Islam in Europe

Fears of new generation of terrorists who found the ‘heart of the beast’ of al-Qaeda
Britain faces a new generation of self-starting “Nike terrorists”, the security services fear, amid alarm over the speed with which a gang of home grown extremists were able to find and gain support for a 9/11-style plot from the “heart of the beast” of al-Qaeda.

The case calls into question the government’s Prevent strategy to counter the home grown extremist threat. The Theresa May-backed plan relies on Muslim communities to report suspicious behaviour to the authorities. Yet although family members and other Birmingham residents knew they had travelled abroad for training, no alarm was raised.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/9886397/Fears-of-new-generation-of-terrorists-who-found-the-heart-of-the-beast-of-al-Qaeda.html

ASMIN ALIBHAI BROWN
Sunday 24 February 2013

How did modern Islam become so intolerant?>

Israel’s occupation of Palestine, Islamophobia, and disastrous Western interventions all create grievance. But no injustice can excuse or explain the rise of brutal Islamicists

In Allah’s name, what is wrong with us Muslims? And why do we find it so hard to ask that question of ourselves? What will it take to break the heavily curtained window of denial?

The beardy jihadists convicted in Birmingham last week were incompetents; hard to distinguish, for many Britons, from the hilarious boneheaded fantasists in Chris Morris’s Four Lions .

I don’t find them funny and nor do most British Muslims. The ringleader, Irfan Khalid, and his henchmen Irfan Naseer and Ashik Ali meant to cause bloody mayhem, as did all those previous bombers from Glasgow to London, some of whom succeeded while others were discovered before they could bomb themselves off to hell. Sexual permissiveness disgusted them, as did most values of the country they were born in.

Grievance

The gang frequented the Darul Ihsan gyms in Sparkhill, an inner city enclave in Birmingham. These “places of excellence” repudiated “inappropriate behaviour” and banned “non-Islamic” hairstyles and clothes. And it was in these enlightening joints that the thwarted three recruited others. Some went off to Pakistan and were made to come home by their families. There will be more and we can but hope they are stopped before they get the violent glory they crave.

I have met smart Muslim undergraduates and post-graduates at some of our top universities who offer perfectly honed theses to justify the actions of men like the Birmingham three. In sum, they give three key reasons: Palestinian rights denied by Israel, Islamaphobia, and Western interference in Muslim countries. These exact points were raised by a Muslim letter-writer to The Independent last week.

I sympathise with this position and have written with deep conviction on all those thorny issues. I am just reading Shadow Lives by the veteran journalist Victoria Brittain, on the unseen and unheard victims of our state’s iniquitous war on terror – the wives and children of men who have been incarcerated without charge for years.

I cry as I read – as many must when reminded of the chemical warfare used against Iraqis and the suffering of Palestinians. In Burma, Muslims are subjected to terrible persecution and Aung San Suu Kyi, now part of the establishment, expresses only tepid concern.

But no injustice can excuse or explain the rise of brutal Islamicists. Palestine is their cynical, moral pretence. Racism? Black Afro-Caribbean men who suffer the worst discrimination in this country don’t set up terrorist cells. Muslim foreign policy rage is questionable too. Over many decades, Western meddling in, say, Zimbabwe or Kenya has led to some of the intractable, current problems in those nations. Again, Kenyans and Zimbabwean migrants to the UK aren’t cooking carnage in pots in their kitchens.

Fig leaf

Religion is another fig leaf used by millions of Prophet Mohamed’s followers. Islam, they rightly contend, does not sanction the killing of civilians by hobbyists or leaders. However, by focusing on what the good texts say, Muslims avoid the reality of what Muslims do. I doubt even the most virtuous imam can point this out without being subjected to threats.

And while ever alert on Islamaphobia, organisations like the Muslim Council of Britain assiduously avoid looking at the willed ignorance and barbarism within Muslim communities around the world in states controlled by Muslims.

Take this last week, when Bangladesh erupted with anger and competing protests led to five deaths. Secularists demand punishment for the Bangladeshi men who committed atrocities in the 1971 war for independence from Pakistan. Some of the perpetrators were militant Muslim militia and are defended by an alliance of powerful Islamicist parties.

In Egypt, human rights groups claim children are being detained and tortured. The government has spent £1.7m on tear gas. In Tunisia, after the assassination of the popular secular leader Chokri Belaid, Ennahda, the hardline Islamic party, takes charge. Fifty-three more died in an explosion in Syria where over 70,000 have been killed in two years.

