Dozens of protesters from the English Nationalist Alliance brought Westminster to a standstill today as they demonstrated against sharia law. Many of the demonstrators had shrouded their faces in balaclavas and scarfs.
Category Archives: UK
Pig’s head attack on Finsbury Park mosque
Islamophobic thugs stuck a pig’s head on to the gates of an Islington mosque – offending hundreds of worshippers.
The two men sneaked up to North London Central Mosque, in St Thomas’s Road, Finsbury Park, in the dead of night and hung a cooked pig’s head on the railings. CCTV footage showed them taking pictures of themselves with the macabre object. The head was not discovered until almost three hours later, when those arriving for early morning prayers were greeted by the sickening sight.
Standard and Mail pay damages over suicide bomber slur
A Muslim academic today accepted an apology and substantial undisclosed damages after the Daily Mail claimed he groomed Tel Aviv suicide bomber Omar Sharif.
In addition to accepting damages from Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail, Reza Pankhurst also accepted an apology and damages from the London Evening Standard at London’s High Court this morning over a similar story.
Pankhurst launched a libel action against the two papers over articles which appears in the Standard and the Mail on 15 January with the respective headlines “LSE’s Islamist teacher ‘groomed suicide bomber for Tel Aviv attack'”, and “Revealed: Islamist preacher who lectures at top London university ‘groomed suicide bomber’.” A third article headed “Teaching at a leading university ‘the mentor of a suicide bomber'”appeared in the Mail the following day.
Acting for Pankhurst, Lucy Moorman told Justice Tugendhat at the time of publication her client was a PhD student and graduate teaching assistant at the LSE. She told the judge that Pankhurst, a devout Muslim who wished to become a full time academic, had been an undergraduate at Kings College until 1996 where he was in the year above Sharif. The court was told that Pankhurst had limited contact with Sharif during the period they were at university.
Moorman said that at the time of Sharif’s attempted suicide bombing in 2003, Pankhurst was a political prisoner in Egypt and had had no contact with Sharif for at least eight years. “Mr Pankhurst has never mentored a terrorist or groomed anyone to carry out an act of terrorism. He is committed to furthering the cause of Muslims in an exclusively non-violent way,”she said.
Moorman told the court the allegations in the articles were false and that both papers had now agreed to pay him costs and damages for the ‘injury to his reputation and the distress caused to him’by the articles.
EDL members arrested over suspected mosque bomb plot
Several English Defence League members were sensationally arrested last week by police investigating an apparent plot to bomb a British mosque.
Tim Ablitt, partner Tanya, Alfred and Tracy Saint, and a man known only at this stage as “Poole Knight” were arrested by officers in Dorset on Thursday evening and held for 24 hours while police investigated their potential involvement in an bomb plot thought to involve Bournemouth mosque.
Racist thug jailed for attack on Muslim woman
A racist thug who ripped off a Muslim woman’s religious veil and threw it on the ground was jailed for two years yesterday.
Brute William Baikie grabbed the veil from 26-year-old Anwar Alqahtani as she was on her way to catch a train from Glasgow’s Central Station. Miss Alqahtani, who wears the hijab to protect her modesty as part of her religion, had to use another piece of clothing to cover her face after the veil was ripped as Baikie pulled it from her. Baikie, 26, ran off but was later arrested by police after being identified on CCTV.
Miss Alqahtani, who had come to Scotland from Saudi Arabia to study for a masters degree, has quit her studies and is afraid to leave the house as a result of the attack.
Sentencing Baikie at Glasgow Sheriff Court yesterday, Sheriff Lindsay Wood told the racist what he did was an “absolute disgrace”. Sheriff Wood added: “The offence you committed was a shameful one. You are a man who has a number of racist convictions and you knew full well how offensive the act would have been to the lady.”
Hollobone could face legal action, warns Liberty
A Tory MP has been warned he could face legal action if he follows through on a threat to refuse to meet constituents wearing the veil.
Lawyers for Liberty have written to Philip Hollobone insisting that his stance is unlawful and that they “will be happy to represent any of your constituents that you refuse to meet because they are veiled”.
More ignorant nonsense from Paul Goodman
It’s still only July, but already Islamophobes are gearing up for their annual witch-hunt of the Global Peace and Unity Event in October, whose partners include the Islam Channel and the Muslim lifestyle magazine Emel.
Former Tory MP Paul Goodman is scaremongering over the supposed “extremists” who will be speaking at the event. One such extremist is “Dr Abu [sic] Rahman Al-Sudais”. The reference is to the imam at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, who has of course visited the UK on a number of occasions and in his speeches has always urged moderation and integration on his Muslim audiences (see for example here, here and here). But Goodman evidently knows so little about Dr Al-Sudais that he can’t even get his name right.
