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Sunday, April 16, 2017

Raymond Ibrahim : "Christian Girls are only Meant for One Thing, the Pleasure of Muslim Men"


  • Recently in Iraq, 19 Yazidi girls were placed in iron cages and burned alive in front of a crowd of hundreds, for refusing to copulate with jihadis.
  • "Religious minority women under IS [Islamic State] control are often repeatedly sold from jihadi to jihadi. Once militants get tired of raping and abusing one particular girl, they usually sell them off to one of their militant buddies so they can rape and abuse them at their own pleasure." — Samuel Smith, The Christian Post.
  • After their children were abducted by the Islamic State, a couple answered their door to find the body parts of their daughters and a video of them being tortured and raped.
  • "Christian girls are considered goods to be damaged at leisure. Abusing them is a right. According to the community's mentality it is not even a crime. Muslims regard them as spoils of war." — Local residents, Pakistan.
Islamic law, always harsh, is still harsher for women. According to the Koran, men have "authority" over women and may beat them if they are "disobedient" (4:34). According to Mohammad, the prophet of Islam, women are less intelligent than men — two women are needed to equal one man's testimony — and the majority of hell's population is made up of women, who are likened to donkeys and dogs in their ability to distract a man from his prayer and thereby annul it.
What, then, is Islam's view of women who are "infidels"? They are at best "meant for one thing, the pleasure of the Muslim man," as one Muslim told a group of young Christian girls in Pakistan before terrorizing and murdering one. In the Koran, (see 4:24), non-Muslim women seized in a jihad can be bought and sold as sex slaves for Muslim men, as the Islamic State has been doing.
Emily Fuentes, communications director for Open Doors, a human rights organization that advocates for persecuted Christians, said:
Unfortunately, more and more women are the target of [Muslim] terrorist groups. There are numerous international incidents of women being kidnapped, raped, and forced to convert from Christianity to Islam by radical extremist groups.... Many are also sold on the open market. This brutality is not only occurring in the Middle East but in Africa and in many other places. In many of these countries, women are subject to persecution because they are considered second-class citizens because of their gender. As minorities in both gender and faith, Christian women face double the persecution. Although we don't have an exact number, we know that millions of women are being persecuted.... In these Muslim-dominated countries, Christian women are systematically deprived of their freedom to live and are denied basic human necessities.
Christian women are double damned: barely tolerated both as women and as non-Muslim "infidels; it becomes clear why they are the greatest recipients of Islamic abuse.
By now, the plight of non-Muslim females in the grips of ISIS is well known. Since conquering Mosul in June 2014, the caliphate has executed as many as 250 captive non-Muslim girls (mostly Yazidis and Christians) for refusing to be sex slaves. Most recently, 19 Yazidi girls were placed in iron cages and burned alive in front of a crowd of hundreds, for refusing to copulate with jihadis.
According to a report that appeared one day after Open Doors highlighted the plight of non-Muslim women:
Religious minority women under IS control are often repeatedly sold from jihadi to jihadi. Once militants get tired of raping and abusing one particular girl, they usually sell them off to one of their militant buddies so they can rape and abuse them at their own pleasure.
One escaped Yazidi girl explained how she was
"she was bought and sold by eight different jihadis... We were put on display [in sex slave markets]. Men came in and looked at us like objects. It was like a car showroom.... Women were bought for cash — as little as $20, or exchanged for things like mobile phones, or given away as gifts."
She was raped at least three times a day for over 16 months by countless ISIS fighters, forced to take contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs, and repeatedly tried to kill herself to escape the abuse. Her account is typical, and has been made by many other escaped non-Muslim girls.
Other recent reports tell of "one 8-year-old girl who was also bought, sold and raped by eight different militants in a span of 10 months"; of another "sex slave who set herself on fire to prevent from being raped"; of a couple who, after their children were abducted by ISIS, answered their door to find a plastic bag containing the body parts of their daughters and a video of them being tortured and raped; and of Christian and Alawite women being raped and slaughtered by ISIS jihadis invading their village.


Islamic State jihadis laugh and joke about buying and selling Yazidi sex slaves, in a propaganda video.

