Tag: religion

Muslim-Majority Turkey Detains 26 People as Police Raids Target LGBTQI+ Groups

Allegations of homosexual prostitution and obscenity made against LGBTQI+ groups in Muslim-majority Turkey saw 26 people detained since Friday with offices of six allied associations also targeted in a series of police raids.

Reuters reports the protection of family values is behind the crackdown.

According to the outlet, the Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office said “operations were carried out across 12 ​provinces against 38 suspects […] with authorities seizing ​drugs, digital equipment, smuggled alcohol and a firearm.”

Ankara-based gay association ⁠Kaos GL alleged some 50 activists had been detained – a ​higher figure than given by the chief prosecutor’s office – including ​more than 10 who were taken in police raids on their homes, Reuters added.

In addition, it said authorities blocked access to dozens of websites and social media accounts linked ​to LGBTI+ organisations, activists and rights advocates which have also been previously challenged by government authorities in the past.

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NYPD launching ‘two major security operations’ ahead of 9/11 memorial and Rosh Hashanah

The New York Police Department (NYPD) announced increased security measures for the city ahead of September’s Jewish Holy Days and the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Speaking at One Police Plaza in Manhattan on Wednesday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D-N.Y.) and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced that the department will implement “heightened security measures” this weekend as Jewish New Yorkers prepare to gather at synagogues for Rosh Hashanah.

The Jewish New Year begins Friday evening, following the 25th anniversary commemoration of the September 11th attacks, when thousands of victims’ family members, former presidents and other dignitaries are expected to gather at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan.

“As you’ve heard me say in preparation for so many events this year, we have amped up or increased our deployments for large events this year, particularly since the start of hostilities in Iran,” Tisch said at a security briefing.

“Our deployment this year at the World Trade Center for 9/11 will be larger than it has been in previous years, as will be our deployment this year for the High Holidays at shuls and yeshivas and Jewish cultural institutions, just based on the reality of the world that we live in today,” she continued.

“Even as shootings and murders have fallen to historic lows, hate crimes are moving in the wrong direction through the first eight months of this year,” Tisch stated. “Confirmed hate crimes citywide are up 16%, and antisemitic hate crimes are up 9%. And once again, more than half of all confirmed hate crimes in New York City have targeted Jewish New Yorkers, even though Jews make up only about 10% of this city’s population. Those numbers are deeply disturbing.”

During her remarks, Tisch explained that the NYPD’s Counterterrorism Bureau and heavy weapons teams will maintain a visible presence patrolling Manhattan as part of two major security operations.

The first centers on Lower Manhattan, which Mamdani warned will be largely closed to the public on Friday morning during the remembrance ceremony, with the second being the heightened security at Jewish cultural institutions across the city.

Tisch also announced that the U.S. Secret Service will install a security fence along the east side of the West Side Highway—from Liberty to Fulton Streets—as well as around the entire perimeter of the 9/11 Memorial site.

“And because of the security footprint around the site, New Yorkers should expect significant traffic and pedestrian restrictions throughout Lower Manhattan,” Tisch warned.

During the security briefing, Mamdani also emphasized that despite the sensitive time, there are currently no known threats against New York.

“As we look ahead to Friday evening, NYPD personnel will continue monitoring for any threats, both online and in person,” Mamdani said. “Let me be clear. There are no current known specific or credible threats against New York at this time. We will continue to work closely across all levels of city government, as well as with state and federal partners, to keep our city safe.”

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Abdul El-Sayed’s Imam Rails Against Homosexuality and Jews Teaching Islam: ‘Against Human Nature’

Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed frequently attends a mosque led by an imam who has railed against homosexuality and complained that all too often, Jews are teaching Islam in American universities, I report alongside my Free Beacon colleague Alana Goodman.

Abdelhamid Algizawi serves as the imam at the Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor, where El-Sayed typically prays, according to a source with knowledge of the situation. Algizawi celebrated El-Sayed’s one-point Democratic primary victory over Haley Stevens in an August 7 sermon, calling it a “very big victory for the Muslims, Hamdillah, and for the Ummah, and for the Islamic nation” and noting that it is incumbent on Muslims to vote for El-Sayed in November. He also lamented that his own daughter said she wouldn’t vote for a Muslim “running for Senate” because “he’s working against women.”

