German Judge Rules Koran Allows Wife Abuse

Examples that illustrate the moral bankruptcy of multiculturalism don't come any clearer than this appalling case.

BERLIN (AFP) - A German woman judge has refused a Moroccan-born woman permission to file for divorce by interpreting the Koran as allowing husbands to beat their wives.

"Where are we living? Woman judge allows beating in marriage... and invokes the Koran," said a front-page headline in Germany's top-selling Bild newspaper, reflecting the widespread angry reaction on Thursday.

"This Moroccan woman has the same right to protection from a violent husband as any German woman. Anything else would be misconceived sensitivity to the benefit of the husband and would amount to racist discrimination against the wife," said the Tageszeitung daily.

The Central Council of Muslims in Germany also condemned the decision.

"The judge should have made a decision based on the German constitution instead of the Koran," said spokeswoman Nurhan Soykan, who said that violence and mistreatment, regardless of the gender of the victim, were also grounds for divorce in the Islamic world.

A court in the western city of Frankfurt on Wednesday upheld a complaint of bias against the judge lodged by the lawyer of the 26-year-old woman, who has two children.

The woman had filed for immediate divorce on the grounds that the husband, also of Moroccan origin, regularly beat her and threatened to kill her. The claims were backed up by a police report.

But the female judge, who has not been named, made clear in a letter that the wife's bid had little chance of approval because, according to her, Islamic law allowed a man to strike his wife.

German politicians from all parties were united in disgust at the judgement.

"When the Koran takes precedence over the German Basic Law, then I can only say: Good night Germany," Ronald Pofalla, the secretary general of the conservative Christian Democratic Union of Chancellor Angela Merkel, told Bild.

Hans-Christian Stroebele, of the opposition Greens, said the kind of abuse suffered by the woman should be punished by German criminal law.

Also see LGF on topic.

Foiled UK Plot: Muslim Communities Angered Over Arrests

You might think they are angry with the failed terrorists. Not so: the "community" is angry because the arrests have taken place.

BBC: Terror arrests anger community

One day after the nine terror arrests in the Birmingham area, the local communities have been assessing the impact of the police operation.

Some claim the arrests and the vast amount of media coverage are likely to cause lasting damage to community relations.

Along the same lines, a Muslim leader claims the recent arrests highlight that Britain is a police state in the making.


AFP: Muslim chief slams 'police state' Britain, like Nazi Germany

A Muslim leader has warned that Britain is moving towards a “police state,” comparing the situation to Nazi Germany after the anti-terror raids in the city of Birmingham this week.

But Mohammad Naseem, chairman of Birmingham’s Central Mosque, urged Muslims to show restraint following the raids, in which nine suspects were arrested over allegations of plotting an “Iraq-style” kidnapping and filmed beheading.

“The country is moving toward a police state. That’s not right. We have to change this,” he said inside the mosque, where some 2,000 Muslims gathered for weekly Friday prayers.

“We can change this for the better by coming together, not by coming apart. .. Remain calm, don’t get angry. Anger is a natural emotion, but Muslims should control it. We must never give way to anger,” he said.

Speaking outside the mosque shortly before the prayer session began, he compared the current situation, and anti-terrorism legislation introduced in Britain in recent years, to Nazi Germany.

“The German people were told the Jews were a threat. The same thing is happening here. The Muslims are now the bogey people,” he said. “It’s a small community. It’s easy to pick on them. That’s what’s being done.”

Study: Germans Have Negative Image of Islam

Essen, Germany (dpa) - Germans have an increasingly negative perception of Islam, mainly as a result of terrorist activities outside the country, according to a study released Wednesday.

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.

Germany: Retired Protestant Minister Immolates Himself To Protest Spread Of Islam

IHT: BERLIN: A retired Protestant minister died Wednesday of burns after setting himself on fire, apparently to express his concern over the spread of Islam, a church official said.

