Three local banks in the Jutland region of Denmark are agreeing to offer mortgage loans which comply with Islamic, or Sharia law. Sharia laws forbid accepting or paying interest, to which Danish banks have created a leasing agreement of sorts for Muslims in the area; the bank will own property until the terms of the…
The Charlie-Hebdo weekly satirical Paris-based newspaper has been cleared of a charge of publicly abusing a group of people because of their religion. A group of French Muslim associations filed a complaint following their publication of the 2005 Danish cartoons in February 2006. The appeals court ruled that the cartoons were not aimed at insulting…
A French court of appeals fined far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen for discrimination, hatred or racial violence for anti-Muslim remarks he made in an interview in Le Monde in 2003. The National Front party leader was ordered to pay 10,000 Euros in fines and 5,000 Euros in damages to the plaintiff, the French League of…
Iran’s deputy foreign minister called on the Dutch government to stop a far-right politician from distributing an anti-Islam film. “I think they can stop the movie,” Mehdi Safari told reporters after meeting with Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen. “The government is responsible.” However, the Dutch government has tried twice, unsuccessfully, to convince the filmmaker to…
Arab and Muslim candidates fared poorly in the first round of French municipal elections, with only one elected to a local office and few others with opportunity in the second round of voting. Running on the Socialist slate, Samia Ghali won District 8 in Marseille, the country’s second largest city. Ghali became the first Muslim…
