Woman Fined $32,700 for Wearing Niqab in Italian Town Hall

    A woman wearing a niqab © Farid Alouache / Reuters

A Muslim woman was ordered to pay a hefty fine for refusing to lift her veil for an identity check after visiting a youth meeting at a town hall in north-east Italy. She was initially sentenced to four months in jail and a much smaller fine, but this was later changed by a higher judicial authority.

The 40-year-old Albanian who wears a niqab – an Islamic full-face veil leaving only a small opening for the eyes – attended local youth parliament meeting in the town of Pordenone in late October. The woman’s son was participating in the event.

The woman lived in the neighboring town of San Vito al Tagliamento for 16 years and was granted Italian citizenship several years ago.

She consistently refused to remove her veil for identification purposes despite the town mayor, Antonio Di Bisceglie, repeatedly asking her to do it. Di Bisceglie, who is from Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's Democratic Party, then called police officers, who took the woman away from the meeting.

However, she then returned, forcing Di Bisceglie to suspend the meeting so that the dispute did not degenerate into a verbal battle in the presence of minors, the local Messaggero Veneto news outlet reported.

The case was then brought to court, where a local prosecutor, Federico Facchin, charged the woman with concealing her identity. He sentenced her to four months in prison and a fine amounting to €600 ($650). The initial sentence was then changed by a higher judicial authority and the woman was ordered to pay a fine amounting to €30,000 ($32,700).

Law enforcement authorities stressed that the decision has nothing to do with religion and was based exclusively on security concerns.

According to the prosecutors, the woman violated a 1975 law that prohibits covering one’s face in public places in a way that prevents successful identification. The lawyer of the woman told Messaggero Veneto that he would appeal the decision as the law in question forbids facial coverings without “justification” and religions reasons could be considered sufficient justification in this case.

Meanwhile, wearing Muslim apparel becomes increasingly controversial issue in Europe. In summer 2016, several French towns and cities, including Cannes, banned burqinis, Muslim full-body swimsuits, on city beaches, sparking a nationwide debate on the issue.

A bill envisaging a ban on burqas was introduced on August 16 in Germany. The idea of banning burqas is also supported by the vast majority of Germans as an August poll conducted by the German ARD broadcaster demonstrated that 30 percent of German citizens advocate banning the burqa in public places and 50 percent of Germans want to forbid them completely.

In late September, the Swiss parliament approved a draft bill envisaging a nationwide burqa ban and, three days later, Bulgaria followed suit and banned burqas in public places.

Europe also witnessed several controversial incidents’ involving Muslim veils. In September, a restaurant owner in Germany expelled a Muslim woman for refusing to remove her niqab, sparking a social media storm.

In August, a German court backed a school authorities’ decision which banned a student from attending classes wearing a full face veil. The next day, the German Education and Science Workers’ Union, which is a teachers’ association, criticized the court decision, calling it counter-productive.

Law Society of B.C. to Appeal Trinity Western Decision to Supreme Court of Canada

Last week court ruled decision not to recognize Trinity law school grads "unreasonable"

The Canadian Press

    The B.C. Law Society intends to appeal last week's decision that found it must recognize future 
    lawyers from Trinity Western University.

The Law Society of British Columbia intends to appeal last week's decision that found it must recognize future lawyers from a Christian law school.

Trinity Western University Law School wins legal battle in B.C. court

The B.C. Appeal Court ruled last week the society's decision not to recognize graduates from Trinity Western University's proposed law school is "unreasonable."

Now, the law society is seeking leave to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada, arguing that the decision is a matter of national significance.

The dispute stems from the university's controversial community covenant that bans sexual intimacy outside of heterosexual marriage, which the law society has argued discriminates against LGBTQ people. 

Part of the argument presented in last week's hearing is that there are no LGBTQ students at Trinity Western. Few if any LGBTQ people who attend university would choose to attend an overtly Christian campus. So the covenant doesn't affect any LGBTQ students, because there aren't any.

The worrisome thing here is that if the Supreme Court rules against Trinity, it will mean the end of the covenant and will soon mean the end of any Christian Universities in Canada. There simply won't be any significant way to distinguish a Christian college from a secular college.

It's a pity the Law Society is so fixed on the rights of students who don't exist while working so valiantly against the rights of thousands of Christian students who actually do exist. It is so obviously anti-Christian bigotry. Let's hope and pray that the Supreme Court will see through this.

Is There a Cost to Being a Friend of Jesus?

