(Finding anything even remotely hopeful about Iran is rare. This article suggests that some baby steps are being taken against Sharia law in Iraq.
— DM)
A 20-year-old economics student has shaken off death threats to rivals and a barrage of criticism to be crowned the first official Miss Iraq since 1972.
“I want to prove that the Iraqi woman has her own existence in society, she has her rights like men,”Shaima Qassem Abdulrahman told NBC News. “I am afraid of nothing, because I am confident that what I am doing is not wrong.”
More than 150 women applied for Miss Iraq pageant, which organizers said was a chance to “create life in Iraq” and “revive our country” after years of bloodshed and internal chaos.
But a backlash saw 15 contestants drop out of the competition, according to one of the judges, Iraqi fashion designer Sinan Kamel. Reuters reported that least two of these women had received death threats.
Abdulrahman, from the northern city of Kirkuk, said that she hoped “to reflect the culture of Iraq,” adding that Saturday’s competition was “not about beauty alone,” and it was not just a fashion show.
“I call all Iraqi girls to feel this experience,” she said after winning.
Abdulrahman had to convince her parents to let her enter after they initially banned her from participating.
“In the past I heard that such contests used to be held in Baghdad — I dreamed of being a part of one of these contests,” she told NBC News in October. She said the Iraqi people were “badly in need of such cultural activities” after the turmoil the country had been through.
Like many Iraqis, Abdulrahman has been directly affected by the violence brought to her country by ISIS. Two of her cousins were members of Iraq’s federal police until they were killed while fighting the militants.
Participants wait for judges to determine the winner of Miss Iraq during the final round of judging in Baghdad. AHMED SAAD / Reuters
Iraq has a long history of holding beauty pageants. In the 1930s, women competed at monthly events including “Miss Baghdad” and “Baghdad’s Queen of Beauty,” according to an article published in Nina Iraq magazine.
Wijdan Burhan al-Deen, who won in 1972, was the last internationally-recognized Miss Iraq. She went on to represent her country at Miss Universe the same year.
Since then, pageants have been held under various monikers but none were in accordance with international standards — a prerequisite for having a shot at Miss Arab and then the global Miss World event.
The group was caught patrolling the streets of Wuppertal in western Germany telling those walking by not to engage in activities forbidden by sharia (Islamic) law. The group also handed out notices to passersby announcing that the area was a “Sharia Controlled Zone” which meant that alcohol, drugs, gambling, music and concerts, pornography and prostitution were prohibited.
Despite the fact that the group was dressed in in bright orange vests labelled “Sharia Patrol,” the court announced that the group had not violated Germany’s laws on uniforms and public gathering.
German prosecutors have filed an appeal, as well they should, as the court seems to have missed the point. German politicians, in contrast, understood full well what the Sharia patrols were designed to do.
“These people’s intention is to provoke and intimidate and force their ideology [upon others],” said Peter Jung, the mayor of Wuppertal.
Christian Democrat party whip Volker Kauder proclaimed, “Under absolutely no circumstances can we tolerate self-styled Sharia police officers patrolling our streets and dictating what people should or should not do.”
“Sharia law is not tolerated on German soil,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told the German daily Bild.
In the UK, a similar case ended quite differently when three members of a similar patrol were sent to jail for trying to enforce Sharia law on the streets of London.
In that case, prosecutor Alex Chalk argued to the court, “This is a case about religious vigilantism. These men were members of a self-styled Muslim Patrol who threatened, intimidated and even assaulted members of the public who they perceived to be behaving in an un-Islamic manner.”
Chalk added, “The men accosted members of the public in neighborhoods of East London which they claimed were Muslim areas, and where according to them different law applied.”
Although the German group, made up of Salafists (ultra-conservative Muslims), did not assault its victims as the group did in London, their intentions to intimidate and impose their religious beliefs on the wider public is objectionable enough.
The naivete of the German courts in allowing such activity on the country’s streets is further concerning considering the “real” purpose of the patrols, as stated by their leader, Sven Lau, a 34-year-old German convert to Islam.
Lau has admitted to designing the Sharia patrol to spark a debate on Salafism and thereby attract converts to Islam. It’s a great recruiting tool for him.
“We knew that this would raise attention,” he said.
Lau, who is described as a fiery preacher, has been accused of recruiting jihadis for the Islamic State after being photographed in Syria in 2013 on top of a tank sporting a Kalashnikov rifle. After claiming to be in Syria on a humanitarian mission, the charges were dropped (with his passport taken away).
As Lau told him, “The press? They help us. People love bad boys. Women love bad boys. In the last month I think 10 women wanted to marry me…from models to women who are totally covered.”
This is one “bad boy” that should be taken off the streets.
(The views expressed in this article are mine and do not necessarily reflect those of Warsclerotic or its other editors. — DM)
The recent focus, to the extent that there has been one, has been on Islamist terrorists. Terrorists kill people; fortunately, they themselves often die in the process.
The cancer of Islamisation brings terrorists to western countries. Worse, it also destroys host civilizations from within. Terrorism is not a necessary component of that process and merely keeping terrorists out will not halt it. European supporters of the tumor have caused it to metastasize and thereby to weaken their civilizations. They are working hard to finish the job; if the process is not stopped, it will eventually kill those civilizations.
How about America? Will Europe show the way?
In this short Clarion Project video, a Sunni Muslim woman relates the levels of Muslim support for terror and for changing western law and culture to conform to Islamic (Sharia) law. Many Americans will find the numbers of Muslims involved to be surprisingly high. It’s very well worth watching.
