Antwerp: Muslim attacks Jews

Antwerp: Muslim attacks Jews

According to the Belga news agency, the man spoke a foreign language, but it's unclear which.  According to one victim he spoke Arabic, but others think it was Polish (HLN, NL).  Given the description below, it looks like a Muslim religiously motivated attack.

A press release from the Forum of Jewish Organizations, the Flemish Jewish umbrella organization :

This evening there were three separate attacks, suspected to have been committed by the same culprit

In the area of the Somersstraat between 8pm and 8:30pm, a man of Arabic origin attacked three religious Jews without provocation.
 
The man, ~1.70m high, attacked his victims with a steel bar while shouting "Allah Akbar" ('Allah is Great') and "Yahud, Yahud" ('Jew, Jew').

One of the victims suffered multiple fractures in his hand and was brought for treatment to St. Vincentius hospital.

The last victim, while defending himself, took hold of the steel bar,  which caused the culprit to flee.

The police was informed and a report was drawn up. They're taking these incidents very seriously.

The attorney-general was informed and asked for the pictures from the security cameras in the neighborhood were these incidents occurred.

It is not the first time that attacks were committed by Muslims against orthodox Jews in this neighborhood.

Source: FORUM der Joodse Organisaties (Dutch)

See also:
* Antwerp: Immigrant politicians condemn anti-Jewish attacks
* Antwerp: Jews and Muslims call for tolerance
* Antwerp: Arab riots, Jewish neighborhood sealed

Italy: Muslims seek to build future in Italy

Italy: Muslims seek to build future in Italy


On one side of a drab street in working-class Milan, a squat structure houses a conservative mosque linked in the past to suspected Islamic terrorists.


On the other, an office building houses the budding newsroom of "Yalla Italia" (Let's Go, Italy), a monthly magazine written by 2Gs - the name here for second-generation immigrants - for young Muslims juggling identities and for Italians curious about a religion and a way of life barely extant just 20 years ago here.


The two buildings symbolize the different worlds inhabited by Italy's Muslims, a burgeoning community of more than a million that increasingly demands to be heard.


"We're separated by 10 meters, but culturally we're centuries apart," said Martino Pillitteri, the magazine's chief editor. In this Milanese microcosm, Pillitteri sees what he said he believes is the cultural clash taking place within Italy's Muslim community - "one vision driving toward the past, the other driving toward the future."


At a long conference table, a group of 20-somethings clustered for a weekly meeting. Most were women, several wearing head scarves, and nearly all were snatching a few hours from their university studies or day jobs. Some came to Italy as children, others were born here of mixed marriages, and still others came to study and stayed for love.


They are at once Italian, European and Muslim.


(more)


Source: IHT (English)

Berlin: Concern about increase in anti-police violence

Berlin: Concern about increase in anti-police violence

Last year the number of cases where policemen were resisted increased by three percent to 3,371 cases.  The number of injured police officer went up by almost seven percent to 924, said police chief Dieter Glietsch yesterday.  Glietsch told a parliamentary committee that this year Berlin sadly got to first place.

Comparing to a decade ago, though, Berlin has seen a significant improvement.  There were improvements in both statistics: 4112 cases of 'resisting the authorities' were registered in 1999.  The number of injured police agents in 1999 was 1787.  Through the years there has been a continuous decline and this year was the first time it went up.

The police is concerned about 'spontaneous solidarity' at emergencies.  In the last three years there were ten cases a year of sudden group violence against police agents.

Glietsch said yesterday these were mostly youth and young men of immigration background.  In these cases there was a 'fundamental repudiation of state power and our values'.  Since 2006, the police has been recording these riotous gatherings in its own statistics.

The incidents were only in Wedding, Neukölln and Kreuzberg.  In Schillerpark 15 members of an Arab family attacked several policemen who requested they extinguish the grill.  On the Badstraße, 70 people obstructed the police who wanted to protect a deranged young man from further self-harm.  According to Glietsch, the police has a unit of 60 people which can be quickly called in for such riots and this has repeatedly proven itself.

Firefighters on duty were also attacked, mostly by drunks.  In 2008 there were 17 attacks.  By the firefighters there's a high number of estimated unreported cases, as many officers waived reporting it.
 
Many firefighters feel that subjectively, the attacks increased.  A few weeks ago a Chilean family attacked paramedics who wanted to bring a wounded young man to the hospital.  Eberhard Schönberg of the police union GdP says that the attacks are becoming more brutal.  He says that anybody wearing a uniform attracts hatred.

Source: Tagesspeigel (German), h/t Snaphanen

Bulgaria: Muslims coerced into fundamentalism

Bulgaria: Muslims coerced into fundamentalism


Despite Bulgaria's European Union membership, some regions of the country need a second liberation from Ottoman yoke, the Bulgarian Member of the Parliament (MP), Yane Yanev, stated, cited by the Bulgarian news agency, BGNES.


