Yearly Archives: 2014

Britain First continues campaign of harassment

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Britain First at Crayford mosque August 2014
Britain First chairman Paul Golding and his gang at the Crayford mosque on Friday

A week ago the far-right anti-Muslim group Britain First suffered a major blow when its founder and financier Jim Dowson resigned from the organisation, in part because of his opposition to the notorious “mosque invasions” led by Britain First chairman Paul Golding.

Dowson said that while it was necessary to oppose extremists he objected to “decent Muslims” being intimidated in this way. In a video statement responding to Dowson’s departure, a shaken Golding announced that Britain First had suspended its mosque invasion campaign and would be moving on to other forms of street protest.

It turns out that not much has changed. While actual “invasions” have been renounced, at least temporarily, Britain First is still intent on targeting ordinary Muslims, whose faith it holds to be a threat to the British, Christian way of life.

On Friday, Golding and his gang turned up outside the North West Kent Muslim Association mosque in Crayford. This is the same mosque they barged into last month, harassing the imam and threatening to remove the “sexist” signs outside the building that indicated separate entrances for women and men. This time they didn’t try to enter the mosque but knocked on the door and harangued the people who answered, while handing out copies of Britain First’s Islam and Women pamphlet to worshippers and passers-by. (“Most folk know that Islam exists”, the pamphlet begins, “but have no clue as to its true horror.”)

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Bolton: NWI anti-mosque protest meets counter-demonstration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

NWI protest Bolton August 2014Hundreds of protestors closed off Blackburn Road for more than an hour over protests about the extension of a mosque in Astley Bridge.

The demonstration, organised by far-right organisation the North West Infidels, sparked a second protest by the Bolton Trades Union Council, Bolton Against Racism and members of the local community which was policed by hundreds of officers.

The NWI drafted in supporters from across the UK to object to the extension of the Taiyabah Islamic Centre on disused land off Canning Street. Planning permission was granted in July to create 19 new classrooms as part of the new mosque, which will have a dome and minaret tower.

During the protest bottles, a firework and eggs were thrown at officers, who had been brought in from across the North West to police the protest. Two people were arrested, including one woman who hit an officer in the face.

The opposing protestors were “penned in” on either side of Blackburn Road. They hurled insults at each other, waved banners and chanted outside Wynsors World of Shoes in Blackburn Road.

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Mirror stokes up Islamophobia with bogus anti-Muslim story

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Boycott star city racist shithole Facebook page

Last week the arrival of Eid provided the pretext for yet another round of anti-Muslim scaremongering. According to a rumour that quickly spread across the internet, the Vue cinema in Birmingham’s Star City entertainment complex was only allowing Muslims who were celebrating Eid to enter the venue and had turned away non-Muslims.

This transparently ludicrous story would appear to have been kicked off by a comment posted on the Birmingham Mail Facebook page by one Emma Noakes, who accused Birmingham City Council of colluding with Vue in implementing a discriminatory admission policy:

Emma Noakes Facebook comment

You’ll note that Ms Noakes’ accusation wasn’t based on her own experience of being turned away from the cinema but on a second-hand and probably garbled account by a friend. As for her suggestion that the local authority was co-operating with Star City in banning non-Muslims from the venue, this was clearly nonsense.

Nevertheless, it was enough to provoke a predictable spate of outraged comments denouncing the supposed ban as further proof of an Islamic takeover of Britain and the subjugation of the indigenous people. A Facebook page was set up to rally opposition to the discrimination against non-Muslims, under the title “Boycott star city – racist shithole”. The accusation of racism was particularly ironic, given that the page is clearly a far-right initiative, as the photos below demonstrate.

Unsurprisingly, Birmingham City Council denied any involvement, telling those who inquired about the issue: “This has nothing to do with the council and is simply not true.” The Birmingham Mail, a newspaper not averse to engaging in a bit of anti-Muslim scaremongering itself, also dismissed the rumour as baseless, stating: “We have fully investigated these allegations and can find no foundation for them.”

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Rowan Williams says Islam makes positive contribution to society, ‘secularist’ groups disagree

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rowan_WilliamsIslam is restoring traditional British values such as shared responsibility and duty, a former archbishop has said.

Rowan Williams said that Muslims had brought back “open, honest and difficult public discussion” in one of their “greatest gifts” to Britain.

He used a speech yesterday to criticise sections of the press for portraying Muslims as “un-British” and complained of “illiteracy” about religion among figures in government.

Secularist groups accused Dr Williams of “foolishness”, but his remarks were welcomed by British Muslim organisations.

Keith Porteous Wood, the executive director of the National Secular Society, said: “I’m still smiling about the comments he made about Sharia law a few years ago. You’d think he’d have learnt his lesson.”

In 2008, when still Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Williams provoked controversy by stating that the application of some aspects of Islamic law in British courts was “unavoidable”. He also drew both praise and criticism after telling a literary festival in 2012 that the hijab gave some Muslim women strength.

Yesterday, Dr Williams, who stood down as the head of the Church of England to become master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 2012, told the Living Islam Festival in Lincolnshire that Christianity and Islam were shifting British values back towards the community.

He said that Britain was an “argumentative democracy” where “we are not just individual voters ticking boxes but individuals and communities engaging in open, honest and difficult public discussion. One of the greatest gifts of the Muslim community to the UK has been that they have brought that back to the people.”

Asked if he meant that Islam was rejuvenating British values, Dr Williams said: “Yes. I’m thinking of the way in which, for example, in Birmingham we have seen a local parish and a mosque combining together to provide family services and youth activities, both acting out of a very strong sense that this is what communities ought to do. ”

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‘Report it!’ victims of hate urged

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Building BridgesA campaign has been launched to encourage Muslims in Leeds to report hate crimes amid moves to improve the way police record such incidents.

