Recently in Italy Category

Only five years? Why only five years for plotting mass murder? The same sentence was given to a Muslim synagogue jihad plotter in New York. Who has agreed that Islamic jihadists who plot the mass murder of Jews in synagogues should be sentenced to only five years in prison?

Anyway, Muslims target Jews in Italy and in the U.S., and in Bulgaria, and in India, and elsewhere. Yet while there is international discussion of "Islamophiobia," no one speaks about the international Islamic war against the Jews. Now, why is that?

"Moroccan jailed for Milan synagogue bomb plot," from the JTA, May 17:

ROME - A 22-year-old Moroccan man has been sentenced to more than five years in prison for planning terrorist attacks on Milan’s main synagogue and Jewish school.

The five year and four month sentence against Mohamed Jarmoune was handed down by a court in Brescia on Thursday.

Italian media said the sentence was more than the four years asked by the public prosecutor. Jarmoune, who has lived in Italy since childhood, was arrested in Brescia in March 2012.

Investigators found documents on his computer analyzing the security measures of Milan’s main synagogue. He was also suspected of planning attacks and organizing terrorist groups through internet social network sites.

Will the Islamophobia never end? This is the kind of story -- and there are ones like it ever day -- that vividly demonstrates the unalloyed evil of those who would deflect attention from the root causes of attacks like this and defame those who are working to raise awareness of them so they can be resisted and prevented in the future.

"Arabs Brutally Attack US Yeshiva Student in Italy," by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu for Israel National News, January 2 (thanks to Voice of the Copts):

A gang of Arabs brutally attacked an American yeshiva student visiting with his family in Venice, Italy, in what local community leaders said was a rare instance of anti-Semitism.

The student was knocked unconscious on Tuesday when he strolled late at night in the center of the city. A band of 15 Arab youth pounced on him, dragged him into a dark corner and pummeled him, using sharp weapons.

The student lost consciousness, and the attackers fled when a passerby spotted them and called police and medics.

The police are investigating, but have but have not caught the attackers.

The Milan-based Center for Jewish Documentation's Observatory on Anti-Jewish Prejudice reported last month that the number of anti-Semitic episodes in the country soared last year.

The incidents ranged from street insults and swastika graffiti to physical aggression.

''We observed approximately 70 cases so far this year, most of them graffiti and online attacks, over 40% more than last year,'' said Observatory researcher Stefano Gatti. ''The boom might be due partly to more efficient data-gathering, but the episodes have undeniably increased,” he added....

More bitter fruit of the culture of violence created by a religion that calls for the beating of disobedient women (Qur'an 4:34) and stipulates no penalty for a parent who kills a child. "Italy: Muslim Father Kills Children After His Wife Refuses To Wear Islamic Veil And Threatens To Leave," from Midnight Watcher, November 9 (thanks to Blazing Cat Fur):

Novopress (Translation) – “It seems that he no longer supported the habits of his wife including the fact that she had decided to no longer wear the veil as dictated by the tradition of the women if their country. This is the explanation given by the Corriere Della Sera.

Their country of course is Morocco, whom originates Mustafa Hajjaji, 44 Years old and his wife, ten years his junior. But the drama took place in the city where they had immigrated, Umbertide in the Perouse province, Ombrie region. It is there that Tuesday night, [Government officials] alerted by the wife, found in the bathroom the cadavers of two of the couple’s children, Ahmed, 8 years old, and Jiahane, 12 years old....

Just a month ago a woman had complained against her husband for threats of being hit and injuries and poor treatment. She had explained to the government officials of Citta Di Castello that her husband had brandished a knife against her. In the past the man had notably threatened on motive that she had stopped wearing the veil.

Before attempting to commit suicide the Moroccan had traced with blood on the walls, inscriptions in Arabic that are barely legible. He has also left a paper. The investigators attempt to decipher and to translate the messages in hope of finding explanations to the double murder. According to the Corriere della Sera, Mustafà Hajjaji wanted to punish his wife perhaps because after stopping wearing the veil, she had decided to leave her husband.”

Italian Reactions to Muhammad Film Protests
by Enza Ferreri

The violent attacks on people and symbols representing the USA and the West in the Islamic world are one of those situations in which it becomes clear where people stand.

People are forced to make a choice here: they either point the finger at those whom they consider responsible for having provoked Muslim outrage, in other words guilty of exercising freedom of expression, or recognize that peaceful coexistence cannot be achieved by sacrificing the basic principles of our civilization, and that appeasement only leads to more and more aggressive demands.

It's similar to kidnapping and making ransom demands: governments are reluctant to give in to those requests, because they know that capitulation would encourage further kidnappings. But in dealing with the Muslim world, this logic - in fact any logic - is hardly ever applied.

Appeasement cannot work for the following reasons. Islam and European civilization are incompatible, not just because Islam is bent on destroying anything which is not Islam - what you may call the "supremacist reason" - but also because our fundamental principles and Islam's are in direct, logical contradiction, and trying to reconcile them is like squaring a circle. A conflict of interests can be solved with negotiations and compromises, but a logical contradiction, like that between a square and a circle, cannot be solved at all. We may call this the "cardinal reason".

