US Government Promoting Islam in Czech Republic

 by Soeren Kern
April 14, 2014 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4262/islam-czech-republic

Critics say the project's underlying objective is to convert non-Muslim children to Islam by bringing proselytizing messages into public schools under the guise of promoting multiculturalism and fighting "Islamophobia."
The group recently ran an advertisement promising to pay 250 Czech korunas ($13 dollars) to any student aged 15 to 18 years who would attend a two hour presentation about Islam.
More recently, Muslims in the Czech Republic have tried to ban a book they say is Islamophobic, and have filed a ten-page criminal complaint against its formerly-Muslim author.

The Czech government has approved a new project aimed at promoting Islam in public elementary and secondary schools across the country.

The project—Muslims in the Eyes of Czech Schoolchildren—is being spearheaded by a Muslim advocacy group and is being financed by American taxpayers through a grant from the US Embassy in Prague. (The US State Department is also promoting Islam in other European countries.)

The group says the Czech Ministry of Education has authorized it to organize lectures and seminars aimed at "teaching Czech schoolchildren about Islamic beliefs and practices" and at "fighting stereotypes and prejudices about Muslims."

But critics—there are many—say the project's underlying objective is to convert non-Muslim children to Islam by bringing proselytizing messages into public schools under the guise of promoting multiculturalism and fighting "Islamophobia."

Image source: Website of "Muslims in the Eyes of Czech Schoolchildren".

The group's website says the first phase of the project involves "analyzing the accuracy of the information about Islam in Czech textbooks on history, geography and social sciences, and mapping the level of teaching about Islam in Czech grammar schools and other secondary schools."

The second phase of the project involves the implementation of a three-level program that will "acquaint both pupils and teachers with Islam and Muslims" and help them to develop better "critical reception skills" when analyzing supposedly Islamophobic information.

According to the group's website:

"The first level acquaints the reader with the history of Islam, the basic religious concepts of tradition and contemporary issues such as family [Sharia] law, the veiling of women and Islamophobia."
"The second level offers a deeper look at the issues and puts more emphasis on the involvement of the pupils.… Pupils will be divided into three groups within which they will study any of the following topics: the veiling of women, media coverage of Islam and Muslims in the Czech Republic. Each group will be led by an experienced tutor, who will acquaint students with the problems by means of prepared materials and subsequent debate."
"The third level provides schools with artistically oriented projects or discussions with Muslims and professionals dealing with Islam. Artistic activities would involve making a film or taking photographs focused on a day in the life of a Muslim or art workshops and competitions focused on the possibility of integrating Muslims into Czech society."

The group also organizes thematic lectures, workshops and debates for schools or groups of students, many of which are held at the Municipal Library in Prague—and which are more openly geared toward converting Czech youth to Islam.

One such lecture entitled "Paths of Young Czech Women to Islam" answers questions such as: What makes a young Czech woman want to become a Muslim? It is the main motive always falling in love with a Muslim man or are there other reasons? How does one convert to Islam? How can new Muslims cope with non-Muslim relatives?

Another lecture entitled "Koran, Sunna and the Internet: Where to Do Muslims Get Their Information?" answers questions such as: Where can one get information about the Muslim faith? Is the Koran the only source of information about Islam or are there other sources? Where can one find information that is not mentioned directly in the Koran? The lecture is supplemented by providing students with hands-on opportunities to work with various Islamic texts, including the Koran and the Hadiths [sayings of the Prophet Mohammed].

Students wanting to participate in the lectures but lacking previous knowledge of Islam are advised to attend a 15-minute introductory course that "represents the characteristics of Islam and advocates it in the context of Christianity and Judaism." The lectures are "suitable for children from about the age of 15, although it is possible to customize the program for younger pupils."

A statement on the group's website justifies the project this way:

"The Muslim community in the Czech Republic is small, but it raises strong emotions. Issues relating to Muslims or Islam appear almost daily in television news, newspapers and Internet debates. But the topic is discussed only marginally in regular school lessons. This condition leads to acceptance and subsequent consolidation of prejudices and stereotypes that are supported by latent Islamophobia. We would like this project to contribute to improving the situation. We provide information about Islam that is factually accurate. Students will also have the opportunity to meet with Muslims and get to know them before forming an opinion of them."

One of the co-founders of the project, a Czech-Palestinian named Sadi Shanaah, was quoted by the Prague Postas saying, "School lessons do not pay sufficient attention to Islam. Pupils want to learn more about it."

