In an interview with Hurriyet daily of Turkey, Dutch MP Barry Madlener, who attended an international conference in Istanbul, yet again stressed that Turkey has no place in the European Union.
He noted that Turkey is a Muslim country, and many Dutch do not feel safe because of the thousands of Muslims living in the Netherlands. He added that the immigrants have contributed to the escalation of crime in the country.(source)
The committee received Mgr Philip Calleja, of the Church's emigrants commission, who prepared a presentation on civil marriage preparation. He said that civil marriages between Maltese nationals and foreigners are problematic "especially with African mothers who raise their children in an environment that is alien to Malta."
Calleja said that St Paul's Bay, Sliema, Msida, Gzira, St Julian's and San Gwann have the highest incidence of civil marriages between foreign and Maltese nationals.
He said that the number of mixed marriages was increasing and is "alarming", adding that when Arab and Muslim persons marry Maltese nationals, these persons should be "prepared".(source)
The National Council has voted by 128 votes to 51 in favour of the the Federal Council’s tougher measures to combat forced marriages and marriages under age 18.
The measures would apply equally whether the marriage ceremony takes place within Swiss borders or in another country, and whether the marriage is a heterosexual or homosexual union.(source)
A prosecution witness in the trial of wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia described in detail on Tuesday how he took part in the killing of over 1,000 Muslims in eastern town of Srebrenica in July 1995.
The witness, Drazen Erdemovic, a Croat who fought with Bosnian Serb forces during 1992-1995 war, said he and other seven Serb soldiers killed between 1,000 and 1,200 Muslims on a farm in the village of Pilica in mid-July 1995.(source)
Islamic students at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, HvA, have taken to praying in a stairwell as a protest against the closure of the school’s meditation room. They hope to force the school to provide them with their own prayer room. However, the school board is refusing to meet their demands.(source)
BBC director-general Mark Thompson has claimed Christianity is treated with far less sensitivity than other religions because it is ‘pretty broad shouldered’.
He suggested other faiths have a ‘very close identity with ethnic minorities’, and were therefore covered in a far more careful way by broadcasters.
But he also revealed that producers had to consider the possibilities of ‘violent threats’ instead of polite complaints if they pushed ahead with certain types of satire.
Mr Thompson said: ‘Without question, “I complain in the strongest possible terms”, is different from, “I complain in the strongest possible terms and I am loading my AK47 as I write”. This definitely raises the stakes.’(source)
Immigrant children in Austria are being given singing lessons organised by the Vienna Boys choir as part of a project to encourage integration through music.
The idea that started as a pilot scheme three years ago has now grown so popular that more than 600 children across the capital Vienna are now getting free singing lessons.(source)
A man was being held by police on Monday after allegedly trying to set fire to his grown-up daughter in central Paris.
Le Parisien newspaper reported that the man sprayed teargas in the young woman's face and then covered her in petrol on Saturday evening.
The father was apparently annoyed that the woman planned to go out with a group of friends that evening and considered her "too emancipated".
The newspaper quoted a source describing him as a "Muslim fundamentalist."(source)
Draft legislation to give an automatic right to stay in the Netherlands to refugee children who have lived here for at least eight years is unnecessary, unfocused and unfair, according to the Council of State.
(...)
In addition, the legislation could encourage families to drag out legal procedures until a child had been in the country for eight years, and it would be unfair on families who have left, Nos television quotes the council as saying.(source)
The study, which is published in the scientific periodical The British Journal of Psychiatry shows that children of immigrant parents, particularly from countries of low human development, are disproportionately likely to develop autism with intellectual disability, a connection that appears to be related to the timing of migration rather than complications in childbirth. Children, whose mothers migrated just before or during pregnancy, ran the highest risk of all.(source)
Detention of the alleged terrorists in Ukrainian city of Odessa
German secret services have ramped up surveillance of online communications in the fight against terrorism. A new report reveals the authorities accessed 37 million emails and data connections in 2010 - five times as many as in 2009.
“Bomb,” “nuclear” and “rocket” were all keywords used by German intelligence agencies to flag up and monitor 37,292,862 emails and data connections last year, the Bild newspaper reported on Saturday.(source)
A mob of about 200 people has attacked Asian takeaways in Rochdale in apparent race-related violence.
