TASEK PAUH blogspot

Around 1,600 Web sites hosted by server-provider Proinet and 3,800 sites hosted by another company have been targeted, Proinet spokesman Kjetil Jensen said. Jensen said the hackers, operating on a Turkish network, removed all files on the Web sites and in some cases replaced them with messages.

According to Swedish news agency TT, the Web site of a children's cartoon called Bamse was replaced by a message saying Islam's holy Prophet had been insulted. The incidents have been reported to the police. Stefan Grinneby, head of the Swedish communication watchdog's Internet incident center Sitic, said attacks against Swedish Web sites from Turkey have increased in the past three weeks.

Some contained messages alluding to the drawing of the Prophet Mohammed as a reason for the attack. “You would need a very large police investigation to establish the connection to the prophet drawings, but considering the increase in recent weeks it is a fair assumption to make,” he said. Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda published a drawing by artist Lars Vilks in an Aug. 19 editorial depicting Mohammed’s head on a dog’s body. It triggered protests from Swedish Muslim groups and formal complaints from Muslim countries, including Pakistan and Iran. An insurgent leader in Iraq, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, put a $100,000 bounty on Vilks’ head. Similar caricatures of the Prophet, first published in 2005 by a Danish newspaper and reprinted in other European newspapers, triggered street protests in Muslims countries.

Labels: Islamophobia, Luar Negeri, Turkey

Kavkaz Center, Sep 24 - Disputes over the hijab, traditional Moslem headgear, continue to torment Kyrgyz schools. They inevitably become outright heated with the onset of every school year. This time, however, the ban to wear the hijab at schools will apparently become official (principals ascribe it to the new school charters).

Ferghana.Ru correspondent visited several schools in the southern regions of Kyrgyzstan only to discover that not even teachers there had the charter yet. They say they are still waiting to receive the new charters from the education departments of local administrations.

The Nookat district of the Osh region is not an exception. Every school there has a score of girls who wear the hijab. Teachers want them bareheaded in class and threaten with expulsion for disobedience. more on KC..

Labels: Islamophobia, kyrgyztan, Luar Negeri, sekularisma

In his letter Wilders' wants "to make it a crime to use the Koran in mosques and at home."

"Ban this wretched book", Freedom Party's leader declared. "Send a signal...to Islamists that the Quran can never, ever be used in our country as an "excuse or inspiration" for violence".

"Islamists are seeking to establish a pure Islamic society governed under extremely harsh interpretation of Islam. From Islamism preferred apocalyptic millennial echo of other ideology, Fascism. Islamism is a totalitarian, utopian, violent and like Fascism - expansionist movement." This is a quote of some figures from another country, Canada.

According to an editorial article in the Ottawa Citizen Newspaper dated June 5 2006, which defines Islam: "Koran is a guide to fascism and expansionism - collection of Islamist thoughts, and those who believe in it are not Muslims, they are Islamists."

According to the Koran, as Ottawa Citizen explains, "Islam is not just a religion is a way of life. (Al Imran, 3:19). Lifestyle never limited home or private life. It covers all aspects of life, private and public. The Koran emphasizes that if someone wants another way of life than Islam, it will never be accepted by them (3:85).

According to the Citizen, that is an Islamism.

Thus, a Muslim who believes and fully accepts the Holy Writ, as required by the Koran and not takes the Islam "as only a religion" and that is an "Islamist ". He the enemy of the "civilization", "freedom" and "democracy" against whom and a total war declared.

But Islam is really "not just a religion." The Koran clearly states to the believers:

"To thee We sent the Scripture in truth, confirming the scripture that came before it, and guarding it in safety: so judge between them by what Allah hath revealed, and follow not their vain desires, diverging from the Truth that hath come to thee. To each among you have we prescribed a law and an open way." (5:48)

The Koran states that God had sent the Law to the Musa (Moses) and the Gospel to Isa (Jesus), peace be upon him, and before this, as a guide for mankind, the Almighty God sent Distinction (Furqan) between Good and Evil (Koran 3:3). So, where to apply the same law as not in private and public life?

According to the anti-Islamic propagandists, Islamophobic and Shariat opponents, Muslims become "Islamists" (or as some Democrats expressed "green commissioners") if they seek to establish a "pure Islamic society", which would run under the Laws and the criteria specified in the Holy Scriptures, in the Koran.