Islamic rebels in Mali, Nigeria and elsewhere carry on their nefarious, destabilising activities. Eighty-nine Shias were killed in Pakistan, whose first leader, Muhammad Jinnah, was a Shia, as am I. They want to obliterate us there, in Afghanistan, Kashmir, Bahrain, and Iraq too, where bombs go off routinely to kill these worshippers. Other minority Muslim groups are also targeted and often murdered.

Change you can believe in

Internal and external intolerance is now Islam’s brand. Those great past Muslim civilisations famous for diversity, humanity, science, extraordinary achievements have died. Education, the arts, photographs, television, sports, even work are denounced by crazed imams online and in mosques worldwide, including the UK. In Brittain’s book, some women took on these values, and in effect, imprisoned themselves.

Polymath Ziauddin Sardar has met “countless Muslim scholars, thinkers, writers and activists” who are impatient for change and reform. That can’t happen while there is an aversion to criticism and self-criticism.

Thoughtful and honest Muslims stay silent because they fear ostracisation or inciting more racism against Muslims – both real perils. But silence now is cowardly, and collusion with the corrupters of our faith. True believers have a duty to speak out against that corruption.

www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/how-did-modern-islam-become-so-intolerant-8508732.html

Toy: The Jabba’s Palace Lego set has been criticised by the Turkish Cultural Community of Austria group, which has described it as offensive to the Muslim community

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2267062/Lego-accused-racism-Turkish-community-say-toy-offensive-based-mosque.html

Baroness Warsi: Fewer than one in four people believe Islam is compatible with British way of life

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/baroness-warsi-fewer-than-one-in-four-people-believe-islam-is-compatible-with-british-way-of-life-8464026.html

A new report from Amnesty International lashes out at “widespread discrimination” against Muslims in Europe. The report directs particular ire at laws banning Muslim veils in public spaces, and excoriates European politicians for helping to “foster a climate of hostility and suspicion against people perceived as Muslim.”

Amnesty International omits, however, all instances of discrimination initiated by Muslims against Christians and others in Europe who have taken them in, and who may well feel dismayed by what might be seen as an escalating procession of Muslim demands, threats and attacks.

The report also fails to explain why growing numbers of Europeans are increasingly skeptical about Muslim immigration; it also fails to mention that in country after country, Europeans have been going out of their way to afford Muslims special benefits, rights, privileges and provisions that do not apply to native-born Europeans, and that are establishing the Muslim population as an entitled class in European society.

www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3056/amnesty-international-muslim-discrimination-europe

France-Based Tunisian Imam Hassen Chalghoumi: ‘We European Muslims Are Hostages, Caught Between Extremism And Racism’

www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/6681.htm

Kill Mickey Mouse

rachpar
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2 hours ago (07:55)
Is it too late though now to stop all this nonsense?…..I would say that the first generation migrants to the UK tried to integrate into our society, the following generations sadly have not, and more importantly, they have been allowed not to …..and this is yet another example of it.

Something i was once told by a westernised muslim……..they are not permitted to live and settle in a country that they do not envisage as one day becoming majority if not exclusively muslim….Scary..

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/01/03/muslim-parents-croydon-school-hijab-ban_n_2400788.html?utm_hp_ref=uk#comments

Prominent Russian Muslims targeted in attack

www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/prominent-russian-muslims-targeted-in-attacks/2012/07/19/gJQAQTC0vW_story.html

‘Another 9/11′: Islamic jihadists accused of planning huge coordinated suicide bomb campaign in London

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/another-911-islamic-jihadists-accused-of-planning-huge-coordinated-suicide-bomb-campaign-in-london-8220674.html

www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/in-france-terrorist-cell-is-broken-up-by-police/2012/10/10/a9c70462-12e6-11e2-be82-c3411b7680a9_story.html

http://barenakedislam.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/islam-is-considered-the-greatest-threat-to-french-and-german-national-identity/

Tony Blair: ‘The West is asleep on the issue of Islamist extremism’

”I see the Koran very much as an outsider [Blair is a Catholic convert]. It stands in the great prophetic tradition of trying to return people to the basic principles of spirituality. Taken for its time, it was an extraordinarily progressive declaration of principle. It is also extraordinary for a Christian to read: for example, there are more references to Mary than in the Gospels. The tragedy is that it has been so warped and misapplied.’’

