(AP) Greek authorities rescued 40 migrants from a sinking dinghy in the Aegean Sea on Wednesday and charged two of them with causing a shipwreck and endangering lives for allegedly scuttling the flimsy vessel as a coast guard boat approached. A coast […]
(Sky News) British Muslims are having their bank accounts closed “without adequate transparency and recourse,” representatives have claimed. The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said individuals and organisations in the community were being “disproportionately affected by this issue” — leaving the group […]
(KUNA) The European Union Tuesday said it is in contact with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and is ready to collaborate with the Jeddah-based 57-member Islamic body on the issue of the repeated desecration of the Quran in Europe. “We have […]
(AFP) Sweden’s government said Tuesday it intended to “intensify” border controls due to a worsened security situation in the wake of several protests involving desecrations of the Koran. Tensions have flared between Sweden and Muslim countries following several protests involving public desecrations […]
(Balkan Insight) Serbian police deployed 820 officers on Tuesday in a large-scale operation targeting people-smugglers in the area near the border with EU member state Hungary. Police detained 13 people suspected of criminal activities, while 27 will be charged with misdemeanours. Officers […]
(Reuters) Irregular immigration into the European Union rose a tenth in the first half of 2023 compared to a year ago, the bloc’s border agency said on Monday, with Mediterranean routes accounting for most of the arrivals. Frontex reported 132,370 attempts to […]
(Reuters) More Koran burnings took place in Sweden and Denmark on Monday as the governments of the two Nordic countries said they were examining ways to legally limit such acts in a bid to de-escalate growing tensions with several Muslim countries. Denmark […]
(Euronews) Two men set fire to a copy of the Quran on Monday in front of the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm, in a rally similar to previous events that provoked a diplomatic crisis between Sweden and the Muslim world. Smiling wryly, Salwan […]
(Local) The Iraqi activist Salwan Najem has applied for a permit to hold a Quran-burning protest outside Sweden’s parliament on Monday. Najem, a 48-year-old man, accompanied the activist Salwan Momika during the Quran-burning protests Momika carried out outside a Stockholm mosque and […]
(AP) Denmark’s foreign minister said Sunday the government will seek to make it illegal to desecrate the Quran or other religious holy books in front of foreign embassies in the Nordic country. Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said in an interview with […]
(Reuters) Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Sunday urged Sweden to take concrete steps to prevent burnings of the Koran, a Turkish foreign ministry source said. Sweden and Denmark have seen several protests in recent weeks where copies of the Koran have […]
(Reuters) Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Saturday urged Denmark to take urgent action to prevent burnings of the Koran, a Turkish foreign ministry source said. In a phone call with his Danish counterpart Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Fidan condemned the “continuous vile […]
(Brussels Times) The greatest threat of terrorism continues to come from individuals inspired by Islamist extremism, often referred to as jihadism ideology. However, violence from right-wing extremists can also not be ruled out. Last year, there were 215 threat reports related to […]
(Reuters) The Swedish migration agency said late on Friday it is re-examining the residency permit of an Iraqi refugee who is behind several Koran desecrations in Stockholm in recent weeks, which have upset Muslims across the world. The man burnt a copy […]
(BBC) A woman has pleaded guilty to disseminating terrorist materials relating to conflict with the United States and the 9/11 attacks. Roma Iqbal, 23, admitted distributing two publications on 10 December 2021. Prosecutors accepted her plea of not guilty to providing terrorist […]
(AP) Sweden’s prime minister said Thursday that police have received several permit applications for the burning of religious texts in the country next week, and that he fears this may escalate tensions further with the Muslim world. In his first public comments […]
(BBC) A draft law drawn up after campaigning by the mother of a Manchester Arena bombing victim would be ineffective, a report has said. Known as Martyn’s Law, the legislation would mean UK venues and local authorities must draw up preventative plans […]
(AFP) Sweden’s government on Thursday ordered 15 government agencies to strengthen the country’s ability to prevent terrorism, in response to a worsened security situation following protests involving desecration of the Koran. Tensions have flared between Sweden and several Middle Eastern nations after […]
(Arab News) A British-Egyptian man accused of fighting for Daesh has been found dead in prison. Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, 32, was on trial in Madrid charged with numerous terrorist offenses and online fraud in order to raise money for the group. He […]
(Local) Sweden’s opposition has called for the chair of the parliament’s foreign policy committee to resign after he called the Prophet Mohammed a “warlord, mass-murderer, slave trader and bandit” in a tweet. Richard Jomshof, whose strong views on Islam made him a […]
(ITV) The jury in the trial of a man charged with manslaughter after four people died whilst attempting to cross the English Channel in a small migrant boat has been discharged. Ibrahima Bah, of no fixed address, was charged with four counts […]
(Reuters) Sweden is the target of a disinformation campaign by “Russia-backed actors” intended to hurt the image of the NATO-candidate country by implying it supported recent burnings of the Koran, its minister for civil defence said on Wednesday. Sweden’s bid to join […]
(Politico) Bitter infighting on Wednesday derailed EU ambassadors’ attempts to finish off the last plank of the EU’s flagship migration reform. As a result, officials will have to break for the summer without completing work on the overall package, which would reshape […]
(AP) Sweden’s security situation has deteriorated after recent Quran burnings in the country and protests in the Muslim world, both of which have negatively impacted the Nordic nation’s image, its domestic security service said Wednesday. The Swedish Security Service said the burning […]
(Euronews) Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, has spoken up against “any form of incitement to religious hatred and intolerance.” In a short statement released on Wednesday morning, Borrell expressed his unambiguous condemnation of the recent incidents in Sweden and Denmark […]
