Paris: More than 1,000 French websites have been targeted by self-described Islamist hackers in the week since the attack by jihadists on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo left 12 people dead, Internet security experts said yesterday. Most of the hacks targeted relatively small sites operated by local government, universities, churches and businesses whose home pages were defaced with messages that included “There is only one God, Allah”, “Death to France”, and “Death to Charlie”. Experts said that “cyber-jihadist” hackers from North Africa and Mauritania have claimed responsibility for the hijacking of over 1,000 sites since the January 7 Charlie Hebdo attack, and have threatened a surge of activity on January 15. “For now it has been more cyber-vandalism than sophisticated, high-level attacks. We’re not yet dealing with very structured groups,” Francois Paget, an expert with software security company McAfee said. Because of that, according to other industry insiders, it was difficult to know what form the threatened hacking on January 15 might take.
PEGIDA opens branch in Spain
Madrid: An anti-Islamic movement that is growing in Germany has opened a branch in Spain following last week’s attacks in France, the group said yesterday. The Spanish wing of PEGIDA was launched on Twitter on January 8, the day after an attack by Islamist gunmen on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris. “Islam has no place in free and democratic societies like Europe,” the group said in one of its first Twitter messages that day. The Spanish branch of the “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident” (PEGIDA) has just over 800 followers on its Twitter page and over 2,700 likes on its Facebook page. “We are preparing a demonstration by PEGIDA Spain, where members of PEGIDA Germany will attend. We will publish the date on Twitter and announce it by email,” the group said. Launched in Germany in October with a march of just 500 people, PEGIDA has since swelled rapidly, prompting German Chancellor Angela Merkel to deplore its rise in a New Year’s address, saying the group’s leaders have “prejudice, coldness, even hatred in their hearts”.
British Jews fear future in Europe
London: Almost half of Britain’s Jews fear they have no long-term future in Britain or Europe, according to a survey published yesterday. The poll of 2,230 British Jews by the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism (CAA) found that 45 percent feared Jews may have no future in Britain, and 58 percent were concerned they have no long-term future in Europe. The online survey was conducted from December 23 to January 11 -- a period that spanned the attacks in Paris —leading France to increase security at Jewish schools and synagogues. “The results of our survey are a shocking wake-up call straight after the atrocities in Paris,” said CAA chairman Gideon Falter. “Britain is at a tipping point. Unless anti-Semitism is met with zero tolerance, it will grow and British Jews will increasingly question their place in their own country.” But CAA stressed that “Britain is not yet at the levels seen in most of Europe”. According to the Jewish Agency, the number of British Jews emigrating to Israel increased by 20 percent last year, from 520 in 2013 to 620 in 2014, but in the longer term the agency said the number was stable. Agencies
