The Amboy Times

Russian Priest Murdered by Islamists in Church

Hat tip, ROP.

VOM- Fr. Daniil Sysoyev, a Russian Orthodox priest well known for his missionary activities among Muslims, occultists and others, was shot an killed in the St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Moscow on Thursday evening.  The killer reportedly entered the church, asked for the priest by name, and then opened fire at close range with a pistol. Sysoyev was hit in the head and chest and died later in hospital.  He was 35 years old and the father of three.

There seems to be little doubt that religious motives are behind the killing.  Syosyev had reportedly been receiving a number of death threats because of his teachings and missionary activities.

Please remember Fr. Daniil’s wife and children during this time of grief. You can post prayers on their behalf on the Persecuted Church Prayer Wall.

Somali Women Publicly Flogged for wearing a Bra

A new one to add to the List of Things that Offend Muslims.

A hardline Islamist group in Somalia has begun publicly whipping women for wearing bras that they claim violate Islam as they are 'deceptive'.

The insurgent group Al Shabaab has sent gunmen into the streets of Mogadishu to round up any women who appear to have a firm bust, residents claimed yesterday.

The women are then inspected to see if the firmness is natural, or if it is the result of wearing a bra.

If they are found wearing  they are ordered to remove it and shake their breasts, residents said.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1220864/Whipped-wearing-deceptive-bra-Hardline-Islamists-Somalia-publicly-flog-women-sharia-crackdown.html#ixzz0XQCUoBjK

This and That

Newt's apologizing for supporting Scozzafava. Big deal, I still don't trust him after cozing up with Pelosi on global warming. He's going to have to reprove himself to conservatives if he wants to make a serious run at 2012.

The good news is we won in Virginia and New Jersey. The tide is turning. Average Joes are figuring out that Obama is far left and the polls are showing it. 

The Dems are going to paint themselves into a Socialized medicine corner. Denying that the elections mean anything and ramrodding heath care through regardless. If it passes, Obama is going to look like he opposses the will of the people. If it doesn't pass, Obama looks like a failure who goes against the will of the people. Either way could lead to a big win in 2010.

Meanwhile, a couple of new ones for the List: Musical Ringtones, and Gay couples on cabs.

But since hardline al Shabaab insurgents seized the southern Somali port of Kismayu, the 25-year-old's life has changed.

"Al Shabaab wants our ringtones to be only a Muslim cleric reading the Hadith or Koranic verse," she told Reuters.

Check out Atlas' post on the Goldstone Report.

 

NY Restaurant Offends Muslims

Not only has the restaurant offended the local Muslims, but so much so that they felt it was necessary to issue threats. So what is the great crime the Breslin Restaurant has committed to draw such a strong reaction? They serve alchohol. Via JW.

The much-hyped, soon-to-open Breslin restaurant, situated in the 12-story Ace Hotel on Broadway and 29th, is giving members of the Masjid Ar-Rahman mosque across the street some agita. "Five times a day, there's a hundred cabs on the street--the good news is you can always get a cab," co-owner Ken Friedman told the Transom the other evening. He said some mosque visitors "object to seeing people drink alcohol."

After the recent FergusStock, a festival during which famed British chef Fergus Henderson cooked whole pigs for a rapt crowd of New York chefs and foodies, Mr. Friedman said the mosque's leaders called a meeting with the hotel. "They said, 'Can you move the bar?'" he said. "And I laughed. And the guy said, 'Oh, you think that's funny?' And I said, 'Yeah, that is funny, that is really funny, because we're not going to move the bar just because you discovered we're serving booze.' Can you name one restaurant in New York that doesn't serve booze?"

Mr. Friedman and his partner, Spotted Pig chef April Bloomfield, did agree to nix plans for a dive bar in a townhouse next door, but as for the restaurant, "I said, 'This is the United States of America and we'll do whatever the f**k we want.'"

He said the mosque had suggested it couldn't control the behavior of "a few bad eggs"; i.e., "we could get a brick through our window." Mr. Friedman said he made the police aware of this threat.

