It’s back to school for hundreds of Kirklees bobbies as they take a lesson in Islamic culture. Around 300 frontline officers will take part in “myth-busting” training designed to help them better understand the Muslim communities they serve.
Monthly Archives: May 2012
‘Anti-mosque activity’ in more than half of US states
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which were carried out by hijackers from Arab countries, animosity toward Muslims sometimes has taken the form of opposition to construction of mosques and other Islamic facilities. National debate erupted over plans for a community center that became known as the “Ground Zero mosque” in Lower Manhattan.
In the last five years, there has been “anti-mosque activity” in more than half the states, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Some mosques were vandalized – a $5,000 reward is being offered in a 2011 Wichita mosque arson case – and others were targets of efforts to deny zoning permits.
Mosque opponents often raise concerns about traffic and parking, but Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU’s freedom of religion program, says they can be “sham arguments” that mask anti-Muslim sentiment.
British Freedom exposes ‘halal hegemony’ … in Croydon
A British Freedom member has posted a report on the BF website about the Islamic takeover of Croydon (where the Muslim community comprises 5% of the population, compared with 66% who are Christian). He writes:
“In parts of Croydon things English and things Western have been visibly relegated. It’s all halal here, halal there and halal everywhere. If you wish to enjoy an animal that has been spared throat-slashing (after being stunned or not), and killed in a manner befitting our own culture then chances are you’ll have to search, and sometimes search hard. There are ‘Halal Meat Sold Here’ signs that inform the population of the ‘enrichment’ bequeathed to us via the odious triumvirate that is mass pandering, mass appeasing and mass immigration.”
(The BF editor helpfully adds a note pointing out that “in halal slaughter nowadays many animals are stunned before having their throats cut, which is arguably more humane. However this is not the main issue for most people, who are more concerned about unknowingly eating meat that has been sacrificed to Allah”.)
Racist vandals hit Muslim community centre
Vandals struck at a Preston community centre and daubed the walls with racist graffiti. The Hamaara Centre, at the rear of Castleton Road, Deepdale, Preston, was broken into and windows and furniture were smashed by the offenders.
EDL supporter faces prison sentence over attack on neighbours
A man has admitted threatening to kill his neighbours and forcing his way into their Thornhill Lees home. Daniel Smith, 39, was told that he should expect a long jail term when he returns to Leeds Crown Court for sentencing on June 22.
On Wednesday, Smith admitted 10 offences linked to events in Victoria Road on August 26, 2011. They included burglary, common assault, affray, four counts of making threats to kill and two counts of possessing a knife.
He denied aggravated burglary and possessing a screwdriver as an offensive weapon – charges which he had faced at an earlier trial where a jury could not reach a verdict.
A re-trial had been ordered and was expected to start at the court on Wednesday morning. But when Smith entered guilty pleas to the majority of charges, the prosecution decided a second trial was not in the public interest.
Prosecutor Christopher Tehrani said the complainants in the case had been spoken to and agreed with that course of action.
Judge Guy Kearl QC told Smith: “This is going to result in a long sentence of imprisonment. I do, however, think it will be helpful to me if I can have the assistance and benefit of a pre-sentence report upon you.” He said it would be in Smith’s interest to co-operate with the probation service while they prepared the report.
Smith was remanded into custody until his sentencing.
Dewsbury Reporter, 27 May 2012
See also Hope Not Hate, 28 May 2012
Pat Condell acquires another admirer
Pat Condell, the National Secular Society’s favourite comedian (he has been repeatedly nominated for their Secularist of the Year award, although he has yet to win it) has long had a fan base among the Islamophobic right in the United States. He has recently acquired a new admirer. It’s none other than Bonni Benstock-Intall of the hate site Bare Naked Islam, which achieved notoriety last year for its promotion of violence against Muslims and attacks on mosques. Over the past year or so Bare Naked Islam has repeatedly posted Condell’s videos and hailed him as a fellow anti-Muslim bigot.
The hijab has liberated me from society’s expectations of women
Nadiya Takolia defends the hijab.
Or, as CiF Watch would have it: “iEngage’s Nadiya Takolia demonstrates again how proponents of, or at least apologists for, the most reactionary movements within Islam continue, under the veneer of human rights, to attempt to avoid being held responsible for an adherence to reactionary, racist, and violent political agendas.”
MPs want curbs on ‘unacceptable’ religious slaughter
The government is facing renewed calls to curb the slaughtering of animals that have not first been rendered unconscious – a debate that pits religious sensitivities against the convictions of animal welfare campaigners.
Senior Conservative backbencher Greg Knight has told MPs that the practice of slaughtering cattle, lambs and chickens in this way is “rife”.
EDL not racist, fraudster reveals
“The British media and political leaders mainly from the left call the British street movement the English Defence League (EDL) racists. But having been invited by the EDL to meet its members and talk with its leader Tommy Robinson for the Asian Tribune, I found out they were not!”
The Asian Tribune website publishes Glen Jenvey‘s latest fraud. He’s discovered that the EDL has “a whole unseen membership which was Asian and Black who don’t attend demo’s due to death threats from radical Muslims living in the same communities as they live in”.
You can understand why Jenvey is an admirer of the EDL. They have so much in common.
Update: See “Glen Jenvey describes meeting EDL members”, Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, 27 May 2012
Prince Ali rejects FIFA medical committee’s stand on headscarves
Evidence from FIFA’s medical experts on why the ban on Muslim women footballers wearing the Islamic headscarf or hijab should remain in place was deeply flawed and had no foundation, the campaign’s principal supporter said on Friday.
Prince Ali Bin Al-Hussein of Jordan, whose presentation to soccer’s law-making body IFAB six weeks ago saw the approval of the headscarf pending health and safety checks, said he was “shocked and disturbed” by the evidence presented on Thursday. “If it is true, I would accept it, but I believe it was without foundation,” he told reporters.