Author Archives: Bob Pitt

On the absolute right to satire

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Over at the Guardian‘s Comment is Free, Sue Blackmore defends the publication of Islamophobic material in the Clare College student magazine Clareification on the grounds that “it’s offensive, and funny, and that’s what satire is all about”.

Comment is Free, 5 March 2007

In the interests of defending the absolute right to engage in satire, and in order to provide some historical background to this principle, perhaps Sue Blackmore could do a follow-up post defending the right of Der Stürmer to publish anti-semitic caricatures. She could entitle it: “Julius Streicher – what a laugh”.

Fear of Muslims declines when all sides put their case

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Australians’ worries about the threat of terrorism posed by Muslims falls dramatically once they have a chance to hear all sides of the issue. That is the finding of before-and-after polling of 329 randomly selected people who attended a national conference on attitudes to Muslims in Canberra at the weekend.

The “national deliberative poll” taken before the conference found 49 per cent thought incompatibility between Muslim and Western values was a big contributor to terrorism. That figure fell to 22 per cent when the same people were polled yesterday, after spending two days hearing views ranging from hostile to sympathetic about the presence of Islam in Australia.

A similar trend emerged on related issues. Before the conference 44 per cent thought Muslims coming to Australia had made a bad impact on national security; that dropped to 23 per cent yesterday. More than one third thought beforehand that Muslims were a threat to the Australian way of life, but that fell to 21 per cent.

Sydney Morning Herald, 5 March 2007

Hijab ban in soccer is upheld

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Azzy scoresAn 11-year-old Ottawa girl who was ejected from a soccer game because she was wearing a hijab is disappointed that the sport’s international governing body has decided to uphold the referee’s decision.

The International Football Association Board had been asked to consider the case of Asmahan Mansour, who was recently ejected from an indoor game in Laval, Que., for wearing a headscarf. The referee said the hijab, traditional headgear for Muslim girls, was a safety concern.

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News of the Screws applauds hijab ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Hundreds of thousands of Muslim girls are to be banned from wearing veils at school, the News of the World can reveal. Headteachers will be told they can outlaw the full-face cover-ups under new rules being drawn up by Education Secretary Alan Johnson. Schools can already ban teachers from wearing niqabs, which cover the entire face apart from a slit for the eyes. And now pupils across Britain will be told they can’t wear them either…. Mr Johnson’s move has been welcomed by moderate Muslims. Dr Taj Hargey, of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford, said: ‘This is fantastic news. It is wrong for Muslims to be given special treatment’.”

News of the World, 4 March 2007

Pig tactics threatened

Posted on by Bob Pitt

DemokrateneNorwegian anti-immigration politicians in Bergen have promised to chase off Muslims with pigs feet and squealing noises if Bergen’s central square is used for prayers.

The leader of the Demokratene, an extreme populist party formed by outcasts of the populist Progress Party, Vidar Kleppe, said Wednesday that he backed the remarks of city council representative Kenneth Rasmussen.

Rasmussen reacted with threats of porcine tactics after Labour Party politician Jerad Abdelmajid said that the city’s Muslims could take their Friday prayers in Torgallmenningen, Bergen’s central square, when they will be without a mosque from March 31. Building of a new mosque is behind schedule.

“I completely agree with Kenneth Rasmussen that Muslims having their Friday prayers with their butts in the air in the city center is no solution. They can find other places,” Kleppe told news agency NTB.

Kenneth Rasmussen told newspaper Dagbladet‘s web site that Bergen residents should hang up pig’s feet and play pig squeals over loudspeakers to scare off Muslims, and claimed these tactics worked when he was a soldier for the United Nations in Somalia and Lebanon in the 1990s.

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Europe muzzles Muslim intellectuals

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Several prominent Muslim intellectuals are increasingly being barred from addressing international gatherings and delivering lectures across Europe on the grounds of extremism or anti-Semitism.

“We face many hurdles while planning for our annual Bourget conference,” Lhaj Thami Breze, Chairman of the Union of French Islamic Organizations (UOIF), told IslamOnline.net. “We want to invite prominent Muslim scholars from around the world but are always confronted with a long blacklist of people we can not invite.”

The four-day Bourget conference, the biggest Muslim convention in Europe, attracted last year more than 150,000 Muslims from across the continent. “Many moderate Muslims from the East and West, including prominent European thinkers, are banned from attending,” Breze said.

He cited Swiss-based prominent Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan and his brother Hany, the director of the Islamic Center in Geneva.

Islam Online, 28 February 2007

Dudley mosque bid thrown out

Posted on by Bob Pitt

No mosque here 3

An £18 million mosque and community centre for Dudley has been thrown out against the advice of planning experts – but the battle will almost certainly continue with an appeal.

One man was arrested during scuffles outside the meeting to consider the plan which prompted the biggest protest campaign in memory.

Anti-mosque campaigners cheered after proposals for a £6 million mosque with 65ft minaret and £12 million community centre were rejected by all nine members of the planning committee. But chairman of Dudley Muslim Association Khurshid Ahmed today said the bid to build the mosque would almost certainly continue.

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‘Not possible to modernize Islam’ says WPI representative

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Spiegel interviews Mina Ahadi of the Worker Communist Party of Iran, who has set up a “Central Council of Ex-Muslims in Germany”. Ahadi launches an attack on mainstream Muslim organisations in Germany: “They want to force women to wear the headscarf. They promote a climate in which girls aren’t allowed to have boyfriends or go to discos and in which homosexuality is demonized. I know Islam and for me it means death and pain.”

Spiegel, 27 February 2007

The co-founder of the Central Council of Ex-Muslims, one Arzu Toker, used the press launch to claim that Islam “humiliates women and turns them into servants of the men”. She refused to distinguish between Islam and extremist fundamentalism, claiming that that “Islam is inherently radical”. Comrade Ahadi added: “I know all about political Islam. It ends up with us being stoned to death, even here in Germany.”

Monsters and Critics, 28 February 2007