United States Gives Iran Until March To ‘Start Cooperating’ With The IAEA

At this rate, by the time March gets here the Ayatollahs may have absolutely no reason to cooperate with the IAEA. What they may have, however, is a reason for the IAEA to cooperate with the Ayatollahs …

NTI – “The United States warned on Thursday it could seek U.N. Security Council intervention if Iran fails by March to begin collaborating substantively with a deadlocked international probe into its nuclear activities, Reuters reported.

Several 2012 meetings between Tehran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog have failed to yield a plan for resolving questions over possible Iranian nuclear weapon-related experimentation. Iran contends its atomic efforts are strictly peaceful and has demanded records forming the basis for the agency’s suspicions over arms activities.

‘If by March Iran has not begun substantive cooperation with the IAEA, the United States will work with other board members to pursue appropriate board action, and would urge the board to consider reporting this lack of progress to the U.N. Security Council,’ said Robert Wood, the chief U.S. delegate to the Vienna, Austria-based organization.

‘Iran cannot be allowed to indefinitely ignore its obligations … Iran must act now, in substance,’ Wood added in prepared remarks.

It is uncertain if a potential bid to refer the stalemate to the Security Council would win support from Beijing or Moscow, according to Reuters. The international body to date has adopted four sanctions resolutions aimed at pressuring Tehran to address global fears over Iranian nuclear efforts.” Read more.

IAEA Inspectors Find Documents Indicating Iran Building Powerful Nuclear Device Triple The Force Of Hiroshima Bomb – “Iran is planning to build a nuclear bomb with at least triple the force of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in World War II, diagrams obtained by the Associated Press indicates. According to AP, the diagrams were first discovered by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) scientists after an inspection of an Iranian nuclear facility. The document was published by the AP Tuesday after, the news agency said, it was leaked by officials critical of the way the West has been handling the Iran issue.” Read more.

Flashback: New Intelligence Reveals Iran Closer To Attaining Nuclear Weapon Than Previously Thought – “New intelligence information obtained by Israel and four Western countries indicates that Iran has made greater progress on developing nuclear weapons than the West had previously realized, according to Western diplomats and Israeli officials who are closely involved in efforts to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb. A Western diplomat who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to discuss intelligence information said the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Israel agree on that assessment.” Read more.

Flashback: Iran: Nuclear Weapons Will Prepare Us For The Emergence Of Islamic Messiah – “New evidence indicates Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wants nuclear weapons and he created a religious-based ruse to deceive the world into joining new talks. The leader intends to use those talks to buy more time to harden his weapons program, prevent an attack, and persuade world powers to lift sanctions… President Khamenei explained ‘This [possessing nuclear weapons] was the only way to secure the very essence of the Islamic revolution from the schemes of its enemies … and to prepare it for the emergence of Imam Mehdi [messiah],’ who would bring the world under Islamic rule.” Read more.

Florida: FBI Arrests Two Muslim Men Planning To Use A ‘Large-Scale Weapon Somewhere In The United States’

By SCOTT HIAASEN, The Miami Herald – “MIAMI — Two Pakistani brothers from Oakland Park, Fla., have been arrested on terrorism charges, accused of conspiring to deploy explosive weapons against an American target, according to a federal indictment released Friday.

The brothers, 20-year-old Raess Alam Qazi and 30-year-old Sheheryar Alam Qazi, have each been charged with one count of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. They were arrested Thursday by the FBI and remain in custody at the Broward County Jail.

Between July 2011 and Thursday, prosecutors said, the pair provided transportation, money, lodging and other aid toward a plan to use a large-scale weapon somewhere in the United States. Federal authorities would disclose few details of the ongoing investigation Friday, declining to name the target of the alleged plot, or how close the plan was to fruition.

‘Any potential threat posed by these two individuals has been disrupted,’ Wifredo Ferrer, the U.S. attorney for the southern district of Florida, said in a statement. ‘Since September 11, 2001, the top priority of the Department of Justice and this U.S. Attorney’s Office has been to deter and prosecute acts of terrorism.’

The case is being investigated by the FBI’s South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force. Investigators would not say how the terrorist plot was detected, though sources close to the investigation said Thursday’s arrests were not the result of an FBI sting.” Read more.

Nigeria: Terror Leader Calls For Global Jihad Against America, Britain And Israel For The ‘Cause Of Allah Everywhere’

By Tim Cocks, Reuters – “The leader of Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram praises jihadist movements across the globe and singled out the United States, Britain, Israel and Nigeria as enemies in a new video, according to a translation by the SITE monitoring service.

