Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia

SAS Muslim ‘called Paki and terrorist by comrades’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SASA Muslim soldier attached to the SAS was branded a “terrorist” and “Paki” by comrades on a tour of duty in Afghanistan, an employment tribunal heard. The London-based serviceman, born in Britain and of Pakistani origin, also claimed he was throttled in an attack by an officer while on active service.

The RAF medical officer, who was only referred to as AB for legal reasons, was attached to the specialist commando unit for two months in 2007 for a top-secret secondment.

He claims that while in Afghanistan he was subjected to racist taunts and a physical attack. Then when he returned to the UK his complaints of racial harassment and bullying were not properly investigated because of a “cover-up”, it was alleged.

Two senior officers, a sergeant and a major, were said to be at the heart of the allegations.

Most of the evidence at the Central London Employment tribunal has been given in secret on security ground, but some details were given in public for the first time at the hearing, where AB is suing the Ministry of Defence for racial discrimination.

An inquiry into his complaints has yet to be completed after more than two years, the tribunal heard. The MoD denies discrimination, and the hearing continues.

Evening Standard, 11 September 2009

Anti-mosque protesters chased out of Wealdstone

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hordes of rampaging young Asian men chased a small group of men through the civic centre car park after they apparently came to protest against Harrow Central Mosque.

Hundreds of people had gathered in Station Road, united against any protest against the mosque, and determined to protect their religion.

When the small group of men arrived, chanting from the crowd turned to anger and groups of protesters, some armed with sticks, broke ranks and began to chase the men.

The men, who had arrived at Harrow and Wealdstone station to head down to the mosque, quickly turned and ran through the car park when faced by the hostile crowd, hotly pursued by the protesters.

Police tackled the protesters on the edge of the civic centre car park, stopping them catching up with the group of men, and a short stand-off ensued between officers and the marauding protesters.

They were eventually coaxed into returning to the mosque, as hundreds spilled into Station Road, forcing police to shut it down.

Harrow Times, 11 September 2009

Danish Rightists in anti-mosque campaign

Posted on by Bob Pitt

DPP advertThe extreme-right Danish People’s Party (DPP), a key government ally, launched on Wednesday, September 9, a massive ad campaign against the building of mosques, reported the EuropeNews website.

“As a bolt from the blue and peaceful Danish summer sky, the politicians of the Copenhagen municipality decided the other day to erect a grand mosque in the middle of the city,” the party said in a full-page ad published in several dailies. The money will, among other sources, come from the terrorist regime of Iran, but none of the other parties in the local government had any concern about that.”

Copenhagen city council agreed on Thursday, August 27, to prepare a draft for a local plan for a mosque in the capital’s northwest neighborhood. The DPP was the only party that voted against the mosque, to be built by Shiites through private donations, will cost between 40 million and 50 million kroners (5.4 million and 6.7 million euros).

The DPP vowed to seek a referendum on the construction of mosques in the Scandinavian country. Playing politics, the party linked the anti-mosque campaign to the upcoming municipal polls. “The more representatives from the Danish Peoples Party elected at the local elections on November 17th, the greater the resistance against the Islamist strongholds, also in your city.”

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Man accused of calling BNP activists ‘Nazis’ is cleared

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP Islam Out of BritainA Heaton Moor man who was accused of threatening and abusing two BNP members after he challenged them in the street was acquitted after magistrates dismissed their evidence.

Mohammed Latif, 38, was cleared of any wrong doing after he confronted the BNP members on Broadstone Road, Reddish, on April 9 after they placed a pamphlet through his door during the run-up to the European elections.

Duncan Warner, 44, the former head of the BNP Stockport branch and ordinary BNP member Gerard Williams, 54, had claimed Mr Latif had used abusive language, threatened them and tried to steal a bag of pamphlets they were handing out.

In court, chief magistrate Kenneth Bailey, who found Mr Latif not guilty of an offence under section five of the public order act, said: “The facts are that an incident took place and some words were exchanged. The dispute arise over the nature of the language and whether it was abusive and threatening.

“I find a difference in evidence given by Mr Williams and Mr Warner. Mr Williams evidence was short and vague, while Mr Warner’s failed to convince that strong and abusive langauage was used. Mr Latif gave a more credible account of events.”

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Ken Livingstone condemns anti-Muslim protest in Harrow and warns of ‘return to the 1930s’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ken Livingstone, chair of Unite Against Fascism and former mayor of London, spoke out today against the anti-Muslim rally called by far right organisations outside Harrow Central Mosque this Friday. Livingstone said:

“If anyone were to call a demonstration outside a synagogue or church, this would rightly provoke a national outcry. There should be exactly the same response from the government, politicians, all religious faiths and the media to the call for a demonstration outside a mosque. The only possible meaning of this event is a protest against Muslims and Islam – a religion followed by more than a billion people in the world.

