Category Archives: Right wing

Swedish magistrate wrote anti-immigrant letters to Prime Minister

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Swedish magistrate wrote anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim letters to Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt during a period in which she was judging in criminal cases involving immigrants, it has been revealed.

Bodil Schibli, who was a lay judge in Ystad District Court until February, wrote several letters to Reinfeldt imploring the government to “protect its own people” against “these fanatical immigrants, who really have no reason to be here, other than to be supported by taxpayers.”

According to Skånska Dagbladet, she also wrote that Islam should be “forbidden from further spreading itself in our country.”

Contacted by the paper on Thursday, Schibli was unrepentant. She claimed that 90 percent of lay judges in Sweden shared her views. “There has never been a multicultural society that worked – only in the minds of politicians,” she said.

The Local, 11 July 2008

Via Islam in Europe

Is the burqa compatible with French nationality? Apparently not

Posted on by Bob Pitt

La burqa est-elle incompatible avec la nationalité française? Une Marocaine de 32 ans, mariée à un Français et mère de trois enfants nés en France, vient de se voir refuser la nationalité au motif qu’elle “a adopté, au nom d’une pratique radicale de sa religion, un comportement en société incompatible avec les valeurs essentielles de la communauté française, et notamment le principe d’égalité des sexes”.

Pour la première fois en France, le Conseil d’Etat, dans un arrêt du 27 juin, a pris en compte le niveau de pratique religieuse pour se prononcer sur la capacité d’assimilation d’une personne étrangère.

“Cette affaire montre que le droit est de plus en plus amené à se prononcer sur les conflits de valeurs que pose l’islam à la société”, constate Didier Leschi, ancien chef du bureau des cultes au ministère de l’intérieur, spécialiste de la laïcité.

Le Monde, 11 July 2008

Via Islam in Europe

Update:  See also the Guardian, 12 July 2008 and the Independent, 12 July 2008

And the report has been taken up at the”left-wing” neocon blog Harry’s Place, where it has attracted the usual selection of thoughtful, humane comments. For example:

“It is the perogative of any Government to deny citizenship to immigrants if they feel they will not contribute to society.”

“Bravo France! Now you should put the icing on the cake and deport the entire family.”

“Why be a citizen of a country that you have no interest or knowledge of, but in fact live in complete alienation to?”

“… if I were a Muslim and didn’t want to work, I’d move to London, claim persecution and get benefits. It’s free money rammed down my throat. Not only that, but the native Britons won’t care a whit if I start saying that their country should be more like the country I ‘escaped’ from. In fact, even if I get a bunch of my friends to blow up a train and kill 50+ people, they will defend me, and maybe even give me a bigger house.”

“… the problem is not whether the woman wears the Burqa of her free will, but rather that her desire to be a devout Muslimah may eventually spill over as a desire to impose her norms on the host nation.”

“Judaism is not a proselytizing or supremacist religion while Islam is.”

“The burqa is the 21st century’s swastika armband.”

“The sad thing is the West has become so remiss – if not complacent – in defending its values. It’s a shame this sort of thing does not happen much more often.”

“Yes, the French are right; the UK should have done the same thing years ago.”

“Excellent news. The French judiciary has much more sence [sic] than ours! … citizenship is more than just a recognition of residency, it is membership of a community with a particular history and values. We have lost sight of this in Britain, as the Islamists are well aware.”

“There should be no Burqas in this continent or in this century. I shouldn’t even have heard of the word. Vive la France.”

“Truly devout and reclusive Muslim Women may be good breeding machines, but their contribution to society is at best doubtful. There is a good reason for keeping them out. A woman may breed an indefinite number of jihadis, whereas a man is hopefully only blowing himself up.”

“… the burqua is a reliable flag for strong mainstream Islamic views, which it is not hyperbole to describe as fascist; it’s really that simple.”

“Why on earth would this woman wish to be a French citizen? Surely it stands for so much that she opposes, especially women who think for themselves and live independent lives and flaunt their faces in public. Wouldn’t she be much happier in say, Saudi Arabia?”

“There is no reason to be, on an institutional level, tolerant of the very most intolerant people on Earth.”

Further update:  For Yusuf Smith’s comments, see Indigo Jo Blogs, 13 July 2008

Italy: Mosques must recognize Israel

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Italy may take its discriminatory practices to a new level, calling for measures to make mosque leaders quit unless they recognize Israel.

Action must be taken so that mosque supervisors recognize Israel, said European Affairs Minister Andrea Rochi. We must force those who do not recognize Israel to leave the mosques, he added, according to Italian news agency Il Tempo.

Press TV, 10 July 2008

Update:  Over at Atlas Shrugs mad Pamela Geller applaud’s Rochi’s statement: “How lucid and human  is that. Of course the jihad loving media is calling that “discrimination”. Ugh. Theeir hatred of the Jews infects everything they say, do — every position they take.”

Maajid Nawaz explains the root cause of terrrorism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A former leader of a radical Islamic organization told Congress extreme Muslims are motivated by an ideology similar to Marxism and that Islamism has much in common with the former Soviet Union. Maajid Nawaz, a native of England and once prominent figure in the London-based extremist group Hizb ut-Tharir [sic], testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the root cause of Islamic terrorism was its fanatical ideology.

Townhall.com, 10 July 2008

The paranoid ravings of Bat Ye’or

Posted on by Bob Pitt

batyeorThe Jerusalem Post interviews Gisèle Littman, aka Bat Ye’or, who expounds her familiar conspiracy fantasy about the Islamic takeover of Europe, with the Organisation of the Islamic Conference playing the role of the Learned Elders of Zion:

“As for OIC influence on Europe: It is visible in immigration policy toward Muslims, and in the Muslims’ refusal to integrate into European societies. The OIC considers nationalist-European movements, European history, European culture, European religions and European languages as Islamophobic. Why? Because Europeans have begun to feel that they are losing their own identity, due to their efforts to welcome immigrants who don’t want to integrate….

“Europeans fear losing their historical and cultural assets – particularly those of democracy and human rights – to Shari’a law. They want one law for everybody – and it’s not Shari’a, which involves things like honor killings. It is thus that in all international forums, the OIC attacks Europe and demands that it apply multiculturalism.

“Now, Europeans do not want multiculturalism. But this is a problem, because European governments – and especially the European Union – do not want to fight the OIC, and so they collaborate with it…. The environment is one of jihad on the one hand and of dhimmitude on the other. European countries are becoming dhimmi countries…. Muslim politics are conducted in Europe by Europeans themselves, based on the interests of Muslim lobbyists.”

The tentacles of these Muslim lobbyists apparently reach into all areas of society, including the education system: “European universities – like those in America – are totally controlled by the Arab-Islamic lobby, as are the schools.”

Still, all is not lost: “Look what Europe has given to the world: democracy and human rights, the love of peace. Look at its achievements in the field of literature, music, law, architecture. There is a tremendous richness. But we have to fight for all those values and accomplishments. Otherwise, we will be living as dhimmis in barbarity.”

The Islamisation of Brooklyn

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“I was Brooklyn bound – or so I thought. I took the subway to see a fellow alumna of New York’s High School of Music and Art (as today’s LaGuardia High School for the Arts was then called). I looked forward to the nostalgic reunion. I hadn’t been in NYC for ages, and catching up with an old classmate seemed an indispensable component of walking down memory lane.

“What’s more, Kathy still lives at the same address in the cozy middle-class neighborhood where I sometimes visited her way back then. It was common for the house-proud Irish to keep property in the family, and hence I’d soon reenter the two-story red-brick home in whose wood-paneled rec-room we occasionally whiled away hours.

“But when I climbed up the grimy station stairs and surveyed the street, I suspected that some supernatural time-and-space warp had transported me to Islamabad. This couldn’t be Brooklyn.

“Women strode attired in hijabs and male passersby sported all manner of Muslim headgear and long flowing tunics. Kathy met me at the train and astounded me by pointing out long kurta shirts as distinguished from a salwar kameez. She couldn’t help becoming an expert. She’s now a member of a fast-dwindling minority because ‘people are running away. We’re among the last holdouts of our generation. My kids have fled’.

“Pakistani and Bangladeshi groceries lined the main shopping drag, and everywhere stickers boldly beckoned: ‘Discover Jesus in the Koran’. An unremarkable low-slung building on the corner of Kathy’s block was now dominated by an oversized green sign identifying it as Masjid Nur al-Islam (the Light of Islam Mosque) and announcing that ‘only Allah is worthy of worship and Muhammad is his LAST prophet’. Here too Christians were urged to ‘turn to the Koran’ if they were ‘genuinely faithful to Jesus’.

“It wasn’t hard to identify the remaining non-Muslim residences. Kathy’s was typical. A huge American flag fluttered demonstratively in the manicured front yard, accompanied by a large cross on the door and an assortment of patriotic/jingoistic banners.‘We’re besieged,” she explained. ‘Making a statement is about all we can do. They aren’t delighted to see our flag wave. This is enemy territory’.”

Sarah Honig in the Jerusalem Post, 7 July 2008

‘Making stuff up’ – Mark Steel replies to Trevor Kavanagh

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mark Steel“The most common justification for ridiculing Islam is that the religion is ‘backward’, particularly towards women, as a fundamental part of its beliefs. The Sun‘s old political editor suggests this as a defence of his newspaper’s stance, saying that under Islam, ‘women are treated as chattels’.

“And it’s true that religious scriptures can command this, such as the insistence that, ‘a man may sell his daughter as a slave, but she will not be freed at the end of six years as men are’. Except that comes from the Bible – Exodus, Chapter 21, verse 7.

