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- Soeren Kern: German Cartoon Riots: Clubs, Bottles and Stones
- Anna Mahjar-Barducci: Tunisian Universities Under Islamist Siege
German Cartoon Riots: Clubs, Bottles and Stones
by Soeren Kern
May 8, 2012 at 5:00 am
May 8, 2012 at 5:00 am
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Rather than
cracking down on the Muslim extremists, however, the German authorities have
sought to silence the peaceful critics of multicultural policies that allow the
Salafists openly to preach violence and hate.
In an explosion of violence that reflects the
growing assertiveness of Salafists in Germany, on May 5th more than
500 radical Muslims attacked German police with bottles clubs, stones and other
weapons in the city of Bonn, to protest cartoons they said were
"offensive."
Rather than cracking down on the Muslim
extremists, however, German authorities have sought to silence the peaceful
critics of multicultural policies that allow the Salafists -- who say they are
committed to imposing Islamic Sharia law throughout Europe -- openly to preach
violence and hate.
The clashes erupted when around 30 supporters
of a conservative political party, PRO NRW,
which is opposed to the further spread of Islam in Germany, participated in a
campaign rally ahead of regional elections in the western state of North
Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). Some of those participating in the rally, which was
held near the Saudi-run King Fahd Academy
in the Mehlem district of Bonn, the former capital of West Germany, had been
waving banners depicting the Islamic Prophet Mohammad (see photo here),
to protest the Islamization of Germany.
The rally swiftly disintegrated into violence
(photos here
and here)
when hundreds of angry Salafists, who are opposed to any depiction of their
prophet, began attacking the police, whose job it was to keep the two groups
apart.
In the final tally of the melee, 29 police
officers were injured, two with serious stab wounds, and more than 100
Salafists were arrested, although most were later released. A 25-year-old
German protester of Turkish origin, suspected of having stabbed the two police
officers, remained in custody on suspicion of attempted homicide.
According to Bonn's police chief, Ursula
Brohl-Sowa, "This was an explosion of violence such as we have not
witnessed in a long time."
Germany's intelligence and security agencies
say they are closely monitoring the Salafists, who are increasingly viewed as
posing a threat to German security.
Salafism, a branch of radical Islam practiced
in Saudi Arabia, seeks to establish an Islamic empire (Caliphate) across the
Middle East, North Africa, Europe -- and eventually the entire world. The
Caliphate would be governed exclusively by Islamic Sharia law, which would
apply both to Muslims and to non-Muslims. Salafists also believe, among other
disconcerting doctrines, that democracies -- governments made by men as opposed
to theirs, which was made by the almighty -- legitimately deserve to be
destroyed.
According to German Interior Minister Hans-Peter
Friedrich, "Salafism is currently the most dynamic Islamist movement
in Germany as well as internationally. Its fanatic followers represent a
particular danger for Germany's security. The Salafists provide the ideological
foundation for those who then turn violent."
The interior minister of the German state of
Lower Saxony, Uwe
Schünemann, said, "The violence of the Salafists in Bonn has once
again shown what is behind the mask of supposed religiosity: nothing but brute
force." He also said that the violence was "a direct challenge to
liberal democracy as a whole."
The interior minister of Bavaria, Joachim
Hermann, said that: "We cannot tolerate violent retribution and
revenge. We apply the rule of law, not Islamic vigilante justice." He
added that Salafists should be "brought to justice and severely
punished," and that "We have to monitor the Salafist scene even more.
And we have to be more diligent in cracking down on hate and violence. We
cannot allow that terrorists and violent criminals are free to operate under
our noses. We need to take action against Salafism and its intolerant, fanatical
ideology with all legal means."
Despite these and many other pronouncements,
Salafists still have free reign in Germany: Salafist preachers are known
regularly to preach hatred against the West in the mosques and prayer centers
that are proliferating across the country.
In recent weeks, Salafists have been engaged in
an unprecedented nationwide campaign to distribute 25 million copies
of the Koran, translated into the German language, with the goal of placing
one Koran in every home in Germany, free of charge.
The mass proselytization campaign -- called Project
"READ!" -- is being organized by dozens of Islamic Salafist
groups located in cities and towns throughout Germany, as well as in Austria
and Switzerland.
According to the German newspaper Die
Welt, the Salafists have launched a "frontal assault" against
people of other faiths and "unbelievers." Die Welt has
reported that German authorities view the Koran project, which fundamentalists
are using a recruiting tool, as a "most worrisome" campaign for
radical Islam. Security analysts say the campaign is also a public-relations
gimmick intended to persuade Germans that the Salafists are transparent and
"citizen friendly."
A spokesperson for the Berlin branch of
Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz
(BfV) told Die
Welt that "the objective of this campaign is to help bring those
who are interested into contact with the Salafist scene to influence them in
the context of extremist political ideologies."
In response to Project "READ!"
