Taking up last month’s Tennessean report, Forward continues the investigation of “terror expert” Steven Emerson’s finances.
Category Archives: Right wing
‘Christmas is hijacked by Muslims and Hindus’ claims Daily Star
Barmy PC do-gooders have put up their town’s Christmas lights along with displays for Muslim and Hindu festivals – even though those celebrations have already finished. Councillors were so anxious not to offend other faiths that they decided to share the Christian display with lights to mark the other celebrations. But residents have slammed the move because although the lights were switched on last night, the Muslim festival of Eid ends today and Sikhs and Hindus celebrated Diwali two weeks ago.
One angry father told the Daily Star: “It’s like Christmas is being hijacked. It’s mad. Why do we have these lights up for Eid and Diwali when they’ve finished? We wouldn’t go around putting Santas up on any of these festivals.” But council bosses in Rochdale say they want to keep the lights to “represent the community”. Another resident said: “The lights look fantastic … but I don’t see why they have to have all these other festivals in them.”
Philip Davies, Tory MP for Shipley, West Yorks, said: “I’ve no idea why local authorities up and down the country are so ashamed of celebrating Christmas. All this kind of pussyfooting around is done in the name of not offending other people from other faiths. But it tends to be done by white middle-class people with some kind of bizarre guilt complex.”
You’ll see that the “Happy Eid” illuminations are less prominently displayed than the main “Happy Christmas” message, and that Stars of David have rightly been included too as a mark of respect to the Jewish community. Of course, even the Daily Star balks at running an article headlined “Christmas is hijacked by Jews”. But Muslims and Hindus are regarded as legitimate targets by racist tabloids.
Update: See Rochdale Online, 20 November 2010
The Pamela Geller Blog Generator
This made me laugh.
Tory MPs take up halal meat campaign
A Yorkshire MP has called for clearer food labelling after discovering that halal meat was unknowingly sold in the House of Commons’ canteens.
The Commons catering service is currently looking for new food suppliers who can tell them how the meat they sell is killed after admitting it had “unknowingly received” poultry slaughtered in accordance with Islamic law. MPs and staff who eat at the Commons’ canteens and restaurants were “not made aware” of how the animals were killed, Sir Stuart Bell, representing the House of Commons Commission, added.
MPs are now calling for the Government to introduce legislation to make sure halal meat is properly labelled by restaurants, food wholesalers and supermarkets.
Conservative Greg Knight (East Yorkshire) tabled a question last week to find out whether halal meat had been sold in the Commons’ outlets. He added there was cross-party support for halal meat to be clearly labelled. Mr Knight said: “This underlines the need to have proper labelling in place so people actually know what they are eating. It seems to me that there has been this drive in the food industry to do everything halal so it doesn’t offend people. But as a consumer I would like to know what I am eating and how it was killed. The issue needs to be addressed and I hope it is something the Coalition does shortly.”
Fellow Tory Philip Hollobone (Kettering) said he was “not shocked or surprised” by Sir Stuart’s admission. He added: “I am angry because I don’t think it is that difficult a problem to solve. It just needs the political will to do it. We are waiting for Europe to do something rather than taking the initiative ourselves or maybe the Government is frightened about upsetting ethnic minorities.”
Meanwhile, Conservative Andrew Rosindell (Romford), secretary of the Associate Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare, said consumers had a right to know what they were eating.
Earlier this year, an investigation found halal meat was being served in many schools, hospitals, pubs and sporting venues without diners being told. A written Commons question was then tabled last week by Mr Knight. In it, the MP asked whether canteens in the House of Commons had served halal beef, lamb or chicken in the last year and should, therefore, be added to the list.
Dutch Christian Democrat who opposed alliance with Wilders resigns from party
Former Christian Democrat party chairman and cabinet minister Bert de Vries has confirmed he has resigned his party membership. Speaking on public radio, he said he decided to leave the party because of its “move to the right”.
Bert de Vries was one of the prominent Christian Democrats who spoke out against the minority coalition with the conservative VVD and its reliance on parliamentary support from Geert Wilders’ anti-Islamic Freedom Party.
He was quoted at the time as saying: “It was an extremely nasty surprise to discover that my party finds it acceptable to work with a party that does not recognize one of the world’s major faiths as a religion.”
Murfreesboro Islamic Center: judge rejects Islamophobes’ complaint
A judge refused Wednesday to stop construction of a proposed mosque in Tennessee that was opposed by some local residents who tried to argue that there was a conspiracy by Muslims to impose extremist law on the United States.
Opponents filed a lawsuit claiming that Rutherford County planning officials violated Tennessee’s open meetings law when they approved the site plan for an Islamic Center in Murfreesboro, about 30 miles southeast of Nashville.
Rutherford County Chancellor Robert Corlew ruled after closing arguments that he could not find that the “county acted illegally, arbitrarily or capriciously” in approving the plan.
