Sweden's government has announced plans to chart the extent of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in the country, as it attempts to counteract the spread of intolerance towards minorities.
The government is to task the state-run Living History Forum (Forum för levande historia) with preparing a report on the issue by August 19th. The public agency will compile all relevant data and examine the possible causes of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism in Sweden.
German police found possibly explosive devices near a football (soccer) stadium after arresting a man who may have been planning attacks, authorities said Thursday.
The Federal Criminal Police Office said the 25-year-old, who had no previous police record, was arrested in Cologne on Tuesday after emailing anonymous tips about planned attacks to authorities.
Leaders of six religions on Wednesday voiced concern that a debate on France's secular nature and Islam planned by President Nicolas Sarkozy's right-wing party could lead to confusion and stigmatisation.
The text signed by Roman Catholic, Protestant, Christian Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist leaders described secularism as "a pillar of our republican pact, a basis of our democracy, a foundation of our desire to live together."
"Let's take care not to squander this precious gain," they warned, saying it was "capital during this pre-election period, to calmly stay the course by avoiding lumping things together and the risks of stigmatisation."
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In Denmark, where a majority are either Christian or without religion, halal meat is increasingly common. We just don’t know it. While 96 percent of all Danes regularly eat chicken, a full 67 percent are not aware that the chickens are butchered using the halal method, according to a survey conducted by Interresearch for Søndagsavisen.
The Union of Islamic Student Associations in Europe in a letter warned US President Barrack Obama to stop oppression against Muslim nations and support for long-time US allies and dictators in the region, saying that Islamic awakening, inspired by the Iranian Revolution, is spreading throughout the world and that the world is no more the US playground.
"Unlike the past, the world is no longer your playground where you make up rules and force them upon oppressed nations in order to determine their destiny. The nations of the world have vowed and are determined to shape their own destinies by overthrowing and driving out the western imposed puppets and dictators," the Union said in its letter.
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In 2010, there were 257 800 asylum applicants registered in the EU27, or 515 applicants per million inhabitants. It is estimated that around 90% of these were new applicants and around 10% were repeat applicants2. In 2009, there were 264 000 asylum applicants.
In 2010, the main countries of citizenship of these applicants were Afghanistan (20 600 or 8% of the total number of applicants), Russia (18 500 or 7%), Serbia (17 700 or 7%), Iraq (15 800 or 6%) and Somalia (14 400 or 6%).
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In 2010, the highest number of applicants were registered in France (51 600 applicants) followed by Germany (48 500), Sweden (31 900), Belgium (26 100), the United Kingdom (23 700), the Netherlands (15 100), Austria (11 100), Greece (10 300), Italy (10 100) and Poland (6 500). These ten Member States accounted for more than 90% of applicants registered in the EU27 in 2010.
Swedish researchers want to gain access to a databank of blood tests taken from all babies born in Sweden in order to shed light on an apparent heightened incidence of autism among the country's Somali population.
The researchers at the Autism centre for small children in Stockholm want to see if the samples contained in the so-called PKU register, which is used on newborns to detect a slew of illnesses, can explain the differences in levels of autism between children of Somali and children of Swedish origin.
"We want to look at the vitamin D levels at a very early stage in children who are later diagnosed with autism," Elisabeth Fernell at the Autism centre for small children told the Dagens Nyheter (DN) daily.
The tests will be conducted during the spring and include all of the autistic Somali children currently living in Stockholm, the newspaper reported.
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Somalis living in Sweden have dubbed autism, "The Swedish disease," as it has become an increasingly common occurrence among Somali children that have moved to Sweden.
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The head of the Muslim Council for Wales says many Muslims in the city were fearful of filling out the census in 2001 and is urging the to fill out their census this weekend. Daniel Hewitt and Paul Heaney report
An Islamic organisation in Wales has said that some Muslims in Cardiff are fearful of filling in their census forms.
The Islamic Association in Sweden (Islamiska Förbundet) engaged lecturers with anti-Semitic opinions at a conference in Stockholm in December, with one known for spreading myths about Jewish conspiracies and ritual killings, reported the Dagens Nyheter (DN) daily.
In an interview with German public radio, Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich distanced himself from previous remarks that had upset some Muslims in Germany and said Muslims do indeed belong in German society.
