Germany: Muslims want more burial space

Germany: Muslims want more burial space
     
Via The National:

In a sombre sign that Muslims are becoming more integrated in German society, the 300,000-strong Islamic community in Berlin has complained that it is running out of graveyard space, and is urging authorities to help solve the problem.

The shortage of sites reflects a desire by increasing numbers of Muslims to be buried in Germany rather than be taken to their countries of origin after their death. Community leaders have stepped up their campaign this month for more burial space.

"They live here in the second and third generation and they want to be buried where they lived and worked," said Ender Cetin, the chairman of the Muslim association at the Sehitlik mosque in Berlin. "This is a problem that urgently needs to be solved." 

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Switzerland: Muslim cemeteries seen as 'long-term investments'

Switzerland: Muslim cemeteries seen as 'long-term investments'

Via WRS:

TUNGER: “At one point, earlier or later, you have to tackle this question, because the Muslims are there.  They have the constitutional right for a decent burial.  What experience shows is that more than a dozen municipalities in Switzerland have found a solution by a process in which local authorities and local Muslims sit at a table and  discuss what possibilities do we have, what solutions do we have.  Almost everywhere a solution has been found.”

Cornel Suter at Lucerne’s cemetery says working with the local Muslim association has been helpful for a number of reasons—pointing out religious requirements, helping with language, or even mediating cultural differences.  He is thankful for that.

Researcher Andreas Tunger sees this example as paramount:

TUNGER: “What we have seen until now is very much goodwill on this very grassroots level, which the populist tendencies cannot so easily exploit for national campaigns.”

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France: Graves of Muslim soldiers desecrated

France: Graves of Muslim soldiers desecrated

Via AP:

The graves of several Muslim soldiers in a cemetery in southeastern France were desecrated over the weekend, officials said Monday. The French president called the act "a slur" on the country's history.

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Helsinki: Hospitals don't facilitate Muslim burial

Helsinki: Hospitals don't facilitate Muslim burial

Via YLE:

Muslims in the capital region must forgo their traditions for death as some elements of the Muslim burial ceremony are not possible in hospitals.

According to Muslim custom, the body must be washed immediately prior to the funeral, and if not possible: on the night before.  The body is then wrapped in two clean pices of cloth and placed in a coffin.  There are currently no facilities for such a procedure in Helsinki hospitals, and so often the family washes the body at home.

France: First municipal Muslim cemetery inaugurated in Strasbourg

France: First municipal Muslim cemetery inaugurated in Strasbourg

Strasbourg: First Muslim cemetery in France

Strasbourg: First Muslim cemetery in France

Via Le Parisien (French):

The first Muslim cemetery will be inaugurated in Strasbourg on February 6th. The cemetery will have place for 1000 graves.

The cemetery is the first to be established by a French municipality, and was made possible by the special local laws of the region, which do not recognize separation of Church and State. Elsewhere in the country, there are Muslim plots in other cemeteries.

France: Muslim war graves attacked

France: Muslim war graves attacked

France: Muslims sites proportionally desecrated more

France: Muslims sites proportionally desecrated more

Via TF1 (French):

Desecration Muslim and Jewish cemeteries and places of worship is, proportionally to their numbers, higher than that of Christian sites, according to a new study by the 'study group on the prevent and fight against desecration of places of worship and cemeteries'.

Percentage wise, 1.30% of Christian sites were violated, compared with 2.85% of Muslim sites and 2.8% of Jewish sites. 621 such cases of desecration were recorded in 2010, affecting just a small minority of sites. The break down: 522 were Christian, 57 Muslim and 42 Jewish.

France: Racist slogans found on Muslim graves in military cemetery

France: Racist slogans found on Muslim graves in military cemetery

Via RFI:

About 30 Muslim graves have been desecrated in Carcassone, south-west France. A legal inquiry has been launched to find the perpetrators and punish them.

The caretaker of the military cemetery of Saint-Michel de la ville discovered racist and Nazi slogans daubed on the gravestones when he closed up on Saturday.

The graves belonged to Muslims killed fighting for France during World War I and were immediately repainted and restored.

