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BBC NEWS | UK | England | West Midlands | Muslim leaders condemn terrorism
Muslim leaders condemn terrorism
Birmingham Central Mosque
The edict was agreed in a meeting at Birmingham Central Mosque
Islamic leaders across Birmingham have issued a joint message against terrorism in a bid to tackle mistrust of Muslims in the UK.

Leaders of the 150 mosques in the city have backed the statement, which comes in response to the police raid in London’s Forest Gate this month.

The religious edict makes clear the killing of innocent victims is against the principles of Islam.

It has been welcomed by the chief constable of the West Midlands.

The message is thought to be the first joint statement made by Muslim scholars in the UK against terrorism.

Activities regulated

It states: “That killing of innocent civilians is absolutely forbidden in Islam and anyone who contemplates or commits any such act, does so against the teachings of Islam.”

The statement adds action has been taken to regulate the activities of every mosque to ensure worshippers are given a message of “calmness and civic responsibility”.

It said the action of the UK Government in Iraq had caused anger in the Muslim community but there is a “resolve to guide the Muslim response in accordance with good citizenship”.

Dr Muhammad Naseem, chairman of the Birmingham Central Mosque, said: “There is a perception that Muslims are a source of terrorism.

“Although individuals have made statements against terrorism people still say Muslims aren’t denouncing terrorism.”

‘Positive announcement’

Terrorism is against the teachings of Islam, Dr Naseem explained, saying he was making the leaders’ position clear.

“We hope this will improve the understanding between religious communities in the city,” he added.

West Midlands chief constable Paul Scott-Lee said: “I am delighted by this positive announcement from our local mosques and fully support what is an important statement for all our communities.”

It is planned that similar anti-violence messages from Muslim leaders across other UK cities will be issued as part of the initiative.

Somali-born politician to keep Dutch citizenship - Europe - International Herald Tribune
Hirsi Ali to keep Dutch citizenship
Reuters, The Associated Press, The New York Times

Published: June 27, 2006
AMSTERDAM A Somali-born Dutch politician and outspoken critic of Islam is to be allowed to keep her Dutch citizenship despite admitting that she lied in her asylum application, the Dutch government said Tuesday.

The politician, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, resigned from Parliament in May and said she would leave the country after the immigration minister, Rita Verdonk, a member of Hirsi Ali’s own VVD liberal party, told her she might lose her citizenship.

Verdonk’s decision created an uproar in Parliament, which demanded that she find a way out of the embarrassment.

The situation was resolved late Monday when Dutch cabinet members agreed that Hirsi Ali, whose real name is Hirsi Magan, should not be stripped of her citizenship.

Verdonk told Parliament on Tuesday that Hirsi Ali would be able to keep her Dutch nationality.

Hirsi Ali, 36, had admitted using a false name and date of birth when she arrived in the Netherlands in 1992. Dutch cabinet members agreed that because she used her grandfather’s name, which is allowed under Somali law, the false claim would not be held against her.

In a published statement, Hirsi Ali said that she would continue to use Hirsi Ali as her name and regretted giving the authorities the wrong impression about her identity.

“Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s identity has been sufficiently verified and for this reason she has indeed obtained Dutch nationality,” Verdonk said in a statement, explaining that her initial decision to strip Hirsi Ali of Dutch citizenship was not based on a full understanding of the circumstances of her name change.

On her asylum application Hirsi Ali also pretended that she had come to the Netherlands from war-torn Somalia, rather than via Kenya and Germany. Refugees are usually required to apply for asylum in the first safe country they reach after fleeing. However, she said those facts had been public knowledge when the VVD chose her as a candidate for Parliament in 2002.

Hirsi Ali had been living under the protection of bodyguards since 2002 but went deeper into hiding in 2004 when an Islamic militant killed the filmmaker Theo van Gogh after he directed a film, “Submission,” for which she wrote the script.

The short film showed four fictional Muslim women praying and lamenting about their abuse. In some scenes the partly dressed women had Koranic text painted on their skin.

Many Muslims considered the film blasphemous.

Hirsi Ali was in the United States on Tuesday looking for a house in the Washington area, where she has accepted a position with the conservative research institute, the American Enterprise Institute, beginning in September.

She told Dutch television that she was “very thankful and proud” to have her passport back. Asked if she was forced to express her regrets and take the blame in a statement she issued Tuesday, she said: “It was a political compromise. For me a quick resolution of the problem was much more important than a bit of pride.” It was clear, she added, that “if I made that statement the issue would be resolved.”

