Over at Harry’s Place, in an article entitled “Salma Yaqoob picks today to support jihadists“, the inimitable David Toube denounces Respect’s Birmingham councillor as a terrorist sympathiser.

Salma’s crime is that, like millions of Muslims and non-Muslims across the world, she recognises “the rights of those in Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq to resist the occupation of their countries”. According to Toube: “In each of those three countries – Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq – the only groups that are presently engaged in terrorist activities – groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda and the Mahdi Army – are jihadist groups.”

Let us leave aside the fact that the article Toube attacks, which appeared in the 27 November issue of the Muslim News, was reprinted from the September issue of the Respect newspaper, so if Salma “picked a day” to publish the article, it was presumably around two months ago. Instead let us address Toube’s bizarre assertion that the resistance to the occupation of Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq consists of “jihadist groups”.

For once, among all the usual vile Islamophobic rants by the racists and nutters who infest Harry’s Place, a few sensible posts appear in the comments section following Toube’s piece, and they demolish his nonsense quite effectively. For example:

“It’s ridiculous to claim that all the people fighting in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan are jihadists. Such an idea would laughed out of court by any serious regional analyst. In Palestine half the groups opposing the occupation are secular. In Iraq there are a shifting patchwork of very differently groups fighting the Americans only some of which are ‘jihadist’ in thinking. Similarly a great deal of the fighters who are labelled ‘Taliban’ in Afghanistan are Pashtun men who have been very disillusioned by what has been happening in the country and have decided to take up arms against the Americans.”

“So the Mahdi army are now ‘jihadists’? That’s a new one. In fact it is a willfully ignorant way to characterise what is going on in Iraq – equivalent to putting your fingers in your ears and saying ‘la la la, can’t hear anything, la la la, it’s all just evil Jihadis’.”

To which it might be added that Hamas has of course been bitterly condemned by the real jihadists for participating in the electoral process.

But what else can you expect from Toube? This the idiot who has denounced Osama Saeed as a fascist and Inayat Bunglawala as a supporter of Al-Muhajiroun. Surely it’s only a matter of time before Toube announces that Tariq Ramadan is an agent of Al-Qaeda. It is a measure of the irrationality generated by the current media campaign against Islam and Islamism that an ignorant bigot like Toube is actually taken seriously in some circles.

Both the Daily Express and the Daily Star assure their readers that British citizens were involved in the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Under the headline “Brit terror nuts shoot girl, 13, dead” the Star reports:

“The Mumbai massacre that left more than 150 people dead was carried out by Brits, it emerged last night. Police from the UK and India are probing claims that up to seven of the assassins, whose victims included a 13-year-old girl, travelled from the UK.

“Indian security forces said at least two of the captured terrorists were British-born Pakistanis, while the total number could be as many as seven. In a sick twist, they are thought to have possible links to Yorkshire towns where the 7/7 outrages were plotted.

“Last night UK police were using hi-tech computer software to link images of up to 25 gunmen to known Islamic fanatics.”

Read on, however, and you find Gordon Brown quoted as saying: “At no point has the Prime Minister of India suggested to me there is evidence at this stage of any terrorist of British origins.” And an unnamed security source states that there is “no specific information” linking suspects to the UK.

Which, of course, doesn’t prevent the Star and Express using this tragedy to publish scaremongering headlines as part of their propaganda campaign against the UK’s Muslim communities.

Nor is this malicious reporting restricted to Richard Desmond’s rags. The Daily Mirror goes with “Seven Mumbai gunmen are from ‘Leeds and Hartlepool'”, while the Independent takes the opportunity to run a story entitled “British Muslims have become a mainstay of the global ‘jihad'”.

The Guardian, to its credit, has “Gunmen not from UK, Foreign Office insists”.

Update:  See ENGAGE, which urges its supporters to write and complain.

Further Update:  See also the excellent piece at 5 Chinese Crackers, 30 November 2008

Muslim prisoners have launched a reign of terror inside a top security British jail.

The fanatics are forcing fellow inmates to convert to Islam or face punishment beatings. One man who stood up to the thugs was branded with a lump of hot metal, according to a prison source.

Some Al Qaeda supporters have set up a kangaroo court, sitting in judgment on prisoners and ordering punishments, the source said. The violent disciples of Osama Bin Laden have targeted even the toughest non-Muslim prisoners, including killers and rapists.

Sunday Express, 23 November 2008

But let it not be said that the Express‘s coverage is unbalanced. Buried at the end of the article is a quote from a Prison Service spokesman: “There is no evidence to suggest prisoners are being branded or assaulted in an effort to radicalise them.”

Odd, though, that Richard Desmond’s other title, the Daily Star, ran a similar scaremongering story about Whitemoor Prison only a couple of weeks ago which somehow managed to overlook this systematic campaign of violence against non-Muslim prisoners.

Update:  Meanwhile over at the Sun, under the headline “£3k curry treat for jail’s Muslims“, we find that, not content with intimidating killers and rapists into converting to Islam, Muslim prisoners at Whitemoor have been plied with chicken vindaloo at taxpayers’ expense.

No doubt the Muslim community can scarcely believe their good luck. Hard on the heels of Douglas Murray rallying to the defence of European Muslims, we now have David Toube (“liar, racist, buffoon” – Jews Sans Frontieres) taking a stand against “anti-Muslim bigotry”!

As we observed some time ago: “Anyone who reads his posts at Harry’s Place will know that David T has two faces. He tries to maintain the appearance of being a sensible, rational and liberal sort of chap (after all, the bloggers at Harry’s Place are the self-proclaimed defenders of Enlightenment values) but sometimes he seems to lose control, and this frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Muslim bigot bursts out – a sort of Islamophobic version of the Incredible Hulk.”

In the three years since then, the frothing-at-the-mouth side of Toube’s character has come to dominate his posts at Harry’s Place – to the point where you feel it’s almost redundant to attack him, as he does such an effective a job of discrediting his views himself. So it’s a bit of a surprise to see him resurrect his Mr Reasonable persona. Trust us, it won’t last.

Update:  How right we were. See Toube’s characteristically stupid rant against this perfectly reasonable piece by Sheikh Yasir Qadhi, whom Toube denounces as “utter scum” – a term that could far more appropriately be applied to Toube himself.

Governments across Europe must do more to protect people of Muslim backgrounds who face threats and attacks from militants for exercising their right to free speech, a report said.

The report from the UK-based Centre for Social Cohesion thinktank warned that official failure to offer victims the protection they needed had left “significant numbers” of Europe’s ethnic minority citizens unable peacefully to express themselves and created the impression that more Muslims were opposed to open debate and free speech than was actually the case.

Among the cases highlighted were those of Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie, who lived in hiding from death threats for a decade and Maryam Namazie, who received threats to her life after setting up the Council of Ex-Muslims in Britain and denouncing the veil.

Douglas Murray, director of the Centre for Social Cohesion and author of the report, said: “The inalienable right to freedom of speech and expression has come under threat by Muslim extremists. Fellow Muslims are finding it increasingly difficult to criticise elements of their faith or culture without fear of significant reprisal.”

Press Association, 10 November 2008

How touching that Douglas Murray and the Centre for Social Cohesion have discovered a sudden concern for the wellbeing of European Muslims. This is, of course, the same Douglas Murray whose February 2006 speech to the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference was so extreme (“All immigration into Europe from Muslim countries must stop … Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board”) that the Social Affairs Unit have removed it from their website.