Category Archives: UK

Abbey Mills Islamic centre ‘will be blocked’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abbey Mills Islamic CentreControversial plans to build a “supermosque” on the doorstep of the London Olympics will be blocked by the Government.

The group behind the plans is Tablighi Jamaat, a Muslim missionary sect whose charitable trust, Anjuman-e-Islahul Muslimeen, has owned the 18-acre site since 1996. Tablighi Jamaat was called “an ante-chamber for fundamentalism” by French security services. Two of the July 7 London suicide bombers are believed to have attended one of its mosques.

A senior security source said that he was concerned about the proposed mosque, and expected ministers to use their powers to call in, and turn down, the planning application. The move was confirmed by a senior Government source, who said there were fears that the giant mosque could damage community relations in the area, and added: “We are going to stop it.”

Alan Craig, a Newham councillor for the Christian People’s Alliance party, has warned of the “community and security impact” that the mosque would have, and claims Muslims are already moving into the area in preparation for its opening.

Sunday Telegraph, 18 February 2007

Robert Spencer welcomes this example of “anti-dhimmitude in the UK”.

Dhimmi Watch, 18 February 2007

Vicar attacked over mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Churchgoers at Dudley’s landmark Top Church have hit out at the vicar’s support for a proposed multi-million pound mosque and raised a 900-name petition. The Rev Tony Attwood, vicar at St Thomas and St Luke’s, has backed plans for a £6 million mosque and £12 million community centre and sent a letter in support of the scheme to council planners.

But about 30 members of the Sunday morning congregation disagree with the vicar’s stance and have signed a petition protesting against the plans. Churchgoers gathered more than 900 other names. The document was handed to the council on Thursday. One member of the congregation, who wished to remain anonymous, said he felt “betrayed” by church leaders.

Express & Star, 17 February 2007

Why is the BNP being legitimised?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Mayor“The problem we have at present is that not only is the rise of a fascist party not being given adequate attention, but its agenda is being capitulated to and fed from the mainstream.

“The daily diet of attacks on Muslims based on lurid headlines and without thought to the impact on community relations is dangerous and counterproductive and feeds the BNP. The stigmatisation of legitimate political engagement by Muslims and their community organisations such as the Muslim Council of Britain, the hysterical debate on the veil, and so on, are doing the BNP’s work for them. Muslims are being singled out for attack.

“The fascist right sees the demonisation of Muslims as one of its chief weapons in sowing the seeds of division. Hatred and fear of Muslims is key to the BNP’s rhetoric, and its purpose is not to have a sensitive debate about multiculturalism in modern Britain but to whip up racism and discrimination.

“We have seen the notion of ‘Islamofascism’ invented, whilst mainstream Muslim organisations are openly equated with the fascists. On BBC News on January 29, for instance, Mark Easton reported a dossier on extremism and said: ‘Tonight the author of the report confirmed to me that they are likening the Muslim Council and the British National party’.”

Ken Livingstone in the Guardian, 16 February 2007

The politics of Policy Exchange

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Abdul Bari at TUCThe Guardian publishes corespondence in response to the article by Marie Breen Smyth and Jeroen Gunning exposing the politically biased “research” carried out by the Tory-aligned think-tank Policy Exchange. Muhammad Abdul Bari of the Muslim Council of Britain writes:

“We concur with Marie Breen Smyth and Jeroen Gunning. Policy Exchange has assembled disparate arguments and ‘facts’ to fetishise difference and give credence to an emerging culture of bigotry. The report shows consistent vehemence towards the MCB. While we welcome constructive criticism, Policy Exchange appears to have made its research findings fit its political aims – not the other way round.

“More importantly, the report seeks to stigmatise young Britons with its monochromatic treatment of the Muslim diaspora as a homogeneous category, as opposed to the heterogeneous mosaic it truly represents. By confusing Islamism with increasing religiosity, it implies that those who seek to negotiate their faith with modern British values are somehow suspect. This is condescending to young Britons. Identity, ultimately, will be forged through consensus, not compliance. We are all in need of credible research that informs a mature discussion. Sadly, this is a missed opportunity.”

Guardian, 16 February 2007

‘The race is on’ – to demonise mainstream Muslim organisations

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dean GodsonDean Godson of the Tory think-tank Policy Exchange (see here) applauds the government’s sidelining of the MCB and urges the Tory leadership to reject such “Islamist front groups ” and embrace “the more progressive elements in British Islam”.

Godson doesn’t give details as to who exactly qualifies for inclusion in the latter category – although, predictably, he does refer to “the genuinely moderate Sufi Muslim Council”. He must be the only person left who still attaches any credibility to the SMC. Judging by Shahid Malik’s recent Times article – “the lack of any grassroots structure and its sudden emergence has left many within the Muslim community deeply suspicious” – even the government has now woken up to the fact that Haras Rafiq’s fraudulent organisation is basically a waste of space.

Godson writes: “By endorsing Dame Pauline Neville-Jones’s authoritative Conservative Party report on national cohesion, Mr Cameron has made clear what he thinks of the Islamist establishment. It does not reflect the first instincts of the MCB-friendly faction led by Dominic Grieve, the Shadow Attorney General, or the party vice-chairman, Sayeeda Warsi….

