MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Plaintiffs in a civil trial trying to block a proposed mosque in Tennessee on procedural grounds were largely blocked Wednesday in trying to raise claims that Islam is not a real religion and that its followers are violent.
Yearly Archives: 2011
March for England meets counter-protest in Brighton
The “patriotic” group March for England faced a counter-demonstration from local anti-fascists when they held their fourth St George’s Day march in Brighton yesterday. One report suggests that the march attracted 100 participants, mainly from outside the town. As the picture below shows, the MfE organisers’ assurances that the march was a non-political “family event” from which English Defence League supporters would be banned proved baseless. The familiar EDL chants of “English till I die” and “No surrender to the Taliban” were heard, and one counter-demonstrator concluded that “the ‘respectable’ veneer of March for England was well and truly stripped away. This was without question an EDL march”.
Update: See “Nationalist march will return to Brighton”, Argus, 26 April 2011
Photos by David Nash at Demotix.
Australian Christian leader condemned as anti-gay and anti-Muslim bigot
A former Special Air Services commander turned conservative Christian commentator has conceded that a tweet he made attacking homosexuals and Muslims was ill-timed on Anzac Day.
Jim Wallace, the head of the Australian Christian Lobby and a one-time SAS commander, used Twitter on Monday to say: “Just hope that as we remember servicemen and women today we remember the Australia they fought for – wasn’t gay marriage and Islamic!”
Followers of Mr Wallace soon attacked him. SeandBlogonaut said Mr Wallace was “despicable”. “Using ANZAC Day to push your anti-gay, anti-muslim agenda – you are truly a despicable individual,” he tweeted. Others declared him a “bigot”, “homophobe in disgrace” and an “A-grade douchebag”.
Mr Wallace later issued a statement where he said he made the comments after he had been sitting with his 96-year-old father, a World War II veteran. “My ill timed tweet was a comment on the nature of the Australia he had fought for, and the need to honour that in the way we preserve it into the future,” he said in a statement on Monday.
St George’s Day open-air drink ban in Manchester due to fears of drunken violence by BNP and EDL
People were banned from drinking outside some city centre pubs on Saturday – over fears of violence by far-right groups celebrating St George’s Day.
As part of a one-day police operation, pubs were told not to allow people to use outdoor seating in parts of the city centre where violence had broken out in previous years amongst BNP and EDL members. Pubs and bars in the Shambles area and on Deansgate told customers they were only allowed to drink indoors on St George’s Day.
But some customers said the action was unfair – as outdoor seating areas lay empty on a scorching spring afternoon.
A police spokesman said officers took the decision to ban outdoor drinking in the Shambles and Deansgate areas after alcohol related-violence occurred when supporters of far-right groups gathered there on St George’s Day in previous years.
He said: “Drinking outside in various areas was banned because members of the BNP and EDL had used them to congregate, leading to drink-fuelled violence. This was a one-day operation specifically for St George’s Day in one part of the city centre.”
Threats and intimidation are ‘standard Tower Hamlets Islam’ says Alan Craig
Letter from Alan Craig in the Sunday Times, 24 April 2011
Both the Tower Hamlets police borough commander and the Quilliam Foundation, the anti-extremist think tank, are wrong to minimise the threats to the Whitechapel pharmacy assistant as just the work of a “small minority” of “Talibanesque thugs” (“Tower Hamlets Taliban order women to cover up“, News, last week). The issue is much more serious than that.