Judith Bergman : Switzerland Welcomes Radicalization

Switzerland Welcomes Radicalization

by Judith Bergman
June 20, 2018 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12558/switzerland-islam-radicalization

• There are approximately 250 mosques in Switzerland, but the authorities do not know who finances them. By rejecting the proposal compelling mosques to disclose who finances them, the Swiss authorities can now remain willfully blind.
• The Muslim World League is behind "a whole network of radically-oriented mosques in Switzerland... with the clear intention of spreading Salafist thought here". — Saïda Keller-Messahli, expert on Islam in Switzerland.
• Above all, the Swiss government seems not to have considered the rights of Swiss non-Muslim citizens, who are the ones left to live with the consequences of the government's ill-thought-out policies.

Switzerland has just rejected a proposed law preventing mosques from accepting money from abroad, and compelling them to declare where their financial backing comes from and for what purpose the money will be used. According to the proposal, imams also would have been obliged to preach in one of the Swiss national languages.
While the proposal narrowly passed in the lower house of parliament already in September 2017, the upper house recently rejected it. The proposal was modeled on regulations in Austria, where already in 2015, a law banning foreign funding of religious groups was passed. The Austrian law aims to counter extremism by requiring imams to speak German, prohibiting foreign funding for mosques, imams and Muslim organizations in Austria, and stressing the precedence of Austrian law over Islamic sharia law for Muslims living in the country.
The Federal Council, which constitutes the federal government of Switzerland, was also against the proposal, and claimed that it constituted 'discrimination': 
"We must not discriminate against Muslim communities and imams and put them under general suspicion," Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga said. The Federal Council noted that in Austria, Islam is officially recognized, whereas it is not in Switzerland. According to the Swiss government, therefore, the model applied in Austria does not apply to Switzerland, as "One cannot demand obligations without rights". Instead, the Federal Council evidently believes that the risks posed by extremist Islamist preachers and communities can be combated within existing law.

There are approximately 250 mosques in Switzerland, but the authorities do not know who finances them. The authorities have no jurisdiction to collect data on the financing of Muslim associations and mosques apart from exceptional cases in which internal security is threatened. By rejecting the proposal compelling mosques to disclose who finances them, the Swiss authorities can now remain willfully blind.

Several experts have pointed out the foreign Muslim networks at work in Switzerland. In 2016, Reinhard Schulze, professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Bern, pointed out that donations from the Muslim World League, based in Saudi Arabia, and other funds from Saudi Arabia were flowing to "those mosques and organizations that are open to the Wahhabi tradition". Another expert on Islam in Switzerland, Saïda Keller-Messahli, has spoken and written widely on how "Huge sums of money from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Turkey are flowing to Switzerland", and how the Saudi-based Muslim World League is behind "a whole network of radically-oriented mosques in Switzerland... with the clear intention of spreading Salafist thought here".

In addition to the Salafist influence, there are an estimated 35 Turkish mosques, financed by Turkey's official Religious Affairs Directorate, known as Diyanet. (Previous reports have mentioned 70 Turkish mosques in Switzerland).
According to a report published by Diyanet in 2017, Islam is "superior" to Christianity and Judaism and "Interfaith dialogue is unacceptable". Turkey supports the Muslim Brotherhood and its terrorist off-shoot Hamas.
In fact, the building of another Turkish mosque was just given the go-ahead in the Swiss town Schaffhausen. The people behind it reportedly claim that the 1.5 million Swiss francs (approx. $1.5 million) will be collected locally, and not from Turkey, but the imams for the mosque will nevertheless be sent from Turkey.
None of these facts, however, appears to bother the Swiss government, which seems to want to continue the flow of foreign funding of mosques and Islamic centers into the country.

Above all, the Swiss government seems not to have considered the rights of Swiss non-Muslim citizens, who are the ones left to live with the consequences of the government's ill-thought-out policies.
One such consequence was recently on display in Swiss courts, as three board members of the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (ISSC) were on trial for charges of having produced illegal propaganda for al-Qaeda and related organizations. One of them, Naim Cherni, was given a suspended prison sentence of 20 months for publishing an interview he conducted with Saudi cleric Abdullah al-Muhaysini in Syria in 2015, in which al-Muhaysini called on young Muslims in Europe to join the jihad. The two other board members, chairman Nicolas Blancho and Qaasim Illi, were acquitted.
In contrast to Switzerland, Austria recently announced plans to shut down seven mosques and expelling up to 60 imams belonging to the Turkish-Islamic Union for Cultural and Social Cooperation in Austria (ATIB), a Muslim group close to the Turkish government, on the grounds of receiving foreign funding.
The response from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman was that the policy was part of an "Islamophobic, racist and discriminatory wave" in Austria.
The strong message that the Swiss government is sending to those Muslim states and organizations that are fueling radicalization in Switzerland by funding Salafist, Turkish and other radical mosques, is that they are welcome to continue doing so; the Swiss government has no intention of stopping them, let alone asking any unpleasant questions. It might as well put up a sign, saying, "Radicalization Welcome".

(Switzerland photo by Monk/Wikimedia Commons)

Judith Bergman is a columnist, lawyer and political analyst.

