France: “We are at war against al-Qaida”

Via AP:

France is “at war” with al-Qaida and will step up efforts to fight its North African offshoot after it executed a French hostage in the Sahara, Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Tuesday.

(…)

French President Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed the killing Monday, vowing that the perpetrators “will not go unpunished.”

His prime minister said Tuesday that France will reinforce efforts to work with governments in northwest Africa fighting al-Qaida in the sparsely populated swath of desert that includes the borders dividing Mauritania, Mali, Algeria and Niger.

“We are at war against al-Qaida,” Fillon said on Europe-1 radio. He said France “thwarts several attacks every year,” without elaborating.

(more)

Spain: Moorish revival

Via BBC:

A thousand years ago North African Muslims ruled southern Spain. Now some of their descendants are contributing to a “Moorish revival” that is regenerating parts of Andalucia, says the BBC’s Sylvia Smith.

Sitting in Abdul Hedi Benattia’s tea shop you forget for a moment where you are.

The sound of sweet mint tea being poured into tiny glasses, the murmur of Arabic in the background, and piles of almond cornes de gazelle, served to customers sitting on low sofas, all suggest Morocco or Tunisia.

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

But step outside the shop and walk a few metres downhill and you are in Granada, Spain.

This teteria, or tea shop, is just one of dozens that festoon the historic area and have come to symbolise a significant change in the culture and economics of an important part of the city.

It was the opening of a tea shop alongside the city’s first neighbourhood mosque that ignited the North African renaissance in Granada, according to Said Ekhlouf from Tetouan in northern Morocco.

He and his fellow shop owners took over empty properties, breathing fresh life into a previously run-down area.

“Before we set up shop, few people dared walk down this street, especially in the evening,” he explains.

“Everything was boarded up and the only people you’d meet were junkies and prostitutes. But we have turned this street into one of the most popular.”

The transformation is eye-catching. Dozens of brightly coloured, open-fronted stalls sell all kinds of Moroccan and Tunisian handicrafts, and the only music you will hear is Arabic, interspersed with the call to prayer.

Taking advantage of low property prices, the first arrivals in the 1980s colonised the Calderia Nueva and began, unwittingly, to introduce a modern version of Islamic Andalucian culture.

Abdul Hedi Benattia, who is a Tunisian historian as well as owning a restaurant and tea shop, claims that Islam as practised in Granada is very close to the original tolerant religion that spread across North Africa and through most of the Iberian peninsula from the 7th Century until the 14th Century.

“We accept our Christian neighbours and respect their traditions,” he says. “We didn’t set out specifically to recreate peaceful co-existence, but at times you can’t help but reflect that this is exactly what has happened”.

(more)

Germany: Proposal for Turkish police to deal with Turks

When I first saw the headline, I assumed the proposal was about sending in German police agents of Turkish background. Following an article in on FrontPageMag, I went back to the original article. The proposal was indeed to bring in Turkish police officers from Turkey, but it is incorrect to say that everybody supports the idea. Both the local Turkish community and local politicians think the idea is absurd.

In fact, it’s not only absurd, it’s a statement by the police that those Turks are not really German. I’m surprised that nobody called out the police union out on their racism.

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

Even before the North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) police switched from green to blue uniforms, people were familiar with dark blue police uniforms. But the uniforms said ‘politie’ instead of ‘polizei’: since the mid 1990s, the NRW police work together with the Dutch police. You could see that when Dutch police agents accompanied their German colleagues, for example, patrolling demonstratively through the Christmas markets. Foreign police officers are present also during international football matches – not just during World Cup 2006, when 320 foreign police agents came.

Erich Rettinghaus, State Chairman of the German Police Union (DPolG) in NRW, wants to include Turkey in this system: Uniformed police agents from Turkey would patrol the so-called ‘problem neighborhoods’ together with German police agents, in order to take care of Turkish youth. “This is not a capitulation of the German police nor a type of failure, but a constructive attempt at new common ground,” says Rettinghaus. “This is a good approach for acceptance from both the Turkish and German side.”

