France: Muslim graves descerated
international |
rights, freedoms and repression |
other press 
Monday April 07, 2008 12:11
by tomeile
Racists desecrated 148 graves in the Muslim section of a military cemetery in Lille France, last Sunday daubing anti-Islamic graffiti and swastikas on graves , and hanging a pig's head on one of the headstones. The widely condemned hate crime comes at a time of tension for Muslim communities throughout Europe , occurring in the same week that Deniz Ozgur Uzun ,a 17-year-old Muslim high school student , was beaten to death by Islamophobes in Copenhagen .
Commentators have linked the attacks to a recent series of extreme right-wing engineered Islamophobic provocations on the Continent which has included the reprinting of the notorious Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons in Denmark and the release on the internet of an Islamophobic film by Geers Wilder, the Dutch anti-immigrant campaigner and M.P .
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL06327609200...80406
Comments (6 of 6)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6The French anti-racism group , MRAP , has issued a statement condemning the attack , saying that the desecration of the Muslim graves is “a worrying sign of an ill that is gaining ground with a degree of impunity: islamophobia"
This was a rather tasteless unpleasant action which damaged property and violated the personal space of the families of the dead people. However, tasteless and unpleasant as it was, nobody was hurt or threatened with death, unlike what happened to geert wilders for making his 10 minute film.
I think if people were able to openly express their anxieties and freely debate in public about the way Islam is encroaching into their societies without fear of violent reprisals then this kind of underhand ugly protest would be less likely to happen.
Personally I do not approve of this kind of thing but I do think we need to be free to have an open discussion about Islam itself and whether it is compatible with our way of life in the west without fearing for our personal safety.
As for the copenhagen incident, there are no excuses for such brutal behaviour. Just as there was no excuse for the murder of theo van gogh or the murder of pim fortuyn or the deaths that occurred in the riots by angry Islamicists over the publishing those cartoons
People who daub swastikas on people's graves do tend to be racists . France's President Sarkovsky have called the vandalism an act of racism as have most French commentators .There's a picture at the link below of one the desecrated tombstones.
http://www.islamonline.com/news/newsfull.php?newid=106609
I acknowledge you disagree with the attack but regardless if it was a Jewish Muslim graveside this attack would have happened racist/ fascist are going to this anyway - and if you are going to publise cartoons that are going to offend a religion why do it - A minority of muslims are extremist the same as Christians or any other religion the majority of muslims (over a billion) are not fundamentalist so why marginalise a community - Islamaphobia is rising as we can see - Muslims are being targeted in UK and Europe just like the Irish were 15 - 20 years ago but not many people make that connection.
Yes Emma, all religions seem to have their share of bigots and hotheads. Nobody likes to see their religious beliefs being lampooned. A small minority of Christians weren't too happy with The Life of Brian for example,but I can't remember any of the Monty Python team being issued with death threats as a result. Only Muslims are so intolerant as to issue and carry out death threats on people who they feel have insulted their religion. Not very tolerant of them, is it?
Pat you're missing my point and to say 'Only Muslims are so intolerant as to issue and carry out death threats on people who they feel have insulted their religion' that a huge sweeping generalisation my best friend, some of my cousins are muslim and I know members of the muslim community who are willing to debate and discuss religion and are no way fundamentalist and to say Christian do not make death threats or what about christian fundamentalists carry out bombs on abortion clinics or attacking doctors who perfrom them or women going into the clinics or the christian crusades? and again that is a minority of christians as it is with muslims - religious fundamentalist make it bad for everybody no matter what perspective you are coming from I am no way defending religious fundamentalists but I am not going to blame them on bloody racists/fascist attack as I said this would happen anyway like it did with the synagogue in Dublin a couple of years ago but would you blame zionist for that? I don't think so I certaintly would not.
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