Fury over Gender Ban in Bordeaux Muslim Grocery Store

Veiled women in Bordeaux

THE TELEGRAPH: Muslim grocery store in Bordeaux withdraws sign announcing gender-specific days for customers following local and national outcry

The south-eastern French wine capital of Bordeaux is up in arms over a Muslim-owned grocer’s decision to impose male and female-only days for customers.

A small sign outside the De L'Orient à L'Occidental (From East to West) store stipulated that women were only welcome on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesday and Fridays. Men, on the other hand, were kindly asked to take their custom elsewhere on weekends.

The gender split was put in place by the store's owners, recent converts to Islam, to make sure women and men do not meet.

Jean-Baptiste Michelon, the store's co-owner, said: “It’s really for practising Muslims. A man doesn’t want to find himself alone with a woman. A woman who comes to buy books here doesn’t want to find herself alone with a man, especially out of respect if she is married."

“I don’t think her husband would accept such things,” he told BFM TV, adding that the rule did not apply to non-Muslims. Read on and comment » | Henry Samuel, Paris | Monday, June 22, 2015

Susan Pollack: I Can’t Forgive

British Holocaust survivor Susan Pollack lost 50 members of her family, including her parents, in Nazi concentration camps during WWII. She recently gave evidence at the trial in Germany of a former SS guard Oskar Groning, who is charged with complicity in the murder of 300,000 Jews at Auschwitz.

He has admitted moral guilt but denies the criminal charges against him.

HARDtalk’s Zeinab Badawi spoke to Susan Pollack about her experiences in Auschwitz and Belsen before her liberation by British troops. She says she cannot forgive those who contributed to the Holocaust and believes we must continue to ask how and why such a crime could be committed.

Release date: 19 Jun 2015

2067: The End of British Christianity

THE SPECTATOR: Projections aren't predictions. But there's no denying that churches are in deep trouble

It’s often said that Britain’s church congregations are shrinking, but that doesn’t come close to expressing the scale of the disaster now facing Christianity in this country. Every ten years the census spells out the situation in detail: between 2001 and 2011 the number of Christians born in Britain fell by 5.3 million — about 10,000 a week. If that rate of decline continues, the mission of St Augustine to the English, together with that of the Irish saints to the Scots, will come to an end in 2067.

That is the year in which the Christians who have inherited the faith of their British ancestors will become statistically invisible. Parish churches everywhere will have been adapted for secular use, demolished or abandoned.

Our cathedral buildings will survive, but they won’t be true cathedrals because they will have no bishops. The Church of England is declining faster than other denominations; if it carries on shrinking at the rate suggested by the latest British Social Attitudes survey, Anglicanism will disappear from Britain in 2033. One day the last native-born Christian will die and that will be that. » | Damian Thompson | Saturday, June 13, 2015

Austere Brand of Islam On Rise in Europe, Stirring Concerns

YAHOO! NEWS: PARIS (AP) — Its imams preach austere piety, its tenets demand strict separation of sexes — and some of its most radical adherents are heeding the call of jihad. Salafism, an Islamic movement based on a literal reading of the Quran, is on the rise in France, Germany and Britain, security officials say, with Salafis sharply increasing their influence in mosques and on the streets.

The trend worries European authorities, who see Salafism as one of the inspirational forces for young Europeans heading to Syria or Iraq to do battle for the Islamic State group. Experts, however, point out that the vast majority of Salafis are peace-loving.

In Germany, there are currently about 7,000 Salafis in the country — nearly double the 3,800 estimated four years ago, the Interior Ministry said last month. About 100 French mosques are now controlled by Salafis, a small number compared to the more than 2,000 Muslim houses of worship, but more than double the number four years ago, a senior security official told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. France does not do head-counts by religious practices or origins.

In Britain the numbers are on the rise, too. Seven percent of Britain's 1,740 mosques are run by Salafis, according to Mehmood Naqshbandi, an expert on Britain's Muslims and counter-extremism adviser to the British government who keeps a database of the various currents of Islam in Britain. He says those numbers are steadily growing, especially among young people — and that a quarter to half of British Muslims under 30 "accept some parts or all of the Salafi theology." » | Elaine Ganley | AP | Sunday, June 21, 2015

Met Police Officer Removes His Help for Heroes Charity Wristband after Being Harangued by Hate Preacher Anjem Choudary in the Street

MAIL ON SUNDAY: Metropolitan police officer confronted by hate preacher in East London / Constable is asked: 'Are you a member of the EDL or BNP or something?' / Video claims to show 'subsequent' footage of policeman without the band / Metropolitan Police allows its staff to wear such pin badges and wristbands

A Metropolitan Police officer appears to have taken his Help for Heroes wristband off after being grilled by a hate preacher in East London who said he should not be displaying a 'political agenda'.

