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AJFitzpatrick said:
Definitely pot stirring here but don't we already have religious extremists  isolating themselves and rejecting western ways.

Otherwise known as the Mennonites, Hutterites, Dukobhours... etc.

The Mennonites (who are not isolationist) and the  Hutterites (who are isolationist) completely abide by Canada's laws. I work with both communities and neither would dream of not abiding by the laws of the land....use them. ;D....yeah, break them....no.

The Dukobhours I can't comment on...
 
E.R. Campbell said:
Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, is more fuel for the fire:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/time-to-lead/multiculturalism/canadas-changing-faith/article1741422/

OK, my, personal, views, again:

1. Religion is a private matter – between you and your gods. It is no business of the state. Theocracies and even ‘established’ religions are socio-political abominations and ought never to be tolerated by thinking people. That includes, by the way, the Dalai Lama’s dream of some sort of a benign Buddhist theocracy for Tibet – it, like every other theocracy, is a bad idea.

2. Freedom of religion, for you, means freedom from religion for me. Your freedoms of belief and expression do not extend to attempting to influence my beliefs. You may oppose or support whatever social institutions you wish – gay marriage, abortion, genital mutilation – in private, and, to the degree that you do not intrude into my private space, and public. Caution: If you want to support some cultural practices – like forcing women to wear burqas or to endure female circumcision then you may run afoul of the law before you offend me.

3. Religion ≠ culture. You are welcome to your religion – or not. Your religion, within some sensible bounds, is welcome here in Canada; we do not even make your temple or whatever pay property taxes. Your culture might not be quite so welcome; in fact it might be unwelcome and ‘we’ – almost all Canadians – may demand that you leave some of it behind; we might not even tolerate some cultural practices in the privacy of your own home because they (those cultural practices) harm others.


Today is, for many Muslims, the beginning of ten days of mourning in remembrance of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammed. It is especially important to Shi'ite Muslims. I found these three photos, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and mail, interesting and they made me wonder how much we might 'tolerate' some religious expression in Canada.

dip1612-12-shii_1073581cl-8.jpg

A Pakistani Shiite Muslim boy flagellates himself with knifes during a Muharram procession in Lahore, Pakistan.
K.M. Chaudary/AP


dip1612-06-shii_1073461cl-8.jpg

A Shi'ite Muslim walks on fire at a ceremony during the Ashura festival at a mosque in central Yangon, Myanmar.
Soe Zeya Tun/REUTERS


dip1612-08-mud__1073502cl-8.jpg

A man covered in mud stands near a fire to dry himself during the Ashura religious festival in Khorramabad, 491 km southwest of Tehran.
MORTEZA NIKOUBAZL/REUTERS



And yes, I'm well aware of the Christian practice of mortification of the flesh that persists into the 21st century. I am neither condemning nor condoning anything in any religion.
 
zipperhead_cop said:
Glad it worked out for Mr. Chen  :salute:

Mr. Chen is back in the news.
And this time the government is stepping in to introduce legislation that would give
ordinary citizens more powers to make arrests.
Article:Tories to make controversial updates to citizen arrest law

                                (Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act)


 
57Chevy said:
Mr. Chen is back in the news.
And so's the chap he arrested - again:
A Kensington Market fruit store owner wants Anthony Bennett - languishing in jail again after an alleged shoplifting incident - banned from the area for three years.

Bennett, 52 - a career petty criminal who seems to have chosen plants as the focus of his shoplifting - is becoming a pariah in the Chinatown and Kensington areas.

He's scheduled to appear Wednesday in Old City Hall, charged with five counts of theft under $5,000.

Bennett is accused of stealing plants from Jungle Fruit between May and July.

And he recently testified against a Chinatown shop owner charged with overstepping the bounds of making a citizen arrest.

Toronto Police alleged Bennett was captured by the many surveillance cameras in the Jungle Fruit store.

Detectives didn't get a chance to review the surveillance until last week. Police fanned out in Parkdale, where the suspect lives, and arrested him Friday ....
57Chevy said:
And this time the government is stepping in to introduce legislation that would give
ordinary citizens more powers to make arrests.
Article:Tories to make controversial updates to citizen arrest law
(Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act)
And here we are:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper today announced the introduction of The Citizen’s Arrest and Self-Defence Act. The legislation will expand the circumstances in which citizens’ arrests can be made, and streamline and simplify the self–defence and defence of property provisions in the Criminal Code.

“Our Government is committed to putting real criminals behind bars. Canadians who have been the victim of a crime should not be re-victimized by the criminal justice system. That’s why we have introduced changes to the Criminal Code so Canadians know they have the law on their side and that our justice system targets criminals and not victims.”

Currently, the ability to make a citizen’s arrest is very restricted and is only permitted if an individual is caught actively engaged in a criminal offence on or in relation to one’s property.

The legislation would authorize an owner, a person in lawful possession of property, or a person authorized by them, to arrest a person within a reasonable amount of time after they find that person committing a criminal offence either:

    * on their property (e.g. the offence occurs in their yard); or
    * in relation to their property (e.g. their property is stolen from a public parking lot).

