..
Austria’s Kurz vows to fight ‘political Islam’ after Turkish teens
rampage through Vienna church
31 Oct 2020 07:45
FILE PHOTO: The Votivkirche church, in Vienna, Austria, October 6, 2020. © REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has said that his government will not tolerate religious extremism after dozens of Turkish youths reportedly stormed through a church in Vienna.
Between 30 and 50 Turkish teenagers are said to have rampaged through the Catholic Church of St. Anton von Padua in Vienna-Favoriten. According to local media reports, the youths shouted “Allahu akbar” as they kicked benches and the church’s confessional. The youths scattered after the pastor called the police.
Writing on Twitter about the rowdy flash mob, the Austrian chancellor said that all Christians in the country must be able to “exercise their faith freely and safely. We will resolutely continue the fight against political Islam and will not show any false tolerance here."
No one was injured during the incident and police are currently reviewing surveillance footage. The youths reportedly met earlier in the day at a square, where they shouted “Islamic slogans” and set off firecrackers.
According to Austrian media, law enforcement initially labeled the unsettling disturbance as a “youth prank,” but the case was later referred to the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution and dozens of police officers were dispatched to the area as a safety precaution.
Interior Minister Karl Nehammer vowed to protect Austria’s Christian community “with all our resources” and said that security was being bolstered following a string of violence and attempted attacks in France that have been linked to Islamic extremists.
An attack on Thursday at a church in Nice, France left three people dead. The suspect, a Tunisian migrant who had recently arrived in the country, was accused by French officials of being an “Islamo-fascist,” although his family in Tunisia denies that he holds radical religious beliefs.
France launched a crackdown on extremism following the murder of a schoolteacher, Samuel Paty, who was beheaded by a Chechen refugee after showing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed during a lesson on freedom of speech.
Madness and a complete lack of self-control is not confined to the Indian Sub-Continent
Egyptian man kills wife and two kids to avenge his spouse’s earlier murder of a neighbouring girl
Published: October 31, 2020 16:54
Ramadan Al Sherbini, Correspondent, Gulf News
Cairo: An Egyptian man has killed his wife and two children allegedly to avenge the spouse’s earlier murder of a neighbouring girl.
Police in Upper Egypt’s province of Sohag found the bodies of the wife and her two children, aged 14 and eight, inside their house allegedly after the man had killed them and fled.
A body of a five-year –old girl, purportedly killed earlier by the woman due to a financial dispute with her mother, was found inside the house drainage well.
After his arrest, the suspect told investigators that he had made up his mind to kill his 40-year-old wife because of her killing of the neighbouring girl, who was a child of a close friend of his, Al Watan newspaper reported.
“I feel remorse for killing my two children, but they made me lose my temper when they attempted to stop me from killing their mother. I killed them while I was in the grip of anger,” he added, according to the paper.
'The grip of anger', rage, demonic possession, utter insanity!
In recent years, Egyptian media has reported a rise in family killings in the country.
In July, a farm worker in southern Egypt admitted to having killed his mother, wife and three daughters, to marry another woman.
Earlier this year, a psychologically ill woman fatally threw her two children from the four-floor balcony of her house north of Cairo before she leaped after them. The 33-year-old mother died later of injuries at a local hospital.
It was probably TV and movies that convinced me from childhood that life is very cheap in North Africa - from Egypt to Morroco. Nothing I have seen as an adult has changed that perception.
Kabul University attack: Islamic State claims responsibility
after 22 people killed in Afghanistan
2 Nov, 2020 19:18
Afghan security forces stand guard during an attack near the University of Kabul, Afghanistan
November 2, 2020. © REUTERS/Omar Sobhani
The Islamic State terrorist group has claimed responsibility for an attack on Kabul University on Monday in which at least 22 people died, including students, after gunmen stormed the campus.
The group’s Amaq News Agency sent out a message claiming Islamic State had carried out the attack and had targeted judges, investigators, and security teams working for the government. It claimed 80 people had been killed in the incident.
The official number of those killed stands at 22, however, with more than 20 other people wounded.
Shots were first heard at around 11.30am local time, before an hours-long battle between the attackers and Afghan security forces. The three perpetrators were killed, according to the country’s interior ministry spokesperson Tariq Arian, who described the assault on the university as a “savage terrorist attack.”
President Ashraf Ghani branded the violence an attack on “the honor, advancement, and bright future of Afghanistan,” and the Afghan government has declared Tuesday a national day of mourning.
Local media reports said there had been an explosion and gunfire at a book fair at the university, which had been attended by Afghan and Iranian officials, including the Iranian ambassador to Afghanistan. Footage showed students being evacuated from the campus, and people could be seen running, to the backdrop of loud bangs.
One student, Fathullah Moradi, who escaped through the university’s gates, told Reuters: “They were shooting at every student they saw.”
Islamic State also claimed responsibility for a bomb attack at a Kabul education center just over a week ago that killed 24 people.
Bloodshed has continued in the country, despite recent peace talks between the Taliban and the government, with the UN envoy for Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, warning of “near-record violence.”
