Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Tories accuse Muslims of ‘creating apartheid by shutting themselves off’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

David Davis (2)The Conservatives today accuse Muslim leaders of encouraging “voluntary apartheid” in Britain by shutting themselves away in closed societies and demanding protection from criticism.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, says that Britain risks social and religious divisions so profound that society’s very foundations, such as the freedom of speech, will become “corroded” and that the perfect conditions for home-grown terrorism will be created.

His stark intervention, in an article for The Sunday Telegraph, represents a toughening of the Tory stance on the dangers of Islamic radicalism and follows calls from some leading ministers for Muslim women to remove their veils. It is also a departure from the “caring Conservatism” message laid out by David Cameron.

Mr Davis says he supports the stance on veils adopted by Jack Straw, the Commons Leader, but believes the wider issue is one of the “very unity of our nation”.

“What Jack touched on was the fundamental issue of whether, in Britain, we are developing a divided society. Whether we are creating a series of closed societies within our open society. Whether we are inadvertently encouraging a kind of voluntary apartheid. At the starkest level, we may be creating conditions in the recesses of our society that foster home-grown terrorism.”

Sunday Telegraph, 15 October 2006

Robert Spencer welcomes this example of “Anti-dhimmitude from the Conservative Party”.

Dhimmi Watch, 15 October 2006

Kelly calls for ‘real leadership’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ruth_KellyCommunities Secretary Ruth Kelly has urged council leaders to raise their game in the fight against extremism as she called on Muslim leaders to demonstrate “real leadership”.

After talks with 17 local authorities and police chiefs, she said everybody had a part to play in responding to the extremist threat. “We have a shared responsibility and must all raise our efforts to a new level – central government, local government, community organisations and individual communities themselves,” she said.

Councils will be required to present strategies within the coming weeks setting out how they intend to prevent radicalisation in their communities.

Ms Kelly also refused to back down on moves to withdraw Government support for Muslim groups that failed to take a leading role in tackling extremism.

She said the Government was “absolutely committed” to working with Muslim organisations with a “genuine commitment” to pluralism. “I am determined to raise to a new level our partnership with these Muslim organisations who are showing real leadership on these issues,” she said. “We will provide them more support.”

In a letter to Muhammad Abdul Bari, the head of the Muslim Council of Britain, Ms Kelly rejected claims that ministers would not work with those who disagreed with Government policy.

But she added: “I don’t accept that those in leadership positions can be passive in tackling extremism and yet expect government support. The question the public are not unreasonably asking is why should any organisation object to taking a leadership role in tacking extremism?”

Her letter to Dr Bari followed his criticism that ministers were “marginalising” Muslims with recent comments, including Jack Straw’s suggestion that Muslim women should remove their veils.

Metro, 15 October 2006

Ministers ‘are Islamophobic’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dr BariMuslim leaders have accused ministers of “stigmatising an entire community” and launching a “relentless barrage” against Islamic Britons.

Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), has written to Ruth Kelly, the communities secretary, accusing her of pandering to an “Islamophobic” agenda.

The letter follows Kelly’s announcement last week that the government was cutting funding and official ties with the MCB, which until now has been the main body representing British Muslims. One senior Muslim source said: “The government is pandering to a far-right neocon agenda which is promoting Islamophobia.”

The MCB says in the letter: “In recent months there has been a drip-feed of ministerial statements stigmatising an entire community. We have seen ministers’ tours and even legislation being proposed on the premise that ‘mosques are a problem’.”

The council is understood to be particularly concerned by comments by Jack Straw, the Commons leader, about Muslim women wearing full veils. They are also concerned by the level of stop-and-search by police of Muslim suspects. According to a poll by Yougov, Straw’s popularity has jumped 15 percentage points since he made his comments.

Sunday Times, 15 October 2006

See also “MCB responds to Ruth Kelly’s speech”, MCB press release, 15 October 2006

Read the MCB’s letter to Ruth Kelly here.

Update:  See “Kelly calls for ‘real leadership'”, Metro, 15 October 2006

Mayor says the freedom to dress in accordance with ones religious conscience is a fundamental human right

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Mayor of London Ken Livingstone said:

“Britain today faces a concerted campaign by sections of the media and some politicians, fanned by fascist grouplets, aimed at sowing hatred against Muslims. This has now culminated in physical attacks, firebombings, and assaults on women. This constitutes an attack on civil and religious liberties including an attempt to suppress the right of persons of all faiths to dress in accordance with their religious convictions.

“Whatever a person’s view on the most suitable forms of dress they have no right to impose this on others – it is a fundamental human right that every person should be allowed to dress in accordance with their religious views, as dictated only by their individual conscience. This right had to be defended in the past for Sikhs and other communities and it must be today for Muslims or indeed any other community that faces such a challenge. It applies equally therefore to those who wish to wear crucifixes.

“The prosperity and cohesion of London as one of the most diverse city’s in the world is inextricably linked to respect for these basic principles of freedom of individual choice.”

