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Europe
'German charity front for Hizbullah'
2009-08-02
A German charity for Lebanese orphans is a front organization raising funds for Hizbullah suicide bombers, according to a Brussels-based think tank. Alexander Ritzmann, a senior fellow at The European Foundation for Democracy, and author of a study on "Hizbullah's Fund-raising Organization in Germany," issued in mid-July, said the Orphans Project Lebanon (Waisenkinderprojekt Libanon e.V.), situated in Göttingen, Lower Saxony, is "the German branch of a Hizbullah sub-organization" which "promotes suicide bombings" and seeks to destroy Israel.

According to Ritzmann's 23-page analysis on the inner workings of Hizbullah in Germany, "financial donations to the Orphans Project Lebanon are tax deductible and are therefore subsidized by the German state."

When asked on Thursday about donors and donations to the Orphans Project, Ritzmann told The Jerusalem Post that the tax authority declined to disclose information based on privacy laws. According to Ritzmann, the Orphans Project did not provide a yearly report on its activities. The federal republic is "legitimizing and promoting financial assistance to Hizbullah," he wrote.

The Orphans Project Lebanon is "affiliated with the Lebanese Al-Shahid Association," which is controlled by Hizbullah's network and trains children to carry out suicide bombing missions, the report said.

Ritzmann's report cited a study conducted by the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation which found that in Al-Shahid-run schools and day care centers, "more than 50 percent of the children declared that their sole aim was to become a shahid, or martyr."

In an e-mail to the Post, a spokesman for Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble wrote, "Hizbullah negates Israel's right to exist. Its most important purpose is the fight against Israel, carried out by terrorist means, as the 'illegal occupant of Palestinian soil.' Hizbullah is thus a danger to the State of Israel, which however does not become concrete in the same way in Germany. The Hizbullah supporters who live here behave largely in conformity with the law, in accordance with an order from their Beirut headquarters. "The association Orphans Project Lebanon is linked with Hizbullah in many ways organizationally and through its staff. Its danger thus essentially corresponds to that of Hizbullah."

When asked if the Interior Ministry planned to legally prohibit Hizbullah's activities in Germany, the spokesman wrote that "the Interior Ministry in general does not make comments about whether it is considering a ban, independent of whether there is a reason for it in the individual case. Our principle is: We don't talk about bans, we impose them."

While Schäuble said in 2006 that Hizbullah "is not to collect donations" in Germany, the Interior Ministry and state governmental bodies have not issued regulations banning the group's fund-raising activities.
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Europe
Islam headed for legal equality with Christianity in Germany
2009-06-23
Calls are growing in Germany for Islam to be granted the same legal status, rights and duties as other recognised religions, with the idea forming the main focus for this week’s Islam Conference. Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble of the conservative Christian Democratic Union has said this is his long-term aim, while the Greens this week urged the conference to take concrete steps in that direction. But a number of formalities have to be fulfilled for the German constitution to recognise Islam as an official religious community, including the ability to provide teachers to give children education in state schools about their faith.

The Muslim communities in Germany are still a way away from this, Schäuble recently told the Tageszeitung. He said the conference was, “a fair way along the road to reaching the point of being able to offer religion classes at schools to Islamic children. We have developed a more exact understanding together that one can only introduce religion classes in a partnership.” He acknowledged the fact that the state governments have jurisdiction over education, and are far from accepting the idea of putting Islamic religion classes on an equal footing with Catholic and Evangelical classes. But he said, “This process needs time. There are model projects in many federal states where Islamic children are taught something about their religion, with school subject Islam.

“The Islam conference has also, more to the point, defined conditions under which Islamic religion lessons can be introduced when the Muslims want it – and then the question remains whether Muslim organisations will fulfil these conditions. “So, for example, existing associations such as the Islam Council, are religious associations, but not a religious community as far as the constitution is concerned. Religious instruction is needed for that.”

The Green Party this week drew up a discussion paper which set out further conditions which any formalised religious community would be expected to fulfil. This included active campaigning for religious freedom of non-Muslims, as well as working for the rights of Muslim women, and against anti-Semitism and against homophobic violence.

