Bloodthirsty Liberal

President Obama has spoken more glowingly of the Muslim world than he has of his own country. He has extended his hand to Iran and bowed his head to Saudi Arabia. He has fasted and feasted on Ramadan, and slaughtered a buffalo according to halal principles (okay, maybe not).

His adviser on Muslim affairs (Did Kennedy have one? Polk? Lincoln? Madison?) even says sharia law is misunderstood—and no I’m not kidding:

President Barack Obama’s adviser on Muslim affairs, Dalia Mogahed, has provoked controversy by appearing on a British television show hosted by a member of an extremist group to talk about Sharia Law.

Miss Mogahed, appointed to the President’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was “oversimplified” and the majority of women around the world associate it with “gender justice”.

The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party.

The group believes in the non-violent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of an Islamic state under Sharia Law across the world.

…

They called for Sharia Law to be “the source of legislation” and said that women should not be “permitted to hold a position of leadership in government”.

Miss Mogahed made no challenge to these demands and said that “promiscuity” and the “breakdown of traditional values” were what Muslims admired least about the West.

She said: “I think the reason so many women support Sharia is because they have a very different understanding of sharia than the common perception in Western media.

“The majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance.

“The portrayal of Sharia has been oversimplified in many cases.”

But I don’t think even this obeisance will be enough to raise the profile in the Muslim world of President Limp Wrist.

You think they take his Nobel any more seriously than we do? Check out these editorial cartoons:

Those are awards for talking and acting in the first two cartoons, and a blindfolded Nobel in the third. He says “Aasalaamu Aleikum” to them, and they say “bite me” to him.

Malaysia postpones woman’s caning until after Ramadan

They searched their hearts and minds and found compassion, wisdom, forgiveness.

A Malaysian model, who was set to become the first woman to be caned in the southeast Asian country for drinking beer in public, had her sentence postponed Monday until the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno’s punishment is unique in that she has opted to go through with it.

Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno’s punishment is unique in that she has opted to go through with it.

Authorities had picked up Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno, 32, from her father’s house Monday morning and were taking her to a prison in the eastern state of Pahang when the van turned around and brought her back.

“They sent her back to the house. They said the top official asked them not to bring her to Kuala Lumpur,” said Kartika’s father, Shukarno Abdul Muttalib.

Authorities in Pahang said the delay would run until the month of fasting ends. Monday was the third day of Ramadan.

An Islamic, or sharia, court in Pahang had fined Kartika — a Muslim — $1,400 (5,000 Malaysian ringgit) and sentenced her to six strokes with a rattan cane for drinking at a hotel bar two years ago.

Kartika, a 32-year-old part-time model and mother of two, was visiting Malaysia from Singapore at the time.

She pleaded guilty, paid the fine, and wanted her caning to be carried out in public. Video
She said she lost her job as a nurse in Singapore and took up part-time modeling to support her husband in raising their two children. Her son has cerebral palsy; her daughter a heart condition.

“I want to move on. This case has been hanging over me for a long time,” she told CNN last week.

On Monday morning, Kartika hugged her children, bade a tearful goodbye to the throngs of people gathered at her father’s house, and boarded the van.

She was to be taken to a prison on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. The caning would have been carried out within seven days of that, making her the first woman to be caned in Malaysia under sharia law.

Kartika’s punishment is unique in that she has opted to go through with it. Two other Malaysians sentenced to the same fate have filed appeals, the Syariah (Sharia) Lawyers’ Association of Malaysia said.

The case drew widespread attention and condemnation, in and outside Malaysia.

The moderate Muslim country has a dual-track justice system, in which Islamic courts operate alongside civil courts.

By the way, the dual-track system is gaining popularity. Not long ago, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, (leader of the Anglican church), suggested some sort of accommodation for shari’a in England. With my great affection for the Brits, I’m pulling for this to happen ASAP. The Swedes should look into it too.

How would such a system work?

Muslims — who make up about 60 percent of the 28 million who populate the country — are forbidden from consuming alcohol. Other religious groups are exempt.

Though caning is used as a supplementary punishment in Malaysia for at least 40 crimes, such as rape or immigration violations, it is not meted out by Malaysia’s civil court for alcohol consumption.

But the country’s civil system also cannot overrule a sharia court sentence.

