Berlin's Deutsche Oper said on Monday it had pulled performances of the opera, which features a scene depicting the severed heads of the Prophet Mohammad, Buddha and Jesus, after police warned it could pose an "incalculable" security risk.

The row comes two weeks after Pope Benedict enraged Muslims by quoting from a medieval text linking the spread of Islam to violence. Last year's publication of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper triggered violent Muslim protests.

The opera, first performed in 1781, tells the story of Cretan king Idomeneo. The controversial scene was added by the director, Hans Neuenfels, and is a departure from the score.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told reporters after the conference the participants were united in their call for the opera to restart performances of "Idomeneo".

"To send a signal, we could all go to the performance together," Schaeuble, who has no authority over the opera house, told reporters after the conference.

He said it was just as important to defend freedom of expression as to ban torture. "We must not blink. We must be self-confident enough to guard our freedoms," he said.

HARMONIOUS DEBATE

The meeting, which had 15 central and local government officials and an equal number of Muslim representatives, discussed issues such as equal rights, the building of mosques, Islam lessons and imam (prayer leader) training.

Schaeuble said there had been an open but harmonious debate. Working groups set up to look at specific questions would come up with concrete suggestions in two to three years.

"This is a historic moment for us, it is a milestone and we will work hard in the next two years to achieve results," said Bekir Alboga of the Turkish Islamic Union, DITIP.

The organisers were not immediately available to comment on media reports that all participants had been invited to a snack after the meeting even though it is Ramadan, when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk.

Integration has become a priority for the government as concern grows about Islamic radicalisation across Europe and the emergence of an underclass of disillusioned young Muslims, mainly Turks, in Germany.

A recent outbreak of violence at a Berlin school where the bulk of pupils are immigrant children and last year's "honor killing" of a Turkish woman have highlighted the challenges faced by the government and Muslim communities.

Germany brought over unskilled labourers from Turkey after World War Two to help drive its economic boom. There are now about 1.8 million Turks in the country.

A wall of the mosque caught fire. The attackers also wrote ultra-nationalist slogans on the walls of the building.

An 18-year-old student of a vocational school was detained at the scene. Investigation into a racially motivated attack has been launched.

Earlier this week, the same mosque was already attacked by unidentified assailants who also threw gasoline bombs at the building.

The incident occurred early Sunday, a day after the country's Muslims began observing the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the Council of Muftis said in a statement posted on its Web site.The statement said the attackers smashed the mosque's windows and then threw Molotov cocktails at the building. Several cars parked nearby were also damaged, it said.

The council's leader Ravil Gainutdin called the incident a "deplorable and cruel assault by destructive forces." "I believe the hooligans will face due punishment," the RIA-Novosti news agency quoted him as saying.

Russia has seen a marked rise in hate crimes in recent years, which rights groups say is fueled in part by the authorities' reluctance to crack down on hate crimes and tackle growing nationalism.

You've probably seen the ads on the internet of an all-American girl, eyes skyward, the spitting image of a beatific Medieval icon painting. Against the backdrop of the Samuel Alito hearings, "Jesus Camp" follows 11-year-old Tory and a pack of young campers at Kids On Fire Summer Camp, which is the basic training for "God's army." Fischer is Kids On Fire's drill sergeant, and her mission is to empower kids to heal "this ... sick old world." Fischer's zeal is infectious, her belief unshakable, and her will strong. It's not difficult to see why the filmmakers were delighted to find her.

The kids, some of whom are jarringly precocious ("Because I just wanted more of life," one says), are respectful and supportive of one another, attentive to their elders and as humorously oblivious about the secular world as most AlterNet readers are about the evangelical reality. A clip over the closing credits features a young girl who approaches a pair of elderly gentlemen in folding chairs to ask if they know where they're going when they die. After they confidently assert that they're going to heaven, the girl wanders away, uttering offhand to her companion that she thought they might be Muslims.

The age of the kids (some as young as 6 years old) combined with Fischer's bellicose language (she openly refers to their mission as "war"), will undoubtedly make some, as filmmaker Heidi Ewing says below, "pretty uncomfortable." In that sense, "Jesus Camp" doubles as a perfectly entertaining horror flick for secular progressives -- or anyone outside the evangelical community, for that matter. But to leave it at that would be wildly off the mark and just as parochial as the triumphalist evangelicals depicted.

