Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Daud Abdullah replies to Hazel Blears

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Daud-Abdullah“In her misguided and ill-advised attempt to exercise control on the affairs of the largest independent Muslim organisation, the MCB, which has steadfastly and with honesty represented the views of Muslims over the years, Hazel Blears has used my attendance at the Global Anti-Aggression Campaign conference and the signing of a position document as the peg to hang her coat on.

“Her latest claim as stated in a letter on her behalf to our secretary-general and published in the Guardian today is that I signed a document ‘advocating attacks on Jewish communities all around the world’. She had not raised this allegation before yesterday and it is entirely untrue.”

Daud Abdullah at Comment is Free, 26 March 2009

Update:  See also letters from Daud Abdullah, and Ken Livingstone and others, in the Guardian, 27 March 2009

MCB rejects Hazel Blears’ baseless accusations

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MCB banner

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) terms the new accusations of the Community Secretary Hazel Blears as outrageous.

In a letter published today in the Guardian (Our questions to the MCB leadership, 26 March 2009), she makes the extraordinary claim that Dr Daud Abdullah, the Deputy Secretary-General of the MCB, signed a document in Istanbul that ‘advocates attacks on Jewish communities all around the world’.

“This is an incredible claim which we utterly reject. All of the MCB’s office bearers without exception stand resolutely against all forms of indiscriminate violence. We are completely opposed to all forms of prejudice including Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. We would expect someone in Ms Blears’ position to be working towards increasing understanding and goodwill between communities and to act responsibly and fairly,” said Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain.

MCB news release, 26 March 2009

See also ENGAGE, 26 March 2009

Muslim Council accuses government of undermining independence

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Britain’s largest Muslim body has accused ministers of wanting to “undermine its independence” by demanding one of its leaders be removed from office. The accusation is the strongest public attack yet by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) in its row with the government after ministers broke off relations earlier this month.

Hazel Blears, the communities and local government minister, wrote to the MCB demanding the resignation of Daud Abdullah, its deputy secretary general, after he allegedly called for violence against Israel.

Today the MCB spokesman Inayat Bunglawala told the Guardian that the government only wanted to deal with Muslim groups who were “stooges” and “spineless”, and vowed the council would resist attempts to interfere in how it was run.

Bunglawala, who is close to the thinking of MCB leaders, told the Guardian: “We intend to resist the attempted government interference in the running of the MCB. The call on the MCB to force the resignation of Daud Abdullah is clearly unacceptable. It can be seen as an attempt to undermine the independence of the MCB.”

The MCB feels it has been increasingly attacked by the government for insisting Britain’s foreign policy is making the country a target for al-Qaida-inspired terrorism, with ministers preferring to talk to less critical groups such as the Quilliam Foundation, set up by the self-confessed former extremist Ed Hussain.

Bunglawala said: “We hope that Ms Blears does not look upon the MCB as being of the same spineless calibre as the Quilliam Foundation … who are widely viewed among British Muslims as being stooges of the government.”

Guardian, 26 March 2009

Blears severs links with MINAB

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MinabA second leading Muslim group bankrolled by the taxpayer is poised to have its Government links severed in a bitter row over extremism. The Mosques and Imams National Advisory Body, a central plank of Labour’s anti-extremism strategy, has been dragged into the dispute.

Yesterday, the Mail told how the Muslim Council of Britain’s links with ministers had been suspended over its refusal to condemn Daud Abdullah for signing a declaration which advocated attacks on the Navy if it tried to stop arms intended for Hamas being smuggled into Gaza.

Now it has emerged that Dr Abdullah is also a member of MINAB’s steering group. Communities Secretary Hazel Blears has ruled ministers will have no further contact with MINAB – which has received £174,000 of public money – until action is taken against Dr Abdullah, who is also deputy secretary-general of the MCB.

Mrs Blears’ stance against both the MCB and MINAB, which is supposed to ensure there are moderate voices in Britain’s mosques, is part of a determination in Government to take a tougher position against those who advocate extremist views.

But last night, Paul Goodman, Tory spokesman on communities, said: “It’s deeply worrying that a body set up to promote moderation has been penetrated by a man who doesn’t deny support for attacks on British troops. There must be zero tolerance of attacks on our armed forces.”

Daily Mail, 26 March 2009

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Fox News boosts Belgian far-right racist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Vlaams_BelangA clash of civilizations may be taking place on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, but it’s also happening a lot more quietly in European cities.

Old Europe’s population is dwindling even as immigration and high birth rates among Muslim groups are swelling in cities all over the continent.

