Archive for the ‘Multiculturalism’ category

The Turkish-Dutch culture clash

March 13, 2017

The Turkish-Dutch culture clash, Israel Hayom, Ariel Bolstein, March 13, 2017

How ironic that the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland (and you can be sure that others in the Old World will follow) suddenly praise sovereignty and protest against attempts by the dictator in Ankara to interfere in their affairs. Indeed, the actions of a variety of European bodies in regard to Israel are no different from those of Erdogan. He is trying to influence Europe’s internal affairs, funding organizations and communities that suit his outlook, and that is exactly what the EU is trying to do with us. At least Erdogan has an excuse in that he is to a great extent communicating with his citizens on the continent. But the Europeans interfere in Israel’s affairs with the aim of influencing its democratic elections, and without even the slightest justification for doing so.

*********************************************

The recent confrontation between Turkey and the Netherlands is indicative of the significant change underway in both countries. It all began when the Netherlands prevented Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu from entering the country. Cavusoglu was scheduled to attend a rally in support of Turkish constitutional reforms that would increase presidential powers in the country. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan responded to the move by calling the Dutch fascists and Nazis. Turkey has further threatened the Netherlands with sanctions.

For close to two decades, Turkey has put increasing emphasis on its Muslim identity and imperialist mission. Erdogan has succeeded relatively quickly in erasing much of the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder and first president of the Turkish republic. Instead of a secular and pro-Western republic, Turkey, now a regional power far from extolling liberal values, aspires to return to the days of the Ottoman sultanate. Erdogan might still be called a president, and Ankara might still be the capital, but in all other aspects, the country is more reminiscent of days of yore. A strong autocracy based on Islam that purports to force its positions on its citizens, neighboring countries and now even distant countries.

On the other side of the this diplomatic feud is the Netherlands, which has experimented with liberal democracy and extreme multiculturalism, and is only now beginning to understand that in certain precarious situations, neither will be their salvation. A large Muslim minority has taken root in several European countries that has not only refused to adopt Western values, but does not hesitate to confront those around it to impose its imported Islamic lifestyle. European weakness is primarily responsible, but there are other factors, such as countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran, which stir up the Muslim enclaves in Western Europe and fund, incite and guide them. In quite a few of the cities’ largest suburbs, the imams, selected by foreign, not local authorities, are effectively in control. The change is the willingness of the traditional European population to regain sovereignty at home.

How ironic that the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland (and you can be sure that others in the Old World will follow) suddenly praise sovereignty and protest against attempts by the dictator in Ankara to interfere in their affairs. Indeed, the actions of a variety of European bodies in regard to Israel are no different from those of Erdogan. He is trying to influence Europe’s internal affairs, funding organizations and communities that suit his outlook, and that is exactly what the EU is trying to do with us. At least Erdogan has an excuse in that he is to a great extent communicating with his citizens on the continent. But the Europeans interfere in Israel’s affairs with the aim of influencing its democratic elections, and without even the slightest justification for doing so.

The current crisis between the Turks and the Europeans will eventually subside, one way or another, but a resolution to the imminent clash between the two cultures is nowhere in sight. Moreover, the points of friction between them will only multiply. Erdogan, who is used to galloping ahead and trampling his opponents at home and abroad, is not used to folding to anyone who is not equally as determined. And in Europe, they are sick of past capitulations, which only served to whet the appetites of Muslim immigrants o change the face of the continent and demand sovereignty. There will be no calm there.

A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in Britain: February 2017

March 12, 2017

A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in Britain: February 2017, Gatestone InstituteSoeren Kern, March 12, 2017

(Just another gloriously happy multicultural month in Britainstan. — DM)

Muslim pupils outnumber Christian children in more than 30 church schools, including one Church of England primary school that has a “100% Muslim population.” — Sunday Times.

Six Muslim men shouted “Allahu Akbar” as they were sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court for a total of 81 years for sexually abusing two girls — including one who became pregnant at age 12 — in Rotherham.

“By 2030, one in three people will be a Muslim in the world — that is a huge population.” — Romanna Bint-Abubaker, founder of modest fashion website Haute Elan.

A Chatham House survey of more than 10,000 people from ten European countries found that an average of 55% agreed that all further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped.

February 1. Jim Walker, a 71-year-old volunteer at Carnforth Station, was banned from the premises after someone complained about an alleged racist comment. Walker, who, for more than a decade, has been winding a famous clock at the station, was overheard discussing a newspaper article about young migrants entering Britain from the French port of Calais. Walker said:

“Carnforth Station Trust received a complaint from a visitor who was not happy about me speaking to somebody about the issue…. What they are doing is outrageous. It is absolutely unbelievable, it is a violation of free speech….

“I must be the only man in Carnforth who has a document saying where he can and can’t walk and all for expressing a point of view and quoting an editorial from a newspaper. Now [winding the clock] is no longer possible.”

February 1. Prime Minister Theresa May told the House of Commons that women should feel free to wear the hijab, a traditional Islamic headscarf. Several European countries have imposed bans on parts of Muslim religious dress. “What a woman wears is a woman’s choice,” May said after she was asked — on world hijab day — if she supported the right of women to wear the garment.

On February 1 (“world hijab day”), UK Prime Minister Theresa May said that women should feel free to wear the hijab, a traditional Islamic headscarf, stating: “What a woman wears is a woman’s choice.” Pictured above: Theresa May (then Home Secretary) wears a headscarf while attending an interfaith event at Al Madina Mosque in East London, in February 2015. (Image source: Imams Online video screenshot)

February 2. Six Muslim men shouted “Allahu Akbar” as they were sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court for a total of 81 years for sexually abusing two girls — including one who became pregnant at age 12 — in Rotherham. Three brothers and three other men were convicted of crimes including rape, indecent assault and false imprisonment after the pre-teen victims were “systematically groomed.”

February 4. Almost half of the new homes built in the next five years will go to migrants, according to government figures. Soaring immigration means that Britain will need to accommodate as many as 243,000 new households each year for the next 22 years. It is estimated that an extra 5.3 million new properties could be needed to meet the growth in population, and an extra 2.4 million of the new homes will be needed for migrants alone. In other words, one new home must be built every five minutes to house Britain’s burgeoning migrant population.

February 5. Muslim pupils outnumber Christian children in more than 30 church schools, including one Church of England primary school that has a “100% Muslim population,” according to the Sunday Times. St. Thomas in Werneth, Oldham, is reported by the local diocese to have no Christian pupils, while at Staincliffe Church of England Junior School in Batley, West Yorkshire, 98% of pupils “come from a Muslim background.” The Church of England estimated that about 20 of its schools had more Muslim pupils than Christians and 15 Roman Catholic schools had majority Muslim pupils, according to the Catholic Education Service. Some church schools include Islamic prayers in their services.