Judith Bergman : Canada Supports, Infantilizes Jihadis

Canada Supports, Infantilizes Jihadis

by Judith Bergman
June 26, 2018 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12522/canada-jihadis

• The Canadian government is willing to go to great (and presumably costly) lengths to "facilitate" the return of Canadian jihadists, unlike the UK, for example, which has revoked the citizenship of ISIS fighters so they cannot return.
• Attempts at deradicalization elsewhere have frequently turned out to be ineffective. In the UK, for example, a new government report shows that the vast majority of deradicalization programs are not only ineffective, but even counterproductive, and that those tasked with executing the programs "...would refuse to engage in topics over fears of bringing up matters of race and religion without appearing discriminatory"
• In France, the country's first and only deradicalization center closed in September 2017 after just one year, without having "deradicalized" a single individual. On the contrary, three participants reportedly behaved as if the center were a "Jihad academy".

Canadians who go abroad to commit terrorism – predominantly jihadists, in other words – have a "right to return" according to government documents obtained by Global News. They not only have a right of return, but "... even if a Canadian engaged in terrorist activity abroad, the government must facilitate their return to Canada," as one document says.
According to the government, there are still around 190 Canadian citizens volunteering as terrorists abroad. The majority are in Syria and Iraq, and 60 have returned. Police are reportedly expecting a new influx of returnees over the next couple of months.
The Canadian government is willing to go to great (and presumably costly) lengths to "facilitate" the return of Canadian jihadists, unlike the UK, for example, which has revoked the citizenship of ISIS fighters so they cannot return. The Canadian government has established a taskforce, the High Risk Returnee Interdepartmental Taskforce, that, according to government documents:

"... allows us to collectively identify what measures can mitigate the threat these individuals may pose during their return to Canada. This could include sending officers overseas to collect evidence before they depart, or their detention by police upon arrival in Canada."

Undercover officers may also be used "to engage with the HRT [High Risk Traveler] to collect evidence, or monitor them during their flight home."
In the sanitizing Orwellian newspeak employed by the Canadian government, the terrorists are not jihadis who left Canada to commit the most heinous crimes, such as torture, rape and murder, while fighting for ISIS in Syria and Iraq, but "High Risk Travelers" and "High Risk Returnees".
The government is fully aware of the security risk to which it is subjecting Canadians: According to the documents, "HRRs [High Risk Returnees] can pose a significant threat to the national security of Canada". This fact raises the question of why the government of Canada is keen to facilitate these people's "right of return" -- when presumably the primary obligation of the government is to safeguard the security of law-abiding Canadian citizens.
The government also does not appear hopeful that the returning terrorists will face criminal charges. By the end of 2017, the Trudeau government had only charged two returned ISIS fighters, and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said at the time, "This is an issue that is bedeviling countries around the world in terms of how you actually... move from intelligence to evidence and make a case stick".
The documents describe terrorism cases as "complex and resource intensive," citing the difficulties of terrorism investigations and caution that "there may not be sufficient evidence for charges", and that, therefore, the government will have to "mitigate the threat through efforts outside the criminal justice system."
Such efforts might include sending an "intervention team" that can "engage with the returnee and the returnee's family to open up dialogue with the individual and to help support the returnee's disengagement from their radical ideology and past behavior... While they may have engaged in terrorism abroad and broken the law, not all returnees continue to post [sic] a threat — they may now be disillusioned with the cause" or "...may no longer be interested in violence."
How comforting for Canadians that their government is pandering to terrorists while pretending that there is a chance that returning jihadis will suddenly change their ways.
Attempts at deradicalization elsewhere have frequently turned out to be ineffective. In the UK, for example, a new government report shows that the vast majority of deradicalization programs are not only ineffective, but even counterproductive, and that those tasked with executing the programs "...would refuse to engage in topics over fears of bringing up matters of race and religion without appearing discriminatory". In France, the country's first and only deradicalization center closed in September 2017 after just one year, without having "deradicalized" a single individual. On the contrary, three participants reportedly behaved as if the center were a "Jihad academy".

The Canadian government is willing to go to great lengths to "facilitate" the return of Canadian jihadists. But attempts at deradicalization in Western countries have frequently turned out to be ineffective. In France, the country's first and only deradicalization center (pictured) closed in September 2017 without having "deradicalized" a single individual. (Image source: 28 minutes - ARTE video screenshot)

Some members of the Canadian government are evidently aware of the near-futility of such deradicalization efforts. In November 2017, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said "You have to prevent the problem before it exists. Once a person has been in a war zone, once they've been actively engaged in terrorist-related activities, the capacity to turn them around is pretty remote."
These facts, however, are unlikely to bother Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who appears to compare returning ISIS fighters to Italian and Greek immigrants who settled in Montreal in the post war years. Trudeau has said, "We know that actually someone who has engaged and turned away from ... hateful ideology can be an extraordinarily powerful voice for preventing radicalization" -- but he appears to disregard the evidence that few actually turn away from jihadism.
Perhaps the Trudeau government simply cares more for jihadists and Islamists than for Canada. In early May, the Toronto Sun revealed that the Muslim Association of Canada (MAC), which has ties to terrorist organizations, would receive 10 grants from the government's Canada Summer Jobs Grant[1] to fund its activities across Ontario.
According to the Toronto Sun, "MAC provided $296,514 between 2001 and 2010" to IRFAN-Canada. Within that period, from 2005 and 2009, "IRFAN-Canada transferred approximately $14.6 million worth of resources to various organizations associated with Hamas". Both MAC and IRFAN-Canada are considered linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2014, Canada's government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper designated IRFAN-Canada a terrorist entity.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government is facilitating the return of ISIS terrorists and granting government funds to Islamist organizations who end up funding banned terrorist groups. So, whose interests is the Canadian government really looking out for?

