The Tyranny of Islamic Blasphemy Laws

Asia Bibi with her two children

Pakistan like other Islamic States have blasphemy laws which serve as a means to suppress and tyrannise Christians and Jews by the Islamic majority. Pakistan is one of the prime movers for the introduction of a blasphemy resolution  at the U.N.

Under Pakistan's blasphemy laws Asia Bibi an innocent Christian mother of two children, was sentenced to death and held in a Pakistani prison, since November 8 this year. So goes the fate of Christian minorities in Islamic States like Pakistan.

According to Reuters today a court barred President Asif Ali Zardari from pardoning Asia Bibi:

Last week, a government minister said an initial inquiry into the case of the Christian mother said she had not committed blasphemy but was falsely accused after a quarrel.

Blasphemy convictions are common although the death sentence has never been carried out. Most convictions are thrown out on appeal, but angry mobs have killed many people accused of blasphemy.

If you survive being killed by an Islamic mob, then the courts will try you and sentence you to death. That's how they intimidate and terrorise the Christian minority even if you are eventually given a "pardon" ( to receive a pardon you first have to be guilty; similarly for clemency).  

Here's the background of Asia Bibi's story from the Pakistan Christian Post

Lahore: November 9, 2010. (PCP) A Christian woman named Asia Bibi was sentenced to death by District and Session Courts after year long trial on accusation of blasphemy filed by Muslim villagers of Ittanwali, where she was residing from generations.

While working in farms with other Muslim women, Asia Bibi was dragged in religious dialogues on June 19, 2009, when Muslim women termed her an “Infidel” and Christianity a “Religion of infidels” and pressed her to embrace Islam. 

Asia Bibi who is married and have two children, defended Christianity with her little knowledge and told Muslim women that Christianity is only True religion on which Muslim women made a roar and accused her defiling Prophet Mohammad.

The Muslim men working in nearby fields also gathered and attacked Asia Bibi on which she fled to village in her home. The angry Muslims followed her and took her out of home and started beating her. They tortured her children also but meanwhile some one informed police.

The police took Asia Bibi to police Station and filed FIR against her under section 295-B and C of Pakistan Penal Code but showed it a protective custody to other Christians of Ittanwali village.

Section 295 B and C PPC are subject to life in prison or death sentence but it is first judgment in history of Pakistan when a woman is sentenced to death.

Release International an advocacy group for persecuted Christians around globe is pleading Asia Bibi case and have launched an online petition to ensure justice for her.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Christian Congress PCC have expressed concern on death sentence to Asia Bibi and have appealed to President of Pakistan to withdraw false case against Asia Bibi immediately.

PCC is pressing upon government of Pakistan to repeal blasphemy law and have organized multiple conferences in Pakistan and USA.

Will Pakistan repeal blasphemy laws? It was a promise of the President during the elections. Pray for Justice for Asia Bibi, her speedy release and the repeal of cruel and repressive blasphemy laws in Pakistan and throughout the Islamic world.

Pakistan is the country which is a prime movers for the introduction of a blasphemy resolution  at the U.N.This headline from the Canadian news service CANWEST from November 2008:

 "anti-blasphemy measures have sinister goals, observers say"

Islamic countries Monday won United Nations backing for an anti-blasphemy measure Canada and other Western critics say risks being used to limit freedom of speech.

It's a 10-year plan to spread Islam: 

Passage of the resolution is part of a 10-year action plan the 57-state Organization of Islamic Conference launched in 2005 to ensure “renaissance” of the “Muslim Ummah” or community.

But some good news (really!); support is actually diminishing: in 2008 it was defeated 85-42, a margin of 43.

Combating Defamation of Religions passed 85–50 with 42 abstentions in a key UN General Assembly committee, and will enter into the international record after an expected rubber stamp by the plenary later in the year.

According to a report from CNS News (November 23, 2010):

The text has passed every year since 2005, but the last three years have seen declining support, with the margin of votes dropping from 57 in 2007 to just 19 last year (2009).

Could sanity be breaking out?

Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, Alberta

Freedom to Chose

In my two recent posts (Ban the Burqa & Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book "Nomad" & the burka) I touched on the issue of the burka and tried to show that it has no place in Canadian society. I believe that it is part of a belief system that is repressive to women, and in opposition to our Canadian values of freedom of thought and expression, as embodied in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

My reasoning is that our Canadian system comes from a Judeo-Christian heritage: both the Old Testament and the New Testament affirm the right to chose God or reject him. Here's one of many examples from the OT from Joshua 24:15 (English Standard Version)

And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." 

"Choose this day whom you will serve," there is no compulsion attached to this invitation, no threat of beheading as dictated by Mohamed if a conquered foe would not adopt Islam. If not face execution by beheading there was the alternative of becoming a second class citizen called a dhimmi; a grinding life of submission, a second class citizen who's testimony bears no weight at all against that of a Muslim. That is basically the condition of non-Muslims in most countries under Islamic authority.

If we read through the New Testament we will see the gentle invitation to accept Jesus.

The Charter should protects that right to chose, and therefore it would be a perversion of the intent of the Charter to use it to promote traditional Islam, which is committed to taking away a woman's rights to chose and a man or a woman's right to chose to leave Islam. A Muslim person in Islamic lands is not free to chose to become a Christian, or a Buddhist, or become an atheist. The sentence is death. 

Islamic lands prohibit the preaching of Christianity - how could we use our Charter of Rights  and Freedoms in a way that promotes a religion that does that?

If we argue that the Charter should protect a woman's right to wear the burka, then we use the Charter to further cause of Islamification, which is a step towards taking away a woman's right to chose.

I make a difficult argument because our freedoms are so deeply ingrained in us; but those freedoms cannot be used for the purpose of allowing tyranny, and that is what the burka represents: a tyrannical religion which seeks to take away the freedoms that we hold precious and subjugate the conquered people to the will of Mullahs.

Gurth Whitaker

Calgary, AB 

The Bible's Approach to Relationship's and the Body

A great comment by a friend and Christian brother reinforced the great gulf between what the Bible teaches and those beliefs that insist that a women must be hidden, and if she is not then she is a legitimate target for rape. Here's this wonderful comment from a reader on this post: Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book "Nomad" & the burka

In reading your comments Gurth I am reminded that in Ephesians Chapter 5, verse 21 there is a very different model given by the Apostle Paul on how men are to treat their wives. They are called to love their wives as they love their own bodies. Even more importantly, they are called to love their wives as Jesus loves the church. This is something that speaks to the very essence of the incarnational nature of Christianity. The God of the Christian Scriptures loves matter. Although infected by the Fall, all of matter is being redeemed in and through Jesus Christ. The way we treat our bodies, and the way we treat our wife's body is a sign of the redemptive and restorative work of Christ.

There the body is to be treated with respect. I Peter 3 speaks about modest dress but nowhere in the New Testament is there the dictate that women are to hide their bodies.

There is always a respect for the beauty of the body and the call to treat it as the Temple of the Holy Spirit.

Biblical Christianity instructs us to relate to our bodies in this way and for men to love their wives as Jesus loves the Church because Jesus loves us totally; our mind, soul, body and spirit. 

I do not know enough about the burka issue to comment on it directly. What I will says is that Ephesians 5 gives a very different way to relate to women from the one governing the burka practise.

Read Paul's Letter to the Ephesians, Chapter 5 at Bible Gateway

Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, AB

Ban the Burqa

Following my piece yesterday about Canada banning the Burka, which was prompted by reading an excerpt from Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book "Nomad", in the National Post, I find today a compelling piece by Claire Berlinski titled “Ban the Burqa” from the August 2 issue of National Review. [1]

What I find compelling about Berlinski’s essay is that her viewpoint, which developed while living in Istanbul was formerly very sympathetic to a woman’s right to choose to wear the veil. She supported it strongly, however now she makes a very strong case for banning the veil.

