2003 News

December 29, 2003
Weblog
The California Congress of Republicans Endorses CAIR

The California Congress of Republicans Endorses CAIR. Yes, believe it or not, if local chapters are seeking speakers on "Middle Eastern Affairs and understanding Islam," the CCG, which presents itself as "a grass-roots political organization, founded in 1989 and permanently chartered by the California Republican Party," offers first up none other than the director of CAIR's Northern California office, Helal Omeira. And here I thought only left-wing Democrats like Dennis Kucinich would wish to associate with an organization with three of its leadership in jail on terrorism-related charges. What an embarrassment this is to Republicans everywhere. Let's hope wiser heads immediately pull this endorsement. To help push them in the right direction, you can write the California Republicans at ccrcrp2000@aol.com. If you live in California, mention this, and also if you are a registered Republican. (December 29, 2003)

December 19, 2003
Michael Jackson converted to Islam?

Media sources (Fox, the NY Post, et al.), report that Michael Jackson recently converted to Islam. According to CNN, Jackson's attorney, Mark Geragos, denies rumors that representatives of the Nation of Islam will take over Jackson's management team. Jackson's brother Jermaine is a Muslim and introduced the pop star to Farrakhan's group.

December 17, 2003
Chirac Orders Law Banning Head Scarves

By ELAINE GANLEY
The Associated Press

PARIS (AP) - Despite protests from Muslim leaders, France must outlaw Islamic head coverings, Jewish skullcaps and other obvious religious signs in schools and regulate them in the workplace, President Jacques Chirac announced Wednesday.

Such action, the French president said in a televised national address, is needed to reaffirm France's secular foundations. ``It is not negotiable,'' he asserted.

Islamic head scarves, Jewish yarmulkes or outsized Christian crosses ``have no place'' in public schools, Chirac said, and called on parliament, where his conservative government has a majority, to pass a law banning them ahead of the school year that starts in September 2004.

While widely expected, Chirac's dramatic proposal capped months of debate about mainly Roman Catholic France's struggle to hold together the multiracial, multicultural but often poorly integrated society it has become after waves of immigration from North Africa and elsewhere.

Chirac's proposals, part of a quickening government effort to thwart the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, also appeared aimed at undercutting support for the extreme right National Front, led by Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Le Pen, who placed second behind Chirac in presidential elections last year, has capitalized on fears of immigration and concerns that France is abandoning its traditions as it seeks to respond to immigrant communities.

Chirac paid homage to the immigrants who helped ``forge our country, make it stronger and more prosperous.''

But he also said he will not tolerate any religious challenge to France's core values - encapsulated in the phrase carved above the front doors of schools and town halls across the country: ``Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.''

Chirac said secularism, France's cherished separation of religion and state, remains a cornerstone of French values, providing neutral ground for different religions to coexist in harmony.

He rejected the Anglo-Saxon model of integration - admired by some French Muslims - where ethnic communities guard their customs and separateness.

``I refuse to let France take that path. It would sacrifice its heritage. It would compromise its future. It would lose its soul,'' Chirac said.

Less expected than his proposed law governing schools - and possibly more contentious because of its potential scope - was Chirac's proposal for the workplace.

Business leaders should be allowed to ``regulate the wearing of religious signs'' for safety reasons and for dealing with clients, Chirac said.

He did not specify that head scarves would be banned in the work place, but said he was ready ``if necessary'' to send measures to parliament to give bosses the ability to set rules on religious symbols.

Chirac said a law also is needed to stop patients from refusing treatment by doctors of the opposite sex. Doctors say there have been cases of Muslim women or their husbands rebuffing male doctors.

The French Council of the Muslim Faith, formed this year at the government's urging to improve ties between Muslim leaders and the state, had expressed deep reservations about banning head scarves, saying it would be viewed as a discriminatory move against France's estimated 5 million Muslims, the largest Muslim population in Western Europe.

But the Muslim council's president, Dalil Boubakeur, called for calm in response to Chirac's proposals.

``We have already said that the law of our nation is our law,'' he said. ``It is up to society to fix the norms and values that it wants respected.''

France's chief rabbi, Joseph Sitruk, welcomed the speech, saying Chirac was ``extremely clear about the place of religious belief in a modern society.''

``He reminded the French, notably the young, of all the elements they need to hear,'' Sitruk said, adding that he was ``overall very satisfied'' with Chirac's address.

But the Rev. Stanislas Lalanne, a spokesman for the Catholic Church, said ``the fundamental questions of integration will not simply resolve themselves through a law on religious signs.'' ``A law wasn't necessary,'' said Jamila Chaibi, founder of Rights for Muslim Women of France. She said Muslim women are insulted for wearing head scarves and that Chirac did not do enough to address discrimination.

Chirac said an independent authority will be established next year to combat ``all forms of discrimination.'' He also acknowledged the social, economic and racial inequalities causing tensions among immigrants, many mired in downtrodden, crime-corroded suburbs.

Young French from immigrant families are refused work ``because of the sound of their name,'' Chirac said. He asked: ``How can we ask their inhabitants to recognize themselves in the nation and in its values when they live in inhuman urban ghettos, where the lack of law or the law of the strongest pretends to rein?''

Marine Le Pen, vice president of the National Front and Le Pen's daughter, called Chirac's speech ``a sort of apology for immigration.''

Muslims watched the address on the satellite TV network Al-Jazeera in a tea shop in Paris' Montmartre district. They expressed dismay and some warned of a backlash.

``My wife's family is going to refuse to take off their head scarves,'' said Ahmed Wahdan, 36, a native of Egypt who has lived in France for 16 years. ``Nobody can take their freedom away from them.''

Added Ahmed Dolla, another immigrant from Egypt, said: ``People always say that France is the country of freedom, but where's the liberty if you ban the wearing of head scarves?''

December 14, 2003
Saddam Captured, Disguised and Dusty

By HAMZA HENDAWI
The Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Dec. 14) - Without firing a shot, American forces captured a bearded and haggard-looking Saddam Hussein in a dirt pit across a river from one of his former palaces near his hometown of Tikrit, ending one of the most intensive manhunts in history. The arrest was a huge victory for U.S. forces battling an insurgency by the ousted dictator's followers.

In the capital, radio stations played celebratory music, residents fired small arms in the air in celebration and passengers on buses and trucks shouted, ''They got Saddam! They got Saddam!'' Eager to prove to Iraqis that Saddam was in custody, the U.S. military showed video of the ousted leader, bearded and disheveled, being examined by a military doctor.

''The former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions,'' President Bush said in a midday televised address from the White House, eight months after American troops swept into Baghdad and toppled Saddam's regime. ''In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over. A hopeful day has arrived.''

Hours before the capture was announced, a suspected suicide bomber detonated explosives in a car outside a police station west of Baghdad, killing at least 17 people and wounding 33 more, the U.S. military said. Also Sunday, a U.S. soldier died while trying to disarm a roadside bomb south of the capital.

Washington hopes Saddam's capture will help break the organized Iraq resistance that has killed more than 190 American soldiers since Bush declared major combat over on May 1 and has set back efforts at reconstruction.

But Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, which captured Saddam, said the ousted leader did not appear to be directly organizing resistance - noting no communication devices were found in his hiding place. ''I believe he was there more for moral support,'' Odierno said.

Saddam's capture was based on information from a member of a family ''close to him,'' Odierno told reporters in Tikrit.

The crucial information came after prisoners from raids and intelligence tips led to increasingly precise information, as CIA and military analysts gradually narrowed down their list of potential sites where Saddam was staying, a U.S. official said.

The capture took place at 8:30 p.m. Saturday at one of dozens of safehouses Saddam is thought to have: a walled compound on a farm in Adwar, a town 10 miles from Tikrit, not far from one of Saddam's former palaces, Odierno said.

''I think it's rather ironic that he was in a hole in the ground across the river from these great palaces that he built,'' Odierno said.

The event comes almost five months after his sons, Qusai and Odai, were killed July 22 in a four-hour gunbattle with U.S. troops in a hideout in the northern city of Mosul. There was hope at the time that the sons' deaths would dampen the Iraqi resistance to the U.S. occupation. But since then, the guerrilla campaign has mounted dramatically.

Saddam was one of the most-wanted fugitives in the world, along with Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al-Qaida terrorist network who has not been caught despite a manhunt since November 2001, when the Taliban regime was overthrown in Afghanistan.

''Ladies and gentlemen, we got him,'' U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer told a news conference. ''The tyrant is a prisoner.''

Some 600 troops and special forces were involved in the raid that netted Saddam - though not all were aware beforehand that the objective was ''High Value Target No. 1,'' Odierno said.

Troops found the ousted leader, armed with a pistol, hiding in an underground crawl space at the walled compound, Odierno said. Rugs and dirt covered the Styrofoam lid covering the entrance to the hiding place, a few feet from a small, mud-brick hut where Saddam had been staying.

The hut consisted of two rooms, a bedroom with clothes scattered about and a ''rudimentary kitchen,'' Odierno said. The commander said Saddam likely had been there only a short time, noting that new shirts, still unwrapped, were found in the bedroom.

Saddam was ''very disoriented'' as soldiers brought him out of the hole, Odierno said. A Pentagon diagram showed the hiding place as a 6-foot-deep vertical tunnel, with a shorter tunnel branching out horizontally from one side. A pipe to the concrete surface at ground level provided air.

Saddam didn't fire his weapon. ''There was no way he could fight back so he was just caught like a rat,'' Odierno said.

Two other Iraqis - described as low-level regime figures - were arrested in the raid, and soldiers found two Kalashnikov rifles, a pistol, a taxi and $750,000 in $100 bills.

A U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Saddam admitted his identity when captured.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, who saw Saddam overnight, said the deposed leader ''has been cooperative and is talkative.'' He described Saddam as ''a tired man, a man resigned to his fate.''

''He was unrepentant and defiant,'' said Adel Abdel-Mahdi, a senior official of a Shiite Muslim political party who, along with other Iraqi leaders, visited Saddam in captivity.

''When we told him, 'If you go to the streets now, you will see the people celebrating,''' Abdel-Mahdi said. ''He answered, 'Those are mobs.' When we told him about the mass graves, he replied, 'Those are thieves.'''

The official added: ''He didn't seem apologetic. He seemed defiant, trying to find excuses for the crimes in the same way he did in the past.''

Sanchez played a video at the news conference showing the 66-year-old Saddam in custody.

Saddam, with a thick, graying beard and bushy, disheveled hair, was seen as doctor examined him, feeling his scalp and holding his mouth open with a tongue depressor. Saddam blinked and touched his beard during the exam. Then the video showed a picture of Saddam after he was shaved, juxtaposed for comparison with an old photo of the Iraqi leader while in power.

Iraqi journalists at the press conference stood, pointed and shouted ''Death to Saddam!'' and ''Down with Saddam!''

Though the raid occurred Saturday afternoon American time, U.S. officials went to great length to keep it quiet until medical tests and DNA testing confirmed Saddam's identity.

Saddam was being held at an undisclosed location, and U.S. authorities have not yet determined whether to hand him over to the Iraqis for trial or what his status would be. Iraqi officials want him to stand trial before a war crimes tribunal created last week.

Amnesty International said Sunday that Saddam should be given POW status and allowed visits by the international Red Cross.

