Dozens of protesters from the English Nationalist Alliance brought Westminster to a standstill today as they demonstrated against sharia law. Many of the demonstrators had shrouded their faces in balaclavas and scarfs.
Yearly Archives: 2010
Temecula, California: supporters of mosque outnumber opponents
Holding signs that read “Muslims Danced with Joy on 9/11” and “Mosques are Monuments to Terrorism,” about 35 critics rallied across the street from the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley on Rio Nedo Friday afternoon to protest the center’s plans to build a mosque in the city.
Using a bullhorn, the protesters shouted anti-Islamic slogans as Muslim families came to worship Friday afternoon. “Go back home” and “We don’t want you here,” the protesters said.
The worshipers were generally shielded from the protesters as more than 70 mosque supporters – Christians, Mormons, Jews, Muslims and Catholics – lined up outside the center’s doors wearing white shirts and name tags that read, “Friend.”
Pig’s head attack on Finsbury Park mosque
Islamophobic thugs stuck a pig’s head on to the gates of an Islington mosque – offending hundreds of worshippers.
The two men sneaked up to North London Central Mosque, in St Thomas’s Road, Finsbury Park, in the dead of night and hung a cooked pig’s head on the railings. CCTV footage showed them taking pictures of themselves with the macabre object. The head was not discovered until almost three hours later, when those arriving for early morning prayers were greeted by the sickening sight.
Arlington, Texas: mosque vandalised and children’s playground burnt
Hundreds of worshipers attend Friday prayers at the Dar El-Eman Islamic Center in south Arlington. This past Friday, they were greeted by stick figure graffiti in the parking lot, depicting Uncle Sam sexually assaulting Allah. Then early Sunday morning, someone torched the children’s playground behind the mosque.
“The children, when they saw this, they were horrified,” said mosque president Jamal Qaddura. He said the message is clear to young and old alike. Unfortunately, they look at us as someone who doesn’t belong here,” Qaddura said.
Qaddura said whoever did this might also have tried to burn the mosque itself by pulling apart old gas lines, but the building no longer has gas service.
“I think it’s related to igniting people’s feelings and emotions and give people the wrong directions of Muslims and Islam,” he said.
Islamic centers in other cities have been vandalized, and one in Florida fire-bombed. Qaddura says until now, worshipers at the south Arlington mosque have felt completely welcome, and have hosted numerous community events.
Arlington police have stepped up patrols around mosques in the city after vandalism and anti-Islam graffiti appeared at the south Arlington mosque.
Standard and Mail pay damages over suicide bomber slur
A Muslim academic today accepted an apology and substantial undisclosed damages after the Daily Mail claimed he groomed Tel Aviv suicide bomber Omar Sharif.
In addition to accepting damages from Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail, Reza Pankhurst also accepted an apology and damages from the London Evening Standard at London’s High Court this morning over a similar story.
Pankhurst launched a libel action against the two papers over articles which appears in the Standard and the Mail on 15 January with the respective headlines “LSE’s Islamist teacher ‘groomed suicide bomber for Tel Aviv attack'”, and “Revealed: Islamist preacher who lectures at top London university ‘groomed suicide bomber’.” A third article headed “Teaching at a leading university ‘the mentor of a suicide bomber'”appeared in the Mail the following day.
Acting for Pankhurst, Lucy Moorman told Justice Tugendhat at the time of publication her client was a PhD student and graduate teaching assistant at the LSE. She told the judge that Pankhurst, a devout Muslim who wished to become a full time academic, had been an undergraduate at Kings College until 1996 where he was in the year above Sharif. The court was told that Pankhurst had limited contact with Sharif during the period they were at university.
Moorman said that at the time of Sharif’s attempted suicide bombing in 2003, Pankhurst was a political prisoner in Egypt and had had no contact with Sharif for at least eight years. “Mr Pankhurst has never mentored a terrorist or groomed anyone to carry out an act of terrorism. He is committed to furthering the cause of Muslims in an exclusively non-violent way,”she said.
Moorman told the court the allegations in the articles were false and that both papers had now agreed to pay him costs and damages for the ‘injury to his reputation and the distress caused to him’by the articles.
