Pamela Geller reported earlier this week that Muslims in Nigeria had crucified a cat in protest against the Innocence of Muslims film. According to Geller, this was par for the course with Islam: “An anti-freedom, anti-life, culture produces little else other than new and different ways to kill, murder torture, destroy.”
Yearly Archives: 2012
CAIR issues report on August spike in anti-mosque incidents
Islamic Society of Joplin building in flames on 6 August
A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization today issued a preliminary report on a spike in anti-mosque incidents that occurred in late August following a massacre of Sikh worshippers in Oak Creek, Wis.
The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) reports that in the 13-day period between August 6 and August 18, there were eight incidents in which Muslim places of worship were targeted. As a comparison, in the first seven months of 2012 there were 10 such incidents.
CAIR’s report comes one day before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights plans to hold a hearing on hate crimes and domestic extremism. It comes just after a mosque in Virginia was vandalized in an apparent bias incident.
11 lies the right spreads about Muslims
Nathan Lean, the author of The Islamophobia Industry: How the Right Manufactures Fear of Muslims, looks at eleven of the dirty lies they are spreading.
Another stupid provocation from Charlie Hebdo
Charlie Hebdo editor Stephane Charbonnier
A French satirical magazine published nude cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed Wednesday, a move that could further inflame tensions after violent protests in the Muslim world over an anti-Islam film.
The cover of Charlie Hebdo shows a Muslim in a wheelchair being pushed by an Orthodox Jew under the title “Intouchables 2”, referring to an award-winning French film about a poor black man who helps an aristocratic quadriplegic.
Another cartoon on the back page of the weekly magazine show a naked turbaned Mohammed exposing his posterior to a film director, a scene inspired by a 1963 film starring French film star Brigitte Bardot.
Islam is an angry mob, according to Indy columnist
“Nakoula Basseley Nakoula doesn’t sound nice. He has even been in prison for his lies. He was stupid to make the film, and stupid to put it on YouTube (if it was him who put it on YouTube) and stupid to make a film that’s so bad. But on one thing, he’s right. ‘There’s an angry mob in the street,’ says a character in his stupid little film, as he points at a group of men in long robes, with long beards. Yes, there’s ‘an angry mob in the street’, and it’s getting bigger every day, and what it calls itself is Islam.”
Christina Patterson offers her thoughts on the Innocence of Muslims controversy.
France: Socialist deputy mayor refused to marry Muslim woman who wore hijab
The Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France reports that on Thursday 6 September a young Muslim couple, Saad and Myriam, arrived at the town hall at La Seyne-sur-Mer in southeastern France to get married.
However when Florence Cyrulnik (pictured left), the Socialist Party deputy mayor who was to preside over their wedding, arrived she told Myriam abruptly that she would not proceed with the marriage unless the bride immediately removed her headscarf. Although Myriam was not wearing a face veil, which is of course illegal in France, she was informed that religious symbols were banned in public spaces according to a local secularist statute.
Melbourne protest against Islamophobia
Senior Muslim community leaders have refused to sanction any further protests against the anti-Islamic film that has set off riots globally, but two women in their 20s are pressing ahead with a mass pro-Islam rally in Melbourne on Sunday to protest against what they describe as a decade-long campaign against Muslims.
In the wake of the riots that erupted in Sydney last weekend, a Facebook page has been launched inviting more than 1800 people to the rally and calling on Melbourne’s Muslim community to “stand up against racism and rally in defense of Islam”.
Wilders wants visa to speak in Australia
Geert Wilders, who has compared the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, has been invited by the Q Society to give speeches in Melbourne and Sydney.
The Federal Government has not yet made a decision but Multicultural Affairs Minister Kate Lundy described Mr Wilders as “an extreme-right politician promulgating views that are out of step with mainstream Australia”.
Islamophobia, Left and Right
Jeff Sparrow responds to “the belligerent incomprehension with which so many, including self-proclaimed liberals, have responded to protests against the film The Innocence of Muslims“.
Australia: inquiry into multiculturalism swamped with racist submissions
A Federal Government inquiry into multiculturalism has been swamped with anonymous Islamophobic and racist submissions. The draft report is due out soon and will be released as tensions run high from recent protests in Sydney and around the world.
Of 513 submissions many are anonymous and contain lines such as: “I do object to the current policy on immigration allowing predominately (sic) Muslim so called refugees into this country they are the biggest manipulative group around, are lying deceitful and dangerous.”
Many of them have very similar themes; that multiculturalism has failed, that Muslims are to blame, that they threaten democracy in Australia and refuse to assimilate.
The submissions have been accepted by the inquiry into the “economic, social and cultural impacts of migration (which will) make recommendations to maximise the positive benefits of migration”.