Islamic organizations in Missouri and New Jersey have called on Congress to pass a law against insulting anyone’s religion. They say that an exception to the First Amendment must be made to prevent blasphemous speech, which incites violence.

In other news, almost no students are attending Nyambogo School in Rorya, Tanzania, due to the witchcraft wars that are now raging in that region. Riotous mobs have repeatedly assaulted and torched houses where people suspected of witchcraft live.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Kitman, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Nader Fawzy is an Egyptian-Canadian Coptic Christian who has been an activist on behalf of Egypt’s Christian minority. In retaliation, the new Salafist government in Egypt indicted him, along with a number of other Copts and pastor Terry Jones, for his purported involvement in the making of the notorious Mohammed movie.

Mr. Fawzy talked to Michael Coren recently on the latter’s SUN TV program. Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this video:

Below is an article on the same topic from The Globe and Mail:

Canadian linked to anti-Muslim film seeks police protection, citing fear for his life

A Canadian Coptic Christian who fears for his life says he is breathing a bit easier after asking police to help protect him over allegations by Egypt that he was involved in a controversial anti-Muslim film.

Nader Fawzy, one of two Canadians named in Egyptian arrest warrants in connection with the film Innocence of Muslims, is worried the warrants make him and his three daughters a target for Muslim extremists, who have been encouraged by senior clerics in Egypt to kill all those connected to the film.

Mr. Fawzy, originally born in Egypt, gave a statement to Toronto police Saturday. He says police told him patrols around his home will be increased and that officers will occasionally check in on him.

“I feel a little bit [of] protection but, still, I have the same fears for my kids,” he told reporters outside a local police station.

A police spokesman says officers are investigating his case but did not confirm they are taking direct steps to protect him.

[…]

Mr. Fawzy and Mr. Attalla both say there’s no evidence they were involved with the movie, which has sparked violent protests in several countries after a trailer translated into Arabic was posted to YouTube.

“I never saw more than four minutes [of the movie] … I have nothing to do with it,” Mr. Fawzy said, as he stood next to his MP, Liberal Jim Karygiannis, who is trying to help both men.

Mr. Fawzy, who described himself as a Coptic activist, said he has raised the ire of Egypt for his history of speaking out against the way Coptic Christians are treated by the country’s government – and that Egypt is seeking “revenge” by placing him on the warrant list.

Mr. Fawzy said he was not happy that Foreign Affairs responded to his concerns by advising him to keep quiet.

“I’m not here to seal my lips, I’m here to talk as everyone in Canada on Canadian soil has the right to talk,” he said.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird’s press secretary said the best way to get the men off the warrant list is through backdoor diplomacy – not public calls for action.

“Quiet diplomacy is often the most effective in these situations. This is something we will raise with the Egyptians, but ramping up rhetoric is often not helpful and counterproductive,” Rick Roth said in an e-mail.

Mr. Karygiannis says he will raise the issue on the floor of Parliament next week.

Vlad has some thoughts (and videos) today on the assault mounted against our free speech by the world’s 9.33 quintillion offended Muslims:

The picture clarifies. Muslims all over the world tell the same lies to the same effect. the request? “Infidels world wide, destroy your values and rights”

And in many of the videos they tell the same lie, that Muslims respect Jesus and other ‘prophets’ etc. Which of course is preposterous. Islam has rewritten the narrative on all famous religious figures of Judaism and Christianity to make them conform to Islamic values and make them enemies of the very people they represented.

These riots/demonstrations world wide are days of rage and part of the plan the OIC and the Muslim Brotherhood have been planning and implementing for decades now. To destroy us, with our own legal systems and a hijacking of our values to their purpose.

It needs to be said, that freedom of speech has bugger all to do with the 1st amendment of the US constitution or with what any government can offer in terms of ‘rights’. Freedom of speech is a piece of real estate that we must occupy or lose it to those willing to take it.