(...) However, during Sunday's interview he seemed to soften this tone.
"The decisive thing for me is that these people belong to this society here," Friedrich said.
The comments come ahead of the annual conference of Islam leaders on Tuesday, which Friedrich will chair.
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Xenophobia is a bigger threat to Russia’s unity than problems in the North Caucasus, Ravil Gainutdin, Chairman of the Council of Muftis, has said.
The growth of xenophobia, Islamophobia and chauvinism in Russian society is the most serious threat for all citizens, including Muslims, Gainutdin said. He was speaking at the Muslim Conference “Russia is our common home” in Moscow on Thursday. The forum is being attended by some 500 clergymen, public figures and businessmen from 70 regions.
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While today - at last - our leaders seem to realize what a disastrous failure multiculturalism has been, multiculturalism is not dead yet. More is needed to defeat multiculturalism than the simple proclamations that it has been an "absolute failure." What is needed is that we turn the tide of Islamization.
There are a few things which we can do in this regard.
More and more headscarf-wearing women are becoming victims of racist attacks, according to an organisation’s annual report.
Civil courage and anti-racism institution ZARA said yesterday (Mon) it had been informed of 745 cases of racist abuses in Austria last year, around 50 fewer than in 2009.
Libya launched a media offensive against Denmark on Tuesday as state TV reported that Sunday’s attack on Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi’s headquarters in Tripoli was controlled by the Danes.
“The fact that Denmark, which has led a campaign against Islam and Muslims for years with its blasphemous caricatures of Mohammed, is leading the bombings, shows that the aggression is a crusade against the Muslim people, including the Libyan people, with the goal being to terrorize Muslims and to wipe out Islam,” said the TV presenter who suddenly switched from Arabic to English.
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Two gay men who were forced to move from the city of Utrecht after being harassed for more than a year have filed law suits against the Utrecht council, the local police force and the state.See also: Utrecht: "They pick gays, because Geert Wilders stands up for them"
The couple says the authorities should have taken adequate action in response to the eight police reports they filed. Between the summer of 2009 and 2010, their car was vandalised and bricks were thrown through their windows. The two men eventually sold their house far below market price because the police said there was nothing they could do to stop the harassment.
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Subhi Othman, who admitted to stabbing his daughter to death in November last year, was sentenced Monday to 18 years in prison by the district court in Nyköping, south of Stockholm.
After killing his daughter on the stairs of the family home, Othman gave himself up to the police.
When police arrived on the scene, they found his daughter lying in the foetal position at the bottom of the stairs. She had been stabbed 53 times.
During questioning, Othman claimed he saw no other solution as his daughter was leading what he viewed as an ‘indecent’ lifestyle.
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Muslims in Germany want to form their own charity to support retirement homes and kindergartens nationwide, leader of the Central Council of Muslims (ZMD) said Friday.
Such a system is desperately needed by Muslims and would have the same rights and duties as Christian charities, Aiman Mazyek told daily Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung.
Differences in crime statistics between immigrants and those born in Sweden can be explained by socio-economic factors in childhood and has nothing to do with culture or race, a new Swedish study has shown.
The study by researchers at Stockholm University shows that any differences disappear when a comparison is made between Swedes and immigrants who were brought up in similar socio-economic conditions.
"The differences do not depend on 'immigrant cultures' being more inclined to crime or some such. Instead the most decisive factor is the conditions immigrants live under in Sweden and if they can acquire the resources which are necessary to live a comfortable life," one of the researchers Jerzy Sarnecki told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.
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The German parliament approved a law on Thursday which calls for up to five years in prison for anyone forcing a girl or woman into marriage. The new law would also give non-German citizens who are forced by their husbands or families to leave the country after their marriage a legal right to return to Germany.
The parliament in Berlin also addressed several other issues related to the integration of foreigners in the society. In a move to prevent marriages of convenience, foreigners wedded to German citizens will now have to be married three years before a divorce in order to get their own independent residence permit. Prior law required them to be married two years.
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A Swedish court has ruled that depicting the prophet Muhammad naked together with his nine-year-old wife naked is legal, freeing a local politician on charges of racial agitation.
