The EU should be stronger and more united. Great Britain should belong to the Union.
Die EU sollte stärker und geeinter sein. Großbritannien sollte der Union angehören.
L'UE devrait être plus forte et plus unie. La Grande-Bretagne devrait appartenir à l'Union.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Italy: Proposed Fines for Muslims Sparks Controversy
ADNKRONOS INTERNATIONAL: Milan - The President of the northern Italian city of Milan, Filippo Penati, has triggered widespread debate with a controversial proposal to fine Muslims who pray on the streets outside the city's mosque.
According to authorities, the number of people praying on the sidewalk creates traffic and obstacles for pedestrians in the area surrounding the Viale Jenner mosque, a converted garage.
Photo of Barack Hussein Obama courtesy of The Times
THE TELEGRAPH: Senator Barack Obama will get a presidential welcome in Berlin this month when he makes a speech at the Brandenburg Gate.
Only US presidents have been given the honour of speaking in front of the 18th Century gate, whose chariot of victory overlooked the Berlin Wall and the ecstatic party that followed its destruction in 1989.
But Mr Obama could prove the exception on a whistle-stop tour to London, Paris and Berlin in three weeks time, with July 24th announced as the date for his visit to Germany.
The trip will address concerns that Mr Obama is something of a foreign-policy lightweight, and will include a major speech spelling out his vision of a new relationship between Washington and Europe. Barack Obama to Be Granted JFK Moment with Brandenburg Speech >>> By Harry de Quetteville in Berlin | July 8, 2008
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Generals arrested as coup conspirators, a court on the verge of banning the ruling party: The power struggle in Turkey between Prime Minister Erdogan's Islamic-rooted AKP and the secular, old-guard Kemalists is intensifying -- at the cost of political stablity.
Ali Ercan’s world swarms with enemies. The gray-haired professor of nuclear physics and deputy chairman of the Kemalist Thought Association (ADD) has to worry about reactionary Islamists, separatist Kurds, suspicious Armenians and Greeks, capitalist Americans and of course the European Union, with its constant pressures to reform. A bodyguard stands in front of Ercan’s small office on Gazi Mustafa Kemal Boulevard, round the clock.
Inside, a brass plaque greets visitors: “Turkey will never belong to Europe! She will never give up her sacred sovereignty!” Ercan, 55, came up with the slogan himself. Now he wants the words etched on his gravestone, he says. The Europeans come in for particular blame in this “dark and dangerous time which our country is living through.” Who else have encouraged Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Islamicize Turkey through “reactionary religious forces,” he says. Who else have pushed Erdogan to sell off Turkey economically and erode its national sovereignty?
Many Turks think the same way. It was Ercan’s association that drummed up massive demonstrations last year against Erdogan’s conservative Islamic-rooted government. Hundreds of thousands gathered in front of the Atatürk Mausoleum in Ankara to demonstrate against the election of Abdullah Gül, a onetime fundamentalist, as president and to rail against the foreign “neo-colonial powers” that backed him. The ADD is a sort of think tank for Turkey’s patriotic conservatives -- and a refuge, above all, for retired military leaders. Coup Plot Intensifies Ankara’s Power Struggle >>> By Daniel Steinvorth in Ankara | July 7, 2008
The Netherlands Distances Itself from Wilders’ Statements about Jordan
DUTCH MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS: In a letter to the House of Representatives, Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Verhagen explicitly distances the Dutch government from comments made by MP Geert Wilders about the people of Jordan and the Jordanian Royal House. Wilders called King Abdullah II a despot and said that, politically and democratically speaking, Jordan had not progressed beyond the level of Neanderthals.
Last week it emerged that legal proceedings had been initiated against Wilders in Jordan after a private citizen registered a complaint. An official notification of these proceedings is expected to be sent to the Netherlands through diplomatic channels, along with a request to inform Mr Wilders. There are no indications that Jordan intends to issue an arrest warrant. The Netherlands Distances Itself from Statements about Jordan >>> | July 7, 2008
Bush and His White House Team Show No Evidence of Having Silver Tongues When It Comes to Silvio
BBC: The White House has apologised to Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi for a briefing describing him as a political "amateur" who is "hated by many".
The "insulting" biography was included in a press kit distributed to reporters travelling with President George W Bush to a meeting of world leaders in Japan.
He was "one of the most controversial leaders" of a country "known for governmental corruption and vice".
Only last month, Mr Bush visited his old ally, calling him a "good friend".
The four-page description of Mr Berlusconi had been taken from the Encyclopedia of World Biography.
It refers to the Italian prime minister as a man "hated by many but respected by all at least for his bella figura (personal style) and the sheer force of his will".
It says Mr Berlusconi was said to be "regarded by many as a political dilettante (amateur) who gained his high office only through use of his considerable influence on the national media".
TOWNHALL.COM: So this is how it ends: not with a bang, but a whimper.
The most senior judge in England has declared that Islamic legal principles in Sharia law may be used within Muslim communities in Britain to settle marital arguments and regulate finance. Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips said, "Those entering into a contractual agreement can agree that the agreement shall be governed by a law other than English law."
In his speech at an East London mosque, Lord Phillips said Muslims in Britain could use Islamic legal principles as long as punishments - and divorce rulings - comply with English law. Sharia law does not comply with English law. It is a law unto itself.