Each time we agree for reasons of politeness or fear or intimidation or political correctness to abandon a corner of that real estate, imagining that this means it will remain technically ours but we are nice enough not to use it, very quickly it becomes enemy territory and the choice to use it is gone.

The proof of this is clear from our own history in the last 60 years. How many words and ideas that were once common in the language now can send you to jail? Especially in England.

[…]

Once you make truthful analysis of Islam illegal, you have submitted. That real estate, your own castle in fact, the one you built over centuries of bloodshed, you have ceded to your worst imaginable enemy and you will soon count yourself lucky to be the lowest servant to them and that, only till they know the layout of your home as well as you do.

Read the rest, and watch the videos, at Vlad Tepes.

Below is a snapshot of today’s top news headlines, taken from Google News at about 10:00am EDT:

• Ryan on debates: No one event makes a campaign
• Afghan insider attack kills 2 Americans
• Publisher Who Transformed The Times for New Era
• Car bomb targeting security offices kills at least 4 in eastern Syria
• 3.4 magnitude quake rattles Dallas, Texas, suburb
• Steinitz: Iran economy near collapse due to sanctions
• String of Iraq car bomb blasts kill at least 32
• Kenya Church Grenade Attack Kills Child, Wounds Others
• Khadr eligible for parole next summer, lawyers say
• Bo’s son defends father after party expulsion
• Newspaper: Malvo felt like ‘worst piece of scum’

On the morning of September 30, 2012, Google’s news editors (or its bots) considered these the eleven most important new stories of the moment. Those highlighted in red —seven of the top eleven — are directly related to Islam.

As you can see, all the Islam-related stories involve extreme, brutal violence — now, in the past, and in the future. That is, 64% of the day’s top news stories concern Islamic violence. And today isn’t particularly special — it’s pretty much a normal news day.

During a presidential election season, the horse race will always get the first headline, and will rarely be bumped from the top even by the most ghastly catastrophe. In fact, unrelated bad news will often be absorbed, amoeba-like, into presidential politics: “Massive Asteroid to Strike Earth Tomorrow — Analysts Debate Impact on Romney Campaign”.

So if you scrub out Obama/Romney and a few natural disasters, Islamic murder and mayhem generally rule the news.

Let’s take a closer look at Google’s seven Religion of Peace Stories:

Afghan insider attack kills 2 Americans

Eleven years ago Taliban irregulars were killing American soldiers in Afghanistan. They are doing the same thing today, only they are now wearing Afghan military and police uniforms, and are considered our “allies”.

This is considered progress by the State Department and the Pentagon. Our leaders assure us that America is that much closer to winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. If only our soldiers could learn to be more sensitive about “cultural differences” — then the process would move much more quickly.

Car bomb targeting security offices kills at least 4 in eastern Syria

Despite all the noise about democracy, the “Arab Spring” in Syria as elsewhere is really about removing corrupt Middle Eastern despots from power and replacing them with Salafist ideologues under the guidance of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Our leaders speak of “reforms” in the Muslim world, and that is exactly what these represent: a Muslim reformation that aims to return Islamic governance to the pristine state it enjoyed under the “rightly guided Caliphs” of the seventh century.

Steinitz: Iran economy near collapse due to sanctions

Iran is preparing to launch the Greatest Jihad Ever as a nuclear payload on a long-range missile. Will economic collapse be enough to stop it?

String of Iraq car bomb blasts kill at least 32

Six years ago the United States military committed vast amounts of time, treasure, and blood to stop the mass terrorist attacks that were killing and maiming people nearly every day in Iraq. Then we withdrew our forces, and — hearts and minds notwithstanding — the massacres resumed where they had left off.

Each of these attacks is committed in the name of Islam.

Kenya Church Grenade Attack Kills Child, Wounds Others

The group responsible for blowing up Christians in Kenya today is said to be affiliated with Al-Shabaab, the Salafist terrorist network in Somalia.

Remember twenty years ago when we committed all that time and treasure, plus a downed helicopter and a number of dead soldiers, to winning the hearts and minds of the Somali people? How’d that turn out?

