Category Archives: Right wing

Islam is real threat to church, says Synod member

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Alison RuoffNext week the General Synod, the Church of England’s parliament, gathers in York to discuss the introduction of women bishops without provisions for those who oppose the historic move, which could see dozens of conservative clergy leave the church and claim millions in compensation.

But Alison Ruoff, an evangelical lay member of the Synod and a former magistrate who is at the Gafcon summit in Jerusalem, told The Daily Telegraph that the church needs to get past these divisions and concentrate on fighting the rise of Islam in Britain.

She says that under an Archbishop of Canterbury who said it is inevitable that elements of Sharia will be introduced in the UK, the church has not done enough to put its message across. And she believes the Government, out of politically correct sensitivity, is not preventing the growth of Muslim communities which do not integrate with those around them.

Mrs Ruoff, who earlier this year called for a halt to mosque building in Britain, said: “The church is sleepwalking into an Islamic state. Hopefully we can unite against it. The leaders of the church have lost their confidence in the Gospel. We have got an Archbishop of Canterbury who doesn’t stand up for Christianity but wants a degree of Sharia law. The church should be getting out with the Christian message. Our Government is allowing it to happen out of political correctness, but it should be protecting our values and heritage.”

She added that many people share her fears but do not like to speak out about it in case they are criticised. “People are genuinely worried. There’s a general concern in the nation about its building blocks being rapidly eroded. But we are very afraid of the law and of being persecuted. The police in many respects are standing up for Islam rather than Christianity.”

Mrs Ruoff believes the problem with the growth of Islam in Britain is that some communities do not integrate, and that some immigrant imams do not learn English, leading to segregation. She fears that if these communities introduce Islamic law, all non-Muslims and women will be treated as second-class citizens by them.

Daily Telegraph, 28 June 2008

Scottish Islamic Foundation Launch

Posted on by Eddie Truman

Islamophobia Watch was delighted to take up our invitation to attend the launch of the Scottish Islamic Foundation in Edinburgh on Thursday 26th June.

We were in auspicious company; representatives from all 4 of Scotland’s major political parties spoke from the platform, including Alex Salmond, the First Minister.

The event had been the subject of much angst from the Islamophobes, Melanie Philips leading the charge.

Attempts by Tory blog ConservativeHome to smear the SNP Scottish Government backfired spectacularly with the appearance of the Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie at the event and her fulsome praise of the Scottish Islamic Foundation.

The audience also included representatives from Lothian and Borders Police and the Jewish community, further undermining Islamophobic attempts to portray SIF, and Osama Saeed in particular, as secret Islamic fundamentalists, intent on creating a “Caledonian Caliphate”.

From the perspective of this member of the Islamophobia Watch collective, the real story of the launch of SIF is the prominence of social justice and opposition to imperialism in its objectives.

Osama Saeed has repeatedly advocated the need for young, disaffected, Scottish Muslims to be given space to engage in political discourse.

The launch of the Scottish Islamic Foundation is exactly the space that is needed to develop that discourse.

Another baseless, scaremongering article from the Express

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sniffer dogs offend Muslims“Generally, if a story’s on the front page of the Daily Express, you can guarantee that the slant they’ve given it isn’t warranted. Whether it’s blaming Gordon Brown for something he hasn’t done, scaremongering about how we’re not going to be able to afford anything shortly due to run-away inflation, or its favourite subject now that Diana has finally been shuffled off the front page, how terrible Muslims are.

“Today is no exception. Screaming in bold type, the front page informs us that ‘SNIFFER DOGS OFFEND MUSLIMS’.”

Obsolete, 27 June 2008

Having examined the government report on which the article is based, the author concludes that “the whole Express story is bollocks”.

Australian Muslims win fight for mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abdul AzizThe small but determined Muslim community in Cairns has finally won the right to build the city’s first mosque after an eight-year battle against an at-times hostile community and claims the religion was trying to “spread its tentacles” to north Queensland.

Work is expected to begin on the mosque within weeks after the Planning and Environment Court dismissed the final group of objections, noting freedom of religion was part of the fabric of the Australian community. “It is in the public interest that persons who choose that faith, just as those who choose any other faith, have access to a safe and reasonably comfortable place of gathering and worship,” judge Keith Dodds said.