It's interesting to note that Western authorities recognize the link between the religion of peace, specifically Friday prayers, and violence:

Meanwhile, police said that German embassies and consulates in Arabic countries would be on high alert after Friday, a religious holiday, as some experts fear that violence could again escalate. (Islam versus Europe)

France confirmed on Friday it would allow no street protests against cartoons denigrating Islam's Prophet Mohammad that were published by a French magazine this week. (Jihad Watch)

Why is it that when Muslims are closest to their religion, through mosques, Friday prayers, Ramadan, they get more enraged and aggressive?

Another criterion to separate people's positions is by looking at what they think of the "Arab Spring".

The Italian missionary-blogger-journalist Piero Gheddo in an article called "Where has the Arab Spring Gone?", after having praised both the revolts that brought democratically-elected governments in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia ("We cannot think that democracy, freedom of press and speech are positive only for us Christians") and Islam's glorious history ("Muhammad's religion spread by the sword but also gave rise to a civilization of great splendour, admired even by Christian sages and travellers"), writes:

We live in 2000 AD, Islam still lives, as a culture, religion and worship of its past, in 1400 after Muhammad. It has not yet adapted to modernity. Muslim peoples are attracted to it, while the political and religious authorities try in every way to exploit Islam to save their power.

Not only that, but there are objective difficulties in saving in the modern world the many good things that exist in Islam: the historical-critical reading of the Quran that would make it contemporary is not allowed because it is the word of God in the literal sense; in Islam there is no comparable authority to the Pope and the Bishops, every mosque or madrassa follows its own way; in Islamic law there is no notion of absolute dignity of every man and woman, which makes all creatures equal in their rights; and finally there is no distinction between religion and politics.

I said that people are forced to make a choice, but it seems that some, like Father Gheddo, are very skilled at avoiding it.

An on-the-fence position has been that of Pope Benedict XVI who, in his trip to Lebanon, invited to peace and dialogue among followers of the various religions. His situation is obviously complicated by his role of head of state and the fear that his words might be the trigger for new attacks on the Christian minorities who are like hostages in Muslim-majority countries.

A more robust answer came from a 2-day international conference on 15-16 September in Florence, organized by the association Una via per Oriana Fallaci on the problem and dangers of Islam, which was also a commemoration of the late Florentine journalist and thinker.

The focus of the conference was on the persecution of Christians inside and outside the Islamic world, Europe's progressive repudiation of its classical liberal values, and the sources of what the participants called "Christianophobia".

Christianophobia derives, according to expert on geopolitics Alexandre del Valle, from four myths, one of which is

The myth that Islam is compatible with freedom and that Islamic violence against Christians is only a reaction to wicked behaviours on the part of Christians in the past as well as today. The current violence is excused as indignation provoked by the film The Innocence of Muslims, considered blasphemous by many Muslims, even if its contents have the sacred texts of Islam as their sources.

I must admit that I don't particularly like the neologism "Christianophobia", simply because unintentionally it seems to legitimize its counterpart "Islamophobia" from which it is probably derived, and in so doing it establishes a prima facie, superficial equivalence between the two religions.

Nevertheless, it seems to be in fashion in the current Italian debate, partly because of the recent Venice Film Festival's screening of Paradise: Faith by Ulrich Seidl, a movie that has as its highest point a sequence in which the protagonist, actress Maria Hoffstatter, engages in autoeroticism using a crucifix.

The double standards between the treatment of Muslim and Christian sensitivities, in this case as in that of the "Piss Christ" "artwork", are so blatant to provoke nausea.

"Violence explodes in the Muslim world. Western politicians compete in apologizing for the blasphemous Islam film. Do we need to burn down embassies and kill for someone to apologize for the blasphemous movie about Christianity which received the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival?" asks the blog Basta Bugie (Enough of Lies).

The question of free speech and where, if anywhere, the line should be drawn is worth exploring, maybe in another article. But that double standards should not be tolerated is so simple that does not require further analysis.

One of Italy's main daily newspapers, Il Giornale, had an article by the Egyptian-born Muslim convert to Christianity and counterjihadist politician Magdi Cristiano Allam:

Behind the terrorist attacks on the U.S. embassies in Benghazi and Cairo there is not a loose cannon, even enemy of 'true Islam', as our own relativists are preaching, from Obama who fell in love with the Quran and defends Muhammad to [Italian Prime Minister] Monti who has a wallet in place of a heart, from this European Union that generously and insanely funds our executioners from Morocco to Syria to that part of the Church which has become fascinated with dialogue for its own sake, culminating in the legitimacy of Islam which is the negation of Christianity.

This is not the truth! Open your eyes, look who crowded in front of the two embassies and watched the backs of the terrorists who made their way with bombs and rockets. They were men and women, young, adults and elderly, apparently people like all the others. Read what was written on the signs and open Qurans held high up, our condemnation to death for daring insult their prophet. Listen carefully to the incitement against the West uttered aloud by the instigators of hatred mingled happily in the crowd. No! It is not a loose cannon! The truth in front of our eyes, that we can hear with our ears, is that this Islamic terrorism is the tip of the iceberg of a widespread and deep-rooted popular reality which legitimizes, supports and finances it. And today, thanks to the success of the so-called 'Arab Spring', it gets full encouragement from ruling Islamic regimes which have not lifted a finger to prevent the attacks. The two embassies are located in very central areas, always under the strict control of the security authorities who, somehow, in this circumstance did not intervene. The terrorists have acted undisturbed both during the attack and looting of embassies and when they burned the American flag and replaced it with the black flag of al-Qaida, and finally when they executed the Ambassador Chris Stevens, a diplomat and two marines.