If you have ever read Deitrich Bonhoeffer, you will know that there is a cost to discipleship. Or if you read Jesus' instruction to Ananais to go and tell Saul what great things he must suffer for His name sake, you will know there is a cost to discipleship. How else could one be a real disciple without identifying with the suffering of Christ, or without the opportunity to glorify Christ through the manifestation of His character in very hostile surroundings?

But what if you are not a determined disciple, just a friend of Jesus? Would you expect to be treated the same way? Probably not, but you might expect to be treated somewhat similarly; take Mary, Martha and Lazarus, siblings from Bethany, for example.

They did not follow Jesus around Judea but they were good friends, in fact, the Bible says Jesus loved them, which would indicate a special bond beyond the ordinary love that He has for us all. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

Yet, despite this love, Jesus did not respond to Mary and Martha's call for help. Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. It was that Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore the sisters sent to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.” 

So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. Then after this He said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.”

What do you suppose was going through Mary and Martha's minds as Jesus ignored their request? They knew Jesus was special, that He had an amazing relationship with God, that God would give Him anything He asked. But He didn't ask; He didn't even bother to come until Lazarus had been dead for days. What were they thinking? 

What was Jesus thinking? Then Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him.”

Obviously, Jesus had a plan. It wasn't obvious to any of His disciples, nor was it obvious to Mary and Martha. They loved Jesus, and couldn't understand why he was so late coming to them. Nevertheless, they were kind in their words though one suspects a little bit of latent hostility when first Martha then Mary greeted Him with, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died."

Then we see the reason why Jesus delayed His coming until it seemed too late:

Jesus said to her (Martha), “Your brother will rise again.”

Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”


She said to Him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

Martha's eyes had been opened to a more complete revelation of Who Jesus really is. But Mary arrives and repeats Martha's accusation:

Then, when Mary came where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying to Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. And He said, “Where have you laid him?”

They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.”

Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “See how He loved him!”


And some of them said, “Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept this man from dying?”

Jesus wept, not for Lazarus, but for the suffering of Mary and the others who still did not get Who Jesus really is. 

Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”

Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.”


Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” 

Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.” Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.”

Mary and Martha and the others with them received the great blessing of an extraordinary revelation of Who Jesus is. They endured several days of intense grief and suffering before it came, but they would never doubt Jesus again. 

I had a similar experience where I asked God to prove Himself to me. He did! It was nothing short of terrifying how He did it, but I have not in 30 years doubted Him since, nor will I in the next 30 years. 

Do you have doubts about Jesus? Are you willing to allow God to prove Himself to you. He won't if you put limits on how He must do it - that means you don't trust Him. He won't prove Himself to you if you don't trust Him - that is not faith!

When I asked God to prove Himself, I asked Him to protect my family; He did. He even protected me though the odds on my surviving that experience were very poor. I walked away without a scratch.

What the Dakota Access Pipeline Protesters Aren’t Telling You

This article is decidedly one-sided but don't let that put you off.

The other side has been told every day by a plethora of media outlets;

this side has not been told by any, and consequently,

the truth has been masked by the liberal media, as usual.

by Shawn McCoy, Inside Sources

With the help of celebrities and professional activists, protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota have attracted international attention. The shouting and violence have drawn sympathy from people who are hearing only one side of the story — the one told by activists. Were the full story to be heard, much, if not all, of that sympathy would vanish.

Actress Shailene Woodley speaks during a rally outside U.S. District Court in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016, in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in their lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

The activists tell an emotionally-charged tale of greed, racism, and misbehavior by corporate and government officials. But the real story of the Dakota Access Pipeline was revealed in court documents in September, and it is nothing like the activists’ tale. In fact, it is the complete opposite.

The record shows that Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the pipeline, spent years working diligently with federal, state, and local officials to route the pipeline safely and with the fewest possible disruptions. The contrast between the protesters’ claims and the facts on record is stunning.

Protesters claim that the pipeline was “fast-tracked,” denying tribal leaders the opportunity to participate in the process. In fact, project leaders participated in 559 meetings with community leaders, local officials, and organizations to listen to concerns and fine-tune the route. The company asked for, and received, a tougher federal permitting process at sites along the Missouri River. This more difficult procedure included a mandated review of each water crossing’s potential impact on historical artifacts and locations.

Protesters claim that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to consult tribal leaders as required by federal law. The record shows that the corps held 389 meetings with 55 tribes. Corps officials met numerous times with leaders of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which initiated the lawsuit and the protests.