The Building Bridges project, based at the Hamara Centre in Beeston, is behind the Report It! initiative, which urges victims to come forward following concerns that many are staying quiet. It comes after West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Mark Burns-Williamson pledged to look at whether hate crimes could be recorded to show the numbers of offences committed against particular faith groups.

Tafazal Mohammad, Building Bridges project co-ordinator, said it was difficult to assess whether Islamophobic crime had risen. He said:

“In some parts of London there is evidence that anti-Muslim hate crimes have gone up several hundred per cent. In Leeds we have got anecdotal evidence, but we want to be a bit more statistical in terms of trying to identify the extent of the problem. A lot of people won’t report it because they think it’s a waste of time and nothing will be done about it. We’re trying to say that if they don’t report it, in a sense they can’t complain if nothing is done.”

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HSBC closes Muslim groups’ accounts

Posted on by Bob Pitt

North London Central MosqueHSBC bank has written to Finsbury Park Mosque and other Muslim organisations in the UK to tell them that their accounts will be closed.

The reason given in some cases was that to continue providing services would be outside the bank’s “risk appetite”.

The wife and teenage children of a man who runs a London based Islamic think tank have also been contacted.

HSBC said decisions to close accounts were “absolutely not based on race or religion”.

“We do not discuss relationships we may or may not have with a customer, nor confirm whether an individual or business is, or has been a customer. Discrimination against customers on grounds of race or religion is immoral, unacceptable and illegal, and HSBC has comprehensive rules and policies in place to ensure race or religion are never factors in banking decisions.”

The bank said it was “applying a programme of strategic assessments to all of its businesses” after a $1.9bn fine in 2012 over poor money-laundering controls. “As a result of these ongoing reviews, we have exited relationships with business and personal customers in over 70 countries. The services we provide to charities are no exception to this global review,” the bank added.

Finsbury Park Mosque in north London [pictured] was written to by HSBC on 22 July. The only reason given for the intention to close its account was that “the provision of banking services… now falls outside of our risk appetite”. In the letter, the bank notifies the treasurer of the mosque that it will close the account on 22 September.

Khalid Oumar, one of the trustees of the mosque, questioned the motives behind the letters. “The letters that have been sent and the letters that we received do not give any reason why the accounts were closed in the first place,” he said. “That has led us to believe that the only reason this has happened is because of an Islamophobic campaign targeting Muslim charities in the UK.”

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American opinion of Arabs, Muslims is getting worse: poll

Posted on by Bob Pitt

American Attitudes Toward Arabs and MuslimsHow Americans view Arabs and Muslims has gotten worse in recent years, with negative feelings strongest among Republicans and senior citizens, according to a poll released on Tuesday.

Only 27 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Muslims, down from 35 percent in 2010, according to the Zogby poll, commissioned by the non-profit Arab American Institute. Favorable attitudes toward Arabs dropped to 32 percent from 43 percent in 2010.

The poll also found that 42 percent of respondents believe an American Muslim’s religion would influence his or her decision making in an important government job. The same percentage believe it is justified for law enforcement to profile Arab Americans or American Muslims.

“For me, the biggest concern in the poll is not just that people don’t like us, but what not liking us translates to,” said Institute president Jim Zogby, who is of Lebanese descent. He said attitudes towards profiling and Arabs and Muslims in government posts “affect our ability to function as communities here.”

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Posted in USA

Are French Muslims integrated? Depends on what you mean by integration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jennifer Fredette, assistant professor of political science at Ohio University and author of Constructing Muslims in France – Discourse, Public Identity, and the Politics of Citizenship, takes up the misuse of the term “integration” in the French context, where it is reinterpreted to justify a one-sided and discriminatory demand for assimilation:

The social scientific definition of “integration” refers to a dual process whereby immigrants embrace and become invested in their new home and are, in turn, accepted as equals by those who were there before them. In French political discourse, however, the term “integration” generally loses the reciprocal connotation. Here, a “failure of integration” refers lopsidedly to the inability of immigrants to assimilate into local customs and attitudes, consequently retaining markers of social difference that set them apart….

Politicians on the far right are not alone in questioning the civic virtues of French Muslims: they are joined by politicians on the center-right and the left. The media are full of articles questioning the Frenchness of Muslims. Several respected intellectuals have gone so far as to critique Islam or practices some Muslims choose to follow as incompatible with the Republic.

When these shapers of public opinion consistently raise criticisms of Muslims and demand legal action against the headscarf in public primary and secondary schools, universities, and beach areas; against the niqab in public; and against prayer in the streets (which resulted from a lack of prayer space and open hostility at the municipal level to mosque construction), they rarely exhibit any self-awareness that they themselves are standing in the way of the second half of integration.

Monkey Cage, 29 July 2014

Bensonhurst, Brooklyn: Hate crime cops investigating anti-Muslim fliers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bath Beach anti-Muslim flierThe NYPD’s Hate Crimes unit is looking to identify the person who distributed anti-Muslim fliers in at least one of the Shore Haven apartment buildings near Cropsey Avenue and 21st Avenue in Bath Beach, according to Councilman Mark Treyger’s office.

The fliers were found throughout the building this week, showing a hateful message calling Muslims “the second holocaust” and claims “USA hates you”. There is what appears to be a woman in a burka inside a “No” symbol, and there is also an abundance of exclamation points.

“I am disgusted and saddened to hear of this hateful act in our community. There is absolutely no place for this type of hatred, especially in a city and borough as diverse and tolerant as ours. My thanks to the 62nd Precinct for their quick response and thorough investigation of this heinous act,” said Treyger in a statement.

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Posted in USA