Category Archives: Right wing

German interior minister says Islam does not ‘belong’ in Germany

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Winterklausur CSU LandesgruppeGermany’s new interior minister has said Islam does not “belong” in the country, reopening a bitter debate over the integration of Germany’s 4 million Muslims.

Hans-Peter Friedrich, who took office on Wednesday, was being asked by reporters about a gun attack at Frankfurt airport in which two US servicemen were killed and another two injured. Investigators suspect the attack, carried out by a 21-year-old Muslim immigrant from Kosovo, was an act of Islamist terrorism. A federal judge in Karlsruhe on Thursday ordered the suspect be remanded to jail on two counts of murder and three of attempted murder, pending further investigation.

In his first press conference as minister, Friedrich said on Friday that Muslims should be allowed live in modern Germany, but he added: “To say that Islam belongs in Germany is not a fact supported by history.”

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Daily Star reporter quits in protest at tabloid’s anti-Muslim coverage

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL to become political partyThe Daily Star has been accused of printing fictional stories by a disgruntled reporter who has resigned over its “hatemongering” anti-Muslim propaganda. In a resignation letter, Richard Peppiatt said he was leaving after the Star gave sympathetic coverage to the far-right English Defence League last month.

The reporter, who was once made to dress up in a burqa, now accuses the paper of inciting racial tensions and Islamaphobia. “You may have heard the phrase ‘the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil sets off a tornado in Texas’,” Peppiatt wrote to the proprietor, Richard Desmond, in a letter seen by the Guardian. “Well, try this: ‘The lies of a newspaper in London can get a bloke’s head caved-in down an alley in Bradford.’ If you can’t see that words matter, you should go back to running porn magazines.”

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Pete King, America’s new McCarthy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Peter King protest“Let us call this what it is: bigotry draped in the American flag – nothing more than a fear-mongering attempt, drenched in political theatrics, laced with reactionary hatred, and deceptively packaged in an incredulous label of national security.”

Seema Jilani addresses an open letter to the chairman of the homeland security committee over the House hearings on “homegrown Muslim terrorism”.

Hate comes to Orange County

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Last month a crowd of right-wing anti-Muslim bigots demonstrated outside a charity fundraiser organised by the Islamic Circle of North America in the city of Yorba Linda in Orange County, California. The Council on American-Islamic relations have released a video of these events. American Muslims, including families with young children, are subjected to shouts of “go back home” and chants of “Mohammed was a child molester”, while Republican politicians give speeches in support of the protest.

A local councillor named Deborah Pauly, referring to the ICNA meeting, states: “What’s going on over there right now, make no bones about it, that is pure unadulterated evil….  I know quite a few Marines who would be very happy to help these terrorists to an early meeting in Paradise.”

Melbourne: civil libertarians slam anti-Islam group

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Q Society logoAn anti-Islamic group’s opposition to a weekly Muslim prayer session being held in Melbourne’s inner suburbs has been condemned by a civil liberties organisation, Liberty Victoria.

Q Society opposes what it calls the “Islamisation of Australia”, saying accommodating Islamic custom and law threatens Australia’s basic freedoms. It has started a petition against a planning amendment at Melbourne’s Port Phillip Council that would formalise an existing weekly hour-long prayer session at a St Kilda community house.

Muslims have been praying at the weekly Friday session for years.

Liberty Victoria president Spencer Zifcak said Q Society’s campaign “bears all the hallmarks of a deliberate attempt to deny to one religion the freedom of religious belief accorded to every other religion”.

With a large Jewish community living in the St Kilda area, Professor Zifcak said Jewish groups in the area had welcomed the planning application but Q Society was arguing that allowing more Muslims to pray in the community house “would be contrary to social cohesion in the area where people of the Christian and Jewish faiths are in a majority”.

Prof Zifcak said the Islamic prayer group had been meeting without incident or concern for years.

A spokesperson for the Q Society has described it as “a group of individuals from varying backgrounds, of different cultural and religious persuasions who are committed to safeguard and promote Australia’s free, open and democratic society”.

AAP, 2 March 2011

Indicative of the Q Society’s politics was their response to the proposal (later adopted) that Marrickville Council in New South Wales should join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel. The Q Society organised a petition claiming that the councillors responsible for this initiative had “formally aligned their municipality with terrorist organisations seeking to overthrow the State of Israel” and were “supporting the worldview of totalitarian Islam”.

Fox’s favourite ‘Muslim radical’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hannity and Choudary (1)

On Thursday, the radical Muslim and veteran provocateur Anjem Choudary plans to hold a demonstration in front of the White House calling for an extreme form of sharia to reign in America.

Whether the protest actually goes forward – there’s a real chance it won’t, if Choudary’s past stunts are any guide – doesn’t really matter. Choudary, who is known for applauding terrorism and calling for stonings of gay people and the overthrow of democratic governments, has already logged several appearances on Fox and CNN, generated a bunch of articles in the right-wing press, and even prompted a member of Congress to demand that he be banned from the country. All that in the last month.

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The white supremacist behind the anti-sharia bills

Posted on by Bob Pitt

David YerushalmiLast week, legislators in Tennessee introduced a radical bill that would make “material support” for Islamic law punishable by 15 years in prison.

The proposal marks a dramatic new step in the conservative campaign against Muslim-Americans. If passed, critics say even seemingly benign activities like re-painting the exterior of a mosque or bringing food to a potluck could be classified as a felony.

The Tennessee bill, SB 1028, didn’t come out of nowhere. Though it’s the first of its kind, the bill is part of a wave of related measures that would ban state courts from enforcing Sharia law. (A court might refer to Sharia law in child custody or prisoner rights cases.) Since early 2010, such legislation has been considered in at least 15 states. And while fears of an impending caliphate are myriad on the far-right, the surge of legislation across the country is largely due to the work of one man: David Yerushalmi, an Arizona-based white supremacist who has previously called for a “war against Islam” and tried to criminalize adherence to the Muslim faith.

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Tennessee: faith and civil liberties groups call for withdrawal of anti-sharia bill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Local Muslim, Jewish and Christian leaders and representatives from the national Council on American-Islamic Relations gathered near the Tennessee Capitol this afternoon to ask an anti-Shariah bill be withdrawn. They fear that the law would make it illegal to be Muslim in Tennessee.

“All of a sudden, I pray using the Koran or the Sunnas of the Prophet, and it’s a crime,” said Imam Yusuf Abdullah of Masjid Al-Islam in Nashville. “What kind of bill is that?”

The bill is sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, and in the House by Rep. Judd Matheny, R-Tullahoma. Supporters say it only applies to terrorists, and one section says, “This part neither targets, nor incidentally prohibits or inhibits, the peaceful practice of any religion, and in particular, the practice of Islam by its adherents.”

However, the bill also claims that Shariah law demands the overthrow of the U.S. Constitution: “The knowing adherence to sharia and to foreign sharia authorities is prima facie evidence of an act in support of the overthrow of the United States government….”

It gives the state attorney general the right to say who is practicing any kind of Shariah law – which includes prayers, marriage and dietary restrictions – and who is in support of it. Those convicted would be guilty of a Class B felony punishable by a fine, not less than 15 years in prison or both.

The Tennessean, 1 March 2011