THE CLARION PROJECT

Copyright 2017 Two Listeners, All rights reserved.What You Can’t Say Anymore: ‘I Tried to Stop the Jihadists’
Home > World > UK > What You Can’t Say Anymore: ‘I Tried to Stop the Jihadists’
BY CLARION PROJECT Wednesday, September 13, 2017
https://clarionproject.org/cant-say-anymore-tried-stop-jihadists/
Josh Walker. Arrested for fighting against ISIS. (Photo: Video screenshot)
Next month Josh Walker will stand trial. His crime? Fighting against ISIS.

Apparently, if you are British and head off to the Middle East to fight against the evil that is Islamic State, when you come home you will be questioned, likely arrested and forced to stand trial for your actions.

Welshman Josh Walker is no exception. Police officers approached him immediately on his return to the UK after fighting with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units or YPG.

Not only is the YPG not a terror organization as far as the State Department is concerned, the U.S. even armed this fighting force in its frontline battle against Islamic State.

In this video, Walker explains why he went to Syria and what’s happened since:
https://clarionproject.org/cant-say-anymore-tried-stop-jihadists/


Beware the Women of ISIS Part I: Dreamers
Home > World > European Union > Beware the Women of ISIS Part I: Dreamers
BY GUEST CONTRIBUTOR Wednesday, September 20, 2017
https://clarionproject.org/isis-children-making-monsters/
A jihadi couple in Syria.
A jihadi couple in Syria. (Photo: Reuters)
https://clarionproject.org/beware-women-isis/
By Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. & Ardian Shajkovci, Ph.D.
When she was just 19, and a convert to Islam, Laura Passoni was abandoned by the father of her young son. Determined to deepen her expression of faith and in hopes of attracting a man who would keep his commitments to marital and family life, Laura responded by putting up a more devout Facebook profile, and very quickly she was contacted by an ISIS recruiter.

He promised her a man who would never leave her, a home in Syria, training as a nurse, and a good school for her toddler. Broken-hearted and wanting to believe, Passoni agreed to embark on a journey to the Islamic State.

To evade detection, she and her toddler and the man she had chosen with the advice of the recruiter traveled by land to Venice and then took a cruise ship to Izmir, Turkey. From there they continued in a taxi to Gaziantep and crossed into to Syria to join ISIS.

Passoni thought of the cruise as a romantic time in which she consummated her marriage to a near stranger.

Her induction into the Islamic State was far from what she had envisioned, however. She ended up staying in a “sisters’ house” while her husband went off to receive sharia training and become a fighter. She was invited as well to serve ISIS as an internet seductress or a member of the morality police (hisbah). She declined both offers.

Passoni became deeply disappointed as she found herself confined at home while her husband was away battling for the group. None of the ISIS recruitment promises materialized—no nurse training and no riches. She found herself having to let her son play alone unsupervised outside or go with “the brothers,” other Islamic State fighters to the mosque.

Witnessing how young the boys were that ISIS recruited into the Cubs of the Caliphate, many to go as suicide bombers, she feared her son would suffer a similar fate. She also became pregnant.

Desperate to escape, Passoni took her son in a taxi and headed for the border of ISIS territory, but the fearful driver turned her over to the ISIS police instead.

Passoni’s husband agreed to vouch for her, and she was confined under house arrest with ISIS cadres guarding her when he was absent, preventing her from making another attempted escape.

Eventually, Passoni managed to convince her husband to join her in an effort to flee and, with the help of smugglers, the little family of three found its way back to Belgium.

If they had been caught, her husband most likely would have been beheaded and she would have been returned to Raqqa, then forced into marriage with another fighter. Other women who have tried to escape have been raped and in some cases murdered by smuggles, according to the accounts of eye witnesses in our ISIS Defectors Interview Project.

Passoni’s husband is now serving prison time in Belgium, while she has been released conditionally. Her children, who were temporarily removed from her custody when she returned to Belgium, are now back in her care.

She spends her free time lecturing to young Belgians about the dangers of joining ISIS. A video clip of her interview with the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE) can be found here.

Passoni’s story follows patterns similar to those of many women who join ISIS. The path to violence almost always involves the classic interaction of four important factors: a group, its ideology, social support, and personal motivations and vulnerabilities. But there are also, commonly, more specific reasons.

One is political outrage. Many Muslim women as well as men around the globe witnessed the whole of Syria collapse into anarchy and violence under Bashar al Assad. They grew furious watching Assad’s scorched earth policy towards not only opposing combatants but also against Syrian civilians. That these atrocities continue to this day and often are just as brutal as what ISIS does to local populations that defy its rule is not lost on potential recruits. The motivation for some women who joined early in the conflict, as with their male counterparts, was rooted in grave concern about Assad’s sheer brutality in Syria, and in response to the political impasse in the country.

Others were already incited by ISIS’, and before that al-Qaeda’s, narrative that Islam, Muslim people and Muslim lands are under attack by Western powers and that a defensive jihad is necessary.

These women were lured by graphic YouTube videos of real suffering and injustices perpetrated against Muslims worldwide under dictators propped up by Western powers. The psychological impact of images of wars prosecuted by Westerners combined with civilian casualties may have played an important role in their decision to try to help defend the weak.

In fact, in studies of moral judgment, women and girls often make their assessments more relationally than men and may judge what might normally be defined as an immoral act to be moral if it saves a life, particularly the life of someone to whom a woman is related to.

ISIS and al Qaeda have been successful at garnering loyalties in support of a transnational ummah (Muslim community) and building up the idea of a greater family (fictive kin, in the jargon of social science) through the formation of the so-called Islamic caliphate.

They have been successfully tapped into various dimensions of populism and promote a doctrine that not only attempts to play on Muslim sentiments worldwide but also unifies Muslim demands against a common enemy—the West.

Add to the mix the complex discourse on marginalization and discrimination of Muslim women in the West. Women in Europe who want to wear headscarves or a niqab (full-face covering), or a burkini for that matter, may find themselves on the wrong side of the law in some countries. They also may be sidelined in the workplace or passed over for jobs. Some may be harassed on the streets.

Recruiters who promise female empowerment and emancipation, both political and economic, can be very persuasive to women who are feeling disillusioned and distressed by living in the West.

They are told of a utopian state where all Muslims are included and where being a Muslim is an advantage versus a disadvantage; where personal dignity, honor, purpose, significance and the material benefits of free housing, job training, free health care, matchmaking and salaries are promised to all who join.

For many women who join ISIS, the geographical relocation to Syria and Iraq serves as an attractive escape from personal and emotional problems—for example an overbearing, violent, and drunk father or husband—or the inability to attract a man considered a proper mate.

Until very recently, when it started losing significant swaths of territories in Iraq and Syria, ISIS claimed to embody the actualization of Islamic ideals. Women were invited to join in hopes they could win forgiveness for their sins and thus attain paradise when they pass into the next life.

According to the caliphate’s preaching, any man or woman who has seriously “sinned” could redeem him or herself by joining the Islamic State and, best of all, by volunteering for a suicide mission. There is nothing like “martyrdom” to guarantee to the person who comes to believe in it an immediate place in paradise.

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. is adjunct associate professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University in the School of Medicine and director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE) where she heads the Breaking the ISIS Brand—ISIS Defectors Interviews Project.

Ardian Shajkovci, Ph.D.- is the director of research and a senior research fellow at the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE).


The Making of Monsters
Home > World > Iraq > The Making of Monsters
BY ANNE SPECKHARD Thursday, September 21, 2017
10-year old Yusuf, an American boy who appeared in an ISIS video threatening Trump and the U.S.
https://clarionproject.org/isis-children-making-monsters/
SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq – When a little boy who looked and sounded American appeared in propaganda video put out by the failing Islamic State this week, threatening “Trump: puppet of the Jews,” it caused a sensation as, of course, it was meant to do.

“How can a group make a child into a monster?” we ask. Yet the answer comes to us in the voices of numerous ISIS defectors and prisoners who tell us precisely how ISIS takes the blank-slate minds of children and fills them with poisonous ideologies alongside dreams of Paradise.

Children are powerful tools in the hands of groups like the so-called Islamic State, as we’ve learned after interviewing 63 ISIS returnees, defectors, and prisoners.

Trained at “Cubs of the Caliphate” camps in both Iraq and Syria, children are indoctrinated to hate—and to kill all others who do not adhere to ISIS’s strict, brutal and intolerant views of Islam. They are also taught to give their own lives in acts of “martyrdom.” \

“I saw them train young kids to blow things up. From my camp, 15-year-and-younger kids went on bombing missions. They tell us they are going to go to Paradise,” 15-year-old Syrian Ibn Omar told researchers for the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism.

Ibn Omar ran off to join ISIS at age 13 after having his head filled with dreams from the preachers who took over his mosque when ISIS overran his region. Impoverished and young enough to be drawn in, Ibn Omar was motivated by the income he could bring home to his unsuspecting parents, and the promises of cars and other material rewards.

In the first days, the “brothers” also appeared to be “real Muslims,” preaching the “real Islam.” Little did he know.

“I liked them [ISIS] a lot in the beginning, but later…They taught us about God, the Prophet and our religion. We spent just one month training at the camp. It was military training, not compassionate at all.” (The classic Muslim invocation is to Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful).

“A lot of the training was with weapons,” said Omar. “​If you get distracted when you’re holding a real weapon they will put your finger in the barrel of the rifle and almost break it. Some of the kids were 13 to15.

Children drawn into the Cubs of the Caliphate camps serve many purposes for ISIS. Some are trained as propagandists and used in face-to-face preaching in the region, as well as in videos sent out both to the West and to their own constituents. This was the newest ISIS video of 10-year-old Yusuf, the purported son of an American soldier now threatening the U.S. in ISIS’s latest release of a few days ago.

Abu Firas, an Iraqi media emir imprisoned in Baghdad, as well as many defectors from Raqqa, told ICSVE about how ISIS films all its battles, makes video interviews with its subjects, and videos all their heinous terrorist acts to use later for recruitment and propaganda purposes.

Abu Firas, who was responsible for supplying the media arm of ISIS in the southern Baghdad region, told us ISIS sets up TV screens in its territories where children and adults can sit –theater style –to view the various feats of ISIS, including those where children behead ISIS prisoners or go to their deaths driving suicide vehicles into enemy lines.

Claims of ISIS spreading the glories of Islam, winning over so-called “infidels” and sacrificing their own lives to move immediately to Paradise are powerful recruiting tools for young minds still unable to understand completely concepts like death, the nuances of religious interpretations and the afterlife. Part of the goal is to raise an army of children who are easily and cynically sacrificed.

Soldiers from a another jihadi faction that had been on the front lines against ISIS told us they were terrified of children carrying explosive-filled backpacks. They could never be sure, and rather than mistakenly shoot an innocent, these battle-hardened men fled their posts.

Similarly all of the former ISIS soldiers who spoke to us told us that ISIS has lines of warriors in battle, the first line always consisting of young people who either race into enemy lines driving bomb-rigged vehicles, or adult cadres, who wear suicide vests intending to explode themselves rather than surrender. After all, the slogan of ISIS, taken from the Chechen rebels who joined, is “Victory or Paradise!”

They believe they win either way, in life or in death.

The dark side of the victory story is that these children can be as young as six, and ISIS is more than willing to destroy their lives. According to ISIS cadres we interviewed, some are exploded remotely. Others are cynically instructed, “Push the button and you will immediately go to Paradise.” Some are even offered sedatives to calm them in their missions.

Speaking to Abu Islam, an ISIS emir in prison in Sulaymaniyah, we learned that ISIS doesn’t view young boys in the same manner as most cultures, with theirown definition of a man, whatever the age—which means a child as young as seven can be viewed as an adult man.

“We don’t have any age limit,” Abu Islam told us. “Instead we believe that when a man’s semen develops, then he’s considered a grown-up man. We only take them when they get to that point.”

Yet when Abu Islam was shown Ibn Omar’s video clip he hung his head in shame and admitted the cherubic faces of children proudly carrying ISIS flags in the video were not men.

“We were wrong,” he admitted as we discussed how ISIS manipulates children into becoming killers.

Manipulating sacred scriptures already revered, and well known, by believers is a powerful tactic that groups like al Qaeda and ISIS have learned to rely on in their recruitment of naïve and earnest believers.

Everyone we spoke to — from ISIS returnees and cadres in Europe, the Balkans, and Central Asia — had joined ISIS and its affiliates because they had come to believe in the ISIS dream of creating a new world governance with justice, dignity, security and inclusion for Muslims — Sunni Muslims in particular, in Iraq and Syria and beyond.

This is the dream that ISIS peddles over the Internet and through its face-to-face recruitment.

Indeed, although most of the defectors and prisoners had become disillusioned with the corruption, brutality and un-Islamic character they experienced inside ISIS, they often held fast to this dream. ISIS knows that through the media, the amplifying power of videos of children — particularly, and the newly released video of 10-year-old Yusuf, who purportedly traveled with his mother to join ISIS two years ago and who claims he is the son of an American soldier who fought in Iraq.

An ISIS child threatening Donald Trump and repeating the oft-claimed ISIS mantra—that the battle will move to the West—garners widespread attention because it’s an innocent involved in brutality, the son of an American denouncing our own country. When this same child describes the constant airstrikes against ISIS, he also hits a sympathetic note—we all know that children unfortunately become both the pawns of terrorists and the victims in our battles against them.

Whether we look at the body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi on the shores of the Mediterranean, 7-year-old Julian Cadman who died on Las Ramblas in Barcelona, or the children unwittingly killed in aerial attacks against ISIS, our hearts are conflicted. All these children are the victims of violence. Videos of ISIS-indoctrinated children both horrify and tug at our heartstrings.

Ibn Omar was next in line for a suicide attack and only stopped by his parents when he took a home leave and shared his “glorious task” with them. They immediately forced him to flee ISIS and enter Turkey. Ibn Omar was so convinced by the ISIS claims that he told us that it took over a year away from the group before he felt the brainwashing of ISIS ideologies left him completely.

Abu Islam, the Iraqi ISIS emir, also tells us how successful they were in indoctrinating children into the “martyrdom” ideology teaching them that giving up their own lives to kill others would gain them a place in Paradise. “There is an office. If anyone volunteers … ‘I want to my give my bayat [pledge],’ then he signs up for a martyrdom mission at the same time. It’s like a regular recruiting process,” he says.

In regard to the ISIS training camps with a steady stream of explosive-rigged cars being made to put the children into, to send them to their deaths at checkpoints and the frontlines, he says: “They instruct them. They know what will happen. They’re happy. It’s like a kid at Christmas. You know how happy they are? Calmly happy, knowing something good is going to happen.”

Referring to the joyful expectations of children and young people anticipating their final journey to Paradise, Abu Islam says, “They have a list of serial numbers and names. If I’m set to go next, then I’m next. If something changes the order and they aren’t sent, they start crying. If they aren’t the next one, they actually cry and get angry, and even complain, ‘My name is set to go!’ I’ve seen this with my own eyes.” Abu Islam’s own eyes were shining in admiration for the zeal of these youth that he helped to indoctrinate.

When it comes to killing, we also need to understand that ISIS is a command and control organization. Not all young people, or even adults, who go to “martyr” themselves wish to do so. Inside ISIS, orders are from the top and are not to be defied. Once in, there are no more choices to be made.

Attempting to escape ends in beheading for males, being sent back to Raqqa for females. “We were supposed to just obey,” Syrian ISIS defector Abu Abdullah explains. “If they tell you to slay others, you have to do it. Even if they tell you to behead your own father you have to do it. Whatever the sheikh tells you to do, you have to do it. When we hear the order, we have to execute it.”

According to defectors, children who were ordered to kill were often horrified, but knew that they had no choice. Follow orders and kill, or be killed. As Ibn Omar described one of his friends who was summoned, like many youths are, to carry out a beheading, “They picked him up in a truck and told him he was going to execute an infidel. He took the zarqawiya [knife] with him, and they led him to the prisoner. The person’s hands are tied, so he pulled his hair back, and sawed across his neck until he was beheaded.”

The groupthink of ISIS and their social coercion, backed up by brutal punishments, silenced any dissenters. “Some people felt upset deep down, but they wouldn’t say anything, Ibn Omar explains. If someone was executed, everyone would act happy and shout ‘Allahu-Akbar!’ They couldn’t say they were upset, or that it wasn’t right.”

“I was upset,” Ibn Omar admits.

For defectors like Ibn Omar, witnessing violence and injustices began to undermine sharia training from teachers who manipulated Islam to justify the brutality of the group.

In Iraq, the government estimates that half a million young people lived under or served ISIS. It may be even more in Syria. Now these children are returning to schools that were decimated by ISIS. Some spent two or more years in ISIS schools where learning to kill and behead and taking on the ISIS ideology was central to their curriculum. It’s a huge job to reintegrate these children back into society.

At the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism, we hope that raising the voices of ISIS insiders may be one way of smashing the ISIS illusion. Justice, dignity, security and inclusion in society are the tasks of good governance and are needed to put an end to ISIS terrorism, but as the struggle to achieve these larger goals continues at a slower pace than most would like, we work at breaking the ISIS brand—using insiders to tell the truth about ISIS.

“I lost my country…Everything,” Ibn Omar says while wiping away tears. “I would tell all the children of the world—I would tell them not to join this organization. This organization is not Muslim, they’re the infidels. They slaughter innocent people. And that they are not here for real jihad. They are just here for the money. And whoever joins them cannot leave. They pretend to be Muslim but they just teach people to blow themselves up and tell you that you’re going to Paradise—but none of it is true. I would tell them not to join this organization.”

ISIS Encourages Attacks on US Hurricane Relief Centers
Home > Political Islam > Worldwide > Movements > ISIS Encourages Attacks on US Hurricane Relief Centers
BY CLARION PROJECT Sunday, September 17, 2017
Relief from Hurricane Harvey in Houston
Relief from Hurricane Harvey in Houston (Photo: BRETT COOMER/AFP/Getty Images)
ISIS is encouraging its members to attack Hurricane Harvey relief centers in Houston. A social media post by the terror group and quoted by Newsweek reads:
“To all the (lone mujahids) in the U.S. (warrior), pop down to Houston and drop in at any of the relief centers housing displaced people from the Houston floods, make sure to bring lots of supplies/gadgets/toys to see if you can help put any (unbeliever) out of their misery.”
One analyst quoted by CNBC says that “these posts appear to be more aspirational than operational, with hopes that their followers would then act on calls for attacks. Incidents involving lone wolf attackers have demonstrated the potential danger, lethality and effectiveness of a rehearsed small arms or knife attack that can be carried out by a single individual with little or no training. It also underscores the potentially higher consequences of an assault attack involving multiple operatives.”
An alert put out by Homeland Security in Florida warns police officers to “maintain situational awareness of their surroundings.”
ISIS jihadis not only view centers set up for those displaced by the recent hurricanes as ripe for attack opportunities, they also view the devastation wreaked by the storms as divine retribution by Allah.
Ahmed Mansour, an Egyption journalist for the Qatari-based Al Jazeera channel, wrote that Hurricane Irma was a “display of God’s greatness which many dare to deny.”
On Facebook, Mansour posted a picture of cars backed up on a Florida highway driven by people evacuating from the hurricane with the caption, “The grand escape from Florida…20 million American running away in fear of hurricane Irma which is wiping out everything in its wake.” He added the verse from the Quran, “and He will show you His signs, and what signs of Allah will you deny?”
After tremendous backlash, Mansour removed the post.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/isis-encourages-attacks-us-hurricane-relief-centers/


Trump Signs Iran Sanctions Waiver Despite Concerns
Home > World > Iran > Trump Signs Iran Sanctions Waiver Despite Concerns
BY CLARION PROJECT Sunday, September 17, 2017
Trump at a September 2015 rally against the Iran deal (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The Trump Administration signed waivers for sanctions against Iran that were agreed as part of then-president Barack Obama’s landmark nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic. The sanctions were due to “snap back” into place if President Donald Trump did not agree to sign off on the waivers by September 14.
However, at the same time as the president signed the waivers, the Treasury Department placed sanctions on 11 Iran-linked individuals and companies, accusing them of “cyber-attacks and proliferation,” according to ABC News.
Trump slammed Tehran for failing to keep to the spirit of the nuclear deal, BBC News reported.
“The Iran deal is one of the worst deals I’ve ever seen, certainly at a minimum the spirit of the deal is atrociously kept,” the president said. “The Iran deal is not a fair deal to this country. It’s a deal that should not have ever been made.”
The nuclear deal was signed in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1, consisting of the five permanent members of the U.N. security council (the United States, China, the UK, France and Russia) and Germany. The deal saw the world powers remove sanctions on Iran in exchange for assurances that the nuclear program would remain for civilian purposes and would be subject to certain restrictions.
In April, Trump ordered a review of lifting sanctions on Iran to determine whether or not it was in U.S. interests to do so.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/trump-iran-sanctions/

What You Can’t Say Anymore: In US Gov’t
Home > Political Islam > In the US > Government > What You Can’t Say Anymore: In US Gov’t
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Thursday, September 14, 2017
Richard Higgins
Richard Higgins (Photo: video screenshot)
A top official at the National Security Council (NSC) was fired for a memo he wrote warning about the dangers of radical Islam and its alliance with the radical left.
Rich Higgins, who was formerly with the Pentagon, worked as the director of strategic planning for the NSC until his untimely departure.
Part of his lengthy memo stated:
“Globalists and Islamists recognize that for their visions to succeed, America, both as an ideal and as a national and political identity, must be destroyed…Islamists ally with cultural Marxists…[but] Islamists will co-opt the movement in its entirety…
“Because the left is aligned with Islamist organizations at local, national, and international levels, recognition should be given to the fact that they seamlessly interoperate through coordinated synchronized interactive narratives…
“These attack narratives are pervasive, full spectrum, and institutionalized at all levels. They operate in social media, television, the 24-hour news cycle in all media and are entrenched at the upper levels of the bureaucracies.”
The Atlantic reported Higgins also “pushed for declassification of documents having to do with radical Islam and Iran,” citing a source close to the White House.
One such document, called the “Presidential Study Directive,” allegedly warned in 2010 about the upcoming Arab Spring and detailed the Obama Administration’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations.
Lamenting the lack of education given to government officials about radical Islam, Higgins previously wrote, “National Security officials are prohibited from developing a factual understanding of Islamic threat doctrines, preferring instead to depend upon 5th column Muslim Brotherhood cultural advisors.”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/cant-say-anymore-us-govt/