Windows were broken, police officers pelted with bricks and several vehicles damaged in the violence on Thursday night after the group gathered in the Heywood area of the city. One officer suffered bruising.
Police in riot vans filled the area and eventually dispersed the crowd, arresting a 35-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy.(source)
The Council of Europe’s human rights chief has called for an overhaul of Swiss anti-discrimination law and policy.
Intolerance and racism are “dangerously on the rise”, the commissioner for human rights, Thomas Hammarberg, said after a four-day review of Swiss policies and practices.
The review was part of the Council of Europe’s ongoing assessments of the human rights situation in member states. The last such Swiss review was in 2004 and this time around it paid particular attention to how Switzerland was fighting racism and xenophobia.(source)
What worries some Marseillais is not the caricature of Talibanization invoked by right-wing extremists but what they see as the creeping Islamization of the city's largely working-class population—and not only those issus de l'immigration. "I think that Muslim culture is definitively taking over the lower levels of society," says Michèle Teboul, of CRIF. "There are many mixed marriages with Muslims."
"That's real integration," I say.
The Swedish fire service is looking to hire more personnel with a foreign background in order to increase safety for fire fighters in big city areas, according to a report by Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Television (SVT)
”At one point some kids were throwing rocks at us. I caught hold of a guy and spoke to him in his own language,” said Ilhan Demir of the South Stockholm fire service to SVT.
The diversity project is meant to widen recruitment, according to SVT, not in the least when it comes to attracting staff with a different background than the traditional Swedish.
It is hoped that it will overcome language barriers and increase security for fire personnel in the big city areas.(source)
The number of people seeking permanent residency in Sweden as relatives of immigrants already in the country will increase with 45 percent to 59,500 in 2012, a number comparable to 41,000 last year according to the latest predictions from Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket).
The main reason behind the expected increase is a recent verdict in the Migration Court of Appeal (Migrationsöverdomstolen) which is set to make it easier to seek a residence permit for people from countries where it is difficult to produce valid identification documents.
The larger part of the rise in applications is expected to come from Somalia.(source)
ASIAN children are less likely to end up in care because of the strong support network in the community, according to a religious leader.
(...)
Salim Mulla, chairman of Lancashire Council of Mosques and a borough councillor in Blackburn with Darwen, said he was not surprised by the statistics.
“In our community the majority of people tend to have a large extended family,” he said.
“So within the community, extended family members often take on the additional responsibility of looking after their relatives’ children without even thinking about it.
“That is the mentality of the Muslim community, to support one another in their hour of need, and that message is always given in sermons in mosques.”(source)
The Mosquebusters, or the Law and Freedom Foundation as they're officially known, are part of a new wave of anti-Islamic campaigners in England with links to more established anti-immigrant groups such as England Is Ours and Stop Islamisation of Europe. Like many of these groups, the Mosquebusters fear that traditional British culture, laws, and values will disappear with the changing face of Britain and worry that extremist interpretations of sections of the Koran urge Muslims to kill non-believers and take slaves.
Until mid-February, the Mosquebusters advertised for volunteers, under a campaign called "No More Mosques," on the website of the ultra-nationalist English Defence League (EDL), a group that organizes anti-Islamic street marches that often decend into brawls, riots, and arrests. The EDL and other anti-Islamic groups have no problem convincing their members to parade in public yelling insults like "Muslim bombers off our streets!" and "Allah is a pedophile!," but the Mosquebusters have a quieter, perhaps more insidious approach: In offices and city halls, they are crafting legal cases against mosque construction applications across the country. It's a war against Islam, but one that often resembles a bureaucratic turf battle more than a clash of civilizations.
(source)
Imam Obidkhon Qori Nazarov has survived an attempt on his life in the Swedish city of Stromsund.
A source close to Nazarov said he remained in critical condition after being shot three or four times.
Nazarov has been living in Sweden since he was granted political asylum in 2006.
With tens of thousands of followers and admirers, he is considered one of the most powerful opponents of the regime of Uzbek President Islam Karimov.(source)
A juvenile court judge has refused to honour a request by the Child Protection Council to place a 17-week-old foetus under supervision, Dutch daily AD reports. The council was seeking protection for an 18-year-old unwed mother against a potential honour killing by her family.
