Somali Muslims cut, beat Christian unconscious in Kenya

Somali Muslims Cut, Beat Christian Unconscious in Kenya Assuming he is convert from Islam, victim’s countrymen leave him for dead. 11/04/2011 Somalia (CDN)-A Somali Christian in Kenya is nursing injuries after young Muslim men from his country beat him with iron rods and wooden clubs last week, leaving him unconscious at a church entryway

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Shar'ia advances as Sudan's constitution is rewritten

WORTHYNEWS

Sudanese leader Omer Hassan Al-Bashir is rewriting his country's constitution in order to implement shar'ia (Islamic) law.

"This new law is going to affect a significant number of Christians who live in places like Khartoum," said Jonathan Rach, International Christian Concern's North Africa specialist. "There are still a significant number of Christians in Sudan ... If Al-Bashir introduces this shar'ia law and if he's going to go ahead and adopt an entirely Islamic constitution, Christians and other non-Muslims who live in Sudan will be treated like second-class citizens; they will be dhimmis and they will not have full rights in the freedom of religion."

Racho said Al-Bashir's move towards shar'ia shows that the government of Sudan hasn't learned anything from its recent loss of the South.

"The government of Sudan should realize that the reason the South seceded ... was because of the shar'ia law, and now they're repeating the same mistake."

"Bashir has always embraced shar'ia as good government," said Global Response Network Founder and President Tom Zurowski. "Shar'ia has been the very ethos of Bashir and the North for a long, long time. People on the ground in the South have known this right along (that) the Islamization of Sudan has been the goal of Bashir's government for years."

Zurowski said al-Bashir is now facing the realities of having a new Christian neighbor while having to deal with its other African Islamic countries.

"If Bashir wants the backing of neighboring Arab nations, he must fully embrace shar'ia, or be seen as a weak leader among other Arab countries," he said. "His ego and arrogance will not allow for that."

South Sudan's independence took a major portion of Sudan's oil revenues, so Al-Bashir is now facing a new economic reality. The Sudan Tribune reported Al-Bashir told government officials that spending reductions are now a priority so as to relieve mounting economic pressures, but Racho is asking the international community to put even more pressure on Sudan to ensure safety for its Christians.

"We (ICC) want the international community to put pressure on Sudan," he said. "One of the important things about Sudan is its reliance on the international community. We also want the American Christian community to know that the secession of the South doesn't end the plight of Christians, so they should continue to advocate on behalf of the Christians in Sudan."

Somali rebels allege famine claim an infidel hoax to make Somalis flee to neighboring Christian countries

For Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked rebels, the drought devastating parts of the country is being exploited by external enemies, claiming that local Muslims were adequately addressing the crisis.

The Al-Shebab insurgents have expelled several foreign aid groups from regions under their control since 2009 and reiterated recently that the ban was still in force after the United Nations declared famine in two regions they rule.

Shebab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage denied there was famine in the southern Somalia regions of Bakool and Lower Shabelle as declared by the UN, but admitted that there was drought.

In a speech to the rebel radio, Rage said local traders and other residents have been the main providers of help to the drought-hit population and that "God did not make them need an outside enemy or non-Muslims, the people in the country fed them very well."

"We need Muslim people to be aware that the external enemy especially non-Muslims have been thinking of a new strategy.

"The new strategy is to transport them abroad, especially in Christian countries like Ethiopia and Kenya, so that their faith can be destroyed and that they could be staff and soldiers for the Christians," Rage charged.

Thousands of Somalis have fled to neighbouring Ethiopia and Kenya to seek relief from the harsh drought that has affected some 12 million people across the Horn of Africa region.


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Al Shabaab samosa ban ‘linked to Christian symbol’

DAILYNATION (Kenya)

Somali militant group al Shabaab may have banned the making and sale of samosa, a popular snack in the war-torn country, because of its shape, linking it to a Christian symbol.

No reasons were given for the bizarre move, announced by militants in vehicles mounted with loudspeakers.

However, residents of a south Mogadishu settlement and Afgoye, a town 30 kms south of the capital where the ban was imposed speculated that the Islamists may have associated the triangle-shaped snack with a symbol of Christianity that is not compatible with their strict version of Islam.

In the past, the group, which is fighting to overthrow the Transitional Federal Government, has banned watching football on TV and playing music on radio.

It has also ordered men to grow beards and women not to wear bras.

More and More Coptic Christian girls are being abducted,raped and forced to convert

AINA

Amid the upheavals in Egypt since January, reports have begun to emerge of a surge in disappearances of Coptic girls.

One priest in Cairo estimates that at least 21 young girls, many as young as 14, have disappeared from his parish alone.

In most cases, when a Christian girl who disappears is found by her family, she has been converted to Islam and married. The Coptic authorities, have even set up a series of refuges in monasteries to handle the growing numbers of girls who wish to return to their families, many of whom are not accepted by their family of origin.

But a worse problem for these women is that their conversion to Islam is irreversible.

Religion is stated on Egyptian ID documents and even though secular law provides for reversions, under the growth of sharia they are very difficult, except for those affording legal advocacy.

This situation is not unique to Egypt. There have been consistent reports of girls being coerced into Islamic conversion and marriage in India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

That many of these girls are initially runaways is not in doubt. However, there is also evidence that a huge number are converted and married against their will.

The situation was documented in a controversial report published in 2009 on conversion and forced marriage of Coptic women by Washington DC-based Christian Solidarity International. The authors are Washington academic Michele Clark and Egyptian Coptic broadcast journalist Nadia Ghaly, based in Melbourne.

