Category Archives: Anti-Muslim violence

German courtroom killer gets life

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Marwa al-Sherbini funeral2A man has been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murdering a pregnant Egyptian woman in a German courtroom. The Dresden state court also ruled that Alexander Wiens would not be eligible for early release.

Wiens, 28, admitted stabbing Marwa Sherbini to death at a court hearing involving them both in July. The crime sparked outrage across the Muslim world. Egypt said justice had been served with the sentence.

Wiens, a Russian-born German citizen, had argued his action was not premeditated. But prosecutors at the trial, which took place amid tight security, insisted he was motivated by a “hatred of non-Europeans and Muslims”.

BBC News, 11 November 2009

See also the Times, 12 November 2009

Attacks on Muslim students at City University

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS) regrets to inform that over the past week Muslim students at City University (London) have been the target of a series of attacks culminating with three Muslims being stabbed on St. John Street in the immediate vicinity of the University after being surrounded by over 30 youths.

Attacks earlier in the week left three students requiring hospitalisation for severe facial and head injuries as they were set upon by the gang shouting Islamophobic and racist abuse including statements like “Get those Muslims” and “Paki” being used repeatedly; they were subjected to a series of projectile missiles, including bricks, metal poles and sign posts.

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Met Pc faces internal inquiry after being cleared of race assault

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pc Mark JonesA Met police officer who was cleared of racially assaulting two teenagers could face the sack if he is found guilty in internal misconduct proceedings.

Pc Mark Jones, 42, is facing an internal inquiry as it emerged that he was linked to a “serious, gratuitous and prolonged attack” on a Muslim that cost the force £60,000 in damages.

Today it can be revealed that Pc Jones was part of a team in the Met’s Territorial Support Group involved in the arrest of Babar Ahmad, a British Muslim terror suspect.

Only now can the officer be linked to the 2003 raid on Mr Ahmad’s home which left him in fear of his life after he was held in a neck brace, punched and mocked for his religious beliefs.

A High Court order was lifted after a trial at Kingston crown court yesterday where Pc Jones was unanimously cleared of racially aggravated common assault on two teenagers in June 2007.

Jurors were told that one 16-year-old Kuwaiti was abused by the officer who accused him of “robbing people while British soldiers are getting killed in Iraq”. But Pc Jones denied any wrongdoing and the jury of five men and seven women cleared him.

Evening Standard, 4 November 2009

See also Socialist Worker, 3 November 2009

Muslim women wearing headscarves subjected to daily abuse in Malmö

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Shoving, spitting, and ethnic slurs are a daily fact of life facing women bearing headscarves in Malmö, according to a new report.

The study, entitled Hemma och främmande i staden – kvinnor med slöja berättar (“At home and estranged in the city: tales of women with headscarves”) and published by the University of Malmö, examines the lives of 19 Malmö women who choose to wear headscarves.

The report is a compilation of stories detailing harassment and offensive remarks, such as a female cyclist in her fifties who slowed down and screamed “Muslim cunt” before pedaling off.

But the tales also relate how veiled women often try to avoid confrontation. They women included in the study remain stoic in the face of critical stares, avoid certain parts of the city, try to be overly friendly, or strike up conversations in which they attempt to explain the significance of their headscarves.

“Some see it as a sort of learning process. Almost like ‘if I tell you how it works then you don’t need to be afraid of me’,” said Carina Listerborn, a researcher with the Institute for Sustainable Urban Development, told the TT news agency.

The report is part of a larger project about urban violence being carried out in cooperation with Lund and Stockholm universities.

Listerborn said that the stories of the veiled women can help broaden the definition of violence, and that it doesn’t have to be restricted to fighting, kicking, and stabbings on city streets and public squares.

“There are other kinds of violence which also deserve to be highlighted,” she said.

The Local, 21 October 2009

Download the study here.

Man charged with arson attack on Sunderland mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A man from Peterborough accused of a late-night petrol attack on a mosque in Sunderland has been remanded in custody. Gerald Davies (53), of Palmerston Road, Peterborough, appeared before Sunderland Magistrates’ Court yesterday after an incident in the early hours of Friday.

He was charged with attempting to damage by fire the mosque in Chester Road, Sunderland, with intent to endanger the lives of members of the Muslim community. Prosecutor Nicci Horton told the court that the offence was so serious it could only be dealt with at Newcastle Crown Court.

Davies was not asked to enter a plea to the charge and spoke only to confirm his name and address during the hearing.

Miss Horton outlined the case to the court alleging that petrol was thrown on the building which was empty at the time.

Defence solicitor Heidi Surtees made no bail application and Davies was remanded in custody until a hearing at Newcastle Crown Court on November 2.

Speaking before the hearing, Chief Superintendent Dave Pryer from Northumbria Police said: “I would like to thank members of the public for their help. Sunderland is a thriving diverse community and we have an excellent relationship with all of our community and will continue to build on this.”