Ahmad Chalabi, a member of Iraq's Governing Council, said Saddam will be put on trial.

''Saddam will stand a public trial so that the Iraqi people will know his crimes,'' Chalabi told Al-Iraqiya, a Pentagon-funded TV station.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair hailed the capture, saying the deposed leader ''has gone from power, he won't be coming back.''

''Where his rule meant terror and division and brutality, let his capture bring about unity, reconciliation and peace between all the people of Iraq,'' Blair said.

Celebratory gunfire erupted in the capital, and shop owners closed their doors, fearful that the shooting would make the streets unsafe.

''I'm very happy for the Iraqi people. Life is going to be safer now,'' said 35-year-old Yehya Hassan, a resident of Baghdad. ''Now we can start a new beginning.''

Earlier in the day, rumors of the capture sent people streaming into the streets of Kirkuk, a northern Iraqi city, firing guns in the air in celebration.

''We are celebrating like it's a wedding,'' said Kirkuk resident Mustapha Sheriff. ''We are finally rid of that criminal.''

Still, many Baghdadis were skeptical.

''I heard the news, but I'll believe it when I see it,'' said Mohaned al-Hasaji, 33. ''They need to show us that they really have him.''

Ayet Bassem, 24, walked out of a shop with her 6-year-old son.

''Things will be better for my son,'' she said. ''Everyone says everything will be better when Saddam is caught. My son now has a future.''

After invading Iraq on March 20 and setting up their headquarters in Saddam's sprawling Republican Palace compound in Baghdad, U.S. troops launched a massive manhunt for the fugitive leader, placing a $25 million bounty on his head and sending thousands of soldiers to search for him.

Saddam proved elusive during the war, when at least two dramatic military strikes came up empty in their efforts to assassinate him. Since then, he has appeared in both video and audio tapes. U.S. officials named him No. 1, the so-called Ace of Spades, on their list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis.

Saddam's capture leaves 13 figures still at large from the list. The highest-ranking figure among them is Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a close Saddam aide who U.S. officials have said may be directly organizing resistance.

12-14-03 18:39 EST

December 11, 2003
French Panel Favors Ban on Head Scarves

By ELAINE GANLEY
.c The Associated Press

PARIS (AP) - A blue-ribbon panel commissioned by President Jacques Chirac said Thursday it favors banning Islamic head scarves and other conspicuous religious attire in public buildings, including schools.

Several girls have been expelled from public schools this year for wearing Islamic head scarves, fueling debate over the notion of secularism, a constitutionally guaranteed principle that is a core value of modern-day France.

Christian and Jewish religious leaders have said they are opposed to a law banning head scarves from schools and favor better integration of the Muslim community into the mainstream.

But there are fears that head scarves signal inroads by Muslim fundamentalists in France's estimated 5 million-strong Muslim community - 8 percent of the population and the largest of any Western European country.

The panel's conclusions, which follow six months of study and 120 hearings, were expected to play a role in Chirac's own decision on whether to propose legislation on the matter.

The 20-member panel agreed unanimously that France should impose a law banning ``obvious'' religious and political symbols from public buildings, such as head scarves, yarmulkes or large-sized crucifixes. Small pendants like the Star of David would be permitted.

Bernard Stasi, who headed the commission, said the proposed law was aimed at keeping France's strict secular underpinnings intact and at countering ``forces that are trying to destabilize the country,'' a reference to Islamic fundamentalists.

Stasi stressed that the commission's work did not target France's Muslim community but was aimed at giving all religions a more equal footing.

``Muslims must understand that secularism is a chance for Islam,'' Stasi said. ``Secularism is the separation of church and state, but it is also the respect of differences.''

Neither the Grand Mosque of Paris nor the Consistoire in Paris, which runs Jewish religious life in France, had an immediate reaction to the Stasi report.

But France's largest high school teachers union criticized the report for not going far enough in calling for secularism to prevail in public schools.

``In France, in terms of secularism, there is a lot to do. Veils are just one problem, but not the only problem,'' said Daniel Robin, national secretary of the SNES union. Among problems, he said, was that several of France's departments still require religion to be taught in public schools and have clergy on their payrolls.

The commission also recommended what would be a first for France - adding Jewish and Muslim holidays to the school calendar.

Chirac - who has made clear his opposition to blatant religious symbols in the classroom - said he would address the nation next week with his own conclusions.

On a state visit last week to Tunisia, Chirac told a group of high school students that wearing a veil in France was seen as ``a sort of aggression.''

There is currently no law banning headscarves in schools or elsewhere. A 1999 ruling by the Council of State, France's highest administrative body, said scarves should be banned only when they are of an ``ostentatious character'' but left it up to schools to make that judgment on a case-by-case basis. The same rule applies to skullcaps and crucifixes.

The panel concluded that the rule's language left too much room for interpretation. A law banning the ``obvious'' display of religious symbols would be easier to enforce.

Proponents of a law say that students who wear Muslim head scarves to school, just like civil servants who cover their heads on the job, are challenging the nation's secular underpinnings.

A bitter debate over whether the head covering can be worn in public schools, or by civil servants, has festered for nearly 15 years and deepened as France's Muslim children have grown up. Some see it as a flag of Islamic militancy.

Each year, there are about 150 complaints involving head scarves, according to Hanifa Cherifi, a French Education Ministry mediator. Unresolved cases lead to expulsion - fewer than 50 last year.

12/11/03 09:29 EST

December 6, 2003
Seminary to Launch Interfaith Ethics Code

.c The Associated Press

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - A leading evangelical Christian seminary is using federal funds to launch a $1 million program to ease strained relations with Muslims with an interfaith code of ethics.

Fuller Theological Seminary's proposed code would ask members of either faith to refrain from making offensive statements about the other, affirm a mutual belief in one God and prohibit proselytizing over the two-year span of the project.

The initiative, funded by a grant from the Justice Department, includes teaching the code to Muslims and Christian community leaders in the Los Angeles area and publishing a book, the seminary said.

``We hope to lead a large portion of evangelical Christians into a better understanding of Islam,'' said Sherwood Lingenfelter, Fuller's provost and senior vice president. ``After 9/11 there was a great deal of hostility in the Christian community toward Muslims.''

Last year, televangelist Jerry Falwell described the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist and the Rev. Jerry Vines, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, called Islam's founder a ``demon-possessed pedophile.''

Some Muslim leaders who have already begun participating in the initiative said they were delighted by the Fuller program.

``We are changing the course away from accusations and poisoning the well of relations to what can develop into a project in the service of God,'' said Yahia Abdul-Rahman, who began participating in the initiative last year when he headed the region's network of mosques, known as the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California.

However, some conservative Christians opposed parts of the ethics code.

``For Fuller to declare that Christians and Muslims worship the same God would be a radical departure, not only from the evangelical tradition but also the tenets of orthodox Christianity,'' said John Revell, a spokesman for the Southern Baptists' executive committee.

12/06/03 21:52 EST

December 05, 2003

November 28, 2003
Canada moves toward enforcing Islamic law

Marital, business rulings under sharia law to be ratified by secular courts
Bob Harvey
The Ottawa Citizen

Canadian Muslims have taken a giant step toward persuading Canadian courts to ratify decisions made under Islam's sharia law.

Muslim leaders elected a 30-member council in October to establish a judicial tribunal to be known as the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice. It will establish committees across the country to arbitrate in marital breakups and other civil or business disputes, and then submit the agreements under sharia law to secular courts for ratification.

"Many judges prefer this," said Mohamed Elmasry, president of the Canadian Islamic Congress.

"If Canadian Muslims have an impartial body they trust, it will ease the backlog in the courts. If a husband and wife go back to the community, maybe some mediation will solve the problem."

Mr. Elmasry said such committees could also handle disputes between Islamic centres and imams.

"This is very common, and we suffer a great deal when this happens, and it is too expensive.

"Some court cases I am familiar with cost more than a quarter of a million dollars."

He said local arbitration committees will be made up of imams, community elders, practising lawyers and, hopefully, women elders.

"If women perceive this as a men's club, it will not be successful," said Mr. Elmasry.

What makes it possible for Muslim committees to get Canadian legal recognition of settlements according to sharia law is the recent changes in provincial arbitration acts, which make it possible for Muslim committees to enforce settlements.

Syed Mumtaz Ali, a pioneering Canadian Muslim lawyer, told the Canadian Law Times that until now Canadian Muslims were excused from following sharia law because it was impractical.

"But the concession given by sharia is no longer available to us because the impracticality has been removed."

"Thirty years ago, Canadian courts said nobody could usurp their jurisdiction, but now the trend is to go the other way, because the litigation process is too expensive," said Don Short, a Toronto lawyer who specializes in arbitration and mediation.

Under the Ontario Arbitration Act, the courts intervene in arbitrated settlements only to enforce awards, and in such cases as unfair treatment of partners in the settlement.

Jamal Badawi, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Association of the Maritime provinces, said Muslims in the U.S. and Britain already have similar juristic councils that render decisions which are routinely upheld by the courts.

However, Sheila Ayala, a spokeswoman for the Humanist Association of Canada, said there is a danger in Canadian courts upholding decisions based on sharia law.

"The thing that concerns us is that it will give credibility to sharia." She also raised the question of whether there will be any limits to the implementation of sharia law in Canada. Some accounts on the Internet of the formation of Canada's new Islamic Institute of Civil Justice suggested this will pave the way to Canadian Muslim women being stoned for adultery.

Mr. Short said Canadian courts will take any of the sharp edges off decisions based on sharia law.

Even if both partners in a marriage dispute agreed to the stoning of an adulterer, "a decision between two parties does not bind the Canadian judicial system," said Mr. Short.

November 25, 2003
Students' Ramadan-fast assignment protested

By Art Moore

Posted: November 25, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Hundreds of Christians who fled Egypt to the United States claiming persecution under Islam showed up outside a Southern California middle school yesterday to protest an extra-credit assignment urging students to participate in the Muslim Ramadan fast. The teacher at Royal Oak Intermediate School in Covina, Calif., wrote parents of students in his world history class, saying he wanted to take advantage of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan "to promote a greater understanding and empathy towards the Muslim religion."

But on a public sidewalk adjacent to the school grounds yesterday afternoon, about 500 people, according to organizers, gathered peacefully to "tell the truth about Islam" as classes ended for the day.

A group called the American Middle-East Christian Association maintains that at a time when discussions about Jesus Christ have been barred from classrooms, the teacher is urging impressionable school children to participate in a religion the group views as a threat to America.

Ultimately, the protesters maintained, the teaching of Islam in a public school is furthering the aim of making America a Muslim nation.

About 450 of the protestors were Coptic Christian immigrants from Muslim-majority Egypt, whose families had suffered discrimination and persecution because of their faith, said Steve Klein, who helped organize the event.

"Many of them were in tears, thrilled that they could come out and assert their First Amendment free-speech rights, which are found in no Islamic nation," Klein told WorldNetDaily. "They had survived 14 centuries in Egypt by not getting involved in politics."

The public school is in the Charter Oak School District in a mostly middle- class area at the east end of the San Gabriel Valley.

Superintendent John Roach insisted the teacher meant only to promote empathy with Muslims, not with Islam.

He conceded the instructor told parents in his letter the assignment was about empathizing with the Islamic religion.

