Category Archives: Right wing

Why are we not banning the Qur’an?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Following its third summit in Warsaw on 16-17 May the Council of Europe issued a declaration containing the following statement: “We strongly condemn all forms of intolerance and discrimination, in particular those based on sex, race and religion, including antisemitism and islamophobia.” See here.

Ali Sina is appalled that Islamophobia should be bracketed with antisemitism: “Islam advocates the hatred of the Jews in particular but also of Christians who according to the Quran have corrupted their Scripture and call Jesus the son of God. The Quran’s biggest condemnation is reserved for the people of other religions and of no religion. All these people, including Jews and Christians are considered to be najis and fuels of hellfire. This is hate. This is hate-mongering. There is no other way to put it. Why are we not banning the Quran? Why are we not condemning Islam for blatantly advocating hate?”

FaithFreedom.org, 25 May 2005

Well, you can quite see why he might not be too keen on the suppression of Islamophobia, can’t you?

Robert Spencer, for his part, applauds “the courageous and insightful Ali Sina”.

Dhimmi Watch, 25 May 2005

The Evening Standard, Mad Mel and the Muslim Council of Britain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Flames of HateOn 20 May, during a protest outside the US embassy in London against the desecration of the Qu’ran at Guantánamo, a minority of demonstrators chanted extremist slogans. The Evening Standard reported:

“Led by a man on a megaphone, they chanted, ‘USA watch your back, Osama is coming back’ and ‘Kill, kill USA, kill, kill George Bush’. A small detail of police watched as they shouted: ‘Bomb, bomb New York’ and ‘George Bush, you will pay, with your blood, with your head’.”

Though the Standard mentioned that only “some among the crowd” were responsible for chanting these slogans, the overall impression given was that the demonstration was dominated by such elements. If more moderate voices were present, you’d never have known it from the Standard report.

Evening Standard, 20 May 2005

Predictably Melanie Phillips leaped on this. Basing herself on the Evening Standard report, she claimed that “among the organisers of this revealing hate-fest” was the Muslim Council of Britain.

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 24 May 2005

Yeah right, Melanie. The MCB is well known for its support of Osama bin Laden and its enthusiastic endorsement of 9/11. But why let facts get in the way of an outburst of anti-Muslim prejudice, eh?

For the MCB’s letter to the Evening Standard, see here.

See also Yusuf Smith’s comments, though he mistakenly accepts as good coin the Standard‘s false report that the MCB helped organise the demo.

Indigo Jo Blogs, 25 May 2005

US church sign calls for Qur’an to be flushed

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Koran flushedA sign in front of a Baptist church on one of the most travelled highways in North Carolina stirred controversy over religious tolerance and first-amendment rights this weekend.

The sign outside Danieltown Baptist Church, located at 2361 U.S. 221 south, reads “The Koran needs to be flushed,” and the Rev. Creighton Lovelace, pastor of the church, is not apologising for the display.

“I believe that it is a statement supporting the word of God and that it (the Bible) is above all and that any other religious book that does not teach Christ as savior and lord as the 66 books of the Bible teaches it, is wrong,” said Lovelace. “I knew that whenever we decided to put that sign up that there would be people who wouldn’t agree with it, and there would be some that would, and so we just have to stand up for what’s right.”

Seema Riley, a Muslim, who was born in Pakistan and reared in New York, was one of those upset by the sign. She moved to Rutherford County for the “small town friendly” atmosphere, she said. When she saw the sign on the side of the highway Saturday she felt angered and threatened. “We need a certain degree of tolerance,” said Riley. “That sign doesn’t really reflect what I think this county is about.”

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Italian writer to face trial over anti-Islam book

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Oriana FallaciItalian journalist Oriana Fallaci will face trial for insulting Islam in her latest work, a court in northern Italy ruled Tuesday, May 24.

The court turned down a request by prosecutors to have the case, filed by the president of the Muslim Union of Italy, Adel Smith, thrown out, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP). The magistrates now have until Thursday, May 26, to formally charge the controversial writer, infamous for her provocative style of writing.

Smith said Fallaci’s last book “La forza della ragione,” which translates as The Force of Reason, contains “words that are without doubt offensive toward Islam.” The 74-year-old writer, who lives in New York, wrote that Europe is turning into “an Islamic province, an Islamic colony” and that “to believe that a good Islam and a bad Islam exist goes against all reason.”

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Prayer room at US university sparks clash

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Earlier this year there was a dispute at the University of Flint-Michigan over the use of a prayer room, after one student, named Zea Miller, complained that the room had been monopolised by Muslim students. According to a report in the local paper, there were different views as to the legitimacy of his complaint and the matter was resolved peacefully.

Flint Journal, 23 May 2005

And how does Daniel Pipes cover this dispute? He quotes a Jewish students’ organisation at the university who supported the complaint, but omits to mention that a student Christian group stated “we don’t have a problem sharing that room” and accused Miller of “using that as a basis for his own intolerance”. Pipes reports that “the brave student who initiated the complaint about Islamist aggression, Zea Miller, said he was subsequently stalked, harassed, and insulted”, but ignores the fact that the university investigated Miller’s claims and said they were unfounded.

