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Please read just a few of the headlines that World Net Daily has published.
August, 2007
HOMELAND INSECURITY
Radical mosque to feed proposed N.Y. Arabic school?
Foes fear publicly funded 'madrassa' will promote jihad
Foes of a new publicly funded Arabic-themed school in New York worry it will draw students from a radical mosque tied to terrorism and become an incubator for young jihadists.
The Khalil Gibran International Academy, scheduled to open next month in Brooklyn, is located three blocks from the Masjid al-Farooq mosque frequented by one of the terrorists involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
The Boerum Hill mosque counts among past imams:
- Blind Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, who is serving a federal prison sentence for conspiring to blow up New York City landmarks.
- Fawaz Abu Damra, who has preached that Muslims should be "directing all rifles at the first and last enemy of the Islamic nation, and this is the sons of monkeys and pigs – the Jews."
- Gulshair El-Shukrijumah, one-time interpreter for the Blind Sheik and the late father of Adnan el-Shukrijumah, a suspected al-Qaida operative wanted by the FBI as possibly training to be the "next Mohamed Atta."
Federal investigators recently traced money raised for al-Qaida back to the al-Farooq mosque, which did not return phone calls seeking comment.
"It is still frequented by Islamists," said Sara Springer, an eighth-grade teacher at a public middle school in Brooklyn.
"I am very concerned that the school will be a madrassa, funded by taxpayer dollars," she said. "We will in effect be supporting the training of future terrorist cells."
(Story continues below)
Officials say the new school, known as KGIA, will educate students about Islamic culture and Arabic, but will not promote Islam. Local detractors are not swayed, however.
"You cannot separate Arabic culture from Islam," argued Robert Hall, a co-leader of the Bronx Household of Faith. He described KGIA as a "publicly funded religious school."
Springer is leading a group of parents and concerned citizens calling itself "Stop the Madrassa Coalition" to close the school, which so far has enrolled 44 students.
The group contributed to last week's ouster of KGIA's principal – a native of Yemen, a country well-represented at al-Farooq mosque – by calling attention to her close ties to an organization selling T-shirts that glorify Palestinian terrorism. Dhabah "Debbie" Almontaser defended the shirts – which are emblazoned with the phrase, "Intifida NYC" – before resigning in the wake of public outrage.
"Both parents and teachers have a right to be concerned about children attending a school run by someone who doesn't immediately denounce campaigns or ideas tied to violence," said Randi Weingarten, head of the United Federation of Teachers in New York.
The intifadas were Palestinian terror campaigns that left 1,221 Israelis dead. Most of the attacks were suicide bombings, and many of the victims were civilians.
Still, school officials are pressing ahead with plans to open the school, which will offer students internships with Muslim lawyers, trips to the Middle East and community activism.
The program will integrate intensive Arabic language instruction and the study of Middle Eastern history and historical figures – which Springer says will include the life and teachings of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
Text books, lesson plans and teacher materials will be adapted from publications supplied by the Council on Islamic Education, Springer says. CIE's chief consultant is Susan Douglass, a Muslim activist whose husband is on the Saudi government payroll as a teacher at an Islamic academy that has graduated terrorists.
"Parents have raised the fear of jihad incitement privately," said Springer, who has attended a few of the PTA meetings concerning the school.
Garth Harries, chief executive of New York City's Office of New Schools, would neither confirm nor deny Springer's assertions regarding the curriculum.
He did, however, assert that KGIA is a "non-religious" New York City public school.
"It is not a vehicle for political or religious ideology," Harries said. "And if the school is used this way, we will close it." He says his department will monitor funding and curriculum at KGIA.
But Springer doubts officials will be able to detect jihadi indoctrination when many of the classes will be taught in Arabic.
"How will they know what is transpiring within the school?"
she said.
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AUDIONETDAILY Muslims declare sovereignty over U.S., UK Hear Islamic leaders in London: 'Queen Elizabeth, go to hell!' Across town from the site of the recent attempted car-bomb attacks, several thousand Muslims gathered in front of the London Central Mosque to applaud fiery preachers prophesying the overthrow of the British government – a future vision that encompasses an Islamic takeover of the White House and the rule of the Quran over America. "One day my dear Muslims," shouted Anjem Choudary, "Islam will govern Britain!" Choudary was a co-founder of Al Muhajiroun, the now-banned group tied to suspects in the July 7, 2005, London transport bombings and a cheerleader of the 9/11 attacks. "Democracy, hypocrisy," Choudary chanted as the crowd echoed him. "Tony Blair, terrorist! Tony Blair, murderer! Queen Elizabeth, go to hell!" The Muslim leader's charge, along with interviews with protesters and a "literal foaming-at-the-mouth" diatribe by another speaker, were captured on tape June 22 by nationally syndicated talk radio host Rusty Humphries. Humphries, who was in London with WND Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein, recorded angry Muslim leader Abu Saif, who kept his voice at a fever pitch through declarations such as: "Brothers and sisters, make no mistake. Make no mistake. The British government, the queen, the MPs in this country, they are enemies to you, enemies to Allah and enemies to the Muslims." A protester told Humphries Abu Saif is a member of the group Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Party of Liberation, which states its aim is to unify Muslims and establish the rule of Islamic law over the world. Group spokesman Taji Mustafa insisted to WND, however, Abu Saif is not a member. Hizb ut-Tahrir, which casts itself as "non-violent," also has denied testimony and British media reports charging its Cambridge cell tried recruit the Iraqi doctor now suspected of mounting the attack on Glasgow's airport June 30. The failed car-bomb assault followed two similar attempts in London the previous day. Abu Saif spoke with disdain of Blair's appointment as a special envoy to the Middle East, issuing an apparent threat. "Inshallah," meaning "Allah willing," he told the crowd, Blair will "go to the Middle East as an envoy, and he'll come back in a box. Inshallah. What box that is, we leave that up to you." Humphries estimated nearly 3,000 Muslims were gathered in front of the mosque in north London June 22, after Friday prayers, to protest Queen Elizabeth's knighting of Indian author Salman Rushdie, the target of a death-sentence fatwa for "insulting" Islam's prophet Muhammad in his 1988 book "The Satanic Verses." For Humphries, the response of the Muslims at Islam's largest house of worship in the UK was telling. "Not one said, 'You're not speaking for me' or 'Not in my name.' They stood there and watched and applauded," he told WND. Like the UK, Humphries said, the U.S. has three major vulnerabilities to patient, fundamentalist Muslims who believe their purpose for living in the West is to help fulfill Islamic prophecies: The loss of border control, the inability to say no and lack of assimilation. "I feel like I'm Rusty Revere. I'm out there yelling the Muslims are coming, the Muslims are coming," he said. "But we don't want to hear it. We don't want to hurt people's feelings." Humphries' interview with Abu Saif underscored the radically different vision many of Britain's citizens have for the country's future. The Muslim leader said he does not believe in democracy and insists there is no such thing as freedom of religion, "because freedom is an absolute term." "Are we to say that Muslims can fully practice religion in America," he asked in an attempt to explain. "Say, for instance, I was a Muslim in America. Could I call for the destruction of the American government and establishment of an Islamic state in America? No. So where is the freedom of religion? There is none." Humphries asked: "Do you call for that?" "Of course," he replied, "we want Islam to be a source of governance for all of mankind. And we also believe that one day America will be ruled by Islam." Abu Saif explained Islam, like Christianity, has a prophetic tradition. "One of the prophecies of the message of Muhammad was the hour will never come, i.e., the last day – which you also believe in – will never come until a group of the Muslims … will rise and conquer the white house." The reference, many Muslims believe today, is to America's symbol of executive power. Islamic leaders in the U.S. largely have been careful to not assert publicly the Muslim belief that Islam ultimately will gain worldwide supremacy. As WND reported, Omar Ahmad, the founder of a prominent U.S.-based Islamic lobby group, denies a newspaper report that he told a group of Muslims in the San Francisco Bay area they are in America not to assimilate but to help bring about Islam's rule over the nation. Like other protesters, Abu Saif presented a typical list of grievances Muslims have with the U.S. and Britain, such as the nations' part in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the wars in Afghanistan and Iran. But the Islamic leader admitted he believes Jews and Christians will always hate Muslims, because Allah has said it is so. "There's nothing we can do to be friends?" Humphries asked. Abu Saif replied: "There is something you can do to be friends. You can become Muslim." He also had a simple solution to the conflict in the Holy Land. "We want the Jews to leave Israel, and to hand the whole of Israel, not just Gaza and the West Bank – the whole of Israel to the Muslims. Only then will the Muslims stop." 'Politics of terror' BBC-TV last week highlighted Hizb ut-Tahrir in a program called "Politics of Terror," noting "the attempted terrorist attacks on London and Glasgow have once again focused attention on the rise of political Islam." If al-Qaida is to be defeated, the narrator said, "the key battlefield is in the realm of ideas. Today's would-be suicide bombers are almost invariably yesterday's campaigners for political Islam." During the Prime Minister's Questions session in Parliament Wednesday, opposition leader David Cameron left the new premier, Gordon Brown, stammering after demanding to know why the government had not banned Hizb ut-Tahrir after promising to do so two years ago. Brown replied: "Of course in all these details – and I have had to deal with this in the Treasury, when we're dealing with terrorist finance – you have to have evidence to do so." The answer was met by a chorus of jeers from MPs. Cameron responded: "The prime minister said we need evidence to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir. This organization said, and I quote, 'Jews should be killed wherever they are found.' What more evidence do we need before we ban this organization? It is poisoning the minds of young people. Two years ago the government said it should be banned. I ask again, when will this be done?" Brown seemed even more hesitant this time. "We can ban it under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, and, of course, of course, of course ... I think the leader of the opposition forgets I've been at this job for five days ... ," he said, as jeers once again filled the chamber. Brown already, in fact, has issued a ban of another kind – prohibiting his ministers from using the word 'Muslim' in connection with the worldwide terrorism threat. He also has instructed his team to drop the phrase "war on terror," Britain's Daily Express reported. The paper says the "shake-up is part of a fresh attempt to improve community relations and avoid offending Muslims, adopting a more 'consensual' tone than existed under Tony Blair." The New York Times reported last week many Britons were happy with Brown's tempered approach to the foiled terrorist attacks just days after he succeeded Blair. Brown, wrote London-based reporter Alan Cowell,
"played down the threat, treating the episodes as a crime rather than a
threat to civilization. Yet, his minimalist approach seemed to strike a
reassuring chord with Britons, many of whom had expressed fatigue with
Mr. Blair's apocalyptic view of terrorism."
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LAW OF THE LAND
Now praying gets 7 Christians arrested
Cops call holding Bibles while lying prostrate 'disturbing peace'
Christians have been arrested recently at "gay" festivals for nothing more than having a protest sign that is "wider than their torso," but now police have gone even further, targeting Bible-carrying ministers for praying on public property and for standing on a public sidewalk near a "gay" festival.
One of the new cases comes from 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."
The second such case arose in Wichita, Kan., where police arrested Spirit One Christian Center Pastor Mark Holick, who had received permission earlier from officers to be on the public sidewalk adjacent to the park where the festival was occurring but then was arrested doing exactly that.
Julian Raven, a street preacher, told WND his group of seven assembled to pray for three hours the night before Elmira's recent "pride" festival in promotion of the homosexual lifestyle.
"We have a legal right to be at an event held in a public square. We're not a hate group," he said. "We're Christians and we're going to be there to pray."
He said he contacted police, who told him he had no free speech rights in the public park.
"The female officer, she said, 'You're not going to cross the street. You're not going to enter the park and you're not going to share your religion with anybody in this park,'" he told WND.
"When she said that, for the first time in my life as a Christian, I felt now my freedom of speech is threatened or challenged," he said. "I was being told I could not share my religion with anybody in that park."
Raven said he told the officer "she was violating the Constitution that she had sworn to uphold, and she was very agitated and adamant, and couldn't look me straight in the eye."
Raven asked for the justification for such a threat and was not given a response.
He said his team of Christians then went into the park, holding Bibles over their heads to signify their subservience to God's Word, and lay on their faces to pray.
Within three minutes, police officers had put handcuffs on the seven, to the cheers of the homosexual crowd, he said.
He said a court date is pending for the seven July 23.
"I have the highest respect for the police officers. They have a very difficult job to do. But we were treated unfairly in a public setting. This was a hasty show of force. It was not called for," he said.
He said if the situation is left unchallenged, the city of Elmira will be in the position of being able to control the content of people's messages in a lawful assembly – or even thoughts if they are nearby.
"We didn't say boo to a goose, still we were arrested," he said.
The local newspaper reported the arrests came just "moments" after Elmira Mayor John Tonello delivered a speech "celebrating diversity."
And the actions prompted some immediate criticism from newspaper readers.
"I was appalled and disgusted by the gay stories strewn through the … paper. … What was even more disturbing was the way the city acted. Since when is it illegal to sit on the ground in a public park and recite Bible verses? Are they not protected by the same Constitution that allows gay people to have their gay pride event. These Bible thumpers had their constitutional right to free speech and assembly trampled on by the city. They should not have been arrested," said Kevin Raznoff.
Robertson told WND the Christians "certainly" have a right to assemble, but not on public property when there's an "organized" event there. Asked repeatedly about how the "disturbance" statute relates to First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech, he did not answer.
"Obviously, they caused a disruption to an event that was taking place," he said.
But Raven confirmed to WND the seven Christians did not approach a single person, did not speak to anyone and did not even make any audible statements until after they were arrested.
Pastor Holick's case in Wichita was even more drastic. He had gone, with a team from his church, to pass out flyers and pray at a recent "pride" festival held there.
He had checked with the police department and was told, "The sidewalk is your friend."
"Upon arriving we began to set up," he said. "Immediately, I was approached by WPD and told that we could not go into the park (a public park mind you where everyone else – except the Christians – was allowed in) and that we could not be on the sidewalk on that side of the street but that we could go to the other side of the street.
"In other words, one side of the street is open to Christians but the public park and the public sidewalk next to the park is not," he said.
But then Holick was arrested within about four minutes of his arrival.
"It is obvious that the WPD did not keep their word and that they wanted to arrest as quickly as possible. The First Amendment … was cast aside like so much garbage," he said.
"The sin is 'coming out' further and further and the church is now being pushed further and further back inside the four walls of the church building; we are the ones that are seen as 'the trouble makers.' The police arrest the Christians and allow all manner of perversion to flaunt itself in the streets of Wichita. And we the church … well … I'm not sure we care," he said.
Police alleged that they asked Holick five times to "leave" the festival, even though he never purchased the required admission fee or went in.
As WND reported , Holick already had been 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.
Just a week earlier, WND reported 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.
Pastor Billy Ball, Assistant Pastor Doug Pitts, Frankie Primavera and Josh Pettigrew, all of Faith Baptist Church in Primrose, Ga., were arrested after leaving a small area set aside by city officials for protest activities. Bill Holt, of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Jefferson, Ga., was also taken into custody.
According to Lighthouse Pastor Kevin Whitman, the five men were told by police their signs were not allowed outside the protest area because they were wider than their torsos. When the men refused to put them away, they were arrested for violating a controversial city ordinance that governs permitted events.
As WND reported, 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.
The resulting ordinance came under fire by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Alliance Defense Fund for being too broad. It allows the city to create prior restraints of speech on an event-by-event basis, with virtually no predictable limits. It also criminalizes certain free speech behavior around public events and authorizes the police to enforce breaches of permits – the penalty for such breaches being arrest.
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GLOBAL JIHAD
Palestinian official: Women must martyr themselves
Praises females who make 'Jews – the brothers of apes and pigs – taste the bitterness of death'
News stories of female suicide bombers – young women in the prime of life, sometimes pregnant or with their children – blowing up themselves and dozens of innocent bystanders with explosive belts, have shocked the world in recent months.
It's well known that young Muslim men are taught they will be rewarded with 72 virgins in the afterlife. But what is the appeal of martyrdom to women?
A Palestinian member of parliament representing Hamas explained the answer on Al-Rafidein TV last Sunday.
Here, translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI, are excerpts of what Al-Astal said about Muslim women's "duty" to engage in violent jihad.
Yunis Al-Astal: "The most exalted form of jihad is fighting for the sake of Allah, which means sacrificing one's soul by fighting the enemies head-on, even if it leads to martyrdom. Martyrdom means life next to Allah.
"… When jihad becomes an individual duty, it applies to women too, because women do not differ from men when it comes to individual duties. …"
Interviewer: "What are the purposes behind women's participation in the jihad of conquest and invasions?"
Yunis Al-Astal: "I have mentioned some of these purposes. [Women] prepare food, they bring water, they tend to the wounded and convey them from the battlefield, they protect the [soldiers'] possessions, and so on. But in many cases, women participated in combat, especially if the Islamic army was weakening, and you could see that the enemy was about to gain the upper hand. In such cases, a woman would draw out her sword, or pull out a pole from her tent, and would resist to the best of her ability.
"… Let's take another example. Safiyya, the aunt of the Prophet Muhammad, used a pole to kill a Jew in the Battle of the Trench. Likewise, in the Battle of Hunayn, Umm Sulaym had a dagger, and when asked about it, she said: 'If an enemy of Allah comes near me, I shall stab him with this dagger.' History has recorded, in shining letters, the fact that Al-Khansaa sacrificed her four children at the battle of Al-Qadisiyya. She inflamed their emotions and she herself incited them to fight until they attained their martyrdom, and then she thanked Allah for honoring her with the killing of them all."
Mother praises Allah for taking son's life
Yunis Al-Astal: "I would like to tell you a wonderful story which took place in later times. There was a woman called Umm Ibrahim Al-Hashimiya, and Ibrahim was her only child. She prepared 10,000 dinars, to hold him a wedding the likes of which had never been seen. All the girls of the neighborhood were hoping to become his wife. One day, she attended a sermon about jihad, the virtues of the mujahideen, and about the black-eyed virgins of Paradise. She immediately decided that her son would marry the black-eyed virgins. She went to the preacher and paid him the 10,000 dinars, on the condition that her son would marry the black-eyed virgins, about whom she heard things that encouraged her to act the way she did.
"Her son did indeed wage jihad for the sake of Allah, and she awaited news of his martyrdom with bated breath. When the army returned, she hastened to ask: 'Should I be congratulated because my gift was accepted, or should I be offered condolences because it was returned?' The army commander said to her: 'The gift was accepted, and the bride has been brought to the groom.' She praised Allah for accepting her sacrifice – her only son, who was about to be married. She believed that his wedding was his martyrdom for the sake of Allah."
Intifada breeds female martyrdom-seekers
Yunis Al-Astal: "In the second Al-Aqsa Intifada, females martyrdom-seekers emerged. These are young women, in the prime of their life, at a time when girls like these think only about jewelry and preparing for marriage. Nevertheless, they went to their martyrdom, advancing head-on with a great fighting spirit. This intifada of ours has recorded more than 15 exemplary cases of girls who were martyred for the sake of Allah. But not before making the Jews – the brothers of apes and pigs – taste the bitterness of death, and not before avenging the blood of the martyrs, the wounded, the bereaved, the prisoners, the displaced, those whose homes were destroyed, those whose lands were bulldozed, and all those who were affected by the earthquake of the sons of Zion."
Do female martyrs have to wear their veil?
Interviewer: "Dr. Al-Astal, we have seen that some of the female martyrdom-seekers set out on their martyrdom operation without a veil. To what extent does our religion allow women, when they embark upon jihad for the sake of Allah, to use means of camouflage such as removing the veil?"
Yunis Al-Astal: "When jihad becomes an individual duty, the husband's permission or consent is not required, because jihad becomes like prayer. Just like a woman does not have to ask for permission to pray, to fast during Ramadhan, or to give charity, she does not need to ask for permission when jihad becomes an individual duty. In my opinion, in places invaded by the enemy, jihad becomes an individual duty.
"With regard to your question about the veil, especially when it comes to martyrdom-seekers who had to go into the Zionist cities deep in Palestine – jihad is a duty, and so is wearing a veil, but the duty of jihad is ten times great than the duty of wearing a veil."
"… The most important message is that our enemies should know that there is no place for them on the land of Palestine. Each and every boy and man, and each and every girl and woman, is a potential martyrdom-seeker. The enemy should know that we are prepared to wear explosive belts, and to throw ourselves in the midst of the enemy, in order to make them taste the evil consequences of their deeds. They should know that they have no other choice – either they leave or they will die, even if it takes a long time."
"… The message of the female martyrdom-seekers to the enemies is that they should go back to where they came from, or else our jihad will continue until this land regains its holiness – from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River" (WND editor's note: i.e., all of Israel).
"… The women of Islam, especially in regions of tension – and
I emphasize Iraq and Afghanistan, where the Americans run rampant. ...
If we are capable – and, Allah willing we are indeed capable – of
shattering America's might and rubbing its nose in the dirt, we will
deliver the world from this global American bully, from the European
Crusader hypocrisy, and the hateful paganism worldwide. What is
required of the men and women of these peoples – but especially the
women – is that they take [an example] from Rim Al-Riyashi, from Fatima
Al-Najjar, and from the long list of women, and especially from Umm
Nidhal, the mother of Muhammad Farhat, who sacrificed three children as
martyrs, and who threatens the enemy that her remaining children will
become martyrdom-seekers, and will make the Jews taste the evil
consequences of their deeds."
