Of course, no Islamic law sanctions the disfiguring of those who besmirch the family honor. But with honor killing broadly tolerated -- its perpetrators given light sentences at best in countries such as Jordan and Syria -- this kind of thing is going to happen.

"Charities fear rise in acid attacks avenging slights on family honour," by Jerome Taylor for The Independent, May 19 (thanks to all who sent this in):

When Awais Akram answered his mobile to Sadia Khatoon, a 24-year-old married woman whom he had met on Facebook and had recently started a physical, but not sexual, relationship with, he had little idea of the fate that was about to befall him.

Mrs Khatoon insisted they meet outside his flat in Leytonstone, east London, but as Mr Akram stepped out into the summer sunshine his lover was nowhere to be seen. Instead he was confronted by three masked men wearing gloves, one of whom was carrying a bottle of "Give It One Shot" drain cleaner.

The men, who included Mrs Khatoon's brother Mohammed Vakas, had come to wipe off what they believed was a stain on their family's "izzat" (honour). Beating and stabbing Mr Akram was not enough. As he lay bleeding on the floor, Vakas stepped over his victim and poured the entire bottle of drain cleaner over Mr Akram's face and body.

In parts of the developing world - particularly south-east Asia, the south Asian subcontinent and east Africa - acid attacks are common. The Taliban and fellow extremists have frequently resorted to throwing acid in women's faces for even small transgressions, such as daring to go out unveiled. But there are concerns that such attacks may also be on the increase in the UK.

Hospital admission figures for the past three years show a steady rise in the number of people being treated for acid attacks. According to the NHS information centre, 44 people were admitted to hospital in 2006-07 after they were "assaulted with a corrosive substance". The following year the figure jumped to 67 and last year there were 69 admissions.

The figures only include hospital admissions where a patient had to spend one night or more in hospital and there is no ethnic breakdown. But charity workers fear there is enough anecdotal evidence to suggest acid attacks are becoming more common....

Read it all.

A growing number of Britons are answering the call to jihad in Somalia and joining the ranks of militants linked to al-Qaida ahead of an American-backed drive next month to strengthen the country's army.

Sources say that the influx, which includes Britons of Pakistani origin, is heading to the Horn of Africa as the US tries to shore up Somalia's government in the face of a broadening Islamist insurgency.

Warnings have been sounded about British-based groups offering funding and expertise to individuals seeking to travel to Somalia to fight alongside al-Shabab, the militia aligned with al-Qaida's global campaign....

MOGADISHU, Somalia, March 11 (UPI) -- The reported takeover of Somalia's al-Shebab Islamists by al-Qaida veteran Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the 1988 [sic] U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, could rally the divided jihadists as they brace for a U.S.-backed government offensive.

According to counter-terrorism operatives in Kenya, Somalia's northern neighbor that sides with the beleaguered TFG in Mogadishu, officials believe Fazul took command of the jihadist forces following the assassination of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan by U.S. SEALs on Sept. 14.

Nabhan's convoy was attacked by U.S. Navy helicopters south of Mogadishu near Baraawe in a raid codenamed Operation Celestial Balance in which he was the main target.

The Kenya-born Nabhan, a close associate of Fazul for many years, was wanted for involvement in the Aug. 7, 1998, embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es-Salaam, Tanzania, in which 241 people were killed.

U.S. authorities also wanted him for twin attacks in the Kenyan port city of Mombasa on Nov. 28, 2002 -- the suicide bombing of the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel and a near-simultaneous two-missile attack on an Israeli airliner that had just taken off from the city's airport. The bombing killed 15 people; the missiles missed the Boeing 757 taking Israeli vacationers home.

Fazul was born in the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Mozambique in 1972. He trained as a computer expert and speaks five languages, including English, French and Arabic.

While pursuing Islamic studies in Pakistan, he was recruited by al-Qaida in 1991 and was sent to Somalia to help train Islamist militiamen. He has been closely linked to them since.

He took over leadership of al-Qaida's East Africa cell following the embassy bombings and was heavily involved in the African "blood diamonds" trade to fund al-Qaida....

A Glendale man accused of slaying his daughter in an "honor killing" will not face the death penalty.

