Please read just a few of the headlines that World Net Daily has published.

July, 2008

Referral to another adviser classified as 'homophobic'

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A Christian counselor has been fired on directions from government officials for trying to help a lesbian by referring her to another adviser who was supportive of homosexual "marriage," according to a lawsuit filed on her behalf.

The action has been brought by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of Marcia Walden, who was fired from her position with a contractor for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta because her religious beliefs conflicted with the homosexual's goal of rebuilding a same-sex relationship and she reassigned the client to another counselor.

"A woman shouldn't lose her job for merely upholding the highest professional standards," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Brian Raum. "It is unconstitutional to punish Walden for following her Christian faith, particularly when she made every effort to accommodate the needs of a potential client. Referring her to another competent counselor instead of attempting to offer her own counsel in such a situation was the ethical thing to do for the person seeking help. It's egregious to be fired for honoring professional and ethical obligations."

The ADF lawsuit names the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the counselor's former employer, Computer Sciences Corp., as well as Christie Zerbe, an official with the CDC.

In August 2007, a woman working at the CDC sought help from Walden, a counselor at CSC which operated a counseling service under the federal agency's employee assistance program, regarding a same-sex relationship.

"Walden explained that the client's needs would conflict with her religious beliefs and that, therefore, it would be unfair for her to serve as the woman's counselor. As a result, Walden referred the individual to a colleague," the law firm said. "After the meeting with the client, Walden's colleague told her that she had done 'the right thing' by referring the woman to him."

However, it apparently was not enough that her counseling needs were addressed, because the lesbian complained about Walden, alleging the Christian counselor was "homophobic."

The lesbian, who was counseled by Walden's colleague, Ken Cook, told Walden's supervisor, Gordon Hughes, Walden should not be employed because of her beliefs and asked to file a formal complaint against her.

Walden explained the conflict between the woman's desire for furthering a same-sex relationship and her Christian beliefs and that that was the reason for her referral. She confirmed she had counseled other individuals involved in same-sex relationships for various reasons without complications when their issues did not conflict with her religious principles.

"Following this incident, Ms. Walden endured religiously based questioning from her CSC supervisors including Mr. Hughes. Mr. Hughes asked Ms. Walden why she told [the lesbian employee] about her religiously based conflict; he told Ms. Walden that if a similar situation arose in the future, Ms. Walden should tell the client something else – for example, that she was not experienced in relationship counseling – instead of discussing her religiously based conflict," the lawsuit said.

Walden responded that it would be inappropriate to misrepresent her conflicts.

The company told WND it would not comment on the case.

But Walden was placed on unpaid suspension on Aug. 24, and during that time Jacqueline Byrum, a CSC employee relations specialist, advised her to set aside her religious beliefs.

Then Zerbe, the CDC worker responsible for overseeing the employee assistance contract with CSC, demanded Walden be removed, and CSC then dismissed her, even before its investigation was finished.

The company said the results of its investigation didn't matter.

Within weeks, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued a "right to sue" letter to Walden based on her allegations the CSC discriminated against her because of her religious beliefs in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The lawsuit seeks a declaration that Walden's rights under the First and Fifth Amendments as will as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Civil Rights Act were violated, along with compensatory and punitive damages.

World Net Daily
July, 2008
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Iranians consider mandatory execution for apostasy

Christians being interrogated on suspicion of crime of leaving Islam

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A plan is being discussed by lawmakers in Iran that would require the death penalty for anyone who leaves Islam for Christianity or someone who promotes such a conversion even on the Internet, according to a new report from Compass Direct News.

Those discussions of a penal code that was drafted earlier this year bring urgency to situations such as the two men arrested recently and under interrogation for that very crime, the report said.

The report said Iranian authorities arrested a number of converts to Christianity in the city of Shiraz about two months ago on suspicion of "apostasy."

Arash Bandari, 44, and Mahmood Matin, 52, were arrested at the time along with 13 other Muslim converts to Christianity. But while the other 13 were told they have a court case pending and then released, Bandari and Matin have been held ever since.

The 13 who have been released have not been told of any specific charges, but they report the nature of their questioning gives them reason to think the allegations may include apostasy and political crimes.

The other two, Bandari and Matin, have been held almost incommunicado. Matin's wife was able to see him for several minutes on June 24, when the prisoner told his wife "there had been a misunderstanding and that he could not teach Christianity any more," Compass reported.

"They are pushing me to tell them that I am connected to a church outside [Iran] and that I am receiving a salary, but I told them that I am doing it on my own," he said, according to a Compass source whose identity was concealed.

Compass noted that under the existing sharia laws in Iran, the death penalty is available for the crime of apostasy, but not required.

The proposal, however, would change that.

"If passed, the penal code drafted last January would require execution of any Muslim who converts to Christianity," Compass said. Such punishments could not be "changed, reduced or annulled."

"Many believe that the government intends to use the proposed penal code to clamp down on the surge in conversions in Iran over the last few years. Commentators have called the surge a 'mass exodus' from Islam, which in its Iranian Shiite version imposes harsh limitations on lifestyle and personal freedoms," Compass reported.

Iran's Members of Parliament voted only a week ago to discuss the plan as a priority, according to Agence France-Press, which described the proposal as to "toughen punishment for harming mental security in society."

Alarmingly, the report also documented that the death penalty would be imposed for "establishing weblogs and sites promotion corruption, prostitution and apostasy."

"Over the last few years, the Internet and media such as television have been conduits of information on Christianity and are feared as sources of 'corruption' of the Iranian people," Compass reported. "The Internet is widely used in Iran despite restricted access for thousands of websites with 'immoral' content or content – including Christian ones – deemed as insulting religion and promoting political dissent."

Executions in Iran totaled 317 in 2007, up from 177 in 2006, and human rights groups say such punishments are excessive. Tehran insists death is an "effective deterrent," according to AFP.

"Christians in particular have suffered persecution in Iran since the Islamic revolution in 1979. No converts to Christianity have been convicted of 'apostasy' since international pressure forced officials to drop the death sentence of Christian convert Mehdi Dibaj in 1994. But in the years following the convert's release, Dibaj and four other Protestant pastors, including converts and those working with converts, have been brutally murdered," Compass said.

The attackers in those cases never have been brought to justice.

World Net Daily
June, 2008
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
U.N. scheme to make Christians criminals
Sharia-following Islamic nations demanding anti-'defamation' law

Dozens of nations dominated by Islam are pressing the United Nations to adopt an anti-"defamation" plan that would make Christians criminals under international law, according to a United States organization that has launched a campaign to defend freedom of religion worldwide.

"Around the world, Christians are being increasingly targeted, and even persecuted, for their religious beliefs. Now, one of the largest organizations in the United Nations is pushing to make a bad situation even worse by promoting anti-Christian bigotry," the American Center for Law & Justice said yesterday in announcing its petition drive.

The discrimination is "wrapped in the guise of a U.N. resolution called 'Combating Defamation of Religions,'" the announcement said. "We must put an immediate end to this most recent, dangerous attack on faith that attempts to criminalize Christianity."

The "anti-defamation" plan has been submitted to the U.N. repeatedly since about 1999, starting out as a plan to ban "defamation" of Islam and later changed to refer to "religions," officials said. It is being pushed by the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference nations, which has adopted the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, "which states that all rights are subject to sharia law, and makes sharia law the only source of reference for human rights."

The ACLJ petition, which is to be delivered to the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, already had collected more than 23,000 names in just a brief online existence.

The ACLJ's European division, the European Center for Law & Justice, also has launched its work on the issue. It submitted arguments last month to the U.N. in opposition to the proposal to institute sharia-based standards around the globe.

"The position of the ECLJ in regards to the issue of 'defamation of religion' resolutions, as they have been introduced at the U.N. Human Rights Council and General Assembly, is that they are in direct violation of international law concerning the rights to freedom of religion and expression," the organization's brief said.

"The 'defamation of religion' resolutions establish as the primary focus and concern the protection of ideas and religions generally, rather than protecting the rights of individuals to practice their religion, which is the chief purpose of international religious freedom law."

"Furthermore, 'defamation of religion' replaces the existing objective criterion of limitations on speech where there is an intent to incite hatred or violence against religious believers with a subjective criterion that considers whether the religion or its believers feel offended by the speech," the group continued.

Interestingly, in nations following Islam, the present practice is to use such laws to protect Islam and to attack religious minorities with penalties up to and including execution, the brief noted.

"What should be most disconcerting to the international community is that laws based on the concept of 'defamation of religion' actually help to create a climate of violence," the argument explained.

For example, just two months ago an Afghanistan court following Islam sentenced to death a 23-year-old apprentice journalist who had downloaded an article from an Iranian website and brought it to his class, the ECLJ said. Other instances include:

• Award-winning author Mark Steyn has been summoned to appear before two Canadian Human Rights Commissions of vague allegations of "subject[ing] Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt" for comments in his book, "America Alone," the group said.
  
  
• In Pakistan, 15 people were accused of blasphemy against Islam during the first four months of 2008, the organization said.
  
  
• Another Pakistani man sentenced to life in prison for desecrating the Quran was jailed for six years before being acquitted of the charge.
  
  
• In Saudi Arabia a teacher was sentenced to three years in prison plus 300 lashes "for expressing his views in a classroom."
  
  
• In the United Kingdom, police announced plans to arrest a blogger for "anti-Muslim" statements.
  
• In the United States, a plaintiff sued his Internet service provider for refusing "to prevent participants in an online chat room from posting or submitting harassing comments that blasphemed and defamed plaintiff's Islamic religion."

The ECLJ said, "The implementation of domestic laws to combat defamation of religion in many OIC countries reveals a selective and arbitrary enforcement toward religious minorities, who are often Christians. Those violations are frequently punishable by the death penalty."

The newest "anti-defamation" plan was submitted in March. It specifically cites a declaration "adopted by the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers" at a meeting in Islamabad "which condemned the growing trend of Islamophobia and systematic discrimination against adherents of Islam."

It also cites the dictates from the OIC meeting in Dakar, "in which the Organization expressed concern at the systematically negative stereotyping of Muslims and Islam and other divine religions."

It goes on to cite a wide range of other practices that "target" Islam, but does not mention any other religions, and urges all nations to provide "adequate protection against acts of hatred, discrimination, intimidation and coercion resulting from the defamation of any religion."

According to published reports, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights' 53 members voted to adopt the resolution earlier this year, with opposition from the United States and the European Union.

At the time, Cuba's delegate, Rodolfo Reyes Rodriguez, said: "Islam has been the subject of very deep campaign of defamation."

"They're attempting to pass a sinister resolution that is nothing more than blatant religious bigotry," the ACLJ said in its promotion of its petition. "This is very important to understand. This radical proposal would outlaw Christianity … it would make the proclamation of your faith an international crime."

"In his recent dissent on the Supreme Court's ruling on Guantanamo Bay, Justice Scalia said, 'America is at war with radical Islamists.' Never has this rung more true than today. Never have Christians been more targeted for their religious beliefs. And never have we faced a more dangerous threat than the one posed by the OIC," the ACLJ said.

On the Grizzly Groundswell blog, the author described the situation as, "The United Nations: 160 cannibals and 17 civilized people taking a majority vote on what to have for dinner."

The U.S. State Department also has found the proposal unpalatable.

"This resolution is incomplete inasmuch as it fails to address the situation of all religions," said the statement from Leonard Leo. "We believe that such inclusive language would have furthered the objective of promoting religious freedom. We also believe that any resolution on this topic must include mention of the need to change educational systems that promote hatred of other religions, as well as the problem of state-sponsored media that negatively targets any one religion."

World Net Daily
June, 2008
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Sex OK at 9, says Saudi cleric
'Muhammad is model we follow. He took 'Aisha to be his wife when she was 6'

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Age, or lack thereof, is no hindrance to marriage under Islam, according to Ahmad Al-Mu'bi, an officiant for marriages from Saudi Arabia who says sex at 9 is fine.

According to a video of the Saudi official recorded and translated by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, Al-Mu'bi has confirmed that marriage contracts are appropriate for girls as young as age 1.

And he said the model for marriage continues to be Muhammad, who married one of his wives when she was but 6.

The video comes from a broadcast on LBC Television on June 19, according to the MEMRI report.

Al-Mu'bi said, "Marriage is actually two things: First we are talking about the marriage contract itself. This is one thing, while consummating the marriage – having sex with the wife for the first time – is another thing.

"There is no minimal age for entering marriage. You can have a marriage contract even with a 1-year-old girl, not to mention a girl of 9, 7, or 8. This is merely a contract [indicating] consent. The guardian in such a case must be the father, because the father's opinion is obligatory. Thus, the girl becomes a wife," he said.

"But is the girl ready for sex or not? What is the appropriate age for having sex for the first time? This varies according to environment and traditions. In Yemen, girls are married off at 9, 10, 11, 8, or 13, while in other countries, they are married off at 16. Some countries have legislated laws forbidding having sex before the girl is 18," he said.

He confirmed, "The Prophet Muhammad is the model we follow. He took 'Aisha to be his wife when she was 6, but he had sex with her only when she was 9."

An interviewer asked: "My question to you is whether the marriage of a 12-year-old boy to an 11-year-old girl is a logical marriage permitted by Islamic law."

"If the guardian is the father... There are two different types of guardianship. If the guardian is the father, and he marries his daughter off to a man of appropriate standing, the marriage is obviously valid," said Al-Mu'bi.

"People find themselves in all kinds of circumstances. Take, for example, a man who has two, three, or four daughters. He does not have any wives, but he needs to go on a trip. Isn't it better to marry his daughter to a man who will protect and sustain her, and when she reaches the proper age, he will have sex with her? Who says all men are ferocious wolves?" Al-Mu'bi said.

MEMRI also recently reported that Hamas Minister of Culture Atallah Abu Al-Subh made a statement on Al-Aqsa Television that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has worked diligently to help establish a Palestinian state, should be condemned as a murderer.

"Every proud Palestinian views you as a murderer, and sees the blood of the children of Palestine between your lips and on your fangs. I pray to Allah that you will soon slither away," Al-Subh in a statement aired by Al-Aqsa.

A year ago, WND reported an online forum tied to the website of Hamas posted a photo of a little girl in a combat vest and the head band of the terrorist Al-Qassam Brigades.

The message accompanying the photo said the girl "is part of the Muslim generation which will go down in history [as a generation] … that refused to [accept] humiliation and defeat."

MEMRI is an independent nonprofit that monitors and reports on media broadcasts and publications in the Middle East.

The organization previously has featured messages to children about Nahoul, the bee, weeping over his "martyred" family as well as the "martyrdom" of Farfour, the Mickey Mouse-lookalike.

Hamas, which won a majority in parliament in January 2006 elections, officially is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. As WND reported, a prominent Hamas leader recently was captured on video boasting of using children, women and the elderly as human shields in its firefights with Israeli soldiers.

World Net Daily
June, 2008
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TESTING THE FAITH
Judge blasts state ban on distributing Bibles to students
Law unconstitutional because it 'encourages arbitrary enforcement'

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A federal court has declared a Florida law banning representatives of the Gideons from handing out Bibles within 500 feet of any school in the state unconstitutional because it is vague and actually "encourages arbitrary enforcement."

The ruling in a case brought by the Alliance Defense Fund comes from U.S. District Court Judge K. Michael Moore and addresses an incident that developed Jan. 19, 2007, at Key Largo School, run by Principal Annette Martinson.

The law actually prohibits anyone without "legitimate business" from being within 500 feet of schools in the state and specifies "each principal or designee of each public or private school in this state shall notify the appropriate law enforcement agency to prohibit any person from loitering in the school safety zone who does not have legitimate business in the school safety zone or any other authorization, or license to enter or remain in the school safety zone or does not otherwise have invitee status in the designated safety zone."

The issue arose because of team of Gideons, known for paying all of their own expenses out of pocket while raising all of their own funds and giving away Bibles, had been distributing the Scriptures at Key Largo School.

The Gideons' procedure is to notify local police departments two weeks before their distribution date, give school administrators notice and have participants stand on a public bike path or sidewalk and avoid stepping on school grounds.

But WND reported earlier when two members of the Gideons organization were charged for handing out Bibles there, and when a judge dismissed those counts. 

Ernest Simpson and Anthony Mirto had been taken into custody by a sheriff's deputy and charged with trespassing after the principal of Key Largo School, Martinson, complained they were handing out Bibles.

The initial counts were dismissed at the request of the ADF shortly after the law firm got involved, but then authorities filed a second round of counts, under a different law – this state law that prohibits anyone from being within 500 feet of any school property, including on public sidewalks and streets, without having either "legitimate business" or permission.

The lawsuit lawsuit at hand then was filed on behalf of Gideon Thomas Gray, who was not arrested with Simpson and Mirto but arrived when they called to report trouble with a particular deputy sheriff.

"Gray approached Officer [John] Perez and asked what the charges were. Officer Perez was highly agitated and said that Gray would know in 48 hours when he received the report," the judge said.

Gray contacted another deputy through whom he'd arranged for the distribution.

"Gray then called Deputy [Ralph] Williams and asked for his assistance … Deputy Williams indicated that he would e-mail Officer Perez … Gray told Officer Perez that he had an e-mail in his car from another officer stating that the Gideons have a right to distribute Bibles from the public bike path/sidewalk, but Officer Perez indicated that he did not care," the judge wrote.

The ADF reported the two Gideons who were arrested were "placed in a Monroe County patrol car. A police officer mocked the two men, saying they could 'pray to Jesus all the way to jail.'"

The ADF, after seeing that the charges against Simpon and Mirto were dismissed, filed the action on behalf of Gray, who said he feared arrest if he exercised his right to distribute Bibles.

The federal judge found that the state definition of a school safety zone, in the Key Largo School location, would include a public bike path and walkway abutting U.S. Highway 1, the highway itself and businesses including a pet motel, a gas station, a restaurant and a plumbing business.

"Given the wide range of non-exempt persons and the various types of areas within the school safety zone, such as sidewalks, residential houses and streets, businesses, parking lots, etc., construing 'legitimate purpose' to mean any purpose which is connected with the operation of the school would result in an application so broad that it would likely infringe of First and Fourteenth Amendment rights," the judge said.

He ordered the state never again enforce that particular law.

"Christians shouldn’t be penalized for expressing their beliefs," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman. "Arresting or threatening to arrest Christians simply because they choose to exercise their First Amendment rights in a public place is unconstitutional. The court was right in its assessment that the particular law used against these members of the Gideons does not pass constitutional muster."

In a statement at the outset of the case to WND, Becky Herrin, of the public information office in the Monroe County sheriff's office, stated as a fact that the defendants in the case did trespass. She later declined additional comment.

"A copy of our police report (see attached) … clearly states that the people in question were arrested for trespassing on school property – not on a public sidewalk… In fact, they were given the opportunity to step off school property and onto public property, and they could have continued with their activities if they had done so. They chose instead to remain, against repeated warnings, on school property so deputies were forced to arrest them," Herrin said in a statement to WND.

But the attached report forwarded to WND revealed the two were arrested while in their vehicle parked near, but not on, school property.

The Gideons, a group founded in the late 1800s, has as its "sole purpose" the goal "to win men, women, boys and girls to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ through association for service, personal testimony, and distributing the Bible in the human traffic lanes and streams of everyday life."

Gideons have placed the Bible in 181 nations in 82 different languages over the years.

The organization focuses on hotels and motels, hospitals and nursing homes, schools, colleges and universities, the military and law enforcement and prisons and jails.

"The demand for Scriptures in these areas far exceeds our supplies that we are able to purchase through our donations. Much more could be done – if funds were available. However, we are placing and distributing more than one million copies of the Word of God, at no cost, every seven days in these areas…" the group said.

The organization only gives away the Bibles with the Gideon logo on the covers, but plain Bibles are available for consumers to purchase at its distribution center at P.O. Box 140800, Nashville, Tenn., 37214-0800. Information about the products is available on the group's website.

The Gideons serve as an extended missionary arm of the Christian church and are the oldest Christian business and professional men's association in the United States.

World Net Daily
June, 2008
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MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH
State denies cancer treatment, offers suicide instead
'To say, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel'

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State officials have offered a lung cancer patient the option of having the Oregon Health Plan, set up in 1994 to ration health care, pay for an assisted suicide but not for the chemotherapy prescribed by her physician.

The story appears to be a happy ending for Barbara Wagner, who has been notified by a drug manufacturer that it will provide the expensive medication, estimated to cost $4,000 a month, for the first year and then allow her to apply for further treatment, according to a report in the Eugene Register-Guard.

But the word from the state was coverage for palliative care, which would include the state's assisted suicide program, would be allowed but not coverage for the cancer treatment drugs.

"To say to someone, we'll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it's cruel," Wagner told the newspaper. "I get angry. Who do they think they are?"

She said she was devastated when the state health program refused coverage for Tarceva, the drug her doctor ordered for treatment of her lung cancer.

The refusal came in an unsigned letter from LIPA, the company that runs the state program in that part of Oregon.

"We had no intent to upset her, but we do need to point out the options available to her under the Oregon Health Plan," Dr. John Sattenspiel, senior medical director for LIPA, told the newspaper.