Algizawi has also made inflammatory remarks about homosexuality, arguing Muslims must reject it because it is “against human nature” and “cannot bring stability to life.” El-Sayed, by contrast, has championed the “LGBTQ+ community,” saying he’ll “always fight for an America where all of us can live and thrive as we are.” Last month, in a primetime Fox News appearance, El-Sayed defended gender transition surgery for minors, likening the procedure to circumcision. In 2022, meanwhile, Algizawi, a graduate of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, criticized the number of Jewish scholars teaching Islam in America, describing it as “a problem” and accusing them of introducing “confusion” to students.

“Though El-Sayed usually prays at the MCA of Ann Arbor, he also attends the Islamic Center of Detroit and the Wayne State University Islamic Center of Detroit, the source told the Washington Free Beacon. Imam Imran Salha of the Islamic Center of Detroit has justified Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel, posting to social media in September 2024 that ‘We can condemn Hezbollah atrocities in Syria while also recognizing that they *are* making sacrifices for the sake of Palestine and frustrating the illegal zionist regime in unprecedented ways esp with recent hits.’” Salha was also caught on video three days after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks saying Israel “has left a fire in our hearts that will burn that state until its demise.”

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Jihad Near and Far: The Order of Priorities in Establishing a Modern Islamic Caliphate

For the past year, an al-Qaeda affiliate has been strangling the capital of a West African nation by burning fuel trucks, blockading roads, and imposing sharia law on captured towns, without striking a Western or Israeli target. Since September 2025, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), al-Qaeda’s Sahelian affiliate, has waged an economic siege of Bamako, Mali’s capital.

In April 2026, JNIM and an allied Tuareg separatist group launched an offensive that killed Mali’s defense minister and seized or contested several cities, including Kidal, Gao, Mopti, and Sévaré, bringing fighters within reach of Bamako, the country’s capital.

In towns it controls, such as Farabougou, JNIM has imposed sharia law, banned secular music, and required women to cover their heads. Its strategy mirrors the approach used by the Taliban in Afghanistan and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Syria before each group toppled the government and seized power.

If JNIM or its ISIS-affiliated rival, the Islamic State Sahel Province, captured Bamako, it would be the first time a group with current, direct ties to al-Qaeda controlled a national capital.

This makes Mali the clearest test of near-enemy jihadist strategy in the world today. JNIM’s campaign is aimed at toppling Mali’s military government, the definitional near enemy in jihadist doctrine, rather than attacking the United States, Europe, or Israel.

Mali illustrates a decades-old debate that shapes jihadist strategy across theaters and organizations: which enemy should be fought first, the government ruling over Muslims or the outside powers backing it. The distinction between the “near enemy” (al-‘adaw al-qarib) and the “far enemy” (al-‘adaw al-ba’id) predates every group that uses it today. Understanding this hierarchy explains why movements calling for a global caliphate spend most of their resources fighting other Muslims and Muslim governments rather than the West or Israel.

At its territorial peak in early 2015, the Islamic State controlled roughly 41,000 square miles across Iraq and Syria, an area comparable to Portugal, and ruled as many as eight million people.

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Ex-Muslim Criticizes Islam, and for Leftists, It’s Time for a Virtue-Signaling Party

Grab your hazmat suit: There has been a severe outbreak of “Islamophobia” in Los Angeles. But don’t worry: the intrepid Mayor Karen Bass is on the job. “Islamophobia,” she declared Friday, “has no place in Los Angeles.”

Bass was late to the party. She made this pronouncement a day after Lindsey P. Horvath, supervisor of Los Angeles County’s third district, denounced the same “vile and dangerous Islamophobia” and added: “It should alarm every one of us: an attack on one community is an attack on us all.” And Horvath was writing two days after the Nexus Project, which combats antisemitism but is apparently branching out, said about the same incident: “This is bigotry, and it should never be met with applause in any room, let alone one at a Jewish event. We call on the sponsoring organizations to condemn this without equivocation.”

Even that was slow on the uptake. It was back on Monday when the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued its marching orders, claiming that the alleged “Islamophobia” was “the same sort of rhetoric that has fueled a rise in anti-Muslim bigotry and violence, including the attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego. The sponsors of this summit should apologize, repudiate these remarks, and support justice for all people, here and abroad.”

