Islam in Europe

Belgium: Sharia bank accounts to be offered by Chaabi Bank

2012-01-27T06:55:00.000-08:00

Belgium: Sharia bank accounts to be offered by Chaabi Bank

Via HLN (Dutch):

Moroccan bank Chaabi is considering launching Sharia bank accounts in Belgium, reports La Libre Belgique.

Chaabi's Belgian branch says they're currently studying the idea and will soon consult the FSMA (Banking, Finance and Insurance Commission).

Former Finance Minister Didier Reynders supported Islamic banking, but the current minister, Steven Vanackere, hasn't yet stated his opinion.

Germany: Muslim car-pool service

2012-01-27T05:40:00.000-08:00

Germany: Muslim car-pool service

Via TAZ (German, h/t Snaphanen)

Selim Reid (24) is the founder of MuslimTAXI, a Muslim ride-sharing service. The service is free, and is ad-supported. He says he thought of the idea because of complaints he heard that regular carpools don't implement gender discrimination.

Reid immigrated from Iraq to Germany with his parents in 1996. He studied automotive and aircraft technology in Hamburg. He says he once organized a ride for his parents from Hamburg to Berlin, but when he brought his parents to the meeting point, it was clear that the driver did not like foreigners. The driver assumed the parents couldn't understand German and since they couldn't get off in the middle of nowhere, they had to listen to his rants the whole way.

Reid says his service is no different from how some Christian communities organize to help their members. He says non-Muslims are also invited to join.

His site allows people to choose the gender of the driver and passengers. He says until now it was difficult for Muslim women to use regular carpool services unaccompanied. He also says he's heard of many affairs that started in such cars and that destroyed marriages.

He says the best thing about it is that it encourages Dawa. Since the Muslims who meet on his rides have only one thing in common - Islam. And this way other faiths get introduced to Islam. He goes on to say that Islam unites all religions and that there is only one true God.

Asked whether gender segregation isn't a thing of the past, Reid answered that more and more people are converting to Islam, many of them women, and they adopt the headscarf of their own free will. Islam is unchanging and its principles are lasting, and so women will want to keep the headscarf even 1000 years from now. Islam is the true religion and since God is flawless, so is the religion he gave.

Reid says he already got 2,000 sign-ups, as well as thank-you calls and emails. He was also criticized, but he says that doesn't mean he's wrong.

France: Three sentenced for Paris bomb plot

2012-01-27T04:15:00.000-08:00

France: Three sentenced for Paris bomb plot

Via AFP:

A French court on Thursday sentenced three men to between two and six years in prison for plotting to carry out a car bomb attack on a public building near the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Rany Arnaud, Nadir Badache and Adrien Guihal were arrested in December 2008 after they allegedly planned to set off a car bomb outside the offices of a national police investigation body in the centre of Paris.

Arnaud, a convert to Islam and the ringleader of the group, was targeted by police after posting calls on an Islamic fundamentalist website for France to be attacked because of its participation in the war in Afghanistan.

(source)

Odense: Burglary campaign against ethnic Danes

2012-01-27T02:47:00.000-08:00

Odense: Burglary campaign against ethnic Danes

Via JihadWatch (Translated from B.T., Danish):

(...)

A burglary campaign against ethnic Danes has spread in the troubled district in the recent months.

- There is a kind of racism out there, where we find that more and more Danes are chased out of the area. It happens as a result of a big increase in burglaries. There have been approximately 150 burglaries the last four months. What is striking is that nine out of ten burglaries are now directed against ethnic Danes, a cop at Funen Police headquarters explains. The cop does not want us to publish his name for fear of losing his job. His name is known by the editors. The officer believes that someone is trying to cleanse the area from the remaining Danes.
(source)

London: Muhammad cartoon row leads to resignation

2012-01-27T01:05:00.000-08:00

London: Muhammad cartoon row leads to resignation

Via the BBC (h/t Talk Islam):

The president of a London university atheist society has resigned over a row about an image of the Prophet Muhammad.

The society at University College London (UCL) published an image on its Facebook page showing "Jesus and Mo" having a drink at a bar.

The atheist group was asked by the UCL union to remove it, but refused and started a petition defending its freedom of expression.

A student Muslim group began a counter-petition asking for its removal.

(source)

Are Europe's Muslims America's problem?

