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France clamps down on Muslim extremists by halting appointment of foreign clerics
A newly enacted law in France aims to reform how Islam is viewed by society.
The law, which bans foreign imams from operating in the country, is an attempt by the government to combat religious extremism in a highly secularized nation.
Foreign imams already in the country will either be sent back to their country of origin or take on new, lower-level positions at local mosques.
The government will appoint religious leaders and others to a body called the Forum of Islam in France, where these officials will help guide France’s Muslim communities and root out any potential elements of radicalization.
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Students attend a Koran study class at the European Institute of Social Sciences in Saint-Leger-de-Fougeret, central France, Oct. 28, 2020 (Philippe Desmazes/AFP via Getty Images)
President Emmanuel Macron first proposed the initiative in a February 2020 speech that emphasized France’s role in upholding Republican values and warned those values could be undermined by religious extremists. Notably, Macron called out the repressive treatment of women by Islamic extremists, which is antithetical to France’s Republican values of equality.
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Macron’s new initiative ends a program, created in 1977, that allowed several Muslim majority countries to send imams to France for cultural and language courses that are not subjected to French government oversight.
Macron contends Imams who are funded by foreign governments may promote what Macron has called «Islamic separatism,» or the idea that France’s Muslim community wants to replace French law and customs with its own religious laws. Critics argue the body, full of political appointees, will not truly be representative of France’s Muslim population.
Muslims gather in a room in Bordeaux for Eid al-Fitr prayers June 25, 2017. (Mehdi Fedouach/AFP via Getty Images)
«Some worry about how representative this body is of the French Muslim community, and some worry that this is a strategy for the French to control French Muslims,» Elizabeth Carter, an assistant professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire, told Fox News Digital.
«A more cynical perspective would argue that this was Macron’s response to the growing popularity of the far right and an attempt for him to broaden his party’s appeal to far-right voters,» Carter said.
Supporters claim the initiative will help better integrate France’s Muslim community into society and prevent discrimination.
French President Emmanuel Macron (Christian Liewig/ Corbis/Getty Images)
France has struggled with Islamist terrorism in the past and has been a frequent target of terrorist groups. In 2015, French and Belgian nationals with ties to ISIS launched a massive and coordinated terrorist attack in Paris that killed 130 people and wounded nearly 500 throughout the city.
That same year, armed gunmen targeted the office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people, with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claiming responsibility for the attack. The following year, an ISIS sympathizer drove a truck into a crowd of spectators watching fireworks on Bastille Day in Nice, killing 86 people. Fançois Hollande, French president at the time, ordered retaliatory air strikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria.
Marine Le Pen, president of the French far-right National Rally Party, smiles to the crowd during a meeting in Paris to launch the RN’s campaign for the European elections of May 2019. (Chesnot/Getty Images)
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The attacks, and France’s subsequent response in the Middle East, led to a steady rise in anti-Muslim sentiment throughout France. An estimated 1,910 French citizens would go on and travel to Iraq and Syria to fight for ISIS.
Riot police stand near a burning car in the La Meinau neighborhood of Strasbourg, eastern France, June 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Jean-Francois Badias)
Much like the United States, illegal immigration has become a hot-button issue for French voters. As a secular country, it has struggled with integrating its Muslim population, leaving many feeling marginalized and unrecognized.
As recently as August 2023, France banned traditional Islamic garb from public schools, which many considered a policy to suppress Muslim identity. France passed the Upholding Republican Values law in 2021, which gave the government broad powers to monitor and dissolve religious organizations that promote values that run counter to French Republican values.
Controversially, the law allowed authorities to increase surveillance on mosques and Muslim associations, according to Human Rights Watch.
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Muslims represent 10% of the population in metropolitan France, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, and comprise the largest population of Muslims in Western Europe. French public policy focuses on promoting French national identity as a means of integrating its minority populations.
Many times, minority groups have complained that it stifles their nationalities and breeds resentment against their communities.
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Otro polémico gesto de Nicolás Maduro: entregó 180 mil hectáreas expropiadas por Hugo Chávez al movimiento Sin Tierra de Brasil
Con el objetivo de aumentar la producción de alimentos, Nicolás Maduro entregó este jueves 180 mil hectáreas agrícolas expropiadas durante la era de su predecesor, Hugo Chávez, al Movimiento Sin Tierra (MST) de Brasil.
La adjudicación de esta importante extensión de tierras ocurrió en el marco del proyecto agroproductivo «Patria Grande del Sur», orientado a fortalecer la producción agroecológica y la soberanía alimentaria en la región, según indicó el líder del régimen venezolano.
Y, en la misma línea, agregó: «Buscamos producir alimentos orgánicos a gran escala para nuestro pueblo, para el norte de Brasil y para exportar al mundo».
El plan en la hacienda «La Vergareña», que fue estatizada en 2008 como resultado de una serie de expropiaciones que, según estimaciones privadas, alcanzaron unas nueve millones de hectáreas en el país, contempla el cultivo de caraotas, maíz, yuca, plátano, ñame, sorgo, hortalizas y frutas, además de la cría de gallinas ponedoras, ganado porcino y vacuno.
«Creo en la unión de los pueblos, por eso es que le he pedido al Movimiento Sin Tierra de Brasil recibir estas 180 mil hectáreas de las mejores tierras de Venezuela para dirigir un proyecto suramericano», dijo Maduro en cadena nacional respecto del predio, ubicado en el estado Bolívar (sur) y productivo en el momento de su expropiación, que es más grande que Isla Margarita, uno de los principales destinos turísticos del país caribeño.
