Category Archives: Right wing

JC apologises to Tafazal Mohammad

Posted on by Bob Pitt

JC Pears headlineThe Jewish Chronicle has issued the following retraction:

“On 13 May 2011 we published articles which suggested that Tafazal Mohammed was a Jihadist who may have supported violent extremism. We accept that this is not the case and that Mr Mohammed unequivocally condemns acts of violence, including the 7/7 bombings. We are happy to put this right and apologise to him for any distress caused.”

The articles in question were a front page report and a comment piece by the JC‘s political editor Martin Bright. Both articles have now been removed from the paper’s website (see here and here). As we pointed out at the time, the evidence presented to the 7/7 inquest provided no basis for Bright’s “jihadist” claims and consequently “the JC‘s accusations against Tafazal Mohammad fall apart”.

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‘Islam’s war on the Cross’ – how the Torygraph characterises attacks on Copts

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Here. If the attacks on Egypt’s Copts are the responsibility of Islam, it’s difficult to understand why leading representives of that faith have appealed for unity between the Muslim and Coptic communities. This was the call issued by Yusuf al-Qaradawi when he addressed a mass rally in Tahrir Square in February. Violence against the Coptic community in Egypt is clearly not the responsibility of an entire faith but of a minority of its adherents. Would the Telegraph report attacks by right-wing bigots on abortion clinics in the United States under the heading “Christianity’s war on healthcare workers”?

Harry’s Place witch-hunts Muslim journalist (no, it’s not Mehdi Hasan this time)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

ennahdaEvil Islamists gather in Tunisia: An Nahda election campaign rally

Perhaps it’s just the “Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be” syndrome that affects us all in old age but I can’t help feeling that the competence of Islamophobic witch-hunting over at Harry’s Place – never exactly impressive anyway – is in sharp decline. I mean, there used to be a time when they would at least make some kind of effort to dig up dirt on opponents of the Iraq war or Israeli state terrorism in order to try and discredit them. But standards are slipping.

A recent example is a post headed “Guardian appoints Engage employee as stand in religious affairs columnist”, written by one “Lucy Lips”, who qualifies as the most frothing-at-the-mouth Zionist on a website where she faces stiff competition for that title. Her article is an attack on Nadiya Takolia, who works as a researcher at ENGAGE and last week was responsible for compiling the Guardian‘s Divine Dispatches religion news roundup in the absence of its usual author, the paper’s religious affairs correspondent Riazat Butt. Lips’ attack isn’t even original – it’s lifted from an even more demented Zionist site called CiF Watch – and as an attempt to smear Nadiya Takolia it really is quite pathetic.

Lucy Lips even finds it highly sinister that Takolia provided a link to an item at Islamophobia Watch in her Divine Dispatches article. This was a short piece we posted warning that the English Defence League was intending to establish a political party, which you might have thought was a fairly uncontroversial point to make, even by the standards of Harry’s Place. Furthermore, the previous week’s edition of Divine Dispatches, which was written by Riazat Butt, also linked to our website. Perhaps the explanation lies in the fact that Islamophobia Watch actually includes material that is relevant to the subject of that particular Guardian column.

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‘The Cold War on British Muslims – The Instigators and Funders’ – successful meeting at House of Commons

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cold War on British Muslims meeting platform

On Tuesday 11th October, the Middle East Monitor (MEMO) and the Cordoba Foundation (TCF) co-hosted the authors of the recent SpinWatch report on the spread of Islamophobia in the UK. The event took place in the House of Parliament and was sponsored by Simon Danczuk, MP for Rochdale, and chaired by the former foreign affairs editor for the Guardian, Victoria Brittain. The report entitled “Cold War on British Muslims: An Examination of Policy Exchange and Centre of Social Cohesion” was presented by the co-authors Professor David Miller, Tom Griffin and Tom Mills, who briefly described their findings and their analyses. They were joined on the panel by Dr Robert Lambert, former head of the Muslim Contact Unit and co-director of the European Muslim Research Centre (EMRC) at the University of Exeter and a part time lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV) at the University of St Andrews.