I've argued in PEEK that, just as progressives urge fearful conservatives to probe the phenomenon of terrorism, so must secular progressives probe the activist evangelical mindset. On the other hand, it's natural for a nonevangelical to be utterly turned off by some of the politically charged elements of the film, most of which are aired without counterpoint.

My response to Jesus Camp is similar to the nagging feeling that followed Errol Morris' brilliant Fog of War. That film, you'll recall, was essentially a conversation with Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara. The 86-year-old McNamara comes off looking like a contrite old man, consumed by self-deception, peppered with startling statements like, "We were behaving as war criminals."

My desire for a ferocious counterargument and an overarching condemnation left me feeling nervous about whether the proper gravity had been afforded the subject. Likewise, although "Jesus Camp" includes a few clips from Air America's liberal Christian host, Mike Papantonio, the rhetoric of Becky Fischer, Ted Haggard and the rest of the film's cast of characters simply sits on screen; take it or leave it.

In the final tally, access has its price, and art should not be polemical. Filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady sought to make art and received access in exchange. That access ironically provides opponents with a great deal of insight into this political powerhouse, should they choose to approach it with courage and the desire to see the community's humanity. As they say below, "If people have a problem with what they're doing then they should take a page out of the playbook and start to get involved themselves." Amen.

In most cases, Ewing and Grady, who are close friends as well as co-directors, spoke as any couple would. Which is to say, over each other and finishing each other's sentences. When it was important to separate their responses, I did so (as in the case with their backgrounds). Otherwise, the answers can be seen as a coming from "the directors." -- Ed.

Derkacz: So what inspired you to make "Jesus Camp"? Why now?

Heidi and I were looking for a story about children and faith, and we were inspired by a child from our last film, the "Boys of Baraka," Devon, who was a Baptist preacher, a 12-year-old. He really provoked us to start thinking about where faith comes from: Why is one kid more devout than another? Where does that come from? How does that happen?

Derkacz: What were each of your relationships to religion, spirituality and evangelical Christianity before and after "Jesus Camp"?

Grady: I was raised as a Jew, so my experience with born-again Christians was limited, though it wasn't nothing.

Ewing: I was raised Catholic in a Jewish and Catholic neighborhood, but I didn't have much experience with evangelicals. There was a beginner's eye that we walked into the thing with, for which I'm actually grateful. I think if I walked in with all these negative experiences, or if I'd been a born-again Christian, it would definitely have colored my view of this community.

It was more like being an anthropologist in a way. I don't mean to denigrate anyone by saying this, but it did feel like we were sort of fresh and I'd never seen children exposed to this kind of extreme and intense worship. I was definitely surprised and astonished and confused at first as to what exactly was going on. Of course, the Pentecostal experience and charismatic experience is way more expressive and kind of wild than a lot of other evangelical denominations. So it made it even more gripping for us.

Derkacz: But you felt welcomed by the evangelical community?

Yeah! They were incredibly warm and gracious. It's a caring group of people. I think it was important for Heidi and me to spend time with them. It draws out what people have in common and the humanity of an individual or group of people.

Derkacz: The kids and adults in "Jesus Camp" appear remarkably happy and supportive of each other. Did you feel like they were generally more happy than the population at large?

Well, I wouldn't use the word "happy." They seem ... they don't have a lot of angst. They have a very firm, black-and-white worldview, and I think it simplifies things. They don't have a lot of unanswered questions. They didn't have the anxiety that a lot of Americans are saddled with.

So were you ever tempted to be saved?

Grady: Mmmm, no. Can't say that I was.

Ewing: Nah, not really.

Derkacz: In a blog post I wrote, after first watching "Jesus Camp," one of the commenters wrote that "this film shows 'child abuse,'" a sentiment echoed by others. Do you think the treatment of kids in the film was abusive in any way?

I don't know where the line should be drawn exactly. Terms like "child abuse" and "brainwashing," are loaded terms. When you use a word like "brainwashing," the game is over. It's a difficult question, and I really don't know where I stand on it to this day.

Something may appear abusive or just too intense for a child at first glance, but then you get to know the kids, and you go home with them, have meals with them. When you observe them in their home environment with their brothers and sisters, they seem well-adjusted, willingly reading the Bible.

It's hard for me to just walk away after a year and say, "Yup, this is child abuse. I know it when I see it." What they're going through is extremely intense and pretty radical compared to the mainstream American culture. It's not the norm at all. Some people who see the film will be pretty uncomfortable with the education or indoctrination of these kids. I think it's up to individuals to decide. If we're parsing terms, nobody's doing anything illegal. But I think it's questionable to some people as possibly not good for the kids.

