“The adherents of Islam claim that it is a religion of peace. The small extremist minority that can out [sic] such murderous attacks upon our people show quite the opposite. This alien creed breeds disaffection, hatred and violence. Almost every global conflict taking place today is where this ‘peaceful’ religion is trying to assume or maintain influence and power. From Nigeria through to Chad and Sudan and northwards through the Middle East and into the Caucasus, lie battle zones where Islamics are fighting non-believers.”
Category Archives: Far right racists
Fascists exploit London bombings
BNP leader Nick Griffin tries to make political capital out of the London bombings:
“Following the Islamic fundamentalist massacres in London, two tendencies will rapidly become apparent: First the pro-government media will swing into action, bringing out a steady stream of injured ordinary Muslims and a flood of ‘moderate’ Muslim spokesmen to condemn the extremists. Second, millions of ordinary Brits just won’t believe them, with severe extra strain on race relations as a result. And, of course, those sceptics will be right to doubt what the media and the political Establishment tell them, not least because, for all the ritual condemnation by the Labour Party puppets in the Muslim Council of Britain, a significant minority of young Muslims in this country do support the terrorists….
“It is almost inevitable that, within a week at most, the liberal intellectual newspapers in particular will be full of wailing about how the atrocities have sparked an upsurge of ‘Islamophobia’ – that piece of political cant that demonises legitimate concern about the inherently undemocratic, anti-Western nature of the Islamic religion and labels it as unthinking ‘hate’.”
Fascists join attack on Ian Blair
Joining the Daily Mail in an attack on Sir Ian Blair, the BNP rallies to the defence of police officers who made abusive remarks about Muslims, including a reference to Shi’ites as “Shitties”:
“Sir Ian described the remarks at the heart of this week’s employment tribunal defeat as Islamophobic: ‘That language was gratuitous, offensive and deliberate. Officers can expect to be disciplined for using language like that. I want this force to have no place for racism’. If I was one of those officers I would now look at suing Sir Ian for libel and abuse of authority within the Police. Not only is the language not racist as defined in common law, but it is also a fact that Islam is a religion not a race.”
Fascists join attack on Ian Blair
Joining the Daily Mail in an attack on Sir Ian Blair, the BNP rallies to the defence of police officers who made abusive remarks about Muslims, including a reference to Shi’ites as “Shitties”:
“Sir Ian described the remarks at the heart of this week’s employment tribunal defeat as Islamophobic: ‘That language was gratuitous, offensive and deliberate. Officers can expect to be disciplined for using language like that. I want this force to have no place for racism’. If I was one of those officers I would now look at suing Sir Ian for libel and abuse of authority within the Police. Not only is the language not racist as defined in common law, but it is also a fact that Islam is a religion not a race.”
Most people back religious hatred law – and they’re right
Most people back religious hatred law – and they’re right
By Ken Livingstone
Tribune, 1 July 2005
Anyone would think from the media coverage of the government’s proposed legislation to ban incitement to religious hatred that the combination of some comedians and celebrities, along with the Tories and the Liberal Democrats, represented the views of the great majority of the population.
In London, they definitely do not. The Government’s new Bill, which will significantly build on existing legislative measures aimed at combating hate crime, has overwhelming backing from Londoners. Seventy-two per cent of London residents support the new anti-incitement law, according to our opinion polls. Just 15 per cent are against. The media has ignored this impressive show of popular support for the Bill, preferring to give publicity to the unrepresentative views of a few high-profile celebrities, who have falsely portrayed it as a new blasphemy law.
Some faith groups such as Jews and Sikhs are currently protected from incitement to hatred on the basis that these religions are held to be mono-ethnic, and therefore come under the 1986 Public Order Act which bans incitement to racial hatred. Members of faiths which are defined as multi-ethnic, such as Hindus and Muslims, are not so protected. This is clearly unacceptable, and has left a loophole for the far Right.
Opponents of the Bill claim that existing laws are sufficient to deal with the racists. They cite the case of Mark Norwood, a BNP member in Shropshire who was successfully prosecuted in 2002 after he placed a poster in his window carrying the slogan “Islam Out of Britain”. They omit to mention the case of another BNP member, Dick Warrington, who was prosecuted for displaying a poster with the same slogan but was acquitted by magistrates in Leeds in 2002.
The BNP had this to say about Warrington’s prosecution: “The snag for the police, however, is that Islam is not covered by the anti-free speech race law… it’s legal to say anything you want about Islam, even far more extreme things…”
Nick Griffin’s secretly-filmed tirade against Muslims, clearly desgined to whip up the most unpleasant hatred against Asians, indicates what we are up against.