Only unborn children older than 24 weeks are granted legal rights like protection under Dutch law , the court ruled. The mother’s identity has not been revealed.
While she was still a minor, Youth Welfare had her stay at a secret location. On turning 18, however, she moved close to her parents, saying she had nothing to fear.
The Council, however, insists she is at risk: “The family will do anything to stop the pregnancy. If she refuses to abort the baby, the family will not shrink from kicking her in the belly, mistreating her or even stabbing her.”(source)
The Higher Judicial Council (CSM) has ruled that the veil may be worn on religious grounds in Italian courts. In their plenary session this morning, the majority approved a resolution establishing that "full respect must be assured to to those behaviours which, without causing disturbance to the regular and correct court proceedings, constitute a legitimate exercise of the right to profess one's own religion, including those precepts that relate to clothing and other outward signs."
(source)
A papier-mache frog with the text on its tongue 'Islamization' and a butterfly with 'Arab Spring' on a float is pictured during the traditional Rose Monday carnival parade in the western German city of Duesseldorf on Feb. 20, 2012. (Via International Business times h/t Islamophobia Watch)
Zaman's offices in Paris
President Nicolas Sarkozy has accused his far-Right election rival Marine Le Pen of creating an artificial controversy over her claim all meat in the Paris region is prepared using Islamic halal traditions.
(...)
Campaigning on Tuesday in Rungis, home of the main wholesale food market serving the Paris metropolitan area, Sarkozy accused National Front leader Miss Le Pen of getting her facts wrong and creating an artificial controversy.
"There is no controversy here. Every year we consume 200,000 tons of meat in the Paris region and 2.5 per cent of it is kosher or halal," Mr Sarkozy said.(source)
Eric Pickles, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
Alisa Ganieva, 26, wrote about her native Dagestan, a mountainous region rocked by Islamist insurgency. She told me that religious extremism has become a form of rebellion among the youth, as fashionable as a trendy nightclub.
“In the 1990s, religion became popular in Russia,’’ she said. After the fall of communism, “people finally got an opportunity to pray. Young people went to Egypt to study Islam. When they returned to the motherland, they started teaching their parents. Now girls my age want to wear the hijab and their mothers don’t allow it, so they hide their hijab in their bags.’’(source)
A first UK helpline for victims of Islamophobia is being set up amid concerns that incidents are not being reported or properly categorised.
Last year 2,000 hate crimes were recorded against different faiths in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Police say it is unclear how many were against Muslims as separate figures were not recorded.
(source)
The Turkish Muslim community in the city of Volklingen celebrated the completion of the first minaret in the federal state of Saarland last week. (source)
The far-right Swiss People's Party, the country's largest, on Monday accused the government of inaction and abuses in dealing with a surge of asylum seekers.
"The number of asylum applications is exploding, crime increases, the costs of asylum progressing from year to year," the SVP said in a statement, lamenting that processing takes up to four years.
"The Swiss asylum policy is now marked by abuses, absurdities and by inaction and confusion," the party said.(source)
Hundreds of people marched in Copenhagen, Odense, Aarhus and Istanbul (Turkey) against the senseless death of Cem Aydin. Various politicians participated in the protest march.
Circumcision of young boys for religious and non-medical reasons ought to be banned in Sweden, urged the Swedish Paediatric Society (Svenska barnläkarföreningen, BLF).
In a statement submitted to the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen), the society called the procedure an assault.
(...)
"Parents decide things for their children all the time," Omar Mustafa, head of the Islamic Association in Sweden, said to GP.
"Allowing parents to decide over this matter isn't stranger than allowing them to decide whether their child is to be vaccinated or not," he continued.(source)
Muslim young offenders are much less likely to reoffend once released from prison than their Christian cellmates, a study from western Germany shows.
Scientists analysed data on 400 male criminals held and then released from prisons across Rhineland Palatinate between 1996 and 2000.
Nearly 80 percent committed crimes again within the first four years of being released from prison, the data showed. That fitted with the nation average reoffending rate, a report in Der Spiegel said on Sunday.
Of those who said they were Catholic, that figure was 78.8 percent, and of the Protestants 88.8 percent reoffended. The figure for Muslims was just 64.1 percent, the study showed.
(source)
An initiative to create a democratically elected body representing Switzerland’s 400,000 Muslims, a so-called “Swiss umma”, is steadily gaining ground.