In multiple Muslim nations, overwhelming majorities of Muslims support the death penalty for apostasy or blasphemy. Collectively, this means that hundreds of millions of men and women support capital punishment for the exercise of the basic human rights of freedom of expression and free exercise of religion:
Terrorism vs. the Islamisation Cancer
Few terrorists are needed to kill many people and to frighten more. Preventing the entry of additional Muslims into America would diminish the threat of terror but would not eliminate it: Muslim terrorists are often second or later generation citizens and the Muslim fertility rate is quite high.
Globally, Muslims have the highest fertility rate, an average of 3.1 children per woman – well above replacement level (2.1), the minimum typically needed to maintain a stable population. Christians are second, at 2.7 children per woman. Hindu fertility (2.4) is similar to the global average (2.5). Worldwide, Jewish fertility (2.3 children per woman) also is above replacement level.
To the extent that Muslim males impregnate multiple women, the male Muslim fertility rate is doubtless higher than for females. If each of three wives, made pregnant by the same husband, has three children that’s nine for that one man. Of course, not all Muslim men have three wives and some Muslim wives may use effective methods of birth control.
Compared to much of Europe, the Muslim population of the United States as a whole remains small and Islamisation has only begun. Preventing the entry of additional Muslims can significantly reduce the likelihood that our civilization will succumb to the cancer of Islamisation, but only if the threats are understood and acted upon. Otherwise, the cancer will metastasize, the pace will accelerate and a painful death will ensue.
Europe’s welcome to Muslims
Germany
It has been estimated that Germany’s Muslim population will quadruple within the next five years, rising to approximately twenty million. That estimate presumably takes into account the high Muslim fertility rate. The current population of Germany has been estimated at 82,544,395.
Here’s a video of a Green Party legislator who looks forward to the day when Germans will be a minority in their own cities.
And here are some happy new arrivals, responding to the kindness Europe has shown them.
Germany is already experiencing significant problems brought by its increasing Muslim population. Here are a few examples taken from the linked articles.
Asylum seekers are driving a surge in violent crime in cities and towns across Germany. German authorities, however, are downplaying the lawlessness, apparently to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiment. [Emphasis added.]
A confidential police report leaked to a German newspaper reveals that a record-breaking 38,000 asylum seekers were accused of committing crimes in the country in 2014. Analysts believe this figure — which works out to more than 100 a day — is only the tip of the iceberg, as many crimes are either not resolved or not reported.
The current spike in crime — including rapes, sexual and physical assaults, stabbings, home invasions, robberies, burglaries and drug trafficking — comes amid a record-breaking influx of refugees from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Western Balkans.
According to a classified document obtained by the German newspaper, Bild, the government now estimates that Germany will receive as many as 1.5 million asylum seekers in 2015, including 920,000 in the last quarter of 2015 alone. This figure is nearly double the previous estimate, from August, which was 800,000 for all of 2015. By comparison, Germany received 202,000 asylum seekers in all of 2014.
The document warns that with family reunifications, the actual number of asylum seekers could swell to more than seven million, based on the assumption that individuals whose applications are approved will bring between four and eight additional family members to Germany.
A growing number of women and young girls housed in refugee shelters in Germany are being raped, sexually assaulted and even forced into prostitution by male asylum seekers, according to German social work organizations with first-hand knowledge of the situation.
Many of the rapes are occurring in mixed-gender shelters, where, due to a lack of space, German authorities are forcing thousands of male and female migrants to share the same sleeping areas and restroom facilities.
Conditions for women and girls at some shelters are so perilous that females are being described as “wild game” fighting off Muslim male predators. But many victims, fearing reprisals, are keeping silent, social workers say.
At the same time, growing numbers of German women in towns and cities across the country are being raped by asylum seekers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Many of the crimes are being downplayed by German authorities and the national media, apparently to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiments. [Emphasis added.]
On August 18, a coalition of four social work organizations and women’s rights groups sent a two-page letter to the leaders of the political parties in the regional parliament in Hesse, a state in west-central Germany, warning them of the worsening situation for women and children in the refugee shelters.
[Please see a copy of the letter at the link]
After several blogs (here, here and here) drew attention to the letter, the LandesFrauenRat (LFR) Hessen, a women’s lobbying group that originally uploaded the politically incorrect document to its website, abruptly removed it on September 14, without explanation.
. . . .
Meanwhile, the raping of German women by asylum seekers is becoming commonplace. Following are a few select cases just from 2015:
[Please see the fifteen “select cases” at the link.]
. . . .
Meanwhile, parents are being warned to look after their daughters. Police in the Bavarian town of Mering, where a 16-year-old-girl was raped on September 11, have issued a warning to parents not to allow their children to go outside unaccompanied. They have also advised women not to walk to or from the train station alone because of its proximity to a refugee shelter.
In the Bavarian town of Pocking, administrators of the Wilhelm-Diess-Gymnasium have warned parents not to let their daughters wear revealing clothing in order to avoid “misunderstandings” with the 200 Muslim refugees housed in emergency accommodations in a building next to the school.
Aside from the letter which removed, where are the feminists? Have they no concerns or are they too self-centered or too afraid of being called “racists” or “Islamophobes” to speak?
As Muslim migration is being set to change German, and possibly European, demographics forever, Germany is gearing up for the new challenge — not by integrating and assimilating young Muslims in a free and democratic Western society, but by handing over the religious education of the next generation of German Muslims to Islamist radicals. [Emphasis added.]
Worse yet, German authorities see no problem in doing that. [Emphasis added.]
