Category Archives: UK

Turkey urges police action on BNP flyers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Turkish government has demanded the withdrawal of election leaflets distributed in Scotland by the British National party, claiming they are intended to incite racial and religious hatred. Flyers promoting the BNP’s European election campaign suggest that millions of Turkish Muslims would flood into Britain if the country were to be granted full EU membership.

One BNP leaflet being handed out on the streets of Glasgow said taxpayers’ money “shouldn’t be wasted on expanding Europe so that millions of Muslims in Turkey can join the invasion of foreign job snatchers”. Another urges voters to “oppose the dangerous drive backed by the other main parties to give 80m low-wage Muslim Turks the right to swamp Britain”.

Officials at the Turkish embassy in London have complained to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and have suggested the matter be referred to the police because the leaflets potentially breach race relations legislation.

“It is obvious that these are racist and highly inflammatory statements which insult both Turkey and the Turkish nation as a whole and put hundreds of thousands of Turks and Turkish Cypriots who live and have been born in Britain at risk of racist abuse and attacks,” said Orhan Tung, a spokesman for the embassy.

“I think the leaflets are a clear breach of both the Race Relations Act and the Racial and Religious [Hatred] Act, which makes it an offence to distribute written material with the intent to stir up religious or racial hatred. We believe that the relevant British authorities such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission should consider taking legal action against the party in question.”

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Is this the end of Christianity in England?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“One way or another, the lights seem to be going out for Christianity in England. If the secularists do not destroy the church there, the Islamists are happy to have a go at it. Just last week it was announced that the BBC has appointed a Muslim to be ‘the Head of Religion and Ethics’. This is simply the latest in a long list of Islamist initiatives which may well turn England into a Muslim nation. As Melanie Philips documented in her important book, Londonistan, the Islamisation of England is steadily rolling on.”

Christian Today, 22 May 2009

BNP threatens Basildon Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP Islam Out of BritainA Muslim leader has urged people not to vote for the BNP in next month’s council and European elections and claimed the Islamic community in Basildon has already been threatened by the far right group.

Brother Sarfraz Sarwar, leader of the Basildon Islamic Centre, says members of the British National Party have been deliberately dishing out their pro-election leaflets near to the Vange Community Centre where Muslims hold their Friday prayers.

He also said one member of the local Muslim community was “verbally abused” by the BNP. Brother Sarwar said: “One of our brothers was coming out of prayers when he saw the BNP handing out leaflets. He screwed it up and threw it away and that’s when they began hurling racist abuse at him.”

Brother Sarwar says the man was threatened with comments such as “We are going to get you” and “your time has come!” He said: “There were four men trying to intimidate him in the street. They were definitely from the BNP. They deliberately targeted us near to our prayer centre.

“I am urging people not to vote for the BNP just because they are fed up with the other parties. A lot of people in our community are worried the BNP could win lots of seats because of the current political climate. They are scared.”

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ENGAGE complains to the Daily Mail about Amanda Platell article

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dear Sir,

Amanda Platell in her column, ‘Equality? You must be joking!‘, (Daily Mail 21st May 2009) makes some shockingly inaccurate remarks.

She claims, ‘In March this year, a large group of Muslims in Luton protested in the town with deeply offensive posters vilifying our returning troops, calling them rapists and murderers.’

The group of Muslims involved in the protest numbered no more than 20, something patently obvious from television footage from the day. In a town where Muslim residents number in excess of 25,000, how could 20 possibly be said to constitute ‘a large group of Muslims’?

Ms Platell also writes of Christian festivals being routinely cancelled at Easter and Christmas each year while no similar treatment of Muslim festivals would be conceivable. Stories of the ‘banning of Christmas’ have regularly been shown to be fabrications; the work of imaginative journalists keen to foment mischief between communities.

It is falsehoods such as these that bolster the likes of the far right BNP.

Yours sincerely,
Inayat Bunglawala
Advisor on Research and Policy
ENGAGE

How MI5 blackmails British Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MI5 logo

Five Muslim community workers have accused MI5 of waging a campaign of blackmail and harassment in an attempt to recruit them as informants.