The truth is that the 'true Islam' by which Muslims are possessed is an ideology that promotes hatred, violence and death of non-Muslims. The truth is that, however, we cannot say that because this vile, ignorant, fearful, corrupt, suicidal West prefers to deny the truth and give up freedom in order not to offend the susceptibilities of the Muslims, not to acknowledge that the root of evil was not Bin Laden but the Quran and Muhammad that he blindly obeyed. Obama, in a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, had even apologized for spreading the video The Innocence of Muslims, ​​produced in the United States, in which Muhammad is portrayed as a paedophile. Why on earth can't we say that if Muhammad, as attested by his official biography, married Aisha when she was 6 years old and had intercourse with her when she was 9, he was a paedophile? It 'an objective fact! Why on earth can't we say that Muhammad, still according to his official biography, was a criminal for having been involved in 627 at the gates of Medina in cutting the throats of and beheading 800 Jews from the tribe of Banu Qurayza? It 'an objective fact!

Wake up! Redeem the right and the duty to use reason, to be fully ourselves, at least here in our home! We got it all wrong with Muslims. Just on the eleventh anniversary of September 11th, the attacks in Benghazi and Cairo bring home one elementary truth: with all those who have as their only ideological references the Quran and Muhammad it is not possible in any way to achieve peace, at most an armed truce like that of Hudaibiya stipulated in 628 by Muhammad with his Mecca's enemies and violated right after the balance of power was reversed. It was a huge blunder of Bush and Blair to imagine that by allying themselves with the Muslim Brotherhood they would split the radical Islamic camp and defeat al-Qaeda. Today the Muslim Brotherhood is in power on the southern shores of the Mediterranean and is spreading to the eastern shores, while Al Qaeda controls state-like territories in Mali, Somalia, Nigeria and Yemen. For this we should thank Obama and the Europeans who are enamored of the so-called 'Arab Spring' and who continue to support the ferocious enemies of Jews, Christians, Israel and women. Because the truth is that Islam is incompatible with democracy!

Libya should have been totally grateful to the United States that has taken on itself the greatest burden of the war of 'liberation' from Gaddafi's odious dictatorial regime. Just on the same day when, commemorating September 11th, Obama claimed that the United States is at war only against Al Qaeda and not against Islam, the answer was the murder of Americans. Probably the 'blasphemous' film or the confirmation of the killing of Al-Qaeda's number two, Anas al-Libi, are just pretexts. They would have done it anyway because it's only in this way that Islam will triumph! Wake up West! Enough of relativism! Enough of Islamically correct! Enough of dialogue for its own sake! Let's stop the Islamic invasion before it's too late!

I don't share Ayaan Hirsi Ali's optimism that people in Muslim countries will eventually, in a few decades maybe, get rid of their Islamic leaders.

What instead gives me a feeling of hope is the reaction in the West, and for once in Europe, where there are maybe for the first time signs, albeit few, of a resistance. Not only the French magazine Charlie Hebdo published Muhammad cartoons, defying the dhimmitude du jour, but also France's Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault defended Charlie Hebdo's right to publish them. And the German satirical magazine Titanic has done something similar, taking a stand in the row over the Muhammad video, by printing a picture of the former German first lady in the arms of a turban-clad man with a dagger.

Maybe, gradually, people in the West will come to see, even through the rampages currently going on, Islam for what it is.

Enza Ferreri is an Italian-born, London-based author and journalist. She has been a London correspondent for several Italian magazines and newspapers, including Panorama, L'Espresso, La Repubblica.

If this were a priest, there would be international front-page news on it for weeks. On this, nothing. "Italy expels former imam jailed for terror training," from ANSA, July 30 (thanks to Insubria):

Italy expels former imam jailed for terror training (ANSA) - Perugia, July 30 - Italy has expelled the former imam of a mosque in suburban Perugia, following his release from prison where he served a six-year sentence for terrorist training.

Moroccan Mostapha El Korchi, former imam of the mosque at Ponte Felcino, was released and repatriated from Rome's main Leonardo da Vinci airport.

He was regarded as a central character in an investigation that led counter-terrorism authorities in Italy to arrest him and two Moroccan assistants, and seize a wide range of materials.

El Korchi had been under surveillance for months with police tracking his Internet activity and recording public sermons in favour of jihad or holy war, police said at the time of his arrest.

El Korchi, who was active in training would-be terrorists, served his sentence in a prison in southern Italy and was then immediately expelled as ordered by the courts in his sentence.

Politics and Islam in Dhimmi Europe
by Enza Ferreri

Is Italy going to follow Britain in its path to advanced multiculturalism?

That is what part of the political leadership is trying to do, from Italy's President Giorgio Napolitano, who said that "it is insane that Italian-born children of immigrants are not citizens" to the leader of the left-wing party Partito Democratico (PD), Pierluigi Bersani, who declared that one of his first moves, if voted into government at the next general election of 2013, will be to grant the right of citizenship to second-generation immigrants.

Some of Bersani's other priorities, as he announced addressing the organizers of Bologna's national 2012 Gay Pride, will be a law to give legal status to homosexual civil unions, a law against homophobia and transphobia, and another to speed up divorce cases. In sum, a real recipe to boost the family and with it the reproductive capacity of native Italians, who at the current birth rate will be reduced from today's 60 million to 37 million in 2050 and 15 million in 2100, when sharia will be definitely easier to implement.

