ISIS Murders Teenage Boy for Being 'Gay' in Syria | Advocate.com

Militants with the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have reportedly thrown a 15-year-old boy from the roof of a building in the northern Syrian city of Deir ez-Sor, reports ARA News.

Friday’s execution is the latest report of deadly violence targeting those believed to be (or accused of being) gay in the Middle Eastern regions controlled by the the terrorist group also known as ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh.

As with other antigay executions, the young man’s murder was conducted in front of a large crowd, who watched as militants bound and blindfolded the 15-year-old, before throwing him off the roof to his death. In similar incidents over the past year, victims who have survived the fall have been stoned to death by militants and residents waiting on the ground. Other executions have contained beheadings of people thought to be LGBT or otherwise at odds with the group's radical interpretation of Islam. 

ISIS Murders Teenage Boy for Being 'Gay' in Syria | Advocate.com

Havoc and Chaos: January 9, 2016::End of the day round-up (pg 2)

Ruqia Hassan: Isis executes first female citizen journalist in Raqqa, confirmed by 'Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently'

Isis has executed what is believed to be the first female citizen journalist for reporting inside its territory, Syrian media has reported.

The execution of Ruqia Hassan marks the fifth journalist who reported on Isis to be killed since October, according to Syrian journalism organisation Syria Direct.

Ms Hassan, who also went by the pseudonym Nisan Ibrahim on social media, was a independent reporter. Her death was confirmed by Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), a group exposing human rights abuses from within Syria.

Abu Mohammed, founder of RBSS, tweeted on Saturday that Ms Hassan’s last words were: “I’m in Raqqa and I received death threats, and when Isis [arrests] me and kills me it’s ok because they will cut my head and I have dignity its better than I live in humiliation with Isis [sic]”

Fourteen days from the "5th Annual International Day of Protest Against Hereditary Religion" which is taking place on January 23, 2016. Here is part 1 of 4 from 2014 to tickle your appetite.

Muslims in America - 24 Famous celebrities who are Muslim - Pictures - CBS News 

From the "pen" of Yvette D'Entremont, aka the "SciBabe"

Why Your Detox Is Bullsh*t

These juice cleanses generally claim to give you more energy, make your skin glow, and help you lose weight by ridding your system of heavy metals, pesticides, and other nefarious yet unnamed toxins … how exactly does apple juice or kale accomplish this, even if it is "cold pressured" or organic? Why couldn't you do this in (much cheaper and more nutritious) salad form? Could any of these websites point me to the mechanism of action or do they just do this via waving their magic wand of organic-iness?

Let me point out: In order to be detoxed, you first have to be, well, "toxed." And you're probably not. If you actually had a build-up of heavy metals or pesticides in your body, you'd be crazy sick. There are specific symptoms to having both of these "toxins" inside of you. In fact, different metals and pesticides have specific symptoms, like muscle spasms and breathing difficulties. Bottom line? Breakouts and feeling a little rundown aren't symptoms of any of them, and you need REAL MEDICINE — dimercaprol chelation and atropine, respectively — for treatment. Not juice.

And why else shouldn't you do a juice cleanse? Suja's three-day program drains you of $162, and that's pretty standard. For that much, I expect perkier boobs, fuller hair, and Republicans and Democrats to act like grown-ups. Instead, you're just getting juice. The only real thing these programs cleanse is the money right out of your wallet.
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More ridiculously, colon hydrotherapy — aka a colon cleanse or a colonic — is a service offered at some spas, during which some 60 liters of water are piped into your bowels and the "toxins" are "plumbed" straight out of you. That sounds nice and cleansing, doesn't it?

Nope. Removing toxins? You're just forcibly giving yourself diarrhea. There's no toxin or waste build-up the water is removing. This is just fecal matter that would have been expelled naturally (in time) by your body anyway, but with added potential complications — like intestinal parasites, bowel perforation, and heart failure. In fact, this article from The Journal of Family Practice reported the following adverse effects due to colon cleansing:

Case reports also have noted back and pelvic abscesses after colonic hydrotherapy, fatal aeroportia (gas accumulation in the mesenteric veins) with air emboli, rectal perforations, perineal gangrene, acute water intoxication, coffee enema-associated colitis and septicemia, and deaths due to amebiasis.