What You Can’t Say Anymore: ‘I Fought Against ISIS’
Home > World > Kurdistan > What You Can’t Say Anymore: ‘I Fought Against ISIS’
BY CLARION PROJECT Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Aiden Aslin
Aiden Aslin (Photo: video screenshot)
A young British man was arrested in the UK after returning from Syria where he went to fight against Islamic State, The Guardian reported.
He was held for questioning under the UK Terrorism Act for suspicion of engaging “in the preparation to fight against Daesch [ISIS]” as well as possessing “articles for terrorist purposes in Iraq/Syria.”
Aiden Aslin, 23 and a former care worker, traveled to Syria twice before in 2015 and 2016 to join the U.S.-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
The YPG, as well as other Kurdish forces, has garnered the most success to date against ISIS in Iraq. The group is not designated as a terrorist organization and no one has ever been convicted in the UK for association with the group.
When Aslin returned to the UK in 2015, he was arrested and subsequently released on bail.
When the bail was finally lifted and he was cleared of any charges, Aslin said at the time:
“No fighter should have to go through what I went through if it can be avoided. I feel vindicated. I have had nine months of being made to feel like a terrorist.
“I should never have been arrested. I should never have spent any time on bail. I should have been interviewed for any intelligence I might hold on ISIS and allowed to go free.”
Aslin also called for “a coherent national policy so that people know what they are coming back to.”
On this trip after his stint with the YPG, he traveled from Syria to Greece where he stayed for three months teaching English at a Kurdish refugee camp, fearing the same experience.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/cant-say-anymore-fought-isis/


What You Can’t Say Anymore: ‘Sharia Doesn’t Belong Here’
Home > World > Ireland > What You Can’t Say Anymore: ‘Sharia Doesn’t Belong Here’
BY CLARION PROJECT Monday, September 11, 2017
Irish Councillor Brian Murphy
Irish Councillor Brian Murphy (Photo: Twitter)
A local councillor was censured by his party for tweets he made about sharia law and how terrorists are exploiting Europe’s open-door policy, reported Breitbart.
He will “be dealt with” by the party, said an unnamed spokesman.
Brian Murphy of the ruling Fina Gael (Family of Ireland) party made a series of tweets his higher-ups apparently found offensive.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/cant-say-anymore-sharia-doesnt-belong/


What You Can’t Say Anymore: ‘I Tried to Stop the Jihadists’
Home > World > UK > What You Can’t Say Anymore: ‘I Tried to Stop the Jihadists’
BY CLARION PROJECT Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Josh Walker. Arrested for fighting against ISIS.
Josh Walker. Arrested for fighting against ISIS. (Photo: Video screenshot)
Next month Josh Walker will stand trial. His crime? Fighting against ISIS.
Apparently, if you are British and head off to the Middle East to fight against the evil that is Islamic State, when you come home you will be questioned, likely arrested and forced to stand trial for your actions.
Welshman Josh Walker is no exception. Police officers approached him immediately on his return to the UK after fighting with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units or YPG.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/cant-say-anymore-tried-stop-jihadists/

Terror Rocks London – Parsons Green Tube Attack
https://clarionproject.org/terror-rocks-london-parsons-green-isis/
Home > World > UK > Terror Rocks London – Parsons Green Tube Attack
BY DAVID HARRIS Friday, September 15, 2017
Parsons Green underground station
Parsons Green underground station (Photo: DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS / AFP / Getty Images)
Panic returned to the streets of London after terror struck the British capital once more on September 15.

Reports so far say no one was killed but the psychological effects of the attack on a London Underground train will be far reaching.

Clarion’s David Harris reports on the likely effects of today’s attack at Parsons Green in West London:
CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO LISTEN
https://clarionproject.org/terror-rocks-london-parsons-green-isis/
RELATED STORIES
UK, European Anti-Terror Chiefs: Unprecedented Threat Level in Britain
Terrorist Knife Attack in London Tube Station
All the Terror Attacks in Europe This Year
MAP


Memphis Imam Linked to Terror Financing
Home > Political Islam > Worldwide > Movements > Memphis Imam Linked to Terror Financing
BY CLARION PROJECT Thursday, September 14, 2017
Yasir Qadhi
Yasir Qadhi (Photo: video screenshot)
A Memphis imam has been reportedly raising money for an Islamic charity in America and worldwide that has been linked to terror funding.
Since 2012, extremist preacher Yasir Qadhi has been active speaking at events for Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) as well as its American branch Islamic Relief-USA (IRUSA).
IRW also received $370,000 in federal funding between 2015 and 2016.
Last week, Representative Ron DeSantis (R-FL), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced an amendment to the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Act to block U.S. funding to the organization.
“U.S. tax dollars cannot go to groups involved in funding terrorism. Any group tied to Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood should be ineligible for funding. It is a slap in the face of the American taxpayer to allow such groups to receive federal funding,” DeSantis said.
IRW, which operates 16 affiliates and is based in the UK, is the largest Islamic charity in the West and has a long history of links to terrorism.
READ MORE https://clarionproject.org/memphis-imam-linked-terror-financing/


Top 5 Insights From US War on Terror
https://clarionproject.org/war-on-terror-report/
Home > Political Islam > In the US > National Security > Top 5 Insights From US War on Terror
BY CLARION PROJECT Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Illustrative picture. (Photo: Sgt. Donald Holbert/US Marine Corps)
The Bipartisan Policy Research Center has just released a new report assessing the impact of the war on terror. Entitled Defeating Terrorists, Not Terrorism: An Assessment of U.S. Counterterrorism Policy From 9/11 to ISIS, it looks at successes, failures and what we’ve learned in the 16 years since 9/11. Authored by a group of high-level policymakers from across the political spectrum, it outlines how a military solution is not enough and an ideological component is necessary for victory.

It was put together by their task force on terrorism and ideology and chaired by Governor Thomas H. Keane, former chair of the 9/11 Commission, and Representative Lee Hamilton, former vice chair of the 9/11 Commission.
Here are the top five takeaways:

1.Jihadis are recruiting as fast as the U.S. military can kill them. The report says “despite estimates that U.S. forces have killed at least 60,000 ISIS fighters, the U.S. government believes the group has as almost as many members now (15,000, according to the State Department) as it did in 2014 (20,000, according to the CIA).” It’s not just ISIS either, al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups have been heavily recruiting despite counter-terror successes.
2. The U.S. has done serious damage to international terror networks.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/war-on-terror-report/


‘Radical Islam’ Absent in 9/11 Addresses by Trump Admin
Home > Political Islam > In the US > Government > ‘Radical Islam’ Absent in 9/11 Addresses by Trump Admin
BY RYAN MAURO Tuesday, September 12, 2017
U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump with the White House staff at a memorial ceremony for those killed in the 9/11 terror attacks.
U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump with the White House staff at a memorial ceremony for those killed in the 9/11 terror attacks. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)
In a stunning reversal from his campaign rhetoric, President Donald Trump declined to mention radical Islam on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, as did the vice president, secretary of defense and attorney general.
The omissions were first noticed by Breitbart, which pointed out that Attorney-General Jeff Sessions came closest to using the terminology by stating that the terrorists sought to “impose their speech codes, their religion, their theocracy.”
In his speech at the Republican convention accepting the party’s presidential nomination, Trump mentioned the Islamic basis of the jihadist threat four times. During the presidential campaign, Trump regularly attacked Hillary Clinton for declining to use the term “radical Islam.”
By omitting any mention of Islamism or jihad, the Trump Administration’s language is even closer to that of the Obama Administration than Hillary Clinton, who defined the enemy as “jihadists.” President Obama refused to use any terminology associated with Islam at all.
The change represents a big triumph for National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, who fought tooth-and-nail against any Islam-themed language and pushes policies that are incompatible with the Trump Administration’s original stated vision.
McMaster won a power struggle within the White House and was reportedly the main force pushing out the most anti-Islamist voices in the Trump Administration, with chief strategist Steve Bannon and Deputy Assistant Sebastian Gorka his most prized scalps.
When he formally resigned, Gorka noted radical Islam was not anywhere to be found in Trump’s speech on his strategy for Afghanistan. In his resignation letter, Gorka wrote that the omission “proves that a crucial element of your presidential campaign has been lost.”
Likewise, Bannon said, “No administration in history has been so divided.”
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson responded to Gorka by saying he’s “completely wrong” and has “a lack of understanding of the president’s broader policy.”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/no-mention-radical-islam-911-addresses-trump-administration/

Four Stories of Terrorism You Should Care About
Home > World > Egypt > Four Stories of Terrorism You Should Care About
BY CLARION PROJECT Tuesday, September 12, 2017
https://clarionproject.org/four-stories-terrorism-care/
RELATED STORIES
How Terrorism Has Ruined Everything: Privacy
How Terrorism Has Ruined Everything: Fear
How Terrorism Has Ruined Everything: Vacationing


WANTED: Minnesota Man, 20
https://clarionproject.org/wanted-minnesota-man-18/
Home > Political Islam > In the US > National Security > WANTED: Minnesota Man, 20
BY CLARION PROJECT Thursday, September 14, 2017
ISIS in control of Raqqa, Syria, in 2014.
ISIS in control of Raqqa, Syria, in 2014. (Photo: Stringer / Reuters)
The FBI is hunting an 20-year-old man from St. Louis Park, Minnesota, believed to have joined Islamic State in Syria.

Two years ago, the Al-Madioum family was vacationing in Morocco when their son Abdelhamid disappeared. For the previous few days he’d appeared agitated and was busier than usual on his phone.

Please see our guide on looking for signs of extremism in your children

Al-Madioum booked a flight to Istanbul from where he crossed into Syria to join ISIS.

When FBI agents searched Al-Madioum’s bedroom they discovered various personal effects that led them to believe he was radicalized. The Star Tribune believes material seized by the FBI suggests Al-Madioum was in electronic contact with ISIS recruiters.

While the FBI is not commenting on the investigation, Al-Madioum reportedly called his family a few days after their return to the States from Morocco. He told them he was working in a hospital in Mosul, Iraq.

There are currently at least five other open cases in Minnesota, according to the Star Tribune.
MAP
If you have information on Abdelhamid Al-Madioum or any other people you believe may have joined Islamic State, please contact the FBI here. https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices


How Much US Aid Pledged to Syrian Kids Didn’t Arrive?
https://clarionproject.org/much-us-aid-went-missing-syria/
Home > Human Rights > Human Rights Violators > Child Abuse > How Much US Aid Pledged to Syrian Kids Didn’t Arrive?
BY CLARION PROJECT Thursday, September 14, 2017
Schoolgirls just outside Damascus, Syria
Schoolgirls just outside Damascus, Syria (Photo: SAMEER AL-DOUMY / AFP / Getty Images)

Millions of dollars of aid money bound for Syrian child refugees has vanished, says Human Rights Watch (HRW).
A large chunk of that is likely to be from American taxpayers and others in the West.

The money, pledged in 2016, was bound for schoolchildren living in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, but much of it never arrived, came late or remains untraceable because of “poor reporting practices.”

What is not clear from HRW’s 55-page report is whether the donor states paid out the money in full or whether some of the cash simply disappeared en route.

More than half-a-million children had no schooling last year in large part because there was insufficient money available to pay for their education.

“The US Agency for International Development reported that it provided development aid of US$248 million for education in Jordan, but its own aid tracking database only accounted for US$82 million, and a Jordanian government database listed only US$13 million received for education from the US in 2016,” the HRW report states.

And that is just one example.
Human Rights Watch suggests much of the money pledged is simply not paid but also points to the lack of cohesive accounting of the entire system, including governments, aid agencies and others.
“Despite global concern about Syrian refugee children, it is still impossible to find answers to basic questions about whether their key educational needs are being met,” said Simon Rau, Mercator, a fellow at HRW. “Donors should fix the transparency deficit that is undercutting their own support for Syrian children, who cannot afford to wait any longer to get back into school.”
Criticisms leveled at the U.S., European donors and the process in general include:
Lack of consistent, detailed and timely reporting
Lack of information about the projects donors are funding and their timing
Inconsistent information about school enrollment, which makes it difficult to assess progress
Inconsistent education targets and goals set by donors and host countries


Facebook Hires 3,000 Staff to Monitor Hate speech
https://clarionproject.org/facebook-hires-3000-staff-monitor-hate-speech/
Home > Political Islam > In the US > Public Issues > Facebook Hires 3,000 Staff to Monitor Hate speech
BY CLARION PROJECT Thursday, September 14, 2017
(Photo; Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
Social media giant Facebook is increasing its crackdown on what it perceives as hateful content. The company is hiring an additional 3,000 content reviewers to monitor the site, according to the New York Post.
“There is absolutely no place on Facebook for hate speech or content that promotes violence or terrorism,” Senior Vice-President for Global Marketing Solutions Carolyn Everson said, announcing the decision.
“As soon as we determine that content has breached our community standards, we remove it. With a community as large as Facebook, however, zero tolerance cannot mean zero occurrence.”
Germany recently passed a new law which would fine social media companies $60 million if they fail to remove hate speech.
Facebook is also overhauling its advertising policy. It will change which companies can advertise on its site and which can make money. The new standards will apply to ads in which content matters.
The new rules and increased vigilance could impact many outlets which discuss Islam in a critical way. They may also see Islamist extremists and those advocating violence against Muslims facing tougher challenges in getting their message out.


If You’re Christian You Need to Watch This
Home > Human Rights > Human Rights Violators > Lack of Basic Freedoms > If You’re Christian You Need to Watch This
BY CLARION PROJECT Thursday, September 14, 2017
https://clarionproject.org/if-you-are-christian-you-should-watch-this/

Why Radical Islam Isn’t a Partisan Issue
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Wednesday, September 6, 2017
Identity politics has pushed us to relate to issues in black and white terms. Gone are the grey areas that most often define life, the stuff from which true moral clarity is built.
One of the most irrational consequences of this current state of our national polity is the pressure to “take sides” in the fight against radical Islam.
Yet, Islamist terrorists do not differentiate their bullets, aiming only at their conservative/Republican detractors while sparing their liberal/Democratic enablers.
(In an ironic admission of this reality, the left-wing, pro-immigrant government of Austria is currently building concrete-enforced security wall around their government buildings to stave off suicide truck bombings.)
So, why has radical Islam become a partisan issue? Although psychologists have shown us that human beings have the capacity to live with enormous amounts of cognitive dissonance, the truth is that under a sharia regime – as envisioned by both violent and non-violent Islamists—freedoms that liberals take for granted (freedom of speech, religion, press and political protest, not to mention gender equality) would be taken away.
Yet, living under sharia law, with all its totalitarian trappings, is the self-declared Utopian dream of Islamists supported by the left — from CAIR (the Council on American Islamic Relations) to Linda Sarsour to Hamas and ISIS (even though many sharia-proponents would disagree with ISIS’ vision of a sharia society).
There are a number of factors that have contributed to this partisan divide.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/radical-islam-isnt-partisan-issue/


Church & State — Is There Really a Separation?
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Tuesday, September 5, 2017
(Illustrative photo: Flickr/Ben McLeod)
Separation of church and state is a much-touted, constitutionally-guaranteed principle on which America was built
But was it? Upon closer examination, one finds that the line of the law is not so clear.
These fuzzy lines can make adjudicating on current issues where sharia (Islamic) law and American law are at odds not only difficult, but extremely controversial.
As more and cases are brought to U.S. courts that address the religious beliefs of Muslims, it is worth looking at this foundational principle of U.S. law.
Here are some recent and interesting cases involving the clash between lslamic principles and U.S. law involving cases of employee rights, inheritance and spousal abuse.
Background
The actual words “separation of church and state” do not appear in the constitution. Rather, they represent a general principle – one could say, an interpretation – of the famous “Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
That same amendment ensures there is no prohibition on the free exercise of one’s religion.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/church-state-really-separation/


4 Shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar’ – Then What Happened?
Home > World > Italy > 4 Shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar’ – Then What Happened?
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Sunday, September 3, 2017
(Illustrative photo: Reuters)
A man who stormed a funeral in a church in Malta shouting “Allahu Akbar” had some of the charges against him reduced after his lawyer claimed he was praying for the deceased, The Independent reported.
The man, a 29-year old from the Ivory Coast, was originally charged with breaching the public peace, public intoxication, and threatening and insulting the police.
At his trial, the latter two charges were dropped. The man pleaded guilty to the other charge and agreed to return immediately to Italy.
The court then agreed to a conditional discharge of two years, meaning that after two years, the conviction will be wiped from his record.
The mayor of Venice announced that anyone who shouts “Allahu Akbar” in the city’s famous St. Mark’s Square will be shot “after taking three steps.”
Last year, the controversial mayor said four steps. Now he is down to three.
Speaking at a conference about extremism in the city of Rimini, Mayor Luigi Brugnaro admitted his decision is controversial, saying, “I have never been politically correct, I am incorrect. I would shoot, we would shoot.
“They said they wanted to go and meet Allah, so we will send them straight to Allah, without having to throw them off the bridge. We will just shoot them.”
Brugnaro added, “In contrast with Barcelona, where they had not set up protection, we keep our guard up.”
A man who attacked police officers outside Buckingham Palace with a sword while repeatedly shouting “Allahu Akbar” was charged with terrorism, Breitbart reported.
Mohiussunnath Choudhury, a 26-year-old Uber driver, first tried to run the officers over with a car. He then drew a four-foot sword when approached by the unarmed officers.
A man from Belgium shouting “Allahu Akbar” and warning there was a bomb on a plane caused panic in his fellow travelers.
The 51-year-old man was arrested and eight friends who were traveling with him on a Ryanair flight from Madrid to Brussels were thrown off the plane. All were thought to have been drunk.
Passengers were evacuated while a bomb squad searched the plane.
MORE .https://clarionproject.org/allahu-akbar/


Court Case: Saudis Funded 9/11 Dry Run
BY CLARION PROJECT Sunday, September 10, 2017
A man views photographs of victims in the new 9/11 Tribute Museum, June 13, 2017 in New York City.
A man views photographs of victims in the new 9/11 Tribute Museum, June 13, 2017 in New York City. (Photo: Drew Angerer / Getty Images)
Lawyers representing families of 1,400 of the 9/11 victims say Saudi Arabia may have funded a dry run for the terror attack.
The legal team claims the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C. paid for two undercover Saudis to fly from Phoenix to the capital as part of “a pattern of both financial and operational support.”
Using FBI documentation, the team claims Hamdan al-Shalawi and Mohammed al-Qudhaeein were Saudi agents operating on U.S. soil. Trained by al-Qaeda, the pair were in contact with one of the 9/11 hijackers.
During their flight from Phoenix on board an American West jet the pair is said to have tried on numerous occasions to enter the cockpit.
“After they boarded the plane in Phoenix, they began asking the flight attendants technical questions about the flight that the flight attendants found suspicious,” reads a summary of the FBI case files.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/court-case-saudis-funded-911-dry-run/

US Citizen Brought to Justice for Joining Al Shabaab
Home > World > Kenya > US Citizen Brought to Justice for Joining Al Shabaab
BY CLARION PROJECT Sunday, September 10, 2017
Aftermath of an Al Shabaab attack on a civilian bus
Aftermath of an Al Shabaab attack on a civilian bus in Kenya (Photo: Reuters)
A U.S. citizen from Maryland who went to Somalia and joined the Islamist terror organization Al Shabaab was brought to face charges in a U.S. court.
Maalik Alim Jones, 32, left his wife in the U.S. and traveled to Kenya in 2011. From there he made his way to Somalia, where he immediately joined Al Shabaab. Jones received military training from the brutal group, including how to operate an AK-47 and rocket-propelled grenades, according to a news release put out by the U.S. Justice Department.
Jones was highly successful in the terror group and was promoted to join a special unit. While with that unit, he participated in operations attacking Kenyan soldiers.
In court, Jones said, “I knew that my actions were a violation of the laws of the United States.”
“Jones pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to al Shabaab, by traveling abroad to join and fight on behalf of the foreign terrorist organization for four years,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Dana Boente. “I want to thank the many prosecutors, agents, and analysts who made this result possible.”
“As he admitted in court today, Maalik Jones traveled to Somalia, was trained by al Shabaab in the use of an AK-47 and rocket-propelled grenades and took up arms for four years as a terrorist fighter,” said New York Acting Attorney Joon Kim. “For his allegiance to this lawless, terrorist organization that vows to destroy America and its values, Maalik Jones been held to account in an American court of law. All that is left is for him to be sentenced for his crimes.”
Taking all his crimes together, Jones could face a lifetime in prison.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/us-citizen-brought-justice-joining-al-shabaab/


So What Did Happen to That ISIS Convoy?
Home > World > Syria > So What Did Happen to That ISIS Convoy?
BY CLARION PROJECT Monday, September 11, 2017
A Syrian pro-government forces member gestures to the camera from a tank in the Salamiyah city, some 33 kilometres southeast of Hama, on August 19, 2017, during an offensive against Islaimc State (IS) group fighters.
A Syrian pro-government forces member gestures to the camera from a tank in the Salamiyah city, some 33 kilometres southeast of Hama, on August 19, 2017, during an offensive against Islaimc State (IS) group fighters. (Photo: STRINGER / AFP / Getty Images)
Last week we asked you what should be done with a convoy of hundreds of ISIS fighters and their families that fled fighting and was stuck in the Syrian desert, halted by the U.S.-led coalition.
Below we tell you what happened in reality but first here are you answers and comments:
1.5% said they should be allowed to disperse after questioning.
19.9% were of the opinion women and children should be free to go but all men arrested.
32.5% maintained the entire group should stand trial.
29.1% said the entire group should be incarcerated without trial.
17% said it’s nothing to do with the West. Let the Syrians sort this out themselves.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/happen-isis-convoy/

CLARION
Video of Non-Muslim Kids ‘Praying’ in Mosque – What Do You Think?
https://clarionproject.org/video-of-non-muslim-kids-praying-in-mosque-what-do-you-think/
BY CLARION PROJECT Tuesday, September 5, 2017
The video below is said to show a school trip to a mosque in Holland.

