Belgian police have carried out dozens of raids and arrested six Islamists — including the pugnacious ringleader of a Belgian Salafist group called Sharia4Belgium — suspected of recruiting foreign fighters for the war in Syria.
The Bavarian branch of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has placed under state surveillance German activists accused of fomenting hate against Muslims due to their opposition to the construction of a mega-mosque in Munich.
Germany’s opposition Social Democrats are courting disgruntled Muslim voters in a desperate bid to unseat German Chancellor Angela Merkel in federal elections set for September 22.
From Belgium to Greece and Spain to Germany, 2013 is shaping up to be another banner year for the construction of mosques in Europe.
City planners in the Irish capital, Dublin, have given the go-ahead for the construction of a sprawling mega-mosque complex that will cater to Ireland’s burgeoning Muslim population.
More than 1,000 Muslims from across Europe are currently active as Islamic jihadists, or holy warriors, in Syria, which has replaced Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia as the main destination for militant Islamists seeking to obtain immediate combat experience with little or no official scrutiny.
Members of Parliament introduced a bill that would limit the power of Muslim extremists who win elected office at the local or national levels and isolate themselves from the political mainstream.
Germany has banned three ultra-conservative Salafist Muslim groups which the Interior Ministry says want to overturn democracy and install a system based on Islamic Sharia law.
The Spanish Supreme Court has ruled that a municipal ordinance banning the wearing of Islamic burqas in public spaces is unconstitutional.
A radical Islamic cleric who lives off the British welfare state has been filmed urging his followers to quit their jobs and claim unemployment benefits so they have more time to plot holy war against non-Muslims.
Spain has acceded to the demands of the Islamist government in Morocco by agreeing that Moroccan children adopted by Spanish families must remain culturally and religiously Muslim.
A court in southern Spain has acquitted eight Muslims who were accused of resorting to violence to break a ban on Muslim prayers in a cathedral in the city of Córdoba. The church was once the world’s second-biggest mosque and remains the single most powerful symbol of Islam in Spain.