The Koran states that if the believer does not seek to do so, it stops to be a Muslim at all:

"If any do fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (no better than) Unbelievers...they are wrong-doers." (5:44-47).

Thus, it is clear that the war declared on Islam is the declared war especially declared on the Koran, the word of God, which was heard by mankind through the last Prophet of God Muhammad (pbuh).

It is not a war for freedom and progress, not a war for civilization and peace, this a war for a way of life for mankind and the Koran in this war is a prime target for enemies of Truth.

And so Allah warns in the Koran:

"Fain would they extinguish Allah's light with their mouths, but Allah will not allow but that His light should be perfected, even though the Unbelievers may detest (it)." (9:32)

Labels: Islamophobia, Luar Negeri

Labels: Islamophobia, Luar Negeri, Singapore

Berne, Switzerland - Members of the right-wing Swiss People's Party, currently the largest party in the Swiss parliament, have launched a campaign to have the building of minarets banned.

They claim the minaret is not necessary for worship, but is rather a symbol of Islamic law, and as such incompatible with Switzerland's legal system.

Signatures are now being collected to force a nationwide referendum on the issue which, under Switzerland's system of direct democracy, would be binding.

Picture - Swiss Muslims pray in disused factories and warehouses

The move has shocked Switzerland's 350,000 Muslims, many of whom have been campaigning for decades for more recognition for their faith.

In theory Switzerland is a secular state, whose constitution guarantees freedom of religious expression to all. In practice however mosques in Switzerland tend to be confined to disused warehouses and factories.

Across the country, there are only two small minarets, one in Zurich and one in Geneva, neither of which are permitted to make the call to prayer. In Switzerland's capital Berne, the largest mosque is in a former underground car park.

Plans rejected

In the small town of Langenthal, just outside Berne, plans to build a very modest minaret have been put on ice following thousands of objections.

Langenthal's mosque is housed in a former paint factory on the outskirts of town.

Mutalip Karaademi, an ethnic Albanian who has lived in Switzerland for 26 years, was at first pleased when his proposal for a 5m-high (16.5ft) minaret was approved by the local authority.

But following a vociferous campaign against the plans, including a petition with thousands of signatures, the cantonal government in Berne delayed the project indefinitely.

"We are very disappointed," said Mr Karaademi. "We just wanted to do our mosque up a bit, with this small minaret and a tea room. We actually thought it might promote dialogue."

Mr Karaademi is also bitter at what he sees as unfair discrimination against his faith. "I even gave them a written undertaking that we would never make the call to prayer," he said. "They seem to think we are all criminals or terrorists - that's like saying all Italians are in the mafia."

Islamic law

But supporters of a ban on minarets say they have no intention of preventing anyone from practising their faith.

"We don't have anything against Muslims," said Oskar Freysinger, member of parliament for the Swiss People's Party.

"But we don't want minarets. The minaret is a symbol of a political and aggressive Islam, it's a symbol of Islamic law. The minute you have minarets in Europe it means Islam will have taken over."

Mr Freysinger's words may sound extreme, even paranoid, but this is a general election year in Switzerland, and the campaign against minarets is playing well with voters.

A recent opinion poll for one Swiss newspaper found that 43% of those surveyed were in favour of a ban on minarets.

"We have our civil laws here," insisted Mr Freysinger. "Banning minarets would send a clear signal that our European laws, our Swiss laws, have to be accepted. And if you want to live here, you must accept them. If you don't, then go back."

Growing resentment

It's a harsh message for Swiss Muslims, many of whom were born in Switzerland. There are fears that the campaign against minarets will provoke growing resentment against Swiss society.

"I think Swiss Muslims will be angry and bitter over this," said Reinhard Schulze, professor of Islamic Studies at Berne University. "And we know that anger and bitterness among a community can lead to radicalisation, even to militancy."

The Swiss government is extremely nervous about the prospect of militancy among Swiss Muslims; three cabinet ministers have already spoken out against the campaign to ban minarets.

There is also a growing fear that the debate will damage Switzerland's traditionally good relations with the Arab world.

Labels: Islamophobia, Luar Negeri, Switzerland

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK, May 20 - The Little Mermaid statue in Denmark's capital was found draped in a Muslim dress and head scarf Sunday morning. Police removed the clothing after a telephone caller reported it, spokesman Jorgen Thomsen said.

Picture- Unknown offenders put a Muslim dress and head scarf on the famed Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen early Sunday May 20 2007, police said. After receiving a telephone call, a police car was dispatched to the site and she was undressed, Copenhagen police spokesman Jorgen Thomsen said. The Little Mermaid was created by Danish sculptor Edvard Eriksen in tribute to Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen. Sitting on a rock at the entrance of the Copenhagen harbor since 1913, she draws an estimated 1 million visitors a year, and is occasionally targeted by vandals.

In 2004, someone put a burqa, the head-to-toe Islamic robe, on the statue, along with a sign questioning Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

The bronze statue by Edvard Eriksen has sat on a rock in Copenhagen harbor since 1913. AP

Labels: Denmark, Islamophobia, Luar Negeri

March 12 - Muslim leaders in Australia have announced plans to form a political party to fight what they say is growing Islamophobia.

The move came as the leader of a Christian party demanded an immediate halt to Islamic immigration to Australia, saying Muslims were beginning to dominate some communities.

Sheikh Taj Aldin al-Hilali (picture left), the Mufti of Australia, is leading the drive for the country's 300,000 Muslims to get more involved in politics.

Al-Hilali caused a storm of protest late last year when he described scantily-dressed women as "uncovered meat" and suggested they were inviting rape.

The Egyptian-born cleric faced calls to leave Australia but responded by saying that Muslims had more right to the country because they had paid for their tickets unlike many of the population's convict ancestors. more..

Labels: Australia, Islamophobia, Luar Negeri

Headscarf banned from soccer field

Laval, Canada, March 5 - The International Football Association (Fifa) Board, the game's decision-making body, has backed a controversial decision to prevent a Canadian Muslim girl from taking part in a match while wearing a headscarf.

Asmahan "Azzy" Mansour, 11, was banned from the competition in Laval, Quebec, by a Muslim referee after she refused to remove the hijab. Agencies

Labels: Canada, Islamophobia, Luar Negeri

AlJazeera, February 16 - A Milan judge has ordered 26 US citizens, most of them believed to be CIA agents, to stand trial on charges of the 2003 abduction of an Egyptian imam.

At least five Italians, including Nicolo Pollari, the former head of Italian military intelligence, were also ordered to stand trial.

Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, was allegedly snatched from a Milan street and flown to Egypt, where he said he was tortured.

It is expected to be the first criminal trial over "renditions", one of the most controversial aspects of the Bush administration's "war on terror".

The trial will be the biggest ever of US intelligence agents in an allied country, although they will almost certainly be tried in absentia.

The Italian government has not yet sought the US citizens' extradition.

Legal battle

Bob Seldon Lady, the former CIA station chief in Milan and one of the defendants, said via his lawyer last month that he did not recognise the court.

All of the US agents have court-appointed lawyers, who have said they have had no contact with their clients.

Alessia Sorgato, a lawyer who represents three Americans, said she was happy about the ruling because she would be able to fully argue the case in court.

Judge Caterina Interlandi ordered the trial to start on June 8.

An Italian policeman, Luciano Pironi, has recieved a 21-month prison sentence as part of a plea-bargain deal after admitting stopping Omar on the street so the CIA could grab him.

He says the CIA told him they were trying to recruit Omar and that the operation was approved by Rome and the US.

Pollari says Italian military intelligence did nothing wrong but has not co-operated with the court, saying the evidence is covered by the state secrets act.

'Wreck'

Omar said he was snatched from a Milan street and bundled into a van.

The cleric is thought to have been taken to the US air base in Aviano, northern Italy and from there transported to Egypt.

Omar was released from prison on Sunday and says he would like to return to Italy.

"I have been reduced to a wreck of a human being," he told ANSA news agency after his release.

European report

The European Parliament approved a report on Wednesday that said governments in the region helped conceal secret US transfers of terrorism suspects.

And prosecutors elsewhere in Europe are going ahead with cases aimed at the transfers.

This week, the Swiss government approved prosecutors' plans to investigate the flight that allegedly took Omar over Swiss air space from Italy to Germany.

