Over at Pickled Politics, Sunny Hundal defends the Inspired by Muhammed campaign against attacks by Edmund Standing and Douglas Murray.
Category Archives: Right wing
Protests continue against Staten Island mosque and community centre
Dozens gathered in Midland Beach on Sunday to protest a plan to convert a former neighborhood convent into a mosque.
Demonstrators wanted the New York Archdiocese to back out of a proposed deal with the American Muslim Society, which plans to build a house of worship and a community center for the south shore’s growing Muslim population.
Protesters said they are concerned the group may have connections to radical organizations, and that the project is out of scale with the neighborhood.
Barcelona to ban veil in municipal buildings
Barcelona is to become the first major Spanish city to bar the use of face-covering Islamic veils in municipal buildings.
City Mayor Jordi Hereu announced the measure Monday but insisted it was not specifically religious. He says it is aimed at all dress that impedes identification, and thus includes motorcycle helmets and ski masks.
Lleida, also in the Spanish region of Catalonia, last month became the first Spanish city to regulate use of body-covering burqas or face-covering niqab garments.
Barcelona town hall said the measure was largely symbolic given that it is unusual to see women wearing burqas or niqabs in the city, which has a population of 1.5 million.
Associated Press, 14 June 2010
See also Reuters, which reports that a Partido Popular councillor has complained that the ban does not go far enough: “The mayoral decree is a half-measure, because as well as forbidding the burqa and niqab in public installations, it is necessary to forbid it on the street.”
‘Artificial debate’ on veil in Spain
Very few Spaniards have ever seen a Muslim woman dressed in a burqa – an all-body veil – walking on local streets.There are no more than an estimated few dozen burqas in the country of 46 million residents, yet the garment has become the object of a heated debate.
Seven municipalities have announced or are considering bans on the burqa, a conservative party is taking the matter to the senate, and some Muslim leaders have vowed to take legal action to reverse the bans. “This is an entirely artificial debate, with political motives behind it,” Encarnacion Gutierrez, secretary-general of Madrid’s Islamic Culture Foundation (FUNCI), told the German Press Agency dpa.
Spain has about 1.3 million Muslims. Most of them are of Moroccan origin. It is not rare for Muslim women in Spain to wear the Islamic headscarf or hijab, which covers the hair. Yet very few of them wear the niqab, a garment covering all but the eyes, and even fewer don the burqa, which includes a semi-transparent veil hiding the eyes.
The burqa, which is worn mainly in Afghanistan, and the niqab are thought to have a pre-Islamic origin. Yet opposition to all-body veils in the West has encouraged some Muslim women to claim them as a sign of their religious identity. In the north-eastern Spanish city of Lleida, for instance, some women reportedly started wearing the niqab after the municipality became the first in Spain to ban all-body veils from public buildings in May.
El Vendrell followed Lleida’s example on Friday, and five other north-eastern municipalities are considering similar bans. Muslim leaders from 11 mosques in the region intend to defend women’s “democratic” right to wear the burqa or niqab at the Constitutional Court.
“I cover myself to feel closer to Allah,” said Zohra Nia, a 38- year-old Moroccan woman who wears the niqab. “My goal is to hide my beauty” from men other than her husband or close relatives, Nia told the daily El Pais in Tarragona, one of the municipalities which are expected to outlaw the burqa and the niqab.
Spain’s main opposition conservative People’s Party (PP) is taking the debate to the senate, which it wants to adopt a motion calling on Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s government to ban all- body veils from public places. “Most Spaniards regard the use of these garments as being discriminating, harmful and contrary to the dignity of women,” conservative senator Alicia Sanchez-Camacho said. The burqa is also a security issue, because its wearer cannot be identified, she pointed out.
Zapatero’s Socialist government has not taken a clear stance on the issue. Spain does not even have nationwide rules governing the use of the hijab, with some schools allowing pupils to wear it, while others expel girls who refuse to remove it in class.
Gutierrez says she opposes the use of the burqa, but sees bans as doing more harm than good. Debates on subjects such as the burqa could become “explosive” in Spain, which created an “anti-Muslim” Christian identity after expelling the last of its former Muslim rulers in the late 15th century, she said. It was contradictory for Spain to allow women to wear extremely scanty clothing, but to question women’s right to cover their bodies, Gutierrez said.Covering women’s bodies in a sign of chastity is not only an Islamic concept, but forms part of Christianity and other traditions as well, she pointed out.
Islam’s plot to conquer the West (part 687)
Andrew C. McCarthy outlines the thesis of his new book The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America in an interview with Jamie Glazov of FrontPageMag:
“Islamists consider themselves to be in a ‘civilizational jihad’ – their words, not mine – against the West. They use terrorism to great effect, but the battle proceeds on every conceivable front in our society: the media, the academy, and our politics, law and culture. And their aim is nothing less than the ‘destruction of the West’ – as Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual guide (and probably the most influential Sunni cleric in the world), puts it, ‘to conquer America’ and ‘conquer Europe’….
“The very title of the book, ‘The Grand Jihad’ and the invocation of ‘sabotage’ in the subtitle, is taken from a 1991 internal Muslim Brotherhood memorandum in which the group’s leadership in the U.S. explains to its global leadership in Egypt that the Brothers (or the Ikhwan) consider their work in North America as a ‘grand jihad’ aimed at ‘eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within’ by ‘sabotage’.”
