Category Archives: UK

MCB replies to Dean Godson

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sir, Dean Godson (comment, August 23) criticises the Crown Prosecution Service’s investigation of Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, Undercover Mosque. Just two weeks ago, an imam at the Central Mosque, London, was grieviously assaulted. Any attempt by British Muslims to highlight such acts that are at least in part fuelled – we believe – by sections of the media fomenting anti-Muslim prejudice, are regarded by Mr Godson as a concerted effort to peddle a “victim culture”.

Moreover, Mr Godson’s accusation that the Muslim Council of Britain does not seek reform of British mosques cannot remain unanswered. Long before it became fashionable to look into the conduct of mosques and imams, the MCB led the way in promoting good practice in our British Muslim institutions. Even now, and without government help, we are spearheading a campaign to work with 100 mosques across the country and help to transform them into dynamic British institutions that are welcoming of all.

DR MUHAMMAD ABDUL BARI
Secretary-General
The Muslim Council of Britain

Letter in The Times, 25 August 2007

The threat of Muslims to the British way of life

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The threat to the “British way of life”, William F. Buckley asserts, “is not, this time around, in the shape of a continental army threatening invasion or Nazi bombers darkening the sky. The threat now is the Muslim immigration”. His solution? “It is time for the mother of parliaments to look unruly, unassimilable creeds in the face and say: No more.”

National Review, 24 August 2007

Tories oppose government engagement with MCB

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Gordon Brown has welcomed back into the government fold an influential Muslim organisation shunned by Tony Blair. Ministers have re-established links with the Muslim Council of Britain ten months after a fallout over its criticism of Britain’s presence in Iraq. While Mr Blair insisted that the war in Iraq had nothing to do with the radicalisation of young British Muslims, the council’s leader said British Iraq policy was directly to blame for the 7/7 tube and bus bombings.

Representatives of the group were invited to a meeting with Communities Secretary Hazel Blears earlier this month in a signal of the resumption of cordial relations. The meeting with Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, and another representative as well as a number of other Muslim organisations on August 8 means that the council is once again considered a “stakeholder” in the Government’s efforts to fight terrorism.

Conservative home affairs spokesman Damian Green called on ministers to explain why they have revised their policy and claimed there was “chaos at the heart of the government” over how to promote community cohesion.

Daily Mail, 24 August 2007

See also the ToryDiary entry “Labour get back into bed with Muslim extremists” at Conservative Home. This reports that Paul Goodman MP, shadow communities minister, has written to Hazel Blears demanding an explanation. Well he would, wouldn’t he?

Suicide bombers are the result of ‘mass immigration’, says Migration Watch

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Migration Watch“News today that one in four children born in Britain has a foreign parent is the clearest possible evidence of the effect of mass immigration on our society. Many people simply don’t understand how this could have happened without anyone being consulted and they are deeply concerned about the future….

“This mass immigration is dividing England into two zones. In the countryside, life continues much as usual. In the cities, multiculturalism is rapidly taking over. In London, one third of the population are immigrants and half of all children are born to foreign mothers.

“In many city schools immigrant children can find little British culture to adhere to, even if they wished to do so. Trevor Philips was right to suggest that we are ‘sleepwalking towards segregation’. Second-generation Muslims have not only failed to integrate; a small, dangerous minority are so filled with hatred for our country that they turn into suicide bombers.

“The situation is now very serious but not hopeless. The first requirement is to get the numbers under control. The Government reels off a list of measures, many of them admirable in themselves, but they still refuse to put any overall limit on immigration despite the fact 75 per cent of the public wish to see one. They are living dangerously. There is a growing groundswell of anger to which they would be wise to respond.”

Andrew Green of Migration Watch in the Daily Telegraph, 23 August 2007

‘Muslim’ carnival entry creates controversy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

St Columb paradeA dispute over an “insulting” carnival procession entry has developed into a row over political correctness.

Locals dressed as Muslims took part in the carnival in the Cornish market town of St Columb Major in protest over plans for a mosque. A group of students visiting the area thought the act was offensive to Muslims, and called in police.

The group, calling themselves the Page Three Beauties from the Ramalamadingdong Times, carried placards with names including “Miss Poppadomistan” and “Miss Reallyamanistan”. A home-made banner read “Join the Kernow Mosk drekly and become a Musli” over a picture of a Cornish pasty. Kernow is the Celtic name for Cornwall, while drekly is Cornish slang for “get it done quickly”. The group knelt down in mock prayer, using fake compasses to “find” the correct direction to locate Mecca.

The stunt was apparently intended as a harmless send-up of the Prince of Wales’s plan for a mosque in his nearby “Surfbury” model settlement. The plan has been criticised because there are only 33 practising Muslims in a population of 22,000.