And here, Tony Blair has grown sterner. After September 11, 2001, he now thinks, he underestimated the power of the bad ”narrative’’ of Islamist extremists. That narrative – that ”The West oppresses Islam” – ”is still there. If anything, it has grown.’’ It seeks ”supremacy not coexistence’’. He fears that ”The West is asleep on this issue’’, and yet it is the biggest challenge. In Africa, all the good things he sees through his Africa Governance Initiative face ”this threat above all others’’. In ”Sudan, Mali, Nigeria, outbursts in Tanzania and Kenya’’, sectarian Islamist extremism is the great and growing problem. By implication, Mr Blair seems to doubt President Obama’s outreach to Islam, because it tends to deal with the wrong people. Since Obama’s Cairo speech in 2009, ”the whole context has changed’’. The Muslim Brotherhood is taking over large parts of the Arab world, and ”the people without the loudest voices are desperate for our leadership’’.

”We must engage, but also challenge,’’ he warns. The Middle East ”won’t achieve democracy unless it understands that democracy is a way of thinking as well as voting. The key question is how the majority treats the minority.’’ The West, he says, has been too slow to help the people of Iran: ”It is a great civilisation. The people would undoubtedly boot their government out at the ballot box if they could. It is important they know we are prepared to help them. A Persian spring would be very welcome.’

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/9420909/Tony-Blair-The-West-is-asleep-on-the-issue-of-Islamist-extremism.html

An apologist

Owen Jones: Islamophobia – for Muslims, read Jews. And be shocked
Imagine our alarm if nearly half the UK population said they believed that ‘there are too many Jews

To be a prominent Muslim means suffering a daily diet of bigotry and even outright hatred. This week, Mehdi Hasan – who, other than my colleague Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, is Britain’s only prominent Muslim journalist – wrote of how, every day, he is attacked as a “jihadist” and a “terrorist”. He has been described as a “dangerous Muslim shithead”, a “moderate cockroach”, and worse. The message from his critics is clear: Muslims have no legitimate place in public life.

Mehdi Hasan was right to speak out, but it must not be left to Muslims alone to take on this bigotry. A tide of Islamophobia has swept Europe for many years, and – shamefully – all too few have taken a stand. Even many who regard themselves as “progressives” have either remained silent or even indulged anti-Muslim prejudice. It’s time for Muslims and non-Muslims alike to join forces against the most widespread – and most acceptable – form of bigotry of our times.

Think I’m exaggerating? Consider that the far-right’s main target of choice is no longer Jews or black people: it’s Muslims. The BNP portrays itself as a crusade against the “Islamification” of Britain; in the 2010 election, it launched a “Campaign Against Islam”. Its leader, Nick Griffin, describes Islam as “wicked” and a “cancer”, and has blamed Muslims for problems such as drugs and rape. The English Defence League stages frequent – and often intimidating – street rallies protesting against Muslims.

But anti-Muslim prejudice isn’t simply confined to the far-right fringes. I attended a Stockport sixth form with a large Muslim student population. The reality of their lives is all but airbrushed out of existence. When they appear at all, it’s generally as fanatics, extremists or a community somehow “harbouring” dangerous extremists. (When do Britain’s whites face the absurdity of being called on to crack down on far-right fanatics supposedly in their ranks?) One study took a selection of newspapers in a single week: 91 per cent of reports featuring Muslims were negative.

One of my Muslim fellow students was Dr Leon Moosavi, fast becoming a national authority on Islamophobia. He battles against the widespread denial that anti-Muslim prejudice is a problem. But consider that, in one poll conducted by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 45 per cent of Britons agreed that “there are too many Muslims” in Britain. Imagine if nearly half the population admitted to believing that “there are too many Jews” in Britain: how loud would our alarm be?

Of course, it is not just a British problem: the poison of Islamophobia has infected Europe’s political mainstream. According to a Pew Research Center survey, nearly six out of 10 Europeans believe that Muslims were “fanatical”, and half believed they were “violent”. As here, the European far-right aims fire at Muslims above all other groups. In the Netherlands, an anti-Muslim party led by Geert Wilders is the third largest in parliament. Wilders compares the Koran to Mein Kampf, calls Islam a “Trojan Horse” in Europe and demands that the country’s 850,000 Muslims be paid to leave the country. Wilders doesn’t languish on the fringes: the current Dutch cabinet depended for two years on his party’s support.