Deniz Güner, NRW Chairman of the Turkish community in Germany thinks differently: “We thinks this is a totally wrong approach, as far as integration is concerned.” The people that the Turkish police are supposed to reach are not foreigners but locals. The idea to bring police from Turkey, from abroad, to neighborhoods with a high proportion of immigrants, is therefore absurd. “We require the opposite: people of immigration background should be increasingly recruited into the police.”

This position is supported by NRW’s new interior minister, Ralf Jäger (SPD). “We need more police officers of immigrant background.” In NRW, about 7% of the new recruits every year have an immigration background. Of the 1,100 agents, there are 80 such police agents. Of the future 1,400 agents, there will be 100 police agents of immigrant background in the service. Jäger says that they think this is sustainable. In Hamburg and Hessen, the ratio of immigrants in the police will be increased to 20% in the upcoming years. And in Berlin, there’s already an ‘intercultural competence test’, to check knowledge of foreign languages, as part of the recruitment procedure.

Konrad Freiberg, chairman of the Federal Union of Police (GdP), stresses the importance of being acquainted with colleagues of immigrant background. Foreign police, he says, are ‘really absurd’. “Naturally there are problems in certain neighborhoods, and with certain ethnic groups. But German police should cope with that.” Otherwise, in cities such as Berlin, you’ll need police officers from many countries, not just from Turkey, but also, for example, from Poland.

Rainer Wendt, national chairman of the DPolG, points out, however, that the NRW proposal would be ‘experimental’. “The proposal just says: let’s try it.” It is important to have support from academic research in order to gain insights into the advantages of the proposal. This would be done by the NRW police academy. Wendt says that once they have the findings, they would see where the proposal should be implemented. But that is unlikely: this attempt would not be suitable, says the NRW interior ministry.

Ehrhart Körting (SPD), Berlin’s Interior Senator, is against bringing in Turkish police agents. “Due to the monopoly of authority of the states in Germany, sovereign authority should only be exercised by German police,” he said.

Körting says he doesn’t see a solution in bringing in Turkish police. 115,000 Turks live in Berlin, making it one of the largest Turkish communities outside Turkey. Körting says the Red-Red coalition senate should put more emphasis on the intercultural competence of the civil service and police. Therefore, more recruiting should be done among immigrants. 8-10% of the new recruits in recent years have a migration background.

Sources: WELT, Berliner Morgenpost, h/t PI

UK: Imams helping Muslim gays get religious recognition

Via BBC:

Some British Asian gay Muslims are embracing a new identity, based as much on race and religion as on sexual orientation with a number trying to do it with the help of their local imams.

When Khalid Habib decided it was time to come out about his sexuality, the first person he chose to confide in was not anyone in the family but his local imam.

“It was really important to me because I am a practising Muslim. It was about my personal relationship with Allah,” said the 35-year-old media professional from the north of England.

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

“I sat in his sitting room struggling to get the words,” he said.

“I told him I have issues, but couldn’t bring myself to utter the words ‘with my sexuality’. We spent many hours sitting in silence,” he recalled

When Khalid finally told him, he was struck by the imam’s reaction.

“He was really honest. He told me that in his 25 years of experience as a leader in a British Muslim community, he had never thought about homosexuality in a practical sense.

“So, he had approached it in the textbook sense, preaching that it was immoral, wrong and ‘haram’ in Islam. But he had never looked at it in a human sense.”

(…)

Asif Qureshi, a key worker at The Naz Project, a London-based support group working with British Asian gay men said: “In my experience, the number of Asian gays coming out has almost tripled over the last three years.”

In fact, there is some evidence to suggest that those who dare to come out and seek long term same-sex relationships are sometimes not content with the idea of civil partnerships.

They desire religious recognition of their union, with some reportedly taking the daring step of entering into nikkahs (Muslim marriage contracts).

Mr Qureshi said he was aware of couples who had opted for such nikkahs but stressed that these were performed by imams in absolute secrecy.

