Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Islamic schools may groom children for terrorism – at taxpayer’s expense

Posted on by Bob Pitt

OMN logoFears are emerging that vulnerable children might be groomed for religious extremism or even terrorism at taxpayers’ expense.

Muslim pupils are being taken out of classes and sent to study at Islamic schools, or madrassas. A pilot scheme, the Open Madrasah Network, has received a £550,000 government grant to pay for under-achievers to attend lessons in Arabic, Urdu and religion.

The classes, described as booster lessons for primary and GCSE age pupils, are already running at four madrassas in Bradford, West Yorkshire. If pupils show improvement, the scheme is likely to be rolled out nationally. But critics say it will lead to the risk of taxpayers’ money being spent on “suspect” organisations.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “These institutions are devoted almost entirely to pumping Islam into the heads of their pupils. We need to know who will keep tabs on these indoctrination centres to ensure taxpayers’ money is properly spent. Although there is no suggestion that the Yorkshire scheme is suspect, if this kind of idea rolls out, who knows what will happen?”

There are almost 1,600 madrassas in Britain, where 200,000 children attend evening classes to study the Koran. But anti-terror police fear that extremists could indoctrinate pupils with anti-Western sentiments.

Sunday Express, 8 November 2009

‘Jihad at Fort Hood’ – according to Robert Spencer

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Major Hasan’s motive was perfectly clear – but it was one that the forces of political correctness and the Islamic advocacy groups in the United States have been working for years to obscure. So it is that now that another major jihad terror attack has taken place on American soil, authorities and the mainstream media are at a loss to explain why it happened – and the abundant evidence that it was a jihad attack is ignored.”

Robert Spencer at Front Page Magazine, 6 November 2009

See Mehdi Hasan’s comments at the New Statesman, 6 November 2009

Update:  See also Sunny Hundal, “Double standards over Fort Hood attack”, at Pickled Politics, 6 November 2009

Harrow Festival of Unity ahead of anti-Islam protest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Harrow mosque counter-protestAnti-fascists will hold a unity festival in the face of protest threats by an anti-Islam group. Unite Against Fascism (UAF) is arranging political speeches and entertainment on Saturday, November 23, ahead of a planned rally by Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) on December 13.

Sarah Cox, of Brent and Harrow UAF, said: “It’s fundamentally about bringing the borough together in unity to show, as it showed before, there’s no section of the community that welcomes that kind of bigotry. We want to show that we stand together.”

SIOE, a group of self-proclaimed Islamaphobics, plan to protest outside Harrow Central Mosque, in Station Road, and UAF will hold a counter-demonstration the same day. Referring to SIOE, Ms Cox said: “These people cannot be allowed to march without people showing them how unwelcome they are. Otherwise they just get more confident. They come back for more. They come back after dark.”

Harrow Times, 6 November 2009

See also “Harrow MPs, councillors and mosque lobby home secretary over rally”, Harrow Times, 4 November 2009

Muslim men plan complaint after being ‘treated like terrorists’ by airport police

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A party of Muslim men who claim they were singled out and treated like terrorists by airport police vowed last night to push for an independent investigation. The seven-strong group say they plan to approach the Independent Police Complaints Commission over the incident at Cardiff Airport.

The men, who are from Pakistani families but were born and brought up in Cardiff, said they were questioned and had their details and passports checked by police officers. Two of the group also said they were singled out for hour-long interrogations, during which they claimed they were asked if they had extremist views and if they had ever been asked to carry out a terrorist attack.

Garage owner Sajid Hussain, 30, from Cyncoed, Cardiff, said: “It was clear discrimination. We were the only Asians in the airport. We understand they have a job to do and have to pull some people over, but it’s just the fact that it was all seven of us. And some of the questions they asked were ridiculous. It was like they were saying to me, ‘You have got a beard, so you look like a terrorist’. I felt quite bad that, just because of my appearance, I am considered half way to becoming a terrorist.”

Western Mail, 4 November 2009

Met Pc faces internal inquiry after being cleared of race assault

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pc Mark JonesA Met police officer who was cleared of racially assaulting two teenagers could face the sack if he is found guilty in internal misconduct proceedings.

