France: Not all civilisations equal, minister says

Via AFP:

French Interior Minister Claude Gueant, who also holds the immigration portfolio, caused political uproar by claiming that not all civilisations are equal, with some more advanced than others.

“Contrary to what the left’s relativist ideology says, for us all civilisations are not of equal value,” Gueant on Saturday told a conference in the French parliament building, but closed to the media.

“Those which defend humanity seem to us to be more advanced than those that do not,” he argued in his speech at a meeting organised by a right-wing students group.

“Those which defend liberty, equality and fraternity, seem to us superior to those which accept tyranny, the subservience of women, social and ethnic hatred,” he went on his speech, a copy of which was obtained by AFP.

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France: New Report Accuses Police of Discrimination

Via VoA:

Human Rights Watch says police in France are singling out ethnic Arab and African youths for unwarranted and sometimes humiliating identity checks. The rights group says this apparent ethnic profiling is further exacerbating an already tense relationship between authorities and minority youths.

A young man who recounted being stopped and questioned by French police thinks it’s because he’s Arab. One identity check is OK, he says. But after a second, third and fourth, he says it’s like being in a giant prison.

His account is among dozens gathered by Human Rights Watch in interviews with minority youths in the cities of Paris, Lyon and Lille. In a new report, the rights group says ethnic Africans and Arabs – some as young as 13 years old – are often targeted in police checks, even though they do not appear to be doing anything wrong. Another study, in 2009, found that French police were far more likely to stop blacks and Arabs than white people.

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France: OIC condemns genocide bill

Via Expatica:

The world’s largest Muslim body criticised on Tuesday a bill passed by the French Senate making denial of the Armenian genocide a crime, according to an official statement.

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“We reject this law and consider it to be inconsistent with historical facts,” said the statement from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation adding that it reflects a “double standard in the treatment of major historical issues.”

The OIC further accused the French Senate of passing the bill for “political and electoral” gain and said the law violates the “principles of freedom of expression.”

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France: Radical group Forsane Alizza disbanded

Via KUNA:

An extremist Islamist group known as “Knights of Pride (Forsane Alizza)” has been disbanded by order of the Interior Ministry for inciting racial hatred, security sources confirmed Monday.

The Muslim group, which has bases in Paris and in the central French city of Limoges, and other cities, denies the accusations.

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Netherlands: Prison sentence for horse-meat halal fraud

Via BN/DeStem (Dutch):

A 61 year old from Breda was sentenced to a year in jail (three months suspended) for halal meat fraud. The man and his accomplices sold horse meat from South America as Dutch halal-slaughtered meat.

In 2007 and 2008 the man bought horse meat and packed it like beef. He then bought certificates which said the meat was halal-slaughtered. The certificates were then forged to change the weight of the meat. The meat was sold to French supermarkets.

The prosecution wanted 1.5 years. The court sentenced him to less since there was no evidence that people suffered health problems from the meat. An accomplice, a 53 year old from Oosterhout, got 160 hours of community service. The company was fined 20,000 euro.

Paris: Turks demonstrate against genocide bill

Via AP:

Thousands of Turks from across Europe marched through the French capital Saturday denouncing a bill that would make it a crime to deny that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago was genocide.

Turks young and old, waving their country’s red flag, or wrapped in it, marched to the Senate, where the bill will be debated Monday after passage in December in the lower house.

They carried banners reading “No to Sarkozy Shame Law,” ‘’History for Historians, Politics for Politicians” or other slogans denouncing an alleged bid by President Nicolas Sarkozy to “fish for votes” among French Armenians before the two-round presidential elections in April and May.

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France: Fearing attacks, Jewish students masquerade as Muslims

Via the Jerusalem Post:

2 generations ago, some Jews sought to protect themselves by masquerading as Aryans. In an interview conducted in November, a Parisian mother related how the fear of being physically attacked by Muslim extremist thugs means that it is “not rare at all today” for French Jewish students to attempt to pass themselves off as Muslim – with some even going as far as to fast on Ramadan. One case in point was a Jewish girl of North African descent who for years was successful in this deception, until finally she was “exposed” when Muslim girls caught her eating matzah in the bathroom during Pesah. After her classmates beat her viciously, they invited their male Muslim friends to their school to participate in a gang rape.

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Flanders: “Imams hardly in touch with their local community”

Via VRT:

Research commissioned by the Equal Opportunities Support Unit shows that many of the imams who are working in Flanders hardly speak any Dutch, the language of their local community. In addition, they are hardly in touch with the local community.

The research shows that most of the imams active in Flanders didn’t grow up here and never learnt French or Dutch. They have little understanding of Belgian or Flemish affairs. As a result contacts with Belgian youngsters are strained. In consequence many young Muslim Belgians go in search of information about Islam via other channels increasing the chance of radicalisation.

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France: Le Pen slams Qatar for investing in French ‘Muslim’ suburbs

Via AFP:

Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen on Friday lashed out at Qatar for investing in “Muslim” areas of French cities and for taking over Paris Saint-Germain football club.

“The massive investments which it has made in suburbs are made because of the very high proportion of Muslims who are in the French suburbs,” she told reporters.

“I think this situation could be very dangerous,” she said. “We are letting a foreign country choose its investments with regard to the religion of this or that part of the French population or of French territory.”

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Lyon: Muslim bride sues after order to remove veil

Via the Local:

A newly-wed Muslim couple are suing the mayor of Lyon after a local official insisted the bride remove her veil at the town hall wedding ceremony.

The bride, identified only as Nassima A., was asked to remove a veil which was covering her hair during her wedding ceremony at a town hall in Lyon in June.

“Nassima thought it was an order and did not think twice about removing her veil. She thought she had to do it to get married and took it off in front of everybody,” says her lawyer Gilles Devers in an interview with the French daily Liberation. He says she felt humuliated during the ceremony.

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