Category Archives: UK

‘Should I expect a knock on the door?’ More on the conviction of Samina Malik

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“What about Malik’s documents, the ‘records’ key to her conviction? Reports mention three – a service manual for a rifle, a jihadist text called ‘Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places’, and the Mujahideen Poisons handbook. It took me five minutes of Googling to get hold of them. The jihadist text turns out to be a fatwa by Osama bin Laden. Verso include it in a published collection of his speeches. Interest in the 7.62mm Dragunov sniper rifle implies, I suppose, that you have one. Or that you think guns are cool. The poisons handbook is a 23-page pamphlet summarising a lot of public-domain information. There’s a certain transgressive glamour to this material, and perhaps it indicates unhealthy interests, but I doubt that, if the possessor weren’t a self-declared jihadi sympathiser with a security pass at Heathrow, anyone would find it significant. Presumably an irreligious thirtysomething author can still read what he wants? Or should I really expect a knock on the door?”

Hari Kunzru in the Guardian, 15 November 2007

Brown is just a pathetic liberal says Michael Burleigh

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Michael BurleighMichael Burleigh isn’t impressed by Gordon Brown’s latest proposals to combat terrorism:

“Toughness is not really Brown’s thing; he prefers ‘values’ and ‘hearts and minds’. The most striking aspect of his proposals was the sheer number of agencies he was hoping to engage in preventative measures designed to pre-empt the radicalisation of young Muslims…. It conjured up a vision of a vast army of the public sector; good, ready and willing to aid Ahmed or Ayman get over the murderous rage that seems to derange a minority of Muslim adolescents….

“The dread word ‘deportation’ (surely a welcome prospect to any sincere Islamist fed up with life in Sodom-by-Thames) was touted, with a few figures rolled out to suggest that evil people are being expatriated. In reality, all attempts to deport foreign nationals are aggressively frustrated by human rights activists exploiting the European Human Rights Act that his predecessor signed into law…. Mr Brown also intimated that he will be seeking to persuade senior media figures to tone down reporting that allegedly gives rise to ‘Islamophobia’. This is sinister….

“Nor did Mr Brown have anything to say about organisations such as Hizb-ut Tahir – which function as sectarian totalitarian parties bent on dominating institutions they manage to infiltrate – beyond the pathetic assurance that they would not receive grants from local authorities….

“There was nothing in Brown’s speech about the plans to build a 25,000-capacity mega-mosque near the 2012 Olympic stadium in West Ham, which is intended to serve as a Muslim quarter for athletes and spectators during the Games, in flagrant violation of everything the Olympic Games represent.”

Daily Telegraph, 15 November 2007

Yes, this is the same Michael Burleigh who featured in this week’s “Is Islam good for London?” debate hosted by the Evening Standard … and he was one of the speakers who was supposed to be putting the case in favour! Although, to be fair, Burleigh did distance himself from Rod Liddle: “I have to say I agree with Mr Liddle that Islam is masochistic and homophobic, but I’m not sure I could agree with the accusation of fascism.”

Minister forced into terror law U-turn

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Minister forced into U-turnMinister forced into terror law U-turn

By James Tweedie and Louise Nousratpour

Morning Star, 15 November 2007

SPINELESS Security Minister Admiral Lord West made a rapid U-turn on detention without charge on Wednesday after a carpeting from control-freak Premier Gordon Brown.

Speaking on BBC radio at 8.10am, Lord West declared that he was not convinced of the need to extend pre-charge detention for terrorist suspects beyond the current 28-day limit.

“I want to have absolute evidence that we actually need longer than 28 days,” he said. “I want to be totally convinced, because I am not going to go and push for something that actually affects the liberty of the individual unless there is a real necessity for it.”

After his interview, Lord West scurried off to a meeting with Mr Brown and Home Secretary Jaqui Smith before a Commons statement on security.

By the time he emerged from the meeting at 9.15am, he had mysteriously changed his tune. “My feeling is, yes, we need more than 28 days,” he told reporters. “I personally absolutely believe that, within the next two to three years, we will require more than that for one of these complex plots. I am convinced that is the case,” said Lord West.

He later insisted in another statement: “I am quite clear that the greater complexities of terrorist plots will mean that we will need the power to detain certain individuals for more than 28 days.

“I am convinced that we need to legislate now so that we have the necessary powers when we need them. The government would be failing in its responsibility to protect national security if we waited until we needed more than 28 days to act.”

Referring to his original position, he claimed: “I was stating this morning that there will need to be scrutiny in the system, and robust evidence against individuals, to safeguard their rights.” He went on to plead that he was only “a simple sailor” and not a politician.

Respect MP George Galloway said: “It’s clear that even the security minister isn’t convince of the need to lock people up without charge for a longer period than even the dictatorship of Turkey used to do. If the minister is not convinced, why should anyone believe that the nodding heads on the Labour back benches truly believe it either?”

Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews archly observed: “Some people are remarkably easily persuaded.”

