Category Archives: UK

Islamophobia in a village

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two Derby families say day trip to the picturesque Derbyshire village of Belpar was ruined by an Islamophobic attack.

Mohammed Khalifa, 37, and Nathalie Faustilio, 24, said the trip with their friends on May 18 went horribly wrong when Khalifa and his friend Hassan Sami, 21, left their wives and two young children alone in the River Garden in North Mill Bridgefoot to withdraw money. Faustilio, an Italian Muslim convert, and English convert, Soria Hawata, 21, were subjected to an unprovoked and sustained Islamophobic attack which left Khalifa with broken ribs and both women in constant fear.

Speaking to The Muslim News Faustilio said trouble began when she and her friend were left alone by their husbands in the park. “When they went to get money from the ATM machines a man started screaming really foul things at us.” Faustilio insists the nasty verbal abuse was so motiveless she initially thought he was aiming the expletives at his dog, “He was swearing and saying really bad things. At first I thought he was aiming his abuse at the dog then I found out he was aiming it at me.”

The hijab wearing ladies said they were told to remove their “Pakistani clothes”. “He told me and Soria to get out of the country, his exact words were ‘get the F@#ck out my country go back to Pakistan’. I told him I’m Italian and my friend was English and even if we weren’t it was none of his business.” The man continued to hurl verbal abuse at the two and even spat at Nathalie who said she had “never been subjected to Islamophobia at this level”.

Faustilio said she was left in tears when she noticed no one in the park came to their assistance. Instead, she said, a small crowd had gathered to watch. “A couple of people thought it was amusing and were smiling but they didn’t help us.”

“Only a lady working in the parks café called the police when Nathalie asked her to,” said Hawata.

Khalifa said he returned to see his wife being sworn and spat at, “I shoved him out of the way he pushed me. I pushed him back and we fought.” The police arrived as the fighting ensued. Faustilio said her husband, who had broken his rib and his friend were arrested, whilst the assailant was taken to hospital for his broken nose.

The women asked to go in the police car for protection but were told to walk. “Before my husband came the man called his mobile and said he was calling his mates to come over. The police said we had to walk to the police station in a village we didn’t know with two small children for 15 minutes. We got lost and were worried the man’s mates would come.”

However, later, Faustilio’s husband and his friend were released without charge.

Hawata also criticised Derbyshire police for not keeping them informed on the fate of their harasser, “They haven’t informed either me or Nathalie of what happened to the man. We know he was arrested at the time but we don’t know what else happened.”

“He lives in Derby near us and whenever I take public transport I worry that I might bump into him,” said Hawata.

A spokesperson for Derbshire police told The Muslim News, “A 39 year old man from Derby was taken to hospital where he had surgery on his nose. Once he was released from hospital he was arrested and questioned. He was released on bail and his case has been forwarded to the CPS for review.”

Muslim News, 27 June 2008

McEwan’s attack on Islam reveals only his ignorance

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The more that the West demands change from outside, the more it makes such issues as women’s rights the litmus test of reform, the more difficult it makes the task of those pushing for change from within. The more it resorts to terms such as ‘Islamofacism’ and ‘mediaevalism’, the greater its ignorance of the pressures and the possibilities of societies in flux today. There are no generalities, just particulars, specific to place, person and moment.

“You would have thought that the novelist of all artists would understand this. Apparently not. But at least McEwan, Amis and the rest are showing one thing: that the condemnation of that which you have no wish to understand is as much the prerogative of the secularists as it is of the religious.”