With Germany predicted to receive 800,000 migrants — mostly Muslims — this year alone, and millions more waiting to cross Europe’s unguarded borders, the Muslim population in Germany is seeing a historic rise from the current figure of nearly 6 million. Several German states including Bavaria, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia have introduced Islamic Studies in their public schools. The state of Hesse has become the first in Germany to offer Islamic education in public schools, with religious instruction starting as early as the first grade.
Giving young children religious and moral instruction might sound like a good idea, if not for the content of the newly written Islamic curriculum and the influence of Islamist elements over the recruitment of teachers. [Emphasis added.]
The writing of textbooks is being overseen by the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB). In an agreement reached between the State of Hesse and DITIB, the organization will play a key role in setting the curriculum, selecting the teachers and monitoring the Islamic religious instruction. The organization is apparently assuming a similar role in several other key German states.
DITIB is the largest Muslim organization in Germany and controls several prominent mosques. The group depends heavily on the Turkish government for its funding, and maintains close ties with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist party, the AKP. [Emphasis added.]
The newly compiled Islamic curriculum for public schools in Hesse has come under great scrutiny. An independent report conducted by Abdel-Hakim Ourghi, who heads of the Faculty for Islamic Theology and Religious Studiesat the Freiburg University of Education, has sharply criticized the curriculum.
According to an article in Die Welt, Ourghi, a prominent Muslim scholar, has been raising concern about the activities of DITIB and other conservative Muslim organizations operating in Germany. “No one knows exactly what actually happens in Islamic classes in German primary schools,” he says. In his assessment, conservative Islam, the one dominant in Germany, is incapable of thinking critically about its past. [Emphasis added.]
According to Ourghi’s report, the textbooks fail to “confront the problematic verses of Koran.” The report also says that the curriculum fails in its most important purpose — integrating Muslims into the German society — as it fails to reconcile the “Islamic faith of the students with the reality of the western society” they are living in. [Emphasis added.]
Confronted with the damning report, Hesse’s Minister of Education and Culture, Alexander Lorz, dismissed the allegations and called the Hesse’s Islamic education a “success.”
The number of radical Salafists in Germany has more than doubled over the past five years, according to a new estimate by German intelligence officials. [Emphasis added.]
Salafists disguised as aid workers are also canvassing German refugee shelters in search of new recruits from among the nearly one million asylum seekers who have arrived in Germany this year from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
. . . .
Salafists — who follow what they say was the original Islam practiced in the 7th and 8th centuries — openly state that they want to replace democracy in Germany (and the rest of the world) with an Islamic government based on Sharia law. [Emphasis added]
Muslim radicals have begun enforcing Islamic Sharia law on the streets of Wuppertal, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, the state with the largest Muslim population in Germany. [Emphasis added.]
In what government officials say is a blatant challenge to the rule of law and the democratic order in Germany, groups of young bearded Islamists — some wearing orange traffic safety vests emblazoned with the words “Sharia Police” — have declared parts of downtown Wuppertal to be a “Sharia Controlled Zone.”
The self-appointed guardians of public morals have been distributing yellow leaflets that explain the Islamist code of conduct in the city’s Sharia zones. They have urged both Muslim and non-Muslim passersby to listen to Salafist sermons and to refrain from alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, gambling, listening to music, pornography or prostitution.
A seven-minute propaganda video in German, entitled “Sharia Police: Coming Soon to Your City,” shows a group of men led by a German convert to Islam, Sven Lau, roaming the streets of Wuppertal at night and pressing wayward youth to embrace radical Islam. In some instances, the men physically attempted to prevent young people from entering bars, casinos and discotheques; those who resisted were pursued and intimidated.
The influx of more than one million asylum seekers from Africa,Asia and the Middle East is placing unprecedented strain on Germany’s healthcare system.
Hospitals, clinics and emergency rooms across Germany are being filled to capacity with migrants suffering maladies of all kinds, and medical personnel, including thousands of volunteers, are increasingly complaining of burnout.
Diseases are also reappearing that have not been seen in Germany for years. German public health officials are now on the lookout for Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever, diphtheria, Ebola, hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, malaria, measles, meningitis, mumps, polio, scabies, tetanus, tuberculosis, typhus and whooping cough. As refugee shelters fill to overflowing, doctors are also on high alert for mass outbreaks of influenza and Norovirus.
Compounding the challenge, tens of thousands of migrants arriving in Germany — particularly migrant children — have not been immunized, and German doctors are finding that needed vaccines are not readily available due to a lack of supply. Some German parents are panicking that there are not enough vaccines to immunize their own children.
Many migrants are also suffering from a host of traumas and mental illnesses. According to the Chamber of German Psychotherapists (Bundespsychotherapeutenkammer), at least half of all migrants arriving in Germany have psychological problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, and roughly 40% have contemplated suicide.
German hospitals are also being forced to hire a virtual army of interpreters so that doctors can communicate with asylum seekers, who speak dozens of languages, dialects and variants.
At the same time, German hospitals are increasing security to protect doctors and nurses from violent attacks by migrants who are unhappy with the medical treatment they are receiving. [Emphasis added.]
Muslim asylum seekers are enforcing Islamic Sharia law in German refugee shelters, according to police, who warn that Christians, Kurds and Yazidis in the shelters are being attacked by Muslims with increasing frequency and ferocity. [Emphasis added.]
Muslim migrants from different sects, clans, ethnicities and nationalities are also attacking each other. Violent brawls — sometimes involving hundreds of migrants — are now a daily occurrence.
Police say the shelters, where thousands of migrants are housed together in cramped spaces for months at a time, are seething cauldrons ready to explode. The police are urgently calling for migrants of different faiths to be housed in separate facilities.
