Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Virginia Islamophobes call for boycott of imam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hundreds of people are urging legislators to boycott the House of Delegates’ floor session on Thursday, when a Falls Church imam whom they accuse of condoning violence and defending terrorism is set to deliver the opening prayer.

The imam, Johari Abdul-Malik, and many other leaders in the Muslim and interfaith communities say the accusations are false. “To try to cast me as someone who’s a terrorist and closed-minded – they picked the wrong guy,” he said.

Soon after Sept. 11, Abdul-Malik was featured in paid ads produced by a group of national Muslim organizations, which denounced terrorism and the attacks. He has condemned terrorism and Osama bin Laden on “The O’Reilly Factor” and other television programs.

Still, letters and calls have poured into legislative offices since Friday, when a handful of concerned delegates let community activists know that Abdul-Malik was coming to Richmond.

“He’s an apologist for people who commit criminal acts,” said James Lafferty, chairman of the Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force. The group, along with the Traditional Values Coalition and Act for America, will hold a rally outside the state Capitol on Thursday morning.

Washington Post, 11 March 2010

See also “Islam-Bashers Try to Block Muslim Prayer in Va. Legislature”, CAIR action alert, 11 March 2010

Update:  See “Demonstration against Islamic cleric draws few”, Richmond Times-Dispatch, 12 March 2010

Further update:  See also “And who said that Islamophobia isn’t real?”, The American Muslim,11 March 2010

Islam has failed Douglas Murray

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“It is grotesque to argue that Europe has failed its Muslims. It has been made repeatedly obvious that it is Islam that has failed Europe.”

Writing on his Telegraph blog, Douglas (“conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board“, “there’s a very rational fear in being scared of Islam today and wanting to act against it“) Murray provides an entirely objective assessment of his recent debate with Tariq Ramadan.

The BNP Nazi at the heart of the EDL

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Chris Renton at EDL protestThe man in this picture is Chris Renton. He was photographed on the racist English Defence League (EDL) march on parliament last Friday.

Renton is a well known member of the British National Party (BNP) – and he is also on the leadership team of the EDL. In fact, Renton was one of the group’s founders. He runs the EDL’s Facebook pages and set up the EDL website and forums.

The BNP and EDL deny any links with each other. But the fact that this BNP Nazi is central to the EDL proves otherwise.

In a radio interview in July 2009, then EDL spokesperson Paul Ray confirmed that Renton was a BNP activist. And Renton is not the only fascist central to the EDL. Davy Cooling, the administrator of the EDL’s Luton Facebook site, is also on the BNP membership list. Many other known BNP members were spotted on the EDL’s march in London.

This is more proof that the EDL is a dangerous organisation with fascism at its core.

Socialist Worker, 9 March 2010

Cf. Robert Spencer’s assurance that “the EDL is standing up for human rights, for the freedom of speech, for Western civilization, for Israel, and for the defense against the global jihad and the Islamization of Britain. There is no credible evidence that this group is racist or fascist in the slightest degree.”

Opposition grows to EDL’s anti-mosque rally in Dudley

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL slogans BirminghamResidents are being urged to stay away from Dudley town centre on Easter Sunday, as far right group the English Defence League is set to descend on the town.

The extremist party claims to be bringing around 3,000 supporters on April 4 to protest against the planned £18million mosque.

Council leader, Cllr Anne Millward, said she was angered that the EDL want to come to the “peaceful town”, as West Midlands Police confirm there will be a “robust police presence” on the day in case of trouble. She added: “They say they are coming to protest against the planned mosque, but we’ve had a mosque in Dudley for over 30 years. So what is the point of them coming? We don’t want them and for them to come on Easter Sunday, one of the most important days in the Christian calendar, I think is an absolute travesty. I just urge people to stay away.”

Cllr Millward has also condemned plans announced by anti-fascist group Unite Against Fascism (UAF) who have confirmed they will be holding a counter-demonstration on the day, with fears that thousands of outsiders could angrily clash in the town centre. Cllr Millward said: “The plans for the anti-fascist group to outnumber the EDL I think is highly irresponsible. This group just need to be completely ignored.”

But UAF officials said they are organising the “largest peace protest to counteract” the EDL, whose protest will just be “thuggery and hatred”. Martin Lynch, Black Country spokesman for Unite Against Fascism (UAF), said:

“We don’t think people who believe in racism and hatred should be allowed to come to Dudley town centre or anywhere else for that matter. At a recent demonstration in Stoke they ran amok smashing property and hurting people. There is no way this is a legitimate protest of any kind. It will just be thuggery and hatred. If this does go ahead we will seek to call the largest peace protest to counteract theirs.”

