The country’s in the very best of hands…

Wait…we have terrorists in WitSec??

The Justice Department failed to provide the names of some terrorists in the witness protection program to the center that maintains the government’s watch list used to keep dangerous people off airline flights, the department’s inspector general said in a report Thursday.

As a result of the department’s failure to properly share information, some in the witness protection program who were on the “no-fly” list were allowed to travel on commercial flights, the federal watchdog said.

“It was possible for known or suspected terrorists to fly on commercial airplanes in or over the United States and evade one of the government’s primary means of identifying and tracking terrorists’ movements and actions,” the report said.

To help protect witnesses from the people and organizations against whom they testify, the U.S. Marshals Service provides cooperating witnesses with new names and identities.

“We found that the department was not authorizing the disclosure to the Terrorist Screening Center of the new identities provided to known or suspects terrorists” in the federal Witness Security Program, known officially as WitSec.

6 Years + 300 Lashes in Saudi Arabia for Helping Woman Convert to Christianity

TheVolokhConspiracy

Agence France Press reports:

A Saudi court jailed a Lebanese man for six years and sentenced him to 300 lashes after convicting him of encouraging a Saudi woman to convert to Christianity, Saudi dailies reported Sunday.

The same court sentenced a Saudi man convicted in the same case to two years in prison and 200 lashes for having helped the young woman flee the ultra-conservative, US-backed Sunni kingdom [without her family's permission, which is a crime], local daily Al-Watan said….

The woman, known only as “the girl of Khobar,” was granted refuge in Sweden where she lives under the protection of unspecified NGOs, according to local press reports….

Both men, who could also be prosecuted over other charges including corruption and forging official documents that allowed the woman to leave the country without her family’s agreement, will appeal.

The accused and the young woman were coworkers at an insurance company, so I suspect the woman was an adult. Thanks to Prof. Howard Friedman (Religion Clause) for the pointer.

Muslims worldwide support democracy and religious freedom

DeseretNews

Most Muslims around the world would prefer living in a democracy that upholds religious freedom, according to surveys conducted after the start of the Arab Spring that also found many Muslims want their religious code to be the law of the land.

The view of Sharia, or Islamic law, as part of a democracy may seem contradictory to Westerners, but it is not inconsistent in areas of the world where politics and public life are drawn along religious instead of secular lines, researchers said.

“Democracy needs to be continually questioned in terms of its definition so that it is not just seen as a secular endeavor,” said Farid Senzai, director of research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding at Santa Clara University. “(Western governments) continue to support and promote democracy but insist that it be a secular project when the evidence suggests in (Muslim countries) it will never be a secular project.”

I saw her eyes’: Mom dons burqa, rescues kidnapped son in Egypt

Wow. Awesome!

Through the slit of the burqa she wore to blend in on the streets of Alexandria, Egypt, Kalli Atteya waited and watched until the boy climbed off the school bus. When she saw him, she moved quickly, grabbing his arm and steering him toward the waiting motorized cart.

“Get in,” she said to the 12-year-old, who recognized his mother’s piercing blue eyes and obeyed wordlessly.

Soon, they were speeding toward a safehouse where they would wait for three weeks before returning to the U.S., and ending a 20-month ordeal that began with another abduction — one the boy, Khalil Mohamed “Niko” Atteya, did not accept willingly. His father, Mohamed Atteya, who is wanted by the U.S. authorities, is accused of luring the mother and son to his homeland, then snatching the boy and leaving Kalli Atteya and her sister on the side of a desolate road between Cairo and Port Said on Aug. 1, 2011.

“My Dad forced me to be Muslim, which I did not want to do,” Niko, who has been back in Pennsylvania for more than a month, told FoxNews.com.

A world away, he had a determined mother who would spare no expense and even risk her own safety to save her boy. After a torturous struggle that included false leads, false hopes and more than $100,000 spent, Kalli Atteya finally showed what the love and determination of a mom can do.

Oh, Puleese…

 UAE men ‘too handsome’ for Saudi festival

Ain’t it a shame that the Saudi’s have so little faith in their women’s intelligence? Oh, wait. They’re going on their men’s inability to control themselves. Gotcha.

Three Emirati men were ejected from a festival in Saudi Arabia as they were deemed “too handsome”, leading authorities to fear women could become attracted to them, it has been reported.

According to Arabic language Elaph newspaper, the UAE nationals were taking part in a heritage event in the capital Riyadh on Sunday when they were thrown out by Saudi’s religious police.

Saudi Arabia, a strictly conservative Sunni Muslim society, prohibits women from interacting with unrelated males.

“A festival official said the three Emiratis were taken out on the grounds they are too handsome and that the Commission members feared female visitors could fall for them,” the newspaper said.

Um, yeah…

As Well We All Should Be

Britain ‘concerned’ after Saudi Arabia ‘orders man to be paralysed’

Ali al-Khawahir, 24, was been sentenced to Qisas, or retribution, for allegedly stabbing a childhood friend ten years ago.

The attack, which is said to have happened during a dispute, left the victim paralysed from the waist down.

Saudi Arabia uses Islamic Sharia law, which involves “eye-for-an-eye” punishment for crimes, but allows victims to pardon offenders in exchange for compensation. Al-Khawahir was sentenced to be surgically paralysed unless he can pay his victim one million riyals (£180,000).