Between 2005 and 2008 they interviewed and documented 50 Egyptian women, mostly aged between 14 and 25, who had decided to return to their families. All claim to have been tricked, coerced or raped, converted to Islam and married. Most of the interviewees were trying to reconvert to their Christian identity, with limited or no success. The report’s conclusions were printed in several major publications, including Forbes magazine.

Since the so-called Arab Spring, and the ensuing riots at Christian churches, the authors are trying to bring the subject of forced conversion and marriage to greater prominence.

Both groups live extremely closed, highly traditional separate lives and the norms surrounding marriage and sex are almost medieval, says Ghaly.

So, for example, it is not unheard of for a young Christian girl from a poor family to run away from an arranged marriage. Yet a high proportion of these women claim coercion, even rape, despite the shame that such a claim will cause if the girl wishes to return.

Many claim they were kept as virtual slaves. Others who were able to leave could not bring their children. Ghaly claims this is more than overt religious oppression, and amounts to “a form of cultural genocide”.

She cites a document published by Human Rights Watch in November 2007, which says that even if Coptic women can obtain a divorce from their Muslim husband, those who wish to return to Christianity “meet with refusal and harassment from the Civil Status Department of the Ministry of Interior”.

Under sharia law, reconversion is considered apostasy punishable by death.

Somalia’s al Shabaab popularity going down?

Three years after of taking over more than eight regions in south-central Somalia, Is the popularity of al Qaeda’s associate in Somalia falling?

Al Shabaab, whose name means "the youth" in Arabic, became famous immediately after thousands of Ethiopian forces invaded Somalia in late 2006 and managed to dislodge the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which had controlled much of southern and central Somalia.

No sooner did forces loyal to the transitional federal government’s former leader Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, endorsed by Ethiopian troops, take over control of the capital city and large swaths of southern Somalia than al Shabaab, using the name of the Hawiye clan, started ambush attacks against TFG and Ethiopian troops.


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Somali women say Islamists becoming more draconian

REUTERS


Women living in areas controlled by Somalia's Islamists say they are increasingly the target of more draconian rules meted out by the rebels bent on enforcing their ideologies.

In the latest decree by the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group that governs most of southern Somalia, women in the seaside town of Kismayu have been banned from carrying out barter trade with the male crews of ships calling at the port.

The women have also been told they cannot shake any male's hands in public, travel on their own, sell anything or work in an office.

"A woman cannot be seen with a man from another country at the port. The punishment for any woman caught near the port or foreign vessels will be arrest," a senior al Shabaab commander said in a statement this week.

The al Shabaab group -- which means "the youth" in Arabic -- have in the past banned movies, musical ringtones, dancing at wedding ceremonies and watching soccer.

Many Kismayu women, mostly widowed or divorced, have survived for years solely from selling or bartering vegetables and fruits for fuel and other commodities from ship crews.

"I have three children and raise them from the little I earn from exchanging goods at the seaport, but now I can't do my job," Hawa Olow told Reuters in a telephone conversation.

Al Shabaab has also prescribed that the women must buy and wear uniform robes that only it supplies.

PUBLIC WHIPPING

It has banned khat, a mild stimulant popular with men in the Horn of Africa. Dozens of women in Kismayu caught smuggling khat have been sentenced to 20-day jail terms and fined one million Somalia shillings.

"During the war we used to have a life and a little peace. Now Islamists control much of the south and mete out punishments for the slightest thing. They say women should do nothing," one khat seller told Reuters.

"Some women have no husbands, they are single or divorced or their men died fighting. It is totally destroying life."

Women cannot sit next to a man in a bus and have to be accompanied by a male relative when travelling.

"We have been born and raised as Muslims and we don't know where Islam says women can't work. They have taken these ideologies from outside Somalia, from the Taliban and other militants," said Abdiwahab Abdi Samad, professor of history at the University of Nairobi in neighbouring Kenya.


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Islamists in Somalia ban handshakes between men and women

Al-Qaida-linked militants in war-torn southern Somalia have banned unrelated men and women from shaking hands, speaking or walking together in public, residents said Saturday. People who break the rules could be imprisoned, whipped or even executed.

The insurgents already have banned women from working in public, leaving many mothers with a terrible choice: risk execution by going to sell some tea or vegetables in the marketplace, or stay safely at home and watch the children slowly starve.

"It's an awful rule. I feel like I'm under arrest. I've started to ignore the greetings of the women I know to avoid punishment," Hussein Ali said by phone form [sic] the southern Somali town of Jowhar. The edict is also being enforced in the town of Elasha.

Gunmen are searching buses for improperly dressed women or women traveling alone, said student Hamdi Osman in Elasha. She said she was once beaten for wearing Somali traditional dress instead of the long, shapeless black robes favored by the fighters.

The Islamists' insistence that women wear the long, heavy robes also forces many women to stay at home because they can't afford the new clothing....

The insurgents even control parts of the capital, brazenly carrying out amputations, whippings and stonings in public places. The list of forbidden things differs from town to town and commander to commander.

In Jowhar, the insurgents are now also insisting that men grow their beards but shave their mustaches, said another resident, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution.

The Islamists have also banned the cinema, music, and bras because they say they are all un-Islamic. Such restrictions are influenced by foreign fighters practicing Wahhabi Islam, which is much stricter than Somalia's traditional Sufi Islam that incorporates a long tradition of poetry and song.

