Islamist mosque to be auctioned off

Islamists are being stonewalled

A hidden conflict of the hardline Islamist organization Milli Görüs with a former partner is coming out in the open. The partner is building corporation Stadgenoot. The conflict is about payments outstanding and promises broken by Milli Görüs. Stadgenoot has seized assets such as bank accounts. It is now seizing a mosque belonging to Milli Görüs in Amersfoort and preparing to auction it off.

There is a full news story at Esther's Islam in Europe blog.

(The picture of the model of a mosque at the head of this blog is a mock up of the prestigious Westermosque that was supposed to be built in Amsterdam-West).

Here are more of my articles on Milli Görüs and the Westermosque, starting in 2005.

The Westermosque organisation tied up by verdict

The Milli Görüs mosque in Amsterdam known as the Westermosque has received a setback in its legal struggles against Building Corporation "Stadgenoot" (Formerly "Het Oosten"). A court judged that it will not be allowed to buy out Building Corporation "Stadgenoot" as intended, but that it will have to co-operate with the Building Corporation if it wishes to continue with its ambitious mosque building project.

Milli Görüs, a Islamist Turkish movement, wants to build a showpiece mosque in Amsterdam-West. In addition to a large mosque the complex will contain a shopping mall and residential housing. The Mosque is supposed to be build by Milli Görüs (Dutch), while the Building Corporation "Stadgenoot" is supposed to develop the mall and the residential housing. The participation of Building Corporation "Stadgenoot" is supposed to be a moderating influence on Milli Görüs. Milli Görüs wanted to dissolve the co-operation with Building Corporation "Stadgenoot", but this was forestalled by the Dutch Court, today.

Earlier posts on Snouck concerning the Westermosque are:

Westermosque: leader arrested
Westermosque: organisation's funds confisquated
Westermosque: the saga continues
Westermosque: Pride comes for the fall

Freedom Party: another one bites the dust?

Well, is supposed to bite the dust. The Left wants to take out another prominent Freedom Party leader.

The Reds are really on a roll.

This time it is Hero Brinkman. Hero Brinkman is a Freedom Party (PVV) MP with a high public profile. He is a former Amsterdam cop with a lot of scores to settle against our leftist local government concerning the way Amsterdam is run.

But lately he has mostly been making waves with regards to crime and cooruption from the Dutch Antilles. The Dutch Antilles are a corruption-ridden bunch of Islands in the Carribbean which sends a lot of their society's lowest, least employable and most criminal stratum to The Netherlands. The Islands also receive large grants of subsidies annually, which dissappear without much effect on the social-economic situation of the Islands.

Hero Brinkman is a part of a parliamentary commission which oversees the spending of the money grants on the Antilles. He has - recently again - loudly and publicly pointed out the corruption on the Islands and their habit of dumping their underclass on The Netherlands.

René Damen, a member of the Dutch Greens, has now issued a similar complaint against Hero Brinkman (Dutch) as the one that has lead to Geert Wilders being prosecuted for hate crimes.

It seems that the Left is much encouraged by recent developments. On the other hand internet forums show rage building up with thousands of hostile comments against Muslims and the Left. Muslim leaders, such as Yusuf Altuntas of Milli Görüs, are publicly worrying about a backlash.

The more starry-eyed believers in a harmonious multi-cultural society are proven wrong, the more they will try to surpress nativist stirring.

Amsterdam Ghost Mosque Saga

The Westermosque, which is to be built in Amsterdam-West by the radical Turkish Milli Gorüs (national vision) is on the rails again. Or so it would seem. The local city council "De Baarsjes" has given the Islamisation project permission to go ahead again after concerns about the size of the mosque, corrupt financing and finally the hostile character of the Mill Gorüs Islamic movement, which is outlawed in Germany and seen as the threat to the state by the German and Turkish governments.

In Amsterdam however the authorities regard everything pertaining to the mosque cosher again. Perhaps. For the time being.

Amsterdam Mosque organisation's accounts are confiscated

I have blogged before about the building of the monumental Westermosque in Amsterdam-West. The leader of the project, a Turk by the name of Üzeyir Kabaktepe was arrested on August the 23rd. Effendi Kabaktepe was the director of Manderen BV, the company that had been awarded the contract to build the mosque by Mill Görüs, a powerful Turkish Islamic organisation. Mr. Kabaktepe had been accused of embezzling Manderen BV's money. Yesterday his arrest has been suspended.

Building organisation "Het Oosten" who was owed money by Manderen BV in the course of the mosque building project (Dutch) has confiscated the possessions and bank accounts of Manderen BV.

Former Amsterdam mosque leader arrested

The saga of the project to built a huge mosque in Amsterdam-West continues. This project is an effort by Milli Gorüs, a Islamist Turkish organisation which is rather powerfull in the Turkish community in Western Europe.

