C L O S E R

Al-yaqeen – Harry van Bommel in 20 vragen

Posted on September 15th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Religious Movements.

Al-yaqeen heeft 20 vragen gesteld aan SP-kamerlid Van Bommel.

Wat is uw boodschap/advies aan de moslims in Nederland?

Verdiep je in de Nederlandse samenleving, dan pas kun je deze veranderen. Zet de stap om bestuurlijke functies te bekleden. Mahatma Gandhi zei het al: “Wees zelf de verandering die je wilt zien.”

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Tot 15 jaar geëist tegen Samir A. en medeverdachten – de Volkskrant

Posted on September 1st, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: International Terrorism, ISIM/RU Research, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization.

Tot 15 jaar geëist tegen Samir A. en medeverdachten – Binnenland – de Volkskrant
Tot 15 jaar geëist tegen Samir A. en medeverdachten

Van onze verslaggeefsters Janny Groen, Annieke Kranenberg
gepubliceerd op 01 september 2008 18:38, bijgewerkt op 1 september 2008 21:09

AMSTERDAM – Het Openbaar Ministerie heeft in hoger beroep in de Piranhazaak tegen Samir A. en vier medeverdachten straffen geëist tot vijftien jaar cel. Anders dan de Rotterdamse rechtbank acht het OM bewezen dat de Piranhaverdachten deel uitmaken van een terroristische organisatie die bezig was aanslagen voor te bereiden op Nederlandse politici en het AIVD-gebouw.
Volgens het OM werd de kern van de organisatie gevormd door Samir A., Nouredine el F. en Mohammed C. Tegen de laatste twee werden straffen van vijftien jaar cel geëist. De eis tegen Samir A. viel iets lager uit, dertien jaar, omdat hij eerder al onherroepelijk was veroordeeld tot vier jaar cel voor soortgelijke feiten. Die straf wilde het OM meewegen in de eis. El F. werd eerder dit jaar in hoger beroep in de Hofstadzaak vrijgesproken.

Beïnvloeden
Soumaya S. en Mohammed H. behoorden volgens de advocaten-generaal weliswaar niet tot de kern van de groep, maar hadden zich dermate laten beïnvloeden door de radicale jihadistische ideologie van met name El F. dat ze ook als actieve leden van de terreurorganisatie kunnen worden beschouwd. Tegen S., die door de rechtbank was veroordeeld tot drie jaar cel, werd tien jaar geëist. H., die eerder was vrijgesproken, moet volgens het OM tot acht jaar worden veroordeeld.

De groep had wapens in haar bezit en alle leden hebben die vervoerd, aangeraakt of tenminste gezien, aldus het OM. H. werd verweten dat hij zich niet had gedistantieerd van de groep, terwijl hij wist dat de leden geweld wilden plegen.

Gestuctureerd contact
In het vonnis van 1 december 2006 oordeelde de Rotterdamse rechtbank dat de Piranhaverdachten onderling onvoldoende gestructureerd contact onderhielden om te kunnen spreken van een organisatie. De advocaten-generaal D. Kuipers en R. Terpstra stelden echter dat de Piranhaorganisatie ‘een voortzetting is van de Hofstadgroep’. De verdachten werkten dus al voor het Piranha-onderzoek in meer en mindere mate samen. Het OM rekent de groep extra zwaar aan dat zij met hun radicale activiteiten zijn doorgegaan na de moord in november 2004 op Theo van Gogh. En na de grimmige arrestatie op 10 november 2004 van ‘twee granaatwerpende Hofstadleden’. ‘Ze wisten dus welk een enorme impact deze gebeurtenissen hadden op de Nederlandse samenleving’.

De beslissing over een onderzoek naar de eventuele meineed van officier van justitie Koos Plooij, die in de Piranhazaak is gehoord als getuige, werd gisteren door het Haagse hof opgeschort. De verdediging van Samir A. wilde Plooij nogmaals oproepen om tegenstrijdigheden in zijn verklaring en dossierstukken op zitting te kunnen ophelderen. Vanwege de ‘verstrekkende gevolgen’ van dit verzoek, vroeg het hof meer bedenktijd. Mogelijk komt het hof op dit punt terug met een tussenvonnis.

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Moslims beledigen

Posted on August 8th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Blogosphere, ISIM/RU Research, Public Islam, Some personal considerations.

Er is al enige tijd het nodige te doen over moslims die zich beledigd zouden voelen. U herinnert zich de cartoon-affaire nog wel en submission en fitna en zo kunnen we er nog wel een paar opnoemen. En dat doen mensen dus ook. Bij de meeste van die zaken vallen drie dingen op:

1. De rol van wetenschappers die door middel van pseudo-wetenschappelijke charlatanerie in boekjes en columns hun positie misbruiken.
2. De de rol van sommige weblogs en criticasters die niet noodzakelijkerwijze racistisch of islamofobisch zijn, maar wel leiden aan een islamiseringsneurose en daarbij gebruik maken van grove generalisaties.
3. En dit alles als onderdeel van de schijnbare noodzaak die er is om moslims te provoceren en hun afkeer daarvan te problematiseren of als die afkeer er niet is om deze te construeren en vervolgens te problematiseren; resulterend in een poging om moslims te onderwerpen door middel van vernedering.

