“Right-wing movements previously associated with anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi ideologies are increasingly opting for a surprising tactic to garner legitimacy within mainstream politics: Forging alliances with extremist Jewish organisations under the banner of fighting ‘Islamisation’.”
Nour Samaha of Al Jazeera examines links between the Jewish Defense League and far-right organisations in Europe and North America.
Thirty war graves of Muslim soldiers who fought in World War I have been attacked and defaced in the southern city of Carcassonne.
Racist insults and swastikas were painted on the graves, which are identified by the Islamic symbols of the star and crescent. Slogans including “France for the French” and “Arabs out” were painted on some of the gravestones, reported daily newspaper Le Figaro. The graves of Muslim soldiers in the same graveyard were attacked earlier this year in September.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7BKYKok9d5g
Former “Saturday Night Live” actress Victoria Jackson, working on confidential information she as a web talk show host has special clearance to obtain, has claimed that the United States is being overtaken by radical Muslims bent on bringing the nation under Sharia law.
The Dutch Freedom Party, the Netherlands’s third largest political party, urged the Foreign Affairs and Defense Ministries last week to reconsider Turkey’s continued membership in NATO.
Geert Wilders, head of the party, and its Mideast expert, deputy Wim Kortenoeven, accused Turkey of abandoning its allies – Israel earlier this year, and now France.
Just what the world needs. Another 72 virgins joke. A jaw-droppingly Islamophobic video has been posted by Irish-American comedian Denis Leary on WhoSay. Some years ago Leary took a firm stand against Mel Gibson’s antisemitism. But apparently crude anti-Muslim stereotyping is fine with Leary.
Earlier this year we dealt with the lies spread by “comedian” Pat Condell with regard to rapes in Oslo, which he claimed were carried out exclusively by “Muslim immigrants using rape as a weapon of cultural terrorism”.
LoonWatch has a piece by Farha Khaled (also posted on her blog) that exposes the way in which the same baseless claim has been used by many on the Islamophobic right, including the Israeli website Arutz Sheva. She wrote to the Norwegian Ministry of Justice and the Police, and received the following reply:
A drunken woman smashed a window at a South Tyneside mosque.
Police were called to Baring Street in South Shields after Sarah Riley was seen on CCTV running amok at 5.30am. Officers told the 22-year-old to go home, but later found a window smashed at the Baithul Mamur Jame Masjid Mosque. When arrested, she said she couldn’t remember what had happened.
The Montreal Gazette has an editorial supporting the Quebec government’s decision to allow Muslim women prison staff to wear the headscarf:
Hijab rule: what took so long?
When the Quebec government announced it will reasonably accommodate female prison guards who choose to wear hijabs – the traditional Muslim head scarf – the Parti Québécois called the decision crazy.
What is crazy about this matter – apart from the fact that it became an issue in the first place – is that it took four years to be resolved after a discrimination complaint was filed with the Quebec human-rights commission by a prison-guard trainee who had been forbidden to wear a hijab.
Considering that there was never any restriction on inmates wearing hijabs, maintaining a ban on the garment for guards would have meant the prisoners had more rights than the jailers.
Now that would indeed have been crazy.
The article by Martin Bright in last week’s Jewish Chronicle denouncing prominent figures in the Jewish community for failing to boycott London Citizens over its links with the East London Mosque has provoked a welcome backlash from the paper’s readers.
A 28-year-old man caught on camera hurling lumps of concrete at the police during an English Defence League demonstration in Bradford city centre was ordered to appear at Court today or be arrested.
Michael Currie failed to attend Bradford Crown Court yesterday to be sentenced for an affray on Saturday, August 28, last year. Currie sent a doctor’s note saying he was unwell because of anxiety and unfit for work for a fortnight. His barrister, Thomas Gilbart, said he was encouraged by his solicitor to attend but said he was unable to.