Category Archives: UK

Prison cops in 5hr ‘Muslim riot’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A five-hour rampage by young Muslim prisoners armed with hammers and chisels was broken up by a riot squad yesterday. Dozens of inmates barricaded themselves into a workshop and grabbed tools including saws.

Riot police and 100 specially-trained prison officers – kitted out with body armour, shields and helmets – were called in.

It is believed the rampage at Aylesbury Young Offenders’ Institution started after inmates celebrated the Muslim festival of Eid which marks the end of Ramadan.

Sun, 9 December 2008

Update:  See the analysis of this story at Five Chinese Crackers.

Muslim barrister called ‘tent head’ wins £75,000

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Saleca ParkerSaleca Faisal-Parkar, 31, was harassed, overlooked for jobs and training and was even branded “lazy” after she became seriously ill while pregnant.

The abuse was led by Stephen Jones, then head of litigation at the leading law firm Shakespeares, who also referred to her as a “flipping nun”. He was also a deputy district judge and a member of the Solicitors Disciplinary Panel, but has resigned both positions in the light of the scandal.

Mrs Faisal-Parkar, who has a young daughter, joined Shakespeares in 2002 as a legal assistant. Not long after she started, she found out from a fellow worker that she had been nicknamed “Mother Teresa” because she wore a hijab, which covers her head.

Over the course of the following months, she said Mr Jones – who made the derogatory comments in emails – harassed her, refused her training requests and potentially reduced her annual salary increase by the type of work he gave her. In one email he says to a colleague: “From where I sit tent ‘ead looks like a flipping nun today unless there are auditions for the Sound of Music on somewhere?”

Mrs Faisal-Parkar told The Daily Telegraph: “It was the worst experience of my life; it was just one thing after another. It had a terrible effect on my life at a time that should have been my happiest, getting married and having a baby. To this day I don’t know what motivated Mr Jones to treat me like he did, but I’m glad now he’s been shown up to be the sort of man he was.”

Mrs Faisal-Parkar, from Great Barr, West Mids, accepted an out of court settlement at the beginning of a three-day tribunal in Birmingham. Mr Jones has been demoted and fined a five-figure sum by the company.

Daily Telegraph, 5 December 2008

Two arrested over Mido chanting

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MidoTwo men have been arrested over racist chanting aimed at Middlesbrough’s Egyptian striker Mido during the 0-0 draw against Newcastle on 29 November. The pair, aged 49 and 23, will appear before Teesside Magistrates Court on Tuesday charged with racial chanting.

A Football Association spokesman said: “The FA condemns any racist or Islamaphobic behaviour and is committed to working to stamp it out. We will fully support banning orders for anyone found guilty.”

Mido, 25, suffered similar abuse during the corresponding fixture at the Riverside last season but no action was taken because police were unable to identify the culprits. “It happened again because after the first time the English FA did nothing,” Mido told Egyptian TV station Al Hayat.

Piara Powar, director of anti-racism campaign Kick It Out, believes the authorities should be able to identify the culprits via closed-circuit television footage and has called on football supporters to help “self-police” any racist incidents on the terraces.

“The police are now saying they are going to put in extra monitoring for the next game, but by then it will be too late,” he said. “What we need is for the police to go over the CCTV footage and do what they can, in similar way which they are in Hampshire concerning the recent incident with the Tottenham fans at Portsmouth.

“The key change we do have in English football now is there is self-policing, peer pressure which supporters who understand the implications can put on fans who are involved in abuse. We would urge Newcastle fans to start rooting out themselves the individuals who were involved.”

BBC News, 5 December 2008

‘One Law for All’ – another Islamophobic WPI fraud

Posted on by Bob Pitt

namazie and racist placards 2The One Law for All campaign – supported by the National Secular Society – is to be launched in the House of Lords on International Human Rights Day, 10 December.

According to campaign organiser, Maryam Namazie, “Even in civil matters, Sharia law is discriminatory, unfair and unjust, particularly against women and children. Moreover, its voluntary nature is a sham; many women will be pressured into going to these courts and abiding by their decisions. These courts are a quick and cheap route to injustice and do nothing to promote minority rights and social cohesion. Public interest, particularly with regard to women and children, requires an end to Sharia and all other faith-based courts and tribunals.”

The campaign has already received widespread support.

National Secular Society news report, 5 December 2008

Sure it’s received wide support. The campaign is backed by a total of ten organisations, five of which – Children First Now, the laughably misnamed Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, Equal Rights Now – Organisation against Women’s Discrimination in Iran, the International Committee against Stoning and the Iranian Secular Society – are all front organisations for the Islamophobic far-left sect, the Worker-Communist Party of Iran. You do sometimes wonder whether the WPI has more front organisations than members.

School cancels Christmas nativity in favour of Muslim Eid celebrations

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Greenwood Junior School sent out a letter to parents saying the three-day festival of Eid al-Adha, which takes place between December 8 and 11, meant that Muslim children would be off school.

That meant planning for the traditional nativity play were shelved because the school felt it would be too difficult to run both celebrations side by side.

The move has left parents furious. Janette Lynch, whose seven-year-old son Keanu attends the school, in Sneinton, Nottingham, said: “The head has a whole year to plan for Eid and so she should be able to plan for both religious festivals. I have never heard of this at a school. It is the first year my son has been there and a lot of the mums like me were really looking forward to seeing the children in the nativity.”