Glazov chips in: “Sounds like something the Left would embrace. That’s why you argue that Islamists work together with the Left to sabotage America, right?” McCarthy replies: “Exactly.”
McCarthy does, however, exempt some liberals and leftists from his attack – “not all of what might generally be called ‘the Left’ is part of what I am homing in on” – which is fair enough, given the prevalence of liberal Islamophobia and the role played by the likes of Christopher Hitchens. McCarthy’s target is “the hard Left – in America, the Obama Left or the Alinskyite Left – pushing to change our society radically”.
Robert Spencer leads bigots in protest against Staten Island mosque and community centre
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A meeting about a controversial plan for the Muslim American Society to build a mosque in Midland Beach ended the same way it began: with tension, anger and even hostility.
The two-hour affair, organized by the Midland Beach Civic Association, was intended for members of the community to ask questions about MAS and determine whether the mosque would be a welcome addition to the neighborhood. It was held last night at the Olympia Activity Center, which was filled to its 384-person capacity five minutes before the meeting was to start, and no one else was allowed in.
The controversy began when residents learned of a plan by St. Margaret Mary R.C. Church to sell its empty former convent to MAS, which planned to convert it to a mosque and community center with after-school programs for children.
During the meeting, people grilled three members of the board of the MAS Brooklyn and Staten Island chapter about their views on terrorism and religion, the first question coming from Robert Spencer of jihadwatch.org. “Do you denounce Hamas and Hizballah?,” he asked repeatedly.
At one point, a veteran from Afghanistan challenged both sides. “Will you work to the benefit of the community?” Bill Finnegan asked MAS. “Yes, absolutely,” came the response.
“And, to the community, will you work cohesively with the new members for the betterment of the community?” At that point, the crowd screamed “no!” while hissing and booing.
Toward the end of the meeting, representatives from the civic association called upon community leaders from Brooklyn to talk about their experiences with a mosque there that has been operated by MAS for several years. The crowd became unruly, refusing to let them speak and the civic association abruptly ended the meeting.
See also Jihad Watch, 9 June 2010
How papers feed bigotry about Islam
Alan Wilson, Area Bishop of Buckingham, shows how an article originating in the Bucks Free Press, “High Wycombe Cemetery extension agreed for Muslim burials”, was sexed up by the Daily Telegraph to produce a typical anti-Muslim piece headlined “Council spends £150,000 so Muslim graves can face Mecca”.
Bishop Alan’s Blog, 7 June 2010
Via The Wardman Wire
Muslim prisoners – ‘treated as potential terrorists’, or ‘claiming hundreds of thousands of pounds in additional benefits’?
The blanket treatment by staff of the 10,300 Muslim prisoners in England and Wales as potential terrorists risks creating young men ready to embrace extremism on their release, the chief inspector of prisons warns today.
Dame Anne Owers says the treatment of the rapidly growing population of Muslim prisoners as potential or actual extremists is prevalent throughout the prison system despite the fact that fewer than 1% are in prison for terrorist-related offences.
The chief inspector also voices scepticism over claims by high security prison staff that gangs are forcing non-Muslim prisoners to convert to Islam through intimidation. Her report says that while conversions are common they are more likely to be the result of better food at Ramadan, the benefits of protection within a group and the discipline and structure provided by observing Islam through prayer.
The Times, by contrast, reports the story under the front-page headline “Prisoners convert to Islam for jail perks”, the Sun informs its readers that “Prisoners are converting to Islam for a cushier life and better food”, while the Express goes with “Muslim prisoners are cashing in on their religion to claim hundreds of thousands of pounds in additional benefits”.
Update: See also BBC News, 8 June 2010
‘Ground Zero mosque’ protestors turn on Copts
Mike Kelly’s report on the SIOA ‘Ground Zero mosque’ protest contains a revealing insight into the ugly emotions aroused by Geller and Spencer’s exercise in anti-Muslim bigotry:
At one point, a portion of the crowd menacingly surrounded two Egyptian men who were speaking Arabic and were thought to be Muslims. “Go home,” several shouted from the crowd. “Get out,” others shouted.
In fact, the two men – Joseph Nassralla and Karam El Masry – were not Muslims at all. They turned out to be Egyptian Coptic Christians who work for a California-based Christian satellite TV station called “The Way.” Both said they had come to protest the mosque.
“I’m a Christian,” Nassralla shouted to the crowd, his eyes bulging and beads of sweat rolling down his face. But it was no use. The protesters had become so angry at what they thought were Muslims that New York City police officers had to rush in and pull Nassralla and El Masry to safety.
Via LoonWatch
Islamic schools cleared by watchdog
The charity watchdog today cleared two Islamic schools which the Tories had accused of being “front” organisations for extremists.
There was no evidence that the centres run by the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation had links to an extreme Muslim group, the Charity Commission said. The ruling is a blow to David Cameron, who last year accused Gordon Brown’s government of “funding extremists” by giving grants to the schools in Haringey and Slough.
In the Commons, Mr Cameron described the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation charity as “a front” for Muslim group Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Not only a blow Cameron but also to Andrew Gilligan, whose witch-hunting article in the Sunday Telegraph provided the basis for the Tories’ now discredited claims. You do wonder what more Gilligan has to do before his reputation as a journalist is completely destroyed.