She proceeds for several paragraphs as to why she supported women’s right to wear the veil in Turkey’s secular society. The former secular society is giving way to Islamic stridency and extremism. 

However, her viewpoint has come a full 180. Her logic and evidence for this change is impeccable; she presents argument and evidence that the wearing of the niqab is a Trojan horse for militant Islamism.

The ideology behind Kemal Ataturk’s banning the headscarf and the veil (niqab) was to ensure for the protection of woman who will be attacked, vilified with the slur of “prostitute,” and ultimately raped as fair game by Islamic men. That scenario is being played out in EU countries in no-go areas that Islamic men claim as Islamic territory. 

There are already many neighborhoods in Europe where scantily dressed women are not safe. In the benighted Islamic suburbs of Paris, as Samira Bellil writes in her autobiography: Dans l’enfer des tournantes (“In Gang-Rape Hell”),

there are only two kinds of girls. Good girls stay home,clean the house, take care of their brothers and sisters, and only go out to go to school. . . . Those who . . . dare to wear make-up, to go out, to smoke, quickly earn the reputation as “easy” or as “little whores.”

Parents in these neighborhoods ask gynecologists to testify to their daughters’ virginity. Polygamy and forced marriages are commonplace. Many girls are banned from leaving the house at all. According to French-government statistics, rapes in the housing projects have risen between 15 and 20 percent every year since 1999. In these neighborhoods, women have indeed begun veiling only to escape harassment and violence. In the suburb of La Courneuve, 77 percent of veiled women report that they wear the veil to avoid the wrath of Islamic morality patrols. We are talking about France, not Iran.

Establishing Islamic territory is a fundamental ideology of Islam. That territory is known as Dar a-Salam, which means house of peace and it is the land conquered by Islam. Those woman who are infidels and do not conform to the dress and code dictated by the Islamic men in control are fair game for rape by Islamic men. 

At its core, the veil is the expression of the belief that female sexuality is so destructive a force that men must at all costs be protected from it; the natural correlate of this belief is that men cannot be held responsible for the desires prompted in them by an unveiled woman, including the impulse to rape her. In 2006, Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali, Australia’s most senior Muslim cleric, delivered a sermon referring to a recent rape victim thus:

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside . . . without cover, and the cats come to eat it . . . whose fault is it, the cats’ or the uncovered meat’s? The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred."

This is Islamic thought, my argument yesterday that the Charter is opposed to this kind of religious thought, and therefore should not be used to protect Islamic proponents to force the use of the niqab.

Once veiling takes a hold, unveiled woman are not safe - this is the Trojan horse of allowing the niqab which promotes Islamic objectives:

The cancerous spread of veiling has been seen throughout the Islamic world since the Iranian Revolution. I have watched it in Turkey. Through migration and demographic shift, neighborhoods that once were mixed have become predominantly veiled. The government has sought to lift prohibitions on the wearing of headscarves, legitimizing and emboldening advocates of the practice.

Understanding the underlying reasons why the spread of the burka is of concern and it is much more dangerous than a simple religious choice, we need to understand the aim of Islam itself. For this I turn to the "Islamic Dictionary for Infidels" [2]:

"Converting the entire world to Islam is an immutable fixture of the Muslim worldview. Only if this task is accomplished, if the world has become a "Dar al-Islam," will it also be a "Dar a-Salam," or a house of peace." 

The burqa and niqab are emblematic and one of many key steps in this process, as  Berlinski's essay clearly shows, and that is why it is important to preserve our Canadian values as expressed in our Charter that we should ban them.

Claire Berlinski:

[1] Claire Berlinski: “Ban the Burqa” from the August 16 issue of National Review, is a must read.

Claire Berlinski is a freelance journalist who lives in Istanbul. She is the author of 'Menace in Europe: Why the Continent’s Crisis Is America’s, Too,' and 'There Is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters.'

[2] "Islamic Dictionary for Infidels" an essay by Wolfgang Bruno.

Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, AB

More Thuggish behaviour from McGill Student

The McGill Daily hosted a very well-written rebuttal to the thugs that succeeded in shutting down the "Choose Life" clubs legitimate event (it was approved by the McGill authorities).

