Category Archives: UK

Class trip to mosque blocked by parents

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Atwood Primary in Croydon was forced to call off a Year 5 class visit to a mosque after nearly a third of parents refused to give consent.

Headteacher Alex Clark said the religious education tour of Croydon Mosque was no longer “financially viable” after nine out of the 30 pupils were withdrawn, with several Christian parents saying they did not want their 10-year-old child to be exposed to a “religion that was not their own”.

Croydon Mosque believes the reaction was due to the mosque featuring on BBC Newsnight after a senior Home Office official was exposed as an activist for the radical Hizb-ut-Tahrir group.

Tanveer Sajjad, for the Croydon Mosque, said: “There is no question of children being exposed to radical preaching.”

Evening Standard, 24 November 2006

Posted in UK

Soumaya socks it to Sunny

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“What do I think of the New Generation Network manifesto published on Cif? It is intellectually flawed and politically unproductive. The document has generated a string of articles by its signatories. But it failed to move beyond the parameters of dominant discourse on religion and ethnicity and thus brought nothing new. For the ideas that formed its core, all one would have had to do is refer to Ruth Kelly’s recent statements on the subject saving us much noise and a great deal of ink.”

Soumaya Ghannoushi replies to Sunny Hundal and his chums.

Comment is Free, 24 November 2006

British MP warns Europe of ‘new anti-Semitism’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“A ‘witches brew’ of Islamic fundamentalists, left-wing intellectuals and neo-Nazis is causing a new resurgence of anti-Semitism to spread across Western Europe and must be tackled, one of the continent’s leading experts on the subject has told The Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview.

“British Labor MP Dennis MacShane – a close ally of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and co-author of a hard-hitting report on the rise of anti-Semitism across Europe – told the Post in an interview in Berlin on Tuesday that Western Europe was suffering from a ‘new anti-Semitism’ that had to be tackled head-on. Part of this, he claimed, came from some sections of the Islamic communities of Western Europe – both fundamentalists and intellectuals – who were in an unorthodox alliance with left-wingers in propagating anti-Semitic sentiment.”

Jerusalem Post, 22 November 2006

Mad Mel gets it wrong … again

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Mr Livingstone also claimed it was wrong to brand a British Muslim boy a ‘terrorist’ if he got involved in Palestinian violence against Israel, whereas ‘if a young Jewish boy in this country goes and joins the Israeli army and ends up killing many Palestinians and comes back, that is wholly legitimate’. These comments are simply utterly unacceptable. British Jews do not serve in the Israeli army.”

Melanie Phillips in the Daily Mail, 22 July 2005

“He grew up in suburban north London and still misses home comforts like milky British tea, the friends he left behind and the local pub. But yesterday Joe Wainer joined an elite Israeli army unit, and now he faces the prospect of active service in the occupied West Bank. The 19-year-old, one of nine young Britons who have signed up for a programme that recruits foreign Jews for the Israel Defence Forces, realised his life had changed when he fired an M16 rifle for the first time in training.”

Jeevan Vasagar in the Guardian, 23 November 2006

Postscript:  Dan Judelson of Jews for Justice for Palestinians has a letter in the Guardian responding to the latter article: “We hear over and over again that there are two sides to this conflict. Yet the real problem of the west’s attitude is one of double standards. A programme to recruit young British Palestinians to join Palestinian security forces would be swiftly shut down and claims of ‘mentoring’ dismissed as wicked Islamist indoctrination.”

Guardian, 25 November 2006

Hardline Muslims ‘must go’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

David CameronMuslims who want hardline Sharia Law in Brtain should leave the country, Tory leader David Cameron said last night.

The Islamic law uses brutal punishments and is intolerant of women.

Mr Cameron said: “If someone wants to see Sharia Law they should think about going to live in another country. That’s not something we should contemplate.”

Mr Cameron also attacked Tony Blair for not banning radical Islamic groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir – despite a promise after last year’s 7/7 bombings in London.

