‘Muslims must help police more, leaders urge’

“Britain’s most influential Muslim umbrella group yesterday signalled a significant shift in policy as it urged its communities to play a key and potentially decisive role in the fight against terrorism.” So Hugh Muir claims in today’s Guardian.

In fact, at a press conference yesterday the Muslim Council of Britain reiterated the same message it has consistently sent out in relation to terrorism, namely that such actions should be unequivocally condemned and the community should co-operate fully with the police. Still, I suppose this sort of report is at least an improvement on the “Muslim leaders must take a stand against extremism” editorials and op eds that fill the right-wing press.

See also MCB statement, 3 July 2007

Meanwhile over at Manchester Crown Court …

… another terrorist conspiracy is attracting rather less in-depth attention from the media.

BBC News, 2 July 2007

It’s also worth noting that Robert Cottage’s wife has stated that his descent into BNP-inspired political extremism accelerated as he “became more religious” – the religion in question being, one assumes, a version of Christianity. But I rather doubt we’ll be treated to headlines in the Daily Express denouncing “Christian terrorism” or articles in the liberal press warning against “Christofascism”.

Nor is this blinkered attitude restricted to the right-wing press. Over at the Daily Mirror, under the headline “Time for Muslims to defend our country”, Sue Carroll writes: “I don’t believe it’s racist, bigoted or politically incorrect to say that at this moment in time the terrorists who threaten our way of life come from only one religion – Islam.”

‘Islamist’ is the word for these terrorists, says Denis MacShane

denis_macshaneAs William Dalrymple observed back in 2004: “There are few things, you would imagine, that … Denis MacShane, Margaret Thatcher, the British National Party and the daytime television host Robert Kilroy-Silk would all agree on. Nevertheless … a deep disdain for Islam is one subject on which they can all concur whole-heartedly.”

Everything MacShane has said or done since then only reinforces the accuracy of Dalrymple’s assessment, and his article in (appropriately enough) today’s Torygraph is no exception.

As for MacShane’s blanket condemnation of “Islamism”, we’re getting a bit weary of refuting this particular stupidity, and so refer readers to an earlier reply to Johann Hari. And as we’ve also pointed out: “Along with references to ‘Eurabia’ and Bat Ye’or, it’s always a sign that Islamophobia has reached the point of total dementia when a commentator launches into a diatribe against Tariq Ramadan.”

So it hardly comes as a surprise that MacShane does just that. “Islamist” is the appropriate word for Al-Qaida-inspired terrorists he tells us, and Professor Ramadan is an advocate of Islamism. Which of course obliterates the not entirely irrelevant distinction between terrorism and one of its most vocal opponents within the Muslim communities. The irresponsibility of this nonsense beggars description.

Fascists defend ‘enlightened forms of social governance’

“Islam is at odds with everything we in the west stand for. It is diametrically opposed to our enlightened forms of social governance, democracy, free thinking, scientific enquiry and common justice. The BNP remains the only political party which stands firm, speaks the truth and says that there is no place for Islam in Britain.”

BNP news article, 3 July 2007

“Enlightened forms of social governance, democracy, free thinking”? To quote Nick Griffin’s sidekick Mark Collett:

“National Socialism was the best solution for German people in the 1930s…. When people say ‘Do you take any inspiration from that?’, I mean, I honestly can’t understand how a man who’s seen the inner city hell of Britain today can’t look back on that era with a certain nostalgia and think, yeah, those people marching through the streets and all those happy people out in the streets, you know, saluting and everything, was a bad thing.”

The media and the bombings

Car bomber is British doctorThe media coverage of the botched terrorist attacks in London and Scotland has been much as you might expect.

Yesterday we had BBC News 24 reporting that the police had stated that none of the suspects was of British origin – and then broadcasting a piece suggesting that the attacks had been carried out by young British Muslims who had been radicalised by the internet and then travelled to Pakistan to be trained as terrorists.

And nobody seems to have picked up on the contradiction of claiming that the attacks were carried out or inspired by Al Qaida, while at the same time reporting that the individual arrested in connection with the attack is a doctor of Iranian origin, and therefore presumably a Shia. [Update: Dr Mohammed Asha is in fact Jordanian. But how could we expect the Sun to tell the difference?]