Judith Bergman is a columnist, lawyer and political analyst.

---

[1] Canada Summer Jobs (CSJ), according to the government website, provides wage subsidies to employers to create employment for secondary and post-secondary students. It welcomes applications from small businesses, not-for-profit employers, public sector and faith-based organizations that provide quality summer jobs for students.

Giulio Meotti : European Terrorism: The 'Batman Syndrome'

European Terrorism: The 'Batman Syndrome'

by Giulio Meotti
June 27, 2018 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12567/european-terrorism-batman-syndrome

• "It is the 'Batman syndrome': the hero refuses to kill, he systematically saves his enemy who escapes and kills new victims until the hero catches up with him, and so on". — Causeur magazine.
• "These crimes will continue so long as the Republic leaves the enemy in peace". — Ivan Riofoul, Le Figaro.
• In the end, there might be still a region called "Europe", but it may no longer enfold European culture.

The European Union lost €180 billion (USD $210 billion) in GDP due to terrorism between 2004 and 2016. The United Kingdom (€43.7 billion) and France (€43 billion) suffered the highest losses, followed by Spain (€40.8 billion) and Germany (€19.2 billion), 
according to a Rand Corporation study.

"Beyond those who have been directly physically affected by terrorist attacks, the extensive coverage of terrorist attacks through multiple media and social media channels has substantially increased the amount of people and companies that could be psychologically affected. This subsequently affects their economic behaviour".

New statistics have also come from the Britain's anti-terrorism office. 441 people have been arrested in the UK for terrorism in the last year alone, and 4,182 since the attacks of September 11, 2001. The threat of terrorism is exhausting Europe.

According to the Spanish "black book" of terrorism, 658 Europeans have been murdered in terror attacks on European soil, while 1,029 Europeans have been killed by them abroad.  
Half of the French army has been deployed within the French Republic to protect the civilian targets, such as schools, monuments, and religious sites. Europe's armies are exhausted from patrolling the streets, to the point that NATO planners now fear that, over time, European armies "may get better at guarding railway stations and airports than fighting wars". An officer who recently returned from Afghanistan for guard duty in Belgium said: "We are standing around like flowers pots, just waiting to be smashed". Germany also sent troops into the streets for the first time since the Second World War.

A soldier stands guard in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. (Photo by Franck Prevel/Getty Images)

One has to ask: Is Europe really serious about its war on terror? The French magazine Causeur just called it "the Batman Syndrome":

"How can we respect a society that is too cowardly to fight those who threaten its citizens, and that demonstrates its weakness by systematically seeking appeasement at the price of the most unreasonable accommodations? It is the 'Batman syndrome': the hero refuses to kill, he systematically saves his enemy who escapes and kills new victims until the hero catches up with him, and so on."

France is now close to freeing at least 50 terrorists from prison. The UK is also due to free 80 Islamic fundamentalists from prison. According to a new French report, nearly 10% of the 512 prisoners incarcerated for terrorism are likely to be released by the end of 2018. Their release may well pose a major threat.

 Khamzat Azimov, a terrorist who stabbed a man to death and injured four other people with a knife in central Paris, was known to counter-terrorism forces. Belgium released from prison a terrorist who had gone on a "bloody rampage" in the city of Liege two days before he killed two policewomen and a passerby.

Unless it gets serious about arresting not only the terrorists but also their deadly ideology, Europe will not see the end of the jihadist siege. A few days after the attacks in Liege, France thwarted another jihadist plot "with either explosives or ricin, this very powerful poison". 
After that, there was another terror attempt to strike the French gay community.

"France is the priority target of the terrorism unleashed in Europe by conquering Islam" wrote Ivan Rioufol in Le Figaro.

"Since 2015, 247 people have been killed in France in attacks by Islamists. The 'knife intifada' is no longer reserved just for Israel. In Magnanville, a couple of policemen, Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and Jessica Schneider, were stabbed in front of their three-year-old child. Father Jacques Hamel was slaughtered in his church. In Marseille, Laura and Maurane had their throats slashed. These crimes will continue so long as the Republic leaves the enemy in peace".

The level of threat in France remains alarmingly high. "9,157 people were subjected to at least one surveillance measure by the intelligence services in 2017 in the name of the prevention of terrorism", an official French report recently revealed. In 2017, 20 major terror attacks in France were foiled.
Regarding the West's current "war on terror," American historian Victor Davis Hanson wrote:

"The result is the present age of serial Punic conflict, perhaps intolerable to the psyche, but in amoral terms tolerable as long as casualties are kept to a minimum and defeat is redefined as acceptable strategic wisdom. In the past, such periods of enervating war have gone on for a century and more. Ultimately, they too end — and with consequences."

