Gates of Vienna News Feed 7/27/2008

• Killing for Religion is Justified, Say Third of Muslim Students
  
• Swiss President “Seriously Worried” by Libya Row
  
• Italy: Emergency Over Illegal Immigrants, Ministers
  
• The BBC’s Contamination
  
• Indian Cities On High Alert After Blasts
  
• Release of Paperbound Version of “The Legacy of Jihad”
  
• Obama’s $845 Billion U.N. Plan Forwarded to U.S. Senate Floor
  
• Switzerland: Saudi Player Refuses to Play Against ‘Zionist Team’
  
• Islamic Terror Breeds in Iran
  
• Iraq’s Christians Form New Militias to Combat Islamic Extremists

Thanks to Insubria, JD, turn, Amil Imani, Steen, TB, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Details are below the fold.
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Killing for religion is justified, say third of Muslim students

A third of Muslim students in Britain believe killing someone in the name of religion is justified, a new poll claims.

The survey found that extreme Islamist ideology has a profound influence on a significant minority of Muslims on campuses across the country.

The findings will concern police chiefs, the security services and ministers, who are struggling with radicalisation among Muslim communities.

The YouGov poll was conducted for the Right-wing think tank, the Centre for Social Cohesion, at 12 universities, including Imperial College and Kings College London. It also found:

• 40 per cent support the introduction of sharia into British law for Muslims
  
• a third back the notion of a worldwide Islamic caliphate (state) based on sharia law
  
• 40 per feel it is unacceptable for Muslim men and women to mix freely
  
• 24 per cent do not think men and women are equal in the eyes of Allah
  
• a quarter have little or no respect for homosexuals.

Although 53 per cent said that killing in the name of religion was never justified, compared with 94 per cent of non-Muslims, 32 per cent said that it was. Of these, 4 per cent said killing could be justified to “promote or preserve” religion, while 28 per cent said it was acceptable if that religion were under attack.

There was also sympathy for the view that Muslim soldiers in the Armed Forces should be allowed to opt out of operations in Muslim countries, with 57 per cent agreeing.

The report’s authors found that Islamic societies on campus, operating under the umbrella of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, exert a strong influence on many of Britain’s 90,000 Muslim students. A quarter of them belong to Islamic societies and their views are often more extreme.

While three-fifths of society members said that killing in the name of religion was acceptable, an equal number of non-member Muslims said it was never justified. The security services have identified Islamist activism at universities acts as a possible “gateway” to violent extremism. Several terrorists and sympathisers began their extremist careers on campuses.

The authors of the report, “Islam on Campus”, lay much of the blame for extremism among Muslim students on the group Hizb ut-Tahrir, which seeks to build a worldwide Islamic state.

YouGov polled 600 Muslim students and 800 non-Muslim students at universities with a high number of Muslims


Swiss president “seriously worried” by Libya row

Swiss President Pascal Couchepin has said he is ready to meet Libyan leader Muammer Gaddafi in a bid to ease bilateral tensions after Gaddafi’s son was arrested in a Geneva hotel.

Libya on Thursday said it would halt fuel supplies to its key oil customer Switzerland over the arrest of Hannibal Gaddafi , 32, and his wife in a Geneva hotel last week for allegedly assaulting members of their staff.


ITALY: EMERGENCY OVER ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, MINISTERS

(ANSAmed) — ROME, JULY 25 — The Italian Council of Ministers approved, upon the proposal of Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, “the extension in the entire national territory of the declaration of a state of emergency for the persistent and exceptional flow of non-EU citizens, with the aim of boosting the activities for the phenomenon’s opposing and management,” the final statement released by the government after the council’s session reads. A technical provision already adopted in the past which contributes to adopt “accelerated procedures for management of the new detention centres as well as interventions of ordinary maintenance in structures subject to every-day decline”, according to a statement of Viminale is the sense of the “spread of the declaration of state of emergency throughout the national territory” for the illegal immigration on which polemics has already aroused. (ANSAmed).


The BBC’s contamination

by Melanie Phillips

It is really quite obscene that the BBC repeatedly portrays the victims of mass murder — Americans, Israelis — as its perpetrators and its actual perpetrators as victims. The BBC is doing the work of the enemies of civilisation for them. In a less degraded political environment this would be raised in Parliament and the BBC called sharply to account for such infernal propaganda. The fact that this complainant received a pro-forma get-lost letter written for complaining Muslims — the letter went on to say that “The BBC is satisfied that, whilst asking some difficult questions about religious fundamentalism, it is not blasphemous” — shows all too clearly that BBC group-think has now fully absorbed the inversion of truth and lies, victim and victimiser, right and wrong that forms the Muslim culture of grievance, and has made it its own. Truly terrifying.


Indian cities on high alert after blasts

All metropolitan areas in India were on high alert Sunday after 17 blasts hit the western city of Ahmedabad within a little more than an hour, killing at least 29 people, according to police and government officials.

Another 88 were wounded in the Saturday night attacks, they added.

“I appeal to the people of Gujarat to remain calm and not let these terrorists be successful in instilling fear,” said Narendera Modi, chief minister of Gujarat state, which encompasses Ahmedabad.


Women lash out at cabin crew with vodka bottle then try to open the door ‘for some fresh air’ … at 30,000 ft

The pilot of a holiday jet was forced to divert and make an unscheduled landing after two drunken British women attacked his cabin crew with a vodka bottle and tried to open an emergency exit in midair. Stewards and passengers wrestled with the pair, who had been caught smoking in the lavatory on the flight back from Kos in Greece.