Khadr eligible for parole next summer, lawyers say

Omar Khadr is the “Canadian” Kiddie Taliban, captured in Afghanistan a decade ago as a teenager for killing an American soldier. He has been removed from Gitmo and consigned to the Canadian criminal justice system, where he will serve out the rest of his sentence, however much that may be.

Mr. Khadr is considered an innocent brutalized child by progressive-minded folks, despite his full beard and robust attitude towards violent jihad. He has been a cause célèbre of the Left for years, and is still the darling of the keffiyeh-wearing Israel-boycotting crowd.

Newspaper: Malvo felt like ‘worst piece of scum’

Our final news item from the Religion of Peace may not seem to have much to do with jihad. Most Americans have probably forgotten, if they ever knew, that Lee Boyd Malvo — another child terrorist — and his late partner, John Allen Muhammad, were mujahideen.

But it’s true — their killing spree ten years ago in the Washington D.C. area ago targeted kuffar at random in the name of Allah. The mainstream media did their best to hide this aspect of the Beltway Sniper affair, but it was laid out clearly in young Master Malvo’s diary.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

64% of today’s top headlines have to do with Islamic violence. Tomorrow the figure may be 45%, and the day after 82%. But it won’t be zero for the foreseeable future, and over the next few months it may rise to nearly 100% — one Romney story at the top, with the rest about jihad murder, maiming, kidnapping, extortion, rape, and slavery.

If we believe the talking heads (and our own political leaders), all this Islamic mayhem is committed by a “tiny minority of extremists”, who “do not represent true Islam”.

Yet this tiny minority manages to dominate the news headlines every day, month after month, year after year.

Media progressives strive their mightiest to insert happy-face stories into the news about Islam involving mosque openings, children’s play-groups, interfaith harmony, rabbis and pastors and imams all gathered together in harmony smiling and shaking hands.

But they can’t avoid the truth. If it bleeds, it leads, and Islamically-induced bleeding leads the headlines every single day.

I can believe that a tiny minority of Muslim extremists is responsible for all the killing and burning and raping and maiming. Even if you throw in the enablers — the truck-drivers, the bomb-parts suppliers, the owners of safe houses, and the cooks who prepare the final kebabs for the shahids — it’s presumably still only a tiny minority. Probably no more than a few tens of millions out of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims.

But what do you do when a tiny minority within a certain religion is responsible for the vast majority of the world’s murderous violence?

What then?

Islamic leaders in the Philippines called on Filipino Muslims to refrain from violence when protesting the Mohammed movie. The U.S. government apparently has its doubts about the effectiveness of such appeals, and has issued a terror alert for its citizens in the Philippines.

In other news, a British citizen from Yorkshire was sentenced to death in Indonesia for smuggling crystal meth into the country hidden in his suitcase.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, Mary Abdelmassih, McR, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer has translated a brief article about a SIAN rally today in Oslo.

He says, “The video accompanying the article shows the counter-demonstrators acting like they always do at events such as this.”

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this clip:

The accompanying (translated) article from VG Nett:

Four arrested during rally outside parliament

(VG Nett) Here counter-demonstrators are being wrestled to the ground by police during a SIAN rally in Oslo.

The organization Stop Islamisation of Norway (SIAN) held a rally outside the Parliament in Oslo on Saturday afternoon.

The police were well-prepared and had positioned numerous personnel and armoured vehicles at the scene before the start of the rally.

Approximately 30 to 40 counter-demonstrators from Anti-NDL and the New SOS (New SOS racism) gathered to demonstrate against SIAN.

Four arrested

Shortly after the rally kicked off anti-racists started clashing with the police. When the demonstrators started moving beyond the police barriers which had been erected earlier several of them began scuffling with the police.

“We have arrested four individuals who were trying to cause trouble. They were arrested for public nuisance,” Find Belle, the leader of operations for the Oslo police, tells VG Nett.