The Rev. Roland Weisselberg, 73, climbed into a construction site next to the Augustinerkloser church in the city of Erfurt, poured gasoline over himself and set himself on fire Tuesday during Reformation Day church services, said church provost Elfried Begrich at a news conference.

Weisselberg said in a letter that Germany's Protestant church should take the problem of the spread of Islam more seriously, said Begrich. He had spoken about the issue more and more over the past several years, according to Begrich.

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."

Berlin Opera House's U-Turn

An update on this story.

DPA: BERLIN - The Berlin opera house which last week cancelled a production for fear of protests by Muslims announced Wednesday it was reinstating Idomeneo by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but set no date.

Media and German politicians have accused Deutsche Oper Berlin of practising "self-censorship" and kowtowing to violent radicals.

First staged in 2003, the production has a scene devised by director Hans Neuenfels and not in the original Mozart opera that shows the hero laughing at the severed heads of the Prophet Mohammed, Jesus Christ and the Buddha.

Opera house spokesman Alexander Busche said, "The earliest slot for the production is in December, but first we need an okay about security from the police." City police are expected to mount a strong guard at the theatre if there are any demonstrations outside.

German Muslims Criticise Merkel Aide For Comments On Islam

More whining and seething.

Expatica: BERLIN - The secretary general of Chancellor Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) came under fire from a Muslim group Sunday for saying Islam was the main cause of religious-motivated violence.

"It is certainly painful for many Muslims to witness their religion being exploited for violence," Ronald Pofalla wrote in the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

But there were many Muslims who could be incited, he added. "The problem of religiously-motivated violence today is almost exclusively a problem of Islam," Pofalla said.

The Central Council of Muslims in Germany accused the CDU politician of dealing in stereotypes and stoking up prejudices with his remarks.

"Such statements are incompatible with a democratic and enlightened society," said the council's general secretary, Aiman Mazyek.

"Such statements are Islam is incompatible with a democratic and enlightened society,"

Fixed.

Spanish Prof Suing Airline For Flight "Humiliation"

Dodgy-looking prof?

Bearded Spaniard Prof. Forced Off Plane

(09-28) 14:05 PDT MADRID, Spain (AP) — A Spanish university professor with a long beard and dark complexion said Thursday he was briefly forced off an airliner during a layover on the Spanish island of Mallorca by passengers who feared he was an Islamic terrorist.

Pablo Gutierrez Vega told The Associated Press that he was humiliated when three German passengers on an Air Berlin flight approached him during a layover in Palma de Mallorca on Aug. 30 en route from Seville, Spain, to Dortmund, Germany, and asked to search his carry-on luggage.

The men told him that other passengers were frightened by his appearance, said Gutierrez Vega, a 35-year-old law professor at the University of Seville. “They treated me like an Islamic terrorist because of my appearance,” Gutierrez Vega said, according to an account posted Thursday on the Web site of the newspaper El Pais.

The airline confirmed the incident to the AP and called it regretful. “I acknowledged that we contributed to this man going through something very unpleasant,” said Air Berlin’s managing director for Spain and Portugal, Alvaro Middelmann.

After realizing the men were not undercover police officers, Gutierrez Vega refused to hand over his luggage. The pilot then approached the group and led the professor to the runway so they could speak in private. “The pilot said the passengers believed I was a Muslim,” Gutierrez Vega told the AP.

On the runway, the pilot apologized for the incident and said he was willing to expel the passengers who confronted him and continue the flight with Gutierrez Vega on board. The pilot also said he could take Gutierrez Vega’s luggage into the cockpit to pacify the other passengers.

Gutierrez Vega said he decided to get back on the plane and store his luggage in the cockpit “because I didn’t want to cause any problems.”

The pilot, however, erred by not ejecting the passengers who confronted him, Middelmann said. Gutierrez Vega has hired an attorney to initiate legal proceedings against Air Berlin.

The three German passengers made a mistake in not alerting the security instead of approaching the Spanish prof themselves. It is noteworthy however that the concerned passengers were almost thrown off the flight, as opposed to the individual who was regarded as suspicious.

Afraid for Your Safety? Off the Plane!

Cancelled Mozart Play Sparks Debate

It seems that the cowardly decision of a Berlin Opera house to preemptively cancel a Mozart play because of "security concerns" (read "out of fear of Muslims going bananas and blowing the place up") has not gone unnoticed.

Fear of offending Islam spurs hot debate in Europe

LONDON (Reuters) - Four canceled performances of a Mozart opera have reignited an anxious and heated debate in Europe over free speech, self-censorship and Islam.

By canning its production of "Idomeneo," fearful of security threats because of a scene that might offend Muslims, Berlin's Deutsche Oper provoked front-page headlines across the continent and found itself fending off charges of cowardice.

Mozart is not Islam's enemy

Germany opens major Islam summit

The German government has met Muslim community leaders in Berlin amid a row over the cancellation of a Mozart opera deemed offensive to Muslims.

The Islam conference was a landmark initiative to improve the integration of Germany's three million Muslims.

It was overshadowed by the row over the opera Idomeneo. In one scene it was to show the severed heads of the Prophet Muhammad, Jesus Christ and Buddha.

Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned "self-censorship out of fear".

"We must take care that we do not retreat out of a fear of potentially violent radicals," she said.

Merkel warns against bowing to fear of Muslim violence

German Dhimmitude

An opera house in Berlin has preemptively cancelled a Mozart play out of fear of possible terrorist attacks by you-know-who.

LGF: A Berlin opera house has canceled a performance of Mozart’s Idomeneo, after German police warned of possible Islamic attacks—because in the opera’s epilogue, the main character enters with a bloody bag and triumphantly pulls out the severed heads of Poseidon, Jesus, Buddha, and ... you guessed it ... Mohammed.

Here comes the most worrisome part:

The opera house did not receive threats or demands to cancel the show; they did it preemptively, out of simple fear. Welcome to Mozart Year 2006.

The original article in German: Oper aus Angst vor Anschlägen abgesetzt.

Time for a motoon.

• Germany: Freedom of Expression Crumbling Before Islamic Violence
• German opera house dumps Mozart opera depicting Mohammed

The Pope, Islam and Muslim Response

Doesn't it strike folks strange that Muslims are upset at the Pope's comments about Islam being a violent religion, then they turn around and threaten to hang him and commit jihad across the globe? I guess they don't see the irony in their actions and words.

Morocco recalls their ambassador to the Vatican. Pakistan's parliment passes a unanimous resolution condemning the pope's words. Two churches in the West Bank were hit by firebombs. Egypt's foreign ministry summoned the Vatican's envoy to Cairo today to express Egypt's "extreme regret" and request the pope to "move quickly to contain the situation".

The oldest church in Gaza City was attacked by gunfire by a group calling itself the Islamic Organization of the Swords of Righteousness. A grenade also went off outside the church. In the West Bank town of Nablus, gunmen threw Molotov cocktails at four churches of different denominations. Also gunmen opened fire inside an empty Catholic church after the building's entrance door was burnt down. source

The Vatican is trying some damage control. 'The new Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said Benedict's position on Islam is in line with Vatican teaching that the church "regards with esteem also the Muslims. They adore the one God."' But Muslims are not accepting this, they want to hear directly from the Pope. "We do not accept the apology through Vatican channels ... and ask him (Benedict) to offer a personal apology — not through his officials," Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanon's most senior Shiite cleric, told worshippers Friday in Beirut. source

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is demanding a personal apology from the Pope, or ... jihad??? The 57 nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the world's largest Muslim body, said quotations used by the Pope represented a "character assassination of the Prophet Mohammad" and a "smear campaign". The OIC hopes that this campaign is not the prelude of a new Vatican policy towards Islam. source

There are a few voices of reason: 'Din Syamsuddin, chairman of Muhammadiyah, the second largest Islamic organisation in Indonesia, said the remarks could hurt "harmonious" relations between Muslims and Catholics and urged Muslims against reacting excessively. "Whether the Pope apologises or not, the Islamic community should show that Islam is a religion of compassion," he told Reuters.' source