(more…)

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Protected: Telegraaf – Wilders lacht om claim imam

Posted on July 13th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Public Islam, Religious Movements.

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Protected: AD.nl – Den Haag – College moet sluiting moskee overwegen

Posted on June 9th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research.

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Protected: De Telegraaf – Moslimbroeders rukken op

Posted on June 5th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Religious Movements.

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Malika El Aroud – Oum Obeyda

Posted on May 27th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Blogosphere, Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues, ISIM/RU Research, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Religious Movements.

Belgian woman wages war for Al Qaeda on the Web – International Herald Tribune

Belgian woman wages war for Al Qaeda on the Web
Belgian’s online jihad reflects rise of female extremists

By Elaine Sciolino and Souad Mekhennet
Tuesday, May 27, 2008

BRUSSELS: On the street, Malika El Aroud is anonymous in an Islamic black veil covering all but her eyes.

In her living room, El Aroud, a 48-year-old Belgian, wears the ordinary look of middle age: a plain black T-shirt and pants and curly brown hair. The only adornment is a pair of powder-blue slippers monogrammed in gold with the letters SEXY.

But it is on the Internet that El Aroud has distinguished herself. Writing in French under the name Oum Obeyda, she has transformed herself into one of the most prominent Internet jihadists in Europe.

She calls herself a female holy warrior for Al Qaeda. She insists that she does not disseminate instructions on bomb-making and has no intention of taking up arms herself. Rather, she browbeats Muslim men to go and fight, and rallies women to join the cause.

“It’s not my role to set off bombs – that’s ridiculous,” she said in a rare interview. “I have a weapon. It’s to write. It’s to speak out. That’s my jihad. You can do many things with words. Writing is also a bomb.”

El Aroud has not only made a name for herself among devotees of radical forums where she broadcasts her message of hatred toward the West. She also is well known to intelligence officials throughout Europe as simply “Malika” – an Islamist who is at the forefront of the movement by women to take a larger role in the male-dominated global jihad.

The authorities have noted an increase in suicide bombings carried out by women – the American military reports that 18 women have conducted suicide missions in Iraq so far this year, compared with 8 all of last year – but they say there is also a less violent yet potentially more insidious army of women organizers, proselytizers, teachers, translators and fund-raisers, who either join their husbands in the fight or step into the breach as men are jailed or killed.

“Women are coming of age in jihad and are entering a world once reserved for men,” said Claude Moniquet, president of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center. “Malika is a role model, an icon who is bold enough to use her own name. She plays a very important strategic role as a source of inspiration. She’s very clever – and extremely dangerous.”

El Aroud began her rise to prominence because of a man in her life. Two days before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, her husband carried out a bombing in Afghanistan that killed the anti-Taliban warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud at the behest of Osama bin Laden. Her husband was killed, and she took to the Internet as the widow of a martyr.

She remarried, and she and her new husband were convicted in Switzerland for operating pro-Qaeda Web sites. Now, according to the Belgian authorities, she is a suspect in what the authorities say they believe is a plot to carry out an attack in Belgium.

“Vietnam is nothing compared to what awaits you in our lands,” she wrote to a supposed Western audience in March about wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Ask your mothers, your wives to order your coffins.” To her followers she added: “Victory is appearing on the horizon, my brothers and sisters. Let’s intensify our prayers.”

Her prolific writing and presence in chat rooms, coupled with her background, makes her a magnet for praise and sympathy. “Sister Oum Obeyda is virtuous among the virtuous; her life is dedicated to the good on this earth,” a man named Juba wrote late last year.

The rise of women comes against a backdrop of discrimination that has permeated radical Islam. Mohamed Atta, the Sept. 11 hijacker, wrote in his will that “women must not be present at my funeral or go to my grave at any later date.” Last month, Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s second in command, said in an online question-and-answer session that women could not join Al Qaeda.

In response, a woman wrote on a password-protected radical Web site that “the answer that we heard was not what we had hoped,” according to the SITE monitoring group, adding, “I swear to God I will never leave the path and will not give up this course.”

The changing role of women in the movement is particularly apparent in Western countries, where Muslim women have been educated to demand their rights and Muslim men are more accustomed to treating them as equals.

El Aroud reflects that trend. “Normally in Islam the men are stronger than the women, but I prove that it is important to fear God – and no one else,” she said. “It is important that I am a woman. There are men who don’t want to speak out because they are afraid of getting into trouble. Even when I get into trouble, I speak out.”

After all, she said, she knows the rules. “I write in a legal way,” she said. “I know what I’m doing. I’m Belgian. I know the system.”

That system has often been lenient for her. She was detained last December with 13 others in a suspected plot to free a convicted terrorist from prison and to mount an attack in Brussels. But Belgian law required that they be released within 24 hours because no charges were brought and searches failed to turn up weapons, explosives or incriminating documents.

Now, even as El Aroud remains under constant surveillance, she is back home rallying militants on her Web site – and collecting more than $1,100 a month in government unemployment benefits.

“Her jihad is not to lead an operation but to inspire other people to wage jihad,” said Glenn Audenaert, the director of Belgium’s federal police force. “She enjoys the protection that Belgium offers. At the same time, she is a potential threat.”