Many comments to the post of this news item, predictably, highlight how the Italian people have very different priorities from Bersani's, like the economic crisis, unemployment, rising taxes and diminishing public services.

The country's current debate about whether to give Italian citizenship to the so-called "new Italians" is important for the problem of Islamization, because about one third of Italy's immigrants are Muslim.

Although Italy is not one of the European countries with the largest Muslim populations, the number of Muslims in Italy, like in the rest of Western Europe, has steadily increased: they were 600,000 in they year 2000, over 1,300,000 in 2009 (35 million in Europe), over 1.5 million (about 2.7% of the population) today, and they are expected to get to 2.8 million by 2030.

France, with 4.7 million Muslims in 2009, remains the continent's most Islamic country, but nevertheless in Italy a new Islamic place of worship is established on average every 4 days. And there are now jihadists with Italian citizenship.

The critics of Bersani's proposals point out that immigrants' children born in Italy, or even immigrants born abroad after 10 years' residence, can already apply for citizenship, the only requisite being that they live permanently in Italy to prevent exploitative behaviour of the welfare system on their part. So what's the need for a new law?

The PD also aims to abolish the crime of illegal immigration, which the party says has been practically made meaningless by the verdicts of the European Court, but still exists as an "abomination" in the Italian legal system.

The blog Qelsi writes: "They [left-wing parties] don't care about Italy and Italians: what matters is gaining power and everything is acceptable to get to Palazzo Chigi, even the Islamization of the cradle of Christianity and the humiliation of the ideals and aspirations of real Italians. Bersani talks about his proposed 'reform', which is in fact our de-Christianization."

The PD and other parties of the left have been accused of being after the immigrants' votes which, in a divided country as Italy is now, may have a big influence. After all, the socialist Hollande in neighboring France was put in office by the Muslim vote, which made the crucial difference. The numerical analysis of the various groups' votes showed that, without Muslims in France, Sarkozy would have won the election.

And the UK has led by example in a big way in this. As unintentionally whistle-blowing speech writer for the Labour Party Andrew Neather was later to reveal in a London Evening Standard newspaper's 2009 article paradoxically in favour of unrestricted immigration:

"What's missing is not only a sense of the benefits of immigration but also of where it came from. It didn't just happen: the deliberate policy of [Labour] ministers from late 2000 until at least February last year, when the Government introduced a points-based system, was to open up the UK to mass migration." [Emphasis added]

He then explains how the "major shift from the policy of previous governments" regarding immigration came after "I wrote the landmark speech given by then immigration minister Barbara Roche in September 2000, calling for a loosening of controls", which was largely based on drafts of a report by a Blair's Cabinet Office think-tank.

The final published version of the report supported immigration only because of the benefits it brings to Britain in terms of labour market; but previous, unpublished versions contained other reasons, he writes:

"Earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.

"I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn't its main purpose – to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.

"...Ministers were very nervous about the whole thing. For despite Roche's keenness to make her big speech and to be upfront, there was a reluctance elsewhere in government to discuss what increased immigration would mean…

"Part by accident, part by design, the Government had created its longed-for immigration boom.

"But ministers wouldn't talk about it."

In short, it was an experiment in demographic engineering for political and electoral purposes. Muslims tend to vote for the left partly to get the welfare state money, and partly because socialists suffer from a guilt complex associated with European past colonialism, in their view a moral debt for which native Europeans are supposed to pay back the Third World immigrants beneficiaries.

The chairman of the Migrationwatch think tank, Sir Andrew Green, said just after the Labour policies revelations: "Now at least the truth is out, and it's dynamite. Many have long suspected that mass immigration under Labour was not just a cock up but also a conspiracy. They were right. This Government has admitted three million immigrants for cynical political reasons concealed by dodgy economic camouflage."

The chairmen of the cross-party Group for Balanced Migration, Member of Parliament Frank Field and Nicholas Soames, added: "It is the first beam of truth that has officially been shone on the immigration issue in Britain."

A glaring example of ethnic-oriented electioneering is the maverick ex-Labour politician George Galloway, founder of the Respect party and of the Viva Palestina convoys, who won a by-election campaign in Bradford West, northern England, unashamedly pandering to Muslims.

The Muslim vote in many parts of Europe is already changing the political landscape and creating a new one in its own image.

I'll conclude with an item that may potentially make you laugh or cry. The devout and practicing Muslim Demba Traoré, from Mali, has become in December 2011 the leader of the Italian far-left Radical Party, not new to maverick choices, like that of having the porn star Ilona Staller (Cicciolina) among its candidates elected to Parliament in 1987, coming second in number of votes only to the then party leader Marco Pannella.

The absurdity of having as its new leader - voted almost unanimously - a follower of the theocratic religion par excellence can be seen when one knows that the Radical Party is and has always been ferociously anti-clerical (but evidently only if the clerics are Christian).

The historical head of the party Pannella said it's important that "the Radical Party, non violent, transnational and cross-party, has elected as its secretary a faithful and practicing Muslim - in Rome, in the heart of Christianity, there is a party secretary who is a firm Muslim believer."

Enza Ferreri is an Italian-born, London-based author and journalist. She has been a London correspondent for several Italian magazines and newspapers, including Panorama, L'Espresso, La Repubblica.

