Author Archives: Bob Pitt

Express denounces the Dudley mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dudley mosqueAn £18million mosque which will dwarf everything around it has got the go-ahead – des­pite objections from 22,000 people.

It had even been turned down by the local authority, but that refusal has now been over-ruled by a Government inspector.

Angry residents say allowing the 65ft tower and dome is simply pandering to the 7,000-strong Muslim com­munity – which makes up just two per cent of the local population.

The vast building in Dudley, West Midlands, will become as visible as the town’s historic castle, built in 1070, and its main Christian church.

Last night one local resident, who wished not to be named, said: “This mosque, which will be one of the biggest outside London with a 65ft tower, will dwarf Dudley church and the wishes of 22,000 people who protested against it.”

Daily Express, 22 July 2008

In an editorial the paper comments: “Perhaps Dudley’s Islamic population could agree a compromise: their mosque should get the go-ahead but only after a series of cathedrals have been built in Muslim countries throughout the world so as to allow local Christians to worship free from the fear of persecution.”

The Express editors will be gratified to hear that their proposed series of cathedrals has in fact already been built, and Anorak helpfully provides a select list:

Cathédrale de Notre Dame d’Afrique, Algiers
St Mary’s Cathedral, Dhaka
Katedral Santa Maria Diangkat ke Surga, Jakarta
Dormition of the Virgin Mary Cathedral, Damascus
St. John’s Cathedral, İzmir
St. Joseph’s Cathedral, Abu Dhabi
Saint Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral, Alexandria
Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, Faisalabad
Vank Cathedral, Isfahan

Anorak also provides a link to a (pdf) factsheet on the Dudley mosque proposals, which points out that, at 65ft, the mosque’s minaret will in fact be be dwarfed by the 175ft spire of St Thomas and St Luke’s C of E church.

Tories repeat call for ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir

Posted on by Bob Pitt

HizbRadical Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir has launched a campaign to stop young Muslims being corrupted by Western “liberal values”. The organisation, which Tony Blair wanted to ban in Britain, has planned a summer PR campaign against Western “attacks” on the religion. The move comes as Hizb ut-Tahrir’s British arm slammed Government plans to combat Islamic extremism and to take on the preachers of hate. The group claims the Government is trying to build a compliant British Islam, and complains no other religion is subjected to such state interference.

Its campaign, focusing on such areas as Oldham, Manchester, Bradford and Leeds, carries the motto “Don’t Sit And Take It”. It claims attacks by politicians and media in the West are part of a campaign to present Islam as a backward, medieval religion. In Britain, it cites the furore caused by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, when he suggested that introducing elements of Sharia law in Britain was unavoidable. The campaign includes football tournaments, graffiti and rap contests, youth conferences and seminars. A debate tonight in Coventry asks how Muslims should respond to calls to ban the Koran.

Shadow security minister Baroness Neville-Jones said: “Three years ago the Government vowed to ban this group and have simply failed to do so, speaking volumes about their approach to countering radicalisation. It is vital we stand up to attacks like these on our values and the British way of life.”

Sunday Express, 20 July 2008

UK MPs urge probe into Muslims torture

Posted on by Bob Pitt

British lawmakers called on Sunday, July 20, for a thorough investigation into charges that British intelligence turned British Muslim citizens to Pakistan for torture.

“We conclude that it is extremely important that the veracity of allegations that the Government has ‘outsourced’ interrogation techniques involving the torture of British nationals by Pakistani authorities should be investigated,” the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said in its annual human rights report.The call followed charges that British Muslims have been turned over to the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) so they can be tortured during interrogation.

A number of British Muslims complained that they were arrested and tortured with the full knowledge of British diplomats and intelligence officers.

In one of the cases, a medical student was abducted at gunpoint in August 2005 and held for two months in the offices of Pakistan’s intelligence bureau in Karachi. He says he was tortured by Pakistani agents and later questioned over the 7/7 2005 attacks on the London transport network. Five other men have made similar allegations.

The parliamentary report said it is “extremely important” the claims of the so-called “outsourcing” of torture are cleared up.”We also recommend that the Government should further tell us whether it was aware of all six individuals at the time of their detention, and whether intelligence or evidence gained by the Pakistani authorities in its interrogation of any of these men led in whole, or in part, to further investigations or charges in the UK.”

Islam Online, 20 July 2008

See also Guardian, 21 July 2008

Right-wing evangelical Christian says McCain ‘understands the Muslim threat’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Conservative Christian leader James Dobson has softened his stance against Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, saying he could reverse his position and endorse the Arizona senator despite serious misgivings.

