TURKEY: Islamic Youth Group Posts "Kill All Gays" Messages In Ankara

LGBT News Turkey reports:

"Young Islamic Defense" has been putting up posters throughout Ankara. The poster says, “If you see someone engaged in the dirty business of the tribe of Lot, kill the doer and the done both.” Arguing that Muslims should not be silent about this issue, the group has publicly defended their call to massacre on their website: “In order to show that Islam absolutely does not allow this situation, we have shared this hadith, mentioned also in [hadith scholars] Tirmidhi and Abu Dawood: “If you see someone engaged in the dirty business of the tribe of Lot, kill the doer and the done both! Our wish is to learn the attitude Islam demands from us in light of the Qu’ran and the Sunnah, instead of the hodjas who cannot shout out what is rightful on television.” Tribe of Lot refers to the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the twin cities which Prophet Lot was sent to with God’s message and were destroyed by God when the community did not reign in its lust. The trope is often used against LGBT communities in the Muslim world.

The above-linked story blames the ruling party and President Tayyip Erdogan for inciting anti-gay sentiment with last month's attack on attendees of Istanbul Pride. Ankara is Turkey's capital.

Pam Geller Sues DC Metro

Via the right wing Daily Caller:

Activist and blogger Pamela Geller is suing the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority after the agency refused to run her ads with a drawing of the prophet Muhammad on public transportation in the District of Columbia. On May 20, Geller submitted her ad to WMATA to be placed on buses and in train stations throughout the city, but about a week later the agency announced it would no longer accept “issue-oriented advertising.” At the time, a spokesman for WMATA told The Daily Caller News Foundation the decision to ban issue-oriented ads was not related to any particular organization, but Geller believes it was an attempt to block her right to speak freely. “It’s an end run around the first amendment,” Geller said in an email. “… [and] Public safety has been thrown in for good measure as if these craven quislings know what is conducive to the public good.” In the lawsuit, Geller, along with her non-profit organization American Freedom Defense Initiative, claims WMATA violated her First Amendment rights by refusing to run her ad.

Geller has fought similar battles against transit agencies in New York City, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Chicago.

ISTANBUL: Police Attack Pride With Tear Gas, Water Cannons, Rubber Bullets

Al Jazeera reports:

Turkish police have fired water cannon and rubber pellets to disperse a crowd gathered in central Istanbul for the city's annual gay pride parade. The police appeared intent on stopping the crowd gathering near Taksim Square on Sunday, a cameraman for the Reuters news agency reported. Al Jazeera's Serpil Karacan, reporting from Istanbul, said opposition members of parliament formed a human chain to block the riot police. Images and videos posted on social media showed several people carrying gay pride flags running away while being fired upon by a water cannon mounted on an armoured police vehicle. As of 1400 GMT, the protesters have left Taksim Square and the nearby Istikal Street, and the city is "back to normal" according to our correspondent.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, photojournalist Bradley Secker, who is at the scene in Taksim, said the gay pride marchers were "puzzled" by the police action, given that a similar parade on June 21 went on in Istanbul without any incident. According to the AFP news agency, police took action against the crowd when demonstrators began shouting slogans accusing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of "fascism". No official comment has so far been issued by the government, but there were reports that the parade was stopped as it was Ramadan. However, Karajan said the parade, which has been held over the past 13 years without police intervention, occured peacefully during Ramadan last year.

Tony Perkins: The SPLC Has Created A "Jihad Hit List" Of Anti-Islamic Women

ISRAEL: Government Mocks Foreign Media With Cartoon About Gaza Terrorism

Via the New York Times:

As part of Israel’s intensifying effort to undermine potential criticism from the United Nations of its military assault on Gaza last summer, the country’s Foreign Ministry released an animated YouTube video on Monday mocking coverage of the conflict by Western reporters as absurdly inaccurate. The 50-second cartoon broadside, produced by the ministry and featured on its website, portrays a blond, American-accented foreign correspondent as such a dunce that he reports breezily from Gaza that “there are no terrorists here, just ordinary people,” as a masked militant launches a rocket from a residential neighborhood right behind him. In a second scene, the reporter is pictured in what he calls “Gaza’s underground city, a fascinating attempt by Hamas to build a subway system,” as a series of heavily armed militants march in the direction of Israel past a sign reading, “Minimum: 8 Terrorists Per Tunnel.” The animation then shows a militant arresting a man standing under a rainbow-colored flag as the clueless correspondent tells his viewers that “there is no doubt that the Palestinian society here is liberal and pluralistic, and that Hamas allows everyone to live in dignity.”

The scene with the murder of a gay man occurs at :28.

