Azhar Ahmed, the young Muslim from Yorkshire who was convicted of posting offensive Facebook comments about British troops in Afghanistan, was sentenced at Huddersfield Magistrates’ Court today to a £300 fine and 240 hours of community service.
Here is the entirely predictable response of the English Defence League to Ahmed’s sentence, featuring their usual hypocritical whine about a “two-tier system”:
Rotherham will unite on Saturday to see off the racist English Defence League, who plan to march through the town. Trade unions, anti-fascists and faith groups came together at a packed public meeting on Monday to plan the town’s peaceful counter-protest.
Najam Chishti of the Muslim Society of P.E.I. outside the Masjid Dar As-Salam mosque
Zain Esseghaier has been a Charlottetown resident for the last 33 years, married an islander and raised a family here. Though his modest two-story mosque has been the target of three serious threats over the past year – last week a bottle of gasoline was left at the entrance and the structure plastered with “Defeat Jihad” posters – he remains steadfast, refusing to be intimidated.
A controversial ad was posted in four Metro stations under court order Monday, but within hours one had already been covered with yellow Post-it notes giving an alternative message to the ad, which equated Muslims with savages.
Debbie Polhemus, of D.C., covered up the letters of the ad, which read “In Any War Between the Civilized Man and the Savage, Support the Civilized Man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”
Inae Oh of the Huffington Post interviews Rabbi Jill Jacobs, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, which took out an advertisement urging New York subway users to “help stop bigotry against our Muslim neighbors”, in an effort to counter Pamela Geller’s notorious “savages” ad. Rabbi Jacobs explains:
“I was very concerned that people might think that these ads speak for the Jewish community, as Geller couches her anti-Muslim message in the language of supporting Israel. The suggestion that she is speaking only about terrorists, and not about Muslims in general, falls apart as soon as you read her writings, which are fear mongering about Muslims in the U.S. and in the world, and about Islam as a religion.”
She adds: “I want to spread the message that 1800 rabbis – along with the majority of the American Jewish community – believes in partnership with our Muslim neighbors. We, of course, oppose all acts of terrorism. We will not, however, allow the actions of a small minority to be an excuse for dehumanizing an entire people.”
A coalition of faith groups, trade unions and community organisations vowed today to do all it could to oppose a planned march by the English Defence League (EDL). The group, called We are Norwich, said it would do “all in its power” to peacefully oppose the EDL demonstration.
Arkansas Republicans tried to distance themselves Saturday from a Republican state representative’s assertion that slavery was a “blessing in disguise” and a Republican state House candidate who advocates deporting all Muslims.
The claims were made in books written, respectively, by Rep. Jon Hubbard of Jonesboro and House candidate Charlie Fuqua of Batesville. Those books received attention on Internet news sites Friday.
On Saturday, state GOP Chairman Doyle Webb called the books “highly offensive.” And U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, a Republican who represents northeast Arkansas, called the writings “divisive and racially inflammatory.”
Who supports the English Defence League? YouGov has conducted an interesting survey of public attitudes towards the EDL that was commissioned by the Extremis Project.
Gary Lineker has been forced to apologise after accidentally ridiculing two Muslim footballers during a match commentary on TV.
When the players celebrated a goal by dropping to their knees and bowing their heads in the Islamic prayer position, Lineker said it looked as though they “ate grass”. The gesture is often used by Muslim players to celebrate.
Loonwatch draws our attention to an attack on Islam made by a Hindutva extremist named Babu Suseelan at the so-called “International Freedom Congress” in New York last month that was organised by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer’s Stop Islamization of Nations.
“If we do not kill the bacteria, the bacteria will kill us”, Suseelan told the audience. Otherwise, he warned, “Muslims will breed like rats and they will be a majority”. But Suseelan finished on an upbeat note: “Islam can be stopped! And it can be wiped out.”