Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Iran hangings: chronicle of a manipulation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Outrage Iran Hanging ProtestPedro Carmona writes: “Faisal Alam, a US queer activist of Pakistani origins and the founder of the group Al-Fatiha (made up of US queer Muslims), argues in the magazine Queer that the campaign to condemn Iran was organized without any effort to confirm the veracity of the information on the part of the groups which called for it, in contrast with the three major human rights organizations which advised of the imprecision of the information upon which the protests were based…. Alam frames his discussion of this manipulation in the context of increasing Islamophobia in Europe and North America, and of the ‘Axis of Evil’ campaign of the Washington government….”

Carmona continues: “The anti-Iranian campaign which has been promoted by certain gay and lesbian groups has been based upon strongly biased information, incomplete and on occasions openly untrue. It certainly appears to be a premeditated exercise in misinformation. Likewise suspicious is the warm reception of these mobilizations on the part of conservative groups and parties which have never defended gay and lesbian rights, or which have even promoted openly homophobic initiatives, as is the case of the Republican Party in the US. Unfortunately, the protest campaign, which we should acknowledge at least to be ill-informed and misguided, is now unstoppable despite new data and clarifications. The petitions continue to circulate, maintaining the version that Mahmud and Ayaz were hanged ‘for the mere fact of being gay’. It is comprehensible that our rage at the continued homophobic abuses we see lead us to react immediately and without too much consideration; but these reactions might convert us, while we believe ourselves to be struggling for the liberation of gays and lesbians, into mere puppets of greater interests.”

Another useful exposure of Outrage’s campaign over the execution of two youths in Mashhad, Iran, in July.

Indymedia, 8 September 2005

For earlier coverage, see here.

Hunger strikers pledge to die in Guantánamo

Posted on by Bob Pitt

More than 200 detainees in Guantánamo Bay are in their fifth week of a hunger strike, the Guardian has been told. Statements from prisoners in the camp which were declassified by the US government on Wednesday reveal that the men are starving themselves in protest at the conditions in the camp and at their alleged maltreatment – including desecration of the Qur’an – by American guards.

Guardian, 9 September 2005

Ultra-left sectarians against sharia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sharia protestMore than 300 demonstrators converged in front of the Ontario legislature Thursday in a protest against the allowance of Islamic Shariah law in the province. “Shame! Shame!” chanted members of the crowd, angry at the prospect of Ontario becoming the first Western jurisdiction to allow the use of Shariah law to settle family disputes.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said his Liberal government will decide “shortly” on whether to permit Islamic law to be used in the province’s family arbitration cases. He has insisted that the rights of women will not be compromised if Shariah tribunals get the go-ahead to settle marital disputes for Muslims in the province. “Whatever we do, it will be in keeping with the values of Canadians and Ontarians,” he told reporters Wednesday.

But critics consider the religious rules an affront to human rights. “What Mr. McGuinty is doing is simply flirting with political Islam,” said Homa Arjomand, co-ordinator of the International Campaign Against Shariah Court on Thursday. “And that dangerous game is putting the lives and safety of women and children in danger. Shame.”

Billed as a global campaign against Shariah law, demonstrations took place in 11 cities across Canada and Europe — including one in London, England in front of the Canadian High Commission.

“The leader of Ontario’s government – shame on you!” said Mahmoud Ahmadi, spokesperson for the Federation of Iranian Refugees. “Shame on you!”

CTV, 9 September 2005

It would be interesting to know what the political composition of the demonstration was. I note that of the three anti-sharia demonstrators interviewed by CTV, two – Homa Arjomand and Shiva Mahbobi – are central committee members of that bizarre ultra-left sect, the Worker Communist Party of Iran. The third interviewee, Mahmoud Ahmadi, is a leading figure in the International Federation of Iranian Refugees, whose director Mina Ahadi is – yes, you guessed it – a central committee member of the WPI.

The trouble with the West

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“That there is a serious disconnect between Islam and the West is not in doubt; what is hotly contested is whose fault it is. Each side blames the other but, given that the Western media dominate almost all discourse, Islam and Muslims are blamed for everything that goes wrong in the world. There is little or no admission that much of the mayhem in the world is caused primarily by Western policies that affect others in profoundly negative ways.”