And a Munich prosecutor recently issued arrest warrants for 13 people in connection with another alleged CIA-orchestrated kidnapping - a German citizen who says he was abducted in December 2003 at the Serbian-Macedonia border and flown to Afghanistan. Agencies

Labels: Berita, Islamophobia, Luar Negeri, Mesir

Demi untuk melemahkan sokongan terhadap Pas, berita ini melapurkan DAP tidak akan bersama Pas atas dasar Pas berhasrat untuk membentuk negara Islam. Secara sengaja atau tidak, ianya menghina (Islam) dengan menakutkan warga non-muslim terhadap negara Islam.

DAP Ulangi Tidak Akan Bekerjasama Dengan PAS

PULAU PINANG, 25 Jan (Bernama) - DAP mengulangi tidak akan bekerjasama dengan PAS pada pilihan raya umum akan datang kerana pendirian parti itu yang berhasrat menjadikan Malaysia sebagai sebuah negara Islam.

Pengerusi DAP Karpal Singh berkata, walaupun parti itu menghormati Perlembagaan yang menyebut bahawa Islam adalah agama rasmi negara ini namun sebarang hasrat untuk menjadikan Malaysia sebagai sebuah negara Islam haruslah ditolak.

"Kita terima agama Islam adalah agama rasmi negara tetapi kita tidak akan bekerjasama dengan PAS untuk menjadikan Malaysia sebuah negara Islam," kata beliau dalam Ceramah Perdana DAP di sini Rabu malam.

Katanya, berdasarkan Perlembagaan negara, agama Islam hanya diterima sebagai agama rasmi di Malaysia serta rakyat diberi kebebasan beragama dan DAP akan mempertahankan perkara itu.

Karpal berkata, DAP tidak akan menerima PAS jika parti itu mahu melaksanakan undang-undang Islam di negara ini kerana ia bertentangan dengan Perlembagaan negara.

Penasihat parti Keadilan Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim yang turut hadir pada ceramah itu berkata, Keadilan juga akan mempertahankan Perlembagaan yang menerima Islam sebagai agama rasmi dan parti itu tidak berhasrat menjadikan Malaysia sebagai sebuah negara Islam.

Anwar yang juga bekas timbalan perdana menteri turut membayangkan hasratnya untuk bertanding pada pilihan raya umum akan datang dengan berkata: "Janganlah seronok dengar sahaja apa yang saya cakap tapi bagilah undi bagi saya menang".

Beliau juga mendesak supaya ahli akademik keturunan Cina dilantik sebagai Naib Canselor bagi sekurang-kurangnya tiga buah universiti awam.

Pada majlis itu, Ketua Pembangkang Lim Kit Siang dan Setiausaha Agung DAP Lim Guan Eng turut menyentuh mengenai bantahan terhadap cadangan menjadikan Malaysia sebuah negara Islam serta isu-isu mengenai prestasi ekonomi negara.

Labels: Berita, Islamophobia, Malaysia

SUNGAI PETANI, Jan 25 (Bernama) -- Imam in Kedah who allow outsiders to deliver Friday sermons which criticise the government will be sacked, Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid said Wednesday.

He said the Kedah Islamic Religious Council would monitor the situation after several imam were detected to have committed such act.

He said this was disappointing because these imam had abused their position.

"The state government will act sternly against imam who defy the authorities to stop such activity," he told reporters after chairing the state executive council meeting here.

Labels: Berita, Islam Hadhari, Islamophobia, Malaysia

By Sue Lindsey

ROCKY MOUNT, Va. Dec 22, 2006 (AP) - A congressman said Thursday that he will not retract a letter warning that unless immigration is tightened, "many more Muslims will be elected" and use the Quran to take the oath of office.

Labels: Berita, Islamophobia, Luar Negeri, U.S.

Goode (picture) wrote the letter to constituents who were concerned about Minnesota congressman-elect Keith Ellison's wishes to be photographed for a ceremonial swearing-in with a Quran and not a Bible. In it, Goode wrote that he wants to end the "diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country."

During a nationally televised interview Thursday with David Asman on Fox News, Goode acknowledged the story had "gathered steam and momentum" since his letter first appeared on the Internet earlier in the week.

During a press conference open only to regional media, Goode defended his comments within the letter.

"I do not apologize, and I do not retract my letter," Goode said. "The letter stands for itself."

And he rebutted assertions that his statements about Muslims were racist.

"I would suggest anyone that uses that word in describing me to read the letter," Goode said. "There's no discrimination in this letter, unless you take the position that reducing immigration is discrimination."