Germany’s Bishops’ Conference has also spoken out in favour of the long-term legal equality of Islam. Its secretary Hans Langendörfer wrote in a piece for the Tageszeitung it was, “fundamentally desirable that the Muslim community be set on a legally equal level as the Christian Churches. Above all, the status of a ‘legal public corporation’ is not a right exclusive to the churches.”
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Europe
Germany Considers Taking Gitmo Detainees
2009-04-30
Germany's Interior Ministry agreed to consider accepting former inmates from Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. detention center for terrorism suspects that the Obama administration plans to shut down.

The change of position from Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who had resisted the idea, came after a meeting Wednesday with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
So what did we offer in return?
Mr. Holder said he will "relatively soon be reaching out to specific countries with specific detainees." He also visited the U.K. and Czech Republic to lay the groundwork for Guantanamo's closure. He said he hasn't formally requested that either of those countries receive detainees, and that none of his European counterparts refused to take former inmates.

President Barack Obama ordered the closure of the Guantanamo prison because it makes him unhappy it offers a propaganda boon for terrorist recruiters and weakens national security, Mr. Holder said. But the U.S. needs to find homes for the inmates, he said, making Germany's new willingness to consider acceptance of one or more inmates an important step to closing the detention facility.

The U.S. hopes to relocate detainees who are being set free as well as prisoners who could face trial in other venues. Mr. Holder said 30 detainees have been cleared for release from Guantanamo, out of the 241 people still at the military prison. Some of those remaining could face trial in federal court, he said.
Where they'll make a farce of our legal system, since that's what they're trained to do.
The German Interior Ministry said in a statement that it will give "careful consideration" to any U.S. request, although it prefers Guantanamo inmates be returned to their home countries ...
Unless there's even a small chance that they'd be 'tortured'.
... or be accepted by the U.S. The U.S. hasn't made a specific request for the release of any Guantanamo inmate to Germany, the statement said.
"Nein ist er eklig. Nein ist er auch eklig. Nein ist er auch eklig. ..."
Mr. Schäuble had previously said Germany shouldn't accept Guantanamo detainees, arguing that it was a U.S. problem to fix.
"We just want to complain, we don't want to help."
By contrast, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in January that Germany would be willing to take in individual detainees if it helped Mr. Obama close Guantanamo.

Previewing a speech he was to make in Berlin on Wednesday evening, Mr. Holder said "mistakes have been made" with regard to Guantanamo, and pledged the current administration would follow the rule of law.
Even though the Bush administration also followed the rule of law.
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Europe
Germany: Study says Turks are worst integrated immigrants
2009-01-25
A new study shows that immigrants of Turkish origin in Germany lag behind other migrant groups when it comes to education and jobs, news magazine Der Spiegel reported.

The study carried out by the Berlin-based Institute for Population and Development found that 30 percent of Turks and those of Turkish origin did not finish school and only 14 percent took the Abitur, or the final secondary school exam that is the required qualification for university. But more than 50 percent of those in other migrant groups manage to do the same, the report said.

The study, which Der Spiegel reported it had seen before its Monday release, compared for the first time the successful integration of individual migrant groups including those who have been naturalized in Germany. It has compiled a ranking of federal states based on the level of integration of its immigrants.

Immigrants of Turkish origin were also found to be the least successful in the labour market: they are often jobless, the percentage of housewives is high and many are dependent on welfare, the study said. The state of Saarland was found to have the worst record – 45 percent of its Turks had no educational qualification of any kind.
What? Memorizing passages from the Koran isn't an educational qualification, yet?
Reiner Klingholz, director of the institute, said language remained the key to education and successes.

“For too long we’ve been used to the fact that we have primary school classes in which 80 percent of the children don’t understand German,” he said.

But Germany’s Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), told Der Spiegel that the biggest integration problems would soon be solved.

