Gates of Vienna News Feed 7/18/2008

• Emadeddin Muntasser of Care International Gets One Year Jail Sentence
  
• Iraqi Refugees Are Choosing An Uncertain Life in Iraq Over Unemployment in Denmark
  
• Mosques Increasingly Not Welcome in Europe
  
• Egypt: Demographic Alert, 217 Babies Per Hour Are Born
  
• Protecting Freedom of Speech on the Net
  
• NATO: Albania, Croatia Sign Protocol for Entry in 2009
  
• Egypt: Drugs Trade Estimated at USD 3.8 Billion
  
• Spain: Largest Prison Population in Europe
  
• Algeria-Germany: Merkel Skips Visit to Mosque, Media
  
• Salafi Jihadists in Gaza: ‘Compared to Us, Hamas Is Islamism Lite’

Thanks to Insubria, C. Cantoni, Steen, TB, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Details are below the fold.
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Emadeddin Muntasser of Care International gets one year jail sentence

From Miss Kelly:

Last month, it looked like Judge Dennis Saylor IV was going to go easy on Care International’s former president Emadeddin Muntasser, but yesterday he sentenced Muntasser to one year in jail and a 10K fine, double the federal sentencing guideline for making false statements to a federal agent. A welcome outcome after Saylor overturned the jury’s guilty verdict last month and dropped a number of charges against Care’s officers. Lee Hammel of the Worcester Telegram did a very good job covering this trial. The whole trial showed how clumsy, costly and ineffective civilian court trials are for terrorism cases. Judge Saylor kept saying the case wasn’t about terrorism, but even he acknowledged that it was.

Worcester Telegram article

My take on it

Iraqi refugees are choosing an uncertain life in Iraq over unemployment in Denmark

Many of the 100 Iraqi interpreters and aid workers granted asylum in Denmark last year are choosing to return to Iraq.

The Iraqis, who had worked for the Danish military in Iraq, arrived in Denmark with their families last July when the army withdrew its troops. The government granted them asylum for fear they could face reprisals from insurgent groups for working with coalition forces.

But after a year in Denmark only a handful of the interpreters, 13 of whom are engineers, have found work, reports public broadcaster DR.

Companies are currently experiencing a lack of qualified labour, including engineers, and it was believed that they would find work quickly.

But despite being highly qualified and speaking fluent English, only one of the Iraqi engineers has found a job, according to the National Association of Engineers (IDA).

‘We’ve found that companies just don’t have the capacity to integrate the Iraqis into their workplace,’ said Treine Schou Tinborg, IDA’s vice president. ‘They have good education backgrounds and speak perfect English, but we can’t find them jobs.’

She said that instead of taking a job out of their field, many of the 100 interpreters are choosing to return home.


Mosques increasingly not welcome in Europe

Europeans are increasingly lashing out at the construction of mosques in their cities as terrorism fears and continued immigration feed anti-Muslim sentiment across the continent.

The latest dispute is in Switzerland, which is planning a nationwide referendum to ban minarets on mosques. This month, Italy’s interior minister vowed to close a controversial mosque in Milan.


EGYPT: DEMOGRAPHIC ALERT, 217 BABIES PER HOUR ARE BORN

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, JULY 17 — Every hour in Egypt 217 babies are born, for a total of almost 2 million newborns every year (1,854,048, precisely). This is the data at the basis of a demographic alert launched by the secretary general of the Peoplés National Council (NPC), General Mohamed Khalifa, according to whom with this birth rate in 2058 the Egyptian population will reach almost 173 million. The forecast is dramatic when compared to the liveable surface of the country, in which out of some 1.0 million sq km (997,739 sq km, precisely), only 45,000 are habitable (less than 5.0%), along the Nile and in the river delta.


Rotterdam Investigates Turkish Organisations

ROTTERDAM, 18/07/08 — - Rotterdam is investigating whether Turkish organisations in the city have links with the controversial Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen. The city council adopted a motion yesterday ordering the council executive to do so.

The city council wants the money flows to be investigated that go to Turkish boarding schools, Dialoog Academie, Stichting Islam en Dialoog, Stichting Hogiaf, Time Media Groep and Cosmicus College. These Turkish institutions, of which most receive subsidies, behave as if they consider integration important, but are actually targeting an Islamic state in the Netherlands, TV programme NOVA recently reported.


