Oslo: Protest against mixed parties

Police in Oslo had to speak with imams Friday night who were standing at the entrance to a couple of parties and protested against boys and girls being together.

Gunn Anita Bjørnbakk of the Oslo police said that there were two parties, one in Lakkegata and one in Jordal.  They got several reports about the cases.  The police showed up but sufficed with speaking with the imams.

The imams did not prevent anybody from entering physically, but their loud protests caused some disturbance.  According to Bjørnbakk, Somali youth participated in the two parties.

Source: Nettavisen (Norwegian)

See also: Antwerp: Muslim protest against music

Denmark: New anti-Islam group might attract terrorist attacks

Khader was interviewed in Weekendavisen (DA).  I will translate the interview in the upcoming days.

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Denmark will continue to be in the terrorists' sights, maintains Hans Jørgen Bonnichsen, former operative chief of PET, after parliament member Naser Khader created a new association of internationally famous Islam critics.  The association will make Copenhagen the epicenter of the fight against Muslim fanaticism.

"Now we don't know, what will be the outcome of the initiative, but it will mean that the existing serious threat against Denmark will continue and that Denmark will continue to be in the terrorist's sights," says Bonnichsen to the Ritzau news agency.

The association was created in a French chateau a month and half ago, but the name and members list have been kept secret for now, according to Weekendavisen Friday.  

"I think that the whole project shows how little confidence and trust they essentially have in Western values and our resilience.  But also how little trust they have in moderate Muslims' own ability to cope with the Islamists' totalitarian project," says the former secret service head

Source: BT (Danish)

Sweden: Islamic banking report

Islamic banking is on its way to Sweden. But what makes Islamic banking different from other banking common in most parts of the world?

Swedish Radio reports on Islamic banking in Sweden.

Denmark: Truancy on Eid

Many of the nation's schools have reported that children from Muslim families did not show up for classes Wednesday, the day after Ramadan ended
 

Students participating in the Islamic 'Eid Al-Fitr' festival celebrating the end of the Ramadan fast were absent from their classrooms Wednesday - many without permission.


Most schools allowed Muslim children to take Tuesday off for the celebration. And although some schools also gave such permission for Wednesday, many did not, and those absences are considered truant.


The absences are most evident at schools where the majority of students are Muslim, such as Tovshøjskolen in the Jutland town of Brabrand. Of the school's 350 students, 80 did not show up on Wednesday.


'We naturally respect Islamic holy days, and those children also get another day off during the year,' said Jesper Lund Madsen, the school's principal. 'But we think that beyond those two days, the kids should be in school.'


Many schools also reported problems with Muslim children not attending the first day of classes after the summer vacation.


Denmark has eight Christian holidays annually that are scheduled days off for students and employees.


Source: Copenhagen Post (English)

Italy: Albanians in the wine industry

On a crisp fall morning just after Ramadan, Hysen and Kimete Murrizi stood side by side in a Tuscan vineyard, snipping fat bunches of grapes into red plastic buckets.


They worked their way quickly down a sloping hillside, picking grapes for Chianti, after having spent days selecting smaller grapes for more refined wines. On the nearby highway, passing truckers honked in a harvest greeting.


The Murrizis are among tens of thousands of Albanians who arrived in Italy in the 1990s after the collapse of their country's Communist dictatorship and economy. That they should become skilled vineyard workers is somewhat incongruous because Mrs. Murrizi is an observant Muslim who fasted for Ramadan and does not drink alcohol.


She acknowledged the culture clash. "Yes," Mrs. Murrizi said with a warm smile in fluent Italian. "But that's the way it is. Unfortunately I have to work. Life is like that."


Mrs. Murrizi, 46, has wavy light brown hair and green eyes. She left factory work to join her husband in Italy in 1998. Mr. Murrizi, 52, a former truck driver with a tanned face and close-cropped gray hair, left Durres, Albania, for Tuscany in 1993.


Mr. Murrizi is not so observant as his wife, and over the years he has become a wine fan. "Especially the 'vino nobile,' " he said, as a smile lit up his face. "But also the Chianti."


Mrs. Murrizi said: "I tried it once because Hysen said, 'Come on, you've worked here for so long, try it.' I liked it." But for religious reasons, she said, she did not plan to make it a habit.


In the Italian popular imagination, Albanian immigrants are more often depicted as scofflaws than as upstanding members of society. Anti-immigrant sentiment runs high, and many Italians blame foreigners for what they say is a rise in crime. In recent months, there have been several highly publicized cases of violence against other immigrant groups.