After sparring with the suspect's defense attorney over its death penalty review process, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office has said it will not seek death for Faleh Almaleki, 49.

The Iraqi immigrant is accused of slaying his daughter, 20-year-old Noor Almaleki, for being "too Westernized."

Police say he used his Jeep Cherokee to run down his daughter and another woman in a Peoria parking lot Oct. 20. Noor Almaleki later died of her injuries.

Almaleki is charged with first-degree murder, aggravated assault and two counts of leaving the scene of a serious accident. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The decision not to seek the death penalty comes after Almaleki's attorney, Billy Little, a public defender, asked a judge to take special precautions to ensure the County Attorney's Office wouldn't wrongly seek the death penalty because Almaleki is a Muslim.

Little requested that the office make public the process it uses to determine whether to seek capital punishment.

"An open process provides some level of assurance that there is no appearance that a Christian is seeking to execute a Muslim for racial, political, religious or cultural beliefs," Little wrote, referring to County Attorney Andrew Thomas' Christian faith....

Prosecutors said Almaleki has admitted killing his daughter because she disgraced the family by not following traditional Iraqi or Muslim values.

They liken the case to honor killings that occur in the Middle East, Africa and other parts of the world. In tribal societies where the practice occurs, male family members feel they must kill a rebellious female relative who shames them by not adhering to traditional values.

Noor Almaleki had reportedly married a man in Iraq and returned to Arizona to live with a boyfriend and his mother in Surprise, police said.

"Somalia, Again," by Alex Perry for the March 1 issue of Time:

On the night of Sept. 21 last year, U.S. diplomatic staff in South Africa were telephoned at home and told not to go to work the next day. A State Department official refused to explain the warning, but a Western intelligence officer in Africa told TIME the alarm was raised after a phone call from an al-Qaeda operative to a number in Cape Town was intercepted -- a call in which an attack on U.S. government buildings in South Africa was discussed. No attack took place, and after three days, the embassy in Pretoria and three consulates reopened. But with South Africa expecting half a million fans for the soccer World Cup this June and July, security officials are understandably jittery. Especially because of the origin of the phone call. It came, TIME was told, from Somalia. [...]

If Somalia's extremists are becoming an international threat, that's partly because of their cosmopolitan leadership. One sure result of war is refugees, and decades of fighting in Somalia have seen the rapid growth of a large Somali diaspora in places from Cape Town to Minneapolis. But not all who have been forced to make new lives far away from Africa have done so easily. The past few years have seen the arrival in Somalia of 200 to 300 young ethnic Somali men from the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia, Norway and Sweden, migrants' children returning to their ancestral homeland, according to diplomatic and intelligence sources in East Africa. A Western soldier working in Somalia says these foreign-born Somalis now dominate al-Shabab. "All their cells are commanded by a foreigner," he says. "All tactical and strategic decisions are taken by foreigners."

To extend their reach overseas, al-Shabab's leaders in Somalia are thought to circle back to the diaspora, looking for those who can be recruited to extremism. The FBI is tracking more than a dozen Somali Americans who disappeared from their homes and are suspected of joining al-Shabab, and in November, 14 Minnesota men with connections to Somalia were charged with offenses like aiding a terrorist organization; four have pleaded guilty. In August, Australian police arrested five men from the Somali community in Melbourne on suspicion of plotting to attack an army barracks outside Sydney. The September call to Cape Town was picked up because a group of ethnic Somalis in the city were already under surveillance on suspicion of raising funds for al-Shabab, according to the intelligence officer. "If you've been waiting for a moment to declare Somalia a priority threat, what else do you need?" asks the Western soldier in Somalia. "There's no longer a serious risk that southern Somalia could become a jihadi operational deployment facility. It already is."...

Many folks have been wondering of late why on earth Obama’s national defense review failed to mention Islam, jihad, or the threat of a nuclear Iran and focused instead on ManBearPig. Those folks are small thinkers who merely need to heed the advice of one John Podesta, a sage man whose writings explain it all. Thank Gaia his brilliant scholarship so obviously informs the policies on which our very safety depends.

