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“Austria Bans Muslim Brotherhood and Sets New Standard
In the Fight Against Islamist Extremism,”
EU-Policies, July 13, 2021:
Last week, the Austrian National Assembly passed an act targeting the activities of ISIS and the Muslim Brotherhood. Under the new law, released terror offenders will be monitored through electronic ankle bracelets, and imams leading religious services in the country will be required to register with the government. The new regulations also make Austria the first European country to ban the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities outright, as the country takes a firm stance against a growing phenomenon of political Islam.
The new legislation is only the most recent in a series of efforts by the conservative government of Sebastian Kurz to try and curb Islamist extremism in the country. While Austria is currently going further than any other government in Western Europe in targeting suspects, its model for preventing extremist activities might soon be taken up in other EU countries….
Founded in 1928 by Egyptian scholar Hassan al-Banna as an “Islamic revival” organisation, the Brotherhood came to worldwide prominence as a wave of Islamism rose up to challenge secular governments across the Arab World in the second half of the 20th century. Over the past several decades, the transnational constellation of organisations that make up the Brotherhood has also given rise to paramilitary wings which have engaged in campaigns of bombings and assassinations.
The movement’s primary goal has long been to create Islamist states ruled in accordance with sharia, or Islamic law. In the wake of the Arab Spring, branches of the Brotherhood emerged as a dominant political force in several countries, and even managed to obtain power in Egypt with the election of Mohammed Morsi to the presidency and in Tunisia through the Ennahda movement. After being democratically elected, Morsi took a sharp turn towards authoritarianism, acting to cement Islamist rule over Egypt until furious protesters and the Egyptian army forced him out of power a year into his term.
While mainstream branches of the Brotherhood often present themselves as democratising forces and compete in elections, their offshoots and sister organisations include a number of violent terrorist organisations such as Hamas or Liwa al-Thawra. For many years, the Muslim Brotherhood has been seen by scholars as a “gateway” organisation for religious extremists who are initially radicalised by its strong Islamist message and subsequently move on to more overtly extremist groups. No less than Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of al-Qaeda, started out as a member of the Brotherhood….
Afghanistan recalls ambassador, top diplomats from Pakistan
in wake of envoy’s daughter kidnapping and torture
18 Jul, 2021 21:17
Kabul has called back its ambassador and senior diplomats from its embassy in Islamabad, citing security threats days after the Afghan ambassador’s daughter was briefly kidnapped and tortured by unknown assailants.
“The Leadership of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan called back Afghanistan’s Ambassador and senior diplomats from Pakistan until all security threats are addressed including the arrest and trial of the perpetrators of abduction,” the Afghan Foreign Ministry said in a brief statement on Sunday.
An Afghan delegation will be sent to Pakistan to monitor the investigation of the kidnapping, the ministry said, without specifying the day when the delegation will arrive in the neighboring country. Any further actions would be based on the findings of this group, it added.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry called the decision “unfortunate and regrettable.” It also said that “security of the ambassador, his family and personnel of the Embassy and Consulates of Afghanistan in Pakistan has been further beefed up.” The Pakistani foreign secretary met with the ambassador before his leave and assured him that Islamabad would fully cooperate with Kabul in this case.
Silsila Alikhil, the daughter of the Afghan envoy to Islamabad, Najib Alikhil, was abducted on Friday as she was returning to her home in the Pakistani capital. She was coming back in a taxi after visiting a bakery when the driver picked up another man, who then verbally abused and assaulted her, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported.
The unknown assailants allegedly held her captive for several hours and tortured her. She was then found with injuries and rope marks on her body and was taken to a hospital.
“The abduction of [the] Afghan ambassador's daughter & her subsequent torture has wounded the psyche of our nation. Our national psyche has been tortured,” Afghanistan’s Vice President Amrullah Salen said in a Twitter post on Sunday.
Islamabad said that the case is under investigation. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan designated the probe into the kidnapping as a top priority issue and demanded the perpetrators be found within 48 hours, Pakistani Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad said on Saturday.