In the end, there might be still a region called "Europe", but it may no longer enfold European culture.

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

Giulio Meotti : Is Guilt Killing the West from Within?

Is Guilt Killing the West from Within?

by Giulio Meotti
July 1, 2018 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12569/guilt-museums-artifacts

• "The fact is that we have no idea what would have become of the world's 'looted' antiquities if they hadn't been preserved in Western collections. Would the treasures of Beijing's Summer palace have survived Mao's Cultural Revolution? Would the Elgin marbles have survived Turkish tour guides chopping off chunks to sell as souvenirs? Would Daesh [ISIS] have spared those Middle Eastern artefacts that survive in European museums?" — Zareer Masani, historian.
• When Christians in Iraq were exiled, murdered or persecuted en masse by the so-called Islamic State, the West stood silent -- as if these Christians were the agents of Western colonialism and not the legitimate and oldest inhabitants of the Middle East, long before the Arabs converted to Islam.
• When a mob destroyed the French Institute in Cairo, burning books and collections, those who now want to return the "colonial artifacts" stood silent. Where are our Monuments Men now?

A "sense of guilt" for colonialism is debasing the West from within, according to Professor Bruce Gilley, and authoritarian regimes such as Iran, Russia, China and Turkey are profiting from this weakness.

The Romans called it damnatio memoriae: the damnation of memory that resulted in destroying the portraits and even the names of the fallen emperors. 

The same process is now underway in the West about its colonial past. The cultural elite in the West now seem so haunted by feelings of imperialist guilt that they are no longer confident that our civilization is something to be proud of.

A sense of guilt now seems a kind of post-Christian substitute religion that seduces many Westerners. The French scholar Shmuel Trigano suggested that this ideology is turning the Westerners into "post-colonial subjects" who no longer believe in their own civilization, but instead what will destroy it: multiculturalism. 
In France, for example, a manifesto was launched for "a multicultural and post racial republic". The result would be, in the words of the anthropologist Jean-Loup Amselle, a "war of identities" and a clash between communities. Last month, the UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said that, if elected Prime Minister, he would order the British Museum to return to Greece the Elgin Marbles, the frieze that had surrounded the Parthenon of Athens and one of the major attractions of the British Museum. "This whole campaign is sheer lunacy," wrote Richard Dorment. But it is a lunacy spreading all over Europe.

Pictured: Figures from the East Pediment of the Parthenon, exhibited as part of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum. (Image source: Andrew Dunn/Wikimedia Commons)

French President Emmanuel Macron announced that he wants to change the rules that make French public collections untouchable, and allow the return to Africa of dozens of historical artifacts now in the Louvre Museum. Macron has appointed two commissioners, the writer Senegalese Felwine Sarr and the art expert Bénédicte Savoy, to prepare a report.
Tanzania is asking for the return of the famous skeleton of a prehistoric Brachiosaurus, the main attraction of Natural History Museum of Berlin. New guidelines guide on restitution of "colonial objects" were recently unveiled by Germany's Minister of Culture, Monika Grütters.

Most historians are now taking the side of the campaign for returning these objects. One is David Olusoga, a historian of Nigerian origins, who has claimed that these colonial artifacts were "thefts" committed by the colonial powers at the time. Writing in The Telegraph, Zareer Masani, a historian of Indian origins, took a different position. It was the colonialists, he said, who had a decisive role in preserving the antiquities of the civilization:

"It was their dedication, often at huge personal sacrifice, that unlocked the wonders of many lost classical civilisations... The fact is that we have no idea what would have become of the world's 'looted' antiquities if they hadn't been preserved in Western collections. Would the treasures of Beijing's Summer palace have survived Mao's Cultural Revolution? Would the Elgin marbles have survived Turkish tour guides chopping off chunks to sell as souvenirs? Would Daesh [ISIS] have spared those Middle Eastern artefacts that survive in European museums?".

In 1969, the BBC aired Kenneth Clark's "Civilization", the series exploring Western art and culture. Then, civilization was something to be glorified. In 2018, the BBC aired the remake of Clark's classic, "Civilizations" -- note the plural. "This year, the 21st century version of the landmark show is to turn a critical eye to the history of British civilisation, questioning whether it is built on 'looting and plunder' and who, really, are the barbarians," writes Hannah Furness in The Telegraph. One of the new presenters is David Olusoga, the historian who called the Elgin Marbles "a very clear case of theft".

Thirty years ago, in a book, The Tears of the White Man, the French philosopher Pascal Bruckner wrote that, "the remorseless and self-righteous critic who endlessly denounces the deceptions of parliamentary democracy is suddenly rapt with admiration before the atrocities committed in the name of the Koran, the Vedas, the Great Helmsman..." Since then, Western elites have excused many crimes committed in the name of political Islam, as if these were the consequences of our own colonial crimes.

When Christians in Iraq were exiled, murdered or persecuted en masse by the so-called Islamic State, the West stood silent -- as if these Christians were the agents of the Western colonialism and not the legitimate and oldest inhabitants of the Middle East long before the Arabs converted to Islam.

