The Wackos are after the Cartoons again…
Posted by Unmasker in Religious Radicals on October 28th, 2009
So, here it is again. The radical Islamists are trying to dictate what the rest of the world gets to see in print. Clearly there is no place in Western society for this foolishness, nor should there be any place in any other society. Don’t like some cartoons in a newspaper? Don’t buy it. You don’t get to threaten people, burn stuff, blow stuff up or otherwise coerce others into living by your rules. Get over yourselves and live in the real world. That’s the stuff of cavemen and animals. Good on the FBI for cracking this one!
from globeandmail.com
Canadian charged in assassination conspiracy
A former Pakistani cadet and medical student who got Canadian citizenship then settled in Chicago, Tahawar Hussain Rana was known as an immigration consultant and abattoir operator.
Now he is accused of helping mastermind a terrorist plot that he and alleged conspirators dubbed the Mickey Mouse project, with tentacles stretching from a Toronto office tower to radical groups in Pakistan. Mr. Rana’s co-accused, a Pakistani-American who Westernized his name to David Headley, told the FBI he wanted to kill two Danish journalists in retaliation for their paper’s publication in 2005 of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, according to court documents unsealed Tuesday.
Mr. Headley, who was arrested Oct. 3 as he boarded a plane at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, also told police he trained with Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group behind the Mumbai attacks last year.
The alleged conspiracy ended in a dramatic raid 10 days ago, when more than 100 federal agents, some with assault rifles and body armour, descended on Mr. Rana’s slaughterhouse in rural Illinois while helicopters and surveillance planes buzzed overhead.
Mr. Rana, who was arrested at his home, was known among Chicago Muslims as “Dr. Rana,” a Mercedes-driving entrepreneur who provided immigration services at an office decked with the Canadian flag.
Mr. Headley posed as an employee of Mr. Rana’s immigration consultancy during a January reconnaissance trip to Denmark to stake out the paper, the court filings say.
Mr. Rana’s staff in Chicago and Toronto were told to expect calls from Denmark checking Mr. Headley’s credentials.
The court filings don’t say how the attacks would be carried out but note that Mr. Headley had sent his will to Mr. Rana.
Mr. Headley told the FBI he wanted to kill the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard and Flemming Rose, the cultural editor behind the cartoons’ publication in the Jyllands-Posten. When he was arrested, he was carrying a memory stick with videos of the newspaper building, a nearby military barracks and a train station.
He even admitted he checked out a Copenhagen synagogue because he mistakenly thought Mr. Rose was Jewish, the court filings say.
In addition to the immigration consultancy and the abattoir, the 48-year-old Mr. Rana owns a grocery store in Chicago.
“He was offended by the cartoon depictions of the Prophet Mohammed,” the FBI said in an affidavit.
Mr. Headley, 49, changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006.
He lived in a Chicago flat leased to a dead man and used a cellphone also registered to a dead man, the FBI said. He is also associated with another radical group in a lawless tribal part of Pakistan, Harkat-ul-Jihad-e Islami, which has ties to al-Qaeda.
Starting a year ago, the pair had been online on a Yahoo discussion group for former students of a cadet school in Hasan Abdal, in the Punjab part of Pakistan.
“Call me old-fashioned but I feel disposed towards violence for the offending parties, be they cartoonists from Denmark or … Irshad Manji (Liberal Muslim trying to make lesbianism acceptable in Islam),” Mr. Headley allegedly wrote in a posting in October of 2008.
Mr. Headley and another conspirator began preparing a plan and tried to code their communications, according to the FBI affidavits.
The two and Mr. Rana allegedly created a string of numbered e-mail accounts. But the FBI was wiretapping their phone calls and intercepting e-mails. Agents were listening in as Mr. Rana calculated out loud how he should code a new e-mail account, according to court affidavits.
Mr. Rana also went to high school with the Pakistani consul-general in Chicago and used the relationship to facilitate a five-year visa for Mr. Headley’s travels, the FBI said.
Mr. Rana, the affidavit says, booked one of Mr. Headley’s plane tickets, a return flight from Copenhagen.
The FBI alleges Mr. Headley sent an e-mail directly to Mr. Rana after the visit: “I checked out business opportunities here. They seem quite promising.”
From there, he went to meet terrorists in Pakistan, the U.S. complaint says, adding that he returned to Denmark for another visit last summer.
