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Toronto Star - August 23, 2007
Third attack on Mississauga mosque alarms Muslims
Ashifa Kassam
Minutes before prayers were set to begin on Sunday, a foot-wide slab of concrete came crashing through a window of a Mississauga mosque.
It was the second time in less than a month that the mosque has been targeted by vandals, and Muslim groups are asking police to treat the incident as a hate crime.
There were 100 people inside the mosque when the window shattered. No one was hurt and many were unaware that anything had even happened. Those who saw the act of vandalism reported that two male teens rode up on bicycles and hurled what appears to be a chunk of patio stone through the window of the facility's control room.
"It was a scary-looking thing," says M.D. Khalid, director of the Islamic Society of North America centre. "How much more daring can you be?"
He estimated the cost of the damage to be about $1,000. The building houses a mosque as well as a Muslim secondary school, where students are due to return from summer holidays in two weeks.
Earlier this month, a rock was tossed through the windshield of a van belonging to the mosque. Reports again identified two males on bicycles as responsible.
"When it's twice in the same location, it leaves the impression that some people are prejudiced," says Khalid. "These incidents are not random."
The mosque was also firebombed after Sept. 11, 2001 and Khalid is constantly increasing security at the mosque. "It's not a good feeling."
Wahida Valiante, vice-president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, is urging police to treat the incident as a hate crime. "People could have died inside," she says emphatically. It's naïve to think that these incidents are not racially motivated, she adds.
Peel police are investigating, but treating the incident as mischief for now…..
http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/249041
Reuters - August 27, 2007
Austria's Haider says to ban mosque-building
Austrian right-wing firebrand Joerg Haider said on Monday he plans to change building laws to prevent mosques and minarets being erected in his home province of Carinthia.
Haider, Carinthia's governor, said he would ask its parliament to amend the building code to would require towns and villages to consider "religious and cultural tradition" when dealing with construction requests.
"We don't want a clash of cultures and we don't want institutions which are alien to our culture being erected in Western Europe," Haider said in a statement.
"Muslims have of course the right to practice their religion, but I oppose erecting mosques and minarets as centers to advertise the power of Islam," he said.
Muslims in Europe are meeting increasing resistance to plans for mosques that befit Islam's status as the continent's second religion after Christianity, with petitions in London, protests in Cologne, a court case in Marseille and violence in Berlin.
However, while all those places have significant Muslim minorities, Haider's Carinthia has the second lowest share of Muslim citizens of all Austrian provinces -- 11,000 out of a population of around 400,000, a Muslim spokesman said.
"It's a ridiculous statement to say he fears a clash of civilizations (in Carinthia)," said Omar al-Rawi, a centre-left lawmaker who is spokesman for the Austrian Muslims' Initiative. "We don't know of any mosque plans there. His move is meaningless, populist, racist and anti-Islamic," he added.
Haider became known beyond Austria's borders in the 1990s with remarks seen as xenophobic and as playing down Nazi war crimes as the rightist Freedom Party he then led rose to become the second biggest in Austria…..
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070827/wl_nm/austria_mosques_dc_1
The News - August 28, 2007
Dutch govt plan to combat ‘radicalization’
The Dutch government on Monday announced a four-year plan to combat radicalization especially among Muslim youths, amid concern over domestic Islamic extremism.
Most of the plan’s 28 million-euro (38 million-dollar) budget will go to local governments to support projects designed to keep youths from turning against Dutch society and its values, officials said.
‘It is the first time that the Netherlands has launched an integral plan involving all eight relevant ministries to combat radicalization and polarization in our society,’ Interior Minister Guusje ter Horst said.
The Netherlands has been shaken by radical Muslim violence since the assassination of filmmaker and columnist Theo van Gogh in 2004 by a Muslim who was angry at a film he had made criticising the treatment of women in Islam. The killer, Mohammed Bouyeri, came from the Slotervaart district of Amsterdam where Ter Horst presented her plan.
‘We are concerned with youths who do not feel at home in the Netherlands and who do not feel Dutch. While they are trying to find their own identity, they can become radical and we want to stop that,’ she said.’ We are not only trying to fight radicalisation in Muslims but also in far-right groups.’
Despite these concerns there are no official figures on the problem of radicalization among Dutch youths, although the minister said the government was funding a study of the problem. The action plan is mainly a grouping together of earlier measures in areas such as education, child support, anti-discrimination and employment…..
Dutch News – August 27, 2007
NATO sacks two women for Muslim marriage
Two Dutch women who recently married young Muslims from Tunisia have lost their jobs at the NATO base at Gellenkirchen in Germany, close to the Dutch border.
The Defence Ministry confirmed to the Volkskrant on Monday that its AIVD security service has banned the women from the base.
Gellenkirchen is the home base for AWACS planes with their airborne warning and control systems, which are used in the international fight against terrorism.
One of the women is taking legal action to get her job back. The other is the secretary to acting commander Jelle Zijlstra who told Saturday's Telegraaf that the women had given years of loyal service.
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2007/08/nato_sacks_two_women_for_musli.php
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