"I understand the way it was interpreted. I'm not sure how we can lift that. The reality is, at some level (doctor-assisted suicide) could be considered as a palliative or comfort care measure."

The 64-year-old Wagner lives in a low-income apartment in Springfield with her dog, the newspaper said.

State officials say the Oregon Health Plan prioritizes treatments, with diagnoses and ailments deemed the most important, such as pregnancy, childbirth and preventive care for children at the top of the list. Other treatments rank below, officials said.

"We can't cover everything for everyone," Dr. Walter Shaffer, a spokesman for the state Division of Medical Assistance Programs, told the paper. "Taxpayer dollars are limited for publicly funded programs. We try to come up with policies that provide the most good for the most people."

He said many cancer treatments are a high priority, but others reflect the "desire on the part of the framers of this list to not cover treatments that are futile."

Wagner, however, is ending up with the treatment needed when her lung cancer, in remission for two years, returned.

She reported a representative for the pharmaceutical company called and notified her the drug would be provided for at least the first year.

"We have been warning for years that this was a possibility in Oregon," said the "Bioethics Pundit" on the Bioethics blog. "Medicaid is rationed, meaning that some treatments are not covered. But assisted suicide is always covered."

"This isn't the first time this has happened either," the blogger wrote. "A few years ago a patient who needed a double organ transplant was denied the treatment but would have been eligible for state-financed assisted suicide. But not to worry. Just keep repeating the mantra: There are no abuses with Oregon's assisted suicide law. There are no abuses. There are no abuses!"

World Net Daily
June, 2008
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
Quoting Scripture banned in library community room
'What next? Will board keep patrons from reading Bible?'

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Quoting from the Bible has been banned in a community room at the public library in Clermont County, Ohio, and now a couple who sought to use the facility for a financial planning seminar has brought a court case.

"What's next? Will the library board attempt to keep patrons from checking out Bibles and reading them on government property?" asked Tim Chandler, a legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, which is working on the case involving George and Cathy Vandergriff.

The couple asked for permission to use a public facility at the library to hold a financial planning seminar with the Institute for Principled Policy.

Under the use policy for the facility, the meetings rooms there "are available to all community groups and non-profit organizations engaged in activities that further the Library's mission to be responsive to community needs and to be an integral part of our community," according to the lawsuit.

"When the Library's meeting rooms are not being used for library-related programs, the rooms are available for non-profit use by community groups. The groups may use meeting rooms for private meetings or to present programs for the general public," it continues.

However, when Cathy Vandergriff asked in person to use a meeting room for a financial planning meeting, the conversation with the library employee took an unwelcome turn.

"When Mrs. Vandergriff indicated that the seminar would be a free ministry to the general public, the employee asked if she would be quoting the Bible in the presentation. Mrs. Vandergriff answered that she would be using the Bible, and the employee informed her that the Library's Policy would therefore not permit her to use the meeting room," the ADF said.

When she followed up with a written request for the use of the facility, an employee again warned about the ban on quoting from the Bible, and the written rejection soon followed. It carried the hand-written notation: "Contact Mr. Vandergriff will be quoting bible versus [sic] explained our meeting room policy."

The ADF's complaint, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Ohio, requests a declaratory judgment, preliminary and permanent injunctions and damages and costs for the action.

"The … Clermont Public Library Board of Trustees … is prohibiting plaintiffs from engaging in expressive activities in a generally available public forum solely due to the religious viewpoint of those activities," the ADF said.

The library did not return a WND message requesting comment.

The complaint cites alleged violations of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution including the right to free exercise of religion, and the 14th Amendment's equal protection and due process clauses.

"The library has no compelling reason that would justify excluding plaintiffs from these generally available public facilities solely on the basis of the religious nature of plaintiffs' speech," the complaint said.

"Refusing to grant this group permission to hold a seminar at a meeting room in a public library because they planned to quote the Bible is about as blatantly un-American and unconstitutional as you can get," Chandler said. "Christian organizations shouldn't be discriminated against for their beliefs."

"The denial sends the message to the Vandergriffs and other Christians that they are not deemed a valuable part of the community. Christians have the same First Amendment rights as anyone else in America," the ADF's Kevin Theriot added.

"Any government policy denying equal access rights to a group simply because it intends on quoting Bible verses does not comport with the Constitution. This is a financial planning seminar, and the library has previously allowed meetings that discuss financial planning. The fact that they may quote Bible verses during the meeting does not legally matter."

The Institute for Principled Policy planned to sponsor the two two-hour seminars for 10 attendees April 18 and 19 at the library using Larry Burkett’s Crown Ministries materials.

World Net Daily
June, 2008
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Government to pastor: Renounce your faith!
Now banned from expressing opposition to homosexuality

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A Canadian human rights tribunal ordered a Christian pastor to renounce his faith and never again express moral opposition to homosexuality, according to a new report.

In a decision dated May 30 in the penalty phase of the quasi-judicial proceedings run by the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal, evangelical pastor Stephen Boisson was banned from expressing his biblical perspective of homosexuality and ordered to pay $5,000 for "damages for pain and suffering" as well as apologize to the activist who complained of being hurt.

According to a report from Pete Vere at the Catholic Exchange, the penalty could foreshadow the possible fate of the Rev. Alphonse de Valk, who also cited the biblical perspective on homosexuality in the nation's debate over same-sex "marriage" and now faces HRC charges.

Boisson wrote a letter to the editor of his local Red Deer, Alberta, newspaper in 2002 denouncing the advance of homosexual activism as "wicked" and stating: "Children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights."

The activist, local teacher Darren Lund, filed a complaint, and the guilty verdict from Lori G. Andreachuk, a lawyer, was handed down Nov. 30, 2007. The latest decision involved the penalty phase of the trial.

"While agreeing that Boisson's letter was not a criminal act, the government tribunal nevertheless ordered the Christian pastor to [stop expressing his opinion]," Vere reported.

Andreachuk noted that Lund, who brought the complaint, wasn't, in fact, injured.

"In this case there is no specific individual who can be compensated as there is no direct victim who has come forward," she wrote.

However, that did not stop her from ordering the payment anyway.

And as for the future, she wrote:

"Mr. Boissoin and The Concerned Christian Coalition Inc. shall cease publishing in newspapers, by e-mail, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the Internet, in future, disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals. Further, they shall not and are prohibited from making disparaging remarks in the future about … Lund or … Lund's witnesses relating to their involvement in this complaint. Further, all disparaging remarks versus homosexuals are directed to be removed from current Web sites and publications of Mr. Boissoin and The Concerned Christian Coalition Inc.," the lawyer opined.

Andreachuk also ordered Boissoin to apologize for the original letter in the Red Deer Advocate and told the two "offenders" to pay $5,000.

The apology letter, Vere said, "threatens civil liberties in Canada, according to Ezra Levant, an author and lawyer who himself was targeted by an HRC attack."

"[The] government now believes that if it can't convince a Christian pastor that he's wrong, it will just order him to condemn himself?" Levant wrote on his blog. "Other than tribunals in Stalin's Soviet Union and Mao's China, where is this Orwellian 'order' considered to be justice?"

"This is like a Third World jail-house confession – where accused criminals are forced to sign false statements of guilt," Levant wrote. "We don’t even 'order' murderers to apologize to their victims' families. Because we know that a forced apology is meaningless. But not if your point is to degrade Christian pastors."

"In essence, the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal is ordering to the minister to renounce his Christian faith, since his opposition to homosexuality is based upon the Judeo-Christian Bible," Vere wrote.

WND reported recently about de Valk, the target of a Human Rights Commission case over his biblical references regarding homosexuality.

"Father [de Valk] defended the [Catholic] Church's teaching on marriage during Canada's same-sex 'marriage' debate, quoting extensively from the Bible, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and Pope John Paul II's encyclicals. Each of these documents contains official Catholic teaching. And like millions of other people throughout the world and the ages – many of whom are non-Catholics and non-Christians — Father believes that marriage is an exclusive union between a man and a woman," Vere wrote.

Vere raised the question that Canada now considers morality a "hate crime."

"If one, because of one's sincerely held moral beliefs, whether it be Jew, Muslim, Christian, Catholic, opposes the idea of same-sex marriage in Canada, is that considered 'hate'?" he asked.

Vere wrote that the response he got from Mark van Dusen, a spokesman for the federal human rights prosecution office, shocked him.

The government agent confirmed the agency investigates complaints but doesn't set public policy or moral standards. He said the agency job is to look at the circumstances and decide whether to advance it or dismiss it.

What is shocking about that, Vere wrote, is the admission that unjustified complaints can be dismissed, yet the case against de Valk has continued now for more than six months.

An extended audio recording between Vere and van Dusen is posted on YouTube:

A second part of the interview also is posted.

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ELECTION 2008
Nation of Islam activists on Obama camp payroll
Former insider worried by senator's connection
to Louis Farrakhan, members of radical group

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JERUSALEM – Sen. Barack Obama employed and continues to employ senior staffers who belong to the Nation of Islam, and the presidential candidate has some "worrying" ties to the controversial group headed by Louis Farrakhan, a former key Obama insider told WND.

The former insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity, expressed particular concerned that Obama employed at least two Nation members in his early days as a state senator, when his office was staffed by only a handful of workers.

"When you're a state senator, you have little money given to you to hire staff. It is ironic that two of Obama's employees in those days were known Nation of Islam activists when Obama employed perhaps a total of maybe three or four staffers," said the former insider.

The former insider confirmed Obama is directly aware of the Nation of Islam members on his staff.

Obama was elected to the Illinois state Senate in 1996, serving the 13th district, which then spanned Chicago's South Side neighborhoods, including areas in which Farrakhan was considered to be highly influential.

"A key constituency for Obama was Hyde Park, where Farrakhan lives. To be successful politically in that area, you need to be involved with Farrakhan, since he's a strong power in the district," said the former insider.

The former insider identified early employees of Obama as Nation of Islam members, including Jennifer Mason, who still works in Obama's Chicago Senate office as director of constituency services – a key community liaison position.

Also, Cynthia K. Miller, whom the former insider identified as a Nation of Islam activist, served Obama in his early state Senate days and later as treasurer for his U.S. senatorial campaign.

Miller was also a paid consultant in 2003 and 2004, according to financial documents obtained by WND. She currently runs a Chicago real estate firm.

The former insider said Obama asked indicted Chicago businessman and Obama financier Tony Rezko to get his treasurer, Miller, a state government job with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

"She got an offer but turned it down. She ended up doing real estate," the ex-insider said.

The former insider also identified former Obama worker Shakir Muhammad as a Nation of Islam activist. Muhammad was paid by Obama's office as a photographer in the late 1990s.

According to a black supremacist source tied to Farrakhan, Muhammad previously worked as a bodyguard for the Nation of Islam chief.

The Anti-Defamation League identifies the Nation of Islam, the oldest black nationalist organization, as consistently racist and anti-Semitic.

The Nation of Islam operates "under the guise of instilling African-Americans with a sense of empowerment since its founding in the 1930s," reads an ADL description.

Mason did not return a WND request for comment at Obama's Chicago office.

Miller did not reply to phone messages left on her cell phone.

Michael Ortiz, Obama's deputy press secretary, did not return a WND request for comment about Illinois senator's alleged ties to Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.

WND verified the former insider speaking about Obama's Nation of Islam workers held a key position with the presidential candidate.

The former insider said he quit, in part, because of Obama's ties to the Nation of Islam and the senator's positions on Israel.

He previously also talked with columnist Debbie Schlussel, who first wrote about the Nation of Islam employees on Obama's staff.

"How many Nation of Islam members will work in an Obama White House?" Schlussel asked on her blog.

Obama-Farrakhan links

The exact nature of Obama's ties to Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam are unclear.

The presidential candidate repeatedly has denounced Farrakhan's views and would not accept the Nation of Islam leader's high profile endorsement.

"You know, I have been very clear in my denunciation of minister Farrakhan's anti-Semitic comments. I think they are unacceptable and reprehensible. I did not solicit this support," Obama said on NBC in February.

"We're not doing anything, I assure you, formally or informally with minister Farrakhan," Obama said.

But Obama's former church of 20 years – Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago – and his former spiritual adviser, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., have a different view of Farrakhan.

Wright, who accompanied Farrakhan to Libya in 1984, has been involved in Farrakhan initiatives and labeled him "one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century" during a national address to the media in April at which Nation of Islam officials were invited guests.

Obama has appeared at least three times on the cover of Trumpet magazine, founded by Wright, which in 2007 gave Farrakhan its Empowerment Award.

The magazine, to which Obama last year granted a lengthy, exclusive interview, regularly hails Farrakhan.

Obama's face was featured on the cover of a 2006 issue of Trumpet alongside Farrakhan's image.

Wright and Obama reportedly attended the Million Man March on Washington, which was led by Farrakhan and other prominent black leaders such as Al Sharpton.

Another Obama connection to supporters of Farrakhan comes from Obama's chief political strategist, David Axelrod.

WND reported this week Axelrod sits on the finance committee of St. Sabina, the Chicago Catholic parish that was led by controversial pastor Michael Pfleger, an outspoken Farrakhan supporter who hosted the Nation of Islam chief at his parish several times.

The Archdiocese of Chicago yesterday removed Pfleger from his duties at St. Sabina for an unspecified time following a well-publicized sermon at Trinity church two weeks ago in which Pfleger claimed Sen. Hillary Clinton cried in public because she thought being white entitled her to the Democratic presidential nomination.

Pfleger told the Chicago Sun-Times he felt free to speak about Clinton because he believed his sermon was not being recorded. He said he thought the live Internet link that normally broadcasts Trinity sermons was not running.

"They told me it was down," Pfleger said. "Their live streaming had been down all day, and they didn't know whether it was back up. … I regret the dramatization that I was naive enough to believe was just going to be kept among that church."

Pfleger hosted Farrakhan at his church as late as last May, Farrakhan's first public appearance since he announced in 2006 he had been suffering from prostate cancer and was seriously ill.

According to reports, Pfleger spent hours with the Nation of Islam chief during his illness. Pfleger previously enlisted Farrakhan's support for several of his initiatives, including an anti-gun protest last year.

Rev. Willie Barrow, a member of the Obama campaign's official Faith Outreach Team and a pledged Obama superdelegate, is a close friend of Farrakhan's and a staunch Nation of Islam supporter.

Farrakhan stated in a 2002 interview he met with Barrow to devise his Nation of Islam platforms.

In 2006, Barrow condemned four Jewish members of the Illinois state Hate Crimes Commission after Blagojevich refused to remove from the commission Sister Claudette Muhammad, Farrakhan's minister of protocol.

"Not only should [Muhammad] continue to serve on the commission, but, I think those that resigned because they disagree, what have they done to bring about an agreement?” Barrow told the CBS affiliate in Chicago, WBBM.

Larry Johnson of the No Quarter blog posted a 2004 photo of Obama's wife, Michelle, posing with Barrow at a woman's luncheon for the Rainbow/Push Coalition for which Barrow serves as chairman emeritus.

In the picture with Michelle Obama is Khadijah Farrakhan, Louis Farrakhan's wife.

World Net Daily
May, 2008
For more information on this topic, Click Here

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DO I HAVE THIS STRAIGHT?

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HIS FATHER WAS A BLACK AFRICAN MUSLIM FROM KENYA.
WE HAVE SEEN PICTURES OF HIS AFRICAN FAMILY.
HIS MOTHER WAS A WHITE AMERICAN ATHEIST FROM KANSAS.
WHERE ARE THE PICTURES OF HIS AMERICAN FAMILY?
HIS FATHER DESERTED HIS MOTHER WHEN HE WAS ONLY TWO YEARS OLD AND WENT BACK TO AFRICA BY WAY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. HOW? WAS HIS FATHER WEALTHY?

HIS MOTHER MARRIED AN INDONESIAN MUSLIM AND THEN MOVED TO JAKARTA WHERE HE WAS ENROLLED IN A MUSLIM SCHOOL.
WHEN HE REACHED HIGH SCHOOL AGE HIS MOTHER SENT HIM TO HAWAII TO BE WITH HIS WHITE GRANDPARENTS AND HE WAS PUT INTO AN EXPENSIVE PRIVATE SCHOOL. HE LATER WENT TO HARVARD UNIVERSITY. HOW? WERE HIS GRANDPARENTS RICH?

HE LIVES IN A $1.4 MILLION HOUSE OBTAINED THROUGH A DEAL WITH A WEALTHY FUNDRAISER. HOW?
HE 'WORKED' AS A CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST IN CHICAGO. HE HAS NEVER HELD A PRODUCTIVE JOB OR RECEIVED A PAY CHECK THAT WAS NOT GOVERNMENT-FUNDED AND/OR TAXPAYER SUPPORTED.

THE PRESIDENCY IS NOT A CIVIL RIGHTS POSITION, NOR IS IT SUBJECT TO AFFIRMATIVE ACTION SET ASIDES; ON-THE-JOB TRAINING WON'T CUT IT.

HE ENTERED POLITICS AT THE STATE LEVEL AND THEN THE NATIONAL LEVEL WHERE HE HAS MINIMAL EXPERIENCE.
HE IS PROUD OF HIS 'AFRICAN HERITAGE' (A FATHER WHO GOT A WHITE GIRL PREGNANT AND DESERTED HER).
WHERE IS THE PRIDE IN HIS 'WHITE HERITAGE'? (A MOTHER WHO FLAUNTED CONVENTION AND DID NOT BELIEVE IN GOD).
SOME MIGHT THINK THERE WAS NOT MUCH TO BE PROUD OF EITHER WAY.
HE BELONGS, AND HAS BELONGED FOR OVER 20 YEARS, TO AN 'AFRO-CENTRIC' CHURCH IN CHICAGO THAT HATES WHITES, HATES JEWS, AND BLAMES AMERICA FOR ALL THE WORLD'S PERCEIVED FAULTS. (INCLUDING CREATING THE AIDs VIRUS IN ORDER TO INFLICT IT ON AFRICANS).

HE REPEATEDLY WHITEWASHES THE PASTOR, HIS CHURCH AND THE MEMBERS WHO CHEERED AFTER HEARING VITRIOLIC TIRADES AGAINST AMERICA.

HE COULD NOT CONFRONT HIS PASTOR BUT HE WANTS US TO BELIEVE HE CAN CONFRONT NORTH KOREA AND IRAN ?
YEAH RIGHT ! !
DURING HIS VERY BRIEF TIME IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE HE HAS MANAGED TO AMASS THE NUMBER ONE ULTRA LIBERAL VOTING RECORD OUT OF THE ONE HUNDRED MEMBERS.

HE HAS VOTED CONSISTENTLY FOR BIGGER GOVERNMENT AND HIGHER TAXES. HE HAS VOTED FOR BIG ENTITLEMENTS AND LEGISLATION THAT WOULD SEVERELY CURTAIL AMERICA'S ABILITY TO FIGHT TERRORISM AND TO PROTECT OUR BORDERS AND OUR NATIONAL INTERESTS AROUND THE WORLD.

BUT, HE IS A GOOD ORATOR. ISN'T THAT A COMFORT?
YEAH, I THINK I SEE HOW WELL HE COULD UNITE THE COUNTRY.
I THINK THE TRUTH IS THAT HE HOPES NO ONE WILL PUT THE PIECES TOGETHER.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO OUR NEW CHIEF PILOT. HE HAS NEVER FLOWN AN AIRPLANE, IN FACT HE HAS NEVER EVEN SAT IN THE COCKPIT, BUT HE SAYS HE HAS RIDDEN ON PLANES BEFORE. WE ARE SURE HE WILL GUIDE US SAFELY THROUGH THE STORMS WE MAY ENCOUNTER ON THIS FLIGHT.

PEOPLE WHAT ARE YOU THINKING? HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD THE STORY ABOUT THE WOLF HIDING IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING SO HE CAN DESTROY THEM FROM WITH-IN ? THE HAND WRITING IS ON THE WALL, DO YOU NOT HAVE EYES TO SEE IT ?

THINK LONG AND HARD BEFORE YOU VOTE FOR THIS GUY!

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BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS
Texas children roped into Islamic training
Class by CAIR teaches: 'There is one god, Allah'

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Public school students at Friendswood Junior High in the Houston area have been roped into Islamic training by representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations during class time, prompting religious leaders to protest over Principal Robin Lowe's actions.

Pastor Dave Welch, spokesman for the Houston Area Pastor Council, confirmed the indoctrination had taken place and called it "unacceptable."

"The failure of the principal of Friendswood Junior High to respect simple procedures requiring parental notification for such a potentially controversial subject, to not only approve but participate personally in a religious indoctrination session led by representatives of a group with well-known links to terrorist organizations and her cavalier response when confronted, raises serious questions about her fitness to serve in that role," the pastors' organization said.

According to a parent, whose name was withheld, the children were given the Islamic indoctrination during time that was supposed to be used for a physical education class.

"I am simply trying to get the word out to those whose kids may not have told them about an Islamic presentation that all kids were required to attend," wrote the parent, who was working to assemble protests to the school board.