Pc Mark Jones, 42, is facing an internal inquiry as it emerged that he was linked to a “serious, gratuitous and prolonged attack” on a Muslim that cost the force £60,000 in damages.

Today it can be revealed that Pc Jones was part of a team in the Met’s Territorial Support Group involved in the arrest of Babar Ahmad, a British Muslim terror suspect.

Only now can the officer be linked to the 2003 raid on Mr Ahmad’s home which left him in fear of his life after he was held in a neck brace, punched and mocked for his religious beliefs.

A High Court order was lifted after a trial at Kingston crown court yesterday where Pc Jones was unanimously cleared of racially aggravated common assault on two teenagers in June 2007.

Jurors were told that one 16-year-old Kuwaiti was abused by the officer who accused him of “robbing people while British soldiers are getting killed in Iraq”. But Pc Jones denied any wrongdoing and the jury of five men and seven women cleared him.

Evening Standard, 4 November 2009

See also Socialist Worker, 3 November 2009

EDL threatens journalists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL in BirminghamTough and urgent action is needed in response to violence, intimidation and death threats targeting journalists covering far right demonstrations.

The call by NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear comes in the wake of specific email threats against photojournalist and investigative reporter Marc Vallée, and video journalist Jason N. Parkinson.

The emails follow verbal threats and intimidation aimed at photographers covering a march by the English Defence League in Leeds at the weekend and other EDL protests this year. Professional journalists covering the events have filed reports with the NUJ detailing physical violence, including one being punched in the head, verbal threats, and attempts to seize cameras and smash equipment. The union is to file complaints to the police.

Jeremy Dear said: “These are not idle threats made by kids – these are direct, named threats made by individuals who can be traced – in one case an individual already convicted of stabbing someone. They are designed to silence the media and stop photographers showing the true nature of the protests and protestors. The police must act now before a journalist is killed or seriously injured”.

Jason N. Parkinson said: “It is ironic the English Defence League claim they are protesting ‘peacefully’ against Muslim extremism. Then late Saturday night, after returning from covering the Leeds protest, I receive a threatening email from one of their Welsh and English division organisers entitled ‘Fatwa’. This is exactly the behaviour and tactics of extremism the EDL claim they are against.”

NUJ news report, 2 November 2009

Via Lancaster Unity

Update:  See also Comment is Free, 4 November 2009

Inayat is ‘fake moderate Muslim’, claims Edmund Standing

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Edmund StandingYou might have thought that Inayat Bunglawala’s Muslims4UK campaign against yesterday’s (cancelled) al-Muhajiroun demonstration in central London would have gained almost unanimous support outside the ranks of Anjem Choudary’s tiny gang of idiots.

But no. Mad Melanie Phillips has been joined by Edmund (“the BNP don’t really hate Muslims“) Standing in condemning Inayat’s initiative as a cunning manoeuvre to cover up his extremist views and misrepresent himself as a moderate.

Standing writes: “Bunglawala’s ‘anti-extremist’ drive managed to drum up support largely from extremists: Bob Pitt, an extreme left-winger, and MPAC, an organisation which refuses to condemn Jihadists and whose spokesman actively promotes them. Moderate? Pull the other one!”

In fairness to MPACUK and myself, I think Standing should amend his post to include a denuciation of that well-known pro-Islamist extremist Ed Husain too.

Witch-hunt of Azad Ali resumes

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A civil servant who has condemned ministers for helping to fuel the “slaughter” of Arabs in the Middle East is advising Britain’s most senior prosecutor on Islamic extremism.

Azad Ali, a Treasury official who has used his internet blog to praise the spiritual leader of Al-Qaeda, sits on a Whitehall counterterrorism panel that provides advice to Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions (DPP).

Ali was investigated earlier this year over his controversial views on the Iraq war and was forced to deny that he sympathised with the killing of British troops. He got into trouble with his Treasury bosses after using his blog to deny that last November’s Mumbai attacks, which claimed 173 lives, were an act of terrorism.

Sunday Times, 1 November 2009

This is no more than a rerun of the witch-hunt of Azad Ali that took place earlier this year, and features the same blatant misrepresentations of Azad’s views. The Sunday Times also fails to make it clear that, although this lying campaign led to Azad’s suspension from his civil service job, an inquiry cleared and reinstated him.