February 6. The Deputy Mayor of London, Sophie Linden, warned that people who inflict female genital mutilation (FGM) on girls have escaped justice “for too long.” Linden said that “inconsistencies in the way these crimes are recorded” had allowed perpetrators to avoid charges, despite FGM being a “widespread” problem. Although FGM has been illegal in Britain since 1985, no one has ever been successfully prosecuted for such offenses.

February 7. Zakaria Bulhan, a 19-year-old Norwegian national of Somali origin, was sentenced to indefinite confinement at Broadmoor Hospital after he admitted to killing American tourist Darlene Horton and wounding five others in a rampage in central London on August 3, 2016. Bulhan, from Tooting, South London, pled guilty at the Old Bailey to “manslaughter by diminished responsibility” on the grounds that he was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the attacks. He had been charged with murder and attempted murder, but the court accepted his plea. During his arrest, Bulhan repeatedly muttered “Allah, Allah, Allah,” and police found a Muslim prayer book, “Fortress of the Muslim,” in his pants pocket. The court decided that Islam was not a factor in Bulhan’s behavior.

February 7. A Chatham House survey of more than 10,000 people from ten European countries found that an average of 55% agreed that all further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped, 25% neither agreed nor disagreed and 20% disagreed. Majorities in all but two of the ten states agreed, ranging from 71% in Poland, 65% in Austria, 53% in Germany and 51% in Italy to 47% in the United Kingdom and 41% in Spain.

February 9. A 44-year-old man from Hertfordshire was arrested at Gatwick Airport on terrorism charges after he disembarked from a flight from Iraq. He was charged under Section 5 of the 2006 Terrorism Act: suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts.

February 12. A National Health Service (NHS) project based on research by Leeds University claimed that Muslims with mental health issues could be helped by re-embracing Islam. Traditionally, therapists have shied away from talking about religion as part of treatment. Lead researcher Dr. Ghazala Mir, of the university’s Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, said:

“We know that in Muslim populations people can get quicker results from faith-sensitive therapies that have been tested elsewhere in the world. They tend to use religion as a coping resource more than people in other religious groups.”

Mir has helped to create a new treatment. Patients are asked if faith was part of their life when they were well. Those who stopped being religious because of depression are re-introduced slowly using a self-help booklet, which highlights passages from the Koran that illustrate that “even people with strong faith” can become depressed and that it does not mean Allah is displeased.

February 13. Nadeem Muhammed, a 43-year-old Pakistani national, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London after security officials at Manchester Airport discovered a pipe bomb in his hand luggage prior to boarding a flight to Italy. Muhammed, who lives in Greater Manchester, was arrested on January 30 but was later released on bail and was allowed to travel. He was re-arrested when he returned to Britain on February 11 and charged with possessing an improvised explosive device.

February 14. Clayton McKenna, a 22-year-old Briton who converted to Islam while in prison, appeared at Newcastle Crown Court after he carried an axe through the streets of Boldon Colliery, apparently with which to confront his Christian father over “religious differences.” McKenna allegedly told police that he was on his way to his father’s home “to ask him to bow down to me.” Judge Penny Moreland told McKenna:

“It appears you were sober, you had not been drinking or taking drugs. There has been an examination by the mental health team and they are satisfied there are no mental health issues I ought to be taking into account.

“You made a series of statements, both at the scene and in interview shortly afterwards, as to what you intended to do and what was in your mind. It is right to say they were confused and contradictory.

“The statements included a suggestion that you were going to use violence against your father, amongst a number of reasons you said was because he was a Christian and you were a recent convert to Islam.

“I am concerned that there is no real explanation for your confused thinking that morning, nor for those threats made, even though they appear to have been without substance.”

February 15. Faisal Bashir, a 43-year-old father of two from Ilford, was forced to move out of his home after he renounced Islam and stopped attending mosque. Bashir said he was subject to harassment, but police dismissed his pleas for help as “just a nuisance.” He explained:

“These people knew I had become an atheist and soon enough my whole family was being harassed. At least once a week they would hang around near my house, shouting and swearing at me. I was called an apostate, a non-believer, I was told I had betrayed my God and my faith. Sometimes they would even say things to my children — they are far too little to know what was happening, they were very frightened.

“Police always said they could not really do anything because no physical altercation ever took place. But I am not the kind of person to get violent with anybody. Also, it was always different people so they claimed they could not log it as similar complaint. Eventually a police officer told me I should just move house to get away from it all.

“We were not left with any other choice…. The new house is over a mile away, but they still managed to find us again.”

The Chairman of the Ilford-based British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA), Wilson Chowdhry, said:

“Police and councils up and down the country just don’t understand the level of animosity people choosing to leave Islam can face.”

February 16. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, Britain’s top police officer, urged Muslim scholars to step up their efforts to counter the violent ideology of the Islamic State. He said he believed that IS fighters and terrorists were “political criminals” who were carrying out “horrific violence” which had no justification in Islam. In an interview with the Evening Standard, Hogan-Howe repeated the politically correct dogma that the Islamic State is not Islamic:

“The hardest part for the Western world is to interrupt this philosophy that Daesh [Islamic State] is perpetuating which is that Islam in any way supports this horrific use of violence.

“There is no interpretation I would argue that could say that, but some people are getting away with that. Muslim scholars have got to come up and be really challenging of that and be very clear that this can never be acceptable. There is no interpretation that can ever conclude it is okay to kill people. We cannot be at all sensitive to religious beliefs. We have all got to say that is wrong.

“The Muslim community feel particularly sensitive because Islamism is about people who profess to be Muslims. I would argue that they are political criminals — it just happens to be masked in religion. But when you are dealing with that issue you have to be sensitive to the majority who are good people trying to do the right thing.”

February 18. Britain’s first-ever “modest” fashion event was held in London with more than 40 designers displaying garments that comply with Muslim values. Event organizer Romanna Bint-Abubaker, founder of modest fashion website Haute Elan, told Sky News:

“The fastest growing global consumer is at the moment the Muslim market. By 2030, one in three people will be a Muslim in the world — that is a huge population.”

February 19. Counter-terrorism police launched an investigation into claims that Trish O’Donnell, head of Clarksfield Primary School in Oldham, was being forced to work from home after death threats from Muslim parents opposed to her Western values. O’Donnell reportedly has been subject to “harassment and intimidation” in the form of “aggressive verbal abuse” and “threats to blow up her car” from parents pushing conservative Muslim ideals. The school is mostly filled with Pakistani pupils who do not speak English as a first language.