PRO-NRW launched a cartoon contest under the motto "Freedom Instead of Islam." The
contest, which ended on April 25, generated dozens of submissions. The winning entry was
a cartoon depicting a Christian church surrounded by six minarets (Muslim
prayer towers) with the caption: "I think the church in Germany has
integrated itself very well." Some of the other submissions can be found
at a German free-speech website called Politically
Incorrect.
As Muslims have said they feel offended, and as
Europe prides itself on being multicultural, left wing politicians have
converted the "Freedom Instead of Islam" cartoon contest into protest
against free speech. After releasing all but two of the Salafists responsible
for the brawl on May 5th, the Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Ralf
Jäger, cast blame on the democratic -- and peaceful -- PRO NRW. He ordered
police to prevent PRO NRW from displaying anti-Islam any more cartoons during
the final phase of the state's regional election campaign, to be held on May
13th.
Jäger, who is a member of the center-left
Social Democrats, characterized PRO NRW as a "far- right extremist
group" and said the group's cartoons had been a "deliberate
provocation" that had triggered the attacks by the Salafists.
The guardians of German multiculturalism, enabled
by the German mainstream media, invariably label PRO NRW "far-right"
– presumably to dismiss its views rather than examine them. Ironically, most of
the PRO NRW group's members, including its senior leadership, hail from the
center-right Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and could never -- even with the
most extreme exertion -- ever be considered extremists.
PRO NRW's members have, in all likelihood, just
been frustrated by the refusal of the mainstream center-right parties to push
back against the steady Islamization of Germany; they describe themselves as a
citizen's movement (Bürgerbewegung), possibly akin to the Tea Party movement in
the United States. The group's members say they love their country and are
upset about the direction in which politicians are taking it.
On May 6th, administrative courts in the towns
of Arnsberg and Minden ruled that Jäger's ban on PRO NRW freedom of speech was
unconstitutional, and authorized the group to continue its campaign activities.
PRO NRW, in a statement, declared that the
favorable court decisions were "predictable, because the law and our
Constitution have not changed overnight. The only amazing thing is that an
Interior Minister who has sworn to uphold the Constitution keeps enacting
unlawful decrees."
PRO NRW also reminded politicians that they
have "the responsibility to provide the police with sufficient human,
financial and material resources" for them to do their job. Spokesmen for
the organization said, "It is unacceptable that, as was the case in Bonn,
too few police officers were exposed to an aggressive mob. Where were the water
cannons or the dogs? Unfortunately, 29 police injured officers have paid a
bitter price. They have our sincere sympathy. To Mr. Jäger and other
responsible politicians, we have only one thing to say: Resign
immediately."
Free speech lives on in Germany… for now, at
least.
Soeren
Kern is Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo
de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.
Related Topics: Germany
| Soeren
Kern
Tunisian Universities Under Islamist Siege
by Anna
Mahjar-Barducci
May 8, 2012 at 4:00 am
May 8, 2012 at 4:00 am
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The
university has not received any support from government officials; the
Salafists seem to have met with no negative consequences from their occupation
of administrative offices.
Tunisian Universities are being threatened by
Salafist activists. Since late November 2011, the Faculty of Letters, Arts, and
Humanities at the University of Manouba, north of Tunis, has been attacked by a
group of Salafist students, demanding the creation of a prayer room, and
demanding that women wear the niqab (full-face veil), and attend only
segregated classes, In early December, Salafists held hostage the department's
dean, Habib Kazdaghli, but he courageously refused to fulfill to their demands.
Liberal and secular professors and students staged peaceful sit-ins to protest
against the Salafists and the Islamist-led government's "double
standards" in refusing to do anything to stop the Salafists. As reported
by Ahram Online, until now, the university has not received any support from
government officials; the Salafists continue to have met with no negative
consequences from their occupation of administrative offices.
The professors of the Manouba have now written
a petition, in the hope that the international community will put pressure on
the Tunisian government, which prefers to turn a blind eye and let the Islamist
take over the educational institutions of the country. The following is the
English translation of the circulating petition, sponsored by Dean Habib
Kazdaghli.
Call for the setting up of a Committee for
the defense of academic values, institutional autonomy and support to the
Faculty of Letters, Arts and Humanities of Manouba (FLAHM)
Since the beginning of the academic year
2011-2012, "Salafist" students supported by activists and militants
and encouraged by organized Islamist parties, have attacked several university
institutions, either to impose the niqab (full-face Islamic veil) in classes
and during exams, or to show their disapproval concerning the dress code (which
is judged disrespectful) of a female teacher, or even to challenge the programs
set up by departments and scientific boards. Incidents have taken place at the
Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences of the city of Sousse, the Higher School
of Commerce of Manouba [in the capital Tunis], the Institute of Arts and Crafts
of the city of Kairouan, the Higher Institute of Theology of Tunis, and the
Higher Institute of Languages in Tunis, as well as in other academic
institutions.