DC Bans All "Issue" Ads On Public Transit Rather Than Deal With Pam Geller

Via the International Business Times:

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority reportedly moved Thursday to ban so-called "issue" ads that promote political or religious subjects from appearing on its trains and buses. The board of directors for the authority, also known as Metro, approved a motion prohibiting issue ads through the end of the year, WAMU reporter Martin Di Caro tweeted. The decision came days after Pamela Geller, the woman behind the controversial "Draw Muhammad" contest in Garland, Texas -- where two gunmen linked to the Islamic State group tried to attack and died in shootout -- submitted a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad to appear as a Metro advertisement. Geller is the president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, which the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as an "anti-Muslim hate group." Her "Draw Muhammad" event was seen as a response to the January massacre at Paris magazine Charlie Hebdo, known for its satirical cartoons of Islam's founder.

DC's decision follows similar Geller-thwarting policy changes by transit officials in New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.

Pam Geller Announces Plan To Advertise Mohammed Cartoon On DC Transit

"Because the media and the cultural and political elites continue to self-enforce the Sharia without the consent of the American people by refusing to show any depictions of Muhammad or showing what it was in Texas that had jihadists opening fire, we are running an ad featuring the winning cartoon by former Muslim Bosch Fawstin from our Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest in Garland, Texas. Let the American people see what the cowardly press is censoring in accordance with the blasphemy laws under the sharia (Islamic law). The ad campaign has been submitted to the Washington DC MTA to run on buses and train dioramas in the Foggy Bottom, Capitol South, Bethesda, L’Enfant Plaza, Shady Grove stations." - Pam Geller, writing for her blog.

US Denounces Gambian President Over Vow To "Slit The Throats" Of Gay Men

Several days ago Gambian President Yahya Jammeh vowed to "slit the throats" of gay men, adding, "If you are a man and want to marry another man in this country and we catch you, no one will ever set eyes on you again, and no white person can do anything about it." Yesterday US National Security Adviser Susan Rice denounced Jammeh.

“We condemn his comments, and note these threats come amid an alarming deterioration of the broader human rights situation in The Gambia,” Rice said in a statement. “We are deeply concerned about credible reports of torture, suspicious disappearances – including of two American citizens – and arbitrary detention at the government’s hands.” Rice made the remarks in a statement one day before the International Day Against Homophobia & Transphobia, saying the remarks from Gambia President Yahya Jammeh underscore the need for continued efforts “to seek a world in which no one lives in fear of violence or persecution because of who they are or whom they love.” Jemmeh, who’s been in power since 1994 and survived a coup attempt on December 30, issued a warning to gay men in the Wolof language during a recent rally in which he also threatened the political opposition, according to a translation of his remarks obtained by the international news agency Vice News.

In October 2014 Jammeh signed a bill which makes homosexual acts punishable by life in prison.

GAMBIA: President Yahya Jammeh Vows To Slit The Throats Of Homosexuals

"If you do it [in the Gambia] I will slit your throat — if you are a man and want to marry another man in this country and we catch you, no one will ever set eyes on you again, and no white person can do anything about it." - Gambian president Yahya Jammeh, in a speech about fostering a healthy environment for the youth of his nation. Last September, Gambia enacted a life sentence for those convicted of homosexuality. In December the United States dropped Gambia from its free trade agreements with African nations. Jammeh seized power 21 years ago in a bloodless military coup. He is a follower of the Sunni sect of Islam.

Iran Bans "Homosexual Hairstyles"

Via the Guardian:

“Homosexual” and “devil worshipping” hairstyles have been banned in Iran, alongside tattoos, sunbed treatments and plucked eyebrows for men, which are all deemed un-Islamic. The move – aimed at spiky cuts – follows a trend where, each summer, Iranian authorities get tough on men and women sporting clothing or hairdos seen as imitations of western lifestyles. In 2010, Iran banned ponytails, mullets and long, gelled hair for men, but allowed 1980s-style floppy fringes or quiffs. Iran’s moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, has spoken against such crackdowns, stating that the police’s duty is to implement the law and not enforce Islam. But hardliners have remained defiant.

Mostafa Govahi, the head of Iran’s barbers’ union, told the semi-official Isna news agency on Monday that fancifully spiked hairstyles were banned and those who styled them risked having their shops closed. He said: “Devil-worshipping hairstyles are forbidden. Any shop that cuts hair in the devil worshipping style will be harshly dealt with and their licence revoked. Tattoos, solarium treatments and plucking eyebrows [for men] are also forbidden.” Govahi said shops who imitate such “western hairstyles” or violate “the Islamic establishment’s regulations” would be shut down if they failed to take an initial warning seriously. “Usually the barber shops who do this do not have a licence. They have been identified and will be dealt with,” he said.

Iran is one of ten countries where homosexual acts are punishable by death.

