Category Archives: UK

Police hunt for EDL supporter who attacked Asian man in Rochdale

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL thug ManchesterA racist thug who abused and attacked a passer-by in a shopping precinct is being hunted by police.

The man, who was wearing a T-shirt promoting the English Defence League, targeted a 31-year-old Asian man as he walked through the Wheatsheaf Centre in Rochdale town centre. Images from CCTV cameras have been released by police in a bid to identify him.

The thug began to racially abuse the man as he walked past then grabbed hold of his shirt collar and pressed a ballpoint pen to the side of his face. Police said the victim could also feel a sharp item being pressed to his back. He struggled free but the abuse continued until security guards intervened.

The thug then escaped. He is white, in his late 40s to early 50s, around 6ft tall and skinny. He was wearing a T shirt labelled “EDL Stockport”.

Sgt Colin Macdiarmid said: “The abuse this victim suffered can only be described as vitriolic and appalling. Thankfully he was not hurt though the behaviour of the offender led him to fear for his safety. Racist thugs are not welcome anywhere in Greater Manchester.”

Call police on 0161 856 9961 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

Manchester Evening News, 7 June 2011

MPAC complains about HIGNFY ‘joke’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A campaign group is urging members of the Muslim community to lobby the BBC over a comment made on the channel.

The remark was made on the “Have I Got News For You” show last Friday when host Sharon Horgan said: “The Independent described the Dostoevsky metro station … as the Mecca for suicides. Not to be confused with the Mecca of suicide bombers – which is Mecca.”

Campaign group the Muslim Public Affairs Committee said: “This offhand comment does nothing except reinforce the message that Islam has something within its fundamental beliefs that makes it a threat to civil society. Allowing this comment to go unchecked justifies the statement and condones such demonisation, as the comment implicitly implies that all Muslims are terrorists and all terrorists are Muslims.” The group is urging readers of it’s website to complain to the BBC over the remark.

However, Sharon Horgan has apologised for any offence caused and said she was not prejudiced in any way.

Asian Image, 7 June 2011

According to Sharon Horgan, whose contribution to the “joke” presumably amounted to reading it off the autocue, Have I Got News For You “deals in irony and in that sense it does the OPPOSITE of what it’s actually saying…. HIGNFY, like all good satire plays on prejudices and that’s exactly what we were doing with this joke”. So the joke was intended to mock anti-Muslim prejudice? Really?

Muslim family in Leicester forced to move house after being targeted by racists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Vandalism against Amod familyA Muslim family have been targeted by yobs again – even as they prepared to flee from their council house. Salim and Sabana Amod decided to move out earlier this year after they were persecuted by thugs in Saffron Lane, Leicester.

After the Mercury reported their story in April, the abuse initially died down. However, during the past two weeks it has flared up again, culminating in bricks being thrown through their window on Thursday night.

The family were today moving into their new house in Highfields, Leicester. Mrs Amod, 40, said: “It did go quiet after our story was in the paper. We thought people had realised how hurtful it was to call us names and to vandalise our home. But then the problems started again in the past few weeks. We are going to a new home, why can’t these people even let us move out in peace?  It is sad to leave Saffron Lane, but all the things that happened to us were my worst nightmare. We just want to live in peace.”

The couple and their children have repeatedly been persecuted by thugs who have slashed their car tyres, sprayed offensive graffiti on their home in Helmsley Road, where they lived for just over two years, and thrown stones at them. The couple, who are from India, were also racially abused. Some of the foul language was directed at their Muslim faith. Last weekend, yobs again covered the family’s car in paint and smashed three of the vehicle’s windows.

Earlier this year, a youth was arrested and admitted spraying offensive graffiti on the family’s home and car. He was later ordered to carry out community service.

In recent weeks, officers from Welford Road police station have arrested four people. Two 16-year-old boys are being investigated in connection with incidents of vandalism, while a 21-year-old man is to face trial later this year for allegedly breaching a court order which barred him from the neighbourhood. A 54-year-old woman has been charged with using threatening words or behaviour to the family.

Leicester Mercury, 4 June 2011

Via ENGAGE

Ham stuffed in shoes of worshippers at Bristol mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Al-Baseera mosqueA man hung slices of ham on the railings of a Bristol mosque and placed pieces of the meat in the shoes of its worshippers while they prayed.

