Yearly Archives: 2007

Pro-hijab rally in Brussels

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Residents in the Belgian capital have gathered to demonstrate their support of Islamic hijab as a freedom of choice for Muslim European women. Demonstrators took part in protests in Brussels Saturday against a decision by several school authorities to ban hijab, the Al Alam news channel reported.

Among the protestors were members of Islamic organizations, independent human rights groups and Muslim students. The demonstrators condemned what they said is an anti-Islam stance taken by officials in Belgium and supported the right of Muslims to freely practice the customs of their religion.

Press TV, 10 June 2007

MP calls on YouTube to remove racist videos

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Shahid MalikA Muslim MP has demanded YouTube removes a series of racist items from its website after a video alleging he was a “pervert” remained available for three weeks.

The video featured footage of Shahid Malik, before a written message stating: “This scum thinks he can mess with the big boys.” Then, before an image of the Labour MP’s face covered with blood, a new message appeared: “He better not or he will end up like this.”

Earlier in the posting, which has now been removed from the site by administrators, another subtitle stated: “A pervert just like his f***ing prophet.”

Malik suggested that a member of the British National Party could be behind the video, which also featured pictures of BNP leader Nick Griffin.

Scotland on Sunday, 10 June 2007

Rendition flights still using UK

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The CIA seems to be still using British territories to fly terror suspects to secret prisons in countries notorious for using torture, The Mail on Sunday revealed on Sunday, June 10. Quoting eyewitness, the British paper said a plane linked to the CIA’s infamous rendition program landed at the Royal Air Force station of Mildenhall in the county of Suffolk last week. It substantiated the report with a photo taken by spotters of the CASA-212 Aviocar plane as it prepared to land. Flights records show that the plane was given landing rights by the Ministry of Defense although there was no record of passenger lists or details of the flight purpose. No sooner had the plane landed in the British military base than it was secured by four US security men armed with M16 assault rifles, according to eyewitnesses.

Islam Online, 10 June 2007

‘They threatened my life. But I will still speak out’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Talk of execution will not cow me; I will carry on.” The courageous Ed Husain, author of The Islamist and one of Melanie Phillips’s favourite Muslims, confirms his intention to speak out. Except that … nobody directly threatened his life at all. The whole thing is based on a friend of Husain’s warning him that his safety would be endangered if he attended a certain mosque (unnamed, but clearly the East London Mosque). And that’s it. That’s the sole basis for Husain’s hysterical talk about facing execution. What a plonker.

Observer, 10 June 2007

See also Indigo Jo Blogs, 10 June 2007

Faisal Alam interview

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The rhetoric of Islamophobia from the ‘gay’ press after 9/11 was incredible. We were hearing things from conservative columnists that one could not imagine before. After I spoke publicly about not supporting the US war in Afghanistan, soon after 9/11, there were Op-Eds in the gay press that denounced me as a ‘unpatriotic’. One writer went as far as to say that I should be stripped of my American passport and be shipped off to Guantanamo. I was writing responses almost on a daily basis confronting the Islamophobia being perpetuated by these columnists.”

Lavender magazine interviews AlFatiha Founder Faisal Alam.

Livingstone ‘plays the Islamophobia card’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

nss2Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society is not impressed by the coalition to defend religious freedom launched at City Hall in London earlier this week. Sanderson opines that “there is very little in the way of aggression towards Muslims beyond the racism that all minority communities suffer”. Well, Sanderson and the NSS – who in the past have called for the publication of racist anti-Muslim cartoons and happily repeated denunciations of “Muslim foreigners who have forced themselves on us” – would know all about that.

NSS news report, 8 June 2007

The NSS has the backing of Robert Spencer over at Jihad Watch.

Muslim immigration and the destruction of Europe

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Stanley Kurz reviews Walter Laqueur’s The Last Days of Europe at National Review Online:

“In combination with Europe’s demographic decline and guilt-laden multiculturalism, says Laqueur, unchecked immigration has created a massive and growing population of unassimilated Muslims, hostile to their own countries and determined to transform Europe beyond all recognition, through a combination of violent and non-violent means…. Laqueur’s extended critique of ‘Islamophobia’ as an explanation for failed Muslim assimilation in Europe is devastating. Laqueur doesn’t hesitate to say that the fundamental problem of Muslim assimilation is cultural – rooted in traditional Islam, and in the strange blend of Muslim mores and ghetto street-culture that nowadays shapes Europe’s angry young Muslim men.”

Anti-Muslim comments of US talk show host

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Media Matters exposes US radio host “Gunny” Bob Newman, who has demanded that “every Muslim immigrant to America … be required by law to wear a GPS tracking bracelet at all times” and suggested that the federal government “bug [Muslims’] places of work and their residences” and monitor “all mosques and community centers.” Newman also called for a moratorium on Muslim immigration to the United States, adding, “If they don’t like the idea, or if they refuse, throw their asses out of this country.”

Australia’s neo-conservatives target books on Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Howard and Bush“The Howard government recently outdid its Western masters in the war on terror, announcing that it would begin banning and restricting materials that it deemed to be promoting ‘terrorism’….

“The threat to reinstate the old practice of confiscating reading materials has come true. In one recent case, Australian customs seized several titles that had been sent by a Malaysian publisher to a Muslim bookseller in downtown Sydney.

“Among them is one titled A Young Muslim’s Guide to the Modern World by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a US-based Iranian-born academic who is not even remotely political in most of his works, as well as another book on everyday Muslim do’s and dont’s which has become almost a household name among Muslims: Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s The Lawful and Prohibited in Islam.

“Although the books have since been returned, probably after the Australian authorities realised how silly they had been to confiscate them at the first place, it shows just how strongly panic alarms can be set off by anything that sounds Islamic….”

Muslimedia, June 2007