And so the English who gave us the Magna Carta in 1215, William Blackstone and the foundation of American law are slowly succumbing to the dictates of intolerant Islam and sowing seeds of their own destruction. Surrender! >>> By Cal Thomas | July 8, 2008
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: We tend to assume that power, like nature, abhors a vacuum. In the history of world politics, it seems, someone is always bidding for hegemony. Today it is the United States; a century ago it was Britain. Before that, it was the French, the Spaniards and so on. The 19th-century German historian Leopold von Ranke, doyen of the study of statecraft, portrayed modern European history as an incessant struggle for mastery, in which a balance of power was possible only through recurrent conflict.
Power, in other words, is not a natural monopoly; the struggle for mastery is both perennial and universal. The "unipolarity" identified by commentators following the Soviet collapse cannot last much longer, for the simple reason that history hates a hyperpower. Sooner or later, challengers will arise, and back we must go to a multipolar, multipower world.
But what if this view is wrong? What if the world is heading for a period when there is no hegemon? What if, instead of a balance of power, there is an absence of power? Such a situation is not unknown in history. Though the chroniclers of the past have long been preoccupied with the achievements of great powers--whether civilizations, empires or nation states--they have not wholly overlooked eras when power has receded. Unfortunately, the world's experience with power vacuums is hardly encouraging. Anyone who dislikes U.S. hegemony should bear in mind that, instead of a multipolar world of competing great powers, a world with no hegemon at all may be the real alternative to it. This could turn out to mean a new Dark Age of waning empires and religious fanaticism; of endemic rapine in the world's no-go zones; of economic stagnation and a retreat by civilization into a few fortified enclaves. Without American Hegemony, the World Would Likely Return to the Dark Ages >>> By Niall Ferguson
Melanie Phillips: The UK Is Giving Succour to the Extremists Who Would Destroy Us
”… While the ordinary people of Britain are increasingly aghast at the way their country is being transformed by Islamism, the political, judicial, security and intellectual elites are busy denying the nature of the danger and making it far, far worse through a combination of extreme ignorance, arrogance and sheer funk.
The Islamists launched their jihad against the West because they perceived it was so weak and confused it would not possess the wherewithal to defend itself. When it comes to Britain, they never spoke a truer word.” - Melanie Phillips
MAILONLINE: Three years after the London Tube and bus bombings, it is alarming beyond measure to record that Britain is even now sleepwalking into Islamisation. Some people will think this is mere hyperbole. However, that's the problem. Britain still doesn't grasp that it is facing a pincer attack from both terrorism and cultural infiltration and usurpation.
The former is understood; the latter is generally not acknowledged or is even denied, and those who call attention to it are pilloried as either ' Islamophobes' or alarmists who have taken up residence on Planet Paranoia.
Certainly, the police and security service have been foiling plot after plot and are bringing to court a steady stream of Islamist radicals - an improvement without doubt from two years ago. And so, particularly within the British elite, people think that things are broadly under control.
They fail to realise that the attempt to take over our culture is even more deadly to this society than terrorism. They are simply blind to the ruthless way in which the Islamists are exploiting our chronic muddle of well-meaning tolerance and political correctness (backed up by the threat of more violence) to put Islam on a special - indeed, unique - footing within Britain.
As a result, the steady Islamisation of British public life is either being ignored or even tacitly encouraged by a political, security and judicial establishment that is failing to identify the stealthy and mind-bending game that is being played. Melanie Phillips: The UK Is Giving Succour to the Extremists Who Would Destroy Us >>> | July 8, 2008
THE TELEGRAPH: The Anglican Church is to press ahead with the introduction of women bishops without any compromise measures for opponents of the controversial move.
Hundreds of traditionalists, including several bishops, may leave the church after an epic four-hour debate ended with proposals to create new "men only" dioceses or "super bishops" narrowly thrown out by members of the General Synod in York.
It came despite the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the two most senior figures in the church, calling for safeguards to stop an exodus of Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals.
The church's drafting group is now likely to draw up legislation which will bring in women bishops, by 2014 at the earliest, with only an as yet unwritten national code of practice to cater for those who firmly believe the Bible teaches that bishops must be male, as Jesus and his apostles were. Church of England Set to Split over Women Bishops >>> By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent | July 7, 2008
TOWNHALL.COM: Try a little thought experiment. What would have happened in this country during the Cold War if the Soviet Union successfully neutralized anti-communists opposed to the Kremlin’s plans for world domination?
Of course, Moscow strove to discredit those in America and elsewhere who opposed its totalitarian agenda – especially after Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s excesses made it fashionable to vilify patriots by accusing them of believing communists were “under every bed.”
But what if the USSR and its ideological soul-mates in places like China, North Korea, Cuba, Eastern Europe and parts of Africa had been able to criminalize efforts to oppose their quest for the triumph of world communism? What if it had been an internationally prosecutable offense even to talk about the dangers inherent in communist rule and the need to resist it?
The short answer is that history might very well have come out differently. Had courageous anti-communists been unable accurately and forcefully to describe the nature of that time’s enemy – and to work against the danger posed by its repressive, seditious program, the Cold War might well have been lost.
