Category Archives: UK

Police fear far-right terror attack

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism command fears that right-wing extremists will stage a deadly terrorist attack in Britain to try to stoke racial tensions, the Guardian has learned. Senior officers say it will be a “spectacular” that is designed to kill. The counter-terrorism unit has redeployed officers to increase its monitoring of the extreme right’s potential to stage attacks.

Commander Shaun Sawyer told a meeting of British Muslims concerned about the danger to their communities that police were responding to the growing threat.

“There is an increased possibility of violence from the far right. There is a trend,” said one senior source, adding that the ideology of the violent right was driven by “people who don’t like immigration, people who don’t like Islam. We’re seeing a resurgence of anti-semitism as well.”

The meeting at which Sawyer spoke was staged by the Muslim Safety Forum, whose chair, Abdurahman Jafar, said: “Muslims are the first line of victims in the extreme right’s campaign of hate and division and they make no secret about that. Statistics show a strong correlation between the rise of racist and Islamophobic hate crime and the ascendancy of the BNP.”

Guardian, 7 July 2009

Islamic charity shop set on fire after repeated threats

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Islamic Relief arsonThe Glasgow branch of Islamic Relief, a worldwide disaster relief charity and member of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), has been badly damaged after being set on fire in the early hours of Thursday morning.

Commenting on the incident Habib Malik, Head of Islamic Relief Scotland, said:

“This is a huge blow for the local community. Not only is this our Scottish HQ but also our leading charity shop in the country, it is a vibrant hub for the community, with volunteers and donors regularly passing through the doors.

“Unfortunately, earlier this year, during the time of our Gaza Emergency Appeal we received a number of threats of this nature. We are an apolitical charity; we do not take sides in any conflict and simply act to help alleviate people’s suffering. Unfortunately, due to the fact we have the word ‘Islamic’ in our name; we are often an easy target for certain racist and Islamaphobic groups and individuals.

“This despicable incident, which could have easily cost lives, has rightly been condemned by the whole community and by people of all faiths and none. We are genuinely humbled by everyone’s offers of support and we will be working around the clock to get normal service resumed.”

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Paul Richards condemns decision to reinstate Azad Ali

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Paul Richards, former advisor to Hazel Blears at DCLG, and defender of Blears’ disgraceful decision to sever links with the Muslim Council of Britain, now takes issue with the reinstatement of suspended civil servant Azad Ali, which Richards takes as “further proof that there are sections of the British establishment that simply fail to comprehend the true nature and intent of some of the organisations of political Islam”.

Jewish Chronicle, 2 July 2009

Update:  See also ENGAGE, 4 July 2009

Psychiatric tests for mosque bomb threat man

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Neil MacGregorA man who threatened to blow up Glasgow Central Mosque has been ordered to undergo a psychiatric assessment. Neil MacGregor also threatened to kill a Muslim a day until all mosques in Scotland were closed.

At Glasgow Sheriff Court, Sheriff Andrew Mackie told the 36-year-old he appeared to be suffering from mental illness. McGregor will appear again in four weeks time after being assessed at Murray Royal Hospital in Perth.

MacGregor admitted telephoning and e-mailing Strathclyde Police to make the threats from a flat in Pollokshaws Road, Glasgow, between January and 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.

Ordering McGregor to undergo a psychiatric assessment, Sheriff Mackie told him: “It has been clear for some time your mental health has been causing concern. This may be related to you having previously served in the forces, although doubt has arisen as to whether you actually served in a combat zone.”

BBC News, 3 July 2009

Meanwhile the Financial Times reports that Sir Norman Bettison, chief constable of West Yorkshire police, has told a security conference in London: “There is a growing right-wing threat, not just Al-Qaeda.” And a spokeswoman for Searchlight is quoted as saying that police forces were paying increased attention to the threat but courts too often dismissed those caught as deluded loners. “Far-right terrorism is a serious problem. The courts have not always treated it so,” she said.

Inside a Pakistani school where children are being brainwashed into terrorists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Thus the headline to a piece by John Humphrys in the Daily Mail. In fact, Humphrys presents no evidence whatsoever that the Jamia Binoria madrassa he visited in Karachi, and whose hospitality he has abused, is brainwashing its pupils into becoming terrorists.

Last year a CNN investigation into Jamia Binoria quoted a US State Department spokesperson as saying that the madrassa was “known to U.S. officials as a moderate institution, favored by Pakistani-Americans for its moderate and tolerant Islamic instruction”.