The discovery of a 300-year-old ship at a construction site has archaeologists ecstatic

“It’s very rare. This almost never happens,” said Dan Baicy, the hard-hatted field director for Thunderbird Archeology, the firm watching for historic evidence during construction. “In 15 years that I’ve done this work, I’ve never run into this kind of preservation in an urban environment where there’s so much disturbance.”

On Monday, naval archaeologists joined the crew at the site to help dismantle the vessel, timber by timber, looking for artifacts and markings that could identify it and show where it sailed and what it carried. The public is invited to view the findings Tuesday from 10 a.m. until noon, after which the wood will be removed from the site.
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The find has archaeologists surprised and ecstatic. Unlike the warehouse, which was noted in old city records, there was no known documentation of the buried ship’s existence.

Call for police probe of anti-gay hate speech in Malawi

Anti-gay politicians and preachers in Malawi have responded harshly to the government’s decision on Dec. 19 to continue the country’s moratorium on arrests for violations of its law against same-sex intercourse.

In return, the Malawi Law Society has asked police and the Malawi Human Rights Commission to investigate recent anti-gay statements as hate speech, a criminal offense.

Enforcement of the law has been suspended since November 2012 while courts decide whether the law is unconstitutional and politicians decide whether it should be repealed. The law calls for sentences of 14 years for violations by men and five years for women.

Louisville woman accused of assaulting, robbing disabled man after he jokes that he doesn't believe in God

A woman was arrested at the Hall of Justice in downtown Louisville Tuesday afternoon, months after police say she assaulted and robbed a man after he joked that he did not believe in God.

According to an arrest warrant, the incident took place on Oct. 20.

Police say that 49-year-old Laura Reid was visiting a disabled man in his home. At one point, police say, Reid asked the victim if he believed in God, and he jokingly replied that he did not.

According to an arrest warrant, Reid became angry with his response, so she picked up his metal cane and began beating him on the head and body, hitting him so hard that the cane broke.

Warning from the Birding Community to the Terrorists in Oregon: We're Watching You

Just a friendly warning from the birding and wildlife photography community to the Oregon terrorists. We are watching your every move, and we have been watching you for a long time. And yes absolutely you are domestic terrorists of the worst kind, and the truth about your decades of constant poaching of protected wildlife around Malheur and other wildlife refuges, national parks, national forests and BLM lands has been well-documented. For years those of us who are wildlife photographers, birdwatchers and carers of wildlife, have been documenting the activities of you poachers and criminals around many of our nation's wildlife refuges. With our powerful cameras, and ability to move unseen in the wilderness, we have found and documented your illegal hunts, your illegal traps and all sorts of illicit activities, and are constantly feeding that information to law enforcement, and we have finally got many of you poachers on the run and into jails. And I for one am a westerner sick to death of you welfare queens and cheats living off of BLM land, illegally gutting our wilderness and our wildlife,,,

January 8, 2016::End of the day round-up (pg 2)

You’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer. How soon do you need treatment?

When a patient with breast cancer comes in to see me, not infrequently I have to reassure her that she doesn’t need to be wheeled off to the operating room tomorrow, that it’s safe to wait a while. One reason, of course, is that it takes years for a cancer to grow from a single cell to a detectable mass. The big question, of course, is: What is “a while”? Two studies published online last month attempt to answer that question. One study (Bleicher et al) comes from Fox Chase Cancer Center and examines the effect of time to surgery on breast cancer outcomes; the other (Chavez-MacGregor et al) is from the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and examines the effect of time to chemotherapy on outcome. Both find a detrimental effect due to delays in treatment.
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I realize that these two studies are about as close to “Well, duh!” studies as there are. Of course, delaying surgery for breast cancer is not a good thing. Of course, delaying chemotherapy when it’s indicated is also not a good thing. These are results that are not unexpected. However, these studies are still very important because they give us estimates of how much of a delay is safe and at what point delaying care starts to have a measurable impact on patient outcomes. Putting the results of these studies together suggests that it’s best to do surgery within about 60 days in patients not needing chemotherapy first, and that for patients with disease lacking the estrogen and progesterone receptor it’s best to start chemotherapy within 90 days of surgery.
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This sort of analysis is also yet another bit of data demonstrating that conventional treatments work. After all, if a conventional treatment didn’t work, it wouldn’t matter how long you waited to administer it. For instance, if you treated a woman with breast cancer with homeopathy right away, the results would be the same if you waited 120 days. I’ve discussed examples of patients who paid a steep price for their delaying effective treatments for their cancers, beginning with breast cancer patients over eleven years ago and a man I encountered as a resident with rectal cancer who had turned himself orange with megadoses of carrots trying to treat his disease. We also know that the use of alternative medicine as a primary treatment in breast cancer is associated with recurrence and death. Using alternative therapy for breast cancer is a good way to die when you don’t have to or to die sooner than you would otherwise. Refusing surgery also results in death.