A volunteer at the mosque returning a call from the Transom said that a law forbids serving liquor within 200 feet of a place of worship and that "not more than 200 feet is between the mosque and the bar." To which Andrew Zobler, the hotel's developer, responded: "The law is clear that in order for that to apply it has to be an exclusively dedicated house of worship, and at their space they have both residences and a restaurant, so basically, because of those uses the law allowed there to be a bar within 200 feet. Everyone was aware of that when the liquor license was granted." He added: "Out of neighborliness and respect we've voluntarily acquiesced to covering the window with a curtain." [...]

When the Transom visited, the "doily curtain" covering had not yet arrived, and paper has been taped to the windows to shield the mosque's worshipers from the sight of a gay wedding over the weekend. "They can threaten, but they can't really stop us," Mr. Friedman said.

Added to the List.

Congradulations to Friedman for standing up to these threats. If you're in NY, show your support by visiting his restaurant.

Updating the List

Since I started the List of things that Offend Muslims over two years ago, it has grown exponentially. About twice a week a new story is added to the List and sometimes i have trouble keeping up with all the outrage. So here's a few that I haven't had time to include recently.

Ten terms not to use with Muslims.

The Clash of Civilizations, Secular, Assimilation, etc... What better way for the Islamists to control the dhimmis than to limit their thought process?

Bowing before elders un-Islamic, says Deoband edict

I guess Obama didn't get the memo, no wonder King Abdullah was laughing at him.

Italy: Muslims try to blow up 14-century fresco

ISLAMIC PROTEST -- Visitors to the magnificent church of St. Petronio in Bologna are now searched by Italian police before entering because in addition to protests by Muslims offended by a depiction of Mohammed in a 14th-century fresco, there have been unsuccessful attempts to blow the painting up.

Cinema and theatre contrary to Islam, says Saudi grand mufti

Cinema and theatre are “against Sharia” because they distract people from work and weaken their efforts in achieving progress, said Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Shaikh Abdul Aziz Alu Al Sheikh during a conference on leisure, visual arts and literature attended by students at King Saud University.

“Theatrical performance, whether it is a cinema or a song, would generally make an impression that is against Sharia. People need only those (art forms) that are useful to them to change their way of life (in an Islamic manner),” he decreed.

Saudi men arrested for seeking female writer's autograph

Saudi Arabia's religious police detained two male novelists for questioning last week after they attempted to get the autograph of a female writer at a book fair in Riyadh, according to local media reports.

Religious police arrest famous actors, because men and women were performing together

Saudi Arabia- A blitz by the Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (the religious police, or muttawa), who early in the morning of March 30 raided a famous hotel in Riyadh and took away the actors and production staff for a television series.

All this in just a few weeks.

Mohammed Cartoonist Interview shelved by BBC?

Here we go with the cartoons again. The "Beeb" says they haven't reached a decision yet, but if the interview is blocked, you can bet it has nothing to do with "editorial content" and everything to do with appeasement.

The BBC has been accused of appeasement of radical Islam by the artist behind one of the infamous cartoons of Mohammed.

Kurt Westergaard claims the corporation's decision not to air a recent interview with him came because they are petrified of upsetting Muslims extremists.

Westergaard was one of the 12 cartoonists commissioned by the Danish Jyllands-Posten newspaper in 2005 to produce caricatures of the Muslim prophet.

Islamic tradition says no image of him should be produced or shown.

Kurt Westergaard said he was disappointed 'on behalf of freedom of speech' if the BBC did not show his interview

Muslims were particularly incensed by Westergaard's cartoon, which portrayed Mohammed with a bomb in his turban and was seen as extending the caricature of Muslims as terrorists. The images sparked protests and outrage across the globe.

Mr Westergaard, 73, gave his first-ever English interview to BBC journalist Malcolm Brabant four weeks ago.

It had been expected to go out on BBC World, the BBC News channel, across radio services and on its website. But the corporation has kept the report under wraps amid claims it is frightened that it will 'inflame' Muslims around the world.

Mr Westergaard told the Daily Mail last night: 'I am disappointed on behalf of the freedom of speech. Every time you are afraid I think you make a step backwards. That is depressing me.'

He compared the BBC's behaviour with the way countries tried to appease Hitler before the Second World War and added: 'If you have an appeasement policy towards the radical Muslims then you are on a very wrong way and you have to start marching backwards.'