However, it is the Faculty of Letters, Arts and
Humanities of Manouba which has become the main target of this [Salafist] small
group. These [Salafist] activists have scorned existing internal regulations in
force in all academic institutions which, essentially for pedagogic purposes,
ban the wearing of the niqab within university premises, and particularly in
classes, during exams and supervisions. They have tried to impose their law by
force, terrorizing their fellow-students; sequestrating the Dean by preventing
him from entering his office; using physical and verbal violence against
teachers, administrative and working staff, and issuing death threats against
the dean and the teachers. Similar acts, albeit less serious, and which did not
benefit from the same media coverage, were recorded in other academic
establishments, creating anxiety among teachers, students and their unions.
Targeting FLAHM through a relentless and harassment unprecedented in the
history of the Tunisian university, this group has managed to interrupt classes
on several occasions, and at times even prevented students from taking mock
exams. The dean's office has been ransacked and his physical integrity was
threatened after a large chunk of concrete which could have struck him, was
hurled into his office breaking a window pane. In spite of these continued
harassments, FLAHM's teachers, scientific board, Dean, union, students and
administration stoically resisted these aggressions in order to salvage the academic
year.
The banning of students wearing the niqab in
classes during exams is the result of the implementation of a tacit dress code
in force in all schools and academic institutions. It was confirmed at the
local scale by FLAHMS' scientific board; nationwide by all university
presidents; by all academic institutions which have implemented the decisions
of their scientific boards, and particularly by the deans of all faculties of
letters and human sciences, and by the Deans of the four faculties of medicine,
who distinguished themselves by addressing press communiqués about this. It was
also endorsed by the Administrative Tribunal. However, the ministers of the
interior and higher education [belonging to the ruling Islamist Ennahda party],
instead of taking up the defense of the teachers and the dean and praising them
for their determination to enforce the law, and instead of going along with the
decision of the Administrative Tribunal which the minister of higher education
himself consulted on the subject of the niqab, have preferred to blame the
"FLAHM affair" on the Dean, handing him over to the vindictiveness of
the Salafists.
The [Tunisian Islamist-led] government has also
used the principle of the autonomy of universities and non-intervention on campuses
as pretexts to eschew its duties as dictated by common sense, and enshrined in
Tunisian law and UNESCO's recommendations: to ensure the security of students,
teachers, and administrative and working personnel. Yet, neither at the Manouba
University, nor elsewhere, was the government asked to repress peaceful
demonstrations, but to dissuade intruders from disrupting academic activities
and violating the law and particularly article 116 of the penal code by virtue
of which "Whoever exercises or threatens to exercise violence on a public
agent to force him/her to perform or not to perform an act pertaining to his
duties," commits an offense which can be punished by up to three years'
imprisonment. The conniving attitude of the authorities has increased Salafist
violence, which reached its peak on March 7, during which we witnessed the
profanation of the Tunisian flag and injuries brought to five students.
Encouraged by the laxness of the ministers of
the interior and higher education and free to unleash all their violence, these
Salafists can go even further; and it is not precluded that the Tunisian
university witnesses other victims at FLAHM and elsewhere. The deans of the
faculties of letters did mention in a communiqué released in early March that
their institutions were threatened by a lost academic year.
The Dean of the FLAHM, whose institution was
chosen by the Salafists to test the capacity for resistance of higher education
institutions in the violation of their rights, has been seeing to it, along with
the scientific board, the teachers, and the local union, that the university is
preserved, along with knowledge, academic freedoms, the dignity of students and
teachers, including their physical integrity. A partisan hierarchy is trying
today to give the illusion that [the Dean] is isolated with a view to bring
teachers and students into line.
- Aware that "the Salafists" are
jeopardizing academic values, the principles of institutional autonomy,
academic freedoms and that they aim at confiscating the scientific and
pedagogical prerogatives of higher education institutions.
- Aware that the Faculty of Letters, Arts and
Humanities of la Manouba is targeted with regard to the pioneering role it has
always played in safeguarding academic values, institutional autonomy and
academic freedoms, as well as in fostering tolerance, critical thinking and the
renewal of research.
- Aware that the struggle FLAHM is leading is
also that of the whole university, and that of a whole society which has rid
itself of a dictatorship and does not want it to return to it.
- Tunisian academics and researchers,
intellectuals, artists, members of civil society and other signatories to this
petition.
- Declare their readiness to take any legal
action capable of ensuring the primacy of the rule of law in institutions of
higher education, to defend all academic institutions against any attempt likely
to jeopardize knowledge, academic values, the physical integrity of its
leaders, its teaching staff, its students and all of its personnel, in tight
collaboration with all components of civil society.
- Commit themselves in particular, to support
FLAHM, its Dean, its personnel and its scientific and union bodies which are
particularly targeted.
- Call for the setting up of a defense
Committee for university values, institutional autonomy, academic freedoms and
support for FLAHM.
- Request of all Tunisian academics,
researchers, artists and members of civil society to answer this call by
joining the Committee and by mobilizing themselves to help achieve the
objectives of the Tunisian university to which their founding fathers and their
peers have always adhere, and which it has always sought to pursue.
Related Topics: Tunisia
| Anna
Mahjar-Barducci
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