Some politicians counter that such segregation would go against Germany’s multicultural values, while others say that separating hundreds of thousands of migrants by religion and nationality would be a logistical impossibility. [Enphasis added.]
As the consequences of unrestrained migration become apparent, the tide of public opinion is turning against the government’s open-door policy. Observers say that German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the so-called most powerful woman in the world, may have met her Waterloo.
Christian migrants in German asylum centres are living under persistent threat, with many fearing for their lives as the hardline Sunni majority within the migrant population attempts to enforce Sharia law in their new host nation. The situation is so bad that Christians claim they live like “prisoners” in Germany, and some have even returned to Middle East. [Emphasis added.]
In the German state of Thuringia, Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow, one of the multiculturalists driving and celebrating the migrant crisis, has been forced to initiate a policy of separating and segregating different cultures as soon as they arrive in Europe.
“In Iran, the Revolutionary Guards have arrested my brother in a house church. I fled the Iranian intelligence, because I thought in Germany I can finally live freely according to my religion,” says Said, a Christian who fled persecution in his native country.
“But I can not openly admit that I am a Christian in my home for asylum seekers. I will be threatened,” he told Germany language paper Die Welt.
This year Germany prepares to absorb a million people in just twelve months – one per cent of its entire population – from numerous, diverse and alien cultures.
“We must rid ourselves of the illusion that all those who arrive here are human rights activists,” says Max Klingberg of the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR), who has worked with refugees for 15 years. “Among the new arrivals is not a small amount of religious intensity, it is at least at the level of the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said.
Said is living in an asylum centre in southern Brandenburg, near the border with Saxony. “They wake me before dawn during Ramadan and say I should eat before the sun comes up. If I refuse, they say I’m a kuffar, an unbeliever. They spit at me… They treat me like an animal. And threaten to kill me.”
“… They are also all Muslims,” he adds.
But be of good cheer. Frau Merkel, a principal architect of Germany’s new wave of multiculturalism, was recently honored by Time Magazine as its person of the year.
In late summer, Merkel’s government threw open Germany’s doors to a pressing throng of refugees and migrants; a total of 1 million asylum seekers are expected in the country by the end of December. It was an audacious act that, in a single motion, threatened both to redeem Europe and endanger it, testing the resilience of an alliance formed to avoid repeating the kind of violence tearing asunder the Middle East by working together. That arrangement had worked well enough that it raised an existential question of its own, now being asked by the richest country in Europe: What does it mean to live well?
Merkel had her answer: “In many regions war and terror prevail. States disintegrate. For many years we have read about this. We have heard about it. We have seen it on TV. But we had not yet sufficiently understood that what happens in Aleppo and Mosul can affect Essen or Stuttgart. We have to face that now.” For her, the refugee decision was a galvanizing moment in a career that was until then defined by caution and avoidance of anything resembling drama. Analysts called it a jarring departure from form. But it may also have been inevitable, given how Angela Merkel feels about walls.
What was not inevitable but merely astounding was that the most generous, openhearted gesture of recent history blossomed from Germany, the country that within living memory (and beyond, as long as there’s a History Channel) blew apart the European continent, and then the world, by taking to gruesome extremes all the forces its Chancellor strives to hold in check: nationalism, nativism, self-righteousness, reversion to arms. No one in Europe has held office longer—or to greater effect—in a world defined by steadily receding barriers. That, after all, is the story of the E.U. and the story of globalization, both terms as colorless as the corridor of a Brussels office building. The worlds Merkel has mastered carry not a hint of the forces that have shaped Europe’s history, the primal sort a child senses, listening to a story, safe in bed. [Emphasis added.]
Once upon a time, there was a safe welfare state called Sweden, where people rarely locked their doors.
Now, this country is a night-watchman state — each man is on his own. When the Minister of Justice, Morgan Johansson, encourages breaking the law, it means opening the gates to anarchy. Mr. and Mrs. Swede have every reason to be worried, with the influx of 190,000 unskilled and unemployed migrants expected this year — equivalent to 2% of Sweden’s current population. The number is as if 6.4 million penniless migrants who did not speak English arrived in U.S. in one year, or 1.3 million in Britain.
And the Swedes are preparing: demand for firearms licenses is increasing; more and more Swedes are joining shooting clubs and starting vigilante groups. After a slight dip in 2014, the number of new gun permits has gone up significantly again this year. According to police statistics, there are 1,901,325 licensed guns, owned by 567,733 people, in Sweden. Add to this an unknown number of illegal weapons. To get a gun permit in Sweden, you need to be at least 18 years old; law-abiding; well-behaved, and have a hunting license or be a member of an approved shooting club. In 2014, 11,000 people got a hunting license: 10% more than the year before. One out of five was a woman.
. . . .
Even before the massive influx of migrants in the fall of 2015, Swedes felt a need to protect themselves — and with good reason. Since the Parliament decided in 1975 that Sweden should be multicultural and not Swedish, crime has exploded. Violent crime has increased by more than 300%, and rapes have increased by an unbelievable 1,472%. [Emphasis added.]
The politicians, however, ignore the people’s fear completely. It is never discussed. Instead, the people who express concern about what kind of country Sweden has become are accused of xenophobia and racism. Most likely, that is the reason more and more people are taking matters into their own hands, and protecting themselves and their families to the best of their ability. [Emphasis added.]
Sweden is fast approaching a complete collapse. More and more municipalities are raising the alarm that if the migrants keep coming at this pace, the government can no longer guarantee normal service to its citizens. In addition, ominous statements from government officials have left Swedes in fear of what tomorrow may bring. If the migrant wave keeps coming, in 10-15 years, Swedes will be a minority in their own country.
