Category Archives: State Oppression

Scottish ‘Islamist terrorist’ wins appeal fight

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Scotland’s first Islamist terrorist today won the right to argue he did not get a fair trial. Mohammed Atif Siddique, 22, was jailed for eight years last October for a string of terror offences. He has always maintained his innocence.”

Herald, 23 July 2008

Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but if Mohammed Atif Siddique is indeed innocent – and Islamophobia Watch has argued strongly that he is – then he’d hardly be “Scotland’s first Islamist terrorist”, would he? Or has the Herald decided the result of the appeal in advance?

Muslims take police to task over stop-and-search procedures

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Scottish Islamic FoundationScottish Muslims will today quiz police about “growing disquiet” over the use of anti-terrorist stop-and-search procedures in Scotland.

The Scottish-Islamic Foundation has set up a Question Time forum with the police to allow members of the Muslim community to express their feelings about heavy-handed questioning a year after stop- and-search powers were introduced across the UK in the wake of the Glasgow Airport car bomb attack.

There is concern that in some cases “suspects” are visited at home and questioned about internet sites they have viewed, fuelling fears that they are under surveillance. The foundation says that stop-and-search procedures should be strictly intelligence-led.

Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, at the Home Secretary’s discretion, allows police to stop and search any individual acting suspiciously.

Although Scottish police have been using the power sparingly, it is claimed the approach has not been adopted by the London-controlled British Transport Police.

Herald, 22 July 2008

See also BBC News, 22 July 2008

 

Update: Over at the laughably misnamed Centre for Social Cohesion, Douglas Murray writes:

“On the BBC’s website yesterday, headlined ‘Muslim concern at stop and search‘ the site leads with the news that: ‘Muslims in Scotland have expressed unease about the use of “stop and search” procedures at Glasgow Airport.’ In any season this is a story likely to spread irritation among the British public….

“But on reading through it emerges that the ‘Muslims’ expressing ‘unease’ at being searched at Glasgow airport are actually the Scottish Islamic Foundation (SIF). Readers might remember that this group was exposed last month, prior to its launch, as a Muslim Brotherhood-linked organisation….

“The iniquity of this is that the founders of the SIF can truthfully claim to represent almost nobody. But Salmond has been (to put it at its kindest) duped, public money has come rolling in, and next thing the BBC is willing to portray such an unrepresentative group as representative of ‘Muslims’ in Scotland.”

And in the comments section a supporter of Murray states: “Absolutely shocking. All part of the stealth jihad of course. The BBC has been infiltrated by muslim extremists right up to the highest level.”

Murray’s piece is crossposted at ConservativeHome.

The only ‘proper’ Muslim is a non-political one

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The government has stated that it is doing its best to tackle Islamists who are the source of extremism. According to the government, Islamists are all without exception terribly violent and bloodthirsty…. The only good Islamist is an ex-Islamist…. But the problem is that the term ‘Islamism’ has now been stretched to mean any Muslim who is political.

“Blears insinuates that Muslims who are not politically active are the preferred kind of Muslim. She said in a speech to the Policy Exchange: ‘The fact remains that most British Muslims, like the wider community, are not politically active, do not sit on committees, and do not attend seminars and meetings. They are working hard, bringing up families, planning their holidays, and going about their business.’ …

“The recent refusal of ministers to attend IslamExpo is a case in point. Irrespective of their opinion of the organisers, it was a chance to engage with forty thousand Muslims who want to create and settle into a comfortable peaceful British Islam. It smacks of an increasing confusion on the part of the government who are now not only failing to engage with Muslims, but are actively disengaging with those Muslims who are working to a positive peaceful agenda….

“Blears said that ‘You can’t win political arguments with the leaders of groups… who believe in the destruction of the very democratic process of debate and deliberation’. By excluding the Muslim opinions that the government doesn’t want to engage with through the devious method of saying that being a political Muslim is unpalatable, it is the government itself who is destroying the democratic process of debate.”

