Police in the Czech Republic have charged a man who is suspected of planning attacks similar to those by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway.
The 29-year-old man was charged with unlawful possession of weapons and endangering the public. Weapons, explosives and police uniforms were found in his flat in the city of Ostrava and detectives say he was using the name Breivik on the internet.
The twin terror attacks in Norway have refocused attention on Islamophobia in Europe and closer to home are sparking questions about a recent decision to use taxpayer money to fund an anti-Islamic campaign group.
“I can confirm it,” said Imrich Dioszegi, a spokesman for the Hradec Králové Regional Authority. “The council supports two [campaign] groups of a similar name with a total amount of 15,000 Kč.”
Those groups, both going by the name AntiMešita, or anti-mosque, are headed by Valentin Kusák, who said their goal is to “fight against the Islamization of the Czech Republic”. “A month ago, we got a financial gift for our activities from the Hradec Králové region, which really delighted us,” he added. “This gift will help us to cover our expenses.”
The groups were formed in response to what Kusák said were plans to create a mosque in the city of Hradec Králové. The project he originally opposed has turned out to be an already-existing 50-square-meter building where members of the local Muslim community – many of them students at the nearby university – gather. The building was purchased by the Organization of Muslim Communities in the Czech Republic (UMO-ČR), and leaders of that group term it “a small house for worship.”
“Islam is in its nature aggressive, and it tries to be dominant everywhere it enters,” Kusák said. “Muslims are lying to us about their intentions; after all, that is what the Koran orders them to do in relationships with ‘infidels.’ The mosque is for me one the elements of Islamization, and that is why I oppose it. I am for religious freedom. … But Islam – as preached by Muslim representatives and lecturers around the world as well as in the Czech Republic – is incompatible with democracy.”
The Czech Statistical Office has no official numbers on the country’s Muslim population, but estimates put it at around 15,000, a number that would account for just more than 0.1 percent of the population, as compared with an estimated 8 percent in France, Germany’s 5.4 percent and Norway’s 3.4 percent.
“The fact that a council supports the activities of AntiMešita is totally not right, but others are to judge such actions,” said UMO-ČR Chairman Muneeb Hassan Al Rawi. “I compare such initiatives to fascism. Especially after Friday in Norway, everyone should clear up their perspective, because it came to light that not only Muslims have a patent on terrorism.”
Asked if he was worried about Islamophobia in Europe and the Czech Republic, Al Rawi said: “Of course, the concerns are growing.”
“I am a Czech citizen. I have lived here for 25 years, and still every time I return from abroad I get stopped at the airports by customs officers,” Al Rawi said. “Now, after Norway, when a guy does it to his own people and he is not Muslim, basically anything can happen. We knew this a long time ago, but if I said this a week ago you would have considered me a fool.”
The Hradec Králové Regional Authority is financially supporting the AntiMešita (Anti-Mosque) movement, which holds discussions on the danger of Islam for citizens of Hradec Králové, establishes petitions against the existence of mosques in various towns and fights the spread of Islamic culture on Czech territory.
Despite the controversial nature of their activities, the association has received financial support from the Regional Authority in the amount of CZK 15 000. Imrich Dioszegi, press spokesperson for the Regional Authority, told local daily Hradecký deník that:
“…just as the region contributes to the activities of various cultural or sports clubs and associations on its territory, the Regional Council decided to support the activities of the civic associations AntiMešita and AntiMešita-envi with CZK 15 000. The money corresponds to an application intended for the activity of both associations, the creation of a web page and legal services.”
As a result of the governing coalition agreement in that region, the Christian Democrats have the greatest influence over allocating financial gifts.
AntiMešita founder Kusák perceives the financial gift as a way for Regional Governor Lubomír Franc (ČSSD), the Regional Council, and the Regional Authority’s leadership to express their moral support for his cause. He is using the financial support to design and implement anti-Islamic discussions in Hradec Králové and to make the AntiMešita movement visible.
Retired politician Milos Zeman, Czech prime minister in 1998-2002, faces a criminal complaint over the statements on Islam he made in June at an international conference on Europe.
“The enemy is the anti-civilisation spreading from North Africa to Indonesia. Two billion people live in it and it is financed partly from oil sales and partly from drug sales,” Czech news servers quoted Zeman as saying about Islam at the recent conference.
Zeman said Thursday Muslims believe in the Koran like Nazis believed in racial supremacy and anti-semitism and communists in class struggle and dictatorship of the proletariat.
