Italy: eighth mosque attacked in Lombardy
A mosque in a small town outside Milan has been the target of a violent attack – the eighth on mosques in the region of Lombardy surrounding the city.
Italian media reports said the Alif Baa Islamic Centre, in the northern Italian city of Abbiategrasso, 20 kilometres west of Milan, was subjected to fresh violence on Wednesday. Witnesses said a masked man was seen throwing a Molotov cocktail inside the courtyard of the mosque from his motorcycle in the late afternoon. No major damage or injuries were reported in the attack.
This is the eighth assault against Islamic centres in the region of Lombardy in recent months. The Alif Baa Islamic Centre reported other attacks on 25 July and 10 August this year. Another mosque in the nearby city of Segrate was attacked on 5 August and the car of the Imam, Hamid Zariate, was destroyed.
Chicago
Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes in Chicago
Pacifica Radio
April 11, 2005
Interview with Solange Etcheverriez
Pacifica Radio Host
Ahmed Rehab talks to Flashpoints’ Solange Etcheverriez on Pacifica National Radio about anti-Muslim hate crimes in Chicago. He argues that the public discourse on Islam in this country is problematic as it only defines and analyzes Islam and Muslims through their perceived problem areas while hardly ever recognizing the many positive realities of their daily lives. This perpetual intertwinement between Islam and violent conflict - whether it be terrorism or wars - as reported through the media leaves a negative imprint on the minds of audiences which can induce contempt in the hearts of the susceptible and, in turn, possibly evolve into discriminative activity or even hate crimes against Muslims.
Tampa, Florida
April, 2004
WKMG in Florida reports on what happened to the owner of a jewelry kiosk at a mall in Tampa
[S]he was physically and verbally assaulted by three people who told her to “get out of (America)” and said her religion is “hateful and violent.” … During the assault, one of the attackers allegedly grabbed the victim’s throat and attempted to remove her head scarf. The perpetrators fled when the victim ran to find mall security officers.
LENEXA, Kansas
March, 2008
A clerk at the Conoco gas station near West 85th Street and Quivira Road told police a man came into the store around 8 p.m. while a friend waited outside.
Police said the Molotov cocktail fizzled before it made it into the store and nothing caught on fire.
There were three customers inside the store at the time in addition to the clerk, but no one was hurt.
Witnesses said the two men jumped into a car and drove away.
As officers investigated the scene, a similar incident occurred at a convenience store in the 7700 block of Quivira Road.
Steven Christen Brettell, 26, of Lenexa, was charged with attempted aggravated arson and felony criminal damage to property in connection with the incidents.
The man went to buy something and, while at the counter, asked the clerk if he was Muslim. When the clerk replied that he was, the man started harassing him, the clerk said.
Shortly after the man left the store, a brick then a Molotov cocktail were thrown through the front glass window of the store.
Earlier this week, CAIR’s Minnesota chapter asked the FBI to
investigate reported threats against the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy charter school
in that state as possible hate crimes.
SEE: Muslim Civil Liberties Group Seeks FBI Probe of School
Threats (Star Tribune)
http://www.startribune.com/local/17673284.html
The Kansas assault and the
threats to the Minnesota school came following
other recent incidents such as a fire-bomb attack on a Minnesota Muslim-owned
business and an arson attack on a Tennessee
mosque by three members of the white-supremacist “Christian Identity”
movement.
SEE: MN: Investigators Say Fire Could Be Hate Crime
http://www.cair.com/ArticleDetails.aspx?ArticleID=24208&&name=n&&currPage=1&&Active=1
SEE ALSO: CAIR Applauds Arrests in TN Mosque Arson
http://www.cair.com/ArticleDetails.aspx?ArticleID=24197&&name=n&&currPage=1&&Active=1
CAIR is urging Muslim individuals and institutions
nationwide to review security procedures using advice contained in CAIR’s
“Muslim Community Safety Kit.”
SEE: CAIR Muslim Community Safety Kit
http://www.cair.com/ActionCenter/CommunityToolKit.aspx
CAIR, America’s
largest Islamic civil liberties group, has 35 offices and chapters nationwide
and in Canada.
Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue,
protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that
promote justice and mutual understanding.
