Rien n’a changé. That was the theme among French political papers over the weekend, two years on from the daylight decapitation of schoolteacher Samuel Paty.
Islam
Conservative Muslims join forces with Christian right on Michigan book bans
A recent school board meeting at which about 1,000 people gathered in Dearborn, Michigan, to pressure district officials to censor books with LGBTQ+ themes was in most ways similar to hundreds of other recent book ban hearings across the US.
… At the meeting’s conclusion, Dearborn resident Jackson Wagner stood up and declared that he was gay, and told the audience: “The far right in this country despises us all.
“Dearborn should be a city where everyone knows they’re safe and loved and supported,” he continued. Moments later, boos rained down as he concluded his brief speech, and he was confronted by Anoun, who had to be ordered back to his seat by police.
But Muslims aren’t terrorists like those awful “far-right” parents but I’d suggest a change of address for Mr. Wagner.
Inside the Shameful Cancellation of Jihad Rehab
How an identity-politics-obsessed mob destroyed a young filmmaker’s documentary
At the beginning of director Meg Smaker’s documentary Jihad Rehab, we hear a former Guantanamo detainee saying, “Meg, can I tell you something?” Sure, a woman’s voice says. “In every story there is good and bad,” the man goes on in a gentle Saudi accent. “But . . . it’s a thin line. The American government did bad, bad, bad things against us. But at least I am honest with what I did.”
Authorities in Iran forced to remove poster of women in hijabs after PR fiasco
The Iranian authorities suffered a PR fiasco after being forced to take down a giant billboard in a central square in Tehran when women in the poster, or their relatives, objected to being depicted as supporters of the government and the compulsory-wearing of the hijab.
The billboard controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was a montage of about 50 Iranian women wearing the hijab under the slogan “Women of my Land”. It was taken down within 24 hours after at least three of the women pictured said they objected to their image being misused.
‘Beatles’ case offers clue to where Isis hostages are buried
A US-based Syrian research team has identified mass graves where Islamic State may have buried its victims, including British and other western hostages it publicly murdered.
The claims, in a report on Isis prisons and based on court cases and interviews involving former Isis fighters, will bring renewed hope to families that the bodies of their loved ones may eventually be recovered.
The research team, from the the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre, tracked the cases in America against two of the so-called “Beatles”, the British jihadist gang that oversaw the detention of hostages. Alexanda Kotey, 38, and El Shafee Elsheikh, 34, are both serving life terms in the US.
Iran privately menaces EU capitals against sanctions
In a letter to EU diplomats, Tehran claims ‘bilateral relations may not survive’ as the EU moves to penalize Iran for killing protesters.
VIENNA/BRUSSELS/BERLIN/PARIS — Iran this week privately pressured EU diplomats to abandon sanctions against Tehran over its lethal crackdown on protesters, warning diplomats the move may rupture Europe’s ties to the country.
“If Europe misses taking the nuances of the current situation into consideration, the ramification will be grave and the bilateral relations may not survive it,” warned one letter — sent to a group of EU ambassadors and seen by POLITICO — which details an alternate, Tehran-friendly narrative disconnected from numerous reports coming out of Iran.
Remembering #SarinaEsmaeilzadeh. Her words explain so much about those of her generation who are on the streets fighting for freedom. I don’t know who put this together, but it’s touching. R.I.P. Sarina. #MahsaAmini #IranProtests2022 #مهسا_امینی #IranProtests pic.twitter.com/jX7u4Ewvuw
— Omid Memarian (@Omid_M) October 9, 2022
A nation that sends threatening letters is not likely to care much about Justin’s windbaggery.
Canada to designate Iranian regime as serial human rights violator: ministers
The government of Canada is using a “powerful and sparingly” used provision to designate the entirety of the Iranian regime as an entity that is a “serial violator of human rights” and one that commits acts of terror, federal cabinet ministers announced Thursday.
Who Is Leading the Crackdown on Iran’s Protests?
They show up at the first signs of protest in Iran — men in black, riding motorcycles, often wielding guns, or batons.
They are members of what’s known as the Basij, paramilitary volunteers who are fiercely loyal to the Islamic Republic. The shock troops of the ayatollahs have taken on a leading role in quashing dissent for more than two decades.
During the latest protests, which erupted after a young woman died in the custody of the country’s morality police last month, the Basij (ba-SEEJ’) have deployed in major cities, attacking and detaining protesters, who in many cases have fought back.