Please watch the video and answer our quick poll below.
What is your view on school trips to mosques?
It's important to understand other religions. 2.55%
It's fine to visit but wrong to make children actually take part in "mock prayers." 18.75%
I don't have a strong view on this. 0.78%
I wouldn't want my child going on such a trip. 45.08%
Church and state must be separated at all costs. 32.84%
https://clarionproject.org/video-of-non-muslim-kids-praying-in-mosque-what-do-you-think

Pro-Islam Indoctrination in Public Schools?
https://clarionproject.org/pro-islam-indoctrination-public-schools/
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Monday, August 28, 2017
From a cartoon depicting the ‘Five Pillars of Islam’ (Photo: video screenshot)
Access Islam
Parents across the U.S. have objected to a Department of Education program called “Access Islam.” The federally-funded program is directed at children from grades 5-12 and is also featured on various websites, including PBS Learning Media.

The Smithsonian also promotes the course as does the Indiana Department of Education and the United Nations.

Parents charge that the course amounts to nothing less than proselytizing about Islam in public schools. In addition, they note that the Department of Education provides no comparable study or promotion of any other religion.

A video from the course prominently features a Christian convert to Islam, who declares emotionally how he has found the true religion without any “intermediaries.”
In addition to videos, students are given worksheets to learn the Five Pillars of Islam and how to pray. Children are also expected to memorize verses from the Quran and know the meaning of those verses.
Access Islam: US Department of Education
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDgxoiW1EEc

Maryland
As part of the school’s “World History” curriculum, high school students in Maryland were taught extensively about Islam — without any context of current events — and required to list the benefits of the religion.
In one homework assignment obtained by a news outlet, the question was asked: “How did Muslim conquerors treat those they conquered?” The correct answer was, “With tolerance, kindness and respect.”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/pro-islam-indoctrination-public-schools/

Christian Beaten to Death by Muslim Classmates
https://clarionproject.org/christian-teenager-beaten-death-muslim-classmates/
BY CLARION PROJECT Sunday, September 3, 2017
Sharoon Masih
A 17-year old Christian boy in Pakistan was beaten to death in Pakistan by his fellow Muslim students in their classroom, reported the British Pakistani Christian Association.
A gifted intellect and head of his class, Sharoon Masih was the only Christian student in his grade. He had faced isolation and bullying from the first day he entered the school in Verahi District in Punjab.
His mother said he was warned from the beginning not to mix with the Muslims at school, with one fellow classmate saying, “You’re a Christian. Don’t dare sit with us if you want to live.”
Repeated attempts were made to convert Sharoon, but he refused. His family reported that he used his isolation to concentrate on his studies and reached the top of his class – a position which infuriated his fellow students even more.
“Sharoon and I cried every night as he described the daily torture he was subjected to,” related his mother. “He only told me about the abuse and violence he was facing. He did not want to upset his father because he had such a caring heart for others.”
Sharoon’a father, a laborer at a brick kiln had saved money to send his gifted son to the best school in the area.

While the instigator of the beating was been arrested, many other boys took part in the murder remain at large as witnesses to the horrific beating refuse to come forward.
There are varying reports about why no teachers stopped the fight. Initial reports out of the classroom allege the teacher ignored the fight. Others say it occurred between classes when the teacher was not present. Still, there was no teacher at the school that responded to the noise of the melee.
The headmaster of the school was dismissed, but to date, all the teachers remain in their positions.
“Christians are despised and detested in Pakistan they are a constant target for persecution,” said Wilson Chowdhry, chair of the British Pakistani Christian Association.
“This killing of a young Christian teenager at school serves only to remind us that hatred towards religious minorities is bred into the majority population at a young age, through cultural norms and a biased national curriculum. However by no means is such treatment an anomaly – it is an expectation that Christians will face abuse and violence during the years in the educational system.”

Choudary charged that culpability for the crime goes all the way to the Pakistani government, which has failed to remove materials with the national curriculum that teaches and reinforces this attitude toward Christians.

Notably, the curriculum was flagged by the United States Commission for International Freedom as a potential bar to foreign aid.
“Such poor governance has inculcated generations of Pakistani citizens with false stereotypes that undermine the basic human rights of the non-Muslims in their midst,” Choudary said. “This mis-education has reciprocally also made Muslims more susceptible to the hate ideology espoused by the many rogue Imams following hardline sects of Islam.
“Sharoon was bright and intelligent young boy who had a potentially good future has now been killed. Yet once again in Pakistan, the debate is not on who is culpable but who is not culpable of a most heinous crime.”
The association is calling on the Pakistani government to reform of the educational system to remove the biases which openly demonize minorities. To sign the petition, click here. http://www.getpetition.com/petitions/equality-in-pak-schools

Death Threats to Palestinian Woman Filmmaker
Home > World > Palestinian Authority > Death Threats to Palestinian Woman Filmmaker
BY CLARION PROJECT Monday, September 4, 2017
From the movie "In Between"
From the movie “In Between” (Photo:video screenshot)
A ground-breaking Palestinian film has garnered death threats for its director as well as the actors who star in the film.

In Between follows the life of three young Palestinian women sharing an apartment in Tel Aviv — away from the watchful eyes of their families.
In an interview with the BBC, 35-year-old director Maysaloun Hamoud, said she expected some backlash about the film, “but I didn’t know how big it would be.”
The film follows three women – a liberal lawyer, an aspiring DJ who is a lesbian and a religious cousin.
Hamoud, the daughter of Palestinians, grew up in Budapest but now lives in Jaffa, Israel. “Palestine has a young cinema and there are not a lot of genres here yet,” she said. “I think there was actually a lot of confusion here when the film first appeared as to whether it was a documentary or a fiction film…characters like this haven’t appeared in Palestinian cinema before.”

The film includes the underground Palestinian scene in Israel and features nightclubs, drugs and homosexuality.
“I knew when I started to write these characters that it could not be passed by, but I did not expect the extent of the reaction,” said Hamoud, relating to the level of violence to which she has been threatened because of the film.
After the film was declared haram (forbidden), the death threats began. However, once the initial weeks passed, which Hamoud described as “scary,” she realized “there is no such thing as bad publicity.”
The commotion increased interest in the film, which had a successful run in the cinemas.
Acknowledging the characters “represent the things that we have never talked about in our society before,” Hamoud admitted she “wanted to take provocative action, we need to shake things up and see different things on screen. If we keep making things that people think they want to see, then it’s not art, it’s not cinema.”
Hamoud views her job as an artist to develop society, which to her means changing reality. “The essence of an artist is to bring change,” she said. “All three characters represent huge amounts of invisible women, women who have never had their voices raised before in cinema from this part of the world. Finally, the film has made people talk about it and I’m glad.”
The film is nominated for 12 Ophir awards (Israel’s Oscars) and Hamoud given the best young talent award by the Women in Motion movement at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

Watch the trailer to In Between (with English subtitles):
https://clarionproject.org/death-threats-palestinian-woman-filmmaker/

UK, European Anti-Terror Chiefs: Unprecedented Threat Level in Britain
Home > World > UK > UK, European Anti-Terror Chiefs: Unprecedented Threat Level in Britain
BY CLARION PROJECT Sunday, September 3, 2017
Armed woman police officer patrols on London Bridge in London on June 7, 2017, one of the scenes of the June 3 terror attack.
Armed woman police officer patrols on London Bridge in London on June 7, 2017, one of the scenes of the June 3 terror attack. (Photo: ODD ANDERSEN / AFP / Getty Images)

The terror threat in the United Kingdom is at unprecedented levels, according to British and European experts charged with leading the fight against jihadis in Europe.

Gilles de Kerchove (Photo: Council of the European Union)
There are as many as 35,000 “radicals” in the UK, according to European counter-terrorism coordinator Gilles de Kerchove.

“Of these, 3,000 are worrying for MI5, and of those, 500 are under constant and special attention,” he said.

De Kerchove put the number of extremists in Europe in excess of 50,000.

“We must select those who are really worrying and the most dangerous, and they should be monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he told El Mundo, a leading Spanish newspaper.
Ben Wallace MP (Photo: Wiki Commons)
This rise in the threat level follows the order from ISIS for homegrown jihadis not to travel to Iraq and Syria but rather carry out attacks on home soil, said Security Minister Ben Wallace in an interview with Sky News.
Meanwhile, Max Hill, who advises the UK government on counter-terrorism issues, called for tougher sentencing including for the families and friends of terrorists who fail to pass on information to security authorities.
Max Hill QC (Video screenshot)
“With the benefit of experience and hindsight it may be the case that some offenses have insufficient discretionary maximum sentences, which should be reviewed,” Hill told the Press Association.

At the same time as these experts were speaking out against the threat, the British media reports Britain will allow in to the country an extremist Islamist preacher who called for the destruction of the UK.
The imam of Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque, Ekrima Sabri, is part of a delegation slated to visit the UK on September 11.
In a radio sermon in 2001 – the year of 9/11 – he called on “Allah, destroy the US, its helpers and its agents. Allah, destroy Britain, its helpers and its agents. Allah, prepare those who will unite the Muslims and march in the steps of Saladin.”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/uk-european-anti-terror-chiefs-unprecedented-threat-level-britain/

Should the U.S. Cancel the Iran Deal?
Home > World > Iran > Should the U.S. Cancel the Iran Deal?
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Thursday, August 31, 2017
Iranian's celebrate the anniversity of the Islamic Revolution by taking selfies with ballistic missiles and chanting "Death to America."
Iranian’s celebrate the anniversity of the Islamic Revolution by taking selfies with ballistic missiles and chanting “Death to America.” (Photo: ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images)
Will President Donald Trump, yet again, verify that Iran is in compliance with the nuclear agreement it made in 2015 with world powers?
While running for president, Trump heavily criticized then-president Barack Obama for making such a flawed deal, yet has bowed to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the State Department twice certifying (as required by law every 90 days) that Iran is in compliance with the agreement.

The next certification must be made in October, but, as former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton argues, there is no need to wait until October to abrogate the deal.

That Iran is in non-compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal is a given. As outlined by Fred Fleitz, a national security expert who spent 25 years working for the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department and the House Intelligence Committee, Iran is in non-compliance in four ways:
Operating more advanced uranium-enrichment centrifuges than is permitted and announcing the capability to initiate mass production of centrifuges
Exceeding limits on production and storage of heavy water, a substance needed to operate plutonium-producing heavy-water nuclear reactors
Covertly procuring nuclear and missile technology outside of Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA-) approved channels
Refusing to allow IAEA inspectors access to nuclear-research and military facilities.
Bolton rightly points out that under the Ian Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, the president must certify (among other points) that:
Iran is transparently and fully implementing the agreement
Iran has not committed a material breach of the agreement (or at least has corrected such a breach if made)
Iran is not engaging in activities that could significantly advance its nuclear weapons program
The agreement is vital to the national security interests of the United States.
John Bolton
John Bolton
It is this last point that Bolton concentrates on in his recently-published proposal called Abrogating the Iran Deal: The Way Forward.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/u-s-cancel-iran-deal/


Two Leading Muslim Voices Condemn Political Islam, Extremism
Home > World > Kuwait > Two Leading Muslim Voices Condemn Political Islam, Extremism
BY CLARION PROJECT Thursday, August 31, 2017
Power on chalkboard
Two leading voices from very different parts of the Muslim world have separately gone on the record to condemn political Islam, violence and radical clerics.
Speaking on TV (and translated by MEMRI), Kuwaiti journalist Abd Al-Aziz Alqenaei called for separation of religion and state and accused political Islam of defending tyranny:
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, urged Muslims to reclaim Islam from extremists.
Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Abubakar not only spoke out against violence but also ideological indoctrination.
Parents must be careful when exposing their children to preachers. The Daily Trust reported him as saying children can easily “falling victims of indoctrination, warning that poisonous ideas are as destructive as a bomb.”
He also attacked those politicians who use religious sentiments to gain power.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/kuwaiti-journalist-nigerian-leader-condemn-political-islam-extremism/


EXCLUSIVE From Iraq: Push to Kurdish Independence
Home > World > Iran > EXCLUSIVE From Iraq: Push to Kurdish Independence
BY ZACH HUFF Thursday, August 31, 2017
Kurds for independence demonstrate outside the UN in Erbil (Photo: SAFIN HAMED/AFP/Getty Images)
ERBIL, Iraq — Just an hour drive from the smoldering ruins of Mosul — until recently Islamic State’s Iraq stronghold — the Kurdish city of Erbil is a bustling, modern metropolis untouched by war. After a decisive role in turning back ISIS, the Kurds stand at yet another precipice as they gamble on an independence referendum next month, risking instability or even conflict with Baghdad and Iran.
Though Kurdistan already feels like a different country from Iraq, visitors arriving to the Kurdish capital are confronted with little evidence of a momentous and historic Kurdish march to statehood.
Aside from a few vinyl banners, TV spots, car decals and a new referendum headquarters, one just doesn’t sense the buzz of a new country in the making — nor one in campaign mode, with presidential and parliamentary elections just eight weeks away.
“We have a strong, organic campaign, reflecting the will and the hearts of our people,” a senior advisor to Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani, told me.
“It’s the culmination of a decades-long Kurdish struggle for dignity after cycles of genocide, war and a failed partnership with Iraq. Unlike the international community, the public doesn’t need much persuasion,” he assured.
The Kurdistan High Referendum Board announced in recent days that it will open a new office with dedicated staff and engagement programs to turn out supporters.
Compared with Brexit or Scotland, the result isn’t likely to be a nail-biter: Polls suggest a decisive outcome in favor, and 99 percent of Kurds said “yes” in an informal independence vote held in 2005.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/exclusive-from-iraq-kurds-push-toward-independence/



Court Adds 296 Muslim Brotherhood Members to Terror List
Home > World > Egypt > Court Adds 296 Muslim Brotherhood Members to Terror List
BY CLARION PROJECT Thursday, August 31, 2017
Former Egyptian president and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi during his trial for espionage and terrorism.n Cairo.
Former Egyptian president and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi during his trial for espionage and terrorism in Cairo. (Photo : KHALED DESOUKI / AFP / Getty Images)
An Egyptian court placed 296 Muslim Brotherhood members on a terror list on August 30.

Cairo Criminal Court described the suspects as “hostile.” As a result those on the list current;y residing in Egypt cannot leave the country and may have their assets frozen. Those loving abroad will likely be arrested on their return.

While the Brotherhood is headquartered in Egypt it has operations on at least 80 countries including the United States.

Figures connected to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood have also been linked more directly to terrorism financing.

In 2008, the Holy Land Foundation was shut down for funneling money to the Palestinian Muslim-Brotherhood-affiliate Hamas.

The trial was the largest terrorism financing trial in American history. Five senior executives of the Holy Land Foundation, at the time the largest Muslim charity in the United States, were convicted of funneling millions of dollars to Hamas. An earlier trial in 2007 was declared a mistrial, and an appellate court upheld the sentences in 2011.

A number of other individuals and organizations, including the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) were listed as unindicted co-conspirators at the Holy Land Foundation trial. CAIR grew out of the Islamic Association for Palestine, a group founded by a Hamas member as a way to support Hamas in the United States.

The designation was upheld by a judge, despite a legal appeal launched by CAIR to have it removed, because of “ample” evidence linking CAIR to Hamas.

The UAE banned CAIR and MAS along with approximately 80 other organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood itself.

A large number of documents were submitted as evidence in that trial, including an official document from a 1991 meeting outlining the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategic goals for North America.

According to this Explanatory Memorandum, those goals include “establishing an effective and a stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood which adopts Muslims’ causes domestically and globally, and which works to expand the observant Muslim base, aims at unifying and directing Muslims’ efforts, presents Islam as a civilization alternative, and supports the global Islamic State wherever it is.”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/court-adds-296-muslim-brotherhood-members-terror-list/

U.S. Muslims Open to Multiple Interpretations of Islam: Poll
Home > Political Islam > In the US > Public Issues > U.S. Muslims Open to Multiple Interpretations of Islam: Poll
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Tuesday, August 29, 2017
An American Muslim woman
An American Muslim woman (Photo: Reuters)
A majority of Muslims in the U.S. say there is more than one way to interpret Islam and believe traditional understandings of Islam must be reinterpreted to reflect contemporary issues, according to a new Pew Research Center poll.
The poll also surprisingly suggests that being highly religious does not necessarily indicate acceptance of traditional notions of Islam.
In addition, the poll indicates that attendance levels of U.S. Muslims at mosques are comparable to attendance levels of Christians at church services. Also comparable are the percentages of Muslims who say religion is very important in their lives versus the percentage of Christians who say the same thing.
The percentages of U.S. Muslims and Christians who believe there is more than one way to interpret their respective religions is also similar.
Specifically, the poll, found:
43% of U.S. Muslims say they attend mosque at least once a week (compared to 47% of U.S. Christians who say they attend church services at least once a week)
65% of U.S. Muslims say religion is very important in their lives (68% of U.S. Christians say the same)
64% of U.S. Muslims say there is room for multiple interpretations of the teachings of Islam (60% of U.S. Christians say the same thing about Christianity). Of note is that even among Muslims who say that religion is very important in their life, 59% say there is more than one way to interpret the faith.
In addition, a majority of U.S. Muslims polled (52%) say traditional understandings of Islam must be reinterpreted to reflect contemporary issues (versus 38% who maintain that traditional understandings are all that is needed). Even among Muslims who say that religion is very important in their lives, 43% say traditional understandings should be reinterpreted (while 46% say not).
The results of this poll should be heartwarming to Muslim reformers who are oftentimes bullied out of the conversation by vocal and well-funded Muslim Brotherhood-linked (Islamist) front groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and their popular shills like sharia-apologist Linda Sarsour, who has become a darling of the far left and feminists.
MOREhttps://clarionproject.org/u-s-muslims-open-to-multiple-interpretations-of-islam-new-poll/



Iran Upholds Convictions of Americans
Home > World > Iran > Iran Upholds Convictions of Americans
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Banquer (l) and Siamak Namazi (Courtesy photo)
An appeals court in Iran upheld the sentence previously handed down to two Iranian-American dual nationals, an elderly father and his son, The New York Times reported.
Baquer Namazi, 81, and his son Siamak, 45, were sentenced last year to 10 years in prison each for “collaborating with an enemy state [the U.S.],” charges that were never detailed.
Siamak was arrested last September, just a short time after the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers was accepted by all parties. His father, a retired official with the United Nations, was arrested in February while visiting his son in jail.
Ironically, Siamak, a businessman, was connected to the National Iranian American Council, a pro-Iranian lobby group in Washington, D.C. He spoke out against U.S. sanctions on Iran and advocated for closer business ties between the countries. He was arrested in October of 2015 while visiting relatives in Iran.
The denial of the Namazis’ appeal comes after the imposition of new sanctions on Iran by the U.S. in recent weeks.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/iran-uphold-convictions-americans/


Secrecy Shrouds Weekend Arrest in Michigan
Home > Terrorism > Secrecy Shrouds Weekend Arrest in Michigan
BY CLARION PROJECT Tuesday, August 29, 2017
(Illustrative photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
In a case shrouded in secrecy, the FBI blocked a Michigan man from flying to the Middle East. Yousef Mohammad Ramadan, 28, was arrested after the bureau’s counterterrorism unit found a weapons arsenal in a storage unit with which he was connected, The Detroit News reported.
Ramadan, from Ypsilanti, was initially charged with knowingly possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number, a five-year felony, in an unusual weekend arraignment which took place when the court was closed to the public.
There is wide speculation that Ramadan, who worked as a security guard, was planning a terror attack or travelling to commit a terror attack. He was stopped with his wife and children from boarding a Royal Jordan Airlines flight to Amman, Jordan.
The Detroit News notes the prosecutor overseeing the case is Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel, head of the U.S. Attorney’s office’s national security unit, who successfully prosecuted underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The lead investigator is FBI Special Agent Ryan Schanberger, a member of an elite counterterrorism team which investigated Detroit terror suspect Sebastian Gregerson, who will be sentenced to prison this week.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/secrecy-shrouds-weekend-arrest/



NY Man Arrested for Attempting to Join ISIS in Syria
Home > Political Islam > Worldwide > Movements > NY Man Arrested for Attempting to Join ISIS in Syria
BY CLARION PROJECT Wednesday, August 30, 2017
U.S. law enforcement officials were able to track down a young man from Queens after he tried to enter Syria allegedly to join ISIS. He was arrested at JFK airport in New York after being flown back to the U.S.
“Ahmed sought to take up arms with violent terrorists who have killed numerous innocent victims, including Americans,” acting U.S. Attorney Bridget Rohde said. “This office and our law enforcement partners will continue to work tirelessly to arrest and prosecute extremists before they are able to threaten the United States and its allies.”
Anti-terror experts had been following Parveg Ahmed, a 22-year old from Ozone Park, NY. Last month, they obtained a warrant to search his personal computer. They found that he had been listening to radical Islamists such as American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was a top leader in al-Qaeda, as well as Abdullah Faisal, a Jamaican-born cleric, who was convicted in the UK for solicitation to commit murder and radical preaching such as urging the killing of Americans who he called enemies of Islam. Faisal is now awaiting trial in the U.S.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/ny-man-arrested-join-isis-syria/

Jerusalem Prayer Facebook Page Brings 28 Million Christians Together to Pray for Israel
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz August 28, 2017 , 1:30 pm
0Share 0Email 0Share
“Pray for the well-being of Yerushalayim; May those who love you be at peace.” Psalms 122:6 (The Israel Bible™)
Christians attend a multi-faith event in Jerusalem in celebration of the city’s Jubilee. (Michio Nagata)
The Jerusalem Prayer Team, one of Facebook’s largest prayer pages, has just passed a landmark 28 million members. One of the largest social media efforts in fighting anti-Semitism, the Christian-run page is dedicated to praying for the sake of the Jewish people and the peace of Jerusalem.
The page was founded by Mike Evans, a Middle East analyst and award-winning journalist, as part of his multi-pronged defense of Israel. The group organizes regular prayers for the sake of Israel based on the imperative stated in Psalms.
Pray for the well-being of Yerushalayim; May those who love you be at peace. Psalms 122:6
This need was reinforced in the recent white supremacist attack in Charlottesville, which Evans decried as being heavily anti-Semitic.
“It’s Christians, especially in America, who form the firewall against anti-Semitism that so easily creeps into the international social and political conversation,” Evan told Charisma News. “It’s especially encouraging that the younger generation is standing with Israel and employing social media in spreading the message.
Read more at https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/93911/facebook-jerusalem-prayer-page-brings-28-million-christians-together-pray-israel/#ZiFxOFfTJRt2IU7F.99


Convene an international conference to halt the spread of radical Islam and “take on the ideology of Radical Islam” including “speak[ing] out against the oppression of women, gays and people of different faith”

The president got off to an impressive start in a ground-breaking keynote speech he made four months after his inauguration at the Arab Islamic American Summit held in Saudi Arabia in May 2017.