The constable is filmed on Green Street, Forest Gate, being taunted for wearing the band which supports British soldiers and is asked: 'Are you a member of the EDL or BNP or something?'

Constable Allerston is later seen standing on the same street without the band on after a caption flashes on screen reading: 'As you will see from the next clip, the officer subsequently removed the wristband.'

The timeline of events in the video cannot be confirmed as correct and the Met do not have enough information to comment on the incident. » | Jay Akbar for MailOnline | Sunday, June 21, 2015

Brigitte Gabriel Speaks at 2015 ‘Watchment on the Wall’ Conference

ACT for America's president and founder, Brigitte Gabriel tells her story about how radical Islam changed her life as a child in Lebanon forever. May her story serve as a warning to the rest of the world.

”We’re All In This Together”: Queen's Finances Are Safe from Cuts for Two Years

Queen Elizabeth II

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Campaigners demand an immediate review into the Royal family's contribution to Government's austerity measures

The Queen will not face any cuts to royal finances for at least another two years despite an 11 per cent increase in her income, The Telegraph has learnt.

In the two years since the Civil List was replaced by the Sovereign Grant, the Queen’s taxpayer-funded income has shot up from £36.1 million to more than £40 million.

Campaigners have demanded that David Cameron and George Osborne, who set up the current funding formula, should carry out an immediate review so that the Royal family can make their own contribution to the Government’s austerity measures.

But royal sources have insisted the money is needed to continue with a backlog of repairs to the royal palaces, and gave a strong indication that any proposed cuts would be resisted. » | Gordon Raynor, Chief Reporter | Sunday, June 21, 2015

Dutch Politician Says TV ‘Sabotaged’ His Muhammad Cartoons

THE TIMES OF ISRAEL: Geert Wilders had intended to air images of Muslim prophet as part of political ad, but broadcaster nixed the video

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders claimed Saturday that the state broadcaster “sabotaged” his planned airing of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad on television.

“Sabotage by the NOS (broadcaster) everything was confirmed but not broadcast,” Wilders tweeted after a previous party political broadcast about immigration was aired instead of the cartoons.

“I will put the images on YouTube and next time on television even if I have to go to (the studios in) Hilversum,” Wilders said.

Wilders had said Friday that he would show the cartoons in the name of his Freedom Party (PVV) on Saturday morning and again on Wednesday and July 3.

Wilders said he was making the broadcasts to defend freedom of speech after two gunmen were shot dead while attacking a Muhammad cartoon contest in Texas last month.

NOS editor in chief Marcel Gelauff tweeted to Wilders that the broadcaster “has nothing to do with party political broadcasts. We do news, sports and current affairs.” » | AFP | Saturday, June 20, 2015

Doku: Queen 2015 - Der Jahrhundertbesuch: Die Königin in Deutschland

Es ist der längste, teuerste und prächtigste Staatsbesuch in der Bundesrepublik: Elf Tage reist die erst 39-jährige Queen 1965 quer durch Deutschland. Viele Tage verbringt sie in Nordrhein-Westfalen, denn die Briten waren an der Gründung des Bundeslandes maßgeblich beteiligt.

Doku – Elizabeth II. - Die Queen und die Deutschen [HD]

Dutch Anti-Islam MP to Air Mohammed Cartoons on Saturday

YAHOO! NEWS: The Hague (AFP) - Publicity-seeking Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders is to broadcast cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed on television during time reserved for political parties on Saturday, his party said.

The cartoons will be shown on Dutch public television at 1049 GMT, Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV) said in a statement on Friday, adding that they would be repeated on June 24 and July 3.

Wilders said he was making the broadcasts to defend freedom of speech after two militants were shot dead while attacking a Mohammed cartoon contest in Texas last month. » | AFP | Friday, June 19, 2015

Obama on Gun Violence: Six Years of Statements But Change Remains Elusive

Barack Obama teared up when he spoke of the 2012 shooting
at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

THE GUARDIAN: The mass shootings in South Carolina are the latest in a long line national tragedies as legislative efforts toward gun law reform continue to fail

More than a dozen times in his presidency, Barack Obama has appeared before television cameras and issued statements to express sorrow at a mass shooting event in America.

