ENGAGE draws our attention to a useful analysis, by Eric Randolph at Open Democracy, of the flaws in the government’s “Contest” strategy.
Category Archives: Resisting Islamophobia
Tariq Ramadan not homophobic, Rotterdam rules
The city of Rotterdam is extending its contract with Tariq Ramadan for another two years, dismissing claims that the Swiss philosopher made homophobic and misogynistic statements.
Last month, the Gay Krant, a newspaper for the homosexual community in the Netherlands, accused Tariq Ramadan of making homophobic and misogynistic statements on tapes in Arabic destined for the immigrant communities in Europe.
Ramadan (46), a Swiss philosopher and theologist of Egyptian descent, was hired by the city of Rotterdam two years ago to “help lift the multicultural dialogue to a higher level”. He dismissed the Gay Krant‘s accusations as slander.
The city of Rotterdam has since carried out its own investigation, the results of which were presented on Wednesday. The city had 54 Arabic-language cassette tapes translated and examined. According to council executive Rik Grasshof of the Green party GroenLinks, the Gay Krant‘s reporting was incomplete and inaccurate.
As a result, Ramadan’s contract with the city will be extended for another two years, during which he will lead public debates in an effort to bring the various communities in Rotterdam closer together.
The right-wing liberal party VVD, one of four coalition parties in the city government, had demanded Ramadan’s resignation following the Gay Krant‘s accusations. “He can think what he wants but he cannot spread homophobic ideas in the name of the city of Rotterdam,” VVD council member Bas van Tijn said.
Van Tijn also questioned what Ramadan brought to Rotterdam. “How can someone who doesn’t speak Dutch bring the communities in Rotterdam together? Especially if that someone is constantly accused of having a double discourse?” Van Tijn asked.
FBI recruiting Muslim spies, group says
A Michigan Muslim organization said Thursday it has asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate complaints alleging the FBI is asking followers of the faith to spy on Islamic leaders and congregations.
The Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan sent a letter last week to Holder after mosques and other groups reported members of the community have been approached to monitor people coming to mosques and donations they make.
Sandra Berchtold, a spokeswoman in the FBI’s Detroit office, had no immediate comment.
Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said such complaints aren’t new, but concerns grew after a recent revelation the FBI planted a spy in a Southern California mosque.
Racist escapes terror charge after threat to behead and bomb Muslims
The Crown Office has been accused of double standards by Scotland’s biggest Islamic group for not bringing terrorism charges against a man who threatened to blow up a mosque and behead Muslims.
The Scottish Islamic Foundation (SIF) has written to Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini querying the decision to prosecute Neil MacGregor for a breach of the peace, not terrorism offences.
MacGregor, 35, has admitted threatening to blow up Scotland’s biggest mosque and to behead one Muslim a week until every mosque was shut down. He will be sentenced at Glasgow Sheriff Court on Friday.
“There has been criticism for the lack of exposure this case has got, but this stems from how the case was originally handled,” SIF chief executive Osama Saeed said. “Had he been a Muslim, we suspect that counter-terror police would have been involved from the outset, and it would have been processed in a completely different manner.”
Mr Saeed drew a parallel with the case of Mohammed Atif Siddique, a student from Alva, Clackmannanshire, who was jailed for eight years for internet-related terrorist crimes.
“No-one seems to have looked into the internet habits that radicalised MacGregor to take copycat revenge for (British hostage] Ken Bigley’s assassination in Iraq,” he said. “We can be sure if he had been Muslim and had been inspired to replicate it, the result would have been quite different.”
‘St George banned but it’s OK for Muslims to abuse our troops’
Patriotic Brits blasted a council yesterday for barring a St George’s Day parade – after letting Muslim fanatics abuse our soldiers.
Anyone wanting to stage an event in Luton, Beds, has to seek permission from the council’s Safety Advisory Group. But while fanatical Muslims were given the green light to gather and scream insults when the Royal Anglian Regiment returned from Iraq last month, an application for a St George’s Day celebration this month was turned down.
Approval has also been granted for events to mark the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed and the death of his grandson.
Of course, the Daily Star omits to mention that the individual who applied to organise the St George’s Day parade was Paul Ray, author of the far-right Lionheart blog, who is currently on bail facing a charge of incitement to racial hatred. See here and here.
See also Tabloid Watch which comments:
“What is so disconcerting about all this is the way the Star is fuelling the delusional hate-filled rantings of people like Paul Ray with stories like this. The story is clearly supporting his agenda in the way it frames this story. It pushes a false claim about St George being banned despite a weekend long event dedicated to him and sets up a ‘them and us’ clash against Muslims. The Star sides with Ray, Ray sides with the BNP. So where does that leave the Star?”
Update: The Star has now amended its headline to remove the reference to St George being “banned”.