Protesters claim that the Standing Rock Sioux pursued meetings with an unresponsive Army Corps of Engineers. Court records show that the roles in that story were in fact reversed. The corps alerted the tribe to the pipeline permit application in the fall of 2014 and repeatedly requested comments from and meetings with tribal leaders only to be rebuffed over and over again. Tribal leaders ignored requests for comment and canceled meetings multiple times.

In September of 2014 alone, the corps made five unsuccessful attempts to meet with Standing Rock Sioux leaders. The next month, a meeting was arranged, but “when the Corps timely arrived for the meeting, Tribal Chairman David Archambault told them that the conclave had started earlier than planned and had already ended,” according to a federal judge. At a planned meeting the next month, the tribe took the pipeline off the agenda and refused to discuss it. This stonewalling by tribal leaders continued for a year and a half.

Typical of the misinformation spread during the protests is a comment made by Jesse Jackson, who recently joined the activists in North Dakota. He said the decision to reroute the pipeline so that it crossed close to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s water intake was “racism.”

The pipeline route was adjusted based on concerns expressed by locals — including other tribal leaders — who met with company and Army Corps of Engineers officials. The court record reveals that the Standing Rock Sioux refused to meet with corps officials to discuss the route until after site work had begun. That work is now 77 percent completed at a cost of $3 billion.

In response to a lawsuit filed by the Standing Rock Sioux, the court documented “dozens of attempts” by the corps to consult with the tribe. It documented the legal and proper approval process the corps used to permit all of the contested construction sites the tribe claimed were improperly permitted. It even documented evidence that the corps had exceeded the minimum legal requirements during its earnest and lengthy efforts to receive the input of tribal leaders on the pipeline.

Pipeline protesters may have a tight grip on media coverage of the pipeline, but they have a demonstrably loose grip on the facts. The truth — as documented not by the company but by the federal court system is that pipeline approvals were not rushed, permits were not granted illegally, and tribal leaders were not excluded. These are proven facts upheld by two federal courts.

If only this side of the story were getting the same attention as the other side. Perhaps judges should start announcing their rulings by megaphone while standing beside a few media-attracting celebrities.

About the Author
Shawn McCoy
Shawn is the Publisher of InsideSources. Previously, he served as Iowa Communications Director for the Romney Campaign and has advised other campaigns nationwide. Shawn has an MBA, concentrated in econometrics and statistics, from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and he completed his undergraduate work at the University of Notre Dame. He has a dog named Milton, after his favorite economist.

High Court in Ireland Rules an Unborn Baby Has a Right to Life

 INTERNATIONAL   LIFE INSTITUTE     DUBLIN, IRELAND

A High Court judge has ruled that the word ‘unborn’ in the Irish Constitution means an “unborn child” with rights beyond the right to life which “must be taken seriously” by the State.

The Irish Times reports that  Mr Justice Richard Humphreys said that the unborn child, including the unborn child of a parent facing deportation, enjoys “significant” rights and legal position at common law, by statute, and under the Constitution, “going well beyond the right to life alone”.

The judgement was made in a judicial review of a deportation order.

Mr Justice Humphreys said many of those rights were “actually effective” rather than merely prospective.

He also said that Article 42a of the Constitution, inserted by a 2012 referendum, obliges the State to protect “all” children and that because an “unborn” is “clearly a child”, Article 42a applied to all children “both before and after birth”.

Niamh Uí Bhriain of the Life Institute said that this was a significant ruling which confirmed that the unborn baby was deserving of all the rights and protections to which every other person was entitled. She added that the ruling was a blow to those who were seeking to discriminate against children before birth and who argued that the preborn child was not fully human or entitled to human rights.

“This is an important ruling which provides useful clarity at a time when the media and abortion campaigners are arguing that preborn children should be denied even the most fundamental right – the right to life,” she said. “Mr Justice Humphreys has ruled that preborn children not only have a right to life, but that the State is obliged to ensure that all the rights accruing to every child are upheld for children before birth.”

“It is interesting that in his decision Mr Justice Humphreys dismissed as ‘entirely without merit’ the argument made by the State that the only relevant right of an unborn child was a right to life,” she said.

“This ruling reminds us that we are a human being from conception and that our human rights must be protected and upheld from that point,” said the Life Institute spokeswoman.

Liberals Hysterical Opposition to Oil Pipelines Makes No Sense

The Globe and Mail is Canada's national liberal-leaning newspaper as is obvious from this piece. The article puts forward some good questions but leaves out the most important ones.

Some huge decisions will be made in the coming weeks with regard to the environment and the economy; the Globe and Mail seems totally concerned with one and totally unconcerned with the other.

