Category Archives: UK

Protest by East End artists at National Theatre

Posted on by Bob Pitt

National Theatre refuses to debate racist play ENGLAND PEOPLE VERY NICE with East End artists

Artists from the East End will be holding a protest outside the National Theatre at 5pm on Friday 27th February in the run up to the platform discussion at 6pm with Richard Bean, the writer of the play. At a meeting on Friday 20th February Nicholas Hytner, the boss of the National, refused to organise a proper joint debate in the next few weeks on a play that is anti-irish, anti-Bangladeshi and Islamophobic, and which the Evening Standard described as cruel and abusive, and intent on attacking immigrants.

Playwright Hussain Ismail, who will be leading the campaign, said: “Hytner is scared of a debate. We are from the East End and we know that it is the most multicultural place in the world. Brick Lane in particular is the centre of the multicultural universe. It’s the coolest place on the earth and that’s why people come from all over the world to hang out there. Bean and Hytner haven’t got a clue about the East End. That’s why the play is bonkers!”

“We want a right of reply ­ a proper debate ­ not a 40 minute platform discussion where the director just asks some bland questions to the writer and we all go home. We want a vigorous and robust debate with Bean and Hytner and us on the same platform with the media and public present on mass.”

Organisers of the protest are asking everybody to come celebrate multicultural London and demand that East End artists have the right to a debate, and challenge misrepresentation of their communities. They are asking protesters to bring whistles and drums to stand up for multiculturalism.

Protest details:
5pm 27th February
National Theatre, Southbank, London SE1 9PX
Embankment and Waterloo tube stations.

For more information contact:
Hussain Ismail
hussain@soulfiretheatre.org.uk

Sun backs Wilders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sun cartoon

“Britain recently disgraced itself by banning democratically elected Dutch MP Geert Wilders from entering the country. His planned ‘crime’ was to screen a short documentary at a private viewing in the House of Lords…. Our cringing surrender to this authoritarian, book-burning mentality was ordered by mealy-mouthed Home Secretary Jacqui Smith under pressure from Labour peer Lord Ahmed…. Wilders’ visit would have gone unnoticed but for Jackboot Jacqui, whose Government has prostrated itself to accommodate Islam’s nastier fringes….

“It gave oxygen to rabble-rousing imams who brainwashed thousands of young British-born Muslims, not least the 7/7 murderers. It turned a blind eye to migrants who refuse to assimilate and instead colonise whole suburbs and cities where welfare has become a way of life. It encouraged multi-culturalism which, far from spreading tolerance, has entrenched primitive tribal customs, including forced marriages and honour killings. As a result, our security services are at breaking point keeping tabs on an army of shadowy troublemakers who flit back and forth to Pakistan — many to be trained in OUR mass murder.

“… it is impossible to disagree with what Wilders has to say about extremists. He told an American audience recently: The Europe you know is changing. You have seen the landmarks. The Eiffel Tower and Trafalgar Square and Rome’s ancient buildings, the canals of Amsterdam. They are still there. And they still look very much the same as they did a hundred years ago. But a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world very few visitors see.

“Throughout Europe a new reality is rising, entire Muslim neighbourhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. It’s the world of headscarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands – or slaveholders, if you prefer – walk three steps ahead.

“With mosques on many street corners, shops have signs you cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighbourhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe. These are the building blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by city.

“There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe. With larger congregations than there are in churches.And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: We rule.

“Sounds about right to me.”

Trevor Kavanagh in the Sun, 23 February 2009

British mosques promote community cohesion

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MCB welcomes independent Charity Commission report on Muslim centres of worship

The Muslim Council of Britain today welcomed the findings of an independent Charity Commission survey of mosques in Britain. The survey shows that mosques contribute to their local communities through a wide range of services and activities in addition to providing space for worship, from sport and leisure activities to healthy living programmes and assistance for senior citizens.

The survey charts how an overwhelming majority (94%) deliver educational programme for children and young people and three in five (61%) carry out women’s groups/activities. It is also a welcome information that increasingly more and more mosques have young people (52%) and women (15%) represented in their management responsibility. Far from being a source of separation, mosques are integral to community cohesion and development.