Jehovah’s Witnesses Say God Used a Typhoon to Deliver Sand for the Building of a New Kingdom Hall

In the latest episode of the Jehovah’s Witness’ online show JW Broadcasting, construction overseer Travis Brooks explains how sand was hard to come by when his team was building a new hall. But Jehovah answered their prayers by way of a supernatural disaster.

Raif Badawi supporters to give petition to Saudi embassy in London

Supporters of Raif Badawi, the jailed Saudi activist and blogger, plan to hand over a petition with 250,000 signatures to the Saudi embassy in London on Friday [today] calling for his release.

A separate petition for the release of Badawi’s lawyer, Waleed Abu al-Khair, will also be handed over to mark a year since Badawi received 50 lashes in a public square in Jeddah. He was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison for insulting Islam.

Meet Marco Rubio's 'Religious Liberty Advisory Board'

Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign has announced its creation of a Religious Liberty Advisory Board that includes Religious Right legal and political activists, including academics and some big names, like Rick Warren of Saddleback Church.

The list could be seen as a response by Rubio’s campaign to last month’s closed-door meeting at which “dozens” of Religious Right leaders voted to rally behind his rival, Sen. Ted Cruz. But Rubio’s director of Faith Outreach, former Manhattan Declaration Executive Director Eric Teetsel, told World Magazine that “membership on the board doesn’t equal an endorsement of the GOP candidate, and the members could advise other campaigns if they wanted.”
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Also on Rubio’s advisory board are people affiliated with legal groups promoting Religious Right efforts to portray LGBT equality and religious liberty as incompatible, including Doug Napier and Kellie Fiedorek of Alliance Defending Freedom and Kyle Duncan, lead counsel for the Green family, the owners of Hobby Lobby, and former general counsel of the Becket Fund, which was once described in Politico as “God’s Rottweilers.”

Formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund, ADF is a heavyweight among Religious Right legal groups, and is spreading its anti-gay, anti-choice advocacy worldwide. Fiedorek argues that the “agenda to expand sexual liberty and redefine marriage” puts religious liberty in “great peril.” She has compared business owners who refuse to provide wedding-related services to same-sex couples to Rosa Parks.

ISIS’ War On Children

The reasons for indoctrinating children are both strategic and optic. By training and filming children along with its fighters, ISIS presents its brand of militancy as a family affair — and the family as integral to the state it’s created.
“Children are shown in propaganda videos for calculated psychological value,” Rachel Bryson writes in the Independent. “It aims to arouse global fear through portraying to the world that it is a powerful and fully-functioning state, fueling a multi-generational war.”

That fear seems deliberate on the part of ISIS, which has developed a specialized curriculum and camps to indoctrinate children into their extremist world view — and train them to defend it. Children of ISIS fighters and sympathizers are reared in ISIS’ ideology and trained to fight in camps far from their parents’ reach.

Gay Men Share Horrific Stories of Life Under ISIS: 'In My Society, Being Gay Means Death' - WATCH - Towleroad

Sean Mandell does a superb job of detailing the "dire conditions" faced by LGBTQ individuals in "ISIS-controlled territory".  Though dated from August, the situation has not changed.

For months, we’ve reported on the dire conditions faced by gay men living in ISIS-controlled territory. The Islamic State has claimed to have murdered more than 30 gay men since it rose to power. While many have been unable to confirm these figures for various reasons, not least of which being that ISIS often labels any dissident as a homosexual, two gay men who lived in ISIS-controlled areas are speaking out for the first time about the brutality and fear they and others faced living under the draconian regime.

As ITV News reports, Syrian refugee Subhi Nahas told of the fear that ruled him living in an environment so hostile even his family proved a threat to his safety,,,
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While Adnan remains in Iraq, Nahas has successfully made it to the U.S. and now works with the Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration, an organization specifically aiming to help LGBT refugees.


