Category Archives: Right wing

Canada: government bans leading Muslim from Defence Department event

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An Ottawa imam who calls himself a bridge builder between Muslims and other Canadians has been barred by the Harper government from speaking at a Defence Department event next week on the grounds that his organization has promoted “extremist views.”

Zijad Delic, national executive director of the Canadian Islamic Congress, was scheduled to participate on Monday in a National Defence headquarters ceremony recognizing Islamic History Month.

But Defence Minister Peter MacKay has cancelled the imam’s planned appearance after learning of it Friday. His office issued a statement saying the Canadian Islamic Congress has a record of fomenting hatred and has no place at an event honouring Muslim contributions to this country.

Mr. Delic has previously been cited for efforts to help Muslims integrate into Canadian society. He was one of 13 Canadians included in a 2009 book, The 500 Most Influential Muslims in the World, penned by Islamic studies scholars at Georgetown University. One of the book’s editors called Mr. Delic “a scholar who writes about how Muslims can integrate into Canadian society.”

Globe & Mail, 2 October 2010

Netherlands: coalition deal with Wilders hinges on CDA conference vote

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The formation of a Dutch coalition government hinges on a Christian Democrat congress on Saturday after party legislators failed to resolve divisions over relying on support from the anti-Islam Freedom Party.

The legislators said on Thursday they were unable at a 15-hour meeting overnight to endorse a deal under which the Christian Democrats and Liberal Party would form a minority government with backing in parliament from the Freedom Party.

They said they had agreed to leave the issue to Saturday’s conference of all party members before making a final decision on forming the proposed coalition, whose main task will be to implement austerity measures.

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North Carolina voters reject exploitation of ‘Ground Zero mosque’ controversy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Renee EllmersNorth Carolina isn’t exactly a bastion of liberalism but even there a majority of voters think it’s off base for candidates to exploit the proposed “Ground Zero mosque” as a campaign issue. 51% label doing so as “inappropriate” to just 37% who consider it to be an acceptable tactic.

This is particularly pertinent in the Triangle where Renee Ellmers, challenging long time Democratic Congressman Bob Etheridge, has run television ads about the mosque. Voters in that part of the state are particularly strong in their views that it’s inappropriate with 56% expressing that sentiment.

Invoking the mosque is seen as acceptable by the Republican base, with 60% of GOP voters saying they think it’s appropriate to only 29% who object. But for Ellmers to win she’s going to have to take an overwhelming share of independents and also capture a healthy level of Democratic support. With those key groups exploiting the mosque is seen as particularly inappropriate – 68% of Democrats and 50% of independents share that feeling.

Public Policy Polling, 30 September 2010

See also Huffington Post, 30 September 2010

What does Wilders get from the coalition deal? A ban on the veil and a crackdown on immigration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Netherlands coalition deal announced2

The Netherlands will ban the burqa, anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders said Thursday following the announcement of a pact to form a minority coalition government backed by his party.

“There will also be a burqa ban,” Wilders told journalists in The Hague, announcing measures agreed on by three parties negotiating to form a new government.

The measures, which seek to cut government spending by 18 billion euros by 2015, should also halve the number of immigrants who enter the Netherlands, the politician said.

“A new wind will blow in the Netherlands,” Wilders said, standing alongside presumed prime minister in waiting Mark Rutte, who leads the pro-business VVD party, and Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) leader Maxime Verhagen – the two parties set to be in government.

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John Howard attacks multiculturalism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

John HowardAustralia’s former prime minister John Howard has attacked “multiculturalism” in English-speaking nations, saying that some sectors have gone too far in accommodating Muslim minorities.

The blunt-talking conservative, who led Australia for 11 years before losing 2007 elections, said Tuesday on a visit to Washington that the “Anglosphere” needed to take greater pride in its values and achievements.

“This is a time not to apologize for our particular identity but rather to firmly and respectfully and robustly reassert it,” Howard said at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank.

“I think one of the errors that some sections of the English-speaking world have made in the last few decades has been to confuse multiracialism and multiculturalism,” Howard said.

Howard pointed in particular to Britain, whose Muslim community came under a spotlight after the 2005 bombings on the London transport system.

While in office, Howard faced criticism from his opponents that he aggravated anti-Islamic sentiment through tough anti-terrorism laws and tighter immigration controls, including a test on “Australian values.”

AFP, 29 September 2014

Mosques want to ‘destroy western civilisation from within’, claims Gaffney

Posted on by Bob Pitt

After testifying at a hearing about a proposed mosque in Tennessee, Sharia law “expert” Frank Gaffney went on Anderson Cooper last night to explain why, exactly, the mosque could be another victory for radical American Muslims who want to destroy the United States from within.

Imams’ agenda to impose Sharia law “ultimately winds up becoming a cancer inside a society,” Gaffney claimed. “No-go zones are typically associated with it where the authorities dare not go. Sharia law is practiced in those no-go zones. They are expanded in due course. And ultimately, you have the groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, with whom many of these mosques and for that matter, Muslim-American organizations of any note, are associated, pursuing a mission that we know, from evidence introduced into another federal trial, is to destroy western civilization from within. That’s really worrying.”