WND previously has reported how public school textbooks being used across the nation have begun promoting Islam, teaching even the religious doctrines.

WND also has reported on several other school situations in which Islam has been taught as a required subject, and when administrators have defended those decisions.

In the Texas case, a school e-mail to parents provided only a half-hearted acknowledgement that such mandatory religious indoctrination might not have been the best decision.

"In hindsight, a note should have been sent home to parents indicating the purpose and content of the presentation in time for parents to contact me with questions or concerns or requests to exempt their child," the school note from Lowe said. "This will be our practice in the future, should we ever have another presentation of a similar nature."

School officials also said the "Islamic Awareness" presentation was "to increase understanding of the Islamic culture in response to racially motivated comments that have been made to students on campus."

The pastors said in a statement: "According to students who were forced to attend these sessions, these Islamic evangelists taught them:

• Adam, Noah and Jesus are prophets
  
  
• There is one god, his name is Allah
  
  
• The 5 Pillars of Islam
  
  
• How to pray five times a day
  
  
• Islamic religious garb"

The pastors noted that the principal's claim there were "comments" to students on campus was unverified. Nor does that excuse or justify "this infringement upon the religious beliefs of students and parents of the community nor the violation of school policy and possibly state and/or federal law," they said.

"We do not believe that this unapproved action by Principal Robin Lowe represents the school district and certainly not the majority of students or parents in the Friendswood community. Our commitment is to support all appropriate administrative, legal and political remedies to assure that this will not happen again and these Islamic activist organizations are kept out of our schools," the pastors said.

The parent reported the presentation was 30-40 minutes long and handled by two Muslim women from CAIR's Houston office. CAIR, as WND has reported, is spinoff of the defunct Islamic Association for Palestine, launched by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook and former university professor Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Among the convicted CAIR staffers are former communications specialist Randall Todd "Ismail" Royer, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges he trained in Virginia for holy war against the U.S. and sent several members to Pakistan to join a Kashmiri terrorist group with reported ties to al-Qaida; and Bassem Khafagi, who was arrested in January 2003 while serving as CAIR's director of community relations and convicted on fraud and terrorism charges in connection with a probe of the Islamic Assembly of North America, an organization suspected of aiding Saudi sheiks tied to Osama bin Laden. In October 2006, Ghassan Elashi, a member of the founding board of directors of the Texas branch of CAIR, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for financial ties to a high-ranking terrorist.

The parent reported that Lowe told students her sister, niece and nephew were Muslim.

But the parent complained the Muslims "were given full attention of our kids, during academic school time, to present their religious beliefs … This was put right at the end of the school year … which will most likely prevent a Christian response."

There also was no parental notification and students were required to attend.

"The kids did not even know they were having an assembly or what topic it pertained to until they entered the gym," the parent wrote. "I send my kids to school for academics … I teach them religion at home."

World Net Daily
May, 2008
For more information on this topic, Click Here

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WorldNetDaily
TV news crew probing Islam at public school attacked
Sought comment on state report ordering institution to stop religious accomodation

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Officials at a charter school in Minnesota attacked a TV news crew yesterday that came to investigate whether the publicly funded institution complied with a state order to stop accomodating Islamic prayers and religious programs.

KSTP-TV in Minneapolis-St.Paul reported police are probing the incident at the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy in Inver Grove Heights, Minn., which is housed in the same building as a mosque and the Minnesota chapter of the Muslim American Society. The station said a photographer was injured while wrestling with two school officials over a camera.

As WND reported, a substitute teacher at the school reported religion appeared to be a significant educational focus. Amanda Getz said her duties included taking students to the bathroom, four at a time, to perform "their ritual washing." She told a Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist teachers also "led the kids into the gym, where a man dressed in white with a white cap, who had been at the school all day" led prayer.

The school, which came under investigation after a series of Star-Tribune reports, yesterday was ordered by state officials to comply with state and federal law. The academy must no longer allow Islamic prayers on school grounds and must stop delaying transportation until an after-school religious program is completed, the state officials said.

The state, according to the Minneapolis newspaper, found the 30-minute prayers take up so much time they could burden non-praying students and prevent the school from fulfilling its required number of instruction hours. The state report also noted allowing teachers to participate, even though they don't lead prayers, could give the impression the school endorses Islam.

The KSTP crew was dispatched to the school to cover the story and obtain reaction from school officials, according to a statetment on the station's website .

"While on school grounds, our crew was attacked by school officials," the station said. "Our photographer was injured while wrestling with the two men over the camera. Our photographer was examined by paramedics and suffered minor shoulder and back injuries."

The Minnesota Department of Education's deputy commissioner, Chas Anderson, said the agency "goes to great lengths to make clear to charter schools and their sponsors that, while schools should appropriately accommodate students' religious beliefs, they must be 'nonsectarian' under the state's charter school law."

Along with the issue of communal prayer giving the appearance of state sponsorship, the state said the school should stop delaying its bus service until completion of the after-school Islam course, so students who don't particupate can go home immediately.

"We have directed the school to take appropriate corrective actions regarding these matters and will continue to provide oversight to ensure that the school is in compliance with state and federal law," Anderson said.

KSTP reporter Chris O'Connell told Fox News today he and his photographer had been on public property in front of the school trying to reach school officials for an hour. Another camera crew arrived and went directly onto the property to try to obtain a comment, so he and his cameraman followed, he said.

O'Connell said that as soon as he and his cameraman stepped onto the school property, two men from the school "came right out" and tried to wrestle the camera away.

"There were two guys on my cameraman," he said.

O'Connell called police.

"It's quite clear they targeted us as a station," he said.

He said police were investigating various charges related to the cameraman's injuries, as well as possible trespassing charges against the news crew brought by school officials.

"The police are going to try to look into our videotape," O'Connell said. "Our competing station also got video from another point of view. It's pretty telling video. You see it all go down."

The state report said many of the school's operations comply with state charter school law and federal guidelines for prayer in schools, but the two areas – the formalized Islamic prayer time during the school day and the plan delaying transportation home for children until after the post-class religious instruction is finished – must be addressed.

School director Asad Zaman told the Star-Tribune, "I now have proof that this is not a religious school."

The Star-Tribune previously documented that the charter high school for kindergarten through eighth-grade students is named after a Muslim warlord, shares the address of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, is led by two imams, is composed almost exclusively (99 percent) of blacks and has as its top goal to preserve "our values."

And it's all funded by the taxpayers of Minnesota.

Star-Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten wrote she was denied permission to visit the school. The school also has declined to return WND telephone requests for an interview.

The institution has drawn criticism from a number of observers, including Robert Spencer, who monitors such developments at Jihad Watch.

"Can you imagine a public school founded by two Christian ministers, and housed in the same building as a church? Add to that – in the same building – a prominent chapel. And let's say the students are required to fast during Lent, and attend Bible studies right after school. All with your tax dollars," he wrote. "Inconceivable? Sure."

If such a place existed, Spencer said, "the ACLU lawyers would descend on it like locusts. It would be shut down before you could say 'separation of church and state,' to the accompaniment of New York Times and Washington Post editorials full of indignant foreboding, warning darkly about the growing influence of the Religious Right in America."

The substitute teacher Getz told Kersten after she spent the day at the school, "The prayer I saw was not voluntary. The kids were corralled by adults and required to go to the assembly where prayer occurred."

Kersten previously revealed other links between the school and Islam, including a carpeted space for prayer, halal food in the cafeteria and fasting for students during Ramadan.

The Muslim American Society of Minnesota has not hidden the fact that the charter school is located at its facility. The published program for its annual convention last year – featuring the theme "Establishing Islam in Minnesota" – asked, "Did you know that MAS-MN … houses a full-time elementary school?"

On the adjacent page was an ad for Tarek ibn Ziyad.

World Net Daily
May, 2008
For more information on this topic, Click Here

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LAW OF THE LAND
Church battles for property lost to bake sale tax dispute
'To put lien on worship facility over resale activity is ludicrous'

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The city of Chicago has been handed another defeat in its effort to take over a church's property in order to use in it a redevelopment project, according to officials with the Alliance Defense Fund.

Government officials took title to the property after they first claimed the organization had failed to pay sales taxes on fundraising bake sales, even though such activities are exempt from sales tax requirements, and then sending notifications of the taxes due as well as the tax lien sale to the wrong address.

Officials with Beth-El All Nations Church now have gone to court to regain title to their facility, and yesterday a judge rejected an effort by city officials to have the action thrown out.

"The government should not demonstrate hostility toward religion by penalizing churches when there's clearly no reason to do so," said ADF Senior Counsel Joe Infranco.

"To put a lien on a church's property for the invented reason that the church somehow engaged in some undefined 'resale activity' and didn't collect and pay sales tax is simply ludicrous," said ADF-allied attorney and lead counsel Andy Norman of the Chicago law firm Mauck & Baker. "The court was right to allow the church's case against the city to proceed."

The long-running dispute dates back to shortly after the church acquired its property in the Chicago neighborhood of Englewood in 1976 and rehabilitated the location to begin worship services.

While there were no complications at first, about 1986 Cook County officials decided that the church no longer was exempt, and started assessing property taxes, totaling more than $100,000 between the period 1986 to 1995.

The law firm said the issue was that county officials had decided the church was engaging in an unspecified "resale activity," but church officials said the only such event that could be described that way – even remotely – would be its fundraising bake sales, which in Illinois are not subject to sales taxes.

Then because of "numerous procedural errors" by government officials, the church never was informed of the taxes, or the government's later decision to put a lien on the property, or the eventual tax sale through which the county obtained a title to the church. The county later re-assigned that to the city of Chicago.

According to documents in the case, among other mistakes that happened, was a notice to the church about its right to redeem its property.

"An employee of the city of Chicago mistakenly addressed a notice to Beth-El All Nations Church at 1534 East 63rd Street, instead of Beth-El's true address, 1534 West 63rd Street," court records note. "The notice was pretty important: it advised the church of its right to redeem title to the 63rd Street property after the parcel was sold for delinquent taxes."

Similar mistakes had happened with earlier tax notifications, the court documents confirmed.

"Despite the misaddressed notice, the city acquired a tax deed to the 63rd Street property in 1998. … The city sought to oust Beth-El from the property in 2006," but a federal complaint was filed to correct the government employees' mistakes.

According to the ADF, the site long has been desired by government officials to be used in a redevelopment project there.

The documents in the case reveal that the not only did the city use the wrong address, it then represented to the court "that all required notices had been served."

The church said the 1998 proceedings should be set aside because "the tax deed had been procured by fraud or deception."

Bishop Edgar Jackson, the pastor since 1995, testified the church never was located at 1534 East 63rd Street, and that he hadn't been told of any disputes over what he assumed was the church's tax-exempt status.

A state court ruling sided with the city, concluding the city's mistake should be overlooked and it could take over the property, but in federal court, the church alleged violations of the Fourth Amendment for "unreasonable search and seizure" and other violations.

A judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan, at one point scolded the city for its actions. Ordering the church to shut down, he said, could cause "severe harm" and result in "losses to the community that could not be quantified in dollars and cents … In fact, it is entirely unclear why the city would desire such an asset to the community to cease its operations…"

World Net Daily
April, 2008
For more information on this topic, Click Here

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Teacher keeps Bible, cites God-given rights
Principal ordered Good Book hidden from students

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An Ohio school teacher has refused an order from his public school principal to hide his personal Bible, which he's kept on his desk for 18 years, from his students.

The teacher, John Freshwater, held a news conference today to respond to questions from local reporters about the issue as the deadline set by school officials for him to hide his Bible passed.

No formal action was taken immediately by officials in the Mount Vernon, Ohio, School District in response to Freshwater's move, according to Coach Dave Daubenmire of Pass The Salt Ministries and Minutemen United, who was acting as a spokesman for Freshwater.

Daubenmire has had his own experience with such perspectives, having been sued by the American Civil Liberties Union in 1999 for praying with his football teams while coaching in Ohio.

Freshwater has been a middle school science teacher for 20 years in the Mount Vernon School District. Recently the principal visited his classroom, and then notified him of several changes he would be required to make.

One was a demand to remove a copy of the Ten Commandments from a collage of historic information in one location in his classroom, a demand Freshwater agreed to fulfill.

But he said the district must prove to him how it can order him to remove his personal Bible from his desk without infringing on his God-given and First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion.

"John Freshwater has sounded the alarm and we have hope that his cause will not die for a lack of a second from the church leadership in Mount Vernon," said Jim Harrison, national director of Minutemen United.

He said the hope is the community churches will rally behind Freshwater's desire to keep his Bible handy.

"This is an incredible opportunity to right some historical misconceptions about the church and state relationship in our great nation," Harrison said.

Daubenmire, who said he "has a deep appreciation and understanding for what John is doing," told WND Freshwater is not yet represented by counsel, but hasn't been subjected to any sanction by the school yet either.

"Today at noon he informed them he would not comply with the order to remove his personal Bible from where it's sat for 18 years," Daubenmire told WND. "It's his personal Bible. He draws great strength from it."

He also said Freshwater has not, and does not, use the Bible in his interaction with students, but he also believes he does not forfeit his own rights just for being a teacher.

Such a school demand, he said, amounts to an ongoing viewpoint discrimination, since a Muslim woman would not be ordered to hide her head covering from students' views.

The school district's superintendent, Steve Short, could not be reached by WND. But school officials released a statement:

"The Mount Vernon Schools today directed one of its middle school science teachers to remove from his classroom the 10 Commandments he had displayed and to remove his Bible from his desktop while students were in his room. The Mount Vernon Schools has not taken this action because it opposes religion, but because it has an obligation under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution to protect against the establishment of religion in the schools. As a public school system the district cannot teach, promote or favor any religion or religious beliefs."

Daubenmire said, however, the school's demands go far beyond making sure it doesn't "establish religion" and reaches the level of a "continuous purging of Christianity."

In an earlier commentary for WND, Daubenmire framed the issue as a rampant attack singling out Christianity.

"Please notice that the attack on religious freedom in America is on Christianity. No one is trying to silence the religious freedom of Muslims or atheists or humanists. Quite the contrary. We are told to 'understand' Muslims, to be sensitive to the atheists and to tolerate the humanists and their various denominations of 'isms' (environmentalism, feminism, secularism, socialism, communism), which we teach openly in our schools," he said.

"Our rights are God-given rights. They are not 'constitutional' rights," he continued. "Take some time and read the U.S. Constitution. You will see that it does not grant any rights to anyone. Instead, while setting up the federal government, the document (the first 10 amendments) also prohibits the government from interfering with various aspects of human freedom. The first 10 amendments limit what the government can do. They shouldn't be called the Bill of Rights; they should be called the Bill of Limitations."

Instead of claiming constitutional rights, citizens of the U.S. should proclaim their God-given rights, he said.

World Net Daily
April, 2008
For more information on this topic, Click Here

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FAITH UNDER FIRE
Face of Olympic spirit: China threatens Christian with death
'Leading up to the Olympic Games, we actually see things getting worse'

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A Chinese man has been taken into custody and faces a possible sentence of death for charges alleging "subversion of the national government and endangering national security." But several Christian organizations that monitor human rights activities in China say Alimujiang Yimiti could face the penalty simply because he is a Christian.

While much headline space has been devoted during recent days to China's crackdown on residents of Tibet, such attacks are more-or-less everyday experiences for Christians in the communist nation, according to officials with three of the largest organizations monitoring China: International Christian Concern, China Aid Association, and the Voice of the Martyrs.

"In the months now leading up to the Olympic Games, we actually see things getting worse," said Todd Nettleton, a spokesman for Voice of the Martyrs. "There are more raids, foreign Christians are not having their visas renewed and are being forced to leave the country. There are numerous circumstances where the churches are under attack by the government."

China had assured the international community when it was awarded the 2008 Summer Games that it would address concerns that have been raised about its human rights record. However, the three organizations see no evidence yet.

"Christians who refuse to come under the communist control are subject to arrest, imprisonment, harassment by the police at any time," Nettleton said. "There are places where Christians are facing very serious persecution."

He cited the case of Alimujiang. "He possibly could be executed for what the government says is subversion of the national government. What he's facing a penalty for, in reality, is he's a Christian."

He said the Chinese government believes, perhaps naively, that in 2008 it can clean up its international image by simply repressing those who disagree.

"I think there is an element of sort of keeping things under the rug until the Olympics are over, making sure there's no disturbances or embarrassment during the Games," he said.

Since visitors supposedly will be allowed to travel as they wish in China during the Olympics, the one place to keep dissidents is in prison, since those still will be off-limits to visitors, he said.

"China has thousands of Internet policemen," he continued. "Their job is to monitor information and keep in the information they want to keep in, and keep out the information they want to keep out. I think they do have a little bit of a naïve sense they can control the message and information."

Ashley Dingler, regional manager for East Asian for International Christian Concern, said her organization sees evidence routinely that human rights violations in China are getting worse as the Olympics approach.

"I think it has a large part to do that they could lose face on such a world stage," she said, "when everyone is looking at China.

"Christians and others might stage protests, reveal information," she said. "I think the manner of going about it is counterintuitive, but they are trying to save face by imprisoning more and more.

"We've seen a huge increase in the numbers of house churches that are being raided, especially the leaders of the house churches are being taken into custody," she said. "In early March, there were 70 [leaders] taken at one time."

A few are released occasionally, but the arrests are so many it's hard to keep track, she said. Some of those taken into custody simply have vanished, she said.

Bob Fu, founder of China Aid Association, said the deterioration in human rights started getting worse as soon as China was awarded this year's competition.

"From all measures we can find in terms of religious freedom, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, it all shows it's becoming much worse," he told WND.

"In the past two years, we found more than 3,000 underground pastors were arrested, detained, some sentenced," he said. Those sentences were up to and including the death sentence.

All three of the organizations obtain reports regularly from within China, and it was Fu's organization that documented the case of Alimujiang.

"We should call upon the democratic country leaders including President Bush to withdraw from the opening ceremonies," he said, "and not become part of the showcase.

"We're not calling for a boycott of the athletic events, but for these political leaders to go there and be part of the Chinese government's propaganda machine, it's simply wrong," he said.

Alimujiang, a Uyghur Christian, Muslim convert and father of two, is expected to be sentenced before the end of April, China Aid's report said. He had been accused last year of "illegal religious activities," but then was arrested in January on claims of "subversion."

"Alimujiang is neither a separatist nor a terrorist, local sources say. He has told officials many times during interrogation that as a Christian he loves and supports the Chinese government, something many young Uyghurs struggle with as Han Chinese culture becomes increasingly dominant in Xinjiang. As a loyal Chinese citizen and business entrepreneur, Alimujiang has held to high standards, paying his taxes faithfully and avoiding a common local custom of paying bribes for business favors. He has also done his best to assimilate into Chinese culture, making the unusual decision to send his children to a Chinese language school in a predominantly Uyghur area," the report said.

"Friends say Alimujiang simply wants the freedom to quietly express his faith, a right guaranteed to him in the Chinese constitution. Currently however, it is illegal for Alimujiang to own a Uyghur Bible," the report continued.

Even his lawyer is not being allowed to meet with officials with the Bureau of State Security, because of a so-called "national secret" reason, China Aid said.

According to officials with the persecution monitors, anti-Christian efforts broke out in China in 1922, three years after communism emerged. When the Communist Party took control in 1949 it started expelling missionaries immediately, and the arrests and torture of Christian leaders was begun.

A brief respite arrived in the 1970s when Deng Xiaoping released some Christians from prison to demonstrate to the West its "religious freedom," but with a few years the arrests had returned by the thousands. In the 1990s, a number of church organizations were labeled "evil cults."

Among recent cases was one in which four people were arrested in Taizhou for distributing Gospel flyers at a bus station.They each were sentenced to several days in jail.

The work of the government, however, has failed to stop the interest in Christianity, with one organization estimating 3,000 people are joining Christian churches in China on a daily basis.

According to International Christian Concern, China ranks fourth in the world, behind only North Korea, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, in its persecution of Christians.

"Chinese Christians, wary of state-controlled religious organs, have increasingly turned to the model of 'house churches,' which have helped spark a once unthinkable revival across the Middle Kingdom, as estimates now number Chinese believers at more than 100 million," the group's annual report said.

That, in turn, has triggered more and more government repression, the report said.

"Their fingers bleed, but they press on, for if they don't make the day's quota – 5,000 bulbs – they are beaten. The Christmas lights that decorate the trees of Christian believers around the world are often made by inmates like these. Their crime? Preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. House church pastors are sent to work camps after their arrest, and in some respects, these are the lucky ones, for they survived the standard interrogations that greet most Christian leaders after they are detained; several are killed or 'disappear,' never to be seen or heard from again. …," the report said.

President Bush, meanwhile, believes it will be better to be "calling on" China to reach out and work with dissident factions rather than give in to growing pressure to formally protest that nation's human rights abuses by boycotting the opening ceremonies of this year's Beijing Olympic Games.

Following up on an announcement by Bill Donohoe, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, that Sen. Hillary Clinton is right to suggest such a boycott because of China's record, Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House, recently asked about the possibility of such plans.

