There was mounting resentment Tuesday among centre-left Social Democrats against the party’s decision not to expel Thilo Sarrazin over his incendiary statements on immigration.
Prominent Social Democratic Party (SPD) politicians across the country have begun to air their deep dissatisfaction over the party leadership’s decision, announced last Thursday, to abandon expulsion proceedings against the former Bundesbank board member and Berlin finance minister.
PARIS — A noted Tunisian Islamic thinker urged the world’s Muslims on Monday to reject extremism and restore the true nature of Islam.
Rachid Ghanouchi, a founder of Tunisia’s once-banned Ennahdha, or Renaissance, party, gave the closing speech at an annual Muslim gathering outside Paris in his first visit to France in more than two decades.
Extremism takes root in injustice, but must be fought, he said. “Today, Islam is associated with violence, terrorism … with refusing religious and political diversity, (being) against women’s rights. Today, it is presented as a plague,” Ghanouchi said.
But, he insisted, extremism “isn’t a legitimate child of Islam. … Our challenge is to respond to restore the image of Islam.” He spoke in Arabic through a translator to a crowd of several thousand at the annual meeting of the Union of Islamic Organizations of France, which brings together Muslim fundamentalist associations.
Ghanouchi’s Ennahdha party was branded a terrorist group by Tunisia’s autocratic leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who was toppled in a monthlong uprising and fled to Saudi Arabia on Jan. 14.
Ghanouchi, 69, himself spent two decades in exile in London after being convicted twice of terrorism-related offences. Today, scholars consider him a moderate.
He was the star speaker at the four-day gathering and his speech drew cheers from a crowd that feels unfairly targeted by French authorities enforcing the nation’s secular foundations, including the recent ban on burqa-style veils. Only a tiny minority of Muslims wear them, and few were seen at Monday’s meeting.
Ennahdha, made legal in Tunisia on March 1, is now among more than 50 political parties formed since Ben Ali fled.
Ghanouchi said the Tunisian revolution, which has sparked uprisings in the Arab world, succeeded because values were shared by an entire population, underscoring the importance of social cohesion. The same case applies to Egypt, which ousted President Hosni Mubarak, he said.
On the other hand, “One cannot imagine that an entire people or nation” follows extremist thought, he said, adding that Islam “insists on balance” and “finding the middle path.”
There are abiding concerns that Islamists in Tunisia could undo women’s rights in the North African country or impose a strict Islamic code. However, Ghanouchi insisted that “Islam marries well with democracy” and respect for equality between men and women.
Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, the largest teachers’ union, said;
“The NUT is proud to be at the forefront of campaigning for equalities for all our children. Schools can provide the space and time to debate and learn about other cultures in an open and non-threatening environment.
“It is therefore extremely important that teachers have the training and resources to tackle issues that face modern society in order to deal with them in a constructive and informed fashion.
“The NUT believes respect should be accorded in our multicultural society, regardless of race, religion, gender, disability or sexuality. Many schools are excellent examples of how children and young people from all walks of life can work together in an environment that fosters pride and equality for everyone.
“Islamophobia has become a prevalent issue in recent times. Teachers need the knowledge and resources to address this issue with students.”
The Rev. Terry Jones, controversial Florida pastor whose church burned a Qur’an last month, has rescheduled a protest for 5 p.m. Friday in front of Dearborn City Hall, this time protesting “the denial of our First Amendment rights.”
A protest against “radical Islam, Sharia, and jihad” had been scheduled for last Friday outside the largest mosque in North America, but was postponed after Pastor Jones spent most of the day and part of the evening in Michigan’s 19th District Court. The city had denied him a permit to speak outside the Islamic Center of America and a jury on Friday evening determined that Mr. Jones was “likely to breach the peace.”
Judge Mark Somers then set bond of $1 each for Mr. Jones, pastor of Dove World Outreach Center, and his associate, the Rev. Wayne Sapp, and barred them from going near the Islamic Center. The two ministers were jailed after telling Judge Somers they would not post the $1 bond, but were released several hours later after posting bond.
Dearborn’s City Hall is one of the city’s four “free speech zones” where anyone can speak or protest without requiring a permit.
See also “Terry Jones says he’ll sue over his arrest”, Detroit News, 25 April 2011
Florida Pastor Terry Jones isn’t the only controversial character fighting for the First Amendment right to bring a controversial anti-Islam message to Metro Detroit.
New York activists Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer last month won a temporary injunction against the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation, which initially denied their application for bus ads that seemed to characterized Islam as a violent religion and encouraged Muslims to leave the faith.
The ruling effectively required SMART to run the ads on buses it operates in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb Counties, but Crain’s Detroit reports SMART filed an appeal Monday in an attempt to overturn the injunction.
Geller is not happy. She sees the legal challenge as evidence that SMART “seeks to impose Sharia laws on Dearborn buses”.
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Plaintiffs in a civil trial trying to block a proposed mosque in Tennessee on procedural grounds were largely blocked Wednesday in trying to raise claims that Islam is not a real religion and that its followers are violent.
The “patriotic” group March for England faced a counter-demonstration from local anti-fascists when they held their fourth St George’s Day march in Brighton yesterday. One report suggests that the march attracted 100 participants, mainly from outside the town. As the picture below shows, the MfE organisers’ assurances that the march was a non-political “family event” from which English Defence League supporters would be banned proved baseless. The familiar EDL chants of “English till I die” and “No surrender to the Taliban” were heard, and one counter-demonstrator concluded that “the ‘respectable’ veneer of March for England was well and truly stripped away. This was without question an EDL march”.
Update: See “Nationalist march will return to Brighton”, Argus, 26 April 2011
Photos by David Nash at Demotix.
A former Special Air Services commander turned conservative Christian commentator has conceded that a tweet he made attacking homosexuals and Muslims was ill-timed on Anzac Day.
Jim Wallace, the head of the Australian Christian Lobby and a one-time SAS commander, used Twitter on Monday to say: “Just hope that as we remember servicemen and women today we remember the Australia they fought for – wasn’t gay marriage and Islamic!”
Followers of Mr Wallace soon attacked him. SeandBlogonaut said Mr Wallace was “despicable”. “Using ANZAC Day to push your anti-gay, anti-muslim agenda – you are truly a despicable individual,” he tweeted. Others declared him a “bigot”, “homophobe in disgrace” and an “A-grade douchebag”.
Mr Wallace later issued a statement where he said he made the comments after he had been sitting with his 96-year-old father, a World War II veteran. “My ill timed tweet was a comment on the nature of the Australia he had fought for, and the need to honour that in the way we preserve it into the future,” he said in a statement on Monday.
A defiant Terry Jones says he plans to protest next week at the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn despite a judge’s order that he stay from the mosque for three years. The Quran-burning pastor from Florida said his rights were violated Friday by a judge due to the influence of Islamic law.
“We plan to protest next week in front of the Islamic Center,” Pastor Terry Jones said today. “The arrests, the whole proceedings, were a definite violation of our Constitutional rights. As a matter of fact, we were arrested and had not even committed a crime. It is a complete violation of our First Amendment right of freedom of speech. It was clearly influenced by the mosque.”
Jones had wanted to protest Friday against jihad and sharia outside the Islamic Center on Friday, but was thwarted by authorities. The center is the largest mosque in metro Detroit, a region with a sizable Muslim population.
On Friday, Judge Mark Somers ordered that Jones and Pastor Wayne Sapp be remanded to jail after a jury determined they would be likely to breach the peace. In his decision Judge Somers set a $1 cash bond for Jones and Sapp, and also said Jones and Sapp could not go to the mosque or adjacent property for three years. The only exception would be if the leadership of the mosque, such as its board, decided it would be ok for him to visit, Somers said.
Jones said that was an example of the influence of sharia, or Islamic law, in Dearborn. “Sharia is much closer than we thought,” Jones said. “The judge even made a statement, that if the mosque elders and leadership would have desired the restraints placed on us of not going near the mosque be lifted, then he would have taken that into consideration. Thus proving that this whole thing is a direct violation of freedom of speech and that they are favoring the religion of Islam.”
Detroit Free Press, 23 April 2011
See also “Jones’ Jesus stunt and his inadvertent supporters”, Weblog of Dawud Walid, 23 April 2011
With some of metro Detroit’s biggest political and religious leaders united behind Muslims in Dearborn, Florida Pastor Terry Jones is expected to appear in court this morning for a jury trial that could determine whether he can hold a rally at the largest mosque in the city.
This “bigot does not represent” us, Imam Hassan Al-Qazwini, head of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, declared to a crowd of about 700 on Thursday at a rally that drew U.S. Rep. John Dingell, a Dearborn Democrat, and the local heads of the Catholic and Episcopal churches.
Al-Qazwini’s mosque is where Jones wants to rally today against what he calls “the radical element in Islam.” Jones appeared in court Thursday and refused to post a bond for the massive security effort Dearborn says it would have to deploy if Jones were allowed to rally. The judge then ordered the trial.
As Jones addressed reporters during a chaotic day, Dearborn residents shouted at him. “Shame on you!” yelled Leyla Abdul-Ghani, 40, who is Muslim. “We are decent, hardworking people.”
Detroit Free Press, 22 April 2011
See also “Koran-burning pastor’s gun discharges outside of Detroit TV station”, Fox News, 22 April 2011
For Pamela Geller’s take on the situation, see “Sharia trumps Constitution in Michigan: Terry Jones denied permit to rally, could face arrest”, Atlas Shrugs, 21 April 2011