Needless to say, right-wing (and liberal) commentators have been eager to pin responsibility on the Muslim community for failing to stop the bombers – who for all we know may in fact have had no connection with any section of the UK Muslim community. An article by Philip Johnston in the Telegraph carries the headline “We need Muslims to do more”, while the London Evening Standard goes with “Muslims must reject extremism”, asserting that “many Muslim leaders drag their feet”.

Over at the Independent, in an piece entitled “Sane, ordinary Muslims must stand up and be counted” (hailed as “a quite brilliant article” by Tory blogger Iain Dale) Yasmin Alibhai-Brown gives a boost to the tiny and irrelevant British Muslims for Secular Democracy and welcomes the government’s sidelining of the Muslim Council of Britain, which she describes as having acted as an “apologist” for the “killing brigades”.

Leo McKinstry in the Express rants that “British Muslims must show which side they are on”, complaining bitterly that “Alex Salmond claimed that ‘individuals, not communities‘ were responsible for terrorism, a piece of nonsense given that it is the Muslim community that has bred the terrorists. In London, Mayor Ken Livingstone was even more reprehensible. He dismissed the idea of any connection between Islam and terrorism, claiming that: ‘Muslims are less likely to support the use of violence for political ends than non-Muslims‘. Yeah, right, tell that to the relatives of those killed in the July bombings, or the Twin Towers, or the Bali attacks or the Madrid massacre.”

Mad Mel in the Mail calls for a ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir (who have in fact publicly opposed the attacks) and goes on to assert that “while most British Muslims say they would have no truck with terrorism or violence, an insupportable number of them do endorse appalling ideas”. Mel has an explanation for this state of affairs: “Our [sic] Muslim community is particularly vulnerable to Islamist extremism because of the collapse of Britain’s belief in itself and the corresponding rise of multiculturalism and minority rights.”

An editorial in the Express headed “We should abandon failed policy of multiculturalism” chimes in with the recommendation that the government should adopt a programme of “no state funding for Muslim faith schools and … an end to so-called ‘chain migration’ under which young British Muslims are pressured into marrying foreigners to afford their extended families a route into the UK…. It is surely also time for the Government to consider a legal ban on the burkha in public places. This is a nation where law-abiding citizens are not ashamed to show their faces. The era of politically correct cultural surrender must be brought to an end.”

And, in the right-wing blogosphere, David T of Harry’s Place takes the opportunity to have another go at Osama Saeed of MAB, accusing him of advocating “the deliberate slaughter of civilians” and helpfully providing a link to an earlier post describing Osama as a proponent of “clerical fascism“.

MCB speaks out on ‘honour’ killings

MCB logoThe Muslim Council of Britain insisted yesterday that “honour” violence was a cultural practice and nothing to do with faith. The council spoke out after a BBC investigation claimed that there were links between some cases of honour violence in Britain and islamist extremist groups abroad. Victims of such attacks are alleged by their families to have disgraced them.

The Crown Prosecution Service pointed to the death five years ago of Heshu Yones, 16, who was stabbed to death by her father, and claimed that Islamist terror groups were behind it. Crown Prosecution Service national lead on honour crime Nazir Afzal told Radio 4 that the threats to kill another woman, who is known as Miss B, came from her family but originated from an Egyptian terrorist group. He said: “They told her husband that, if he didn’t put his wife in her place, then they would do it themselves.”

However, Muslim Council of Britain spokeswoman Reefat Drabu disagreed with Mr Afzal’s comments. “First and foremost, there has to be clarity that this is nothing to do with any faith, in particular Islam,” she said. “It is a cultural practice and there is nothing in any faith that would condone it or say that it is the right thing do it. This is to do with misguided notions of family honour. It has nothing to do with radicalism or terrorism.”

Morning Star, 27 June 2007

Over at Butterflies and Wheels Ophelia Benson expresses indignation that the MCB should even be asked their opinion on the issue. After all, they’re only the most representative Muslim organisation in the UK, with some 500 affiliates. Who cares what they think? Ms Benson would no doubt regard it as much more appropriate for the BBC to ask Maryam Namazie and the “Council of Ex-Muslims” for a quote instead.