The leader of the police at the scene has confirmed that the situation now is under control.

“We are here today because of threat assessment made before the rally,” says Kristoffer Berg to VG Nett.

Held an appeal

According to a statement posted on SIAN’s website the reason for today’s rally is all the commotion surrounding the Muhammad movie.

The Leader of SIAN, Arne Tumyr was among those who held an appeal outside the Parliament.

“We in SIAN cannot quietly watch them (Muslims) abuse democracy, freedom of speech and freedom of religion. We cannot have special rules for Muslims,” he told the SIAN audience, who responded with applause

Tumyr was greeted with slogans such as “No to SIAN, yes to diversity” from the approximately 25 attending counter-demonstrators.

Below is an update from EuroNews about the situation in Mali, where Salafists have taken control of the northern part of the country. The government of Mali wants the United Nations to intervene, but the UN — perhaps constrained by its de facto control by the OIC, and thus the Muslim Brotherhood — is reluctant to get involved.

Many thanks to Michael Laudahn for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

The following article from Norway is a reminder that Islam is not the only component of cultural enrichment. Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer, who translated the piece, has this to say about it:

Highly mobile organized foreign criminal gangs have roamed Norway for years stealing whatever they can get their hands on, and the incompetent Norwegian pencil-pushing police force pretty much just twiddle their thumbs and look the other way.

The chances that the police will show up in the event of someone being burglarised or physically attacked are pretty slim. I’m not exaggerating; it’s true. The police are, however, notorious for setting up speed traps and issuing heavy fines to law-abiding and taxpaying Norwegian motorists.

It’s therefore refreshing to see Norwegians fed up with this travesty take decisive action when they catch thieves red handed. Romanian and Bulgarian gypsies are infamous for their thieving ways and they have in the last few years cast their eyes on wealthy and naïve Norway. I guess this time they were taught a proper lesson. Hopefully more will be handed out in the future.

Also, pay attention to the stupid remark made by the police officer interviewed in this article: “He is surprised that someone whose car is damaged chooses not to contact the police.”

Well, duh! Why would anyone contact the police after being caught stealing? I’ll bet the van is probably stolen too, so it makes perfect sense for the thieving gypsy not to report this incident to the police.

But I suppose this type of reasoning is too complex for a pencil-pushing Norwegian police officer these days. It really tells you all you need to know about the Norwegian police.

The translated article from today’s VG Nett:

Claims Romanians stole aluminium — smashed their van

(VG Nett) The truck owner claims Romanians have stolen from him for months. Friday, he took both the law and the gearshift in his own hands. The truck owner from the Ålesund area, who prefers to remain anonymous, claims that his company has been plagued by thefts of diesel, car batteries and other valuable items for months.

“There isn’t a truck that they’ll leave alone. They steal everything. They have broken into my yard several nights in a row. Today they struck in the middle of the day,” he tells VG Nett.

“The cargo hold of the van was jam-packed with aluminium”

On Friday some of his employees caught two men in the company yard. When the two men were ordered to open the doors of the Romanian-registered van the employees discovered that it was full of goods belonging to the company, according to the truck owner.

“They came up with a thousand lies and pretended not to understand. The car was full of aluminium and other stolen goods. They were made to remove all the items from the van and to sort it. Before they were allowed off the site they had to watch their van being smashed,” he says.

The two allegedly Romanian males remained calm while the white van was smashed by a hook on a crane mounted onto one of the trucks.

“One of them uttered, ‘Oh, Jesus.’ Then they took their bags and wandered off. They probably realised that the train had left the station.”

“Could have been solved differently”

The truck owner acknowledges that his method is rather unconventional.

“This could probably have been resolved in a different manner, but there’s simply no point in reporting the incident to the police. The police are understaffed and we had to do something. I’m okay with people coming to Norway to work, but those who come here only to steal are not welcome. I did the police a favour,” he says.

The police, on the other hand, are not happy that someone took the law into their own hands. As of Friday evening they have not received a formal complaint from the owner of the van.