Two months ago I wrote about the fact that the Amsterdam municipality had subsidized the mosque building project fraudulently, supporting the project with more than two million Euros. When you read the linked article pay special attention to the comment made by a Dutch liberal reader.

One of the leaders of the project, Üzeyir Kabaktepe was arrested yesterday:

"Amsterdam police have arrested the former director of the city's still-to-be-built Western mosque in connection with an investigation into embezzlement and money laundering.

Earlier this year, the mosque's new leadership made a formal complaint against Üzeyir Kabaktepe, alleging he had syphoned off €1.5m in mosque funds into his own investment company Manderen.

Manderen had been awared the contract to build the mosque by Turkish organisation Milli Görüs."

Strangely there has been no action against the municipality.

The unused building grounds for the Westermosque are going to be temporarily converted into a playground. The municipality still has not shelved the plans to built a mosque on this terrain. Arco Verburg (Labour), a spokesman of the local council (stadsdeelraad) said that the municipality still wants a mosque (Dutch) to be built there.

More Mosque for your money?

Amsterdam-West is the scene of an attempt to built a large mosque (including garage and shopping centre) by Milli Gorüs, a Turkish Islamic organisation.

The project is controversial and keeps yielding juicy news. It is getting more and more unclear if the mosque will ever be built, depite strong support from the central government and Amsterdam townhall.

Former Justice Minister Donner laid the first stone in 2006, promoting Milli Gorüs in a grandiloquent speech. Donner has also said that he would support introduction of the Sharia as the Dutch constitution if this would be done according to democratic procedure.

However, there are those in the Amsterdam neighbourhood "De Baarsjes" that do not want the mosque to be built. This organisation, Bort, has been finding more and more allies in their opposition to the building of the mosque.

As opposition mounted, Fatih Dag, Milli Gorüs' spokesman in the Netherlands threatened violent demonstrations by Turks (Dutch) from all over Europe. Similar threats were made by the then spokesman Kabateke in 1995, when there was oppostion to the building of the mosque (Dutch).

This was the final straw to many Amsterdam and Parliamentary politicians. They reacted by deserting Milli Gorüs and publicly stating that the Turkish Muslims had lost their backing on the issue of the building of the Mosque.

The position of Milli Gorüs had been weakened when it turned out the organisation had used mosques and Islamic organisations as platforms to sell "Islamic investments" to Dutch Turks. These investments, often called "holdings" by Turks have been popular with German and Dutch Turks in the 90ies and later. Tens and hundreds of thousands of Euros were invested in the Islamic Investments by individual Turks, constituting their life savings. The total sums are estimated in the dozens and hundreds of millions of Euros. However the holdings turned out to be pyramid schemes and the investors saw their investments lose their value overnight. At least some of the money raised by the "Islamic Investments" was funneled into Jihadism in Turkey and other parts of the Middle East.

But the story has gotten worse. The cover-up seems to have collapsed and on June the 6th of June it transpired that the Amsterdam municipality in 2005 had supported Milli Gorüs' Amsterdam mega Mosque project by a shady real estate transaction that transferred two million Euros from the Municipal purse to the Turkish Muslims.

For some dark unstated reason, no heads rolled in Amsterdam politics after this came out. The politicos motivated their decisions by recounting threats that had been made by the Mosque's board. As the "Islamic Investments" had gone broke, Milli Gorüs Amsterdam had apparently become insolvent. In order to regain their financial position that if financial aid was essential. If it would not be forthcoming the Amsterdam Turks threathened that the radical German leadership of Milli Gorüs would become dominant after giving them the two million Euros.

In summary: in order to, among other things, finance Jihadism in Europe and the Middle East Milli Gorüs and other organisations defrauded their compatriots and co-religionists of millions of Euros. When their schemes collapsed their front organisations in Amsterdam was faced with a financial shortfall. In order to make up the deficit the Amsterdam Municipality was succesfully blackmailed into transferring 2 million Euros into the coffers of the Amsterdam Jihadist front Milli Gorüs. The Amsterdam Municipality was very easy to blackmail, despite the very obvious crossing of the separation between church and state that was involved. In the end the appeasement did not pay off and just whetted the appetite of the Turks for unearned money and rights. This does not result in a political scandal and is downplayed by the media. Heads do not roll.

Finally: I feel it is safe to state that this is not the last scandal that will be connected to the building of the Wester Mosque in particular and other mosque projects in The Netherlands in general. To be continued.

Young Turks turn towards militant Islam

The National Co-ordinator for Counter Terrorism (Dutch) NCTb Tjibbe Joustra wrote in his three-monthly report that young Turks in the Netherlands are increasingly under the spell of Islamic groups that want to overtrow the power that be and promote Sharia through violence.

Sofar it was mostly Moroccans who were recruited by such groups.

Turks were mostly oriented toward their own community and were not attracted to violent Islamic groups. Due to the increasing resistance in Dutch society against Islam and Muslims in general, plus the news coverage of the events in the Middle East young Turks are now turning against Dutch society.

