Muslim community leaders united with anti-fascist campaigners during Friday prayers yesterday and called for a vote against the far-right British National Party on May 3.
Author Archives: Bob Pitt
Mad Mel’s damaging gibberish
“I waited for some time to pick up my copy of Melanie Phillips’s book Londonistan, largely because I have a conscience about paying for books which are as full of damaging gibberish as this one is.”
Yusuf Smith reviews Melanie Phillips.
Fox reports parody about Muslims as real news
Last week in the town of Lewiston, Maine, a group of Somalian Muslim middle school students were the subject of a cruel prank when their peers placed a ham steak next to them in order to personally offend the students. School officials filed a report because the students considered the act to be a hate/bias crime. This actual story was then spoofed by a parody site called Associated Content, which made up quotes and details, such as the school’s intention to “create an anti-ham ‘response plan’.”
On Tuesday, Fox & Friends reported these parody quotes and details as actual news. Poking fun at the students, hosts asked whether ham was “a hate crime … or lunch?” and showed screen shots of ham sandwiches, starving Somalians, belching, animal noises, and mock “reenactments” of the incident. Ironically, the hosts assured viewers several times, “We’re not making this up!”
Update: See “Fox sued for airing fake ‘ham sandwich’ story”, Think Progress, 2 July 2007
Update 2: See “‘Gullible’ Fox & Friends escape lawsuit for repeating yet another false news story”, Media Matters, 6 June 2008
‘Racism’ row over Preston mosque vote
The controversial decision to allow a mosque to be built in a Preston conservation area has taken a new twist with politicians turning it into a race row. Conservative councillor Geoff Driver was accused of racism after he named Labour councillors he had spoken to about their roles in the approval of the place of worship in Watling Street Road, Fulwood. At a Town Hall meeting yesterday, he claimed one member of the planning committee, Coun John Browne, had abstained because of the “power of the Muslim vote.”
Coun Driver, who represents the Greyfriars ward of Fulwood, said: “The decision made by the planning committee was an absolutely outrageous one that defied all logic, all planning regulations and went dead against the advice of the officers. It leads you to ask why would that happen? Perhaps there’s a sinister reason why it was approved and I think there was. I’m of the opinion that if any other application had been made, even if it had been a Christian place of worship, it would have been rejected.”
Muslim schools – ‘a ticking time-bomb waiting to explode’
Speaking at a seminar on the subject of segregation, Nick Johnson of the Commission for Racial Equality asked: “If a Muslim child is educated in a school where the vast majority of other children are also Muslim, how can we expect him to work, live and interact with people from other cultures when he leaves school? This is a ticking time-bomb waiting to explode.”
See also Daily Express, 27 April 2007
Which of course ignores the findings of a recent study by Dr Andrew Holden who stated: “The greater degree of racial tolerance in an overwhelmingly Asian/Muslim populated school again calls into question the common sense assumption that mixed schools represent the most tolerant environments.”
Race hatred behind No.10’s mosque petition
Lester Holloway exposes the race hatred of far-right blogger Jill Barham, the woman behind the “mega mosque” petition.
Blink is urging its readers to email Downing Street to urge that this petition is amended to remove the reference to “terrible violence and suffering” and that the words “KILL ALL NIGGERS” are removed from the signature list.
Blink news article, 26 April 2007
Update: The “English Rose” blog is now back online under the rather more straightforward title of “White Information Link“.
Fascists wake up to threat of Islamic finance
“Another day and yet another concession to Islamic forces in Britain from the Labour regime. In a desperate bid to woe [sic] Muslim voters the Treasury want all types of government-sponsored savings products to be accessible to those who adhere to Islamic Sharia law…. Mr Balls is expected to announce the moves today at a conference hosted by the Financial Services Authority.”
BNP news article, 26 April 2007
Er … except that Ed Balls announced his proposal (for a new Sharia-compliant government bond) three days ago, on 23 April. I ask you, how can we expect to resist the Islamification of our glorious island nation if the defenders of our cultural heritage are so slow on the uptake?
BNP mosque leaflet dismissed as ‘rubbish’
A plea for racial tolerance has been made after a British National Party leaflet claimed people in a West town had been denied the chance to comment before a “mosque” was given planning approval.
Plans for an Islamic centre above and behind a kebab shop in Yeovil was given planning permission in 2003 after an application was made for a change of use from office to religious meeting rooms.
The BNP leaflet claimed the public should have been told the use was specifically for an Islamic centre or mosque, and that failure to do so showed a “culture of institutionalised silence and deceit” by officials and councillors. The leaflet, promoted by Robert Baehr, a BNP candidate in South Somerset district council elections, has already been delivered to hundreds of homes in Yeovil.
Candidates from other parties yesterday dismissed the BNP’s claim as “rubbish”. John Grana, one of 12 candidates standing under the banner of the Central Committee, Local Residents Working Together, said:
“This sort of leaflet is laughable and divisive. We stand for religious tolerance and freedom of thought. Yeovil welcomes people from everywhere. If I trace my own ancestry, I find Italian, Irish, Scottish and English blood. There is a richness in the mix we have.”
Simon Gale, the council’s head of development and building control, said: “In planning terms there is no requirement to state the distinctive religious use.”
A suspicious leak
Inayat Bunglawala comments on the report that journalists were tipped off the night before the police raids that led to the arrests of nine men in Birmingham over an alleged plot to behead a British Muslim soldier.
Giuliani plays the Islamic terror card
“Maybe Rudy Giuliani could be forgiven for trying out various stump speeches on his Republican audiences now that his campaign for President is up and running. But the message he is delivering as he tours New Hampshire needs to be rejected, indeed repudiated, because as Barak Obama noted Giuliani’s stump speech reached a new low in American political discourse. Reports just in from New Hampshire (4.24.07) suggest that Giuliani thinks the issue he has been pushing may be pure electoral gold: the fear which he believes American voters have of Islamic Terrorism.”