On Tuesday a prosecutor in Egypt ruled that a 15-year-old Coptic Christian boy must remain in custody for at least 15 days while an investigation is conducted into whether he posted cartoons on Facebook depicting the Prophet Muhammad. (more)
The move came in response to dozens of attacks blamed on Boko Haram, an Islamist group that claims ties to al-Qaeda, most recently a wave of bombings over Christmas that killed nearly 50 people. (more)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI issued pleas for peace to reign across the world during his traditional Christmas address Sunday, a call marred by Muslim extremists who bombed a Catholic church in Nigeria, striking after worshippers celebrated Mass. (more)
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is taking on a new role — patching fractures in President Barack Obama’s Muslim outreach policy. (more)
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used an international conference on religious freedom Wednesday as a platform to suggest that Islamic governments which suppress Christianity are secretly afraid Islam will lose out in a public debate. (more)
America’s northern neighbor has banned women from wearing the burka and niqab while taking their oath of citizenship. (more)
The State Department began a three-day, closed-door meeting Monday to talk about U.S. free speech rules with representatives from numerous Islamic governments that have lobbied for 12 years to end U.S. citizens’ ability to speak freely about Islam’s history and obligations. (more)
An Egyptian news outlet has a report that is causing an unusual stir. According to the Bikya Masr news service, an Islamic cleric in Europe has ordered Muslim women to prevent “sexual thoughts” by staying away from bananas, cucumbers, carrots, zucchini, and other phallic produce. (more)
The White House wants to use U.S. Attorneys to coordinate outreach to immigrant groups that produce Muslim terrorists, according to a new policy. (more)
Attorney General Eric Holder is stereotyping Muslims in America, and his willful ignorance about the religious roots of Islamic terrorism endangers Americans and marginalizes Muslim reformers, say experts on Islamist terror groups. (more)
Deputy U.S. Attorney General James Cole confirmed on Wednesday that the Obama administration was pulling back all training materials used for the law enforcement and national security communities, in order to eliminate all references to Islam that some Muslim groups have claimed are offensive. (more)
CAIRO – Bearded and feeling misunderstood, Mohamed Tolba made a movie to tell the world he is not a terrorist. (more)
The mass immigration of Muslims into Western Europe over the last four decades or so was a project of elite mainstream politicians, most of them left-wing, who never consulted the electorate on whether they thought this project was a good idea or not. Motivated by a multicultural sensibility (and, in most cases, an invincible ignorance about Islam), these politicians felt compelled not to try to integrate these newcomers, but encouraged them, rather, to preserve their cultural values, however at odds they might be with Western ideas of freedom and equality. For many years there was little organized public resistance to the increasing Islamization of Europe. But then, around a decade ago, things reached a breaking point. (more)
CAIRO (AP) — On her first day to school, 15-year-old Christian student Ferial Habib was stopped at the doorstep of her new high school with clear instructions: either put on a headscarf or no school this year. (more)
(Reuters) – U.S. officials have met members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party, a U.S. diplomat said, after Washington announced it would have direct contacts with Egypt’s biggest Islamist group whose role has grown since U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak was ousted. (more)
Kudos to American television comedian David Letterman! On June 5, 2011, Letterman smiled and drew his finger across his own throat on his CBS program “Late Show with David Letterman” to celebrate the U.S. military’s reported killing of Ilyas Kashmiri, an Islamist terrorist who apparently was the head of Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami and a senior al-Qaeda leader. Kashmiri reportedly was one of the leading organizers of the deadly November 2008 Mumbai attacks in India, which killed 164 innocent people and wounded at least 308. He was also recently indicted in U.S. federal court for conspiring with other terrorists to plan a Mumbai-style attack in Denmark, directed at the newspaper Jyllands-Posten, the newspaper that had published the infamous Mohammed cartoons. For good measure, Letterman also insulted Osama bin Laden during the same broadcast. (more)
At last week’s presidential debate in Florida, Rick Perry said something that made the audience gasp in disbelief. He said critics of in-state college tuition for illegal aliens “have no heart.” Welcome to Compassionate Conservatism 2.0. (more)
While New York Republican Rep. Peter King’s recent hearings on radicalization have sparked controversy among interest groups and in the media, a recent poll shows that a majority of Americans are supportive of his efforts. (more)
Be an atheist or agnostic at your own peril. (more)
New York Republican Rep. Peter King, Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, announced Monday that he will be testifying in London before a British House of Commons committee on the “Roots of Violent Radicalisation.” (more)