When a mob destroyed the French Institute in Cairo, burning books and collections, those who now want to return the "colonial artifacts" stood silent. When Iran's President Rouhani visited Rome, the Italian authorities covered the naked statues in the Capitoline Museums. Are we covering our own culture to please the Islamic world?

Unfortunately, what we are "returning" are not only the colonial artifacts, but our very pride in Western civilization. A new "damnation of the memory" is taking place in our own museums, academia and chattering classes -- and it has deep consequences for our ability to deal with the enemies of civilization. "Postcolonial material provides an important fuel for jihadism," stated France's most important scholar of Islamism, Gilles Kepel.

"The Monuments Men", a film made in 2014 by George Clooney, is about a group of Western curators and art experts who traveled to Europe to rescue the artistic masterpieces stolen by the Nazis. It was a story of Western bravery and moral clarity during the Second World War.
In 2015, ISIS destroyed Palmyra, one of the most important cities of the ancient world. But the West watched this cultural destruction passively and no "Monuments Men" were dispatched to save Palmyra and other threatened sites.  
The Russians, profiting from the Western passivity, entered Palmyra and Russia's most famous conductor, Valery Gergiev, on performing a triumphal concert in the Palmyra arena, said: "We protest against barbarians who destroyed wonderful monuments of world culture". The Westerners then recreated a banal copy of the arch of Palmyra in London.
Where are our Monuments Men now?

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

Judith Bergman : Europe: "The Vision is an Islamic State"

Europe: "The Vision is an Islamic State"

by Judith Bergman
July 2, 2018 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12619/europe-islamic-state

• "The growing religiousness is not an expression of marginalization. We are talking about people who are well-integrated, but who want to be religious". — Professor Viggo Mortensen.
• "The vision is an Islamic state -- Islamic society... Muslims will prefer sharia rule. But the vision for twenty years from now is for sharia law to be part of Germany, that sharia will be institutionalized in the state itself". — "Yusuf", in a documentary series, False Identity.
• "I will pick them one by one -- I will start with people around me... If every Muslim would do the same in his surroundings, it can happen with no problem... you don't confront him [the German] with force; you do it slowly... There will be clashes, but slowly the clashes will subside, as people will accept reality." — "Yusuf", in a documentary series, False Identity.
• Europe will still exist but, as with the great Christian Byzantine Empire that is now Turkey, will it still embody Judeo-Christian civilization?

A Dutch government report published in June showed that Muslims in the Netherlands are becoming more religious. The report, based on information from 2006-2015, is a study of more than 7,249 Dutch nationals with Moroccan and Turkish roots. Two thirds of the Muslims in the Netherlands are from Turkey or Morocco.
According to the report, 78% of Moroccan Muslims pray five times a day, as do 33% of Turkish Muslims. Approximately 40% of both groups visit a mosque at least once a week. More young Moroccan women wear a headscarf (up from 64% in 2006 to 78% in 2015) and large majorities of both groups eat halal (93% of Moroccan Muslims and 80% of Turkish Muslims). 96% of Moroccan Muslims say that faith is a very important part of their lives, whereas the number is 89% for Turkish Muslims. The number of Dutch Moroccan Muslims who can be described as strictly adhering to Islam has increased from 77% in 2006, to 84% in 2015. For Turkish Muslims, the numbers have increased from 37% to 45%. There are few secular Muslims -- 7% among Turkish Muslims, 2% among Moroccan Muslims.

In Denmark, the trend of Muslims becoming more religious was apparent as early as 2004, when a poll showed that Muslims were becoming more religious than their parents, especially "young, well-educated and well-integrated women". At the time, Professor Viggo Mortensen said, "The growing religiousness is not an expression of marginalization. We are talking about people who are well-integrated, but who want to be religious".

A more detailed Danish poll from 2015 showed that Muslims had become more religious since a similar poll taken in 2006: In 2006, 37% prayed five times a day, whereas the number had gone up to 50% in 2015. In 2006, 63% believed that the Koran should be followed to the letter; in 2015, it was 77%. 

Brian Arly Jacobsen, a sociologist of religion from the University of Copenhagen, was surprised by the results. "With time we would expect [that Muslims] would become more like the rest of the Danes, who are not particularly active in the religious sphere," he said. Jacobsen thought that a possible explanation might have been the 20-30 new mosques that were built in the decade preceding 2015.

The trends expressed by these polls are corroborated by studies and polls showing that many Muslims in Europe want to live under sharia law. According to a 2014 study of Moroccan and Turkish Muslims in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Sweden, an average of almost 60% of the Muslims polled agreed that Muslims should return to the roots of Islam. 75% thought there is only one interpretation of the Koran possible, and 65% said that Sharia is more important to them than the laws of the country in which they live. A 2016 UK poll showed that 43% of British Muslims "believed that parts of the Islamic legal system should replace British law while only 22 per cent opposed the idea". In a 2017 study, which included a poll of 400 Belgian Muslims, 29% said they believe the laws of Islam to be superior to Belgian law, and 34% said they "would definitely prefer a political system inspired by the Quran".

