Category Archives: Analysis & comment

Martin Bright (of all people) to lead discussion on Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

martin_brightThe Festival of Spirituality and Peace in Edinburgh on 16 August features a session on the subject of “Antisemitism and Islamophobia”.

And who is the main speaker at this session? The festival programme informs us: “Martin Bright, political editor of the Jewish Chronicle (and formerly of the New Statesman) and presenter of C4’s Who Speaks for the Muslims? discusses Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia – and other expressions of discrimination or hate crime – with members of the Jewish and Muslim communities. When does comment or criticism of a group become discriminatory and how much objection to the criticism is ‘crying wolf’?”

The programme omits to mention that Bright is also notorious as the author of When Progressives Treat With Reactionaries, published by the right-wing propaganda organisation Policy Exchange, which depicted the MCB and other mainstream Muslim organisations as extremists and called on the government to break all links with them. Indeed, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Bright was hired by the Jewish Chronicle precisely because of his record in attacking representative Muslim organisations.

Is Bright really an appropriate person to introduce a discussion on Islamophobia – particularly at a festival billed as “a celebration of diverse cultures and communities”?

The right to incite religious hatred: Brendan O’Neill rallies to the defence of fascists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP heroin leaflet

Over at spiked, the website of the cranky sect formerly known as the Revolutionary Communist Party, there is a particularly silly and ignorant article by Brendan O’Neill calling for the repeal of the 2006 Racial and Religious Hatred Act, which he describes as “an attack on what is for spiked the most important freedom of all, the freedom upon which all other freedoms are built, the freedom without which we cannot be free-thinking, free-associating, independent citizens: freedom of speech”. The legisation was, O’Neill asserts, motivated by an “outrageously Orwellian desire to make it a crime to ridicule religion”.

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Far-right racists protest against HT in Sydney

Posted on by Bob Pitt

APP protest against HT

The stage appeared set for two opposed cultures to clash in Sydney’s ethnically mixed working-class suburb of Lidcombe yesterday. But if any outright antagonism had been going to happen between the Australian Protectionist Party and Hizb ut-Tahrir, police were determined not to allow it, keeping the groups at a distance from one another.

The APP met in a small park to express their need to “protect” the Australian way of life. Around the corner from Australian flag-waving protesters, Muslims from around Sydney and overseas gathered in a local conference hall to discuss the “Struggle For Islam in the West”, with the Hizb ut-Tahrir.

“Infidels ‘r’ us!” read one APP placard, as members marched past the conference centre. After regrouping in the park around the corner, the APP contingent mustered for another lap of the town centre and yelled “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Islam must go”and “No sharia law”.

Nick Folkes, the Sydney organiser for the APP, believes that the HT should be banned in Australia and thinks that practising sharia law should be illegal in Australia. “Sharia law is an archaic legal system that treats woman as second-class citizens,” he said. “We’re not asking them to change their skin colour or religion. But if they come here, they must reject sharia law.”

The Australian, 5 July 2010

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Australian MP calls for bar on HT … and debate on banning the veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Michael JohnsonPreachers of Islamic extremism should be barred from Australia, a federal MP says. Michael Johnson, a lower house independent, has also called for a debate on banning the burqa.

He said Prime Minister Julia Gillard and his former boss, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, needed to repudiate the leadership of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a global Islamic group which wants Australian Muslims to reject democracy. “Join together and repudiate the extremism of this global movement and … guarantee that none of its international preachers ever receive a visa to step on to Australian soil again,” Mr Johnson said in a statement.

The release was issued in response to an article in The Australian which reported Hizb ut-Tahrir leaders urging participants in a western Sydney conference to join the struggle for a transnational Islamic state.

Mr Johnson said Australia’s Judeo-Christian heritage promoted inclusion, openness and transparency. “It is not our culture to exclude, nor is it one that aims to suppress women’s rights of equality, openness and full political participation,” he said. “Therefore, let us have a full and fearless debate on whether women should be required to wear the head to toe covering niqab, or the burqa.”

