UK: EDL members arrested in mosque bomb plot

Via Daily Mail:

Seven men were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to blow up a Bournemouth mosque.

The men, six of whom are members of the England Defence League, were taken to Poole and Southampton police stations for questioning before being released without charge.

Among those arrested was EDL member John Broomfield, 27, who was pulled from his stationary vehicle after armed police opened fire on his van in Corfe Castle village.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

A spokesman for Dorset Police said: ‘Dorset Police can confirm that as part of an investigation surrounding threats to a Bournemouth mosque a total of seven people were arrested for conspiracy to cause an explosion.

‘Following an investigation police can now confirm these people have been released without charge.’

He added: ‘One of the people arrested was detained safely by armed officers in the Corfe Castle area.

‘We’ve been working very closely with the Muslim community and our local safer neighbourhood teams have been providing advice and reassurance throughout.

‘At this stage there is no indication whatsoever that any of the mosques in Dorset are under threat of attack.’

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Broomfield, the head of the Dorset EDL, said yesterday: ‘While travelling home from work I was stopped and arrested by armed police.

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Of the alleged plan to blow up the mosque, he added: ‘There has been no conspiracy, there has never been any conspiracy.

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Leicestershire: Increase in report abuse against Muslims

Via BBC:

Muslims in Leicestershire are facing increasing abuse, according to figures from the police.

Between April 2008 and March 2009, officers recorded 25 offences against Muslims but in the following 12 months, the figure rose to 42.

Most incidents involved verbal abuse but there was a small number of cases in which veils were pulled off.

Police said they treated all types of hate crime as a priority and urged victims to report any problems.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

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Rehana Sidat, from Leicester, who wears the niqab, said: “I think there are two things going on. There is more Islamophobia, people are becoming more intolerant.

“But also more people are reporting this sort of thing, having more confidence to bring it to the police.”

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Catalonia: Mayor closes mosque for being too popular

Via Telegraph:

Angel Ros, the socialist mayor of Lleida, in the northeastern region of Catalonia, complained that the mosque was too full and closed it on Wednesday until further notice.

The building, a former garage used to service trucks, was often filled with crowds exceeding a thousand people, the council said, when the authorised limit for the venue is 240.

A new mosque is under construction on the outskirts of the town but work had been stalled because of a lack of financing during the economic crisis.

“The municipality has no obligation to provide places of worship,” Mr Ros said in response to complaints from the town’s Muslim population over the closure. “Those that wish can pray at home, as I do,” he added.

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Al-Qaeda vs. Cartoons

The new Al-Qaeda magazine ‘Inspire’ includes a death threat against various people who made their mark in recent years in the Islam in Europe debate.

Almost all of them are European, and not one of them is on the list for anti-Islam laws.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

Who did make the list?

Lars Vilks and Ulf Johannson (Sweden, cartoonist and editor who published Muhammed cartoon)

Kurt Westergaard, Flemming Rose, Carsten Juste (Denmark, cartoonist and editors who published Muhammad cartoon)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Netherlands/US, ‘Submission’)

Geert Wilders (Netherlands, ‘Fitna’)

Salman Rushdie (UK, ‘The Satanic Verses’)

Molly Norris (US, ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’)

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Two Dutch politicians made the list: Geert Wilders and (former MP) Ayaan Hirsi Ali, but they got on that list for making movies, not laws.

Who is not the list? The European far-right, for example. People who publicly express anti-Muslim sentiments. European politicians who pushed for laws against burkas, veils and minarets.

This can serve as a notice to all European politicians. According to al-Qaeda, a cartoon depicting Muhammad is much worse than a law banning burkas or minarets. And on the other hand, if you want instant notoriety in terrorist circles, all you really need to do is to be European and draw a cartoon or make a movie and you might soon find yourself facing the man with the Golden Gun.

Germany: Anonymous Mosque Watchers

Via Spiegel:

Reinhard Werner doesn’t trust Islam. The 70-year-old German is part of a group which keeps tabs on mosques across Germany, monitoring them for what he calls an “intolerant Islam of terror.” Over the years, he has gained a certain amount of notoriety.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

Reinhard Werner is a few minutes early, but because he doesn’t want to be noticed, he stands outside on the sidewalk in front of the mosque, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible.

It’s Friday afternoon in Munich’s Pasing neighborhood and men are scurrying past Werner on their way to Friday prayers. All of them, in Werner’s eyes, are enemies. He claims that the mosque is spreading what he calls an “intolerant Islam of terror.”

“Do you see the sign over the entrance?” he says.

The letters “DITIB” are printed on the sign. DITIB, an acronym for the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs, is the umbrella organization for roughly 900 mosque congregations in Germany. It is controlled by a Turkish government organization based in Ankara, the Office for Religious Affairs, making it indirectly answerable to the Turkish prime minister. “A military mosque,” says Werner.

“Do you see that the letter ‘I’ in DITIB resembles a minaret? And that the minarets look like missiles?” he asks, beseechingly. It isn’t always easy for Werner to make himself understood.

Werner is a member of the “Anonymous Mosque Observers,” a group of Muslims who fled to Germany from Muslim countries because they came into conflict with religious rules.

Although Werner is not a Muslim himself, nor is he fleeing anything, he feels a kinship with Muslims who have fled their native countries. These Muslims trust their more settled Muslim counterparts about as much as former US President George W. Bush trusted terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. They keep tabs on what goes on in mosques because they want to be sure that they are still safe in Germany.