Questioned about his travels by U.S. border guards upon his return to North America, Mr. Headley allegedly said he was a representative of Mr. Rana’s business, First World Immigration Services.
First World has been in business for about a decade, said Mike Bell, an Ottawa lawyer who sometimes reviewed immigration applications for the agency. Mr. Rana appeared to just be “a wheeler-dealer businessman,” Mr. Bell said.
“A terrorist plot. Holly Molly. I had no idea. No idea whatsoever. … He’s always been above board. They’re very reputable in their dealings with us.”
Muhammad Salim Mukhti, a former halal butcher who often prayed beside Mr. Rana, described him as a Punjabi who had served in Pakistan’s army before coming to America.
Even at the mosque, conversations with Mr. Rana often turned to large amounts of money. “I meet him every Friday, he prayed with me. He says, ‘You know, he owes me, one guy, $70,000, $4,000, $5,000 … blah blah blah,” Mr. Mukhti said.
The FBI says there is considerable reason to doubt the alleged cover story that Mr. Headley visited Denmark because First World Immigration Services wanted to open up a branch in Copenhagen.
Certain terms overheard by authorities during intercepted e-mails and phone calls – such as “countersurveillance,” “route design” and “cover authentication” – are more consistent with a planned terrorist attack than with any legitimate business, the FBI says.
Time to get real on religious ‘rights’
Posted by Unmasker in Uncategorized on October 16th, 2009
That's not a knife... now THIS is a knife.
I make no bones about my frustration with religion and the fact that we as a society often turn a blind eye to behavior that we would otherwise see as unacceptable if it’s veiled by ‘religious rights’. What it comes down to is this: no one cares much what you do in your home, church, temple etc., but when ‘religious rights’ infringe on our right to be free of religion there’s a problem. Let me be clear here, I have nothing against immigrants or any other people for that matter. My issue is with religion and I have no urge to change my life or behavior to accomodate someone’s religion. It’s time to get real with this; whatever their religion, no one should be allowed to carry what amounts to a big knife into a secure venue at the upcoming Vancouver Olympics. The claim is that the kirpan is not a weapon. Perhaps it is not intended to be, but the reality is that it has been used as such. Check out the attached story about the kirpan at the Olympics and then be sure to keep reading about just one of the examples of it being used as a weapon.
Sikh daggers allowed at Olympic venues
Baptized Sikhs will be allowed to carry their ceremonial daggers, called kirpans, into venues at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the RCMP announced Thursday.
A kirpan is one of five symbols of faith that must be worn by baptized Sikhs according to their religion.
The RCMP’s Integrated Security Unit held discussions with members of the community to come up with guidelines, said Sgt. Mike Coté.
“Because of the security measures at the venues, access would entail going through a metal detector. We thought we would be proactive and deal with this prior to the Games, and in fact we reached out to the Sikh community and sought their input to come up with some type of consensus,” said Coté.
Only a baptized Sikh wearing all the five articles of faith will be able to wear a kirpan into an Olympic venue, and the blade can not be more than 10 centimetres long.
Kirpan incident raises questions about court ruling
Teen accused of using it as weapon could rekindle kirpan-in-school debate
HENRY AUBIN
(The Gazette, September 16, 2008)
The controversy over the kirpan is back. Police say a 13-year-old Sikh boy last week used a religious dagger to threaten another student outside a school in Montreal. Police say the knife was wrapped in cloth at the time. No one was injured.
What was hurt, however, was the case for allowing Sikhs to take the symbolic weapon to school. The Supreme Court of Canada upheld that right in 2006.
The kirpan was hugely influential in the whole debate over the accommodation of cultural differences. In its report last May, the Bouchard-Taylor commission on reasonable accommodations noted that the Supreme Court’s decision had “contaminated” that debate and also “discredited the courts.” Indeed, an SOM poll in La Presse a year ago suggested that an overwhelming 91 per cent of Quebecers opposed the court-sanctioned right of young Sikhs to wear the bladed object to class.
Does the wearing of the ceremonial dagger, seen by many Sikhs as a purely symbolic weapon in the fight against evil, compromise public security? That question has dominated each of the many deliberations on the kirpan.
Administrators at L’École Ste. Catherine Labouré reached an agreement in 2001 with the parents of a 12-year-old boy, Gurbaj Singh Multani, to let him wear the dagger if it were sewn into his underclothing to impede impulsive removal. The school’s governing board then reversed the decision, banning the object. When the Marguerite Bourgeoys School Board upheld that ruling, the parents went to Quebec Superior Court: That court said the boy could wear the knife so long as he kept it in a cloth envelope under his shirt.
