10/6/2008 | News | ANICK JESDANUN

Newspapers get complaints for DVD ad on Muslims

Newspapers that carried an advertising supplement in recent weeks containing a DVD critical of radical Muslims have faced complaints from readers and questions about whether newspapers should offer a platform to everyone willing to pay for distribution. Although a few papers refused to carry the DVD, about 70 including The New York Times distributed it on the grounds that rejecting it would violate the sponsor's right to free speech. The decision generated letters, cancellations and even a protest.

10/2/2008 | News | Jacob Laksin

Geert Wilders’ War

Say what you will about Geert Wilders – and his critics, not least the Islamic clerics who issue near-daily fatwas commanding his death, have made their views plain – there is no gainsaying that the man has guts. Ever since 2004, when the Dutch politician emerged as one of Europe’s more forthright foes of Islamic fundamentalism, Wilders, 45, has been the subject of considerable obloquy, both in his native Netherlands, where he is scorned by the political elite, and abroad, where he is the target of untold assassination plots.

9/19/2008 | News | DONNA ABU-NASR, Associated Press Writer

Arabs denounce cleric's fatwa on 'immoral' TV

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Arabs across the ideological spectrum, from secular-minded liberals to Muslim hard-liners, are denouncing a top Saudi cleric's edict that it was permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV stations that show "immoral" content. Many expressed worry the recent comments by Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan — chief of the kingdom's highest tribunal, the Supreme Judiciary Council — would fuel terrorism, encouraging attacks on station employees and owners. The edict, or fatwa, has also focused the spotlight on Saudi Arabia's legal system because of al-Lihedan's senior position in the judiciary. The system is run by Islamic cleric-judges, many of them hard-liners, and has increasingly been criticized by some Saudis because of the wide discretion judges have in punishing criminals and the perception that many judges are out of touch with the realities of the world. Even conservative clerics who agree that Arab satellite networks show too many "indecent" programs said al-Lihedan had gone too far.

8/28/2008 | News | WILLIAM MAYER and BEILA RABINOWITZ

Brandeis University's Partnership With Hamas Linked, Al Quds University Underwritten By Ford Foundation

Over the last few years the liberal educational institution has drawn unwanted attention and severe criticism [not to mention loss of funding through donations] due to poor choices made by the university, including the 2005 naming of Khalil Shikaki as a scholar at the school's Crown Center for Middle East Studies. Mr. Shikaki has some troubling ties and associations; according to the New York Sun: "Government wiretaps introduced at the trial of a Florida professor accused of operating the American wing of PIJ, Sami Al-Arian, show Mr. Shikaki distributed money in the West Bank for Al-Arian associates allegedly tied to PIJ...He is also the brother of the assassinated founder of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fathi Shikaki, and a former director..." [source, "Concern Mounts Over Brandeis Professor's Ties to Islamic Jihad," http://www.nysun.com/national/concern-mounts-over-brandeis-professors-ties/25980 for additional information regarding Shikaki see, http://www.investigativeproject.org/article/336]

8/26/2008 | News | Gilbert T. Sewall

Textbook Lies about Islam

Islam is one of the most important issues of our time, but you wouldn't know it from reading a high school textbook. What students learn makes it almost impossible to understand Islam in history or the world today, much less what fuels Islam's challenge to peace and international security.

7/20/2008 | News | Middle East Media Research Institute

Mujahideen Monitor U.S. Economy, Attempt to Undermine Dollar

Numerous postings on Islamist websites in the past two years reflect the mujahideen's growing interest in the state of the U.S. economy. As was argued in a 2007 MEMRI analysis, [1] many of the jihadists and their supporters have come to view their struggle against the U.S. and the West as an economic war. More specifically, they have come to the conclusion that it is financial, rather than military, losses that will prompt the U.S. to change its policies in the Middle East and elsewhere. Consequently, they emphasize the importance of targeting U.S. interests around the world, and of directing their military jihad primarily at targets that affect the U.S. economy.

7/20/2008 | News | Middle East Media Research Institute

Lebanese Sunni Cleric Sheikh Maher Hamoud: I Admire Bin Laden, But Would Not Have Sanctioned 9/11 Attacks – Except for Those on Pentagon, CIA HQ, and White House

Following are excerpts from an interview with Lebanese Sunni cleric Sheikh Maher Hamoud, which aired on NBN, a TV channel affiliated with the head of the Amal movement, Nabih Berri, on July 7, 2008. Sheikh Hamoud, imam of Al-Quds mosque in Sidon, Lebanon, has given interviews to Western journalists, [1] and has received financial support from former Australian mufti Taj Din al-Hilali. [2] Sheikh Hamoud is the scion of a prominent Sidon family and grandson of a former mufti of the city. According to media reports, he is an ally of Hizbullah, and in the early 1980s was one of the first Sunni clerics in Lebanon to embrace the revolutionary message of the founder of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. [3] To view this clip, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1808.htm.

7/20/2008 | News | Middle East Media Research Institute

Saudi Human and Women's Rights Activist Wajeha Al-Huwaidar Speaks Out Against Honor Killings

On April 7, 2007, a teenage Yazidi Kurdish girl named Du'a Al-Aswad was stoned to death by a lynch-mob in Iraq, because she had violated her family's honor. A video of the stoning, filmed by the participants themselves using their mobile phones, was posted on http://leilamagazine17.blogspot.com/2008/02/blog-post_6785.html . A year after the stoning, Saudi reformist and human rights activist Wajeha Al-Huweidar wrote a scathing article in which she harshly criticized the sexist character of Arab culture and particularly the phenomenon of "honor killings." The following are excerpts from her article, which appeared on the reformist website www.aafaq.org. "This Entire Part of the World [is Full of] Defeated and Dejected Men, Whose Only Way to Feel Victorious Is by Beating Women to Death" "Last April, a 17-year old Iraqi girl named Du'a Khalil Al-Aswad fell in love with a boy from a different [religious] sect. By this act, she violated the 'honor' of the men in her sect, causing them to go mad with the boiling [rage] of hellfire. Their male [egos] swelled like cancerous tumors, and their minds locked into the primitive madness of 'honor.'