Mr Johnson’s comments make him potentially the most vocal Queenslander to criticise a minority group since Pauline Hanson said in her 1996 parliamentary maiden speech that Australia was in danger of being “swamped by Asians”.

AAP, 5 July 2010

Johnson evidently suffers from an irony by-pass. You’ll note that he calls for representatives of a peaceful if highly sectarian Islamist organisation to be denied entry to Australia, while simultaneously declaring that “it is not in our culture to exclude”. Clearly Australia’s “Judeo-Christian heritage”, is not without its contradictions.

Sunday Mercury witch-hunts Islamic Dawah Centre International, assisted by Roger Godsiff

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qutb MilestonesAn MP has called for an inquiry into a Midland charity which invited a radical Muslim preacher to speak to crowds in Birmingham. A Sunday Mercuryinvestigation has also revealed that Islamic Dawah Centre International (IDCI), is selling books by Muslim extremists through its website.

The Alum Rock-based group had invited Dr Zakir Naik to speak to 13,000 people at the LG Arena this weekend – despite him publicly backing Osama Bin Laden in the past. But Home Secretary Theresa May denied the Indian-born cleric a visa to enter the UK after it emerged that he had branded the US a “terrorist state” and said that “every Muslim should be a terrorist”.

Now, the Sunday Mercury has learned that IDCI is selling books by Dr Naik, as well as Islamic texts by other controversial clerics. The books also include works by Sayyid Qutb, a fundamentalist Egyptian Imam who is is said to have inspired Osama Bin Laden to establish Al Qaeda. An extract from his seminal work, Milestones, is available from IDCI for less than £1.

An edition of the book is understood to have had an influence on the Saudi terror chief who plotted the 9/11 terror attacks on New York’s Twin Towers. Bin Laden’s second in command, Ayman Al Zawahiri, also studied under Qutb’s brother at university in Egypt and has vowed to put the radical cleric’s vision of an Islmaic army fighting for a global Muslim state into action. One Islamic expert told the Sunday Mercury: “Sayyid Qutb is one of the key ideological ancestors of Al Qaeda. The theme of his work is the use of violence to create a ‘proper’ Islamic state.”

The IDCI website also stocks Dr Naik’s Islam and Terrorism? and Towards Understanding Islam by Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi, a founder of extremist Islamist faction Jamaat-e-Islami. The Pakistani fundamentalist group aims to replace the government of the sub-continental state with a radical Muslim ruling party and impose strict Sharia law. Mawdudi writes: “Islam requires the Earth – not just a portion, but the whole planet.”

Birmingham MP Roger Godsiff said: “If this registered charity has invited this man to speak, and if there is also concern about them selling this sort of literature then the Charity Commission is duty-bound to investigate, and I hope they do so.”

A spokeswoman for the Charity Commission said: “Concerns have been raised with the Charity Commission regarding the Islamic Dawah Centre International. We are currently assessing these concerns in order to establish what, if any, regulatory role the Commission may have.”

Sunday Mercury, 27 June 2010

Sayyid Qutb’s Milestones is of course readily available from a number of mainstream outlets including this one. Does that mean Godsiff and the Sunday Mercury will be calling for an investigation into Amazon on the grounds that it is promoting the ideology of Al Qaeda? Admittedly, Mawdudi’s Towards Understanding Islam is currently listed as “out of stock” at Amazon. So I suppose it would be unreasonable to accuse Amazon of supporting a fundamentalist takeover of the whole planet.

Defeating ‘universal jihad’ in Tennessee

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Vijay Kumar billboard

What is it with Republicans in Tennessee? Lou Ann Zelenik, who is standing as a Republican candidate for Congress in Tennessee’s 6th District, has just denounced the plan to build a new Islamic centre in Murfreesboro as part of “a political movement designed to fracture the moral and political foundation of Middle Tennessee”. Another Republican candidate, Vijay Kumar, who has in the past been boosted by David Horowitz’s FrontPage Magazine, is standing in Tennessee’s 5th District – under the slogan “Defeat Universal Jihad Now!”.