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
Gaza's forgotten Christians
'The people are under siege from the sky, land and sea'
Caught amid the infighting between Hamas and Fatah and Israel's retaliation for rockets launched at its southern towns lies an easily overlooked segment of the population: Christians number only 2,000 among 1.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – less than 1 percent of the population.
Evangelical Christians are even fewer.
"We are a minority of minorities," Hanna Massad, pastor of Gaza Baptist Church, told Israel Today. "It is really difficult. The Christian community here is 2,000 including Catholic, Greek Orthodox and evangelical Christians."
Gaza Baptist Church, the only evangelical church in the Strip, ministers to 150 to 200 people.
In recent fighting, an Israeli missile landed on a Hamas office, shattering all the windows in Massad's house just 300 feet away. No one was injured, but the consequences of a war they are not involved in are continually getting closer to home.
Frequently, one faction or the other commandeers the church's buildings to use as a lookout point. Once a library worker was caught in the crossfire and shot in the back. He has since recovered.
The church driver wasn't as fortunate. The 22-year-old newlywed was shot and killed in a Hamas-Fatah shootout, an innocent bystander.
Massad said living in Gaza is like being in a big prison. Many people have died because they haven't been able get over the border in time for proper medical treatment in Israel or Egypt.
"The people are under siege from the sky, land and sea," he said, adding that medical supplies and food are often delayed getting to the Strip. "Unemployment is 72 percent. Militant Muslims are against us, and some Christians are not with us because we are evangelical."
Not long ago terrorists carried through on a threat to bomb the Gaza Bible Society where Massad's wife is a director. Now the church itself has been threatened.
"There is a small militant group that hates everything Western and Christian, and in their minds, they are trying to clean up the city," Massad said. "They are a narrow-minded group, and the government is unable to control it."
But the Gaza church isn't playing victim to the circumstances. Instead the Christians are running clinics, libraries, bringing humanitarian aid to the needy and carrying on meeting. They meet openly at the church.
"One thing that strikes me is that you don't hear negative language from them," Labib Madanat, executive director of the Palestinian Bible Society, told us. "Their language is positive, a language of mission: 'What is my role as a believer; what can I do in this situation?'"
"I'm not saying it is not hard, that they don't have fears," he said. "There are troubles, threats, danger and sometimes they are down. But the overall sum is they are a group of people who are resilient, totally dependent on the Lord and positively thinking of what God wants them to be in the Gaza Strip."
Madanat said the church worldwide needs to encourage believers in Gaza. Compared to believers in the West Bank, the believers in Gaza are more "focused on what God wants them to do in this situation. Gaza is much more difficult. The sense of need of total dependency on the Lord is much stronger."
The U.S. consulate has been warning all Americans to get out of Gaza because of the constant dangers. Massad, who also holds American citizenship, was asked by the consulate if they want to leave.
"Without any hesitation I said no," he explained. "This is where we feel God wants us to be at this time and it is a privilege to be in the midst of God’s will."
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FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
Christians warned: Accept Islamic law
'New Hamas rule means real changes,' missionaries to be 'dealt with harshly'
JERUSALEM – Christians can continue living safely in the Gaza Strip only if they accept Islamic law, including a ban on alcohol and on women roaming publicly without proper head coverings, an Islamist militant leader in Gaza told WND in an exclusive interview.
The militant leader said Christians in Gaza who engage in "missionary activity" will be "dealt with harshly."
The threats come two days after a church and Christian school in Gaza was attacked following the seizure of power in the territory by the Hamas terror group.
"I expect our Christian neighbors to understand the new Hamas rule means real changes. They must be ready for Islamic rule if they want to live in peace in Gaza," said Sheik Abu Saqer, leader of Jihadia Salafiya, an Islamic outreach movement that recently announced the opening of a "military wing" to enforce Muslim law in Gaza.
Jihadia Salafiya is suspected of attacking a United Nations school in Gaza last month, after the school allowed boys and girls to participate in the same sporting event. One person was killed in that attack.
"The situation has now changed 180 degrees in Gaza," said Abu Saqer, speaking from Gaza yesterday.
"Jihadia Salafiya and other Islamic movements will ensure Christian schools and institutions show publicly what they are teaching to be sure they are not carrying out missionary activity. No more alcohol on the streets. All women, including non-Muslims, need to understand they must be covered at all times while in public," Abu Asqer told WND.
"Also the activities of Internet cafes, pool halls and bars must be stopped," he said. "If it goes on, we'll attack these things very harshly."
Abu Saqer accused the leadership of the Gaza Christian community of "proselytizing and trying to convert Muslims with funding from American evangelicals."
"This missionary activity is endangering the entire Christian community in Gaza," he said.
Abu Saqer claimed there was "no need" for the thousands of Christians in Gaza to maintain a large number of institutions in the territory.
About 2,000 Christians live in the Gaza Strip, which has a population of over 1 million.
Abu Saqer said Hamas "must work to impose an Islamic rule or it will lose the authority it has and the will of the people."
His comments come after gunmen Sunday attacked Gaza's Latin Church and adjacent Rosary Sisters School, reportedly destroying crosses, bibles, pictures of Jesus and furniture and equipment. The attackers also stole a number of computers.
The attack was the first targeting of Christian institutions since Hamas last week staged a coup against the rival Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, seizing all Fatah positions and security compounds, essentially taking complete control of the Gaza Strip.
Hamas officials in Gaza claimed to WND Fatah was behind Sunday's church attack in an attempt to discredit Hamas to the international community.
Abu Saqer claimed he had "good information" the attack actually was a robbery aimed at the church's school computers, even though Bibles and Christian holy objects were destroyed.
Christians, secular institutions targeted
Israel evacuated the Gaza Strip in 2005. Since then, there have been a slew of attacks there against Christians and non-Muslims.
A month before the U.N. school was targeted, Palestinians bombed a Christian book store in Gaza reportedly funded by American Protestants that exclusively sold Christian books. Two nearby Internet cafes also were bombed.
At the time, Abu Saqer, who didn't take credit for the attack, told WND the Christian bookstore was "proselytizing and attempting to convert our people."
"As a principle, we believe that Jews and Christians will always do everything in order to keep Muslims far from their religion," Abu Saqer said.
Even before Hamas took over Gaza last week, some analysts here called the recent bombings of secular and Christian institutions in the territory indications Hamas may be seeking to impose Islamic rule on the Palestinian population.
Israeli officials said Hamas in 2005 established hard-line Islamic courts and created the Hamas Anti-Corruption Group, described as a kind of "morality police" operating within Hamas' organization. Hamas has denied the existence of the group, but it recently carried out a high-profile "honor killing" widely covered by the Palestinian media.
A Hamas-run council in the West Bank came under international criticism last year when it barred an open-air music and dance festival, declaring it was against Islam.
'West can learn from Islamic values'
In response to the uproar, Hamas chief in Gaza and former foreign minister Mahmoud al-Zahar told WND in a recent interview: "I hardly understand the point of view of the West concerning these issues. The West brought all this freedom to its people but it is that freedom that has brought about the death of morality in the West. It's what led to phenomena like homosexuality, homelessness and AIDS."
Asked if Hamas is seeking to impose hard-line Islamic law on the Palestinians, al-Zahar responded, "The Palestinian people are Muslim people, and we do not need to impose anything on our people because they are already committed to their faith and religion. People are free to choose their way of life, their way of dress and behavior."
Al-Zahar said his terror group, which demands strict dress codes for females, respects women's rights.
"It is wrong to think that in our Islamic society there is a lack of rights for women. Women enjoy their rights. What we have, unlike the West, is that young women cannot be with men and have relations outside marriage. Sometimes with tens of men. This causes the destruction of the family institution and the fact that many kids come to the world without knowing who are their fathers or who are their mothers. This is not a modern and progressed society," al-Zahar explained.
The terror chieftain told WND the West can learn from his group's Islamic values.
"Here I refer to what was said in the early '90s by Britain's Prince Charles at Oxford University. He spoke about Islam and its important role in morality and culture. He said the West must learn from Islam how to bring up children properly and to teach them the right values."
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ELECTION 2008
Group sics IRS on Mormon critic
'Bring it on,' evangelist says of investigation of Romney comment
The Internal Revenue Service has been asked to investigate the Florida ministry of Bill Keller, host of the Live Prayer TV program as well as LivePrayer.com for his comments about Mormonism.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State said it has written to request the review of Keller's comments that a "vote for Mitt Romney [is a vote] for Satan."
"Americans United asserts that Bill Keller Ministries seems to have violated federal tax law when its online division, Liveprayer.com, ran articles warning readers that a vote for Romney is a vote for Satan," the activist organization announced.
Barry Lynn, the executive director of the group, urged an investigation into what the group called a "blatant example of religiously based partisan politicking."
"The 2008 presidential election is 18 months away, and already we're seeing reckless attempts by some religious leaders to abuse their non-profit status by engaging in partisan politicking," he said.
In a telephone interview with the Washington Post, Keller laughed off the claims. "Let them come after me for making a spiritual statement about Mitt Romney. I would love that," he said.
As WND reported at the time, while some evangelical Christians were defending the presidential candidacy of Mormon Mitt Romney from an attack by Al Sharpton, Keller took a step in the other direction.
"If you vote for Mitt Romney, you are voting for Satan!" he wrote in a daily devotional sent to 2.4 million e-mail subscribers on May 11.
Sharpton, the Democratic Party activist and former presidential candidate, has been widely condemned for singling out Romney's faith as an issue in the campaign.
"As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don't worry about that; that's a temporary situation," he said.
Keller also came out swinging against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as a cult.
"This message today is not about Mitt Romney," he wrote. "Romney is an unashamed and proud member of the Mormon cult founded by a murdering polygamist pedophile named Joseph Smith nearly 200 years ago. The teachings of the Mormon cult are doctrinally and theologically in complete opposition to the Absolute Truth of God's Word. There is no common ground. If Mormonism is true, then the Christian faith is a complete lie. There has never been any question from the moment Smith's cult began that it was a work of Satan and those who follow their false teachings will die and spend eternity in hell."
"I guess what I can tell you is it shows that bigotry can still rear its ugly head in society," Alex Burgos, a spokesman for the Romney campaign, told WND. "It's sad that anyone would target a fellow American on the issue of faith."
"We really have no comment," Kim Farah, a spokeswoman for the Mormon church, told WND.
Several days later, Keller followed up.
"As you know I am a huge advocate of Christians taking their stand in all areas of the marketplace, including politics," he wrote. "Most likely our only real option will be choosing a third party candidate who will take a stand to uphold Biblical values."
But the focus of his criticism was Mormonism.
"I have been warning you for years now about this cult born out of the pits of hell and responsible for sending millions of souls to eternal damnation," Keller said. "For the nearly 200 years this cult has been in existence they have strived for mainstream acceptance. They are the most devious of all the cults since they have always tried to portray themselves as 'just another Christian group' when in fact, they are no more Christian than a Muslim is! Their deception starts with their name, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Sounds like a Christian church doesn't it? Some Mormons have recently changed their name to simply Community of Christ to disguise even better who they are in an attempt to lure people in."
Keller said that when LDS members talk of God and Jesus they are not talking about the God and Jesus of Christianity. He claims Romney's high-profile candidacy for the presidency is an important effort by the church to gain credibility and respectability.
"There are reportedly 12 million Mormons worldwide, half of those in the United States," he said. "The worldwide holdings of the Mormon cult are in the tens of billions of dollars. Mitt Romney is the first member of this cult who has had the legitimate opportunity to help them achieve their goal of mainstream acceptance while holding the most powerful office in the world. Romney will have the full resources of this cult behind him in his bid for the White House."
He said if Romney wins the White House, millions of people will be attracted to Mormonism.
"Those who follow the false teachings of this cult, believe in the false jesus of the Mormon cult and reject faith in the one true Jesus of the Bible, will die and spend eternity in hell," he charged. "Romney getting elected president will ultimately lead millions of souls to the eternal flames of hell!"
Keller also criticized Romney for political flip-flops on issues like abortion, citing a recent report that his wife donated money to Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the world.
"Please take some time today and pray for Mitt Romney and all those who have been deceived by the lies of the Mormon cult," Keller added. "The fact is that unless they renounce those lies and turn to faith in the one true Jesus of the Bible, they will die and spend eternity in hell."
Keller was a businessman convicted of insider trading in 1989, a crime for which he served more than two years in federal prison. After getting out, he received a degree in biblical studies from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and has been in full-time ministry ever since.
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
IRS to church: Shut up – Church to IRS: No way
Pastor under investigation says he 'will not stop preaching God's word'
A Christian church in Kansas has told the Internal Revenue Service that it will not stop teaching and preaching God's Word, "even if it relates to contemporary issues in the world," after the federal agency demanded answers to 31 questions about its beliefs and warned about "political" activity.
Spirit One Christian Center Pastor Mark Holick told WND that the IRS, perhaps, should brush up on the freedoms assured U.S. citizens regarding religion and speech before making such demands in the future.
He said the issues the church addressed – and will continue to address – concern issues that the Bible addresses, such as killing and protecting the defenseless.
The response came to a series of questions from the IRS questioning whether the church was involved in "political" activity. In specific, Holick said, the IRS cited a sign that read: "Sebelius accepted $300,000.00 from abortionist Tiller, price of 1000 babies."
But that, he said, was just part of a responsibility on the part of a Christian church to comment on abortion, a red-hot topic in the church's home city of Wichita.
That's also the location of the abortion business of George Tiller, whose political connections in Kansas have been documented by Operation Rescue, a pro-life organization, and reported by WND.
A Christian organization needs to be able to talk of the moral issues of the day – including abortion, Holick noted. The sign just told of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' connections to the abortion industry.
Holick told WND that the IRS letter challenged a variety of the church's activities, including the posting of various pro-life messages on the building marquee.
"They felt like they had a reasonable concern that we had been involved in political activity," he said.
But politics are of no interest to the church; issues of moral character addressed in the Bible are, he said.
"The church does not intend to engage in political intervention activity as prohibited by federal law and the United States Constitution," he told the IRS. "But the church will not stop communicating its Biblical message, even if it relates to contemporary issues in the world.
"Thus," Holick continued, "the church cannot agree to not engage in any activity that may favor or oppose a candidate. Simply preaching the word of God on a moral issue which a candidate is opposed, may be deemed to oppose a candidate. While it is the church's policy not to oppose or endorse a candidate for office, it will not stop preaching God's word."
He continued: "The United States Constitution guarantees that Spirit One will be able to freely exercise its religion, and that Congress will not pass any law restricting that right. This is all Spirit One wants to do – communicate God's word.
"The 1st Amendment of the Constitution is a respected and renowned oracle celebrated all over the nations of the world. It is quite specific and clear; 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press...,'" Holick said.
He said the IRS also raised questions about a voter information guide that was handed out in Wichita, although his church did not sponsor it, as well as an abortion-issue related e-mail he had forwarded.
He said he didn't know who would have filed a complaint about his church with the IRS. "We're a very vocal pro-family, pro-life church," he said. "That creates enemies."
"These are not political issues, these are Gospel issues, Christian issues," he said.
He noted that the IRS even wanted to know whether Phill Kline, the Republican state attorney general who was defeated in his re-election bid in 2006, had ever spoken at the church, and what were the details of his address.
"It's crazy," Holick told WND.
"Please provide a detailed explanation of Mr. Kline's speech. Include details such as the topic of the speech, whether he solicited votes during this speech to the congregation, whether he discussed the election during the speech, and whether he discussed other candidates in the election during the speech," the IRS wrote.
"He ministered from the Bible, mostly the book of Genesis, and on truth. He did not speak about elections or political candidates. But because it was so long ago (2003 and 2004), the church does not remember any more specific details," Holick responded.
To another question about whether certain signs were "political," Holick wrote:
"The signs were not political activities, but rather, were examples of how Spirit One communicates its religious message. The signs all pertained to respect for life and family, a key and fundamental teaching of the scriptures (see Ps. 139:13-15, Jer. 1:4-5, Lk. 1:41-44, Lk. 1:15, Ge. 25:23, Gal. 1:15, Ge. 1:27, Job 10:12, Pr. 24:11-12, Jr. 7:2, Jr. 22:3, 17, Ex. 23:7, Ex. 20:13, Rv. 21:8, Ge. 9:6, 2 Ki. 17:16-20, Jr. 32:35, Jr. 7:31, Mt. 19:5.)."
Holick said the congregation of about 100, meeting as a church for 16 years already, has been strong throughout the challenge by the federal government.
Holick also told the IRS that the signs all "are spiritual messages that communicate God's truth, or are directly related to messages in the Bible." And to the question "why," he said: "The purpose is to obey the Lord, proclaim His Word (the Gospel), and establish His kingdom."
"The following are just a few of the many Scripture references related to the purpose of the signs:
-to lift up Jesus (Ps. 24:7-9)
-to rebuke sin (Lk. 3:8)
-to destroy the works of the devil (1 Jn. 3:8)
-to save babies (Lv. 20:1-5)
-to be honest (Is. 59:14)
-to take a righteous stand (Ps. 9:8)
-to rescue the weak and needy (Ps. 12:5)
-to demonstrate true religion by loving preborn neighbors (Jm. 1:27)
-to call a wicked city to repent (Ex. 23:7)
-to educate and inform about Jesus who IS truth (Jn. 14:6)
-to obey the call to preach, including rebuking (Acts 16:10)
-to stand in the gap against evil (Ez. 22:30)
-to confront hypocrites (1 Ki. 18:17-18)
-to confront immoral politicians (1 Ki. 18)
-to declare the whole counsel of God (Jn. 14:26)
-to disciple children (Pr. 22:6)
-to save America (Dt. 28)
-to stop the shedding of innocent blood (Jr. 22:17)
-to not allow the city to be comfortable while babies are murdered (Pr. 1:32)
-to glorify God (Ps. 86:12)
-to destroy the works of the devil (1 Jn. 3:8)
-to make the Pastor’s calling and election sure (2 Pe. 1:3)
-to work out the Pastor’s salvation with fear and trembling (Ph. 2:12)
-to take dominion for King Jesus over this wicked city (Dn. 7:14)
-to promote the fear of God, for it is the beginning of wisdom (Pr. 9:10)
-to spark a Revival (Jl. 2:12-13)
-to separate the wheat from the chaff in this church and other churches (Is. 40:24)
-to obey Ephesians 5:11 and reprove the fruitless deeds of darkness (Ep. 5:11)
-to act like a Christian (Jm. 1:27 – what the Bible calls true religion)
-to train others how to act and speak (Jm. 2:22)
-to expose and confront evildoers (Ez. 20:4)
-to prophesy against wickedness (Is. 58:1)
-as an act of worship (Jn. 14:15)"
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Young U.S. Muslims back suicide attacks
The first nationwide survey of Muslim Americans revealed that more than a quarter of those younger than 30 say suicide bombings to defend Islam are justified, a fact that drowned out the poll's kinder, gentler findings suggesting that the community is mainstream and middle class.
"There are trouble spots," noted Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, which conducted the survey of 1,050 adult Muslim Americans -- two-thirds of whom were foreign-born -- January to April. The results were released yesterday.
"We should be disturbed that 26 percent of these young people support an ideology in which the ends justify the means," said Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, chairman of the Arizona-based American Islamic Forum for Democracy.
"But the survey also found that only 40 percent of the overall American Muslim population would even admit that Arabs were behind 9/11. They're in denial, refusing to take moral responsibility, and the radicals will feed on this," Dr. Jasser said.
Farid Senzai of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding said he had "concern" about evidence of youthful radicalism.
The revelation that some young American Muslims condone violent bombings led coverage from CBS News, the Associated Press, Reuters, the Detroit Free Press, the Los Angeles Times and other news organizations.
"I'm not surprised that the press picked up on the bad news, because that's what sells. I'd like to see another ethnic group get asked the same question," said Laila Al-Qatami of the District-based American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
"What's also missing were responses about what it means among Muslims to be an American, or their opinions about education, health care and domestic issues. Failure to include this stuff lends an impression that American Muslims are different," she added.
The survey, which estimates the U.S. Muslim population to be 2.3 million, emphasized the more positive findings, billing the group as "middle class and mostly mainstream," socially assimilated and happy.
"Clearly, this public comes across as much more moderate than much of the Muslim public in most of the world. They are decidedly American in outlook," Mr. Kohut said.
Indeed, seven out of 10 of the respondents rated their communities as good or excellent and said they would get ahead through the "American work ethic," a greater percentage than found in the general public. Seventy-three percent have never been discriminated against as a Muslim on these shores, and 78 percent said they were either "pretty happy" or "very happy" with their lives.
Practicing their religion was a positive as well: 74 percent said they were satisfied with the quality of mosques in their neighborhood. Most identify themselves as Democrats (63 percent) and seven out of 10 voted for Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, in the 2004 presidential race. Sixty-one percent say homosexuality should be discouraged.
Yet many are troubled by politics or policy: 69 percent disapprove of President Bush, 75 percent disapprove of the Iraq war and 48 percent disapprove of the war in Afghanistan. Only 26 percent say the war on terrorism is a "sincere effort," compared with 67 percent of the general public.
