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The Arab European League or '''AEL''' is an Arab Nationalist and Pan-Arabist organization in Belgium and the Netherlands . FOUNDATION AEL was founded and is led by Dyab Abou Jahjah , a Lebanese-born Shi'a Muslim living in Belgium . Jahjah, a former member of Hizbullah , left Lebanon in 1991 to begin university studies in Belgium. {Link without Title} ACTIVITIES AEL's creed can be described as {Link without Title} . {Link without Title} . The AEL strives to develop an Arab Muslim communalist movement in Europe. The group participated in the federal elections in Belgium in . {Link without Title} . These electoral results were too low to win a seat. They also participated in the Flemish elections in 2004 under the denomination Moslim Democratische Partij (''Muslim Democratic Party''), reaching their highest share of votes (0.27%) in the province of Antwerp . This electoral result was too low to gain a seat in the Flemish Parliament . {Link without Title} Following the murder of a 27-year-old Arab by a Belgian man in Antwerp in 2002, the Arab European League began patrolling the streets of Antwerp with video cameras to monitor police activity. The AEL claimed that Belgian police were engaging in a racist "manhunt" of the city's 2006 , Belgian justice announced that they would file a court case against Jahjah and ten others for allegedly organizing private militia. {Link without Title} CONTROVERSIES The organization has been accused of {Link without Title} . Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt blamed the group for inciting violence during street Riot s in Antwerp in 2002 and criticized it for creating patrols to shadow policemen with video cameras to monitor acts of anti-Arab racism. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,849399,00.html Salon.com states that an AEL official called for the death penalty for homosexuals prior to assuming a leadership position within the group. In 2003, the political party Agalev (currently known as Groen! ) attempted to place posters in Antwerp of gay and lesbian couples kissing while dressed in Islamic attire. The AEL considered it blasphemous and as an insult to Islam because according to them, the Qur'an explicitly forbids homosexuality. [http://www.homo-emancipatie.nl/overig/ael_boos_over_homo_affiche_vlaam.html . Response to Muhammad cartoons In late September 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published several controversial Muhammad Cartoons in which Muhammad was associated with terrorism. In response, the AEL issued statements and began posting cartoons on the subject of the Holocaust on its pages. The AEL website stated, After the lectures that Arabs and Muslims received from Europeans on Freedom of Speech and on Tolerance. And after that many European newspapers republished the Danish cartoons on the Prophet Mohammed. AEL decided to enter the cartoon business and to use our right to artistic expression. Dyab Abou Jahjah, a leader of the AEL, said further in a statement that "I am for the absolute freedom of speech everywhere, and that’s why I call upon every free sole '' among Arabs to use the Danish flag as a substitute for toilet paper. To illustrate every wall with graffiti making fun of everything Europe holds as holy: dancing rabbis on the carcasses of Palestinian children, hoax gas-chambers built in Hollywood in 1946 with Steven Spielberg’s approval stamp, and Aids spreading fagots. Let us defend the absolute freedom of speech altogether, wouldn’t that be a noble cause?" [http://www.arabeuropean.org/article.php?ID=97 The first cartoon the AEL issued, "6000000?" depicted holding a paper called "Holocaust Script". He is on the phone with Peter Jackson . Spielberg: "I need your help on this one, Peter". Jackson: "I don't think I have that much imagination Steven, sorry". The cartoons were called Anti-semitic and Negationist by De Standaard , a Belgian newspaper. A Dutch pro-Israel organization "Center for Information and Documentation Israel" filed a formal complaint in Amsterdam against the AEL following the publication of the cartoons.[http://www.ejpress.org/article/news/5663 In response to the charge, the AEL explained its position further, stating: " {Link without Title} e condemn the selective indignation of Europe’s intellectual elite and population. When anti-Muslim stances are made or published this is perceived as freedom of speech and cheered and supported but when other sensitive issues to Europe like the Holocaust, anti-Semitism, homosexuality, sexism and more are touched, Europe’s elite is scandalized. EXTERNAL LINKS
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