Category Archives: Right wing

After ‘no-go’ bishop, multiculturalism debated

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Bishop of Rochester’s article in The Sunday Telegraph last month has reignited the row over multiculturalism. The doctrine was unquestioned for nearly three decades. But the bombings of July 2005, when home-grown Muslim suicide attackers killed dozens of London commuters, led many to blame multiculturalism for causing deep divisions in Britain.

The attacks shone a light into Britain’s “separate” and “closed” communities, where many ethnic and religious groups led “parallel lives”, cut off from mainstream society and where values were increasingly in conflict with those of the host country. A consensus has emerged that the multiculturalism experiment was necessary, but that its time is over.

Sunday Telegraph, 3 February 2008

Sudden Jihad Syndrome comes to Scotland

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim fanatics in Scotland could be radicalised within weeks, the country’s terror czar has warned. And John Corrigan stressed that the exact potential of the threat is constantly changing and can never be quantified. He spoke to Scotland on Sunday just six weeks before retiring as Scotland’s counter-terrorism chief, having spent four years in the post overseeing such operations as the arrest of Mohammed Atif Siddique and the inquiry into the would-be car bombing of Glasgow Airport.

Recent research has shown the time it takes for an individual to show an initial interest in fundamentalism to actively taking part in an attack is reducing all the time. Several years ago, experts figured that period may be up to 18 months but now with perceived threats to Muslims being featured virtually daily on our television screens, that timescale is down to just a few weeks.

Scotland on Sunday, 3 February 2008

Corrigan would appear to be inspired by Daniel Pipes’ invention, the “Sudden Jihad Syndrome“.

Islamist ‘Trojan horse’ in Pentagon, say experts

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Federal authorities say a high-level Muslim Pentagon aide, who led a campaign to silence a Pentagon intelligence analyst for taking a hard line against Islam, is running an “influence operation” on behalf of U.S. Muslim groups fronting for the radical Muslim Brotherhood.

Hesham H. Islam, a special assistant to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, recently criticized Maj. Stephen Coughlin, one of the military’s leading authorities on Islamic war doctrine, for making the connection between the religion of Islam and terrorism. After Islam lodged complaints, Coughlin’s contract with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon was not renewed.

Islam also was upset with briefings Coughlin recently prepared for the U.S. military warning that major U.S. Muslim groups were fronting for the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihadist movement based in Egypt.

World Net Daily, 1 February 2008

More nonsense about Qaradawi

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Islamist extremist Yusuf al-Qaradawi hates the West, thinks the UK is decadent and supports suicide attacks against civilians. So why does he want to visit the UK? It turns out he needs some medical treatment and the evil, decadent West is the best place to get it. It never ceases to amaze me how these preachers of hate can so easily put aside their supposedly deeply held convictions when it comes to their own comforts.”

Bill Carmichael in the Yorkshire Post, 1 February 2008

Cameron call for ban on Qaradawi backfires

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Uniting the CountryDavid Cameron was under fire yesterday after it emerged that the radical Muslim scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi had been admitted into the UK when the Tory leader was working in the Home Office.

Cameron, at prime minister’s question time on Wednesday, demanded that Gordon Brown ban al-Qaradawi: “He was banned by a former Conservative home secretary, so why will the government not ban him?”

But al-Qaradawi was allowed into the country five times by a Conservative home secretary, Michael Howard. On at least one of those occasions, in August 1993, Cameron was a special adviser to Howard.

Cameron based his claim on a mistake in a news story, subsequently corrected, in the Guardian in January last year.

Guardian, 1 February 2008

For the earlier Guardian article, with correction, see here. The Guardian in fact made the mistake because it had simply repeated the groundless assertion in Uniting the Country, Pauline Neville-Jones’ report for the Tory Party (p.8 – pdf here), that Qaradawi “was banned from entering Britain by Mr Michael Howard when Home Secretary but has been allowed to visit the UK subsequently at the insistence of Mayor Livingstone”.

Cameron’s claim that Qaradawi “believes that the penalty for homosexuality is death” is also taken directly from Neville-Jones’ ignorant report. He obviously knows nothing about the subject.