The 39-minute video ‘Glad Tidings, O Soldiers of Allah’, posted in a jihadist forum, features a speech by sect leader Abubakar Shekau with an unusually international focus for a group that has often seemed more pre-occupied with local gripes.

Unlike previous video speeches, which he delivered in his native Hausa tongue, the one posted on Thursday is in Arabic. Shekau pledges solidarity with Islamist fighters everywhere.

‘Nigeria and other crusaders, meaning America and Britain, should witness, and the Jews of Israel who are killing the Muslims in Palestine should witness … that we are with our mujahideen brothers in the cause of Allah everywhere,’ he said, according to SITE’s translation.

The video appears to confirm the fears of security agents that Boko Haram has ambitions to join forces with other Islamist groups pursuing a more explicitly global, anti-Western agenda – like al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), based in Mali…

The video wishes ‘glad tidings’ on Islamist warriors in ‘Islamic Maghreb’ (the Sahara) and ‘the Islamic State in Mali’, as well as Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and ‘usurped Palestine’.

He list ‘martyrs’ in the global fight against world powers like Britain and the United States, including Osama bin-Laden.

‘Don’t think that jihad stops with the death of imams, because imams are individuals,’ he tells them. ‘Think how many sheikhs and men were martyred … Did jihad stop? No. Jihad doesn’t stop until Allah wills it to be stopped.'” Read more.

Flashback: Boko Haram: Our Goal is to Eliminate Followers of Christ – “Terrorist organisation Boko Haram has issued a statement making clear that its goal is to eliminate followers of Christ from Nigeria and establish an Islamic state. ‘The Nigerian state and Christians are our enemies and we will be launching attacks on the Nigerian state and its security apparatus as well as churches until we achieve our goal of establishing an Islamic state in place of the secular state … We are responsible for the suicide attack on a church in Jos and also another attack on another church in Biu,’ a spokesman for the group, Abul Qaqa, is said to have told reporters in the northeastern city of Maiduguri over the phone.” Read more.

Muslims Pressing For Blasphemy Laws In Europe

Why bother? As it currently stands, Europe is already punishing anyone who dares to speak the truth about Islam …

By Soeren Kern, Gatestone Institute – “The Dutch parliament has approved a motion to revoke a law that makes it a crime to insult God.

Free speech activists say the move represents a significant victory at a time when Muslim groups are stepping up pressure on European governments to make it a crime to criticize of Islam or the prophet Mohammed.

Article 147 of the Dutch Penal Code was drafted in the 1930s and had not been used for half a century; leading legislators said there was no longer a need for it. The decision to abolish the law follows national elections in September 2012, in which two liberal parties (the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) and the Labour Party (PvdA) emerged victorious.

The issue was brought to the attention of the Dutch parliament in June 2011, when Geert Wilders, a MP who crusades for free-speech, was acquitted after facing trial on charges of inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims. The judge ruled that Wilders had the right to criticize Islam, even though his opinions may have insulted many Muslims.

Wilders, who leads the Freedom Party, had described Islam as ‘fascist,’ and compared Islam’s holy book, the Koran, to Adolf Hitler’s political manifesto ‘Mein Kampf.’ Amsterdam judge Marcel van Oosten said Wilders’s statements were directed at Islam, not at Muslims, and ruled that the statements were ‘acceptable within the context of public debate.’

Wilders said at the time that the verdict was ‘not only an acquittal for me, but a victory for freedom of expression in the Netherlands.’ But many European countries still have blasphemy laws which restrict freedom of expression, and in some cases, such laws have been replaced with more general legislation that criminalizes religious hatred.

The decision to scrap the country’s blasphemy law has been hailed internationally by activists, who have long called it outdated and a threat to free speech.

The Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s advisory body on constitutional matters, issued a report about ‘The Issue of Regulation and Prosecution of Blasphemy, Religious Insult, and Incitement to Religious Hatred.’ The report noted that, in Europe, blasphemy is an offense in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Italy, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands and San Marino.

In addition, ‘Religious Insult’ is a criminal offense in Andorra, Cyprus, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerland.

Britain, for example, abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel in England and Wales in 2008. But in 2006 the British government enacted the

Cruel Master Rising: Mass Protests Underway As Islamist-Led Egyptian Panel Passes Pro-Sharia, Misogynist Constitution

UPI – “CAIRO — An Islamist-led Egyptian panel Friday passed a draft Constitution amid a crisis brought on by President Mohamed Morsi declaring his rule was above the law.

