Mosques increasingly not welcome in Europe
By Jeffrey Stinson, USA TODAY
LONDON — Europeans are increasingly lashing out at the construction of mosques in their cities as terrorism fears and continued immigration feed anti-Muslim sentiment across the continent.
The latest dispute is in Switzerland, which is planning a nationwide referendum to ban minarets on mosques. This month, Italy's interior minister vowed to close a controver
More..sial mosque in Milan.
Some analysts call the mosque conflicts the manifestation of a growing fear that Muslims aren't assimilating, don't accept Western values and pose a threat to security. "It's a visible symbol of anti-Muslim feelings in Europe," says Danièle Joly, director of the Center for Research in Ethnic Relations at the University of Warwick in England. "It's part of an Islamophobia. Europeans feel threatened."
The disputes reflect unease with the estimated 18 million Muslims who constitute the continent's second-biggest religion, living amid Western Europe's predominantly Christian population of 400 million, Joly says.
Anti-Muslim sentiment
The clashes also represent a turnaround from the 1980s and '90s, when construction of large mosques was accepted and even celebrated in many cities. "I think the tide has turned," Joly says.
Indicative of the change:
• Supporters of the Swiss referendum collected enough signatures two weeks ago to call for a constitutional ban on minarets, the towers used to call worshipers to prayer. No date has been set for the vote.
• Italy's Interior Minister Roberto Maroni announced this month that he wants to close a Milan mosque because crowds attending Friday prayers spill onto the street and irritate neighbors. In April, the city of Bologna scrapped plans for a new mosque, saying Muslim leaders failed to meet certain requirements, including making public its source of funding.
• In Austria, the southern province of Carinthia passed a law in February that effectively bans the construction of mosques by requiring them to fit within the overall look and harmony of villages and towns.
• Far-right leaders from 15 European cities met in Antwerp, Belgium, in January and called for a ban on new mosques and a halt to "the Islamization" of European cities. The group said mosques act as catalysts for taking over neighborhoods and imposing Islamic ways of life on Europeans.
"We already have more than 6,000 mosques in Europe, which are not only a place to worship but also a symbol of radicalization, some financed by extreme groups in Saudi Arabia or Iran," Filip Dewinter, leader of a Flemish separatist party in Belgium, told Radio Netherlands Worldwide at the conference.
Dewinter criticized a mosque being built in Rotterdam, Netherlands: "Its minarets are six floors high. These kinds of symbols have to stop."
Although the group in Antwerp represented minority political parties from Belgium, Austria and Germany, its cause resonates elsewhere.
Construction of a mosque in Cologne, Germany, drew protests from residents last year and sparked a political debate in Berlin over concerns that it could overshadow the city's great Gothic cathedral.
In London, plans for a "mega-mosque" for 12,000 worshipers next to the site of the 2012 Olympics drew 250,000-plus opposing signatures.
Current controversies over mosques represent an anti-Muslim attitude that initially sprang up after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States and the transit bombings in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, Joly says. Aggravating those views are pressures from the influx of immigrants and growing population of Muslims throughout Europe.
Other events have fueled worries that many Muslims don't accept Western values: widespread protests by Muslims after a Danish newspaper published cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in 2006, and the 2004 murder of a Dutch filmmaker, Theo van Gogh, by a Muslim extremist in retaliation for a film about abuse of Muslim women.
Restrictions could backfire
Sakib Halilovic, an imam in Zurich, says Switzerland's referendum to ban minarets "plays into the hands" of Muslim extremists by denying them a place to worship or limit what the mosque can look like.
"It will boost radical positions within the Muslim society in Switzerland," Halilovic told the Swiss Broadcasting Corp. last week.
Some moderate Muslims say those against building more mosques sometimes have legitimate concerns.
"Truthfully speaking, we don't need so many mosques," says Irfan al-Alawi, international director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism in London. "We have 1,600 mosques (in Britain) and a (Muslim) population of 1.6 million. It's become a business rather than a worship place."
Al-Alawi, who opposes the London mega-mosque, says disagreements within a mosque can cause some members to branch off and want their own new building that is unnecessary.
The mosques often don't fit in with neighborhoods or outnumber churches or other religious houses of worship, he says.
Share this story: Less..
Note: This item contains 3 connected files and 1 connected link (see top right)
Added: Sep 24 2009 In: news_politics
Recorded on: Sep 23 2009
By: smellvir 
- Views: 1075 |
- Votes: 2 |
- Recommendations: 0 |
- Comments: 51
Comments - sort by newest to oldest
send em packin back to the middle east where they belong
Posted Sep-24-2009 by "ml99vette" (R)
they are only there to settle,.. and to un settle you guys down the road,..
you must remember,.Islam does not reach it's state of peacefulness until the whole planet is practicing Islam,..
Posted Sep-24-2009 by "SharkGuy" (R)
hilter showed up to early and kiked out the wrong people
Posted Sep-24-2009 by "pooterscooter" (R)
AHH.......there you are Europe! We've been lookin all ove the World for you.(multiple "Giants" awakening Worldwide)
Welcome back.
Posted Sep-24-2009 by "nonconforme" (R)
Nice post . As if any one didn't know it wasn't a religion by now .....Death Cult !
Posted Sep-24-2009 by "monkeyboy61" (R)
Too little, too late
Posted Sep-24-2009 by "USA1" (B)
Bring that to my neighborhood and you can expect-- ah nvm it's a surprise.
**** liberals
Posted Sep-24-2009 by "Dr_Ho" (B)
hope they will build near your house and convert you and your entire family .
fake jew
Posted Sep-24-2009 by "Dr_Ho" (R)
I got it now ! They can call themselves " DC " , DEATH CULT...................COMING TO YOUR CAPITOL SOON !
Posted Sep-24-2009 by "monkeyboy61" (R)
Mosques never were welcome, they need to leave Islam in the country they came from or go back home
Posted Sep-24-2009 by "BOSS_DROVER" (R)
Thank heavens! Europe is finally getting it. It's all laid out in the Qur'an. Denial is a powerful thing.
Posted Sep-24-2009 by "SF_Talon" (R)
they bring their 3rd world culture and lifestyles to a civilized country, taking over businesses, then the towns where they reside turn shittier and cost of living decreases, then that town turns in a 3rd world town, then they move on to the next town, then finish off the country, until the whole world is all covered in shit!..kinda like what a virus does
it all makes sense now omg...they are invading the eu and us, and that's why we are in invading the middle east, wow, the more you know
Posted Sep-24-2009 by "wintermute7" (B)
hope they will build near your house and convert you and your entire family .
fake jew
same as fake christian .
Take that flag down stupid islamist. You're not fooling anybody
Posted Sep-24-2009 by "Dr_Ho" (B)
it all makes sense now omg...they are invading the eu and us, and that's why we are in invading the middle east, wow, the more you know
exactly because if they just waged physical war they would drop like flies. pussies
Posted Sep-24-2009 by "Dr_Ho" (R)
here we go....slowly the west is waking up and getting rid of the cancer ! assimilate or go back to the mideast. plain and simple. keep your culture thank you !
Posted Sep-24-2009 by "neo16"