Muslim gay activist Ibrahim Ismail has been working on sexual health issues for many years.

He said: “Some of their families and friends may even attend these nikkahs, but they would never publicly admit it for fear of being ostracised by mainstream Muslims.

Even though it is something entirely covert, the idea of Muslim gay marriages sheds light on the role some imams could be playing in helping people reconcile their sexuality and their faith.

As Khalid Habib said, when he came out to his imam three years ago, little did he know that this would be the beginning of a long process to come to terms with sometimes uncomfortable aspects of his faith.

He said, since then, he’s been engaged in an ongoing dialogue with three separate imams to discuss what Allah would have to say about various aspects of his lifestyle.

“It has been a difficult but a mutually rewarding process.

“At least I have found an imam who has agreed to perform my nikkah when I get married,” he said with a smile as he discussed his plans of having a traditional South Asian wedding one day.

(more)

France: “Open a mosque and you close a prison”

France’s most prominent Muslim leader has called for the number of mosques in the country to be doubled to 4,000, sparking fresh debate on the secular status established in French law a century ago.

Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Grande Mosque of Paris and formerly president of the French Council for Muslims, believes a sharp increase in facilities for worship is necessary to give Europe’s largest Muslim population a chance to pray in dignity and comfort.

In a revealing interview in the daily newspaper France-Soir, the contents of which were confirmed by his office, the Algerian-born cardiologist stressed the social benefits of easing the “pressure, frustration and the sense of injustice” felt by many French Muslims.

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

“Open a mosque and you close a prison,” said Dr Boubakeur. If this seems a colourful way of justifying a major programme of mosque-building, he can point to a powerful ally: the president, Nicolas Sarkozy.

France jealously guards the principle of separation of religion and state set down in the 1905 law. This legislation, the bedrock of French secular society, expressly forbids the official recognition or state funding any faith.

But in 2004, when he was the finance minister, Mr Sarkozy argued in a book entitled The Republic, Religions, Hope for an updating of the law to meet modern challenges.

He said the provision of a mosque in every sizeable town would help counter the extremism fostered by self-styled, usually untrained imams holding prayer meetings in tower block basements and garages.

(…)

For French groups such as Riposte Laïque (Secular Response), which fiercely defends the church-state separation, Mr Sarkozy has defeated the spirit of the 1905 law by allowing it to be circumvented.

There are now various ways, from tax advantages to the leasing of land or property at peppercorn rents, in which the public purse can contribute to the cost of building mosques.

(…)

In his France-Soir interview, Dr Boubakeur said secular principles represented a “safeguard against abuse” but should not prevent a fair response to Islam’s need to express itself.

He pointed out that the law had not prevented the Grand Mosque of Paris being built in 1922 with substantial financial state aid given with parliament’s blessing. The gesture was made in recognition of North African Muslims who fought and died for France in the First World War.

In one glaring contradiction of opposition to public funds being used towards the building of mosques, such criticism is often accompanied by anger at the closure of city streets – in areas lacking proper facilities for worship – for Friday prayers.

(more)

Source: The National

Denmark: New attack planned against Mohamed cartoonist?

The Danish authorities are going to check whether authorities in North Africa foiled a new plot against Kurt Westergaard, the famous Mohammed cartoonist.

Westergaard was attacked once in his home by an axe wielding Somali earlier this year. Another plot was foiled in 2008, when several Tunisian and Moroccans were arrested in Aarhus.

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

Peter Skaarup of the Danish People’s Party turned to the Danish Justice Minister, Lars Barfoed, saying that two men were imprisoned in North Africa, suspected of wanting to carry out an attack against Kurt Westergaard.

I could not find any more information about this story, and it’s unclear to me where the DPP took their information from.

In a related story, Indonesian police arrested several terror suspects who were apparently planning an attack against the Danish embassy in Jakarta. The Danish Muslim Joint Council said in response (DA) that it is shameful and totally unacceptable that anybody would intend to carry out terrorist acts of any type against civilian targets. “Any form of terrorism is and will always be in conflict with Islam and can in no way be justified,” the council said in a press release.

