Category Archives: Right wing

Toronto: right-wing alliance tries to drown out supporters of Muslims’ right to school prayers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Toronto District School Board demonstrations September 2011

Tension was running high as two vocal groups, both for and against Muslim prayer service in schools, tried to out-shout each other. Toronto Police officers kept the groups apart and from protesting on the sidewalk outside the Toronto District School Board’s Yonge St. headquarters on Saturday because they didn’t have permits.

“I am here to support the board for letting us pray in school,” said Aayman Karin, 13, one of about 100 Muslim students who pray on certain Fridays in the cafeteria of Valley Park Middle School, on Overlea Blvd. “It is a good thing for us because we don’t have to leave the school.”

Karin said students feel more comfortable praying in school with their classmates. “There is too much fuss being made about this issue,” Karin said. “We have the freedom to do this and we are not doing anything wrong.”

Organizer Chris Andrewsen said the event was in support of the TDSB and brought together students from a number of Toronto schools.

About three metres away, a coalition of protestors demonstrated against religion in schools using a bullhorn to drown out the TDSB supporters. They used the bullhorn to yell about Allah and suicide bombers as the Canadian anthem was played.

“We are here because religion has no place in our schools,” said Ron Banerjee, of Canadian Hindu Advocacy. “We want religion out of all our schools.” His group was joined by the Jewish Defence League Canada, Costas Christian Mission, Evangelical Asian Church, International Christian Voice, and Canadian Egyptian Congress. Rev. Tony Costa, of Costa Christ Mission, accused the TDSB of showing “preferential treatment to Muslims”.

An uproar erupted earlier in the summer when it surfaced that board officials were allowing Valley Park students to hold prayer sessions with an imam in the cafeteria during school hours. School board officials have said they plan to continue the practice despite opposition.

Toronto Sun, 17 September 2011

See also CBC News, 18 September 2011

A second anti-prayer protest against was held on Sunday, organised by the Canadian Secular Alliance, who waved placards with the slogan “Stop faith-based bigotry!” See the Toronto Sun, 18 September 2011

Looks like divisions have emerged within the anti-TDSB campaign. The appalling Muslim Canadian Congress seems to have steered clear of the Saturday protest and supported the secularist demonstration on Sunday instead. Perhaps even the MCC had become embarrassed by its public association with the far-right racist Jewish Defence League. The right-wing coalition that staged the Saturday protest is also having difficulty agreeing a common line, with Banerjee condemning all forms of religion in schools and the Christians demanding greater recognition for their own faith. The JDL, for its part, has no objection to Jewish prayers in schools but wants to deny Muslims the same right.

Christian Voice and the power of prayer

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Christian Voice banner

Christian Voice have announced that that on 1 October they will be holding another public prayer meeting in Newham against the building of a so-called “mega-mosque” by Tablighi Jamaat – a peaceful and non-political movement described by Christian Voice as “a controversial Islamic sect whose followers have been linked to a number of planned and actual terrorist atrocities”.

We are told that “Christian Voice members have been meeting for prayer on the Greenway overlooking the site on the first Saturday of every month without fail since January 2007”.

Back in October that year Christian Voice reported optimistically that “we believe our prayer is having results. It is being felt in the existing mosque, a collection of old industrial buildings, and our prayers for confusion have, we believe, already disrupted the megamosque plans. We have also prayed in support of local councillor Alan Craig, whom the Lord has placed in Newham’s council chamber for just such a time as this.”

Alas, in the 2010 local elections Craig lost his seat on Newham council and earlier this year Tablighi Jamaat won the right to operate their temporary mosque on the Newham site for another two years while they prepare plans for a permanent building. Christian Voice supporters will have to pray a bit harder. Or perhaps it’s just that God isn’t very sympathetic to the prayers of right-wing Christian bigots who whip up hatred against Muslims.

CAIR calls on councilman to apologise for anti-Islam Facebook comment

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dumitru 9-11 Facebook comment

The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) today called on the City of Orange Councilman Jon Dumitru to apologize for an anti-Islam Facebook posting in which he falsely linked the “teachings of Islam and the Koran” to the 9/11 terror attacks.

On the anniversary of 9/11, the Councilman posted a picture of the burning Twin Towers on his official Facebook page, and wrote underneath: “It was 10 years ago today that most Americans learned first-hand of the teachings of Islam and the Koran being filled with messages of peace….as they killed thousands of our fellow Americans! Today I remember those lost, left behind, and those across the world searching for these pure evil terrorists and dispatching them from this world! WE WILL NEVER FORGET, WE WILL NEVER FORGIVE!”

CAIR-LA sent a letter to the Councilman today informing him of the offensive nature of his comment and called on him to apologize to American Muslims. The letter also asked the Councilman to meet with members of the American Muslim community to discuss the negative impact of his inflammatory remarks.