(source)

Norway: PM hails Muslim victim of massacre at funeral

Norway: PM hails Muslim victim of massacre at funeral

Strasbourg: Muslim cemetery desecrated

Strasbourg: Muslim cemetery desecrated

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Greece: Cemetery desecrated, Turkish consulate attacked

Greece: Cemetery desecrated, Turkish consulate attacked


Via Hurriyet:


Vandals have desecrated a Muslim cemetery at Komotini in northeastern Greece where an ethnic Turk minority still lives, a police source said on Saturday, with Athens swiftly condemning the act.


Around 10 gravestones were smashed overnight Friday to Saturday, the source said, asking not to be named. Around 30 members of the local Turkish community subsequently demonstrated in central Komotini.


Greek government spokesman George Petalotis blamed the vandalism on "marginal groups trying to sow hatred."


"Their acts must be condemned and are against our national interests," he said in a statement.


The desecration came after unknown assailants on Thursday threw a firebomb at the Turkish consulate in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki, without causing damage or casualties.


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Berlin: Proposal to allow shroud burial

Berlin: Proposal to allow shroud burial

In the future, deceased in Berlin it might be possible to be buried in a shroud, without a coffin. The Senate would deal with the issue for the first time on Tuesday. The proposal is part of the new integration act and says that for religious reasons it would be possible to bury a body in a shroud, without a coffin.

Surrey: Muslims pay less for burial

Surrey: Muslims pay less for burial


Via Telegraph (h/t NRP):


Christian churchgoers have complained about the "discriminatory price" of burial plots in the Greenlawn Memorial Park cemetery in Warlingham, Surrey.


The cemetery – which is managed by Croydon Council – offers Muslims a graveyard plot for £2,383, but charges non-Muslims £2,927 – a hike of £544.


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Strasbourg: Muslim tombs desecrated

Strasbourg: Muslim tombs desecrated

18 tombs of the Muslim sector of the Robertsau cemetery in Strasbourg were violated last night by persons unknown that left no trace or message.


The discovery came this morning when the guardian of the 61 tombs arrived.

France: Muslim soldiers' graves vandalized

France: Muslim soldiers' graves vandalized


Vandals have desecrated the graves of seven Muslim soldiers who died fighting for France in World War II, the defence minister announced, expressing "deep indignation."


"I wish to express my deep indignation at this ignoble and cowardly act," Herve Morin said in a statement Thursday after the tombstones were toppled at a military cemetery in the southern city of Tarascon.


"I bow before the memory of these soldiers with more emotion now that the ultimate outrage appears to have targeted them for their religious beliefs," he said.


Morin said the soldiers had given their lives for a "free, just and generous" Europe and France.


The regional Muslim council said the tombstones had been toppled and three of them were smashed. There are 130 graves in the cemetery, of which 17 belong to Muslim soldiers.


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Source: AFP (English)

Switzerland: Muslim cemetery demand sparks debate

Switzerland: Muslim cemetery demand sparks debate

For more on this story see:
* Switzerland: Muslims want Islamic cemeteries in every canton
* Switzerland: Politician apologizes for calling to ban Jewish, Muslim cemeteries


The call for Islamic cemeteries in every canton by a Swiss Muslim umbrella group has provoked a wave of reactions.


Swiss Islam specialists say the legal strategy proposed by Farhad Afshar, president of the Coordination of Islamic Organisations in Switzerland, is the wrong approach to an inexistent problem.


On Sunday Afshar told the Sonntag newspaper he was preparing a legal case concerning freedom of religion after the Bernese commune of Köniz recently rejected a separate burial ground for Muslims.


“With this strategy we are turning something into a problem that isn’t one really – it’s a clumsy approach,” said Stéphane Lathion, head of a research group on Islam in Switzerland at Lausanne University.


Lathion said a federal solution was particularly inappropriate, as in 90 per cent of cantons where there had been discussions about Islamic cemeteries, solutions were found that satisfied everyone.


Nine communes in the cities of Zurich, Bern, Basel, Thun, Lucerne and Geneva have special cemetery space set aside for Muslims. Islamic law says Muslims should be buried separately from people of other faiths.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/addedentry/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

But Afshar says he has received many complaints from Muslims in Switzerland. “Muslims who came here 40 years ago are dying and have the right to be buried with dignity,” he told the Tribune de Genève newspaper.


Nobody is putting into question the right to a decent burial, said Andreas Tunger-Zanetti, from the Religion Research Centre at Lucerne University, but the legal approach is the wrong one.


