Category Archives: Scotland

Anti-terror law a threat to free speech

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Muslim extremists should not be allowed to use the force of religious authority to propel their followers into committing acts of violence. Helping organise terrorist cells should also be illegal, even if the person involved doesn’t actually detonate the bomb or procure the explosive. I don’t have any problem with that. But the idea that people can be prosecuted for simply expressing views about terrorism takes us into very disturbing territory. Like the proposed legislation on religious hatred, it constitutes a threat to freedom of speech.

Take George Galloway, who was in his usual robust form last week in New York debating Iraq with the journalist Christopher Hitchens. Two months ago, Galloway gave an interview to Al Jazeera in which he praised Iraqi militants in the most glowing terms. ‘These poor Iraqis,” said the former Labour MP, “ragged people with their sandals, with their Kalashnikovs, with the lightest and most basic of weapons … are writing the names of their cities and towns in the stars. With 145 military operations every day, they have made the country ungovernable by the people who occupy it.’

“Now, any way you look at that it is exalting and celebrating terrorism. Should George Galloway be imprisoned for seven years for making these remarks? Of course not, the very idea is an offence against freedom.”

Ian Macwhirter in the Sunday Herald, 18 September 2005

Not sure the folks at Harry’s Place would agree with that last point.

Scotland on Sunday and Jihad Watch applaud Moderator’s stand

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Moderator“At last, a Christian leader breaks the deafening silence that, for too long, has muzzled those whose duty it was to speak out on behalf of the values of western society. The courageous comments of the Rev David Lacy, Moderator of the Church of Scotland, condemning the Islamist ‘hypocrites’ who treat their hosts as ‘enemies’ while leeching off the National Health Service, will find an echo among many of those people who fill his church’s pews – just as they will no doubt be deplored by voices within the liberal Kirk establishment. We say ‘courageous’ because, in recent decades, a climate has been generated, across all the Christian denominations, enforcing a liberal orthodoxy on church leaders from which they deviate at their peril.”

Editorial in Scotland on Sunday, 21 August 2005

Over at Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer applauds this as a welcome example of “anti-dhimmitude”.

Dhimmi Watch, 21 August 2005

Muslim radicals should quit UK says Moderator

Posted on by Eddie Truman

Scotland’s most senior churchman says extremist Muslim clerics should leave the country, and has branded them “hypocrites” who treat their neighbours as “enemies”. Church of Scotland Moderator, Rev David Lacy, also accuses radical Islamists of speaking out “against us from within” while receiving “heart operations and care on our system”.

Scotland on Sunday, 21 August 2005

See Scottish Socialist Party press release, 21 August 2005

Echoes of another time and a state that lost its tolerance

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“There is a climate of thinly-disguised racialism in the popular press. Every picture of a Muslim cleric or detainee depicts a sneering, leering bearded fanatic – a kind of comic-book villain straight out of John Buchan. There is a striking resemblance between these contemporary depictions of Muslims and the images of Jews circulated by anti-semitic journals in Weimar Germany.”

Iain MacWhirter in the Herald, 17 August 2005

This critique would carry more weight if MacWhirter himself avoided writing scaremongering articles about the threat of “Islamofascism”. (Read Sohaib Saeed’s response here.)

Beaten for being Muslim

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Beaten For Being MuslimMuslims have called for greater police protection following a wave of Islamophobic hate in Scotland after the 7/7 bombings.

In one of the worst incidents, Mohammed Shezad, 31, and another family member were viciously attacked by a gang outside their business in the Dennistoun area of Glasgow.

The attack left Shezad in intensive care fighting for his life. He suffered multiple stab wounds to his chest, arm, face and skull.

The iWitness, 16 August 2005

SSP backs Muslim Association of Britain London demonstration

Posted on by Eddie Truman

SSPThe Scottish Socialist Party Executive last night unanimously agreed to support the call by the Muslim Association of Britain for an all Britain demonstration on 24th September in support of civil liberties, support for the victims of the London bombings, the condemnation of terrorism and in solidarity with the Muslim community in Britain.