February 20. Members of Parliament debated U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s state visit to Britain. Left-wing MPs called for the invitation to be withdrawn to protest Trump’s travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries. Conservative Party MPs accused their opponents of hypocrisy and insulting the American people. The debate was triggered after an online parliamentary petition seeking to prevent Trump from making a state visit attracted nearly two million signatures. A counter-petition received over 300,000 signatures. After three hours of debate, Sir Alan Duncan, the deputy foreign secretary, reaffirmed the government’s intention to host Trump on a state visit, tentatively set for October 5-8, 2017.

February 21. Rezzas Abdulla, a 33-year-old man from South Shields, was sentenced to eight months in prison, a sentence then suspended so that he could receive treatment for mental health problems, for assaulting a woman and her nine-month old baby. Rebecca Telford, 25, and her daughter Layla-Jean, were strolling in South Shields in January 2016 when Abdulla leaned into the baby carriage and spat into the baby’s mouth, and allegedly said, “white people shouldn’t breed,” before launching into a tirade of racial abuse. Telford told police:

“There was no eye contact and no words had been exchanged. I had never seen him before. I believe he spat on her purely because we are white, I was a lone female and an easy target.”

February 22. Jamal al-Harith, a 50-year-old British convert to Islam, blew himself up at an Iraqi army base in Mosul on February 20. He had received £1 million (€1.1 million; $1.2 million) in compensation from the British government after being freed from Guantánamo Bay in 2004. Al-Harith, originally named Ronald Fiddler, was born in Manchester to parents of Jamaican origin and took the name Jamal al-Harith when he converted to Islam. He was also known more recently as Abu-Zakariya al-Britani. Captured in Afghanistan in early 2002, and released from Guantánamo Bay after two years, he later joined IS.

February 23. The BBC paid “very substantial” libel damages and broadcast a full apology to Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, founder member of the Muslim Council of Britain, who was falsely accused of calling for the lynching of author Salman Rushdie.

February 26. Shahriar Ashrafkhorasani, a 33-year-old Iranian-born convert from Islam and who is set to be ordained as a Church of England priest, accused Oxford University of discrimination and bias after he was told he could not ask a lecturer critical questions about Islam. During a seminar about love in religion, Minlib Dallh, a research fellow at Regent’s Park College in Oxford, allegedly pointed at Ashrafkhorasani and said: “Everybody can ask a question except you.” Ashrafkhorasani said that Dallh had discovered during a coffee break that he was a convert from Islam. He said that Dallh refused to let him ask questions about the lecturer’s description of Islam as a religion of love and peace. Dallh’s project was partly being sponsored by the King of Jordan. Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, who was a senior fellow at Wycliffe Hall until last year, said that a “politically correct” atmosphere is “very widespread in the university as a whole.” He added: “If people are taking money from these [Muslim] sources, then that can limit the critical approach to the study of Islam and Muslim civilization generally.”

February 27. A spokesman for the West Midlands Police wrote on social media that parents caught practicing female genital mutilation (FMG) on their children should not be prosecuted. He revealed that the force is opposed to “prosecuting/jailing” parents for FGM because it would be “unlikely to benefit” children who fall victim to the crime. He added that the best course of action is to focus on “education.” Tim Loughton, a member of the Home Affairs Committee, condemned the reluctance to pursue prosecution:

“It is absolutely key to expose perpetrators and to nail them for it. The police must go after offenders. This is deeply disturbing because a key part of eradicating the violence of FGM is exposing, prosecuting, and nailing the perpetrators. Every time a prosecution fails to materialize, it encourages those that are behind this that it is not a serious crime, and they can get away it.”

February 28. Patrick Kabele, a 32-year-old convert to Islam, was found guilty of preparing terrorist acts — namely attempting to travel to Syria — contrary to the 2006 Terrorism Act. During his trial, jurors at Woolwich Crown Court heard how Kabele, from Willesden in North London, tried to join the Islamic State in Syria, where he wanted to buy a “nine-year-old virgin, the younger the better.” He added that if he had enough money, he would buy four wives. Kabele was arrested after he tried to board a flight from Gatwick to Istanbul, Turkey on August 20, 2016 with £3,000 in cash. Kabele, who was born in Uganda and became a British citizen, told police after his arrest that he did not “owe an oath of allegiance” to the United Kingdom.

EXCLUSIVE: Geert Wilders on “the patriotic spring” sweeping the West

February 28, 2017

EXCLUSIVE: Geert Wilders on “the patriotic spring” sweeping the West, Rebel MediaEzra Levant, February 27, 2017

The Netherlands has its Parliamentary elections in a couple of weeks, and the man who is leading the polls right now is Geert Wilders.

Wilders is the leader of the Party for Freedom. His chief campaign focus is de-Islamification:

Stopping mass immigration, for sure, but more specifically, stopping the cultural, legal, criminal and social ramifications of bringing in a million Muslims into a country of 17 million Dutch.

(That’s twice the Islamification that Canada has, proportionately; we have just over a million Muslims in a population of 36 million.)

I sat down with Geert Wilders in The Hague on Thursday morning.

That very day, news broke that one of Wilders’ own security staff was caught secretly passing on information about Wilders’ movements to a Moroccan jihadist group.

Of course they want to kill him. He’s the only one trying to close the door, while the rest of the politicians there are prying it further open, in return for power or votes or money…

Watch all the footage from my trip by clicking here.

Islamic Terror and the U.S. Temporary Stay on Immigration

February 13, 2017

Islamic Terror and the U.S. Temporary Stay on Immigration, Gatestone InstituteUzay Bulut, February 13, 2017

It is short-sighted and reckless to blame President Trump for trying to protect his country and keep his country safe — as any good leader is supposed to do. It would be much wiser to direct our anger where it belongs — at Muslim extremists and Muslim terrorists.

To many people, it must be easier to go after the U.S. president than after ISIS terrorists. That way, critics of the president can also pose as “heroes” while ignoring the real threats to all of humanity.

Critics of Muslim extremists get numerous death threats from some people in the West because they courageously oppose the grave human rights violations — forced marriages, honor killings, child rape, murdering homosexuals and female genital mutilation (FGM), among others.

Why do we even call criticism of such horrific practices “courageous”? It should have been the most normal and ordinary act to criticize beheadings, mutilations and other crimes committed by radical Muslims. But it is not.

On the contrary, the temporary ban aims to protect genuine refugees such as Bennetta Bet-Badal, who was murdered in San Bernardino. It would be much wiser to direct our anger where it belongs — at Muslim extremists and Muslim terrorists.

In San Bernardino on December 2, 2015, 14 people were murdered and 22 others seriously wounded in a terrorist attack. The perpetrators were Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married couple. Farook was an American-born U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent, who worked as a health department employee. Malik was a Pakistani-born lawful permanent resident of the United States.

