Monthly Archives: September 2011

US Muslim receives hate message with burger

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Happy September 11

He wanted to grab a meal at one of his favourite Texas burger joints, but what he got was a sick joke about one of the darkest days in U.S. history.

Tarek Ghalayani said he went to Petrol Station, a Houston, Texas, bar on Sunday with a friend to watch the Dallas Cowboys-New York Giants game. But when they decided to watch the second half at home, he ordered a burger to go, and was shocked by what came out of the kitchen. Scrawled on the to-go box was a message that read “Happy September 11th” with a plane flying into two towers.

Mr Ghalayani, a Muslim, said he was working near the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, and found the image disturbing. He told ABC 13: “It’s a sad day in this country’s history, where we lost 3,000 innocent lives and I don’t ever think there’s ever going to be a time when that’s OK.”

Mr Ghalayani said he demanded a refund, which he got from the manager – but without an apology or explanation. He also said he could hear someone behind the bar repeating “Allahu Akbar”, an Arabic phrase meaning “God is great”, that has also been heard by Islamic extremists in several terror attacks, including the crash of United Flight 93 outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania on 9/11.

Struck by the eatery’s actions, Mr Ghalayani went home and wrote about his experience on the popular review site Yelp.com. He wrote:

“Within earshot, [the bartender] called my friend and I ‘a**holes’ for complaining about what he clearly thought was funny. Go there if you want a good burger – but know that you’re dealing with people who have no regard for you or what it means to be in this country. Some things are still sacred – and making light of the day that 3,000 innocent people lost their lives and being unapologetic about it is, in my view, a bit much.”

The review sparked a firestorm on social networking sites like Twitter, where it reached the bar’s owner, Ben Fullelove, who said he was not at the bar at the time of the incident. On Monday, the restaurant tweeted: “I am really sorry. Please don’t let this idiot be a reflection of Petrol.”

By that afternoon, the bartender responsible was fired. Mr Fullelove told ABC 13: “I just don’t understand how somebody could think that’s a joke. I mean, it’s not a joke. It’s not how I run my business.”

Later, Mr Fullelove met with Mr Ghalayani personally, and formally apologized, prompting Ghalayani to update his Yelp post. He wrote: “I wanted to update this – I was able to speak to the owner and have a good conversation about my experience at Petrol. He sounded sincere and I appreciated his swift response once he was notified of the issues by the local community.”

Mr Fullelove said his employees would be receiving sensitivity training as a result of the incident.

Daily Mail, 14 September 2011

Posted in USA

Sign outside Buffalo mosque is smashed on 9/11

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Buffalo mosque sign smashed

BUFFALO, NY — Was the sign at a mosque on the city’s east side intentionally damaged? What makes this incident suspicious is that it happened on Sunday, the 10 year anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 attacks on America.

Police are investigating and have not determined whether it was a was deliberate act, but some residents we talked to believe this was no accident. Geneva’s Auto owner Walter Johnson said, “That was deliberately done and I think it’s awful.”

Buffalo Police Chaplain Bilal Abdullah said, “I guess it was a 9/11. People maybe looked at it as a way to get back at Muslims in general.” Police say a truck drove over the lawn in front of the mosque and smashed the sign, which was found in pieces around the parking lot.

WIVB, 12 September 2011

See also CAIRtv, 14 September 2011

Islam is ‘closing in’ on Israel, claims Benny Morris

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Benny MorrisIsraeli historian Benny Morris has an article in the National Interest warning of the Islamic threat to Israel and indeed to civilisation in general.

According to Morris: “Islam these past two weeks has definitely been closing in on the Jewish state, with Israel’s ambassadors in the two major Middle Eastern states with which it had good relations, Turkey and Egypt, being sent packing.”

In both countries, Morris asserts, “it was Islam which gradually eroded secularism and brought down pragmatic, prudent governments in the region, which drove the diplomats from their posts”. From this standpoint the Arab Spring, and indeed any democratisation of Muslim-majority countries in Middle East, is to be opposed.

Morris pours scorn on those Westerners who “deluded themselves into believing that the popular uprisings sweeping the Arab world were presaging a new birth of freedom”. If the Muslim citizens of these countries are ever going to be capable of governing themselves it will only be in the distant future, and possibly not even then – “over the span of a century or two, who knows? maybe democracy will evolve in Cairo and Sana and Damascus (though I wouldn’t bet on it)”. In the meantime, “what this tumult is certainly delivering is the ruination of responsible government, chaos … and a surge in, and possibly, finally, a takeover by, radical Islamism”.