John Podesta’s Unified Hope Theory allows all of the fundamental political forces (money, demographics, power, etc.) between all of the things from which we desperately need government to save us to be written in terms of a single hope. By “hope,” I refer, of course, to a belief which will certainly be proven true one day if you’re not too ignorant to “get it” and if we just keep throwing money at biased programs which serve to confirm these hopes. Podesta’s Theory is the mother of all hopes. Our future is so dependent upon this hope, in fact, that the fact that it was crafted in 2007 and serves to inform major policy decisions for 2011 is irrelevant because it is just that progressive.

Every failing state’s eventual demise can be explained by some facet of the Unified Hope Theory, which is fortunate, because otherwise Islam and communism would just be failed forms of government and that would be seriously inconvenient.

Cap and Tax is but one part of John Podesta’s Unified Hope Theory, and it has everything all on its own: collectivism, high taxes, redistribution of wealth, government larger than anything one could ever hope for, third worldism, guaranteed regression, and a sense of purpose derived from both stealing from the rich to make everyone poor forever and performing a continuous pagan sacrifice to Gaia with real, first-world dollars.

But Unified Hope Theory’s crown jewel is almost too delicious to be true, which must be why it seems so implausible. ManBearPig really is a national security issue, or at least it will be one day, inshallah. Our greatest national security threat in 2050 will be ManBearPig-induced jihad. No, really.

Invasion from nations which are hostile to us is unavoidable, it seems, so we have to give them our money now so they can have better weapons when they invade. This is so certain that we have no choice but to craft 2011’s national defense decisions around this scenario, which of course must take precedence over all other threats facing us today.

The problem of dependence on foreign oil is useful when making vague references to national security. Dismissing outright domestic production of oil and natural gas due to the peak oil hope, Podesta stresses the necessity of investment in new forms of energy which do not really work for anyone yet.

How and why dependence on foreign oil is an issue is rather problematic because presumably we should take issue with the transfer of wealth to nations from whom we currently buy oil, yet, under a cap and trade system, we would give them our money anyway, just without receiving anything in return.

Our enemies will unite with us when we have a common enemy which will cause them to invade our countries: ManBearPig. In the meantime, we should not develop our own resources, not buy anyone else’s, and just invest, invest, invest in a green future which will magically work out somehow. Our future overlords will be grateful for our tax dollars and they will be nicer to us because of them.

Sure, Iran is enriching uranium now to kill us as soon as possible, but imagine how nasty the mullahs will be when they become climate refugees. They will eventually abandon their nuclear program once they realize that nukes are powerless against MannBearPig, the greatest security threat facing us all.

So our national defense program for 2011 is essentially modeled on a plan for a Waterworldesque future in which radical Muslims, having been driven out of their countries by ManBearPig, will all have long since invaded all the nations which just happen to be developed, Western nations today. That we are to arm them in the meantime for a future in which they subjugate us is a given.

It is a tad eerie that the mullahs’ vision of the end of times is very similar to the logical consequences of John Podesta’s ideas in action, but I digress.

That climate change will likely bring us all under Islamic law is the reason why radical Islam is not mentioned even once in either the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review or its sister document, the Quadrennial Homeland Security Review. Bangladesh, where al-Qaeda will somehow eventually end up, will invade India (p. 118). ManBearPig will cause such great “political and economic turmoil” in East Africa in the coming years (p. 119) as to eclipse any reason for concern about al-Shabaab. One need only consider what MannBearPig did to Darfur (p. 20) to understand the gravity of the situation.

Since ManBearPig is the primary force behind Islamic radicalization, and since the Islamic invasion of Europe is apparently inevitable, throwing money at the problem will somehow magically help Europe’s future invaders assimilate. It says so on page 20:

Because most African and South Asian migration will be internal or regional, the expected decline in food production and fresh drinking water combined with the increased conflict sparked by resource scarcity will force more Africans and South Asians to migrate further abroad. The result is a likely surge in the number of Muslim immigrants to the European Union, which could exacerbate existing tensions and increase the likelihood of radicalization among members of Europe’s growing and often poorly assimilated Islamic communities.

