The bishop of Oslo, Gunnar Staalsett, has “warned Minister of Local Government and Regional Development Erna Solberg of the dangers of criticizing Islam after she told Norway’s Muslims that they should modernize their religion. Staalsett fears that the statement will create a warped view of Islam.”
What kind of warped view of Islam? Solberg said last week that “Islam in Europe must function differently than it does in Islamic countries. . . . These religious leaders can’t just be brought up from Islamic countries where Muslims are in the majority. They have no understanding of what it’s like to be a Muslim in a country where they’re a minority. . . . It’s especially important that immigrants learn what it means to live in a feminist society.”
Oh, and by the way, “Solberg earlier this year was the target of death threats by a disgruntled Muslim asylum-seeker, and she also has been at the center of the storm around Mullah Krekar, the suspected terrorist who remains in Norway despite a deportation order.”
Meanwhile, MSNBC reports that Ansar al-Islam, the Kurdish radical Muslim group that Krekar headed until 2002, has been blamed by U.S. officials for “the wave of anti-U.S. attacks in Iraq, and at least four Islamic groups linked by ideology or personnel to the international jihadi movement that includes Al-Qaeda are operating in Iraq, along with at least two Saddam-ite groups and cells from Ansar al-Islam itself.” No word as to whether Staalsett scolded Krekar for presenting a “warped view of Islam.”