The comedian Rowan Atkinson has accused the government of “using a sledgehammer to crack a nut”, which could be taken to imply that the rise in anti-Muslim hatred is a matter of little significance.
The same argument was employed during the Commons debate on the Bill by Tory MP Boris Johnson, who stated that “the problem of Islamophobia is in danger of being exaggerated”. As the editor of a magazine – The Spectator – that has brazenly contributed some of the worst examples of Islamophobia in the media, this is hardly surprising.
Nazis and the religious hatred bill
“British people are also aware of the mayhem caused in parts of the world by Islam and the use of violence by Muslims to spread their cause – 9/11 being a particularly horrific example. If law abiding people are concerned about the increasing spread of Islam in Britain, should not a decent government take their worries on board by at least conducting a true, open and honest debate on all sides of the argument? Yes. But ‘our’ government does no such thing and instead seeks to criminalise such sensible debate on the matter and call it ‘hate’ and ‘incitement to religious hatred’.”
A fascist assesses the Commons debate on the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.
‘Ha, ha! This bill has incited luvvies to hate Labour’, Torygraph writer sneers
Another jaw-droppingly ignorant attack on the religious hatred bill, by Jasper Gerard in the Sunday Times.
Still, we’re helpfully provided with Stephen Fry’s penetrating insights into the issue: “It’s now common to hear people say, ‘I’m rather offended by that,’ as if that gives them certain rights. It’s no more than a whine. ‘I’m offended by that.’ Well, so fucking what?”
Ah, the wonders of an Oxbridge education.
Also worth noting that Fry’s description of the bill as “a sop to Muslims” has been approvingly quoted by the BNP. See here.
We need this law to fight hatred
We need this law to fight hatred
By Sadiq Khan, MP for Tooting
Evening Standard, 21 June 2005
It is, if its critics are to believed, a grievous threat both to our freedom of speech and to the nation’s cherished sense of humour. As such, the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, which has its second reading in Parliament today, has been derided as dangerous, politically cynical, and most of all, as unnecessary. So why do so few of my fellow Muslims see it that way?
Debating the Bill, Muslims tend to think not of vicar jokes but of incidents like one in a charity shop in Shepherd’s Bush recently, where a white, British Muslim woman was told by another customer: “You may be English, but you married a f***ing Muslim.”
We think not about alleged political calculations, but about the dangers faced, for example, by one woman recently attacked in the street in north-west London while wearing Muslim dress. She was warned sympathetically by the nurse who treated her injuries: “You have to take off this scarf. Every month we get several cases like you who come for treatment.”
Indeed Muslims might tend to question the extent of freedom of speech when simply going out dressed recognisably as a Muslim can invite assault. Many reported cases involve Muslim women having their headscarves forcibly pulled off and or having alcohol thrown at them. In one incident, a schoolgirl had her headscarf pulled off by a parent of another child at the school gates, to the sound of laughter from those watching.
All these incidents happened because these Londoners were Muslims. It was not about the colour of their skin but the religion they follow.
The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill is not about gagging comedians or curbing criticism of any religion. It is about giving Muslims and other followers of religions the same protection from hate crimes as, for example, black people.
Rotterdam mosque gutted in latest anti-Muslim arson
AMSTERDAM — A mosque was gutted by an arson attack in the west of Rotterdam in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Police have said the inside of the Shaan-e-Islam prayer room in a warehouse on the Aleidisstraat has been destroyed.
The mosque is linked to the Dutch Muslim association NMA and is mainly frequented by members of the Surinamese community.
Several slogans were clearly visible on the outside walls of the building in news footage of the building on Wednesday morning. The message in one of the slogans read: “geen moskee in Zuid” (no mosque in south). Another was the word “Lonsdale” along with a cross in a circle, a far-right symbol.
Some Dutch right-wingers, particularly teenagers with fascist sympathises, have a preference for clothing made by the Lonsdale clothing company in the UK because the middle letters of the brand name — nsda — call to mind Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party, NSDAP.
Another slogan “Theo R.I.P.” which was daubed on the wall of the mosque is a reference to filmmaker and Muslim critic Theo van Gogh.
Inayat Bunglawala defends religious hatred law
“One day in November 2001 a large group of protesters from the British National Party dressed as Crusaders and paraded outside the Houses of Parliament with placards reading ‘Get Islam Out Of Britain’. Had they been overtly targeting a racial group, they would have been breaking the law – incitement to racial hatred has been a crime since 1986. To get round the law, groups on the far Right have been cunningly reformulating their noxious rants. Instead of targeting racial groups, they target unprotected religious groups.”
Inayat Bunglawala of the MCB defends the proposed law against inciting religious hatred.