Already, the majority of immigrants to most western European countries are Muslim. Muslims constitute approximately 5 percent of the European population, with the largest communities located in France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark.24 Europe’s Muslim population is expected to double by 2025, and it will be much larger if, as we expect, the effects
of climate change spur additional migration from Africa and South Asia.

This is why, for instance, we need to develop Pakistan so that the Taliban can just blow everything up (p 44). We cannot waste defense dollars on weapons because we have to worry about assimilating the Taliban for when they take over Europe. Think big.

Those of you who do not understand the wisdom in ignoring the threat posed by radical Islam and throwing our defense budget into combating ManBearPig are small thinkers. Quadrennial Defense Reviews are supposed to be based upon apocalyptic scenarios is which not only have we lost the War on Terror Man-Caused Disasters, but Man-Caused Disasters have lost the War on ManBearPig.

Those who wish to destroy us today will be climate refugees one day, so we must socialize them to prepare for a future in which we really are all victims of economic and industrial development. See? It all makes sense if you just conflate the present with the future, jihad with ManBearPig, nature with inimical ideologies, and Al Gore’s fantasies with national security.

One day we will all be one world, united by socialism, hope-science, and government. Gaia will be supplicated with our future and the futures of our children. Sure, we will all be slaves or dhimmis but our ancestors were evil so we must act now. So come on. Let’s all follow John Podesta to his horrifying end-of-the-world scenario. Don’t forget to bring your tax dollars and your children’s tax dollars. Leave your weapons. They are no match for ManBearPig.

Big surprise here. But will this lead American and European leaders to begin to see the "terror" threat more comprehensively, involving the attempts to intimidate free Western non-Muslims into silence about Islam and jihad as well as jihad acts themselves? Don't bet on it. "Cartoonist intruder: 'links to Islamic terrorists,'" from the Times Online, January 2 (thanks to Kris):

An intruder who was shot and wounded by police after breaking into the Denmark home of Muhammad cartoonist Kurt Westergaard has links to Islamic terrorists, according to Danish intelligence.

The 28-year-old Somali man is connected to the radical Islamist al-Shabaab militia and al-Qaeda leaders in East Africa, claims Denmark's PET intelligence service.

Police say the intruder entered the property by smashing a window and was carrying a knife and axe. He has been charged with two counts of attempted murder after a court hearing today in Aarhus, Denmark. The 74-year-old, whose cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad sparked riots five years ago, has had numerous threats on his life and his house in Viby, near Aarhus, is heavily fortified with security modifications.

Westergaard, who had his five-year-old granddaughter staying with him, was able to hide in a panic room in his bathroom and signal the police using an inbuilt alarm button. Officers were at the house within two minutes and shot the intruder after he tried to attack them....

And they want more blood, too: "we call upon all Muslims around the world to target the people like (him)."

An update on this story. "Somali group hails attack on Danish cartoonist," from AFP, January 2 (thanks to Maxwell):

MOGADISHU -- Somalia's radical Islamic Shebab group hailed Saturday the attack by a Somali on a Danish cartoonist reviled by Muslims for his drawing of their prophet Mohammed.

"We appreciate the incident in which a Muslim Somali boy attacked the devil who abused our prophet Mohammed and we call upon all Muslims around the world to target the people like (him)," Shebab spokesman Sheikh Ali Muhamud Rage told AFP.

"He is also suspected of being implicated in terrorist activities when he was in east Africa. The individual arrested has also been a member of a terrorist network implanted in Denmark that has been under surveillance by PET for a long time."

Rage said for his part, "There could be some people who might say that boy was related to Shebab or other Islamic organisations, but I tell you that this incident is not something that could be related only to Shebab or other Islamic organisations.

"It is a general obligation for all Muslims to defend their religion and the prophet. He really did what was to be done by any other Muslim."...

Refutations, please? Honest Ibe Hooper? Brave Ahmed Rehab? M. Cherif Bassiouni? Ali Eteraz? Anyone? Anyone?

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Lucy Mashua, the Global Ambassador for fighting FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) and standing up for Women’s Rights.

FP: Lucy Mashua, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.

Tell us about your background and your own personal story.