Derkacz: So you had no political agenda?

No, in fact there was nothing political about our initial intentions at all. We were interested in the theology and the faith aspect of this particular group. But after filming several days and seeing the reaction of the community when there was movement in the news or in politics -- for example, Sandra Day O'Connor, who resigned two weeks after we started shooting. I had never seen a group rejoice in such an aggressive way -- well, not aggressive, just incredibly joyful. It was fascinating. Heidi and I realized that we could not avoid the political ramifications of the community; that in fact, they're so intertwined that these people have become de facto political activists, although they don't see themselves in that way.

Derkacz: The film doesn't take any particular political stance, but you did provide a counterpoint to the rhetoric of the evangelical community in the form of Air America's Mike Papantonio, a liberal Christian and a fierce critic of the Christian right. I'm curious about that decision.

It was important that the critic be a Christian so that it's relevant to the people in the film. As it became obvious to us that there were some pretty strong political overtones going on throughout, we thought that it was important to contextualize what was being shown. For example, in the abortion debate, the evangelical leadership and the constituents are all on the same page.

It was important to include a Christian who does not believe in the politicization of the religion. Without him there'd be a flatness to it; there'd be no one disagreeing with what was being seen on the screen. In a lot of ways, Mike voices what at least 50 percent of our audience is thinking, a necessary element to create a nuanced film.

Derkacz: I understand that you screened "Jesus Camp" with the subjects of the film and the community. What were the reactions from Becky Fischer, the kids, and their parents? How about Ted Haggard's New Life Church?

Everyone portrayed in the film supports and likes it except for Ted Haggard, who is the head of the New Life Church -- he's featured at the end of the film. He's a very important, politically active figure.

That's disappointing to most of the people in the film because they really like it, and they feel like it's stinging to them that he would reject the movie, because they think what they were doing was part of the greater evangelical movement and part of his family, though he's rejecting the film on various grounds.

But Becky really likes the film, the parents feel they were accurately portrayed. To this day, they don't consider themselves political at all. So they take issue with the concept that they're politically active, although we maintain that what they consider a moral life -- you know, doing "God's will" -- appears political to a lot of people.

So they understand why we perceive that to be true, but they still don't consider themselves very active even though they know the voting records on all their local congressman and are very knowledgable about the issues. They listen to Focus on the Family and James Dobson. But they just feel like they're doing "what God wants them to do, and if you want to call that political then that's fine with us."

That was the one thing that threw us for a loop. That they're all behind the movie and encouraging their churches and their communities to see it.

Derkacz: I hate to lump them together given what you've just told me, but do you think that this movement somehow endangers America as we know it, as a nation that adheres to the Constitution above any theocratic leadership?

Well, there's an inherent problem here, which is that there is a massive number of Americans who do believe that the founding fathers intended to found a much more Christian state. That the Constitution is based on the Ten Commandments. There are a lot of people who will tell you that, who believe that to be true. I think that when you've got, I think, 67 percent of Americans believing that the founding fathers intended to found something like a Christian state, it's really hard to counteract those numbers.

I do believe in separation of church and state; I do believe it's being blurred. Especially in the last ten years. But that's bound to happen when you've got 50 percent of a population that doesn't vote and most evangelicals who do. So you've got a minority that's starting to feel like a majority because they're involved and politically engaged, and they care, and they're up on the issues, and they're not cynical about their influence, and they believe that their vote counts and that they can make changes, and they're going to do that until further notice. So I think if people have a problem with what they're doing, then they should take a page out of the playbook and start to get involved themselves.

I really do think that unless something changes in the political landscape, unless moderates and liberals decide they want to get active and vote and become knowldedgable, I see that separation between church and state getting even blurrier. I really do. It's something to take notice of.

Evan Derkacz is AlterNet's associate editor and writer of PEEK, the blog of blogs.

Houssaiky and Abulhassan were quickly convicted in the press. "I went to our cell," Houssaiky remembers. "The inmates showed us on TV, there was a line going across the screen [saying], Is This an Act of Terrorism at Work?" Yet within a week of their arrest, it became clear to prosecutors that there was no evidence linking either student to terrorism. Returning home to Dearborn, Houssaiky and Abulhassan called a press conference to denounce the "paranoia and xenophobia that is gripping the country." To Houssaiky, the fact that he and his friend were cleared of all charges is no comfort. "The media made us into animals," he says. "This is going to stick to us the rest of our lives."

