Paul Ross of Durham EDL – claimed ‘sickening’ religious chant was just a ‘bit of banter’
Six men with links to a controversial right-wing pressure group have been convicted of chanting a sickening torrent of religious abuse.
The men, who are associated with the English Defence League (EDL), shouted a highly inflammatory religious chant at Middlesbrough railway station. They were convicted of religiously aggravated disorder yesterday after a two-day trial at Teesside Magistrates’ Court.
Richard Bartholomew examines the case of Reza Kahlili, who claims he is being persecuted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations because he “renounced Islam and chose Christ”.
Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, 24 July 2012
See also “CAIR asks Pentagon to drop another anti-Islam trainer”, CAIR press release, 23 July 2012
Adam Serwer has the details.
The York newspaper The Press reported yesterday that the “Islamia Village” event that was due to be held near the city at Thorpe Underwood Estate over the bank holiday weekend had been called off at the last minute after the estate’s Trustees cancelled the booking.
This decision followed an extended campaign against Islamia Village, based on the claim that it would be hosting extremist preachers. The Islamophobic blog Harry’s Place, which had initiated the campaign, immediately posted a piece yesterday afternoon claiming victory for itself and its supporters.
The obvious question that arises is – why was Islamia Village called off so late in the day? After all, Harry’s Place took up the issue well over a month ago, back on 13 July, when it crossposted a piece from the Islamic Far-Right in Britain blog condemning the event. What changed over the past few days?
Two men who subjected a “decent and hardworking” Asian family to a torrent of abuse have been sent to jail and banned from their shop.
Stefan Davis and Kelvin Barratt were locked up for ten months and told not to go within 200 metres of the family’s newsagents in Bulwell for five years. Judge Michael Stokes QC, who sentenced them, asked one of their solicitors: “Why should anyone put up with such behaviour?”
The men began their harassment at 7 o’clock one Monday morning as the family unloaded stock outside their newsagent’s in Bulwell. Barratt, 25, of Courtleet Way, on the Crabtree Farm Estate in Bulwell, pulled a knife as he delivered an onslaught of foul remarks and words. He asked one “what religion are you?” and she replied “what does that matter?” He replied: “Because I’m EDL (English Defence League)”.
Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian far-right extremist, has been sentenced to at least 21 years in prison after a court declared he was sane throughout his murderous rampage last year that killed 77 people.
The Oslo district court declared its verdict that the 33-year-old was not psychotic while carrying out the twin attacks, including the shooting of dozens of teenagers attending a political camp.
The court’s decision will have delighted Breivik, who had hoped to avoid what he called the “humiliation” of being dismissed as a madman. The mass killer had desperately hoped the court would find him criminally culpable for the killings, claiming they were “cruel and necessary” to protect Norway from becoming overrun by Muslims.
Kamel Kabtane has been threatened with death. The rector of the Great Mosque in Lyon announced on Thursday 23 August, that he had today received a letter containing death threats.
“This four-page handwritten letter with the words ‘personal’ and ‘confidential’ was sent to me at the mosque”, Kamel Kabtane told AFP, adding that he had already received another threatening letter from the same person at his home the day before.
In this letter, the author wrote in red: “A bomb will go ‘boom’ and it is not a pig’s head that you will find outside your mosque but your own…. Sod off quickly to Dubai and die there if you don’t want to die here.”
Controversial program risks alienating Muslims and hasn’t generated a single lead, but NYPD steadfastly defends it. Chitrangada Choudhury reports.
Jonathan Kay debunks the absurd story – promoted by Daniel Pipes’ and David Horowitz’s colleague Raymond Ibrahim on the Algemeiner website, and subsequently taken up by WorldNetDailyand others – that the Muslim Brotherhood nailed Christians to crosses and left them to die in front of the Egyptian presidential place. He asks:
Why do so many people believe this made up story? For the same reason that people believe all urban legends – because they play to some deeply held narrative that resides in our deepest fears. In this case, the narrative is that the Arab Spring is part of an orchestrated Islamist plot to destroy Western civilization (beginning with Israel). Believers in this narrative (who are especially numerous in America’s right-wing Evangelical circles) are so hungry for news items that purport to offer confirmation that they ignore the credibility of the messengers. If they had checked out the credibility of WorldNetDaily, for instance, they would have found that the site’s past “scoops” have included the claim that drinking soy milk makes you gay, and that Barack Obama himself is gay (presumably from aforesaid soy milk).
The BBC reports that two new mosques, in Cambridge and York, have been given planning permission. Both had been subjected to hostile campaigns aimed at forcing the local council to block the plans.
A leaflet was circulated in Cambridge last year denouncing the so-called “megamosque” and claiming that it was intended to “send a message of physical and numerical dominance”. This was followed by an English Defence League demonstration that ended in violence when EDL supporters attacked an Islamic book stall and threw Qur’ans at the Muslims running it.
The York proposal resulted in an EDL-supported petition and a Facebook page entitled “Say ‘NO’ to the York mosque” (which attracted 1,426 likes). The building design had to be revised after police objected that it lacked sufficient security measures to defend the mosque against attacks by racists.
So it is good to see two local councils taking a stand against the bigots.