“We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized,” said 2016 Republican presidential candidate and U.S. Senator from Texas Ted Cruz in a statement last week following the deadly March 22 coordinated terror attacks in Brussels.
“For years, the West has tried to deny this enemy exists out of a combination of political correctness and fear. We can no longer afford either. Our European allies are now seeing what comes of a toxic mix of migrants who have been infiltrated by terrorists and isolated, radical Muslim neighborhoods,” continued Sen. Cruz’s statement according to CNN.
Time notes that New York City Police Department deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism John Miller recently responded to Cruz’s comments on CBS’ Face the Nation, saying, “When you have people campaigning through fear and using that as leverage, and then giving advice to police to be the cudgel of that fear, that’s not the direction American policing should be taking in a democracy. We’re the proudest country on the planet and that’s because we have been a leader on freedom and human rights and everything else.”
Miller added, “I think in our history if there are moments of shame it would be Japanese internment, the Red Scare and McCarthyism, torture after 9/11 — these are things that on reflection, through history, the American people have rejected.”
Rival Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called Cruz’s proposal a “good idea.”
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) disagreed with Cruz’s plan and said according to CBS News, “To send inflammatory messages could actually have an unintended consequence.”
“In Europe it’s very segregated, and you have the diasporas in Belgium that I saw. And they’re being radicalized because they’re not assimilated with the culture. I don’t think we have that same situation in the United States,” said McCaul.
San Bernardino- As we learn more about the man and woman responsible for the San Bernardino mass shooting, Truth in Media has learned that authorities believe the main suspect Syed Farook had been recently radicalized. Though authorities are not saying how that may have happened or perhaps more importantly, why.
As we reported, sources say Syed Farook was killed after he and his wife Tashfeen Malik got into a shootout with police several hours after the mass shooting that killed 14 and left 21 people injured took place.
We are also learning more about Farook who authorities say was born here in the United States to a Pakistani family. His wife reportedly had a Pakistani passport and came to the U.S. last year on a fiancee Visa.
According to the San Bernardino Sheriff the couple’s home was an ammunition stockpile. Police say they found 12 pipe bombs, 3,000 rounds of bullets and tools to used to make explosives.
Inside the Inland Region Center where the shooting took place, the couple reportedly fired between 65 and 75 rounds. Police also say they found more than 1,600 bullets inside the couple’s car.
At a news conference late Wednesday night held by CAIR, the brother-in-law of Syed Farook said that he is in shock at reports that Farook was among those responsible for the shooting.
WASHINGTON—February 15, 2015 – When Naghmeh Abedini married her husband Saeed in Iran, she never dreamed she would raise their future children as a single mother in Boise, Idaho, while her husband languished for years in an Iranian prison.
A native of Iran, Naghmeh and her family left when she was nine years old and spent a year in California before relocating to Boise. Her father was educated in the United States and obtained his master’s degree at Oregon State University prior to taking his family out of Iran. “He had a green card,” says Naghmeh, “We were not refugees.”
The real reason they left Iran, however, was due to the radicalization of their Muslim faith in the school system. “My brother was being brainwashed in elementary school,” says Naghmeh, “They started war recruiting for Jihad when he was eight years old.” Students were told that if they died for the cause they would “get to meet God.” They were forced to run through active mine fields as a school exercise. The land mines would occasionally detonate. “The government arrested any parents who complained,” says Naghmeh, “So our parents quietly packed up and left.”
Her parents were unhappy with the school system in California, also, and hoped a move to a smaller city would help preserve their culture and Muslim faith. Within ten years in Boise, however, both of Naghmeh’s parents, along with herself, her brother, and a sister had converted to Christianity.
In 2001, Naghmeh spent a year in Iran. Just before she returned to Boise, her cousin invited her to a government-approved Christian church service. She heard Saeed Abedini speak and was intrigued by his passion, so she introduced herself and asked him if he would watch out for her cousins. Later, she learned that Saeed was a pastor and a leader of the growing house church movement. He was also a former Muslim who once desired to kill Christians, but he converted in 2000. When she returned to Iran in 2003 for another visit, the sparks flew between them. He proposed marriage in June of that year, and they were married in Iran the following June in a government-sanctioned Christian church.