"The last time I listened a song or music, was two years ago, before the insurgents managed the full control of my village," said Bile Hassan. Now, he says, even the memory of music makes him feel afraid.

Sudan's Bashir sees Islamic law, defends flogging

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir said on Sunday that the country's north will reinforce its Islamic law after a referendum expected to grant independence to the south, in a speech in which he also defended police who were filmed flogging a woman.

"If south Sudan secedes, we will change the constitution and at that time there will be no time to speak of diversity of culture and ethnicity," President Omar Hassan al-Bashir told supporters at a rally in the eastern city of Gedaref.
"Sharia and Islam will be the main source for the constitution, Islam the official religion and Arabic the official language," he said.

Southerners are now three weeks away from the scheduled start of a vote on whether to declare independence or stay part of Sudan -- a plebiscite promised in a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of war between the Muslim north and the south where most follow traditional beliefs and Christianity.

That 2005 accord set up an interim constitution that limited Islamic sharia law to the north and recognised "the cultural and social diversity of the Sudanese people".

Bashir also defended police shown lashing a woman in a film that appeared on the video-sharing website YouTube.

"If she is lashed according to sharia law there is no investigation. Why are some people ashamed? This is sharia," he said.

The case of Sudan

Sudan presents a religiously divided / pluralistic society. It is estimated that more than 70% of the Sudan’s present population are Sunni Muslims. About 11% belong to indigenous African religions and about 19% are Christians. The Muslim population is concentrated in the north, while the Christians and the practitioners of traditional indigenous religions live in the south or in the Nuba Mountains and the Blue Nile areas in central Sudan. An exception to this spatial ordering are the long established Coptic Christians who share urban space with Muslims in the North. Growing adherence to Christianity is reported among southerners, Nuba and other groups in Sudan. Such growth could have been at the expense of the traditional indigenous religions. At least two million southern Christians have settled in northern semi-urban areas as internally displaced resulting from the civil war.

Islam and the state structures have been closely related in Sudan – even since long before the time of the Mahdiyyah of the late 19th century. The Muslim groups in Sudan made efforts to enforce an Islamic state on Sudanese society. Through their conceptualisations of an Islamic state, they have been crucial to the definition of the Sudanese political system. At present, these Muslim groups share the objective of creating an Islamic state, but they have radically different views on the strategies and the socio-economic and political structures of this state.

Since the installation of a new “islamic order” (nizam islami) under President Jaafar Nimeiri in 1983, every civil or military government has had to deal with public discussions about shari’a. In an political atmosphere ripe with allegations of heterodoxy and even apostasy shari’a as the will of God had assumed a highly legitimising function in political debates. The National Salvation Government, which has been the outcome of June 1989 military coup, has formally opted for Islam as its system of government and followed the previously existing Islamic model since its introduction in September 1983. Within this government, there is strong support for the rule by means of the Islamic shari’a laws in all aspects of public life all over the country.

Importantly, the Sudan’s Constitutional Decree No. 7 in 1993, while affirming that “Islam is the guiding religion for the overwhelming majority of the Sudanese people,” states that “revealed religions such as Christianity, or traditional religious beliefs, may be freely adopted by anyone with no coercion in regards to beliefs and no restriction on religious observances”. Although the laws recognise Sudan as a multi-religious country, in practice, the government treats Islam as the state religion. More and above, an important part of the government’s political agenda has been to act as an Islamic model-state in the region and to gain ideological influence in other African states with substantial Muslim populations.

Christians have struggled against both the Islamising effects of the Khartoum governments and the perceived Arabising policies of the north. The initiatives of the various governments both elected and military have been seen as anti-Christian. The Nimeiri regime’s introduction of shari’a for all people, not just Muslims was resented by Christians. Making Arabic the language of education even in the South was viewed as a way of both de-culturing people and cutting them off from Anglophone education. The attempts at dialogue by Hassan al-Turabi were viewed with suspicion by both Christians and Muslims and seen as a political manoeuvre. The recently completed peace accord between Khartoum and the SPLA is again viewed with some perturbation.

Shari’a versus secular state has been a central issue in the civil war from 1983 to the present and, as such, an important topic in the Naivasha peace conferences. It will remain a fundamental issue in the constitutional debate following the peace process.

With the possible exception of Afghanistan and Iran Sudan presents the most vivid example of extreme societal regulation through the application of shari’a. Legislation in every field has been inspired by this state interpreted form of shari’a. Socio-cultural groups who had for generations taken for granted that they practised shari’a in their daily dealings with land law, personal law or the law of inheritance for instance, have been confronted with this new shari’a legislation which renders their traditional legal ideas illegal and against the will of God.

The introduction of shari’a law and the implementation of the Islamic state may be regarded as decisive moves in the Arabo-Islamic “civilisational project” which aims at cultural hegemony of the central Nile Valley over the peripheral regions of the Sudan and the construction of a Sudanese Arabo-Islamic nation within the global umma of which Sudanese Islamic leaders view themselves as the avantgarde. The project of hegemony has met with varying responses throughout the Sudanese society ranging from overt rebellion to hidden resistance and strategic appropriation to wholehearted acceptance. An important aspect of these struggles about shari’a is the fact that beyond the articulate claims and counterclaims of the audible debate there is a largely hidden “debate” expressed in rituals, bodily performances and everyday social negotiations that tend to escape the attention of the scholar who concentrates on the public, articulate aspects of shari’a but which nevertheless constitutes a very real contested domain of contest.