He targeted the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, a congressionally mandated program that brings 50,000 immigrants to the United States per year. The U.S. State Department's Web site indicates the 2007 lottery resulted in the approval of 1,361 immigrants from Iran and 80 from Iraq, among other countries.

Goode said he supports a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke County, to end the program.

Goode's press conference, which took place in the Franklin County Courthouse, was secured by a number of county sheriff's deputies. Franklin County Sheriff W.Q. "Quint" Overton said Goode had requested the security because he wanted to ensure that only members of the media attended. The only person turned away was Joe Stanley, the chairman of the Franklin County Democratic Committee.

Overton said Goode had received threats. Goode declined to comment on that matter.

Meanwhile, a growing number of Goode's colleagues in the House of Representatives condemned him for the letter. Among them was U.S. Rep. Jim Moran, D-Alexandria, who released a statement calling Goode's letter "anti-Muslim.

"Bringing more Muslim-Americans into the political process is a goal, not something to be avoided," Moran wrote.

In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Ellison said Goode "has a lot to learn about Islam."

Response from those within Goode's district was decidedly more mixed. Comments on message boards were divided, with many posters supporting Goode and praising him for his stance. And Goode told Asman he'd heard "more positive than negative" responses from constituents.

But just down the street from Goode's press conference in Rocky Mount, one Muslim businessman said he didn't think continued legal immigration would hurt the country.

Mamdouh Mohamed Ibrahim moved to Rocky Mount from Egypt six months ago to help his brother run Hema's, an Italian restaurant.

"It's not going to be a big deal to have a lot of Muslims in the country," Ibrahim said. "We're all the same blood. I have a heart, you have a heart. What's the difference?

"We don't try to make anyone Muslim by force or by power. It's freedom to do as you like."

Ibrahim also said he didn't see the need for Ellison to swear on a Quran. And he said he wasn't offended by Goode's statement in the letter refusing to put anything about the Quran on his office wall.

"It doesn't matter if it's on the wall," Ibrahim said. "It matters from here -- from the heart."

Labels: Berita, Islamophobia, Luar Negeri, U.S.

Europe's Muslims are facing rising "Islamophobia" ranging from violent attacks to discrimination in education, housing and jobs, a wide-ranging European Union report said on Monday.

But the study by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia says Muslims believe they could do more to help themselves to connect with wider society.

The report - entitled Muslims in the European Union - Discrimination and Islamophobia - seeks to offer a street-level view of the complex situation surrounding religion across the continent.

The EU has 15 million Muslims, the second largest religious group in the bloc.

"The disadvantaged position of Muslim minorities, evidence of a rise in Islamophobia and concern over processes of alienation and radicalisation have triggered an intense debate in the European Union," Beate Winkler, director of the Vienna-based group which compiled the study, wrote.

Violence and threats

The report cited hundreds of reported cases of violence or threats against Muslims since 2004, including vandalism against mosques and Islamic centres, abuse of women wearing Islamic head scarves and physicals attacks, such as one on a Somali family in Denmark by a gang carrying baseball bats emblazoned with swastikas and racist slogans.

The report, however, noted that "data on religiously aggravated incidents is collected on a limited scale." Only Britain publishes a hate-crime list that specifically identifies acts against Muslims.

"Muslims feel that acceptance by society is increasingly premised on 'assimilation' and the assumption that they should lose their Muslim identity," Winkler wrote.

Since the September 11 attacks in the US many Muslims feel "they have been put under a general suspicion of terrorism," she added.

That is a view supported by the dozens of polls and case studies in the 117-page report.

"A question I have heard many times is, 'When are you going back?' I say, 'I was born in Rotterdam so where would I go?' It's a really painful question and makes you feel like a foreigner," a Dutch Muslim woman said in the survey.

It found that Muslims frequently found themselves worse off than other religious groups.

"Available data shows that European Muslims are often disproportionately represented in areas with poorer housing conditions, while their educational achievement falls below average and their unemployment rates are higher than average."

Employment and education

Interviewees agreed that Muslim women who wear headscarves found it hardest to get jobs, saying many employers feared they would drive away customers.

In France, people with purely French names were five times more likely to be invited to job interviews than those with Muslim-sounding names and similar qualifications, Winkler told a news conference.

In the Netherlands, some young Muslims said they had been placed in school classes segregated along ethnic lines because they were branded "foreign", even though they were Dutch-born.

