The Rotterdam council has begun a trial to prevent girls from being forced into arranged marriages during religious and cultural holiday periods. It is reported that every year, dozens of Dutch girls with Moroccan, Turkish, and Pakistani backgrounds fail to return to the Netherlands after international travels during the holidays. Most of these girls, the…
The Belgian National Labor Council (NAR) announced that employees may not make decisions about work holidays on their own. Muslim workers and organizations arguing on their behalf have asked for employers to enact “floating holidays,” in which employees would be able to choose whether religious holidays, such as Muslim Eid celebrations, would be a vacation…
Germany on Wednesday kicked off the country’s biggest terror trial since the 9/11 attacks. Four men accused of plotting to carry out bomb attacks on targets across Germany are the focus of a high-profile case expected to last up to two years. Under tight security, four men aged between 23 and 30 took to the…
Ahmed Marcouch, chairman of the heavily immigrant Amsterdam neighborhood of Slotervaart, is taking it upon himself to fight persistent homophobia in the locality, including presenting a memorandum with measures to make the neighborhood more gay-friendly. Name-calling, being spit on, and harassment are common experiences for gay persons passing street corners – and a number of…
A mosque in the eastern Bosnian village of Fazlagica Kula has been set on fire, just hours before the beginning of Eid-al-Adha. Media reports disclosed that the inside of the mosque and its roof were completely burned. Investigation into the incident is ongoing and the cause has not yet been confirmed, but Bosnian Muslim officials…
