LONDON (AFP) – A controversial Islamic group sparked a row in Britain Saturday after announcing plans for a march to commemorate civilians killed in the Afghanistan war through a town known for honouring dead soldiers.

Islam4UK says it wants to march through Wootton Bassett, which regularly sees hundreds gather in its streets as the bodies of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan parade through in hearses.

The town, which is close to the Royal Air Force base where soldiers' bodies are repatriated, has become a powerful symbol of Britain's war effort.

Islam4UK calls itself a platform for Al-Muhajiroun, a radical group now disbanded which used to be headed by Omar Bakri, an Islamist preacher barred from Britain for his views.

The march is expected to be held in the coming weeks and will feature symbolic coffins to honour Muslims killed in the conflict.

Islam4UK said on its website that the march would be "held not in memory of the occupying and merciless British military, but rather the real war dead who have been shunned by the Western media and general public".

It added: "It is quite extraordinary... that those military serviceman who have directly or indirectly contributed to their death are paraded as war heroes and moreover honoured for what is ultimately genocide."

A total of 108 British soldiers died in Afghanistan in 2009 compared to 2,038 civilians in the first ten months of the year, according to the United Nations mission in Afghanistan.

The news prompted anger from local politicians, who condemned Islam4UK leader Anjem Choudary.

"We are a Christian country and a traditional old English market town who honour very much our queen and country. We obey the law and pay respects to our servicemen who protect our freedom," said Chris Wannell, a Wootton Bassett town councillor and former mayor.

"If this man has any decency about him, he will not hold a march through Wootton Bassett."

The local police, who have to approve plans for the march, said there was "significant community concern" about it, adding they could apply for a banning order.

AFP, 2 January 2010

Rotterdam rapper Mosheb has been given 80 hours community service and a two month suspended jail term for threatening anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders in a rap.

The public prosecution department had called for 120 hours community service or 60 days in jail.

The text of the number, entitled Who's next, includes the rapper saying it will be 'bam bam' if he meets Wilders. The rapper also calls on Wilders to take back his words if he wants to stay alive and says 'this is no joke. Last night I dreamed I chopped your head off.'

The public prosecution department said the threat could reasonably lead to Wilders fearing for his life or that he would be subjected to violence.

According to news agency ANP, the court agreed with this conclusion and said the rap was threatening. 'A politician must be able to do his work,' the judges said.

Of the 424 incidents of threats against politicians made last year, 292 were directed at Wilders.

DutchNews.nl, 18 December 2009

In the latest battle over what people may legally call their children, the Swedish Tax Authority (Skatteverket) has ruled that the parents of a two-month-old boy in Skåne in southern Sweden may not call their child Allah.

According to the decision, Skatteverket does not approve “names that can give offence or be seen to cause discomfort for the bearer”. In this case, Skatteverket was “of the opinion that the name can be seen as objectionable for religious reasons.”

Skatteverket legal expert Lars Tegenfeldt told The Local that devout members of the public might take offense to certain names with highly religious connotations.

“God or Allah or the Devil is offensive to the public. Not me personally, but there are religious people who think so,” he said.

“Some religious names though, like Jesus, are normal,” he added.

There have been several high profile cases in Sweden over the authority's seemingly arbitrary decisions regarding first names it deems acceptable.

In 2007, for example, a couple was initially banned from calling their daughter Metallica (a decision later overturned), while authorities in another part of Sweden allowed a baby boy to be called Google. Other controversial names rejected by the agency have included Q, Token and Michael Jackson.

The parents told The Local they do not plan to appeal the Skatteverket's decision rejecting the name Allah.

The Local, 23 December 2009

A small group of demonstrators led by Americans Against Hate Chairman Joe Kaufman last Friday accused Broward County and the Town of Davie of supporting an organization with ties to Islamic terrorists.

A street sign in Davie sparked the anger of the demonstrators who protested in front of the Broward County Governmental Center in Fort Lauderdale on a rainy Friday afternoon.

