Shouts of “Terrorist” and “Osama Bin Laden” on the way into an Eid party. Being chased out of a park crying because a man thinks the way you dress is a danger to children. Both racism. Both to Muslim women. Neither reported to the police.
Catrin Nye of BBC Asian Network has been investigating after a charity set up to offer the women support claimed hundreds of racist crimes against Muslim women in Scotland are going unreported.
Via ENGAGE
A Derbyshire man who threatened to blow up Glasgow Central Mosque has been sentenced to three years’ probation.
Neil MacGregor, 36, had also said he would execute a Muslim a day unless all of Scotland’s Mosques were closed. He made the threats after watching an internet video of a British hostage being beheaded in Iraq.
Sheriff Andrew Mackie said he did not believe custody would help to address the root cause of MacGregor’s problem which was his mental health.
At an earlier hearing, MacGregor, from Melbourne, Derbyshire, admitted a racial breach of the peace. He telephoned and e-mailed Strathclyde Police to make the threats from a flat in Glasgow, between 30 January and 15 February 2007. The court heard that the e-mail read:
“I’m a proud racist and National Front member. We as an organisation have decided to deal with the current threat from Muslims in our own British way, like our proud ancestors. Our demands are very small. Close all mosques in Scotland. If our demands aren’t met by next Friday, we’ll kidnap one Muslim and execute him or her on the internet, just like they did to our Ken Bigley.”
MacGregor then followed up the e-mail with a call threatening to blow up Central Mosque.
Muslim leaders criticised the way MacGregor’s case was dealt with by the police and courts. Osama Saeed, of the Scottish-Islamic Foundation, said he believed that if a young Muslim had similarly threatened violence after viewing videos from Iraq, he would have been dealt with completely differently by the police.
See Scottish Islamic Foundation press release, 7 August 2009
Update: See also Inayat Bunglawala’s piece at Comment is Free, 8 August 2009
Update 2: See “Former soldier who issued mosque bomb threat jailed”, BBC News, 6 April 2011
Phrases that ‘label’ Muslims hurt fight against extremism
By Aditi Khanna
Eastern Eye, 7 August 2009
The government is to undertake a major re-labelling drive to redefine its relationship with Muslim communities.
The reason behind the plan is because phrases like “Preventing Violent Extremism” as part of its anti-terror strategy seem to be alienating the very groups it plans to work with, according to communities secretary John Denham.
The newly-appointed minister for communities and local government is taking a personal interest in matters concerning race equality and cohesion. He said his key focus would be on a clear policy shift away from defining the government’s relationship with Muslims entirely around tackling extremism.
Denham told Eastern Eye: “I am very concerned at the extent to which the relationship between the government and Muslim communities is defined by the issue of international terrorism and extremism.
“Muslims want to engage on a range of wider issues and while we are committed to that, it may not always come across as such. They are communities of high aspirations, and need to feel that we consider issues of social mobility and access to professions as absolutely crucial.
“It has been brought to our attention that some of the labelling around government policy may be working as a disincentive. Some local authorities have already dropped the phrase ‘pre- venting violent extremism’ because they feel it identifies them as part of the problem.
“We want the Muslim community to play a positive role. If labelling is preventing them from participating in our efforts, then it defeats the entire purpose.”
A new, revised guidance around preventing extremism is being drawn up and will be re-launched in the coming months.
The communities and local government department is also working on a document aimed at addressing the rise in “white racist extremism”.
Denham added: “We have had a formal police warning recently about the threat of terror attacks from extremist far-right groups. We are determined to have a consistent approach towards extremism wherever it exists.
“There is not just one type of extremism that raises concerns. The recent European elections say more about voter abstention than support for far-right groups like the BNP.
“But a major push in tackling far-right extremism is high on our agenda. We will make sure unfairness, whether real or perceived, is tackled.”
At least 100 council wards in England will be identified for the scheme. Measures include meetings for residents to express concerns about immigration and ensuring councils are transparent about housing allocation.
The initiative comes after the British National Party won two seats at the European Parliament elections for the first time in June.
Thus the headline in the Dudley News, reporting the High Court decision to grant outline planning permission for Dudley Muslim Association to build a mosque and community, training and enterprise centre.
The Board of Deputies has sent an angry protest to the Home Office about the UK visit of a leading Saudi Arabian cleric who has made numerous antisemitic speeches.
Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais has been on a lecture tour to mosques and shared a platform with Tony Baldry, Tory MP for Banbury, in the town last week.
