Denmark: Objections to So-Called Headscarf Beauty Contest

The title of this article implies that the local Danish Islamic Society issued bomb threats or some other violent acts against a proposed “headscarf beauty contest”. You have to read the entire article to learn that the spokesperson for the Islamic Society merely advised girls not to participate, presumably because beauty contests – even while wearing hijab – are not compatible with the Society’s understanding of modesty.

Miss Headscarf contest for Muslims attacked

Bruno Waterfield (London Telegraph)

USA: Rachel Ray, Terrorist

Yes, Rachel Ray. Could that perky exterior be concealing a terrorist sympathizer? Yes, at least according to Michelle Malkin.

This whole thing is just so …. STUPID.

I’m really disappointed that Dunkin Donuts caved in to Malkin & Company’s inflammatory nitwittery.

Dunkin’ Donuts yanks Rachael Ray ad

(Boston Globe)

Does Dunkin’ Donuts really think its customers could mistake Rachael Ray for a terrorist sympathizer? The Canton-based company has abruptly canceled an ad in which the domestic diva wears a scarf that looks like a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men.
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Some observers, including ultra-conservative Fox News commentator Michelle Malkin, were so incensed by the ad that there was even talk of a Dunkin’ Donuts boycott.

Malkin has this to say:

‘‘It’s refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists.’’

Arabs. She don’t like them, do she? Is she aware that the keffiyeh is worn by Arabs from all parts of the political spectrum (not just “terrorists”)?

And does she care that the issue is irrelevant since Rachel Ray wasn’t wearing a keffiyeh anyway?

Belgium: Woman Gives Internet Support to Al Qaeda

Malika El Aroud spends takes advantage of the freedoms in Belgium to give online support to Al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda Warrior Uses Internet to Rally Women

Elaine Sciolino and Souad Mekhennet (New York Times)

…“Women are coming of age in jihad and are entering a world once reserved for men,” said Claude Moniquet, president of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center. “Malika [El Aroud] is a role model, an icon who is bold enough to identify herself. She plays a very important strategic role as a source of inspiration. She’s very clever — and extremely dangerous.”

Ms. El Aroud began her rise to prominence because of a man in her life. Two days before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, her husband carried out a bombing in Afghanistan that killed the anti-Taliban resistance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud at the behest of Osama bin Laden. Her husband was killed, and she took to the Internet as the widow of a martyr….

Israeli Radicals Burn New Testament

The book burning was confined to a few radical Jewish youths. It’s not clear how they obtained the Bibles, but the incident might be related to unwelcome proselytizing from Evangelicals or from “Jews for Jesus”.

Hundreds of New Testaments torched in Israel

Mark Bixler (CNN)

Police in Israel are investigating the burning of hundreds of New Testaments in a city near Tel Aviv, an incident that has alarmed advocates of religious freedom.

Investigators plan to review photographs and footage showing “a fairly large” number of New Testaments being torched this month in the city of Or-Yehuda, a police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said Wednesday.

News accounts in Israel have quoted Uzi Aharon, the deputy mayor of Or-Yehuda, as saying he organized students who burned several hundred copies of the New Testament. The deputy mayor gave interviews to Israeli radio and television stations after word of the incident surfaced about two weeks ago…

Afghanistan: Prayers at Mazar-I-Sharif

Prayers in the Afghan sun

Shiites’ revered shrine underscores relative calm of northern region compared to tension of Kabul

Rosie DiManno (Toronto Star)

Saudi Arabia: Eat This or I Will Kill You

Sidelights: When Bedouin Hospitality Turns Hostile

(Arab News)

… The Okaz daily reported that a Saudi man here threatened to shoot his five guests after they refused to eat the dinner he had just served…. [More]

Malaysia: Polygamy, or Boys Just Wanna Have Fun

A Malaysian lawmaker believes that women need to be trained to accept polygamy.

Muslim lawmaker advises women to accept polygamy

Agence France Presse)

A Malaysian lawmaker told parliament that there would be fewer marital problems and a lower divorce rate if Muslim women were taught to accept polygamy, news reports said yesterday.

Ibrahim Ali, an independent parliamentarian, proposed moves to address the issue in response to complaints that women were always blamed for marital issues…

Here is Ali’s reasoning:

… The ethnic Malay Muslim lawmaker said women who are pregnant or who have “problems” when they hit their 50s do not understand that men still want to “have fun.”

So, for the pregnant wife or the wife who is having “problems”, when does the “fun” start? Having your husband marry someone else because your pregnant tummy is “bringing him down” sounds like no fun at all.

But then, life is not just about “fun”. Faithfulness, sensitivity and compassion also play a role.

