‘The capture of Tower Hamlets’ – scaremongering Islamophobe endorses Gilligan’s witch-hunt

Mad Mel Jihad in Britain“People like myself who have warned for some years now about the steady Islamisation of Britain receive a torrent of scorn and abuse from the so-called custodians of our culture. Terms such as ‘scare-mongering’, ‘exaggeration’ or ‘alarmism’ tumble out alongside the inevitable ‘Islamophobia’.

“Now we can see what these cultural kamikazes are helping bring about. In the east London borough of Tower Hamlets, a man with links to radical Islamism, Lutfur Rahman, has been elected Mayor of the borough, giving him control of a million-pound budget and a platform for the progressive intimidation and silencing of British Muslims who do not want to live under sharia law, let alone the non-Muslim majority in the area.

“In order to know anything about this crucial development, you have to read the Telegraph‘s Andrew Gilligan who has been closely following what’s been going on in Tower Hamlets during the past year.”

Melanie Phillips’s Spectator blog, 24 October 2010


Phillips goes on to cite an article in today’s Mail on Sunday, which reports on a proposal to merge the Anglican diocese of Bradford with Ripon and Leeds due to financial problems caused primarily by a decline in church attendance. For Phillips, this demonstrates that “the indigenous culture of this country is under siege” from Muslims. According to her:

“The crumbling of church membership is due overwhelmingly to a profound loss of spiritual purpose and moral nerve within the Church of England – and the vacuum is being filled by Islam. Instead of defending its own territory, and with it the religious and moral underpinning of British society, the CofE has decided to stamp upon its Jewish theological roots and instead appease – through its strategy of Christian-Muslim dialogue – the creed that seeks to supersede Judeo-Christian culture.

“The outcome is that Britain’s establishment is actively assisting the progressive Balkanisation of Britain, in accordance with the global strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood and their allies to take over the west.”

Phillips’s spelling and grammar may be better, but in other respects it is difficult to distinguish the views expressed here from the hate-filled comments posted by BNP supporters and other racists on the Mail‘s website. No doubt Gilligan is well pleased to receive the endorsement of such a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Muslim bigot. Phillips’s article certainly provides a useful illustration of the narrative that Gilligan’s malicious witch-hunting of the IFE and Lutfur Rahman has played to.

Severed pig’s head dumped at Cambridge mosque

A severed pig’s head has been left outside a mosque in Cambridge – triggering alarm among the city’s Muslims. Families found the head on the steps of the place of worship on Monday night on their way to prayers. An emergency meeting was due to be held last night after the incident at the Shah Jalal Bangladeshi Community House in Darwin Drive.

A worshipper at the mosque, who did not wish to be named, told the News: “It is a terrible insult. There are about 40 families who go to the centre and everyone is highly emotional at the moment. It was left there between 8.15pm and 9pm. Some families found it as they went for prayer at about 9pm. It was a very ugly sight. This was a nasty and appalling thing to do. We thought we had good relations with the community around here.”

Some Muslims believe the pig’s head attack could have been triggered after an application to increase the number of worshippers at the mosque prompted objections from some residents.

Cambridge News, 22 September 2010

Posted in UK

Defaced pages from Qur’an sent to Muslim activist

Mohammed Salim

An Islamic activist has been sent pages of the Koran with graffiti scrawled on them.

Mohammed Salim, of Letchworth Avenue, Rochdale, received three pages of the Muslim holy book graffitied with the words “crap”, “paper” and “toilet”. The abusive mail was posted anonymously from Canada, addressed to “Allah Hoo Hoo Salim” and arrived at Mr Salim’s family home on Monday.

The father of 11 said: “I am absolutely furious. Unfortunately, this just seems to be the world we live in now. People have no respect for anything any more. Obviously, whoever has sent this simply wants to upset me and it is extremely disrespectful to defile the Holy Koran in this way. It is just sickening.”

Mr Salim is well-known in Rochdale for his religious work and views. He has previously stood as the Islam Zinda parliamentary candidate for Rochdale, a party with an explicit religious policy. Mr Salim has also publicly criticised the war in Iraq, while he staged a three-week hunger strike outside Rochdale Town Hall in protest against Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses.