“Perhaps the boldest aspect of the report is its rejection of ‘victim culture’ – blaming Britain and the West for the ills of the Muslim community. Thus, Dame Pauline states that the ‘inferior status’ of Muslim women is at least as much of a stumbling block to upward mobility as ‘Islamophobia’. Even after making this contentious claim, the roof hasn’t fallen in on her head.

“There is a vast opportunity here for Mr Cameron to speak up on behalf of the more progressive elements in British Islam and to marginalise the loudmouths. If he does so, he will be pushing at an open door. Gordon Brown’s people know it as well. The race is on.”

Times, 15 February 2007

New attack on civil liberties

Posted on by Bob Pitt

New attack on civil libertiesNew attack on civil liberties: Lord Chancellor calls for more rights to go in the name of “fighting terror”

By Louise Nousratpour

Morning Star, 15 February 2007

LEFT MPs condemned fresh government attacks on civil liberties on Wednesday after Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer called for allowing criminal suspects to be questioned even after charges have been brought against them.

Critics warned that ministers were looking for a “fail-safe” plan in case fresh attempts to increase the period under which suspects can be held to 90 days failed again in Parliament.

Lord Falconer backed measures to allow police to question suspects after they have been formally charged as a “very sensible thing to do.” And he suggested that it should not be limited to terror suspects alone.

At present, police officers are not allowed to continue asking suspects about a case once charges have been made.

Speaking after a keynote speech at a Royal United Services Institute conference on politics and terrorism, Lord Falconer hinted that forthcoming terror laws will include further encroachments on civil liberties.

Campaigners and MPs warned that the proposal was designed to ensure that, if Home Secretary John Reid’s renewed attempt to extend the maximum detention period is defeated, there will be other measures to keep suspects locked up.

An attempt to increase the maximum period from 14 to 90 days led to new Labour’s defeat in the Commons in November 2005 and resulted in a 28-days compromise being reached.

Left MP Jeremy Corbyn called the proposal “a fail-safe policy in the event of Parliament rejecting the 90-day detention without trial to ensure that the government has some other draconian measure to fall back on.”

He accused the government and Lord Falconer of “trying to deny basic natural justice and to use the unfortunate development of anti-terror legislation to make them part of normal English law.

“This flies in the face of natural law and the European convention on human rights,” warned Mr Corbyn.

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Tory twits attack Qaradawi

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Qaradawi and MayorYes, it’s another denunciation of the Mayor of London for engaging with leading Muslim scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi. This one is featured in an “attack ad” on the 18 Doughty Street website (watch it here). Although the site is funded by Jeffrey Archer’s former mayoral campaign manager and almost exclusively involves a group of former or present Conservative Party candidates and employees, they pretend that they’re anti-establishment rebels who will “will endeavour to always take the working man’s side and see the Nation through his eyes” (for details see here). To that end, this bunch of upper-class Tory twits have hired some actor with a mockney accent to do an embarrassing voice-over to their ad. So much for their much-hyped path-breaking contribution to political campaigning in the UK. Back to the drawing board chaps, I would suggest.

As for 18 Doughty Street’s repetition of the discredited story, which derives from the equally discredited Middle East Media Research Institute, that Qaradawi “has described suicide bombings as a duty”, see here and here.

BBC Leicester gives platform to fascist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Fascist scum (4)The fascist British National Party boasts: “BNP Head of Publicity and co-defendant in the famous Free Speech Trial, Mark Collett was last week invited to participate in a studio debate at BBC Radio Leicester about multiculturalism in the city. Mark was born and went to school in Leicester so is well acquainted with life there. The most striking aspect of the debate was that Muslims, and opposition MPs sat in the same studio with Mark giving a lie to the ‘No Platform for the BNP’ stance.”

BNP news article, 13 February 2007

It is of course absolute disgrace that Collett should be given a platform by a publicly funded radio station. This is the man who called asylum seekers “cockroaches” and urged cheering BNP supporters to “show ethnics the door in 2004”. A couple of years earlier he stated his admiration for Nazi Germany:

“National Socialism was the best solution for German people in the 1930s…. When people say ‘Do you take any inspiration from that?’, I mean, I honestly can’t understand how a man who’s seen the inner city hell of Britain today can’t look back on that era with a certain nostalgia and think, yeah, those people marching through the streets and all those happy people out in the streets, you know, saluting and everything, was a bad thing … would you prefer your kid growing up in Oldham and Burnley or 1930s Germany?”

The BBC’s own report illustrates how the racist propaganda of the fascists is given legitimacy by the anti-Muslim comments of mainstream politicians, with Collett echoing Jack Straw’s comments on the niqab and David Cameron’s warnings about the threat of Sharia law: “The BNP’s Mark Collett condemned the wearing of the veil by some islamic women, and said that wearing a full veil was ‘a powerful statement against integration’. He also claimed a high proportion of young Muslims want Sharia law in the UK.”

BBC Leicester, 8 February 2007