USA, CA: Being Muslim in San Diego

Provocative title; nice article about the Muslim community of San Diego, California.

If I Did That Over There, They’d Cut My Hands Off

Bill Manson (San Diego Weekly Reader)

What’s it like, being Muslim in San Diego?

Saudia Arabia: Film Festival in Dammam

Saudi holds first film festival

Donna Abu-Nasr (Associated Press)

It’s a far cry from the glamour of Cannes: No celebrities strutting their stuff; an all-male audience drinking coffee and juice rather than champagne; and if any female spectators showed up — well, no one knew. They came in through a back entrance into a separate hall, off-limits to the male organizers.

Still, there was an undercurrent of excitement at the cultural club in this eastern Saudi city. The four-day film festival that kicked off Tuesday night was the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia — one that many hope will boost the kingdom’s fledgling film industry, and more importantly, lead to the opening of movie theaters….

China, Photo Gallery: Muslim Funeral Rites

Xinhua presents a photo gallery of Muslim funeral prayers (Janazah) and burial rites.

Europe, UK & USA: Muslima Poets and Rap Artists Release Mix Tape

Muslim women make their voices heard

(Asian News)

FEMALE Muslim rappers, singers and poets from the UK, Europe and US have united to bring together a mixtape [sic] of unreleased songs….

… “This is just the first small step towards encouraging these artists and others like them out there to pursue their dreams and hopes,” said Deeyah, the founder of the Sisterhood project who selected this first volume of songs from scores submitted to her.

Iraq: Psychiatric Hospital in Dire Condition

Shock treatments without anesthesia. A shortage of trained personnel. Inadequate facilities. This psychiatric hospital in Iraq sounds more like hell on earth than a treatment facility.

Since the war, conditions for patients have deteriorated to an alarming state.

War Takes Toll on Baghdad Psychiatric Hospital

Erica Goode (NY Times)

… Only 4 of 11 psychiatrists remain at Ibn Rushid [Psychiatric Hospital]; the rest have moved north to Kurdistan, where the risk of kidnapping or assassination is lower, or have fled the country.

The psychiatric hospital, one of two in Iraq, provides short-term treatment and was once considered a jewel of the country’s medical system, renowned for its modern care. Patients from as far away as Syria and Jordan came for treatment, and the hospital’s 75 beds were always full. Specialists from Western countries visited to teach the latest forms of treatment.

But Ibn Rushid’s fortunes have fallen with those of the broken city around it, a decline that began under Saddam Hussein and that has grown steeper each year since 2003….

Iraq, Kurdistan: Mobile Phone Abuse Leading to Honor Killings

Mobile phones have become a new threat to young women’s safety in Iraq’s northern region, members of parliament and women’s rights campaigners warn.

Men are using them to take photos and record audio and video clips of women and girls who are breaking social codes by having sexually explicit conversations or intimate relations with their boyfriends. In many cases, the conversations and videos have been widely distributed, damaging women’s reputations and, in doing so, putting their lives at risk.

The mobile phone photos or videos are then shown to the compromised girl’s family members, leaving the woman open to honor killings and other abuse.

In 2007, nearly 350 women the victims of violence in mobile-phone related cases, according to statistics compiled by women’s organisations and the Sulaimaniyah police directorate. In 2006, 170 cases were recorded.

However, experts believe that the actual number of incidents is much higher.

Kurdish lawmakers are debating the passage of new laws against cell phone abuse, but such laws will be useless without a profound societal change.

USA, NY: Debbie Almontaser Sued for Defamation

First, Debbie Almontaser was driven from her post as principal of the Khalil Gibran Institute over false allegations of support for terrorism and accusations of seeking to open a “radical madrassah” in New York. Now the same people that orchestrated that campaign, the Stop the Madrassa Coalition, are suing Almontaser for defaming THEM. It’s like Alice in Wonderland, with everything upside down.

(For the record, the Khalil Gibran Institute includes the usual New York school curriculum, with an added focus on Arab culture and language. It is not a religious school and was never intended to be one.)

Former Arabic School Principal Faces Defamation Suit

Andrea Elliott (New York Times)

Three opponents of a Brooklyn public school that teaches Arabic filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the school’s founding principal, Debbie Almontaser, claiming that she had defamed them by saying that they stalked her.

USA: Outfitting the Klan – Photo Essay of a Klan Seamstress

In case you were wondering what is involved in outfitting the KKK with robes and those pointy hoods:

Photo Essay
Aryan Outfitters
Meet the Ku Klux Klan’s seamstress of hate couture.
Photos and text by Anthony Karen
Audio produced by Peter Meredith and Gary Moskowitz
(Mother Jones)