2012-01-26T12:03:00.001-08:00

Are Europe's Muslims America's problem?

Via Al-Jazeera:

"Soft power" programmes in the US that reach out to European Muslims have drawn ire from EU governments.

(...)

For several years now, the State Department has been quietly trying to introduce its ideas around race, multiculturalism and affirmative action into European policy and activist circles, aiming to alter the discourse on Islam in Europe - and in some cases, actively trying to help "integrate" European Muslims. The WikiLeaks cables that probably stirred the most anger in European capitals were those where US diplomats castigated allies - France, Britain, Holland - for mistreating their Muslim minorities, and not doing enough to battle domestic extremism.

(source)

France: New Report Accuses Police of Discrimination

2012-01-26T10:53:00.000-08:00

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.
(source)

London: 'Strict Muslim' raped women at knifepoint to 'punish them for being on the streets at night'

2012-01-26T05:19:00.000-08:00

London: 'Strict Muslim' raped women at knifepoint to 'punish them for being on the streets at night'

Via the Daily Mail:

A Muslim man who raped women to 'teach them a lesson' for being on the streets at night was jailed indefinitely today because of the danger he poses to women.

Sunny Islam, 23, who comes from a strict Muslim family, dragged his terrified victims - including a 15-year-old - from the street at knifepoint, bound and assaulted them during a two-month reign of terror.

Police fear that Islam may have attacked many more.
(source)

Sweden: Website touts ruse to turn in illegal immigrants

2012-01-25T09:05:00.000-08:00

Sweden: Website touts ruse to turn in illegal immigrants

Via the Local:

An anti-immigrant website has urged readers to infiltrate a group focused on helping undocumented immigrants in Sweden in order to turn them over to police.

The campaign by the Sweden Democrat-linked website Avpixlat (literally, "unpixelated", but also a Swedish colloquialism meaning to "reveal" or "unmask"), comes in response to a call for help in finding housing for a family of undocumented immigrants published on Facebook last week by asylum advocacy group Asylgruppen Lund.
(source)

Bosnia: Police arrest Wahhabi leader

2012-01-25T07:58:00.000-08:00

Bosnia: Police arrest Wahhabi leader

Via B92:

Strong police forces arrested Nusret Imamović, his brother Eldin and one more person in the village of Gornja Maoča on Wednesday.

The strong police forces have been searching several locations in the Wahhabi community in the the village of Gornja Maoča since Wednesday morning.

“The goal of the SIPA officers’ operation is to collect evidence that could be tied to the mentioned attack on the U.S. Embassy and all the evidence that will possibly be found will be handed over to the Bosnia-Herzegovina Prosecution after forensic processing,” SIPA has reported.
(source)

France: OIC condemns genocide bill

2012-01-25T06:57:00.000-08:00

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.

(...)

"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."

(source)

Rome: Turkish parent launches campaign against racism

2012-01-25T05:45:00.000-08:00

Rome: Turkish parent launches campaign against racism

Via Today's Zaman:

A Turkish parent residing in Italy has launched a campaign following an incident where a schoolteacher in Rome made his students write down a paragraph denigrating Turkish women, according to a report published on the front page of the Sabah daily on Sunday.

Yasemin Taşkın, who works as a Rome-based reporter for Turkey's Sabah daily, launched an anti-racism campaign after her daughter was forced to write a passage claiming that Turkish people believe women only exist to get married and have babies.

(source)

UK: Muslim airline pilot 'sacked because of religion'

2012-01-25T05:01:00.000-08:00

UK: Muslim airline pilot 'sacked because of religion'

Via Asian Image:

A Muslim airline pilot who was sacked after links were discovered to two suspected terrorists told an employment tribunal today that an "air of suspicion" had been created around him because of his race and religion.

The British man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was suspended by the major airline after he was arrested by the Metropolitan Police in October 2007 who were investigating two suspects.

(source)

NYT: How to Integrate Europe's Muslims

2012-01-24T12:19:00.000-08:00

NYT: How to Integrate Europe's Muslims

Via the New York Times:

(...)

European countries could use a period of benign neglect of the Islam issue — but only after they finish incorporating religion into the national fabric. For too long, they have instead masked an absence of coherent integration policy under the cloak of “multiculturalism.” The state outsourced the hard work of integration to foreign diplomats and Islamist institutions — for example, some students in Germany read Saudi-supplied textbooks in Saudi-run institutions.

