The number of people accepting Islam in France has increased significantly after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, with imams reporting a growing number of people coming to take the Shahada at mosques.
“It makes me want to go to Islam and to show everyone that this is not what Islam is about,” a young Muslim convert to Islam was quoted by RTL Radio a week ago.
According to the radio station, the Great Mosque of Paris issued 40 reversion certificates to Islam.
At the same period last year, the mosque gave certificates to 22 only, almost 50 percent of this year’s conversion rate.
Percentage of converts to Islam in Strasbourg and Aubervilliers was also high, scoring around 30% increase.
Lyon also followed the same trend with an increase of 20%.
The imams said they were surprised at first by the increase in the number of new converts.
Additionally, the diversity of those converts, including a doctor, a school headteacher or a police officer who all crossed the gate of the Grand Mosque to accept Islam.
A few days after Charlie Hebdo attack, a French business director Isabelle Matic, announced her decision to revert to Islam on her FaceBook account.
As well as condemning the attackers as unIslamic, French Muslims also called for the criminalisation of insulting religions amid increasing anger around over Charlie Hebdo’s decision to publish new cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (saw).
The Kurds fighting the so-called Islamic State are attracting combatants from all over the world. Some head into battle out of conviction. Others want to make a buck.
DAQUQ, Iraq — The so-called Islamic State has recruited copious cannon fodder from around the world, along with quite a few ferocious fighters. But its toughest opponents on the ground, the Kurds of Iraq and Syria, are attracting Western ex-soldiers for their ranks who are determined to see the self-proclaimed “caliphate” not only “degraded,” as Washington puts it, but destroyed.
At a Kurdish Peshmerga base on the fluid battle lines outside the ethnically and religiously mixed Iraqi city of Kirkuk, three American fighters sat down with The Daily Beast. We were less than half a mile from the black flags of ISIS, as the would-be Islamic State is widely known, and the soldiers asked that I not give too many details about their identities. They worry that their families could become special targets for a fanatical fighting force whose battlefields, like its targets, seem limitless.
Dressed in a Peshmerga uniform, Jeremy is a compact, affable 28-year-old-guy from Mississippi who fought with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. He’s been fighting alongside the Pesh for the last six months.
Leo is a tall and direct 38-year-old Texan who worked security for private military contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mel’s background also is in military security contracting and he says he served for a while with an army from a European country, but he won’t specify which. Mel’s a little eccentric. At 41, the Colorado native sports a pair of carefully pointed canine teeth—fangs, in fact— and a goatee that gives off a strong goth-metal vibe.
For two months Leo and Mel have been with the Peshmerga, the erstwhile guerrilla army that now makes up the autonomous armed forces of Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government, and both are dressed in the gray flannel shirts and cargo pants often associated with private security contractors, but they and Jeremy all claim to be volunteers who are not receiving any kind of salary.
As we sit in the comfortable field office of Peshmerga Maj. Gen. Karwan Asaad, with Kurdish TV playing on a flat screen in the background, the hazy battle lines feel bizarrely distant despite a network of frontline dugouts only a few hundred yards away. But the Americans are anything but complacent.
Brett, a 28-year-old U.S. national who fights jihadists of the Islamic State (IS) group alongside Dwekh Nawsha, a Christian militia whose name is an Assyrian-language phrase conveying self-sacrifice, poses for a photograph on February 5, 2015, in the northern Iraqi town of Al-Qosh, located 35 km north of Mosul. (Safin Hamed/Getty)
“ISIS are tough, real tough,” Jeremy says with his Mississippi twang. With fog settling in, he says it’s prime conditions for ISIS to make a move. It’s a different kind of warfare from what he saw when he was with the U.S. occupation forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He sees ISIS not so much as an insurgency as an invasion force. “It’s very different fighting a group that’s trying to take over,” he says.
The three men say their main assignments are guarding high-ranking Kurdish military officials and transporting jihadist prisoners in Peshmerga custody. It’s work Mel and Leo became well accustomed to when hired as contractors in earlier American wars. Here, Mel says he’s transported ISIS prisoners that come from Chechnya, Ireland, France, Germany, the UK, The U.S. and Canada, but maintains he is barred from speaking with them and has no idea what happens once they are handed over to Kurdish guards.
The three say, without specifics, they have received U.S. assurances they won’t be prosecuted when returning home, but that to be sure requires dealing with a lot of government clearances and maintaining a low profile. According to Jeremy, a lot of his ex-Army buddies are itching to get to Iraq and join the anti-ISIS fight, but he says many have been blocked because they make those plans public on social media.
The three say they have no interest in internal Kurdish politics and that even their sympathies for the Kurdish national struggle are secondary to their goal of contributing to the defeat of ISIS. They doubt the capabilities or commitment of the Iraqi Army and see the Kurds as the first defense against the spread of an American enemy.