And in Belgium, it is no different.

Filip Dewinter, a leader of the far-right separatist party Vlaams Belang, predicts there will eventually be a kind of civil war when the longtime residents of Brussels – the nation’s capital and administrative seat of the European Union – realize their city is about to be taken over by Muslim immigrants.

Although there are no official statistics on how many Muslims live in Brussels, it is believed they make up about 25 percent of the city’s 1 million urban residents. Dewinter, who opposes immigration and has called Islamophobia a “duty,” claims three of the 19 sections of Brussels, each with its own mayor, now have Muslim majorities. “In those neighborhoods it’s not our government that’s in power,” he said, “but the Muslim authorities – the mosques, the imams – who are in charge.”

So instead of being a melting pot, Brussels has become a city that does everything possible to appease Islam, he claims. “Halal food is served in the schools, not only for Muslim children, but for all the children,” said Dewinter, adding that municipal pools in Brussels now have separate hours for men and women to swim.

The anti-immigrant Vlaams Belang, once considered a pariah party, now controls about 24 percent of the Belgian vote, a trend matched in other European countries with burgeoning Muslim populations.

Though the immigration debate has not yet reached the fever pitch it has in the U.S., a real test will come when a major European city has a Muslim majority. The first could be Marseilles, in France, or Amsterdam, in the Netherlands. But don’t count out Brussels, the heart and capital of Europe.

Fox News, 24 March 2009

Hazel Blears’ standoff with Muslim Council overshadows new anti-terror launch

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A standoff between the communities secretary, Hazel Blears, and the Muslim Council of Britain was said last night to “cut to the heart” of the government’s revised counter-terror strategy to challenge those who defend terrorism and violent extremism.

Blears has suspended official links with the MCB over allegations that its deputy general secretary endorsed a Hamas call for attacks on foreign troops, including possibly British troops, if they try to intercept arms smuggled into Gaza.

Blears last night pressed the MCB for further clarification after it distanced itself from a declaration calling for a new jihad over Gaza made by the Hamas-backed “global anti-aggression campaign” in Istanbul last month. The cabinet minister is still pressing the MCB’s deputy general secretary, Dr Daud Abdullah, who attended and signed the Istanbul declaration, to clarify his own position.

The dispute, involving a senior government minister and one of the most significant Muslim “umbrella” organisations, coincided with the launch of the Contest 2 counter-terror strategy and illustrated the determination of ministers to challenge radical views that fall short of support for violence but reject and undermine “our shared values”.

Guardian, 25 March 2009

See also “The government may be the only loser in this untimely dispute” by Madeleine Bunting.

Meanwhile the Daily Mail seizes the opportunity to attack the MCB:

Mail smears MCB

Alienating British Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Following the recent muddle over Hezbollah, the British government continues to dig itself deeper into the mire with its “anti-extremism” policy.

Hazel Blears, secretary of state for communities and local government, is trying to engineer the resignation of Daud Abdullah, deputy secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain. She may not like Abdullah or agree with his views but, frankly, it’s none of her business. The MCB is not a government body and can appoint whoever it wants as its deputy secretary general.

This sort of government interference is condemned by human rights organisations when it happens under dictatorial regimes such as that in Egypt where authorities vet the board members of NGOs and even tell them how they must conduct their meetings.

Of course, the government can choose whether or not to talk to the MCB but, by choosing not to, it will seriously undermine its own policy of engaging with the British Muslim community.

The MCB is an umbrella organisation that claims the support of more than 500 affiliated national, regional and local organisations, mosques, charities and schools. By definition it needs to include as many strands of British Muslim opinion as possible. In the past it has been criticised for not being representative enough, and now Blears seems determined to make it less representative as a condition of being recognised by the government.

Brian Whitaker at Comment is Free, 24 March 2009

Update:  See also “Hazel Blears must back down” by, of all people, Geoffrey Alderman, who writes:

The extraordinary action taken against the Muslim Council of Britain by communities minister Hazel Blears has rightly aroused widespread condemnation. As Brian Whitaker has already pointed out, Blears’s 13 March letter to the MCB, suspending ‘engagement’ with it pending the outcome of its investigation into the conduct of its deputy general secretary, Daud Abdullah, amounts to a piece of quite unwarranted Whitehall interference in the internal working of an independent body operating entirely legally in this country. In principle, whom the MCB chooses as its office-holders is none of Blears’s business. The very unfortunate precedent she is trying to set reflects the practices of a totalitarian state – China perhaps, or Zimbabwe. I am shocked that such a mindset could emerge in the UK.