Month: February 2023

INVESTIGATION. Nicolas Daragon allegedly approved a Muslim college project out of patronage, only to back down under media pressure.

At first glance, this is a sadly banal story, a mixture of clientelism and guilty credulity towards Islamists. A mayor sells a plot of land to an association close to the Muslim Brotherhood so that it can build a private high school there directly opposite the mosque.

The local council even goes so far as to amend the local zoning plan on June 27, 2022, specifically for the association, in order to make the plot in question buildable. The weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo reveals the full extent of the building project in an article published on July 21, 2022. The town is called Valence, in the department of Drôme, and the association Valeurs et réussite.

Faced with the protests, the city council, in a pathetic climbdown on October 3, 2022, takes a new decision and annuls the decision of June 27. However, this is not enough to settle the dispute. On 23 January 2023, the Journal du dimanche quoted from an intelligence note describing a councillor “under the influence of radical Islam”.

(…)

We do a poll every year,” says an anonymous deputy mayor. Nicolas is re-elected in every possible alliance. He doesn’t need votes. If he had to find some, courting Islamists in Valence would be a very bad calculation. For every hypothetical voter we gain in the Muslim community, we would lose two or three in the Armenian community.”

Between 10% and 12% of Valence’s residents have Armenian roots. The town hosts a French-Armenian school and an Armenian heritage centre. The pastry shop closest to the town hall is Lebanese-Armenian. Not to forget, several MPs of Armenian descent are in the city’s parliamentary majority.

(…)

Here in Valence, too, nothing is that simple. The local ecosystem of Muslim associations seems oversized compared to the size of the metropolitan area. Valeurs et réussite (Values and success) is only one part of it. L’Ouverture, La Plume, D’Clic Valence and the Collectif pour la connaissance de l’islam are active in the cultural field.

Amana organises funerals with burial in Muslim lands. Mawaddat is the local Muslim marriage bureau. Touche d’espoir and Jeunesse active et solidaire are active in the humanitarian field. The Collectif des mamans indignés 26 takes care of pro-headscarf propaganda. Paroles communes takes care of inter-religious dialogue. The Conseil français des citoyens (formerly Cojep Valence) spreads Turkish propaganda. For a city with 62,400 inhabitants, that’s quite a lot.

To speak of a network is not an exaggeration, because the same personalities can be found in different organigrams. The one who is chairman here is secretary there and vice versa. By no means all of them are fundamentalists, but the openness of the whole thing towards radical Islam is striking.

(…)

“Fontbarlette-Le Plan is something like the heart of the dispute between the prefect and Nicolas Daragon,” summarises a social worker. She follows a logic of republican appropriation of the neighbourhood. The mayor, on the other hand, demands police officers to keep order, not more. He has given up on integration. He no longer believes in it. The mosque is becoming inevitable, La Plume and L’Ouverture are already doing after-school care and cultural animation, but it doesn’t matter, it’s just Lle Plan and Fontbarlette… Do they want a collège now too? I think that’s the least of the current majority’s worries.” (…) Le Point

https://www.fdesouche.com/2023/02/21/valence-26-une-note-du-renseignement-territorial-souligne-linfluence-des-freres-musulmans-sur-le-conseil-municipal-a-majorite-lr/

French clothing manufacturer offers ‘anti-knife neck guards’ and other safeguards against beheading https://t.co/SvnavMQSKO pic.twitter.com/uWudROv7vC

— Robert Spencer روبرت سبنسر रॉबर्ट स्पेंसर 🇺🇸 (@jihadwatchRS) February 21, 2023

A Maulvi in Jharkhand’s Garhwa district has been accused of sexually assaulting as many as six minor children who went to his madarsa to study. The incident came to the fore on Sunday, February 19, when the family of one of the victims filed a complaint against the cleric with the Jharkhand police. The accused, identified as Samruddin, is a West Bengal native who has been absconding since his crime has been exposed.

According to reports, the incident occurred in the Koindi hamlet, which falls within the Nagaruntari police station limits in Garhwa, Jharkhand. For many years, Maulvi Samruddin was teaching in a madarsa called Darul Uloom Samsia located in the village. As many as 50 students attend the madarsa to learn Islamic religious texts from the Maulvi. 

