Free Republic

Swiss Muslims Open Mosque Doors Swiss Muslims hope to promote better understanding of their religion Muslims in many parts of Switzerland have invited the public into mosques - three weeks before a vote on whether to ban the construction of minarets. Muslim organisations say they hope their open day will counter what they say are fears and prejudices. The conservative group that initiated the vote - the largest party in the Swiss parliament - says minarets are a symbol of Muslim political power. Opinion polls suggest the proposed ban will be rejected by voters. A Muslim community leader in Zurich,...

The slow suicide of the West continues. Muslim communities are forming across the Netherlands, and Sharia Law is slowly taking hold. None of this apparently matters though, as the people of Rotterdam have voted in a Muslim mayor. Unifying Dutch city falls to Muslim mayor In Rotterdam, where cultural and social divides are apparent, the burden of bridging them now belongs to Morocco-born Ahmed Aboutaleb. How he fares could matter beyond his city's borders.

Top trumps appears to have suddenly become the in thing in the world of religion. It used to be ferraris and lamborghinis. Now a Christian version of Top Trumps, called Testament Trumps, has been released, apparently to help children learn more about biblical characters. And not to be outdone, the humanists have also launched their own version of Top Trumps, called God Trumps. A pack has been sent to me from the New Humanist magazine, and it’s brilliantly satirical, as you’d expect. With the caricatures by the Guardian’s excellent cartoonist, Martin Rowson, it pitches Catholics against Anglicans and pagans against...

Forty years after the death of the “last lion,” Great Britain is producing men of straw rather than of Churchillian iron. It was only six months ago that the British government humiliatingly and shamelessly bundled visiting Dutch politician Geert Wilders back on to a plane to his native Holland to appease Muslim public opinion. Wilders had been invited to show his documentary film, “Fitna,” at Britain’s House of Lords, but, in a gross outrage, was denied entry to the country. That watershed moment of capitulation, however, was surpassed last week when the Scottish government released Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Magrahi...

Twenty percent of the European Union will be Muslim by 2050, according to forecasts cited in a Telegraph report Sunday. The current figure, according to the article, sits at five percent, and will be pushed up due to immigration, and low birth rates among native Europeans. The article noted that the UK, Spain and Holland would hit the 20% mark faster. According to the London-based newspaper, experts have criticized lawmakers' failure to address this "demographic time-bomb."

Christopher Caldwell’s “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West” is a hot book presented under a cool, scholarly title. To observe that Mr. Caldwell’s rhetoric is “hot” is not to say that it is aggrieved or unruly. On the contrary, Mr. Caldwell, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard and a columnist for The Financial Times, compiles his arguments patiently, twig by twig, and mostly with lucidity and intellectual grace and even wit. But they are arguments one is not used to hearing put so baldly, at least from the West’s leading political journalists. Primary among...

If there is anything that should make Americans' blood run cold about immigration, it is the sight of Europe—and Britain, the home of Western civilization—being buried by millions of Muslim colonists. Europe is just hoping against hope that Islam isn't going to explode into massive rioting (or worse), or impose total cultural Islamification. Major jihadist terror occurred in London (July 7, 2005, killing 52 and injuring 700) and in Madrid (March 11, 2004, killing 191 and injuring 1841). Yet cowardly politicians continue policies of appeasement, which hostile Muslims correctly apprise as the fatal weakness of a culture too pacified to...

The Euro leaders’ adulation of The Obama didn’t translate into providing any more combat troops for Afghanistan. Some might chalk it up to commonplace continental fecklessness. But Tucker Carlson has offered a much more chilling explanation, one with ramifications extending far beyond the specific matter at hand. Appearing on Morning Joe today, Carlson flatly stated that “Europe is afraid of its own Muslim population.” He continued: TUCKER CARLSON: And that’s one of the main reasons it doesn’t want to commit troops to Afghanistan, because it’s afraid of domestic unrest in its own countries. So that has nothing to with how...

To become NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen will apologize for the Mohammed cartoons.