"If I had the opportunity to correct the letter before it was sent out, I would have changed that paragraph," he told WND.

Roach said he most certainly would have put a stop to the assignment if it had been about promoting Islam and can understand why some people would make an issue of it.

The letter to parents said students "may choose to fast for one, two or three days. During this time, students may only drink water during daylight hours. Once fasting is completed, students are to type a ½ page summary of their experience. They should describe how it felt to go without food during the day and connect it to the theme of sacrifice. Fasting is inconvenient and sometimes uncomfortable, many religions to consider it an important sacrifice."

The teacher said he wished "to emphasize that this is an EXTRA CREDIT assignment and is by no means mandatory. For those unable to fast, they may choose to type a 2 page paper in which they compare different religions that encourage sacrifice during the year"

Roach went over to the school, which has about 1,600 students, to observe the protest yesterday and estimated the number of protesters to be about 150.

"If in fact we had been inculcating one religion over another, I'm thrilled that there were 150 people who recognize that that's what schools should not be doing," said Roach.

But the official said he was "saddened" that organizers would mobilize all those people to "believe what we're doing is training the next generation of al-Qaida."

Roach noted, however, the protest was peaceful and orderly.

The Coptic Christians passed out literature and talked to many parents about their personal experience of persecution under Islam, Klein said, warning passersby that Islam is here to take over America.

"Many parents were very curious," Klein said. "They were stunned by what their kids were being taught."

One parent objected to the protest, he said, but "changed his tune" after the immigrants told their stories.

Many of the Coptic Christians who showed up are articulate professionals, such as dentists and physicians, said Klein, a former Marine officer who served in Vietnam.

After seeing how the First Amendment works, he noted, they said they need to get together and organize to tell their message further.

"These people who have suffered have so much to offer [Americans] who are sleeping, refusing to recognize the true nature of Islam," said Klein, who said he has organized hundreds of protests, including many that have confronted Islam, through a group he established called Courageous Christians United.

Roach said he's been contacted by some of the Coptic Christians.

"Several people have called me on the phone and spoken to me, wanting to make sure I'm teaching the Islamic religion is a murderous, terrorist religion," he said.

But the superintendent argued, if he were to teach that, he would be "just as guilty as I would be if I went the other way."

"I can't impede a religion any more than I can promote it," he said.

The teacher's letter to parents opened, "As part of the world history curriculum, your student has recently been studying the rise of Islam and the teachings of Mohammed. Fundamental to the Muslim religion are the Five Pillars of Islam. They emphasize the 'word of God,' prayer, charity for the poor, fasting and the pilgrimage to Mecca. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims refrain from food or drink during daylight hours."

Roach insisted the seventh-grade class presents a balanced view of Islam, covering mostly the social implications of the religion's rise, as part of a world history curriculum that begins with the Roman Empire.

As WorldNetDaily reported in January 2002, public school students at Excelsior Elementary School in Byron, Calif., apparently were taken on a deeper journey into Islam in which they pretended to be Muslims, wore robes, simulated jihads via a dice game, learned the Five Pillars of Faith and memorized verses from the Quran in classroom exercises as part of a World History and Geography class for seventh-graders. The class was included in the state's curriculum standards required by the state board of education. These standards outline what subjects should be taught and are included in state assessment tests, but don't mandate how they're to be taught.

The Islam simulations at Excelsior are outlined in the state-adopted textbook "Across the Centuries," published by Houghton Mifflin, which prompts students to imagine they are Islamic soldiers and Muslims on a Mecca pilgrimage.

Related stories:

District sued over Islam studies

Publisher responds to book criticism

Islam studies spark hate mail, lawsuits

Islam studies required in California district

© 2003

November 20, 2003
25 Killed in Explosions in Istanbul

By ESRA AYGIN
.c The Associated Press

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) - Trucks packed with explosives blew up at a London-based bank and the British consulate Thursday, killing at least 25 people and wounding nearly 400. The attacks coincided with President Bush's trip to Britain and were blamed on al-Qaida.

Security forces were put on the highest alert to deal with some of the worst bloodshed in Turkey since the 1970s.

The bombings at the high-rise headquarters of the HSBC bank and the British consulate occurred five minutes apart at about 11 a.m. They followed a pair of synagogue bombings Saturday that killed 23 people, plus the two bombers.

Bush, meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair, said Thursday's bombings showed the terrorists' ``utter contempt for innocent life.''

``The terrorists hope to intimidate, they hope to demoralize. They are not going to succeed,'' Bush said at a news conference with Blair.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw described the attacks as ``clearly appalling acts of terrorism'' and suggested a link to the al-Qaida network.

``I'm afraid it has all the hallmarks of international terrorism practiced by al-Qaida,'' he said in London.

A man calling the semiofficial Anatolia news agency said that al-Qaida and the militant Islamic Great Eastern Raiders' Front, or IBDA-C, jointly claimed responsibility for attacks.

Turkish authorities blamed the Istanbul attacks on Saturday and Thursday on the same groups.

``It seems the attacks have been conducted with the same barbaric methods,'' Justice Minister Cemil Cicek, who serves as government spokesman, told reporters.

It was the worst single-day toll from terrorism in Turkey since 1977, when gunmen opened fire on leftists celebrating May Day, killing 37 people.

Turkish media said the attacks were carried out by suicide bombers, but the governor's office said only that attackers blew up explosive-laden pickup trucks.

At about the same time Thursday, in Iraq, a truck bomb exploded in front of a U.S.-backed Kurdish political party in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing five people and wounding 40. Officials pointed to an al-Qaida-linked militant group, Ansar al-Islam, as being behind that blast.

The first Istanbul blast was at the Turkish headquarters of HSBC, the world's second-largest bank, shearing off the facade of the 18-story building and shattering the windows of nearby skyscrapers.

Body parts, the charred shells of cars and broken glass were scattered around a 9-foot-deep crater that was carved in the streets outside the bank. Water gushed out of the top floors of the building like a faucet.

Bystanders bloodied and covered in dust looked dazed as they walked past lines of ambulances. Several people helped carry the limp bodies of victims.

Turkish army troops made a brief appearance on the streets in Istanbul, deploying on a major highway and standing guard beside police in Istanbul. Military ambulances were also seen.

At least a dozen Turkish soldiers, wearing helmets and camouflage uniforms and armed with G-3 assault rifles, stood by their jeeps near the HSBC headquarters. Troops later were withdrawn.

Another bomb ripped off the wall surrounding the garden of the British consulate in the downtown Beyoglu district.

At least 25 people were killed and 390 wounded, Istanbul's Health Department reported. Television reports initially said up to five blasts, but Turkish authorities later confirmed only two.

Straw said three or four British employees from the consulate had not reported to a roll call following the blasts. British consul-general Roger Short was reported dead by Turkish television stations.

``Once again we are reminded of the evil these terrorists pose to people everywhere and to our way of life,'' Blair said. ``Once again we must affirm that in the face of this terrorism there must be no holding back, no compromise, no hesitation in confronting this menace, in attacking it wherever and whenever we can and in defeating it utterly.''

Blair also reaffirmed his commitment to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.

``It should not lessen ... our commitment to Iraq,'' he said. ``On the contrary it shows how important it is to carry on until terrorism is defeated there as well.''

One witness was traveling on a bus near HSBC when the explosion occurred.

``I thought somebody hit our bus from the back, then I saw black smoke rising. Cars were damaged all around us. I saw the charred body of a driver at the wheel,'' said a sobbing Mehmet Altan.

``After the blast, the bus doors got stuck and passengers broke the windows to get out. There were pieces of flesh spread all around,'' bus driver Necati Erkek said.

Another witness, Hakan Kozan, 29, who was close to the British consulate at the time of the explosion, said the blast came from a white pickup truck. ``I heard a slam on the brakes and 10 seconds later the explosion came,'' Kozan told The Associated Press.

Mehmet Celik, who was slightly injured, said a light brown pickup truck ``exploded in front of the HSBC headquarters.''

Suleyman Karatas, a bank employee, said there was ``a bloodbath after the explosion,'' according to the Anatolia news agency. He said a number of the 600 bank staff members were wounded.

Trading on the Turkish stock market was suspended. Some businesses, including the leading Yapi Kredi bank near HSBC and an IBM office near the British consulate, halted operations, CNN-Turk said.

The Istanbul State Security Court imposed a ban on news coverage of attacks, barring media from filming or broadcasting the images of attack sites, interviewing officials or reporting about the investigation. Turkish TV stations continued their broadcasts from the scenes and reported details of the attacks.

The deployment of the Turkish army troops Thursday was a significant step, since the military remains a powerful force that leads the secular establishment in this predominantly Muslim country.

It has in the past declared martial law when leftist and rightist militants fought in the streets of the nation's largest cities, claiming up to 20 lives a day. The declaration of martial law preceded a 1980 coup when the military stayed in power three years and cracked down on terrorist groups, putting thousands of militants behind bars.

The military took over three times between 1960-80. The last time the military intervened in politics was in 1997, when they forced a religious-oriented government out of power without staging a coup.

The British consulate is located in the cramped historic Beyoglu district, a popular tourist destination with shops, bars, movie theaters and restaurants.

The nearby U.S. consulate was moved months ago to a new, more secure location in another district.

Authorities arrested six people Wednesday in the synagogue bombings. A Turkish court charged five with ``attempting to overthrow the constitutional structure,'' which carries a sentence of life imprisonment. The sixth was charged with ``helping illegal organizations,'' punishable by five years in prison, Anatolia said. No trial date was set.

The two suicide bombers who attacked the synagogues in pickup trucks were identified as Turks. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said the two had visited Afghanistan in the past and that investigators were pursuing al-Qaida links.

On Sunday, Osama bin Laden's terror network claimed responsibility for the bombings in messages to two Arabic-language newspapers, but it was not possible to authenticate those claims. An outlawed Turkish radical group called the Islamic Great Eastern Raiders' Front, or IBDA-C, also claimed responsibility, but Turkish authorities said the attack was too sophisticated to be carried out by that group.

11/20/03 09:06 EST

November 15, 2003
Car Bombs Strike Istanbul Synagogues
At Least 20 Killed, More Than 257 Hurt

By JAMES C. HELICKE, AP

ISTANBUL, Turkey (Nov. 15) - Twin car bombs exploded outside synagogues in Istanbul during Sabbath prayers Saturday, killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 257, officials said.

Reuters

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the bombings ''an attack against humanity.''

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said there were ''international connections'' to the near-simultaneous attacks, one of which blasted the city's largest synagogue, Neve Shalom, as hundreds were gathered to celebrate a bar mitzvah, the coming-of-age ceremony for a young man.

Police were investigating whether the al-Qaida terror network had any link to the bombings, private CNN-Turk television reported.

A huge crater was blown into the street in front of Neve Shalom, leaving the twisted wreckage of a car, as medical teams carried away bloodied and burned victims. The other blast hit the Beth Israel synagogue in the affluent district of Sisli, three miles away, collapsing its roof and littering the street with debris.

''There was huge panic, glass exploding and metal pieces all over the place,'' said Enver Eker, who witnessed blast at Neve Shalom, which in Hebrew means ''oasis of peace.''

At least 20 were dead and 257 were wounded, the Istanbul Health directorate announced.