“Just simply wait for another Christian Democratic Party-led government for the next four years,” he said.
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Europe
Reports Say Would-be Bombers Smuggled in Detonators
2007-10-09
Media reports in Germany say three Islamists arrested last month for planning car bombs attacks on US targets had smuggled the detonators into the country with the help of a teenager. The three men, two of them Germans who had converted to Islam and one Turk, were arrested last month by the authorities amid fears they were to plant three car bombs, each packed with 250 kilograms of home-made explosives, at American sites.

German news magazine Der Spiegel as well as Focus, another magazine, reported on Saturday, Oct. 6 that the detonators obtained by the trio were smuggled into Germany unawares by a 15-year-old boy. Police had interrogated the boy, a Tunisian national living in Germany, they said.

"I'm not a terrorist"
The detonators had been concealed in the soles of a pair of shoes in a plastic bag. The boy said he was approached by a stranger in an Istanbul mosque and offered money to take the shoes to Germany. Focus said it had approached the boy, expected to be a key witness at the trial, and he said he had not been party to the plot, adding, "I'm not a terrorist." Der Spiegel did not say how it had obtained the information. The police inquiry into the plot is still underway.

Bombers targeted US sites
Der Spiegel also said that surveillance of the three Islamists before their arrests showed that they wanted to kill US citizens, and spoke of possible targets including the huge US Air Force transport base at Ramstein in western Germany. The trio rejected attacks on US military supermarkets since women and children would also be killed, the report said.

German authorities said the men arrested had trained in militant camps in Pakistan before forming a domestic cell of the Islamic Jihad Union, which has its roots in Uzbekistan, but which police believe operated out of Pakistan and Iran. The police said the attacks could have caused even worse carnage than bomb attacks in Madrid or London in recent years.

Germany to restrict sale of chemicals
The German government confirmed on Saturday, Oct 6 that it planned to restrict the sale of nine chemicals which can be used to make explosives. Traders would have to keep a sales log and record the names and identity documents of all buyers while online sales to private individuals would be banned.

Online security measures still controversial
News of the arrests of the home-grown terrorists have shaken Germany and sparked calls for tightening and broadening the scope of the country's anti-terrorism measures. Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble is seeking powers allowing investigators to send software that secretly installs itself on specific computers, relaying data to police computers as users operate online. Reports on Saturday that Bavaria's regional criminal office already installs programs on computer hard drives that allows authorities to listen to Internet-based telephone calls have triggered unease among politicians who say there is still no legal basis for the measure.
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Home Front: WoT
The Great German Bomb Plot
2007-10-05
1,200 Pounds of TNT: German police foil the most dangerous Jihadist bomb plot in Europe to date.

If successful, the Oberschledorn bombings would easily have surpassed those of Madrid and London in terms of death and destruction. The plot was uncovered due to close cooperation between U.S. and German security forces. However, the discussion on how to deal with radical Muslims in Germany continues.

The plotters lived in an idyllic setting. Evergreen pine forests, winding country roads, large fields and gently undulating hills surround the sleepy village of Oberschledorn and its 900 inhabitants. This is also the scene where, according to the federal prosecutor, Monika Harms, one of the “most serious conspiracies in Germany to date” was foiled.

Top police official went even further. “The explosive force of this material would have been equivalent to about 1,200 lbs of TNT,” said Jörg Ziercke, president of the Federal Criminal Police Office. That would be a force several times greater than the London and Madrid bombs. In other words, the deadly cocktail for what would well have been the largest Islamic extremist bomb attack in Europe was to be mixed in Oberschledorn.

It started when three young men rented a vacation home in the village: Two German Islam converts, 28-year-old Fritz Gelowicz from Ulm in southern Germany and 22-year-old Daniel Schneider from Saarland; and a 29-year-old Turk from Hesse called Adem Yilmaz. All three were arrested on Sept. 4. They had begun making bombs.

When the German elite anti-terrorist police squad, the GSG-9, raided the holiday home in Oberschledorn, investigators found military detonators from Syria, which a courier supposedly smuggled into Germany. They also found 16 gallons of hydrogen peroxide in twelve blue plastic containers, a substance used also in explosives. The ingredients were apparently intended for the manufacture of several car bombs. It remains unclear, however, what it was they were really targeting. Investigators suspect they were planning to detonate the explosives in front of U.S. Army barracks in Germany and possibly, also at the U.S. Air Force base at Ramstein.