The Muslim population of Britain reached 3.4 million in 2014 to become around 5.3% of the overall population of 64 million, according to figures extrapolated from a recent study on the growth of the Muslim population in Europe. In real terms, Britain has the third-largest Muslim population in the European Union, after France and Germany. [Emphasis added.]
Islam and Islam-related issues were omnipresent in Britain during 2014, and can be categorized into four broad themes: 1) Islamic extremism and the security implications of British jihadists in Syria; 2) the continuing spread of Islamic Sharia law in Britain; 3) the sexual exploitation of British children by Muslim gangs; and 4) Muslim integration into British society.
The article linked above next provides “a chronological review of some of the main stories involving the rise of Islam in Britain during 2014.”
Living in a madhouse:
Getting ready for Christmas?
Conclusions
Will Obama’s America be next? That would make Obama’s friends in Iran very happy.
In an article titled Paradigms lost: the U.S. Bruce Thornton remarks that the Europeanization of America must be reversed. We have the tools, but that is not enough. We need to use them.
We have to reject the failed paradigm of Brussels and restore the still vibrant paradigm of Philadelphia. Battered by a century of progressive assaults, the Constitution still gives us the means for turning back the erosion of [its] commitment to ordered liberty and citizen autonomy. The Bill of Rights, a federalism comprising sovereign state governments, a structure of divided and balanced government, and most important the regular federal elections in which we the people have the opportunity to hold our leaders and party accountable––all provide the mechanisms for changing course and initiate a revolution in the original sense of the word, a “rolling back” to the most consequential “paradigm shift” in political history––the Constitution. [Emphasis added.]
Finally, Geert Wilders’ November 15, 2014 address at the Heritage Foundation’s Restoration Weekend – a powerful close to this article.
“By the Numbers” is an honest and open discussion about Muslim opinions and demographics. Narrated by Raheel Raza, president of Muslims Facing Tomorrow, this short film is about the acceptance that radical Islam is a bigger problem than most politically correct governments and individuals are ready to admit.
The film addresses the questions: Is ISIS, the Islamic State, trying to penetrate the US with the refugee influx? Are Muslims radicalised on U.S. soil? Are organizations such as CAIR, who purport to represent American Muslims, accepting and liberal or radicalized with links to terror organizations?
Salafism is a form of Islam that seeks to bring the religion’s practice back to its original form as delineated by the first Muslims in the seventh century. While not all Salafists are violent, those that are support bringing the world under a global caliphate ruled by sharia (Islamic) law.
The Islamic State, al-Qaeda and most of the world’s Islamist terror organizations practice Salafist Islam.
***********************
Salafism has increased dramatically in Germany in 2015, according to a survey commissioned by German security services.
The report, conducted by Focus Online, showed that between January and June of 2015, there has been a 25 percent increase in German Muslims identifying themselves as Salafists. This unprecedented jump compares to the usual annual increase of about six percent.
As of June, estimates show that 7,900 people identify as Salafists, versus 6,300 at the beginning of the year.
Salafism is a form of Islam that seeks to bring the religion’s practice back to its original form as delineated by the first Muslims in the seventh century. While not all Salafists are violent, those that are support bringing the world under a global caliphate ruled by sharia (Islamic) law.
Salafists also believe, among other anti-Western doctrines, that democracy must be eradicated, because it is a man-made form of government.
The Islamic State, al-Qaeda and most of the world’s Islamist terror organizations practice Salafist Islam.
Last month, the head of Germany’s intelligence services warned Germany’s Salafists were aggressively recruiting migrants who have arrived in Germany by the hundreds of thousands.
“We have in recent weeks increasingly seen attempts by Salafists to register as workers in refugee camps,” he said at the time.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), regards the Salafist groups as a threat to German security. However, Salafists have had a free reign in the country, even though Salafist preachers are known regularly to preach hatred against the West in mosques and prayer centers across Germany.
Salafists have also been at the forefront of conversion and recruitment campaigns in Germany, a phenomenon documented over recent years.
In 2012, Salafists launched an unprecedented nationwide campaign called Project “Read!” to distribute 25 million free copies of the Quran translated into German. The goal was to place one Quran into every household in Germany.
In 2014, it was reported that at least 25 schools across Hamburg had been infiltrated by Salafists and other fundamentalist Muslim groups, according to German media reports.
(A fitting “tribute” to Saudi Arabia, esteemed American ally and head of the UN Human Rights Council panel that “selects top officials who shape international human rights standards and report[s] on violations worldwide.” — DM)
Our (legitimate) criticisms of Iran seem deeply hypocritical when our close ally in Saudi Arabia continues to apply equally extreme applications of Islamic law and authoritarian practices. Indeed, it is hard to distinguish between the killing of homosexuals and artists by ISIS from such cases in Saudi Arabia beyond the rather laughable pretense of one of these Sharia “courts.”
***************************
We have long discussed our close alliance with Saudi Arabia despite that country’s denial of the most fundamental human rights for women, non-Muslims, journalists, and political dissidents. While the State Department continues to vaguely reference “reforms” in the Kingdom, the Saudi Sharia courts and religious police continue to generate shocking medieval cases where people are flogged or executed for exercising free thought or associations. The latest outrage is the death sentence given Ashraf Fayadh, a Palestinian poet and leading member of Saudi Arabia’s contemporary art scene. He has been sentenced to death for renouncing Islam, being an atheist (which he denies) and insulting Saudi Arabia. Many view his real offense as being his embarrassment of the infamous religious police (mutaween) in Abha after he posted a video of their lashing a man in public. As is often the case in the pseudo, “courts” of Saudi Arabia, he was denied counsel and any real opportunity to present a defense.