The persecution of Houssaiky and Abulhassan--two former high school football stars--underscores the sense of besiegement felt widely in this community of 35,000. Dearborn has been a magnet for Arab and Iranian immigrants for more than 100 years, and its streets and storefronts proudly display the signs of Middle Eastern-American culture: Mosques and community centers sit peacefully next to McDonald's and Burger King along Dearborn arteries like Schafer Road and Warren Avenue. Yet over the past few months, and particularly during the Lebanon war, the Justice Department and the FBI have increasingly put Dearborn under collective suspicion. Nearly thirty people in the Dearborn area have been indicted on often-flimsy charges related to terrorism in the past three years, and more than half of them have been accused in the past four months. Assistant US Attorney Kenneth Chadwell, who heads the Justice Department's efforts to investigate terrorism connections in Dearborn, told the Chicago Tribune in late July, "The question is: Are they loyal to the US or to this terrorist group Hezbollah?"

The answer Dearborn gives is that it's loyal to both, in much the same way that many American Jews are Americans first, with a sentimental attachment to Israel. There is no doubt that much of Dearborn's Muslim community, many of whom are Lebanese, Iraqi and Iranian Shiites, is sympathetic to Hezbollah, which the State Department designates as a terrorist organization. Some have gone beyond passive support. In March the US Attorney's office indicted eighteen men for funneling profits from a Dearborn-operated cigarette-smuggling ring to Hezbollah, two of whom have pleaded guilty.

But most community leaders consider support for Hezbollah a derivative of Lebanese and Shiite identity, indicating support for resistance to Israel, not for terrorism. "Certainly there were a number of individuals, especially over the thirty-three days of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, who spoke very much in support of [Hezbollah], but they weren't speaking in favor of the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers as much as they were speaking in favor of the sole institution there assisting the country during the invasion," says Noel Saleh, president of the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services. "'Hezbollah' means in the West different things than it means in the East," adds Mohammed Elahi, the Iranian-born imam of Dearborn's Islamic House of Wisdom. "Muslims on the whole, especially Shiites, but even Sunnis, support the resistance in Lebanon." Indeed, on a recent visit to Dearborn only days after the cease-fire took effect, I saw the red, white and green Lebanese flag everywhere--on shop windows, residential flagpoles and bumper stickers--but the yellow flag of Hezbollah was nowhere to be found.

It's that constitutionally protected sympathy that Dearborn considers the reason for the Justice Department's increasing scrutiny of the town. Not one resident has been charged with attempting to commit an act of terrorism against the United States, and Dawud Walid of the local Council on American-Islamic Relations insists that local leaders frequently inform the community of alternative, non-Hezbollah-linked Lebanese charities for their donations. The US Attorney's office in Detroit declined comment for this story, and the Detroit FBI office referred questions to the Washington headquarters, which also declined to comment.

Perhaps the most painful aspect of the Justice Department campaign is the fact that before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, many of Dearborn's Shiites, and especially its Iraqi expatriates, gave the Bush Administration the benefit of the doubt. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz hosted an anti-Saddam Hussein rally in Dearborn that February, where hundreds feverishly chanted, "Saddam must go!" Bush himself delivered a speech in the town shortly after the fall of Baghdad. In both cases, the message the Administration wished to send was clear: The authentic Iraqi and Arab reaction would be enthusiasm for the US invasion.

Now that the Administration looks unfavorably on a different aspect of Shiite identity, many here feel betrayed. "We feel like we've been used," says Imam Husham al-Husainy of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center, an Iraqi-American cleric who once led prowar rallies in Dearborn. "This turn of events, the very easy accusations of people, not to mention destroying their reputations, is very alarming," adds Maha Hussain, a University of Michigan oncologist who hosted Wolfowitz at the Dearborn rally. "The Iraqi community put its trust in the Administration at the intention level and the competence level. Only God knows what their intentions were, but in terms of competence, at every step, they made the wrong choice. Iraq is destroyed."

The destruction is hardly limited to Iraq. Chadwell's prosecutorial team may well uncover financial ties between Dearborn and Hezbollah, although most that have emerged to date are trivial. What the United States may lose in the process is something far more valuable to its counterterrorism efforts: a viable Muslim-American identity. Unlike the disaffected Muslim minorities in Europe, "Muslims are part of this society, and no American Muslim has been involved in any terrorist activity," observes Elahi. With Al Qaeda and other jihadist organizations increasingly reliant on radicalized Muslim minorities in the West to carry out attacks, an American Islam is as important as it is increasingly endangered.

