Hindus from across Toronto plan to protest outside a North York middle school until a controversial Friday prayer session for 400 Muslim students is stopped.
The Canadian Hindu Advocacy is one of a number of Toronto-area groups who are opposed to the 30- to 40-minute services that occurred in the cafeteria of Valley Park Middle School on Overlea Blvd. from November to March.
An imam from a local mosque is brought to school to head the service, officials said. During the service male students are made to sit in front of the girls.
“This is alarming and unacceptable,” said Advocacy director Ron Banerjee. “We respect the separation of church and state.”
He said his group will be sending letters of protest to the Toronto District School Board in the next few days and calling for an end of the noon-time services. That will be followed by protests in November, when the services resume, if the prayers are to continue next school year.
“There’s not supposed to be any religious classes taking place in public schools,” Banerjee said. “We will be asking the board to stop the practice.”
He said school officials stopped students from reciting the Lord’s Prayers years ago and his group will picket the Muslim classes if the practice isn’t stopped.
“Our organization has received many complaints from Hindu students and parents in the Valley Park Middle School region,” Banerjee said.
He said his group would like to begin a discussion with TDSB authorities aimed at restoring secular education within the school system.
“We would also like to discuss the serving of halal meat within TDSB schools,” he said. “Our organization is determined to ensure all Hindu students are provided non-halal meat alternatives.”
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Showing posts with label North America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label North America. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Ground-Zero Green Light for Islamic Supremacism
AINA News, by Robert Spencer
On Tuesday morning, the New York City Landmarks Commission, as expected [1], voted unanimously to deny landmark status to 45 Park Place [2], thus clearing the way for the demolition of the building currently there and the construction of the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero.
The Commission swept aside calls to landmark the Burlington Coat Factory building for its historical significance: into it crashed the landing gear from one of the 9/11 planes. It ignored appeals to do this despite the fact that buildings of far lesser historical significance, like the Triangle Shirtwaist Company and the Stonewall Inn, have been designated as landmarks in New York. Never mind also that other buildings in the area that are architecturally similar have been landmarked. Who cares? Muslims need a triumphal mega-mosque at Ground Zero (and that is certainly how this mosque will be understood in the Islamic world, despite the deceptive moderate protestations of mosque organizers)! Make way!
Until the mosque is actually built, however, the game isn’t over — and with an increasing number of prominent politicians coming out against the mega-mosque, it can still be won in the court of public opinion.
What’s more, immediately after the Tuesday vote, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) characterized the Landmarks Commission decision as “deeply offensive to many of the victims and families of the 9-11 tragedy.” Jay Sekulow of the ACLJ explained: “The actions taken by the City of New York represent a blatant disregard for the city’s own procedures, while ignoring the fact that this is a historic and hallowed site that should not be destroyed to build an Islamic mosque. It has been clear from the beginning that the city has engaged in a rush to push this project through – ignoring proper procedure and ignoring a growing number of New Yorkers and Americans who don’t believe this site is the place to build a mosque.” As the ACLJ is representing a firefighter who survived 9/11 at the World Trade Center site, Sekulow announced: “We’re poised to file legal action on behalf of our client to challenge this flawed decision and put a stop to this project.”
The primary argument in favor of construction of the mosque, of course, is that it is a matter of religious freedom. We are endlessly told that if Muslims are denied permission to build this mega-mosque at Ground Zero, the door will be opened to the denial of the construction of synagogues and churches elsewhere. That argument advances in ignorance of the political and supremacist character of Islamic law, qualities that have no parallel in Jewish or Christian doctrine, but even aside from that, the question of this mosque is not actually a religious freedom issue.