A German of Turkish heritage said a teacher described to his class how Ottoman forces once marched to the edge of Vienna.

"He said, 'Thank God we beat them or you guys would have big problems.' He looked to the boys [in the class] and said, 'You all would have been circumcised.' Then he looked to the girls and said, 'You would all have to wear headscarves,'" the young man told the interviewer.

Some Muslims complained that their community mosques were not addressing the issues that confronted them in secular European society, such as relationships, sexuality and drugs.

"The imams are not capable of giving us the right answers. They [say], 'No, according to our tradition and culture you should not even think about joining a dinner or party.' But they don't realise that when you don't do this, you are becoming a solo person not joining the group, so you will never join the group," a young man in the Netherlands said.

The report urged EU policymakers to fully apply anti-discrimination directives, mandate diversity training for police, ensure school classes are ethnically integrated, and encourage balanced media coverage to avoid stigmatising Muslims. Agencies

Labels: Berita, Islamophobia, Luar Negeri, Ummah

Is The Sun a front for Islamophobes?

I have long been noticing how subtlely the nation's FREE newspaper has been freely making a concentrated attack against Islam and the Malaysian Muslims by highlighting issues that portray Islam as a faith that is extreme and not giving freedom to it's adherents to do as they please!

It's editorial team seems to have a hidden agenda to ridicule and mock the Majlis Agama Islam of this country and they do so in a very well thought out manner by giving room to people who are not that concerned with holding fast to the tenets of the Islamic faith and the paper seems to champion these screwed up lowlifes causes by giving them centrepiece spaces in their paper!

One does not have to be a sleuth to sniff out the hidden agenda of this socalled 'free' newspaper!

I urge the Malaysian public to be aware of the direction this particular newspaper is leading it's readers to 'swallow hook, line and sinker' as to it's articles and reports especially those touching on Islam.

The Jabatan Kemajuan Islam @ JAKIM may not have people who are wary of this sublime attempt by this newspaper to undermine the status and dignity of Islam and the Muslims in Malaysia by it's covert handling of the many issues cropping up concerning apostates and the brouhaha regarding who has the right to handle corpses of those who embrace Islam and then want out as if it is a simple thing to do!

I for one would like to see a more stringent control over those who want to embrace Islam just because they want to get married to a Muslim in the first place.

JAKIM ought to employ learned intellectuals who are alert to such undercover tactics by newspaper's such as The Sun to destroy the good name and reputation of Islam by taking action against them through the legal system!

Who is the culprit behind the Sun's agenda of belittling Islam? Does JAKIM have the balls to go after the ones responsible for the onslaught of vile propaganda of the Sun against Islam or is it waiting for the shit to hit the fans?

Let us wait and see. Mahaguru@58.

Labels: Islamophobia, Malaysia

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei
December 14

Whatever happens in Iraq, we may be inching closer to a "clash of civilizations'' between Islam and the West.

There's a fatigue in the West with an Arab world that sometimes seems to put its creative juices mostly into building better bombs. Even open-minded people in the West sometimes feel a sense of resignation that maybe the bigots are right: Maybe Islam just is intrinsically backward, misogynistic and violent.

After I wrote recently about reform elements in Islam, I received a long note from a 24-year-old Chicagoan, Paul Williams, who ventured what many people feel: "I went to school in Macalester College and the whole time there I wrote paper after paper defending Islam,'' he told me. Now, he says, after reading the Quran cover to cover and living in Turkey, he has lapsed into political incorrectness: "The more I'm here the more I'm beginning to think that there's just something wrong with Islam.''

That's a common view, shaped partly by the way we in the news business focus on violence in the Islamic world. So let me step up and say that I find the common American stereotypes of Islam profoundly warped.

Those stereotypes are largely derived from the less than 20 percent of Muslims who are Arabs, with Persians and Pashtuns thrown in as well. But the great majority of the world's Muslims live not in the Middle East but here in Asia, where religion has mostly been milder.

At the moment I'm in Brunei, a Muslim country nestled in Southeast Asia. At the University of Brunei, women outnumber men. Women here drive, fill senior offices in government and the private sector, serve as ambassadors and are pilots for the national airline. "Young women have equal opportunities now -- it's up to your capability,'' said Lisa Ibrahim, president of the Young Entrepreneurs Association of Brunei.