Mashua: I was born 30 years ago in a small village in southern Kenya in Rift valley province. I come from the Maasai tribe, which is known for its cultural wearing of beads, red ochre and wraps. We are nomadic people and move with our animals from one place to another in search of pastures, as it’s a semi arid area. We have three major groups in Africa: Bantu, Cushites and Nilots.

My tribe falls into the Nilots group and the tribe from which Obama’s father comes from, Luo. We migrated from Egypt in 16 AD, named after the river Nile and most of us are black Jews, but practicing Christianity. I am a Christian.

I love my tribe so much that I want them to treat women and children right by ending FGM and early child marriage. Women and girls are not men’s properties. It is our God- given right not to be mutilated and married off at a tender age. I am the first born of a family of six and underwent FGM at the age of 9 one early morning with a group of other girls. Vaginal genocide was committed on us.

And now here I am living to tell and be a voice for the voiceless.

FP: Why does your tribe practise FGM? What is its philosophy? And why does it also engage in child marriage?

Mashua: My tribe practices FGM because they are ignorant and brainwashed since the days of Pharaoh in Egypt as they migrated to East Africa with this tradition. The philosophy is that women will be more tame and controllable. When a woman is made to feel like she is an object and not 100% human, she will fall for it. They become puppets and not valued, but it didn’t work with me.

They also engage in early childhood marriage to control and tame women because if you are married off at 12, by the time you are 18 you are just worn out and you will never see the need to explore life. The younger the girls are, the easier it is to control and manipulate them. It’s also about wealth. The more wives and cattle you have, the wealthier you are and you have more property.

FP: I am sorry to ask, but can you kindly share with us the horrible experience you suffered of FGM? Who did this to you? What were the consequences? How did you cope with it?

Mashua: One chilly morning in a group of 29 girls, we were mutilated. I was tied with a rope because I was screaming and begging them to stop. Some girls were considered brave for not crying aloud. But I know their heart cried out loud. I could hear their cry and still do.

It is so hard for me to talk about this. It’s so fresh. I am still so traumatized. They used the same knife on us, not caring about any infections. These are tradition mutilators and midwives that perform this savagery. My mom could not watch this. Up to now, I am scared of any human blood. I scream when I accidentally cut myself. A few days ago I passed out when I cut my finger and I hurt my back as I live by myself. No one could help me.

I have nightmares. I have never coped. I have very painful PMS. I have extra glands growing so I need surgery. I have scar tissues. That’s why my vagina muscles hurt. I will live with this for the rest of my life. I will never cope but one thing for sure I will never stop voicing out against FGM.

One day I will reach the World Court and criminalize globally FGM. I swear I am going to reach there. I am now building a very big network of very committed people. I aspire even to be a human rights movie documentary producer. I am going to get words out there and catch the attention of all kinds of good people. I will kick FGM ass out of this planet. And that makes me smile.

FP: I am sorry that I asked you to talk about this horrible monstrosity that was committed against you. Thank you for sharing it with us. I speak on behalf of Fronpagemag.com to say that our heart is with you and all the victims. We feel your pain and stand beside you in this battle to stop this violence against little girls and women.

You have suffered some persecution and terrible ordeals because of your fight against FGM while you were in Africa. Tell us what happened to you.

Mashua: First I was rejected by my own society, relatives and friends because of my strong uncompromised belief that women are human too and that no one should take a razor, knife or sharp glass to cut off our clitoris.

No man owns a woman and no one has the right to beat or hit a woman. I have watched my mom suffer at the hands of men and I had enough and began my rebellion by not obeying what men wanted from me and I knew then I have begun a war.

As young as 6 years old I would open my mouth and shout to the top of my voice in a gathering to speak my mind out. Of course I would get beatings but I grew immune. I could not cry anymore from the beatings but I cry out when my friends and relatives undergo FGM.

My fight against FGM has landed me in jail as a protester. I have suffered beatings, rejection, sexual abuse, separation from my babies. I have been tortured physically, sexually and emotionally. I have physical scars all over my body. Up to this time there are times my mind goes back and it’s like a horror movie. I suffered a great deal but I thank God almighty for America.

FP: What efforts are you now making to stop FGM? What resistance are you confronting?