This citizen’s arrest authority applies when it is not feasible in the circumstances for a peace officer (i.e. a police officer) to make the arrest ....

More in the backgrounder here.
 
Reviving necrothread with link to new Library of Parliament paper, "Legislative Summary of Bill C-60:
The Citizen’s Arrest and Self-defence Act" (with a bit of discussion on how they deal with this issue in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom) here.  You can track where the Bill's at here.
 
This seemed like the best thread to put this in.....


Australia's New South Wales police get new burka powers
Article Link
5 July 2011 Last updated at 04:37 ET

Police in Australia's New South Wales state have been given more powers to remove burkas and other face coverings to identify crime suspects.

Anyone who refuses to show their face could now be jailed for up to a year or face a heavy fine.

The move follows the recent case of a Muslim woman who was acquitted after a judge ruled her Islamic veil made a positive identification impossible.

Islamic leaders in the state said they were comfortable with the new measure.

However, civil liberty groups expressed concern that the police were being given powers they did not need.
'Clarity and certainty'

The government of Australia's most populous state approved the changes at a meeting late on Monday.
map

"I don't care whether a person is wearing a motorcycle helmet, a burka, niqab, face veil or anything else, the police should be allowed to require those people to make their identification clear," Premier Barry O'Farrell said.

He added: "I have every respect for various religions and beliefs but when it comes to enforcing the law the police should be given adequate powers to make a clear identification."

Anyone in New South Wales who refuses to remove their face covering could now be fined A$5,500 (£3,672, $5,882) or put in prison for a year.

State police welcomed the change, saying it would "provide clarity and certainty for both the public and for police officers".

The Islamic Council of New South Wales said it accepted the move, while the Muslim Women's Association said it had no problem if police handled the issue sensitively, including the deployment of female police officers.

The changes come after the high-profile case of Carnita Matthews, who last year was sentenced to six months in prison for falsely accusing a policeman of trying to forcibly remove her burka during a random breath test.

But she won on appeal after a judge ruled that the prosecution could not prove she had made the false complaint because officers were not able to see her face.

State police previously had the power to request the removal of face veils while investigating serious offences, but not on more routine matters.

The Western Australian state government is now also considering introducing similar legislation, the BBC's Phil Mercer in Sydney reports.
end
 
I can't say I was impressed by the original interview with this Australian politician.

Whether it was integrating the Irish a 100 years ago, or the Muslims today, there have always been serious difficulties when cultures meet and clash.

I agree that there are radical Islamists who abuse the freedoms they enjoy here in the West. And there are obviously imams who would happily replace our democracy with theocratic tyranny. At the same time, we should be leery of Western politicians who frequently discuss immigration-related problems. Exploiting ethnic differences has long been a path to power for the shameless and opportunistic.
 
An aspect not always considered is when foreign organizations attempt to subvert our institutions. This article is about ACORN, but during the last federal election an offshoot of moveon.org called Avaaz was active in Canada trying to influence the election:

http://walkersunknownthoughts.blogspot.com/2011/09/acorn-in-canada.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FwVPTZ+%28The+Blog+of+Walker%29

ACORN in Canada
Occasional correspondent Andrew Phillips has written a very interesting piece on his site about the potential role that the American organization ACORN is playing in domestic politics:

    On September 11, 2009 Seth Richardson wrote in the Colorado Springs Gazette that if you wanted a child prostitute you should call Wade Rathke and ACORN. FOX News on September 14, 2009 ran an article detailing the same efforts in Brooklyn, New York you can also watch the video here at CNN Politics . By October 5, 2009 Vicki McClure Davidson writing at the Frugal Café Blog Zone would report that a warrant would be issued against Wade Rathke for embezzling upwards of 5 million dollars from the Louisiana Chapter. However Mark Hemingway writing at over at the Washington Examiner points out that the Obama Justice Department shutdown an FBI investigation in ACORN where it appears there was a great deal of evidence showing corruption that was national in scope. A situation that still is ongoing asJudicial Watch points out in April of this year .

    A little while ago I came across this page for Mr. Wade Rathke the organizer responsible for the creation of ACORN. In it you can see that he was working in October 2010 with the BCGEU (British Columbia Government & Service Employees' Union) in his words, "strategizing with me on Friday morning about living wage campaigns in their cities and raising the minimum wage" in British Columbia. Here in Ottawa another public sector union NUPGE (National Union of Public and General Employees) and its largest Component, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU/NUPGE) and ACORN also were engaged in attempts raise the minimum wage. What also must be viewed in a dim light can be read here and ACORN's endorsement of the CLC (Canadian Labor Congress) proposals. That it mentions it has had dealings with theprovincial NDP is also cause for concern. Along with meeting with senior members of the Ontario Provincial government.