“I never thought I would hear myself saying this,” Dobson said in a radio broadcast to air Monday. “… While I am not endorsing Senator John McCain, the possibility is there that I might.”

Dobson said on the radio program he must consider McCain’s record against abortion rights and support for smaller government, and added McCain “seems to understand the Muslim threat.”

Associated Press, 20 July 2008

Canadian PM accused of double standards over Omar Khadr

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Omar KhadrThe leader of one of Canada’s largest Islamic groups accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday of being indifferent to Omar Khadr’s plight because he’s “brown-skinned” and a Muslim.

In an opinion piece released to the media, Mohamed Elmasry, national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, wrote that Harper is “callously” unconcerned about the 21-year-old Khadr, who faces trial before a U.S. military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in October.

“In this case, Mr. Harper is playing politics because of the backdrop of Islamophobia in this country,” Elmasry said. “This is where a leader comes in, to say this is really wrong and I have to correct that wrong by bringing this person [back to Canada] even if I lose some political points with Islamophobes.”

Khadr’s lawyers and others want Ottawa to repatriate Khadr – who was 15 in 2002 when he was accused of killing a U.S. army medic in Afghanistan – from the U.S. detention centre.

The prime minister repeated his vow to leave the case in U.S. hands following the release of a videotape showing a Canadian official interrogating a crying and despondent Khadr at Guantanamo Bay in 2004. The official was told the U.S. military had deprived the then 17-year-old of sleep for weeks to make him “more amenable and willing to talk,” according to a recently released internal report from the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Elmasry contrasted Khadr’s case with that of dual Canadian-British citizen William Sampson, who was freed from a death sentence in Saudi Arabia in 2003. Prior to his release, Ottawa had said it had made pleas on Sampson’s behalf to the highest levels of the Saudi government.

“Why is Stephen Harper so callously indifferent to Omar Khadr’s case?” Elmasry wrote. “It’s painfully obvious: William Sampson is a white westerner while his fellow Canadian citizen, Omar Khadr, is brown-skinned and a Muslim.”

CBC News, 21 July 2008

A veil closes France’s door to citizenship

Posted on by Bob Pitt

When Faiza Silmi applied for French citizenship, she worried that her French was not quite good enough or that her Moroccan upbringing would pose a problem.

“I would never have imagined that they would turn me down because of what I choose to wear,” Ms. Silmi said, her hazel eyes looking out of the narrow slit in her niqab, an Islamic facial veil that is among three flowing layers of turquoise, blue and black that cover her body from head to toe.

But last month, France’s highest administrative court upheld a decision to deny citizenship to Ms. Silmi, 32, on the ground that her “radical” practice of Islam was incompatible with French values like equality of the sexes.

In an interview at her home in a public housing complex southwest of Paris, the first she has given since her citizenship was denied, Ms. Silmi told of her shock and embarrassment when she found herself unexpectedly in the public eye. Since July 12, when Le Monde first reported the court decision, her story has been endlessly dissected on newspaper front pages and in late-night television talk shows.

“They say I am under my husband’s command and that I am a recluse,” Ms. Silmi said during an hourlong conversation in her apartment in La Verrière, a small town 30 minutes by train from Paris. At home, when no men are present, she lifts her facial veil and exposes a smiling, heart-shaped face.

“They say I wear the niqab because my husband told me so,” she said. “I want to tell them: It is my choice. I take care of my children, and I leave the house when I please. I have my own car. I do the shopping on my own. Yes, I am a practicing Muslim, I am orthodox. But is that not my right?”

The Silmis say they live by a literalist interpretation of the Koran. They do not like the term Salafism, although they say literally it means following the way of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions.

“But today ‘Salafist’ has come to mean political Islam; people who don’t like the government and who approve of violence call themselves Salafists,” said her husband, a soft-spoken man who bears two physical signs of devotion in Islam: a beard and a light bruising on his forehead caused by bows in prayer. “We have nothing to do with them.”

Ms. Silmi’s husband, a former bus driver who says he is finding it hard to get work because of his beard, dreams of moving his family to Morocco or Saudi Arabia. “We don’t feel welcome here,” he said. “I am French, but I can’t really say that I am proud of it right now.”

New York Times, 19 July 2008

‘The Muslims have said they’re going to kill us’ claims McCain supporter

Posted on by Bob Pitt

One of John McCain’s fellow Vietnam POWs compared Muslims to terrorists during a defense of the Iraq War on Friday, saying “The Muslims have said either we kneel or they’re going to kill us.”

Col. Bud Day riled Muslim leaders with the remarks made in a conference call with reporters arranged by the Republican Party of Florida on McCain’s behalf.