Breitbart Headline Of The Day

Pam Geller is very unhappy:

A century of free speech in New York’s most public square — the streets, the buses, the subways — came to a screeching halt last Wednesday when the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) voted to ban all issue and political advertising, solely in order to silence me. Baltimore burning is “free speech.” But our ads get banned. Got it? We are marching to totalitarianism. New York City is the capital of the free world. The world looks to us. What message did the MTA send Wednesday? Every city will follow suit. It was a dark day for freedom but have no fear. But this is not over. Not by a long shot. We have already begun to pursue this legally; our lawyers David Yerushalmi and Robert Muise have already written to the MTA asking that our ads be put up forthwith, as they are not political. The rich and powerful trumped our unalienable rights in New York City, April 29, 2015. But rewarding savagery with capitulation and fear will only bring more bloodshed and more terror. You haven’t seen anything yet.

NYC Transit To Ban All Political Ads Just To Stop Pam Geller's "Killing Jews" Campaign

Via CBS New York:

The nation's largest mass transit system is preparing to ban all political advertising on its subways and buses after a judge ruled that a pro-Israel group was allowed to display an advertisement containing the phrase "Hamas Killing Jews" on New York City buses. The resolution is expected to pass Wednesday at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's board meeting after the finance committee approved it earlier in the week. The cash-strapped agency says such advertising only accounts for less than $1 million of its annual advertising revenue of $138 million. "Advertisements expressing viewpoint messages, regardless of the viewpoint being expressed, would no longer be accepted," the MTA's general counsel, Jerome Page, told the committee on Monday. New York is following in the footsteps of cities including Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia, which already have banned political ads on public transit, Page said. Philadelphia banned political ads after a federal court judge last month sided with a New Hampshire based non-profit on its claim that it has a first amendment right to run bus ads linking Muslims to Hitler.

(Tipped by JMG reader Todd)

NEW YORK CITY: Pam Geller Wins "Killing Jews" Transit Ads Battle With MTA

Via the New York Times:

A federal judge in Manhattan on Tuesday ordered the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to display an ad from a pro-Israel group on buses after the agency declined to run it last year. The group, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, sued the authority in October, saying it had infringed on the group’s First Amendment rights by rejecting the ad. The authority had argued that the ad could be seen as a call to violence against Jews. The ad shows a man with a scarf across his face next to the words, “Killing Jews is Worship that draws us close to Allah,” attributed to “Hamas MTV.” Below that, it reads: “That’s his Jihad. What’s yours?” The judge, John G. Koeltl, of United States District Court, ruled that the ad qualified as protected speech and granted a preliminary injunction ordering the transportation authority to run the ad. He said the order would not take effect for 30 days so the agency could consider whether it would appeal the decision.

In 2012 Geller first prevailed over the MTA and was allowed to post subway platform messages that called Muslims "savages." Geller has won similar court cases against transit agencies in San Francisco, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

TRAILER: A Sinner In Mecca

Plot recap:

For a gay filmmaker, filming in Saudi Arabia presents two serious challenges: filming is forbidden in the country and homosexuality is punishable by death. For filmmaker Parvez Sharma, however, these were risks he had to assume as he embarked on his Hajj pilgrimage, a journey considered the greatest accomplishment and aspiration within Islam, his religion. He brings back the story of the religion like it has never been told before, having endured the biggest Jihad there is: the struggle with the self.

An interview with the director is here. The film's world premiere will be on Wednesday at Toronto's Hot Docs Film Festival.

(Tipped by JMG reader Bill)

EGYPT: Court Bans Foreign Gays

An Egyptian court yesterday ruled that the government has the right to deport foreigners accused of homosexuality and ban them from returning. J. Lester Feder reports at Buzzfeed:

According to a judgement obtained by BuzzFeed News, the case has its roots in the 2008 arrest of a Libyan man who police alleged to be gay in their report. While the court documents leave unclear precisely what he was arrested for — or what charges were brought against the man, who remains anonymous in the judgement — as with many foreign nationals who are arrested in Egypt, the Egyptian government deported him based on this arrest and barred him from reentering the country. He sued to be allowed to return so that he could complete graduate studies at the Arabic Academy for Maritime Transport, arguing that the interior minister did not have the power to block him from the country.

Judge Yahia Dakrory, who issued the ruling, rejected this argument, and said that the interior ministry lawfully used its power to protect “the general benefits, religious values, social morals of society and to prevent the spreading of social ills,” according to the ruling. The ruling comes amidst an ongoing crackdown on LGBT rights by the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, but the case decided on Tuesday was filed well before he took power with help of the military in 2013. It is not immediately clear whether this ruling will have implications beyond this case. It comes following a series of high-profile trials of people on “debauchery” charges accused of homosexuality, which a government official told BuzzFeed News in September was part of an effort by the Sisi government to neutralize attacks by the Muslim Brotherhood on the regime’s secular nature.

