Georgia city defends opposition to mosque plan

Lawyers representing a metro Atlanta city say they’re fighting a local mosque’s expansion plan because of its size and scale, and they deny any discrimination.

The Islamic Center of North Fulton maintains in a lawsuit that Alpharetta wrongly denied its 2010 proposal to tear down its existing facility and rebuild a larger facility. WSB-TV reports that Islamic Center officials contend that their current facility is inadequate because it doesn’t face Mecca and is in disrepair.

Attorney Doug Dillard, who represents the Islamic Center, says other churches in the Atlanta suburb have been given approval for gymnasiums and large sanctuaries.

Attorneys for the city this week responded to some of the allegations, saying the proposed expansion is simply out of scale in size, mass, and scale to the property and surrounding area.

Associated Press, 28 August 2012

Posted in USA

After Anders Breivik’s conviction, Norway must confront Islamophobia

The mainstream political rhetoric concerning Islam in Norway has undoubtedly changed for the better in the past year. The number of ordinary citizens willing to contest Islamophobic discourse publicly has risen. But popular attitudes often remain stubbornly unchanged. A 2012 survey indicates that Norwegians hold more negative attitudes towards Muslims than towards any other minority group, except the Roma. Such negative attitudes are more prevalent among Norwegians who profess adherence to rightwing political parties. It hardly seems coincidental that the one witness in the Breivik trial who received death threats on the day was Muslim. It is now little more than two weeks since a provincial leader of the Progress party in Norway declared on a party blog that he “hated Muslims”. The response was full and unconditional support from fellow provincial party colleagues, and only the mildest of rebukes from the party’s national leadership.

Following the 22/7 trial, it will no longer be possible for Norwegian extreme rightwing Islamophobes to deny that Breivik was in fact inspired and motivated by their ideals, fabrications and distortions. Nor will it be possible for the Progress party, Norway’s third most popular party, to deny that its political rhetoric on Islam and Muslims in Norway was part of the ideological formation of Breivik, who was one of their dedicated party members for about 10 years until 2006. After a national trauma, the verdict presents us with the opportunity to finally face and confront the hatred in our midst with the honesty, seriousness and commitment it requires of us all.

Sindre Bangstad at Comment is Free, 28 August 2012

Vile racist graffiti sprayed onto family’s new home

Graffiti daubed on Anton Bell's home in Scholes

A family has had racist graffiti sprayed on to the home it moves into today.

Andre Bell and his wife Elly were shocked to discover their new home in Scholes, Holmfirth, was pelted with eggs, and had a Nazi swastika and the acronym for a far-right party spray painted on to the doors and walls. Just days after the couple got the keys to the home, offensive words were daubed onto the exterior walls and doors of the council house.

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Bell end

Filmmaker Eric Allen Bell is little known in the UK (not least because he hasn’t had much success with the few films he’s made) but he has become something of a celebrity among right-wing Islamophobes in the US.

It was Bell who directed a 2011 documentary titled Not Welcome which (at least in its original version) chronicled the backlash against the construction of an Islamic centre in Murfreesboro Tennessee, from a standpoint sympathetic to the Muslim victims of that campaign. More recently, however, the clearly unstable Bell has become a convert to the views of notorious anti-Islam propagandist Frank Gaffney, whose hysterical warnings about the “enemy-threat doctrine” of Sharia figured prominently in a court case launched by opponents of the Mufreesboro centre.

Bell’s increasingly demented Facebook page now features posts like this (note the use of block caps – the internet equivalent of green ink):

Eric Bell Islam worse than Nazism

If you thought that was bad enough, Loonwatch draws our attention to a more recent Facebook post (from 15 August) in which Bell urges his readers to consider the merits of a nuclear attack on Mecca:

Eric Bell nuke Mecca

This was followed by further comments such as these:

Eric Bell nuke Mecca comments

As Loonwatch notes, Bell allowed this stuff to pass while at the same time deleting comments that were critical of his proposal.

Some might imagine that even the likes of David Horowitz would draw the line at supporting a clearly disturbed individual who promotes this sort of sick lunacy. But they’d be wrong.

Only yesterday Horowitz’s FrontPage Magazine happily posted a new piece by Bell, “The threat of Sharia and the leadership of America’s two parties”, a Gaffney-inspired rant about a conspiracy by the Muslim Brotherhood (who else?) to impose Sharia law on the United States.