This neglect of integration helped an unregulated “underground Islam” to take hold in storefronts, basements and courtyards. It reflected wishful thinking about how long guest workers would stay and perpetuated a myth of eventual departure and repatriation.
(source)

Netherlands: Law to ban burkas highly criticised by government advisors

2012-01-24T06:06:00.000-08:00

Netherlands: Law to ban burkas highly criticised by government advisors

Via DutchNews:

Draft legislation aimed at banning burkas in the Netherlands has been heavily criticised by the government’s most important advisory body and needs significant amendments, news agency ANP reports, citing regional newspapers.
(source)

Oslo: Students complain school segregates by gender and ethnicity

2012-01-24T04:26:00.000-08:00

Oslo: Students complain school segregates by gender and ethnicity

Via VG (Norwegian):

Ali Hassan, Ali Al-Amin and Ali Hasane, who learn at Ulsrud high-school in the Oslo suburb of Bøler, say their school segregates based on gender and ethnicity.

Ulsrud high-school has two gym classes: one for immigrant boys, and the other for girls and Norwegians.

"It's not good at all. You don't get a good learning environment by organizing a class with just immigrants and boys," Ali Hasane (18) told VG.

Several students tried moving from the immigrant class ot the other gym class, but did not succeed. They say that students only move in one direction: from the Norwegian and girls class to the immigrant class.

Though the school claims they don't discriminate based on ethnicity and sex, the students say that's exactly what's happening.

Ali Hassan and Ali Al-Amin say that the school discriminates the boys class and their achivements are overlooked.

Their class includes students from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, the Philippines, Morocco, Iraq, Somalia, Turkey and Sudan. There are no Norwegians in the class. The students ask whether this is legal according to Norwegian law.

They say they're willing to finish the year in this class, but warn against such immigrant classes in the future.

Principal David Dunlop doesn't hide the fact that the division of the two classes was controversial. However, he says the division is based on educational principles and not on ethnicity or gender. He says the teachers are 'color blind' when they consider the needs of the students.

When asked what educational principles were involved, Dunlop preferred not to say, citing privacy concerns. He said that educational concerns were always considered when it comes to the students' academic level, group size, subject composition and the teachers' skills.

Ulsrud school was previously criticized for not allowing students to pray in school

France: Radical group Forsane Alizza disbanded

2012-01-23T11:32:00.000-08:00

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.
(source)

EU: Al Qaida planned to take hostages, marginalize Muslim communities

2012-01-23T10:59:00.000-08:00

EU: Al Qaida planned to take hostages, marginalize Muslim communities

Via the Local:

Documents seized in May linked to al Qaida leaders indicate that the terrorist organisation was aiming to take hostages in Germany and other Western countries as part of a "war of attrition," according to a newspaper report.

(...)

One of the strategy papers said al Qaida was planning a combination of smaller and larger attacks in order to "drive the enemy to desperation." According to other documents, the terrorist group was planning to take hostages and then kill them. They also described plans to use poisons and disguises.

Al Qaida reportedly expected that spreading fear among the population and the implementation of more repressive tactics by authorities would result in the marginalisation of Muslim communities, which would in turn bring in more recruits for the Jihad.
(source)

Denmark: Muslims against 'Ministry of Attitudes to Life'

2012-01-23T09:45:00.000-08:00

Denmark: Muslims against 'Ministry of Attitudes to Life'

Via Politiken:

The Socialist People’s Party Group Chairwoman Pernille Vigsø Bagge has said she would like to see the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs change its name to the Ministry of Attitudes to Life, but the proposal has not immediately won much support among politicians. (source)

Via Avisen (Danish):

The Islamic Faith-Society doesn't support the change either.

Spokesperson Imran Shah told Newspaq: "I think this is the wrong signal to send to the rest of the nation. It's misunderstood tolerance."

Imran Shah says that when he heard the suggestion "I thought she didn't properly understand the task, which we as a society face, when we want multiple faith-societies in a larger unit, with the best of intentions."

He says this shows the actual challenges are underestimated. "It looked as if she tried with a name-change to forget everything on how to create the appropriate frameworks for cooperation between faith communities and the Ministry."

He says it's a step in the wrong direction, since it portrays Muslims in Denmark as people who just have demands. "We live in Denmark and the constitution is based on Christianity, we should stick to that and I don't think there are any impediments at all for it to be called the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs. The name is completely insignificant."

