Hundreds of girls are bring forced by British schools to wear the Islamic veil in a move which has been heavily criticised by mainstream Muslims.

Islamic schools have introduced uniform policies which force girls to wear the burka or a full headscarf and veil known as the niqab.

Moderate followers of Islam said yesterday that enforcement of the veil was a “dangerous precedent” and that children attending such schools were being “brainwashed“.

A book about the publication of cartoons in Denmark that angered Muslims by showing images of the Prophet Muhammad will be released despite recent terror threats, the publisher said Wednesday.

“The book will come out as planned,” said Karsten Blauert, of Jyllands-Posten Editions.

The book, titled “The Tyranny of Silence,” is due out Thursday, five years to the day after the cartoons first appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

Our take: Good for them! People in the civilized world can not allow a bunch of barbarians, who claims to act in the name of their religion, to violate their freedom with threats of violence and other acts of terrorism.

The Norwegian police said Tuesday that three suspected militants [Islam-inspired terrorists] arrested in July had been planning an attack on a Danish newspaper whose publication of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad in 2005 ignited fury in much of the Muslim world the following year.The claimed link to the cartoons in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper underscored the enduring impact of the 12 drawings as a focal point of militant action. Earlier this month, Danish police said a Chechen boxer had been planning to send a letter bomb to the same newspaper when the explosives went off accidentally at a hotel in Copenhagen.While the two cases were not believed to be directly linked, they “illustrate that there is a priority among militant Islamists to carry out acts of terror against Denmark and symbols connected” to the drawings, The Associated Press quoted Jakob Scharf, the head of Denmark police intelligence service, as saying.In the interest of free speech — and in protest against Muslim hate criminals who believe the best way to defend their religion is to engage in acts of terrorism — here are the cartoons in question:

It’s time to fight back against death threats by Islamic extremists, say Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Daniel Huff.

A federal law is needed to cover threats against free-speech rights. Across media and geographies, Islamic extremists are increasingly using intimidation to stifle free expression.

Sensible ideas, oh so necessary to deal with the religious nuts who believe that murder, violence and terrorism is the best way to defend Islam.

France has stepped up its vigilance against terror threats, a top official announced Monday amid reports of various new threats, including one against the Paris transport network.

In the last few days, there has been a false bomb alert at the Eiffel Tower and five French workers and two African colleagues have been kidnapped in Niger, part of the African turf of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Last week, the Senate voted to ban burqa-style Islamic veils in France, a subject that has prompted warnings by al-Qaeda‘s Maghreb group.

Here’s what you need to know about Islam and Terrorism.

Traditional boxers in a Malaysian state ruled by a conservative Islamic party have been ordered to ditch their skimpy shorts and good-luck talismans, in accordance with religious rules.

Women in Kelantan have previously been targeted with various campaigns discouraging them from wearing sexy outfits, lipstick or high heels, but it is the first time that men have been told to cover up.

“We want them to cover their ‘aurat’,” Abdul Fattah said, referring to Islamic rules which in Malaysia require men to cover the area between their navel and knees. Women must cover their entire body except the face and hands.

Islam is the official religion of Malaysia, where more than 60 percent of its 28 million population are Muslim Malays, living alongside ethnic Chinese and Indian communities.

Halal meat is being routinely served at some of Britain’s most popular sporting venues, pubs, schools and hospitals without the public’s knowledge, it has emerged.

All beef, chicken and lamb sold to fans at Wembley Stadium has been secretly prepared in accordance with strict Islamic law.

And hundreds of pubs and restaurants in Britain, as well as top racecourses, schools and hospitals, now only serve chicken that has been ritually slaughtered according to Sharia Law.

Under Muslim laws, animals are slaughtered by having their throat slit to allow all the blood to drain out. Animals often die a slow painful death because religious slaughter houses are exempt from laws that require animals to be stunned before killing.

Last night there were growing concerns that members of public were unwittingly supporting a cruel form of butchery.

Although most of Macedonia’s ethnic Albanian minority are Muslims, they have generally been secular.

But experts are now seeing an increasing radicalization in pockets of the country’s Islamic community, particularly after armed groups from the ethnic Albanian minority, which forms a quarter of the population of 2.1 million, fought a brief war against Macedonian government forces in 2001.

The French parliament passed a law Tuesday prohibiting wearing a full-face veil in public, meaning a ban will come into force early next year if it is not overturned by senior judges.

The Senate passed the bill by 246 votes to one. The bill already cleared the lower house in July, and will now be reviewed by the Constitutional Council, which has a month to confirm its legality.

The Vatican raised the possibility Sunday of using behind-the-scenes diplomacy to try to save the life of an Iranian widow sentenced to be stoned for adultery.

In its first public statement on the case, which has attracted worldwide attention, the Vatican decried stoning as a particularly brutal form of capital punishment.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said the Catholic church opposes the death penalty in general.

It is unclear what chances any Vatican bid would have to persuade the Muslim nation to spare the woman’s life. Brazil, which has friendly relations with Iran, was rebuffed when it offered her asylum.

Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani was convicted in 2006 of adultery. In July, Iranian authorities said they would not carry out the stoning sentence for the time being, but the mother of two could still face execution by hanging for adultery and other offenses.

Our view: the death penalty is a barbaric form of punishment that should be rejected by all civilized nations — as should the Shariah. Islamic law is incompatible with Western civilization.

A Muslim Frenchman cited by officials as a reason behind a crackdown on polygamy has been charged with aggravated rape, the state prosecutor said Sunday.Xavier Ronsin said Lies Hebbadj, who lives in the Nantes region of western France, was charged with aggravated rape based on a complaint from a former companion.

Indonesian police have arrested the controversial Muslim preacher Abu Bakir Bashir on terror charges.

Officials said they had proof he was linked a training camp recently discovered in Aceh, West Sumatra.

Another mob attack on Christian worshipers in Bekasi on Sunday has led to renewed calls for police and national leaders to crack down on the apparently swelling tide of religious violence.

About 20 members of the Batak Christian Protestant Church in Pondok Timur Indah were chased and beaten with sticks by a mob believed linked to the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) after they tried to conduct Sunday services at a field in Ciketing, Bekasi.

Muslims nationwide have condemned the hard-line Islamic organization for an attack on a church group on Sunday, saying the incident had tarnished the image of Islam.

Around 300 Muslim protestors and 300 police officers surrounded members of the Batak Christian Protestant Church (Huria Kristen Batak Protestan or HKBP) on Sunday (Aug. 1) as they worshiped in an open field in Ciketing, Bekasi, local sources said.

“There were many police on guard, but the attackers were able to get very close to the congregation,” Theophilus Bela, president of the Jakarta Christian Communication Forum, said in a statement to international government and advocacy groups. “We are afraid that they will attack the church again next Sunday.”

Two Christian women in Bangladesh’s northern district of Jamalpur said village officials extorted relatively large sums of money from them – and severely beat the husband of one – for proclaiming Christ to Muslims.

Johura Begum, 42, of Pingna village said a member of the local union council, an area government representative and the father of a police officer threatened to harm her grown daughters if her family did not pay them 20,000 taka (US$283).

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