The original story on Lux et Veritas "McGill Protesters Shut-Down Free Speech" is here, the follow-up story about how one of the young thugs tried to shutdown the McGill  Daily website: "McGill Daily Website Attacked" can be seen: here, and then "the Fascist Anti-Free Speech Mind" can be seen: here, and finally "Free-Speech Deniers at McGill" here.

Now returning to the McGill Daily today, I see this post from one of the young fascists; as usual it's anonymous, but why put your name to work such as this?

I suppose someone who aggressively champions the "right" to kill unborn babies thinks nothing of engaging in anti-social behaviour.

The idiot doesn't even appreciate that this is a Comment page, not an editorial and he refers to the title of a piece as the "headline."

The Choose Life rebuttal to the protesters: "Choose Life Digs Its Heels In" by Nathalie Fohlis (President) and Richard Bernier can be seen here.

UN Undermines Real Human Rights Efforts

Gay McDougall is the United Nations' Independent Expert on minority issues; a job she has held for 4 years. You might imagine that Ms. McDougall has been a busy lady visiting some of the world's human rights hell-holes such as: China, Cuba, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, just to name a few of Freedom Houses list of the worst of the worst.

But actually no! According to this very disturbing editorial in today's National Post:  The wrong target. Ms. McDougall has no plans to visit any of those countries or any of the other human rights hell-holes:

But what is truly missing from Ms. McDougall's travel schedule is a trip to any of the world's vilest regimes such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, China, North Korea, Burma or Chad.

Together, millions of people have been murdered by the 21 governments that Freedom House judges are the most repressive in the world, many simply for their minority status alone.

Millions more have been imprisoned and tortured. Yet not one of these countries has been the subject of one of her inspections, nor are any scheduled to be.

Just in case you missed that last line:

Yet not one of these countries has been the subject of one of her inspections, nor are any scheduled to be.

 So the UN's Independent Expert on minority issues focuses all her time on countries such as Canada, France and EU countries. As Steven Edwards,wrote in the National Post last Friday (Oct 16): Rights watchdog gives 'worst of the worst' a pass

Her previous "targets" were three European Union members: France, Greece and Hungary; as well as the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Ethiopia and Kazakhstan.

And this from Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch in Geneva, the host city of the UN's main human rights branches:

"The reality is that every would-be immigrant in the world knows that Canada ranks at the top in its treatment of minorities, thanks to its constitutional guarantees, independent judiciary, elected parliament, vigorous civil society and free press - that all can speak for affected minorities and provide remedies where needed,"

"But there is not a single domestic institution that will speak for the two million black African migrants persecuted in Libya, the ethnic minorities oppressed in Tibet, or the women subjugated in Saudi Arabia."

"That is precisely where an international voice would be vital."

So cruel regimes get a free pass on their human rights abuse while the UN investigates the best of the best. The UN by abrogating their responsibility and putting zero spotlight on the repressive regimes, is a party to massive injustice.

The real abusers get off without even a wrist-slap, while the best nations on human rights records get scrutinised.

Freedom House evaluates how free countries are and assigns a score from 1.0 to 7.0; a score of 1.0  is considered FREE.

At left is shown some of the FREE countries, with a top score of 1.0, - these are the ones Ms. McDougall focuses on.

A score of 5.5 is judged NOT FREE

3.0 or higher  is considered PARTIALLY FREE

The image at the right shows some of the NOT FREE countries, such as: Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Brunei, Cambodia, Congo (Brazzaville), Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Mauritania, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Rwanda, Tajikistan, United Arab Emirates.

But it gets worse....