The organisers say the parliament could be up and running by next year. But certain critics question whether the Muslim body will see the light of day or actually makes sense.
“Our goal is to create a legitimate democratic believers’ community that represents all of Switzerland’s Muslims,” Farhad Afshar, president of the Coordination of Islamic Organisations of Switzerland (KIOS), told swissinfo.ch.(source)
The cabinet is exaggerating the number of migrants coming to the Netherlands by including children born here in the figures, GroenLinks MP Tofik Dibi said on Monday.
Dibi says ministers are inflating the figures to legitimise their relationship with the anti-Islam PVV, which wants sharp cuts in immigration levels in return for its support on the economy.(source)
Police have arrested six members of a ring suspected of transporting thousands of illegal migrants from Afghanistan to Europe via Greece, making millions of euros, the EU justice agency said Friday.
Police from Belgium, Britain, France and Greece took part in "Operation Pakoul", named after a traditional hat worn in Afghanistan, against the ring which smuggled an estimated 5,000 illegal immigrants over the last 10 months.
"The main organiser in Greece is estimated to have smuggled between 120 and 160 migrants each week into various member states," Eurojust said in a statement issued in The Hague.(source)
Far-right groups in Athens have been patrolling certain neighbourhoods and beating up immigrants they accuse of taking work away from Greeks. Police have so far been reluctant to pursue the attackers.
Reza Jholam is a 16-year-old from Afghanistan living in Athens. In October, he was walking home alone when he had the misfortune of crossing paths with a far-right group called “Chryssi Avyi” (“Golden Dawn”) terrorising certain neighbourhoods in the Greek capital. Their target: immigrants.
“There were twelve of them. First, someone threw a bottle of water at my back, so I started running. But I couldn’t get away,” Reza said. “They grabbed me and hit me in the head with a bat. When I was on the ground, they continued to hit me until I was no longer moving.”
(source)
An orthodox Jew has been found not guilty of failing to produce an ID card because it was against his religious principles to carry any object on Saturday – the Jewish sabbat - the Telegraaf reports.
The Hague appeal court ruled on Friday the man should not be prosecuted for failing to prove his identity as required by police. He had faced a €150 fine.
‘This religious requirement is more important than the requirement to meet Dutch laws,’ the court press spokesman told the paper.
(source)
13 policemen have been killed in three days of fierce fighting with militants on the border of the Russian southern republics of Dagestan and Chechnya. This comes as a Turkish terrorist has reportedly become the new head of the Dagestani fighters.
At least five police officers were killed and six others injured in the fighting on the republics’ borders on Thursday, Interfax news agency reports. The policemen were fighting several militant groups. According to the news agency’s source in the police, the operation is ongoing in complicated conditions, in mountains and forests, covered in deep snow. The militants are offering fierce resistance, the source added, and have reportedly sustained losses.(source)
Four people including a judge were convicted Thursday of defrauding investors, including the Iraqi government and top Italian bank Unicredit, in a mosque that was announced but never built in the Tuscan city of Massa Carrara.
(source)
The figures for immigrants without a place to live have also gone up, according to ARA. In 2011, homeless immigrants living alone numbered over 1,000 for the first time. They now account for 13 percent of all the homeless, whereas before this figure was 9 percent.(source)
The case concerns a case filed against the two dailies by Greek teacher Hara Nikopoulou, who worked between 2005 and 2010 in a Turkish minority primary school in the village of Büyük Derbent (Megalo Derio). Nikopoulou allegedly asked the children to draw pictures of God. Both weeklies published a story about the incident, reporting that several of the children were Muslim and refused to comply with the teacher’s request and complained to their parents as Islam prohibits depictions of God.
The teacher subsequently sued both newspapers.(source)
A prosecution witness in the trial of wartime Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic described on Wednesday before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia what he called “deliberate killings” of thousands of Muslims in eastern Bosnia in July 1995.
Ending a three-day testimony, the witness, Momir Nikolic, said the killing of up to 8,000 Muslims in eastern town of Srebrenica in July 1995 was premeditated and planned by Bosnian Serb forces.