“The Bible is packed with justifications for slavery, including killing your slaves. So presumably the Sun, along with others who regard Islam as a threat to our civilisation, will soon be campaigning against ‘Sunday Schools of Hate’ where children as young as seven are taught to read this grisly book….

“In his defence of making stuff up, the Sun‘s ex-political editor spoke about the amount of domestic violence suffered by Muslim women. But there’s just as much chance of suffering domestic violence if you’re not a Muslim, as one of the 10 million such incidents a year that take place in Britain. Presumably the anti-Islam lobby would say, ‘Ah yes, but those other ones involve secular wife-beating, which is not founded on archaic religious customs, but rational reasoning such as not letting him watch the snooker’.

“And finally the Sun‘s man defends the line of his paper by saying that, after all, these Muslims ‘are trying to bomb our country’. So it’s their civic duty to make stuff up – the same as keeping a look-out for spies during the Second World War.

“So we should all do our bit, and every day send in something, until the press is full of stories like ‘Muslims in Darlington have been raising money for semtex by organising panda fights’. Or ‘In Bradford all nurseries have been ordered to convert their dolls’ houses into miniature mosques so that Muslim teddies have somewhere to pray’.”

Independent, 9 July 2008

Islamophobe backs Boris

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A decision by the new London administration not to continue with a Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Advisory Panel formed by former Mayor Ken Livingstone has been attacked by a leading gay Muslim activist. Pav Akhtar branded the decision “extremely concerning”. On the eve of Pride London on Saturday, where Mayor of London Boris Johnson led the parade, Mr Akhtar issued a statement. “Boris Johnson’s attempts to woo the LGBT community rings hollow given his disbanding of the Mayor’s Lesbian and Gay Advisory group,” he said.

Pink News, 8 July 2008

But Johnson has at least one admirer in the LGBT community, who is evidently happy to ignore the abolition of the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Advisory Panel, not to mention Johnson’s earlier bigoted remarks about homosexuality. On the Pink Triangle blog George Broadhead of the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Organisation is quoted as saying, in connection with the Mayor’s Pride London reception at City Hall: “I thought Boris did very well, and was a refreshing change from Ken Livingstone who badly blotted his copy book by warmly welcoming that frightful homophobic Islamic cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi.”

Broadhead was one of the contributors to the notorious “Sick Face of Islam” issue of the now thankfully defunct Gay and Lesbian Humanist magazine, where he wrote: “There are two terms that, increasingly, annoy us: Islamophobia and moderate Muslims. What we’d like to know is, first, what’s wrong with being fearful of Islam (there’s a lot to fear); and, second, what does a moderate Muslim do, other than excuse the real nutters by adhering to this barmy doctrine?”

Update:  Pink News reports that “Outrage! backs Boris over abolition of gay advisory panel“. Peter Tatchell’s sidekick Brett Lock is quoted as saying: “Instead of negatively sniping at the Mayor, LGBT groups should concentrate on presenting Boris with practical and constructive policy ideas for the benefit of LGBT Londoners.”

‘Please can I have some money Boris?’ – Ed Husain marks 7/7

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ed HusainJust when you thought that opinion might be shifting towards a recognition of the existence of widespread and atrocious media bigotry against the Muslim community, in steps Ed Husain to assure everyone that Islamophobia is just a myth promoted by Islamist extremists.

In an article in today’s Evening Standard marking the third anniversary of the July 2005 London bombings, he writes:

“What has changed since 7/7 is the tactics and the public rhetoric of the extremists. Under pressure from Muslim activists, ‘Islamophobia’ has become accepted as a phenomenon on a par with racism, as examined in tonight’s Channel 4 documentary by political journalist Peter Oborne, for example.”

But it’s all nonsense, according to Ed:

“Outside a few flashpoints where the BNP is at work, most Muslims would be hard-pressed to identify Islamophobia in their lives. Yet that is the charge every time the extremists press for new ‘rights’ – over dress in the workplace, for example. If there is anti-Muslim sentiment, we Muslims have to ask what some of us have done to provoke such feelings in a country that is proudly multi-cultural. Islamist extremism might be a good starting point.”

And who are the proponents of “Islamist extremism”? Well, the people organising Islam Expo later this week are among them, according to Ed Husain. Because some of those involved in the event are supporters of the Palestinian resistance they are no different from the 7/7 bombers, in Husain’s analysis. And worse still, supposedly as a result of “a Ken Livingstone commitment to his friends”, the London Development Agency is one of the sponsors of Islam Expo.

Husain concludes with an appeal to the current Mayor of London: “Boris Johnson has a fresh mandate. He knows the organisers behind this week’s event are those that cry Islamophobia. Will he co-opt them, appease or oppose them? His starting point could be to expose their Westophobia, and empower the right side in this battle of ideas.”

Which I think could be translated as: “Please can I have some GLA funding for the Quilliam Foundation?”