The Mayor of Moscow says there are no plans to build a new mosque in the city, and says the "excessive" number of economic migrants was a "harmful thing".

"It has turned out that the praying Muslims are not at all Russian citizens and they are not Moscow residents. They are labor migrants. There are only 10 percent of Moscow residents among them and building mosques for everyone who wants it – I think this will be over the top," Sergey Sobyanin said in an interview with Moscow's Echo radio.

The top city official went on to say that "Muscovites now get irritated by people who speak a different language, have different manners, with aggressive behavior. This is not purely ethnic, but this is connected with some ethnic traits," Sobyanin said.

At the same time, the Moscow Mayor explained that there are no ethnic enclaves in the city and expressed the hope that such enclaves would never appear as closed districts like that usually have a very high crime rate.

RT, 1 March 2013

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The mayor of Malmö has slammed an upcoming exhibition of work by controversial Swedish artist Lars Vilks, saying he hoped no one would visit the gallery to see artwork he said was "associated with xenophobes".

"Of course he has the right to display what he calls art anywhere he wants," Mayor Ilmar Reepalu told the TT news agency. "But as far as I can gather, this is pretty bad art and I think they want to use the gallery for political ends," he added. "Vilks is increasingly associated in people's minds with xenophobic groups at the far right of the political spectrum. I hope not a single person visits the gallery."

Vilks has faced numerous death threats since his drawing of the Muslim prophet with the body of a dog was first published by Swedish regional daily Nerikes Allehanda in 2007. It was published to illustrate an editorial on free speech.

The new paintings of Mohammed would show the prophet – still with a dog's body – transplanted into famous works by artists including Claude Monet, Peter Paul Rubens and Anders Zorn, Vilks told the AFP news agency.

Vilks told TT that he was pleased that his art has been given the green light by curator Henrik Rönnquist. "It's a breakthrough that he dares to put these paintings on show now. I am not trying to kick up a stink, I'd sooner get rid of all the drama. People should be able to criticize Islam," Vilks said.

The show's curator said that he is prepared to tackle the safety concerns, in order to stand up for free speech, democracy, and religious freedom.

The Local, 20 February 2013

Vilks was last in the news in September when he was a star speaker at Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer's anti-Islam conference in New York. As a result a Swedish art gallery cancelled a planned exhibition of his work.

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Florence CyrulnikThe Collectif contre l'Islamophobie en France reports that on Thursday 6 September a young Muslim couple, Saad and Myriam, arrived at the town hall at La Seyne-sur-Mer in southeastern France to get married.

However when Florence Cyrulnik, the Socialist Party deputy mayor who was to preside over their wedding, arrived she told Myriam abruptly that she would not proceed with the marriage unless the bride immediately removed her headscarf. Although Myriam was not wearing a face veil, which is of course illegal in France, she was informed that religious symbols were banned in public spaces according to a local secularist statute.

Attempts to reason with Cyrulnik and her equally aggressive assistant Marc Vuillemot failed and Saad and Myriam were forced to call off their wedding. "What should have been the happiest day of their lives turned into a humiliation coupled to an injustice", the CCIF writes.

The report adds: "The CCIF strongly condemns the municipality of La Seyne-sur-Mer and the actions of Florence Cyrulnik that violated the young couple's fundamental right to marriage, as well as their religious freedom." They support the couple's decision to mount a legal challenge to the municipality over their disgraceful treatment.

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When originally chosen as Labour's mayoral candidate, he was the logical choice as a two-term leader of the Council. However, he was the subject of a "dog-whistle" campaign by opponents.

Just as conservatives in the U.S. use coded language to raise the hackles of racist voters against Barack Obama, similar language is used against Rahman, hinting at "links" to the Islamic Forum of Europe. That led to his decision to run, successfully, as an independent, and his victory has done little to increase the love.

Going to a mosque with "links" to other Muslim groups alleged to be "Islamist" provokes reflexes in a surprising range of people, from left-liberals alert to insinuations of anti-semitism to conservatives for whom it is a convenient cover for racism.