Among the victims of the terror attack was Bennetta Bet-Badal, an Assyrian Christian woman born in Iran in 1969. She fled to the U.S. at age 18 to escape Islamic extremism and the persecution of Christians that followed the Iranian revolution.

“This attack,” stated the Near East Center for Strategic Engagement (NEC-SE), “showcases how Assyrians fled tyranny, oppression, and persecution for freedom and liberty, only to live in a country that is also beginning to be subject to an ever-increasing threat by the same forms of oppressors.”

“NEC-SE would like to take this opportunity to once again urge action to directly arming the Assyrians and Yezidis and other minorities in their indigenous homeland, so that they can defend themselves against terrorism and oppression. This tragedy is evidence that the only way to effectively counter terrorism is not solely here in the US, but abroad and at its root.”

Members of the Islamic State (ISIS) have declared several times that they target “kafirs” (infidels) in the West.

In 2014, Syrian-born Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the official spokesperson and a senior leader of the Islamic State, declared that supporters of the Islamic State from all over the world should attack citizens of Western states, including the US, France and UK:

“If you can kill a disbelieving American or European – especially the spiteful and filthy French – or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way, however it may be.

“Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him.”

It is this barbarity that the new U.S. administration is trying to stop.

FBI Director James Comey also warned in July of last year that hundreds of terrorists will fan out to infiltrate western Europe and the U.S. to carry out attacks on a wider scale, as Islamic State is defeated in Syria. “At some point there’s going to be a terrorist diaspora out of Syria like we’ve never seen before. We saw the future of this threat in Brussels and Paris,” said Comey, adding that future attacks will be on “an order of magnitude greater.”

How many ISIS operatives are there in the U.S.? Are ISIS sleeper cells likely in American cities? The people who are trying to create hysteria over the new steps taken by the Trump Administration should focus on investigating these issues more broadly, but they do not. To them, it must be easier to go after the U.S. president than after ISIS terrorists. This way, they can also pose as “heroes” while ignoring the real threat to all of humanity.

It is not only Islamic terrorists that pose a threat. It is also the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood, the font of all the modern extremist Muslim ideologies.

The crimes committed by radical Muslims are beyond horrific, but it is getting harder to expose and criticize them. Many critics of Islam in Western countries — including those of Muslim origin — have received countless death deaths and have been exposed to various forms of intimidation.

Some were murdered, such as the Dutch film director, Theo van Gogh. His “crime” was to produce the short film Submission (2004) about the treatment of women under Islam. He was assassinated the same year by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Moroccan-Dutch Muslim.

2055In 2004, Moroccan-Dutch terrorist Mohammed Bouyeri (left), shot the filmmaker Theo van Gogh (right) to death, then stabbed him and slit his throat.

Some have had to go into hiding. American cartoonist Molly Norris, who promoted an “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day”, had to go into hiding in 2010 after her life was threatened by Islamic extremists. She also changed her name and stopped producing work for the Seattle Weekly, the New York Times reported.

Who are these people hiding from? From the most radical and devoted followers of the “religion of peace”.

Why should people living in free Western countries be forced to live in fear because they rightfully criticize a destructive and murderous ideology?

They get numerous death threats from some people in the West because they courageously oppose grave human rights violations — forced marriages, honor killings, child rape, murdering homosexuals and female genital mutilation (FGM), among others.

Why do we even call criticism of such horrific practices “courageous”? It should have been the most normal and ordinary act to criticize beheadings, mutilations and other crimes committed by radical Muslims. But it is not. It does require tremendous courage to criticize these acts committed in the name of a religion. For everybody knows that the critics of Islam are risking their lives and security.

In the meantime, “an Islamic State follower posted a message on the Telegram app that said President Trump was wasting his time by blocking refugees from Syria,” reported the journalist Rowan Scarborough.

“‘Trump is preventing the entrance of the citizens of [seven] countries to protect America from terrorism,’ said the message captured by the Middle East Media Research Institute. “Your decision will not do anything to prevent the attacks; They will come from inside America, from Americans born in America, whose fathers were born in America and whose grandparents were born in America.”

President Trump’s executive order is not a ban on Muslims. Individuals of all religious backgrounds of these seven countries have been affected. Nor is it a ban on refugees. On the contrary, the ban aims to protect genuine refugees such as Bennetta Bet-Badal, who was murdered in San Bernardino.

It is short-sighted and reckless to blame President Trump for trying to protect his country and keep it safe — as any good leader is supposed to do. It would be much wiser to direct our anger where it belongs — at Muslim extremists and Muslim terrorists.

Dutch Politician Jan Roos: Stop Building a ‘Little Middle East’ in Europe

February 2, 2017

Dutch Politician Jan Roos: Stop Building a ‘Little Middle East’ in Europe, PJ MediaMichael Van Der Galien, February 2, 2017

(Please see also, Debate in Dutch Parliament about President Trump. — DM)

eureferendumTHE HAGUE – On Thursday in front of parliament building journalists Jan Roos and Thierry Baudet stopped by with a petition signed by over 150 thousand people. The petition is supposed to give the public a say on the ratification of the EU Ukraine association treaty signed by Brussels last year and approved by Dutch parliament in 2015. Mister Baudet and mister Roos aim to increase participation in EU wide matters as they are concerned the Brussels institution is becoming increasingly undemocratic. For a referendum to be able to take place the petition will need to signed by at least 300 thousand people. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto)

The leader of Dutch political party VNL (VoorNederland, a classically liberal party) is lashing out at “the multicultural dream forced upon us” by the establishment.

Yesterday, Dutch outlet De Dagelijkse Standaard (I serve as its editor-in-chief) reported that increasingly more teachers at primary and high schools refuse to talk about certain issues due to fear of Muslim students.

They mention a similar situation in Turkey, led by the increasingly authoritarian President Erdogan, where homosexuality and terrorism are issues better ignored. The teachers say that there’s a “cultural conflict” in Dutch classrooms, and although some of them initially tried to hang on to liberal Dutch values, many have now given up.

VNL leader Jan Roos (VNL currently has two seats in the Dutch Parliament) rose to fame by leading the No campaign in the Dutch referendum about the EU Treaty with the Ukraine, which resulted in a stunning victory for the eurosceptic movement. Roos says that, although the classroom situation is certainly ridiculous, it can’t possibly come as a surprise to anyone:

Considering that the Netherlands further opened its borders to mass migration in the intervening years:

… it’s not exactly shocking that this situation has deteriorated.

Roos has little sympathy for those who blame “a lack of integration or assimilation” for these problems. The real problem, he explains, is “the multicultural dream forced upon us” by the establishment.

