Egyptian blogger jailed
“For as long as Islam exists on this planet all your efforts to end wars and disputes and upheavals will fail because Islam’s dirty finger will be found behind every catastrophic event to humanity.” – Abdelkareem Nabil Soliman


Mark Alexander

Egypt: Christian Exodus from Muslims Lands


Mark Alexander

Jihad in the West
Part 1:



Part 2:



Mark Alexander

"Now They Call Me Infidel." Ex-Muslim Christian Nonie [Darwish] Speaks Out


Buy Nonie Darwish's book, 'Now They Call Me Infidel', here

Mark Alexander

Terrorist incident in Saudi Arabia
Three French nationals have been shot dead in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi and French governments say.

Saudi sources told the BBC that police were treating the incident as a "terrorist attack".

The shooting happened near the ruins of Madain Saleh, in north-western Saudi Arabia, which is popular with tourists.

Saudi TV said the victims were part of a group of French nationals, some of whom were Muslims heading to the holy city of Mecca on a pilgrimage.

Major General Mansour al-Turki, an interior ministry spokesman, said two men were killed instantly as they rested at the side of the road and came under fire from gunmen.

Another died later in hospital and a fourth was in serious condition, he said.

Some women and children were also part of the group, but were not hurt, he added.

A French diplomatic source, quoted by the French news agency AFP, said an unknown number of attackers "machine-gunned them while they got out [of their vehicle] to go for a walk". French killed in Saudi shooting

Watch BBC video: French dead in Saudi shooting

Mark Alexander

William Rees Mogg! You’re wrong! What al-Qaeda preaches IS Islam!
”We certainly cannot say that all religious influences are benign; al-Qaeda is a religious cult, but a perverted one.” – William Rees Mogg

From the earliest days Christianity has been opposed to slavery. In his Letter to the Galatians, St Paul wrote: “As many of you that have been baptised in Christ, have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither male nor female. We were all one in Jesus Christ.” Undoubtedly Christians have compromised with slavery — as with other social evils — in the course of history, but the orthodox Christian doctrine is one of liberty and equality.

The Christian belief was the inspiration in William Wilberforce’s long campaign to end the slave trade. His Bill received the Royal Assent on March 25, 1807, 200 years ago. That was the most important of all the great reforms of the 19th century; essentially it was a Christian reform, inspired by the Protestant conversion of Wilberforce himself. March 25 was the old New Year’s Day; it is also the feast of the Annunciation of Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

We live in an age when modernists regard religion with something approaching panic. It is like the Devil’s attitude to Holy Water. There was a comic example of Christianophobia in The Sunday Times yesterday. Michael Portillo, who used himself to be seen in Brompton Oratory, was hyperventilating at the idea of David Cameron going to church. “I worry,” he wrote, “because men of power who take instruction from unseen forces are essentially fanatics . . . I would be more reassured to hear that the Tory leader goes to church because that is what it takes to get a child into the best of state schools, not because he is a believer.”

Perhaps this neurotic response to Mr Cameron’s habit of going to church reflects Mr Portillo’s recognition that religion is again becoming an important influence on society. Many of the current news stories show that religion is back in public consciousness; for those who feel uneasy about religion, that is unwelcome.

Islam is, of course, the alarming religious issue that will not go away. In the 20th century the world failed to adjust to two major belief systems, nationalism and Marxism. Now we face a similar global challenge from Islam, which opposes Judaism in Israel, Hinduism in India, Buddhism in South East Asia, Christianity in Europe and America and modernism in the whole advanced world. We certainly cannot say that all religious influences are benign; al-Qaeda is a religious cult, but a perverted one. Religion isn’t the sickness. It’s the cure by William Rees Mogg

Mark Alexander

Virgil Goode in Congress on the Surge Resolution and Muslims
With thanks to Always On Watch for drawing this powerful video to my attention:



Mark Alexander

”Fears grow over Iran”
THE TIMES: Tony Blair has declared himself at odds with hawks in the US Administration by saying publicly for the first time that it would be wrong to take military action against Iran. The Prime Minister’s comments came hours before the UN’s nuclear watchdog raised the stakes in the West’s showdown with Tehran.