Jamie Knowlson was spotted running off to a nearby hostel, and when mosque staff followed they had offensive taunts shouted at them.

The 30-year-old’s behaviour left the community of the Al-Baseera mosque on Wade Street in St Judes “disgusted and saddened”.

After he was arrested Knowlson said he had no idea that putting ham in worshippers’ shoes would be offensive, saying it was just a prank and a practical joke. But he later admitted to police that he had been fully aware of the implications. Knowlson, of Charlton Road, Kingswood, pleaded guilty to causing racially or religiously aggravated harassment last month at Bristol Magistrates’ Court.

Magistrates sent the case to Bristol Crown Court for sentencing, and Knowlson could have faced up to two years behind bars. Instead he was given a six-month suspended sentence, only escaping prison because he returned to the mosque to apologise in person for his actions.

The court heard that at 6.30am on January 9 Knowlson had gone to the Al-Baseera mosque from Redwood House, a homeless hostel opposite. He was seen putting slices of ham from the hostel on to the railings and into the shoes of worshippers, which were left outside the mosque while they prayed.

CCTV showed him returning to the hostel, and the mosque’s caretaker, Abdi Djmaa, followed to complain. As Mr Djmaa returned to the mosque he heard someone shouting “bad meat”, “girls” and “the next visit will be harder”. Police were called, and as officers and another man removed the ham, they heard laughter coming from the hostel.

Prosecuting at Bristol Crown Court, David Hunter said it had been a “premeditated offence” and that the Muslim community had been specifically targeted.

Bristol Evening Post, 6 June 2011

No doubt those intent on claiming that the courts discriminate in favour of Muslims will point to the fact that Knowlson was given a suspended prison sentence whereas Mohammed Hasnath, the youth recently convicted of posting up homophobic stickers in Tower Hamlets, was only fined. The reason for this disparity, however, is that Knowlson admitted that he intended to harass his victims but Hasnath denied intent. So Knowlson was charged under Section 4A of the Public Order Act which carries a possible prison sentence, whereas Hasnath was charged under Section 5 which only allows for a fine.

The flaw in the present legal position is that whereas there is a distinct offence of “racially or religiously aggravated” harassment under the Public Order Act, which specifies a heavier sentence, there is no such distinct offence if the harassment is aggravated by homophobia (just a general requirement to take that into consideration when sentencing). The LGBT community therefore has significantly weaker protection under the Public Order Act than that afforded to minority-ethnic and faith communities. Clearly this needs to be rectified. But it has nothing to do with Muslims getting a better deal from the law than non-Muslims.

Posted in UK

Theresa May attacks FOSIS and accuses universities of tolerating ‘Muslim extremists’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Theresa MayThe Daily Telegraph reports that home secretary Theresa May has accused universities of “complacency” in tackling Muslim extremism.

May told the Daily Telegraph that universities are not taking the issue of radicalisation seriously enough and that it was too easy for Muslim extremists to form groups on campuses “without anyone knowing”.

May was evidently outlining changes in the Prevent counter-terrorism strategy, an updated version of which will published this week.

“I think for too long there’s been complacency around universities,” she said. “I don’t think they have been sufficiently willing to recognise what can be happening on their campuses and the radicalisation that can take place. I think there is more that universities can do.”

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Showdown over Sharia at conservative conference

Posted on by Bob Pitt

You may recall the spat within the US Right back in January when mad Frank Gaffney, who has played a leading role in the promotion of anti-Sharia paranoia in the United States, claimed that the Conservative Political Action Conference had been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood with the assistance of right-wingers like anti-tax campaigner Grover Norquist.

