ENGAGE takes on Ruth Dudley Edwards. As they point out, some of her language – notably when she talks about people being “absolutely fed up with creeping Islamification of many parts of their towns and cities” – is barely distinguishable from that of the BNP.
Category Archives: Right wing
NLCM welcomes ‘See You in Court’ documentary
In a penetrating BBC TV documentary See You In Court (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b010hkr1/See_You_in_Court_Episode_3/)
the trustees of Finsbury Park Mosque, previously North London Central Mosque, were shown successfully defending the good name of the mosque against a false allegation of distributing extremist literature in a report by the influential right wing think-tank Policy Exchange. Had the allegation been true it would have been especially damaging to the mosque because of the mosque’s unhappy history before the present trustees brought to an end the extremist influence of Abu Hamza and his supporters in February 2005.Although eventually the mosque trustees were unable to conclude a libel claim against Policy Exchange in court because of a legal technicality the mosque nevertheless secured a published clarification from Policy Exchange which went a long way to retracting the false allegation. As the documentary revealed this was a significant climb-down by Policy Exchange that would not have been achieved without the determined efforts of the trustees and the expert guidance of libel lawyers. For the BBC documentary the case was an example of a local mosque being prepared to challenge the weight of a leading think-tank and to restore its good name.
Terry Jones still intent on staging provocation outside Dearborn mosque
Pastor Terry Jones preaches the Gospel for a living, but the second holiest day in Christianity just slipped his mind.
The Quran-burning provocateur, who is expected to protest in Dearborn next week, said he didn’t realize before he committed to coming here that the protest is planned for Good Friday. “This might be hard to believe,” Jones said, “but honestly we didn’t realize (it was Good Friday) or that Sunday was Easter.”
Oversight now recognized, Jones said he still plans on coming and that he would be traveling with about five associates for the protest, which tentatively is planned for outside the Islamic Center of America. The location, he said, was chosen because of its symbolism as one of the largest mosques in North America.
The protest originally was organized by a Port Huron militia group known as “Order of the Dragon”, but has very much become the Terry Jones-show since he announced his intention to join.
Asked whether he thinks Dearborn’s Muslim community is jihadist or wants to institute Sharia – Islamic law similar to Christianity’s Canon law – Jones said he is uncertain. “I don’t know Dearborn’s Muslims so I can’t say,” said Jones, who acknowledges never having read the Quran. “But when you see what’s happening in Europe in Muslim-dominated countries, it wouldn’t surprise (me).”
Allison Pearson supports French niqab ban – now there’s a surprise
“The burka and the niqab should be banned in Britain. They are a barrier to integration, a statement of hostility to the host country. Poor women who have been brainwashed into hiding their faces are victims, not martyrs. The burka is a not a sign of religion, but of subservience.”
Allison Pearson in the Daily Telegraph, 14 April 2011
Still, at least we’re spared references to Muslim women “wearing nose-bags over their faces” or to Pearson’s sense of “burkha rage” against veiled women who are “taking the mickey out of our country and its tolerant ways”, or her more general complaint that Britain has done “too much” to “accommodate its immigrant groups”.
Update: The EDL are impressed by the article: “Allison Pearson seems to have started to understand the nature of the 7th century Islam that has taken hold in our towns and cities”.
Further update: See also ENGAGE, 15 April 2011
Fox Nation promotes Trump’s Islam-bashing
Continuing its practice of shamelessly promoting and embracing controversial statements by Donald Trump, Fox Nation is hyping an interview Trump gave to Christian Broadcasting Network’s (CBN) David Brody, in which he said that “[t]here’s something” in the Quran “that teaches some very negative vibe” and defended the assertion that there is “a Muslim problem” in the United States.
Fox Nation may not realize it, but Trump’s charge that there is “a Muslim problem” originated with Fox’s own Bill O’Reilly. During an appearance on The View in October 2010, O’Reilly asserted that “Muslims killed us on 9-11” while discussing a proposed Islamic center in New York City. O’Reilly later apologized, saying, “If anyone felt that I was demeaning all Muslims, I apologize,” but pushed back against his critics by repeatedly insisting that “there is a Muslim problem in the world.”
O’Reilly continued to defend his remarks during an interview with Trump, who agreed that a “Muslim problem” exists, saying: “Absolutely. Absolutely. I don’t notice Swedish people knocking down the World Trade Center.”
Murfreesboro Islamic Center hearing resumes
Rutherford County attorneys will ask Chancellor Robert Corlew III today to reject nearly all aspects of a lawsuit to stop the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro from building a mosque and community center. County Attorney Jim Cope and his firm’s partner Josh McCreary contend that 14 new plaintiffs who recently joined the three original plaintiffs have no standing in a September-filed lawsuit against the county.
The county was sued after the Regional Planning Commission approved the local Muslim congregation’s site plans last May for a 52,960-square-foot community center with a mosque on Veals Road off Bradyville Pike southeast of the city.
The case began with plaintiffs Kevin Fisher, Lisa Moore and Henry Golczynski seeking an injunction to stop the county from issuing more building permits. Their attorneys’ Joe Brandon Jr. of Murfreesboro and Tom Smith of Franklin argued the future ICM building would be a Shariah training center for jihad rather than a place of worship, but Corlew by November ruled against their request and stated that “Islam is in fact a religion.”
Brandon and Smith filed new motions Tuesday arguing that all 17 plaintiffs have standing when it comes to the proposed ICM building.