    ACORN has now set down roots in several other countries Canada as I have shown being one of them even as it supposedly shuttered it operations in the Untied States. As to ACORN it is alive and well in the United States and is already working at getting Obama re-elected in 2012 considering how the Obama Department of Justice stopped the FBI investigation in its activities this should be cause for alarm to everyone in the United States. Recently ACORN cam back into the news in the United States by having setup shop again and is actively pursuing the re-election of Barack Obama for President in 2012. Worse his supposed "Jobs" Bill as Matthew Vadim points out at Canada Free Press could make it eligible for 15 billion dollars of taxpayers money.

    In both Ontario and British Columbia the minimum wage was raised and anyone who knows anything about economics will tell you that this is a job killer. With our youth unemployment double the nation average 15.1% as opposed to 7.3% ACORN has effectively, using public sector unions, and in Ontario at least two political parties the Liberals and the NDP it has made it harder for anyone not a public sector worker to find a job. While at the same time ensuring the continued growth of the public sector to "help" the unemployed. Government raises the minimum wage and then walks away and washes its hands of the devastating economic consequences of its actions to both employers and those seeking employment. Suffering no repercussions from it's interference in the free market of people selling their service - their labour - to a prospective employer. What makes it even more vile is this statement from B.C. Federation of Labour President Jim Sinclair back in 2007 that the salaries for MLA's should be tied to the minimum wage. Thus assuring you that your taxes will keep going up - at least in BC - and your kid can't find a job. It would also be interesting to know if this is also happening here in Ontario. One last thing to consider is are public sector union wages tied to any increase in the minimum wage in Canada? What makes the OPSEU connection above so odious is the McGuinty government cut a secret deal to give them wage increase after the Oct 6, 2011 election. So they get a pay hike while your kid , and quite possibly you, can't find a job as more money is sucked out of the private sector to fed the bloated public sector.

    Certainly an investigation should be called into its activities and any relationship it might have forged with public sector unions in Canada and any political parties. If the unions did not act with due diligence in finding out its activities in the US they are merely being used by ACORN. However if they did know they are now in collusion with an organization that has being involved in prostitution in the United States, vote rigging, illegal voter registration, and who knows what else. Ultimately there is every good reason to be worried about it engaging in the same activities here as well. People will generally laugh at conspiracy theory types with good reason. However I point out that the murder of Caesar was a conspiracy as was the murder of Abraham Lincoln; both well known and documented. What we have here maybe not be a conspiracy but it certainly smacks of collusion and the word cahoots comes to mind as well.

Some readers might dispute the minimum wage issue, and that's certainly fair enough. But the idea that an organization like ACORN might be playing a role in our political actions is certainly something worth thinking about.
 
Without further comment:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/10/21/kevin-libin-a-question-of-loyalty/

Kevin Libin: A question of loyalty

Tim Fraser for National Post
Outspoken author and former politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali challenges the long-standing Canadian approach to multiculturalism.

Kevin Libin  Oct 21, 2011 – 9:26 PM ET | Last Updated: Oct 22, 2011 1:11 AM ET

Calgary — The concept of citizenship is a curious one for a nomad — at least that’s the word Ayaan Hirsi Ali used to describe herself in the title of her latest memoir. Ms. Hirsi Ali spent her childhood shuttling between Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Kenya, before fleeing an arranged marriage that would have brought her to Canada, settling instead in the Netherlands. There, after attending university and becoming a member of parliament—speaking out against radical Islam and its threat to Dutch culture—she stepped down from politics and nearly had her citizenship revoked (she had used false information on her refugee claim 14 years earlier). After appealing to France to grant her citizenship, she ended up in 2006 in the United States.

Perhaps a life spent without a permanent link to any one country, though, has at least given Ms. Hirsi Ali a perspective rare among prominent Western intellectuals. Arriving in Holland for the first time, she recalls first encountering the expectation that she would curb her ethnic loyalties in favour of a nation state, and finding it nothing less than bizarre.

“They don’t prepare you for that,” she says. “The first few years you spend in conflict because you are completely and utterly loyal to your clan and tribe and everything that you’ve learned before, and you get to this point where, as a citizen, you’re basically being asked to be loyal to strangers.”

The need for liberal, secular democracies like Canada to prepare themselves for immigrants who might come unready to accept citizenship responsibilities will likely be one of the warnings Ms. Hirsi Ali brings to Calgary on Tuesday, where she’ll be speaking at a sold-out dinner officially launching the Manning Foundation for Democratic Education. Exploring tensions around multiculturalism will be one of the focuses for the foundation, named for, and led by, Reform and Canadian Alliance party founder Preston Manning, which will put as much emphasis on its own scholarly work as it will on granting funds to other non-profit policy-minded groups.

The selection of Ms. Hirsi Ali as the celebrity to kick off the event is an intriguing one: Opponents once frequently labeled Mr. Manning’s parties as intolerant. Former Liberal cabinet minister Elinor Caplan called their supporters “Holocaust deniers, prominent bigots and racists.” The National Anti-Racism Council of Canada and Toronto columnists branded Reform as “anti-immigrant”—and there were occasional members who lent credence the charge: Toronto Reform candidate John Beck withdrew his candidacy in 1993 after saying that immigrants could bring “death and destruction” to Canada, and that they were “overpowering” Canadian culture.

