A board member of Germany’s central bank dramatically resigned on Thursday after causing weeks of uproar with inflammatory comments on immigrants and Jews.
“The Bundesbank board and its member Thilo Sarrazin are aware of their responsibilities to the institution of the Bundesbank,” the bank said in a surprise statement posted on its website.
“Given the public debate, the parties concerned are going, of mutual accord, to end their cooperation at the end of the month.”
Prominent Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders held an extraordinary “emergency summit” meeting in the capital on Tuesday to denounce what they called “the derision, misinformation and outright bigotry” aimed at American Muslims during the controversy over the proposed Islamic community center near ground zero.
“This is not America,” said Cardinal , the emeritus Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington, flanked by three dozen clergy members and religious leaders at a packed news conference at the National Press Club. “America was not built on hate.”
They said they were alarmed that the “anti-Muslim frenzy” and attacks at several mosques had the potential not only to tear apart the country, but also to undermine the reputation of America as a model of religious freedom and diversity.
Interfaith events are not unusual, but this one was extraordinary for the urgency and passion expressed by the participants. Some of the same religious leaders later met with Attorney General to urge him to prosecute religious hate crimes aggressively.
Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said: “We know what it is like when people have attacked us physically, have attacked us verbally, and others have remained silent. It cannot happen here in America in 2010.”
The clergy members said that those responsible for a poisoned climate included politicians manipulating a wedge issue in an election year, self-styled “experts” on Islam who denigrate the faith for religious or political reasons and some conservative evangelical Christian pastors.
The Rev. Richard Cizik, president of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, said: “To those who would exercise derision, bigotry, open rejection of our fellow Americans of a different faith, I say, shame on you. As an evangelical, I say to those who do this, you bring dishonor to those who love Jesus Christ.”
The summit meeting was initiated by leaders of the Islamic Society of North America, an umbrella group of mosques and Muslim groups, who contacted Jewish and Christian leaders they know from years of joint interfaith projects.
A Catholic priest, the Rev. Mark Massa, executive director of ecumenical and interreligious affairs of the , wrote the draft of the statement. About three dozen clergy members representing Jewish, Muslim, Protestant, Catholic, evangelical and Orthodox Christian groups refined it at the meeting.
New York Times, 7 September 2010
Watch video of press conference here
Read text of statement here
Jewish groups have stepped up efforts to combat anti-Muslim bigotry, with several national initiatives announced this week and supporting statements coming in from a range of Jewish voices.
In Washington, officials from several Jewish organizations took part Tuesday in an emergency summit of Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders that denounced anti-Muslim bigotry and called for a united effort by believers of all faiths to reach out to Muslim Americans.
Also Tuesday, the Anti-Defamation League announced the creation of an Interfaith Coalition on Mosques, which will monitor and respond to instances of anti-Muslim bias surrounding attempts to build new mosques in the United States.
Meanwhile, six rabbis and scholars representing the Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative and Orthodox streams have launched an online campaign urging rabbis to devote part of their sermons this Shabbat to educating their congregations about Islam.
The efforts come in response to what organizers describe as a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment resulting from the impending ninth anniversary of 9/11 and the controversy surrounding efforts to build a Muslim community center and mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan. Jewish bloggers and pundits, mostly on the right, have become more vocal in opposing the center and calling for greater scrutiny of American mosques.
Among the Jewish leaders at the emergency summit was Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. “As Jews, we could be nowhere else today,” said Saperstein, whose organization co-sponsored Tuesday’s interfaith summit with the Islamic Society of North America.
“We have been the quintessential victims of religious persecution … and we know what happens when people are silent,” he said, explaining why clergy and believers of all faiths need to be more forceful in speaking out against anti-Muslim bigotry. “We have to speak more directly to the anti-Muslim bigotry in America today.”
European Christians must have more children or face the prospect of the continent becoming Islamised, a senior Vatican official has said. Italian Father Piero Gheddo said that the low birth rate among indigenous Europeans combined with an unprecedented wave of Muslim immigrants with large families could see Europe becoming dominated by Islam in the space of a few generations.
“The challenge must be taken seriously,” said Father Gheddo, of the Vatican’s Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions. “Certainly from a demographic point of view, as it is clear to everyone that Italians are decreasing by 120,000 or 130,000 persons a year because of abortion and broken families – while among the more than 200,000 legal immigrants a year in Italy, more than half are Muslims and Muslim families, which have a much higher level of growth.”
