Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Minister backs school hijab appeal

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, is to back the appeal of a school found guilty of discriminating against a student for wearing strict Islamic dress.

Shabina Begum, 16, claimed a victory for all Muslims in March when she won a landmark Court of Appeal ruling that Denbigh High School in Luton had unlawfully excluded her for flouting its uniform policy by wearing a jilbab, which leaves only the hands and face exposed.

Miss Begum said at the time of the ruling that the schools decision had been caused by an atmosphere in which Islam was a target for vilification in the name of the War on Terror.

The Court of Appeal said that Miss Begums human rights had been infringed because she had been denied the right to education and to manifest her religious beliefs.

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Britain ‘taken for suckers by the Muslim immigration wave’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Our English cousins are getting a brutal lesson in reality: Multiculturalism will kill you if you don’t watch out…. Public opinion in Britain, in fact, appears to be saying enough, already. There’s a growing consensus that the British have been taken for suckers by the Muslim immigration wave that has overwhelmed the sceptr’d isle…. The one-sided celebration of diversity is beginning to grate as well. Julie Burchill, a columnist for the Times of London, notes that ‘English toddlers are being forced to celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid when they are still trying to get their heads about the Easter bunny’.”

Washington Times, 29 July 2005

British Muslim women respect fatwa, keep hijab

Posted on by Bob Pitt

While respecting a recent fatwa by a leading British Muslim scholar allowing them to take off hijab to avoid spiraling harassment, a number of young British Muslim women said they would keep their religious dress code and seek police protection against racists.

“As a British citizen I have every right to wear my hijab, which is part of my Muslim identity,” Yusra, a University of London student, told IslamOnline.net by phone. “If harassed because of my religion, I would immediately resort to the Metropolitan Police to protect me from racists.”

She maintained that taking off her hijab would be tantamount to giving in to extremists and racists “who would not stop at that”.

Islam Online, 30 July 2005

US radio station suspends talk show host

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Radio talk-show host Michael Graham was suspended by station WMAL-AM yesterday for repeatedly describing Islam as a “terrorist organization” on his program. Graham said he has been ordered off the Washington station, without pay, for an indefinite period while the station investigates the comments that drew complaints from a Muslim group, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Graham said on his mid-morning program on Monday that the fault for recent acts of terrorism lies not with Islamic radicals alone but also with Muslims generally because religious leaders and followers have tacitly supported extreme elements. “The problem is not extremism,” Graham told listeners. “The problem is Islam.” He also said, “We are at war with a terrorist organization named Islam.”

Washington Post, 29 July 2005

Indeed, only yesterday, Graham expanded on these views in the Jewish World Review.

As you can imagine, his suspension doesn’t meet with the approval of the folks at Jihad Watch. “This is yet another sad story”, Robert Spencer comments, “and it bodes ill for our freedom in America: Graham’s words were inflammatory, but he had perfectly cogent and reasonable arguments to back them up.”

Jihad Watch, 29 July 2005

Why the West has lost goodwill of Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Why the West has lost goodwill of Muslims

By Javed Akbar

Toronto Star, 29 July 2005

These are treacherous times. Peace seems to have become ever more elusive and we are all traumatized, as if an impending danger is lurking over our heads. The victims, who are falling to acts of either individual or state-sponsored terrorism, have mainly been innocent civilians.

This vicious cycle of tit-for-tat madness must stop. Every innocent life lost is too precious, too great.

To honour the souls of the more than 50 people who died in a planned and pathologically-motivated attack in London, people the world over did stop in solemn silence and paid their respects by adopting the slogan: “Today we are all British.”

It was a poignant way to express solidarity with the bereaving families and nation. Paradoxically, when more than 200,000 people were killed in attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan, no one said: “Today we are all Iraqis or Afghanis.”

What hypocrisy. What gall.

The horror of 9/11 and now the aftermath of the London bombings reveal, more than anything else, the discord between the true nature of Islam, as religion, culture and civilization, and the way it is projected in the current palpable cloud of Islamophobia. Islam is relentlessly portrayed as an obscurantist, unethical enterprise. Muslims now actually wear the garb of the very demons that the media have been projecting as a collective profile for an entire community and a whole faith.

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Muslim fears grow over rise in violence, arson and verbal abuse since bombings

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The number of hate crimes against Asians has risen dramatically over the three weeks since the 7 July suicide bombings, Muslim groups have said. Incidents being reported include verbal abuse and spitting directed at Muslims in the street, graffiti and vandalism of Asian homes and mosques and some assaults on individuals. There have also been at least two incidents of arson and one car being damaged. Three days after the 7 July bombings, an Asian man was murdered in Nottingham. A number of people have been arrested in connection with the killing.

Independent, 29 July 2005

Britain ‘encourages asylum-seekers to despise the society that helped them’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mick Hume reassures us that racism isn’t much of an issue in Britain, that Islamophobia barely exists and that the real problem is “our self-flagellatory culture”, which encourages asylum seekers to hate the country that has given them refuge.

Times, 29 July 2005

These ex-RCPers are really something else, aren’t they? It is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish the contributions of Hume, Kenan Malik et al from the outpourings of the racist Right.

Assembly for the Protection of Hijab concerned by anti-hijab propaganda

Posted on by Bob Pitt

prohijab_logoIn the wake of the July 7th attacks in London, there has been a sharp rise in attacks against Muslim women in Hijab who are visible and vulnerable targets. This has lead a small minority of Commentators to attack the Hijab and label it a traditional Arabian dress rather than an edict of religious code, thus in their view unnecessary.

There can be no doubt about the obligation of Hijab in Islam. The Islamic scholars world-wide unanimously agree on this. Protect-Hijab is concerned by the manner in which the attacks in London are being unashamedly used as a smokescreen by individuals to attack aspects of the Islamic faith to serve individual agendas.

While we all remain concerned about the well-being of our fellow Muslim women, we reject calls by a tiny fraction of scholars who call for the removal of the Hijab in defence against attacks on Muslim women. Britain is a place of tolerance and Protect-Hijab feels it is necessary now more than ever to educate society on the issue of the Hijab, rather than submitting to the threat emanating from some misguided members of our society who blame all Muslims for terrorism.

Assembly for the Protection of Hijab press release, 29 July 2005