What is Eurabian Culture? Gates of Vienna 20 March 2009 By Baron BodisseyI’ve written so many times in this space about the OIC (the Organization of the Islamic Conference) that it sometimes feels like I do nothing but fisk Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu (see the bottom of this post for a list of previous articles on Prof. Ihsanoglu and the OIC).Since the UN Human Rights Council is simply a mouthpiece for the OIC, the “human rights” working papers and resolutions that come out of Turtle Bay are, for practical purposes, OIC productions, indistinguishable in style and substance from the...

ROTTERDAM, 28/02/09 - On Friday night, a Muslim stand-up comedian was scheduled to give a show in a Rotterdam theatre with segregated seating for the men and women in his audience. Moroccan-born writer and TV producer Salaheddine Benchikhi was to make his debut as a stand-up comedian at Theater Zuidplein in Rotterdam. At his request, the theatre said it would offer female audience members the option of sitting apart from the men, as Algemeen Dagblad reported several hours before the show on Friday. According to the newspaper, 50 of the 590 seats had been reserved for women who object to...

THE HAGUE, 29/01/09 - Moroccans in the Netherlands are not allowed to give their children any Berber names any more. In this way, Islamic identity is being stressed, Trouw newspaper reported yesterday. By far the biggest group of Moroccans in the Netherlands are of Berber origin, a region in the mountainous north of Morocco. "They will now be forced to give their children a Moroccan-Islamic name," according to Trouw. "Morocco wants to secure the Moroccan identity of its nationals in this way, including the Moroccan Dutch." The Moroccan government in Rabat sent all embassies and consulates abroad a list of...

Although Linnea and Lukas/Lucas were the most popular names nationwide in 2008 in Norway, Mohammad is now the most common name in Oslo, accordring to the Norwegian Central Bureau of Statistics (SSB). This was also the case in 2007. 120 boys were called Mohammad in 2008.

PARIS – Government officials and Jewish leaders are concerned the conflict in Gaza may spill over into violence in Europe, with attacks reported against Jews and synagogues in France, Sweden and Britain. Assailants rammed a burning car into the gates of a synagogue in Toulouse, in southwest France, Monday night. A Jewish congregation in Helsingborg, in southern Sweden, was attacked Monday night by someone who "broke a window and threw in something that was burning," said police spokesman Leif Nilsson. And on Sunday slogans, including "murderers ... You broke the cease-fire," were daubed on Israel's Embassy in Stockholm.

Amsterdam - Moroccan-Dutch politician Ahmed Aboutaleb was sworn in on Monday as mayor of Rotterdam, the second largest city of the Netherlands. The 47-year-old Labour politician is the first mayor of a Dutch city to be born and raised outside the Netherlands. He is also the first Muslim to become a mayor in the Netherlands. Some 45 per cent of Rotterdam's half a million citizens were born outside the Netherlands or have foreign-born parents. The city suffers from a broad range of socio-economic problems. Crime involving the migrant community is an ongoing issue that causes tension with Dutch-born citizens. Speaking...

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - Europe's human rights court on Thursday threw out a complaint by two French Muslim girls who were expelled from their school for refusing to remove their headscarves during sports lessons.

Jews and Muslims in Denmark are in an uproar about a bill to ban circumcision for boys under the age of 15, according to Yediot Ahronot. The country's National Council for Children and Ethics Council have both endorsed the proposal and only the parliament's medical committee can prevent it from being heard. The National Council for Children argued that, "Circumcision is the irreversible damage to a child's body before he is given the chance to object." It also said the ban was a matter of equality, in the wake of a five-year-old ban on female circumscion. Denmark's Chief Rabbi Bent...

ABOUT 200 people chanting anti-Muslim slogans demonstrated on Thursday at the opening of the first mosque in the formerly communist eastern part of Germany. Attacks on the site and protests by residents and the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) have dogged the mosque's construction. The demonstrators, many of them older people, held banners reading 'Stop the Islamisation of Europe' and 'Stop the Abuse of Religious Freedom'. A few black-clad young men with shaved heads, a trademark right-wing style, joined the protest but the NPD called off a march. The protest highlighted difficulties in integrating Germany's 3.2 million Muslims into mainstream...