According to a 2014 study of Moroccan and Turkish Muslims in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Sweden, an average of almost 60% of the Muslims polled agreed that Muslims should return to the roots of Islam, and 65% said that Sharia is more important to them than the laws of the country in which they live. Pictured: Friday prayers at the IZW Mosque in Vienna, Austria. (Photo by Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty Images)

The more than two million predominantly Muslim migrants that have arrived in Europe in recent years are only reinforcing the trend of growing Muslim religiosity on the continent. A 2017 study of predominantly Afghan asylum seekers in the Austrian city of Graz showed that the asylum seekers, mostly men under the age of 30, were all in favor of preserving their traditional Islamic values with 70% going to the mosque every Friday for prayers. The women were even more religious, with 62.6% praying five times a day, notably more than the men (39.7%). In addition, 66.3% of the women wore a headscarf in public. Half of the migrants said that religion now plays a larger role in their daily lives in Europe than it did in their native country, and 51.6% of the interviewees said that the supremacy of Islam over other religions was undisputed.

The tendency of many Muslims to become more religious once they arrived in Europe was also on display in a new documentary series, "False Identity," by Arabic-speaking journalist Zvi Yehezkeli, who went undercover to report on the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe and the US. In Germany, he encountered two young Muslims from Syria, who came to Germany via Kosovo, where they received help from a "British Islamic organization". They had left Syria as secular Muslims, but on the way to Germany they lived for a year in Pristina, Kosovo, where, according to Yehezkeli, "Muslim Brotherhood organizations are active in helping refugees while turning them into devout Muslims. Ahmed and Yusuf arrived [in Germany] already praying five times a day".[1]
According to Ahmed:

"When I left Syria, mentally I felt more relaxed. The Islamic charity organization played an important role in this. Look, the first time you meet them they start helping you. You sit, you stare at them, they pray in front of you and here I am a Muslim, studied the Quran, yet don't pray. Suddenly I find myself alone asking, Why shouldn't I pray like all others?"

Yehezkeli asked them what their dream is. "The vision is an Islamic state -- Islamic society," said Yusuf, "Muslims will prefer sharia rule. But the vision for twenty years from now is for sharia law to be part of Germany, that sharia will be institutionalized in the state itself".

In contrast to the growing religiousness of Muslims in Europe, Christians are becoming less religious. In a study of young Europeans, aged 16-29, published in March and based on 2014-2016 data, the author, Stephen Bullivant, a professor of theology and the sociology of religion at St Mary's University in London, concluded:

"With some notable exceptions, young adults increasingly are not identifying with or practicing religion... Christianity as a default, as a norm, is gone, and probably gone for good -- or at least for the next 100 years".

According to the study, between 70% and 80% of young adults in Estonia, Sweden and the Netherlands categorize themselves as non-religious. Between 64% and 70% of young adults consider themselves non-religious in France, Belgium, Hungary and the UK. The most religious youths were to be found in Poland, where only 17% of young adults defined themselves as non-religious, followed by Lithuania with 25%.

Young Muslims like Yusuf and Ahmed from Syria say they want to spread Islam by converting Europeans, also known as dawa. They are themselves perfect examples of having been at the receiving end of dawa -- becoming devout Muslims through the Islamic organization in Kosovo and now engaging in dawa themselves. "I will pick them one by one -- I will start with people around me. They will listen. If every Muslim would do the same in his surroundings, it can happen with no problem," said Yusuf. Asked if the Germans might resist dawa, he said:

"You don't confront him [the German] with force, you do it slowly... There will be clashes, but slowly the clashes will subside, as people will accept reality. There is no escape; every change involves clashes".

Given young Europeans' lack of a religious identity and the vacuum left by the departure of Christianity from the lives of the majority, one has to wonder how sturdy their ability will be to withstand such attempts at proselytizing. Europe will still exist but, as with the great Christian Byzantine Empire that is now Turkey, will it still embody Judeo-Christian civilization?

Judith Bergman is a columnist, lawyer and political analyst.

---

[1] The quote begins at 21:24 in the documentary. The statements by Yusuf and Ahmed follow immediately after.

A. Z. Mohamed : Blasphemy Laws in Pakistan

Blasphemy Laws in Pakistan

by A. Z. Mohamed
July 3, 2018 at 4:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12576/blasphemy-laws-pakistan

• Many extremist Muslims are aiming at even more government submission to sharia through intimidation and terror.
• Christians and Ahmadis continue to raise concerns regarding the government's failure to safeguard minority rights, as well as the government's persistent discrimination against religious minorities.
• Pakistan is also where Muslim militants, such as the Pakistani Taliban, carry out assassinations and terrorist attacks. It seems no one is there to stop them.

On May 6, Ahsan Iqbal, Pakistan's Minister of the Interior, was shot during a rally in his own constituency, in the province of Punjab. Fortunately, he survived the attack, but the bullet in his abdomen could not be removed. "The bullet lodged in my body... will keep reminding me of the impending need to remove the seeds of hatred sowed in the country," Iqbal said.
An initial report suggested that the main suspect, Abid Hussain, 21, had carefully planned the attack; recently, Pakistan's Anti-Terrorism Court issued an 8-day judicial remand of four possible accomplices.

