Gates of Vienna News Feed 7/15/2008

It’s not just the Archbishop of Canterbury…

• Dalai Lama Defends Islam
  
• Egypt Hits Back At Iran With Anti-Khomeini Movie
  
• Saudi Grand Mufti Raps Fatwas Against Writers
  
• Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank Posts Half-Year Profits
  
• Motoon Murder Plot Suspects to Remain in Jail
  
• Legislation Introduced in Congress to Account for American Children in Radical Islamic Madrassas in Pakistan
  
• Socialist School Planned for Borås

Thanks to Steen, Paul Green, Fjordman, TB, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Details are below the fold.
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Dalai Lama Defends Islam

The Dalai Lama said that “it’s totally wrong, unfair” to call Islam a violent religion.

The Tibetan spiritual leader, appearing Sunday at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, offered a defense of Islam in response to a question about the rise of violent religious fundamentalism. He added that he has made a point of reaching out to Muslims since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.


Egypt hits back at Iran with anti-Khomeini movie

In response to the Iranian documentary that glorifies the assassin of Egypt’s former president Anwar Sadat, Egypt will make a movie that portrays Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini as an “imam of blood,” AlArabiya.net has learned.

Mohamed Hassan Al-Alfi, a member of the ruling National Democratic Party and Editor-in-Chief of its mouthpiece Al-Watani Al-Youm, told Al Arabiya that he is in the process of writing the script for ‘Khomeini: The Imam of Blood,’ which will be directed by prominent Egyptian director Mohamed Fadel.

The movie, Alfi said, will spotlight Khomeini’s extremist ideas and how they threatened Egypt’s security during the first 10 years of current President Hosni Mubarak’s rule. It will also show how Khomeini’s ideologies were behind the assassination of Sadat.


Saudi grand mufti raps fatwas against writers

Saudi Arabia’s top Muslim jurist has taken a rare stance against radical colleagues who brand some writers as infidels, press reports said on Monday.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz al-Sheikh said in a lecture last week that clerics should be careful before rushing to denounce writers as apostates from Islam, a practice known as takfeer, which al Qaeda uses to condemn many Muslim rulers.

Sheikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak, a highly revered independent cleric, said in March that two newspaper columnists should be put to death if they did not renounce their “heretical articles” in public. He was supported by 20 other clerics.


Abu Dhabi Islamic bank posts half-year profits

Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) has released its financial results for the second quarter, confirming a record net profit of Dh520 million for the half-year. This figure represents an increase of 50.4 per cent compared to the same period in 2007.


Motoon murder plot suspects to remain in jail

The city court has determined that two Tunisian men charged with planning to kill Mohammed cartoonist Kurt Westergaard should remain in custody

Two Tunisian men who allegedly plotted to murder Mohammed cartoonist Kurt Westergaard are ‘a danger to national security’ according to the Copenhagen city court, which on Tuesday upheld their continued imprisonment until 12 August.


Legislation Introduced in Congress to Account for American Children in Radical Islamic Madrassas in Pakistan

Congress Responds to the Release of the “Karachi Kids” Documentary

Responding to the release of the film the “Karachi Kids”, U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) has introduced legislation seeking an accounting of how many American children in in radical Islamic madrassas in Pakistan. H.Res 1336 encourages “the United States Secretary of State to work with the government of Pakistan to secure the return to the United States of all American children being educated in madrassas in Pakistan.”

The legislation was introduced as a response to the release of the film the “Karachi Kids,” a documentary of American children in a Taliban-backed madrassa in Karachi, Pakistan. The former deputy director of counterterrorism at the FBI said the film also raised the “antennae of the FBI.”


Socialist school planned for Borås

The Social Democrat youth organization (SSU) is planning to open a new independent school in Borås. SSU intends to test the independent schools system.

SSU branch in Södra Älvsborg in western Sweden plans to submit its application on Thursday to the Board of Education (Skolverket).

“We think that if you can start an independent school with a religious profile then you should also be able to start a school with an ideological one,” said Anders Östberg of SSU Södra Älvsborg.