Category Archives: Far right racists

‘Muslims want ban on Easter eggs’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Expatica quotes Antwerp trade union representative Badia Miri, one of seven Muslim women employed by the city of Antwerp who were forced to remove their headscarves, as saying: “The Antwerp city government says that neutrality is endangered if staff wear a cross or headscarf. But in our experience action has only been taken against the Muslim women. If the city government is really concerned about neutrality, then Christmas trees and Easter eggs should no longer be allowed at work.”

And how does Expatica report this? In an article headlined “Muslims want ban on Easter eggs“!

Update: the “story” has now been taken up by the fascists: BNP regional news, 23 August 2007

Wilders won’t talk with Muslim Council

Posted on by Bob Pitt

THE HAGUE – Freedom Party PVV leader Geert Wilders refuses to enter dialogue with the Dutch Muslim Council, the Volkskrant reports. The council has invited him to talk about the ban on the Koran that the politician suggested in an article two weeks ago. Chairman of the Muslim Council Khairoun says that Wilders was taking passages from the Koran out of context.

The PVV leader said in the AD on Saturday that he was not interested in a talk with the organisation. “I will refrain from doing that not because I don’t want dialogue, but because a debate on this is not possible. It is pointless,” says Wilders. The Muslim Council has proposed a “constructive dialogue” to combat polarisation and feelings of fear in society.

Wilders contests in the AD that he is sowing hate. “That is what the Koran does. It is a fascist book. That is not a book we should have here. Maybe if you take all the harmful verses out of it, but then there wouldn’t be much left. Then the Koran would be about as thick as a comic book.”

Expatica, 20 August 2007

NSS hero’s paranoid fantasies about the Islamisation of Europe

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pat CondellThat hero of the National Secular Society and BNP bloggers, Pat Condell, delivers another YouTube rant against Islam, this one in response to the decision by the mayor of Brussels to ban the “Stop the Islamisation of Europe” demonstration, scheduled for 11 September, which was initiated by a right-wing xenophobic Danish political party, Stop Islamisering Af Danmark.

Here’s the introduction to Condell’s bigoted diatribe, which promotes the paranoid “Eurabia” fantasies of the racist Right about the destruction of “our” culture by politicians intent on appeasing the Muslim hordes:

“Recent events in Brussels have confirmed for us in Europe what we’ve long suspected, that we’re governed by unprincipled vote-whoring cultural apologists who can’t wait to dismantle our heritage in order to show how culturally sensitive they are, and who’d be quite happy to see us all living under sharia law as long as it keeps them in office. As a result we have a situation now in Europe … where Islamic values are now being imported wholesale and are being imposed on a population to whom they’re about as welcome as a melanoma. No other religion gets these privileges.

“And some people in Europe are so angry at this creeping Islamisation of their culture that they’re starting to protest against it – when they’re allowed to. Only on September 11 in Brussels they won’t be allowed to, because a peaceful demonstration intending to mark the anniversary with a minute’s silence outside the European Parliament has been banned by the mayor of Brussels in case certain members of the religion of peace react violently.”

Predictably, one BNP blogger enthuses that this represents “Pat Condell at his best” while another applauds “the brilliant Pat Condell“.

Update:  Condell is also receiving far-right plaudits on the fascist discussion list Stormfront. Sample comment: “people like Pat Condell are very important to us.”

‘Sordid world of Muslim grooming exposed’ – by BNP and Anne Cryer

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The sordid world of Muslim Asian grooming of white under-age girls has been ‘exposed’ in the mainstream press; three years after the BNP first brought this scandal to the public attention. Today’s Sunday Times carries a report on the jailing of Zulfqar Hussain, 46, and Qaiser Naveed, 32, from east Lancashire, after exploiting two girls aged under 16 by plying them with alcohol and drugs before having sex with them….

“Fear of offending the Muslim communities appears to take precedence over helping our young daughters but every single craven police officer, every council official who fails to act in the interests of justice is as guilty as the Muslim predator who defiles a white schoolgirl.

“Labour MP Anne Cryer robustly said that there is a cultural difference: ‘I think there is a problem with the view Asian men generally have about white women. Their view about white women is generally fairly low’.”

