French Court Rules In Favour Of Charlie Hebdo

Good news on the cartoon-jihad front.

Two Islamic groups tried to sue Charlie Hebdo, a French weekly newspaper, for publishing the dreaded motoons of blasphemy and supposedly "inciting hatred against Muslims". Fortunately, they lost the case.

BBC: [...] A French court has ruled in favour of weekly Charlie Hebdo, rejecting accusations by Islamic groups who said it incited hatred against Muslims.

The cartoons were covered by freedom of expression laws and were not an attack on Islam, but fundamentalists, it said.

The case was seen as an important test for freedom of expression in France.

Applause broke out in the courtroom at the announcement of the verdict, which ruled that the three cartoons published in February 2006 were not insulting to the Muslim community, the AFP news agency reports.

Editor Philippe Val had rejected the allegations, saying the cartoons were not an attack on Muslims, but on terrorists.

He said the ruling was a victory for secular French Muslims.

"This debate was necessary," he said.

The case had been brought by the Grand Mosque of Paris and the Union of French Islamic Organisations. [...]

Cartoon Jihad Continues

Charlie Hebdo, a French weekly newspaper, is being sued by two Islamic groups for publishing the dreaded motoons of blasphemy and hence "inciting hatred against Muslims".

Reuters: Danish cartoon row goes to French court next week

PARIS, (Reuters) - The row over Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad will be replayed in a French court next week when two influential Islamic groups sue a Paris satirical weekly for inciting hatred against Muslims by printing the caricatures. The two Muslim associations aim to show that reprinting the cartoons was a provocation equal to anti-Semitic acts or Holocaust denial that are already banned under French law, Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Paris Grand Mosque, said on Friday. The cartoons, originally published in 2005 in the Danish daily Jyllens-Posten (sic), provoked violent protests in Asia, Africa and the Middle East that left 50 people dead. Several European publications reprinted them as an affirmation of free speech. The weekly Charlie Hebdo, which put out a special edition with the cartoons, argued religions are not beyond criticism and letting Muslims censor the media would curtail a basic right. "Free speech is not the issue here. The issue is that, in France, racism is not an opinion, it is a crime," said Francis Szpiner, lawyer for the Grand Mosque, which has sued along with the Union of French Islamic Organisations (UOIF). "Two of those caricatures make a link between Muslims and Muslim terrorists. That has a name and it's called racism."

Here they go, playing the race card again. (Hint: Islam = not a race)

Also on LGF: The Cartoon Jihad's Legal Front

Update: Sarkozy is with Charlie Hebdo: "I prefer an excess of cartoons than the absence of cartoons".

So Much For The "Tiny Minority™" Of Muslim Extremists

Michael Freund is spot on with The straightforward arithmetic of jihad (h/t LGF).

It’s time we open our eyes and confront reality. Ever since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the media has sought to reassure us that only a tiny minority of Muslims actually support the use of violence against Israel and the West.

It’s just a small fringe, a marginal few at best, they tell us, so don’t worry about it all too much. One percent or three percent - who cares? Just sit back, enjoy your morning eggs and coffee and have a nice day.

But a look at the numbers tells a very different story. The extent of support for global jihad is frightening in its proportions, and the numbers are anything but insignificant.

Consider, for example, the following statistics regarding support for suicide bombings and other types of terror attacks.

In a poll conducted five months ago, and broadcast on Britain’s Channel 4 TV, nearly 25% of British Muslims said the July 7, 2005, terror bombings in London, which killed 52 innocent commuters, were justified. Another 30% said they would prefer to live under strict Islamic Sharia law rather than England’s democratic system.

Now, one in four justifying terror may not be a majority, but it certainly isn’t a “small fringe” either.

In other countries, the figures are no less unsettling. A survey published in December found that 44% of Nigerian Muslims believe suicide bombing attacks are “often” or “sometimes” acceptable. Only 28% said they were never justified.

According to the annual Pew Global Attitudes Survey, released in July 2006, “roughly one-in-seven Muslims in France, Spain and Great Britain feel that suicide bombings against civilian targets can at least sometimes be justified to defend Islam.” The report also found that less than half of Jordan’s Muslims believe terror attacks are never justified. In Egypt, only 45% of Muslims say terror is never justified.

Still think only a “tiny minority” are in favor of violence? (Read it all).

Demographic Trends Condemning Germany To Doom: Muslim State By 2050?

LifeSiteNews, via Jihad Watch:

BERLIN, Germany, November 9, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Germany’s downward spiral in population is no longer reversible, the country’s federal statistics office said Tuesday. The birthrate has dropped so low that immigration numbers cannot compensate.

“The fall in the population can no longer be stopped,” vice-president Walter Rademacher with the Federal Statistics Office said, reported Agence France-Presse.

Germany has the lowest birthrate in Europe, with an average of 1.36 children per woman. Despite government incentives to encourage larger families, the population is dropping rapidly and that trend will continue, with an expected loss of as much as 12 million by 2050. That would mean about a 15 percent drop from the country’s current population of 82.4 million, the German news source Deutsche Welle reported today.

The low birthrate will cause the German population to age dramatically over the next 40 years--last year there were 144,000 more deaths than births, and that number could increase to 600,000 by 2050, the FSO forecast stated.

With a 22 percent reduction in the workforce and increasing costs for senior assistance and medical care, the drop in population is expected to have a radical impact on the nation’s economy, along with the welfare budget....

Germany has one of the largest populations of Muslim immigrants in Western Europe, with a Muslim community of over 3 million. That trend is expected to continue, leading some demographic trend-watchers to warn that the country is well on the way to becoming a Muslim state by 2050, Deutsche Welle reported.

The Brussels Journal reported last month that one third of all European children will be born to Muslim families by 2025. There are an estimated 50 million Muslims living in Europe today--that number is expected to double over the next twenty years.

France Violence Update: 14 Attacks On Police Daily

The Telegraph via LGF:

Youths challenge the French state

Symbols of the French state, including policemen, firemen and postmen, are under intensified attack from disaffected youths as the country faces the worst race relations crisis in its history.

Hardly a night passes without gangs — many of them from immigrant families — attacking police cars, buses and emergency rescue teams.

Yesterday, the weekly magazine Le Nouvel Observateur published a confidential report drawn up by a public service trade union, the CGT, containing scores of eye-witness accounts of brutal attacks on public servants who work in the worst suburbs, or “banlieues”, from gas board workers to staff from the electricity company.

Its publication follows the revelation that attacks on police have soared this year, with some 14 a day, and a growing number of incidents in which officers have been lured into ambushes.

This has prompted a warning that the day France witnesses the lynching of a policeman is not far off.

The CGT report painted a graphic picture of violence: blocks of cement dropped on paramedic crews; washing machines pushed off balconies on to fire engines; electricity company agents too scared to cut off customers who have not paid bills, after being attacked with knives, guns and fists.

France: "Youths" Keep Torching Buses; Woman Suffers Severe Burns

Yahoo! News: PARIS (Reuters) - A woman in the southern city of Marseille suffered severe burns when vandals set fire to a bus she was traveling on, a police source said on Saturday.

The attack occurred as France marked the first anniversary of riots that scarred the country's poor suburbs, inhabited largely by immigrants.

Vandals have set at least six buses on fire in suburbs around Paris this week in an upsurge of violence ahead of the anniversary, but there have been no injuries.

The police source said an unknown number of people forced their way on to the bus in Marseille at about 9.00 p.m. (1900 GMT) and set fire to it before a 26-year-old woman could escape.

"The woman's life is in danger," the source said.

Three other people needed treatment for smoke inhalation.

More recent news on what has almost become a French "youths" national sport:

• 2 public buses torched in Paris suburb
• Youths Torch Buses Around Paris
• Jihad Watch: Rioting "youths" burn hundreds of cars in France
• LGF: France Relatively Calm - 200 Cars Torched Saturday Night

France: 112 Cars Torched Every Day

The joy of multiculturalism at work in France:

Why 112 cars are burning every day

FLAMES lick around a burning car on a tiny telephone screen. Omar, 17, a veteran of France’s suburban riots, replayed the sequence with pride. “It was great. We did lots of them and then we went out and torched more the next day.”

Omar, whose parents immigrated from Mali, was savouring memories of the revolt that erupted 12 months ago from his home, the Chêne Pointu estate in Clichy-sous-Bois, in the eastern outskirts of Paris. “We’re ready for it again. In fact it hasn’t stopped,” he added.

