Islam Doesn't Qualify as a Religion According to the Italian Cabinet

MOSQUES IN ITALY will not receive a share of income tax revenue the Italian government allocates to religious faiths each year. Hindu and Buddhist temples, Greek Orthodox churches and Jehovah's Witnesses will be eligible for the funds, according to a bill approved by the Italian cabinet in May and still must be approved by parliament.

Until now, the government had earmarked 8 percent of income tax revenue for Italy's established churches. The great majority of these funds go to the Catholic Church, although if they wish, individual tax payers may elect to give the money to charities and cultural projects instead.

Islam is not an established religion in Italy and there is only one official mosque in the country, Rome's Grand Mosque. Politicians from the ruling coalition cite radical imams, polygamy and failure to uphold women's rights by Muslim immigrants as obstacles to recognizing Islam as an official religion in Italy.

Until now, only the Catholic Church, Judaism and other established churches including Lutherans, Evangelists, Waldensians and 7th-day Adventists have received the income tax revenue from the Italian government. Source

Small Victories

A Saudi-sponsored Koran was pulled from school libraries.

Preachers have gone to jail for their interpretation of the Koran.

Extreme versions of Islam are criminally prosecuted.

Organizations are outlawed.

Politicians have called for Islamists to leave their countries.

Trencherbone the Great

A BLOGGER who calls himself "Trencherbone" has done us a great service. On a single page, he has compiled an enormous collection of resources entitled, Everything You Need to Know About Islam, arranged in alphabetical order.

Each category has several, sometimes very many, links to articles on that topic.

When we're talking to our fellow non-Muslims about Islam, they want proof. They want facts, statistics, examples. Their minds are not blank when it comes to Islam. They have already been told by seeming experts that Islam is a religion of peace, that it has been hijacked by extremists, and that people like you are racist, bigoted Islamophobes. So you had better make a good case if you want to get through.

Trencherbone has made it much easier to make a good case. And for that, and all the effort he has put into this excellent resource, he has justly earned the Citizen Warrior Hero Award. Check out his page: Everything You Need to Know About Islam.

France Takes a Bold Step

THE FOLLOWING good news is excerpted from an article by Deborah Weiss entitled, France Gets Serious:

There’s a movement afoot to ban the burqa in Europe. And it just scored another political point in France. On July 13, the lower house in the French Parliament voted overwhelmingly to outlaw wearing burqas and niqabs in public.

On the eve of Bastille Day, which marks the birth of the secular republic of France, the French National Assembly passed a bill to ban full face veils with 335 votes in favor of the bill and only one vote against it. The bill will go to the Senate for a vote in September, where it is expected to pass.

Most Members of Parliament view this bill as a means to liberate women from male subjugation and make a statement for gender equality. Feminist organizations in Europe agree. In France, which has the largest Muslim population in Europe, nine out of ten people support the burqa ban. Those opposing the ban consist primarily of Muslims.

If the bill passes in the Senate, it will be sent directly to the Constitutional Council, France’s highest constitutional authority, for a ruling on its constitutionality. It might also be sent to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasburg, which issues decisions to which France is legally bound.

Many other countries are contemplating burqa bans. Municipalities in Spain, Belgium and Italy have bans already in effect. Additional locations are in varying stages of legislative debate and passage. There is also a growing movement amongst the general public calling for burqa bans in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Denmark.

The Organization, SIOA

NEW YORK, July 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The human rights group Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) has launched a new campaign on taxicabs in Chicago to educate the American people about the horrors of honor killing.

The SIOA ads on Chicago taxis feature photos of honor killing victims with the question, “Is your family threatening you?” and the URL of the SIOA website LeaveIslamSafely.com.

While Muslims are not the sole perpetrators of honor killings, a recent survey showed that 91 percent of honor killings worldwide are committed by Muslims, and 84 percent of honor killings in the United States were done by Muslims.

The urgency of raising awareness about honor killing was underscored last week when a Muslim actress who starred in the Harry Potter films, Afshan Azad, was badly beaten by her father and brother in an attempted honor murder. She was dating a non-Muslim.

A manual of Islamic law approved by Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, stipulates that “retaliation is obligatory… against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right.” However, “not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.” In other words, Islamic law mandates no penalty for a parent who kills his child.

Read more about this brilliant campaign: SIOA Launches Honor Killing Awareness Campaign: Freedom Taxis Hit Chicago Streets.

Video Makers, the White Roses

A GROUP CALLING themselves "White Roses" has created a video to inform non-Muslims about Islam. It's called Three Things About Islam. You can view it on YouTube or click here to see it on Citizen Warrior.