Chief Rabbi Isak Haleva had a slight hand injury, but his son Yosef suffered serious facial wounds and underwent eye surgery, another son, Mordehay Haleva told the Anatolia News Agency.

Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu said police were investigating whether the attacks were suicide bombings, or if the bombs were on timers or detonated by a remote control.

Footage from security cameras showed a red Fiat exploding in front of Neve Shalom synagogue, and the driver who parked the car walking away, police told the semi-official Anatolia news agency.

A militant Turkish Islamic group, the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front, claimed responsibility for the attacks in a phone call to the semiofficial Anatolia news agency. But NTV television quoted police as saying that the attack was too sophisticated to be carried by that group - a local and relatively small organization - and that recent intelligence had indicated al-Qaida could be planning attacks in Turkey.

''It is obvious that this terrorist attack has some international connections,'' Gul said.

Al-Qaida is thought to have carried out an April 2002 vehicle bombing at a historic synagogue on the Tunisian resort island of Djerba that killed 21 people, mostly foreign tourists.

Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member and close ally of the United States, has long had military and political ties with Israel. Turkey was the first Muslim country to recognize Israel, in 1948.

In Israel, Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said, ''This wasn't just an attack against Jews,'' Gissin said. ''This is radical Islamic terrorism against humanity.''

Turkey has also raised the ire of some in the Arab world by offering to send troops to Iraq to bolster U.S. troops. On Oct. 14, a suicide car bomber exploded his vehicle outside the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad, killing the driver and a bystander and wounding at least 13

Iraqi leaders came out against any Turkish deployment and Ankara this month retracted its offer.

Israeli, EU and NATO leaders expressed horror at the synagogue bombings.

''One can hardly imagine a more tragic, violent and cruel attack than to simultaneously go after two places of worship on the Sabbath in order to kill a maximum amount of people who are busy praying and worshipping their Gods,'' said Daniel Shek, a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom contacted his Turkish counterpart to express his condolences and to offer Israeli assistance in treating the wounded, Israel Radio reported.

NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson expressed condolences to the victims' families and Turkish people.

''These odious crimes near two synagogues are unacceptable acts of hatred and intolerance, which I strongly condemn as barbaric attacks against innocent people,'' Robertson said in a statement.

The synagogue is the most important spiritual center for the 25,000-member Jewish community of predominantly Muslim Turkey.

Security has been tight at Neve Shalom since a 1986 attack when gunmen killed 22 worshippers and wounded six during a Sabbath service. That attack was blamed on the radical Palestinian militant Abu Nidal. The Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah carried out a bomb attack against the synagogue in 1992, but no one was injured.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Saturday's Istanbul bombings ''an attack against humanity.''

Parking was not allowed in front of the synagogues but intelligence sources said two slow moving pickup trucks could have been exploded while passing by, private NTV television said.

''The houses and cars are completely destroyed, as if a huge earthquake hit the area,'' Sabri Yalim, the head of Istanbul's fire department, told NTV outside Neve Shalom.

Edi Baruh, who runs a lighting shop near Neve Shalom, said his father-in-law was in the synagogue during the attack attending a bar mitzvah, the Jewish ceremony to celebrate the thirteenth birthday of a male. There were some 300 attendants, mostly women, Baruh said.

Around the Beth Israel synagogue, twisted metal, shattered windows and bricks filled the streets. ''I threw myself on the floor and it got all dark,'' said Rifat Haifi, who was praying in Beth Israel at the time of the explosion. ''Later, we got up and carried the wounded out.''

The claim of responsibility came in an anonymous phone call to Anatolia. The caller said attacks would continue ''to prevent the oppression against Muslims,'' the agency said.

The Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front, also known as IBDA-C, has been accused in a bombing attack that injured 10 people in downtown Istanbul on Dec. 31, 2000. However, no one has claimed responsibility for that attack.

November 13, 2003
Ten Commandments Judge Removed From Office

By KYLE WINGFIELD, AP

The panel found Roy Moore "placed himself above the law."

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (Nov. 13) -- Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was removed from office Thursday for refusing to obey a federal court order to move his Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the state courthouse.

The state Court of the Judiciary unanimously imposed the harshest penalty possible after a one-day trial in which Moore said his refusal was a moral and lawful acknowledgment of God. Prosecutors said Moore's defiance, left unchecked, would harm the judicial system.

Moore, a champion of religious conservatives, had been suspended since August but was allowed to collect his $170,000 annual salary. He was halfway through his six-year term.

Speaking immediately after the decision, a defiant Moore told supporters he had only acknowledged God as is done in other official procedures and documents.

''I have absolutely no regrets. I have done what I was sworn to do,'' he said, drawing applause.

He said he would consult with religious and political leaders before deciding what to do next. He could appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court.

Under Thursday's decision, the governor will appoint someone to serve the rest of Moore's term, which expires in 2006.

Presiding Judge William Thompson said the nine-member court had no choice in its decision after Moore willfully and publicly ignored the federal court order. ''The chief justice placed himself above the law,'' Thompson said.

A federal judge had ruled the monument was an unconstitutional promotion of religion by the government. A federal appeals court upheld the ruling, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Moore's appeal. The monument eventually was rolled to a storage room on instructions from the eight associate justices.

The ad hoc Court of the Judiciary heard the case after a complaints filed by the Judicial Inquiry Commission.

Greg Sealy, head of the Sitting at His Feet Fellowship in Montgomery, an inner-city mission, said it was the ''darkest day'' he has seen in America since he moved to the United States from Barbados 23 years ago.

''They stole my vote. The judiciary stole my vote. I voted for Roy Moore,'' he said.

The prosecutor, Attorney General Bill Pryor, on Wednesday termed Moore's defiance ''utterly unrepentant behavior'' that warranted removal from office.

The chief justice testified he was fulfilling his duties and promises to voters when he refused to follow the court order.

Moore, 56, testified that he followed his conscience and did nothing to violate judicial ethics.

''To acknowledge God cannot be a violation of the Canons of Ethics. Without God there can be no ethics,'' Moore testified.

He had also reiterated his stance that, given another chance to fulfill the court order, he again would refuse to do so. When one panelist, Circuit Judge J. Scott Vowell of Birmingham, asked Moore what he would do with the monument if he were returned to office, the chief justice said he had not decided, but added: ''I certainly wouldn't leave it in a closet, shrouded from the public.''

In closing arguments, Assistant Attorney General John Gibbs said Moore's public refusal to obey a court order ''undercuts the entire workings of the judicial system.''

''What message does that send to the public, to other litigants? The message it sends is: If you don't like a court order, you don't have to follow it,'' he said.

It was as a circuit court judge in Gadsden in the 1990s that Moore became known as the ''Ten Commandments Judge'' after he was sued by the American Civil Liberties Union for opening court sessions with prayer and for displaying a hand carved Ten Commandments display behind his bench.

He said Wednesday that when he ran for chief justice in 2000, his entire campaign was based on ''restoring the moral foundation of law.'' He added that it took him eight months to personally design the monument, which he helped move into the judicial building in the middle of the night on July 31, 2001.

Jones asked Moore why he didn't just go ahead and move the monument as Thompson ordered.

''It would have violated my conscience, violated my oath of office and violated every rule of law I had sworn to uphold,'' Moore said.

November 8, 2003
Miss Afghanistan May Face Afghan Charges

By JONATHAN FOWLER
.c The Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A 23-year-old woman who is the first Afghan in three decades to take part in a beauty pageant could face prosecution if she returns to her native country, a senior justice official said Saturday.

Fazel Ahmad Manawi, deputy head of Afghanistan's Supreme Court, told The Associated Press that Vida Samadzai, a college student in California, had betrayed Afghan culture by appearing at the Miss Earth contest in a bikini - and may have also broken the law.

``I hope that this lady regrets her actions,'' Mamawi said. He added that Afghan prosecutors may open an investigation, but refused to say what charges or penalties Samadzai could face.

Regardless of any legal action, Samadzai's parading down a catwalk in a red bikini during the contest's qualification last month was a radical departure from the traditional image of Afghan women.

She is now to compete in the contest's final round, held Sunday in the Philippine capital, Manila. Attempts to reach her Saturday were unsuccessful. But Samadzai has said she entered the contest to raise awareness of the plight of women in the homeland she left eight years ago for the United States.

She also said she felt uncomfortable appearing in such a skimpy costume, but that wearing a bikini was a contest requirement.

Afghan law is based on Islamic principles but stops short of the extremist interpretation of Islamic law, known as Shariah, which was applied by the former Taliban regime.

Despite the fall of the Taliban two years ago, many Afghan women still wear the all-covering burqa robes that became an international symbol of the regime's hardline policies. Women who avoid the burqa respect Islamic tradition by covering their hair with a scarf.

Samadzai's wearing the bikini led to criticism from the Supreme Court, which said such a display of the female body was un-Islamic.

And in line with that judgment, Muslim contestants in beauty pageants over the years have been relatively rare.

Four Muslims entered last year's Miss Universe contest in San Juan, Puerto Rico. They represented Turkey, which officially is a secular nation; Egypt, which has a constitution stipulating that Islam is the main source of law; as well as Singapore and Trinidad and Tobago, which have Muslim minorities.

In 1972, Afghanistan held its first and only pageant giving Zohra Daoud the title of Miss Afghanistan. Daoud fled to the United States after the Soviet invasion in 1979, and now lives in Malibu, Calif., where she raises funds for humanitarian efforts in her homeland.

Samadzai, who studies at California State University, Fullerton, left Afghanistan in 1996. It was not immediately clear whether she has any family in the country.

She said she was ``appointed'' as a contestant by people aware of her work as a volunteer fund-raiser.

Her participation in the Miss Earth pageant has received little publicity in Afghanistan, where most of the impoverished population lacks access to outside media.

In Kabul, however, high school student Wahid Ullah said he had heard of her.

``From my point of view, it's not good for an Afghan lady to do this,'' he said. ``It's not good for her to show her body without clothes, because that's totally different from our culture.''

Several Afghan women approached on the streets of Kabul refused to speak to The Associated Press when asked about Samadzai. In Afghan culture, women are usually wary of speaking to men in public.

However, in an office in the city, female employee Mazari Alamyar also criticized Samadzai.

``Every (Afghan) woman who is living in any country should respect Shariah law. We are Afghans, we are Muslims,'' she said. ``We know that what was done by this woman was against Shariah law and we condemn it.''

Najeba Sharief, Afghanistan's deputy minister for women's affairs, also said she was displeased with Samadzai.

It is ``too early'' for beauty pageants when the majority of Afghan women face a tough daily struggle to survive, she said. ``First, we should take other steps and after that, one day, we'll be able to turn to such activities.''

However, she refused to condemn Samardzai outright.

``I seriously respect the human rights conventions which say every human being has the right to do whatever he or she wants. But those women who want to do this should still think a little about their culture.''

November 7, 2003
Miss Afghanistan Conflicted About Bikini

By OLIVER TEVES
.c The Associated Press

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - A 23-year-old Afghan woman denounced by her country's Supreme Court for wearing a bikini during a beauty pageant said she felt uncomfortable in the skimpy attire, but did it to call attention to the plight of women in her homeland.

Vida Samadzai paraded down a catwalk in a red bikini in the Philippines two weeks ago as part of the Miss Earth contest.

