French Prime Minister Francois Fillon attended the inauguration of a mosque in Argenteuil, a suburb north of Paris, the first time a head of government has attended such an event. Fillon gave a speech to the 800 dignitaries in which he denounced violence against Muslims in France. But he also warned against religious fundamentalism. Fillon…
The Party for Catalonia [Partit per Catalunya] has submitted a motion to the Cervera Town Council (in the province of Lleida) in order to declare the town free of mosques. According to those who submitted the motion, mosques are not like other religions’ places of worship because they have a political nature and aim to…
Nabahet Moulay Slimane and her husband were arrested in their house in a suburb of Cork, Ireland, for their connection with Colleen LaRose, an American convert who became known as ‘Jihad Jane’. On 9 March 2010, the police detained seven persons in Ireland for allegedly plotting to murder the Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks who depicted…
The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (SP) has discreetly made public an official position paper “on topics related to Islam.” The text rejects xenophobic stereotyping while at the same time emphasizing the need to defend the “largely secular society.” Western European history is characterized as the product of a process of secularization, while on the…