He says he hopes the debate will cause politicians to think twice before they open their mouths.

Switzerland: Radical Muslim group to launch TV station

2012-01-23T08:36:00.000-08:00

Switzerland: Radical Muslim group to launch TV station

Via the Local:

The Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (ICCS) has announced plans to set up an internet TV channel, while it is also in talks with various companies to provide its members with a Swiss-Muslim discount card.

The new TV studios, due to become operational this summer, will play host to a political show, a weekly series on a range of topics seen from a Muslim perspective, and a sermon series, newspaper SonntagsZeitung reports. Sermons are to be given mainly in German, but also in Arabic, Bosnian and Albanian. German subtitles will also be available.

(source)

Norway: Two Iranian converts attacked, called 'kuffar'

2012-01-23T07:32:00.000-08:00

Norway: Two Iranian converts attacked, called 'kuffar'

Via Världen idag (Swedish):

Two Iranians who converted from Islam to Christianity were stabbed by masked me in Haugesund last week. The attacker shouted 'Kuffar' (Arabic for non-believer) during the attack.

The attack happened Tuesday evening, when both Christian Iranians were out walking in Haugesund. They were suddenly attacked by three masked men armed with knives, who shouted 'kuffar' while they stabbed the two.

A nurse passing by gave first aid and then an ambulance brought them to hospital, reports Haugesunds Avis.

According to the police, one of the victims was stabbed twice in the back and the other was stabbed in his side. No perpetrators have been caught.

The two victims want to remain anonymous and have not spoken of the assault. They've lived in Norway for many years. One of them converted in Norway, the other did so in Iran and managed to flee to Norway after he was abused and imprisoned for his faith.

They're both active in a local evangelical church.

'They've very active in the community, and have also bore witness to their faith during meetings,' says their pastor, who also wants to remain anonymous, since he often travels to Muslim countries where Christians are persecuted.

He's certain that the attack was religiously motivated. "I'm totally sure of it. Since the attackers shouted 'kuffar' during the attack, I have no doubt about it."

He says he didn't expect such things to happen in Haugesund. "It's very dramatic and surprising. I didn't take that into account. I hadn't heard of threats against any coverts in the area."

Update: Translation fixed (injury description)

Surrey: girl attacked for wearing headscarf

2012-01-23T01:49:00.000-08:00

Surrey: girl attacked for wearing headscarf

Via the BBC (h/t Islamophobia Watch):

A race attack in Surrey on an 11-year-old girl will be the focus of community talks in Sunbury-on-Thames.

The girl was attacked by older white girls who kicked her, pushed her to the ground and drew on her face.

Surrey Police said it seemed the girl had been targeted on 11 January because she was wearing a headscarf.

(source)

Netherlands: Prison sentence for horse-meat halal fraud

2012-01-22T09:41:00.000-08:00

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.

Oslo: Less than 40 show up for Afghanistan War protest

2012-01-22T08:30:00.000-08:00

Oslo: Less than 40 show up for Afghanistan War protest

Via the Foreigner:

Organizers had announced they expected between 500 and 750, but several amongst Norway’s Muslim community had encouraged members to boycott the protest.

Just 37 people turned up in front of Parliament to hear one of two speakers, Arfan Bhatti, say, “the safety of the Norwegian people will be threatened as long as you are in Afghanistan. This is not a threat, but a warning.”
(source)

Brussels: Professor says Muslim countries should establish theological schools in Europe

2012-01-22T07:12:00.000-08:00

Brussels: Professor says Muslim countries should establish theological schools in Europe

Via KUNA:

A Belgian professor of sociology and researcher on Islam Felice Dassetto is calling on rich Muslim countries to assist in establishing Islamic theological schools and faculties in Europe to overcome the gap in intellectual leadership of European Muslims.

"One of the major problems Muslims in Europe face, except perhaps for UK, is the absence of religious intellectual leadership," said Dassetto who teaches sociology in the university of Leuven and has published three books on Islam.

In an interview with the Kuwait news agency, KUNA, he explained that the reason for this vacuum is the absence of Islamic theological faculties in Europe.

He said Gulf countries like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia can help in the establishment of such Islamic faculties in Europe.

"They must help because the European Muslim must be in contact with the Muslim world," said the Belgian academic.

(source)