What about Somalia?

FRONTPAGEMAGAZING

For several years the Somalia-based Islamic terrorist group Al-Shabab has been diligently recruiting new members in the United States, efforts that have produced both a disturbing and growing increase in the radicalization of young Somali-Americans.

When 19 year-old Somali-born Mohamed Osman Mohamud was arrested on November 27 for his failed attempt to blow up a van full of dummy explosives at a tree-lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon, some saw the influence of Al-Shabab.

However, law enforcement officials were quick to insist Mohamud had not been directed by any foreign terrorist organization, pointing out he had been the one to initiate contact with Al Qaeda recruiters in Pakistan in an effort to join its jihadist movement.

While no connection to Al-Shabab apparently exists, it certainly wasn't an implausible conclusion to draw, given the series of arrests this year alone of Somali-Americans from all parts of the United States. Each were accused of supporting Al-Shabab from either here in the United States or by going overseas to fight in the terrorist group’s war against the provisional Somali government.

In fact, Mohamud's apprehension comes directly on the heels of the November 15 arrest of Nimi Ali Yusuf, a 24 year-old Somali woman from San Diego, charged, along with three other Somali men, with providing Al-Shabab money and other assistance.

Their arrest follows the indictments in August 2010 of 14 Somali-Americans from Alabama, Minnesota and California on similar charges, which forced Attorney General Eric Holder to acknowledge the routing of fighters and money to Al-Shabab to constitute a "deadly pipeline."

That pipeline began in earnest in 2006 when Al-Shabab, a brutal Taliban-like organization fighting to turn Somalia into an Islamist state ruled under Sharia law, began waging war against both Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and peacekeeping forces of the African Union.

Al-Shabab has been aided in this fight by the assistance of many al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists who have been using Somalia as a safe haven ever since the 2001 American invasion of Afghanistan. The result of their help has allowed Al-Shabab to takeover most of southern and central Somalia, relegating the TFG to a narrow pocket of the Somalian capitol city of Mogadishu.

The other effect of housing so many foreign terrorists has been to turn Somalia into a beehive of terrorist activity, making it the top terror target in the world. According [8] to terrorism analyst Thomas Mockaitis, "Somalia has become what Afghanistan was in the 1980s. It is a failed state and it’s a hotbed for [not only] conflict, but also the training and export of extremist activity.”

The exportation of Al-Shabab's terrorist activity became official in February 2010 when the organization declared its alignment with al Qaeda and its quest for global jihad.

As Sheikh Fuad Mohamed Shangole, a top Al-Shabab leader said at that time, " "The decisions included waging jihad (holy struggle) in the Eastern and Horn of Africa regions in order to liberate the Islamic communities and to link up our jihad to the global one, led by Al-Qaeda and Sheikh Osama Bin Laden."

So while Al-Shabab had originally recruited fighters from North America, Europe and the Middle East as part of its holy war against the TFG, now finding itself committed to a global jihad, it began an intensive campaign to recruit Somali-Americans to take the fight to the United States. For Al-Shabab, Somali communities in the United States proved to be very fertile recruiting grounds.
These Somali communities, which cover all corners of the United States, are composed primarily of refugees who have been escaping the ongoing civil wars that began in Somalia since 1991 with the ouster of then President Mohamed Siad Barre, conflicts which have gone on unabated ever since.

While most Somalis have earned a reputation as law-abiding and patriotic members of the American community, in a population that has swelled from 35,000 in 2000 to upwards of 150,000 today, there are still a number who feel culturally disconnected, making them ever susceptible to the lure of outside jihadist forces.

As Thomas Mockaitis explains [8], “Many of these people are in fact the children of refugees. They were probably born in Somalia or born soon after they [i.e., their mothers] came to the United States. And they are not particularly in touch with their parents. And yet, neither are they particularly attracted to or accepted by mainstream American culture. So there is this kind of double alienation that makes them particularly prone to recruitment.”

One of the most common recruitment methods used by Al-Shabab is through the use of internet videos to promote their cause in an effort to reach young men who might never have traveled to Somalia.

One of the first such videos released by Al-Shabab was in March 2009 and featured an English speaking Somali from Alabama, Omar Hammami, who urged its viewers to "come and live the life of a muhajid," adding for emphasis, “We’re calling all the brothers oversees, all the Shabab, wherever they are, to come and live the life of the mujahid. They will see with their own eyes, and they will love it.”

The effects of these and other recruitment efforts have had some nasty net effects. Most noteworthy was in 2009 when over 20 Somali youth, most from the Minneapolis area, home to the largest concentration of Somalian refugees in the United States, went overseas to fight for Al-Shabab.

While some of that group has been reported killed in the fighting in Somalia, at least six are known to have returned to the United States, presumably to continue with recruitment efforts. In fact, American-Somalis make particularly good recruiters as they can use their American passports to travel relatively freely and easily.

Still, despite their efforts at developing homegrown American terrorists, Al-Shabab has not refrained from attempting to infiltrate its own members into the United States through the porous US-Mexico border, with some estimates as high as 300 Al-Shabab members having safely made it through.

Unfortunately, even those Somalis who have been detained didn't stay jailed for long. This unfortunate fact was seen in the release of a confidential report that showed Mexican officials in January 2010 to have mistakenly released 23 Somali men shortly after they had been taken into custody, most of whom U.S. officials suspected as having strong ties to Al-Shabab.

