Category Archives: Right wing

Preston: work starts on new mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Masjid-e-SalaamWork is to start on controversial plans to build a multi-million pound mosque in a Preston conservation area.

Trustees at the Masjid-e-Salaam, on Watling Street Road, Fulwood, have also applied for permission to build a temporary mosque for worshippers just yards away. They want to build on land at Sharoe Green Lane, earmarked for a second large mosque, while building work gets underway in the Fulwood conservation area.

The mosque secured planning permission after a four-year battle which saw it accepted and then thrown out, before winning an appeal against the city council’s rejection.

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Tariq Ramadan’s visit to Canada is part of Muslim Brotherhood plot to destroy West, says Tarek Fatah

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Proud Muslims ConventionTariq Ramadan will be speaking at the Proud Muslims Convention in Edmonton this weekend.

Tarek Fatah – whose own organisation, the so-called Muslim Canadian Congress, backed the hysterical “Ground Zero mosque” protests and calls for a ban on the veil – accuses Professor Ramadan of “using our Labour Day weekend to propagate the Muslim Brotherhood credo of ‘destroying the West from within’.”

Toronto Sun, 28 August 2012

Planning authority rejects Islamophobic campaign, gives go ahead to Canberra mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Gungahlin mosque

Canberra’s Muslim community has described planning approval for the territory’s second mosque as a “victory of goodwill”.

The ACT Planning and Land Authority yesterday approved Canberra Muslim Community Inc’s application to build a 500-capacity mosque on The Valley Avenue in Gungahlin.

In their assessment, ACT planners found surrounding roads could cope with traffic generated by the mosque and that the proposed 43 on-site parking spaces were sufficient. Planners also said several objections to the mosque on religious and cultural grounds were found to be “irrelevant” and “unsubstantiated”.

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Michele Bachmann’s Muslim Brotherhood claims condemned by Catholic Bishops, 41 other groups

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Forty-two religious and secular organizations united on Thursday in condemning conservative lawmakers’ allegations that Muslim-American individuals connected to the U.S. government may be trying to spread the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood.

They directed their criticisms at Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Thomas Rooney (R-Fla.) and Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.), who recently wrote to various government agencies and asked them to investigate the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood. In their letters, the lawmakers targeted top State Department official Huma Abedin and several advisers to the Department of Homeland Security.

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Self-proclaimed former CIA ‘double agent’ inside Revolutionary Guards claims persecution by CAIR

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Richard Bartholomew examines the case of Reza Kahlili, who claims he is being persecuted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations because he “renounced Islam and chose Christ”.

Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, 24 July 2012

See also “CAIR asks Pentagon to drop another anti-Islam trainer”, CAIR press release, 23 July 2012

Harry’s Place and its allies inspire far-right violence again

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamia Village

The York newspaper The Press reported yesterday that the “Islamia Village” event that was due to be held near the city at Thorpe Underwood Estate over the bank holiday weekend had been called off at the last minute after the estate’s Trustees cancelled the booking.

This decision followed an extended campaign against Islamia Village, based on the claim that it would be hosting extremist preachers. The Islamophobic blog Harry’s Place, which had initiated the campaign, immediately posted a piece yesterday afternoon claiming victory for itself and its supporters.

The obvious question that arises is – why was Islamia Village called off so late in the day? After all, Harry’s Place took up the issue well over a month ago, back on 13 July, when it crossposted a piece from the Islamic Far-Right in Britain blog condemning the event. What changed over the past few days?

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Egypt’s ‘crucifixion’ hoax becomes an instant internet myth

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jonathan Kay debunks the absurd story – promoted by Daniel Pipes’ and David Horowitz’s colleague Raymond Ibrahim on the Algemeiner website, and subsequently taken up by WorldNetDailyand others – that the Muslim Brotherhood nailed Christians to crosses and left them to die in front of the Egyptian presidential place. He asks:

Why do so many people believe this made up story? For the same reason that people believe all urban legends – because they play to some deeply held narrative that resides in our deepest fears. In this case, the narrative is that the Arab Spring is part of an orchestrated Islamist plot to destroy Western civilization (beginning with Israel). Believers in this narrative (who are especially numerous in America’s right-wing Evangelical circles) are so hungry for news items that purport to offer confirmation that they ignore the credibility of the messengers. If they had checked out the credibility of WorldNetDaily, for instance, they would have found that the site’s past “scoops” have included the claim that drinking soy milk makes you gay, and that Barack Obama himself is gay (presumably from aforesaid soy milk).

National Post, 22 August 2012

Poll: GOP really dislikes Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Arab American InstituteAnyone wondering why Rep. Michele Bachmann would launch a witch hunt against Muslims or why the Republican Party would add a plank to its platform opposing Shariah law need look no further than a new poll conducted by the Arab American Institute.

The poll, released today, asked Americans for their views on various religious groups, as well as on Arabs and Arab-Americans. It also asked respondents how confident they would be that a Muslim or Arab-American holding a position of influence in government could do their job without letting “ethnic loyalty … influence their decision-making.”

The results are split sharply along partisan lines. Overall, Republican voters hold strongly negative views of Muslims, with 57 percent saying they view them unfavorably and just 26 saying they view them favorably – more than double. The numbers are similar for Arabs, whom Republican respondents view negatively by a slightly smaller margin of 26 percent, 53 to 27 percent. When asked about “Muslim Americans” and “Arab Americans,” the numbers improved slightly, with a 12 and 15 percent net unfavorable rating, respectively.

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