Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Muslims are not doing enough to help this country fight terror, says Met Chief

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Sir Ian BlairMuslims are not doing enough to help police crack terrorist plots, says Britain’s top policeman. Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Force Commissioner, says Muslims initially went into denial over the problem of terrorism. He believes that encouraging greater co-operation will be a “slow” and “delicate” process.

Sir Ian was speaking during a visit in Berlin, where he delivered a speech calling for an extension to the 28-day limit for the detention without charge of terrorist suspects. In an interview with the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, Sir Ian was asked how much help Muslims were giving to police anti-terrorist investigations. He replied: “We’re getting more, but we’re not getting enough.”

In his speech, Sir Ian pointed to opinion polls suggesting that between 40,000 and 120,000 Muslims in Britain believed that last year’s July 7 London bombings, in which 52 innocent people died, were justified.

A spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain said: “All Britons, regardless of their faith background, must fully co-operate with the police in protecting the safety and security of our nation. Our understanding is that the police have been receiving an increasing amount of help from British Muslims in this regard.”

Sunday Telegraph, 12 November 2006

Posted in UK

Race hate laws split the cabinet

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The government is facing a major split over race hate laws, with cabinet colleagues divided over whether the legislation should be toughened.

Two cabinet heavyweights – the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, and the Home Secretary, John Reid – differ over how to respond to Friday’s acquittal of the British National Party leader, Nick Griffin, and a fellow BNP activist.

The split comes as Brown, Reid and the Tory leader David Cameron all made moves yesterday to boost their credentials over anti-terror measures and law and order ahead of the Queen’s Speech on Wednesday. The speech will include sweeping new measures to tackle antisocial behaviour, immigration, reoffending and terrorism.

Brown responded to the BNP verdict by saying Griffin’s description of Islam as a “wicked, vicious faith” would offend “mainstream opinion in this country”. He said: “If there is something that needs to be done to look at the law, then I think we will have to do that.”

But Home Office sources said Reid was taking a more cautious line, ruling out new legislation until well into next year. They said he wanted to see how a new race and religious hatred law – watered down by amendments in the House of Lords – “bedded in” when it came into force in February.

The Brown-Reid divide was seen as particularly significant because the Home Secretary is being mentioned by some Blair loyalists as a potential successor to the Prime Minister.

The Chancellor’s suggestion that the law might have to be tightened also prompted a strong reaction from the Liberal Democrat peer who helped lead the Lords’ opposition to last year’s bill.

Lord Lester, a leading human rights lawyer, said he and others would strongly oppose tougher legislation, and criticised the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, for bringing a prosecution against the BNP leader. “What we need is not new laws but a more sensible attorney-general,” he said.

Goldsmith is planning a meeting tomorrow with the Crown Prosecution Service lawyers who prosecuted Griffin and the other BNP member, Mark Collett. “He will examine whether prosecutors have sufficient powers to take the necessary action,” a spokeswoman in the Attorney General’s office said yesterday.

Last year’s bill, before it was diluted by the Lords amendments, would have allowed people to be prosecuted for using “threatening, insulting or abusive behaviour”. Under the final version only “threatening” behaviour is covered. The prosecution will also have to show intention to foment hatred rather than just recklessness.

Observer, 12 November 2006

Mad Mel rejects ‘Jewish/fascist axis’

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“In the Communist Party’s Morning Star newspaper last September, Geoff Brown cited both the BNP’s support for Israel against Hezbollah, and chairman Nick Griffin’s support for the Jewish writer Bat Ye’or who has warned of an Islamist takeover of Europe, as evidence of a Jewish/fascist axis. As was clear from this article, such a vicious attempt to link the Jews with the fascists was prompted in large measure by an attempt to bury the link between Islamic fascism and the left.”

Melanie Phillips in the Jewish Chronicle, 10 November 2006

In fact Brown’s article was mainly a critique of the ludicrous claim made by the All-Party Parliamentary Committee on Anti-Semitism (under the influence of Searchlight) that the far right has allied itself with Islamists in order to incite hatred against the Jewish community. Brown pointed out that, as far as its public propaganda is concerned, the BNP has almost entirely ditched anti-semitism in favour of inciting hatred against Muslims, and in doing so openly promotes the Islamophobic rantings of Bat Ye’or.

Addressing the future evolution of the BNP under Griffin’s leadership, Brown wrote that “the possibility of the BNP making a pitch for the support of a right-wing minority within the Jewish community on an anti-Muslim programme, as the far-right party Vlaams Belang has successfully done in Belgium, cannot be excluded” (emphasis added). How exactly does that amount to “a vicious attempt to link the Jews with the fascists” or to “smear Jews … as being the neo-fascists’ natural allies”?