"Since we presume the president is as devoted to human rights as any world leader, why has he failed to join the president of France, the chancellor of Germany, and now the prime minister of Canada in their announced refusal to appear at China's Olympic Games?" he asked at today's news briefing.

"The president's position on this has been very clear. But the key part of what the president can do as the president of the United States is before, during and after the Olympics, push very hard for increased human rights, press freedoms, and political freedom in China," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

World Net Daily
April, 2008
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Terror suspects planned family sacrifice

A gang of Muslim fanatics discussed "sacrificing" their wives and babies by taking them on an alleged suicide bombing mission to blow up transatlantic jets, a court has heard. Alleged bomb plotters justify slaughter in videos Empty flat was 'turned into bomb factory' In pictures: Airline bomb plot The alleged "martyrdom" plot, which was just "a couple of weeks" from fruition, also included plans to attack nuclear power stations, oil refineries and the skyscrapers of London's Canary Wharf, it is alleged. Excerpts from six "chilling" alleged suicide videos were played to a jury, in which the defendants said they would "scatter body parts" over the streets in revenge for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wearing headscarves and posing in front of black flags with white Arabic writing, the defendants were filmed saying they would unleash "volcanoes of anger and revenge" and "rain terror and destruction" down on "non-believers". They said the deaths of "so-called innocents" were justified because British taxpayers, who funded the Army, did not care about the fate of Muslims, as they were more interested in drinking, watching EastEnders and "complaining about the World Cup". The court has already been told that up to 18 suicide bombers were allegedly to be used to simultaneously bring down seven or more flights bound for the US and Canada from Heathrow Airport. If successful, the alleged bombings would have killed hundreds and possibly thousands of people in what would have been the worst terrorist atrocity since the September 11, 2001 attacks on America. The defendants are Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 27, Ibrahim Savant, 27, Arafat Waheed Khan, 26, and Waheed Zaman, 23, all from Walthamstow, east London; Tanvir Hussain, 27, of Leyton, east London, Mohammed Gulzar, 26, of Barking; and Assad Sarwar, 27, and Umar Islam, 29, both of High Wycombe, Bucks. All eight deny conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to commit an act of violence likely to endanger an aircraft, between January 1 and August 11, 2006. Before their arrests in August 2006, the alleged conspirators were covertly recorded discussing their plans, the prosecutor, Peter Wright QC, told Woolwich Crown Court. When one of the men, Abdulla Ali, was asked "how long 'til the event?" he replied: "A couple of weeks." Another, Umar Islam, added: "This is really going to happen, isn't it?", the court heard. The discussion is then said to have turned to whether the men should take their wives and children on the alleged suicide missions. Umar Islam was asked whether his wife might consider going with him on the "operation". He allegedly said: "I think if I was to say to her that this was a significant operation she might even find it in herself to do that." Ali asks: "What about the babies?... Maybe she taken them with her?" Islam replies: "Maybe, you know what I mean. She'd like to do it though." Mr Wright said: "Such a sacrifice is beyond contemplation for those who are the target of an attack such as this but not those who are about to carry them out." As the full scope of the alleged terror plot was revealed for the first time, the jury heard that information had been gathered on the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown, the world's worst nuclear disaster. The plotters may also have intended to bring down the internet by hitting Britain's main web server, according to information seized at the home of Assad Sarwar. Mr Wright said: "The horizons of Mr Sarwar in respect of his terrorist ambitions were, we say, limitless." On a computer memory stick found at Mr Sarwar's home, said Mr Wright, was: "Information about one of the largest gas stations in the UK, oil refineries, the National Grid, and power stations including nuclear power stations. "There was also information on Chernobyl and UK airports, including Heathrow's new control tower." The memory stick also included information on Canary Wharf. A diary found in Mr Sarwar's home included the names of oil refineries at Fawley in Hampshire, Kingsbury, Warwicks., Coryton, Essex, and a gas terminal at Bacton, Norfolk. The alleged plotters bought a flat in Walthamstow, East London, to use as a "bomb factory", Mr Wright told Woolwich Crown Court, and had bought all the materials they needed to assemble liquid-based bombs which could be "smuggled" on aircraft disguised as soft drinks. The jury was shown a video of a test explosion carried out in a police laboratory using a similar bomb, which was so powerful it shattered thick protective glass set up around the bomb. During raids on Ali's home, police found a letter which talked about his "beautiful wife" and nine-month-old son. It said: "It is more dear to my heart that I am waiting in a tent in the cold, dark, chilly wind waiting for dawn so that I may attack the enemy." A CD found at another address allegedly linked to him, titled "ha ha ha!", contained footage of the beheading of an American hostage by Islamic extremists. Gang's possible other targets identified in court The alleged plotters had considered other targets in the UK, the court heard. They were: • Canary Wharf • The National Grid • A gas pipeline between Britain and Belgium • UK airports, including Heathrow's new control tower • Oil and gas refineries at Bacton, Fawley, Correton and Kingsbury • Several UK power plants, including nuclear stations • Companies which store and process hydrogen peroxide

------------------------------ By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter, and Duncan Gardham Security Correspondent April, 2008 For more information on this topic, Click Here

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Report: Non-Muslims Deserve to Be Punished

A report posted on Islam Watch, a site run by Muslims who oppose intolerant teachings and hatred for unbelievers, exposes a prominent Islamic cleric and lawyer who support extreme punishment for non-Muslims — including killing and rape.

A question-and-answer session with Imam Abdul Makin in an East London mosque asks why Allah would tell Muslims to kill and rape innocent non-Muslims, including their wives and daughters, according to Islam Watch.

"Because non-Muslims are never innocent, they are guilty of denying Allah and his prophet," the Imam says, according to the report. "If you don't believe me, here is the legal authority, the top Muslim lawyer of Britain."

The lawyer, Anjem Choudary, backs up the Imam's position, saying that all Muslims are innocent.

Click here to watch the interview with Islamic lawyer Anjem Choudary.

"You are innocent if you are a Muslim," Choudary tells the BBC. "Then you are innocent in the eyes of God. If you are not a Muslim, then you are guilty of not believing in God."

Choudary said he would not condemn a Muslim for any action.

"As a Muslim, I must support my Muslim brothers and sisters," Choudary said. "I must have hatred to everything that is not Muslim."

Click here to read the report from Islam Watch.

FOX News
April, 2008
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NORTHERN EXPOSURE
Dobson editing radio show to avoid 'hate crimes' laws
Focus working to meet demands of 'human rights laws'

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"Hate crimes" laws were defeated in Congress just a few months ago. Just a few weeks ago, Frank Wright of the National Religious Broadcasters Association warned, "We must be one in Christ to face the days ahead" because "hate crimes" laws would create untold new liability for Christians.

Now a major Christian ministry has confirmed that such "hate crimes" laws already are setting limits on what it can broadcast.

The issue is "hate crimes" laws in Canada, and they are affecting U.S. Christian ministries that broadcast into that nation.

WND reported just a week ago on a Christian ministry based in Canada that essentially was ordered shut down under that nation's "hate crimes" laws which prevent Christians from expressing Biblical opinions on a wide range of issues.

So what used to be called MacGregor Ministries with offerings in how to recognize and eliminate "faulty fads" in Christian churches has been re-created in the United States, and now operates under the name MM Outreach Media Ministries, according to spokeswoman Lorri MacGregor.

"Canada has very strong hate laws," she told WND.

She said the ministry points out the differences between Christianity and various cult beliefs, but also with respect, and never as a proponent. She said the work always is in response to a question or issue.

"When a group such as Jehovah's Witnesses said of our doctrine we're worshipping a freakish three-headed God (the Trinity), we should be able to respond," she said. "We say, 'Here's the doctrine of the Trinity and here is where it is in the Scripture.'"

That, however, violates Canada's hate crimes laws, and the ministry was ordered to either make wholesale changes in its presentations, or shut down.

"There was nothing we could do that would please them," she said. "They wanted us every time we criticized something to say, 'So Christianity is equal to Buddhism, Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses… Just decide for yourself.'"

"We cannot do that," she said of the work she and her husband, Keith, have spent their lives assembling.

Now comes confirmation from the Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, one of the largest Christian publishing and broadcasting organizations in the nation, that it has been reviewing, and if necessary editing, its broadcasts to avoid complications with Canadian "hate crimes" laws.

In a statement attributed to Gary Booker, director of global content creation for Focus, the organization confirmed that broadcast standards have a "dynamic nature."

"Our staff at Focus on the Family Canada works proactively to stay abreast of the dynamic nature of broadcast standards, Canadian Revenue Agency legislation and both national and provincial human rights laws," the statement said.

"Parameters regarding what can be said (and how it should be said) are communicated by Focus on the Family Canada to our content producers here at Focus on the Family in the U.S. To the best of our ability, programming is then produced with Canadian law in mind," Focus continued.

"In particular, our content producers are careful not to make generalized statements nor comments that may be perceived as ascribing malicious intent to a 'group' of people and are always careful to treat even those who might disagree with us with respect. Our Focus on the Family content creators here in the U.S. are also careful to consult with Focus on the Family Canada whenever questions arise. Focus on the Family Canada, in turn, monitors the content produced in the U.S. and assesses this content against Canadian law," the group said.

"Occasionally, albeit very rarely, some content is identified that, while acceptable for airing in the U.S. would not be acceptable under Canadian law and is therefore edited or omitted in Canada," Focus said.

Focus broadcasts programs on thousands of radio stations across the continent, publishes dozens of magazines and newsletters and provides a wide range of other resources to Christian families and churches.

Wright had told the NRB that the U.S. version of "hate crimes" that was blocked from the 2008 Defense Authorization Bill last year originally would have made religious broadcasters liable for various criminal acts.

The subject of homosexuality, specifically, was provided protections in the U.S. proposal, and is one of the issues that Canadian law addresses.

WND previously reported when the the Canadian Family Action Coalition confirmed activists who claim they have "hurt feelings" are demanding and getting penalties imposed against those who oppose the homosexual lifestyle.

"We today have a major national magazine, a federal political party leader and a registered political party, a major Catholic newspaper (Catholic Insight) and an internationally renowned journalist all of whom are being investigated by appointed 'hate speech therapists' from the commissions," the group said.

The journalist is Mark Steyn, according to CFAC spokesman Brian Rushfeldt, and the newest case involves Canada's national Catholic magazine of news, opinion and analysis.

The publication has been told it is being targeted by a complaint from Edmonton resident Rob Wells, who alleges the publication has offended homosexuals. But Rushfeldt confirmed the result of any such dispute is up in the air, because ordinary courts don't handle such complaints, they are taken on by various Human Rights Commissions in Canada.

They are set up to take action if anything "indicates discrimination" or "is likely to expose to hatred or contempt."

Rushfeldt noted that Alberta's provincial law, for example, orders: "No person shall publish, issue or display or cause to be published, issued or displayed before the public any statement, publication, notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other representation that (a) indicates discrimination or an intention to discriminate against a person or a class of persons, or (b) is likely to expose a person or a class of persons to hatred or contempt bcause of the race, religious beliefs, colour, gender, physical disability, mental disability, age, ancestry, place of origin, marital status, source of income or family status of that person or class of persons."

"You see if my feelings are hurt and I feel discriminated against due to my 'religious orientation' then surely I must have a right and entitlement to have an appointed group of people in the Human Rights Commission at taxpayers' expense, intervene and force the activist to pay me compensation for my feelings. This is really not bullying is it? Or is it more like extortion?" said a commentary by the Family Action organization.

"How can I prove my feeling are hurt? I don't need to prove it. I just say it is so and it is so. Do I need to provide truth? No, not under the functions of the Human Rights Act. … Section 3(1) states that if something 'indicates discrimination' and 'is likely to expose to hatred or contempt' is a basis for action."

Similar restrictions have been found valid for broadcasting, officials said. And websites and books also will have to be edited, since those were the primary issue affecting MMOutreach when it used to operate in Canada.

"They said if we were just preaching our own Gospel, and weren't criticizing anybody else, we could continue," Mrs. MacGregor told WND in the earlier case. "If you're going to defend the Gospel, you've got to criticize sometimes."

For example, the ministry addresses the issue of "fads," including a "creeping Eastern mysticism" appearing in some churches, "turning meaningful prayer meetings into mind-emptying rituals called contemplative prayer promising experiences of a spiritual nature."

"Feelings have often replaced the solid word of God," their website warns.

Mrs. MacGregor told WND the government ultimatum was that she would have to preach that "all religions are equal," but she could not work within such restrictions.

"We wrote on Feb. 7 and voluntarily revoked our [license] ourselves," she said. "We said this auditor requires us to compromise our Christian faith, which we cannot do."

"You're not allowed in Canada to speak in a persuasive way about your own faith," she said.

The U.S. proposal was launched in the House of Representatives as H.R. 1592 and would have punished crimes based on the "actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability…"

The immediate concern – and still unresolved worry – expressed by Christian radio broadcasters, ministers and others was: If someone attacks a homosexual, will those speaking against homosexuality also be charged for inciting violence?

World Net Daily
March, 2008
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MEDIA MATTERS
Dutch MP's anti-Quran film debuts on Web
17-minute 'documentary' juxtaposes images of Islam's holy book with terror attacks

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Defying the wishes of the government of the Netherlands, a Dutch MP has posted his 17-minute documentary on the Quran, juxtaposing images of Islam's holy book with terror attacks and bombings by Muslim extremists.

Geert Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party, released "Fitna," an Arabic word meaning strife, on the political party's website today, but it disappeared a short time later due to "technical difficulties," reported the London Times.

The film is currently viewable on the British video-sharing website, LiveLeak.com, in Dutch and English.

 

 

 

Wilder, an outspoken critic of the "Islamization" of the West, released the film after weeks of debate couched in terms of free speech and religious bigotry as well as fears of violence like that following the Danish publication of cartoons depicting Muhammed.

Wilders said he understood Muslims could be upset by the film but said that was not his purpose in producing it.

"It remains widely within the framework of the law ... My film was not made to provoke violence," he said.

Plans to put the film on the Internet were briefly stalled earlier this week when the domain registrar, Network Solutions, refused to host Wilder's Internet domain.

That controversy, as well as threats by Muslim groups to seek an injunction, did not deter LiveLeak.com, which issued the following statement:

"LiveLeak.com has a strict stance on remaining unbiased and allowing freedom of speech so far as the law and our rules allow. There was no legal reason to refuse Geert Wilders the right to post his film and it is not our place to censor people based on an emotive response."

The film has been condemned by Wilder's government. The Dutch foreign minister, Maxime Verhagen, called it irresponsible after rioting Muslims killed over 50 people following publication of the Danish cartoons.

"The film equates Islam with violence. We reject that interpretation," Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch prime minister, said.

"We believe it serves no purpose other than to offend," he added.

Early critics had expressed fears Wilder would show a copy of the Quran being destroyed in his film but the ending offered a slight surprise.

As someone leafs through the Quran, a sound of tearing is heard.

"The sound you heard was from a page [being torn out] of the phone book. It is not up to me, but up to the Muslims themselves to tear the spiteful verses from the Quran," the screen text read. "Stop Islamization. Defend our freedom," it concluded.

World Net Daily
March, 2008
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GLOBAL JIHAD
Bold ex-Muslim threatened by top sheik
Wafa Sultan shocks Islamic TV audience again, Al Jazeera apologizes

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Wafa Sultan – the Syria-born psychiatrist whose Al Jazeera interview two years ago sent shockwaves throughout the Islamic world – reportedly is the target of a serious tacit death threat from an influential Muslim scholar in the wake of a second interview with the Arab satellite television network.

Al Jazeera issued an apology after Sultan's interview earlier this month, pointing to "offensive remarks" but never specifying anything she said. Since then, however, the prominent Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi of Egypt "has directed his rage against Sultan," writes author and Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer in FrontPage Magazine

Qaradawi said Sultan, a former Muslim, uttered "unbearable, ghastly things that made my hair stand on end." Specifically, "she had the audacity to publicly curse Allah, his prophet, the Quran, the history of Islam and the Islamic nation."

Spencer concludes, "These are serious charges, and Qaradawi states them in terms that his jihadist minions will understand as meaning that she must be killed.

"Given that Qaradawi has justified suicide attacks against Israeli civilians and American soldiers in Iraq, it is clear that he has no distaste for violence, and thus law enforcement officials should take his latest fulminations against Wafa Sultan very seriously indeed," Spencer writes.

In her Al Jazeera appearance this month, she defended the Danish cartoons of Muhammad that have sparked violence by Muslims around the globe.

"The reactions of the Muslims, which were characterized by savageness, barbarism, and backwardness, only increased the value of these cartoons and gave them more importance than they merited, simply because they proved that these cartoons were true, and that the message they were conveying was true." Sultan said.

"The Muslim is an irrational creature ruled by instincts," she declared. "Those teachings have deprived him of his mind, incited his emotions and reduced him to the level of an inferior creature that cannot control himself or react to events rationally."

An Egyptian Islamist, Tal'at Rmeih, who debated Sultan on the March 4 Al Jazeera show, replied: "God help me. First, Islam is too great to be harmed by the publisher of the cartoon, or by that woman who is talking over there. The truth is that everything she said is 100 percent false, I'm sad to say. It seems to me that the American and Zionist intelligence agencies have begun to produce people who are hostile to their own nation."

Spencer points out that Qaradawi – who was praised by Saudi-funded U.S. academic John Esposito as a "reformist" – in 2006 exhorted Muslims to fight against Israel by invoking the traditional saying of Muhammad, that on the Day of Judgment "even the stones and the trees will speak, with or without words, and say: 'Oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim, there's a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'"

Sultan first drew attention worldwide in a February 2006 Al-Jazeera interview that spread across the Internet through a video clip produced by the Middle East Media Research Institute.

In her interview this month, Sultan charged that if Islam "were not the way it is, those cartoons would never have appeared. They did not appear out of the blue, and the cartoonist did not dig them out of his imagination. Rather, they are a reflection of his knowledge."

"Westerners who read the words of the Prophet Muhammad, 'Allah has given me sustenance under the shadow of my sword,' cannot imagine Muhammad's turban in the shape of a dove of peace rather than in the shape of a bomb," she said. "The Muslims must learn how to listen to the criticism of others, and maybe then they will reexamine their terrorist teachings."

Qaradawi fired back, saying her statements are "all based on ignorance," contending she has no knowledge of the Quran or Sunna, the body of customs based on the acts of Muhammad. The sheik also

Spencer says Qaradawi falsely charges – "with stinging irony in light of his support for suicide attacks" – that Sultan "sanctions the killing of Muslims in Gaza and elsewhere, claiming that they deserve to be killed."

Sultan, says Spencer, has "yet again shown up the hollowness of the denial, obfuscation, and finger-pointing that all too many Islamic leaders engage in rather than embarking upon the searching self-reflection" she urges along with and other "defenders of universal human rights and human dignity."

"Wafa Sultan is a national and international treasure," Spencer says. "The American government should be rushing to protect her against any who might be motivated to act by the distortions of the thuggish Qaradawi."

Named to Time Magazine's list of 100 influential people in the world, Sultan told WND in 2006 Bush's insistence Islam is a religion of peace has been "empowering" to Muslim leaders whose ultimate aim is for Islamic law to govern the world.

In her February 2006 Al-Jazeera appearance, which first brought her death threats, she asserted the world is witnessing "a battle between modernity and barbarism which Islam will lose."

The video clip is estimated to have been viewed at least 1 million times, according to the New York Times.

Sultan's 2006 interview found her squaring off with Al-Jazeera host Faisal al-Qasim and Islamic scholar Ibrahim Al-Khouli about Samuel P. Huntington's "clash of civilizations" theory. The exchange took place on the 90-minute discussion program "The Opposite Direction," with Sultan speaking via satellite from Los Angeles.

"The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations," she said. "It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings. What we see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash, but compete."

World Net Daily
March, 2008
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MEDIA MATTERS
Savage lawyers aim at CAIR paymasters
Muslim group bankrolled by Arab states tied to 9/11

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 Preparing an appeal of a dismissed lawsuit against the Council of American-Islamic Relations, talk radio host Michael Savage and his legal team have taken a new tack, investigating CAIR's foreign financial backers, WND has learned.

CAIR is registered as a nonprofit organization recognized as tax-exempt under IRS code section 501(c)(3), which restricts "lobbying on behalf of a foreign government." CAIR's website claims that it receives no foreign government support.

However, CAIR's headquarters near the U.S. Capitol until recently was owned by the ruler of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and the ruler's foundation has pledged $50 million to capitalize a long-term CAIR public-relations campaign.

"This should start to get interesting," said a member of Savage's legal team.

The UAE formally recognized the Taliban, and Dubai acted as the transit point for cash for the 9/11 hijackers and the staging ground for the entire plot. Two of the hijackers were Emirates, and one served in the UAE military.

Before 9/11, the ruler of Dubai, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, requisitioned (as then-UAE defense minister) C-130 military cargo planes to supply Osama bin Laden's former camps in Kandahar, Afghanistan, according to U.S. intelligence officials. Sheik Mohammed and other members of the UAE royal family joined bin Laden and Taliban leaders on hunting parties there.