“People should wake up to the fact the protests outside mosques are taking us back to the fascism of the 1930s when fascist thugs marched against Jews and their places of worship. This demonstration should be condemned and banned on the grounds of blatant religious discrimination and a threat to public order.”

The anti-Muslim protest has been called by groups such as the BNP-linked “English Defence League” – which ran riot in Birmingham last weekend, throwing bottles at Asians and making Nazi ‘sieg heil’ salutes – and “Stop the Islamisation of Europe”, which declares that it is against all Muslims and all forms of Islam. They are calling their protest on the anniversary of the 9/11 in an attempt to whip up hatred against all Muslims by falsely branding them as terrorist sympathisers.

Unite Against Fascism has called a vigil and rally to defend the mosque from these anti-Muslim bigots. Speakers at the rally include Tony McNulty, MP for Harrow East, and Navin Shah, the London Assembly member for Brent & Harrow. The anti-racist vigil is backed by a variety of local community organisations and trade unions.

Weyman Bennett, joint secretary of Unite Against Fascism, said: “Nobody should be fooled by the bigots when they claim that they are ‘not racist’ or ‘peaceful’. They are here for one simple purpose: to intimidate and abuse the Muslim community. Back in the 1970s the National Front would march through black areas on the pretext of opposing ‘mugging’. Today the racists and fascists use opposition to ‘Islamic extremism’ in the same way.

“We all have a duty to show solidarity with Muslims in the face of these racist provocations. We will bring together people from all of Harrow’s different communities to send a clear message to the racists: we will defend our multiracial and multicultural society – and anti-Muslim bigots are not welcome here.”

Unite Against Fascism press release, 10 September 2009

‘Mohammed is now the third most popular boy’s name in England. So why this shabby effort to conceal it?’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Max HastingsMax Hastings poses the question, in the Daily Mail. He writes:

“This week, the Office of National Statistics published a list of the most popular boys’ names in Britain: Jack, Oliver, Thomas, Harry, Joshua, Alfie, Charlie, Daniel. They reflect a cultural tradition as old as the nation’s history, and would provoke approving nods from Jack the Ripper, Oliver Cromwell, Thomas Becket and Harry Hotspur.

“There is just one small problem: the list is deceitful. In reality, the third most popular choice for boy children born last year in England and Wales was not Thomas, but Mohammed. The ONS explains blithely that it had no intent to deceive. Its normal practice is to catalogue different spellings separately, as in Mohammed, Muhammed and so on. But if you add these variants together, as surely seems logical, then Mohammed is right up there, near the top of the list.”

If the ONS has indeed manipulated the list, which I very much doubt, it would be because the popularity of the name Mohammed is regularly misrepresented as evidence that, as Hastings puts it, “a host of migrants is here, most of whom espouse an entirely different cultural tradition from our own”. According to Hastings, unless Britain can reclaim the inner cities from these “huge immigrant communities which may live in this country, but are tragically not of it”, then “we shall become a divided society, no longer recognisably British, of which a host of young Mohammeds and Muhammeds will be the symbols”.

In reality, as Alex Massie recently pointed out in the Spectator: “Muslims are much more likely to name their sons Mohammed than Christians are to call their son any single name. That is, there’s much greater variance amongst non-muslim families. In other words, unless you’re wanting to stoke panic and resentment what kids are called is not a terribly useful metric.”

Update:  See Mehdi Hasan’s comments on his New Statesman blog, 10 September 2009

CAIR concerned by ‘spike’ in anti-Muslim incidents in Ramadan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A prominent national Islamic civil rights and advocacy organization today expressed concern about a recent “spike” in reports of anti-Muslim incidents nationwide during or just prior to the month of Ramadan. The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said the most recent incident involved a hate-motivated attack on a Muslim family’s home in Oregon.

“We are concerned that the rising level of anti-Islam rhetoric in our society is contributing to this apparent spike in hate crimes targeting Muslims or those perceived to be Muslim,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. “Our nation’s leaders must speak out against the increasing use of anti-Islam hate speech on the Internet, on talk radio and in editorial pages.”

CAIR press release, 10 September 2009

UAF appeal: ‘Defend Harrow Central Mosque from anti-Muslim racists’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Defend Harrow Central Mosque from anti-Muslim racists
assemble 4pm, Friday 11 September, Harrow Civic Centre

Speakers include: Tony McNulty MP, London assembly memberNavin Shah, NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear, Jo Langfrom Harrow Teachers Association, Unite convenor and bus workerAbdul Omer Mohsin, Weyman Bennett from Unite Against Fascism

>>> download the leaflet HERE
>>> download the poster HERE

Racist bigots including the BNP-linked English Defence League and “Stop the Islamisation of Europe” are planning on holding an anti-Muslim protest outside Harrow Central Mosque on the evening of Friday 11 September. Unite Against Fascism has called a solidarity vigil in response to defend the mosque from racists and fascists.

