Category Archives: Right wing

Civil servants pay £2,000 each (of your cash) to hear Islamic extremist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ibrahim Moussawi“Government officials will spend thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money to attend a lecture by an Islamic extremist whom Jacqui Smith is under pressure to ban from Britain.

“Yesterday, the Mail revealed how the Home Secretary was facing demands to deny a visa to Ibrahim Moussawi – a spokesman for the Lebanese terrorist organisation Hezbollah – to come to speak at a British university. Now it has emerged that the lectures Moussawi plans to deliver are targeted at Whitehall officials who deal in foreign affairs and extremism. They will each spend up to £1,890 of taxpayers’ cash attending the Political Islam event at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) next month.

“Moussawi – who is among the key speakers at the week-long course – is scheduled to address two sessions on March 25 and is expected to be paid for the talks. Another speaker at the event is the UK-based extremist Dr Kamal Helbawy, a former spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood – a group said to have inspired Al Qaeda [sic].

“Last night, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, a researcher for the Centre for Social Cohesion, a respected think-tank, said: ‘In their willingness to pay extremists like Dr Helbawy and Dr el-Moussawi, SOAS are helping these men present themselves as mainstream figures. ‘It is particularly worrying that the target audience includes Government officials and the police, who may find themselves paying for advice on tackling terrorism from its very exponents’.”

Daily Mail, 26 February 2009

And Daily Mail home affairs editor James Slack writes: “So here comes the acid test: is Jacqui Smith, as she proclaims, an enemy of extremism in all its forms, or a cowardly hypocrite? In October, the Home Secretary announced ‘tough new measures’ to deny entry to Britain to anybody ‘engaged in fostering, encouraging or spreading extremism and hatred.’ In recent weeks she has put them to use by banning a Dutch MP with hugely controversial views on Islam, and a notorious anti-gay US preacher. But will she be prepared to apply the same new standards to Islamic extremists who preach a hatred of Jews?”

Update:  Entirely predictably, if a trifle belatedly, the “left-wing” blog Harry’s Place – which is increasingly indistinguishable from the Daily Mail – joins in the witch-hunt.

Tories witch-hunt Ibrahim Moussawi (again)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ibrahim MoussawiJacqui Smith was tonight warned against exercising “double standards” as an Islamic extremist prepared to travel to the UK. Ibrahim Moussawi, a known hardliner with links to Hezbollah, has been invited to speak at a London university.

Earlier this month, she banned the far-Right Dutch MP Geert Wilders from coming to Britain to show his film about Islam as it would threaten “community harmony”. But the Conservatives warned that to ban those who threaten community harmony, while letting in those who glorify terrorism or are part of terrorist groups, would send out the “wrong message”. There must be “no double standards on extremists”, warned Tory security spokesman Baroness Neville-Jones.

Moussawi, who has already made at least two trips to the UK, has been invited to speak on political Islam at the School of Oriental and African Studies next month.

Yesterday, in a letter to Miss Smith, Baroness Neville-Jones said: “You will be aware that Mr Moussawi has links to Hezbollah, which is a proscribed terrorist organisation in many countries. Mr Moussawi has also, over the years, made a number of remarks that are extremist, anti-Semitic and inflammatory.

“In October last year you introduced what you described as ‘tough new measures’ to deny entry to extremists. These measures included ‘creating a presumption in favour of exclusion in respect of all those who have engaged in fostering, encouraging or spreading extremism and hatred’. Mr Moussawi has so engaged. In line with your ‘tough new measures’, I trust that if Mr Moussawi applies for entry, you will use your powers to exclude him.”

Daily Mail, 24 February 2009

It appears to have escaped Neville-Jones’ attention that Wilders intended to enter the UK with the explicit aim of inciting hatred against the Muslim community.

Is there any suggestion that Ibrahim Moussawi will be inciting hatred against the Jewish community on his proposed visit to the UK? No. Is Neville-Jones able to demonstrate that he has incited hatred on previous visits to the UK? Again, no. So the charge of double standards is entirely baseless.

The last time the Tories witch-hunted Ibrahim Moussawi was when he visited London to address a World Against War rally in February 2008. Neville-Jones told the Home Office: “it is vital that the Government always makes the security of the UK its top priority. That means stopping those who are likely to foment extremism or promote violence from coming here to speak.”

Here is the speech Ibrahim Moussawi gave at that rally. Perhaps Neville-Jones can direct us to the sections of the speech that promote violence and extremism?