But such Islamic abuse of women is hardly limited to groups such as ISIS or Boko Haram — a Nigerian-based organization that also defines itself in exclusively Islamic terms and is notorious for abducting, enslaving, raping and murdering Christian girls. Approximately 700 Christian and 300 Hindu girls are abducted, enslaved, and raped in Pakistan every year. These are very large numbers considering that Christians and Hindus each make up only one percent of the nation's Muslim-majority population.
Just four days after Open Doors made its remarks about the plight of Christian women, two Muslim men in Pakistan invaded the home of a Christian woman while her soldier husband was away serving in the army. They tied and gang raped her while threatening to slaughter her two-year-old infant daughter if she did not comply. According to the 30-year-old woman:
"The men treated me like an animal, telling me I was a worthless Christian.... They said Christian women are all whores and they would come back and repeat their debauchery if I ever told anyone."
Because she is both a female and infidel in a Muslim-majority nation, the police and the law did nothing for her. That same week, five more Christian girls were kidnapped, converted to Islam, and forced to "marry" their captors.
There are many more examples of rape and sometimes murder of Christian girls — and sometimes Christian boys — in Pakistan. After a 9-year-old Christian girl was raped by a Muslim man who boasted of having "done the same service to other young Christian girls," local residents explained:
"Such incidents occur frequently. Christian girls are considered goods to be damaged at leisure. Abusing them is a right. According to the [Muslim] community's mentality it is not even a crime. Muslims regard them as spoils of war."
A similar situation prevails in Egypt. In July 2012, U.S. Congressman Chris Smith testified about the "escalating abduction, coerced conversion and forced marriage of Coptic Christian women and girls. Those women are being terrorized and, consequently, marginalized."
The late and often diplomatic Coptic Pope Shenouda III, the head of Egypt's Christian community, highlighted this proclivity back in 1976: "There is a practice to convert Coptic girls to embrace Islam and marry them under terror to Muslim husbands." Between 2008 and 2013 alone, nearly 600 cases of abduction, rape, and forced conversion of Christian women have been documented in Egypt. The situation has only gotten worse since, as per the title of a 2012 report: "Abductions and Forced Conversions of Christian Coptic Women in Egypt Dramatically Increase."
If young women are sexually targeted, older women are sexually degraded. On May 20, a 70-year-old Christian woman in Egypt was stripped naked, spat upon, and paraded in the streets of Minya to jeers, whistles, and yells of "Allahu Akbar" ("Allah is Greatest") by an angry Muslim mob.
Two days before the Open Doors report was published, Muslims in Uganda beat and raped a 22-year-old Christian woman because she accused a mosque leader of murdering her father due to a religious argument. A month earlier, the 13-year-old daughter of a mother who left Islam and converted to Christianity, was raped by local Muslims and told: "This is the second warning to your mother for disgracing the faith of the Muslims."
It should be noted that even in Europe, it is the indigenous females who are suffering the most from the influx of Muslim migrants. Exponentially higher numbers of sexual attacks and rapes are being committed, often on the same logic that prevails in the Islamic State or Pakistan. In the words of a Muslim migrant in Germany who stalked, cursed, and groped a woman: "German women are there for sex."
A final important point: while non-Muslim women are targeted more than non-Muslim men for sexual reasons, that does not mean that they are targeted less than men when it comes to non-sexual forms of Muslim persecution, such as attacks on "blasphemers" and "apostates." Chivalry is an alien concept to Islam; when it comes to terrorizing and putting infidels in their place, the religion of Muhammad is strictly egalitarian. In Pakistan for example, the most notorious blasphemy case involves a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who has been in prison on death row since 2009; and when a Christian couple was accused of desecrating a Koran, both husband and wife were burned alive. More recent accounts that surfaced around the same time that Open Doors highlighted the plight of Christian women include:
  • Indonesia: In what was described as "an unprecedented use of Shari'a on a non-Muslim," a 60-year-old Christian woman was publicly caned 30 times for selling alcohol.
  • Islamic State: A Christian woman was executed by Islamic militants for refusing to deny her faith in Christ. ISIS also threatened a group of Dominican nuns, demanding they either convert to Islam or pay jizya, tribute (based on Koran 9:29). "The elderly sisters [fled and] began to suffer heart attacks and heart failures from the stress of the mass exodus. Over the past 18 months, 23 of them died, sometimes up to three deaths a week. 'They died of a broken heart,' said Sister Huda."
  • Uganda: A Muslim man strangled his wife to death for leaving Islam and converting to Christianity. Another Muslim man beat and threatened to butcher his wife while shouting "Allahu Akbar" because of her conversion to Christianity.
One seldom hears of the reverse, of a Muslim wife killing her husband for apostasy, due to the lack of authority women have in the Muslim world.
You do not want to be a woman in Islam.
Raymond Ibrahim is the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians (published by Regnery with Gatestone Institute, April 2013).
=================

Judith Bergman : Norway: Threat of Jihad


  • Norway seems to be making the same poorly thought-out choices as Britain.
  • It has apparently not occurred to these authorities that encouraging Muslims in prison to study the Quran and hadiths, with their exhortations to jihad against the "infidels", may in itself serve to radicalize the inmates.
The Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) just published in February its yearly threat assessment. It concluded -- as did its threat assessment for 2016 -- that Norway might experience an Islamic terrorist attack from Islamic State (ISIS) sympathizers acting upon ISIS's call to carry out independent attacks. The PST explains:
"These calls to action are one reason why we have seen an increase over the last few years in the number of lone terrorist attacks in the West. The likeliest scenario for a terrorist attack in a Western country is an ISIL-/AQ-inspired attack carried out with a simple weapon against a target with little or no protection".
"Lone wolf" attacks are rightly described as an actual terrorist strategy, rather than what the media likes to describe as random "mental illness". In addition, this threat assessment now fits all of Europe.
The PST goes on to warn:
"Immigration to Europe will influence the terrorist threat in various ways in the coming year. One of the problems we expect to face is the radicalization of asylum-seekers, migrants and illegal immigrants in Norway. Attempts may be made to radicalize members of these groups by other migrants at reception centers or by visitors. As in previous years, individuals who support and sympathize with extreme Islamist organizations will arrive in Norway in 2017".
The security risks inherent in unvetted migration are clearly spelled out by the PST. Migration to Norway in 2016 was at a record low of 3,460 asylum seekers -- the lowest since 1997. The reason, according to Norway's Directorate of Immigration, is that "... border and ID checks in Europe have had a decisive effect on numbers of arrivals in Norway". Even so, the Directorate of Immigration estimates that double that number, or around 7,000 asylum seekers, will arrive in Norway in both 2017 and 2018.
The PST mentions another source of future jihadist attacks:
"Radicalization in prisons is a phenomenon that will become more common in Norway in 2017. There are a number of individuals currently in prison as a result of national investigations of travelers to Syria, and in 2017 more of them will be prosecuted for violation of the terror provisions in Norwegian law. This means that there will be an increasing number of prisoners in Norway who have played a role in extreme Islamist groups here and who also have operational experience gained abroad. It is likely that extreme Islamists will retain their convictions in prison and attempt to radicalize others. Attempts have already been made to radicalize other prisoners, including individuals sentenced for gross violence".
Radicalization happens on a large scale in prisons, amply illustrated by experience in British prisons. The most recent example was Khalid Masood, who targeted the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Bridge, murdering four people and injuring at least 50 others in a stabbing- and car-ramming attack. Masood is thought to have been radicalized while serving time in prison. This trend is likely in Norwegian prisons as well.

The PST, however, perhaps out of a lack of experience with imams in Norwegian prisons, appears to overlook an important source of radicalization. The British government review of extremism in British prisons, for example, revealed that Muslim chaplains, who are appointed by the Ministry of Justice, were distributing radicalizing literature -- misogynistic and anti-gay pamphlets and tracts endorsing the killing of apostates -- to inmates. The author of the review, Ian Acheson, said that he found staff lacked the training to confront and deter Islamist extremist ideology, and were often fearful that if they did, they would be accused of racism.

Norway, nevertheless, seems to be making the same poorly thought-out choices as Britain. In 2015, Ringerike prison said it planned to introduce imams into the prison. "We are now about to enter into a partnership with an imam who will conduct seminars for Muslims," prison governor Håkon Melvold told VG newspaper. "In addition, we will create philosophy groups with participation from various faiths."

