Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Media and government blamed for rise in Islamophobic crimes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Responding to the announcement of a 500% increase in hate crimes against Muslims since the London bombings, the Muslim Association of Britain have blamed media hysteria for the reaction coupled with a lack of strength from the government in combating it.

The organisation have also said they believe the true figure of Islamophobic crime to be much higher as Muslims who have suffered abuse are not reporting it to the police.

Commenting, Anas Altikriti of MAB said:

“Blaming all Muslims for the heinous London bombings as some people have plainly done, is as stupid as blaming all white people for the extremism of the BNP.

“We don’t know the true backlash against Muslims as it is clear to us that many Muslims have not reported the crimes perpetrated on them to the police. We urge anyone who has suffered to come forward so we can truly grasp the scale of the problem and move to remedy it.

“We’re not surprised by the figures we’ve seen though as the media hysteria against the Muslim community, their beliefs, and their personalities has been beyond the pale. The government also has to take responsibility for this as they have been happy for Muslims to carry the can as it has meant a lack of focus on the role of foreign policy in the bombings.”

MAB news release, 3 August 2005

More Islamophobia from Harry’s Place

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Over at Harry’s Place, it’s back to the nonsense about Yusuf al-Qaradawi calling for the execution of gay men. Harry reproduces a report that Qatar’s Crown Prince Tameem Bin Hamad Al-Thani has been outed in a Dubai-based publication after being banned from the G.A.Y. nightclub in London for getting involved in a bar fight.

“Anyway, who cares?” Harry comments. “Well, London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s ‘moderate’ mate Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi does. He gave this quote to Al-jazeera magazine: ‘The scholars of Islam, such as Malik, Ash-Shafi’i, Ahmad and Ishaaq said that (the person guilty of this crime) should be stoned, whether he is married or unmarried’.”

Harry’s Place, 2 August 2005

In fact, the quotation isn’t from Qaradawi at all, but from a prominent Saudi Wahhabist, Mohammed Salih Al-Munajjid. “Aljazeera” magazine (which has no connection to the famous TV station of that name) obviously made a mistake and misattributed it.

Harry is apparently a journalist by profession, and it is of course a general principle that journalists should check their sources. However, this principle evidently ceases to apply when it’s a question of attacking Muslims.

US radio host claims Quran teaches Muslims to lie

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has called on a Washington, D.C., radio station to address the incitement of anti-Muslim hatred caused by its talk show hosts. CAIR issued that call after a replacement for a talk show host suspended for anti-Islam remarks made similarly Islamophobic comments.

On Friday, July 29, WMAL-AM replacement host Geoff Metcalf stated: “And by the way, let me just add a sidebar here that’s significant, and everybody forgets this, but according to the Quran, believers in Islam are not required to tell infidels, and that’s us, the truth. So they apparently have permission to lie when it is appropriate.” Most callers to the program expressed similar hostility to Muslims and to the faith of Islam.

CAIR action alert, 3 August 2005

Britain’s Muslim scapegoats

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Four weeks after the explosions in the capital, a survey of forces by The Independent yesterday found a substantial increase in racially motivated crime, particularly in inner cities. Experts said as many as one in six of those abused or attacked were not Muslim but were simply of an Asian appearance.

As community leaders expressed alarm over the surge in race-hate crimes, a Conservative frontbench spokesman was accused of stoking racial tension by calling for Muslims to get out of Britain if they did not like its way of life.

The increased tension was further highlighted last night by a moderate cleric who suggested that Muslim women should shed their traditional veils in order to prevent themselves becoming targets.

The survey of police forces, carried out the day after the Metropolitan Police reported that faith-hate crimes had risen by 600 per cent compared with last year, showed that other large forces, such as West Yorkshire and West Midlands, had seen significant increases in race-hate crime. It also indicated that, far from being centred on London, such incidents have been recorded across Britain.

Independent, 3 August 2005

See also “Race-hate crimes surge after bombs”, Independent, 2 August 2010

‘A monster of our own making’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“These British bombers are a consequence of a misguided and catastrophic pursuit of multiculturalism”, according to the Observer‘s strap to an article by William Pfaff. The author explains:

“A half-century of a well-intentioned but catastrophically mistaken policy of multiculturalism, indifferent or even hostile to social and cultural integration, has produced in Britain and much of Europe a technologically educated but culturally and morally unassimilated immigrant demi-intelligentsia.”