The sign, at the southwest corner of College Avenue and Nova Drive, credits the Miami office of the Council on American Islamic Relations ( CAIR-FL) for its participation in a Broward County program to clear litter from an "adopted" street.

Kaufman said when he complained about the sign, a spokesman for the Town of Davie told him it would not be removed because CAIR had a Constitutional right to free speech.

"Freedom of speech is a poor excuse," Kaufman said to the demonstrators. "This is not about free speech. It's about terrorism."

The United States Department of Justice has linked Washington, DC-based CAIR to Hamas, which the U.S. government considers a terrorist organization. CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator during the federal trial in Dallas of the Holy Land Foundation, the largest Islamic charity in the United States.

"We're here to question Broward County's long-time affiliation with CAIR," Jeff Rubinoff, a Davie resident, said. Rubinoff accused the county of "complicity in supporting a terrorist organization."

He mentioned a CAIR fundraiser at the Fort Lauderdale Convention Center, the Broward County School Board naming CAIR-Florida representative Jawhar "Joe" Badran to a diversity committee and CAIR's Broward County bus ads that he said denigrated Jews and Christians.

"Broward County is once again finding themselves on the wrong side," Rubinoff said. "So far their ears remain closed and they turn their backs to us."

Calls to Broward County Mayor Ken Keechl and Davie Mayor Judy Paul on Friday, before the Jewish Journal went to press, were not returned.

"Too many people have been quiet about their concerns over Muslim extremism," said Rabbi Andrew Jacobs of Ramat Shalom synagogue in Plantation. Stopping it must begin locally, in Broward County, he said. It's time for people to raise their voices about the threat posed by CAIR, Jacobs added.

Muhammad Malik, executive director of CAIR-Florida's Miami office, said the organization wanted to bring out people to pick up litter from the street, like any other group.

Malik said he met with Davie officials and with administrators in the county's Adopt-A-Street program. Neither had a problem with CAIR's sign, he said.

Kaufman and Americans Against Hate "emotionalize" by having a rally on Hanukkah, Malik said. He said he didn't think the Town of Davie would be influenced by the demonstration.

Malik accused Israel of terrorism in the war with Hamas in Gaza. "There were some bad things happening on both sides," he said. "If we really were with Hamas, then I wouldn't be describing acts by Hamas."

Sun Sentinel, 22 December 2009

A recent referendum in Switzerland placed a ban on minaret construction in the country. Now, a Muslim man living in Switzerland has filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights.

Algerian-born Hafid Ouardidi lodged the complaint with the human rights court in Strausbourg, saying the referendum violates the right to religious freedom. Ouardidi is a former spokesman at the Geneva Mosque.

The referendum passed in Switzerland after 57.5 percent of the country's citizens approved the measure in a November 29 vote. The Swiss national government urged its citizens to vote against the measure, which was supported by a campaign from the right-wing Swiss People's Party. The party opposed the "Islamisation of Switzerland."

One of Ouardidi's lawyers, Pierre de Preux, said that the Swiss government and all members of the European Council had been informed of the complaint.

"We will have both the plaintiff Hafid Ouardiri and the defendant, [the Swiss government], saying the same thing," de Preux told Reuters news agency. "The court is still free to decide whatever it wants, but it sure is going to help the request."

The European Court of Human Rights must still decide if it will accept Ouardidi's complaint.

mz/AP/Reuters, 16 December 2009

So this is how democracy works?

In 2004, France banned headscarves and school principals chased after young "defiant" Muslim girls who continued to cover their heads in school. Now, following a national referendum, Switzerland has banned the construction of minarets, because minarets also somehow symbolize oppression. Thanks to the dedicated action of the far-right Swiss People's Party, the Alpine skies will be free from the snaking menace, which would spread intolerance and taint the splendor of Swiss architecture.

In between these two peculiar events, the targeting of Muslims in Western countries and the subjugation of entire Muslim nations all over the world has never ceased. Not for a day.

Moreover, the collective targeting of small or large Muslim communities in Western countries, and the deliberate abuse and degradation of Muslim individuals and Islamic symbols (from the Holy Qur'an to the Prophet Mohammed) has also never ceased.