The summit was true to his promise of convening an international conference to halt the spread of radical Islam.

Trump delivered a bold speech in which he clearly laid out to the heads of Muslim states that they had arrived at a pivotal moment:

It is a choice between two futures – and it is a choice America CANNOT make for you.
A better future is only possible if your nations drive out the terrorists and extremists. Drive. Them. Out. DRIVE THEM OUT of your places of worship.
DRIVE THEM OUT of your communities.
DRIVE THEM OUT of your holy land, and
DRIVE THEM OUT OF THIS EARTH.
In concept and execution, the Trump Administration used the summit to mark a clear U-turn away from the Obama doctrine of embracing Iran at the expense of America’s Sunni Arab allies.
During the trip, Trump inaugurated the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology in Riyadh, more than ironic considering the historical role of Saudi Arabia’s extremist form of Islam, Wahhabism, in fomenting terror and radicalism around the world.
Work “side by side with our friends in the Middle East…”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/trump-promises-youngstown/

Mauro on American ISIS Child: Modern-Day Nazism
Home > Political Islam > In the US > National Security > Mauro on American ISIS Child: Modern-Day Nazism
BY CLARION PROJECT Sunday, August 27, 2017
After ISIS issued a video of an American child fighter threatening President Donald Trump, Clarion’s Shillman Fellow Ryan Mauro says this Islamic State tactic is simply “modern-day Naziism.”

Watch Mauro explain why ISIS issued the video and what our response should be.
VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=14&v=5az2gVnptXA

Mauro on American ISIS Child: Modern-Day Nazism
Published on 27 Aug 2017
After ISIS issued a video of an American child fighter threatening President Donald Trump, Clarion's Shillman Fellow Ryan Mauro says this Islamic State tactic is simply "modern-day Naziism."
Watch Mauro explain why ISIS issued the video and what our response should be.

EXCLUSIVE: Censoring Textbooks For Arab Dictators
Home > Political Islam > Worldwide > Sharia Regimes > EXCLUSIVE: Censoring Textbooks For Arab Dictators
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Thursday, August 24, 2017
Robot policemen in Dubai. (Photo: GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP/GettyImages)
A robot police officer (r) in Dubai. (Photo: GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP/GettyImages)
A major Western publishing house is censoring English-language textbooks for publication in a Middle Eastern dictatorship, Clarion Project has learned.
A source who works within the publishing industry who spoke to Clarion on the condition of anonymity revealed the extent of the censorship after becoming appalled at what was being asked.
“Shakespeare, Whitman and other major english language writers have to be redacted,” they said.
The country, which we cannot name, commissioned the publishing house to edit textbooks used to teach English to high school students in grades 6-12. In addition to academic alterations to fit with the curriculum, the education department of the unnamed country gave publishers a lengthy list of demands for editors to bring the educational materials, in line with the state’s official ideology.
The list of demands includes:
Changing mixed gender examples to single gender examples unless it is clear it’s between members of the same family.
Removing all references to or images of religious buildings or symbols belonging to faiths other than Islam.
Removing all instances of hand-holding except members of the same gender shaking hands or very small children.
Removing all references to the Arab Spring or revolutions in general.
Changing all references to holidays to Islamic holidays instead of non-Islamic ones.
Remove all references to sex, magic, alcohol, cigarettes, homosexuality, drugs, gambling, card games, Israel, the supernatural, aliens, nightclubs, pork products or birthdays.
The publishing house appears to have committed to making all the required alterations without protest. Although some staff are reportedly uncomfortable with the proposed changes, they need the money. As an editor in a European publishing house told the source “If they say jump, we say how high?”

It is chilling that Middle-Eastern dictatorships are able to use their financial clout to co-opt Western institutions into helping them oppress their own people. Restricting access to education in this manner and censoring so many topics is an extremely repressive tactic aimed at keeping the populace indoctrinated and loyal to the regime and to state mandated interpretations of Islam.
https://clarionproject.org/censoring-textbooks-dictators/

Taliban to Trump: Leave Afghanistan Before It’s a US Graveyard
Home > World > Afghanistan > Taliban to Trump: Leave Afghanistan Before It’s a US Graveyard
BY CLARION PROJECT Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Members of the Afghan Taliban
Members of the Afghan Taliban (Photo: FARIDULLAH AHMADZAI/AFP/Getty Images)
The Taliban in Afghanistan lashed out at the U.S. after President Donald Trump laid out plans to increase troops to defeat the Taliban and other terror groups operating in the country, reported Al Jazeera.
“If America doesn’t withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, soon Afghanistan will become another graveyard for this superpower in the 21st century,” said Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid.
Another Taliban official said Trump was continuing the “arrogant behavior” of previous U.S. presidents. “He is just wasting American soldiers. We know how to defend our country. It will not change anything. For generations, we have fought this war, we are not scared, we are fresh, and we will continue this war until our last breath,” he said, speaking to the AFP news agency.
Although Trump did not mention a number, senior White House officials said the president had already authorized sending at least 3,900 more troops to the warn-torn country.
Outlining his plan in a speech earlier this week, Trump noted there are 20 groups designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the U.S. State Department operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan. If the U.S. abandons Afghanistan, these groups will use the country as a launching pad to target the U.S. and destabilize the region, including nuclear-armed Pakistan.
https://clarionproject.org/afghan-taliban-responds-trump/


US, Canadian Christians Attacked by Shiite Militia
Home > World > Canada > US, Canadian Christians Attacked by Shiite Militia
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Wednesday, August 23, 2017
Members of the Iranian-backed Shiite militia Hashed al-Shaabi
Members of the Iranian-backed Shiite militia Hashed al-Shaabi in Iraq (Photo: AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images)
An American and Canadian Christian delegation was assaulted by Shiite Arab militiamen in Iraq while trying to visit the Christian areas in the Nineveh Plain, reported Basnews.
The delegation was escorted by members of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), including the director of Christian affairs for the KRG’s Ministry of Religious of Endowment and Religious Affairs. They were stopped by members of the Iranian-backed Hashd al-Shaabi militia at a checkpoint between Qaraqosh and Bartila, two Christian districts in Nineveh Plain.
The North Americans came under attack and were protected by Kurdish Peshmerga forces, three of whom were wounded in the ensuing exchange of gunfire.
Intervention from the Iraqi prime minister’s office eventually calmed the situation.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/us-canadian-christians-attacked-shiite-militia/

Car Ramming in Marseilles
Home > World > France > Car Ramming in Marseilles
BY CLARION PROJECT Monday, August 21, 2017
The aftermath of a car ramming in Marseilles August 21, 2017
The aftermath of a car ramming in Marseilles August 21, 2017 (Photo: BORIS HORVAT/AFP/Getty Images)
In what looks like the latest deliberate car ramming in France, a 35-year-old man careened through a street in Marseilles, plowing into pedestrians at two separate bus stops, killing at least one person.

First reports say the man was known to authorities for petty crimes and has a history of mental health problems.

However, whether or not the attack proves to be an Islamist terror incident or simply a copycat crime, we have jihadis to thank for introducing to the world this horrific modus operandi.

That those with mental health issues are attracted to this type of sheer cruelty speaks to the fact that their sick imaginations have been sparked by Islamist terror.

At press time, a 40-year-old woman was reported dead and a man seriously wounded in the legs. More reports of injuries will most likely follow.
https://clarionproject.org/breaking-car-ramming-marseilles/



Barcelona Imam Radicalized My Sons’
https://clarionproject.org/barcelona-imam-radicalized-sons/
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Monday, August 21, 2017
Mourners gather around a makeshift memorial to the terror victims in Barcelona
Mourners gather around a makeshift memorial to the terror victims in Barcelona. (Photo: JAVIER SORIANO/AFP/Getty Images)
The father of two of the Barcelona terrorists who were part of an Islamist terrorist cell accused the imam at the neighborhood mosque of radicalizing his sons.

“I don’t know what’s happened, I don’t know how to feel, they’re my sons but look at the evil they’ve done,” said Hechami Gasi, father of Mohamed and Omar Hychami who were shot dead in Cambrils in the early hours of Friday morning. “The imam must have put these ideas in their heads. They were good boys.”

The imam in question, Abdelbaki Es Satty, has been missing since August 15. He is believed to have been killed in an explosion in what police officers believe was an accident at a bomb-making factory run by the terror cell.

Es Satty is thought to be the mastermind behind the 12-person terror cell that was responsible for the van ramming that killed 13 on Barcelona’s famous Las Ramblas. An investigation of the house where the explosion occurred in the Spainish town of Alcanar netted 120 gas canisters.

In addition to the 13 killed in Barcelona, another woman died after being hit by a vehicle ramming in Cambrils on August 18.

Es Satty is said to be a Salafi associate of Rachid Aglif, accused and sent to jail for 18 years for his part in the 2004 train bombings in Madrid that killed 192.

Five jihadis were killed by the police following the attack with a sixth still on the run. Younes Abouyaaqoub, 22, is believed to have escaped Spain in rented vehicle – possibly to France.

In a news conference, Abouyaaqoub’s mother made an impassioned plea to her son to give himself up. “He must go to the police, he must hand himself in. He is better off in prison than being dead,” she said.

Four jihadis believed to be part of the cell are under arrest.

Police believe the cell was preparing the attacks for more than six months and the van ramming was just one of the attacks that they were planning for Barcelona.

Watch Clarion Project’s Ryan Mauro on Fox on the Salafist connection to radicalization and how 100 mosques in Spain, funded by America’s “allies” Saudi Arabia and Qatar were known to have radical imam as early as 2011, long before ISIS burst onto the scene:
VIDEO FOX NEWS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5xNdrGwB_s

After Barcelona: How Safe Do You Feel?
https://clarionproject.org/barcelona-safe-feel/
Home > Terrorism > After Barcelona: How Safe Do You Feel?
BY CLARION PROJECT Sunday, August 20, 2017
Tourists visit the Statue of Liberty
Tourists visit the Statue of Liberty (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
While ISIS is getting routed in Iraq and Syria, they are still able to carry out attacks in Western countries. Sporadic terror attacks in cities across Europe seem to have increased in number during the last weeks.

Summer is normally the time of carefree vacations. In light of the latest Islamist attacks, Clarion is surveying our readers:

POLL
How safe do you feel?
Very safe Fairly safe Fairly unsafe Very unsafe
Comments
Submit

Dallas ISIS Recruiter Encouraged Ariana Grande Bomber
Home > World > Italy > Dallas ISIS Recruiter Encouraged Ariana Grande Bomber
BY CLARION PROJECT Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Police escort concert goers from the site of the Ariana Grande concert following a terror attack.
Police escort concert goers from the site of the Ariana Grande concert following a terror attack. (Photo: Dave Thompson/Getty Images)
The bomber who carried out the attack on the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England had input and encouragement from a U.S.-based ISIS recruiter, Newsweek reported.
The attack, which targeted concert-goers as they left the arena, killed 22 people in August 2016.
Said Azzam Mohamad Rahim, a 40-year-old American national of Jordanian descent from Dallas, was part of an online chat with the bomber, Salman Abedi, a 22-year-old British national of Libyan descent, who was seeking authorization to carry out the bombing.
During the chat, which was held on the encrypted messaging app Zello, Abedi addressed a question to a sheikh in the group (later identified as Mouner el-Aoual, 28, an ISIS jihadi in Turin, Italy).
“Sheikh, I live in Manchester, in Great Britain. I live among non-Muslims. I have found work with them. Am I allowed to kill them? Is it permitted to kill them with a bomb?” Abedi asked.
Rahim responded, “To the boy from Manchester I say, OK, kill them! Show no mercy to civilians.”
El-Aoual agreed, saying, Abedi should “fight the pagans all together.”
Rahim was arrested in the U.S. last March for making false statements to federal officers about his alleged support of ISIS.
El-Aoual was later arrested by Italian police on suspicion of extremist activities.
https://clarionproject.org/ariana-grande-bomber-encouraged-by-dallas-isis-recruiter/


Canada May Cancel $15 Billion Saudi Arms Deal
Home > World > Canada > Canada May Cancel $15 Billion Saudi Arms Deal
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Wednesday, August 16, 2017
A Canadian made LAV III armored vehicle. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
A Canadian made LAV III armored vehicle. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Video and photographic evidence of Saudi Arabia’s National Guard using Canadian-made armored vehicles to violently repress its citizenry have triggered a review of arms sales to Saudi Arabia by Ottawa. If it’s confirmed that Saudi Arabia used Canadian equipment against civilians, Canada will be in violation of its own export laws.
Videos and images circulated on social media at the end of July allegedly showed Canadian-made vehicles in action against civilians. The National Guard reportedly used the vehicles to crush anti-government protests in Awamiyah, a city in the Qatif region, the Shiite majority eastern part of the country. Military experts reportedly identified the vehicles as Gurkha RPVs made by Terradyne Armored Vehicles of London, Ontario.
The media reports prompted Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland to order a probe into Canadian arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
“We are absolutely committed to the defense of human rights and we condemn all violations of human rights,” Freeland told CBC. “We also are very clear that we expect the end users of any and all exports to abide by the terms of our export permits.”
https://clarionproject.org/canada-saudi-deal-human-rights/


Muslim Blasts Gay Ex-Muslim as ‘Far Right’ on Live TV
Home > Political Islam > Sharia Governance > Gay Rights > Muslim Blasts Gay Ex-Muslim as ‘Far Right’ on Live TV
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Tuesday, August 15, 2017
(Photo: Screenshot from Video)
From left to right: Veteran gay rights campaigner Peter Thatchell, Jimmy Bangash of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and Mohammed Shafiq, CEO of the Ramadhan Foundation. (Photo: Screenshot from Video)
A surreal exchange saw a Muslim activist with extremist connections accuse gay rights activists of “Islamophobia” to their faces on live TV because they campaigned against Islamist extremists who want to see all LGBT people murdered.
Activists Peter Thatchell, a veteran human rights campaigner, and Jimmy Bangash, of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB), were interviewed on Russia Today after protesting against the sharia-mandated death penalty for homosexuality and the treatment of gays by Muslim extremists worldwide.
What made the interview so bizarre is the allegations of bigotry made by Mohammed Shafiq, CEO of the Ramadhan Foundation, an organization with extremist links. It had on its advisory board a man named Dr. Abdullah Quick, who previously called for the death penalty for homosexuals and who called Jews “filth.” Quick later apologized for calling for the death of gays (a statement allegedly made in 2000). Now says he is a changed man.
“They’re a rampant islamophobic organization! They are responsible for promoting hate against Muslims,” Shafiq ranted against the CEMB. “You’ve adopted the narrative of the far-right and you should be ashamed of yourself.”
Watch the highlights (Full 10 Minute Clip at the bottom):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=UMvOY1EkLJo
MORE https://clarionproject.org/muslim-blasts-gay-ex-muslim-as-far-right-on-live-tv/


Water Is Iran’s New Weapon Against Its Ahwazi Minority
Home > World > Iran > Water Is Iran’s New Weapon Against Its Ahwazi Minority
BY RAHIM HAMID Monday, August 14, 2017
Fetid water from the tap in the Ahwazi region of Iran.
Fetid water from the tap in the Ahwazi region of Iran. (Photo: courtesy)
This fetid brown liquid is not raw sewage but the massively polluted normal drinking water provided by the Iranian regime for the Ahwazi Arab people of southwest Iran. This foul-tasting and foul-smelling brown discharge is the only source of water for drinking and bathing, with the people of the region joking grimly that they don’t drink water but “chocolate milkshake.”

Activists on social media have circulated these pictures to show what the people of Ahwaz endure on a daily basis. This has led to widespread illness and many outbreaks of disease. This is taking place while the regime in Tehran provides Iranian-only settlements in the Arab region with all the standard modern amenities including clean drinking water. With the regime damming and diverting the rivers in the Ahwaz region to provide water to other, non-Arab areas of the country, desertification and pollution of the remaining water sources are steadily worsening, with the pollution from the oil and gas industry in the area adding to this toxic environmental mix.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/water-irans-new-weapon-ahwazi-minority/

Muslims Pushing For Women’s Rights Globally
Home > World > Tunisia > Muslims Pushing For Women’s Rights Globally
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Tuesday, August 15, 2017
A Tunisian woman demonstrates against terrorism. (Photo: FETHI BELAID/AFP/Getty Images)
A Tunisian woman demonstrates against terrorism. (Photo: FETHI BELAID/AFP/Getty Images)
Tunisia is taking one step closer to full gender equality, following new proposals by President Beji Caid Essebsi. In a speech on National Women’s Day he announced the formation of a new committee to study how to achieve gender equality in all fields.
In particular he is seeking to end the Islamic inheritance system that sees women inherit half of what a man receives.
He also called for the government to allow Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men.
His calls were supported by the Diwan al-Ifta, a religious institution comprising senior scholars in charge of issuing religious edicts.
Egypt’s Al-Azhar slammed the proposals as un-Islamic.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/muslims-pushing-womens-rights-globally/

Forced to Resign for Calling Out Rape Gangs
Home > Human Rights > Human Rights Violators > Child Abuse > Forced to Resign for Calling Out Rape Gangs
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Thursday, August 17, 2017
Part of the men convicted in the child sex grooming gang in Rotherham
Some of the men convicted in the child sex grooming gang in Rotherham.
“Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls.”
For making this statement of fact, Sarah Champion, a Labour MP and tireless campaigner for the victims of these gangs, has been forced to resign (at least it would appear forced) from her position as shadow secretary for women and equalities (in the opposition).
Frustrated that years after recommendations were made to endless government commissions that measures haven’t been taken to support victims and prevent such abuse in the future, Champion wrote an article in The Sun to further this cause.
In the article, Champion went on to say, “There. I said it. Does that make me a
Labour MP Sarah Champion
racist? Or am I just prepared to call out this horrifying problem for what it is?”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/forced-resign-calling-rape-gangs/


Report: Muslim Brotherhood Paying People to Protest in Europe
Home > World > Egypt > Report: Muslim Brotherhood Paying People to Protest in Europe
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Wednesday, August 16, 2017
Turkish supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood flash the movement's four-finger Rabia sign. (Photo: ADEM ALTAN / AFP / Getty Images)
Turkish supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood flash the movement’s four-finger Rabia sign. (Photo: ADEM ALTAN / AFP / Getty Images)
German police arrested an Egyptian opposition journalist at Berlin’s Schoenefeld Airport acting on an Interpol arrest warrant issued by Egypt on Tuesday.
Abdulrahman Ezz was sentenced in absentia by Egyptian courts to 20 years imprisonment. He was charged with incitement to violence, attacking a police station and imprisoning and torturing people after the 2013 popularly-backed coup that saw General Sisi oust Muslim Brotherhood President Muhammed Morsi.
Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood reportedly immediately began a campaign to release Ezz, according to Egyptian media outlet Al-Bawaba.
The Egyptian German coalition, said to be close to the Muslim Brotherhood, sent two of its members to the airport in Berlin to mediate German authorities to release Ezz. A source told Al-Bawaba that the coalition is coordinating with Amnesty and they will send a representative to the airport in Berlin.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/muslim-brotherhood-europe-report/




ISIS Claims Responsibility for Deadly Barcelona Attack [VIDEO]
Officials Deny Anti-Israel Roots of Deadly Barcelona Attack [VIDEO]
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz August 18, 2017 , 11:18 am
“You will listen to the entreaty of the lowly, Hashem, You will make their hearts firm; You will incline Your ear. 18 to Champion the orphan and the downtrodden, that men who are of the earth tyrannize no more.” Psalms 10:17-18 (The Israel Bible™)
Tel Aviv Municipal Building lit up to show solidarity with Barcelona (Photo Flash90)
A van plowed through crowds on a street in Barcelona, Spain on Thursday afternoon, killing 13 and injuring about 100 others in what officials are now saying was a Jihadist terror attack. The driver fled the scene and a manhunt is underway.
Police say the Fiat van used in the attack was leased to a man named Driss Oukabir, a 28-year-old Moroccan-born legal resident of the European Union. Oukabir and another suspect are in police custody. Oukabir claims that his ID papers, found in the van, were stolen by his 18-year old brother before the attack. A third suspect was arrested Friday morning in Ripoll, 65 miles from Barcelona.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXHyFpy507I

Help Us Remove the Davis, Ca. Imam
Home > Political Islam > In the US > Mosques > Help Us Remove the Davis, Ca. Imam
BY DAVID HARRIS Tuesday, August 8, 2017
KKK and the David imam
Please share this graphic with friends and colleagues and then sign the petition below as we continue our campaign against anti-Semitic Davis, California imam Ammar Shahin.
Shahin told his congregation, “Allah does not change the situation of a people until they change their own situation. The Prophet Muhammed said, ‘Judgment day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews.’”
Clarion Project covered his sermon, along with other problematic statements made by American Muslim leaders, over the last week.
Clarion Project calls on the Islamic Center of Davis to fire Imam Ammar Shahin immediately and issue a full apology for both his and their incitement to anti-Semitic violence and the offense they both have caused to the Jewish community by refusing to condemn this hate speech.
https://www.change.org/p/islamic-center-of-davis-mosque-board-islamic-center-of-davis-fire-your-antisemitic-imam


Where Does U.S. Law Stand on Hate Speech?
Home > Political Islam > In the US > Legal Issues > Where Does U.S. Law Stand on Hate Speech?
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Sunday, August 6, 2017
A KKK rally. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
A KKK rally. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
The Simon Weisenthal Center in late July 2017 asked then U.S. homeland security secretary John Kelly “to launch an immediate investigation of Imam Ammar Shahin, the imam of the Islamic Center of Davis in California, for inciting to murder Jews.”
Imam Shahin called on Allah to “liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews” saying “Oh Allah, count them one by one and annihilate them down to the very last one. Do not spare any of them.”
So where does the law stand on such sermons?
Laws on free speech and hate speech differ around the world. In the United States at this time there is no legal concept of “hate speech,” which is protected by the first amendment.
The only form of speech deemed illegal is that which is likely to incite violence imminently, even if it incites violence at some future time. This has been the case in U.S. constitutional law since 1969.
Brandenburg vs Ohio
MORE https://clarionproject.org/where-does-the-law-stand-on-hate-speech/