Yanev, who is the leader of the opposition "Order, Law, Justice" Party (RZS) spoke Monday in Blagoevgrad as reported by the local BGNES correspondent.


The leaders of RZS visited Monday several villages in Southern Bulgaria to meet with alarmed teachers and parents, who have presented concrete evidence of the imposed conversion to fundamentalist Islam in the region.


The example of the village of Ribnovo, in the Gurmen municipality, has been presented as the most striking one. In Ribnovo, the school principal, Feim Issa, had imposed full dictatorship on the teaching staff, forcing them to wear traditional Muslim clothes, and encouraging female student to the same. Issa has been illegally appointed as principal with help of the local mosque's leaders and is actively supporting the religion teacher at the school, Murat Boshnak. Boshnak is, reportedly, an individual with suspicious past and unclear educational background. He is not holding even a Bulgarian high school diploma, but has graduated from a religious school in Skopje, Macedonia. Ribnovo residents allege that Boshnak has specialized in Saudi Arabia and is forcefully making parents to sign requests for their children to study the Islam. He is also demanding that children address him as "aga' instead of "gospodin" (Mister), had prohibited girls from attending the last prom in civil attire and issued a ban on celebrations. Boshnak later organized a trip to Turkey with funds from an Arab foundation. Only one girl had attended the prom. Parents, who refuse to follow the fundamentalist rules, are being cursed during services in the local mosque.


Yanev had established similar examples in the village of Satovcha, where the school principal regularly attended classes in radical Islamism in an illegal local fundamentalist school. The principal was currently on maternity leave and, in order to keep the school under control, had appointed her own husband to replace her.


The residents of the villages visited by Yanev are not Turks; they are all Bulgarian-Muslims, speaking only Bulgarian language.


(more)


Source: Sofia News Agency (English), h/t NRP

Chechnya: Leader imposes strict Islamic code

Chechnya: Leader imposes strict Islamic code

With support of Russia, apparently.

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The president of Chechnya emerged from afternoon prayers at a mosque and with chilling composure explained why seven young women who had been shot in the head deserved to die.


Ramzan Kadyrov said the women, whose bodies were found dumped by the roadside, had "loose morals" and were rightfully shot by male relatives in honor killings.


"If a woman runs around and if a man runs around with her, both of them are killed," Kadyrov told journalists in the capital of this Russian republic.


The 32-year-old former militia leader is carrying out a campaign to impose Islamic values and strengthen the traditional customs of predominantly Muslim Chechnya, in an effort to blunt the appeal of hard-line Islamic separatists and shore up his power. In doing so, critics say, he is setting up a dictatorship where Russian laws do not apply.


Some in Russia say Kadyrov's attempt to create an Islamic society violates the Russian Constitution, which guarantees equal rights for women and a separation of church and state. But the Kremlin has given him its staunch backing, seeing him as being crucial to keeping the separatists in check, and that has allowed him to impose his will.


"Kadyrov willfully tries to increase the influence of local customs over the life of the republic because this makes him the absolute ruler of the republic," said Yulia Latynina, a political analyst in Moscow.


Kadyrov's bluster suggests how confident he is of his position. "No one can tell us not to be Muslims," he said outside the mosque. "If anyone says I cannot be a Muslim, he is my enemy."


(more)


Source: IHT (English)

Copenhagen: Hells Angels - Immigrants must clean up their act

Copenhagen: Hells Angels - Immigrants must clean up their act

Meanwhile, police in Sweden are concerned that the immigrant/biker gang wars are spilling over from Denmark into their territory. Just over a year ago, Danish police reported the Black Cobras, an immigrant gang and Denmark's largest, has plans to expand to Sweden.

----------


The Hells Angels biker group says that the only ones who can stop the current gang war are immigrants themselves.


The bloody conflict between immigrant gangs and bikers can only be stopped if responsible immigrants take responsibility and 'clean up in their own ranks," according to the Hells Angels biker group on its website.


The recipe for a solution to the ongoing gang warfare in Denmark comes in answer to a contribution on the Hells Angels website from an anonymous immigrant.


"I don't understand why the Hells Angels has become a club dedicated to wiping out immigrants (Ed: see endnote) like me," the contributor says, adding: "Wake up – it's not all immigrants who don't wish Denmark well. This is my home too."


But the Hells Angels webmaster rejects the notion that the organization is trying to kindle racial hatred.


"HAMC Denmark doesn't want to wipe out anyone. We have immigrants, as you nicely put it, (Ed: see endnote) in our own club. But just as so many other Danes and new Danes, we are tired of the mentality that some immigrants (Ed: see endnote) have," the webmaster writes, calling on well-integrated immigrants to help solve the conflict.


"HAMC is made up of proud men with their honour intact, which is why we have the current situation. If what is going on is to be stopped, responsible immigrants and their descendants must clean up in their own ranks," the webmaster says.