Terje Auli, prison chaplain at Oslo prison, said that prisons should help Muslims to practice their religion. "It is obvious that we counteract extremism when we facilitate the practice of religion in prison," he said. It has apparently not occurred to these authorities that encouraging Muslims in prison to study the Quran and hadiths, with their exhortations to jihad against the "infidels", may in itself serve to radicalize the inmates. Why should Islam play any role in prisons to begin with?
Norway recently appointed a Pakistani-educated imam, Najeeb ur Rehman Naz, to be the first Muslim chaplain of the Norwegian military. Before the appointment, Norwegian military chaplains were exclusively Christian. In 2012, the military itself suggested the introduction of chaplains representing "other religions and life philosophies". There was a small uproar when it came to light that a year earlier, Najeeb ur Rehman Naz had given online advice to a woman in a forced marriage to the effect that although he considered forced marriage wrong, once she was in the marriage it was her obligation to respect the duties and responsibilities of the marriage. He backed up this view with a reference to the Quran -- which, oddly, some Norwegian politicians found to be surprising. Why should an imam educated in Pakistan not cite the Quran when giving advice? Moreover, the idea that imams might tell women to stay with their husbands, regardless of whether or not their marriages were forced, should not startle anyone who has even the most rudimentary knowledge of women's subjugated position within Islam.


Najeeb ur Rehman Naz, recently appointed the first Muslim chaplain of the Norwegian military, gave advice to a woman in a forced marriage that it was her obligation to respect the duties and responsibilities of the marriage. Pictured: Head military chaplain Brigadier Alf Petter Hagesæther (left) congratulates Naz (right) on his appointment as military chaplain, March 1, 2017. (Image source: Norwegian Armed Forces/Torbjørn Kjosvold)

Repeatedly, Western societies seem "surprised" by their own willful blindness when it comes to Islam. In the case of Norway, the Police Security Service has laid out clearly the dangers of radicalization and the extant risks of jihadist terror against Norway. But is anybody listening?
Judith Bergman is a writer, columnist, lawyer and political analyst.
==============

Giulio Meotti : Europe's New Media Darlings: Terrorists


  • It is such a shame and an irony that terrorists who have killed and ordered the killing of unarmed and innocent Jews, are now being celebrated as Europe's apostles of peace.
  • Can you imagine Italian or French mayors and members of Parliament naming a street after Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who murdered at least 84 people in Nice on July 14? Or honoring the brothers Salah and Brahim Abdesalem for their attack at the Bataclan Theater in Paris on November 13, 2015, in which 89 people were murdered?
What would have happened if the city council of Jerusalem had conferred the honorary citizenship on Italy's Mafia leader, Totò Riina, calling him a "political prisoner"? What would have happened if the city council of Tel Aviv had named a street after Giovanni Brusca, the Mafia butcher who kidnapped and tortured the 11-year-old son of another mafioso who had betrayed him, and then dissolved the boy's body in acid? The Italian government would have vehemently protested. With Palestinian terrorists, however, there is another standard, as if in the eyes of many of Italy's city councils, terror against Israeli Jews is actually justified.

In the pro-Palestinian credentials of the mayor of Naples, Luigi de Magistris, the only item missing was giving honorary citizenship to a Palestinian terrorist. Bilal Kayed is anything but a "man of peace." He is a dangerous Palestinian terrorist who spent 14 years in Israeli prisons for two shooting attacks, and for planning and attempting the (unsuccessful) kidnapping of a soldier. Kayed is now a new honorary citizen of Naples.

"[It is] a decision that harms the image of Naples", protested the newly elected president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, Noemi Di Segni. Meanwhile, Naples city council has refused to grant honorary citizenship to the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem.

It is not the first time that Mayor De Magistris embraces anti-Israel militancy. The city of Naples provided a municipal room to show a documentary called, "Israel, The Cancer," which shamefully compares Israeli soldiers to Nazis. Israel's Ambassador to Italy, Naor Gilon, protested against the screening and noted that "the film's title, 'Israel, The Cancer', is reminiscent of dark eras in the Italian and European history, in which Jews were defined as a disease."

De Magistris also received reciprocal "Palestinian citizenship" from the hands of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and the mayor of Naples returned the favor by granting honorary citizenship to PA President Mahmoud Abbas. De Magistris also gave his support to the "Freedom Flotilla," a convoy of ships that tried to bring weapons to the Hamas regime in Gaza. Eleonora De Majo, a candidate on De Magistris' political list, also called the Israelis "pigs."

De Magistris is not the only Italian mayor who apparently prizes Palestinian terrorism. Palermo's mayor, Leoluca Orlando, awarded honorary citizenship to Marwan Barghouti, the Palestinian terrorist who orchestrated attacks that killed several people and who is currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison.
Many of Europe's streets are plastered with the names of the Palestinian terrorists. The French town of Valenton named a street for Marwan Barghouti; and a few days after a priest was slaughtered this summer in France, a group of French cities planned to honor Barghouti. Towns such as Pierrefitte-sur-Seine have already awarded him honorary citizenship, and a photograph of the Palestinian terror leader was hung on the front of its city hall.

Barghouti, who masterminded the 2002 attack at the Seafood Market in Tel Aviv and a massacre in Hadera which killed six Israelis, is a man Europe's television stations love to show handcuffed with his arms raised. He is Europe's idol, a hero, an icon. The Guardian even published an op-ed piece by Barghouti, in which he expresses support for the "Third Intifada" of stabbing- and shooting-attacks and car-rammings.


The mayor of Palermo, Italy, Leoluca Orlando (left), awarded honorary citizenship to Marwan Barghouti (right), the Palestinian terrorist who orchestrated attacks that killed several people and who is currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison.

The Western press loves Barghouti and even tries to compare him to Nelson Mandela, in articles such as "The Question of Barghouti: Is He a Mandela or an Arafat?" (Time); "A Mideast Mandela" (Newsweek) and "A Nelson Mandela for the Palestinians" (New York Times).

Twenty French cities, such as Vitry-sur-Seine, La Verrière and Montataire, have granted honorary citizenship to this terrorist and plastered their streets with his disgraceful name. The Jeu de Paume National Gallery in Paris hosted an exhibition calling Palestinian suicide bombers "martyrs." The exhibit "Death", by photographer Ahlam Shibli, featured Palestinian suicide bombers with captions that promote the jihadist agenda of glorifying their deaths.

Bezons, an urban conglomerate just 10 kilometers from Paris, was also the first French town officially to include among its honorary citizenship the Palestinian terrorist, Majdi Rimawi, who planned and carried out the assassination of Israel's Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in 2001. Rimawi, who sits in an Israeli prison, was immortalized in a plaque prepared by the city of Bezons in 2013, which labels the terrorist as a "political prisoner."