“To crush a car is vandalism and a criminal offense. It is difficult for us to have an opinion about a matter that we have very little info on, but to take matters into your own hands is not how things should be done,” says Einar Rostad, manager of operations at Sunnmøre Police district to VG Nett.

He is surprised that someone whose car is damaged chooses not to contact the police.

When VG Nett contacted the police on Saturday morning we were informed that a patrol was on its way to examine the damaged van.

“This is an investigation that we have decided to pursue on our own initiative having been made aware of the matter. A police patrol will arrive at the scene shortly,” says leader of operations Leif Arne Valderhaug at 11:30 AM Saturday.

He describes the crushing of the van as unbelievable.

“We have initiated an investigation after having been tipped off about the matter by others. We can’t accept this. This is a case of taking the law into one’s own hands,” he says.

Scrap dealer: Two Romanians sold me some scrap metal

The scrap dealer Jan Henriksen in Ålesund tells VG Nett that he has twice been contacted by two Romanians in a white van who had small quantities of scrap metal that they were looking to sell.

“They had some scrap and I assumed that they had come across it tidying for other people. They received approximately Nok 2000 for the metal I bought from them on both occasions,” he says.

He believes these things occur all over Norway.

“These are insignificant figures to us. They only sold me some debris. Throughout Europe, Romanians gather scrap metal and resell it. I don’t think they deserve to get their vans smashed based on that,” he says.

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer has translated an article from today’s Dagbladet about the large number of criminals who are wanted by the Oslo police and still at large.

Based on the mug shots accompanying the article, the most wanted criminals are not… ahem… persons of Norwegian background:

More than 3,000 people are wanted by the Oslo police

The police in Oslo are looking for 3,246 people wanted in connection with various criminal cases. Murder, attempted murder, rape, kidnapping and robbery are among some of the crimes.

“The numbers change every day, but at the present time we have 3,246 individuals that we are looking for. We have no idea of their whereabouts. They could be in Oslo, elsewhere in the country or abroad,” says head of the police station in Grønland, Kåre Stølen to Dagbladet.

These individuals constitute a very diverse group, but they have one thing in common, the police want to get hold of them in connection with criminal cases or possible criminal cases.

“They encompass the entire spectrum, from missing individuals, to undelivered subpoenas and witnesses who refuse to attend, to murder and attempted murder,” says Stølen.

The number of people who at any given time are wanted by the Oslo police is on the rise, according to the head of the police station.

“There is a lot of serious crime, and every criminal charge is represented among these 3,000. There is violence, theft, fraud, sexual crimes and drug use. The entire spectrum,” says Stølen.

7000 wanted by the police in Norway

The police have no idea where these people are. And although many of them are probably somewhere in Oslo, it is not necessarily that easy for the police to locate them.

“Many of them give us addresses that are not for their primary residence. They’ll do everything to hide, it’s a huge problem,” says Stølen.

“And then we catch them for traffic-related offences or we arrest them when they commit new crimes.”

He believes that some criminals take advantage of the fact that it can take a long time before they are apprehended, because under Norwegian criminal law sentences will be reduced if there’s a long gap between the time a criminal act is committed until the case is finally tried in court.

“It’s not fair that criminals who deliberately elude the police should receive a reduced sentence simply because of the length of time that has passed between the crime and the sentencing. Altogether the police in Norway are currently looking for 7,000 individuals,” according Stølen.

Wanted individuals who are known to be abroad and on whom Interpol has an APB out are the responsibility of the PST.

Not coordinated

Last summer Dagbladet reported on a case concerning a wanted robber (22). He had been in police custody in Finnmark [region in northern Norway] after being caught with 1.4 kilograms of methamphetamine. He also had a previously conviction for armed robbery of a taxi from Oslo District Court. He then fled to Kosovo, with several unsettled robbery and drug issues on his rap sheet in Norway. Several APBs were issued for this person.