Where are their hearts? It depends on the age group. Sixty percent of the younger-than-30 demographic said they were "Muslim" first, and a quarter were Americans first. Among the total population, 47 percent consider themselves Muslims first and 28 percent are Americans first.
Social factors also come into play. The survey found that 54 percent are dissatisfied with the general state of the nation, 53 percent say life has gotten more difficult for Muslim Americans since September 11, 2001. More than half believe that their population has been singled out by the U.S. government for surveillance.
Among respondents who were converts, 91 percent were U.S. citizens. Of the total number of converts, 59 percent were black, 55 percent followed Sunni traditions and 67 percent had converted from a Protestant denomination.
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May, 2007
YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK
Bill sees churches as political lobbies
Grassroots advocacy again under fire from Congress
A Christian law firm is launching an urgent petition drive to try to convince Congress to drop plans to re-classify Christian ministers and ministries as "lobbyists," a move that would create reams of red tape and subject the leaders to fines of up to $50,000 if they don't follow all of the fine print.
Jay Sekulow, of the American Center for Law and Justice had warned several months ago when a similar proposal was defeated in the U.S. Senate that the issue may return.
"We're still deeply concerned that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and others will attempt to push through these dangerous restrictions in the House," he had said when Section 220 of S.B. 1 was rejected.
Now it has been.
"This legislation, in essence, attempts to override the United States Constitution," said the appeal from the ACLJ. "What we're dealing with here is the work of politicians who want to control, limit, and silence Christians and conservative groups."
"We MUST fight back, and quickly," the group said.
The plan now is called House Resolution 2093, but would do just about the same thing as the earlier Section 220 in the Senate. "House Resolution 2093 would drastically affect churches that speak out on issues like partial-birth abortion, same-sex marriage, conservative judicial nominees, and military chaplains' right to pray," the ACLJ said. "It would also impact Christian groups using TV, radio, or the Internet to mobilize citizens around an issue."
The proposal, as did the earlier plan, could require pastors, church leaders, advocacy organizations and even some individuals to register as lobbyists, under penalty of fines of up to $50,000, the ACLJ said.
The ACLJ's protest petition is available online.
Sekulow noted that he's already assembled a legal team and produced a legal analysis, available on the organization's website, that details the dangers of the bill.
"We are preparing a complaint to file in federal court if necessary," he said.
Sekulow's analysis said the Senate was wise to reject the plan, on a bipartisan basis in January, and recommended the House do the same.
Many of the phrases in the legislation are similar or identical to the earlier proposal.
"The main difference between H.R. 2093 and Section 220 of S. 1 is that H.R. 2093 would simply shift the bulk of the financial and regulatory burden of registration and reporting from the grassroots organizations themselves to the media companies that help distribute their message," the analysis said.
"H.R. 2093 would chill the exercise of First Amendment rights by requiring the media firms that help grassroots organizations to share their message to register with the government and disclose information about the groups' activities," it continued.
"The cost of compliance with federal lobbying laws – including the need to hire lawyers, accountants, and other personnel to ensure that all legal requirements are met – would be great. Undoubtedly, many companies will make their grassroots clients bear the cost of compliance with the lobbying law rather than imposing the burden upon their entire clientele. Moreover, some companies would stop working with grassroots organizations altogether to avoid the onerous burden of lobbying registration."
The real problems come up in the definition of lobbying and employees. "For example, if a church or other non-profit client organization receives, spends, or agrees to spend $100,000 within a quarterly period to influence the general public to contact members of Congress about legal issues, an employee that directs how that money is spent – such as a pastor, treasurer, or public policy director – could be considered a 'lobbying firm,'" the analysis said.
Also, if a church or other group spends just $5,000 to encourage the general public to contact members of Congress about important policy issues, the printing, publishing or other media companies would be required to provide information about the group and its issues.
"H.R. 2093 casts an unduly broad net of regulation over many churches, public advocacy organizations, and individuals that are not 'lobbyists' and subjects the media companies … to burdensome registration and reporting requirements," the analysis ssaid.
In the end, First Amendment violations would abound under the proposal, Sekulow's organization found.
When the earlier plan was defeated, James Dobson, chairman of Focus on the Family Action, said, "The big winners in this battle are the American people. Getting rid of the onerous grass-roots lobbying restrictions in S.1 is a triumph of the representative form of government our Founding Fathers established 230 years ago."
He had interrupted his regular schedule of broadcasts to alert people to the legislation that would have imposed huge limits on Christian organizations.
That original plan would have required the pro-family groups to provide documentation of their actions to the government any time they try to spark any "grass-roots" action.
Phone calls, personal visits, e-mails, magazines, broadcasts, phone banks, appearances, travel, fund-raising and other items all would be subject to government tabulation, verification and audits, Dobson said his broadcast.
"What is being illustrated here is a passion by congressional liberals to consolidate power and operate within a cloak of secrecy. It is unconscionable and unconstitutional. We will not be intimidated by attempts to criminalize those who would hold Washington accountable. The right to do so is as American as apple pie," Dobson said.
The Senate plan, sponsored by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., was listed as a proposal "To provide greater transparency in the legislative process," however Dobson was joined by American Family Association Chairman Donald Wildmon, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins and American Values President Gary Bauer in urging listeners to flood Capitol Hill with phone calls demanding those speech limits be removed.
World Net DailyMay, 2007
FAITH UNDER FIRE
Muslims cracking down on Christianity
Costs of remaining steadfast include family, home, even life
Christian churches are being ordered closed and those who are steadfast in the faith are losing homes, families and jobs as the cost of being Christian in Pakistan is rising, according to new reports from the Voice of the Martyrs and others. Even the death penalty soon could be a possibility.
The Voice of the Martyrs said, however, Christians are remaining faithful under the persecution, and are in need of prayer.
"The Voice of the Martyrs recently received information from Pakistani contacts that Christians remain steadfast in their faith, although they are losing relationships with their families because of their faith in Jesus Christ," the VOM report said.
The VOM cited one specific case, that of "Karim," who comes from a devout Muslim family.
He routinely suffers the loss of jobs, contact with friends, and even homes, because of his Christianity, VOM said.
"After I became a Christian in 1997, I visited my family during the Muslim festival called, 'Eid-ul-Zaha,' where Muslims sacrifice animals before Allah," he told VOM. "I questioned my mother asking her why she was sacrificing animals to Allah and yet in the Christian faith Jesus Christ sacrificed himself for us. I explained there was no need to sacrifice any animals. My mother was shocked. She started verbally abusing me and told me she had noticed a change in me, but had never thought it was because I had converted to Christianity."
She warned him the rest of the family would not be as understanding as she was.
"Before I left home my brother asked if I was reading the Bible and if I had an interest in the Christian faith. He slapped and verbally abused me, saying Christians are 'churda,' dirty people. He said Christians would make me dirty and I should stop reading 'churda's books, the Bible,'" Karim said.
VOM reported that Karim has lost jobs because of his faith, and constantly moves from one location to another to avoid harassment from members of his extended family. But he said his Christianity, to which he was introduced by a co-worker who gave him a Bible, is worth it.
"One day I read where the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, and after this I also asked Jesus to teach me how to pray. I said, 'Jesus, I have no teacher who can guide me and teach me about the Bible and faith, give me the Holy Spirit so I can learn about this faith.' From that day the Holy Spirit has been my teacher," Karim told VOM.
He said he spent years investigating before he made that decision.
"For two and a half years I was reading it every day. I started a comparative study of the Bible and the Quran. I saw there was a sequence, continuity and discipline in the Bible. I could not find these things in the Quran," he said.
According to Elizabeth Kendal, who reports on the persecution for the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission, the root of the developing problem in Pakistan is the nation's pro-Sharia, Islamist Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal alliance of Muslim devotees, which holds the balance of power in the nation's National Assembly.
As a result, President Pervez Musharraf frequently makes political agreements that advance his agenda of staying on power while granting the alliance some of its wishes – which could be summarized as the conversion of Pakistan into a Islam-controlled state.
One of the pending proposals is the Apostasy Act, under which any man who leaves Islam for another religion would be killed. Women would be imprisoned for life.
The report also said owners of stores trading in the "un-Islamic" have been ordered to close or "suffer dire consequences," female students have been threatened if they continue their schooling, and in the Charsadda district, churches have been issued hand-written letters with an ultimatum to close down.
Faith McDonnell, the religious liberty director of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, said the nation's consideration of the death penalty for leaving Islam is two steps backwards for religious freedom.
"The apostasy bill is the work of political parties aligned with Taliban-style repression," she wrote. She said such laws would open the door to massive abuse, and in fact, such cases already have been launched.
In one case, she said, a Christian boy was sentenced to death for writing blasphemy on the wall of a mosque. The penalty was based on Muslim "witnesses." However, the child was illiterate and could not write, she said.
There also have been reports from ASSIST News Service which cited a Pakistani Christian who is a lawyer, Khalil Tahir Sandhu, about random attacks on Christian women who are abducted, assaulted, and then forced to "convert" to Islam.
The Barnabas Fund reported that Shahbaz Bhatti, chief of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, confirmed the Christians are being ordered to convert. "We will not do it, even if we have to die," he said.
Officials also cited similar concerns developing in Egypt, where unsubstantiated claims that Christians were planning to build a church in violation of national law sparked rioting that left Christians injured and their homes and businesses destroyed.
As WND has reported, three Christians also were martyred recently in Turkey by Islamists who feigned interest in a Bible study, then attacked the leaders.
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.
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TROUBLESPEAK
Radio host suggests putting GPS on Muslim immigrants
U.S. should consider bugging homes, monitoring calls, e-mails
A radio talk show host in Denver asked his audience to consider whether or not it would be right for all Muslim immigrants admitted to the U.S. to wear GPS units and have the FBI bug their homes and monitor their telephone calls and e-mails.
The comments from "Gunny Bob" Newman on 850 AM KOA radio were reported by the Denver Post. He was reacting to the recent arrests of six men charged in an alleged plot to attack and kill as many soldiers as they could at Fort Dix, N.J.
The suspects, Muslims, have been ordered held without bond, and court documents now reveal one of the men told the others how to make bombs and gave them weapons for the planned attack.
Newman, on his talk show on a station that also carries Rush Limbaugh, the nation's most-listened-to radio talk show host, said he was fed up with attacks by Muslims on the U.S. and its interests.
"I want – tell me if I'm wrong or tell me if I'm right. I want every Muslim immigrant in America who holds a green card, a visa, or who is a naturalized citizen to be required by law to wear a GPS tracking bracelet at all times," Newman said in a recent diatribe against such unprovoked attacks on the U.S.
"And the FBI and the NSA should monitor their phones and their e-mails, all communications – electronic – at all times, as well as bug their places of work and their residences. If they don't like the idea, or if they refuse, throw their a---- out of this country," he said.
"All mosques and community centers as well as Muslim organizations must be monitored. We know with the arrests … that the Muslim terrorists are absolutely, positively here – and we invited them to our country! And I think maybe it's time that we should stop doing that," he said.
The words immediately unleashed a firestorm of criticism from organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, and a lobbying campaign convinced three companies to withdraw their advertising from the show.
"We sent numerous e-mails," said a spokeswoman for Colorado Media Matters, which bills itself as a resource that monitors and corrects conservative broadcast statements.
His boss at the Clear Channel station, Kris Olinger, reported "Gunny Bob" was expressing an opinion, "an extreme one, but his opinion. [Hosts] are paid to express opinions. That's the nature of what we do."
"Newsradio 850 KOA understands that some of you may have been offended by remarks Gunny Bob made regarding Muslim immigrants to the United States. That was not the intention. 850 KOA believes in being fair and respectful while encouraging discussion and debate of complex issues," the station said in a website statement.
"Call me kooky, but I think maybe it's time for a little moratorium on Muslim visas, period. Hey, I'm sorry guys – I know that a lot of you are great people. I know you just like to do business here or become a U.S. citizens (sic) and be a peaceful person. I know that. But you know what? You better get control of your own people. Once you get control of them, then come see us again and we'll think about – however many decades down the road it is – we'll think about maybe opening our doors to you again.
"But you are doing absolutely freaking nothing to help, to, to help this nation. And that's that," Newman said.
Newman had been honored in 2006 with a "Gunny Bob Day" declaration by Colorado's governor, who wrote the three-hour daily program is responsible for "educating and enlightening Colorado citizens on a variety of topics from counter-terrorism to survival tactics" and "the State of Colorado recognizes Gunny Bob for his ability to keep citizens informed about war tactics and strategies, as well as the current situation in the Global War on Terror."
In a Denver Post column, Dick Kreck noted that Newman is a "conservative talk show" host for whom "rash, rude and inflammatory statements are common."
Bill Menezes, chief of the Colorado Media Matters, said Newman is seeking to "deny to members of a specific religion the same rights that his employer states are integral in the treatment of its own employees."
"In dealing with the recent Don Imus controversy, NBC News President Steve Capus emphasized that it was important for NBC's employees to have confidence in the company's values. It's time for Ms. Olinger and Clear Channel to step up and have a public conversation about why one employee is allowed to broadcast values that it won't stand for elsewhere within its own organization," Menezes wrote.
After making his comments, and seeing some of the reaction, Newman acknowledged that visitors to what he described as "liberal hate blogs" were suggesting "liberals should protest me and my right to freedom of speech" at signings of his new book, "The War for America."
He then said those who might protest are "holier-than-thou, politically correct, anti-First Amendment, namby-pamby fools."
"Who the heck do you think you are to say an American citizen doesn't have the right to state his or her opinion?" wrote blogger "DB" about the situation. "Here I am to state my opinion! Get out of it! If you don't like it turn the d--- channel! We love Gunny Bob! He says it like it is."
Newman noted the "irony and hypocrisy" of those activists who protest against his First Amendment rights using their own First Amendment rights."
Newman "is one of the very few that live in the land of
reality. He is one of the few that recognizes the Islamic faith as a
terrorist faith. I certainly see it and once these people kill 100,000
Americans or so, others will recognize it," wrote "swatson839" on an
online comment page.
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YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK
Judge wannabes refuse to endorse constitution
Questionnaire sought confirmation of support for state law of the land
None of the 19 candidates currently seeking appointment to fill a vacancy in the Idaho Supreme Court was willing to confirm support for a series of statements drawn directly from the state's constitution, according to the Idaho Values Alliance.
The pro-family organization sent the candidates for the important judicial post a routine questionnaire asking whether they agreed or disagreed with a list of statements.
For example, Question 1 asked whether the candidates would agree with the statement: "The Founders of the state of Idaho were grateful to God for our freedom."
Not one candidate would respond to the questionnaire, even though the preamble to the state constitution says: "We, the people of the State of Idaho, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, to secure its blessings and promote our common welfare do establish this Constitution."
Likewise, none of the candidates responded to the following statement: "All men have an inalienable right to enjoy and defend both life and liberty."
The state constitution, in Article 1, Section 1, states: "All men are by nature free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights, among which are enjoying and defending life and liberty…"
The questionnaire was nothing more than requests for affirmation – or disagreement – for the existing state constitution, a document every judge in Idaho swears an oath to uphold upon taking office.
"One possibility is that the candidates didn't even recognize that these statements come word-for-word from the state constitution, which is pretty alarming," said Bryan Fischer, the executive director of the alliance.
"The second possibility is that they did recognize them as coming from the constitution, but weren't willing to let the public know whether they agreed with it. That's even worse," he said.
"The fact that not one candidate was willing to give the public this critical information will make the average observer wonder whether any of them are qualified for a seat on the bench," Fischer said.
Significant public issues are pending in the state, and rulings from the state Supreme Court affect the life of every resident, he noted.
"Whoever is appointed by the governor to the Supreme Court will take an oath to uphold the state constitution. The citizens have the right to know if candidates for that position know what's in it, and whether they will support it. It's worthless for them to say they will uphold the whole thing if they won't commit to upholding specific parts of it," Fischer said.
Those not responding to the questionnaire were: Bart M. Davis, Myron Dan Gabbert Jr., Michael S. Gilmore, Ralph J. Gines, Hon. Joel D. Horton, Larry C. Hunter, Warren E. Jones, Debora K. Kristensen, Lynn M. Luker, Charles F. Peterson Jr., Kevin D. Setterlee, Gardner W. Skinner Jr., Marvin M. Smith, Hon. Kathryn A. Sticklen, Clive J. Strong, Mitchell E. Toryanski, Terrence R. White, Hon. R. Barry Wood and William F. Yost III, the alliance said.
Question 4 asked the candidates to agree or disagree with the statement: "All political power is inherent in the people, not the courts."
The state constitution specifies: "All political power is inherent in the people."
Fischer said the role of judges in the law and umpires in baseball is similar.
"The role of a judge, like an umpire, is not to make up the rules or change the rules he doesn't like, but to apply the rules that have been established by others," he said.
"The first question league officials would ask a prospective umpire is whether he knows the rules of baseball and will agree to uphold them. If an umpire applicant doesn't know the rules or wouldn't be willing to openly admit he agrees with the 'three strikes and you're out' rule, for example, he wouldn't stand a chance of getting a job.
"Why would we award a position on the most powerful judicial body in the state to someone who won't let us know if he even knows the state constitution or agrees with it?" Fischer asked.
"When Judge Dan Eismann ran for a seat on the Idaho Supreme Court in 2000, he filled out a much more extensive questionnaire than this one. So these candidates can't hide behind the pretense that judicial rules don't allow them to return a judicial questionnaire. This naturally raises the question, why are these candidates so secretive? Why is this process so insular that the public cannot get any information at all about the judicial philosophy of the candidates?"
The document also asked the candidates to agree or disagree with: "The exercise and enjoyment of religious faith and worship should be forever guaranteed."
That comes from Article I, Section 4: "The exercise and enjoyment of religious faith and worship shall forever be guaranteed…"
They also were asked to agree or disagree with: "The people, not just the militia, should have the right to keep and bear arms."
And in Article 1, Section 11, the state constitution declares: "The people have the right to keep and bear arms, which right shall not be abridged…"
Still another request for agreement or disagreement: "The first concern of all good government should be the virtue and sobriety of the people, and the purity of the home."
And from the constitution, Article III, Section 24: "The first concern of all good government is the virtue and sobriety of the people, and the purity of the home."
The Idaho state constitution also recognizes that a marriage shall be only between a man and a woman, but Idaho residents don't know whether the judicial candidates agree with that or not.
World Net DailyMay, 2007
FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
Muslims attack Christians accused of building church
Inflammatory Islamic sermon triggers fires at homes, shops
Muslims in Egypt this weekend attacked local Christians and set fire to their shops and homes after the Christian community was accused of attempting to build a church.
The riots broke out Friday in the village of Behma, about 50 miles south of Cairo, reportedly after a Muslim sermon at a nearby village mosque accused the town's Coptic Christian population of planning to construct a church without a permit. The Christians said the sermon was meant to stir violence.
The Egyptian government heavily restricts the construction or enlargement of churches, requiring permits for any Christian building.
The riots this weekend reportedly saw Muslim gangs of more than 500 clash with about 200 Christians. At least 27 Christian-owned houses and shops were damaged by fire, including 10 homes that were completely gutted. Muslims reportedly threw Molotov cocktails at some Christian homes. Sixty-nine Christians were injured, some gravely.
A spokesman for Egypt's interior ministry confirmed around 500 Muslims had gathered in Behma after Friday prayers and that the entrances to three Christian homes had been set on fire.
According to a Muslim reporter who was on the scene for a top Egyptian daily, Egyptian police forces did not immediately step in to stop the violence.
(Story continues below)
"There was an atmosphere of terror for the Christians of Behma. The police could have intervened early, but they seemed to let the clashes go for some hours before stepping in," said the reporter, who spoke to WND on condition his name be withheld. He said he was banned from filing a report for his newspaper.
Security forces ultimately reportedly arrested 59 Muslims, who were charged with arson and with spreading sectarian strife.
It wasn't immediately clear if the Behma Christian were enlarging or building a church. Christians in the town currently pray from a house that doubles as a worship center.
The Coptic Church, a major Christian community in Egypt, reportedly dates back to the origins of Christianity. Christians were the majority in Egypt until several centuries after the Arab conquest of the seventh century.
Christians now comprise about 10 percent of Egypt’s 75 million population, but Christians are effectively restricted from senior government, military or educational positions, and any worship services require the permission of the government.
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TRAIL OF TERROR
Police renew focus on Muslim cabbies
Authorities worry about 'taxi jihadists' in cities
With the arrest of a Philadelphia taxi cab driver in the Fort Dix terror plot, authorities are paying closer attention to Muslim cabbies, many of whom are militant believers, WND has learned.
Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, a U.S. citizen born in Jordan, was charged earlier this week with conspiring to kill at least 100 soldiers on U.S. soil. The FBI says the 22-year-old drove a cab in Philadelphia.
"My intent is to hit a heavy concentration of soldiers," said Shnewer, the alleged mastermind of the terror plot.
Muslims account for the majority of cab drivers in many major U.S. cities – including the nation's capital. And a number of them have ties to terrorism, federal and local authorities say.
After 9/11, the U.S. Park Police, which enforces laws on federal roads leading into such places as CIA headquarters, ran a search of Islamic terror suspects against a database of traffic stops in the Washington, D.C., area going back decades.
