Category Archives: UK

Leyton scheme to empower young Muslim women

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A project aimed at helping young Muslim girls to gain confidence and skills, including those who have suffered abuse and hostility because of wearing the headscarf, has been launched.

The Young Muslim Women Professionals Project was given a grant of nearly £500,000 from the Big Lottery fund and was set up after women came forward to describe the abuse they suffered. Aimed at girls and young women aged 10 to 25, the scheme will include mentoring projects, “skills for life” such as ICT and counselling training and advice on how to deal with abuse safely.

Project director Zahir Fatima said: “We’re helping young Muslim women to build confidence regardless of whether they wear the veil. It’s about giving them skills and empowering them to become more active in the community.”

Set up by the Leyton-based Kiran Project, which has traditionally supported Asian women and children suffering domestic violence and abuse, the scheme is set to run for three years.

Fiaz Akhtar, who works for Kiran as a project co-ordinator and wears a head scarf, said: “I’ve experienced it myself on two or three occasions. After 7/7, I was in my car with my daughter and a guy came up behind me. He came out of his car and started swearing and saying ‘get back to your country’. It came to the point where I was petrified.”

Mrs Akhtar also had a lit cigarette thrown at her and said many women have been spat at, verbally abused in the street and even had their veils pulled off in the years following 9/11 and 7/7. She said: “My clothes almost caught fire – luckily I was sitting forward. I cried a lot – it’s something that could have been harmful to me.”

She described how her 12-year-old daughter, who also wears the veil, had been verbally abused in Walthamstow market because of the way she was dressed. Mrs Akhtar added that a number of young women had come forward to say they had suffered similar problems and the project grew from there, as a way to rebuild their self-confidence.”

Waltham Forest Guardian, 28 August 2009

A committee against Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“In 2005 a parliamentary committee against antisemitism was established to ‘confront and defeat antisemitism in this country and beyond’. At a time when anti-Muslim bigotry has become pervasive and is now translating into actual hate crimes, it is surely crucial that a similar committee against Islamophobia is also set up to monitor and help combat anti-Muslim prejudice and discrimination.”

Inayat Bunglawala at Comment is Free, 27 August 2009

Another anti-Muslim lie from the BNP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Last week, under the blaring headline “Muslim Post Office Manager Bans Woman from Sending Parcel Because Her Son Serves in Afghanistan“, the British National Party reported:

“A Muslim post office manager in Cardiff has refused to serve a British soldier’s mother – because her son serves in Afghanistan. The shocking story, which shows precisely how far mass Third World immigration has created a fifth column of anti-British elements in this country, has emerged after the woman, Mrs Maria Davies, contacted the British National Party in Wales to ask for assistance.”

Brian Mahoney, BNP leader in Wales, was quoted as saying:

“For many mothers with sons on active service for their country, it can be a constant worry until they return safely. It is of great importance for a mother to be able to go to her local post office to send her son a parcel or money. Imagine, then, Mrs Davies’ shock when the owner of her local post office in Wilson Road, Ely, Cardiff, a certain Mr Khan, asked her where her son was serving. When she told him Afghanistan, he informed her that she was not welcome to send him anything from her post office, either packages or money.”

Helpfully providing a photo of Mr Khan’s shop, for ease of identification, the BNP urged its supporters to contact him and make their feelings known. (Perhaps Mr Khan should be grateful that he lives in South Wales rather than Essex, otherwise Councillor Pat Richardson might have paid him a visit with a brick.)

And, wouldn’t you know it, the story turns out to be complete nonsense. Mr Khan had in fact banned Davies from all of his shops as the result of a dispute over a technical glitch concerning charges to her debit card. It had nothing to do with her son serving in Afghanistan.

Mr Khan and the post office manageress Mrs Thomas have issued the following statement:

There is absolutely no truth in the allegation made to the British National Party that the Post Office in Wilson Road, Ely, Cardiff will not accept parcels for British troops in Afghanistan.

It should not be repeated and we reserve the right to pursue legal action against any person or body repeating the allegation and call for its removal from any website or other publication.

The Wilson Road Post Office has always accepted and continues to accept such parcels. Indeed the Wilson Road shops including the Post Office recently held a ‘Heroes Collection’ for British troops.

The allegation is false and malicious and related to a separate dispute with a customer.

