Category Archives: State Oppression

Headscarves: the wrong battle

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Throughout Europe, over the past decade, there has been a loud – and at times openly xenophobic – debate about whether a Muslim woman should be allowed to wear a headscarf while on duty in a government job. Various types of bans have been enacted in several countries, including France, Germany, and Turkey.

Some feminists seek these bans in the name of helping Muslim women, whom they often see as uniformly oppressed. Anti-immigration politicians seek these policies because they see people who refuse to “fit in” as a threat to western society. But these arguments are detrimental both to women’s rights and to peaceful integration, and the women most likely to be affected are rarely consulted.

“I suddenly felt like a stranger in Germany,” one elementary school teacher said, describing her reaction to a ban in her state. “I will never forget that.”

She was one of many people interviewed by Human Rights Watch in Germany, where 8 of 16 federal states have these bans for teachers (in two states the ban also covers other civil servants). Some of these laws are openly discriminatory, banning religious symbols, but excluding symbols of “Christian heritage.” Other German bans appear to be neutral, but almost exclusively affect Muslim women.

Gauri van Gulik at Comment is Free, 14 March 2009

Ibrahim Moussawi to be admitted to UK – a victory for common sense over Hazel Blears

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The government is poised to allow Ibrahim Moussawi, media relations officer of Hizbollah, into the UK – despite the opposition of the cabinet minister responsible for social cohesion.

The JC has learned that the Communities Secretary, Hazel Blears, is fighting a lone battle within Whitehall to prevent Mr Moussawi’s admission to speak at a conference at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies on March 23.

No other Cabinet minister has, the JC understands, sided with Ms Blears, and the Hizbollah propagandist is to be granted a visa.

Jewish Chronicle, 12 March 2009

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UK ready for talks with Hezbollah

Posted on by Bob Pitt

HezbollahBritain overturned its policy on a key Middle East issue yesterday by agreeing to talk to Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia movement which fights Israel and is banned as a terrorist organisation by the US.

Bill Rammell, the Foreign Office minister, told MPs the government would authorise “carefully selected” contacts with the political wing of Hezbollah, which is represented in the Lebanese parliament. Other EU countries, including France, already deal with the group.

The move, urged privately by British diplomats for some time, may be partially intended to encourage the US to follow suit as Barack Obama’s administration pursues a fresh approach of engagement with parties shunned by George Bush.

“We have reconsidered our position on no contact with Hezbollah,” the Foreign Office said, “in light of more positive recent political developments in Lebanon, including the formation of the national unity government in which Hezbollah are participating. We are exploring certain contacts at an official level with Hezbollah’s political wing, including MPs.”

Guardian, 5 March 2009

Presumably no ban on Ibrahim Moussawi, then – Pauline Neville-Jones won’t be happy.

Update:  Then again, the Jewish Chronicle claims that Jacqui Smith hasn’t yet made up her mind. Though David Toube ofHarry’s Place thinks it’s a done deal.

Civil servants pay £2,000 each (of your cash) to hear Islamic extremist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ibrahim Moussawi“Government officials will spend thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money to attend a lecture by an Islamic extremist whom Jacqui Smith is under pressure to ban from Britain.

“Yesterday, the Mail revealed how the Home Secretary was facing demands to deny a visa to Ibrahim Moussawi – a spokesman for the Lebanese terrorist organisation Hezbollah – to come to speak at a British university. Now it has emerged that the lectures Moussawi plans to deliver are targeted at Whitehall officials who deal in foreign affairs and extremism. They will each spend up to £1,890 of taxpayers’ cash attending the Political Islam event at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) next month.

“Moussawi – who is among the key speakers at the week-long course – is scheduled to address two sessions on March 25 and is expected to be paid for the talks. Another speaker at the event is the UK-based extremist Dr Kamal Helbawy, a former spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood – a group said to have inspired Al Qaeda [sic].

“Last night, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, a researcher for the Centre for Social Cohesion, a respected think-tank, said: ‘In their willingness to pay extremists like Dr Helbawy and Dr el-Moussawi, SOAS are helping these men present themselves as mainstream figures. ‘It is particularly worrying that the target audience includes Government officials and the police, who may find themselves paying for advice on tackling terrorism from its very exponents’.”