Fauzan Al-Anshori, spokesman for the radical Indonesian Mujahideen Council, said the Pope misunderstood Islam and jihad and challenged him to a dialogue. "Muslims can't eliminate jihad from the Islamic discourse, the same way Christians can't do away with the doctrine of Trinity," he said. source

The strongest denunciations came from Turkey — a moderate democracy seeking European Union membership where Benedict is scheduled to visit in November as his first trip as pope to a Muslim country. source


Germany, where the Pope delivered his controversial speech, is 'reconsidering religion'. Germans themselves are modeling a growing acceptance of religion's role in shaping society, even though 'This is the continent where some leading thinkers are talking about a "post-Christian Europe." And this is the country of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who infamously quipped, "God is dead."' source

Anger flared across the Islamic world yesterday over comments by Pope Benedict XVI, with Muslims from London to Jakarta assailing the pontiff for implicitly linking Islam with religious violence in a speech earlier this week. ...

Pakistan's parliament passed a unanimous resolution condemning the pope's words. A prominent Turkish politician accused the German-born spiritual leader of Roman Catholicism of resurrecting the spirit of the Crusades, the medieval wars launched by European kingdoms -- usually with papal blessings -- against Islamic strongholds in lands sacred to Christians, Muslims, and Jews. ...

he pope set off the controversy Tuesday during an academic lecture on reason and religion at the University of Regensburg. He quoted a 14th-century Byzantine Christian emperor, Manuel II Paleologos, as having said: ``Show me what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Benedict seemed to be criticizing the concept of ``jihad," or holy war -- an idea that Islamic radicals exploit to justify terrorist attacks, but also a notion that peaceful Muslims use to describe the mystical struggle between good and evil. Historically, jihad was often invoked by Islamic rulers as giving spiritual license to wage wars of conquest and conversion against nonbelievers. source

73 percent of Germans expect Germany will face further terror attacks

73% of Germans get it. It's the Jihad, not foreign policy.

More developments on the failed train jihad plot in Germany:

Arrest order for Syrian suspect in German bomb plot

BERLIN (Reuters) - German authorities issued an arrest warrant on Saturday for a Syrian suspect in a failed plot to detonate bombs on German trains last month.

A spokesman for the Federal Prosecutors Office said a Syrian man taken into temporary custody on Friday in the city of Konstanz was questioned by a custodial judge for several hours before the warrant was issued.

The prosecutors office said the 23-year-old, a student in Konstanz identified as Fadi A.S., was believed to have done Internet research with other suspects on how to build a bomb like the two suitcase devices that failed to explode. Fadi A.S. is also believed to have helped others involved in the foiled attack flee through Turkey and Syria to Lebanon. ...

German prosecutors believe Fadi A.S. has links to one of the two main suspects, Youssef Mohamad E.H. The 21-year-old Lebanese man was the first to be arrested, a week ago in the northern town of Kiel, and is now in a Berlin prison. Youssef Mohamad E.H. was identified on security camera footage that appeared to show him dragging a suitcase on to a train in Cologne last month.

On Friday a senior Lebanese judicial source in Beirut said authorities had arrested a fourth suspect. The Lebanese source said the 24-year-old Lebanese man, with the initials K. H. D., was arrested based on information provided by Jihad Hamad, a 20-year-old who had turned himself in to Lebanese authorities on Thursday.

Suitcases like those in the footage were found packed with propane gas tanks and crude detonating devices on trains in the Dortmund and Koblenz. The explosives failed to detonate.

A poll on Saturday by RTL television found that 73 percent of Germans expect Germany will face further terror attacks.

Waiting for Churchill or Waiting for Godot?

The lastest "interfaith" UK poll indicates the rising concerns of the general population towards Islam. Similarly, various recent polls all seem to point to a growing awareness among normal European citizens about the current Islamic threat to Europe. This recent essay from Fjordman, Waiting for Churchill or Waiting for Godot?, illustrates the significance of these polls and much more.