And it’s not just the Arab Spring that’s got Morris worried. Elsewhere he warns that the “threat of resurgent Islam” has emerged within Israel’s own borders: “The Israeli Arab landscape is increasingly dominated by minarets and veiled women.” Minarets, veils – this is the language and imagery of the European far right, transposed to the Middle East.

Of course, from Morris’s standpoint it was a historical blunder to have allowed Arabs to remain in Israel in the first place. They should have been ethnically cleansed back in 1948, according to him, allowing for the construction of a purely Jewish state. Indeed, in Morris’s opinion, it is a mistake to allow Muslims into any country with a non-Muslim majority. He takes the view that “mass Muslim penetration into the West and their settlement there is creating a dangerous internal threat”.

This is the man who was recently invited to speak at the London School of Economics, with the enthusiastic approval of Harry’s Place, who are fully in favour of hate preachers so long as they’re Zionists.

Peter King defends his witch-hunt of US Muslims, endorses Prevent

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Peter King protestPeter King testified before a British Parliamentary committee on Tuesday, defending his three congressional 9/11 hearings and saying he will not be stopped by political correctness.

The New York Republican appeared before the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee inquiry entitled “Roots of Violent Radicalisation“, presenting his findings from the three hearings he has held on radicalization within the Muslim-American community as the House Committee on Homeland Security chairman.

He told the Parliamentary hearing he “would not back down to political correctness” and will continue to tackle what he called a “dangerous problem”, according to a copy of his testimony provided to POLITICO by his office.

“Undoubtedly, Congressional investigation of Muslim-American radicalization is the logical response to the unquestionable fact that homegrown radicalization is part of Al Qaeda’s strategy to continue attacking the United States and its allies,” King said. “I would not back down to political correctness.”

King also praised the United Kingdom’s government for its work on stemming radicalization, noting that its “Prevent” strategy “offers a candid assessment of the problem and a model for effectively addressing and countering this problem”.

King told the hearing he is “concerned that within the United States, political correctness has prevented many from sufficiently acknowledging and tackling this dangerous problem” and said studying homegrown terrorism must remain of the highest priority for both the U.S. and UK.

“While I have no doubt that the Committee’s radicalization hearings have had a significant and beneficial impact in fostering an honest dialogue about the growing issue of radicalization within the United States, I remain concerned that this problem is far from resolved,” King said, according to his prepared remarks.

Politico, 12 September 2011

Australia: Greens move to censure Cory Bernardi

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Greens today will ask Parliament to condemn Liberal senator Cory Bernardi for offering to help controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders in his trip to Australia.

Mr Wilders has compared the Koran to Mein Kampf, called the prophet Muhammad a paedophile and said Islam was not a religion, rather it was a totalitarian ideology.

Last week it was reported that Senator Bernardi met Mr Wilders and offered to help him when he visited Australia, prompting calls for Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to dump him from the front bench.

The Age understands some Labor MPs have inquired about meeting Mr Wilders should he visit Australia.

Greens spokesman for multiculturalism Richard di Natale will move that the Senate condemn the invitation by Senator Bernardi to Mr Wilders and call on the Senator to withdraw that invitation; and if not for Mr Abbott to intervene.

”Senator Bernardi has expressed similar views in the past and there should be no room for extremists like Bernardi on Tony Abbott’s front bench,” Senator di Natale said.

The Age, 14 September 2011

EDL leader Lennon released from prison

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Stephen Lennon arrestedThe leader of the English Defence League, Stephen Lennon, has been released from Bedford Prison on bail until his trial for assault at the end of this month.

Mr Lennon, who calls himself Tommy Robinson, was held in custody at Bedford Prison for a week after breaking bail conditions by attending a demonstration in London. The EDL said their leader was on hunger strike while in prison, because he was a “political prisoner” and because he believed the food served was halal.

While at Bedford Prison he is understood to have been kept in segregation both for his own safety and over concerns about disruption at the prison. A source said: “There was a big concern because he is so high profile, so they kept him away from the other prisoners.”

The source said Mr Lennon was held in an underground cell where he was allowed a television, and that his exercise was taken in a yard boarded off so he could not be seen by other inmates. They added: “His hunger strike only lasted 24 hours and then he gave up.”