The mayor of Bezons, Dominique Lesparre, held a public speech in which he called Rimawi a "victim." In the official document issued by Bezons City Hall, entitled "Prisonnier et citoyen d'honneur," the fact that Rimawi is a murderer was not even mentioned.

It is such a shame and an irony that terrorists who have killed and ordered the killing of unarmed and innocent Jews, are now being celebrated as Europe's apostles of peace. They are now even the new media darlings.

Can you imagine Italian or French mayors and members of Parliament naming a street after Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, who murdered at least 84 people in Nice on July 14? Or honoring the brothers Salah and Brahim Abdesalem for their attack at the Bataclan Theater in Paris on November 13, 2015, in which 89 people were murdered? Or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was linked to nearly every al-Qaeda attack between 1993 and 2003?
Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.
===============

Giulio Meotti : Christianity is Rattling: "Lights Out" in Germany


  • The fall of German Christianity leaves an emptiness that seems likely to be filled by a more multicultural and Islamic society. Germany today houses Europe's largest Muslim community.
  • Christians in Germany, Die Welt reports, will become a minority in 20 years.
  • The falling birth rate will remove a piece of Germany larger than the former communist East Germany. It will result in a demographic loss equivalent to the population of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Frankfurt combined.
  • The German army just spent 428 million euros on various operations relating to migrants during the past year. It has been the costliest mission within German borders that the army of the Federal Republic of Germany has ever undertaken.
  • In the decades after WWII, Germans have turned into hard-core pacifists, enjoying their role on the sidelines of global conflicts. The army was then turned into a humanitarian organization.

"Contemporary historians ... right now, have failed to find a single historical example of a society that became secularised and maintained its birth rate over subsequent centuries," 
the former UK chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, recently argued.

"Falling fertility has coincided so closely with massive secularization that we must at least ask whether the two phenomena are related, even if not in a neat one-to-one relationship", the scholar Philip Jenkins also said.

This is also true apparently for Germany.
The Ratzinger-Schülerkreis is the circle made up of 41 former alumni of Pope Benedict XVI (born Joseph Ratzinger), who meet once a year with their former professor to discuss a specific topic. This year Pope Benedict has chosen the "spiritual crisis of Europe." The guest of honor was the American jurist Joseph Weiler, who coined the expression "Christophobia" and defended the crucifix in Italian schools at the EU's highest tribunal.

As Pope, Benedict understood the cultural and religious crisis of Europe, and the former German professor sees his native country as a litmus test for the future of Europe's Christianity.

In Germany, where President Joachim Gauck was a Protestant pastor and Chancellor Angela Merkel is the daughter of a clergyman, in the country of liberal theologians -- such as Hans Küng, Uta Ranke-Heinemann and Eugen Drewermann, who have fueled intense criticism of the Vatican hierarchy regarding ecclesiastical celibacy, birth control, the role of women, and sacraments for the divorced -- Christianity is rattling.

In 1963, there were 400 new priests ordained in Germany. In 1993, there were 238 new priests ordained. In 2013, the number fell to 98. In 2015, the number fell to a historic low of 58.
This was revealed by the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany's largest national subscription daily newspaper, published in majority-Catholic Bavaria: "The Catholic Church in Germany is facing a dramatic shortage of priests. Never before as today have so few men in Germany become Catholic priests."

The German dioceses plan to respond to this crisis by merging parishes, closing churches and hiring priests from Africa.
The Catholic Church in Germany has already closed 515 churches in the past decade, while the Evangelical Church closed 340. The number of parishes has decreased from 13,300 in 1995 to 10,800 in 2015.

What was once the Catholic St. Peter's Church in Mönchengladbach, Germany, is now an indoor rock-climbing facility -- one of several known as a "climbing church" (Kletterkirche). Image source: Wikimedia Commons.

The agony of German Catholicism is also demonstrated by the faithful who "escape."
Germans have been leaving the Catholic Church in droves. In 2015, 181,925 Germans formally chose apostasy. By comparison, only 2,685 people have converted to Catholicism. The number of baby baptisms has also decreased by one third, from 260,000 baptized in 1995 to 167,000 in 2015. The situation is even more dismal for weddings. Twenty years ago, 86,456 couples married in a church. Last year, the number dropped by almost half: in a nation of 80 million people, only 44,298 couples sworn eternal love in a church. The proportion of people who attend church has declined from 18.6% in 1995 to 10.4% in 2015.

This trend is called "the New Atheism" ("der neue Atheismus"). According to Detlef Pollack, a professor of religious sociology at the University of Münster, only 4% of east German Protestants regularly attend church today, compared to 15% in the 1950s. A recent study conducted by University of Chicago professor Tom W. Smith revealed that citizens of the former German Democratic Republic have, by far, "the world's highest rate of atheism."

This tendency is becoming the norm in Germany. Andreas Püttmann, a researcher at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, called it "Gesellschaft ohne Gott" ("society without God") in his book by the same title. "The long-term trend shows an epochal implosion," Püttmann writes in the book.

A few weeks ago, in the Marienkirche Church, in the middle of Alexanderplatz in Berlin, an evangelical pastor celebrated Germany's first gay wedding before an altar.
 The author Peter Hahne, in his book "Enough Amusement! The End of the Fun Society" ("Schluss mit lustig! Das Ende der Spaßgesellschaft") wondered if Germany "can still be called a Christian country, or whether it would not be more accurate to say that Germany is a predominantly atheist country with religious minorities."
The fall of German Christianity leaves an emptiness that seems likely to be filled by a more multicultural and Islamic society. That is why Germany's finance minister,

Wolfgang Schäuble, just called for the creation of a "German Islam." Merkel's powerful ally linked the rise of a German Islam with the national demographic disaster. "Demographic change is one of our great challenges," said Schäuble. Germany today houses Europe's largest Muslim community.

The latest annual report of the Expert Council of German Foundations on Integration and Migration explains that, due to the decline in the number of Christians in a period of mass immigration from Islamic countries, "Germany has become demographically a multi-religious country." Christians in Germany, Die Welt reports, will become a minority in 20 years.

Religious decline is usually followed by a demographic one. The London-based think tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs, just shed light on the "Europe's demographic timebomb." In the report, "From empty pews to empty cradles," three American scholars, Eli Berman, Laurence Iannaccone, Giuseppe Ragusa, explain that in many European countries, the sudden drop in religious practice has determined a demographic suicide.