He added: “I am very active in the Islamic community, but I didn’t know anyone had heard of me in Canada, so I suppose in a very strange way it is flattering. I have been sent abuse many times before and sometimes I do worry that people will take it a step too far and that my family could be in danger.”

Rochdale Observer, 21 October 2010

Posted in UK

Annual anti-GPU witch-hunt continues

GPU 2010Once again we’re faced with the annual right-wing campaign against the Global Peace and Unity event, which takes place this weekend at the ExCeL centre in London.

There has been a last-minute push by the usual bunch of Islamophobes to pressure government ministers into boycotting the event. An appeal to that effect by Paul Goodman at ConservativeHome has unsurprisingly been endorsed by Harry’s Place. Given the role of the latter blog in witch-hunting the likes ofNew Statesman political editor Mehdi Hasan as Muslim extremists, you might have thought their support would hardly help Goodman’s case.

In that connection, note the Harry’s Place discussion thread where Ajmal Masroor of all people is denounced as an extremist on the grounds that he is “a presenter on the Islam Channel: a Muslim Brotherhood dominated organisation, whose CEO, Mohammed Ali Harrath is a convicted terrorist” and is accused of placing himself outside “mainstream politics” because he refuses to join Harry’s Place in witch-hunting Muslim organisations.

Meanwhile, on the discussion thread at ConservativeHome, Tory London Assembly member Andrew Boff comments: “Hey Paul – You should recruit this guy – he doesn’t like the GPU either.” And Boff provides a link to this anti-GPU rant at IslamicTube.

If the two parties that make up the coalition government really want to damage their reputation among Muslim communities across the UK, they really couldn’t do much better than succumb to this sort of hardline right-wing campaign and withdraw speakers from the GPU.

Lutfur Rahman elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets

Lutfur_RahmanA former leader of Tower Hamlets Council who was dumped by Labour then stood as an independent has been voted in as the borough’s new mayor. Lutfur Rahman secured 51.76% of the vote to become the east London borough’s first directly elected mayor.

Former council leader Mr Rahman was Labour’s initial candidate. But when he was rebuffed by the party he announced he would stand as an independent with several Labour councillors’ backing.

Thursday’s poll was the first ever ballot for a directly-elected mayor in Tower Hamlets, with a 25.6% turnout.

Labour’s London mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone has risked internal discipline by campaigning for Mr Rahman against the party’s new candidate, Helal Abbas. On Monday, he was seen on the streets of Tower Hamlets campaigning with Mr Rahman.

Mr Livingstone called the deselection of Mr Rahman an “utterly unacceptable” move by Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) which “ignored the views of the local electorate”.

He insisted however that he backed the official candidate and was simply trying to encourage voters to put the independent down as their second choice in an effort to keep out the Conservatives.

Labour’s Mr Abbas launched a bitter attack on Mr Rahman, accusing him of being “in the gutter”. “This is a sad night for those of us who want to build a better future and a united Tower Hamlets. Lutfur Rahman has won tonight but not as he wanted, as the Labour candidate,” he said in a statement.

“Thankfully, Labour’s ruling National Executive had the backbone to stop him from being the Labour candidate. We may have lost tonight, but at least the Labour Party has clean hands.”

Votes were as follows:

  • Helal Uddin Abbas, Labour Party – 11,254
  • Alan Duffell, Green Party – 2,300
  • John David Macleod Griffiths, Liberal Democrats – 2,800
  • Neil Anthony King, Conservative Party – 5,348
  • Lutfur Rahman, Independent – 23,283

BBC News, 22 October 2010

See also Dave Hill’s London Blog, 22 October 2010

So Andrew Gilligan’s contemptible witch-hunting was all in vain. Needless to say, he is not happy.

Update:  And now Gilligan has posted a transcript of his Channel 4 documentary “Britain’s Islamic Republic” on his Torygraph blog. Give it a rest Andrew. You spent all that time and effort trying to stitch up the IFE and turn public opinion against Lutfur Rahman – and you lost.

EDL thug released early from prison

Bernard Holmes in chicken costumeA “dangerous” man who left his victim with a permanent brain injury has been released from jail early and is taking part in English Defence League protests.