``I know that ... it's caused a lot of controversy and I didn't feel comfortable wearing it ... because it's not just my culture,'' she said in an interview with Associated Press Television News.

But wearing the two-piece bathing suit was necessary to qualify for the contest, said Samadzai, who studies at California State University.

At a meeting of the Afghan Supreme Court in Kabul last week, judges condemned Samadzai's appearance, which is a radical departure from the traditional image of Afghan women - many of whom still wear all-covering burqa robes despite the fall of the hardline Taliban regime nearly two years ago.

``Women who show their bodies without clothes in front of people are completely against Shariah (Islamic) law, against Islam and against the culture of the Afghan people,'' the court said, according to a state TV report in Kabul.

The court said it made the statement after repeated media inquiries about her appearance.

Samadzai's participation in the contest hasn't been publicized in Afghanistan, where most of the impoverished population lacks access to outside media.

She said she was ``appointed'' as a contestant by people aware of her work as a volunteer fund-raiser for women's rights causes. She said it doesn't matter if she wins or lose when the pageant judges rule Sunday.

The pageant, she said, gives her recognition that will help in raising money and support for Afghanistan. ``It gives me a chance to speak up and send my voice out there and let people know that the Afghans are in great need of help,'' she said.

Samadzai left Afghanistan in 1996 to study in the United States.

She plans to finish a bachelor's and a master's degree in international business and speech at California State University, Fullerton. She then plans to help produce, direct and act in a movie about the life of an Afghan-American.

However, helping fellow Afghans remains her main goal.

``Whether I mention it or not, it's on my mind, it's in my blood. My whole goal is to just go back there and help them,'' she said.

11/07/03 09:57 EST

October 25, 2003
Court Orders Italy School to Remove Cross

By TOM RACHMAN
.c The Associated Press

ROME (AP) - An Italian court has ordered a crucifix removed from a classroom - setting off a debate in a secular but culturally Catholic nation that is home to the Vatican and where a law still requires public schools to display a cross.

The ruling Saturday highlights the country's awkward relationship with its growing immigrant population, whose presence belies the notion of Italy as a solely Christian nation.

Islamic activist Adel Smith, an immigrant from Egypt whose father was Italian, filed suit challenging the legality of the cross in the elementary school attended by his two sons in the small town of Ofena, 90 miles northeast of Rome.

``Above all, Italy is a secular country,'' Smith said. ``The Vatican is one thing, the Republic of Italy is another. The decision of the judge was independent and impartial.''

Smith, leader of the Muslim Union of Italy, is accustomed to controversy. Other Italian Islamic groups have distanced themselves from him in the past, saying he makes inflammatory statements that represent the opinions of few Muslims in the country.

Judge Mario Montanaro ruled that the cross should be removed because ``the presence of the crucifix in classrooms communicates an implicit adherence to values that, in reality, are not the shared heritage of all citizens.''

School officials have not yet said whether they plan to appeal the judge's ruling and have not removed the cross. In the meantime, some Italians see the ruling not as an effort to enforce secularism but as a disturbing sign of religious extremism.

``You can't chase crosses out of schools,'' said Monsignor Giuseppe Betori of the Italian Bishops Conference. ``The overwhelming majority of Italians want them, and consider them the strongest expression of the cultural roots of their civilization.''

The Italian Constitution says the state and the Catholic Church are each ``independent and sovereign,'' and that ``all religious faiths are equally free before the law.'' However, a 1923 law also says that schools must display the crucifix.

The Education Ministry argued that the 1923 law is still in effect, and it had no plans to apply the court ruling in Italian schools, news reports said.

Legal experts also questioned the ruling.

``I consider this sentence deeply flawed,'' Augusto Barbera, editor of a journal on constitutional law, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper. ``There are laws in effect on this issue. A judge cannot ignore them.''

The issue may be gaining such attention because Italy has only recently begun to acknowledge large non-Christian groups in its society. This country of 57 million people has about 1.2 million legal immigrants, with thousands more arriving illegally every year. One estimate says there are now 800,000 Muslims in Italy.

Immigrants are likely to make up a greater part of this nation in the future. Italy has a declining birth rate and an aging population and, and business leaders say the country must bring in more newcomers to keep its economy going.

Italy is not the only European nation confronting this issue.

In France, a school in a Paris suburb earlier this month expelled two teenage, Muslim sisters for refusing to remove their head scarves - adding fuel to a national debate over expressions of religion. President Jacques Chirac established a commission in July to study just where secularism stands in a country with the largest Muslim population in Europe.

In September, Germany's highest court asked the country's 16 states to draft laws on religious head scarves in state institutions, with four of them quickly announcing they would seek a ban.

The European Union, meanwhile, is debating whether its new constitution should include explicit reference to God and Judeo-Christian values as a vital part of European heritage.

For the time being, no crucifixes have been removed from the Ofena school. Local education board official Nino Santilli said he hadn't received an official order, and he had no plans to take down the crosses yet.

``It's more than 2,000 years that our people and our country have gravitated around the culture of Christianity and the crucifix,'' Santilli said. ``And that goes for nonbelievers, too.''

10/26/03 15:11 EST

October 24, 2003
22 CHRISTIANS IN EGYPT "BEATEN AND TORTURED"

By Stefan J. Bos

CAIRO, EGYPT (ANS) -- Some 22 Christians, including many secret converts from Islam to Christianity, have been arrested by Egyptian police and are "being beaten, interrogated and tortured," a major Christian rights group said Friday, Oct. 24.

The well informed Barnabas Fund, which supports persecuted believers, said the abuses began when Christians were taken from Alexandria to police stations in the capital Cairo as part of a fresh "dramatic" anti-Christian crackdown that began Tuesday, Oct. 21.

Among the first to be arrested were two converts from Islam, Yusuf Samuel Makari Suliman, whose former Muslim name was Muhammad Ahmad Imam al-Kurdi and his wife Mariam Girgis Makar formerly Saher As-Sayid Abd al-Rani, the organization said.

"The following day some seven others were also arrested and taken to the office of the Attorney General."

DRAMATIC SWEEPS

Thursday Oct. 23 that number rose to 22 as other "converts and Christians who have tried to assist them were rounded up and arrested in dramatic sweeps by police," the Barnabus Fund added in a statement send to ASSIST News Service (ANS).

"Local Christians fear the arrests will continue and many other converts from Islam, who have been living quietly as Christians may now be arrested in the next few days," said the Barnabus Fund, which runs a major international campaign on behalf of converts

The Egyptian authorities have not yet reacted to the charges, however there has been among hardliners about what they regard as Western (Christian) influences in the mainly Islamic country, where Christians make up about 6 percent of the population.

FALSIFYING ID PAPERS

Officially the 22 arrested Christians being charged "with falsifying ID papers," apparently because they changed their Muslim names into Christian names, the Barnabus Fund reported.

"Whilst Egypt has no law against apostasy from Islam, in practice converts are actively punished by the police in this 90% Muslim country. (They) often face imprisonment, beatings and torture on various pretexts in order to try to force them to return to Islam."

A Christian who converts to Islam in Egypt can receive ID papers with a new adopted Muslim name within 24 hours, but "it is impossible for a Muslim who converts to Christianity to change their name to a Christian one at all," said the Barnabus Fund.

"Thus they will always be regarded as Muslims in the eyes of the law."

TORTURE AND INTERROGATION

The initial arrest of the first Christians, Yusuf and Mariam, came about as a result of information obtained by police through the torture and interrogation of a Christian who revealed that the married couple were converts from Islam, the organization said.

They allegedly were involved in leading other Muslims to convert to Christianity. "An investigation was opened by police in the Al-Muski quarter of Cairo and the couple was eventually arrested in Alexandria, "beaten, abused, tortured and taken by police to a station in Al Muski," in the capital.

Cairo Christians have reportedly brought food for the couple but the police has so far reportedly refused to allow this to be given to them. Local Christians have managed to obtain the services of a team of Christian and Muslim lawyers to defend the accused.

HUSBAND RELEASED

"They have managed to secure the release of Yusuf who will be fined" and was expected leave the police station later Friday, October 24, while a court case against him is still be outstanding. His wife Mariam will be held in prison for a month whilst the investigation is being conducted against the couple.

She was due to be transferred to a prison later Friday, Oct. 24. The other 20 Christians who have been arrested were held at a police station in el Galaa, Cairo, "but could be moved from there at any time," to a yet unknown location, the Barnabus Fund said.

The latest reported crackdown comes only months after Naglaa, a female Egyptian convert from Islam and her Christian husband Malak were arrested on similar charges of falsifying ID papers. They have been held in prison since 26 February 2003.

Police have reportedly tried to force Naglaa to give up her Christian faith and return to Islam, to leave her husband, and to raise her children as Muslims

KILLINGS IN PRISON

Human rights workers say that many converts have faced imprisonment, beatings and torture. Some are said to have died in prison, while others have fled Egypt, Africa's second largest country with over 66 million people.

"Converts have sometimes been arrested under the country’s emergency legislation which allows for the holding of suspects without charge or trial for indefinite periods, " the Barnabus Fund said.

The Fund has urged Muslim religious leaders to condemn the harsh treatment of converts "and to make public statements calling for a reform of shari’a teaching on apostasy."

That would "clearly affirm that Muslims who choose to convert to another faith are free to follow their personal convictions without fear of punishment or harassment."

Published Date: October 24, 2003 Provided by Assist News Service

October 21, 2003
General Requests Probe on Church Speeches

By MATT KELLEY
.c The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - A top Pentagon general has requested an investigation of his church speeches casting the war on terrorism in religious terms, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday.

Several Islamic and religious freedom groups criticized Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin last week when reports surfaced of his comments during several speeches at evangelical Christian churches. Boykin said the enemy in the war on terrorism was Satan, that God had put President Bush in the White House and called one Muslim Somali warlord an idol-worshipper.

The Pentagon released a statement from Boykin apologizing to those who were offended and saying the three-star general did not mean to insult Islam.

Boykin asked Tuesday for an inspector general's investigation of his comments, Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference. Rumsfeld said it hasn't been determined whether that probe will be conducted by the Army's inspector general or the Defense Department's internal watchdog.

Boykin is the deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

Rumsfeld for a second time declined to offer an opinion on Boykin's statements, saying he watched a network news video of some of the speeches in which Boykin's words were unintelligible.

``I'm going to wait for the inspector general to complete their review and come back to us,'' Rumsfeld said.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he talked to Boykin Monday.

``He mentioned to me how sad he was that his comments created the fury they had,'' said Pace, who joined Rumsfeld at the news conference. ``He does not see this battle as a battle between religions, he sees this as a battle between good and evil, the evil being the acts of individuals.''

Reports of Boykin's comments came as the Bush administration continued its drive to persuade Muslims that the war on terrorism was not a fight against their religion. Rumsfeld repeated that view Tuesday.

But the defense secretary would not say why Boykin's Pentagon-approved statement included a defense of his statement that the United States is a ``Christian nation.''

``My references to Judeo-Christian roots in America or our nation as a Christian nation are historically undeniable,'' Boykin's statement said.

``It is not our statement, it is his statement,'' Rumsfeld said.

October 20, 2003
Conservatives Back General in 'Satan' War

By LIBBY QUAID
.c The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Religious conservatives in Congress are defending a Pentagon general who referred to the war on terror as a Christian fight against Satan.