In the letter, CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush wrote:

“Your hateful statement in which you falsely insinuate that the teachings of Islam and the Quran would allow the terrorist attacks of 9/11 is deeply troubling to all Muslims, including many who live in your city. Muslims across the world, especially those here in the United States have unequivocally condemned the 9/11 attacks and all forms of terrorism. Using the tragedy of 9/11 as an opportunity to spread misinformed views about Islam and the Quran is a failure of leadership.

“At a time when our entire nation was mourning that tragic day and emphasizing unity among all Americans, you unfortunately decided to falsely blame an entire faith community. We have learned from history that such smears and stereotypes have only led to scapegoating of entire communities.”

CAIR-LA press release, 15 September 2011

Mind you, Jon Dumitru does have his admirers. Pamela Geller for one. Over at Atlas Shrugs she hails Dumitru as a patriot who is under attack from one of the “un-indicted co-conspirator Muslim Brotherhood groups that are working towards this nation’s destruction”. Geller urges her supporters to “rally behind the courageous Councilman” and email him messages of support.

And the Christian News Wire has issued a press release from Dr Gary Cass of DefendChristians.org who demands: “Can anyone blame Dumitru for his feeling after seeing hundreds of his fellow first responders killed in the name of Allah?” Cass denounces CAIR’s complaint as “just another ploy to keep Americans off balance when confronting the threat of encroaching Islam”.

Senators blast FBI terror-training ‘lies’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The FBI swears it has stopped teaching agents that “mainstream” Muslims are proto-terrorists and that Mohammed is a “cult leader”. But top Senators aren’t prepared to let the FBI turn the page on its anti-Islam counterterrorism training, revealed by Danger Room on Wednesday.

“There is no room in America for the lies, propagated by al-Qaida, that the U.S. is at war with Islam, or the lie propagated by others that all Muslims support terrorism,” Sen. Joe Lieberman, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, told Danger Room.

Lieberman is one of the most consistently hawkish members of Congress. Not coincidentally, he’s been disturbed at recent reports that “inaccurate or even bigoted” anti-Islamic sentiment — his words — is substituting for diligent, responsible counterterrorism. In a letter this week to John Brennan, the president’s assistant on homeland security, Lieberman called for “meaningful standards” on law enforcement counterterrorism training, a point he reiterated to Danger Room.

“Proper training about violent Islamist extremism is absolutely essential for our law enforcement personnel in order to empower them to identify and understand this grave threat, and then protect the American people from it,” Lieberman says. “Part of this training must be an understanding of the clear and profound difference between Islamist extremism, which is a totalitarian political ideology that is at war with us, and Islam, which is a religion practiced by more than a billion people around the world, including millions of law-abiding and loyal Americans.”

Nor is Lieberman the only senator with oversight responsibilities disturbed by the FBI training materials. “Patriotic Muslim Americans can be one of our nation’s best weapons against radical Islamic terrorists,” Sen. Ron Wyden, a member of the intelligence committee, told Danger Room. “Anyone who stigmatizes the entire Muslim American community will miss out on opportunities to work in partnership with that community to identify and take action against emerging terrorist threats before they can do harm to our country.”

Danger Room, 16 September 2011

French businessman to pay ‘burqa’ fines in Netherlands too

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Netherlands is about to ban burqas in public. In doing so it is following the example of France and Belgium. Rachid Nekkaz, a Muslim with an Algerian background, has set up a million-euro fund in France to pay the fines.

He thinks burqa bans violate European constitutional rights and fundamental freedoms, which is strange because personally he believes burkas do not help integration: “Personally I am against burqas, because I don’t think wearing a niqaab helps the integration of these women into French society.”

After the introduction of a burqa ban in France, Mr Nekkaz set up the organisation Touche Pas à Ma Constitution or Don’t Touch My Constitution. The organisation will also help Dutch women if the ban is introduced. “Dutch women who get fined can phone me.” Mr Nekkaz says. “My number is on the internet.”

And it is not just an empty promise. The rich 38-year-old entrepreneur has already paid fines for two girls in Brussels. He says one million euros may be a lot of money, but it is nothing if it enables you to defend civil liberties.

The cabinet will decide on the ban today. Then it still has to go through parliament, but it is already clear that a parliamentary majority backs the measure.

In Belgium, legal proceedings have been taken against the ban (which includes the niqaab). The court’s verdict is expected soon.

RNW, 16 September 2011

Dutch government drafts veil ban legislation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Dutch prime minister says the government has drawn up legislation to ban face-covering veils such as the burqa worn by some Muslim women.

Mark Rutte says the proposed ban will be sent to the government’s legal advisory body, the Council of State, before lawmakers vote on it, a process likely to take months.

The government said in a statement Friday that the ban aims at “protecting the character and customs of public life in the Netherlands.”

Associated Press, 16 September 2011

National Secular Society honorary associate accuses Muslims of sponging off welfare state

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Shreela FlatherBaroness Flather of Windsor and Maidenhead became a heroine of the right-wing press earlier this week as a result of her speech to the House of Lords in support of the Welfare Reform Bill, where she accused some communities of migrant origin of exploiting the welfare state. She even argued that larger familes should be penalised by reducing child benefit payments for third and fourth children.