The problem for Bass and all the others who were piling on and clutching their pearls over this supposedly “Islamophobic” event was that the speaker who had so enraged Hamas-linked CAIR, such that it had to call out the politicians that it carries around in its pocket like so many nickels and dimes, was not some redneck, knuckle-dragging bigot answering a casting call for white supremacists from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Instead, the speaker that inspired all this posturing and virtue signaling was Mosab Hassan Yousef, who is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a cofounder of Hamas. While CAIR and Bass and the rest cry about alleged “bigotry,” they’re apparently hoping that no one will notice that the target of their venom knows what he is talking about.

What Mosab Hassan Yousef said that is driving everyone crazy was this: “And there is no room for Islam dominance, especially here in the United States. Let me be very clear about this. I personally, I as an American, I as a taxpayer, I don’t want Muslims in America. Get the f**k out of the United States. Go back to the s******e where you came from and reform your own countries. This country is perfect and it’s much better without your Islamic belief system. Do I need to be more clear than this?”

Mosab Hassan Yousef grew up as a Muslim, among some of the most committed and knowledgeable Muslims in the world. He has, however, rejected it and embraced Christianity, and now he minces no words in speaking about this violent and supremacist ideology. Many will find his words about wanting Muslims out of America to be too strong, but no one can honestly say they’re based on bigotry or ignorance, or even on dislike of Muslims as human beings. He is speaking this way because he has firsthand experience regarding the brutality, inhumanity, and oppression of Islamic law.

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The biological risks of the European Union’s migration policies

Recent events in the Spanish city of Ceuta, where tens of thousands of migrants from African countries flocked in late July 2026, have starkly highlighted the problem of the biological risks posed by uncontrolled migration. Currently, the European Union has a population of approximately 451 million. Until now, the majority of the population has been of Caucasian descent. However, according to a report published by the Center for Migration Research and Analysis at Berlin Regional University, the number of migrants living in the European Union in 2026 reached a record high of 64.2 million people, which is approximately 2.1 million more than the previous year. In 2025, the total number of asylum applications filed by migrants in the EU was 669,365. Most of them are Muslims and come from countries in Africa and the Middle East. In 2026, the name Muhammad ranked first among babies born in England and Wales for the third consecutive year. Nearly 6,000 boys were given this name that year, a 4% increase from the previous year.

Migration flows within the bloc are uneven. According to Reuters, nearly three-quarters of all asylum applications from migrants were filed in countries such as Spain, Italy, France, and Germany. At the same time, Germany remains the bloc’s largest host country for foreigners, with a population of nearly 18 million, 72% of whom are of working age, while Spain has seen the fastest growth, increasing its foreign population by approximately 700,000 over the past year, bringing the total to 9.5 million. Luxembourg, Malta, and Cyprus also have a higher proportion of immigrants relative to their total population.

The national composition of migrants arriving in the European Union is extremely diverse. The largest numbers come from Afghanistan, Syria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and most African countries.

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Court Forbids Mom to Take Daughter, 13, to Normal Christian Church – Used the Word ‘Cult’ in Official Docs

The Maine Supreme Court this week upheld a lower court ruling preventing a mother from taking her 13-year-old daughter to a church it referred to as a “cult.”

The decision could set a bad precedent for other jurisdictions to grab onto nationwide. But the religious liberty law firm representing the mother, Emily Westbrook, in the case has promised an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A look at Calvary Chapel of Greater Portland’s doctrines and description in the court opinion makes it sound like it believes in pretty standard Bible-based teaching: the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God; the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit); original sin; salvation through Jesus Christ; the Second Coming; and the rest.

Maine affiliate WMTW-TV reported that Westbrook challenged a 2024 custody order prohibiting her from taking her daughter to Calvary Chapel, arguing it violates her right to free exercise of religion guaranteed under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

“A district court judge sided with the child’s father, Matthew Bradeen, ruling that some of the church’s teachings could be psychologically harmful to the girl. The order allows Bradeen to solely decide on his daughter’s involvement with Calvary Chapel Church. When it comes to any other religious organization, the order states that the parents share rights and must discuss decisions,” WMTW further noted.

The Maine Supreme Court, in its unanimous decision Tuesday upholding the lower court’s order, said, “We are also unpersuaded by Bickford’s claim that the court evinced hostility toward her religion by describing her church in offensive terms, including referring to it as a ‘cult.’ The court used the word ‘cult’ only in describing the testimony of [Janja] Lalich, the stipulated expert on ‘cults.’”