6.0 -NOT FREE: Cameroon, Congo (Kinshasa), Guinea, Iran, Iraq, Swaziland, Tunisia, Vietnam

and worse...,,,

6.5 -NOT FREE: Belarus,Chad, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Laos, Saudi Arabia, Syria,Zimbabwe

And the worst of the worst: 

7.0 -NOT FREE: Burma, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,

The full table can be seen here: Combined Average Ratings: Independent Countries 2009

The UN has weight amongst the regimes of the world, that is why Arab and Muslim nations have hijacked the UN Human Rights proceedings to use it to attack Israel (here & here)

So by focusing on the best of the best and ignoring the worst culprits, the UN Undermines any Real Human Rights Efforts and denies those subjugated countries the vital international voice that should be performed by the UN.


Gurth Whitaker
Calgary Alberta

Calgary Herald wont publish my rebuttal to CAIR

On Thursday, I published a post on Lux et Veritas, concerning the Calgary Herald publishing a pro-veil essay by Canadian CAIR (Council of American-Islamic Relations); read it here: CAIR Article in the Calgary Herald.

Canadian CAIR is an affiliate of CAIR, (who were) named as one of the "un-indicted co-conspirator in the HLF terror funding trial";

the Holy Land Foundation For Relief And Development (HLF) was a pro Hamas organisation.

I submitted a letter of rebuttal to the Calgary Herald Friday morning, but since it isn't published in today's Herald, I have to think that it's rejected by the editor.

I am including my full letter, but first I want to comment as to why the Calgary Herald would publish a piece from Canadian CAIR (do they know about CAIR?), and why they wouldn't publish my letter.

First why not publish my letter? Well the answer may be as simple as they don't think it is worthy, or it is too late, they have published a couple of letters already (I was a bit late submitting - the original article was published Wednesday & I didn't submit till Friday morning).

OR, perhaps the content is too dangerous for the Herald.

I wondered why the Herald would publish an essay by CAIR in the first place?  Here's a couple of possibilities:

1. They do know about CAIR, this is likely because their sister newspaper (big sister) the National Post was subjected to legal action by the Canadian CAIR.
2. They do not know about CAIR; they published the CAIR essay thinking it represents a moderate Muslims voice. 

If the reason is (1), then they published it to attract comment to bring this issue out into the open; however if that is true why not publish my letter?

If the reason is (2), they show a lack of good research; remember that CAIR is the named "un-indicted co-conspirator in the HLF terror funding trial".

Could there be a third possibility? This one I find very hard to imagine: could the Calgary Herald have some pro-CAIR sympathies within its staff? I  know, I find it hard to believe this is true either, but it is a logical possibility.

Here is my letter to the Calgary Herald submitted by email Friday October 16, 1:15 (not strictly speaking Friday morning)

09-10-16 Letter to Calgary Herald
Rebuttal to Mr. Riad Saloojee’s Article: “For Muslim women, veil is power and beauty”

Mr Riad Saloojee, dismissed concerns about the face veil (niqab) in his article published by the Calgary Herald on Wednesday, October 14, 2009, as “fear-mongering”. However concerns are well warranted; the niqab is associated with the most extreme forms of Islam and has no place in Canadian democratic society.

Mr Saloojee is a member of Canadian CAIR, whose parent organisation CAIR was named by the US government prosecutors as the “unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF terror funding trial.” The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development was a pro-Hamas organisation.

The niqab is widely worn in Saudi Arabia, where religious police beat women in the streets who are not appropriately dressed. Herald readers are probably familiar with such beating in Afghanistan by Taliban police. On occasions the woman beaten were actually wearing a burka, however a little ankle was visible so the police would set on them with whips. Sometimes these were older women.

In 2002, Saudi Arabia's s powerful religious police beat girls trying to flee a burning school in Mecca, because they were not properly attired. The police forced them back into the school where they perished.

According to the al-Eqtisadiah daily, firemen confronted police after they tried to keep the girls inside because they were not wearing the headscarves and abayas (black robes) required by the kingdom's strict interpretation of Islam

The niqab is associated with authoritarian societies such as Saudi Arabia, the Taliban, and Al-Qaeda; Canada should not allow the niqab here.

There may be women who choose to wear the niqab, but it irrelevant because it is imposed by Islamic ideology, and enforced by men, and is accompanied by other Islamic abuse of women such as wife-beating, and marriage to pre-pubescent girls.