The gang warfare between immigrant and biker groups broke out in earnest in August 2008. Since then, Politiken has registered 53 shootings in Copenhagen of which most are thought to have a direct connection to the gang conflict.


Endnote: The word actually used in the texts was the Danish word for 'pearl' (perle) which has both a derogatory and a non-derogatory meaning in Danish. [see also here for more on the 'perle' controversy]


Source: Politiken (Danish)

See also:
* Denmark: Largest gang plans to expand to Sweden
* Denmark: Demonstrators complain about police behavior

Quote

Quote

"It is an excuse for terrorists, but also for youth to raise hell. Not only in the Netherlands, but in whole of Europe you see that. Calls to a new intifada and gassing of Jews. They're all dreadful slogans from which appears enormous hate. With on the one hand Islamophobia and on the other hand a revived antisemitism."

Maxime Verhagen, Dutch Foreign Minister, about using the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an excuse for violence in Europe.

Source: AD (Dutch)

Russia: Ministry of Justice claims infringements by Council of Muftis

Russia: Ministry of Justice claims infringements by Council of Muftis

See also: Is Moscow Trying to Create a Single 'Power Vertical' in Russian Islam? (Georgian Daily)

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The Deputy Minister of Justice Alexey Velichko had made the first prevention to the Russian Council of Muftis following the results of the check of this organization from December 25, 2008 in which course numerous infringements of the legislation have been established.


According to the prevention's text, obtained by Interfax, Council of Muftis, in particular, "uses the emblem which has been not registered and also on paid base gives the right to other organizations to use it".


Besides, according to the document, Council of Muftis illegally certificates halal production, has no balance or the estimate, doesn't observe position of own charter: breaks periodicity of congresses, gives doubtful data on results of auditing checks, at realization of activity does not specify it's full name.


During the check "doubtful data on absence of publishing" of Council of Muftis have been presented to the Ministry of Justice, checks denied, in particular, by materials, is told in the prevention.


(more)


Source: Interfax (English)

Greece: More Muslim pupils in schools

Greece: More Muslim pupils in schools


“At last, I too can learn Greek,” a 7-year-old shouted in Turkish. The child, a member of the Muslim community in Xanthi, had just received a multimedia Greek-Turkish dictionary. The book, the first of its kind to be officially used in Greek state education, is part of a course in learning Greek as a foreign language. It is just one of around 40 schoolbooks and scores of digital and printed items created by the Education Ministry’s 1997-2008 educational program for Muslim children (PEM).


The aim of the groundbreaking program was to produce modern materials for speakers of other languages who have a different cultural identity to train teachers and to introduce modern teaching methods.


Ten years on, the number of Muslim children entering secondary education has grown fourfold. In the past four years, the number entering senior high school has shown a 60 percent increase and is still rising.


In comparison with 2000, when 65 percent left after completing the compulsory nine years of schooling, in 2007, when the first batch of Muslim children who had been taught using the new methods left primary school, that number was halved, though it is still high compared with the national average of 7 percent.


The program’s success is due to the fact that for the first time it was acknowledged that around 7,000 Muslim children in Thrace start school knowing little or no Greek.


(more)


Source: Kathimerini (English)

See also:
* Greece: Europe opposes Sharia law for Muslim minority

Norway: Muslim girls beaten for not wearing the hijab

Norway: Muslim girls beaten for not wearing the hijab

Muslim girls who don't  wear the hijab all the time are beaten, says Gerd Fleischer, of Self-Help for Immigrants and Refugees (Seif).

"In my office, women cried brave tears over having to go with a hijab.  Countless young women despairingly told me that they don't have the hijab on all the time, they'll get a beating."

"These don't dare appear in the public debate," Fleischer told Vårt Land.

She's upset that young Muslim women say they are free to choose if they want to go with a hijab.

She says that the proud educated women who appear with the hijab, know too that their sisters are coerced.  But they speak little of it.  Fleischer says it should be part of their women's liberation to also support them.  The coercion many women experience, is barely mentioned as an aside.

She says young girls have to move to other places in the country and live in secret addresses, also because they don't want to go with a hijab.

"Parents often beat their daughters into obedience and virtue and the hijab as a rule constitutes part of the control," says Fleischer.

She agree with Progress Party (Frp) head Siv Jensen that the women's movement of the left in Norway doesn't care about non-Western women.

Liberal politician Abid Q. Raja will head the parties work with the minority issue.  He thinks the Labor Party (Ap) wronged the immigrants more than the progress Party.

"Frp just used scolding, but Ap completely neglected the problem areas for fear of being called racists.  Not making demands from fellow citizens is not taking them seriously.  We don't need to be pissed on behind our backs," says Raja.

Source: Aftenposten (Norwegian)

See also:
* Norway: 'Fighting radical Islam is like fighting Nazism, Communism'
* Norway: Minority women lash out at feminists