Category Archives: Right wing

German far-right party plans to demonstrate outside mosques – Hans-Peter Friedrich scaremongers over Salafist violence

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pro NRW postersA far-right party on the campaign trial in Germany’s most populous state is threatening to put caricatures of Mohammed outside mosques in a string of cities.

The “Pro NRW” party in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia has already shown anti-Islamic caricatures in Essen and Gelsenkirchen, though the police prevented demonstrations taking place directly outside mosques. Police have also banned “Pro NRW”, which is campaigning on an Islamophobic platform, from using the Danish cartoons that caused massive protests in the Islamic world in 2005.

But “Pro NRW” intends to send activists to 25 mosques throughout the state in the run-up to the election on May 13, staging protests in Cologne, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Aachen, Wuppertal and Solingen. A report in Die Welt newspaper on Sunday said the far-right party intended to post around 100 what it called “Islam-critical” drawings outside the mosques.

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Anti-Islam gathering in Dearborn protested, defended

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anti-Islam advocates from across the U.S. gathered Sunday in Dearborn for a conference to bring attention to what they say is a problem of Muslim honor killings.

About 150 gathered at the Hyatt in Dearborn for the Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference, named after a 20-year-old Arab-American Muslim woman who was killed by her stepfather last year in Warren.

But at another conference in Detroit, about 100 people gathered earlier in the day to oppose the anti-Islam conference, saying it was the latest attack on metro Detroit’s Arab-American and Muslim communities. Dearborn has the highest concentration of Arab-Americans in the U.S., many of them Muslim.

“We stand for America,” said Osama Siblani, publisher of the Dearborn-based Arab-American News, at a panel at the DoubleTree hotel in Detroit. “And they (anti-Muslim activists) stand against America and against the American way of life.”

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Terry Jones burns Qur’an again, gets citation for violating fire ordinances

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dove World Outreach Center pastor Terry Jones on Saturday burned copies of the Quran and an image depicting Muhammad in front of his church to protest the imprisonment in Iran of a Christian clergyman.

Moments later, Gainesville Fire Rescue issued the church a citation for violating the city’s fire ordinances.

Saturday’s act of protest took place in spite of published reports that the Pentagon had urged Jones to reconsider, expressing concern that American soldiers in Afghanistan and elsewhere could be put at greater risk because of the act.

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Unease grows in Sarkozy party over rightward lurch

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nicolas Sarkozy, France's President and UMP party candidate for the 2012 French presidential election arrives at a campaign rally in MontpellierUnease is growing in French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s centre-right UMP party a week before a presidential election over his lurch to the right in pursuit of supporters of anti-immigration candidate Marine Le Pen.

Some mainstream conservatives have voiced public dismay at his embrace of the campaign themes, language and even some proposals of Le Pen’s National Front. In private conversations, doubts are widespread about the morality and effectiveness of the strategy.

In the last week, Sarkozy has repeatedly declared that there are too many foreigners in France and vowed to reduce legal immigration. Echoing a Le Pen proposal, he has called for police to be given greater license to shoot fleeing crime suspects. He has accused his Socialist rival Francois Hollande of being backed by Islamists and said Le Pen’s voters are respectable and her party compatible with the French Republic.

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Rejecting Islamophobia: Dearborn conference counters Geller’s hatefest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dearborn, home to one of the nation’s largest concentrations of Arab Americans, once again will become a focal point for debate over the practice and persecution of Islam in the west.

Pamela Geller, conservative activist and co-founder of Stop Islamization of America, is scheduled to host the “Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference” from the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Dearborn on Sunday at 5 p.m.

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Double standards in Sheffield

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A lecture by a controversial Muslim speaker has been called off at the last minute by Sheffield Hallam University – the second cancellation in a month.

Jalal Ibn Saeed had originally been asked to speak at an event titled The Pursuit of Paradise organised by the Sheffield Hallam Islamic Society but pulled out at short notice. The society booked another speaker, Murtaza Khan, claimed by opponents to be an anti-Semitic extremist.

But university authorities stepped in and told the society to cancel the meeting as the speaker had been changed at a late stage. A spokesman said: “Changing the speaker invalidated the conditions of the booking and therefore event due to take place last night had to be cancelled. The society were advised of this.”

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UMP accuses mosques of instructing faithful to back Hollande

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The rightwing UMP party has accused Socialists of courting the Muslim vote and alleges that mosques are calling for the faithful to vote for leftwing candidate Francois Hollande.

“I want to condemn the conniving and irresponsible attitude of the Socialist Party and its candidate after religious leaders belonging to a network of 700 mosques called on followers to vote for Francois Hollande,” writes UMP lawmaker Eric Ciotti in a press release on Wednesday.Ciotti said the move was “serious and inacceptable” and said he “firmly condemned such practices”.

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‘Islam is an enemy of Christianity’ says former Danish government minister

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islam in Europe draws our attention to a controversy in Copenhagen over the future of churches in the city that have fallen into disuse. The suggestion by one pastor that the buildings could be used by Muslims, Buddhists or Hindus apparently caused an outcry.

Morten Skrubbeltrang, secretary of the foundation that owns half the churches due to be closed, rejected the proposal that they should be sold to Muslims or other non-Christian faith communities, stating that he “fears there will be public resistance if a church is converted into a mosque”.

In an email to the Berlingske news agency former government minister Birthe Rønn Hornbech reportedly backed Skrubbeltrang’s opposition to non-Christian faiths taking over the buildings – particularly in the case of Islam, which she described as an enemy of Christianity.

Hornbech was forced to resign from her position as minister for integration last year following the revelation that her ministry had with her knowledge unlawfully refused citizenship to young stateless Palestinians living in Denmark.

Dutch ‘burqa ban’ may go after government falls

Posted on by Bob Pitt

With the collapse of the Dutch centre-right government, the Netherlands may now drop some of its most eye-popping proposals aimed at Muslims and other immigrants and could soften its strong anti-immigration rhetoric.

A ban on Muslim face veils, such as the Arabic-style niqabs that leave the eyes uncovered and Afghan-style burqas that cover the face with a cloth grid, is less likely to go ahead after the government collapsed at the weekend.

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