Category Archives: Right wing

NYT interviews organiser of ‘Burn a Koran Day’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Terry Jones

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — If building an Islamic center near ground zero amounts to the epitome of Muslim insensitivity, as critics of the project have claimed, what should the world make of Terry Jones, the evangelical pastor here who plans to memorialize the Sept. 11 attacks with a bonfire of Korans?

Mr. Jones, 58, a former hotel manager with a red face and a white handlebar mustache, argues that as an American Christian he has a right to burn Islam’s sacred book because “it’s full of lies.” And in another era, he might have been easily ignored, as he was last year when he posted a sign at his church declaring “Islam is of the devil.”

But now the global spotlight has shifted. With the debate in New York putting religious tensions front and center, Mr. Jones has suddenly attracted thousands of fans and critics on Facebook, while around the world he is being presented as a symbol of American anti-Islamic sentiment.

“Can you imagine what this will do to our image around the world?” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington. “And the additional danger it will add whenever there is an American presence in Iraq or Afghanistan?”

Mr. Jones who seems to spend much of his time inside a dank, dark office with a poster from the movie “Braveheart” and a picture of former President George W. Bush, appears to be largely oblivious to the potential consequences of his plans. Speaking in short sentences with a matter-of-fact drawl, he said that he could not understand why other Christians, including the nation’s largest evangelical association, had called for him to cancel “International Burn a Koran Day.”

He acknowledged that it had brought in at least $1,000 in donations. But he said that the interviews he had done with around 150 news outlets all over the world were useful mainly because they had helped him “send a message to Islam and the pushers of Shariah law: that it is not what we want.”

New York Times, 25 August 2010

See also Mya Guarnieri’s piece at Comment is Free, 26 August 2010

Ruud Lubbers opposes coalition deal with Wilders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Three-time Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, who brokered talks on forming a government between his Christian Democrats, the Liberal Party, and the anti-Islam Freedom Party, said he now opposed the plan, citing concerns about freedom of religion.

“My stance has developed from a ‘yes, but’ to a ‘no, unless’,” Lubbers wrote in an Aug. 20 letter to the Christian Democrat leader in parliament, Maxime Verhagen, and party chairman Henk Bleker published by Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant today.

Lubbers’s change of view may jeopardize the formal negotiations that started last month on establishing a Liberal-Christian Democrat government that would rely on the support of the Freedom Party, led by Geert Wilders, to get legislation through parliament. It would be the Netherlands’ first minority administration since World War II.

Other senior Christian Democrats have also expressed opposition against the talks with Wilders. His party seeks to ban new mosques, curb immigration, cut development aid and reduce European Union influence in the Netherlands.

“Freedom of religion – also of Islam – and no discrimination based on religion or world view have to remain essential features of our constitutional state,” Lubbers wrote. “On that, there can’t be a shadow of a doubt.”

Bloomberg, 16 August 2010

Has Time magazine fallen victim to the stealth jihad?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Is America Islamophobic“Is Time a Muslim magazine?” Phyllis Chesler want to know. She writes:

“I did not think that the pro-Muslim/pro-Islamist and anti-Western propaganda could get any worse—and yet it just has. Time magazine has an August 30 cover story titled ‘Is America Islamophobic?’ Within, the article is titled: ‘Islam in America: It’s part of the fabric of life, but protests reveal a growing hostility to the religion of Muslims.’ … One might wonder why any ‘hostility’ to a productive, historically significant Muslim presence in America exists. Time magazine does not tell us. The article portrays Muslims as innocent victims and American non-Muslims as prejudiced racists…. This article could easily appear in an Egyptian or Syrian magazine.”

Chesler Chronicles, 24 August 2010

Australia: NSW government opposes veil ban bill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

NSW Premier Kristina Keneally says her government will not support a ban on the burqa, the head and body veil worn by some Muslim women, because “such a ban has no place in multicultural NSW”.

Christian Democratic Party MP Fred Nile had called on both major parties to allow members a conscience vote on his private member’s bill, which was introduced into Parliament in June. Mr Nile wants NSW to follow a growing number of European countries trying to ban women from wearing in public the burqa and the niqab, a veil with a narrow opening for the eyes.