Born in Morocco, raised from a young age in Belgium, El Aroud did not seem destined for the jihad.

Growing up, she rebelled against her Muslim upbringing, she wrote in a memoir. Her first marriage, at 18, was unhappy and brief; she later bore a daughter out of wedlock.

She was unable to read Arabic, but her discovery of the Koran in French led her to embrace a strict version of Islam and eventually to marry Abdessatar Dahmane, a Tunisian loyal to Osama bin Laden.

Eager to be a battlefield warrior, she hoped to fight alongside her husband in Chechnya. But the Chechens “wanted experienced men, super-well trained,” she said. “They wanted women even less.” In 2001, she followed her husband to Afghanistan. As he trained at a Qaeda camp, she was installed in a camp for foreign women in Jalalabad.

For her, the Taliban were a model Islamic government; reports of their mistreatment of women were untrue. “Women didn’t have problems under the Taliban,” she insisted. “They had security.”

Her only rebellion was against the burka, the restrictive garment the Taliban forced on women, which she called “a plastic bag.” As a foreigner, she was allowed to wear a long black veil instead.

After her husband’s mission, El Aroud was briefly detained by Massoud’s followers. Frightened, she was put in contact with the Belgian authorities, who arranged for her safe passage home.

“We got her out and thought she’d cooperate with us,” said one senior Belgian intelligence official. “We were deceived.”

Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, who was France’s senior counterterrorism magistrate at the time, said he interviewed El Aroud because investigators suspected that she had shipped electronic equipment to her husband that was used in the killing. “She is very radical, very sly and very dangerous,” he said.

El Aroud was tried with 22 others in Belgium for complicity in the Massoud murder. A grieving widow in a black veil, she persuaded the court that she had been doing humanitarian work and knew nothing of her husband’s plans. She was acquitted for lack of evidence.

Her husband’s death, though, propelled her into a new life. “The widow of a martyr is very important for Muslims,” she said.

She used her enhanced status to meet her new “brothers and sisters” on the Web. One of them was Moez Garsalloui, a Tunisian several years her junior who had political refugee status in Switzerland. They married and moved to a small Swiss village. There, they ran several pro-Qaeda Web sites and Internet forums that were monitored by Swiss authorities as part of the country’s first Internet-related criminal case.

After the police raided their home and arrested them at dawn in April 2005, El Aroud described extensively what she called their abuse.

“See what this country that calls us neutral made us suffer,” she wrote, claiming that the Swiss police beat and blindfolded her husband and manhandled her while she was sleeping unveiled.

Convicted last June of promoting violence and supporting a criminal organization, she received a six-month suspended sentence; Garsalloui, who was convicted of more serious charges, was released after 23 days.

Despite El Aroud’s prominence, it is once again her husband whom authorities view as a bigger threat. They suspect he was recruiting for the feared Christmastime attacks last December and that he has connections to terror groups operating in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

The authorities say that they lost track of him after he was released from jail last year in Switzerland. “He is on a trip,” El Aroud says cryptically when asked about her husband’s whereabouts. “On a trip.”

Meanwhile, her stature has risen with her claims of victimization by the Swiss. The Web site Voice of the Oppressed described her as “our female holy warrior of the 21st century.”

El Aroud’s latest tangle with the law hints at a deeper involvement of women in terror activities. When she was detained last December in the suspected plot to free Nizar Trabelsi, a convicted terrorist and a one-time professional soccer player, El Aroud was one of three women taken in for questioning.

Although the identities of those detained were not released, the Belgian authorities and others familiar with the case said that among those detained were Trabelsi’s wife and Fatima Aberkan, a friend of El Aroud and a 47-year-old mother of seven.

“Malika is a source of inspiration for women because she is telling women to stop sleeping and open their eyes,” Aberkan said.

El Aroud operates from her three-room apartment above a clothing shop in a working-class Brussels neighborhood where she spends her time communicating with supporters on her main forum, Minbar-SOS.

Although she insists she is not breaking the law, she knows the police are watching. And if the authorities find way to put her in prison, she said: “That would be great. They would make me a living martyr.”

Basil Katz contributed reporting from Paris.

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Wetenschapsagenda – Dynamics of islamic culture – www.ru.nl

Posted on May 15th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: (Upcoming) Events, ISIM/RU Research.

Wetenschapsagenda – Dynamics of islamic culture – www.ru.nl

De afdeling Arabisch & Islam van de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen houdt vrijdag 16 mei 2008 het seminar ‘Dynamics of Islamic Culture’ , waarin leden van haar onderzoeksgroep hun onderzoek presenteren. Met prof. Martin van Bruinessen als gastspreker en bijdragen van masterstudenten van Arabisch en Religiewetenschappen.

De toegang tot de sessies is gratis en vrij toegankelijk.

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Al-yaqeen – 'Opheldering na commotie rondom Marcouch en mij'

Posted on April 28th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research.

Al-yaqeen

Recente verklaring imam Fawaz

Ter verduidelijking van mijn intentie in de brieven die ik heb gericht aan Ahmed Marcouch welke gepubliceerd zijn op de website van al-Yaqeen en ter voorkoming van verkeerde interpretaties hiervan, heb ik besloten een verduidelijking hierover te geven. Aangezien een aantal personen vraagtekens plaatst achter de bedoeling van deze brieven.

