Category Archives: Right wing

‘Mega Mosque’ public inquiry for West Ham site starts at ExCel Centre

Posted on by Bob Pitt

NRAP Riverine Centre designA public inquiry into Newham Council’s rejection of plans for a mosque in West Ham has opened with supporters and opponents of the so-called “Mega Mosque” making their case.

The Abbey Mills Riverine Centre application for a 29,227sq m mosque in Canning Road was turned down by councillors in 2012 unanimously after local residents protested against plans.

But this prompted counter protests by local Muslims in favour of the new centre, which would cater for 9,000 worshipers in a site more than three times the floorspace of St Paul’s Cathedral.

A public inquiry held by the government’s Planning Inspectorate kicked off on Tuesday 3 at the ExCeL centre, and is expected to last until June 23.

The inquiry is also looking at the temporary permission granted for the site to be used as a smaller mosque for two years, which has now expired.

Representations will be made by the Newham People’s Alliance, a community group which supports the plans, and the MegaMosqueNoThanks campaign, run by ex-Newham councillor and former head of the Christian People’s Alliance, Alan Craig.

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Religious leaders slam anti-Muslim bus ads

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Montgomery County Faith Community Working Group press conferenceNew ads on Metro buses with a photo of Adolf Hitler and a prominent Muslim leader represent the “bigotry and hate” that divide people and spur hatred, religious groups said Monday morning.

“These ads are trying to say the Quran calls for hatred of Judaism,” said Ira Weiss, who represented the Jewish Islam Dialogue Society, which works to bring together Muslims and Jews. “It is easy to cherry-pick nasty parts of Scripture in any text – they were written thousands of years ago,” Weiss said at a news conference in Rockville. “These words used in the ads are like the devil using Scripture against its religion.”

The ads, created by the American Freedom Defense Initiative, feature a photo of Hitler speaking to Haj Amin al-Husseini, who was grand mufti of Jerusalem at the time. They ask people to stop aiding Muslims in an attempt to “end racism.” The ads, which are on 20 Metro buses, declare that “Islamic Jew-hatred” is “in the Quran,” adding the “two thirds of all US aid goes to Islamic countries.”

The Montgomery County Faith Community Working Group – which represents the county’s Baha’i, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Sikh, Unitarian Universalist and Zoroastrian communities – organized the news conference and rally, which drew about 100 people to the Rockville Metro station.

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Witch-hunt against Muslims in Birmingham – Get racist Tories out of schools

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Socialist Worker racist witch-hunt front pageA Tory clampdown on schools in Birmingham has unleashed a torrent of racist filth.

The government ordered investigations after an anonymous letter alleged a Muslim “plot” to take over schools. Right wing newspapers devoted pages to personal attacks on Muslim teachers and governors.

Reports released this week found no evidence of a plot. But the witch hunt isn’t over.

Doug Morgan, president of the NUT teachers’ union in Birmingham, spoke to Socialist Worker in a personal capacity. “None of this is about how staff have been treated or the curriculum,” he said. “It isn’t about defending girls or gay people in schools. It’s about racism.”

Parent Gadija da Costa told Socialist Worker, “The word extremist is becoming synonymous with Muslim. This is broader than just schools. It’s becoming a human rights issue.”

Socialist Worker, 10 June 2014

Baroness Warsi at odds with Michael Gove over extremism claims in school

Posted on by Bob Pitt

It isn’t just Theresa May who seems to take issue with Michael Gove’s approach to tackling extremism in British schools.

Baroness Warsi has distanced herself from the education secretary’s response to allegations of an Islamist plot to take over Muslim-majority schools in Birmingham – and took a jab at Gove for not having any relevant life experience on the issue.

The senior Foreign Office minister, who also serves minister for faith and communities, said in an interview on Tuesday afternoon that the education secretary had to ensure he did not “make matters worse” by alienating Muslims.

In a speech to MPs yesterday, Gove said that all schools would in future be required to promote “British values” as it was confirmed that five Birmingham schools have been placed into special measures in the wake of the so-called ‘Trojan Horse’ extremism allegations.

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Luton Islamic school found ‘inadequate’ blames ‘a right extremist, Michael Gove, whipping up racist hysteria and Ofsted dancing to his poisonous tune’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Olive Tree Primary School website

An Islamic faith school branded ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted has this afternoon (June 9) hit back at the education watchdog.

Following a visit last month, inspectors said senior leaders at Olive Tree Primary school ‘have not ensured that the school’s educational resources present balanced views of the world’. The school has criticised their report as being ‘half-baked’ and ‘highly politicised’.

