Tag: religion

Okmulgee city councilor arrested, accused of child abuse

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said an Okmulgee city councilor accused of child abuse was arrested on Tuesday.

On Nov. 24, 2025, the Okmulgee Police Department requested OSBI to investigate a report of child abuse.

OSBI said an Okmulgee Police report stated that 63-year-old Marcus Jeffrey struck several minors with a belt during a youth meeting at a local church.

Jeffrey, who is an Okmulgee city councilor, reportedly started as a teacher for the youth group a few weeks prior to the incident, according to OSBI.

OSBI said that while reviewing video surveillance from inside the church, Jeffrey was reportedly seen swinging a belt toward a group of children, hitting a number of them.

An arrest warrant was issued for Jeffrey on Tuesday, and he turned himself in to the authorities the same day.

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Hegseth Makes Troops Prove “Sincerely Held” Faith in Latest Beard Crackdown

The latest edict from beard-obsessed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth adds strict new regulations to his crusade on facial hair, which rights groups have characterized as an attack on troops’ civil liberties.

In a March 11 memo, Hegseth, who has made grooming and appearances a central focus in his time at the helm of the U.S. military, raised the bar to qualify for a religious exemption to his blanket ban on beards. The guidelines lay out a strict new process by which service members may apply for a religious exemption and subject those who’ve already received one to a reevaluation, arguing they need to ensure their religious beliefs are “sincerely held” and have a genuine conflict with the grooming standards.

Service members who have spoken against Hegseth’s focus on grooming standards say his restrictions on beards are exclusionary to people from religious communities that require adherents to follow specific tenets of faith around beards, hair, and other grooming matters.

Sikhs, for example, who have served in the U.S. military since at least World War I, are required by their faith not to cut the hair on their head, to keep a beard, and to wrap their long hair in a turban. Members of many schools of Muslim tradition likewise have rules around beards and hair length.

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SPIRITUAL WAR: Top Exorcists Ask Pope Leo To Increase Number and Training of Specialized Priests To Combat Surge in Occultism and Satanic Practices

‘And [Jesus] asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.’ (Mark 5:9)

One need not be a trained exorcist to recognize all around us that today’s world is experiencing a surge in occult and Satanic practices.

But the men who actually are the top exorcists in the Catholic Church have gone up to Pope Leo XIV with a single plea: reinforce their numbers.

Leo received representatives of the International Association of Exorcists (AIE) in a private audience on Friday, March 13 – perhaps not the most auspicious day.

The AIE heads presented the Holy Father with a report on the growing number of cases related to occultism, esotericism, and Satanism.

The report also examines the spiritual consequences this has for many people.

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Antisemitic Attack in Britain Sees Jewish Community Ambulances Set on Fire in Front of London Synagogue

Jewish community under pressure from UK extremists.

Failing British Prime Minister Keir Starmer tried to stay out of the military operations in Iran – but the conflict came up to him.

Today, four Jewish community ambulances in front of a synagogue in ​north London were set on fire in what Starmer is calling ‘a deeply shocking antisemitic arson attack’.

Why not call it terrorism and be done with it?

Reuters reported:

“The London Fire Brigade ‌said multiple cylinders on the vehicles exploded, shattering nearby windows. No injuries were reported and no arrests have been made.

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The SITE Intelligence website said an Iran-aligned multinational militant collective called Islamic Movement of the People of the Right Hand had claimed responsibility for the attack near a synagogue in Golders Green.”

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Expelled Oberlin Chabad rabbi says he ‘made a mistake’ with explicit social media chats

A police report obtained by the Forward sheds light on the removal of a Chabad rabbi from the campus of Oberlin College last week, after the school administration became aware of a police report that alleged he engaged in sexually explicit conversations online concerning minors.

Rabbi Scott “Shlomo” Elkan, former co-director of Oberlin Chabad, allegedly received sexually explicit texts, photos and videos through the messaging app Kik concerning three young people, ages 7, 12 and 13, according to the report.

In December 2025 messages to an adult on the platform, Elkan allegedly responded to photos of someone giving a child a bath. The person he chatted with alluded to touching the child’s genitals and said he had been aroused when the child was sitting on his lap, the report stated.

According to the Oberlin Police Department report, Elkan shared photos of girls as part of the chat. The department closed the case after a 20-day investigation, with no charges filed.

In a phone interview with the Forward, Elkan said he regretted his participation in the chat, but that his messages were not based on real events.

“To be clear, what had happened was an online chat with an anonymous adult on purely fictional, you know, fantastical things that’s not rooted in any kind of reality whatsoever,” Elkan said. “And I entered that, and I should not have, and I take responsibility for that.”

Elkan added that he has been engaged in “professional care and spiritual counseling to deal with all of the stresses and all of the factors that led me to engaging in an unhealthy behavior.”

According to the report, in an interview with police, Elkan confirmed the Kik account belonged to him and said the chats were “escapism” from the stress of his everyday life. He denied ever viewing or possessing child sexual abuse images.

Elkan told the Forward that “oftentimes people think of rabbis as godlike and infallible,” and he “made a mistake in one of the weakest few moments of my life.”

“There was no crime. Nothing illegal. Poor judgment, yes,” Elkan said. “And there’s not a victim. The victims here are the Jewish community and my family.”

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Britain’s Islamophobia Panel Linked to Extremism

Zara Mohammed, Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain, said “Our view is that the Islamophobia in the Party is institutional, tolerated by the leadership and seen as acceptable by great swathes of the party membership.”