Flash forward to today. At the moment, another totalitarian ideology characterized by techniques and global ambitions strikingly similar to those of yesteryear’s communists is on the march. It goes by varying names: “Islamofascism,” “Islamism,” “jihadism” or “radical,” “extremist” or “political Islam.” Unlike the communists, however, adherents to this ideology are making extraordinary strides in Western societies toward criminalizing those who dare oppose the Islamist end-state – the imposition of brutal Shariah Law on Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Islamists’ Catch-22 >>> By Frank J Gaffney Jr | July 7, 2008
" … There can be no future for Christianity in Europe without Rome." - Anonymous Bishop of the Church of England
THE TELEGRAPH: Senior Church of England bishops have held secret talks with Vatican officials to discuss the crisis in the Anglican communion over gays and women bishops.
They met senior advisers of the Pope in an attempt to build closer ties with the Roman Catholic Church, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was not told of the talks and the disclosure will be a fresh blow to his efforts to prevent a major split in the Church of England.
In highly confidential discussions, a group of conservative bishops expressed their dismay at the liberal direction of the Church of England and their fear for its future.
They met members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the most powerful of the Vatican's departments, the successor to the medieval Inquisition, which enforces doctrine and was headed by Pope Benedict XVI before his election. Anglican Bishops in Secret Vatican Summit >>> By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent | July 5, 2008
The Utterly, Extremely, Astoundingly STUPID Lord Phillips! The Sharia Debate: We Can’t All Be Equal under Different Laws
TIMESONLINE: Allowing British Muslims recourse to Islamic law would be a charter for male dominance and peer-group bullying
Sneakily, Britain's first Muslim Minister, Shahid Malik, has ducked the critics that he will enrage in an interview to be broadcast on Channel 4's Dispatches programme on Monday.
Knowing that the phrase he uses to describe the situation of British Muslims - “the Jews of Europe” - will make the headlines, he has put it in the mouths of others. “If you ask Muslims today what do they feel like,” he says, “they feel like the Jews of Europe.” He does not say if he thinks that they are right.
I'll respond in the Malik method. If you asked most non-Muslims what they feel about the suggestion, they would say that it was disgraceful, outrageous and insulting.
Mr Malik's assessment of how some British Muslims feel may be accurate; but they are wrong. Race is not the issue. Unless we face up honestly to the incompatibilities between aspects of the ways of life of some (not all) Muslim groups in Britain, and the British mainstream culture, we shall find ourselves babbling about racism when the issue has less to do with race than with culture.
That is why I thought the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, in a careful speech at the East London Muslim Centre on Thursday, slid too quickly over the trickiest parts of his argument. He was discussing the application of Sharia in England and Wales.
The speech has been variously reported as anything from a gentle warning to cultural separatists within Islam, to a craven endorsement of the compromising speech about Sharia made by Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, last year. Lord Phillips took as his theme and title Equality Before the Law. This was shrewder than it was brave.
“Equality” is a dummy concept in the philosophy of law. Here it allowed both speaker and audience to overlook real differences between them, because everyone is in favour of equality. But Lord Phillips was wrong to say that only recently has English law developed a respect for equality. Common Law and Statute have always regarded everyone as “equal before the law”, but depending on who and what you are and what you've done, your rights may differ. A cat burglar and a householder are not equal before the law. An under-age teenager and an adult, a British citizen and an illegal immigrant, are not equal. An in-catchment-area and out-of-catchment-area parent are not (in their children's access to a local school) equal. It's all a question of category; the categories of citizen that our laws create do and must create differences - inequalities - in the rights of individuals. We Can’t All Be Equal under Different Laws >>> By Matthew Parris | July 5. 2008
FAMILY SECURITY MATTERS: The modus operandi for the political empowerment of Islamists in America is in full public display during every election cycle. The sad part is few realize how central "Islamic politics" is to the driving force of transnational Islamism and its threat to American security. The incessant attempts by American Islamist groups (like the MAS, CAIR, MPAC, ISNA, ICNA to name a few) to collectivize Muslims in the body politic - from voter registrations to their ideological grievance mill - point to their goals.
What better way to push forth a quasi-theocratic political agenda than to deceive the Muslim faithful into believing that their political survival as a minority in America depends upon the mixture of their faith identity with their political identity? These same Islamists spread the ideology of victimization and identity politics among any Muslims who will listen while they internally promote political Islam and Islamist statecraft within the ummah (Muslim community). They use their efforts at Muslim electoral involvement to exploit the spiritual ummah for political purposes. Most importantly, many in the mainstream media (MSM) and government turn to them to purportedly speak for the American Muslim population, even though they have no mandate or significant membership to do so. Exclusive: Islamism and the So-called ‘Muslim Voting Bloc’: Shades of Theocracy >>> By M Zuhdi Jasser | July 4, 2008
Is this man senile, or what? What's more, isn’t this man treasonous? What should happen to such a man who is willing to sell his country and its values and legal system down the river? If this is an example of the people at the top of British society, isn’t it time something changed? This man is a liability to the Crown. The people of the United Kingdom deserve better than this!
THE TELEGRAPH: Muslims in Britain should be able to live according to Sharia law, the country's most senior judge has said.
Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, the Lord Chief Justice, strongly backed Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, over his suggestion earlier this year that aspects of Sharia law should be adopted in Britain.
The archbishop's remarks sparked a national debate and led to calls for his resignation.
Risking inflaming that controversy again, Lord Phillips has said that Muslims in Britain should be able to use Sharia to decide financial and marital disputes.
The judge did add that only the criminal courts should have the power to decide when a crime has been committed and when to impose punishment.
NIS NEWS BULLETIN: THE HAGUE - Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen has declined to complain to Jordan about Dutch MP Geert Wilders awaiting prosecution in that country.
Wilders had asked Verhagen to summon the Jordanian ambassador in The Hague to protest against the possible court case against the Party for Freedom (PVV) leader for insulting Islam. The minister however refuses. The Netherlands cannot interfere with the judicial process of another country. "This is for courts, not politics," said the minister during a House debate on the Middle East.
"Conversely, a country also cannot influence the independent judicial process in the Netherlands," according to Verhagen. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) however thinks differently about this; it does condemn the Dutch Public Prosecutor's Office (OM) decision not to prosecute Wilders domestically. Netherlands Okays Jordan Prosecuting MP Wilders >>> | July 3, 2008
TOWNHALL.COM: THE HAGUE, The Netherlands -- Having run the polite-but-grim gauntlet of Dutch government security to gain access to Geert Wilders, I finally understood what the 24-hour security requirements of the man's continued existence really mean: To make the survival of Western-style liberty in the Netherlands his political cause, this Dutch parliamentarian has to live under high-tech lock and key.
This stunning paradox, with no end in sight, illustrates how far political freedom in the West has already eroded. Think of it: For writing about the repressive ideology of Islam, for arguing against the inequities of Sharia (Islamic law), for making a video ("Fitna") to warn about Islamic jihad, Wilders lives in his own non-Islamic country under a specifically Islamic death threat.
If it is politically incorrect to notice this, it is also indisputably true. True, too, is that, sans state security, this death threat could conceivably be carried out anytime, anywhere -- from the picturesque streets outside the Dutch parliament, to the house Wilders hasn't slept in since 2004. That, of course, was when, on an Amsterdam street, a Muslim assassin plunged a knife into Theo van Gogh's corpse, thus attaching the Islamic manifesto threatening both Wilders and his then-parliamentary colleague, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, with death. Geert Wilders: Prisoner of Islam >>> By Diana West | July 3, 2008
REUTERS: TISSEMSILT, Algeria - A court in Algeria handed suspended jail terms and fines to two Christians on Wednesday for trying to convert Muslims, a defence lawyer said, in the latest in a series of trials stirring accusations of religious repression.
Rachid Seghir and Djallal Dahmani each received suspended six month jail terms and 100,000 dinar fines in the hearing at Tissemsilt town 200 km (125 miles) southwest of Algiers for "distributing documents in order to disrupt the Muslim faith", defence lawyer Khelloudja Khalfoun said.
Contacted by telephone after the hearing, Seghir said in brief remarks that he would appeal, adding: "We are disappointed by the verdict but we are not ashamed of our religion." Algeria Christians Get Suspended Jail Terms >>> By Hamid Ould Ahmed | July 2, 2008
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Migration to Germany from countries including Turkey and Russia, where homosexuality is taboo, has led to a rise in crime against gays. Gay-bashing hip hop music isn't helping, either. So how should liberal-minded Germans deal with less-tolerant immigrants? Does Germany Have a Problem with Gay Hate Crime? >>> By Michael Scott Moore in Berlin | July 3, 2008
ASSOCIATED PRESS: ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey's deputy prime minister defended the ruling party in the country's top court Thursday against charges that it is steering the country toward Islamic rule.
The chief prosecutor is demanding the Islamic-rooted party be disbanded for anti-secular activity and that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and 70 other party members be barred from joining a political party for five years.
The court will deliver a verdict in the coming months. Some observers say a decision to disband the party could throw the country into political and economic instability.
The case is being heard as police rounded up two retired senior generals and some of the government's fiercest critics as part of a widening, year long investigation into allegations of a coup plot against the Islamic-leaning government by secularists.
The court case and the arrests have heightened tensions in Turkey. Erdogan's party is locked in a power struggle with secular groups supported by the military and other state institutions, including the judiciary. Turkish Party Rejects Anti-Secularism Charges >>> | July 3, 2008
BBC: Google must divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched any video on YouTube, a US court has ruled.
The ruling comes as part of Google's legal battle with Viacom over allegations of copyright infringement.
Digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called the ruling a "set-back to privacy rights".
The viewing log, which will be handed to Viacom, contains the log-in ID of users, the computer IP address (online identifier) and video clip details.
While the legal battle between the two firms is being contested in the US, it is thought the ruling will apply to YouTube users and their viewing habits everywhere. Google Must Divulge YouTube Log >>> | July 3, 2008
BBC: America's top military officer has said opening up a third front in the Middle East through a strike on Iran would be "extremely stressful" for US forces.
Adm Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was commenting on the likelihood of US or Israeli military action over Iran's nuclear programme.
Tensions have risen amid reports Israel may be planning a possible strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.
Iran denies its nuclear programme is anything other than peaceful.