Daily Telegraph, 3 December 2008

See also the Daily Mail, 4 December 2008

Yes, it’s another of those seasonal “Christmas banned because of Muslims” stories. However, according to a Press Association report, the performance has not in fact been cancelled but only postponed till January – and it’s not a nativity play but a pantomine (Cinderella, since you ask). A spokeswoman for Nottingham City Council is quoted as saying that in December the school will be staging “a range of events, including a Christmas carol concert and Eid celebrations”.

Predictably, the story has been seized on by the BNP. Under the headline “Nottingham school cancels Christmas to make way for Islam“, the fascists declare that “such outrages will inevitably progress from the exception to the norm, if Britain fails to embrace the BNP and continues its present headlong plunge into the abyss”.

The Nottingham Evening Post reports that Greenwood Junior School has received phone calls from BNP members accusing the school of responsibility for the “erosion of Christian values”. In other words, we have here yet another example of the mainstream media’s biased and inaccurate reporting giving a boost to the far right.

Inspector Andy Townsend, the local area commander, is quoted as saying: “There have been a lot of angry people phoning the school, some of whom are claiming to be from the BNP. Other agencies including the national press have contacted the school, including one journalist pretending to be a social worker. There’s also been vans pulling up and people taking pictures. We are dealing with the potential for disorder. No actual criminal acts have been committed but we are increasing patrols in the area around the school to keep the peace.”

Update:  Needless to say, this distorted report has spread across the right-wing blogosphere. Here is a characteristic comment, by Phyllis Chesler: “Muslim fanatics are also demographically populating beachheads deep in the West where they are also demanding that their holidays be recognized in a more paramount way than Christian holidays are. Just yesterday, in England, a Nativity play was cancelled at a primary school because it interfered with the Muslim celebration of Eid.”

Scotland’s first Muslim police association launched

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Strathclyde PoliceScotland’s first Muslim Police Association has been launched in Glasgow. Strathclyde Police Muslim Association will look at boosting the recruitment and retention of Muslim officers. It will also aim to improve understanding of the faith with the public and tackle “Islamophobia”.

Scotland’s first Muslim police officer, Pc Amar Shakoor, will act as chair of the newly-established group, which aims to recruit up to 50 members. Pc Shakoor said the Strathclyde force employed about 55 Muslim police officers and civilians, who he hoped would become involved.

“We hope that the association will help to recruit more officers and civilian staff for Strathclyde Police from a Muslim background,” he said. “The aim is to build bridges with the Muslim community and work better with all people for the future.”

First Minister Alex Salmond, who attended the launch, described it as a “significant step forward in strengthening relations between Strathclyde Police and Muslim communities”.

“Scotland’s diversity is one of its greatest strengths and it’s important we encourage dialogue and partnership across all faiths if we are to make Scotland a safer and stronger society,” he said. “The association is a positive step towards making Strathclyde Police more effective in understanding and responding to community concerns.”

BBC News, 3 December 2008

See also Scottish Government news release, 3 December 2008

There’s one person who won’t be happy at this news: “According to Munira Mirza, the Mayor of London’s adviser on cultural affairs, by creating a separate tier of police to liase with Muslims, it encourages many of them to believe that they cannot approach non-Muslim officers with their culturally-specific problems: ‘this reinforces tribalism and division, rather than helping us to overcome it’.”

Given Boris Johnson’s newly discovered commitment to diversity, you do wonder why he saw fit to appoint as his director of culture someone who publicly condemns the self-organisation of minority communities as “tribalism”. Does this reflect his administration’s view of the role played by the Association of Muslim Police in the MPS?

Young Muslims not a threat – study

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Fears that British universities are hotbeds of Islamic radicalism have been exaggerated, academics have said. A Cambridge University report found most young British Muslims were not a threat.

The study, based on interviews with students in London, Cambridge and Bradford, concluded they were better integrated into society than their parents.

June Edmunds, of the university’s Centre for Development Studies, said: “The findings show that the young Muslims best equipped to lead radical opposition to western society are also among the least inclined to do so.

“Although a minority have extreme political views, most are concerned about human rights and social democracy.

“The UK, in particular, now hosts a new generation of Muslims who are more confident of their national identity and more politically engaged than their parents.”

She added: “The overall picture is of a new, settled generation of young Muslims whose interests and needs differ from those of the previous, immigrant generation.”

Press Association, 3 December 2008

Well, that’s not going to please Anthony Glees, is it?

See also June Edmunds’ piece at Comment is Free, 2 December 2008

Update:  Glees is indeed unhappy. See his comments in “Study challenges claims of Islamic extremism among students” on theGuardian website. Glees accuses the report’s authors of “flimsy and uncompelling” research and expresses his amazement that the Economic and Social Research Council should fund it. Presumably the ESRC’s money would be better spent supporting Glees’s own irresponsible, fear-mongering attacks on Muslim students.

Further update:  Glees now has an entire blog post replying to June Edmunds. His basic argument is that a handful of individuals found guilty of terrorist offences had previously attended colleges in the UK – though of course he fails to establish any causal link between the two. And this is the man who accuses others of “flimsy and uncompelling” research.

Yet another update:  See June Edmunds’ response to Glees, “Study was informed by wide research“.

One more update: The Centre for Social Cohesion denounces the Cambridge study as “inaccurate and unrepresentative”.