For decades Iran’s regime has implored its population to fight for freedom, justice, and dignity for Palestinians, while denying them these same rights at home. Today in Tehran, crowds gathering on “Palestine street” chant “Mullahs get lost” pic.twitter.com/FZitlyezwr
— Karim Sadjadpour (@ksadjadpour) October 12, 2022
France is haunted by civil war – Jihadis and drug lords rule the banlieues
Ranks of men in uniform are bombarded with Molotov cocktails, makeshift mortars, and small arms fire. Commando units prepare to infiltrate a smoke-covered urban fortress. A city burns under the watchful eye of the press, reporting on “a civil war”.
This isn’t the siege of Aleppo, it’s a scene from Romain Gavras’s Athena, set in one of France’s burning banlieues. Amid the smoke grenades, police and Athenians engage in brutal fighting at close quarters, with metal rods and batons. Later, the police use fire ladders to scale the walls of a tower block. Athenians on wheels circle around a beleaguered police testudo, firing makeshift mortars at point blank range. Men on both sides are visibly shell-shocked.
Jamal Khashoggi vs. Marc Bennett: Whose Life Matters?
In an annual propaganda ritual, the heads of foreign governments and media operatives marked the anniversary of Jamal Khashoggi’s death by tweeting condemnations of the killing of the old friend of Osama bin Laden who had been recruited by an Al Qaeda financier to promote Jihad.
It is a testament to the unchallenged power of the Islamic tyranny of Qatar that everyone in Washington D.C. unquestioningly takes a knee and pays tribute to its martyred operative.
ISIS bride Tania Joya: ‘My crime was being an idiot, joining a really bad idea’
Tania Joya, who was married to John Georgelas, once known as the highest-ranking American in ISIS, does not want to be blamed for her ex-husband’s misdeeds.
“My crime was being an idiot and getting married too young and joining a really bad idea,” she says in a new documentary, “A Radical Life,” which begins streaming Thursday on Discovery+. “That was my mistake but it’s not a crime.”
The documentary takes an unfiltered look at Joya’s journey from British schoolgirl to Jihadi bride to single mother living in Texas.
Germany: Cologne Central Mosque to start calling Muslims to prayer
Germany’s largest mosque will broadcast the call to prayer for the first time on Friday.
It comes as part of an agreement between the Central Mosque of Cologne and the city authorities.
“We’re very happy,” Abdurrahman Atasoy, general secretary of the the Turkish government’s religious affairs authority in Germany, DITIB, which runs the mosque, said.
“The public call to prayer is a sign that Muslims are at home here,” he added.
Now they can be called to the next mass sex assault directly from the Mosque!
CSIS alerted British intelligence that operative had smuggled Shamima Begum & Pals into Syria in 2015, sources say
Canada’s spy agency informed British intelligence within 48 hours of learning, in 2015, that an operative had smuggled three British schoolgirls into Syria to join the Islamic State, two sources say.
Scotland Yard was frantically searching for the missing teens in February, 2015, and was apparently unaware that they had been smuggled into Syria by the operative, Mohammed al-Rashed, a double agent who was working for both the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Islamic State.
Kerala’s TJ Joseph: The Indian teacher whose hand was cut off for an exam paper said to insult death cult idol Mohammed
TJ Joseph remembers the attack from 12 years ago vividly.
It was a rainy July morning. Prof Joseph, then a 52-year-old teacher of Malayalam language at a local college, was driving home with his mother and sister after Sunday Mass in Muvattupuzha, an idyllic town in the southern state of Kerala set on the banks of a river by the same name.
Barely 100m from his house in a leafy, undulating lane, a Suzuki minivan barrelled down, took a sharp turn and blocked his hatchback.
Are Muslim ‘Officials’ Denying Persecuted Christians Refuge in Europe?
The same Germany that took in over a million Muslim migrants in 2015, and ten thousand non-vetted Afghans in 2021—all people who, by definition, could not be experiencing religious persecution back home as they themselves were Muslim—has refused asylum to a Muslim convert to Christianity, even though one of his relatives was tortured and murdered for the same “crime” of apostasy in his native Iran.
UK: Treason law update could help to indict expat jihadis
Ministers are planning to update Britain’s 650-year-old treason laws so they can be used to prosecute jihadis, hackers and other “malign” actors who swear allegiance to a hostile foreign power.
Proposals being drawn up by the Home Office would make it an offence to aid a state or organisation that is attacking or preparing to attack the UK or UK forces in an armed conflict. It would apply to anybody in the UK or the actions of British citizens anywhere in the world.
Those convicted of treason would face a life sentence. Government sources said that an amendment updating the 1351 Treason Act could be added to the national security bill, which is going through parliament. A separate piece of legislation is also being considered.