The International Atomic Energy Agency concluded that Iran had expanded its nuclear programme, defying UN demands for it to be suspended. Hundreds of uranium-spinning centrifuges in an underground hall are expected to be increased to thousands by May when Iran moves to “industrial-scale production”. Senior British government sources have told The Times that they fear President Bush will seek to “settle the Iranian question through military means” next year, before the end of his second term if he concludes that diplomacy has failed. “He will not want to leave it unresolved for his successor,” said one.

But there are deep fissures within the US Administration. Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, who has previously called for direct talks with Tehran, is said to be totally opposed to military action.

Although he has dispatched a second US aircraft carrier to the Gulf, he is understood to believe that airstrikes would inflame Iranian public opinion and hamper American efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. One senior adviser to Mr Gates has even stated privately that military action could lead to Congress impeaching Mr Bush. "Blair opens-up US divide over Iran military action"

Mark Alexander

Truth about islam from an ex-muslim lady, Wafa Sultan
I present you, my visitors, with this video for the second time. I do so simply because it is so powerful. It is so powerful because it comes from an ex-Muslimah. Although the video is in Arabic, there are sub-titles.



Mark Alexander

Islam starts to make an impact on Alaska
ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS: ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - A 1998 newspaper story about two Muslim children mistakenly buried on top of each other in Palmer left Ake Dobrova weak with outrage.

One of the children had to be exhumed and reburied, a violation of Muslim beliefs. The cemetery mix-up caused anguish all around.
"I was feeling so bad about it," said Dobrova, a small-business owner from Albania. "What kind of people are we (that) we don't have no cemetery?"

That year, he decided to make a cemetery himself. This year, what he started has become the first official Muslim resting place in Alaska.

Islamic teaching, or "sunnah," is strict and specific about the treatment of the dead. A body must be washed by the family, prayed over by the men, wrapped in a shroud and laid in the ground facing Mecca. Burial must occur quickly after death, and the grave must be located near those of other Muslims. . First Muslim Cemetery Opens in Alaska

Mark Alexander

Islam in Britain: A Candid Viewpoint
The conviction this week of a Muslim radical for inciting racial hatred once again highlights the growing threat posed by the pernicious fringe of Islamism. We have only ourselves to blame, says Ruth Dudley Edwards

'UK you will pay, Islam is on its way," is the chilling slogan favoured by Muslim radical Abdul Saleem, who was convicted this week of stirring up racial hatred at a rally in London last year. Addressing the crowd in Belgravia Square, near the Spanish and German embassies, Saleem was filmed saying: "There will come a time when we will stand inside these embassies. There will come a time when we will remove that flag. There will come a time when we will raise the flag of Islam – whether you like it or not, Islam is superior and cannot be surpassed."

His defence should have pointed out that he was merely stating the obvious. He and his kind believe that through intimidation, conversion and out-breeding, the United Kingdom – and the world over – can be brought under Sharia law.

I take Islam – a religion which, at its best, greatly improves the lives of its adherents – and Islamism – its pernicious fringe – very seriously. The Qur'an is beside my bed, along with Bruce Lawrence's The Qur'an: A Biography; I've just finished Karen Armstrong's hagiographical Muhammad and its antithesis, Robert Spencer's The Truth About Muhammad; I try vainly to persuade visitors to watch my DVD of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West; Michael Gove should pay me commission for having persuaded so many people to buy his Celsius 7/7; I've just ordered Nick Cohen's What's Left?: How Liberals Lost Their Way to join the pile of Islam-related books on my to-read pile, which I have little time to address because, in addition to working for a living, I spend at least two or three hours a day reading about Islamic matters or talking to similarly obsessed friends and colleagues at speeches and seminars.

