Category Archives: Right wing

The myth of Muslim grooming

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The British National party’s website, its logo still sporting a seasonal sprig of holly, is understandably triumphalist as it proclaims that the “controlled media” has admitted this week that “Nick Griffin has been right all along about Muslim paedophile gangs”.

The particular branch of the controlled media the BNP refers to is the Times, which has been running the results of a lengthy investigation into the sexual exploitation and internal trafficking of girls in the north of England. Specifically, the Times has marshalled evidence suggesting that these organised crimes are carried out almost exclusively by gangs of Pakistani Muslim origin who target white youngsters; and it quotes both police and agency sources who refer to a “conspiracy of silence” around the open investigation of such cases, amid fears of being branded racist or inflaming ethnic tensions in already precarious local environments.

This is not the first time that anxieties about the ethnic dimension of child sexual exploitation have been aired by the media. In 2004 the Channel 4 documentary Edge of the City, which explored claims that Asian men in Bradford were grooming white girls as young as 11, sexually abusing them and passing them on to their friends, was initially withdrawn from the schedules after the BNP described it as “a party political broadcast”, and the chief constable of West Yorkshire police warned that it could spark disorder.

Anecdotally, as far back as the mid-90s, local agencies have been aware of the participation of ethnic minority men in some cases of serial abuse. But what has not emerged is any consistent evidence to suggest that Pakistani Muslim men are uniquely and disproportionately involved in these crimes, nor that they are preying on white girls because they believe them to be legitimate sexual quarry, as is now being suggested.

Libby Brooks in the Guardian, 7 January 2011

See also ENGAGE, 7 January 2011

THE publishes study of ‘Islamic extremism’ on campuses

Posted on by Bob Pitt

THE_coverThe current issue of the Times Higher Education magazine carries an article by one Matthew Reisz which asks whether college authorities should police the activities of Muslim students, given that “Islamic extremism and even terrorism have emanated from some of our campuses”.

The main sources cited are Douglas Murray and Hannah Stuart from the Centre for Social Cohesion, Lucy James from the Quilliam Foundation, Raheem Kassam of Student Rights, Anthony Glees and Nick Cohen. The only voices allowed to counter this Islamophobic chorus are those of Ruth Siddall, UCL’s dean of students (welfare), and FOSIS president Nabil Ahmed who is represented by one short quote. Some objective study!

In the comments, the Rev Stan Brown writes: “As a chaplain at a London University I would have to add a word of caution about the Quilliam and CSC documents cited in this article. Their research seems to be largely based on internet searches. I attend Islamic society meetings and have heard some of the ‘radical’ speakers cited in these reports. I don’t know what they said elsewhere but I do know what they said in my own institution.”

This has provoked a furious response at Harry’s Place from the appalling Edmund Standing, who claims that the Rev Brown is “all too typical of the kind of wooly-minded individuals who can be found on campuses up and down the country”. The speakers Brown heard at ISoc meetings were no different from neo-Nazis, according to Standing. And, as a clincher, Standing reveals that one of Brown’s colleagues actually sent a message of congratulation to the MCB when Iqbal Sacranie was awarded a knighthood. This is what passes for proof of extremism in the demented world of Harry’s Place.

CAIR sues Debbie Schlussel

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Local officials for a Muslim civil rights organization have filed a lawsuit to stop a conservative commentator from using the group’s name in a website.

Dawud Walid, the executive director of Council on American-Islamic Relations-Michigan, said his group today filed a federal lawsuit this week against Debbie Schlussel alleging she created the site cairmichigan.com. Walid’s organization’s website is cairmichigan.org.

“I’m not an attorney, but I do know it’s a violation of federal trademark (laws) to hijack the name of an organization,” said Walid today. “CAIR is one of the most visible Muslim organizations in these United States of America. I can’t speak to directly to her motivations but in our opinion, Debbie Schlussel is an extremely intolerant person … a well-known anti-Muslim, anti-Arab bigot.”

Detroit News, 6 January 2011

Gaffney loses it completely, claims the Muslim Brotherhood has ‘infiltrated’ the Conservative Political Action Conference

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Gaffney with GellerThe right-wing site World Net Daily and conservative columnist Frank Gaffney came up with a new reason this week to hate the Conservative Political Action Conference, arguing that it has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood thanks to Grover Norquist, the Republican group Muslims For America, and Ex-Bush staffer Suhail Khan.

In an interview with TPM today, Khan described how “every few months there’s a different iteration of [Gaffney] and his cohorts’ wild accusations,” but it is simply untrue, and a part of Gaffney’s “temper tantrum” that he has been marginalized by the conservative movement.

Continue reading →

Park51 opponent calls for Bieber boycott

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bieber boycott

Andy Sullivan, a Brooklyn construction worker and vocal opponent of Park51, the proposed mosque near the Ground Zero site, has found an unlikely new target: Justin Bieber.

Sullivan has rallied fellow mosque protesters in a protest against Bieber for comments the singer made in an issue of teen magazineTiger Beat in support of the community center. He has even banned his young children from hanging Bieber posters or attending his performances.

