On Friday morning worshippers at the mosque in Voiron near Grenoble found that their mosque had been defaced with graffiti. Swastikas about a metre in diameter had been painted in red on the walls of the place of worship.
15-year-old girl expelled from French school for wearing a headband and long skirt which were considered ‘too religious’
A 15-year-old Muslim girl has been expelled from school in France for wearing a headband and long skirt combination which was considered “too religious”, her teachers confirmed today.
Sirine Ben Yahiaten is now set to launch a criminal complaint for discrimination and harassment following her exclusion from the Prunais college in Villiers-sur-Marne, a Paris suburb.
It comes as President Francois Hollande pledges to reinforce the controversial ban on full-face Islamic veils introduced in 2011.
Hate crime vandals target West Bank mosques
Vandals scrawled Hebrew threats on two mosques in a West Bank village in the latest hate crime by suspected Jewish extremists, a local official said on Sunday.
“Settlers came in the middle of the night and wrote threats in Hebrew on the walls of two mosques and slashed the tyres of a car,” said Adel al-Shaer, a councillor for Teqoa village east of Bethlehem.
Athens mayor defends Greek Muslims’ right to worship
Athens Mayor George Kaminis said the pending opening of the first official mosque in Greece, being built in Athens by the government, will pave the way for more, as many as two or more in each district of the city, spreading the influence of Islam.
During a meeting of the city’s council, Kaminis, a supporter of the mosque that some critics, such as the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party and some Greek Orthodox Church officials are trying to block, defended the construction “for obvious reasons of political equality and defense of the right to free exercise of religion” but also “for practical reasons, in order to put in order the irregular creation of such informal places.”
Associated Press revises stylebook reference to ‘Islamist’
Following on the heels of the Tuesday decision by The Associated Press to discontinue use of the term “illegal immigrant,” the news agency on Thursday revised its stylebook entry for another politically charged term.
The term “Islamist,” the AP clarified in a Thursday afternoon alert to online stylebook subscribers, should not be used as “a synonym for Islamic fighters, militants, extremists or radicals.”
Muslim women decry topless gender protests
A group of Muslim women has launched an online campaign in response to demonstrations by bare-breasted activists staged in front of mosques and Tunisian embassies across Europe.
The “Muslimah Pride Day” was organised in response to the Ukrainian women’s rights group Femen’s self-declared “Topless Jihad Day”, a day of topless protests around the world to support Tunisian activist Amina Tyler.
Organiser Sofia Ahmed, writing on Facebook, said: “Muslimah [Female Muslim] pride is about connecting with your Muslim identity and reclaiming our collective voice. Let’s show the world that we oppose Femen and their use of Muslim women to reinforce Western imperialism.”
Bill banning sharia law in Oklahoma killed in committee
The measure banning Sharia law in Oklahoma courts passed by Oklahoma voters in 2010 was shot down by a senate committee Thursday.
State Question 755 banned the consideration of Islamic Sharia law, derived from the Quran, when deciding Oklahoma court cases. It passed with 70 percent of the vote in November 2010, so then came House Bill 1552, by State Rep. Sally Kern.
That bill passed the Oklahoma House of Representatives on a bipartisan 76-3 vote on its third reading in March 2011. During a hearing this week, members of the Senate Rules Committee voted 6-9 against the measure.
Muslim man sues New York City Transit Authority, alleging religious harassment
A former bus cleaner is suing the NYCTA for “persistent harassment due to his Muslim beliefs” and denying him “reasonable workplace accommodation of his religious observances,” according to a statement from DRUM, an advocacy group based in Queens.
According to the complaint, Bangladesh-born Sheikh Ahmed worked as a cleaner with NYCTA’s Department of Buses with a clean record for more than 10 years. Trouble apparently began, however, when Ahmed transferred to Brooklyn’s East New York Depot in 2009, where he claimed to be subjected to various forms of mistreatment for observing his daily prayer requirements, as well as denied leave to observe Jumah, which stipulates attendance of Friday afternoon service at an Islamic mosque.
Man behind plan to establish Islamic centre in Shotton is victim of arson attack
A dad fears his family could have been killed in a suspected racist arson attack which left his three young daughters terrified.
North Wales Police launched an investigation after a garage at the back of Shafiul Islam’s house in Shotton was torched early on Tuesday morning.
Congress obsessed with American Muslims, neglects real threat of white supremacists
Over at Informed Comment, Juan Cole argues that US politicians and media are refusing to take the threat of far-right terrorism seriously.