The Quebec Court of Appeal overturned that. It said that barring the kirpan contravened the Charter of Rights’ guarantee of religious freedom, but it said the question of safety made the ban reasonable.
What’s significant in light of last Thursday’s incident is the Supreme Court’s logic in overturning the Court of Appeal and dismissing safety as a problem.
The court said that the evidence “reveals that not a single violent incident related to the presence of kirpans in schools has been reported.” Now we have a report of such an incident in LaSalle. Granted, according to police it did not take place “in” a school but on the street just outside of one, the Cavalier-de-LaSalle school, during lunch break.
The Quebec Court of Appeal had said it was “not hypothetical” to suppose that in a tight situation a Sikh youth might make use of his kirpan. If the police are to be believed, that court was right.
The Supreme Court acknowledges three violent incidents involving kirpans in metropolitan Toronto. One case involved use of a kirpan in an attempted murder. Another time one was used to stab someone in the back.
You might think this would discredit Sikh authorities’ claim that a kirpan would never be used as actual weapon. But, no, the high court split hairs. It indicated that these incidents were not relevant to the Multani case because none of them took place in or near a school.
The Supremes were quite impressed by Gurbaj Singh Multani’s character. “The risk that this particular student would use his kirpan for violent purposes seems highly unlikely to me,” said the writer of the judgment, Justice Louise Charron.
Score one for the Governator…
Posted by Unmasker in Uncategorized on October 16th, 2009
I can't understand how someone could mistake this for a big KNIFE 
Schwarzenegger Vetoes ‘Kirpan’ Bill
SACRAMENTO, CA – A bill to educate law enforcement officers about the religious significance of ‘kirpans’ has been vetoed by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who found it “unnecessary,” drawing angry reaction from the Sikh community in the US.
The decision came as a shock to the organizations, individuals and lawmakers who supported the bill.
The veto was particularly surprising given bipartisan votes in favors of the bill in both houses of legislature, advocacy group Sikh Coalition said in a statement.
The bill was passed unanimously in both Houses, by 77-0 in the Assembly and by 36-0 in the Senate.
“This loss for the Sikh community is a reminder of our serious lack of political clout in this state. After months of hard work and 100 per cent support from our lawmakers, the Sikh voice was still not strong enough to overcome the whim of one man,” said Prabhjot Singh, Sikh Coalition Board chairman.
The Bill AB 504 was introduced in February 2009 by Assembly member Warren Furutani to use education to help stem the arrests of Sikhs for carrying kirpans in California.
Over the last few years, there has been an increase in the arrests of Sikhs nationwide for carrying kirpans in the absence of an understanding among law enforcers.
Police mistakenly believe them to be in violation of concealed weapons laws, the Sikh Coalition said.
“AB 504 was our first attempt to change this,” the statement said.
Though the bill did not touch the legality of the kirpan, it said police officers be trained about who Sikhs are and learn about the significance of the kirpan, hoping that religious understanding would decrease arrests.
The Governor decided to veto the bill as “unnecessary” though it was endorsed by groups ranging from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and party consultants from both sides, as well as several religious and civil rights groups.
“We suspect that the final veto was the result of law enforcement’s strong desire to avoid promoting the acceptance of Sikhs with kirpans,” the coalition said.
“The Governor’s response is very disappointing. It shows his lack of support for promoting religious understanding in California,” said Neha Singh, Western Region Director of the Sikh Coalition.
Another prime example of religion messing up a perfectly good government…
Posted by Unmasker in Uncategorized on October 16th, 2009
Religious extremism is not exclusive to Islam
It was a masterful piece of self-deception.
Benny Begin, Israel’s fiercely secular Minister Without Portfolio, turned up to Jerusalem’s King David Hotel on Tuesday to brief the foreign press corps on the threat to Israel posed by the fusion of religion and politics in Lebanon and Iran.
Noting that the Middle East was a region that rarely produced ”good days”, Begin said that June 7 of this year had in fact been one such good day.
It was the day Lebanon’s pro-Western March 14 alliance won that country’s parliamentary elections, defeating the March 8 coalition that includes Hezbollah, the Shiite ”party of God” that is strongly backed by Iran.
