Headlines:

French Premier Declares ‘War' on Radical Islam as Paris Girds for Rally

Majority of Germans See Islam as Threat, Poll Indicates

Hindu Outfit Plans to Finish Islam By 2021

Details:

French Premier Declares ‘War' on Radical Islam as Paris Girds for Rally

Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared Saturday that France was at war with radical Islam after the sieges that had led to the deaths of three gunmen and four hostages the day before, and as the authorities mounted a frantic hunt for a suspected accomplice. "It is a war against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam, against everything that is aimed at breaking fraternity, freedom, solidarity," Mr. Valls said during a speech in Évry, south of Paris. The government said it would put 500 additional troops on the streets over the weekend amid preparations for a giant unity rally in Paris on Sunday. A number of European officials said they would attend, including Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey, the most prominent Muslim leader scheduled to be there. On Saturday, thousands of people marched in Paris, Toulouse and Nice in a show of solidarity, and rallies were held in places as far away as Madagascar and Bangui, Central African Republic. Top ministers in the French government were scheduled to hold an emergency session on Saturday to discuss measures to prevent a repeat of the attacks, which shocked the country and raised questions about why law enforcement agencies had failed to thwart terrorism suspects well known to the police and intelligence services. The crisis and its aftermath presented a major challenge to President François Hollande and his government, which are facing deep religious and cultural rifts in a nation with a rapidly growing Muslim population while simultaneously coping with the security threats stemming from Islamic extremists. Large numbers of French citizens have been traveling to Syria and Iraq to fight with the Islamic State militant group. Mr. Hollande, appealing for unity, has warned against seeing Islam as the enemy, and Mr. Valls called again on Saturday for citizens to join the rally planned for Sunday. "There needs to be a firm message about the values of the republic and of secularism," Mr. Valls said in Évry. "Tomorrow, France and the French can be proud. Everyone must come tomorrow." [Source: New York Times]
Again France and the West in general fail to address the root cause of terror and that is Western intervention in Muslim lands. The people of France should ask their leaders what benefits has France gained by joining America's war against Islam?

Majority of Germans See Islam as Threat

Poll Indicates over 60 percent of non-Muslim Germans say Islam has no place in the West. A large and growing majority of Germans believe Islam does not belong in the Western world and more than half see it as a threat, a poll published on Thursday showed. In a survey conducted in November, before Wednesday's massacre by Islamic extremist gunmen at French satirical paper Charlie Hebdo or widespread media coverage of a new German anti-
migrant movement, 61 percent of non-Muslim Germans said Islam had no place in the West. The figure was up from 52 percent in 2012, according to the study released by the Bertelsmann Foundation think tank. More than half - 57 percent - said they felt threatened by Islam, 4 percentage points higher than in 2012.Forty percent said they felt like "foreigners in their own country" because of the presence of Muslims. And one in four (24 percent) said that Muslims should be barred from migrating to Germany. About four million Muslims live in Germany, around three-quarters of them of Turkish origin, among a population of 80 million people. "For Muslims, Germany has become home. But they are confronted with a negative image apparently shaped by a minority of radical Islamists," Bertelsmann Foundation Islam expert Yasemin El-Menouar wrote in the study's findings, which also looked at Muslim immigrants' views of Germany. The authors said that anti-Islam stances could be found regardless of class or education level, but that younger people and those with personal contacts with Muslims showed less prejudice. The poll was by the TNS Emnid independent opinion research institute among 937 non-Muslim Germans. Germany has been rocked by anti-migrant marches in the eastern city of Dresden, which began small in October but have grown in support over the last month, now attracting around 18,000 people each week. They are organised by a right-wing populist group calling itself PEGIDA or Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident. [Source: I24News]
The wide spread Islamophobia against Muslims is rapidly spiraling out of control in one of Europe's most tolerant nations towards Muslims. Germany does not possess the same evil colonial legacy as that of Britain and France, but its German populace is increasingly fearful of Islam. And the question has to be asked: Is Germany moving towards the 1930s but this time the Muslims have become the new Jews of Europe?

Hindu Outfit Plans to Finish Islam By 2021

Stoking a fresh controversy after conversion plans in Aligarh, Hindu outfit Dharm Jagran Manch, which had planned a conversion programme in Aligarh, said that it plans to "finish" Islam and Christianity by 2021. "We have so far ensured ‘ghar wapsi' (reconversion) of three lakh Muslims and Christians back to Hinduism. By 2021, we will finish Islam and Christianity," Manch head Rajeshwar Singh Singh. "We have not done any conversion. We have ensured ‘ghar wapsi'. Why they (political parties) did not utter a word when Hindus are converted? What's their objection when we ensure that they come back to the religion?" he asked. His organisation had planned a mass conversion programme in Aligarh on the Christmas day but later called it off. On Agra conversion, he said that those converted were Indians and not Bangladeshis and they had affidavits of those who participated in the programme. [Source: Indian Express]
The Western world is continuously complaining about the intolerance of Muslims towards people of other faiths, but remains silent about the bigotry towards Islam and Muslims in other parts of the world. This hypocrisy only underscores the double standards of the West in how they portray Islam and deal with Muslims.