Canadians should not mistake this matter as a freedom or rights issue; veils, niqabs, or face masks, should be banned in public in Canada to protect moderate woman.

NOTE: I also submitted a reference to the Herald on the burning school story in Mecca, which can be seen here Saudi police 'stopped' fire rescue.

Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, AB

CAIR Article in the Calgary Herald

(A short post; after having flu for a few days it is starting to take over. I will develop this theme in future posts)
 
I was somewhat shocked yesterday (Wednesday Oct 14), to see an article published in the Calgary Herald  by a member of  Canadian CAIR (Council of American-Islamic Relations). The article was a rebuttal of the announcement by the MCC (Muslim Council of Canada) requesting that the Canadian government should ban the niquab, veils or face-mask. (I posted an article on Lux et Veritas a few days ago and can be seen here: Egypt’s top cleric to ban veils in schools)

I was surprised, but also concerned because I had heard enough about CAIR for "red-flags" to be raised. So I called my good friend Geraint for information concerning CAIR.

He supplied me with considerable evidence (all in the public domain), to confirm my suspicions; but after reading I found out that it is a lot worse than I imagined.

Canadian CAIR is an affiliate of CAIR, the unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF terror funding trial;the Holy Land Foundation For Relief And Development (HLF) was a pro Hamas organisation.

This is a very serious business.

"Prosecutors applied the label of "unindicted co-conspirator" to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, and the North American Islamic Trust in connection with a trial planned in Texas next month for five officials of a defunct charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development."

Note that CAIR is named as an "unindicted co-conspirator" by the prosecutors in the case.

A court filing by the government last week listed the three prominent groups among about 300 individuals or entities named as co-conspirators. The document gave scant details, but prosecutors described CAIR as a present or past member of "the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee and/or its organizations." The government listed the Islamic Society of North America and the North American Islamic Trust as "entities who are and/or were members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood."

This whole report can be read here: Islamic Groups Named in Hamas Funding Case

It should be understood that Canadian CAIR also engages in "lawfare" (as does its parent organisation CAIR), and brought legal action against the well-respected journalist David Frum and the National Post,

"Lawfare" is used by International actors to shut-up critics of Islam using our western courts. It is often funded by Saudi Arabia or other middle eastern states with deep pockets when it come to spreading militant Islam. 
 
David Frum wrote this rebuttal to CAIR and their legal action in 2004:

The author defends against libel charges from the Council on American Islamic Relations. CAIR has maintained indisputable ties to Islamist terrorism--a fact that must be exposed.

David Frum list evidence against CAIR:

CAIR was founded in 1994 by alumni of an older group, the Islamic Association for Palestine. The IAP, founded by senior Hamas figure Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, calls for the destruction of Israel and the creation of an Islamic state under Islamic law in Israel's place. (In 1996, CAIR would condemn the U.S. government's decision to deport Marzook as an "anti-Islamic" act.)

CAIR's first director, publicly declared himself a supporter of Hamas.

CAIR's first executive director, Nihad Awad, publicly declared himself a supporter of Hamas at a 1994 forum at Barry University in Florida.

CAIR board member supports the convicted World Trade bomber Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman:

One of CAIR's original advisory board members, Siraj Wahhaj, served as a character witness for Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. Rahman is the blind Egyptian cleric convicted in 1995 of conspiracy to bomb New York landmarks. CAIR described Rahman's conviction as a hate crime.

 "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran . . . should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth."

CAIR's founding chairman, Omar Ahmed, also an IAP alumnus, is said to have declared at a public event in California in July, 1998: "Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran . . . should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth." Ahmed has since disputed the accuracy of the quote--five years after it was reported by a California newspaper.

Soliciting Donations to the Holy Land Foundation, banned organisation linked to Hamas:

After the 9/11 attacks on the United States, CAIR's Web site featured a link titled, "Donate to the NY/DC Disaster Relief Fund." The link connected to the Web site of the Holy Land Foundation, a charity closed down by the United States three months later as a Hamas front.

