Category Archives: UK

Counter protest planned against English Defence League in Tower Hamlets

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anti-EDL march Tower Hamlets 2010

Community and faith groups are planning a counter protest after a far right group announced plans to march in Tower Hamlets.

UK-wide group Unite Against Fascism has called on people to protest – under the banner of the East End’s No Place for Hate campaign – against the English Defence League’s plans to march through the borough. Ranging from community and faith groups to trade unions, they are joining forces as East End United for the counter event on August 27 – the same day as the planned EDL protest.

The EDL claims Tower Hamlets is under siege from radical Islamic forces and that someone has to take a stand. It’s a picture not recognised by chair of Tower Hamlets Inter-Faith Forum Rev Alan Green.

Rev Green, who is also chair of the No Place for Hate Forum, added: “It’s a chance for us to show we are a very diverse community and we have very good relations here. There are individuals who seek to cause trouble but they aren’t the majority.” He said even if the EDL march doesn’t go ahead it will be a good opportunity to show what is “good about life here”.

A spokesman for the East London Mosque said it will face the threat as part of the East End United coalition.

Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman said he wanted to reassure residents that attempts to create fear and instability in the community will not be accepted.

East London Advertiser, 17 June 2011

Statement by the Islamic Sharia Council on Baroness Cox’s bill

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Statement by the Islamic Sharia Council

Lady Cox recently proposed “The Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill” to Parliament. This aims to tackle discrimination by shariah councils and introduces an imprisonable offence if anyone claims that shariah councils have legal jurisdiction in criminal law.

It is indeed a crime that Lady Cox has made no attempt to understand the workings of the shariah councils. She repeats the modern mantra that shariah law “is an inherent discrimination system which is causing real suffering to women”. Perhaps she could then explain why 90% of clients of these councils are women.

It is totally incorrect to suggest that shariah councils consider their judgements to be superior to the English Legal System. At the Islamic Shariah Council, we are concerned only with the religious aspects of divorce, such as the settlement of the dower. This is akin to couples having a religious marriage (Nikah) at the Mosque and then a civil marriage at their local Registry office. The religious marriage and divorce satisfy the religious needs of the community and do not encroach on the work of civil bodies. In many cases Muslim couples do not register their marriages and in the event of divorce, the wife is then left in an incredibly vulnerable position with no recourse to the law. Shariah councils are in the position to dissolve this marriage.

Domestic violence is just as condemned in Islam as it is in the English Legal System. If a woman suffers from such abuse and approaches the Islamic Shariah Council, she is in a strong position to obtain the divorce she seeks. The ISC does not advise abused women to return to their husbands.

In child custody issues, we advise clients to approach family courts to settle them. If both clients sign their agreement to hear the advice of the ISC, we will certainly offer such advice. It is however not a binding judgment. In most cases of divorce, it is the mothers who receive custody of their minor children anyway unless there is very strong evidence against her ability as a mother and primary carer.

We fail to understand why the issue of the testimony of a woman being half of that of a man is even mentioned in this context. Shariah councils deal with marriage and divorce, and so have no jurisdiction in such matters.

Furthermore, it is morally wrong to comment on such issues without knowledge of them. In legal disputes, Islamic courts require two male witnesses as well. A female witness in a financial case is required to have a second woman with her in a supporting role, but the primary witness will be responsible for her own testament.

Lady Cox has regurgitated common myths about the role of women in Islam in an effort to undermine the work of the shariah councils. For this she deserves little praise.

Issued by:
Dr. Suhaib Hasan
Secretary
The Islamic Sharia Council

Police warn mosques about suspicious packages following anthrax scare

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Imam Ahmed SaadMuslim leaders across London are on high alert after fake anthrax was posted to five mosques by suspected far-Right extremists. Detectives from Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command are investigating after imams at the mosques received bags of white powder.

One package, sent to the Finsbury Park mosque, also contained “evil drawings” of the Prophet Mohammed similar to cartoons published in Denmark. TheEvening Standard understands up to five other mosques outside London – thought to be Luton and Birmingham – were targeted in the past 10 days.

Scotland Yard is so concerned about the threat to community cohesion that it has sent a warning to more than 200 mosques in the capital. An email from the Association of Muslim Police warns staff to avoid touching any mail they deem suspicious.

It says: “The inquiry relates to suspicious but non-hazardous packages sent to mosques. Inquires are ongoing and no arrests have been made at this stage. We recognise the distress and disruption caused by such incidents and will continue to investigate them, and any others which come to light, robustly.

“Anyone receiving an item they think is suspicious should treat it seriously and follow the following advice: Call 999; 1. Do not touch or handle it any further; 2. Remain calm; 3. Move everyone away to a safe distance; 4. Safely communicate instructions to staff and public; 5. Ensure that whoever found the item or witnessed the incident remains on hand to brief the police.”

