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The Central Council of Muslims responded in unequivocal terms to a hard anti-Islam stance announced by the populist Alternative for Germany party over the weekend. “For the first time since Hitler’s Germany there is a party that once again is discrediting a whole religious community and threatening its existence,” Central Council of Muslims chairman Aiman Mazyek told public broadcaster NDR on Monday morning. He was responding to interviews with the AfD leadership published on Sunday that commit the party to a tough anti-Islam line. […] The party’s deputy chairman, Alexander Gauland, went further in comments to the FAS (Frankfurter Allgemeine...

As US President Barack Hussein Obama continues on his seemingly endless quest to appease Muslims, with instructions to NASA to ‘find a way’ to reach them, Iftar dinners at the White House and the US State Dept.’s sponsorship of Ground Zero Mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s forthcoming ’speaking tour’ of Muslim countries (without knowledge of what exactly he’ll be talking about); it emerges that that his administration is also planning to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on the restoration of dozens of Muslim sites around the world... Throughout his administration, Obama has been fervent in his support of Islam and...

In another step forward towards the Islamification of America, a Santa Clara Mosque has been given the OK to put up a sign of Islamic dominance, in a 64 Ft minaret. The Muslim Community Association runs the Mosque, and it sure would have been nice if the people of the community, would have taken the time to gather some back round information on them. From the MCA “constitution”… Whereas we, the Muslims of the San Francisco Bay area, recognize Islam as a total way of life and have pledged to endeavor practicing it as such, we do hereby adopt and...

Muammar Gaddafi has appealed for jihad against Switzerland, long regarded as one of the most peaceful nations in the world. The Libyan leader’s call for a holy war was, he said, a response to a Swiss referendum in November to ban the construction of minarets on mosques. It is the low point in a relationship that has been deteriorating since 2008 when Colonel Gaddafi’s son Hannibal was briefly detained in Geneva after allegedly beating his servants. “Any Muslim in any part of the world who works with Switzerland is an apostate, is against (the Prophet) Muhammad, God and the Koran,”...

Swiss react to peril of followers of 'Prophet' Date published: 1/3/2010 Swiss react to peril of followers of 'Prophet' Laila Lalami sees "the rebirth of fascism in Europe" in Switzerland's recent vote to restrict the building of minarets ["Silly bans will not curb the practice of Islam," Dec. 22]. Wherever we look in the world today, wherever there are any followers of "The Prophet"--whether in Spain or Sumatra or Somalia or Sweden--we find hatred, horror, death, and destruction. Perhaps that is why the not famously fascist Swiss want to discourage them from settling in the Alps. Jeffrey Garth Edmunds Spotsylvania...

To the dismay of all right-thinking people in Europe, the backward Swiss still cling to the old-fashioned custom of letting ordinary folk influence government policy. The fruits of such irresponsibility were made unpleasantly plain a couple of weeks ago when a majority voted in a referendum to ban the construction of more minarets in their country. Their objections had little to do with architecture. As Turkey ’s Islamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had helpfully explained to them: “The minarets are our bayonets, the domes our helmets, the mosques our barracks and the faithful our army.” Seeing most Swiss dislike...

Nicolas Sarkozy stoked the debate over immigration today with a warning to Muslims to practise their religion discreetly or face rejection by moderate Islam in France. The President voiced sympathy for Swiss voters who opted last week to ban minarets as he tried to reassert himself in a debate over national identity which he launched last month but that has since spiralled out of his control. Over the past week, Mr Sarkozy had appeared to retreat from his original comments following a backlash over the way that they were being used against immigrants, particularly Muslims. But in a column for...

What importance has the recent Swiss referendum to ban the building of minarets (spires next to mosques from which the call to prayer is issued)? Some may see the 57.5 to 42.5 percent decision endorsing a constitutional amendment as nearly meaningless. The political establishment being overwhelmingly opposed to the amendment, the ban will probably never go into effect. Only 53.4 percent of the electorate voted, so a mere 31 percent of the whole population endorses the ban. The ban does not address Islamist aspirations, much less Muslim terrorism. It has no impact on the practice of Islam. It prevents neither...

Mona Eltahawy doesn’t just blast the Swiss for their human-rights hypocrisy after voting to ban new construction of minarets over the weekend. The Muslim essayist also takes the occasion to blast Muslim critics of the referendum for their sudden hue and cry over human rights themselves. In today’s Washington Post, Eltahawy makes the most important point of all, which is the pointlessness of it all: My question for Switzerland and other European countries enthralled by the right wing: When did Saudi Arabia become your role model? Even before 57.5 percent of Swiss voters cast ballots on Sunday to ban the...