Fayadh, 35, was also accused of illicit relations with women due to photos on his phone, which he explained were actually taken during art events. Fayadh (who was born in Saudi Arabia) has been a member of the British-Saudi art organisation Edge of Arabia and represents the population of educated Saudis who want to see their country shed the religious ignorance, medieval practices and Sharia punishments that have long characterized the country. He was originally sentenced to four years in prison and 800 lashes by a court in Abha in May 2014. However, he was then retried by a new panel of judges that found that he could be put to death instead. He was unable to get a lawyer because the religious practice took his ID.
His supporters say that he was fingered by man who had a personal dispute over the appearance of contemporary art at a cafe in Abha. The man went to the religious police and said that he had cursed Muhammad, insulted the country, and promoted atheism in his book. The book, Instructions Within, published in 2008, is actually about his being a Palestinian refugee but in Saudi Arabia any example of free or creative thought is often seen as dangerous and blasphemous.
Of course, it is an outrage for the Saudis to continue to execute people who are atheists or viewed as guilty of apostasy. The Kingdom also bars any other religion from have a house of worship in the country. This is the same country that has sought to create an international blasphemy standard and has objected to any perceived slight against Islam in other countries.
Fayadh insisted that he is a faithful Muslim and repented any sins, but it did not matter.
Our (legitimate) criticisms of Iran seem deeply hypocritical when our close ally in Saudi Arabia continues to apply equally extreme applications of Islamic law and authoritarian practices. Indeed, it is hard to distinguish between the killing of homosexuals and artists by ISIS from such cases in Saudi Arabia beyond the rather laughable pretense of one of these Sharia “courts.” I have met very modern and educated Saudis who are ashamed of these abuses and want reform. However, the Kingdom continues to maintain a close alliance the Wahabi clerics in the imposition of extreme forms of Islamic law. It makes the work of women, journalists, and artists like Fayadh all the more inspirational when they face the threat of not only arrest by Saudi religious police but actual death at the hands of these grotesque Sharia courts.
All alcohol is strictly prohibited in the Gulf kingdom which enforces sharia law as state law.
Karl Andree, 74, has already served the one year in prison. The sharia court which sentenced him mandated that the flogging would occur at the end of his prison time and in public.
Andree is in poor health, and it is not believed he will survive the flogging. He is being held in Jeddah’s Briman prison. Prior to his arrest he was an oil executive who worked in Saudi Arabia for 25 years.
His three children, Hugh, 46, Kirsten, 45, and Simon, 33, have now gone public with the story, though the incident took place last year in the port city of Jeddah. They are now calling on UK Prime Minister David Cameron to intervene with Saudi Arabia to secure his release.
“Our father has given 25 years of his working life to Saudi Arabia, and this is how he is treated” they said in a statement reported by The Sun. “Until his arrest, he has always been happy working there and felt safe.”
“He is 74 years of age, has had cancer three times and his wife is dying in a home in the UK. He now needs medical care for his cancer and asthma, and there is no doubt in our mind that 350 lashes will kill him. We implore David Cameron to personally intervene and help get our father home. The Saudi government will only listen to him.”
Saudi Arabia has recently drawn fire for its appalling human rights record, with two cases in particular causing an international outcry:
Blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced to ten years in prison and 1,000 lashes for running a website critical of the government. The sentence was upheld by an appeals court in June, leaving him no further legal recourse other than a royal pardon. He received the first batch of 50 lashes in January, which incapacitated him. The rest have been temporarily postponed due to his ill health and an international outcry.
Human rights activist, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, now 21, was sentenced to beheading and crucifixion for taking part in pro-democracy protests during the Arab Spring in 2011 when he was just 17.
(Building a secular Muslim state in a region dominated by Islamists is difficult and takes time, as Egypt and Al-Sisi are learning. — DM)
Egypt’s newly appointed Culture Minister Hilmi al-Namnam appears on the Egyptian talk show 25/30, Nov. 11, 2014. (photo by youtube.com/ONtv)
CAIRO — On Sept. 19, a new Egyptian Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, was sworn in before President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Among the new ministers is the journalist Hilmi al-Namnam, who holds the culture portfolio. The appointment of Namnam, a secularist, has sparked controversy among Egyptian Salafis and aroused opposition in Saudi Arabia. Such Saudi writers and intellectuals as Jamal Khashoggi, editor-in-chief of Al-Arab News Channel, object to Namnam’s appointment because he opposes Wahhabi Salafism, the religiopoliticial movement that originated in the Nejd region of the Saudi kingdom.
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab founded what became the Wahhabi movement in the 18th century. In 1744, Wahhab allied with Muhammad ibn Saud, emir of the Nejd and founder of the first Saudi state, to increase followers of the Quran, Sunnism and the words and actions of the Salaf, the first three generations of Muslims. In doing so, they sought to purify Islam of misguided practices negatively affecting the Islamic essence of unity and various forms of heresy.
Immediately after Namnam assumed the culture portfolio, a video of him from July 2013 went viral. In it, Namnam stated, “The political Islam current must leave the political game completely, especially the Salafist Nour Party, which is more dangerous than the Muslim Brotherhood.” He compared the Nour Party to a “whore who extorts her husband if he doesn’t fulfill her demands by escorting someone else.” Namnam also said, “We lie when we say Egypt is a naturally religious country. It is high time we said Egypt is a naturally secular state.”