BNP news article, 12 August 2007

‘Comedian’ accused of racist hate speech is member of NSS

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pat Condell“The atheist comedian Pat Condell (who we are pleased to say is a member of the NSS) placed a five minute ‘video monologue’ entitled ‘The Trouble with Islam’ on the web and it has now scored over a million hits. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look.

“Pat Condell reveals: ‘It has also received well over 100,000 hits on YouTube, proving that there is an enthusiastic audience for comedy ideas and opinions which are routinely censored out of existence in the UK’s mainstream media, thanks to misguided political correctness.’

“In May this year, members of the City of Berkeley’s Peace and Justice Commission drew widespread ridicule when they publicly condemned the video as racist hate speech.”

National Secular Society Newsline, 10 August 2007

Well, you can understand why Condell’s bigoted rant would attract a lot of traffic, given the way it has been enthusiastically embraced by the racist Right, including fascists. See for example here.

For the Berkeley controversy, see here.

Fascists back Channel 4

Posted on by Bob Pitt

bnp-islam-posterWhen the Channel 4 documentary “Undercover Mosque” was broadcast last January it received an enthusiastic response from right-wing Islamophobes.

Guardian journalist Jemima Kiss reported that an online video of the Dispatches programme had been “leapt on by anti-Muslim bloggers, and the weight of traffic even threatened to bring down the infamous Little Green Footballs for a while”.

The British National Party was particularly taken with the documentary, which of course helped legitimise the fascists’ ravings about the Islamic threat to Western civilisation. The BNP website directed its supporters to a video of the programme, while Der Führer himself Nick Griffin sent off a pompous letter to West Midlands Police and the Met calling for the preachers “exposed” in the programme to be prosecuted and the mosques closed down.

So you can understand the fascists’ disappointment at the outcome of the West Midlands Police investigation. A news article on the BNP website solidarises with the progamme makers and expresses indignation that the police “at one stage bizarrely considered charging Channel 4 for broadcasting material likely to stir up racial hatred”.

Dutch far-right MP calls for Koran ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

geert_wildersDutch populist MP Geert Wilders Wednesday called for a ban on the Koran in the Netherlands, describing the Islamic holy book as a “fascist” text that exhorts followers to kill and rape. The Dutch government swiftly condemned Wilders’ remarks as damaging for community relations in the Netherlands and said that the proposal was unworthy of consideration.

“It has to be perfectly clear that banning the Koran in the Netherlands is not up for discussion for this government and will not be up for discussion in future. We have freedom or religion here,” integration minister Ella Vogelaar, said in a statement. Vogelaar described Wilders’ call as “an insult to the majority of Muslims in the Netherlands and abroad who reject calls to hate and violence.”

The leader of the far-right Freedom Party, which holds nine of the 150 seats in parliament, called for the ban in a letter published in the De Volkskrant newspaper. Wilders compared the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s autobiography Mein Kampf and said that it has “no place in our constitutional state.”

“I have been saying this for years: there is no such thing as a moderate Islam,” Wilders wrote, adding that there were several chapters in the Koran “that call on Muslims to oppress, persecute, or kill Christians, Jews, dissidents, and non-believers, to beat and rape women, and to establish an Islamic state by force.”

Wilders wrote the letter after a weekend attack on young local politician Eshan Jami who founded a group to support people who have renounced Islam. Jami, who was not visibly injured in the attack, is now under constant police protection like Wilders.

“Ban this wretched book like Mein Kampf is banned! Send a signal to Jami’s attackers and other Islamic radicals that the Koran cannot be used in the Netherlands as an inspiration or an excuse for violence,” Wilders said.

“I am fed up with Islam in the Netherlands: no more Muslim immigrants allowed. I am fed up with the worship of Allah and Mohammed in the Netherlands: no more mosques,” he finished his letter.

Middle East Times, 8 August 2007

European mosque plans face protests

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Petitions in London, protests in Cologne, a court case in Marseille and a violent clash in Berlin – Muslims in Europe are meeting resistance to plans for mosques that befit Islam’s status as the continent’s second religion.

