New book: Danish company paid off imams

Arla, the Scandinavian dairy conglomerate, paid a “significant amount” of money to Gulf state imams in 2006 in exchange for a fatwa declaring Arla’s products halal.

The deal was struck in the aftermath of violent protests that followed Jyllands-Posten’s publication of cartoons depicting Muhammad. Ahmed Akkari, a Danish Muslim who originally helped inflame the “Cartoon Crisis,” makes these allegations in his new book, Min afsked fra Islamism (My departure from Islamism).

The Danish website Metroxpress explained the deal recounted in the book, in which Arla “would donate a substantial sum for a purpose of the [Islamic] scholars’ choice. In return, they would [issue] a statement saying that it is now again religiously acceptable to buy the Danish, Swedish and Norwegian dairy products.”

In other words, the scholars would bless off on Arla products in Bahrain and the UAE and help simmer down the anti-Danish sentiments that they themselves had whipped up about the cartoons in exchange for what was likely millions of Danish crowns to be spent as the imams saw fit.

The 2006 agreement may have been a violation of Denmark’s anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws. Section 299 of the Danish Criminal Code prohibits bribes among private entities in exchange for a “return commission” (ie, kickback). In this case, the return commission for the money paid to the imams was the profits earned from sales stemming from their endorsement of Arla’s products, thus giving Arla an unfair advantage in the Middle East over its competitors who did not arrange similar off-the-books payments there.

For its part, the Arla conglomerate has been arrogant and dismissive about the seriousness of the new allegations, saying that “We have decided to put the matter behind us,” and that Arla will not comment further events from eight years ago.

The cavalier attitude expressed by Arla may be indicative of the broader Danish attitude toward corporate bribery overseas. Denmark, which by most measures has very little corruption, was admonished last year by the OECD for its failure to do more to investigate allegations of foreign bribery. Danish companies were previously revealed to have paid bribes to Saddam Hussein regime officials as part of the scandal plagued UN oil-for-food program.

The 2006 agreement could also be viewed as simple extortion by the Islamic scholars. There would be a precedent for that as well:  shakedowns for halal certification against Denmark by Saudi Arabia’s Muslim World League were revealed last year. The Gulf monarchies and their elites seem to have realized that Danish companies are rather pliant to their demands.

Pay to play: Saudi Arabia shakes down Denmark for halal fees to terror-linked MWL

The Muslim World League is the primary vessel for the dissemination of oppressive Wahhabi doctrine across the world.  MWL has also worked with or helped create terrorist organizations such as JMB in Bangladesh.  Now it appears that the MWL is the beneficiary of Saudi trade scheme that requires Danish companies to pay for halal certification by the MWL in order to export its products to Saudi Arabia.

This situation is somewhat similar to halal certification fees benefiting the Muslim Brotherhood in France.  One difference is that if Saudi Arabia can force exporters to obtain halal certification from MWL chapters worldwide, that could represent a fortune in certifying fees for the MWL.

The news comes from Islam versus Europe, which translated the news from EPN, a webpage of the major Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten:

“The Saudi organization MWL is against freedom of religion, in favor of the death penalty for homosexuals – and get paid to halal approve Danish companies. Great Danish food producers such as Danish Crown, Rose Poultry and Arla are annually forced to pay thousands of dollars into the organization Muslim World League, which advocates oppression of women, the death penalty for homosexuals and the elimination of democracy. This is because Saudi Arabia requires that Danish companies that want to export halal products to the wealthy monarchy have to pay to the Danish branch of the Muslim World League in order to be halal certified.”

Foreign money enters France to build mosques

From Vlad Tepes on a Moroccan-funded mosque in Blois, France:

Translation by Hermes from:

Digital Alert:

According to article 220 of the moroccan criminal code, christians who engage in proselytism in the moroccan kingdom have to face penalties of up to 6 years behind bars, churches are closed and foreigner christians are expelled if they dare to publicly display their faith. Moroccans have no right to convert to another religion, and according to the constitution, a christian is not allowed to get moroccan citizenship.

Meanwhile the building of mosques in France and its control by Morocco (and other muslim countries) increases. This is about a territorial conquest of the zones under muslim colonization which are multiplying mainly in France, but also in other european cities.

After the building of the great mosques in Clermont-Ferrand and Saint-Etienne, which were financed by Morocco, now it is the turn of the town of Blois. A mosque and a madrassa in being built on a 1500 square meter plot of land. The king of Morocco donated 787.000 euros to help finishing the building of the complex.

The building of the “Bilal cultural and religious centre”, begun 2 years ago, was at a standstill. The first 600.000 euros collected by the regional muslim community were entirely spent. On the occasion of a private visit of the King of Morocco to one of his numerous properties in France, he was handed over a report explaining the details about the project and the difficulties the project was going through. The king’s reaction was positive and he donated the money needed to end the project

More than 30.000 muslims live in that region: Moroccans, Argelians [Algerians], Turks and Africans of different nationalities. The founding stone was laid down in december 11, 2009. The mosque will have an area of 1500 square meters,including a prayer hall of 450 square meters and a 9.20 meters high minaret.