“Swiss regulations and Muslim requirements can normally be reconciled, but this has much to do with the needs at the local level and these are defined by the authorities and Muslim representatives,” he noted.


“The numbers may increase in the years to come, but there is no use trying to have one fixed solution for the whole of Switzerland. In some cantons there are hardly any Muslims; one shouldn’t exaggerate the issue.”


Lathion went even further: “There is no demand – 90 per cent of Muslims who die in Switzerland are repatriated.”


Both experts felt Afshar was not very representative of Switzerland’s 400,000 Muslims, mainly from the former Yugoslavia and Turkey.


Meanwhile, in political circles the question of religious cemeteries continues to provoke heated debate.


“Right until death, Muslims want to create a parallel structure,” the rightwing Swiss People’s Party parliamentarian Oskar Freysinger told the Tribune de Genève newspaper.


Green parliamentarian Daniel Vischer felt Afshar’s legal strategy had little chance of success, while his colleague Antonio Hodgers warned it risked “getting the population’s back up”.


“I would put Ashfar’s declaration in the same category as those made by Christophe Darbellay the evening of the minaret vote,” said Lathion. “It’s one-upmanship rather than an attempt to make people understand or explain what is happening.”

In December 2009 Christian Democratic Party President Christophe Darbellay called for a ban on new Muslim and Jewish cemeteries, just days after Swiss voters approved a halt to
building new minarets. He later apologised.


Muslim reactions


Afshar’s comments have provoked a mixed response in the Swiss Muslim community.


While the question of Islamic cemeteries is relevant, his strategy and timing are flawed, said Abdel Lamhangar, a Swiss Muslim and Socialist councillor for Romont, in canton Fribourg.


“The country is under pressure from all sides and it’s not the moment to have another legal tussle,” he told the French-speaking national radio show Forum.


And Afshar should recognise that Swiss culture is one of negotiation and consensus, he added.



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Source: SwissInfo (English)

Switzerland: Muslims want Islamic cemeteries in every canton

Switzerland: Muslims want Islamic cemeteries in every canton


An umbrella group for Swiss Muslims says they should be able to be buried “with dignity” and is therefore calling for Islamic cemeteries in every Swiss canton.


Farhad Afshar, president of the Coordination of Islamic Organisations in Switzerland, told the Sunday newspaper Sonntag he was preparing a legal case concerning freedom of religion.


He said that following the Bernese commune of Köniz’s recent rejection of a separate burial ground for Muslims, a legal ruling was necessary so that “the next time someone says no [to an Islamic cemetery] they are violating freedom of religion”.


Islamic law says Muslims should not be buried with those of a different faith – something already possible in Some Swiss cities, for example Zurich, Bern, Basel and Geneva.


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Source: SwissInfo (English)

Manchester: Muslim graves hit for third time

Manchester: Muslim graves hit for third time


Vandals have targeted Muslim graves at a south Manchester cemetery for the third time in two months.


More than 20 headstones at the Southern Cemetery on Barlow Moor Road were pushed over in what police are treating as a racially-motivated attack.


The offenders struck sometime between Friday afternoon and Monday morning, a police spokesman confirmed.


Det Ch Insp Steve Eckersley called it "mindless racist behaviour" that was being treated as a hate crime.


On 29 September, 26 Muslim headstones were vandalised and three days later 27 were targeted.


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Source: BBC (English)

Strasbourg: First publicly-run Muslim cemetery

Strasbourg: First publicly-run Muslim cemetery

The 1905 law regulating the separation of State and Church in France does not apply in the region.

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The first publicly-run Muslim cemetery is to be established in Strasbourg, fulfilling the expectations of the city's Muslim community, which makes up 10% of the population.


A convention is to be signed today for the building of the cemetery by Mayor Roland Ries, President of the National Council for the Muslim Faith, Mohammed Moussaoui, and by president of the Alsace Regional Council, Driss Ayachour.


The site has already been chosen, and soil studies carried out. The cemetery should be open by the end of 2010.


There are already two Muslim cemeteries in France, one in Marseilles, the city with the highest concentration of immigrants, and the other in Bobigny, on the outskirts of Paris, but both of these are privately-run.


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Source: ANSAmed (English)