Across Europe, Muslims who have long prayed in garages and old factories now face skepticism and concern for wanting to build stately mosques to give proud testimony to the faith and solidity of their Islamic communities.

Some critics reject them as signs of “Islamisation”. Others say minarets would scar their city’s skyline. Given the role some mosques have played as centers for terrorists, others see Muslim houses of worship as potential security threats.

“The increasingly visible presence of Muslims has prompted questions in all European societies,” Tariq Ramadan, one of Europe’s leading Muslim spokesmen, argued when far-right groups proposed this year to ban minarets in his native Switzerland.

The issue hit the headlines in Britain in late July when a petition against a “mega-mosque” next to the 2012 London Olympics site was posted on Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Web site. It attracted more than 275,000 signatures before it was taken down.

In Germany last month, there were anti-mosque protests in Cologne and Berlin and a local council voted against one in Munich. A French far-right group vowed to sue the city of Marseille for a second time for helping build a “grand mosque”.

Bekir Alboga of the Turkish Islamic Union (DITIB) in Cologne said critics who see these new mosques as signs of separatism or of an Islamic colonization of Europe miss the point.

“The desire of Muslims to build a house of worship means they want to feel at home and live in harmony with their religion in a society they have accepted as theirs,” he said.

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‘Racist’ letter sent to church

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A racist letter has been sent to members of a Lancashire church. The vicar and several parishioners at St Leonard’s Church in Penwortham have been contacted by a group calling themselves the Preston Pals, which has links to the far right BNP.

The letter asks the church to support their “cause” and stand up for Preston’s Christian population. They have previously leafleted residents in the Watling Street Road area of Fulwood peddling their opinions over proposals to replace the local mosque.

Vicar Nick Mansfield said he was shocked and upset that the church in Marshalls Brow had been targeted by the group, which has links to the British National Party. He condemned the senders of the letter as having “not a very Christian attitude”. He added: “To target people of another faith in this way is ludicrous.”

Lancashire Evening Post, 3 August 2007

Ex-BNP council candidate is jailed for stockpiling explosive chemicals

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A former British National party candidate who stockpiled explosive chemicals and ball-bearings in anticipation of a future civil war was jailed for 2½ years yesterday. Robert Cottage, 49, of Colne, Lancashire, pleaded guilty to possession of the chemicals. He was cleared of conspiracy to cause explosions after two trials in which juries were unable to reach a verdict. As he has spent nearly a year in custody, he is likely to be released within six months.

Sentencing Cottage at Manchester crown court yesterday, Mrs Justice Swift said he held views “that veer towards the apocalyptic”. His actions had been “criminal and potentially dangerous” but there was a low risk of him committing further offences. “It is important to understand that Cottage’s intention was that if he ever had to use the thunder flashes it was only for the purpose of deterrence,” said the judge of the explosives he planned to make.

Alistair Webster QC, Cottage’s counsel, told the court his client accepted he had bought the potassium nitrate and sulphur planning to manufacture gunpowder, but said this would only be used to make thunder flash “bangers” to scare intruders.

Cottage, who stood three times unsuccessfully for the BNP in local council elections, was arrested last September after police found the stockpile of chemicals at his home in Colne.

Cottage’s wife told a social worker of her concerns about his behaviour and his belief that immigration was out of control. Police also found ball-bearings and a document about bomb making from The Anarchist’s Cookbook on his computer. He also had air pistols, crossbows and a stockpile of food.

Dave Williams of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, which monitors the BNP, said the sentence appeared lenient. “It is a damning verdict for the BNP,” he said. “The trial has shown his radicalisation through his local branch of the BNP. I am surprised the sentence is not stiffer. If this had been a group of Muslims, they would have been looking at a far longer sentence.”

A BNP spokesman said the prosecution had been brought for political reasons. “We’re not condoning it but it’s a quid pro quo to appease the Muslims,” said Phil Edwards of the BNP yesterday. “We certainly don’t support the bloke, we condemn all forms of violence … but I wouldn’t have thought you could do any harm with what he had.”

Guardian, 1 August 2007