Spirit21, 22 July 2008

Tories repeat call for ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir

Posted on by Bob Pitt

HizbRadical Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir has launched a campaign to stop young Muslims being corrupted by Western “liberal values”. The organisation, which Tony Blair wanted to ban in Britain, has planned a summer PR campaign against Western “attacks” on the religion. The move comes as Hizb ut-Tahrir’s British arm slammed Government plans to combat Islamic extremism and to take on the preachers of hate. The group claims the Government is trying to build a compliant British Islam, and complains no other religion is subjected to such state interference.

Its campaign, focusing on such areas as Oldham, Manchester, Bradford and Leeds, carries the motto “Don’t Sit And Take It”. It claims attacks by politicians and media in the West are part of a campaign to present Islam as a backward, medieval religion. In Britain, it cites the furore caused by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, when he suggested that introducing elements of Sharia law in Britain was unavoidable. The campaign includes football tournaments, graffiti and rap contests, youth conferences and seminars. A debate tonight in Coventry asks how Muslims should respond to calls to ban the Koran.

Shadow security minister Baroness Neville-Jones said: “Three years ago the Government vowed to ban this group and have simply failed to do so, speaking volumes about their approach to countering radicalisation. It is vital we stand up to attacks like these on our values and the British way of life.”

Sunday Express, 20 July 2008

UK MPs urge probe into Muslims torture

Posted on by Bob Pitt

British lawmakers called on Sunday, July 20, for a thorough investigation into charges that British intelligence turned British Muslim citizens to Pakistan for torture.

“We conclude that it is extremely important that the veracity of allegations that the Government has ‘outsourced’ interrogation techniques involving the torture of British nationals by Pakistani authorities should be investigated,” the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said in its annual human rights report.The call followed charges that British Muslims have been turned over to the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) so they can be tortured during interrogation.

A number of British Muslims complained that they were arrested and tortured with the full knowledge of British diplomats and intelligence officers.

In one of the cases, a medical student was abducted at gunpoint in August 2005 and held for two months in the offices of Pakistan’s intelligence bureau in Karachi. He says he was tortured by Pakistani agents and later questioned over the 7/7 2005 attacks on the London transport network. Five other men have made similar allegations.

The parliamentary report said it is “extremely important” the claims of the so-called “outsourcing” of torture are cleared up.”We also recommend that the Government should further tell us whether it was aware of all six individuals at the time of their detention, and whether intelligence or evidence gained by the Pakistani authorities in its interrogation of any of these men led in whole, or in part, to further investigations or charges in the UK.”

Islam Online, 20 July 2008

See also Guardian, 21 July 2008

Canadian PM accused of double standards over Omar Khadr

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Omar KhadrThe leader of one of Canada’s largest Islamic groups accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday of being indifferent to Omar Khadr’s plight because he’s “brown-skinned” and a Muslim.

In an opinion piece released to the media, Mohamed Elmasry, national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, wrote that Harper is “callously” unconcerned about the 21-year-old Khadr, who faces trial before a U.S. military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in October.

“In this case, Mr. Harper is playing politics because of the backdrop of Islamophobia in this country,” Elmasry said. “This is where a leader comes in, to say this is really wrong and I have to correct that wrong by bringing this person [back to Canada] even if I lose some political points with Islamophobes.”

Khadr’s lawyers and others want Ottawa to repatriate Khadr – who was 15 in 2002 when he was accused of killing a U.S. army medic in Afghanistan – from the U.S. detention centre.

The prime minister repeated his vow to leave the case in U.S. hands following the release of a videotape showing a Canadian official interrogating a crying and despondent Khadr at Guantanamo Bay in 2004. The official was told the U.S. military had deprived the then 17-year-old of sleep for weeks to make him “more amenable and willing to talk,” according to a recently released internal report from the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Elmasry contrasted Khadr’s case with that of dual Canadian-British citizen William Sampson, who was freed from a death sentence in Saudi Arabia in 2003. Prior to his release, Ottawa had said it had made pleas on Sampson’s behalf to the highest levels of the Saudi government.