It has been clear for some time that Adm Mullen does not want to attack Iran, but his latest remarks suggest that he is fighting hard behind the scenes for both the US and Israel to think carefully about the consequences of an attack before considering mounting it.
He said opening up a third front, after Iraq and Afghanistan, would be "extremely stressful, very challenging, with consequences that would be difficult to predict". US Admiral Urges Caution on Iran >>> By Justin Webb | July 2, 2008
BBC: US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has said he would expand George W Bush's programme of involving religious groups in government initiatives.
The Democratic Party candidate unveiled plans for a council of faith-based and neighbourhood partnerships in Ohio.
He said challenges from saving the planet to ending poverty were too big for the government to solve on its own.
A council involving religious groups would help to set the national agenda, Senator Obama said in his speech.
"We know that faith and values can be a source of strength in our own lives," said Mr Obama.
"That's what it has been to me and that's what it has been to so many Americans. It can also be something more.
"It can be the foundation of a new project of American renewal and that's the kind of effort I intend to lead as president of the United States." Obama Backs Faith in Public Life >>> By James Coomarasamy | July 2, 2008
The innocent Tayside police advert featuring a sweet little puppy that’s got Muslims all bent out of shape. Photo courtesy of the Mail Online
DAILY MAIL: A postcard featuring a cute puppy sitting in a policeman's hat advertising a Scottish police force's new telephone number has sparked outrage from Muslims.
Tayside Police's new non-emergency phone number has prompted complaints from members of the Islamic community.
The choice of image on the Tayside Police cards - a black dog sitting in a police officer's hat - has now been raised with Chief Constable John Vine.
The advert has upset Muslims because dogs are considered ritually unclean and has sparked such anger that some shopkeepers in Dundee have refused to display the advert.
THE AUSTRALIAN: POLYGAMY has split the Australian Islamic community, pitting senior Muslim leaders against each other over the religious teachings on the issue.
A statement from the National Imams Council saying polygamy was banned in Australia and that calls for its legalisation were unwarranted was criticised by other senior community leaders as well as its own members.
Outspoken Muslim cleric and Sydney imam Taj Din al-Hilali attacked the imams council for putting out a statement that "contradicts the wisdom and teachings of God".
Sheik Hilali "reminded those imams" that compromise through watering down religious teaching was wrong.
The chairman of the Jemiat Ulama of Australia (Muslim Council of Theologians), Adbul Quddoos, said the imams council was not telling people the correct thing.
Islamic Friendship Association president Keysar Trad, who sparked the debate on polygamy last week, wrote to the council saying it had "no right to conceal the solutions that our faith offers to social problems". Muslim Leaders Split on Polygamy >>> By Natalie O’Brien | July 1, 2008
BBC: The president of Mongolia has declared a four-day state of emergency in the capital amid violent protests over claims the general election was rigged.
Crowds torched the HQ of Mongolia's governing party - the former Communists - and attacked a police station.
Over 60 people were hurt - around half of them police - as officers used tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannon against stone-throwing protestors.
The unrest went on into the night, with reports of bank robberies and looting.
Rioters set fire to the Cultural Palace, home to a theatre, museum and national art gallery in the capital, Ulan Bator. Mongolia Calls State of Emergency >>> | July 1, 2008
BBC: Turkey's chief prosecutor has appeared before the country's Constitutional Court calling for the governing party to be closed down.
Founded by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Justice and Development Party, the AKP, won a landslide victory in the last election.
But its critics say it is trying to impose Sharia law on the secular state.
The party's attempt to ease a ban on the wearing of the Islamic headscarf is expected to be central to the evidence.
Prosecutor Abdurraham Yalcinkaya, who has argued that the party has become the focal point of anti-secular activities in Turkey, is appearing before judges in a closed-door session.
"This risk has been increasing every day" reads the 162-page petition submitted to the Constitutional Court by Mr Yalcinkaya.
"The danger is clear and concrete. There is no other way to protect society than to close the party down," it reads.
He is calling for the prime minister, president and 69 other party members to be banned from politics.
The AKP has condemned the case as an assault on democracy. A team representing the party are expected to present their defence on Thursday.
The EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn has warned the case could jeopardise Turkey's bid to join the bloc - arguing such disputes should be resolved through the ballot box, not the courts. Turkish Ruling Party Put on Trial >>> | July 1, 2008
Texan Sheriff Gives His Staff a Lesson on How to Be a Good Dhimmi
HOUSTON CHRONICLE: Reacting to the latest controversy about his office in recent months, Sheriff Tommy Thomas on Monday apologized in person to a local Muslim group for insensitive e-mails sent by members of his staff.
Monday's appearance before the Islamic Society of Greater Houston was Thomas' second apology in recent days over staff e-mails that surfaced in media reports last week, including one message from a top commander that mocks Islam's core tenets.
RADIO NETHERLANDS WORLDWIDE: The Jordanian justice authorities are preparing a criminal case against right-wing Dutch MP Geert Wilders because of his anti-Islam film, Fitna. A Jordanian judge has ruled that there is a case to answer. A number of procedures will have to be followed before any indictment is issued and this is likely to take a considerable time.