Peterborough Today, 20 October 2009

BBC reporters highlight racism on Bristol estate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

PanoramaTwo BBC reporters of South Asian origin who lived for eight weeks on a housing estate in Bristol, posing as a married Muslim couple with limited English, were racially abused more than 50 times, a documentary will show tonight. The edition of Panorama, titled Hate on the Doorstep, also features the pair suffering physical assault.

Reporter Amil Khan, who was pretending to be a part-time painter and decorator, was punched in the head by a local man. Tamanna Rahman, who wore a hijab headscarf and acted as if she spoke very little English, was pelted with stones and glass and on one occasion an 11-year-old boy tried to steal her purse, threatening to kill her.

Using secret cameras, Rahman and Khan filmed themselves being abused regularly, both for their race – “Paki” was a common term of abuse – and over their religion, with a number of jibes used related to terrorism, including “Taliban” and “jihad”. A good deal of the abuse on the estate is shown to come from children and teenagers, although adults are also involved.

BBC News, 19 October 2009

Watch programme here

Police officers on trial for racial assault

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Six Metropolitan Police officers go on trial, accused of racially assaulting and abusing Muslim teenagers and then engaging in a cover-up. Prosecution and Kingston crown court told a jury that one officer said: “They needed to dealt with. We are like vigilantes.” The officers, who are part of the Territorial Support Group, deny racially aggravated assault, threats and misfeasance in public office.

Channel 4 News, 12 October 2009

Racists post threatening comments on anti-mosque Facebook group

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Threatening and racist comments have appeared on an anti-mosque Facebook group. “No to the new Mosque in Weston-super-Mare” has been set up in opposition to proposals for a new Muslim centre in Orchard Street.

Last week the Weston & Somerset Mercury revealed the Weston Islamic Education Centre group had applied to covert the former Rock Gardens site into a community centre which would also be used for prayer.

But some of the 440 members have written threatening comments in the internet forum. One post said: “Muslims are never gonna take over this country….well at least weston super mare, I swear on my life if they built this new mosque in weston I will set fire 2 it and thats a f***in promis.” Other comments say that all Muslims are terrorists and one aggressive member threatens to drive a bus into the centre and blow it up if it is given planning permission.

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Man sentenced over Swedish mosque arson

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Östersunds-Posten reports that a 21-year-old man who caused a fire in a Muslim prayer room in Strömsund in August last year has been sentenced to eight months in prison for arson.

The Court of Appeal increased the punishment imposed earlier by Östersund’s District Court, where the sentence was probation for theft and vandalism.

The man was out with some friends in Strömsund, and when they passed a block of flats in the residential Tingvalla area he took them into a room in the basement that was used as a prayer room by Muslims.

The man stole some books and later that night returned to the prayer room. This time, he set fire to a curtain and the fire quickly spread through the premises.

The Appeal Court found the man guilty of arson. The prayer room would have been completely burnt out if outsiders had not intervened, and residents in the building could have been at risk if the fire had continued unchecked.

Under normal circumstances, the man would have been given a two-years prison sentence for arson, but the court reduced the sentence to eight months, and taking into account that the man was 19 when the crime was committed and that he had also completed community service in accordance with the District Court ruling.

Who incites hatred against Muslims in Manchester?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP Islam Out of BritainThe impact of Saturday’s planned English Defence League demonstration in Manchester has rightly been highlighted in coverage of the desecration of Muslim graves in the city’s Southern Cemetery. But the role of the British National Party in inciting hatred against Manchester’s Muslim community should not be ignored.

In recent weeks the BNP have conducted a hysterical campaign (“Genocide: how Islamic colonisation destroys your heritage“) against the conversion of a derelict church in Longsight into an Islamic Centre. The BNP made a particular issue of what they falsely claimed was the demolition of the (long disused) cemetery:

“The bloodless genocide and ethnic cleansing of the British people and culture continues apace with the latest example being the ripping up of a century old Christian cemetery to make way for a mosque in Manchester. The grave desecrations, being carried out with a large Komatsu earthmover in the graveyard of the St John the Apostle and Evangelist church at the corner of Holmfirth Street and St John’s Road, is part of the re-opening of this nineteenth century church as the Dar-ul-Ulum Qadria Jilania ‘Islamic Centre’….

“These Christian British graves – the only remnant of the now ethnically cleansed British people in the area – are obviously offensive to the Muslim colonisers, who have brought in the earthmoving machine to smash up the gravestones which are being literally crushed to rubble. St John the Apostle and Evangelist church is a real time history lesson of what will happen to Britain unless the insane multicultural Lib/Lab/Con genocidal policies of mass Third World immigration are not only brought to an end, but reversed.”

Of course, in line with their new respectable image, the lesson drawn by the BNP is that the “indigenous population” should cast a vote for their party in elections: “The British voters will soon be faced with a choice between their continued extermination at the hands of the Lib/Lab/Con ethnic cleansing party, or their survival as a free and independent indigenous people with the BNP.”

But it is hardly surprising that this sort of inflammatory language should have motivated some of the BNP’s supporters to take more direct action against the “Muslim colonisers”.