Adrian Hamilton in the Independent, 26 June 2008

Islamism = hatred and violence, says McEwan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Certain remarks of mine to an Italian journalist have been widely misrepresented in the UK press, and on various websites. Contrary to reports, my remarks were not about Islam, but about Islamism – perhaps ‘extremism’ would be a better term. I grew up in a Muslim country – Libya – and have only warm memories of a dignified, tolerant and hospitable Islamic culture. I was referring in my interview to a tiny minority who preach violent jihad, who incite hatred and violence against ‘infidels’, apostates, Jews and homosexuals; who in their speeches and on their websites speak passionately against free thought, pluralism, democracy, unveiled women; who will tolerate no other interpretation of Islam but their own and have vilified Sufism and other strands of Islam as apostasy; who have murdered, among others, fellow Muslims by the thousands in the market places of Iraq, Algeria and in the Sudan. Countless Islamic writers, journalists and religious authorities have expressed their disgust at this extremist violence. To speak against such things is hardly ‘astonishing’ on my part (Independent on Sunday) or original, nor is it ‘Islamophobic’ and ‘right wing’ as one official of the Muslim Council of Britain insists, and nor is it to endorse the failures and brutalities of US foreign policy. It is merely to invoke a common humanity which I hope would be shared by all religions as well as all non-believers.”

Ian McEwan website, June 2008

‘A Caledonian caliphate’ – Mad Mel warns against the Islamisation of Scotland

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mad Mel“Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party, has been spectacularly canny and effective as Scotland’s first minister, moving his nationalist pieces across the British constitutional chessboard with stealth and skill.

“But there’s a dimension to this that has so far passed below the radar – the scimitar slung around the kilt.

“Tomorrow, the Scottish Islamic Foundation will be launched in Edinburgh in Salmond’s presence. But as the invaluable Centre for Social Cohesion tells us, the  leading members of this group and many of those who lead its events are closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose aim is the Islamisation of Britain and Europe.

“Its chief executive Omar [sic] Saeed, who has worked as Salmond’s researcher and is the SNP’s parliamentary candidate for Glasgow Central, is an Islamist and leading light in the Brotherhood front the Muslim Association of Britain. Saeed follows the usual Brotherhood line of promoting certain limited moderate positions, such as calling for an end to forced marriages or opposing terrorism in Britain, thus enabling him to pass himself off as a moderate while he slips and slides over issues such as sharia. But he is of course an unequivocal supporter of the Brotherhood leader Yusuf Qaradawi who endorses terrorist mass murder in Israel and Iraq – support which inescapably identifies the holder of such a view as an extremist and terrorist sympathiser….

“The Salmond/Saeed axis is not merely a disturbing sign of Salmond’s own prejudices. It has a potential strategic significance that goes beyond Scotland. The Brotherhood’s strategy for Britain is to promote separate Islamic development, declare sharia-only enclaves and infiltrate mainstream institutions as a springboard for Islamising the entire society. Since Salmond’s aim is to make Scotland independent from the rest of the United Kingdom, with one leap the Brothers could achieve an Islamised country on England’s border. Scottish voters might be getting more than they bargained for: a Caledonian caliphate.”

Melanie Phillips’s blog, 25 June 2008

“The scimitar slung around the kilt”? “With one leap the Brothers could achieve an Islamised country on England’s border”? Surely it can’t be long before the men in white coats arrive for Mel.

See also Douglas Murray’s “Alex Salmond cosies up to Muslim Brotherhood” at ConservativeHome.

Western world is losing Christian values, says bishop of Rochester

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nazir AliDr Nazir-Ali was greeted with a standing ovation as he gave a speech to a breakaway summit in Jerusalem of more than 1,000 traditionalists from across the Anglican Communion who oppose gay priests and the blessing of same-sex unions.

He did not say that divisions over sexuality would lead to a schism in Anglicanism, and referred to unity being a “very precious thing”. Instead he called on those in the church to concentrate on mission – trying to convert those of other faiths and with no faith to Christianity.

Dr Nazir-Ali, who earlier this year claimed the decline of Christianity had led to a collapse of Britishness, said: “Let us pray that we are able to recover our Christian nerve in the west and make sure the Gospel is not lost, and that all that is valuable in western culture – much of which comes from its Judeo-Christian background – will survive as a way to enhance cultures in the west and renew them once again.”

