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Ankara Seeks Influence through Turks Living Abroad

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From Spiegel Online. By Anna Reimann and Katrin Elger

Leaders of Turkish descent across Europe recently received an invitation to a fancy event in Istanbul, all expenses paid. But what sounded innocent enough appears to have been an attempt by Ankara to get members of the Turkish diaspora to represent Turkish interests abroad. Turkish-German politicians have reacted angrily to the brazen lobbying.

The invitation that numerous Turkish-German politicians received in February sounded enticing: Lunch in a five-star hotel in Istanbul, travel expenses included. The session was titled: “Wherever One of Our Compatriots Is, We Are There Too.”

Around 1,500 people of Turkish descent from several European countries accepted the tempting offer. Among the speakers at the event, which took place at the end of February, were businesspeople, NGO representatives and a member of the Belgian parliament of Turkish descent. But the meeting, which has sparked outrage among Turkish-German politicians, was more than a harmless gathering of the Turkish diaspora.

The event was organized by the Turkish government, which is led by the conservative-religious Justice and Development (AKP) party, in an attempt to send a clear message to the participants that they should represent Turkey in other countries. Turks living abroad should take the citizenship of their new home country — not, however, with the intention of becoming an integrated part of that society, but so they can become politically active, said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who spoke at the event. Erdogan also compared Islamophobia with anti-Semitism in his speech and said that countries which oppose dual citizenship are violating people’s fundamental rights. (Germany, for example, generally does not allow its citizens to hold dual nationality.) Continue Reading →

Muslims seeking female clerk can ‘line up again’

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From the National Post. By Graeme Hamilton.

In recent years, the few fully veiled Muslim women who had dealings with Quebec’s health-insurance board could choose to be served by a woman to avoid exposing their faces to a man outside their family.

But in the latest example of the province’s growing resistance to the accommodation of minority religious practices, the insurance board on Tuesday announced the end of the policy after the provincial human rights commission said it has no duty to acquiesce.

“From now on, for a woman who is veiled with a niqab or a burka and comes to our office asking to be photographed by a woman, the answer is no,” said Marc Lortie, spokesman for the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec. “Line up again, or come back another day.” Continue Reading →

What About The Arab Apartheid?

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From Hudson New York. By Khaled Abu Toameh.

How come the Lebanese students who recently talked about Israel’s “war crimes” in the Gaza Strip during Israel Apartheid Week on many North American college campuses had nothing to say about the fact that tens of thousands of Palestinians have been massacred in Lebanon over the past four decades?

Dozens of refugees were killed and hundreds wounded in the three-month offensive that also destroyed thousands of houses inside the refugee camp. Reporters said it was the worst internal violence in Lebanon since the civil war that hit the country between 1975-1990. And just three years ago, the Lebanese Army used heavy artillery to bomb the Nahr-al-Bared refugee camp in north Lebanon.

Yet who has ever heard of a United Nations resolution condemning Syria or Lebanon for committing horrific atrocities or discriminating against the Palestinians? Continue Reading →

Iraqi women on the margins of the election

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From Foreign Policy. By Zainab Salbi, founder and CEO of Women for Women International.

Another political event takes place in Iraq without much mention of women. And in the rare occasion that women are mentioned, it is often with the token spirit about how wonderful it is that they now have 25 percent of political seats in the Iraqi parliament.

The fact that most women were comfortable in using their images and names in public billboards for their nominations reflects some comfort with women’s mobility in the public space in Iraq. Pictures of women in billboards were diverse-from artistic pictures of women without headscarves, to pictures of women covered head to toe, to even a picture of a woman with her entire face covered.  The lack of vandalism on these billboards shows the more accepting attitude of this election.  The fact that there is now an all-female political party, founded by Jenan Mubarak in her own name, also says a lot about a level of comfort in the country, despite the inconsistent security-or rather the more consistent insecurity-of Iraq. Continue Reading →

Wives of Guantanamo Inmates — the Opera

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From The Southbank Centre

Waiting – A play by Victoria Brittain

Date: March 12th and 13th. Time: 7.45pm
Venue: Purcell Room
Southbank Centre (near Waterloo station)

“Five women speak and sing their stories in their own words, stories of the unseen fallout of the war on terror. These are stories of real women from cultures as varied as Senegal, Jordan, Palestine and the English Midlands. They mostly came to the UK as refugees, or married refugees, but after 9/11 the world they loved here vanished overnight. One after another they were engulfed by private terror.”

