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Europe: “You Are Entering a Sharia Controlled Zone”
Hezbollah Pitches Tent in Denmark
By Soeren Kern, HUDSON INSTITUTE
A Muslim group in Denmark has launched a campaign to turn parts of
Copenhagen and other Danish cities into “Sharia Law Zones” that would
function as autonomous enclaves ruled by Islamic law.
The Danish Islamist group Kaldet til Islam (Call to Islam) says the
Tingbjerg suburb of Copenhagen will be the first part of Denmark to be
subject to Sharia law, followed by the Nørrebro district of the
capital and then other parts of the country, the center-right Jyllands-
Posten newspaper reported on October 17.
Call to Islam says it will dispatch 24-hour Islamic ‘morals police’ to
enforce Sharia law in those enclaves. The patrols will confront anyone
caught drinking alcohol, gambling, going to discothèques or engaging
in other activities the group views as running contrary to Islam.
Integration Minister Karen Haekkerup told Jyllands-Posten “I consider
this to be very serious. Anything that attempts to undermine our
democracy, we must crack down on it and consistently so.”
The Call to Islam group promotes Salafism, a fundamentalist sect
within Sunni Islam that espouses a literalist reading of Islamic
scriptures and adheres to a conservative and highly regulated puritan
lifestyle.
Salafism also seeks the destruction of Western democracy, which is to
be replaced by a Universal Islamic Caliphate, a worldwide Islamic
theocracy regulated by Sharia law.
In a statement on its website, Call to Islam asks: “How can we
[Muslims] claim to be followers of the Sunnah [principles established
by the Islamic prophet Mohammed] and defend the best Deen [doctrines
of Allah], when we prefer to live among the infidels, be subject to
their laws, emulate them and fail to differentiate ourselves from
their kufr [camp of unbelievers]? How can we claim to love Allah and
His Messenger when we are embarrassed to call for Sharia? How can we
be indifferent to the establishment of Allah’s rule on Earth, which is
a duty for every Muslim?”
The statement continues: “To work to establish the Caliphate is one of
the biggest tasks of our time. And this task cannot be achieved unless
we work collectively under an Emir [commander, general or prince].
Moreover, it is known that it is a duty to fight the evil that is
prevalent everywhere around us. Man-made laws and rules are present
today and it has now become a mandatory obligation for all Muslims to
work collectively to rid the world of this great munkar [evil],
democracy.”
Denmark’s TV2 public television recently filmed members of Call to
Islam in downtown Copenhagen openly campaigning for the abolishment of
democracy and calling on people not to vote in parliamentary elections
that were held on September 15.
A video posted on the Call to Islam website asks: “Do you want to take
part in establishing Sharia in Denmark? Or do you want to stand by?
The choice is yours!”
Call to Islam in Denmark is emulating similar movements in other parts
of Europe.
In Britain, for example, a Muslim group called Muslims Against the
Crusades has launched a campaign to turn twelve British cities –
including what it calls “Londonistan” – into independent Islamic
states. The so-called Islamic Emirates would function as autonomous
enclaves ruled by Islamic Sharia law and operate entirely outside
British jurisprudence.
The Islamic Emirates Project names the British cities of Birmingham,
Bradford, Derby, Dewsbury, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Luton,
Manchester, Sheffield, as well as Waltham Forest in northeast London
and Tower Hamlets in East London as territories to be targeted for
blanket Sharia rule.
In the Tower Hamlets area of East London (also known as the Islamic
Republic of Tower Hamlets), for example, extremist Muslim preachers,
called the Tower Hamlets Taliban, regularly issue death threats to
women who refuse to wear Islamic veils. Neighborhood streets have been
plastered with posters declaring “You are entering a Sharia controlled
zone: Islamic rules enforced.” And street advertising deemed offensive
to Muslims is regularly vandalized or blacked out with spray paint.