U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power underscored the importance of addressing LGBT rights globally, making note that yesterday’s meeting of the Security Council was the first time the committee had discussed LGBT issues. Via The Independent:

“It is impossible not to take up the struggle for their rights as our own as we have other great human rights struggles,” she is reported to have told the meeting. “Today, we take a small but important step in assuming that work. It must not be our last step.”

Gay Men Share Horrific Stories of Life Under ISIS: 'In My Society, Being Gay Means Death' - WATCH - Towleroad

UPDATED::ISIS throw 4 more gay men to their deaths - Gay Star News

UPDATE::  According to a report from the Advocate via ARA News on the incident in Mosul:

A civil rights activist in the region told ARA News the judgment of who is gay is based on “superficial information without any investigation.”

The pretext in the Mosul execution, reports ARA, is that the men were determined to be a gay couple. Daesh, or ISIS, interprets the Koran as forbidding homosexuality, a widely held belief in the Muslim world. The Human Rights Campaign notes, however, that “because Islam has no central governing body, it is not possible to state clear policies regarding issues of interest to LGBT people. Depending on nationality, generation, family upbringing, and cultural influences, Islamic individuals and institutions fall along a wide spectrum, from welcoming and inclusive to a level of rejection that can be marked by a range of actions ranging from social sequestration to physical violence.”

The ISIS-linked Sharia Court had issued a decision to execute every gay man by throwing him from the top of a building. 

The extremist group has executed dozens of allegedly gay men in its areas of control in Syria and Iraq in the recent months. 

“Daesh accuses people of being gay only on basis of some superficial information without any investigation. Although the Islamic law bans homosexuality, but the brutal punishment by Daesh has never been witnessed throughout history,” civil rights activist Raed Ahmed told ARA News.

 From Towleroad concerning Nineveh,

Meanwhile, Twitter account “Terrormonitor.org” tweeted graphic pictures of the executions that reportedly took place in Nineveh.

WARNING GRAPHIC PICTURES #IRAQ #IslamicState (#ISIS) Barbaric Terror Group Throw 'Gay' Man To His Death In #Nineveh . pic.twitter.com/FIXrdPBSCj

— Terrormonitor.org (@Terror_Monitor) October 4, 2015

The reports from Aria and Terrormonitor.org have not yet been independently verified, and human rights groups have yet to weigh in. ISIS does, however, have a history of hurling men they suspect to be gay from buildings as a means of execution. Gay refugees fleeing ISIS-held territory have also spoken out of the brutal and grave conditions they faced living under the Islamic State’s draconian rule.

_____

Islamic State (ISIS) militants executed four more gay men in Iraq over the weekend.

Two young men were thrown off the roof a building in Mosul under the pretext they were a gay couple.

‘On Sunday afternoon, Daesh called on the people of Mosul to gather in the square of Bab al-Toub in order to witness the execution of the two allegedly men,’ an eyewitness told ARA News.

‘The victims were taken to the top of a building and were brutally thrown off the roof.’

Also on Sunday, the Terror Monitor group tweeted photos of a separate execution of two ‘gay’ men, who were thrown from a building in Ninevah into a pile of cement blocks.

ISIS throw 4 more gay men to their deaths - Gay Star News

Islamic State: ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi issues rape edict over Yazidi slaves | World | News | Daily Express

Please note:: this "letter" referred to has not appeared in any other source that I am familiar with although I do not doubt that such may exist. Based on previous posting concerning this "theology of rape" and the use of "sexual slavery", I am not surprised by the depravity shown by ISIS.

The twisted terror group's leader has issued a terrifying edict telling militants that repeatedly sexually abusing women is the best way to make them Muslim.

The sickening letter, circulated amongst the group's warped fighters, states that a woman automatically becomes Muslim if she is raped by at least 10 different ISIS fighters.

It emerged as victims of the perverted hate group spoke out about its infamous sex slave markets, where twisted militants can buy women for as little as a packet of cigarettes.

ISIS fighters have previously executed women who refused to have sex with them, with many experts saying most young men joining the group are more interested in sex than Islam or jihad.

Many of the women come from the Yazidi religious sect and have been horrendously defiled and mutilated by Islamist fanatics who believe they indulge in "devil worship".