The draft, which the Constituent Assembly of Egypt approved after dawn, keeps Sharia, or the moral code and religious law of Islam, as the main source of Egypt’s legislation.

Some critics said certain language could allow conservative Islamists to impose a rigid version of Sharia, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Sharia deals with many topics addressed by secular law, including crime, politics and economics. It also addresses personal matters, including diet, prayer and fasting.

In its strictest definition it is considered the infallible law of God…

The assembly approval came without the participation of liberal and Christian assembly members.

Dozens of secularists and Coptic Christians boycotted the assembly in recent months, leaving Morsi’s Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, in control, the Times said.

The draft Constitution defines Egypt as a Muslim nation and says, for the first time in the republic’s history, Parliament must consult clerics at the revered Sunni al-Azhar Mosque, built in 970 in Islamic Cairo, on legislation ‘related to Islamic Sharia,’ the Times said.” Read more.

Egypt’s New Draft Constitution Sparks Mass Protest – “Giant crowds of protesters are packing into Cairo’s Tahrir Square and marching in other cities vowing to stop a draft constitution that Islamist allies of President Mohammed Morsi approved hours earlier in a rushed, all-night session without the participation of liberals and Christians. Anger at Morsi even spilled over into a mosque where the Islamist president joined weekly Friday prayers. In his sermon, the mosque’s preacher compared Morsi to Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, saying the prophet had enjoyed vast powers as leader, giving a precedent for the same to happen now. ‘No to tyranny!’ congregants chanted, interrupting the cleric.” Read more.

Egypt’s New Constitution Limits Fundamental Freedoms and Ignores Women’s Rights – “A draft constitution approved by Egypt’s Constituent Assembly falls well short of protecting human rights and, in particular, ignores the rights of women, restricts freedom of expression in the name of protecting religion, and allows for the military trial of civilians, Amnesty International said. ‘This document, and the manner in which it has been adopted, will come as an enormous disappointment to many of the Egyptians who took to the streets to oust Hosni Mubarak and demand their rights,’ said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.” Read more.

Islamist Group Founded By Muslim Brotherhood Followers To Host Convention At California Church

Hosea 4:6a, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest …”

By Ryan Mauro – “The Muslim Public Affairs Council’s choice of location for its 12th Annual Convention on December 15 is telling: The All Saints Episcopal Church of Pasadena, California. The group, founded by Muslim Brotherhood followers, says this is the ‘next step in its mission by crossing the interfaith line.’ Yet again, the Islamists are taking advantage of naïve Christians with a desire to show off their tolerance.

The All Saints Episcopal Church of Pasadena started an Interfaith Study Group in 2007 with the Pasadena Jewish Temple and the Islamic Center of Southern California (ICSC), from which MPAC originated. The organization was founded as a branch of ICSC in 1986 and then became independent in 1988, though the two remain intertwined. The ICSC is proud of its interfaith successes. For example, the First United Methodist Church of Santa Monica is allowing the ICSC to hold Friday prayers there every week.

The story of MPAC begins with Hassan and Maher Hathout, the former of whom died in 2009. The brothers became active with the Muslim Brotherhood at an early age, with Hassan Hathout saying that its founder, Hassan al-Banna, is ‘the person who most influenced my life’ and that ‘centuries might roll over before a similar personality is produced.’ Maher Hathout was arrested in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood was banned, and released in 1968. Three years later, they moved to Buffalo, New York and went to California to establish the ICSC in 1978.

Hassan Hathout says they sought to begin the ‘Islamic Movement’ in the U.S., a term the Brotherhood uses to describe its ideology. In 1997, he predicted its success because ‘America needs Islam. If you look objectively you will see that this current civilization harbors in its body the seeds of its own destruction.’ The language is very similar to that of a 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood strategy document where it defines its ‘work in America as a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.’ Another U.S. Muslim Brotherhood document from 1989 from its Financial Committee refers to a person with the last name of Hathout as someone ‘in the field.’

Maher Hathout has served as a senior adviser to MPAC since its beginning at the ICSC in 1986 and is still a spokesman for the mosque. The ICSC recommends the work of Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, a senior Brotherhood cleric that supports terrorism, Hamas and preaches a strategy of ‘gradualism’ towards implementing Sharia Law. It also suggests

Addicted To Love: Two Men Behead 15-Year-Old Afghan Girl For Rejecting Marriage Proposal

And it isn’t the love of one another that they’re addicted to. Where Islam rises, so too does the number of abused and murdered women. And it’s always the woman’s fault …

Qur’an Sura 4:34a, “Men have authority over women because [Allah] has made the one superior to the other… Good women are obedient… As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them…”

Daniel 11:37a, “Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women …”

“KUNDUZ, Afghanistan (CBSDC) — Afghan police arrest two men for allegedly beheading a 15-year-old girl after her father turned down a marriage proposal.

