Author Archives: Bob Pitt

How Australia confronts ‘militant Islam’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Gerard Henderson recommends the hostile attitude to “radical Islam” adopted by John Howard’s right-wing government in Australia:

“… the approach advocated for Britain by Martin Bright in his important Policy Exchange pamphlet When Progressives Treat With Reactionaries is consistent with what has occurred Down Under over the past five years. Put briefly, the Australian system takes Islamist ideology seriously. It does not deal with radical Islamists. It confronts extremists’ views, rather than seeking to co-opt ‘pragmatic’ radicals who happen not to be in favour of the use of violence in the here and now for purely tactical reasons.”

Times, 15 January 2007

Freedom of expression for the BNP … but not Hizb ut-Tahrir

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Simone Clarke protestSunny Hundal is back from his hols and immediately launches into an attack on last week’s UAF demonstration: “A mis-guided group of people held a protest on Friday against the ballerina Simone Clarke and her continued employment by the English National Ballet.”

Sunny assures us that “there is no evidence that Simone Clarke was ‘using her position as a platform for the far-right party’.” Well, apart from a double-page spread in the Mail on Sunday headlined “The BNP Ballerina”, of course, in which Clarke states:

“Sometimes it feels as though the BNP are the only ones willing to take a stand. I have been labelled a racist and a fascist because I have a view on immigration – and I mean mass immigration … Britain isn’t really very big. And it’s an island. I really cannot see the logic of allowing so many people in…. I don’t regret anything. I will stay a member…. I’ve never been clearer in my head that I’m moving in the right direction and at the right time.”

Sunny takes an uncompromising stand in defence of freedom of expression: “I’m opposed to people getting persecuted for being members of organisations that are universally disliked but not illegal”.

So, a clear commitment to opposing people being sacked from their jobs on the basis of their political affiliation, then? No, apparently not: “I did earlier support the Guardian firing HuT’s Dilpazier Aslam because he was clearly trying to influence others with his views without declaring his membership and because they were incompatible with the Guardian‘s own liberal leanings”!

Pickled Politics, 14 January 2007

See also Karen Chouhan’s open letter to David Lammy: BLINK website, 15 January 2007

Complain about Richard Littlejohn’s Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Osama Saeed draws attention to an Arab Media Watch alert urging supporters to complain to the Daily Mail about a Richard Littlejohn column in which he wrote: “… here is a simple cut-out-and-keep guide to the two dominant branches of Islam: Sunnis are the peace-loving, Saudi-backed wing who brought you Al Qaeda. Shias are the peace-loving, Iranian-backed strain behind Hamas and Hezbollah. I hope that helps.”

See Rolled Up Trousers and Arab Media Watch.

The sick mindset that breeds Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

From Pope’s anti-Islam comments to Church signs saying, “You must remember, Islam is the enemy”, and “The Koran needs to be flushed”, a Church in west Windsor, Canada, came out in its true colors with publicly promoting anti-Islam hatred.

On January 11, 2007, Campbell Baptist Church organized a lecture of a purported former Muslim terrorist, Zachariah Anani, to warn the public that Islam is a religion of war being brought to Canadian soil.

Donald McKay, senior pastor at the church, said the event was organized simply to propagate what the church believes to be “absolute truth”. So the “absolute truth” which the Church decided to propagate through Anani’s lecture, entitled The Deadly Threat of Islam, is that Islam teaches nothing less than the “ambushing, seizing and slaying” of non-believers – especially Jews and Christians.

According to Donald McKay, “We have no desire to be offensive. We have no desire to polarize people unnecessarily”. It is, in his words, the Islamic faith that is “oppressive” and “vicious”.

Media Monitors Network, 14 January 2007

See “Rage over anti-Islam rally”, Windsor Star, 12 January 2007

‘Islamists use raid to stir up UK Somalis’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Islamic extremists are exploiting American air strikes in Somalia to try to recruit British Somalis to their cause. Hizb ut-Tahrir, a global Islamic group whose activities are currently proscribed in Germany, Russia and Pakistan, was last week circulating leaflets in London, accusing the US of state-sponsored terrorism…. In August 2005, Tony Blair said he would ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, but the plans were reportedly shelved last year after officials said there was insufficient evidence to support a ban and that action might inflame Islamic extremism.”

Sunday Telegraph, 14 January 2007

And what is the extreme action that HT is accused of? The Sunday Telegraph reports that “the organisation plans to demonstrate outside the US embassy next Saturday”! It would appear that, as far as the Torygraph is concerned, peaceful protest is to be condemned, whereas killing over a hundred Somali civilians in what can only be described as acts of state terrorism doesn’t merit a word of criticism.