In remarks many consider demeaning to Islam, Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin has told church audiences his mission is ``a battle with Satan.'' The struggle, Boykin said, is ``because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian ... and the enemy is a guy named Satan.''

Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., drafted a letter Monday asking Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld not to discipline Boykin, saying that elected officials and military leaders have talked about God and spiritual matters throughout U.S. history.

``As elected officials serving in the United States Congress, we recognize the vital importance our personal faiths play in helping us make decisions,'' Tiahrt wrote. ``We ask that any actions taken in response to Lt. Gen. Boykin's remarks not, in any way, intimidate the free religious exercise of his faith.''

Boykin, a three-star general, is deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence. He's also told audiences that President Bush is in the White House ``because God put him there for a time such as this,'' and he once said after a 1993 battle with a Muslim warlord in Somalia, ``I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.''

The general apologized Friday to those offended by his comments.

Pentagon officials released Boykin's statement Friday after hours of weighing how to quell the criticism of the general's speeches, some of which he made while in uniform.

Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, seemed to reproach the general Sunday on ABC's ``This Week.''

``The president's views on this are absolutely clear, and I think the president is very clear on what he means here,'' Rice said. ``This is not a war between religions. No one should describe it as such.''

Rumsfeld has declined to comment on Boykin's statements or say whether he would take action. A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on the letter Monday.

The Kansas congressman circulated the letter among colleagues, including Missouri Republican Rep. Todd Akin, who signed it. Tiahrt serves on the defense spending subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, while Akin serves on the House Armed Services Committee.

``The general is an outstanding leader and is widely respected in the military,'' said Akin spokesman Steve Taylor. ``He has expressed he needs to be more guarded in his statements, and the congressman believes that is sufficient. And he agrees with Secretary Rumsfeld that he is an exemplary public servant.''

10/20/03 19:32 EDT

October 17, 2003
Resurgent Islam is a threat, Cardinal says.

Chicago Cardinal Francis George listed two top threats to the church that the next pope will have to confront: increasing secularization and ``resurgent Islam,'' which he said was growing quickly along with Catholicism in the developing world.

``So an understanding of those two phenomena, preferably from within, would be helpful I think,'' he said.

October 16, 2003
General Casts War in Religious Terms

The top soldier assigned to track down Bin Laden and Hussein is an evangelical Christian who speaks publicly of 'the army of God.'

'I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.' -- Lt. Gen. William G. ‘Jerry’ Boykin, speaking about battle with a Muslim warlord

By Richard T. Cooper, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has assigned the task of tracking down and eliminating Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and other high-profile targets to an Army general who sees the war on terrorism as a clash between Judeo-Christian values and Satan.

Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin, the new deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, is a much-decorated and twice-wounded veteran of covert military operations. From the bloody 1993 clash with Muslim warlords in Somalia chronicled in "Black Hawk Down" and the hunt for Colombian drug czar Pablo Escobar to the ill-fated attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980, Boykin was in the thick of things.

Yet the former commander and 13-year veteran of the Army's top-secret Delta Force is also an outspoken evangelical Christian who appeared in dress uniform and polished jump boots before a religious group in Oregon in June to declare that radical Islamists hated the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian ... and the enemy is a guy named Satan."

Discussing the battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia, Boykin told another audience, "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."

"We in the army of God, in the house of God, kingdom of God have been raised for such a time as this," Boykin said last year.

On at least one occasion, in Sandy, Ore., in June, Boykin said of President Bush: "He's in the White House because God put him there."

Boykin's penchant for casting the war on terrorism in religious terms appears to be at odds with Bush and an administration that have labored to insist that the war on terrorism is not a religious conflict.

Although the Army has seldom if ever taken official action against officers for outspoken expressions of religious opinion, outside experts see remarks such as Boykin's as sending exactly the wrong message to the Arab and Islamic world.

In his public remarks, Boykin has also said that radical Muslims who resort to terrorism are not representative of the Islamic faith.

He has compared Islamic extremists to "hooded Christians" who terrorized blacks, Catholics, Jews and others from beneath the robes of the Ku Klux Klan.

Boykin was not available for comment and did not respond to written questions from the Los Angeles Times submitted to him Wednesday.

"The first lesson is to recognize that whatever we say here is heard there, particularly anything perceived to be hostile to their basic religion, and they don't forget it," said Stephen P. Cohen, a member of the special panel named to study policy in the Arab and Muslim world for the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.

"The phrase 'Judeo-Christian' is a big mistake. It's basically the language of Bin Laden and his supporters," said Cohen, president of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development in New York.

"They are constantly trying to create the impression that the Jews and Christians are getting together to beat up on Islam.... We have to be very careful that this doesn't become a clash between religions, a clash of civilizations."

Boykin's religious activities were first documented in detail by William N. Arkin, a former military intelligence analyst who writes on defense issues for The Times Opinion section.

Audio and videotapes of Boykin's appearances before religious groups over the last two years were obtained exclusively by NBC News, which reported on them Wednesday night on the "Nightly News with Tom Brokaw."

Arkin writes in an article on the op-ed page of today's Times that Boykin's appointment "is a frightening blunder at a time that there is widespread acknowledgment that America's position in the Islamic world has never been worse."

Boykin's promotion to lieutenant general and his appointment as deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence were confirmed by the Senate by voice vote in June.

An aide to the Senate Armed Services Committee said the appointment was not examined in detail.

Yet Boykin's explicitly Christian-evangelical language in public forums may become an issue now that he holds a high-level policy position in the Pentagon.

Officials at his level are often called upon to testify before Congress and appear in public forums.

Boykin's new job makes his role especially sensitive: He is charged with speeding up the flow of intelligence on terrorist leaders to combat teams in the field so that they can attack top-ranking terrorist leaders.

Since virtually all these leaders are Muslim, Boykin's words and actions are likely to draw special scrutiny in the Arab and Islamic world.

Bush, a born-again Christian, often uses religious language in his speeches, but he keeps references to God nonsectarian.

At one point, immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the president said he wanted to lead a "crusade" against terrorism.

But he quickly retracted the word when told that, to Muslim ears, it recalled the medieval Christian crusaders' brutal invasions of Islamic nations.

In that context, Boykin's reference to the God of Islam as "an idol" may be perceived as particularly inflammatory.

The president has made a point of praising Islam as "a religion of peace." He has invited Muslim clerics to the White House for Ramadan dinners and has criticized evangelicals who called Islam a dangerous faith.

The issue is still a sore spot in the Muslim world.

Pollster John Zogby says that public opinion surveys throughout the Arab and Islamic world show strong negative reactions to any statement by a U.S. official that suggests a conflict between religions or cultures.

"To frame things in terms of good and evil, with the United States as good, is a nonstarter," Zogby said.

"It is exactly the wrong thing to do."

For the Army, the issue of officers expressing religious opinions publicly has been a sensitive problem for many years, according to a former head of the Army Judge Advocate General's office who is now retired but continues to serve in government as a civilian.

"The Army has struggled with this issue over the years. It gets really, really touchy because what you're talking about is freedom of expression," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"What usually happens is that somebody has a quiet chat with the person," the retired general said.

October 14, 2003
Intel: Muslims Who Back al-Qaida Eye Iraq

.c The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sunni Muslim extremists who sympathize with the al-Qaida terror network intend to make Iraq their next battleground, as in Bosnia, Chechnya and Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, say U.S. intelligence officials monitoring their communications.

American intelligence experts estimate that several hundred to several thousand violent Islamic militants have entered Iraq to make war on U.S. and British forces. And the collective decision by so-called jihadists across the Islamic world suggests more are on the way, if they can make it to Iraq.

Whether enough will arrive to create a sustained guerrilla war is not yet clear, U.S. officials said.

``Iraq is emerging as the next jihad venue for Sunni extremists,'' according to one recent U.S. intelligence report obtained by The Associated Press. ``Similar to Afghanistan, Chechnya and Bosnia, many extremists are rallying to join the fight.''

For now, however, the greatest threat in Iraq remains the surviving members of Saddam Hussein's secular rule who are conducting guerrilla war and are suspected of carrying out terror bombings since the U.S. invasion, intelligence officials say.

There are scattered signs of contacts and cooperation between some foreign jihadists and Saddam's supporters, the officials say. But this appears to have emerged only recently and is not regarded as evidence of prewar collusion between Saddam and al-Qaida.

Still, U.S. officials acknowledge they don't have a good handle on what Americans face in Iraq. Major bombings, including the Aug. 19 strike at the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, remain unsolved.

Intelligence officials acknowledge the jihadists don't operate with a single will. The officials use the term - jihad means holy war - to describe Sunni Muslim extremists willing to travel from their home countries to fight. Many operate under the umbrella of the al-Qaida network. Some are members, others sympathizers.

The intelligence officials try to get a sense of attitudes by watching Internet chat rooms, Web sites and publications, and by following the words of religious leaders with a known extremist bent. Recent messages from Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's chief surviving deputy, have called for attacks against Americans in Iraq.

In previous conflicts that drew significant numbers of jihadists, the fighters used guerrilla tactics against technologically superior occupying forces. They became experienced fighters and established relationships with like-minded men from other countries.

The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was the genesis of al-Qaida. During the 1980s, Islamic fighters traveled to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Afghan resistance. After the Soviets left in 1989, bin Laden, who financed some of those fighters' travel and training, founded al-Qaida as a support organization for veterans.

Over time, the international connections hardened as bin Laden pledged to continue the Afghan jihad around the world.

Two of the fighters who took part in defending Bosnian Muslims from Serbs and Croats in 1995 were young Saudis named Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar. They went on to play an organizing role in the Sept. 11 attacks and died on the hijacked plane that crashed into the Pentagon.

In Bosnia and Afghanistan, the invading forces eventually left, after the jihadists found themselves on the same side as the United States and other Western powers. The fighting in Chechnya has led to terrorist attacks in Moscow.

The man running extremist operations in Iraq is thought to be Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian whom the CIA describes as a senior associate of bin Laden.

Zarqawi has been inside Iraq in recent months but his current whereabouts are unknown. He has supporters in Jordan, some of whom have probably moved to Iraq to take part in attacks on U.S. forces.

He is also tied to Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish Islamic extremist group, U.S. officials say. The group was based in northern Iraq, in a region outside of Saddam's control, before the war, and was bombed by U.S. warplanes during the fighting. Its members can also move into nearby Iran, according to intelligence officials.

Now, surviving Ansar members serve as guides and fixers for foreigners entering Iraq, officials say.

``Ansar al-Islam is closely tied to al-Qaida and is an extension of the network in Iraq,'' the U.S. intelligence report says. On Tuesday, U.S. officials confirmed the capture of a man they described as the No. 3 operative in Ansar.

Jihadists began entering Iraq in significant numbers during the summer, officials have said. L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, said last month that 19 al-Qaida members were among some 248 foreign fighters detained by U.S. forces in the country.

``There are some dangerous people in Iraq,'' White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday. ``Iraq has become the central front in the war on terrorism.''

About half the foreign fighters are from Syria, with large numbers also from Iran and Yemen, Bremer said.

Elements of some of the bombings may be indicative of the work of al-Qaida and its allies.

The Aug. 7 car bombing at the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad may suggest the involvement of Zarqawi, who is accused of plotting other strikes against his home country, U.S. officials say.