Bizarrely, most of these actions have been done through "democratic" channels and justified in the name of democracy, on the basis of upholding the principles of secularism and Western values.

Many thoughts come to mind here; all unreservedly angry.

I remember when the word "democracy" used to resonate so loudly among Arabs and Muslims around the world. The more they were denied it, the more they yearned for it. University campuses in Cairo, Gaza and Karachi took their student union elections so very seriously. Innocent blood was spilled in clashes around campuses as students desperately tried to express their right to vote, to speak out and to assemble.

Those were the days, when al-demoqratia, Arabic for democracy, was the buzzword in the Middle East and beyond. Even Palestinian political prisoners held their elections, ever so faithfully, surrounded by highly fortified towers and under the deriding gaze of armed men in the unforgiving heat of the Naqab desert.

Arab and Muslim masses were keen on democracy to the extent that there was a near consensus that democracy, although a Western conception, could be distinguished from the many ills invited by Western interventions, imperialism and wars that scarred and continued to impair the collective Muslim psyche.

An entire school of Muslim thought was in fact established around the concept that democracy and Islam are very much compatible. Such a notion goes back to Egypt's Azharite scholar Rifa'a al-Tahtawi, who argued in the first half of the 19th century that the principles of European modernity were compatible with Islam.

"Al-Tahtawi's work influenced the philosopher Muhammad Abduh [1849-1905], another Azharite who is often described as the founder of Islamic modernism, which is captured in his statement that in Europe he found Islam without Muslims, while in Egypt he found Muslims without Islam," wrote German anthropologist, Frank Fanselow.

If one sets his prejudices aside to ponder this for a moment, one would realize the intellectual valor it takes to consider and even embrace commonalities with the very powers that have instilled so much harm and fear.

Even in their darkest, least proud moments, Muslim intellectuals and nations displayed impressive open-mindedness. They are hardly ever credited for that.

More recently, in Egypt, people tried hard to vote, in the face of beatings, public humiliation and imprisonment. In Palestine in 2006 the price was even higher — starvation. Gaza continues to endure under a medieval Israeli siege, ultimately because of an election.

Muslim communities in the West have long been considered the luckiest; after all, they live in the abodes of democracy. They drink from the fountain of rights and freedoms that never runs dry.

However, these idealized assumptions missed the fact that Western democracy was conditional. And unconditional democracy can only be a farce.

Much has been said to explain the West's faltering on its own commitment to democracy. No, the tragedy of September 11, 2001, is hardly the defining moment that created the growing chasm that made the West fearful of Islam. Despite all that has taken place since then — the constant spewing out of right-wing hatred, fanatic evangelical preaching and all the rest — America is still more tolerant than Europe. Nor was the growing anti-Muslim sentiment in Europe a response in solidarity to America's woes.

Honestly, the French are not fond of Americans, nor are the Germans necessarily that passionate about the Swiss. But this didn't stop a German Christian Democratic state interior minister, Volker Bouffier, from making a "recommendation" to Muslim communities in his own country: "Naturally the Muslims in Germany have a right to build mosques. But they should make sure not to overwhelm the German population with them."

How do you overwhelm people with minarets? Is this a post-post-post-modernistic logic that we are yet to be informed of?

There are only four minarets in the entire country of Switzerland, a country with a population of approximately 7.6 million people. How overwhelming can that be? And aren't religious freedom and the freedom of collective and individual expression basic rights guaranteed by democratic values?

But this is hardly about a 4.8-meter tall minaret in the northern Swiss town of Langenthal. It's about the fact that the one who suggested the structure is a Muslim furniture salesman by the name of Mutalip Karaademi. He didn't know, of course, that his modest idea of adding a minaret to the community's mosque would generate a nationwide referendum, and an international "controversy."

Karaademi was not trying to "Islamificate" the Swiss. He just wanted his community to have a place for worship (as opposed to the unused paint factory it currently uses for prayer), to be able to express its collective identity without fear. Ironically enough, the Muslim community in Langenthal is mostly Albanians, refugees who fled Kosovo seeking escape and deliverance.

