Category Archives: UK

It’s undeniable: British foreign policy is endangering all of us

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“A year ago I was appointed by the Home Office to be the convenor of a working group on tackling extremism and radicalisation. In its final report, the group accepted that extremism was a reality in some sections of the Muslim community and that it must be confronted and defeated….

“That same group also made it clear that foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, could not be left unconsidered as a factor in the motivations of extremists. We believed it was a key contributory factor. Now it was the Government’s turn to go into denial about whether some of its actions might have contributed to undermining our national security and making the terrorist threat worse.”

Inayat Bunglawala in the Times, 12 August 2006

Arson attack on Chester mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Chester mosque was firebombed in what police are calling a “faith hate attack” which came just hours after an alleged major terrorist plot against UK airports was foiled.

The Shahjalal Mosque and Islamic Centre, in Blacon, was targeted by an arsonist who poured flammable liquid through the front entrance of the mosque and set light to it.

Carpets and fittings in the building caught fire, but a group of people who were inside the mosque were able to stamp out the flames.

But officers confirmed they are investigating the incident, which happened hours after a major terrorist alert brought airports to a standstill across the country, as a “faith hate attack”, and a spokeswoman for Cheshire Police said the blaze itself was “a very minor incident”.

It is not the first time the Shahjalal mosque has been targeted. Last September, Muslim leaders in Chester said they believed an arson attack on the same mosque may have been connected with the London bombings.

On that occasion, a fire was started with petrol outside a side entrance of the Blacon mosque while worshippers held an all-night prayer session. Other incidents at the mosque in recent years include an anti-Islamic slogan being painted on a wall outside, and on one occasion male worshippers, who leave their shoes outside the prayer room, found they had gone when they returned.

Continue reading →

Mosque arson ‘in revenge’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A fire which destroyed the roof of a mosque may have been in revenge for the alleged terror plot to blow up planes leaving UK airports. Police and fire crews were called to the Al-Birr Masjid Mosque in Sarum Hill, Basingstoke, at about 3.30am today after the roof had caught fire. The blaze took 16 firefighters almost two hours to put out.

Nobody was injured in the fire but Assistant Chief Constable Steve Watts, of Hampshire Police, said the fire was being treated as arson and a full investigation was under way. He said: “In this current climate, we cannot rule out the possibility that this incident is related to the recent security threat. Therefore we are treating it extremely seriously and dealing with it appropriately.”

Last year, two men were charged with racially aggravated assault and racially aggravated criminal damage to a vehicle parked at the mosque.

Sun, 12 August 2006

Muslim leaders say foreign policy makes UK target

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Leading UK Muslims have united to tell Tony Blair that his foreign policy in Iraq and on Israel offers “ammunition to extremists” and puts British lives “at increased risk”. An open letter signed by three of the four Muslim MPs, three of the four peers, and 38 organisations including the Muslim Council of Britain and the Muslim Association of Britain, was greeted with dismay in Downing Street.

The letter says: “As British Muslims we urge you to do more to fight against all those who target civilians with violence, whenever and wherever that happens. It is our view that current British government policy risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the UK and abroad.

“To combat terror the government has focused extensively on domestic legislation. While some of this will have an impact, the government must not ignore the role of its foreign policy.

“The debacle of Iraq and the failure to do more to secure an immediate end to the attacks on civilians in the Middle East not only increases the risk to ordinary people in that region, it is also ammunition to extremists who threaten us all.

“Attacking civilians is never justified. This message is a global one. We urge the prime minister to redouble his efforts to tackle terror and extremism and change our foreign policy to show the world that we value the lives of civilians wherever they live and whatever their religion. Such a move would make us all safer.”

Guardian, 12 August 2006

Burchill attacks ‘Masochist Hacks For Mohammed’ who like ‘big swarthy men with tea-towels on their heads’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BurchillJulie Burchill analyses UK media coverage of the Lebanon war for the benefit of Israeli readers:

“One of the most grotesque examples of the almost brainwashed level of bias can be seen on the official BBC Religions Web site, where that ‘peace be upon him’ eyewash is going on like crazy, while other religions are coolly commented on in a strictly ‘objective’ way.