This stance marks an incredibly important distinction between traditional influential parties and newcomers like VNL (which was created only a few years ago). The former pretend that the country would be able to deal with mass migration if only the rules for integration and assimilation were clearer. Roos rightfully believes this not to be so. After all, you can’t “force” anyone to assimilate — or even expect them to — if they’re coming into the Netherlands by the tens of thousands every single year. This while the Netherlands has a population of a mere 17 million souls.

Says Roos:

Because multiculturalism was forced upon us, we were asked to become tolerant towards intolerance. In such a scenario intolerance always wins which means you’ll end up with an intolerant society. Our Western values will be wiped away in one fell swoop if these minorities [of intolerant people] decide what happens in our country.

That danger is increasing by the day. A new political party is run by Dutch Turks — or, as Roos calls them, “radical Turks” — who defend every outrage that occurs in Turkey while blasting Dutch culture and history at every occasion. This party currently has two seats in Parliament, just like VNL. The polls indicate they may very well hang on to those seats — and perhaps even win a few more — because of widespread support among the Turkish-Dutch and Moroccan-Dutch communities, who are far more observant of Islam than their counterparts in their countries of origin.

Because of our tolerant attitude towards oppressive cultures and our insane open-borders policy, Roos warns that “we are creating a ‘little Middle East’ in Europe.”

Another example of this development occurred at a ridiculous protest in the nation’s political capital of The Hague yesterday, where Parliament is seated (although Amsterdam is, of course, the Netherlands’ official capital).

Hamas was also present at that protest. But when, in a few years time, the intolerant people turn against their leftist protesters, they’ll come running to us, begging us to help them.

Those leftist protesters, who were waving their politically correct flags and shouting multicultural-loving slogans yesterday, “are cuddling their own downfall,” Roos continues:

The only end result of this can be that our Western values will be wiped out.

Of course, it’s great that teachers, who are generally rather progressive, have finally found the courage to speak out against these problems in their classrooms. But if we don’t act now, mass migration and our dreamy multicultural project will eventually result in the destruction of the free West and of every fundamental right — such as the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion — we hold dear.

Roos’ words sound remarkably like Geert Wilders’ views on this matter, but there are differences. Yes, he demands an end to mass migration and the grand multicultural project, but — unlike Wilders — he does not want to “ban the Quran”:

If people want to read that book, they are free to do so. The freedom of speech and the freedom of religion will continue to exist if VNL plays a role in the Dutch government, but they will be based on Dutch laws. Those who have trouble with the latter part of my statement — respect for Dutch laws and our values — our free to leave.

According to recent polls, VNL has a real shot at coming back in Parliament after the general election of March 15. Geert Wilders’ PVV, however, is leading with ease. It is followed by the VVD, the party currently at the head of government, which is blamed for the dreadful consequences of unlimited migration from the Middle East and for the slow recovery of the Dutch economy after the economic crisis of 2008.

Happy New Year Liberals & Refugees: (Pat Condel)

January 12, 2017

Happy New Year Liberals & Refugees: (Pat >Condell) via YouTube</a, January 1, 2017

To Islamists, the Germans are a bunch of cowards

December 21, 2016

To Islamists, the Germans are a bunch of cowards, Israel National News, Giulio Meotti, December 21, 2016

It is no secret that Islamists consider the Germans as a bunch of cowards. “You love life, we love death”, they continue to repeat. Because wherever they look, the combatants of Allah see only people and governments only too ready to capitulate.

And Germany is Europe’s soft underbelly. The Bundeswehr, Germany’s army, already belongs to history; the country has welcomed more than one million Muslims; German ministers envision the creation of an “official Islam”, while German churches are closing at weekly rhythm; the Sharia courts are already operating; comedians such as Jan Bohmermann are criminalized and the “night of Cologne” with its mass sexual attacks on women has already been justified by feminists and multiculturalists.

We could have hailed a meaningful change in the German policy toward Islamic terrorism if the day after the carnage at the Christmas market in Berlin, a couple of German war planes had bombed the Islamists’ bases in the Middle East and pulverized a few dozen of them.

Nothing happened. Nothing will happen.

Through these random attacks, Muslims are now trying to understand if and how they can defeat the West. They poured into the streets to demonstrate against the caricatures of Mohammed and found themselves at movie theaters to celebrate the defeat of the Americans in Iraq. They understood that they can succeed.

Following the appeal launched by Günter Grass following the terrorist attack of September 11 (“the West should wonder what went wrong”), German “civil society” preferred to criticize itself rather than questioning the tangle of feelings that animates the warriors of Allah. They reacted like someone who is threatened by a hurricane does: accumulating supplies, nailing doors and windows and praying that the storm will end as soon as possible.

But Islamic fundamentalists are different: if they don’t encounter any resistance, they will act and strike in a more resolute way. And in this sense, they have every reason to consider the West and Germany to be weak, decadent and incapable of defending itself. If you are targeted by beheadings and kidnappings, bombings and shootings, and you react through hysterical outbursts about a “dialogue between cultures,” you will get more violence.

Twelve good Germans have just been assassinated during the Christmas holiday. The day after the carnage, the multicultural festival resumed as if nothing bad had happen. Christian leaders called for more “dialogue” (Italy’s head bishop, Monsignor Galantino, said that religion has nothing to do with the attack).

But it is also very ironic: the dialogue these drunken multiculturalists want so establish with the Muslim world will have to take place over orange juice and mineral water. Teetotal submission.

The Dutch Death Spiral

December 11, 2016

The Dutch Death Spiral, Gatestone Institute, Giulio Meotti, December 11, 2016

“It would have been better if the Dutch state had sent a clear signal [to terrorists] via a Dutch court that we foster a broad notion of the freedom of expression in the Netherlands.” — Paul Cliteur, Professor of Jurisprudence, Leiden University.

The historic dimension of Wilders’s conviction is related not only to the terrible injustice done to this MP, but that it was the Netherlands that, for the first time in Europe, criminalized dissenting opinions about Islam.

“I will never be silent. You will not be able to stop me… And that is what we stand for. For freedom and for our beautiful Netherlands.” — Geert Wilders, Dutch MP and leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV).

“We have a lot of guests who are trying to take over the house.” — Pym Fortuyn, later shot to death to “defend Dutch Muslims from persecution.”

Before being slaughtered, clinging to a basket, Theo van Gogh begged his assassin: “Can we talk about this?” But can we talk?

A country whose most outspoken filmmaker was slaughtered by an Islamist; whose bravest refugee, hunted by a fatwa, fled to the U.S.; whose cartoonists must live under protection, had better should think twice before condemning a Member of Parliament, whose comments about Islam have forced him to live under 24-hour protection for more than a decade, for “hate speech.” Poor Erasmus! The Netherlands is no longer a safe haven for free thinkers. It is the Nightmare for Free Speech.

