A group set up to campaign against a prayer centre in Shrewsbury is just another BNP front. The group “Against the Shrewsbury Muslim prayer centre” is complaining that Shropshire Council has sold Column Lodge to the Shropshire Bangladesh Welfare Society in a £215,000 deal.
Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia
Muslim students’ anger at Student Rights’ extremism on campus claims
Muslim students have lashed out at claims in a study that extremists are segregating and denigrating women, saying they are being “increasingly demonised”, while the NUS has condemned it as a “witch hunt”.
The study by Student Rights, which links extremism with gender segregation on campus calling it a “serious issue”, has been slammed by one anti-racism student officer.
Mohamed Harrath, a student union executive at the London School of Economics, told Huffington Post UK the pressure group was trying to “ramp up” the effects of Islamophobia on Muslim students.
CCIF on the left and Islamophobia in France
The Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France has posted a short comment piece noting that that, when it comes to the struggle against racism, the republican values of égalité and fraternité among French citizens have been abandoned by the country’s political parties.
Imam William Suhaib Webb emerges as face of Boston’s Muslim community in time of crisis
The Boston Globe profiles the Boston Muslim leader who was replaced by Nasser Weddady of the American Islamic Congress at an interfaith service attended by Barack Obama and subsequently accused of being an extremist – by a man who hails Pamela Geller as a “heroine”.
Debating Bill Maher on Muslims, Islam and US foreign policy
Glenn Greenwald reports on an encounter with “liberal” Islamophobe Bill Maher.
Muslims of America sues Christian Action Network for libel
A Muslim group is accusing a Christian organization of defamation for publishing a book that accuses the Muslim collective of holding terrorist training in its enclaves.
The Christian Action Network refuses to back down, challenging Muslims of America Inc. to prove the allegations wrong in an upstate New York court.
The Muslim group has a community in Hancock, near Binghamton, N.Y., and others around the U.S. It calls the network’s accusations deliberate and damaging lies.
Return of the anti-Muslim bigots
As the GOP coalition gets frayed, Islamophobia is one of the few things that can unify the party, argues David Sirota.
Edmond, Oklahoma: mosque expansion plan backed by planning committee
EDMOND, Oklahoma — A local pastor stirred up controversy during a hearing about a proposed mosque in Edmond. Pastor Paul Blair spoke out against the mosque, making some serious allegations against the group trying to get it built. The fellowship hall will go up in a residential neighborhood in Edmond. The plan is to expand, demolishing a house and occupy an empty lot.
A proposal to build a Islamic Fellowship Hall in Edmond moves forward, but not without controversy as Pastor Paul Blair with Fairview Baptist Church fires off serious allegations about the group trying to expand their mosque. “The Islamic Society of North America, which is one of the applicants and North American Islamic Trust, which is also an owner of the property were both listed and proven by the United States Federal District Court in the Holy Land Foundation trials to be proven affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood and in particular with Hamas,” said Blair.
CAIR-WA to seek ‘maximum penalties’ for threats to Muslim family
The Washington state chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-WA) will hold a news conference today to call for maximum legal penalties for a man who allegedly harassed and threatened a Muslim family at Seattle Center last month.
At the news conference, CAIR-WA will outline why this incident appears to be part of a pattern of recent harassment of and attacks on American Muslims and will ask the FBI to look into the case for possible federal charges.
On April 27, 2013, a Muslim family visiting Seattle Center was allegedly approached by 52-year-old Gregg Michael Burtis who reportedly asked two younger women in their party how many husbands they had. When the family asked Burtis to leave them alone, he allegedly became angry and began calling the family “Muslims” and “terrorists”. Family members feared for their lives and called the police when they reportedly heard Burtis say he was going to get a gun and “shoot them all.” Burtis was arrested and booked in King County Jail on $50,000 bail. He is awaiting trial for malicious harassment.
“This vicious hate incident at Seattle Center is part of a nationwide wave of hate-motivated threats and attacks against American Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim, following the tragic bombings at the Boston Marathon,” said CAIR-WA Civil Rights Coordinator Jennifer Gist. “In the wake of the Boston tragedy, Americans must unite and work to prevent any further loss of life from hate motivated attacks that threaten our nation’s security and our collective safety.”
Gist added: “All of us have a role to play. We need prosecutors to send a very strong message that those who make such threats will have to face the full force of the law. Elected officials and other law enforcement leaders should make public statements now declaring zero tolerance for this type of behavior.”
Review of Richard Seymour’s ‘Unhitched’
Bob Pitt reviews Unhitched: The Trial of Christopher Hitchens, by Richard Seymour, Verso, 134pp, £9.99.
Labour Briefing, May 2013
The secularists of the British Humanist Association launched a campaign last year to have a statue of the late Christopher Hitchens erected in Red Lion Square in central London. Although this proposal for a permanent tribute to the ex-leftist who evolved into an enthusiastic advocate of George W. Bush’s “War on Terror” came to nothing, it understandably generated fierce controversy at the time. Awale Olad, a Labour councillor in Holborn & Covent Garden who was approached by the BHA for his support, replied indignantly that he “would resign before I’d ever support the bust of a pro-war Islamophobe”.