”The June elections were a triumph for the good guys,” enthused Begin.
Putting Saudi Arabia at the top of his list of ”good guys” that had provided support for March 14, Begin said the Lebanese election results proved at least one thing.
”It showed us that when you really make an effort, the good people can win.”
Since when did Saudi Arabia top Israel’s list of good guys? – but more of that later.
Despite the ”good guys” triumph, Begin lamented that it had all been downhill since then.
Hezbollah had succeeded in retaining its power of veto over all cabinet decisions in a new government of national unity.
Worse still, Hezbollah had managed re-arm itself and now 40,000 rocket heads pointed towards Israel.
”Where do Hezbollah’s real loyalties lie?” Begin asked, getting to the meat of his argument.
In Iran, of course, the country that tops just about everyone’s list of bad guys, and where, said Begin, ”religion and politics go together”.
”This theology is not something we are used to anywhere in the free world,” warned Begin. ”This is something else.”
Quoting a few choice examples of vitriolic extremism that often punctuate the speeches of Iranian leaders and their Hezbollah clients, Begin asked what other country in the world would tolerate such a threat on its doorstep.
”Actually, we live a mad house,” said Begin, with the clear implication that Israel was the only sane nation among them.
Yet where else in the Middle East is there such a fusion of religion and politics?
The lines between the two are so blurred in Israel that it has prevented the country’s legislators from formally adopting a constitution for the past 61 years.
Begin himself, in almost his very next breath, then did what every Israeli politician – secular or religious – does when they start defending Israel’s right to occupy the West Bank: he weaved together history as told by the Old Testament, with facts on the ground.
The land of the West Bank, which he referred to exclusively by the biblical names of Judea and Samaria, was the ”cradle of Jewish civilisation”, Begin argued.
Therefore no Israeli leader, Begin reiterated, should ”relinquish” this land to the Palestinians, and no one had any right to demand that Jews should stop settling this land.
The mixture of religion and politics may well be a dangerous thing in the hands of Shiite clerics such as Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
But religious extremism is not exclusive to Islam. Israel has its own Jewish extremists that Begin is happy to ignore. People who are settling the land of ”Judea and Samaria” because they believe they are acting on God’s explicit wishes.
Are these people dangerous?
Last Sunday it was reported that Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet, had recently received intelligence on the existence of an ammunition cache in the West Bank settlement of Beit Hagai.
A year ago, religious extremists detonated a pipe bomb at the front door of the distinguished Israeli historian Professor Ze’ev Sternhell, a longtime campaigner against Jewish settlement of the West Bank.
How far would such people go if Israel ever moved to evacuate the West Bank and start evacuating settlements?
When I asked Begin if he was concerned about the fusion of religion and politics in the settler movement, he simply dodged the question.
His bottom line was that because Jews have a strong historic link to the land of West Bank, they have a perpetual right to live there.
As Begin indicated in his earlier blessing of Saudi Arabia – an Islamic monarchy that is one of the world’s most repressive regimes – the fusion of religion and politics is not his real concern.
What Begin really demands of movements like Hezbollah, and countries such as Iran, is obedience. An unswerving commitment to the West’s geopolitical strategic vision.
If secular moderates were what politicians like Begin were looking for, then the one person they might embrace is Salam Fayyad, the Western-educated former World Bank economist who is now the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister.
But instead of moving to strengthen Fayyad and set the course towards a just and peaceful resolution to the conflict, the Netanyahu Government prefers to weaken the Palestinian Authority by encouraging more settlements, and maintaining the restrictions that make the occupation intolerable for Palestinians.
Two days after Begin appeared before the foreign media in Jerusalem, Salam Fayyad did the same at the Grand Park Hotel in Ramallah.
Time and again Fayyad repeated his affirmation of the pro-Western mantra of rejecting armed resistance as the only way to achieve the goals of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state.
But as the recent weeks of rioting across East Jerusalem, and the bitter backlash against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ mishandling of the Goldstone Report suggests, the grass roots of Palestinian society seem to have reserved their perceived right to use armed resistance to achieve their national goals.
Ignoring the effects of 42 years of military occupation with specious arguments about religious extremism is a good way to prolong the Israel-Palestinian conflict, not end it.
Horses for Hutterites
Posted by Unmasker in Uncategorized on October 15th, 2009
Alberta Hutterites lose bid for second hearing over photo ID
(CP)
OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada will not let a group of Alberta Hutterites re-argue their case against photo drivers licences.
