30 March 2016 The Netherlands refuses to shelter more than five hundred recognized refugees through the United Nations, despite the urgent request of the UN-refugee organization UNHCR to increase the amounts. The Dutch Foundation for Refugees (VluchtelingenWerk Nederland) thinks it is “scandalous” that the Netherlands will not increase the amounts, especially in the context of…
1 March 2016 Ard van der Steur, the Dutch Minister of Security and Justice, is not planning to take extra security measures after a sequence of severe threats and attacks on mosques. “If measures should be taken this is the responsibility of municipalities”, he said during a debate in the Dutch parliament on the matter….
29 March 2016 Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch anti-Islam party PVV (Party for Freedom), has not ruled out a possible future legal ban on Islam. “It might get that far at some point”, he said during a recent parliamentary debate on the Brussel Attacks. According to Wilders the time has begun to become intolerant…
21 March 2016 A visit of the sheikh of Al-Azhar, Muhamad al-Tayeb, has elicited polarised responses in the German media and among German Muslims. Al-Tayeb visited the German parliament (Bundestag), speaking in front of parliamentarians about the necessity for religious dialogue and stressing the nature of the Islamic message as a message of peace and…
22 March 2016 In a landmark ruling on the role of religious symbols in public schools in March 2015, the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) decided that a generalised prohibition of the hijab in schools was unconstitutional, as was any privileging of Christian or Jewish symbols. The Court asserted that neither the rights of third…