There is much in my personal and working life that, early on, put me in the camp of those who believe Islamism is a totalitarian threat that could destroy our civilisation within a few decades with the help of the West-loathing Left, the wimpish Right, the political and diplomatic wishful thinkers, the massed ranks of risk-averse politically correct bien-pensants and the cowards who want to avoid confrontation at all costs – not to speak of the innumerable peaceable British Muslims who allow bullies and bigots to represent them in the media and who buy into the comfort blanket of victimhood.

I grew up in the Republic of Ireland under an authoritarian religion that bossed about submissive governments; as a British public servant, I saw the damage done by pusillanimous jobsworths; as an historian of the 1930s, I learnt how the wishful thinking of the deluded intelligentsia helped Hitler and Stalin; researching a book on the Foreign Office I came to understand the limitations of a diplomacy that believes the best of everyone; and fascination with the wilder shores of Irish republicanism that I encountered at my mad granny's knee led me subsequently – as a journalist and campaigner – to spend many years in intellectual combat with militant Irish republicanism, struggling, with some success, to understand the terrorist mind.

And then there is academia, which I know well: my new crime novel centres on the degradation of the humanities by politically correct moral relativists who collude with those who seek to destroy a dangerously apologetic civilisation. As for the media, for which I write, they have become so terrified of offending Muslims and making Islamists cross that they refused to do their job as reporters of news and publish the series of cartoons mocking the prophet Mohammed that appeared in a Danish newspaper and which led to Danish citizens being threatened and their country's goods boycotted.

Not only did British newspaper proprietors and editors think freedom of speech not worth fighting for, but Jack Straw, then our Foreign Secretary, condemned as "disrespectful" those European newspapers honourable enough to print the cartoons.

The Ireland from which I fled in 1965 taught me how a powerful religion can get its way by bullying and frightening politicians and influencing a susceptible electorate. Still, it would be unfair to compare the Irish version of Rome Rule with what Islamists wish to impose on us: even our most reactionary bishops were educated; the Enlightenment had not passed them by. Islamists would burn our books, indoctrinate our children into thinking like seventh-century nomads and outlaw joy. "An Islamic regime must be serious in every field," explained Ayatollah Khomeini. "There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humour in Islam. There is no fun in Islam." Roman Catholics might believe in an after-life but they do not yearn to get there: IRA terrorists – even the hunger-strikers – hoped to live. The Islamist brainwashing of the vulnerable – combined with what Bernard Lewis, author of The Crisis of Islam, describes as "the minutely described delights of paradise" – has given us the suicide bombers. Sleepwalking with the enemy by Ruth Dudley Edwards

Mark Alexander

South African radio station set up to promote peace between Palestinians and Israelis
A new English-language FM radio station intended to promote Israeli-Palestinian dialogue has joined the crowded airwaves in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

RAM FM, operating from Ramallah in the West Bank, is backed by a South African media group previously involved in setting up a similar station before the end of the apartheid era in the 1980s to promote inter-racial harmony.

The station, an independent commercial venture, is to broadcast a mix of 20 news bulletins a day, chat shows, entertainment and pop music.

"Being from South Africa, where independence and freedom of speech were hard-won victories, we understand these things better than others... we are committed to getting both sides of the story," RAM FM news director Andrew Bolton said. Radio dialogue opens in Ramallah by Peter Feuilherade

Mark Alexander

Egypt demonstrates how Islam and freedom of expression are incompatible

Photo courtesy of the BBC

An Egyptian court has sentenced an internet blogger to four years' prison for insulting Islam and the president.

Abdel Kareem Soliman's trial was the first time that a blogger had been prosecuted in Egypt.

He had used his weblog to criticise the country's top Islamic institution, the al-Azhar university and President Hosni Mubarak, whom he called a dictator.

A human rights group called the verdict "very tough" and a "strong message" to Egypt's thousands of bloggers.