Protecting freedom of speech on the Net

Europe should join in the struggle against censorship on the Internet. And political dissidents who use the Internet to promote their cause should be protected from authoritarian regimes. A group of MEPs feels we should follow the US and establish guidelines for the Net.

More and more countries are limiting their citizens’ freedom of speech online. Moreover, western businesses are regularly put under pressure to provide information about dissidents who use the Internet as a tool for spreading information. Not a good development says Jules Maaten (pictured), Dutch MEP for the Conservative VVD party:


IMMIGRATION: SPAIN TO LAUNCH OFFENSIVE ON AFRICAN COASTS

(By Paola Del Vecchio) (ANSAmed) — MADRID, JULY 17 — Spain spares no efforts in the offensive against illegal immigration, launched directly in the African countries origin of migratory flows. The government led by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero donated three surveillance aircraft C-212 to Mauritania, Senegal and Cape Verde, to patrol along the coasts in a bid to combat illegal immigration. The donation adds to that of eight patrol boats, off-roads and field materials, given to Mauritania and Senegal in the past years, El Pais reported today.


NATO: ALBANIA, CROATIA SIGN PROTOCOL FOR ENTRY IN 2009

(ANSAmed)- BRUSSELS, JULY 9 — Albania and Croatia signed today at an official ceremony in Brussels the protocols for joining NATO, an agreement that will allow them to become part of the Atlantic Alliance next year. Today’s signing is the formal act that ratifies the decision taken at the NATO summit in Bucharest last April which gave green light to the accession of the two Balkan countries. The accession process for Albania and Croatia will be completed at the NATO summit in April 2009. (ANSAmed).


SERBIA-ISRAEL: PLAZA CENTERS TO BUILD HOTEL IN BELGRADE

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, JULY 8 — Israeli company Plaza Centers has announced that it will build the Belgrade Plaza five-star hotel, worth 150 million euro, at the site of the former Internal Affairs Ministry in Belgradés Knez Milos Street, reports BETA news agency. The company is currently waiting to receive construction permits for the hotel from the city government, and will begin the realization of the project immediately. The hotel will be a vast 100,000 square meters, and will have a conference center, deluxe spa, a glass-walled restaurant with a view of Belgrade, a shopping center and business tower, as well as 2,000 parking spots.


EGYPT: DRUGS TRADE ESTIMATED AT USD 3.8 BILLION

(ANSAmed), CAIRO JULY 17 — An Egyptian governemental agency warned that the market of drugs and narcotics across the nation could extend to uncontrolled rates, stressing that this illegal trade damages the national economy. “Drugs’ trade in Egypt amounted to LE18,2 billion (USD 3,8 billion) last year, about 2,5 per cent of the national income”. That’s an alarming, unprecedente figure”, said a study by the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) as reporte yesterday by the Egyptian Gazette. The study also warned that new types of drugs had been developed in the last two years and gained high marketability in Egypt. “Last year witnessed the confiscation of natural and artificial types of drugs in addition to narcotic plants such as bhand, opium, cannabis and hashish. These types are so popular especially among young Egyptians”, the CAPMAS study disclosed. According to a World Health Organisation report, Egypt is not a major producer, supplier, or even consumer of narcotics of precursor chemicals. The study recommended that public awareness compaigns be increased specially young people. It also urged all authorities to deal with addicts as patients and try to help them find a good job after treatment or even after serving imprisonment terms. (ANSAmed)


Italy: Interior Minister backs fingerprinting for all

Rome, 17 July (AKI) — Italy’s Interior Minister Roberto Maroni has said he backs a cross-party move to fingerprint everyone in Italy for identity cards issued from 2010.

But he has also vowed to press on with the controversial ‘census’ and fingerprinting of Roma Gypsies in Italy that is already underway in Naples and Milan and due to begin in Rome in a few days’ time.


SPAIN: LARGEST PRISON POPULATION IN EUROPE

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JULY 17 — Spain has the highest rate of detainees in Europe with 157 prisoners per 100,000 citizens, overcoming Great Britain with 152, councillor for justice in the Catalonian Government, Montserrat Tura, told the media today.


