Denmark: Money going for al-Qaeda attacks

People and networks in Denmark are probably sending money abroad which is being used to finance terror acts by al-Qaeda against Danish interests, according to a new report from the Center for Terroranalyse (CTA).

The collection of money is done through private organizations, which also have humanitarian projects, and therefore there's a risk that people are unknowingly supporting bomb attacks.

"Networks which collect money for global terrorism groups abroad, in some cases send the money directly to conflict areas, for example Iraq, the Palestinian Authority, Somalia, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Pakistan.  In other cases the money is sent through other countries," according to the CTA report, which is part of the Danish Security Service.

It is hard for the authorities to prove that the money is being used for terrorism, since the networks often use several intermediates during he transactions.

Source: Berlingske (Danish)

Islam in Europe Weekly Review

Ramadan:

* Local politicians in Odense have decided to ban fasting in schools.  Schools in Denmark see increased religious pressure on kids to conform with the Muslim fasting requirements during Ramadan.

* In France a Muslim charity opened a soup kitchen for those breaking the fast.  Muslims are apparently not the only ones fasting.


Terrorism:

* The seventh anniversary of 9/11 was occasion for European terrorism experts to consider the threat to Europe.  The French Minister of the Interior was also interviewed, giving a breakdown of the situation in France.  Fifty five suspected terrorists were arrested in France in 2008, five more were arrested this week.

* A study by a British researchers (in India) claims that faith schools help foster terrorists.

* A forum discussion on a jihadi website discusses how to poison Danish and British water supplies.   


Miscellaneous:

* Dutch education minister proposes ban on burkas in schools.

* A new Muslim organization in Scotland wants to get involved in civil life.

* A study of Muslims in Brussels and Detroit asks for more tolerance for Belgian Muslims.

* European food producers are making halal food for the global market and even small businesses are getting their production lines halal compliant.

* A Turkish charity stands trial for fraud in Frankfurt.

* Computer game urging massacre of Muslims is condemned.

* Ten thousand converts joined the Spanish Muslim community in the past five years.


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This article was cross-posted to Islam in Europe and to THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS.

UK/Denmark: Poisoning the water wells

A major jihadi internet forum has posted a terrorist plot to use chemical and biological agents to contaminate water resources in Europe in general and Great Britain and Denmark in particular, the latter in retaliation for insulting the Prophet Muhammad through publication of the infamous "Muhammad cartoons." The posting, entitled "Back Breaking Blow to Denmark, the U.K, and the European Union," discussed ways of poisoning water resources and reservoirs to cause mass killings (al-ekhlaas.net, August 16). Even though many forum participants consented to the plan and participated with ideas on the kind of chemical agents that might be used in such attacks, some forum members disagreed with the terror plan, arguing that mass killing has neither religious justification nor a fatwa (religious ruling) to authorize it. The anti-attack forum members appeared to have a strong case from a religious standpoint, leading to a protracted discussion lasting over a week.


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Source: Jamestown Foundation (English)

Denmark: Religious pressure in schools

Children in Danish schools undergo religious harassment. This happens during the currently ongoing Muslim festival of Ramadan, when a group of Muslim students criticize their schoolmates for violating the fasting rules of Ramadan by easting and drinking during daylight hours, report several Danish schools with a high proportion of Muslim students. At Hillerødgade's Skole in Copenhagen the problem has consequences.

"Some of the children who fast criticize the children who don't fast. Therefore we have decided that children who fast should be excluded from the cafeteria area. So there will be a place to eat in the cafeteria without people having an attitude imposed on them, says health project leader Marika Jensen who has also seen some schoolchildren who are so afraid of being seen eating that they sneak into the cafeteria area not during the lunch break in order to get a bite to eat.

She explains that it's typical for Muslim children whose parents want them to eat but who simply find it hard to explain to their Muslim friends that they eat and drink.

At Klostevænget's Heldagsskole in Copenhagen the school inspector was surprised when she asked in an 8th grade class with a large Muslim population about fasting.