Over at Religion Dispatches Sarah Posner reports on a discussion panel at this weekend’s Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington which featured a confrontation between Frank Gaffney and another conservative, Marshall Breger, who has been critical of Gaffney’s anti-Sharia scaremongering. Posner writes:

Ironically enough, the panel followed one on alleged anti-evangelical bigotry, though few if any seemed to grasp that irony, with the possible exception of Breger. He led off, reiterating his position that shari’ah is not the threat some of his fellow conservatives assert. The moderator, neo-conservative conspiracy theorist Kenneth Timmerman, cut Breger off when he tried to defend himself against Gaffney. Gaffney, who insisted that even conservatives fail to understand the threat of a political, legal, and military takeover by shari’ah, at one point shouted “Rubbish!” in reaction to Breger. Gaffney’s fear-mongering knows no bounds, as he asserted that “if we don’t wake up, we will soon be like Britain . . . or even Saudi Arabia.” He had support on the panel, too, with the Christian Broadcasting Network’s Erik Stakelback calling him “the Paul Revere of calling out the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The audience was clearly in Gaffney’s camp, with murmurs of approval and even amens. One woman said she was from Minnesota, where “we practically have a Muslim state,” and fretted that Rep. Keith Ellison, who is a Muslim, adopted a Scandanavian name to mask his Muslim identity. She asked about something she’d “heard” about a “Muslim flag” being raised over the White House; Gaffney affirmed her paranoia, saying, “it is certainly possible we’d have a Muslim flag flying over the White House.” After laying into others in the conservative movement and accusing Norquist of being a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer, Gaffney expressed hope that the Faith and Freedom Coalition would “take up the fight against shari’ah.”

Posner spoke to Marshall Breger afterwards. He accused US conservative leaders of not “clamping down on extremists on their side”, adding: “They should be saying it’s not American to oppose an entire religion.”

The rise of far-right parties in Europe

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The current issue of the New Internationalist features a useful article on the rise of the European far right by K. Biswas, who writes:

The success of many far-right parties is predicated on a significant public distrust of Muslims. Over half of Danes believe that Islam hinders social harmony; three-quarters of citizens from the former East Germany want to ‘seriously limit’ the practice of Islam; half of Britons associate Islam with terrorism; four in ten French people see Muslims living in their country as a ‘threat’ to their national identity; more than half of Austrians believe that ‘Islam poses a threat to the West and our familiar lifestyle’.

Even though Muslims in Europe originate from different parts of the globe – Turks in Germany, North Africans in France, Pakistanis in Britain – they are portrayed as a single monolithic block, unable to integrate into European society. The populist press has played its role in generating public fears of Muslims. In Britain, which has elected no far-right representatives into its national parliament, the Daily Express and Daily Star blare out hate-filled statements from their front pages on an almost daily basis, characterizing Muslims as a homogenous group hell-bent on undermining the British way of life. ‘Muslim Schools ban our culture,’ ‘Muslims get their own laws in Britain,’ ‘Sniffer dogs offend Muslims,’ ‘Muslims tell British – Go to Hell’.

‘The media have uncritically incorporated the idea that “Islam equals threat”, therefore Muslims are a threat,’ according to Liz Fekete, the Chair of Britain’s Institute of Race Relations. The media are ‘constantly looking for the extreme voice within the Muslim community, because it’s an easy peg to hang a story on. So if a small extremist sect that doesn’t have any legitimacy within the Muslim community is organizing a protest, it becomes the major framework for any public discussion on Muslims.’

A ‘poppy-burning’ demonstration on Remembrance Day by the little-known group Muslims Against Crusades attracted a handful of extremists to Kensington in West London, yet made the front page of many national newspapers.

Christians show solidarity with Muslims in Shotton

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Shotton interfaith mealA group of Christians and Muslims have shared a meal to show “solidarity” in an area that has seen protests about plans for an Islamic cultural centre.

The event, Sharing Tables, Sharing Stories, was held at the Bengal Dynasty restaurant, Shotton, Flintshire. Organiser Mike Harrison said it showed harmony was possible in Shotton.

Last month, English Defence League protesters marched at the former Shotton Lane Social Club, proposed site for the new cultural centre. Flintshire Muslim Cultural Society had been planning to turn the property into a multi-cultural centre. The building burned down in a suspicious fire in February.

Tuesday’s event was organised by a local volunteers group, Together Creating Communities. North Wales organiser Mr Harrison said:

“This gathering demonstrates that despite the perceptions voiced in some sections of the media, Christians and Muslims can stand together. We hope that Sharing Tables, Sharing Stories will be the first step in showing protest groups that a multi-faith community can live together in harmony in Shotton.”

BBC News, 1 June 2011