The most prominent politician in the Netherlands, MP Geert Wilders, has just been convicted of “hate speech,” for asking at a really if there should be fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands. Many newly-arrived Moroccans in the Netherlands seem to have been responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime there.

Paul Cliteur, Professor of Jurisprudence at Leiden University, who was called as an expert witness, summed up the message coming from the court: “It would have been better if the Dutch state had sent a clear signal [to terrorists] via a Dutch court that we foster a broad notion of the freedom of expression in the Netherlands.”

Here are just a few details to help understand what Wilders experiences every day because of his ideas: No visitors are allowed into his office except after a long wait to be checked. The Dutch airline KLM refused to board him on a flight to Moscow for reasons of “security.” His entourage is largely anonymous. When a warning level rises, he does not know where he will spend the night. For months, he was able to see his wife only twice a week, in a secure apartment, and then only when the police allowed it. The Parliament had to place him in the less visible part of the building, in order better to protect him. He often wears a bulletproof vest to speak in public. When he goes to a restaurant, his security detail must first check the place out.

Wilders’s life is a nightmare. “I am in jail,” he has said; “they are walking around free.”

The historic dimension of Wilders’s conviction is related not only to the terrible injustice done to this MP, but that it was the Netherlands that, for the first time in Europe, criminalized dissenting opinions about Islam.

The Netherlands is a very small country; whatever happens to this enclave is seen in the rest of Europe. The Netherlands refused to surrender to the Spanish invasion. It was from Rotterdam, the second-largest Dutch city, that the Founding Fathers left to create the United States of America. It was to the Netherlands that some of the most brave, original European philosophers and writers — Descartes, Rousseau, Locke, Sade, Molière, Hugo, Swift and Spinoza — had to flee to publish their books. It is also the only corner of Europe where there were no pogroms against Jews, and where Rembrandt painted Jesus with the physical traits of Jews.

Take Leiden: “Praesidium Libertatis” (“Bastion of Freedom”) is the motto of the Netherlands’ most ancient university. Leiden was the university of Johan Huizinga, the great historian who opposed the Nazis and died in a concentration camp. Leiden was also the university of Anton Pannekoek, the mentor of Martinus Van der Lubbe, the Dutch hero who torched the Nazi Parliament in 1933.

In Leiden today, you meet brave intellectuals such as Afshin Ellian, an Iranian jurist who fled Khomeini’s Revolution in Iran and who also now lives under police protection for his observations on Islam. Ellian’s office is close to the former office of Rudolph Cleveringa. When the Nazis invaded the Netherlands and called on Dutch public officials to fill out a form in which they had to declare whether they were “Aryans” or “Jews”, everyone but Cleveringa capitulated. He understood the consequences of such commands.

Twelve years ago, the Netherlands was again plunged into fear for the first time since World War II. In Linnaeusstraat, a district of Amsterdam, Mohammed Bouyeri, a Muslim extremist, ambushed the filmmaker Theo van Gogh and slaughtered him, then pinned on his chest a letter threatening the lives of Geert Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Before that murder, Pim Fortuyn, a professor who had formed his own party to save the country from Islamization, was shot to death to “defend Dutch Muslims from persecution.”

2117Twelve years ago, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh (left) was assassinated by an Islamist who pinned on van Gogh’s chest a letter threatening the life of Geert Wilders (right). Today Wilders, the most prominent politician in the Netherlands, lives in hiding under round-the-clock protection.

Fortuyn had said, “We have a lot of guests who are trying to take over the house.”

Since then, many Dutch artists have capitulated to fear.

Sooreh Hera, from Iran, submitted her photos to the Gemeentemuseum Museum in The Hague. One of these works depicted Mohammed and Ali. After many threats, the museum proposed that it would acquire the photos without publishing them and that one day, perhaps, when the situation was calmer, they might show them then. Hera refused: it would have been self-censorship, a sad day for the West. Rants Tjan, director of Museum Gouda, bravely offered to exhibit her censored images, but that event was later cancelled, too. Hera was forced to go into hiding.

Paul Cliteur, a critic of multiculturalism, announced that he would no longer write for Dutch newspapers about Islam, for fear of reprisals: “With the murder of van Gogh, everyone who writes takes a certain risk. That is a scary development. What I am doing do is self-censorship, absolutely….”

Then a columnist, Hasna el Maroudi, from the newspaper NRC Handelsblad, stopped writing, after receiving threats.

The Dutch artist Rachid Ben Ali, irreverent about Islam, no longer satirizes Muslims.

Amsterdam, a city famous for its exuberant cultural life, had already lived through threats to artists: the occupation by the Nazis during World War II.

Several artists still refuse to mention Theo Van Gogh, so as not to “contribute to… divisions”, according to the New York Times. Translation: They are afraid. Who would not be?

In the Oosterpark, a steel sculpture by the artist Jeroen Henneman, dedicated to Van Gogh, is entitled “De Schreeuw” (“The Scream”). But it is a scream you hardly hear in the Dutch society.

What you do hear is the defiant protest after the conviction of a brave MP, Geert Wilders: “I will never be silent. You will not be able to stop me… And that is what we stand for. For freedom and for our beautiful Netherlands.”

Before being slaughtered, clinging to a basket, Theo van Gogh begged his assassin: “Can we talk about this?

But can we talk?

Ask Geert Wilders, just the latest brave victim of Europe’s Bolshevik thought police.

Biden says the world needs genuine leaders such as Trudeau

December 10, 2016

Biden says the world needs genuine leaders such as Trudeau, CIJ News, Ilana Shneider, December 10, 2016

justin-trudeau-meets-with-joe-biden-photo-twitter-joe-bidenPM Justin Trudeau meets with VP Joe Biden. Photo: Twitter Joe Biden

Outgoing United States Vice-President Joe Biden paid a visit to Ottawa on Thursday, apparently for no reason other than to show the “depth of the relationship” between the US and Canada, Justin Trudeau’s director of communication said.

“I’ve never seen Europe engaged in as much self-doubt,” Biden told Trudeau during the visit. “The world’s going to spend a lot of time looking to you, prime minister, as we see more and more challenges to the liberal international order since the end of World War II — you and Angela Merkel.”

“The world is going to spend a lot of time looking to you Mr Prime Minister,” Biden told a crowd of Canadian dignitaries. “Viva la Canada because we need you very, very badly.”

Biden’s remarks were made two days before a new poll conducted by Forum Research showed that support for the federal Liberals dropped by 9 per cent in one month. According to Forum, if federal elections were held today, 42 per cent of Canadians would vote Liberal, compared to 51 per cent in November.

The same poll also found that Trudeau’s “favourability” rating dropped from 58 per cent last month to 51 per cent in December, while approval rating for Conservative Party’s interim leader Rona Ambrose increased from 30 per cent to 36 per cent.