According to BBC News, the two men who proposed the arranged marriage and attacked her are relatives of the girl.

‘Our investigation shows those who killed her were people who wanted to marry her,’ a Kunduz province police official told the BBC.

The father did not want his daughter to get married because she was ‘too young to be engaged.’

CNN reports the girl was killed near her family’s home while bringing back water.

According to The Washington Post, dozens of Afghan women kill themselves each year in order to avoid arranged marriages.” Source – CBS DC.

Flashback: ‘Beating, Forced Marriages, Murder And Rape’: Violence Against Women In Afghanistan Hit 550 Cases Last Month – “Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) on Wednesday said that it recorded 550 cases of violence against women in the last month, showing a remarkable increase from previous months. ‘In the last month, 550 cases of violence against including, beating, forced marriages, murder and rape – most of them happening in the remoter provinces of the country – have been recorded at the Human Rights Commission,’ AIHRC Women’s Rights Coordinator Latifa Sultani said.” Read more.

Flashback: Covered, Confined, Cursed: The Place Of Women In Islam – “There are two men in Islam that are indisputably the greatest in the annals of this religion. They are Imam al Ghazzali and Jalaleddin Rumi, both Persians… [Ghazzali] warns all men to be careful of women for their ‘guile is immense and their mischief is noxious; they are immoral and mean spirited’. Ghazzali states ‘It is a fact that all the trials, misfortunes and woes which befall men come from women’.” Read more.

Gaza: Islamic Jihad Says Truce With Israel Will Be Short Lived, Promises A ‘More Savage And Bloody Round’ Is Coming

Yet the Palestinians continue to assert that it’s Israel who doesn’t want peace …

By John Rossomando, IPT – “A leader of the third-largest Palestinian faction told the Egyptian newspaper El-Balad Thursday that the truce with Israel will be brief and that Palestinians are braced for a ‘more savage and bloody round’ of fighting with Israel.

‘We are preparing for a new, more savage round,’ Dr. Mohammed Al-Hindi, a leading Palestinian Islamic Jihad figure told the newspaper. ‘We are in a short truce (hudna), the Israeli enemy is preparing for further rounds of war in Gaza.’

The ‘resistance factions’ must be prepared for the next battle, which will be more violent and ‘start the curve of the collapse of the Israeli occupation,’ Al-Hindi said Wednesday night at a ceremony honoring journalists working in the Gaza Strip.

The remarks underscore concerns that the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire will be temporary and that renewed violence is ahead.

Al-Hindi also told El-Balad that implementing the truce last week was delayed for hours because a Palestinian negotiator rejected Israel’s demand that a sentence be included stating that the Palestinian terrorists ‘stop the attacks from the Gaza Strip.’

‘We will not accept any political solution that does not achieve the minimum demands of the Palestinian people,’ he said.” Source – IPT.

Flashback: Palestinians Itching For Another Fight With Israel, Don’t Want Long-Term Gaza Ceasefire – “According to a survey conducted by the Palpress Arabic-language website, the Palestinians are itching for another fight with Israel, less than a day after the Jewish state agreed to prematurely halt its campaign to eliminate the Gaza missile threat… it appears groups like Hamas will only use the days and months of calm ahead to prepare for the next round of violence. And they will apparently have majority support among the public for doing so.” Read more.

Flashback: Gazans Empowered By Latest Truce, Believe Latest Fight Is ‘The First Nail In The Coffin Of Israel’ – “In Gaza, they have been treating the end of the latest bloody clash between Israel and Hamas as a Palestinian victory. Of that they have no doubt… The sense of triumph and elation came despite the loss of 162 Palestinian lives, the wounding of more than 1,000 and the destruction of hundreds of buildings… a Hamas sheikh began his eulogy of Mohammed Jamal. He praised his martyrdom, saying the dead man and his family would be guaranteed a place in heaven. And the latest clash with Hamas’s enemy had been a great victory, he said, ‘the first nail in the coffin of Israel’.” Read more.