The Nour Party came in second in the 2012 parliamentary elections. Among its positions at the time were prohibitions on electing women and Copts, saluting the flag and singing the national anthem. The party altered these platforms, however, after lending its stamp of approval in 2013 to the June 30 revolution, although most of its leading figures waivered over what course to take.
On Sept. 19, Shaaban Abdel Aleem, a member of the Nour Party’s board, requested information on the selection criteria used for appointing the new ministers. On the same day, Khashoggi, who is close to Saudi decision-makers, commented on Namnam’s appointment via Twitter. “For whoever is planning mutual cultural exchanges with our brothers in Egypt, the following piece of information could be useful: Namnam is not only a critic of Wahhabism, but abhors it and blames it for all his country’s catastrophes,” Khashoggi tweeted. In a separate tweet, he wrote, “Honestly, for the sake of relations between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and due to the nature of the regime there, Egypt should not appoint a minister like Namnam, who has taken it too far in offending the kingdom.”
Namnam responded that evening in a phone call to “Al-Ashera Masaa,” a show on Dream TV, saying, “I did not say Wahhabism was the mother of vices. These are not my words, but I am against terrorist groups in general.” He added that he had criticized “attempts to export Wahhabism to Egypt,” but that he “respects the kingdom’s choices, just as the kingdom’s writers should respect Egypt and Egyptians’ choices.”
Khashoggi immediately replied, again on Twitter, writing, “Egypt’s minister of culture claims he respects Wahhabism, but admits that he is against exporting it to Egypt. I would like to tell him that Wahhabism cannot be exported. It is a pillar of the Egyptian revolution and is represented by emblematic figures like the followers of Sheikh Muhammad Abduh.” The Islamic jurist Abduh, an Egyptian, is a founder of Islamic modernism. He spearheaded the movement at the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century to counter intellectual and cultural stagnation and revive the Islamic nation in line with the times.
Khashoggi argued, “Salafism preceded the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, as there was the Ansar al-Sunna al-Muhammadiyah group, which remains the oldest reformist Islamic organization in Egypt and the world.” Ansar al-Sunna al-Muhammadiyah seeks absolute unity and the rejection of superstitions and cults. It began in Cairo’s Hadara Mosque in 1926. Many Al-Azhar scholars and Salafist preachers were welcoming of it.
On Oct. 2, tensions escalated when Namnam said during an interview on the Sada al-Balad channel that he was ready to be “martyred to spare Egypt from turning into a caliphate state.” He added that secularism is not the adversary of Islam, as some claim. “Every moderate Muslim is necessarily secular. But, not every secularist is a Muslim,” he said.
The following day, Yasser Borhami, deputy leader of the Salafist Call, implored Sisi to intervene and forbid Namnam from making such statements, which he said contradict the constitution given that Sharia is the primary source of legislation.
Nour Party leader Younes Makhyoun entered the fray Oct. 3, asserting that Namnam should remain impartial or be dismissed. “The person [Sisi] who appointed this minister must oblige him to respect the constitution,” he stated.
Sayyed Mustafa, deputy chair of the Nour Party, told Al-Monitor, “The party did not look into Namnam’s old opinions, because they stem from personal freedom. Each person has the right to believe whatever they wish. But he must realize that he is the minister of culture for 90 million Egyptians. The Ministry of Culture should represent all currents, not just one, be it secular or nonsecular.” He added, “As a minister handling a political portfolio, Namnam must take into consideration Egypt’s foreign relations in general and brotherly relations in particular, like those it shares with Saudi Arabia.”
Zubeida Atta, former dean of Helwan University’s faculty of arts and a member of the Supreme Council of Culture, has a different perspective on the issue. “The concept of secularism that Namnam called for is not a heretical one. It relies on the use of education and its application in countries to improve them and ensure their civil aspects, instead of mixing religion with political life. The latter [mixing of the two] would send Egypt down a sectarian abyss that would threaten its existence,” she told Al-Monitor. “The Nour Party demanded clarifying the selection criteria of ministers. I demand clarifying the criteria that allow such a religious party to participate in political life and in parliamentary elections.”
As for the rumblings from the Gulf, Atta asserted, “Egypt does not dare suggest a Saudi Arabian minister for a certain ministry in the kingdom or criticize a current minister in the Saudi Arabian regime, because this is an internal Saudi Arabian matter. Why is Khashoggi, among others, allowing himself to interfere in the appointment of a minister in the Egyptian Cabinet?”
(Not long ago, I would have thought this a nutty conspiracy article. Now, not so much. With the UN and Obama involved, what could go wrong? — DM)
The Obama administration plans to create a global police force that counters “violent extremism” in the United States and elsewhere.
The problem is that in Obama-speak “violent extremism” refers not only to jihadists wishing to harm Americans but also to conservatives and Tea Party activists. Just ask all the law-abiding right-of-center nonprofit groups targeted by Lois Lerner’s IRS during the Obama presidency.
Ominously, President Obama and U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch unveiled the Strong Cities Network last week at the United Nations.
America’s chief executive, who speaks in hushed and reverent tones when discussing the Muslim faith, said the U.S. will use “all of our tools” to fight Islamic State terrorists.
“This is not an easy task,” Obama said. “This is not a conventional battle. This is a long-term campaign — not only against this particular network, but against its ideology.” The United States and a coalition of 60 other countries are “pursuing a comprehensive strategy” for dealing with Islamic State, he said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice teased the Strong Cities Network in a press release:
Cities are vital partners in international efforts to build social cohesion and resilience to violent extremism. Local communities and authorities are the most credible and persuasive voices to challenge violent extremism in all of its forms and manifestations in their local contexts. While many cities and local authorities are developing innovative responses to address this challenge, no systematic efforts are in place to share experiences, pool resources and build a community of cities to inspire local action on a global scale.