The men claim they were given a choice of working for the Security Service or face detention and harassment in the UK and overseas.

They have made official complaints to the police, to the body which oversees the work of the Security Service and to their local MP Frank Dobson. Now they have decided to speak publicly about their experiences in the hope that publicity will stop similar tactics being used in the future.

Independent, 21 May 2009

See also MPACUK press release, 22 May 2009

Update:  See the Independent, 22 May 2009

Appeal against deportation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“It is with utmost distress and pain that we approach your kind office to plead the case of 10 Pakistani students, who are being held by British authorities despite absence of any charges or evidence. Our kids are in prison, thousand of miles away from us having no contact with them for the last 43 days. Agonies, stresses which we are experiencing at the moment cannot be simply explained, what to speak of the mothers of these unfortunate students. UK has long history of fair play and justice and we are sure that justice coupled with compassion will also prevail in this case.”

Socialist Unity reproduces the letter to Gordon Brown from parents of three of the Pakistani students who are awaiting deportation, under the pretext that they pose a “threat to national security” but without any evidence being presented to substantiate that charge.

‘Tories commit to Islamification of Britain’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Well, so the brain-dead bigots of the BNP claim.

The basis of this accusation is the recent launch of the Conservative Muslim Forum North West, which aims to “give Muslims in the party a platform to have their voices heard, to engage with Muslims and encourage them to participate in political life at all levels, from grassroots to Parliament”. This initiative also “hopes to encourage more Muslims to join the party with a big drive to encourage more women and young people to become politically active”.

Could there be a more graphic illustration of the Tories’ sell-out to the Muslim hordes?

Mind you, I can’t help recalling that when the government launched its Young Muslim Advisory Group last October the Tories’ shadow minister for community cohesion, Sayeeda Warsi, denounced it as “another example of the Government engaging with the British Muslim communities on the basis purely of their faith”. She continued: “When will the Government learn that the Muslim community is not a homogenous block…? Actions such as this are a continuation of the Government’s policy of state multiculturalism, which creates a more divided Britain.”

I suppose, though, that when the Tories themselves are trying to rally support among Muslims in the run-up to a general election, “engaging with the British Muslim communities on the basis purely of their faith” seems like quite a good idea after all.

Over 100 complaints over BBC’s Muslim head of religious shows

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The BBC has received 115 complaints over its appointment of the first Muslim to the role of head of religion and ethics. Channel 4 executive Aaqil Ahmed was confirmed in the post on Monday, becoming only the second non-Christian – after agnostic Alan Bookbinder in 2001 – in the BBC’s 87-year history to be appointed to the role. It is understood the “vast majority” of the complaints are about Ahmed not being a Christian.

Guardian, 16 May 2009

Posted in UK

Answers needed over ‘terror’ raids

Posted on by Bob Pitt

'Terror' arrests in ManchesterA lawyer representing three Pakistani students detained for 13 days then released without charge has said it is the worst case of its kind since new legislation extended detention periods in 2000.

Mohammed Ayub lambasted the government on Friday for its treatment of his clients who were detained after high-profile police raids in the north-west last month and then released without charge.

The men were subsequently redetained pending possible deportation to Pakistan where, he argued, their safety was not certain.

Referring to the Home Office figures on the poor conviction rate in terror cases in general, he said: “It signifies that the security services are acting on poor or misleading intelligence and the continuation of such operations is likely to lead to a lack of public confidence in the security services.”

Mr Ayub, from Chambers Solicitors in Bradford, also said that he had concerns over the report into the operation which led to his clients’ arrests being compiled by Lord Carlile, the government’s independent reviewer of terror legislation.

“We call for an independent inquiry into Operation Pathway, so that lessons can be learned as to how this investigation could have got it so terribly wrong and so that no other innocent person should have to face the continuing ordeal that our clients are suffering.”

Morning Star, 16 May 2009