And yet, Ms. Hirsi Ali, with her deep black complexion and lilting Somali accent, will be the one arguing next week that Canada needs to be more careful in its immigration policies. She warns, in fact, that if we are not, then we very much could risk violence and terror. And, she believes that if Canadians don’t stand by their founding heritage, we could well find ourselves overpowered by foreign and illiberal cultures.

Anyone passingly familiar with Ms. Hirsi Ali’s history would understand: she became the target of death threats after co-producing a film about female subjugation in the Dutch Muslim community; her collaborator, Theo van Gogh, was shot to death and nearly decapitated in 2004. A note pinned to his chest with a knife, by his murderer, warned that she, as a “soldier of evil” would be next. She has been living under bodyguard since.

The culprit’s name was Mohammed Bouyeri, but Dutch society and its vision of multiculturalism played an integral part in allowing radical Islamists like Bouyeri to make Holland their host, she believes. It was Europe’s long, painful and often bloody experience of transcending the clannish loyalties of the feudal era and establishing instead the notion of citizenship in a nation state that permitted the development of Europe’s modern, relatively peaceful societies.

“In Europe, people also lived in tribes and had enormous religious strife, worse than anything you’ve seen in Somalia,” she says, an education she gained only after enrolling in university, not from her orientation as an immigrant. “This whole evolution, the wars and everything that led to the nation states, and the model….that’s not something that just sprung up, a blessing that happened to the Dutch. This was an outcome of generations, of centuries of hard work.”

But arrangements created by man can be undone by man. And efforts by multiculturalists to revitalize sectarian allegiances—to mother countries over adopted homes; to ethnicity over state—can only risk arousing more violence, she’s certain.

“You will see more and more people fighting for religion and blood and culture and all these things as a motive to commit violent acts, saying they have no other option but violence to make their statement,” she says. “That means the parliamentary model, the model of dialogue, that is going to be undermined by both sides”—the jihadists and the European traditionalists, both.

As evidence, she cites not only the Muslim radicals like Bouyeri and the Khadr family that set up their own radical shop here in Canada, but the Norwegian terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik, who has confessed to murdering 69 people as a reaction to the rise of European Islam and in the name of, according to his rambling manifesto, medieval Catholic crusaders. She believes there are many others in Europe who think like him.

“He is talking about the Knights of the Templar. That is pure regression. He’s not a worshiping Christian but he’s become a political Christian and so he’s reviving political Christianity as a counter to political Islam. That’s regression, because one of the greatest achievements of the west was to separate politics from religion.” Multiculturalism, she states plainly, is “going back in history.”

If western, democratic countries like Canada intend to stay the way they are, Ms. Hirsi Ali says, they must be less generous when it comes to indulging their multicultural guilt. It is misplaced anyway: Canadians and Americans may owe something to aboriginals, or to the African Americans descended from slaves, but we owe, she says, no special privilege to Pakistani or Algerian immigrants that should tempt us to indulge any potentially illiberal cultural demands. Her own decision to emigrate to Holland was not to cash in on colonial guilt, but to seek the privileges of Dutch citizenship. Reportedly pregnant (her husband is British historian Niall Ferguson), she says she will raise her children to be faithful to the United States above all.

“If my child were to join the military to pay taxes to commit to public service in any shape or form, it’s not going to be public service to Islam or Somalia, it’s going to be American,” she says. “I don’t know if you can imagine how radical that sounds. If my mother were to hear this or my father or any Somalian, they’d think this is madness. This is blasphemy. This is totally infidel.”

Because not all immigrant parents can be expected to be as strict about teaching citizenship is why government must ensure it does the proper job, she says. More controversially, that will often mean readjusting our vision of individual rights. Muslim-only schools must be eliminated outright, something she had tried to do as an MP in Holland, only to run up against the constitution. So she favours changing the constitution, if that’s what it takes. Because, she insists, not only must multiculturalism be abandoned; assimilation must be mandatory.

“Rights and freedoms, because they are developed by mankind, are dynamic. The questions we are facing today are very different than the questions [we] faced 50 or 100 years ago,” she says. “I think we haven’t risen to the challenge, because we’ve shied away from valuing cultural heritage for what it is. Some purists will only emphasize the law and they’ll say ‘As long as these people adhere to the law, fine, as long as they don’t kill, fine, you can do whatever you want.’ I think that’s wrong…what is neglected is the systematic education that is needed.”

Ms. Hirsi Ali has always made few bones about the fact that she sees Islam as inherently radical and uniquely dangerous to the Western way of life, and as a refugee from a strict Islamic upbringing in which she was beaten and brutalized (including forced female circumcision), she can speak this way with a credibility, freedom and authority that few intellectuals enjoy. An atheist now, she still argues that Muslims would be at least better off converting to Christianity, if they require some kind of faith. Those Muslims we might be inclined to call “moderate” she has called, instead “passive”: they don’t follow all the rules of Islam; if they did, they’d be as militant as Bouyeri.