...Bosnia's head of the Islamic Community, Dr. Mustafa Ceric said he hoped Europe would restore its values, citing the recent Swiss ban on the construction minarets and the European Union's exclusion of three overwhelmingly-Muslim Balkan countries from a visa-free regime, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday....

75% support for the ban on minarets in London Daily News poll Londoners support the Swiss government’s decision to ban minarets and mosques according to a new poll in The London Daily News, further highlighting the "sensitivities" and concerns in the capital at the growing influence of Islam. Callers to London's leading early morning radio show, the Nick Ferrari programme on LBC, also expressed their concerns with one caller citing how "out of character" a minaret would be if built in London. London is the home to one of the largest number of mosques in the western world,apart from Turkey,...

GENEVA — The United Nations called Switzerland's ban on new minarets "clearly discriminatory" and deeply divisive, and the Swiss foreign minister acknowledged Tuesday the government was very concerned about how the vote would affect the country's image. U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay said Sunday's referendum to outlaw the construction of minarets in Switzerland was the product of "anti-foreigner scare-mongering." The criticism from Pillay, whose office is based in the Swiss city of Geneva, comes after an outcry from Muslim countries, Switzerland's European neighbors and human rights watchdogs since 57.5 percent of the Swiss population ratified the ban.

On one level, the vote to ban minarets in Switzerland is a triviality. The constitutional amendment does not ban mosques, it does not pull down the country’s four existing minarets, nor does touch the practice of Islam in Switzerland or bear on the many issues concerning Swiss Muslims. In all likelihood, the political establishment in Bern, which abominates the amendment, will find some way to overturn it. But on another level, the 57.5 to 42.5 percent vote represents a possible turning point for European Islam, one comparable to the Rushdie affair of 1989. That a large majority of those Swiss...

It's been criticized as an expression of prejudice at odds with European values of tolerance. But in a referendum on November 29, Swiss voters approved a ban on the building of minarets. And now populist parties in Denmark and the Netherlands say they want referendums, too. The calls came from two parties known for their tough stances on immigration. Geert Wilders, head of the Dutch Freedom Party, told the Dutch daily "Volkskrant" that his party "will call upon the government to make a similar referendum possible in the Netherlands." And in Denmark, Danish People's Party head Pia Kjaersgaard welcomed the...

The larger question, though, is whether a nation is any more than a geographic entity. If some Parisian Rip Van Winkle wakes up one distant morning and finds himself in a nation that speaks Arabic, where the people are Muslim, food is by law halal and the government follows Sharia law. Is that fellow still, in any meaningful sense, in France? Is it simple racism for, say, the Dutch to want their nation to stay Dutch -- not just in terms of geography -- in terms of language, food, religion, government, architecture and all the things that make up a...

GENEVA – Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on minarets on Sunday, barring construction of the iconic mosque towers in a surprise vote that put Switzerland at the forefront of a European backlash against a growing Muslim population. Muslim groups in Switzerland and abroad condemned the vote as biased and anti-Islamic. Business groups said the decision hurt Switzerland's international standing and could damage relations with Muslim nations and wealthy investors who bank, travel and shop there. "The Swiss have failed to give a clear signal for diversity, freedom of religion and human rights," said Omar Al-Rawi, integration representative of...

Swiss Voters Display Rare Crusader Spirit thelastcrusade.org 57 per cent of Swiss voters have said “enough is enough” to the Islamic takeover of their plot of the European landscape. In a vote that displeased the Swiss Government, fed up citizens approved a national ban on the construction of minarets. "The initiative would appear to have been accepted, there is a positive trend. It is a huge surprise," said Swiss television said after polls closed at midday. Ignoring Obama's Cairo declarations, the Swiss still prefer Lederhosen to burqas and turbans.

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Swiss media say that exit polls appear to show a 59% yes vote for banning the construction of new minarets on mosques. However a definitive result will be known later today. The populist Swiss People’s Party put forward the proposal – Switzerland has four mosques minarets with two more planned.

A right-wing campaign to outlaw minarets on mosques in a referendum being held in Switzerland today has received an unlikely boost from radical feminists arguing that the tower-like structures are “male power symbols” and reminders of Islam’s oppression of women. A “stop the minarets” campaign has provoked ferment in the land of Heidi, where women are more likely than men to vote for the ban after warnings from prominent feminists that Islam threatens their rights. Forget about tranquil Alpine scenery and cowbells: one of the most startling features of the referendum campaign has been a poster showing a menacing woman...