On May 6, Pakistan's Minister of the Interior, Ahsan Iqbal (pictured at left), was shot and wounded by an Islamist extremist during a rally in Punjab. (Image source: USAID Pakistan/Wikimedia Commons)

According to other reports, Hussain is linked to Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) -- also known as Tehreek-e-Labbaik Ya Rasool Allah ("Movement of the Prophet's Followers"). TLP is a new Sunni extremist party known for aggressively calling for enforcing Pakistan's blasphemy laws, which can carry the death penalty, and for opposing any relaxation of these laws.
Many fear that this assault is not an isolated incident and that other members of the cabinet are on the TLP's hit list. This apprehension, however, does not mean that the government is against sharia or blasphemy laws, or is even thinking of reforming them. Many extremist Muslims are aiming at even more government submission to sharia through intimidation and terror.
Extremist Muslims in Pakistan have been successful in achieving their objectives. according to the U.S. Department of State's 2017 Report on International Religious Freedom:

"The [Pakistani] courts continued to enforce blasphemy laws, the punishment for which ranges from life in prison to the death sentence for a range of charges, including 'defiling the Prophet Muhammad.'"

According to reports from civil society organizations, in 2017, there were at least 50 individuals imprisoned on blasphemy charges, at least 17 of whom had received death sentences, In addition, the report added, the police registered at least 17 new cases under the blasphemy laws against still other individuals.
Pakistan's TLP party activism is just one example of how extremist Muslims and official complicity combine to perpetuate sharia and blasphemy laws. TLP itself was apparently inspired by a "blasphemy killer." The party "was born out of a protest movement supporting Mumtaz Qadri, a bodyguard of the governor of Punjab who gunned down his boss in 2011 over his call to relax Pakistan's draconian blasphemy laws," Reuters reported.
In October 2017, Pakistan's president, Mamnoon Hussain, signed into law a bill that changed an electoral oath which affirmed the belief that the Prophet Muhammed is the final prophet of Islam to a "declaration" and abolished separate voter lists for Ahmadi Muslims, whom many Muslims consider non-Muslim, as Ahmadis regard Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835-1908) as their Mahdi (Messiah). In 1974, a constitutional amendment introduced by the prime minister at the time, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, had declared the Ahmadiyya community a non-Muslim minority; and in 1984, President Zia-ul Haq issued Ordinance XX which makes it a criminal offense for Ahmadis to call themselves Muslims, and to practice or propagate their faith.
In any event, the law sparked weeks of protests, led by Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan members, against the government. The TLP accused then-Minister for Law and Justice, Zahid Hamid, of blasphemy and demanded his resignation. The government succumbed to pressure by extremist Muslims, and attributed the change in the oath to "clerical error." Parliament reversed the provisions; Hamid was forced to resign and the government gave assurances that Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five with a highly questionable blasphemy conviction, would not be sent abroad. Notably, Qadri had apparently also murdered governor Salman Taseer for speaking against a death sentence on Asia Bibi.
More appalling is what the U.S. Department of State report said: that government officials -- under pressure from the extremist Muslims' protests of October 2017 -- and probably to deny any support to Ahmadis -- had engaged in anti-Ahmadi rhetoric and attended events that Ahmadis said incited violence against members of their community. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community leaders and human rights organizations "continued to express concerns about the government's targeting of Ahmadis for blasphemy, and Ahmadis continued to be affected by discriminatory and ambiguous legislation that denied them basic rights," the report added.
Christians and Ahmadi Muslims are not by any means exceptional: members of all religious minority communities in Pakistan are distressed that the government submitted to Tehreek-e-Labbaik party and other Islamists' pressure. Christians and Ahmadis continue to raise concerns regarding the government's failure to safeguard minority rights as well as its persistent discrimination against religious minorities. Authorities have also often failed to intervene during episodes of violence against religious minorities, and the police have often failed to arrest perpetrators of these abuses.
In his condemnation of the assassination attempt of the Minister of Interior, Rizvi, TLP's leader, emphasized that his party is waging an unarmed struggle to bring "the Prophet's religion to the throne," in a way that clearly identifies his party role in achieving Islamists' ultimate goal of al-hakemyah of Allah (the sovereignty of God and sharia law), a role that consists in spreading narratives such as the supremacy of Islam, the supposed religion of truth, over all other world religions (Quran 3:19); the supposed supremacy of sharia over all man-made laws, and that the Christians and Jews are supposedly conspiring against Islam and Muslims (Quran 2:109). Extremist Muslims, like Tehreek-e-Labbaik, have been able to plant seeds of intolerance, hatred and fear, lionize terrorists and lead protests to impose sharia and blasphemy laws.
Within this context of Islamists' "unarmed struggle," the goal of bringing "the Prophet's religion to the throne" is likely to take place in a country where the government, under religious pressure, was unable to defend an electoral reform bill enacted by the president last October. The government also has not followed most of the instructions issued four years ago by Pakistan's Supreme Court to protect religious minorities after a terrorist bomber murdered 127 innocent people at a church. Pakistan is also where Muslim militants, such as the Pakistani Taliban, carry out assassinations and terrorist attacks. It seems no one is there to stop them.

