience remained unruffled when Moosa then evoked a fatwa issued by the Deobandi clerics in India in the 2005 "Imrana rape case."  Imrana, a resident of the Muzaffarnagar district in Uttar Pradesh, aged 28 and the mother of five children, was raped by her father-in-law, Ali Mohammad, 69.  Her full name was never disclosed in the Indian press, but a council of five elders, or panchayat, in the village where she lived, Charthawal, ordered that Imrana separate from her husband, Nur Ilahi, because she was now the sexual partner of her father-in-law.  That she was violated, and that her "adultery" or other alleged transgression was involuntary, was ignored.  Imrana defied the elders and continued living with her husband.  The Deobandi school issued a fatwa endorsing a mandatory divorce but denying that such an outcome would be Islamic.  Imrana's husband supported her and said, "We neither sought advice nor counsel from Deoband.  We have not raised the issue before clerics." 
The "Imrana case" caused a scandal in India, and the father-in-law was found guilty of rape in 2007 and sentenced to ten years in prison.  Moosa described the abominable action of the Deobandi clerics with equanimity, adding blandly that they "blamed the controversy on Western media and condemned those Muslims who criticized them."  He contributed a mild rebuke, stipulating that in the treatment of Imrana, Islamic law "turned into a brutal practice."  He then returned to, and concluded with, a stream-of-consciousness commentary about the Deobandi concept of Islamic spirituality.Moosa is perhaps best-known by the U.S. public for his co-authorship of a document issued in 2010 aimed at dispelling concerns about radicalization of American Muslims, titled "Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim-Americans."  That report was financed by grant no. 2007-IJ-CX-0008, awarded by the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Justice Programs, and the U.S. Department of Justice, which also published it.  Moosa's colleagues in that instance were David Schanzer, an associate professor at Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy, and Charles Kurzman, an expert on Iran and sociology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Their intent was to demonstrate that self-policing by the American Muslim community had prevented the spread of jihadism -- an obvious inaccuracy, but their ameliorative rhetoric gained the dubious report considerable attention and even credibility in American media.
Moosa has a blog titled "Dihliz: The Spaces Between," and he is a supporter of Zaytuna College, the flamboyantly promoted project for a purported "first accredited Islamic university" in the U.S.  The Zaytuna enterprise is directed by Moosa's friends: Hamza Yusuf Hanson, the well-known radical Muslim preacher; Hanson's main disciple, Zaid Shakir; and the aforementioned Hatem Bazian, senior lecturer in UC Berkeley Near Eastern studies department and director of the "Islamophobia Research and Documentation Project" at the university's "Center for Race and Gender."  With the guidance of such as Moosa, Hanson, and Bazian, it would seem that rather than becoming a Western-style university -- if it is ever realized as an institution -- Zaytuna would be a madrassa in the fundamentalist Deobandi tradition.

Ebrahim Moosa has received funding from the Carnegie Corporation to research madrassas, and he has announced the forthcoming publication of a new book on the topic, to be titled What Is a Madrassa?  During his Berkeley lecture, it seemed that neither Moosa nor his audience had absorbed the recent news about the death of bin Laden or the lessons of a decade of bloodshed caused by Wahhabi and Deobandi fanaticism in the U.S., Western Europe, and the South Asian and other Muslim lands.  For Moosa and those studying under him -- about whom he bragged of his mentorship and their adulation -- it was as if little in radical Islam was worthy of serious concern, much less disapproval.  He made it all seem faraway and abstract.  And a Berkeley audience that would supposedly pride itself on its antiracism and feminism sat passively through his shameful "performance."

Stephen Schwartz is executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism. He is a UC Berkeley alumnus and was a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1989 to 1999.   He wrote this article for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.

Obama’s “Secular” Public Engagement Aide Attended Islamic Society of N. America Conference

 

By admin

Searching online tonight I found another article which shows us that Muslim organizations are hellbent on convincing Christians, Jews, and governmental officials that Islam is a harmless religion/ideology. That is no threat at all to other religions or the U.S. Constitution.
(Click on picture 2x to enlarge)

This past February 23rd, the Islamic Society of North America’s (ISNA) Office of Interfaith and Community Alliances held an Interfaith/Government Forum and Banquet.

In attendance were our Sharia loving Congressman Keith Ellison, James Winkler, the General Secretary of the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society (GBCS), and D. Paul Monteiro, Associate Director, White House Office of Public Engagement.

Monteiro serves as the liaison to Arab Americans, faith-based and secular belief communities and also assists in coordinating the White House Mentorship Program. He worked for then-Senator Obama in his Senate office in 2006 before joining the Obama for America campaign in Chicago as the national Deputy Director of Religious Affairs.

Did Mr. Monteiro not know about the ISNA, or did he just not care? Because if he would have done his homework, he would have known the following:

If the ISNA was secular they would not have had past speakers such as Keith Ellison, CAIR’s Ibrahim Hooper, and Brooklyn NY’s hate-filled Imam Siraj Wahhaj.

Monteiro would have also seen the following article on the ISNA’s website, which is pro-Sharia Law.