After Arizona, where congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot in the head, he spoke of hope. After Newtown, where 20 children and six teachers were shot dead in their classrooms, he spoke of a nation’s broken heart. On Thursday, after nine people were shot dead in a church in Charleston, he spoke of despair.

There are other shootings where Obama has remained silent, or not engaged with issue of guns or the cause of an event. But when he has, the president’s responses have varied from anger to exasperation to sadness, nearly every time vowing that such events must not happen again.

During his presidency, most legislative efforts to reform America’s gun laws through universal background checks or restrictions on sales and magazines have failed. » | Erin McCann in New York | Thursday,, June 18, 2015

Five Centuries after Expulsion at Pain of Death, Spain Grants Citizenship to Sephardic Jews

Expulsion of Jews from Spain, 1492. Ferdinand and Isabella
being petitioned for mercy by some of those who are to be expelled

THE TELEGRAPH: Descendants of Jews expelled from Spain in the Inquisition of 1492 celebrate right to citizenship but Muslims whose ancestors were later kicked out complain of double standards

A century ago, Marcelo Benveniste’s four Jewish grandparents emigrated from the Greek island of Rhodes to Argentina. Unlike many new arrivals on far-flung shores, they had little difficulty navigating their way through the challenges of a foreign tongue as as they already spoke Ladino, a language also known as Judaeo-Spanish that had been passed down through the generations since their ancestors fled Spain as part of the mass expulsion of Jews in 1492.

Hundreds of thousands of Sephardic Jews left as a result of the Granada Edict - which offered them the choice of either leaving the country, converting to Christianity or being sentenced to death by the Spanish Inquisition - dispersing across the length and breadth of southern Europe and North Africa.

Now Spain's parliament has passed a law aimed at righting this historical wrong, making it possible for the descendants of those Jews to regain Spanish nationality more than 500 years after being expelled from Sefarad, the Hebrew word for the Iberian peninsula.

"The Spanish government’s law helps Sephardic Jews to close a circle, healing a wound that was opened 523 years ago. It helps me feel that my life forms part of history itself," said Mr Benveniste over the telephone from Buenos Aires. Rad on and comment » | James Badcock, Madrid | Saturday, June 20, 2015

Moroccan Men 'Jailed for Four Months for Kissing in Public'

THE TELEGRAPH: Lahcen and Mohsine were also fined £32 after they kissed during a recent topless demonstration by feminist group Femen

Two Moroccan men were jailed for four months on Friday for kissing in public, after a string of recent controversies over homosexuality in the conservative Muslim kingdom, said NGO officials who attended the trial.

The men, Lahcen, 38, and Mohsine, 25, were convicted of an "affront to public decency" and of an "unnatural act with a person of the same sex," and also fined 500 dirhams (£33), the sources said.

Defence lawyer Hassan Ettass told AFP he planned to appeal the sentence.

Homosexual activity is punishable in Morocco by up to three years in jail and the divisive law – known as Article 489 – has been the subject of several protests, including a recent topless demonstration by feminist group Femen in front of Rabat's famous Hassan Tower. » | AFP | Friday, June 19, 2015

After Paris – The Battle for British Islam – BBC Documentary

Assange Refuge: 3 Years in Embassy, Policing Costs about £11,000 a Day

Three years ago today, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange walked into Ecuador's embassy in London to seek political asylum. The Australian's been there ever since. If he leaves the building, Assange could be arrested and, he fears, eventually extradited to the US to face charges over the release of military documents which deeply-embarrassed Washington.

'Satanic Islam' Sermon Belfast Pastor James McConnell Says He Faces Six Months in Jail

BELFAST TELEGRAPH: Controversial preacher James McConnell says he faces up to six months in jail for calling Islam satanic.

In an exclusive interview with the Belfast Telegraph, Pastor McConnell last night defiantly said he'd go to prison rather than withdraw the remarks.

"I am 78 years of age and in ill health but jail knows no fear for me," he said.

"They can lock me up with sex offenders, hoodlums and paramilitaries and I will do my time.

"I have no regrets about what I said. I do not hate Muslims but I denounce Islam as a doctrine and I make no apologies for that. I will be pleading 'not guilty' when I stand in the dock in August."

Pastor McConnell's solicitor Joe Rice vowed to fight the case "tooth and nail".