Except that Bieber never spoke to Tiger Beat about Park51. Salon’s Justin Elliott attempted to find the Tiger Beat article in question, and discovered that the piece cited by Sullivan was in fact a satirical work from a site called CelebJihad.com, which mainly features softcore celebrity porn. The proprietor of the site confirmed that the article was in fact a hoax.

Sullivan and the anti-Bieber campaign have yet to respond to this revelation.

Rolling Stone, 30 December 2010

Update:  See “Bieber gets apology over mosque hoax”, QMI Agency, 31 January 2010

Right-wing blogosphere froths at the mouth over Muslim ‘Batman of Paris’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bilal Asselah

So the Batman franchise runner in Paris, France is an young man of Algerian Muslim descent. How did DC expect the blogosphere to react?

Warner Todd Huston wrote:

Unfortunately, readers of Batman will not be helped to understand what troubles are really besetting France. In this age when Muslim youths are terrorizing the entire country, heck in this age of international Muslim terrorism assaulting the whole world, Batman’s readers will be confused by what is really going on in the world. Through it all DC makes a Muslim in France a hero when French Muslims are at the center of some of the worst violence in the country’s recent memory.

It’s PCism run amuck, for sure.

Avi Green wrote:

How about that, Bruce Wayne goes to France where he hires not a genuine French boy or girl with a real sense of justice, but rather, an “oppressed” minority who adheres to the Religion of Peace. And this is a guy whose very parents were murdered at the hands of a common street thug!

I’m guessing that the writer, David Hine, is taking out his leftist anger on France for finally taking steps to fight back against creeping shariah and Islamic supremacism, by banning the niqab for starters.

While Angry White Dude told us:

Nightrunner? I thought it was written in the Koran that every Muslim’s name has to be Muhammad … including women. Or is that just the savage terrorists? Or is that redundant? Nightrunner the Muslim sidekick will have strange new powers to bury women to their waists and bash their heads in with large rocks. Batman has been needing that skill for a while ever since Catwoman went out to check the mail without wearing her cat burqa. Well, I guess AWD will have to go another 49 years without reading Batman comic books to protest!

And now comic book creator Bosch Fawstin has responded with his own comic book take on the situation.

Batman Betrayed

Fawstin states:

I personally don’t think Batman is built to take on butchers like al Qaeda, since DC Comics thinks having Batman kill would kill the character. (Heroes don’t kill? What of our heroic soldiers?)  But I sure as hell don’t think Batman should be used to sell the Big Lie that “Islam means peace.” And, believe it or not, this is the second time in two months that Batman has been used in Islamic propaganda, the first being in the unreadable JLA/the 99 #1. At this rate, Superman converting to Islam is inevitable.

Rich Johnson at Bleeding Cool, 30 December 2010

collaboration between DC Comics and Teshkeel Comics of Kuwait, in which the Justice League of America joins forces with a group of Islamic superheroes called The 99.

See also Ology, 29 December 2010

Non-storm over Jeremy Clarkson’s ‘burka’ stunt

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Prats in niqabsThe pathetic decision by Jeremy Clarkson and his co-host Richard Hammond to dress in niqabs during a Top Gear programme from Syria (this is what passes for humour in such circles) has provoked an outbreak of mass Muslim outrage, if the right-wing populist press is to be believed.

Yesterday’s Daily Mail featured a lengthy article headlined “Top Gear stars cause religious row after dressing up in burkas on Boxing Day special” and the Daily Star went with “Clarkson in Burka gear storm”, while the Daily Express warned of “Protest fears over Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear stars in burkhas”.

Today the story has been taken up across the world, in countries where Top Gear presumably (if inexplicably) enjoys an audience. A report in Australia’s Herald Sun is headed “Top Gear burka sketch sparks outrage” and the Sydney Morning Herald has “Top Gear stars cause row after burqa-style stunt”. In South Africa the Independent Online covers the story as “Top Gear slammed for burka stunt”, while the Hindustan Times opts for “Top Gear stars spark religious row”.

But even a cursory examination of the Mail and Star reports reveals that this is an entirely confected controversy. Not a single leading Muslim organisation or individual in the UK has even bothered to comment on the issue, still less express outrage. The papers were reduced to approaching Anjem Choudary, the head of a tiny group of nutters who are repudiated by the entire British Muslim community, to ask for a quote. Needless to say, he obliged: “The burka is a symbol of our religion and people should not make jokes about it in any way.” And the story is padded out by citing a handful of comments culled from Twitter and internet discussion forums.

We had the same nonsense inflicted on us last July when the Mail carried a story headlined “Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson sparks fury over ‘burka babes’ underwear joke” (now amended to “Jeremy Clarkson outrages viewers by announcing on Top Gear he’d seen saucy underwear beneath Muslim woman’s burka”). In that case the “outrage” consisted of seven complaints to the BBC and a tweet by Lily Allen.

This is of course all part of a right-wing narrative about intolerant Muslims reacting with “fury” to any slight against their faith. In reality, it seems clear that the Muslim community, like the writer of this post, find it difficult to work themselves up into a state of indignation over the puerile antics of a man widely dismissed as a reactionary sexist bore.