Allereerst wil ik duidelijk maken dat mijn eerste brief in geen enkel opzicht een fatwa is, zoals ik meerdere malen kenbaar heb gemaakt. Ik heb slechts een weerlegging geschreven en mijn ongenoegen geuit op de gedane uitspraken van Marcouch bij de omroep NMO.

Mijn kritiek hieromtrent heb ik opgenomen in mijn tweede brief met als titel “Vrijheid en gelijkheid tussen menselijke filosofie en de Goddelijke openbaring” waarin ik heb getracht een gedetailleerdere uitleg te geven aan deze kritiek. Nogmaals, het gaat hier om kritiek en ik heb in geen enkel opzicht de heer Marcouch bestempeld als hypocriet of afvallige.

Om elke vorm van misvatting van mijn woorden teniet te doen, heb ik besloten mijn eerste brief van het internet af te halen en genoegen te nemen met mijn tweede brief als uiting van mijn kritiek.

Ook vraag ik mijn broeders en zusters die mijn eerste brief hebben verspreid over internetsites en -fora, om deze te verwijderen en zich toe te spitsen op de tweede brief. Tevens adviseer ik een ieder ten stelligste om afstand te nemen van elke vorm van geweld en agressie tegen onze medemensen. Wij zullen immers trachten middels het voeren van debatten en het aangaan van gesprekken onze standpunten en argumenten kenbaar te maken.

Evenzeer leggen wij de nadruk op het feit dat wij elke vorm van provocatie, geweld of agressie jegens een ieder die er een andere mening of credo op na houdt, openlijk en uitdrukkelijk scherp veroordelen.

Sheich Fawaz Jneid

26 april 2008

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Al-yaqeen – ‘Opheldering na commotie rondom Marcouch en mij’

Posted on April 28th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research.

Al-yaqeen

Recente verklaring imam Fawaz

Ter verduidelijking van mijn intentie in de brieven die ik heb gericht aan Ahmed Marcouch welke gepubliceerd zijn op de website van al-Yaqeen en ter voorkoming van verkeerde interpretaties hiervan, heb ik besloten een verduidelijking hierover te geven. Aangezien een aantal personen vraagtekens plaatst achter de bedoeling van deze brieven.

Allereerst wil ik duidelijk maken dat mijn eerste brief in geen enkel opzicht een fatwa is, zoals ik meerdere malen kenbaar heb gemaakt. Ik heb slechts een weerlegging geschreven en mijn ongenoegen geuit op de gedane uitspraken van Marcouch bij de omroep NMO.

Mijn kritiek hieromtrent heb ik opgenomen in mijn tweede brief met als titel “Vrijheid en gelijkheid tussen menselijke filosofie en de Goddelijke openbaring” waarin ik heb getracht een gedetailleerdere uitleg te geven aan deze kritiek. Nogmaals, het gaat hier om kritiek en ik heb in geen enkel opzicht de heer Marcouch bestempeld als hypocriet of afvallige.

Om elke vorm van misvatting van mijn woorden teniet te doen, heb ik besloten mijn eerste brief van het internet af te halen en genoegen te nemen met mijn tweede brief als uiting van mijn kritiek.

Ook vraag ik mijn broeders en zusters die mijn eerste brief hebben verspreid over internetsites en -fora, om deze te verwijderen en zich toe te spitsen op de tweede brief. Tevens adviseer ik een ieder ten stelligste om afstand te nemen van elke vorm van geweld en agressie tegen onze medemensen. Wij zullen immers trachten middels het voeren van debatten en het aangaan van gesprekken onze standpunten en argumenten kenbaar te maken.

Evenzeer leggen wij de nadruk op het feit dat wij elke vorm van provocatie, geweld of agressie jegens een ieder die er een andere mening of credo op na houdt, openlijk en uitdrukkelijk scherp veroordelen.

Sheich Fawaz Jneid

26 april 2008

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Protected: Imams kraken hun critici online – DePers.nl

Posted on April 25th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Public Islam.

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Jordan releases Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi | Reuters

Posted on March 14th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Religious Movements.

Jordan releases leading al Qaeda mentor | Reuters
Jordan releases leading al Qaeda mentor
Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:34am EDT

AMMAN (Reuters) – Jordanian authorities on Wednesday released Jordanian Sheikh Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi, a leading al-Qaeda mentor, after several years imprisonment without trial, security sources said.They said Maqdisi, who was regarded as the spiritual mentor of slain al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been in solitary confinement since he was rearrested in July 2005 following his acquittal at a trial of al Qaeda sympathizers.

“He was released,” said one security source without elaborating on the circumstances of the release of Maqdisi.

The militant Jihadi shared a cell block with Zarqawi for four years between 1995 and 1999. Both were freed in an amnesty. Zarqawi later went to Afghanistan then Iraq.

U.S. intelligence officials say Maqdisi is a major Jihadi mentor who wields more influence over Islamist ideology than leading militants such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri.