He called for the PPS to withdraw the charges and said pursuing the case was "an absolute waste of scarce public funds". » | Suzanne Breen | Friday, June 19, 2015

Related »

LITTLEJOHN: Did Michelle Obama Not See the Irony in Delivering a Speech on Female Emancipation to a School Full of Girls in Headscarves in the Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets? (And Is This the Face Britain Wants to Show the World?)

DAILY MAIL: Michelle Obama paid visit to the Mulberry School for Girls, Tower Hamlets / More than 90% of pupils are Muslim from mainly Bangladeshi background / And majority have no option but to wear headscarves and long robes / But still it was chosen as the site for the First Lady's speech on equality

Of all the schools in all the towns in all the world, why did Michelle Obama visit a girls’ school in the Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets this week?

She says it was her own choice to make a speech on education at the Mulberry School for Girls. But was it?

I doubt the First Lady had ever heard of the school before this trip, and probably couldn’t point to Tower Hamlets on a map. My guess is that the venue was chosen deliberately by the Department for Education to showcase our new, rigorously enforced State religion: ‘Celebrating Diversity’.

Actually, if that was what they intended, they couldn’t have chosen a worse example. The Mulberry School is probably one of the least diverse schools in Britain. And that includes Eton.

More than 90 per cent of the pupils are Muslim, from a predominantly Bangladeshi background. That make-up pretty much reflects the demography of the surrounding area.

Tower Hamlets, in East London, isn’t so much multicultural, it’s virtually a monoculture. The local council, under its recently deposed Muslim mayor, Lutfur Rahman, has been a by-word for Third World-style corruption and vote-rigging.

There are more burkas on the streets of Limehouse than there are in Lahore. So it wasn’t surprising to see the vast majority of the girls photographed with Mrs Obama wearing the now familiar headscarfs and long robes insisted upon by the more devout adherents of Islam.

Did the First Lady not appreciate the contradictions inherent in delivering a speech on female emancipation and education in front of an audience which could have been transported direct from Saudi Arabia? » | Richard Littlejohn for the Daily Mail | Thursday, June 18, 2015

French Warn Britain: Brexit Could Be Your Waterloo

THE GUARDIAN: As French politicians stay away from battle commemorations, le Monde publishes editorial in English telling UK ‘just as in 1815, your future is in Europe’

French politicians were notably absent from the 200-year commemoration of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, but that did not stop the country’s biggest national newspaper using the symbolism of France’s bloody loss to warn Britain against a carnage of another kind: the Brexit.

Le Monde, France’s paper of record, took the unusual step of publishing its daily editorial in English under the warning: “Britain beware, Brexit could be your Waterloo!”

“The country which cornered Napoleon cannot succumb to Nigel Farage,” the paper pleaded, urging “our British allies” to “resist the familiar temptation of splendid isolation”.

“Today, we solemnly say to our friends across the Channel: beware, Brexit could be your Waterloo! And to make sure the message is really heard, we have gone as far as to convey it in English. Messieurs les Anglais, don’t let the sirens of a fake independence pull you away from the continent. Just as in 1815, your future is in Europe.” » | Angelique Chrisafis in Paris | Thursday, June 18, 2015

LE MONDE: Messieurs les Anglais, le Brexit pourrait être votre Waterloo » | LeMonde | jeudi 18 juin 2015

Charleston: exaspéré, Obama lance un appel à l'Amérique

TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: Le président américain, très ému par la fusillade qui a fait 9 morts à Charleston, a laissé percer son exaspération face à l'absence d'avancées sur le contrôle des armes.

Profondément affecté par la fusillade ayant visé la communauté noire de Charleston, dans laquelle un pasteur qu'il connaissait a perdu la vie, Barack Obama a appelé jeudi 18 juin son pays à faire son introspection sur la question des armes à feu.

Evoquant sa «peine», sa «tristesse» et sa «colère», le président américain a aussi laissé percer son exaspération face à l'absence d'avancées sur le contrôle des armes, un débat sur lequel il a déjà échoué et n'a pratiquement aucune marge de manoeuvre face à un Congrès opposé à toute réforme d'ampleur.

«J'ai dû faire ce genre de déclarations trop souvent», a-t-il lancé, avant de réclamer une véritable réflexion collective sur le rapport aux armes à feu aux Etats-Unis, tout en reconnaissant - sans illusions - qu'une avancée législative sur ce thème était inconcevable à court terme. » | afp/Newsnet | vendredi 19 juin 2015