"Sometimes it makes you schizophrenic," Saleh admits. "We want the community to trust the law enforcement agencies and provide information to law enforcement.... But the willingness of the community to trust the fairhandedness of the police is diminishing."

Spencer Ackerman is an associate editor at The New Republic.

It is interesting that Western newspapers also denounced the platitudes of the Catholic Pope. Some even worked to exaggerate the Papal mistake, to the point that one might suspect that behind these writers' pens were the intentions and involvement of real Muslims. But is this for real?

When we know that some of those Western newspapers exaggerated the seriousness of the Pope's declarations, even though they are owned by Zionist Jews, including The New York Times, then we must conclude that they have something up their sleeves!

Some writers "threw fuel on the fire" by pretending to be true defenders of Islam. They appear to be defending the truth of Islam, but for the real truth ... look to the politics!

The lies of the Pope have done Bush a service that can't be underestimated!

The ignorant words of the Pope support the War Against Terrorism. His was an attempt to show the world that Muslims are "evil and violent" and worthy of prosecution, confirming Bush's assertions about "fascists" and "terrorists."

All we can hope for now is that our Muslim brothers in every corner of the world keep in mind, as the come to grips with these disasters that are now being showered on our Islamic religion from all directions, is that they abide by reason and avoid violence and angry reaction. Ours is a religion of dialogue. Given the West's ignorance of these facts and of reality - we should give them a lesson about the essence of Islam, and call for the entire world to respect our religion and establish laws to protect it and its Prophet from attacks from the hateful and the ignorant.

Now we come to the role of those with knowledge, our scholars. This is the great battle for which Allah gave them knowledge to wage. How I wish to see the most experienced Islamic scholars in the world hold a religious roundtable with the leaders of Western Christianity, and to have it broadcast live on every satellite channel and in every language.

Let us take advantage of the month of Ramadan and make of it an intensive and deliberate media opportunity to breathe in the spirit of our great religion, which through the word and not the sword has invaded the hearts and minds of people.

Rather than the platitudes and show business nonsense that usually regales us during the Holy month of fasting, let us fill our Arab satellite channels with good programs. A month of worship, the Quran and escape from the fires! [of hell].

We ask Almighty Allah to give victory to Islam and the Muslims, and that he strike back at their enemies by creating strife among them.

We ask the magnificent Allah that he gives victory to Islam and the Muslims and that he strike back at their enemies by creating strife among them ... May you all have a safe and beneficial Ramadan.

"They want to use suspension (as a measure) for propaganda, then tell the whole world that Iran was forced by them to accept suspension," the president was quoted as saying.

"They are making a mistake and the Iranian nation will not backdown on its rights," he asserted.

"In their negotiations with us, they wanted us to halt uranium enrichment even for one day under the quillet of technical problem, then we can have more talks with them, but we responded to them that nobody can give up the nation's rights and the Iranian nation will not back down on its rights," he further elaborated.

Ahmadinejad made the comments while Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani was meeting with European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

The last round of talks between the two top officials took place at the Austrian Chancellor's Palace in Vienna on Sept. 9. Both of them considered the previous talk as constructive.

The U.S. daily Washington Times reported on Tuesday that Iran was close to agreeing on a secret deal to suspend its enrichment activities for 90 days, in order for more talks with European countries.

But Mohammad Saeedi, Iran's Atomic Energy Organization deputy head, said Wednesday that Larijani would not discuss the suspension of the country's uranium enrichment work in the new round of talk with Javier Solana.

"Such news is utterly baseless and without foundation," said Saeedi, adding that "this kind of reports could create a false propaganda atmosphere which will not help solve the issue".

At an informal meeting in Brussels earlier this month, EU foreign ministers decided to maintain serious talks with Tehran in efforts to solve Iran's nuclear issue through diplomacy after Iran failed to meet a UN Security Council resolution calling for Tehran to halt uranium enrichment by Aug. 31.

However, the United States since then has unceasingly been pushing for sanctions against Iran.

"Iran needs to suspend its uranium enrichment activities, and it needs to do so in a verifiable way. If it does, we can start negotiations. If it doesn't, we move to sanctions. It is a clear and unambiguous standard," State Department spokesman Tom Casey told the Washington Times recently.