“Why is Stephen Harper so callously indifferent to Omar Khadr’s case?” Elmasry wrote. “It’s painfully obvious: William Sampson is a white westerner while his fellow Canadian citizen, Omar Khadr, is brown-skinned and a Muslim.”

CBC News, 21 July 2008

A veil closes France’s door to citizenship

Posted on by Bob Pitt

When Faiza Silmi applied for French citizenship, she worried that her French was not quite good enough or that her Moroccan upbringing would pose a problem.

“I would never have imagined that they would turn me down because of what I choose to wear,” Ms. Silmi said, her hazel eyes looking out of the narrow slit in her niqab, an Islamic facial veil that is among three flowing layers of turquoise, blue and black that cover her body from head to toe.

But last month, France’s highest administrative court upheld a decision to deny citizenship to Ms. Silmi, 32, on the ground that her “radical” practice of Islam was incompatible with French values like equality of the sexes.

In an interview at her home in a public housing complex southwest of Paris, the first she has given since her citizenship was denied, Ms. Silmi told of her shock and embarrassment when she found herself unexpectedly in the public eye. Since July 12, when Le Monde first reported the court decision, her story has been endlessly dissected on newspaper front pages and in late-night television talk shows.

“They say I am under my husband’s command and that I am a recluse,” Ms. Silmi said during an hourlong conversation in her apartment in La Verrière, a small town 30 minutes by train from Paris. At home, when no men are present, she lifts her facial veil and exposes a smiling, heart-shaped face.

“They say I wear the niqab because my husband told me so,” she said. “I want to tell them: It is my choice. I take care of my children, and I leave the house when I please. I have my own car. I do the shopping on my own. Yes, I am a practicing Muslim, I am orthodox. But is that not my right?”

The Silmis say they live by a literalist interpretation of the Koran. They do not like the term Salafism, although they say literally it means following the way of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions.

“But today ‘Salafist’ has come to mean political Islam; people who don’t like the government and who approve of violence call themselves Salafists,” said her husband, a soft-spoken man who bears two physical signs of devotion in Islam: a beard and a light bruising on his forehead caused by bows in prayer. “We have nothing to do with them.”

Ms. Silmi’s husband, a former bus driver who says he is finding it hard to get work because of his beard, dreams of moving his family to Morocco or Saudi Arabia. “We don’t feel welcome here,” he said. “I am French, but I can’t really say that I am proud of it right now.”

New York Times, 19 July 2008

Is the burqa compatible with French nationality? Apparently not

Posted on by Bob Pitt

La burqa est-elle incompatible avec la nationalité française? Une Marocaine de 32 ans, mariée à un Français et mère de trois enfants nés en France, vient de se voir refuser la nationalité au motif qu’elle “a adopté, au nom d’une pratique radicale de sa religion, un comportement en société incompatible avec les valeurs essentielles de la communauté française, et notamment le principe d’égalité des sexes”.

Pour la première fois en France, le Conseil d’Etat, dans un arrêt du 27 juin, a pris en compte le niveau de pratique religieuse pour se prononcer sur la capacité d’assimilation d’une personne étrangère.

“Cette affaire montre que le droit est de plus en plus amené à se prononcer sur les conflits de valeurs que pose l’islam à la société”, constate Didier Leschi, ancien chef du bureau des cultes au ministère de l’intérieur, spécialiste de la laïcité.

Le Monde, 11 July 2008

Via Islam in Europe

Update:  See also the Guardian, 12 July 2008 and the Independent, 12 July 2008

And the report has been taken up at the”left-wing” neocon blog Harry’s Place, where it has attracted the usual selection of thoughtful, humane comments. For example:

“It is the perogative of any Government to deny citizenship to immigrants if they feel they will not contribute to society.”