German Chancellor Merkel, who is running for her fourth term in office, sank to her lowest voter support in five years, primarily due to her handling of the refugee crisis and last summer’s terrorist attacks on German soil perpetrated by Islamic jihadists which included a shooting spree, an axe attack, a suicide bombing and a machete assault that left 13 people dead. Last year, Merkel opened Germany’s doors to more than one million migrants from the Middle East and Africa.

With Trump winning the elections in the US, Britain’s David Cameron’s resigning, France’s Hollande is not seeking re-election and Italy’s Renzi’s leaving after having gambled and lost on a flawed constitutional referendum, Trudeau and Merkel remain the “last two liberal leaders standing”.

Germany Submits to Sharia Law

December 1, 2016

Germany Submits to Sharia Law, Gatestone InstituteSoeren Kern, December 1, 2016

A German court has ruled that seven Islamists who formed a vigilante patrol to enforce Sharia law on the streets of Wuppertal did not break German law and were simply exercising their right to free speech. The “politically correct” decision, which may be appealed, effectively authorizes the Sharia Police to continue enforcing Islamic law in Wuppertal.

The self-appointed “Sharia Police” distributed leaflets which established a “Sharia-controlled zone” in Wuppertal. The men urged both Muslim and non-Muslim passersby to attend mosques and to refrain from alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, gambling, music, pornography and prostitution.

Critics say the cases — especially those in which German law has taken a back seat to Sharia law — reflect a dangerous encroachment of Islamic law into the German legal system.

In June 2013, a court in Hamm ruled that anyone who contracts marriage according to Islamic law in a Muslim country and later seeks a divorce in Germany must abide by the original terms established by Sharia law. The landmark ruling effectively legalized the Sharia practice of “triple-talaq,” obtaining a divorce by reciting the phrase “I divorce you” three times.

A growing number of Muslims in Germany are consciously bypassing German courts altogether and instead are adjudicating their disputes in informal Sharia courts, which are proliferating across the country.

“If the rule of law fails to establish its authority and demand respect for itself, then it can immediately declare its bankruptcy.” — Franz Solms-Laubach, Bild’sparliamentary correspondent.

A German court has ruled that seven Islamists who formed a vigilante patrol to enforce Sharia law on the streets of Wuppertal did not break German law and were simply exercising their right to free speech.

The ruling, which effectively legitimizes Sharia law in Germany, is one of a growing number of instances in which German courts are — wittingly or unwittingly — promoting the establishment of a parallel Islamic legal system in the country.

The self-appointed “Sharia Police” sparked public outrage in September 2014, when they distributed yellow leaflets which established a “Sharia-controlled zone” in the Elberfeld district of Wuppertal. The men urged both Muslim and non-Muslim passersby to attend mosques and to refrain from alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, gambling, music, pornography and prostitution.

1653-1A German court has ruled that a group of Islamists who formed a vigilante patrol to enforce Sharia law on the streets of Wuppertal did not break German law and were simply exercising their right to free speech. They were charged under a law that prohibits the wearing of uniforms at public rallies — a law originally designed to ban neo-Nazi groups from parading in public.

The vigilantes are followers of Salafism, a virulently anti-Western ideology that openly seeks to replace democracy in Germany (and elsewhere) with an Islamic government based on Sharia law.

Salafist ideology posits that Sharia law is superior to secular, common law because it emanates from Allah, the only legitimate lawgiver, and thus is legally binding eternally for all of humanity. According to the Salafist worldview, democracy is an effort to elevate the will of humans above the will of Allah, and is therefore a form of idolatry that must be rejected. In other words, Sharia law and democracy are incompatible.

Wuppertal Mayor Peter Jung said he hoped the police would take a hard line against the Islamists: “The intention of these people is to provoke and intimidate and force their ideology upon others. We will not allow this.”

Wuppertal Police Chief Birgitta Radermacher said the “pseudo police” represented a threat to the rule of law and that only police appointed and employed by the state have the legitimate right to act as police in Germany. She added:

“The monopoly of power lies exclusively with the State. Behavior that intimidates, threatens or provokes will not be tolerated. These ‘Sharia Police’ are not legitimate. Call 110 [police] when you meet these people.”

Wuppertal’s public prosecutor, Wolf-Tilman Baumert, argued that the men, who wore orange vests emblazoned with the words “SHARIAH POLICE,” had violated a law that bans wearing uniforms at public rallies. The law, which especially prohibits uniforms that express political views, was originally designed to prevent neo-Nazi groups from parading in public. According to Baumert, the vests were illegal because they had a “deliberate, intimidating and militant” effect.

On November 21, 2016, however, the Wuppertal District Court ruled that the vests technically were not uniforms, and in any event did not pose a threat. The court said that witnesses and passersby could not possibly have felt intimidated by the men, and that prosecuting them would infringe on their freedom of expression. The “politically correct” decision, which may be appealed, effectively authorizes the Sharia Police to continue enforcing Islamic law in Wuppertal.

German Courts and Sharia Law

German courts are increasingly deferring to Islamic law because either the plaintiffs or the defendants are Muslim. Critics say the cases — especially those in which German law has taken a back seat to Sharia law — reflect a dangerous encroachment of Islamic law into the German legal system.

In May 2016, for example, an appeals court in Bamberg recognized the marriage of a 15-year-old Syrian girl to her 21-year-old cousin. The court ruled that the marriage was valid because it was contracted in Syria, where such marriages are allowed according to Sharia law, which does not set any age limit to marriage. The ruling effectively legalized Sharia child marriages in Germany.

The case came about after the couple arrived at a refugee shelter in Aschaffenburg in August 2015. The Youth Welfare Office (Jugendamt) refused to recognize their marriage and separated the girl from her husband. The couple filed a lawsuit and a family court ruled in favor of the Youth Welfare Office, which claimed to be the girl’s legal guardian.

The court in Bamberg overturned that ruling. It determined that, according to Sharia law, the marriage is valid because it has already been consummated, and therefore the Youth Welfare Office has no legal authority to separate the couple.

The ruling — which was described as a “crash course in Syrian Islamic marriage law” — ignited a firestorm of criticism. Some accused the court in Bamberg of applying Sharia law over German law to legalize a practice that is banned in Germany.

Critics of the ruling pointed to Article 6 of the Introductory Act to the German Civil Code (Einführungsgesetz zum Bürgerlichen Gesetzbuche, EGBGB), which states:

“A legal standard of another State shall not be applied where its application results in an outcome which is manifestly incompatible with the essential principles of German law. In particular, it is not applicable if the application is incompatible with fundamental rights.”