It Doesn’t End With Davis: Radical Mosques in America
Home > US > It Doesn’t End With Davis: Radical Mosques in America
BY RYAN MAURO Thursday, August 10, 2017
(Inset photos: Mohammad Qatanani (left), Siraj Wahhaj (top right), Anwar al-Awlaki (bottom right); background: Hamas)
(Inset photos: Mohammad Qatanani (left), Siraj Wahhaj (top right), Anwar al-Awlaki (bottom right); background: Hamas)
The Islamic Center of Davis, led by an extremist anti-Semitic imam that petitioners want fired, is not an anomaly. There have been many Islamist preachers in America who teach such extremism or belong to radical organizations.
Here are 5 examples:
1.Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, Falls Church, Virginia
The mosque was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas network in America and is officially affiliated with two Brotherhood fronts designated by the U.S. Justice Department as unindicted co-conspirators in the largest terrorism-financing trial in U.S. history.
A 2002 U.S. government report said the mosque is “operating as a front for Hamas operatives in the U.S.”
Dar al-Hijrah is best known for being the chosen place of worship for two of the 9/11 hijackers and the Fort Hood shooter. From 2001 to 2002, it was led by Anwar al-Awlaki, who later became a senior Al-Qaeda terrorist.
In 2013, the mosque’s imam was videotaped preaching in favor of violent jihad at a Virginia high school after school closed. The mosque’s director of outreach publicly resigned this year after the imam’s comments in favor of female genital mutilation came to light. The imam was placed on administrative leave.
2.Anjuman-e-Najmi, Farmington Hills, Michigan
After two Muslim doctors were arrested for performing female genital mutilation on about 100 girls over 12 years, this mosque was accused of paying for the procedures. The two doctors held leadership positions in the mosque.
The mosque denies involvement and says it is cooperating with the investigation.
The mosque follows the Dawoodi Bohra Islamic sect based in India where female genital mutilation is a common practice. About one million Muslims belong to the sect globally.
3.Masjid at-Taqwa, Brooklyn, NY
This mosque is led by Siraj Wahhaj, one of the most radical and popular Islamist preachers in the country. His sermons in the 1990s were ferociously anti-American, advocated violent jihad and openly advocated turning America into a theocratic caliphate. He has since softened his tone without retracting those statements, telling Muslims not to fall into the “trap” of discussing sharia (Islamic) law when “we are not there yet.”
Wahhaj has had a close relationship with the various Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas-linked groups in the U.S. He was also a friend of the “Blind Sheikh,” who was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
The mosque came under NYPD surveillance in the years after 9/11 because of evidence of terrorist and criminal activity, including possible use of the mosque to finance terrorists. The NYPD found that the mosque has an armed “security team” that has learned how to disarm police officers. The mosque was also found to be organizing paintball events where the participants were referred to as “jihad warriors.”
Read more in our profile of the mosque. https://clarionproject.org/masjid-taqwa/
https://clarionproject.org/doesnt-end-davis-5-radical-mosques-america/

Is Jihadism a Cult?
Home > Political Islam > Worldwide > Movements > Is Jihadism a Cult?
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Wednesday, August 9, 2017
Marc Sageman, a CIA case officer who went on to become a psychiatrist, makes an unusual argument in his book Leaderless Jihad: Understanding Terror Networks. Back in 2004, he analyzed 400 jihadists and their backgrounds and sketched out the personal and psychological journeys that people make on their path to radicalization.
Sageman’s conclusion was assessed by David Ignatius of The Washington Post as: “We are facing something closer to a cult network than an organized global adversary. Like many cults through history, the Muslim terrorists thrive by channeling and perverting the idealism of young people.”
What is a Cult?
A cult provides answers to the problems of meaning and alienation by offering a clear and utopian vision of a better future, in this case the vision of a powerful and unitary Muslim state which implements divine law and is thus the perfect society.
Other cults portray the perfect vision of a socialist utopia or a secret, superior way of life learnt from aliens or present a leader who thinks he (or she) is Christ returned to create the kingdom of heaven on earth.
It then asserts that the only way to achieve this perfect goal is to submit oneself totally to the cult. Various techniques are used to ensure loyalty once the member has been recruited, including brainwashing techniques and abuse.
This same technique is used in Islamism with the notion of submitting oneself to the will of Allah (a core part of Islam), together with the concept of ba’yah (pledge of allegiance) as a religious duty (in the case of ISIS, bayah to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi).
Cults normally require a member to sever all relationships with ones friends and family, pledging loyalty only to the cult leader and totally forgetting their past life. In this way, the cult gains sole influence over its adherents and stifles dissent.
Islamism does this through the notion of al wala wal bara (loyalty and disavowal), the notion that the individual is enjoined to love Allah and those within the Islamist movement and to hate outsiders as people who have fallen under the control of Satan and are evil.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/is-jihadism-a-cult/

Strides Made Against FGM, But Just Tip of Iceberg
Strides Made Against FGM, But Just Tip of Iceberg
BY CLARION PROJECT Tuesday, August 8, 2017
FGM in Egypt
The image above points to some progress in Egypt in eradicating female genital mutilation but it also points to the incredible amount of work yet to be done in educating the public against this barbaric act.
What is FGM?
Female Genital Mutilation (FMG) includes all procedures involving partial or complete removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.
Most girls who have undergone FGM are cut between the ages of four and 12. The World Health Organization regards FGM as a worldwide public health issue due to its harmful physical and mental effects.
Short-term complications can include hemorrhaging, pain, shock, and even death, while long-term complications include formation of cysts, problems with sexual intercourse and giving birth, chronic pelvic infection and sterility.
The trauma of FGM often lasts a lifetime and can cause depression and anxiety, among other psychological problems.
FGM reduces or eliminate sexual pleasure for the victim.
VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CneSUU_VLfs
Honor Diaries: Female Genital Mutilation

If Muhammed Cartoons Are OK, So Is Hijabi Statue of Liberty
Home > Political Islam > In the US > Public Issues > If Muhammed Cartoons Are OK, So Is Hijabi Statue of Liberty
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Tuesday, August 8, 2017
https://clarionproject.org/muhammed-cartoons-hijabi-liberty/
A PAINTING OF THE STUTUE OF LIBERTY WEARING A HIJAB
that won fourth place in a congressional art competition is now hanging in the office of Congressman Lou Correa (D-CA).
However, the painting “is being attacked as an unpatriotic violation of the separation of church and state by members of We the People Rising, a Claremont-based activist group that advocates stricter enforcement of immigration laws,” as reported by local media outlet The Orange C0unty Register.
Take our poll below.
The activists went to Correa’s office and met with his staff, a visit they filmed and posted to YouTube. Activist Mike McGertrick complained that “you guys have a picture out in front of your office of the statue of liberty wearing a hijab, which I find reprehensible and disrespectful.”
VIDEO
Their protest was picked up by the website Young Conservatives and retweeted by Republican politician Sarah Palin. Correa’s team reported an increased number of calls to the office about the painting as well as “unspecified threats.” They are refusing to release the name of the student who painted the piece.
Each spring, the Congressional Institute sponsors a nationwide high school visual art competition to recognize and encourage artistic talent in the nation and in each congressional district. Since the Artistic Discovery competition began in 1982, more than 650,000 high school students have participated.
Students submit entries to their representative’s office, and panels of district artists select the winning entries. Winners are recognized both in their district and at an annual awards ceremony in Washington, DC. The winning works are displayed for one year at the U.S. Capitol.
Correa told media he has no plans to take the painting down.
“You take it in the context of a lady, probably a Muslim American — with all that’s going on, she’s a proud American,” Correa told the Register. “That’s what it says to me.”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/muhammed-cartoons-hijabi-liberty/
Their protest was picked up by the website Young Conservatives and retweeted by Republican politician Sarah Palin. Correa’s team reported an increased number of calls to the office about the painting as well as “unspecified threats.” They are refusing to release the name of the student who painted the piece.

Each spring, the Congressional Institute sponsors a nationwide high school visual art competition to recognize and encourage artistic talent in the nation and in each congressional district. Since the Artistic Discovery competition began in 1982, more than 650,000 high school students have participated.

Students submit entries to their representative’s office, and panels of district artists select the winning entries. Winners are recognized both in their district and at an annual awards ceremony in Washington, DC. The winning works are displayed for one year at the U.S. Capitol.

Correa told media he has no plans to take the painting down.

“You take it in the context of a lady, probably a Muslim American — with all that’s going on, she’s a proud American,” Correa told the Register. “That’s what it says to me.”

Why Did Malaysia Censor a Book on Moderate Islam?
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Monday, July 31, 2017 
 Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons) 
Malaysian authorities censored a book promoting moderate Islam written by prominent Malaysian academics. The book, entitled Breaking The Silence: Voices Of Moderation – Islam In A Constitutional Democracy was published in 2015 by a group of public intellectuals calling themselves the Group of 25.
Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said in the order banning the book it “is likely to be prejudicial to public order, likely to alarm public opinion, and likely to be prejudicial to public interest” and therefore “is absolutely prohibited throughout Malaysia.”
Critics of the ban say it flies in the face of the government’s alleged campaign to support moderate Islam, especially since many of the chapters were written by scholars who support the same brand of Islam as Prime Minister Najib Razak.
“This is obviously an action intended to suppress free speech. The articles in the book were written by respected academics, lawyers and social activists,” G25 spokesperson Datuk Noor Farida Ariffin told Asian Correspondent.
“They are intellectual articles mainly discussing the place of Islam in the Federal Constitution. None of the articles have criticised Islam or touched on matters of Aqidah ( faith ).”
The book was written in order to “encourage an informed and rational dialogue on the ways Islam is used as a source of public law and policy in multiracial and multi-religious Malaysia yet within the letter and spirit of the federal Constitution,” according to the foreword written by previous Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi.
Banning the book is not the only censorship taking place in Malaysia this month. It followed a previous ban put out on July 19 which took the Spanish language pop hit Despacito off the airwaves due to its sexually suggestive lyrics.
Lyrics include the rather racy verse: “I want to strip you off with kisses slowly, sign the walls of your labyrinth, and make your whole body a manuscript (turn it up, turn it up, turn it up, turn it up).”
An explanation may be simpler than it first appears. Razak, of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) is up for reelection next year. Despite the fact that the UMNO has ruled in Malaysia since independence, he is struggling to maintain popularity. In order to shore up support, he recently reached out to an unlikely ally, the Islamist Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS). PAS wants to see shariah law implemented for Muslims in Malaysia.
A so-called informal cooperation arrangement will enable Razak to boost support while giving PAS leader Hadi Awang an opportunity to influence policy in a more pro-Islamist direction.
“The issues of race, ethnicity, the Malay language and especially Islam are close to the heart of the Malays,” Mohamed Mustafa Ishak, a professor of politics and international studies at Universiti Utara Malaysia told Bloomberg about the cooperation between the two parties. “By working together to uphold Islam, either through the implementation of shariah law or strengthening the position of Islam within the administration, this serves both parties well.”
In Terrenganu State, the UNMO made sure infra-red cameras were installed in a cinema to monitor couples for illicit activities, as a way of appealing to conservative Muslims.
More than 60% of Malaysians are Muslims and 50% are ethnic Malays. Censoring a book promoting moderate Islam (and a raunchy pop song) may have been the price Razak paid for Islamist support
MORE https://clarionproject.org/malaysia-censor-moderate-islam/



Uncover the Toxic Connection Between Drugs and Jihad
Home > Political Islam > In the US > National Security > Uncover the Toxic Connection Between Drugs and Jihad
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Monday, August 7, 2017 
 Illustrative picture. (Photo: Cristian C/Creative Commons)
Illustrative picture. (Photo: Cristian C / Creative Commons)
The path from drug addict to religious fundamentalist is a well-trodden one. In the late 1960s through the seventies the movement dubbed as the ‘Jesus Freaks’ abandoned flower power for the Prince of Peace, helped on their way by joints and LSD. The Jewish corollary saw Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach bring hippies into the fold through his “House of Love and Prayer.”
Although most of these teenagers grew out of it, many were inducted into Christian cults like the Children of God, also known as The Family, where sexual abuse and brainwashing abounded.
Jihadism is no different and although many jihadi recruits have not experimented with mind altering substances, there is a strong component which has. We are not talking here about the well-documented financial and paramilitary connections between terrorist groups and drug cartels, although as investigative journalist Don Winslow, who has covered drug cartels and terrorism for 15 years writes “our drug policies have driven these groups into each other’s bloodstained arms.”
We’re talking about terrorists who take drugs. So what is the connection
Why People Take Drugs
MORE https://clarionproject.org/uncover-toxic-connection-drugs-jihad/

GRAPHIC VIDEO: Meet ISIS’ Latest Child Executioner
Home > Terrorism > GRAPHIC VIDEO: Meet ISIS’ Latest Child Executioner
BY CLARION PROJECT Monday, August 7, 2017 
 ISIS child executioner Abu Bakr
ISIS child executioner Abu Bakr
This video is extremely graphic and we urge viewer discretion.

At Clarion we constantly discuss whether to post such videos. For now we believe the public must be made aware of the atrocities of ISIS and others. We hope these sickening images will lead you to call for action against these barbarians. If you want to help us challenge radical Islam, please get in touch.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/graphic-video-meet-isis-latest-child-executioner/


Where Does U.S. Law Stand on Hate Speech?
Home > Political Islam > In the US > Legal Issues > Where Does U.S. Law Stand on Hate Speech?
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Sunday, August 6, 2017 
 A KKK rally. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
A KKK rally. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
The Simon Weisenthal Center in late July 2017 asked then U.S. homeland security secretary John Kelly “to launch an immediate investigation of Imam Ammar Shahin, the imam of the Islamic Center of Davis in California, for inciting to murder Jews.”
Imam Shahin called on Allah to “liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews” saying “Oh Allah, count them one by one and annihilate them down to the very last one. Do not spare any of them.”
So where does the law stand on such sermons?
Laws on free speech and hate speech differ around the world. In the United States at this time there is no legal concept of “hate speech,” which is protected by the first amendment.
The only form of speech deemed illegal is that which is likely to incite violence imminently, even if it incites violence at some future time. This has been the case in U.S. constitutional law since 1969.
Brandenburg vs Ohio
MORE https://clarionproject.org/where-does-the-law-stand-on-hate-speech/


3 ISIS Members Fight Over Woman; Mufti Intervenes, Marries Her Himself
Home > World > Iraq > 3 ISIS Members Fight Over Woman; Mufti Intervenes, Marries Her Himself
BY RAN MEIR Sunday, August 6, 2017 
 Mufti marries woman instead of three warring suitors.Umm el-Hares is one popular woman. She was the cause of a gunfight between not two but three cousins who’d fallen for her. The three managed to injure one another as they fought over their shared true love.
The cousins are all ISIS fighters.
Islamic State’s regional mufti intervened. On meeting el-Hares he instantly fell in love and decided he would be the one to carry her over the threshold.
Before we wish the couple years of wedded bliss, we should perhaps point out that Umm-el Haris is no virtuous, fair maiden. She is an employee of the feared morality police in Kirkuk Province, Iraq. Her family is strongly loyal to ISIS.
For his part, the mufti claimed he was doing everyone favor.
“He argued what he did was for the greater good and to extinguish the flames,” an anonymous source told Sumeriyya TV. “People have dubbed him ‘The Loving Mufti’ who used his standing in the organization to take a bride.”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/three-isis-members-fight-girl-mufti-intervenes-marries/

ISIS and ? You’ll Never Believe What’s the Other Top Security Threat
Home > World > Lebanon > ISIS and ? You’ll Never Believe What’s the Other Top Security Threat
BY CLARION PROJECT Thursday, August 3, 2017 
 Tim Marshall, a 40 year veteran of storm chasing, monitors a supercell thunderstorm during a tornado research mission, May 8, 2017 in Elbert County near Agate, Colorado. (Photo: Drew Angerer / Getty Images)
Tim Marshall, a 40 year veteran of storm chasing, monitors a supercell thunderstorm during a tornado research mission, May 8, 2017 in Elbert County near Agate, Colorado. (Photo: Drew Angerer / Getty Images)
ISIS and climate change are the top security concerns of people in 38 countries, according to a new poll from Pew Research Center.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/isis-youll-never-believe-whats-top-security-threat/


Australian Synagogue Blocked Out of Fear of Terror Attack
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz August 4, 2017 , 11:35 am
“I met the watchmen Who patrol the town; They struck me, they bruised me. The guards of the walls Stripped me of my mantle.” (Song of Songs 5:7)
image: https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/terrorist-knife-globe-world.jpg
(Photo: Shutterstock.com)
At a judgment on Wednesday, the Land and Environment Court in Sydney blocked the construction of a new synagogue near Bondi Beach. The reason given: Jewish organizations are targets for terror, and they don’t want that in their town.
The ruling upholds a previous decision by the local Waverly Council. Land and Environment commissioner Graham Brown cited “potential risk” to the public.
“It would seem that a more sophisticated risk assessment process could be required for matters such as a potential terrorist threat,” Brown said at the judgment. “The proposed development should be refused as the site is not suitable for the proposed synagogue use as the Preliminary Threat and Risk Analysis relied on by the Applicant raises concerns as to the safety and security of future users of the Synagogue, nearby residents, motorists, and pedestrians”.
The ruling also stated that even if provisions were made to provide security, the proposed synagogue would still be unacceptable and the permit would not be granted.
Read more at https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/92682/australian-synagogue-blocked-fear-terror-attack/#0EbThlFLEY5xbF8V.99

Taylor Force Act Passes Senate
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz August 4, 2017 , 12:37 pm
“You will listen to the entreaty of the lowly, Hashem, You will make their hearts firm; You will incline Your ear. To Champion the orphan and the downtrodden, that men who are of the earth tyrannize no more.” Psalms 10: 17-18 (The Israel Bible™)
image: https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/taylor-force.jpg
Taylor Force, an American army veteran who was killed by a Palestinian terrorist in a stabbing attack in Jaffa on March 8, 2016. (Photo: Facebook)
With bipartisan backing, the Taylor Force act was approved by the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on Thursday. The act, named after an American veteran slain by a Palestinian while visiting Israel in 2016, will cut US funding to the Palestinian Authority if it does not stop paying salaries to terrorists and their families. The bill now moves on to the Senate for approval.
Senator Lindsey Graham, (R-SC), who authored the legislation, told reporters on Thursday that the intent was to stop the Palestinian program which rewarded violence.
Read more at https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/92686/taylor-force-act-passes-senate/#roKGOpOKqLALAtMS.99


Raheel Raza: Let’s Defeat the Ideology
Home > Political Islam > In the US > Public Issues > Raheel Raza: Let’s Defeat the Ideology
BY RAHEEL RAZA Thursday, August 3, 2017 
 Raheel Raza
Raheel Raza
I testified before Congress Thursday on the subject of radical Islam, “Homegrown Terrorism” and “Countering Violent Extremism.”
Watch the video and read on…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlsDOX3jx9g
MORE https://clarionproject.org/raheel-raza-lets-defeat-ideology/


Danger Signs for Israel Coming From Parts of Trump Administration
Home > 101s > 101s > Danger Signs for Israel Coming From Parts of Trump Administration
BY RYAN MAURO Thursday, August 3, 2017 
 U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson exits a brief media availability before his meeting with Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani at the State Department, July 26, 2017 in Washington, DC.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson exits a brief media availability before his meeting with Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani at the State Department, July 26, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Drew Angerer / Getty Images)
Israel and its supporters in the West are seeing danger signs coming from parts of the Trump Administration. Since taking office, the camp that views Israel as a liability and “root cause” of Islamic extremism has been gaining ground. That camp is at odds with those who view the Islamist ideology as the root cause and believes it must be defeated for there to be peace in the Middle East.
State Dept. Report Blames Israel, Exonerates Palestinian Authority
The biggest danger sign for America’s best ally in the Middle East came with the recent release of the State Department’s annual Country Reports on Terrorism. It blamed Israel for sparking terrorism while applauding the Palestinian Authority’s counter-extremism efforts.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/danger-signs-israel-coming-parts-trump-administration/

British ‘Musketeer’ Terror Plot Foiled
Home > World > UK > British ‘Musketeer’ Terror Plot Foiled
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Thursday, August 3, 2017 
 Illustrative picture. (Photo: floodlama/Creative Commons)
Illustrative picture. (Photo: floodlama/Creative Commons)
Terrorists who plotted to carry out a rampage in London were foiled by MI5 agents at the last minute before they were able to carry out their attack, it has been revealed.
The four terrorists were convicted for the plot, which took place in August last year, and are awaiting sentencing.
Naweed Ali, 29, Khobaib Hussain, 25, and Mohibur Rahman, 33, styled themselves Musketeers and communicated using the encrypted messaging app Telegram. The three were previously imprisoned for terrorism offences. Ali and Hussain were arrested in 2011 for plans to fly to a jihadi training camp in Pakistan. They met Rahman, who had been convicted for possessing al-Qaeda materials detailing how to carry out terror attacks, while in prison.
After release they remained radical and formed a new terrorist plot.
The fourth member of the group, Tahir Aziz, they met in Birmingham after release. He reportedly joined the plot just days before the arrests were made.
The cell was in contact with notorious radical preacher Anjem Choudary, who was himself arrested and sentenced to five-and-a-half years imprisonment for supporting ISIS in September 2016.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/british-musketeer-terror-plot-foiled/

Discover the Muslim Brotherhood International Network
Home > World > Algeria > Discover the Muslim Brotherhood International Network
BY CLARION PROJECT Thursday, August 3, 2017 
Where does the Muslim Brotherhood operate? Where does it wield political power? Find out with Clarion’s infographic detailing the Muslim Brotherhood’s presence around the world.
SEE PAGE FOR LIST https://clarionproject.org/muslim-brotherhoods-network/