Sharia in action in Eurabia: "Italy: Moroccan severely beats daughter in mall for refusing veil," from AKI, August 10 (thanks to Lachlan):

Modena, 10 Aug. (AKI) - Italian police have charged a Moroccan man for recently severely injuring his daughter when he beat her in a shopping mall in northern Italy for not wearing a veil.

As a minor, a restraining order had been placed on the woman's family when she reported a difficult living situation to family services, according to the Gazzetta di Modena newspaper.

Trouble started when her refusal to don a veil and accept an arranged marriage, the paper said.

Recently turned 18, in a Modena shopping mall ran into her father who beat her with kicks and punches breaking her nose.

...where, no doubt, they would get jobs and become stable, prosperous, law-abiding members of Italian society. "Italy: Imam and three Syrians arrested for people smuggling," from AKI, July 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

Venice, 18 July (AKI) - Police on Wednesday in northeast Italy arrested a radical imam and three Syrians suspected of belonging to a people trafficking gang that allegedly smuggled illegal immigrants to Italy from the Middle East.

Police believe the unnamed imam from San Dona' di Piave near Venice was funnelling cash from the people smuggling racket to international jihadist groups.

He was already known to to anti-terrorism investigators for his suspected links to such jihadist groups, police said.

The illegal migrants paid "large sums" to the gang to be smuggled into Italy, where some were employed off the books on building sites run by the imam and his brothers, according to police.

If the migrants baulked at paying the sums of money agreed with the gang to obtain working papers, they were threatened and assaulted, said police....

“Let's Save the Christians” Demonstration in Rome on July 18
by Enza Ferreri

On July 18th the national demonstration “Salviamo i Cristiani” (Let's Save the Christians), organized by the Association by the same name, will be held in Rome. The city's Mayor Gianni Alemanno will also attend.

A similar protest on July 4th 2007, against the rising violence against Christians in Iraq and other Muslim-majority countries, had been organized in Rome by the former Muslim human rights campaigner Magdi Cristiano Allam who, along with his wife Valentina Colombo, will be a speaker at SION's International Freedom Defense Congress in New York on September 11. That demo saw the participation of the then Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the Muslim MP Souad Sbai, Rome's Jewish Community representative Riccardo Pacifici, and about a hundred members of the Italian Parliament of various political orientations.

Italy has been one of the Western countries that has shown most concern about the tragic situation of Christians in the Islamic world.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini requested a discussion of the persecution of Christians at the 31 January 2011 meeting of the European Union Foreign Ministers Council which eventually produced a public denunciation. Frattini also intervened in Pakistan by holding discussions with its President Zardari and by giving speeches to call off the execution of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman condemned to death for blasphemy, and to open up a debate on the law against blasphemy in that country, a tool used to persecute religious minorities there.

In 2011, rallies were held by the Copts of Italian cities, including Milan and Turin, with some supporting Italian organizations, to ask for action against the violence of Islamofascists against Egyptian Christians. And Italian lawmakers, Catholic and Jewish associations, human rights group Amnesty International and representatives of the Pakistani community in Italy protested in Rome against Pakistan’s blasphemy law, calling for the release of Asia Bibi.

Considering the vastness of the problem these may be drops in the ocean, but I have lived in London since 1984 and I have never seen such a display of support.

The UK's Pakistani community is more likely, if anything, to protest against the Christians who broke the anti-blasphemy law in Pakistan than for them.

Interestingly, the focus of the upcoming demonstration on July 18 is not just about the persecution of Christians in Third World countries but is more inclusive, claiming to be "against the growing discrimination, persecution, massacres towards Christians" but without giving a geographical qualification. Could this be in response to warnings of rising intolerance and violence against Christians in Europe?

The author Silvana De Mari, secretary of the association which with Magdi Cristiano Allam organizes the protest, says: "We must save the Christians, do all we can for Israel which is under a nuclear threat, and create for men and women born into Islam an escape route from a terrifying theocracy. I'm sure that we'll make it and that Wednesday’s demonstration will be attended by lots and lots of people."

Magdi Cristiano Allam has always been at the centre of these and other counterjihadist efforts. He is a prominent figure in Italian public life, having been the deputy editor of one of the country's major newspapers, Corriere della Sera. His conversion from Islam to Christianity in 2008 hit the headlines, and he received Baptism, Confirmation and Communion in St Peter's Basilica from Pope Benedict XVI.

Allam's organization, Io Amo L'Italia, has a website, on which his wife Valentina Colombo writes a section on Islam.

"The only good Muslims are ex-Muslims", I once read in a comment to a blog post.

I do not know if this is entirely true and, certainly, sweeping generalizations are always difficult to make.

But, as Robert Spencer has always said, Muslims who see and accept what is wrong with their religion and either abandon it (and survive) or start a serious reform of it are the natural allies of people who want to save the West from civilizational extinction, not the "moderate" Muslims.

The fact that often these very perceptive Muslims or former Muslims know Islam from within, have had free access to its doctrines without attempts of cover-up, and have suffered on their skin the consequences of its teachings can give them an extra dimension to pure theoretical understanding - although Western critics of Islam have also had ample opportunities to experience the results of the spread of the "religion of peace" by now, thanks to their countries' open-door immigration policies.

Enza Ferreri is an Italian-born, London-based author and journalist. She has been a London correspondent for several Italian magazines and newspapers, including Panorama, L'Espresso, La Repubblica.

