Germany’s anti-Islam political party’s leader embraces Islam

News Network
January 25, 2018

In a curious development, a prominent leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a political party known for its racist and islamophobic tendencies, has converted to Islam and resigned from his position with the party.

Arthur Wagner, a leading member of the far-right party in Germany's eastern German state of Brandenburg, stepped down for "personal reasons", a party spokesperson confirmed, according to state broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

Wagner, who has been a member of the party since 2015, refused to comment to Tagesspiegel, the daily newspaper that first broke the news of his conversion. "That's my private business," he told the daily.

On the party's Brandenburg state committee, Wagner's work focused on churches and faith communities, according to Deutsche Welle.

The AfD has campaigned against refugees and migrants and made history when it won 12.6 percent of the vote in federal elections in September 2017, entering the Bundestag for the first time.

The party became the third largest party in the Bundestag.

The news sparked derision on social media, with many Twitter users pointing to the irony of Wagner converting to Islam after being a high-ranking member of a party that has railed against the presence of Muslims in Germany.

Emily Dische-Becker said: "Creeping Sharia picks up speed as politician from Germany's islamophobic AfD converts to Islam." Mark Berry said: "I really don't understand Nazis."

Originally founded in 2013 as a Eurosceptic party, the AfD took the lead as the most aggressive anti-refugee voice in the country while nearly a million asylum seekers arrived in Germany in 2015.

In the party's first bill since its electoral success in September, the AfD proposed amending Germany's Residence Act by barring refugees from bringing their relatives from the war-ravaged countries they fled.

Earlier this month, Beatrix von Storch, the deputy leader of the AfD's parliamentary group, was blocked from Facebook and Twitter after publishing Islamophobic posts criticising police for posting Arabic-language updates on New Year's Eve.

She had written: "What the hell is happening in this country? Why is an official police site tweeting in Arabic? Do you think it is to appease the barbaric, gang-raping hordes of Muslim men?"

The party has also sought to ban the construction of mosques in Germany. 

In March 2016, the party's Bavaria branch published a policy statement calling for an end to the "construction and operation" of mosques in the region, Deutsche Welle reported at the time. 

In February of that year, then party leader Petry Frauke sparked outrage when she proclaimed that German border guards should "use fire arms if necessary" in order to prevent "illegal border crossings" by refugees and migrants. 

In April 2016, the AfD's Alexander Gauland proclaimed that Germany must remain "a Christian country" and "Islam is a foreign entity". 

The rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric has also coincided with a spike in violence against asylum seekers. The German interior ministry documented 3,533 attacks on refugees and their accommodations - nearly 10 a day - in 2016.

Comments

TomCat
 - 
Wednesday, 21 Feb 2018

Many men want to embrace Islam cause want to marry again, and can marry up to four wives. Criminality made legal. 

ABDUL AZIZ S.A
 - 
Thursday, 15 Feb 2018

Alhamdulillah

 

this is the example and truth of Islam , the more  someone hate Islam ,Islam will grow faster ,and people will understand the islam religion,

THINKERS
 - 
Thursday, 25 Jan 2018

Alhamdullillah... Thanks to Allah...

Many people try to demonize ISLAM without knowledge. When they learn ISLAM is the means of this life. They want to follow the religion of ONE GOD who is worthy of Worship... When we are honest in searching for God, Just says The one who put soul in me Please Guide me to TRUTH. Have trust and U will definetely SEE The truth and understand the world clearly.

Abu Muhammad
 - 
Thursday, 25 Jan 2018

For us Muslims this is neither new nor surprising news as we have example of Hazrat Umar (RA) who was a different man before (fierce enemy of Islam) and after (supreme leader of Islam) he revert to Islam.

 

Surah MUMTAHANA (60) Ayat (7) Allah says - ..Allah will establish Friendship between you and those whom Ye hold as enemies. For Allah has power (over all things); and Allah is oft-forgiving, most merciful".

 

Here is a great lesson for enemies of God and Islam

سيد
 - 
Thursday, 25 Jan 2018

الحمد لله...................

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News Network
March 19,2020

New Delhi, Mar 19: Lawyer of Mukesh Singh, who is one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, on Thursday mentioned a petition before the Registrar of the Supreme Court seeking an urgent hearing in the matter.

Advocate Manohar Lal Sharma, through the petition, sought directions to bring call record, documents and reports of his client through any probe agency and passed appropriate directions and measure to ensure justice in the matter.

