UK High Court to rule on radical Muslim cleric's extradition to U.S.
By the CNN Wire Staff
Radical cleric Abu Hamza gestures at the 'Rally for Islam' in central London in August 2002.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Abu Hamza al-Masri's followers include the so-called "shoe bomber"
He faces a potential life sentence if convicted in the U.S.
Monday's hearing will determine if there is a compelling reason to halt extradition
(CNN) -- Radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri finds out Tuesday if he can avoid extradition from Britain to the United States to face terrorism charges.
One Child Dead, Others Injured in Church Blast in Kenya
Sympathizers of Islamic extremist Al Shabaab rebels suspected.
Special to Morning Star News
NAIROBI, Kenya, September 30, 2012 (Morning Star News) – A 9-year-old boy was killed and several others were seriously injured after a suspected grenade attack on a church here this morning, sources said.
A source who visited the site told Morning Star News by phone that the children were attending a Sunday school class at 10:30 a.m. when a hand grenade thrown into the Anglican church building in the Pagani area, next to Nairobi’s largely Somali-immigrant area of Eastleigh, exploded.
Police said they suspected the attack on the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) St. Polycarp church was carried out by sympathizers of the Islamic extremist Al Shabaab, a Somali rebel group vying for power in Somalia that Kenyan troops just displaced from the strategic city of Kismayo, Somalia
Egyptian activist accused of defaming religion denies charges
CAIRO -- Accused of defaming Islam and the sanctity of all religions, Egyptian activist Albert Saber stood in court on Wednesday in his first trial session as he denied all charges.
Saber, a 27-year-old blogger and activist who comes from a Coptic Christian family, was arrested at his home in Cairo two weeks ago without a warrant, according to his lawyer.
“Albert’s arrest in itself was illegal, he was taken without proper documentation and warrant,” said Karim Abdelrady, Saber’s lawyer.
Feds' advice to two Canadians linked to anti-Islam film: button your lip
OTTAWA - The federal government has some advice for two Canadians who fear for their lives after being wrongly linked to an anti-Muslim film that has sparked violent protests around the globe: button up.
That response has infuriated Nader Fawzy, one of two Canadian Coptic Christians against whom Egypt has issued arrest warrants for alleged involvement in the production, distribution or promotion of the film, Innocence of Muslims.
Fawzy says he believes the arrest warrants are aimed at silencing activists who've criticized the persecution of Copts in Egypt.
And now, he said, the Canadian government is compounding the injustice by suggesting they keep quiet.
"Why I should be quiet?" Fawzy demanded in an interview, noting that freedom of speech is guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Cairo has issued international arrest warrants for eight Americans—seven of them Coptic Christians from Egypt—who are allegedly involved with the anti-Mohammad video everyone’s rioting over. The prosecutor’s office also issued a warrant for Terry Jones, the Koran-burning nutjob in Florida, just because, and says if convicted the defendants may get the death penalty.
Mahmoud Salem (aka “Sandmonkey”) was interviewed on CNN yesterday. He says the new Muslim Brotherhood government is much more oppressive than the Mubarak regime. That should have been obvious to everyone in advance, though astonishingly it was not. And Mahmoud is hardly a Mubarak apologist. He was one of the most outspoken critics of the ancien régime in the world, and he was arrested and beaten for it.
Egyptian government is one of the greatest vilator of international Law andminority Rights resorts to law
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrant for Omar El-Bashier who visited Morsi in Cario last week in violation of the international law.
Sept. 15, 2012: Egyptian protesters hurl stones at riot police in downtown Cairo, Egypt, before police cleared the area after days of protests against a film ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad. (AP2012)
CAIRO – Egypt's general prosecutor issued arrest warrants Tuesday for seven Egyptian Coptic Christians and a Florida-based American pastor and referred them to trial on charges linked to an anti-Islam film that has sparked riots across the Muslim world.
Islamists Threaten To Exterminate Egypt’s 10 Million Coptic Christians Over Film
Egypt’s 10 million Coptic Christians have been threatened with mass extermination by Islamists in retaliation for the rumored involvement of a Copt in the making of the anti-Islamic film, “Innocence of Muslims.” The film touched off rioting throughout the Muslim world, due to claims that it insulted Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, leading to attacks on several American Embassies, and the murder of the American Ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens.
A group defending freedom of expression condemning the detention of a Coptic citizen pending investigation into a video clip he allegedly made criticizing religion.
“Albert Ayyad was arrested last Thursday evening, when crowds of citizens gathered in front of his house in the Marg neighborhood in Eastern Cairo,” the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression said in a statement. “The masses were chanting and repeating provocative slogans inciting his murder, after claiming that he had defamed religion through his personal social network accounts.”
The protection of children is one of the essential principles of civilised society. Yet the duty to safeguard the vulnerable seems in danger of being undermined out of sensitivity towards some minorities.
This disturbing trend has been highlighted this week by revelations that, during an undercover investigation, two imams from Islamic centres, one based in Peterborough, the other in East London, expressed their willingness to marry an under-age Muslim girl — aged just 12 — to a man in his 20s under the aegis of Sharia law.
It is right, of course, that we respect freedom of religion, but surely not when basic laws and morality are being flouted in this way. It is reported that one of the imams, in trying to justify his actions, said that he would not have married the girl unless she had given her consent.