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Immigration officer forwards racist email to Muslim-American lawyer

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Shahid Haque-Hausrath

HELENA — Shahid Haque-Hausrath sat down at his computer on the morning of Sept. 28 and, as he does at the start of most work days, began reading his email. In his inbox that morning was an email from the state’s top U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, Bruce Norum.

Haque-Hausrath is an immigration attorney who often deals with ICE on immigration and deportation cases, so he wasn’t necessarily surprised to see an email from Norum, the supervisory detention and deportation officer for Montana.

Haque-Hausrath said he was somewhat perplexed by the email’s subject line: “FW: This AA Pilot tells it like it is …” In the body of the email Norum simply wrote “Good read” ahead of a forwarded message.

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Conservative shock jock reels off Islamophobia’s greatest hits

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Conservative shock jock Bryan Fischer whipped out his best anti-Muslim rhetoric at the Values Voter Summit on Saturday.

Some highlights:

“Christians and Muslims do not believe in the same God.”

“I believe it’s important that we have a president who understands that Islam is not a religion of peace, but a religion of war and violence and death.”

“Every single Mosque in America is a potential recruiting or training cell for Islamic terror.”

“The greatest long-term threat to our security and liberty is not radical Islam, but Islam itself.”

“This is not Islamophobia, this is Islamo-realism.”

“The more devout a Muslim becomes, the more of a threat he becomes to our national security.”

TPM, 8 October 2011

White House intervened to block notorious Islamophobes addressing security conference

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The CIA and Department of Homeland Security abruptly canceled a conference in August on homegrown U.S. radical extremism in what officials close to the issue say was an effort to block two conservative anti-terrorism experts from presenting their views.

The conference was slated for Aug. 10 through 12 at agency headquarters in McLean and was to have been hosted by the CIA Threat Management Unit. It was organized by the intelligence subcommittee of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

“The conference topic is a critical one for domestic law enforcement, and the sponsors – in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security – have decided to delay the conference so it can include insights from among other sources, the new National Strategy for Counterterrorism in an updated agenda,” wrote CIA police officer Lt. Joshua Fielder in an email announcing the postponement in early August.

According to people close to the conference, the event was ordered “postponed” after Muslim advocacy groups contacted the Department of Homeland Security and the White House about the scheduled speakers, who included Stephen Coughlin and Steve Emerson, both specialists on the Islamist terror threat.

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San Diego: right-wing Christian cranks target school pupils with anti-Muslim leaflets

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Defend Christians leaflet

A religious organization’s campaign that focuses on passing out anti-Muslim literature to students is being criticized, but the group’s founder believes he is doing nothing wrong.

The organization Defend Christians has been passing out fliers to students at some local high schools, including Clairemont High School. But some say teenagers should not be the ones receiving the fliers.

Zac Patchett recently saw a flier sitting in his Clairemont home. The two-page paper shows a headline which reads “Ayatollah Khomeini had sex with a 4-year-old girl” and is critical of Islam for its beliefs. Patchett learned someone passed it out to his younger sister, a sophomore at Clairemont High School. When he saw what was on it, he said, “I was just personally offended. It goes against being an American.”

When asked whether the fliers are a form of racism, Gary Cass of Defend Christians said, “This isn’t racist at all. All it’s doing is telling the truth about a group of people that are organized around a religious ideology. It transcends race.”

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Muslim superhero comics meet resistance in U.S.

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dan Merica reports on the difficulties faced by Naif Al-Mutawa in getting a TV series based on Islam-inspired comic book THE 99 aired in the United States.

CNN Belief blog, 5 October 2011

Pamela Geller, who has featured prominently in the campaign against THE 99, reports: “CNN, the crescent news network, is shilling for a particularly insidious form of cultural jihad that is targeting our children: comic books featuring Islamic superheroes.”