Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

Islam a ‘dangerous and totalitarian ideology’: Wilders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Wilders Melbourne meeting

Far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders has called the Prophet Muhammad a murderer and used Anzac soldiers as an example of the courage needed to speak out against Islam at a speech to Melbourne supporters.

Tight security surrounded Mr Wilders’ hour-long speech to members of the ultra-conservative local group the Q Society of Australia at La Mirage reception centre in Somerton in Melbourne’s north on Tuesday night.

Fifty police, some on horseback, separated about 100 vocal but peaceful protesters standing on the Hume Highway verge outside the venue.

Protest organiser Feiyi Zhang said: “we’re here to show we will not stand for Wilders’ racism and Islamophobia”. She said his speech could incite violence against Muslims “and general fear of Islam”.

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MCB condemns Marine Le Pen visit

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The National Council of the Muslim Council of Britain met on 16 February and passed the following resolution:

We are appalled by the visit to Britain of the leader of France’s Front National, Marine Le Pen, due on 19 February. Le Pen is at the forefront in stoking hatred towards Muslims and calling for a restriction of their freedoms. Britain fortunately has a tradition of tolerance and accommodation that rightly scorns Le Pen and her ilk. However the danger is that it will embolden the extremist right wing in the UK. The Muslim community fails to understand why a Government that is ready to invoke banning or exclusion orders on Muslims on flimsy grounds of ‘hate speech’ has not been alert to the actual harm to community relations caused by Le Pen’s visit.

MCB news release, 18 February 2013

NYPD monitored Muslim students all over Northeast

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The New York Police Department monitored Muslim college students far more broadly than previously known, at schools far beyond the city limits, including the Ivy League colleges of Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, The Associated Press has learned.

In 2006 a University at Buffalo student named Adeela Khan ended up in a report by the NYPD’s Cyber Intelligence Unit because she had forwarded an email announcing an Islamic conference in Toronto at which the notorious extremist Tariq Ramadan was a featured speaker.

Update:  See “CAIR to ask Yale, Rutgers to protect rights of Muslim students”, CAIR press release, 19 February 2012

And “Muslim groups press Rutgers to act on NYPD spy reports”,The Record, 19 February 2012

SDL outnumbered by anti-fascists in Berwick

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Berwick anti-SDL demo

Five people were arrested amid clashes and disorder as an anti-Islamic group and its opponent marched through a border town.

Potential troublemakers were also escorted from the scene and potential racist language reported as the Scottish Defence League (SDL) and United Against Fascism (UAF) both staged marches in Berwick on Saturday.

Northumbria Police has said appropriate action will be taken where offences have been committed.

The UAF group has hailed the day a victory for the people of Berwick in their stand against fascism.

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Australia visit prompts condemnation of Wilders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders could learn a lot about the strengths of multiculturalism during his Australian visit, community and religious leaders say.

Mr Wilders will give speeches in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth this month about what he calls the “Islamisation of Australia”.

A coalition of 24 groups – including the AFL and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne – issued a joint statement in Melbourne on Monday, reinforcing their support for Victoria’s “multicultural and multifaith community”.

“We have a collective responsibility to respect our fellow citizens and preserve the social cohesion and harmony that characterise Victoria and makes our society great,” the statement says. “We welcome challenging ideas and debate, however, inciting hatred and animosity towards specific cultural or faith-based communities has no place in Victoria.”

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Berwick UAF campaign gathers support ahead of Scottish Defence League demo

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Berwick UAF stall

The newly-formed Berwick Unite Against Fascism group has been drumming up support ahead of a demo this weekend. The group, which came together in response to Scottish Defence League plans to march in the town this weekend, pledges to bring all platforms and all colours together to show that the town is united against fascism.

A spokesman for Berwick UAF said: “We had a very good day in Berwick on Saturday and garnered a lot of local support for opposition to the proposed SDL march in Berwick next Saturday. We distributed hundreds of leaflets explaining the situation and the reasons for opposing the SDL. The demonstration is open to all who oppose the SDL and other racist groups who threaten our town.”

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US right runs with ‘John Brennan-is-a-Muslim’ theory

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Salon reported earlier this week that disgraced former FBI agent and anti-Islam activist John Guandolo had claimed that John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee for CIA director, is “unfit for duty” because he is a secret Muslim.

Guandolo stated that “Brennan did convert to Islam when he served in an official capacity on behalf of the United States when he served in Saudi Arabia” and it “was the culmination of a counterintelligence operation against him to recruit him” by foreign operatives.

You might have thought that Guandolo’s accusation was so off-the-wall that even his fellow Islamophobes would distance themselves from this paranoid nonsense. But no. In a follow-up article Salon reports that Guandolo’s theory has been enthusiastically adopted by sections of the US right.

OC settles with ACLU to allow head scarves for Muslim defendants

Posted on by Bob Pitt

After six years of litigation, Orange County settled a religious discrimination lawsuit filed on behalf of a Muslim woman who was forced to remove her traditional head scarf while she was in a courthouse holding cell, the ACLU announced today.

Orange County officials will no longer require Muslim women in custody to remove their head scarf, known as a hijab, said attorney Mark Rosenbaum of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

Said plaintiff Souhair Khatib of Anaheim: “I praise Allah and thank Him that I live in a country where I can practice my religion freely. While not everyone understands Islam or what it requires of me, I’m grateful that the U.S. government protects my right to fulfill my duty to Allah, whether at work, on a public street or, yes, even in a sheriff’s holding facility.”

Law enforcement officers will be trained about ordering Muslim women to remove hijabs, and the county will pay $85,000 in damages, fees and court costs.

Los Alamitos Patch, 13 February 2013