What a strange paradox: Muslims escaping to the West, physically and figuratively, only to find double standards, self-negation and, at times, pure hypocrisy.

For now, however, a new consensus is forming: democracy can be invoked and used against Muslims only, and not for Muslims. It can be manipulated to deny them their identity in Europe and their freedom in Palestine, to ensure their subjugation in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and to meddle in their internal affairs everywhere else.

Al-demoqratia, indeed.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is "The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle," (Pluto Press, London), and his forthcoming book is "My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story." (Pluto Press, London), now available for pre-orders on Amazon.com.

Arab American News, 11 December 2009

PARIS — France's immigration minister said Wednesday that he wants the wearing of Muslim veils that cover the face and body to be grounds for denying citizenship and long-term residence.

Eric Besson said he planned to take "concrete measures" regarding such veils, which are worn by a small minority of women in France but have become the object of a parliamentary inquiry into whether a ban should be imposed.

Besson spoke during a hearing before the panel of lawmakers as their nearly six-month inquiry draws to a close.

Besson said he believed a formal ban on veils that cover the face and body seemed to him "unavoidable," with a ban in public services as a minimum step.

Whether such veils are banned or not, he said he intends to personally move forward to ensure that women wearing such veils and seeking French nationality or residence cards are denied.

"I want the wearing of the full veil to be systematically considered as proof of insufficient integration into French society, creating an obstacle to gaining (French) nationality," he said.

He said he would advise prefects, the highest state representative in the various French regions, that the wearing of such veils is a motive for not delivering 10-year residence cards.

Besson said he was prepared to put the measures before parliament to make them law. In November, Besson ordered a nationwide debate on the French identity, to conclude by the end of January with possible measures.

Conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy is the force behind both the national identity campaign and the targeting of full-body veils, which he has said are not "welcome." Critics claim he is playing to traditional far-right fears of immigration, particularly by Muslims.

There is concern that some immigrants and citizens, including members of its Muslim population — at some 5 million the largest in western Europe — are failing to fully integrate and even defying the nation's secular values. A law was passed in 2004 banning Muslim headscarves from classrooms.

AP, 16 December 2009

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's party, the UMP, says it will push for a law banning the burqa, the full-face Islamic veil, according to its parliamentary leader Jean-François Copé.

"The issue is not how many women wear the burqa," Copé wrote in an article in the right-wing newspaper Le Figaro. "There are principles at stake: extremists are putting the republic to the test by promoting a practice that they know is contrary to the basic principles of our country.”

He said the legislation will be enacted after consultation with Muslim communities "so that this measure is understood for what it is: a law of liberation and not a ban".

Three ministers were to testify before a parliamentary panel debating the ban on Wednesday.

Home to Europe's largest Muslim minority, France set up the panel of 32 lawmakers six months ago. It will report next month after hearing the views of Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux, Immigration Minister Eric Besson and Education Minister Xavier Darcos.

Despite an intelligence service report that fewer than 400 women in France wear the full veil, an Interior Ministry study has put the figure at a few thousand.

This proposed ban comes as pressure mounts on Sarkozy to scrap his debate on national identity. The government last month invited citizens from across the country to discuss what it means to be French on the internet and at town halls across the country.

On Monday when Families Minister Nadine Morano told a meeting in the provinces that she wanted young Muslims to "love France, find a job, stop wearing their caps back to front – and to stop speaking verlan” - a popular form of slang in which words are inverted.

The remark has caused a storm of protest, while Pierre Merle, author of Argot, Verlan et Tchatches told the Direct Matin free paper that the slang is used by all young people, not just those of immigrant origin.

"Enough!" said former Socialist leader Francois Hollande. "This debate was badly defined, poorly chosen from the start, and now it is going to the dogs."

Cracks also emerged within Sarkozy's camp, with Higher Education Minister Valérie Pécresse saying there was a need to "shift the focus toward concrete proposals" to prevent the debate from further spinning out of control.