Geez, we’re all in big trouble if sha’aria comes to the US. On the other hand, maybe the unemployed can become official state sponsored torturers?

- Aggie

Y’Allah come back soon, hear?

A married Muslim woman has been warned by police that she could be murdered after her lover was attacked with sulphuric acid.

The 24-year-old Muslim man had the acid poured down his throat and was stabbed and beaten with bricks by four men.

He is not expected to live after suffering 90 per cent burns in the London attack, which blinded him and left his tongue destroyed.

The Danish victim, who is of Asian origin, is said to have ‘insulted’ her strictly religious relatives, which includes women who wear the hijab.

Detectives believe the family feared being shamed in the community.

No shame now, that’s for sure. What honor, what a community.

So long, Britain. Been nice knowing you (well, I won’t speak for Aggie).

Somali cabinet votes to institute Islamic law

(AP) The Somali cabinet voted to make Islam the basis of the country’s legal system on Tuesday in a bid to undercut an increasingly fractured Islamic insurgency and win popular support.

The bill introducing Islamic law, or Shariah, must still be approved by parliament, which is expected to hear it within days.

Information Minister Farhan Ali Mohamed said imposing Shariah would help end insurgent attacks

He said that if the bill passed a committee of cabinet members and members of a national clerics’ council would be set up to examine how to bring the country’s constitution into line with Muslim principles. He did not go into specifics.

It’s a Hopey-Changey sort of law.

Speaking of hopey-changey events, did you hear about Minnesota? The state is writing mortgages according to sha’aria

For many Minnesota Muslims, it’s been virtually impossible to buy a home, because Islamic law forbids the paying or charging of interest. To help close the home ownership gap among Muslim immigrants, the state’s housing agency is launching a new program offering Islamic mortgages.

Minneapolis, Minn. — Islamic law does make exceptions to the ban on interest, if one’s family is at stake. But the exceptions are open to interpretation and for many observant Muslims, conventional mortgages are strictly taboo.

Nawawi Sheikh is one of them. The Somali-American says he and his wife just couldn’t go against their beliefs, even if it meant giving up their dream of owning a home. Still, he grew tired of moving from one rented apartment to another.

“One thing I hated was moving. I don’t like to move all the time,” he says.

He has no plans to move again anytime soon. Sheikh is the first home buyer to get a loan through the state’s New Markets Mortgage Program. That’s because, program manager Nimo Farah says, he has all the makings of a successful homeowner.

How does an Islamic loan work and what does the state have to do with this?

Simple:

Here’s how the mortgage, known as Murabaha financing or “cost plus sale,” works:

The state buys a home and resells it to the buyer at a higher price. The down payment and monthly installments are agreed to up front at current mortgage rates.

The deal is identical to a thirty-year fixed-rate loan, except there’s no additional interest, because the higher up front price factors in payments that would have been made over the life of a traditional mortgage.

I’m looking forward to my very own Jewish mortgage, from the Massachusetts housing authority. We are also sponsoring Catholic mortgages and Evangelical mortgages. Each one is a little different. The Catholic ones are more elaborate, better decorating. The Protestant ones are plain vanilla. The Jewish ones come with a suitcase to stick under your bed, in case you need to flee for your life. The sha’aria compliant mortgages violate the separation of church and state, but nobody cares.

- Aggie

Hey Europe, how’s that creeping sharia (shari’a? s’haria?) working out for you?

Two recent cases in Italy and France are particularly troublesome. First, in Italy, three members of a Brescia-based Maghrebi family (father, mother and eldest son) were accused of beating up and sequestering their daughter/sister Fatima because she wanted to live a “Western” life.

In the first trial, the three were sentenced for sequestration and bad treatment. The court acknowledged that the teenager was “brutally beaten up” for having “dated” a non-Muslim and in general for “living a life not conforming with the culture” of her family. But on appeal, the family was acquitted because the court deemed that the young woman was beaten up for “her own good.” The Bologna public prosecutor’s office then disputed the acquittal of the three accused parties, but the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation dismissed it and ruled in favor of the charged parties.

…

Muslim women were quick to denounce the supreme court’s decision. Among them, Souad Sbai, president of the Organization of Moroccan Women in Italy.

She said, “It is a shame, this verdict is worthy of an Arab country where the Sharia would be in vigor. In the name of multiculturalism and respect of traditions, the judges apply two kinds of rules: one for the Italians and one for the immigrants. A Catholic father that would have acted this way would have been severely sentenced.”

