Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Harrow Central Mosque rejects ‘Sharia court’ claims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Harrow MosqueHarrow Central Mosque has hit back at suggestions that the new building will host a Sharia Law Court after protesters against extremism released plans to rally outside the centre. Last week the Observer revealed the English Defence League’s plans to protest outside the Station Road based Mosque on August 29, after suggestions it would host a court on the site. But Ghulam Rabbani, general secretary of Harrow Central Mosque, said:

“It is important to make clear that there are no plans to hold Sharia court meetings at the new Mosque. We have never considered any such plans and it is a matter of public record from our planning applications. We are confused as to why the protesters ever thought this was the case. The new Mosque is a building which will be open to all and has been welcomed by other faith communities and we reject attempts to divide us. We are proud to be British, Muslim and Harrow residents, and we embrace all three of these identities.”

It is thought that the protests will go ahead irrespective of this and as a result an emergency meeting between senior council officials and community leaders has been scheduled for Friday, August 21.

Harrow Observer, 18 August 2009

Burkini-wearer at Verona swimming pool ‘frightens children’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Italy on Tuesday got its first close-up look at a burkini – an outfit consisting of head scarf, tunic and trousers – when a woman showed up at a Verona swimming pool wearing the outfit. Christian Panzarini, the manager of the Verona pool, said he had not asked the woman to leave despite several complaints from mothers who said she had frightened their tots.

Life in Italy, 18 August 2009

Via Islam in Europe

‘Why do we tolerate this shameful gender separation?’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Two countries, two weddings, two outcomes. In the first instance, a minister in the British government has been accused of bad manners for leaving a Muslim wedding in east London when he was asked to sit in a separate room from his wife. In the second, 41 women and children died when fire broke out in the women’s marquee at a wedding party in Kuwait….

“Muslim organisations have attacked Fitzpatrick, saying he should have respected the wishes of the bridal couple, and they defend gender-segregation at weddings and social events as a matter of ‘personal choice’. It isn’t. As the ghastly fire in the Gulf state demonstrates, insisting that men and women occupy different spaces is common in states where Islamic law is in operation. At last weekend’s wedding, male and female guests were directed to different tents and children sent to sit among the women, which is why no men died in the conflagration.”

Joan Smith – who else? – in the Independent, 19 August 2009

Update:  See letters in the Independent, 20 August 2009

Caldwell’s ‘extended apologia for Enoch Powell’s views’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“… the author’s synthesis and analysis are hard-eyed and bracing. A relatively weak, self-doubting Europe, he argues, has allowed mass immigration from a fundamentally alien, basically antagonistic culture on such a scale that the continent’s future is no longer its to decide. Caldwell’s Cassandra is the brilliant anti-immigrant Tory parliamentarian Enoch Powell, who sacrificed a promising career to this issue. In fact, this book can be read as an extended apologia for Powell’s views.”

Tim Rutten reviews Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe.

Los Angeles Times, 19 August 2009

Burqini banned in Italian town

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lega Nord posterMuslim women have been banned from wearing the body-concealing swimming costume known as a burqini in the northern Italian town of Varallo Sesia, according to a report.

Women wearing the garment, made up of a veil, a tunic and loose leggings, face a fine of €500 (£430) if they are spotted at swimming pools or rivers, the ANSA news agency reported.

The anti-immigration mayor of the northern Piedmont town said: “The sight of a ‘masked woman’ could disturb small children, not to mention problems of hygiene. We don’t have to be tolerant all the time.”

Mr Buonanno belongs to the Northern League, a party allied with the centre-Right People of Freedom party led by Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister.

Daily Telegraph, 19 August 2009

Danish Conservatives call for burqa ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jyllands Posten Khader“We don’t want to see burqas in Denmark. We simply can’t accept that some of our citizens walk around with their faces covered,” Naser Khader, a Danish member of parliament of Syrian-Palestinian extraction who was recently appointed spokesman for integration issues for the Conservative Party, told the newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

In comments published on Sunday, Khader said the burqa is un-Danish and oppressive towards women and should be completely banned. He and his party say that what people do in their own homes is their business, but as soon as they walk into the public domain, one should be able to see their faces.

The Danish People’s Party and the Social Democratic Party have welcomed the proposal, while the Liberal Party, which is the senior partner in Denmark’s coalition government, rejects the idea of legislating about citizens’ clothing, provided they are not employed in a public function.

“It’s going too far if we start legislating on what sort of clothes people can and cannot wear. The burqa and covered faces should not be allowed if you work with people in the public sector — but that is where we draw the line,” says Liberal Party political spokesman Peter Christensen, who adds that it is important that politicians know where to draw the line in introducing policy.

Khader, however, says a ban is the only solution. “My view is that (the burqa) is not Islamic at all,” Khader says. “The modern burqa was introduced by the Taliban when the movement came to power. So I associate the burqa with the Taliban.”

The burqa ban is part of an integration initiative that the Conservatives’ parliamentary group approved on Friday, although the party has not decided what punishment should be meted out to those who break the ban.

