Islam

In studying historical events, there’s a tendency to apply a “what if” analysis. This involves pondering “what if” some other influence had intervened and whether it could have resulted in a more favorable outcome.

For example, what if Colonel George Custer had waited for the reinforcements which were already on the way to assist him before charging into the Battle of the Little Big Horn? Or what if the captain of the Titanic had opted to hit the iceberg straight on rather than trying to glance off its side? Or what if a German soldier during World War I named Adolf Hitler had been killed on the battlefield rather than merely wounded?

Between 2016 and 2024, the European Union spent upwards of €150 million on education in Pakistan, according to a 2024 report entitled Pakistan, Education System, Curriculum and EU Funding, authored by Sallux/ECPM (the European Christian Political Movement).

The ECPM report contains over 40 pages of excerpts and pictures from textbooks which show that the views expressed in Pakistan’s official curriculum are not compatible with the EU values expressed in its Charter of Fundamental Rights.

The University of Sussex was fined £585,000 last month by the Office for Students, the universities regulator, for failing to protect Kathleen Stock’s freedom of speech. In 2021, Professor Stock was hounded out of her job by a censorious mob that accused her of ‘transphobia’. Around the same time, the University of Bristol also refused to defend my own academic freedom, in the name of combatting ‘Islamophobia’.

The residents of the Belgian city of Liège woke up to quite a surprise over the weekend, hardly left by the Easter bunny: hundreds of pocket-sized, French-language Qurans had been distributed throughout multiple neighborhoods by unknown activists.

Concerned locals believe the stunt to be more of a provocation than friendly religious outreach, prompting the Belgian police to actively investigate the incident to find the perpetrators.

France is in the midst of an ideological struggle that could reshape the identity of its Republic. At the core of this struggle is the growing influence of Islamism—not as an external threat but as a domestic movement embedded in civic life—and the chilling treatment of those who speak out against it.

Marine Le Pen, president of the National Rally and one of the country’s most prominent opposition figures, has been convicted on charges relating to EU fund misuse. The sentence: four years in prison (two suspended), a €100,000 fine, and a five-year ban from holding public office. The timing is conspicuous. Just days before her sentencing, Le Pen called for an outright ban on the Muslim Brotherhood in France, citing national security concerns and intelligence reports alleging long-term “entryism” by the group.

An investigation has been opened into death threats received by the head of a French university who has been accused by conservatives of a “chilling indulgence” towards Islamist activists.

The inquiry into the threats made against Isabelle von Bueltzingsloewen, the president of Lumière Lyon 2 University, comes at a time when French higher education establishments are riven by the sort of divisions that have emerged in the US since the October 7 attacks by Hamas.

h/t Patti Jo

For an insight into the current state of the British penal system, the case of Denny De Silva is as instructive as it is worrying.

A drug-dealing murderer, on being jailed in 2016 he converted to Islam and ever since has been a thoroughly disruptive presence wherever he has been locked up.

From battering inmates who don’t share his beliefs, to smuggling in mobile phones to disseminate ‘graphic and grotesque’ Islamic State material, the 32-year-old is described as an ‘extremist enforcer’ who ‘influences and incites’ other Muslim prisoners wherever he goes.

England is on the verge of collapse.