 David Frum's article can be read here: The Question of CAIR

I have not addressed the burqa or niqab issue, I have been focusing on CAIR, and I will return to that debate tomorrow (God willing). I will address the deceptive nature of the article.

The full article can be read here: For Muslim women, veil is power and beauty, by Riad Saloojee, For The Calgary Herald, Published: Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Bio: The author of the piece is Riad Saloojee Is A Canadian Lawyer And Member Of The Canadian Council Of American-Islamic Relations's Advisory Board. He Is A Full-Time Student In Arabic And Islamic Jurisprudence.

Gurth Whitaker
Calgary, AB

Free-Speech Deniers at McGill

I find it strange that a a student at one of Canada's premier Universities (McMaster would head the list of course), would be so devoid of critical thought to:

on the one hand shut-down free speech because he doesn't agree with the opinions of the speaker,

and then on the other hand, avail himself of free-speech on this blog to leave a nasty remark (its somewhat pathetic but it is nasty).

I imagine that he can't see how stupid it makes him look.

Of course I don't think I'm "creepy" but that's just my opinion, fortunately my wife doesn't think so either, but when it comes to the assertion that I was spamming,the evidence is very clear - it was not spam (not that he would care about evidence).  I followed the McGill Tribune protocols, and added a link to Lux et Veritas; as I said yesterday:

Many Tribune  readers availed themselves of that opportunity to read more on the matter, which was pertinent to the discussion thread. It's common practice to leave links in comments (to offer back-up or more information on a matter, or the source of the information).

I try to present a logical rebuttal, perhaps somewhat ponderously, but my good friend Geraint cuts to the heart of the matter, and with an economy of words.

I have to say I think this is brilliant...

brilliant

1. shining brightly; sparkling; glittering; lustrous: the brilliant lights of the city.
2. distinguished; illustrious: a brilliant performance by a young pianist.
3. having or showing great intelligence, talent, quality, etc.: a brilliant technician.
4. strong and clear in tone; vivid; bright: brilliant blues and greens; the brilliant sound of the trumpets
5. splendid or magnificent: a brilliant social event. 
   

Sadly "anonymous little creep" is showing anything but "brilliance", but there is always redemption.

There is always the chance to turn the corner; and I hope so for his sake. My pastor prayed with me about this person after our worship on Sunday.

I attack his behaviour, I attack his ideologies, I attack the apathy that surrounds these issues, but ultimately I do not attack him per se.

I know that God loves the sinner and hates the sin. Every believer in Jesus Christ understands that, because we need forgiveness too. We know the source of forgiveness - it is through Jesus Himself.
 

Gurth Whitaker
Calgary AB

the Fasicst Anti-Free Speech Mind

Following on from the sickening behaviour of student "demonstrators" at McGill, that I wrote about a few days ago here at Lux et Veritas (McGill Protesters Shut-Down Free Speech, posted Friday, October 9, 2009).
The students think it was their right to shut-down a legitimate event, that was authorised by McGill University for the simple reason that they didn't like the content of the presentation, they didn't like the view-point of the presenter, and they formed an opinion before the talk ever took place.

Now one of the protesters, left this nasty personal comment on this blog-site. The product of bankrupt mind 

Egypt’s top cleric to ban veils in schools

An announcement today from the Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) asking Ottawa to introduce legislation to ban the wearing of masks, niqabs and the burka in public.

This arises from an announcement 2 days ago from Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi, dean of al-Azhar university,  considered Islam's chief teaching universities.

Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi, dean of al-Azhar university, called full-face veiling a custom that has nothing to do with the Islamic faith.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France, said that burqas are "not welcome" in France, in June of this year.

Sarkozy stated that:

"In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity."

The burqa has been banned in French public schools since 2004, and we should ban it here in Canada too, but I doubt that any Canadian government would have the cojones to do it. I hope I am wrong, but it is hard to imagine it happening; yet it is an essential law that we need to set a level playing field in our schools and on our streets.