A study by a private think tank of the U.S. military academy West Point in 2006 described Maqdisi, a self-taught religious intellectual, as the most influential living Islamist mentor. (Writing by Suleiman al-Khalidi; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)

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Jordan releases Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi | Reuters

Posted on March 14th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Religious Movements.

Jordan releases leading al Qaeda mentor | Reuters
Jordan releases leading al Qaeda mentor
Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:34am EDT

AMMAN (Reuters) – Jordanian authorities on Wednesday released Jordanian Sheikh Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi, a leading al-Qaeda mentor, after several years imprisonment without trial, security sources said.They said Maqdisi, who was regarded as the spiritual mentor of slain al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been in solitary confinement since he was rearrested in July 2005 following his acquittal at a trial of al Qaeda sympathizers.

“He was released,” said one security source without elaborating on the circumstances of the release of Maqdisi.

The militant Jihadi shared a cell block with Zarqawi for four years between 1995 and 1999. Both were freed in an amnesty. Zarqawi later went to Afghanistan then Iraq.

U.S. intelligence officials say Maqdisi is a major Jihadi mentor who wields more influence over Islamist ideology than leading militants such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri.

A study by a private think tank of the U.S. military academy West Point in 2006 described Maqdisi, a self-taught religious intellectual, as the most influential living Islamist mentor. (Writing by Suleiman al-Khalidi; Editing by Ibon Villelabeitia)

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Protected: Nederlands Dagblad – Imam: Geert Wilders moet vooral Allah vrezen

Posted on March 8th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Misc. News, Religious Movements.

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Protected: ‘Nederland moslimstaat maken’ – Binnenland – Telegraaf.nl [24 uur actueel, ook mobiel] [binnenland]

Posted on January 24th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Religious Movements.

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Protected: 'Nederland moslimstaat maken' – Binnenland – Telegraaf.nl [24 uur actueel, ook mobiel] [binnenland]

Posted on January 24th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Religious Movements.

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Rechtspraak.nl – uitspraak hofstadzaak

Posted on January 23rd, 2008 by .
Categories: International Terrorism, ISIM/RU Research, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, My Research, Religious and Political Radicalization.

Rechtspraak.nl – uitspraak hofstadzaak
Hof: ‘Hofstadgroep’ geen terroristische organisatie

De strafkamer van het Gerechtshof ’s-Gravenhage heeft vandaag in hoger beroep uitspraak gedaan in de zogenoemde “Hofstadzaak”.

Het hof heeft – anders dan de Rechtbank in eerste aanleg -geoordeeld dat er bij de Hofstadgroep geen sprake is van een criminele en terroristische organisatie, omdat er geen duurzaam en gestructureerd samenwerkingsverband kon worden vastgesteld en evenmin een gemeenschappelijk gedeelde ideologie. Ook was er volgens het hof geen sprake van dat de verdachten als groep het oogmerk hadden geweldsfeiten of opruiingsdelicten te begaan. Alle verdachten zijn dan ook vrijgesproken van deelname aan een criminele en terroristische organisatie.

Jason W. is door het hof wel veroordeeld tot 15 jaar cel voor het gooien van een handgranaat naar leden van het arrestatieteam van de Politie Den Haag en het in zijn bezit hebben van meerdere handgranaten. Ismail A. is van het medeplegen van het gooien van de handgranaat vrijgesproken, maar wel tot 15 maanden gevangenisstraf veroordeeld voor het in zijn bezit hebben van handgranaten. Volgens het hof kan niet bewezen worden dat Ismail A. van tevoren een afspraak had gemaakt dat Jason W. de handgranaat zou gooien. Het hof vond niet bewezen dat Jason W. en Ismail A. de handgranaten in hun bezit hadden met de bedoeling daar terroristische daden mee te plegen. Ook het gooien van de handgranaat door Jason W. is volgens het hof geen terroristische daad geweest, omdat niet bewezen kan worden dat hij dat heeft gedaan met als doel de bevolking erge vrees aan te jagen.

Het openbaar ministerie (OM) eiste eerder veroordeling van de Hofstadverdachten voor deelname aan een criminele en terroristische organisatie tot celstraffen van 22 maanden tot 2 jaar. Tegen Jason W. en Ismail A. had het OM een celstraf van 18 jaar geëist voor deelname aan de Hofstadgroep en het gooien van de handgranaat als terroristische daad. In maart 2006 oordeelde de Rechtbank Rotterdam dat de Hofstadgroep wel een criminele en terroristische organisatie was en veroordeelde de verdachten tot celstraffen van één tot vijf jaar. Jason W. werd daarnaast ook veroordeeld voor het gooien van de handgranaat en het in zijn bezit hebben van handgranaten en kreeg 15 jaar celstraf. Ismail A. werd ook veroordeeld voor het medeplegen van het gooien van de handgranaat en het in het bezit hebben van handgranaten en kreeg 13 jaar celstraf.