Or take sleepy Switzerland, where the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) is the biggest party in the country’s Federal Assembly. The SVP won a referendum on the banning of minarets, which the party’s general secretary described as “symbols of Islamic power”. During the vote, Geneva’s mosque was repeatedly vandalised. Farhad Afshar, the president of the Coordination of Islamic Organisations, had no doubt what signal was sent by this vote: “that Muslims do not feel accepted as a religious community”. But it gets even darker than that. In June, the Zurich-based SVP politician Alexander Müller was forced to stand down after tweeting: “Maybe we need another Kristallnacht… this time for mosques.” The parallels with anti-Semitism could not be more overt.

In France – where recently 42 per cent polled for Le Monde believed that the presence of Muslims was a “threat” to their national identity – a record number voted for the anti-Muslim National Front in April’s presidential elections. Denmark’s third largest party is the People’s Party, which rails against “Islamisation” and demands the end of all non-Western immigration. The anti-Muslim Vlaams Belang flourishes in Flemish Belgium. But those who take a stand against Islamophobia are often demanded to qualify it with a condemnation of extremism. When is this ever asked of other stands against prejudice? When we condemn anti-Semitic hate, must we criticise repressive Israeli policies in the same breath? It would be absurd – they are completely separate issues, and indeed millions of Jews across the world oppose the actions of Israel’s government.

Anti-Muslim hate is a European pandemic. I’m proud to stand with Mehdi Hasan and other Muslims facing Islamophobia. But – I implore, I beg fellow non-Muslims – stand with them too, before this hatred spirals further out of control.

www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/owen-jones-islamophobia–for-muslims-read-jews-and-be-shocked-7939392.html

Danes Protest Muslim Threat, 80 Arrested

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

Danish police arrested 80 protesters Sunday in a rally against the growing Muslim threat of turning Europe into part of an Islamic empire.

Scuffles broke out when a large number of masked leftist counter demonstrators tried to push past police to reach approximately 300 protestors from Denmark, Britain, Germany, Sweden and Poland. They also threw bottles and rocks at police vans and a busload of protesters.

The rally in Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark, began with a moment of silence for the Toulouse victims of the Al Qaeda-linked terrorist who gunned down a rabbi, three young Jewish children and three Muslim soldiers of North African origin in France last month.

The right-wing English Defense Group has attracted several similar groups to become active in several countries as large-scale Muslim immigration and their growing birth rate has catapulted Islam into a religious, political and demographic concern to Europeans who fear the threat of radical Islam and its drive towards a worldwide Caliphate. In England, Islamic Shari’a law already has been allowed to be the accepted authority in several communities.

Anti-Islam leaders have insisted they are not neo-Nazis or anti-Semites. German Defense League members at the protest waved German and Israeli flags, and one banner in at the rally stated, “Peace will dominate the world and not Islam.”

European poll: An Islamic threat?

A new poll conducted in France and Germany indicates that a notable portion of participants consider Islam a “threat”.

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41534380/ns/world_news-europe/

Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities — but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.

–Winston Churchill – The River War, volume II pp. 248–50 (1899)

http://constitutionclub.org/2010/01/12/militant-islam-and-the-war-on-terror/

http://www.danielpipes.org/882/the-islamic-threat-myth-or-reality

Muslim Immigration Transforms Finland

by Soeren Kern
April 28, 2011 at 5:00 am

As in other European countries (here and here), the politically correct guardians of Finnish multiculturalism have tried to silence public discussion about the escalating problem of Muslim immigration.

In March 2009, for example, Jussi Kristian Halla-aho, a politician and well-known political commentator, was taken to court on charges of “incitement against an ethnic group” and “breach of the sanctity of religion” for writing that Islam is a religion of paedophilia. He was referring to the Islamic prophet Mohammed, who is believed to have married a six year old girl and consummated the marriage when she was nine.

A Helsinki court later dropped the charges of blasphemy but ordered Halla-aho to pay a fine of €330 ($450) for disturbing religious worship. The Finnish public prosecutor, incensed at the lower court’s dismissal of the blasphemy charges, appealed the case to the Finnish Supreme Court, where it is now being reviewed.

