Muslims in a town in eastern France were shocked by a racist attack on their mosque which was sprayed with racist graffiti and defaced with pieces of pork.
The attack on the mosque in Toul is believed to have taken place in the early hours of Wednesday. It was daubed with inscriptions saying “France for the French”, “Here it’s Nazi” and “Don’t touch my pig,” along with Nazi swastikas.
“This is an act of cowardice,” said Nurdin Hamza, head of the local Maghrebi association. “Whether it is a mosque or a church, a synagogue, a Buddhist temple, or any other public place, we will always condemn this sort of act.”
Two youths in their 20s were arrested hours after the vandalism, French television said, giving no other information. According to the police, the youths were caught spraying swastikas onto the wall of a kebab restaurant in a nearby town.
See also “Mosquée taguée : trois skinheads mis en examen”, Le Nouvel Observateur, 21 August 2009
Three skinheads aged between 19 and 20 with alleged far-right links have been arrested in connection with the mosque desecration. Two of them were apprehended while spraying swastikas and other Nazi symbols on a kebab restaurant in the nearby town of Liverdun. A third individual has been charged with assisting in the preparation of the attacks.
Update: See “Mosquée profanée : dix-huit mois avec sursis”, La Républicain Lorrain, 17 May 2011
Maxime Rouvet and Sébastien Winwa each received 18-month suspended prison sentences for the attacks on the mosque and kebab restaurant, and were ordered to pay €25,000 in damages to the victims, of which €18,200 will go to the Muslim Association of Toul. A third man, Ludovic Bel, who bought paint used to spray the graffiti but did not participate in the actual attacks, was given a 6-month suspended sentence.
The Home Office has issued a ban on any unofficial marches taking place in Luton for the next three months. The ban was granted to Beds Police and Luton Borough Council, who feared a 
A Harrow mosque leader says he is “sad” about plans for a 9/11 far-right protest outside its building.
A march against extremism has been rescheduled for next month – so more than 1,000 protesters can take part.
Harrow Central Mosque has hit back at suggestions that the new building will host a Sharia Law Court after protesters against extremism released plans to rally outside the centre. Last week 
Muslim women have been banned from wearing the body-concealing swimming costume known as a burqini in the northern Italian town of Varallo Sesia, according to a report.
“We don’t want to see burqas in Denmark. We simply can’t accept that some of our citizens walk around with their faces covered,” Naser Khader, a Danish member of parliament of Syrian-Palestinian extraction who was recently appointed spokesman for integration issues for the Conservative Party, told the newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
Far-right activists from Europe spoke at the British National party’s annual gathering this weekend despite protests by more than 1,000 anti-fascists who blockaded the event for several hours.
The normally sleepy Swiss country town of Langenthal has become the focus of a virulent right-wing campaign to ban minarets from all mosques in the Alpine republic on the grounds that they symbolise ideological opposition to the country’s constitution.