A BBC spokesman said last night: 'No decision has been made yet. As and when one is, it will be based, as always, on editorial merit.'

"Muslim smokers worse than cows" says Muslim cleric

The smoking fatwa is in place, but it's none too popular even amongst Muslims.

Muslims who smoke and try to portray themselves as pious are worse than cows which defecate in the street, a top Malaysian Muslim cleric and politician said.

"...a cow which defecates in the middle of the road, (we) cannot take legal action against it because it has no brain and cannot think," said Nik Aziz who is the spiritual leader of the country's Pan-Islamic Party (PAS).

"But human beings, who have brains, for them to do something which is wrong in religion ... when they are in an attire which symbolizes Islam, they can be regarded as being more despicable than cows," he said on Friday, according to Malaysia's state news agency Bernama.

PAS is one of the three parties in Malaysia's opposition alliance led by former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Nik Aziz said that smoking was forbidden by Islam.

Recently, Indonesia's top Islamic body passed a fatwa or ruling banning smoking. Malaysia's top Islamic body has also banned smoking.

Despite the ban in Malaysia, where over half the population of 27 million is Muslim, 50 percent of the male population smokes according to World Health Organization (WHO) data.

Norwegian Art Exhibit offends Muslims

Another art exhibit is sent running for dhimmitude. From Jihad Watch (emphasis not mine).

At the Telemark county library in Ulefoss, an exhibition was promptly subjected to damage and the library asked the artists to remove it. It is now being shown in Porsgrunn.

The exhibition "Det er ikke forbudt å tenke" ("It's not forbidden to think") was assembled at Porsgrunn library yesterday. In a series of 12 graphic images the artist, Ahmed Mashhouri, picked out the most controversial quotes from the Quran.

"My aim is not to insult anybody and their faith. It's to get a better understanding of the laws found in the Quran. These laws perhaps fit better in the old days, but today they just seem inhuman. I hope that my works will be a wake-up for my dear coreligionists," he says.

Mashhouri and his wife worked for human rights in Iran. They sought asylum in Norway and now live in Skien. The images were prepared in Norway and translated to Norwegian from Persian and English.

"In discussions people love to hear that such thing aren't found in the Quran. We want to show that they actually do," says Mashhouri.

When before Christmas the couple turned to the Telemark library in Ulefoss, they were invited to come.

On December 9th, the exhibit was assembled, but not many hours passed before there was a racket and two-three Muslim women attacked his images. Afterward he was contacted by the library and asked to remove the exhibition.

"I was disappointed, because I thought I was came to a country with freedom," says Mashhouri.

Library head Lillian Nilssen says that they wanted to prevent trouble. "It became quite unpleasant. They almost attacked each other," she says.

Asked if this wasn't a form of censorship, the library head replied: "No, we couldn't risk that the pictures would be destroyed and the police would perhaps have to be called in. We're a small community. Since it would just have hung for two days, we asked him to remove it a day earlier."

The exhibition isn't mostly meant for Norwegians and Mashhouri doesn't hope racist Norwegians will profit from his opinions.

"I want to show Muslims that there are negative things in the Koran too. I don't wish to hurt anybody and here and there it's necessary, temporarily, to advance. If just one begins to thinks, then it's worth it," says Mashhouri.

The images are posted on islamgraph.blogspot.com and Mashhouri wants people to have a discussion there.

Ahmed Mashhouri teaches in an introduction program for refugees in Skien. His class was invited to the exhibition in Porsgrunn and the images engendered strong feelings. A heated, but civilized, debate started up.

"I'm insulted. Is it necessary to create blasphemy and hate in this way? One must be careful with art," thinks Abdulkadir Mohammed. He responded in particular to an image of Koran verses written alongside a woman's bare breast.

Moustafa F. Jasim denies that images and quotes represent Islam.

"This was taken out of context. And the Quran was written many centuries ago. I don't like extreme Islam. We must accept each other. After the debate about hijab in the police we need peace. We are all brothers," he says.

They asked for an apology from the artist, but didn't get it. Mashhouri was happy the images caused debate.

"None of the sentences are mine. They're from the Quran. There are many different Muslims in the world, but people like Osama bin Laden use these sentences," he says.