Zafar Bangash at Media Monitors Network, 8 September 2005

Outrage! in ignorant attack on Islam shock

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Human rights campaigners and refugees from Islamist persecution will protest against the introduction of Sharia law in Canada, outside the Canadian High Commission, in London on Thursday 8 September 2005 from 12 noon – 2 PM. The protest is being supported by gay human rights group OutRage! and one of the keynote speakers will be OutRage! organiser, Peter Tatchell.”

Outrage! press release, 7 September 2005

Outrage! appends articles by Maryam Namazie, Azar Majedi and Homa Arjomand – all central committee members of the Worker Communist Party of Iran. Namazie attributes the Canadian proposal to “the racist concepts of multi-culturalism and cultural relativism. It promotes tolerance and respect for so-called minority opinions and beliefs”. And we can’t be having that, can we?

In fact, as anyone who has studied the subject will be aware, the proposal is not to introduce Sharia law but to amend Ontario’s Arbitration Act, which already allows Jews and Christians to choose religious arbitration if they like, in order to extend the same opportunity to Muslims. Oddly enough, I can’t remember Tatchell protesting outside the Canadian High Commission when Jews and Christians in Ontario were accorded that right. But then, I was forgetting, for Tatchell and Outrage! Islam is a uniquely evil religion.

Man ‘killed by Islamic zealots’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“It’s a chilling story: A man was shot five times in the head at close range in an ‘execution’ plotted by a group who had failed to convert him to Islam, a jury has heard. Where did this happen? Saudi Arabia? Iran? Egypt? Pakistan? Nope. Try Great Britain. Islamic intimidation and contempt for those who reject Islam comes to the sceptered isle.” Thus Robert Spencer on a new Islamic threat to western civilisation.

Dhimmi Watch, 7 September 2005

What Spencer doesn’t bother to mention is that the group concerned is a criminal gang of Afro-Caribbean youths who have adopted the name of the “Muslim boys”. They present a serious problem from the standpoint of gun crime in South London’s black community. But the idea that they have anything to do with Islam in any meaningful sense of the term is an absurdity.

‘Facts for Islamic apologists who justify London bombings’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Ken Livingston, the London Mayor, was not the only British Islamic apologist who implicitly tried to justify the London bombings by suggesting that ‘decades of western intervention in the Middle East and the Iraq war could have influenced the bombers’. I have heard many Islamic apologists who are poorly educated in Islam, state similar excuses. Knowingly or unknowingly these Islamic apologists serve to hearten the Islamic extremists.”

FaithFreedom.org, 7 September 2005

So what was the cause of the London bombings, then? Well, apparently it all goes back to the Battle of the Ditch in 5 AH (627 AD), which shows that Muslims just want to kill non-Muslims, and to the Battle of Kerbala in 61 AH (680 AD), which shows that Muslims have no hesitation in killing each other. It’s just a bloodthirsty religion.

Encounter with an angry Muslim academic

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Richard L. Rubenstein – an “expert” on the dreadful threat to Europe posed by Muslim migrants –  recounts a confrontation with Professor Mohamad Al-Khadry at an academic conference in Krakow. “His worst spleen was reserved for Bat Ye’or and MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute). He labeled Bat Ye’or a bigot, a racist, and an ‘Islamophobe’ and attacked MEMRI as a ‘pro-Israel propagandist website’.”

Front Page Magazine, 7 September 2005

Spleen could hardly be put to more appropriate use, I would suggest.

Opposition to Sharia courts goes global

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An upcoming international demonstration designed to pressure Queen’s Park [home of the Ontario Legislature] into rejecting shariah courts continued to grow yesterday, even as the premier promised any decision on a faith-based court system will not jeopardize women’s rights.

They [women’s rights] will not be compromised,” Premier Dalton McGuinty told reporters at a news conference in Toronto yesterday.

So far, Amsterdam, Stockholm, London, Paris and Los Angeles are among the confirmed participants in tomorrow’s protests. They will join similar demonstrations in Toronto, Ottawa, Waterloo, Montreal and Victoria.

Ontario Attorney-General Michael Bryant delayed a highly anticipated decision on the future of faith-based arbitration this summer, choosing to wait before making changes to a law that allows any set of principles – including religious ones – to be used to privately settle family disputes.

Critics say Ontario has become the target of an international political movement by extremists to entrench Islamic law in Western democracies.

“This has nothing to do with the faith of Islam. It’s political Islam,” said Homa Arjomand, founder of the International Campaign against Shariah Court in Canada [and central committee member of the Worker Communist Party of Iran]. “Ontario is an easy target because we have multiculturalism.”

National Post, 7 September 2005