Mashua: Since the day I stepped foot in the United States, I have been leading a fight against FGM. I have received help from my attorneys Roy Petty and Daniel Stewart, Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson and many organizations, such as the Center for Survivors of Torture and Human rights Initiatives.

Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson held my hand and stood by me. Annually I am a guest speaker to her World of Peace Women Conference. She even introduced me to President Obama back in 2007. He recognized my efforts on human rights issues and said he was proud of me in a letter he wrote to me.

The Congresswoman is a great friend. She helps me in many big ways that you cannot imagine and they are very personal. She went ahead and introduced me to my adopted brother J. Kendel Johnson, who has always been there for me, even in my hospital bed during my reconstructive surgery. He is an angel.

Parkland hospital surgeons saved my life and reduced my pain and body struggle by 60%. Many individuals groups supported me and still support me with my campaign here in the United States.

I began my campaign officially in 1999 in Kenya by holding demonstrations, speaking in seminars, radio and television programmes and in other East and Central Africans countries. I have currently launched a world wide campaign to stop FGM in Europe.  It’s not always been easy. First, resistance from my own people, then resistance from traditional mutilators who say that I am trying to destroy their only means of income.

FP: How about the Left? They pretend they are for human rights?

Mashua: Leftists pay lip service to women’s rights, but they are full of empty words. They derive fame and recognition from the pain and suffering of women. They only talk and travel just to show off; they do nothing to help or join in the fight against FGM.

FP: Expand for us on why leftist feminists and the Left in general abandons the girls who are the victims of FGM, especially those under Islam? They simply cannot bring themselves to criticize adversarial cultures and religions right?

Mashua: It’s simple: they don’t care about the harmful cultures. All they care about is opening their mouth or scribbling some words online or on paper to act as if they care and so far they have scooped several Grammies for best actors.

They bow down and worship the women haters to achieve favors and recognition. It’s high time we smoke these hypocrites out. I cannot stand them anymore I even don’t want their money to support my campaign because it’s blood money and evil-haunted money.

I would rather crawl and beg in the streets to sustain my campaign instead of working with such people.

The leading member of the Women Development Organization in Kenya, the vice chair, said this about FGM: “Unlike other gender issues, such as access to education, FGM is viewed as cultural practice, which, if threatened, endangers the cohesion of an entire community.” Her name is Rukia Subow and she is a supporter of the mutilators and of mutilation. She is the vice chair of Maendeleo ya Wanawake Organization–or MYWO–a leading Kenyan women’s rights group based in Nairobi. She writes: “FGM is considered most significant rite of passage to adulthood, enhancing tribal cohesion, providing girls with important recognition from peers.”

This is an organisation that is funded and works with the leftists in the West. I went to court to sue this organisation and its leadership with other 10 women and we lost and ended up in jail. We were beaten up and threatened just because we wanted them to womanup.

Another example is Ricken Patel of AVAAZ who grew up in Kenya. He told me that FGM is not an important issue and cannot beat climate change and his organisation will not help us to protect girls from FGM. Believe me, religion is a playing card here because this pretender doesn’t want to step on the toes of religion leaders and haters of women. Then a few days later he put a cause on Facebook that he cares about sex slavery. I told him these girls run away from their home to escape the crude culture of mutilation and child brides and end up in the streets where they are captured by educated heartless people for sex slavery and it’s so painful because it happened to someone very dear to me. She disappeared for years. She was only 11

In the Washington Post, Secretary Clinton wrote a column “Fighting Modern Slavery” lamenting worldwide sex trafficking. The root causes of sex trafficking are poverty, illiteracy, and powerlessness. Gender inequality is the basis for all three. I am hoping to represent the Department of State in a two week conference next year in Sierra Leone.

FP: You come from a tribe that is made of up Christians, and yet there was FGM. This is strange as Christianity would be completely against this kind of thing. It is in Islam where this is most occurring and Islamic theology sanctions it. Tell us also about your experience with Islam and Muslims in terms of FGM today.

