LE MONDE | 25.02.08 |
Apprise avec retard, la condamnation le 30 janvier d'un prêtre français, Pierre Wallez, à un an de prison avec sursis par le tribunal de Maghnia, ville frontalière avec le Maroc, a bouleversé la petite communauté catholique d'Algérie. Elle s'estime poussée à quitter le pays. Le père Wallez avait animé, à Noël, dans un bidonville de Maghnia, un culte auprès de migrants subsahariens. Un médecin bénévole algérien, qui administrait des soins à ces émigrés clandestins, a, dans le même procès, été condamné à deux ans de prison ferme, accusé d'avoir subtilisé des médicaments au centre de santé de Maghnia. L'évêque d'Oran a exprimé, dans un communiqué, "l'incompréhension" de la communauté catholique d'Algérie.
La condamnation du père Wallez intervient dans un climat difficile où, selon Mgr Henri Teissier, l'archevêque d'Alger, "certains groupes cherchent à réduire la présence de l'église catholique et lui créent des difficultés". La communauté catholique se considère depuis deux ans "sous une pression", à la limite de la persécution. Un sentiment qui s'est accentué en mai 2007, lorsque les autorités locales des quarante-huit wilayas (départements) du pays, en application d'une directive venue d'Alger, ont invité les catholiques à quitter le pays en raison de menaces d'Al-Qaida au Maghreb.
La mise en œuvre de cette mesure aurait entraîné une quasi-disparition de l'Eglise catholique en Algérie, ce qui a été toujours évité y compris pendant la décennie sanglante des années 1990. En raison de leur volonté de rester en Algérie, 19 membres de l'Eglise, prêtres, religieux et religieuses, dont l'évêque d'Oran, Pierre Claverie, ont perdu la vie entre le 8 mai 1994 et le 1er août 1996. Les responsables de l'Eglise ont dû saisir les plus hautes autorités algériennes pour annuler une mesure aussi extrême. Un an plus tôt, une trentaine d'étudiants sub-sahariens, qui avaient participé à un week-end d'études bibliques à Tizi-Ouzou, s'étaient vu signifier leur expulsion d'Algérie. Là aussi, il a fallu l'intervention des ambassadeurs, dont celui du Sénégal, pour annuler la mesure.
En novembre 2007, des religieux catholiques brésiliens de la communauté Salam, dont les papiers étaient en règle, ont été sommés de quitter le pays sous quinzaine, sans explication. Après intervention de l'ambassadeur brésilien, l'oukase ne fut pas exécuté.
Des membres de la Mission de France, dont l'engagement pour l'indépendance de l'Algérie est honoré aujourd'hui encore par de nombreux Algériens – comme ce fut le cas pour l'abbé Robert Davezies, récemment décédé – ont essuyé des refus de visas.
Ce durcissement remonte, en fait, à une loi votée le 28 février 2006, qui restreint les conditions de la pratique des cultes non musulmans. Ellet prévoit des peines de 2 à 5ans de prison et des amendes de 5000 à 10000euros contre toute personne qui "incite, contraint ou utilise des moyens de séduction tendant à convertir un musulman à une autre religion". La loi interdit l'exercice d'un culte autre que musulman en "dehors des édifices prévus à cet effet et subordonne l'affectation des édifices pour l'exercice du culte à l'obtention d'une autorisation préalable". Le père Wallez, qui a fait appel du jugement, a été condamné en vertu de cette loi de 2006.
Ces dernières années, la presse algérienne, arabophone surtout, mène campagne contre le prosélytisme évangélique en Algérie, notamment en Kabylie. Elle le fait en recourant à l'amalgame : les articles contre les mouvements évangéliques sont systématiquement illustrés par des photos de la basilique Notre-Dame d'Afrique et de Mgr Henri Tessier, alors que les catholiques ne pratiquent aucune forme de prosélytisme.