Morano on Wednesday defended her remarks, claiming those who criticised her "did not want to open their eyes to the integration problems that our young people in the suburbs are having".

Her critics are "Champagne socialists who have never set foot in those areas", she claimed

The debate is scheduled to end with a national conference on 4 February.

Paris - Comments by a French junior minister about young Muslims in France have provoked a firestorm of criticism and put the spotlight on a controversial debate on national identity that threatens to spin out of control.

In one of the many local debates scheduled to be held as part of the nationwide discussion on what it means to be French, the junior minister for families, Nadine Morano, suggested Tuesday to a young Muslim that he should change his behaviour.

'We are not putting young Muslims on trial,' she said in a small city in eastern France, in comments that were widely reported. 'What I want of a young Muslim is that he loves France when he lives here, finds work and does not speak in slang. And that he doesn't wear his cap back to front.'

Morano, who is a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy's inner circle, later tried to qualify her statement and complained that it was taken out of context, but the reaction was immediate and violent.

'This brings back the ethnic vision of the nation, the one that took place at (the pro-Nazi puppet government of) Vichy,' opposition Socialist law-maker Arnaud Montebourg said.

The president of the human rights NGO Movement Against Racism (MRAP), Mouloud Aounit, told the online edition of the daily 20 Minutes that Morano's words 'are especially dangerous and extremely violent ... I think today there is a terrible increase in Islamophobic statements.'

Criticism also came from conservatives who are growing increasingly afraid that the debate on national identity is turning into a clash of cultures between mainstream France and the large French Muslim community, which numbers about 5 million.

'That was one word too many,' said Francois Baroin, former minister and now parliamentarian for Sarkozy's UMP party. 'I don't understand and I can't see what the aim of this debate is.'

Conservative former prime minister Dominique de Villepin charged, 'This debate makes no sense. (It is) a false debate which should never have been started in the current circumstances. During a period of crisis there are other things to do than to be divided on an issue as important as this one.'

Opposition politicians as well as a large majority of the French believe that the real aim of the debate is to draw votes from the far-right National Front at next March's regional elections, which the conservatives currently seem poised to lose.

That may be one reason Morano has not been the only conservative politician to use the debate as a stage for making nationalistic comments.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon has several times tried to redirect the discussion, reminding his party colleagues that this was not a debate about Islam, and noting that 'fundamentalism (should be) fought, but absolutely not the Muslims.'

In fact, this debate on national identity has turned into a forum on immigration in general, and more specifically on the presence and behaviour of France's Muslims.

The question that now appears to be at the heart of the event is if Muslims are willing to be integrated and if their religion is at all compatible with French values.

A recent survey found that only a small majority of French adults, 54 per cent, believe that Islam is compatible with life in French society.

The discussion will not be helped by another debate, scheduled to begin Wednesday in the lower house of the Parliament, the National Assembly, where law-makers are to discuss a law on banning the burqa, the garment some Muslim women wear to conceal their faces and bodies.

The government wants to introduce a bill that would make it illegal to wear the burqa in state buildings and public service areas. However, the daily Le Figaro reported Wednesday that UMP law-makers are pushing for a law to ban the burqa everywhere except at home.

In 2008, the Council of State, France's highest administrative court, ruled that wearing the burqa 'represented a radical religious practise (that is) incompatible with the essential values of the French community, notably the equality of the sexes.'

Only a few thousand women in France currently wear the burqa, but if a law banning it is passed, it is certain to keep alive a debate that is widening divisions in France, rather than healing them.

Monsters & Critics, 16 December 2009

NEW YORK – In Indonesia, Muslim groups burn down a mosque belonging to the minority Ahmadiyya. In Singapore, the government refuses to recognize Jehovah's Witnesses. In Belgium, 68 religion-based hate crimes are reported in 2007 alone.

People living in a third of all countries are restricted from practicing religion freely, either because of government policies and laws or hostile acts by individuals or groups, according to a study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center, "Global Restrictions on Religion."

That amounts to 70 percent of the globe's population, since some of the most restrictive countries are very populous.