As a result that customer is not welcome at these premises but our services can be accessed by someone else on their behalf if they so wish.

Lancaster Unity has the story.

As for the BNP, they have now removed the story from their website, but hopefully that won’t deter Mr Khan from taking them to court.

Islam has waged war on the West since its inception, BNP meeting told

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Islam, far from being a ‘religion of peace’, has encouraged its followers to wage violent war to spread its message ever since its creation in the eighth century AD, the monthly meeting of the British National Party in Tameside was told last night.”

BNP news report, 27 August 2009

The speaker was Arthur Kemp, author of the BNP publication Jihad: Islam’s 1,300 Year War On Western Civilisation. Kemp is also notorious for an earlier book, March of the Titans: A History of the White Race.

Salma Yaqoob | Birmingham united against fascism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Birmingham city councillor Salma Yaqoob, joined by Adrian Goldberg, Khalid Mahmood MP, John Hemming MP, Cllr Judy Foster, Chief Insp Adrian Atherley and Apache Indian, calls on the West Midlands Police to ban a march by far-right groups planned for September; following the violence erupted amidst an EDL-Casuals United demonstration on 8th August in the city.

Date: Sunday 23rd August 2009
Venue: Birmingham Council House, Victoria Square, Birmingham, B1.

How Quilliam smears anti-fascists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Red White and Blue protest

On 18 August we posted a piece entitled “Quilliam accuses anti-BNP protestors of ‘thuggery and hooliganism’“, which criticised an article by Lucy James of the Quilliam Foundation that had appeared on the Progress Magazine website.

Our criticisms provoked a hostile reaction from one of the Harry’s Place wannabees who run a blog rejoicing in the name of the Spittoon, where we were accused of producing “an amateurish bit of slime” against Lucy James. I hadn’t intended to post on it here, but as the Spittoon piece is being punted around as a “comprehensive rebuttal” of our article, I think it’s necessary to place an answer on record.

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‘Muslim immigration: the most radical change in European history’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Ed_West“Christopher Caldwell is a mild-mannered Financial Times journalist who over the past decade has covered continental Europe (France especially) and its relationship with Islam in particular.

“That Caldwell is so mainstream, well-respected and analytical makes his conclusion all the more devastating – that the mass migration of Africans and Asians into Europe since the Second World War was an unprecedented, economically unnecessary and ill-thought-out plan that has had a profoundly negative impact on our way of life. Furthermore, he says, the mass importation of Muslims at a time when Europe has lost its own faith and Islam has developed a dangerous and powerful radicalism threatens the very freedom of Europe.

“… self-loathing was at the heart of the immigration experiment and later experiments in multiculturalism and political correctness; only a society so racked with self-hatred would have invited foreign labour in such numbers despite the economic benefits being so thin….

“Can Europe be the same? Clearly not. Can we reach some happy compromise that peacefully integrates such large communities and avoids the conflicts that have plagued such multi-cultural countries in the past? Probably not.

“Pim Fortuyn in Holland offered the best hope of a non-racist [sic!], liberal Europe that believed in itself; after his murder the future lies either with Nicolas Sarkozy, who believes in republican integration, or the likes of Geert Wilders, whose implacable hostility to Islam is increasingly shared across Europe.

“This is a fascinating, earth-shattering account of the most radical change in European history.”

Yet another adulatory review of Caldwell’s paranoid anti-Muslim tract, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, this one by Torygraph blogger Ed West in the Catholic Herald, 21 August 2009

Call for ban on anti-Muslim demonstration in Birmingham

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Birmingham protestWest Midlands Police have been urged to step in and ban a far right group from holding a march in Birmingham next month to avoid a repeat of the shocking scenes of violence witnessed earlier this month.

White nationalist organisation The English Defence League (EDL) and an associated group, Casuals United, are due to hold a rally against Islamic extremism in the city on September 5. Their first demonstration on August 8 ended with violence and bloodshed as supporters clashed with anti-racism campaigners.

One of those calling for a ban was Respect councillor Salma Yaqoob, who expected more street violence if EDL returned. “When it comes to public safety we have every right to intervene,” she said. “But the ‘just stay away’ message we are hearing won’t wash with today’s Muslim youngsters who won’t put their heads down and carry on walking when they are subjected to racist taunts – they will react and fight back.”

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