The complaint has been brought by organisations which believe the film constitutes an incitement to hatred of Muslims. They have already launched a campaign to boycott Dutch products, blaming the government in The Hague for not prosecuting Mr Wilders. Jordan to Prosecute Dutch MP over Anti-Islam Film >>> By Mike Wilcox | July 1, 2008
Archbishop of Canterbury Warns Rebels over Church of England Split
THE TELEGRAPH: The Archbishop of Canterbury has rounded on rebel Anglicans seeking to bypass his authority over issues such as homosexuality and women priests.
Dr Rowan Williams adopted unusually forthright language to accuse the hardline traditionalists of lacking legitimacy One of his staff even suggested the rebels were becoming a "Protestant sect".
The Archbishop's comments follow the creation at the weekend of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (Foca), a global network for millions of Anglicans unhappy at the ordination of the openly homosexual Bishop of New Hampshire, Gene Robinson.
Dr Williams called for patience from those who want to create an alternative worldwide Anglican Communion.
"It is not enough to dismiss the existing structures of the Communion," he said. "If they are not working effectively, the challenge is to renew them rather than to improvise solutions that may seem to be effective for some in the short term but will continue to create more problems than they solve." Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams Warns Rebels over Church of England Split >>> By George Pitcher, Religion Editor, and Graham Tibbetts | July 1, 2008
NEWS.COM.AU: IRAN is to dig 320,000 graves in border districts to allow for the burial of enemy soldiers in the event of any attack on its territory, a top commander said today.
"In implementation of the Geneva Conventions ... the necessary measures are being taken to provide for the burial of enemy soldiers,'' the Mehr news agency quoted General Mir-Faisal Bagherzadeh as saying.
"We have plans to dig 15,000 to 20,000 graves in each of the border provinces or a total of 320,000,'' the general said, adding that some of them would be mass graves if necessary.
Mr Bagherzadeh said Iran was keen to "reduce the suffering of the families of the fallen in any attack against our country ... and prevent any repetition of the long and bitter experience of the Vietnam War''.
His comments came as the United States continued to refuse to rule out an eventual resort to force against Iran over its contested nuclear program, which the West fears is cover for a drive to build an atomic weapon. Iran Digs Thousands of Graves Ready for Enemies >>> | June 30, 2008
BBC: Traditionalist Anglicans claiming to represent at least half of the membership of the worldwide communion, and more than a third of its bishops, have declared war on what they call the "false teaching" used to justify active homosexuality.
They have set up what amounts to a church within a church in order to organise for a long struggle against the ordination of gay clergy, the blessing of gay relationships, and what they claim is a drift towards accepting other religions as offering "equal access to God".
The Rev Rod Thomas, of the conservative Church of England group Reform, helped to formulate the organisation's strategy.
He claimed that traditionalists had been forced to create a new alliance to prevent the Bible being rewritten by liberal Anglicans to suit their current lifestyles.
"The Anglican Church is being destroyed by false teaching of the Bible on issues such as homosexuality", he said.
"We are gong to stand against this trend, and spread the true message of the Bible with confidence."
Traditionalists believe the Bible rules out active homosexuality, for example.
Road to schism?
They met in Jerusalem to bolster their claim that they were in touch with the authentic teaching of the early Church.
The group emphasises its intention of staying inside the Anglican Communion, but the alliance's mission statement appears to be a significant step towards eventual schism.
It is ready to send bishops anywhere in the world if traditionalist Anglicans call for help in countering liberal policies which in the view of the "Primates' Council" undermine strict biblical teaching.
The Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, said the "revisionist agenda which we've seen in the same-sex agenda is a missionary one and will spread its views as much as it can.
So the rest of us have to do missionary work to defend the gospel and to promulgate it." Battling ‘Liberal’ Church Policies >>> By Robert Pigott, Religious affairs correspondent, BBC News, Jerusalem | June 30, 2008
Why is it that nobody in our own elite actually likes or understands this country or its people or its traditions?
Why did we have to wait for Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, born and raised in Muslim Pakistan, to remind us that, as he put it, ‘the beliefs, values and virtues of Great Britain have been formed by the Christian faith’?
Just as important, why did we have to wait for him to urge us to do something about restoring that faith before we either sink into a yelling chaos of knives, fists and boots, or swoon into the strong, implacable arms of Islam?
STUTTGARTER ZEITUNG ONLINE: Berlin - Deutsche Politiker haben das Eintreten des demokratischen US-Präsidentschaftsbewerbers Barack Obama für die Todesstrafe für Kinderschänder kritisiert. "Barack Obama sollte sich für die Abschaffung der Todesstrafe einsetzen, nicht für ihre Ausweitung", sagte Grünen-Chefin Claudia Roth der "Bild"-Zeitung. Die Todesstrafe sei nicht zu rechtfertigen, auch nicht zur Bestrafung schlimmster Verbrechen. CSU-Chef Erwin Huber sagte der Zeitung: "Kinderschändung ist mit das abscheulichste Verbrechen. Aber das Verbot der Todesstrafe muss absolute Gültigkeit haben." Das Ende der "Obamania"? >>> | 27. Juni 2008
BBC: Hillary Clinton has joined Barack Obama at a rally - their first public event since she pulled out of the race to be the Democratic presidential candidate.
The rally in Unity, New Hampshire, was an opportunity for supporters of the party to come together after the divisive primary battle.
