General News
Westerners ‘should stop making films about Islam’
A fear of misrepresentation and exotification of Muslims has sparked calls for Western filmmakers to halt projects about Islam and Muslims. Filmmakers such as Parvez Sharma and Ruhi Hamid, both cite the heightened interest in Islam post 9/11, and their frustration with stereotyped images, partial representations, and the lack of awareness of the complexities of…
EU pushes anti-terror plans for the Web
Europe should strengthen the fight against terrorism by cracking down on militant Web sites and compiling U.S.-style profiles of air passengers, the European Union executive said on Tuesday. The proposals coincided with 17 arrests across Europe in an operation led by Italy against suspected “Salafist jihadi” cells, the latest in a series of major European…
EU to unveil new U.S.-style passenger data recording plan for flights into Europe
The EU’s top justice official is planning on unveiling a new proposal concerning the collection of airline passenger data. Plans for the data collection include the storage of e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, payment details, and 16 other pieces of personal information to be stored for 13 years, as a part of the new EU-wide anti-terror…
The Dutch Have Become More Conservative. Is Europe Next?
Progressive Dutch social attitudes on hot-button issues like drug legalization, euthanasia and gay rights may seem quirky to foreigners. But where the Dutch have boldly gone, other European countries seem to follow. Britain, Italy and Spain have all decriminalized the personal use of marijuana, and, like the Dutch, the Swiss have set up needle exchanges…
Turkey’s Muslim Nature Poses No Threat to EU, Says Report
The relationship between Turkey and Islam is examined in a report compiled by the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR). The Turkish translation of the report was published in October and makes a strong case for the country’s European Union accession bid at a time when the words “Turkey” and ”identity crisis” often appear…