"Attorney General Threatens to Expel Extremist Muslims
WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 — America's law-and-order Attorney General has threatened to close any mosque in the United States that is considered extremist and expel any Muslim prayer leader who preaches a radical message.
In an interview on Howard Stern, John Ashcroft also pledged to deny visas to Muslim participants in conferences who did not respect the values of the United States."
Oh, civil libertarians are screaming! Or we hope they are. But, mon erreur, we expect they are screaming in French. Because, as you suspected, the story above has a certain unreality to it. Actually, the correct story, below, has a certain unreality as well, but we know its true because we read it in the NY Times:
French Minister Threatens to Expel Extremist Muslims
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
PARIS, Sept. 19 — France's law-and-order interior minister has threatened to close any mosque in France that is considered extremist and expel any Muslim prayer leader who preaches a radical message.
In an interview in Le Figaro published on Thursday, the minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, also pledged to deny visas to Muslim participants in conferences who did not respect the values of the French state.
"The Muslims are not above the law, but they are not below the law either," Mr. Sarkozy was quoted as saying. "Because I have reached out my hand, I can be very firm against all fundamentalist movements."
More than any other official in France's center-right government, Mr. Sarkozy has sought to set strict limits on the behavior of the country's growing Muslim community. He is determined to create an "official Islam for France" that will take France's second largest religion out of the "cellars and garages" and demonstrate that most Muslims are mainstream, law-abiding citizens.
In April, he was booed and whistled at when he said at the annual conference of one of France's most important Muslim groups that Muslim women would have to go bare-headed when posing for pictures for their identity cards.
...In the interview, Mr. Sarkozy declared: "No one should expect any weakness from me. Mosques where extremist Islam is preached will be closed. Imams who give radical sermons will be expelled. And conferencegoers who don't show proof of respect for republican rules will find themselves systematically denied visas to enter France."
He added: "There are five million Muslims in France. Whether that makes people happy or not, it's still a reality."
French law dictates a strict separation of church and state and the celebration of secular values, and Mr. Sarkozy's remarks come amid a fierce debate about whether to pass a law banning head scarves in public schools.
Testifying before a governmental commission on Tuesday, François Fillon, the minister of social affairs, said France needed a new law to keep any display of religion out of schools.
"Personally, I favor a law banning the ostentatious wearing of all religious symbols," he told members of the commission. He added, "We must get rid of this ambiguity, otherwise all the barriers will disappear."
Under current law, the wearing of head scarves in schools is valid as long as it is not "aggressive or proselytizing." But it has been left to the discretion of individual schools, and while most ban the scarves, more Muslim girls are showing up at school in assorted head coverings. The commission is to make recommendations to the government by the end of the year on how best to preserve secularism in French society.
Earlier Franco-bashing on this subject here.
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