On Monday, in a separate incident, a vehicle struck a roadside mine in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, killing at least seven people.
France sparks outrage in Turkey with plans to outlaw
‘Grey Wolves’ nationalist group
2 Nov, 2020 17:37
File photo © REUTERS/Yagiz Karahan
Turkish members of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have condemned the French government’s decision to ban a pan-Turkish nationalist group known as the ‘Grey Wolves.’
On Monday, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced during a National Assembly meeting about the country’s fight against Islamist militants that the cabinet will consider banning the Turkish right-wing group, when it meets on Wednesday.
Huseyin Sozlu, a member of the MHP, posted on Twitter to strongly condemn the proposed ban, by sharing a photo of the French government “embracing the PKK terrorists in the Elysee Palace,” arguing that the apparent hypocrisy exposed “Europe’s ambivalent attitude."
Sozlu was joined in his criticism by Turkish nationalist Adem Taskaya, who posted that, in response to the ban, soon France’s “government will fall,” urging President Emmanuel Macron to take “precautions with his mind.”
The ‘Grey Wolves,’ established by the Nationalist Movement Party’s founder Alparslan Turkes in the 1960s, has been involved in “particularly aggressive” incidents in France in recent weeks, according to Darmanin.
Last weekend, French media reported that the group’s name and pro-Turkish slogans had been inscribed on an Armenian memorial near Lyon.
Wikipedia - The Grey Wolves (Turkish: Bozkurtlar), officially known as Idealist Hearths, is a Turkish far-right organization and movement affiliated with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Commonly described as ultranationalist , Islamist and neo-fascist, it is a youth organization that has been described as MHP's paramilitary or militant wing. Its members deny its political nature and claim it to be a cultural and education foundation, as per its full official name: Ülkü Ocakları Eğitim ve Kültür Vakfı (Idealist Clubs Educational and Cultural Foundation).
The organization has long been a prominent suspect in investigations into the Turkish "deep state", and is suspected of having had close dealings in the past with the Counter-Guerrilla, the Turkish branch of the NATO Operation Gladio, as well as the Turkish mafia.
Tensions have been growing between France and Turkey since Macron pledged a crackdown on radical Islam following the murder of a French teacher by a Chechen Islamist on October 16. Macron also defended the publication of cartoon depictions of the Prophet Mohammed as freedom of expression, drawing harsh rebukes from Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The French government has since increased its efforts to tackle militants and extremists in the past month, including banning a group named after Sheikh Yassin, co-founder of the Hamas movement.
50,000-strong 'anti-Macron' rally in Bangladesh marches towards French embassy, Macron effigy burned
2 Nov, 2020 15:30
© REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain
More than 50,000 people have taken to the streets in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka, to protest against French President Emmanuel Macron's defense of the right to publish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.
Police warned that crowds were heading for the French Embassy, where security had been heightened.
Organizers of Bangladesh's largest anti-France rally disagreed with the police estimate of a 50,000-strong crowd, claiming twice as many had assembled.
Protesters marched for two kilometers, starting at the country's national Mosque in the center of Dhaka, and chanting: "We are not afraid of bullets or bombs!" and "Macron, you are in danger!"
Some participants burned an effigy of Macron, while others carried caricatures of the leader and a fake coffin for him.
This latest protest comes after the French president sparked backlash in a number of Muslim countries when he defended the right to freedom of speech by allowing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, following the killing of French schoolteacher Samuel Paty.
The teacher had shown his students the caricatures in a lesson about freedom of speech and was beheaded by an Islamist Chechen on the outskirts of Paris last month.
Macron vowed a clampdown on Islamist extremism in the country and once-again defended values of freedom of speech after a terrorist attack in Nice, in which three people died, two of whom were decapitated.
Tensions were already escalating when satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo republished cartoons of the prophet (seen as blasphemous in Islam) in August, to coincide with the trial of the gunmen who had attacked its office in 2015 and shot dead 12 members of staff.
Monday's protest in Bangladesh is the country's most recent gathering in which demonstrators have tried to "lay siege" to the French embassy, following another in Dhaka involving around 40,000 people last week.
The latest protest in the capital was organized by Hefazat-i-Islam, a Muslim political group; many in the crowd had come from outside Dhaka to vent their anger at Macron, but did so peacefully, according to reports.
Pictures showed a barbed-wire barricade erected by Bangladeshi police to prevent protesters entering Dhaka's embassy district.
Deputy chief of Hefazat-i-Islam, Junaid Babunagaori, urged Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to condemn Macron, and told protesters: "I call on traders to throw away French products. I ask the UN to take stern action against France."
On Monday Indonesia also witnessed protests, with around 2,000 people marching to the French embassy in the capital, Jakarta, while chanting, "God is Great!" and "Boycott French products!"
Boycotts on French products, led by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have been brought into effect in a number of Muslim countries, while leaders in other nations, including Pakistan, Morocco, Iran, and Egypt have also slammed Macron.