"Everybody said that they fasted. Even a boy of Danish background said that he did it, but I truly didn't believe it. It was just to hard for him to sit with his bread with chopped liver among schoolmates who all fasted. I think that he goes home and eats his food later, and it was done out of tactical prudence by him," says school inspector Karen-Margrethe Grønlund.

In Aarhus the Ramadan has also caused conflict.

"Some girls in the lower classes had gotten from their parents clear views on what they should avoid during Ramadan, and they wanted to share this with some friends. They explained what good Muslims did and what bad Muslims did. As a school we needed to deal with it and get involved, even if it was a sensitive topic, says school head Torben Haugård of Ellekærskolen.

Also in Tovshøjskolen in Århus teachers had to intervene with Muslim students who interfered with their classmates religion and eating habits.

Religious conflicts had previously been described as a problem among Muslim students at Syddansk University.

Lene Kühle, lecturer and PHD in religion sociology at Aarhus University, points out that there have also been conflicts among Muslim cashiers on whether to wear the headscarf during work or not. She think that Ramadan often increases the conflicts when the increased attention to being religious also increases attention to lapses.

The religion sociologist who had researched the Muslim communities in Denmark, has two reasons why religious conflicts arise among Danish Muslims.

"Islam becomes a weapon to bully others. People use a completely banal religious to assert themselves," says Lene Kühle.

another reason is that Islam's status as a minority religion in the West leads to self-appointed religious policemen. They are found in many places in society, among others in prisons, says Lene Kühle:

"Regular Muslim go around and impose on people a certain form of Islam. It goes together with that there aren't others to do this in Denmark. If one could imagine that we had a mufti in the country, that said how people should act during Ramadan, then Muslims would have some basis - but now it's up to the individual and it causes many interpretations and clashes.

Source: Kristeligt Dagblad (Danish)

See also: Odense: Against students fasting

Scotland: New Muslim organization to engage in civic life

Scottish Muslims are planning a radical campaign to play a greater role in the country's civic life, to change the perceptions of their religion and to promote Scotland as an ideal country for Muslims to live and invest in.

Members of the newly formed Scottish Islamic Foundation (SIF) are planning to launch the campaign, which will engage with issues such as the removal of nuclear weapons from Faslane and the environment.

Women will also be given a voice within mosques and will be encouraged to form committees to decide policies specific to them.

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Traditional practices will be adapted to respond to Scottish society, with the intention of demonstrating the contribution Islam can make to the country, and a new mosque, currently being planned by a group of men and women that are mostly under 35, is expected to be built in East Renfrewshire, embodying the current thinking.

Hamza Yousaf, director of public affairs at the SIF, said: "We believe that the very nature of Islam adapts across the centuries, but what we are doing is trying to modernise ourselves and remind ourselves of what Islam actually says, reach out to the people of Scotland."

This winter, a tradition called Qurbani, an event that takes place in Ramadan, during which meat is donated and then distributed among the poor, will be reconfigured to benefit Scotland's most vulnerable groups.

In past years, meat has been sent back to Pakistan, the country of origin for the majority of Muslim Scots, but this year the meat will be collected and given to vulnerable people in Scotland, including asylum seekers and the homeless.

They spoke about an Islamic financial expo, due to take part in Scotland early next year, which will be a showcase for opportunities to invest in Scotland.

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Source: Asian Image (English)

Brussels: Study urges for more tolerance

A study by the Institute for European Studies at VUB in cooperation with the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies of Wayne State University in Detroit was published Thursday by Richard Lewis and Hannelore Goeman, concluding that more tolerance is needed in order to encourage integration.

Seeing that the Muslim population of Detroit, with 300,000 or 7.5% of the population is the largest urban concentration of Muslims in the US, the study claims that several parallels can be drawn with the situation in Brussels, which has 170,000 Muslims or 17% of the population and Brussels can even learn a lot from the tolerant approach of the Americans and Canadians.