This is par for the course with Goodman. Last week he declared his support for Khalid Mahmood’s disgraceful attack on the North London Central Mosque in Finsbury Park, which was itself based upon a jaw-droppingly ignorant report by the US radio station NPR claiming that the “Christmas Day bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had attended a lecture by Anwar al-Awlaki at the mosque “in the fall of 2006 or 2007”. Al-Alawi was in fact arrested in Yemen in August 2006 and was held in prison there until December the following year – so, as the NLCM has pointed out, he could hardly have paid a visit to Finsbury Park during that period. But why should Goodman bother himself with minor details like this? His method is to mindlessly repeat slanders against representative Muslim individuals and institutions without making the slightest effort to check his sources.
Woman jailed for abusing and spitting at Muslims as they left mosque
Worshippers leaving a mosque in Colne were subjected to a tirade of racist abuse by a drunken woman who spat on them in the street, a court heard.
Brothers Quaram and Asim Majid were leaving the venue in Chapel Street on Wednesday when they were confronted by Emma Woods, Burnley magistrates were told. Woods, 24, of Laithe Street, Colne, hurled abuse at the pair and repeatedly spat at them, as their 14-year-old nephew looked on, said prosecutor Bill Maude.
The brothers tried to walk away towards Albert Road and Colne Lane but Woods pursued them across the Pendle town, in scenes which were described in court as “disgraceful”.
Woods admitted two offences of racially aggravated assault and breaching a suspended prison sentence order, also imposed for assault. Magistrates jailed her for 146 days.
Mr Maude said the defendant continued to pursue the pair, as one of the brothers attempts to guide their 14-year-old nephew to safety. Woods shouted: “No-one wants you here. Get out of our country. This is our town.”
EDL accused of threatening, intimidating and harassing Luton residents
Luton Mayor Councillor Tom Shaw and council leader Hazel Simmons have said that threatening or intimidating behaviour in the town will not be tolerated after a stand off between EDL members and opposing groups yesterday afternoon.
Crowds of EDL members, in the town to support Kevin Carroll, who was in court appealing against public order offences relating to an incident at the Poachers’ homecoming parade last March, had to be separated from groups of other men by lines of police in St George’s Square. Officers from the Metropolitan Police, some on horseback, and the British Transport Police had to be drafted in to help keep the peace as angry exchanges broke out.
In a joint statement, Councillors Shaw and Simmons said: “It is not for us to comment on the decisions made in court, and it would not be appropriate for us to do so. We can say, however, that any behaviour carried out by any person to threaten, intimidate or harass others is completely unacceptable and we will not tolerate behaviour of this type in Luton.
“Luton is a diverse and vibrant town, with many people from all over the world coming together and living in harmony. The absolutely unacceptable behaviour of a small group of trouble-makers will be viewed with anger and dismay by the overwhelming majority of people in our town. We understand that most of those gathering in Luton today came from other parts of the country.
“We fully support the police in their actions to protect public safety.”
Most of the media coverage of yesterday’s events referred to “rival groups of protestors”, but what appears to have happened is that the EDL racists who had come to Luton to support Carroll staged a provocative and intimidatory demonstration in the town centre and local people understandably reacted angrily against this.
Muslim women told to get off London bus because they were a ‘threat’ to passengers
Two Muslim women have claimed they were refused a bus ride because one had her face covered by a veil.
The 22-year-old students, of Slough, Berkshire, were in London and boarded a Metroline bus from Russell Square to Paddington on Tuesday. But they said when they presented their tickets the driver told them they were a “threat” to passengers and ordered them off the bus. An investigation has been started by the firm as a matter of “urgency”.
The pair, who have made a formal complaint to the bus company, have asked the BBC not to reveal their full names.
Yasmin, who was wearing a hijab, and Atoofa, dressed in a niqab – which covers the face – were in London to hand in university work and would usually have taken the Tube, but because Yasmin’s feet were hurting they opted to travel by bus.
Yasmin said at first she boarded the bus by mistake when it was not in service to ask if it was going to Paddington station, but was told by the driver to get off.
“My gut reaction was just to laugh because I thought it was hilarious to be told to get off the bus,” she said. “About 10 minutes later… the passengers started getting on. When I went forward to show my ticket he said, ‘Get off the bus’. I presumed he was still angry because I got on the bus before.
“He said, ‘I am not going to take you on the bus because you two are a threat.’ I realised it wasn’t due to me getting on the bus, this may be a racist attack.” The student said the driver told her and her friend that they were a “threat” to both him and his passengers.
She asked for his contact details but when he refused she began to film him with her mobile phone and he covered his face with a magazine. “I said, ‘it’s OK for you to cover your face on my recording but it’s not OK for my friend to cover her face out of choice?’ There was no point arguing with him, we got off the bus and by then my anger turned into emotion. I stood there and my gut reaction was to cry.”
Atoofa, who had her face covered by the veil, said she hoped the driver would be educated about why women wear the traditional Islamic dress, rather than being sacked. “I think more than anything, I would like him to understand why we wear it and I think I would like an apology,” she added. “I think being sacked is a whole other league. I want him to sit there and talk to me about why he felt the way he felt and maybe to understand where we are coming from.”