The students complained to the police and the carnival organisers. Nina Brenton, one of the event’s organisers, said: “We were approached by about six students from out of the area and they thought it was disgusting and offensive to Muslims.

“They had a real go at us and asked how we could allow it in our carnival. We told them it was not up to us to dictate what is offensive unless a group is clearly causing offence. We did advise the group what had happened and gave them the choice of whether to carry on, and they did.”

She said the act was “all in good fun” and involved “just a group of local lads, mostly in their thirties”. She added: “The crowd seemed to love them. It just offended this small minority.”

Telegraph, 23 August 2007

See also the article “How Miss Slackistan and the Burka Beauties fell foul of the racism zealots” in the Daily Mail, 23 August 2007

Over at the Stormfront fascist discussion list the far right enthusiastically joins in the “fun”, while the British National Party asserts that the evidently rather half-hearted intevention by the police is “just the latest example of appeasement to Islamic sensibilities in OUR country”.

‘What on earth are West Midlands Police up to?’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dean GodsonThe question is posed by Dean Godson of the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange. He writes:

“How did the Crown Prosecution Service and West Midlands Police come to refer Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, Undercover Mosque, to Ofcom? It is one of the most bizarre decisions taken by public authorities in recent times. Having decided that they could not or would not prosecute the purveyors of Wahhabite hate speech portrayed in the film – mostly from the Green Lane mosque in Birmingham – they instead turned round on the documentary-makers and investigated them for allegedly stirring up racial hatred….

“In a packed seminar at Policy Exchange last week, speaker after speaker denounced West Midlands Police for shooting the messenger and for appeasing some of the most sectarian elements in their force area….

“Above all, the referral caters to the sense of ‘victim culture’ peddled by the Muslim Council of Britain and others: that our current discontents are caused as much by media sensationalism and ‘Islamophobia’ as by Islamist ideology itself. It will reinforce that strain of opinion within the MCB that holds that mosques and other institutions don’t need to clean up their act.”

Times, 23 August 2007

Village opposes Muslim cemetery

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Residents opposed to the creation of a Muslim cemetery on the outskirts of a conservation village attended a public meeting to voice their objections last night. The villagers claim the burial ground would consume 31 acres of green belt land around Carmunnock, just six miles south of Glasgow city centre, effectively ending its status as a distinct village.

However, some Muslim leaders said they were cynical about the grounds for objection. One said he was concerned local communities suddenly became “tree-huggers” when proposals for Islamic places of worship or cemeteries go before planning authorities. Osama Saeed, Scottish spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain, said that while he believes a row over a cemetery may be a first, objections are commonplace when new mosques are proposed. He said:

“What I find strange is that we’re hearing an excuse that this is green belt land; broadly speaking, cemeteries do tend to be green. We’ve heard this from across the UK when new mosques have been proposed and suddenly a whole new breed of tree-huggers emerge, but never with cemeteries. The Muslim community in Glasgow has no great attachment to Carmunnock. It is not holy ground. But the problem we have is there are more and more older Muslims, more are dying and we need a burial ground.”

Herald, 22 August 2007

‘Muslims want ban on Easter eggs’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Expatica quotes Antwerp trade union representative Badia Miri, one of seven Muslim women employed by the city of Antwerp who were forced to remove their headscarves, as saying: “The Antwerp city government says that neutrality is endangered if staff wear a cross or headscarf. But in our experience action has only been taken against the Muslim women. If the city government is really concerned about neutrality, then Christmas trees and Easter eggs should no longer be allowed at work.”

And how does Expatica report this? In an article headlined “Muslims want ban on Easter eggs“!

Update: the “story” has now been taken up by the fascists: BNP regional news, 23 August 2007

Two Muslim candidates is too many, Tories told Sayeeda Warsi

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sayeeda Warsi (2)David Cameron’s Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion was advised against standing in the next election because of fears that voters were not ready for two ethnic-minority candidates to stand against each other, she has disclosed.

Sayeeda Warsi, who was made a peer during Mr Cameron’s reshuffle after Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, had been considering whether to stand again in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, where she was defeated by 4,615 votes by another Muslim candidate, Shahid Malik, at the 2005 election. In an interview with the Yorkshire Post, Baroness Warsi has revealed how a discussion with local Conservative officials made her think twice about standing again.

She said that in a discussion with the local Conservative party chairman, he had said: “You’re the best candidate we have ever had. You would have made a fantastic MP for this town but at the moment, maybe because of the way that this community is, it still needs a bit of time on both sides.” He then added: “Maybe the white community is not ready for two ethnic candidates again and also the Muslim community needs to take a long, hard look at itself.”

Lady Warsi’s account of the conversation, which has not been challenged, will raise concerns among Conservatives who have been trying to widen the party’s appeal to the ethnic minorities.

Times, 22 August 2007