Yearly Archives: 2014

Bacon and hate graffiti at California mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamic Center of Manteca graffitiThe Sacramento Valley chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SV), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on state and federal law enforcement authorities to investigate vandalism of a California mosque as a possible hate crime.

Law enforcement authorities in Manteca, Calif., are investigating strips of raw bacon and hate graffiti found on the grounds of the Islamic Center of Manteca last week as a possible bias-motivated crime. Hate graffiti sprayed on the mosque included “F*** Islam” on the facility’s sign and on the ground near the entrance.

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Lega Nord denounces plan for Islamic museum in Venice

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lega Nord anti-Islam posterVenice Mayor Giorgio Orsoni wants to put his city on the map as a site of internationally weighty institutions, and a possible Islamic museum plus study center is one of them.

On Monday, the mayor thanked Premier Enrico Letta for considering such a museum for the iconic city’s Grand Canal, which in Orsoni’s view would dovetail nicely with an existing Museum of Oriental Arts, a Council of Europe office in St. Mark’s Square that often hosts Aspen Institute meetings, and a planned Orthodox Church study center, which would rise in the Mestre district on mainland Venice.

The Italian premier said during a trip to Doha that his government “made a commitment to explore the opportunity to build an Islamic museum in Venice on the Grand Canal”. Letta is in the Persian Gulf state on a mission to drum up investment to help to pull the Italian economy after its longest postwar recession.

Orsoni said the concept fits in with Venice’s municipal goal of continuing to bring “great cultural institutions of international breadth to Venice”. The city offered “a special thanks to … Letta for his interest in the creation of an Islamic museum of great international scope in Venice, a sign of the history of this city and its openness to dialogue between cultures and religions”, added Orsoni.

The project was slammed Monday by the regionalist, anti-immigrant Northern League, which suggested Letta should focus on the economy and not cultural institutions. Massimo Bitonci, Senate whip for the League, accused Letta of working to spread Islam in Italy. “We do not want any Islamic museum in Venice”, Bitonci said. “Letta would do better to focus on the economic crisis instead of thinking (of ways) to spread Islam”, he added.

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Highly qualified Muslim immigrants face employment discrimination

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Last week, Quebec business interests sounded an alarm about the negative economic ramifications on the province of the proposed values charter. First the Conseil du patronat and then the head of a cable and media company warned that Bill 60 would discourage immigrants needed for economic growth.

This issue arose the first day of the charter hearings last month, when the leader of a Muslim organization talked about a crisis among families of highly qualified North Africans who are being shut out of jobs in their fields.

Samira Laouni, of Communication pour l’ouverture et le rapprochement interculturel, estimated that current unemployment in the North African community is around 30 per cent – even though overall unemployment in Montreal is roughly 8 per cent. Laouni contends that employment discrimination against Muslims started after 9/11 and deteriorated after the Herouxville incident in 2007, when the town council there passed a code of conduct for minorities targeting Muslims. She commented that since the proposal of the Quebec values charter, the employment situation for Muslims has worsened.

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Six youths in court over harassment of worshippers at mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Six youths have appeared before magistrates charged in connection with a police inquiry into alleged harassment of worshippers travelling to a mosque in the West Midlands.

Five of the teenagers, aged between 15 and 17, pleaded not guilty to causing criminal damage to a car during a lengthy court hearing in Oldbury. The sixth defendant, aged 14, denied a charge of racially aggravated harassment.

Sandwell Magistrates’ Court heard that the youths are alleged to have been involved in public order offences committed against members of the Muslim community over a 10-day period in October last year.

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Sikhs Against Sharia exposed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Over at the Tell Mama website Steven Rose has an interesting article on Sikhs Against Sharia, whose founder (and in all likelihood, sole Sikh member) Sareeta Webra has been co-operating with Stephen Gash of Stop Islamisation of Europe in waging a hysterical campaign against plans to build a new mosque in Cambridge. As Rose points out, Webra has a record of active involvement in the Islamophobic far right going back a number of years. Varinder Singh, from the Turban Campaign, emphasises that “Sareeta Webra’s views are not those of the British Sikh Community and have no mainstream support”.

East London Mosque condemns ‘Christian Patrols’ provocation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

ELM logo

Extremist Patrols Unwelcome in Tower Hamlets

East London Mosque press release, 3 February 2014

The East London Mosque is shocked to note the provocation and antics of a fringe neo-Nazi group claiming to carry out so-called ‘Christian Patrols’ outside the mosque last Friday evening (31 January).

Members of Britain First (BF), a tiny far-right organisation run by a former British National Party (BNP) councillor in Swanley, Kent, and ex-Nick Griffin protégé, Paul Golding, filmed themselves drinking cans of lager, harassing and intimidating passers-by, and handing out inflammatory leaflets for a so-called ‘Christian Patrol’.

Claiming they were looking for a confrontation with ‘Muslim Patrols’, most of their actions involved driving up and down Brick Lane in an armoured Land Rover and swilling beer, before unfurling a ‘Resistance’ banner outside the mosque.

Had they done their research, Britain First would have known that the Muslim Patrols they claimed to be opposing were in fact imprisoned last year, directly as a result of reporting and diligence by members of the local Muslim community (the mosque was also active in reporting and removing stickers for ‘Sharia’ and ‘Gay Free Zones’).

The Muslim Patrols were linked to the banned extremist sect al-Muhajiroun, whose members have been actively opposed by the East London Mosque for many years. In our view, Britain First’s patrol does not represent Christians, just as al-Muhajiroun’s patrols did not represent Muslims. Both are tiny, extreme groups, unwelcome in our community.

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How Quilliam used former EDL leaders to appeal for money

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hasan Lennon and NawazThe alacrity with which Quilliam embraced former English Defence League leaders Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) and Kevin Carroll, and presented them at a heavily publicised press conference last October as men who had renounced their former extremist views, raised considerable suspicions among Quilliam’s critics. It has been widely suggested that Quillaim’s motive was to try and regain some of the lavish state funding they once enjoyed under Labour but which had been withdrawn by the present coalition government.

Sure enough, an FOI request has revealed that Maajid Nawaz, chairman and co-founder of Quilliam, immediately fired off two emails to Mark Carroll at the Department for Communities and Local Government asking for financial assistance to facilitate Lennon and Carroll’s supposed break with extremism.

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Two mosques in Amiens targeted with far-right graffiti

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Amiens El-Feth mosque graffitiAl-Kanz reports that anti-Islam graffiti has been sprayed on the pavement outside the El-Feth mosque at Beauvillé in Amiens.

The slogan reads “732, Poitiers… ils t’en ont pas parlé?” (“732, Poitiers… haven’t they told you about it?”). The reference is to Battle of Poitiers at which the Frankish forces led by Charles Martel defeated the army of the Umayyad Caliphate. Al-Kanz notes that this slogan has been promoted by a section of the far right, specifically by the Bloc Identitaire. Stickers with that slogan have previously been put up in Amiens by the Bloc’s youth wing, Génération Identitaire.

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Reports and comment from Islamophobia Watch 27 January‑2 February

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Reports and comment from Islamophobia Watch 27 January-2 February 2014