"It came back with a nearly 25 percent hit rate," a U.S. Park Police official said. "Many of them were cab drivers."
The official, a veteran police detective who wished to go unidentified, says roughly 80 percent of cab drivers in the Washington area practice the Islamic faith. Their numbers concern police, who believe they make up part of the terror support network in America.
"If they're not suspects themselves, they pick up suspects at airports and take them to safehouses here," he told WND. "It's a jihadi network."
The federal Park Police work with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies assigned to the National Counter Terrorism Center, or NCTC, headquartered in McLean, Va., a Washington suburb. The FBI is now closely monitoring the activities of taxi drivers in the area, bureau sources confirm.
A great many of them worship at the large Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Va., another D.C. suburb. On Fridays, FBI case agents say they typically observe 50 or more cabs and limos parked among other cars in the parking lots used by the radical mosque, which has included several Hamas and al-Qaida terrorists among its members.
Some of the 9/11 hijackers also attended services at Dar al-Hijrah, while receiving assistance obtaining housing and IDs from mosque members and officials, some of whom are admitted members of the dangerous Muslim Brotherhood.
In between fares, many taxi drivers congregate at the Starbucks located down the road in a shopping center in Baileys Crossroads, which has the highest concentration of Muslims of any area outside Dearborn, Mich.
The shopping center is within a few miles of the Pentagon, and right across the street from two luxury apartment high-rises that erupted into cheers when the World Trade Center fell on 9/11. Law enforcement has dubbed the Skyline Towers the "Taliban Towers" after conducting several counterterrorism investigations involving tenants.
Washington is not alone. Other major cities are dealing with radical Muslim taxi drivers.
9/11 'Party Platters'
Miami-Dade County Police Department officials tell WND that after 9/11 a group of Muslim cab drivers at Miami International Airport held a celebration on a carpeted area of the concourse reserved for Islamic prayer.
Some were overheard allegedly saying, "Finally, the Great Satan got what it deserved."
"They brought out party platters," a Miami-Dade police detective said. "We tried to ID the taxi drivers who celebrated and give their names to the FBI."
New York also has had its share of "taxi jihadists," as law enforcement calls them.
Take Mahmud "The Red" Abouhalima, a former Manhattan cabbie. He helped plant the explosives-packed van that the terrorists used to try to blow up the World Trade Center in the first attack on the towers in 1993.
Those who knew him say he transformed his cab into a mobile Islamic institute, filled with copies of the Quran, jihadi books and tapes of sermons recorded in Arabic.
Like the Jersey jihadists accused of targeting Fort Dix, Abouhalima lived in New Jersey, which has a large Muslim population. Police believe he also was the intended getaway cab driver in the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane.
More recently, in Nashville, a Muslim cab driver for United Cab this year was charged with assault and attempted homicide. Ibrahim Ahmed allegedly tried to run down two Vanderbilt University students. One was seriously injured.
Surprisingly, the 9/11 attacks emboldened many Islamic taxi drivers.
In Minneapolis, for instance, they've asserted the tenets of their faith, refusing airport passengers carrying duty-free wine and even blind riders accompanied by seeing-eye dogs. Alcohol is forbidden in Islam, and dogs are considered unclean.
About three of every four cabbies at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport practice Islam. Even after authorities last month agreed to slap fines on them for refusing "infidel" fares, some refuse to bend.
"I am Muslim. I'm not going to carry alcohol," insisted Abdi Mohamed, a driver for Bloomington Cab.
Islamic Foot-Baths
Muslim taxi drivers also have demanded special accommodations at airports.
In Kansas City, for one, airport authorities recently built several foot-baths in a restroom for Muslim drivers after they requested them to help them prepare for Islamic prayer, as WND first reported. Kansas City International Airport police say about 70 percent of the taxi drivers there are Muslim.
A great many taxi drivers are immigrants from the Mideast or Pakistan. Last November, Homeland Security agents rounded up dozens of Pakistani immigrants across the East Coast working illegally as cabbies. Pakistan is an al-Qaida hotbed.
Before last year's congressional election, a U.S. lawmaker was widely criticized for suggesting Muslim cabbies were a terrorist threat.
Republican Sen. Conrad Burns said the U.S. is up against a faceless enemy of terrorists who "drive taxi cabs in the daytime and kill at night."
The longtime senator lost his seat to Democrat Jon Tester.
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Because they hate
Larry Elder:
You are of Christian Lebanese descent. When you heard what Rosie
O'Donnell said, that Christian extremism is as bad as Islamic
extremism, how did you react?
Brigitte
Gabriel: Well, I do not know what land she is living in, but I
do not recall when the last time I saw a Christian behead anybody on
television, or behead somebody and advertise it on the Internet. I do
not recall hearing a Christian preach that Muslims are apes and pigs
because they are cursed by Jesus, the way that Muslims are teaching
that we are apes and pigs. I do not recall the last time a Christian
went into an elementary school, hijacked children and started shooting
them in the back like the Muslims did in Beslan in Russia when they
went into a schoolyard and took over the children and started
butchering them and killing them. [Rosie] better be thankful that she
is living in America, because if she were living in Iran and spoke
against her country – or any Arabic country – she would be beheaded or
actually buried halfway in the ground, to be stoned to death.
Elder:
Did you study Islam?
Gabriel:
No, I did not study Islam; I lived Islam. I lived in the
Elder: You
were raised in
Gabriel:
Yes, my 9-11 happened to me in 1975 when I was a 10-year-old child,
living and minding my own business [in] a small town in south
Elder:
You call your book a wake-up call. Tell us what the West does not
understand about what I call Islamo-fascism. And, do you think
"Islamo-fascism" is an appropriate term?
Gabriel:
Yes, it is an appropriate term. We are fighting Islamo-fascism, we are
fighting a war that is much worse than Nazism, anything we have fought
before, because even the Nazis did not encourage their children to
strap bombs onto their bodies and then rejoice at their deaths, as well
as the deaths of their victims. Islamists are encouraging their
children to die.
Elder:
There are 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. I want you to analyze them
by ideology.
Gabriel:
Not all of them are radicals. We estimate that the radicals are between
15 and 25 percent; that translates to between 180 and 300 million
people like Mohamed Atta who are willing to strap bombs to their bodies
and commit martyrdom operations. Now, that is still a minority, 15 to
25 percent, but 300 million Mohamed Attas ready to unleash their blood
upon the West. ... Now, the rest of them ... despise the West, they
hate our westernization, they think we are morally corrupt, that we are
corrupting the world, and they think we are such a bad influence on the
world that we need to be stopped at any cost. They may not be willing
to commit martyrdom operations themselves, but they will sit there and
cheer on and rally those who are willing to kill us.
Elder:
Are we winning?
Gabriel:
No, we are losing.
Larry Elder:
What caused
Brigitte
Gabriel: ... In the early '70s,
Elder:
Tell us about Islamo-fascism in the West.
Gabriel:
The Center for Religious Freedom went undercover last year and
collected 200 publications from some of the most prominent mosques in
the
Elder:
Are there moderate Muslims who condemn the radicals, who don't feel
threatened by democracy?
Gabriel:
Yes. ... I call it a practicing Muslim and a non-practicing Muslim. I
think it is a better description than "moderate" and "radical." A
practicing Muslim goes to mosque, prays five times a day, doesn't
drink, believes God gave him women to be his property – to beat, to
stone to death. ... He believes Christians and Jews are apes and pigs
because they are cursed by Allah. He believes it is his duty to declare
war on the infidels because they are Allah's enemies. That is a
practicing Muslim. A non-practicing Muslim no longer goes to mosque or
prays five times a day, has an occasional glass of wine and believes
that a woman is equal to a man. ... He believes he cannot murder his
wife just because he wants to. He does not believe in taking four wives
just for sexual pleasure. ... He no longer believes that, as a Muslim,
it is his duty to kill the apes and pigs that have been cursed by
Allah. A non-practicing Muslim is educated, an intellectual who
believes the Quran – writt en in the seventh century – doesn't apply to
today's standards, and Islam needs to be reformed. Those Muslims do
exist and live in the West. However, they are such a minority – we
estimate about 2 percent – they are irrelevant because it is the
majority that is causing the problem now.
Elder: What
should be done?
Gabriel:
Shut our borders. We have terrorists coming through our borders.
Al-Qaida is working with the MS-13 gang [El Salvadorian gang Mara
Salvatrucha], smuggling al-Qaida terrorists into the country. Hezbollah
is doing the same. ... We estimate thousands have already been smuggled
into
Elder: What
happens if a Democrat wins the 2008 election?
Gabriel: We are doomed. Our enemies want the
Democrats to win. This last election, jihadist websites were playing
victory songs and declaring the Democrats are our allies in the war
against
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BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS
Students punished for opposing 'gay' advocacy
Dozens of 1st Amendment lawsuits being considered against administrators
Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of students in several Sacramento area school districts are being penalized by school officials for objecting to the homosexual advocacy "Day of Silence," according to a law firm handling many complaints.
"We are looking at our options. If our affiliate attorneys come forward and help us with these … there might be dozens of lawsuits. I believe we have enough good attorneys both in skill and as a matter of conscience to step up to the plate," Kevin Snider, the chief counsel for the Pacific Justice Institute told WND.
"We should be able to do a full-court press on all of these," he said.
The issues arose during the annual "Day of Silence," last week at Inderkum, Rio Linda and San Juan high schools. That is an event promoted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network organization, which advocates for the homosexual lifestyle and promotes educating children in that choice.
During that event, students go around school during the day without speaking, and they hand out cards stating they are protesting the "discrimination" against the homosexual lifestyle.
Many schools allow such activities without penalty, although one Illinois school has in the past notified students while they had the choice to participate, teachers were not obligated to facilitate that activity by allowing them not to answer questions.
A year ago, the following e-mail went to students at the Urbana school, where participation in the GLSEN event is declining:
"A reminder: Protest often brings with it consequences. Are you willing to pay the price or is this a game you are playing?
"Sometimes those consequences are positive as in change of heart or feelings for someone else or for an idea. Sometimes they can be negative as in a grade reduction for failure to participate in a class. Please note that instruction and the teacher in charge of the instruction is not out to 'get' the student or to protest the Day of Silence if they ask you to communicate. Sometimes meaningful instruction must have an exchange of ideas via speech. If this is the case and the teacher requires a verbal exchange and you refuse to speak that is the cost of the protest to you. Don't blame the teacher. Chalk it up to the cost of protest for ideas that you believe in. Please also remember that selective protest – in the classroom but not in the hall – is not in the spirit of the day."
Snider said an estimated 3,000-4,000 Sacramento area students remained out of class to protest the GLSEN event. Others attended and many "did some sort of speech activities on the Day of Silence or the days following."
He said the activities generally involved a protest on a sidewalk near a school, wearing a T-shirt that expressed the student's religious views on homosexuality, or some sort of literature distribution.
Snider told WND there was no overall resolution apparent, because there were a number of school districts involved, with a variety of actions and outcomes.
"A lot of students were suspended," he said. "Others were just kicked out [of school] and told to go home for the day. I'm not certain that is legal. You can't just kick students out."
He said that might have been done by the schools to avoid legal liability. "When there's punishment, the schools face liability," he said.
But he told WND some students' parents came with them to school the next day, and said, "My understanding is that my student was suspended."
"In some cases, the secretary said, 'We have no record of that,'" he said.
Other schools had been suspending students who objected to the pro-homosexual advocacy, but then abruptly halted in the middle of the day. Another school "rounded up" several students days later and held them for three hours.
"The parents are quite upset at this," he said.
"There's at least one school district that looks like they are digging in and not going to remove, expunge, suspensions," Snider said. "So that may well be a legal confrontation."
He said when similar issues arose a year earlier, Pacific Justice spent hours negotiating with schools to have suspensions removed. "Those good faith efforts have come to naught," he said.
"So the question for parents and students becomes, 'What do you do about it?'" he said.
He said even the case of one student cited by police for "trespassing" after a complaint from school officials remains undetermined. If the student was improperly removed from the school for protected 1st Amendment activities, is a subsequent arrest for those activities valid, he questioned.
GLSEN advertises its event as a "vow of silence to recognize and protest the silence that LGBT people face each day."
This year it was held April 18.
On the following day, students in schools around the nation participated in the "Day of Truth," organized by the Alliance Defense Fund to counter the GLSEN event.
"In the past, students who have attempted to speak against the promotion of the homosexual agenda have been censored or, in some cases, punished for their beliefs," the ADF said on its website.
"It is important that students stand up for their First Amendment right to hear and speak the truth about human sexuality in order to protect that freedom for future generations," the ADF said.
Those students wear T-shirts and pass out cards during non-instructional time with messages such as: "Silence isn't freedom; it's a constraint."
Another pro-family organization, Not Our Kids recommended that students stay home on that day.
"Many school district superintendents, principals, and faculty members also endorse, promote or allow DOS – subjecting traditional students to pro-'gay' activism that violates their religious beliefs and right to a non-politicized education," the group said.
"Teenagers deserve an opportunity to study English, history, math, and science – without being subjected to pro-homosexual proselytizing sanctioned by school authorities," said Linda Harvey of Mission America, a coalition member.
At Rio Linda High, officials said students were not suspended for wearing Christian message on their shirts, but were suspended for not removing the shirts.
And a local newspaper reader wondered: "Hmmm the students were
not suspended for wearing anti-gay T shirts, but were disciplined for
not removing them? Sounds like typical double speak to me. Were the
other students suspended for not speaking?"
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
Worker fired after posting picture of Jesus
Says manager told him 'God' not allowed on cubicle walls
A call center employee says he has been dismissed from his job for posting an artist's rendition of the crucifixion during Easter week, even though other employees were allowed to post pictures and art as they chose in their cubicles.
Chris Romansky, a former employee of Barclays, told WND he was told there had been a complaint about the picture he put up to remind himself of Christ's sacrifice on the cross, a foundational belief in Christianity.
A company spokeswoman, Donna Sokolsky, told WND that the job termination "had nothing to do with anything religious whatsoever." But she said she was not permitted by human resources to know "more beyond that."
"What I CAN tell you is that Barclays has very strict policies around nondescrimination (sic), especially religious. I cannot speak for this particular individual's situation but I know that there was no religious descrimination. I do not think you have a story here."
She followed up several days later with a formal, unattributed statement, "We do not discriminate or take any action based on religious affiliation."
Barclays PLC, according to Sokolsky, is a large global financial service provider, offering banking, investment banking and investment management services. It operates in more than 60 countries and has 110,500 employees worldwide.
Romansky told WND his dismissal was effective April 13, and he has contacted state labor regulators about filing a complaint.
"We're actually allowed to hang up pictures on our cubes. I had a picture of my wife, and there's a cross in the background but that didn't seem to bother anybody," he said. He also had posted a couple of Internet clippings, but those generated no response either.
Then during the Easter season, he said, "I hung a picture of the crucifixion, actually it was before Easter. It was of the crucifixion of Jesus and it showed the Resurrection and it said 'Happy Easter.'"
"I came in on the following Tuesday, and it was face down on my desk, so I put it back up," he said. Then a team manager came and told him there had been a complaint that it was "offensive" and he had to take it back down.
The manager called him into her office. "She told me people were offended, and she told me anything with Jesus and God can't be up," Romansky told WND.
The manager told him to leave the building. "She took copies of the pictures," he said.
Several conversations with managers and the human resources department followed, Romansky said.
"She [the manager] then called me and told me they're going to have to let me go," he said. He said he'd never even been "corrected" before by the company, and she responded that he was being dismissed for insubordination.
"I said I want [copies of] all the corrective actions. I want an explanation," he said.
He said the "complaint" about his Easter picture may have been in retaliation, because earlier he had complained about the crudity of the conversation in the office.
"I feel I was singled out," he said.
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
Iraqi Christians forced to pay 'protection tax'
Muslims enforcing Islamic law requiring tribute or conversion
Christians in a Baghdad neighborhood are being required to pay a "protection tax" because Muslims have begun enforcing an Islamic law demanding either the tribute – or conversion to Islam, according to Christians in Iraq.
The report from the Assyrian International News Agency follows on complaints from Iraqi Christians that they have been caught in a no-man's land between the Coalition forces and Muslim militants in Iraq, watching as their churches have been bombed, and men and women assaulted and killed.
The newest report said Muslims in the Dora neighborhood are forcing Assyrians, who also are known as Chaldeans and Syriacs, but who largely are Christian, to pay the jizya, the poll tax demanded by the Quran.
Christians – and Jews – must pay the tax "in exchange for being allowed to live and practice their faith as well as being entitled to 'Muslim protection' from outside aggression," the agency reported.
The news agency said elements of Al-Qaida have moved into the region, and there is no evidence of any security forces, either from the Iraqi national armed services or Coalition forces being led by the United States.
In one section of the region, "people have been warned by these insurgents to uninstall the satellite dishes since this is 'haram' [forbidden] is Islam," the report said. "Where Christians live in Hay Al-Mualimeen [teachers quarter] and Hay Al-Athorieen [Assyrian quarter] is where they are telling people to convert, leave, pay 'jizya' taxation," AINA reported.
According to an e-mail uncovered by the agency, one person reported that it has been going on for some time.
"We talked to many people within the American Embassy and Iraqi Government, but it seems nobody really cares, because they have done nothing, or sometimes I wonder if they care at all," said the e-mail, from an unidentified resident in the region.
"Neither the Iraqi nor the U.S. Army have any activity there, and they have delivered Dora to insurgents; and above all the U.S. Army went and put a camp in the Chaldean church [Babylon Theology College] to raise the hate among those Muslims toward Christians, as they are seeing them [as] allies for Americans, and that worsened things more."
Another Syriac, now a refugee in Syria, confirmed the actions. "Today a family [name withheld] arrived from Dora/Mualimeen street, and they said some terrorists knocked on their door and when they opened the door they were told to either pay money [jizya] or support the insurgents or convert to Islam, or leave the house within 24 hours or else be killed," the individual said.
AINA had reported several weeks earlier that the practice was beginning. The organization said then that "at least" two cases had been reported to the government in which Christian Assyrian wives had been ordered to go to a certain mosque and make payments, which "they did out of fear."
"The stated reason for the payment was 'we do the fighting and you pay to support,'" AINA said.
Such tributes have been collected since the arrival of Islam in 630 A.D., but the last systematic collection by the Turks came to an end in 1918 when the Ottoman empire was defeated and partitioned at the conclusion of World War I.
A report from Assist News said that the names of the individuals who have spoken up were being withheld to protect them from retaliatory actions.
Christians in Iraq repeatedly have sought help from American political leaders, demonstrating in front of the White House just a few months ago to highlight the persecution under which they suffer. Although they represent just 5 percent of the Iraqi population, 40 percent of the refugees fleeing Iraq are Christian.
One of the speakers at the rally, Nina Shea of Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom in D.C., told WND that because of the "ethnic cleansing," the Christians want an autonomous district in Iraq they can administrate.
Among the atrocities documented just in recent months:
- Father Paulos Eskandar, of Mor Afrem Syriac Orthodox Church, was kidnapped Oct. 9 by Muslims and decapitated two days later. He was murdered despite Christians fulfilling a demand to post a text on the church doors condemning the pope's statement about Islam.
- On Oct. 4, a car bomb detonated in a Christian area and killed nine people, including Georges Zara, member of the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac National Council.
- A 14-year-old boy was crucified and stabbed in the stomach, mimicking what was done to Jesus, in Albasra.
- On Oct. 21, in Baquba, a group of veiled Muslims attacked a workplace where a 14-year-old boy named Ayad Tariq worked. The men asked the boy for his identity card. After seeing he was Christian the men asked whether he was a "dirty Christian sinner." Ayad answered: "Yes, I am Christian, but I am not a sinner." The rebels yelled he was a dirty Christian sinner and continued to grab him and to scream, "Allahu, Akbar! Allahu, Akbar!" The boy then was decapitated.
- In August, 13 Assyrian Christian women in Baghdad were kidnapped and murdered.
- In January, churches were bombed in Basra and Baghdad.
Shea said she has been raising the plight of the Iraqi
Christians with the U.S. government for several years, including in a
face-to-face meeting with President Bush in her role as a member of the
U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
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FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
Christian bookstore bombed by terrorists
Sword of Islam group takes credit at shop funded by U.S. Protestants
TEL AVIV – A Palestinian group today bombed a Christian bookstore in the Gaza Strip in the latest targeting of Christians in territories evacuated by Israel and now controlled by the Palestinians.
A group calling itself the Sword of Islam claimed responsibility for the blast, which targeted a store funded by American Protestants that exclusively sold Christian books. Two nearby Internet cafes were also bombed.
The Sword of Islam has previously stated it is allied with al-Qaida and is seeking to impose an Islamist theocracy in the Gaza Strip. It has taken credit in recent months for the bombings and attempted bombings of Internet cafes, music stores, pool holes and other establishments considered secular. Palestinian security officials say the Sword of Islam is an offshoot of the Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees terror organization.
Sheik Abu Saqer, a prominent Gaza-based preacher and leader of the Jihadia Salafiya Islamic outreach movement, claimed to WND the Christian bookstore was "proselytizing and attempting to convert our people."
"As a principle we believe that Jews and Christians will always do everything in order to keep Muslims far from their religion," Abu Saqer said.