On Anderson Cooper last night, he argued with Akbar Ahmed, chair of Islamic studies at American University and a former Pakistani ambassador for the United Kingdom. Ahmed pointed out that only two percent of Americans are Muslim, and even if all of them wanted to impose Sharia law, they couldn’t.

TPM, 29 September 2010

French right-wing group tries to organise anti-Islam ‘debate’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), the political party of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, was forced on Tuesday to cancel a public debate organized in its headquarters, amid concerns that the debate would spark new accusations of racism and discrimination.

Titled “Immigration, Islamism: Is France Threatened?“, the controversial debate did not come at a good time for UMP, which is now presenting a new bill on immigration in the Assemblee Nationale (National Assembly), the lower house of French bicameral Parliament.

“We have chosen this time to really participate in Parliament discussions on future immigration law, as they are starting this week and will be at full intensity on that day,” explained the Droite Libre (Free Right), the UMP-associated group that organized the meeting.

“These issues are a concern to our fellow citizens, yet they almost never have a chance to discuss them; those who dare to mention immigration and Islam are framed by the intellectual terror of ‘political correctness’.”

When French media made public the title of the debate planned Sept. 30, UMP quickly stepped back and asked Droite Libre to hold the meeting in another place. Officially, said UMP, ultra-conservative Droite Libre is not a group associated with the presidential Party. This would not seem so from the Droite Libre website, which proudly bears the UMP logo.

“In view of the importance of our event and fears expressed by the UMP management board facing biased press reports, our debate will be hosted by the National Assembly,” Droite Libre announced later.

Epoch Times, 29 September 2010

It seems that the National Assembly doesn’t want to host the debate either. See Le Figaro, 29 September 2010

Netherlands: CDA and VVD agree deal with Wilders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The leaders of Dutch right-wing parties say they’ve concluded an agreement for a minority government supported by the anti-Islam party of Geert Wilders.

Mark Rutte, head of the Liberal VVD party, announced the accord with the Christian Democratic Alliance and Wilders’ Freedom Party, which will back the government without sitting in the Cabinet. Together, they control 76 of parliament’s 150 seats.

The accord came 3 1/2 months after deadlocked parliamentary elections. Policy details of the alliance were not immediately released.

The accord Tuesday among the party leaders needs approval of the parties’ parliament members. Several members of the Christian Democrats have objected to a government that relies on the anti-immigrant Wilders for its survival.

Associated Press, 28 September 2010

See also Reuters, 28 September 2010

Halal hysteria continues in the Mail

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Following on from the previous week’s scaremongering front-page story, the Mail returned this weekend to the subject of halal meat.

We were in fact treated to two stories, “How 70% of New Zealand lamb imports to Britain are halal… but this is NOT put on the label” in Saturday’s issue and “Top supermarkets secretly sell halal: Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose, and M&S don’t tell us meat is ritually slaughtered” in the Mail on Sunday.

Saturday’s report states at the end: “The trade body Beef & Lamb New Zealand said the form of halal slaughter used there does allow for the animals to be stunned. A spokesman said: ‘In New Zealand the process for halal slaughter is virtually the same as for non-halal slaughter’.”

In fact, earlier this year New Zealand imposed a legal requirement that all animals killed for commercial consumption must be stunned prior to slaughter.

Inayat Bunglawala tells us that he was contacted by the Mail for a comment and gave them the following quote:

“Supermarkets should not be afraid of labelling their products as Halal. Consumers – despite risible tabloid scare antics – are quite capable of appreciating that in a globalised world meat is sourced from many different quarters and that halal meat tastes just the same as non-halal meat. It is just that with halal meat the method of slaughter is with a sharp knife instead of a gun and that the name of God is recited over the animal in order to give thanks to God for providing us with food.”

And how does the quote appear in the Mail on Sunday? Like this: “Supermarkets should not be afraid of labelling their products as halal. Halal meat tastes just the same as non-halal meat.”

Predictably, the Mail reports are seized on by mad Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs: “In a little-known strike against freedom, yet again, we are being forced into consuming meat slaughtered in a barbaric, torturous and inhuman method, Islamic slaughter. Ugh.”

Frank Gaffney is witness in Murfreesboro Islamic Center court case

Posted on by Bob Pitt
Gaffney and Geller

Gaffney and friend

Attorneys representing opponents of the construction of an Islamic community center in Murfreesboro appeared in Chancery Court Monday morning.

Plaintiffs asked Chancellor Robert E. Corlew III to impose an injunction on any further construction on the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro claiming approval did not provide adequate public comment and that its members will impose Sharia Law on Murfreesboro residents.

“Why would we give any religion the right to cancel our rights under the United States Constitution,” Plaintiff’s Attorney Joe Brandon Jr. said in opening statements to the court. “If the Planning Commission had approved this for Osama bin Laden, would they still feel there should be no public hearing?”

Plaintiffs called former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan, Frank Gaffney, to the stand and asked the court to enter him as an expert on Sharia Law. “I don’t hold myself out as an expert on Sharia Law,” Gaffney told the court on the witness stand. “But I have talked a lot about that as a threat.”

Under questioning by attorney for the plaintiffs, Gaffney described Sharia Law and the dangers it poses to communities across the nation. “Sharia (law) is the enemy-threat doctrine we face today,” Gaffney said.

Murfreesboro Post, 27 September 2010