Islam in Europe September 26 2008 The controversial Danish People's Party member of the European Parliament Mogens Camre spoke at the DPP's annual meeting Sunday, calling to expel Islam from Europe. "Islam cannot be integrated. Islam will dominate Europe. And Islam is incompatible with our values. Therefore Islam will be thrown out of Europe. This little land is ours, we forged it ourselves. And we will govern it ourselves and decide ourselves who will live in it and how they will behave. And we will fight until Denmark is again free," said Camre, to loud applause.

Italy’s Northern League, the populist, xenophobic, sometimes separatist movement that is a key component of Silvio Berlusconi’s governing coalition, has proposed new legislation which would effectively halt construction of new Islamic mosques. The bill, which the League’s chief of deputies Roberto Cota is expected to send to parliament next week, would require regional approval for the building of mosques. It would also require that a local referendum be held, that there be no minaret or loudspeakers calling the faithful to prayer, and sermons must be in Italian, not Arabic. Chances of this being approved as it stands are slim, since...

ROTTERDAM, 12/08/08 - Although polygamy is banned in the Netherlands, the marriages of Muslims who have several wives are recognised by Dutch authorities. Registrars in the major cities, in particular, record dozens of bigamous or polygamous marriages per year. These marriages are prohibited and an offence in the Netherlands. However, polygamous marriages that take place in countries where more than one wife is permitted, such as Morocco, are accepted, newspaper NRC Handelsblad reports. If immigrants with several wives settle in the Netherlands, the local authorities register all the marriages. However, the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS), where all marriages are...

Multicultural ideology has been confronted by realities about Islam that, in a doublethink-free world, would send that ideology crashing to the ground in flames. For a case in point, I will refer the reader to an episode I’ve mentioned previously in this space — an Oslo debate last November at which the deputy chairman of Norway’s Islamic Council, Asghar Ali, refused to reject the death penalty for gays. When Senaid Kobilica, the head of the Islamic Council (which represents 60,000 Muslims), was asked where he stood on the question, he replied that he couldn’t give a definitive answer until he...

Last November the Norwegian Islamic Council asked the European fatwa council what attitude it should have to homosexuals. The fatwa council, which debates questions of Muslim faith and doctrine, had its annual meeting in Paris three weeks ago, but did not discuss the subject, according to daily newspaper Dagsavisen. "It's wrong of the Islamic Council to wait for the "verdict" from the fatwa council in such an important case. By not saying 'no' to death penalties for gays, it shows attitudes that conflict with both democratic and humanitarian values," says Sara Azmeh Rasmussen. She is the only openly lesbian Muslim...

The Norwegian Islamic Council is still waiting for a reply from the European Fatwa Council before it decides whether or not it is in favour of the death penalty for homosexuality. "Unacceptable," says lesbian Sara Asmeh Rasmussen. Last November the Norwegian Islamic Council asked the European fatwa council what attitude it should have to homosexuals. The fatwa council, which debates questions of Muslim faith and doctrine, had its annual meeting in Paris three weeks ago, but did not discuss the subject, according to daily newspaper Dagsavisen. "It's wrong of the Islamic Council to wait for the "verdict" from the fatwa...

Palestinians residing in Europe gather for mass event in Denmark; Islamic Movement leader Sheikh Salah tells participants their homes in Israel await them Sharon Roffe-Ofir Published: 05.04.08, 16:08 / Israel News Thousands of Palestinians residing in Europe attended a rally in the Danish capital of Copenhagen Saturday marking 60 years since a large part of the Palestinian population was expelled from, or left the newly-founded Israel during the war between Israel and the Arabs in 1948. The event, which was held in Europe for the sixth consecutive year, was organized by the Palestinian Committee in Europe and al-Awda, The Palestine...