Pipes’ conclusions? “Islamists are always aggressive” and “Islamists can be beaten back”. And he heads his blog entry “Islamist supremacism in miniature”.

Daniel Pipes’ blog, 23 May 2005

The Qur’an question

Posted on by Bob Pitt

More from Newsweek on its Qur’an desecration story. They spoke to US Defense Department spokesman Lawrence Di Rita:

“According to Di Rita, when the first prisons were built for suspected terrorists at Guantánamo in early 2002, prison guards were instructed to respect the detainees’ religious rituals. The prisoners were given Qur’ans, which they hung from the walls of their cells in cotton surgical masks provided by the prison. Log entries by the guards indicate that in about a dozen cases, the detainees themselves somehow damaged their Qur’ans. In one case a prisoner allegedly ripped up a Qur’an; in another a prisoner tore the cover off his Qur’an. In three cases, detainees tried to stuff pages from their Qur’ans down their toilets, according to the Defense Department’s account of what is in the guards’ reports. (Newsweek was not permitted to see the log items.) The log entries do not indicate why the detainees might have done this, said Di Rita, and prison commanders concluded that certain hard-core prisoners would try to agitate the other detainees by alleging disrespect for Muslim articles of faith.”

So copies of the Qur’an were defaced at Guantánamo – by the prisoners themselves! The next thing you know, we’ll be told that the torture at Bagram airbase was all self-inflicted.

Newsweek, 30 May 2005

Little Green Footballs finds Di Rita’s account entirely convincing.

LGF, 23 May 2005

Islam not the only religion marred by violence

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Christians, Jews, and Buddhists don’t ‘lash out in homocidal rage when their religion is insulted’? Would that it were so. Unfortunately, even a cursory scan of the headlines from the past few years, or even this past week, shows how wrong it is.”

Tom Regan replies to Jeff Jacoby’s article in the Boston Globe portraying Islam as a uniquely violent religion.

Christian Science Monitor, 23 May 2005

Update:  Robert Spencer denounces this egregious example of “Dhimmitude at the Christian Science Monitor”.

Dhimmi Watch, 26 May 2005

‘Closing the book on Koran abuse’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Paul Sperry dismisses the ludicrous stories about desecration of the Qur’an at Guantánamo.

“Despite what rioting Islamic fanatics around the world want to believe, the US did not authorize any interrogators to desecrate the Koran to rattle Muslim detainees at Gitmo – at least not according to a military intelligence memo I’ve obtained. Distributed in early 2003 by an Army JAG officer, the sensitive internal document lists approved techniques for interrogating Taliban and al-Qaida detainees at the for interrogating Taliban and al-Qaida detainees at the US military prison in Guantánamo, Cuba, and none of those techniques include defiling the book Muslims hold sacred. No flushing it down the commode or laying it in the toilet seat; not stomping or spitting on it.”

Front Page Magazine, 23 May 2005

So that’s all right, then. It didn’t appear in the handbook, so it didn’t happen. Presumably the same argument applies to those other ridiculous tales about torture and murder of prisoners at Bagram and Abu Ghraib.

Anti-hijab party wins elections

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In an unhappy outcome for German Muslims in the largest regional state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), the conservative anti-hijab Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won state elections Sunday, May 22, triggering a decision to hold a snap general election across Germany in the autumn.

The CDU’s resounding victory sent shock waves among the Muslim minority in NRW, home to one million of Germany’s 3.4 million Muslims. During the election campaign, Christian Democrat leader in NRW Juergen Ruettgers said he would swiftly ban hijab from state schools.

Ruettgers’s plan to ban hijab within three weeks of his election victory, despite opposition from other parties, was not the only reason for Muslims’ concern. His anti-Muslim drive is shown in many statements he made in the run up to state elections and even before.

Late last month, he told a German news channel that he is a Catholic who believes Christianity presented the best image of man and should therefore be leading all other religions worldwide.

Islam Online, 23 May 2005

Why don’t we Muslims grow up?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Irshad Manji poses the question. Of course, when she says “we Muslims” she’s not talking about herself, just her co-religionists. She blames them for the outbreak of the sometimes violent protests provoked by the Newsweek report about desecration of the Qur’an at Guantánamo.

Times, 20 May 2005

Ramzy Baroud points out that the Times “made a clever choice when it selected a Muslim, Irshad Manji, to address the fierce response to the scandal”. By pinning blame on her fellow Muslims rather than on those responsible for the oppression that gave rise to the protests, Manji provided a useful alibi for imperialism.

Islam Online 22 May 2005

For the Muslim Council of Britain’s response – “It is hard not to conclude that Manji’s main interest is actually in provoking Muslims in order to promote herself and fatten her bank account” – see here.