GLA press release, 14 October 2006

Mayor defends multiculturalism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Interviewed on this morning’s Today progamme, Ken Livingstone was asked: “Which do you think is more important: the freedom of religion and cultural identity which encourages many young Muslim women to wear the veil, or a sense of integration in a society in which everybody has fundamentally some kind of common commitment to that society and its values?” The Mayor replied:

“But I think we’ve got that. We have here – and London typifies it more than almost anywhere else in Europe – a whole group of shared values, but at the same time people can continue to carry on with their cultural difference. Step back and think, if we had said, over a hundred years ago to the great wave of Jewish refugees fleeing anti-semitism in Russia, ‘you can come here but you’ve got to leave your religion, you’ve got to leave your form of dress’, we would have been immeasurably diminished as a society. That community gave a vast amount to London.

“I don’t hear politicians saying that they feel intimidated or cut off because Orthodox Jews dress the way they do. We fought a long time ago to get the right for Sikhs to wear their turban while they’re in the police force or on the buses. It seems there’s a different standard being applied to Muslims. And it’s nothing to do with domestic politics. It’s the background of war and oil and international politics that drives that agenda.”

Muslim leader assaulted at mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A 53-year-old imam has been punched and kicked by a man who entered a mosque in the west end of Glasgow. Strathclyde Police confirmed that the incident, at the Dawat ul Islam centre, happened at about 1800 BST on Friday. Mohammed Shamsuddin was taken to the nearby Western Infirmary, but later discharged following treatment.

The suspect is described as white, possibly 35-45 years, approximately 5ft 7 to 5ft 9 tall, of medium build with short greying hair and wearing jeans.

Witnesses to the attack said the suspect verbally abused Imam Shamsuddin before punching and kicking him and then hitting him with a chair and other office equipment. Abu Mohammed, who was in the building at the time, said:

“I was downstairs getting ready for prayer when I heard a noise coming from upstairs. Me and a few other people went upstairs to see what was going on and we saw the Imam being attacked. He had blood pouring down from his face, the attacker saw us and ran away.”

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If veiled women suffer hostility, they only have themselves to blame

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Deborah Orr“People wear veils voluntarily in this country, or seek out wives who wear them, because they want to advertise very strongly that they subscribe to an alternative value system to the mainstream.

“That value system often involves such unacceptable notions as a liking for sharia law and the anti-women brutalities it entails.

“Why take such a hostile stance, then act all oppressed when people register their distaste for it? … Women can wear veils if they want to, I guess. But they should bear in mind that many fellow citizens think them a total abomination – and for sound reasons.”

Deborah Orr in the Independent, 14 October 2006

Cf. “Attacks on Muslims rise after veils row” in the same issue.

Galloway raises Islamophobia fear

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Galloway RespectIslamophobia is a problem that must be addressed, MP George Galloway has told his Respect party’s annual conference in North London. Mr Galloway’s speech focused on the treatment of Muslims in Britain.

He singled out Jack Straw, who sparked a row when he revealed he asks Muslim women wearing veils to his surgery if they would consider removing them. Mr Galloway said Mr Straw had joined “the Dutch auction in New Labour of who can be most beastly to a minority”.

BBC news, 14 October 2006

Attacks on Muslims rise after veils row

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamophobic attacks have surged in the past month in the wake of controversial remarks by ministers about British Muslims, say campaign groups.

The rise in verbal and physical assaults includes a spate of incidents in which Muslim women have been abused for wearing veils and scarves. They come in the week that the issue was raised by Jack Straw, the Leader of the Commons.

Muslim groups blame part of the rise in incidents, which also include assaults, firebombings and racist e-mails, on comments made by politicians and negative media reporting.

At least six Muslim women have been abused for wearing scarves or veils after Mr Straw said last week that he asks Muslim women who visit his constituency surgeries in Blackburn to remove their veil.

In one incident a Muslim woman aged in her 20s had her hijab or headscarf pulled off her head and thrown to the ground by a young white man while she was at Canning Town Tube station in east London. The attack happened on the same day that a Muslim woman had the veil torn from her face by a white man who uttered racial abuse as she waited at a bus-stop in Liverpool’s Toxteth district.

Both incidents occurred last Friday – the day after Mr Straw described the veil as, “a visible statement of separation”.

There were also reports that a young Muslim girl wearing a veil in Mr Straw’s Blackburn constituency was confronted by three youths last Friday night. One allegedly threw a newspaper at her and shouted: “Jack has told you to take off your veil.”

Three days later, a 21-year-old Turkish student told Muslim News that she was standing outside a supermarket in Canterbury, Kent, wearing a hijab when she was verbally abused by a middle-aged white woman. The older woman told her she hated her being in Britain and wanted her to leave.

On the same day in Hackney, east London, a black Muslim woman wearing a veil was getting off a bus when a passenger shouted out: “Why don’t you show your lovely hair?”

The sixth incident involved a Muslim woman wearing a hijab, who reported that when she got on to the London Underground two men standing next to her deliberately started discussing their support for a ban on veils.

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Muslim teacher defends her veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim support teacher suspended for wearing a veil in class says it was never a problem for her pupils. Headfield Church of England Junior School, in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, said pupils found it hard to understand her during English language lessons. But Aishah Azmi, 24, said: “They never complained.” She added she was willing to take the veil off in class, but not in front of any male colleagues.

BBC News, 14 October 2006