This stipulation is routinely ignored, however, apparently in the interests of political correctness and multiculturalism. Indeed, Sharia law has been encroaching into the German justice system virtually unchecked for nearly two decades. Some examples include:

  • In August 2000, a court in Kassel ordered a widow to split her late Moroccan husband’s pension with another woman to whom the man was simultaneously married. Although polygamy is illegal in Germany, the judge ruled that the two wives must share the pension, in accordance with Moroccan law.
  • In March 2004, a court in Koblenz granted the second wife of an Iraqi living in Germany the right to remain permanently in the country. The court ruled that after five years in a polygamous marriage in Germany, it would be unfair to expect her to return to Iraq.
  • In March 2007, a judge in Frankfurt cited the Koran in a divorce case involving a German-Moroccan woman who had been repeatedly beaten by her Moroccan husband. Although police ordered the man to stay away from his estranged wife, he continued to abuse her and at one point threatened to kill her. Judge Christa Datz-Winter refused to grant the divorce. She quoted Sura 4, Verse 34 of the Koran, which justifies “both the husband’s right to use corporal punishment against a disobedient wife and the establishment of the husband’s superiority over the wife.” The judge was eventually removed from the case.
  • In December 2008, a court in Düsseldorf ordered a Turkish man to pay a €30,000 ($32,000) dowry to his former daughter-in-law, in accordance with Sharia law.
  • In October 2010, a court in Cologne ruled that an Iranian man must pay his ex-wife a dower of €162,000 euros ($171,000), the current equivalent value of 600 gold coins, in accordance with the original Sharia marriage contract.
  • In December 2010, a court in Munich ruled that a German widow was entitled to only one-quarter of the estate left by her late husband, who was born in Iran. The court awarded the other three-quarters of the inheritance to the man’s relatives in Tehran in accordance with Sharia law.
  • In November 2011, a court in Siegburg allowed an Iranian couple to be divorced twice, first by a German judge according to German law, and then by an Iranian cleric according to Sharia law. The director of the Siegburg District Court, Birgit Niepmann, said the Sharia ceremony “was a service of the court.”
  • In July 2012, a court in Hamm ordered an Iranian man to pay his estranged wife a dower as part of a divorce settlement. The case involved a couple who married according to Sharia law in Iran, migrated to Germany and later separated. As part of the original marriage agreement, the husband promised to pay his wife a dower of 800 gold coins payable upon demand. The court ordered the husband to pay the woman €213,000 ($225,000), the current equivalent value of the coins.
  • In June 2013, a court in Hamm ruled that anyone who contracts marriage according to Islamic law in a Muslim country and later seeks a divorce in Germany must abide by the original terms established by Sharia law. The landmark ruling effectively legalized the Sharia practice of “triple-talaq,” obtaining a divorce by reciting the phrase “I divorce you” three times.
  • In July 2016, a court in Hamm ordered a Lebanese man to pay his estranged wife a dower as part of a divorce settlement. The case involved a couple who married according to Sharia law in Lebanon, migrated to Germany and later separated. As part of the original marriage agreement, the husband promised to pay his wife a dower of $15,000. The German court ordered him to pay her the equivalent amount in euros.

In an interview with Spiegel Online, Islam expert Mathias Rohe said that the existence of parallel legal structures in Germany is an “expression of globalization.” He added: “We apply Islamic law just as we do French law.”

Sharia Courts in Germany

A growing number of Muslims in Germany are consciously bypassing German courts altogether and instead are adjudicating their disputes in informal Sharia courts, which are proliferating across the country. According to one estimate, some 500 Sharia judges are now regulating civil disputes between Muslims in Germany — a development that points to the establishment of a parallel Islamic justice system in the country.

A major reason for the growth in Sharia courts is that Germany does not recognize polygamy or marriages involving minors.

The German Interior Ministry, responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, recently revealed that 1,475 married children are known to be living in Germany as of July 31, 2016 — including 361 children who are under the age of 14. The true number of child marriages in Germany is believed to be much higher than the official statistics suggest, because many are being concealed.

Polygamy, although illegal under German law, is commonplace among Muslims in all major German cities. In Berlin, for example, it is estimated that fully one-third of the Muslim men living in the Neukölln district of the city have two or more wives.

According to an exposé broadcast by RTL, one of Germany’s leading media companies, Muslim men residing in Germany routinely take advantage of the social welfare system by bringing two, three or four women from across the Muslim world to Germany, and then marrying them in the presence of a Muslim cleric. Once in Germany, the women request social welfare benefits, including the cost of a separate home for themselves and for their children, on the claim of being a “single parent with children.”

Although the welfare fraud committed by Muslim immigrants is an “open secret” costing German taxpayers millions of euros each year, government agencies are reluctant to take action due to political correctness, according to RTL.

Chancellor Angela Merkel once declared that Muslims must obey the constitution and not Sharia law if they want to live in Germany. More recently, Justice Minister Heiko Maas said:

“No one who comes here has the right to put his cultural values or religious beliefs above our law. Everyone must abide by the law, no matter whether they have grown up here or have only just arrived.”

In practice, however, German leaders have tolerated a parallel Islamic justice system, one which allows Muslims to take the law into their own hands, often with tragic consequences.

On November 20, 2016, for example, a 38-year-old German-Kurdish man in Lower Saxony tied one end of a rope to the back of his car and the other end around the neck of his ex-wife. He then dragged the woman through the streets of Hameln. The woman, who survived, remains in critical condition.

The newsmagazine, Focus, reported that the man was a “strictly religious Muslim who married and divorced the woman according to Sharia law.” It added: “Under German law, however, the two were not married.” Bild reported that the man was married “once under German law and four times under Sharia law.”

The crime, which has drawn renewed attention to the problem of Sharia justice in Germany, has alarmed some members of the political and media establishment.

Wolfgang Bosbach, of the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said: “Even if some people refuse to admit it, a parallel justice system has established itself in Germany. This act shows a clear rejection of our values and legal order.”

On November 23, Bild, the largest-circulation newspaper in Germany, warned that the country was “capitulating to Islamic law.” In a special “Sharia Report” it stated:

“The 2013 coalition agreement between the CDU and the Social Democrats promised: ‘We want to strengthen the state’s legal monopoly. We will not tolerate illegal parallel justice.’ But nothing has happened.”

In a commentary, Franz Solms-Laubach, Bild’s parliamentary correspondent, wrote:

“Even if we still refuse to believe it: Parts of Germany are ruled by Islamic law! Polygamy, child marriages, Sharia judges — for far too long the German rule of law has not been enforced. Many politicians dreamed of multiculturalism….

“This is not a question of folklore or foreign customs and traditions. It is a question of law and order.

“If the rule of law fails to establish its authority and demand respect for itself, then it can immediately declare its bankruptcy.”