Category Archives: Right wing

Tennessee: Republican senator proposes 15-year prison sentence for following sharia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bill KetronA proposed new state law would make following the Islamic legal code known as Shariah law a felony, punishable by 15 years in jail. State Senator Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, introduced the bill, known as Senate Bill 1028, last week.

The bill claims that Shariah law is a danger to homeland security. “The threat from Shariah-based jihad and terrorism presents a real and present danger to the lawful governance of this state and to the peaceful enjoyment of citizenship by the residents of this state,” the bill reads.

The bill exempts any peaceful practice of Islam. But it also claims that any adherence to Shariah law – which includes religious practices like feet-washing and prayers – is treasonous.

The law resembles proposals from an anti-Islam group called the Society of Americans for National Existence, which advocates banning Shariah nationwide.

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Australia: opposition leader is deliberately allowing extremists to promote Islamophobia, says Labor

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Labor has accused Opposition Leader Tony Abbott of harbouring extremists, as debate heated up over MPs’ comments on Muslims and immigration policy.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has called on Mr Abbott to send two senior coalition members – Senator Cory Bernardi and immigration spokesman Scott Morrison – to the backbench over their recent comments.

While Mr Abbott has resisted the call, he used a party room meeting on Tuesday to admonish the two members for going “a little too far” in their public comments.

Senator Bernardi told a radio station last week that: “Islam itself is the problem – it’s not Muslims”. He added that: “Islam is a totalitarian, political and religious ideology”.

Mr Morrison gave a qualified apology a day after he publicly questioned the taxpayer-funded travel arrangements for asylum seekers attending the funerals of people killed in the Christmas Island boat tragedy. It also was reported that Mr Morrison had suggested to shadow cabinet last year the coalition capitalise on fears about Muslim immigration.

But, Mr Abbott said, the coalition did not support a discriminatory immigration policy and believed Australia benefited from being a multicultural society. “We will never say to perfectly good Australians that they are not fully valued in their own country,” he told coalition MPs.

However, the federal parliament’s only Muslim MP, Labor’s Ed Husic, said Mr Abbott had allowed the comments to be “deliberately floated in the public arena for political advantage”. “The extremists continue to cloud commonsense and decency within the coalition,” Mr Husic said.

AAP, 23 February 2011

Leo McKinstry rails against the ‘malevolent traits of Islam’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

ENGAGE has posted a reply to Leo McKinstry’s column in yesterday’s Daily Express, where he warned against celebrating the overthrow of tyrants like Mubarak and Ben Ali.

McKinstry spouts the usual right-wing nonsense about the possible “installation of hardline Muslim theocracies in Cairo, Algiers or Tripoli”, resulting in “a terrifying new era of totalitarian repression, which would also grievously threaten the security of both Israel and Europe”. It is clear, however, that McKinstry’s real hatred is directed not so much against the “hardline Muslim theocracies” of his imagination but rather against Islam as a faith.

Referring to the horrific assault on US reporter Lara Logan in Tahrir Square, McKinstry writes: “Two of the most malevolent traits of Islam were captured during her terrifying ordeal. One, the rampant misogyny we see all the time in Britain, whether it be in the imposition of the burkha or the activities of Muslim sex gangs preying on young white girls. The other, the ingrained anti-semitism of the creed.”

He continues:

Islam has long proved incompatible with Western ideas of secular liberalism, which makes the events in Africa all the more concerning. Thanks to the malign twin forces of mass immigration and multi-culturalism, all our societies have large Muslim populations: three million in Britain, five million in Germany and 10 million in France.

Instead of integrating, many Muslims in Europe have clung to separatism, reflected in everything from the incidence of domestic terrorism to the demands for the acceptance of Sharia law. One shocking survey of Muslim students at British universities showed that a third supported killing in the name of Islam.

The response of Western politicians is sickening. Rather than strive to uphold our civilisation, they tell us there is no cause for worry. The real problem, they tell us, is the nasty prejudice of Islamophobia, so they try to impose a climate of censorship with accusations of racism.

Even worse, parts of the Left have sought to make common cause with Muslim zealots, pretending that the anti-Western, anti-Israeli, anticapitalist sentiment of Islam is somehow progressive when in truth it is deeply reactionary.