His Al Maktoum Foundation – which until 2005 held the deed to CAIR's headquarters just three blocks from the Capitol – has held telethons to raise money for families of Palestinian "martyrs" during the intifada against Israel. It recently pledged a $50 million endowment for CAIR.

Despite enjoying major support from the UAE government, CAIR is not registered as a lobbyist or agent for a foreign government. Savage's lawyers are investigating whether the group has legal standing to boycott his radio show and attack his advertisers as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

"CAIR would have to register as a foreign agent if their activities were not hidden under the false claim that they are a civil-rights organization that enjoys tax-exempt status," said Daniel Horowitz, Savage's lead attorney in the case.

Meantime, WND has learned that the Republican leadership in Congress is seeking hearings to also investigate CAIR's foreign financing.

CAIR argues that any assertions that it receives money from foreign governments is "disinformation."

"This is yet another attempt to invent a controversy," it said. "CAIR's operational budget is funded by donations from American Muslims."

Even so, CAIR has never publicly acknowledged the $1 million controlling interest that the ruler of Dubai's foundation took in its national headquarters just one year after 9/11.

The group also received $500,000 from Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the sheik whose $10 million relief check after 9/11 was rejected by then-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani after he blamed U.S. policy toward Israel for the attacks.

"There is nothing criminal or immoral about accepting donations from foreign nationals," CAIR asserted. "The U.S. government, corporations and non-profit organizations routinely receive money from foreign nationals.

"Bin Talal is not a member of the Saudi Arabian government," the group added in a statement. "He is a private entrepreneur and international investor."

This may be a distinction without a difference, Savage's lawyers argue, since bin Talal is a member of the Saudi ruling family.

"CAIR is proud to receive support of every individual," CAIR argued, "as long as they are not an official of any foreign government and there are no strings attached to the bequest."

The group remains silent about donations from Sheik Mohammed, however, the ruler of Dubai and the prime minister of the UAE, who suggested after 9/11 that Israel and America are the real "terrorists."

UAE has supported Hamas "martyrs," while CAIR recently was named by the U.S. Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator in a terror scheme to funnel more than $12 million to Hamas suicide bombers and their families. Federal prosecutors in a more recent case said in court documents that CAIR is a radical front group working with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas "to support terrorists."

The UAE's $50 million endowment, pledged in 2006, puts in jeopardy CAIR's current IRS status, Savage's lawyers argue. They say CAIR more resembles a foreign-controlled lobbying group – "a paid agent for an Arab state tied to 9/11" – and the UAE may be working through CAIR to shut down debate about Islam on the American airwaves through the intimidation of media and their advertisers.

According to federal law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act requires registration as an agent of a foreign principal when an organization acts on the order, request or under the direction or control of a foreign principal, or whose activities are directed by a foreign principal when that person engages in political activities for or in the interest of such foreign principal, or acts in a public-relations capacity for a foreign principal.

The UAE endowment to CAIR was earmarked for public-relations efforts to repair the image of Arabs and Muslims in America after public outrage doomed a Dubai bid to run U.S. ports.

Lawyers now argue that CAIR, in turn, may have used UAE funds and other foreign support to attack "The Savage Nation" show for criticizing Islam, and to target its advertisers, including Wal-Mart, GEICO and Sprint Nextel.

"If the image of Islam and Muslims is not repaired in America, Muslim and Arab business interests will continue to be on a downward slide in the U.S.," CAIR Chairman Parvez Ahmad was quoted in the Arab press as saying after meeting with the UAE minister of finance in Dubai and receiving the funding pledge.

What's more, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a UAE press release: "The endowment will serve as a source of income and will further allow us to reinvigorate our media campaign projecting Islam and its principles of tolerance."

In addition, the press release stated that UAE also "endorsed a proposal to build a property in the United States to serve as an endowment for CAIR."

The Arab press said CAIR was acquiring land for a new $24 million seven-story building.

A federal judge in California earlier this week dismissed Savage's lawsuit seeking damages against CAIR, which was originally filed late last year. Savage is appealing the case.

As part of its background check of CAIR, Savage's California-based lawyers and investigators have been "looking into the CAIR headquarters in D.C."

CAIR claims it receives no foreign support, but land records contradict that claim. In fact, the Al-Maktoum Foundation of Dubai held the deed to its property from 2002 to at least 2005.

"According to records made public by (investigative journalist and author) Paul Sperry, CAIR purchased its national headquarters in 1999 through an unusual lease-purchase transaction with the United Bank of Kuwait," said Middle East Forum president Daniel Pipes. "The bank was the deed holder and leased the building to CAIR; yet despite not owning the building, CAIR recorded the property on its balance sheet as a property asset valued at $2.6 million."

"This arrangement changed in September 2002 when CAIR bought out the Kuwaiti bank with funds provided, at least in part, by Al-Maktoum Foundation, based in Dubai and headed by Dubai's (former) crown prince and defense minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum," Pipes continued. "The markings on the deed indicate that the foundation provided 'purchase money to the extent of $978,031.34' to CAIR, or roughly one-third the value of the property."

Here is the first page of the document filed with the District of Columbia Recorder of Deeds as a "Deed of Trust," or mortgage agreement, between CAIR and the Al-Maktoum Foundation, as posted by Sperry, author of "INFILTRATION: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington." Sperry details the real estate transactions in the chapter of his book called, "The Dark Lair of CAIR."

CAIR's then-chairman Omar Ahmad's signature appears on page four of the document. Ahmad recently was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Hamas terror-fundraising case.

What's more, CAIR lists the Zahara Investment Corp. as a "related organization" on its IRS tax form 990. Curiously, Zahara was listed as a tax-exempt entity in 2002, but the next year it became a non-tax-exempt entity, which raises the question how a tax-exempt nonprofit like CAIR can be "related" to a for-profit investment firm.

"One only wonders what a more complete investigation of its real estate transactions would turn up," Pipes said.

Savage's legal team hopes to do just that with the help of a court-ordered discovery process.

World Net Daily
March, 2008
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MEDIA MATTERS
WorldNetDaily
CAIR seeks dismissal of Savage lawsuit
Judge to issue ruling soon in case linking organization to terror

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A judge in California has taken under advisement a request by the Council on Islamic-American Relations to dismiss a lawsuit filed by radio talk show host Michael Savage.

The San Francisco-based talker originally accused the organization of copyright violations, but later amended the action to include allegations the group "has consistently sought to silence opponents of violent terror through economic blackmail, frivolous but costly lawsuits, threats of lawsuits and abuses of the legal system."

The action in U.S. District Court in Northern California also charges CAIR with using extortion, threats, abuse of the court system, and obtaining money via interstate commerce under false and fraudulent circumstances – calling it a "political vehicle of international terrorism" and even linking the group with support of al-Qaida.

The federal government, in fact, recently named CAIR, based in Washington, D.C., as an unindicted co-conspirator in an alleged scheme to funnel $12 million to the terrorist group Hamas.

The lawsuit was the subject of court hearing today, and according to a report from the Associated Press, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said she was "leaning toward tossing out" the action.

She did say she likely would allow Savage's lawyer to submit a revised complaint to keep the case alive, the report said.

Savage's attorney Daniel Horowitz said the copyright claim was valid because CAIR used Savage's material "for purely commercial purposes," but the judge said she found free speech arguments persuasive.

As WND has reported, CAIR has been associated with a disturbing number of convicted terrorists or felons in terrorism probes, as well as suspected terrorists and active targets of terrorism investigations.

"Groups like CAIR have a proven record of senior officials being indicted and either imprisoned or deported from the United States," said U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., co-founder of the House Anti-Terrorism/Jihad Caucus.

Savage and Horowitz, a celebrity civil rights attorney, are trying to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to make the case that "CAIR and its co-conspirators have aided, abetted and materially sponsored al-Qaida and international terrorism."

CAIR launched a campaign against "The Savage Nation," as the program is called, using extended audio clips of the show to make the case that advertisers who supported the talker were actually endorsing "hate speech" against Muslims.

Savage turned the tables on the activist group by initially suing for copyright violation of the show's material, then expanding the case.

Among the charges is that CAIR is "part of a deliberately complex and deliberately confusing array of related organizations" and that its "organizational structure is part of a scheme to hide the illegal activities of the group, funding, the transfer of funds and to complicate investigation of the group."

Other highlights of the suit:

 

• "CAIR is not a civil rights organization and it never has been. - CAIR was and is a political organization that advocates a specific political agenda on behalf of foreign interests."
  
  
• "The copyright infringement was done to raise funds for CAIR so that it could perpetuate and continue to perform its role in the RICO conspiracy set forth in Count Two and to disseminate propaganda on behalf of foreign interests that are opposed to the continued existence of the United States of America as a free nation."
  
  
• "CAIR would have to register as a foreign agent if their activities were not hidden under the false claim that they are a civil rights organization that enjoys tax-exempt status."
  
  
• "CAIR was tied to terror from the day it was formed. The group was incorporated on or about 1994 by Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad. Both men were officers of a terror organization known as the 'Islamic Association of Palestine.'"
  
  
• "CAIR's parent group, IAP, was founded in or about 1982 by Musa Abu Marzook. Marzook was IAP's ideological leader and controlling director from the date of its founding until shortly after his deportation from the United States in 1997. At all time relevant, Marzook was an operative of, and/or affiliated with, the 'Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah,' or 'Hamas.' Hamas is an international terrorist organization."
  
  
• In 1998, "CAIR demanded the removal of a Los Angeles billboard describing Osama bin Laden as 'the sworn enemy,' asserting that this depiction [was] 'offensive to Muslims.'"
  
  
• In 1998, "CAIR denied bin Laden's responsibility for the two al-Qaida bombings of American embassies in Africa. CAIR's leader Ibrahim Hooper claimed the bombings resulted from 'misunderstandings on both sides.'"
  
  
• "On October 5, 2001, just weeks after 9/11, CAIR's New York office sent a letter to The New York Times arguing that the paper had misidentified three of the hijackers and suggesting that the attacks may have been committed by people who were impersonating Arab Muslims."
  
  
• "CAIR further exploited 9/11 as it put on its website a picture of the World Trade Center in flames and below it a call for donations that was linked to the Holy Land Foundation website." The Holy Land Foundation, the suit charges, is "a terror organization."
  

World Net Daily
March, 2008
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HOMELAND INSECURITY
Study: 3 in 4 U.S. mosques preach anti-West extremism
Secret survey exposes widespread radicalism

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An undercover survey of more than 100 mosques and Islamic schools in America has exposed widespread radicalism, including the alarming finding that 3 in 4 Islamic centers are hotbeds of anti-Western extremism, WND has learned.

The Mapping Sharia in America Project, sponsored by the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, has trained former counterintelligence and counterterrorism agents from the FBI, CIA and U.S. military, who are skilled in Arabic and Urdu, to conduct undercover reconnaissance at some 2,300 mosques and Islamic centers and schools across the country.

"So far of 100 mapped, 75 should be on a watchlist," an official familiar with the project said.

Many of the Islamic centers are operating under the auspices of the Saudi Arabian government and U.S. front groups for the radical Muslim Brotherhood based in Egypt.

Frank Gaffney, a former Pentagon official who runs the Center for Security Policy, says the results of the survey have not yet been published. But he confirmed that "the vast majority" are inciting insurrection and jihad through sermons by Saudi-trained imams and anti-Western literature, videos and textbooks.

The project, headed by David Yerushalmi, a lawyer and expert on sharia law, has finished collecting data from the first cohort of 102 mosques and schools. Preliminary findings indicate that almost 80 percent of the group exhibit a high level of sharia-compliance and jihadi threat, including:

• Ultra-orthodox worship in which women are separated from men in the prayer hall and must enter the mosque from a separate, usually back, entrance; and are required to wear hijabs.

• Sermons that preach women are inferior to men and can be beaten for disobedience; that non-Muslims, particularly Jews, are infidels and inferior to Muslims; that jihad or support of jihad is not only a Muslim's duty but the noblest way, and suicide bombers and other so-called "martyrs" are worthy of the highest praise; and that an Islamic caliphate should one day encompass the U.S.

• Solicitation of financial support for jihad.

• Bookstores that sell books, CDs and DVDs promoting jihad and glorifying martyrdom.

Though not all mosques in America are radicalized, many have tended to serve as safe havens and meeting points for Islamic terrorist groups. Experts say there are at least 40 episodes of extremists and terrorists being connected to mosques in the past decade alone.

Some of the 9/11 hijackers, in fact, received aid and counsel from one of the largest mosques in the Washington, D.C., area. Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center is one of the mosques indentified by undercover investigators as a hive of terrorist activity and other extremism.

It was founded and is currently run by leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. Imams there preach what is called "jihad qital," which means physical jihad, and incite violence and hatred against the U.S.

Dar al-Hijrah's ultimate goal, investigators say, is to turn the U.S. into an Islamic state governed by sharia law.

Another D.C.-area mosque, the ADAMS Center, was founded and financed by members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and has been one of the top distributors of Wahhabist anti-Semitic and anti-Christian dogma.

Even with such radical mosques operating in its backyard, the U.S. government has not undertaken its own systematic investigation of U.S. mosques.

In contrast, European Union security officials are analyzing member-state mosques, examining the training and funding sources of imams, in a large-scale project.

Some U.S. lawmakers want the U.S. to conduct its own investigation.

"We have too many mosques in this country," said Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y. "There are too many people who are sympathetic to radical Islam. We should be looking at them more carefully."

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World Net Daily
February, 2008
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HOMELAND INSECURITY
Islamist 'Trojan horse' in Pentagon, say experts
FBI: Top defense advisers linked to radical Muslim Brotherhood

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Federal authorities say a high-level Muslim Pentagon aide, who led a campaign to silence a Pentagon intelligence analyst for taking a hard line against Islam, is running an "influence operation" on behalf of U.S. Muslim groups fronting for the radical Muslim Brotherhood.

Hesham H. Islam, a special assistant to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, recently criticized Maj. Stephen Coughlin, one of the military's leading authorities on Islamic war doctrine, for making the connection between the religion of Islam and terrorism.

After Islam lodged complaints, Coughlin's contract with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon was not renewed.

Islam also was upset with briefings Coughlin recently prepared for the U.S. military warning that major U.S. Muslim groups were fronting for the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihadist movement based in Egypt.

Islam, who was born and raised in Egypt, is heavily involved with one of the groups – the Islamic Society of North America, which U.S. prosecutors last year named as a member of the U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and an unindicted co-conspirator in a major terror-funding case.

Islam has persuaded his boss, England, to conduct various outreach with ISNA, including hosting the group's leaders in the Pentagon and speaking at its annual convention.

Speaking during ISNA's 2006 opening ceremonies, England proclaimed, "There is no contradiction between the peaceful religion of Islam and America's values and principles."

Coughlin reached the opposite conclusion in a 329-page report submitted to the National Defense Intelligence College, in which he warns that Islamic law sanctions violence. That finding, among others, has put him at odds with Islam, whom England describes as "my personal close confidante."

"I take his advice," England said, "and I listen to him all the time."

WND has learned that Islam is closely associated with a Muslim military chaplain trained at a radical Islamic school that federal agents raided after 9/11 in connection with terror-financing.

As WND reported, the chaplain, Abuhena M. Saifulislam, studied Islam at the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences in Virginia.

Recently declassified FBI documents reveal its sister organization, an Islamist think tank known as the International Institute of Islamic Thought, or IIIT, is involved in a Muslim Brotherhood conspiracy to wage a cultural and political jihad to eventually take over America from within – most notably, through infiltration of government agencies.

Islam works closely with Saifulislam (Arabic for "sword of Islam") on Pentagon outreach projects involving Middle Eastern embassies and the so-called Wahhabi lobby in Washington.

"He's a Muslim brother," an FBI official said of Islam. "He's a bad actor. He's well-positioned to be where he is, and that doesn't do us any good."

He also said Saifulislam is "definitely Muslim Brotherhood," while noting that Islam "is a lot smoother than Saifulislam," who as a chaplain at Gitmo lobbied for special meals and other privileges for al-Qaida detainees.

The official hastened to add that, at this point, belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood is not criminal, and neither Defense Department employee is the subject of a formal counterterrorism or counterespionage investigation. Both men have refused interviews, and the Pentagon had no comment.

However, the FBI official warned that the Muslim aides are part of a conspiracy by Muslim Brotherhood fronts to run "influence operations" against the U.S. government.

"Their M.O. is to make nice for the very purpose of penetrating us," he said, "and we just roll over for them, at least at the top levels."

He says England, who also recently dedicated an Islamic prayer center at Quantico on the advice of Saifulislam, is blind to the threat.

"England doesn't know it's an influence operation that's been laid at his door," he said. "His lack of awareness is irresponsible."

A senior U.S. official who has met with England says he was not even aware that a convicted terrorist and al-Qaida fund-raiser created the Pentagon's Muslim chaplains corps.

Adurahman Alamoudi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader and founder of the American Muslim Council, placed Muslim chaplains throughout the military. He is now in jail on charges of terrorism. However, most of the chaplains he trained and sponsored are still in their current positions.

"The Islamic chaplains who serve were trained by a known terrorist," said terrorism expert Steve Emerson.

Emerson says Islam, like Alamoudi, has invited "subversive" elements into U.S. military headquarters.

"Hesham Islam is an Islamist with a pro-Muslim Brotherhood bent who has brought in groups to the Pentagon who have been unindicted co-conspirators," he said.

Emerson said a "Trojan horse" of subversives and potential spies have penetrated deep inside the Pentagon, and they are now bearing fruit with the ouster of Coughlin. Sources say Islam has high security clearance.

A former Pentagon colleague of Coughlin described Islam as a "gatekeeper," who at a minimum, is blocking candid discussion of the religious nature of the threat posed by Muslim terrorists. Such action, William Gawthrop says, thwarts the U.S. war effort, because it denies military brass and rank-and-file the information they need to effectively fight the Islamist enemy.

"We still do not have an in-depth understanding of the war-fighting doctrine laid down by (the Muslim prophet) Muhammad, how it might be applied today by an increasing number of Islamic groups, or how it might be countered," Gawthrop told WND.

He says Coughlin was trying to bridge that gap before being pushed out.

Supporters of the respected contractor say Islam had a direct hand in his firing. They say that on Jan. 3 Coughlin was told his contract, which ends in March, would not be renewed because his message had become too "politically hot."

They say that in a meeting late last year between Coughlin and a member of England's staff, which Islam unexpectedly attended, Islam asked Coughlin to "soften his message" regarding Islamic war doctrine. Coughlin refused.

Islam was heard referring to Coughlin as a "Christian zealot with a poison pen." The conflict resulted in his contract being terminated.

A well-placed Pentagon insider described it differently, however. Islam and Coughlin were present at the briefing, but there was no direct confrontation between the two. It was not until Hesham returned to England's office suite that he remarked that Coughlin had a "poison pen."

"He clearly doesn't like him," the source told WND.

Also, Coughlin was let go in part because his contract was up, and at $440,000, it was too steep to justify renewing, the insider says. And though he had written a 329-page thesis on the subject, he was not effective at briefing the J-2 intelligence staff of the Joint Chiefs.

"He's brilliant, and he knows his stuff, but he couldn't teach it," the source said. "It went over everybody's head."

Still, England has not properly vetted his long-time aide, Islam. "Gordon is so trusting of this guy because he's worked for him for so long," the same official said. "But he's got questionable contacts, and he (England) needs to have his antennae up."

World Net Daily
February, 2008
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TESTING THE FAITH
'No one leaves Islam,' judge rules
Egyptian court bans convert to Christianity from changing ID card

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No one ever leaves Islam, according to a judge in Egypt who has cited Islamic religious law in rejecting a request from a Muslim convert to Christianity to be allowed to change his religious affiliation on his national identification card.

In a decision that forecasts more and more decisions being based on Shari'a, Islam's religious law, Judge Muhammad Husseini has concluded it violates the law for a Muslim to leave Islam.

According to a report from Compass Direct News, the judge found that the convert, Muhammad Hegazy, "can believe whatever he wants in his heart, but on paper he can't convert."

The report said Husseini cited Article II of the Egyptian constitution, making Islamic religious law the "source" of Egyptian secular law, as the basis for his conclusion.

Since Islam is the "final" and "most complete" religion, Muslims already have full freedom of religion and are not allowed to return to the "less complete" Christianity or Judaism, the ruling said.

It's a new peak in the rise of Islam in Egypt, which The Middle East Review of International Affairs said began with Anwar Sadat's tenure in power.

"He then initiated what one could, in hindsight, term 'the Great Islamic Transformation' of Egypt. The first step was to stipulate in the Second Article of his new Constitution, promulgated in 1971 (long before Khomeini embarked on his Islamic revolutionary campaign), that the Principles of Islamic Shari'a were 'a main source' of legislation. In May 1981, the 'a' was replaced with 'the,' making Shari'a the term of reference for the entire constitution, meaning all other articles were to be interpreted in that light," the organization said.

