Category Archives: UK

BNP organiser escapes jail

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Peter King with Nick GriffinA British National Party organiser has narrowly escaped jail for racially abusing an Asian woman in a supermarket.

Peter King told stunned Sajida Islam “go back to your own country” when he saw her in the aisles of Hartlepool’s Tesco Extra store, in Burn Road. He followed with a tirade of racist abuse.

The incident happened on October 14 last year. King, who the BNP’s own website describes as regional organiser, was arrested again on Christmas Eve. Police were called following a row with his neighbour, 20-year-old student Nicholas Thompson, who he confronted with an ornamental mace for revving his mini-moto bike.

King, 38, was at risk of going to jail after he admitted racially aggravated harassment and possessing an offensive weapon. However, he walked out of court after he was given a suspended prison term.

Hartlepool Mail, 2 October 2010

More halal hysteria – Mail claims victory over Waitrose

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Britain Goes Halal headline

Waitrose is to introduce a range of non-halal lamb products as a  response to customers’ concerns about its meat supplies. Until now, all lamb sold by the store has been slaughtered in accordance with Islamic law, with a Muslim reciting a prayer in Arabic over the meat. But Waitrose said last night that, from now on, organic Welsh lamb from its Duchy Originals range – established by Prince Charles to market produce from his estates – will no longer be halal.

Waitrose said they made their decision in order to give customers “more choice”. But their reversal of policy comes a week after The Mail on Sunday revealed how most British supermarkets were secretly selling halal meat – especially lamb – without telling customers.

The investigation found that most New Zealand lamb sold in major British supermarkets was halal, meaning that the prayer “In the name of Allah, who is the greatest” is said at the time of slaughter. Stores selling lamb slaughtered according to Islamic law included Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Sainsbury’s.

After inquiries by The Mail on Sunday last week, Waitrose said: “We have decided to offer our customers an option to buy lamb which has not received the halal blessing.” Waitrose said that all their other lamb produced in the UK and New Zealand will continue to be halal without being described as such on the packaging.

Patricia Dunton, 67, from Totteridge, North London, said she had been shopping in Waitrose for more than 30 years. Speaking before the Waitrose announcement, she said: “As a devout Christian, I won’t buy Duchy Originals lamb ever again, and I won’t buy lamb from Waitrose. I don’t like the fact that an Islamic prayer has been said over it. It should have been labelled so that I know what I am buying.”

Mail on Sunday, 3 October 2010

This is the third weekend in succession that the Mail has pursued its campaign against halal meat. See here and here.

NSS warns against Muslims ‘turning schools into madrassas’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Action is needed to prevent people with “extremist religious or political” views taking over academies, a board member of the country’s largest sponsor has warned. Geoffrey Davies, on the board of the United Learning Trust (ULT), which sponsors 17 academies, called for new rules that would stop an academy trust passing to groups “alien” to a school’s original ethos.

The news comes as schools minister Lord Hill said in a letter to the National Secular Society (NSS) that the Government will not legislate against proselytising in schools as more academies and free schools are established.

Lord Hill said in a letter to the NSS that he “did not think it appropriate” to legislate, as parents will choose a school based on its ethos. Lord Hill wrote: “That ethos may be Christian, Muslim or Jewish or it may have no faith ethos at all. Parents should be free to choose schools on the basis of their ethos.”

Terry Sanderson, president of the NSS, said: “We are alarmed at the prospect of extremist religious groups taking control of these schools and using them to brainwash children. What is to stop a Muslim group taking over a school and turning it into a madrassa at public expense if that is what parents want?”

TES, 1 October 2010

West Midlands Police apologise for spying on Muslim community

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Birmingham spy camerasBritish police apologized Thursday for a counterterrorism project that installed surveillance cameras in predominantly Muslim neighborhoods, saying that although the cameras had never been switched on, the program had damaged trust and caused anger in the community.

The surveillance program, which saw more than 200 CCTV cameras and number plate recognition devices put up in parts of Birmingham, central England, was conceived in 2007 after a series of terrorist plots were uncovered in the city.