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Toevalligerwijs in een slechte actiefilm – de Volkskrant

Posted on January 19th, 2008 by .
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Murder on theo Van Gogh and related issues, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

Toevalligerwijs in een slechte actiefilm – New Articles – de Volkskrant
Toevalligerwijs in een slechte actiefilm

Door Janny Groen en Annieke Kranenberg

De laatste keer dat Rachid zijn beste vriend sprak, maakten ze ’s avonds na elven een wandeling rond de Sloterplas in Amsterdam-West. Ze waren met z’n drieën: Rachid, Mohammed B. en een buurjongen. De drie kenden elkaar uit dezelfde betonnen flat in de Hart Nibbrigstraat. Ze spraken over vroeger, toen ze nog jong en onbezonnen waren. Rachid moest lachen. Mohammed niet. Hij was heel stil, herinnert Rachid zich. ‘Mohammed vond dat de groep niet serieus bezig was met het geloof. Ik zei dat ik voortaan beter mijn best zou doen zijn leer te begrijpen.’ Zo namen ze afscheid.

De volgende dag, op 2 november 2004, hoorde Rachid van zijn broertje dat Theo van Gogh was vermoord. Hij zette de televisie aan en hoorde het signalement van de dader: baard, bril, djellaba. Rachid dacht onwillekeurig aan zijn vriend, maar verwierp die gedachte weer snel. (more…)

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EGYPT: Islamist Draft Manifesto Stirs Controversy

Posted on January 4th, 2008 by .
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Religious Movements.

EGYPT: Islamist Draft Manifesto Stirs Controversy

By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani

CAIRO, Dec 7 (IPS) – For the last several months, politicians of all stripes have awaited release of the Muslim Brotherhood movement’s political party manifesto. According to spokesmen for the group, the document is intended to clarify the positions of the Muslim Brotherhood — Egypt’s largest opposition force — on a range of issues.

“The party programme aims to explain the Brotherhood’s reform project,” Saad al-Din al-Kitatni, leader of the group’s bloc in parliament, was quoted as saying in late October. “It will serve to clarify the Islamic basis on which we hope to eventually establish an official political party.”

The Muslim Brotherhood was first established in the 1920s but has been officially banned since 1954. While the group remains formally outlawed, its members can run as nominal independents in parliamentary elections.

In late 2005, the Brotherhood scored a surprise victory in a hotly contested parliamentary race. Despite widespread electoral fraud by the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) of President Hosni Mubarak, the Islamist group captured a total of 88 parliamentary seats — roughly a fifth of the otherwise NDP-dominated assembly.

Over the course of the last year, however, the Muslim Brotherhood has become subject to an ongoing campaign of arrests by police and vilification in the official media.

In December of 2006, a small rally held by Brotherhood-affiliated students was depicted by the state press as the advent of an “Islamic militia”. Since then, more than 300 of the group’s members have been arrested on various charges.

Early this year, 40 of the movement’s leaders were referred by presidential decree to a military tribunal where they currently face charges of “financing the activities of a banned group.” The move came in tandem with constitutional changes granting the President broad powers of arrest, including authority to refer suspected “terrorists” to military courts.

Along with threats of incarceration, the Muslim Brotherhood also faces mounting criticism from civil society and secular opposition figures. They claim that — despite the group’s significant parliamentary presence — its political agenda remains largely unknown.

In August, under pressure to provide a degree of insight into its policy orientations, the group’s leadership distributed a preliminary draft of its official party manifesto. Hoping to avoid unnecessary controversy, only a select handful of academics and civil society figures received copies of the document.

Despite this precaution, however, contents of the draft were soon leaked to the local press. In the ensuing debate, critics seized upon two aspects of the document, which, they claimed, confirmed the “undemocratic” nature of the Islamist movement. (more…)

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What does it mean to be Muslim in Morocco ? | sur Jeunes Du Maroc, Portail des Jeunes

Posted on December 14th, 2007 by .
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Morocco, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

What does it mean to be Muslim in Morocco ? | sur Jeunes Du Maroc, Portail des Jeunes

The Moroccan constitution updated in 1996 states that people who are born in Morocco are by tradition Muslims- 85% to 90% are Sunnis

(Lamchichi, 1995, p.239). It implies that Moroccan citizens are not religiously free and have no choice in term of religion direction while it represents a public affair, yet it should private. According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s dictionary, “religion is one of the systems of faith that are based on the belief in the existence of a particular god or gods”. In reality, Moroccans do not follow Islam’s precepts and rules because of the educational system, the western influence, and the cult’s freedom. In fact, for example, in the Islamic religion as it is written is the Koran, the sacred book for Muslims, it is prohibited to have premarital relations for both men and women and it is forbidden to drink wine. However, Moroccans do it without paying attention to Islam and society. Also, politically, some Moroccans believe that the increasing of the Islamic party, PJD, is going to be a disaster since they strongly believe that they will live in the same context that people lived in Iran during 1979. All these ideas give no homogenous religious identity – in accordance with Oxford Advanced Learner’s dictionary “who or what somebody or something is”- to Moroccans. Indeed, what does it mean to be Muslim in Morocco ? I will try to propose a possible answer to this question in six parts : first, Moroccans’ points of view through a survey, second the conception of Islam by Moroccan intellectuals, third the ideas of famous figures in Muslim World, fourth foreign authors’ point of view, fifth the feedback of a seminar organized by a scholar group HEM (High Studies of Management), and finally position of Moroccan government about Moroccan citizens’ religious identity.