... "During the height of the Muhammad cartoons crisis, Fjordman was among the minority who thought this was good news for Europe and the West. Although it may sound absurd to Americans, those rather innocent cartoons may have done more to open the eyes of Europeans to the Islamic threat than the terror attacks of 9/11, the London and Madrid bombings combined. People who can burn down embassies because of something so silly quite simply don't have anything at all in common with us, and cannot function in our democratic societies. Muslims may have pushed too far, too early, and thus jolted some life back into even the near-comatose continent of Europe. I see some signs that this interpretation may have been correct, and that the tide is indeed changing. Recent opinion polls indicate that there is now a critical mass of ordinary Europeans who no longer buy the brainwashing about Islam being a peaceful religion.

In Germany, according to a study commissioned by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, 56 percent of Germans said they believed a "clash of cultures" already existed. 71 percent said they believed Islam to be "intolerant," some 91 per cent said they associated Islam with oppression of women. Asked if there should be a ban on the building of mosques in Germany as long as the building of churches in some Islamic states is forbidden, 56 per cent agreed. There was even considerable backing for ending Germany's constitutional right of freedom of religion with regard to Islam. Asked if strict limits should be imposed on the practice of Islam in Germany to protect the country, 40 per cent said they would support such moves. In the Netherlands, 63 per cent of respondents thought Islam was incompatible with modern European life. Even in Sweden, the purgatory of Political Correctness, opinion polls have revealed that two out of three Swedes doubt whether Islam can be combined with Swedish society. Recently, I have also for the first time seen visible cracks in the wall of censorship on public debate in Sweden. Change is in the air, all over Europe.

Europeans now gradually start to awaken from the spell of Multiculturalism, Political Correctness and Muslim immigration, but they still don't know how deep the rabbit hole goes. Most of them still haven't heard of Eurabia, or the fact that the European Union, including many of their own, entrusted representatives, have actively encouraged massive Muslim immigration to the continent. Until they do this, it will be more difficult to bring down the EU, and that is absolutely necessary in my view for Europe to prevail from this. No, the EU isn't the only problem Europe has, but it is by far the worst, and we don't have even a theoretical chance of fixing our other problems as long as the EU is in charge. It needs to be removed completely. The hour is late. Is it too late? Even if it's not too late, whatever can be done needs to be done soon.

...There are many people who think Europe is already lost. I happen to be among the ones who have stated that this is only one of several possible outcomes. Europe is now at one of those famous crossroads where the course of history could go either way. Given the weakness of Europe and the rapid expansion of Islam, it would be foolish to discount the possibility that Muslims could win this. However, I happen to think that another possibility is that Islam not only will lose the battle for Europe, but could become destroyed as a global force during this century. Maybe in some strange way, Europe needs to go through a period of colonization and de-colonization herself, to get rid of her post-colonial guilt complex?"

Read it all.

Germans, Spared Until Now, Awaken to Reality of Terror Threat

Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Germans are beginning to awaken to a new reality: Their country is no longer one of the apparently safe havens in the post-Sept. 11 world.

``It's never really bothered me what people next to me in the train are doing,'' said Juergen Darsch, 36, a graphic artist, at Berlin's Friedrichstrasse rail station. But ever since a Lebanese student was arrested Aug. 19 on suspicion of helping plant bombs on German trains, ``you look around more carefully. That's something I really don't want to live with.''

Police arrested the student, identified only as 21-year-old Youssef Mohamad E. H., after the discovery of bombs placed inside suitcases on two trains in western Germany that they say would have killed a ``large number'' of people. A second suspect, Jihad H., also Lebanese, turned himself in to police in Tripoli, Lebanon, yesterday.

Germany, under then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, refused to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and had been spared the sort of fear engendered by attacks carried out by Islamic terrorists in London, Madrid, Istanbul and Mumbai. Now the public is confronted with stepped-up security checks at train stations and travel delays as suspicious suitcases are cleared away, with the promise of more measures to come.