In order to prevent the suspects from escaping with their explosives, police officers had secretly exchanged the highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide with a diluted liquid before the raid. This was possible because U.S. security officials had been keeping the men under surveillance since last year.

In fact, it was the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) that first alerted Germans to the danger. In October 2006, the NSA intercepted suspicious emails between Germany and Pakistan. The suspects were apparently receiving instructions from the Uzbek terrorist organization, the Islamic Jihad Union.

This group is thought to have a close relationship with al Qaeda and to operate in Pakistan. It is suspected that both Gelowicz and his friend, Schneider, who did his military service in a bomb disposal unit in the German army, stayed in terrorist training camps in Pakistan.

Following the arrests in Oberschledorn, there was a sigh of relief in Germany – even if it didn’t last long. The Oberschledorn incident immediately became caught up in the battle over tightened security laws in the governing Grand Coalition.

And another question arose: How the government should handle converts to Islam. The fact that the suspects are Germans who converted to Islam was almost as shocking as the attacks they planned. Are converts particularly drawn by the allure of terrorism, many wondered.

Some say that these two particularly favored radical views because they wanted to prove themselves to the Islamic community. Others point out that most who convert are German women married to Muslim men who do so out of love. It is generally agreed that the number of converts to Islam in Germany is on the rise. However, there are no reliable statistics since Muslim congregations do not keep records on their members.

The climax of the debate came in the form of a suggestion that calls for converts to be registered, something highly unlikely. Wolfgang Bosbach, vice chairman of the CDU parliamentary faction, was quoted as putting the initiative forward. Later, he denied it, distancing himself from the proposal which came from Bavarian Minister of the Interior, Günther Beckstein (CSU). The idea has since been dropped.

Instead, the coalition parties are currently discussing a bill by Social Democrat Minister of Justice Brigitte Zypries that would render visits to terrorist training camps punishable in the future. CDU politicians are particularly in favor of it, especially Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU). However, his party finds the proposal too lax, saying that the proposal only punishes those who attend these camps when they are actually preparing an attack.

Zypries responds that one can only punish acts and not intentions. Bosbach, however, considers this proposal “impractical.” The federal state of Hesse, controlled by the CDU, responded by putting forward its own, more detailed proposal.

There is concern in the SPD that the CDU is using the subject of security to score points with voters already two years before the next general election − and to drive the SPD out of security matters.

“They think they have struck a rich vein with people's concerns over security,” one SPD member complained. “They are trying to drive us away.” Another noted: “It was a mistake to give the CDU the two important ministries that deal with security, namely defense and interior.”
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Europe
German Muslim Groups Condemn Train Bombing Plot
2006-08-27
Germany's Muslim community on Friday condemned the failed plot to blow up passengers trains in the west of the country last month and offered to help authorities fight terrorism. Sixteen organizations, including the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, issued a joint statement saying they were "deeply shocked and horrified. Islam offers no justification for such acts," added the groups.
“Islam offers no justification for such acts.”


They said Muslims could have been victims in more than one sense if the plot to blow up trains outside the cities of Hamm and Koblenz on July 31 had succeeded. Homemade bombs planted on the trains in trolley suitcases failed to explode, averting an almost certain bloodbath.

"If such an attack succeeds, we are potential victims of such attacks, along with all other citizens. But we will also be branded 'co-accused'," the groups said.

Their statement follows a call by Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble earlier this week on Muslims to condemn the plot, which he has described as a terrorist attempt to kill countless people.

“... a common condemnation of terror is an overdue first step, but it's not enough."
But conservative politician Edmund Stoiber, head of the Bavarian-based Christian Social Union, said "a common condemnation of terror is an overdue first step, but it's not enough." He told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that Muslims in German needed to become active in trying to prevent terrorist attacks.

He called on Muslim communities to reject extremists in their ranks and alert security officials to them. He added during Friday prayers imams should not denounce western values as morally inferior, thereby radicalizing young Muslims.
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