Tariq Ramadan answers questions on jihad, apostasy and women’s rights.
Author Archives: Bob Pitt
Brown plans to double terror detention limit
Brown plans to double terror detention limit
By Louise Nousratpour
Morning Star, 26 July 2007
Prime Minister Gordon Brown expressed a strong desire to double the current 28-day period of detention without charge or trial for “terror suspects” on Wednesday. But human rights campaigners slammed the proposal, warning that such an “assault on human rights and freedoms” would amount to internment.
During a speech on the “war against terror,” Mr Brown told MPs that the government would put forward a package of measures designed to combat terrorism. These include proposals to extend the pre-charge detention period to 56 days, allowing intercept evidence to be used in court, giving police powers to question suspects after they have been charged and placing a “highly visible” uniformed force at all ports and airports. The phone tapping and post-charge questioning proposals were first tabled by civil rights group Liberty.
Left MP John McDonnell vowed to monitor the proposals “very closely” once they are put to Parliament. He branded the plans “an unacceptable breach of human rights based upon unproved assumptions which will result in human suffering and miscarriages of justice.”
Stop the War Coalition convener Lindsey German urged MPs to defeat Mr Brown’s draconian proposals, just as they saw off his predecessor Tony Blair’s “disgraceful” plans to introduce a 90-day limit.
“These measures have nothing to do with stopping terrorism and everything to do with creating a climate of fear, where police and the government are given unprecedented powers,” she argued. “This is a complete betrayal of every aspect of our civil liberties and the millions of Labour supporters, many of who thought they would get better from Gordon Brown.”
Ms German warned that the proposals aimed to “criminalise communities – young Muslim men in particular.” She insisted: “The terror attacks in recent years, which many believe are the result of Britain’s foreign policy, will only stop once we pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Nicola Duckworth of Amnesty International UK said that the government had forgotten “the lessons of Northern Ireland in the ’70s, where internment had devastating consequences for those affected and a disastrous impact on human rights, the rule of law and society as a whole.”
Statement by Alex Salmond and Ken Livingstone
Alex Salmond MP MSP, First Minister of Scotland, and Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London after meeting today said:
“We stand united in our condemnation of the recent attempted attacks in Glasgow and London and applaud the swift and courageous response of the emergency services and members of the public, which prevented any loss of life. The safety of all the inhabitants of Scotland and London rests on the professionalism of the police and security service and information supplied to these by all communities.
“We reiterate that actions like these are carried out by criminals, not by communities, and welcome as very important the clear and unambiguous statements by Muslim organisations, and all other communities, denouncing the killing of innocent people. Those who seek to use recent events to create divisions, foster prejudice and excuse mindless attacks on minority communities are contemptible.
“We are one Scotland and one London; places of rich history and diversity which welcome all those who seek to contribute to our society and abide by our laws, whatever their race, religion, creed or colour.”
Anti-Muslim bigotry: ‘Islamophobic’ or informed?
“Despite the best efforts of Islamic advocacy groups to obscure the connection between Islam and violence and supremacism, the sheer volume of Islamic terror attacks (over 9,000 around the world since 9/11) has awakened at least some Americans to the fact that the ideology that fuels those who are determined to destroy us is deeply rooted within Islam….
“The Newsweek poll should become the occasion for renewed debate about the attitude of Muslims in America toward Islamic Sharia law, and about the posture of American Muslims advocacy groups toward the U.S. Constitution. It should be the occasion for a new public examination of Muslim immigration and the monitoring of mosques. It should provide the foundation for a new public call to Muslims in America to renounce Sharia and Islamic supremacism….”
Robert Spencer responds to the recent Newsweek poll of US Muslims.
Another wacko conspiracy theory
The planned crescent-shaped “memorial to heroes” of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania is nothing less than a huge outdoor mosque that pays homage to Islam, charges the author of a new book.
Alec Rawls’ Crescent of Betrayal: Dishonoring the Heroes of Flight 93, published by World Ahead, documents a long list of Islamic and terrorist memorializing features in the Flight 93 National Memorial.
The primary feature, he says, is the giant central crescent of what originally was called the “Crescent of Embrace” design. A person facing into this half-mile wide crescent – still present in the superficially altered “Bowl of Embrace” redesign – will be oriented almost exactly at Mecca.