But amid the turmoil, families like the Murrizis are quietly integrating into middle-class life in ways that Italy is only beginning to acknowledge. Like new shoots grafted onto an old vine, they are fast becoming an essential part of the country's most valued traditions, including winemaking.


(more)


Source: NY Times (English)

Netherlands: William of Orange, a practicing Muslim

A report about a Leiden historian who claims that William of Orange was a practicing Muslim (NL) has spread like wildfire on the (Dutch speaking) internet. "It seems to have struck a sensitive chord," says Jochem van den Berg, who's behind the report.

According to the report historian 'Tjalling Wenselaar' claims that William of Orange should appear in the history books as Yusuf Ibrahim of Orange Nassau.  William's conversion to Islam, occurring in the spring of 1582, was 'strategic'.  "In return for his conversion to Islam and Islamisizing the Dutch provinces, the Moorish khalif Abdul Abu Uzrim promised William military aid in in fight against the Spanish," according to Wenselaar.

Since William was killed shortly afterward and his son loved wine and pork too much, it did not bring about the Islamization of the Netherlands.  The Oranges tried to erase all traces of the conversion of their ancestor.
 
University of Leiden researchers say the claim is obviously untrue and that they don't know of any Tjalling Wenselaar.

The report first appeared on the De Speld website, which at first glance looks like an internet news site.  Jochem van den Berg confirms that it was indeed written by the site.  The historian and the research don't exist.  "We wanted to start off a discussion about Dutch identity.  By way of satirical reflection we wrote the article from a Judeo-Christian and Islamic background."

"We had no idea that this article would spread like wildfire on the internet," beams Van den Berg.  The phones of his colleagues and him have been ringing off the hook.

"Turkish and Moroccan sites copied the article and we were also approached by the Muslim broadcaster and other Muslim organizations.  they all reacted moderately."  He says he got comments from the ethnic Dutch as well - people related to the PVV, Pim Fortuyn and Hirsi Ali.

According to Van den Berg this shows that satire and Islam go rather well together.

Source: AD (Dutch)

CR: Muslims to file complaint against National Party

The Libertas Independent Agency associating Brno-based Muslims and the friends of Muslim nations will lodge a criminal complaint against the far-right National Party (NS) and its head Petra Edelmannova, agency deputy chairman Lukas Lhotan told CTK Monday.


The reason is insulting statements and threats addressed to Muslims that recently appeared on the NS's www.narodni-strana.cz website.


The organisation decided to file a criminal complaint due to libelous and hateful expressions, the Libertas Independent Agency says in a statement CTK has obtained.


"There are also indirect threats and the mention of the 'final solution of the Muslim question' with the help of terror," the statement says.


"The Final Solution of the Jewish Question" was what the Nazis called the plans for the genocide of the European Jews.


If the organisation were not successful with its criminal complaint, it would file a lawsuit, Lhotan said.


The criticism of Muslims appeared on the National Party's website after the recent terrorist attack in Pakistan in which Czech ambassador Ivo Zdarek was killed.


The party's leadership even visited the Brno mosque where they handed Edelmannova's letter criticising Islamists to its representatives.


The party demanded that Muslims apologise for Zdarek's death. The Muslims have rejected the demand, pointing out that they had nothing to do with the attack.


However, the Brno Muslims expressed their regret over Zdarek's death and distanced themselves from any expressions of terror still before the National Party representatives visited the mosque.


The Muslims believe that the appeals such as "Let's destroy mosques, ban Islam and imprison Islamists for life only for their belonging to Islam!" or "War should be declared on Islamism. Zero tolerance. Let's drive them out of the country and punish without mercy!" are unacceptable.


(more)


Source: Prague Monitor (English)

See also: CR: Anti-Islamism protest, CR: Muslims complain of a steep increase in islamophobia, CR: TV station fined for Islamophobia

Italy: First cemetery in Puglia

The southern Italian region of Puglia will have its first Muslim cemetery, a local Muslim leader said on Wednesday.


The Islamic community of Gioia del Colle in the province of Bari has reached agreement with the city council for the construction of a Muslim cemetery.


Taha Venere, an Italian Muslim convert, told Adnkronos International (AKI) that the cemetery agreement was announced at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on Tuesday.


"I will direct the work in the Muslim cemetery," said Venere, adding that the cemetery would open at the end of October.


Furthermore, the Mayor of Gioia del Colle, Pietro Longo, said an 'immigration desk' would be installed inside the city's mosque.


