Remnant News Watch

Italian Political Party Wants to Halt

 Construction of Mosques


Mark Alessio
REMNANT COLUMNIST, New York


Italy's Northern League, allies of center-right Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, want to “limit the growth of Islam in the center of world Catholicism by blocking the construction of mosques through strict new regulations,” reports Stephen Brown of Reuters (Sept. 16, 2008):

If the anti-immigrant Northern League pushes its bill through parliament – where Berlusconi's coalition has a strong majority – Italy will soon have a new law effectively blocking the construction of new mosques in much of the country. Fearing the advent of "Eurabia", the League has used its control of Berlusconi's interior ministry since helping him to power to push through tough new laws against illegal immigrants.

Citing statistics indicating that permission to construct a mosque or Muslim prayer facility somewhere in Italy is granted every four days, Northern League parliamentarian Andrea Gibelli remarked, "I consider this to be an unfettered colonisation of our culture.” He noted that mosques "are often places of cultural indoctrination, sometimes linked to international terrorism."
The bill proposed by the Northern League would: (1) ban mosques from being built within one kilometer of a church, (2) oblige imams to speak Italian, (3) link the size of the mosque to the number of the congregation, (4) forbid muezzins from using loudspeakers to call the faithful to prayer, (4) ban minarets, and (5) give the final word to local residents via a referendum. Stephen Brown writes:

At present requests for mosques to be built are being blocked in Venice, Bologna, Trento and Treviso, among others. In Trento, the League has collected 15,000 signatures and in Treviso it has called young local Muslims "extremists, pure and simple".


Comment:
On July 21, 2007, Italian police raided a mosque in Perugia and discovered therein a terrorist training camp. According to the Associated Press, the group operating in this mosque “held courses on hand-to-hand combat and used propaganda films and documents downloaded from the Internet to teach how to prepare poisons and explosives, pilot a Boeing 747 and send encrypted messages.”

According to the police, the Perugia cell was in contact with the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group, whose members were in Belgium in 2005. After the Perugia raid, Sheikh Abdul Adid Palazzi, the director of the Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community, told the BBC News: “It is the top of the iceberg in our country – like in the rest of Western Europe. Most mosques are controlled by extremist pro-terror organisations – 90% of mosques. And I think the percentage is more or less the same in Italy, Britain, France and Germany." Ninety percent of mosques are controlled by extremist pro-terror organisations. The percentage is more or less the same in Italy, Britain, France and Germany.

 If this is not a sobering thought, and the yardstick by which to measure the Northern League’s proposals, than what is? Does the figure sound unreasonably high? Consider the evidence that pours in regularly:

-
On September 7, 2007, The Times, UK reported that “almost half of Britain’s mosques are under the control of a hard-line Islamic sect whose leading preacher loathes Western values and has called on Muslims to ‘shed blood’ for Allah.” This preacher is Riyadh ul Haq, who supports armed jihad and preaches hatred for Jews, Christians and Hindus. His sect now runs more than 600 of Britain’s 1,350 mosques, according to British police.

- In his May 31, 2007 article, “Radical Islam Comes to Full Bloom in Southern Virginia,” Dr. Paul L. Williams (author of The Day of Islam) describes his visit to “a jihad training compound” for African-American converts to Islam located near the small town of Red House in Charlotte County, Virginia. This compound features an underground bunker, obstacle courses and a firing range. Members of the compound, who call themselves “soldiers of Allah” and “Mohammad’s commandos,” have been sent to Pakistan and Afghanistan for specialized training in guerilla warfare, while twenty-four members of the compound have been arrested for trafficking in illegal firearms, including the ammunition for AK-47s. Similar Islamic compounds have been constructed in neighboring areas. Prince George County boasts a 25 acre facility, while Campbell County boasts a compound larger than 100 acres.

- In his article on “Rampant Islamization” (published in the August 28, 2008 edition of Die Welt), German journalist Udo Ulfkotte laments the fact that, throughout Europe, newly constructed mosques bear the names of the greatest opponents of Christianity in the history of Islam. As an example, he cites the Sultan Fatih mosque in Ingelheim-am-Rhein, Germany, named in honor of Turkish Sultan Mohammed II (nicknamed Fatih, “the Conqueror”), who invaded Constantinople in 1453, decapitating and pillorying all the Christians of the city.

Such random examples could not, in a thousand years, do justice to the gravity of the situation. In 2004, delegates from across the globe met in Sweden to discuss the practice of “honor killings,” the murder of young Islamic woman by family members for the crime of bringing “shame” upon the family. At the time, the United Nations estimated that “honor killings” claimed the lives of 5,000 women per year. In Denmark, Muslims, who make up 4 % of the population, commit the majority of rapes, with practically all the victims being non-Muslim women (Daniel Pipes, The Threatening Reality of Islam in Denmark). According to Lifesite News (Sept. 17, 2008):

The Times said this weekend that the [British] government had officially accepted the existence of sharia law courts to officiate in Muslim civil cases. The rulings of a network of five sharia courts, in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester with the network's headquarters in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, are now enforceable "with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court."

The “tolerance” mania embedded in the tattered remnants of “Christendom,” coupled with a skewed view of democracy which has made of it a golden calf, incapable of being retooled as a mechanism for self-preservation, have helped forge a new “fifth column” throughout the West.  Men stand by dumbly as their ancient laws are mocked, as their women are brutalized, as enemy combatants gather and train on their soil, as threats against their nation are voiced freely and boastfully. What manner of “men” are these?

In his article, “Jihad from Europe” (Journal of International Security Affairs – September 27, 2005), Lorenzo Vidino writes:

That process began some twenty years ago, when hundreds of Islamic fundamentalists began to establish a presence in Europe, capitalizing on generous asylum policies that allowed them to escape persecution in their native countries in North Africa and the Middle East. Contrary to the naïve hopes of European governments, however, these radicals did not abandon their extremist rhetoric or subversive activities in their new homes. Rather, they exploited newfound liberties to further an increasingly ambitious agenda, directed first at overthrowing secular governments in the Islamic world and, gradually, at "infidel" European societies and governments as well. In the years that followed, these radical cadres played a key role in ideologically influencing large segments of Europe's burgeoning Muslim population. The mosques and networks established by them went on to radicalize thousands of immigrant or European-born Muslims.

Future generations will ask why today’s leaders stood by blathering about “tolerance” as their lands were invaded en masse by hostile entities. They will wonder why steps were not taken to ensure their security while there was still time. It is in this light – and not the garish glow of today’s “politics” – that the proposals of Italy’s Northern League must be judged.

As for the “moderate” Muslims? They can best help their own cause by rising up as a body and not only condemning Islamic terrorism, but rooting out the perpetrators in their midst.

 

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