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What does it mean to be Muslim in Morocco ? | sur Jeunes Du Maroc, Portail des Jeunes

Posted on December 14th, 2007 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Morocco, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

What does it mean to be Muslim in Morocco ? | sur Jeunes Du Maroc, Portail des Jeunes

The Moroccan constitution updated in 1996 states that people who are born in Morocco are by tradition Muslims- 85% to 90% are Sunnis

(Lamchichi, 1995, p.239). It implies that Moroccan citizens are not religiously free and have no choice in term of religion direction while it represents a public affair, yet it should private. According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s dictionary, “religion is one of the systems of faith that are based on the belief in the existence of a particular god or gods”. In reality, Moroccans do not follow Islam’s precepts and rules because of the educational system, the western influence, and the cult’s freedom. In fact, for example, in the Islamic religion as it is written is the Koran, the sacred book for Muslims, it is prohibited to have premarital relations for both men and women and it is forbidden to drink wine. However, Moroccans do it without paying attention to Islam and society. Also, politically, some Moroccans believe that the increasing of the Islamic party, PJD, is going to be a disaster since they strongly believe that they will live in the same context that people lived in Iran during 1979. All these ideas give no homogenous religious identity – in accordance with Oxford Advanced Learner’s dictionary “who or what somebody or something is”- to Moroccans. Indeed, what does it mean to be Muslim in Morocco ? I will try to propose a possible answer to this question in six parts : first, Moroccans’ points of view through a survey, second the conception of Islam by Moroccan intellectuals, third the ideas of famous figures in Muslim World, fourth foreign authors’ point of view, fifth the feedback of a seminar organized by a scholar group HEM (High Studies of Management), and finally position of Moroccan government about Moroccan citizens’ religious identity.

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Middle East Report 245: Imagined Youths by Ted Swedenburg

Posted on December 14th, 2007 by .
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

Middle East Report 245: Imagined Youths by Ted Swedenburg

Youth in the Middle East are burdened with authoritarian states, corruption and nepotism that circumscribe their life chances, as well as structural socio-economic crisis stemming from the failures of state-led development and the systemic inequalities of global capitalism. Not the least of their burdens, however, are the expectations and imprecations generated by the “youth” of the elite imagination. In the manner of youth everywhere, young Middle Easterners can be expected to heed the paternalism of their governments and the projections of outsiders unevenly at best, as they strive to fulfill their own aspirations, whether they are emancipatory, mundane or somewhere in between.

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Middle East Report 245: Young Brothers in Cyberspace by Marc Lynch

Posted on December 14th, 2007 by .
Categories: Blogosphere, ISIM/RU Research, Religious Movements.

Middle East Report 245: Young Brothers in Cyberspace by Marc Lynch

An older Muslim Brother blogger, Ahmad ‘Abd al-‘Ati, came out in favor of the fourth generation’s openness: “The blogs represent a sign of success despite the fears of others that they have crossed the line…. Exchanging ideas is not a divide between generations and differences of opinion are not divisions.”[28] This is an opinion from which young bloggers like Rashwan take heart. Yet Deputy Guide Muhammad Habib seems bent on squelching talk of “generations” or “trends” out of concern that it could be used to weaken the Brothers.[29]

Some skeptics dismiss the blogs as a public relations stratagem. That may have been partly true at the outset, particularly as regards the blogging campaigns in support of the al-Azhar students and to secure the release of the Brotherhood’s imprisoned leaders. But their emergence as an independent force among the Brothers is something altogether different. The bloggers of the Muslim Brothers represent a growing intellectual and political force within the movement that could, over time, help tip it in a reformist direction. But they face considerable challenges: a leadership wary of change, a regime increasingly prone to arresting troublesome Internet activists and a salafi counter-trend that could well take the Muslim Brothers in another direction entirely. How much impact the blogging Brothers can really have remains to be seen, but at the least they represent a new dynamic in the world of Islamism and Arab politics, and offer a striking new window upon the internal life of the Muslim Brotherhood.

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Terrorize your lyrics – Suspended sentence for Samina Malik

Posted on December 7th, 2007 by martijn.
Categories: International Terrorism, ISIM/RU Research, Public Islam, Religious and Political Radicalization.

Suspended sentence for the ‘lyrical terrorist’ – Independent Online Edition > Crime

The Crown Prosecution Service said: “Samina Malik was not prosecuted for writing poetry. She was convicted of collecting information, without reasonable excuse, of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

“She claimed in her defence that she was ‘a lyrical terrorist’ who wrote poetry which ‘did not mean anything’, but this was rejected by the jury.”

Another blow for civil liberties

This case shows the increasing encroachment of the criminal law on civil liberties since 9/11 and 7/7.

Salima Malik’s conviction was secured under the widely drawn Terrorism Act 2000 which makes it an offence to be in possession of written material likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

But in describing her actions as on the margin of the criminal law the judge appeared to be signalling that Labour’s anti-terror laws trod a very fine line between protecting the public from terrorism and curbing the right to freedom of expression.

Her conviction has been seized on by civil libertarians, who have complained that Labour has brought in a number of offences that amount to a threat to the rights of free expression.