IMMIGRATION: ALBANIAN MINORS TRAFFIC, 10 ARRESTS IN GORIZIA

(ANSAmed) — GORIZIA, JULY 17 — Ten people were arrested and charges were pressed against 15 others during a police operation in Gorizia, which uncovered an organisation which dealt with the illegal immigration of Albanian citizens in Italy.


IMMIGRATION: FORTRESS EUROPE, 185 IMMIGRANTS DIE IN JUNE

(ANSAmed) — ROME, JULY 4 — The immigrants who died in June in attempt to reach Europe illegally were at least 185. This is the death toll revealed by association Fortress Europe which comments that on June 20 there was an “unhappy anniversary” for the World Refugees Day. Of the 185 victims, 173 died in the Channel of Sicily. A total four men died near the Canary Islands, after being hospitalised in bad conditions upon their arrival.


Fatal crash sparks immigration ire

Moldovan car- chase killer had received expulsion order

(ANSA) — Rome, July 18 — The issue of illegal immigration was back in the headlines on Friday after a Moldovan man driving a stolen van killed a 20-year-old student after a high-speed police pursuit through Rome.


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 14.07.2008

Regina Mönch has little understanding for the protests of Turkish officials against the German law which stipulates that Turkish women who get married in Germany should possess a basic command of German: “The only truth in the rhetoric noise about this so-called anti-Turkish law, is that other nationalities hardly have any problems with linguistic proficiency. But a questionable protective association of politicians from the Left and the Greens has built up around the Turkish community, and it is determined to see the indirect invitation to take more seriously a bride’s right to education in her homeland, as a violation of human rights. But all that is being defended here are the special rights of Turkish men to a traditional way of life, in which education has a marginal role, but power a major one.”

[From Contadina: “Quote from the Frankfurter Allgemeine. I don’t have a link to the article.” However, Holger Danske located it for us.]


ALGERIA-GERMANY: MERKEL SKIPS VISIT TO MOSQUE, MEDIA

(ANSAmed) — BERLIN, JULY 18 — German Chancellor Angela Merkel refused to enter in an Algiers mosque during her first official visit to Algeria because she did not want to cover her head with the traditional headscarf, German daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported today. Thus the visit in the mosque, which was part of the chancellor’s agenda, was cancelled. Yet, Merkel’s visit to Algeria remains linked to a mosque since the German chancellor took part with Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in the ceremony for the signing of the contract entrusting a Frankfurt am Main architects studio with the design of a new mosque to be built in the Algerian capital. The new mosque will be the third largest in the world with the world’s tallest minaret of 214 metres. (ANSAmed).


CINEMA: SOLE LUNA DOC FEST, MEDITERRANEAN, ISLAM IN PALERMO

(ANSAmed) — PALERMO, JULY 18 — Sole e Luna Doc Fest, a festival of documentaries which narrate the history of the Mediterranean and Islamic civilisations, will open on Sunday in Palermo, at Santa Maria dello Spasimo. The event, which has reached its third edition, will award the best video, documentary, TV series or investigation of the 18 participants admitted to the competition, in the two sections Islam ad Mediterranean. The festival, chaired by Carlo Fuscagni, under the art direction of Rubino Rubini, is promoted by Doc Fest, a non-profit cultural association. The festival’s jury will assign the following awards, absolute award for best work in the competition, award in section Islam, award in section Mediterranean, award for best film direction, for best photography, for best montage, most innovative documentary and work of the highest cultural value. The awarding is envisaged for Sunday, July 27. Performances, art exhibitions, collateral events on the same theme, in partnership also with festivals of other European countries, will be presented during the festival. (ANSAmed).