The conclusions of the researchers are based on a study trip of to the American and Canadian Midwest in March and on the conclusions of a team of experts from Brussels and Detroit who are active on the local level in various policy areas connected to the integration of immigrants (and in specific of Muslims).  The researchers also visited the nearest Canadian city: Windsor, Ontario.

Muslims in Detroit appear to have a much smoother upwards mobility than their coreligionists in Brussels.  American Muslims often immigrate with a higher education level, and many come from the Middle East, while Muslims immigrants in Brussels are often from poorer, rural areas in North Africa and Turkey.

But another key to success according to the researchers is clearly the respect and tolerance with which they are treated in their new country.  Muslims in America therefore get the feeling faster that they have an in interest in engaging in society, and are therefore more loyal towards their new country.

On the basis of the study the researchers ask for three things which are very sensitive in Belgium.  They ask for full tolerance of the headscarf - an issue which in Detroit has never caused a fuss.  According to the researchers this leads to a more tolerant mentality which is much needed for successful integration.

Additionally they ask for bilingual education, that combines the new language with the mother-tongue of the children who have just arrived in the country.  After about a year they can switch over to the traditional, one-language form of education.  The system had been applied successfully for years in Canada and now also in Detroit.

Finally the researchers ask for more tolerance for the cultural and religious needs of Muslims, for example by providing them with a separate prayer area at work.

The report includes also a number of practical recommendations such as directly consulting the Muslim communities, attention to "interculturalism" in the training of teachers and social workers, the emphasis of the economical and cultural contribution of Muslims, for example with a museum, and investing in the neighborhoods in order to prevent decline.

Source: De Morgen (Dutch)

Switzerland: Why a Swiss Village Makes Halal Pastry

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Even Europe is gradually adjusting, as the demand for halal products grows in the double-digit percentage range each year. Last year, when McDonald's opened its first European restaurant with halal burgers on the menu -- in London -- sales rose immediately. The British supermarket chains Tesco and Sainsbury's have installed separate halal shelving and are targeting Muslim customers in their advertising. And for the past two years Nestlé has eliminated pork, blood and alcohol from the production process in seven European factories, including a sausage plant in France, a Nescafé plant in Germany and a powdered milk plant in Spain.


Because Nestlé has discovered that puff pastry is a strong seller among Muslims, globalization has now reached Wangen bei Olten, a town of 4,983 inhabitants that recently fought a heated but ultimately unsuccessful battle against the construction of a mosque minaret. Walter Leisi, whose father began producing ready-made cake dough and puff pastry in 1938, and whose childhood bedroom was once next to the kneading machine, now writes terms like "Quality Monitoring Scheme" on a white board and has a certificate issue by the Muslim Institute of the Paris Mosque for "Pâte à tarte sans Alcool (halal)."


Much has changed since the invention of Leisi-Quick. The former family-owned business has since been sold to Nestlé, and the demand for puff pastry is no longer determined by the French plum harvest, but by Ramadan.


The company sells most of its puff pastry to France, the land of the quiche. If the halal version is successful, Nestlé plans to offer more halal products soon, including shortcrust pastry and pizza dough. "Nowadays," says Leisi, "this is part of having a well-rounded product line."


He puts on a white coat and a cap and begins a tour of the factory, past shiny chrome-plated kneading machines and conveyor belts traveling in every direction, 24 hours a day, carrying dough in various forms: flattened, in small mounds and rolled up.


Halal or not halal, the differences are not visible. The machines are the same. They have to be cleaned regularly with alcohol, which evaporates after 15 minutes. Then, in accordance with the Islamologist's instructions, another batch of halal puff pastry can be produced. "It's really quite simple," says Walter Leisi, and smiles.


Source: Spiegel (English)

Paris: Breaking the fast in a soup kitchen

It's sunset in the French capital, and hundreds of hungry people are poised to begin their meals at the sounding of a Muslim call to prayer.

Elsewhere in the world, the call rings forth from the minarets of mosques, but inside a tent in a gritty part of north Paris, it comes from a tinny radio speaker.