Before next week’s anniversary of the Clichy riots, the violence and despair on the estates are again to the fore. Despite a promised renaissance, little has changed, and the lid could blow at any moment.

The figures are stark. An average of 112 cars a day have been torched across France so far this year and there have been 15 attacks a day on police and emergency services. Nearly 3,000 police officers have been injured in clashes this year. Officers have been badly injured in four ambushes in the Paris outskirts since September. Some police talk of open war with youths who are bent on more than vandalism.

“The thing that has changed over the past month is that they now want to kill us,” said Bruno Beschizza, the leader of Synergie, a union to which 40 per cent of officers belong. Action Police, a hardline union, said: “We are in a civil war, orchestrated by radical Islamists.”

Car-burning has become so routine on the estates that it has been eclipsed in news coverage by the violence against police. Sebastian Roche, a sociologist who has published a book on the riots, said that torching a vehicle had become a standard amusement. “There is an apprenticeship of destruction. Kids learn where the petrol tank is, how to make a petrol bomb,” he told The Times.

Europe Waking Up?

It would be about time.

Moderate Europeans losing faith in Islam

IHT: BRUSSELS Europe appears to be crossing an invisible line regarding its Muslim minorities: More people in the political mainstream are arguing that Islam cannot be reconciled with European values.

"You saw what happened with the pope," said Patrick Goeman, 43, the owner of Raga, a funky wine bar in central Antwerp, half an hour outside Brussels. "He said Islam is an aggressive religion. And the next day they kill a nun somewhere and make his point.

"Rationality is gone."

Goeman is hardly an extremist. In fact, he organized a protest last week in which 20 bars and restaurants closed on the night when a far-right party with an anti-Muslim message held a rally nearby.

His worry is shared by centrists across Europe disturbed that any criticism of Islam or Muslim immigration provokes threats of violence.

For years, those who raised their voices were mostly on the far right. Now those normally seen as moderates - ordinary people as well as politicians - are asking whether once unquestioned values of tolerance and multiculturalism should have limits.

Jack Straw, the former British foreign secretary and prominent Labour Party politician, seemed to sum up the moment last week when he wrote that he felt uncomfortable addressing women whose faces were covered with a veil.

The veil, he wrote, is a "visible statement of separation and difference."

When Pope Benedict XVI made a speech last month that included a quotation calling aspects of Islam "evil and inhuman," Muslims berated him for stigmatizing their culture, while non-Muslims applauded him for bravely speaking a hard truth.

[...] The worries about extremism are real. A far-right party, Vlaams Belang, took 20.5 percent of the vote in Belgian city elections on Sunday, five percentage points higher than in 2000. But in Antwerp, its base, its performance barely improved, suggesting to some experts that its power might be peaking.

In Austria this month, right-wing parties also did well, on a campaign promise that had rarely been made openly: that Austria should start to deport its immigrants.

Vlaams Belang, too, has suggested "repatriation" for immigrants who do not made greater efforts to integrate.

The idea is unthinkable to mainstream leaders, but many Muslims still fear that the day - or at least a debate on the topic - may be one terroristic attack away.

"I think the time will come," said Amir Shafe, 34, a Pakistani who earns a good living selling clothes at a market in Antwerp. He deplores terrorism and says he does not sense hostility in Belgium. But he said, "We are now thinking of going back to our country, before that time comes."

Many experts note the centuries of bloodily defining the boundaries of Christianity and Islam, including the Muslim conquest of Palestine in 635 and the subsequent Crusades, and the Moors' conquest of Spain and Portugal in the eighth century and the Christians' victory in 1492.

A sense of guilt over Europe's colonial past and then World War II, when intolerance exploded into mass murder, allowed a large migration to occur without any uncomfortable debates over the real differences between migrant and host.

Then the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, jolted Europe into new awareness and worry.

The subsequent Madrid and London transit bombings and the murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Dutch-born Muslim stand as examples of the extreme. But many Europeans - even those who generally support immigration - have begun talking more bluntly about cultural differences, specifically about Muslims' deep religious beliefs and social values, which are far more conservative than those of most Europeans on issues like women's rights and homosexuality.

"A lot of people, progressive ones - we are not talking about nationalists or the extreme right - are saying, 'Now we have this religion, it plays a role and it challenges our assumptions about what we learned in the '60s and '70s,'" said Joost Lagendijk, a Dutch member of the European Parliament for the Green Left Party who is active on Muslim issues.