The Sun, 23 November 2006

Under the heading “Well said, Dave”, a Sun editorial comments: “For once we cannot argue with David Cameron. The Tory leader has condemned Islamic extremists who want to replace our tolerant, liberal way of life with Sharia law. This hardline interpretation of the Koran treats women as chattels and demands death for gays and Jews. The answer, says Mr Cameron, is for fanatics to go and live in another country. We can only add: The sooner the better.”

Over at the Daily Mail, by contrast, Cameron is reported as complaining that Labour leaders are playing “political football” with public fears about terrorism. A typical case of the Tory leader trying to be all things to all people. On the one hand, he comes on as a sensitive liberal over security issues, and on the other he provides the Sun with material to whip up paranoia about “Muslim fanatics”.

‘Allah’s England?’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Since the London bombings of July 7, 2005, which killed 53 people, the police have been obliged to keep thousands of Muslims under surveillance while investigating up to a hundred separate conspiracies to commit terror. But rather than expressing shame that such unprecedented measures have been necessary, ‘moderate’ Muslim leaders like Muhammad Abdul Bari have responded with thinly veiled blackmail. As often as not, British support for Israel is invoked as high on the list of Muslim grievances. The message is simple: unless Britain withdraws that support, every Muslim will become a potential suicide bomber.”

Daniel Johnson in Commentary, November 2006

How should Muslims respond to Islamophobia?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EMN_flyerThe emerging pan-European Islamophobic hysteria: how should Muslims respond?

An EMN Conference with:

Victoria Brittain, Journalist and co-author with Moazzam Begg of his book Enemy Combatant
Gwen Griffith Dickson, Director of Lokahi Foundation
Fouad Imrraine, Collectif des Musulmans de France (France)
Lee Jasper (Chair), Senior Advisor to the Mayor of London on Race and Policing
Redmond O’Neil, Director of Transport and Public Affairs, Greater London Authority Mayor’s Office
Arzu Merali, Head of Research Section, Islamic Human Rights Commission
Tariq Ramadan, President of the European Muslim Network, senior research fellow St Antony’s College (Oxford) and at the Lokahi Foundation (London)

Date/Time:  Friday 8th December from 7 to 10 pm.

Venue:  City Hall, The Queen’s Walk, London SE1 2AA

Present efforts to challenge the gross misrepresentations of Muslims and Islam in the media and across the political spectrum are not working. As media scare stories increase in both number and ferocity, fuelled by the calculated pronouncements of politicians and intelligence services, the gap between Muslim and non-Muslim citizens in Europe escalating to dangerous levels. It is now essential that European Muslims become politically engaged in the societies they live in.

This Conference will explore the European-wide phenomenon and discuss strategies, tactics and practical actions that need to be adopted to counter attacks on Muslims and bring communities together in the fight for social justice for all.

This event is organised by the European Muslim Network and supported by the Greater London Authority and the 1990 Trust.

Booking:  To reserve a place to attend this FREE event, please email your name to ruhul@blink.org.uk

Man sentenced for racial attack

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A man who carried out a religiously aggravated attack in Leicester has been given a suspended jail sentence. Alan Young, 55, from Bourne Crescent, Northampton admitted common assault, religiously aggravated assault and harassment on 7 July.

Leicester magistrates heard he had made remarks about Muslims and hit a Muslim man at a health centre on the first anniversary of the London bombings. Young was given a four-month jail sentence suspended for two years. He was also ordered to pay £200 compensation to the man he attacked.

The court heard Young, who had consumed three quarters of a bottle of whiskey, went into the surgery on Evington Road and shouted it was “kill a Muslim day”. He made remarks about the London bombings and punched a Muslim man five or six times in the face. Young then went on to shout further remarks about Muslims from a nearby property and hit an Asian man after making comments about Iraq.

In court the 55-year-old accepted he had behaved very badly.

BBC News, 22 November 2006