Dr Manazir Ahsan, the Chair of the Muslim Council of Britain’s Mosques Committee said, “I fully concur with Dame Suzi Leather the chair of the Charity Commission that ‘this new survey reveals the important contribution that Mosques are making to communities across England and Wales’. We agree with the primary conclusion of the report, that mosques should not only be a place of solace and worship, but should also benefit local communities, irrespective of faith. We are in no doubt that some mosques — with very little resources — require the necessary help and assistance to serve its users and the local community. To that end, we endorse the Charity Commission call to mosques to engage with the Commission and benefit from its services in order to have proper policies in place.”

“Despite the good work emanating from the majority of our mosques, and regardless of authentic, and citable evidence such as those presented by the Charity Commission, I am in no doubt that bigots and doommongers will nevertheless continue to peddle Islamophobic hysteria, insisting that mosques are incapable of promoting community cohesion. We must prove these naysayers wrong by opening up and welcoming all people to our mosques.”

MCB press release, 23 February 2009

See also “Survey reveals mosque insights”, BBC News, 23 February 2009

Download the Charity Commission report here.

Mad Mel explains the rise of the BNP

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Melanie Phillips Jihad in Britain“Last week, the British National Party won a council seat in Sevenoaks, Kent…. Around the country, the BNP is making an ever stronger political showing. Last month, it only narrowly failed to take a council seat in Bexley, South London, and last week it did well in wards in Yorkshire, the Midlands and Lewisham, another South London borough. It is also strongly tipped to win at least one European Parliament seat in the forthcoming elections.

“The reason for its increasing success is obvious. Like all populist, neo-fascist parties, the BNP is opportunistically exploiting the failure by the political establishment to address issues of pressing and legitimate concern to the public…. Britain is changing before our very eyes. As a result of the current rate of immigration, within half a century the projected steep increase in the UK’s population will be entirely made up of people not born in Britain – most of whom will have come from the Third World.

“Meanwhile, the fanatically imposed doctrine of multiculturalism has brought about the erosion or denigration of Britain’s history, religion and identity, leaving generations of children – both indigenous and immigrant – appallingly ignorant of the common culture they need to share.

“It is entirely reasonable to want one’s country to express its own culture through its institutions, laws and practices. Yet those who defend this principle are called ‘racist’. Britain is witnessing an alarming growth of separate Muslim enclaves ruled by a parallel Islamic Sharia law. It is entirely reasonable to want one system of law for all. Yet those who say so are called ‘Islamophobic’.”

Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail, 23 February 2009

Of course, Phillips omits to mention one important factor in the rise of the BNP – the legitimisation of their racist politics by bigoted right-wing commentators like herself whose anti-Muslim tirades are often barely distinguishable from the sort of thing you might read in a BNP propaganda leaflet.

When terrorism isn’t newsworthy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

At the Scottish Islamic Foundation website Osama Saeed lambasts the media’s almost total failure to report the conviction of Neil MacGregor, the self-proclaimed “proud racist and National Front member” who threatened to blow up Glasgow Central Mosque and behead one Muslim a week until every mosque in Scotland was shut down:

“Imagine if a Scottish Muslim had pled guilty to threatening to blow up Glasgow Cathedral and behead one Christian a week until all British troops were pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

“There would be outrage, right? It would be splashed over the front page of every newspaper in the land. It would be the top of all news bulletins. There would be volumes written on what motivated him, his family background and his beliefs. There would be a rich stream of analysis from a variety of positions. Government would be asked what it was doing to avoid such a thing from happening.

“So when news came into the Scottish-Islamic Foundation office this week of one Neil MacGregor pleading guilty to threatening to blow up Glasgow Central Mosque and behead one Muslim a week until all Scottish mosques were shut down, we thought it couldn’t possibly be true. There had been no build up to such a trial, no coverage during it and none on the verdict. We Googled it, and nothing came up. Not a sausage, nada, zilch.

“Immediately, we fired out a press release. If this hadn’t been brought to the attention of our media, surely they’d cover it once they heard of it? Seems not. Well, apart from Scotland Today (brief mention 10 minutes in).