The Abedini’s life together in Iran was cut short when the country experienced a regime change in 2005 and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rose to power. Known for his religious hardline stances, Ahmadinejad was a main figure in the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran party, usually shortened to Abadgaran and widely regarded as the political front for the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution (Revolutionary Guards.) The latter group was designated as a terrorist organization by the United States in 2007.
After Ahmadinejad was elected, the church the Abedinis married in was forced to close, as were other Christian churches in Iran, despite current law allowing the peaceful gathering of religious minorities. Overnight, Christians were seemingly not welcome or tolerated in the country, so the couple moved together to Boise. Their daughter Rebekka was born in 2006 and their son Jacob arrived in 2008, the same year Saeed became an ordained minister through the American Evangelistic Association.
In 2009, the entire family decided to visit Iran together and see Saeed’s family, as it had been four years since he had seen his parents who had yet to meet their grandchildren. When the Boise-based Abedini family arrived at the airport to fly home to Idaho, Saeed was arrested by Iranian intelligence police. “Please leave Iran,” Saeed told his wife and children, “It will make it easier on me.”
The Abedinis are American citizens. Saeed, age 35, has not seen his children or his wife since June 2012.
Saeed was placed on house arrest for a month in his parents’ home while investigators determined whether or not he was still establishing Christian church groups. Before he was released, the police advised him to focus on humanitarian efforts—a move that inspired Saeed to use his grandfather’s land and an existing building to open an orphanage in the Iranian city of Rasht.
Back in Idaho, Saeed began a three-year process riddled with paperwork hurdles and setbacks in an attempt to open the orphanage he envisioned. He visited Iran ten more times in an effort to complete the approval process for the orphanage. Naghmeh, Rebekah, and Jacob joined him in October 2011, as the Abedinis were convinced that the orphanage was close to being opened. “We really wanted our kids to be able to meet the orphans,” Naghmeh recalls. However, by February 2012, the approval was still pending. The Abedinis returned to Boise once more. Four months later, Saeed traveled to Iran to finish the orphanage once and for all. “That was the last time I saw him,” says Naghmeh.
He was due to return to Boise on July 29. However, on July 27, Saeed was arrested on a bus in Turkey after looking at land in Georgia. He was placed under house arrest once again. The Iranian government seized his U.S. Passport and he was questioned for months about his activities, without being charged with a crime.
He thought he would be able to resolve his detainment with one last interrogation, scheduled for September 26 at a location to be determined by a 9:00 a.m. phone call that same day. However, Revolutionary Guards forces raided his parents’ house in Tehran at 6:00 a.m. and took Saeed to an unknown location. Four days later, it was revealed that he was in solitary confinement at the notorious Evin Prison. Saeed was accused of “corrupting a whole generation against Islam,” a reference to his pre-Revolution house church activities.
Saeed was charged with undermining the national security of Iran. At his trial on January 21, 2013, Saeed and his attorney were only given one day to make their defense. He was convicted by Judge Pir-Abassi of Branch 26 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court, and sentenced a week later to eight years in prison. Revolutionary Court trials are not public, there is no jury, and a single judge decides the cases—which are final and not eligible for appeal. Details about court proceedings are revealed at the sole discretion of the court. The government says it will release Saeed if he converts back to Islam, but he refuses.
The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) is representing Naghmeh and her children. “This is a real travesty—a mockery of justice,” said ACLJ’s Executive Director Jordan Sekulow. “From the very beginning, Iranian authorities have lied about all aspects of this case, even releasing rumors of his expected release. Iran has not only abused its own laws, it has trampled on the fundamentals of human rights.”