The Fiqh of Minorities
Fiqh of Minorities
By Taha Jabir Alalwani,
Web Summery by Omar Tarazi
Fiqh- (i.e. Islamic Jurisprudence) is defined by Ibn-Khaldun as the classification of actions/obligations as: obligatory, encouraged, permissible, discouraged, forbidden, based on the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the decisions of prior jurists.

The Koran and Sunnah call for the domination of non-Muslims. Are non-Muslims actually supposed to respect this? Unlike many in our government, I don’t and won’t!

SNIP

The next two paragraphs clearly show us how Muslims intend to work our system from the inside, in order to get our government to suit Islam.

(60:8) Allah does not forbid you from dealing kindly and justly with those who did not fight and drive you out of your homes for your religion, For Allah loves those who are just. (60:9) Allah does however forbid you from those who fought you for your religion and drove you out of your homes and supported others against you so that you will be forced to submit, and turn to them for friendship and protection, and whoever submits to them (in these circumstances) has wronged himself.

These two verses lay the legal foundation for the relations between the Muslims and Non-Muslims, and they speak for themselves. At all times justice is obligatory on the Muslim, and kindness is also until it is used as an excuse for committing treason against Allah. Other than that we should treat everyone both Muslim and non with justice, respect, and kindness so that we will get closer to Allah and attract people to Islam. Therefore, even if a government or institution is not perfect in its Islamic practices, but does not commit open and severe oppression against the Muslims, Muslims are allowed to work within the system to try to improve it. This concept is not a new one to Fiqh because all the scholars and teachers after the end of the enlightened Caliphate and the beginning of royalty continued to teach and worked within the imperfect system to serve the greater Muslim Ummah despite the problems within the government.

Just like Hitler didn’t hide his agenda, neither do Muslims. Are you listening?!


http://loganswarning.com/2011/05/20/obamas-secular-public-engagement-aide-attended-islamic-society-of-n-america-conference/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Loganswarning+%28Loganswarning%29&utm_content=Yahoo%21+Mail

Mosque denied in residential NJ neighborhood, legal jihad ensues

Posted on April 28, 2011 by creeping

 

An update on this previous post, via Mosque in Zone Fight – WSJ.com.

An Islamic group sued Bridgewater, N.J., for religious discrimination after the town changed zoning rules to block a mosque from opening in a residential neighborhood.

The Al Falah Center wanted to convert a former banquet hall located on a quiet side street into a mosque, day-care facility and community center for a diverse group of Muslim Americans who have been trying to find a home for the center more than a decade, according to the lawsuit filed on Tuesday in federal court in New Jersey.

But when the plans were making their way through the municipal channels, hundreds turned up to oppose the mosque. Though residents said their concerns were about traffic and other mundane quality-of-life issues, some people questioned where the group’s funding was coming from, and whether it had ties to terrorist organizations.

On March 14, the town agreed to limit houses of worship to certain main roads and other selected roads, including all areas where current churches and temples—including for Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Sikh and Jewish congregations—were already located. Al Falah said the town deliberately jimmied with the process, pushing their planning-board application hearing until after the town changed the law, to block the mosque.

“This conduct is discriminatory and imposes a substantial burden on plaintiffs’ right to the free exercise of their religion in violation of federal and state constitutional and statutory requirements,” the lawsuit said.

An attorney for the town, Bill Savo, said he hadn’t yet seen the complaint. “The town always has a history of acting in good faith,” he said. “We believe we acted appropriately.”

The flare-up over the Bridgewater mosque came in the wake of other efforts around the country to block or close mosques, including the so-called Ground Zero mosque in New York.

But the underlying tone of the debate was different in Bridgewater. Residents said they were supportive of mosques in the town—just not on Mountain Top Road, a small, winding street, without sidewalks, where some of the many trees come practically up to the asphalt.

“We have every religion in Bridgewater you can think of, many religions represented,” Mr. Savo said. “It’s just a concern about traffic-safety issues.”

Attorneys from the Brennan Center at New York University and the Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund are among those representing Al Falah. Representatives from the Brennan Center said members of Al Falah declined to be interviewed about the issue.

Virginia judge denies Muslim inmate’s beard lawsuit

Posted on April 28, 2011 by creeping

 

“…he recently became convinced that his Islamic faith required him to wear a beard.” Who in the prison system convinced him of that and recommended he wage legal jihad? via In Good Faith: Judge denies Muslim inmate’s beard lawsuit – baltimoresun.com.

Virginia’s prison system did not violate a Muslim inmate’s religious rights when it refused to allow him to grow a 1/8-inch beard, which he believes is required by his religion, a federal judge has ruled.

William Couch, a 50-year-old Sunni Muslim, is a medium-security prisoner serving multiple life sentences for rape and other convictions. He challenged the Virginia Department of Corrections’ grooming policy, which bans long hair and beards.

U.S. District Judge Samuel G. Wilson in Harrisonburg sided with the department in a ruling Thursday. Couch’s attorney, Jeffrey Fogel, filed an appeal Monday.

Department spokesman Larry Traylor declined to comment on the case.

read more: http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2011/04/28/virginia-judge-denies-muslim-inmates-beard-lawsuit/