Category Archives: UK

Leeds councillors reject planning report opposing new mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Woodview RoadA plan to build a three-storey mosque on the site of an old clothing factory has won the backing of Leeds councillors – even though planning officers recommended it should be turned down.

The councillors decided the development would remove an eyesore [see picture, left] and benefit the community.

The new mosque will include halls, committee rooms, offices, storage rooms and a small car park. It will replace a small mosque in nearby Stratford Street which the panel heard the community had now outgrown.

A report to the panel said the original plan showed a building with a 17m dome and a minaret stretching to 23m in height. The scheme had been revised with the proposed dome now much smaller and six metres taken off the height of the minaret.

Despite the changes, council officials argued the building was still unacceptable. The report said it would be overly dominant, visually intrusive and clearly visible from Dewsbury Road. “The slope of the land will further emphasise the scale of the building,” the report added.

Yorkshire Evening Post, 24 November 2008

I mean, we can’t have a mosque being visible from the road, can we? You do wonder whether the same planning objections would have been raised if it had been a church.

Posted in UK

Don’t prosecute fascist anti-Muslim hatemongers says ‘libertarian Marxist’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP Islam Out of Britain“As one who exchanged blows rather than opinions with the National Front in the 1980s, it gives me no pleasure to say this. But we ought to uphold the right of the British National Party to express its views, however vile, after Merseyside Police arrested 13 of its members for distributing leaflets. I’m afraid that free speech means freedom for fools and scumbags, too.

“The BNP pamphlet doled out in Liverpool was called Racism Cuts Both Ways. You can see it on its website. It argues that everybody knows racial hatred is wrong, but that few realise that ‘the vast majority of the real racism that scars Britain involves white victims from the indigenous community’.

“It lays the blame for much of this on ‘relentless’ discrimination against British natives by ‘an institutionally hostile ruling class’ but also claims that ‘our people are the silent victims of an epidemic of racist violence, sexual exploitation and murder’ by Muslims and blacks.

“… racism is not a crime. And while police chiefs may judge ‘racist content’ to be offensive, that does not make it a criminal offence. It should not be the job of the police or the courts to outlaw any ‘ism’, idea or ideology.

“Incitement to racial or religious hatred is a crime, but difficult to prove (the BNP’s leader, Nick Griffin, was found not guilty in 2006). And rightly so. We should draw a clear line between words and violent deeds. The old playground saw about sticks and stones seems a more grown-up guide than current policy. That leaflet is arguably guilty of incitement to elect BNP councillors….

“For this old libertarian Marxist, state action against a political party, however odious, is nothing to cheer.”

Mick Hume in the Times, 25 November 2008

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BNP men held over ‘racist leaflet’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

bnp-islam-posterTwelve British National Party activists have been arrested in Liverpool on suspicion of handing out racist leaflets claiming that “our people” are experiencing an “epidemic of racist violence, sexual exploitation and murder” by Muslims.

The leaflet alleges the “average racist killer” is 40 times more likely to be from an ethnic minority than “a native Brit”; the Muslim community condones paedophilia; and the English are “relentlessly discriminated against by an institutionally hostile ruling class”. One passage reads: “Wherever there are large numbers of young Muslim men, groups team up to lure girls – often as young as 12 or 13 – into a nightmare world of sexual abuse, rape, beatings, drug addiction and prostitution.”

The 12 men, aged from 19 to 70 and from Liverpool, Wirral, Knowsley and St Helens, were arrested in the city centre at 12.50pm on Saturday.

The leaflet, “Racism Cuts Both Ways”, is also available on the BNP’s website [pdf here]. Anti-racism campaigners are preparing to submit a UK-wide complaint to the Metropolitan Police.

Assistant Chief Constable Colin Matthews of Merseyside Police said the arrests were made following the “distribution of leaflets … which officers believe to contain racist content”. He added: “Merseyside Police condemns racism and will take prompt action to support all our communities.”

The BNP intends to capitalise on the arrests. Simon Darby, a party spokesman, said it planned a “huge demonstration” in Liverpool. “It’s a mystery, you tell me what you think is criminal or inciting about it,” he said. “I don’t think Merseyside Police have any idea what they have done. It’s a knee-jerk reaction.” Asked if the party stood by the leaflet, Mr Darby said: “Obviously we do otherwise we wouldn’t have put it out.”