Malmö district court has ruled that the poster does not fall foul of press freedom legislation and confirmed a not guilty ruling from March 3rd in favour of Carl P Herslow, leader of the Skåne Party (Skånepartiet) who faced charges of agitation against an ethnic group (hets mot folkgrupp).
The poster included the text: 'He is 53 and she is nine. Is this the kind of wedding we want to see in Skåne?'.
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Belgium's Constitutional Court has ruled that the official Flemish Community schools network has the right to decide for itself whether the Moslem headscarf or other religious symbols may be worn in their schools.
However, it is another body, the Council of State, which will have the final say.
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In the Danish capital, Copenhagen, a recent spate of immigrant gang violence has shone a bright light on the place of foreigners in the country. Many non-Danes, particularly those from the Middle East and North Africa, say an in-built antagonism towards them is growing.
The Norrebro neighborhood in the northwest of the city is known as the main immigrant area of town. Metropolitan Copenhagen has just under two million inhabitants, around 15 percent of whom are non-European, and the majority of them live here.
Most of the women walking the streets wear Muslim headscarves, and many of the men have long, full beards and traditional Muslim Taqiyah caps. The area is rundown compared to the rest of this impressive city. Buildings have been poorly maintained, and most shops cater to Muslim customers.
A witness for the prosecution at the trial of wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic told the United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on Tuesday that the strategy of Bosnian Serbs was to create an ethnically clean territory by expelling Muslims and Croats in 1992-1995 Bosnian war.
Anthony Banberry, who served with UN peacekeepers in Bosnia, told the court Karadzic had absolute power among Bosnian Serbs and his forces carried out the strategy of ethnic cleansing on the ground.
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Banberry said he had heard Karadzic saying that “Serbs had lived for 500 years with Muslims, but not any more”. To achieve that, Bosnian Serb forces shelled the capital Sarajevo and expelled non-Serbs from the territories they wanted for themselves, he said.
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MP Jeanine Hennis from the ruling free-market liberal party VVD is calling for a ban on wearing Muslim headscarves by public servants who work at town halls. The politician says that all religions are equal in her eyes and that the ban should include all religious symbols.
Ms Hennis made her comments during an interview with freesheet De Pers. “When do you wear the headscarf? I’d like to instigate a debate on the matter - an open discussion on the separation between church and state,” she said. The VVD MP said she’d also like universities and schools to participate in the debate but that the Christian parties stand in the way of bringing the subject into the open. “They regard it as an infringement on freedom of religion,” she added.
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The Dutch chain store Hema has admitted that it didn't treat its shop assistant in a fair way. Hema has proposed 20-year-old Joyce to return and to take a new job with Hema, but she refuses as it involves a position where she would no longer have contact with customers.
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The idea of third-level education for imams was also welcomed at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Helsinki. However, the dean of the faculty Aila Lauha emphasised that, in line with general university standards, such education should be based on research rather than on religious faith. Drawing comparisons to the education of Lutheran priests, Lauha noted that the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran church does not get to determine the contents of their education.
Lauha supports high-quality professional research on Islam, as well as its inclusion as a university subject. The research should focus on the history, doctrine, faith and present-day realities of Islam.
Universities are ready for a dialogue with the Muslim community about the contents of such education, although in the final analysis this needs to conform to university standards.
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French President Nicolas Sarkozy has sacked his diversity adviser after he called on Muslims not to support the governing UMP party, reports say.
Abderrahmane Dahmane, a Muslim and former UMP official appointed to his post only in January, was protesting against a planned debate on Islam.
He said Muslim members of the UMP should not renew their party membership unless the debate was cancelled.
He condemned UMP leader Jean-Francois Cope as a "plague for Muslims".
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The Senate has passed a motion calling for the integration of foreigners to be standardised across the country.
The move comes after the House of Representatives passed a similar motion. But unlike the House, the Senate would like some general rules for integration as opposed to a separate legal framework.
It also wants to give the cabinet the power to update the law on foreigners. Some areas being targeted include improving prospects for young people and providing professional training.
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The number of immigrants to Finland who have returned to their home countries has significantly increased with the aid of the Assisted Voluntary Return programme of the International Organization for Migration. The programme has been especially popular with asylum seekers.