According to her organization, recently at least nine Muslim women have been killed in Italy by one of their close relatives. The number of young girls forced to wear the hijab “as early as eight or 12″ is on the rise as is the number of female teenagers fleeing home and “lots of them are looking to flee to France.”

France?! France!? France??

But France might not be the panacea either. Indeed in one very publicized case, last June, a French judge ruled in favor of a Muslim man who wanted the annulment of his marriage because his wife turned out not to be a virgin. What this decision amounted to was the endorsement of the repudiation concept.

This decision triggered a huge outcry from politicians, and various organizations. In November, a French court of appeal overturned the decision. Interestingly, a large majority of French Muslims, about 80 percent are very secular and totally reject any kind of Sharia law being implemented in the homeland of human rights.

Then what the [bleep] are they doing torching all those cars and stabbing all those Jews? (And, yes, I realize that’s an insensitive question—so what?)

But the United Kingdom is a different story, indeed there close to 40 percent of young Muslims are in favor of Sharia law being implemented in Britain. The idea seems to be also making headway among non-Muslims. So, last year, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, gave his support for the courts in Britain, saying that the legal recognition of them “seems unavoidable.” He added, the United Kingdom has to “face up to the fact” that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

Williams argued that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion.

No wonder Obama seems to hate the Brits. They’re mental. Fragmenting society will help maintain social cohesion. Oka-a-ay.

I’m just glad I got to see Europe when I had the chance. How long before they dynamite Chartres Cathedral like they did the Bamayan Buddhas?

This is the top of their society, a guy they sent to the UN to represent them.

An Afghan diplomat was charged Friday with beating his wife “like a dog” for more than 15 hours in their Queens home, prosecutors said.

Mohammed Fagirad, 30, a vice consul at the Afghanistan Consulate, brutalized his wife inside their Flushing home from about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday until nearly midnight, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.

During the attack, Fagirad bit, slapped, choked and beat the 22-year-old woman with a belt, pushed her down a flight of stairs and sat on her chest, prosecutors said.

At one point, prosecutors said, Fagirad threw his wife up against a wall, held her there by the neck and then let her drop to the floor, where he beat her with a belt.

Fagirad told police his “wife was a dog and he was going to treat her like a dog,” prosecutors said.

When Fagirad left the home, his wife fled and went to the 109th Precinct stationhouse, where she filed a domestic violence report, prosecutors said. She then returned home.

When Fagirad returned, he demanded his wife’s cell phone and called police to file a counterclaim, prosecutors said.

The woman, who was not named, was hospitalized for bruises and scratches to her neck and back.

Prosecutors said Fagirad’s limited diplomatic immunity only covers work-related infractions.

He was awaiting arraignment last night in Queens Criminal Court.

If this is true, my Hope For The Day™ is that he spend about a decade in prison.

- Aggie

If you throw acid and blind someone, your punishment will be the same

Iranian justice at its finest:

An Iranian woman, blinded by a jilted stalker who threw acid in her face, has persuaded a court to sentence him to be blinded with acid himself under Islamic law demanding an eye for an eye.

Ameneh Bahrami refused to accept “blood money.” She insisted instead that her attacker suffer a fate similar to her own “so people like him would realize they do not have the right to throw acid in girls’ faces,” she told the Tehran Provincial Court.

Her attacker, a 27-year-old man identified in court papers as Majid, admitted throwing acid in her face in November 2004, blinding and disfiguring her. He said he loved her and insisted she loved him as well.

He has until early this week to appeal the sentence.

Doctors say there is no chance Bahrami will recover her vision, despite repeated operations, including medical care in Spain partially paid for by Iran’s reformist former president, Mohammed Khatami, who was in power when the attack took place.

Majid said he was still willing to marry Bahrami, but she ruled out the possibility and urged that he remain locked up.

“I am not willing to get blood money from the defendant, who is still thinking about destroying me and wants to take my eyes out,” she told the court. “How could he pretend to be in love? If they let this guy go free, he will definitely kill me.”

Bahrami told the court that Majid’s mother had repeatedly tried to arrange a marriage between the two after Majid met Bahrami at university.

Read it all if you can stomach it. I had to stop.

- Aggie