Archive for November 2009
Switzerland to vote to ban minarets??
By Imogen Foulkes
BBC News, Geneva
On Sunday Swiss voters will have their say on a controversial proposal to impose a constitutional ban on the building of minarets.
The proposal is backed by conservative Christian groups and by the biggest party in Switzerland’s parliament, the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which says allowing minarets would lead to the Islamisation of the country.
There are an estimated 400,000 Muslims in Switzerland, most from the former Yugoslavia or Turkey. Islam is the country’s most widespread religion after Christianity, but although there are Muslim prayer rooms, proper mosques with minarets are few and far between.
There are just four across Switzerland, and in recent years, all applications to build minarets have been turned down.
Fear of extremism
Although there is little evidence of Islamic extremism in Switzerland, supporters of a ban say the presence of minarets would represent the growth of an ideology and a legal system that are incompatible with Swiss democracy.
“The minaret is not an innocent building. It has been used in history to mark territory, to mark the progression of Islamic law in foreign countries,” said member of parliament Oskar Freysinger.
“Islamic people say it’s only decorative. I don’t agree. If Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey says ‘the minarets are our bayonets’ that means something to me. I don’t want his bayonets to be planted here in Switzerland.”
At public meetings to discuss a ban, this argument has clearly found favour with some voters.
“I’m not against Islam as a religion, I’m just against the minaret as a symbol of their power, taking over, conquering,” said one woman.
“I’m a believer, I’m a Christian and I’m not against the Muslims,” insisted one man. “But I’m not for the power, that they put their rights, the Sharia, over the rights that we have here in Switzerland, the law.”
Muslim frustration
These arguments have caused a great deal of frustration among Switzerland’s Muslim community, who insist that all they want is a recognisable mosque.
Earlier this month, Muslim prayer rooms across Switzerland opened their doors to the public, in the hope of reassuring voters that they had nothing to fear from minarets.
“We view the minaret as a symbol of religious freedom,” said Mahmoud El Guindi, of Zurich’s Islamic Centre.
“There is sometimes some fear in society, of Islam or the Muslims, based on various political events… and when they come here and they talk to the people and put their questions, they can see that Islam is a peaceful religion like other religions.”
But a highly visible campaign in favour of a ban paints a very different picture of Islam.
Minarets like missiles
Posters have appeared in many Swiss cities showing a dark, almost menacing figure of a woman, shrouded from head to foot in a black burka. Behind her is the Swiss flag, shaped like a map of the country, with black minarets shooting up out of it like missiles.
There is also an online game, which has proved very popular, in which players can shoot down minarets as they rise up on the skylines of Switzerland’s major cities.
And although few in Switzerland would question the country’s system of direct democracy, in which the people vote on all major decisions, many Swiss are very uncomfortable with the tone this particular campaign has taken.
Vehicle for prejudice?
Elham Manea, a Swiss citizen and a Muslim, believes an opportunity to have a meaningful debate about Islam and its integration in Switzerland has been missed. Instead, she says, it has become a vehicle to express prejudice.
“In this debate, the very fact that you belong to a certain religion turns you into something bad,” she says.
“They are bringing all these issues; integration problems, political Islam, fear of social change and social demographics, throwing them into one basket, calling it Islam and Muslims are bad.
“That is scary, because we have history to warn us when it comes to discrimination and discriminating against certain groups.”
Outside Switzerland, observers are watching the minaret debate with concern. Amnesty International this week called on Swiss voters to reject a ban, warning that forbidding minarets would be a violation of Switzerland’s obligations to uphold freedom of religious expression.
And there are hints that some Muslim countries, with whom Switzerland traditionally enjoys good relations, may even boycott the country if a ban is approved.
They are particularly angry that Islam has been singled out, since Sikh temples and Serbian Orthodox churches have recently been built in Switzerland, while synagogues have been present for more than a century.
Switzerland’s coalition government is urging voters to say no to a ban, fearing a yes vote could harm the country’s image abroad and cause anger among its many different ethnic groups.