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London-based Imam Ajmal Masroor said the terrorists have "hijacked" the religion in an attempt to justify their own depraved desires.

He told CNN: "The people of ISIS don't represent Islam at all. In fact, if anything, they are anti-Islam.

"They have hijacked Islam. They have denigrated Islam. They have desecrated it.

Islamic State: ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi issues rape edict over Yazidi slaves | World | News | Daily Express

Egypt: ISIS beheads Egyptian in western desert - General news - ANSAMed.it

Eight jihadists with ISIS have beheaded an Egyptian in the Egyptian western desert and crucified him to a tree after accusing him of cooperating with police. According to local sources, the beheading yesterday occurred in the same area where tourists were killed in an anti-terror raid by Egyptian police.

Witnesses added that local residents asked for the police to intervene to find the killers who fled aboard a jeep, a similar model to the one used by tourists killed in the same area.

Egypt: ISIS beheads Egyptian in western desert - General news - ANSAMed.it

The true motives behind Islamic State’s use of sexual slavery

Another look at ISIS's "theology of rape",,,

So what about Islamic State’s sexual enslavement of non-Muslims, particularly Yazidi girls? Given the group’s policy coordination at the highest levels, are these practices being carried out as an intentional repudiation of an international “year of the woman” argument? Is the group seeking to refute efforts to lionize Malala Yousufzai or champion women’s emancipation even in the most traditional of villages?

Islamic State is attuned to the interests of observant Muslim boys and girls around the world. As it works to recruit young adults and teenagers throughout the West, newspapers have reported, the group has demonstrated a remarkable sense of the languages and challenges of modernity.

So there may also be an official sense among Islamic State leaders that the practice of sexually enslaving Yazidi women would likely disgust and outrage the West and other Muslims. Yet it also challenges modern Muslim youth to think about male sexual gratification in unambiguous warrior terms, and to view Islamic State’s stark society as morally complete in its treatment of others — a society which requires that they must give up “Western” values to join.

The social context may be just as important for understanding this new policy of sexual enslavement. One thing learned from the study of the small religious movements that have sprung up in the West over the past few centuries is the systematic restructuring of sexual relations that leaders have often demanded at an early point in the movement. This may involve group celibacy or polygamy, the exclusive sexual rights of the leader, or free sexual relations. It can often mean dissolution of prior marriages.

The true motives behind Islamic State’s use of sexual slavery

Iraqi woman kills ISIS commander near Mosul - AhlulBayt News Agency - ABNA - Shia News

An Iraqi woman has reportedly killed a senior commander of the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group in the country’s northern province of Nineveh after the latter forced her to act as a sex slave for his militants.

Saeed Mamouzini, the spokesman of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Mosul, told Arabic-language al-Sumaria satellite television network on Saturday that the woman killed the terrorist, known by his nom de guerre, Abu Anas, in Tal Roman district, which lies west of the militant-held city of Mosul.

Mamouzini added that the woman exacted revenge on the slain Daesh militant commander three months after he coerced her into marrying his comrades.

The report comes only two days after Daesh terrorists brought non-Iraqi women to Mosul, located some 400 kilometers (248 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad, to use them as sex slaves following an order by the terrorist group’s leader, Ibrahim al-Samarrai aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Iraqi woman kills ISIS commander near Mosul - AhlulBayt News Agency - ABNA - Shia News

9-Y-O ISIS Sex Slaves Reveal Brutal Ritualistic Rapes, Barbaric Treatment of Girls Sold at Sex Slave Market (Interview)

Dozens of Yazidi sex slave survivors, including 9-year-old girls, were rescued this week by smugglers from their Islamic State captors following months of brutal rape and torture by their "owners" and other Jihadi soldiers who purchased them at an IS slave market.

"Their fighters pray to Allah before and after they systematically rape Yazidi women and children, including some as young as 9-years-old," said Hadi Pir, vice president of Yazda, a U.S.-based global Yazidi organization, to The Christian Post.

While some Christians had the option to pay jaziya (Islamic tax paid by non-Muslims) to purchase their freedom, most other minority groups such as the Yazidis, who number about 600,000 in Iraq, were specifically targeted and separated for sex slavery.

