Category Archives: Right wing

French government bans four speakers from attending UOIF conference, ‘regrets’ invitation to Tariq Ramadan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

France said Thursday it had banned four Muslim preachers from entering the country to attend an Islamic conference, saying their “calls for hatred and violence seriously damage republican principles”.

France also “regrets” that Swiss intellectual Tariq Ramadan has been invited to the meeting of the Union of Islamic Organizations in France (UOIF), a statement from Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and Interior Minister Claude Gueant said.

Akrima Sabri, Ayed Bin Abdallah al-Qarni, Safwat al-Hijazi and Abdallah Basfar are banned from entering France, while Qatari preacher Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Mahmud al-Masri “decided not to come”, it said.

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BBC refuses to screen play about Islamic threat to freedom of speech

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Well, that’s the headline to an article in the Daily Telegraph. The play is the theatre-dance piece Can We Talk About This?, currently being performed at the National Theatre, which reportedly treats Ray Honeyford as a legitimate critic of multiculturalism and Geert Wilders as a hero of free speech.

If the BBC had indeed refused to screen a play which promoted racists and Islamophobes like Honeyford and Wilders, they would certainly have a point. But there is no evidence to suggest that the play was even being considered for broadcast.

The Telegraph report quotes a spokesperson for BBC director-general Mark Thompson as stating: “We are currently working with the National on various ideas. There are currently no plans to broadcast Can We Talk About This?, but this is not due to the play’s content or themes.”

Still, no point letting the facts get in the way of another scaremongering headline about “how Islam is curtailing freedom of speech”, as the Telegraph puts it, is there?

Update:  Predictably, over at Jihad Watch Robert Spencer denounces “more dhimmitude from the BBC”.

Mail changes inaccurate headline about Muslims and honour violence

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tabloid Watch examines the Daily Mail‘s shock-horror headline “More than two thirds of young British Muslims believe ‘honour’ violence is acceptable, survey reveals”, which misreported the findings of a ComRes opinion poll.

This headline was subsequently replaced with “‘Honour’ violence is acceptable, say one in five young British Asians”. However, as Tabloid Watch points out and as we noted at the time, even that figure is based on a one-sided interpretation of the poll.

Tabloid Watch also observes that the Mail‘s change of headline “came too late, however, to stop their original headline being repeated on countless anti-Islam forums and blogs”.

Furthermore: “The day after MailOnline wrongly claimed ‘two thirds of young British Muslims believe ‘honour’ violence is acceptable’ it won Newspaper Website of the Year at the Press Awards.”

Islamic bookstore sparks controversy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

TORONTO — Shamim Ahmad has run his Islamic bookstore for 20 years in the popular East York neighbourhood of Little India. A green and white sign advertises Islamic books and souvenirs.

This quiet store is the site of a Canada-wide uproar because it sold a copy of “A gift for the Muslim couple.” The book was written by Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, an Islamic scholar from the late 19th century who passed away in 1943.

“I didn’t read the book, I only bought because of the title,” Ahmad said. “It’s a hundred-year-old book and I don’t know what was inside.”

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Zuhdi Jasser appointed to US Commission on International Religious Freedom

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Zuhdi JasserOne of two new members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has Muslim civil rights groups crying foul.

Zuhdi Jasser, who lauded a controversial New York City police surveillance program that targeted Muslims and helped lead the opposition to an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero, has been appointed to the commission, which advises the president, Congress and State Department on religious rights abuses internationally.

“It would have been better to appoint someone who has some measure of credibility with Muslim Americans,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “He has long been viewed by American Muslims and the colleagues in the civil liberties community as a mere sock puppet for Islam haters and an enabler of Islamophobia.”

Religion News Service, 27 March 2012

Update:  You can sign the petition “Zuhdi Jasser Does Not Belong on the USCIRF” here.

Scholars slam France over Qaradawi ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qaradawi and Mayor 2France has come under fierce criticism from an international body of Muslim scholars over denying prominent scholar Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi entry into the southern European country to attend a major Islamic conference.

“We are surprised, and we admonish France for refusing to grant Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi a visa,” Sheikh Ali al-Qaradaghi, the secretary general of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Tuesday, March 27. “He is a moderate scholar who contributed to combating extremism in Islamic thoughts.”

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UOIF defends Qaradawi, opposes Sarkozy’s ban, accuses government of capitulation to Front National

Posted on by Bob Pitt

UOIF logoThe Union of French Islamic Organisations is surprised at the current controversy provoked by a statement by the National Front spreading inaccurate information about Sheikh Qaradawi when he has visited France and Europe on several occasions.

The UOIF regrets that the climate of suspicion toward the Muslim community is the source of a controversy over information that has been available for months.

Sheikh Qaradawi is a man of peace and tolerance who has worked for openness and moderation and whose positions are always in favour of justice and peoples’ freedom. He was received by Pope Jean-Paul II and for several years has carried out work on interfaith dialogue with Jewish and Christian communities around the world.

He exercises a positive influence in the Muslim world and is continually attacked by extremist movements because of his modern positions in favour of democracy, women’s rights and dialogue between civilisations.

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French government will bar entry to Qaradawi, says Sarkozy aide

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qaradawi at Tahrir Square rally
Qaradawi addresses mass rally in Tahrir Square in February last year

The French government will deny entry to an influential Egyptian preacher if he accepts an invitation from an Islamic organisation to visit France next month, a close aide to President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Sunday.

Sarkozy, who is running for re-election, has announced a crackdown on people who follow extremist Islamic messages on radical websites in the wake of a spate of killings by an al Qaeda-inspired gunman.

His aide, Henri Guaino said the government would take measures to block the entry of Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi if he seeks to take up the invitation from the Union of French Islamic Organisations (UOIF), a Muslim umbrella group.

“The French government does not want any extremist preachers entering its territory,” Guaino, a special advisor and speech writer to Sarkozy, told French Radio J.

Reuters, 25 March 2012

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Gingrich says it should ‘bother’ Obama that people think he’s Muslim

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is amping up his language on President Obama’s faith and his relationship with Muslims.  Gingrich told ABC News Friday that that he takes the president at his word that he’s a Christian, but finds it “very bizarre” that Obama is “desperately concerned to apologize to Muslim religious fanatics.”

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