Ehsan Jami joins Wilders’ party

Amsterdam — A Dutch self-declared ex-Muslim and critic of Islam has joined the rightist Freedom Party PVV which is also highly critical of Islam, its party leader confirmed Thursday.

Iranian-born Ehsan Jami, 24, may run for a council seat in The Hague in the upcoming local elections in 2010. Or, he may try to enter parliament following the general elections in 2011, PVV leader Geert Wilders said. “I think he prefers parliament,” Wilders said, adding Jami was someone “with guts and interesting viewpoints.”

Jami, born and raised in Iran, previously was a council member for left-wing Labour in Leidschendam-Voorburg near The Hague. In the spring of 2007 he established a committee for former Muslims demanding Muslims’ right to renounce their faith.

In September of that year he wrote an op-ed essay together with Freedom Party leader Wilders in the national daily Volkskrant, in which they compared Mohammed with Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Labour subsequently expelled Jami from the party, but he continued as an independent councilman in Leidschendam-Voorburg. Both the liberal VVD and the Freedom Party tried to recruit Jami in the following months.

DPA, 1 October 2009

Wilders: fine women for wearing headscarf

A controversial Dutch lawmaker has urged the country’s parliament to pass a law to fine women who wear Islamic head coverings.

Geert Wilders said women observing the Islamic dress code or Hjiab should be fined 1,000 euros (1,461 dollars) per year. The leader of the liberal-right Freedom Party PVV made his remarks during a parliamentary debate about the government’s budget plans on Wednesday.

“Everyone who wants to wear a headscarf, should first apply for a headscarf license,” DPA quoted Wilders as saying. He added the fine, which he called a “head rags tax,” was meant to “demotivate” people to wear Muslim attire.

Press TV, 17 September 2009

Tariq Ramadan still welcome in Oxford

Tariq Ramadan, the Islamic scholar sacked by Rotterdam city council and Erasmus University, will take up the job of professor of contemporary Islam studies at Oxford University in Britain from September 1, the Telegraaf reports.

Ramadan was fired because of his refusal to stop working for an Iranian-backed tv channel. The city and university said this could not be combined with his other roles as academic and advisor on integration.

Ramadan has been attached to Oxford as a researcher and lecturer for the past four years. “Freedom of expression is a fundamental right which will be respected,” a spokesman for the British university told the paper.

Dutch News, 21 August 2009

Tariq Ramadan sacked over links to Press TV

A Dutch university fired Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan on Tuesday for hosting a show on Iran’s state television, which the school said could be seen as endorsing the regime. Both the City of Rotterdam and Erasmus University dismissed Ramadan from his positions as “integration adviser” and professor, saying his program “Islam & Life” airing on Iran’s Press TV is “irreconcilable” with his duties in Rotterdam.

Ramadan “continued to participate in this program even after the elections in Iran, when authorities there hard-handedly stifled the freedom of expression,” Rotterdam and the university said in a joint statement. It said Ramadan had “failed to sufficiently realize the feelings that participation in this television program, which is supported by the Iranian government, might provoke in Rotterdam and beyond.” He had worked at the university since 2007.

The professor, a Swiss citizen who is now on vacation in Morocco, told Dutch radio he would appeal the “naive and simplistic” decision. Ramadan has written an open letter to Dutch media saying the show was a debate forum, and that he had no involvement with Iran’s government.

“Repression against and killing of civilian people cannot be accepted and must be condemned,” he said in the letter, published by Dutch media last week when the debate broke out. “I support transparent, democratic process, and I expect the Iranian regime to respect this principle.”

Associated Press, 18 August 2009

Update:  See “Ramadan wants to take Rotterdam to court”, NRC International 19 August 2009

And Saskia van Genugten’s piece at Comment is Free, 19 August 2009

Further update:  Tariq Ramadan is interviewed in NRC International, 19 August 2009

Tariq Ramadan answers his Dutch detractors

tariq_ramadan“Once again I have come under attack in the Netherlands. Last May and June, I was accused of ‘doublespeak’, of ‘homophobia’ and of demeaning women. Upon investigation, the Rotterdam municipality declared the accusations unfounded.

“Today, the argument goes that I am linked to the Iranian regime; I support the repression that followed the recent elections. Should we be surprised that this latest accusation has surfaced only in the Netherlands? It is as if I in particular, and Islam in general, are being used to promote certain political agendas in the upcoming Dutch elections.

“Geert Wilders, who wins votes by comparing the Koran to Hitler’sMein Kampf, casts a long shadow. I am cast as the cause of an outburst of political passions that is far from healthy. But the present controversy says far more about the alarming state of politics in the Netherlands than about my person.”

Tariq Ramadan in NRC International, 18 August 2009

Dutch right (and left) step up attack on Tariq Ramadan

TariqRamadanOpposition members in the Rotterdam city council are once again calling for the resignation of integration consultant Tariq Ramadan, this time because he is hosting a talk show on an Iranian TV station.

Ramadan, a Swiss Muslim academic of Egyptian descent, was hired by the city of Rotterdam in 2007 to help bridge the divide between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities. He also lectures at Rotterdam’s Erasmus university.

In April, the right-wing liberal party VVD resigned from the city executive because of its refusal to sack Ramadan following a controversy concerning homophobic statements Ramadan allegedly made. An investigation by the city executive concluded at the time there were no grounds for the accusations.

Now, three opposition parties in the city council – Leefbaar Rotterdam, the Socialist Party and the VVD – are once again calling for Ramadan’s resignation because of his collaboration with the Iranian state TV station Press TV.

Ramadan has been hosting a weekly talk show on the English-language Press TV titled “Islam & Life”. The ruling Labour party has also said that Ramadan’s work for Press TV affects his credibility, and has asked the city executive for clarification.