But the group recently ran an advertisement promising to pay 250 Czech korunas ($13 dollars) to any student aged 15 to 18 years who would agree to attend a two-hour presentation about Islam.

The ad—which indicates that the American embassy in Prague was financing the April 2 event—states: "Event will take place at a school in New Butovice (7 minutes' walk from the metro station). You get a brief introduction to Islam through which you can learn more about the veiling of Muslim women, media coverage and Muslims in the Czech Republic. Then you will have the opportunity to meet with Amirah, a Malaysian Muslim who is studying medicine in Prague, and to ask her everything you want about Islam or Muslim life in the Czech Republic."

The Czech Republic is home to a small but rapidly growing Muslim population. Although reliable figures do not exist, it is estimated that the number of Muslims in the country now exceeds 10,000 (some say the figure is closer to 5,000, while others say it exceeds 15,000), up from 3,699 in the 2001 census, and 495 in the 1991 census.

Using 10,000 as the baseline figure, the Muslim population currently comprises around 0.1% of the total Czech population of 10.4 million. This percentage is far lower than most European countries, but the rate of increase is nearly 2,000% since 1991, and 170% since 2001.

Most Muslims in the Czech Republic are immigrants from Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria and Turkey. But a study produced for the Czech Interior Ministry in 2007 (it estimated there were a total of 11,235 Muslims in the country in 2005) found that there were also a large number of Czech converts to Islam.

It is estimated that at least 2,000 Czechs have converted to Islam since the end of Communist rule in 1989. Many are women who have married Muslims, but just as many are young males who are "looking to Islam in their search for spirituality," according to Radio Free Europe.

The Interior Ministry report says the majority of Muslims in the Czech Republic are well educated and economically successful. "Muslims who belong to the core of the community are often university-educated people. Among them are doctors, architects, teachers, economists, businessmen and others," the report says.

On the other hand, as the Muslim population grows, so do tensions with the population at large.

In November 2013, two Muslim women threatened to file an anti-discrimination lawsuit against a nursing school in Prague after they were asked to remove their hijab head covering in class.

"The principal summoned me and told me: 'If you want to be in the school, you must not wear the scarf.' I said this was against my religion as I am a Muslim," Nasra, one of the women, told Czech Television.

The school defended itself, saying that although Czech law does not regulate the wearing of headgear, the school's dress code bans the practice. The school also said the women, one from Somalia aged 23, and another from Afghanistan aged 25, disagreed with the compulsory physical education and the conditions of compulsory practice.

More recently, Muslims in the Czech Republic have tried to ban a book about Islam they say is Islamophobic.

The book, Islam and Islamism, was written by Lukas Lhot'an, a former Muslim who is now an apostate from Islam. Released in 2011, the book describes how some Muslims are abusing the ideology of multiculturalism to infiltrate Czech schools.

Lhot'an, who spent 12 years among Muslims in Brno, the second-largest city in the Czech Republic, says Muslim institutions in the country are now headed by Islamists who dominate the entire Islamic community. He accuses Muslim extremists of giving lectures aimed at recruiting converts and new jihad fighters, and alleges that Czech mosques are being controlled by Saudi Arabia.

The Islamic Center of Prague has filed a ten-page criminal complaint against Lhot'an, accusing him of promoting hatred, while the head of the Muslim community in Brno, Muneeb Hassan Alrawi has this to say about Lhot'an: "He is a hyperactive idiot, but also an unhappy man. He makes his living from doing harm. The police investigation will only provide publicity to him. He desires nothing but this."

But others say the objective of the criminal complaint is obvious: Its aim to prevent Lhot'an from disseminating his view of Islam. According to Týden, the book describes extremist tendencies inside the Czech Muslim community and tries to highlight their contempt for democracy and women's rights and their justification of suicide bombers.

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4262/islam-czech-republic

Island Of Safety Becomes A Death Trap

Between 10,000 and 40,000 ethnic Yazidis are trapped in the Sinjar Mountains after fleeing attacks by fighters from the Islamic State (IS). The 4,400-foot-high Sinjar range is venerated by the Yazidis. They believe it to be the place where Noah’s ark settled after the biblical flood. The Sinjar Mountains are a barren ridge — four miles wide, 25 miles long and devoid of plant life, water or shade. Read related story.

