Monthly Archives: November 2006

Witch-hunt against HT continues

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A crisis meeting between police chiefs and local religious leaders has been held after the discovery of bomb-making equipment in a patch of woodland close to Croydon Synagogue. Police confirmed last week, after a BBC Newsnight report, that they had discovered a number of items which has aroused fears of extremist violence breaking out in Croydon.

On Monday morning at Croydon police station, in a meeting chaired by Chief Superintendent Mark Gore, representatives from Muslim and Jewish communities, Croydon Council and Croydon Mosque and Islamic Centre met to discuss the investigation. It follows confirmation from police that items were found in woodland off Shirley Oaks Road on November 4 and November 11. The land is opposite Croydon Synagogue and the items were said to include equipment that could be used to make petrol bombs.

The meeting came after a BBC report claimed the radical Islamic group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, were distributing leaflets outside Croydon Mosque and Islamic Centre in an attempt to recruit new members. A source in the group told Newsnight that they had uncovered a plot by Hizb ut-Tahrir’s members to attack the synagogue.

Croydon Guardian, 27 November 2006

Update:  See “BBC Newsnight and File on 4 misled public in their allegations about Hizb ut-Tahrir”, Islamophobia Watch, 1 August 2007

‘Pray-in’ protesters decry imams’ removal from flight

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Protesting the removal of six imams from a US Airways flight last week, a group of Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders staged a “pray-in” Monday near the airline’s ticket counter at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

The six men, who had attended a national conference of Islamic scholars, were detained at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Nov. 20. Those attending Monday’s protest said the incident smacked of racial profiling because three of the men had been observed praying in the departure area.

“We are in a place in our society where xenophobia seems to win out,” said Rev. Graylan Hagler, senior minister at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Washington, after the protest. “The last time I checked, public prayer was still protected by the U.S. Constitution,” said Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, a Washington-based advocacy group.

Los Angeles Times, 28 November 2006

Meanwhile, US right-wingers have vociferously defended the decision to eject the imams from the plane. One typical contribution reads: “Anyone who’s made a habit of watching world events the past five years has had good reason to develop a healthy fear of Islam. When Islam makes the news, it’s usually because one of its adherents has blown himself up in a pizzeria, beheaded a newsman or crashed an airliner into a skyscraper.”

Hugh Hewitt at Townhall.com, 27 November 2006

Generating more heat than light

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Salma addressing rally“Unfortunately, despite the intentions of its authors, I fear that their focus on attacking the currently dominant faith organisations will generate more heat than light. In conflating HT with the BNP as if they both pose equal threats to race relations; in echoing in all but name the charge of ‘Islamofascist’ against organisations like MCB; in regurgitating, along with the government and rightwing tabloids, the spectre of sinister self-appointed Muslim community leaders who keep the their foot firmly on the neck of their communities; the manifesto only serves to add more layers of confusion than strip them away.”

Salma Yaqoob responds to the “New Generation Network manifesto”.

Comment is Free, 28 November 2006

Radio spoof draws support for Nazi-like treatment of US Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A parody of anti-Muslim bigotry on a Washington, D.C., radio station drew support for treating American Muslims in a manner similar to how the Jewish community was targeted in Nazi Germany.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said today that the reaction to the parody is a “wake-up call” for religious and political leaders who remain silent on the issue of growing Islamophobia in America.

In his 630 WMAL program on Sunday, November 26, talk show host Jerry Klein seemed to advocate a government program to force all Muslims to wear “identifying markers.” He stated: “I’m thinking either it should be an arm band, a crescent moon arm band, or it should be a crescent moon tattoo.” Klein said: “If it means that we have to round them up and do a tattoo in a place where everybody knows where to find it, then that’s what we’ll have to do.”

[The program focused on public reaction to the removal of six Imams, or Islamic religious leaders, from a US Airways flight in Minnesota last week.]

Some callers to the program rejected discriminatory treatment of Muslims, but others supported Klein’s statements and even suggested that even more severe measures be taken against American Muslims. “Richard” in Gaithersburg, Md., said: “Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their foreheads; you round them up and then ship them out of this country, period.”

“Heath” in Upper Marlboro, Md., said: “I don’t think you go far enough. . .you have to set up encampments like they did during World War II like with the Japanese and Germans.”

Later in the program, Klein revealed that his call for discriminatory actions against Muslims was “baloney.” Klein said: “I can’t believe any of you, any of you, are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything that I have said in the last half hour.”

CAIR press release, 27 November 2006

Torygraph explains how to defeat racism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Under the heading “Defeating racism” – always a cause close to the hearts of the right-wing media – the Telegraph offers its take on the current conflict between anti-racists and the Commission for Racial Equality: “Trevor Phillips, the former New Labour functionary who chairs the CRE, has woken up to the perils of multiculturalism, and has also attacked bigoted Islamists. This has infuriated hard Leftists and radical Muslims…. The Mayor of London’s office wants to boycott a CRE conference that promises to be truly open-minded, even to the extent of debating Enoch Powell’s views.”