And from Al Arabiya on the Saint-Étienne mosque:

A new mosque bearing the name of Moroccan King Mohamed VI is now open in France amid praise of the cooperation of the French authorities.

President of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (Conseil Français du Culte Musulman- CFCM) Mohammed Moussaoui inaugurated the Mohamed VI Mosque in the southwestern French city of Saint-Étienne.

The mosque, built on an area of 10,000 square meters, boosts a 14-meter high minaret and accommodates more than 1,000 worshippers.

The mosque bears the name of Moroccan king Mohamed VI who donated five million Euros of the total eight million of the construction cost.

La sabiduría de Colón

A major factor behind Christopher Columbus’s voyage across the sea in 1492 was his desire to sidestep the heavily taxed Ottoman land routes, as Money Jihad documented on Columbus Day last year.  This year, in honor of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella who funded Columbus’s voyage, and in appreciation to our readers in the Spanish-speaking world, we offer the information in Spanish:

Constantinopla Cristiana cayó al Imperio Otomano islámico en 1453. Los otomanos habían ganado el control de la Ruta de la Seda al Lejano Oriente. ¿Qué significó esto para la Europa cristiana y el descubrimiento de América? La Prof. Cynthia Smith, de la Universidad de Hawai, explica:

Hay una consecuencia final del control y la expansión otomana, quizás la más importante desde la perspectiva de la historia del mundo. El Imperio Otomano, a finales del siglo 15, controlaba el Cercano Oriente y el Mediterráneo Oriental. Esto significaba el control de las rutas de tierra que unían la Ruta de la Seda entre Asia y el Mediterráneo. El control de estas conexiones de comercio Este/Oeste permitió que los líderes otomanos cobraran impuestos a todas las mercancías que circulaban al Este y el Oeste a través de sus territorios. Por lo tanto, el control estratégico producía asombrosa riqueza para el Imperio Otomano–riqueza que disfrutaron por siglos.

Este control fue, como era de esperarse, una fuente de resentimiento cada vez mayor por parte de los europeos, especialmente después del siglo 14, cuando el comercio se convirtió cada vez más importante para los europeos. Los comerciantes europeos y líderes resentían la pérdida de ingresos debido a los altos impuestos, y los consumidores europeos de productos asiáticos resentían los altos precios. También hubo tensión religiosa sentían por los cristianos que tenían que seguir las leyes musulmanas para mantener sus conexiones comerciales con el Oriente. Este resentimiento que algunos europeos llamaron el “dominio absoluto” del Imperio Otomano en el comercio internacional fue la razón principal por la cual los líderes políticos y los intereses comerciales invirtieron dinero en  esfuerzos para encontrar las rutas marítimas a los mercados de Oriente–lanzando cambios épicos provocados por la exploración europea y la expansión a finales de los años 1400 a 1500.

En otras palabras, los viajes que resultaron en la “Era de los Descubrimiento” o “Edad de la Expansión” europea fueron motivados principalmente por el deseo de soslayar al Imperio Otomano. La expansión del dominio europeo y el poder global que fueron el resultado de estas primeras expediciones cambiaron la historia del mundo. El dominio otomán regional y los intentos europeos para evitar el control económico fueron los catalizadores del dominio marítimo europeo, la colonización, el “descubrimiento” del continente americano y el aumento de las interacciones globales.

Cada vez que alguien pasa a través de la jurisdicción de un ashir’ (recaudador de impuestos), paga impuestos. Si usted es un comerciante extranjero musulmán en un país musulmán, puede pagar aduanas mínimas. Cuando usted es un comerciante no musulmán en un país musulmán, tiene que pagar el máximo. Los intereses vitales de Europa eran incompatibles con la extorsión sharia durante la Era del Descubrimiento. ¿Cómo es que hemos olvidado lo que Colón reconoció 519 años atrás?

Another deadbeat mosque

Last time it was Halifax, Canada; this time, Lleida, Spain.

A radical mosque in Lleida, Catalonia, has been evicted from its premises for unpaid rent (not to mention repeatedly violating the maximum capacity for the space).

The meaningless lease was signed by a Salafist imam.  This isn’t much of a surprise considering that most of the Arab money coming into Spain has funded Islamist clerics and congregations, and many of those leaders believe it is acceptable to cheat their Western hosts at every opportunity.

Translated (with some loose help from Microsoft) from a Jul. 15 El Pais article:

Eviction against Lleida mosque for five months unpaid rent

The days are numbered for the controversial mosque on Nord Street in Lleida, which has been closed for 10 months for exceeding its maximum capacity. A judge has ordered the eviction of the oratory [chapel] because the entity that runs it, the Lleida and Shire Association of Union and Islamic Cooperation, owes rent for the past five months. The debt claimed by the owner is 9,000 euros.

The Islamic community directed by Imam Abdelwahab Houzi, close to the radical Salafist stream, signed a lease for the premises (an old truck garage situated in the basement of an apartment complex) on July 1, 2010, but it has not paid recent bills, on which grounds the owner decided to lodge a complaint to claim what was owed and urge the eviction.