He then returned to Norway in 2011 and began working in a small carpentry firm. Eight months later, the police finally discovered that he was back in Norway.

It was then uncovered that the man had worked as a construction worker at government square — a job that requires security clearance.

According to Stølen it is a problem that Norway hasn’t coordinated its national registers.

“We do not have access to the records of NAV and Skatt Øst [eastern branch of the IRS]. A person who is wanted by us could receive funds from NAV without us knowing about it. The State is investigating with one hand and handing out funds with the other.”

Will grant access to the PST

The major legal obstacles for information-sharing between public agencies are a matter which is being discussed at the highest political levels these days. The July 22 Commission also highlighted this problem in its report.

Minister of Justice Grete Faremo told Aftenposten on Wednesday that she wants to give the PST access to public records.

“I question whether it is appropriate to have these strong barriers limit the exchange of information. When public agencies have information which can help to address a purpose, my question is whether or not this type of information, for example from Nav, should be made available for PST if they request it,” said the Minister of Justice.

The text under the photos in the original article, in order from top to bottom:

Wanted for attempted murder: Ahmed Hassan Jama is wanted for attempted murder after having shot a Norwegian-Pakistani 27-year-old repeatedly in Ellingsrud on July 30.

Wanted for knife murder: Donatas Majauskas (24) is home in Lithuania. Norwegian police have put out an APB on him for a knife murder of a 31-year old Lithuanian in Re on February, 20 2011.

Wanted for Drug TRAFFICKING: Iraqi coach Arkan Musa Jaf (29) was indicted for having imported and sold a total of 4.6 kilograms of heroin in Norway. In October 2008, he escaped from the Bergen County Court while being accompanied into the courthouse jail during a break. In February 2009, the 29-year-old was sentenced in absentia to nine years in prison. Now he wants to return to Norway to serve his penalty.

Arrested in PARIS: Alexandru Dodo (35) from Romania is accused of raping two elderly women in Oslo. He was wanted by Interpol and arrested in Paris and he is now in the process of being extradited to Norway.

Wanted for rape: Karwan Tahsin Mohyeldin (35) is convicted of two assault rapes in Borgarting Court of Appeals. He was not in police custody and decided to leave the country during the his trial

Wanted FOR MURDER: Azad Ali Ghaleb (33) Iraq is wanted for the murder of Cathrine Halvorsen, who was found strangled in an apartment at Kongsvinger in December 2003.

Wanted FOR Child Abduction: Silvia Voice Holm and Rambo Hansen are wanted for child abduction after they abducted her child who was in the care of the state at Aline infant center in Oslo on June 12. He has been arrested, but mother and child are still at large,

For a complete listing of previous enrichment news, see The Cultural Enrichment Archives.

Early this morning a loud explosion was heard outside the Jewish center in the southern Swedish city of Malmö. When police arrived they found the door had been damaged by explosives and paving stones, which had apparently been used in an attempt to batter it down. Two “youths” were later arrested as suspects in the crime.

In other news, the semi-official Iranian news agency was fooled by an Onion satire saying that rural American voters would prefer to vote for President Ahmadinejad over Barack Obama. The Fars news agency reported the spoof as fact.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, LH, RE, Seneca III, The Observer, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

More and more often these days conservative-minded Americans look to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper for principled leadership.

This is an inversion of the traditional order of things. For all of my adult life up until very recently, Canada stood as a prime example of socialism, progressive thinking, permissiveness, socialism, bloated public spending, support for Castro’s Cuba, and socialism. Persecuted American Communists or draft dodgers fled to Canada for succor.

All that has changed. Yesterday Mr. Harper received the annual “World Statesman” award from the Appeal of Conscience Foundation in New York for being a “champion of democracy, freedom and human rights”. And that’s not the sort of “human rights” that the UN and Amnesty International are always bleating about, but the more robust kind that conservatives champion.