He said he could not apologise for wanting to explain Christianity with Muslims and to great laughter he added: “That’s not the only thing I want to do to them.”

Daily Telegraph, 25 June 2008 

Neo-Nazi who threatened ‘racial war’ against Muslims found guilty

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Martyn_GilleardNeo-Nazi Martyn Gilleard has been found guilty of making bombs for a far-right terrorist campaign, after having previously admitted downloading thousands of images of child sexual abuse.

Police initially searched Gilleard’s flat in Goole, East Yorkshire, in connection with child pornography offences. But once inside the 31-year-old’s home, they discovered not just evidence of a paedophile, but the equipment of a potential terrorist as well.

Officers found machetes, swords, bullets, gunpowder and racist literature. Most sinister of all were four home-made nail bombs stashed under his bed.

He wrote of starting a “racial war” and murdering Muslims, but Martyn Gilleard boasted that he was no “barstool nationalist”. In a notebook recovered by police, Gilleard wrote that the “time has come to stop the talk and start to act”. And a jury has decided he truly did want to put his white supremacist views into action.

Gilleard, a forklift truck driver from Goole, East Yorkshire, admitted to police and the court that he had held racist views. At the time of his arrest he was a paid-up member of the National Front, the White Nationalist Party and the British People’s Party – all opposed to multiculturalism.

His computer password was Martyn1488 – the 14, according to prosecutor Andrew Edis QC, being a reference to the far-right’s “14 words” slogan, “We must secure the existence of our race and the future for white children.” The 88, Mr Edis added, represented the eighth letter of the alphabet – an abbreviation for “Heil Hitler”.

But Gilleard was not simply a passive crank, the court was told. In a notebook recovered by police, Gilleard wrote that the “time has come to stop the talk and start to act”.

“Unless we the British right stop talking of racial war and take steps to make it happen, we will never get back that which has been stolen from us,” he added. “I am so sick and tired of hearing nationalists talk of killing Muslims, of blowing up mosques, of fighting back, only to see these acts of resistance fail to appear.”

BBC News, 25 June 2008

Cummins was right about Islam says Liddle

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Rod LiddleWriting in this week’s Spectator Rod Liddle rallies to the defence of poor Harry Cummins – “the British Council employee who dared to speak the truth about Islamic ideology”, as the standfirst to Liddle’s article puts it.

Apparently Cummins has been bombarding journalists with an email demanding the right of reply to the Guardian, of a character that leads Liddle to describe him as a paid-up member of the “green ink brigade”.

This, you may recall, was the Harry Cummins who contributed a series of articles to the Telegraph back in 2004 bearing titles such as “Muslims are a threat to our way of life“, and who assured his readers that “Christians are the original inhabitants and rightful owners of almost every Muslim land, and behave with a humility quite unlike the menacing behaviour we have come to expect from the Muslims who have forced themselves on Christendom, a bullying ingratitude that culminates in a terrorist threat to their unconsulted host”.

In response to a critic who accused him of underestimating the diversity of Islam and pointed out that extremists were a minority within the faith, Cummins opined that “all Muslims, like all dogs, share certain characteristics”. Understandably, Cummins denounced the proposal to introduce a law against incitement to religious hatred, which he said had been adopted “at the behest of Muslim foreigners who have forced themselves on us”, and he defended the right to express “a virulent hatred of Muslims”.

Liddle, however, is indignant that Cummins’ employers at the British Council sacked him on the basis that he had made “ignorant” and “hateful” comments about Muslims. According to Liddle, notwithstanding the eccentricity of his emails, Cummins “was certainly not a racist, whatever else he was. He made it clear that his beef was with the ideology, not the people”!

On the other hand we are obliged to Liddle for the revelation that “the more barking mad the letter I receive, the more likely it is that they fervently agree with whatever it is I’ve written”. Well, that would figure, wouldn’t it?