ZOETERMEER, 03/05/08 - The controversial imam Fawaz Jneid is to focus on the Islamisation of young children. A new institution working together with his radical As-Soennah mosque in The Hague is organising strict religious classes for children aged 5 to 14 years in the suburb of Zoetermeer, as De Telegraaf reports. According to the newspaper, the classes are taking place in a sports hall which is rented from the municipality. The classes are given by 'brethren' of the foundation Al-Ichlaas (purity of faith). Up to the present, several dozen pupils have registered. The children are expected to appear in class...

Rome mayoral candidate, Gianni Alemanno, will on Thursday visit the Italian Islamic Cultural Centre in the capital, known as the city's Grand Mosque ... "The mosque in Rome is a unique Islamic institution of the Italian republic and it is the first time that a candidate for mayor is coming on a visit,"... "During his visit, Alemanno will meet some Muslim representatives and in particular the secretary general of the Islamic centre, Abdellah Redouane."

"It is necessary for us to participate in political life, in the life of political parties. The political forces, on their part, must then give ample space to issues such as immigration and integration." Among those running for the elections this weekend to choose representatives for Rome's city council is Khalid Chaouki, the founder of a group known as the Young Muslims... He could not hide his envy for the situation of second generation immigrants in neighbouring countries such as France where they have managed to occupy important positions in various departments such as the department of Justice. "I want...

Muslim immigrants are a serious threat to peace and democracy in Europe, according to the Israeli Ambassador to the Vatican Oded Ben-Hur. "[Muslims] have a different agenda, and are beginning to be a real serious menace to democracy and peace in Europe,"... Ben-Hur also criticised what he called the Italians' "docile, ostrich-like approach" to Muslims in Italy. "People here in Italy should have raised hell,"... Ben-Hur spoke at length about extremist Islam and what he saw as a "sharp decline in their [Islamic] culture," following the expulsion of Muslims from European lands in the 15th century during the Spanish 'reconquista'....

THE HAGUE, 19/03/08 - In a joint statement yesterday, the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN), the Council of Churches in the Netherlands, the Muslims and Government Contact Body (CMO) and the Islam Contact Group (CGI) expressed their "great concern" about the anti-Islam film that Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Wilders wants to bring out. "Although our freedom of speech allows the publication of this film, we consider such provocation undesirable," the statement said. It is "reprehensible if the sacred (elements) in our religions are ridiculed and our faith offended. We therefore forcefully reject it if the Koran and the...

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=5650953844559954353&q=Riots+in+Copenhagen&total=105&start=10&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1 Check out this and other footage of rioting in Copenhagen

THE HAGUE, 01/03/08 - If Dutch companies, citizens and interests abroad are hurt following MP Geert Wilders' film on the Koran, there is only one person responsible, according to Prime Minister Balkenende. "At this moment, a great responsibility is resting on Mr. Wilders". The cabinet on Friday produced an official statement that Prime Minister Balkenende read out after his weekly cabinet meeting. It was meant to smooth over remarks by Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen that Wilders should cancel his film, due for release in March. "Do not broadcast it," said Verhagen to public broadcaster NOS on Thursday night. Verhagen's Christian...

The Middle East had for thousands of years been more advanced than most of Europe. This situation didn't begin with the introduction of Islam. On the contrary: it ended with Islamization. The region we today call the Greater Middle East, which includes Egypt, Palestine, Syria, south-eastern Anatolia, Iraq, Iran and parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, is the seat of the oldest known civilizations on the planet and the source of many of the most important inventions in human history, including writing and the alphabet. It is surely no coincidence that the first major civilization on the Indian subcontinent, the Harappan...

Kosovo: Islamism's New Beachhead?   By Julia GorinFrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, February 22, 2008 As Americans look quizzically at their TV sets while non-Muslim protestors in Europe torch a U.S. embassy, they should know that yesterday’s 200,000-person protest in Belgrade (whose members are separate from the fire starters) is the first time in two decades that Serbs are showing a glimmer of rational behavior--amid 20 years of the “free world” foisting terrorist neighbors upon them.To put this in perspective, with advance apologies to any offended ethnic groups: How would Americans react if Latino gangs started ambushing police and killing government...

