Category Archives: UK

Pell ‘provocative’ over Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, would rather provoke debate than have sensible discussions about Muslims, the Islamic Council of New South Wales (ICNSW) said. ICNSW spokesman Ali Roude today said Dr Pell admitted he knew little about his subject matter.

In an interview with a US Catholic newspaper, Dr Pell again declared Islam was more warlike than Christianity. The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney told the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) Australia hadn’t been affected much by Islamic threats following the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US. But he said this could change depending “on how many terrorist attacks” Muslim fundamentalists could “bring off successfully”, Fairfax newspapers reported today.

ICNSW spokesman Ali Roude today said Dr Pell admitted he knew little about his subject matter. “However, as a forceful speaker and thinker, sometimes he seems tempted to put a position forward to provoke debate rather than wait for sensible discussion,” Mr Roude said.

In the NCR interview conducted in Rome, Dr Pell said “the million-dollar question” was whether intolerance was a modern distortion of Islam or arose out of internal logic. “It’s difficult to find periods of tolerance in Islam,” he was quoted as saying. “I’m not saying that they’re not there, but a good deal of what is asserted is mythical.”

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Asians consider leaving Britain due to Islamophobia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Growing Islamophobia after the Sep 11 attacks in New York and the July 7 bombings in London has reached such proportions that several Asian families are considering leaving Britain, according to reports. Asians, particularly Muslims, see themselves as being targeted by the security forces and fear becoming scapegoats. The Friday raid on a house belonging to a Muslim family in east London has further fuelled such fears.

Mohammed Azhar, a Kashmiri Briton, said that people were now “terrified” of being mistaken for extremists. “People feel unsafe and are thinking ‘we should go’, and these are people who have given a lot to this country. They have worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week. We are angry and we are scared. It’s a case of shooting first and asking questions later. They can say anyone is a terrorist,” he said.

India eNews, 6 June 2006

Posted in UK

‘Come to Londonistan, our refuge for poor misunderstood Islamist victims’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“According to remarks attributed in the past few days to security sources, no fewer than 1,200 Islamist terrorists are biding their time within British suburbs. Yet does Britain even now fully understand the nature of the threat it is facing, let alone have the will to deal with it? ”

Another thoughtful and responsible contribution from Melanie Phillips.

Times, 6 June 2006

Over at the white supremacist Stormfront forum a fascist has posted quotes from Phillips article, noting that “Melanie Phillips and the BNP share the same views, the only difference between the two is that the BNP have a solution to the problem”.

Who shot Abdul Kahar?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The situation is not irrecoverable. If mistakes were made in the latest operation, it is better for the police to admit to them frankly. There is a lot of goodwill out there. But after the fatal shooting of the innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, any attempt to mislead the public could well have bad consequences for us all.”

Inayat Bunglawala on the consequences of the Forest Gate police raid.

Comment is Free, 5 June 2006

False prophets

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“For a long time now, I have been meaning to take a cool, reflective look at Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji. The ordeal of keeping calm long enough to write about them and avoiding serious damage to my blood pressure at the same time was mainly what prevented me.”

Excellent post by Brian Whitaker at Comment is Free, 5 June 2006

See also the article by Laila Lalami that Whitaker recommends, in The Nation, 1 June 2006

The future of Europe in Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

THE FUTURE OF EUROPE IN ISLAM

Panel Debate – Wednesday 7th June (18:45-20:45)

UCL Chemistry Auditorium
Christopher Ingold Building
20 Gordon Street
London WC1H 0AJ

This panel discussion aims to explore the future of Europe in Islam. Islam is frequently cited as Europe’s fastest growing religion, and its followers have increasingly been in the spotlight. The rise of the far right across Europe together with a growing confident Muslim identity raises interesting questions about the role that Europe is playing in shaping the future of Islam and Muslims living in the west.

The invited panel of speakers will set out their vision for the future of Europe in Islam and engage with each other in a lively debate and discussion. Members of the audience will be able to put forward their questions for the panellists to discuss.