Christian persecution trend in West Bank, Gaza
The bookstore bombing was the latest targeting of Christians in Palestinian cities evacuated by Israel. In November, a church in the Gaza Strip was badly damaged in a fire security officials attributed to local Islamist groups.
In September, Palestinian gunmen attacked and set fire to the Young Men's Christian Association headquarters in Qalqiliya, a large West Bank city controlled by Hamas. Qalqiliya was previously administered by Israel, but was handed to the Palestinian Authority as part of the 1993 Oslo Accords.
One political source in the city told WND at the time of the attack, "the identity of the attackers is well known to Hamas. We don't expect the Hamas-controlled police, the Hamas city council or the Hamas Interior Ministry to do anything about this attack."
The source called the arson a "warning to YMCA's and Christian groups in the Palestinian areas that they are not safe."
One Christian leader, an aide to Jerusalem's Latin Patriarch Michel Sabah who asked his name be withheld out of fear of Muslim retaliation, called the threats against Qalqiliya's YMCA part of a general trend of Christian persecution in Palestinian areas.
"It's been happening all over the West Bank and Gaza," said the aide.
There have been rampant reports of abuses and persecution in several West Bank towns taken over by the PA.
Anti-Christian riots have been reported in Ramallah, Nazareth and surrounding villages, as well as in towns in Gaza. In Bethlehem, local Christians have long complained of anti-Christian violence. The city's Christian population, once 90 percent, declined drastically since the PA took control in December 1995. Christians now make up less than 25 percent of Bethlehem, according to Israeli surveys.
Some analysts called the recent bombings of secular and Christian institutions in Gaza recent indications Hamas may be seeking to impose Islamic rule on the Palestinian population.
Israeli officials say Hamas in the Gaza Strip has established hard-line Islamic courts and created the Hamas Anti-Corruption Group, which is described as a kind of "morality police" operating within Hamas' organization. Hamas has denied the existence of the group, but it recently carried out a high-profile "honor killing" widely covered by the Palestinian media.
A Hamas-run council in the West Bank came under international criticism last year when it barred an open-air music and dance festival, declaring it was against Islam.
Hamas chieftain: West can learn from Islamic values
In response to the uproar, Hamas chief in Gaza and the group's former foreign minister Mahmoud al-Zahar told WND: "I hardly understand the point of view of the West concerning these issues. The West brought all this freedom to its people but it is that freedom that has brought about the death of morality in the West. It's what led to phenomena like homosexuality, homelessness and AIDS."
Asked if Hamas is seeking to impose hard-line Islamic law on the Palestinians, al-Zahar responded, "The Palestinian people are Muslim people, and we do not need to impose anything on our people because they are already committed to their faith and religion. People are free to choose their way of life, their way of dress and behavior."
Al-Zahar said his terror group, which demands strict dress codes for females, respects women's rights.
"It is wrong to think that in our Islamic society there is a lack of rights for women. Women enjoy their rights. What we have, unlike the West, is that young women cannot be with men and have relations outside marriage. Sometimes with tens of men. This causes the destruction of the family institution and the fact that many kids come to the world without knowing who are their fathers or who are their mothers. This is not a modern and progressed society," al-Zahar explained.
The terror chieftain told WND the West can learn from his group's Islamic values.
"Here I refer to what was said in the early '90s by Britain's Prince Charles at Oxford University. He spoke about Islam and its important role in morality and culture. He said the West must learn from Islam how to bring up children properly and to teach them the right values."
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YOUR GOVERNMENT AT WORK
'Gay'-rights bill lets court define church's 'purpose'
'Most sweeping and culturally devastating law in Oregon history, establishing pagan morality'
A plan being shoved down a fast track in the Oregon Legislature would give homosexuals a vast range of new state laws they could use to impose their moral perspective on Christians across the state, according to opponents who fear for their speech and religious expression rights.
Senate Bill 2, on its face, is written to enshrine in state law special protections for homosexuals by classifying them as a protected civil rights group. But hundreds of pastors – whose churches include tens of thousands of evangelical Christians – are horrified by what they see advancing virtually without opposition.
"Senate Bill 2, in the Oregon House of Representatives, if passed, will limit your free speech rights and rights of conscience; require public schools to teach that homosexual/lesbian/bisexual behavior is 'okay' and 'moral'; impact your rights as a business owner; and put judges in authority on certain church matters," according to David Crowe, of the Christian ministry called Restore America.
"This bill is arrogantly, defiantly and deceptively crafted to accomplish a lot more than what it is saying," he told WND. "It definitely adds sexual orientation to the list of protected civil rights groups.
"But there is verbiage in the bill and the verbiage has to do with the primary purpose of a church. They're seeking really to gain a foothold for homosexuals into the Christian church with the court's approval," he said.
"It's more than the nose of the camel, they want the whole camel in the tent to ruminate around however they would like," he said. "The word we've gotten from attorneys is that of all the bills around the country this is the worst," Crowe said.
"The bottom line this is a total effort by the left to subvert our morality, our Judeo-Christian morality and impose on us a morality they consider superior. What it is really is challenging everything we as Christians stand for."
The bill would affect churches even though it has a so-called church exemption, he said, because it would require every church operation that isn't directly in support of its primary mission goal to be subject to mandatory homosexual hiring requirements and other restrictions.
And it would leave the determination of what is in support of a church's primary mission to be determined by a secular judge. It is possible, for example, that a lesbian could sue a church if not hired to be a pastor's secretary.
For Christian business owners, it would require them to hire and promote homosexuals irrespective of the religious beliefs the owner might hold -- or whether the employee agrees with the products, in a Christian bookstore for example.
For parents, it means their children in public schools would be subject to the state-sponsored and state-required indoctrination that the homosexual lifestyle choice is moral – even if the parents hold religious beliefs that contradict that.
"The law – and this is onerous – has a clause that talks about developing a program of education to change our attitudes," Crowe said. "To change our attitudes? Is it the government's business to change attitudes? But that's precisely what's in the bill."
"They want to put into law [their] view of morality, and that's a small minority view of morality. They are seeking to impose that on the rest of us," he said.
Nearly 500 Christian pastors from across the state recently gathered with representatives of the Legislature to express their opposition to the proposal, and afterwards issued a statement that the law, if approved, would be "the most sweeping and culturally devastating law in Oregon history, establishing pagan morality under the guise of a 'civil right,' and imposing it upon all Oregonians under the cover of 'law.'"
Crowed noted that of the 14 states that have added "sexual orientation" to their protected classes, all except Senate Bill 2 provide clear protection for churches. "Not one includes wording that allows courts to determine the 'primary purpose' of a church, but SB 2 does," he noted.
"The majority of our legislators have chosen to believe the lie that those who engage in homosexual activity cannot help themselves, and that they are being unjustly and wrongly discriminated against, when in fact, neither is true," Crowe said.
The proposal "clearly opens the door to liberal judges to redefine and decide the 'primary purpose' of a church, and violates the rights of everyone," said Crowe, who recommends people sign a petition to encourage legislators to oppose the plan.
The governor had appointed a commission to study the issue, but included only representatives of liberal or "gay" churches, leaving members of 2,500 Bible-believing and teaching churches unrepresented on the panel, he said.
Individual leaders from Christian organizations already have begun contacting not only their lawmakers, but Gov. Ted Kulongoski too.
A letter from Vernon M. Marks, superintendent of the Oregon Assemblies of God churches, told Kulongoski that the more than 30,000 members of those churches are urging the rejection of the plan.
His letter told the governor the bills will:
- Violate the very moral and ethical foundations of our
culture.
- Restrict the rights of our citizens to make moral
distinctions and to speak freely.
- Disregard fundamental biblical guidelines for the
sanctity of traditional family.
- Promote dysfunctional family structures that will rob
the next generation.
- Ignore the overwhelming vote of Oregonians to
preserve traditional marriage.
- Discriminate against parents raising mentally and
physically challenged adult children.
- Provide special rights for a few and ignore the civil
rights of the majority of Oregonians.
- Discriminate against parental moral values and
convictions.
- Promote behaviors that clearly violate common sense
and social stability.
- Will create a huge strain on Oregonians economically.
- Will elevate the already taxed judicial system in
dealing with lawsuits over these issues.
- Infringe on the constitutional protection of the free
exercise of religion.
John Fortmeyer, publisher of the Christian News Northwest reported that the Legislature has given the appearance of allowing public input, but it doesn't appear to impact any decisions.
Nick Graham of the Oregon Family Council told him a March hearing on the plan lasted seven hours and had 126 people register to oppose it. Sixty-five supported it.
"We had fantastic testimony in opposition, such as from legal firms and executive pastors," Graham said. "But to no avail, that evening, the bill was passed out of committee and sent to the floor of the Senate ... We were given the appearance of public input, but ultimately it meant nothing."
"Also, PRAY!" said a message from Marks to the church group's pastors. "This is possibly the most dangerous piece of legislation to come from Oregon's legislature."
The Constitution Party said the plan is a "recipe for civil war."
"Everyone should read this legislation. It clearly gives those who choose non-traditional sexual behavior preference over those with traditional moral values," said state Chairman Jack Brown. "This legislation will lock religious people inside their church buildings and let perversion occupy the rest of the landscape!"
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
Court orders preacher into 'exile'
Evangelical punished despite government's claim of 'religious tolerance'
A Christian leader under persecution for his faith has been ordered exiled by the Uzbekistan government, after prosecutors alleged he was preaching without government authorization, a new report from Voice of the Martyrs has revealed.
The organization, which advocates on behalf of persecuted Christians worldwide, said Pastor Dmitry Shestakov was sentenced at a court hearing just days ago to four years in exile.
"This is an example of what our Uzbek brothers and sisters face in their country," said Todd Nettleton, director of media development for VOM. "This is a government that says they give their citizens religious freedom, but that is clearly not the case."
The report follows by just a week a report of another instance of persecution in Uzbekistan, also documented by VOM. In that case, police officers were dispatched to break into the meeting of a church in Qarshi and confiscate literature. They also demanded to know who was providing funds for the meetings and why people chose to be Christian.
The Uzbek government has a formal policy that "religious toleration and forbearance have always been and remain to be the most important component of the state policy of the Republic of Uzbekistan."
But the latest incidents, including the Shestakov decision, appear to disprove that.
"According to The Voice of the Martyrs contacts in Uzbekistan, the location to which he will be exiled has not been determined. It is not clear if his family will be able to go with him," said the organization founded by a man who endured prison and punishment for his belief in Christ.
Pastor Shestakov had been arrested in a raid of his congregation in Andijan in January, officials said.
"Uzbekistan's Religious Affairs Committee claims Shestakov, an evangelical pastor, is not an authorized leader of any officially recognized religious organization in Uzbekistan. They describe him as an 'imposter' leading an underground group identified as 'charismatic Pentecostals' engaged in proselytizing under Shestakov's leadership," VOM officials confirmed.
That conclusion was delivered by the government even though the church he works with is affiliated with the Full Gospel Church, which is documented as a registered church.
"Our prayers will continue to be with our brother as he faces this sentence, and we pray that the gospel work in Andijan will continue and grow," Nettleton said.
The organization said in the Qarshi case, police officers arrived with video cameras to record the service, but Pastor Sergei Shandyyayey didn't panic and just continued the worship.
"After the service finished, the officers shut the doors and began to question the believers gathered there, especially asking why they had become Christians," VOM said.
According to the U.S. State Department, Uzbekistan is a "country of particular concern" because of its persecution of Christians, including multiple raids that have been conducted in recent months.
In one case, officers raided a church in Tashkent, confiscating video and audio recordings as well as books and Bibles, and taking several young people to police headquarters. One member, Risto Dyachkov, was convicted of violating Uzbekistan's "religion law" and fined, Voice of the Martyrs said.
In another case Christians who happened to be in a café and were discussing their faith were ordered to admit that they were not authorized to hold such a meeting.
Judges have concluded in their decisions that national law does not allow unregistered religious groups to operate, so any musical equipment, books, literature or other items that are confiscated are not returned. That, authorities concluded, was "material evidence."
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.
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BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS
District gags 14-year-olds after 'gay' indoctrination
'Confidentiality' promise requires students 'not to tell their parents'
Officials at Deerfield High School in Deerfield, Ill., have ordered their 14-year-old freshman class into a "gay" indoctrination seminar, after having them sign a confidentiality agreement promising not to tell their parents.
"This is unbelievable," said Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues for Concerned Women for America. "It's not enough that students at Deerfield High are being exposed to improper and offensive material relative to unhealthy and high-risk homosexual behavior, but they've essentially been told by teachers to lie to their parents about it."
In what CWA called a "shocking and brazen act of government abuse of parental rights," the school's officials required the 14-year-olds to attend a "Gay Straight Alliance Network" panel discussion led by "gay" and "lesbian" upperclassmen during a "freshman advisory" class which "secretively featured inappropriate discussions of a sexual nature in promotion of high-risk homosexual behaviors."
"This goes to the heart of the homosexual agenda," Barber said. "The professional propagandists in the 'gay-rights' lobby know the method all too well. If you can maintain control of undeveloped and impressionable youth and spoon-feed them misinformation, lies and half-truths about dangerous, disordered and extremely risky behaviors, then you can control the future and ensure that those behaviors are not only fully accepted, but celebrated."
He said not only is forcing students to be exposed to the pro-homosexual propaganda bad enough, but then school officials further required that students sign the "confidentiality agreement" through which they promised not to tell anyone – including their own parents – about the seminar.
Barber said that also aligns with the goals of the disinformation campaign being run by those in the pro-homosexual camp. "That's what homosexual activists from GSA are attempting to do, and that's what DHS is clearly up to as well."
The situation, according to district Supt. George Fornero, was partly "a mistake."
He told CWA, the nation's largest public policy women's organization, that requiring children to sign the confidentiality agreement wasn't right and the district would be honest with parents in the future about such seminars. But CWA noted that even after the district was caught, parents still were being told they were not welcome to be at the "freshman advisory" and they were not allowed to have access to materials used in compiling the activist curriculum.
Barber noted the damage being done is significant.
"Until DHS and other government schools across the country are made to stop promoting the homosexual agenda, kids will continue to be exposed to – and encouraged to participate in – a lifestyle that places them at high risk for life-threatening disease, depression and spiritual despair," he said.
It's not the first situation where WND has reported on schools teaching homosexuality to children.
In Massachusetts after a school repeatedly advocated for the homosexual lifestyle to students in elementary grades, several parents sued, only to have the federal judge order the "gay" agenda taught to the Christians.
The conclusion from U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf found that it is reasonable, indeed there is an obligation, for public schools to teach young children to accept and endorse homosexuality.
Wolf essentially adopted the reasoning in a brief submitted by a number of homosexual-advocacy groups, who said "the rights of religious freedom and parental control over the upbringing of children … would undermine teaching and learning…"
David and Tonia Parker and Joseph and Robin Wirthlin, who have children of school age in Lexington, Mass., brought the lawsuit. They alleged district officials and staff at Estabrook Elementary School violated state law and civil rights by indoctrinating their children about a lifestyle they, as Christians, teach is immoral.
"Wolf's ruling is every parent's nightmare. It goes to extraordinary lengths to legitimize and reinforce the 'right' (and even the duty) of schools to normalize homosexual behavior to even the youngest of children," said a statement from the pro-family group Mass Resistance.
An appeal of that decision is pending.
The judge concluded that even allowing Christians to withdraw their children from classes or portions of classes where their religious beliefs were being violated wasn't a reasonable expectation.
"An exodus from class when issues of homosexuality or same-sex marriage are to be discussed could send the message that gays, lesbians, and the children of same-sex parents are inferior and, therefore, have a damaging effect on those students," he opined.
"Under the Constitution public schools are entitled to teach anything that is reasonably related to the goals of preparing students to become engaged and productive citizens in our democracy," the judge wrote. "Diversity is a hallmark of our nation. It is increasingly evident that our diversity includes differences in sexual orientation."
And, he said, since history "includes instances of … official discrimination against gays and lesbians … it is reasonable for public educators to teach elementary school students … different sexual orientations."
If they disagree, "the Parkers and Wirthlins may send their children to a private school …[or] may also educate their children at home," the judge said.
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LAW OF THE LAND
9th Circuit endorses censoring Christians
Ruling says 'family values' is hate speech that scares city workers
A ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded that municipal employers have the right to censor the words "natural family," "marriage" and "family values" because that is hate speech and could scare workers.
The ruling came in a case being handled by the Pro-Family Law Center, which promised an appeal of the drastic result.
"We are going to take this case right up the steps of the United States Supreme Court," said Richard D. Ackerman, who along with Scott Lively argued the case for the Pro-Family Law Center.
"We are simply unwilling to accept that Christians can be completely silenced on the issues of the day – especially on issues such as same-sex marriage, parental rights, and free speech rights," he said.
"If we fail to get U.S. Supreme Court review, however, it will be up to each individual Christian in the United States to stand up for their rights to be heard on the issues of the day. If we choose to be silent, silenced we shall be," he said.
The decision came in an unpublished "memorandum" from the court, and was in a dispute over the promotion of the homosexual lifestyle within the city offices of Oakland, Calif.
It found that municipalities have a right to dictate what form an employee's speech may take, even if it is in regard to controversial public issues.
"Public employees are permitted to curtail employee speech as long as their 'legitimate administrative interests' outweigh the employee's interest in freedom of speech," said the court's opinion by judges B. Fletcher, Clifton and Ikuta, who noted that their writings are "not appropriate for publication."
"The district court appropriately described [the Christians' speech rights] as 'vanishingly small,'" the opinion continued.
However, as the Pro-Family Law Center noted, the court "completely failed to address the concerns of the appellants with respect to the fact that the City of Oakland's Gay-Straight Employees Alliance was openly allowed to attack the Bible in widespread city e-mails, to deride Christian values as antiquated, and to refer to Bible-believing Christians as hateful. When the plaintiffs attempted to refute this blatant attack on people of faith, they were threatened with immediate termination by the City of Oakland. The Ninth Circuit did not feel that the threat of immediate termination had any effect on free speech."
The case had developed when two city employees who wanted to launch a group of people who shared their interests posted a notice on a city bulletin board – after a series of notices from homosexual activists were delivered to them via the city's e-mail system, bulletin boards and memo distribution system.
The notice said:
Good News Employee Associations is a forum for people of Faith to express their views on the contemporary issues of the day. With respect for the Natural Family, Marriage and Family values.If you would like to be a part of preserving integrity in the Workplace call Regina Rederford @xxx- xxxx or Robin Christy @xxx-xxxx
But Robert Bobb, then city manager, and Joyce Hicks, then deputy director of the Community and Economic Development Agency, ordered their notice removed, because it contained "statements of a homophobic nature" and promoted "sexual-orientation-based harassment."
U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker had ruled in 2005 that Oakland had a right to prevent the employees from posting that Good News Employee Association flier promoting traditional family values on the office bulletin board.
That decision was made even though homosexuals already had been using the city's e-mail, bulletin board, and written communications systems for promoting their views. In fact, one city official even used the e-mail system to declare the Bible "needs updating," but no actions were taken against those individuals.
The case was argued recently at a special session of the 9th Circuit at the Stanford University Law School.
"The city of Oakland has interpreted this district court's ruling to mean that Christianity has no place in our society and should be subject to punishment. I want to believe that our Supreme Court will ultimately decide this case on the values and instructions set forth in motion by the nations Founders," said Ackerman.
Ackerman's' firm represents the women and said the Pro-Family
Law Center and Abiding
Truth Ministries have helped underwrite the thousands of dollars it
has cost to fight the city's aggressive promotion of the homosexual
lifestyle.
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LAW OF THE LAND
Judge orders 'gay' agenda taught to Christian children
Rules kids need teachings to be 'engaged and productive citizens'
A federal judge in Massachusetts has ordered the "gay" agenda taught to Christians who attend a public school in Massachusetts, finding that they need the teachings to be "engaged and productive citizens."
U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf yesterday dismissed a civil rights lawsuit brought by David Parker, ordering that it is reasonable, indeed there is an obligation, for public schools to teach young children to accept and endorse homosexuality.
Wolf essentially adopted the reasoning in a brief submitted by a number of homosexual-advocacy groups, who said "the rights of religious freedom and parental control over the upbringing of children … would undermine teaching and learning…"
David and Tonia Parker and Joseph and Robin Wirthlin, who have children of school age in Lexington, Mass., brought the lawsuit. They alleged district officials and staff at Estabrook Elementary School violated state law and civil rights by indoctrinating their children about a lifestyle they, as Christians, teach is immoral.
"Wolf's ruling is every parent's nightmare. It goes to extraordinary lengths to legitimize and reinforce the 'right' (and even the duty) of schools to normalize homosexual behavior to even the youngest of children," said a statement from the pro-family group Mass Resistance.
It also is making available background information about the lengthy dispute.
"In the ruling, Wolf makes the absurd claim that normalizing homosexuality to young children is 'reasonably related to the goals of preparing students to become engaged and productive citizens in our democracy.' According to Wolf, this means teaching 'diversity' which includes 'differences in sexual orientation.'
"In addition, Wolf makes the odious statement that the Parkers' only options are (1) send their kids to a private school, (2) home-school their kids, or (3) elect a majority of people to the School Committee who agree with them. Can you imagine a federal judge in the Civil Rights era telling blacks the same thing – that if they can't be served at a lunch counter they should just start their own restaurant, or elect a city council to pass laws that reflect the U.S. Constitution?" the organization said.