In a statement released simultaneously with Verdonk’s letter, Hirsi Ali said she regretted the confusion over her name. She said her admission of lying had been a mistake since the name she adopted was legitimate.

Read this: The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi!! by Mary Anne Weaver

How a video-store clerk and small-time crook reinvented himself as America’s nemesis in Iraq

He continued, “The Americans have been patently stupid in all of this. They’ve blown Zarqawi so out of proportion that, of course, his prestige has grown. And as a result, sleeper cells from all over Europe are coming to join him now.” He paused for a moment, then said, “Your government is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Saudi women unveil opinions online | csmonitor.com

More women are blogging in the Kingdom, getting the attention of censors and their conservative counterparts.

By Rasheed Abou-Alsamh | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA – In this country where women are forced to completely cover themselves in public, are barred from driving, and need permission to travel abroad, it’s small wonder many are embracing the freedom of anonymity on the Internet.

As Internet usage continues to climb here, so do the numbers of women who have started Web logs, or blogs, to express themselves in ways they might never do in public.
“I love blogging because it helps me to express myself and I like to write in English,” says Farah Aziz, a translation student at King Saud University in Riyadh who started blogging in January 2005.

On several women Saudi bloggers:

Farah’s Sowaleef

Saudi Eve

Green Tea (Arab)

A thought in the Kingdom of Lunacy 

Telegraph | News | Police seize long lost Islamic treasures of the Java Sea

The implication is that instead of being spread across the Indian Ocean by Arab traders, as previously thought, the religion of Mohammed could have been brought to what is now the world’s most populous Muslim nation from China, where there was already a Muslim presence.

Beautycheck - average faces

I find this very interesting. Don’t you?

The faces above are so called average faces. Highly intelligent as I am, I thought well these people look quite hansom…so conclusion might be that a face becomes more attractive when it resembles the average in a higher degree.

Not. Well there is some truth in that but some people with more skills than I have on this territory have done some more thinking: Beautycheck - average faces

Well, game over. After 90 minutes (well effectively 30 and something minutes) we lost against Portugal and deserved so. Now let’s start integrate again!

“Hey, stupid never heard of integration?”

Picture via Levinas and Culture.

Allochtonen Weblog
Onderzoek: diepe kloof tussen moslims en Westen

Uit een onderzoek dat het Amerikaanse Pew Research Center in 15 landen hield, blijkt dat er een diepe kloof is tussen moslims en het Westen. Zo zien moslims de Amerikanen en Europeanen als zelfzuchtig, immoreel en inhalig. Aan de andere kant zien Amerikanen en Europeanen de moslims als arrogant, gewelddadig en intolerant. Het onderzoek werd niet gehouden in Nederland, maar wel in onder meer Amerika, Duitsland, Groot-Brittannië, Egypte, Pakistan en Turkije.

De meerderheid van de mensen in zowel het Midden-Oosten als Europa vindt de verhoudingen tussen moslims en westerlingen slecht. Beiden wijzen met de beschuldigende vinger naar elkaar over die slechte verhoudingen. In de westerse landen worden de moslims verantwoordelijk gehouden, in de moslimlanden en onder moslims in Europa krijgen de burgers in het Westen de schuld.

Het duidelijkst komt dat aan het licht als gevraagd wordt naar de ophef die losbarstte na de Deense spotprenten van de islamitische profeet Mohammed. Zo vindt een overweldigende meerderheid van de ondervraagde moslims dat dit te wijten is aan een gebrek aan respect voor de islam. Westerlingen geven de intolerantie van de moslims de schuld.

Christenen
De meeste Europese moslims staan positief tegenover westerse christenen: 91% van de Franse moslims, 82% van de Spaanse, 71% van de Britse en 69% van de Duitse moslims. Europese moslims hebben een positiever beeld van Europeanen dan hun geloofsgenoten in islamitische landen.

Volgens het Pew Research Center zijn de Britse moslims het meest geradicaliseerd; de Franse zijn het gematigdst. In Frankrijk heeft 71% van de moslims een positief beeld van Joden, terwijl bij moslims in Groot-Brittannië, evenals bij hun geloofsgenoten in Duitsland en Spanje, een sterk anti-Joods sentiment heerst.

Tegenspraak
In Duitsland en Spanje vinden de meeste westerlingen dat de levenswijze van een vrome moslim in tegenspraak is met de moderne westerse samenleving. Moslims in die landen zien die fundamentele tegenstelling echter niet: slechts 36% van de moslims in Duitsland en 25% van de moslims in Spanje vindt beiden onverenigbaar

In Duitsland hebben de meeste westerlingen (70%) een negatief oordeel over de betrekkingen tussen moslims en niet-moslims. In Frankrijk is dat 66% procent en in de Verenigde Staten 55%.

