Italian police were ordered this week to tighten security at potential Catholic targets across the country as the leaders of the Roman Catholic church anxiously waited to see if a personal expression of regret by Pope Benedict would assuage Muslim fury over his remarks on Islam.
Muslim women wearing hijab, or headscarves, should be employed in front-line roles in the media, said a report published yesterday by Ruth Kelly, the minister for women. More women wearing hijab needed to be seen in the public eye, particularly on television, to encourage more Muslim women to put themselves forward, it said.
Germany’s mosques are run by imams from Turkey, Bosnia, or Iran. No one controls them – for fundamentalists this is the chance for unmitigated agitation. On Sunday, April 23rd of this year, Islam seemed to arrive in Germany anew. The debate over Muslims and their beliefs had already taken place many times, but an Islamic…
The freedom-of-speech defence is a sideshow. The pontiff has broken an unwritten compact of religious leaders. Glenn Hoddle and Robert Kilroy-Silk were there first, of course, but Pope Benedict XVI has joined the club. Like those two other great scholars, the pontiff has found himself at the centre of a free speech row.
German Interior Minister Wolfgang Sch_uble discusses the pope’s criticism of Islam, the prospect of imams preaching in German, and the risk of terrorism in Germany now that the military is so busy overseas. Germany’s first-ever “Islamic conference” between Muslims and the government takes place next Wednesday in Berlin.