More from Daily News Egypt:

Although homosexuality is not against the law, it is strongly disapproved of and the courts typically prosecute on charges of debauchery or undermining public morality as substitute charges. With the Ministry of Interior behind banning and deporting foreign homosexuals, it is unclear how such a strategy could be practically implemented. Daily News Egypt spoke to a young foreign gay man who has lived in Cairo for a year and a half. “In Cairo, the way I live my life it’s not such a big deal, but I generally don’t mention it to people. In the US everyone knew I was gay it was not an issue. Here I wait a lot longer before telling people, there are a lot more things that can go wrong and there’s always a vague sense of paranoia that some trouble might happen during the day.”

Bill Maher On Religous Fundamentalism

Raw Story has a recap:

“On the one hand, clearly God has spelled it out — He hates f*gs,” Maher said. “But you like your gay neighbors Rob and Larry. But the Bible tells you to kill them. Yes, it literally says kill them. What to do?” He then chided California attorney Matt McLaughlin and his “Sodomite Suppression Act,” calling it the latest in a long tradition of anti-LGBT rhetoric equating homosexuality with a Biblical apocalypse. “Take fundamentalists at their word. They fundamentally believe this stuff,” Maher explained. “And if you believe that God wiped out Sodom and Gomorrah for being too gay, then yeah, He must be itching to hit West Hollywood.” He then veered into another criticism of Islam, asking his audience to imagine a country full of people like McLaughlin. “Well there is, it’s called Saudi Arabia. It’s called Iran. It’s called Pakistan,” Maher said. “I could go on. But suffice it to say that in many Muslim countries, you wouldn’t have to work hard at all to get signatures on your ‘Kill All The Gays’ ballot initiative. In 10 such countries, it’s already the law.”

Religion's Gifts To The World

The monthly series is back.

MICHIGAN: Wingnut Gets Muslim Bakeries To Refuse To Make Gay Wedding Cakes

Wingnut "comedian" pundit Steven Crowder, last seen here dressing in drag to mock transgender people, visited several Muslim bakeries in Dearborn, Michigan where he was turned away after asking them to make gay wedding cakes. Ah hah! Meme proven! Except not, because what Crowder fails to mention, of course, is that Michigan, like 28 other states, does not have public accommodation protections for LGBT citizens. Note Crowder's affected effeminate voice and mannerisms. The clip below is approaching 400K views. Crowder does say this: "Many of those Muslim bakeries were kind enough and willing to serve us."

INDONESIA: Islamic High Council Issues Call For Death Penalty For Homosexuality

The Jakarta Globe reports:

The country’s LGBT community has long faced discrimination, and even physical violence. New to that list, though, is the threat of death sanctioned by the Indonesian Council of Ulema, or MUI, the country’s highest Islamic clerical body. On March 4, the MUI issued a fatwa, or edict, proposing punishments ranging from caning to the death penalty for individuals accused of homosexual acts. It also claims that homosexuality is a serious disease, but that like most other illnesses, it can be cured.

“It doesn’t matter that they love each other,” Hasanuddin A.F., the head of the MUI’s fatwa commission, said earlier this month when announcing the anti-LGBT edict. “The law still prohibits it. In Islamic law, it’s a sexual act that must be heavily punished. It would be bad if the government allows same-sex marriage.” The Indonesian government does not recognize same-sex marriage, but at the same time it does not criminalize homosexual acts. However, two local administrations have issued their own bylaws that treat such acts as crimes.

The council's edict is not legally binding. Last year the Aceh province approved the punishment of 100 public lashings for those convicted of homosexuality. Aceh is the only region of Indonesia currently allowed to implement its own system of sharia law. (Tipped by JMG reader Dan)

PHILADELPHIA: Pam Geller Wins Battle To Place Anti-Islam Ads On Public Transit

Crackpot Pam Geller has won yet another court battle, this time against Philadelphia's public transit system.

Last June, SEPTA rejected the ads from New Hampshire-based American Freedom Defense Initiative by pointing to the transportation authority's "anti-disparagement standard," rules attempting to limit inflammatory messages. But the American Freedom Defense Initiative, a pro-Israel group headed by conservative blogger Pam Geller, challenged SEPTA's rejection in court. And she did so with momentum in her stride, as her group has fought and won similar battles from San Francisco to New York. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Mitchell Goldberg sided with Geller, calling SEPTA's ad restriction "certainty laudable," but "such aspirations do not, unfortunately, cure First Amendment violations." In an email, Geller called the decision "another historic AFDI victory."

(Tipped by JMG reader Rudy)