Editorial in the Daily Telegraph, 27 November 2006

‘Muslims oppose building of huge mosque’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abbey Mills Islamic Centre“More than 2,500 Muslims have signed a petition opposing plans to build Europe’s biggest mosque next to London’s 2012 Olympic Park. The petition, organised by worshippers in the borough of Newham, has drawn the signatures in 10 days.

“The mosque scheme includes an Islamic garden, school and prayer space for 70,000. It has been criticised by the Muslim community who fear the involvement of Tablighi Jamaat, an ultraorthodox sect, behind the proposal. Moderate Muslims say allowing the sect to build the complex will stoke community tensions. The petition warns the mosque could provide a recruiting ground for terrorists.

“The sect preaches a strict interpretation of Islam which has been adopted by extremists and terrorists. Asif Shakoor, chairman of the Sunni Friends of Newham, said they wanted all Muslim groups to be equally represented at the proposed place of worship.”

Daily Mail, 27 November 2006

See also the Times, 27 November 2006

It’s not the business of this site to intervene in disputes within the Muslim communities. However, in the current circumstances, if anyone has indeed circulated a petition suggesting that the proposed Abbey Mills Islamic centre could provide a recruiting ground for terrorists, the irresponsibility of that action beggars belief. We also wonder whether the Asif Shakoor who appears to be behind this campaign has any connection with Minhaj-ul-Quran International, an organisation which is linked to a political party called Pakistan Awami Tehrik and is an organisational and ideological opponent of Tablighi Jamaat.

Daley advocates ‘war to death’ with Islamism, opposes ‘craven concessions’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Janet Daley (2)“When Pope Benedict XVI flies to Turkey tomorrow, he will embody the most potentially incendiary confrontation between Islam and the West since the defeat of the Turks at Vienna in 1683 brought an end to Islamic conquest in Europe.

“The Pope will take with him an understanding that at the root of our problems in dealing with the Islamist death cult, there is a fundamental debate to be had about the role of human reason in political affairs.

“The remarks he made in a lecture in Regensburg, Germany, which implied that Islam rejected rationality while Christianity saw it as essential to faith were contentious (and almost certainly designed to be so), but they raised a question that almost no Western government has the courage to ask, let alone answer. How is a liberal democracy to deal with an illiberal religious minority in its midst?”

Janet Daley in the Daily Telegraph, 27 November 2006

The usual predictable nonsense. Islamism is equated with terrorism, completely ignoring the existence of democratic reformist trends within the broad Islamist movement, and the (non-“Islamist”) majority of Muslims are given a condescending lecture on how they must do more to “separate” themselves from violence. On the other hand, for the British government to cease its attacks on Muslim countries, or take a stand against Israeli state terrorism, would be to “give in to terrorist blackmail”.

NSS congratulates BA for having defied ‘the religious lobby’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

There are striking parallels between the BA cross-wearing case and a similar dispute at Denbigh High School last year. There, the Luton school had a uniform policy that was agreed with and respected by all parents and pupils, except that is for one selfish religious extremist who demanded it be changed to cover her more personal statement of her Muslim faith, namely wearing a jilbab.

The Muslim Council of Britain inevitably took her side, placing the chance to advance the religious cause against the school’s common-sense approach which had the agreement of the wider community.

BA has a uniform policy respected and adhered to by all its 34,000 uniformed employees, and one which doubtless has been the subject of discussion and agreement with unions.

Again, one selfish religious extremist wants the rules changed to fit her personal demands. Again, a spokesman for the religion involved, in this case the Archbishop of York, places that demand above the need for the company to apply a commonsense dress code that 33,999 other people appear happy to accept.

BA is to be congratulated for sticking to its guns. No company should have its policies dictated to it by any one religious fundamentalist engaged in silly posturing, nor be intimidated by the religious lobby.

Letter from Alistair McBay of the National Secular Society in the Courier, 27 November 2006

Veil is ‘a symbol of subservience’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“I object strongly to teachers wearing the veil. It is more than a choice of dress. It is a symbol of subservience, everything our parents, grandparents, the suffragettes fought against and we have still not won complete equality and freedom for women.

“The veil is a disguise with no place in school. It may hide a highly educated professional woman, a wealthy woman wearing the latest fashions and marvellous jewellery, a poor woman subjected to clitorectomy, a woman beaten and bruised, a child married against her will, or a woman about to be murdered by her family for loving the wrong man. It could also hide a loving mother and a truly religious woman.

“Seeing a pair of dark eyes, you may be looking at a terrorist in disguise, a murderer who believes in jihad and fatwa. Which of the women behind the veil genuinely represents Islam? How do we know?

“It is anathema to free, Western thinking for children to be taught that it is wrong for a man to see a woman’s face.”

Rose Hacker in the Camden New Journal, 23 November 2006