Monthly Archives: January 2014

Application to hold rally against Islamophobia in Moscow will be rejected

Posted on by Bob Pitt

City Hall plans to turn down a petition by Muslim activists to hold a rally “against Islamophobia and Caucasus-phobia” on Manezh Square, a Moscow security official said.

The area “doesn’t have the conditions for holding mass actions,” the city’s regional security department head Alexei Mayorov said, adding that an official ruling would be issued later, Interfax reported.

Rally organizers said in their petition, filed Monday, that they expected the event to attract 1 million people, Moskovsky Komsomolets reported.

The meeting’s rejection follows news that of one of the rally organizers – Dagestani activist Mukhammad Magomedov – saying that security officials charged him last week with “participating in an extremist group,” and banned him from leaving his native region. The charges carry a punishment of up to two years in prison.

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West Bank mosque partly torched in suspected settler attack

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Palestinian man stands near a door and wall of a mosque which were vandalised in the West Bank village of Deir IstiyaA mosque in the Israeli-occupied West Bank was partly set on fire on Wednesday in what Palestinian residents said was an attack by Jewish settlers living nearby.

The main gate of the mosque in Deir Istiya village and some of the carpeting inside were charred by the flames. Graffiti in Hebrew, reading “Revenge for spilled blood” and “Arabs Out”, was scrawled on an outside wall and a door.

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Bendigo, Victoria: group rallies against mosque proposal

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Stop the Mosque in Bendigo campaign

A new Facebook page aims to stop the construction of a mosque in Bendigo. The Stop the Mosque in Bendigo page has attracted more than 1700 likes since being created on Saturday.

The administrators of the group did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday and made a post saying they did not want to deal with the inevitable backlash. The page said the media was “aligned with the left and will not give a true and correct report”, and the “about” section said it was not a forum for debate.

“It is for those who don’t not want a mosque in Bendigo for their own reasons,” it said. “We live in a democracy and we are exercising our right to say ‘no’ to what happens in our country. Please like, share and ask the City of Greater Bendigo to show some leadership on behalf of our great country.”

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Tory MP slams BNP leafleting in Enfield North

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP Enfield leafletAn MP has slammed the “scaremongering” tactics of a far-right political party who have been canvassing the borough’s residents.

After he was shown a British National Party leaflet that was posted through the letterbox of one of his Enfield North constituents earlier this month Nick de Bois reacted angrily accusing the right-wing party of “attempting to create tension for political gain”.

The Advertiser has been shown one of the leaflets distributed to households in the borough. It asks residents: “Alarmed by the threat of Islam to your British Identity?” And goes on to refer to scenarios where pubs are converted into mosques which, they claim, would “threaten British identity”.

However the Conservative MP was furious that the leaflets had been distributed anywhere in the borough. Speaking to the Advertiser he said: “This type of ‘copy and paste’ literature – which doesn’t even try to focus on problems in Enfield – is just scaremongering. This type of leaflet is designed to stir up racial tension for the purposes of political gain. It is reprehensible and people in Enfield will see straight through it.”

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Quilliam arranges speaking tour for former EDL leader – in schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Duchess's High School AlnwickThe violent ex-leader of the far right English Defence League is set to give talks on tolerance to schoolchildren. Tommy Robinson – a convicted thug, fraudster and football hooligan – is due to begin his tour within days. But the decision to let him into the classroom has sparked fury with the public.

One parent at a school on Robinson’s visit list said: “Given this man’s appalling record for thuggery and his history of inciting racial tension, it beggars belief that he is being ushered into classrooms. I am disgusted. What on Earth has he got to say that’s worth our children hearing? He should just crawl under a rock and keep quiet.”

Robinson, 30, quit the EDL in October, saying he was unable to control some extreme members. He said he had suffered death threats ever since.

He has now joined Islamic think-tank the Quilliam Foundation, which says it aims to tackle extremism. A spokesman said the talks would also be attended by other former members of the EDL. The spokesman added the visits were a continuation of Robinson’s “journey away” from the EDL.

One of the first places he will visit is the Duchess Community High School in Alnwick, Northumberland. Louis Spence, head of RE, defended allowing the dad of three to talk to sixth form and GCSE pupils.

He said: “By inviting visitors as diverse as Tommy Robinson, students are given the opportunity to rise to the challenges they will face as adults. There is a moral courage in thinking through difficult issues, standing up for what you believe in, whilst still showing respect and humanity.”

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Parti Québécois government minister says ‘charter of values’ can spearhead general attack on multiculturalism in Canada

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jean-Francois Lisée with Pauline MaroisA commission delving into the debate over the Quebec proposed charter of secularism can serve as an inspiration for an English Canada growing increasingly fed up with multiculturalism, the Parti Québécois government says.

It has been more than four months since Quebec began debating the need to further separate church and state and to enact a public-sector ban on religious symbols, but parliamentary hearings that start on Tuesday – the final step before the bill can be voted into law – could be the spark that sets a secular wildfire burning across the country.

That, at the very least, is the word from International Relations Minister Jean-François Lisée [pictured, with Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois], as nearly 300 Quebec citizens and organizations from across the spectrum prepare to dive back into the contentious debate over religious accommodation.

Lisée, who is the PQ’s interlocutor for Quebec anglophones and those outside Quebec, writes in a New York Times opinion piece that while the initiative is opposed by the federal government, anglophones, universities, hospitals, municipalities and others, it has the potential to push Quebec to the vanguard of a secular trail being blazed in Europe and around the globe.

“In a very real sense, the debate over Quebec’s charter may be the last stand of Canada’s multiculturalist experiment. Whatever the immediate outcome, it may be only a matter of time until Canadian multiculturalism finds itself buried alongside its European siblings,” he writes.

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Terrorism heightens Islamophobia in Russia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

"Русский марш - 2013" в Москве
Nationalist demonstration in Moscow in November 2013

A spate of terrorist attacks in southern Russia related to jihadist and anti-Russian insurgencies in the North Caucasus have not only led to heightened security measures, they have also contributed to a rising Islamophobic sentiment amongst many ethnic Russians.

This trend has been epitomized by the release on YouTube of a video purporting to show Russian football fans burning a Koran and forcing an apparently-beaten man of Central Asian appearance to repeat “I renounce Allah.” According to the video, the Russians were fans of Moscow’s CSKA soccer club, whose followers have previously been linked with ultra-nationalist chants and violence.

While the police are investigating the case – which could lead to charges of extremism or spreading religious hatred, punishable by up to 5 years in prison – this is symptomatic of a general problem. These inter-communal tensions have already exploded into large-scale conflicts, in Kondopoga in 2006, Moscow’s Manezh Square in 2010 and the capital’s Biryulevo neighborhood in 2013.

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Quebecers campaign against Charter of Values

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Support Another campaign day

A Montreal-based group is calling on all Canadians to join them on January 12th and 13th to protest against the Quebec government’s proposed Charter of Values for the province, urging Canadians to join them by wearing a hijab, turban, kippa or crucifix for a day.

“We invite all Canadians to walk in the footsteps of a visible minority for a day, to show their support for our Canadian and Quebec rights and freedoms and protest against this discriminatory charter,” Sama Al-Obaidy, Support Another spokesperson, told OnIslam.net.

“As the hearings about the charter are scheduled to begin next week in the National Assembly, we will be speaking as one voice against Bill 60 and demonstrating what the true values of Quebec and Canada are – those of multiculturalism, understanding, respect and social harmony,” she added.

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