Meanwhile, Jim Warner, spokesman for Dudley’s Trade Union Council (TUC) said members had passed a resolution supporting UAF’s counterprotest. Mr Warner said: “We are calling on all our local union branches to encourage members to turn out with their union banners for a peaceful protest. We have also put together a unity statement which has been signed by all our trade union branches, community and faith groups supporting this decision and calling for the protest to be abandoned.”

Dudley News, 10 March 2010

Update:  See “English Defence League switch date for Dudley protest”, Birmingham Mail, 14 March 2010

Niqab-wearer blocked again from class

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Quebec government has intervened again in the case of a Muslim woman who refused to remove her niqab veil during a French-language class.

Last week, Naïma Atef Amed filed a complaint with the province’s human rights commission after she was kicked out of a government-funded language class for new immigrants at the CÉGEP de Saint-Laurent in Montreal. The school had demanded that Amed take off her niqab veil, which covers her head and face and leaves only her eyes exposed, for part of the class.

Premier Jean Charest defended the school’s decision, saying that people who expect to receive public services must show their face.

On Tuesday, the province’s Immigration Ministry said it was informed last week that Amed, who is of Egyptian origin, had enrolled in another French class at a different publicly funded centre in Montreal that permitted her to wear the niqab.

“As we did last time, we told her that we have pedagogical objectives to meet in our French immersion courses, that they have to be taken with her face exposed,” said Luc Fortin, a spokesman for the province’s Immigration Minister. “She refused to take off her niqab and she left the course.”

The government is not prepared to compromise, said Immigration Minister Yolande James Tuesday. “It is a question of common sense,” said James.

CBC News, 9 March 2010

Le Pen launches anti-Islam campaign poster

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nonalislamism

French far-right party the Front National (FN) has revealed its latest election poster – a map of France decked in Algerian national colours, covered with minarets and featuring a woman whose face is hidden behind a “niqab” face veil. “No to Islamism,” the poster screams in big black letters.

The image is central to the FN’s campaign in the PACA (Provence Alpes Cote d’Azur) region, where the party’s leader, octogenarian firebrand Jean-Marie Le Pen, heads the party list in forthcoming regional elections due to begin March 14. The posters, already widely diffused on the Internet, are due to be distributed across France.

French anti-racist group LICRA failed to get an injunction against the distribution of the posters at a Marseille Court on Monday on the technicality “that the group itself was not based in Marseille”.

French campaign group MRAP has started proceedings at a Nanterre court (Paris) to ban the posters. The court is due to make a ruling on Friday, two days before voting in the regional elections begin.

Another anti-racist group SOS Racisme has started criminal proceedings against Le Pen, who will have to attend the criminal court in Paris on May 6. The group said in a statement: “Under the pretext of denouncing religious extremism, Le Pen has clearly marked a wish to solicit fear and rejection of not only Muslims but also all people of Algerian origin living in France.”

At a FN campaign meeting last weekend attended by thousands of party supporters, many of whom were carrying the poster, Le Pen railed against what he perceives as the “Islamist presence in France” and said mosques were “growing like mushrooms” across the country.

Nonalislamism2

Siddique released after terror conviction quashed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A man branded a “wannabe suicide bomber” by prosecutors will not face a retrial on terrorism charges.

Mohammed Atif Siddique, 24, a student from Alva, Clackmannanshire, was found guilty under terrorism laws in 2007. But Appeal Court judges in Edinburgh said on 29 January he had suffered a “miscarriage of justice” on one of the charges and quashed the conviction.

The Crown Office has said it does not wish to seek a fresh prosecution. Siddique has now been released.

His family wept and hugged each other outside the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, after Lord Osborne said judges would quash the main conviction.

In a statement read out by his solicitor Aamer Anwar on the court steps, Siddique said: “I have always maintained my innocence, but they took my liberty, destroyed my family’s reputation and labelled me a terrorist. But I never had any bombs or plans to hurt anyone. In court it was said I was a wannabe suicide bomber, but I have always said I was simply looking for answers on the internet.”

The shopkeeper’s son was jailed for eight years in October 2007 after a four-week trial in Glasgow. He was found guilty of two charges under the Terrorism Act 2000, one under the Terrorism Act 2006 and a breach of the peace.