Daily Mail, 26 February 2009

And Daily Mail home affairs editor James Slack writes: “So here comes the acid test: is Jacqui Smith, as she proclaims, an enemy of extremism in all its forms, or a cowardly hypocrite? In October, the Home Secretary announced ‘tough new measures’ to deny entry to Britain to anybody ‘engaged in fostering, encouraging or spreading extremism and hatred.’ In recent weeks she has put them to use by banning a Dutch MP with hugely controversial views on Islam, and a notorious anti-gay US preacher. But will she be prepared to apply the same new standards to Islamic extremists who preach a hatred of Jews?”

Update:  Entirely predictably, if a trifle belatedly, the “left-wing” blog Harry’s Place – which is increasingly indistinguishable from the Daily Mail – joins in the witch-hunt.

Germany: headscarf bans violate rights

Posted on by Bob Pitt

HRW+headscarf+reportGerman state bans on religious symbols and clothing for teachers and other civil servants discriminate against Muslim women who wear the headscarf, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 67-page report, “Discrimination in the Name of Neutrality: Headscarf Bans for Teachers and Civil Servants in Germany,” is based on extensive research over an eight-month period. It analyzes the human rights implications of the bans and their effect on the lives of Muslim women teachers, including those who have been employed for many years. It says that the bans have caused some women to give up their careers or to leave Germany, where they have lived all their lives.

“These laws in Germany clearly target the headscarf, forcing women who wear it to choose between their jobs and their religious beliefs,” said Haleh Chahrokh, researcher in the Europe and Central Asia division at Human Rights Watch. “They discriminate on the grounds of both gender and religion and violate these women’s human rights.”

HRW news release, 26 February 2009

Download report here.

Tories witch-hunt Ibrahim Moussawi (again)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ibrahim MoussawiJacqui Smith was tonight warned against exercising “double standards” as an Islamic extremist prepared to travel to the UK. Ibrahim Moussawi, a known hardliner with links to Hezbollah, has been invited to speak at a London university.

Earlier this month, she banned the far-Right Dutch MP Geert Wilders from coming to Britain to show his film about Islam as it would threaten “community harmony”. But the Conservatives warned that to ban those who threaten community harmony, while letting in those who glorify terrorism or are part of terrorist groups, would send out the “wrong message”. There must be “no double standards on extremists”, warned Tory security spokesman Baroness Neville-Jones.

Moussawi, who has already made at least two trips to the UK, has been invited to speak on political Islam at the School of Oriental and African Studies next month.

Yesterday, in a letter to Miss Smith, Baroness Neville-Jones said: “You will be aware that Mr Moussawi has links to Hezbollah, which is a proscribed terrorist organisation in many countries. Mr Moussawi has also, over the years, made a number of remarks that are extremist, anti-Semitic and inflammatory.

“In October last year you introduced what you described as ‘tough new measures’ to deny entry to extremists. These measures included ‘creating a presumption in favour of exclusion in respect of all those who have engaged in fostering, encouraging or spreading extremism and hatred’. Mr Moussawi has so engaged. In line with your ‘tough new measures’, I trust that if Mr Moussawi applies for entry, you will use your powers to exclude him.”

Daily Mail, 24 February 2009

It appears to have escaped Neville-Jones’ attention that Wilders intended to enter the UK with the explicit aim of inciting hatred against the Muslim community.

Is there any suggestion that Ibrahim Moussawi will be inciting hatred against the Jewish community on his proposed visit to the UK? No. Is Neville-Jones able to demonstrate that he has incited hatred on previous visits to the UK? Again, no. So the charge of double standards is entirely baseless.

The last time the Tories witch-hunted Ibrahim Moussawi was when he visited London to address a World Against War rally in February 2008. Neville-Jones told the Home Office: “it is vital that the Government always makes the security of the UK its top priority. That means stopping those who are likely to foment extremism or promote violence from coming here to speak.”

Here is the speech Ibrahim Moussawi gave at that rally. Perhaps Neville-Jones can direct us to the sections of the speech that promote violence and extremism?

Ban this preacher of hate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Over at Harry’s Place, under the headline “Qadhi Must NOT Enter the United Kingdom“, David Toube calls on home secretary Jacqui Smith to ban the Houston-born Islamic teacher Sheikh Yasir Qadhi from Britain.