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‘How Ken whitewashed the Muslim extremists’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nick Cohen 3Nick Cohen is upset at the suggestion in the Mayor of London’s recently-published report on media coverage of Muslims that “journalists – including me – conveyed ‘negative associations’ when we wrote that Jack Straw was standing up for the rights of women when he criticised the full veil”. Poor Nick. How could this well-known friend of the Muslim community be so unfairly criticised?

Worse still, “a large chunk of the report was a devious attack on a Panorama exposé of the Muslim Council of Britain by John Ware of the BBC”. And to cap it all, Cohen reveals that the Mayor’s report was compiled with the assistance of that notorious extremist, Inayat Bunglawala of the MCB. Cohen concludes that we have here yet another shocking illustration of how “the Left is going along with the Islamist Right”.

Evening Standard, 14 November 2007

Is Islam good for London?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Is Islam good for LondonThe Evening Standard reports on yesterday evening’s discussion, organised around this question.

Rod Liddle is quoted as saying: “Islam is masochistic, homophobic and a totalitarian regime. It is a fascistic, bigoted and medieval religion.” He and Joan Smith argued the case for the negative. However, when you see that those presenting the case in favour included Ed Husain and Michael Burleigh, it would appear that Inayat Bunglawala was the only voice of reason in this skewed debate.

Video links here.

See also Inayat’s post at Comment is Free.

‘Undesirables’ debate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Problem of the AlienPete Tobias takes issue with last night’s Evening Standard debate, “Is Islam good for London?”

“… the issue is not so much the outcome as the title of the event itself. How would any minority group feel if it were to find itself the subject of such a public debate? What might be the response if the Evening Standard invited readers to consider the question ‘Is Hinduism good for London?’ or question the value of the contribution made by any other minority group to the capital’s well-being? The problem lies in the fact that the question is being asked at all, and the improbability of any other religious or ethnic group having the same question asked about it should set a number of alarm bells ringing.

“I suppose we should be grateful that the Evening Standard was at least kind enough to frame its prejudice as a question. Just under 100 years ago, the same newspaper ran a series entitled ‘Problem of the Alien’, assuring its readers that the city was being ‘overrun by undesirables’ who had set up ‘vast foreign areas’ and were ‘a growing menace’. They were referring, of course, to the Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, among them my great-grandparents.”

Comment is Free, 14 November 2007

‘Look who’s versed in hatred’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

allison pearson“Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, leader of the Muslim Council of Britain, has the cheek to compare modern Britain to Nazi Germany. ‘Every society has to be really careful so the situation doesn’t lead us to a time when people’s minds can be poisoned as they were in the 1930s. If your community is perceived in a very negative manner, then Muslims begin to feel very vulnerable,’ he says.

“Hang on. How vulnerable do the rest of us feel hearing that at least 2,000 of our fellow citizens are involved in terrorist activity? In Nazi Germany, Dr Bari may recall, it was Jewish children who were rounded up to be killed. Not the Jewish children who were trained to do the killing.

“Still, I’m glad to see Dr Bari is worried about minds being poisoned. Maybe he is familiar with the poetry of Samina Malik, a 23-year-old self-styled ‘lyrical terrorist’. Say what you like about Pam Ayres, she never wrote a poem called How To Behead: ‘It’s not as messy or as hard as some may think/It’s all about the flow of the wrist. No doubt that the punk will twitch and scream/But ignore the donkey’s ass/And continue to slice back and forth.’ Miss Malik shared her charming light verse with other like-minded people on the internet, before being arrested and convicted a few days ago under anti-terrorist laws.

“The news that Samina Malik held down a job at WHSmith at Heathrow on the air-side, for crying out loud, proves just how insanely tolerant Britain is, despite the intolerable provocation of men like Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari.”

Allison Pearson in the Daily Mail, 14 November 2007

Update:  See “Comparisions with the 1930s”, MCB press release, 15 November 2007

Muslim minister sues over claim of intimidating voters

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Britain’s first Muslim Government minister yesterday launched a libel battle in the High Court over claims that he organised “gangs of Asian thugs” to intimidate voters in a local election.

International Development Minister Shahid Malik is said to have “overseen and directed” up to 200 Asian Labour activists to help secure victory for a Muslim councillor. The men are said to have breached electoral rules by escorting voters to the polling station while telling them in Urdu to choose the Muslim Labour candidate. Mr Malik is also accused of encouraging ethnic division in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, by urging Asians to vote for “their Muslim brother” rather than according to their political opinion.

The allegations were first made by former Conservative councillor Jonathan Scott in a letter to the Dewsbury Press newspaper, after he was unseated as a local councillor. It describes how “Malik’s ethnic entourage behaved no better than BNP thugs” on polling day in the Dewsbury South ward of Kirklees Council. The letter – and a follow-up news story on the same topic – went on to claim that “Malik convinced local Asian voters to vote for Labour candidates… on the grounds that those candidates were ‘Muslim brothers'”.

Mr Malik appeared in court in London to give evidence against Mr Scott, the newspaper and the newspaper’s editor. Mr Malik’s lawyer Adam Wolanksi said the allegations were untrue and caused the 39-year-old MP for Dewsbury to be seen as “a racist and dangerous extremist who is unfit to hold public office”.

Daily Mail, 13 November 2007