Tag: religion

Uncle Sam as Religious Crusader?

here may be nothing more dangerous for America than President Donald Trump learning about another nation. The president who once campaigned for the Nobel Peace Prize might take America into another foolish war there.

Such as in Nigeria. The West African nation possesses the continent’s largest population and economy. The country is a major oil producer and has survived civil war and military dictatorship. However, it has long been troubled with corruption, instability, and violence. Almost equally divided between Christians and Muslims, Nigeria is home to virulent Islamist terrorist movements and suffers from a brutal rural/tribal conflict with sectarian overtones. Some Muslim-majority states impose shariah law.

The specter of religious conflict looms. In June, some 200 people were murdered in an attack on a largely Christian village. Yunusa Nmadu, head of Christian Solidarity Worldwide-Nigeria, warned that “The rising levels [of] violence and instability being endured by Nigerian civilians constitute a national emergency.” The violence could spread well beyond Nigeria itself. “We are at the precipice,” Nmadu worried. “If Nigeria goes into civil war, all of West Africa is gone.”

Trump recently noticed Nigeria’s plight, declaring on Truth Social: 

If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities. I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!

When questioned whether he might put boots on the ground, he responded, “Could be.”

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Crazed Portland Leftist Who Converted to Islam Charged with Threatening to Kill Federal Agents, Sexually Assault Their Wives, and Hurt Their Children

A 45-year-old far-left extremist has been charged with making violent threats against federal law enforcement officers, including promises to kill them, sexually assault their wives, and hurt their children.

John Paul Cupp, who also uses the aliases “Walid” and “Abu Nusaybah al-Amriki” following his conversion to Islam, was arrested after a series of repeated threats against agents and their loved ones.

On October 14, Cupp allegedly yelled threats directly at law enforcement personnel outside the Portland ICE building.

The leftist militant followed up with similar online videos on November 3 and November 13, repeating his intentions to target federal agents and their families.

According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon, “Cupp is a prolific producer of online content and regularly posts aggressive rhetoric, calls for war against the United States, antisemitic threats, and threats of violence.”

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Colombia says 17 minors rescued from Jewish cult Lev Tahor amid abuse allegations

Colombian authorities said Sunday they had rescued 17 minors from Lev Tahor, an extremist ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect under investigation for alleged child sex abuse.

“We have rescued 17 boys, girls and teens,” the country’s immigration service said on X, posting pictures of some of the children with their faces blurred or shielded from view.

Five of the minors rescued were identified as missing persons whom Interpol had issued “yellow notices” to find, authorities said.

Founded in Jerusalem in the 1980s, Lev Tahor — literally, “pure heart” in Hebrew — has been dogged by allegations of child abuse for years, and Israel and others have called it a cult. Its leader is in prison for kidnapping children.

A group called Lev Tahor Survivors has estimated the sect’s membership at several hundred people and says it is led by a core cohort, with the rest being held mostly against their will.

The group adheres to an extreme, idiosyncratic interpretation of Judaism and kosher dietary laws that largely shields members from the outside world.

Women and girls above the age of 3 are required to dress in black robes that completely cover their bodies, leading some to call the group the “Jewish Taliban.” The men spend most of their days in prayer and studying specific portions of the Torah.

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Italy moves to follow European neighbors in banning religious garb like burqas that hide identity

Italy has long been one of Europe’s strongest defenders of religious freedom despite the influence of the Vatican.

But now, the country is poised to outlaw the use of traditional Islamic attire like burqas, a move the government says will strengthen its tradition of religious liberty by requiring all faiths to operate with “full transparency” and within the limits of Italian law.

The proposed law, which is set to be debated in Italy’s parliament before the end of this year, would ban “religiously motivated garments that obscure identity or impose non-transparent forms of [religious] affiliation,” according to a draft of the proposal published in the Italian media.

While the text does not mention Islam or any other faith by name, all indications are that it is primarily aimed at banning the use of headscarves, niqabs, jilbabs, burqas, and other attire that commonly obscure the identity of Muslim women.

The proposal is the latest in a series of steps from the Italian government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to regulate the public expression of religion. Officials insist the plan is part of an effort to modernize the Italian framework on religious practice that has not seen substantial change since the 1980s.

Supporters of the law say that a person’s visible identity – in schools, businesses, or in public – is essential for security and civic cohesion.

“This is not about limiting religious freedom, but about preventing it being used instrumentally in order to justify practices that are incompatible with the principles of our constitution and our society,” Galeazzo Bignami, a member of parliament from Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, told reporters last month.

“No community in our country can claim exemptions from the laws of our Republic,” Minister of the Interior and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said via social media.

Other European countries including France, Belgium, and Austria have issued nationwide restrictions on traditional Islamic garb. And in Italy, local temporary bans on some kinds of Islamic face coverings have appeared on the municipal level, usually on grounds of public order or security. But the new proposal would be the first to be imposed nationally.

Muslim leaders responded with alarm, and some have vowed to appeal the measure if it is enacted.

“This law tells Muslim women they cannot appear in public as themselves,” said Yassine Lafram, head of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy. “It sends a message that we are a problem to be managed rather than citizens with the same rights as other citizens.”