MARK HUME, VANCOUVER — The Globe and Mail

Panel reviewing Trans Mountain pipeline poses troubling questions for cabinet

    Kinder-Morgan loading dock, Burnaby, British Columbia

The ministerial panel appointed by the federal government to review the National Energy Board’s appraisal of the Trans Mountain pipeline proposal concluded its report last week without any recommendations.

Instead, the panel posed six troubling questions for the cabinet to consider before it rules on the controversial pipeline next month.

Ottawa had not wanted any recommendations from the panel, but rather sought a broad report that would allow the government to make its own unencumbered decision.

That might seem like a smart, keep-the-options-open approach by Ottawa, but to many on the West Coast, it looks like political manoeuvring by a government bent on approval.

However, the panel report did not let the government completely off the hook, because it made clear just how profoundly important the questions being posed are to British Columbians.

If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau approves the pipeline without providing adequate answers, he will only inflame opponents who are already anticipating bad news from Ottawa.

Greenpeace is organizing a civil disobedience workshop in Vancouver on Nov. 12, and the weekend after that, a protest march is planned.

“Twenty-one municipalities, 61 First Nations, 210,000 petition signers (so far) and 91% presenters at this summer’s public meetings [by the ministerial panel] on Kinder Morgan oppose this reckless pipeline and tanker project,” an organizing protest group, FortheCoast, said in a recent press release. “On November 19th, a rally and march is expected to draw thousands, marching from City Hall across the Cambie Bridge and culminating in a pledge to resist the pipeline with civil disobedience if necessary.”

The pipeline is being opposed for a number of reasons, but foremost is the concern that if it goes ahead, it will promote oil sands development for 50 more years, dooming any attempts in Canada to meaningfully tackle climate change.

It's remarkable how easily Mark Hume dismisses 50 years of operation of the single most important economic engine in Canada. How many trillions of dollars would that mean to Canada's already suffering economy? Apparently, it doesn't matter.

The first question posed by the panel is this: “Can construction of a new Trans Mountain pipeline be reconciled with Canada’s climate change commitments?”

The federal government clearly thinks it can. The panel report notes that Mr. Trudeau and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley both say Canada has to transition slowly away from fossil fuels.

“We need to make smart strategic investments in clean growth and new infrastructure, but we must also continue to generate wealth from our abundant natural resources to fund this transition,” the report quotes the Prime Minister as saying.

But if Mr. Trudeau thinks that answer will wash with critics of the pipeline, he is wrong. The panel’s report makes the depth of public concerns clear, quoting an unnamed woman as testifying at the hearings on how “deeply hopeless about the future” her daughters feel because of climate change.

“She said: ‘It’s hard to hear that I will never have grandchildren.’ She then went on to condemn the Trans Mountain proposal as the kind of ‘tipping-point project’ that cannot be allowed if Canadians hope to slow the advance of climate change. And the crowd cheered,” the report says.

Mark Hume - What? What is the connection between a woman who will never have grandchildren, and anything? Are her children sterile because of climate change? Did you just throw that in there to provoke some emotion?

You think it is right and proper to base a decision worth billions of dollars, if not trillions, on how someone's daughters feel? Wouldn't it be better to tell them the truth - that Canada is responsible for less than 2% of anthropogenic CO2, and anthropogenic CO2 makes up less than 4% of total CO2 production. Consequently, Canada's contribution to total CO2 production is less than 0.08%. 

Do you think reducing that to 0.07%, or 0.05% will make any difference in the global temperature? Don't be absurd! Yet you seem willing to throw away kazillions of dollars for what will amount to a global temperature reduction that is far too infinitesimal to measure.

In fact, if we shut down the oil sands; all other industry that produces smoke; if we closed all highways and made cars and trucks illegal, only horses allowed on the roads, it would still make no measurable difference in global warming. 

It's way too premature to shut down the fossil fuel industry; we don't have the means to replace it yet. We should be investing in those means, but right now, if we stopped all fossil fuels there are thousands, if not millions of homes in Canada that would have to resort to burning wood or coal for heat - just as an example.

Meanwhile, where does the money come from to invest in green energy if we cut-off the main economic engine in the country? 

The panel also notes that Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of Canada and current Governor of the Bank of England, “said the world cannot safely – or profitably – continue to exploit fossil fuels.”

From the angry mother to the head of the Bank of England – that’s quite a gamut of opposition to try to counter with sunny ways.

Among other things, the panel also asked how the government can effectively assess projects such as the pipeline in the absence of a comprehensive national energy strategy, how it can grant approval while meeting its commitment to reconciliation with First Nations, and how it can be confident of its assessment, given the many perceived flaws of the NEB process.