Clarion Takes to Congress to Challenge Radical Islam
Home > Political Islam > In the US > Government > Clarion Takes to Congress to Challenge Radical Islam
BY CLARION PROJECT Monday, July 31, 2017 
Challenging radical Islam in the United States was center stage when Clarion Project’s Raheel Raza testified before the House Subcommittee on National Security.
Raza made four key recommendations for consideration by lawmakers:
Shift government focus and efforts to tackle the ideology that drives extremism. Not just Countering Violent Extremism, but also countering non-violent extremism. The ideology. More on this in a moment.
Designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. They spread this extreme ideology.
Take steps to prevent funding of US educational institutions and mosques by foreign extremists.
Stop listening to extremists, start listening to moderates such as the Muslim Reform Movement.
“It’s not about political correctness.  There are people here in the West who are afraid to use the words ‘Islamist Ideology’ because they think that it is anti-Muslim.  It is actually very pro-Muslim, because it makes the ordinary masses of people understand the difference between the faith of Islam and an ideology which is political in nature – and which is evil.”
You can watch her full testimony here:
https://clarionproject.org/clarion-takes-congress-challenge-radical-islam/

New Chief of Staff Kelly Thanked CAIR
Home > Political Islam > In the US > Government > New Chief of Staff Kelly Thanked CAIR
BY RYAN MAURO Sunday, July 30, 2017 
 White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly (Photo: Sandy Huffaker / Getty Images)
White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly (Photo: Sandy Huffaker / Getty Images)
U.S. President Donald Trump announced July 28 the resignation of his Chief of Staff, Rence Priebus and his replacement with Secretary of Homeland Security General John Kelly.
As we just covered, Kelly’s department wrote a thank-you letter to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in May, a group that the Justice Department identifies as a Muslim Brotherhood entity. CAIR was also designated as an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorism-financing trial. CAIR was specifically listed as part of the Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee, which is a secret body established to covertly assist the Hamas terrorist group.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/new-chief-staff-thanked-cair/

Six Nations Vow to Fight ISIS on Their Doorstep
Home > World > Australia > Six Nations Vow to Fight ISIS on Their Doorstep
BY CLARION PROJECT Monday, July 31, 2017 
 This photo taken on June 26, 2017 shows smoke billowing from a building following an bombing run against militant Islamist positions by a Philippine Air Force FA-50 fighter. (Photo: TED ALJIBE / AFP / Getty Images)
This photo taken on June 26, 2017 shows smoke billowing from a building following an bombing run against militant Islamist positions in Marawi by a Philippine Air Force FA-50 fighter. (Photo: TED ALJIBE / AFP / Getty Images)
With the threat of attack from ISIS only increasing, six countries from Southeast Asia and Oceania met this weekend to discuss how they can better work together to deal with what they see as an imminent threat.
Security ministers and experts from Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Indonesia met in Indonesia under the shadow of Islamic-State activity on their doorstep.
In the case of the Philippines, ISIS already has a stranglehold via its local affiliate in Marawi, a city in the country’s south. At least 600 people have been killed in fighting there, including many Christians.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/six-nations-vow-fight-isis-doorstep/

Petition to Fire Anti-Semitic Imam Gains Support
Home > Human Rights > Human Rights Violators > Individuals > Petition to Fire Anti-Semitic Imam Gains Support
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Sunday, July 30, 2017 
 Imam Ammar Shahin apologises for his incitement to religious war against Jews. (Photo: Screenshot from video) 
Imam Ammar Shahin apologises for his incitement to religious war against Jews. (Photo: Screenshot from video)
A petition demanding that an anti-Semitic imam be fired after he delivered a sermon on July 21 calling on Allah to “liberate Al Aqsa from the filth of the Jews” and “annihilate them to the last one” has gained support from a broad spectrum of figures.
Imam Ammar Shahin of the Islamic Center of Davis, California, caused controversy with a speech in which he said “the last day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews.”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/petition-fire-imam-support/

Hamburg Stabber ‘Islamist But Not Jihadist’ Say Police
Home > World > Germany > Hamburg Stabber ‘Islamist But Not Jihadist’ Say Police
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Sunday, July 30, 2017 
A 26-year-old Palestinian man who killed one and injured seven in a stabbing spree on July 28 in the German city Hamburg was known to intelligence services, police said a day later.
Police had investigated the man, who was born in the United Arab Emirates and who had his asylum application denied. They concluded he was “an Islamist and was recorded as such in the appropriate systems, not as a jihadist but as an Islamist,” according to a statement made by Hamburg Interior Minister Andy Grote.
The man stabbed people in a supermarket on Friday afternoon. He was overwhelmed by bystanders and arrested shortly after he ran into the street to continue his rampage.
He was assessed as psychologically unstable. Police say it is too early to ascribe a motive to the attack. They also believe he acted alone.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/hamburg-stabber-islamist-not-terrorist/


Muslim Family Finds Bacon in McDonald’s Chicken Burgers
A Muslim family in Alabama found bacon in 14 McChicken sandwiches they ordered from a Decatur McDonald’s. The family was reportedly on holiday from New York and stopped at the McDonald’s to eat after a day out at a nearby water park, according to local media outlet Al.com.
The Alabama chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) demanded an investigation into the incident. Khaula Hadeed, the head of the Alabama chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called the incident “an intentional act of religious and ethnic bigotry.”
“They ordered 14 sandwiches. They started noticing it tasted different to them. They eat McChicken all the time at McDonald’s. They knew what they ordered — they know what’s in the sandwich,” she told AL.com.
Upon investigating the sandwiches, the family discovered the bacon.
It doesn’t sound like a mistake, especially on 14 sandwiches,” Hadeed said.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/muslim-family-finds-bacon-in-mcdonalds-burgers/

CAIR Condemns Chief of Staff Kelly
Home > Political Islam > In the US > Government > CAIR Condemns Chief of Staff Kelly
BY RYAN MAURO Wednesday, August 2, 2017 
 White House Chief of Staff John Kelly 
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly (Photo: MANDEL NGAN / AFP / Getty Images)
The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization identified by the Justice Department as a Muslim Brotherhood front, condemned new White House Chief of Staff John Kelly for his “Islamaphobic ideology.”
Kelly previously led the Department of Homeland Security for the Trump Administration. During his time as secretary, the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties thanked CAIR’s Florida chapter in a letter that the author claimed was written at the request of General Kelly.
As we stated in our July 30 article, it is very possible Kelly did not actually ask for the letter to CAIR to be written and it was just a normal procedure meant to flatter the recipients. Nonetheless, the letter still shows DHS’ embrace of CAIR was not ended during Kelly’s six-month tenure and is worth bringing to your attention. CAIR’s New York branch responded to his promotion to Chief of Staff this way:
MOREE https://clarionproject.org/cair-condemns-chief-staff-kelly/

Congressman: Investigate Iranian Funding of Academia
Home > World > Iran > Congressman: Investigate Iranian Funding of Academia
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Wednesday, August 2, 2017 
 U.S. President Donald Trump with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos
U.S. President Donald Trump with Education Secretary Betsy DeVos (Photo by Mark Wilson / Getty Images)
Congressman Dan Donovan (R-NY) called on Education Secretary Betsy Devos to investigate an Iranian foundation that funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to American educational institutions, according to Algemeiner.
The Alavi Foundation, based in New York, distributed $50 million since its creation in 1973, ostensibly to promote Persian culture and interfaith dialogue.
“Did this foundation attempt to subvert American academic institutions,” Rep. Dan Donovan asked. “We need to investigate this, and universities have to do a better job of vetting their donors.”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/investigate-iranian-funding/

ISIS Fires Chief Woman Biter for Going Soft
Home > World > Iraq > ISIS Fires Chief Woman Biter for Going Soft
BY RAN MEIR Tuesday, August 1, 2017 
The Islamic State’s all female al-Khansa brigade. (Photo: © Video screenshot)
ISIS fired the head of its women’s brigade al-Khansa for being too soft.
“Umm Yasser el-Mouhajir failed to implement the instructions of the organization including whipping and biting women,” an anonymous source told Sumeriyya TV.
Islamic State replaced el-Mouhajir with a German woman to take on the top position in al-Khansa. Previously, the German filled senior roles in Nineveh Province before she pulled back along with other ISIS fighters on the front line.
In June 2015, Islamic State unveiled the female policing unit that metes out a variety of punishments including biting women who fail to adhere to the terror group’s strict moral code.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/isis-fires-chief-woman-biter/

How Many Islamists Are There in Europe?
Home > World > UK > How Many Islamists Are There in Europe?
BY CLARION PROJECT Tuesday, August 1, 2017 
Police escort concert goers from the site of the Ariana Grande concert following a terror attack.
(Photo: Dave Thompson/Getty Images)
More than 150 suspected jihadis and other criminals have had their British citizenship revoked and will not be allowed to return to the UK, according to The Sunday Times. More than 850 British citizens traveled to Syria to join jihadi groups, of which around half returned, according to government sources.
Ministers used “deprivation orders” to remove the rights of 40 people to a passport this year alone, including 30 since March.
Given it is against international law to leave someone stateless, all those whose passports have been revoked are also citizens of other countries.
So how many extremists are there in the rest of Europe? Clarion investigated a cross-spectrum of countries to find out. This chart includes official estimates of numbers who hold to the Islamist political ideology, but are rough estimates since charting such numbers accurately is very difficult. Furthermore each country’s government’s may use different criteria to determine who is considered an extremist.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/how-many-islamists-are-there-in-europe/


What Does Resignation of Top Counter-Extremism Official Mean?
Home > Political Islam > In the US > Government > What Does Resignation of Top Counter-Extremism Official Mean?
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Wednesday, August 2, 2017 
 George Selim speaks at the Aspen Institute Homeland Security Group in 2016. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
George Selim speaks at the Aspen Institute Homeland Security Group in 2016. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
George Selim, the director of Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) at the Department of Homeland Security, has resigned. His resignation was reported by The Conservative Review and confirmed by Selim to Peter Beinart writing in The Atlantic. Selim was the founding director of the Office of Community Partnerships in the Department of Homeland Security, and the leader of the federal Countering Violent Extremism Task Force, which coordinated efforts between different government departments.
CVE is the notion that community organizations and governments can intervene to prevent or reverse radicalization and prevent terrorist attacks that way rather than through law enforcement.
A DHS source told The Conservative Review on the condition of anonymity that Selim was opposed to White House officials who wanted to do away with the more conciliatory approach of former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Both men strongly opposed investigating the religious elements of jihadist movements, preferring to treat it as an entirely separate phenomenon.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/resignation-counter-extremism-official/

Declaring Victory, Muslims Return Triumphant to Temple Mount
By Tazpit Press Service July 27, 2017 , 12:30 pm
“You have exalted the right hand of his adversaries, and made all his enemies rejoice.” Psalms 89:43 (The Israel Bible™)
The removal of the metal detectors from Jaffa Gate. (Photo: Hillel Maeir/TPS)
Muslims will return to pray at the Temple Mount after police confirmed Thursday that all security measures put into place around the compound following the murder of two police officers adjacent to the site on July 14 had been dismantled and that the situation had returned to what it was prior to the attack.
Police said security measures would continue in and around the old city, while extra police units would remain deployed  in the area.
Following a meeting with the Waqf (Islamic trust) on Thursday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the Mufti of Jerusalem Muhammad Ahmad Hussein said that prayers could resume at Al-Aqsa.
MORE https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/92268/declaring-victory-muslims-return-triumphant-temple-mount/?


Biting Hand That Feeds Them, Arabs Set Social Security Office Ablaze in East Jerusalem
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz July 27, 2017 , 4:39 pm
“He shall be a wild ass of a man; His hand against everyone, And everyone’s hand against him; He shall dwell alongside of all his kinsmen.” Genesis 16:12 (The Israel Bible™)
(Shutterstock)
In the wake of ongoing clashes between the Israeli authorities and the Palestinians, a Bituach Leumi (national insurance, or social security) office in the Wadi Joz neighborhood in East Jerusalem was set ablaze Wednesday night. Trees in front of the office caught fire, causing extensive damage to the building but no injuries. Firefighters were called to the scene and quickly extinguished the fire.
Police are investigating and said they have not ruled out any motive, including nationalistically motivated arson. Palestinian news sources are reporting that the fire was caused by a Molotov cocktail being thrown at the building.
MORE https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/92308/biting-hand-feeds-arabs-set-social-security-office-ablaze-east-jerusalem/?



Petition to Islamic Center of Davis: Fire Antisemitic Imam
Home > Political Islam > In the US > Public Issues > Petition to Islamic Center of Davis: Fire Antisemitic Imam
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Wednesday, July 26, 2017 
 Imam Ammar Shahin. (Photo: Screenshot from video) 
Imam Ammar Shahin. (Photo: Screenshot from video)
In a stunningly brazen lie, the Islamic Center of Davis California has claimed their imam was not anti-Semitic when he called in a sermon on Muslims to fight the Jews and Allah to annihilate them.
Imam Ammar Shahin told his congregation, “Allah does not change the situation of a people until they change their own situation. The Prophet Muhammed said, ‘Judgment day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews.’”
Clarion Project covered his sermon, along with other problematic statements made by American Muslim leaders, earlier this week.
In the sermon, Shahin clarified his statement saying, “The last hour will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews. ” His statements were made in plain English, with no clarification that he meant some Jews or just Zionists or anything else.
He also prayed, “Oh Allah, support the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the rest of the Muslim lands. Oh Allah, liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews. Oh Allah, destroy those who closed the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Oh Allah, show us the black day that You inflict upon them, and the wonders of Your ability. Oh Allah, count them one by one and annihilate them down to the very last one. Do not spare any of them.”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/islamic-center-davis-fire-imam/


State Dept: ISIS Slaughter of Minorities Not Genocide
Home > World > Iraq > State Dept: ISIS Slaughter of Minorities Not Genocide
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Wednesday, July 26, 2017 
 A mass execution by Islamic State jihadis
A mass execution by Islamic State jihadis (Photo: video screenshot)
Lawyers from the State Department are removing the word “genocide” in speeches and documents describing the persecution of Chrisitians, Yazidis and other minorities in Iraq and Syria, charged The Washington Free Beacon in an exclusive report.
The news outlet sites human rights activist and attorneys familiar with the State Deparment’s policies as the sources for their report.
Nina Shea, an international human rights lawyer and director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, named Richard Visek, an Obama appointee, as responsible for the policy. Visek is head of the State Department’s Office of Legal Adviser.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/state-dept-isis-slaughter-minorities-not-genocide/


Guess Who’s Banning Religious Freedom?
Home > World > Jordan > Guess Who’s Banning Religious Freedom?
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Wednesday, July 26, 2017 
Jordan has falsely decried the lack of religious freedom in Israel in the midst of the controversy in Israel about the Temple Mount in Israel. Yet is anyone aware that Jordan bans any form of Jewish prayer anywhere in the country? Editor of ClarionProject.org Meira Svirsky discusses the policy.
Meira Svirsky
Meira Svirsky is the editor of ClarionProject.org
https://clarionproject.org/jordan-bans-jewish-prayer/


Malaysia Welcomes Hamas, Brotherhood: Report
Home > Political Islam > Worldwide > Islamism in Government > Malaysia Welcomes Hamas, Brotherhood: Report
BY RAN MEIR Tuesday, July 25, 2017 
 Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak (Photo: Paul Kane/Getty Images)
Malaysia has offered to be the new home for Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas officials who may be bowing out of Qatar to alleviate Qatar’s crisis with the Gulf and Arab states.
In June, nine countries — including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain —  severed ties with Qatar over Qatar’s support of terrorism, specifically the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.
According to an exclusive report in the respected Egyptian media outlet Albawaba News, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, the interior minister of Malaysia said his country would “open the door completely” to the transfer of officials from these terror organizations to Malaysia’s capital city Kuala Lumpur.
Malaysia reportedly made the offer to help Qatar extricate itself from the crisis with the Gulf and Arab states.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/malaysia-welcomes-hamas-brotherhood/


London Pride: Don’t Deny Ex-Muslims Our Struggle
Home > World > UK > London Pride: Don’t Deny Ex-Muslims Our Struggle
BY HANNA Thursday, July 20, 2017 
Ex-Muslims marching at Pride. (Photo: Screenshot from video)
Editor’s Note: The author marched in London’s Gay Pride parade as part of the ex-Muslim contingent. Predictably, their participation in the march received a strong backlash from conservative Muslim figures. This is her account of what happened.
At the time of my writing, it’s been little over a week since the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB), of which I am a member, marched at the Pride in London Parade. I still couldn’t be prouder of what we achieved that day.
Our protest was deliberately provocative, involving topless women and a bare bottomed man and three of our signs said “Allah is gay.”
The purpose of the protest was two-fold. Firstly, we were protesting homophobia within Islam at a scriptural, state and institutional level. Homosexuality is forbidden in Islam. The hadiths include multiple passages which promote the killing of homosexuals. Homosexuality carries the death penalty under sharia law.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/london-pride-not-deny-ex-muslims-britain-struggle/

Secretary of State Shills for Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar
Home > Political Islam > In the US > Government > Secretary of State Shills for Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar
BY RYAN MAURO Tuesday, July 25, 2017 
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (Photo: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)
The Trump Administration still hasn’t designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization as it was expected to do. Designation falls under the purview of Secretary of State Tillerson, who has chosen the Muslim Brotherhood and its backers in Qatar and Turkey over their Arab rivals.
Tillerson recently signaled his opposition to designating the Muslim Brotherhood in mid-June. He only has negative things to say about the idea.
His main point is that the Brotherhood’s political parties have representatives in governments like those in Bahrain and Turkey. That is irrelevant. If it was such a problem, Bahrain itself wouldn’t have banned the Brotherhood and the U.S. wouldn’t be dealing with the Lebanese government that has Hezbollah in it, which is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
Tillerson also repeated the “non-violent” and “moderate” Muslim Brotherhood propaganda. He claimed that the Brotherhood’s political parties in governments “have become so by renouncing violence and terrorism.” That was false when the Obama Administration said it, and it is false now.
The disappointment in Tillerson’s position is made exponentially greater by the fact that now is an optimum time to designate the group.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/secretary-state-disappoints-muslim-brotherhood-qatar/


Will Congress Stop Paying Terrorists?
Home > World > Palestinian Authority > Will Congress Stop Paying Terrorists?
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Wednesday, July 26, 2017 
Scene of the stabbing of three members of a Jewish family by Palestinian terrorist Omar Al-Abed al-Jalil (Photo: Israeli army (L)/social media( R) )
The terrorist who stabbed to death three members of a Jewish family in Israel as they sat down to eat their Sabbath meal last Friday night will be paid  a monthly salary of $3,000 by the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The PA passed a formal government resolution in 2011 awarding all Palestinian prisoners in Israel jails monthly salaries for security and terror-related offenses.
Aid money given yearly to the PA from the United States, Europe and other countries contributes to these salaries.
Currently pending in Congress is the Taylor Force bill, which would limit American aid money to the Palestinians unless it ends these payments as well as its rampant incitement.
Taylor Force was a former U.S. army officer who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist while visiting Israel on a university trip in 2016.
Despite the looming prospect of diminishment of funds for his people, PA President Mahmoud Abbas has vowed to continue the payments. As documented by Palestinian Media Watch (PalWatch.org), Abbas recently stated, “Even if I will have to leave my position, I will not compromise on the salary (rawatib) of a Martyr (Shahid) or a prisoner, as I am the president of the entire Palestinian people, including the prisoners, the Martyrs, the injured, the expelled, and the uprooted.”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/monthly-salary-palestinian-terrorist-3000/

American Muslim Leaders Fan Anti-Semitic Hate
Home > Political Islam > Sharia Governance > Minority Rights > American Muslim Leaders Fan Anti-Semitic Hate
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Tuesday, July 25, 2017 
Palestinians riot in the West Bank with the full backing of the American Muslim community leadership. (Photo: Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images)
America’s largest Muslim community organizations this week incited the American Muslim community to join in the hysterical hatred against Israel and Jews over Israel’s attempts to defend its citizens.
The Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations called on American Muslims to make speeches in mosques and take to the streets in America to support Palestinians who are rioting over the installation of metal detectors at the entrance to the Temple Mount, the site of the revered Al Aqsa mosque.
The Israeli government installed the metal detectors after Muslim terrorists sneaked weapons onto the mount and used them to shoot and kill two Israeli policemen who were stationed just outside the mount to protect worshipers. Before the attack, security for the mount, referred to as the Haram al Sharif compound by Muslims, was administered by Islamic authorities.
The metal detectors were removed Monday night.
At the same time, these American Muslim leaders have minimized terrorist attacks against Israelis which have taken place as a response to the metal detectors.
Three Palestinians were killed while rioting against this common sense security measures in Jerusalem while in other places ,Palestinians threw rocks and burning tires at policemen. Three Israelis were murdered at their dinner table by a Palestinian terrorist, whose mother was later arrested for incitement after she said she was proud of him.
Clarion Project has already reported how Linda Sarsour lied about the situation, calling for “resistance.” But it doesn’t stop with her.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/american-muslim-leaders-terrorism/


Secretary of Homeland Security Thanks CAIR
Home > Political Islam > In the US > Government > Secretary of Homeland Security Thanks CAIR
BY RYAN MAURO Tuesday, July 25, 2017 
 Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly
Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly (Photo: Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)
The Department of Homeland Security is continuing to use the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as an outreach partner, despite the Justice Department identifying it as a Muslim Brotherhood entity and designating it as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism-financing trial in American history.
CAIR’s Florida branch has published a letter from the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties thanking it for its years of collaboration. The author says it was written at the request of the Secretary of Homeland Security, General John Kelly. It is dated May 5 and can be seen at Pamela Geller’s website.
“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appreciates your years of support and partnership with the Department’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, working on issues central to the DHS mission, including identifying civil rights and civil liberties concerns in the homeland security context,” it states.
The Justice Department designated CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator during the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a Muslim Brotherhood front that was financing Hamas until it was shut down. The Justice Department identified CAIR as an “entity” of the Muslim Brotherhood’s branch in America, specifically its “Palestine Committee” tasked with aiding the Hamas terrorist group.
The DHS’ outreach with CAIR clashes with the Justice Department’s official policy banning the use of CAIR as a liaison to the Muslim-American community. In 2013, the Justice Department released a report reprimanding several FBI offices for their collaborations with CAIR in violation of policy.
FBI personnel were required in 2008 to begin “refraining from participating in any CAIR-sponsored events, avoiding being photographed with leaders of CAIR and not engaging with CAIR in events such as fundraisers.”
“[I]n order to stop CAIR senior leadership from exploiting any contact with the FBI, it is critical to control and limit any contact,” the report stated.The Justice Department and FBI leadership pointed to evidence linking CAIR to Hamas and instituted the policy in 2008 to “ensure that the FBI is not supporting individuals who support extremist or terrorist ideologies.”
When the federal government engages CAIR like the DHS is doing, it gives CAIR legitimacy and a platform. 
MORE https://clarionproject.org/secretary-homeland-security-thanks-cair/