Lawyers for the families said they already had planned an appeal of the judge's opinion.
But Wolf's claims followed very closely the reasoning submitted earlier in a brief by Human Rights Campaign, the ACLU, Massachusetts Teachers Association, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders and other advocates for the "gay" agenda.
Earlier, Mass Resistance President Brian Camenker had wondered why such national groups were "so interested in a parent's right to decide what moral issues are taught to his children by adults in elementary schools, especially regarding homosexuality."
"They must see David Parker's case as quite a threat to their ability to push their message on children," he had said. His organization has posted information about the judge's ruling on the Internet for readers to review.
But the judge concluded that even allowing Christians to withdraw their children from classes or portions of classes where the religious beliefs were being violated wasn't a reasonable expectation.
"An exodus from class when issues of homosexuality or same-sex marriage are to be discussed could send the message that gays, lesbians, and the children of same-sex parents are inferior and, therefore, have a damaging effect on those students," he opined.
"Under the Constitution public schools are entitled to teach anything that is reasonably related to the goals of preparing students to become engaged and productive citizens in our democracy," the judge wrote. "Diversity is a hallmark of our nation. It is increasingly evident that our diversity includes differences in sexual orientation."
And, he said, since history "includes instances of … official discrimination against gays and lesbians … it is reasonable for public educators to teach elementary school students … different sexual orientations."
If they disagree, "the Parkers and Wirthlins may send their children to a private school …[or] may also educate their children at home," the judge said.
Parker was arrested and jailed in Lexington in April 2005 over his request – and the school's refusal – to notify him when adults discuss homosexuality or transgenderism with his 6-year-old kindergartner. That despite a state law requiring such notification.
The incident made news around the nation and even Gov. Mitt Romney agreed with Parker.
However, in April 2006 the same school presented the book "King and King," about homosexual romances and marriage, to second-graders and again refused to provide notification.
Parker and other parents followed with the federal civil rights lawsuit, alleging school officials were refusing to follow state law.
Just days later, David Parker's son, Jacob, was beaten up at Estabrook Elementary, officials said. MassResistance said a group of 8-10 kids surrounded him and took him out of sight of "patrolling aides," then pummeled and beat him.
"The state must fight 'discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation' in ways that 'do not perpetuate stereotypes,'" the lawyers for the school district had argued at an earlier motions hearing. They also explained to the judge that, in their opinion, parents have no right to control what ideas the school presents to elementary schoolchildren.
"David Parker's dilemma … threatens the parental rights and religious freedom of every Massachusetts parent, and indirectly every parent in America," said John Haskins of the Parents' Rights Coalition.
"As the Lexington schools themselves are arguing, the state's right to force pro-homosexuality indoctrination on other people's children arises directly from former Gov. Mitt Romney's nakedly false and unconstitutional declaration that homosexual marriage is now legal."
Haskins said when the Massachusetts state Supreme Court demanded homosexual marriages in the state, it didn't have the constitutional or legal authority to order the governor to act or to order the Legislature to make any changes, and the creation of same-sex marriages in Massachusetts actually was accomplished by executive order from Romney.
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LAW OF THE LAND
Diss a 'gay'? Go to jail!
Activists warn Christians targeted under new 'hate crimes' proposal
Two Christians in Australia have been indicted for criticizing Islam, and another for criticizing Zionism. A filmmaker has been threatened with arrest for using the word "homosexual" rather than "gay." Now a German priest faces jail time for publicly criticizing abortionists, and in Holland, "fornicators" and "adulterers" are protected classes and cannot be criticized.
All courtesy of the concept of federal "hate crimes" legislation, which unless defeated soon could be mandatory in the United States, warns a rising chorus of critics.
"All that matters are the delicate feelings of members of federally protected groups," said Michael Marcavage, director of RepentAmerica.com "Truth is not allowed as evidence in hate crimes trials. … A homosexual can claim emotional damage from hearing Scripture that describes his lifestyle as an abomination. He can press charges against the pastor or broadcaster who merely reads the Bible in public. The 'hater' can be fined thousands of dollars and even imprisoned!"
All this, he noted, to attack incidents that according to the FBI's 2005 Uniform Crime Report make up on one-fifteenth of 1 percent of all crimes.
The language is in a new proposal pending in Congress, H.R. 254, or the David Ray Hate Crimes Prevention Act. That, according to Rev. Ted Pike, of the National Prayer Network, starts out with a federal police state enforcement of "anti-hate" laws but would, as it has in other parts of the world, "lead inexorably to the end of free speech."
The plan, proposed by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, is "stealth legislation at its most devious," Pike has written in a campaign to alert people to the potential problems. He said people respond with, "This bill just wants federal power to prosecute bias-motivated violent crimes in the states – what's wrong with that?"
"There's plenty wrong with that!" he said. First, the Constitution does not grant federal government the "police state privilege" of being your local law enforcement. "Unless the government finds evidence of slavery in the states, jury tampering, voter fraud, or crimes involving interstate commerce (where jurisdiction is unclear), the Constitution's message to the federal government is blunt and emphatic: 'Butt out of local law enforcement!'"
However, Pike said the authors of the new legislation have been clever, inserting in the proposal assertions that because five states do not have hate laws, the federal government has "no choice" but to "enhance federal enforcement of hate crimes." That includes new ranks of federal agents to address the "serious national problem" that exists.
Worse yet, there are some key phrases that open doors wide that many people don't want opened. For example, Pike said, the bill is to "prevent and respond to alleged violations," meaning "the government does not even have to wait until a hate crime has been committed but may act pre-emptively to 'prevent' crime."
Such cases already have developed in other nations, where the "progressive" effort to "advance" anti-discrimination laws are further down the road, he noted.
Peter LaBarbera, of Americans for Truth, noted that in Canada and France both, legislators have been fined for publicly criticizing homosexuality. Three years ago, a Swedish hate crimes law was used to put Pastor Ake Green, who preached that homosexuality is a sin, in jail for a month.
"And recently, a British couple told how they were denied the chance to adopt because it was determined that their Christian faith might 'prejudice' them against a homosexual child put in their care," LaBarbera added.
Already in the United States, Catholic Charities of Boston halted all adoption operations in the state after being told under Massachusetts' pro-'gay' nondiscrimination law, only agencies that placed children in homosexual-led households would get licensed by the state.
Pike said to get around the U.S. Constitution's demands for certain circumstances to exist before the federal government can intervene, the legislation blatantly adds the statement that hate crimes actually are "slavery."
"Violence motivated by bias is a relic of slavery that can constitute badges and incidents of slavery," the proposal proclaims.
Additionally, Pike notes, another "absurd ruse" is that "hate criminals affect interstate commerce, by terrorizing their victims into traveling across state lines – or not."
"Considering the pervasive influence of interstate commerce upon our lives, how often can the government meddle in local hate crimes enforcement? Any time," Pike wrote. "In fact, this ridiculous argument could be used to justify federal intervention in a crime of any kind, since any crime victim might be scared into different spending or traveling choices."
He said America's justice system requires proof of physical tangible damage before an arrest, but H.R. 254 changes that. "It seeks to establish a different 'bias motivation' justice system, which will be defined in courts by judges, as has happened in Canada."
"Judges will establish legal precedents – precedents that protect groups such as homosexuals not only from physical bias-motivated violence but also from 'verbal violence,'" Pike warned. "This will include the 'hate speech' of Bible-believing evangelical Christians.
"H.R. 254 thus does more than violate states' rights in law enforcement. It also leads inexorably to an end of free speech!" he wrote.
The plan, being supported by "the powerful Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith" is the seventh attempt to get such legislation turned into law just since 1998, Pike said. The bill is pending in the House Judiciary Committee, and is a streamlined version of earlier proposals that passed in the U.S. House.
LaBarbera noted that in "post-Christian England," the government even has set out to prosecute "homophobic" speech.
"It is almost inconceivable that the same country that gave us the rule of law and limited government – and powerfully gifted Christian preachers like George Whitfield who helped shape America – now bows down to the homosexual revolution of organized sin masquerading as 'civil rights,'" LaBarbera said.
"Is it progress to empower a legal and cultural revolution that criminalizes the common sense idea that society should put the welfare of children first by favoring natural parenting (mom and dad) over an experimental version (dad and male lover) that models perversion to innocent children in their own home?" asked LaBarbera.
He suggested a visit to www.StopHateCrimesNow.com to hear the testimonies of those who have had first-had experience with so-called "hate crimes" laws. A 75-year-old grandmother describes how she was jailed for testifying about the Bible, in the United States.
"Prime Minister Tony Blair unwittingly cut to the nub of how 'sexual orientation' laws inevitably destroy religious freedom when he said that Britain's 'gay'-inclusive nondiscrimination laws should not exempt Catholic adoption agencies that refuse, for reasons of faith, to place children in homosexual households:" said LaBarbera.
“There is no place in our society for discrimination. That’s why I support the right of gay couples to apply to adopt like any other couple. And that way there can be no exemptions for faith-based adoption agencies offering public funded services from regulations that prevent discrimination," Blair had said.
Jackson-Lee's proposal states that "the incidence of violence motivated by the actual or perceived … sexual orientation … of the victim poses a serious national problem," and that "disrupts" communities. Since "existing federal law is inadequate" and "such violence affects interstate commerce" and "violence motivated by bias that is a relic of slavery can constitute badges and incidents of slavery," the thought police plan is needed.
Members who commented on a blog expressed alarm.
"This lays the groundwork for the 'thought police,'" said "onlymom," while "curveboy" said, "the implications of such a bill would put dissent of the government under hate speech and (offenders could) be arrested and thrown into detention camps... hate bill legislations needs to be dealt with in a fine line. once crossed there won't be any freedom of speech...."
"Citrine89" was more terse, "Scary stuff." And "Mochamoma" said, "Hurt someone's feelings? Shall we arrest the 6th graders now or later?"
At www.FaithAndFreedom.us a writer warned it was another attempt to "create new special rights for homosexuals."
And Mary Starrett, communications director for the Constitution Party, said "only strong public outcry and a Republican controlled Congress kept this type of legislation from becoming law" earlier. Now that Republican controlled Congress is gone.
"H.R. 254 would make certain types of speech a federal offense. So-called 'hate crimes' legislation is dangerous for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the blatant unconstitutionality of such laws. 'Hate crime' laws would allow federal 'thought police' to interfere in the law enforcement authority of states and localities - something our founders were clear was NOT to be allowed," she said.
"H.R. 254 would require every state to pass and enforce 'anti-hate' laws. It would outlaw stating a 'bias' against certain 'federally protected' groups such as homosexuals," she said.
Jim Clymer, national chairman of the party, has warned such legislation "could mean the Bible would be considered 'hate literature'' and preaching from it would be 'hate speech' because of references to religious teachings on homosexuality or other behaviors. The Orwellian implications of these types of laws mean Bible-believing Christians could become criminals simply because they spoke out about their beliefs."
Starrett noted in Canada and some European countries, it already is a crime to use the Internet to criticize "federally protected" groups such as homosexuals and Muslims. "In England, two men who called Islam 'wicked' were indicted … and now face seven years in prison."
A report by Concerned Women for America said the bill "sends the message that it is more hateful to kill a homosexual than a little child."
"This bill sets the table, and places us on a slippery slope toward religious persecution," said Matt Barber, CWA's policy director for cultural issues. "If it becomes law, it can easily be misapplied and used as a hammer against free speech.
"This bill attempts to get into the mind of the offender and penalize him for his thoughts. Are the bill's proponents going to now lobby for a Federal Department of Thought Enforcement?"
Repent America, some of whose members already have served jail time simply for proclaiming the biblical message, is joining in sounding the alarm.
"Having been charged under Pennsylvania's hate crimes law for declaring the truth about homosexuality, I can assure you that if this bill is passed and signed into law, it will be used to put Christians behind bars," said Marcavage.
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
Evangelists beaten for handing out tracts
4 took Christian message to conference that taught Islam
Four evangelists who are supported by Voice of the Martyrs have suffered beatings by a crowd of irate Muslims, but they first succeeded in handing out more than 13,000 Christian tracts at a conference on Islam.
Officials with VOM, a U.S.-based Christian group helping members of the persecuted Christian church worldwide, said one of the beatings was so severe that the Christian apparently suffered internal bleeding as a result.
But the message was delivered, much as Jesus described in Matthew 16:18, where he announces that "thou are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
Gates, of course, generally are immobile, implying that it is the Christian message that advances. That is what happened at the Pakistan conference, VOM said.
"We are thrilled to stand with such courageous Christians," said Todd Nettleton, a spokesman for VOM. "These men bravely carried Christ's message of love to some of those who need it most, even though it was costly to do so.
"We are blessed to be able to provide medical care for them, and to continue to provide gospel materials to Pakistani Christians who risk so much to live for Christ," he said.
The team was at a Muslim festival in the city of Pakpattan on a Friday late last month. The four-member team handed out more than 13,000 Christian messages at that event before being attacked by radical Muslims.
VOM reports that three members of the team were beaten up, then taken to the police station where they were detained and questioned before being released.
The fourth member, however, "was badly beaten by a mob of more than 100 angry Muslims, who then dragged him through the crowd before taking him to the police station," the VOM reported. "He was beaten so severely that he reported blood in his urine and his stool."
VOM said workers on the scene are overseeing his hospitalization and care.
Tens of thousands of Muslims gather for similar conferences each year in Pakistan, where they are lectured on the demands of Islam and ordered to follow the Quran's instructions on handling apostates, VOM said.
VOM 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.
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
Men jailed for being on public sidewalk
Gideons arrested after school officials complain they were handing out Bibles
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Two men who are members of Gideons International, the Christian organization that is famous for, among other ministries, placing Bibles in motels and giving them to children, have been arrested after trying to hand out Bibles on a public sidewalk in Florida, according to a law firm.
Officials with the Alliance Defense Fund have confirmed they will be representing Anthony Mirto and Ernest Simpson, who were arrested, booked into jail and charged with trespassing.
Jeremy Tedesco, one of the ADF's lawyers on the case, confirmed to WND that the organization's clients were on a public sidewalk when they were handing out Bibles and school officials summoned police.
(Story continues below)
"The First Amendment protects the right to engage in religious speech on a public sidewalk," ADF Senior Legal Counsel David Cortman said. "Members of the Gideons have been highly respected for decades as peaceful providers of free Bibles to those who want them."
The arrest happened Jan. 19, when Mirto and Simpson were on the sidewalk outside of Key Largo School in Key Largo, Fla., and were distributing copies of the Bible to those interested.
"Neither man entered school grounds," the law firm said. "After the school's principal called police, a Monroe County sheriff's officer asked the men to leave immediately or face trespassing charges. As the men prepared to leave, the officer decided to arrest both individuals."
A hearing is scheduled March 5 in Monroe County Court in the cases, and ADF attorneys are preparing motions to dismiss the charges.
"Officials cannot use fear of arrest as a means of bullying law-abiding Christians into silence," Cortman said. "These men broke no laws when they decided to communicate their message on a public sidewalk."
Tedesco noted that sometimes school officials have a misconception about whether they can control activities on school grounds and adjacent public sidewalks. But the First Amendment does provide a protection for speech on those parcels of ground that are public, he said.
"There's no reason why they should be put in jail," he said.
In a statement to WND, Becky Herrin, of the public information office in the Monroe County sheriff's office, stated as a fact the point that the defendants in the case clearly are disputing, and which ultimately may have to be decided by a jury.
"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 stated.
The report forwarded to WND, however, reveals the two were arrested while in their truck in a "no parking" zone. The report said that on the complaint from school principal Annette Martinson, when the two defendants were ordered by the deputy to leave an area that included a bike path, "both defendants slowly walked away towards a teal in color pick up truck that was parked in a no parking zone in front of the school."
One suspect then wanted the officer's ID, and, "I then handed Simpson … my business card and he continued to walk toward the parked truck," said the police allegation from officer John Perez.
The officer then confirms, "I observed both defendants enter the pick up truck and remain seated inside." He watched for several minutes, then approached the pickup truck, parked in a "no parking" zone, "I asked both defendants why they where (sic) refusing to leave," and "Defendant Simpson III stated, we where (sic) just leaving."
Perez then confirmed that after he got a call from the sheriff's office notifying him that Simpson was complaining "about a deputy at the Key Largo School asking him to leave, I advised Sgt. Mixon I was out with Simpson and he was going to be placed under arrest for trespassing."
"The truck was parked in a no parking zone in front of the school … not on a public street but on school property. The only 'public street' adjacent to the school is Highway U.S. One and there is no parking on the highway," Herrin added.
The ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the truth, through strategy, training, funding and litigation.
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."
Members of the Gideons, who pay their own expenses so 100 percent of the donations to the group go toward Bible purchases and distributions, 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 1 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.
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
Exposed! China's organ-on-demand transplants
'Bloody Harvest' says prisoners kept healthy until paying customer arrives
A new report called "Bloody Harvest" documents China's "anything goes" transplant industry where a cornea is available to anyone with $30,000 and people are kept as prisoners until their organs are needed, when they are executed by a doctor's needle just as soon as the cash hits the hospital accounting office.
The report from David Matas, an international human rights lawyer, and David Kilgour, the former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, was just released and updates previous documents alleging the existence of the billion dollar industry.
The new report, taken cumulatively, provides the proof, Kilgour told WND.
"We've talked to a lot of people who received organs, people who managed to get out [of China] by the skin of their teeth. We talked to a lady beaten up so badly she heard a doctor say she was going to die and her organs would be no good. We've looked at the web sites offering organs. We think we now have overwhelming evidence for any fair-minded or reasonable person," he said.
"Every single item points in the same direction, and nothing points in the direction of innocence," he said.
(Story continues below)
Web sites have posted prices, in U.S. dollars, of $150,000 for a kidney or pancreas, $150,000-$170,000 for a lung, and $130,000-$160,000 for a heart, and those same sites suggest the maximum wait for a liver available for transplant would be two weeks, although the same wait period in British Columbia was 52 months.
"The astonishingly short waiting times advertised for perfectly-matched organs would suggest the existence of a large bank of live prospective 'donors,'" the report said.
Some of the most damning evidence came from several individuals who have fled the industry. One woman testified her husband, a surgeon, had removed the corneas from an estimated 2,000 people who, at that point, still were alive. But they then were operated on by other surgeons to remove other organs, and the bodies then cremated.
The money trail was tracked from the patients to the hospital, but it remained unclear whether the hospital, the government, or the surgeons were benefiting the most, the report said. But it concluded that the magnitude of the atrocities goes beyond even what Hitler pursued in his attempt to eradicate Jews and other groups of people, he said.
"This is just about at the limit of the human imagination, some people would say it's beyond. We avoid direct comparisons, because it really is unique. Even the Nazis didn't try to do this," he said.
He characterizes it as "carnivore capitalism" where nothing matters but the money. The report lists new evidence showing that hospitals are telling potential transplant recipients that they have live organs awaiting delivery and there have been tens of thousands of transplant surgeries performed in the past few years – with no other available source of organs.
China's human rights record is atrocious, the report said, with more deaths attributable to its Communist government than to Stalin and Hitler combined. The nation routinely violates the rights of Christians, democracy advocates, human rights advocates and others, including using detention, torture and execution.
But the targets for the burgeoning industry at this point are mostly members of a religious sect called Falun Gong. That's a belief system that was assembled in the early 1990s by Li Hongzhi and incorporates ideas from Buddhism and Taoism. It's generally seen as a peaceful movement, but China government officials have labeled it a dangerous cult and banned it.
But in a social atmosphere that tolerates only what officials decide they want to allow, there is no accountability for hospitals or physicians who are constantly short of funding, and there is zero tolerance for dissent, the nation's transplant industry has exploded because there has been no barrier to marketing – and selling – the organs of "enemies of the state."
"Once a customer arrives into China, somebody's killed for the organ, whether it's a prisoner sentenced to death or a Falun Gong practitioner, and they just have this huge supply of people in jail waiting to be killed for organ donations," Matas told reporters at a recent news conference.
Liver transplants, counted at only 22 before 1999, multiplied to 500 just last year. And while China has admitted "harvesting" the organs of inmates executed for capital crimes, the number of those executions has remained about the same – in the 1,600 to 1,700 range – for a number of years. However, while reports that are available to the public show there were about 30,000 transplant surgeries in China prior to 1999, that total rocketed to 90,000 by the end of 2005.
Those 60,000 organ transplant surgeries during the years 2000-2005 each needed a donor organ, and historically in China the numbers show only a fraction of all transplants are provided by living donors, such as in kidney cases, or a body made available voluntarily following a traffic accident or other circumstances.
"There is no indication of a significant increase in … these categories in recent years. Presumably, the identified sources of organ transplants which produced 18,500 organ transplants in the six-year period 1994 to 1999 produced the same number of organs for transplants in the next six-year period 2000 to 2005," the report said.
"That means that the source of 41,500 transplants for the six-year period 2000 to 2005 is unexplained," the report said.
Some of the explanation comes from a volunteer who testified to the authors about calling 80 hospitals in China, asking about transplants. Ten locations admitted using "live" Falun Gong practitioners as organ suppliers.