In vergelijking met inwoners van andere Europese landen staan Duitsers en Spanjaarden het negatiefst tegenover moslims. Slechts 36% respectievelijk 29% heeft een gunstig oordeel over de islamitische bevolking.

Steun terreur neemt af
Opvallend is dat heel veel moslims niet geloven dat de aanslagen van 11 september 2001 in de VS door een groep Arabieren zijn uitgevoerd. In Indonesië is 65% die mening toegedaan, in Turkije 59%, Egypte 59% en Jordanië 53%. Ook moslims in het westen willen daar niet aan: Moslims in Groot-Brittannië (66%) en Duitsland (42%) scoren het hoogst.

Wel blijkt dat de steun van moslims voor het terrorisme aan het afnemen is. Van de Indonesiërs zei 71% dat zelfmoordaanslagen en andere vormen van geweld tegen burgers nooit gerechtvaardigd zijn. In 2005 was dat nog 66% procent en in 2002 slechts 54%. Ook in Pakistan en Jordanië is die trend te zien.

Verder bleek dat in veel moslimlanden ook de steun voor Al-Qaidaleider Osama bin Laden is afgebrokkeld. Zo steunt in Jordanië nog slechts 24% van de ondervraagden de terreurleider. Een jaar terug was dat nog 60%.

Bron: Telegraaf/ Fok

On Sabbah’s Blog an extensive covering of the report.

Several people in Miami have been arrested for alledgedly trying to attack Sears Tower. Quickly described as ‘muslims‘

Well, we’re told these seven arrests — most of them in Miami, one in Atlanta, people described as radical Muslims, a religious sect that identified with al Qaeda, although officials have said — one senior official told us they were not related to al Qaeda. And one, we’re told, had taken an oath to al Qaeda, but we don’t know exactly that that means. It might have been something quite informal. I suspect we’ll learn a little more about that today.

We have to be a little more carefull though, because the people arrested seem to belong to a called that isn’t Islamic, but more a syncretistic sect:

Batiste and his followers swore an oath of allegiance to Al-Qaeda and requested help from an undercover agent to buy weapons, explosives and uniforms, according to the indictment. He sought $50,000 to fund his mission and boasted that his attacks would be “as good or greater than 9/11”.

Batiste’s targets were said to have included the Miami FBI building as well as the Sears Tower, America’s tallest building. He was secretly recorded and filmed by the FBI, which infiltrated the group after a tip-off from a member of the public.

No weapons or explosives have been found at the windowless warehouse that Batiste called the “temple” in a rundown area of Miami.

Batiste grew up in Chicago and, as a young man, joined the Guardian Angels, a beret-wearing citizens’ crime prevention group. In 1994 he told his father, a former preacher, that he was “joining the Muslims” but his beliefs bear little relation to orthodox Islam.

A close friend said his teachings came from the Moorish Science Temple of America, an early 20th century religion founded by the Noble Drew Ali, a wandering African-American circus magician who claimed to have been raised by Cherokee Indians and to have learnt “high magic” in Egypt. Ali went on to style himself an “angel” and prophet of Allah.

The Seas of David borrows tenets from Judaism and Christianity as well as Islam and emphasises self-discipline through martial arts.

More information can be found on Unqualified Offerings: HERE, HERE and HERE. In the words of Crooked Timber: a conferaderacy of Dunces.

Muslims address silence on Europe attacks - Yahoo! News
I cannot speak of course for all Muslims in all European countries, in the case of the assassination of Van Gogh, Dutch Muslims rejected the murder outright, with one Muslim organization calling Van Gogh a martyr of the freedom of speech. Nevertheless, it seems necessary to talk about this topic, because in particular non-Muslims seem to do not have heard these comments. Therefore probably the debate among Muslims about the so-called silence on Europe attacks:

By SCHEHEREZADE FARAMARZI, Associated Press Writer Sat Jun 24, 11:56 AM ET

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Europe’s Muslims have remained largely silent in the face of terrorist attacks that have killed 254 people in Madrid, London and Amsterdam. Europeans want to know why.

Why have so few of them publicly condemned the train and bus bombings in Madrid and London? Why have so few spoken out against the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, killed because his work was considered an insult to Islam?

Talk to Europe’s mainstream Muslims privately, however, and it turns out they have a lot to say. Continue Reading »