The high court gives no reasons for refusing the appeal, but such a second chance is rarely granted. The Hutterites went to court after the province required in 2003 that all licence holders be photographed for a provincial facial recognition data bank.
They said the requirement violated their religious beliefs and their rights under the charter.
The high court agreed that the requirement is an infringement, but said it’s a reasonable one and thus is allowed.
The religious group then sought permission to re-argue the case.
The province tried to accommodate the Hutterites, offering to leave the photo off the licence itself, while requiring a picture for the data bank.
They rejected that, saying their beliefs prohibit them from voluntarily having their pictures taken.
Take two morons, add religion… stir
Posted by Unmasker in Blind Faith on October 9th, 2009
This article is a perfect example of the danger of blind faith, especially in the terminally stupid. These two Einsteins stood by and watched their 11 year old daughter die, all the while believing that “god” would solve their problems without any action, other than prayer, on their part. It reminds me of the joke about the guy who prays to win the lottery but never buys a ticket…
- Unmasker
Praying man let his daughter die
A US jury has found a man guilty of killing his sick 11-year-old daughter by praying for her recovery rather than seeking medical care.
The man, Dale Neumann, told a court in the state of Wisconsin he believed God could heal his daughter.
She died of a treatable disease – undiagnosed diabetes – at home in rural Wisconsin in March last year, as people surrounded her and prayed.
Neumann’s wife, Leilani Neumann, was convicted earlier this year.
The couple, who were both convicted of second-degree reckless homicide, face up to 25 years in prison when they are sentenced in October.
A lawyer representing Dale Neumann said he would appeal.
‘Faith healing’
During the trial, medical experts told the court that Neumann’s daughter could have survived if she had received treatment, including insulin and fluids, before she stopped breathing.
On Thursday Neumann, who is 47 and studied in the past to be a Pentecostal minister, said he thought God would heal his daughter.
“If I go to the doctor, I am putting the doctor before God,” he said. “I am not believing what he said he would do.”
He also said he thought his daughter had had flu or a fever, and that he had not realised how ill she was.
Neumann’s lawyer said he had been convinced that his “faith healing” was working, and that he had committed no crime.
The prosecution argued that Neumann had minimised his daughter’s illness and that he had allowed her to die as a selfish act of faith.
They said the girl should have been taken to hospital because she was unable to walk, talk, eat or drink.
Instead, an ambulance was only called once the girl had stopped breathing.
More Abuse Allegations in Nova Scotia
Posted by Unmasker in Sexual Abuse by Clergy on October 8th, 2009
This guy chose not to go along with the class action suit… good on him. Maybe the class action should have sought 15 billion instead of 15 million… and it should have come from Rome instead of out of the pockets of the poor blind followers in the diocese of Antigonish. If every victim of these old dirtbag priests who get off on diddling kids came forward and hit the Catholic Church in the pocketbook the church might take some real action to deal with it. Somehow I doubt it though…
- Unmasker
N.S. man sues church over alleged abuse
N.S. diocese faces civil suit alleging abuse
A 47-year-old Cape Breton man who claims he was molested by a Roman Catholic priest in Nova Scotia filed his own lawsuit on Wednesday instead of joining a $15 million class action settlement.
In a statement of claim filed with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, Philip Latimer alleges he was sexually molested in the mid-1970s by Rev. Allan MacDonald for four years when he was an altar boy in the seaside community of Havre Boucher.
MacDonald has since died.
The lawsuit names both the archdiocese of Halifax and the Roman Catholic diocese of Antigonish, the same district at the centre of a sexual abuse settlement negotiated by Bishop Raymond Lahey, who is now facing child pornography charges in Ottawa.
The 22-page claim details the abuse allegedly suffered by Latimer beginning when he was 11 years old and serving as an altar boy in the diocese of Antigonish.
“The plaintiff was deprived of a normal childhood and adolescence as a result of the actions or inactions of the defendants,” asserts the document by Latimer’s lawyers.
The allegations made in the lawsuit have not yet been proven in court.
Opting out of landmark settlement
Latimer, of Pleasant Hill in Cape Breton, has scheduled a news conference on Thursday to discuss the details of the case.
Aaron Lealess, a lawyer representing Latimer, said his client doesn’t want to be a part of the out-of-court settlement for people who said they were sexually abused by priests in the Antigonish diocese since the 1950s.