During the 14 months that Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR) has been implemented in Finland, over 300 people have returned to their home countries.
Over 450 applied for inclusion in the programme.
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Sweden's bakers and confectioners make up the profession with the highest proportion of workers born outside of the EU and the Nordic countries, new statistics show.
In 2009, a total of 36.6 percent of Sweden's bakers, confectioners, and pastry chefs were born outside of Europe, Statistics Sweden (SCB) reported on Friday.
Five Muslim families in Basel who refused to send their daughters to mixed-sex swimming lessons have not changed their minds after being fined.
A CHF 350 fine was given to each parent in August last year.
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The families are being supported by a benefactor who has paid one of the fines already and promises that three other penalties will be paid.
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An Egyptian-born imam lost a court fight Wednesday to stave off his expulsion from Germany after he was accused of preaching hatred towards Christians and Jews.
The superior administrative tribunal in Muenster, northern Germany, agreed to a federal government demand to strip his political asylum. A lower tribunal must now review whether to order his actual deportation to Egypt.
His lawyer said he would appeal, adding, "This may take years."
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Knowing how many hymenoplasties are being performed in Germany is difficult. They're usually paid for privately by the patient, which means they don't get recorded through health insurance. Doctors are also under no obligation to report how many they do. In the last five years, however, Günther has gone from performing roughly 10 to 15 a year to between 75 and a hundred. In other European countries, an increase in hymenoplasties is also evident. According to the National Health Service, 30 surgeries were recorded in the UK in 2009 - a 20 percent increase from 2005. The figure for operations that aren't covered and recorded by the healthcare system is expected to be much larger.
The number of hymenoplasty surgeries is also surging in France, where Christine had the operation in an upscale clinic near the Champs-Élysées Avenue. She's getting married this July and says the surgery, which she learned about through a television report, was critical for her.
"It's the tradition and my religion that have pushed me to do this because I know that when I get married, I have to get a virginity certificate and so my hymen has to be intact," she says. "I'd prefer to just simply admit that I'm not a virgin, but if I said that, heads would roll. I'd be disowned."
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Prominent Muslim and Jewish leaders from across Europe gathered in Paris have pledged to stand together against the rise of far-right xenophobic and racist parties that represent an escalating peril to ethnic and religious minorities across Europe, including Jews and Muslims.
Members of the Coordinating Committee of European Muslim and Jewish Leaders, including top communal leaders from Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the US, announced plans for a series of public events in European capitals, on 9 May (Europe Day).
The leaders expressed deep concern about the emergence into the political mainstream of extremist parties in many European countries and declared that it was “totally unacceptable” that several of these parties had been accepted by governing coalitions as tacit partners where they are allowed to help shape the agenda.
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A British resident has become the first person arrested in connection with the Stockholm suicide bombing, police said today.
One person dead as explosions rock central Stockholm shopping street
The 30-year-old man was detained in Glasgow in connection with the attack in Sweden in December last year.
The foreign national was arrested under the Terrorism Act shortly after 6am in the Whiteinch area of the city.
It is alleged the man was involved in aiding terrorists in Sweden, but is not Swedish.(source)
Germany's Turkish community expressed 'disappointment' Monday at newly-appointed Interior Minister Hans- Peter Friedrich playing down the role of Islam in Germany.
'There is no historical evidence for the notion that Islam belongs to Germany,' Friedrich said at a press conference on Thursday, just hours after he was appointed interior minister.
That comment had caused 'great disappointment' amongst local Islamic organizations, Turkish community leader Kenan Kolat was quoted as saying in Monday's Berliner Zeitung newspaper.
The federal government presented a bill to parliament this week outlining changes to the law on naturalisation, the process by which foreigners who meet certain conditions can become Swiss citizens.
The text lists conditions for citizenship, provides incentives for immigrants who integrate quickly, eliminates bureaucratic duplication and simplifies procedures.
Under the proposal, only foreigners who hold permanent residency permits and are deemed to have successfully integrated would be eligible for Swiss citizenship.
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An imam of an east London mosque has been subject to death threats and intimidation for expressing his views on evolution and women's right to refuse the veil.