“The conflict has sent this tendency into overdrive, with not just the usual Masochist Hacks For Mohammed such as Robert Fisk (beaten up by Islamists, says they were right to do it) and Yvonne Ridley (kidnapped by Islamists, then became one) getting their chadors in a twist about big swarthy men with tea-towels on their heads treating the West mean and keeping it – in their case at least – keen.

“Even the women’s magazines have gotten in on the act, with lots of first-person eye-witness accounts of British citizens fleeing the Jewish jackboot. Then turn the page and you’ll often find a shocked article about honor-killing or forced marriage, Muslim-style. That Israel is fighting the frontline war, on behalf of the freedom and civilization of all of us, against the very real evils of shari’a law never seems to occur to these bleeding-heart ignoramuses.”

Ha’aretz, 11 August 2006

Lynch mob justice

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“We are witnessing a new level of media hype surrounding the ‘terror plot’ bust which has already branded suspects as guilty. Black and Muslim communities are used to the rights of terror suspects being trampled over. Just look at Belmarsh.

“Increasingly anti-terror raids are accompanied by a barrage of sensational stories which risk undermining the right to a fair trial. Today’s operation has taken this trend to a new level. Journalists have already been tipped off about the streets in which the arrests have been made – leading to the inevitably intrusion into family lives. Whether innocent or guilty these families will find their business spread over the papers, becoming public enemy number one.

“This is not the way to run a system of justice. It is the justice of a lynch mob.”

BLINK editorial, 10 August 2006

Torygraph backs Bright, attacks MCB

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Meanwhile a Telegraph editorial takes the opportunity to blame “Muslim families” for not preventing terrorism and have a go at the MCB:

“In truth, there is no such thing as a single ‘Muslim community’. The Muslim Council of Britain is held by the Government to be the authentic voice of this frequently disparate group, which hails originally from at least a dozen different countries. But is it? A trenchant analysis – When Progressives Treat With Reactionaries – written by Martin Bright, the political editor of the Left-wing New Statesman, concludes: ‘The Government has chosen as its favoured partner an organisation that is undemocratic, divisive and unrepresentative of the full diversity of Muslim Britain.’ Too frequently, its leaders depict as mainstream what most people would describe as extreme. Its stand against terrorism has been muted.”

Daily Telegraph, 11 August 2006

Terrorism due to testosterone and nihilism not foreign policy, Times explains

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Islam has an identity crisis that it must combat. A virulent strain that mixes testosterone and a nihilistic theology has afflicted a small minority of young Muslims.

“There will also be critics and cynics who are not Muslim, who would like to believe that if only foreign policy would change, the threat would immediately recede and the extremism evaporate. Those who would commit mass murder are not to be appeased by this or that policy fluctuation. Jihadists see Western society as innately evil, an existential threat to their puritanical, obscurantist version of Islam. They cannot come to terms with sexual equality, Western values, tolerance or democracy. To them, the Palestinian or Iraqi contexts are only settings for the introduction of an ideology that is utterly intolerant and regards moderate Muslims as apostates. If policy on either changed, they would look for other justifications for their fanaticism.”

Times, 11 August 2006

‘Britain a soft target for Islamists’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Britain, like much of Europe, has discarded the anchors that held society in place and enabled it to endure in times of uncertainty. Churches are being turned into mosques…. Britain has made a virtue of its post-colonial guilt and its own loss of values by embracing multiculturalism, a fuzzy notion which holds that all cultures, all standards, all values are of equal merit. Into this morass of uncertainty step the young Muslims, certain of their belief and confident in their identity. Like the stranded passengers at London’s airports, wandering around glassy eyed and lost, Britain has become a soft target for these new Islamists. They know exactly who they are and where they are going.”

Douglas Davis explains the background to the alleged terrorist plot.

National Post, 11 August 2006

British Muslims react to alleged terror plot

Posted on by Bob Pitt

British Muslims reacted with a mixture of concern and defensiveness to the latest terror alert and arrests. Raw memories of the Forest Gate fiasco and last year’s Stockwell shooting tempered their response. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “We applaud the action of the police in taking appropriate action to avert a tragedy but what is really required now is to be aware of the appropriate facts on which their action was taken. There is a danger of stigmatising a whole community. We should not allow certain sections of the media and politicians to use the opportunity to carry out a diatribe against us. We need to know the facts.”

Guardian, 11 August 2006