And David T of Harry’s Place comments: “The Muslim Council of Britain’s eccentric stance on this issue illustrates why it is no longer invited to the Home Office to participate in the process of public policy formation.” Whereas some of us might have thought that the government’s cold-shouldering of the MCB was perhaps rather more closely connected with their refusal to keep quiet about the role of UK foreign policy in fuelling terrorism.

Evening Standard feeds fascist propaganda

“Muslims called for the Queen to ‘Go to Hell’ as they burnt the flag of St George on the streets of London on Friday”, the British National Party reports. They refer their supporters to this article from Friday’s This Is London (the Evening Standard ‘s website) which, typically, gave completely disproportionate coverage to the provocative activities of a tiny and completely unrepresentative group of nutters around Omar Bakri’s former lieutenant Anjem Choudary.

In a caption accompanying a picture of Choudary’s supporters demonstrating against the decision to give a knighthood to Salman Rushdie, This Is London informed its readers that “the protest has drawn hundreds of angry British muslims to Regents Park Mosque in North London”. The Guardian, by contrast, put the figure at “about 20” while the Telegraph estimated “two dozen“.

Needless to say, This Is London didn’t see fit to quote this letter from Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain. They prefer to falsely associate British Muslims with a self-publicising idiot like Anjem Choudary and feed the racist propaganda of the BNP.

Another boost for the ‘Council of Ex-Muslims’ fraud

A new group of secular-minded former Muslims in the UK has urged the government to cut all state funding to religious groups and to stop pandering to political Islam.

The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, launched yesterday in London, opposes the interference of religion in public life. Its spokeswoman, Maryam Namazie, said the group provided an alternative voice to the “regressive, parasitical and self-appointed leaders” from organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain and the “oxymoronic” Islamic Human Rights Commission.

“We want to challenge the Islamic movement,” she said. “It does not surprise me people are afraid to criticise Islam. There has been too much appeasement from the government. There are specific policies and initiatives aimed at Muslims and this approach divides society.”

The council’s manifesto calls for the freedom to criticise all religions and the separation of religion from the state and legal system. Another aim is to break the taboos that come with renouncing Islam.

Inayat Bunglawala, spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “We’re not taking them seriously. I don’t think Muslims will have time for this.”

The launch of a Central Council of Ex-Muslims in Berlin has inspired similar groups in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. The British branch has 25 members who are prepared to have their names and photographs published.

Guardian, 22 June 2007


As we’ve already pointed out, the Council of Ex-Muslims is a complete fraud. It’s a front organisation for the Worker Communist Party of Iran, an ultra-left sect most of whose leaders were never Muslims in the first place. It’s just an excuse for the WPI to indulge in their obsessive and destructive propaganda against Islam.

Unfortunately the Council of Ex-Muslims has been given credibility by having its launch at the House of Commons yesterday (I suspect Lib Dem MP Evan Harris was involved in this) and has been treated seriously by the media, who have shown no interest in investigating the origins of the organisation.

Update:  Read the National Secular Society’s report of the event here. Note that the so-called ex-Muslims referred to in the NSS piece – Maryam Namazie, Mina Ahadi and Mahin Alipour – are all leading figures in the WPI.

Ignore Islam, ‘ex-Muslims’ urge

BBC News gives favourable publicity to the launch of the Worker Communist Party of Iran’s fraudulent front organisation, the so-called Council of Ex-Muslims (which claims that it “represents the views of a majority of secular-minded Muslims in Europe”), as does the Washington Post and the Daily Telegraph. See also A.C. Grayling’s ridiculous remarks (“a torch of hope in a dark quadrant of the world’s affairs”) at Comment is Free. Meanwhile, frothing-at-the-mouth right-wing US Islamophobe Michelle Malkin has hailed Maryam Namazie and her comrades as “the bravest of the brave“, who are “putting their necks on the line for Western civilization”. Malkin urges her readers: “Find a way to show your support.”