Islam in the News (November 2012)

'Islam in the News' contains worldwide news concerning Islam and its followers. Further news covering the persecution of minorities, free speech, and some other issues can be found via the hub page
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Echoes of Umm Qirfa in Iran: Defiant Jewish women murdered and cut in half by Muslim extremists

Israel Radio: The woman lived in a house located next to a mosque slated for expansion • She filed a complaint about forceful efforts to take over her home • Group murdered her and cut her body in half.

A Jewish woman in Isfahan, Iran, was murdered and cut in half by Muslim extremists who wanted to take over her home, Israel Radio reported on Thursday.

Relatives of the woman said she had lived next to a newly built mosque, and worshippers had demanded that she and her family leave their home so the mosque could be expanded.

The woman submitted a complaint to authorities about the efforts to take over her home. On Monday, a group of thugs came to her house, murdered her, and, according to reports, cut her body in half.

The event left the Jewish community in Iran, estimated to be around 25,000 people, worried and fearing escalating violence against it.

Report: Jewish woman murdered, cut in two in Iran
Israel Hayom, November 29, 2012

Egypt: Islamist MP gets a taste of his own medicine, sentenced to 4 months in prison for sexual act

Former Salafist Nour Party MP Ali Wanis has been sentenced to four months in jail by the Delta Appeal Court for performing an "indecent" sexual act in public and assaulting a police officer.

Wanis was arrested in early June when police discovered him engaging in a sexual act with a 22-year-old woman in a car parked on a coastal highway.

He filed an appeal after he was given a one-year suspended sentence and fined LE1,000 in July.

The female university student arrested with Wanis, who was given a six-month suspended sentence and fined LE500 in July, was given a three-month sentence by the appeal court on Wednesday.

The ultraconservative Nour Party came second to the Muslim Brotherhood in the latest parliamentary election.

The parliament was dissolved after a court ruling deemed it unconstitutional.

The Nour Party was hit by scandal in March when another of its MPs was forced to resign from parliament and the party. He claimed he had been injured in a carjacking when his injuries were caused by cosmetic nose surgery.

Salafist MP handed 4-month jail term for 'indecent sexual act'
Ahram Online, November 21, 2012

Indonesia plans to counter rising crime-rate by banning TV during praying hours & ordering people to pray

Worried about the rising crime rate, the local government of Kampar district, Riau, is mulling passing a bylaw that would oblige residents to turn off their television sets for an hour each day and instead pray.

Kampar district head Jefry Noer told Metrotv.com on Thursday that such a bylaw would help address increasing public worry over the rising crime rate in the district, which he said was a social disease.

The planned bylaw, he said, would instruct Kampar residents to turn off their television sets from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., during the Maghrib praying hour, and use the time to recite the Koran.

Local officials have begun socializing the idea among residents.

Riau’s Kampar District Mulls Bylaw to Ban TV During Praying Hour
Jakarta Globe, November 15, 2012

US: "Islamophobic hate crime" used to condemn critics of Islamic violence, turns out to be Islamic violence

It's official. Kassim Alhimidi, husband of supposed hate-crime victim Shaima Alawadi, has been arrested for murdering her. Shaima's death spawned international vigils and rallies condemning critics of Islam. Many non-Muslim women and girls donned hijabs in a show of solidarity. Yet Alawadi wasn't a victim of an anti-Muslim hate crime at all. She was the victim of an honor killing. And her husband used the media's paranoia over an imaginary mental disease called "Islamophobia" to cover up his crime. Will the media learn their lesson and not be so desperate to condemn critics of Islam that they end up helping criminals again? Don't hold your breath.

EL CAJON — The eight-month investigation into the beating death of an Iraqi woman in her El Cajon dining room has led to the arrest of her husband, police announced Friday, putting to rest any notion that the mother of five was the victim of a hate crime.

The eight-month investigation into the beating death of an Iraqi woman in her El Cajon dining room has led to the arrest of her husband, police announced Friday, putting to rest any notion that the mother of five was the victim of a hate crime.

Kassim Alhimidi, 48, was arrested at the El Cajon police station Thursday evening and booked into jail on one count of murder in the slaying of Shaima Alawadi.

He is being held without bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

Alawadi, 32, was apparently planning to divorce her husband and move with her children to Texas, her brother, Hass Alawadi, told U-T San Diego. He said the husband had known about her plans to divorce for quite some time.

“After months of hard work, ... we determined this homicide was the result of domestic violence and not a hate crime,” El Cajon Police Chief Jim Redman said at a news conference Friday.

Investigators did not discuss possible motive or evidence in the case. No other arrests have been made, Redman said.

Alawadi was attacked at the family’s Skyview Street home March 21, when her husband had reportedly left to take their four younger children to school. She was struck on the head at least six times and suffered four skull fractures, according to court records. She was taken off of life support three days later.

A threatening note that called the family terrorists and told them to go back where they came from was found near her body. The handwritten note turned out to be a copy, not an original, according to court records. The family said a similar note had been left on their door weeks earlier, but they did not report the incident to police or keep the note.

The early implications that the slaying was a possible hate crime spawned international attention, especially among the Muslim community. Peace rallies and candlelight vigils promoting unity and a Muslim woman’s right to wear a head scarf spread throughout the world.

Alhimidi and his children gave tearful interviews to the media in the days following the slaying, and the widower was seen crying over his wife’s casket during her funeral in Iraq, at one point fainting.

In an interview a week after the killing, her husband told the Arabic Al Arabiya News: “My wife was a victim of xenophobia.”

[Source: Husband arrested in Iraqi woman’s killing - Kristina Davis & Debbi Baker, U-T San Diego, November 9, 2012]

Kassim Alhimidi Arrested for Murder of Shaima Alawadi
Answering Muslims, November 10, 2012, 2012

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