However, at an interfaith dinner with about 300 religious leaders last night, Ms Keneally announced that cabinet had decided to oppose the Full-face Coverings Prohibition Bill, which is modelled on legislation recently passed by the Belgian Parliament.

“We are fortunate to live in a largely harmonious state where differences in language, culture and faith are rightly seen as things which enliven and strengthen our society,” Ms Keneally said. “It is in this spirit that the NSW Government has decided to oppose the bill seeking to create a criminal offence of wearing a burqa in public places.”

Sydney Morning Herald, 24 August 2010

Netherlands: growing opposition to deal with Wilders among Christian Democrats

Posted on by Bob Pitt

With cabinet negotiations entering their third week, a weekend poll shows that 39% of Christian Democrat party members are against any form of political cooperation with Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam PVV.

The poll, carried out by TNS Nipo for the Algemeen Dagblad, also shows that 13% of the 67,000 party members would give up their membership if Wilders is involved in a new right-wing government.

Fewer than half the members, 49%, are in favour of a right-wing government with the involvement of Wilders.

Dutch News, 23 August 2010

Geller’s anti-Islam ads to be removed from Chicago taxis

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SIOA chicago cab ad

Yellow Cab Chicago requested today that a fleet of taxis remove controversial anti-Islam ads.

The ads, sponsored by the group Stop of Islamization of America, appeared on 25 Chicago cabs this summer. Beside pictures of young women who were allegedly killed by their Muslim fathers for refusing an Islamic marriage, dating a non-Muslim or becoming “too Americanized” was the message: “Is your family threatening you?” The placards also displayed the Web address LeaveIslamSafely.com.

Michael Levine, the CEO of Yellow Cab Chicago, said the signs were offensive to the city’s taxi drivers, an estimated half of whom are Muslim. The ads were carried by independent Yellow Cab affiliates, Levine said in a statement. The fleet owner was paid by a company that specializes in advertising atop taxis.

When Yellow Cab learned of the placards three weeks ago, it called the advertising company and asked to have the ads removed, according to Levine. Yellow Cab was told they were taken down, but found out Tuesday that three ads were still running atop taxis.

“They will be removed,” Levine said. “Yellow Cab does not regularly approve advertising content carried by our affiliates, but we do reserve the right to ask them to remove ads that offend either the drivers or the public.”

Chicago Breaking News Center, 24 August 2010

Protestors against ‘Ground Zero mosque’ face counter-demonstration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ground Zero mosque supporters

Mosque hysteria reached fevered pitch Sunday as angry protesters opposed to building an Islamic center near Ground Zero squared off with supporters of the project.

The two groups were kept apart in penned-in protest sites two blocks way from each other – about 200 people gathered in support of the project and 300 against. The block where the proposed center would be built in a former Burlington Coat Factory was closed off with police barricades.

Opponents chanted “No mosque, no way!” and carried signs reading, “9-11-01: Never Forget,” as Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” blared over loudspeakers. One group brought life-sized mock missiles with a dummy terrorist draped over top holding a sign that read: “Obama, your middle-name is Hussein, we understand. Bloomberg, what’s your excuse.” Supporters carried signs reading, “America! When did it become OK to be a bigot!”

“I am nervous when people from outside our city come here and tell us how to live in our city,” said Garth Silberstein, an Orthodox Jew from Crown Heights, who supports the project. “This has to do with racism. It has nothing to do with Ground Zero. It’s dangerous to think that freedom of religion only applies to your religion.”

New York Daily News, 22 August 2010

See also CNN Associated Press and WNYC

Update:  And see Glenn Greenwald, “The ‘mosque’ debate is not a ‘distraction'”, Salon.com, 23 August 2010

'Ground Zero mosque' opponents3

Islamopobia in US worse than after 9/11, says Reza Aslan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The furor over plans to build a Muslim cultural center near the World Trade Center site shows nine years of efforts to separate Islam from association with terrorism have largely failed, experts say.

“I’d take it one step further. I’d say that it’s far, far worse today than it was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11,” said Reza Aslan, a writer and scholar on religion.

Aslan blames “Islamophobia” that he said was being whipped by the Republican Party establishment. “They are making religious bigotry – just as they made anti-immigrant sentiment – part of their political platform,” Aslan said. “Democrats in the most cowardly fashion have completely caved in to this challenge.”

Reuters, 20 August 2010