Danish 'Youths': Police Made Us Riot Tue, Feb 19, 2008 at 9:13:44 am PST The “youths” who have been rioting in Copenhagen for 9 days have written a letter explaining that they were forced to smash windows and burn cars, by the “brutal, racist, insulting” Danish police: Youths say police harassment triggered unrest in Denmark.=============================== COPENHAGEN, Denmark - A group of youths who have been torching cars and waste containers in the Danish capital said Tuesday the wave of unrest started as a protest against police harassment. In a letter published in Copenhagen newspaper Politiken, the youths accused police of...

AMSTERDAM, 21/02/08 - Fortis Bank will no longer give children a piggy-bank if they open an account. The company apparently is afraid of offending Muslims. Fortis clients that open a EuroKids account for their children are given a present of a piggy-bank called Knorbert. But the bank is stopping this because "Knorbert does not meet the requirements that the multicultural society imposes on us," yesterday's De Telegraaf quoted a spokesman as saying. Pigs are considered unclean animals by Jews and Muslims. An Internet campaign in which Knorbert played a leading role has also been halted by Fortis. According to a...

A new country limped onto the world's stage on Feb. 17. It is Kosovo. And, true to its Balkan heritage, Kosovo is a problem for most of Europe and Russia. It is also a problem for the United States, which is expected to recognize Kosovo, though mutedly. Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia has infuriated Russia, which immediately called for an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council. Some European countries, including Cyprus, Romania and Slovakia, have told the European Union that they will not recognize Kosovo – in essence a successful separatist movement in Europe.

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Gangs of rioters set fire to cars and garbage trucks in northern Copenhagen on Friday, the sixth night of rioting and vandalism that has spread from the capital to other Danish cities, police said on Saturday.Five youths were arrested in the capital on Friday after 28 cars and 35 garbage trucks were burned, Copenhagen police duty officer Jakob Kristensen told Reuters. Danish media said arrests in other towns brought to 29 the number of people police were holding. Scores of cars and several schools have been vandalized or burned in the past week. Police could give no...

COPENHAGEN (AFP) — Six people were arrested in Copenhagen overnight after small groups of youths torched cars and dumpsters across the city for the sixth night in a row, police said on Saturday. Up to eight others were arrested in towns across the country, media reported. "In Copenhagen there were 28 cars set on fire, 35 dumpsters and 14 garbage fires in the streets," Copenhagen police chief inspector Lau Thytesen told AFP. Of the six people arrested in the capital, five were to be charged with arson while the sixth had been released, he said. Other violence was reported in...

When "tolerance" becomes a word of abuse in a place like the Netherlands, you know that something has gone seriously wrong. The Dutch have always taken pride in being the most tolerant people on Earth. And in less feverish times, no one could possibly have taken exception to Queen Beatrix's speech last Christmas, when she pleaded for tolerance and "respect for minorities." But Geert Wilders, leader of the right-wing, anti-Muslim Freedom Party, was so disgusted by the queen's "multicultural rubbish" that he wanted her to be stripped of her constitutional role in the government. Wilders, a popular rabble-rouser whose party...

AN “overwhelming majority” of Europeans believe immigration from Islamic countries is a threat to their traditional way of life, a survey revealed...The poll, carried out across 21 countries, found “widespread anti-immigration sentiment”, but warned Europe’s Muslim population will treble in the next 17 years. It reported “a severe deficit of trust is found between the Western and Muslim communities”, with most people wanting less interaction with the Muslim world. Last night an MP warned it showed that political leaders in Britain who preach the benefits of unlimited immigration were dangerously out of touch with the public. The study, whose authors...

