“Here entire neighborhoods look like the Middle East, women walk around veiled, the mayor is a Muslim, sharia law is applied in the courts and the theaters. An extensive report from the most Islamized city in Europe.”
Author Archives: Bob Pitt
Muslim stripped of German award after criticising crucifix
Controversy erupted in Germany Friday after a Muslim author was deleted from the winners’ list of an annual culture award after he wrote that a crucifix was an idolatrous image.
The state of Hesse had planned to hand its 45,000-euro (61,000-dollar) prize this July jointly to a Jew, a Muslim, a Catholic and a Lutheran to honour the cultural achievements of the monotheistic religions.
But Catholic Cardinal Karl Lehmann of Mainz and Peter Steinacker, former head of the Lutheran church of Hesse and Nassau, objected to sharing the state culture prize with Navid Kermani, an Iranian-born author.
Kermani had begun an article about a crucifix, a standard Christian image that depicts Jesus Christ in an agonizing death nailed to a wooden cross, with, “I’d express my personal rejection of the theology of the cross frankly with ‘blasphemy and idolatry’.”
The prize board then wrote to Kermani withdrawing its offer of the prize to him.
The Central Council of Muslims, one of four national Islamic groups in Germany, described the church reaction as “childish”. Aiman A Mazyek, secretary of the council, to the Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel, said, “How would they have felt if a Muslim had refused to meet a churchman because he did not revere the Prophet Mohammed?”
Over 100 complaints over BBC’s Muslim head of religious shows
The BBC has received 115 complaints over its appointment of the first Muslim to the role of head of religion and ethics. Channel 4 executive Aaqil Ahmed was confirmed in the post on Monday, becoming only the second non-Christian – after agnostic Alan Bookbinder in 2001 – in the BBC’s 87-year history to be appointed to the role. It is understood the “vast majority” of the complaints are about Ahmed not being a Christian.
Answers needed over ‘terror’ raids
A lawyer representing three Pakistani students detained for 13 days then released without charge has said it is the worst case of its kind since new legislation extended detention periods in 2000.
Mohammed Ayub lambasted the government on Friday for its treatment of his clients who were detained after high-profile police raids in the north-west last month and then released without charge.
The men were subsequently redetained pending possible deportation to Pakistan where, he argued, their safety was not certain.
Referring to the Home Office figures on the poor conviction rate in terror cases in general, he said: “It signifies that the security services are acting on poor or misleading intelligence and the continuation of such operations is likely to lead to a lack of public confidence in the security services.”
Mr Ayub, from Chambers Solicitors in Bradford, also said that he had concerns over the report into the operation which led to his clients’ arrests being compiled by Lord Carlile, the government’s independent reviewer of terror legislation.
“We call for an independent inquiry into Operation Pathway, so that lessons can be learned as to how this investigation could have got it so terribly wrong and so that no other innocent person should have to face the continuing ordeal that our clients are suffering.”
Six injured as protesters clash over Islam centre in Vienna
Police special forces clashed with protesters as marches through Vienna over the planned extension of an Islamic cultural centre turned violent yesterday (Thurs).
Police said 700 people held a counter demonstration after roughly the same number joined a protest organised by the “Moschee ade” (Goodbye Mosque) movement fighting plans to extend the centre.
Moschee ade leaders said further protests would be organised if the Social Democrats (SPÖ) of Vienna do not take back their approval of the plans to extend a Muslim centre in the Brigittenau district.
Protest organiser Hannelore Schuster, mother-in-law of People’s Party (ÖVP) Science Minister Johannes Hahn, said she and other protestors would “march once every month.” Schuster said the centre should be relocated, but denied that the proposal was because of any anti-Islamic feeling.
Heinz-Christian Strache, federal leader of the right-wing opposition Freedom Party (FPÖ) held a speech at the event during which he wielded a cross.
And there were furious protests from left-wing groups who had to be held back by special police forces after skinheads attended the event.
Police chiefs said six people were injured when counter-demonstrators clashed with officers, adding three of them were policemen. Three people were put in custody for grievous bodily harm.
A group of Green party members, including city councillor David Ellensohn, joined the counter-demonstration.
Advisor calls on Quilliam Foundation to apologise for smearing the Islam Channel
An exclusive from ENGAGE.
Just one in eight terror arrests ends with guilty verdict, admits Home Office
Seven out of eight people arrested under Britain’s terror laws since the al-Qa’ida attacks on America in 2001 were not convicted of a terrorism offence, figures released yesterday show.
More than three-quarters of those imprisoned were given sentences of less than 10 years and a half will be released in less than five years.
