Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Man sentenced for racial attack

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A man who carried out a religiously aggravated attack in Leicester has been given a suspended jail sentence. Alan Young, 55, from Bourne Crescent, Northampton admitted common assault, religiously aggravated assault and harassment on 7 July.

Leicester magistrates heard he had made remarks about Muslims and hit a Muslim man at a health centre on the first anniversary of the London bombings. Young was given a four-month jail sentence suspended for two years. He was also ordered to pay £200 compensation to the man he attacked.

The court heard Young, who had consumed three quarters of a bottle of whiskey, went into the surgery on Evington Road and shouted it was “kill a Muslim day”. He made remarks about the London bombings and punched a Muslim man five or six times in the face. Young then went on to shout further remarks about Muslims from a nearby property and hit an Asian man after making comments about Iraq.

In court the 55-year-old accepted he had behaved very badly.

BBC News, 22 November 2006

Shariah rising in the West

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“In many European countries, Islamists are staging demonstrations against legislators’ actions to ban veils hiding the faces of Muslim women. While the legislators seek to increase public security, the Islamists protest that the ban violates their ‘religious freedom’…. The petrodollar-backed Islamists are on a fast track to subvert democracies from within. With the best PR money can buy, they use media and communication outlets to popularize and legitimize the Islamist agenda, while deceiving the public as to its very nature. Under the guise of personal freedom, so cherished in the West, they introduce conservative Muslim restrictions on private and public life.”

More right-wing paranoia about the “Islamicisation” of the West, from Rachel Ehrenfeld and Alyssa A. Lappen, in the Washington Times, 22 November 2006

One silver lining to the assault on our freedoms

Posted on by Bob Pitt

One silver lining to the assault on our freedoms

By Jeremy Corbyn

Morning Star, 22 November 2006

LAST weekend, the Stop the War coalition organised an enormous assembly linking the war and the defence of minorities and freedom of expression. Two days later, the British Muslim Initiative and Liberty came together to host a rally in Westminster’s Central Hall on the theme of Islamophobia.

Intolerance is not new in Britain. The Jews were thrown out in the 13th century and they were not allowed back until Oliver Cromwell allowed them in the 17th century. However, they suffered persecution for centuries more to come, with hysterical campaigns in the 19th and 20th centuries run by the popular media which enabled the far-right to gain ground.

Black migrants suffered racist abuse and stereotyping in the 1950s and, later, Asian and other groups suffered in the same way.

The Irish were singled out for special vilification and, after the 1974 Prevention of Terrorism Act, they had the unwelcome attention of the state itself forced upon them. The PTA was finally replaced by the Terrorism Act 2000 and subsequent acts, all of which have been designed to give excessive and unaccountable power to the security services.

The US may operate a blot on human existence in Guantanamo Bay, but Britain has Belmarsh and is holding dozens of foreign nationals indefinitely without trial, appeal or action date.

Ever since 2001, the vocal campaign against Islam has gained momentum. It has been given occasional puffs of credibility by public statements.

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Inayat Bunglawala writes in support of MPACUK

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Inayat Bunglawala of the MCB has written to MPACUK expressing support for them in response to the Observer‘s smear against Asghar Bukhari:

“This story has mysteriously surfaced at this time in a clear attempt to try and discredit Asghar Bukhari and MPACUK. Asghar’s donation of sixty pounds to David Irving over six years ago may be regarded as perhaps overly idealistic and indeed naive. However, it is disgraceful – though not unexpected, of course – that the usual suspects have tried to use this incident in an attempt to portray Asghar as an anti-semite. I know that Asghar is a staunch critic – and rightly so – of Zionism and the bloody and repressive policies of the Israeli government, but also that he has absolutely no truck whatsoever with anti-semitism or any other form of racial prejudice. I hope MPAC will not be deterred by this episode and continue to focus on encouraging British Muslims to play their full role in the mainstream of British society and not allow themselves to be marginalised through inaction and passivity.”

