Dutch Jewish groups speak out against Wilders

Dutch Jewish groups have spoken out against Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration Party for Freedom, after he told supporters that he would reduce the number of Moroccans in the country, the JTA has reported.

Mr Wilders asked his supporters at a post-election celebration in March whether they wanted “fewer or more Moroccans”. To their chants of “fewer”, he said that he would “take care of it”.

Although Mr Wilder’s strident support for Israel and his anti-Islamist stance has made him popular among Jews at home and abroad, Dutch Jewish umbrella group, the CJO, released a statement saying they were horrified by his comments about Moroccans.

The Dutch Jewish weekly NIW last month claimed that, “Dutch Jewry is fed up with Geert Wilders.” Jewish groups in Holland were known to be deeply uncomfortable with Mr Wilders’s decision to forge an alliance in the European Parliament with the National Front, the French far-right party led by Marine Le Pen.

Jewish Chronicle, 30 April 2014

Vlaams Belang in anti-mosque protest

Vlaams Belang Temse anti-mosque protest

Het Nieuwsblad reports that Vlaams Belang has held a demonstration in Temse in East Flanders.

Displaying a banner featuring its favourite slogan, “Freedom or Islam”, the Belgian far-right party was protesting against a proposal to convert a disused former police station into a mosque for the local Moroccan community.

Vlaams Belang leader Filip Dewinter joined the protest and called for a freeze on the opening of any new mosques.

Camden UKIP candidate stands by anti-Islam comments

Magnus Nielsen with anti-sharia placardA UK Independence Party (Ukip) candidate who made national headlines for describing Islam as “organised crime” says he does not regret making the comment and insists it is backed up by “quotations from the Quran”.

Camden Ukip chairman Magnus Nielsen, 64, who is bidding to become a councillor in West Hampstead, has made numerous posts on his Facebook page about the religion, including one in which he says “Islam is organised crime under religious camouflage”.

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BNP to demonstrate against non-existent mosque application

Members of the British National Party are planning to demonstrate at the site of a former church which pre-application plans suggested could house a new mosque.

Dacorum Borough Council has confirmed no formal applications for the Muslim house of worship on the former Nash Mills Methodist Church site off Barnacres Road have been submitted. But the BNP’s secretary for the eastern region Chris Livingstone has announced the protest will be taking place on Saturday, May 10.

A spokesman for the council said no applications are even expected to be submitted at this time.

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Racism troubles French Muslim footballer

Samir NasriFrench international footballer who plays in the English Premier League and the France national team has expressed concerns over growing Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiments in France, warning that it has become more difficult to be a Muslim in France.

“Nowadays, it is more difficult in France [being Muslim]. In the last three or four years people who come from a [Muslim] community feel like they are not being treated like they deserve. It is now about the extreme Right,’’ Samir Nasri, who plays for Manchester City was quoted by Morocco News as saying to The Telegraph.

Nasri, of Algerian origin, referred the phenomenon to the rise of the “extreme right” and the National Front of Marine Le Pen. “French people turned against the Muslims. That is a little bit scary,” Nasri added. “Ten to fifteen years ago, it wasn’t like this. I don’t like the way the mentality is in France now.”

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California: State asked to investigate religious discrimination claim

Boomers! logoWhen 13-year-old Noorah Abdo went with her family in August to the Boomers amusement park in Livermore, the ride she especially looked forward to was the go-karts.

But when she got to the ticket window, she was told her head scarf, which she wore for religious reasons as a Muslim, violated the park’s no-headwear safety policy for that ride.

Her father, Nasir, protested, proposing to cover Noorah’s head with a helmet or a hoodie, but said a manager told him there were no exceptions. They were shown a policy statement, which read, in part, “If fashion, religious expression or your hair style is more important to you than safety, that’s fine. You can do what you want with your life. You just can’t do it at our park.”

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Teenagers ‘terrorised’ Muslim community in Cradley Heath

Five teenagers are accused of being involved in an eight-day racially-motivated crime spree in Cradley Heath. The five, all aged 15 and 16 and who all live in the Sandwell area, are facing varying racially-aggravated charges following four incidents in Cradley Heath and Old Hill in October last year.

Prosecuting solicitor Miss Rachael Ward told Sandwell Youth Court yesterday that the spree included assaults on an eight-year-old boy and two elderly men, all of whom were Muslim, as well as the damage to a car belonging to a Muslim man.

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Israel: Mosque targeted in hate crime

Fureidis mosque graffitiAnger gripped Fureidis, near Zichron Ya’acov, on Tuesday, after unidentified vandals sprayed graffiti on a mosque and slashed dozens of tires the previous night, in a suspected “price tag” attack.

Graffiti reading, “Shut down mosques, not yeshivot,” was sprayed on the outside of the mosque, and inside, the vandals spray-painted a Star of David. They slashed the tires of cars belonging to residents.

In surveillance camera footage shown on TV Tuesday night, three people can be seen slashing the tires.

In response to the vandalism, a general strike was called for Wednesday in the village of some 12,000 residents, and all schools and businesses will be shut down.

On Tuesday night, around 1,500 people took part in a protest march through the village, calling for an end to “price tag” attacks and for police to find the perpetrators. In addition, dozens of residents of nearby Zichron Ya’acov and other Jewish towns came out and protested in a sign of solidarity.

Coastal District police said the protests were entirely peaceful and that they have no indication that any sort of revenge attacks should be expected in the area.

Fureidis village chairman Yonas Marai told Israel Radio: “They wrote many things on the mosque wall. They wrote that we have to close down the mosques and build yeshivas in their place. We live here in the State of Israel, a democratic state, we do not live in the West Bank and not in the [Gaza] Strip.”

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‘Ban Islam and knock down all the mosques’, urges UKIP candidate who accuses Muslims of ‘ethnic cleansing’

Jackie Garnett ethnic cleansing Facebook post

Ukip faced fresh embarrassment over the views of its local election candidates last night after one proposed that Britain should “ban Islam and knock down all the mosques” and another said that Mo Farah is not British because he is “an African”.

In a series of postings on her Facebook page, Jackie Garnett, who is standing to become a Ukip councillor in Oldham, proposed that all mosques should be destroyed and accused Muslims of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” against the English.

Describing her home town of Oldham as disintegrating because of “the immigrants”, she accused “the Muslims” of turning “many of the small areas of the town into ghettos”. She added: “Ethnic cleansing is going on in this country and its the english (sic) that are being diluted.”

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