“Initially we’re sending out a signal by saying that it should be banned. Then it’s up to the lawyers to find out what sanctions should be introduced,” Khader told the Jyllands-Posten.

Denmark is not the only European country where politicians have proposed a ban on burqas. French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently said that the burqa was “not welcome” in France, while France’s urban regeneration minister, Fadela Amara, told the Saturday edition of the Financial Times that she was in favor of the burqa “not existing in my country.” The Netherlands has also considered a ban on burqas.

Spiegel, 18 August 2009

Quilliam accuses anti-BNP protestors of ‘thuggery and hooliganism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anti-BNP Codnor protest2

“Last weekend the BNP’s annual shindig ‘Red, White and Blue’ took place in a small town in Derbyshire. Reports said that the number of attendees was only marginally more than the number of anti-fascist protesters who congregated outside the gate.

“Unfortunately, these anti-BNP protesters soon became violent – leading to a total of 19 protesters being arrested. Although it is good to see ordinary people protesting against the BNP, such protests become ineffective when they descend into thuggery and hooliganism.”

So Lucy James, research fellow at the Quilliam Foundation, writes at Progress Online.

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Yusuf Qaradawi’s jihad

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qaradawi“Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the Egyptian-born octogenarian embraced by Ken Livingstone in 2004 and, as of 2008, excluded from the UK as a preacher of hate, has recently published a two-volume book entitled The Jurisprudence of Jihad. It is over 1400 pages long and has been received enthusiastically, and with some justification, as a major intervention on the subject by one of Islam’s most respected ‘modernist’ figures.

“‘Jihad’, much like ‘fatwa’, is a term that carries some heavy baggage. In the west, jihad now conjures up images of suicide bombers and implacable violence. Non-Muslims tend to equate this so-called ‘pinnacle’ of Islam with abject evil. The lack of mutual understanding, trust and respect between ‘Islam’ and the ‘west’ is a problem many – not just President Obama – recognise….

“Qaradawi’s views on jihad are already relatively well known and, in the Arab context, mainstream: Palestinians have the right to pursue jihad in self-defence against Israel, as do Iraqis against Americans. More controversially, this right extends to the use of suicide bombing. But al-Qa’ida’s global jihad is definitely out, as is the targeting of civilians or the use of violence not sanctioned by the state.

“Instead Qaradawi encourages a ‘middle way’ conception of jihad: ‘solidarity’ with the Palestinians and others on the front line, rather than violence, is an obligatory form of jihad. Financial jihad, which corresponds with the obligation of alms giving (zakat), counts as well. And Muslims should recognise that technological change means that media and information systems are as much a part of the jihadist repertoire as are guns. Indeed, as long as Muslims are free to use media and other resources to press their case, there is no justification for using force to ‘open’ countries for Islam.”

Ewan Stein at Comment is Free, 17 August 2009

Lord Patel condemns Fitzpatrick’s ‘cowardly attack’ on Muslim constituents

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Labour peer has demanded an apology from Jim Fitzpatrick, the Farming minister, after Mr Fitzpatrick publicly criticised the segregation of men and women at Muslim weddings.

Lord Patel of Blackburn, a senior figure in Britain’s Muslim community, accused Mr Fitzpatrick of launching a “cowardly attack” on Muslims who opted for a segregated wedding, accusing him of pandering to “anti-Muslim sentiment” within his constituency.

Mr Fitzpatrick angered many Muslims in his east London constituency when he walked out of a ceremony at the London Muslim Centre last week in protest at being split up from his wife. He also gave interviews suggesting that the custom showed a “degree of intolerance” towards guests who may be offended.

But in a scathing attack on his party colleague, Lord Patel said that Mr Fitzpatrick’s stance was merely an attempt to gain votes.

“I suspect Mr Fitzpatrick has one eye on the general election and has mistakenly used this event for political gain,” he said. “He is playing to a section of the voters with whom anti-Muslim sentiment is appealing. This is underhand and dangerous.”

He warned that Mr Fitzpatrick risked creating “alienation and distrust” within his own community by implying that all Muslims in the area must assimilate for reasons of social cohesion.

The bridegroom has also asked for an apology from Mr Fitzpatrick for “hijacking” the ceremony for political gain. Bodrul Islam said he had been “amazed and shocked” by Mr Fitzpatrick’s protest.

Independent, 18 August 2009

Segregated weddings and opportunistic MPs

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“One of these days I’ll hopefully get married and a ceremony is likely to be held at a Sikh Gurdwara (more because my parents will want to have a ceremony there rather than on account of my own religiousness). In a Gurdwara the guys sit on one side and girls sit on the other side, and the bride-groom in the middle. If some MP came and didn’t like it, buggered off, and then sent a press release to all the media going on how about insulting he found it – I wouldn’t speak to that tosser ever….

“I have a suggestion: why don’t Labour MPs ban the practice of British women adopting the surname of their husband once they get married? That’s a pretty unequal situation too and I know plenty of feminists who won’t do it. It’s only right these MPs register their disgust and refuse to stand for it.”

Sunny Hundal at Pickled Politics, 18 August 2009