While the bombers failed to blow up the trains, they managed to ``blow away any lingering illusions that Germany is an island not on terrorists' maps,'' Margret Johannsen, a senior research fellow at Hamburg University's Institute for Peace and Security Policy, said in a telephone interview.

No Shield

``Non-participation in the Iraq war was never a shield against terror,'' she said. ``Germany is as vulnerable as the next country. We need to wake up and make a political contribution in the war on terror.''

Weekend Links

The Brussels Journal: Jihad and European Multiculturalism

The jihadists are clearly winning their battle over the British people. In the UK, the Labour government has shown that it is more than willing to jeopardise national security in favour of its oppressive multicultural agenda. Violent Muslims – a hotchpotch of infantile soul-searching converts, theocratic barbarians and permanently incensed and uneducated nobodies – who are supposed to be living as British citizens are intending to kill the people they live among. Clearly, the European multicultural project is failing to such a degree that citizens not only possess a visceral hatred of one another but they are now at war with one another.

Melanie Phillips: Suicide of the West

When America was attacked on 9/11 by Islamic jihadis, it was said that this was a doomsday wake-up call for the West. Within a short while, however, much of Britain decided that 9/11 was actually America’s fault and that Israel was at the core of the problem.

When Britain was attacked last year on 7/7 by Islamic jihadis, it was said that this was a doomsday wake-up call for the U.K. Within a short time, however, much of the country decided that it was Britain’s own fault on account of “Islamophobia” and the war in Iraq.

Now 25 British Muslims have been arrested for an alleged plot to blast up to ten trans-Atlantic airliners out of the sky. This vast alleged conspiracy, thought to encompass many dozens more plotters from Germany to Pakistan, bears all the monstrous hallmarks of a classic al Qaeda operation. In addition, security sources say that dozens more al Qaeda-linked terrorist cells are at large in the U.K.

From the evidence of one opinion poll this week, the British public has at least woken up to the fact that we are in the throes of a world war. Not so, however, the British establishment and chattering classes. Denial is no longer a river in Egypt but a British pathology.

The Sunday Times: If you want sharia law, you should go and live in Saudi

Shahid Malik, the Labour MP, explains why he told fellow Muslims that if they don’t like Britain they should pack their bags.

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.

Football Is Against Islam

"O people of Britain, we invite to Islam, to accept it as the truth and to worship and obey Allah exclusively and not associate partners with Him. If you accept, then Allah promises you contentment in this life and Paradise in the Hereafter. If you decline, Allah promises you misery in this life, and severe punishment in the Hereafter. The decision is yours O people of Britain."

This comes from the Saved Sect website, an extremist Muslim organisation which calls for the establishment of an Islamic State in Britain. This is the same organisation that proclaims on its website that "football is a new religion", is unislamic and calls Muslims in England to throw away their St. George flags!

We call upon all Muslims to take heed from this message and to remove any flags they may posses however big or small and to advise others to do the same, be they neighbours, family, relatives or friends.

as

The fact of the matter is that the English flag is not just a symbol of support for a football team; rather it contains the Christian cross and carries a history of brutality towards the Muslims.

and

Furthermore, the Messenger of Allah (SAW) said: “Whoever imitates a people is one of them.” Imitating the Kuffaar in their deen is an act of kufr and this is what holding up, waving or displaying the Christian cross (i.e. the St George flag) amounts to.

The following is today's Jihad Watch post on the Saved Sect football article.

Jihadist site: Soccer is against Islam, from Jihad Watch:

A British jihadists website has warned Muslims against being drawn in to what they described as "the new religion of soccer."

The Saved Sect website, which calls on Muslims to work to establish an Islamic state in Britain, has attacked "football fever," saying that soccer has "captivated the masses, dedicating their time and effort towards it."
Comparing the allegiance of soccer fans to Islam and jihad, the organization said: "Football is the deen (religion) by which people live their lives by and are willing to die for. Their jihad is to fight against those who are arch rivals against their team. Their da'wah (call, invitation) is to publicize, defend and justify their team, inviting others to support them in this."...