MPACUK news report, 21 November 2006

Anti-racist groups withdraw support for CRE race conference

Posted on by Bob Pitt

CRE RIPLeading anti-racist groups are withdrawing support for a Commission for Racial Equality conference.

The CRE’s Race Convention is being criticised for being over-priced and for having “inflammatory” titles for workshops. The 1990 Trust and other organisations are also concerned about the CRE’s event being sponsored by a bank with links to the slave trade.

The campaigning body has joined forces with many other BME groups to organise an alternative race conference, called the Race & Faith Leadership Summit. This event will have free entry and will discuss the real concerns of Black communities and will run on the same day as the CRE’s Race Convention.

The Race & Faith Leadership Summit will take place next Monday (27th November 2006) at London’s City Hall, SE1.

This event is supported by dozens of organisations including the Muslim Council of Britain, the National Black Police Association, and the public sector union UNISON.

For more details, and to register, log on to: http://www.blink.org.uk/docs/rsflyer.htm

BLINK news report, 21 November 2006

Anti-Islam Danish book withdrawn

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Danish publishing house has decided to withdraw a book offensive to Muslims after protests by Muslim leaders in the Scandinavian country. “After scrutinizing the complaints, Malling Beck Co. decided to take Os og Kristendom (Us and Christianity) 5 off bookstores,” the publishing house said in a statement obtained by IslamOnline.net. Malling Beck Director Lars Tindholdt had initially defended the authors before reconsidering his position after the mass-circulation daily Politiken ran a report on the contents of the book on Monday, November 20.

The book was listed on the curricula of third-ninth grades under the Christianity subject. It tackles Islam in a chapter entitled “terrorism.” The first pages of the chapter remind students of the grisly Beslan massacre in Russia, when armed Chechens took hundreds of students hostage. The book associates Muslims with terrorism and also outlines the terrorist 9/11 attacks with a profile of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. The newspaper said the first thing Danish students learn about Islam and Muslims is all about horror and panic. “It sends the message that Muslims are the root cause of terrorism in this world,” it added.

IslamOnline, 21 November 2006

Historic rally condemns Islamophobia and attack on liberties and freedoms

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anas AltikritiIn what was an almost unprecedented representation of all facets of Britain speaking from the same stage, the rally co-organised by the British Muslim Initiative and Liberty on Monday, 20th of November, unequivocally condemned the recent spate of attacks on Islam and Muslims, and pledged to fight the erosion of civil liberties and freedom of thought and conscience.

The hundreds who attended the event at the Westminster Methodist Central Hall listened to the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, as well as representative from the Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Respect and Green Parties, speakers from the Christian, Muslim,Jewish and Sikh faiths as well as delegates from trade unions, the anti-war movement and the world of media and arts.

Anas Altikriti [pictured], spokesman for BMI who chaired the event, said afterwards: “The line-up said it all. Muslims do not stand alone in facing the barrage of racist attacks levelled against them, nor do others of any faith or of thought who see what is dear to them being systematically disparaged and compromised. Despite the broad spectrum from which the speakers came from, the message was almost one and the same: the people of this country will not stand by and watch the Muslim community or any other, be attacked, vilified, demonised or marginalised by a minor sector laden with either ignorance or racist tendencies, or possibly both”.

Altikriti added: “It was fascinating to see that almost all the speakers touched on the problem we all faced with politicians and the policies we have both at home and overseas in creating the present climate and exacerbating the problems faced by Muslims and many others and allowing the extreme-right and the racist elements in society ground to spread their rhetoric and deeds of hate.”

The rally will serve as a first step towards holding a conference by the end of January from which a new broad and far reaching formal coalition will emerge to defend freedom of religion and culture and tackle the problem of Islamophobia, unanimously condemned last night as the new face of racism in our midst.

BMI news report, 21 November 2006

See also Mathaba.net, 21 November 2006