Independent, 24 November 2008

BNP response here.

See also the earlier arrest of BNP members in Manchester.

Muslim prisoners launch ‘reign of terror’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslim fanatics hijack British prisonMuslim prisoners have launched a reign of terror inside a top security British jail.

The fanatics are forcing fellow inmates to convert to Islam or face punishment beatings. One man who stood up to the thugs was branded with a lump of hot metal, according to a prison source.

Some Al Qaeda supporters have set up a kangaroo court, sitting in judgment on prisoners and ordering punishments, the source said. The violent disciples of Osama Bin Laden have targeted even the toughest non-Muslim prisoners, including killers and rapists.

Sunday Express, 23 November 2008

But let it not be said that the Express‘s coverage is unbalanced. Buried at the end of the article is a quote from a Prison Service spokesman: “There is no evidence to suggest prisoners are being branded or assaulted in an effort to radicalise them.”

Odd, though, that Richard Desmond’s other title, the Daily Star, ran a similar scaremongering story about Whitemoor Prison only a couple of weeks ago which somehow managed to overlook this systematic campaign of violence against non-Muslim prisoners.

Update:  Meanwhile over at the Sun, under the headline “£3k curry treat for jail’s Muslims“, we find that, not content with intimidating killers and rapists into converting to Islam, Muslim prisoners at Whitemoor have been plied with chicken vindaloo at taxpayers’ expense.

MWAW: open letter to Richard Desmond

Posted on by Bob Pitt

MWAW masthead

Media Workers Against the War (MWAW) have written an open letter to Richard Desmond, proprietor of the Daily Star and the newspaper’s editor, Dawn Neeson, concerning the paper’s coverage of stories on Muslims in the past few weeks.

These stories have all appeared on the ENGAGE website and can be found in the news items and archive folders.

The letter by MWAW can be read here. To add your signature to the letter click here.

ENGAGE, 24 November 2008

Douglas Murray supports ‘Muslim reformers’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Victims of IntimidationWriting in the Sunday Times, Douglas Murray plugs his recent pamphlet Victims of Intimidation published by the right-wing think-tank, the laughably misnamed Centre for Social Cohesion.

And who are the so-called “moderate Muslim voices” whom Murray says governments should do more to support as an alternative to “radicals and radical-affiliated groups”? Well, here’s an example:

“Ehsan Jami, 23, the Dutch Labour party politician and founder of the Central Committee for Ex-Muslims, was repeatedly assaulted before being guarded by the Dutch police. He now requires constant protection but his own political party, instead of assisting his right to speak out about what he saw in the religion he was born into, tried to make him tone down his public statements about the treatment of women, apostates and homosexuals within Islam. Those like Jami who have left Islam are often treated, by our governments and broadcasters as much as by the Muslim communities, as though they are out of the discussion.”

First of all, there is no evidence that Jami was ever a practising Muslim, so it is difficult to see how he could have “left Islam”. He didn’t even study the Qur’an until after 9/11, and having done so he concluded that Islam provides the ideological inspiration for terrorism and violence. This has been the theme of his statements ever since. As for Jami’s so-called “Committee for Ex-Muslims”, it fell apart even before its official launch meeting because the co-founder of the organisation, Loubna Berrada, broke with Jami over his denunciations of Islam, and the Committee is now defunct.

Nor is Jami a “Dutch Labour party politician”. He was expelled by the PvdA after he co-authored an Islamophobic article with the Dutch far-right racist Geert Wilders which warned: “If we do not act now against the far-reaching Islamisation of the Netherlands, then the 1930s will be revived. The only difference is that back then the danger came from Adolf Hitler, while today it comes from Mohammed.”

This is not to excuse acts of violence, even against provocateurs like Jami, but Murray’s suggestion that Ehsan Jami is an example of the “Muslim reformers” with whom governments should seek to engage perfectly illustrates the ignorance and dishonesty of his pamphlet.

And while we’re on the subject of Jami, he was in the UK last month to attend a conference organised by the fraudulent “Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain”, a front organisation for the Islamophobic far-left sect the Worker-Communist Party of Iran.