Leefbaar Rotterdam councilwoman Anita Fähmel said Ramadan’s “Iranian hat” proves once more that he has a “double agenda”. She said it was “unacceptable” that Ramadan is “on the payroll of the dictatorial regime of Ahmadinejad, while at the same time he preaches tolerance here in Rotterdam”.

NRC International, 13 August 2009

Antwerp protests against schools’ headscarf ban

Hoboken headscarf protestOn Sunday about 120 Muslims protested in Antwerp against the headscarf ban in the Royal Athenaeums of Antwerp and Hoboken.

They carried signs saying: “Everybody free, except us,” “Democracy, not discrimination” and “You are the oppressors, not us.” They demanded to rescind the headscarf ban by the two schools.

Parent Mina Cheeba said in a speech that the representatives of the parents in the school council haven’t heard of any social pressure to wear a headscarf and that if there are actual complaints, then they would like to take a look at them so they could come to a solution together.

Cheeba says the decision to ban the headscarf was made without asking the parents’ advice. The school regulations shouldn’t be changed autonomously, but by consultation with the parents.

Several students also expressed their displeasure. One said that they’re supposedly under pressure to wear a headscarf, but that’s nonsense. They are not feather-brains who accept everything without thinking.

Ayoub Aazzouti said that he’s fed up of the men being portrayed as machos who force girls to wear headscarves, because it’s not like that. “For us boys and girls are equal. We have a lot of respect for them and they are intelligent enough to decide on their own if they wear a headscarf or not. Stop using us as an excuse.”

On Monday about 40 Muslim women showed up to protest in front of the Royal Athenaeum of Hoboken. Some of the slogans included: “distressed by the lack of understanding”, “why a ban on my character”, and “lies in order to discriminate”.

One of the students spoke: “We have a right to study and to a headscarf. It’s not one or the other, we have a right to both.”

Islam in Europe, 2 July 2009

Mel and Geert – spot the difference

The enemies of reason sets a quiz.

You simply have to guess who said the following statements – Melanie Phillips or Geert Wilders.

1. “Socialists are the most inveterate cultural relativists in Europe. They regard the Islamic culture of backwardness and violence as equal to our Western culture of freedom, democracy and human rights. In fact, it is the socialists who are responsible for mass immigration, Islamization and general decay of our cities and societies.”

2. “The nation-wrecking ideology of multiculturalism and the Marxist redefinition of racial prejudice into racism – ‘prejudice plus power ‘– which have turned our society inside out are the product of the left.”

3. “Voters have been told in effect that there is nothing standing between national suicide on the one hand and racism on the other. If you don’t want the former, you are automatically branded with the latter.”

4. “And so, the voters have had enough. Because they of course realise that Europe is going in the wrong direction. They know that there are enormous problems with Islam in Europe. They are well aware of the identity of those who are taking them for a ride, namely, the Shariah socialists.”

5. “They are areas of very high immigration where the transformation of the ethnic, religious and cultural landscape has made indigenous inhabitants feel strangers in their own country — and yet they are told they are racist for saying so”

6. “Mass immigration, demographic developments and Islamization are certainly partly causes of Europe’s steadily increasing impoverishment and decay.”

7. “Above all else, we should absolutely refuse to countenance the spread of Sharia law, which is not only inimical to our own deepest principles but aims to supplant our own laws. Yet we are turning a blind eye to the steady Sharia-isation”

8. “Just like communism, fascism and nazism, Islam is a threat to everything we stand for. It is a threat to democracy, to the constitutional state, to equality for men and women, to freedom and civilisation. Wherever you look in the world, the more Islam you see, the less freedom you see.”

9. “The problem, however, is that it doesn’t understand what Muslim extremism is. Believing that Islamic terrorism is motivated by an ideology which has ‘hijacked’ and distorted Islam, it will not acknowledge the extremism within mainstream Islam itself.”

10. “Of course, there are many moderate Muslims. However, there is no such a thing as a moderate Islam. Islam’s heart lies in the Koran.”

11. “In the war being waged by radical Islamism against the west, such symbolism [as mosque-building] is of the utmost importance and significance. It is itself a strategic weapon of cultural and religious demoralisation.”

12. “We will have to close down all radical [mosques] and forbid the construction of any new mosques, there is enough Islam in Europe.”

Tricky, no? So there you have it – Geert Wilders and Melanie Phillips. One a dangerous extremist with vile views; the other a Dutchman with silly hair.

Dutch far-Right comes second in European Parliament election

Geert Wilders’ far-Right anti-immigration party made significant gains in the European Parliament elections in the Netherlands on Thursday, according to exit polls.

The European Parliament elections had been widely expected to punish governments struggling to cope with the global economic crisis, and polls released by the ANP news agency and broadcaster NOS put the Right-wing Freedom Party on course to win four of the 25 Dutch seats in the parliament, after having none in the previous assembly. This put Mr Wilders’ party second only to the ruling Christian Democrats, which got nearly 20 per cent of votes, according to the poll.

Mr Wilders, who was banned from Britain by the Home Office because of his controversial views on Islam, won support from Protestant and Catholic voters disenchanted with what has been perceived as the growing influence of the nation’s 800,000 Muslims, many of them immigrants from Morocco and Turkey.

Mr Wilders, whose party was contesting European elections for the first time, campaigned on an anti-EU platform and criticised Turkey’s bid to join the EU. “Should Turkey as an Islamic country be able to join the European Union? We are the only party in Holland that says, it is an Islamic country, so no, not in 10 years, not in a million years,” he said.

Daily Telegraph, 4 June 2009