Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Horowitz lambastes Islam at Brown University in near-empty hall

Posted on by Bob Pitt

David HorowitzDavid Horowitz opened his lecture on terrorism – part of “Islamofascism Awareness Week,” a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center – with a joke. “I hope you checked your pies at the door,” he quipped, recalling the incident in which New York Times Columnist Thomas Friedman was pied as he began his lecture in Salomon 101 last spring.

Three uniformed officers at the back and three at the front of the largely empty MacMillan 117 and Horowitz’s own private bodyguard made any pies-to-the-face unlikely.

Horowitz, a Jewish writer and activist who holds adamantly pro-Israel views, said the purpose of his lecture was to counter “liberal orthodoxy” on campus. “You have one of the worst faculties in the United States,” he said. “These people are communists – they are totalitarians.”

The lecture was titled “Helping the Enemy to Win: Support for the Jihad on American Campuses”. “Islam is a fundamentalist religion,” Horowitz said, adding that the Quran left very little room for interpretation when compared to the Hebrew and Christian Bibles.

Brown Daily Herald, 17 October 2008

Eastern Germany’s first mosque opens amid protests

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Berlin mosque protestA new mosque has opened in Berlin – the first in former East Germany. Just blocks away, some 300 people demonstrated against what they called the “Islamisation of Europe.”

Located in Berlin’s Pankow district, the 1.6 million-euro mosque has a 12-meter (39-foot) high minaret and can hold 500 worshippers. Built for members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, the mosque was inaugurated on Thursday, Oct. 16, with a celebration attended by approximately 300 people, including Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit.

According to Wowereit, the mosque symbolizes “religious and cultural tolerance” in Berlin. His comments may have been overly optimistic, though, given that hundreds of protesting residents and the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) were gathered only blocks away from the site. The demonstrators held banners with statements such as, “Stop the Islamisation of Europe” and “Stop the Abuse of Religious Freedom.” A petition against the construction of the mosque had also gathered some 20,000 signatures.

The Ahmadiyya mosque has been a source of controversy since its building plans were announced in 2006, with attacks on the site hindering its construction.

Ijaz Ahmad, spokesperson for the mosque, is hopeful however that the new two-story building will help bring clashing Muslims and non-Muslims in Berlin closer together. “The mosque will be a hub of social activity, not just for praying,” she said. “It will play a role in boosting integration and promoting dialogue with politicians and other religious groups.”

A local citizens’ group doesn’t seem to see integration in the cards though. “We have a big problem with sects that put religion above everything else, allow the beating of women and deny equal rights,” the group said on its Web site.

Deutsche Welle, 17 October 2008

Demonstrators hold banners against the opening of the newly built Ahmadiyya mosque in the Heinersdorf district of Berlin

BNP claims credit for preventing further Islamification of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne

Posted on by Bob Pitt

newcastle-patriot-oct-2008.PDFThe British National Party in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne has claimed credit for the reversal of a scheme to build a mosque and a development dubbed “Asia Town’ in the west end of that city.

“We fought long and hard against this further destruction of Geordie culture,” said Ken Booth, North East Regional Organiser and tireless BNP campaigner in the city. “The decision by the council to reverse the plans to build the mosque is undoubtedly down to the massive Newcastle BNP’s ‘Say No to Asia Town’ campaign and the second place in Elswick in the May local elections,” he said.

BNP News, 16 October 2008

Death for apostasy?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Reading AC Grayling’s latest article and listening to the protestations of the Council of Ex-Muslims, you would think that the death penalty is being gratuitously and frequently applied to those who renounce Islam or harbour thoughts of apostasy. As a Muslim who has lived most of my life in Muslim countries, this picture is hard to recognise.”

Nesrine Malik at Comment is Free, 17 October 2008

BNP member fined over racist mail

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lockhart KneenAn internet trader who put racist stickers on packages has been fined after they were spotted by Muslim postal workers. The stickers, which had the statement “no more mosques” and a cartoon figure of a Muslim with a bomb exploding from his head, were found at the Royal Mail Centre, on Green Lane, Stockport.

Lockhart Kneen, of Braemore Drive, Hyde, was fined £150 and ordered to pay £115 costs for racially/religiously aggravated harassment. Kneen, 39, who sells political magazines for the BNP, claimed he put the stickers on the packages in protest against a “Tameside Super Mosque”.

The court was told Kneen became extremely aggressive when arrested and shouted racist abuse. He claimed was advised by a BNP leader that the stickers were not racist, but were illegal if put on public property.

“These parcels are my property and I live in a free country, so I decided to stick them on my property,” he said. “They’re going to move the war graves in Ashton and build a super mosque. There are people in Tameside bricking windows of mosques. I was protesting peacefully and I’m the one in court. I would have been better off throwing bricks.”

Mr Lake, defending, said: “It was an expression of freedom of speech. Freedom to express your views should not only include the inoffensive, but also the contentious, providing it does not provoke violence. And a freedom of speech that does not include the contentious is not worth having.”

Sentencing, District Judge Tim Devas, said: “I believe the defendant was aware of the distress his comments could have caused.”

Manchester Evening News, 15 October 2008

Obama is ‘a Muslim and a terrorist’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The “moment in Minnesota” appeared last Friday like the white, infected head of a pimple – impossible to miss, hard not to stare at, and embarrassing, at least to John McCain, who wants to present an unblemished face to the voting public.

Wearing her bright red McCain-Palin T-shirt, Gayle Quinnell rose from the crowd at a rally in Lakeville, Minn. to give her candidate a little of his signature straight talk. “I don’t trust Obama,” she announced, as McCain nodded enthusiastically. Then she continued: “I have read about him. He’s an Arab.”

And there it was. Centre stage, on camera, about as public as you can get. The political pus that’s been building for nearly two years under the surface of this presidential campaign, oozing forth in broad daylight.