Vivian Wineman, president of the Board, said: “There is no doubt that the presence of Sheikh Al-Sudais undermines British values of tolerance and respect and we will continue to ensure that the government is aware that the Jewish community sees his presence here as entirely offensive.”
The usual suspects – Harry’s Place, Peter Tatchell – have been trying to whip up a scare over the fact that Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Sudais, imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, will be speaking at the East London Mosque this evening. “I don’t understand why the Home Secretary is allowing al-Sudais into Britain, given that similar hate preachers have been banned”, Tatchell has declared.
This is not al-Sudais’s first visit to the East London Mosque. In 2004, on the occasion of the opening of the London Muslim Centre (see here and here), he told thousands of worshippers:
“Muslims should exemplify the true image of Islam in their interaction with other communities and dispel any misconceptions portrayed in some parts of the media…. Muslims should remember that throughout this long history Islam has carried the message of building communities, not isolating themselves…. The history of Islam is the best testament to how different communities can live together in peace and harmony.”
Frightening, huh? Clearly Tatchell is right. This preacher of hate should be banned.
Update: And here’s the Evening Standard and the East London Advertiser – both of which take their cue from Tatchell – making their usual helpful contributions to building harmonious relations between London’s diverse communities.
Further update: Tatchell has also inspired the coverage over at Jihad Watch. He must be so proud of himself.
ENGAGE has posted a further response to the Harry’s Place “expert” on the British National Party.
“Just how many people were on the now-notorious al Muhajiroun-organised demo in Luton earlier this year, in which a small group of Islamists chanted anti-war slogans at British troops marching through the town? Just a couple of dozen, if memory serves.
“Yet the nationwide impact of the protest was out of all proportion to the numbers involved. This is presumably why immigration minister Phil Woolas thinks it is clever politics explicitly to recall the incident when presenting his plans for a points-based citizenship scheme in the media this morning.
“In practice, the stipulation will probably be pertinent to just a statistically insignificant handful of the hundreds of thousands of passport applications each year. But that’s not the point. The point is getting headlines such as ‘Immigrants who jeer at British troops in the street to be barred from gaining citizenship’.
“New Labour’s tactics to counter the inroads the British National Party is making into sections of its electoral base centre on tacitly conceding the BNP case, and then showcasing policies that seem to respond to BNP voters’ concerns.”
Unite Against Fascism supporters in the West Midlands will be joining the local Muslim community in Birmingham city centre on Saturday 8 August to protest against an “anti-Muslim demonstration” planned that day by right-wing thugs linked to the fascist BNP and promoted on openly Nazi internet sites such as Stormfront.
The racist demo is planned by a group of football hooligans operating under the names “Casuals United” and the “English Defence League”. There was a spate of Nazi and BNP graffiti in the local area after their last outing in Birmingham on 4 July.
The English Defence League website was set up by Chris Renton, a BNP activist from Weston-super-Mare.
In May this year the same group ran rampage through Luton attacking Asians and Asian-owned businesses.
The counter-demonstration against the racists meets at 5pm, outside Zavvi/Waterstones, High Street, Birmingham.
Everyone in the area should come along and show these thugs that their brand of vicious racism is not wanted in Birmingham or the West Midlands.
The British National Party has been accused of whipping up racial tensions in the district after it issued an inflammatory leaflet about a local Muslim community group.
In the latest edition of the BNP’s Epping Forest Patriot, delivered to many households in Loughton, the group attack the use on Friday afternoons of the Murray Hall, in Borders Lane, for Islamic prayer sessions. Under a picture of a union flag being eaten away by the Islamic moon and crescent the leaflet says: “In parts of neighbouring Redbridge and east London the Islamification process is almost complete. We’ll do all in our power to prevent Islam creeping into our town.” The leaflet is headed in capital letters: “No mosques in Loughton!”
Noor Ramjanally, of Valley Hill, Loughton, who started the Islamic prayer sessions at the hall has already been subjected to threats and an arson attack, which the BNP deny knowledge of. He said: “I do find it worrying because of my wife and son. We don’t deserve to be going through all this stress, we just want somewhere to pray. It’s just from people who are basically idiots. They don’t know what my religion is about. We have the support of all the community.”
Epping Forest BNP group leader Pat Richardson said she had seen the leaflet and “didn’t disagree with it.” She added: “It shouldn’t be in a community centre and I don’t think it’s appropriate in a BNP ward. It brings all sorts of problems and we don’t want problems in this area.”