Will the Islamophobia never end? "Italy: Muslim Accosts Christian Worshippers During Corpus Christi Procession," by Cheradenine Zakalwe for Islam Versus Europe, July 5 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

During a procession to celebrate the festival of Corpus Christi in Italy, Christian worshippers were accosted by a 19-year-old Moroccan student who harangued and insulted them. Among other things, he shouted:

You are all a flock of sheep on the way to hell!

The worshippers made a complaint to the police and the Muslim, who lives in Porretta Terme, was charged with insulting people and denigrating the Christian religion.

Is that a crime?

Here again, we see the human cost of misunderstanding what we all know, on pain of "Islamophobia" charges, is a Religion of Peace. Yet Islamic leaders in Italy are no more inclined than they are anywhere to try to protect young Muslims from misunderstanding Islam in this way. How curious!

"Italian convert to Islam arrested on terror charges," from JTA, April 24:

ROME (JTA) – An Italian convert to Islam arrested for suspected links to terrorism was connected to a suspect who planned to bomb Milan's main synagogue.

Andrea Campione, 28, who worked in a picture frame factory, was arrested in the Adriatic seacoast town of Pesaro on Monday during an anti-terrorism crackdown in several cities. Authorities said Campione was associated with Mohamed Jarmoune, a Moroccan man arrested last month on suspicion of plotting an attack on Milan’s main synagogue.

Reports said Campione had a Moroccan girlfriend and was apprehended as he was about to leave Italy for Morocco.

Investigators, who said Campione disseminated jihadist material, seized his computer and other digital material. They said that Campione had sent Jarmoune and others links to Internet sites containing information on how to carry out terror attacks.

It is good to see Italy upholding the principle that all those within its borders are subject to the same law. That principle is eroding in Western states today, under pressure from Sharia advocates. "Supreme court sentences non-Italian father for child abuse," from ANSA, March 30 (thanks to all who sent this in):

(ANSA) - Rome, March 30 - The Italian Supreme Court on Friday upheld a sentence for abuse and aggravated assault by a Moroccan father against his 12-year-old daughter.

Defense lawyers maintained that the father, who allegedly beat his daughter with a broom handle for "corrective" purposes after she could not properly recite the Koran, did so because of "cultural" reasons and should be given a lighter sentence accordingly.

The judge dismissed the defense's argument, calling the treatment "violent and unjustifiable" whether from Italian nationals or foreigners.

Yet more Muslims misunderstand Islam and get the crazy idea that it has something to do with hating and brutalizing Jews.

"Man arrested, suspected of planning Milan-synagogue attack," from ANSA, March 15 (thanks to David):

Man arrested, suspected of planning Milan-synagogue attack (ANSA) - Milan, March 15 - Police arrested a suspected terrorist in the northern city of Brescia early on Thursday who they believe may have been planning an attack on Milan's synagogue.

The 20-year-old, a Moroccan citizen who has lived in Italy since he was six, is also suspected of setting up secret Facebook pages providing training on making bombs and using weapons for budding terrorists.

Police said they found evidence on the man's computer that he has conducted a thorough inspection of Milan's synagogue, with information on the security measures used and the police who guard the building. Investigators added that they had intercepted messages in which the man talked about a "jihad mission".

They said he was identified as a suspect terrorist during monitoring of websites that feature forums and publish documents on the 'jihad'....

"Woman, 40, arrested in London terror raid as police probe 'secret Facebook plot to blow up Italian synagogue,'" by Nick Pisa for the Daily Mail, March 15 (thanks to David):

A British police today arrested a woman who was in Facebook contact with a man detained by Italian police plotting to blow up a synagogue.

The 40-year-old woman, who has not been named, was held in a dawn raid by officers from Scotland Yard and at the same time Italian police arrested Mohamed Jarmoune, 20, following months of undercover detective work that involved monitoring a secret Facebook account.

Metal worker Jarmoune was held at his home in Brescia, northern Italy and video footage released by police showed officers with sniffer dogs carrying out an extensive search of his apartment and he was also shown being led away.

Officers took away several items including his computer as well as several Nazi flags that were found in the apartment, which was in the centre of city and which has been the scene of several anti terror investigations in the past.

Police said Jarmoune had lived in Italy since he was six years old but he had 'come across their radar' as part of another investigation and when they began investigating his background discovered he had been looking at several Islamic extremist websites....

It is one thing to walk around in a shroud in a society governed by Sharia, where a woman is a perpetual minor and always under the control of a male guardian. In a free and open society, full participation requires being identifiable as an individual and not merely in relation to another. To pick and choose one's responsibilities in society is not to participate in it fully, and goes against the principles of equal rights and duties for men and women, and for Muslims and non-Muslims.

"Now Italy is set to join Belgium and France in banning the burkha in public," by Nick Pisa for the Daily Mail, August 2 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Italy is set to be the next European Union to introduce a burkha ban after parliament announced today it would debate legislation after the summer recess. France and Belgium already have bans in place and the proposal has the backing of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's ruling centre right coalition.

Italy's Constitutional Affairs Committee said that the bill which was initially suggested by the anti-immigration Northern League would be debated following the summer recess in September.

Berlusconi's has a healthy majority in both the upper and lower houses of the Italian parliament and a ban is highly likely to go through when it comes to an eventual vote.

In France the ban became law earlier this year and after it was initially announced Al Qaeda terrorists vowed revenge.

Italy has more than one million Muslims but it is rare to see women wearing the full burkha.