We have to open our eyes. The West will not survive if we continue to deceive ourselves.

If you’re ever inclined wonder where the likes of the EDL and the BNP acquire their ignorant racist fantasies about Islam, just read Leo McKinstry’s column.

OnIslam interviews Yusuf al-Qaradawi

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qaradawi at Tahrir Square rally

Under government pressures, Egypt’s state television has scrapped plans for hosting prominent Muslim scholar Yusuf Al-Qaradawi following his Friday prayers sermon from Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

“Some government officials considered the Friday sermon too strong,” Qaradawi, the president of the International Union for Muslim Scholars (IUMS), told OnIslam.net in exclusive statements. “They would not bear a second powerful speech.”

Qaradawi delivered the weekly sermon on Friday, February 18 from Tahrir Square, where nearly five million Egyptians gathered to celebrate the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. The sermon was broadcast by the state television, Qaradawi’s first appearance on the Egyptian TV in decades.

During the sermon, the prominent scholar called on Egyptians, both Muslims and Christians, to be proud of their country after ousting Mubarak, who had ruled Egypt for 30 years. He also praised the armed forces’ position on protecting the revolution, calling on them to open Rafah border with Gaza strip.

After the sermon, Qaradawi, an Egyptian, was invited to appear on the Egyptian television on Sunday on the prime-time program “Egypt Today”. But shortly, the prominent scholar received a phone call from the program’s anchor apologizing for not shooting the program.

“I don’t know who was exactly behind banning Sheikh Qaradawi from appearing on the state television,” a source close to the prominent scholar said. A source in “Egypt Today” program cited “procedural reasons” for banning Qaradawi’s appearance.

Qaradawi dismissed accusations that his weekly sermon aimed at establishing a religious state in Egypt. “On the contrary, my speech supported establishing a civil state with a religious background,” he has told Al-Ahram newspaper. “I am totally against theocracy. We are not a state for mullahs.”

Some critics compared the return of Qaradawi, who has been living in Qatar, to Egypt as Ayatollah Ruhollah Ghomeini to Iran from France after the 1979 revolution. “I only came to celebrate the revolution,” said Qaradawi.

Qaradawi dismissed claims that he was still a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. “I’ve totally defected from the Muslim Brotherhood and have rejected many calls to be appointed as the group’s general guide,” he said. “I hope to serve as a guide for the whole nation and not for a certain group.”

The prominent scholar denied reports that his “guards” had prevented Google executive and activist Wael Ghonim from taking the podium in Tahrir Square. “I have no guards, I only brought my sons with me,” Qaradawi said. “I rejected many requests by scholars to send guards to protect me. Allah is my guard.”

Media reports claimed that Ghonim, who emerged as a leading youth figure in the Egyptian revolution, had been prevented by Qaradawi’s guards from speaking to the celebrators. Qaradawi said he neither organize the celebration nor prevent anyone from going on stage.

“I was surrounded by youth who cordoned me to protect me from the huge crowds,” he said. “I would have been glad if I met this young man [Ghonim] who initiated the 25 January revolution. I have praised him in a TV program when he was released from the prison. So how can I prevent him? I was only a guest in the celebrations.”

OnIslam, 22 February 2011

Meanwhile, over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer is outraged that Qaradawi has called on the Libyan armed forces to turn their guns on Gaddafi rather than the Libyan people.

Update:  Spencer has a piece on Qaradawi at Human Events (“Egypt’s Islamic supremacist is man of the hour”). The depth of Spencer’s knowledge of Qaradawi can be gauged by the reference to “his website IslamOnline.com (which publishes many of his fatwas)”. It has apparently escaped the attention of this self-styled expert on all things Islamic that last year a strike and sit-in took place at the IslamOnline offices in Cairo. Qaradawi intervened on the side of the strikers and as a result the Qatari government removed him from his position as chairman of the Al-Balagh Cultural Society which owns the website. The IslamOnline strikers subsequently launched the OnIslam website (“From the creators of IslamOnline”) which is where the above interview with Qaradawi was published. Qaradawi now has no links with IslamOnline.