Sharia courts – not such a threat after all

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Now Muslims Get Their Own LawsRemember this hysterical report in the Daily Express warning that “Muslim radicals have established their own draconian court systems in Britain. Controversial Sharia courts have been set up in major towns and cities to impose Islamic law and enable Muslims to shun the legitimate British legal system” and announcing the shocking discovery that “the Sharia court system has been set up in the heart of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire”?

Tory MP Philip Davies was quoted as saying: “I am absolutely appalled and find the prospect of such courts totally terrifying. Places like this should be closed down…. It simply can’t be tolerated.”

Well, here’s an interesting article from the Seattle Times which provides a more balanced view of the role of that very same Shariah council in Dewsbury. It’s about time the media in the UK started practising this sort of informed and reasoned reporting.

‘I despise Islamism’ says Ian McEwan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The award-winning novelist Ian McEwan has launched an outspoken attack on militant Islam, accusing it of “wanting to create a society that I detest”.  The author said he “despises Islamism” because of its views on women and homosexuality. The writer of Atonement and Enduring Love condemned religious hardliners as he defended his friend, the writer Martin Amis, against charges of racism.

Amis was accused last year of being Islamaphobic after he said that “the Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order”. In an essay written the day before the fifth anniversary of the bombing of New York’s Twin Towers [it was in fact in an interview with the Times], the novelist suggested “strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan”, preventing Muslims from travelling, and further down the road, deportation.

McEwan, 60, said it was “logically absurd and morally unacceptable” that writers who speak out against militant Islam are immediately branded racist. “As soon as a writer expresses an opinion against Islamism, immediately someone on the left leaps to his feet and claims that because the majority of Muslims are dark-skinned, he who criticises it is racist,” he said in an interview in Corriere della Sera.

Inayat Bunglawala, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, criticised McEwan’s defence of Amis.

“Mr McEwan is being rather disingenuous about his friend, Martin Amis’s remarks. Of course you should be allowed to criticise the tenets of any religion. However, Amis went much further than that,” he said. “He was advocating that the Muslim community be made to suffer ‘until it gets its own house in order’. And what sort of suffering did Amis have in mind? In his own words, ‘Not letting them travel. Deportation – further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan … Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children.'”

He added: “Those were clearly very bigoted remarks and the fact that McEwan prefers to whitewash them tells us much about his own views too.”

Sunday Telegraph, 22 June 2008

See also “‘I despise Islamism’: Ian McEwan faces backlash over press interview”, Independent On Sunday, 22 June 2008

Also Islam Online, 22 June 2008 and Lenin’s Tomb, 22 June 2008

Racism rears its ugly head in Cornwall

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Carnon Downs Asian CentreA disused chapel in a sparsely populated hamlet far from the summer tourist crowds has emerged as a crucial testing ground of Cornwall’s reputation as an easy-going haven for those looking to escape the pressures of urban life – whatever their race. For amid green rolling hills just a few miles outside the cathedral city of Truro, the slate-roofed Bible Christian church at Quenchwell, near Carnon Downs, is under sustained assault from racists opposed to a planned community centre for the county’s Asians.

The third attack in recent weeks was discovered in the early hours of Thursday morning. Obscene graffiti defaming Islam and espousing the cause of Cornish nationalism was splattered across the walls of the chapel. In earlier incidents a pig’s head was nailed to the door and “KKK” – Ku Klux Klan – was painted in red gloss on an outside wall. The most recent grafitti included BNP slogans.

For Tipo Choudhury, a local restaurateur who bought the chapel and has become the reluctant voice of the Asian communities here, the events have come as a terrible shock. The British-born father of three has been raising his family in nearby Penzance since the mid-1980s. “In 22 years I have had no uncomfortable moments, until now. When you suddenly get called a ‘Paki bastard’ here in Cornwall it makes you jump. This sort of thing just does not happen here,” he said. In addition to the attacks on the chapel, he was also racially abused by a passing motorcyclist while standing outside the building. “Racism is showing its ugly head. It shows prejudice is alive and kicking,” he added.

Independent, 21 June 2008