Detectives are studying hours of CCTV footage as many of the packages did not have stamps and are thought to have been hand-delivered to the mosques. Some of the mosques were evacuated while specialist officers in protective suits checked the suspect material. When a package arrived at the Finsbury Park mosque last Thursday, police closed the building and surrounding roads for four hours.

Ahmed Saad, the imam at the mosque, told the Evening Standard: “Our security guard was in the office when I opened the letter and he called the police right away. He told me to wash my hands and face just in case the powder was dangerous. The police arrived with ambulances and evacuated the building. It could have been anything in the envelope, my first thought was that it could be anthrax, or it could be some kind of [other] poison. It was very frightening. Something like this should not happen, we live in a multi-cultural society.”

Mohammed Kozbar, the manager of the mosque, said: “We often get a lot of malicious communications but this is worse than anything that happened before. The envelope also had nasty, devil, evil drawings of the Prophet Mohammed and Muslim women in hijab clothing. It is very bad – we have worked hard to change the culture of the mosque since the case of Abu Hamza [the extremist former imam]. These racists won’t succeed and we will carry on with our work.”

Mr Kozbar believes the package was sent by someone with far-Right views.

Evening Standard, 17 June 2011

Another ‘peaceful’ EDL protest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The first two English Defence League members charged after a town-centre demo have appeared in court. Peter Craven, 28 and Michael Riley 23, both from Hull, each admitted stealing a pool ball and possessing an offensive weapon.

The men admitted they were in Halifax for the EDL protest that engulfed the town centre on April 16. They were part of a 16-man group who left the main organisation and moved to the Beehive and Cross Keys pub in King Cross Street near Park ward – an area police were trying to shield from EDL members.

In the pub, EDL members chanted racist songs, snapped pool cues and hunted through waste bins for bottles. Police arrested the men outside the pub shortly after they left.

They will be sentenced at Bradford Crown Court July 19.

Halifax Courier, 16 June 2011

Suspected anthrax ‘attack’ on Finsbury Park mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

North London Central MosqueA package containing a suspicious white powder, an anti-Islamic message and offensive pictures of Muslim women was posted to the Imam of the mosque, in St Thomas’s Road, Finsbury Park, on Thursday.

Staff called the police, who closed Rock Street and the mosque, leaving 150 people who turned up for prayers out on the street. After testing the substance, police found it to be harmless.

Mohammed Kozbar, manager of the mosque, said: “The letter was addressed to Imam Ahmad Saad, who opened it. He was very scared because he saw the white powder, like anyone would be in that situation. Police closed the mosque for about four hours, and kept all the staff inside to test them for Anthrax. We are all very disturbed by this because it comes so close to our fourth annual open day on June 26.”

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Posted in UK

Don’t worry, Islamophobia isn’t a problem – we have Andrew Gilligan’s word for it

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Close East London Mosque NowAndrew Gilligan has a piece on his Telegraph blog, titled “Islamophobic crime fell in London last year – MCB spins the opposite”, in which he responds to the Independent on Sunday report on rising anti-Muslim hatred in the UK.

Gilligan accuses the Muslim Council of Britain’s secretary-general Farooq Murad of falsely claiming that hate crime against Muslims has risen in London. Now, I realise that Gilligan is the Telegraph‘s London editor and has a bit of an obsession with events in the capital, but if he had bothered to read the Independent report properly he would see that Farooq Murad was referring to the situation nationally, and made no reference to London.

Gilligan goes on to assert that “anti-Muslim hatred in Britain … is, thankfully, diminishing”, although he offers no real evidence for this. True, as the Independent article points out, police data on Islamophobic offences are not collated centrally and many forces do not compile such statistics at all, so hard evidence regarding hate crime nationally is lacking. However, you might have thought that the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain would be in a better position than Gilligan to make an informed judgement on whether anti-Muslim hatred is on the increase across the UK.

And then there is the question of whether the figures for London are themselves reliable, given that a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police accepts that hate crime against Muslims has been significantly under-reported. Indeed, taking the Met’s figures at face value, Gilligan would be forced to conclude that between 2008 and 2009 there was a massive rise in anti-Muslim hatred in London, with Islamophobic offences increasing from 106 to 368 and incidents of religiously motivated violence against Muslims from 96 to 303.

Of course, you can understand why Gilligan might have an interest in denying that there is a problem with rising Islamophobia in the UK, and in accusing the Independent of having fallen for “the Islamists’ grievance-mongering agenda” – because his disgraceful witch-hunting of the East London Mosque has fed the very anti-Muslim hatred whose existence he denies.

Update:  See also “Andrew Gilligan on anti-Muslim hate crimes”,ENGAGE, 14 June 2011