Halla-Aho, the best-known political blogger in Finland, maintains a blog entitled Scripta, that deals with issues such as “immigration, multiculturalism, tolerance, racism, freedom of speech and political correctness.” His blog has between 3,000 and 6,000 readers a day. According to Halla-aho, immigration is a taboo topic in Finland. He has received death threats because of his web columns, which criticize the number of immigrants coming to Finland and argue that Muslims cannot be integrated.

In April 2011, Juha Molari, a Finnish Lutheran pastor, was “defrocked” after he was accused of inciting religious hatred for describing Doku Umarov, the man behind the Moscow metro and airport bombings, as a “terrorist.”

Also that month, the Finnish Ministry of Interior launched a new Internet site focused on immigration. The politically correct objective is to “give a boost to factual and serious debate and information on the issue,” and “to get away from an ‘us and them’ position as well as from preaching and guilt attitudes.” Of course, the site does not have a discussion forum.

Also, Finland’s political map has been redrawn in the aftermath of parliamentary elections on April 17, when the nationalist True Finns Partywon more votes than the governing party and now stands on the cusp of political power. The surge of the True Finns Party, which campaigned on a platform of opposition to Muslim immigration and further European integration, reflects growing voter disenchantment with multiculturalism and the ruling establishment’s fixation with the European Union.

The final vote results show the populist True Finns Party finishing third place with 39 seats in Finland’s 200-seat Parliament, just behind the center-right National Coalition Party with 43 seats and the center-left Social Democrats with 42 seats. The governing Center Party lost 16 seats, ending up with 24 seats.

As the largest vote-getter, the National Coalition Party has been given the first chance to form a government, and the party leader Jyrki Katainen, set to be Finland’s next prime minister, said “it is our duty to form a majority government.” He is now negotiating with the True Finns and the Social Democrats to build a governing coalition.

Support for the True Finns, led by charismatic leader Timo Soini, has nearly quadrupled its share of the vote from 4% to 19% since the last parliamentary elections in 2007. Using a catchy campaign slogan (kansa tietää: “The people know”), the party has harvested popular anger over issues ranging from bailouts of debt-laden European countries like Greece, Ireland and Portugal to unemployment and immigration, especially from Muslim countries.

Although Europe’s political establishment and the mainstream news media have variously branded the True Finns as “far-right,” “racist,” “xenophobic,” and “fascist” because of the party’s opposition to immigration, in reality the party does not fit neatly into any political grouping. The True Finns combine left-wing economic policies (the party defends the welfare state, for example, and favors raising taxes to do so) with conservative social values (Soini is a devout Roman Catholic). The party has been placed on the center-left in the parliamentary seating order.

In any event, both the National Coalition Party and the Social Democrats have adopted many of the anti-immigration positions held by the True Finns. For example, the National Coalition Party has called for “realism in asylum policy; resources for integration;” and the Social Democratic Party has set a goal for “controlled immigration.” Further, members of all three parties have voiced their concerns about immigration and the threat it poses to Finnish culture and identity.

Immigration is also not the exclusive concern of only one type of Finnish voter. According to a recent survey commissioned by the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper and conducted by Suomen Gallup, Finns of all political persuasions and socio-economic classes are concerned about immigration. The polling data show that nearly 60% of Finns are opposed to immigration. This number is up from 44% in 2009 and 36% in 2007.

Immigrants make up about 4% of the Finnish population, a relatively percentage low by European standards. There are an estimated 60,000 Muslims in Finland, which has a population of just over 5 million. The Muslim population has increased rapidly in recent years, due largely to immigration; and there are now dozens of Islamic communities in the country. As in other European countries, the debate over immigration centers on growing concerns about the failure of Muslim immigrants to integrate into Finland and learn the language.

A case in point is the request by Muslims in Finland for a fatwa (Islamic legal ruling) on how they should live in their newly adopted country. The fatwa was issued by Muhammad Saalih Al-Munajid, a well-known Saudi Arabian expert on Islamic Sharia law, who, in 2008, issued a fatwa to kill Mickey Mouse. He says: “You have to be aware that you are living in a Christian society, a Christian country, whose flag bears the cross! … It should be a priority of Islamic groups and political parties, especially those that are trying to establish an Islamic state, as we said, to preserve the identity of the Muslims who are living there. One of the most important means of preserving their identity is for Muslim men to marry Muslim women and to strive to create an Islamic atmosphere in their social lives. In the Islamic parties and organizations there should be people who direct the Muslims’ private matters such as marriage, divorce and social relationships in accordance with the laws of Allah.”