Liberty, the human rights group, says free speech is a victim of the war on terror, with offences of “encouragement” and “glorification” of terrorism threatening to make careless talk a crime.

Robert Verkaik, Law Editor

Today several weblogs have the Samina Malik day in order to stand up for free speech in general and her case in particular. See here and here and also here for an earlier post of mine on this issue.

1 comment.

How to Look at Homegrown Terror – TIME

Posted on November 21st, 2007 by .
Categories: International Terrorism, ISIM/RU Research, Religious and Political Radicalization, Religious Movements.

How to Look at Homegrown Terror – TIME

How to Look at Homegrown Terror
By Amanda Ripley

The most sophisticated government analysis of the homegrown terrorism threat to be made public in the United States came out this week, and it didn’t come from Washington — not from the FBI, the Director of National Intelligence or the Department of Homeland Security. It came from the New York City Police Department, and with any luck, its release will spur the federal government ostensibly leading the war on terror to show more faith in the general public’s ability to digest serious intelligence.

The report, entitled “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,” makes several important and underappreciated points.

— There is no useful profile to predict who will become radicalized. Most would-be terrorists are “unremarkable men” living “unremarkable lives.” They don’t have criminal histories, and they don’t always gather at mosques.

— They do, however, follow remarkably similar behavior patterns. Participants in 11 anti-Western terrorism plots analyzed in the report all went through four stages on the path from unremarkable to violent: Pre-radicalization, Self-identification, Indoctrination and Jihadization.

The report isn’t perfect. The phrase “Jihadization” is problematic, and has already alienated some of the Muslim-American leaders who should be included in this conversation. Nor is it all new. Some of these points have been made before by respected counterterrorism scholars. But the fact that it came from a government organization, not a think tank, and that it struggles mightily not to dumb down its content, makes it exceptional.

“It’s remarkable to me that one of the first public reports on radicalization to get it right came from a police department,” says Chris Heffelfinger, a counterterrorism expert with the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point. “Our preconception is that it should come from the top, from the White House, [but] I don’t think the CIA or any other analytic agency has better stuff than this.”

The authors, Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt, of the NYPD’s intelligence division, spent months traveling the world and systematically analyzing the facts: who has participated in foiled and realized plots against the West? Where did they meet? What motivated them? And how did they go from being regular people, often citizens of Western nations, to radical violent extremists?

“This was a triumph of sensible men working very, very hard to get a good understanding of how this process works and determined, despite the risks, to get it out into the public,” says Brian Jenkins, a veteran counterterrorism expert at the RAND Corporation who was also a consultant on the report.

The NYPD has, since 9/11, built up one of the most impressive intelligence organizations in the world. The Department has officers based in the U.K., Israel and Europe, among other places. It also has hundreds of linguists who speak Farsi, Arabic and Urdu. Its intelligence division is led by David Cohen, who spent 35 years at the CIA.

In the past, the NYPD has been criticized for not sharing its intelligence widely, and it could have easily kept this report private and still reached its primary audience of law-enforcement officials. But it chose not to. “The NYPD knew it was going to draw some flak, as anything pertaining to domestic intelligence does and should. But we’d rather have the public debate, as noisy and rude as it may be, than have frightened acquiescence,” Jenkins says. “Too much of the message to the American people has been a message of fear, without explanation. In order to really get this, we have to educate, engage and enlist the citizens.”

Of course, doing that has its own dangers, and once the Department made its findings public — after a road show in Washington to the powers that be — it quickly became clear why this kind of thing doesn’t happen as often as it should. First, the broadcast media mischaracterized the report. Certain TV news shows defaulted to their usual “be afraid, be very afraid” script and claimed the report described two dozen active sleeper cells in the U.S. In fact, it did no such thing. If you read the 90-page report, you will see that it is a retrospective analysis of past plots, conducted with meticulous attention to detail. It is not the vague warnings of imminent doom we have heard from the federal government in the past. But the local CBS affiliate in New York City described it as “chilling,” perhaps out of habit.

At the press conference announcing the findings, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and his counterterrorism team started out visibly proud of their report. But questions from the media forced Kelly to keep stressing the basics. Reporters wanted to know how many cells Kelly was watching in the New York area, and how frightened we should be. “That’s not what this is about,” he said.

By afternoon, American-Muslim organizations had issued press releases criticizing the report. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said it cast suspicion on all U.S. Muslims, even though the report repeatedly stresses that there is no obvious way to profile would-be terrorists. The Muslim Public Affairs council says the report contradicts the findings of the federal National Intelligence Estimate declassified last month. But that’s an oversimplification. The National Intelligence Estimate did put more emphasis on the threat of al-Qaeda, but both reports stressed the danger of radical, self-generating cells. The federal Estimate is put together by people whose focus is overseas, says Frank Cilluffo at the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University. The feds will never be as well-positioned as NYPD to understand the homegrown threat. “Ultimately, state and local authorities know their communities best.”

Perhaps one of the best things the report will do is create competitive pressure, Cilluffo suggests, spurring the feds and other police departments to greater feats of transparency and nuance. Historically, at the FBI and the Department of Justice in particular, intelligence is meant to be kept close, and the public is not to be trusted. Hopefully, the public and the NYPD will, eventually, prove them wrong.

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