Recently David Toube of Harry’s Place posted an article calling for a ban on Yasir Qadhi entering the UK, on the basis that he had made hostile comments about Shias. But did Toube raise any objections to Jami being allowed into the country? Of course he didn’t. As in Murray’s case, Toube’s pious expressions of concern for the welfare of minorities within the Muslim community are just a smokescreen for his own efforts to incite hostility towards Muslims and their representative organisations.

Muslims to be offered Sharia-compliant pensions by Government

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Muslims are to be offered Sharia-compliant pension funds by a new Government body. The scheme to provide retirement funds for millions who do not already have a company pension is likely to include a special option that would not invest in companies deemed sinful under Islam.

The decision to provide a Sharia-compliant pension fund is another sign of the growing influence of Islamic law in British public life and in particular the country’s finance industry.

Douglas Murray, director of the Centre for Social Cohesion think tank, said the Government should not be creating parallel financial or legal systems for different groups in Britain. He said: “It’s a great mistake for the Government to think this is desirable or even necessary.”

Daily Telegraph, 22 November 2008

Prosecute BNP says Bruce Kent

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bruce Kent“I have received, unsolicited, from the leader of the British National Party, a 12-page document supposedly setting out details of crimes against whites committed by other ethnic groups.

“One intended effect will be to increase racism in general and Islamophobia, in particular. When the document describes gang rape and teenage grooming, it says: ‘One community, however, is different. Wherever there are large numbers of young Muslim men, groups of them team up to lure girls – often as young as twelve or thirteen – into a nightmare world of sexual abuse, rape, beatings, drug addiction and prostitution … the Muslim sex gangs … never target girls from their own community.’ The pamphlet also claims that there is a refusal by ‘Muslim leaders to condemn what is going on’.

“To suggest that gang rape is a normal feature of Muslim male life and that Muslim leaders tolerate it, is not only untrue, but is designed to fan the flames of racial and religious hatred. It is certainly immoral and ought to merit criminal prosecution as well.”

Letter from Bruce Kent in the Times, 21 November 2008

Islamaphobia behind the harassment and intimidation of a British charity

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The British Muslim Initiative condemns unconditionally the move by Lloyds TSB to force the Islamic Bank of Britain to close the account of the British charitable organisation INTERPAL.

While on the outside, this appears like another misguided knee-jerk premature reaction in response to the pressures of the anti-Palestine Zionist lobby, a closer inspection offers the suggestion that this is a gross example of Islamaphobia at work.

What gives the right to Lloyds TSB, recently bailed out by hundreds of millions of pounds of British Tax-payers cash including Muslims, to use such outrageous bully tactics with a smaller British bank forcing it to close down the accounts of a British charitable organisation, is beyond comprehension, unless one begins to see that the smaller bank in question is the Islamic Bank of Britain, and the charity is one that has been working for over a decade to alleviate the suffering of and providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

At a time when the British economy is at risk of collapse, and the need for foreign investment and the confidence of investors both at home and overseas is pressing, this move tarnishes the image of British fair play and erodes the confidence of potential stakeholders in our banking sector.

The Prime Minister’s comments during his recent tour of Arab and Muslim countries in order to solidify our economy and strengthen the positions of our banks, including Lloyds TSB, could not have made a stronger case for this particular objective.

Mohammed Sawalha, President of BMI commented on this decision last week stating: “We are still hopeful that Lloyds TSB will re-address this decision, and allow the re-instatement of INTERPAL accounts with the Islamic Bank of Britain.”

British Muslim Initiative, 19 November 2008

Scots jail succumbs to the Islamisation of western civilisation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Prison chiefs are defying an official report and serving halal meat to an entire young offenders institute to avoid upsetting a handful of Muslim inmates. Managers at Polmont run the risk of being accused of pandering to political correctness.

It is thought they are buying in chicken from a halal supplier to avoid being accused of religious discrimination. But the chickens – which have their throats cut to satisfy Islamic law – are required by only seven young men.

Last year a report by Her Majesty’s Inspector of Prisons forced bosses to cut back on sourcing all of its meat from halal butchers due to the small numbers of Muslims. Inspectors found it too expensive to justify. But prison officials admit that they continued the policy to avoid “prejudicing the position” of the handful of religious inmates.

Mark Wallace, spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “A lot of people will be concerned that money meant for the criminal justice system is instead being spent on food that is dubious in terms of animal welfare, as well as more expensive.”

Daily Express, 20 November 2008