One hospital official was asked about the organs for transplant. "…And it was from healthy Falun Gong practitioners…?"
"Correct. We would choose the good ones because we assure the quality in our operation," the hospital official said."That means you choose the organs yourself?"
"Correct…"
"Usually, how old is the organ supplier?"
"Usually in their thirties."
"What if the chosen one doesn't want to have blood drawn?"
"He will for sure let us do it."
"How?"
"They will for sure find a way. What do you worry about? These kinds of things should not be of any concern to you. They have their procedures."
"Does the person know that his organ will be removed?"
"No."
The researchers, both from Canada, noted that there is no doubt Canadians are taking part in "organ tourism," which is traveling to China for a transplant. Confirmations have come in from hospitals in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary that such trips were taking place.
Patients from the United States and other affluent countries, also, undoubtedly, are taking part in the industry, the report noted.
Kilgour told WND that the report reveals that Falun Gong practitioners, probably tens of thousands, are held in detention camps while, during their lives, they assemble products for export. But they are blood-typed and given various tests regularly.
Then there's a computer matchup of tissue. "His or her day comes up, somebody's waiting in a hospital in Shanghai, and you can die that day. The patient flies back to America with a new kidney," he said.
Patients routinely are told they are getting organs from executed prisoners who volunteered for the donation. The description of "executed prisoner," technically, is true, he said, but the caveat is that the "prisoners" never commited – or were convicted – of any crime.
The report suggests the rest of the world could help by preventing patients from traveling to China for a transplant where neither the donor nor the family have consented, stopping funding for after-care for patients who have commercial transplants abroad, stop training of doctors who will return to China and join the transplant industry and ban shipping anti-rejection drugs and other necessities for transplants to China.
"We believe that there has been and continues today to be large-scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners," they said in the report.
Kilgour earlier told the Epoch Times that the 2008 Olympic Games, awarded by the International Olympic Committee to China, also should be used as a lever to stop the activity
Chinese officials have admitted "harvesting" organs from "executed prisoners," but that admission did not come until 2005, and the report authors say it might have been made to divert attention away from the industry of killing innocent sect members for their organs.
The authors said the report on the study, which was done at the request of the Coalition to Investigation the Persecution of the Falun Gong in China, a non-governmental organization in Washington and Ottawa, also is available at www.organharvestinvestigation.net.
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Imam leads
Democrats in prayer of conversion
Muslim leader at party's winter meeting
also asks Allah to stop 'the occupation'
With heads bowed reverently, Democrats were led in prayer yesterday by a Muslim imam who essentially asked Allah to assist in converting the party members to Islam, according to a scholar and author.
Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch and author of "The Truth about Muhammad," took note of the invocation given at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting by Husham Al-Husainy, imam of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center, a shiite mosque in Dearborn, Mich.
According to a transcript of the prayer, which can be seen on a video clip provided by HotAir.com, the imam said:
In the name of God the most merciful, the most compassionate. We thank you, God, to bless us among your creations. We thank you, God, to make us as a great nation. We thank you God, to send us your messages through our father Abraham and Moses and Jesus and Muhammad. Through you, God, we unite. So guide us to the right path. The path of the people you bless, not the path of the people you doom. Help us God to liberate and fill this earth with justice and peace and love and equality. And help us to stop the war and violence, and oppression and occupation. Ameen.
Spencer, in a post on his Jihad Watch website, said he found it interesting to see the Muslim leader praying, "in veiled terms to be sure, for their conversion to Islam, and, oh yes, for the destruction of Israel ("And help us to stop the war and violence, and oppression and occupation").
"Imagine if a Christian priest or minister had prayed at a DNC meeting that those attending be guided away from the path of those doomed by God," Spencer said.
He explained the imam was echoing the Fatiha, the first sura, or chapter, of the Quran and the most common prayer of Islam.
It asks Allah: "Show us the straight path, the path of those whom Thou hast favored; not the (path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray."
The traditional Islamic understanding is that the "straight path" is Islam, Spencer points out.
On the other hand, he continued, the path of those who have earned Allah's anger are the Jews, and those who have gone astray are the Christians.
Spencer cited the classic Quranic commentator Ibn Kathir, who says:
Allah asserted that the two paths He described here are both misguided when He repeated the negation "not." These two paths are the paths of the Christians and Jews, a fact that the believer should beware of so that he avoids them.The path of the believers is knowledge of the truth and abiding by it. In comparison, the Jews abandoned practicing the religion, while the Christians lost the true knowledge. This is why "anger" descended upon the Jews, while being described as "led astray" is more appropriate of the Christians. Those who know, but avoid implementing the truth, deserve the anger, unlike those who are ignorant. The Christians want to seek the true knowledge, but are unable to find it because they did not seek it from its proper resources. This is why they were led astray. We should also mention that both the Christians and the Jews have earned the anger and are led astray, but the anger is one of the attributes more particular of the Jews.
Allah said about the Jews, (Those (Jews) who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath) (5:60).
The attribute that the Christians deserve most is that of being led astray, just as Allah said about them, (Who went astray before and who misled many, and strayed (themselves) from the right path) (5:77).
Iran prepares people for 'messiah miracles'
Government broadcasts series on imminent appearance of apocalyptic Islamic 'Mahdi'
Official Iranian radio has completed broadcasting a lengthy series on the imminent appearance of a messianic figure who will defeat Islam's enemies and impose Islamic Shiite rule over the entire world – even speculating on specific dates the so-called "Mahdi" will be revealed.
"Be joyous my heart, miracles of the Messiah will soon be here," reads a poem used to conclude the first broadcast. "The scent of breaths of the One we know comes from near. Grieve not of sorrow and melancholy, as assured I was … last night that a Savior will come, it's clear."
After the coming of the 12th imam, or Mahdi, "liberal democratic civilization" will be found only in "history museums," explained the program.
"Contrary to the views of western theoreticians, who usually depict an ambiguous and dark future for mankind, Muslim experts believe human history, despite its many ups and downs, has a very auspicious fate," explained the program. "Muslims believe hopes for the realization of such a happy ending for the world are called 'Awaiting Redemption,' and means waiting for man's problems to be solved by the Savior at the end of time. This awaiting influences many, and inspired them with activity and enthusiasm in confronting darkness and oppression for changing the existing situation. …"
This messianic figure will be a direct descendant of Muhammad, according to the broadcasts.
"In short, when he reappears, peace, justice and security will overcome oppression and deceit and one global government, the most perfect ever, will be established," it said.
The Mahdi will appear suddenly, according to the report, in Mecca. Though no one can know the day, Shiites believe, the report actually suggests possibilities in the Muslim calendar.
The Mahdi will lead a cataclysmic battle against a descendant of Muhammad's archenemy, Abu Sofyan, culminating in the cities of Kufa and Najaf. His enemy, though, is destroyed later in Jerusalem.
"Another beautiful moment of the Savior's appearance is the coming down of Prophet Jesus (PBUH) from heaven," says the report. "Hazrat Mahdi receives him courteously and asks him to lead the prayers. But Jesus says you are more qualified for this than me. We read in the book Tazkarat ol-Olia, 'the Mahdi will come with Jesus son of Mary accompanying him.' This indicates that these two great men are (sic) complement each other. Imam Mahdi will be the leader while Prophet Jesus will act as his lieutenant in the struggle against oppression and establishment of justice in the world. Jesus had himself given the tidings of the coming of God's last messenger and will see Mohammad's ideals materialize in the time of the Mahdi."
As WND reported last month, in a greeting to the world's Christians for the coming new year, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he expects both Jesus and the Mahdi, to return and "wipe away oppression."
"I wish all the Christians a very happy new year and I wish to ask them a question as well," said Ahmadinejad, according to an Iranian Student News Agency report cited by YnetNews.com
"My one question from the Christians is: What would Jesus do if he were present in the world today? What would he do before some of the oppressive powers of the world who are in fact residing in Christian countries? Which powers would he revive and which of them would he destroy?" asked the Iranian leader.
"If Jesus were present today, who would be facing him and who would be following him?"
In a videotaped meeting with Ayatollah Javadi-Amoli in Tehran, Ahmadinejad discussed candidly a strange, paranormal experience he had while addressing the United Nations in New York last September.
He recounts how he found himself bathed in light throughout the speech. But this wasn't the light directed at the podium by the U.N. and television cameras. It was, he said, a light from heaven.
According to a transcript of his comments, obtained and translated by Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, Ahmadinejad wasn't the only one who noticed the unearthly light. One of his aides brought it to his attention.
The Iranian president recalled being told about it by one of his delegation: "When you began with the words 'in the name of Allah,' I saw a light coming, surrounding you and protecting you to the end."
Ahmadinejad agreed that he sensed the same thing.
"On the last day when I was speaking, one of our group told me that when I started to say 'Bismillah Muhammad,' he saw a green light come from around me, and I was placed inside this aura," he says. "I felt it myself. I felt that the atmosphere suddenly changed, and for those 27 or 28 minutes, all the leaders of the world did not blink. When I say they didn't move an eyelid, I'm not exaggerating. They were looking as if a hand was holding them there, and had just opened their eyes – Alhamdulillah!"
Ahmadinejad's "vision" at the U.N. is strangely reminiscent and alarmingly similar to statements he has made about his personal role in ushering in the return of the Shiite Muslim messiah.
He sees his main mission, as he recounted in a Nov. 16 speech in Tehran, as to "pave the path for the glorious reappearance of Imam Mahdi, may Allah hasten his reappearance."
According to Shiites, the 12th imam disappeared as a child in the year 941. When he returns, they believe, he will reign on earth for seven years, before bringing about a final judgment and the end of the world.
Ahmadinejad is urging Iranians to prepare for the coming of the Mahdi by turning the country into a mighty and advanced Islamic society and by avoiding the corruption and excesses of the West.
All Iran is buzzing about the Mahdi, the 12th imam and the role Iran and Ahmadinejad are playing in his anticipated return. There's a new messiah hotline. There are news agencies especially devoted to the latest developments.
"People are anxious to know when and how will He rise; what they must do to receive this worldwide salvation," says Ali Lari, a cleric at the Bright Future Institute in Iran's religious center of Qom. "The timing is not clear, but the conditions are more specific," he adds. "There is a saying: 'When the students are ready, the teacher will come.'"
World Net Daily
January, 2007
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HOMELAND
INSECURITY
New Muslim congressman avoids loyalty
questions
Ellison had been greeted by shouts of
'Allahu Akbar!' from campaigners
When the first Muslim congressman in U.S. history, Keith Ellison (Hakim-Mohammed) of Minnesota, won the 2006 election and was making the regular thank-you-to-my-supporters speech, he allowed his fans to shout, "Allahu Akbar!," the same phrase allegedly used by the 9/11 suicide pilots.
Since November he's addressed various different Islamic groups and organizations, and he's used the Quran to be sworn into office. He's also been linked to Islamic organizations with questionable agendas.
What he hasn't done is respond to requests from WND to confirm that he will, in fact, base his decisions on the laws of the United States on the U.S. Constitution, not the Quran.
It was during his campaign that he raised the issue of his Islamic beliefs himself, and confirmed then that they would play a large role in his decision-making process:
(Story continues below)
"I am inspired by the Quran's message of encompassing divine love, and a deep faith guides my life every day," he wrote in his promotional materials.
He later told a group meeting in Detroit that, "I'm not here to be a preacher, but in terms of political agenda items, my faith informs these things."
He was given unprecedented permission during this week's swearing-in ceremonies to place his hand on a piece of the nation's archival history – the Quran once owned by Thomas Jefferson – for his photo-opportunity with family and friends.
The two-volume edition, published in London in 1764, was brought to him in a special case sent by messenger from officials at the Library of Congress.
Ellison said he chose to use the Quran because it showed Jefferson believed wisdom could be gleaned from many sources, although as superstar performer and WND columnist Pat Boone explained Jefferson quoted often from the Bible in his writings, not the Quran.
(Another explanation for Jefferson's possession of a Quran could have been a desire to know his enemies. It was during Jefferson's presidency that the U.S. took on the Muslim slave-traders and pirates on the Barbary Coast of Africa in war.)
Rick Jauert, a spokesman for the congressman, was reached at his campaign headquarters in Minnesota two weeks ago, and confirmed that the congressman does not believe there will be a conflict between his religious beliefs and his duty under the U.S. Constitution.
But when asked which would take priority if there is a conflict, or to describe how the congressman will resolve the differing philosophies provided by the U.S. Constitution and the Quran, which calls for beheading "infidels," he said he could not answer immediately.
Since then, WND has been unable to obtain answers from the congressman or his staff.
One blogger was a little concerned over the situation:
"During the victory celebration for the nation's first Muslim congressman (not that there's anything wrong with that... in principle), Congressman Keith Ellison's supporters scream 'Allahu Akbar!', the same phrase that the 9/11 hijackers screamed, the same phrase suicide bombers scream, the same phrase head choppers scream before slicing off the heads of hapless and bound victims. May God protect this country," the blogger wrote.
In a campaign document talking about his faith, Ellison said, "As a young man I was outraged and frustrated by the racism and injustice I saw in my community and the world around me. Those experiences propelled me to become a social activist, using my words and actions to draw attention to the very serious problems of inequality, racial injustice and poverty in our society.
"As I matured, I had to confront my anger and face it down. I eventually realized that it is easy to be a critic pointing out problems and failings, but it is a far more difficult thing to be part of creating the solution. As my father used to say, 'Any jackass can kick a barn down; it takes a carpenter to build it back up.' Eventually I understood what my father had been telling me, and I committed to being one of the carpenters."
But he confirmed he still holds that "outrage" at the direction of the United States.
Ellison said he decided to seek congressional office because, "I am for peace now, for universal health care, and for a sustainable future."
"I will fight for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and for an international reconstruction effort; for universal single payer healthcare so that Americans can get the medical care that they need whether they have a job that offers insurance or not; for green energy, conservation, environmental justice, and a sustainable future for our country and the world," he wrote.
He recognizes Israel, and said "a lasting peace in the Middle East should be one of the United States' most focused goals."
"Right now Hamas represents the greatest obstacle to this path, and until Hamas denounces terrorism, recognizes the absolute right of Israel to exist peacefully and honors past agreements, it cannot be considered legitimate partners in this process," he wrote.
Jauert explained that Ellison's conflicts between his faith and the law would be no more than those Catholics who support abortion, and then face objections from church leaders who believe they should not be allowed to take part in church rites.
"Not every follower of Islam supports Sharia law," Jauert told WND.
In his speech in Detroit, Ellison said it appears people "see their religion as an identity thing, much in the same way Crips or Bloods might say, 'I'm this, this is the set I'm rolling with.' They've never actually tried to explore how religion should connect us, they're into how religion divides us … they haven't really explored … how my faith connects me to you."
But as WND reported earlier, he's been linked to a radical Islamic school of thought that requires loyalty to the Quran over the U.S. Constitution.
A black convert to orthodox Sunni Islam, Ellison spoke to the North American Imams Federation, or NAIF, at the group's Nov. 19 conference in Minneapolis.
His talk flowed into a breakout session listed on the agenda simply as "American Open University," according to the conference program. It turns out the university is a "distance-learning" center based in Alexandria, Va., and known to local law enforcement as "Wahhabi Online."
Later that day, Ellison met with NAIF's president, Omar Ahmad Shahin, who lectures at the same American Open University. (He also met at the time with New York imam Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.) The radical Islamic school trains many of NAIF's more than 150 members, who control mosques across America.
American Open University supports Sharia, or Islamic law. And its founder and chairman, Jaafar Sheikh Idris, has denounced the U.S system of democracy as "the antithesis of Islam" and argued no man has the right to make laws outside Allah's laws expressed in the Quran.
"There is a basic difference between Islam and this form of democracy," he says. "The basic difference is that in Islam it is [Allah's] law as expressed in the Quran and the Sunna that is the supreme law within the limits of which people have the right to legislate.
"No one can be a Muslim who makes or freely accepts or believes that anyone has the right to make or accept legislation that is contrary to that divine law," Idris adds. "Examples of such violations include the legalization of alcoholic drinks, gambling, homosexuality, usury or interest, and even adoption."
Ellison's campaign also was backed by the Washington-based lobby group Council on American-Islamic Relations, a partner organization to American Open University-affiliated NAIF. CAIR held fundraisers for Ellison, a civil-rights lawyer and one-time acolyte of Louis Farrakhan who admits to making anti-Semitic remarks in the past (under various alias including Keith Hakim, Keith Ellison-Muhammad and Keith X Ellison).
CAIR's founder has argued the Quran should replace the Constitution as the highest authority in the land. The group's director of communications, moreover, has expressed his desire to see the U.S. become an Islamic state.
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2006: Muslim year of perpetual outrage
It began with the Danish cartoons. It ended with the flying imams. The year 2006 was a banner year for the Religion of Perpetual Outrage. Twelve turbulent months of fist-waving, embassy-burning, fatwa-issuing mayhem, intimidation and murder resounded with the ululations of the aggrieved. All this in the name of defending Islam from "insult." Let's review.
In late January, masked Palestinian gunmen took over a European Union office in Gaza City to protest the publication of a dozen cartoons about Islam, Muhammad and self-censorship in the Danish newspaper the Jyllands-Posten. They stormed the building, burned Danish flags, and spearheaded an international boycott of Denmark's products across the Muslim world.
The rage was manufactured pretext. The cartoons had been published four months earlier with little fanfare. It wasn't until a delegation of instigating Danish imams toured Egypt with the cartoons – plus a few inflammatory fake ones, including an old image of a French hog-calling contest participant deceptively portrayed as "anti-Muslim" – that the fire started burning. Think the mainstream media will remember that? Not likely. They fell for the ruse and were slow to acknowledge it after American bloggers and Danish television exposed the scheme.
What was really behind Cartoon Rage? Muslim bullies were attempting to pressure Denmark over the International Atomic Energy Agency's decision to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council for continuing with its nuclear research program. The chairmanship of the council was passing to Denmark at the time.
Alas, Western journalists, analysts and apologists were too clouded by their cowardice and conciliation to see through the smoke. More than 800 were injured in the ensuing riots, and 130 people paid with their lives. The innocents included Italian Catholic priest Andrea Santoro, who was shot to death in Turkey on Feb. 5 by a teenage boy enraged by the illustrations. The Muslim gunman shouted, "Allahu Akbar!" as he murdered Father Santoro while the priest knelt praying in his church. Several brave moderate Muslim editors who stood up to the madness were jailed, fined and convicted of crimes related to insulting Islam. The Danish cartoonists remain in hiding.
The world soon tired of Cartoon Rage, but the "peaceful" Muslim ragers were just warming up. They found excuses large and small to riot and threaten Western infidels. In India, they protested the magazine publication of a picture of a playing card showing an image of Mecca and also burned Valentine's Day cards. An insult to Islam, they screamed. In Spain, they protested a Madrid store for selling a postcard with a mosque on it with the words "We slept here." An insult to Islam, they protested. In Pakistan, they burned down a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, a Pizza Hut, and toppled Ronald McDonald. In Jakarta, they smashed the offices of Playboy magazine. You know why.
In June, the trial against lioness journalist Oriana Fallaci for insulting Islam commenced in Bergamo, Italy. She had been charged by professional Muslim rager Adel Smith of the Muslim Union of Italy of "vilipendio" – vilifying Islam – in her post-9/11 books slamming jihad. A judge had refused to throw out the case. She faced a pile of death threats and accusations of "Islamophobia" for speaking truth to Islamo-power.
Fallaci's death from cancer during the fifth anniversary week of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks pre-empted the trial in Italy, but her passing did nothing to pre-empt the eternal rage of the perpetually outraged. The day she died, the grievance-mongers were shaking their fists and calling for the head of Pope Benedict XVI for his speech that made reference to a 14th-century conversation touching on holy war and jihad. For engaging in open, honest intellectual and spiritual debate, he was condemned, lit afire in effigy and targeted anew. The ragers bombed Christian churches in Gaza City and Nablus. They murdered Italian Sister Leonella Sgorbati, an elderly Catholic nun shot in the back by a Somalian jihadist stoked by Pope Rage. "Whoever offends our Prophet Muhammad should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim," a Somalian cleric had declared. The Vatican made nice with Muslim leaders.
New outrages are always in bloom. In late September, it was a Berlin production of Mozart's "Idomeneo" that featured the decapitated head of Muhammad. A week later, it was a banyan tree attacked by Indonesian Muslims who wanted to disprove its mystical powers. A few days after that, it was former British foreign secretary Jack Straw, who had the audacity to make the very obvious observation that full Muslim veils impede communications between women and Westerners. Offensive! Disturbing! An insult to Islam!
Not to be outdone, a delegation of extortionist imams boarded a US Airways flight in Minneapolis in November and tried to manufacture an international human-rights incident. They clamored for a boycott and threatened to sue.
The good news: The fire did not catch here this time.
The bad news: As Oriana Fallaci warned before her death: "The hate for
the West swells like a fire fed by the wind. The clash between us and
them is not a military one. It is a cultural one, a religious one, and
the worst is still to come."