Release of Paperbound Version of “The Legacy of Jihad”

by Andrew Bostom

The paperbound version of The Legacy of Jihad is now available (for only $13.57) at amazon.com.

You can read my updated Preface here.

And Professor Johannes J. G. Jansen’s review can be read here.


Obama’s $845 billion U.N. plan forwarded to U.S. Senate floor

‘Global Poverty Act’ to cost each citizen $2,500 or more

The U.S. Senate soon could debate whether you, your spouse and each of your children — as well as your in-laws, parents, grandparents, neighbors and everyone else in America — each will spend $2,500 or more to reduce poverty around the world.

The plan sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is estimated to cost the U.S. some $845 billion over the coming few years in an effort to raise the standard of living around the globe.


IMMIGRANTS: MARONI, DISPUTE OF WORST POLITICS

(AGI) — Rome, July 25 — The continuation of the state of emergency was decided on the continue activities against the arrival of illegal immigrants and to guarantee them adequate assistance. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said this, explaining the sense of the decision taken today by the cabinet. “The measure is similar to the one taken by the Prodi Government on February 14th, 2008, identical to the ordinance of the Prodi Government from March 16th, 2007, which in turn was a continuation of the ordinance of the Berlusconi Government from October 28th, 2005” which continued three identical measures taken by the Berlusconi Government on December 23rd, 2004, November 7th, 2003 and December 11th, 2002. “The only change in the previous ordinance” explained Maroni “is that today we have expanded the measure to the whole of Italy. We have arrived at the usual exaggerations, this measure is a favour to illegal immigrants who otherwise would have been placed in tents. We want to guarantee a human treatment to everyone”. Regarding the polemic statements made in the past hours by members of the centre-left, Maroni said that they this criticism is “based on bias and lies. The leftwing doesn’t have the honesty to say that this measure was also taken by previous governments”. The interior minister said that he called the Italian president to inform him of the measure, and that he has sent him all documentation. “For me the case is closed” Maroni added. Next week he will talk about the issue in Parliament, as requested: “but I think the dialogue with the opposition will be difficult if they have this


Switzerland: Saudi player refuses to play against ‘Zionist team’

Riyadh, 25 July (AKI) — A Saudi football star playing for a Swiss team has refused to play against an Israeli team for apparent political and religious reasons.

Hussein Abdulghani, who plays for Swiss premier league club Neuchatel Xamax, said he would not play a game against a ‘Zionist team’, reported Arabic language newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi on Friday.


Italy: Berlusconi pledges more paramilitary police trainers for Iraq

Rome, 25 July (AKI) — Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has vowed to send more paramilitary police to Iraq to train their colleagues there.

Berlusconi made the pledge at a meeting late Thursday with Iraqi Premier Nouri al-Maliki in Rome. Al-Maliki is on a two-day visit to Italy through Friday.


Islamic Terror Breeds in Iran

By Amil Imani

The Islamic Republic terror machine once again has taken off at the speed of light in Iran and exemplifies a depraved, clerical system of government, which legitimizes its depravity through terror, fear and intimidation of Iranian people. With the additional handpicking of the newly selected members of the Islamic “Majles,” the clergy have intensified their terror against the people of Iran and their insatiable appetite for another holocaust against the Jewish State, at all cost. The leaders of the Islamic Republic have gone completely mad.


Egyptian Islamic Preacher ‘Amr Khaled: Within 20 Years, Muslims Will Be Majority in Europe

Muslims in Europe Should Be “Ambassadors for Islam”

Following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian Islamic preacher Amr Khaled, which aired on Dream 2 TV on May 10, 2008.

To view this clip, visit http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/1821.htm.

Interviewer: “How do you view the Islamic scene in Europe?”

Amr Khaled: “The most important thing is that there are 25-30 million Muslims in Europe. This figure has many implications.”

Interviewer: “There are 25-30 million Muslims in Europe.”

Khaled: “The Muslims keep having children, while the Europeans do not. This means that within 20 years, the Muslims will be a majority, which may have an exceptional influence on the decision-making. This makes other groups very angry, and they consider this to be very dangerous. These are the enemies of Islam, as we know full well.

“But the peoples of the West know nothing about the Muslims. Statistics show that 70% do not know who the Prophet of the Muslims is. The fact that Muhammad is the Prophet of the Muslims is not known to many people in the West. That’s just one example.”


Iraq’s Christians form new militias to combat Islamic extremists

Iraq’s Christians have taken up arms and formed new militias in a desperate effort to defend their beleaguered communities from an onslaught by Islamic extremists.

By Damien McElroy in Karamlis

In the five years since the Anglo-American invasion of 2003, murders and abductions have driven about half of the 800,000 Christians who once lived in Iraq to flee the country.

Checkpoints manned by civilians armed with heavy machine guns and assault rifles have received official backing in Christian villages on the Ninevah plain in northern Iraq, where their presence dates back to the missions of St Thomas the apostle.

Father Yusuf Yohannes combines the duties of parish priest with overseeing security from a converted post office in the village of Karamlis, 10 miles east of the local capital, Mosul. Informal patrols by his parishioners started last year but the effort is now a fully-fledged operation, with 250 employees and official approval from the US army base in Mosul.

“We are facing the threat of wipe-out,” he said. “I have not left this town in three years because of the danger. The situation here was like a bowl without a base for Christians, we were just tossed around. By establishing our own security we have the chance to stand steady again.”