ITALY-PNA: VENDOLA TO LEAD APULIA DELEGATION

(ANSAmed) — BARI, JULY 18 — A delegation of the Region of Apulia led by its president Nichi Vendola will visit the Palestinian territories by the end of the year, Vendola said at the end of a meeting today in Bari with the ambassador to Italy of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Sabri Ateyeh. The meeting was also attended by the regional councillor for the Mediterranean, Silvia Godelli. “Apulia and Palestine have common passion for olives. Apulia loves the land of Palestine,” Vendola said. “In the past years we have carried out small but important cooperation projects with Palestine in the field of food and agriculture, as well as in culture. The time has come for the institutional and business operators in the Region of Apulia to be able to cross Palestine and build a programme of activities,” he added. “We have very good dialogue with Palestine and Israel: for us the slogan ‘two peoples, two states’ has not been the task of international diplomacy or foreign policy. We have heard it as part of our programme in the modesty of our efforts and partly in our dreams. Today we want to do anything we can to give our contribution to the credibility and force of the new process of dialogue and peace,” Vendola said. (ANSAmed).


Salafi Jihadists in Gaza: ‘Compared to Us, Hamas Is Islamism Lite’

By Ulrike Putz in the Gaza Strip

Global power is their goal, and they are willing to slaughter innocents to get there. A group of ultra-radical Islamists are training in the Gaza Strip, and SPIEGEL ONLINE met with one of their leaders.

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When It Comes to Towering Minarets, “Ich bin ein extremist”…

Diana West is featuring an interview with a gorgeous hunk politician who is a member of the Swiss People’s Party. Or, as she says, the “extremist,” “bigoted” and “xenophobic” Swiss People’s Party.

Here is a part of the report on her dialogue with Oskar Freysinger. Especially notable are his views on the far-reaching implications of the Swiss People’s Party’s decision to go for a national referendum on the question of minarets atop the mosques in Switzerland.

Ms. West says:

Now engaged in probably its greatest battle yet, the Swiss People’s Party has just amassed more than the requisite 100,000 signatures on a petition to trigger a national referendum, in this controversial case, on whether Switzerland should ban minarets, the towers that often soar high enough over mosques to transform the skyline of any cathedral town in Europe. Out of 90 mosques in Switzerland, only two have minarets. Three more are now in political limbo.

[…]

Discussing the “long progression” of Islam--now 4.3 percent of Switzerland’s mainly Christian population of 7.5 million--into Swiss life, he explains that what concerns him is “not the [Islamic] religion, but the law,” meaning Islamic law, or sharia. And while there is religious freedom in Switzerland for new mosques, this same freedom does not extend to minarets, which he sees as political more than religious symbols. “Minarets are not necessary for the practice” of Islam, he explains.

Indeed, historically, the minaret has often served as a sign of Islamic political power. In our own era, it may be seen to symbolize the introduction of Islamic law into formerly non-Islamic societies.

Ms. West and Mr. Freysinger are correct.

Minarets aren't obligatory in Islam, but they are absolutely required in order to make local inroads into community cultural awareness. If you have an electronic recording blaring out into the local landscape (breaking the usual municipal regulations regarding noise abatement) it is much more difficult to get these things removed than it is to prevent them in the first place. And if you have a ‘silent’ minaret, merely a symbol towering over the adjacent skyline, you have still achieved the political purpose minaret-builders have in mind.

Cao’s blog cites Dhimmi Watch from July 9th of this year:
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Of course the minaret is not necessary. Wahhabi mosques don’t have minarets at all, and disapprove of them. It cannot be argued that Muslims need to have minarets from which a non-existent muezzin will utter the Call To Prayer (which is not permitted because of sound zoning laws), or that they need them even where a Call To Prayer is allowed, since if it is played and then amplified electronically, there is no conceivable need for height.

Are there any devices that tell the time in Switzerland? Yes, there are. Do Muslims all over the world now have access to clocks, and watches? Yes, they do. Do they possess, on their calendars, in their fancy agenda books (oh, those rich Arabs, with their briefcases and their agenda books, and their Rolex watches, and their everything, all of it so completely, grotesquely, underearned, unmerited), or even homelier models for the just-us-folks Muslims, telling them the exact time of each of the five canonical prayers, in the tiniest town or village anywhere in the world? Of course they do.

Mr. Fitzgerald uses as his source a news report from the UK Guardian. The headline chosen by the Grauniad for their story is telling:

Swiss far right forces vote on minaret ban

So tell me: since when is collecting one hundred thousand signatures for a referendum “forcing” a vote? Did menacing members of the Swiss People’s Party arrive at citizens’ doorsteps with clipboards, signature pages, pens, and nine millimeter enforcers? “Sign here, please, and no one will get hurt?”

