A long overdue step. The list includes Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the most prominent Muslim cleric in the world. In January 2009, during a Friday sermon broadcast on Al-Jazeera, he prayed that Allah would kill all the Jews: “Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one.” He also declared: “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by [Adolf] Hitler.”
“France bars Muslim clerics from entering France,” by Thomas Adamson for the Associated Press, March 29 (thanks to Maxwell):
PARIS (AP) “” France has barred a group of Muslim clerics, including one of the most prominent voices in Sunni Islam, from entering the country to attend a conference.
France’s foreign ministry said Thursday the clerics were invited by the French Islamic Union to speak at a congress in Le Bourget near Paris from April 6-9.
One of those barred, the Egyptian-born Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, says he refuses to come to France.
The ban also includes other high-profile Muslim clerics of Palestinian, Egyptian and Saudi origin.
The foreign ministry said in a statement that “these people call for hatred and violence and seriously violate the principles of the Republic, and in the current context, seriously risk disrupting public order.”
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said earlier this week that these figures would not be “welcome” as their views are incompatible with French values….
Al-Qaradawi is widely respected throughout the Middle East and has a popular weekly TV show on Islamic law on the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera.
But because of his suspected extremist links, the 86-year-old cleric has been banned from the United States and was prevented from traveling to Britain to seek medical treatment in 2008 on grounds he supports terrorism….