Brunei has gold-domed mosques in its skyline, and the sultan has two wives. But Brunei is also home to churches and Hindu temples serving a multiethnic society. Young people flirt together in the cafes, and non-Muslims are allowed to drink alcohol.

Anwar Ibrahim, the former Malaysian deputy prime minister, says he reminds Americans that the most populous Muslim country (Indonesia) is a democracy whose elections run more smoothly than Florida's.

Yes, Islamists are a threat in Asia, and many imams are more scandalized by female flesh than by honor killings or illiteracy. Indonesia has tried the editor of the local edition of Playboy magazine, and a state in Malaysia has threatened to fine women who wear miniskirts. But Indonesia has had a woman as president, while Bangladesh has had two female prime ministers and has more girls in high school than boys.

"We tend to be more tolerant,'' Yusof Halim, a prominent lawyer in Brunei, said of Asian Muslims. He then confided: "My honest opinion is that Arabs are male chauvinists.''

Meanwhile, many Muslims are as disenchanted with us as we are with them. They complain about hypocritical Americans who parrot slogans about human rights but brutalize Muslims at Guantanamo and supply the weaponry that kills Muslim children in Gaza and Lebanon.

The Quran and Bible alike have passages that make 21st-century readers flinch; most Christians just ignore sections on slavery or admonitions to kill a disobedient child. Likewise, some Muslims are reinterpreting Quranic passages on polygamy and amputations, saying they were restricted to particular circumstances that no longer apply.

Frankly, I don't see that any religion's influence is intrinsically peaceful or violent. Christianity inspired both Mother Teresa and pogroms. Hinduism nurtured Gandhi and also the pioneers of suicide-bombings.

These days, ferocious anti-Semitism thrives in some Muslim countries, but in the Dreyfus affair a century ago Muslims sided with a Jew persecuted by anti-Semitic Christians. And the biggest sectarian slaughter in Europe in modern times involved Christians massacring Muslims at Srebrenica.

The plain fact is that some Muslim societies do have a real problem with violence, with the subjugation of women, with tolerance. But the mosaic of Islam is vast and contains many more hopeful glimpses of the future.

There is a historic dichotomy between desert Islam -- the austere fundamentalism of countries like Saudi Arabia -- and riverine or coastal Islam, more outward-looking, flexible and tolerant. Desert Muslims grab the headlines, but my bet is that in the struggle for the soul of Islam, maritime Muslims have the edge.

Nicholas Kristof writes for The New York Times.

Labels: Berita, Islamophobia, Luar Negeri, Ummah

The Dutch government has decided to ban the wearing of burqas and other Muslim full-face veils in public, justifying the move on security grounds.

Reports said on Friday that Rita Verdonk, the Dutch minister for immigration, would soon draw up legislation to impliment the burqa ban.

This will make the Netherlands, once among Europe's most liberal states, the first European country to impose a complete ban on Muslim veil.

Existing legislation already limits the wearing of burqas and other total face-coverings on public transport or in schools.

The debate on face veils and whether they hinder Muslim integration has gathered momentum across Europe. Several countries in Europe have already outlawed them in specific places.

"The cabinet finds it undesirable that garments covering the face, including the burqa, should be worn in public in view of public order, and the security and protection of fellow citizens," the Dutch justice ministry said.

Last December Dutch lawmakers voted in favour of a proposal by far-right politician Geert Wilders to outlaw face-coverings and asked Verdonk to examine the feasibility of such a ban.

Because veils were worn for religious reasons, Verdonk had feared new legislation could come into conflict with religious freedom laws. But she said on Friday that this was not the case.

France has banned the Muslim headscarf and other religious garb from state schools while discussion in Britain centres on limiting the full facial veil or niqab.

Italy has a decades-old law against covering the face in public as an anti-terrorism measure. Some politicians have called for this rule to be enforced against veiled Muslim women.

The Netherlands' Muslim community estimates that only about 50 women in the country wear the head-to-toe burqa or the niqab, a face veil that covers everything but the eyes.

Dutch Muslim groups have complained that a burqa ban would make the country's one million Muslims feel more victimised and alienated, regardless of whether they approve of burqas or not.

Job Cohen, the Labour mayor of Amsterdam, said he opposed burqas in schools and public buildings, and said women wearing one who failed to get a job should not expect welfare benefits. more..

Labels: Berita, Islamophobia, Luar Negeri