«(Son) tierras bien buenas para producir, es uno de los rescates más importantes que hubo en su momento y ya hemos avanzado tremendamente para activar todos los planes productivos», añadió el mandatario, en alusión a las expropiaciones que el gobierno denominó «rescates».
Por su parte, Roxana Fernández, del MST, indicó que buscan reforzar «la soberanía alimentaria» en Venezuela, que en los años más duros de recesión vivió una aguda escasez de alimentos, algo que expertos atribuyeron a los férreos controles estatales, hoy flexibilizados, además de las expropiaciones.
«Es un acto de reafirmación de compromiso de MST con el pueblo venezolano de hacer en estas tierras de la antigua Vergareña un modelo y un ejemplo para el mundo», apuntó Fernández.
El MST -originalmente Movimiento de los Trabajadores Rurales Sin Tierra- fue fundado en 1984 como una organización social y política integrada por campesinos y sus familias en busca de tierras para los pobres en Brasil, convirtiéndose en un movimiento muy controvertido.
Con información de agencias.
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Netanyahu slams ‘terrorist-supporting’ UN council that accused Israel of committing sexual crimes
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is facing intense backlash from Israel over its report accusing Israel of employing sexual violence against Palestinians since October 2023. The report, entitled «’More than a human can bear’: Israel’s systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since October 2023» contains serious allegations against the Jewish state.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement on the report, calling the UNHRC «an antisemitic, corrupt, terrorist-supporting and irrelevant body.»
«Instead of focusing on crimes against humanity and the war crimes committed by the Hamas terrorist organization during the worst massacre against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, the UN once again chooses to attack the State of Israel with false accusations, including outrageous and baseless allegations of sexual violence. This is not a Human Rights Council – it is a Blood Rights Council,» Prime Minister Netanyahu said in a statement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem on December 9, 2024. (MAYA ALLERUZZO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
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Multiple Israeli officials said the report constituted a «blood libel» and said it ignored the acts of sexual violence on Oct. 7.
US Ambassador Designate to the United Nations Elise Stefanik also condemned the «baseless report» as «antisemitic and anti-Israel slander.»
«The so-called ‘Human Rights Council’ has failed to condemn the barbaric atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists against Israel including the brutal slaughter, torture, kidnapping of thousands of innocent civilians, and Hamas’ horrific use of rape and sexual violence against Israeli women and girls, yet disgracefully attacks Israel with unfounded smears,» Stefanik said in a statement.
Additionally, Israeli U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon called the report «another vile and distorted document from the UN.»
«This report is not even worth the paper it was printed on. Anyone who supported this false publication is complicit in whitewashing Hamas’ war crimes and trampling on the truth,» Danon said in a statement. «The UN is busy looking for ways to blame Israel instead of facing reality. History will judge you.»
Israeli Permanent Member to the United Nations Danny Danon speaks during a session of the Security Council at the New York City headquarters. (Israel United Nations mission)
UNITED NATIONS SLAMMED FOR SILENCE OVER HAMAS RAPES, MUTILATION AND MURDER OF ISRAELI WOMEN, CRITICS SAY
UNWatch Executive Director Hillel Neuer told Fox News Digital, «the U.N. inquiry is as objective as a Stalinist show trial, and that’s why they completely twisted the facts to falsely accuse Israel of the crimes that Hamas actually committed.»
The report documents a wide range of alleged abuses by Israeli troops, which it calls the Israel Security Forces (ISF), rather than the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the military’s actual name in both Hebrew and English. The report also condemned how Israel was carrying out the war, saying that the destruction led to «disproportionate violence against women and children.»
Additionally, there are complaints in the report of forced public stripping. However, Israel has said that this is necessary to ensure detainees are not hiding explosives. Former IDF Spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus was quoted in the report as saying this in a 2023 CNN interview. Even the report acknowledges that «strip-searches for security justifications are not unlawful,» but claims that Israel’s process was not up to international standards.
A view of the United Nations Headquarters building in New York City, United States on July 16, 2024. (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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Chair of the Commission Navi Pillay condemned the «deplorable increase in sexual and gender-based violence.» She also says that Israel uses sexual violence to «terrorize» Palestinians and to create «a system of oppression that undermines their right to self-determination.»
«For decades, the head of the Inquiry, Navi Pillay, has been the world’s leading champion of the 2001 UN ‘Durban Declaration’ slander that a Jewish state is a racist state. Inquiry members have referred to the ‘Jewish lobby’ controlling social media and then complained that antisemitism is ‘always raised as a diversion,’» Anne Bayefsky, Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and President of Human Rights Voices told Fox News Digital.
The commission claims that sexual violence, including rape, is part of the IDF’s «standard operating procedures towards Palestinians.»
Bayefsky alleges the commission «ignored hundreds of thousands of submissions which challenged their conclusions… They have also refused to hear testimony from NGOs that would have contradicted the veracity of their pre-determined end product.»
«The Independent International Commission of Inquiry is an independent body mandated by the Human Rights Council, over which the secretary-general has no authority,» Secretary-General António Guterres’ spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told Fox News Digital. «The secretary-general has spoken out repeatedly at the horrors we have seen in this conflict. He continues to be deeply alarmed by the humanitarian situation in Gaza and reiterates his call for all parties to respect international humanitarian law and international human rights law. He underlines that there needs to be accountability.»
Desarrollo urbano en una zona volcánica
Bomberos inspeccionan el campanario de una iglesia. Foto: EFE
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