“The court noted that ‘cult’ serves as a shorthand for what sociologists like Lalich call ‘closed social systems’ and that Lalich identified Bickford’s church as one of these systems. The court used ‘cult’ in summarizing Lalich’s testimony, but it did not otherwise refer to Bickford’s church as a cult or a closed social system,” the justices added.

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Man charged with burning down historic New Brunswick church as social media posts raise new questions

Tonight on The Ezra Levant Show: a historic New Brunswick church is burned to the ground, and a local parishioner is charged with arson. On his Facebook page, he celebrates a friend jailed for fighting a pipeline. Then, in another video of the burning church, a voice calls out that friend’s name and says, “Your wish has come true.”

Saint-Simon is a small Acadian fishing village on New Brunswick’s north shore. Until August 24 it had a 109-year-old church, built by the great-grandparents of people who still live there. The largest wooden church left in the province.

The alarm sounded around 3:30 a.m. Four fire departments responded. It was too late. The building was wood and it was gone in two hours. Only the chimney stands. The fire marshal says arson.

Claudette is co-president of the parish council. She cried when the steeple came down. Standing in the ashes, she asked why.

“He took away our church, that person. Why? Especially since he was a parishioner of our parish.”

The RCMP moved fast. Within hours they charged Gilles Mallet, 68, a local man and a parishioner of the church he is accused of burning. His bail hearing in Bathurst on Friday, Aug. 28 did not finish. It resumes Monday, Sept. 7. 

The charge is unproven. Mallet has not entered a plea. A publication ban covers the bail hearing, so Rebel News cannot report what was said in that courtroom.

Everyone in Saint-Simon offered the same explanation. One troubled man, nothing bigger. That may be right. But Mallet’s Facebook page is public, and it shows a man who spent years inside a political movement two provinces away.

His profile picture shows him beside a war canoe named Chief Dan George, on a trailer marked Takaya Tours, the tourism company of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. His shirt reads “Warrior Up! Ta’ah said.” Ta’ah is Amy George, Chief Dan George’s daughter, who coined the phrase in 2012 against the Kinder Morgan pipeline. It became the rallying cry of the B.C. anti-pipeline movement.

A reader who knew Mallet from an Indigenous community near Lillooet, B.C., where Mallet lived for years, pointed Rebel News to the page. He said he had left that community himself over what was being said there about Christians and the Church. Mallet stayed.

On March 1, 2025, Mallet posted: “In honour of my friend Stacy Gallagher who’s in jail because of his fights against the pipeline.”

Gallagher is a B.C. pipeline protester with a criminal record. On March 2, 2021, Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick sentenced him to 90 days for criminal contempt after he defied an injunction at Trans Mountain’s Burnaby terminal. He was released on bail pending appeal the next day. Rebel News cannot confirm he was in custody in 2025. That is Mallet’s description.

There is a video on Mallet’s timeline of the church burning, filmed from the road as the fire trucks arrive. Mallet did not post it. An acquaintance uploaded it around Aug. 30, while Mallet was in custody. A man behind the camera says: “Stacey Gallagher, your wish has come true.”

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Muslim Convert Minnesota AG Keith Ellison Forced to Return $12,500 From Somali Fraudsters After Secret Tape Caught Him Promising to “Fight These People” and Unfreeze Their Welfare Cash

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to statewide office in Minnesota and a convert from Catholicism, has quietly returned at least $12,500 in campaign cash from Somali figures tied to the massive Feeding Our Future welfare fraud after a secret recording surfaced of him huddling with the same crowd to fend off state investigators.

According to the Center of the American Experiment, the five refunded contributions included donations from Gandi Yusuf Mohamed and Liban Alishire, both of whom became defendants in the Feeding Our Future case.

As The Gateway Pundit reported in December, the 54-minute recording, obtained by the Center of the American Experiment and later entered as a trial exhibit, captured Ellison schmoozing with Somali-American operators who would later be charged or convicted in the Feeding Our Future scheme that looted more than $250 million in federal child-nutrition money meant for hungry kids.

The meeting participants complained that state regulators were acting in a “racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic manner” by asking questions about phantom meal sites.

“The only way we can protect what we have is by inserting ourselves into the political arena, putting our votes where it needs to be, but most importantly, putting our dollars in the right place,” Feeding Our Future consultant Abshir Omar said.

“But if you are secure in your donor base, and if you are secure in your power base, you can act the way you want to act,” Omar continued.

“Money is freedom,” Ellison replied with a laugh.

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