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In this mailing:
* Giulio Meotti: France Welcomes the Saudis, Condemns Critics of Islam
* Joseph M. Humire: Latin America: Surging Momentum for Designating Hezbollah a Terror Organization


** France Welcomes the Saudis, Condemns Critics of Islam ([link removed])
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by Giulio Meotti • September 24, 2019 at 5:00 am
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* "Mohammed Al-Issa, who heads the World Islamic League, is credited for more than 500 executions when he was Minister of Justice of Saudi Arabia from 2009 to 2015, and countless orders of torture including the conviction of the famous Raif Badawi with 1.000 lashes." — Michel Taube, Le Figaro, September 16, 2019.
* Raif Badawi has just launched a hunger strike over mistreatment by the Saudi prison officials. "As part of their cruel crackdown, they've just confiscated his books & crucial medication." — Irwin Cotler, former Canadian Justice Minister and head of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, in a tweet.
* How can France, the country of the "liberty, equality, fraternity," welcome the former Saudi minister who was in charge of Badawi's torture and imprisonment... who condemns apostates to death and inflicts public flagellation on dissidents such as Badawi?
* Right after the extremist massacre at the weekly Charlie Hebdo, then-French President François Hollande invited the Saudis to join the march of solidarity in Paris. When the Saudis returned home, they started flogging Badawi.
* Among the French Muslims, political Islam is rapidly increasing. Instead of embracing the West where they were born, the youngest generations are rejecting it.
* Éric Zemmour, apparently, was found "guilty" by a French court of saying that Muslims should be given "the choice between Islam and France" and that "in innumerable French suburbs there is a struggle to Islamize territory". Freedom of expression... [is] under threat in France.

The Saudi dissident and reform activist Raif Badawi has just launched a hunger strike over mistreatment by the Saudi Arabian prison officials. "As part of their cruel crackdown, they've just confiscated his books & crucial medication," wrote former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, who is head of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. Pictured: Raif Badawi. (Image source: Ensaf Haidar/PEN/Wikimedia Commons)

The French Institute of Muslim Civilization opened in Lyon on September 19, in the presence of the French Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner. He welcomed the project for an "open Islam" dedicated to the "fight against prejudice". The building, of five stories and 2,700 square meters, which now adjoins the Grand Mosque, will offer courses in Muslim civilization and languages, along with symposia, conferences and debates. The project is co-funded by the World Islamic League, the diplomatic and religious arm of Saudi Arabia, which has "ties" with the Federation of French Muslims.

A few years ago, in 2016, the president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Laurent Wauquiez, sparked a heated debate by refusing to finance the project; he said he feared interference by Islamist countries. He was right.

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** Latin America: Surging Momentum for Designating Hezbollah a Terror Organization ([link removed])
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by Joseph M. Humire • September 24, 2019 at 4:00 am
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* "Transnational terrorism poses an immediate threat to us here in the Western Hemisphere. Although the perceived center of gravity seems far away, groups like ISIS, al-Qa'ida, and Lebanese Hizballah operate where they can find recruits, raise support, operate unchecked, and pursue their terrorist agendas." — U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan; ministerial conference on counterterrorism, December 11, 2018.
* [W]hen the Department of Justice (DOJ), on October 15, 2018, designated Hezbollah as one of the world's top five transnational criminal organizations, many Latin American governments turned their attention to Hezbollah's illicit networks.
* Argentine President [Mauricio] Macri's leadership and political will have succeeded in establishing tremendous momentum for other Latin American governments to think critically about Hezbollah, as evidenced in President Abdo's recognition of the Lebanese terror group in Paraguay last month.
* At this moment, President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, and President Ivan Duque of Colombia, are working potentially to designate Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization.
* Recent Hezbollah-related cases in Peru and Paraguay show that [Hezbollah's] crime-terror actions in Latin America are far from over.

The counterterrorism conversation in Latin America is changing. On July 16, the Macri government of Argentina made history by becoming the first country in Latin America to officially designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization. Pictured: Argentina's President Mauricio Macri. (Photo by Amilcar Orfali/Getty Images)

The counterterrorism conversation in Latin America is changing. On July 16, the Macri government of Argentina made history by becoming the first country in Latin America to officially designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization. Less than one month later, on August 9, the Paraguayan government followed suit and also officially recognized Hezbollah as a terror organization. Now, at least two other countries in the region are seriously considering issuing the same counterterrorism designation in the near future.

Regardless of how long it takes, the proverbial train has left the station in Latin America and regional governments are waking up to the fact that Hezbollah is a terror threat in the Western hemisphere.

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