Dutch senator’s call for ban on sharia law is enthusiastically welcomed by Wilders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Roel KuiperChristian Union Senator Roel Kuiper wants to amend the Dutch constitution to include a ban on Sharia, Islamic law. Senator Kuiper made his statement in an interview with newspaper Trouw.

The Christian Union politician wants to ban Islamic law because it is “not rooted in principles which form part of Dutch culture. Our rights, the way we treat each other, our norms of good and evil have all been molded by Christianity.”

Mr Kuiper argues that Islamic law is still grounded in retaliation, while the laws of a democratic constitutional state are geared toward forgiveness, correction and reconciliation. “Our laws are not based on ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’. Our legal system applies the law, but knows reconciliation must follow.” Senator Kuiper also wants to regulate the flow of money from Arab countries to Dutch mosques. The Christian Union politician says these measures are necessary “to take the Islam debate in the Netherlands a step forward”.

Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders has enthusiastically welcomed Senator Kuiper’s proposal. “Sharia is based on the Qur’an. So this means an end to head scarves, halal food, the Qur’an etc.”

RNW, 21 February 2011

Taj Hargey forms alliance with right-wing Christian fundamentalist to attack Tablighi Jamaat

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Newham Tablighi mosque

An Islamic group fighting to keep its east London mosque, near to the Olympics site, has been described by opponents as a “supremacist movement” that encourages isolationism from wider British society.

Tablighi Jamaat, a global proselytising movement with tens of thousands of members in the UK, is trying to overturn an enforcement notice on its mosque, called the Riverine Centre, after temporary planning permission expired in 2006.

A planning inquiry at Newham town hall will determine whether the group can continue to use the modest collection of buildings. On Thursday it heard that followers of Tablighi Jamaat were taught to “shun integration with all unbelievers in order to be uncontaminated Muslims and to isolate themselves from wider society”.

According to evidence from Dr Taj Hargey, an imam who runs a progressive Islamic educational centre in Oxford, the “isolationist dynamic” of Tablighi Jamaat has caused the growth of a “separatist Muslim enclave” in the streets around its Dewsbury headquarters.

Hargey was called as a witness by Newham Concern, a local campaign group which has long opposed Tablighi Jamaat and its ambitions to expand its facilities. The group is behind plans to build a much larger facility at the site, dubbed a “megamosque” by the media, although it currently has no planning application in place.

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Evening Standard witch-hunt of Lutfur Rahman is directed against Ken Livingstone

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Last week the London Evening Standard devoted many column inches to attacking Lutfur Rahman, the mayor of Tower Hamlets. Wednesday’s issue had a report headlined “Mayor of poverty-hit council hires adviser in £1,000-a-day deal” – co-authored by Tom Harper, who has form on such issues, having previously witch-hunted Azad Ali for the Mail. It began:

One of the poorest boroughs in London today came under fire for spending £1,000 a day on a personal aide for its mayor.

Tony Winterbottom is an “executive adviser” on regeneration and development to Lutfur Rahman, the mayor of Tower Hamlets who was ousted from the Labour Party over alleged links to Islamic extremists.

Local government secretary Eric Pickles accused Mr Rahman of wasting taxpayer money. He said: “It is astonishing that one of the poorest boroughs in the country sees fit to squander such colossal amounts of public cash in this way.

“Tower Hamlets seems to be living the ultimate champagne socialist lifestyle, leaving taxpayers to pick up the tab. I fail to see the business case for shelling out this money, which should be diverted towards protecting frontline services.”

As is usual with witch-hunting articles in the right-wing press, you have to read to the end of the report to find information that completely contradicts the shock-horror headline and introduction. Tony Winterbottom is quoted as saying:

“I tendered a bid for £1,000 a day. In reality, I get paid £125 an hour but I have not yet put in an invoice. I wanted them to respect me as an individual so I asked them to pay me a proper price but I’m not going to charge them.

“I’m absolutely squeaky clean. This is not a money-making operation. This is about fighting for Lutfur Rahman who’s trying to do good work.”