“So I phoned up the newsdesks of some of our major newspapers and asked how this could have happened. Some said they’d get back to me, but haven’t. Others put their hands up and said it was a big mistake. Helpfully, it was pointed out that some news outlets rely entirely on output from the Glasgow Courts Press Agency, and it seems that they might not have put anything out on this. It’s something we’ll be following up. At the Atif Siddique trial in 2007, there were even unidentified figures there on hand to brief the press on a plot to behead the Canadian prime minister which wasn’t even brought up during the trial, but led the news the next day as a result.

“There is a chance for redemption. MacGregor will be sentenced on March 6. This should provide a sufficient hook for media outlets to give coverage.”

But these double standards are par for the course, quite frankly. The media initially ignored the Robert Cottage case. And coverage of the Brian Donegan trial was non-existent. Violent extremism is deemed worthy of serious attention only when the violent extremists aren’t white.

Why the Wilders ban was right

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“I was disappointed by your one-sided coverage of the Geert Wilders controversy. Neither your editorial (‘Ban on Wilders was folly‘) nor your columnist Catherine Bennett (‘Geert Wilders has just made our leaders look truly idiotic‘, Comment) appeared able to distinguish between causing offence and inciting racial hatred. It is on the latter charge that Wilders faces prosecution in the Netherlands. While the principle of free speech covers the right to offend people, it certainly does not allow racists the right to whip up hatred against minority communities. For this reason, I and many others fully supported Jacqui Smith’s decision to ban Wilders from entering Britain.”

Letter from London Assembly member Murad Qureshi in theObserver, 22 February 2009

Taliban ‘wages chemical jihad’ on Britain (Daily Star claims)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Terror chiefs plan to flood our streets with heroin in a terrifying plot to wage “chemical jihad” on Britain. And they have been using hate-filled Muslim gangs as their UK dealers.

Pakistani and Afghan-based al-Qaida and Taliban warlords are sitting on a £6billion stash of deadly heroin. And they have ordered their dealers to sell it only to non-Muslims.

The ruthless racket is a two-pronged attack which peddles death and misery with heroin while netting massive sums to pay for future terror attacks.

Continue reading →

Muslim schools ban our culture

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim Schools Ban Our CultureA number of Muslim schools are promoting Islamic extremism and encouraging pupils to grow up despising Britain, a think tank report claims today.

Youngsters are discouraged from playing cricket and board games, listening to western music and even reading Shakespeare plays or Harry Potter books by fanatics targeting classrooms, the research says.

Some children are even being told to shun “the evil system of western culture” and encouraged to live in “ghettos”.

The vile diktats to Muslim pupils, some of primary school age, appear on school websites or on other internet sites linked directly to school sites and operated by fund amentalist groups. Critics last night called for strict vetting of Muslim education to root out extremist influence. Moderate Muslim groups welcomed the findings and called for the attempts by extremists to target children to be stamped out.

The propaganda is highlighted in a report called Music, Chess and Other Sins from the Westminster-based think tank Civitas. Author Denis MacEoin investigated hundreds of school websites and Islamic websites linked to schools to uncover the material.

Daily Express, 20 February 2009

The Express editorial is headed “Britain must stand up for its time-honoured values”. We are told: “Before mass immigration got under way in the middle of the last century, Britain was a country blessed with a cohesive culture. It isn’t now….Things have now reached a point where some Muslim schools ban such pillars of British life as chess, Shakespeare and even the very idea of women’s equality….This is a disastrous state of affairs, meaning young Muslims are bound to grow up confused and alienated. Experience tells us that some will become the Islamist terrorists of tomorrow.”

The Telegraph went with “The Muslim children taught to hate Britain” and the article began: “Islamic fundamentalism that encourages children to despise British society is being promoted on websites at Muslim schools in the UK, think tank Civitas has revealed.”

This has now been amended so the headline reads “Islamic fundamentalism promoted on websites at some Muslim schools in the UK, think tank finds” and the opening sentence now also includes the word “some” before “Muslim schools”.

