Category Archives: Scotland

Increased mosque attendance is evidence of terrorist associations say police

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A hard core of 20 Islamic extremists with links to foreign terror groups is operating north of the Border and poses a “significant” risk to public safety, Scotland on Sunday can reveal. Senior intelligence insiders have revealed the suspects – many of them born and brought up in Scotland – pose a similar threat to that of Mohammed Atif Siddique, the Scottish Asian who was last week given an eight-year prison sentence for terrorist offences.

Scotland on Sunday can also reveal that concern at the terror threat is now so great that up to 1,000 Scottish Asians will be placed under surveillance in coming months because they associate with known radicals. Special Branch, backed by MI5 officers, will carry out checks on the individuals looking for evidence of radicalisation such as changes in clothing and increased mosque attendance.

Scotland on Sunday, 28 October 2007

Racial and religious attacks up 12 per cent

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Racially and religiously motivated attacks have risen 12% in the past year, according to government figures to be released this week.

The Ministry of Justice statistics show there were 41,000 racially or religiously aggravated offences in 2005-06, the latest year for which figures are available. Experts are likely to link the increase to fears related to terrorism and immigration.

Following the attack on Glasgow airport in June, racist incidents across Scotland have soared, with sharp rises in violent attacks, abuse and harassment in the four weeks after the car bombing. The worst cases included attempts to blow up an Asian shop and a mosque.

The statistics showed the proportion of Asians killed by “sharp instruments” had risen from 4.5% to 8.5%. There was a surge around the time of 9/11, with such killings doubling to 30 between April 2001 and March 2002.

The rise in Islamophobia in Britain after 9/11 was charted in a report by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, which found increases in assault, verbal abuse, damage to property and Muslim women being spat at.

Times, 28 October 2007

Amis wasn’t advocating oppression of Muslims, he was merely adumbrating

Posted on by Bob Pitt

martin amisIn a letter in today’s Guardian Martin Amis expresses indignation that Terry Eagleton should take exception to his remarks about Muslims.

(Just to remind you what these were: “There’s a definite urge – don’t you have it? – to say, ‘The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order’. What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation – further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan … Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children.”)

As Mart explains: “I was not ‘advocating’ anything. I was conversationally describing an urge….” And in a letter to Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in the Independent he offers a similar defence against Eagleton’s criticisms: “The anti-Muslim measures he says I ‘advocated’ I merely adumbrated….”

So that’s all right then.

For Osama Saeed’s comments, see Rolled Up Trousers, 12 October 2007

Muslims ‘can never be British in spirit’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Ronnie Liveston is right when he says ‘The mindset, religion and culture of Muslims are incompatible with the indigenous Christian Briton and will ever be thus’ (Letters, 24 September). While Muslim immigrants may adopt British nationality, they do not have a shared identity with us and can never be British in spirit.

“It is time that we began to understand that Islam is not just another religion; it is an all-encompassing nation state in its own right, with its own strict culture, political system and laws from which no Muslim can deviate. With Mosques and madrassas already proliferating all over Britain, Muslims are now planning to build the biggest Mosque in Europe to overshadow the new Olympic stadium in London. Is this an act of religious devotion or a political statement?”

Letter in The Scotsman, 28 September 2007

Muslims – ‘go back where you came from’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Aamer Anwar accuses a Scottish court of suppressing free speech (your report, 18 September). The mindset, religion and culture of Muslims are incompatible with the indigenous Christian Briton and it will ever be thus. Scottish spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain Osama Saeed’s has a point: the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are illegal. I respectfully suggest that he and his fellow Muslims show their displeasure by returning to the countries of their roots, and take it from there.”

Letter in The Scotsman, 24 September 2007

‘Our son is no terrorist, just a young Muslim’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The family of Mohammed Atif Siddique, the Scottish student convicted this week of al-Qaeda terrorist offences, have come together to tell of their heartache and their anger at the way he has been treated.

