Category Archives: UK

‘No to sharia law in Britain’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Guardian for some reason sees fit to provide the discredited Denis MacEoin with a platform.

Meanwhile, over at the Independent, a generally balanced article, entitled “How do Britain’s sharia courts work, and are they a good thing?”, nevertheless includes the following bizarre assertion:

“On International Women’s Day, in March, there was a huge demonstration in London, backed by feminists, supporters of gay rights and others – including a substantial number of Muslims – who marched under a banner saying: ‘No sharia and faith-based laws – one law for all’.”

A huge demonstration? Give us a break. This is a reference to a sectarian stunt organised by the loopy Worker Communist Party of Iran which turned out to be a complete flop.

Update:  Inayat Bunglawala replies to Denis MacEoin.

Catholic college excludes Muslim woman who refused to remove veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

St MarysTwo pupils and their teacher were ordered to remove their face veils before they could make an official visit to a Roman Catholic school.

The party were from an Islamic school in Great Harwood, Lancs and were visiting St Mary’s College in nearby Blackburn, which was staging its annual open day.

The two schoolgirls agreed to take off their niqab veils. However, their teacher refused and was taken into an office at the sixth form college and told she would not be allowed on the premises.

St Mary’s College yesterday defended the move, claiming that staff had requested that the trio remove the traditional Islamic veils because they are against the school’s dress policy.

Its principal Kevin McMahon said: “At the start of one of our ‘taster days’ for prospective students last week, some visitors did arrive wearing the veil. When the policy was explained to them, all except one were willing to remove it. This lady – a member of staff at the school – refused, and opted to leave the premises.”

Daily Telegraph, 30 June 2009

See also the Times, Daily Mail and Daily Mirror.

Toube demands an apology

Posted on by Bob Pitt

DavidToubeSpare a thought for poor, maligned David Toube. Today he posts an indignant article complaining that Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition has misrepresented him and his fellow bloggers at Harry’s Place. She can only get away with this, Toube writes piously, because she knows that “as a matter of principle, I will not sue for defamation”. Given that Toube regularly denounces Muslim activists he disagrees with as racists and fascists, and once described Inayat Bunglawala and myself as the “ideological wing” of the terrorists responsible for the attempted car bombing of Glasgow airport, perhaps he should be grateful that his opponents apply the same principle when responding to his attacks on them.

Continue reading →

‘Veiled threat’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Among European liberals the burka is seen as a symbol of female subservience. And the freedom to opt for such deplorable status runs counter to other liberties regarded as more important in the hierarchy of freedoms: openness, transparency, equality and opportunity. Within Western society, the covering of the face negates all such fundamental rights….

“Tolerance of the practice is also a licence for intolerance. Too often extremists try to exploit this bogus symbol of Islamic piety to create Muslim ghettos where they assert their own personal power. Too often the issue is a deliberate provocation to challenge the values and mores of Western society. An absolute ban on the burka is unnecessary and unenforceable. But civic education and religious debate – here, in France and in the Muslim world – are the best way to consign to the dark ages this symbol of darkness.”

Editorial in the Times, 26 June 2009

Continue reading →

MCB misrepresented

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Letter in the Jewish Chronicle, 26 June 2009:

Your article reporting a claim that the Muslim Council of Britain and Muslims “snubbed” a briefing of a multi-faith initiative designed to formulate a co-ordinated response to the BNP (Muslims snub drive against BNP, JC June 19) is incorrect and misleading.

No formal invitation was received from Fiyaz Mughal or his company, Faith Matters. If it had been, the MCB would have considered it.

It is extraordinary that the MCB has been wrongly characterised in this light, given the work we have done to challenge the common threat we face from the far right.

We have worked with anti-fascist groups and we ourselves launched a campaign in British mosques to raise awareness of the need to fight fascism.

Moreover, we have long been advocating a co-ordinated strategy of all faiths. In fact, days before the June 4 European and local elections, the MCB invited faith leaders, including the newly elected President of the Board of Deputies, Vivian Wineman, to be part of a joint statement that called for unity of all faith communities in condemning all those who seek to divide our society.

May I assure your readers that the Muslim Council of Britain and British Muslims are ever ready to work with British Jews, our cousins in faith, to seek the common good, and foster greater understanding between our two communities.

We can start by tackling the weekly drip-feed of misrepresentation and suspicion of Muslims and the MCB that is presented in your paper.

Murtaza Shibli,
Public Affairs and Media Officer,
Muslim Council of Britain
PO Box 57330, London E1

West must respect the Muslim veil

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Modernity should not be defined solely from a Western, liberal, secular-centred point of view. Our world today is one of multiple modernities, in which societies are increasingly multicultural and religiously and non-religiously pluralistic. Western societies should respect the rights of Muslim women who choose to wear the veil.”

John Esposito in the Gulf Times, 25 June 2009

Muslim Pc’s boss ‘accused him of looking like Osama Bin Laden’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Muslim police officer was told he looked like the terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden by his boss because of his long beard, an employment tribunal has heard. Pc Tariq Dost has taken West Midlands Police and the police authority to a tribunal for racial and religious discrimination and victimisation following the remarks made to him from 2007.

Pc Dost, from Small Heath, Birmingham was working as a recruitment officer for the force when his manager Darren Yates is alleged to have made several discriminatory comments to him based on his race, beliefs and religion. The tribunal heard how Mr Yates made remarks about the length of his beard on several occasions and also questioned why he tucked his trousers into his boots.

Giving evidence, Pc Dost said: “I believe he felt uncomfortable with me because of my appearance. I found them (his comments) to be discriminatory and ignorant and embarrassing.” Pc Dost, 42, also claimed Mr Yates referred to Muslim prayer as “shouting and wailing” when he asked to go to afternoon prayer while at a recruitment fair at Birmingham’s NEC.

Mr Yates is alleged to have laughed at him as he turned up to the fair in Islamic clothing and robes as he was off duty. “I found it to be highly offensive and demeaning and discriminatory towards myself and Muslims as a whole,” Pc Dost said. “His actions were racist and Islamaphobic.”

Daily Telegraph, 25 June 2009

Update:  See “Muslim policeman awarded damages from West Midlands force”, Birmingham Post, 26 June 2009