And so at times she seems almost at peace with double standards, where Jews and Catholics would be free to enroll their own children in religious schools, and wear whatever modest head coverings they choose, while Muslims would not. It’s possible in certain countries, she says, “because there’s a Judeo-Christian cultural history, to allow Jewish and Christian schools but not allow Muslim schools.” But if fairness is our priority, or if we consider the ideal a perfectly secular state—as she would prefer—then all religious schools, and all religious challenges to a secular civilization, must go.

Such trade-offs are naturally uncomfortable in societies like this one, which are unused to such things: one where citizenship both grants individual rights—empowering women like her—yet revokes other rights, such as the right to cover one’s face or select one’s school of choice. Ms. Hirsi Ali, raised outside our rights-centric western culture, can no doubt accept the sacrifice more easily than born-and-raised Canadians can. In time, should we find our way of life increasingly endangered by the insidious effects of multiculturalism, the way her own life has been, she’s certain we’ll come to see things her way, too.

National Post
klibin@nationalpost.com
On Twitter: @kevinlibin
 
And in The Food for Thought department, the Ottawa Sun reports that a recent survey indicates strong support for Al-Qaida and Shariah law among Muslims living in Canada. The story in reproduced under the Fair Dealing provision of the Copyright Act. Note that (a) it is somewhat dated as the data were collected in 2008 and (b) it was conducted among the Muslim population of Ottawa.

Strong support for Shariah in Canada


By Kris Sims,Parliamentary Bureau

First posted: Tuesday, November 01, 2011 07:43 PM EDT | Updated: Tuesday, November 01, 2011 10:54 PM EDT


OTTAWA - A newly released survey suggests a large number of Muslims living in Canada will not disown Al-Qaida.

The study, conducted by the MacDonald Laurier Institute, found 65% of Muslims questioned said they would “repudiate absolutely” the terrorist organization, while 35% would not do so.

“From a security perspective, it is difficult to know if a 65% rate of repudiation (of Al-Qaida) is re-assuring or a 35% failure to repudiate troubling,” wrote study authors Christian Leuprecht, associate professor of the Royal Military College of Canada and Conrad Winn, Carleton University professor and president of COMPAS, a public opinion research firm.

“The most radical political views tended to be expressed by relatively secular people, often equipped with higher education in the social sciences, while devout Muslims were sometimes the most articulate advocates for Canada and democracy.” According to the Ottawa based think tank, only a small minority of Muslim newcomers to Canada reject Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Iranian regime.

The survey, which was released Tuesday, found 62% wanted some form of Shariah law in Canada, 15% of them saying it should be mandatory for all Muslims.

The report also states support for extremism is just as high among Muslims born in Canada, or other Western countries, as it is among those hailing from oppressive dictatorships.

The survey involved phone interviews with 455 Muslims in Ottawa, between May and July 2008, with a margin of error of five percentage points. The study was funded by the University of Maryland for the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism. The institute could not find funding for the study in Canada.
 
There is, is, not just appears to be, a fundamental disconnect between religious Islam* and the secular West, demonstrated in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/fire-damages-office-of-french-newspaper-after-it-invites-mohammed-as-guest-editor/article2222213/
French newspaper office torched after latest edition mocks sharia law

SUSAN SACHS
PARIS— From Thursday's Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Nov. 02, 2011

French cartoonists treasure their well-earned reputation as provocateurs without borders, especially in matters of religion. But the pre-dawn arson at a newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Mohammed may signal a new escalation in the country’s culture wars between Muslims and non-Muslims.

The offices of Charlie Hebdo, one of the more insolent of France’s satirical weeklies, were a charred mess early Wednesday, soon after copies of its latest edition mocking sharia, or Islamic law, hit the newsstands.

The front page of the broadsheet featured the Prophet as a bug-eyed, bearded man – named as its so-called guest editor-in-chief – saying, “100 lashes if you don’t die of laughter.”

Police were investigating reports that two men were seen throwing firebombs or Molotov cocktails at the building. The paper’s website also was hacked, at one point showing only the picture of a mosque with the words “no god but Allah” before appearing only as a blank page.

The attack drew immediate condemnation from across the political spectrum in France as an affront to freedom of expression. Leaders of Muslim organizations also denounced it while appealing for sensitivity to Islam’s prohibition against portraying the Prophet.

Dalil Boubakeur, the director of the Grand Mosque of Paris, said it was too early to say definitively that the fire was the work of angry Muslims. But he warned of a European “climate of Islamophobia” and stigmatization of Muslims fed by what he called distorted “caricatures” of their faith.

France has one of the largest Muslim populations in Europe, estimated at some five million, and has enacted a series of laws in recent years that many see as insulting and discriminatory.

In 2004, girls were forbidden to wear Islamic head scarves in public schools. The ban applies to all “conspicuous” religious symbols. It was framed as a means to uphold the French secular model that dates back to the anti-clerical movement that eliminated much of the political power of the Catholic Church in the early 20th century.

But since then, the niceties of that French ideal have faded with a rash of laws that overtly cater to fears that Muslims have not assimilated or become French enough.