But at the moment opinion polls predict a close result, and many in Switzerland fear that whichever way the final vote goes, the very fact that this referendum was held at all – and the tone of the campaign – will leave a legacy of bitterness among Swiss Muslims.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/europe/8381274.stm
Published: 2009/11/27 14:47:09 GMT
The imam’s very curious story – skirt chaser and terror proselytizer?
A skirt-chasing mullah is just one more mystery for the 9/11 panel
It’s been more than 2 1/2 years since the 9/11 attacks, but lots of questions remain about how the plot came together and just who might have been involved. This week in Washington, the federal commission investigating the attacks will try to answer some of those questions in its 12th and final public hearing. Sources say the commission will reveal dramatic new information about the plot that has been gleaned from al Qaeda detainees, including 9/11 operational mastermind, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. “This,” says Democratic commissioner Timothy Roemer, “will be a blockbuster hearing.”
Commissioners hope the two-day hearing will help fill in the gaps in what is still a sketchy story. Among those gaps is the possible role of a charismatic young Islamic cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, 33–allegedly a spiritual adviser to at least two hijackers who plunged American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. A congressional joint inquiry report released last year says that al-Awlaki (aka, al-Aulaqi) is one of 14 men who had dealings with some of the hijackers while under FBI investigation; the bureau shut down a counterterrorism probe against him in 2000. The FBI has long downplayed al-Awlaki’s role, but bureau sources now acknowledge that during the 9/11 probe, agents became “very interested” in al-Awlaki and yet failed to prevent him from leaving the country for Yemen. “We don’t know how he got out,” says one FBI source.
Al-Awlaki could not be reached for comment but has denied prior knowledge of the attacks. The lanky imam was known for his fiery anti-American rhetoric and for his side business peddling pure, expensive Yemeni honey–and investigators were interested in both. The feds were tracking al-Awlaki’s honey trade, U.S. News has learned, because of evidence that Osama bin Laden was using a network of honey operations to fund the movement of gun shipments and possible terrorists.
Educated in Yemen and the United States, al-Awlaki first attracted attention in 1999 in Los Angeles. According to the congressional inquiry, an FBI counterterrorism investigation indicated that the imam had ties to several suspicious characters and that he had allegedly met in early 2000 with someone close to convicted terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind Egyptian cleric. But the FBI closed its investigation in March 2000, stating that, “the imam . . . does not meet the criterion for [further] investigation.”
By then, al-Awlaki had settled in San Diego. And so had two of the hijackers, Khalid Almihdar and Nawaf Alhaz- mi, who began attending al-Awlaki’s mosque. In January 2001, the imam moved to the Dar Al-Hijra Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., the largest mosque in the country, and sure enough, Alhazmi and a third hijacker, Hani Hanjour, soon followed suit. Al-Awlaki has denied knowing the men.
Bogus? After the attacks, German police found the mosque’s phone number in the apartment of a major 9/11 co-conspirator, Ramzi Binalshibh, according to the joint inquiry. The spokesman for the Falls Church mosque, Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, did not return calls. But Randall Hamud, a San Diego defense attorney, said al-Awlaki was a “respected intellectual” and had an honest reputation among Hamud’s clients.
Al-Awlaki and his followers blamed Israel for the 9/11 attacks. “There is an expectation that Muslims should apologize for something that they never did,” al-Awlaki told National Geographic magazine in September 2001.
The probe of the 9/11 attacks soon led Washington FBI agents back to San Diego, where they found that al-Awlaki had twice been busted for soliciting prostitutes in 1996 and 1997 but had avoided jail time. Al-Awlaki has previously described these charges as “bogus.” But FBI agents hoped al-Awlaki might cooperate with the 9/11 probe if they could nab him on similar charges in Virginia. FBI sources say agents observed the imam allegedly taking Washington-area prostitutes into Virginia and contemplated using a federal statute usually reserved for nabbing pimps who transport prostitutes across state lines. But in March 2002, al-Awlaki abruptly left the country for Yemen. “When he left town, it was as if the air went out of the balloon,” says one FBI source. Al-Awlaki briefly returned to the United States in October 2002, but federal authorities did not have sufficient cause to detain him, even though his name popped up on a terrorist “lookout” database. Now he’s back in the Middle East, where FBI agents are said to be keeping their eyes on him.