Relations between the two neighbors have long been rather tense. Kabul previously accused Islamabad of providing safe havens to the Taliban while Pakistan accused Afghanistan of harboring some other militant groups that launched attacks on Pakistani territory.
Islamabad was commended for helping to bring the Taliban militants to the negotiating table in Qatar last year when Afghan peace talks began. Yet, those negotiations have yielded no substantive results so far. The Taliban has massively ramped up its offensive in Afghanistan and captured significant swathes of territory in the country’s north amid the US pullout that is scheduled to be finished by September 11.
‘Fascism spread to courts’: Erdogan’s spokesman berates top EU court
for allowing employers to ban headscarves in workplace
18 Jul, 2021 10:56
FILE PHOTO. ©REUTERS / Francis Mascarenhas
The spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused the EU of “embracing” the fascist past of the European continent, after a top court ruled that employers can ban religious symbols, including the headscarf.
The ruling passed this week by the European Court of Justice (CJEU) is “wrong” and “an attempt to lend legitimacy to racism,” Fahrettin Altun, the communications director for the office of President Erdogan said on Twitter on Saturday. He said it was “unbelievable that fascism just spread to the courts” of the EU, adding that “instead of denouncing its dark past, Europe now seeks to embrace it.”
It seems what goes around, comes around. Anti-Semitism is growing at a much faster rate than anti-Islamism in Europe. Of course, it has partly to do with the growing Islamization of Europe since 2015.
The CJEU on Thursday passed a landmark ruling that stated employers who have a genuine need to maintain religious neutrality have the right to prohibit workers from wearing visible religious symbols.
The court reviewed two separate cases brought by two Muslim women from Germany, a drugstore cashier and a caregiver, who alleged their employers discriminated against them by not allowing them to wear headscarves. The CJEU confirmed that employers can have legitimate reasons to enforce a religion-neutral dress code and are allowed to do so as long as they treat symbols of different faiths equally.
Law-mandated religious neutrality in workplaces in some European nations has long been a contentious issue, with defenders of Muslim rights arguing that Islam worshipers are disproportionally affected by such restrictions.
Erdogan, whose AK Party has Islamist origins, is one of the most vocal critics of what it perceives as European bias against Muslims. The Turkish Foreign Ministry condemned the CJEU ruling on Sunday, calling it “a new example of efforts to give Islamophobia and intolerance towards Muslims an institutional and legal identity in Europe.”
Ties between Brussels and Ankara, which for decades aspired to become a member of the EU, have been deteriorating for years. The relationship is aggravated by a plethora of issues, from territorial disputes between Turkey and Greece to the complex situation with migrants trying to reach Europe through Turkey.
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Britons shocked by new migrant crisis as 430 arrive
on English shores in 1 day, a new record
20 Jul, 2021 14:45
British Border Force staff bring migrants into Dover harbour, in Dover, Britain,
(FILE PHOTO) © REUTERS/Paul Childs
Many Britons have questioned why the country is facing another migrant crisis after 430 asylum seekers landed on British shores on Monday, just months after the UK finally took back control of its borders from the EU.
The Home Office has said that at least 430 migrants crossed the English Channel from France on Monday with Britain’s heatwave providing ideal crossing conditions.
The figure marks a new daily record for migrant crossings in a single day and sees the total number of crossings this year nearly surpass the number registered in the entirety of 2020. The near 8,000 crossings so far in 2021 are around four times more than what was seen in all of 2019.
Continuing its tough rhetoric on Channel crossings, the Home Office told the BBC it was taking “substantial steps to tackle the unacceptable problem of illegal migration.”
Home Secretary Priti Patel has vowed to make illegal migration a thing of the past. The Nationality and Borders Bill, which has completed its second reading in the House of Commons, seeks to make illegal entry to the UK a crime punishable with four years in prison.
Government plans could also see asylum seekers sent to third countries to be processed. Denmark has already announced similar plans, with Rwanda being a potential processing location.