Al Shabaab Goes House to House Killing Christians
Home > World > Somalia > Al Shabaab Goes House to House Killing Christians
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Wednesday, July 26, 2017 
Al Shabaab militants. (Photo: Screenshot)
The Islamist terrorist group Al Shabaab  went house to house killing Christians in Kenya, International Christian Concern reported to Christian Today.
Three policemen were killed in a raid on Pandanguo village in Lamu county earlier this month. Terrorists later returned to the area to attack Christians in the villages of Jima and Poromoko.
“’If you were found to be a Christian you would be shot or slaughtered,” said Henry Divayo, the head pastor of a church sheltering Christians who fled the fighting.
“We are hosting more than 200 people in our church and we expect the number to increase as more families are evacuated from Boni Forest,” he added.
Food and security is currently being provided by the government and the Kenyan Red Cross, but more needs to be done.
“We need more well equipped police officers in churches, schools and hospitals,” he said.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/al-shabaab-goes-house-house-killing-christians/

Is There Life After ISIS?
Home > World > Iraq > Is There Life After ISIS?
BY ANWAR EL-IRAQI Tuesday, July 18, 2017 
 Mosul, Iraq, after the liberation from ISIS
Mosul, Iraq, after the liberation from ISIS (Photo: FADEL SENNA/AFP/Getty Images)
Rita is a 24-year old Christian woman from Telskuf, Iraq. Prior to Islamic State’s control of the area, some 10,000 people lived in Telskuf, making it one of the largest Christian villages in the country. The village was primarily Chaldean Catholic.
Today just 2,500 still reside there. The vast majority fled the country.
She originally spoke to Clarion Project after her home was destroyed by ISIS and she and her family were forced to flee. After ISIS was run out of the area, she returned and sent us a video of what remains of the area (see below).
Clarion Project’s Anwar el-Iraqi recently caught up with Rita to ask her about life after ISIS.
Clarion Project: You now have a dilemma of whether to stay or leave. What do you think you will do?
Rita: Life after ISIS has become a very hard life to live as a Christian girl trying to find a job. The village that I live in, Telskuf, lies between the province of Mosul and Dohuk. Because the language spoken in Dohuk is Kurdish, all the jobs available there require Kurdish, which makes my chances of getting a job in a secure place like Dohuk almost impossible.
Yet in the province of Mosul, everything is either just beginning or in the process of being rebuilt. Even after ISIS Mosul entirely, the situation doesn’t look good. Especially as Christians, we are always in danger and lack stability.
Going abroad might be a better option, but not everyone can bear living in a foreign country, especially our old people.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/is-there-life-after-isis/


Life After ISIS: What About the Children?
Home > Human Rights > Human Rights Violators > Child Abuse > Life After ISIS: What About the Children?
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Wednesday, July 19, 2017 
 A child from Mosul, Iraq displaced by the war
A child from Mosul, Iraq displaced by the war (Photo: AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP/Getty Images)
As children are being pulled out of the rubble in Mosul, rescue workers are trying to find clues as to who are the children’s parents.
A three-year old girl, trapped for days, could only reply that her parents had become “martyrs.” The girl is thought to be the daughter of Chechen ISIS fighters.
In a story published by The Telegraph, reporters documented how dozens of children, most presumed to be the offspring of foreign ISIS fighters killed in the final battles, have been found. Some speak languages unknown to the soldiers who have found them.
Another boy was so desperate for food that when he was found, he was eating raw, discarded meat.
“Some 650,000 boys and girls, who have lived through the nightmare of violence in Mosul, have paid a terrible price and endured many horrors over the past three years,” said Hamida Ramadhani, UNICEF’s deputy representative in Iraq.
According to reports in Sky News, in the final days of the battle to take back Mosul, ISIS broke with protocol and deployed wives of foreign fighters as guards over the population to prevent them from fleeing. The women were outfitted with suicide vests that they were told to detonate if their charges defied them.
Foreign wives were also deployed as snipers, putting them in the direct line of fire for the first time.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/life-isis-children/


US General: No Sanctuary for ISIS In Afghanistan
Home > World > Afghanistan > US General: No Sanctuary for ISIS In Afghanistan
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Monday, July 17, 2017 
VIDEO
While the news centers around the defeats of Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq, U.S. forces have been pounding the terror group in Afghanistan.
On July 11, U.S. forces killed Abu Sayed, the emir of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in Khorasan Province (ISIS-K). The strike on the group’s headquarters in  Afghanistan also killed other ISIS-K members and will significantly disrupt the terror group’s plans to expand its presence in Afghanistan, said General John Nicholson.
Speaking at headquarters in Kabul, Nicholson, stated, “This is the third emir of ISIS-K that we have killed in operations with our Afghan partners in the past year. As you are aware we have had continuous operations against the Islamic state in Afghanistan throughout the past year, but especially since March and in this time we have seen a great reduction in their fighters.
“We have killed three of their emirs, we have killed dozens of their senior lead
MORE https://clarionproject.org/no-sanctuary-isis-inside-afghanistan/

Truth and Deception: Calling Out Linda Sarsour on Al Aqsa
Home > World > Israel > Truth and Deception: Calling Out Linda Sarsour on Al Aqsa
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Monday, July 24, 2017 
 Sarsour's Facebook post
Sarsour’s Facebook post
How many ways can Linda Sarsour misrepresent the volatile situation between Israel and the Palestinians? And why do we even care?
Sarsour, a Palestinian activist, is the darling of the left, the feminist movement and the BDS movement. Information she spreads is taken at face value; no one usually bothers to check the facts.
Because of this, her comments matter. One of her latest disingenuous Facebook posts shows Muslims in Israel praying on the street because, in Sarsour’s words, they have been (#1 deception) “denied access to pray at Al Aqsa Mosque in their own homeland.”
Sarsour then praises her Palestinian brothers for this act of “non-violent resistance,” where they are (#2 deception) “met with tear gas and rubber bullets” from Israeli police.
She then paints her people, the Palestinians, as victims, saying the world powers (#3 deception) “continue to turn a blind eye to the blatant injustice against and the suffering of the Palestinian people.”
Let us navigate through the minefield of these distorted remarks, which has become the common narrative of Islamists worldwide.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/truth-deceptions-calling-linda-sarsour/

State Dept: Palestinian Incitement to Terror ‘Rare’
Home > World > Palestinian Authority > State Dept: Palestinian Incitement to Terror ‘Rare’
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Sunday, July 23, 2017  
From Palestinian media incitement
The State Department has put the majority of blame on Israel in its latest country-by-country report for terrorism in the country.
In addition, the report makes the blatantly false claim that the Palestinian Authority (PA) calls for terrorism are “rare” and that, “The PA has taken significant steps during President Abbas’ tenure (2005 to date) to ensure that official institutions in the West Bank under its control do not create or disseminate content that incites violence.”
The main factor driving terrorism, according to the State Department, is the “lack of hope in achieving Palestinian statehood” created by Israeli policies. Those policies were named by the State Dept. as “Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, the perception that the Israeli government was changing the status quo on the Haram Al Sharif/Temple Mount, and IDF tactics that the Palestinians considered overly aggressive.”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/state-dept-palestinian-incitement-terror-rare/


Berkeley Radio Cancels Dawkins Talk Over His Criticism of Islam
Home > Political Islam > In the US > Public Issues > Berkeley Radio Cancels Dawkins Talk Over His Criticism of Islam
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Sunday, July 23, 2017 
 Professor Richard Dawkins, author of 'The God Delusion.'
Professor Richard Dawkins, author of ‘The God Delusion.’
Progressive radio station KPFA in Berkeley, California has cancelled a scheduled talk by Professor Richard Dawkins after learning about his views on Islam. The radio station invited Dawkins to give an on-stage talk about his new book Science in the Soul: Collected Writings of a Passionate Rationalist on August 9.
“We had booked this event based entirely on his excellent new book on science when we didn’t know he had offended and hurt – in his tweets and other comments on Islam, so many people,” KPFA said in an email sent to ticket buyers as reported by local media outlet Berkeleyside. “KPFA does not endorse hurtful speech. While KPFA emphatically supports serious free speech, we do not support abusive speech. We apologize for not having had broader knowledge of Dawkins views much earlier.”
Dawkins, of course, in addition to being a top level biologist, is a prominent critic of religion in general not just Islam. The title of his most famous book “The God Delusion” ought to offer no ambiguity about his stance on religion.
In 2013, he drew controversy for saying that raising a child within a religion was child abuse.
“What a child should be taught is that religion exists; that some people believe this and some people believe that,’ The Telegraph reported him as saying. “What a child should never be taught is that you are a Catholic or Muslim child, therefore that is what you believe. That’s child abuse.”
His positions on all religions are widely available online, but it was only his position on Islam that drew the ire of the staff at KPFA.
Dawkins wrote in an open letter to KPFA about the disinvitation, which was published by the Center for Secular Inquiry where Dawkins sits on the board of directors. In the letter, he stated:
“If you had consulted me, or if you had done even rudimentary fact-checking, you would have concluded that I have never used abusive speech against Islam. I have called IslamISM ‘vile’ but surely you, of all people, understand that Islamism is not the same as Islam.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/berkeley-radio-cancels-dawkins-talk-criticism-islam/

O’Hare Worker Wanted to Kill Infidels
Home > Political Islam > In the US > National Security > O’Hare Worker Wanted to Kill Infidels
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Sunday, July 23, 2017 
Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. (Photo: Nicola/Creative Commons)
A Bosnian Muslim refugee and her five associates charged with attempting to provide support to ISIS invoked an unusual defense, according to ABC7 Chicago.
Mediha Medy Salkicevic has claimed that her support of ISIS constituted “legitimate warfare” and that she was waging war against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, just as the U.S. government is doing by supporting Syrian rebels.
Salkicevic was working for a cargo company at Chicago’s International O’Hare Airport when she was arrested in 2015. Investigators allege she said she wanted to “bury unbelievers alive” and kill infidels.
“Under United States law, acts of legitimate warfare during a civil war are not murder and are entitled to combatant immunity,” her attorneys said. They argue that Americans are “protected from prosecution as acts of legitimate warfare under the doctrine of combatant immunity.”
MORE  https://clarionproject.org/chicago-terror-suspect-invokes-legitimate-war-defense/

Is Being ‘Naïve’ An Excuse for Falling In With ISIS?
Home > Terrorism > Is Being ‘Naïve’ An Excuse for Falling In With ISIS?
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Monday, July 24, 2017 
(Photo: Screenshot from ISIS propaganda)
Everyone is responsible for their own actions. So why might the attorney of a young man arrested on terrorism charges be claiming he was “naïve?”
Amer Sinan Alhaggagi, 22, of Oakland, California, has been formally charged with attempting to set up social media accounts for the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group  after being indicted by a grand jury, according to CBS San Francisco. Alhaggagi has been in custody since last November.
Federal prosecutors told the court back in December that Alhaggagi met with undercover agents on “numerous occasions to plan a potential terrorist attack.” They also said he spent significant amounts of time in Yemen, although information about what he did there is not readily available.
Yet his attorney August Gugelmann argued that his client was simply unaware that he was getting involved with terrorism.
“Amer is not anti-American and does not support ISIS or any other terrorist organization,” Gugelmann said in a statement. “He is completely nonviolent, and he took no actions to harm anyone. The evidence we have suggests these charges are based on internet chat conversations that he had with a number of unknown people. Amer is a very young and naïve man, and it appears he allowed himself to be drawn into conversations that he should have been far more suspicious of.”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/naive-join-isis/

Civilians Celebrate Liberation From ISIS
Home > World > Syria > Civilians Celebrate Liberation From ISIS
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Monday, July 24, 2017 
A harrowing video shows civilians who have recently been liberated from ISIS rule discussing the crimes of the Islamic State (ISIS). The video was released by the Kurdish YPG Press Office and took place in the area of Raqqa, where ISIS established its provincial capital. The YPG is the Kurdish militia which is pushing back ISIS in Syrian Kurdistan.
One woman laments how ISIS murdered her father and husband. Another says how ISIS executed her son for refusing to pray.
Other women joyfully take off their black burqas, garments which ISIS forces all women to wear.
“Burn these,” one woman says. “May Allah burn them [ISIS]. They burned my father!”
Warning this clip contains images some viewers may find distressing:
MORE https://clarionproject.org/civilians-celebrate-liberation-isis/

https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/91755/now-american-zionists-want-boycott-israel-opinion/?utm_source=Breaking+Israel+News&utm_campaign=38768f4174-BIN_oped_7_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b6d3627f72-38768f4174-83546481&mc_cid=38768f4174&mc_eid=8dcaf513ae#tGHhKqeBYlRBcsJZ.97
So Now American Zionists Want to Boycott Israel
By Alan Dershowitz July 19, 2017 , 10:00 am
Several prominent American Zionists – including long-time supporters of Israel – are so outraged at the Israeli government’s recent decision regarding the Western Wall and non-Orthodox conversion that they are urging American Jews to reduce or even eliminate their support for Israel.

According to an article by Elliot Abrams in Mosaic, Ike Fisher, a prominent member of the AIPAC board, threatened to “suspend” all further financial support for Israel. Daniel Gordis, a leading voice for Conservative Judaism, urged American Jews to cancel their El Al tickets and fly Delta or United. He also proposed “withholding donations to Israeli hospitals, so that ‘They start running out of money’ and ‘begin to falter.’” This sort of emotional response is reminiscent of the temper tantrum outgoing US president Barak Obama engaged in when he refused to veto the UN’s recent anti-Israel resolution.

I strongly disagree both with the Israeli government’s capitulation to the minority of ultra-Orthodox Jews, who wield far too much influence in Israeli politics, and with the proposals to cut back on support for Israel by some of my fellow critics of the Israeli government’s recent decisions with regard to religion.

image: https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/28-BIN-OpEd-Experts-300x2501.png
I strongly support greater separation between religion and state in Israel, as Theodor Herzl outlined in his plan for the nation-state of the Jewish People in Der Judenstaat 120 years ago: “We shall prevent any theocratic tendencies from coming to the fore on the part of our priesthood. We shall keep our priests [by which is meant rabbis] within the confines of their temples.”

It was David Ben-Gurion who made the deal with the Orthodox rabbinate that violated Herzl’s mandate and knocked down the wall of separation between religion and state. He allocated to the Chief Rabbinate authority over many secular matters, such as marriage, divorce and child custody. He also laid the groundwork for the creation of religious parties that have been a necessary part of most Israeli coalitions for many years.

So don’t blame Israel’s current prime minister for the recent capitulation. His government’s survival depends on his unholy alliance with allegedly holy parties that threaten to leave the coalition and bring down his government unless he capitulates.

The alternative to a Netanyahu government might well be far to the Right of the current government, both on religious matters and on prospects for peace. Reasonable people may disagree as to whether Netanyahu did the right thing, but I believe that given the choice between the current government and what may well replace it, Netanyahu acted on acceptable priorities.

This is not to say that I am happy with the end result. As a post-denominational Jew, I want to see a part of the Western Wall opened to conservative and reform prayer.

I also want to see Conservative and Reform and Modern Orthodox rabbis deemed fully competent to perform rituals including marriage and divorce.

image: https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/408-FightBDS-1024x256.jpg
I will continue to fight for these outcomes, and I think we will ultimately be successful.

But in the meantime, I will also continue to fly El Al, contribute to Israeli hospitals, attend AIPAC events and encourage Americans to support Israel, both politically and financially. To do otherwise is to engage in a form of BDS – the tactic currently employed by Israel’s enemies to delegitimize the nation state of the Jewish People.

Supporters of BDS will point to these benign boycotts as a way of justifying their malignant ones. If BDS is an immoral tactic, as it surely is, so too is punishing the people of Israel for the failure of their government to be fully inclusive of Jews who do not align themselves with the ultra-Orthodox.

Tough love may be an appropriate response in family matters, but boycotting a troubled nation which has become a pariah among the hard Left is not the appropriate response to the Israeli government’s recent decisions regarding religion.

The answer is not disengagement, but rather greater engagement with Israel on matters that involve world Jewry. I, too, am furious about the arrogant and destructive threats of the ultra-Orthodox parties in the current government.

I, too, would prefer to see a coalition that excluded the ultra-Orthodox parties.

I, too, would like to see a high wall of separation that kept the rabbis out of politics.

But I do not live in Israel, and Israel is a democracy. Ultimately it is up to the citizens of Israel to change the current system. The role of American Jews is limited to persuasion, not coercion. In the end, we will be successful in persuading the Israeli people to take the power of religious coercion out of the hands of the ultra-Orthodox minority because that would not only be good for secular Israelis – who are a majority – but also for religious Israelis.

History has proved that separation of state from religion is better not only for the state, but also for religion.
Reprinted with author’s permission from The Jerusalem Post
Read more at https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/So-now-American-Zionists-want-to-boycott-Israel-499987#bbJ7ZQVxXHpp3sbI.99

https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/91617/israel-hizballah-battle-battle-opinion/?Israel and Hizballah: 
The Battle Before the Battle
By Jonathan Spyer July 17, 2017 , 11:00 am
During the 2006 war between  Israel and Hizballah, Israeli military actions were limited by the broader diplomatic situation.  The expulsion of Syria from Lebanon had taken place a year earlier.  The government of then prime minister Fuad Siniora in Beirut was considered one of the few successes of the US democracy promotion project in the region.  As a result, pressure was placed on Israel to restrict its operations to targets directly related to Hizballah activity alone.

Ten years is a long time.  Today, the view in Israel is that the distinction between Hizballah and the institutions and authorities of the Lebanese state has disappeared.

But while the government of Lebanon is no longer a particular protégé of the US and the west, the position taken in western capitals regarding the Lebanese state and, notably, its armed forces remains markedly different to that taken in Jerusalem.  The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) continues to be a major beneficiary of US aid.  This gap in perceptions reflects different primary security concerns.  For Israel, altering this perception in the west before the next conflict with Hizballah is a primary strategic task.

So what are the facts of the case?

One of the basic expectations of a functioning state is that it exercises a monopoly of the use of violence within its borders.  From this point of view, the Lebanese state ceased to function some time ago.  As the 2006 war and subsequent events graphically demonstrated,  Hizballah and its patrons could operate an independent foreign and military policy without seeking the permission of the official authorities in Beirut.

image: https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/28-BIN-OpEd-Experts-300x2501.png
What has happened in the intervening decade, however, is that Hizballah and its allies, rather than simply ignoring the wishes of the state,  have progressively absorbed its institutions.

The events of May/June 2008 in Beirut finally demonstrated the impotence of ‘official’ Lebanon in opposing the will of Hizballah and its allies.

Then, on the official political level, Hizballah and its allies prevented the appointment of a Lebanese president for two years, before ensuring the ascendance of their own allied candidate, General Michel Aoun in October 2016.  For good measure, the March 8 bloc of which Hizballah is a part ensured for itself 8 portfolios in the 17 persons Lebanese Cabinet. Of these, two are directly in the hands of Hizballah.

So at the level of political leadership, it is no longer possible to identify where the Lebanese state begins and Hizballah ends.  And the organization has long enjoyed a de facto, physical dominance, both within Lebanon and in terms of its actions across and beyond its borders (against Israel,  in its intervention in the Syrian civil war, and in its involvement with other pro-Iranian militia groups in Iraq and Yemen).

What if the issue of security cooperation between Hizballah and the Lebanese Armed Forces?

No serious observer of Lebanon disputes that open cooperation between the two forces has increased over the last half decade.  The background to this is the threat of Salafi jihadi terrorism from Syrian Salafi groups engaged in the Syrian civil war.  A series of bombings in Shia south Beirut and in border communities triggered the joint effort by Hizballah and the LAF.

Of course, the bombings were taking place as retaliation by Syrian Salafis for Hizballah’s own involvement in the war in Syria on the regime side.   The LAF and Hizballah cooperated on the level of intelligence cooperation, and scored a number of successes in locating and apprehending Salafi cells on Lebanese soil.

image: https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/461-BIN-SubscribeUSIsraelRelations-600WIDE.jpg
As a result of the increasingly overt cooperation between the LAF and Hizballah, Saudi Arabia ended its military assistance to the LAF, canceling a $3 billion pledge in February 2016.  The cancellation was a tacit admission of defeat by the Saudis, an acknowledgment that their project of exerting influence and power in Lebanon through their clients had failed.

The US, however, has continued its relationship with the LAF, which was the recipient of $200 million in assistance from Washington last year.  Last December, the US dismissed Israeli assertions that M113 armored vehicles displayed by Hizballah in a triumphant parade in the town of Qasayr in Syria came from LAF stocks.  The LAF, according to a statement by John Kirby, the State Department Spokesman, has an ‘exemplary record’ in complying with US end-use guidelines and restrictions.

A statement by Lebanese President Michel Aoun in February appeared to confirm the situation of cooperation between the forces.  Aoun told the Egyptian CBC channel that Hizballah’s arms ‘do not contradict the state…and are an essential part of defending Lebanon.  As long as the Lebanese army lacks sufficient power to face Israel, we feel the need for ‘Hizballah’s arsenal, because it complements the army’s role.’

The difference of opinion between the US and Israel in this regard is of growing importance because of the emergent evidence of hitherto unreported Hizballah activities. In particular, there is deep disquiet in Israel regarding revelations of an Iranian-supported, homegrown Hizballah arms industry.  This, combined with what may be the beginnings of a slow winding down of the Syrian war raises the possibility of renewed tensions with Hizballah.

This does not mean that war is imminent. But from an Israeli point of view, the gap in understanding and perception between Washington and Jerusalem on the LAF, and by definition on the current nature of the Lebanese state, is a matter requiring urgent attention.  It is currently one of the missing pieces in the diplomatic structure which alone can make possible the kind of war that Israel will be wanting to fight next time round, should Hizballah attack or provocation come.