MSM headlines become more obscene as the MSM itself becomes more overtly anti-Western and irrelevant.

Gateway Pundit wrote about this phenomenon making its appearance in St. Louis back in February. He says that when he put up the images he got hammered by the local paper for being so “Islamophobic.”

It goes without saying that had the local Baptists erected a similarly out-sized cross, the paper would have gone after them, not the person reporting on the event. But in the minds of the MSM, Baptists are fundies, not victims. Christers want to take over; Muslims just want to make peace, as their history so amply demonstrates. That the peace imposed by the Ummah is conversion or the peace of the grave is not something we are permitted to discuss without being labelled extremists. Oh well, have at it. I'm proud to be an extremist.

And here is the story of mosque/pig farm brouhaha in Katy, Texas. Note that the pig farm was there first. Note also that the American land owner acted in typical Texas fashion when pushed by the mosque builders to move. Why in the world would they choose to locate a mosque next to a pig farm…unless perhaps they thought they could force the pig owner out? Just wondering.

Then there is the wonderful image from the blog, America’s Last Stand. This photo, with its minarets on either side is most imposing. And that is its point: to impose. To impose its laws, beliefs, and culture on everyone else, willing or not.

I’ll close with another snip from Diana West and Oskar Freysinger:

“In that case,” Freysinger continued, “we said: OK. We’ll attack the symbol. It’s always about symbols because symbols have a big truth behind them. And so we attack this symbol of conquering Islam and we say: You are welcome in our country, but there is one law, and one constitution for every person in this country. And there is no special law for an Islamic girl, or an Islamic man. There is no sharia. Nothing.”

Given the premodern inequities of sharia, the notion of one enlightened law and constitution for all should be a simple, desirable state of Western affairs. But no. As the West tilts Islamic to accommodate aspects of sharia ranging from diet to sexual segregation to polygamous marriage to sharia banking to censorship regarding Islam itself, Oskar Freysinger’s point of view becomes, to appeasers, an increasingly controversial and dangerous one, reliably eliciting catcalls and worse from world media and political establishments. In their postmodern parlance, to be opposed to the totalitarian tenets of sharia is be an “extremist.” My only question is, How do you say, Ich bin ein extremist?

Ms. West also questions him regarding his views on Israel. I recommend reading what he has to say.

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News From the South of Thailand

This post is the latest in a series from our Bangkok correspondent, H. Numan.


According to The Bangkok Post:

Insurgent struggle not over after all
Pattani

Claims that Thailand’s decades-old southern separatist struggle — which has claimed about 2,700 lives over the past four years — was over were dismissed Friday as a hoax or a failed publicity stunt.

On Thursday a self-proclaimed spokesman for the 11 “underground” southern separatist groups announced in a broadcast on army-controlled TV 5 that they had agreed to ceasefire on July 14 and wanted to see peace return to the region.

The broadcast was greeted with scepticism and befuddlement, since there has been no sign of an abatement of violence in the deep-South, which comprises Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala provinces.

The man who appeared on the army broadcast has been identified as Malipeng Khan, a former separatist leader who was active from 1984-87, and who tried but failed to unify various insurgent factions and has no control over the current situation.

“We don’t think the people who made the announcement are very important,” said Colonel Acra Tiproch, spokesman for the southern army region.

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“If they don’t deliver on their promise it’s not the reputation of the government or military that suffers but only that of the one responsible for the broadcast,” Acra told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa.

The man responsible for the broadcast was former army commander-in-chief General Chetta Thanajaro, who now heads the Ruam Jai Thai Pattana political party that holds only 10 seats in the current coalition government.

“The whole thing was crazy, a hoax,” said Sunai Pasuk, the Thailand representative for Human Rights Watch, which closely monitors the southern crisis.

Sunai noted that Chetta still has good connections with the military, although he is now a politician, and the broadcast may have been an attempt to bolster the government’s flagging popularity.

If so, it may cause more damage than good, observers said.

“There is likely to be a destructive backfire from this hoax, and who then will take the responsibility?” asked Sunai.