A suspected al Qaeda-inspired cell was caught filming potential terrorist targets, police claimed today.

Senior officers said two Algerian brothers may have been employed to prepare the ground for an atrocity in London or at major regional shopping centres.

The footage was released today in response to a backlash against police for stopping and searching innocent people taking photographs at tourist hotspots.

But the move could backfire as critics will point to the fact that the men involved in the alleged plot were not charged with terrorism offences.

A man who tore a Muslim woman's veil from her face as he passed her in the street has been ordered by a court to pay her £1,000 in compensation.

Stephen Ard, 29, of Gypsy Lane, Leicester, also received a jail term of 16 weeks, suspended for a year, and 150 hours of community service.

Leicester Magistrates' Court heard victim Rehana Sidat felt "invaded and scared to walk down the street alone".

Ard pleaded guilty to religiously aggravated assault.

A Swiss shoe-shop owner has built a mock minaret on the top of his warehouse in defiance of a ban on the Muslim architecture.

Guillaume Morand extended a chimney, gave it the form of a minaret and sprayed it in gold paint to protest against a constitutional amendment approved in a nationwide referendum last month.

“It was scandalous that the Swiss voted for the ban,” said Mr Morand, 46, who owns the Pomp It Up chain of shoe stores.

“Now we [the Swiss] have the support of all the far-right parties across Europe. This is shameful.”

Amid a rising tide of Islamophobia in Europe, a former finance senator in Germany has been strongly criticized for his racist, anti-Islam comments.

On Sunday, Thilo Sarrazin, former Berlin finance senator and currently a member of the German Central Bank committee called for a headscarf ban in German schools.

His comments come only four months after the official let loose against "Arabs" and "Turks" living in Germany in an interview with the culture magazine Lettre International.

"A large number of Arabs and Turks in this city, whose number has grown through bad policies, have no productive function other than as fruit and vegetable vendors," he had said.

BERN, Switzerland – Around 700 Swiss Muslims peacefully protested against their country's minaret ban on Saturday, with speakers denouncing what they called a hate campaign against Islam.

The protest in the capital, Bern, was not supported by the country's main Muslim organizations.

It came two weeks after Swiss voters decided to ban the construction of minarets, drawing wide criticism from Muslim and other European nations.

Nursery-age children should be monitored for signs of brainwashing by Islamist extremists, according to a leaked police memo obtained by The Times.

In an e-mail to community groups, an officer in the West Midlands counter-terrorism unit wrote: “I do hope that you will tell me about persons, of whatever age, you think may have been radicalised or be vulnerable to radicalisation ... Evidence suggests that radicalisation can take place from the age of 4.”

 LEADING members of Harrow's Jewish community have joined together to condemn anti-Muslim campaigners who are planning a protest in the borough this weekend.

Rabbis Aaron Goldstein, Hillel Athias-Robles, Kathleen Middleton, Frank Dabba Smith, and Michael Hilton have signed a letter offering unequivocal support for the borough's Muslim community.

They wrote: “As leaders of the Jewish community in Harrow, we are writing to express our support for our Muslim friends and neighbours, especially those at Harrow Central Mosque, who are under attack from those whose only purpose is to spread hatred and fear.

The University of London has canceled the appearance of a speaker from an Islamic group that opposes democracy and integration into British society.

A representative of Hizb ut-Tahrir was due to appear at Queen Mary college in east London to debate Sharia law in the modern world.

But the group was told it could not take part after students campaigned about its "blatantly aggressive" views.

The university's union said the debate organisers acted to avoid controversy.

Nicolas Sarkozy today voiced sympathy for Switzerland's controversial decision to ban the building of Muslim minarets, calling on religious practitioners to avoid "ostentation" and "provocation" for fear of upsetting others.

The French president said he was surprised by the widespread criticism of the outcome of last week's referendum in Switzerland when 57% voted to proscribe the building of new minarets in a country that has four, and is home to 400,000 Muslims.

Sarkozy's foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, promptly denounced the Swiss decision last week, saying he was shocked and scandalised and calling for the ban to be reversed.