Cairns imam Abdul Aziz Mohammed, a former cane farmer and Rotary stalwart whose father moved to the city from India in 1900, yesterday welcomed the decision. He said the ordeal to build the mosque had been the first time he had experienced racism in the 76 years he had lived in the region. “A lot of the objections were just crazy,” he said. “I mean, they wouldn’t know what goes on in a mosque. I was disappointed, but you’ve got to remember the objectors didn’t really number that many.”

Opponents claimed Mr Mohammed was planning to build a “mega-mosque” in the suburban street and that it would become a hotbed of terrorism.

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‘A Caledonian caliphate’ – Mad Mel warns against the Islamisation of Scotland

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mad Mel“Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party, has been spectacularly canny and effective as Scotland’s first minister, moving his nationalist pieces across the British constitutional chessboard with stealth and skill.

“But there’s a dimension to this that has so far passed below the radar – the scimitar slung around the kilt.

“Tomorrow, the Scottish Islamic Foundation will be launched in Edinburgh in Salmond’s presence. But as the invaluable Centre for Social Cohesion tells us, the  leading members of this group and many of those who lead its events are closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose aim is the Islamisation of Britain and Europe.

“Its chief executive Omar [sic] Saeed, who has worked as Salmond’s researcher and is the SNP’s parliamentary candidate for Glasgow Central, is an Islamist and leading light in the Brotherhood front the Muslim Association of Britain. Saeed follows the usual Brotherhood line of promoting certain limited moderate positions, such as calling for an end to forced marriages or opposing terrorism in Britain, thus enabling him to pass himself off as a moderate while he slips and slides over issues such as sharia. But he is of course an unequivocal supporter of the Brotherhood leader Yusuf Qaradawi who endorses terrorist mass murder in Israel and Iraq – support which inescapably identifies the holder of such a view as an extremist and terrorist sympathiser….

“The Salmond/Saeed axis is not merely a disturbing sign of Salmond’s own prejudices. It has a potential strategic significance that goes beyond Scotland. The Brotherhood’s strategy for Britain is to promote separate Islamic development, declare sharia-only enclaves and infiltrate mainstream institutions as a springboard for Islamising the entire society. Since Salmond’s aim is to make Scotland independent from the rest of the United Kingdom, with one leap the Brothers could achieve an Islamised country on England’s border. Scottish voters might be getting more than they bargained for: a Caledonian caliphate.”

Melanie Phillips’s blog, 25 June 2008

“The scimitar slung around the kilt”? “With one leap the Brothers could achieve an Islamised country on England’s border”? Surely it can’t be long before the men in white coats arrive for Mel.

See also Douglas Murray’s “Alex Salmond cosies up to Muslim Brotherhood” at ConservativeHome.

Western world is losing Christian values, says bishop of Rochester

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nazir AliDr Nazir-Ali was greeted with a standing ovation as he gave a speech to a breakaway summit in Jerusalem of more than 1,000 traditionalists from across the Anglican Communion who oppose gay priests and the blessing of same-sex unions.

He did not say that divisions over sexuality would lead to a schism in Anglicanism, and referred to unity being a “very precious thing”. Instead he called on those in the church to concentrate on mission – trying to convert those of other faiths and with no faith to Christianity.

Dr Nazir-Ali, who earlier this year claimed the decline of Christianity had led to a collapse of Britishness, said: “Let us pray that we are able to recover our Christian nerve in the west and make sure the Gospel is not lost, and that all that is valuable in western culture – much of which comes from its Judeo-Christian background – will survive as a way to enhance cultures in the west and renew them once again.”

He said he could not apologise for wanting to explain Christianity with Muslims and to great laughter he added: “That’s not the only thing I want to do to them.”

Daily Telegraph, 25 June 2008 

Cummins was right about Islam says Liddle

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rod LiddleWriting in this week’s Spectator Rod Liddle rallies to the defence of poor Harry Cummins – “the British Council employee who dared to speak the truth about Islamic ideology”, as the standfirst to Liddle’s article puts it.

Apparently Cummins has been bombarding journalists with an email demanding the right of reply to the Guardian, of a character that leads Liddle to describe him as a paid-up member of the “green ink brigade”.