In late 2020 and earlier this year, the UK Home Office came under intense scrutiny after reports in the media about plans to send asylum seekers to far-flung British territories, including Ascension Island and even disused oil rigs.
However, Britain’s plans to take back its borders, a slogan and policy enabled by Brexit, is yet to come to fruition, angering many in the UK. Some took to Twitter to register their dismay at the number of dinghies landing on British shores on Monday.
“For all those looking to immigrate to the UK. It is a lot cheaper and faster to simply cross the channel,” one person wrote ironically on Twitter, adding that they could bypass NHS fees and other requirements for migration.
Another person asked why the government was ‘taking away her freedom’ with the introduction of vaccine passports, but these migrants could illegally enter Britain with “impunity.”
However, not everyone was angry, some pointed out that the UK had the capacity to care for these people while another said she felt sorry for them, coming all the way to the UK to find they’re “treated like animals.”
Speaking on Monday evening during his first-ever show on GB News, Brexiteer Nigel Farage said that migrant crossings would once again become the biggest non-coronavirus story in the news this summer.
Farage struck a foreboding tone, warning once again about the costs and risks of illegal migration to the UK and the need for reform in the asylum system.
Britons angry as Ofsted finds anti-gay book in Islamic school’s library
saying gays must be ‘slained’
22 Jul, 2021 10:54
(FILE PHOTO) © REUTERS/Athar Hussain
The findings of an Ofsted inspection of the Institute of Islamic Education private boarding school have caused outrage in the UK – notably, the discovery of a book in the school’s library that promotes the killing of homosexuals.
On Tuesday, Ofsted, the UK’s standards authority for education, published a report about the religious boarding school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.
The report, which concerned its inspection visit in May, claimed the school did not meet the standards required of an independent school or a boarding school, but more worrying still, deemed that “fundamental British values [were being] undermined by leaders’ failings.”
During their visit, inspectors came across a library book titled ‘Islam on Homosexuality’, which contained content considered “unsuitable for pupils.”
A section of the book read: “The participants of the homosexual act should be slained (sic) whether they are married or unmarried, because in filth and mischief this act surpasses adultery.” Another section proclaimed that the “evil doers should be put to death.”
While the headteacher admitted the book should not have been stocked in the library, other leaders and trustees of the school said it should remain on the shelves.
In response, several commenters online called for the school to be closed down.
One social media user said there was simply “no excuse” for such practices, declaring that the school management should be replaced immediately and asking why the school’s status as an educational institution hadn’t been revoked.
Others accused the school of “teaching medieval values,” while another called on people to imagine the outrage if “a Church of England school had a book recommending killing Muslims.”
“They’ll never integrate into our society – they are here to live in their own society,” one person wrote on Twitter. These are just “indoctrination centres,” another railed, adding that such schools were brainwashing the next generation of Muslims and preventing assimilation.
Several people made a comparison with an incident that happened earlier this year, when a teacher from a school in Batley, also in West Yorkshire, was forced into hiding after members of the Muslim community protested and threatened to kill him after he showed a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed to pupils during a lesson.
“Hmmm, wonder if there will be … any protests by the gay or LGTBQ community at this school demanding the book be removed?” one asked ironically, claiming that sector’s silence on the matter said a lot.
Others made the usual doom-laden comments, claiming, “this is only the beginning!” and that you soon wouldn’t be able to get a bacon roll in Britain.
While most people condemned the school, some hit back at Ofsted. One person claimed the Bible contained exhortations that were just as extreme, and another questioned what was meant by “fundamental British values.” “Xenophobia. Murder. Colonialism. Genocide. Invasion. Exceptionalism,” one asserted.
Earlier this year, people from West Yorkshire’s Muslim community staged a protest at a school less than four miles away from Dewsbury, after a teacher showed images of the Prophet Mohammed to his class. Ministers condemned those involved in the protest and said threats made against his life were “very disturbing.” Nearly £80,000 has been raised on the Go Fund Me website for the teacher, who remains in hiding.
The book will certainly be removed from the library if it hasn't already, but it won't change the attitude Muslims have toward gays.
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