Express is shocked by case of torture victim – he ‘costs taxpayers money’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Treated Like RoyaltyA former Al Qaeda suspect was flown back to Britain on a luxury jet yesterday – at Government expense. Now taxpayers face a massive bill for his new life on benefits.

Alleged torture victim Binyam Mohamed, 30, stepped off a twin-engined Gulfstream at an RAF base after more than six years as a US prisoner being held in Guantanamo Bay. Accompanied on the flight by two Foreign Office officials, two Metropolitan Police officers and a doctor, Ethiopian Mohamed’s return to his adopted country cost an amazing £120,000.

Tory MP David Davies said: “I don’t think it should be a source of pleasure to anyone that this man has returned to the UK. He is an Ethiopian national who was lucky ever to be in Britain in the first place. If he was flown back to Addis Ababa, I think we would all breathe a sigh of relief.”

Fellow Tory MP Philip Davies said: “It’s absolutely ludicrous. This guy isn’t a British citizen, he just happened to be residing in Britain. I cannot see any advantage to the British taxpayer in him coming here. The likelihood is that he will be on benefits and we will be forking out for him while the country is going bankrupt.

“And is he a danger to public safety? Will the Government be putting him under 24-hour monitoring by the security services with the extra strain that on taxpayers’ money? It is an astonishing decision.”

Susie Squire, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Binyam Mohamed has already cost the British public quite enough without the luxury of private jets. A cheaper way should have been found to bring him back.

“This man is not even a British citizen, and yet is going to continue to be a massive financial burden on law-abiding taxpayers in this country. We’re in a recession and people need money to feed their kids, not foot the bill for chartering planes and round-the-clock surveillance.”
Daily Express, 24 February 2009

Update:  For comment on this and other similar articles, see ENGAGE, 24 February 2009

‘How Britain’s mosques foster extremism’ – by Ed Husain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Sectarian, conservative leadership is driving confused young Muslims into the arms of radicals.” Thus the standfirst to Ed Husain’s scaremongering piece in the Times.

The Quilliam report Mosques Made in Britain, on which the article is based, predictably dismisses the work of the Mosques and Imams Advisory Committee, and in a footnote accuses two of MINAB’s constituent organisations, the MCB and MAB, of failing to condemn suicide bombing. But generally speaking, and admittedly on a first quick reading, the report is otherwise quite measured.

But that wasn’t good enough for Ed Husain. He had to spin the report to fit the Islamophobic agenda of the Murdoch press, feeding into the right-wing myth that the entire Muslim community in the UK represents an extremist threat to wider society. And this is a man who is in receipt of large sums of public money, supposedly to fund his efforts at building social cohesion. He really is an utter disgrace.

Cf. “British mosques promote community cohesion”, MCB press release, 23 February 2009

Download the Charity Commission report here.

Update:  See also “Young Muslims at the mercy of extremists because of out-of-touch Imams” in the Daily Telegraph, 25 February 2009

Ban this preacher of hate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Over at Harry’s Place, under the headline “Qadhi Must NOT Enter the United Kingdom“, David Toube calls on home secretary Jacqui Smith to ban the Houston-born Islamic teacher Sheikh Yasir Qadhi from Britain.

Smith has already banned Dutch far-right racist Geert Wilders who wanted to come here and incite hatred against Muslims, and homophobic US pastor Fred Phelps whose aim was to incite hatred against the gay community. According to Toube, Yasir Qadhi too is visiting the UK to incite hatred and he should be excluded along with Wilders and Phelps, on the basis that they are all “active and proselytising bigots”.

What extremist activities will Yasir Qadhi be engaging in here in the UK, I hear you ask – where will he be delivering his hate-filled message?

Well, for example, on Thursday he will be at the London Muslim Centre where he is the guest speaker at a fundraising dinner for The Citizens Foundation, a charity committed to “delivering quality education to the poorest in urban slums and rural areas of Pakistan”. The Citizens Foundation “believes in gender equality and has a girl students percentage of 50%”, and its education program is “open to all persons and communities, regardless of their race, color, creed, religion or location”.

Scary, huh? Let’s just hope Jacqui Smith takes Toube’s advice and bans this preacher of hate.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that Yasir Qadhi has visited our country to spread his extremist ideology. Harry’s Place denounced him last November when he was a featured speaker at the Global Peace and Unity event in London. The speech Yasir Qadhi gave there is available on YouTube. Watch this video and ask yourself: can there be the slightest excuse for the home secretary allowing this man into the country?

