The Basque regional government in northern Spain is drafting a controversial new Law on Religious Institutions, which states that mosques and prayer rooms with a capacity of fewer than 300 people will no longer require the prior local government approval.
The draft law is generating considerable opposition from elected officials of all political stripes, who fear the new measure will encourage the proliferation of mosques throughout the Basque region.
The first mosque and cultural center for Finland’s Shi’ites was inaugurated in the capital Helsinki earlier this week.
Managers of Islamic centers from Sweden, Denmark and Norway, Muslim scholars including Hojat-ol-Islams Hakim Elahi, Khademi, and Razavi, Iranian ambassador to Finland Seyyed Rasoul Mousavi, head of Finnish prime minister’s office, and a number of cultural, religious and social personalities attended the inauguration ceremony of the center, which is named after Hazrat Fatemeh Zahra (SA).
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A leading French Muslim group says three mosques have been vandalized over the past week and is urging authorities to punish the perpetrators.
The French Council of the Muslim Faith, or CFCM, said racist insults and Nazi slogans were scrawled on a mosque in the southeastern town of Tarascon and another in the eastern city of Strasbourg on Tuesday and Wednesday. It said the mosque in the southern town of Draguignan was vandalized May 17.
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"There are too many of us," says Ulugbek, a young migrant from Uzbekistan. "We have to be grateful that there are mosques in Moscow. The city was not ready to host millions of us all of a sudden."
But others think that the authorities are ignoring the needs of the Muslim population.
Hasan Fakhritdinov, imam of what is known as the city's Historical Mosque, says that the existing facilities are just not enough.
"We are asking the authorities to let us build new mosques, but they are ignoring our demands," he says. "Now people have to pray outside in the rain or the snow."(source)
A man armed with a baseball bat has attacked worshippers at a mosque in France, killing one person and seriously wounding another, police say.
A suspect was detained after the incident in the northern city of Arras in Pas-de-Calais.
Police sources quoted by Reuters news agency say the man is a 32-year-old French national of Moroccan origin.(source)
A mosque near Brussels has been targeted in an arson attack in which the imam died.
A Muslim man was arrested in the attack on the mosque in Anderlecht, a suburb of Brussels, the Belgian capital, said Jean-Marc Meilleur, a spokesman for the Brussels Prosecutor's Office.
"It seemed that this person showed up and pulled out a knife and an axe, and that he spread flammable products - petrol, we assume - in order to start a fire and threaten the mosque occupants," Mr Meilleur said.
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Italy's Council of Imams and Islamic Leaders named its first woman to serve on the board of directors Wednesday.
The daughter of an imam, 35-year-old Nibras Breigheche is also in charge of the association's intercultural and interrelgious dialogue programs.(source)
Soldiers preparing to leave for Afghanistan visited a mosque to learn about Islamic life and customs. More than 50 soldiers from the 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh went to the Zakaria Mosque in Bolton, one of the largest in the region. The visit was requested by the Chester-based unit in January and hosted by Bolton Council of Mosques. (source)
The Mosquebusters, or the Law and Freedom Foundation as they're officially known, are part of a new wave of anti-Islamic campaigners in England with links to more established anti-immigrant groups such as England Is Ours and Stop Islamisation of Europe. Like many of these groups, the Mosquebusters fear that traditional British culture, laws, and values will disappear with the changing face of Britain and worry that extremist interpretations of sections of the Koran urge Muslims to kill non-believers and take slaves.
Until mid-February, the Mosquebusters advertised for volunteers, under a campaign called "No More Mosques," on the website of the ultra-nationalist English Defence League (EDL), a group that organizes anti-Islamic street marches that often decend into brawls, riots, and arrests. The EDL and other anti-Islamic groups have no problem convincing their members to parade in public yelling insults like "Muslim bombers off our streets!" and "Allah is a pedophile!," but the Mosquebusters have a quieter, perhaps more insidious approach: In offices and city halls, they are crafting legal cases against mosque construction applications across the country. It's a war against Islam, but one that often resembles a bureaucratic turf battle more than a clash of civilizations.
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The Turkish Muslim community in the city of Volklingen celebrated the completion of the first minaret in the federal state of Saarland last week. (source)
Four people including a judge were convicted Thursday of defrauding investors, including the Iraqi government and top Italian bank Unicredit, in a mosque that was announced but never built in the Tuscan city of Massa Carrara.
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After mapping the city's Muslim community needs, the city of Milan has decided not to approve a grand mosque. Instead, the city will approve and recognize about a dozen existing small 'garage' mosques as neighborhood mosques.
The French postal service will mark the 90th anniversary of the Paris Grand Mosque with a new stamp. The stamp will be launched Saturday with a ceremony at the Grand Mosque. A temporary post office will be set up at the mosque to sell the first day of issue stamps.