Mr. Trudeau hasn’t answered those difficult questions yet. And critics of the pipeline apparently don’t expect him to, at least not convincingly. They know that the government cannot justify to them a decision based on a process they don’t trust, to override the rights of First Nations and to proceed with a project that can only exacerbate climate change.

So they are preparing for battle now. The only question they think needs answering is: How can we save the planet?

How utterly ridiculous! Reducing CO2 production in Canada cannot save the planet. Completely eliminating CO2 production in Canada, an impossibility, not only cannot save the planet, it will not make any difference whatsoever! 

It's time liberal-minded people stopped the hysterical panic and turned their attention to things they can actually do something about like poverty and child sex abuse.

Justin Trudeau’s UN Address was a Meaningless Speech to a Worthless Body

Rex Murphy: Telling it like it is

    Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesPrime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses the United Nations General
    Assembly at UN headquarters, Sept. 20, 2016 in New York City.

Given the chance to address, say, the local numismatics society, or even the rotary club, the wise citizen would gladly choose either of these over the opportunity to speak in front of the ill-named United Nations. The stamp collectors and the Rotarians at least have the virtue of being what they say they are, and when they offer the podium to an outsider, they do so with the honest belief that the speaker will have something interesting or useful to say, and that he or she will actually be listened to.

The United Nations, on the other hand, though it is nothing if not diverse (dictators and kleptocrats rub shoulders with democratic presidents and prime ministers), it is so crosshatched with rivalries, intrigue, devious diplomacy and hypocritical posturing, that to speak of it as “united” is a contradiction in terms.

Consider its Human Rights Council, on which some of the most gruesome theocracies and grinding dictatorships on our tormented planet have held sway, thus undermining the supposed reason for its existence. Once in a while, the body does manage to come to an agreement, but only when its members unite to condemn the state of Israel (the detestation of Israel being something of a ground bass for UN sanctimony).

When the UN, with its posturing and deal-making, is not actively making things worse, or turning a blind eye to atrocities, it does have moments of pure play-acting and harmless diversion. At such moments, it takes on the atmosphere, minus the dignity, of the Ted Talks. These usually coincide with visits from the leaders of the world’s democracies. It is a favoured venue of U.S. President Barack Obama, for example.

Obama favours this meretricious chamber because it allows him to smugly lecture the rest of the world on being on the “right side of history” and the “moral arc” of our times. Meanwhile, the ravages in Syria continue unabated and North Korea, under its sovereign tyrant, Kim Jong-un, continues ramping up its nuclear program. The truly wretched of the Earth grow more wretched and the world, as they say, marches on.

This week, it was our dewy-fresh prime minister’s turn to address this esteemed body and, either out of vanity or innocence, he didn’t turn down the invitation. As to the substance of his effusion, one would need an intellectual Geiger counter to find any. The speech was described by the National Post’s John Ivison as “thin as soup made from the carcass of a starving pigeon.” And that’s being generous.

The address easily could have been passed off as a high-school valedictorian speech: it was trite, without being testy, and full of false equivalencies. It bore the now-ineluctable stamp of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s compulsion to hymn, yet again, the all-ranging virtues of diversity.

Fluffing a pillow in front of the UN delegates

would have had more of an impact

This word “diversity” has something of a clamp on Trudeau’s brain. He seems to think that merely to pronounce it out loud is to add to the sum of human insight, that its four flat syllables compress all the wisdom of the Sermon on the Mount, Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address and the best of Norman Vincent Peale into one handy little word. Yet fluffing a pillow in front of the UN delegates would have had more of an impact.

It’s a pity that, even in that forlorn venue, Trudeau was unwilling to let go of that rhetorical Linus blanket and say a few things about what is really going on in the world. He could have offered some meaningful analysis on the situation in Syria. He could have uttered some truths to those who rarely hear them. Instead, it was the usual mush about “modest Canada” and how we’re back and ready to help.

It really is time to stop bragging about how modest we are, as one cannot honestly brag about being modest. And besides, it’s unseemly. Let other countries pay testimony to our worth if they are so moved to do so. And as for diversity, yes it is a fine virtue as far as virtues go, but so are unity, coherence, national identity, fiscal competence and the rule of law. Saying the word “diversity” is not like waving a magic wand that somehow rids us of all tribulation and want. Nor is it, by any test, the only metric for a healthy and admirable society.

But it was a UN session, and perhaps it is understood that to scatter anything but clichés and self-congratulations before that august convocation would be a breach of its worthless protocols.

National Post