The commitment of al-Shabab to promote jihad both in and outside of Somalia has been so successful that according to Chris Harnisch of the American Enterprise Institute, "Al-Shabab is right now one of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world."

Of course, for Americans, the only danger to date so far posed by Al-Shabab has been limited to the preventative arrests of some terrorist wannabes. Unfortunately, Al-Shabab still has plenty of willing candidates lined up to take their place.

Somali teenage girl shot to death for embracing Christ

CDN

A 17-year-old girl in Somalia who converted to Christianity from Islam was shot to death last week in an apparent “honor killing,” area sources said.

Nurta Mohamed Farah, who had fled her village of Bardher, Gedo Region to Galgadud Region to live with relatives after her parents tortured her for leaving Islam, died on Nov. 25. Area sources said they strongly suspected that the two unidentified men in Galgadud Region who shot her in the chest and head with a pistol were relatives or acting on their behest.

“Reports reached the relatives in Galgadud that Nurta Farah had converted to Christianity,” one source said. “The suspicion that the family is responsible is a solid one. The sister was killed in Abudwaq, a district in Galgadud Region, and the place where the incident took place is about 200 meters from where the sister was staying with relatives.”

Relatives buried Farah, sources said. Her parents had severely beaten her for leaving Islam and regularly shackled her to a tree at their home, Christian sources said. She had been confined to her home in Gedo region in southern Somalia since May 10, when her family found out that she had embraced Christianity, said a Christian leader who visited the area (see “Family of 17-Year-Old Somali Girl Abuses Her for Leaving Islam,” June 15).

Her parents also took her to a doctor who prescribed medication for a “mental illness,” he said. Alarmed by her determination to keep her faith, her father, Hassan Kafi Ilmi, and mother, Hawo Godane Haf, decided she had gone crazy and forced her to take the prescribed medication, but it had no effect in swaying her from her faith, the source said.

Traditionally, he added, many Somalis believe the Quran cures the sick, especially the mentally ill, so the Islamic scripture was recited to her twice a week.

She had declined her family’s offer of forgiveness in exchange for renouncing Christianity, the source said. The confinement began after the medication and punishments failed.

Area Christians had reported that Farah was shackled to a tree by day and put in a small, dark room at night.

Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government generally did not enforce protection of religious freedom found in the Transitional Federal Charter, according to the U.S. Department of State’s 2010 International Religious Freedom Report.

“Non-Muslims who practiced their religion openly faced occasional societal harassment,” the report stated. “Conversion from Islam to another religion was considered socially unacceptable. Those suspected of conversion faced harassment or even death from members of their community.”

Sharia lessons for pupils aged six: BBC uncovers 'weekend schools' that teach pupils how to hack off thieves' hands

Pupils asked to list the 'reprehensible' qualities of Jews
Around 5,000 children attend a network of 40 schools
Diagrams show children how to hack off hands and feet

Investigation: A BBC Panorama programme has found that around 40 weekend schools are teaching Sharia law to British children as young as six.

Children in Britain are being taught brutal Sharia law punishments, including how to hack off a criminal’s hand or foot.

So-called ‘weekend schools’ for Muslim pupils as young as six also teach that the penalty for gay sex is execution and that ‘Zionists’ are plotting to take over the world for the Jews.

One set textbook challenges youngsters to list the ‘reprehensible’ qualities of Jews.

Another for six-year-olds asks them to answer what happens to someone who dies who is not a believer in Islam. The answer being looked for is ‘hellfire’.

A BBC Panorama investigation, to be screened tonight, identified a network of more than 40 weekend schools teaching around 5,000 children, from age six to 18.

The schools – which offer the hardline Saudi National Curriculum – are run under the umbrella of ‘Saudi Students Clubs and Schools in the UK and Ireland’.

They are not state-funded, and do not use Government buildings. They are able to exploit a loophole which means weekend schools are not inspected by Ofsted.

Last night, experts at the Policy Exchange think-tank warned that similar extremists could seek to exploit the Government’s policy of giving greater freedoms from state control to free schools and academies

Clear message: Education Secretary Michael Gove has said he would not tolerate anti-Semitism and homophobia in English schools.

They call for the establishment of a due diligence unit to check whether those applying to open the schools have an extremist background.

Current checks are largely limited to fraud, criminal convictions and funding.

Education Secretary Michael Gove, who is believed to be supportive of the idea, said he would not tolerate anti-Semitism and homophobia in English schools.

The Panorama investigation identified a book for 15-year-olds being used in the classes which teaches about Sharia law and its punishments.

It says: ‘For thieves their hands will be cut off for a first offence, and their foot for a subsequent offence.’

There are diagrams showing children where cuts must be made. One passage says: ‘The specified punishment of the thief is cutting off his right hand at the wrist. Then it is cauterised to prevent him from bleeding to death.’

For acts of ‘sodomy’, children are told that the penalty is death and it states a difference of opinion whether this should be done by stoning, or burning with fire, or throwing over a cliff.

Panorama alleges that a building used for one of the schools, in Ealing, West London, is owned by the Saudi government.

Mr Gove told the programme: ‘I have no desire or wish to intervene in the decisions that the Saudi government makes in its own education system.

‘But I’m clear that we cannot have anti-Semitic material of any kind being used in English schools. Ofsted are doing some work in this area.

‘They’ll be reporting to me shortly about how we can ensure that part-time provision is better registered and better inspected in the future.’