Before the exhibition the class spoke of freedom of speech and its practice in Norway.

Source: Vardan 1, 2 (Norwegian), h/t HRS

Dubai bans nudity, dancing and holding hands

Add holding hands in public to the list of things that offend Muslims.

Playing loud music, dancing, nudity, kissing and even holding hands in public is considered inapproppriate behaviour under new guidelines laid down by the authorities of Dubai, reports say. Arabic-language daily Al Emarat Al-Youm said the Dubai Executive Council had urged residents of Dubai, where foreigners make up more than 80 per cent of the population, to respect the customs of the Muslim majority country and avoid inappropriate behaviour.

The rules, which apply to all public places, include a ban on all forms of nudity, playing music loudly and dancing, exchange of kisses between men and women -- and even on unmarried couples holding hands.

Any breach of the guidelines, by nationals or expatriates, carries a possible prison penalty, the paper said. Read on.

Egyptian Cleric: Starbucks Logo is Jewish Queen

The Starbucks logo has been the subject of much legend and controversy. I've never really understood why it was a big deal. A friend of mine told me years ago that Starbucks was the name of the first mate in the book Moby Dick and that's how the name came about. The original name was going to be "Moby's Coffee". Read about the history of the logo here.

The lady on the logo is a mermaid, keeping with the Moby Dick theme. So it seems less than coincidental that an anti-Semite would see the logo that is nearly everywhere and use it as a symbol of his own great white whale.

That is exactly what Egyptian cleric Sarwat Higazi has done.

"The Girl in the Starbucks Logo is Queen Esther... The Queen of the Jews"

Safwat Higazi: "Today, I would like to talk about the Starbucks coffee shop. Starbucks is to be found in Mecca, in Al-Madina, opposite the King Abdul Aziz Gate in Mecca, opposite the Al-Majid Gate in Al-Madina, as well as in Cairo. Starbucks is to be found everywhere, with this logo. This is the Starbucks logo.

"Has any of you ever wondered who this woman with a crown on her head is? Why do we boycott Starbucks? I will tell you, so you will know why you should boycott this company, and what this logo stands for. As I’ve already said, it is not enough to avoid entering this coffee shop. It is not enough to refrain from drinking this coffee. You must urge people never to go there, but none of you should even consider throwing a stone, breaking anything, or burning [the place] down.

[...]

"The girl in the Starbucks logo is Queen Esther. Do you know who Queen Esther was and what the crown on her head means? This is the crown of the Persian kingdom. This queen is the queen of the Jews. She is mentioned in the Torah, in the Book of Esther. The girl you see is Esther, the queen of the Jews in Persia." [...]

"The Crown You See Here [In the Starbucks Logo] is the Crown of the Kingdom of Xerxes"

"King [Xerxes] gave an order that the seven most beautiful girls in the kingdom be brought to him. So they held contests and auditions, and selected the seven most beautiful virgins, one of whom was the Jewish Esther, whose uncle, Mordechai - or actually, it was her cousin’s brother - was a villain.

"It was Mordechai who hatched this plot. Esther was one of the seven girls brought before King Xerxes in the palace. When Esther, who was very beautiful, was shown to King Xerxes, she captured his heart, and he chose her to be his queen. He placed a crown on her head, and the crown you see here [Higazi indicates the Starbucks logo] is the crown of the kingdom of Xerxes, and this is Esther, who became Queen of Persia, instead of Queen Vashti."[...]

"We Want Starbucks To Be Shut Down Throughout The Arab And Islamic World...It Is Inconceivable That In Mecca and Al-Madina, There Will Be a Picture of Queen Esther"

"Can you believe that in Mecca, Al-Madina, Cairo, Damascus, Kuwait, and all over the Islamic world there hangs the picture of beautiful Queen Esther, with a crown on her head, and we buy her products?

[...]

"We want Starbucks to be shut down throughout the Arab and Islamic world. We want it to be shut down in Mecca and in Al-Madina. I implore King Abdallah bin Abd Al-‘Aziz, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques: It is inconceivable that in Mecca and Al-Madina, there will be a picture of Queen Esther, the queen of the Jews."

Hatred leads to such nonsense. Higazi sees Jews everywhere, yet he can't bear to look at them.