Author Archives: Bob Pitt

SNP urged to drop ‘sectarian and divisive’ Muslim candidate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Times takes up the witch-hunt against Osama Saeed initiated by the Quilliam Foundation.

An SNP spokesman is quoted as saying: “This disgraceful attack is untrue from start to finish, and shows that the politics of smear is not confined to websites. The Quilliam Foundation has zero credibility … this smear must be seen for what it is. We have strong community relations in Scotland, and when we are all working to build unity, the very last thing we need is people with no knowledge of Scotland spreading nastiness and smears.”

Australia: churches unite against Islamic school

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Camden_Islamic_school_protestFour Christian churches have joined in an unprecedented attack on the Islamic faith in an attempt to stop a Muslim school being built.

Calling the religion an ideology driven by world domination, a submission to the Land and Environment Court yesterday said a proposed school at Camden was a “beachhead” in Islamic takeover of southwestern Sydney, threatening the Australian way of life.

The attack, co-signed by local heads of Baptist, Anglican, Presbyterian and the Evangelical Sisters of Mary churches, formed the spearhead of Camden City Council’s defence to a court challenge over its rejection of a development application for the Muslim school.

“Islam is not simply a private religion. It is driven by a powerful political agenda, it is an ideology with a plan for world domination,” the letter said. “The Quranic Society application to establish an Islamic school in Camden is typical of a regularly repeated pattern to form a beachhead in an area for the development of a sub-culture which, for the most part, regards its own legal system as superior to the current Australian law.”

They said the Muslim community would seek to dominate public space in Camden “as we have seen in Auburn, Bankstown, Lakemba and more recently Liverpool”.

The provocative submission was penned by Camden’s Baptist Pastor Brian Stewart, St John’s Anglican Rector Tony Galea, Presbyterian minister Warren Hicks and Sisters of Mary’s sisters in charge Sister Simone and Sister Gideona.

Use of the letter is a turnaround from previous claims that the council’s ruling was on the grounds of traffic congestion.

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I’m going to quit Scotland because people have been nasty to me, says bomb-threat racist facing jail term

Posted on by Bob Pitt

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAA racist who threatened to bomb Scotland’s biggest mosque last night whined he would quit the country – because people had been “nasty” to him.

Neil MacGregor had also threatened to behead one Muslim a week until every mosque was shut down. The thug faces jail after admitting a racist breach of the peace. But yesterday, he tried to defend his behaviour by claiming he’d been freaked out after viewing a film of a hostage being beheaded. And he claimed he was a reformed character who had turned to religion.

MacGregor bleated: “When all this is over, I will be leaving Scotland. I have had enough of it and the people. I have had nothing but nastiness here.”

Last night, a leading Muslim dismissed his self-pitying squeals as a cynical attempt to obtain a soft sentence. Osama Saeed, chief executive of the Scottish-Islamic Foundation, said:

“If he is insincerely trying to mitigate any punishment, I hope it is not successful. If he had been a Muslim looking at videos of people dying in Iraq and threatened, as a result, to blow up a church or behead Christians, there would have been an absolute storm about this and such an individual would be looking at a really hefty sentence.”

In one threatening email to police – which led to his conviction – MacGregor, 36, wrote: “I’m a proud racist and National Front member. We as an organisation have decided to deal with the current threat from Muslims in our own British way, like our proud ancestors.

“Our demands are very small. Close all mosques in Scotland. We see this is very easy – even you guys can handle that. If our demands aren’t met by next Friday, we’ll kidnap one Muslim and execute him or her on the internet, just like they did to our Ken Bigley.”

But yesterday, the vile racist bleated he felt like the victim following his arrest for the threatening calls and emails regarding Glasgow Central Mosque.

He claimed he became “enraged and emotionally upset” in February 2007 after viewing a video clip of a British hostage being beheaded in Iraq – and made his anti-Muslim threats.

MacGregor claimed to the Record that Osama Saeed had asked to meet him upon the completion of any sentence “to help combat Islamophobia”. But Osama said last night: “His claim is simply not true, though if he is sincere in wanting to tackle Islamophobia after his punishment we would work with him in the same way we would anyone else.”

He added: “It’s all too easy to dismiss MacGregor as a fantasist and lunatic – many of the Muslims convicted of terror offences could be similarly described.”

Daily Record, 22 April 2009

U.S. border screening under fire

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Unreasonable IntrusionsCivil liberties groups are renewing calls for the Obama administration to change screening at border posts by limiting questions about Americans’ political beliefs and religious practices and establishing a process for U.S. citizens and residents who are mistakenly included on terrorist watch lists to clear their names.

