Loonwatch explains to Sunny Hundal.
Yearly Archives: 2014
CAIR accuses Florida Republicans of fostering anti-Muslim sentiment
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune has the details.
See also “CAIR-FL, parents, students to oppose anti-Muslim textbook bill”, CAIR press release, 21 April 2014
Ukip member in election broadcast suspended over racist tweets
The UK Independence party has suspended one of its five supporters chosen to appear on its first European election broadcast after it emerged he had posted a series of racist and Islamaphobic tweets that also condemned Ed Miliband as “a Pole” and called for Africans to be left alone to kill themselves.
The election broadcast featured builder Andre Lampitt criticising eastern European immigration. He said: “Since the lads from eastern Europe are prepared to work for a lot less than anybody else, I’ve found it a real struggle.” In common with the other Ukip supporters featured on the broadcast Lampitt is not named.
After the tweets came to light, a Ukip spokesman said: “We are deeply shocked that Mr Lampitt has expressed such repellent views. His membership of the party has been suspended immediately pending a full disciplinary process.”
Lampitt’s offensive and potentially unlawful tweets have been posted in the past few months. He describes Islam as a Satanic religion and claims Nigerians are bad people.
The Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, has repeatedly claimed he cannot control all the views of his party membership and insisted his posters are not designed to encourage racism. But Lampitt was handpicked by Ukip headquarters to represent the views of working-class people in the UK, and it appears no checks were made to examine his wider opinions.
Lampitt describes himself as “Born British in Rhodesia”. In one tweet he claimed that Islam is not a religion and called it an “evil organisation”. Another says: “Get over it, slavery was an act of war. you lost stop being so damn jealous and move forward.”
He also said he wants to start a website called Islamoutofuk.co.uk. He tweeted: “Most Nigerians are generally bad people I grew up in Africa and dare anyone to prove me wrong.”
Mayoral candidate tries to exploit Mufreesboro Islamic Center controversy
MURFREESBORO — County mayoral candidate Jimmy Evans stands by a flyer he sent out depicting the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro praising incumbent Mayor Ernest Burgess.
“Thank you Ernest Burgess,” the flyer states to serve as a translation for what appears to be Arabic writing related to the government approving the ICM. “Without you, the Mosque would not be possible!” “That’s true,” Evans said during an interview in his office at his car dealership on Northwest Broad Street in Murfreesboro. “Without Mayor Burgess, the mosque would not be possible.”
The front page of the advertisement that displays the name “Ernest Burgess,” shows Arabic writing, images of mosque structures with a sun in the background and then adds “See translation inside …” But the American Center of Outreach, a local Muslim advocacy group, said the Arabic letters first appeared to be gibberish but actually are the intended words backward and without proper punctuation or spacing for the language.
Evans is running against Burgess in the May 6 Republican primary for Rutherford County offices. Early voting is going on through May 1 for the GOP primary. The general election is Aug. 7.
The hypocrisy of Tony Blair’s Middle East vision
Blair’s simplistic formula for tackling radical Islam is leading him to support some of the most oppressive forces in the region, argues Arun Kundnani.
Update: See also Patrick Cockburn, “Demented Tony Blair recites the Saudis’ creed in his latest speech”, Independent on Sunday, 27 April 2014
Syria anti-terror plan slammed by parents and community groups
Police asking people to snoop on relatives has been criticised as unworkable and unrealistic.
French minister backs football headscarf ban
France’s new sports minister Thierry Braillard has backed the French Football Federation’s decision to uphold their ban on headscarves for players despite pressure from FIFA.
Last Sunday on beIN SPORTS, FIFA president Sepp Blatter declared the FFF had no choice other than to follow his organisation’s directive that women players should be allowed to wear head coverings during official games.
The FIFA ruling is contrary to French law, however, with all signs of religious affiliation, regardless of the denomination, banned in official state-connected institutions.
“The position taken by the FFF and its president Noel Le Graet has our wholehearted support, because it would be necessary to remind Mr Blatter that the French state has declared its attachment to the values of the Republic and that Republican principles, notably the principle of an entirely secular state, are in force in sporting arenas,” the freshly appointed Braillard told RTL.
This war on ‘Islamism’ only fuels hatred and violence
Tony Blair’s anti-democratic tirade chimes with David Cameron’s toxic manoeuvring at home and in the Muslim world. argues Seumas Milne.
Ofsted hunt for Islamist ‘infiltration’ was harrowing says headteacher
A Birmingham headteacher whose school was among 18 in the city inspected as part of an investigation into alleged infiltration by Muslim fundamentalists has described the experience as harrowing.
Christine Quinn, the executive principal of Ninestiles academy, in Acocks Green, confirmed that Ofsted inspectors commissioned by the education secretary, Michael Gove, had visited the school before the Easter break.
She said the inspectors had insisted they had not received any complaints or concerns about the Birmingham school, which received Ofsted’s highest rating of “outstanding” last October, but that she understood it was in the context of investigations into Operation Trojan Horse, an alleged Islamist plot to take over schools in Birmingham. The visit was a surprise, she said, and “somewhat harrowing, in that it was unlike any other inspection”.
The inspectors checked whether the school taught citizenship and sex education, she said. “They were trying to establish whether we had the mechanisms in place to know if elements of radicalism or extremism were in our school, and whether we knew how to recognise it, and that we had an extensive policies on citizenship, personal, social and health education – those sort of things – to counteract any such elements.”
Inspectors also wanted to know how Quinn could be sure that any guests invited to speak at the school were bona fide and that teachers could not “sneak them into a lesson unnoticed”. In addition, the Ofsted representatives wanted reassurance that the school carefully monitored who it let rooms to, and which charities benfited from pupils collecting during bake sales and other fundraising drives.
Quinn said she had yet to receive the inspection report after the inspectors’ visit, but “the sooner all the reports are published, the better for all schools in Birmingham”.
Other schools investigated in recent weeks have complained about the behaviour of Ofsted inspectors.
Athens mosque blocked again
The saga of the Athens mosque, the realization of which has been delayed for years and seemed a settled issue last November, continues. Work for the construction of the Muslim temple has been blocked again, this time by political maneuvers and an appeal presented by a university teacher, two navy officials, a cultural association and the ultra-conservative bishop of the Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus, all of whom are against the presence of the worshipping place in the Greek capital, the only one in Europe still without a temple for its more than 200,000 residents of Muslim faith.
Precisely because of the legal recourse – and the fear that a judge may rule for the complainants – the infrastructure ministry has made it known that it has not yet signed the contract to carry out the 946,000 euro project on which the tender was won five months ago by the consortium composed of four of the largest Hellenic businesses: Aktor, Terna, JP & Avax and Intrakat. The preceding four tenders for assigning construction were not successfully completed since the participating companies withdrew after threats and intimidation received from extremist right-wing groups, like the neo-Nazi Chrysi Avgì (Golden Dawn) party and residents of the Votanikos neighborhood, where the place of worship is supposed to be built, all of whom are contrary to the presence of Muslims in their zone in fear that it could become a gathering place for Islamic extremists or even a “den of terrorists”.