(source)
Haitham Al-Haddad in Amsterdam 2010
Swedish journalist Per Gudmundson reports on his blog that Ethopian Jihadis have been meeting in Stockholm to discuss how they can assist Islamic movements in the Horn of Africa. The meeting was described in a posting by Facebook profile Al Hurra ('The Free One').
The controversial Islamic Central Council Switzerland, or IZRS, has been denied a place for a rally for the second time.
Spreitenbach in the canton of Aargau has cancelled permission for “Islam Unity 2012” saying the permit was given by way of deception.(source)
Mullah Krekar's trial started today in Oslo. Krekar pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges.
The far-right Swiss People's Party, the country's largest, on Tuesday filed a petition supporting a cap on immigration to Switzerland, where more than a fifth of the population is foreign.
Party leader Toni Brunner said he wanted to "spark a debate on immigration" as he filed the petition to the federal chancellery, ending a months-long campaign to gather the required 100,000 signatures.
If the authorities deem the document's proposals acceptable, it then goes to a popular referendum, as per Switzerland's unique system of direct democracy.
(source)
Christianity is in grave danger of being marginalised, Britain's only Muslim cabinet minister will tell the Vatican today.
Baroness Warsi will call for Europeans to take more pride in their religious roots and for Christianity to play a greater role in public life.
She will attack the 'basic misconception' that Christianity needs to be 'erased' for minorities to feel welcome in society.
(source)
The Progress Party (FrP) is on the offensive to woo votes from immigrants that have successfully been granted the right to live in Norway.
(...)
Progress Youth (FpU) members present urged her to change her rhetoric regarding Islam, but to no avail.
“I have always been clear about the difference between religion and culture […] I haven’t spoken badly about immigrants, but about fighting oppressive and totalitarian regimes,” she concluded.
(source)
Muslims in Wales and England are practising their faith and passing it on to their children at much higher rates than any other religion, a new study by Welsh academics has shown.
The Cardiff University study, published online today in the journal Sociology, says that the proportion of adult Muslims actively practising the faith they were brought up in as children was 77%. That compares with 29% of Christians and 65% of other religions.
The study also found that 98% of Muslim children surveyed said they had the religion their parents were brought up in, compared with 62% of Christians and 89% of other religions.
(source)
Bosnian Muslim spiritual leader Reiss Ul-Ulema Mustafa Ceric sparked outrage by calling for an Islamic awakening and denying that Muslim crimes against Serbs in 1992-1995 war ever occured. He also a Muslim awakening.
Preaching in a local mosque, Ceric protested the arrest of eight Muslims accused of torturing more than 600 Serbs in a detention camp “Silos” in the town of Hadzici near Sarajevo, 24 of who were killed.
“Wake up my people, and don’t wait until one by one is lead away and then we realize that we should have defended the rights of our brothers to preserve our own freedom and rights,” Ceric said.
(source)
After mapping the city's Muslim community needs, the city of Milan has decided not to approve a grand mosque. Instead, the city will approve and recognize about a dozen existing small 'garage' mosques as neighborhood mosques.
While many Jews may gravitate to the Socialist candidate in the upcoming elections, few are likely to vote for Le Pen, whose far-right party is seen as hostile to Jews despite her attempts to distance the party from its anti-Semitic past and its founder, her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen. Le Pen, who wants to outlaw public Muslim prayer, has tried to court Jewish voters, but Jewish community leaders say they won’t bite.
(the school has a special program for immigrants, most of whom are Turks)
Police are investigating after a Cardiff councillor says he received an anonymous threatening and intimidating letter from Islamic extremists.
Riverside councillor Mohammed Sarul Islam told BBC Wales he was being blamed for a recent police operation at Canton Community Hall, in Canton.
The letter called Mr Islam an "enemy of Allah".
(source)
A Kosovo-Albanian man who killed two U.S. airmen and wounded two others in a gun attack at Frankfurt airport last March was sentenced to life in prison by German court on Friday. (source)
France's President Nicolas Sarkozy set the stage on Thursday for a re election campaign marked by a conservative social agenda, vowing to oppose gay marriage and euthanasia and restrict immigration.
(...)
Responding to the left's call for non-European immigrants to be allowed to vote in local elections, Sarkozy said: "It's really not the time, with all the risks associated with the rise of multiculturalism."
"In the same vein, I say very clearly that, unlike Mr Hollande, I am not in favour of regularising the situation of undocumented foreigners, which would immediately create fresh demand," he added.