In a report to be released today, the Asian Law Caucus of San Francisco cited more than 40 complaints from U.S. citizens and immigrants that it has received since 2007 as evidence of “a much wider pattern of profiling and discrimination at U.S. borders.”

“Many people in America’s Muslim, South Asian and Middle Eastern communities have come to expect harassment and discriminatory treatment at our nation’s doorstep” when returning home, the report said.

Separately, Muslim Advocates, the advocacy arm of the National Association of Muslim Lawyers, issued a report saying that citizens should not be threatened with detention for not answering questions that go beyond establishing their legal status to enter the United States or whether they are carrying contraband.

The actions come as civil liberties groups press for a swifter response by the new Democratic president and Congress to long-standing complaints that security measures adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have subjected innocent travelers to unwarranted delays and scrutiny.

Washington Post, 20 April 2009

Read the Muslim Advocates report here.

US boycotts UN racism conference

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Durban conference

Washington has confirmed it will boycott a UN forum on racism in Geneva next week because of differences over Israel and the right to free speech.

The state department said the proposed text of the conference’s guiding document remained unacceptable despite having been amended significantly. The US and Israel quit a similar forum in Durban in 2001 when its draft document likened Zionism to racism. Current language about “incitement to religious hatred” also alarms the US.

Pro-Israel groups vehemently opposed participation while human rights advocates and organisations like TransAfrica and members of the Congressional Black Caucus thought it was important to attend. Immediately after the announcement, Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who heads the black caucus in Congress, said the group was “deeply dismayed” by the boycott.

BBC News, 18 April 2009

For the background, see “West fears Muslim countries will hijack UN Geneva racism conference”, Guardian, 17 April 2009

The amended draft statement for the Durban review conference can be consulted (pdf) here.

Paragraph 13, to which the Obama administration objects, says that the conference:

“Reaffirms that any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law; reaffirms further that all dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred, incitement to racial discrimination as well as all acts of violence or incitement to such acts shall be declared offence punishable by law, in accordance with the international obligations of States and that these prohibitions are consistent with freedom of opinion and expression.”

From which we can only conclude that the US government defends the right to promote “religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence”.

Update:  BBC News reports that Australia and the Netherlands have joined the US, Israel and Canada in boycotting the conference.

And now Germany too.

Further update:  The Telegraph backs Obama and demands to know why Gordon Brown doesn’t follow his example: “Durban II will be little more than a celebration of the alliance between anti-Western leftists and Islamists. Countries that take civil rights seriously are right to stay away. Why is Britain not among them?”

Damian Thompson falls out with Pope

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“I don’t often have a go at Pope Benedict XVI,” Thompson writes, “but WHY is he supporting the United Nations conference on ‘racism’ in Geneva?” He quotes the Pope as stating: “We ask for firm and consistent action, at national and international level, to prevent and eliminate any form of discrimination and of intolerance.” Admirable sentiments, you might think. But Thompson is having none of it:

“With respect, Holy Father, it’s not an opportunuity [sic] to fight racism; like the disgusting fiasco in Durban in 2001, it’s an opportunity for African dictators and Jew-baiting Islamists to fulminate against Israel and the neo-Nazi, anti-Arab hordes that are sweeping across racist Europe, while dismissing any trifling Muslim assaults on other faiths as Islamophobic myths.”

Holy Smoke, 19 April 2009

Tory campaign to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir continues

Posted on by Bob Pitt

HizbA leader of a radical Muslim group which Tony Blair promised to ban four years ago has called on followers to support “jihad” against Israel at a rally in London. Dr Imran Waheed, told followers of Hizb ut-Tahrir that there could be “no peace” with Israel and urged them to “fight in the way of Allah”.

The remarks increased pressure on Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir. Patrick Mercer, the Tory chairman of the Commons Counter-Terrorism Subcommittee, said Dr Waheed’s comments appeared to represent “incitement to violence” and accused the Government of performing a U-turn on an earlier commitment to ban it.

A spokesman for the Home Office said that the group’s status was being reassessed in light of the latest remarks but said that the decision to proscribe an organisation must be “proportionate”.

But Mr Mercer said: “These comments strike me as inciting violence which is illegal. The Home Secretary must make up her mind as to whether the organisation is to be proscribed or not and if she is not going to proscribe it she has got to explain why the last Prime Minister said that it would be.”

Daily Telegraph, 18 April 2009