Residents complained that they were not consulted about the program, and civil liberties groups protested that the measures were heavy-handed.

Protests from human rights groups led police to decide not to begin using the cameras after an installation program was completed. Some have been covered with plastic bags to reassure locals that footage or license plate details are not being captured.

An independent review conducted by Thames Valley Police, in southern England, criticized police in central England for the camera program. The review found “little evidence of thought being given to compliance with the legal or regulatory framework” before the cameras were put up.

West Midlands Police constable Chris Sims said authorities had made a mistake in not considering the impact of the cameras in intruding into people’s privacy. “I am sorry that we got such an important issue so wrong and deeply sorry that it has had such a negative impact on our communities,” he told reporters.

Associated Press, 30 September 2010

See also “Police surveillance of Muslims set up with ‘no regard for law'”, Guardian, 1 October 2010

Warsi’s voter fraud claims ‘fuel Islamophobia’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tory Party chairman Baroness Warsi was accused of fuelling Islamophobia after she claimed electoral fraud in Asian communities had cost the Conservatives at least three seats in the general election. Labour MP Khalid Mahmood said he did not believe it was possible to commit fraud on such a scale in Westminster elections and he challenged her to produce the evidence to support her claims.

Lady Warsi told the New Statesman magazine there were “at least three seats where we lost, where we didn’t gain the seat, based on electoral fraud”. She refused to identify the seats concerned but said the problems were “predominantly within the Asian community” and that Labour had been the beneficiary. “I have to look back and say we didn’t do well in those communities, but was there something over and above that we could have done? Well, actually not, if there is going to be voter fraud,” she said.

In the same interview, Lady Warsi, who is herself a Muslim, attacked Islamophobia in the media, saying it was “the last socially acceptable form of bigotry in Briton today”.

Mr Mahmood, the MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, said in accusing Asian communities of fraud, she was simply adding to the anti-Islamic sentiment. “If you read the article, what she is talking about in terms of Islamophobia, and I think that she is doing exactly the same thing,” he told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One. “What she has done is open the door to which people can assume certain things, particularly about minority communities and the Muslim community.”

Asian Image, 30 September 2010

Update:  See also Mehdi Hasan, “Sayeeda Warsi says media is ‘anti-Islamic’…”, New Statesman blog, 1 October 2010

Further update:  Read the interview with Baroness Warsi here.

Posted in UK

Bishop of Leicester calls for faith groups to unite against EDL

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Bishop of Leicester has led a call for faith groups to stand together in “solidarity” ahead of a protest by the English Defence League. Bishop Tim Stevens is a founder member of the Leicester Faith Leaders Forum, which yesterday issued a declaration condemning the English Defence League (EDL) in “the strongest terms”.

Bishop Tim said: “Over the years, the faith groups have said an attack on one is to be regarded an attack on us all. The EDL’s tactic is to single out the Muslim community and we are clear that will not be allowed to happen in Leicester because we are all standing together in solidarity.”

Leicester Mercury, 29 September 2010

See also “Why we need a peaceful city centre protest to oppose the EDL on the 9th October”, Leicester UAF, 28 September 2010

Andrew Boff on the witch-hunt of Lutfur Rahman

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lutfur-RahmanLondon Assembly member Andrew Boff may be a member of the Tory Party but his stand against the anti-Muslim hysteria whipped up against the East London Mosque has been exemplary – unlike some prominent Labour politicians we could mention.

Dave Hill’s London Blog has just posted Boff’s assessment of the controversy arising from Andrew Gilligan’s witch-hunt of the ELM and Islamic Forum Europe, which has resulted in the Labour Party NEC’s disgraceful decision to remove Lutfur Rahman, the democratically elected Labour candidate for the Tower Hamlets mayoral election, and replace him with Helal Abbas. We take the liberty of reproducing Andrew Boff’s comments here:

There are all different sorts of mosques, they all have their different views and they are all entitled to be involved in politics if they want. If they decide to keep themselves to themselves they’re accused of being insular, remote and frightening. If they engage with the wider community and try to become part of the dialogue they are accused of having sinister motives. They can’t win.