The text books for 15-year-olds revive the so-called ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’, which teach that Zionists want to establish world domination for Jews.
The Saudi text books instruct pupils: ‘The Jews have tried to deny them (the Protocols) but there are many proofs of their veracity and their origin among the elders of Zion.’

The text books say the ‘main goal’ of the ‘Zionist movement’ is ‘for the Jews to have control over the world and its resources’ which, the book allege, Zionists seek to achieve partly by ‘inciting rancour and rivalry among the great powers so that they fight one another.’


Mr Gove said anyone who cites the Protocols of Zion is ‘indulging in one of the oldest and foulest anti Semitic smears that, that we know of’.

In a written response to the findings, the Saudi ambassador said the schools had nothing to do with the Saudi embassy.

It stated: ‘Any tutoring activities that may have taken place among any other group of Muslims in the United Kingdom are absolutely individual to that group and not affiliated to or endorsed by the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia.’
Referring to the lesson that tasks children to list the ‘reprehensible qualities of the Jews’, in a letter to the BBC, the Saudi ambassador said it was ‘dangerously deceptive and misleading to address such texts and discuss them out of their overall historical, cultural and linguistic contexts’.

Panorama separately claimed some Muslim private schools have expressed extreme sentiments on their school websites.

These include: ‘We need to defend our children from the forces of evil’, and ‘our children are exposed to a culture that is in opposition to almost everything Islam stands for’.

Policy Exchange says Britain’s faith and other schools are increasingly vulnerable to extremist influences.

It claims in a report that the Department for Education, Ofsted, education authorities and schools are ‘not equipped’ to meet such challenges.
Current checks for extremism are described as ‘piecemeal’.

The report adds: ‘The Government’s policy of opening up the education system to new academies and free schools programmes could be exploited unless urgent measures are taken to counter extremist influence.’

WATCH THE VIDEO

U.S. charges 14 with giving support to Somali insurgent group

THE WASHINGTON POST

Federal authorities unsealed terrorism-related charges Thursday against 14 people accused of providing funding and recruits to a militant group in Somalia with ties to al-Qaeda, part of an expanding U.S. effort to disrupt what Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. called a "deadly pipeline" of money and fighters to al-Shabab.

It is the first time that the Justice Department has publicly revealed criminal charges against two U.S. citizens, Omar Hammami and Jehad Mostafa, who have risen through al-Shabab's ranks to become important field commanders for the organization.

The indictments were unsealed in Alabama, California and Minnesota, the latter being home to the largest Somali population in the United States.

In Minnesota, officials said, FBI agents arrested two women on Thursday on charges that included soliciting donations door-to-door for al-Shabab, which the United States designated a terrorist organization in 2008. The other 12 suspects were in Somalia or were otherwise at large.

The indictments "shed further light on a deadly pipeline that has routed funding and fighters to al-Shabab from cities across the United States," Holder said. "We are seeing an increasing number of individuals -- including U.S. citizens -- who have become captivated by extremist ideology and have taken steps to carry out terrorist objectives, either at home or abroad."

For years, al-Shabab was seen primarily as an insurgent group struggling to topple Somalia's weak government and to impose strict Islamic law. But the group's focus "has morphed over time," a senior FBI official said. Al-Shabab has attracted a growing number of foreign fighters to its camps and has demonstrated a new ability to export violence, and it has been praised by Osama bin Laden.

Last month, the group claimed responsibility for bombings in Uganda that killed at least 76 people. A State Department terrorism report released Thursday said al-Shabab and al-Qaeda "present a serious terrorist threat to American and allied interests throughout the Horn of Africa."

Holder said none of those charged is accused of plotting attacks against U.S. targets. Most are accused of sending money or signing up for a war aimed at ousting the U.S.-backed government in Mogadishu. Even so, al-Shabab's ties to al-Qaeda and its ability to tap support inside the United States have caused concern that the group could be used to carry out a domestic attack.

"What it reaffirms is that we do have a problem with domestic radicalization," said Frank J. Cilluffo, an official in the George W. Bush administration who heads the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University.

The indictments follow the arrest last month of Zachary Adam Chesser, 20, of Fairfax County, who was detained in New York while attempting to depart for Africa. Authorities said he planned to join al-Shabab.

As part of a multiyear FBI investigation, 19 people have been charged in Minnesota with supporting al-Shabab. Nine have been arrested, including five who have pleaded guilty; the others are not in custody.

But the most significant figures indicted are the two Americans who have emerged as battle-tested leaders of al-Shabab.

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Islamic police smash 80,000 beer bottles in Nigeria

AFP

Islamic police smashed 80,000 bottles of beer in the Nigerian city of Kano on Tuesday to enforce a sharia law ban on consumption of alcohol that exists in much of the country's north.

Over a dozen veiled female sharia police, called Hisbah, destroyed the beer bottles with sticks amid shouts of "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great) on the outskirts of the northern city in a ceremony.

The ceremony was attended by government officials as part of "efforts to rid the state of immorality," said Kano state Hisbah chief Saidu Dukawa. Kano city is the capital of the state by the same name."The sale and consumption of alcohol, like all forms of drugs and intoxicants, is illegal in Kano state, which practices sharia law and by this event we are enforcing that ban," Dukawa told AFP.

Thirteen trucks brought the bottles of beer to the venue.The alcohol had been seized at the weekend by sharia police as the bottles were being delivered to the city from the mainly Christian south, where most of the country?s breweries are located, Dukawa said.

Although the sale and consumption of alcohol is banned in Kano state, beer trucks find their way to taverns in the predominantly Christian Sabongari neighbourhood, which is practically exempt from sharia law.