Basing their slavery system on Quranic verses and Hadiths that govern groups they consider heretics, Islamic State gave the Yazidis only two options: convert to Islam or die. Many victims chose the later.
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"IS soldiers gathered us and separated the virgin girls and children from the other women. ... They chose the beautiful girls and transported them to the Qasr Al Mihrab village where they distributed the girls to IS fighters. … My sister and I were given to a fighter named Muhammad Salah, who took us to Mosul where he raped and tortured us," Noor explains.

9-Y-O ISIS Sex Slaves Reveal Brutal Ritualistic Rapes, Barbaric Treatment of Girls Sold at Sex Slave Market (Interview)

ISIS throws 9 homosexuals from tall building in Mosul - Iraqi News

According to a local source in Nineveh province, ISIS organization threw nine civilians from a tall building on charges of homosexuality in the city of Mosul.

The source said in an interview for IraqiNews.com, “gunmen belonging to ISIS threw on Sunday nine civilians from the top of a high building in the city of Mosul after being accused of homosexuality.”

The source, who asked anonymity, added: “ISIS militants rounded up a number of citizens in the city to see the implementation of the judgment of the so-called Shariah judge.”

ISIS throws 9 homosexuals from tall building in Mosul - Iraqi News

ISIS Blows Up Ancient Temple at Syria’s Palmyra Ruins - The New York Times

Militants from the Islamic State set off explosions at a temple in the ancient ruins of Palmyra in Syria, activists and government officials said on Sunday, continuing a pattern of destruction that they have visited upon historical sites across the territory they control there and in Iraq.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist and monitoring group based in Britain, said Sunday in a statement that Islamic State fighters detonated “a large quantity of explosives” that they had arranged around the Temple of Baalshamin, one of the most grand and well-preserved structures in the sprawling complex of ruins. A government official told reporters that it was heavily damaged by the blast.

The temple stood “dozens of meters” away from a Roman amphitheater where the Islamic State held a mass execution, killing 25 prisoners, in a video released last month, the activist group said. The entire ancient city of Palmyra is a Unesco World Heritage site.

 

Maamoun Abdul-Karim, the head of Syria’s Directorate of Antiquities and Museums, confirmed the activists’ account to Reuters, although the two accounts differed on when the temple was destroyed. The Syrian Observatory said the destruction took place last month, while Dr. Abdul-Karim said the militants bombed it on Sunday.

ISIS Blows Up Ancient Temple at Syria’s Palmyra Ruins - The New York Times

ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape - The New York Times

"He kept telling me this is ibadah,” she said, using a term from Islamic scripture meaning worship.

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The systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State in the year since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution. Interviews with 21 women and girls who recently escaped the Islamic State, as well as an examination of the group’s official communications, illuminate how the practice has been enshrined in the group’s core tenets.

The trade in Yazidi women and girls has created a persistent infrastructure, with a network of warehouses where the victims are held, viewing rooms where they are inspected and marketed, and a dedicated fleet of buses used to transport them.

A total of 5,270 Yazidis were abducted last year, and at least 3,144 are still being held, according to community leaders. To handle them, the Islamic State has developed a detailed bureaucracy of sex slavery, including sales contracts notarized by the ISIS-run Islamic courts. And the practice has become an established recruiting tool to lure men from deeply conservative Muslim societies, where casual sex is taboo and dating is forbidden.

A growing body of internal policy memos and theological discussions has established guidelines for slavery, including a lengthy how-to manual issued by the Islamic State Research and Fatwa Department just last month. Repeatedly, the ISIS leadership has emphasized a narrow and selective reading of the Quran and other religious rulings to not only justify violence, but also to elevate and celebrate each sexual assault as spiritually beneficial, even virtuous.

“Every time that he came to rape me, he would pray,” said F, a 15-year-old girl who was captured on the shoulder of Mount Sinjar one year ago and was sold to an Iraqi fighter in his 20s. Like some others interviewed by The New York Times, she wanted to be identified only by her first initial because of the shame associated with rape.
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In the parking lot the same fleet of Hajj buses was waiting to take them to their next destination, said F. Along with 24 other girls and young women, the 15-year-old was driven to an army base in Iraq. It was there in the parking lot that she heard the word “sabaya” for the first time.

“They laughed and jeered at us, saying ‘You are our sabaya.’ I didn’t know what that word meant,” she said. Later on, the local Islamic State leader explained it meant slave.

