Category Archives: Spain

Americans oppose Dutch Islamic veil ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Many adults in the United States are against a proposal developed by the Dutch government that seeks to ban Islamic veils, according to a six-country poll by Harris Interactive published in the Financial Times.

59 per cent of Americans believe Islamic women should have the right to wear the garments if they wish to do so.

Support is significantly lower in the five European nations surveyed, with Spain at 39 per cent, Italy at 34 per cent, Germany at 33 per cent, Britain at 23 per cent, and France at 23 per cent.

Angus Reid Global Monitor, 31 December 2006

Dutch veil ban poll

Spain cathedral shuns Muslim plea

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cordoba cathedralThe Roman Catholic bishop of Cordoba in southern Spain has rejected an appeal from Muslims for the right to pray in the city’s cathedral, a former mosque.

Juan Jose Asenjo rejected the request made by Spain’s Islamic Board in a letter to the Pope. It had asked that the cathedral become an ecumenical temple where believers from all faiths could worship.

The bishop said such a move would not contribute to the peaceful co-existence between people of different religions. On the contrary, he said in a statement late on Wednesday, the joint use of temples and places of worship would only generate confusion amongst the faithful.

Spain’s Islamic Board, which represents a community of some 800,000 in a traditional Catholic country of 44 million, argued in its plea to the Pope that such a move in Cordoba could serve to “awake the conscience” of followers of both faiths and help bury past confrontations.

“What we wanted was not to take over that holy place, but to create in it, together with you and other faiths, an ecumenical space unique in the world which would have been of great significance in bringing peace to humanity,” the letter said.

The board’s general secretary, Mansur Escudero, said Muslims came from around the world to see Cordoba’s cathedral. But security guards often stopped Muslim worshippers from praying inside the old mosque, he added.

BBC News, 28 December 2006

[The photo shows Mansur Escudero praying outside the cathedral following the bishop’s statement that Muslims will not be allowed to pray inside the building.]

BNP sympathiser Giraldus Cambrensis comments: “… now, once more, political Islam in Spain is trying to assert itself. The trial of the Moorish terrorists and their accomplices who attacked Madrid is due to start in the New Year. On Tuesday December 26, only a day after Spain celebrated Christmas, the birth of Christ, Spain’s Islamic Commission announced that it had decided to petition the new Pope, Benedict XVI, to allow Muslim worship at the Mezquita.”

Western Resistance, 27 December 2006

Islamophobia takes a grip across Europe

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EUMC report December 2006Muslims are suffering physical attacks, verbal taunts and widespread discrimination as a climate of Islamophobia takes a grip across Europe.

A new report lists a host of examples of crime and intimidation from arson and suspected racist murder in Germany and Spain to pork fat being smeared on a mosque in Italy.

Thugs in Ireland beat up one man after calling him “bin Laden” while a bogus email in Denmark outlined fake primary school reforms to help migrant children. A maths question read: “Jamal has an AK47 with a 30-shot magazine. If he misses 6 out of 10 shots and he wants to hit each cup 13 times, how many cups can he shoot before he needs to reload?”

The report from the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia called on leaders to strengthen policies on integration, and on Muslims to “engage more actively in public life.” It also highlights the lack of reliable data, pointing out that only one country – the United Kingdom – publishes criminal justice data which specifically identify Muslims as victims of hate crime incidents.

The Muslim population of the EU is estimated to run to around 13m, around 3.5 per cent of the total. Since September 11 many feel “they have been put under a general suspicion of terrorism,” according to Beate Winkler, director of the centre.

The report says that Muslims “experience various levels of discrimination and marginalisation in employment, education and housing” and are “vulnerable to manifestations of prejudice and hatred in the form of anything from verbal threats through to physical attacks on people and property.”

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Spain avoids offending Muslims – Robert Spencer is appalled

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Spanish villages are toning down traditional fiestas in which revelers blow up dummies representing the Prophet Mohammed for fear of offending Muslims, the newspaper El Pais reported on Monday.

One eastern Spanish village, Bocairent, decided to abandon the custom of packing the head of a dummy representing Mohammed with fireworks after seeing the angry response by Muslims to a Danish newspaper’s publication last year of cartoons of him.

El Pais found that several other villages in the Valencia region had also modified similar fiestas this year. It carried out the investigation after a Berlin opera house decided last week to cancel performances of Mozart’s “Idomeneo” because the production included a scene depicting Mohammed’s severed head.

Bocairent’s mayor, Antonio Valdes, said blowing up the Mohammed dummy was offensive. “It just wasn’t necessary, and, as it could hurt some people’s feelings, we decided not to do it,” he said.

The village may not have blown up the wood-and-cardboard Mohammed dummy this year – but it still threw it off a castle wall at the fiesta’s climax in February.

Villages all over Spain hold annual festivals to commemorate the “Reconquista,” the reconquest of Spain by Christians from the Moors, which was completed in 1492 after more than 700 years of Muslim rule in much of the country.