They described how their son adopted a stricter Islamic way of life, a change that fractured their close relationship and ultimately led to his conviction. But they insisted Atif – who faces at least ten years in prison – was not a terrorist and that his actions were similar to those of thousands of ordinary young Muslims seeking answers about al-Qaeda and the “war on terror”.

In a wide-ranging interview, the family claimed “thousands” of other people ran the risk of falling foul of the same offences for which Atif was convicted. They said he had been criminalised for carrying out research on al-Qaeda.

Atif was the first person in Scotland to be convicted under controversial new terror laws that have raised questions about the balance between civil liberties and protecting the public.

Speaking exclusively to The Scotsman, Mohammed Siddique, the father of the 21-year-old, said: “After what’s happened to my son, stop your children going on the internet in case they end up in jail. The sad thing is, why shouldn’t our young people be able to find out what is happening in Iraq or Afghanistan? Does it mean every child that goes on to a website is considered to be a terrorist? Thousands of young people in the Muslim community will have accessed the same material.”

Scotsman, 22 September 2007

‘A British company welcomes its future overlords’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bakery giants Greggs have installed a Muslims-only toilet at their new Scottish headquarters – despite the fact that no Muslims work there. Workers at the state-of-the-art factory were shocked when they were given a tour of the building and told a cubicle had been fitted for the use of Muslim employees.

But staff at the new £15million plant labelled the decision “political correctness gone mad”. One said: “We were being given a guided tour of the new factory before moving there when they told us that they had a toilet for use only by Muslims. I couldn’t believe, everybody was stunned because we don’t know of any Muslims who are working here. I don’t think anybody is really angry about it, but there just doesn’t seem to be any need for it. This sort of things is just political correctness gone mad.”

Another worker said: “The toilet just looks like a ceramic hole in the ground. I don’t think it will be getting much use and I don’t see why we couldn’t all just use the same toilet anyway. This sort of thing creates divisions between the workers.”

Daily Express, 21 September 2007

Of course, this sort of report is seized on by the far Right to back up their paranoid racist fantasies about the “Islamisation” of the UK.

See BNP Regional Voices, 21 September 2007 and Stormfront, 20 September 2007

And right-wing Australian blogger Tim Blair reports the story under the headline “A British company welcomes its future overlords“.

Apologists for terrorists condemn ‘apologists for terrorists’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islam a threat to us all“The politically correct lobby has already started to swing into action feeding the public the same tired old lines about tolerant Islam, but it seems that some sections of the Muslim community are more interested in denying there is a problem and even worse blaming others for it. BNP Scotland say public safety should come first and neither terrorism nor apologists for terrorists should not [sic] be tolerated in civilised Western society.”

Thus the BNP’s “crime correspondent” (well, given the BNP leaders’ long list of criminal convictions, they’d know all about that wouldn’t they?) at BNP Regional voices, 18 September 2007

The “apologists for terrorists”, according to the BNP, include Mohammed Atif Siddique’s father and lawyer, and Osama Saeed of the Muslim Association of Britain (for Osama’s actual views, see here and here).

Of course, if the BNP want to find actual apologists for terrorists they can find them rather closer to home.

‘Scottish kids forced to visit mosques’, fascists complain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Politically correct brainwashing sank to a new low today with the unbelievable announcement today that Scottish children in Clackmannanshire schools will be sent to local mosques to learn about tolerance in the wake of the conviction of Alva based Islamic terrorist Mohammed Siddique.

“Yes, you read that correctly. A Muslim man is convicted on terrorism charges and Clackmannanshire Council’s Education Department – Siddique used to attend Alva Academy – and Ochil and South Perthshire Labour MP Gordon Banks plan to send non-Muslim kids to mosques to ‘increase their understanding of other religions’.

“Surely in wake of the events, if such a hair-brained scheme is to be undertaken, then it is young Muslim kids who should be invited to churches and synagogues to teach them about being tolerant of other religions, so that we do not see any more Mohammed Saddique’s in court charged with spreading religious hatred and terrorism.”

BNP Regional Voices, 19 September 2007

See also BBC News, 18 September 2007