“He told us that Taus Malik” — one of seven angels to whom the Yazidis pray — “is not God. He said that Taus Malik is the devil and that because you worship the devil, you belong to us. We can sell you and use you as we see fit.”

The Islamic State’s sex trade appears to be based solely on enslaving women and girls from the Yazidi minority. As yet, there has been no widespread campaign aimed at enslaving women from other religious minorities, said Samer Muscati, the author of the recent Human Rights Watch report. That assertion was echoed by community leaders, government officials and other human rights workers.

ISIS Enshrines a Theology of Rape - The New York Times

See also:

The Truth About Islam and Sex Slavery History Is More Complicated Than You Think

Antiquities scholar beheaded by IS in Palmyra, refused to say where treasures hidden | The Times of Israel

Islamic State militants beheaded one of Syria’s most prominent antiquities scholars in the ancient town of Palmyra, then strapped his body from one of the town’s Roman columns, Syrian state media and an activist group said Wednesday.

The killing of 81-year-old Khaled al-Asaad was the latest atrocity perpetrated by the group, which has captured a third of both Syria and Iraq. Since IS overran Palmyra in May, there have been fears the extremists, who have destroyed famed archaeological sites in Iraq, would demolish its 2,000-year-old Roman-era city at the town’s edge, one of the Mideast’s most spectacular archaeological sites.

According to Syrian state news agency SANA and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, al-Assad was beheaded on Tuesday in a square outside the town’s museum. The Observatory, which has a network of activists on the ground in Syria, said dozens of people gathered to witness the killing. Al-Asaad had been held by the IS for about a month, it added.

His body was then taken to Palmyra’s archaeological site and hung from one of the Roman columns, Maamoun Abdulkarim, the head of the Antiquities and Museums Department in Damascus, told SANA.

Antiquities scholar beheaded by IS in Palmyra, refused to say where treasures hidden | The Times of Israel

Mothers Of ISIS Recruits Fight Their Own Battles Back Home - The Huffington Post

Very powerful, very sad but a glimmer of hope,,,

These women are just four of thousands who have lost a child to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Since the Syrian civil war began four years ago, some 20,000 foreign nationals have made their way to Syria and Iraq to fight for various radical Islamist factions. Over 3,000 are from Western countries. While some go with their families’ blessing, most leave in secret, taking all sense of normalcy with them. After they’ve gone, their parents are left with a form of grief that is surreal in its specificity. It is sorrow at the loss of a child, it is guilt at what he or she may have done, it is shame in the face of hostility from friends and neighbors, and it is doubt about all the things they realize they did not know about the person whom they brought into the world. Over the last year, dozens of these mothers from around the world have found each other, weaving a strange alliance from their loss. What they want, more than anything, is to make sense of the senselessness of what happened to their children—and, perhaps, for something meaningful to come from their deaths.

[,,,]
What Boudreau had witnessed was a classic radicalization process, Koehler told me. Its phases are remarkably similar whether the person is joining a sect of religious extremists or a group of neo-Nazis. First, the recruit is euphoric because he has finally found a way to make sense of the world. He tries to convert those around him—and, in the case of radicalized Muslims in recent years, to make them care about the suffering of Syrians. The second, more frustrating stage comes when the convert realizes that his loved ones aren’t receptive to his message. This is when the family conflicts begin: arguments over clothing, alcohol, music. At this point, the convert begins to consider advice from his cohorts that perhaps the only way to be true to his beliefs is to leave home for a Muslim country. In the final stage, the person sells his possessions and often pursues physical fitness or some kind of martial training. As his frustration mounts, his desire to act becomes overwhelming, until he starts to see violence as the only solution.

[,,,]
Part of the problem is that the phenomenon of ISIS recruitment is so new that efforts to counter it are still in their infancy. Many Western countries are only starting to think about jihadi recruits in terms of prevention, rather than punishment or rehabilitation. Often, parents like Torill who actually sound the alarm are treated simply as sources of intelligence. Nor are many governments eager to bring radicals back once they have left: One American official told me privately that the U.S. would rather foreign fighters die in Syria than return home.

Mothers Of ISIS Recruits Fight Their Own Battles Back Home - The Huffington Post

Two gay men thrown to their deaths by ISIS – then children stone them | Metro News

Two gay men were thrown off a building and then stoned by children in a horrific execution by Islamic State militants.

Footage from a video posted online shows the men being tied up and blindfolded before being hurled off a rooftop in Homs, Syria.

A baying mob below, which included children, are then shown stoning the men with blood-splattered rocks seen scattered around the bodies.

It was unclear whether the men died in the fall or as a result of the stoning.

Afterwards, the six-minute video shows the ISIS militants appearing to conduct the rituals of an Islamic burial and dumping the bodies in an unmarked grave.

Two gay men thrown to their deaths by ISIS – then children stone them | Metro News

Islamic State Executed 'Unprecedented' 2,070 Iraqis Around Mosul

The Islamic State (IS) group has executed more than 2,000 people in and around the northern Iraqi city of Mosul since seizing it in June 2014, officials said August 7.

They "assassinated in cold blood...2,070 residents of Nineveh for...not cooperating with them," Iraqi Defense Minister Khalid al-Obaidi said in a video posted on the ministry's website.

Parliament speaker Salim al-Jaburi called the mass executions a "historical crime of genocide," while Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi claimed that the killings came in response to IS's recent losses to government forces in Anbar Province.

The names of 2,070 people were posted on a list compiled by the militant group, part of which was displayed on a wall of the local health ministry branch, several Mosul residents said.

The list came with an order from IS, which has administered Mosul since taking over last year, for the ministry staff to deliver death certificates.

Islamic State Executed 'Unprecedented' 2,070 Iraqis Around Mosul

ISIS executes 19 women for refusing to practice sex with its fighters - AhlulBayt News Agency - ABNA - Shia News

Media official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Mosul, Said Mimousini, said on Monday, that ISIS executed 19 women in Mosul, attributing the cause to refusing the practice of the so-called sexual jihad.

Mimousini said that “ISIS executed 19 women in the city of Mosul during the past two days,” claiming that, “the penalty decision came on the background of the refusal to participate in the practice of sexual jihad.” 

ISIS executes 19 women for refusing to practice sex with its fighters - AhlulBayt News Agency - ABNA - Shia News

Yazidi boy forced to join ISIS terror camp given sword to behead his MOTHER | Daily Mail Online

A Yazidi mother has told how her four-year-old son was taken from her to join an ISIS terror training camp where he was forced to learn passages from the Koran, Sharia Law and even given a sword and taught how to behead his own mother.

Bohar – not her real name - could do little but watch as her young son was handed a sword by their captors, who told him 'this is to kill your mother'.

Later, he revealed they were training him to chop people's heads off, shoot guns and hate his own people, at an age when most children around the world are just learning to read.

Her son was never forced to carry out the perverted act - but his mother is adamant if her son had stayed he would have been forced to kill for ISIS.

In an exclusive interview, Bohar, 35, told MailOnline: 'ISIS trained my son to learn the Koran, how to speak Arabic, how to pray and how to use a sword.’

Speaking from a refugee camp in Dohuk, northern Iraq, Bohar said: 'They told him that Yazidis are Kafir, Arabic for ‘non-believers’ and told him he had to fight them.

‘This one time the ISIS man gave him a sword and said this is to kill your mother.'

Bohar, her son Hamo, not his real name, and her three other children were captured by ISIS last August, just south-east of Sinjar Mountain.

Unable to flee, they were imprisoned with 2,000 other Yazidi, from where they were shunted between prisons in Tal-Afar and Badush in Mosul - as evil ISIS militants decided their fate.

'In Badush prison ISIS took my eldest daughter and my eldest son who is 12. They took them to Syria,' she said.

'Some friends [later] told me my daughter and son were taken to Raqqa, where I believe they still are,' she added. 

Yazidi boy forced to join ISIS terror camp given sword to behead his MOTHER | Daily Mail Online

ISIS executes 7 civilians on charges of collaborating with Iraqi government - AhlulBayt News Agency - ABNA - Shia News

 According to a local source in Kirkuk province, ISIS executed seven civilians on Sunday on charges of “collaborating” with the Iraqi government southwest of Kirkuk.

The source said that “ISIS elements implemented a new crime against civilians; they executed seven people on charges of spying with the Iraqi government and reporting ISIS locations in the districts of Sharqat and Hawija (55 km southwest of Kirkuk),” noting that, “the execution was carried out in the center of Sharqat.”

ISIS executes 7 civilians on charges of collaborating with Iraqi government - AhlulBayt News Agency - ABNA - Shia News