Why not? Because opponents of the mosque, be they Pamela Geller’s group Stop Islamization Of America (SIOA), or Sarah Palin, or Rudy Giuliani, or Newt Gingrich, or anyone else, are not talking about banning mosques altogether. I do believe that mosques connected with the Saudis and/or the Muslim Brotherhood warrant careful scrutiny from law enforcement, but no one who is in the front line of the opposition to the mega-mosque at Ground Zero is calling for all mosques to be closed or for a ban on the construction of new mosques. And unless the property is marked as a war memorial, as it should be but will not be, no one is even calling for the expulsion of the Muslims who are currently praying in the existing former Burlington Coat Factory building at 45 Park Place; the Burlington Coat Factory is not a thirteen-story triumphal mega-mosque.
The question is, does the First Amendment really give every religious group the right to construct a house of worship wherever it wishes to do so? Is there never an occasion in which a location might be inappropriate? Many people have likened the construction of the mega-mosque at Ground Zero to the construction of a shrine to the kamikazes at Pearl Harbor or of a statue of Hitler outside the Auschwitz gates. Would the KKK be greenlighted to build a “reconciliation center” on the site of the 16th St. Baptist Church, as this parody [3] has it? (Others have rejected these comparisons based on the claim that the Cordoba Initiative leaders are “moderate” Muslims who hold to a radically different point of view from that of the Muslims who took down the Twin Towers on 9/11, but the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s record of deceit [4] and advocacy of Sharia should be enough to establish that that argument is fallacious. And of course they’ll be reading from the same Qur’an that inspired the 9/11 attacks; there is no “reformed” version.) The question is, if the shrine to the kamikazes were sponsored by a religious group, or Auschwitz were subject to First Amendment law, would there be no stopping the building of such things?
I expect there would be a way to stop such construction, and that many people who are saying today that this mosque is a religious freedom issue would be calling for the construction to be stopped. The U.S. Government outlawed Mormon polygamy in the nineteenth century; considerations of religious freedom were not considered absolute.
And today, government agencies do not hesitate to put roadblocks in the way of the construction of houses of worship [5] — at least non-Islamic ones. St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church [6] stood in the shadow of the World Trade Center and was crushed under the rubble when the towers collapsed on September 11, 2001. Almost nine years later it has still not been rebuilt; the rebuilding project is mired in bureaucracy, with New York City officials being uncooperative and throwing up roadblock after roadblock.
The contrast is telling with the mad rush on the part of New York City officials to build the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero. A March 2009 New York Times story [7] on the church stated that “in recent negotiations,” New York’s Port Authority “cut the size of the church slightly and told church officials that its dome could not rise higher than the trade center memorial.”
But a thirteen-story mega-mosque? Fine!
Unable to rebuild their church, the St. Nicholas congregation has held St. Nicholas Day services in a tent at Ground Zero.
But a thirteen-story Islamic supremacist mega-mosque headed by a pro-Sharia, anti-free speech imam who refuses to denounce Hamas and has a history of duplicitous statements? Let’s clear aside every hurdle, tar opponents as bigots, and get that baby built!
In any case, it seems clear that no one assumes that any religious group has an absolute right to build a house of worship wherever it wants, except in this case. But once this mega-mosque is built, if it is, I expect that many who today are anxious to prove their multiculturalist, non-”bigoted” bona fides will rue the day.
On Tuesday morning, the New York City Landmarks Commission, as expected [1], voted unanimously to deny landmark status to 45 Park Place [2], thus clearing the way for the demolition of the building currently there and the construction of the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero.
The Commission swept aside calls to landmark the Burlington Coat Factory building for its historical significance: into it crashed the landing gear from one of the 9/11 planes. It ignored appeals to do this despite the fact that buildings of far lesser historical significance, like the Triangle Shirtwaist Company and the Stonewall Inn, have been designated as landmarks in New York. Never mind also that other buildings in the area that are architecturally similar have been landmarked. Who cares? Muslims need a triumphal mega-mosque at Ground Zero (and that is certainly how this mosque will be understood in the Islamic world, despite the deceptive moderate protestations of mosque organizers)! Make way!
Until the mosque is actually built, however, the game isn’t over — and with an increasing number of prominent politicians coming out against the mega-mosque, it can still be won in the court of public opinion.