That $15-million settlement, announced last summer, was the result of a class action lawsuit spearheaded by Ron Martin, a Cape Breton man who said he was sexually abused by a priest as a boy.
Martin claimed the church, under instructions from the Pope, had a policy to keep sex-abuse allegations against priests secret. He also claimed the church, diocese and bishop sent priests from the Antigonish diocese for treatment for “sexual deviations,” but kept it secret and didn’t protect children.
The allegations in the class action suit have not been proven in court.
Lawsuit could reveal more: lawyer
That lawsuit involved allegations of abuse by five priests. However, Lealess said the priest named by his client wasn’t one of them.
He said his client is launching a civil suit in the hope of uncovering more information.
“He wants to know, what did the diocese know about this priest, were there any reports of abuse to the diocese?” said Lealess. “He feels that civil litigation allows him access to answers, a better investigation into what was known about the priest who abused him.”
Lealess said his client was shaken by the news that the bishop who negotiated the $15-million settlement, Raymond Lahey, has been charged with possessing and importing child pornography.
“I think the opting out still might have happened, but the news about Lahey hinders victims’ trust and belief in the settlement negotiated by Bishop Lahey,” said Lealess.
Lahey’s next court appearance is Nov. 4.
What next… burning books?
Posted by Unmasker in Religious Radicals on October 8th, 2009
This is a perfect example of the danger posed by bowing to radical influences. The influence of radical Islam and Western society’s obsession with political correctness come together to censor our media. Gabriele Brinkmann at least has the guts to stand up for her art and refuse to let fear dictate her writing. To be clear, it’s not Islam that is the problem. It could just as easily be radicals in any religion taking the stance that they have a right to impose their view of the world on others.
- Unmasker
German publisher cancels book seen insulting Islam
By Sarah Marsh
BERLIN (Reuters) – A German publisher said Tuesday it had canceled the printing of a murder mystery about an honor killing because it contained passages insulting Islam and may have prompted Islamist retaliation.
Droste publishers dropped the book by author Gabriele Brinkmann entitled “To Whom Honor is Due” after she refused to change several passages, including one where a fictional character is portrayed making abusive remarks about the Koran.
“After the Mohammad cartoons, one knows that one can’t publish sentences or drawings that defame Islam without expecting a security risk,” said Felix Droste, head of Droste publishers.
In 2006, violent protests broke out in several Islamic countries after cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper sparked outrage among Muslims.
The publisher’s decision has prompted criticism that it is bowing to Islamist intimidation and curtailing freedom of speech. The firm has also received threats from far-right groups against its employees for being “friends of Islamists.”
German newspapers ran headlines: “Publisher self censors” and “Fear of Islamist attacks.”
The media also compared the decision to an incident in 2006, when a Berlin opera house postponed a production of Mozart’s “Idomeneo” which showed the Prophet Mohammad’s severed head, citing security fears.
“What on earth is this all about, where are we here? We are in a free country,” Brinkmann told German media.
Droste said that while it had a long history of releasing controversial books and was already planning to publish another murder mystery on the topic of honor killing, it would not publish books insulting peoples’ faith — whether Islam, Christianity or other religions.
“We do not want to offend religious groups,” spokeswoman Nora Tichy said.
Religion Meets the Law… Recipe for a Perfect Storm
Posted by Unmasker in Religious Radicals on October 8th, 2009
Where do I start with this one… it seems that Mr. Abdul-Jawad has a bigger problem than not being able to keep it in his pants. Given that he lives where he does he might want to consider discretion if he wants to play the field. Of course, leave it to the ever moderate Saudi justice system to take an appropriate stance on the issue. 1000 lashes seems perfectly reasonable for talking about your bedroom exploits don’t you think? Come on now… really? This is what you get when punishment is meted out by “men of god”. Remember the Salem witch hunts? The Muslims don’t have a corner on the market…
- Unmasker
Saudi faces prison, flogging over TV sex revelations
JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) – A Saudi court has sentenced a man to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes for boasting about his sexual exploits on television, in a case that has divided public opinion in the conservative Islamic kingdom.
Abdul-Jawad, a divorced father of four, was arrested in August after discussing his premarital sexual encounters, showing off his pick-up techniques and displaying some sex toys and lubricants on a Lebanese TV program.