It is not only a question of religious faith, but also of optimism about the future.

If the current fertility rates persist, Germany is set to decline from a 2002 peak of 82 million people, to 74.5 million by 2050. Greece, with a loss of 29% of its the population, would decrease from 11 million to fewer than 7 million inhabitants. Poland, suffering a decline of 25%, would pass from 38 million to 29 million.
The projections indicate that Germany will experience more than 64 million deaths during the next half century, and fewer than 40 million births. The falling birth rate will remove a piece of Germany larger than the former communist East Germany. It will result in a demographic loss which would be the equivalent to the population of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and Frankfurt combined.

It is a new situation. Since 1972, Germany has not seen a single year in which the number of newborns has exceeded the number of deaths. It was then that families began to go out of fashion in West Germany.
Now there is a talk of many small communities in Germany that could become ghost towns.
In 2003, at the peak of the US war against Iraq, then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld criticized the German and French opposition to the military campaign as a symptom of "old Europe". Rumsfeld would later say:
"Some people were sensitive about my comment because they thought it was a pejorative way of highlighting demographic realities. Apparently they felt it pointed a white light at a weakness in Europe -- an aging population. Europe has come some distance since World War II in becoming Europe."
Germany's decline today is, in fact, also a military one. The German military (Bundeswehr) during the Cold War was the first line of defense against a Soviet invasion; now the army is decaying. The German army just spent 428 million euros on various operations relating to migrants during the past year. It has been the costliest mission within German borders that the army of the Federal Republic of Germany has ever undertaken.
While Ukrainian troops were battling pro-Russian separatists on the eastern borders of Europe, a German battalion took part in a NATO exercise in Norway. The Germans had no weapons and used broomsticks as simulated guns. The Bundeswehr today has helicopters that cannot fly and tanks that cannot shoot. This is a cultural decision.

In the decades after World War II, the Germans have turned into hard-core pacifists, enjoying their role on the sidelines of global conflicts. The Bundeswehr was then turned into a humanitarian organization. To quote journalist and author Henryk Broder, "pacifism has become a German lifestyle" -- not only for Germany's leadership but for the society as well.

Already today, one in 20 Germans -- 5% of the population -- is over 80 years old. By 2050, it will be one in six. Europe's largest and richest nation is becoming a country for old men. A quarter of German men said "no" to children.

 It is such a terrible irony that Nazi Germany, which devastated the continent in its search of Lebensraum ("living space"), is now a nation for decrepit, disarmed and secularized men. And soon, Islamized as well.

To quote Ursula von der Leyen, Germany's Minister of Defense (and a mother of seven): if Germany does not reverse its plummeting birthrate, "we will have to turn out the light."
Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.
===============

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Giulio Meotti : Liberal Submission: Protect Islam, Defame Christianity


  • If an imam violently protests something, the liberal elite always supports the false charge of "Islamophobia." If a peaceful protest is led by a Catholic bishop, the same elite always rejects it under the name of "freedom of expression."
  • The "Caliph" of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ridiculed by Charlie Hebdo, triggered self-censorship because of "hate speech," while the work of Chris Ofili "The Holy Virgin Mary," in which the mother of Jesus is covered with feces and images of genitalia, was defended by the New York Times as "free speech." Does this now mean that some religions are more equal than others?
  • On Halloween night, only the "Sexy Nun" is available, while "Caliph" Baghdadi can rape his Yazidi and Christian sex slaves with impunity.
The world's biggest shopping portal, Amazon, sells many Halloween costumes. One of the novelties in 2016 has been the "Sexy Burka", the typical obscurantist cloak that the Taliban and the Islamic State impose on women. But the sexy burqa, which on Amazon UK was priced at £18.99, did not last long.

The commercial colossus of Jeff Bezos removed the item from the website, after Amazon had been swamped with accusations of "racism", "Islamophobia," of marketing an Islamic garment with the white face of a model and using "a religious garment for commercial purposes". "You are disgusting, my culture is not your costume", wrote many users of the Islamic faith. Others used a less adorable tone: "Whoever you are, you should fear Allah. This is not a joke."

A spokesman for Amazon promptly responded: "All Marketplace sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who don't will be subject to action including potential removal of their account. The product in question is no longer available".
So that Halloween parody of the global symbol of female oppression has been censored. It is because Islamic veils contradict Western values of freedom, equality and human dignity so totally that this relativistic progressive mentality defends these Islamic veils, as it does the burkini, with loyalty.
But here also lies a double standard. What about the "Sexy Nun" Halloween costume that mocks the Catholic Church? Despite the protests of many Catholics customers, the "Sexy Nun" is still on sale at Amazon. Is it not a form of "Christianophobia"? Also, a nun is a religious figure, while a burqa is mere cloth.


Spot the offensive costume -- or the hypocrisy. Online retailer Amazon removed the "Sexy Burka" costume (left) after accusations of "Islamophobia." But despite the protests of many Catholics customers, the "Sexy Nun" (right) is still on sale at Amazon.

Take The Guardian, the most famous British liberal-left newspaper. When the Pussy Riot performers put on their supposedly offensive 3-minute show in Moscow's Christ the Saviour Cathedral, for which two of the three performers served jail time rather than repudiate the text (the third apologized to avoid jail), the paper defended them as "pure protest poetry." When the political group PEGIDA called to protest against Islamization in Germany, the same media blasted it as "a vampire we must slay." The same double standard also emerged during the battle to build a mosque near Ground Zero, when the liberal media sided with the Muslim community.

In January 2006, Norway's most famous cartoonist, Finn Graff, announced that he was censoring himself over Mohammed. Graff never had a problem in making fun of Christians, whom he depicted as wearing brown shirts and swastikas. Graff had also penned a number of controversial drawings against Israel, one of which showed the Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin as the commander of a Nazi concentration camp.

The same happened with German-American filmmaker Roland Emmerich, director of many disaster movies. He abandoned a plan to obliterate Islam's holiest site on the big screen for fear of attracting a fatwa (religious opinion) calling for his death. For his movie, "2012", Emmerich wanted to demolish the Kaaba, the iconic cube-shaped structure in the Grand Mosque in Mecca. "You can actually let Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have ... a fatwa", Emmerich said. At least he was honest.