Panel Members:

Dr Hisham Hellyer, Warwick University (Chair)
Professor Tariq Ramadan, Oxford St. Anthony’s College
Dr Abdul Wahid, Hizb ut Tahrir
Dr Yahya Michot, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies
Huda Jawad, UK Programme Director, Forward Thinking
Mehdi Hassan

Tickets can be booked online at: www.myh.org.uk/events.htm

All proceeds generated from this event will go toward supporting the work of Muslim Youth Helpline.

Angry families threaten legal action against police over anti-terror raid

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A young Muslim man shot by police on suspicion of involvement in a terrorist chemical plot last night protested his innocence and alleged that police failed to give warning before opening fire.

Solicitors for Mohammed Abdul Kahar and his brother Abul Koyair, who was also seized in a dawn raid on Friday involving 250 police officers, said they denied any wrongdoing.

A family who live next door to the brothers alleged that they were also arrested and assaulted, leaving one man with a head injury and needing hospital treatment.

Observer, 4 June 2006

For comment, see Rolled Up Trousers and Lenin’s Tomb.

Meanwhile, Melanie Phillips is demanding that MPACUK should be prosecuted for “incitement to riot – or worse”  because they called on Muslim youth to protest against the shooting.

Melanie Phillips’s Diary, 2 June 2006

Melanie Phillips is inciting hatred

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Melanie Phillips’ article in last week’s Observer stating that Islam in Britain has become “fused with an agenda of murder” has prompted the following letter in response:

Melanie Phillips (Comment, last week) may be right about the radicalising impact of The Satanic Verses and the Bosnian war on many Muslims, but her continued penchant for blaming the religion of Islam and depicting all Muslims as extremist murderers is a disgrace. Imagine her horror if someone wrote that Judaism had become fused with murder. It is naked incitement to argue that Islam and all Muslims in Britain are intent on killing when this only applies to a very small, albeit very extreme, minority.

If Phillips’s nonsense was even partially accurate, we would have mass murders and bombings every day as one million British Muslims fulfilled their divinely ordained mandate. This anti-Islamic invective is no less despicable than the anti-semitism that Phillips regularly castigates others for.
Chris Doyle
London EC4

Observer, 4 June 2006

Another rant from Mad Mel

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“The problem lies in a refusal to acknowledge that Islamist extremism is rooted in religion. Instead, ministers and security officials prefer to think of it as a protest movement against grievances such as Iraq or Palestine, or ‘Islamophobia’. They simply ignore the statements and signs which show unequivocally that the aim is to Islamicize the west.”

Melanie Phillips rants on, this time in the New York Post, 4 June 2006

Iraq behind July 7 bombs, says Muslim leader

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Iqbal_SacraniePeace campaigners backed Muslim leader Sir Iqbal Sacranie’s comments yesterday that the London bombings would not have happened if Britain had not invaded Iraq.

The outgoing Muslim Council of Britain secretary-general told BBC radio that “we are suffering the consequences” of the illegal war and occupation.” Asked specifically whether a terror attack, as seen in London on July 7 2005, would have happened if Britain had not entered Iraq, he replied: “I personally don’t think that would have happened.”

Stop the War Coalition convenor Lindsey German said that Sir Iqbal was “absolutely right” and renewed calls for a complete withdrawal of all British troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. “Only Prime Minister Tony Blair and his cronies are in denial of a link between the bombings and his illegal war against Iraq and Afghanistan,” she added.

Media Workers Against the War chairman Dave Crouch accused the media of “complacency” in the government’s denial of a link despite growing public opinion and even intelligence findings pointing to British foreign policy in the Middle East as the main factor. “The media has not reported the extent of the atrocities of the war,” he said.

“It has depicted the alleged Haditha massacre as an exceptional case, when, in reality, it is part of a pattern of brutal violence meted out by US and British troops in Iraq,” Mr Crouch said. He added: “The war has fuelled resistance in Iraq and angered the Muslim community in Britain and across Europe. This anger and frustration can be manipulated by people who believe that terrorism is the answer.”

He backed the call for troop withdrawal as “the first and essential step” towards resolving the crisis and lowering the risk of future attacks in the West.

Morning Star, 3 June 2006

Posted in UK