Anton Wahlberg profiles Lutfur Rahman, mayor of Tower Hamlets.

IPS, 7 August 2012

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Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman has refuted allegations that the borough has banned pork sausages from being served in schools.

Mayor Rahman responded on his blog to an article in the Daily Mail which claimed the council has banned sausages due to "religious reasons." The article stated that 85 out of 90 schools in Tower Hamlets do not offer pupils a pork option, a figure which Mayor Rahman attributed to a lack of demand.

He wrote: "The facts are that pork sausages are available to the minority of schools where there is a continuing demand for them.

"However, it is the case that in a majority of our schools there isn't any demand for them. Clearly there is no demand for pork sausages for Muslim and Jewish school pupils, but that is hardly a new development.

"At a time when there are severe pressures on local authority budgets, why should our council be obliged to waste money on unwanted pork sausages?"

East London Advertiser, 18 June 2012

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The Right-wing mayor of Nice has been accused of "stigmatising" the southern French town's Muslim population after passing a decree on "noisy" town hall weddings, in particular cheering, whistling and foreign flag-waving, which he says disturb the peace.

Since June 1, mayor Christian Estrosi, who belongs to the UMP party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, has outlawed "whistling", deploying "flags, notably foreign ones", the presence of "unauthorised" folk music groups, illegal parking around the town hall or holding up traffic to "dance" or "parade with banners or flags".

He said such behaviour was "liable to disturb the peace and solemnity of the moment" and could create "unfair delays in the proper running of weddings". Any wedding parties failing to abide by the new rules could see their ceremony delayed by up to 24 hours.

Opposition Socialists and rights groups have blasted the measure as a veiled attack against French Muslims whose traditional ululations are a frequent fixture at wedding ceremonies in France. They claim it is blatant anti-immigrant electioneering ahead of this month's parliamentary elections in a staunchly Right-wing town where the far-Right National Front commands strong support.

Last Saturday, they organised a protest "silent wedding" ceremony in front of the town hall in which a false bride, groom and wedding party brandished banners saying: "Silence, we're getting married", their mouths taped shut to drive home the message.

Daily Telegraph, 6 June 2012

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The mayor of  Molenbeek, Philippe Moureaux (Parti Socialiste), has made some very harsh remarks about the RTBF [Radio Télévision Belge Francophone] journalists who made the "Questions à la Une" programme broadcast last Wednesday and titled "Should we fear Islam?", speaking of "manipulation of information" and going so far as to characterise the authors as "racists" and "Islamophobes".

"This is a totally outrageous programme", he said in a telephone interview broadcast on Maghreb TV, saying that he was "absolutely furious" that his contribution has been censored, "in order to maliciously show only unpleasant images and provide a platform for well-known Islamophobes".

"Not a single positive image was chosen", added the mayor of Molenbeek, the town where a large part of the programme was filmed. "To present that [the fact that some women wear the veil in the town despite a long-established ban] as an image that shows the rise of Islamism is straightforward manipulation", he continued.

Molenbeek has some 94,000 inhabitants, of whom a large part are of North African origin. "It is a community who deserve the greatest respect. And just because there are some people whose behaviour we don't like that is no reason to condemn the whole community."

"Antisemitism once achieved success by these sort of methods. This is also how Goebbels tried to attack Jews, just as some people now attack Muslims," the senator-mayor declared. "I realise that I have only served as a foil to racists and Islamophobes", M. Moureaux concluded in the interview which was posted on YouTube on Thursday.

Le Vif, 17 April 2012

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Well, that the title to an article in the East London Advertiser reporting that the independent candidate Gulam Robbani won a council by-election in Tower Hamlets yesterday. Harry's Place prefers the headline "Lutfur Rahman's Islamists beat Labour, again".

But then, Harry's Place is a blog whose commitment to political balance and accuracy is illustrated by a recent post describing the Guardian newspaper as "The UK's leading publisher of Jew-haters". You do wonder why Harry's Place and CifWatch don't effect a merger. This would provide internet users with a convenient one stop shop for frothing-at-the-mouth Zionist rants.

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