Florida ‘church’ plans to burn Qur’ans on 9/11
On September 11, members of the Dove World Outreach Center – a Gainesville, Florida church – plan to burn copies of the Koran to commemorate the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
The protest is just the latest in a series of provocative actions from the self-described “New Testament Church,” which seems as interested in getting attention as it is in sharing the Word with the world. Unfortunately, their plan seems to have worked – and local investigators began probing the church’s tax-exempt status last year after reports that Dove World Outreach Center is essentially a scam.
The church, which was founded in 1986, has long been controversial in Gainesville. The Koran-burning protest is just the latest in a string of high-profile “protests on other issues, such as homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and abortion,” Religion News Service reports. But it seems clear that taking on Muslims is the one of the church’s central goals. The church’s leader, Dr. Terry Jones – who before heading up the Dove World Outreach Center ran a sister church in Cologne, Germany – has published a book entitled “Islam is of the Devil” and last year posted a large sign outside his church that offered passing commuters the same message. Last year, members sent their kids to public schools wearing “Islam Is Of The Devil” t-shirts (the students were sent home, creating more headlines.) The church’s website features a number of videos where Jones takes on Islam as…well, you can probably guess.
EDL members arrested over suspected mosque bomb plot
Several English Defence League members were sensationally arrested last week by police investigating an apparent plot to bomb a British mosque.
Tim Ablitt, partner Tanya, Alfred and Tracy Saint, and a man known only at this stage as “Poole Knight” were arrested by officers in Dorset on Thursday evening and held for 24 hours while police investigated their potential involvement in an bomb plot thought to involve Bournemouth mosque.
Racist thug jailed for attack on Muslim woman
A racist thug who ripped off a Muslim woman’s religious veil and threw it on the ground was jailed for two years yesterday.
Brute William Baikie grabbed the veil from 26-year-old Anwar Alqahtani as she was on her way to catch a train from Glasgow’s Central Station. Miss Alqahtani, who wears the hijab to protect her modesty as part of her religion, had to use another piece of clothing to cover her face after the veil was ripped as Baikie pulled it from her. Baikie, 26, ran off but was later arrested by police after being identified on CCTV.
Miss Alqahtani, who had come to Scotland from Saudi Arabia to study for a masters degree, has quit her studies and is afraid to leave the house as a result of the attack.
Sentencing Baikie at Glasgow Sheriff Court yesterday, Sheriff Lindsay Wood told the racist what he did was an “absolute disgrace”. Sheriff Wood added: “The offence you committed was a shameful one. You are a man who has a number of racist convictions and you knew full well how offensive the act would have been to the lady.”
Tennessee Republican politician under fire over Islamophobic remarks
A US Republican politician, Ron Ramsey, who is supported by the controversial Tea Party, has come under fire for likening Islam to a “cult” and casting doubt about whether it is even a religion.
Tennessee’s current lieutenant governor said he had reservations about whether the American Constitution, which guarantees “freedom of religion”, applied to followers of the world’s second largest faith.
Critics denounced the 54 year-old’s comments, made at a party meeting earlier this month, as a part of “disturbing” trend in American politics.
But political experts said the real estate agent, who hopes to win the Republican nomination for governor in next month’s primary with support from Tea Party activists, was using it to garner support after lagging third in the polls.
During a question-and-answer session at the Hamilton County meeting, Mr Ramsey, from Blountville, was asked about the “threat that’s invading our country from the Muslims”, according to local reports.
The question came amid local concern over a proposed local Islamic Centre and mosque to be built outside the town of Murfreesboro, to the south-east of the capital Nashville.
Despite proclaiming his support for the Constitution and the whole “Congress shall make no law” to religion, he said that Islam was more of a “cult” than a faith.
“Now, you could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of life, cult whatever you want to call it,” he said in comments that were caught on video and later uploaded to YouTube.
Hollobone could face legal action, warns Liberty
A Tory MP has been warned he could face legal action if he follows through on a threat to refuse to meet constituents wearing the veil.
Lawyers for Liberty have written to Philip Hollobone insisting that his stance is unlawful and that they “will be happy to represent any of your constituents that you refuse to meet because they are veiled”.