Earlier this year, France became the first country in Europe to outlaw the face-covering veil, or niqab, in public even though those who wear it are thought to number only in the hundreds. It now has a new ban on praying in the street, again directed at Muslims who gather for Friday prayers.

Protests against those laws have been muted. But the attack on Charlie Hebdo could signal a new level of anger, at least on the part of some individuals.

It recalls the furor created in 2005 after a Danish newspaper published a series of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, including one with a bomb for a turban. Deadly riots broke out in many Muslim countries and the Danish paper was targeted by terrorists several times.

Charlie Hebdo, long known for its rabidly anti-clerical and anti-establishment bent, republished many of those cartoons in what it called solidarity in the face of threats to free expression. French Muslim groups later took the paper to court, accusing it of insulting their religion, but lost the case.

The paper, as usual, had advertised this week’s edition in advance as “Sharia Hebdo,” announcing it would take aim at the Islamist political party, Ennahda, which won the biggest bloc of votes in last week’s elections in Tunisia.

According to Stéphane Charbonnier, its editor, threats against the paper started showing up on social media sites a few days ago and spread through mass cellphone messages.

But he said he did not interpret them as a serious risk of violence. “It’s not the first time we’ve drawn Mohammed,” he told the newspaper Le Monde. “We do it almost every week.”

But this edition of Charlie Hebdo was filled with such caricatures.

It featured a pseudo-editorial by the Prophet delighting in the Ennahda victory. The piece ridiculed Westerners who “once again wonder if Islam is compatible with democracy,” adding that “no religion is compatible with democracy once the political party that represents it wants to take power in the name of God.”

The paper also had pages of often crude cartoons featuring Muslim men talking about stoning and beating women. A full page of cartoons was devoted to tips for Muslim women using the clichéd titles of fashion magazines. “How to make your forced marriage succeed,” said one.

Islam, Islamists and Islamic law are part of the daily back-and-forth of public life, according to Luz, the cartoonist responsible for the front-page drawing of the Prophet.

“Mohammed spends his time inserting himself into the news,” he told the magazine Nouvel Observateur. “We just did what we always do, follow the news.”

Charlie Hebdo occupies the more extreme reaches of French satirical journalism, and its editors have long said they are against fundamentalists and “jerks” of all stripes. It is hardly alone in its equal-opportunity ridiculing of the Catholic Church, Islamists and puffed-up politicians of the left, right and centre.

Previous covers have featured a cartoon of a pedophile priest being advised by the Pope and another showing a venal-looking rabbi, priest and mullah saying, “We have to put a veil on Charlie Hebdo.”

Le Canard Enchainé, another venerable and less vulgar weekly, often breaks news with handy leaks from disaffected civil servants. Since President Nicolas Sarkozy married Italian model and pop singer Carla Bruni in 2006, they are spoofed in a regular column called the Diary of Carla B. Its cartoonist, Plantu, whose work appears regularly in the mainstream newspaper Le Monde, said it is the job of political satirists such as him to skewer fundamentalists of all religions as well as the “jerks” of the world.

The attack on Charlie Hebdo was shocking for its violence, he added, but not a complete surprise for those who live by caricaturing the foibles of others. “We are at the vanguard of everything that happens in freedom of expression,” he said.


Idolatry is not just a problem for Muslims; Jews and some Protestant Christians also 'forbid' various forms of 'representation' of people or things.

Religious belief is a powerful thing which is not confined to Islam; consider, if you have attended a Christian service recently, that at some point, usually during the biblical 'lessons,' the priest/minister/celebrant/whatever says (something like) "This is the Word of the Lord." He believes it, too - at least he's supposed and so is the congregation meant to believe that the god being worshiped, the creator heaven of earth, of all that is known and (as yet) unknown, during a visit to one small, backward corner of our planet, said some specific words which someone else took down, like a stenographer.

But the Western branch of Christendom did a 'rethink', about 500 years ago, of all that, and some segments concluded that beliefs might require some reinterpretation. From this root there grew a healthy tree of skepticism, maybe even enlightenment - depending on how you interpret that word - and a tradition of questioning of fundamentals that grew a branch called satire.

Islam is not an enlightened religion; it tolerates nothing that is not explicitly permitted by its god and that god's prophet. Thus a religious Muslim must enforce the "truth," the "Word of the Lord," against blasphemy (AKA satire and/or free expression). Despite their professed abhorrence of violence, "Leaders of Muslim organizations also denounced it while appealing for sensitivity to Islam’s prohibition against portraying the Prophet." This is a quite fundamental divide. A liberal, secular Western society cannot force "sensitivity" on its peoples - were any Western society to try to force sensitivity of, say, Islamic beliefs on its own satirists then it would cease to be Western or liberal or even secular in any meaningful sense of those words.

So what to do?

For me, from my perch far from the fray, the answer is simple: allow, even encourage the satirists - even the abominable and terminally unfunny "22 Minutes" gang; protect them and their premises; but challenge them to be ecumenical in their satire - satirists who are afraid to tackle a subject or person or group are not satirists; find the arsonists and bomb throwers and lock them up for as long as the law allows; challenge religious leaders to adapt or tell us, honestly and forthrightly,  that they are our enemies and that they want to destroy our society and replace it with theirs.