What’s more, immediately after the Tuesday vote, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) characterized the Landmarks Commission decision as “deeply offensive to many of the victims and families of the 9-11 tragedy.” Jay Sekulow of the ACLJ explained: “The actions taken by the City of New York represent a blatant disregard for the city’s own procedures, while ignoring the fact that this is a historic and hallowed site that should not be destroyed to build an Islamic mosque. It has been clear from the beginning that the city has engaged in a rush to push this project through – ignoring proper procedure and ignoring a growing number of New Yorkers and Americans who don’t believe this site is the place to build a mosque.” As the ACLJ is representing a firefighter who survived 9/11 at the World Trade Center site, Sekulow announced: “We’re poised to file legal action on behalf of our client to challenge this flawed decision and put a stop to this project.”
The primary argument in favor of construction of the mosque, of course, is that it is a matter of religious freedom. We are endlessly told that if Muslims are denied permission to build this mega-mosque at Ground Zero, the door will be opened to the denial of the construction of synagogues and churches elsewhere. That argument advances in ignorance of the political and supremacist character of Islamic law, qualities that have no parallel in Jewish or Christian doctrine, but even aside from that, the question of this mosque is not actually a religious freedom issue.
Why not? Because opponents of the mosque, be they Pamela Geller’s group Stop Islamization Of America (SIOA), or Sarah Palin, or Rudy Giuliani, or Newt Gingrich, or anyone else, are not talking about banning mosques altogether. I do believe that mosques connected with the Saudis and/or the Muslim Brotherhood warrant careful scrutiny from law enforcement, but no one who is in the front line of the opposition to the mega-mosque at Ground Zero is calling for all mosques to be closed or for a ban on the construction of new mosques. And unless the property is marked as a war memorial, as it should be but will not be, no one is even calling for the expulsion of the Muslims who are currently praying in the existing former Burlington Coat Factory building at 45 Park Place; the Burlington Coat Factory is not a thirteen-story triumphal mega-mosque.
The question is, does the First Amendment really give every religious group the right to construct a house of worship wherever it wishes to do so? Is there never an occasion in which a location might be inappropriate? Many people have likened the construction of the mega-mosque at Ground Zero to the construction of a shrine to the kamikazes at Pearl Harbor or of a statue of Hitler outside the Auschwitz gates. Would the KKK be greenlighted to build a “reconciliation center” on the site of the 16th St. Baptist Church, as this parody [3] has it? (Others have rejected these comparisons based on the claim that the Cordoba Initiative leaders are “moderate” Muslims who hold to a radically different point of view from that of the Muslims who took down the Twin Towers on 9/11, but the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s record of deceit [4] and advocacy of Sharia should be enough to establish that that argument is fallacious. And of course they’ll be reading from the same Qur’an that inspired the 9/11 attacks; there is no “reformed” version.) The question is, if the shrine to the kamikazes were sponsored by a religious group, or Auschwitz were subject to First Amendment law, would there be no stopping the building of such things?
I expect there would be a way to stop such construction, and that many people who are saying today that this mosque is a religious freedom issue would be calling for the construction to be stopped. The U.S. Government outlawed Mormon polygamy in the nineteenth century; considerations of religious freedom were not considered absolute.
And today, government agencies do not hesitate to put roadblocks in the way of the construction of houses of worship [5] — at least non-Islamic ones. St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church [6] stood in the shadow of the World Trade Center and was crushed under the rubble when the towers collapsed on September 11, 2001. Almost nine years later it has still not been rebuilt; the rebuilding project is mired in bureaucracy, with New York City officials being uncooperative and throwing up roadblock after roadblock.
The contrast is telling with the mad rush on the part of New York City officials to build the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero. A March 2009 New York Times story [7] on the church stated that “in recent negotiations,” New York’s Port Authority “cut the size of the church slightly and told church officials that its dome could not rise higher than the trade center memorial.”
But a thirteen-story mega-mosque? Fine!
Unable to rebuild their church, the St. Nicholas congregation has held St. Nicholas Day services in a tent at Ground Zero.