This is already happening. According to some reports, Muslim children in Finnish schools often are not allowed to take part in school activities such as singing and dancing, which are considered religious. Often, immigrant children play the race card if a solution to a conflict does not go in their favor or if a teacher rebukes the child.

In December 2010, the Islamic Society of Finland, headquartered in downtown Helsinki, complained that the country’s Muslims are running out of places to worship as their numbers grow. Finland’s only officially consecrated mosque is located in the town of Järvenpää, some 40 kilometers north of Helsinki.

In March 2011, the Islamic Society of Finland called for the government to provide university-level courses for the country’s imams. There are around 40 to 50 imams in Finland, both teaching and conducting religious services at mosques and prayer rooms. Their educational backgrounds vary. “Many have studied in their communities or in their home countries. What is needed is a degree from an institute of higher education for all imams,” says Anas Hajjar, an imam with the Islamic Society of Finland.

In recent years, ethnic Finns have been leaving immigrant-heavy neighborhoods to find more suitable housing elsewhere. According to some studies, Finland’s largest cities have developed areas where more than one-fifth of the population is of foreign origin. As native Finns move out of areas with significant immigrant populations, they are reducing the size of the population capable of paying taxes, leaving behind only those consuming welfare services, according to the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper.

Much of the problem revolves around Finland’s immigration policy, which is one of the most liberal in Europe. This was highlighted in November 2009, when Egypt Todaymagazine published a story entitled “Welcome to Finland,” which portrayed Finland as a paradise for Muslim immigration.

According to Egypt Today: “Tara Ahmed, a 25-year-old Kurdish woman, came with her husband to Finland seven years ago to work. ‘There are a lot of services offered to us here,’ she says. ‘Plus, during my seven years I haven’t had one single harassment, assault or discrimination case in any form.’ Like most immigrants, Ahmed and her husband took advantage of the free Finnish language lessons offered by the government, which pays immigrants €8 per day to attend. The government also provides immigrants with a free home, health care for their family and education for their children. In addition, they get a monthly stipend of €367 per adult to cover expenses until they start earning their own living. The government is able to pay for these services due to a progressive tax rate that can exceed fifty percent of a person’s income. Even so, officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed that Finland needs immigrants and that, in the long run, they are not a burden on society.”

After that story was published, the number of Muslim immigrants to Finland skyrocketed. For example, immigration from Somalia alone more than doubled in 2010, from 2009. Most of the Somali adults coming to Finland are illiterate, according to the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper. In September 2010, Finnish authorities admitted that Somalis were abusing the family unification procedure to facilitate human trafficking.

Some Muslim immigrants to Finland have travelled to Pakistan or Somalia to attend Jihadi training camps, according to Vasabladet, a newspaper in Sweden. In February 2010, Helsingin Sanomat reported that the Somali terrorist group al-Shabab was recruiting young Somalis living in Finland to go to war against the Somali government.

In early 2010, the Finnish Security Police (SUPO) asked Parliament for €1.7 million in funding to station officers permanently in Africa and the Middle East to stop possible terrorists who might want to travel to Finland. In August 2010, SUPO said it had successfully prevented terrorist suspects from Africa from entering Finland. In December 2010, Interior Minister Anne Homlund said that training individuals to commit terrorist acts would become a criminal offense.

In December 2009, an Albanian Muslim shot dead three men and a woman at a shopping centre in Espoo. The lone gunman was dressed in black and walked through the mall randomly firing at shoppers.

There are now believed to be several hundred hard-line Wahhabi Muslim fundamentalists in Finland, according to a journalist for the Finnish Broadcasting Company, Tom Kankkonen, who recently wrote a book entitled Islam Euroopassa(Islam in Europe). He says these Islamists operate in communities such as the Helsinki Muslimikoti (Muslim Home), the Iqra Association, and the Salafi Forum on the Internet.

But lately some Finns have been pushing back.

In January 2011, the City of Helsinki said that it would stop reserving special hours for Muslim women to use the public pool in the suburb of Jakomäki. In the future, the time slot for Muslim women will be open to all women. Previously, the Jakomäki swimming hall blocked off Saturday mornings specifically for Muslim women. The women’s session followed a swimming class for Muslim girls.