“After each performance, Victoria Brittain chairs a debate discussing the issues raised during the evening. The panels include Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, Gareth Peirce, Manjinder Virk, Riz Ahmed, Salma Yacob, Vanessa Redgrave and Moazzam Begg.”

Conservative MP calls for burkas to be banned in Britain

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From The Telegraph

Philip Hollobone, Conservative MP for Kettering, told the Commons: ”This is Britain. We are not a Muslim country.

”Covering your face in public is strange, and to many people both intimidating and offensive.

”I seriously think that a ban on wearing the burka in public should be considered.”

His call came in a debate on International Women’s Day and follows previous comments by the MP that wearing a burka was like ”going round with a paper bag over your head”. Continue Reading →

UK Muslim Leader’s Death Threat Calls Over Dress

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From The Express, by Ted Jeory

A SECULAR Muslim woman councillor has been forced to dress more conservatively after receiving death threats and sexually harassing phone calls from members of her own community.

Shiria Khatun, 38, has called in the police over the sinister calls in which threats were made not only against her, but also her four young children.

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In one they warned they would dig up parents’ graves and bury her there instead.

The Labour councillor in the controversial borough of Tower Hamlets—named in a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary last week as a centre of Islamic fundamentalism—is considered one of the area’s most progressive politicians.

She was elected in 2006, worked for Ken Livingstone as a transport adviser at London’s City Hall and frequently campaigns for more Muslim women to enter politics.

However, over the past year she has been the victim of a “sick” harassment campaign.

She has been bombarded with anonymous calls and even followed home. Continue Reading →

UK Conservative MP calls for Inquiry into “Islamophobia”

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The British Conservative party has become increasingly concerned about “Islamophobia.” Party leader David Cameron has even said that he wants to see “British Muslim all across government, in positions of leadership and authority.” (See my article here.) Conservative MP PAul Goodman is now calling for a parliamentary inquiry into “Islamophobia.” He cites neo-Nazis, UKIP, and the EDL as proof of “Islamophobia,” but suggests that “If the Jamaat e Islami [which has alleged terrorist links] or the Muslim Brotherhood [which gave birth to Hamas and al-Qaeada among others] wanted to make representations [at such an inquiry], they should be allowed to do so.” Why?

From Conservative Home. By Paul Goodman MP.

I have in front of me as I write a meticulously-compiled document from the Community Security Trust – its “Antisemitic Incidents Report 2009”.

The report details such incidents, breaks them down into different types, and reports trends within those categories. There’s an active All-Party Group on Anti-Semitism in Parliament. The Government has an inter-departmental working group to combat the prejudice. Ministers can be held to account in relation to it during an annual Parliamentary debate.

There are no comparable figures for incidents relating to Islamophobia or the hatred of Muslims. (The Continue Reading →

Elections, Islamist Infiltration, and the Politicians’ Blind Eye

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From The Brussels Journal

David Cameron has made it clear that the Conservative party, of which he is the head, has changed. Win or lose the upcoming election, there is no going back. The Tory “dinosaurs” are out. The party is now “progressive,” “bold” and “radical” – a party of “ideas.”

Yet, its ideas were mostly thought up by Tony Blair’s New Labour party. Issues of importance are off the table:

– In his Spring conference speech on Feb. 28, Cameron failed to mention uncontrolled immigration even though the island nation (smaller then the state of Oregon) is on track to hit 70 million by 2030.

– There was no mention of the damage done to society by political correctness. Continue Reading →