__________
* I am happy to concede that there is, also, a secular Islam which pays no attention to the fundamentalist views of religious Islam. I think the adherents of secular Islam wants to lives their lives and raise their families in the same way that most Christians do in the secular West - with religious tolerance for their private[/i][p/b] beliefs, which they want to keep to themselves, not to impose on others.
 
From a Kingston Imam's blog:
Muslim Community’s Call to Action to Eradicate Domestic Violence

For the first time, over 80 Canadian Muslim organizations, imams and community leaders have signed on to a call for action against domestic violence. Read it here.

This is much more than a statement. This is a commitment to work towards eradicating domestic violence and “honour” killings.

I've attached the Call to Action - an excerpt:
.... There is no room within these teachings for any person, by virtue of gender or position within the family, to seize control over the life and bodily security of another. Domestic violence and, in the extreme, practices such as killing to “restore family honour” violate clear and non-negotiable Islamic principles, and so we categorically condemn all forms of domestic violence .... As a first step, starting immediately and specifically on December 9, we commit ourselves to addressing this issue at all levels, including and especially within our Friday sermons, which must highlight Islamic perspectives on domestic abuse, perspectives that condemn all forms of violence against women and children, most especially threatening, abusing, and killing women in the name of protecting the family’s honour. As Muslims and as Canadians, we stand with all Canadians and pledge to combat domestic violence in all its manifestations, wherever and whenever they arise ....

More from the National Post, the Globe & Mailthe Toronto Star,  and OnIslam.net.
 
Great minds think alike, or fools seldomn differ - take your pick.  ;)

Here goes - Its about time the Muslim community condemned the practice of so called "honour killings" and domestic violence including keeping women housebound (we used to call it "barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen" not too long ago).
Having said that, every other religious group - Christians, Buddhists, Satanists, agnoistics, atheists or whatever - should applaud this announcement and follow suit with their own statements about domestic violence.

 
Quote
"As Muslims and as Canadians, we stand with all Canadians"

And that is the way it should be for all nationalities who make Canada their new home.
Accordingly,
The Oath of Citizenship, or Citizenship Oath is a statement recited and signed by candidates who wish to become citizens of Canada. Administered at a ceremony presided over by assigned officers, the oath is a promise or declaration of fealty to the Canadian monarch and a promise to abide by Canada's laws and customs; upon signing the oath, citizenship is granted to the signer.

I'm glad to see they call for action and hopefully their commitment will not go unnoticed,
because domestic violence in this country is a growing problem right across the board.

Family violence in Canada: A statistical profile (dated 2009)
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/110127/dq110127a-eng.htm

Domestic Violence and the Canadian Law
(check the Power and Control Wheel here)
http://www.changingways.on.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=104&Itemid=128

The Power & Control wheel illustrates that power and control are at the heart of all abusive relationships. Abuse is when there is a pattern of one person trying to gain power and control over another person. And while physical violence is the most obvious because it leaves bruises and marks, abuse takes many forms – verbal, emotional, spiritual, financial – all of which are equally as insidious and can leave lasting, invisible scars. All abuse is interconnected. And where there is one form of violence, there is often another too.

In need ?
National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-363-9010.

And while on the topic of domestic violence I found the following article from CBC News dated March 2011
that includes a poll and shared along with the others with provisions of The Copyright Act.
The Poll says Yes.
Military domestic violence: Should the Canadian Forces be doing more for military families?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2011/03/military-domestic-violence-should-the-canadian-forces-be-doing-more-for-military-families.html

 
Look, the problem is NOT religion: Muslims are no more prone to domestic violence because they are Muslim that Jews are because they are Jews.

One problem, amongst many, is cultural. Some cultures have retarded values - values that have not developed in step with, say, those of the Anglo-American or Chinese communities. Those retarded valies mean that some people, those who adhere to them, equate honour with the conduct of the female members of the family and they values female human lives less than family honour. Those values are not acceptable in a modern, civilized society. They may have worked in 8th century Arabia and they may even work in 21st century West Asia but they cannot be tolerated, not even in the name of religion, in Canada.

The fact is that while all races are the same and all religions are pretty much the same, some cultures are superior to others; the inferior ones must be supressed when they attenpt to operate in the world of the superior cultures. That's not nice to say but it's a fact.
 
The fact is that while all races are the same and all religions are pretty much the same, some cultures are superior to others; the inferior ones must be supressed when they attenpt to operate in the world of the superior cultures. That's not nice to say but it's a fact.                                                               

That's not CF policy and it never will be! Remember the Charter not the Alamo!
 
E.R. Campbell said:
Look, the problem is NOT religion

Exactly. The problem is well rooted in all societies and even though we have laws to prevent domestic violence,
providing ample proof of wrongdoing can be a long and arduous process.

An example of this is "stalking".
Stalking is a crime called criminal harassment: (info from the dept of justice) 
http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/pi/fv-vf/pub/har/har.html

The specific Criminal Code offence of "criminal harassment" was only created in 1993.