Below are excerpts from Stephen Harper’s acceptance speech in New York. Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this video:

The European take on Mr. Harper was epitomized by Deutsche Welle, whose headline told its readers that “Critics deplore Canada’s shift to the right”. It also informed them that the prime minister’s “approval ratings at home are plummeting”, and then quoted from his critics among street protesters to prove its point.

But The Toronto Sun was more upbeat. This is the text of an editorial published in today’s edition of the paper:

Harper proves worthy of statesman prize

When Prime Minister Stephen Harper received the World Statesman award this week in New York, he purposely snubbed the United Nations by turning down an opportunity to speak to its General Assembly.

This should make Canadians proud.

Instead of blindly accepting that malevolent regimes like Iran would eventually surrender to sanctions and diplomatic overtures, he preceded his trip by boldly kicking Iran’s diplomatic spies out of Ottawa and closing down Canada’s embassy in Tehran.

The left booed; we cheered.

And then he thumbed his nose at the UN, a venue which has turned into a bully pulpit for every neurotic dictator on the planet to spew hatred, dismiss human rights abuses, show utter contempt for western values and, if clinically mad like Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, denying it is developing a nuclear saber but rattling it nonetheless at Israel.

This is called leading by example.

It was somewhat pitiful, however, to watch Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu resort to displaying a cartoon of a bomb at the UN to stress the dire straits of his country if a “red line” is not drawn against Iran.

Pitiful, but understandable.

But if Netanyahu thought Harper was going to up the ante on Iran by supporting his demand of U.S. President Barack Obama to threaten imminent war with Iran if its nuclear program persists, he went home disappointed.

Harper had already drawn his own line.

While breaking all diplomatic relations with Iran sent a strong message, Harper knows Canada’s place on the world stage as well as its limits.

“Our country has not been shy about warning the world about the danger that the Iranian regime ultimately presents to all of us,” Harper said, before dusting off reporters, and making no reference to Netanyahu’s red line.

“But we want to see a peaceful resolution to all this.”

As Henry Kissinger said of Harper in presenting him with the World Statesman award, “he has the courage to affirm his views even when they are not shared by all — and be proved correct by events.”

Not only did Harper get a trophy to back this up, he also got a chance to slag the UN.

All in all, not a bad day.

Italian education minister Francesco Profumo ignited a controversy this week by proposing that Islam be taught in public schools alongside the traditional teaching of Roman Catholicism.

The interesting thing is that Mr. Profumo didn’t actually mention Islam. In fact, none of the news stories excerpted below used the I-word or the M-word. The ministers and cardinals and spokespersons referred to pupils “from different countries, cultures and religions,” and a “more multiethnic” “multicultural” curriculum.

Yet these are code words for “Islam”, since the Jewish population of Italy has not increased significantly in recent decades, nor are hordes of Hindus and Buddhists pouring into the country.

No, the minister is plainly referring to Muslims, specifically Muslims from Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, and Albania, whose numbers have been growing steadily in Italy over the last few decades. One assumes that everyone who reads the Italian papers or watches the news on TV knows exactly what Mr. Profumo means.

Here’s what he said in his first announcement on Tuesday, as reported by AKI:

‘School Lessons Must Reflect Multiethnic Population’ Says Minister

Rome, 25 Sept. (AKI) — The teaching of religion and other subjects in Italy’s schools needs to be overhauled to be relevant to immigrants and their children living in the country, education minister Francesco Profumo said on Tuesday.

“There are students in our schools who come from different countries, cultures and religions,” said Profumo, opening a new library in Rome.

“We need to update the religion curriculum but also the geography curriculum to reflect this.”

Italy’s traditional school curriculum needs reforming to make its schools “more open, more multiethnic and able to be relevant to the world,” said Profumo.

On Monday, he visited a school classroom in Italy where 50 percent of its pupils were from other countries, he said.

The integration of non-Italian pupils in Italian schools has been a contentious issue in recent years as the number of immigrants has continued to rise. Around 4.6 million or 7.5 percent of the population are foreign residents in Italy according to the central statistics office Istat.