UN Recognizes ‘Palestine’ As Non-Member Observer State, Canada: This Is A Bad Move

Despite Obama’s “opposition”, Palestine has now gained the status of a non-member observer state, just like Obama promised. This is not a step toward peace. It is a step toward disaster …

By Elad Benari, INN – “As expected, the United Nations passed a resolution on Thursday evening recognizing Palestine as a non-member observer state.

138 countries voted in favor of the resolution, nine countries voted against it, and 41 countries abstained.

Shortly before the vote, Palestinian Authority (PA) Head Mahmoud Abbas addressed the United Nations Thursday, in his bid to gain recognition for the PA as a non-member observer state. This status has only been accorded to the Vatican until now.

As he took the stage, Abbas launched his usual attack on Israel, accusing the Jewish State of attacking PA Arabs and carrying out ethnic cleansing.

As usual, Abbas did not condemn the rocket fire by Gaza terrorists on southern Israel.

‘Palestine comes today to the General Assembly because it believes in peace and because its people, as proven in past days, are in desperate need of it,’ he said, insisting that recognizing ‘Palestine’ as a non-member observer state is ‘the last chance to save the two-state solution.’

‘We have heard and you too have heard specifically over the past months the incessant flood of Israeli threats in response to our peaceful, political and diplomatic endeavor for Palestine to acquire non-member observer state in the United Nations,’ said Abbas. ‘And, you have surely witnessed how some of these threats have been carried out in a barbaric and horrific manner just days ago in the Gaza Strip.’ …

‘We will accept no less than the independence of the state of Palestine, with east Jerusalem as its capital, on all the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967, to live in peace and security alongside the state of Israel, and a solution for the refugee issue on the basis of resolution 194, as per the operative part of the Arab Peace Initiative,’ he stressed.” Read more.

Gaza Terror Groups: There Will Be No Peace With Israel – “According to Bethlehem-based news service Ma’an, Hamas top terrorist Ismail Haniyeh said that Hamas was in favor of the bid. ‘Nobody is against statehood, and (my government) supports any political movement to establish a Palestinian state on the occupied Palestinian territory,’ Ma’an quoted Haniyeh as saying. ‘Our vision is to have a state based on inalienable Palestinian principles, and a state on the pre-1967 borders does not mean ceding the rest of Palestinian land.'” Read more.

Canada: Nothing Good Will Come Out Of Approving Palestine As Non-Member State – “Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird was in New York Thursday to argue Canada’s position in a largely symbolic speech, because the outcome of the vote was never in doubt. ‘This resolution will not advance the cause of peace or spur a return to negotiations,’ he said. ‘Will the Palestinian people be better off as a result? No. On the contrary, this unilateral step will harden positions and raise unrealistic expectations while doing nothing to improve the lives of the Palestinian people.'” Read more.

Egyptian-American Writer: Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi Has Accumulated Powers Like Hitler And Mussolini

Isaiah 19:2,4, “‘I will set Egyptians against Egyptians; Everyone will fight against his brother, And everyone against his neighbor, City against city, kingdom against kingdom… And the Egyptians I will give Into the hand of a cruel master, And a fierce king will rule over them,’ Says the Lord, the LORD of hosts.”

Magdy Khalil, Al-Alam TV (Iran): “What President Morsi did is exactly what Hitler did in 1934. Exactly the same. He accumulated all (powers), under the pretext that… Hitler launched ethnic racism, and this man (Morsi) says that when the Prophet Mohammed went to Mecca, he did not fear… whatever… (Morsi) considered the Egyptians to be infidels, and only him and his supporters to be in the right. This is revolutionary, racist, populist, religious rhetoric… He has accumulated powers the likes of which have never been accumulated in the worst dictatorships in the Middle East. This has never happened before in Egypt or elsewhere in the Middle East. Only twice were such powers given to one man – to Hitler and to Mussolini. Tell me the difference between Hitler and Mohammed Morsi.”

• Related: Egypt’s New Muslim Brotherhood ‘Freedom And Justice Party’ Leader Says Goal Is To ‘Institute Islamic Sharia Law’
• Related: Crucifixion and Amputation: Egyptian MP Proposes Sharia Law Punishments for Murder, Theft Crimes
• Related: Egypt: Hardline Islamists Sanction Violent Jihad And Bloodshed To Impose Sharia Law Upon Egypt
• Related: Muslim Brotherhood Spiritual Leader Qaradawi Defends Hitler, Calls For Nuclear Terror
• Related: New Terror Axis? Egypt-Iran Intelligence Meeting Prompts Fears That Muslim Brotherhood Will Begin Supporting Global Terror

Malaysia: Politician Asks Authorities To ‘Take Stern Action’ Against Those Who ‘Belittle Or Tarnish The Image Of Islam’

Bernama – “KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 28 (Bernama) — A Puteri Umno delegate today called on the authority to take stern action against the individuals who belittle or tarnish the image of Islam in the country.