Shreela Flather told the assembled peers: “The minority communities in this country, particularly the Pakistanis and the Bangladeshis have a very large number of children and the attraction is the large number of benefits that follow the child. Nobody likes to accept that, nobody likes to talk about it because it is supposed to be very politically incorrect.” She went on to say that “Indians … do not have large families because they are like the Jews of old. They want their children to be educated. This is the other problem – there is no emphasis on education in the Pakistani and Bangladeshi families.”

That there was an Islamophobic undercurrent to Flather’s baseless claims about migrant welfare spongers, which are of course common currency on the racist right, was strongly suggested by the fact that she specifically exempted migrants from Hindu-majority India and attacked communities originating in two Muslim-majority countries.

In a comment piece published in the Daily Mail (where else?) Flather makes this accusation quite explicit, asserting that it is “some Muslims from these two regions” who “produce ever larger families in order to claim extra payments and publicly-subsidised housing”. She goes on to criticise the fact that a couple who have contracted an Islamic marriage abroad can claim benefits for their children, and adds: “But the state handouts do not end there, for under Islamic Sharia law, polygamy is permissible. So a man can return to Pakistan, take another bride and then, in a repetition of the process, bring her to England where they also have children together – obtaining yet more money from the state.”

An honorary associate of the National Secular Society, Flather regards herself as a cultural Hindu in much the same way that Richard Dawkins says he is a cultural Christian, though the term Flather prefers is “Hindu atheist”. Interestingly, this is the very same term that Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, founder of the (Hindu-supremacist, anti-Muslim) Hindutva movement, used to describe himself.

Only a few weeks ago we saw another NSS honorary associate, David Starkey, declaring that Enoch Powell was right. And now we have Shreela Flather ranting about about immigrants milking the benefits system. Will the NSS take any action against Flather over this? Don’t bet on it. The NSS president, Terry Sanderson, is on record as stating that “immigrants are importing their own brands of religion into Britain” which are “primitive, hysterical, fanatical and alien”. And he dismissed criticisms of Starkey on the grounds that there was nothing wrong with “voicing a well-intentioned but off-beat opinion in an important debate”.

Dutch government to introduce veil ban backed by €380 fine as part of deal with Wilders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Women wearing the Islamic burqa (full body cloak) or niqab (face veil) in public will soon be subject to a maximum fine of 380 euros. The planned measure is to be discussed by the Dutch cabinet on Friday.

A “burqa ban” formed part of the minority Dutch government’s programme agreed with the populist Freedom Party (PVV) on whose parliamentary support the cabinet relies.

The senior partner in the coalition, the conservative VVD, is in favour of a general ban on people wearing clothes that cover the face including not only burqas but also balaclavas and helmets with opaque visors. On the VVD website, it is argued that people can find such clothing threatening.

The Christian Democrats are the smaller party in the coalition and say: “Clothing covering the face makes it harder to indentify people, hinders communication and makes people feel less safe.”

From 2007, the PVV has called for a “burqa ban” punishable by higher fines and even imprisonment. It describes the garment as “an expression of the rejection of the West’s core values”.

It is estimated that about 150 women in the Netherlands always wear the burqa or niqab when they go out in public. A maximum of a few hundred women wear the garments occasionally.

RNW, 15 September 2011

Peter King defends his witch-hunt of US Muslims, endorses Prevent

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Peter King protestPeter King testified before a British Parliamentary committee on Tuesday, defending his three congressional 9/11 hearings and saying he will not be stopped by political correctness.

The New York Republican appeared before the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee inquiry entitled “Roots of Violent Radicalisation“, presenting his findings from the three hearings he has held on radicalization within the Muslim-American community as the House Committee on Homeland Security chairman.

He told the Parliamentary hearing he “would not back down to political correctness” and will continue to tackle what he called a “dangerous problem”, according to a copy of his testimony provided to POLITICO by his office.

“Undoubtedly, Congressional investigation of Muslim-American radicalization is the logical response to the unquestionable fact that homegrown radicalization is part of Al Qaeda’s strategy to continue attacking the United States and its allies,” King said. “I would not back down to political correctness.”

King also praised the United Kingdom’s government for its work on stemming radicalization, noting that its “Prevent” strategy “offers a candid assessment of the problem and a model for effectively addressing and countering this problem”.

King told the hearing he is “concerned that within the United States, political correctness has prevented many from sufficiently acknowledging and tackling this dangerous problem” and said studying homegrown terrorism must remain of the highest priority for both the U.S. and UK.

“While I have no doubt that the Committee’s radicalization hearings have had a significant and beneficial impact in fostering an honest dialogue about the growing issue of radicalization within the United States, I remain concerned that this problem is far from resolved,” King said, according to his prepared remarks.

Politico, 12 September 2011