Pour sa part, Mustapha Krim, président de l'Eglise protestante d'Algérie, a déclaré au journal El Watan ne pas comprendre en quoi "32 petites communautés chrétiennes peuvent faire trembler 32 000 mosquées". Pour lui, "le prosélytisme en Algérie est surtout islamiste ! Et s'il existe du côté des chrétiens, il ne représente qu'un très faible pourcentage".
Reste que l'activisme des évangéliques est réel et inquiète la population, parfois choquée de ces conversions qui se produisent dans de petits villages où tout le monde se connaît. Les Algériens ont "le sentiment que la digue que représente l'islam est attaquée", explique un médecin qui déplore néanmoins que le phénomène soit considérablement exagéré par la presse.
Le ministère des affaires religieuses et l'Association des Oulémas voient, quant à eux, un complot des "chrétiens sionistes" américains ciblant l'Algérie. Ils affirment que les responsables évangéliques promettent 5 000 euros à qui parvient à convertir un musulman. Le ministre des affaires religieuses, M. Ghlamallah, accuse les évangéliques de vouloir se constituer en "minorité", prétexte à une ingérence étrangère.
Les catholiques, victimes collatérales d'une campagne contre les évangéliques ? Beaucoup peinent à croire que les autorités algériennes soient incapables de faire la différence. Mais ce qui inquiète le plus les catholiques, dont le rôle social est hautement apprécié par les Algériens, est que cette campagne, parfois virulente, sape ce qui a fait la qualité des rapports entre musulmans et chrétiens : la confiance.
lundi 25 février 2008
Poverty Causes Terrorism Update
Teachers and police among Moroccan jihadist suspects
from Reuters:
RABAT (Reuters) - Teachers, lecturers, a police officer and a journalist were among 32 people arrested by Morocco's security services in an operation to break up a suspected jihadist cell, the government said on Tuesday.
The suspects were rounded up in the capital Rabat, in Casablanca and other towns across the country in the past two days and security analysts have expressed surprise at the varied background and high profile of some of those held.
The best known are leading Islamist political figures Mustapha Moatassim, Mohammed Amine Ragala and Mohamed Merouani.
Others include company directors, government employees, a hotel manager in the popular tourist destination of Marrakesh and a correspondent for Hezbollah television channel Al Manar, according to a list published by state news agency MAP.
The cell's alleged leader, Abdelkader Belliraj, is a Moroccan living in Belgium. MAP said the group was "very dangerous" and had links with other organizations active in Morocco and abroad.
Since suicide bombings killed 45 people in Casablanca five years ago, the Moroccan authorities have rounded up thousands of Islamists suspected of planning to overthrow the north African country's secular-minded monarchy and imprisoned hundreds.
More bombings hit the normally peaceful country last March and April when seven men blew themselves up in Casablanca, killing themselves and a police officer.
The government made dozens of arrests in the months following the bombings, raised its national security alert to maximum and deployed extra security personnel.
from Reuters:
RABAT (Reuters) - Teachers, lecturers, a police officer and a journalist were among 32 people arrested by Morocco's security services in an operation to break up a suspected jihadist cell, the government said on Tuesday.
The suspects were rounded up in the capital Rabat, in Casablanca and other towns across the country in the past two days and security analysts have expressed surprise at the varied background and high profile of some of those held.
The best known are leading Islamist political figures Mustapha Moatassim, Mohammed Amine Ragala and Mohamed Merouani.
Others include company directors, government employees, a hotel manager in the popular tourist destination of Marrakesh and a correspondent for Hezbollah television channel Al Manar, according to a list published by state news agency MAP.
The cell's alleged leader, Abdelkader Belliraj, is a Moroccan living in Belgium. MAP said the group was "very dangerous" and had links with other organizations active in Morocco and abroad.
Since suicide bombings killed 45 people in Casablanca five years ago, the Moroccan authorities have rounded up thousands of Islamists suspected of planning to overthrow the north African country's secular-minded monarchy and imprisoned hundreds.
More bombings hit the normally peaceful country last March and April when seven men blew themselves up in Casablanca, killing themselves and a police officer.
The government made dozens of arrests in the months following the bombings, raised its national security alert to maximum and deployed extra security personnel.
