Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Anti-gay preachers banned from Britain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Fred PhelpsThe Home Secretary has banned two extremist anti-gay preachers from entering Britain, a move that follows a decision to refuse entry to Geert Wilders, the Dutch anti-Muslim MP.

Fred Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper, who belong to the US Westboro Baptist Church, were planning to come to the UK to protest outside a performance of a youth play called The Laramie Project, which recounts the death of gay university student Matthew Shepard who was killed in Laramie, Wyoming, in October 1998. It was due to be performed at Queen Mary’s College in Basingstoke, Hampshire, tomorrow.

It emerged that the pair were due to enter the UK to launch their demonstration when they made an announcement on their website. “God hates the Queen Mary’s College, and the fag-infested UK, England, and all having to do with spreading sodomite lies via The Laramie Project, this tacky bit of cheap fag propaganda masquerading as legitimate theater,” it said.

Times Online, 19 February 2009

Now, it will be interesting to see if this provokes the same outraged denunciations of the suppression of free speech as the Wilders ban did, won’t it? Don’t hold your breath.

This member of the Islamophobia Watch collective takes a consistent line on such issues. Freedom of expression doesn’t cover the right to incite hatred against minority communities, and people who want to enter the UK to do this should be excluded. As in the Wilders case, Jacqui Smith has made the right decision here.

Guilty plea on bomb threat to Glasgow Central Mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Glasgow_Central_MosqueA man has admitted to threatening to blow up Glasgow Central Mosque, and behead one Muslim a week until every mosque in Scotland was shut down.

The proceedings at Glasgow Sheriff Court regarding Neil MacGregor, who sent the threats to Strathclyde Police as a National Front member, are reported in the latest edition of the Digger and have caused extreme alarm in the Muslim community.

Osama Saeed of the Scottish-Islamic Foundation said:

“I hope that he is dealt with in exactly the same manner as an extremist who was Muslim would be.

“This latest episode underscores the need for effective action tackling Islamophobia. The far right use fear of Muslims as a cloak for their old overt racism. They should realise they follow the same ideology as Al-Qaeda when they target an entire community for violence.”

Bashir Maan, President of Glasgow Central Mosque said:

“I’m surprised there hasn’t been more coverage of this. I could imagine the controversy and analysis there would have been if he had been a Muslim doing this to non-Muslims.”

Last year in Glasgow, Mary McKay was sentenced to six years for stabbing a Muslim man in the chest. She said: “I hope the guy is dead. I just stabbed a guy with the same colour of skin as a terrorist. I just saw the two Pakis and he had an NY on his top.”

Mosques across Scotland have been subject of attacks. As well as in Glasgow, this includes Edinburgh, Falkirk, Bathgate and Stirling.

The last Scottish Government Social Attitudes Survey found that half of Scots saw Muslims as a “cultural threat” to the country.

In the recent past, far right extremists have been found guilty of possessing explosives and planning to use them, for example Robert Cottage and Martyn Gilleard.

Scottish Islamic Foundation press release, 18 February 2009

‘Libraries put Bible on top shelf in a sop to Muslims’, Mail complains

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Librarians are being told to move the Bible to the top shelf to avoid giving offence to followers of Islam.

Muslims have complained of finding the Koran on lower shelves, saying it should be put above commonplace things. So officials have responded with guidance, backed by ministers, that all holy books should be treated equally and go on the top shelf together. This means that Christian works, which also have immense historical and literary value, will be kept out of the reach and sight of many readers.

Robert Whelan of the Civitas think-tank said: “Libraries and museums are not places of worship. They should not be run in accordance with particular religious beliefs. This is violating the principles of librarianship and it is part of an insidious trend.” He said the principle that books should be available to everyone was established in Europe in the Middle Ages. “One of the central planks of the Protestant Reformation was that everybody should have access to the Bible,” he added.

Simon Calvert of the Christian Institute said: “It is disappointing if the policy of libraries is dictated by the practices of one group. It is particularly disappointing if this is done to put the scriptures beyond reach.”

Daily Mail, 18 February 2009

Over at Holy Smoke Catholic Herald editor Damian Thompson asks “Don’t PC librarians make you sick?” and threatens: “I think I’ll pay a special visit to my local (super-PC) library this afternoon and have a look at the ‘holy books’. And then maybe do a little rearranging of my own.”

Wilders to incite hatred in USA

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Geert Wilders Extremist2A member of the Dutch Parliament who was banned last week from entering the United Kingdom because of his inflammatory anti-Islamic views is about to be welcomed to the United States by some notable conservatives.

Geert Wilders – who has publicly compared the Koran to “Mein Kampf” – is scheduled to make public appearances in Washington next week, including a Feb. 27 press conference at the National Press Club. Wilders is seeking to promote his movie “Fitna,” an incendiary short documentary film that depicts Islam as a religion of terrorists.

The chief sponsor of Wilders’s National Press Club event is Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan administration Pentagon official who now runs the Center for Security Policy, a prominent neoconservative think tank. Others who hope to meet with Wilders include David Horowitz, a well-known conservative activist who promotes campaigns to fight Islamic extremism.

But Wilders’s U.S. tour seems to be testing the limits of free speech even among hard-core conservatives. Some seem to be keeping their distance – apparently fearful of associating with a right-wing political figure widely seen in Europe as a dangerous extremist and self-promoter. The organizers of next week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington – a splashy gathering with prominent speakers like GOP Chair Michael Steele and former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee – have yet to decide whether Wilders will be welcome to speak.