Claiming that soccer plants the seeds of nationalism, and is therefore part of a "colonial crusader scheme" to divide Muslims and cause them to stray from the vision of a unified Islamic identity, the website told readers: "The sad fact of the matter is that many Muslims have fallen for this new religion and they too carry the national flag.
The statement, aimed at calling on British Muslims to disassociate themselves with the World Cup in Germany, ended with a quote by Islam's prophet, Muhammad, condemning nationalism.

The quote is the following:

The Messenger Muhammad (SAW) severely condemned nationalism and those who call for it when he said: "He is not from us who calls for nationalism, fights for nationalism and dies for nationalism." [Sunan Abee Daawud]

The Saved Sect on the MoToons protests:

The demonstration that took place shortly after the publication of the Danish cartoons in London was peaceful and trouble free – so we all thought until the media 'lying' machine whipped the masses into a frenzy claiming that al-Qaeda had taken to the streets of London. The public were being told that death threats and murder were being incited by Muslims in the UK because "they refuse to accept our freedom of speech". The ignorance of the general masses with regards to the sensitivity of such an issue concerning Muslims was played upon and used to further the already savage media crusade, forcing the government to make a stance and show their condemnation in line with the falsely generated public opinion. The natural consequences of which were that action was to be taken.

More Than 32,000 Extreme Islamists In Germany

Via LGF and Western Resistance: There are more than 32,000 Islamist extremists living in Germany.

BERLIN - The number of Islamist extremists based in Germany increased slightly last year but the country faces far lower threat of terrorist attacks than states which took part in the Iraq war, an official report said Monday. There were 32,100 Islamists living in Germany last year - an increase of about 300 from 2004, said the report by Germany’s domestic security agency, the Verfassungsschutz.
Germany has a Muslim minority of about 3 million out of a total population of 82 million, said the report.
The biggest Islamist group is Milli Gorus, a Turkish movement with 26,500 members.
Other groups are Hamas with about 300 members, Hezbollah with 900 and the Muslim Brotherhood with 1,300.
The Verfassungsschutz has no figures for the number of al-Qaeda members based in Germany, the report said.
“Even though the degree to which Germany is threatened is clearly lower than for those states which took part in the Iraq war, it must be noted that Germany is still seen ... as a helper of the US and Israel,” said the report which underlined the presence of German troops in Afghanistan as boosting this image.

Germans negative on Islam, poll shows

Expatica via Jihad Watch: Germans negative on Islam, poll shows
18 May 2006

BERLIN - Germans are growing increasingly negative over Islam and concern is rising over the country's Muslim minority, a recently released poll shows.
"If one looks at this from a pessimistic viewpoint it could be seen as the start of a downward spiral toward conflict," said the Allensbach polling agency who conducted the survey for the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.
Asked if they though Christianity and Islamic could co-exist peacefully, 61 per cent of those surveyed said they believed there would always be "major conflicts" between both faiths.
Some 91 per cent said they associated Islam with oppression of women, up from 85 per cent in 2004.
The statement that Islam was dominated by fanaticism was shared by 83 per cent, compared to 75 per cent two years ago, the poll showed.
A total of 71 per cent said Islam was intolerant, up from 66 per cent in 2004.
Asked if there should be a ban on the building of mosques in Germany as long as the building of churches in some Islamic states is forbidden, 56 per cent agreed, said the poll.
There is even considerable backing for ending Germany's constitutional right of freedom of religion with regard to Islam, the poll showed.
Asked if strict limits should be imposed on the practice of Islam in Germany to protect the country, 40 per cent said they would support such moves.
A total of 56 per cent said they believed "a clash of civilizations" had already begun, up from 46 per cent in 2004, the poll results showed.
"The clash of civilizations has already begun in the minds of (German) citizens," concluded the Allensbach Institute.
There are about 3.5 million Muslims living in Germany out of a total population of 82 million. Turks are the biggest minority and number about 2.5 million.