Naghmeh Abedini has received tremendous support from both Rand Paul and Ted Cruz as she seeks her husband’s release from a dangerous Iranian prison.
Saeed Abedini has been reportedly beaten and tortured during his incarceration and is now housed in the Rajaei Shahr prison in Karaj, his sudden move a possible indication of defiance toward President Hassan Rouhani by the Revolutionary Guard. Saeed is denied any electronic or voice communications with the outside world, but his parents visit him almost weekly, bring him letters from home, and send his letters out—including one to President Obama just before this year’s National Prayer Breakfast.
Naghmeh is hopeful due to extensive support from Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, as well as remarks made by President Obama, that her husband’s release will be secured during upcoming negotiations with Iran. “We’re in a good place,” she says, “If Iran wants to make a deal, I want to make sure Saeed is not left behind.”
Washington D.C.- The family of three Muslim college students shot “execution style” over a parking dispute says that their loved ones were killed because of their religion.
All three of the victims, Deah Barakat, 23, Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, and Razan Abu-Salha, 19, were Muslim. The victims, a newlywed couple and the bride’s younger sister, were shot in the head.
The man who turned himself in for the shootings, 46-year-old Craig Stephen Hicks, has been charged with murder. Hicks claims that he killed all three students over an ongoing dispute regarding parking.
Meanwhile the community around University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has shown a powerful outpouring of support for the family. More than 2,000 people turned out for the vigil on the campus.
A look at the thousands who have gathered in the Pit to honor Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha & Razan Abu-Salha. pic.twitter.com/1waMMnzs2R
The suspect, Craig Hicks was a self-proclaimed atheist and his Facebook page contains various anti-Muslim and anti-Christian posts.
In the video above Ben Swann speaks with family spokesperson Linda Sarsour who says that the family of the victims has plenty of reason to believe that these three murders were motivated by hate.
On Sunday, more than 1.2 million people rallied in Paris to participate in the largest demonstration in French history.
This Monday, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart blasted President Obama and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for refusing to attend a unity rally in Paris, France, which was held to repudiate Muslim extremism.
While Holder was in Paris, he did not attend the rally.
“What the f***?” says Stewart. “Eric Holder, you were in France! In Paris! At the time of the march and were like, ‘eh’?”
Good news: There’s no need to take nude selfies for your significant other anymore. Bad news: The NSA has got you covered! If you thought you were safe watching your computer screen in private– think again.
Yes, it’s really getting that creepy. Edward Snowden recently released another report on the NSA’s insatiable appetite for spying. According to documents exclusively obtained by the Huffington Post, the National Security Agency is gathering data on perspective radicalizers‘ pornography habits. The controversial agency is using the data to try and destroy such individuals’ credibility.
According to the report, “The document, provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, identifies six targets, all Muslims, as “exemplars” of how “personal vulnerabilities” can be learned through electronic surveillance, and then exploited to undermine a target’s credibility, reputation and authority.”
Yes, that means exactly what it sounds like. The federal government will leak, or publicly release information on your pornography habits if you cross them.
According to Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), “Wherever you are, the NSA’s databases store information about your political views, your medical history, your intimate relationships and your activities online,” he added. “The NSA says this personal information won’t be abused, but these documents show that the NSA probably defines ‘abuse’ very narrowly.”
Perhaps most of us are okay with the NSA monitoring every move of a potential terrorist. However, the issue strikes a nerve much closer to home when we recall that the NSA has been spying on American ally, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, average American citizens, and has even broken an anti-spying pact with Great Britain to spy on British citizens.
Truth be told, the NSA knows no bounds and does not operate under the rule of law. We already know that the NSA is collecting essentially every email we send to one another. Even worse, the federal government has labeled right-wing political activists and war veterans as possible terrorists.
Brazenly, when confronted about the “right-wing terrorism” report, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano made no apologies and stood by the report.
I guess the only thing left to say is– Enjoy the show mates.
There is a growing movement called #NullifyNSA that seeks to end NSA spying. Click HERE to learn more.