Harry’s Place and the McCarthyite witch-hunting of British Muslims
ENGAGE analyses the role of the notorious anti-Muslim website.
Raids and reports fuel Islamophobia
A high-profile counter-terrorism raid, in which 12 Pakistani students were arrested on Wednesday of last week, has raised key issues over civil liberties and the “war on terror”.
Despite days of searches of at least ten properties and the huge resources thrown into the case, at the start of this week the police had still not found any clear evidence of a terrorist plot.
No evidence had been found of bombs, bomb-making parts, chemicals to make explosives, a bomb factory, weapons or ammunition.
Peter Fahy, the chief constable of Greater Manchester police, has admitted that it is possible nobody could be charged with terror offences.
A number of other high-profile raids, including Forest Gate in 2006, have created huge embarrassment for the authorities after innocent people have been arrested.
Fahy said, “There will always be a situation where either we can’t achieve the evidential threshold or as a result of the investigation we find that the threat was not how it appeared to us at the time.”
There is deep concern and anger that the last week’s events will lead to an increase in Islamophobia. The government has attacked Pakistan for its supposed inability to tackle terrorism, and the media has blamed “lax” student visas for the problem.
Terror plot: ‘they have no evidence whatsoever’
A spat between British and Pakistani officials has followed the arrest of 11 Pakistani nationals in northern England on Wednesday.
Pakistani intelligence officials and a senior Pakistani government official claimed that there was no evidence against the Pakistanis arrested in Britain.
The government official told The Daily Telegraph that the suspects were likely to be deported from Britain. “They have no evidence whatsoever. They will release them and then repatriate them under anti-terror laws,” said the government official.
Rahimullah Yusufzai, a veteran journalist of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) traced the families of three of the men arrested.
Mr Yusufzai named the three families. He quoted the father of one of the men, who lives in Peshawar, the provincial capital, as saying: “My son has a beard and prays five times a day. Ours is a religious-minded family but this doesn’t mean that my son is part of a terrorist cell.”
In Dera Ismail Khan, also in the NWFP, the father of another student arrested told local reporters that his son was innocent. “I was paying for my son’s education in England for the last two years. He was to complete his studies in six months but his arrest could destroy his career,” he said.
The father of a third student arrested in the UK, speaking from Tank, a southern district of NWFP, said that his 26-year old son had left for UK in the first week of October 2008 to study for a masters’ degree in computer sciences at the Liverpool University. “None of my family members have any link with terrorists.”
Daily Telegraph, 13 April 2009
See also “Terror suspect’s father says Islamophobia to blame for son’s arrest” in the Guardian, 13 April 2009
A new presumption of guilt
“We have heard from this government before that ‘we are dealing with a very big terrorist plot’ (Student visa link to raids as PM points finger at Pakistan, 10 April).
“There was the very big ‘ricin plot’ in 2002, with no ricin, plotted by a terrorist ringleader with no ring. (That was just before the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ intervention in Iraq, the WMD being linked by Tony Blair and Colin Powell to the ‘ricin plot’.) There was the plot to bomb Old Trafford in 2004, the evidence apparently being two ticket stubs for different parts of the ground, in the hands of fans of foreign origin.
“Then in February this year there were the high-profile arrests and detentions in the north-west under anti-terrorism laws of nine men on unspecified overseas intelligence linked to a supposed terrorist activities outside Britain. Some were arrested from a convoy taking medicines, computers, toys and such to Gaza – all were innocent. Just as then, on this current occasion no specific plot is identified (despite the wild and denied stories about the Birdcage nightclub and the Trafford Centre).”
“Anyone glancing at your article might suppose that a nasty group of terrorists had already been convicted on the basis of solid evidence. In fact, as I write this, no one has been charged, let alone convicted. It is therefore a matter of serious concern that the prime minister shows such contempt for fair legal process by talking of a ‘very big terrorist plot’.”
Letters in the Guardian, 11 April 2009
‘My persecution by the Muslim McCarthyites’
“Just as Senator Joseph McCarthy ruined the lives of countless Americans during the 1950s when he and his committee smeared innocent people as communists, the Muslim hierarchy in Britain have used witchhunts to maintain their unquestioned theological power….
“Islam in Britain has been taken over by the followers of a warped manifestation of the faith. The Muslim Council of Britain, the main Muslim newspapers and many of the big mosques are dominated by men who subscribe to a virulent and backward-looking brand of Islam that has been exported from the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent.”
Poor, persecuted Taj Hargey writes in the Times, 10 April 2009
But Hargey does have his admirers – Melanie Phillips for one. And you can see why, can’t you?
Update: See the comment at ENGAGE, 14 April 2009
And by Yusuf Smith at Indigo Jo Blogs, 14 April 2009