Sun backs Wilders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sun cartoon

“Britain recently disgraced itself by banning democratically elected Dutch MP Geert Wilders from entering the country. His planned ‘crime’ was to screen a short documentary at a private viewing in the House of Lords…. Our cringing surrender to this authoritarian, book-burning mentality was ordered by mealy-mouthed Home Secretary Jacqui Smith under pressure from Labour peer Lord Ahmed…. Wilders’ visit would have gone unnoticed but for Jackboot Jacqui, whose Government has prostrated itself to accommodate Islam’s nastier fringes….

“It gave oxygen to rabble-rousing imams who brainwashed thousands of young British-born Muslims, not least the 7/7 murderers. It turned a blind eye to migrants who refuse to assimilate and instead colonise whole suburbs and cities where welfare has become a way of life. It encouraged multi-culturalism which, far from spreading tolerance, has entrenched primitive tribal customs, including forced marriages and honour killings. As a result, our security services are at breaking point keeping tabs on an army of shadowy troublemakers who flit back and forth to Pakistan — many to be trained in OUR mass murder.

“… it is impossible to disagree with what Wilders has to say about extremists. He told an American audience recently: The Europe you know is changing. You have seen the landmarks. The Eiffel Tower and Trafalgar Square and Rome’s ancient buildings, the canals of Amsterdam. They are still there. And they still look very much the same as they did a hundred years ago. But a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world very few visitors see.

“Throughout Europe a new reality is rising, entire Muslim neighbourhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. It’s the world of headscarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands – or slaveholders, if you prefer – walk three steps ahead.

“With mosques on many street corners, shops have signs you cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighbourhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe. These are the building blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by city.

“There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe. With larger congregations than there are in churches.And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: We rule.

“Sounds about right to me.”

Trevor Kavanagh in the Sun, 23 February 2009

Mad Mel explains the rise of the BNP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Melanie Phillips Jihad in Britain“Last week, the British National Party won a council seat in Sevenoaks, Kent…. Around the country, the BNP is making an ever stronger political showing. Last month, it only narrowly failed to take a council seat in Bexley, South London, and last week it did well in wards in Yorkshire, the Midlands and Lewisham, another South London borough. It is also strongly tipped to win at least one European Parliament seat in the forthcoming elections.

“The reason for its increasing success is obvious. Like all populist, neo-fascist parties, the BNP is opportunistically exploiting the failure by the political establishment to address issues of pressing and legitimate concern to the public…. Britain is changing before our very eyes. As a result of the current rate of immigration, within half a century the projected steep increase in the UK’s population will be entirely made up of people not born in Britain – most of whom will have come from the Third World.

“Meanwhile, the fanatically imposed doctrine of multiculturalism has brought about the erosion or denigration of Britain’s history, religion and identity, leaving generations of children – both indigenous and immigrant – appallingly ignorant of the common culture they need to share.

“It is entirely reasonable to want one’s country to express its own culture through its institutions, laws and practices. Yet those who defend this principle are called ‘racist’. Britain is witnessing an alarming growth of separate Muslim enclaves ruled by a parallel Islamic Sharia law. It is entirely reasonable to want one system of law for all. Yet those who say so are called ‘Islamophobic’.”

Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail, 23 February 2009

Of course, Phillips omits to mention one important factor in the rise of the BNP – the legitimisation of their racist politics by bigoted right-wing commentators like herself whose anti-Muslim tirades are often barely distinguishable from the sort of thing you might read in a BNP propaganda leaflet.

Taliban ‘wages chemical jihad’ on Britain (Daily Star claims)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Terror chiefs plan to flood our streets with heroin in a terrifying plot to wage “chemical jihad” on Britain. And they have been using hate-filled Muslim gangs as their UK dealers.

Pakistani and Afghan-based al-Qaida and Taliban warlords are sitting on a £6billion stash of deadly heroin. And they have ordered their dealers to sell it only to non-Muslims.

The ruthless racket is a two-pronged attack which peddles death and misery with heroin while netting massive sums to pay for future terror attacks.

Continue reading →

Muslim schools ban our culture

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim Schools Ban Our CultureA number of Muslim schools are promoting Islamic extremism and encouraging pupils to grow up despising Britain, a think tank report claims today.

Youngsters are discouraged from playing cricket and board games, listening to western music and even reading Shakespeare plays or Harry Potter books by fanatics targeting classrooms, the research says.