Sacked Muslim immigration officer sues Home Office

An immigration officer sacked over alleged links to Islamic terrorism has attacked the Home Office for not allowing him to defend himself against the unspecified allegations.

The Arabic interpreter, who helped Special Branch interview terror suspects, had his security clearance removed in 2005, a month after returning from a year-long sabbatical in his native Yemen.

He was suspended on full pay for five years then sacked after the Home Office deemed him a risk to national security.

The 44-year-old father of three claims it was only because of his race and the fact that he is a Muslim that he was suspected of associating with terrorists, and is suing the Home Office for discrimination and unfair dismissal.

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Sick Brit racist backs Breivik

Philip HornA British racist has PRAISED massacre gunman Anders Breivik, saying: “I take my hat off to you, sir.” Twisted right-winger Philip Horn said Norwegian misfit Breivik, who slaughtered 77 innocents, had “done what he thought was right”.

Horn, 44, who has links to the English Defence League, backed Breivik’s claim of being motivated by a political crusade to protect his homeland from Muslims. He spewed out his bile on Facebook after an Oslo court jailed Breivik for 21 years.

Under a photo of the monster giving a clenched fist salute, Horn wrote: “Well done Anders Breivik. I take my hat off to you sir. You proved you were not insane, and that you are just one of many like myself who wish their country to return to the way it was before it was invaded by the Muslim population. Respect to you.”

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Who was behind the campaign against Islamia Village?

Islamic Far Right In Britain

When the Islamic Far-Right in Britain blog launched its campaign to get last weekend’s Islamia Village event at Thorpe Underwood Estate cancelled, it wasn’t in fact the blog’s main author, Andy Hughes, who approached the estate’s Trustees on its behalf.

Perhaps it was felt that Hughes still has a bit too much of the EDL thug about him to make a convincing advocate. Anyway, the person who acted as the IFRB representative in discussions with the estate management was an individual named “Damian”. Presumably this was because he had the advantage of middle class respectability as well as being rather more articulate than Hughes (and even, it would appear, a bit of an intellectual on the side).

This tactic seems to have worked well, as Damian certainly made a favourable impression on the Trustees, a spokesperson for whom posted a comment at Harry’s Place that included the following tribute: “Damian did an excellent job giving us accurate, substantiated information. I replied quickly to him, he responded likewise. We maintained a civil working dialogue throughout. He is to be commended.”

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Athens: thousands protest against racism and Islamophobia

Athens demonstration against Islamophobia

ATHENS — Thousands of immigrants in Greece have taken to the streets to protest anti-Muslim sentiments and racist attacks against foreigners in a country plagued by a huge debt crisis.

“This is a first action against the racist pogroms of the police which encourage the neo-Nazis of Golden Dawn to come out in neighborhoods and murder and attack people,” Tasos Anastasiou of the “Expel Racism” movement told Euronews.

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Anti-halal protest ends in embarrassment for fascists

BNP Truth Truck stuck

Protestors were left stuck when their truck became wedged under a bridge.

The British National Party (BNP) returned to Pallion at the weekend to continue their demonstration against the use of halal meat at St Luke’s Subway store.

But as their “truth truck” made its way under a bridge in the Sheepfolds area of the city, it became stuck. Police had to cordon off the street while it was unwedged by releasing air out of all four tyres so it could be moved.

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Ban Islam, deport Muslims says Sweden Democrat

Pär Norling“Ban Islam in Sweden and deport those who persist in believing in the religion”, said Pär Norling, group leader of the Sweden Democrats (SD) in Bollnäs, in an interview with national broadcaster Sveriges Television (SVT).

The neo-nazi Swedish Resistance Movement (Svenska Motståndsrörelsen) marched in the central Swedish town of Bollnäs earlier this summer, after a controversial rape case had rocked the community. On Saturday they marched again and anti-racist protests were held nearby.

Swedish Democratic Norling said he disapproves of Nazism, but by and large considers it a by-product of immigration. He also agrees with the neo-nazi movement that Islam has no place in Sweden. “That can exist elsewhere but in Sweden it doesn’t fit in,” he said to Sweden’s national television SVT. When asked what ought to be done with those who still want to believe in the religion, despite it being banned, Norling responded: “Then the solution is deportation.”

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