Leo believes that if ISIS isn’t defeated, he could end up fighting its militants on battlefields around the world, and he is seriously disappointed in the way the Obama administration has handled the rise of the would-be caliphate. He says the failure of U.S. policy is a central reason he felt the need to join the Pesh.
Jeremy says he was uncomfortable sitting at home and watching the news of ISIS beheadings, mass killings and enslavements and felt obligated to use his military training and skills to support those fighting the jihadists.
For Mel, it was a matter of feeling disheartened by the large numbers of foreigners joining ISIS. He became convinced he had to join the Kurds.
The Housing Board (HDB) has rejected the requests of unhappy flat buyers for refunds of their new flats in Sengkang, made last month when they discovered that a temple with a commercial columbarium would be built near their estate.
The project will no longer go ahead as planned.
HDB said in a statement it received 95 requests as at Feb 9 from future residents of three Build-To-Order (BTO) projects along Fernvale Link – Fernvale Lea, Fernvale Rivergrove and Fernvale Riverbow – asking to cancel their booking but with a refund.
These 95 requests make up 2.4 per cent out of the total of 4,000 units among the three BTO projects.
HDB also reiterated that the Ministry of National Development and its agencies would ensure that the site is restored to the original plan of a Chinese temple.
Whether it will have a columbarium will depend on the temple’s trustees, and is subject to the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s guidelines and approval.
HDB sent its official letters or e-mail to buyers informing them of their unsuccessful request on Feb 16.
The flat buyers were also given up to this Friday to notify HDB if they wished to proceed with the cancellation of their flat application.
If they do, they will be subject to the standard process of cancellation, wherein they forfeit the option fee they paid if they cancel before signing the Agreement for Lease.
If they cancel after signing the agreement, they will forfeit 5 per cent of the flat’s purchase price.
The appeals for refund were made after buyers discovered that a temple complex with a commercial columbarium, run by Australian-listed company Life Corporation through its subsidiary Eternal Pure Land, would be built near their estate.
The use of fitness and recreation facilities in camps – such as swimming pools and gyms – by National Servicemen (NSmen) should be restricted to allocated time slots on weekdays for security purposes, said Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen on Monday (Feb 23).
“These camps should only be accessed by authorised personnel to minimise the risk of sabotage or loss of information and equipment which could compromise the safety and security of our soldiers and citizens,” said Dr Ng in a written response to a question from NCMP Lina Chiam.
He added that SAFRA clubhouses were equipped with swimming pools and gyms to support the fitness training of NSmen preparing for their In-Camp Training (ICT). For example, SAFRA EnergyOne gyms offer preparatory training courses, designed by fitness experts, to help NSmen improve their Individual Physical Proficiency Test (IPPT) performance.
The IPPT Preparatory Training (IPT) – for NSmen who need additional help in their IPPT- will also be extended to other venues, such as public parks through the “IPT in the Park” initiative, to provide greater convenience for NSmen, said Dr Ng.
Such initiatives would provide support for NSmen seeking fitness training while ensuring the safety of SAF camps, he added.
The registers of electors have been revised and will be open for public inspection from Feb 24, 2015 to Mar 9, 2015, the Elections Department said in a press release on Monday (Feb 23).
The revised registers contain the names of all qualified electors and may be checked through four channels:
At Singapore overseas missions that serve as overseas registration centres
At the Elections Department, located at 11 Prinsep Link, Singapore 187949
The latter three methods will require the individual’s NRIC or passport.
INCLUSION AND REMOVAL OF NAMES FROM REGISTERS
During the inspection period, a person may submit a claim or objection to include or remove his name from the revised registers of electors.
A claim to update one’s particulars can also be submitted during this period.
These changes can be made via the four methods stated above. Claims and objections submitted online must be done via SingPass.
RESTORATION OF NAMES AND REGISTRATION AS OVERSEAS ELECTOR
Singaporeans whose names were removed from the registers of electors for failing to vote at a previous election may apply to restore their names to the registers.
Overseas Singaporeans, whose names are listed in the registers and who have resided in Singapore for at least 30 days between Feb 1, 2012 and Jan 31, 2015 may register as overseas electors.
Following the revision of the registers, overseas Singaporeans who have been registered earlier as overseas electors will also have to re-register to vote at any one of the designated overseas polling stations.
The registrations can be done through the abovementioned channels. Applications will close with the issuance of the Writ of Election.
OVERSEAS POLLING STATION IN DUBAI
The Consulate-General of the Republic of Singapore in the United Arab Emirates (Dubai) has been designated as an overseas polling station for future elections. This is in addition to the nine overseas polling stations at Singapore’s overseas missions in New York, Washington DC, San Francisco, London, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Canberra.
The Elections Department said the overseas polling station in Dubai will facilitate overseas voting and registration for overseas Singaporeans in the Middle East region.
More information about the addresses of registration centres can be found at www.eld.gov.sg.