His comments caused a public outcry in Saudi Arabia, where the religious elite has vast powers over society and religious police enforce the segregation of men and women in public.
King Abdullah has begun to reform education and the judiciary in recent years, partly to discourage Islamic militancy. But he faces resistance from clerics and conservative princes and analysts say the case gives fresh momentum to some clerics’ calls for strict curbs on social freedoms.
Three of Abdul-Jawad’s friends who appeared on the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) were sentenced to two years in jail and 300 lashes each.
LBC is a popular channel in Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s most conservative societies, and many Saudis tune into its Western-style entertainment programs and talk shows.
Abdul-Jawad, 32, spoke from his bedroom on an episode of “In Bold Red.” He was shown driving his red convertible to a shopping mall where he said he used his mobile phone to pick up girls.
A court official said that, on top of the lashings and jail sentence, Abdul-Jawad’s phone and car would be confiscated and he would be banned from traveling after completing his term.
Lawyers say Abdul-Jawad could have been given the death penalty. Judges, who are clerics of Saudi Arabia’s strict Wahhabi school of Islam, have wide powers of discretion.
Abdul-Jawad’s brother said it would be difficult for him to be accepted back into society.
“Now he has been fired from his job and after his jail term it won’t be possible for him to get a job in government or the private sector because he was charged with a case of moral indecency,” the brother, who did not want to be named, told Reuters.
Yet Another Pedo-Priest
Posted by Unmasker in Sexual Abuse by Clergy on October 7th, 2009
What’s the saying… beware the wolf in sheep’s clothes? Here we have another prime example of the scum that the Catholic Church seems to have made a sport of covering up for. Years pass and this old dirtbag is still at it. Apparently Father Malloy brought it to his superiors… what did they do with it? They swept it under the rug and promoted the pervert. The hierarchy of the church needs to be held responsible for their inaction. While the church is busy making Pope John Paul II a saint maybe the world court should be indicting him for his complicity in these crimes against his own followers.
- Unmasker
Bishop porn issue known to N.L. church in 1989
A sexual-abuse survivor told Newfoundland and Labrador church officials in the 1980s that he had seen pornography at the home of Bishop Raymond Lahey, who’s now facing child-porn charges, the Catholic archbishop of St. John’s said Monday.
Archbishop Martin Currie said former Portugal Cove, N.L., priest Kevin Molloy contacted him last week to say that in 1989, Shane Earle told Molloy that he had seen pornography in Lahey’s home.
At the time, Lahey was the bishop for St. George’s diocese in western Newfoundland. In 2003 he moved to Nova Scotia to head the diocese of Antigonish.
“I asked him what he did with [that information], and Father Molloy mentioned that he had taken it to the appropriate authorities. In this case, it would have been Archbishop [Alphonsus] Penney,” Currie said.
Penney was not available for an interview Monday, but CBC News reached Molloy in Florida where he is now a priest. Molloy confirmed what Currie told CBC News.
Molloy said he spoke directly with Lahey after he heard from Earle.
“I called [Lahey] and I told him what had come to me through Shane Earle, and I detected then that Bishop Lahey then was kind of upset by this news,” Molloy said. “I told him that this was serious stuff and he just asked me if anything further would occur, would I keep contact with him, and that’s the last. I never heard from him again. I never heard any further details.”
Molloy said he considered it a very serious issue at the time, but he doesn’t know whether Penney pursued the matter any further then.
Shane Earle was sexually abused as a boy at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John’s in the 1970s and 1980s. Earle was financially compensated for the damages caused by the abuse.
Earle said he told police and an inquiry into abuse at Mount Cashel that he saw child pornography in Lahey’s home more than 20 years ago.
Possession of child pornography was not illegal in the 1980s; it became a crime in Canada in 1993.
Police disavowal
On Monday, police officials in St. John’s told CBC News that after hearing last week of Earle’s comments, they searched through their files and were unable to find any record of Earle’s claims.
The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary said it reviewed hundreds of pages of investigation notes, interview transcripts and tapes.
Lahey, 69, stepped down as bishop of the Antigonish diocese on Sept. 26, a day after he was charged with possessing and importing child pornography but before those charges were made public.
Days later, Ottawa police revealed the charges, saying Lahey had been stopped at the Ottawa International Airport on Sept. 15 and his laptop seized for allegedly containing child pornography.
Lahey was released on $9,000 bail and his next Ottawa court appearance is on Nov. 4.
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