By last week, the crowds at McCain rallies were turning ugly. Mention of Obama’s name invoked cries of “terrorist!” or “bomb him!” or “traitor!” or “off with his head!”

McCain has begun trying to tamp down the hostility, telling supporters at rallies that they have “no reason to be scared” of Obama. But Gayle Quennell, for one, remains resolute. Obama, she told reporters after her moment on stage last week with McCain, is “a Muslim and a terrorist … all the people agree with what I said.”

CBC, 16 October 2008

BBC put Muslims before you

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Daily Star BBC Puts Muslims Before YouThe BBC supremo caused a storm last night by saying he would not allow jokes about Muslims.

Director-general Mark Thompson announced the ban, saying they were “more sensitive” than Christians. He said the network should not make fun of Islam because Muslims were a minority group in Britain.

But his comments were slammed by Christian groups, and comics including Ben Elton. He accused the network of being “too scared” to joke about Islam.

Daily Star, 16 October 2008

See also Daily Mail, 15 October 2008  And BNP News

This is one of those reports where it is instructive to replace Muslims and Islam with Jews and Judaism. You can imagine the outcry if a daily paper carried a piece attacking the BBC Director-general for arguing that making jokes about Jews was not the same as making jokes about Christians, under the headline “BBC put Jews before YOU!”

Salma defends Global Peace & Unity event

Posted on by Bob Pitt

GPU eventSalma Yaqoob defends the Global Peace & Unity event against an attack from the increasingly demented David Toube at Harry’s Place:

“The Global Peace & Unity event has an exemplary record of promoting peace and harmony between Muslims and non-Muslims and this event will be no different than previous ones.

“The real intention behind the attacks on it by the rabidly pro-Israeli Harry’s Place website is to further restrict freedom of speech for the British Muslim community.

“These follow similar attacks on the IslamExpo event. Any Muslim gathering which discusses the disastrous impact of Western foreign policy now finds itself accused of promoting ‘grievance politics’, and a ‘victim mentality’.

“The impression is created that all Muslims who are critical of the impact of foreign policy – and certainly any Muslim who recognises the rights of those in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq to resist the occupation of their countries – are aiding those who preach the language of violent extremism here.

“The kind of politics motivating these attacks on the GPU and IslamExpo events is highly dangerous. If, inside the Muslim community, the public space to even discuss concerns and distress over foreign policy gets squeezed, a dangerous vacuum is created. This can be filled by the real extremists who will claim to share our genuine concerns about the injustice at the heart of British foreign policy, but promote only violent solutions and reject peaceful and democratic routes as pointless.

“There is a dangerous hypocrisy in the way those criticising the GPU event uphold the sanctity of western lives but deny the humanity of those people dying abroad as a consequence of the policies of our governments. They claim Muslims need to condemn more vociferously the atrocities against Western innocents whilst remaining silent themselves in the face of thousands slaughtered in the name of Western governments. I have been consistent in condemning both. We should seek to ensure the safety and the human rights of all people – be they in Baghdad or Birmingham.

“We should also challenge and seek to eradicate hateful ideologies which seek to divide us, whether this is Islamophobia, anti-Semitism or any other form of racism. My commitment is to a politics that unites all those in favour of peace, justice and equality, irrespective of their race or religious belief. I am proud to be able to use the platform and global audience the GPU event provides to that end.”

Socialist Unity, 15 October 2008

Shari’a law called ‘racist, backward’ at meeting of ex-Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Council of ex-MuslimsLondon — Sweeping legal challenges must be made against the creeping introduction of Islamic law (shari’a) in the United Kingdom, the head of a new body of former Muslims said here Friday. The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, a group bringing together former adherents of the Islamic faith as well as humanists, held its first international conference in London. Several speakers decried the rise of what they called “political Islam” across Europe.

CNSNews.com, 13 October 2008

That would be this so-called Council of Ex-Muslims. Its conference brought together members of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran (who were responsible for launching the organisation) along with militant atheists and secularists. With the exception of Ibn Warraq, there was scarcely an ex-Muslim in sight.

Update:  See also the Guardian, which for some reason has given space to A.C Grayling to promote this fraud.

Row over £215k ‘terror-link’ festival

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Alex Salmond agreed to hand over £215,000 for an Islamic festival in Scotland following a meeting with a former military commander of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

Documents obtained by The Sunday Times reveal Salmond approved the grant following the meeting between culture minister Linda Fabiani and Mohammed Sawalha, who is alleged to have directed terror operations in the West Bank.

The meeting, in January, was also attended by Osama Saeed, founder of the Scottish Islamic Foundation (SIF) and an SNP activist who is expected to contest the Glasgow Central seat at the next Westminster election. Sawalha was invited to take part in the meeting to discuss the funding of IslamFest in Glasgow next year.

The event, being organised by the SIF, is modelled on London’s IslamExpo, run by Sawalha. IslamExpo was boycotted by UK ministers earlier this year because of its links to Hamas.

Sunday Times, 12 October 2008

See also Scotland on Sunday which reports:

A spokesman for Fabiani said: “The former Labour London mayor Ken Livingstone suggested meeting the official organisers of IslamExpo, and Ms Fabiani met with them in that capacity to hear about their experiences of running this highly successful inter-community event. It would be totally inappropriate to have such routine matters determined by unproven allegations against any individual, who has not been questioned in this country for any wrongdoing.”

He added: “Scotland has strong inter-faith and inter-community relations, mercifully free of much of the internet-based smear and slander that goes on elsewhere. In any event, IslamFest will be a specifically Scottish event, with its own distinct focus, and is being organised by the Scottish Islamic Foundation. The previous administration had agreed funding for an IslamFest event in Scotland, which was progressed by this Government.”