But a thirteen-story Islamic supremacist mega-mosque headed by a pro-Sharia, anti-free speech imam who refuses to denounce Hamas and has a history of duplicitous statements? Let’s clear aside every hurdle, tar opponents as bigots, and get that baby built!
In any case, it seems clear that no one assumes that any religious group has an absolute right to build a house of worship wherever it wants, except in this case. But once this mega-mosque is built, if it is, I expect that many who today are anxious to prove their multiculturalist, non-”bigoted” bona fides will rue the day.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
How Somali Al-Shabab recruits Western 'martyrs'
NATIONAL POST, Canada
In a video posted on the Internet, 10 militants-in-training jog on a sandy trail on the Somali plains. Their faces are masked but the one in the red-checkered scarf and white runners is alleged to be a young Canadian.
His name is Abdul Karim.
“We have a global mission,” one of the Al-Shabab trainees says into the camera, speaking in English and holding a worn assault rifle. “Come join us and defend the religion of Allah.”
A police investigation now underway in Ontario by the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) is trying to trace how Canadian youths are ending up in Somalia at the paramilitary training camps of Al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda-linked militant group.
A top-secret government report obtained by the National Post says Al-Shabab, which emerged from the heavily armed chaos of Somalia in 2006, is using a variety of methods to entice Canadian youths to its camps. “Islamist extremists are radicalizing and recruiting Somali-Canadian youths within Canada to travel to Somalia for jihad training,” says the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre report, titled “Al-Shabab’s Recruitment of Youths from Canada.”
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service said five Somali-Canadians who left Toronto between September and November 2009 “could receive weapons and related training” in Somalia and “potentially engage in Al-Shabab-related violent activities,” spokeswoman Isabelle Scott said.
A sixth such Somali-Canadian is presumed dead.
Police in the United States and Europe are conducting similar investigations. A Danish-Somali killed 24 people in a suicide bombing in Mogadishu last December. On June 5, two New Jersey men were arrested at JFK airport as they were allegedly on their way to Africa to join Al-Shabab.
The 40-minute Al-Shabab video mentions Ethiopia, but only once. It does, however, mention fighting the United States, exacting revenge over the Danish cartoons and speaks repeatedly of a global fight against non-Muslims. “We are coming you Christians, we are coming you Jews,” it says.
MORE
In a video posted on the Internet, 10 militants-in-training jog on a sandy trail on the Somali plains. Their faces are masked but the one in the red-checkered scarf and white runners is alleged to be a young Canadian.
His name is Abdul Karim.
“We have a global mission,” one of the Al-Shabab trainees says into the camera, speaking in English and holding a worn assault rifle. “Come join us and defend the religion of Allah.”
A police investigation now underway in Ontario by the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) is trying to trace how Canadian youths are ending up in Somalia at the paramilitary training camps of Al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda-linked militant group.
A top-secret government report obtained by the National Post says Al-Shabab, which emerged from the heavily armed chaos of Somalia in 2006, is using a variety of methods to entice Canadian youths to its camps. “Islamist extremists are radicalizing and recruiting Somali-Canadian youths within Canada to travel to Somalia for jihad training,” says the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre report, titled “Al-Shabab’s Recruitment of Youths from Canada.”
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service said five Somali-Canadians who left Toronto between September and November 2009 “could receive weapons and related training” in Somalia and “potentially engage in Al-Shabab-related violent activities,” spokeswoman Isabelle Scott said.
A sixth such Somali-Canadian is presumed dead.
Police in the United States and Europe are conducting similar investigations. A Danish-Somali killed 24 people in a suicide bombing in Mogadishu last December. On June 5, two New Jersey men were arrested at JFK airport as they were allegedly on their way to Africa to join Al-Shabab.
The 40-minute Al-Shabab video mentions Ethiopia, but only once. It does, however, mention fighting the United States, exacting revenge over the Danish cartoons and speaks repeatedly of a global fight against non-Muslims. “We are coming you Christians, we are coming you Jews,” it says.
MORE
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