After the massacre of most of the staff at the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, all major Western liberal newspapers, television networks and photo agencies, starting with the "Big Three" (MSNBC, CNN and AP), competed in justifying their shameful decision to censor the cover of Charlie Hebdo, in which the Islamic Prophet Mohammed says "all is forgiven." CNN said it might offend "the sensitivities of a Muslim audience." One year later, when Charlie Hebdo published a new cover depicting a Judeo-Christian "killer God" rather than the Islamic Prophet, CNN showed it.

In 2015, the BBC described the Charlie Hebdo's cover but did not show it, a choice that the British network did not repeat a year later when Charlie Hebdo released the new anti-Christian cover. The same double standard came from the British conservative paper the Daily Telegraph, which cut the cover with the caricature of Mohammed but published one with an Abrahamic God.

The Associated Press in 2015 censored the Islamic cartoons of Charlie Hebdo as well. The reason? "Deliberately provocative." In 2016, the agency had no trouble in showing the new cover depicting not Mohammed but the Judeo-Christian God.
This double standard of the liberal elite had also emerged at the New York Times, which out of "respect" towards the Muslim faith censored the Mohammed caricatures of Charlie Hebdo -- only to decide, in total disrespect, that the Gray Lady could and should publish the work "Eggs Benedict" by Nikki Johnson, exhibited at the Milwaukee Art Museum, in which condoms of various colors form the face of Pope Benedict XVI.

The "Caliph" of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ridiculed by Charlie Hebdo, triggered self-censorship because of "hate speech," while the work of Chris Ofili "The Holy Virgin Mary," in which the mother of Jesus is covered with feces and images of genitalia, was defended by the New York Times as "free speech." Does this now mean that some religions are more equal than others?

If an imam violently protests something, the liberal elite always supports the false charge of "Islamophobia." If a peaceful protest is led by a Catholic bishop, the same elite always rejects it under the name of "freedom of expression."

Forget the "Sexy Burqa." On Halloween night, only the "Sexy Nun" is available, while "Caliph" Baghdadi can rape his Yazidi and Christian sex slaves with impunity.
Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.
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Yves Mamou : France: The Ticking Time Bomb of Islamization


  • The last group, defined as the "Ultras", represent 28% of Muslims polled, and the most authoritarian profile. They say they prefer to live apart from Republican values. For them, Islamic values and Islamic law, or sharia, come first, before the common law of the Republic. They approve of polygamy and of wearing the niqab or the burqa.
  • "These 28% adhere to Islam in its most retrograde version, which has become for them a kind of identity. Islam is the mainstay of their revolt; and this revolt is embodied in an Islam of rupture, conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism," according to Hamid el Karoui in an interview with Journal du Dimanche.
  • More importantly, these 28% exist predominantly among the young (50% are under 25). In other words, one out of every two young French Muslims is a Salafist of the most radical type, even if he does not belong to a mosque.
  • It is unbelievable that the only tools at our disposal are inadequate opinion polls. Without knowledge, no political action -- or any other action -- is possible. It is a situation that immeasurably benefits aggressive political Islamists.
  • Willful blindness is the mother of the civil war to come -- unless the French people choose to submit to Islam without a fight.

Recently, two important studies about French Muslims were released in France. The first one, optimistically entitled, "A French Islam is Possible," was published under the auspices of Institut Montaigne, an independent French think tank.

The second study, entitled, "Work, the Company and the Religious Question," is the fourth annual joint study between the Randstad Institute (a recruiting company) and the Observatory of Religious Experience at Work (Observatoire du fait religieux en entreprise, OFRE), a research company.

Both studies, filling a huge knowledge-deficit on religious and ethnic demography, were widely reported in the media. France is a country well-equipped with demographers, scholars, professors and research institutes, but any official data or statistics based on race, origin or religion are prohibited by law.

France has 66.6 million inhabitants, according to a report dated January 1, 2016 from the National Institute of Statistics (Insee). But census questionnaires prohibit any question about race, origin or religion. So in France, it is impossible to know how many Muslims, black people, white people, Catholics, Arabs, Jews, etc. live in the country.

This prohibition is based on an old and once-healthy principle to avoid any discrimination in a country where "assimilation" is the rule. Assimilation, French-style, means that any foreigner who wants to live in the country has to copy the behavioral code of local population and marry a native quickly. This assimilation model worked perfectly for people of Spanish, Portuguese or Polish descent. But with Arabs and Muslims, it stopped.

Now, however, despite all good intentions, the rule prohibiting collection of data that might lead to discrimination, has become a national security handicap.
When any group of people, outspokenly acting on the basis of their religion or ethnicity, begin violently fighting the fundamentals of the society where you live, it becomes necessary -- in fact urgent -- to know what religions and ethnicities these are, and how many people they represent.

The two studies in question, therefore, are not based on census data but on polls. The Institut Montaigne study, for example, writes that Muslims represent 5.6% of the metropolitan population of France, or exactly three million. However, Michèle Tribalat, a demographer specializing in immigration problems, wrote that the five million mark had been crossed in around 2014. The Pew Research Center estimated the Muslim population in France in mid-2010 to be 4.7 million. Other scholars, such as Azouz Begag, former Minister of Equality (he left the government in 2007) estimates the number of Muslims in France to be closer to 15 million.

Institut Montaigne Study: The Secession of French Muslims

The study by Institut Montaigne, released on September 18, is based on a poll conducted by Ifop (French Institute of Public Opinion), which surveyed 1,029 Muslims. The author of the study is Hakim el Karoui, a consultant who was an adviser to then Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin (2002-2005).

Three main Muslim profiles were highlighted:

==First were the so-called "secular" (46%). These people said they were "totally secular, even when religion occupies an important place in their lives." Although they claim to be secular, many of them also belong to the group that favors all Muslim women wearing a hijab (58% of men and 70% of women). They also overlap with the group (60%) that supports wearing a hijab at school, although the hijab has been prohibited in schools since 2004. Many of these "seculars" also belong to the 70% of Muslims who "always" buy halal meat (only 6% never buy it).
According to the study, wearing a hijab and eating only halal meat are considered by Muslims themselves as significant "markers" of Muslim identity.

== A second group of Muslims, the "Islamic Pride Group" represent a quarter (25%) of the roughly thousand people polled. They defined themselves primarily as Muslims and claim their right to observe their faith (mainly reduced to hijab and halal) in public. They reject, however, the niqab and polygamy. They say they respect secularism and the laws of the Republic, but most of them say they do not accept prohibiting the hijab at school.