In December 2010, the Ombudsman for Minorities, Eva Biaudet, issued a statement saying that a ban on Muslim prayer by a gym in the City of Espoo was not a violation of the prohibition on discrimination against ethnic minorities. In August 2010, the exercise center posted a notice requesting clients not to pray in its facilities. A nearby library provided a screened-off section in its rooms during August-September for use by Muslims during the month of Ramadan. But nine Espoo city councillors have demanded that religious practices be kept separate from public services.

www.hudson-ny.org/2075/finland-muslim-immigration

Special Dispatch 3753 April 10, 2011
Europe and the Arab & Muslim World/Islam in the West

Belgian Islamist Abu Imran on April 9 Demonstration in Paris: Plant the Black Flag of ‘There is No God but Allah…’ Over the Elysee Palace; Carla Bruni Should Divorce Sarkozy and Wear the Niqab

Following are excerpts from a statement delivered by Sheik Abu Imran of the Sharia4Belgium group. The statement refers to an April 9 demonstration in Paris against the banning of the burqa. Jamaat Tawhid, the radical Islamist group that held the protest, and which calls for the implementation of shari’a law in France, invited prominent radical Islamist groups and figures from other European countries to attend the event. The statement was posted on the Internet on April 3, 2011.

To view this clip on the MEMRI TV website, visit

www.memritv.org/clip/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/2887.htm.

“We Call Upon Carla Bruni to Become a Muslim, to Repent, to Join Our Islamic Community, and to Wear the Niqab”

Sheik Abu Imran: “Allah’s blessings upon you, my dear brothers and sisters in France. We respond to your call, Jama’at Al-Tawhit ['Group of Monotheism'].

“My dear brothers, you sent us an invitation to participate in the April 9 demonstration in Paris. We will be honored to come, and partake with you in the victory of our Islamic nation, with the grace of God.

“The demonstration was originally organized to [protest] the banning of the niqab. My dear brothers, I would like to tell you that we are coming with the goal of defending the niqab, and the honor of our sisters, as well as with another goal.

“We are coming to perform a da’wa. Our da’wa is directed toward Carla Bruni. We call upon Carla Bruni to become a Muslim, to repent, to join our Islamic community, and to wear the niqab. I ask Allah to guide Carla Bruni, to turn her into a niqab-wearing Muslim, and to make her divorce that unbeliever, Sarkozy, may Allah fight him. I pray to Allah for the family of that false idol Sarkozy to become Muslim, and to wear the niqab – so that this unbeliever Sarkozy will see the niqab in his very home, and in his very own family, Allah willing.”

“Oh Sarkozy, Enemy of Allah, Dog of the Romans, Son of the Unbeliever, We are On Our Way… We are Coming, with Our Nuclear Bombs of ‘Allah Akbar’”

“We are coming to say: Oh Sarkozy, enemy of Allah, dog of the Romans, son of the unbeliever, we are on our way. We are on our way with ‘Allah Akbar,’ ‘Allah Akbar.’ We are coming, with our nuclear bombs of ‘Allah Akbar.’ We are coming, with our black flags – the black flags of ‘There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.’

“We are coming to take back what belongs to us, to regain our land and purify it of unbelief and of the unbelievers. We are coming with ‘There is no god but Allah.’ We are coming because we reject democracy. We do not accept democracy. We accept nothing but the tawhid of Allah. We accept nothing but: ‘There is no god but Allah.’ We accept nothing but the shari’a of Allah.

“Just as we ruled many European lands, we are coming to make you think about [the Battle of] Poitiers, to make you think about Andalusia, and to make you think about… By God, we are on our way. The day you will see the black flag flying over the Élysée us very near. I ask Allah to give us the power to plant the black flag over the Élysée. I say to all my brothers and sisters in France: We are coming from Belgium to support you, with our group, Sharia4Belgium. We are coming to support you.

“I ask all my brothers and sisters in France to come to the Place de la Nation in Paris. We will be there, with our brothers from Jama’at Al-Tawhid. May Allah accept their actions, and grant them a place in Paradise for their sacrifices and their activities, which aim to bring victory to this community. May Allah reward them with Paradise. Allah willing, we will meet next week in Paris. May Allah facilitate our path, and purify France of unbelief and the unbelievers. Allah willing, we will see you next week. Salaam Alyakum, and Allah’s blessings upon you.” […]

http://pmerdogan.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/24481857-The-Coming-Balkan-Caliphate.pdf

Islam in Europe