"So there is this fear," he said, "that we are being transported back in a time machine where we have to explain to our immigrants that there is equality between men and women, and gays should be treated properly. Now there is the idea we have to do it again."

[...] Perhaps most wrenching has been the issue of free speech and expression, and the growing fear that any criticism of Islam could provoke violence.

In France last month, a secondary school teacher went into hiding after receiving death threats for writing an article calling the Prophet Muhammad "a merciless warlord, a looter, a mass murderer of Jews and a polygamist." In Germany, a Mozart opera with an additional scene showing the severed heads of Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha and Poseidon was canceled because of security fears.

With each incident, mainstream leaders are speaking more plainly.

"Self-censorship does not help us against people who want to practice violence in the name of Islam," Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said in criticizing the opera's cancellation. "It makes no sense to retreat."

The backlash is showing itself in other ways. Last month, the British home secretary, John Reid, called on Muslim parents to keep a close watch on their children. "There's no nice way of saying this," he told a Muslim group in East London. "These fanatics are looking to groom and brainwash children, including your children, for suicide bombing, grooming them to kill themselves to murder others."

France Sharia Watch: Girl Stoned For Not Observing Ramadan

Western Resistance: ... A truly horrific sign of the times comes from Lyon in the south of France, where a schoolgirl was stoned by Muslim students on Wednesday (October 4), for not following Ramadan.

....A schoolgirl of Jean Mermoz college in Lyon's eighth arrondissement (postal district) was pelted with stones on Wednesday morning in the playground because she ate a snack. The argument that the incident stemmed from the non-observance of Ramadan is confirmed by the Lyon prosecutor's office, based on initial results from its investigation.

Azzedine Gaci, president of the CRCM (Regional Council for the Muslim Religion) , states that "if the facts are proven, they are unacceptable". He deplores the ignorance of the pupils, who should be taught the Koran at school, and who are unaware that "women who are not feeling well" * are exempted from observing Ramadan.

As Robert Spencer of Dhimmi Watch notes, this "presumably means that if the schoolgirl is in good health, Gaci will be saying, "Stone away."

Death Threats Against French Prof For Article Critical Of Islam

In RoP Death Threats Against French Teacher, LGF reports that Robert Redeker, a French philosophy teacher, and his family have been forced into hiding after the newspaper Le Figaro printed an article critical of Islam written by Prof. Redeker. Death threats from RoPers soon followed, prompting the Redeker family to go into hiding.

This is the translation of the article from French, thanks to Fausta's blog!

In the face of Islamist intimidations, what is the free world to do?

The reactions generated by Pope Benedict XVI’s analysis on Islam and violence aim to continue Islam’s attempt to suppress what is most valuable in the West and which Muslim countries don’t have: freedoms of thought and expression. Islam tries to impose its rules on Europe : restricting public swimming pools at certain hours for women only, prohibition to caricature this religion, requiring the compliance of strict dietary rules for Muslim children in school lunchrooms, fighting for wearing the veil at school, and charges of islamophobia against those who are not like-minded.

How to explain the prohibition of the string bikini at the Paris-Beaches [translator’s note: for a few weeks in the summer the banks of the Seine are converted into a public “beach” in Paris, complete with sand] this summer? It was a strange argument: because of the risk of “disorders against law and order”. Did that mean that bands of frustrated young people were likely to become violent from the display of beauty? Or did one fear islamist demonstrations, via virtue brigades, within the Paris-Beaches?

However, allowing the wearing of the veil on the streets is, because of the support to the oppression of women that the veil signifies, more likely “to disturb the law and order” than the string bikini. One is not out of line in thinking that this gesture represents an Islamization of the French spirit, a submission more or less conscious to the tenets of Islam. Or, at the very least, that it results from an insidious Moslem pressure on the spirit. Islamization of the spirit: even those which protested against the inauguration of a Jean-Paul-II Square in Paris do not oppose to building mosques. Islam tries to force Europe to yield to its vision of man. Read it all.

Don't forget to read Death Threats in Brussels, France (Robert Redeker) from The Brussels Journal.

See also Jihad Watch: Writer of 'anti-Islam' article gets death threats

He "accused Islam of 'exalting violence,'" and they threaten to kill him. Doesn't anyone notice the irony here?