Dr Usama Hasan, vice-chairman at Leyton mosque and a senior lecturer in engineering at Middlesex University, ceased delivering Friday prayers after 25 years of service when 50 Muslim protesters disrupted his lecture by handing out leaflets against him and shouting in the mosque for his execution.
According to a German expert in Islam, more attention should be paid to the education of imams teaching in Finland. Mounir Azzaoui, Fellow of the German National Academic Foundation, warns that badly educated imams may have religious views which would not fit into Finnish society.
According to the Islamic Society of Finland, there are around 40 to 50 imams in Finland both teaching and conducting religious services at mosques and prayer rooms. Their educational backgrounds vary.
"Many have studied in their communities or in their home countries. What’s needed is a degree from an institute of higher education for all imams, says Anas Hajjar, imam from the Islamic Society of Finland.
Azzaoui predicts that as the number of muslims in Finland grows, the educational background of imams will begin to attract more attention. He believes that imams seeking to teach and conduct religious services in Finland should study in a Finnish university or insitute of higher education rather than in Islamic countries.
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The Chechen Islamist rebel leader who is Russia's most wanted man has issued an appeal for recruits for a "total war" against the Russian state, in a new video message posted on Thursday.
"A total war is in progress, fight the enemy where ever you can," Doku Umarov said standing alongside two other militants in a snow-covered forest in a video posted on militant website hunafa.com.
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An ethnic Albanian from Kosovo was taken into custody and the FBI was heading an investigation because U.S. citizens were killed and to determine whether the shooting was an act of terrorism.
(...)
Sources told ABC News that the gunman boarded a shuttle bus at the Frankfurt airport. The bus was marked United States Air Force and was carrying 13 or 14 people, plus the driver.
When he opened fire, the gunman shouted "Allah Akbar," according to sources. He fired nine times, killling two and critically wounding two others before the gun jammed and he was subdued by other passengers. While being wrestled into submission, the suspect shouted either "Jihad Jihad" or "Allah Akbar," sources said.
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A Moscow poet said he faced ethnic hatred charges after being summoned to police headquarters Tuesday "for a chat" about a poem describing December rioting near the Kremlin.
Vsevolod Yemelin, a well-known modern poet in the Russian blogosphere, could be fined 500,000 rubles ($17,400) and jailed for five years if charged and convicted of inciting ethnic hatred with "Poetic Feuilleton," a poem published on his LiveJournal blog that critics say supports ultranationalists.
The poem's closing lines read: "Meanwhile the Caucasus natives knife Russians at all crossroads/And shoot them dead with a gun/The more they shoot, the louder they shout, "Glory to Putin!"
Yemelin said police were looking into a complaint from a resident from the Kabardino-Balkaria republic.
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A Bangladeshi Islamic militant working for British Airways was found guilty Monday of plotting to blow up a plane after conspiring with radical US-Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
Rajib Karim, 31, was convicted of four counts of preparing terror attacks by a jury at Woolwich Crown Court in London.
He was "committed to an extreme jihadist and religious cause" and was "determined to seek martyrdom", jurors were told.
The Bangladeshi national, who moved with his wife and son to Newcastle in northeast England in 2006, had admitted being involved in the production of a terrorist group's video, fundraising and volunteering for terror abroad.
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Two Swedes of Somali decent have been acquitted of planning terrorist crimes in Somalia by a Swedish court of appeal.
The two men, Mohamoud Jama, 23, and 26-year-old Bille Ilias Mohamed, had been sentenced in December by the Gothenburg district court to four years in prison.
Swedish prosecutors appealed the verdict, only to have the Court of Appeal for Western Sweden release the two men at the conclusion of the trial, pending the announcement of the verdict.
In a unanimous ruling, the appeals court came to the same conclusion as a minority of justices on the district court, namely that the evidence was insufficient to convict the men.
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Questions are also emerging about whether the spirit of revolt might also take root among Europe-based Arabs, who often accuse their host countries of racism and blame the colonial past for many of their woes.
"All of these problems that led to revolutions in the Arab world are also daily life in France and are more and more unbearable," Yacine Djaziri, whose Bondy Blog chronicles life in immigrant-heavy Paris suburbs that exploded in riots in 2005, wrote recently.
"How do we fix it? Do we need to set ourselves on fire? Be resigned? Get angry? Revolt?"
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