Demonstration in Montreal last month against the so-called ‘Charter of Values’
Another excellent comment piece by Haroon Siddiqui in the Toronto Star., demolishing the Quebec government’s proposal to ban the hijab and other (non-Christian) religious symbols.
The governing council of the opposition Finns Party voted unanimously to expel controversial MP James Hirvisaari following his admission that he took a photo of a friend posing in a Nazi salute at the Parliament – and later posted it online.
The party leadership upheld a proposal mooted Thursday by a working committee to strip lawmaker James Hirvisaari of his party membership. The unanimous decision came Friday during a meeting of party leaders, and follows the latest in a string of misdeeds by the flambouyant politician.
Tensions caused by the savage murder of a soldier in London formed the grim background to a drunken disturbance near a Cleethorpes mosque, a court heard. A man who had been drinking heavily hurled glasses and a bottle towards the building’s car park area and swore about Muslims, Grimsby magistrates were told.
LE RAINCY, France — A pink and orange all-women’s gym has become an unlikely focus of a very French row over Muslim integration, secularism and what some view as blatant populism in the run-up to France’s municipal elections.
The gym, which opened last month in the up-market Paris suburb of Le Raincy, is owned by a French Muslim couple who say their religion and appearance – she wears a headscarf and he a long beard – are the reason the mayor wants to shut them down.
The squabble has erupted five months before conservative mayor Eric Raoult, who says safety is his only concern, seeks re-election in nationwide municipal polls in which the anti-immigrant National Front is expected to gain ground.
“‘I don’t want any veiled women in my town,’ he told us,” said gym manager Nadia El Gendouli, who sports a piercing in her nose and plunging neckline. “‘You’re a fundamentalist!’ he told me.”
At the town hall on Thursday, Raoult denied the allegation that he did not want women wearing Muslim veils in Le Raincy. “These are fundamentalists, they lie!” he shouted. “They consider because they’re Muslims they’re victims and they consider they have more rights,” he said.
A would-be arsonist who was attempting to set fire to a mosque in Beechwood Road was disrupted by a cleaner who was inside the building.
CCTV footage from Al Hira Education Centre shows a man pouring engine oil on the ground around the building at about 1am this morning. He is then seen moving wheelie bins towards an open window, before he throws an aerosol can through the window.
Fortunately, the cleaner who was inside the mosque at the time heard a noise and knocked on the window to see who was there. He turned on the lights and the man fled the scene, leaving behind the petrol can and oil in bottles.
Al Hira head of administration Dawood Masood said: “This is a very serious incident, it could have caused the death of someone because there was a man in the building at the time and who knows what might have happened if he had managed to put stuff through the window.”
Plans to turn an abandoned pub into an Islamic community centre have sparked a fierce debate.
The South West London Ismaili Community has purchased the old Worcester Park Tavern which closed in August 2012. The group is launching a public consultation on proposals to turn the former public house into a centre for activities, a library and an area for meditation and spiritual practices.
Many of those commenting on our online story hope that the scheme will rejuvenate the building which has been left abandoned and blighted by squatters.
Others have voiced their opposition to it, with one reader commenting: “I’m sorry but I grew up in the area and don’t want to see this. I don’t live in the Middle East, I live near Worcester Park. This will just drive the area down and drive away residents that have lived in the area all their lives.”
But Nikki R hit back: “The ignorance that comes out when people read the word ‘Islamic’ is breathtaking. If and when the centre is open, politely request to visit. They’d make you welcome and you may learn more about people than what the Daily Mail chooses to tell you.”
OLMSTED FALLS, Ohio — Faced with the threat of a federal lawsuit, the Olmsted Falls schools have pulled a video about Muslims in America from its seventh-grade social studies curriculum.
School Superintendent Jim Lloyd said the district agreed to remove the 2005 documentary TV show, “30 Days: Muslims and America,” rather than spend money defending the right to show it.
A woman from Charlton has been fined £150 pounds and ordered to pay £100 compensation after assaulting a woman wearing a burka in an unprovoked attack.
Tracy Davies has been found guilty of racially aggravated common assault. Her victim – a 55-year-old Somali woman – was shopping with her daughter in Woolwich when the 46 year old from Charlton Lane shouted racist remarks before hitting and punching her several times. Davies denied having carried out the attack – but a number of witnesses claimed otherwise.
A teenage neo-Nazi accused of plotting a “new Columbine” posed for pictures holding a gun on his Facebook profile and declared himself a Commander of a far-right white power group, the Old Bailey heard.
The 16-year-old schoolboy used the social network site to reveal his affiliation to the Knights Templar, an extremist organisation which counts Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik among its members, it is said. He allegedly had a picture of himself clutching an air rifle as his main profile photo.
The war-obsessed teenager, now 17, who cannot be named, is accused of stockpiling weapon and explosives to carry out a Columbine-style massacre at his former school in Loughborough, Leicestershire.
According to a school friend, the teenager became withdrawn and isolated when they entered year 11, but became “excited” when making racist remarks about Indians and Germans.
“He would say Indians and foreigners shouldn’t really be here, taking jobs with Britain didn’t have or were not getting because of them”, he said. “It was in normal conversations between me, him and others – it wasn’t really aimed at people who were Indian. He seemed a bit into it, excited almost, like he knew what he was talking about and was into it.”
The school friend said he spotted the Facebook entries when he went to unfriend the teenager. “It said on Facebook he’s the Commander of either the Knights Templar round table or some sort”, he told the jury. “I’ve heard of them before, and it’s all pure white people. It’s like a white group with the hats, stuff like that, and it says he’s the Commander or one of them. On his profile page, he is holding the gun, an air rifle or something.”