In Belgium, a radical Muslim group called Sharia4Belgium recently
established an Islamic Sharia law court in Antwerp, the country’s
second-largest city. Leaders of the group say the purpose of the court
is to create a parallel Islamic legal system in Belgium in order to
challenge the state’s authority as enforcer of the civil law
protections guaranteed by the Belgian constitution.
The Sharia court, which is located in Antwerp’s Borgerhout district,
is “mediating” family law disputes for Muslim immigrants in Belgium.
The self-appointed Muslim judges running the court are applying
Islamic law, rather than the secular Belgian Family Law system, to
resolve disputes involving questions of marriage and divorce, child
custody and child support, as well as all inheritance-related matters.
Unlike Belgian civil law, Islamic Sharia law does not guarantee equal
rights for men and women; critics of the Sharia court say it will
undermine the rights of Muslim women in marriage and education. Legal
experts say the Islamic court will also undercut the Belgian state’s
ability to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of so-called honor
crimes.
Sharia4Belgium says the court in Antwerp will eventually expand its
remit and handle criminal cases as well.
In Germany, the spread of Islamic Sharia law is far more advanced than
previously thought, and German authorities are “powerless” to do
anything about it, according to a new book about the Muslim shadow
justice system in Germany.
The 236-page book titled “Judges Without Law: Islamic Parallel Justice
Endangers Our Constitutional State,” which was authored by Joachim
Wagner, a German legal expert and former investigative journalist for
ARD German public television, says Islamic Sharia courts are now
operating in all of Germany’s big cities.
This “parallel justice system” is undermining the rule of law in
Germany, Wagner says, because Muslim arbiters-cum-imams are settling
criminal cases out of court without the involvement of German
prosecutors or lawyers before law enforcement can bring the cases to a
German court.
In France, Islamic Sharia law is rapidly displacing French civil law
in many parts of suburban Paris. The 2,200-page report, “Banlieue de
la République” (Suburbs of the Republic) says France is on the brink
of a major social explosion because of the failure of Muslims to
integrate into French society.
The report shows how the problem is being exacerbated by radical
Muslim leaders who are promoting the social marginalization of Muslim
immigrants in order to create a parallel Muslim society in France that
is ruled by Sharia law.
In Spain, Salafi preachers in the north-eastern region of Catalonia
have set up Sharia tribunals to judge the conduct of both practicing
and non-practicing Muslims in Spain. They also deploy Islamic
“religious police” in Lérida and other Catalan municipalities to
monitor and punish Muslims who do not comply.
In one case, nine Salafists kidnapped a woman in Reus, tried her for
adultery based on Sharia law, and condemned her to death. The woman
just barely escaped execution by fleeing to a local police station.
In another case, a Salafi imam in Tarragona was arrested for forcing a
31-year-old Moroccan woman to wear a hijab head covering. The imam had
threatened to burn down the woman’s house for being and “infidel”
because she works outside of the home, drives an automobile and has
non-Muslim friends.
Back in Denmark, local politicians appear oblivious to the spread of
Sharia law. In September, the city council of Copenhagen gave its
final approval for the construction of the first official “Grand
Mosque” in the Danish capital.
The mega-mosque will have a massive blue dome as well as two towering
minarets and is architecturally designed to stand out on Copenhagen’s
low-rise skyline.
Unlike most mosques in Europe, which cater to Sunni Muslims, the
mosque in Copenhagen pertains to Shia Islam. The mosque is being
financed by the Islamic Republic of Iran and critics say that
theocrats in Tehran intend to use the mosque to establish a recruiting
center for the militant Shia Muslim group, Hezbollah in Europe.
The Copenhagen city council says that who pays for building the mosque
is none of its concern. But the Copenhagen mosque is, in fact, being
built bty Ahlul Beit Foundation, a radical Shia Muslim proselytizing
and political lobbying group run by the Iranian government.
Ahlul Beit already runs around 70 Islamic centers around the world,
and has as its primary goal the promoting of the religious and
political views of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ahlul Beit is
especially focused on spreading Islamic Sharia law throughout Europe
including Denmark.
Soeren Kern is Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Relations at the Madrid-
based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group