Luton Today, 13 September 2011

Only lasted 24 hours and then he gave up? A case of “No Surrender Ever – until I’m feeling hungry”.

Human rights activist warns of growing Islamophobia in Poland

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rafal PankowskiA leading Polish human rights activist warned of growing Islamophobia in his country in an exclusive interview with IRNA in Berlin.

“In general Islamophobia has become one of the big issues. I would say it is growing and I am afraid it will grow further. We see more and more talk about the so-called danger of Islam,” said the coordinator of the Warsaw-based anti-racist organization NEVER AGAIN, Rafal Pankowski. He linked the rise of “the relatively new” phenomenon of Islamophobia in his country to the global situation, particularly to Poland’s role in the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Pankowski said Muslims in Poland have been repeatedly the target of racial assaults, especially since the September 11, 2011 terror attacks. He added Chechen refugees in Poland have also been victimized by anti-Islam hate crime. Pankowski emphasized that the Polish media is not always covering Islamophobic attacks against Muslims. He said “more than 50 people” have died as a result of racial assaults in Poland since the early 90s when hate crimes were monitored and registered.

Pankowski also stressed there were major segments within the Polish Catholic Church who were “quite hostile to Muslims”. “Radio Maria which is a (Catholic) radio station but is also a big social movement, is a xenophobic movement. They strongly spoke out against Islam,” Pankowski pointed out.

The activist said the Polish right-wing is influenced or tries to copy the anti-Islamic rhetoric in some of the other European countries. Pankowski said the issue of Muslim migration to Poland is being exploited politically by the right-wing scene. He added that plans for the construction of a much-needed mosque in Warsaw were used “to mobilize” against Muslims in Poland.

IRNA, 13 September 2011

CIA investigates whether laws broken helping NYPD spy on Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The CIA inspector general is investigating whether the agency broke the law by helping the New York Police Department build intelligence-gathering programs that monitored life in Muslim communities, the agency said Tuesday following an investigation by The Associated Press.

The agency’s unprecedented cooperation with the NYPD was part of an eight-month investigative reporting project by The Associated Press. The AP found that NYPD intelligence officers analyzed hundreds of mosques and student organizations, infiltrating dozens of them. Undercover officers eavesdropped in cafes and restaurants and wrote daily reports about what they overheard. The department also maintained a list of 28 countries that, along with “American Black Muslim,” the department labeled “ancestries of interest.”

A CIA officer, Lawrence Sanchez, helped create and guide these programs. From 2002 to 2004, when these programs were being built, Sanchez was on the CIA payroll and maintained an office at both the NYPD and the CIA’s offices in New York. The programs have continued with at least the tacit support of President Barack Obama, whose administration has repeatedly sidestepped questions about them.

Associated Press, 13 September 2011

See also “CAIR ‘cautiously’ welcomes CIA probe of role in NYPD mosque spying”, CAIR press release, 13 September 2011

Spiegel on Islamophobia in the USA

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ullrich Fichtner of Spiegel interviews Brigitte Gabriel of ACT! for America:

To support her ideas, Gabriel jumps from the 7th to the 21st century and back, from the suras of the Koran to Europe’s transformation into “Eurabia,” from the Islamic militant group Hezbollah to American textbooks, and from the Crusades to the massacre of Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics (which she seems to think took place in 1971, rather than 1972). She juggles Hitler and Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini and explains why each and every devout Muslim is a potential terrorist, and how all the pieces fit together in one grand scenario of doom: America is being infiltrated. Sharia law is coming soon. The government is looking away. Government agencies are asleep at the wheel.

The problem has less to do with the fact that nothing, or next to nothing, of what Gabriel and her disciples are spreading among the American people is actually true. The problem is that many Americans – perhaps half, perhaps the majority – see the world today in a very similar way.

Report on EDL to be published at University of Northampton conference

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A major report on the ideology, structure and development of the English Defence League (EDL) will be launched at an international conference at The University of Northampton next week.

The conference is entitled “Populist Racism in Britain in Europe since 1945” and will be held between 22-23 September.

The report, The EDL: Britain’s Far-Right Social Movement, also examines the EDL’s influence on far-right terrorism and “lone wolf” extremists. The latter are individuals who act alone with far-right extremist views; for example, Anders Breivik – perpetrator of the recent terrorists atrocities in Norway – allegedly acted alone and his manifesto praises the work of the EDL.

University of Northampton press release, 13 September 2011