The Turkish organisation Milli Görüs has denied that Turks are joining terrorist cells and said that their imams are countering the trend.

Hubris

A picture speaks more eloquently than a thousand words.

As the Muslim population of The Netherlands is increasing they diverse Muslim ethnic and sectarian groups commission the building of places of worship: Mosques. Some of them are in old schools of churches and some of them specially designed as Mosques, striking markers of the takeover of Dutch neighbourhoods. The Ethnic Dutch call them "Hovels of Hatred" (Haathutten).

Growing up a young Dutchman sees images on TV of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, the areas were Islam is strong and were the Mosque is a part of the local architecture. Little does the Dutchman expect to find these elegant buildings in his own cities.

When I visit Rotterdam with a passenger I like to get off the highway. Into the Spangen neighbourhood. As I turn through the cobbled streets of this working class neighbourhood we get into a street running towards a canal. The street is narrow and all the 4-story apartment buildings have sattelite dishes, a marker of immigrant populations. Beyond the canal, filling the full width of the street is the Mevlana Mosque.

On the streets little Arab and Turkish boys are playing "soldier" and the pavements is filled with veiled and burqa'ed women pushing wheel prams.

For most people the scene is a bit much to take in. They suddenly stop talking about whatever it was they were talking about and take a sharp hissing breath. Their eyes open wide and they look at the sattelite dishes, the lads, the prams, the burqas and the mosque.

A picture says more than a thousand words.

In Amsterdam, the Turkish Milli Görüs movement has been raising funds to build a show-piece mosque in Amsterdam-West, in the De Baarsjes borough. On the site of a former factory a Mosque will be build in combination with one-hundred-eleven apartments, seven-hundred-sixty square meter set aside for offices and shops, one-thousand-forty square meter of meeting rooms for "societal purposes" and a parking with room for two-hundred-thirty-eight cars. On a long canal called the Kostverloren canal.

It will boast the highest minaret in The Netherlands. Forty-two meters high. It MUST be forty-two meters high according to the golden rule. In order to place the top of the minaret at a 45 degree angle with the dome of the mosque. It will be higher than the Munt tower.But lower than the tower of the Westerkerk. The mosque will be build in the style of the "Amsterdamse School" of architecture to make it fit in the surroundings.

A final detail. The design is fundamentally inspired by the design of the "Aya Sophia" church, the main Church of the Byzantine Empire. This grand church was turned into a mosque in 1453, when Constantinopel became Istanbul. The capital of a mighty Islamic empire that ruled from Morocco to Croatia and from the Tigris to the Danube.

The commissioners of the mosque put special emphasis on this piece of history.

Anyway a picture says more than a thousand words.

So if I want to shock people with a picture of the Islamification of The Netherlands, I do not have to go to Rotterdam anymore. Who said progress is a thing of the past?

The old has to make place for the new. A long time ago, in the 17th century the factory site on the Kostverloren canal was already an industrial site. The site was occupied by a windmill for milling wheat. The windmill was called: "Eendragt". That is "Unity". That mill went a long time ago. In 1842.

Something else that had to go was a monument that had been placed on the quay of the canal. A monument were Dutch people gather to remember those who were killed by the German occupiers in the Second World War. According to the borrough the Islamic and Jewish communities had requested the removal of the monument, because it had the shape of a Christian Cross. When asked the local Jewish community said they had never asked anything and to be displeased that their monument was removed. The had also been miffed when Morroccan lads had been kicking the wreaths just after the wreath laying ceremony in 2003. The Turkish, Moroccan and Pakistani communities have confirmed (Dutch) that they asked for the removal of the offensive Cross. They do not like Christian symbols near their mosque.

O well. I got a monumental Mosque now. With a shopping centre. My cup runneth over.

And a picture says more than a thousand words.

The Netherlands is banning the Burqa

This week the issue that is wagging people's tongues is the proposal by Geert Wilders of Lijst Geert Wilders to ban the Burqa in public places in The Netherlands. As a ground for this ban Wilders uses the idea that a Burqa is repressing women. In several cities in Flanders the Burqa has alreay been banned for reasons of security. A member for the government coalition CDA supported Wilder's motion. Minister of intergration Verdonk is going to see if a ban can be made workable.

I have mixed feelings about this ban. I do not like the "social reform" ruse that Wilders is using. Basically that is a leftist or liberal idea, that the state should define and reform culture or tradition. I think people have a right to dress as they want. However in Flanders the ban is supported that criminals and terrorists can hide under Burqa, so that it is in the public interest that people can see the faces of people moving in public.

The leader of Milli Gorus, the Turkish Islamic organisation, said that people have a right to remove themselves from the public or the mainstream. I think that people who want to remove themselves in this way, make an Anti-Western statement. If they have Dutch citizenship it should be revoked and so it should for their husband and children. They should be expelled to wherever it is they came from. The Burqa goes against Christian and European tradition. The time for fun and games is over.