The event follows a joint dinner in Washington where Mr Obama offered help to clear Mrs Clinton's campaign debts.
Mrs Clinton urged supporters at the Democrat rally to vote for Mr Obama.
"If you think we need a new course, a new agenda, then vote for Barack Obama and you will get the change you need," she told the cheering crowd.
"He will work for you, he will fight for you and he will stand up for you every day in the White House."
After her speech, Mr Obama joined the crowd in chanting "thank you Hillary".
He said the Democrats needed Mrs Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, if they were to win the presidency. Clinton and Obama Rally Together >>> | June 27, 2008
Because many people have been reading this essay lately, I have decided to reprint it. I have linked it to a YouTube video, as I did originally.
The Connection Between Nazism, Arab Anti-Semitism and Islam
DEFINITION – Fascism: …As a rule, fascist governments are dominated by a dictator, who usually possesses a magnetic personality, … and rallies his followers by mass parades; appeals to strident nationalism; and promotes suspicion or hatred of both foreigners and “impure” people within his own nation, such as the Jews in Germany. Although both communism and fascism are forms of totalitarianism, fascism does not demand state ownership of the means of production, nor is fascism committed to the achievement of economic equality. In theory, communism opposes the identification of government with a single charismatic leader (the “cult of personality”), which is the cornerstone of fascism. … [Source: Dictionary.com]
With the death of Hitler and the defeat of Nazi Germany, most people thought that the world had been rid of fascism. Today, however, we cannot be so sure, because there is evidence aplenty of its revival. These days, many people talk of another form of fascism in particular: Islamofascism. Some people believe this term to be apt for the radical religio-political movement based on Islam, which is currently spreading through the world like wildfire; others, especially Muslims, find the term insulting and demeaning. Who is right? Are the infidels right to be shocked, disgraced and indignant, or are infidels right to use the term to point out to the unsuspecting the dangers we face. Why? Even the President of the United States of America himself, George W Bush, has used the term in public when referring to the antics of Al-Qa’eda and its determination to cultivate mayhem throughout the free world.
When we refer to Islam and radical Islam, we have to be careful not to confuse people. In this politically correct world, a world in which nobody seems willing to upset ethnic groups and people of other religions, it has become customary to dance around the truth so as not to offend. Therefore, our politicians have become accustomed to speaking in riddles, when clearer, more appropriate language would serve the needs of the electorate far better.
In times of danger, clarity of thought is essential. Prevarication serves no-one’s best interest in the long-run. Prevarication might well buy us some time; but it certainly doesn’t solve issues for the long-term good of the nation, for the long-term good of our civilization.
Let’s take a look at the real Islam…
The real Islam is exclusive in the extreme, just as Nazism was. It tells the believers – the Muslims throughout the world – to kill the unbelievers, to kill the infidels. This cannot be disputed, since it is there in black and white in all versions of the holy book of Muslims, the Qur’an.
They [the infidels] but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of God [Allah] (from what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks. – Al-Qur’an, Al-Nisa’ (Women), Surah IV, 89 (Translation by A Yusuf Ali)
And then we have the following:
… When the sacred months are over slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them. … – Al-Qur’an, At-Tawba (Repentance), Surah 9, 4 (Translation by N J Dawood)
These exhortations are also redolent of Nazism. They are certainly as violent and brutal and cruel.
These are the words of the founder of Islam or the words of Allah, according to your viewpoint and according to where you stand on the matter of Islam being a great and authentic religion. Muhammad certainly managed to make those who submit to Allah feel superior and exclusive, since Muslims are considered (by Muslims) to be superior to all other human beings. They are, after all, Allah’s ‘chosen people’, just as the Aryan race was the superior race in Hitler’s Germany. This is surely another similarity between these two ideologies.
There is no doubt about the fact that Muhammad was a 'great' and magnetic personality. This is quite indisputable, since were he not to have been so, then Islam would surely have died out long ago. But don’t all fascist movements rely on a magnetic personality to lead the followers, to lead the masses, to lead the people who cannot think for themselves? Think of three great examples of the twentieth century: Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. All had quite magnetic personalities: people just had to watch them and listen to them and their rants.
The fact that Muhammad died more than fourteen hundred years ago makes no real difference, since his personality is no less magnetic today than it was when he roamed the sands of the desert. His words are still harkened unto by 1.4 billion people worldwide, and we are still counting.
Muhammad must surely rank as the dictator par excellence, since his words were clothed in a deity. Hitler, when he was sitting in his Bunker with Eva that day in 1945, when he was contemplating biting that cyanide capsule and plucking up the courage to shoot himself through the temples, must surely have regretted with every fibre of his being that he hadn’t been smart enough to clothe Nazism in a deity, just as Islam had been about fourteen hundred years before. How much more successful Hitler might have been!
Does Islam qualify so far, according to our dictionary definition, to be classified as a form of fascism? I’ll leave that up to you to decide.
We are then informed that fascist dictators rally their followers by means of mass parades. Well, we cannot say with any certainty whether Muhammad did this. In all probability, he did not, since Islam, in the days of the Prophet, was in its infancy, and there would have been too few followers to rally. What we can say, however, is this: In the modern world, the dictators of the Islamic world have no difficulty whatsoever in getting rallies together on the streets of their cities. Often times, they are genuine; yet at other times, the numbers in the rallies are made by ‘rent-a-mob’. Either way, we must decide whether Islam passes this next test of a true strand of fascism. You decide!