"The curricula of public schools, established by the Ministry of Education, ignore the Coptic era in Egypt's history. Courses glorifying Islam (the 'Only True Religion') and its history, while vilifying the crusaders (i.e. Christians) and the Jews, are imposed on all students," the group said.

"In the case of a father of a Christian family converting to Islam, his minor children are forced to follow suit: The mother's custody rights – a well established legal principle – are ignored in this case, as children, according to typical court rulings, are supposed to follow the 'better (or 'more noble') of the two religions,'" the group said.

On the pro-freedom website called Sons of Apes and Pigs, a commentary noted that the Egyptian court decision "went on and issued a very explicit warning to Muhammad Hegazy, his wife and their lawyer, that going against the tide would provoke civil unrest and exacerbate emotions in the Egyptian society."

"Freedom of religion doesn't mean getting in and out of Islam to another religion, but only means that each person is free to practice his own religious rites, and not playing games with Islam or contradicting Shari'a law," the website said the judge concluded.

The website, which said it took its name from Quranic descriptions of Christians and Jews, said Westerners don't realize the significance of having a national ID card listing the carrier as Muslim.

"If you get caught going to a church while your religion on your ID is Muslim, that could get you arrested, questioned and tortured," the commentary said. "The latest victim was a 27-year-old woman, Mrs. Sherreen, mother of two children from Alexandria, Egypt. She died at the police station on Jan. 3, 2008, after five hours of torture for refusing to renounce her Christian faith and come back to Islam."

The website noted in Egypt, children of parents with Muslim IDs automatically are Muslims, and they are required to follow mandatory Islamic indoctrination classes, and Muslims cannot marry non-Muslims.

It also said to apply for any job, an applicant must provide the state-designated religious affiliation.

The website also noted according to multiple media reports, Hegazy's father issued a statement that, "when I'll meet my son, I will discuss with him the reasons and circumstances that 'forced' him to leave Islam, and will offer him the opportunity to come back to Islam, but in case he refuses, I will kill him immediately."

Press reports say Hegazy's case was the first time someone had sought to make a change from Islam in the religious designation on an official national ID card.

Hegazy has reported he was studying various religions, and found he was not consistent with Islam.

"The major issue for me was love. Islam wasn't promoting love as Christianity did," he said.

As a result of his conversion he's reported being arrested and tortured several times, but it's opened wide the eyes of observers, the Apes and Pigs website said.

"Muhammad Hegazy's case dynamited the Islamic mountain of lies, propaganda and false pride," the commentary said. "Not only in Egypt, but all over the Arab world. Exposed to the world [was] the deception of the Islamic governments, Egypt in particular … [of] 'no compulsion in religion.'"

According to the Compass Direct report, Gamal Eid, head of the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, whose lawyers have been representing the convert, said that he was disappointed with the verdict.

"The judge didn't listen to our defense, and we didn't even have a chance to talk before the court,” Eid said.

Meanwhile, death threats have forced the couple, whose new daughter is only a month old, into hiding.

Compass also reported that at least partly because of the case, lawyers in Egypt now are trying to force the government to outlaw conversion from Islam in secular law as well as religious law.

WND previously has reported on a ruling from a U.S. federal court that an Egyptian Christian who had fled his home nation "most assuredly has a right not to be tortured." The ruling allowed the Egyptian Christian to remain in the United States.

The court pointedly concluded that "diplomatic assurances" of his religious rights "by a country known to have engaged in torture" weren't reassuring.

A report from the Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights concluded Coptic Christians in Egypt have been harassed, tortured and killed by Muslims for 1,400 years.

"They have been subjected to all kinds of hate crimes including, the abduction of young Coptic girls, the killing of Coptic women and children and the destruction of their places of worship," the report said.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, an agency created by Congress, also lists Egypt on its watch list of countries, noting it had "a poor overall human rights record."

In addition, Egyptian authorities have threatened two young boys who were ordered to take training to be Muslims, but refused, stating they are Christian.

World Net Daily
February, 2008
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VIDEONETDAILY
Christian warriors to eat 'Muhammad'
Political TV hosts fed up with PC Islam will devour cookie with face of prophet

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A new, cutting-edge, political TV show will challenge Islam with biting humor tomorrow night, placing the face of the prophet Muhammad onto a cookie and then having it eaten on camera.

"We're going to take a stand and say Muhammad's face is delicious," said Molotov Mitchell, the 28-year-old incendiary creator and host of "Flamethrower," a program described as a low-budget, gritty cross between the "The Daily Show," "The Colbert Report," and "The View" if Ann Coulter were the producer. "This is religious and culinary history in the making."

The theme of this week's episode is "All Things Islam," as panelists take on the faith of Muslims in a no-holds-barred fashion.

"Islam is not even a religion," Mitchell told WND from a location somewhere in Eastern North Carolina. "It's an ideology of 'might makes right' disguised as a religion. We're going to show that Allah was with us when we baked this cookie and ate it. Deal with it!"

Mitchell and his fellow panelists – all of whom are Christians in their 20s and whom he calls the next generation of conservatism – are trying to make the point that America is still a free country, and there's no need to cower in fear from Islamo-fascism. He laments the frequency of Islamic suicide bombings, giving a new twist to a famous line from "It's a Wonderful Life," by stating, "Every time a bell rings, a Muhammad gets his wives."

In recent years, European cartoons featuring Muhammad have caused a tidal wave of violent protests and death threats, as Islamic tradition bans depictions of the prophet.

"What were doing is exercising our freedom of speech and freedom of the press to the fullest in order to challenge a tyrannical, oppressive system that has doomed the cultures and countries of the Middle East for centuries," Mitchell told WND. "Now it's trying to invade our borders, and somebody has to speak up about it."

In its two previous episodes, "Flamethrower" has taken on subjects including "Is it ethical to kill abortionists?" and "Let's invade Mexico" – not to stay, but just to get rid of the drug cartels.

There's also a regular segment titled, "WWMD? (What Would Muhammad Do?)"

In it, cast members dress in traditional Muslim clothing and deliver "totally atrocious" real news items, recounting, says Mitchell, "what some jerk named Muhammad did this week."

"I'm not going to be hurt and insulted. I'm going to ask people to ignore this," said Iftekhar Hai, president of United Muslims of America Interfaith Alliance in South San Francisco. "They would dare not do it to any Jewish person, saying 'the Jews killed Jesus.' The Jewish lobby would slaughter the Christians if they did that."

"I don't think this is part of the American character," Hai added, "but it has become part of the American tradition to only pick on Muslims."

Mitchell says politics is the driving force of his show, saying, "The [Christian] church really doesn't seem to get it when it comes to politics. The church likes to ask, 'What would Jesus do?' But it often suggests Jesus would hug somebody for every situation, and that's not what Jesus would do. I'd rather ask, 'What would George Washington do?'"

A video teaser for the program offers a sample exchange between Mitchell and Fox News host Alan Colmes.

"Muhammad murdered people and he married a 9-year-old. That makes him a murdering pedophile," said Mitchell. "I don't think that we should burn the Quran. I'm a Christian environmentalist. We should put that thing to use. I mean, at least get some toilet paper out of it."

"Your kind of attitude is a really despicable attitude," responded Colmes.

World Net Daily
January, 2008
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FIRST AMENDMENT ON TRIAL
City sued for arresting pastor on public sidewalk
Police take just 195 seconds to detain 'peaceful' Christian leader

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A lawsuit has been filed against the city of Wichita, Kan., and several of its police officers on behalf of a Christian pastor arrested just for being on public property.

The civil-rights suit was filed by the Alliance Defense Fund, an advocacy organization that defends constitutional rights, on behalf of Mark Holick, pastor of Spirit One Christian Center.

Spirit One is the worship center also has been threatened by the Internal Revenue Service with an audit for posting messages on its marquee dealing with the value of human life, based on dozens of Bible references.

Holick's arrest happened last summer when a homosexual festival was being held in a public park in Wichita. He went to share his Christian faith on public property, and it took only a little longer than three minutes after his arrival for police officers to arrest him.

The trespassing charges later were dropped, but that doesn't solve the issue, according to the ADF.

"Exercising your First Amendment rights is not a crime," said Joel Oster, ADF senior legal counsel. "Arresting Christians simply because they choose to exercise those rights in a public place is unconstitutional."

The law firm noted that Holick was "attempting" to express his faith on a public sidewalk outside of an event in a public park that was celebrating homosexual behavior.

According to the records in the case, Holick had contacted the police department a week before the event and expressed his desire to communicate his religious views on the date of the homosex-fest. He was told he couldn't go into Heritage Square Park where it was being held, but was told the sidewalk would be his "friend."

Then on the day of the event, Holick and other church members arrived at the sidewalk outside the event and "immediately" were confronted by about 10 officers. He was ordered to leave the sidewalk or be arrested.

He asked where he could go, and he was told the public sidewalks were off-limits to him, and he could go into a nearby privately owned parking lot, the lawsuit said.

Since that was unreasonable, he refused, and was arrested, the lawsuit said.

The trespassing count later was dismissed at the city's request after officials watched a videotape that revealed the pastor was conducting himself peacefully on a public sidewalk. But when ADF lawyers sent a request to the city asking for assurances that Holick would not be "similarly harassed" at future events, the request was ignored.

"Cities should not be able to silence Christian speech by arresting the speaker, only to later drop the charges after the event is over," said Oster. "Such actions only serve to threaten future speakers and silence the Christian message."

The claim alleges violations of the First and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution. WND calls to the city went unanswered yesterday.

"Plaintiff seeks a permanent injunction and a declaration prohibiting Defendants from arresting him, or from otherwise restricting his speech, on traditional public fora due to the content and viewpoint of his speech, or because of his religion beliefs," the lawsuit said.

It describes how he "wanted to communicate the gospel message to those persons participating in and attending the Event" and "wanted to attend the Event to build connections with attendees so that he might be able to share the gospel with them later."

However, he never was allowed even to express his beliefs, because he was confronted by police officers "immediately," and within three minutes, 15 seconds had been arrested.

The lawsuit alleged the city's policies and actions were arbitrary and capricious and denied Holick's fundamental rights.

"By forcing plaintiff to choose between abandoning his religious beliefs in order to gain access to speech in the traditional public forum, or abiding by his religious beliefs only to be arrested and prosecuted, defendants have imposed a substantial burden on plaintiff's sincerely held religious beliefs," it said.

WND has reported on a series of such cases, in which Christians are arrested for praying at a homosexual festival, or when they are arrested for nothing more than having a protest sign that is "wider than their torso."

It was in Elmira, N.Y., where police arrested seven Christians who went into a public park where a "gay" fest was beginning and started to pray, faces down, while holding their Bibles.

They were cited for "disturbing the peace," and Assistant Police Chief Mike Robertson told WND that the seven are accused of a "combination" of allegations under that statute, which includes the "intent" to cause a public inconvenience, any "disturbance" of a meeting of persons, obstructing vehicular or pedestrian traffic, or taking part in "any act that serves no legitimate purpose."

Another case developed when police in St. Petersburg, Fla., arrested five Christians for carrying signs "wider than their torsos" outside an officially designated protest area at that city's homosexual festival.

St. Petersburg officials, following disturbances at a previous homosexual pride festival, implemented rules governing outdoor events that set aside "free speech zones," where protesters are allowed.

Holick's church earlier was targeted by the Internal Revenue Service for the moral statements he posted on the church's sign.

The notice he got from the IRS warned him about putting his Christian beliefs on the sign, and he responded that he would continue to preach the Word of God. Attorneys said the church has responded to the IRS demands, and has not had further contact yet.

In that case, Holick explained the signs all "are spiritual messages that communicate God's truth, or are directly related to messages in the Bible." He also provided the IRS with a list of dozens of biblical instructions, "to lift up Jesus, to rebuke sin, to save babies, to be honest, to take a righteous stand" and others.

World Net Daily
January, 2008
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ELECTION 2008
Family leaders call Romney 'disaster'
Letter criticizes 'deceptive rhetoric' around candidate

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A coalition of leaders on family issues has released a letter warning about what they describe as the deception being assembled around former Massachusetts governor and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

"Most of us are not allied with any presidential candidate," the letter says. "But we are troubled by the unethical and Orwellian cover-up of Mitt Romney's role in catastrophic events in Massachusetts, once the cradle of American liberty.

"Actions he took as governor were beyond the pale," the letter continued.

Signers include William Greene of RightMarch.com, Ted Baehr of the Christian Film and Television Commission, Linda Harvey of Mission America, Gary Glenn of American Family Association of Michigan, Michael Heath of Christian Civic League of Maine, Ray Neary of Pro-Life Massachusetts and others.

The letter cites seven issues seen as problematic in the Romney campaign, including a "phony pro-life 'conversion.'"

"Mitt Romney established abortion as a 'healthcare benefit' in his own government-run healthcare plan at $50 per abortion – after his supposed 'pro-life conversion,'" the letter said. "He created a permanent, official government role for an unelected Planned Parenthood representative on the health care board."

Second, according to the letter, "Romney told Catholic Charities' adoption and foster agency they had to give children to homosexuals even when normal mother-father families were lined up to give them a home," the letter said.

Third, "Though Romney pretends he opposed homosexual 'marriage,' he did the opposite," the letter said. "Since the notorious Goodridge court opinion discovering a constitutional right to 'gay marriage,' Romney has methodically lied about the judges' legal authority and his own legal duty to enforce the Constitution. As professor of jurisprudence Hadley Arkes pointed out, under the state Constitution, the court has no jurisdiction over marriage law."

"Mitt Romney created homosexual 'marriage.' His 'conservative' legal experts are aggressively covering up both his role and the plain language of the Supreme Law of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts," the letter said.

The letter also said Romney opposed a citizen's drive to remove the "four rogue judges," he personally "issued more than 190 special one-day certificates to allow homosexual 'marriages,'" and boosted government funding for homosexual indoctrination.

"The truth is this: Mitt Romney's fictional defense of natural marriage, childhood innocence, life in the womb and constitutional governance is sustained only by our silence in the face [of] overwhelming propaganda," the letter said.

Other signers include John O'Gorman of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, Peter LaBarbera of Republicans for Family Values, Diane Gramley of American Family Association of Pennsylvania, John Haskins of The Parents' Rights Coalition, Gregg Jackson of the "Pundit Review," William Cotter of Operation Rescue Boston, Brian Camenker of MassResistance, Mark Charalambous of CPF-Father Coalition Massachusetts, Judge Ned Kirby, the former assistant minority leader in the Massachusetts Senate and Edgar Kelley, former assistant U.S. Attorney in Massachusetts.

The letter also criticized those in the conservative community who are supporting Romney, accusing them of "gross malpractice, ruthless ambition and dishonesty."

"Behind the empty gestures and deceptive rhetoric, Romney was not pro-life or a defender of marriage by any stretch of the imagination. He was a disaster," said O'Gorman, of the board for Massachusetts Citizens for Life.

He said Romney "deceptively" claims to have been awarded a pro-life award from the group.

"The award Romney arranged for himself with the local Pioneer Valley Chapter was the Mullins Award for Political Leadership, not a pro-life award and not approved by MCFL's state board of directors," he said. "We're blowing the whistle to warn voters…"

"For some bizarre reason the mere fact that Romney's never been divorced and goes to a temple regularly is supposed to negate the fact that he's extremely liberal," said Harvey. "He used his Republican and Mormon identity to push through radical policies on gay marriage, abortion and pro-homosexual school programs that Ted Kennedy always dreamed about."

The Romney campaign repeatedly has declined to respond to WND requests for comment on such issues, including a failure to respond to multiple requests for a one-on-one interview in which the candidate would have been allowed to give his definitive perspective of the issues being raised.

World Net Daily
January, 2008
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Michael Savage lawsuit links CAIR to 9/11 plot
Talker amends lawsuit against organizer of Muslim boycott to include RICO charges

WASHINGTON – It's no longer just a charge of copyright violation in the case of Michael Savage v. Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Now the radio talk star is going for the legal jugular in his battle with the group that bills itself as a Muslim civil rights organization.

The San Francisco-based talker has amended his lawsuit against CAIR for misusing audio clips of his show as part of a boycott campaign against his three-hour daily program to include charges the group "has consistently sought to silence opponents of violent terror through economic blackmail, frivolous but costly lawsuits, threats of lawsuits and abuses of the legal system."

The amended lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California, also charges CAIR with using extortion, threats, abuse of the court system, and obtaining money via interstate commerce under false and fraudulent circumstances – calling it a "political vehicle of international terrorism" and even linking the group with support of al-Qaida.

The federal government recently named CAIR, based in Washington, D.C., as an unindicted co-conspirator in an alleged scheme to funnel $12 million to the terrorist group Hamas.

And as WND has reported, CAIR has been associated with a disturbing number of convicted terrorists or felons in terrorism probes, as well as suspected terrorists and active targets of terrorism investigations.

"Groups like CAIR have a proven record of senior officials being indicted and either imprisoned or deported from the United States," said U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., co-founder of the House Anti-Terrorism/Jihad Caucus.

Savage and celebrity civil rights attorney Daniel Horowitz are attempting to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to make the case that "CAIR and its co-conspirators have aided, abetted and materially sponsored al-Qaida and international terrorism."

CAIR launched a campaign against "The Savage Nation," as the program is called, using extended audio clips of the show to make the case that advertisers who supported the talker were actually endorsing "hate speech" against Muslims.

Savage turned the tables on the activist group by initially suing for copyright violation of the show's material. This week the suit was expanded with some of the strongest allegations ever made against CAIR publicly.

Among the charges is that CAIR is "part of a deliberately complex and deliberately confusing array of related organizations" and that its "organizational structure is part of a scheme to hide the illegal activities of the group, funding, the transfer of funds and to complicate investigation of the group."

Other highlights of the suit:

• "CAIR is not a civil rights organization and it never has been. … CAIR was and is a political organization that advocates a specific political agenda on behalf of foreign interests."
• "The copyright infringement was done to raise funds for CAIR so that it could perpetuate and continue to perform its role in the RICO conspiracy set forth in Count Two and to disseminate propaganda on behalf of foreign interests that are opposed to the continued existence of the United States of America as a free nation."
• "CAIR would have to register as a foreign agent if their activities were not hidden under the false claim that they are a civil rights organization that enjoys tax-exempt status."
• "CAIR was tied to terror from the day it was formed. The group was incorporated on or about 1994 by Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad. Both men were officers of a terror organization known as the 'Islamic Association of Palestine.'"
• "CAIR's parent group, IAP, was founded in or about 1982 by Musa Abu Marzook. Marzook was IAP's ideological leader and controlling director from the date of its founding until shortly after his deportation from the United States in 1997. At all time relevant, Marzook was an operative of, and/or affiliated with, the 'Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah,' or 'Hamas.' Hamas is an international terrorist organization."
• In 1998, "CAIR demanded the removal of a Los Angeles billboard describing Osama bin Laden as 'the sworn enemy,' asserting that this depiction [was] 'offensive to Muslims.'"
• In 1998, "CAIR denied bin Laden's responsibility for the two al-Qaida bombings of American embassies in Africa. CAIR's leader Ibrahim Hooper claimed the bombings resulted from 'misunderstandings on both sides.'"
• "On October 5, 2001, just weeks after 9/11, CAIR's New York office sent a letter to The New York Times arguing that the paper had misidentified three of the hijackers and suggesting that the attacks may have been committed by people who were impersonating Arab Muslims."
• "CAIR further exploited 9/11 as it put on its website a picture of the World Trade Center in flames and below it a call for donations that was linked to the Holy Land Foundation website." The Holy Land Foundation, the suit charges, is "a terror organization."
• "CAIR receives significant international funding. For example, in 1999 the Islamic Development Bank gave a $250,000 grant to CAIR to purchase land for a national headquarters. In 2002, the World Association for Muslim Youth, a Saudi government-funded organization, financed distributing books on Islam free of charge and an advertising campaign in American publications. This included a quarter page in USA Today each Friday, for a year, estimated to cost $1.04 million. In 2003, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal donated $500,000 to distribute the Koran and other books about Islam in the United States. In 2005, CAIR's Washington branch received a donation of $1,366,466 from a Saudi Arabian named Adnan Bogary. In 2006, Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, deputy ruler of Dubai and UAE minister of finance and industry, financed the building of a property in the U.S. to serve as an endowment for the organization. This gift is thought to generate income of approximately $3 million a year."
• "The role of CAIR and CAIR-Canada is to wage PSYOPS (psychological warfare) and disinformation activities on behalf of Wahabbi-based Islamic terrorists throughout North America. They are the intellectual 'shock troops' of Islamic terrorism."
• "The Council on American-Islamic Relations is a Muslim Brotherhood front organization. It works in the United States as a lobby against radio, television and print media journalists who dare to produce anything about Islam that is at variance with their fundamental agenda."
• "CAIR has links to both Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Terrorism expert Steven Emerson has stated before Congress that CAIR is a front for Hamas."

Savage's case also cites another ongoing suit against CAIR filed by the estate of John P. O'Neill, the former head of security for the World Trade Center. It alleges a RICO conspiracy involving CAIR led to the 9/11 attack.