MacEoin himself contributes an article headlined “We must stop Muslim schools teaching that integration is a sin” although the online version now carries the standfirst: “Some Muslim schools make it their mission to prevent assimiliation – and it is time the Government changed that, says Denis MacEoin.”

And a Telegraph editorial recycles the familiar right-wing myth about Christians being discriminated against in favour of Muslims: “Sneering at Christianity is routine. Perhaps that is an inevitable consequence of living in a free society – but it is interesting that militant atheists clam up when it is suggested that Islam might be a target for ridicule. [What planet do Torygraph leaders writers live on? Have they never come across Richard Dawkins?] And when was the last time a Muslim woman was banned from wearing a small symbol of her faith? This double standard runs through the government sector and the intelligentsia.”

The Times announces: “Ofsted accused of soft line on Muslims.”

Amanda Platell’s comment piece in the Daily Mail is headlined: “Schooling children to hate our values” (“schools like these risk breeding a new generation of Islamic fundamentalists, whose hatred of the West may very well spill over into acts of violence – or even murder. How can we tolerate such hatred in our midst?”).

The Daily Star has “Islam kids taught forget Potter and prepare for jihad“.

See also ENGAGE which reproduces the following poll from the Star:

Should Muslim schools be banned

More anti-Muslim propaganda from discredited Islam ‘expert’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Denis MacEoinSome Islamic schools in Britain were today accused of teaching “fundamentalist” views in a new report which warns they could undermine the country’s social cohesion.

The report, by Right-wing think tank Civitas, claims pupils are being told to shun chess, music, cricket and even Harry Potter in material posted or linked to school websites.

It says the teaching risks encouraging some Muslim children to “despise British culture” and prepare them to live “separate lives” in “Muslim enclaves” distant from the rest of society.

The Association of Muslim Schools said the report was based on flawed research. Dr Mohamed Mukadam, the association’s chairman, said: “The author has pieced together bits of information from the internet. He hasn’t set foot in a single Muslim school or spoken to a teacher or pupil.”

Evening Standard, 19 February 2009

Well, what can you expect, given that the author in question is none other that Denis MacEoin, who was responsible for the discredited Policy Exchange report The Hijacking of British Islam.

See also Civitas press release, 19 February 2009

And if you can be bothered ploughing through 150-odd pages of MacEoin’s “study”, Music, Chess and Other Sins, it can be downloaded (pdf) here.

It would appear that this is the report that was originally going to be entitled When Worlds Collide, but even Civitas baulked at MacEoin’s assertion that 60 per cent of Muslim schools in the UK had “extremist links” and refused to publish this claim, leading MacEoin to complain indignantly, via Damian Thompson’s Holy Smoke blog, that he had been censored.

Still, let’s be fair, MacEoin does have his admirers – Daniel Pipes, for example, who has announced that MacEoin will take over as editor of the Middle East Quarterly later this year.

Anti-gay preachers banned from Britain

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Fred PhelpsThe Home Secretary has banned two extremist anti-gay preachers from entering Britain, a move that follows a decision to refuse entry to Geert Wilders, the Dutch anti-Muslim MP.

Fred Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper, who belong to the US Westboro Baptist Church, were planning to come to the UK to protest outside a performance of a youth play called The Laramie Project, which recounts the death of gay university student Matthew Shepard who was killed in Laramie, Wyoming, in October 1998. It was due to be performed at Queen Mary’s College in Basingstoke, Hampshire, tomorrow.

It emerged that the pair were due to enter the UK to launch their demonstration when they made an announcement on their website. “God hates the Queen Mary’s College, and the fag-infested UK, England, and all having to do with spreading sodomite lies via The Laramie Project, this tacky bit of cheap fag propaganda masquerading as legitimate theater,” it said.

Times Online, 19 February 2009

Now, it will be interesting to see if this provokes the same outraged denunciations of the suppression of free speech as the Wilders ban did, won’t it? Don’t hold your breath.

This member of the Islamophobia Watch collective takes a consistent line on such issues. Freedom of expression doesn’t cover the right to incite hatred against minority communities, and people who want to enter the UK to do this should be excluded. As in the Wilders case, Jacqui Smith has made the right decision here.