‘This is our Europe’: Macron voices ‘shock & grief’ over Vienna terror attack,
warns ‘enemies’ will be dealt with
2 Nov, 2020 23:28
French President Emmanuel Macron insisted that Europe will not give into terror following a deadly attack in Austria’s capital, voicing support for a “friendly country” while threatening retaliation for their shared “enemies.”
“We French share the shock and grief of the Austrian people struck this evening by an attack in the heart of their capital, Vienna. After France, a friendly country is attacked,” Macron said in a pair of tweets on Monday evening – one in French, the other in German.
This is our Europe. Our enemies must know who they are dealing with.
We will not give up anything.
The comment came amid running gun battles between armed assailants and police in downtown Vienna on Monday night, following an incident near the city’s largest synagogue deemed a terrorist attack by the Austrian Interior Minister. While the attackers’ motives remain unclear, police have confirmed that “several suspects armed with rifles” have fired their weapons in six different locations, killing at least one bystander and injuring several others. One of the gunmen was also shot and killed by officers, police said.
The President of the European Commission, Germany’s Ursula von der Leyen, joined Macron in condemning the “brutal” attack, saying “Europe stands by Austria’s side in full solidarity,” while the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs Josep Fontelles dubbed the shootings “cowardly [acts] of violence and hate.”
France has seen a number of shocking terrorist attacks in recent weeks, including a stabbing spree at a Catholic basilica in Nice last Thursday, as well as the gruesome beheading of a school teacher in a suburb of Paris in October. Both have since been labeled “Islamist terrorist attacks” by French authorities, who have responded to the violence with ramped up security around schools and houses of worship nationwide, including the deployment of thousands of soldiers to French streets.
There seems to be an assumption here that the terrorists were Muslim extremists. It's possible they were far-right extremists, but that seems unlikely considering the randomness of the targets. That is more like Islamic terrorists.
Pakistani girls’ school stages mock BEHEADING as cleric vows vengeance on France for ‘insulting the Prophet’ (VIDEO)
2 Nov, 2020 21:40
© Facebook / Jamia Syeda Hafsa
A girls’ religious school in Islamabad staged a mock beheading in front of its young students as a cleric preached that Muslims would exact vengeance on France – and on the West in general – for “insulting” Prophet Mohammed.
A woman in full face veil uses a scimitar to behead an effigy in front of hundreds of assembled students, many holding signs sporting protest slogans, in video posted to the official Facebook account of Jamia Syeda Hafsa, a Pakistani girls’ seminary, last week.
The disturbing scene and excerpts of a fiery sermon that accompanied it have since been picked up by Muslim-skeptical English language outlets, at least one of which claimed the effigy is of French President Emmanuel Macron, though there is no evidence in the video that this is the case. Macron has come under fire from Muslims around the world for his government’s recent efforts to crack down on Islamic extremism following the beheading of history teacher Samuel Paty last month by a Chechen Muslim immigrant.
Video of the beheading is set to a song that lyrically vows to “grind into dust” those who draw the Prophet Mohammed and declares beheading to be the only fitting punishment for insulting him. The grisly pageant was accompanied by a sermon in which the female cleric vowed vengeance on the enemies of Islam, especially France.
“So far only one of your brethren has gone to hell,” the cleric declared, adding that “we will never stop until we exact vengeance for your insult” – presumably the obscene cartoon drawing of the Prophet that Paty reportedly showed his class as part of a lesson on free speech.
“You started this, but we will finish it,” she continued, asking if it was “possible” for France to “insult our prophet and retain the glory of Paris.”
Nor did she spare France’s allies, vowing a larger revenge in what seemed to be retaliation for the ongoing ‘war on terror’ that has left Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan in ruins. “Along with France, all enemies of Muslims will need to understand the flames you spread to us in the East will now reach you in the West,” the cleric said.
“If you let us be in peace you’ll be able to live in peace. Your peace is tied to ours,” she proclaimed.
While the effigy beheaded in Islamabad may not have been Macron, the French president has been enthusiastically “mutilated” in effigy elsewhere. A massive protest outside the French embassy in Dhaka included an effigy-burning, and a small group of Muslims burned photographs of the leader outside the French embassy in Moscow on Friday.
Macron’s crackdown on radical Islam has polarized Muslims and non-Muslims alike, with some feeling it’s too little, too late and others seeing it as an-all-out war on Muslims. The president acknowledged that caricatures of Mohammed like the one published by satirical outlet Charlie Hebdo in 2015 might be “shocking” but has vowed to protect freedom of speech in France – at least when it comes to displaying politically incorrect cartoons.
Despite its inflammatory content, the video apparently did not violate Facebook’s policy on inciting violence, even though it included a direct call for Muslims to “spill their blood” defending the honor of the Prophet.
They just can't seem to understand that non-Muslims have no regard for 'the honor of the prophet'. If I dare write what most people actually think of the prophet, it would possibly cost me my life.
For several years now I have been warning that Europe will end up in an outright war on Islam if it wants to retain any of its historical character. These are just the first shots fired in the first battle. It will get very ugly before it gets better.
No comments:
Post a Comment