But much of the questioning from plaintiffs’ attorney Joe Brandon Jr. during seven days of testimony since late September was about whether Islam qualified as a religion. He pushed his theory that American Muslims want to replace the Constitution with extremist Islamic law.
Corlew said there was some concern about the public notice requirements and suggested county or state officials look at those requirements. But he said the court did not find that members of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro adhered to extremist religious ideas.
Shameful suppression of democratic rights in Muslim-majority country – no word from Harry’s Place yet
Egyptian police have rounded up about 600 Muslim Brotherhood members ahead of this month’s parliamentary election and some 250 are still detained, a senior Brotherhood official said on Tuesday.
Mohammed Mursi told AFP that the crackdown on members of the opposition Islamist group began when the Brotherhood announced on October 9 plans to field candidates for the November 28 legislative polls.
“Arrests are still being made. Someone goes out to campaign, he gets harassed and arrested and then released in a few days,” said Mursi, a member of the Brotherhood’s politburo who heads the group’s election campaign. “About 600 have been arrested since we announced that we would run in the election. About 250 remain in jail.”
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You might have thought that sites like Harry’s Place, who were so vocal in defending the political opposition in Iran against state repression, would take a clear stand in defence of the democratic rights of the opposition in Egypt. But so far not a peep.
Could it be that Harry’s Place believes that democratic rights don’t extend to members and supporters of Islamist political parties? Given HP’s obsessive campaign to drive Islamists out of public life in the UK, that would seem to be a reasonable conclusion to draw.
Gilligan continues to smear North London Central Mosque
Over at his Telegraph blog, Andrew Gilligan responds to Bob Lambert’s recent Al-Jazeera article.
Gilligan sneers at the role of the Metropolitan Police’s Muslim Contact Unit in helping to oust Abu Hamza al-Masri from the North London Central Mosque in Finsbury Park, claiming that one gang of terrorist sympathisers was merely replaced by the present management which itself has “close links with another designated terrorist organisation, Hamas”.
NLCM can answer for themselves about the nature of their supposed “close links” with Hamas. But it is worth pointing out that Hamas is in fact a political party with mass support – it won a majority on the Palestinian Legislative Council through democratic elections in 2006, with 44% of the vote – and is not a proscribed terrorist group in the UK. It is the Izz al-Din al-Qassem Brigades that is proscribed. But when has Gilligan ever been interested in accurate reporting?
Gilligan also provides a link to his earlier piece attempting to associate NLCM with Anwar al-Awlaki and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Given that this allegation has been shown to be nonsense, you might have thought an apology to NLCM from Gilligan would be in order. But the day when Gilligan admits he was wrong, even after his misreporting has been thoroughly exposed, is yet to dawn.
Arizona: Islamophobes mistake church for mosque
In an era saturated with absurd moments of anti-Muslim fear- mongering, mosques have become a touchstone for Islamophobia. Even unbuilt mosques have set off a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment in Tennessee, Texas, California, and most notably, New York.
Not to be outdone, the people of Pheonix, AZ were quick to call foul over the appearance of a dome-like structure along an interstate. But in the clamor over the impending Muslim takeover, these Arizonans missed one small detail – the building is not a mosque, it’s a church:
A new dome-like structure near 19th Avenue along Interstate 10 in Phoenix is the Light of the World church, a nondenominational Christian church hoping to modernize traditional worship services, a church spokesman said
Since the distinctive dome shape went up, church leaders said they have received phone calls from concerned neighbors who’ve mistaken the building for an Islamic mosque.
On Wednesday, church officials hung a sign reminding people they’re a Christian congregation. “We’re trying to let people know that we’re Christian and our churches are modern,” said Uzieo Martinez.
“It is unfortunate that people are so intolerant to differences that they aren’t willing to see that the place of worship is not a mosque,” said Tayyibah Amatullah of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Arizona chapter. But with so many high-profile figures selling unfounded, anti-Muslim fear to the public, is it any wonder that all many Americans can see in Islam is a phantom menace?
Tanya Somanader at Think Progress, 15 November 2010
Islam Channel appeals against Ofcom ruling, condemns Quilliam’s ‘junk research’
Islam Channel is planning to appeal against Ofcom’s ruling that the satellite TV network breached the regulator’s broadcasting code for advocating marital rape and violence against women.
Five programmes broadcast on the London-based Islam Channel between 2008 and 2009 were in breach of Ofcom’s broadcasting code, the regulator ruled last week.
Islam Channel was censured for breaching impartiality rules in programmes on the Middle East conflict and for programmes appearing to advocate marital rape, violence against women and describing women who wore perfume outside of the home as “prostitutes”.
Ofcom launched its investigation into Islam Channel programmes in March, following a report by the Quilliam Foundation thinktank accusing the broadcaster of regularly promoting extremist views and regressive attitudes towards women.