The Muslim Council of Britain is the organization pushing for the British government to accept its restrictive definition of Islamophobia. The group has consistently promoted the definition produced by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims in 2018–2019. That definition states: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.”

When the U.K. government released its own definition in March 2026, using the term “anti-Muslim hostility” rather than “Islamophobia,” MCB Secretary General Dr. Wajid Akhter called it a “diminished version” of what the government’s own working group had recommended and declined to endorse it.

Working from a restrictive definition of Islamophobia, the British government has been cracking down on free speech in order to appease Muslim groups. In 2025, Hamit Coskun was handed a criminal conviction for burning a Quran outside the Turkish Embassy in London, shouting “F–k Islam” and “Islam is a religion of terrorism.” He was convicted of religiously motivated harassment, alarm, or distress and received a fine of approximately $300 plus a surcharge of $120.

Coskun was attacked by Moussa Kadri, who came at him with a knife, beating and slashing at him. Kadri pleaded guilty to assault and possession of a bladed article and received a 20-week prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, with 150 hours of unpaid work. The judge spared him jail because he had “lost his temper” and was of previously “exemplary character.”

Another recent case involved online speech targeting Islam. Pete North was arrested in 2025 on suspicion of a public-order offence after posting a meme that read “F*** Palestine, F*** Hamas, F*** Islam.” He was later released without charge.

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Toronto police ‘Muslim Liaison Officer’ charged with sexual assault

Does the name Farhan Ali ring a bell?

It should.

Ali is the Toronto police officer who believes that the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack in Israel was actually a good thing for the Muslim faith. Yeah, apparently a massacre of almost 1,200 innocent people is positive P.R. for the religion of peace. He actually boasted about this on an official Toronto Police Service podcast called Project Olive Branch last year.

You see. Ali is (or was) a member of the Muslim Liaison Unit—whatever the hell that is.

And really, what’s with all these “liaison” units? There’s a black liaison unit, an aboriginal liaison unit, and of course, a 2SLGBTQI+ liaison unit. Who or what is the “plus” by the way? Anyway, I think the cops in the 2SLGBTQI+ unit get to drive that special police cruiser with a paint job suggesting that this SUV collided with a transport truck loaded with Froot Loops cereal.

Anyway, we did look up the mission statement for the Toronto Police Service’s Muslim Liaison Unit. Apparently, it was formed to “engage with the Muslim community and combat Islamophobia.”

Can you imagine? For the past two and half years, antisemitism has raged in Toronto. It’s the number one hate crime by a country kilometre. And the solution? Well, we don’t believe there’s a Jewish Liaison Unit at the Toronto Police Service. No, we have a Muslim Liaison Unit because clearly Islamophobia is running wild on the mean streets of Hogtown. Forgive me for referencing the non-halal nickname for Toronto. Hopefully we didn’t commit Islamophobia or a Bill C-9 violation there? Maybe “Hogtown” needs to get rebranded a la Yonge Dundas Square?

Anyway, during that shocking episode of Project Olive Branch, Ali and his sidekick, Constable Haroon Siddiqui, actually said that criticism of Toronto’s vile pro-Hamas rallies was an example of… “Islamophobia”?!

We’re not making this up.

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Israeli settlements will spell ‘end’ for Holy Land Christians – ‘America First’

Unabated settler violence, along with Israel’s continued settlement policy, could spell doom for the remaining Christian communities in the Holy Land, Jason Jones, founder of the Vulnerable People Project, has told RT’s America First.

Israel has allegedly approved the demolition of thousands of homes in the West Bank belonging to Christian communities and is encroaching on the territory of some of the oldest Christian populations in the area, particularly around Bethlehem, as well as villages such as Taybeh, Jones claimed.

The settlement of Shtema located at the site of a former Israel military base just east of the town of Bethlehem “will be the end of the Christian community in the Holy Land,” Jones said. “It will be the end of the oldest Christian community in the world,” he added, referring to a settlement legalized by West Jerusalem last year.

The NGO founder, whose organization operates in the West Bank and other territories, warned that local Christian communities are being attacked by settlers. “There is direct physical violence. There is separating the communities,” Jones added.

Neither West Jerusalem nor Washington is willing to act, with the US choosing to be “on the side of the oppressor,” Jones believes. Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, is “just ignoring it,” according to Jones. Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, “was not man enough to rise to the occasion and speak truth,” Jones said.

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California Democratic Lawmaker Seeks To Create Two New Muslim State Holidays

Multiculturalism is on the march in California: A Democratic state lawmaker has introduced a bill to recognize two Muslim holidays as official state holidays.

Fox 11 reports that California State Assembly member Matt Haney (D–San Francisco) has introduced AB 2017, which would designate Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha as state holidays and would, in Haney’s words, ensure that Muslims are “seen, valued and treated with the same dignity as every other community in our state.”

According to the New York Post, Eid al-Adha is among the most important holidays in Islam alongside Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan—the month in which faithful Muslims fast from dawn until sunset.

Haney says the California Muslim community is among the largest in the country, yet they do not have major holidays recognized by the state in the way Christianity does—for example, Christmas or Easter.

In a news release, Haney said, “No student should have to choose between celebrating one of the holiest days of their faith and showing up to school, and no worker should feel they have to sacrifice their religious observance.”

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