Then we are informed in the definition that fascism appeals to strident nationalism. Well, there is no doubt that Islam is an Arabo-centric movement, worldwide. When praying, all Muslims must face Makkah (Mecca), and this takes place five times a day for the pious and faithful. One is certainly not allowed to ignore the Arab world if one is an adherent of the ‘religion’ of submission that is Islam. Added to this, of course, we have the Ummah, which is the community of Muslims throughout the world. When one enters the fold of Islam, when one becomes a follower, when one submits to the ‘will of Allah’ – some would say the arbitrary ‘will of Allah’ – then one joins the ‘nation’ of Islam worldwide. In this sense, can we not conclude that Islam is a form of extreme ‘nationalism’, a form of Islamic nationalism, a 'nationalism' that transcends geographical borders and frontiers?
Then we are told that fascism promotes suspicion and/or hatred of foreigners and impure people. Well, can we not conclude with the copious and available evidence that we have that Islam is certainly exclusive, since anyone who is not a Muslim is treated as inferior, and actually unclean, as in Kafir (pl. Kufar). The term used in Islam is Naji for such an unclean and unsavoury person. Does this remind you of the way that the Nazis thought of Jews and gypsies and homosexuals and Slavs and Russians? Nazis called them Untermenschen (unclean sub-humans); Muslims call them Najis (unclean disbelievers living in a state of Jahiliyyah, a state of pre-Islamic chaos), people who are unworthy of the human condition.
One other thing that Nazis, in particular, had in common with Muslims was this: They both hate(d) the Jews; both groups are deeply anti-Semitic. This, of course, is true to this very day. Mein Kampf, Hitler’s infamous book written whilst he was incarcerated, the title of which means ‘My fight, or my struggle’ (a title which bears a striking resemblance to the term Jihad, if you hadn’t noticed) was replete with anti-Semitism. One can but wonder why this very book is such a bestseller even to this day in countries in the Middle East, and even in Turkey. The book is an endless source of fascination to Muslims.
Fascism is a form of totalitarianism, but then isn’t Islam a form of totalitarianism, too? Fascism doesn’t demand state control of the means of production; but then Islam doesn’t either. Though it does have its own economic principles, economic principles which are neither capitalist nor socialist, economic principles and theory which are simply Islamic. This theory of economics demands neither state-ownership of the means of production nor does it demand equality among the faithful. But Islamic thinking certainly does call for infidels to be treated in an inferior manner, to be treated as dhimmies, or protected people who are not afforded the same rights as those who have submitted to Allah’s will.
Jews in Nazi Germany were made to wear a yellow star to mark them out from the crowd. Non-believers in an Islamic country, according to the ‘Pact of Umar’, are also subjected to similar indignities. Here we have another similarity.
The cult of personality, we are told, is the cornerstone of fascism. Do you think that Islam measures up on this score? Does Muhammad qualify? Was Muhammad charismatic enough? Has Muhammad passed the test of time? Can we conclude that Muhammad is the Gestalt which can truly be described as the non plus ultra of Gestalten, the non plus ultra of personality cults.
Whether ‘Islamofascism’ is a justified and apt term or indeed a calumnious one to describe what we are witnessing around the world today as Islam becomes ever more resurgent is for you, the reader, to decide. Do, by all means, think long and hard about this matter, for the future of the free world depends on our getting this right. It depends on our careful handling of this most thorny of contemporary issues.
DAILY EXPRESS: POLICE sniffer dogs trained to spot terrorists at railway stations may no longer come into contact with Muslim passengers – after complaints that it is against the suspects’ religion.
A report for the Transport Department has raised the prospect that the animals should only touch passengers’ luggage because it is considered “more acceptable”.
In the Muslim faith, dogs are deemed to be spiritually “unclean”. But banning them from touching passengers would severely restrict their ability to do their job.
The report follows trials of station security measures in the wake of the 2005 London suicide bomb attacks. In one trial, some female Muslims said the use of a body scanner was also unacceptable because it was tantamount to being forced to strip.
British Transport Police last night insisted it would still use sniffer dogs – which are trained to detect explosives – with any passengers regardless of faith, but handlers would remain aware of “cultural sensitivities”.
Critics said the complaints were just the latest example of minority religions trying to force their rules and morals on British society.
Tory MP Philip Davies said: “As far as I am concerned, everyone should be treated equally in the face of the law and we cannot have people of different religious groups laying the law down. I hope the police will go about their business as they would do normally.” Sniffer Dogs Offend Muslims >>> By Tom Whitehead, Home Affairs Correspondent | June 27, 2008
Canadian Human Rights Commission Rejects Action Against Maclean’s
GLOBE AND MAIL: The Canadian Human Rights Commission has dismissed a complaint against Maclean's magazine over a controversial article on the future of Islam, magazine officials said yesterday.
Meanwhile, a decision from the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal over the same issue isn't expected for several months. Rights Panel Rejects Action against Maclean’s >>> By Jamie Komarnicki | June 27, 2008
