Category Archives: UK

Littlejohn says: Why not bomb Red Ken?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Richard Littlejohn comments on the recent spate of letter bombs: “I wouldn’t lose much sleep if those wicked dupes, like Red Ken The Terrorist’s Friend, who help glorify politically motivated murder and make common cause with killers, were to find themselves on the end of a bombing. Livingstone is the man who feted the IRA while it was slaughtering civilians on the streets of the capital back in the 1980s and today invites Islamist preachers of hate to tea and biscuits at City Hall, while their disciples are blowing themselves up on crowded Tube trains.”

Daily Mail, 9 February 2007

Those “Islamist preachers of hate” – they would include this man, would they?

See Jenny Jones’ post at Comment is Free, 9 February 2007

Also Osama Saeed at Rolled Up Trousers, 9 February 2007

And for another take on the letter bomb campaign see Lenin’s Tomb, 7 February 2007

Protest over school’s stand on halal meat

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Halal protestAngry parents have staged a demonstration outside a London school after its decision to serve only halal meat.

The change over to halal meat was made after a consultation with parents, which showed that 77 per cent of those were in favour of the decision. Fewer than six out of ten parents responded.

Muslim parents at Kingsgate Primary School in West Hampstead, where three quarters of the pupils are Muslim, accused the protesters of racism. Solveig Francis, a parent, said: “This is just naked racism, it’s got nothing to do with choice. They talk about keeping up English values but the most important value we have is democracy. It’s about time that was upheld.”

Staff at the school were forced to take phones off the hook after receiving abusive calls from people claiming to be from the BNP. Liz Hayward, the head teacher, had to call the police after a father came into the school to challenge her over the decision.

Jacqueline Gomm, the protest leader, said: “I totally deny being guilty of racism. We allow people to come into this country and we end up being in a minority. We accommodate other cultures at the expense of ours.”

Times, 9 February 2007

See also the Daily Mail, 9 February 2007

And Camden New Journal, 8 February 2007

 

Irish show Muslims solidarity

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Irish community leaders in Britain have spoken out in support of Muslim immigrants in the wake of police raids in Birmingham that have seen nine men arrested in connection with an alleged terror plot.

Dr Mary Tilki, chair of the Federation of Irish Societies, told an audience at a regional FIS meeting in Liverpool at the weekend that she was concerned at the series of arrests as well as police raids last year in the East End of London.

She said: “I am particularly saddened by the abuse and hostility targeted at members of the Asian community. We have been there as a community and we know what it is like. I would like to think that Irish organisations and Irish people can support the Asian/Muslim community.”

Dr Tilki said since the terrorist bomb atrocities in the city it had taken more than 30 years for Irish people in Birmingham to feel safe in expressing their Irishness. She continued: “The Asians are no different and like us the vast majority abhor any link with terrorism.”

The FIS chair said that the Prevention of Terrorism Act had made legitimate the labelling of all Irish people as terrorists. She said: “Homes were raided; people were persistently stopped and searched but the level of conviction was low”.

And she warned: “The police and security services have a difficult job to do; their intelligence is arguably more sophisticated. But they do not appear to have learned lessons from the miscarriages of justice against Irish people”.

Irish World, 7 February 2007

TV debate axed over Salma terror claims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Salma2Central TV pulled the plug on a programme about local Muslims this week after a contributor accused city councillor Salma Yaqoob of supporting terrorism.

Douglas Murray of the Social Affairs Unit, a right-wing think tank, made the allegation in a pre-recorded discussion for the Extra Tonight programme due to be shown on Tuesday night.

Central replaced the scheduled item with a documentary comparing education in Sweden and Britain.

Coun Yaqoob said that she was shocked by Murray’s smear: “He made all sorts of wild claims about me. He said that I was a supporter of terrorism, that I didn’t care about Muslims in Iraq and that I’d taken part in an anti-war riot. It was all such libellous nonsense I thought they would just halt the recording there and then, but they carried on.”

Yaqoob raised the issue with the show’s producers after filming finished on Monday night, but was told they planned to go ahead with the broadcast. It was only cancelled at the 11th hour on Tuesday when Central’s lawyers apparently became concerned the company might get sued.

“I’m glad about it,” Yaqoob said. “I’m willing to have a serious discussion with anybody, but people like Murray don’t want a proper debate, they just want to throw a load of mud and hope some of sticks. That kind of behaviour just clouds the real issues.”

Murray told The Stirrer he stands by his claims and said that Yaqoob’s Respect Party “is as vile as the BNP”.

Birmingham Mail, 8 February 2007

Islamic school ‘rips pages from textbooks’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Saudi-funded Islamic school at the centre of allegations of extremist teaching insisted yesterday it had “ripped out” the offending pages from all textbooks. The King Fahad Academy, in Acton, west London, which receives more than £4 million a year from the Saudi royal family, has been accused of institutional racism by a sacked teacher.