== The last group, defined as the "Ultras", represent 28% of those polled, and the most authoritarian profile. They say they prefer to live apart from Republican values. For them, Islamic values and Islamic law, or sharia, come first, before the common law of the Republic. They approve of polygamy and of wearing the niqab or the burqa.
"These 28% adhere to Islam in its most retrograde version, which has become for them a kind of identity. Islam is the mainstay of their revolt; and this revolt is embodied in an Islam of rupture, conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism," according to Hamid el Karoui in an interview with Journal du Dimanche.


Hamid el Karoui, speaking of the opinions of French Muslims in an interview with Journal du Dimanche, said: "These 28% adhere to Islam in its most retrograde version, which has become for them a kind of identity. Islam is the mainstay of their revolt; and this revolt is embodied in an Islam of rupture, conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism."

More importantly, these 28% exist predominantly among the young (50% are under 
25). In other words, one out of every two young French Muslims is a Salafist of the most radical type, even if he does not belong to a mosque.
The question is: how many will they be in five years, ten years, twenty years? It is important to ask, because polls always present a point in time, a freeze-frame of a situation. When we know that the veil and halal food restrictions are imposed on the whole family by "big brothers," we have to understand that a process is taking place, a secession process due to the re-Islamization of the whole Muslim community by the young.

Journalist and author Elisabeth Schemla wrote in Le Figaro:
To understand what re-Islamization means a definition of Islamism must be given. The most accurate is the definition given by one of his very fervent supporters, State Advisor Thierry Tuot, one of three judges chosen this summer to decide not to ban the burkini at the beach (...). Islamism, he writes, is the "public claim of a social behavior presented as a divine requirement and bursting into the public and political arena." In light of this definition, the Al Karoui report shows that Islamism is unalterably spreading.

Islam at Work; Islamism on the Move

This ticking time bomb is silently working... at work.
A poll, conducted between April and June 2016 by the Randstad Institute and Observatory of the Religious Experience at Work (OFRE), surveying 1,405 managers in different companies, revealed that two managers out of every three (65%) were reporting that "religious behavior" is a regular manifestation in the workplace -- up from 50% in 2015.

Professor Lyonel Honoré, Director of OFRE and author of the study, recognizes quietly that "in 95% of cases," the "religious behavior at work is related to Muslims."
To understand the importance of this "visible Islam" in French factories and offices today, we have to know that traditionally, the workplace was considered neutral space. The law did not prohibit any type of religious or political expression in the workplace, but by tradition, employees and employers considered that restraint must be shown by all in exercising their freedom of belief.

The 2016 Ranstad study shows that this old tradition is over. Religious symbols are proliferating in the workplace, and 95% of these visible symbols are Islamic. Overt expressions and symbols of Christianity or Judaism at work do exist, of course, but are minimal compared to Islam.

The survey considered two types of the expression of religious beliefs:
  1. Personal practices, such as the right to be missing for religious holidays, flexible working hours, the right to pray during work breaks, and the right to wear symbols of religious belief.
  2. Disturbances at work or breaches of rules, such as the refusal of men to work with a woman or take orders from a female manager, refusal to work with people who are not co-religionists, refusal to perform specific tasks, and proselytizing during work time.
"In 2016," states the survey, "the wearing of religious symbols [hijab] became the top expression of religious belief (21% of cases, up from 17% in 2015 and 10% in 2014). The request to be absent because of religious holidays remains stable (18%) but now ranks in second place."

Under "disturbances at work", this politically correct study notes that conflicts between employee and employer on religious grounds are few: a "minority event" and "only" 9% of religious disturbances in 2016. But figures for conflicts have nevertheless risen by 50%, up from 6% in 2015. Conflicts have also tripled since 2014 (3%) and nearly quintupled since 2013 (2%).

Eric Manca, a lawyer in the law firm August & Debouzy who specializes in labor law and was assisting at the press conference, said that when a conflict on religious ground turns to litigation, "it is always a problem with Islam. Christians and Jews never turn to the court against their employer because of religion." When Islamists sue their employer, jurisprudence shows that the accusation is always based on "racism", and "discrimination" -- charges that can only make employers regret having hired them in the first place.

Sources of conflict listed include proselytizing (6%), and refusing to perform tasks (6%) -- for instance, a delivery man declining to deliver alcohol to customers; refusing to work with a woman or under the direction of a woman (5%), and requesting to work only with Muslims (1%). These cases are concentrated in business sectors "such as automotive suppliers, construction, waste processing, supermarkets... and are located in peri-urban regions."

Conclusions

The French model of assimilation is over. As noted, it worked for everyone except French Muslims; and public schools seem unable today to transmit republican values, especially among young Muslims. According to Hakim el Karoui:
"Muslims of France are living in the heart of multiple crises. Syria, of course, which shakes the spirit. But also the transformation of Arab societies where women take a new place: female students outnumber male students, girls are better educated than their fathers. Religion, in its authoritarian version, is a weapon of reaction against these evolutions. .... And finally, there is the social crisis: Muslims, two-thirds of child laborers and employees, are the first victims of deindustrialization."
Islamization is growing everywhere. In city centers, most Arab women wear a veil, and in the suburbs, burqas and niqabs are increasingly common. At work, where non-religious behavior was usually the rule, managers try to learn how to deal with Islamist demands. In big corporations, such as Orange (telecom), a "director of diversity" was appointed to manage demands and conflicts. In small companies, managers are in disarray. Conflicts and litigation are escalating.
Silence of the politicians. Despite the wide media coverage around these two studies, an astounding silence was the only thing heard from politicians. This is disturbing because Institut Montaigne's study also included some proposals to build an "Islam of France," such as putting an end to foreign funding of mosques, and local training religious and civil leaders. Other ideas, such as teaching Arabic in secular schools "to prevent parents from sending their children in Koranic schools" are quite strange because they would perpetuate the failed strategy of integrating Islamism through institutions. Young French Muslims, even those born in France, have difficulty speaking and writing proper French. That is why they need to speak and write French correctly before anything else.

These two studies, although a start, are staggeringly insufficient. Politicians, journalists, and every citizen needs to learn more about Islam, its tenets and its goals in the country. It is unbelievable that the only tools at our disposal are inadequate opinion polls. Without knowledge, no political action -- or any other action -- is possible. It is a situation that immeasurably benefits aggressive political Islamists.