Longo also met representatives from various Muslim communities in surrounding areas to discuss the project.


Source: AKI (English)

France: 'Extremist network' on trial

Four young Muslim men went on trial in Paris on Wednesday accused of operating an extremist network that planned attacks in Europe and sent volunteers from France to fight in Iraq.


French authorities allege that the arrests of the four -- three Moroccans and a Frenchman of Algerian origin aged between 23 and 38 -- allowed officers to thwart several potential terror attacks in Europe and North Africa.


The suspects -- the Moroccans Hamid Bach, Yousef Bousag, Reda Barazzouk and French citizen Amine Liassine -- were arrested between June 2005 and January 2006 in the southern city of Montpellier.


Investigators believe that Bach travelled to Damascus in Syria with a friend from Montpellier in mid-2004. The friend continued to Iraq to join the then growing insurgency against US and Iraqi forces and was killed in action.


Bach, then aged 34, returned to France on a mission to plan attacks in Europe and North Africa, prosecutors allege.


Police say they seized a large amount of evidence at Bach's Montpellier address to back up this charge, including documents and chemicals used in the manufacture of explosives.


Bousag and Barazzouk, who were studying electronics and telecommunications at the time of their arrests, are accused of taking part in the planning by building bomb detonators and remote control devices.


Along with Bach, Liassine is regarded as the ideological motor behind the group. The pair are alleged to have confessed to travelling to London to meet members of the radical Islamist underground.


The alleged Montpellier cell was rounded up after a similar operation in Paris led to seven young Muslim men being jailed this year after they were convicted of running a network in the city between 2004 and 2006.


Prosecutors said leads from that case led to the Montpellier suspects.


The four are charged with "membership of a criminal organisation". The trial is expected to end on October 9.


Source: AFP (English)

See also: France: Five suspected radical Islamists arrested

France: Riots after teenager dies while fleeing police

A French police officer was shot and wounded during clashes with youths that broke out after a teenager died while fleeing police, authorities said Tuesday.


The officer appeared to have been shot in the leg with a hunting rifle, said the police prefecture in Romans-sur-Isere, a southeastern town located 60 miles from Lyon in the Rhone Valley on the edge of the Alps. The officer's life was not in danger. Dents from bullets and buckshot were also found in police vehicles nearby.


Police used tear gas and rubber pellets to push back some 50 youths during clashes late Monday and early Tuesday. Several cars were burned and about 15 shop windows were smashed.


After nightfall Tuesday, some 300 riot police officers and gendarmes took up positions around the center of town to prevent a second night of clashes. Some teams of officers were brought in from neighboring regions.


The violence broke out after a 16-year-old died by driving a stolen car into a wall while fleeing police. Four other minors in the car were lightly injured.


Accidents involving police and youths have been particularly sensitive in France since riots in 2005 that were sparked by the deaths of two teens electrocuted in a power substation while hiding from police.


Jean-Pierre Nahon, a prosecutor in the regional capital, Valence, said a police watchdog agency will investigate latest incident.


Nahon said that, according to a preliminary investigation, the five teenagers had stolen the car overnight and were driving at high speed through the center of Romans-sur-Isere when police began chasing them. The young driver took a sharp turn and lost control of the car, running into a wall.


Le Monde reports (translation is general):

(..)

A little later the relatives came out furious from their closed-door meeting with the municipal team.  In tears, a young woman told the dozens of worked up youth: "He wants that it will calm down.  I say to you: burn everything."

This statement was met by cheers and the youth dispersed in small groups, promising the security forces a night of fire.  A handful of them started shouting: "Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar!"  "It will burn," said one of the leaders of the group, surrounded by a swarm of teenagers who listened respectfully.  "They're fed up with our small brothers dieing in our neighborhoods.  You dominated our parents.  We are the third generation and we won't submit."

His face haggard,a politician tries to resume the dialogue.  In vain.  "The only support that we can have are the mothers.  but even among them, there are those who are too angry," Maurice Crouzet, responsible for social issues, is upset. 

In his office, an hour later, the mayor struggles to recover from the failed discussion.  "Dialogue is very complicated.  Why have we arrived at this breakdown?  Why is all authority suspect?" he asks himself very worriedly.  Because in the neighborhood nobody believes that version given by the authorities about the circumstances of the accident.

"As long as there's no serious investigation, there will be war," maintains the same "big brother" in unison with his friends.

(..)

Sources: Yahoo (English), Le Monde (French)  h/t Observatoire de l' islamisation, Snaphanen