Colin Cook, a Muslim convert, alleges children as young as five are taught using books which describe Jews as “apes” and Christians as “pigs”. One textbook allegedly asks for “examples of worthless religions … such as Judaism, Christianity, idol worship and others”.

Dr Sumaya Alyusuf, the principal, denied that teachers employed the offensive chapters, which had been “taken out context”. However, she said that the material had now been torn out. “The press interest in these unused chapters has shocked us,” she added. Dr Alyusuf said that, since the claims emerged, pupils and parents had been abused by local residents.

Daily Telegraph, 8 February 2007

See also BBC News, 7 February 2007

Campaigners seek new policies to regain trust of Muslim community

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Peace campaigners reiterated calls for a reverse of Britain’s warmongering foreign policy on Wednesday after ministers boasted about a new £5 million initiative to fight so-called Muslim extremism.

Ministers unveiled plans to allocate £5 million to local authorities in the fight against extremism as part of what Prime Minister Tony Blair has called a “radical and head-on” confrontation. Despite failures in Iraq and calls for him to step down, Mr Blair stubbornly declared his determination on Tuesday to “stand up” to Islamist extremism at home and abroad.

But Muslim Parliament of Great Britain deputy leader Jaffer Clarke dismissed the initiative as “unfocused, unworkable” and far from what the Muslim community needs, which is an end to wars in the Middle East and a new direction in foreign policy.

A Respect coalition spokesman called the move “mere window dressing, given that the government is demonising Muslims daily.” He said that, if ministers were sincere about “fighting Muslim extremism,” they should “reverse the foreign policy alliance with US President George W Bush.”

Morning Star, 8 February 2007

See also the Guardian which reports that “there is concern in the Muslim community that the government is marginalising groups which represent large parts of the community, such as the Muslim Council of Britain. Massoud Shadjareh, chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said it was puzzled by some of the remedies for extremism presented by the government: ‘The overwhelming majority of Muslim organisations are the solution, not the problem’.”

Guardian, 8 February 2007

Ex-terror plot suspect speaks out

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Maktabah bookshopA man freed after he was arrested over an alleged plot to kidnap a UK Muslim soldier has criticised the police investigation.

Abu Bakr, who works in the Maktabah bookshop, targeted in anti-terror raids in Birmingham, also told BBC News the UK was “a police state for Muslims”. Mr Bakr, one of nine men arrested in raids, was released without charge along with another man.

Mr Bakr, who is studying for a PhD in Political Islam at the city’s university, said he became aware of the police forcing their way into his house early last Wednesday morning by his wife screaming. Asked how he felt about his arrest, he said: “It’s a police state for Muslims. It’s not a police state for everybody else because these terror laws are designed specifically for Muslims and that’s quite an open fact,” he added.

He had been released by police on Wednesday morning and told to “go back to things how they were”, he added. “But they don’t realise that, after seven days of virtual torture for my family, it’s going to be hard to readjust,” he added. “This is going to affect me for the rest of my life.” Mr Bakr said his parents had told him they had aged 10 years while he had been in custody.

He also criticised what he called “amateur-type interrogation” by the police who, he said, had subjected him to “random questioning” about notes written on pieces of paper by his young children.

BBC News, 8 February 2007

Two released without charge after Birmingham anti-terror raid

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Gareth PeirceTwo of the nine terror suspects arrested in last week’s Birmingham raids have been released without charge, their solicitor said today.

In a statement after their release from Coventry’s Chace Avenue police station in the early hours of today, the men said there had been no mention to them by police of a plot to kidnap or behead any soldier.

Their solicitor Gareth Peirce said: “They have left the police station without any better understanding of why they were there than when they first arrived seven days ago. Not a word was ever mentioned to either of them about a plot to kidnap or the grisly suggestion of a beheading or even of a soldier at all.

“Both have been met with a consistent refusal over seven days for any explanation for their arrest. They are convinced that others in the police station must be as innocent as they and urge that they also be swiftly released.”

Times, 7 February 2007

See also Liberty’s criticism of government briefings to the media: BBC News, 6 February 2007

Contempt for our culture

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Muslims are set to be the focus of political polarisation for years to come: every time under a new title, from terrorism, to integration, to faith schools, to the veil. This politically lucrative subject is favoured by politicians from the BNP to Blairites. Latest to join is the Conservative leader, David Cameron. Bar the warm words, his speech last week could have been delivered by a Howard or a Duncan Smith, betraying the same rigid notion of national identity, contempt for cultural pluralism and hostility to immigration.”

Soumaya Ghannoushi in the Guardian, 7 February 2007