Observer, 21 August 2005

Admittedly, this is only one point in a rather rambling article – but it’s evidently the point the Observer wants to highlight.

Muslim groups condemn stop-and-search policy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim groups angrily condemned British Transport Police yesterday for suggesting that young men from ethnic minorities were more likely to be stopped and questioned in the wake of the London bombings.

Government ministers appeared to be divided on the issue. While Home Office minister Hazel Blears has backed the BTP, Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland minister, said a stop and search policy of discriminating against Muslims would simply act as recruiting agent for terrorism, as it had done with Irish communities in the past….

Home Office figures show that stop and searches of Asian people have risen steeply since the September 11 attacks.

A spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain said that while it understands the police need to take all necessary actions, it had to avoid “alienating or stigmatising” and an entire section of society. “Otherwise this action will be counterproductive,” said a spokesman. Muslim Association of Britain said such a policy would worsen the situation. “It won’t help in terms of building a relationship or trust between the communities.”

Independent, 1 August 2005

See also ‘Searches of Asians will boost bombers, says Hain’,  Daily Mirror, 2 August 2005

And ‘Blears backs away from racial profiling’, Guardian 2 August 2005

Suspect’s tale of travel and torture

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A former London schoolboy accused of being a dedicated al-Qaida terrorist has given the first full account of the interrogation and alleged torture endured by so-called ghost detainees held at secret prisons around the world. For two and a half years US authorities moved Benyam Mohammed around a series of prisons in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan, before he was sent to Guantánamo Bay in September last year.

Guardian, 2 August 2005

Nazis take time off from racist thuggery to study ‘semantics’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The Arabic words, Salaam, Islam and Muslim all derive from the same root, however to describe this as peace is another clever use of semantics. A steady stream of officials from the New Labour authorised Muslim Council of Britain, have being towing the party line, Islam = Peace. When you here these words again you must not think in terms of peace and love in any sense of the meaning meant by the Beatles, Jimmy [sic] Hendrix and what you feel after a weekend at Glastonbury, but think more on the lines of total SUBMISSION to the will of Allah and his followers on earth.

“The potent force of Islamic terrorism, violence and intimidation in areas bordering Muslim communities, backed up with New Labour legislation to silence those brave enough to speak out against this threat to our civilization is enough to focus the mind. Until the whole world is in submission to Allah, there can be no peace. A fact the people of Britain already have been getting used to on a daily basis in Bradford, Burnley, Keighley, and Oldham before the recent atrocities that have captured all the headlines.”

BNP news article, 2 August 2005

First torture them, then rig their trials

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) obtained two leaked emails from former military prosecutors at Guántanamo Bay over the weekend. The emails both claim that the military committees set up to try detainees at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba are “rigged, fraudulent, and thin on evidence against the accused.”

In the first email obtained by the Australian news organization, Gitmo prosecutor, Major Robert Preston, wrote to his supervisor that the trial process at Guantanamo was perpetrating a fraud on the American public. Preston also wrote that the cases being tried were insignificant at best.

“I consider the insistence on pressing ahead with cases that would be marginal even if properly prepared to be a severe threat to the reputation of the military justice system and even a fraud on the American people,” Preston wrote. “Surely they don’t expect that this fairly half-arsed effort is all that we have been able to put together after all this time … I lie awake worrying about this every night,” he wrote.

“I find it almost impossible to focus on my part of mission … After all, writing a motion saying that the process will be full and fair when you don’t really believe it is kind of hard, particularly when you want to call yourself an officer and lawyer.”

Shortly after Preston sent these emails to his superior he was transferred from his post.

In the second email obtained by the ABC, Captain John Carr, who also left his position after his email claimed that the commissions at the prison appeared to be rigged, wrote, “When I volunteered to assist with this process and was assigned to this office, I expected there would at least be a minimal effort to establish a fair process and diligently prepare cases against significant accused. Instead, I find a half-hearted and disorganized effort by a skeleton group of relatively inexperienced attorneys to prosecute fairly low-level accused in a process that appears to be rigged.”

Carr also wrote that Gitmo prosecutors were continually told by the chief prosecutor that the panel set up to try detainees was specially selected in order to guarantee convictions. “You have repeatedly said to the office that the military panel will be handpicked and will not acquit these detainees and that we only needed to worry about building a record for the review panel,” Carr wrote.

Joshua Frank reports in Counterpunch, 2 August 2005

See also “Leaked emails claim Guantanamo trials rigged”, ABC, 1 August 2005