An estimated 2,700 people have died in clashes and revenge killings in the deep South since January, 2004, when Muslim militants raided an army depot and stole more than 300 weapons, prompting a government crackdown on the long-simmering separatist struggle.

The three provinces bordering Malaysia comprised the independent Islamic sultanate of Pattani more than 200 years ago before it fell under Bangkok’s rule. More than 80 per cent of the three provinces’ 2 million people are Muslims, making the region an anomaly in predominantly Buddhist Thailand.

Yesterday an article appeared in the news about a cease fire. I didn’t report about it, because I found it somewhat strange, and today this article confirmed my suspicion.

For readers who are unaware about the southern trouble in Thailand: don’t be too much alarmed. You can safely enjoy a holiday here. The troubles are in the very deep south, where tourists rarely (if ever) come.

This was Bangkok reporting,
H. Numan.

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“Beware of Belgium”

A message to our American readers from our Dutch correspondent Michiel Mans:

To all Americans:

Our deepest sympathy with, and condolences for you. Bud has been grabbed by Belgium.

A nation that is not a nation, currently again in quibbling debate over being more French or more Flemish. The Flem are a somewhat sticky, watered down version of the Dutch, hence the name, while the Wallonians, the frog speakers, are something the French pooped out. And they got your beer.

This is worse than losing the war. What war? Any war.

It is widely known, particularly among Americans, that you do not mess with someone’s automobile. It is worse than nicking his wallet. In them olden days horse thieves were strung up. For good reason.

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Touching a man’s beer goes beyond this. It is sacrilege. Taking a man’s beer, is taking his soul, his flag, his balls. And the Belgians do it all.

Not content with taking our wallet, the big Dutch ABN-AMRO bank which was as wooden shoe-windmill-red-white-and-blue as our queen, the Belgians now took your beer. Is this their gratitude for 101st Airborne General McAuliffe’s “Nuts!” in December 1944?

Now they have taken your nuts. They pretend to be a small nation of futile quibble. However, yesterday our wallet, today your nuts, tomorrow the World. Forget China, forget India, beware of Belgium.

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Irish Koran Tattoos

This is a new one to me: Irish teenagers are sporting tattoos with Koranic verses in Arabic, ignorant of what they say.

Our Irish correspondent LS reports:

I was down the town in Bray this afternoon to do some banking and to watch a free drumming workshop for children at the civic centre plaza. On the way to Halifax Bank, I noticed that the teenage girl walking beside me had a tattoo of what appeared to be Arabic writing running up the back of her arm from elbow to shoulder (shades of Submission). She had other tattoos and some piercings on her face, but she looked like a typical middle class Bray teen ( I suppose that in itself says something about Ireland, or at least the greater Dublin area). As we walked a distance together along the footpath, I struck up a conversation with her and asked after this particular tattoo (the others were unremarkable.).

She said this one was a verse from the Bible. I asked if it mightn’t be from the Koran, since it appeared to be in Arabic. She said that yes, in fact, she had been told it was Arabic writing, but she did not seem to recognize the word “Koran” or its difference from the Bible. I didn’t attempt to discuss the difference. I asked if she could tell me what it said. She said she couldn’t (she didn’t remember, not that I was not allowed to know). She said it was about “love.”

I asked if she had a Muslim boyfriend. She said she didn’t. She was not at all offended that I asked. It was just a factual exchange.

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I mentioned this exchange to an Irish friend whom I met at the drumming event. She told me that the Arabic language tattoos were exceptionally popular at the moment. And we both wondered why anyone would want something written in a language they didn’t know (by someone who also did not know the language) to be permanently affixed to one’s body. I suppose this is like girls wearing the Kaffiyeh or babies wearing Che T-shirts. But you can take off the clothing.

I suppose it would be over-reacting or superstitious to be all that concerned about girls wearing tattoos in languages they cannot read that could say anything at all. For all she knows it says “Pog Mo Thon.” (“Kiss my arse” in Irish.)

However, it reminded me of reporter Steve Centani and his cameraman agreeing to “convert” to Islam in order to keep their heads attached to their bodies. Is Steve still reporting at all? Has this forced conversion changed