That is significant, Rawls said, because a crescent that Muslims face to point them in the direction of Mecca – called a “mihrab” – is the central feature around which every mosque is built.
Yes, that’s the same World Net Daily who brought you the “Muslims eat children” revelations.
Street warden called Saddam awarded £42k
A Muslim street warden nicknamed “Saddam” during a four-year ordeal of racist abuse has won £42,500 after an employment tribunal. Iqbal Rasheed, 59, was the target of a vindictive campaign while working for a security firm under contract for Westminster council and the Greater London Authority.
Father-of-three Mr Rasheed, of St John’s Wood, told how colleagues at Chubb Security nicknamed him “Saddam”, branded him a “madman who believes in God” and laughed at him when he fasted during Ramadan. He said he was once told not to clean the spray-painted word “n****r” from the side of Selfridges because it was “not offensive”.
Shortly after British hostage Ken Bigley was decapitated in Iraq, Mr Rasheed said he was told by a colleague: “I hope they nuke you Iraqis now.” One South African supervisor told him: “I don’t make tea, I get n*****s to make it for me.”
Mr Rasheed, who was born in Aden, Yemen, said he was the subject of a bullying campaign by line manager Mike Edwards and colleagues Marie Robinson and Carol Wheeler, who are mother and daughter. He told the Lite today: “From the moment I stepped in the office I could feel the tension against me. I have lived in this country since I was a child but I was made to feel like a total outsider.”
The tribunal in Kingsway awarded the payout after finding that Mr Rasheed had been the subject of “racial and religious discrimination”. The panel also found he had been unfairly dismissed, having been forced out by racially motivated harassment.
Chubb Security has been ordered to pay £10,000 in costs. No staff have been dismissed. Company spokeswoman Jackie Gregory said: “The tribunal relates to an incident more than two and a half years ago. We regret what has occurred, and have taken steps to address it.”
London Lite, 25 July 2007
See also Evening Standard, 25 July 2007
Trial under way in Muslim charity case
DALLAS — A group that was once the nation’s largest Muslim charity went on trial on terrorism-support charges Tuesday, with federal prosecutors saying it hoped to destroy Israel and the defense claiming leaders sought advice on staying true to their humanitarian mission.
The trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development is expected to last several months and caps an FBI investigation that lasted more than a decade. The organization and five of its top officials are charged with aiding terrorists, conspiracy and money laundering.
Prosecutor James T. Jacks said in his opening statement that the foundation was created to raise money for the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The charity’s leaders lied about their purpose “because to tell the truth is to reveal what they were all about – the destruction of the state of Israel and replacing it with a Palestinian Islamic state,” he said. Some of the money went to support the families of suicide bombers, according to authorities.
Defense attorneys say Holy Land supported humanitarian efforts in Palestinian neighborhoods and did not knowingly aid Hamas. “Holy Land had nothing to do with politics. Its focus was on children in need,” Nancy Hollander, lawyer for Holy Land chief executive Shukri Abu Baker, said in her opening statement.
Cartoons censored, but no one’s angry
Osama Saeed draws attention to a very good post at Lenin’s Tomb about the double standards regarding freedom of expression.
Sunday Telegraph gets it wrong
The Muslim Council of Britain writes to the editor of the Sunday Telegraph about an inaccurate article on 22nd July entitled “Preach in English, Muslim peer tells imams“.
Muslim workers at Nebraska meatpacking plant suffer religious harassment
OMAHA, Neb. — Supervisors at a meatpacking plant have fired or harassed dozens of Somali Muslim employees for trying to pray at sunset, violating civil rights laws, the workers and their advocates say. The five- to 10-minute prayer, known as the maghrib, must be done within a 45-minute window around sunset, according to Muslim rules. The workers at the Swift & Co. plant in Grand Island say they quit, were fired or were verbally and physically harassed over the issue.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has drafted a complaint to be filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The petition compiles testimony from at least 44 workers.
Jama Mohamed, 28, said he was fired in June for leaving a production line to pray. Supervisors would not allow him a break, he said. “Some of them took the (prayer) mat from me; they started shouting, they started telling me to stop it, and one of them grabbed me by the collar of my shirt,” Mohamed said through an interpreter. Mohamed said he was then called to an office, where a supervisor fired him.