A. Z. Mohamed is a Muslim born and raised in the Middle East.

Lawrence A. Franklin : Indonesia: Falling to Radicals

Indonesia: Falling to Radicals

by Lawrence A. Franklin
July 4, 2018 at 4:30 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12617/indonesia-radicals

• If Indonesia's repatriated foreign fighters have their way, all of the country's churches will be destroyed.
• If the repatriated foreign fighters are able to radicalize Indonesia's Muslims, all of the country may eventually resemble Aceh Province, where, after a lengthy reign of terror by Islamic militias, most Christians have been driven out.

An Indonesian family of six, repatriated from former Islamic State (ISIS)-controlled territory in Syria, separately targeted three Christian sites in Surabaya, Indonesia, in May. The suicide bombings killed at least 11 people, as well as all of the attacking family members. Indonesian authorities suspect the bombers are affiliated with Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), the Congregation of the Islamic State. While anti-Christian incidents are common in majority-Muslim Indonesia, until now, suicide bombings by Islamists were not often seen there.
The same day, May 14, a second family, affiliated with the same terrorist JAD cell, also staged a suicide attack at Surabaya's police headquarters. A third family was killed in a town outside Surabaya when bombs prematurely exploded inside their home. All three families met regularly for radical Islamic religious sessions.
Indonesia's National Police Chief, Tito Karnavian, indicated that the suicide family that attacked the churches were among an estimated 500 people who had been deported from former ISIS-occupied land in Syria back to Indonesia.
A sizeable Indonesian terrorist group, JAD, designated a terrorist entity by the U.S. Department of State, has already pledged loyalty to ISIS, which, through their Amaq News Agency, claimed responsibility for the Surabaya attack. A JAD terrorist cell was also behind the May prison riot in Jakarta, an incident that claimed the lives of five policemen. JAD's leader, Aman Abdurrahman (a.k.a. Oman Rochman), is currently in prison, facing the death penalty for urging his followers to attack a Starbucks and a police post in Jakarta in 2016.
Indonesian author and counterterrorism expert Al Chaidar believes that some of Indonesia's ISIS volunteers to Syria are legacy terrorists, following in the paths of their Jihadi fathers. He also claims that some of these jihadists favor the al-Qaeda linked Al-Nusra, while others favor ISIS. Police Chief Karnavian describes JAD as even more radical than Indonesia's al-Qaeda-affiliated Jaamah Islamiyah (JI/Islamic Congregation), the terrorist group responsible for killing 200 people in Bali in 2002.
On another ominous note, Suhardi Alius, Indonesia's Chief of Counterterrorism Operations, said that about 40 JAD volunteers who joined the Jihad in the Philippines in 2017, gained combat experience in the process. These Indonesian JAD terrorists had evidently joined with Filipino terrorists to fight against Philippine army troops who were trying to liberate the town of Marawi in the southern Philippines from terrorist control. JAD's decision to dispatch some of its members to fight in the Philippines indicates that, like its predecessor, Jaamah Islamiyah, it might be interested in re-establishing the 15^th century Sulu Islamic Sultanate throughout the archipelagos of Southeast Asia.
Other mostly non-violent but conservative Indonesian Muslim organizations groups -- such as the Islamic People's Forum and the Islamic Defenders Front -- can simply count on Indonesia's restrictive religious legislation to block Christian interests. These include the 2006 JOINT Decree on Houses of Worship, which requires the signatures of 60 neighboring households of non-Christian families to approve initiating church construction. Occasionally, however, the Islamic Defenders Front, through vigilante action, harasses Muslims who it accuses of not being sufficiently orthodox.
Both Christians and moderate Muslims are also often accused of violating Indonesia's blasphemy law. However, Islam's watchdog agency for doctrinal unity, the Council of Indonesian Ulama, continues to stir up intolerant feelings by issuing restrictive religious judgments concerning the rights of minorities. These judgements include helping convicting people who convert from Islam to Christianity of blasphemy despite Indonesia's civil Constitution, which pledges to protect the interests of minority religions.
Only one of Indonesia's provinces, Aceh is governed by Sharia law. In Aceh, Koranically approved physical punishments are meted out to "sinners" -- Christians and Muslims alike.

Pictured: A woman receives a public caning in Aceh, Indonesia -- a sentence for spending time with a man who is not her husband, which is a violation of Sharia law. (Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)

Nevertheless, both of Indonesia's largest Islamic organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, roundly condemned JAD's murderous assault on Christians.
JAD might not be successful in attracting many Indonesian Muslims to join its ranks; suicide bombings may be too extreme for most Indonesian Muslims. As more Indonesian foreign volunteers navigate their way back to this Southeast Asian nation, however, acts of terror, like these recent attacks, may become the new normal. Because of JAD's affiliation with ISIS and its global resources, the terrorist group is likely to have a much larger impact than its numbers indicate.
Finally, Indonesian General Gatot Nurmantyo predicts a dark future for the Indonesian state's rendezvous with terrorism. He says there are sleeper terrorist cells in virtually every one of Indonesia's provinces except Papua. If Indonesia's repatriated foreign fighters have their way, all of the country's churches could well be destroyed. If the repatriated foreign fighters are able to radicalize Indonesia's Muslims, all of the country may eventually resemble Aceh Province, where, after a lengthy reign of terror by Islamic militias, most Christians have been driven out.

Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve.