Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Clare Short opposes Blair’s HT ban plan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Clare Short calls on Blair to abandon Islamic party ban

Daily Telegraph, 2 March 2006

Clare Short urged Tony Blair to drop plans to ban the Hizb ut-Tahrir after the controversial Islamic party told MPs last night that it condemned the terrorist attacks in the West.

Miss Short, the former International Development Secretary, also defended her much-criticised decision to invite Hizb ut-Tahrir representatives to a meeting at the House of Commons.

The Prime Minister threatened to ban the group, which promotes the spread of Islam across the world, after the July 7 bombing attacks in London last year. The ban has yet to be implemented.

Miss Short, who quit the Cabinet in the wake of the Iraq war and has subsequently been one of Mr Blair’s fiercest critics, invited Hizb ut-Tahrir representatives to meet MPs and peers yesterday. The invitation was strongly condemned by Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Bar, as “an affront” to mainstream Muslim opinion.

At the meeting, the labour peer Lord Ahmed said Hizb ut-Tahrir followers has once described Westminster as the “infidel parliament” while Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, criticised the party’s “potty” ideas.

Imran Waheed, a media spokesman for Hizb ut-Tahrir, insisted that the group had condemned last July’s atrocities in London and the 9/11 attacks in New York, and opposed “the deliberate targeting of civilians, either by states or organisations”.

Another MEMRI attack on Qaradawi

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Yusuf_al_QaradawiYes, another attempt by the Middle East Media Research Institute to stitch up Yusuf al-Qaradawi as an anti-semite.

It’s the usual cut and paste job, with paragraphs and even individual sentences taken out of a much longer speech and amalgamated. At least in this case MEMRI has actually provided ellipses which allow the reader to see how the thing has been chopped up and put back together, which is more than they did on a previous occasion. Even from MEMRI’s butchered version of Qaradawi’s speech it’s quite clear that his remarks – “Our war with the Jews is over land, brothers. We must understand this. If they had not plundered our land, there wouldn’t be a war between us” – are directed against Israelis, not against the world Jewish community. Just over a year ago, at a time when it was under pressure over its misrepresentation of Qaradawi, MEMRI published a much longer transcript of an interview in which he outlined his real views on Jews and Judaism.

Of course, this hasn’t prevented the warmongers at Harry’s Place from uncritically endorsing MEMRI’s latest stitch-up of Dr Q. Yet, only a few weeks ago, when MEMRI published an equally dishonest hatchet job on Tariq Ramadan, David T and his friends ignored this. The reason is rather obvious. Even Harry’s Place readers have posted favourable comments on Professor Ramadan during the Danish cartoons controversy, and a discussion of MEMRI’s distortion of his role would have exposed that organisation as the bunch of lying propagandists that they are, thus making it a bit difficult to present MEMRI as a reliable source of information on Qaradawi’s views.

But what can you expect from Harry’s Place? David T recently launched a witch-hunt against Christian CND treasurer Neil Berry, whom he falsely accused of writing anti-semitic articles. They were in fact written by an entirely different Neil Berry. But, what the heck, it was the same name, and that was good enough for David T. And this from a blog that claims to uphold Enlightenment values. You know, respecting scientific evidence rather than relying on irrational prejudice, that sort of thing.

I note that David Aaronovitch, who repeated David T’s slurs on Neil Berry in an article in the Jewish Chronicle, has also retracted and apologised.

US pays Muslim detainee £170,000

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An Egyptian arrested after the September 11 attacks, detained for 10 months and then deported, has been awarded £170,000 by the US government. Ehab Elmaghraby, who ran a restaurant in Manhattan, was among dozens of Muslims detained after the outrages in New York and Washington. He sued the government with another former detainee, a Pakistani immigrant, who is still pursuing the action.

Mr Elmaghraby, 38, was held in maximum security conditions in Brooklyn from October 2001 until August 2002. In the lawsuit, filed in 2004, the men said they were shackled, shoved into walls and punched, kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day and denied adequate meals and medical care. Haeyoung Yoon, Mr Elmaghraby’s lawyer, said her client had wanted to continue with the lawsuit but settled because he was ill and faced mounting medical costs.

Daily Telegraph, 1 March 2006

Muslim garb ‘confronting’, says Aussie PM

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Most Australians found the full traditional garb of Muslim women confronting, Australian prime minister John Howard said today.

“I don’t mind the headscarf but it’s really the whole outfit, I think most Australians would find it confronting. I don’t believe that you should ban wearing headscarfs but I do think the full garb is confronting and that is how most people feel. Now, that is not meant disrespectfully to Muslims because most Muslim women, a great majority of them in Australia, don’t even wear headscarfs and very few of them wear the full garb.”

News.com, 27 February 2006

Note that while Howard is reported as ruling out a change in the law regarding any form of Islamic dress, in the actual quotes he only rules out a ban on the headscarf.

Jihad Watch applauds Trevor Phillips

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Robert Spencer gives his seal of approval to CRE chair Trevor Phillips’ suggestion, following that of Australian deputy PM Peter Costello, to the effect that Muslims who want sharia law should go back where they came from. Under the heading “Anti-dhimmitude in the UK: Muslims who want sharia law ‘should leave'”, Spencer applauds “A welcome statement in the UK, echoing one that has already been made in Australia. Other non-Muslim states should follow suit.”

Dhimmi Watch, 27 February 2006

Who is really responsible for violence?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Haroon Siddiqui on the violence provoked by the Danish cartoons crisis: “As tragic as all this is, it pales in comparison to the million innocent Muslims killed, and millions more maimed, in the name of fighting terrorism or finding non-existent weapons of mass destruction or other excuses. Those who in recent days have been lecturing Muslims about violence seem strangely out of touch with reality, or to be riding the high horse of hypocrisy. They would have had greater credibility had they not been the cheerleaders of, or silent partners in, the creation of the killing fields whose dust now drifts our way every once in a while.”

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Howard and Hanson back Costello

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Prime Minister John Howard has backed his deputy Peter Costello over the treasurer’s call for radical Muslims to assimilate or move to another country.

Mr Costello made a host of radio and television appearances today to hammer home his attack on what he calls “mushy multiculturalism”. He also challenged Muslim leaders to pledge their allegiance to Australia before criticising his views on immigrants and the values they brought to this country.

Mr Costello’s remarks come three days after the publication of comments by Mr Howard, accusing some Muslims of bringing jihadist views and opinions about women that did not fit in Australian society. Last week Liberal backbencher Danna Vale warned that Muslims could be in the majority in Australia within 50 years.

Muslim leaders say they are concerned about a continuing government attack on their religion and called on Mr Howard to censure Mr Costello. Federal Labor politicians accused Mr Costello of playing politics and trying to distract attention from the AWB Iraq wheat bribes scandal.

But NSW Labor Premier Morris Iemma said Mr Costello was right. And former One Nation leader Pauline Hanson said the treasurer had vindicated her own views.

Mr Howard said Mr Costello’s comments were fundamentally accurate and not designed to inflame or divide people. “What Peter was basically saying is that if people don’t like what this country is then they shouldn’t come here,” Mr Howard told Southern Cross Broadcasting. “That is an unexceptionable position to take.”

Sydney Morning Herald, 24 February 2006