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HOMELAND INSECURITY
Quantico mosque leader promoted
Pentagon honors Wahhabi-trained Muslim chaplain
In a special ceremony, the Pentagon recently promoted a Wahhabi-trained Muslim chaplain who catered to al-Qaida detainees at Guantanamo and fought to establish the first mosque in Marine Corps history.
Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England personally promoted Navy chaplain Abuhena Mohammed Saifulislam from lieutenant to lieutenant commander. Saifulislam also received a Joint Service Commendation Medal at the Pentagon ceremony held on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Pentagon officials say the ceremony was unprecedented.
"It's unusual for a deputy secretary to personally promote an officer of that rank," said one official who wished to go unnamed. "No one has known of such a high-level dignitary doing that."
England also earlier this year personally dedicated a new Islamic center at Marine headquarters in Quantico, Va., on the advice of Saifulislam, a Bangladesh immigrant who became a U.S. citizen in 1995.
The Muslim chaplain, who is stationed at Quantico, recited verses from the Quran in Arabic and English at the summer dedication ceremony, which included representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, several leaders of which have been convicted on terrorism-related charges.
Saifulislam, which is Arabic for "Sword of Islam," received his religious training at a radical Islamic school raided by federal agents after 9/11. The Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, based in Leesburg, Va., is run by Taha Jaber Al-Alwani, an unindicted co-conspirator in the Sami al-Arian terror case. A federal affidavit used to obtain a warrant to search the school alleges Al-Alwani gave at least $50,000 in jihad money "to support suicide bombings."
Saifulislam insists he is moderate and condemns "terrorism," but critics say his Wahhabi background and associations should give the Pentagon pause.
"The Pentagon is giving him a permanent, taxpayer-supported platform from which to convert grunts to Islam," said terror expert Paul Sperry, a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington."
"With the Quantico mosque, the Pentagon is facilitating the study of the holy text the enemy uses, heretically or not, as their manual of warfare."
Saifulislam's promotion along with the dedication of his new Quantico mosque – the first of its kind in the 230-year history of the Corps – comes on the heels of a Muslim spy scandal at Gitmo involving another Muslim chaplain.
Army Capt. James "Yousef" Yee, who ministered to al-Qaida detainees, was charged with mishandling classified information. Yee, a convert to Islam, quit the Army and the charges were dropped. But two of his Muslim military friends at Gitmo were convicted of espionage-related crimes.
Yee's predecessor at Gitmo was Saifulislam, who was first assigned to the terrorist prison camp after 9/11. While at the Cuban base, the Navy imam privately counseled al-Qaida prisoners in their native tongues of Urdu and Arabic. "I must give hope for them to cope," Saifulislam said at the time.
He set up the diet and prayer regimes for the detainees, recommending they be served halal meals – including traditional dates and lamb – prepared according to Islamic dietary law. Gitmo detainees can now choose from a menu of 113 Muslim-appropriate meals.
In addition, Saifulislam saw to it that detainees receive copies of the Quran and have access to prayer beads and skull caps. Saifulislam also set up a program to train guards to be more sensitive to the religious customs of their Muslim prisoners.
West Point bows to Mecca
Multiculturalism appears to trump concerns about Islamist infiltration of the military. Following the Marine's lead, the Army in October dedicated a new mosque at West Point.
The U.S. Military Academy's first worship hall for Muslims boasts green carpets, shoe racks and a pulpit facing Mecca. Officials agreed to set up the mosque, large enough for dozens of followers, after Muslim leaders complained that the office where Muslim cadets gathered for Friday prayers had become too crowded.
The Army has been recruiting international cadets from Muslim countries such as Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. Muslim enrollment at the academy in New York has jumped to 32 from just two in 2001.
"We live in a world where everyone is looking at the United States saying, 'You're anti-Islam,'" explained West Point Chaplain Col. John Cook. "But here at West Point, that's not what we do."
The U.S. military now boasts more than 10,000 Muslim soldiers, many of them black converts. On the eve of the Army's push into Iraq, Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar, a black Muslim convert, fragged commanding officers at a military camp in Kuwait. He killed two of them and wounded 15 others.
Akbar, recently convicted of murder and given the death sentence, said at the time he did it out of loyalty to the umma, or global community of Muslims.
"You guys are coming into our countries," he said, "and you're going to rape our women and kill our children."
Within months of Akbar's traitorous 2003 attacks, the Defense Intelligence Agency issued an internal report warning that Muslim soldiers pose a possible security threat, according to national security reporter Bill Gertz in his new book "Enemies."
It was also in 2003 that Yee was accused of spying for the enemy while serving as a Muslim chaplain at Gitmo. Yee graduated from West Point, site of the Army's new mosque.
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TRAIL OF TERROR
Christian woman facing fight for sons
Battle is over husband's desire to see them 'good Muslims or dead'
A Christian woman who once served as an FBI informant on her husband's alleged support of terrorism now is seeking divorce from the self-described radical Muslim who told her he would be proud if their two teen sons blew themselves up for Allah.
But she's finding herself on her own – completely – after a judge allowed her lawyer to withdraw, refused to allow an interested lawyer from appearing in her court, and then refused to allow time for any other replacement to be found before today's trial.
At stake are Rosine Collin Ghawji's sons, whose futures have been defined by her husband as being "good Muslims" or dead, she said.
The situation is developing in the case in which Mrs. Ghawji is seeking not only her freedom from her husband, Maher Ghawji, but also to protect her sons Louis and Takek from any violent Islamic plans their father may have for them.
Joe Kaufman, who has run an anti-terrorism organization for
several years, noted that both of the Ghawji sons have, in e-mails and
other communications, told friends their father was planning to take
them to Syria against their will, and one noted that his grandfather
has promised to beat him up when he arrived there.
Mrs. Ghawji's local lawyer was given permission by a Memphis, Tenn., judge on Dec. 19 to withdraw from the case, another lawyer willing to represent her – Larry Klayman -- was denied permission to enter the case, and the court ruled that the trial date – today – would not be delayed.
Klayman, who'd been contacted about the case a few months earlier, told WND that the facts read "like a John Grisham novel." Only this case is real life, with the FBI holding ex parte meetings with the judge, the federal agency "wiring" her to record and report on her husband, her husband allegedly threatening the children that they would be better off dead than Christian, and allegations of extramarital affairs.
And Mrs. Ghawji, if her allegations are correct, is up against more than just a judicial system and a divorce trial; but against some of the most radical factions in the world today, including the adherents of blind Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, now serving a life sentence in the SuperMax prison in Colorado on accusations he helped in the planning of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings in New York.
The couple married in 1986, and she said she noticed her husband's unusual activities almost from the beginning. She said between 1987 and 1992 she often waited in the women's room of a mosque for hours while her husband was meeting with Rahman, and later the FBI visited her and asked about some of her husband's acquaintances, including a man the FBI described as being on a "terrorist watch list" who had rented an apartment from her husband.
She said it appeared about that time that her husband's brother, Haitham Ghawji, started appearing more often in their lives.
She said a letter from Haitham justified killing non-Muslims and encouraged Maher to join Jihad, and when Haitham was visiting their home, where the family lived in Memphis, in 1996, he wanted to watch the news one evening.
When the report aired about the attack at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in which 19 American military personnel died, he said, "We got them! The Americans … we got them. They think they are going to rule the world, but they do not know what it is to have war on their own soil, but pretty soon they will," she reported.
The next year when the family obtained a home computer, she started watching the communications through it, and eventually talked with the FBI. They asked her to continue monitoring those, and forward to them e-mails, telephone numbers and the like.
She said on Sept. 11, 2001, a few hours before the terrorism attacks, her husband's brother sent an e-mail announcing some of his friends were coming to the U.S., and they should be made to feel welcome.
When, at a dinner party, a guest remarked how difficult it was to bring items on airplanes because of the new security measures, her husband responded: "Don't worry. We will find another way to get them."
A short time later, he erupted in rage because she had been teaching French to a little Russian Jewish boy in their home. At that point he threatened to kill her with a poison other doctors wouldn't detect and announced he was Wahhabi Muslim, whose beliefs include violence against non-Muslims.
It was at that point an FBI agent convinced her to wear a recording device and monitor her husband's financial dealings, which included donations to a front group accused of raising money for Hamas, she said.
It was also then that he cut off financial support for his family and threatened to take the children to Syria, so she sought a restraining order. But a judge, Donna Fields, ordered the boys to spend every other Sunday with their father even though they pleaded not to.
FBI agent Jim Raddatz told her he suspected her husband of leading a double life – as a physician but also as terrorist financier with connections to a Florida organization that he was unwilling to discuss.
But then he also told her her husband had contacted the FBI and they were upset with him because he hadn't provided them with some information.
Ghawji also staged a campaign of rhetoric, condemning the U.S., Jews and Israel, and praising suicide bombers, and at one point looked her in the eyes and said if their children were not good Muslims, they would be better dead.
It terrified her, she said.
Her husband also had an affair, and possibly more, with a spokeswoman working for the Islamic Society of Central Florida, she said, when details of their actions were confirmed by a private investigator.
That organization, she said, tried to sponsor a fundraiser featuring Siraj Wahhaj, who is on the U.S. Attorney’s list of potential co-conspirators to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
She alleges her husband told her for as little as $1,000 he could hire a "hitman" to kill her, and expressed pride in being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Documents also show Haitham Ghawji has been linked to convicted felon Rafat Jamal Mawlawi, who also is connected to Enaam Arnaout. On April 4, 2005, the FBI conducted a raid on Mawlawi’s residence, and the Memphis Flyer reported authorities finding a hidden stash of loaded weapons and ammunition clips, $34,000 in cash, two pictures of Mawlawi shouldering a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, a gruesome videotape of war casualties with Arabic text and more than 20 passports to Morocco, Syria, Iran, and other Middle Eastern countries.
In a "Government Evidentiary Proffer Supporting the Admissibility of Co-Conspirator Statements," on page 67, the U.S. Government indicated that "H. GHAWJI" was mentioned.
No spokesman for her husband, the courts, or the FBI could be reached for a comment over the New Year's Day holiday.
But just recently as allegations of terrorism connections were developing – and being substantiated, the judge sealed the court records in the two-and-a-half-year-old case, scheduled the hearing, allowed the lawyer to leave the case and took the unusual step of ruling that Mrs. Ghawji would not be allowed to bring her case in any other jurisdiction.
Klayman said from the appearance of government participation in the case, with FBI agents meeting with the judge, he contacted FBI general counsel Patrick Kelley with questions about what was going on, because of issues that include equal protection, due process and others.
Kelley's response to Klayman was that he should "do what you
have to do," he said.
World Net Daily
January, 2007
Other
related articles from other sources:
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When
Sulejmen Talovic entered the Trolley Square mall in Salt Lake City
Monday night with a shotgun, a pistol, and a backpack full of
ammunition, he intended to "kill a large number of people," according to Salt
Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank. Talovic killed five people and
wounded four before he himself was killed by an off-duty
Why did Talovic do it? No one knows.
Talovic's aunt, Ajka Omerovic, told reporters : "We want to know what happened, just like
you guys. We have no idea...We know him as a good boy. He liked
everybody, so I don't know what happened." Talovic, who was eighteen at
the time of the murders, was a Bosnian Muslim who came to the United
States with his family in 1998 . Could he have been motivated by jihadist
sympathies?
FBI special agent Patrick Kiernan discounted that
possibility . "We're working closely with the
But was Kiernan really correct that "there is
nothing that is leading us down this road"? Unfortunately, he didn't
explain how he came to this conclusion. Talovic joins an unfortunately
growing list of Muslims who have committed random acts of violence,
only for officials to assure us that their actions have nothing to do
with terrorism. Maybe none of them do, but the list is full of
troubling details:
- On January 31, Ismail Yassin
Mohamed, 22, stole a car in
- Omeed Aziz Popal, a Muslim
from Afghanistan, who killed one person and injured fourteen during a
murderous drive through San Francisco city streets in August 2006,
during which he targeted people on crosswalks and sidewalks, identified
himself as a terrorist after his rampage, according to Rob
Roth of San Francisco's KTVU . Later the murders were
ascribed to Popal's
mental problems, and to stress arising from his impending arranged
marriage .
- On July 28, 2006, a Muslim
named Naveed Afzal Haq forced his way into the Jewish Federation of
Greater Seattle. Once inside, Haq
announced , "I'm a Muslim American; I'm
angry at
- In March 2006, a
twenty-two-year-old Iranian student named Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar drove an SUV onto the campus
of the
None of these were terrorist attacks in the
sense that they were planned and executed by al-Qaeda agents. And it is
possible that all of them were products of nothing more ideologically
significant than a disturbed mental state, although it is at least
noteworthy that each attacker explained his actions in terms of Islamic
terrorism. As such attacks grow in number, it would behoove authorities
at very least to consider the possibility that these attacks were
inspired by the jihadist ideology of Islamic supremacism, and to step
up pressure on American Muslim advocacy groups to renounce that
ideology definitively and begin extensive programs to teach against it
in American Islamic schools and mosques.
In October 2006, a pro-jihad internet
site published a "Guide for Individual Jihad," explaining to
jihadists "how to fight alone." It recommended, among other things,
assassination with guns and running people over. Is it possible that
Sulejmen Talovic and some of these others were waging this jihad of
one? It is indeed, but with law enforcement officials trained only to
look for signs of membership in al-Qaeda or other jihad groups, and to
discount terrorism as a factor if those signs aren't there, it is a
possibility that investigators will continue to overlook.
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FAITH UNDER FIRE
Descendant of Muhammad converts to Christianity
But faces threat to life if forced to return to Turkey
A Turk who claims to be a descendant of Islam's prophet Muhammad has converted to Christianity while living in Germany.
But Sedar Dedeoglu, of Luedenscheid, now faces a threat to his life if he's forced to return to Turkey, and is seeking help from German authorities.
Dedeoglu, who is involved in Christian outreach programs among Muslims, has been receiving death threats from Muslims unwilling to accept his conversion. His relatives also regard the apostasy as shameful.
If Dedeoglu is returned to his native country, he very likely would be killed, his lawyer says.
Despite this threat, the German Federal Migration Office and several courts of justice have rejected asylum applications by the Dedeoglu family. They claim Christians are free to practice their religion in Turkey.
To avoid deportation, Dedeoglu, his wife Husniye and their daughter Isil now hope at least to be tolerated in Germany as a "case of hardship." According to their attorney, Oswald Seitter, it is impossible to overlook the extraordinary danger the Dedeoglu family is facing.
For Muslims, he said, it is undeniable Dedeoglu descends from Muhammad's daughter Fatima and her husband Ali. In Dedeoglu's hometown, Elazig, in eastern Turkey they used to be revered as a holy family. According to Seitter, the apostasy of a family member is regarded as an insult of the prophet himself.
Dedeoglu's case has become so widely known in Turkey that his life is in real and imminent danger, the lawyer said.
"We should rejoice that a such a person has become a Christian, and we should avoid any actions which could put his life in additional danger," Seitter told an evangelical news agency.
Seitter is an evangelical Christian and used to be the speaker of the synod of the Protestant Church in Wuerttemberg.
Dedeoglu came to Germany in 1997 and asked for asylum because of political persecution of the Kurdish minority in Turkey. Four years later, he and his family converted to the Christian faith. They are members of an Evangelical Brethren church.
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Hillary's
team has questions about Obama's Muslim background
Are the American people ready for an elected president who was educated in a Madrassa as a young boy and has not been forthcoming about his Muslim heritage?
This is the question Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s camp is asking about Sen. Barack Obama.
An investigation of Mr. Obama by political opponents within the Democratic Party has discovered that Mr. Obama was raised as a Muslim by his stepfather in Indonesia. Sources close to the background check, which has not yet been released, said Mr. Obama, 45, spent at least four years in a so-called Madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia.
"He was a Muslim, but he concealed it," the source said. "His opponents within the Democrats hope this will become a major issue in the campaign."
When contacted by Insight, Mr. Obama’s press secretary said he would consult with “his boss” and call back. He did not.
Sources said the background check, conducted by researchers connected to Senator Clinton, disclosed details of Mr. Obama's Muslim past. The sources said the Clinton camp concluded the Illinois Democrat concealed his prior Muslim faith and education.
"The background investigation will provide major ammunition to his opponents," the source said. "The idea is to show Obama as deceptive."
In two best-selling autobiographies—"The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" and "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance"—Mr. Obama, born in Honolulu where his parents met, mentions but does not expand on his Muslim background, alluding only to his attendance at a "predominantly Muslim school."
The sources said the young Obama was given the name Hussein by his Muslim father, which the Illinois Democrat rarely uses in public.
His father was black and came from Kenya. Mr. Obama’s mother, the daughter of a farmer, came from Wichita, Kansas. Mr. Obama's parents divorced when he was two years old. His father returned to Kenya.
Later, Mr. Obama's mother married an Indonesian student and the family moved to Jakarta. Mr. Obama returned to Hawaii when he was 10 to live with his maternal grandparents.
The sources said the background check concerned Mr. Obama's years in Jakarta. In Indonesia, the young Obama was enrolled in a Madrassa and was raised and educated as a Muslim. Although Indonesia is regarded as a moderate Muslim state, the U.S. intelligence community has determined that today most of these schools are financed by the Saudi Arabian government and they teach a Wahhabi doctrine that denies the rights of non-Muslims.
Although the background check has not confirmed that the specific Madrassa Mr. Obama attended was espousing Wahhabism, the sources said his Democratic opponents believe this to be the case—and are seeking to prove it. The sources said the opponents are searching for evidence that Mr. Obama is still a Muslim or has ties to Islam.
Mr. Obama attends services at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago’s South Side. However, he is not known to be a regular parishioner.
"Obama's education began a life-long relationship with Islam as a faith and Muslims as a community," the source said. "This has been a relationship that contains numerous question marks."
The sources said Mr. Obama spent at least four years in a Muslim school in Indonesia. They said when Mr. Obama was 10, his mother and her second husband separated. She and her son returned to Hawaii.
"Then the official biography begins," the source said. "Obama never returned to Kenya to see relatives or family until it became politically expedient."
In both of his autobiographies, Mr. Obama characterizes himself as a Christian—although he describes his upbringing as mostly secular.
In “The Audacity of Hope,” Mr. Obama says, "I
was not raised in a religious household." He describes his mother as
secular, but says she had copies of the Bible, the Koran and the
Bhagavad Gita in their home.
Mr. Obama says his father was "raised a Muslim,
but by the time he met my mother he was a confirmed atheist...." Mr.
Obama also describes his father as largely absent from his life. He
says his Indonesian stepfather was "skeptical" about religion and "saw
religion as not particularly useful in the practical business of making
one's way in the world ...."
In the book, Mr. Obama briefly addresses his education in Indonesia. "During the five years that we would live with my stepfather in Indonesia, I was sent first to a neighborhood Catholic school and then to a predominantly Muslim school; in both cases, my mother was less concerned with me learning the catechism or puzzling out the meaning of the muezzin's call to evening prayer than she was with whether I was properly learning my multiplication tables."
Mr. Obama graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School; he became the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review. He later settled in Chicago, joined a law firm and began attending and helping local churches.
Mr. Obama is married to Michelle Robinson and they have two daughters, Malia and Sasha. In 1996, he was elected to the Illinois state Senate. Eight years later, he became a U.S. senator from Illinois.
The sources said Ms. Clinton regards Mr. Obama as her most formidable opponent and the biggest obstacle to the Democratic Party’s 2008 presidential nomination. They said Ms. Clinton has been angered by Mr. Obama's efforts to tap her supporters for donations.
In late 2006, when the Illinois senator
demonstrated his intention to run for president, the Clinton campaign
ordered a background check on Mr. Obama, the sources said. Earlier this
week, Mr. Obama established an exploratory committee, the first step
toward a formal race.
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Orthodox
priest was kidnapped and beheaded
MOSUL, Iraq Relatives
of an Orthodox priest who was kidnapped and found beheaded three days
later said Thursday that his captors had demanded his church condemn
the pope's recent comments about Islam and pay a US$350,000 (€280,000)
ransom.
More than 500 people attended a memorial service Thursday for father
Amer Iskender in the northern city of Mosul after his decapitated body
was found Wednesday evening in an industrial area of the city.
Iskender was a priest at the St. Ephrem Orthodox church in Mosul.
"He was a good man and we all shed tears for him," said Eman Saaur, a
45-year-old schoolteacher who said she attended Iskender's church
regularly. "He was a man of peace."
Relatives, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal,
said the unidentified group that seized Iskender on Sunday had demanded
a ransom and that his church condemn a statement made by Pope Benedict
XVI last month that ignited a wave anger throughout the Muslim world.
In a speech at a German university the pope quoted a medieval text that
characterized some of the Prophet Muhammad's teachings as "evil and
inhuman," declaring Islam was a religion spread by the sword.
Before Iskender was kidnapped, his relatives said, the church already
had put up signs condemning the statement and calling for good
relations between Christians and Muslims. The message was posted again,
they said, after the priest's kidnappers made their demand.
"It was a tragedy," said Hazim Shaaiya, 60, who had come to the
memorial service to pay respects. "Father Amer Iskender was a peaceful,
kind religious man."
Relatives said the priest's oldest son had been in contact with the
kidnappers on mobile telephones. He negotiated the ransom payment down
to US$40,000 (€32,000) and had agreed to pay, but contact abruptly
ceased Tuesday night.
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