Australia: "Muslims speak up about domestic violence,"
"Muslims speak up about domestic violence," from Deutsche Presse-Agentur:
SYDNEY - Women and children are beaten by their menfolk in homes across Australia. Mostly the spur to domestic violence is alcohol but sometimes cultural mores are at work that allow men to excuse their behaviour.
“They view wives and daughters as an extension of their honour and when they deviate from what they would view as accepted ... they see it as an undermining of their own status,” said Sydney psychiatrist Tanveer Ahmed.
He was talking about violence in Muslim homes and commenting specifically on a call from the Muslim Women’s National Network Australia (MWNNA) to tackle those in the community who use religion to justify domestic violence.
“It’s a real problem,” MWNNA president Aziza Abdel-Halim told The Sydney Morning Herald. “There’s wife beating, there’s children beating. Some of them go to the extent of forbidding the woman to leave the home.”
Ahmed said Muslim victims of domestic violence were reluctant to go to the police. If they went to the imam of their mosque, he was likely to side with the perpetrator.
“Very rarely would you get the imam trying to punish the man,” he said. “They’ll see it more as, if not culturally appropriate, then culturally understandable.”
SYDNEY - Women and children are beaten by their menfolk in homes across Australia. Mostly the spur to domestic violence is alcohol but sometimes cultural mores are at work that allow men to excuse their behaviour.
“They view wives and daughters as an extension of their honour and when they deviate from what they would view as accepted ... they see it as an undermining of their own status,” said Sydney psychiatrist Tanveer Ahmed.
He was talking about violence in Muslim homes and commenting specifically on a call from the Muslim Women’s National Network Australia (MWNNA) to tackle those in the community who use religion to justify domestic violence.
“It’s a real problem,” MWNNA president Aziza Abdel-Halim told The Sydney Morning Herald. “There’s wife beating, there’s children beating. Some of them go to the extent of forbidding the woman to leave the home.”
Ahmed said Muslim victims of domestic violence were reluctant to go to the police. If they went to the imam of their mosque, he was likely to side with the perpetrator.
“Very rarely would you get the imam trying to punish the man,” he said. “They’ll see it more as, if not culturally appropriate, then culturally understandable.”
Netherlands: Bank stops giving piggy banks to kids for fear of offending Muslims
European Cultural Collapse Update. "Piggy banks are given the chop as bank tries to attract young Muslims," by David Charter in the Times :
Knorbert the piglet has been dropped as the mascot of Fortis Bank after it decided to stop giving piggy banks to children for fear of offending Muslims.
The decision has been viewed in the Netherlands as the ritual slaughter of a popular pig by political correctness. To some, it is the latest sign of uncertainty in Europe's most tolerant country about how far it should go to accommodate the sensitivities of minorities. It comes as the country is braced for a backlash against the plans of Geert Wilders, a right-wing politician, to release a critical film about the Koran.
Pigs are considered an unclean animal by Muslims and Jews, and Knorbert was culled after seven years as the Fortis mascot. A spokesman told the Dutch media that “Knorbert does not meet the requirements that the multicultural society imposes on us”. The bank added that there had been “a number of reactions to the pig” and that a new gift and character were being developed that would be “fun for children of any persuasion”. Children who had received a Knorbert piggy bank for opening a EuroKids account will be given a junior encyclopaedia instead....
Knorbert the piglet has been dropped as the mascot of Fortis Bank after it decided to stop giving piggy banks to children for fear of offending Muslims.
The decision has been viewed in the Netherlands as the ritual slaughter of a popular pig by political correctness. To some, it is the latest sign of uncertainty in Europe's most tolerant country about how far it should go to accommodate the sensitivities of minorities. It comes as the country is braced for a backlash against the plans of Geert Wilders, a right-wing politician, to release a critical film about the Koran.