He said Islam is far more aggressive and intolerant than present Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism and other world religions.
He added that the Koran includes passages calling for the subjugation, enslavement and even elimination of non-believers.
75.2% of the Czechs side with President Vaclav Klaus and oppose building mosques in the Czech Republic, according to a poll by research agency SANEP. The survey shows this is mostly due to concerns about rising crime and terrorism.
Czechs are the most atheistic in Europe, but 76.2% believe their country should be based on Christian values and culture.
Tomas Vandas, chairman of the Czech Workers’ Party of Social Justice (DSSS), the most famous representative of the Czech far right, is learning from Dutch populist Geert Wilders, but without success as yet, daily Hospodarske noviny (HN) writes yesterday.
Just as Wilders, Vandas wants to drive immigrants and Muslims away from the country and just as Wilders he has been put on trial for his hateful statements. “In our country it is not yet so pressing like in the Netherlands, but the time may come in a few years. They (Muslims) will start to build mosques here and pull down Christian churches,” HN quotes Vandas as saying. He said it is time to warn against Muslims. “Yes, our party will soon focus on this, too,” HNquotes Vandas as saying.
Czech Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, the Archbishop of Prague, said Muslims were well placed to fill the spiritual void “created as Europeans systematically empty the Christian content of their lives”.
“Europe will pay dear for having left its spiritual foundations and that this is the last period that will not continue for decades when it may still have a chance to do something about it,” he said. “Unless the Christians wake up, life may be Islamised and Christianity will not have the strength to imprint its character on the life of people, not to say society.”
“Europe has denied its Christian roots from which it has risen and which could give it the strength to fend off the danger that it will be conquered by Muslims, which is actually happening gradually,” he said. “At the end of the Middle Ages and in the early modern age, Islam failed to conquer Europe with arms. The Christians beat them then. Today, when the fighting is done with spiritual weapons which Europe lacks while Muslims are perfectly armed, the fall of Europe is looming.”
He called on Christians to respond to the threat of Islamisation by living their own religious faith more observantly.
A gathering of supporters of the extreme right National Party in Brno to distribute leaflets warning against what the party termed as “Islamization” was dismissed as a media ploy in the run up to the October election. Eight party followers met outside the Brno mosque just after 1 p.m. Aug. 29 to protest plans for the construction of a new mosque, though National Party official Jiří Gaudin denied there was ever meant to be a rally.
Munib Hasan, a spokesman for the Brno Muslim community, said last month that Muslims would like to have a larger building for prayer as the existing place of worship was no longer sufficient for their growing numbers.
“The Brno mosque has been here for years, and, now, we need a bigger space,” he said. “There haven’t been any problems so far, and I hope there won’t be any in the future … I don’t see a reason why anyone should be against a new mosque. There are a number of Muslims living here peacefully. I believe that the National Party is attempting to catch the media’s attention before the upcoming election.”
But Ivo Strejček, an ODS MEP, spoke out against the mosque on his Web site. “Absolutely not! Can you imagine building a Christian church in Tehran?” he said. “It is not the time to be politically correct, and it is necessary to acknowledge that our civilization is losing the battle with aggressive Islam. It is necessary to refuse the argument of European leftist madmen who proclaim the policy of multiculturalism. The building of mosques in Europe is the symbol of cultural war, which we are losing.”
Prague — Czech Christian Democrat (KDU-CSL) leader Cyril Svoboda today supported the KDU-CSL south Moravian branch that is against the construction of a second mosque in the city of Brno, planned by the local Muslim community.
Svoboda said he respected traditional Muslims and wanted an open Europe but that newcomers had to respect the local traditions. It would help if Muslim countries were open to Christians, he added. Svoboda noted that it is often a problem for Christians in Turkey to build a church. He said “the time is not ripe” for the opening of a new mosque in Brno.
Stickers against the Koran have appeared around the mosque in Brno and in the Prague underground probably with the aim to stir up conflicts and encourage prejudices, Vladimir Sanka, deputy head of the Muslim Communities Centre, told CTK today.
The Brnensky denik local daily reported on Monday that similar stickers were displayed near the Brno mosque that became a target of an attack by unknown vandals in the past.
Petra Edelmannova, chairwoman of the ultra-right extra-parliamentary National Party (NS), expressed support for displaying the stickers in the town, she told Brnensky denik.
“Similar events are namely part of our campaign,” said Edelmannova though she did not confirm that her party was behind the stickers.
The municipal police say the number of racist posters, stickers and sprayed inscriptions has considerably increased in Brno recently.