Photos from the "How Free is the University?" Conference

Democracy Broadcasting News offers up a brief report and a ton of photos from the "How Free is the University?" conference that took place in Los Angeles last weekend.

Photos of the Middle East studies panel that included Daniel Pipes and myself (speaking on behalf of Campus Watch) can be seen by clicking here, here, and here.

For an earlier post on the subject, click here.

The Haditha Libel

Writing at NRO, Mack Owens lays down the case against the Haditha "massacre" that never was.

As far acknowledgement from the mainstream media goes, cue the sound of crickets chirping. And I'm sure we'll hear from John "cold-blooded killer" Murtha any day now...

I wrote about the Haditha blood libel soon after the story broke, with a two-part look at what I termed the "anti-war media's assault" on the U.S. military. Read it here and here.

Islamic Saudi Academy Director Arrested

The director of the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) has been arrested for obstruction of justice in a child abuse investigation involving an ISA student. It seems director Abdalla Al-Shabnan didn't believe a 5-year-old girl's claim that her father sexually abused her, so he told authorities he thought she was lying and deleted the report from the school's computer. No doubt in Saudi Arabia this would have been perfectly acceptable, but last time I checked, it was illegal here in the United States.

The Associated Press reports (h/t GM's Corner via Always on Watch). Read more at Saudi Watch. Related articles are posted at Campus Watch.

Earlier ISA posts can be read here and here.

Update: The latest MEMRI.org report on the abuse of foreign maids in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf sheds light on this sort of mindset. And note that many of the perpetrators of these awful crimes are women. Phyllis Chesler has explored the abusive dynamic that runs through Muslim (mostly Arab) honor/shame culture and it isn't pretty.