Spain is now once again home to a growing number of Muslims, mainly Moroccan immigrants, who villagers feel might be offended by some of their traditional celebrations.

Reuters, 2 October 2006

For Robert Spencer this is yet another “dhimmi” capitulation to the threat of Muslim violence: “After all, we don’t want any ‘hurt feelings’: if they don’t tone down the exploding of Muhammad, they might get … exploding Muhammads.”

Dhimmi Watch, 2 October 2006

Spain’s former PM Aznar criticizes Muslims for demanding pope’s apology

Posted on by Bob Pitt

AznarFormer prime minister Jose Maria Aznar has criticized Muslim demands for the pope to apologize for his remarks about Islam.

Speaking Friday night at the Hudson Institute, a thinktank in Washington, Aznar noted the nearly 800-year Moorish occupation of Spain, which began in the year 711 with an invasion from North Africa.

He said in English: “I never (heard) any Muslim apologize (to) me (for) conquer(ing) Spain and to maintain a presence in Spain during eight centuries.”

“What is the reason … we, the West, always should be apologiz(ing) and they never should … apologize? It’s absurd.”

He also criticized an initiative launched by his Socialist successor, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, to encourage dialogue between the West and Muslim countries. It is called the Alliance of Civilizations and has been formally adopted by the United Nations.

Aznar said some Muslim countries such as Iran are too radical to engage in dialogue with. “For me the alliance of civilians is a stupidity,” Aznar said.

International Herald Tribune, 23 September 2006

Burning of sanctuary stokes fears of Islamophobia in Spain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An arson attack over the Easter weekend on a Muslim sanctuary in the Spanish city of Ceuta marked another step in what some experts fear is a growing incidence of Islamophobia in the country. Ceuta lies on a small peninsula in North Africa and a third of the population is Muslim. The burning of the Sidi Bel Abbas sanctuary comes just three months after another sanctuary in the enclave was attacked by arsonists.

El País newspaper yesterday listed a number of mosques and other Muslim targets that have been ransacked, burned or had copies of the Qur’an set alight by intruders. At least four towns in the eastern region of Catalonia have seen attacks on mosques and Muslim butchers, some with Molotov cocktails. In the eastern town of Reus, police detained two car-loads of skinheads armed with Molotov cocktails as they headed towards the local mosque.

The train bombings that killed 191 people in Madrid two years ago and growing Islamophobia since the September 11 attacks were largely to blame. “We never had things like this happen before,” Imad Alnaddar, who is in charge of the main mosque in Valencia, told El País.

Guardian, 18 April 2006

Spain jails al-Jazeera reporter

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Alouni behind barsA court in Madrid has jailed former al-Jazeera journalist Tayssir Alouni for collaborating with a terrorist organisation. The Qatar-based pan-Arab news network said it would appeal against the conviction, which it called “unfair”. Alouni – who protests his innocence – interviewed Osama Bin Laden before the 11 September attacks. He was sentenced to seven years for acting as financial courier to Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.

BBC News, 26 September 2005

See also Islam Online, 26 September 2005

Aljazeera relieved by Alluni’s release

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Aljazeera has said it is relieved at the decision by Spanish authorities to release its correspondent Taysir Alluni after a stretch of 119 days in solitary confinement. Aljazeera also thanked rights groups for support during the detention of their correspondent.

“Aljazeera takes this opportunity to extend its sincere appreciation to its viewers, regional and international human rights organisation, professional and civil societies and all those who supported Taysir, his family and Aljazeera,” the channel said in a statement.

Aljazeera’s correspondent Alluni had arrived at his Granada home, two days after a Spanish court ordered him moved from a maximum security cell to house arrest.

A frail and visibly fatigued Alluni emerged from a police van parked outside his Granada home at 3am (0200 GMT) after what he said was a gruelling five-hour journey from Madrid. “I was strapped into a metal chair for five hours,” he said.

While thanking his peers and the various organisations and individuals who laboured for his release, Alluni also criticised the Spanish government for his detention. “I no longer believe that the rule of law exists in this country (Spain),” he said.

“The trial will be highly politicised and a media affair. The prosecutor who ordered me re-jailed because he alleged I was a flight risk never presented any evidence to support his claim,” Alluni said.

Al-Jazeera, 18 March 2005

Court orders 24-hour watch on Alluni

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Aljazeera has learned that a Spanish judge has ordered its correspondent Taysir Alluni released from jail and placed under mandatory house arrest pending his trial.

The release order was expected to be carried out late on Monday night or early on Tuesday, but has been set back after a series of delays.

Munzir al-Nimri, general-secretary of the International Committee for Defending Taysir Alluni, said Alluni had still not been released from prison due to procedural reasons and the need to complete more paperwork.

“The procedures involve accompanying Alluni, with his hands chained, by Spanish security guards and include signing an order that has not been signed yet. We are still awaiting completion of these procedures,” al-Nimri said.

Alluni will then be taken to his home in Granada where he was first arrested in September 2003.

Al-Jazeera, 15 March 2005