White Roses is based in Sweden. Their first version is in English, and they're now working on two more versions in German and Swedish.

The name "White Roses" is based on a student resistance group "Die weiße Rose" in Nazi Germany. The group became known for an anonymous leaflet campaign, from June 1942 until February 1943, which called for active opposition to Adolf Hitler's regime.

A spokeswoman for White Roses said, "We see a parallel here concerning the protection of free speech. As you posted today, freedom of speech is getting more and more limited. The intention in choosing this name is to make a point that there will be groups opposing the doctrine of the state and speaking their mind."

We're honored to say the video was inspired, in part, by three Citizen Warrior articles:

The Least You Need to Know About Islam

What "Religion of Peace" Really Means

What is the Root Cause of Islamic Terrorism?

We've given White Roses the Citizen Warrior Hero Award because they are doing exactly what needs to be done — what we should all be doing: Sharing with non-Muslims key information about Islam, making it interesting and easy to hear, keeping it non-partisan, focusing on Sharia and not on Muslims, keeping it clean and not staining it with racism or hatred, and in this case, putting it in a form that is easily shareable by others.

I've posted the video on a new site I'm building. The purpose of the new site is to help us reach people who might be put off by anything that smacks of Islam-bashing. I suggest you use that site to share the video with your uninformed friends: Three Things About Islam Video.

One last thing: The video presents information you probably already know, but its "target market" is people who don't know much, so it's a good tool we can use to share with less-informed people. I hope you use it.

Western Europe Fights Islamization

AN ARTICLE by Ryan Mauro, which listed European efforts to stop the encroachment of Sharia, and listed them all in one article, one after another, was like an inspiring tour de force. Check it out:

France took the first step in trying to stop the spread of Islam by banning any religious symbols from being worn in public schools, which included the headscarves worn by many Muslim women. This caused outrage in the Muslim world, and President Obama criticized it during his address in Cairo. Then in November, the Swiss voted in favor of banning the construction of minarets on mosques. This has sparked major movements on the continent to take further measures that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

One by one, the countries of Europe are placing restrictions on wearing the burqas and niqabs in government buildings or even in public. In April, Belgium became the first of them to pass an all-encompassing ban, and the French Council of Ministers followed by passing a similar ban that the National Assembly has just approved. It is expected to pass the Senate in September and then be signed by President Sarkozy.

Now, the Senate in Spain has passed a motion calling on the government to completely ban the wearing of the veil in public, and several municipalities in Spain have also placed restrictions on the burqa, although the parliament of Catalonia has switched its initial vote in favor of a ban. The Senate’s motion went further than what the ruling Socialist government wanted, which only sought to stop the veils from being worn in public buildings. There are growing movements with varying success in Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Italy for placing restrictions on the face veils. A battle over Sharia courts should be expected in the coming years, which Norway is taking the lead on. The Foreign Minister, who is the head of a panel on integration, has just expressed his opposition to them, saying “desegregation is our society’s biggest social challenge.”

Political parties that express a hard line on assimilation and Islam are gaining in the polls. A new Poll poll found that bans on the face veils are supported by a strong majority of Western Europeans. Eighty-two percent of the French, 71 percent of the Germans, 62 percent of the British and 59 percent of the Spanish are in favor of such a law.

The Freedom Party of Geert Wilders came in third in last month’s general elections in the Netherlands, expanding their number of seats from nine to 24. Wilders rightfully said that his party was “the biggest winner today.”

Read the whole article (which is fully referenced): Europe's Backlash Against Islamization.

Bill Warner

I TRIED TO read the Quran many times, but I couldn't stay awake, and it was confusing because the traditional way to arrange the chapters is from the longest chapter to the shortest, rather than arranging them in the order they were written. Since many of the passages are events in Mohammad's life, reading the Quran start to finish is disorienting. It jumps around.

And many of the passages have no context. They seem to start in the middle, or assume the reader already knows things about Mohammad's life.

Not only that but most English translations are written in Olde English, which makes it even harder to read. And the original Quran is full of tedious repetitions of the same stories.

But Bill Warner, a former professor of physics, created a readable Quran. This is a vital key to defeating the third jihad. We non-Muslims need to know what is in that book since 61% of it is about us. Reading the Quran is the single most important thing a non-Muslim can do to educate themselves about Islam. Warner's book makes this a lot easier.

The book is entitled An Abridged Koran. It is written in chronological order in plain modern English, it removes the repetition, and it includes biographical information where needed so you actually know what it the passages refer to. It it excellent.

Bill also has several great weekly newsletters. Sign up here: Political Islam (in the left-hand column).