What we have here is a small group of individuals, mostly naive about what’s happening within the supposed “Arab Spring”, who have little to no real voice over their community’s Islamizing agenda. The proof in the pudding for me, however, would be to know their views on the overt, brutish anti-Semitism that’s rife throughout the Koran, Hadiths and sira of Mohamed.
That, more than anything else that they have to say, would tell me all that I need to know about them, and their supposed ‘moderation’. If any of the TT’s readers who speak German and know Austrian politics, have any information on the individuals of this group, please leave your contact information in the comments to this post.
Liberal Austrian Muslims counter radical Islamists
Effort comes as a response to mufti’s inflammatory comments on houses of worship.
BERLIN – A group of liberal Austrian Muslims are seeking to counter a recent call by the Saudi grand mufti to “destroy all the churches” in the Gulf region by promoting the construction of a church in the fundamentalist Islamic country that bans Christian houses of worship.
According to a report last week in the Catholic Austrian press agency (KAP), the Initiative of Liberal Muslims in Austria (ILMÖ) issued a strongly worded statement calling for the approval of the construction of a church by the Saudi authorities. It is not acceptable that Saudi Arabia finances the building of mosques and religious centers in Europe, while the construction of churches in the country are outlawed, noted the ILMÖ.
The group of liberal Austrian Muslims also condemned the statement of Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Shaikh, who issued a fatwa in March urging the decimation of churches in the Gulf region.
Amnesty International, when queried by The Jerusalem Post, said that the mufti’s statement was cause for concern.
“The grand mufti’s reported comments, which fit into a wider pattern of discrimination against religious minorities in Saudi Arabia, are a serious cause for concern,” Susanna Flood, Amnesty International’s director of media, told the Post by email.
“ Such statements are contrary to the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion as set out in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
The London-based spokeswoman continued that, “as head of the official Council of Senior Clerics, he is an important government official and as such Amnesty International considers him to have a responsibility to uphold human rights, rather than call for acts such as destroying churches that would violate people’s human rights.”
Human Rights Watch (HRW) also slammed the comments, when queried by the Post.
“The Saudi mufti’s reported comments about the undesirability to build any new churches and the desirability of destroying existing ones, are only the latest in a long string of official Saudi public declarations and policies intolerant of, and sometimes outright hostile to, other faiths and religions,” Christoph Wilcke, the Saudi specialist for HRW, wrote in an email.
