A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in France and Belgium: March 2017

by Soeren Kern • April 18, 2017 at 5:00 am

Yussuf K. said he carried out the January 2016 attack "in the name of Allah and the Islamic State." He added that he chose his victim because "he was Jewish."
A confidential police report revealed that more than 50 organizations in Molenbeek, a migrant-dominated neighborhood of Brussels, Belgium, are believed to have ties to jihadist terrorism.
An Ipsos poll for France Television and Radio France found that 61% of the French believe that Islam is incompatible with French society.

Up to a thousand Muslims prayed on the streets of Clichy, a suburb of Paris, on March 31, to protest the closure of a local mosque; its lease had expired. (Image source: LDC News video screenshot)

March 2. In a landmark trial at the Paris Children's Court, a 17-year-old Turkish jihadist, identified only as Yussuf K., was sentenced to seven years in prison for attacking Benjamin Amsellem, a Jewish teacher in Marseille, with a machete. Yussuf K. said he carried out the January 2016 attack "in the name of Allah and the Islamic State." He added that he chose his victim because "he was Jewish." Yussuf K. was charged with "an individual terrorist attempt and attempted assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise," with the aggravating circumstance of anti-Semitism. He was tried as a minor because he was 15 when he carried out the attack. The criminal trial of a minor on terror charges was the first of its kind in France, where some fifty children are currently being investigated for jihadist offenses.

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Turks Vote to Give Away Their Democracy

by Burak Bekdil • April 18, 2017 at 4:00 am

Alarmingly, Turkey's proposed system lacks the safety mechanisms of checks and balances that exist in other countries such as the United States.
It would transfer powers traditionally held by parliament to the presidency, thereby rendering the parliament merely a ceremonial, advisory body.
"The conditions for a free and fair plebiscite on proposed constitutional reforms simply do not hold," said a report released by the EU Turkey Civic Commission.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claims victory in the April 16 referendum, at a rally the night of the vote. (Image source: VOA video screenshot)

In a bitter irony, nearly 55 million Turks went to the ballot box on April 16 to exercise their basic democratic right to vote. But they voted in favor of giving away their democracy. The system for which they voted looks more like a Middle Eastern sultanate than democracy in the West.

According to unofficial results of the referendum, 51.4% of the Turks voted in favor of constitutional amendments that will give their authoritarian Islamist president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, excessive powers to augment his one-man rule in comfort.

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