Since 1999, when Nigeria returned to civilian rule after years of military dictatorship, around a dozen states in the predominantly Muslim north have reintroduced Islamic sharia law, though it has been selectively applied in many cases.

Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation, and roughly half of the 150 million population is Muslim.

Kenya's Christian churches against Islamic Sharia

CNN

Voters in Kenya are due to decide Wednesday whether the new constitution goes through. It's designed to reduce political tensions in a country where the last national vote led to violence that left more than 1,000 people dead.

But the wholesale rewriting of the country's constitution has opened up a can of worms, according to the country's Christian churches.

Kenyans vote on new constitution

"We believe the constitution doesn't meet religious, moral, economic and justice concerns," said Oliver Kisaka, a top official with the National Council of Churches of Kenya.

"It privileges one religion over another. It allows abortion on demand. It has strong socialist tendencies," he said, also objecting to the provision for international law to take precedence over Kenyan law.

Kenya's Catholic bishops put it more bluntly, putting out a full-color leaflet with a red traffic light over the words "Stop!!! Think.... Choose life."

Why Kenya's referendum is important

The Anglicans issued a measured statement, but the message was equally clear: "We say NO to the proposed constitution as it is" unless it's amended to answer their concerns about "justice and equality for all religions, the limitation of fundamental rights based on religion, the protection of the right to life and the supremacy of our constitution in the light of International conventions and treaties."

The draft constitution defines life as beginning as conception and outlaws abortion, but includes exceptions for "emergency treatment, or the life or health of the mother is in danger, or if permitted by any other written law."

Opposition from the churches in Kenya is potentially a big deal.

"Kenya is an overwhelmingly Christian nation," said Greg Smith, of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in Washington, D.C.

Some 88 percent of Kenyans identify themselves as Christian, he said.

And they're not casual about religion either, he said.

"Among Kenyan Christians, 86 percent said religion is very important in their lives," compared to about six in 10 Americans who say that, he said.

"About eight in 10 say they attend religious services at least once a week. A similar number say they pray every day," he said.

The Pew Forum recently published a huge study of religion in Africa, the result of 25,000 interviews in 19 sub-Saharan countries.

"People that we interviewed in Africa tended to express high levels of religious commitment. We see the same high levels of religious commitment among Muslims," Smith said.

Kenya is about 7 percent Muslim, according to the Pew Forum.

Many Christians in Kenya object to the enshrining of Islamic courts as part of the country's legal system.

Known as kadhi courts, they would be an alternative to the civil courts "for matters such as law relating to personal status, marriage, divorce or inheritance in proceedings in which all the parties profess the Muslim religion and submit to the jurisdiction of the Kadhi's courts," according to the draft constitution.

Close to 40 countries use the kadhi court system, said Prof. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im of Emory University. Kadhi is Arabic for "judge," he explained.

If they become law in Kenya, Muslims will use them even if they would prefer to go to civil courts, he predicted.

"In Kenya according to the proposal they do have a choice, but in reality it's not going to happen because of social pressure and stigma," he said. "If kadhi courts are available, Muslims will feel compelled to go to them no matter what they want."

About 50 countries have some provision for religious courts to act as an alternative to civil courts for matters of personal status, the Pew Forum says.

Most polls suggest that Kenya's constitution will pass, but political analysts believe that either outcome is possible.

Many of those supporting a "yes" vote -- which includes most of Kenya's political leadership -- are looking not just for a win, but a win by a large margin, so they can have a strong mandate to move forward with reforms.

A win by just a small margin could provide the "no" camp with a moral victory, allowing it to stall implementation of the constitution.

Somali Islamic group cracks down on TV sets

REUTERS

Somali Islamist rebels have ordered residents in areas they control to hand over televisions and satellite dishes, warning that anyone who did not would be considered a spy, residents said on Monday.

The affected region is largely controlled by the al Shabaab group, a rebel militia linked to al Qaeda which enforces a harsh version of sharia law that includes banning school bells, ringtones on cell phones and music on radios.

Members of the militia group, which has also banned watching football and films, have warned residents through loud speakers mounted on vehicles in towns across southern and central Somalia to give up their TV sets before the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan starts in mid-August.

"Families were told to surrender their television sets and satellite dishes. They are afraid some of us may use them as private channels for communication," Abshir, a resident of Buula-barde, told Reuters.

"In the past, we could not watch games or films as we wanted. Now, we cannot have TV sets at all," he said, declining to give his second name for safety reasons.

Another resident in Bardale, a town 60 km north of Baidoa, said they were informed of the decision at a public gathering late on Friday. "We are not happy to handover our belongings to someone else," said the resident who did not want to be named.

The warning scared residents who are familiar with the group that previously carried out death sentences on dozens of people accused of espionage for the government or foreign troops.

One legislator from Buula-barde said the radical group, which claimed responsibility for bombings in the Ugandan capital of Kampala that killed 76 people this month, were watching developments an African Union summit in the city for any possible offensive.

"They are monitoring closely the discussion at the summit and cautious that African troops may leave the defensive positions after the Kampala bombing," legislator Osman Mohamed said.

"They are oppressing our people using a poor excuse that residents may be spies, but that is not the case. This is the beginning of series attempts to control information, and create the fear among the people."

Sudan police arrest models after fashion show

REUTERS

Sudanese police briefly detained more than 20 models, make-up artists and designers after a rare mixed-sex fashion show in Khartoum, participants said Saturday.

