‘Defence leagues’ plan Amsterdam show of support for Geert Wilders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Bradford4Far right groups modelled on the English Defence League have been set up across Europe and are planning to demonstrate in Amsterdam in support of the Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

French and Dutch “defence leagues” will join the EDL and several other anti-Islamic organisations on 30 October to coincide with the end of Wilders’s trial for hate speech and inciting racism.

Critics say the demonstration in Amsterdam is a sign of the EDL’s growing influence among far right and anti-Islamic groups in Europe and the US, and part of its self-proclaimed “international outreach work and networking”.

The EDL refused to answer the Guardian‘s questions today but its leader, who uses the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, wrote on the group’s website that the Amsterdam demonstration would “take the English Defence League global”.

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National Secular Society backs Wilders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“In Amsterdam, the Dutch MP Geert Wilders is on trial for daring to criticise the Koran and comparing it with Mein Kampf. To some people this may be an extreme opinion, but why is he on trial for expressing it? It harmed no-one (being offended is not the same as being harmed) and is shared by many.”

National Secular Society president Terry Sanderson on the NSS website, 8 October 2010

Even The Spittoon recently posed the question: “Is the NSS pushing anti-Muslim bigotry as ‘secularism’?”

Abdulmutallab ‘not radicalised at UCL’, inquiry finds

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A former student at a London university charged with attempting to blow up a plane over the US on Christmas Day was unlikely to have been radicalised on campus, an independent inquiry ruled yesterday.

The inquiry found no evidence that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab adopted extremist views while studying engineering at University College London. It also said there was no evidence that conditions at the university were “conducive to the radicalisation of students”.

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Abdulmutallab, al-Awlaki, the Finsbury Park mosque and Andrew Gilligan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Caldicott inquiry has now cleared University College London and the students’ union Islamic Society of playing any part in converting the “Christmas Day bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to violent extremism. But UCL is not the only institution to have been falsely accused of involvement in Abdulmutallab’s “radicalisation”. The North London Central Mosque (NLCM) in Finsbury Park has also come under attack, on the grounds that it supposedly hosted a lecture by Anwar al-Awlaki that was attended by Abdulmutallab.

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‘Should Muslims be treated on an equal footing?’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The recent statement by German President Christian Wulff that “Islam belongs in Germany” has provoked something of a conservative backlash. The German press is divided on whether the presence of Muslims in Germany is self-evident or cause for concern.

When German President Christian Wulff said that “Islam also belongs in Germany” during his speech to mark the 20th anniversary of German reunification on Sunday, he was initially showered with praise for recognizing the reality that around 4 million Muslims now live in Germany. Yet just a few days later, it is clear than many on the conservative side of German politics and society are still deeply uncomfortable with such a statement.

The ongoing unease in some quarters about the country’s Muslim population was revealed by a poll published by the influential mass circulation newspaper Bild on Tuesday which showed that 66 percent of those polled disagreed with Wulff’s assertion and only 24 percent agreed with it.

Spiegel, 9 October 2010

France: constitutional court approves veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

France’s constitutional court has approved the law set to ban wearing the Islamic full veil in public. It approved it almost in its entirety, making one small change: the law will not apply to public places of worship where it may violate religious freedom.

The proposed measure had already been passed by parliament. It is due to come into force next spring.

The law makes it illegal to wear garments such as the niqab or burka, which incorporate a full-face veil, anywhere in public. Under the ban, persons found wearing a full veil in public will face a fine of 150 euros (£130) and/or a citizenship course.

A last challenge is possible at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, where decisions are binding.

BBC News, 7 October 2010

Vlaams Belang leader faces racism charge over ‘Islamisation’ stunt

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dewinter with anti-Islam banner

A far-right Belgian leader who posted names and addresses of 770 residents on the web in a bid to prove “Islamisation” was at work in the city of Antwerp could face a 500,000-euro fine for racism.

Filip Dewinter, leader of Vlaams Belang (which means Flemish Interest), said on his website that the official registry of residents of an Antwerp suburb “includes only 21 Flemish names”.

“All the other names are African or North African. This mind-boggling list symbolises the Islamisation of entire districts of Antwerp and elsewhere,” he said.

Dewinter, who has a seat in the regional parliament of Flanders, dubbed the district in question “Mecca-on-Escaut”, the latter being the river that runs through the northern city.

His party, unlike an increasing popular sister movement in neighbouring The Netherlands, is on the decline, sliding from 24 percent of the regional vote in 2004 to 12.6 percent in June this year on an anti-immigrant and separatist platform.

A commission for the protection of privacy filed a complaint Thursday against him before the Antwerp prosecutor’s office, alleging violation of a 1992 law banning the publication of private information “based on racial or ethnic origin”.

A commission official, Emmanuel Vincart, told AFP that if the prosecutor pressed charges under article six of the country’s privacy legislation, the politician could be fined up to half a million euros.

Dewinter responded by saying he would keep the list to first names only. “But the political analysis remains unchanged,” he said, according to the domestic Belga news agency. Barely three percent of the names on the list are ethnic Flemish.”

AFP, 7 October 2010

Germany: Social Democrats and Greens demand equality for Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Leading members of the opposition Social Democrats and Greens called on Thursday for Islam to be recognised by the state as a religious community, similar to Christianity and Judaism.

The calls came as the peak Jewish body in Germany blasted recent conservative criticism of President Christian Wulff’s reunification speech, in which Wullf acknowledged that Islam was now part of Germany alongside the faiths of Christians and Jews.

In the wake of Wulff’s speech, the centre-left parties hit back against conservatives who had previously attacked Wulff’s remarks as undermining the core values and traditions of Germany.

“Islam needs a fair chance in Germany,” Dieter Wiefelspütz, interior affairs spokesman for the Social Democrats’ (SPD) parliamentary group, told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung. “It would be an important signal to the four million Muslims in Germany if the state recognised Islam as a religious community.”

At present, Christianity and Judaism are recognised by German law as statutory bodies, meaning they can be taught in state schools and have tithing fees collected by the German Finance Ministry as church tax.

Integration policy spokesman for the Greens, Memet Kilic, told the paper: “The recognition of Islam as an equal religious community before the law would convey to Muslims the feeling of being welcome in Germany. The (conservative Christian Democrats) must end their neurotic navel gazing immediately.”

In his speech last Sunday, Wulff said: “Christianity is of course part of Germany. Judaism is of course part of Germany. This is our Judeo-Christian history … But now Islam is also part of Germany,” he said in his speech. “When German Muslims write to me to say ‘you are our president’, I reply with all my heart ‘yes, of course I am your president’.”

Secretary general of the German Jewish Council, Stephan Kramer, also slammed the conservative response to Wulff’s speech as “close to hysterical” and said it showed “that apparently many politicians even today are shutting themselves off to the reality of an immigrant community.”

He added: “The Muslims living here are part of our society. So of course their religion also belongs in this country.” Ultimately the right to exercise freely one’s religious beliefs was anchored in the constitution, he said.

The Local, 7 October 2010