David Keene, the president of The American Conservative Union and an organizer of the conference, at first told NEWSWEEK that he could not accommodate Wilders because all the speaking slots were booked. But after conferring with Gaffney over the weekend, he said he would seek to find time for a brief presentation. “If we can free up five or 10 minutes, we’ll see if we can let him speak,” Keene said.

Newsweek, 17 February 2009

Tennessee: Islamic subversion alleged by speaker

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A former FBI special agent told law enforcement and Homeland Security personnel that a network of Islamic organizations are working to incrementally implement Islamic law in the United States.

During a presentation at the Bedford County Emergency Management Agency, former FBI agent John Guandolo briefed members about groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which he claims is working with other Islamic groups to slowly implement Shariah, also known as Islamic law, which encompasses all areas of life.

Every major Muslim organization is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood, the former FBI agent said, which he said was formed to overthrow America and establish Islamic law.

“They’re having great success of implementing Shariah law, I could give you a thousand examples,” Guandolo said. He said small concessions like installing foot baths, and colleges forced to have separate swimming times for Islamic men and women so not to offend Muslims, are other parts of the strategy.

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Labour’s cricket test for British Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Inayat B“So, almost 20 years after Norman Tebbit devised his famous cricket test for immigrants to the UK, we learn that the Labour government is seriously discussing how to set up its own modern version for British Muslims….

“Asim Siddiqui observed yesterday on Cif that the government’s ‘tests’ were nonsensical and if pursued would destroy the already precious little credibility that its Preventing Violent Extremism (soon to be simply Preventing Extremism) agenda has. I would go even further and say that if these foolish proposals are adopted by our politicians then it will result in the government being viewed by the majority of UK Muslims as trying to actively undermine Islam and will do fatal damage to the hard work that has gone on in the last few years to try and build trust between Muslim communities and the police….

“The proposals are essentially foolish because they utterly fail to distinguish between what a person may believe and how that same person actually acts. It is perfectly possible for people to believe in the desirability of a caliphate in Muslim countries, the superiority of sharia law and to regard the practice of homosexuality as a sin, but as long as they are prepared to abide by UK law while they reside here and do not discriminate against gays, why on earth should the government classify them as extremists?”

Inayat Bunglawala at Comment is Free, 18 February 2009

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Anti-terror code ‘would alienate most Muslims’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The government is considering plans that would lead to thousands more British Muslims being branded as extremists, the Guardian has learned. The proposals are in a counterterrorism strategy which ministers and security officials are drawing up that is due to be unveiled next month.

According to a draft of the strategy, Contest 2 as it is known in Whitehall, people would be considered as extremists if:

  • They advocate a caliphate, a pan-Islamic state encompassing many countries.
  • They promote Sharia law.
  • They believe in jihad, or armed resistance, anywhere in the world. This would include armed resistance by Palestinians against the Israeli military.
  • They argue that Islam bans homosexuality and that it is a sin against Allah.
  • They fail to condemn the killing of British soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Inayat Bunglawala, a former spokesman for the Muslim Council of Great Britain, said such plans would affect many British Muslims. Bunglawala, who now runs Engage, which tries to get Muslims to participate in politics and civic society, said: “That would alienate the majority of the British Muslim public. It would be counterproductive and class most Muslims as extremists.”

Guardian, 16 February 2009

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Who is responsible for the attack on civil liberties?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In response to criticism of the government’s record on civil liberties by the former head of MI5, Stella Remington, Sunny Hundal writes:

“The fact that this government has exploited terrorism fears to curtail our civil liberties is… well, obvious. But it’s no use just blaming the government, there’s a whole industry of newspaper columnists, think-tanks, writers, bloggers and general wingnuts who have also contributed to this state of affairs because of their obsession with finding Islamists Under The Bed. Who do you think is also to blame? I’ll start with the easy ones: Melanie Phillips and Douglas Murray.”

Liberal Conspiracy, 17 February 2009

Rowan Williams ‘gives succour to extremists’, claims extremist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

douglas_murrayThe Archbishop of Canterbury has defended his controversial comments about the introduction of Islamic law to Britain and claimed that public opinion is now behind him.

On the anniversary of the interview in which Dr Rowan Williams said it “seems inevitable” that some parts of sharia would be enshrined in this country’s legal code, he claimed “a number of fairly senior people” now take the same view. He added that there is a “drift of understanding” towards what he was saying, and that the public sees the difference between letting Muslim courts decide divorces and wills, and allowing them to rule on criminal cases and impose harsh punishments.

But Douglas Murray, the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: “He has started a process which is deeply dangerous, damaging to Britain and to Muslim women in Britain. It was a wicked move because it undermines the progressives and gives succour to the extremists.”

Daily Telegraph, 16 February 2009

Yes, that’s the same Douglas Murray who said: “It is late in the day, but Europe still has time to turn around the demographic time-bomb which will soon see a number of our largest cities fall to Muslim majorities. It has to. All immigration into Europe from Muslim countries must stop…. Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition.”

The Douglas Murray whose slanders against Salma Yaqoob in a television discussion led to the programme being pulled by Central TV for fear of legal action. According to Salma: “He made all sorts of wild claims about me. He said that I was a supporter of terrorism, that I didn’t care about Muslims in Iraq and that I’d taken part in an anti-war riot. It was all such libellous nonsense I thought they would just halt the recording there and then…”