Between 11 September 2001 and 31 March 2008, there were 1,471 arrests under terrorism offences in Britain. Of these, 521 resulted in a charge of some form, with 222 people charged with terror offences, and 118 people charged with terror-related offences, such as conspiracy to murder.
Civil rights campaigners last night seized on the figures as more evidence to support concerns that police were using tough terror powers indiscriminately against mostly innocent people. Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, said:
“In free societies we arrest on suspicion, charge with evidence and convict when there is proof. These figures remind us that the overwhelming majority of those arrested for terrorism were not guilty of any charge and half weren’t charged at all. All the more worrying that wholly innocent people may be held for a month without charge or indefinitely without charge under control orders – based on secret suspicions and intelligence alone.”
The statistical report, the first of its kind, follows a series of high-profile cases in which suspects arrested and detained under the Terrorism Act have been released without charge. Last month it emerged that the case against 12 Muslim men involved in what Gordon Brown had described as a “major terrorist plot” amounted to one email and a handful of ambiguous telephone conversations. Eleven Pakistani students and one British man were freed after extensive searches of 14 addresses in north-west England failed to locate evidence of terrorist activity, according to security sources.
The new figures will also support concern that police use of anti-terror stop-and-search powers is alienating Muslim communities. Last year searches under the terror laws trebled. Officers in England and Wales used Terrorism Act powers to search 124,687 people in 2007-08, up from 41,924 in 2006-07, separate figures released this month revealed. Of the subsequent 1,271 arrests, only 73 of those were for terror offences.
The BNP is a threat to every Muslim
The BNP is a threat to every Muslim. Use your vote to stop them
The fascists of the British National Party (BNP) are a threat to everyone. But they are particularly dangerous for Muslims living in this country. That is why Unite Against Fascism is urging every British Muslim to use their vote on Thursday 4 June – and use it to help defeat the BNP.
The BNP is not like the other political parties. It is a fascist organisation. Its leaders and core members are violent racist thugs with a history of whipping up hatred against black people, Asians, Jews and immigrants. But in recent years the BNP has focused on a new target: Muslims. They have dedicated themselves to spreading the worst kind of lies and hatred about Islam.
BNP leader Nick Griffin claims that Britain is being “colonised by Islam” and calls Islam a “vicious, wicked faith”. He falsely accuses Muslims of promoting child abuse, drug addiction and terrorism. BNP councillors try to incite hatred against Muslims wherever they are elected. They campaign against mosques being built and halal meat being served. They accuse all ethnic minorities of being “racial foreigners” who are “taking over” the country. Their declared aim is to build an “all white Britain”.
These slanders and lies inevitably incite the worst kind of racist violence. An Islamic centre in Luton was firebombed on 5 May this year, just weeks after the BNP joined other gangs of Nazi thugs in parading through the town. Former BNP candidate Robert Cottage was jailed in 2007 for hoarding a stockpile of explosives at his home in preparation for a “civil war” against Asians. Griffin himself has a criminal conviction for incitement to racial hatred for publishing a Nazi magazine that claimed Hitler’s Holocaust did not take place.
If the BNP wins seats at the European elections on 4 June it will gain access to huge amounts of public funding. It will use this money to further spread its campaign of hatred and violence against Muslims, immigrants and other minorities. But the BNP bigots can be stopped – if enough people come out and vote against them.
That is why it is so important that every Muslim and everyone opposed to anti-Muslim racism registers to vote in the European elections and uses their vote against the fascist BNP. Every single vote for any other party helps hold the BNP back.
The BNP is a threat to every Muslim. Use your vote to stop them.
Muslim GP was ‘forbidden from going to mosque’
A Muslim doctor who was dismissed from her job claims she was discriminated against on religious grounds because she wanted to attend a mosque for prayers every Friday, a tribunal heard today.
Doctor Musarrat Syed-Shah, 31, is alleging religious discrimination and victimisation against four partners from the North Leeds Medical Practice after her partnership agreement was terminated on August 8 last year.
The employment tribunal in Leeds heard that Dr Syed-Shah claims the other doctors were “unhappy” about her attending the weekly prayers.
Michael McDonough, for Dr Syed-Shah, told the tribunal: “They were unhappy with her attending the mosque for Friday prayers and they applied a condition to her which was not applied to anyone else by saying they were not allowed to leave the surgery between sessions.”
Mr McDonough continued: “Following the notice of termination on August 8, she was expressly forbidden from going to the mosque from August 8 till the end of her contract.”
The ‘attack’ on Maajid Nawaz
The Quilliam Foundation has issued a press release alleging that its Director, Maajid Nawaz, was attacked by a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir while in Pakistan. Needless to say, the allegation was repeated uncritically by the likes of Harry’s Place. Tayyib Muqeem, the HT member accused of carrying out the assault, has now circulated his own account of the events.