He said: “Newspapers and television programmes never speak of this. However, an answer must be given above all in the religious and cultural fields and in the area of identity.”
The priest blamed Christians for failing to live up to their own beliefs and helping to create a “religious vacuum” which was being filled by Islam. He predicted that Islam would “sooner rather than later conquer the majority in Europe”.
An evangelical pastor’s plans to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of September 11 will put soldiers’ lives at risk, the US has warned.
Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville in Florida, says the event will “remember those who were brutally murdered” and send a warning “to the radical element of Islam”. But US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the idea a “disrespectful, disgraceful act”.
Others in the Obama administration weighed in against the proposed burning, including Attorney General Eric Holder, who called it idiotic and dangerous. Mrs Clinton said: “I am heartened by the clear, unequivocal condemnation of this disrespectful, disgraceful act that has come from American religious leaders of all faiths.”
The White House has echoed calls from General David Petraeus, the top US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, for the event to be cancelled. Spokesman Robert Gibbs said: “Any type of activity like that that puts our troops in harm’s way would be a concern to this administration.”
General Petraeus says the image of the burning could have a similar impact to photos of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib jail, making targets of Americans around the world. He said it could “endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort” in Afghanistan.
Pastor Jones said he took General Petraeus’s words seriously but decided to push ahead with the burning. He said: “Instead of us being blamed for what other people will do or might do, why don’t we send a warning to them? Why don’t we send a warning to radical Islam and say, don’t do it. If you attack us, if you attack us, we will attack you.”
The Attorney General has met religious leaders from different faiths to discuss how to stem a wave of Islamophobia which has risen since plans were unveiled to build an Islamic cultural centre close to Ground Zero in New York.
“Having spoken to many families across the country over the last few weeks, I have heard many Muslim Americans say they have never felt this anxious or this insecure in America since directly after September 11,” said Ingrid Mattson, head of the Islamic Society of North America.
See also “Owner of land with Quran-burning sign doesn’t ‘know what the big fuss is'”, Gainesville Sun, 7 September 2010
A proposed Islamic community center near ground zero will include separate prayer spaces for Muslims, Christians, Jews and people of other faiths, the imam behind plans for the facility wrote in a newspaper editorial published online Tuesday.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf wrote in the New York Times that the attention surrounding the plans for the $100 million community center just blocks from the site of the Sept. 11 attacks “reflects the degree to which people care about the very American values under debate: recognition of the rights of others, tolerance and freedom of worship.” He said it was critical that Americans “not back away” from completing the project.
“The wonderful outpouring of support for our right to build this community center from across the social, religious and political spectrum seriously undermines the ability of anti-American radicals to recruit young, impressionable Muslims by falsely claiming that America persecutes Muslims for their faith,” he wrote. “These efforts by radicals at distortion endanger our national security and the personal security of Americans worldwide.”
In the nearly 1,000-word editorial, he outlined his vision for the center, referring to it as a “shared space” for the community that will include “a multifaith memorial dedicated to victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.” “I am very sensitive to the feelings of the families of victims of 9/11, as are my fellow leaders of many faiths,” he wrote.
During the 11 years that Masjid al-Baqi, a mosque on Central Avenue in Bethpage, has provided religious services for area Muslims, there have been some tensions with community members: a few neighbors have complained about the cars that spill onto local streets during Friday services and religious holidays and, in late 2001, mosque leaders say that a drunken resident smashed some of the building’s windows with a baseball bat and damaged cars in the parking lot.
In general, however, interactions with the community have been more positive than negative, according to Syed Quadri, the secretary of Masjid al-Baqi. In over a decade, the mosque – despite never acquiring a valid occupancy certificate – has never had any problems with the Town of Oyster Bay, he says.
But that all changed at the start of Ramadan this year, when town officials closed the mosque, citing building code violations.
The two sides disagree over when exactly the mosque was shuttered: the town says it issued a July 29 summons; mosque leaders say they were turned away on August 10, the beginning of Ramadan. But both sides agree that the building inspection came about as a result of more than 100 calls or emails to the town from residents complaining about a second Bethpage mosque that is opening nearby. Some of those residents called for an investigation into Masjid al-Baqi.