Source: Berlingske Tidende (Danish)

Russia: Proposal to ban media from mentioning nationalities

Moscow’s lawmakers have set their minds to fight xenophobia by banning the media from mentioning the nationality, race and religion of criminals.

The measure, intended to tackle the level of hate-crime in the city, is designed to prevent generalizations about certain groups in society. For example, talking about a crime committed by a person from Dagestan, Russian journalists will not be allowed to say “Dagestani” or “coming from North Caucasus,” but they would rather refer to a “person born in Dagestan.”

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

The difference may seem small, but the authors of the idea say that a more precise formulation will matter a lot.

One of the bill’s sponsors, Moscow City Duma Deputy Aleksandr Semennikov, said that generalizations spark extremism in society.

“This kind of information often causes a stir in public opinion, especially among people that aren’t very tolerant or aware of the consequences of their actions. There are groups that will call for revenge,” Semennikov told RT.

The problem is not new: questions about the negative influence of the media have been raised repeatedly. During the latest election campaign, some parties raised the idea of introducing similar measures. However, this is the first time that an official bill was submitted. Initiated by Moscow’s Duma, it will now be passed on to federal authorities.

Source: RT (English)

France: Suspected al-Qaeda cell head arrested

French authorities arrested a French-Moroccan man suspected of heading an al-Qaida support cell that planned to send militants to fight in Afghanistan, Iraq and other conflict zones, and was plotting terror attacks in Morocco, they said Thursday.

The suspect, Ahmed Sahnouni, 40, was arrested last week in a Paris suburb and has been brought before a prosecutor, said an official at the DCRI, the French counterespionage agency. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the nature of his job, said Sahnouni is being interrogated.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said it filed preliminary charges against Sahnouni for “criminal association with the goal of preparing terrorist actions.”

Moroccan police say Sahnouni, born in Casablanca, headed a cell of 24 suspected terrorists arrested last month in the North African kingdom, where they were allegedly plotting large terror attacks.

In an unusually detailed statement, Morocco’s Interior Ministry said the cell planned to murder “symbols of the state” and attack foreign interests in the kingdom, a tourism haven and a strong Western ally in fighting terrorism.

It said several of the cell’s members were caught on their way to Somalia where they planned to join an Islamist militia. Others were preparing training camps to support al-Qaida militants in North Africa, Moroccan authorities say.

(more)

Source: Canadian Press (English), h/t NRP

Germany: Turkish migrants party to participate in NRW elections

The party of Muslim migrants of Germany — “Alliance for Peace and Fairness” expressed intension to participate in the municipal elections in North Rhine–Westphalia province (Germany) held on May 9.

The party is chaired by Haluk Yildiz – the president of Muslim Council in Bonn that gained two seats in the Bonn city council 2009 elections, Deutsche Welle reports. According to the source, there are about 1 million Muslim residents in North Rhine-Westphalia, while a third of them are German citizens and have right to vote.

(more)

Source: NEWS.am

A Swiss canton on Tuesday passed legislation preparing the groundwork for a possible ban on the Islamic burqa.

The local council in Aargau, a canton (state) in the north of Switzerland along the German border, voted overwhelmingly to work on a state initiative to make wearing the burqa in public places illegal. Most major parties backed the move.

Pushing the motion forward, the centrist and right wing parties in favour said the garment was a “symbol of male dominance over women,” according to the Swiss news agency SDA.

The parties also said the full body veil prevents the integration of migrants into Swiss society.

The Socialist party objected to locally legislating on the matter, but members noted that they had negative views on the burqa, citing feminist concerns.

The Green party was opposed, saying the proposal was “hysterics” and a scare-mongering tactic.

It is estimated that less than 100 Muslim women across Switzerland wear the burqa, a full body and face covering.

Bans on the burqa are being mulled in other Swiss cantons, including Bern.

(more)

Source: EarthTimes