Read HT’s statement on the US airstrikes in Somalia here.

No caliphate in Catford, declares Michael Gove

Posted on by Bob Pitt

pillock (1)“Gove’s contention is that a small but determined brigade of Muslims has developed ‘transnational’ loyalties superseding any attachment to Britain…. Understandably the extremist dream of ensnaring everywhere from Catford to California in a caliphate makes this politest of men bristle in his Savile Row suit.”

Observer, 14 January 2007

It’s good to know that the citizens of London SE6 can sleep safely in their beds, secure in the knowledge that Michael Gove is defending them against the threat of Sharia law.

‘Dublin imam takes on the fanatics’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Observer finds a Muslim it likes (i.e. who denounces mainstream Muslims as extremists):

Beneath a basketball net in a freezing sports hall, a Muslim cleric is waging war on Islamic extremism.

Imam Shaheed Satardien is taking a stand against those Muslims in Ireland whom he claims are too sympathetic to Osama bin Laden and the cult of the suicide bomber. At Friday prayers in the sports hall in north-west Dublin, the South African-born former anti-apartheid activist warns his multinational congregation against blaming other religions and the West in general for all Muslims’ ills.

Cast out by the majority Islamic community in Dublin for his outspokenness, the 50-year-old preacher says he has received death threats. “I am standing firm in my beliefs,” Satardien says. “The truth is more important than being popular or living a quiet life. Extremism has infected Islam in Ireland. It’s time to get back to the spiritual aspect of my religion and stop it being used as a political weapon.”

The imam from Cape Town fled his native country following death threats, he says, from Islamic extremists in South Africa. His younger brother, Ibrahim, was shot dead in 1998 following a row with Islamic radicals in the city. When Satardien was told he would be next, he travelled to Ireland, the birthplace of his maternal grandmother, and pleaded for asylum.

“I never, ever, expected that Muslims would come under the influence of extremists in Ireland when I arrived here with my family. So I was shocked to find support for Osama bin Laden, to discover the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood and even al-Qaeda here in Dublin.”

Satardien fell out with the main Dublin mosque at Clonskeagh, singling out the influence of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian born sheikh who has spoken openly in support of suicide bombers and issued fatwas on gays.

Observer, 14 January 2007

As an example of the sort of bigotry this sort of “liberal” reporting plays to, a right-wing Canadian Christian blogger writes that the Observer story offers “more reasons to halt Muslim immigration to Canada”.

James Love on Religion and Culture, 14 January 2007

Racist attacker tried to rip veil off Muslim woman

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An attacker tried to rip off the veil of a Muslim woman while racially abusing her, police said today. The 37-year-old woman was crossing a busy park near Solent University in Southampton on Thursday when a white man aged in his 20s approached her. He started shouting racial abuse and told her to remove her veil. Police said the attacker then attempted to take the veil off, but failed as the woman managed to push him and walk away.

Pc Leigh Walker said: “This attack was particularly degrading for the victim who has strong religious beliefs that don’t allow her to remove her veil in public with men around. We need to put a stop to this kind of behaviour by someone who is ignorant to the diverse society that we live in. We will not stand for any type of racial or religious abuse and will deal with anyone who does abuse or assault people like this robustly. There were plenty of people in the area as it was daytime and plenty at the nearby bus stops, so lots of people must have seen what happened.”

Daily Echo, 13 January 2007

Birmingham mosque leader critical of hate speech

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The leader of a Muslim society whose Birmingham Mosque supplied a platform for a preacher of hate said the address damaged good work there.

Sparkbrook mosque, run by UK Islamic Mission, hosted a meeting led by controversial Muslim militant, Dr Ijaz Mian, in June. In a TV investigation preachers were seen praising the Taliban, and saying of a British Muslim soldier who died in Afghanistan: “The hero of Islam is the one who separated his head from his shoulders.” Dr Mian was one of dozens of speakers and groups to hire out rooms at the UKIM complex on Anderton Road in Sparkbrook, which boasts a mosque and community centre.

Wolverhampton-based Mohammed Akhtar, Secretary General of UKIM, said UKIM was a moderate group which had never espoused extremist views, although it did disagree with Government policy. It has run an Islamic centre for more than 20 years and regularly stages inter-faith dialogues.

“We do disagree with a lot of policies by Government and the decision-making bodies but there are ways to address them, and we try to work alongside them through dialogue and peaceful protest,” said Mr Akhtar. “Something like this comes and destroys all the good work our group does. Islam teaches us to live in a non-Islamic environment as good neighbours. Multi-culturalism is part of Islam.”

Birmingham Post, 12 January 2007