Smith has already banned Dutch far-right racist Geert Wilders who wanted to come here and incite hatred against Muslims, and homophobic US pastor Fred Phelps whose aim was to incite hatred against the gay community. According to Toube, Yasir Qadhi too is visiting the UK to incite hatred and he should be excluded along with Wilders and Phelps, on the basis that they are all “active and proselytising bigots”.

What extremist activities will Yasir Qadhi be engaging in here in the UK, I hear you ask – where will he be delivering his hate-filled message?

Well, for example, on Thursday he will be at the London Muslim Centre where he is the guest speaker at a fundraising dinner for The Citizens Foundation, a charity committed to “delivering quality education to the poorest in urban slums and rural areas of Pakistan”. The Citizens Foundation “believes in gender equality and has a girl students percentage of 50%”, and its education program is “open to all persons and communities, regardless of their race, color, creed, religion or location”.

Scary, huh? Let’s just hope Jacqui Smith takes Toube’s advice and bans this preacher of hate.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that Yasir Qadhi has visited our country to spread his extremist ideology. Harry’s Place denounced him last November when he was a featured speaker at the Global Peace and Unity event in London. The speech Yasir Qadhi gave there is available on YouTube. Watch this video and ask yourself: can there be the slightest excuse for the home secretary allowing this man into the country?

Labour’s cricket test for British Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Inayat B“So, almost 20 years after Norman Tebbit devised his famous cricket test for immigrants to the UK, we learn that the Labour government is seriously discussing how to set up its own modern version for British Muslims….

“Asim Siddiqui observed yesterday on Cif that the government’s ‘tests’ were nonsensical and if pursued would destroy the already precious little credibility that its Preventing Violent Extremism (soon to be simply Preventing Extremism) agenda has. I would go even further and say that if these foolish proposals are adopted by our politicians then it will result in the government being viewed by the majority of UK Muslims as trying to actively undermine Islam and will do fatal damage to the hard work that has gone on in the last few years to try and build trust between Muslim communities and the police….

“The proposals are essentially foolish because they utterly fail to distinguish between what a person may believe and how that same person actually acts. It is perfectly possible for people to believe in the desirability of a caliphate in Muslim countries, the superiority of sharia law and to regard the practice of homosexuality as a sin, but as long as they are prepared to abide by UK law while they reside here and do not discriminate against gays, why on earth should the government classify them as extremists?”

Inayat Bunglawala at Comment is Free, 18 February 2009

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Anti-terror code ‘would alienate most Muslims’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The government is considering plans that would lead to thousands more British Muslims being branded as extremists, the Guardian has learned. The proposals are in a counterterrorism strategy which ministers and security officials are drawing up that is due to be unveiled next month.

According to a draft of the strategy, Contest 2 as it is known in Whitehall, people would be considered as extremists if:

  • They advocate a caliphate, a pan-Islamic state encompassing many countries.
  • They promote Sharia law.
  • They believe in jihad, or armed resistance, anywhere in the world. This would include armed resistance by Palestinians against the Israeli military.
  • They argue that Islam bans homosexuality and that it is a sin against Allah.
  • They fail to condemn the killing of British soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Inayat Bunglawala, a former spokesman for the Muslim Council of Great Britain, said such plans would affect many British Muslims. Bunglawala, who now runs Engage, which tries to get Muslims to participate in politics and civic society, said: “That would alienate the majority of the British Muslim public. It would be counterproductive and class most Muslims as extremists.”

Guardian, 16 February 2009

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Who is responsible for the attack on civil liberties?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In response to criticism of the government’s record on civil liberties by the former head of MI5, Stella Remington, Sunny Hundal writes:

“The fact that this government has exploited terrorism fears to curtail our civil liberties is… well, obvious. But it’s no use just blaming the government, there’s a whole industry of newspaper columnists, think-tanks, writers, bloggers and general wingnuts who have also contributed to this state of affairs because of their obsession with finding Islamists Under The Bed. Who do you think is also to blame? I’ll start with the easy ones: Melanie Phillips and Douglas Murray.”

Liberal Conspiracy, 17 February 2009