"Throughout this period," the Savage suit alleges, "CAIR conspired to support terrorism and to obfuscate the roles of the various participants and conspirators in Radical Muslim Terrorism, and/or al-Qaida and/or the International Islamic Front for the Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, which conspiracy culminated in the 9/11 attack."

It continues: "The pattern of racketeering activity conducted by CAIR is separate from the existence of Radical Muslim Terrorism, and/or the al-Qaida, and/or the International Islamic Front for the Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, but was a necessary component of the 9/11 attack. The RICO enterprise conducts terrorism all over the world; the racketeering activity conducted by CAIR funds that activity, which activity culminated in the 9/11 attack."

CAIR has refused to comment on Savage's suit to date. But it has claimed a host of companies have stopped advertising on Savage's show as a result of its boycott campaign.

However, an investigation by WND shows some of those boycott victories are questionable. In one announcement claiming Universal Orlando Resorts "drops 'Savage Nation' ads," CAIR stated: "Advertisers that have already stopped airing, or refuse to air commercials on 'Savage Nation' include AutoZone, Citrix, TrustedID, JCPenney, OfficeMax, Wal-Mart and AT&T."

But AutoZone told WND the CAIR campaign had nothing to do with its advertising decision, and it had chosen not to advertise on any radio talk shows – of all parts of the spectrum – years before the CAIR effort.

CAIR officials declined to respond to WND queries about why it is listing companies as part of its boycott campaign that say they have not participated in the boycott.

Officials of Talk Radio Network, Savage's syndicator, confirmed to WND that companies including AutoZone and JCPenney never advertise on such programs.

"We do not sponsor syndicated radio talk shows," AutoZone spokesman Ray Pohlman told WND. "We have customers of all shapes and sizes and political persuasions. For us to sponsor [any radio talk shows] wouldn't make any sense."

But that policy is years old, and wasn't changed at all by CAIR's effort, he said.

"What I will tell you is the CAIR organization did, in fact, contact the marketing department [of AutoZone.] We responded with our full advertising policy which clearly states that we do not advertise on radio talk shows," he told WND.

The announcement about Universal was made by the Hate Hurts America Community and Interfaith Coalition, of which CAIR is a prominent member.

It said Universal Orlando Resorts "has joined a growing list of advertisers that have stopped advertising or refuse to place their ads on Michael Savage's 'Savage Nation' Radio program."

The campaign also has triggered a lawsuit by Savage against CAIR over its alleged misappropriation of Savage's radio broadcast material. In the lawsuit, Savage depicts CAIR as a "vehicle of international terrorism."

CAIR says it is challenging Savage's "hate speech," and referenced Savage comments such as:

"I'm not gonna put my wife in a hijab. And I'm not gonna put my daughter in a burqa. And I'm not getting' on my all-fours and braying to Mecca. And you could drop dead if you don't like it. You can shove it up your pipe. I don't wanna hear any more about Islam. I don't wanna hear one more word about Islam. Take your religion and shove it up your behind. I'm sick of you."

The Savage suit says comments like that are taken out of context.

Another major company CAIR claims has joined the boycott of Michael Savage is JCPenney. But as with AutoZone, JCPenney officials told WND readers they were not making any special provision in their advertising policy that would make them part of a protest campaign, but officials did not respond directly to WND inquiries.

"JCPenney did not 'pull' advertising from the show. JCPenney has had a long standing policy about not advertising on any show that can be construed as controversial. An error in upholding this policy was made by a few local stations, and it has now been clarified," the company told a WND reader.

"Wal-Mart does not sponsor or advertise on the Michael Savage show. We have asked radio networks to ensure that Wal-Mart ads do not run in programming that we deem controversial and are sending out content guidelines reminders to radio networks and stations," said that company.

Savage's lawsuit alleges copyright infringement by CAIR, which the lawsuit says seeks to do "material harm to those voices who speak against the violent agenda of CAIR's clients."

Filed in U.S. District Court in California, the suit seeks damages equal to the ongoing donations from CAIR supporters "who expect CAIR to act in this manner in exchange for continuing financial support" as well as "actual damages according to proof."

A spokesman for Savage indicated the top-rated talk show host would have no further comment, saying the text of the lawsuit itself would answer questions.

The focal point of the lawsuit is a series of audio clips CAIR has been using in its promotions and fundraising efforts.

Those comments from Savage's show include his criticisms of Islam and Muslims. The lawsuit maintains such comments, taken in context, are Savage's verbal expression of the feelings of many Americans.

"The audience of 'The Savage Nation' expects this type of from-the-heart outrage and when it is directed at a murderer such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his ilk, the piece is far more understandable and far more American mainstream. While the strength of the outrage is remarkable and a hallmark of 'The Savage Nation,' the sentiment is shared by a huge number of Americans," the lawsuit says.

World Net Daily
December, 2007
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
Church shootings on rise in U.S.
'Leaders must be prepared to defend congregations'

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Church shootings, in the headlines because of the attacks by Matthew Murray, 24, of Englewood, Colo., on two Christian groups last weekend, are on the rise across the United States, even though they're not yet at epidemic proportions.

Murray killed two people at a Youth With A Mission missionary training center in Arvada, Colo., early last Sunday morning, then apparently posted some rantings on the Internet, and drove to the New Life Church in Colorado Springs where he killed two teen girls. He also wounded half a dozen others before he was confronted by a church member volunteering as a security guard, and was shot.

A tabulation of church shootings, or those closely related to a church setting, was done by Gary Cass, chairman of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, and include 10 such attacks over the last four years, including Murray's two attacks.

"The tragic events in Colorado this past weekend underscore the fact that anti-Christian hostility is reaching a new, more violent level," Cass told WND. "Churches used to be sanctuaries that were regarded as sacred, now all church leaders must be prepared to effectively defend themselves and use deadly force if necessary to protect their congregations from violent acts."

He said a brief search found the following shootings, before last weekend's attacks:

• August 12, 2007: A lone gunman, Eiken Elam Saimon, opened fire in a Missouri Micronesian church, killing a pastor and two other churchgoers.
• May 20, 2007: A standoff between police and a suspect in the shootings of three people in a Moscow, Idaho, Presbyterian Church ended with three dead, including one police officer.
• Although not at a church building, the Oct. 2, 2006, attack in Lancaster County, Pa., by a gunman who killed five girls and then himself at an Amish school targeted a religious site.
• May 21, 2006: Louisiana. Four were killed by a man at Jesus Christ Church.
• Feb. 26, 2006: Michigan. Two people were killed at Zion Hope Missionary Baptist Church by a man who reportedly went to the church looking for his girlfriend. He later killed himself.
• April 9, 2005: A 27-year-old airman died after being shot at a church in College Park, Ga., where he had once worked as a security guard.
• March 12, 2005: A man walked into the services of the Living Church of God in Milwaukee and open fired immediately, killing seven people.
• Oct. 5, 2003: A woman opened fire in Turner Monumental AME church in Kirkwood, east of Atlanta, killing the pastor and two others.
• Sept. 16, 1999: Seven young people were killed when a man opened fire during a prayer service for teen-agers at the Wedgewood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

"Self-defense is not just a right, but a Christian duty. Jesus told his followers, 'if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one,'" said Cass. "Christians are not to be a soft target for the hateful and deranged. Church leaders have a duty not to allow a crazed gunman to come and shoot up their congregation. Thank God for security officer Jeanne Assam and for New Life Church's security preparations."

As WND reported earlier, weeks before Murray armed himself with enough weaponry and ammunition to kill hundreds and staged the two attacks, he apparently boasted in an e-mail that he had discovered and practiced the teachings of controversial British occultist Aleister Crowley, called during his lifetime "the wickedest man in the world."

Murray is believed to have been the gunman who shot and killed Tiffany Johnson, 26, and Philip Crouse, 24, at the Youth With A Mission campus in Arvada, Colo., early last Sunday morning. Then, about 12 hours later, Murray died when confronted by armed security officer Jeanne Assam at New Life Church after he shot and killed sisters Stephanie Works, 18, and Rachael Works, 16, in the church parking lot. Half a dozen others were wounded in his attacks.

WND reported at the time on the disturbing rantings Murray apparently left on several websites before – and even between – the attacks, including those reported by National Terror Alert, which documented a series of postings by "nghtmrchld26," which said, "You Christians brought this on yourselves … All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you ... as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world."

"It is a sad reality of our times, but Christians must take up arms to protect themselves at church," said Cass. He cited the postings by Murray, including the following:

"I'm coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the @#%$ teeth and I WILL shoot to kill. …," a statement also attributed to Murray's Internet postings.

"Mathew Murray was obviously a very troubled young man, but unfortunately he is not the only one," Cass said.

The pastor behind the Good Fight website, which documents reports from rock stars themselves of their encounters with the occult and satanic influences through their experiences with rock music, says he believes an e-mail he got weeks ago was from Murray, and indicated trouble.

Pastor Joe Schimmel told WND he recalled the October e-mail when he read the postings, included in WND stories, attributed to Murray. He said he thinks it's important for people to know what the attacker himself was feeling and thinking prior to his homicidal attack, especially since he's been described in the media as a homeschooled student from a religious family.

The e-mail, although it came from a man who identified himself as "Brian," most probably was from Murray, Schimmel says, because of long list of similarities. The e-mail notes the writer has "studied and practiced the teachings of Aleister Crowley/Thelema/The Golden Dawn, Qabbalah, H.P. Blavatsky/Theosophy, Manly P. Hall, Alice Bailey, and others."

Crowley, who lived during the late 1800s and first half of the 1900s, was a bisexual, drug-addicted occultist practitioner and author who almost reveled in the media description of him as "the wickedest man in the world."

During a court case in the 1930s, Crowley was described by a judge as dreadful. "I thought that everything which was vicious and bad had been produced at one time or another before me," the judge concluded. "I have learned in this case that we can always learn something more … I have never heard such dreadful, horrible, blasphemous and abominable stuff as that which has been produced by [Crowley.]"

Crowley also founded Thelema, a religious belief that was drawn from his book, "Liber Al Vel Legis," or Book of the Law, which gives only two commands: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" and "Love is the law, love under will."

Crowley espoused a wide range of occultist activities and practices, and one of his compatriots reportedly died from drinking the blood of a cat during one ceremonial episode, according to documents on Crowley's life. Many believe Crowley was a forerunner to Anton LeVay, who formalized his beliefs in "The Satanic Bible" and established the Church of Satan.

While Crowley dabbled in the occult, magic, trances, drugs, sex and blood rituals, Schimmel told WND the writer apparently had sold his soul to another devil: rock music.

The e-mail noted that "music is a very powerful thing," and then continued with writings that appeared to have been assembled in the form of an article titled, "My Secret Drug Addiction":

I have a powerful addiction to a powerful drug that most people in my life don't know about. … I have found this drug to truly be a force to be reckoned with. This drug can completely alter blood pressure, heart rate, brainwave patterns and other bodily functions. … This drug will completely control a person's mind, what thought's (sic) they think and their emotions and how they feel. I found that this drug has the power to completely alter a person's religious beliefs, their morality, and their values and their entire lifestyle. … I found this drug to be a powerful driving force and easy gateway into a world of sex, other drugs, rebellion, homosexuality, alcoholism and many other dark things. … The drug … is commonly known in our culture as … Rock Music.

Schimmel said his organization specifically documents and warns about the occult influences in rock music and modern society, and this rang an alarm when he first received it.

Schimmel said the writings line up with what he knows about Crowley, and his influence, which sparked multiple references during the rock era of the 1960s, when some songs even included a tribute to "Mr. Crowley," he said.

He said his ministry has worked to show how Satanism can influence youth through music, and this was a factor not included in many media reports about the Colorado shootings.

But he said if the author had "practiced" Crowley's teachings, "he's opened himself up to a spiritual drug addiction."

"What he really is, is a Satanist, subscribing to the teachings of Aleister Crowley," said Schimmel, who told WND other leaders in the Crowley image have included Timothy O'Leary and Alfred Kinsey.

World Net Daily
December, 2007
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New campaign debate: Is Satan Jesus' brother?
Mormon church weighs in on Huckabee suggestion

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WASHINGTON – Satan has reared his ugly head in the 2008 presidential campaign – literally.

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has prompted angry denunciations of religious bigotry by rival Mitt Romney as well as an official retort from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for speculating in a New York Times Magazine interview this weekend that Mormons believe Jesus and Satan were brothers.

Stirred by the debate, the Associated Press sought clarification from Kim Farah, a spokeswoman from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

She said the question is usually raised by those who wish to smear the Mormon faith, but she evaded a direct answer to the question: "We believe, as other Christians believe and as Paul wrote, that God is the father of all. That means that all beings were created by God and are his spirit children. Christ, on the other hand, was the only begotten in the flesh and we worship him as the son of God and the savior of mankind. Satan is the exact opposite of who Christ is and what he stands for."

More to the point, the official website of the LDS church explicitly makes the sibling connection between Jesus and Lucifer a matter of official Mormon doctrine.

"On first hearing, the doctrine that Lucifer and our Lord, Jesus Christ, are brothers may seem surprising to some – especially to those unacquainted with latter-day revelations," says the statement. "But both the scriptures and the prophets affirm that Jesus Christ and Lucifer are indeed offspring of our Heavenly Father and, therefore, spirit brothers. Jesus Christ was with the Father from the beginning. Lucifer, too, was an angel "who was in authority in the presence of God," a "son of the morning." (See Isa. 14:12; D&C 76:25–27.) Both Jesus and Lucifer were strong leaders with great knowledge and influence. But as the Firstborn of the Father, Jesus was Lucifer's older brother. (See Col. 1:15; D&C 93:21.)"

But Romney interprets the question from Huckabee – rhetorical or not – to be a display of religious bigotry.

"But I think attacking someone's religion is really going too far," he said on NBC's "Today" show. "It's just not the American way, and I think people will reject that."

The exchange is setting up tonight's GOP presidential debate, the final showdown before the Iowa caucuses, as a potentially fiery denouement in the first major contest of the 2008 primary campaign.

Will the Satan card be played?

Are theological questions fair game?

Huckabee, a Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor, has surged in public opinion polls and is now ahead of Romney in polls in Iowa, which holds its caucus Jan. 3.

He made the comment before Romney gave a major speech last week trying to dispel fears about his church, particularly among conservative Christians, an important voting bloc. Romney said he believes Jesus Christ is the Son of God and savior of mankind, and that his White House would not be controlled by his church.

World Net Daily
December, 2007
For more information on this topic, Click Here

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ELECTION 2008
CAIR's Islamist quizzers featured at prez debates
Activists posing as ordinary citizens influencing national security dialogue

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Radical Islamist groups are planting activists posing as ordinary Muslim Americans to ask candidates questions at the presidential debates.

Most recently, the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations, several of whose leaders have been prosecuted on terror-related charges, sent the executive director of its Chicago chapter to take part in the Democratic presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa, which was supposed to be an opportunity for "ordinary people" to ply candidates with questions.

At Saturday's debate, aired on C-Span, CAIR-Chicago Executive Director Ahmed Rehab stood up and asked Sen. John Edwards if he would help Muslims fight "prejudice" and other "abuses" such as hate crimes.

"It seems we're facing a culture of fear-mongering," Rehab complained.

"Senator, in the '60s, Malcolm and Martin gave up their lives fighting for justice for all," he added. "The civil rights movement is not over. It's not done yet. We're still fighting.

"Senator," he continued, "we would like to know if you will fight with us if elected president."

A number of Muslim activists around Rehab erupted into applause and cheers.

"You've got some fans," Edwards remarked, before vowing to end "profiling" of and "spying" on Muslim terrorist suspects. He also promised to "close Guantanamo" and stop the "torture" of terrorist detainees.

Despite Rehab's assertion that Muslims are victims of hate crimes and other abuses on a "regular basis," the FBI last month released 2006 data showing anti-Islamic crimes have fallen 68 percent since 2001, and represent just 11 percent of all religiously motivated attacks. According to a report in Investor's Business Daily, the overwhelming majority of such crimes – 66 percent – target Jews.

Also, at last month's Republican debate in St. Petersburg, Fla., a former CAIR intern was selected by host CNN to challenge GOP presidential hopefuls about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and complain about the anger they've created in the Muslim world.

Wearing a hijab, Yasmin Elhady complained they've created anger in the Muslim world. "My question has to do with the current crisis in Iraq, as well as the U.S. efforts in Afghanistan," she said.

"After living abroad personally in the Middle East for a year, I realized just how much damage the Iraq war and the perception of invasion has done to the image of America," Elhady added. "What would you do as president to repair the image of America in the eyes of the Muslim world?"

CNN, which claimed to pick questioners at random from a pool of "undecided voters," did not cite Elhady's activist background with CAIR. The network simply identified her as "Yasmin from Huntsville, Ala." (She actually lives in Los Angeles, where she attends college at UCLA.)

Federal prosecutors have named CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator in an ongoing terror fund-raising case. Moreover, as WND first reported, no fewer than 14 CAIR officials – including the Washington-based group's founder and its executive director – have either been convicted or named in terrorism investigations.

Earlier, at CNN's Democratic debate in Las Vegas, another Muslim activist associated with CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood was handed the microphone.

Again, CNN failed to identify him as anything but an average American Muslim.

"Our next questioner is – Khalid Khan, if you would please stand for a moment," CNN host Suzanne Malveaux said. "You and I spoke very briefly, and you said you have some concerns about racial profiling."

"Yes, I do," Khan said, sternly. "I am an American citizen and have been profiled all the time at the airport. Since 9/11, hundreds of thousands of Americans have been profiled. And, you know, it is like harassment."

Edwards, who fielded the question first, responded that the Patriot Act needs to be "dramatically changed," to which Khan nodded in agreement.

But Khan, an immigrant from Pakistan, is no ordinary American citizen. He's president of the Islamic Society of Nevada, which has its roots with the radical Muslim Student Association. MSA, which was founded by members of the notorious Muslim Brotherhood, is the forerunner of the Islamic Society of North America, an unindicted co-conspirator in the same terror case with CAIR.

Khan runs the largest mosque in Las Vegas, and hired its controversial imam, Aslam Abdullah, former vice chairman of MPAC in Los Angeles.

In June 2004, Abdullah, who heads an Islamic "seminary" in Pakistan, accused President Bush of engaging in "a religious and racist agenda and prejudice against Islam, Muslims and Arabs." He also has likened Marines in Iraq to the 9/11 terrorists, and publicly questioned whether videotapes showing Osama bin Laden gloating over the attacks were authentic.

Abdullah claims to be moderate, even "progressive," but terror expert Steve Emerson says he is in fact an Islamic extremist.

"The record of Aslam Abdullah's comments during the past few years demonstrates an ideology of militant Islamic extremism," Emerson said. "Pretending to be moderate, his radical agenda typifies the deception of groups that falsely assert to be non-extremist."

Khan, who runs several businesses registered at his home address in Henderson, Nev., had his access badge revoked in 2004 by officials at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.

The FBI suspects several of the 9/11 hijackers, who met in Vegas before the attacks, may have visited Khan's mosque, Jamia Masjid. The mosque's website links to CAIR's website.

World Net Daily
December, 2007
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GLOBAL JIHAD
U.S. evangelist launches swine attack on Muslims
Outraged by Muhammad teddy bear flap, minister names pig after Islamic prophet

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An American evangelist has jumped into the fray over the fate of a British teacher facing calls for death over a teddy bear named "Muhammad."

Bill Keller, host of LivePrayer, has posted a video on YouTube featuring a pink, toy pig named Muhammad after the Muslim prophet.

"Indeed Muhammad was a man of murder," the pig, voiced by Keller himself, states in the video. "He was a pedophile, having a wife at the age of six. And I came to find out that the Quran really is nothing more than a book of fairy tales."

Keller, a vocal critic of Islam, made the video in response to the case of Gillian Gibbons, who was sentenced to 15 days in a Sudan jail after being convicted of insulting Islam for allowing her student to call a teddy bear "Muhammad."

Gibbons was moved to a secure location in Khartoum last week after street demonstrators called for her death.

If Gibbons had been found guilty of inciting religious hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs, her sentence could have been 40 lashes and up to six months of prison.

Muhammad is the most popular boys' name in Sudan, and it has since been revealed the teddy bear was actually named by one of Gibbons' students.

In his latest devotional being sent to his subscribers, Keller states:

Of course there will be Muslim apologists who say that these are only the extremists, just like they try to distance themselves from their brothers in this "peaceful religion" who flew the planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the one intended for the Capitol building that was crashed in a Pennsylvania field by some real American heroes. ...

These people are not about love or peace or unity. They are about one thing. Converting the world to their false religion and those who get in their way or who refuse to follow their lies will be silenced and killed. The word "Islam" literally means "submission." Maybe you don't understand what it means when their "holy book" says "death to all infidels."

"Bill Keller's pink pig is a terrific tribute to Muhammad!" said WND reader Stephen Mayfield. "If only we could load B-52's with a week's take of Farmer John's swine intestines, and bombs-away them over Khartoum."

Another WND reader, Clay Hestilow of Houston, Texas, took the opposite view, stating, "Senseless. Ignorant. Hateful. This 'minister' is a poor representation of the love that Christ has for all of mankind."