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Of the 36 mosques in Munich, nine are in Werner’s “observation area.” He reports everything he sees and hears to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s domestic intelligence agency. The BfV, however, doesn’t seem to be taking him very seriously, or at least it hasn’t found his reports to be sufficiently convincing to take any action.

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Muslim Danish politician Naser Khader attacks Islam in harsh terms. He thinks many of the world’s biggest idiots are Muslims.

Naser Khader’s anger comes in the wake of the case of the 43 year old Iranian woman who was sentenced to death for adultery.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

The case got the Conservative integration spokesperson to write on Facebook that he’s considering leaving Islam.

“Yes, I just get so upset by it and frustrated that so many of the world’s biggest idiots are Muslims,” Naser Khader told bt.dk. (audio at link).

“Occasionally when something like this or terrorist attacks happen, I think that I don’t want to be their coreligionist. I’m not leaving Islam, but I just get frustrated that people can kill in the name of Allah. For example, the hostages that are taken in Iraq, their throats are slit, and they say God is great.”

Naser Khader wrote the following on Facebook:

“Why must she die? It is something that sometimes makes me consider leaving Islam. I don’t want to be a coreligionist of these barbarian, women-oppressing executioners.”

Source: bt.dk (Danish)

Dresden: City commemorates ‘veil martyr’

The city of Dresden on Thursday paid its respects to a pregnant Egyptian woman who was stabbed to death in a courtroom one year ago in a racially motivated crime that outraged the Muslim world.

Officials including Saxon Justice Minister Jürgen Martens honoured the memory of 31-year-old Marwa El-Sherbini, dubbed the “veil martyr,” with a plaque to serve as a warning against racism.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

“One year ago all of us were forced to realise the deadly logic of the hatred of foreigners,” said Martens, adding that the murder had shaken “Dresden, Germany and the entire world.”

WELT

Members of the local Muslim community took part in the ceremony and a commemorative march was held later in the day.

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The murder, as well as the slow reaction of Germany’s politicians and media, sparked outrage in Sherbini’s home country, as well as in the wider Muslim world.

“This deed will not be forgotten,” said Dresden Mayor Helma Orosz.

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Source: The Local

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.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

Socialist mayor Roland Ries defined it a barbaric act, and announced that the municipality will take care of the expense of renovating the burial sites. Strasbourg will inaugurate its Great Mosque in 2011, and by the end of next year will have a cemetery reserved to Muslims, the first public one in France, in the name of religious equality and fair treatment.

The cemetery will be built on a 25,000 square metre surface in the La Meineau neighbourhood and will cost approximately 800,000 euros, financed by the municipality.

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Source: ABNA

Brussels: Killed the first Moroccan he saw

The Brussels prosecutors asked the correctional court to intern (in a mental hospital) Allan D., in his thirties. the man stabbed a Moroccan stranger at the Brussels Zuid station on January 2, 2010. He admitted during his arrest that he did it out of racist motives, and added that he had originally intended to attack more victims. The man is asking for a harsh prison sentence.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

It is not the first time that Allan D. gets in trouble with the police. In 2004 he was interned for arson. “When in was released in 2009, it seemed to go better for him,” says his lawyer, Saskia Kerkhofs. “”He had an apartment and a job. But soon that changed because he had problems with his home-owner and neighbors.”

Those people, all of them of Moroccan origin, increased D.’s delusion that all problems in his life were caused by foreigners. When on January 1st he got into a fight with a group of immigrants in Brussel Zuid station, his fuse blew. “A day later he went again to the station with a knife, and attacked the the first Moroccan he met,” according to the prosecution. “Surveillance cameras recorded how he twice thrust the knife into the man’s back and walked away.”

According to the court psychiatrist, the man is insane and should be interned, but D. doesn’t want that. The court will pronounce judgment on June 30th.

Source: HLN (Dutch)

Paris: Police bans ‘anti-Islamisation’ pork-and-wine street party

Paris police on Tuesday banned a controversial “pork sausage and wine” street party planned by extremist groups to combat what they saw as the “Islamisation” of a city neighbourhood.

The event was planned for Friday evening at a time when the district’s streets are usually jammed with Muslims coming out of mosques and just before Algeria were due to play England in the football World Cup.

This article was prepared by the Islam in Europe blog – islamineurope.blogspot.com

But police banned the event and any rival gatherings in the Goutte d’Or area of northern Paris’ 18th arrondissement, or district, saying in a statement that it was likely to cause “serious risks to public order.”

The plan had sparked outrage from politicians and anti-racism groups who said it was blatantly racist and could lead to violence on the streets.

The controversy comes after a government-sponsored debate on national identity earlier this year spotlighted anxieties about the integration of France’s five to six million Muslims.

The Goutte d’Or party, or “apero geant” as it was called in French, was a new and politically-charged take on a growing trend in France for huge open-air drinks parties organised on the social networking site Facebook.

Many of them have been banned because authorities fear mass drunkenness.

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The street party, whose two main components of pork and alcohol are forbidden by Islamic teaching, was scheduled to be held on Rue Myrha, where there is a mosque.

A French government minister of Algerian descent, Fadela Amara, on Tuesday condemned the planned party as “hateful, racist and xenophobic.”

Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe for his part voiced concern that the drinks party could turn violent, while the head of the main Paris mosque located in another area invited the faithful to attend prayers there to avoid clashes.

A rival group on Facebook had set up a “halal and mint tea” party in response to the pork and wine event.

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Source: AFP