The petition, however, has not sought a stay on the execution, which is scheduled for the morning of March 20. The petition is likely to be taken up for hearing today.

Earlier today, the apex court dismissed the curative petition of Pawan Gupta, another convict in the matter, who claimed juvenility at the time of the crime.

This comes as the four convicts -- Mukesh Singh, Akshay Singh Thakur, Vinay Sharma and Pawan Gupta -- are scheduled to be hanged at 5.30 am on March 20.

Meanwhile, several other petitions are also pending in the matter in different courts.

The case pertains to the brutal gang-rape and killing of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people including a juvenile in the national capital. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.

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News Network
February 17,2020

New Delhi, Feb 17: Indian officials denied entry to British lawmaker Debbie Abrahams on Monday after she landed at New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport.

Debbie Abrahams, a Labour Party Member of Parliament who chairs a parliamentary group focused on the Kashmir, was unable to clear customs after her valid Indian visa was rejected, her aide, Harpreet Upal, told The Associated Press.

Abrahams and Upal arrived at the airport on an Emirates flight from Dubai at 9 am. Upal said the immigration officials did not cite any reason for denying Abrahams entry and revoking her visa, a copy of which, valid until October 2020, was shared with the AP. A spokesman for India's foreign ministry did not immediately comment.

Abrahams has been a member of Parliament since 2011 and was on a two-day personal trip to India, she said in a statement.

"I tried to establish why the visa had been revoked and if I could get a 'visa on arrival' but no one seemed to know," she said in the statement.

"Even the person who seemed to be in charge said he didn't know and was really sorry about what had happened. So now I am just waiting to be deported ... unless the Indian Government has a change of heart. I'm prepared to let the fact that I've been treated like a criminal go, and I hope they will let me visit my family and friends."

Abrahams has been an outspoken critic of the Indian government's move last August stripping Jammu and Kashmir of its semi-autonomy and bifurcating the state into two Union Territories.

Shortly after the changes to Kashmir's status were passed by Parliament, Abrahams wrote a letter to India's High Commissioner to the UK, saying the action "betrays the trust of the people" of Kashmir.

India took more than 20 foreign diplomats on a visit to Kashmir last week, the second such trips in six months.

Access to the region remains tight, with no foreign journalists allowed.

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Agencies
May 14,2020

Mumbai, May 14: The Shiv Sena on Thursday raised questions over the Centre's Rs 20 lakh crore stimulus package announced to revive the COVID-hit economy, and asked if India is not a "self-reliant" country at present.

An editorial in Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' wondered how Rs 20 lakh crore will be raised, and opined that an environment needs to be created where industrialists, trade and business sectors are encouraged to invest.

On the path of new self-reliance, India cannot afford industrialists running away, and for that "political institutions like the ED and CBI need to be put in lockdown for some time," it said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced new financial incentives on top of the previously announced packages for a combined stimulus of Rs 20 lakh crore, saying the COVID-19 crisis has provided India an opportunity to become self-reliant and emerge as the best in the world.

The Sena said the country is being told that the package will be beneficial for MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises), poor labourers, farmers and the tax-paying middle class.

"The package (as per the Centre) will reach 130 crore Indians and the country will become self-reliant. Does this mean India is not a self-reliant country at present?" the Marathi daily asked.

It is good that PPE kits and N95 masks are now being manufactured in India, it said.

"Any country progresses ahead while learning from crisis and through struggle. Before Independence, not even a needle was manufactured in India but in 60 years, India became self-reliant in science, technology, agro business, defence, manufacturing and atomic science," it said.

An institution like the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which is helping in the manufacturing of PPE kits, is part of the self-reliant India, it noted.

Wondering how Rs 20 lakh crore, as announced in the central package, will be raised, the Sena said an "environment needs to be created where industrialists, trade and business sectors will be encouraged to invest".

"India, on path of new self-reliance, cannot afford industrialists running away, and for that political institutions like the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) need to be put in lockdown for some time," the paper said.

Despite announcing the 'lockdown-4' and the economic package, why its impact has not been reflected in the share market? it asked.

"Investors are in a dilemma. The prime minister and chief ministers must show them trust and support," it said.

"Earlier it was Pandit Nehru and now it is Modi. If (former prime minister) Rajiv Gandhi had not laid the foundation of a digital India, there wouldn't be video conference of PM, CMs and bureaucracy in times of coronavirus," the Uddhav Thackeray-led party said.

It agreed with Modi that coronavirus will stay for long, and lives need not revolve around it.

"We need to get back on our feet again," the Sena said.

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