World Net Daily
December, 2007
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HOMELAND INSECURITY
CAIR backs film praising convicted terror supporter
Group urges Muslims to buy tickets to al-Arian premiere

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The Council on American-Islamic Relations is co-sponsoring the premiere of a documentary film that canonizes convicted terrorist supporter Sami al-Arian.

Tomorrow, CAIR will host the screening of "USA vs. Al-Arian" at the AMC/Loews Uptown 1 Theater in Washington, D.C., according to an action alert the Muslim group posted on its website urging Muslims to buy tickets to the premiere.

The screening, co-sponsored by the Muslim American Society, an Islamist group tied to the radical Muslim Brotherhood, will be followed by a "panel discussion" involving al-Arian's lawyer, his son, Abdullah al-Arian, and a constitutional lawyer from Georgetown University, whose Islamic studies program is funded by the Saudi royal family.

Last year, al-Arian was sentenced to 57 months in prison followed by deportation. In a plea deal, he pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of "conspiracy to make or receive contributions of funds, goods or services to, or for the benefit of, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad," a federally designated terror group.

Al-Arian, an Egyptian citizen of Palestinian descent, had hoped for early deportation, but prosecutors and the federal judge in the case argue he has not cooperated in related terror cases.

He remains in federal prison in Virginia on a contempt citation after he refused to testify in front of a Virginia grand jury investigating a network of Islamic businesses and charities known as the Safa group.

Critics say the film portrays al-Arian in a sympathetic light by suggesting the U.S. government used the "draconian" Patriot Act to railroad an innocent Muslim professor.

The film's website juxtaposes photos of al-Arian in handcuffs with one of him and his wife posing with President Bush and Laura Bush during the 2000 campaign. It calls al-Arian "one of America's most prominent political prisoners."

"What we have is a man found innocent who is still harassed by the justice system," said Norwegian filmmaker Line Halvorsen, the film's director. "He's a man of principle. He fights for what he believes in and he's not afraid to speak his mind."

Critics say the film whitewashes the federal terror case, failing to mention that al-Arian pleaded guilty to providing material support to an officially designated terrorist group. The home page instead says he pleaded guilty to one count of supporting "immigrants" associated with an "illegal organization."

It also fails to reveal how, in a speech at a Cleveland mosque, al-Arian once thundered: "Let's damn America, let's damn Israel, let's damn their allies until death."

Court exhibits also show letters written by al-Arian praising Palestinian suicide bombers.

Publicly, al-Arian has maintained he doesn't support any kind of violence.

"I am a very moderate Muslim person," he said. "I also condemn violence in all its forms."

The film's website decries what it calls the "harsh" treatment of the confessed terrorist supporter.

"Currently Al-Arian is held under severe conditions in a prison about 1,000 miles away from his family, making it extremely hard for them to keep in touch with him," it said. "Al-Arian recently went through a 60-day hunger strike to protest the government's treatment."

World Net Daily
December, 2007
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MEDIA MATTERS
CAIR: Civil rights advocates or radical Islamists?
Muslim lobby group has troubling record of terror arrests

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The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, says its aim is "to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding."

Maybe so, but federal prosecutors have also named the group an "unindicted co-conspirator" in a plot to fund the terrorist group Hamas, several of CAIR's leaders have been convicted on terror charges since 9/11, and one of its founders has reportedly declared that America should be governed by Islamic sharia law.

Adding to the controversy over the high-profile lobby group, CAIR is now being sued by radio talk show host Michael Savage over CAIR's attacks on him and what he says constitute illegal use of his broadcasts.

The lawsuit alleges CAIR is a "political vehicle of international terrorism" that seeks to do "material harm to those voices who speak against the violent agenda of CAIR's clients." Filed in U.S. District Court in California, the suit seeks damages equal to the ongoing donations from CAIR supporters "who expect CAIR to act in this manner in exchange for continuing financial support" as well as "actual damages according to proof."

The focal point of the lawsuit is a series of audio clips CAIR has been using in its promotions and fundraisings.

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for CAIR, told WND the group would not comment on the action until the document had been reviewed.

Although the news media generally have portrayed CAIR as a legitimate civil rights group, the organization has had a hard time maintaining its squeaky clean image.

For instance, as WND has reported, Ghassan Elashi, a board member of CAIR's Texas chapter, was convicted in 2005 of channeling funds to a high-ranking official of Hamas – which the U.S. government officially designates a terrorist organization.

As WND reported in October 2006, Elashi was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison for financial ties to a high-ranking Hamas terrorist and for making illegal computer exports to countries that back terrorism.

Other CAIR figures convicted since 9-11 are Randall Todd "Ismail" Royer, a former communications specialist and civil rights coordinator, and Bassem Khafagi, former director of community relations.

Royer was sentenced to 20 years in prison on charges he trained in Virginia for holy war against the United States and sent several members to Pakistan to join Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Kashmiri terrorist group with reported ties to al-Qaida.

In a plea bargain, Royer claimed he never intended to hurt anyone but admitted he organized the holy warriors after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S.

After his arrest, Royer sought legal counsel from Hamas lawyer Stanley Cohen, who said after 9-11 he would consider serving as a defense lawyer for Osama bin Laden if the al-Qaida leader were captured.

Khafagi was arrested in January 2003 while serving with CAIR and convicted on fraud and terrorism charges.

Current CAIR leaders also have made statements in support of Hamas and the domination of the U.S. by Islam.

As WorldNetDaily reported, CAIR's chairman of the board, Omar Ahmad, was cited by a California newspaper in 1998 declaring the Quran should be America's highest authority.

He also was reported to have said Islam is not in America to be equal to any other religion but to be dominant.

Just this past June, CAIR itself was named, along with two other prominent U.S. Islamic groups, as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in a plot to fund Hamas. Federal prosecutors also cited the Islamic Society of North America and the North American Islamic Trust as participants in a plot with five officials of the defunct Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

CAIR is a spinoff of the defunct Islamic Association for Palestine, launched by Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook and former university professor Sami al-Arian, who pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Last March, the House Republican Conference urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to cancel an event hosted on Capitol Hill by CAIR, calling the group "terrorist apologists."

And the group's regular meetings with the Justice Department and FBI have prompted complaints from case agents, who say the bureau rarely can make a move in the Muslim community without first consulting with CAIR, which sits on its advisory board.

CAIR has even conducted "sensitivity" and cultural training with federal agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and with the military. In June of last year, a senior Department of Homeland Security official from Washington guided CAIR officials on a behind-the-scenes tour of Customs screening operations at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in response to CAIR complaints that Muslim travelers were being unfairly delayed as they entered the U.S. from abroad.

Last year, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., withdrew an award she gave to a local CAIR official, saying she was concerned about some statements by CAIR leaders.

Savage's lawsuit follows a CAIR campaign to influence advertisers to abandon the popular talker's program. CAIR's recent announcement said OfficeMax, a leading office products retailer, had joined "a growing list of companies" withdrawing advertising from Savage's program because of his opinions regarding Islam.

That prompted the group ACT for America to launch an alert suggesting people call OfficeMax to encourage the company to reverse its decision.

"Call the OfficeMax office headquarters … and when you get an operator, in a polite but firm manner, tell the operator you have heard about the company's decision to stop advertising on the Michael Savage program because of the pressure from CAIR. Tell them you will no longer shop at OfficeMax until OfficeMax reverses this ill-advised decision," the advisory said.

"If CAIR can succeed in this effort to silence Michael Savage, consider the chilling effect this will have on every talk radio host in America," wrote American Congress for Truth founder Brigitte Gabriel in the alert.

World Net Daily
December, 2007
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
Pastor hospitalized after attack by police
Authorities pressure leader to finger other believers

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A prominent leader in the exploding house church movement in China is living under constant harassment from police, who are trying to force him to finger other Christian believers, and a recent beating by officers in his house left him hospitalized, according to a new report from Voice of the Martyrs, the worldwide ministry to persecuted Christians.

Hua Huiqi, who was jailed early in 2007 – along with his elderly mother – for the apparent offense of walking near a site under construction for the 2008 Olympics, is recovering from the latest attacks in his home, VOM reported.

However, the persecution level remains high. "Public Security Bureau (PSB) police officers attacked and beat up Hua again after refusing to allow him to use the bathroom next to his bedroom," according to the VOM update.

He had been released from Tiantan Hospital a short time earlier, a medical facility to which he was admitted after police officers beat him for "reading his Bible at his home," VOM said.

He lost consciousness from those "repeated beatings," the ministry said.

He had been placed under house arrest, with officers apparently actually occupying his home with him, recently as part of the government's apparent campaign to force him to reveal the identities and other information about other Christians.

VOM said Hua's mother, Shuang Shuying, 77, remains very ill in prison, serving a two-year sentence for the "trespassing" offense. "VOM contacts say she is being held hostage by police in order to put pressure on Pastor Hua to reveal names and information of believers," the report said.

"Pray for Pastor Hua's recovery and thank God for His faithfulness as Hua endures these recent attacks. Pray for the healing of his mother and that her testimony will draw non-believers into the knowledge of Jesus Christ," VOM asked constituents.

As WND reported, Hua had been released after serving about six months in prison on charges similar to his mother's case.

VOM said Hua was arrested in February by the Beijing Public Security Bureau Chaoyang Branch and his mother arrested by Beijing Security Bureau Chongwen Branch. They had been injured in January when seven police officers attacked them while they were walking near the hotel construction site in Beijing, and were taken into custody when they ventured there a second time.

China Aid Association officials told VOM that Hua has been very active in trying to help persecuted Christians and others who are oppressed by local officials who travel to Beijing trying to obtain justice from the central government.

He and his mother were attacked, and while on the ground, kicked. Then later they were taken to a police station for questioning, according to reports. "When Hua asked the police to release his sick mother and explain the legal ground for the detention, he was beaten repeatedly. While the temperature in Beijing was in the 20s, cold water was poured on him. He was later taken to a detention center," the organization said.

"The Chinese government says they ensure freedom of religion, but this case clearly shows the truth," Todd Nettleton, a VOM spokesman said. Police from the Olympic Sports Stadium Police Station also threatened to arrest Hua's brother, officials reported.

Authorities in China said Hua was put under criminal detention on the charge of "intervening public affair," essentially damaging public and private property at the construction site.

But Bob Fu, who works with Hua, said the charge was baseless and clearly "revenge" for his ministry work.

Co-workers told China Aid Association that they believe the aggressive actions in the arrest of Hua and his mother could be because of instructions from high government officials to send a message to those who present a message during the Olympics that does not fit the government's formal statements.

As WND reported, China appears to be mounting a campaign specifically aimed at chasing foreign Christians out, and suppressing the voice of indigenous Christians, in order to present the image it wants to the world during the 2008 Olympics.

The campaign has gotten the attention of several other organizations, and Human Rights Watch said Chinese police also have cracked down on "subversive Internet users" who have been censored in their efforts to post information that contradicts the government's public relations statements.

Also, at the current time, hundreds of thousands of Chinese are being evicted from their homes just so that the redevelopment projects in preparation for the Games can continue, the HRC said.

"The IOC has … invested the Chinese regime with a task it will carry out zealously: host safe Olympics. This means arrests of dissidents, social 'cleansing,' and censorship against 'critical' elements…," HRW said.

"The Olympic movement was discredited in 1936, when it allowed the Nazis to make the Games a spectacle to glorify the Third Reich. In 1980, in Moscow, the IOC suffered a terrible defeat when more than 50 countries boycotted the Olympics…," the group said. The 2008 Games should not be allowed to advance the restrictions China imposes, it said.

However, WND also has reported that Christian organizations inside China are reporting that up to 3,000 Chinese are being added daily to the Christian house church movement, which rejects government control over issues of faith.

Voice of the Martyrs is a non-profit, interdenominational ministry working worldwide to help Christians who are persecuted for their faith, and to educate the world about that persecution. Its headquarters are in Bartlesville, Okla., and it has 30 affiliated international offices.

It was launched by the late Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, who started smuggling Russian Gospels into Russia in 1947, just months before Richard was abducted and imprisoned in Romania where he was tortured for his refusal to recant Christianity.

He eventually was released in 1964 and the next year he testified about the persecution of Christians before the U.S. Senate's Internal Security Subcommittee, stripping to the waist to show the deep torture wound scars on his body.

The group that later was renamed The Voice of the Martyrs was organized in 1967, when his book, "Tortured for Christ," was released.

World Net Daily
October, 2007

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Tossed from a car and shot in cold blood

IT WAS just after 11pm and the shopkeeper was closing up for the night when a van screeched to a halt outside. The back doors flew open. “Someone inside threw a woman onto the street,” he said. “She was lying on the road but she was still alive. A man lent out and shot a machine-gun into her body.”

As the van raced away, the shopkeeper ran over to her. She was aged 25 to 30 with long dark hair and was lying face up. “There was so much blood,” he said. “The police just took a photograph and put her in the back of a van.”

There have been 48 women killed in six months for “un-Islamic behaviour”. The murders in the teeming southern port of Basra have highlighted the weakness of the security forces and the strength of Islamic militias as Britain prepares to hand over control to Iraqi officials today.

In another case, two teenagers saw a woman beaten to death by five or six men from the Mahdi Army, Basra’s most powerful militia. One picked up a rock and crushed her skull. The teenagers were told that their home and family would be destroyed if they betrayed the killers.

Gordon Brown told the Commons last week that Iraq was now a democracy, that violence in Basra had fallen by 90% and that the Iraqis were “taking control over their own security”.

However, Major-General Jalil Khalaf, the police chief, said the city’s 28 militias were better armed than his men. “They control the ports which earns them huge sums of money” he said.

As well as skimming profits from oil exports, they were importing weapons from Iran.

“You could smuggle a tank across that border if you wanted to,” he added.

During four days of reporting independently in Basra – the first western journalist to do so for a British newspaper in almost two years – I met a Baghdad official who had come to investigate the port. He was abducted, tortured and freed only after a “gift” was promised to the kidnappers.

The objective of the UK forces in southern Iraq was to establish the security needed for political development and economic reconstruction. Major-General Graham Binns, the commander of British forces in Basra province, acknowledged that “we were unable to meet the aspirations of the Iraqi people”.

Marie Colvin in Basra
December, 2007
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A 16-year-old girl is dead and her father has been charged with murder after an attack in a Mississauga home.

Aqsa Parvez, a student at Applewood Heights Secondary School, had been on life support in hospital since yesterday morning.

Police went to the family's two-storey home on Longhorn Trail about 8 a.m. yesterday after receiving a 911 call in which a man allegedly claimed to have killed his daughter.

Paramedics found Aqsa with a faint pulse and rushed her to hospital. She was later transferred to a Toronto hospital and placed on life support.

Peel police said this morning that she died overnight.

Friends at the victim’s school said she feared her father and had argued over her desire to shun the hijab, a traditional shoulder-length head scarf worn by females in devout Muslim families.

Homicide investigators had been standing by, as it soon became clear the young girl wouldn't survive the attack.

Muhammad Parvez, 57, has been remanded in custody and was to make his first court appearance today in a Brampton court.

The victim's brother, 26-year-old Waqas Parvez, was also arrested on a charge of obstructing police.

Neighbours described the family as very private and said several members from three generations have lived in the two-storey home, near Hurontario St. and Eglinton Ave., for just over two years.

School chums say Aqsa had been arguing with her family for months over whether she should wear the hijab.

Pal Ebonie Mitchell, 16, and other friends said Aqsa still wore the hijab to school last year, but rebelled against dressing in it this fall.

They said she would leave home wearing the traditional garment and loose clothing, but would often change into tighter garments at school.

She would change back for the bus trip home.

"Sometimes she even changed her whole outfit in the washroom at school," Mitchell said.

The teen was known to her classmates and Facebook friends as Axa. She posted several pictures of herself on the website in colourful clothes and accessories.

At Aqsa's high school, friends gathered in groups yesterday, struggling to come to grips with what happened and lamenting how she had quarrelled with her father to the point that she recently moved out to live with a friend.

"She said she was always scared of her dad, she was always scared of her brother ... and she's not scared of nobody," said classmate Ashley Garbutt, 16.

"She didn't want to go home ... to the point where she actually wanted to go to shelters."

Friends said the root of her problems was a desire to blend in with friends at school, to wear the fashionable clothes she liked to buy on trips to Toronto's garment district, where she went with friends just last month.

"She liked fashion," said Mitchell. "We went to different stores; she was shopping; she bought lots of clothes."

"She loved clothes, she loved shopping and she loved taking pictures of herself," classmate Dominiquia Holmes-Thompson, 16, said outside the school as friends sobbed at the news.

"She just wanted to show her beauty. She just wanted freedom, freedom from her parents."

"She just wanted to dress like us, just like a normal person," said Holmes-Thompson.

"She was a very kind person, she was really nice; everybody loved her."

Friend Shianne Phillips, 16, said she last spoke with Aqsa on Friday.

"She was crying and she was like ‘I'm really scared to go home. I don't know what I'm going to do.' And that was it," Phillips said.

December, 2007
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From www.danielpipes.org | Original article available at: www.danielpipes.org/article/4884

Teach Arabic or Recruit Extremists?

New York City's Arabic-language public school, the Khalil Gibran International Academy, opens its doors this week, with special security, for 11- and 12-year-old students. One hopes that the prolonged public debate over the school's Islamist proclivities will prompt it not to promote any political or religious agendas.

Count me as skeptical, however, and for two main reasons. First is the school's genesis and personnel, about which others and I have written extensively. Second, and my topic here, is the worrisome record of taxpayer-funded Arabic-language programs from sea to shining sea.

The trend is clear: pre-collegiate Arabic-language instruction, even when taxpayer funded, tends to bring along indoctrination in pan-Arab nationalism, radical Islam, or both. Note some examples:

• Amana Academy, Alpharetta, Georgia, near Atlanta: A charter school that requires Arabic-language learning, Amana boasts of its "institutional partnership" with the Arabic Language Institute Foundation (ALIF). But ALIF forwards the learning of Arabic as a means "to convey the message of Qur'an in North America and Europe" and thus to "help the Western countries recover from the present moral decay."

• Carver Elementary School, San Diego: A teacher, Mary-Frances Stephens, informed the school board that she taught a "segregated class" of Muslim girls and that each day she was required to release them from class for an hour of prayer, led by a Muslim teacher's aide. Ms. Stephens deemed this arrangement "clearly a violation of administrative, legislative and judicial guidelines." The school's principal, Kimberlee Kidd, replied that the teacher's aide merely prayed alongside the students and the session lasted only 15 minutes. The San Diego Unified School District investigated Ms. Stephens's allegations and rejected them, but it nonetheless changed practices at Carver, implicitly substantiating her critique. Superintendent Carl Cohn eliminated single-gender classes and reconfigured the schedule so that students can pray during lunch.

• Charlestown High School, Massachusetts: The school's summer Arabic-language program took students on a trip to the Islamic Society of Boston, where, the Boston Globe reports, students "sat in a circle on the carpet and learned about Islam from two mosque members." One student, Peberlyn Moreta, 16, fearing that the gold cross around her neck would offend the hosts, tucked it under her T-shirt. Anti-Zionism also appeared, with the showing of the 2002 film Divine Intervention, which a critic, Jordan Hiller, has termed an "irresponsible film," "frighteningly dangerous," and containing "pure hatred" toward Israel.

• Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, Inver Grove Heights, Minn.: Islamic Relief Worldwide, an organization that allegedly has links to jihadism and terrorism, sponsored this charter school, which requires Arabic as a second language. The academy's name openly celebrates Islamic imperialism, as Tarek ibn Ziyad led Muslim troops in their conquest of Spain in 711 A.D. Local journalists report that "a visitor might well mistake Tarek ibn Ziyad [Academy] for an Islamic school" because of the women wearing hijabs, the carpeted prayer area, the school closing down for Islamic holidays, everyone keeping the Ramadan fast, the cafeteria serving halal food, classes breaking for prayer, almost all the children praying, and the constant use of "Brother" and "Sister" when adults at the school address each other.

Only in the case of the Iris Becker Elementary School in Dearborn, Michigan, is the Arabic-language program not obviously pursuing a political and religious agenda. Its program may actually be clean; or perhaps the minimal information about it explains the lack of known problems.

The above examples (and see my Web log entry "Other Taxpayer-Funded American Madrassas" for yet more) are all American, but similar problems predictably exist in other Western countries.

This troubling pattern points to the need for special scrutiny of publicly funded Arabic-language programs. That scrutiny should take the form of robust supervisory boards whose members are immersed in the threat of radical Islam and who have the power to shut down anything they might find objectionable.

Arabic-language instruction at the pre-collegiate level is needed, and the U.S. government rightly promotes it (for example, via the "National Security Language Initiative" on the national level or the "Foreign Language in Elementary Schools" program on a local one). As it does so, getting the instruction right becomes ever more important. Citizens, parents, and taxpayers have the right to ensure that children attending these publicly funded institutions are taught a language skill—and are not being recruited to anti-Zionism or Islamism.

September, 2007

From www.danielpipes.org | Original article available at: www.danielpipes.org/article/4884

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