It is unclear whether the proposal will stand up to legal challenges if it becomes a law. Article 19 of the Italian Constitution guarantees the right to “profess one’s faith in any form, individually or collectively.” Critics say that the focus on “transparency” is too vague to merit an exception to that standard.

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Islamist groups in Texas rake in $13M in taxpayer-funded grants amid Abbott’s battle against Sharia law

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has taken aggressive action this week against Sharia law, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Yet critics are demanding to know why, during his time in office, millions in taxpayer-funded grants have been allocated to alleged Islamist organizations based in Texas.

Abbott announced on Tuesday that he had designated the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR as foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organizations. The following day, Abbott urged local district attorneys to investigate potential Sharia “courts” operating in Texas and defying state and federal laws to push Islamic codes.

Despite Abbott’s recent actions, some have faulted the governor for allowing taxpayer dollars to be used to fund the uptick in Islamic mosques in Texas, citing a June report from the Middle East Forum. The article claimed Texas gave “over $13 million of federal and state monies to mosques and community groups aligned with Islamist movements such as Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Jamaat-e-Islami, as well as hostile foreign regimes.”

Of the 18 organizations that received funds, a dozen were said to have “extremist links.”

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Three charged for shouting slurs at praying Muslim students while waving bacon in Florida

Three men stormed a University of South Florida parking garage and harassed Muslim students during dawn prayer on Tuesday — an incident captured in videos that showed the group shouting slurs, waving bacon and crowding worshipers as they bowed, reports said.

Police identified the men as Christopher Svochak of Waco, Texas; Richard Penskoski of Canyon, Okla., and Ricardo Yepez of Tampa, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

All three face a felony count of disturbing schools and religious assemblies under Florida’s hate-crime enhancement statute, along with misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and disrupting a school or lawful assembly.

None have ties to the university, police said.

The charges followed a multi-day investigation sparked by footage showing the men approaching students during fajr prayer on the roof of the Collins Boulevard Parking Garage.

One man carried a cardboard box reading “Kaaba 2.0 Jesus is Lord,” while another wore a thobe emblazoned with “Jesus is God.”

Students said the group stood inches away as they prayed, shouted insults including “Bow down to lord Jesus Christ” and “Your prophet married a 6 year old,” and taunted them with bacon immediately after the prayer ended, according to a Reddit post.

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Are the Grooming Gangs a Muslim Phenomenon?

The many prosecutions of grooming gangs have shocked the UK public. There is the sheer scale of the abuse, in which thousands of abusers have raped, intimidated, controlled, tortured and sexually exploited thousands of underage girls. Also shocking are the repeated failures of both the criminal justice system and numerous reviews to bring about lasting change.

The expression ‘grooming gangs’ has been challenged, as it could be taken to imply some kind of consent. Although ‘rape gangs’ is not inaccurate, ‘grooming gang’ does capture the element of psychological control over victims, many of whom have been subjected to repeated rapes over an extended period of time. 

Is ethnicity the key to this epidemic? The 2014 Jay report about grooming gangs in Rotherham stated that “the majority of known perpetrators were of Pakistani heritage”. At the time around 3% of the town’s population was Pakistani. However, while it is true that most of the convicted gangs have consisted of men of Pakistani heritage, for example in Oxfordshire, Rotherham and Telford, the published lists of members of Pakistani gangs have shown that the ‘Pakistani’ men are all also Muslims.

Moreover, several non-Pakistani grooming gangs have been made up of men with Muslim names, including two Somali gangs in Bristol, a gang composed mainly of Africans in Banbury, a gang of three Iranians in Chelmsford, a gang of three Syrians and a Kuwaiti in Newcastle, a pair of Turkish men in Somerset and a gang of 17 men in Newcastle of Albanian, Kurdish, Bangladeshi, Indian, Turkish, Iranian, Iraqi and Pakistani heritage. In the last case, all the men’s names were Islamic, with the exception of one Hindu. Although there have been a handful of smaller gangs made up of non-Muslim perpetrators, the clear majority of gangs overall and all the larger gangs have been made up of Muslim men. Peter McLoughlin, who compiled a list of grooming gang convictions from 1997 to 2018, found that 87% of those convicted had Muslim names.

The label ‘Pakistani’ for these gangs is both too narrow and too broad. Too broad because overwhelmingly it has been Muslim Pakistani men involved in these gangs, not Pakistani Christians, Hindus or Sikhs. Too narrow because of the gangs made up of non-Pakistani Muslims. The label ‘Asian’ is also a misnomer: there has been no Indian, Japanese or Chinese grooming gang. 

Trevor Phillips, writing for the Telegraph in 2017, rightly said: “What the perpetrators have in common is their proclaimed faith. They are Muslims, and many of them would claim to be practising.” This has become apparent despite the best efforts of the authorities to conceal any connection of these crimes with Islam.

