Paris: Arab nudes defy taboos in new exhibit Via AFP : The naked body in Arab art is the theme of a new Paris exhibit meant to broaden views of Arab culture, spotlighting the many artists willing to break taboos and depict nudity in all its forms.
Corsica/Berlin: Mosques attacked Via AFP : French police said Monday they were probing a “racist” arson attack on a Muslim prayer hall in Ajaccio, the capital of the Mediterranean island of Corsica. The interior ministry said in a statement that the arson took place overnight and that “writing of a racist nature were found on the facade of the building housing the place of worship”. ( source ) Early Sunday morning paint was thrown at the Sehitlik mosque in the Neukölln district of Berlin
France: Gov’t takes new look at radicalization in prisons Via AP : President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered a study on the evolving threat in prisons after last month’s killings, and the justice minister called for greater intelligence gathering in prisons and more Muslim prison chaplains. Tracking such “lone wolf” radicals presents prison authorities with a new challenge: detecting the Muslim inmate who is not just turning to religion but turning the corner to danger
France: Gov’t orders deportation of five Islamist radicals Via AFP : France has expelled two Islamic radicals and is planning to deport three more as part of a crackdown announced after a gunman killed seven people, officials said Monday. An Algerian radical and a Malian imam were sent back to their home countries on Monday, while a Saudi imam, a Turkish imam and a Tunisian radical were also subject to expulsion orders, the interior ministry said in a statement. The statement said that the imams had made anti-Semitic statements in their sermons, called for Muslims to reject Western values, and said women should wear the full-face veil
Toulouse: Killer is ‘one of us’ Via Reuters : In the neighbourhood where Mohamed Merah grew up, and was last seen joking with friends days after he had killed three French soldiers in a pair of shootings, the message to outsiders is clear: he was one of our own, no matter what he did. (…) But in Les Izards, the 1960s housing project where Merah, 23, felt most at home, the reaction to his rampage has been one of anxious defiance of outsiders trying to peer into what seems like a closed world, cut off from elegant downtown Toulouse by its poverty, by crime and, locals say, by racial discrimination.
France: Police speak of detained Islamists’ kidnap plot Via AFP : Seventeen people detained by French police in a crackdown on suspected Islamist networks might have been plotting a kidnap, the head of the police intelligence’s unit said Saturday. “They appeared to be preparing a kidnap,” Bernard Squarcini of the Central Directorate for Domestic Intelligence (DCRI) told La Provence newspaper. He did not elaborate on the alleged plot, but said the group was made up of “French nationals” who were involved in “collective war-like training, linked to a violent, religious indoctrination.” ( source )
Sarkozy: don’t blame immigration laws for attacks Via AP : France’s president has dismissed the far-right’s use of a recent killing spree as evidence of a need for tougher immigration laws, saying Monday the call makes no sense in the wake of the massacre by a “monster” who was French-born.
Paris: Girl sent home from school – skirt too long Via the Local : A secondary school student near Paris was accused of wearing provocative clothing and sent back home. The school thought her skirt was too long, and conveyed religious values. “Other students come dressed up as hippies or goths and nobody says anything,” the girl, Khadija, told the French daily Le Parisien, “but I’m not even allowed to wear a gypsy skirt.” “If I had come to school wearing a veil I would have understood their reaction,” says Khadija, who is a student at the Edmond-Rostand secondary school at Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône near Paris
France: Police arrest suspected Islamists, Sarkozy eyes more raids Via Reuters : French police commandos arrested 19 people suspected of radical Islamist activity in Friday morning raids in several cities including Toulouse, scene of the killings of seven people by an al Qaeda-inspired gunman earlier this month. President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is waging an uphill battle for re-election, said more raids would follow. “There will be further operations, allowing us to expel a number of people who have no business in the country,” he said in an interview on Europe 1 radio.
France: 57% distrust for ‘violent’ suburban youth Via the Local : Nearly 60 percent of the French say they distrust youth from the ‘banlieues’, France’s impoverished, immigrant-dominated suburbs, according to a new survey that has laid bare the country’s divisions. “The results are extremely worrying,” Thibault Renaudin, national secretary of Afev, the youth organisation which published the poll, told The Local