Samruddin allegedly invited children to his room and then sexually assaulted them under the guise of getting a massage from them. On February 19, he summoned three young children to his room. He ordered two of them to stand guard outside the room. After locking his room from the inside, he asked the third child to give him a massage. While the child was doing so, Samruddin began misbehaving with him.

The child resisted and told his family about his ordeal. When the child’s family members came to the madarsa with a complaint, the cleric reportedly gathered several of his supporters. It is alleged that the Maulvi, along with these people, assaulted the family members.

The victim’s relatives further alleged that another cleric of the same madarsa named Ashraf tried to cover up the incident, but his attempts failed as someone informed the police about the matter. Police soon reached the spot and recorded the statements of the students, based on which a case was registered against the cleric.

According to reports, the cleric has, so far, victimized around half a dozen students of the madarsa.

Meanwhile, the cleric fled after the complaint was filed against him. Speaking on the matter, SDPO Pramod Kumar stated that efforts are being made to apprehend Samruddin.

https://www.opindia.com/2023/02/jharkhand-mauklvi-madarsa-six-students-sexual-assault/

UK Security Minister Tom Tugendhat has confirmed testimony from a French Jewish journalist that Iran has been “mapping” Jewish diaspora communities to be attacked by kill squads, stating that the Iranian regime has gathered intelligence on British Jews and targeted them for assassination.

Speaking to parliament about the threat Iran poses to British journalists critical of the regime, he also said: “Between 2020 and 2022, Iran tried to collect intelligence on UK-based Israeli and Jewish individuals… We believe this information was a preparation for future lethal operations.”

He also said: “We know that the Iranian intelligence services work with organized criminal gangs, and I can assure the house and the public that we will go after anyone working with them.”

Journalist Catherine Perez-Shakdam told the Jewish Chronicle last week that she was present during a high-level meeting in Tehran in which a plot was discussed that would involve Iranian kill teams positioned in Jewish communities activated in the event of a war between Israel and Iran, so that “the diaspora would have a very nasty surprise.”

Perez-Shakdam, who is a Middle East analyst at the Henry Jackson Society think tank, received the info through a senior contact, the late Nader Talebzadeh, a man she referred to as “Iran’s Dr. Goebbels,” during a meeting he organized in Iran about a plan to “to identify all the prominent NGOs run by Jews, who was doing what in each business sector, the important rabbis. They wanted to figure out their influence and where they lived with their families in order to target them.”

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/367783

A 23-year-old Afghan national who beat to death the president of a pro-migrant activist organization in his own home has avoided prison time after being declared mentally incapacitated due to his diagnosed “paranoid psychosis.”

Killer Amir Hussein Najafi, who was 21 at the time of the offense, beat 63-year-old Jean Dussine repeatedly with an iron bar at his home in Cherbourg, northwestern France, on May 12, 2020.

Mr. Dussine was a retired teacher and had been serving as president of migrant assistance group Itinérance. He had been hosting the Afghan national at the time of his death.

Najafi had been in pre-trial detention following his arrest on suspicion of murder. Despite initially making allegations of rape against his victim and claiming Mr. Dussine had attempted to steal €4,000 from him, he later confessed the murder to French authorities.

Despite being detained in prison ahead of sentencing, a psychiatric examination of Najafi concluded the attacker had been subjected to an episode of “paranoid psychosis” when he committed the offense, resulting in the “abolition of his discernment” during the attack.

As such, questions were raised as to how appropriate it was for Najafi to receive a custodial sentence for the attack, and experts suggested his mental incapacity meant he would be best placed being admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

French prosecutors agreed during a hearing before the investigating chamber of the Caen Court of Appeal on Jan. 24 during which Najafi, now 23 years of age, could be seen bobbing his head back and forth and refusing to raise his head. “In France, we don’t judge mad people,” confirmed Bruno Albisetti, the advocate general representing the prosecution.

On Monday, the Caen Court of Appeal formally found the defendant irresponsible for the murder of Mr. Dussine due to mental incapacity, explaining their decision followed the advice of three psychiatric experts who had examined Najafi in prison.