Dhimmitude, Islam and Christians

Eastern Christians, and Dhimmitude Under Islam (Spero News)

The Struggle with Islam: an eastern Christian perspective

[Editor’s note] The following article from the Byzantine Catholic Culture website should give plenty to ponder on the part of all those who seek to understand the genesis of islamo-fascism, as well as any contemplated convivium with Islamic countries. Eastern Christians, Orthodox and Catholic, have plenty of recent experience with Islamic culture and polity that needs to be heard by Westerners – Christian and non-Christian. Immigrants from Lebanon and Armenia, from Greece and Turkey, the Balkans, Syria and Iraq, Palestine and Egypt, all have stories of ethnic cleansing and centuries of oppression under Islamic rule. Hispanic culture too was profoundly marked by the centuries-long struggle with Islam on the Iberian Peninsula, too. The crusades actually began in Spain when the first Muslim invaders placed their feet on Spanish soil in 711. From then on, Spain and the Christian faith struggled under Muslim masters who at times were more or less congenial towards their infidel wards. The struggle continued until 1492, just weeks before Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas.

Those 700 years of struggle saw the intervention of other Christian nations such as France and England, as well as the person of Charlemagne himself, to rid the Iberian peninsula of “dhimmitude”. Catholics of the Byzantine or Mozarabic rite in Spain in some places lived alongside their Muslim masters and kept the Faith burning like a frail lamp that could be snuffed out at any moment. The result was a militant Catholic religion that was to make ultimately the fateful decision to demand One Faith under One King during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. Even though at times Muslim occupation brought technological and intellectual advances (taken from the formerly Christian Byzantine Empire), the bitterness of the struggle prevented any further melding of the cultures.

Lebanese Christian and Greek refugees from Ottoman and later Turkish oppression came to the US during the early 1900s to find the freedom of conscience that had been denied them at home. They fled massacres, enforced servitude, and the gathering up of their young people to serve in the Turk’s armies or harems. Besides Spain, Western Europe had experience with Muslim onslaughts, also. For example, Muslim pirates raided the coasts of Ireland, Iceland, England, and northern France during the 1700s with impunity and took hostages into slavery, forcing them to convert. But these events are lost to most people, especially Americans who have little experience with Islam. The Gulf War of the 1990s, and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are comparative turkey-shoots when seen in the historical context of Christianity’s struggles with Islam. The armies of Saddam Hussein and the ragtag Taliban offered comparatively little resistance. It is well to remember that Muslim armies were not always so inept: they got as far as three days’ march from Paris and once besieged the walls of Krakow and Vienna. The Middle East, and Africa, were Christian until the jihadi armies of Mohammed swept through and demanded conversion in exchange for the lives of the vanquished.

The current war, whether it is called a war against terrorism or to save “civilization” as President George W. Bush puts it, must be placed in the context of the previous struggles between Muslims and Christians. The experience of Eastern Christians is much more vital and deserves a hearing in the West. Yes, let us discuss with Muslims the difficulty they have in controlling islamo-fascists. But let us have returned to us the keys to the Hagia Sophia. – Martin Barillas, Religion news editor. (more)

The article is long but well worth the read.

Debbie from Right Truth posting for Freedom

"Offensive" Passport Picture Rejected

The Telegraph via LGF: Passport photograph of girl’s bare shoulders rejected ‘as it may offend’.

"A five-year-old girl's passport application was rejected because her photograph showed her bare shoulders.

Hannah Edwards's mother, Jane, was told that the exposed skin might be considered offensive in a Muslim country.

The photograph was taken at a photo-booth at a local post office for a family trip to the south of France.

Because of the way the camera was set up, the picture came out showing Hannah's shoulders.

A woman behind the counter informed them that she was aware of at least two other cases where applications had been rejected because a person's shoulders were not covered.

Mrs Edwards, a Sheffield GP, said: "I was incensed. I went back home and checked the form. Nowhere did it say anything about covering up shoulders. If it had, I would have done so, but it all seems so unnecessary.

"This is quite ridiculous, I followed the instructions on the passport form to the letter and it was still rejected. It is just officialdom pandering to political correctness.

"It is a total over-reaction. How can the shoulders of a five-year-old girl offend anyone?"