Some children are even being told to shun “the evil system of western culture” and encouraged to live in “ghettos”.

The vile diktats to Muslim pupils, some of primary school age, appear on school websites or on other internet sites linked directly to school sites and operated by fund amentalist groups. Critics last night called for strict vetting of Muslim education to root out extremist influence. Moderate Muslim groups welcomed the findings and called for the attempts by extremists to target children to be stamped out.

The propaganda is highlighted in a report called Music, Chess and Other Sins from the Westminster-based think tank Civitas. Author Denis MacEoin investigated hundreds of school websites and Islamic websites linked to schools to uncover the material.

Daily Express, 20 February 2009

The Express editorial is headed “Britain must stand up for its time-honoured values”. We are told: “Before mass immigration got under way in the middle of the last century, Britain was a country blessed with a cohesive culture. It isn’t now….Things have now reached a point where some Muslim schools ban such pillars of British life as chess, Shakespeare and even the very idea of women’s equality….This is a disastrous state of affairs, meaning young Muslims are bound to grow up confused and alienated. Experience tells us that some will become the Islamist terrorists of tomorrow.”

The Telegraph went with “The Muslim children taught to hate Britain” and the article began: “Islamic fundamentalism that encourages children to despise British society is being promoted on websites at Muslim schools in the UK, think tank Civitas has revealed.”

This has now been amended so the headline reads “Islamic fundamentalism promoted on websites at some Muslim schools in the UK, think tank finds” and the opening sentence now also includes the word “some” before “Muslim schools”.

MacEoin himself contributes an article headlined “We must stop Muslim schools teaching that integration is a sin” although the online version now carries the standfirst: “Some Muslim schools make it their mission to prevent assimiliation – and it is time the Government changed that, says Denis MacEoin.”

And a Telegraph editorial recycles the familiar right-wing myth about Christians being discriminated against in favour of Muslims: “Sneering at Christianity is routine. Perhaps that is an inevitable consequence of living in a free society – but it is interesting that militant atheists clam up when it is suggested that Islam might be a target for ridicule. [What planet do Torygraph leaders writers live on? Have they never come across Richard Dawkins?] And when was the last time a Muslim woman was banned from wearing a small symbol of her faith? This double standard runs through the government sector and the intelligentsia.”

The Times announces: “Ofsted accused of soft line on Muslims.”

Amanda Platell’s comment piece in the Daily Mail is headlined: “Schooling children to hate our values” (“schools like these risk breeding a new generation of Islamic fundamentalists, whose hatred of the West may very well spill over into acts of violence – or even murder. How can we tolerate such hatred in our midst?”).

The Daily Star has “Islam kids taught forget Potter and prepare for jihad“.

See also ENGAGE which reproduces the following poll from the Star:

Should Muslim schools be banned

More anti-Muslim propaganda from discredited Islam ‘expert’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Denis MacEoinSome Islamic schools in Britain were today accused of teaching “fundamentalist” views in a new report which warns they could undermine the country’s social cohesion.

The report, by Right-wing think tank Civitas, claims pupils are being told to shun chess, music, cricket and even Harry Potter in material posted or linked to school websites.

It says the teaching risks encouraging some Muslim children to “despise British culture” and prepare them to live “separate lives” in “Muslim enclaves” distant from the rest of society.

The Association of Muslim Schools said the report was based on flawed research. Dr Mohamed Mukadam, the association’s chairman, said: “The author has pieced together bits of information from the internet. He hasn’t set foot in a single Muslim school or spoken to a teacher or pupil.”

Evening Standard, 19 February 2009

Well, what can you expect, given that the author in question is none other that Denis MacEoin, who was responsible for the discredited Policy Exchange report The Hijacking of British Islam.

See also Civitas press release, 19 February 2009

And if you can be bothered ploughing through 150-odd pages of MacEoin’s “study”, Music, Chess and Other Sins, it can be downloaded (pdf) here.

It would appear that this is the report that was originally going to be entitled When Worlds Collide, but even Civitas baulked at MacEoin’s assertion that 60 per cent of Muslim schools in the UK had “extremist links” and refused to publish this claim, leading MacEoin to complain indignantly, via Damian Thompson’s Holy Smoke blog, that he had been censored.

Still, let’s be fair, MacEoin does have his admirers – Daniel Pipes, for example, who has announced that MacEoin will take over as editor of the Middle East Quarterly later this year.