In a recent interview, Kumar explained:

“My position is clear and unequivocal: Islam’s Universal Jihad and Sharia law pose a clear and present existential threat to the very existence of the United States, and to every liberty, freedom, and human right that this nation was founded upon.

“… if the American people do not awake to the nature and seriousness of this threat, if we do not take swift and effective action to protect our republic from it, if we do not openly and candidly name the enemies of freedom and human liberty – in short, if Islam is allowed to realize its goals – then one day there will be no 5th District of Tennessee, nor will there be any Tennessee, nor will there be a United States of America, and the Quran will be the only constitution ruling this land that we cherish.”

Religious hatred law once again shown to be useless

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A local Dewsbury columnist who wrote that had the Cumbria mass-murderer been carrying the Qur’an he would have been celebrated by “so-called British Muslims” will not face prosecution, Dewsbury police announced.

Almost 300 demonstrators gathered outside Dewsbury Police Station on June 6 in protest at alleged inflammatory Islamophobic comments made in the The Press the previous Friday.

Writing just three days after Derrick Bird murdered 12 people in Cumbria and before the victims’ burials, the local paper’s columnist, Danny Lockwood, wrote that had Bird been carrying a copy of the Qur’an, “he would have been celebrated as a hero by tens of thousands, possibly more, of so-called ‘British’ Muslims.”

A CPS spokesman told The Muslim News: “According the legal guidance evidence would have had to be obtained revealing that Lockwood used ‘threatening’ language ‘to stir up religious hatred’. Threatening is the operative word, not abusive or insulting.

“So using abusive or insulting behaviour intended to stir up religious hatred does not constitute an offence, nor does using threatening words likely to stir up religious hatred.”

The Muslim News, 25 June 2010

The Muslims who support the ban on Zakir Naik

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Inayat Bunglawala has the details.

A similar situation obtains in Canada, where the ban on Dr Naik was not only supported but actively promoted by Tarek Fatah and his so-called Muslim Canadian Congress. The National Post reports Fatah as boasting that he “sent a mass email to federal MPs last week, warning them of Dr. Naik’s views”. “We are very happy that government agencies, having been made aware of his statements, have taken this decision,” Fatah is quoted as saying. “We certainly don’t want hate-mongers to come here.”

PACE report warns of rising Islamophobia in Europe

Posted on by Bob Pitt

PACE

Europe’s largest intergovernmental human rights watchdog has warned that intolerance toward Islam and Muslims in Europe has been increasing in recent years and urged immediate action to stem violence against Muslims.

In a report titled “Islam, Islamism and Islamophobia in Europe“, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) noted with deep concern that in many of the Council of Europe’s 47 member states, Muslims feel socially excluded, stigmatized and discriminated against, stressing that they become victims of stereotypes, social marginalization and political extremism because of their different religious and cultural traditions.

PACE made recommendations to the Council of Europe saying, “Discrimination against Muslims must not be tolerated in Europe, as it violates the European Convention on Human Rights.” “Freedom of religion of Muslims must be fully guaranteed, but this freedom must not be used to deny other fundamental freedoms and human rights, in particular the right to life by non-Muslims, the right to non-discrimination by women or minorities, the right to freedom of expression and the right to freedom of religion by non-Muslims,” it also added.

The report lambasted some member states where far right-wing parties have changed their traditional hostile campaign against immigration and foreigners and now exploit the public fear of Islam. The PACE report underlined: “Their political campaigns encourage anti-Muslim sentiments and the amalgamation of Muslims with religious extremists. They advocate the fear of Europe being swamped by Muslims.”