He added: “I don’t intend to kneel and I don’t advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn’t advocate to anybody that we kneel.”

McCain’s presidential campaign wouldn’t comment. A Republican Party spokeswoman said later that Day acknowledged he misspoke and “made an unfortunate mistake” because he meant to say “terrorists” and not “Muslims”.

Muslim leaders and Arab-American groups quickly denounced the “bigoted” comments by Day, a Pensacola resident, Medal of Honor recipient and member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attack machine from 2004.

“This is as close to racist as it gets,” said Khaled Saffuri, who helped organize Arab outreach for President Bush’s 2000 campaign. “Even if this is called a mistake or a slip of the tongue, it shows a bigger problem with racism. McCain and the Republican party should denounce this.”

“It’s perpetuating a form of Islamophobia,” said Saif Ishoof, a Miami Republican and president of the Center for Voter Advocacy, a nonpartisan group in Florida that educates Muslims about the political process.

Day’s gaffe on Muslims adds to what the community describes as a sweeping backlash from many directions. Many leaders complain that they have been vilified as terrorists since the Sept. 11 attacks launched by a segment of radical extremists who don’t represent the 1.1 billion Muslims worldwide.

More recently, Muslim leaders have criticized Obama for distancing himself from the community as part of an effort to refute false rumors that he is Muslim. When the campaign tried to set the record straight by launching the fightthesmears.com website, Muslims protested that he was calling Islam a “smear”.

Miami Herald, 19 July 2008

Muslim family banned from bus

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A bus company has apologised after a Muslim family of nine was stopped from boarding a bus to Leeds. The Alhajeri family were refused entry onto the Transdev Harrogate and District No 36 bus from Harewood to Leeds on Monday evening, because the mother and eldest daughters were wearing burkhas.

They had been on a family day out visiting the house on holiday from their home country of Kuwait. They had travelled by bus from Leeds in the morning, and had a valid return ticket to get back that evening. The driver told the family they were not allowed to board as the CCTV cameras would not be able to see the faces of the women, who were wearing a full veil.

Harrogate Transdev and District said this week that it seemed the driver had misinterpreted guidance about photo card bus passes, and apologised for any embarrassment to the family.

Managing director Dave Alexander said: “It seems that he has misinterpreted some guidance using bus passes and photo cards. For those that have paid a cash fare, that is clearly not an issue. This certainly wasn’t in any way malicious or intended to offend anybody. I think the driver’s explanation was a genuine one.”

He said that the bus company would be willing to issue a formal apology to the family, and that the company would be re-issuing guidance to all drivers in the next few days.

The family did manage to return to Leeds as the next 36 bus allowed them to board without any trouble.

Wetherby News, 18 July 2008

‘State school pupils may be taught Islamic traditions’ shock

Posted on by Bob Pitt

State school pupils are set to be taught Islamic traditions and values in compulsory citizenship lessons. The move – part of a package of initiatives announced by Communities Secretary Hazel Blears yesterday – is designed to curb extremism. Education campaigners warned however against giving Islam a privileged position over other faiths.

David Conway, senior research fellow at the Civitas think-tank, said: “Some will see this as another sign of a creeping process of Islamisation – an insidious process which plays down the Christian basis of our culture and encourages children to learn more and more about Islam’s contribution.

“Muslims are still a relatively small minority in Britain and, while I have nothing against children in our multi-religious society learning about each other’s faiths, for one particular faith to be privileged in mainstream schools seems to me pointless, and won’t make for greater harmony. I fear it will play into the hands of the small minority who want to see the Islamisation of Europe, and believe they will triumph through sheer numbers.”

Daily Mail, 19 July 2008

12 percent of Americans think Barack Obama is Muslim

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Despite a large controversy not long ago about Barack Obama sitting in a church listening to Jeremiah Wright preach for 16 years, 12 percent of Americans still believe that Obama is Muslim.

The breakdown shows that 12 percent of Democrats, 12 percent of Republicans and 11 percent of Independents still hold that belief.

The poll also shows that Democrats that share that misconception about Obama are “significantly less likely to support Obama.”

Among the 12 percent that still believe that Obama is Muslim, despite evidence to the contrary, 51 percent back McCain and 37 percent back Obama. Among those that believe that Obama is a Christian, those numbers reverse themselves, with 52 percent backing Obama and 32 percent backing McCain.

DigitalJournal.com, 18 July 2008

See also “Belief that Obama is Muslim is durable, bipartisan – but most likely to sway Democratic votes”, Pew Research Center, 15 July 2008