Mosque group ‘in a line to jihad’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The Islamic group accused of trying to seize control of Sydney’s Sefton mosque is part of a movement described as a recruiting ground for al-Qa’ida in a new terrorism intelligence report. The group attempting the takeover has members who follow the Tablighi Jamaat stream of Islam, described this week bythe private US intelligence group Stratfor as an ‘indirect line to terrorism‘. Members of the Tablighi movement have recently been linked to a terrorist cell in Spain that was planning a bomb attack in Barcelona.”

The Australian, 31 January 2008

Yes, it’s yet another dishonest attempt to associate the entirely peaceful proselytising movement Tablighi Jamaat with violent extremism. Predictably, this meets with the enthusiastic approval of Jihad Watch.

Cameron calls for ban on Qaradawi

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qaradawi2The Leader of the Opposition has urged the Prime Minister to stop controversial Islamic theologian Yusuf al-Qaradawi from entering the country. Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions in the Commons, David Cameron said that he was a “hate preacher” and should be denied entry.

Gordon Brown told MPs that the Islamic preacher is not in the country yet and in any case there are judicial processes that supervise deportations. He said a decision about whether to grant Mr al-Qaradawi entry into the UK will be made “very soon.”

Mr Cameron accused him of dithering: “People watching this will just conclude this Prime Minister cannot answer a question and cannot make a decision. Never mind the complete lack of vision, never mind the constant re-launches, just concentrate on keeping us safe.”

Yesterday Mr Cameron led calls to refuse entry to Mr al-Qaradawi and others who “preach hate, pit one faith against another and divide our society.”

Pink News, 30 January 2008

Muslims ‘lay siege to Australian hospital’?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Damian Thompson 2At his Holy Smoke blog, Telegraph leader writer and Catholic Herald editor Damian Thompson recycles a story from Robert Spencer’s Dhimmi Watch site:

“After the death of a young Muslim man in a car crash in Sydney last month,” Thompson writes, “an Islamic crowd invaded a hospital in order to stop medical tests being carried out on the body in contravention of Sharia law, according to the Dhimmi Watch website. If the report is true, then this is another example of a global campaign by fundamentalist Muslims to replace civil law by Sharia – a process that has already taken root in British cities.”

Thompson goes on to quote the report from Spencer’s site: “The antecedent to the Muslim incursion on the Hospital came about on Monday the 17 December last, when a young Muslim male was airlifted to the Liverpool Hospital’s emergency ward by helicopter. The 19-year-old had been in a serious car accident, his car left the road and crashed into a tree … he died of his injuries, and it seems he and his hijab-wearing girl friend had been celebrating the end of Ramadan.”

The Australian blog Austrolabe comments: “If the victim and his ‘hijab-wearing girl friend’ were, as the anonymous author claims, celebrating the end of Ramadan when they had a serious car accident, why did this obviously critically injured young man wait two months before he was admitted into a hospital? In 2007, Eid ul-Fitr (the celebration marking the end of Ramadan) was on the 11th of October. This man was supposedly admitted into Liverpool Hospital on 17th December, 2007. We know that waiting lists at Liverpool Hospital are long, but that long?”

Update:  Thompson has recanted. See Austrolabe, 31 January 2008

Muslims in London: challenge Boris Johnson tonight!

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Boris“Boris Johnson will be answering questions on the BBC London (94.9FM) drive-time show at 5pm this evening. If it follows the same pattern as Ken Livingstone’s last week, the interview will happen at 6pm. The hosts are Eddie Nestor and Kath Melandri.

“Boris Johnson has been challenged many times about his remarks about Africans (piccaninnies etc) and on one occasion told the interviewer he was sick of talking about it. However, nobody has challenged him about his record as editor of the Spectator. In response to the July 2005 bombings and to the riots in Paris and elsewhere later that year, he printed articles only from non-Muslims hostile to Islam: himself, Mark Steyn and Patrick Sookhdeo….

“This man must be challenged! The number for the station is 020 7224 2000; email eddieandkath at bbc.co.uk or text 07786 200 949.”

Yusuf Smith at Indigo Jo Blogs, 30 January 2008