Two of the SSP’s MSPs, Colin Fox and Tommy Sheridan will speak at public meetings in Edinburgh and Glasgow in the run up to the demonstration.

Colin Fox, SSP national convenor, today highlighted the headlong assault on civil liberties by the New Labour government since the July 7th London bombings and the massive rise in anti Muslim racism that has swept the UK in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.

Religious hate crimes, mostly against Muslims, have risen six-fold in London since the bombings, figures show. There were 269 religious hate crimes in the three weeks after 7 July, compared with 40 in the same period of 2004.
Racist attacks in Scotland have risen by almost a quarter since the London bombings, according to police figures. There were 438 incidents reported from 7 July to the end of the month. That was up by 79 on last year, with 64 of those directly linked to the bombings.

Colin said today: “The SSP unequivocally denounced the terrorist bombs in London immediately after the attacks and we do so again today. These were acts of barbarism that have no place in society and the fact that amongst those killed were several devout Muslims shows that the bombers were in no way a part of the Muslim community a whole.

“The headlong rush into repressive legislation by the government must be resisted by all progressive forces in society; repression will never defeat terrorism as 30 years of history in Northern Ireland shows. The legislation the government is proposing is absolutely draconian and the SSP will be joining with the Muslim Association of Britain and other organisations in opposing this grave threat to our civil liberties.

“We stand together with the Muslim community in opposing the wave of racism and anti Muslim violence that has swept the country following the bombings in London. The SSP calls on all it’s members and supporters to make their voice heard in opposition to racism and Islamophobia and against the draconian measures being put forward by the New Labour government.”

‘Dire results of theory of multiculturalism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The theory of multiculturalism and its malevolent companion, political correctness, arrived on these shores from North America and was quickly taken up by the liberal, urban political elite. These theories were foisted on the British people without any consultation and the terrible consequences are only appearing now…. A Muslim festival like Eid is given as much importance as Christmas or Easter. There is something very wrong here.

“Minority groups, especially those from the Indian sub-continent, were encouraged not to integrate or mix, but to keep their own customs as though the UK did not exist…. So in many of our cities we have a society within the wider society with a religion, Islam, which often seems to the outsider to be more of a political movement than a way to being at peace with God and one’s neighbour. This society within a society has been encouraged to revel in its alleged victimhood, and, due to its lack of maturity, has never looked at its own faults but blames outsiders for all its ills…..

“The day that Muslims can accept rational criticism without the predictable cries of ‘Islamophobia’ will be the day when they are finally accepted into British society like the descendants of other immigrant groups over the centuries. Fear of western secular society and its achievements is perhaps due to the nature of Islam itself.”

Letter in the Herald, 9 August 2005

‘Islamofascism poses a serious and imminent threat’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“I was phoned by a contact of mine last week. Won’t mention his name. He’s the director of a pressure group, prominent in the media, well-connected and desperately scared – and I really mean scared – that racial war is breaking out in Britain…. he wasn’t talking about white racism; he was talking about Asian racism, British Asian racism…. Hatred of white people (and black people) is, he insisted, rampant among Britain’s Asian community and Islamofascism poses a serious and imminent threat to public order.

“This was not a Tory MP or a member of the BNP, but a rational, well-connected, media-friendly liberal intellectual. And he is not alone. A number of politicians are getting worried too, like the north of England left-wing Labour MP Ann Cryer who spoke out last week about the subjugation of Asian women and the growth of extremism.”

Iain MacWhirter in the Sunday Herald, 7 August 2005

Update:  Read Sohaib Saeed’s response here.

As British Muslims we feel marginalised, criminalised

Posted on by Eddie Truman

“As British Muslims we had been asked whether we were British or Muslim – as if we could not be both. It would have been better for the government to invite their harshest critics. But Blair never listened to the millions who marched against war. He ignored real democracy, opening a Pandora’s Box releasing the politics of hate.”

Glasgow human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar in a letter to The Herald.

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