Sources: UNOCHA, Google Earth. Loveday Morris and Richard Johnson/The Washington Post. Published on August 8, 2014, 10:12 p.m

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/island-of-safety-becomes-a-death-trap/2014/08/08/fdf548a0-1f69-11e4-ae54-0cfe1f974f8a_graphic.html

Holy War Arrives In Germany

by Soeren Kern
August 10, 2014 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4590/germany-jihad

"Anyone who thought the civil war in Syria or the barbarity of the Islamic State in Iraq does not affect us, you are wrong." — Editorial, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
"IS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas and Boko Haram—these four groups are the linchpins of the attempt to bomb an unstoppable modernity back into the Middle Ages." — Editorial,Westfalen-Blatt.
"The religions of the world are increasingly being misused for ideological struggles and excesses of violence between people of different faiths. Religions are never violent per se, but the market criers of violence are using them to promote their own interests." — Editorial, Neue Westfälische.

Supporters of the jihadist group "Islamic State" [IS] have clashed with Kurdish Yazidis in North Rhine-Westphalia, the state with the largest Muslim population in Germany.

The violence—which comes amid threats by a German jihadist to blow up an American nuclear weapons storage facility in Germany—has counter-terrorism officials concerned that radical Muslims are deliberately exploiting the ethnic and religious tensions in the Middle East to stir up trouble on the streets of Europe.

Police say the Muslim-Yazidi clash was triggered after six Islamists stormed a restaurant in the eastern Westphalian town of Herford at around 4 pm on August 7. The Muslims were attempting forcibly to remove a poster inviting people to join a demonstration in support of the Yazidis in Iraq.

Thousands of Yazidis, an ethnic Kurdish non-Muslim minority, were forced to flee their homes in northern Iraq in early August to escape advancing Islamic State fighters, who are forcing the Yazidis to convert to Islam or be killed.

The 30-year-old owner of the restaurant in Herford and two others, all Yazidis, were injured in the brawl, which police say was fought with knives and bottles.

Several hours after the restaurant attack, between 300 and 500 Yazidis gathered in the Herford town center, where they clashed with a large group of hooded Salafists.

More than 100 police reinforcements from across eastern Westphalia were called in to restore order. Police, who used pepper spray to disperse the two groups, confiscated makeshift weapons and one firearm, and questioned 86 people.

In the final tally, police arrested six individuals involved in the attack on the Yazidi restaurant: Five ethnic Chechen Salafists and one German convert to Islam. According to German media, two of the individuals are leading Salafist operatives who were already being monitored by German intelligence.

A German intelligence official was quoted as saying that one of the Chechens is a trained fighter who participated in guerrilla warfare against Russian troops and who is considered to be "highly dangerous."

German authorities have long warned of the threat posed by Salafism, a radically anti-Western ideology that seeks to impose Islamic sharia law in Germany and other parts of Europe.

Membership in Islamic extremist groups in Germany rose to 43,185 in 2013, up from 42,550 in 2012, according to German intelligence estimates. The number of Salafists in Germany rose to 5,500 in 2013, up from 4,500 in 2012, and 3,800 in 2011.

Although Salafists make up only a fraction of the estimated 4.3 million Muslims in Germany, authorities are increasingly concerned that most of those attracted to Salafi ideology are impressionable young Muslims who are susceptible to perpetrating terrorist acts in the name of Islam.

North Rhine-Westphalia is home to the largest concentration (about 1,500) of Salafists in Germany. The region is also home to most of the estimated 60,000 Yazidis who live in Germany.

The area around Herford has long been a magnet for Salafists, and mosques in the town are known to convert young people to Salafism. "Even the operator of a fitness center is suspected of wanting to inspire young Germans, under the guise of sports, for Salafism," an intelligence official was quoted as saying.

More than a dozen men from the Herford area have joined IS in Syria and Iraq, and at least one, a 22-year-old German convert to Islam, is known to have been killed in the fighting.

On August 7, a German jihadist from the Westphalian city of Essen, who is believed to be fighting in Syria,threatened to bomb the American nuclear weapons storage facility situated near the city of Koblenz. The 27-year-old convert to Islam, who is known as Silvio K., also threatened to attack churches, government agencies and transport networks across Germany.

The German known as Silvio K., shown here in a jihadist recruitment video, last week threatened to bomb an American nuclear weapons storage facility located in Germany.

A German Interior Ministry spokesperson said that although "the threat is abstract, it may become real at any time." He said it proves that Germany "is still the focus of jihadist terrorism," especially from jihadists returning from Syria with combat experience and contacts to jihadist groups.