He said he would introduce new qualification criteria to make it harder for a foreign-born spouse to obtain French nationality by marrying a citizen, and transfer immigration hearings to administrative courts from civil ones.(source)
The Freedom Party (FPÖ) has been harshly criticised for meeting with Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov.
(...)
Hübner and FPÖ Vienna whip Johann Gudenus – who was also part of the FPÖ delegation – said they agreed with Kadyrov and his team about the creation of a cultural association for Chechen refugees in Austria. The Austrian right-wing politicians said the planned club should encourage them to return to their home country. Gudenus said: "We were able to convince ourselves that Kadyrov would not persecute them."(source)
The spokesman of the Islamic fundamentalist organisation Sharia4Belgium has been sentenced to two years in prison. In addition to the custodial sentence he will also have to pay a fine worth 550 euros.
Fouad Belkacem received the maximum sentence from a judge in Antwerp. A second defendant got a one year sentence.
(source)
The French postal service will mark the 90th anniversary of the Paris Grand Mosque with a new stamp. The stamp will be launched Saturday with a ceremony at the Grand Mosque. A temporary post office will be set up at the mosque to sell the first day of issue stamps.
Last month, German bank WestLB rolled out a new “Islam-compliant” investment product named the Islamic Strategy Index Certificate. The value of the certificate is based on the value of the WestLB Islamic Deutschland Index, consisting of shares of ten German firms “whose business activities are consistent with the ethical rules of Islam.”(source)
The Zurich public prosecutor’s office has launched an initial investigation into Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s European Union minister, over alleged racist remarks.
At a Zurich concert on his way home from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Bagis reportedly told journalists that there had been no Armenian genocide and that the Swiss authorities could come and arrest him if they wanted to.(source)
Moroccan police have arrested a Danish citizen on terror charges, according to the Associated Press.
The Dane, who is of Moroccan descent, was arrested along with two other men for having planned terror attacks against the Moroccan state. The three suspects are believed to be members of a terror organisation going by the name the Party for Moroccan Islamic Liberation.
According to Morocco’s Interior Ministry, the Danish citizen travelled to Morocco to supervise the execution of a plan that aimed to “undermine the country’s security and stability” by recruiting “indoctrinated” people.
Authorities believe the terror cell is financed by supporters in Europe.(source)
Experts from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have recommended the establishment of an umbrella organisation for all Swiss Muslims.
In their report, seen by the Swiss News Agency on Tuesday, three OSCE experts who visited Switzerland in November warned that intolerance and discrimination against Muslims had increased since 2001, and were being exploited by “the extreme right and populist parties”.
(source)
German police arrested two men in Berlin Tuesday accused of spying on opponents of the Syrian regime in raids involving some 70 officers, federal prosecutors said.
The suspects were identified only as 47-year-old German-Lebanese citizen Mahmoud El A. and 34-year-old Syrian national Akram O., the federal prosecutor's office said in a statement.
(source)
The Helsinki-based social network site aimed at the world's muslim community, Muxlim, has shut down and now points to DisruptionManifesto.com, a teaser page for founder Mohamed El-Fatatry's new biography authored by David Cord.
(source)
France's interior minister has walked into a firestorm of controversy with his weekend comments that some civilizations — notably his own — are worth more than others.
(...)
The campaign chief for Socialist Party candidate Francois Hollande — the front-runner in polls ahead of presidential elections in April and May — called Gueant's comments "a premeditated, willful, conscious gesture" to build "bridges between the right and the extreme-right."
He's "targeting Muslims, he's targeting Islam," Pierre Moscovici said on LCI television.
(source)
The Dutch Council of State says it should be up to women themselves to decide whether or not to wear garments which cover the face. The highest government advisory body argues that ministers shouldn’t use a general ban to rule out the choice of some women to wear the burqa.(source)
Many Eritrean and Somalian refugees are taking extreme measures to destroy their fingerprints to avoid being identified and returned to the first country they entered in Europe.
"The most common method is to grind the fingertips down, for example by using sandpaper. They can also easily be worn down on a rough wall of a house," Roger Boxler, head of the refugee reception center at Kreuzlingen, told newspaper Tages Anzeiger.(source)
Reports from Europe indicate that there has been an increase in the number of xenophobic attacks.