Mr Soliman, 22, was tried in his native city of Alexandria. He blogs under the name Kareem Amer.

A former student at al-Azhar, he called the institution "the university of terrorism" and accused it of suppressing free thought. Egypt blogger jailed for insult [to Islam and president]

Mark Alexander

How Lord Jesus Changed Radical Muslim Khalil’s Life


Mark Alexander

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: True Islam is Radical Islam


Mark Alexander

Gallup gallops to some questionable and to some downright false conclusions!
“They often charge that religious fervour triggers radical and violent views. But the data say otherwise. There is no significant difference in religiosity between moderates and radicals. In fact, radicals are no more likely to attend religious services regularly than are moderates.” – John Esposito & Gallup’s Muslim studies director

The War on Terror has radicalised Muslims around the world to unprecedented levels of anti-American feeling, according to the largest survey of Muslims ever to be conducted.

Seven per cent believe that the events of 9/11 were “completely justified”. In Saudi Arabia, 79 per cent had an “unfavourable view” of the US.

Gallup’s Centre for Muslim Studies in New York carried out surveys of 10,000 Muslims in ten predominantly Muslim countries. One finding was that the wealthier and better-educated the Muslim was, the more likely he was to be radicalised. Anti-American feelings soar as Muslim society is radicalized by War on Terror by Ruth Gledhill

Mark Alexander

Something Rotten in Blair's Britain
Don't worry, this won't be another analysis of the betrayed underclass, but I must start with the spectacle of youths touring our council estates shooting each other with illegal firearms.

Why have we come to this? Because the family has broken down, our schools are spavined and, in some areas, law and order is now merely a rhetorical concept. And why have these things happened? Because those who purport to govern us haven't a clue how to discharge the duties of office.

Such a failure would be painful for any administration, but for this one especially it is a grim indictment. The poor, the underprivileged, the sick: these were the people Labour said it would care for and help. Yet their condition, like that of most of the rest of us, is now by any measure worse than in 1997. I was going to hold off on the decade-anniversary tribute to Tony Blair for another month or so, but this is all too much. The question must be asked now. What on earth have the past 10 years been for?

If you can bear it, recall these promises from the 1997 Labour manifesto. "Education will be our number one priority"; "we will rebuild the NHS"; "we will help build strong families and strong communities"; "we will be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime"; oh, and if you want a real laugh, "we will clean up politics and put the funding of political parties on a proper and accountable basis". The rest of this largely fictional document is also littered with preposterous variations on these themes. What have the past ten years of Blair been for? by Simon Heffer

Marriage rates plummet to record lows

Mark Alexander

Gathering Islamic Clouds Have Silber Lining! Anti-Dhimmitude from the British High Court
YAHOO NEWS: A 12-year-old Muslim girl has lost her High Court challenge to her school's ban on wearing the niqab full-face veil. Lawyers for the girl and her father had argued the ban was "irrational" and a breach of human rights. But Mr Justice Silber rejected their plea for a judicial review.

After the judgement, the girl's lawyers said she and her family were "bitterly disappointed" and were considering an appeal.

The girl, referred to as X as she is protected by an anonymity order, argued the ban thwarted her "legitimate expectation" she would be allowed to wear the niqab. Muslim Schoolgirl Loses Veil Challenge

Mark Alexander

No Muslim Outrage About Muslim Atrocities


Mark Alexander

London: The Mecca for Islamic banking
BRUSSELS JOURNAL: London is the leading Islamic banking center in the West. Islamist clerics with terrorist connections and a mission to Islamize Europe are infiltrating the United Kingdom through its banking system, and British officials are encouraging them. HSBC, Lloyds TSB, and Citigroup have opened Islamic banking units and branches throughout England. In 2005 the first stand-alone British Islamic bank, Islamic Bank of Britain, opened its doors. Middle Eastern Islamic banks have also set up shop in the UK. Islamic banking in Britain by Helena Christofi

Mark Alexander