It listed political parties such as the French National Front, the Dutch Party for Freedom, the Belgian Vlaams Belang and the Swiss People’s Party, which have been very successful in running campaigns against Islam and largely contributed to the stigmatization of Muslims

Today’s Zaman, 22 June 2010

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Sectarian idiots attempt to undermine anti-fascist unity in Tower Hamlets

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Close East London Mosque

“As we confront the fascist thugs of EDL we in the Bengali and the Muslim community are being asked to stand side by side with Islamic Forum in Europe (IFE). This we refuse to do.”

As Tower Hamlets gears up for a united protest against the English Defence League, a motley collection of malicious, sectarian idiots has chosen this moment to mount a public attack on the IFE and the East London Mosque, bracketing them along with the EDL as fascists.

Note that many of the signatories to this ill-written diatribe aren’t even part of the Bengali and Muslim community anyway. They include the drunken thug Terry Fitzpatrick, currently on bail facing a charge of racially aggravated harassment following a complaint to the police by Simon Woolley of Operation Black Vote. Then there is Gita Sahgal, who broke with Amnesty over its links with Cageprisoners, and has headed a right-wing campaign against her former employers while promoting crackpot conspiracy theories to justify her participation in the witch-hunt.

And where would a statement like this be without the support of the contemptible Jim Fitzpatrick MP? This is the man who insulted the couple who invited him to their (gender-segregated) wedding at the London Muslim Centre by denouncing them to the press and whose most recent contribution to community harmony has been to condemn the organisers of Sunday’s protest for “stirring up fear and anger”.

True, this disgraceful statement has been signed by some members of the Bengali community in East London – indeed, it was organised on behalf of the laughably misnamed Unity Platform Against Racism and Fascism from the Bangladesh Welfare Association off Brick Lane.

One such signatory is Ansar Ahmed Ullah, who worked with Andrew Gilligan on “Britain’s Islamic Republic“, the Channel 4 documentary that provoked the EDL’s threat to demonstrate in the East End in the first place. And, after the programme was condemned in a letter to the Guardian by a wide range of progressive figures, Ullah collected signatures for a letter defending Gilligan’s witch-hunt. Last year he collaborated with Observer journalist Nick Cohen in another attack on the East London Mosque, complaining bitterly about the government’s willingness to consult its leading figures. “They never want to talk to people like me,” he whinged. Well, perhaps that’s because the East London Mosque is attended by some 10,000 people a week and represents serious forces within the community – whereas Ullah represents, shall we say, rather less.

Other signatories are associated with the Awami League, currently the governing party in Bangladesh. As the statement makes clear, their primary interest is in settling scores over disputes within Bangladeshi politics, going back to the liberation war nearly four decades ago, without any concern for the impact their actions have on politics in East London today.

This is not only unprincipled but monumentally stupid. By breaking the united front against the far Right, these self-proclaimed “secular” forces within the Bangladeshi community are playing with fire. The Brick Lane Mosque, with which the Bangladesh Welfare Association is connected, has itself been witch-hunted by Islamophobes over its recently-built “minaret”. What will they do if the EDL turns its attention to them? Blinded by their hatred of Jamaat-e-Islami, they fail to see – or do not care – that their sectarian actions will stoke the fires of Islamophobia and that, whatever short-term advantages they may gain over their rivals in the IFE, in the long term all sections of the Bengali Muslim community will pay the price.

The IFE’s response to the Unity Platform Against Racism and Fascism statement can be read here.

Update:  Over at The Spittoon, the Unity Platform statement is hailed as “An amazing show of grassroots unity in Tower Hamlets against the forces of fascism that seek to dominate it – be it the EDL, UAF or the IFE.” So, according to Faizal Gazi and his mates, not only IFE but also UAF are among the “forces of fascism”! Attempting to discredit the proponents of this sort of irrational nonsense would be entirely superfluous. They accomplish that task themselves without any help from us.