Influential: An imam advises two women at Leytonstone Islamic Centre, in east London
But a 12-year-old cannot consent to a marriage. It is precisely because children lack the experience, judgment and maturity to make such decisions that we have laws against marriage and sex under the age of 16.
(AINA) — During the demonstration which was held in front of the American Embassy in Cairo on Tuesday, 9/11, a Muslim cleric named Abu Islam tore and burned the Holy Bible in front of thousands of Muslims. His action was met with applause and anti-Christian cheers from the demonstrators. Before leaving the demonstration and getting into his car, he told the crowds “next time I will urinate on it.”
The video above shows the Muslim cleric tearing the Bible. The video says:
Coptic Christians are being slaughtered in Egypt, yet Obama and the Democrats -- who cried over Muslims forced to wear panties on their heads in Abu Graib, Iraq -- are silent about the genocide.
Egypt’s so-called Arab Spring quickly turned into a Christian winter following the political rise of Islamists and increased assaults on Christians and churches. As a result, an estimated 100,000 Christians have fled or are preparing to flee the country, according to a report by International Christian Concerns on Monday.
Pakistani police escort Imam Khalid Chishti (C, blindfolded) following a hearing at a court in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday.
A Muslim cleric is behind bars in Pakistan after he allegedly planted evidence to frame a young Christian girl who faces a life sentence for burning pages of the Koran.
Pakistani police arrested Khalid Chishti Sunday after witnesses claimed that he tore pages of the Islamic holy book and stashed them next to burned papers in the girl's bag, Reuters reported.
US stops training some Afghan forces after attacks
By HEIDI VOGT
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The U.S. military has halted the training of some Afghan forces while it digs deeper into their background following a surge of attacks by soldiers and police on their international partners, officials said Sunday.
The move only puts about 1,000 Afghan trainees into limbo, a small fraction of the country's security forces. But it shows how these attacks have the potential to derail the U.S.-Afghan handover of security so essential to the international drawdown strategy.
Officials say that the international coalition ultimately hopes to recheck the backgrounds of the entire 350,000-strong Afghan army and police.
The United States and its allies are pushing to have Afghan forces take over security for the country by the end of 2014. This effort has been imperiled by the spike in insider attacks that have killed 45 international service members this year, most of them Americans. There were at least 12 such attacks in August alone, resulting in 15 deaths.
Head of Egypt’s Al-Faraeen TV: Muslim Brotherhood wants to silence all dissent
Tawfiq Okasha denies calling for murder of President Morsi when his trial on incitement charges opens in Egyptian capital.
"I merely criticised President Morsi’
CAIRO - A television channel chief and presenter denied calling for the murder of President Mohamed Morsi when his trial on incitement charges opened in the Egyptian capital on Saturday.
"I merely criticised President Morsi," Tawfiq Okasha told judges at the court appearance, a journalist reported.
"This is a political trial. The Muslim Brotherhood wants to silence all dissent and reproduce the system from before the revolution," he said.
Islamists Demand Placing Coptic Church Funds Under Egyptian State Control
By Mary Abdelmassih
(AINA) -- Demands raised this week by Islamists in the Constituent Assembly, which is drafting the new Egyptian constitution, for placing the Church's funds under state financial control were categorically rejected by church leaders and Copts at large. Anba Pakhomious, Acting Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church, condemned the action of Salafist groups. "The mere submission of such a proposal is totally unacceptable, and if it is approved, this proposal has only one meaning, that Copts are clearly persecuted." He added that the church will not accept the monitoring of its money or donations by any entity, and should not pay taxes to the state because all its activities fall within the provision of the needs of orphans and needy Copts, and therefore the state cannot claim taxes because they are not investment projects.
Counselor Edward Ghaleb, one of the three Coptic Orthodox Church representatives in the Constituent Assembly, said that if the government does not fund the church in any way, how can it demand monitoring its resources. He said that it was illogical to take permission from Central Auditing Authority to budget for the food for the monks in monasteries, and in the ordination of priests, as well as the numerous services provided by the Coptic Church, which are completely funded by collections from Copts.
Pakistan: Rimsha Masih hearing delayed after medical report challenged 30/08/2012
The bail hearing for Rimsha Masih, the young Christian girl accused of blasphemy in Pakistan, has been delayed until 1 September after her accuser challenged a medical report that determined that she was a juvenile and mentally impaired.
A BRITISH photographer shot and wounded in Syria while held hostage by Islamic fanatics was astonished to find his captors were led by an NHS doctor.
The AK47-armed, heavily-bearded extremist told John Cantlie he had taken two years’ leave from a major London hospital to wage holy war.
And the medic, who described in detail his hospital experience and carried NHS medical kit, said he plans to return to the UK to become a trauma consultant in A&E.
Mosque Teacher Given Light Sentence for Years of Abuse
A teacher at a mosque in England has been given a sentence of community service and a small fine for years of abuse of his young students in Backburn.
Although the English court convicted Kurran Hussain, 25, of assault of boys aged eight and nine, Hussain was only required to pay each victim £150 and do 270 hours of community service.
The court heard testimony by the boys who studied with Hussain every evening, learning to memorize verses from the Quran. The boys testified before the court that they had been hit by Hussain for three years. One victim said, “He hits people when they do not learn. He uses his fists and slaps them on their body, anywhere.”