This is intended to be a war on a quite different scale and dimension to 2006.

The intention will be to dismiss any distinction between Hizballah and the Lebanese state, and to wage a state to state war against Lebanon, on the basis that the distinction has become a fiction.  This will involve an all out use of military force that will be intended to force a relatively quick decision.

For this to be conceivable,  a diplomatic battle has to first be won.  This is the battle to convince the west, or at least the US, that an Iranian proxy militia has today effectively swallowed the Lebanese state, making war against the former by its very nature involve war against the latter.  This battle before the battle has not yet been won.  It is part of a larger Israeli hope to focus the US and the west on Iran and Shia political Islam, in place of the current western focus on the Sunni variety.  Only thus will Israel be able to establish the strategic depth in the diplomatic arena that will enable, if necessary, its plans in the event of war with Hizballah to be carried out.
Reprinted with author’s permission from Jonathan Spyer
Read more at https://jonathanspyer.com/2017/07/14/israel-and-hizballah-the-battle-before-the-battle/#3BBfeI7eO0YlS0wx.99

Trump Ends Program to Train Syrian RebelsRebels
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Thursday, July 20, 2017 
 A Syrian rebel fighter. (Photo: DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP/Getty Images)
A CIA program to train and equip Syrian rebels is being phased out by the Trump administration, according to U.S. officials who spoke to the media anonymously.
The program has been ongoing since 2013. It has been heavily criticized for wasting government money and for helping Islamist rebels inadvertently.
In 2015 a U.S.-trained rebel brigade handed over six pickup trucks and ammunition — which was one quarter of their issued kit — to Jabhat al-Nusra, which was then Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.
In 2016, it was revealed that the Pentagon had spent $500 million of taxpayers’ money in order to train 5,000 rebel fighters, but that the program was shut down after reportedly only producing five fighters.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/trump-ends-program-to-train-syrian-rebels/

Arrest Warrant for Imam Who Called for Killing Jews
Home > Uncategorized > Arrest Warrant for Imam Who Called for Killing Jews
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Thursday, July 20, 2017 
 Muhammad bin Musa al-Nasr
Muhammad bin Musa al-Nasr (Photo: video screenshot)
Canada issued an arrest warrant for a visiting Palestinian imam for a sermon in which he called for killing Jews (see video below).
Moh’d Mousa Hussein Nasr, who is also known as Imam Sheikh Muhammad ibn Musa Al Nasr, described Jews as “the most evil of mankind” and “demons.” He then quoted a hadith, a saying of the Muslim prophet Mohammed, which calls for killing the Jews.
“At the end of time, when the Muslims will triumph over the most evil of mankind [and] the human demons, the stone and tree will say, O Muslim, O servant of Allah, O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,” he preached.
The Times of Israel reported that the Montreal mosque that hosted Nasr, who is a member of the Salfist movement in Jordan as well as a lecturer at Al-Ahliyya University in Amman, allowed him to deliver more than a dozen other speeches.
The speech was made last December at the Dar al-Arkam mosque.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/arrest-warrant-imam-called-for-killing-jews/


ordan Makes Improvements to Child Marriage Law
Home > Human Rights > Human Rights Violators > Child Abuse > Jordan Makes Improvements to Child Marriage Law
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Thursday, July 20, 2017 
 A marriage of an 18-year old boy to a 15-year-old girl in Iraq
A marriage of an 18-year old boy to a 15-year-old girl in Iraq (Illustrative photo: Salah Malkawi/Getty Images)
 

Jordan recently cancelled a 2011 law regarding child marriage and replaced it with a new law containing a plethora of guidelines that human rights activist are hopeful will discourage the practice.

Where the old law only required a judge to approve that the conditions were “suitable” to marriage under the age of 18, the new law specifies those conditions. They include:

No marriage under 15 years old
The couple must show a need or good reason for the marriage
The court must declare the groom suitable for the bride
The bride must freely agree to the marriage
Courts must ascertain the marriage will not create any damage
The age difference between the couple may not exceed 15 years
The groom cannot have other wives
The bride must be able to continue her schooling
The groom must prove he has the ability to support the bride and pay her mahir, “bride price”
The groom is able to provide adequate housing for the couple
The couple must present a medical certificate that they are both healthy
The bride’s legal guardian must approve of the marriage.
The bride has the right to demand that the marriage agreement includes any conditions that she sees fit that will benefit her
The bride and groom must go to a special course about marriage and present the court with a certificate that they have completed the course
MORE https://clarionproject.org/jordan-makes-improvements-child-marriage-law/


Is ISIS a Threat to China?
Home > World > China > Is ISIS a Threat to China?
BY RAN MEIR Wednesday, July 19, 2017 
Ahmatjan Osman
China has a large Muslim minority, the Uighurs who number 10-20 million. The area they live in they call East Turkistan or Xinjiang, a region three times the size of France.
East Turkistan lies in northwestern China and borders Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Mongolia, Pakistan, India and Tibet.
In 1933, in a rebellion against the central Chinese government, East Turkistan declared independence. Eleven years later, equipped with an army of 40,000 soldiers and supported by Russia, they began fighting for their lands against China – even reaching 10 miles from what they called their capital Urumqi. Stalin told them to stop because of the bigger diplomatic picture and forced the Uighurs to negotiate with the Chinese.
Five Uighur leaders traveled across China to Peking and subsequently to Kazakhstan. Chinese media reported the five died in a plane crash. Subsequently, the East Turkistan culture minister signed an agreement to create an autonomous region within China for the Uighurs. This was seen by Muslims living in China as treachery.
Since 1955, the area has enjoyed autonomous status but many argue it has never had any form of independence from Beijing. They say the army, police, language and so on are all Chinese. They also point to effort by the Chinese to change the demographics of the area by moving in Chinese “settlers.”
Ahmatjan Osman, who resides in Toronto, Canada, is the president of the “East Turkistan Government in Exile” and seeks independence for East Turkistan .
The other main Muslim organizations in East Turkistan are the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), which fights for human rights of Muslims in the area, and the East Turkistan Education and Solidarity Association (ETESA), which is designated a terrorist organization by China (because China claims they want to create a caliphate).
MORE https://clarionproject.org/isis-threat-china/

EXCLUSIVE: Christian Women Up Against ISIS
Home > World > Iraq > EXCLUSIVE: Christian Women Up Against ISIS
BY ZACH HUFF Sunday, July 16, 2017 
 Bethnahrin Women’s Protection Forces
Bethnahrin Women’s Protection Forces (Photo: Facebook)
Stories about Christians in the Middle East are often about the latest barbaric persecution by radical Islamists — in an almost desensitizing, routine narrative. 
Meet one group of Christian women in Syria fighting back. The Bethnahrin Women’s Protection Forces (HSNB) are part of over 2,000 Christian fighters taking on Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL). 
As partners of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, they have been among America’s most reliable partners on the  round since their formation in mid-2015.  
Similar to the better-known Kurdish forces, they are against both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the so-called moderate Syrian opposition. 
Nisha Gewriye, commander of the women’s units, has graciously agreed to present an exclusive inside look at the women’s fighting force for Clarion Project’s readership:
MORE https://clarionproject.org/44533-2/

 U.S. Group Connected to Terrorists in Kashmir
Home > World > Kashmir > U.S. Group Connected to Terrorists in Kashmir
BY RYAN MAURO Monday, July 17, 2017 
 The State Department blacklisted Mohammad Yusuf Shah (known as Syed Salahuddin), (2nd from right), the leader of the Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist group
The State Department recently blacklisted Mohammad Yusuf Shah (known as Syed Salahuddin), (2nd from right),  leader of the Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist group (Photo: SAJJAD QAYYUM/AFP/Getty Images)
The U.S. sanctioned the leader of an Islamist terrorist group in Kashmir named Hizbul Mujahideen late last month. The move targets an ideological ally of the U.S.-based Muslims of America organization (MOA), a cultish group known for its “Islamic villages” like Islamberg that is expressing support for the Kashmir terrorist group.
On June 26, the State Department blacklisted Mohammad Yusuf Shah (commonly known as Syed Salahuddin), the leader of the Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist group that fights in Kashmir against India and operates in Pakistan with backing from the Pakistani government.
Pakistan condemned the U.S. action.
Hizbul Mujahideen is the largest militant force in Kashmir. It condemns nationalism and democracy. It fights to create a theocratic Islamic state and caliphate. It is also closely linked to other Pakistani terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda affiliates.
MORE  https://clarionproject.org/u-s-group-connected-terror-group-kashmir/


Two US Volunteers Killed Fighting ISIS in Raqqa
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Thursday, July 13, 2017
Robert Grodt (L) and Nicholas Warden (Photos: Video screenshots)
Two Americans were killed fighting for a Kurdish militia in the battle take back Raqqa from Islamic State (ISIS).
Quoting officials from the YPG (People’s Protection Units), Associated Press reported Army veteran Nicolas Alan Warden, 29, of Buffalo, New York and Robert Grodt, 28, from New York, were killed in the terror group’s de facto capital in Syria. Both were volunteers.
In a video released by the YPG, Warden said he was motivated to fight ISIS alongside the Kurds after the ISIS terrorist attacks in San Bernadino, Orlando and Nice.
Grodt also explained his reasons for joining the YPG in a video released just two weeks ago. He leaves behind a child as well as his partner, Kaylee Dedrick.
U.S. special forces are also fighting with the YPG, which is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces. The forces have taken one-third of Raqqa so far.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/two-us-volunteers-killed-fighting-isis-raqqa/


Syrian in Canada: ‘It’s Not Acceptable to Beat My Wife??’
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Sunday, July 16, 2017 
A Syrian refugee in Canada put his wife in the hospital after beating her for a half hour with a hockey stick.
Smiling, Mohamad Rafia entered the court for the sentencing and addressed the judge, saying through an interpreter that he didn’t know it was a crime in Canada to beat one’s wife .
“He was not aware of the law and he was coming from a background where the laws are completely different,” said the interpreter. Furthermore, speaking for Rafia, the interpreter said, “Officials didn’t inform him of the differences in the law in Canada and that more should have been done to educate him. Why didn’t they explain the law?”
Canadian media were shocked by his words, as well as the statements of his wife, who defended her husband, saying that such an attack is culturally acceptable in the country from which they came.
Rafia was pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm and uttering threats. He was sentenced to eight days in jail and one year of probation.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/syrian-refugee-canada-beat-wife-hockey-stick/

Does Facebook Support Terror?
Home > Human Rights > Human Rights Violators > Lack of Basic Freedoms > Does Facebook Support Terror?
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Tuesday, July 18, 2017 
 (Photo: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images)
(Photo: JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images)
In a move that has become unfortunately typical of Facebook, the social media giant has shut the page of the Counter Jihad Coalition, a group that educates the public on political Islam and exposes the human rights abuses inherent in sharia law.
When the notification came that the group had violated the company’s “Community Standards,” they were told that the page would be taken down for just 24 hours. One week later, the page remains closed.
Facebook also recently restricted and then shut down the public pages of Ex-Muslim of North America and Atheist Republic, groups that both provide support to those who leave Islam and often face persecution because of it.
While Islamists most likely mobilized to get the pages shut down by getting their followers to “flag” pages for violation, it is ultimately up to Facebook to check the claims and make the decision.
Meaning, the buck stops with Facebook.
These moves have not been made in a vacuum. Just recently, a high-level executive at Facebook met with the interior minister of Pakistan over the Islamist country’s demands to get “blasphemous” content off the platform.
Pakistan was pleased with the results of the meeting.
Tests have been conducted, for example, to see if Facebook is wielding its enormous power in the cyber world to simply flag what they deem hate speech or a promote a political agenda.
Unfortunately, based on results of experiments, for example, where identical content that demonized Palestinians versus Israelis, we saw that (after it was flagged) Facebook only shut down the anti-Muslim pages but allowed site promoting vile slander against Israel to remain posted.
And despite the fact that the Facebook claims to block content that violates their “community standards,” a case was filed by 20,000 Israelis charging that Facebook allows Palestinian terrorists to incite violent attacks against Israelis and Jews.
Facebook can rightly claim that, as a private company, they are not subject to America’s laws which guarantee freedom of speech – laws which, not incidentally, also protect the right to engage in hate speech (with the exception of incitement to immediate violence).
Ideally, those with a political outlook who are being shut down by Facebook should form an alternative social media platform.
However, Facebook should not be fooled into thinking that they are “doing good in the world” by siding with Islamists who use the politically constructed cry of Islamophobia to further their goal of a worldwide implementation of sharia law.
Moreover, as it has been unequivocally demonstrated, Islamist ideology is almost always a precursor to its violent manifestation.
By shutting down the voices that challenge both the violent and non-violent displays of political Islam, Facebook is de facto supporting terrorism – which certainly goes against its “community standards.”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/facebook-support-terror/

Iran Jails US Citizen for 10 Years
Home > World > Iran > Iran Jails US Citizen for 10 Years
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Monday, July 17, 2017 
 Anti-American graffiti in Tehran, tha capital of Iran. (Photo: ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images)
Anti-American graffiti in Tehran, tha capital of Iran. (Photo: ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images)
Iran has sentenced an American researcher to 10 years of imprisonment on charges of spying, according to the BBC.
Xiyue Wang is a 37-year old graduate student in history at Princeton University. He was in Iran conducting research into the 19th and early 20th century Iranian Qajar Dynasty. He was arrested while trying to leave the country last August.
“This person, who was gathering information and was directly guided by America, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but the sentence can be appealed,” Deputy Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejeie announced on state TV on Sunday.
Wang stands accused of gathering “highly confidential articles” about Iran for U.S. and Western
Xiyue Wang
Xiyue Wang (Photo: Princeton profile page)
institutions including the U.S. State Department, Princeton University, Harvard Kennedy School and the British Institute of Persian Studies.
“Before his arrest he was able to digitally archive 4,500 pages of the country’s documents while under covert surveillance,” MizanOnline, the Iranian judiciary’s official news agency said.
Iran has a history of imprisoning American citizens on seemingly spurious charges of spying. However, in the past they have mostly arrested American-Iranian dual nationals, as well as dual-nationals of other Western countries such as the UK.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/iran-jails-us-national-ten-years/

Pro-Rape Books Found in UK Islamic School
Home > Human Rights > Human Rights Violators > Child Abuse > Pro-Rape Books Found in UK Islamic School
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Tuesday, July 18, 2017 
 The Al-Hijrah school. (Photo: Screenshot from video)
The Al-Hijrah school. (Photo: Screenshot from video)
The British government has ordered the takeover of a state-funded Islamic school in Birmingham. The Al-Hijrah school in Birmingham failed multiple inspections by the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), as originally reported by The Times.
The school reportedly had books in the school library condoning marital rape and wife beating.
A nine-year-old pupil, Mohammed Imaeel Ashraf, died in March after he had an allergic reaction to fish and chips and collapsed.
A June report following the incident said the school was “inadequate” and not “sufficiently” safe. Staff was not adequately prepared to deal with medical emergencies.
The Department of Education has appointed an interim board to manage the school and it will be turned into an academy, a different legal classification of school in the UK.
The school is also facing another legal challenge. Although Al-Hijrah is a mixed gender school, it segregates its pupils, aged 5-16, by gender. Ofsted took the school to court over it, claiming this policy breaches the equality act.
“I am deeply concerned about the idea that total segregation of children within a mixed school is acceptable,” Chief Ofsted Inspector Amanda Spielman said. “We have single-sex schools, and I am not challenging that but the idea that you have . . . a mixed school and yet you do not have social development, stimulation, all the things that come from mixing the sexes, makes me uncomfortable.
“What pupils were missing out on in Al-Hijrah was the chance to interact with the opposite sex, to prepare them for adult life.”
Al-Hijrah managed to delay publication of the report for a year, but an appeals court last week ruled it must be published, according to Heat Street.
England has previously been rocked by the so-called ‘Trojan Horse’ scandal, in which a cadre of Islamist activists were found to have worked to take over a network of state-funded schools and use them to teach a hardline interpretation of Islam. In 2014, although not implicated in the Trojan Horse scandal, the entire governing body of Al-Hijrah school was sacked after it was found to be inadequate.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/islamic-school-seized-state/

Saudis Enraged Over Girl in Short Skirt
Home > World > Saudi Arabia > Saudis Enraged Over Girl in Short Skirt
BY ELLIOT FRIEDLAND Tuesday, July 18, 2017 
 Illustrative picture. (Photo: Clarion Project)
Illustrative picture. (Photo: Clarion Project)
A video of a model walking without a burqa on in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has gone viral and caused a tremendous controversy in the gulf kingdom.
In the video (see below), a model identified as Khuloodn walks through the historic fort of Ushayqir wearing a skirt ending just above the knees and a short sleeved shirt. Such attire is strictly prohibited in Saudi Arabia, where women are forced to cover themselves head to toe in burqas and face veil, or face the police.
The video was shared originally through Snapchat and then disseminated on Twitter.
VIDEO AND MORE 
https://clarionproject.org/saudis-freak-out-over-girl-in-skirt/

Acid Attacks 101
BY ALICIA CHEREM Thursday, June 29, 2017 
 Iranian acid attack victim Ameneh Bahrami
Iranian acid attack victim Ameneh Bahrami (Photo: Reuters)
In honor-based cultures such as Iran, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, acid attacks are often committed as punishment for women violating Islam’s strict dress code or refusing a man’s advances or marriage proposal.
However, a recent acid attack in London – where an aspiring model and her cousin were severely injured — unfortunately demonstrates how this culture is being imported to the West. 
According to Acid Survivors Trust International, there are 1,500 recorded attacks each year; 80 percent of the attacks are on women.
In 2014, thousands of Iranians protested after nine women were attacked with acid in the span of three weeks for violating the dress code.
Under Iranian law, victims are allowed to seek retribution for their attacks under a law called qisa, where punishments match the crime that was committed. Victims or their surviving family members have the ability to grant clemency to the perpetrator, if they so choose.
Iranian woman Ameneh Bahrami – once a beautiful woman — became an international focus in 2011 when she was blinded and left horribly disfigured after a man poured a bucket of acid over her for rejecting his marriage proposal.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/acid-attacks-101/

Newly-Immigrated Muslim Women Honor Killed in Sweden
Home > Human Rights > Human Rights Violators > Honor Violence > Newly-Immigrated Muslim Women Honor Killed in Sweden
BY RAN MEIR Tuesday, May 2, 2017 
(Illustrative photo: Flickr/Tsaiproject)
A growing phenomenon of honor killings in Sweden is being reported among newly-arrived Muslim women.  The Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet published one such report, detailing the murder of a young mother named Bina who immigrated to Sweden from Iran.
Seven months after Bina (not her real name) arrived in Mariannelund, she was killed by her husband after she decided to separate from him and remove her hijab.
Bina was one of six women killed in 2016 shortly after arriving in Sweden.
Gan Heimer, a professor at The National Center for Knowledge on Men’s Violence Against Women based at Uppsala University, said that this is a new situation in Sweden that needs to be monitored.
Bina was just 21 years old when she was murdered. She came to Sweden with two of her older sisters and their families in November 2015. They were all placed in different refugee centers. Bina, her husband – who was also her cousin –and baby daughter were settled by the Swedish authorities in Mariannelund. By the following summer, she was dead.
MORE https://clarionproject.org/newly-immigrated-muslim-women-honor-killed-in-sweden/


Honor Killings or ‘Suicides’? Turkey’s Distressing Treatment of Women
Home > Human Rights > Human Rights Violators > Honor Violence > Honor Killings or ‘Suicides’? Turkey’s Distressing Treatment of Women
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Wednesday, January 4, 2017 
While trying to gain entry to the European Union, Turkey changed the leniencies in its honor killing laws. Now, many girls ‘commit suicide.’ (Part II)
VIDEO BLOCKED IN UK https://clarionproject.org/honor-killings-or-suicides-turkeys-distressing-treatment-women/


Father Pardons Self for Honor Killing Daughter; Set Free
Home > Human Rights > Human Rights Violators > Honor Violence > Father Pardons Self for Honor Killing Daughter; Set Free
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Wednesday, October 26, 2016 
A father who murdered his daughter in an honor killing in Pakistan has pardoned himself and his accomplices and been acquitted by a court due to a legal loophole.
Faqeer Muhammad, his son and a nephew murdered his daughter, Kiran Bibi, and her alleged loved, Ghulam Abbas “to save the family’s honor” in 2014.
Abbas’ mother, Azmat Bibi, pressed charges against the three murders, but later she requested that the charges be registered as a “compoundable” offense. A compoundable offense is a legal status that allows the complainant to enter into a compromise and agree to have the charges dropped against the accused.
The court agreed that the charges would be registered as a compoundable after Azmat and her son pardoned the accused, saying they did not object to an acquittal, and waived their rights to qisas (retribution) and diyat (blood money).
It is unknown whether or not Azmat and her son were coerced into making such a request to the court.
As the legal heirs to their daughter, Faqeer and his wife also stated to the court that they “forgave the accused.”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/father-pardons-self-honor-killing-daughter-set-free-4/


Swedish Boy ‘Honor’-Killed; German Trangenders Stoned
Home > Human Rights > Human Rights Violators > Honor Violence > Swedish Boy ‘Honor’-Killed; German Trangenders Stoned
BY MEIRA SVIRSKY Monday, January 18, 2016 
The importation of the culture of honor violence has arrived in Europe with migrants from Islamist countries. Two profoundly disturbing stories in particular are worth noting.
In Sweden, a 15-year old boy was stabbed to death by a 14-year old migrant from Syria on his first day back at school this term. The boy, whose family themselves were immigrants from Lithuania, was reported to have been protecting a young girl from a sexual assault from the Syrian boy in December. It was allegedly not the first time.
In retaliation, the Syrian boy plunged a knife in his back and heart on the first day back at school in January.
The victim’s father angrily related that in Sweden the press was in collusion with the government, saying that, with regards to the migrant problem, “Everything is being kept hidden.”
While the grieving father was not interviewed by the press, Swedish news Aftonbladet interviewed the father of the migrant boy, who claimed that his son was being bullied by the murdered boy. In what was described as a sympathetic interview, the father insisted, “The school did nothing to help him and establish his honor. Instead, my son had to meet this 15-year old every day. It made him very upset.”
MORE https://clarionproject.org/swedish-boy-honor-killed-german-trangenders-stoned/