To contact the author: Ragavanc@usnews.com
With Carol Hook and Monica M. Ekman
This story appears in the June 21, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
Pakistani army officer arrested for alleged link to U.S. terror plot
Posted on Tue, Nov. 24, 2009
Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani officials have arrested a retired Pakistani army major for his suspected role in an alleged plot that was hatched in the U.S. to assassinate the creator of controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, the Pakistani army said Tuesday.
The news will fuel growing fears about the radicalization of Pakistan’s army, and particularly the links between former army officers and Islamic extremists.
Two men of Pakistani origin, U.S. citizen David Coleman Headley and Canadian national Tahawwur Hussain Rana, were charged in Chicago with planning an armed attack in Denmark. Their target was the cartoonist and Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published the cartoons in 2005.
The U.S. indictment said the two had been in contact with the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and also with Pakistani extremist Ilyas Kashmiri — the first time that Kashmiri and Lashkar have been firmly linked to an alleged plot in the West. Read the rest of this entry »
Swine flu fears will hit Hajj numbers, say Saudis
Security staff are taking swine flu precautions as pilgrims gather
|
Fear of swine flu is expected to reduce the number of pilgrims attending this year’s Hajj pilgrimage, a senior Saudi official says.
Gen Mansour al-Turki told the BBC that although the number of international visitors might not be affected, a 40% drop in domestic pilgrims was expected.
The BBC’s Shahzeb Jillani says it is the first official recognition that fear of swine flu may affect the Hajj.
About two million Muslims converge on Mecca each year for the pilgrimage.
Estimating the number of Hajj pilgrims has never been easy, our correspondent in Mina says, and officials hope to have a clearer picture by the end of the week.
Saudi health authorities announced at the weekend that four people attending the Hajj had died from the H1N1 virus, but played down the risk to other pilgrims.
“There is no risk of the illness spreading as we are well-prepared and have taken the necessary measures,” health ministry spokesman Dr Khaled Marghlani told a news conference on Tuesday.
‘More cases detected’
The ministry said the four who died were a Sudanese man, a Moroccan woman and an Indian man – all aged over 75 – and a girl aged 17 from Nigeria.
The statement said the four had not followed “recommended procedures, especially vaccination against swine flu”.
The ministry said 16 other cases had been detected and four were in a critical condition.
The six-day Hajj begins with pilgrims circling the Kaaba
|
Pilgrims are due to start the Hajj rites on Wednesday.
They begin with the “tawaf”, walking seven times round the Kaaba – the cube-like building in the centre of the Grand Mosque – in an anti-clockwise direction.
Pilgrims then go to Mina to spend the night before climbing Mount Arafat on Thursday.
The hajj has been the scene of several tragic accidents caused by huge crowds.
In 2006, 364 people were killed in a stampede at the entrance to the Jamarat bridge in Mina.
In a bid to avoid a repeat of the disasters, authorities have just completed the rebuilding of the bridge.
Officials say the 950m (3,135ft) long, 80m (260ft) wide five-storey pedestrian walkway, which cost $1.2bn (£723m), will prevent overcrowding.
Report on India mosque destruction threatens Hindu-Muslim ties
A report on the 1992 India mosque destruction, released Tuesday, accuses leaders of the Hindu nationalist BJP of planning one of India’s most divisive attacks . The report may inflame Hindu-Muslim relations.
A new report on the 1992 destruction of a centuries-old mosque has sparked fights in the country’s Parliament and threatens to inflame relations between Hindus and Muslims.
The study, which took 17 years to complete, accuses leaders of India’s Hindu nationalist party of planning one of the most communally divisive events in Indian history: the demolition in 1992 of the 16th-century Babri Masjid mosque at the hands of a Hindu mob.
Hindu extremists had claimed in a concerted campaign that the structure, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, was built by Muslim invaders over the birthplace of a Hindu god. Its destruction provoked violent clashes that left some 2,000 people dead. Read the rest of this entry »