They contend that Fisher has standing because he’s an African American Christian who’d be discriminated against and subjugated as a second-class citizen under Shariah law and be denied his civil rights; Moore has standing because she’s a Jewish female who’s targeted in a Muslim call to kill Jews in “jihad” in support of Palestine and as a woman whose rights would be subordinate to those of men in Shariah law; and Golczynski, who lost a son killed while serving in the U.S. Marines in a combat in Fallujah, Iraq, by insurgents pursuing jihad as dictated by Shariah law.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys also stand by the other 14 plaintiffs who joined the case because they live near the proposed ICM building. The document goes on to say that all such Shariah teaching and practices will interfere with the plaintiffs’ use and enjoyment of their land and cause them extreme emotional distress, which discriminates against them and denies them their civil rights to equal protection.
‘Call for UK burka ban grows’ claims Express
Police made the first arrests yesterday of women flouting France’s new burka ban amid fresh calls to outlaw them in Britain too. Anyone who appears veiled in public in France can now be fined £130 under a law that came into effect yesterday. The move sparked calls for a similar approach in this country, with surveys showing there was widespread public support for a law that would make it illegal for anyone to cover their face in public.
Tory MP Philip Hollobone has tabled a private member’s bill that would ban veils in public, while UKIP has won public support for its policy on outlawing the burka. Mr Hollobone announced his bill last year, saying: “This is Britain. We are not a Muslim country. Covering your face in public is strange, and to many people both intimidating and offensive. We are never going to get along with having a fully integrated society if a substantial minority insist on concealing their identity from everyone else.”
Last night, UKIP’s Gerard Batten said: “UKIP is opposed to the burka because it is a physical manifestation of extremist Islam which is intolerant and incompatible with Western liberal democracy. UKIP policy is to ban it from all public institutions, buildings and public transport; private organisations and buildings must have a blanket ban on all face-coverings or no policy at all.”
Quite how two notorious Islamophobes reiterating their views on the veil demonstrates that the call for a ban is “growing” is unclear.
Shout down the Sharia myth makers
Abe Foxman of the ADL warns against Sharia hysteria in the US:
The threat of the infiltration of Sharia, or Islamic law, into the American court system is one of the more pernicious conspiracy theories to gain traction in our country in recent years. The notion that Islam is insidiously making inroads in the United States through the application of religious law is seeping into the mainstream, with even some presidential candidates voicing fears about the supposed threat of Sharia to our way of life and as many as 13 states considering or having already passed bills that would prohibit the application of Sharia law….
If the hysteria over Sharia law continues to percolate through our political and social discourse, there is bound to be unintended consequences.
As we approach the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in an uncertain economy with millions of Americans still out of work, we also face the prospect of a political season in which more political candidates may be tempted to invoke this mythological threat in an effort to pander to bigotry and fear, and to score political points.
We stand at a crossroads in American society. We have the option of heading down a path toward a greater tolerance of anti-Muslim xenophobia and fear of the “stranger in our midst,” or we can rededicate ourselves to the ideal of an America that is open and welcoming to immigrants as well as minority groups who have been here for decades. Let us hope that the better nature of America will enable us to proceed down the second path and reject those who seek to divide us for political gain, or those who wish to stereotype and scapegoat an entire people because of their religious faith.
Home Office rules out veil ban in UK
The prospect of any attempt to ban the Islamic full veil in public in Britain has been firmly ruled out by Theresa May, the Home Secretary. Ministers believe there is little pressure, either politically or among the public, for the UK to follow the French lead and outlaw the use of face-covering veils such as the niqab or burka.
Although David Cameron has warned of “different cultures” being encouraged by “state multiculturalism” to live separate lives, the Government is adamant that to impose a ban on the veil would run contrary to British instincts.
Calls for a ban have been limited so far to one Tory MP, Philip Hollobone, and the UK Independence Party. Mr Hollobone attempted last year to champion a Commons bill outlawing face coverings, but received no public declarations of support from any other MP.
The Home Office said yesterday: “It is not for government to say what people can and cannot wear. Such a proscriptive approach would be out of keeping with our nation’s longstanding record of tolerance. Accordingly we do not support a ban on wearing the burka.”
Baroness Warsi, the first woman Muslim Cabinet minister, has also defended the right of women to choose to wear a face veil.
This is not to the taste of Leo McKinstry who devotes his Daily Express column to denouncing Britain’s refusal to ban the veil:
Our British political elite constantly boasts of its tolerance and enthusiasm for cultural diversity.
Yet often this supposedly liberal attitude is nothing more than cowardice in the face of militant Islam. Terrified of accusations of racism, paralysed by the fashionable narrative of ethnic minority victimhood, our civic leaders simply do not have the backbone to uphold the values of Western civilisation against the onward march of Muslim fundamentalism.
This institutionalised feebleness, masquerading as enlightenment, is in graphic contrast to the much more robust outlook in France. Today a new French law comes into force banning people from covering their faces in public. In effect both the niqab, which conceals the face below the eyes, and the full burka, covering the body head to toe, will be prohibited outside home or mosque.
Some 2,000 women in France wear the burka and they will be heavily fined if they refuse to comply. The ban on the burka has the support of the French Parliament and people, determined to protect Gallic culture from oppressive alien customs. Many European nations are moving in this direction. Belgium has a ban while it’s under discussion in Spain and Italy.
But in Britain there is no chance our establishment will display such courage. The self-destructive dogma of diversity is too strong in all three major parties. Reflecting the supine outlook of Westminster, dripping wet Immigration Minister Damien Green said recently that a ban on the burka would be “unBritish” because it is “at odds with our tolerant and mutually respectful society”.
See also ENGAGE who pose “a question for the new editor of the Daily Express: why not invite a woman who wears the burqa or niqab to respond to McKinstry’s claims of her, and those like her, being subjected to a ‘barbaric tradition’ with its ‘cruel subjugation of women, literally incarcerating them within mobile prisons’?”
NLCM on BBC1 tomorrow evening
Tomorrow on BBC1 at 10.30pm See You in Court reports on the libel action taken by North London Central Mosque in Finsbury Park against the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange.