George: We won’t know how many GOA bishops have actually assumed Turkish citizenship until the parishes receive their first Holy Encyclical on Ramadan Fasting, which will also include guidelines for the presvyteres and Philoptochos ladies on how to properly wear the burqa.
]]>]]>Turkey calls on Muslims to withdraw money from Swiss banks
02/12/200913:09Muslims should withdraw their money from Swiss banks in protest at a recent vote in favor of banning minarets in the country, a senior Turkish minister has said.
“I am certain this will prompt our brothers from Muslim countries who keep their money and investments in Swiss banks to review their decision,” Hurriyet daily quoted Turkish State Minister Egemen Bagis as saying.
“The doors of the Turkish banking sector… are always open to them,” he added.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul has called the ban “shameful.”
Switzerland annually earns over $10 billion from business with Muslim countries. Around 170,000 people from the Gulf visit the country every year. Analysts predict the ban could cause an outflow of Arab investment from Switzerland.
The Alpine country held a nationwide referendum on Sunday, one of the three questions being whether to allow the building of new minarets. A total of 57.5% of voters and 22 out of 26 cantons backed the proposal, put forward by the rightist Swiss People’s Party (SVP).
Surprisingly, only 37% of Swiss voters had been reported ready to back the ban on new minarets just before the referendum, while 53% said they would vote against it.
The government and parliament had spoken against the initiative, but were forced to accept the popular vote. Switzerland has 400,000 Muslims out of a total population of 7.7 million.
In 2005, a publication by the Danish Jyllands-Posten paper of a series of 12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad sparked protests in Muslim nations and a boycott of Danish products, which stripped the country of $1.2 billion worth of trade with Muslim countries.
ANKARA, December 2 (RIA Novosti)
I wish every European country would ban the building of any mosque, not just minaret, until the churches in every Muslim country are freed. In fact, I would bargain that if there were a referendum in every other country, such a thing might just happen. Unfortunately, the leaders of these European countries are not about to allow this, as on the whole they suffer from a lack of principles and testicles in equal measure.
]]>12/01/2009 06:20 PM
Turkey’s Erdogan Says Minaret Ban is Sign of Fascism
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has joined a chorus of international criticism of Switzerland’s ban on minarets, saying it refelects an increasingly racist and fascist stance in Europe. The Swiss foreign minister said the vote may pose a threat to the country’s security.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Switzerland’s vote to ban the construction of minarets was a “sign of an increasing racist and fascist stance in Europe,” Turkish television Channel 7 reported on Tuesday. Islamophobia was a “crime against humanity,” just like anti-Semitism, Erdogan said.
Turkish President Abdullah Gül also criticized the Swiss referendum in which 57.5 percent of voters had backed an initiative brought by the conservative Swiss People’s Party and a smaller right-wing party which argued that minarets symbolize a quest for Islamic power. Gül said the vote was a “disgrace” for the people of Switzerland and showed how far Islamophobia had advanced in the Western world.
The Turkish foreign ministry said the more than 100,000 Turkish immigrants living in Switzerland were worried about the decision which “runs counter to human values and basic freedoms.”
Fomenting Extremism
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said in a statement that the ban was “discriminatory, deeply divisive and a thoroughly unfortunate step for Switzerland to take, and risks putting the country on a collision course with its international human rights obligations.”
“Questions could very well be raised within the UN about holding meetings and activities in Switzerland, even if the Geneva canton belonged to those which voted against the ban,” Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said on his blog.
Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said the ban posed a threat to Switzerland’s security. “Every attack on the co-existence of different cultures also endangers our security,” she said at a meeting of OSCE foreign ministers in Athens. She said there was a danger that the “provocation will lead to other provocations” and would foment extremism.
In Cairo, Egypt’s Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, the country’s top cleric, said the ban was an attack on freedom of religion and an attempt to “hurt the feelings of the Islamic community inside and outside Switzerland.”
He called on Muslims in Switzerland to take legal action to try and reverse the ban.
cro — with wire reports
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,664641,00.html
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