(Algemeiner) More than one-quarter of Muslims residing in Germany believe that “wealthy Jews are the real rulers of the world,” far higher than the national average, according to a new survey published on Tuesday by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. While 26 percent […]
(Politico) A group of far-right protesters set fire to copies of the Quran in Copenhagen on Tuesday in front of the Egyptian and Turkish embassies in an anti-Islam demonstration, following a string of Quran burnings in Denmark and Sweden in the past […]
(AFP) A Brussels court on Tuesday convicted French citizen Salah Abdeslam and Belgian-Moroccan Mohamed Abrini for 2016 jihadist bombings in the Belgian capital that killed 32 people, after the country’s largest-ever criminal trial. The high-profile pair — already sentenced to life in […]
(Brussels Times) After 19 days of deliberations (the longest deliberation ever at an Assize trial in Belgium), the jury will publicly announce its verdict at the trial on the March 2016 Brussels terror attacks at 16:30 on Tuesday. In early July, the […]
(Local) Sweden’s Social Democrat opposition has demanded the government call an emergency parliamentary meeting over the ongoing Quran-burning protests. “We are calling for the foreign policy committee to be called to an extra meeting as soon as possible as a result of […]
(European Conservative) Approximately 200 Muslim protestors gathered outside the European Parliament Wednesday, July 19th, as Islamic groups in Brussels rallied against the controversial burning of the Quran in Sweden. Shouts of “Allahu Akbar” were heard right outside the Parliament as an almost […]
(Sky News) The “turmoil” at the top of the Tories has led to “slow” progress in tackling Islamophobia within the party, an independent reviewer has said. Boris Johnson launched an inquiry into discrimination within its ranks after the last election in 2019. […]
(BBC) Radical preacher Anjem Choudary has appeared in court accused of directing banned group Al-Muhajiroun. The 56-year-old Islamist from east London has also been charged with addressing meetings to encourage support for the organisation. Another man, Khaled Hussein, 28, was charged on […]
(Local) Police in Sweden have received yet another application to hold a Quran-burning protest, with the event this time to be held outside the Iranian embassy in Stockholm. The request has come from a 31-year-old man, who intends to set fire [to] […]
(AP) Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni on Sunday called for new, more equal relationships between Europe and migrants’ countries of origin and transit as she convened a summit of some 20 nations, EU officials and international organizations aimed at stanching flows of illegal […]
(AFP) Italy has invited Mediterranean countries to Rome on Sunday for an “international conference” aimed at extending an EU-backed deal with Tunisia to curb the arrival of migrants to European shores. Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is expecting leaders from the […]
(Arab News) The UK’s domestic intelligence agency thwarted a plot by an Islamist extremist to attack a music festival attended by about 90,000 people every year, Mail Online reported. In 2022, a tipoff led [MI5] officers to arrest a 15-year-old boy suspected […]
(AFP) As riots raged around France earlier this month, infrastructure for next year’s Paris Olympics risked becoming engulfed in the violence, adding a fresh worry for organisers who face a head-spinning list of security challenges one year before the Games start. Surveillance […]
(Dutch News) An MP for the Dutch free-market liberal party VVD has said that the time is right to potentially link up with Geert Wilders’s far-right PVV in a new cabinet. Ruben Brekelmans said in an interview with EW magazine that the party still […]
(AP) Croatian police have detained nine people suspected of smuggling migrants into the European Union country from neighboring Serbia, a police statement said on Friday. The suspects joined forces with unidentified persons in Serbia to organize illegal entry over the Danube River […]
(Anadolu) Members of an Islamophobic group in Denmark burned a copy of the Holy Quran on Friday. The ultranationalist group called Danske Patrioter burned the holy book in front of Iraq’s Embassy in Copenhagen. They also carried a banner with insulting slogans […]
(Anadolu) Belgium’s top court has issued a decision opening the way for Muslim imams in the country’s Flemish region to get salaries from abroad and similar arrangements. In October 2021, a decree was issued in the Flemish region prohibiting direct or indirect […]
(Reuters) There is limited political will in Sweden to ban Koran burnings that have upset large parts of the Muslim world and it would be complicated to do even if there were backing for such a move, experts and politicians said on […]
(Local) Italy is known for having some of Europe’s stricter rules on covering up in public, with regular reports of outrage over nudity and revealing swimwear. But on Wednesday, one politician from the nationalist League party in northern Italy sparked controversy by […]
(AFP) In less than a month, Sweden-based Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika has twice stoked international outrage by desecrating the Koran at Stockholm protests. Despite his previous low profile, his past has been far from a quiet affair. In late June, the 37-year-old […]
(Arab News) The UK lacks the resources to monitor 120 convicted terrorists and people deemed “terrorist risk offenders” due to be released across the year to March 2024, according to a report issued by the country’s inspectorates of prisons, the police and […]
(AP) A recent string of public desecrations of the Quran by a handful of anti-Islam activists in Sweden has sparked an angry reaction in Muslim countries and raised questions — including in Sweden — about why such acts are allowed. In the […]
(Local) A man stomped on a copy of the Quran but did not actually set fire to it at a protest in Stockholm, despite having pledged to do so. Here’s what happened — and what could happen next. Salwan Momika, the man […]
(Anadolu) A Turkish court issued an arrest warrant for Rasmus Paludan, a far-right Danish leader, following his controversial act of burning a copy of the Quran in front of the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm. The incident, which took place on Jan. 21, […]
(Yle) A total of 26 Muslim groups and organisations in Finland have issued a joint statement condemning a blog comment written in 2019 by the country’s finance minister, Riikka Purra (Finns). Purra’s comment, in Finnish but translated here in English, stated: “There […]
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