So it turns out that, far from costing the citizens of Tower Hamlets £1,000 a day, Tony Winterbottom hasn’t charged a penny for his services. The real story here is that a former senior official at the London Development Agency whose expertise commands fees well in excess of that figure has provided his knowledge of regeneration and development to Lutfur Rahman for free, because of his admiration for the work the mayor is doing in the borough.

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Potential US presidential candidate infuriated by Christian church allowing Muslims to pray there

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Devout Christian Mike Huckabee is having a hard time understanding the concept of charity. The former Arkansas governor and potential 2012 hopeful visited Fox and Friends to discuss a small church that had allowed Muslims to worship when mosques in the area proved too small or were under construction, something he considered shocking and the beginning of a slippery slope: “Should the church be rented out to show adult movies on the weekend?”

Huckabee was clearly incensed with the news that Muslims were worshipping in a church. “As much as I respect the autonomy of each local church, you just wonder, what are they thinking?” he told the Fox and Friends crew. “If the purpose of a church is to push forward the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then you have a Muslim group that says that Jesus Christ and all the people that follow him are a bunch of infidels who should be essentially obliterated, I have a hard time understanding that.”

Mediaite, 19 February 2011

‘Islam is a totalitarian political and religious ideology’, Australian senator claims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cory BernardiOpposition Leader Tony Abbott has been forced to dissociate himself from controversial remarks by his shadow parliamentary secretary Cory Bernardi, who said he was ”against Islam”.

Senator Bernardi, one of the party’s most prominent rightwingers, said on radio that, in the past decade or two, there had been ”an increasing indulgence of people who are pursuing an ideology and a values system that is at complete odds with Western society and with Western culture”. If he said he was against Islam, Senator Bernardi said, ”I’m called a racist or a bigot.”

Asked whether Mr Abbott had tried to stop him from expressing his views, Senator Bernardi said: “He certainly hasn’t”.

He said that “Islam is the problem – it’s not Muslims. Muslims are individuals that practise their faith in their own way. But Islam is a totalitarian political and religious ideology. It tells people everything about how they need to conduct themselves, who they are allowed to marry and how they are allowed to treat other people.”

Mr Abbott said last night: ”There are Islamic extremists just as there are other extremists that are a problem in a tolerant and pluralistic society. In suggesting that Islam itself is the problem, Cory does not represent my views.”

The latest embarrassment follows a damaging week for the opposition, which started with a furore over comments from its immigration spokesman Scott Morrison objecting to the government flying relatives from Christmas Island to Sydney for the funerals of asylum seekers who drowned late last year.

This was followed by a leak alleging Mr Morrison had suggested at a shadow cabinet meeting that the opposition capitalise on public sentiment against Muslim immigration.

The Age, 19 February 2011

Update:  See the Sydney Morning Herald, 20 February 2011

Marine Le Pen anticipates boost for Front National from Sarkozy’s Islam debate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Front National demonstration

France’s far-right National Front said on Friday that a planned national debate on Islam and secularism would boost its support and improve its chances in the presidential election next year.

Party leader Marine Le Pen, who took over last month from her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, mocked the planned debate as a new opinion poll showed she could score a strong 20 percent in the first round of the presidential vote.

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government wants the debate, due in April, to discuss whether France’s five-million-strong Muslim minority supports the official separation of church and state.

Le Pen said it could end up backfiring on Sarkozy and his ally Jean-Francois Cope, the UMP party leader who announced on Wednesday that the debate would start in April.

“The last time (Sarkozy) used that, there was a debate about national identity and the National Front scored 15 percent in the regional elections,” she told France Info radio. “So keep it up, Mr Cope – a little debate here, a little blah-blah about Islam and secularism there, and I think we’ll end up winning 25 percent in the presidential election.”

Critics said Sarkozy’s government-sponsored debate on national identity in 2009-2010, which led to a ban on full face veils in public, turned into a public forum to air complaints about Muslims and make the minority feel stigmatised.

The Ifop poll published on Friday showed Le Pen could win 20 percent in the first round, which would put her in third place behind Sarkozy but in striking distance of Socialist Party leader Martine Aubry, the main opposition candidate.

Reuters, 18 February 2011