This is another interesting bit:

"A Post Office spokesman said: "Our offices have a Passport Office template which says what the photograph should and shouldn't be."Bare shoulders don't come into that at all. We can't see any instruction to that effect so all we can do is apologise to Mrs Edwards. It was clearly a mistake made by the clerk at the post office".

Possibly a Muslim?

Terror Plot Thwarted

****Scroll below for more updates****

UPDATE: CNN: Plane plot involved energy drink, MP3 player, official says

UPDATE (II): Terror plot was in "final stages"

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Terrorists planned to use MP3 players and energy drinks to blow up as many as 10 jetliners bound for the United States, authorities said Thursday.

A senior congressional source said it's believed the plotters planned to mix a "British version of Gatorade" with a gel-like substance to make an explosive that they would possibly trigger with an MP3 player or cell phone.

...Five suspects in the plot are still at large, ABC News, citing U.S. sources, reported on its Web site.

UPDATE (III): Five London Suspects Still at Large

UPDATE (IV): UK Agent Infiltrated Suspected Terror Cell That Plotted to Blow Up 10 Jetliners

Breaking from SkyNews: 'Mass Murder Terror Plot'

Security raised to 'critical'

Updated: 11:42, Thursday August 10, 2006

There is chaos at British airports after police disrupted a plot to cause "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" by blowing up planes over UK and US cities.

The explosives would have been smuggled aboard at least six airliners as hand luggage - and could have been missed during x-ray screening.

Speaking at Scotland Yard, Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson said he was confident the police had disrupted a plot "to cause mass murder on an unimaginable scale".

He said 21 people arrested in London, Birmingham and the Thames Valley were still being held - the culmination of a covert counter-terrorist operation lasting several months.

Queues at Heathrow

Big queues were building up at UK airports as passengers trying to board international flights were not being allowed to carry on normal hand luggage.

Security sources believe that liquid explosives would have been used which could have been mixed during the flight into a lethal concoction.

Sources in the United States have reported that three airlines targeted were United, American and Continental.

Sky News' Crime Correspondent Martin Brunt said those arrested were mainly young, British-born Asian men. [ed: Asian men = Muslims]

The Home Secretary John Reid said the official level of security - indicating public risk - had been raised from 'severe' to 'critical'.

Many flights were cancelled

The US government has also raised its threat assessment to the highest level for commercial flights from Britain to America.

Whitehall sources said the Prime Minister and President Bush had been in contact over the plot for some time.

There have been lengthy queues at most British airports with many flights hit, particularly Heathrow and Gatwick

All flights in and out of Heathrow were cancelled until 3pm - apart from those already in the air.

The British Airports Authority urged passengers not to travel unless absolutely necessary.

British Airways cancelled more than 200 flights from Heathrow.

Flights to Britain with Lufthansa, Iberia, Olympic, KLM and Air France were cancelled until later in the day.

:: Security experts said such an attack would have a precedent - during the 1990s, a plot was foiled to blow up 12 Western airliners simultaneously in Asia.

UPDATE:

ABCNews: More than 20 suspected terrorists were arrested in England by early Thursday morning, in an operation that involved British intelligence, Scotland Yard and assistance by a number of other law enforcement and intelligence agencies, including those in Pakistan.
Many of the alleged terror plotters appeared to be of Pakistani descent. It appears that they were probably "homegrown" terrorists with strong links to al Qaeda and Pakistani operatives.

Furthemore, I have found one journalist so far who is un-PC enough to mention the word "Muslim"!

Belfast Telegraph: Police have arrested 21 people, thought to be young British Muslims, in London, the Thames Valley area and Birmingham.

On the other hand, here's an example of an official choosing to bury his head in the sand instead:

CNS News: Scotland Yard official said the people involved in the plot are criminals and murderers. Although Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson would not identify the background of those arrested, he hinted that they were Muslims: "This is about people who might masquerade within a community, behind certain faiths."

When are these people going to face the reality that while not all Muslims are terrorists, all terrorists are Muslims? When will this ridiculous political correctness permeating the media be relegated to the dustbin of history where it belongs?

UPDATE (2): According to The Telegraph, British dhimmis - whoops authorities - contacted the Muslim Council of Britain and other Muslim groups this early morning to be informed of the arrests that have taken place. (See Muslim leaders informed, but wary, of anti-terror raid)

UPDATE (3): CNN speaks the "M" word! "Among those arrested were a Muslim charity worker..."

Media links:

• CNSNews: US-Bound Flights Targeted in Foiled Bomb Plot
• AP: British Police Thwart Aircraft Bomb Plot
• AP: Analysis: Was This Meant As Next 9/11?
• ABC News: US-Bound Flights Targeted in Foiled Bomb Plot
• Belfast Telegraph: 'Plot to blow up planes' foiled
• BBC: 'Airlines terror plot' disrupted
• MSNBC: Thwarted plot may have been ‘the Big One’
• Reuters: Britain says it foils "mass murder" plane bomb plot
• The Times Online: Transatlantic mid-air liquid bomb plot foiled in UK
• NYSun: Plot To Blow Up Planes To America, 'Mass Murder on an Unimaginable Scale'
• CNN: Bush: U.S. at war with 'Islamic fascists'
• The Telegraph: Aircraft bomb plot thwarted
• The Independent: The Conspiracy: How a group of suicide bombers planned to blow up 10 planes
• Telegraph: Middle-class and British: the Muslims in plots to bomb jets
• Telegraph: Did they foil a new 9/11?
  

Blogs:

• Michelle Malkin: "Imminent," "massive" jihad UK plot foiled;
  goal: "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" Malkin: "The word missing is Muslim"
  
• Britain Still in Denial to It's Terrorist Problem
• Sky News: Air Chaos After Terror Plot Disrupted
• Terrorists "1 for 2" in Airline Murder Plots, Tie Breaker set for 2011
• Mid-Air Terrorist Plot Foiled. (For Now)
• Thwarted Terror Plot - "British-born Muslims ... er... men"
• Pajamas Media: Sky Terror in UK: US Security Alert to RED
• UK Panel Asks: Why Do They Hate Airplanes?
• Mystery terrorists caught in Britain
  

In France, Islam and secularism spread as Christianity lapses

Via A New Dark Age Is Dawning
In France, Islam and secularism spread as Christianity lapses
by Tom Hundley

PARIS - Al Fath Mosque is in a scruffy immigrant neighborhood not far from the neon-lit kitsch of Pigalle. On Friday afternoons the mosque is jammed, and the overflow of worshippers - all men - spills into the streets.

Tourists who stumble on the scene reflexively reach for their cameras, struck by this unusual public manifestation of religiosity in a country where Christian belief has become passe.

In France and in almost every other European country, Christianity appears to be in a free fall. Although up to 88 percent of the French identify themselves as Roman Catholic, only about 5 percent go to church on most Sundays; 60 percent say they "never" or "practically never" go.

But Islam is a thriving force. The 12 million to 15 million Muslims who live in Europe make up less than 5 percent of the total population, but the vitality of their faith has led some experts to predict that Islam will become the continent's dominant faith.

Princeton University historian Bernard Lewis, the dean of American Middle East scholars, flatly predicts that Europe will be Islamic by the end of this century "at the very latest."
Rest here.

Poll shows Muslims in Britain are the most anti-western in Europe

The Guardian today published the results of a poll which questioned Muslims and non-Muslims about each other in 13 countries. Let's see some of the most interesting poll results.

Public opinion in Britain is mostly favourable towards Muslims, but the feeling is not requited by British Muslims, who are among the most embittered in the western world...

The poll revealed

.... a significant mismatch in Britain. The poll found that 63% of all Britons had a favourable opinion of Muslims, down slightly from 67% in 2004, suggesting last year's London bombings did not trigger a significant rise in prejudice.
....By contrast, the poll found that British Muslims represented a "notable exception" in Europe, with far more negative views of westerners than Islamic minorities elsewhere on the continent. A significant majority viewed western populations as selfish, arrogant, greedy and immoral. Just over half said westerners were violent. While the overwhelming majority of European Muslims said westerners were respectful of women, fewer than half British Muslims agreed.

In sum

.... Muslim attitudes in Britain more resembled public opinion in Islamic countries in the Middle East and Asia than elsewhere in Europe. And on the whole, British Muslims were more pessimistic than those in Germany, France and Spain about the feasibility of living in a modern society while remaining devout.

Furthermore,

Unlike the rest of Europe, a majority of Britons declared themselves sympathetic to Muslims offended by the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad published in the European press last year.

Full article here. UPDATE: Full international report here.

Immigration Conflict - Moving into Stage Two

An interesting article on immigration here. (Hat tip: BNP and me).

"If you are concerned about the ugly display of anti-Gringo racism displayed by Latino demonstrators on May day, get prepared for a lot worse. We are only in the beginning of stage two in a three-stage classic decline of a nation into multi-ethnic civil war - similar to Bosnia, Kosovo, and France.

Stage one is de facto unlimited illegal immigration where the host nation enjoys the benefits of cheaper labor, lower consumer prices, and mild and mostly pleasant inter-cultural expression. In the absence of a system of citizen responsibility for each immigrant hired (so the burden doesn't fall on the state) Stage one becomes a problem when illegal immigrations congregate in ghettos and later take over whole cities (Miami, Los Angeles, etc.). The host majority start becoming concerned when it is already too late - when they notice an increase in crime, welfare demands, burgeoning public service costs and racial resentment. What starts out as eager, mostly honest, poor immigrants looking for work declines over several decades into a well-fed, resentful mob looking for an ever bigger share of worldly goods and marching to the drum beat of class warfare and racial resentment fomented by professional, and mostly Marxist, revolutionaries disguised as "activitists."

[...] [About Europe]
Europe is just entering Stage three as its cash-strapped governments are forced to shut down much of the immigration and welfare spigot - but only for financial reasons, not on principle. Anyone who attempts to uphold Western culture is denigrated as a fascist and right-wing fanatic.
Read the whole thing here.

About De Villiers and LePen

I feel like blogging about French politicians today :). These two in particular.
About Philippe de Villiers: "I am the only politician who tells the French the truth about the Islamisation of France", is the head of the Movement for France (MPF) party and 2007 candidate for President. He has published many books, the last of which being "Les Mosquées de Roissy" - Roissy's Mosques. A guy to keep an eye on!

NEWS.scotsman.com: [...] Mr Villiers said Islam was incompatible with the country's democratic system because he said it demanded loyalty to the ummah (world Muslim community) over individual states, wanted to impose sharia Islamic law, and promoted jihad, or holy war. "I think there are moderate Muslims, they are even the large majority, but I do not believe there is a moderate Islam," he said. "I do not think Islam is compatible with the French republic."

Saying France had to fight what he called Islamisation, he said Paris should stop mosque construction, impose a citizen's charter demanding the strict separation of religion and state, freedom to change religions and demand respect for the equality of men and women. It should also expel any persons threatening the security of the French population.

About LePen: President of the Front National (FN) party. I was very disappointed to learn that he's making dodgy "deals" with muslims. Talking about selling yourself for a pool of votes! France deserves better. See France's Le Pen To Strike a Deal With Muslims.

Muslim Runs for President in France?

Via Gallia Watch and Occidentalis (hat tip Mahti Kuningas): Apparently, a muslim will run for President in France.

Soheib Bencheikh, former counselor to the rector of the Paris mosque, and former grand mufti of Marseilles, announced yesterday in Marseilles his candidacy in the presidential election: a candidacy that is "totally grass-roots and secular" and that is a "response to the bankruptcy of the traditional political parties".
He presents himself as a "moderate" Muslim but does not flinch when Dr. Nasser Touyaih, a member of the Sharia Academy, proposes, during a conference of the World Islamic League, the formation of Islamic tribunals throughout Europe. He happens to be the 17th candidate for the office.
[...] That's the news of the day. We can honestly say that right now we are very spoiled: not a day goes by without some important fact confirming what we have always said about the rampant Islamization of France and Europe.

Read more at Gallia Watch.

What The French Media Doesn't Want To Show

Via France Echos and Nordish: "A female teacher from a high school of Porcheville was attacked by one of its students, while another one was recording the scene with the cam of his cell phone.

Suddenly, with no reasons, a "jeune" (= young man = criminal, usually with extra-european origins, not necessarily young - copyright political correctness) throws himself on the teacher, and attacks her violently. Another student doesn't miss anything of the scene, and records it with his cell phone's cam."

Watch the shocking video here.

France is going down. The French are abandoned to themselves. Who will be next?

The Fall of France and the Multicultural World War

A must-read at The Brussels Journal.