Without more knowledge, the denial of Islamization, and an immobility in addressing it, will continue. Willful blindness is the mother of the civil war to come -- unless the people and their politicians choose to submit to Islam without a fight.
Yves Mamou, based in France, worked for two decades as a journalist for Le Monde.
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Soeren Kern : Germany Imports Child Marriage


  • The true number of child marriages in Germany is believed to be much higher than the official statistics suggest because many are being concealed.
  • In May, an appeals court in Bamberg recognized the marriage of a 15-year-old Syrian girl to her 21-year-old cousin. The ruling effectively legalized Sharia child marriages in Germany.
  • "Religious or cultural justifications obscure the simple fact that older, perverse men are abusing young girls." — Rainer Wendt, head of the German police union.
  • "This is not a question of tolerance and openness, but a question of the protection of children and minors. We therefore need a clear rule: Assessing the marriageable age of a person ... will in the future always be determined by German law." — Bavarian Justice Minister Winfried Bausback.
German authorities are debating the contours of a new law that would crack down on child marriages after it emerged that some 1,500 underage brides are now living in the country.
The married minors are among the more than one million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East who entered Germany in 2015.
The German Interior Ministry, responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, recently revealed that 1,475 married children are known to be living in Germany as of July 31, 2016 — including 361 children who are under the age of 14.
Most of the married children are from Syria (664), Afghanistan (157) and Iraq (100). Nearly 80% (1,152) are girls. The true number of child marriages in Germany is believed to be much higher than the official statistics suggest because many are being concealed.
German law currently allows minors aged 16 or over to get married if their partner is of legal age and the parents or guardians consent. Germany does not recognize marriages contracted abroad if a partner is under 14, but German family courts have discretion to determine the validity of marriages concluded abroad by minors who are 14 or older.


Zeinab, a married 14-year-old girl refugee from Syria, lives in a tent-camp in Lebanon. Germany hosts many thousands of migrants and refugees from Syria, among whom are at least 664 married children. Under current law, German family courts have discretion to determine the validity of marriages concluded abroad by minors who are 14 or older. (Image source: World Vision UK video screenshot)

In May, an appeals court in Bamberg recognized the marriage of a 15-year-old Syrian girl to her 21-year-old cousin. The court ruled that the marriage was valid because it was contracted in Syria, where such marriages are allowed according to Islamic Sharia law, which does not set any age limit to marriage. The ruling effectively legalized Sharia child marriages in Germany.

The case came about after the couple arrived at a refugee shelter in Aschaffenburg in August 2015. The Youth Welfare Office (Jugendamt) refused to recognize their marriage and separated the girl from her husband. The couple filed a lawsuit and a family court ruled in favor of the Youth Welfare Office, which claimed to be the girl's legal guardian.

The court in Bamberg overturned that ruling. It determined that, according to Sharia law, the marriage is valid because it has already been consummated, and therefore the Youth Welfare Office has no legal authority to separate the couple.
The ruling — which has been described as a "crash course in Syrian Islamic marriage law" — ignited a firestorm of criticism. Some accused the court in Bamberg of applying Sharia law over German law to legalize a practice that is banned in Germany.

"Religious or cultural justifications obscure the simple fact that older, perverse men are abusing young girls," said Rainer Wendt, head of the German police union.
Monika Michell of Terre des Femmes, a women's rights group that campaigns against child marriage, said: "A husband cannot be the legal guardian of a child bride because he is involved in a sexual relationship with her — a very obvious conflict of interest."

The Justice Minister of Hesse, Eva Kühne-Hörmann, asked: "If underage persons — quite rightly — are not allowed to buy a beer, why should the lawmakers allow children to make such profound decisions related to marriage?"

Others said the ruling would open the floodgates of cultural conflict in Germany, as Muslims would view it as a precedent to push for the legalization of other Islamic practices, including polygamy, in the country.

Child marriage is a Germany-wide problem: 559 married children are living in Bavaria; 188 in North-Rhine Westphalia; more than 100 in Lower Saxony; and at least 100 in Berlin

In Baden-Württemberg, the number of known child marriages jumped seven-fold in the past two years, from 26 in 2013 to 181 at the end of 2015. Of those, 162 are girls, and 18 are younger than 15 years of age.

The exact number of child marriages in Germany is unknown, partly because German authorities appear to have lost track of the identities or whereabouts of potentially hundreds of thousands of migrants. Of the 1.1 million migrants who entered Germany in 2015, only 477,000 have applied for asylum. The German government blames the discrepancy on an accounting problem, but others say that many migrants have gone underground to avoid being deported because they are not legitimate refugees fleeing war zones but economic migrants seeking a better life in Germany.

The Justice Minister of Baden-Württemberg, Guido Wolf, said foreign marriages should only be recognized if one partner is at least 16 years old and the other is 18, in line with existing German marriage law. Wolf described marriages contracted at 14 or 15 years of age as forced marriages. "I find it hard to believe that someone who is younger than 16 would decide autonomously and self-determinedly for marriage," he said. Wolf has called for raising the legal age for all marriages in Germany to 18.

Members of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats and their Bavarian allies in the Christian Social Union have called for outlawing child marriage. A strategy paper states:
"An 11-, 13- or 15-year-old girl belongs not in marriage but in school. In the future, the principle must be the annulment of child marriages contracted abroad. The primacy of the child's welfare and the equal treatment of men and women are pillars of our society and of our understanding of values. Child marriage is therefore absolutely incompatible."
A proposed law, which will be submitted to the German parliament in November, would require all Youth Welfare Offices (Jugendämter) in Germany to report child marriages as soon as they become aware of them, and to bring all such cases before family courts so that they can be annulled. Judges would be allowed discretion to make exceptions only in cases where the wife is already close to the age of majority.

Bavarian Justice Minister Winfried Bausback said:
"This is not a question of tolerance and openness, but a question of the protection of children and minors. We therefore need a clear rule: To assess the marriageable age of a person — that is, the question of the age at which marriage can be contracted — will in the future always be determined by German law."
Stephan Harbarth of the Christian Democratic Union called for child marriage to be abolished in Germany by the end of 2016. "According to our cultural perspective, child marriage is unacceptable," he said. "The suffering of those affected requires quick action. Our proposals are on the table. We can immediately legislate. For us, family clans do not decide about a marriage. Rather, each individual does. We will not tolerate illegal Islamic parallel justice — not even in marriage."
Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.
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