PJM Oslo: Once an oasis of tolerance, Europe is slowly but surely succumbing to Islamization. “Sharia law may still be an alien concept to some Westerners,” writes Bruce Bawer. “But it’s staring gay Europeans right in the face — and pointing toward a chilling future for all free people.” One day last month, I gave a talk in Rome about how the supposedly liberal ideology of multiculturalism has made possible the spread in Europe of the highly illiberal ideology of fundamentalist Islam, with all its brutality and – among other things – violent homophobia. When I returned to my hotel,...

THE HAGUE, 24/01/08 - In an open letter in newspaper De Volkskrant yesterday, Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders criticised the commotion over his Koran film. With their panicky reactions, politicians and authorities are proving that Islam is an intolerant ideology, in his view. Wilders uses half of his letter to sketch a contrast between Islam and Christianity. "Imagine that it became known that I was going to make a film to demonstrate the Fascist character of the Bible. Say that I had urged in a letter a few months earlier that the Bible should be banned. Would Premier...

Officials in the Netherlands, where tensions have been high since a Muslim murdered a filmmaker more than three years ago, are bracing for the release of a new movie by a controversial politician that aims to show Islam's holy book "is an inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror." In 2004, filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was murdered by a Muslim avenging his film critical of Islam. Two years later, riots protesting the publication of cartoons about Islam's prophet Muhammad left about 100 people dead. Now, the Dutch government is warning of a 10-minute film to be released this month by parliament...

THE HAGUE (AFP) - The Dutch government is ready for any possible fallout of a planned film by far-right MP Geert Wilders that attacks Islam as an "inspiration for murder," Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said Friday. "We are ready to react quickly, it is our role to be prepared for calamities," Balkenende told journalists at his weekly press briefing. Earlier on Friday Dutch media had reported that the government had compiled a secret document on how best to deal with reactions to the film. Wilders, the head of the far-right Freedom Party, announced in November that he planned to...

Amsterdam (2 January) - Amsterdam Mayor Job Cohen says the authorities have failed in their dealings with problematic youths; so far there has been no decrease in violence. The mayor says co-ordination between the various social services leaves much to be desired. Many low-income families have too many, for-the-most-part ineffective, social workers. Mr Cohen also pointed to the gap between the poorer neighbourhoods on the periphery of Amsterdam and the upscale canal zone in the centre. On New Year's Eve groups of Moroccan youths attacked a police station in Amsterdam, breaking windows and setting fire to several police cars. There...

THE HAGUE, 04/12/07 - The Gemeentemuseum (Municipal Museum) in The Hague denies that it has allowed itself to be influenced by threats from Muslims. It was a voluntary choice to drop a work of art concerning the prophet Mohammed, a spokesman claims. The museum decided last weekend to withdraw a number of items by the Iranian artist Sooreh Hera from an exhibition, because "certain sections of society found these offensive." A spokesman explained that museums have the freedom to choose for themselves what they display. The Gemeentemuseum was to exhibit pictures of two gay men wearing masks of the Islamic...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byQD8VPhvdM&feature=related

Britain’s contemporary artists are fêted around the world for their willingness to shock but fear is preventing them from tackling Islamic fundamentalism. Grayson Perry, the cross-dressing potter, Turner Prize winner and former Times columnist, said that he had consciously avoided commenting on radical Islam in his otherwise highly provocative body of work because of the threat of reprisals. Perry also believes that many of his fellow visual artists have also ducked the issue, and one leading British gallery director told The Times that few major venues would be prepared to show potentially inflammatory works. “I’ve censored myself,” Perry said at...

Amsterdam - Dutch police arrested three people in Amsterdam's Osdorp neighbourhood on Sunday evening on suspicion of attempted arson. They had a jerrycan full of petrol and one of the three also had fireworks with him. Police detained them as they had no reasonable explanation for the petrol or the fireworks. Tensions have been high in several Amsterdam neighbourhoods after a mentally disturbed Moroccan man stabbed two police officers and was subsequently shot dead. Gangs of youths, mainly from immigrant backgrounds, smashed windows and torched cars for several evenings in a row after the fatal shooting.