Fascists claim to defend gay rights

Following on from a post at Home of the Green Arrow, another BNP member denounces the recent Time Out fantasy about life in a Muslim-majority London. Taking inspiration from the Pim Fortuyn strategy of whipping up racism under cover of defending liberal western values against the Islamic takeover of Europe, the article notes that “one can only wonder how gays, who make up a substantial proportion of Time Out readers, feel about the prospect of a deeply homophobic Islamic London”. That would be as distinct from a gay-friendly fascist London, would it?

Meanwhile another Nazi group, the tiny British People’s Party, has characterised the Time Out piece as “a wake up call to White Londoners who still cherish their heritage and identity”.

Fascist blogger resists Islamification of London

The MPACUK website has reproduced the article “Is London’s future Islamic?” from the listings magazine Time Out. This fantasy doesn’t find favour with a fascist blogger who, apparently under the impression that the article originates with MPAC itself and represents their plans for the Muslim conquest of London, assures his readers that the Islamic hordes will be driven back: “If these Death Eaters think they can take Our Land without a fight from the BNP, then they are in for a shock. The British National Party will obtain the mandate of the people and they will restore Our Capitol [sic] to its rightful owners. The True British.”

Home of the Green Arrow, 12 June 2007

Demonstration over BNP councillor

Corsham anti-BNP protestProtesters have gathered outside Corsham town hall after the appointment of a British National Party councillor.

Michael Simpkins, 47, was handed a place on the town council because nobody else stood for election.

The ex-RAF policeman and now taxi driver said he joined the BNP three years ago as his son was being taught about the Muslim faith at school.

“I don’t want to see this country turned in to an Islamic state. That doesn’t make me racist it just makes me a concerned British citizen.”

BBC News, 11 June 2007

See also “BNP councillor addresses crowd”, Wiltshire Times, 11 June 2007

And “Town vents its fury at BNP councillor”, Gazette & Herald, 11 June 2007

MP calls on YouTube to remove racist videos

Shahid MalikA Muslim MP has demanded YouTube removes a series of racist items from its website after a video alleging he was a “pervert” remained available for three weeks.

The video featured footage of Shahid Malik, before a written message stating: “This scum thinks he can mess with the big boys.” Then, before an image of the Labour MP’s face covered with blood, a new message appeared: “He better not or he will end up like this.”

Earlier in the posting, which has now been removed from the site by administrators, another subtitle stated: “A pervert just like his f***ing prophet.”

Malik suggested that a member of the British National Party could be behind the video, which also featured pictures of BNP leader Nick Griffin.

Scotland on Sunday, 10 June 2007

Swiss Muslims denied landmark center

Swiss Muslims expressed deep disappointment Saturday, June 2, at government rejection of plans to build Europe’s largest Islamic cultural and economic center in the capital city of Bern. The Umma group, which proposed the construction of the giant Islamic center, said it hoped that authorities would have a closer examination of the proposal and compared notes with Muslim leaders before turning down the project.

Muslims voiced fears that the Swiss authorities may have been influenced by the recent ferocious right-wing anti-Islam campaigns. The right-wing Swiss People’s Party and the Federal Democratic Union lunched a nationwide campaign to collect signatures to ban the construction of mosques with minarets.

Islam Online, 2 June 2007

BNP wastes police time with complaint about Muslim demo

Lancaster UAF suggests that West Midlands BNP should be charged with wasting police time over their complaint about propaganda for the “Muslims rise against British oppression” demonstration planned for 15 June outside Downing Street, which the fascists claim constitutes “an incitement to violence”. Well, they’d know all about that, wouldn’t they?

(It might be added that the posters announcing the protest have already been condemned by Adam Yosef of the Saltley Gate Peace Group as an attempt to “disrupt the harmonious relations between people of various faiths”, though like Lancaster UAF he points out that the material “doesn’t glorify or promote terrorism”. Hizb ut-Tahrir have also spoken out against the posters, arguing that “the posting of such material damages community relations and does nothing to create harmony between the city’s residents”.)

Yet more on the ‘mega-mosque’

The Times reports on the proposed Abbey Mills mosque, under the headline “Setback for Muslim sect’s ‘mega-mosque’ in London“. See also the government’s response to the BNP-inspired petition warning that the building of the mosque would “only cause terrible violence and suffering”.

See also Radical Muslim which urges support for a “Build the mega-mosque” petition.

For the background see Islam Online, 27 May 2007

Denmark’s Little Mermaid statue draped in Muslim dress and veil

Little MermaidThe Little Mermaid statue in Denmark’s capital was found draped in Muslim dress and a head scarf Sunday morning, police said. After receiving a telephone call, officers drove to the site and removed the garments, said Copenhagen police spokesman Jorgen Thomsen.

The Little Mermaid was created by Danish sculptor Edvard Eriksen in tribute to Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen. Sitting on a rock at the entrance of Copenhagen harbor since 1913, she draws an estimated 1 million visitors a year, and is occasionally targeted by vandals.

She has been beheaded and doused in paint several times. Four years ago, the statue was blown off its perch by vandals who used explosives. In 2004, someone put a burqa, the head-to-toe Islamic robe, on the statue along with a sign saying “Turkey in the EU?” in reference to Turkey’s bid to join the European Union.

Associated Press, 20 May 2007

So, pretty obviously another right-wing protest against Islam, you might think? Not according to one blogger, who reports the incident under the heading “Muslim THUGS Deface Famous Hans Christian Andersen Statue – Again“.

Islamophobia doesn’t exist, claims ex-leftist

Furedi“In recent years the term Islamophobia has been frequently invoked to silence criticism of Islam. Criticisms of any aspect of Islam are looked upon as expressions of a new form of racism. In reality, critics of Islam are questioning the values associated with the religion rather than the racial status of Muslim people. Today, promoting the concept of Islamophobia is about setting up Islam as a criticism-free zone. Recent claims about an ‘epidemic of Islamophobia’ are based on very impressionistic and subjective methodology.”

Frank Furedi, formerly of the Revolutionary Communist Party, in Spiked, 21 May 2007

Perhaps Furedi should have a word with BNP führer Nick Griffin who last year recommended that the fascists should seize “a great political opportunity to surf our message into the public mind on the back of a media tsunami of ‘Islamophobia’.”