EU: ‘Being too Western’ reason for 71% of ‘honour’ killings

Via the Irish Independent:

Yes, it’s a cultural rather than a religious thing, stemming from some nasty tribal customs of South Asia and the Middle East, but though Hindus, Sikhs and the odd Christian might be perpetrators, the blunt truth is that honour killings are mainly Muslim-on-Muslim (91 per cent worldwide, 84 per cent North America, 96 per cent Europe).

Worldwide, two-thirds of victims (93 per cent women) were killed by their families of origin: 49 per cent in North America, 66 per cent in Europe and 72 per cent in Muslim countries. More than half the victims died in agony, having been either gang-raped or burned or stoned or beheaded or stabbed many times.

Being ‘too Western’ did for 58 per cent: this includes being insufficiently subservient, rejecting Islamic dress, wanting a career, having non-Muslim friends or boyfriends, rejecting an arranged marriage or leaving an abusive husband. This criterion covers 91 per cent of North American murders, 71 per cent of European and 43 per cent in the Muslim world. Offences against sexual propriety (eg being raped or accused of adultery) were the justification for the other murders.

(source)

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.

(source)

Belgium: Self-immolation in apparent attempt to escape forced marriage

Via Het Nieuwsblad (Dutch), RTL (French):

A 16 year old North African girl set herself on fire in the La Louvière hospital Thursday. The girl had felt unwell at the end of the school day and had come to the hospital with her parents.

Shortly before the hospital released her she slipped away. She went up to the eighth floor, where she first tried to jump out of a window. Then she put on disinfectant gel and set a match to herself.

Witnesses say they heard her shouting that this was the only way to escape an arrange marriage. The girl’s mother told journalists on Friday these rumors were untrue.

The girl was brought to burn center in Neder-Over-Heembeek, and her situation has since improved.

Duisberg: Muslim fight for Catholic churches

Via Catholic Church Conservation (translated from Der Westen)

In the north of Duisburg, the Catholic Diocese wants to close five or six of their churches – including, possibly, St. Peter and Paul in Marxloh. As a result, there is interest from the association of the neighbouring Merkez Mosque: “Regardless of whether its a church or mosque – it’s about a house of God,” said the association chairman Mohammed Al.

Vigils, protest letters – if the bishop closes churches, protest is planned. The Ruhr diocese has long previous experience. But now Muslims have set their sights on the threatened Catholic Church. Muhammed Al finds that only logical: “Regardless of whether its a church or mosque – it’s about a house of God. This affects us just like our Catholic friends, “says the chairman of the association of the Duisburg Merkez Mosque, the largest in Germany.

(source)

France/Belgium: Veil arrests

In Belgium three people were detained when they tried to stop police from checking a woman wearing a niqab (Via VRT):

Police detained a woman in the Brussels borough of Schaarbeek on Tuesday because she was wearing a niqab. The garment is a full veil sometimes worn by Muslim women that only leaves the eyes uncovered. It is banned in Belgium.

The incident arose when the police attempted to check the woman’s identity. Police officer Roland Thiébault :”Her husband refused to let us carry out an identity check invoking the woman’s human rights. The couple became more and more aggressive and then a bystander intervened. This person too created a serious disturbance on the public highway.”

(source)

And in France a woman was fined for driving while wearing a veil (Via the Local):

A woman in Brittany was slapped with a €35 ($45) fine after police spotted her driving her car wearing a full-face veil.

The woman, who was visiting family in the north-west coastal town of Saint-Brieuc, was wearing the face-covering niqab, reported daily newspaper 20 Minutes.

Police stopped the woman who “seemed hesitant in her driving,” said local police spokesman Laurent Dufour.

“On closer inspection, they realized she was veiled,” he said.

(source)

France: Citizens forced to convert to Islam to get married

Via Atlantico (French, h/t Observatoire de l’ islamisation):

French weekly VSD reports that French citizens who want to get married to foreign women from North Africa find themselves in a bizarre situation. According to French law, the latter need to provide a document from their embassy that they’re free to marry. But the embassies only provide this document if the French spouse converts to Islam. This mean that, by proxy, the French authorities are imposing Muslim conversion on French citizens.

Malika Sorel, a member of the High Council of Integration, explained to the the Atlantico news-site that the French authorities have to verify that the foreigner wishing to marry is not already married. It is the Muslim countries who are forcing the French citizens to convert, not France. If the French authorities forgo the required legal documents, you’ll have exposes about the increase in polygamous marriages.

Since foreigners have to comply with the laws in their countries, Sorel says that the only way to fight this is to denounce the requirements imposed by the foreign embassies.

North Rhine-Westphalia: Islamic studies gain foothold in state schools

Via the Local:

German Education officials are making moves to establish Islamic studies as a regular subject in North Rhine-Westphalia’s public schools, in line with other religious courses about Catholic or Protestant Christianity.

There have been several pilot projects to teach principals of the faith to German pupils, who are offered the option religious instruction in most state schools. But a vote by the NRW parliament will give it a more permanent foothold until at least 2018, when the effectiveness of the instruction will be comprehensively evaluated.

Although there is demand for the courses – there are about 300,000 Muslim students in the state’s schools – Islamic studies classes have been controversial throughout Germany.

(source)

France: Qatar creates 50 mn euro fund for suburb start-ups

Via AFP:

Qatar has set up a 50-million-euro ($67-million) fund for entrepreneurs from France’s often-deprived suburbs to set up businesses, the Gulf nation’s ambassador to Paris said Friday.

“Qatar is not just words. We must act. The emir (Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani) decided to create a 50-million-euro fund to work with you,” said ambassador Mohamed Jahan al-Kuwari.

“The fund can be increased,” Kuwari told a group of 10 French elected local officials, all of North African origin.

The French officials, five men and five women, travelled to Qatar last month to improve economic ties between the wealthy Arab state and France’s often-disadvantaged suburbs, where they were received by the emir.

(source)

Germany: ‘The Government Must Make It Easier to Work in Germany’

Via Spiegel:

Experts are warning that Germany faces a shortage of skilled labor that could become an increasingly serious threat to its economy in years to come. Companies in certain industrial sectors are already struggling to fill vacant positions. Demographic developments will only make that worse, as the German population ages and the labor force shrinks. But current immigration law makes it hard for German companies to employ foreign specialists.

Earlier this year, a consortium of German foundations and charities set up a cross-party commission to look at the problem. The commission is headed by Armin Laschet, former state integration minister for North Rhine-Westphalia, and former German Defense Minister Peter Struck. It also includes industry and union representatives, as well as politicians from Germany’s main parties. The body will present its findings to the heads of the party groups in the German parliament, the Bundestag, on Wednesday.

(source)

EU: Tunisian Islamist party wins 50% of European vote

Najoua Bennaceur, a French-Tunisian who ran for the North-France district

Via AP and gulfnews:

According to preliminary results announced by the Tunisian Independent Higher Commission for the Elections (ISIE), Islamist party Ennahdha won 8 of the 16 seats on the constituent assembly allocated for Tunisian expatriates in Europe and the Americas.

The breakdown is as follows:
Italy: 2 of 3 (66%)
France: 4 of 10 (40%)
Germany: 1 of 1 (100%)
Americas and Europe: 1 of 2 (50%)

This is the first time in which Tunisian expatriates get to vote for their own representatives.