Terengganu Umno Religious Bureau chairman Laila Daud said this was because that individuals could also tarnish the country’s sovereignty, shake the political stability and threaten national security.

She said there were political parties, including PAS, which had been manipulating Islamic religious issues, including the proposed hudud laws, just to get the people’s support as they knew that the issues were close to the Malays’ hearts.

Laila said Umno, on the other hand, had been consistent in upholding Islam even since the pre-Independence era by implementing various physical and spiritual development programmes.

‘I truly believe that Umno is the party that has done so much in upholding Islam than PAS,’ she said when debating the religious motion at the Puteri Umno General Assembly 2012 at Putra World Trade Centre here today.

At the end of her debate, Laila also prayed that leaders of PAS would join their counterparts in Umno in upholding Islam.” Read more.

Flashback: Malaysian Clerics Ban Sale Of Soccer Jerseys Containing ‘Dangerous’ Cross Symbol, ‘You Are Only Promoting The Devil’ – “The small street seller had all the European club jerseys ready for sale on Saturday evening, as passersby wanted to grab their favorite international shirt ahead of this month’s Euro 2012. But for Portugal fans, the jersey was nowhere to be found. ‘We are not allowed to sell the jersey because it shows a cross,’ the shopkeeper told Bikyamasr.com. ‘I still love Portugal and will be rooting for them, but we are an Islamic country and don’t want to get people angry,’ he added.” Read more.

Flashback: Malaysia: Rise of Strict Islam Exposes Fears and Tensions, ‘If You Don’t Follow the Mainstream You Will Be Lynched’ – “Muslim women without headscarves are a common sight on the streets of the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. But engaging them in a discussion about the hijab is difficult. Norhayati Kaprawi is a Malaysian activist whose recent documentary Aku Siapa (Who Am I) deals with the issue of how women in Malaysia should dress. She found some women unwilling to show their faces in her film – not on religious grounds, but becasue they feared reprisals. This is a damning reflection on Malaysia’s Muslim society, says Ms Norhayati.” Read more.

Prophet Film Fallout: Egyptian Court Sentences 8 Christians To Death For Hurting Muslim Sensitivities

By SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press – “CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian court convicted in absentia Wednesday seven Egyptian Coptic Christians and a Florida-based American pastor, sentencing them to death on charges linked to an anti-Islam film that had sparked riots in parts of the Muslim world.

The case was seen as largely symbolic because the defendants, most of whom live in the United States, are all outside Egypt and are thus unlikely to ever face the verdict. The charges were issued in September amid a wave of public outrage in Egypt over the amateur film, which was produced by an Egyptian-American Copt.

The low-budget ‘Innocence of Muslims,’ parts of which were made available online, portrays the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud, womanizer and buffoon.

Egypt’s official news agency said the court found the defendants guilty of harming national unity, insulting and publicly attacking Islam, and spreading false information – charges that carry the death sentence.

Maximum sentences are common in cases tried in absentia in Egypt. Capital punishment decisions are reviewed by the country’s chief religious authority, who must approve or reject the sentence. A final verdict is scheduled on Jan. 29.

The man behind the film, Mark Basseley Youssef, is among those convicted. He was sentenced in a California court earlier this month to a year in federal prison for probation violations in an unrelated matter. Youssef, 55, admitted that he had used several false names in violation of his probation order and obtained a driver’s license under a false name. He was on probation for a bank fraud case.

Florida-based Terry Jones, another of those sentenced, is the pastor of Dove World Outreach, a church of less than 50 members in Gainesville, Fla., not far from the University of Florida. He has said he was contacted by the filmmaker to promote the film, as well as Morris Sadek, a conservative Coptic Christian in the U.S. who posted the video clips on his website, were also among those charged.” Read more.

Flashback: Egypt’s Islamist President Warns World: ‘We Will Not Allow Anyone’ To Insult Islam ‘By Word Or Deed’ – “In his speech to the United Nations on Wednesday, Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi condemned ‘insults hurled on the prophet of Islam, Mohammed,’ and said the United Nations must do something about it. ‘We reject this. We cannot accept it,’ he said, speaking of insults to Islam. ‘And we will be the opponents of those who do this. We will not allow anyone to do this by word or deed.’” Read more.