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Europe
After France, Italy Threatens To Close Mosques
2003-09-28
Few days after a similar threat by his French counterpart, Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu warned Saturday, September 27, that "either mosques respect the law or they close." In statements carried by the BBC radio, Pisanu said: "We will not permit Italian mosques to transform into centers of secret financing and recruitment of Islamist fighters." The minister vocalized similar threats in an interview with the Corriere della Sera newspaper published Thursday, September 25.
Sounds like a reasonable request to me. Want to hear the turbans screech?
A spokesman for the Islamic Cultural Center in Milan cast doubts on the criteria to be used in determining possible legal violations that could result in the closure of mosques, said the British broadcast.
"No, no! That'd never work!"
"Mosques are places of worship and if you close them because someone who committed a crime happened to enter the mosque then by the same logic we would have to shut down Churches frequented by members of the Italian mafia," he averred.
"If we wudn't Muslims, youse guyz wouldn't be pickin' on us like this!"
Pisanu also said he planned to follow France's example of setting up a council of moderate Muslims to communicate with state authorities.
"Yeah. That's it! We'll set up a front organization!"
"Nicolas Sarkozy (French interior minister) explained to me that there is a clear link between the opening of dialogue with moderate Islam and the 22 percent reduction in violence in Paris suburbs," Pisanu said.
Oh! The moderates are turning in the bad boyz when the danger of retaliation drops, are they?
"And even if it is with different methods, I want to do the same thing in Italy - hold dialogue with the large majority of moderate Muslims who have come here to find bread and work," the minister added.
Posted by:Fred Pruitt

#9  R-visas work for the Catholic church who needs to import religious personnel who are interested in celibate life. Not a popular choice among American youth.

Unfortunately, R-visa are also a popular way to import Jihadis.
Posted by: Super Hose   2003-9-28 4:00:02 PM  

#8  Religious visas? We have religious visas, huh?

The U.S. certainly does -- R visas, given to people who enter the US to work in religious schools, etc. The wife of a person we recently interviewed for a position had an R-1 visa: she taught Hebrew at a Jewish private school. Nice lady, too. I don't know the ins and outs of the visa process, but apparently the US has a class of visa for just about any situation.
Posted by: Steve White   2003-9-28 3:23:29 PM  

#7  It is sad to see that a minister of the Berlusconi government thinks that muslims come to Western Countries 'to find bread and work'.
Billions of billions of dollars that we pay to arab countries for oil would allow them to absorb all the possible workforce and to trigger an industrial revolution. Instead the masses of muslims are sent to invade Europe and America (after invading in the past centuries Asia and half of Africa)...
It's the invasion, stupid.
Posted by: Poitiers   2003-9-28 1:59:54 PM  

#6  Religious visas? We have religious visas, huh? What for? Why is a visa to the US issued on religious grounds? To gawk at the Mormons? Study the scam techniques of TV Preachers with perfect hair? How to abuse mascara? I can imagine all sorts of goofy crap in other places full of "holy" shit that some might think justifies such a distinction... What, pray tell, is the reasoning behind the US issuing such a thing? Do we happen to have the 6,537th most Holy Shrine of Islam somewhere in Iowa?

How bloody inane.
Posted by: .com   2003-9-28 12:39:48 PM  

#5  Don't close the mosques and force the clowns underground. Let ehem say what they want in public, and monitor who is saying what and who is listening.

In our country I would deny Wahabists the use of reiligious visas but allow moderate sects of Islam to continue to use the program.
Posted by: Super Hose   2003-9-28 12:06:09 PM  

#4  Oops! That was for the Italian black-out story.
Posted by: Tom   2003-9-28 12:04:02 PM  

#3  Tree: 70 ft tall. High-voltage power line: 150 ft tall. Amusing premature explanations: priceless.
Posted by: Tom   2003-9-28 12:01:10 PM  

#2  Why not send them back to their homelands to look for "bread and work"?
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2003-9-28 11:06:44 AM  

#1  Mosques are places of worship and if you close them because someone who committed a crime happened to enter the mosque then by the same logic we would have to shut down Churches frequented by members of the Italian mafia...

Good point. But the mosques go first, since unlike the Mafia, they have no interest in collecting protection money.

And until the day Don Corleone(TM) announces to the world, they will destroy the infidel and that includes murder of innoncent people, and destruction of property having nothing to do with that agenda, Christian churches will remain open.
Posted by: badanov   2003-9-28 11:05:50 AM  

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