Amateur models taking part in the "Sudanese Next Top Model Fashion Show" told Reuters they were rounded up late Thursday by Sudan's public order police, a body known for its crackdowns on indecent dress and drinking in the Muslim north.

Police were not available to comment on Thursday's arrests outside a club in the capital's Khartoum 2 district.

All of the detainees were released Friday but at least six were told to report to the police Sunday to face unspecified charges, said one participant.

"They came to the club after the show and arrested between 20 and 30 people -- not just models, but people doing the make- up, the people who provided the clothes," said the participant, who asked to remain anonymous.

"There was nothing bad about the clothes. There were wedding dresses, traditional Sudanese clothes, suits, clothes from local shops and tobs (traditional Sudanese wraparound dresses)."

Other participants said there had been fashion shows before in Sudan, many of them held in private. But Thursday's event was thought to be one of the first public events to feature male and female models sharing the catwalk.

Mogadishu men ordered to grow beard in 30 days

Men in the Somali capital Mogadishu, have been given 30 days to grow beard. The order was issued by Moalim Hashi Mohamed Farah, the Governor in the capital. It takes effect on July 20.

Moalim Hashi is a member of Hizbu Islam, led by Sheikh Dahir Aweys, one of the Islamist groups opposing the Transitional Federal Government.

Talking to the local media via teleconference late on Sunday, Moalim Hashi stated that Somali women in the capital had already complied with the order of using the Hijab (heavy dress covering from head to toe). He added that it is time from men to comply with Islamic manners.

The clergyman ordered all men of adult age to grow beard and to trim moustaches.

He emphasized that his Islamic authority was aware of some men actually shaving the beards and even growing the moustaches, which is the opposite of the code the order demands.

“As from 20th of July, we are hereby ordering all men to obey the instructions of trimming the moustaches and growing the beards,” said Moalim Hashi. “Short of complying with the instructions will attract punishment in accordance with the Sharia (Islamic) laws),” he added.

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Insurgent Group Kills Two People For Watching World Cup Match

Two people have been shot dead reportedly for watching a football World Cup match on television by the Somali insurgent near the Somali capital of Mogadishu.

Residents say that heavily armed militants stormed a house where World Cup fans were secretly watching the football competition which was prohibited in Islamist controlled regions in Somalia.
Two young men who tried to jump over the wall were shot and killed, 10 others were taken into Islamist custody, according to officials.

Those in custody have broken and Islamic rule and will be dealt with in accordance with Islamic law, Hizbul Islam leader, Sheik Mohamed Abu Abdalla.

The insurgents in Somalia warned people against watching the World Cup, saying that Football descended from the old Christian cultures, it was not compatible with Islamic law and that those who were caught watching it would be brought before the Islamic court.

Al-Shabab and Hizb al-Islam control most of Mogadishu and south and central Somalia, having squeezed the internationally backed government into a sliver of land defended by an African Union force.

Somali militants threaten World Cup TV viewers

BBC

Somali militants have threatened football fans they will be publicly flogged - or worse - if they are caught watching the World Cup on TV.

Gangs of Islamists are reported to be patrolling the areas they control looking for people watching games.

Dedicated fans are watching matches in secret, or in the few areas controlled by government forces.
On Saturday militants killed two people as they attacked a house where people were watching a game.

Militant group Hizbul-Islam also arrested 10 others at the house north-east of the capital Mogadishu where fans were watching the game between Argentina and Nigeria.

'Mad men'

A spokesman for the group, Sheikh Mohamed Abdi Aros said the rest of Somalia should respect their ban on the World Cup.

"We are warning all the youth of Somalia not to dare watch these World Cup matches. It is a waste of money and time and they will not benefit anything or get any experience by watching mad men jumping up and down," he said.

One broadcaster has moved their operations to the fortified airport to protect their equipment from attack during the tournament.

Dedicated football fans have few safe places to go if they want to watch Africa's first World Cup, with the al-Qaeda inspired group al-Shabab also announcing a ban.

A cinema in the small part of the capital Mogadishu controlled by the government has become a popular place for football fans.

One man, who lives in the militant-controlled livestock market area of the city told the BBC he was watching Algeria v Slovenia at home with his family.

"I have one eye on the TV and the other on the door, and the sound turned down," he said.

'Enemies of Islam'

The ban dates back to a law that was introduced by the Islamic Courts Union who took control of much of Somalia for six months in 2006.

It bans Somalis from all forms of entertainment considered un-Islamic under the courts' strict interpretation of Sharia law, like video games and watching sports in public.

The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan says few individual Somalis can afford to have a satellite TV, so such public screenings are often the only way matches can be seen.

In the Juba Valley rebel militias went further, saying young men should not watch football - even in the privacy of their own homes - because it would "distract them from pursuing holy jihad."

A private broadcaster moved its equipment from the rebel-held Bakara market to the heavily protected airport so it can continue broadcasting, news agency Reuters reported.

They had to do it under the cover of darkness for fear of attack, they said.

Television was already under attack from the Islamist militants.

Al-Shabab has declared Universal TV "enemies of Islam" because they allegedly broadcast pictures of the prophet Muhammad.

Al-Shabab has already banned radio stations from playing music and threatened several radio stations.

The Islamic Courts Union was driven out by Ethiopian-backed government forces.
But since then rebel groups like al-Shabab have taken control of the south of Somalia and much of Mogadishu.

The government, backed by African Union peacekeepers, controls only a small area of the capital.