Gates of Vienna News Feed 7/18/2008

• Emadeddin Muntasser of Care International Gets One Year Jail Sentence
  
• Iraqi Refugees Are Choosing An Uncertain Life in Iraq Over Unemployment in Denmark
  
• Mosques Increasingly Not Welcome in Europe
  
• Egypt: Demographic Alert, 217 Babies Per Hour Are Born
  
• Protecting Freedom of Speech on the Net
  
• NATO: Albania, Croatia Sign Protocol for Entry in 2009
  
• Egypt: Drugs Trade Estimated at USD 3.8 Billion
  
• Spain: Largest Prison Population in Europe
  
• Algeria-Germany: Merkel Skips Visit to Mosque, Media
  
• Salafi Jihadists in Gaza: ‘Compared to Us, Hamas Is Islamism Lite’

Thanks to Insubria, C. Cantoni, Steen, TB, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Details are below the fold.
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Emadeddin Muntasser of Care International gets one year jail sentence

From Miss Kelly:

Last month, it looked like Judge Dennis Saylor IV was going to go easy on Care International’s former president Emadeddin Muntasser, but yesterday he sentenced Muntasser to one year in jail and a 10K fine, double the federal sentencing guideline for making false statements to a federal agent. A welcome outcome after Saylor overturned the jury’s guilty verdict last month and dropped a number of charges against Care’s officers. Lee Hammel of the Worcester Telegram did a very good job covering this trial. The whole trial showed how clumsy, costly and ineffective civilian court trials are for terrorism cases. Judge Saylor kept saying the case wasn’t about terrorism, but even he acknowledged that it was.

Worcester Telegram article

My take on it

Iraqi refugees are choosing an uncertain life in Iraq over unemployment in Denmark

Many of the 100 Iraqi interpreters and aid workers granted asylum in Denmark last year are choosing to return to Iraq.

The Iraqis, who had worked for the Danish military in Iraq, arrived in Denmark with their families last July when the army withdrew its troops. The government granted them asylum for fear they could face reprisals from insurgent groups for working with coalition forces.

But after a year in Denmark only a handful of the interpreters, 13 of whom are engineers, have found work, reports public broadcaster DR.

Companies are currently experiencing a lack of qualified labour, including engineers, and it was believed that they would find work quickly.

But despite being highly qualified and speaking fluent English, only one of the Iraqi engineers has found a job, according to the National Association of Engineers (IDA).

‘We’ve found that companies just don’t have the capacity to integrate the Iraqis into their workplace,’ said Treine Schou Tinborg, IDA’s vice president. ‘They have good education backgrounds and speak perfect English, but we can’t find them jobs.’

She said that instead of taking a job out of their field, many of the 100 interpreters are choosing to return home.


Mosques increasingly not welcome in Europe

Europeans are increasingly lashing out at the construction of mosques in their cities as terrorism fears and continued immigration feed anti-Muslim sentiment across the continent.

The latest dispute is in Switzerland, which is planning a nationwide referendum to ban minarets on mosques. This month, Italy’s interior minister vowed to close a controversial mosque in Milan.


EGYPT: DEMOGRAPHIC ALERT, 217 BABIES PER HOUR ARE BORN

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, JULY 17 — Every hour in Egypt 217 babies are born, for a total of almost 2 million newborns every year (1,854,048, precisely). This is the data at the basis of a demographic alert launched by the secretary general of the Peoplés National Council (NPC), General Mohamed Khalifa, according to whom with this birth rate in 2058 the Egyptian population will reach almost 173 million. The forecast is dramatic when compared to the liveable surface of the country, in which out of some 1.0 million sq km (997,739 sq km, precisely), only 45,000 are habitable (less than 5.0%), along the Nile and in the river delta.


Rotterdam Investigates Turkish Organisations

ROTTERDAM, 18/07/08 — - Rotterdam is investigating whether Turkish organisations in the city have links with the controversial Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen. The city council adopted a motion yesterday ordering the council executive to do so.

The city council wants the money flows to be investigated that go to Turkish boarding schools, Dialoog Academie, Stichting Islam en Dialoog, Stichting Hogiaf, Time Media Groep and Cosmicus College. These Turkish institutions, of which most receive subsidies, behave as if they consider integration important, but are actually targeting an Islamic state in the Netherlands, TV programme NOVA recently reported.


Protecting freedom of speech on the Net

Europe should join in the struggle against censorship on the Internet. And political dissidents who use the Internet to promote their cause should be protected from authoritarian regimes. A group of MEPs feels we should follow the US and establish guidelines for the Net.

More and more countries are limiting their citizens’ freedom of speech online. Moreover, western businesses are regularly put under pressure to provide information about dissidents who use the Internet as a tool for spreading information. Not a good development says Jules Maaten (pictured), Dutch MEP for the Conservative VVD party:


IMMIGRATION: SPAIN TO LAUNCH OFFENSIVE ON AFRICAN COASTS

(By Paola Del Vecchio) (ANSAmed) — MADRID, JULY 17 — Spain spares no efforts in the offensive against illegal immigration, launched directly in the African countries origin of migratory flows. The government led by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero donated three surveillance aircraft C-212 to Mauritania, Senegal and Cape Verde, to patrol along the coasts in a bid to combat illegal immigration. The donation adds to that of eight patrol boats, off-roads and field materials, given to Mauritania and Senegal in the past years, El Pais reported today.


NATO: ALBANIA, CROATIA SIGN PROTOCOL FOR ENTRY IN 2009

(ANSAmed)- BRUSSELS, JULY 9 — Albania and Croatia signed today at an official ceremony in Brussels the protocols for joining NATO, an agreement that will allow them to become part of the Atlantic Alliance next year. Today’s signing is the formal act that ratifies the decision taken at the NATO summit in Bucharest last April which gave green light to the accession of the two Balkan countries. The accession process for Albania and Croatia will be completed at the NATO summit in April 2009. (ANSAmed).


SERBIA-ISRAEL: PLAZA CENTERS TO BUILD HOTEL IN BELGRADE

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, JULY 8 — Israeli company Plaza Centers has announced that it will build the Belgrade Plaza five-star hotel, worth 150 million euro, at the site of the former Internal Affairs Ministry in Belgradés Knez Milos Street, reports BETA news agency. The company is currently waiting to receive construction permits for the hotel from the city government, and will begin the realization of the project immediately. The hotel will be a vast 100,000 square meters, and will have a conference center, deluxe spa, a glass-walled restaurant with a view of Belgrade, a shopping center and business tower, as well as 2,000 parking spots.


EGYPT: DRUGS TRADE ESTIMATED AT USD 3.8 BILLION

(ANSAmed), CAIRO JULY 17 — An Egyptian governemental agency warned that the market of drugs and narcotics across the nation could extend to uncontrolled rates, stressing that this illegal trade damages the national economy. “Drugs’ trade in Egypt amounted to LE18,2 billion (USD 3,8 billion) last year, about 2,5 per cent of the national income”. That’s an alarming, unprecedente figure”, said a study by the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS) as reporte yesterday by the Egyptian Gazette. The study also warned that new types of drugs had been developed in the last two years and gained high marketability in Egypt. “Last year witnessed the confiscation of natural and artificial types of drugs in addition to narcotic plants such as bhand, opium, cannabis and hashish. These types are so popular especially among young Egyptians”, the CAPMAS study disclosed. According to a World Health Organisation report, Egypt is not a major producer, supplier, or even consumer of narcotics of precursor chemicals. The study recommended that public awareness compaigns be increased specially young people. It also urged all authorities to deal with addicts as patients and try to help them find a good job after treatment or even after serving imprisonment terms. (ANSAmed)


Italy: Interior Minister backs fingerprinting for all

Rome, 17 July (AKI) — Italy’s Interior Minister Roberto Maroni has said he backs a cross-party move to fingerprint everyone in Italy for identity cards issued from 2010.

But he has also vowed to press on with the controversial ‘census’ and fingerprinting of Roma Gypsies in Italy that is already underway in Naples and Milan and due to begin in Rome in a few days’ time.


SPAIN: LARGEST PRISON POPULATION IN EUROPE

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JULY 17 — Spain has the highest rate of detainees in Europe with 157 prisoners per 100,000 citizens, overcoming Great Britain with 152, councillor for justice in the Catalonian Government, Montserrat Tura, told the media today.


IMMIGRATION: ALBANIAN MINORS TRAFFIC, 10 ARRESTS IN GORIZIA

(ANSAmed) — GORIZIA, JULY 17 — Ten people were arrested and charges were pressed against 15 others during a police operation in Gorizia, which uncovered an organisation which dealt with the illegal immigration of Albanian citizens in Italy.


IMMIGRATION: FORTRESS EUROPE, 185 IMMIGRANTS DIE IN JUNE

(ANSAmed) — ROME, JULY 4 — The immigrants who died in June in attempt to reach Europe illegally were at least 185. This is the death toll revealed by association Fortress Europe which comments that on June 20 there was an “unhappy anniversary” for the World Refugees Day. Of the 185 victims, 173 died in the Channel of Sicily. A total four men died near the Canary Islands, after being hospitalised in bad conditions upon their arrival.


Fatal crash sparks immigration ire

Moldovan car- chase killer had received expulsion order

(ANSA) — Rome, July 18 — The issue of illegal immigration was back in the headlines on Friday after a Moldovan man driving a stolen van killed a 20-year-old student after a high-speed police pursuit through Rome.


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 14.07.2008

Regina Mönch has little understanding for the protests of Turkish officials against the German law which stipulates that Turkish women who get married in Germany should possess a basic command of German: “The only truth in the rhetoric noise about this so-called anti-Turkish law, is that other nationalities hardly have any problems with linguistic proficiency. But a questionable protective association of politicians from the Left and the Greens has built up around the Turkish community, and it is determined to see the indirect invitation to take more seriously a bride’s right to education in her homeland, as a violation of human rights. But all that is being defended here are the special rights of Turkish men to a traditional way of life, in which education has a marginal role, but power a major one.”

[From Contadina: “Quote from the Frankfurter Allgemeine. I don’t have a link to the article.” However, Holger Danske located it for us.]


ALGERIA-GERMANY: MERKEL SKIPS VISIT TO MOSQUE, MEDIA

(ANSAmed) — BERLIN, JULY 18 — German Chancellor Angela Merkel refused to enter in an Algiers mosque during her first official visit to Algeria because she did not want to cover her head with the traditional headscarf, German daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported today. Thus the visit in the mosque, which was part of the chancellor’s agenda, was cancelled. Yet, Merkel’s visit to Algeria remains linked to a mosque since the German chancellor took part with Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in the ceremony for the signing of the contract entrusting a Frankfurt am Main architects studio with the design of a new mosque to be built in the Algerian capital. The new mosque will be the third largest in the world with the world’s tallest minaret of 214 metres. (ANSAmed).


CINEMA: SOLE LUNA DOC FEST, MEDITERRANEAN, ISLAM IN PALERMO

(ANSAmed) — PALERMO, JULY 18 — Sole e Luna Doc Fest, a festival of documentaries which narrate the history of the Mediterranean and Islamic civilisations, will open on Sunday in Palermo, at Santa Maria dello Spasimo. The event, which has reached its third edition, will award the best video, documentary, TV series or investigation of the 18 participants admitted to the competition, in the two sections Islam ad Mediterranean. The festival, chaired by Carlo Fuscagni, under the art direction of Rubino Rubini, is promoted by Doc Fest, a non-profit cultural association. The festival’s jury will assign the following awards, absolute award for best work in the competition, award in section Islam, award in section Mediterranean, award for best film direction, for best photography, for best montage, most innovative documentary and work of the highest cultural value. The awarding is envisaged for Sunday, July 27. Performances, art exhibitions, collateral events on the same theme, in partnership also with festivals of other European countries, will be presented during the festival. (ANSAmed).


ITALY-PNA: VENDOLA TO LEAD APULIA DELEGATION

(ANSAmed) — BARI, JULY 18 — A delegation of the Region of Apulia led by its president Nichi Vendola will visit the Palestinian territories by the end of the year, Vendola said at the end of a meeting today in Bari with the ambassador to Italy of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Sabri Ateyeh. The meeting was also attended by the regional councillor for the Mediterranean, Silvia Godelli. “Apulia and Palestine have common passion for olives. Apulia loves the land of Palestine,” Vendola said. “In the past years we have carried out small but important cooperation projects with Palestine in the field of food and agriculture, as well as in culture. The time has come for the institutional and business operators in the Region of Apulia to be able to cross Palestine and build a programme of activities,” he added. “We have very good dialogue with Palestine and Israel: for us the slogan ‘two peoples, two states’ has not been the task of international diplomacy or foreign policy. We have heard it as part of our programme in the modesty of our efforts and partly in our dreams. Today we want to do anything we can to give our contribution to the credibility and force of the new process of dialogue and peace,” Vendola said. (ANSAmed).


Salafi Jihadists in Gaza: ‘Compared to Us, Hamas Is Islamism Lite’

By Ulrike Putz in the Gaza Strip

Global power is their goal, and they are willing to slaughter innocents to get there. A group of ultra-radical Islamists are training in the Gaza Strip, and SPIEGEL ONLINE met with one of their leaders.