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04/18/2006:
"Burning of sanctuary stokes fears of Islamophobia in Spain"
An arson attack over the Easter weekend on a Muslim sanctuary in the Spanish city of Ceuta marked another step in what some experts fear is a growing incidence of Islamophobia in the country.Ceuta lies on a small peninsula in North Africa and a third of the population is Muslim. The burning of the Sidi Bel Abbas sanctuary comes just three months after another sanctuary in the enclave was attacked by arsonists.
Authorities in the city said yesterday that they were considering putting security cameras around mosques, shrines and buildings belonging to other religions in order to dissuade potential attackers.
Although it was unclear yesterday whether those who burned the sanctuary were non-Muslims or fundamentalists opposed to the form of worship practised by local Muslims, it came amid reports of a growing number of attacks across Spain.
El País newspaper yesterday listed a number of mosques and other Muslim targets that have been ransacked, burned or had copies of the Qur'an set alight by intruders.
Police said that extreme rightwingers and skinhead groups were responsible for almost all the attacks.
guardian.co.uk
The Spanish have spent a good bit of the past 500 years burning the Islamic evidence of the true Spanish identity. As for Ceuta, it was an Islamic city in North Africa before Spain decided it was a Spanish city. And I bet these 'skinheads' have the same questionable provenance as al Qaeda.
Two Gypsies shot as Russian race attacks continue
Police in Russia are investigating the murder of two Gypsies in the latest of a spate of violent attacks on foreigners and people from ethnic minorities.
The two brothers, aged 26 and 27, were shot dead in Kuznetsovka in the northwest of the country by an attacker with a hunting rifle. A 23-year-old suspect has been arrested, but police said there was no evidence that the attack on Sunday was race related.
Last week a gang of young men attacked a Gypsy camp in the southern Volgograd region, beating to death a man and a woman and seriously injuring a 14-year-old girl and an 80-year-old woman. Nine suspects are being questioned.
On Saturday, two Mongolian students were taken to hospital after a group of young men attacked them in St Petersburg. A Senegalese student was shot dead in the city this month by an assailant using a gun emblazoned with a swastika.
Critics yesterday blamed the Kremlin. "The Russian authorities are not eloquent or explicit enough in expressing themselves or in the pursuit of a policy of curbing nationalism and xenophobia," the veteran liberal politician Grigory Yavlinksy told reporters. "They are trying to play down the situation. That is wrong and very dangerous."
Police have been accused of charging many perpetrators of attacks on dark-skinned people with hooliganism, rather than race crimes, which carry higher sentences. Last year a political party was banned from local elections in Moscow after a campaign broadcast that equated dark-skinned immigrants with rubbish that needed to be cleaned from the city.