“Bravo France! Now you should put the icing on the cake and deport the entire family.”

“Why be a citizen of a country that you have no interest or knowledge of, but in fact live in complete alienation to?”

“… if I were a Muslim and didn’t want to work, I’d move to London, claim persecution and get benefits. It’s free money rammed down my throat. Not only that, but the native Britons won’t care a whit if I start saying that their country should be more like the country I ‘escaped’ from. In fact, even if I get a bunch of my friends to blow up a train and kill 50+ people, they will defend me, and maybe even give me a bigger house.”

“… the problem is not whether the woman wears the Burqa of her free will, but rather that her desire to be a devout Muslimah may eventually spill over as a desire to impose her norms on the host nation.”

“Judaism is not a proselytizing or supremacist religion while Islam is.”

“The burqa is the 21st century’s swastika armband.”

“The sad thing is the West has become so remiss – if not complacent – in defending its values. It’s a shame this sort of thing does not happen much more often.”

“Yes, the French are right; the UK should have done the same thing years ago.”

“Excellent news. The French judiciary has much more sence [sic] than ours! … citizenship is more than just a recognition of residency, it is membership of a community with a particular history and values. We have lost sight of this in Britain, as the Islamists are well aware.”

“There should be no Burqas in this continent or in this century. I shouldn’t even have heard of the word. Vive la France.”

“Truly devout and reclusive Muslim Women may be good breeding machines, but their contribution to society is at best doubtful. There is a good reason for keeping them out. A woman may breed an indefinite number of jihadis, whereas a man is hopefully only blowing himself up.”

“… the burqua is a reliable flag for strong mainstream Islamic views, which it is not hyperbole to describe as fascist; it’s really that simple.”

“Why on earth would this woman wish to be a French citizen? Surely it stands for so much that she opposes, especially women who think for themselves and live independent lives and flaunt their faces in public. Wouldn’t she be much happier in say, Saudi Arabia?”

“There is no reason to be, on an institutional level, tolerant of the very most intolerant people on Earth.”

Further update:  For Yusuf Smith’s comments, see Indigo Jo Blogs, 13 July 2008

Italy: Mosques must recognize Israel

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Italy may take its discriminatory practices to a new level, calling for measures to make mosque leaders quit unless they recognize Israel.

Action must be taken so that mosque supervisors recognize Israel, said European Affairs Minister Andrea Rochi. We must force those who do not recognize Israel to leave the mosques, he added, according to Italian news agency Il Tempo.

Press TV, 10 July 2008

Update:  Over at Atlas Shrugs mad Pamela Geller applaud’s Rochi’s statement: “How lucid and human  is that. Of course the jihad loving media is calling that “discrimination”. Ugh. Theeir hatred of the Jews infects everything they say, do — every position they take.”

Milan mosque ‘to be closed down’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A controversial mosque in the Italian city of Milan is to be shut down, the country’s right-wing government says.

The Jenner mosque attracts about 4,000 Muslims each week, with Friday prayers often spilling out on to the street. Now, after years of complaints from local residents, Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni has said he will close the mosque by August.

Mr Maroni, who belongs to the anti-immigrant Northern League, has said he will press ahead with plans to close the mosque, and that anybody found praying in the street will be issued with a ticket.

The local Muslim community is being offered the use of a nearby stadium, in which the Beatles once played. However, the council has said it can only be used four times each week and that each person will be charged on entry.

The president of the mosque, Abdel Hamid Shaari, has said he is happy to pay rent but that its members “won’t be treated like nomads”. “We are Milanese and we are not going to accept the solution that’s being offered,” he said.

The Catholic church has come out in support of the Muslim community. The Roman Catholic priest in charge of inter-faith relations in Milan, Monsignor Gianfranco Bottoni, said that only a fascist or populist government would resort to such dictatorial methods as closing a mosque.

BBC News, 8 July 2008