Most recently, a report released by the Paris-based Islamophobic Crime Monitoring Group indicates that the number of Islamophobic attacks in France increased by 34 percent in 2011 in comparison with the previous year.
Abdallah Zerki, head of the group, said he had written to French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- who once referred to Islamophobic crime as “insignificant” – and said Muslims are as equal citizens of France as Christians and Jewish people.
(source)
(...)
The MPs do conclude that there may be growing support for nonviolent extremism within the Muslim community, fed by feelings of alienation and a sense of grievance, and this is a challenge for society and the police.
They recommend that tackling Islamophobia and demonstrating that the British state is not antithetical to Islam should constitute a big part of the official Prevent strategy designed to counter the ideology that feeds violent radicalisation.
The MPs talked to the radical preacher Abu Hamza in the maximum security unit at Belmarsh prison in London, who told them the main drivers of radicalisation were grievances, especially concerning Palestine and Afghanistan, a sense that the prophet was being mocked, guilt and capability.
He said unemployment was not a source of grievance.(source)
The federal authorities say they are considering a proposal to set up special housing for criminal asylum seekers under restraining orders.
Mario Gattiker, head of the Federal Migration Office, said he was open to the idea from canton Ticino, which has been bearing the brunt of a wave of asylum seekers entering from neighbouring Italy.
The plan was launched by a prominent member of the Lega dei Ticinesi movement in the Ticino government.
(...)
Residents in the border region have regularly complained about incidents allegedly committed mainly by young asylum seekers from North Africa.
(source)
Websites now pose bigger risk than prisons, says report, prompting call to clamp down on 'unregulated' material
The internet now plays a part in most, if not all, cases of violent radicalisation and is a more significant recruiting ground than prisons, universities or places of worship, according to report by a cross-party group of MPs published today.
Europe and the Muslim world seem to be on a collision course that could have major political, economic and ideological ramifications. January 23, 2012, may well come to be remembered as the crucial date when Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations" thesis, which many of us believed discredited beyond repair, was reaffirmed.
Political scientist Huntington wrote in 1993 that cultural divisions preclude a defining global civilization, and the West and the Muslim world would never share the same values.
Last month, Europe took two different actions that nonetheless sent the same message to the Muslim world: You are not our equals and are doomed to be judged by standards different from those by which we judge ourselves. Future historians might call January 23 the day when Europe irreversibly alienated not one, but both, pivotal powers -- Iran and Turkey -- that in all probability will dominate the political landscape of the Middle East for several decades.(source)
Yes, it's a cultural rather than a religious thing, stemming from some nasty tribal customs of South Asia and the Middle East, but though Hindus, Sikhs and the odd Christian might be perpetrators, the blunt truth is that honour killings are mainly Muslim-on-Muslim (91 per cent worldwide, 84 per cent North America, 96 per cent Europe).
Worldwide, two-thirds of victims (93 per cent women) were killed by their families of origin: 49 per cent in North America, 66 per cent in Europe and 72 per cent in Muslim countries. More than half the victims died in agony, having been either gang-raped or burned or stoned or beheaded or stabbed many times.
Being 'too Western' did for 58 per cent: this includes being insufficiently subservient, rejecting Islamic dress, wanting a career, having non-Muslim friends or boyfriends, rejecting an arranged marriage or leaving an abusive husband. This criterion covers 91 per cent of North American murders, 71 per cent of European and 43 per cent in the Muslim world. Offences against sexual propriety (eg being raped or accused of adultery) were the justification for the other murders.
(source)
The Syrian embassy in London was attacked Saturday by a small group of angry protestors. Similar scenes played out in the past couple of days in Athens and Berlin.
A TAEKWONDO champion is teaching Muslim women how to defend themselves, after a series of vicious street attacks.
Theresa Thomas, 52, has been snapped up by the One True Voice women’s charity to run classes for women wearing the hijab, who have become targets for muggers.
“I first heard about this when I was running an Asian women’s self-defence group in East London,” she said. “Then when I came to work in Finsbury Park, after One True Voice asked me, many of the women told me that muggers had been deliberately targeting them, taking the pin from their hijab and stabbing them in the head with it.”
She said the women found it hard to defend themselves because they were often carrying shopping bags or had children with them.
(source)