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Ofsted’s slur on the Muslim community of Park View School

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ofsted logo parody“Over the past three months the pupils and parents of Alum Rock, the tight-knit, overwhelmingly Muslim community we serve, have become unwitting players in a vast game of academies, anti-extremism policy, Whitehall leaks and faith schools.

“Not a thought for our year-11s sitting crucial exams, or their parents. But then, these people are Muslims, and Islamophobia the last acceptable prejudice.”

Lee Donaghy, assistant principal of Park View School, responds to the Gove-inspired witch-hunt.

Guardian, 9 June 2014

See also “The Guardian view on the Birmingham schools row: more dogma than dynamite”, Guardian, 9 June 2014

And Mark Easton, “‘Trojan horse’ scandal – extreme or diverse?”, BBC News, 9 June 2014

Also, although it was written before the Ofsted reports were published, see Mohammed Amin, “My take on ‘Trojan Horse'”, ConservativeHome, 9 June 2014

Gove’s witch-hunt comes to Luton

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Olive Tree Primary SchoolA Muslim school found to have books suggesting stoning and lashing as appropriate punishments says it is the victim of “hostility”.

Ofsted said some of the library books at Olive Tree Primary School in Luton contained fundamentalist views which had “no place in British society”. The education watchdog deemed Olive Tree Primary School in Bury Park Road “inadequate” following a visit in May.

Farasat Latif, chairman of governors, said he rejected Ofsted’s findings.

Last month’s inspection was abandoned when parents complained their children had been asked about homosexuality. But Ofsted said it had already gained “sufficient evidence” to produce a report.

Inspectors said pupils’ “contact with different cultures, faiths and traditions is too limited to promote tolerance and respect for the views, lifestyles and customs of other people”. Senior leaders do not ensure “balanced views of the world” and some books in the school promote stoning and lashing as appropriate punishments, the report added. “There are too few books about the world’s major religions other than Islam,” it said.

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Faith groups to protest Geller ads

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Members of Montgomery County faith groups plan to protest anti-Islamic Metro bus ads Monday in Rockville.

The Montgomery County Faith Community Working Group (FCWG) – which includes members of the local Baha’i, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, Protestant, Roman Catholic, Sikh, Unitarian Universalist and Zoroastrian faith communities – issued a statement saying they are “deeply saddened by the placement of anti-Muslim ads on buses owned and operated by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA).”

The ads include photos of Adolf Hitler meeting with an anti-Jewish Islamic leader during World War II, and call for an end to American aid to Islamic countries. The ads, placed by a group called the American Freedom Defense Initiative, started appearing in May on 20 Metro buses in the D.C. Metro area.

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‘The problem here is the knee-jerk actions of some politicians’ – Park View Educational Trust responds to Gove’s ‘Trojan Horse’ witch-hunt

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Park View School

Verbal statement on Ofsted reports on Park View, Golden Hillock and Nansen schools delivered outside Park View School at 09.30 by Dave Hughes, vice chairman of Park View Educational Trust

On behalf of the staff, students and parents who have worked so hard to improve their schools, we are extremely disappointed to confirm that Ofsted have graded Park View, Golden Hillock and Nansen schools as inadequate and put them into Special Measures.

We support the role of Ofsted in holding schools to account in a fair and transparent way. But we wholeheartedly dispute the validity of these gradings.

Park View, Golden Hillock and Nansen are categorically not inadequate schools.

Our Ofsted inspections were ordered in a climate of suspicion created by the hoax Trojan Horse letter and anonymous, unproven allegations about our schools in the media.

Ofsted inspectors came to our schools looking for extremism, looking for segregation, looking for proof that our children have religion forced upon them as part of an Islamic plot.

The Ofsted reports find absolutely no evidence of this, because this is categorically not what is happening at our schools.

Our schools do not tolerate or promote extremism of any kind. We have made a major commitment to raising all students’ awareness of extremism. People who know and have worked with our schools are appalled at the way we have been misrepresented.

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Oldknow Academy replies to Sunday Times smears

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Oldknow Academy

The Sunday Times – the newspaper responsible for presenting the transparently forged “Trojan horse” letter as genuine – has published an article by its political editor Tim Shipman based on a leaked report by the Education Funding Agency on the Oldknow Academy primary school in Birmingham.

Oldknow Academy has issued a point-by-point rebuttal of what they call a “vindictive and hate spreading article”. It states: “The contents of the article are wholly inaccurate, sensationalised and inflammatory and aimed at scaremongering the public.”

You can read the statement here.

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