There are too many bloggers and others out there saying that the IFE’s involvement is all some sort of subversive plot. Some of these bloggers are supposed be centre-left, but they always come over with that sort of extreme shoutiness of the Daily Mail.

All this is just a distraction from the real story, which is that the fuss about Lutfur Rahman is really just the old Labour politics as usual – all the old arguments between grassroots and the unions, the leadership and the rank and file. The only difference is that in this case there are Bengali Muslims involved, and wouldn’t it be appalling if they weren’t? Wouldn’t it be appalling if all the decisions in Tower Hamlets were taken by white, middle-class people? The Conservative Party in Tower Hamlets has a very substantial Bengali membership and we’re very proud of that. We look like the place we represent. In Hackney it’s the Orthodox Jews who are accused of entryism, but we’ve got lots of black members too and no one accuses them of entryism.

People of faith have much to contribute and they shouldn’t be locked out. If you look at the East London Mosque, they’ve done fantastic work towards fostering a multi-faith dialogue in the borough. It’s an absolutely fantastic institution and we shouldn’t be turning our back. It seems we’re all in favour of multiculturalism as long as “they” all think the same way as “us”.

The thing about Lutfur Rahman, as far as I can see, is that he’s proved to be a very good Labour machine politician. Often people who live in boroughs that are always run by Labour aren’t very impressed by how they do things, but there’s this powerful party machine that gets the vote out at elections. He’s just got that machine working for him. As I understand it the allegations made against him aren’t going to be investigated [by the NEC]. For the Labour Party to allow itself to be portrayed as the victim of a Muslim plot in order to obscure the truth that it is fundamentally dysfunctional, could damage community relations in Tower Hamlets for many years to come.

It is not only community relations that will be damaged but also the Labour Party itself. It would be difficult to have come up with a more stupid, unprincipled and counterproductive decision than that taken by the Labour NEC in de-selecting Lutfur Rahman, through which they have demonstrated complete contempt for the democratic rights of Labour Party members and voters in Tower Hamlets.

Lutfur Rahman is now standing as an independent candidate. This member of the Islamophobia Watch collective holds a Labour Party card and therefore cannot advocate a vote for him. However, voters in Tower Hamlets may well conclude that the best way to demonstrate their feelings about the Labour NEC’s appalling capitulation to a Gilligan-inspired witch-hunt will be to elect Lutfur mayor of Tower Hamlets with a ringing majority on 21 October.

Halal hysteria continues in the Mail

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Following on from the previous week’s scaremongering front-page story, the Mail returned this weekend to the subject of halal meat.

We were in fact treated to two stories, “How 70% of New Zealand lamb imports to Britain are halal… but this is NOT put on the label” in Saturday’s issue and “Top supermarkets secretly sell halal: Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose, and M&S don’t tell us meat is ritually slaughtered” in the Mail on Sunday.

Saturday’s report states at the end: “The trade body Beef & Lamb New Zealand said the form of halal slaughter used there does allow for the animals to be stunned. A spokesman said: ‘In New Zealand the process for halal slaughter is virtually the same as for non-halal slaughter’.”

In fact, earlier this year New Zealand imposed a legal requirement that all animals killed for commercial consumption must be stunned prior to slaughter.

Inayat Bunglawala tells us that he was contacted by the Mail for a comment and gave them the following quote:

“Supermarkets should not be afraid of labelling their products as Halal. Consumers – despite risible tabloid scare antics – are quite capable of appreciating that in a globalised world meat is sourced from many different quarters and that halal meat tastes just the same as non-halal meat. It is just that with halal meat the method of slaughter is with a sharp knife instead of a gun and that the name of God is recited over the animal in order to give thanks to God for providing us with food.”

And how does the quote appear in the Mail on Sunday? Like this: “Supermarkets should not be afraid of labelling their products as halal. Halal meat tastes just the same as non-halal meat.”

Predictably, the Mail reports are seized on by mad Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs: “In a little-known strike against freedom, yet again, we are being forced into consuming meat slaughtered in a barbaric, torturous and inhuman method, Islamic slaughter. Ugh.”