The draft law, which makes no mention of religion, would also ban the niqab, which covers the bottom part of the face only, and other head-covering garments ‘of ethnic origin’.

Committee members agreed to the proposal going before the house after a vote which was opposed by the opposition Democratic Left - with other opposition parties abstaining.

The penalty being considered for offenders will be a fine of between 150 and 300 euros or alternatively some kind of community service ‘aimed at encouraging integration’.

Officials said that the legislation would also take into account people who ‘force someone to wear a burkha or face veil using either physical or psychological violence’.

This offence would be punished more severely with a year in prison and a 30,000-euro fine.

There have been incidents, especially in northern Italian cities such as Milan and Verona, where women wearing it have been asked to remove at least the face veil.

The Northern League's proposal aims at amending a 1975 law, introduced amid concern over domestic terrorism, which bans anyone wearing anything which makes their identification impossible.

The only exceptions are for 'justified cause' - which until now has been interpreted to include religious reasons in court rulings against local bans on the burkha.

There have also been isolated cases where town councils - mainly in northern Italy where the Northern League is stronger - have introduced bylaws banning face veils.

Last year Amel Marmouri, 26, was stopped by carabinieri officers in a spot check outside a post office in Novara in northern Italy and given a 500 euro (£431) fine for wearing clothing which made her ‘not immediately identifiable’.

Suad Sbai, a female MP of Muslim origin with Berlusconi's People of Freedom party said: ’This is a decisive push for a measure promoting freedom and civilised values.

‘We won't stop, on the road towards the liberation of women who are segregated and without rights.’

Is Suad Sbai an Islamophobe?

A recent survey found that 73 per cent of Italians thought Islamic face coverings should not be worn in public, with a third saying they felt such veils were a degrading practice imposed on women by others.

There are no estimates of how many women wear the face veil in Italy, where Islam is the second-largest religion after Catholicism with around 1.2 million faithful.

More indication of how mass immigration of Muslims enriches Western societies. "Italy: Moroccan immigrant murders wife for being 'too Western,'" from AKI, June 28 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Padua, 28 June (AKI) - A Moroccan carpenter living in northern Italy is suspected of stabbing his wife to death because she wanted to leave him and begin a more liberated and western life with another man.

Police suspect 36-year old Zrhaida Hammadi of killing his 33-year-old wife Fatima Chabani at their apartment in the city of Padua near Venice by stabbing her repeatedly in the neck and shoulder, severing her jugular vein.

Neighbours telephoned the police after hearing blood-curdling screams from the apartment late Sunday, but the police said they found Chabani already dead and Hammadi awaiting their arrival, sitting motionless in a chair with his head bowed.

The couple were married in 2002 and had a six-year-old son. The family moved to Padua in January from the surrounding province in Italy's northeast. Members of the local Moroccan community described Hammadi as "a quiet, decent and hard-working" man.

The couple reportedly had frequent rows and police are probing Hammadi's' claims that his wife was seeing another man.

On Tuesday, a cultural mediator in Padua, 30-year-old Tunisian Muslim immigrant Maher Selmi sparked controversy by claiming that it was right to stone "adulteresses" to death.

Moroccan women's activist and member of Italy's parliament Souad Sbai deplored Chabani's "chilling" slaying and the remarks by Selmi, who is a graduate in Italian language and literature.

"This is the latest outrage against an innocent young woman whose only crime was her desire to live peacefully," said Sbai.

Sbai is a member of parliament for the ruling conservative People of Freedom party and president of the Association of Moroccan Women in Italy.

Her group made an unsuccessful application to form the civil plaintiff in the murder trial of three male relatives of a twenty-year-old Pakistani woman, Hina Saleem found buried in the garden of her family home with her throat slit and her head facing Mecca in August 2006.

Hina had 'dishonoured' the family by dressing in western clothes, working in a pizzeria in the northern town of Sarezzo and living with her Italian boyfriend and refusing and arranged marriage

In February, 2010, Italy's Supreme Court said Hina's father Mohammed Saleem must serve the entire 30-year prison sentence handed to him for her murder, ruling that he acted "out of a distorted, pathological sense of parental possession" rather than for religious and cultural reasons.

What an odd ruling. Where does Italy's Supreme Court think that Mohammed Saleem got his "distorted, pathological sense of parental possession" other than from his religion, which stipulates that there is no punishment for a parent who kills his child?

Hina Saleem's shocking murder is one of several "honour" crimes which have brought the issue of Muslim cultural integration in Italy into stark relief in recent years.

El Ketaoui Dafani a Moroccan immigrant cook is currently standing trial for the murder of Sanaa Dafani in northeastern Italy in September 2009 after he discovered she had a relationship with an older Italian man....

Police have refused to handle security, raising the possibility the exhibit may be moved, if it goes forward at all. Civil society cannot survive when the group that shouts the loudest and makes the most threats wins an argument by default. "Palestinian groups threaten Italian 'Israel Week'," by Menachem Gantz for YNet News, June 6:

Italian police have refused to handle security for an Israeli exhibit at a central Milan square next week due to threats of violence by Palestinian activists, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday.

The exhibit, set to take place at Piazza Duomo, has been planned in honor of 'Israel Week' in the city. It includes 15 towers showcasing Israeli culture, technology, agriculture, economics, and art "to present the unfamiliar Israel".

