A Muslim leader fears for the safety of his family, after attacks on a mosque and his flat next door.
The gang of teenagers have repeatedly targeted the Essex Jamme Masjid mosque, in Chelmsford Avenue, Southend, which was converted from a church earlier this year.
Imam Mahmudul Hasan said he had been left shocked and scared after teenagers also smashed the front door windows at his home.
The EU parliament prevented the showing on Wednesday of an anti-Islamic film made by far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders, bringing cries of censorship from the British eurodeputy who organised the screening.
“The banning of this film is a direct attack on free speech,” said British MEP Gerard Batten, who had organised the event, though officials pointed out that parliamentary leaders had banned the film from being shown in their Strasbourg building back in March.
“A parliament that constantly talks of freedom, democracy and tolerance has shown once again that these are empty words when it does not agree with what is being said,” added Batten, a member of the eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP).
Wilders, who was in the parliament building hoping to see the film in a screening room, said he intended to present it during European parliamentary elections next June. “We are in discussion with other parties,” he said, without giving details.
Although, of course, we do know from Wilders’ interview with Haaretz that one of the parties he is in discussion with is Vlaams Belang.
Great news from ENGAGE.
See also the Press Release from Carter-Ruck and the (pdf) Statement in Open Court, plus Inayat’s piece at Comment is Free.
A Muslim cocktail waitress has claimed she was sacked for refusing to wear a “sexually revealing” red dress for work.
Fata Lemes said she was pestered for sex by customers at Mayfair’s Rocket bar and restaurant. Miss Lemes, 33, alleged bosses ran Rocket “like a sex club” and allowed clients to think waitresses “could be treated as prostitutes”. The strawberry blonde told a tribunal that on only her second shift two guests told her they were looking for a blonde “for one or more nights”.
A Douglasville woman was jailed Tuesday after a judge found her in contempt of court for refusing to remove her hijab, the head covering worn by Muslim women.
Lisa Valentine, also known by her Islamic name, Miedah, 40, was arrested at the Douglasville Municipal Court for violating a court policy of no headgear, said Chris Womack, deputy chief of operations for the Douglasville police. Judge Keith Rollins ordered her held in jail for 10 days, but she was released Tuesday evening. The reason for the early release wasn’t immediately clear. “It was very humiliating, degrading,” Valentine said from her home Tuesday evening. “I wear my hijab faithfully and for no reason I was asked to take it off. It was unreal.”
Other Muslim women said the same judge has ordered them to remove their hijabs. Sabreen Abdul Rahman, 55, said she was asked to take off her scarf when she went to the municipal court last week with her son. “I can’t. I’m Muslim,” she mouthed silently to the bailiff, who then removed her from the courtroom, Rahman said. “This is a religious right,” she said. Halimah Abdullah, 43, said she spent 24 hours in jail in November 2007 after Rollins held her in contempt of court for refusing to remove her head covering. Rollins could not be reached for comment.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 17 December 2008
See also CAIR press release, 16 December 2008
Update: See Selene Kaye’s post on the ACLU blog, “A call to action for women of all beliefs“.
Dutch Parliamentarian Geert screened his controversial film Fitna in Jerusalem on Sunday, calling on Europe to restrict immigration “from backward Islamic countries” and describing Islam as a totalitarian ideology “full of hate, violence and submission.”
“Europe is in the process of ‘Islamization.’ We need to fight it,” Wilders said. “We have to win the war against Islam. If we don’t … we will lose our cultural identity, our rule of law, our liberties and our freedom.”
“A blind man has been turned away from a fashionable Indian restaurant because his guide dog offended Muslim staff”, the Telegraph reports.
Except that, when you get to the end of the article, you find the following:
“Shamin Ahmed, a partner in the restaurant, said that he had written to Guide Dogs for the Blind to apologise for the incident. He said that although the owners of the venue are Muslim, he insisted religion was not a factor in the decision to refuse Mr Elder-Brown. ‘We were worried about the hygiene, that is what happened, it was a mistake,’ he said. ‘I have had a letter from Guide Dogs for the Blind, I have sent a reply apologising about that…. we found out afterwards that guide dogs are allowed, I didn’t know that’.”
Still, never let facts spoil a good anti-Muslim story, eh?
See also the article “Prison chapel not to have a crucifix” which reports: “A new prison chapel has been stopped from having a crucifix in case it offends Muslims.”
Has the Telegraph decided to try and outbid the Daily Star and Express in the promotion of “Muslims are taking over” shock horror stories?
“For some unfathomable reason, the Government has the notion that if it embraces Muslim extremists they’ll help us win the war on terror. Assorted headbangers are given lavish grants and seats on ‘anti-terrorism’ committees. Ministers have got it into their heads that if we put our arms around them and cross their palms with silver, they won’t blow us up.
“The rest of the world thinks we’re stark, staring bonkers. And not without reason. So it didn’t come as any surprise to learn that a man wanted by Interpol in connection with terrorist offences has been hired as an adviser to Scotland Yard.
“Mohammed Ali Harrath was convicted in Tunisia of numerous criminal and terrorism offences and sentenced in his absence to 56 years in prison. Interpol has him subject to a ‘red notice’ (the highest level of alert) and is urging all countries, including Britain, to arrest and deport him. Yet in addition to advising the Yard on ‘best practice’ in combating terrorism, he also runs his own TV station, which pumps out Islamist propaganda to 1.6 million viewers in this country.”
Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail, 16 December 2008
Meanwhile, over at the Times, the appalling Pauline Neville-Jones is calling for Mohamed Ali Harrath to be sacked from his position as an adviser to Scotland Yard and even, it appears, to be deported: “The FCO must be aware that the Tunisian Government, an ally in the fight against terrorism, has asked for the extradition of this man.”
And Mad Mel (“Lunacy at the Yard“) has added her ten cents to the debate:
“It’s all because of this extraordinary belief by the higher echelons of the British security world that Islamist extremism is the antidote to Islamist terrorism – that the Muslim Brotherhood are useful allies against al Qaeda. That utterly false belief derives in turn from the refusal by the establishment to accept that what we are facing is an Islamic jihad, a religious war against the non-Islamic world.”
For a response to the witch-hunt see Islam Channel press release, 16 December 2008
“Last year, the UK began backing up Sharia judgments with the full force and authority of British civil courts. Now, a campaign has been launched to end the operation of all religious courts in Britain – especially those operating under Islam. Dubbed ‘One Law for All‘, the campaign commenced not coincidently on December 10, 2008, the 60th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Promoters of the No Sharia Campaign wanted to highlight the contrast between human rights and Sharia law….
“A win for the campaign against Sharia would be a win for human rights, and especially the rights of Muslim women in the UK who might otherwise have no choice but to suffer discrimination at the hands of Islamic jurists. More importantly, it would be a statement to those who hold a radical political ideology cloaked in the name of Islam, that Britain stands for freedom and equality, and will not appease those who seek to subvert it.”
Deborah Weiss at Front Page Magazine, 16 December 2008
Under the typically scaremongering headline “Learn the Koran: Muslims bid to teach your kids” the Daily Star reports on proposals for an Islamic faith school in Swindon (hat tip: ENGAGE).
The piece concludes with a quote from Keith Porteous Wood, director of the National Secular Society, who says the school would be a “disaster” for the community. He adds: “I have great sympathy for local parents. A lot of them would not want a Christian school and far less a Muslim one” (emphasis added).
Strange isn’t it how secularist Islamophobes like Porteous Wood manage to combine a militant atheist hostility to all religion with an ingrained belief that Islam is significantly worse than Christianity? (Cf. Richard Dawkins)