New York City train commuters may soon see new anti-Islam advertisements on the city’s Metro North line.
The American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) created an ad campaign to raise awareness about Jihadist activities against Israel and the United States, highlighting the number of Islamist attacks since Sept. 11, 2001, and a growing number of deaths that have resulted.
“19,207 deadly Islamic attacks since 9/11/01 and counting,” the ad reads. “It’s not Islamophohia, it’s Islamorealism.”
I can’t say I’m generally an admirer of John McCain but the statement he delivered on the floor of the US Senate today in defence of Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin against the paranoid accusations of Michele Bachmann and her colleagues really is worth reading.
The Colorado Springs Independent has an interview with US talk show host Bill Maher. He is asked why he featured Geert Wilders in his religion-mocking film Religulous – “wouldn’t your hatred for racist xenophobes trump your hatred of religion?” Maher replies that he sees no contradiction:
A federal judge on Wednesday will consider whether to force a Tennessee county to allow a Muslim congregation to begin worshipping in its newly built mosque, which has faced strong opposition from a group of residents.
The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro and its religious leader, Imam Ossama Bahloul, sued Rutherford County on Wednesday and asked the federal court for an emergency order to let worshippers into the building before the holy month of Ramadan starts at sundown on Thursday.
Hope Not Hate reports that thanks to photographic evidence they were able to give the police, an English Defence League member, Steven Crispin, has been convicted of an attack on two Muslim brothers during an EDL anti-mosque protest in Dagenham last year, in the course of which he kicked one of the victims and fractured his jaw. Unfortunately a decision was taken not to charge Crispin with a racially aggravated offence and he received a jail sentence of just three months.
In December last year another EDL member, John McAndrew, received a 14-month custodial term to serve a minimum of seven months having been convicted of participating in the attack on the brothers. He was subsequently handed a five-year CRASBO banning him attending EDL demonstrations or entering mosques, Islamic cultural centres and Muslim festival sites.
A progressive evangelical group has launched an online petition urging the U.S. Justice Department to investigate a July 4 fire at a Missouri mosque as a potential hate crime.
Sojourners, a Washington-based organization dedicated to social justice in a Christian context, sent out an e-mail announcing the campaign July 18. It follows an earlier plea by the Council on American-Islamic Relations for state and federal hate crime investigations of a suspicious fire at the Islamic Society of Joplin, Mo.
It has been revealed that a British Ministry of Defense advisor – who helped write the “religious engagement strategy” for troops occupying the Afghan province of Kandahar – believes Islam might “be the rod of God’s anger,” raising disturbing questions for the military and the UK government.
Patrick Sookhdeo, who teaches at the UK’s Defense Academy and has served in the role of “cultural advisor” to troops in Afghanistan and southern Iraq, is also a regular speaker at events held by churches and Christian organizations internationally.
Speaking in a Washington DC church in 2007, Sookhdeo wondered if “[there is a] danger facing the West, particularly with Islam, might Islam be the rod of God’s anger?” (“Understanding Radicalization and Islamicization,” Capitol Hill Baptist Church)
In a 2009 interview, he said: “I think we need to understand that there is, in the very nature of Islam itself and its followers, an inherent sense of superiority.” He also said, “everything about the West is inimical to Islam” (“Clash of Cultures,” Australian Presbyterian [PDF]).
More recently, at a talk organized by the Family Research Council – a right-wing organization noted for attacking gay men and lesbians – Sookhdeo said that the West had removed Muammar Gaddafi in Libya only to replace him “with a political ideology rooted in a religion that wants our destruction” (“Responding to Islam: Lessons from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth, and Bishop George Bell,” Family Research Council, 26 January 2012).
Rep. Michele Bachmann defended her attempt to root out “deep penetration” by the Muslim Brotherhood into the U.S. government Friday, writing a 16‑page letter explaining and expanding on her initial charges against Huma Abedin and others of being terrorist sympathizers.
Bachmann’s letter came in response to a challenge from a fellow Minnesota lawmaker, Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat who was the first Muslim elected to Congress. Ellison last week asked Bachmann for evidence to support a series of letters the Republican sent to five national security agencies demanding investigations into alleged Muslim Brotherhood infiltration in their ranks.
Rather that posting individual entries on acts of racism and violence by members of the English Defence League, here is a roundup of three cases from the past 24 hours.
EDL News reports that Sam Burgess, a member of the EDL’s Norwich Division who has been on training courses to work for the Olympics security team, has pictured himself on Facebook with a gun and posted threats against the Muslim community.
The Hull Daily Mail reports that on Saturday evening a group of youth at Hull railway station were assaulted by a man wearing a Grimsby EDL top (presumably on his way back from the EDL’s protest in Bristol).
STV reports that a Scottish Defence League member from Edinburgh named Raymond Strachan (or “Raymo Sdl Strachan” as he likes to call himself) was sentenced to 200 hours’ community service having been convicted of posting racist messages on Facebook.
A 700 Club viewer asked Pat Robertson today if he should marry his Muslim girlfriend of three years even though he is a Christian, to which Robertson responded, “no way.” “She wants to do her Muslim thing and you want to do your Christian thing,” Robertson said, “walk away.” He urged him to pray for her to become a Christian, “and if that doesn’t work say, ‘I’m sorry, good bye’.” Robertson, who is no fan of Muslims, explained that it isn’t necessarily Christ-like to be “nice and friendly” as “he’s not gentle Jesus, meek and mild, he really isn’t.”