Author Archives: Bob Pitt

It’s selfish to wear the veil, says Straw aide

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Government was plunged into disarray as a senior Minister accused Muslim women of being “selfish” by refusing to stop wearing veils. Amid growing signs that the controversy is causing civil disorder, Commons Leader Jack Straw’s deputy Nigel Griffiths claimed that women who cover their faces in public are ignoring the feelings of others.

The row came as a 49-year-old mother’s veil was torn from her at a bus stop in Liverpool. Her daughter Ilham Ali said: “The man was shouting, ‘Pull that scarf off your head, you Muslim’. I’m 100 per cent certain the racist attack on my mum was a direct result of the comments Jack Straw made.”

Seventy people from the Stop The War Coalition, including 20 women in veils, staged a protest against Mr Straw in his Blackburn constituency. But he stood by his claim that veils were a “visible statement of separation and difference” and harmed community relations.

Mr Griffiths went a step further, saying: “It’s all very well for Muslim women to say that they feel comfortable wearing the veil but it is important that other people feel comfortable, too. The fact is that the veil does not make other people feel comfortable. In that way it could be said that they are being selfish. We live in a society where we applaud people for thinking about other people’s feelings.”

Evening Standard, 7 October 2006

Muslim woman in veil attack: Liverpool hate crime comes 24 hours after Straw comments

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A Muslim woman has had her veil snatched from her head and was racially abused as she stood at a Liverpool bus stop. The “despicable attack” came the day after former foreign secretary Jack Straw caused controversy by revealing he asked Muslim women to remove their veils. Merseyside Police are treating the incident, which occurred at 10am yesterday morning, as a hate crime.

The family of the a woman and community leaders in the city last night criticised Mr Straw, saying his remarks were to blame. Ilham Ali, the daughter of the victim of the attack, who has not been named, said: “He was saying ‘take that scarf off your head, you Muslim’ and using abusive language. I am 100% certain that what happened to my mum is a direct result of the comments Jack Straw made.”

The chairman of the Liverpool Mosque and Islamic Institute, Mohammed Akbar Ali, last night said the attacker had “taken advantage of Jack Straw’s statement to take the law into his own hands”.

The 49-year-old victim was standing at a bus stop at the junction of Kensington and Holt Road when a man shouted racial abuse at her and ripped her veil from her face. The woman, who lives in Toxteth, was said to be left “extremely distressed” by the unprovoked attack.

The offender is described as a tall white man in his 60s, with a slim build and silver-grey hair. He was wearing a light khaki jacket and grey trousers.

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Arson at Falkirk Islamic Centre

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Falkirk Islamic CentreA fire that caused 10,000 worth of damage to Falkirk’s Islamic Centre is thought to have been started deliberately. Officers are investigating the cause of the blaze in the doorway of the Burnhead Lane premises, but don’t believe it to have been an accident.

The fire was discovered at around 2.30 a.m. on Monday by a Muslim taxi driver, who then raised the alarm. The Fire and Rescue Service attended, but the the blaze was extinguished before they arrived. Islamic Centre member Shoeb Farooqui made the call to the emergency services after the taxi driver alerted him.

Mr Farooqui said the man, who did not wish to be named, saved the centre from burning to the ground. “He normally works the night shift and was visiting the centre for a night prayer,” Mr Farooqui explained. “He just opened the door and saw the fire – it was in the early stages and if he hadn’t gone there at that time it could have burned down the whole building. It was very brave of him and lucky for our community that the fire was caught in time.”

Shaken members of the Muslim community said the Islamic Centre had been located in Burnhead Lane for 13 years and had never been targeted in this manner before. Several representatives of the centre gathered outside later on Monday morning to assess the damage, which they believed could exceed the £10,000 estimate.

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IHRC Statement in response to Jack Straw’s comments on the veil

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In response to news that Jack Straw has asked Muslims women to remove their veils when visiting his surgery, IHRC Chair Massoud Shadjareh stated:

“It is astonishing that someone as experienced and senior as Jack Straw does not realise that the job of an elected representative is to represent the interests of the constituency, not to selectively discriminate on the basis of religion.

“Muslims, particularly Muslim women, are persistently being preached at to engage in the political system and to gain a voice for themselves. Yet, here are Muslim women who are willing to actively engage in the system only to be told that they must compromise their religious beliefs and practices if they want to be heard.

“If Mr Straw believes it justified to ask women to remove their veils because he feels ‘uncomfortable’, what is to stop another MP asking men to shave their beards or cut their hair before visiting their surgeries, because they feel ‘uncomfortable’?”

Islamic Human Rights Commission press release, 6 October 2006

Respect calls on Straw to resign

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Former foreign secretary Jack Straw’s disgraceful comments about women wearing the veil threaten to produce the deep ethnic divisions he pretends to oppose. Respect is deeply angered that so senior a Labour politician could come out with such crude, headline grabbing, Islamophobic prejudice.

“Who does Jack Straw think he is to tell his female constituents that he would prefer they disrobe before they meet him,” says Respect MP George Galloway. “For that is what this amounts to. It is a male politician telling women to wear less. When put like that, there’s no one who would be considered part of the civilised political spectrum who would have anything but contempt for Straw.

“Yet, because this is about Muslims, we are seriously being told this is about breaking down the ‘barriers to community cohesion’. It is not women choosing to wear what they want that is sowing division in our society. It is poverty, racism and the despicable competition between the Tory and New Labour front benches over who can grab the headlines as the hammer of the Muslims.

“You only have to look at the three nights of violence directed against one Muslim family in Windsor to see where the real threat to a united and diverse community comes from.”

Respect news report, 5 October 2006

‘Isolation is no longer an option for British Muslims’

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Riots Over Mosque“The violence in the quintessentially English town of Windsor is a shocking example of what crude multiculturalism can lead to – neighbouring communities with seething resentments towards each other and nothing in common.

“The great omission of the first wave of mass immigration from Asia was the failure of Britain’s political class to tell new arrivals what was expected of them in terms of integrating and accepting British values. Time and again the supine British establishment chose to look the other way or howl down objectors as racist whenever Islamic practices clashed with our culture….

“This discredited approach is, shockingly, still predominant within the British establishment. Hence a Muslim police officer is excused shifts protecting the Israeli embassy, while Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly has made a risible call for broadcasters to hire more Muslim women wearing the hijab to present television progammes.

“Things are beginning to change. Jack Straw is to be commended for asking Muslim women to discard their veils…. British Muslims must face up to their changed circumstances in the wake of last year’s London bombings. Insulating themselves against mainstream society must no longer be an option.”

Editorial in the Daily Express, 6 October 2006

‘I defend my right as a Muslim to wear a veil’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ruqayyah Ghani, 23, a British-born Muslim from Manchester, reacted strongly to Mr Straw’s comments last night and defended her right to wear a veil. Miss Ghani was brought up in an Islamic environment but did not start to immerse herself in her religion until she was 18. At that stage she started to wear the hijab (head scarf) and two years later began covering her face in public.

“According to Islam, a woman should cover herself up in front of any men apart from those she cannot legally marry. That is why I wear the niqab (face veil). I have not been forced to wear it by my family, in fact I am the only one in my family who chooses to wear one. They were as surprised as some outside the family when I decided to start covering my face. But they accept it. People see it as a symbol of repression, but that, along with the stereotype of the Muslim woman covered from head to toe needs to be done away with.”

Miss Ghani rejected Mr Straw’s comments that the face veil hindered community relations. “I have successfully studied and have a job in the health service, it has not held me back. It can become a hindrance if you want to make it an issue but if you put it aside and deal with people on a personal level, it is not a problem.”

Daily Telegraph, 6 October 2006

Not that this line of argument finds favour with the Torygraph’s leader writers. An editorial in the same issue, headed “Straw leads where the Met fears to follow“, opines: “Integration is not aided by the wearing of veils, just as it is not aided by the failure of immigrants to learn English. It is another example of the damage done by multiculturalism to the cause of real integration. Mr Straw is to be commended for brushing aside the politically correct nostrums that have inhibited such discussion among senior politicians.”

The editorial continues: “What a contrast to the supine behaviour of the Metropolitan Police when Pc Alexander Omar Basha sought to be excused duty outside the Israeli embassy – and was allowed to do so…. Once again, ultra-sensitivity to Muslim sensibilities appears to be warping the judgment of senior officers and could jeopardise the cohesion of the force.”

Nazis back Straw

Posted on by Bob Pitt

It’s not often that the fascists of the British National Party have a good word to say about a Labour politician, but they’re happy to applaud Jack Straw for “quite rightly, observing the problems of communication arising from the wearing of veils by Muslim women”, and they contrast Straw’s principled stand with the position of “other figures in the British establishment” who are “allowing the country’s native majority to descend headlong into a state of dhimmitude.”

BNP news article, 6 October 2006

Mad Mel and the BNP on the clash of civilisations

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Taking up the report in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, Melanie Phillips announces that “France is currently under violent siege from the jihad – and buckling under the onslaught”. This supposedly demolishes the claim that last year’s French riots were “about poverty and unemployment and other such sub-Marxist claptap” – they were “actually all about French Muslims declaring their turf to be no-go areas for the French state”.

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 6 October 2006

Mel’s co-thinkers in the British National Party concur: “The 21st century clash of civilisations is leading to bloodshed on the streets of Paris … with police officers being daily injured in rioting by Islamics.” The fascists predict: “The security authorities across western Europe have so far only had a mere glimpse of what horrors the next decade will deliver to their respective nation states. The sheer stupidity and criminality of the political leaders who have allowed an army of Islamic fifth columnists into our host nations will be repaid by chaos, death and destruction but it will be the ordinary voters who suffer; not those responsible for bringing about the apocalyptic end of Europe.”

BNP news article, 5 October 2006