As such, the 23-year-old will now reside in a psychiatric hospital until such a time as he is deemed safe to be released. The court also followed the attorney general’s request for Najafi to be the subject of a 20-year ban from stepping foot into the French region of Manche. He is also prohibited from possessing a weapon.

https://rmx.news/crime/afghan-killer-of-pro-migrant-association-president-spared-jail-due-to-mental-incapacity/

A pamphlet titled “How To Talk To Zionists” that encourages activists to “call out teachers, lecturers or co-workers” who are pro-Israel and “campaign for them to be fired” has been posted on the Brixton Palestine Solidarity Campaign group’s Instagram page.

The inflammatory “step by step guide” includes that claim “Zionists Need To Be Called Out” and repeats the Enough Is Enough mantra, previously used to great effect by Jewish campaigners protesting against antisemitism in Labour.

The on-line material also features the provocative instruction; “Is Your co-worker a Zionist? Your teacher/lecturer a Zionist? Campaign for them to be fired. Zionism justifies the genocide of Palestinians. Do not tolerate it. Enough Is Enough.”

In response, the Jewish Leadership Council’s Claudia Mendoza tweeted that the PSC were a “hate group.”

In a 10 page guide, activists are warned not to engage in conversation with supporters of Zionism who it suggests are a “racist minority.”

“Talking to Zionists is a waste of time,” it adds. “Instead focus on informing those who know little or nothing.”

The following page advises “Zionists are extremists – do not engage in conversation with extremists.”

It is then suggested “no logical, sane or moral person is a Zionist”. Elsewhere it is claimed “Zionists have no valid arguments” and calls for activists to campaign to have their Israeli ambassadors expelled.

Actor and comedian Marlon Solomon was among those to condemn the PSC pamphlet, tweeting:”At the last count, 93% of British Jews say Israel is part of their identity – within which there is a spectrum of opinion on Israel.

“But that is the rough percentage of British Jews who would be impacted by a campaign to root out, humiliate and punish unspecified ‘Zionists.’”

He added:”Without question, if this was an actual thing people tried to do, it would lead very quickly to pogroms on British soil.”

Jewish News has contacted the PSC for comment.

https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/pro-palestine-group-publish-inflammatory-pamphlet-urging-activists-to-get-zionists-fired/

Incidents of vandalism and arson of Christian churches have spiked in recent weeks in Germany and France, a Vienna-based watchdog group reports.

Three churches were torched in Paris over the course of just one week, from January 17-26, revealed the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDACE) in a report Monday.

Unknown perpetrators threw Molotov cocktails at the church of Saint Martin des Champs and then at the church of Saint-Laurent in the 10th district. The church of Notre-Dame-de-Fatima in the 19th arrondissement was the victim of two separate arson attacks, one on January 17 and the second on January 22.

According to one source, the door of the church building of Notre-Dame-de-Fatima was sprayed with a flammable liquid and then ignited using newspapers.

Following the attacks, the Parisian judicial police opened an investigation into “religiously motivated voluntary damage by means of incendiary devices.”

While Emmanuel Grégoire, first deputy mayor of Paris, has promised increased prevention and surveillance measures near places of worship, so far nothing has succeeded in reducing the number of attacks.

The week prior to these incidents, the Saint-Louis Roi church in Champagne-au-Mont-d’Or (Rhône) was the victim of very significant damage as a vandal destroyed a crucifix, stations of the cross and a painting in the choir, damaged the church’s nativity scene, broke two stained glass windows, and tossed to the ground candles, books, and sacred vessels.

“Because of their violence and their target, these constitute what the Church calls a profanation, that is to say the intent to attack the sanctity of the place,” declared the local bishop, Olivier de Germay.

Meanwhile, in Germany a vandal desecrated the historical Baroque Church of the Cross in Wissen on February 10 causing damage estimated in the millions of euros, OIDACE noted.

The police have apprehended the 39-year-old alleged perpetrator of the crime, who reportedly smashed open the back door of the church with stones, demolished religious symbols, and set fire to the 17th-century high altar, which was completely destroyed. Wall and ceiling paintings, restored only last year, also were destroyed by the flames.

According to parish priest Father Martin Kürten, the church will remain closed at least for the rest of 2023 as damages are assessed and repairs begin.

Local mayor Berno Neuhoff said that the attack left people “stunned, sad, and shocked,” but pointed to an “impressive spontaneous sign of solidarity, prayer and gesture of forgiveness” following the incident.

https://www.breitbart.com/faith/2023/02/21/report-church-vandalism-spree-strikes-germany-and-france/