For the holy month of Ramadan, a soup kitchen has opened outside Cite Edmond Michelet, a tough public housing project in Paris' notorious 19th arrondissement. On the menu is a traditional dinner, starting with yoghurt and dates.

"A lot of people can't make ends meet nowadays, but they'd never tell you," said Ali Hasni, 45, a volunteer for the non-profit group "Une Chorba Pour Tous" (Soup for Everyone).

France is home to Europe's largest Muslim minority and debate about the integration of these 5 million people into an avowedly secular society is a recurring theme in a political arena where only a handful of Muslims hold government posts.

The tower blocks surrounding the tent are a common sight in the French urban landscape.

Often run down, the forbidding high-rises are home to many Muslim immigrants who came here to work in the construction boom of the 1960s and 70s, as well as immigrants from other faiths.

Many tower blocks were on the frontline in 2005 when mainly immigrant youths rioted across France after two teenagers were accidentally electrocuted in a power sub-station after a run-in with police. Violence has flared sporadically in many such neighborhoods since then.

The 19th arrondissement tops Paris' violent crime statistics, and unemployment is rife. But the soup kitchen's organizers are unfazed by its reputation.

"We adapt to wherever the mayor lets us set up shop, tough neighborhood or not. But we'd really like a more permanent address since demand rises every year," said Farid Adjadj, a 34-year-old postal worker who's been a volunteer since 1994.

While fights between groups of Arab Muslims and young Orthodox Jews make the local papers in the 19th every few months, some residents say tensions are under control.

"This is one of the most populous parts of Paris, and we get along very well -- I just wish that were the same in the Middle East," said David Siksik, a Jewish volunteer.

BIG TOP

The tent, known as "the big top", stretches across several basketball courts. Most of those shuffling in are men on their own. Many speak in Arabic as they settle in at long tables set with plastic tableware.

The main dish is a spicy stew that is eaten -- in dozens of variations -- across North Africa, the Middle East, Southern Europe, Turkey and India. Here it's called "chorba" -- a French transliteration of the Arabic word for soup.

Une Chorba Pour Tous, which mostly targets poor Muslims, has been operating since 1992. Its 150,000 euro ($212,000) annual budget from private donations and public grants allows it to provide some 700 meals a day year-round.

But it is busiest at Ramadan when it serves an average of 2,000 meals per night. Charity is a religious duty in Islam

"Charity is all the more important during Ramadan, and most of our volunteers are Muslim. But we don't exclude anyone who needs help or wants to help," said Fanny Ait-Kaci, 56, one of the group's founding members.

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Source: Reuters (English)

Dry Bones on Fitna

Source: Dry Bones

Frankfurt: Turkish charity fraud trial, AKP implicated

Money collected by the charity organization, Deniz Feneri was paid to the chairman of a Turkish media group who has close links with the government, the German prosecutor claimed on Tuesday.


German police chief says donations paid to pro-AKP media in Turkey


The trials in the Deniz Feneri charity case continued on Tuesday at a German court.

 
The Supreme Court of Frankfurt held another session on the so-called Deniz Feneri case on Tuesday. A legal case was opened in Germany for the religious charity, Deniz Feneri, over claims of illegal financial transactions of donated funds and fraud.


The fraud scandal widened to media groups close to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and some bureaucrats. Even a suspect in the case claimed that funds from the charity were paid to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan which resulted in Erdogan launching an attack on the media organs that published the claims.

 
The police chief of the Frankfurt financial crimes unit said a total 8.9 million euros in cash was drawn from Turkish state-run Vakifbank's Vienna branch since 2004.

 
"We had three sources on the money traffic. The cash drawn from bank, money couriers and payment receipts... Later we noticed most of the receipts are bogus. All of the money was given to Zekeriya Karaman," Alexander Boehm said.

 
Karaman is the chairman of Islamist broadcaster Kanal 7, who has close ties with Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP).


Bohm said in 2005-06 Karaman was paid 755,000 euros.


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Source: Hurriyet (English)