“The Strong Cities Network will serve as a vital tool to strengthen capacity-building and improve collaboration,” Lynch was quoted saying. “As we continue to counter a range of domestic and global terror threats, this innovative platform will enable cities to learn from one another, to develop best practices and to build social cohesion and community resilience here at home and around the world.”
The media release continues:
The SCN will include an International Steering Committee of approximately 25 cities and other sub-national entities from different regions that will provide the SCN with its strategic direction. The SCN will also convene an International Advisory Board, which includes representatives from relevant city-focused networks, to help ensure SCN builds upon their work. It will be run by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a leading international “think-and-do” tank with a long-standing track record of working to prevent violent extremism …
Although the European scene is different from the American, the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue doesn’t come across at first glance as a neutral observer.
Its website, which is filled with left-wing buzzwords, warns
The tragic attacks in Norway on 22 July, 2011 drew Europe’s gaze to the dangers of the growing presence of far-right extremism across Europe and the increasing legitimisation of anti-immigration and anti-Islamic discourses within mainstream European politics. The blurred relationship between violence from the extreme right and broader trends of Islamophobia and anti-immigration sentiment poses several challenges for policy makers seeking to address the increasing risk of violent right-wing extremism.
And although American conservatives might not quibble with a new U.S.-based initiative aimed at “violent extremism” outside America’s borders, they have ample reason to be concerned about one that targets organizations within the United States.
Conservative champion Pamela Geller railed against the Strong Cities Network in a column at Breitbart News.
This plan “amounts to nothing less than the overriding of American laws, up to and including the United States Constitution, in favor of United Nations laws that would henceforth be implemented in the United States itself – without any consultation of Congress at all.”
Announcing the plan at the United Nations is curious she writes, because the UN “is a sharia-compliant world body, and Obama, speaking there just days ago, insisted that ‘violent extremism’ is not exclusive to Islam (which it is).”
It is unlikely the new body will be used as a “global police force” to crush counter-jihad forces, she wrote.
After all, with Obama knowingly aiding al-Qaeda forces in Syria, how likely is it that he will use his “global police force” against actual Islamic jihadists?
I suspect that instead, this global police force will be used to impose the blasphemy laws under the sharia (Islamic law), and to silence all criticism of Islam for the President who proclaimed that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”
Geller and other conservatives are painfully aware that in the parlance of the Left, “violent extremism” refers to conservatives and other patriotic Americans.
If you are opposed to enlarging the redistributive state and spreading the wealth around then by definition you’re a potential terrorist. If you’re a conservative or a libertarian, if you believe in gun rights or don’t support abortion rights or an immigration amnesty, if you don’t like high taxes or welfare programs or if you dare to believe that the Constitution actually limits the power of the government, you’re at risk of turning to terrorism.
In 2009, Janet Napolitano, then head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security gave her blessing to a spurious DHS report titled, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.”
Drawing heavily from so-called research by the loony-left Southern Poverty Law Center, the report lumped Ku Klux Klansmen and violent militias together with good government types and members of the Federalist Society. This law enforcement guidance claimed that large swaths of the nation that did not vote Democratic in the last election were boiling over with hatred and intolerance.
Anticlimactically, the report noted that there is no actual evidence “that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence.” Nonetheless the report speculated, using language that would later be embraced by the violent Occupy Wall Street movement, that “the economic downturn and the election of the first African American president” might help these “rightwing extremists” gain new recruits.
Guffaws from Republicans and some of her fellow Democrats forced Napolitano to disavow the report but in the intervening years Obama’s DHS has kept up the pressure on patriotic Americans in an attempt to stigmatize and marginalize conservative beliefs.
As recently as this past February, DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson released a report on what CNN called the grave “domestic terror threat from right-wing sovereign citizen extremists.”
“The government says these are extremists who believe that they can ignore laws and that their individual rights are under attack in routine daily instances such as a traffic stop or being required to obey a court order,” the news network reported.
To the Obama administration, zealous civil libertarians and ornery old guys in pickup trucks are a much greater threat to the homeland than Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, al Qaeda, and Islamic State combined.
CNN paraphrased Mark Potok, a senior fellow at — you guessed it, the Southern Poverty Law Center — hailing the report.
“Potok said that by some estimates, there are as many as 300,000 people involved in some way with sovereign citizen extremism. Perhaps 100,000 people form a core of the movement, he said.”
Around the same time counterinsurgency and counterterrorism expert Sebastian Gorka ridiculed the obviously politicized DHS report for going off the deep end.
Gorka, a professor who lectures on irregular warfare at the College of International Security Affairs at the National Defense University, said over the last two decades he could not remember right-wing extremists flying jumbo jets into buildings, bombing a marathon, or beheading Christian hostages.
“It really is the most egregious politicization of national security,” Gorka opined. “We’re going to be looking for right-wing extremists when ISIS prepares to attack us? It’s outrageous.”
“We have tens of thousands of people in the Middle East and elsewhere and here in America who have committed themselves to the destruction of this great nation. And we’re going to be focusing on the small cluster of right-wingers here in the United States?” he said. “This could endanger American lives.”
All of this brings to mind the jarringly strange thing then-Senator Obama said on the campaign trail in October 2008.
“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set,” he said. “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.”
Is the Strong Cities Network the civilian national security force Obama mentioned just once and then never brought up again?
Participants wait for judges to determine the winner of Miss Iraq during the final round of judging in Baghdad. AHMED SAAD / Reuters
WarSclerotic 
Recent Comments