Mashua: Yes my tribe is Christian and also full of traditional believers. I don’t know why they practice it because there is no single Bible verse that says to mutilate women. As I said earlier, it’s a way of controlling women. It has nothing to do with Christianity and they do not point to Christianity. They carried this tradition from Egypt in 16 AD (days of Pharoh). As Nilots, we immigrated to East Africa.

My experience with Islam on FGM is very sad. As you correctly point out, a majority of people who practice FGM on women are of the Islamic faith and in the Muslim countries that I have visited their women and children have encountered the worst form of it, and many reconstructive surgeons can testify to this. It is a form of control and manipulation in the name of religion.

The good news is that there many Muslims who are rising to end any form of torture against women.

FP: That is great but the problem is that Muslims point to traditional Islamic teachings that sanction FGM. This is the way they keep it in placed. That is why when Egypt, for example, banned FGM in 1996, an Egyptian court overturned the ban in July 1997 after Islamic clerics went on a rampage to bring it back, pointing to Islamic teachings and ideology. Islamic tradition, for instance, records the Prophet Muhammad emphasizing that circumcising girls is “a preservation of honor for women.” A legal manual endorsed by Al-Azhar University of Cairo, which is the oldest and most prestigious university in the Islamic world, states that circumcision is obligatory for both boys and girls.

The sexual mutilation of girls is in the interests of those who control the structure of Islamic gender apartheid. Keeping FGM legitimized and institutionalized is one of the most effective means that Islamic gender apartheid keeps women subjugated and caged.

Yes, let’s hope that Muslim reformers can be empowered to fight FGM, but in order to do so they have to confront the misogyny and demonization of female sexuality that is embedded in Islamic theology.

So where does your battle stand now as we speak?

Mashua: We all read the harmful Muslim remarks on Beyonce after she said she was going to perform in Egypt:

“Beyonce, queen of the crusader whores and puppet of the Zionist entertainment complex, plans to bring her filthy sex act to the heart of the Muslim world with a concert in Cairo. Not since al-Malik al-Adil Nur ad-Din Abu al-Qasim Mahmud Ibn ‘Imad ad-Din Zangi fought the crusaders in Damascus has the Muslim world faced such a threat.”

“If Beyonce is allowed to go ahead with her insolent sex party, all of our daughters risk growing up whores. Soon, they will dare to show their ankles in a public setting, or sit in a room with a grown man who is not an immediate family member.”

“If Beyonce insists on traveling to Egypt, she must be met with fierce resistance. She should be arrested and made to have a female circumcision in order to correct her wicked urges. If she objects, she must be stoned to death. Only then can our daughters be safe from Western vice and debauchery.”

Wow, tell me what kind of religion it is that hates women so much to the core? It’s simple: women are not allowed to enjoy sex or laughter or just the gift of life because of these Islamic attitudes and teachings. Look what happened at the Fort Hood shooting. The authorities knew about Nidal Hasan’s jihadist views but they were afraid to report him because of political correctness. And the fear of not taking action cost us our blood and lives. Believe me there are so many of the major Hasans out there. It’s high time we call a spade a spade.

Five hundred thousand women are still dying in childbirth every year and the promise of universal access to reproductive health and family planning made at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt in 1994 has been more honored in the breach than in the implementation. A.majority of women’s deaths in these cases are caused by early women rights violations (i.e. FGM, child brides, etc.)

On Common Ground must expand the discussion to the entire planet. What we do here in this country has an effect on the entire world’s view of women, on their status, on their role in human affairs. America, we are the hope of the world. Let’s stand together and lets not be scared of the haters and leftists.

FP: Thank you Lucy Mashua. Final words?

Mashua: When the world takes care of women, women take care of the world. What does taking care of women mean? It means that people rejoice equally at the birth of a girl or a boy. Every single human being ever born has come from the womb of a woman. Women risk their very lives to ensure the propagation of the species.  If women lack health and education and choices in their lives, humanity suffers. If women disappear, humanity disappears. It is really that simple. So take care of women.

FP: Lucy Mashua, you are an inspiration to us all. We encourage all of our readers to help join the fight against FGM.

*

[To get the whole story on why the Left won't lift a finger against Female Genital Mutilation and Islamic Gender Apartheid, read Jamie Glazov’s new book, United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror.]