A stalker generally tries to intimidate or induce fear in the person they are stalking. The person being stalked may only realize they are being stalked once they identify a pattern of strange or suspicious incidents occurring.
Criminals and street gangs intimidate others whenever possible to satisfy their own hidden agenda. And it can become violent.

On a lesser note, I frequent a local corner store owned and operated by a newly arrived Chinese couple of whom I enjoy
conversing with. I have learned how to greet them in Mandarin; ne hao (pronounced "knee how").

Anyway, the owner told me about how some of his clients treat him. One young man in particular wanted to buy beer but didn't have enough money to pay for it, so Yuan (as I will call him) refused to give him credit. The young man started yelling at him and calling him names. Yuan didn't know what to do, so he gave him the beer just to keep the peace and make good riddance of him.

However, it didn't stop there. The young man went outside where he joined his friends and started yelling again in an attempt to entice his group of friends to do the same. When Yuan heard him, he went outside to see what all the commotion was about. He was startled by the look he received and the things he heard.
Yuan later told me that this incident hurt him a great deal because it was not common in his native country.

I consider that to be a form of domestic violence.

E.R. Campbell said:
some cultures are superior to others; the inferior ones must be suppressed when they attempt to operate in the world of the superior cultures

I somewhat agree, in that, some cultures may be likened to barbarism, but in the cultural mosaic we call Canada, there is a growing need for mutual respect of persons.
Most people live within the laws that they are governed by, (no matter where they are) but there will always be those who so blatantly adopt some lower form of humanity even in a superior culture.

If, as the saying goes, "knowledge inspires change", then I may add that we live in a society of some very ignorant people.


*spelling
 
Another cultural (not religious) problem abomination averted, this time in the UK, according to this report which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the National Post:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/21/honour-killing-baby-must-be-adopted-to-keep-her-safe-from-grandfather-court-rules/
Muslim baby born after affair adopted out to stop ‘honour killing’ by grandfather

Reuters

Dec 21, 2011

LONDON — A baby at risk of becoming the victim of an “honour killing” because she was born as the result of her unmarried Muslim mother’s secret affair must be adopted to keep her safe, Britain’s Court of Appeal ruled on Wednesday.

Three senior judges rejected a bid by the one-year-old girl’s natural father to have her live with him and his wife.

The child’s natural mother is in favour of adoption so that her own family will not find out about the birth.

Lord Justice Munby, Lady Justice Black and Lord Justice Kitchin said in a joint judgment the case involved “exceptionally difficult adoption proceedings,” the Press Association reported.

The judges imposed unusually wide reporting restrictions banning the publication of all names and locations linked to the case because of the continuing dangers faced by mother and child.

The appeal court rejected an appeal by the father “F” against a decision last July refusing him a residence order allowing the baby to live with him.

The judge ordered that “baby Q” should be adopted by a couple, also Muslim, from the same country as the mother, but from a different community.

She found there would be “a very significant risk of two and two being put together” if the child went to the father because Q was quite obviously not the child of his wife, who had a child of her own.

If the child’s maternal grandfather found out about the affair “it would be a matter of intense almost unimaginable shame to him and his family,” said the judge.

The appeal court said on Wednesday: “It was plainly the judge’s view that this might provoke action to preserve the family’s honour.”

The mother had consented to the adoption by the couple, who had been looking after her since December 2010.

The appeal judges said Baby Q was conceived in a relationship “which was unacceptable to M’s traditional Muslim family and conducted in secrecy.”

Both the unmarried mother and her lover were from abroad and moved to the UK in the last 10 years. Although both Muslim, there was a “profound cultural difference” between them.

When M realised she might be pregnant she ran away from home. She was “terrified” over how her family would react.

As soon as Q was born, she gave her daughter up for adoption because she “genuinely feared for Q’s safety should (her father) become aware of, or forced to acknowledge, her existence.”

Q’s grandmother had told the police that, if her husband found out about the child, “he would consider himself honour-bound to kill the child, the mother, the grandmother herself and the grandmother’s other children.”

Upholding Mrs Justice Parker’s decision to make an adoption order, the appeal judges said: “The mother’s evidence, supported as it was by her actions, and the evidence of (the father) and an experienced police officer, drove the judge to conclude that refusal of the order would carry with it a significant risk of physical harm.

“In our judgment this conclusion cannot be criticised.”

The adopting couple were Muslims who had taken advice from their imam that they could adopt Q.


The baby's grandmother said, about her own husband, that: “he would consider himself honour-bound to kill the child, the mother, the grandmother herself and the grandmother’s other children.” Sorry, that's not about honour; it is about barbarism and it is an attitude and a belief (but not a religious belief) which must be wrung out of civilized societies - we cannot, must not be tolerant of barbarity.
 
I'm afraid I'll never be able to understand the mindset of the cultures whence this (honour killing) comes from.  I agree it is not religious but cultural.  Although there seems to be damn little culture in this thinking.  Medieval to say the least.
 
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