10/14/03 17:09 EDT

October 11, 2003
Iran Hard-Liners Condemn Nobel Committee

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
.c The Associated Press

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's powerful hard-liners on Saturday accused the Nobel committee of meddling in the country's internal affairs by awarding the annual peace prize to an Iranian dissident.

Shirin Ebadi won the 2003 prize on Friday for her human rights and democracy activism. She is the first Muslim woman to win the award.

``The prize is a support for secular movements and against the ideals of the 1979 Islamic revolution,'' said Hamid Reza Taraqi, a former lawmaker and member of the hard-line Islamic Coalition Society.

``The Norwegian Nobel Committee, against its original objectives of promoting peace, has turned into a political tool in the hand of foreigners to interfere in the internal affairs of our country,'' Taraqi said.

On Saturday, Ebadi was the top story on the front page in the reformist dailies, but hard-line newspapers ignored the news.

The hard-line daily Siyasat-e-Rooz gave priority on its front page to the discovery of an Iron Age-cemetery in Spain. Jomhuri-e-Eslami, another hard-line paper, gave the news a small space on page two: ``Westerners give Ebadi Nobel peace prize.''

Pro-reform figures were more gracious, and the administration of reformist President Mohammad Khatami congratulated Ebadi's win in a statement provided to the AP late Friday.

At a news conference Friday in Paris, where she appeared without a head scarf, Ebadi said she believes there is no conflict between human rights and the tenets of Islam.

``Therefore, the religious ones should also welcome this award,'' she said. ``The prize means you can be a Muslim and at the same time have human rights.''

Nobel committee chairman Ole Danbolt Mjoes said the decision was a message to the world.

``This is a message to the Iranian people, to the Muslim world, to the whole world, that human value, the fight for freedom, the fight for rights of women and children should be at the center,'' he said. ``I hope the award of the peace to Ebadi can help strengthen and lend support to the cause of human rights in Iran.''

The committee said Ebadi represents reformed Islam, and lauded her for arguing for a new interpretation of Islamic law which is in harmony with vital human rights such as democracy, equality before the law.

Ebadi, 56, was Iran's first female judge and received her law degree from the University of Tehran.

She was president of the city court of Tehran from 1975-1979, when she was forced to resign. Since the 1979 revolution she has been an activist for democracy and the rights of refugees, women and children.

As a lawyer, she represented families of writers and intellectuals killed in 1999, and worked to expose conspirators behind an attack by pro-clergy assailants on students at Tehran University in 1999.

Ebadi and another lawyer, Mohsen Rahami, were arrested in July 2000 for alleged links to a videotape that purportedly revealed ties between government officials and hard-line vigilantes. They were released from jail after three weeks, but later given suspended prison sentences and barred from practicing law for five years.

Ebadi's husband, Javad Tavassolian, told AP Saturday that the ban was overruled by the appeals court and never enforced.

10/11/03 08:34 EDT

October 10, 2003
Officials Gather for Islamic Summit

By ROHAN SULLIVAN
.c The Associated Press

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Senior officials preparing for the biggest summit of Islamic leaders since the Sept. 11 attacks gathered in Malaysia on Friday amid worries that disunity is sidelining the world's 1.5 billion Muslims.

U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Middle East crisis and the international fight against terrorism will top the agenda of this year's meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Muslim world's largest organization.

The OIC is pushing hard to become the unified voice of Islam and to shake perceptions the religion is linked to violence. There is a growing frustration that the world's Muslims are not spearheading key global debates, such as what to do about Iraq.

About 35 heads of state from the 57-member OIC will attend the Oct. 16-18 talks, the group's first since 2000.

In the past, the organization's diversity has meant is has rarely been able to agree on any issue except one: support for the Palestinians against Israel.

``It's a critical time for the Muslim world,'' Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, one of the United States' most important Muslim allies in the war against terror, said this week. ``The outcome of this OIC summit is extremely crucial for the Muslim world, as well as the world at large.''

Members include alleged terror sponsors Iran and Syria, and moderate, mostly secular nations such as Malaysia. There are also U.S. military allies, such as Bahrain and Qatar.

Syed Hamid Albar, the foreign minister of Malaysia, the incoming chair of the OIC, said its leaders must ``look inside ourselves and search'' for a way to end divisions.

``If we project ourselves as being divided, of course people will not respect us,'' Syed Hamid told The Associated Press. ``It is Malaysia's desire to see the revival of the OIC as a respected organization that has dignity and is not marginalized.''

Senior officials begin talks Saturday. Foreign ministers will then meet before leaders sit down next week.

Some divisions are already apparent.

Staunch opponents of the Iraq war have not forgiven Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar for allowing their territory to be used by U.S.-led coalition forces.

Also, many Muslim countries were angered by Turkey's offer this week to send peacekeepers to Iraq to bolster the U.S.-led forces. Many Muslims see the American-led coalition as an illegitimate occupying force.

Syed Hamid said Friday that most Muslim nations will refuse to participate in Iraqi peacekeeping unless the force is under U.N. command.

Malaysia initially refused to allow Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council to attend the summit, but reversed itself after a U.S.-led diplomatic push. Many Muslims see the council as a puppet administration.

Leaders are expected to sign a statement condemning Israel's airstrike Sunday on what it said was a Palestinian militant training camp inside Syria. The attack prompted fears that Israel could trigger a broader conflict in the Middle East.

Heads of government planning to attend the summit include Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Jordan's King Abdullah II.

The summit will also elect a new OIC secretary-general. Malaysia's outspoken prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, has been mentioned as a possible candidate, though government officials say he won't run.

Mahathir, 77, is due to retire at the end of October. For years, he has used Malaysia's success as a prosperous, modern Muslim-majority nation as a platform to accuse the West of economic imperialism and of turning the war on terror into a fight against Muslims.

But Mahathir has also criticized Muslims as weak and unable to stand up to the West. He led an unsuccessful attempt last year to have the OIC brand Palestinian suicide bombings as terrorism.

October 10, 2003
Groups Praise Ebadi's Pro-Democracy Work

By JOSEPH COLEMAN
.c The Associated Press

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Activists and world leaders praised Friday's award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi as a boost for democracy and equal rights in the Middle East - and said it will bring new attention to Muslim activists who have been toiling in obscurity for decades.

``It is a victory for women in general and Muslim women in particular,'' said Siham Hattab, an English literature professor at Baghdad's al-Mustansiriya University and a member of the Iraqi capital's city council. ``Injustice exists at all times and in all places, but this gives us hope that justice will triumph.''

Ebadi, 56, the first Muslim woman to win the prize, was the first female judge in Iran. She was cited by the Nobel Committee for her focus on human rights, especially the struggle for the rights of women and children. At home, she is admired for confronting Muslim clerics and hard-liners.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan described Ebadi as a ``courageous woman'' whose Nobel win would hopefully underscore the importance of expanding human rights and women's rights throughout the world.

Hisham Kassem, head of the Egyptian Organization of Human Rights, said women activists have been struggling for their rights and freedoms in the Middle East since the early 20th century.

``This is a recognition for what they do, a sort of apology for ignoring them for so long,'' he said.

Friday's award had wider political implications, with some interpreting it as a show of support for democratic - and pro-Western - impulses in the Muslim world, where autocratic government is common and women can be harshly restricted in employment and dress by conservative religious laws.

Those impulses have assumed greater importance as the West confronts radical forces in Islam in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

Austrian Foreign Minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner said Ebadi's prize ``demonstrates the meaning of women's rights as human rights, and that's a sign for the Islamic world.''

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder congratulated Ebadi in a telegram extolling her ``commitment to tolerant coexistence and ... understanding between cultures.''

Rana Husseini, a prominent women's activist and journalist in Jordan, urged Ebadi to use the award to ``become the envoy of peace in the world and in particular in our region.''

Last year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, former President Jimmy Carter, issued a statement saying, ``she proves that one person, standing on principle, can make a positive difference in the lives of many.''

Amnesty International, the London-based rights group, said the prize showed the Nobel Committee had recognized the critical importance of human rights and those who defend them.

``Coming at a time when human rights principles are increasingly under threat, this award will bring renewed hope to those engaged in the daily fight to uphold human rights,'' the group said in a statement.

Ebadi received Human Rights Watch's highest award in 1996, and its associate director, Carroll Bogert, called her ``a brave advocate for human rights in a very hostile environment.''

``We hope it sends a message to the Iranian government that the very serious human rights violations in Iran will not be tolerated by the human rights community,'' Bogert said.

Saudi sociologist and writer, Fowziyah Abu Khalid, who has pushed for reform in the harshly conservative kingdom, praised Ebadi for staying in Iran to struggle against the regime rather than going into exile in the West.

Not everyone, however, cheered Ebadi's award.

Egypt's first female judge, Tahany el-Gebaly, said there were more deserving activists in the Middle East, but Ebadi was chosen because her views were acceptable to the West.

``There are many fiery Muslims whose actions and positions are a lot more outspoken, but because they are anti-West, or anti-American ... they get no attention,'' she said.

10/10/03 16:22 EDT

October 3, 2003
Fla. Guardsmen Probed on Iraqi Marriages

By BILL KACZOR
.c The Associated Press

PACE, Fla. (AP) - Two Florida National Guard soldiers who married Iraqi women against their commander's wishes are being investigated for allegedly defying an order, their families said.

The men, both Christians who converted to Islam so they could be married under Iraqi law, had expected to return to Florida this month, but a new Army policy that requires troops to remain in Iraq for 12 continuous months may keep them there until April.

In the meantime, Sgt. Sean Blackwell, 27, of Pace, and Cpl. Brett Dagen, 37, of Walnut Hill, want to send their wives to the United States because of threats from anti-American Iraqis.

Vickie McKee, Blackwell's mother, said Friday her daughter-in-law has asked that the women not be identified for that reason. Both women are physicians.

``She's being threatened over there on almost a daily basis,'' McKee said. ``He just wants to know that she's safe.''

McKee, who said the Army is trying to prevent the women from coming to the United States, has delivered letters from her son and his wife to the district office of U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller. Dan McFaul, a spokesman for Miller, said the congressman can do nothing until the women request visas.

Blackwell's wife, now working as an interpreter for an American firm in Baghdad, wrote that the Army has prevented him from contacting her since the double wedding on Aug. 17.

``Is this freedom in U.S.?'' she wrote. ``Where is the human right? Where is justice?''

McKee said the soldiers have been barred from using e-mail. For a time they also were prohibited from calling home, she said.

``It's an embarrassment to the Army,'' said Dagen's mother, Laverne Warren. Warren said her son also was not permitted to contact his Iraqi wife.

An Army spokesman at the Pentagon referred questions to officials in Iraq, who declined comment.

Lt. Col. Ron Tittle, spokesman for the Florida National Guard in St. Augustine, said he did not know whether disciplinary action had been taken or is contemplated, but that the soldiers' battalion commander, Lt. Col. Thad Hill, had said he was worried the marriages might distract his troops from their mission and compromise their safety.

In his letter to Miller, Blackwell said the Army Inspector General's office has told him he cannot be punished for getting married, but that he could be disciplined for disobeying an order.

Other soldiers, including his company commander, were supportive, but Hill and a sergeant major opposed the marriages, Blackwell wrote. He added that the sergeant major told him ``Muslims and Christians just don't jive together.''