German commentators have reacted to the events in Herford with a sense of foreboding, with some saying that the war in Syria and Iraq has now arrived on Germany's doorstep.

In an editorial entitled, "The Madness Reaches Eastern Westphalia," the newspaper Westfalen-Blatt states:

"The Yazidis deserve our sympathy and support as do any other oppressed people in the world. The call for participation in a demonstration against genocide, which triggered the events in Herford, is perfectly legitimate in a democracy. It is to be hoped that many German flags will be flown at the rally to protest the misuse of religion for political purposes. Hopefully Herford is not the beginning of an escalation that could reach further levels of violence over the next few days….
"And this is frightening: Never before have the sympathizers of Islamic terror appeared so openly in Germany. These are the circles in which European fighters are recruited for jihad. This is also the milieu in which the Salafist ultra-radicals develop when they are back in Europe again. Therefore, police and secret service are required to monitor the scene closely.
"And no, we did not know that Chechen Muslims are such vehement supporters of the IS-terrorists in Iraq. The Chechens in the southern Russian Caucasus are themselves victims of repression and human rights violations.
"IS, Al-Qaeda, Hamas and Boko Haram—these four groups are the linchpins of the attempt to bomb an unstoppable modernity back into the Middle Ages. The means to this end are Sharia, hatred and glorification of a supposedly "holy" war—what madness!"

The newspaper Neue Westfälische stated:

"When—if as now in Herford—the Kurdish Yazidi religious community and the radicalized Islamist ideology of the Salafists collide, then a city in eastern Westphalia is in danger of going up in flames.
"The conflict between the Yazidis and Salafists has arrived at our front door because it is part of a global conflict. The religions of the world are increasingly being misused for ideological struggles and excesses of violence between people of different faiths. Religions are never violent per se, but the agents of violence are using them to promote their own interests.
"We should not be surprised by the tumult of Wednesday, as German intelligence has long warned that Herford is a center of Salafism. The Islamists, among them Russian Chechens, who have nothing to lose and are mainly driven by poverty and hopelessness, are in our midst. And the citizens react in disbelief and resignation... a silent horror."

In an editorial entitled, "No Battleground for Radicals," the newspaper Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"Herford is not Mosul and North Rhine-Westphalia is not Iraq. Germany must not become an arena for clashes that take place beyond our borders, but that nevertheless are close to home, just because many people from the different ethnic groups involved live permanently among us.
"The clashes in eastern Westphalia are a warning that radical tendencies are directed not only against 'infidels,' but also against the entire Western liberal democratic order. There are indications that the attack on a Yazidi restaurant in Herford by supporters of the Islamic State was specifically planned. Perhaps it was to serve as a blueprint for a wave of hate attacks that may soon occur elsewhere. Islamic jihadists are ready for anything. This was already proved by the attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels, with four victims."

In another editorial entitled, "Looking the Other Way Will No Longer Work," the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitungsummed it up this way:

"Anyone who thought the civil war in Syria or the barbarity of the Islamic State in Iraq does not affect us, you are now wrong. No matter how far away Qaraqosh [Iraq's largest Christian city] and Sinjar [home to the Yazidis in Iraq] may be: What happens there also affects us here in Germany. Sympathizers of the Islamic State have attacked the Yazidi in Herford, which means that Qaraqosh, Sinjar and Herford are now inseparable.
"For far too long, Germany's political leaders, and especially the leaders of German Muslim organizations, have sat by and idly watched the proliferation of the Salafist-jihadist hatred culture, in the purported belief that it poses no danger. It is absolutely outrageous that local politicians have played down the risk of Islamism, while the capabilities of the security authorities are increasingly being overstretched by the need to deal with this threat.
"Muslim organizations should hang their heads in shame. Rather than bluntly stating that the barbarians in northern Iraq are 'not Muslims,' they whistle away to say that Islam is 'only peace.' In the future, this kind of obfuscation will no longer suffice, especially if German Muslims, who are subject to the German legal system, wish to avoid being held accountable for the killings in the name of Islam.
"The Islamic State under its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may not last very long; but the propaganda from his jihad certainly will survive him. This is because the seeds of hatred that 'Caliph' Baghdadi has sown are far more toxic than those of Osama Bin Laden. For disaffected youth, the Islamic State exerts great appeal, and not only in Herford."

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebookand on Twitter.