Bernard Holmes, 25, formerly of Coleridge Street, Blackburn, was jailed for two years and four months, in February for causing grievous bodily harm to Shaun Baxendale. Mr Baxendale was left with “catastrophic” injuries and a change in personality in the unprovoked May 2009 attack. He had to have a piece of his skull removed.

However, because Holmes spent more than seven months in custody before his trial, he is now out on licence after technically serving half his term.

Under the nickname “Mr B”, he has been central to the Blackburn EDL’s recent demonstrations outside the KFC in Haslingden Road, Blackburn, dressed as a yellow chicken. Pictures on his Facebook site also show him and fellow members of the right-wing group, who call themselves the “Knuckledraggers”, at last weekend’s heavily-policed rally in Leicester.

When Holmes was jailed, Maggie Garth, 44, Mr Baxendale’s sister criticised the sentence and spoke out in favour of the Lancashire Telegraph‘s Consequences campaign, which aims to steer people away from drunken, spontaneous town centre violence.

She reacted to his release and activities with the EDL by saying: “The chicken suit is very apt for him. He’s a coward. I was physically sick when I heard he was out of prison. I don’t think the sentences handed out for these types of offences frighten the offenders. Shaun is still forgetting things and going through terrible mood swings. Yet Holmes can go out and protest over the very things that make us a free country.”

Lancashire Telegraph, 20 October 2010

Merkel inspires Islamophobia in Devon

Values and cultures are so different across the whole of Europe so it was always going to be an almost impossible job to integrate the immigrants – mostly Muslim – in Christian countries.

Throughout Europe, ruling political elites have failed to get to grips with a happy bonding between the indigenous populations and the Muslim immigrant communities. Race relations are in a turmoil because both groups feel victimised – immigrants mainly, because they have never been challenged to adapt to their new surroundings, and native populations because they feel they are being treated as second-class citizens in their countries of birth.

There is only one way forward and that is to take radical steps to promote integration of immigrants into a more enlightened way of living.

Mrs Merkel should be congratulated for recognising that this is the best way forward. Now we must hope that our political leaders are brave enough to do the same.

Letter in Express & Star, 20 October 2010

Should perhaps read “Merkel and Richard Desmond inspire Islamophobia in Devon”. The letter is lifted directly from an editorial in Monday’s Daily Express.

Tory MPs call for Charles Farr to be sacked over Zakir Naik case

A court hearing starting tomorrow will apparently lay bare attempts by Charles Farr, the director of the Office of Security and Counter Terrorism, to undermine Mrs May’s decision to ban Dr Zakir Naik, an Indian television preacher, from the UK.

Mrs May banned Dr Naik from entering the UK for a lecture tour in June, saying his presence “would not be conducive to the public good”. However, hours after the ban was announced, Mr Farr told one of Dr Naik’s supporters in an email that he would try to help Dr Naik’s case to enter the UK, according to emails seen by The Daily Telegraph.

Conservative MPs last night said it suggested “civil servants are actively working to undermine ministers’ decisions”, and said that Mr Farr should stand down.

Nick Boles MP, who is close to Prime Minister David Cameron, said: “This email appears to confirm that civil servants are actively working to undermine ministers’ decisions. This is outrageous. If true he [Mr Farr] should be removed from any position where he is responsible for combating terrorism.”

Robert Halfon, another Conservative MP said: “This underlines what I have been saying that there are too many people who seem to be appeasing extreme Islamism, rather than confront it.

“I welcome Theresa May’s robust response to it and extreme Islamism. This man should be removed from the Home Office. He is not suited to do this role. Why on earth is someone in the Home Office trying to help bring an extreme Islamist into the UK?”

Daily Telegraph, 19 October 2010

Mad Mel on multiculturalism

“Angela Merkel has got the point. Multiculturalism has failed, she states flatly, as she surveys western Europe going down under the tide of radical Islam. Rather than liberal society creating the utopia of harmonious cultural pluralism, it is being swallowed whole by the giant predator whose voracious mouth it encourages, in the spirit of tolerance, to open ever wider in the unshakeable belief of western liberals that the jaws about to snap shut around their necks are actually stretched wide in a smile.”

Melanie Phillips at her Spectator blog, 18 October 2010