An Iraqi judge married the couples while the soldiers were on a foot patrol, Blackwell wrote.

10/03/03 17:50 EDT

October 3, 2003
Muslim slays daughter in 'honor killing'

Kurdish refugee didn't approve of teen's relationship with Christian boy
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

A Muslim Kurdish refugee living in the UK was sentenced to life in prison today after being convicted of murdering his 16-year-old daughter because she had started a relationship with a Lebanese Christian boy and had become too "westernized."

By stabbing his daughter in the neck, Abdalla Yones, 48, was performing what in the Muslim world is considered an "honor killing," an attack on a relative who has brought shame to the family. The murder occurred in the family's home in Acton, West London, according to the London Times.

The paper reported Yones asked the judge to be executed for what the killer described as his "appalling" crime, but Judge Neil Denison told him he did not have the power to do so.

Police believe there were 12 "honor killings" in the UK last year, and the Times reports officials are investigating members of the Muslim community who may have covered up such deaths.

According to the paper, Heshu Yones was found in the family apartment bathroom last October with a twisted kitchen knife protruding from her neck. The girl reportedly planned to run away from home after beginning an affair with her Christian boyfriend.

The Times says the girl's father is the first to plead guilty to an "honor killing" in Britain.

"This is, in any view, a tragic story arising out of irreconcilable cultural differences between traditional Kurdish values and the values of western society," Denison said today, according to the report.

Police say Yones slashed his wrist and jumped from a 25-foot balcony in an attempt to take his own life after killing his daughter.

The paper quotes prosecutor John McGuinness as saying, "Her father, a strict Muslim, did not approve of her western lifestyle. She wanted to be with her friends and use a mobile phone quite often.

"There was tension at home particularly with her father. He was not happy with her lifestyle and wanted her to live within the Muslim religion and cultural traditions."

Letters the girl had written that were presented in the case included evidence of domestic violence against her.

"Hey, for an older man you have a good strong punch and kick. I hope you enjoyed testing your strength on me, it was fun being on the receiving end. Well done," one letter written by the teen said.

October 2, 2003
Christian held by Egyptian police

Egyptian Christian Bolis Rezek-Allah was pulled off an international flight this afternoon (September 24, 2003) in Cairo, Egypt, and is being held by Egyptian secret police. Rezek-Allah, who had been granted an immigrant visa to Canada, was on the plane to leave Egypt when police arrested him.

His wife, Enas Badawi, a former Muslim who converted to Christianity, is also being sought by police but has not yet been apprehended. She had planned to eventually join her husband in Canada, but now is in hiding.

In Egypt it is illegal for a Christian man to marry a Muslim woman, and in the eyes of the police and government Badawi is still a Muslim, as they refuse to recognize her conversion.

“It is interesting that the Egyptian government has no problem with Muslim men marrying Christian women,” said VOM spokesman Todd Nettleton, “but they won’t recognize the right of Christian men to marry Muslim women. There is complete freedom for Christians if they want to convert to Islam, but no freedom for Muslims to choose to follow Christ.”

The Voice of the Martyrs urges American Christians to pray for Rezek-Allah as he is in custody, and for Badawi in hiding.

VOM also encourages polite protests to the Egyptian embassy:
Egyptian embassy
3522 International Ct NW
Washington, DC 20008-3022
Telephone: (202) 895 5400
Fax: (202) 244-4319

“The Egyptian government says it gives citizens religious freedom, but this arrest shows that’s clearly not the case,” said Nettleton. “American Christians can make a difference by being heard on behalf of this couple.”

Contact: VOM News Services
Todd Nettleton
(918) 337-8015

The Voice of the Martyrs, Inc.
PO Box 443
Bartlesville, OK 74005
(918) 337-8015
Fax: (918) 338-8832
www.persecution.com

September 30, 2003
Guantanamo Worker Held in Security Probe

By CURT ANDERSON
.c The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - A civilian translator at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was arrested at a Boston airport after authorities found classified information in his possession, officials said Tuesday.

The arrest was the third involving someone who worked closely with the largely Muslim, non-English-speaking population of about 660 suspected al-Qaida and Taliban fighters being held at the Guantanamo Bay camp. Two military personnel are also in custody.

Dennis Murphy, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said the arrest came at Boston's Logan International Airport. The suspect was identified as Ahmed Mehalba, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Egypt who had flown Monday to Boston from Cairo, with a stop in Milan, Italy.

Agents with Customs and Border Protection noticed Mehalba had a military identification card showing he was a contract linguist at Guantanamo Bay, according to a Homeland Security Department statement. The agents checked his bags and found several compact discs, at least one of which contained unspecified classified information, the statement said.

The FBI was called in to interview Mehalba, who denied the documents were his, according to a federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

After the interview, the FBI arrested Mehalba on charges of making false statements. He was being held in Boston and further charges are possible, said the official.

Defense Department officials described Mehalba as a civilian contractor who provided translation services, but it was unclear if he had fulfilled his contract or still was working at the camp.

Boston attorney Michael Andrews was appointed to represent Mehalba by U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles B. Swartwood. Mehalba was to make an initial court appearance Tuesday afternoon, said Andrews, who had not met his client or been informed of what he is charged with or the circumstances of his arrest.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Ricciuti in Boston refused to discuss the case. He would not say whether making false statements was the only charge against Mehalba or whether additional charges would be filed. Documents outlining Mehalba's arrest were sealed by Swartwood on Tuesday morning.

Earlier, authorities charged an Air Force enlisted man, Ahmad I. al-Halbi, with espionage for allegedly sending classified information about the Guantanamo facility to an unspecified ``enemy.'' He also was accused of planning to give other secrets about the prison to someone traveling to Syria.

A military investigator said last week that Al-Halabi had been under investigation before he arrived at the base.

The Air Force Office of Special Investigations began looking into his case in November 2002 while he was a supply clerk at Travis Air Force Base in California, the agent wrote in court documents. Al-Halabi was sent to the Cuban base weeks later as an Arabic language interpreter for the al-Qaida and Taliban suspects there.

Another suspect is Army Capt. Yousef Yee, a Muslim chaplain who is being detained without charge at the Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. Al-Halabi is behind bars at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., forbidden to speak Arabic.

Army Lt. Col. Pamela Hart, a spokeswoman for the base, said last Friday that military authorities strengthened security at Guantanamo Bay in the wake of the arrests.

She said that officials were making certain that restrictions on handling documents, making phone calls and sending e-mails are being followed.

Al-Halabi had said that he is innocent. One of his lawyers, Air Force Maj. James Key III, said al-Halabi is a naturalized U.S. citizen and a patriotic American.

The most serious of the 32 charges against al-Halabi carries a possible death sentence. The implication is that al-Halabi was helping the prisoners communicate among themselves and with the outside world.

09/30/03 12:50 EDT

September 25, 2003
Nigeria Acquits Woman Sentenced to Stoning Death

By TODD PITMAN, AP

Getty Images

KATSINA, Nigeria (Sept. 25) - A single mother facing death by stoning for adultery had her sentence overturned by an Islamic appeals court Thursday in a case that has sparked international outrage.

A five-judge panel rejected the sentence against 32-year-old Amina Lawal, saying she was not caught in the act of adultery and she was not given ''ample opportunity to defend herself.''

If the sentence had been carried out, the single mother would have been the first woman stoned to death since 12 northern states first began adopting strict Islamic law, or Shariah, in 1999.

Lawal, wrapped in a light orange veil, sat on a stone bench, eyes downcast, cradling her nearly 2-year-old daughter as the ruling was announced at the Katsina State Shariah Court of Appeals under heavy security.

The judges read their verdict, which is final, inside a tiny blue-walled courtroom equipped with ceiling fans to ease the sweltering heat.

Lawal was first convicted in March 2002 following the birth of her daughter two years after she divorced her husband. Judges rejected Lawal's first appeal in August 2002.

In an hour-long hearing, the panel said Lawal was not caught in the act of adultery and wasn't given enough time to understand the charges against her.

It also cited procedural errors, including that only one judge was present at her initial conviction in March 2002, instead of the three required under Islamic law.

The case had drawn sharp criticism from international rights groups. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo's government and world leaders had called for Lawal to be spared. Last week, Brazil even offered her asylum.

Few believed the brutal sentence - in which Lawal would have been buried up to her neck in sand and executed by stoning - would ever be carried out.

Francois Cantier, a lawyer with French group Avocats Sans Frontieres, or Lawyers Without Borders, said the punishment was contrary to the Nigerian constitution and would violate international treaties against torture.

Prosecutors argued Lawal's child was living proof she committed a crime under Shariah.

But lead defense lawyer Aliyu Musa Yawuri said that under some interpretations of Shariah, babies can remain in gestation in a mother's womb for five years, opening the possibility her ex-husband could have fathered the child.

He also argued Lawal's case should be dropped because no lawyers were present when she first testified that she had slept with another man following her divorce. Yawuri said Lawal - a poor, uneducated woman from a rural family - didn't understand the charges against her at the time.

Lawal has identified her alleged sexual partner, Yahaya Mohammed, and said he promised to marry her. Mohammed, who would also have faced a stoning sentence, has denied any impropriety and has been acquitted for lack of evidence.

Lawal is the second Nigerian woman to be condemned to death for having sex out of wedlock under Islamic law. The first woman, Safiya Hussaini, had her sentence overturned in March on her first appeal in the city of Sokoto.

The introduction of strict Islamic law in a dozen northern states triggered violent clashes between Christians and Muslims that killed thousands.

Four other people have been sentenced to stoning deaths. Two have been acquitted, and two others - a pair of lovers - are awaiting rulings.

Also under Shariah punishments, one man has been hanged for killing a woman and her two children. Muslim authorities have amputated the hands of three others for stealing respectively, a goat, a cow and three bicycles.

Despite such harsh sentences, the majority of Muslims in the predominantly Islamic north have welcomed the implementation of Shariah, saying it's a key part of their religion and discourages crime.

09-25-03 0745 EDT

September 24, 2003
U.S. Expands Probe at Guantanamo Bay

By MATT KELLEY
.c The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - An investigation into possible security breaches at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for terror suspects has expanded to a third member of the military, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

The arrests of an Air Force translator and a Muslim Army chaplain - both worked at the Cuban base and have apparent ties to Syria - have shaken Defense Department officials. About 660 suspected Taliban or al-Qaida members are being held at the high-security base.

``We don't presume that the two we know about is all there is to it,'' Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.

A member of the Navy who was also part of the small military community at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp is under investigation in the security probe but has not been arrested, Pentagon officials said. They did not identify the service member.

So far, charges have been filed only against Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi, 24, who worked as an Arabic language translator for the detainees. He is accused of espionage, aiding the enemy, lying to investigators and charges that he tried to pass classified information about prisoners and base security to ``the enemy'' and to his native Syria. The most serious charges carry a possible death sentence.

Al-Halabi denies the charges, said his lawyer, Air Force Maj. James Key III. He is also accused of not reporting unauthorized contacts with the Syrian Embassy, but Key said those contacts were to arrange for a trip to Syria to get married. Al-Halabi had his plane ticket for that trip with him when he was arrested July 23 after arriving in Florida from Guantanamo Bay, Key said.

Syria