But pro-Palestinian organizations are threatening to target the exhibit. Over the past few days the groups have been urging internet users to sign a petition to cancel the exhibit.

Web posters issued by the groups threaten to "ignite the city" and say, "No to Israeli occupation of Milano".

The exhibit has received all necessary permits from Milan's municipality, but political turmoil surrounding the election process in the city have apparently short-circuited communications between the municipality and police, who say officers stationed at the open-air plaza will have difficulty securing the area in the event violence breaks out.

On Monday the municipality was preparing to hold a conference that could end with orders to move the exhibit to a closed space.

Israel Week may prove a difficult initiation for the city's new mayor, Giuliano Pisapia, who says he will participate in an economic forum planned as one of its events.

Israel's ambassador to Italy, Gideon Meir, said Sunday that "the exhibit is an expression of the warm relationship between the two states, and it has won the approval of all municipality officials".

Hamza Piccardo hails his firm as a "triumph of integration." But in reality it is just another example of what we have seen time and time again: Western adaption to and accommodation of Islamic principles, without Muslims giving an inch in the service of this "integration." He offers Italian food adapted to halal restrictions, not halal restrictions adapted to Italian culinary custom. "Italy: First 'halal' firm to supply restaurants and canteens," from AKI, May 20 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Bologna, 20 May (AKI) - Italy's first-ever 'halal' supplier has opened for business in Italy's northern city of Bologna, selling meals prepared according to Islamic principles to restaurants and canteens in Italy and abroad.

"Integration is also being able to eat as one should and to be at peace with God," Hamza Piccardo, told Adnkronos International (AKI).

Piccardo, an Italian convert to Islam, is the director of the 'Tre Alfieri Halal', which is based in Bologna, a renowned gastronomic centre.

"Our new company wants to be a triumph of integration: to combine Italy's great cuisine and Islam's rules without losing the flavours of the former and the spiritual rigour of the latter," he said....

Whenever an honor killing takes place in North America or Europe, the mainstream media tells us that honor killing is a cultural practice that has nothing to do with Islam -- despite several facts indicating the contrary. It is no accident or coincidence that Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. A manual of Islamic law certified as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy by Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, says that "retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right." However, "not subject to retaliation" is "a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring's offspring." ('Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2). In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law.

Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but "the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour 'provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.'" And in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that "Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values."

Nonetheless, the media drumbeat is constant: honor killings have nothing to do with Islam. And as long as that continues, we will see more and more murders like this one.

Video thanks to Faith Freedom.

Somehow these six "Moroccan men" got the crazy idea that there was something wrong with a Muslim converting to Christianity, and that Pope Benedict XVI warranted punishment for his role in the conversion. You would almost get the idea that Islam has a death penalty for apostasy, if it weren't for all the kindly and learned Muslim experts like Salam al-Marayati, M. Cherif Bassiouni, Ali Eteraz who assure us that it isn't so.

Unfortunately, al-Marayati, Bassiouni, and Eteraz were unable to convince Muhammad, the prophet of Islam and supreme example of conduct for the Muslim (cf. Qur'an 33:21), who said: "Whoever changes his Islamic religion, then kill him." (Bukhari 9.84.57)

The Tafsir al-Qurtubi, a classic and thoroughly mainstream exegesis of the Qur'an, says this about Qur'an 2:217: "Scholars disagree about whether or not apostates are asked to repent. One group say that they are asked to repent and, if they do not, they are killed. Some say they are given an hour and others a month. Others say that they are asked to repent three times, and that is the view of Malik. Al-Hasan said they are asked a hundred times. It is also said that they are killed without being asked to repent."

All the schools of Islamic jurisprudence teach that a sane adult male who leaves Islam must be killed. They have some disagreements about what must he done with other types of people who leave Islam, but they have no disagreement on that.

"Italy arrests Moroccans for inciting hatred of Pope," from the BBC, February 25 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Six Moroccan men have been arrested in northern Italy on suspicion of seeking to incite hatred of Pope Benedict among Muslims....

A note was found calling for the Pope to be punished for converting a Muslim journalist to Roman Catholicism....

The note found by police urges Muslim immigrants not to integrate into Italian society, Italian media report.

Police said the six were accused of "setting up a group that aimed to incite discrimination, racial and religious hatred, violence and jihad against Christians and Jews".

The Pope was condemned for converting Egyptian-born Magdi Allam, a former columnist for Italian daily Corriere della Sera....

But don't worry: it's not "terrorism." The man "seems to have simply been overcome by a fit of rage." Of course. How often have you gotten ticked off when the coffee pot at the office is empty again, and gone out and stolen a car, rammed it into an airport door, and then tried to stab a police officer? It's perfectly understandable. Nothing to do with "terrorism." And jihad? Pah! What relationship could this incident possibly have with a noble interior spiritual struggle?

"Foreign man shot, arrested after ramming Milan airport door: Police rule out terrorist motives," from ANSA.it, February 21 (thanks to Insubria):

Rome, February 21 - A foreign man was shot and arrested after ramming a door at Milan's Malpensa airport with a stolen four-by-four and attacking a police officer armed with a knife amid scenes of panic on Monday.

The man, apparently a Tunisian married to an Italian, was shot in the foot by a colleague of the officer who was attacked and then detained. Terminal One of the airport has been evacuated and outgoing flights delayed. The police have ruled out terrorism as the motive for the incident and said the man seems to have simply been overcome by a fit of rage.