Unfortunately, Western secular people are handicapped by a deeply entrenched religious illiteracy which can make it hard for them to discern and analyse the influence of religions. Rafael L. Bardají, former National Security Advisor to the Spanish Prime Minister, put his finger on the issue: “A population that has fundamentally turned its back on its faith cannot understand the religious motivations of others.” At the same time some Western people are blind to certain features of Islam because they project their impressions of a benign Christianity onto it. There is also is dominant strand of Western thought which dismisses the influence of religions altogether, relegating faith to the domain of private spirituality.

Another handicap impacting public officials’ understanding has been the fear of being labelled Islamophobic. 

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Anti-Christian Judge Prevents Mother from Taking Daughter to Church or Even Reading the Bible

Child custody cases are often fraught with trying and unusual behaviors and demands, but the recent custody order from a judge in Maine has taken bigotry against Christians to a new level.

Emily Bickford had a daughter, Ava who turns 13 in January, with Matt Bradeen. The two were not married, and Emily has retained primary custody while the father has visitation rights.

Emily is Christian and has worked to provide a foundation of faith for her daughter, something her non-custodial father opposes.  He has been described as ‘hating’ Christianity.

Bradeen took the issue to court, found a former ACLU president who had become a judge, and the war on religion commenced.

The judge issued a custody order that can only be viewed as hostile to Christianity. The order forbids Ava from associating with any of her church friends, attending church or Christian events, and even prevents Ava from studying the Bible, “religious philosophy,” or discussing her faith with her own mother.  Ava is also not allowed to participate in Christian holiday events such as Christmas.

According to Liberty Council, the mother and daughter had been attending Calvary Chapel, an evangelical Christian church in Portland, ME, for 3½ years. Ava shared her excitement with her father over her upcoming baptism and that is when the trouble began.

Instead of sharing his daughter’s excitement, even if his views differ, he engaged the leftist judge and then brought in a Marxist former sociology professor from California as a “witness.” The witness testified that Calvary Chapel (and any church that believes the Bible) is a “cult” that causes psychological harm to children.

“The judge found that Emily is a fit parent EXCEPT for the fact that she is a Christian,” Liberty Council’s Founder and Chairman Mat Staver notes.

“The judge mocked Ava and Emily’s faith by purposefully refusing to capitalize the word ‘God’ — something I have never seen.”

The judge even chastised Emily for allowing the church pastor to pray for Ava. And the judge ruled that Emily could not take Ava to ANY church unless Matt approves. And Matt has steadfastly refused to approve ANY church,” he continued.

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Trump’s New Islamic Extremist “Allies” — Syrian and Qatari Regimes

Is the ghost of Dick Cheney (CFR) haunting the Trump administration? During the George W. Bush administration, Vice President Cheney and a coterie of CFR neocon war hawks known as “The Vulcans” (Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Stephen Hadley, Robert Gates, and Paul Wolfowitz) dragged America into a series of “forever wars” and “regime change” interventions. Accompanying these misadventures was the continuation of the policies of previous Democratic and Republican administrations’ musical-chair alliances, in which yesterday’s “terrorist” becomes today’s “noble ally” (and then tomorrow turns on us and is again designated a terrorist).

Donald Trump pledged that he would cease these disastrous policies. However, his recent policies with regard to Syria and Qatar call that pledge into question. Are Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth channeling the Cheney/Vulcan spirit? It seems so.

The recent White House reception for Syrian “President” Ahmed al-Sharaa was odd, to say the least. Our government had previously designated him as a terrorist, with a $10 million bounty on his head.

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Texas governor declares Muslim civil rights group a terrorist organization

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday declared one of the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy groups in the U.S. a “foreign terrorist organization” under a proclamation that he said allows the state to try shutting them down.

He also designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations “a transnational criminal organization” and said it would not be allowed to buy land in the state. The proclamation also included the Muslim Brotherhood.

Neither the CAIR nor the Muslim Brotherhood are designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.

CAIR told Abbott in a letter that his announcement had no basis “in law or fact.” The group accused his office of stoking “anti-Muslim hysteria.”

“You do not have the authority to unilaterally declare any Americans or American institutions terrorist groups, nor is there any basis to level this smear against our organization,” wrote Robert S. McCaw, CAIR’s government affairs director.

Months ago, Texas Republicans moved aggressively to try to stop a Muslim-centered planned community around one of the state’s largest mosques near Dallas. Abbott and other GOP state officials launched investigations into the development tied to the East Plano Islamic Center, saying the group is trying to create a Muslim-exclusive community that would impose Islamic law.

EPIC City representatives called the attacks about Islamic law and other assertions misleading, dangerous and without merit. Earlier this year, the Justice Department closed a federal civil rights investigation into the planned community without filing any charges or lawsuits.

In his proclamation, Abbott cited a law he signed this year that he said prohibits “foreign adversaries” from purchasing or acquiring land. The Republican author of that bill praised the governor’s declaration.

“Today proves exactly why that law was needed,” Republican state Rep. Cole Hefner posted on X.

The Muslim Brotherhood was established in Egypt nearly a century ago and has branches across the world. Its leaders say it renounced violence decades ago and seeks to set up Islamic rule through elections and other peaceful means. Critics, including autocratic governments across the Mideast region, view it as a threat.

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