This, you may recall, was the Harry Cummins who contributed a series of articles to the Telegraph back in 2004 bearing titles such as “Muslims are a threat to our way of life“, and who assured his readers that “Christians are the original inhabitants and rightful owners of almost every Muslim land, and behave with a humility quite unlike the menacing behaviour we have come to expect from the Muslims who have forced themselves on Christendom, a bullying ingratitude that culminates in a terrorist threat to their unconsulted host”.

In response to a critic who accused him of underestimating the diversity of Islam and pointed out that extremists were a minority within the faith, Cummins opined that “all Muslims, like all dogs, share certain characteristics”. Understandably, Cummins denounced the proposal to introduce a law against incitement to religious hatred, which he said had been adopted “at the behest of Muslim foreigners who have forced themselves on us”, and he defended the right to express “a virulent hatred of Muslims”.

Liddle, however, is indignant that Cummins’ employers at the British Council sacked him on the basis that he had made “ignorant” and “hateful” comments about Muslims. According to Liddle, notwithstanding the eccentricity of his emails, Cummins “was certainly not a racist, whatever else he was. He made it clear that his beef was with the ideology, not the people”!

On the other hand we are obliged to Liddle for the revelation that “the more barking mad the letter I receive, the more likely it is that they fervently agree with whatever it is I’ve written”. Well, that would figure, wouldn’t it?

Radical Islam main threat to US economy says McCain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“In an interview with Fortune, Republican presidential candidate John McCain was asked what the single gravest long term threat to the U.S. economy was. This is not an easy question, with so many choices and all. Is it the housing crisis or the credit crisis? What about the huge deficit the country is running, or the rising cost of energy? How about Social Security? McCain didn’t select any of those options; instead, he said that radical Islam was the single biggest threat to the U.S. economy. Pardon me a moment while I let this sink in a bit…nope, still don’t see it…”

InvestorCentricBlog, 23 June 2008

Sharia courts – not such a threat after all

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Now Muslims Get Their Own LawsRemember this hysterical report in the Daily Express warning that “Muslim radicals have established their own draconian court systems in Britain. Controversial Sharia courts have been set up in major towns and cities to impose Islamic law and enable Muslims to shun the legitimate British legal system” and announcing the shocking discovery that “the Sharia court system has been set up in the heart of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire”?

Tory MP Philip Davies was quoted as saying: “I am absolutely appalled and find the prospect of such courts totally terrifying. Places like this should be closed down…. It simply can’t be tolerated.”

Well, here’s an interesting article from the Seattle Times which provides a more balanced view of the role of that very same Shariah council in Dewsbury. It’s about time the media in the UK started practising this sort of informed and reasoned reporting.

Tory peers warn of threat of sharia law

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Daphne ParkBaroness Park of Monmouth told the House of Lords: “My concern is with the effects on civil society and community relations arising from the existence of two parallel legal systems: Sharia law with its own courts, and our own civil law, the law of the land. We are, however, tacitly accepting the formal Muslim view that Sharia itself must be regarded as the ultimate criterion of justice when measured against the law of the land….

“This situation exists because we have for some years been more concerned to respect other cultures than actively to protect the interests of citizens of this country…. my objective today is to remind us that there are aspects of Sharia law which do active harm in terms of the national interest, in particular, in the increasingly combustible area of civil society.

“When we condone the practice of allowing girls to be withdrawn from school from 12 years old onwards so that they may be sent to Pakistan to marry and thus facilitate the entry of a young husband who may be illiterate and innumerate, we are not only allowing her to be unlawfully deprived of education, when she is required by law to be educated up to the age of 16, but the country is losing a potentially skilled and valuable citizen. This is being done with the connivance of the schools on the grounds – as I was told when I visited a school in Bradford – that the council believes we must respect the culture of the Muslim community….

“Respect for the right of the Muslim communities to conduct their lives according to Sharia law should be matched by equal respect for our own Christian religion…. We should note the lack of support shown by many local authorities, and indeed by Government sometimes, to Christians of every denomination.”

Her fellow Tory, Baroness Verma, concurred: “I would be very wary of the slow creep of Sharia law into our legal system…. The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, is absolutely right to point that out. We have a twin-track system developing in this country.”

Lords Hansard, 19 June 2008

See also Daily Mail, 20 June 2008