We are calling on everyone in London who opposes the racists and wants to stand up for Harrow’s multicultural and multiracial society to assemble on Friday at 4pm outside Harrow Civic Centre on Station Road, just north of the junction with Rosslyn Crescent (postcode HA1 2UA, nearest tube Harrow & Wealdstone). Please bring union banners.

The vigil starts at 1.30pm, so please get there earlier if you can. We want a dignified but determined demonstration that will show the racists that they are not welcome in Harrow. There will be a public rally with speakers starting at around 6pm.

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Harrow Mosque calls for 9/11 protest to be banned

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Harrow MosqueHarrow Mosque has called for a 9/11 protest to be banned just days after fresh violence in Birmingham saw 90 arrests.

Stop the Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) is holding a rally outside the building, in Station Road, on Friday and Unite Against Fascism (UAF) supporters will hold their own counter-demonstration alongside it. The English Defence League (EDL), which clashed with anti-fascists in Birmingham on Saturday, at one point advertised the event on its website. The rally is promoted on EDL’s group on social networking website Facebook and there are fears the weekend’s violence could be repeated in Harrow.

Haroon Sheikh, chairman of Harrow Central Mosque, said: “We would request that the local authority and the police try to put a stop to it. The concern we have is with a large congregation. It’s very difficult to control what people would want to do on the day. We would have 200 to 300 people coming here for prayers on a Friday. Emotions will be high if it’s provoked, but we will have the police and we will have stewards here.”

SIOE say they are not racist and will not tolerate racism at the rally, but describe themselves as Islamaphobic, saying it is “the height of common sense”. The Harrow Times has asked the English Defence League (EDL) for clarification about whether their members will attend the protest and is awaiting a response. The Harrow Times has requested a response from Harrow Police and Harrow Council and is awaiting a reply.

Harrow Times, 8 September 2009

See also the Times, 8 September 2009 and Islam Online, 8 September 2009

Update:  See also “Harrow Police: 9/11 mosque protest cannot be banned”, Harrow Times, 8 September 2009

The police do in fact have a point. Under Section 13 of the Public Order Act they can apply to the Home Secretary for an order banning “public processions”, but they have no power to ban static demonstrations.

However, under Section 14 of the POA the police have the authority to “give directions imposing on the persons organising or taking part in the assembly such conditions as to the place at which the assembly may be (or continue to be) held, its maximum duration, or the maximum number of persons who may constitute it”, if this is necessary to prevent “serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community”.

So the police do have the power to prevent this provocative protest taking place outside Harrow Mosque.

Further update:  Regarding Harrow Central Mosque, which it calls “the house of hate”, SIOE states: “This will be the largest mosque in England with minarets 40 metres high. That is not integration that is triumphalism. It is Harrow now, the next place could be your community.”

From the life of St Peter

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tatchell No Islamic StateOver at Harry’s Place they’ve been celebrating Peter Tatchell’s success in bullying a small publisher into making a public apology for supposedly libelling him. The issue arose from criticisms of Tatchell made in the chapter “Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the ‘War on Terror'” (pdf here) by Jin Haritaworn, Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem, from the book Out of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality, published last year.

The publishers’ statement of apology is comprehensive, not to say grovelling. It concedes that the offending chapter “contains serious, defamatory untruths concerning Peter Tatchell”. Tatchell apparently “is not Islamophobic” and “the insinuation that he is anti-Muslim is untrue”. In fact, “Mr Tatchell has never criticised Muslims in general, only Muslim fundamentalists”.

The publishers say they now recognise that “the human rights work of Mr Tatchell and OutRage! is motivated by a sincere support for people struggle against tyranny and injustice, and has involved valuable assistance to many LGBT campaigners in the UK and worldwide…. Peter Tatchell was one of the first LGBT campaigners to reject a western-centred approach to LGBT human rights and, from the early 1970s, to campaign for LGBT human rights universally and internationally.”

Indeed, it would appear that Tatchell bestrides our world like a colossus:

“From the 1960s, he has been active in anti-imperialist solidarity campaigns, supporting the national liberation struggles of the peoples of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Oman, Nicaragua, Palestine, Western Sahara, East Timor and West Papua…. Mr Tatchell continues to campaign for the independence of the Western Sahara, Palestine and West Papua. He supports the struggles for democracy and human rights in Iran, Russia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Burma, Turkey, Columbia, Somaliland, Baluchistan, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Belarus and elsewhere.”

It is evident that the author of this statement would fully endorse the adulatory description of Tatchell, by David Toube at Harry’s Place, as a “brave and saintly man”. And that is hardly surprising, since the statement was obviously dictated by Tatchell himself. Those of us who regretfully decided long ago that Tatchell had degenerated into a self-promoting narcissistic parody of his former self can only conclude that our judgement was spot on.

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