Yearly Archives: 2006

White extremists use terror videos to threaten Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Far-right extremists have adopted the tactics of Islamic jihadists by posting videos on the internet in which they threaten to behead British Muslims.

The films show balaclava-clad white British men brandishing guns, knives and clubs, calling on all Muslims to leave the United Kingdom or be killed. One appears to be a soldier who has served in the Gulf. In one film a man tells Muslims to “go home” or risk being burnt alive. He threatens: “I’ll cut your head off,” and claims to have “comrades” across Britain who have “had enough”.

The videos have all been made since the arrest three weeks ago of suspects connected to the alleged plot to blow up transatlantic jets. Their style mimics the “martyrdom videos” of Islamic radicals talking about their plans for terrorist outrages against the West.

The release of the videos on YouTube, an American-based open-access website, coincides with reports of a rise in the number of attacks on mosques. Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said the videoed threats were extremely worrying. “There is no question there has been an increase in attacks on mosques and Muslims,” he said.

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US Muslims plagued by discrimination after 9/11 attacks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Discrimination and harassment by law enforcement have come to plague American Muslims in the years since the terrorist attacks of September 11. There have been suspicious looks, slurs, physical attacks, extra screening at airports and arrests on groundless charges. And it seems to be getting worse. A recent Gallup poll showed that 39 percent of Americans admit to being prejudiced against Muslims and that nearly a quarter say they would not want a Muslim for a neighbor.

“Most Americans don’t know Muslims except for those they work with in an urban environment so all the information they get is through the media,” said Dawud Walid, director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations.

After having shown some restraint in his rhetoric after 19 Muslim men affiliated with Al-Qaeda flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President George W. Bush has of late been using far more inflammatory language such as “Islamofacists”, Walid said. “When the religious and political leaders use polarizing language these are the unfortunate side effects. It stretches from the likes of (Christian Coalition leader) Pat Robinson all the way up to President Bush.”

AFP, 3 September 2006

Charles Johnson is not impressed, seeing this as yet another example of the mainstream media falling for “CAIR’s spurious claims of an ominous rise in ‘hate crimes’ against Muslims”.

Little Green Footballs, 3 September 2006

Another hate-filled rant from Mad Mel

Posted on by Bob Pitt

madmel“More than 30 Muslim groups, along with Muslim MPs and peers, demanded that the Government change its foreign policy in order to placate terrorists. This blackmail was followed by a demand from other representatives [in fact, just one representative – ed.] that a pair of Islamic religious festivals should become official holidays and that Islamic laws relating to marriage and family life be applied in Britain. These were not moderate attitudes.

“In Australia, the government has adopted a robust approach to such extremism. It has said that those Muslims who want to live under sharia law should leave the country, and that Australian Muslim leaders need to denounce terrorism in all its forms around the world.

“By contrast, rather than challenging the ideology driving Islamic terror, Britain remains paralysed by the back-to-front thinking which blames its own policies for the terrorism that threatens it. This paralysis is largely caused by multiculturalism, the doctrine which holds that minorities cannot be held responsible for the wrong that they do since they are always somehow the victims of the majority.

“This doctrine has pushed Left-wingers into the arms of Islamic radicals who are sworn enemies of the West. When Trevor Phillips, the black chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, repeated his concerns about the failure of multiculturalism, London’s mayor Ken Livingstone jeered that he expected Mr Phillips soon to join the racist British National Party.

“This was the same Ken Livingstone who last year publicly embraced as a ‘reformer’ Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, the Islamic extremist who calls for suicide bombings in Iraq and Israel and perpetrates gross libels against the Jews. Yet despite such an endorsement of true racism and fascism, the Mayor remains popular — and still remains in the Labour Party.

“Such a state of denial goes far beyond the Left. The political and security establishment still refuses to grasp that it is not enough — vital though this is — to thwart terrorist plots and break up terrorist cells. Action also needs to be taken against the paranoid, hate-filled ideas driving so many to these terrible acts….

“Virtually nothing is being done to prevent the recruitment to terror still taking place on university campuses, which have long acted as hotbeds of radicalisation, or in prisons or youth clubs. Even worse, Islamic extremists have been recruited into the very heart of Whitehall as government advisers, in the wholly misguided belief that appeasing religious fanaticism will draw its venom.”

Daily Mail, 2 September 2006