Pigs are considered an unclean animal by Muslims and Jews, and Knorbert was culled after seven years as the Fortis mascot. A spokesman told the Dutch media that “Knorbert does not meet the requirements that the multicultural society imposes on us”. The bank added that there had been “a number of reactions to the pig” and that a new gift and character were being developed that would be “fun for children of any persuasion”. Children who had received a Knorbert piggy bank for opening a EuroKids account will be given a junior encyclopaedia instead....
Australia: Muslim university students want lectures rescheduled around prayer times
More stealthy advancement of Sharia under the guise of religious rights.
"Muslims want unis to fit prayer time," by Richard Kerbaj and Milanda Rout for The Australian:
MUSLIM university students want lectures to be rescheduled to fit in with prayer timetables and separate male and female eating and recreational areas established on Australian campuses.
International Muslim students, predominantly from Saudi Arabia, have asked universities in Melbourne to change class times so they can attend congregational prayers. They also want a female-only area for Muslim students to eat and relax.
But at least one institution has rejected their demands, arguing that the university is secular and it does not want to set a precedent for requests granted in the name of religious beliefs....
"Muslims want unis to fit prayer time," by Richard Kerbaj and Milanda Rout for The Australian:
MUSLIM university students want lectures to be rescheduled to fit in with prayer timetables and separate male and female eating and recreational areas established on Australian campuses.
International Muslim students, predominantly from Saudi Arabia, have asked universities in Melbourne to change class times so they can attend congregational prayers. They also want a female-only area for Muslim students to eat and relax.
But at least one institution has rejected their demands, arguing that the university is secular and it does not want to set a precedent for requests granted in the name of religious beliefs....
3 in 4 U.S. mosques preach anti-West extremism
Study: 3 in 4 U.S. mosques preach anti-West extremism," from WorldNetDaily:
An undercover survey of more than 100 mosques and Islamic schools in America has exposed widespread radicalism, including the alarming finding that 3 in 4 Islamic centers are hotbeds of anti-Western extremism, WND has learned.
The Mapping Sharia in America Project, sponsored by the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, has trained former counterintelligence and counterterrorism agents from the FBI, CIA and U.S. military, who are skilled in Arabic and Urdu, to conduct undercover reconnaissance at some 2,300 mosques and Islamic centers and schools across the country.
"So far of 100 mapped, 75 should be on a watchlist," an official familiar with the project said.
Many of the Islamic centers are operating under the auspices of the Saudi Arabian government and U.S. front groups for the radical Muslim Brotherhood based in Egypt.
An undercover survey of more than 100 mosques and Islamic schools in America has exposed widespread radicalism, including the alarming finding that 3 in 4 Islamic centers are hotbeds of anti-Western extremism, WND has learned.
The Mapping Sharia in America Project, sponsored by the Washington-based Center for Security Policy, has trained former counterintelligence and counterterrorism agents from the FBI, CIA and U.S. military, who are skilled in Arabic and Urdu, to conduct undercover reconnaissance at some 2,300 mosques and Islamic centers and schools across the country.
"So far of 100 mapped, 75 should be on a watchlist," an official familiar with the project said.
Many of the Islamic centers are operating under the auspices of the Saudi Arabian government and U.S. front groups for the radical Muslim Brotherhood based in Egypt.
Omar Sharif condamné à payer 318.000$ pour racisme
Omar Sharif vient d'être condamné par la Cour Supérieure de Los Angeles, à 318.000 dollars de dommages et intérêts pour insultes racistes.
En cause ? Une altercation remontant en 2005, devant un restaurant de la Cité des Anges. L'acteur Omar Sharif, s'était montré agressif et violent envers le gardien de parking qui refusait de lui prendre un billet de 20 euros, préférant les dollars.
De ce fait, l'acteur l' a secoué, et l'a traité "d' immigré guatémaltèque" et de "stupide Mexicain".
En cause ? Une altercation remontant en 2005, devant un restaurant de la Cité des Anges. L'acteur Omar Sharif, s'était montré agressif et violent envers le gardien de parking qui refusait de lui prendre un billet de 20 euros, préférant les dollars.
De ce fait, l'acteur l' a secoué, et l'a traité "d' immigré guatémaltèque" et de "stupide Mexicain".
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