It is clear that Humphrys hasn’t bothered to carry out the most basic background research into a subject of which he knows nothing. This is a man who blithely informs his readers that there are “relatively few Wahhabis compared to the Sunnis and Shias”, evidently oblivious to the fact that Wahhabism is a variant of Sunni Islam.

A setback in the struggle against the Islamification of the West

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Londonistan protestOver at his Lionheart blog, Paul Ray relates the sad tale of the mass anti-Muslim demo that wasn’t. It seems that one Dave Shaw had summoned like-minded patriots to join an “anti-extremist protest through the heart of Londonistan” last Saturday.

Alas, it was not to be. Members of Ray’s grandly titled English and Welsh Defence League turned up at the appointed meeting place for the demonstration, outside a pub at Trafalgar Square (see picture), only to find that they were the sole participants at the event.

According to Paul Ray: “With a no-show from ‘Dave Shaw’ and his group members, who all said they were going to be turning up on the day to protest for the sake of their country, no one really knew what we should do next, or where we should go to protest because it was not our organised event. After a few conversations it was decided that we would travel to Whitechapel and protest outside the East London Mosque, and take some group photographs.”

Unfortunately, backward elements within the English and Welsh Defence League proved inadequate to the task. As Ray recounts indignantly:

“At this point sadly, there were deserters amongst the ranks, who chose to entertain themselves in Covent Garden rather than sticking in the ranks with their brothers, and entering enemy territory with the rest of us, as part of the group who had travelled in to protest against Islamic extremists for the sake of their country.

“Desertion is one of the very worst forms of betrayal in the armed forces, with a prison sentence for those who choose to take that path and if we look back to the First World War, deserters were shot for their betrayal against their countrymen.”

So poor Paul Ray was left to march through the East End with what appears to be about a dozen of his mates.

Update:  See also Barthlomew’s Notes on Religion, 2 July 2009

Belfast Islamic Centre receives far-right racist threats

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Members of a south Belfast Islamic community centre are in fear of being attacked after it was targeted by a threatening racist letter from a loyalist far-right organisation this week.

The Belfast Islamic Centre on Wellington Park was among organisations, businesses and politicians in south Belfast that have received racist threats over the last few days.

The Islamic Centre, established in 1978 by a group of Muslims from the local community, received a threatening letter on Monday claiming to be from a loyalist far-right organisation stating: “Keep Northern Ireland for white British people.”

Muhammad al-Qaryooti, the centre’s director, said the letter was extremely racist. “The letter said they had ‘no sympathy for foreigners — get out of the Queen’s country’,” said Mr al-Qaryooti.

Belfast Telegraph, 1 July 2009

Now Christopher Hitchens supports a ‘burka ban’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Christopher Hitchens“Last week French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced his support for legislation to ban the burka, the dark, heavy and not-too-comfortable garment worn by many Muslim women. The question arises: Is this forcible French secularism run amok, or a prohibition that Americans, who often believe we have struck a better balance between church and state, might entertain? I would say the latter….

“It is quite plainly designed by men for the subjugation of women. One cannot be absolutely sure that no woman has ever donned it voluntarily, but one can certainly say that, in countries where women can choose not to wear it, then not wearing it is the choice they generally make. This disposes right away of the phony argument that religious attire is worn as a matter of ‘right’. … Western masochism about other people’s ‘culture’ often obscures this obvious fact.

“Think of the things that we all have to do now, like submitting to humiliating searches at airports, or showing our ID to people who have no ‘probable cause’ for demanding it. Can we turn up at airport security wearing a bag over our heads? Can we produce a photograph that shows only our eyes through a slit? Of course not….

“And don’t force me to say this, even though I will: One reason we have to undergo such indignities is because of faith-based suicide attacks on our civil aviation, and so far the perpetrators of this nightmare have not been caught wearing crucifixes or Stars of David around their necks….

“It is depressing that our President, in addressing the Muslim world, takes the most reactionary religious practice as the symbol of rights and identity. The klansman’s hood, remember, is also the symbol of a white Protestant religious ‘identity’ movement.”

Christopher Hitchens in the New York Daily News, 1 July 2009

More anti-Muslim nonsense from the Express

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The Daily Express is an odious little right-wing newspaper owned by a pornographer. Its coverage of Muslims makes me laugh out loud, although I have no doubt the intention is to fan anti-Muslim hatred, including Police Give Muslims in Cells Compasses To Pray Towards Mecca. At 30p each, there is clearly an issue pertaining to the use of public resources here, especially given that 10% of male prisoners in England and Wales are Muslim (cost = £2500 approx). That would buy a Tory MP nearly two duck houses.”

Plimfix at Talk Islam, 1 July 2009