Category Archives: UK

Taj Hargey renews attack on Tablighi Jamaat over Newham ‘mega-mosque’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim scholar who has courted controversy in Islamic circles for his progressive views on women has stepped into the equally fiery territory of contemporary architecture.

Taj Hargey is an imam and the director of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford who is best known for allowing men and women to pray together and for discouraging veils. He describes himself as a “thorn in the side of Muslim hierarchy”. Now he is risking a similar status in architecture after weighing into the long-running row over plans for a giant mosque on the Olympic fringes.

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One year on – still no arrests over Shotton arson attack

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Story - Kate. Shotton Lane Social Club fire on Friday Feb 4th 2011.A businessman who planned to turn a social club into a Muslim centre says he is unable to find a new site for his project – a year on from a suspected arson attack.

The spot where Shotton Lane Social Club once stood still lies empty and no-one has ever been prosecuted for the blaze that destroyed the community building on February 4 last year.

The shocking incident, which saw more than 100 people evacuated from their homes, happened just weeks after Monchab Ali – chairman of the Flintshire Muslim Cultural Society – announced his plan to turn the empty venue into an Islamic cultural centre.

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Police chief thinks EDL’s Facebook messages are merely ‘inappropriate, brash or insensitive’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Norman BettisonThe Yorkshire Post has an interesting interview with Sir Norman Bettison, Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, in connection with the specialist unit he has set up to monitor violent extremism on the internet.

Bettison is one of the few leading police officers to have taken the threat from the English Defence League seriously, and he has readily used his powers under the Public Order Act to restrict the EDL’s attempts to mount intimidatory protests against the Muslim community. When the EDL demonstrated in Dewsbury last June, for example, West Yorkshire Police refused to let them enter the town centre to hold their intended rally outside the town hall and confined them to the station car park where they couldn’t do any harm.

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EDL member who burned Qur’an part of racist gang that threatened and abused Turkish takeaway workers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Andrew Ryan2A former Carlisle soldier just released from jail for publicly burning the Koran was among nearly a dozen people who racially abused two takeaway workers.

The city’s crown court heard that Andrew Ryan, 33, and his brother Matthew Ryan, 27, were part of a group who threatened and racially abused two Turkish men at Manhattan Pizza in Botchergate last year.

The Ryan brothers, along with three other men and four women, pleaded guilty to two charges of using racially aggravated threatening behaviour. All admitted that their abuse of the two takeaway workers had been inspired by their mistaken belief that the men were Pakistani.

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Al-Qaeda bid for Brit girl bombers: Extremist websites lure angels of death, MPs warn

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Al-Qaeda is trying to recruit WOMEN to carry out suicide bombings in the UK, MPs warn today. It is using extremist websites to radicalise the angels of death, says their chilling report.

The Commons home affairs committee says it has heard evidence the terror group is “specifically launching and targeting women for violent acts”.

It is already a deadly tactic in the Middle East, where growing numbers of Palestinian women are volunteering for suicide missions against Israel. The MPs’ report comes days after four Islamic extremists admitted plotting to bomb the London Stock Exchange.

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Leicester Mercury reports Saturday’s EDL and UAF protests

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Leicester march 2012Hundreds of people with very different political viewpoints took to the streets of Leicester city centre during Saturday’s rival marches. Both the English Defence League and Unite Against Fascism claimed success for their protests.

Despite a police warning for groups to stick to their agreed march routes, Unite Against Fascism encouraged its supporters to gather at the Clock Tower at 11am and to remain there until the EDL passed by.

A group of at least 50 who congregated at the Clock Tower were then warned by police to move on or face arrest. They included former city council leader Ross Willmott, who told officers he had a legal right to be at the scene of the EDL protest.

Councillor Willmott had earlier criticised city mayor Sir Peter Soulsby and police for allowing the EDL to march through the city centre and for allocating march routes which kept the groups apart. Coun Willmott said: “The police have a difficult job to do, but we are peaceful people who want to hold a vigil and demonstrate against the EDL.”

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Richard Peppiatt on tabloid misrepresentation of Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Richard Peppiatt at Leveson inquiryA former Daily Star journalist has repeated accusations that a number of British daily newspapers put pressure on journalists to fabricate anti-Muslim stories.

Richard Peppiatt, who worked as a full-time freelance journalist at the Daily Star for two years, claimed that editors forced journalists to fabricate news that suggested Muslims and immigrants were threatening national security.

He said the fabricated stories were mainly related to Muslims, depicting them as a threat to British society. The defamatory stories became more widespread after the bombings in London on June 7, 2005 – often referred to as 7/7 – and the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on the United States.

“Especially since 7/7 and, to a degree, since 9/11, Muslims have certainly been painted as the ‘cartoon baddy’. Definitely in the tabloids. Someone always has to be blamed, you can’t just leave it up in the air when something happens; somebody always needs to take the blame. Sadly it’s the Muslims that have been chosen to be portrayed as the ‘baddies’,” he told Today’s Zaman in a phone interview.

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EDL supporter and former BNP member plastered window with anti-Islamic posters

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Darren ConwayA former BNP member has been convicted of a religiously aggravated public order offence for putting anti-Islamic literature in his window.

Darren Conway, 44, claimed he displayed the posters because he wanted to force his letting agents to improve his flat. Lincoln magistrates convicted him and sent the case to Lincoln Crown Court for sentencing. Conway of Heaton Street, Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, admitted growing 16 cannabis plants found in the flat. He was arrested in April last year after a complaint from a nearby shop worker about the posters.

 

Edward Johnson, prosecuting, described the material on his windows as grossly offensive towards the Muslim faith. Conway admitted that at the time of the offence he was a member of the BNP and a supporter of the English Defence League but said he had since left the BNP. He downloaded most of the material from the internet, the court heard.

Conway told the court that he acted recklessly in an attempt to draw attention to his rented property, with the aim of getting the letting agents to carry out improvements.

BBC News, 6 February 2012

Party leaders unite against Scottish Defence League march

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Four of Scotland’s highest profile politicians have urged councillors to block moves by the far-right Scottish Defence League to march in Glasgow.

SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon, and Scots Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem leaders, Johann Lamont, Ruth Davidson and Willie Rennie are backing the move. In an open letter, they say such a march would bring “vile, toxic hate”.

The Scottish Defence League (SDL) has applied to the council to hold a march on 25 February. The SDL is an offshoot of the English Defence League (EDL). Both groups have been associated with violence at previous gatherings.

Ms Sturgeon, Ms Lamont and Ms Davidson are among 24 signatories to the letter which opposes any SDL march in Glasgow.

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