The most serious charge related to the possession of articles that gave rise to “reasonable suspicion” they were connected to terrorism. His conviction on that allegation resulted in a six-year prison term.

But at his appeal hearing in January Lord Osborne criticised the way the trial judge explained the main Terrorist Act charge to the jury. The judge, sitting with Lords Reed and Clarke in Edinburgh, said the “material misdirection” amounted to “a miscarriage of justice”.

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Stop the EDL in Bolton on 20 March

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The racist hooligans of the English Defence League have rescheduled their plans to descend on Bolton for Saturday 20 March. Unite Against Fascism has called a national counter demonstration for all those who want to defend our multiracial society against the EDL’s thuggery and violence.

North West UAF has launched a Bolton Unity Statement condemning the EDL and calling on people to support and attend the demonstration against the racists in Bolton on 20 March. Signatories include MPs, trade unionists and campaigners such as Bolton MP Ruth Kelly and Manchester MPs John Leech, Tony Lloyd and Gerald Kaufman (click here to read statement).

The EDL had threatened to come to Bolton on 6 March this year. An EDL spokesperson interviewed in the Lancashire Telegraph refused to rule out violence and confirmed that the openly Nazi thugs from Combat 18 were regulars on EDL demos. But this demo was cancelled when the EDL realised its thugs would go on the rampage against a Hindu festival in Bolton planned that day.

Unite Against Fascism believes the EDL should not be allowed to terrorise ethnic minorities in Bolton or anywhere else. Join our demonstration to show these racists and fascists that they are not welcome in the town. Meet 11am on Saturday 20 March at Victoria Square in Bolton.

For more information see the Manchester UAF website

UAF press release, 6 March 2010

Quebec: veiled Muslim woman excluded from government French class

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Naema Ahmed was writing a French exam in a Muslim face covering Tuesday morning when she was called out of class and presented with an ultimatum: the veil or school.

She chose her religious veil and went home. It was the Egyptian immigrant’s second attempt to enroll in a government-subsidized French class and her second effective expulsion by Quebec authorities – part of a hardening line over religious headwear in the province.

Quebec says it is preparing new rules on religious displays for those seeking to use public services in the province. But yesterday the government made it clear there were no doubts about its intentions.

“There is no ambiguity on this question: If you want to [attend]our classes, if you want to integrate in Quebec society, here our values are that we want to see your face,” Immigration Minister Yolande James said.

Quebec has staked out an increasingly tough position on religious displays, at a time when the province faces a growing presence of Muslims and other religious minorities. Premier Jean Charest’s Liberal government has come under pressure from the opposition Parti Québécois to adopt measures to protect Quebec secularism and the equality of men and women.

Ms. James promised the government would bring in tougher though unspecified measures: “We are working on appropriate action that we will take in the coming time.”

Ms. Ahmed’s case has already reignited the explosive debate over the accommodation of religious minorities in Quebec. The 29-year-old had chosen to leave a government French class rather than expose her face at a Montreal college last fall; she said she turned to government-sponsored classes at a community centre in her neighbourhood because she was determined to learn French.

She said no one complained about her veil since she started attending classes in the new school in late January. But on Friday, after her story had gained widespread media attention in Quebec, a teacher at the school spotted her and alerted provincial officials, who dispatched a civil servant to the school. He was accompanied by an Arabic interpreter.

Ms. Ahmed said that when she saw the Quebec official, she started to cry. “It wasn’t fair for them to ask me to leave the exam,” she said in a phone interview. “I feel like the government is following me everywhere.”

While there is no law banning the wearing of religious headwear in Quebec, officials say they were acting yesterday on the basis of “pedagogical principles.” A student’s mouth should be visible so the teacher can work on pronunciation, one official said.

Ms. Ahmed was told that she could follow French classes online. But the mother of three said she’s feeling depressed and doesn’t know if she’ll pursue her lessons. “I’ll just stay in my house. This will solve the problem.”

On Monday, Christine St-Pierre, the Quebec minister responsible for the status of women, called the niqab and burka “ambulatory prisons” that violate a woman’s right to equality.

“There are people in Quebec, in Canada, and other countries around the world, who have gone to Afghanistan and spilled their blood so that these things won’t be tolerated,” Ms. St-Pierre said. “Here, we cannot tolerate this sort of thing.”

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