A spokesperson for the FCO said “We are deeply concerned by reports that a Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a man to be paralysed in retribution for causing the paralysis of a friend when he was fourteen years old.

“We urge the Saudi authorities to ensure that this grotesque punishment is not carried out. Such practices are prohibited under international law and have no place in any society.”

University: ‘Jesus Stomp’ Student Will Not Be Punished

Nor should he be…interesting that the text book utilized, entitled, “Intercultural Communication: A Contextual Approach, 5^th Edition” within the class did not use “Mohammed” instead of the Jesus.  

The class in question was taught by Deandre Poole, who also happens to be vice chair of the Palm Beach County Democratic Party.

“Have the students write the name JESUS in big letters on a piece of paper,” the lesson reads. “Ask the students to stand up and put the paper on the floor in front of them with the name facing up. Ask the students to think about it for a moment. After a brief period of silence instruct them to step on the paper. Most will hesitate. Ask why they can’t step on the paper. Discuss the importance of symbols in culture.”

“These are the new secular disciples of ‘diversity’ and ‘tolerance’ – empty buzzwords that make liberals and progressives feel good while they often refuse to tolerate and sometimes even assault traditional Christian and conservative beliefs,” Kengor said.

Kengor said classes like the one at Florida Atlantic University demonstrate the contempt many public institutions hold for people of faith.

“It also reflects the rising confidence and aggression of the new secularists and atheists, especially at our sick and surreal modern universities,” he said.

The university did not explain why students were only instructed to write the name of Jesus – and not the name of Mohammed or another religious figure.

“Gee, I wonder if the instructor would dare do this with the name of Mohammed,” Kengor wondered. Indeed…

Being a student myself, I am still amazed at the abject stupidity of some alleged “learned” professors in higher education.

Palestinian “Mom of the Decade” Dies

MarkSteyn

Seven years ago, in my book America Alone, I noted the Hamas landslide in the 2006 Palestinian elections:

Among the incoming legislators was Mariam Farahat, a mother of three, elected in Gaza. She used to be a mother of six but three of her sons self-detonated on suicide missions against Israel. She’s a household name to Palestinians, known as Um Nidal – Mother of the Struggle – and, at the rate she’s getting through her kids, the Struggle’s all she’ll be Mother of. She’s famous for a Hamas recruitment video in which she shows her 17-year old son how to kill Israelis and then tells him not to come back. It’s the Hamas version of42nd Street: You’re going out there a youngster but you’ve got to come back in small pieces.

“Um Nidal” passed away yesterday. Unusually for a member of the Farahat family, she expired not from firing up the old suicide belt and with body parts of dead Jews raining down on her, but, rather more prosaically, from multiple organ failure. One trusts that, reunited with mom in Paradise, her late sons won’t hold it against her. Suicide for Allah “makes me happy”, she famously declared. “Hepatitis for Allah” doesn’t have quite the same ring.

Nevertheless, as this headline puts it, “Thousands participate in funeral of the Khansa of Palestine’ Umm Nidal Farahat“. Thousands. For a woman whose sole contribution to Palestinian “society” is a mound of dead sons.

“This is who the Palestinian people are, this is what they believe,” I wrote in my book. “After 60 years as UN ‘refugees’, they’re now so inured they’re electing candidates on the basis of child sacrifice.”

Harmony, love abound at Interfaith Musical Tribute

DeseretNews

A significant portion of the program was devoted to performances by young people, who used their talent to celebrate their faith and culture. In addition to the Salt Lake Children’s Choir, those groups included a children’s choir from the Sri Ganesha Hindu Temple and the Indian Cultural Center of Utah, the St. John the Baptist Middle School Catholic Choir, a dance group from the Salt Lake Buddhist Temple Dharma School and a team of whirling dervish dancers from the Pacifica Institute.

One of the highlights of the Musical Tribute was a performance by Gamelan Bingtang Wahyu, a unique gamelan orchestra organized among faculty and students at BYU by Jeremy Grimshaw. The performance featured guest director Made Lasmawan and guest dancer Putu Tang-kas Adi Mayena in music and dance that is reflective of Balinese Hindu culture.

“This is not about tolerance,” said Bachman, SLIR chair and a representative of Chabad of Utah, in bringing the tribute to a close. “This is about love. As we enjoy this view of the religion and culture of people of other faiths, we are not just learning to tolerate them — we are learning to love them.”

 

 

How Depraved Can They Get?

This contemptible…

A man has killed his pregnant teenage sister in south Lebanon in what was seen as an honor crime – the murder of a woman accused of shaming her family.

Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5) said Friday that the body of Baghdad Khaled al-Issa, 18, was found with stab wounds in her head and sides in the area of al-Wazzani.

Investigators discovered that her brother Jihad, 21, had killed her in what is described as an honor crime, VDL said.

It added that the victim was seven months pregnant.

Later on Friday, LBCI television reported that the investigation with Jihad revealed that he had raped his sister, which lead to her pregnancy.

“He confessed to raping his sister,” LBCI said, adding that Jihad claimed he was drunk when the incident happened.

The television channel added that he had only recently found out about the pregnancy and asked his sister to undergo an abortion, but she refused.