You can understand why Mad Mel might be a bit sensitive about the idea of fascists finding common ground with right-wingers in the Jewish community. Last year a BNP writer name-checked Phillips as one of the newspaper columnists whose opinions BNP supporters “feel most closely match their own”.

Muslims thrown off flight

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Cops marched four Asian men off a plane after a passenger said their behaviour made him nervous. The men – in Islamic robes – were arguing in a foreign language and then all went to the toilet, one after the other. A fellow traveller on the Luton to Glasgow easyJet flight demanded they be kicked off – just as the plane was to taxi to the runway. Cabin crew alerted the captain and cops were called, who took the men, all in their 20s, off the plane.

Everyone else on board was then ordered off with their hand luggage while the crew searched the cabin. The jet took off an hour and ten minutes late at 10pm on Wednesday.

Another passenger said: “A Scottish bloke in his 20s who was sat beside them clearly thought something was up. He was arguing strongly that these lads were up to no good and should be taken off. Considering they had just got on a minute before, their behaviour was pretty bizarre. I think other people were worried. The men were all wearing jackets over long Islamic robes. They had beards and looked like Muslims.”

The Sun, 10 November 2006

Politicians ‘left vacuum for BNP’

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Jon Cruddas (2)Mainstream politicians have left a vacuum for the British National Party to get votes, a contender in Labour’s deputy leader race is due to say. Backbench MP Jon Cruddas says the acquittal of the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, on a charge of inciting racial hatred is a wake-up call.

In a speech to the Searchlight conference for Labour and union activists, he will say: “Some communities have been badly affected by a decline in traditional industries, a shortage of affordable housing and changing migration patterns.”

He will also say: “We have to be honest in saying the debate over the veil, talking tough on immigration and race or the language used in the ‘war on terror’ does not reassure people but actually makes the situation worse. It creates fear, tension and suspicion. It divides communities and plays into the hands of extremism.”

BBC News, 11 November 2006

Cabinet rethinks race hate laws after jury frees BNP leaders

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Race hatred laws may have to be revised following the acquittal of the British National party’s leader, Nick Griffin, for the second time on incitement charges, senior government figures said last night. Gordon Brown, the chancellor, and Lord Falconer, the lord chancellor, said the laws may have to be looked at, while a spokesman for John Reid, the home secretary, said he would be “taking soundings” from cabinet colleagues about changing the laws.

“Mainstream opinion in this country will be offended by some of the statements that they have heard made,” said Mr Brown. “If there is something that needs to be done to look at the law then I think we will have to do that,” he told BBC News 24. Lord Falconer told the BBC that it was time to rethink the race hate laws. “What is being said to young Muslim people in this country is that we as a country are anti-Islam, and we have got to demonstrate without compromising freedom that we are not,” he said.

Guardian, 11 November 2006

See also the Independent, 11 November 2006

And BBC News, 11 November 2006

Netherlands moves toward total ban on Muslim veils

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The Netherlands may become the first European country to ban Muslim face veils after its government pledged yesterday to outlaw the wearing in public spaces of the niqab, or veil, and the burka, or full-length cloak covering the head.

The right-leaning coalition said last night that it would look for a way to outlaw the wearing of all Muslim face veils. The grounds for a ban were laid last December when parliament voted in favour of a proposal to criminalise face coverings, as part of a security measure proposed by a far-right politician, Geert Wilders.

Rita Verdonk, the immigration minister, signalled that the government would now push for a total ban, even though the legislation would be likely to contravene Dutch religious freedom laws.

“The cabinet finds the wearing of a burka undesirable … but cannot at present enforce a total ban,” the Dutch news agency ANP quoted her as saying after a cabinet meeting.

Ms Verdonk suggested that existing legislation which limits the wearing of burkas and other full-body coverings on public transport and in schools did not go far enough, and that the cabinet would discuss as wide a ban as possible in the coming week.

“The government will search for the possibility to provide a ban,” her spokeswoman told the Reuters news agency.

Guardian, 11 November 2006

Lawyers ‘can wear veils in court’

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Legal advisers and solicitors may wear the Islamic veil in court unless it interferes with the “interests of justice”, judges have been told. The judiciary were told to use their discretion to interpret the temporary guidance, which covers all courts.

The advice was issued by immigration tribunals chief Mr Justice Hodge after a case had to be halted when a legal adviser refused to remove her veil. The Lord Chief Justice said full rules on the veils issue were being drawn up.

Earlier this week it emerged legal adviser Shabnam Mughal had refused to remove her headwear during an immigration tribunal in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. She had been asked to do so by Judge George Glossop, who said he could not hear her properly.

Eventually Judge Glossop adjourned the hearing to seek advice from president of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (AIT) Mr Justice Hodge. It is understood the hearing will now go ahead next week with a different judge presiding.

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