The opposition to the new Bethpage mosque, and the ensuing backlash against the existing one on Central Avenue, can be traced back to a mass email that circulated before the closure, according to Quadri, who received a copy of the email from a congregant.
In the email, a resident identified as “Peter”, tries to rally residents against the new mosque:
This is not a Muslim neighborhood; we have no Muslim congregation in Bethpage. We do not want people being bused in from other communities. If you read the articles attached, many of these organizations are on the FBI watch lists. I DO NOT WANT THIS IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD. THEY NEED TO GO ELSE WHERE. THIS IS THE MESSAGE WE NEED TO SEND.
The email included contact information for public officials and references to other mosque opposition efforts in Brooklyn, Staten Island, and at the much-discussed Park51 site, near Ground Zero in downtown Manhattan.
That email – amid the Park51 debate and the accompanying wave anti-Islamic discourse – played a major role in the shutdown, according to Quadri.
“That’s the only reason that influenced their decision,” Quadri said. “We’ve been there 11 plus years, an inspector has come to the property … you can’t say that the town didn’t know about the mosque being there before the email came out.”
The 67-year-old, who is the only BNP candidate standing in Exeter, was tried at the city’s Crown Court. Yesterday a jury of five men and seven women found Mr Stone not guilty of the offence. Mr Stone, of Chestnut Avenue, Wonford, who is standing for the seat in Priory ward, faced a charge of causing Sarah Marillier-Brown harassment, alarm or distress, with intent, that was racially aggravated.
He was accused of shouting at the traffic warden and launching a tirade of racist abuse after approaching her while she ticketed a row of vehicles parked on a single yellow line, in Matford Park Road. He was also alleged by a witness to have said “I suppose you Muslims have your own parking space” and that she should “go back to your own country”, the court was told.
During her evidence, Mrs Marillier-Brown said she feared Mr Stone was going to hit her and said that he took her photograph. She told the court she felt intimidated and scared.
After the verdict, Mr Stone told the Echo he was “greatly relieved”, before thanking the jury and claiming justice had been served. He said the BNP was “nothing to do with racism.”
A group of local Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders gathered at the State House yesterday to decry what they described as anti-Islamic rhetoric and violence fueled by the controversy over the proposed mosque near ground zero in New York.
The speakers, who included a rabbi, a Catholic priest, a Quaker, several Protestant ministers, and a Muslim leader, likened the recent stabbing of a Muslim cabdriver in New York City and plans by a Protestant Florida pastor to burn a Koran to the persecution of religious dissidents in Colonial-era Boston. The leaders asked the crowd of more than 100 to place stones at the foot of a statue on the State House lawn of Mary Dyer, a Quaker whom the Puritans hanged in 1660 for defying a law banning Quakers from the colony.
“We cannot and will not remain silent in the face of the surge of fear about, and threats against, Islam and Muslim-Americans,” said the Rev. Nancy S. Taylor of Old South Church, a United Church of Christ congregation in Boston’s Back Bay.
Several speakers likened the opposition to the mosque in New York to the persecution their own faiths endured in the past. Rabbi Eric Gurvis of Temple Shalom in Newton recalled that, 60 years ago, when his congregation tried to purchase land to build a synagogue, attempts were made to stop the sale.
And the Rev. Walter Cuenin, the Catholic chaplain at Brandeis, called on Boston Catholics to remember their forebears were persecuted by Protestants.
Controversial group the English Defence League (EDL) has revealed it will hold a protest in Leicester next month. The EDL – whose stated aim is to oppose Islamic extremism – said about 3,000 members would be involved in the demonstration, on Saturday, October 9. Critics say EDL is a far-right group whose demonstrations have led to violence in other UK cities.
Anti-fascist movement Searchlight said the EDL was in Leicester for “one reason only”. Spokesman Simon Cressy said: “They’re a walking time bomb who bring disharmony and disruption wherever they go.”
Leicester Unite Against Fascism (UAF) is planning a counter-demonstration. A spokesman said: “Leicester UAF is building opposition to this proposed demonstration. Previous EDL marches have seen shops and houses vandalised, people attacked and racist chanting. They do not represent the majority of people in this country.”
Councillor Manjula Sood, leader of the Leicester Council of Faiths, said: “We saw what happened in Bradford and we don’t want the same thing here in Leicester. We have built a reputation of community cohesion. We are not perfect but other cities look to us as an example of cohesion and we don’t want to damage that.”