During the conservative government of Silvio Berlusconi which fell in November 2011, its junior coalition partner, the anti-immigrant Northern League party proposed allowing schools to have separate classes for immigrant children who do not speak the Italian language or fail admission tests for Italian state schools.

Immigrant leaders, Italy’s centre-left opposition and Catholic leaders criticised the Northern League plan, which also wanted mainstream classrooms to contain a ‘proportionate’ number of Italian and immigrant pupils.

Leaders in the Vatican hierarchy were not uniformly in favor of Mr. Profumo’s proposal. Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, while ostensibly welcoming “innovation”, made it plain that religious education in Italy should remain focused on the history and doctrine of the Catholic Church:

Cardinal Ravasi on Religious Education in State Schools

(AGI) — Holy See, 25 Sep — The president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, today welcomed Education Minister Francesco Profumo’s latest proposals concerning religious tuition in Italian state schools.

With religious education subject to Concordat agreements between Italy and the Holy See, the cardinal welcomed the minister’s proposals to inject innovation in the subject’s tuition methods arguing, however, that the core content of religious education should be the Christian religion.

Ravasi said ‘it is important that we innovate methods,’ adding ‘the Gospel and the greater Christian teachings will continue to warrant teaching, but there is always room to latch on to changes within society, the times and culture.’ Ravasi went on to suggest that the issue of innovation would be the subject of follow-up discussions.

Teachers of religion had their own objections:

Religion Teachers Against Min. Profumo: “It’s No Solution”

(AGI)Rome — Teaching the Catholic religion “is in school curricula because the Italian Republic acknowledges the value of religion. This is because the principles of Catholicism form part of the historical heritage of the Italian people, teaching them according to the objectives set out for schools”.

Orazio Ruscica, the President of the Italian Independent Trade Union of Religion Teachers (SNADIR), comments on the controversy on the teaching of religion that exploded following the statements made by Minister Profumo on the need to update school curricula and recalls that “at the end of June, the Minister signed two agreements on the teaching of the Catholic religion in public schools, including teaching guidelines, without however having paid much attention to what he signed”.

But the minister stuck to his guns, repeating and extending his remarks on Wednesday by saying that the Mediterranean had always been a “crossroads of peoples and faiths”. This statement is either naïve or disingenuous: the Med was only a “crossroads” of faiths because Muslims invaders and pirates crossed it to murder, pillage, rob, rape, take slaves, and convert Christians to Islam by the sword.

According to ANSAmed:

Minister Sets Off Firestorm Over Religion in Class

‘Mediterranean crossroad of faiths which should also be taught’

(ANSAmed) — Rome, September 26 — Italy’s education minister refused to back down Wednesday from his earlier suggestions that schools in the country should teach more than Catholicism in the classroom. But Francesco Profumo said he had no immediate plans to change “certain rules or terms” of the curriculum for religion classes. The minister triggered controversy recently when he suggested it was time to update school curricula with respect to teaching the Catholic religion in public schools. As Italy becomes more multicultural, it may be important to teach students about other faiths, Profumo said.

He expanded on his views in a letter to Catholic philosopher Giovanni Reale, a copy of which was obtained by ANSA Wednesday. “Our country is at the center of a tumultuous evolution, both political and spiritual, in the Mediterranean, which has always been a crossroads of peoples and faiths,” Profumo wrote. It’s time, therefore, that Italian schools “deal with this changing reality” of a multicultural world, he added.

Religious education teachers have responded to Profumo’s ideas by saying the Catholic faith is a deeply embedded part of Italy’s historical heritage, and curricula shouldn’t be changed.

These teachers, and an association for Italian families, noted that in June Profumo signed new agreements on what would be taught in religious education classes and now is no time for change. “Christianity is inextricably inserted in the history of our country,” said Francesco Belletti, president of the Forum of Family Associations.

Religious teachers are appointed by schools in consultation with local religious Catholic authorities. Students who opt out of religion classes should be given alternative teaching.

Hat tips: C. Cantoni and Insubria.