13.05.2013
Brussels City Hall fired a recent Belgium convert to Islam for having refused to shake the hand of his female supervisor. When being interrogated during an inquiry on the case, the accused stated ‘to be forbidden to touch women’ according to his religion. The man was fired on the grounds of contradicting the notion of neutrality and civility at workplace.
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Imams across Britain will give simultaneous sermons condemning sexual grooming next month, as part of a grass-roots Muslim campaign to tackle the problem of abuse. The co-ordinated event on 28 June will follow a conference organised by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) to discuss ways of preventing further cases of abuse after seven men – all Muslim – were convicted this week for the grooming and sex trafficking of girls as young as 11 in Oxford. The case is one of several in recent years in which gangs of men, predominantly from a Pakistani Muslim background, have groomed young girls for sex. Julie Siddiqi, executive director of the Islamic Society of Britain, was one of the first Muslim figures to speak out on the issue. She said that although children were exploited in all communities, “the number of street-grooming convictions in the past few years involving Omars, Ahmeds and Faisals means the time has come for action. But if there are patterns emerging – and I think there are – of people from a certain background engaging in this type of activity, then that can’t be ignored either. I’m not saying all Pakistani men are prone to this, or Islam says that; of course that’s nonsense. But if we ignore these patterns we’re going to do an injustice against the victims.” A separate MCB conference, on 20 June, will include speakers from child protection and the police. It will be attended by senior Muslim clerics from around the country. A spokeswoman for the MCB said: “All communities should be tackling this and we’re doing our part to address this.”
The Darul Ihsaan centre, known locally as “Jimmy’s gym”, was used by members of the Jihadist group that planned to attack the English Defence League. Two of the gang, Mohammed Saud and Anzal Hussain, also worked there, and the six met in the building the night before the planned attack. The same gym was used by at least four members of a separate terror cell which planned to attack the UK with eight suicide bombers. Earlier this year those four admitted travelling to Pakistan for terror training and will be sentenced at a later date.
Fundamentalists seek out the gym because they play Islamic chanting rather than music, ban women and offer halal body-building supplements. Inside, the walls carry an inscription in Arabic and songs called Nasheeds were playing on the PA system.
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The six would-be terrorists who planned to attack a far-right demonstration using knives, machetes and a homemade bomb were reacting to violence and intimidation aimed at provoking the UK’s Muslim population, a court has heard. In mitigation, Joel Bennathan QC, defending, said the six men, who have already pleaded guilty to plotting an attack on an English Defence League (EDL) demonstration in Dewsbury last year, were amateurish and “hopelessly incompetent”. He told the Old Bailey on Friday that although the “great bulk” of the Muslim community had the sense to ignore the activities of the EDL, this group – who were “not particularly intellectual” – reacted to a series of EDL demonstrations targeting Muslim areas that were provocative, insulting and intimidating.
Omar Khan, 28, Mohammed Saud, 23, Jewel Uddin, 27, Zohaib Ahmed, 22, and Anzal Hussain, 25, pleaded guilty at Woolwich crown court to engaging in preparation for acts of terrorism. A sixth man, Mohammed Hasseen, 23, pleaded guilty to the same offence and possessing a document likely to be of use to a person preparing or committing an act of terrorism.
The court heard the mission was only abandoned when the group turned up after the EDL demonstration had finished.
Earlier the court heard that the planned attack would have led “to a tit-for-tat spiral of violence and terror” that would have reverberated around the country if it had gone ahead.
Mr Bennathan said the EDL fitted in with a long tradition of right wing groups antagonising Muslims and that the incident was not so much a terrorist incident but a domestic dispute. Despite the use of Jihadist language in their note, he said: “This was undoubtedly a domestic bit of planned violence by young British men reacting to the calculated insults of other young British men.” He said the men had no intention to kill anyone and that the whole group now accept that everyone has a right to air their views whether insulting or not. He said: “There is an acceptance now that people living in a liberal democracy in the UK have a right to express views even if other people disagree with those views or find them upsetting.”
The court was told yesterday how the group wanted to start a race war with an army of young Muslim martyrs. The plot was only narrowly averted by the group’s own incompetence and sheer luck.
DETROIT — There have been only two McDonald’s restaurants in the U.S. that have offered halal food. Both were in east Dearborn, Mich., which has a sizable population of Arab-American Muslims.
But after a contentious lawsuit that accused the restaurant chain of selling non-halal items advertised as halal, McDonald’s has yanked its Halal Chicken McNuggets and Halal McChicken sandwiches off the menu. The move brings to an end a unique product that made the two McDonald’s restaurants popular with Muslims.
“Those items have been discontinued as a result of our continued efforts to focus on our national core menu,” a spokesman for McDonald’s said Friday.
At one of the two restaurants, the Ford Road location, a sign in Arabic and English on its drive-through menu informs customers that halal items are no longer available. The decision to discontinue the products after a 12-year run drew a mixed reaction in Dearborn: Some were disappointed, while others said it was a good move because McDonald’s had problems before with selling halal food.
The removal of the halal items, which was done last month, comes after a lawsuit filed in 2011 alleging that the fast-food restaurant was selling non-halal chicken it claimed was halal. Halal is the Muslim equivalent of kosher, requiring that meat be prepared according to Islamic guidelines, such as reciting a prayer while the animal is cut. In some cases, employees at the Ford Road location were mistakenly giving non-halal products to customers who asked for halal ones.
Damian Green, Police and Criminal Justice Minister, said men linked to sex crimes such as female genital mutilation and selling underage girls for sex must learn to obey Britain’s laws and customs. “If you come and live in 21st-century Britain then you obey the laws and observe the conventions of 21st-century Britain. And the law says that exploiting children for sexual purposes is a serious and disgusting crime,” Mr Green told The Times. He added: “The age of consent may be puberty in other parts of the world, but it is not in this country. And in this country it is not acceptable to regard anyone else as being in some way less than human because they may not share your religious views or your race. “We are all equal under the law. If you are abusing children sexually then that’s criminality and I am not prepared to accept, as a plea in mitigation, the argument that in some parts of the world this would be regarded as acceptable. It’s not acceptable in Britain in 2013.”
The sex ring in Rochdale sparked a national debate over the role of largely Asian men in grooming white girls, and what impact cultural background had on the campaign of abuse being able to continue for so long.
Police and social workers were accused of not investigating the gang for fear of being branded racist, and instead toeing a ‘politically correct’ line.
Men of Pakistani heritage are significantly over-represented among those convicted of group street-grooming crimes, according to The Times. It has also been claimed some interpretations of Islam leads men to believe what would be morally wrong with a Muslim girl is permitted with a non-Muslim victim.
The number of hunger strikers being force-fed by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has risen to 41, with the protest showing no signs of abating more than a week after President Obama renewed his commitment to close the detention facility.
The military said in a statement Thursday that 103 detainees are on hunger strike and that 41 of them are being force-fed. The military also said four detainees who are being force-fed are being observed at the hospital.
There are 166 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, a majority of whom are Yemeni nationals. Two years ago, Obama imposed his own moratorium on sending detainees to Yemen because of concerns about security there. But he said he will lift the ban.
Obama also said he will appoint senior envoys at the State and Defense departments to oversee and accelerate the process of moving detainees.
There has been no visible progress on these commitments, but administration officials have cautioned that it will take time to restart the effort to close the facility.