CONTACT: CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim
Hooper, 202-488-8787 or 202-744-7726, E-Mail: ihooper@cair.com; CAIR Strategic
Communications Director Ahmed Rehab, 202-870-0166, E-Mail: arehab@cair.com;
CAIR Communications Coordinator Amina Rubin, 202-488-8787, E-Mail:
arubin@cair.com
Ann Coulter - Attack and Kill Islamic Society
Europe
I have started this blogg on the Europe Day. I hope that Europe is not going to become another €mpire exploiting and discriminating “other”, “inferior”, “less developed”, ghettoized peoples and regions.
Today, the 9th of May has become a European symbol (Europe Day) which, along with the flag, the anthem, the motto and the single currency (the euro), identifies the political entity of the European Union. Europe Day is the occasion for activities and festivities that bring Europe closer to its citizens and peoples of the Union closer to one another.
On the 9th of May 1950, Robert Schuman presented his proposal on the creation of an organised Europe, indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations. This proposal, known as the “Schuman declaration”, is considered to be the beginning of the creation of what is now the European Union.
LUDWIGSHAFEN
Germany, Feb 7, 2008. (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan called for calm on Thursday when he visited the site of a fire in a western German city which killed nine people of Turkish origin and heightened community tension.
The cause of Sunday’s blaze in an apartment block in Ludwigshafen is not known but speculation is rife in the local Turkish community and in Turkish media that it was a racially motivated arson attack.
The fire revived memories of a firebombing by Germans in 1993 in Solingen which killed five Turks and drew international condemnation. One person in the crowd listening to Erdogan brandished a placard recalling the Solingen attack.
Turkish newspapers have reported that a family who lost members in the blaze had been threatened by neo-Nazis.
By Bernhard Winkler
Ceuta
Spain’s Muslims: Living on Society’s Edge
Though Islam is woven into the fabric of the country’s history, Moroccans and other Arabs living there today are struggling to find their place in society as well as their role in the Muslim world.
A look at Ceuta, one of the two Spanish cities on the Moroccan Mediterranean coast, is revealing. Ceuta is the gateway to Europe. The border between Africa and Europe, between Islamic Morocco and Catholic Spain, is here. Half of Ceuta’s 72,000 residents are Christian, while the other half are Muslim, mainly of Moroccan origin.
The chairman of Islamic Community of Ceuta, Abselam Hamadi, says that many Muslims still feel like second-class citizens, that they don’t have the same opportunities Christians have.
“Only few Muslims get jobs in Ceuta’s state administration. The response is always the same: professional qualifications lacking. That’s not the truth, of course. But if more Muslims were accepted, there would be more Muslims than Christians in the administration one day, and that scares the Christians.”
The fact is, Ceuta’s Muslim residents have dramatically lower standards of living and levels of education than Christian residents. They mainly live in the El Principe district, a poor, entirely Muslim neighborhood right on the border to Morocco, where integration doesn’t exist. Young Muslims born in Spain to Moroccan parents live here. They don’t feel Moroccan, but they aren’t fully accepted by Spanish society either.
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1433,1146159,00.html
France
Desecration of 148 Muslim graves in a war cemetery in northern France.
It was discovered that vandals had hung a pig’s head from one tombstone, desecrated others and wrote slogans insulting Justice Minister Rachida Dati, who was born in France to parents from Northern Africa.
The graves were in the Muslim section of Notre Dame de Lorette, among France’s largest war cemeteries, near the northern town of Arras. The dead are mostly from World War I, and the Muslim graves, representing the dead of colonial armies, are turned toward Mecca.
In April 2007, Nazi slogans and swastikas were painted on about 50 graves in the Muslim section of the same cemetery, and two men found guilty in the case were sentenced to a year in prison.
About 78,000 colonial subjects of France, many of them Muslims, died in World War I.
Italy
Roberto Calderoli, 52, a senior member of the Northern League appeared on television wearing a T-shirt printed with one of Danish cartoons featuring the Prophet Mohammed. Mr Calderoli has also threatened to defile the proposed site of a mosque in Padua by walking a pig over the ground.
Roberto Calderoli of the anti-immigrant Northern League party said Thursday, September 13, he was ready to bring his own pig to “defile” the site where the mosque is due to be built in the northern city of Bologna.
“I am making myself and my pig available for a walk at the site where they want to build the mosque.”
Calderoli also said he would eat “a nice plateful of pork chops to show my lack of sympathy for those who consider pork forbidden meat.”
Calderoli is no stranger to controversy over Islam and is often accused of making racist comments. When Italy beat France in the 2006 World Cup, he said France had “sacrificed its identity by fielding niggers, Muslims and communists”.
