'We Reminded This Woman That One Should Not Bathe All Dressed...

Oh, those mean old French, just begging for scorn from the Intolerance Police.

A Muslim woman who tried to go swimming in a head-to-toe "burquini" has been banned from her local pool in the latest tussle between religious practices and secular authority in France.

Officials on Wednesday insisted they banned the woman's use of the Islam-friendly swimsuit because of France's unusually strict hygiene standards in pools — not because of official hostility to wearing overtly Muslim garb.

Under the policy, swimmers are prevented from wearing any street-compatible or baggy clothing, such as Bermuda shorts, in favor of figure-hugging suits.

The woman, a 35-year-old convert to Islam identified only as Carole, complained of religious discrimination after trying to go swimming in her burquini in the Paris suburb of Emerainville.

She was quoted as telling the daily Le Parisien newspaper that she had bought the burquini after deciding "it would allow me the pleasure of bathing without showing too much of myself, as Islam recommends."

"For me this is nothing but segregation," she added.

The issue of religious attire is a hot topic in France, where head-to-toe burqas or other full-body coverings worn by Muslim fundamentalists are in official disfavor.

French lawmakers recently proposed a ban on the burqa and other voluminous Muslim attire. President Nicolas Sarkozy backs the move, saying such clothing makes women prisoners.

But Daniel Guillaume, a regional official in charge of swimming pools, said Carole's poolside rebuff had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with public health standards.

He said swimmers throughout France must wear special clothes to the pool, whereas a burquini could be worn all day long, collecting everything from food spills to sweat along the way.

"These clothes are used in public, so they can contain molecules, viruses, et cetera, which will go in the water and could be transmitted to other bathers," Guillaume said in a telephone interview.

"We reminded this woman that one should not bathe all dressed, just as we would tell someone who is a nudist not to bathe all naked," he said.

Such common sense, usually on rare display.

Props to the French for this brief respite of sanity.

Probing the 'Roots' of Terror: Start With Islam and Go From There

Here we go, searching for the root causes of terrorism.

To think, people will take this clown seriously.

Underlining that terrorism has no religion, a Muslim leader Wednesday argued for a more in-depth investigation into the reasons that turn an ordinary man into a terrorist.

'Security agencies declare so and so individual as terrorist but we never come to know their basic reasons that make them resort to violence, if its true,' Sirajuddin Qureshi, president of the India Islamic Cultural Centre (IIIC) here, told reporters.

He said a person usually turned to terrorism due to a certain sense of injustice and deprivation. 'Either he has seen his mother or sister being raped; brother or father being killed, or he has been kept out of society,' Qureshi said.

Such a person has revenge on top of his mind and looks at everyone as an enemy, he said, stressing: 'We need to know why they become terrorists.

Uh, maybe a twisted interpretation of the Koran?

We read in media that innocent Muslims are being picked up after a terrorist attack. This body should inquire into these cases,' Qureshi said, deploring that most people caught up in the security net usually turn out to be innocent.

Religion of Peace, Forced Marriage and Gang Rape

Naturally, we'll be accused of intolerance and not respecting diversity for daring to question the insanity this poor girl was forced through.

Seriously, the more you examine it, it appears Islam is a mental illness, a disease for which there is no cure.

What kind of primordial savages resort to this?

A GIRL of 15 was tricked into a "telephone marriage" ceremony to a Sheffield man with a mental age of five in a ceremony recognised by sharia (Islamic law).

When the girl arrived from Pakistan expecting to meet the handsome man she had been shown in a photograph, she found that he was 40 years old, unemployed and disabled.

To make matters worse, her mother-in-law decided to exploit her attractive looks by forcing her into prostitution.

The family invited men to the family home to rape her before she managed to escape to the police by bolting through the front door. She was taken into care and now lives in a refuge.

The case is highlighted in a report by the Centre for Social Cohesion, which has found that policemen, councillors and taxi drivers are turning a blind eye or even conniving in enforcing the Asian community's strict "moral code" on young women.

Asian community? Please, I don't see the Japanese doing this stuff. Call them what they are: Muslims.

The girl's marriage last April was not recognised by the Home Office but was approved by the Islamic Sharia Council in Britain. She is typical of the runaway brides at risk of an "honour killing". According to official figures, 10 to 12 women are murdered in Britain in honour killings each year, but the government has been warned by MPs that this is a serious underestimate. Police often record the deaths as cases of domestic violence, while other girls are driven to suicide or taken away to their family's country of origin and never seen again. Many Asian parents would rather resort to violence against their children than see their reputation tarnished by the perceived dishonour of allowing them to become "westernised".

The report, Crimes of the Community, claims the problem is no longer an issue of first-generation migrants importing attitudes from "back home" but is "indigenous and self-perpetuating" because it is sustained by third and fourth-generation immigrants.

The study reveals the case of Saamiya, a 16-year-old girl from Birmingham, whose parents were so angry when they discovered she had a boyfriend that they flew her to Pakistan and told her they had arranged a marriage two hours before the ceremony.

"During the Islamic ceremony my dad was standing behind me with one hand on my shoulder and with his other hand he had a gun which was pointed at my back so that I didn't say 'no'," Saamiya said.

"To everyone else it looked natural — he was just standing there stroking my shoulder — but just before he had told me that he would shoot me if I didn't go through with it."

Sick stuff.

Sick people.

Read the rest.

H/T: Ashamed to be Dutch

AP Frets Over Al-Jazeera Inmate at Club Gitmo

He may have been "working" for Al-Jazeera when he was picked up in Pakistan, but there's a reason this guy is residing at Club Gitmo.

Still, the Associated Press shows concern for Sami al-Hajj, who purportedly has been on a hunger strike.

Gitmo Chief: Al - Jazeera Detainee Is Fine

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- The commander of detention operations at Guantanamo Bay denied reports that the physical and mental health of a detained Al-Jazeera cameraman is deteriorating.

A defense attorney earlier this week said Sami al-Hajj, one of the highest-profile detainees at the U.S. naval base in southeastern Cuba, has lost 40 pounds since late last year and developed intestinal problems. Al-Hajj has been on hunger strike, lawyer Clive Stafford Smith said.

But in an e-mail sent late Friday to The Associated Press, U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby said al-Hajj is actually 20 pounds heavier than when he arrived at the U.S. military prison in June 2002.

''Contrary to allegations, there have been no indications that he developed intestinal problems and no indications that his mental health has recently deteriorated,'' Buzby said.

Buzby insisted al-Hajj is currently at ''103 percent of his ideal body weight'' and is seen by medical personnel daily at Guantanamo Bay, where the U.S. holds about 355 men on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

Of course, al-Hajj has a history with terror groups and charities going back to the 1990's and doesn't appear to be some hapless innocent who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Al-Hajj was detained by Pakistani forces in December 2001 while attempting to cross the border into Afghanistan to cover the U.S.-led offensive against the Taliban. He was turned over to U.S. forces and taken six months later to Guantanamo.

The U.S. military says that in the 1990s, al-Hajj was an executive assistant at a Qatar-based drink company that provided support to Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Chechnya. The U.S. says he also traveled to Azerbaijan to carry money on behalf of his employer to the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a now defunct charity that authorities say funded militant groups.

It was also during this period that he allegedly ''met'' Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, a senior lieutenant to Osama bin Laden who was arrested in Germany in 1998 and extradited to the United States.

I don't quite understand the use of quotes around the word met.